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[May 15, 2017]

Bell Canada statement about illegal access of customer information

MONTREAL, May 15, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Bell Canada today announced the illegal access of Bell customer information by an anonymous hacker. Bell has determined that the information obtained contains email addresses, customer names and/or telephone numbers.

There is no indication that any financial, password or other sensitive personal information was accessed. This incident is not connected to the recent global WannaCry malware attacks.

The illegally accessed information contains approximately 1.9 million active email addresses and approximately 1,700 names and active phone numbers.

We apologize to Bell customers for this situation and are contacting those affected directly.

Bell took immediate steps to secure affected systems. The company has been working closely with the RCMP cyber crime unit in its investigation and has informed the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.







Bell continues to work together with government, law enforcement agencies and the technology industry to combat the growth of hacking and other cyber crimes. For more information about cyber crime prevention and how to protect your data, please visit the RCMP web site at www.Rcmp-grc.gc.ca and the federal government's cyber safety web site at http://www.Getcybersafe.gc.ca .

About Bell

Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers and business customers with wireless, TV, Internet, home phone and business communications services. Bell Media is Canada's premier multimedia company with leading assets in television, radio, out of home, and digital media. For more information, please visit Bell.ca.

Media inquiries:

Jacqueline Michelis

613-785-1427

[email protected]

SOURCE Bell Canada
[May 15, 2017] Chroma Receives the Highest Industrial Innovation Award in Taiwan

TAOYUAN, Taiwan, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chroma ATE Inc. CEO Leo Huang received the Distinguished Enterprise Innovation Award, the highest honor available from the 5th Industrial Innovation Award during the awards ceremony held on April 21. Leo Huang expresses his gratitude towards the Evaluation Committee from the 5th Industrial Innovation Award for awarding Chroma this honor, "This award also belongs to all members of Chroma who have devoted their long effort in developing innovative testing solutions." Chroma wasfounded in 1984, with dedication in research, development and manufacturing of precision test and measurement instruments to sell globally under "Chroma" brand. After years of experiences in automation integration and MES technology, Chroma has become a "Turnkey Solution" provider since 2011 with core technology in measurement.



Chroma test solutions are mainly applied to ICT industry, semiconductor, and clean technology, which includes solar energy, LED lighting, lithium battery and electric vehicle industries, that are widely used for R&D, manufacturing and quality assurance. At all times, Chroma's solutions have been proven to effectively improve its customer's product quality and production efficiency, as well as to increase their competitiveness. This is Chroma's biggest value. Chroma strives to providing testing solutions with precision, reliability and uniqueness. By developing innovative technology, enhancing its brand value and globalization, the company holds on to the vision of growing Chroma into a world-class enterprise with world-class products.

With leading technologies, Chroma is able to partner with the world's 1st tier customers in collaborative development to timely grasp the market trends and demands. Using advanced big data analytics, Chroma can improve the production process and yield, and assist customers in aspects of pre-analysis, pre-diagnosis and preventative maintenance prediction under the era of Industry 4.0 for smart manufacturing. For instance, Chroma has recently independently completed the production line setup of battery cell formation for China's largest lithium battery manufacturer to improve the product quality and consistency. Chroma's power module automatic test system, with the highest market share worldwide, is also deployed by global European and American 1st tier automakers. To facilitate super hi-vision video broadcast during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Chroma introduced its ultrahigh 8K (Super-Hi Vision) resolution display test solution in early 2017. Furthermore, prior to the market forecast of launching 3D camera for smart phones, Chroma has already developed unique and innovative test equipment for laser diode in 3D imaging application. Chroma insists on providing new technologies, high value-added products and services to satisfy customer's demands and reach out worldwide opportunities to achieve sustainable growth. Product Contacts: Chroma ATE Inc. (Headquarters), Tel: +886-3-3279999

Chroma ATE Inc. (U.S.A.), Tel: +1-949-421-0355; Toll Free +1-800-478-2026

Chroma Systems Solutions, Inc., Tel: +1-949-600-6400

Chroma ATE Europe B.V., Tel: +31-318-648282

Chroma ATE Germany, Tel: +49-821-790967-0

Chroma Japan Corp., Tel: +81-45-542-1118

Chroma Electronics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., Tel: +86-755-2664-4598

Quantel Pte Ltd., Tel: +65-6745-3200 [email protected]

www.chromaate.com Video - http://static.prnasia.com/pro/media/mnr/video/20170515Chroma.mp4

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[May 16, 2017] Nevada State College Extends and Signs 3 Year Agreement with YuJa Corporation to Provide Campus-Wide Room-Based Capture and Video Management

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- YuJa Corporation formally announces a partnership with Nevada State College. This partnership began in 2015 and extends, with this agreement, into 2020 to provide campus-wide video learning tools with the cloud-hosted YuJa Enterprise Video Platform. In support of Nevada State College's mission of the advancement of diversity and serving a broader  and traditionally under-served - student population, YuJa's Enterprise Video Platform harnesses the power of video to enable more flexible video learning options for the entire student population including first-generation students, English Language Learners (ELLs), non-traditional and distance-education students. "The support team at YuJa is extremely responsive and a pleasure to work with. Often times we get notified proactively if any of our recorders go offline and in the cases where we call in for assistance we've always gotten a live person. Additionally, the team at YuJa is genuinely interested in understanding our needs and has been able to implement product enhancements based directly on our feedback. In regards to the platform, it's reliable, feature rich, and integrates seamlessly with our LMS. The ability to live stream, perform both hardware and software captures, and automatically caption both captured and uploaded content has made this an invaluable system for our institution. Nevada State College is extremely pleased to have transitioned to YuJa and we look forward to continue our relationship into the future," said Brian Chongtai, Director of Information & Technology Services at Nevada State College. <> Nevada State College replaced their existing capture hardware with the YuJa RCS-430 Hardware Hub and integrated their Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) with the cloud-hosted YuJa Enterprise Video Platform. Using YuJa, Nevada State College is able to deploy video learning solutions in their classrooms, conference rooms and auditoriums. This enables a number of key scenarios for Nevada State College including:



Traditional room-based lecture capture, including integration with room cameras, audio systems and presentation media

Flipped classroom content creation with YuJa's software-based lecture capture tools.

Full-scale video and digital asset management with the YuJa cloud-hosted media management suite.

Live streaming for synchronous learning in distance-education and evening degree programs. "We have been working with Nevada State College since 2015 and this expanded multi-year commitment is a recognition of our organization's commitment to providing not only outstanding enterprise video solutions, but also unmatched support and value," said Dr. Ajit Singh, President of YuJa Corporation. The YuJa Enterprise Video Platform provides administrators, faculty, staff and students with a comprehensive and engaging experience that fully integrates into Nevada State College's existing Canvas Learning Management system. This has enabled Nevada State College to extend their existing enterprise technology investments into modern digital learning and pedagogies.

About Nevada State College

Nevada State College is a four-year public institution and a member of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Nevada State College places a special emphasis on the advancement of a diverse and largely under-served student population. Located on a developing 500-acre campus in the foothills of Henderson, Nevada, the college was established in 2002 as a new tier in the state system between the research universities and the two-year colleges. About YuJa

YuJa Corporation powers enterprise video everywhere. Our Enterprise Video Platform empowers education enterprises of all sizes - higher-ed, K-12 and corporate - to deliver media-centric learning experiences including lecture capture, live streaming, media management, video classrooms, and immersive social & mobile learning tools. We have U.S. offices in sunny Silicon Valley, California and Canadian offices in Waterloo and Toronto. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nevada-state-college-extends-and-signs-3-year-agreement-with-yuja-corporation-to-provide-campus-wide-room-based-capture-and-video-management-300457201.html SOURCE YuJa

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[May 15, 2017] VR in Education Market - Trends and Forecasts by Technavio

Technavio's latest report on the global VR in the education market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170515006621/en/ Technavio has published a new report on the global VR in the education sector market from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire) Jhansi Mary, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on education technology sector, says, "Within the K-12 segment, the appropriate application of VR will take time as educators have just realized the benefits of VR from a technical and immersive learning perspective. It is extremely important for educators to understand that K-12 students are young and in their formative years, and the use of VR at this stage can strongly influence their overall personality." The global VR in the education market is expected to reach USD 1,700.66 million in 2021, growing at a CAGR of more than 55%. Regionally, North America is expected to dominate the market due to the growing investment and higher adoption of technology in the education sector. Based on the product segment, the VR content segment is expected to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period, owing to its inherent requirements and the high demand in the learning environment. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report



Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. The top three emerging trends driving the global VR in the education market according to Technavio research analysts are:

Incorporation of SLAM technology Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a popular and important autonomous mapping and navigation technique in mobile robotics. This technology was mainly used in NASA robots for the creation of unknown environments maps. Also, given its high accuracy feature, it is used in their positioning devices. "SLAM technology is expected to be used in smartphones integrated with VR headsets; wherein positioning can be enabled on the web using the smartphone's camera, which will allow a user to visualize and interact in the VR environment," according to Jhansi. Increasing use of VR in medical training The use of VR in medical schools has become popular for instructing and educating young students. The VR platform provides medical students an interactive method to learn and understand various aspects of medical education. From the institution's perspective, the use of VR saves huge time and resources, as it does not have to go through the traditional training process in many aspects. Students will be more comfortable in dealing with virtual scenarios, as it allows the higher probability of trail and errors, due to which students can repeat the process as often as required. VR facilitates collaborative learning Virtual collaboration is already the norm in the current world, whether through email, basecamp, Google (News - Alert) docs, or other virtual spaces. VR takes the collaboration further by providing a common space that looks and feels like a shared room, giving the feeling of sharing a physical space with other users. A virtual space to collaborate in the education sector will allow students from different regions to interact and collaborate with each other. For example, a student studying fifth grade in India can share a space with a student of fifth grade in the US and can collaborate in real space, which surpasses email or video conferencing. The key vendors are as follows: Oculus VR

Google

Alchemy VR

Discovery Communications Browse Related Reports: Global Interactive White Board Market 2017-2021

Global Corporate Game-Based Learning Market 2017-2021

Global Digital Signage Market in Education Sector 2017-2021 Become a Technavio Insights member and access all three of these reports for a fraction of their original cost. As a Technavio Insights member, you will have immediate access to new reports as they're published in addition to all 6,000+ existing reports covering segments like in-vitro diagnostics, oncology, and vaccines. This subscription nets you thousands in savings, while staying connected to Technavio's constant transforming research library, helping you make informed business decisions more efficiently. About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies. Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170515006621/en/

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The woman who accidentally fed her grandson methadone, sending him to the hospital hours later, got jail time for it Tuesday.

Rose Rej, 49, originally told police the drug used to help wean addicts off heroin was hers. But Tuesday, her attorney, Eddy Rodell, said Rej was protecting her daughter when she said that.

He said Rej pleaded guilty because she had been facing a felony child abuse charge and was offered a misdemeanor in a plea deal.

Rej said she's never been on opiates or taken methadone, but she admits she was negligent.

The Whitinsville, Massachusetts, woman said she should have checked that nothing was in the bottle before making it and feeding her grandson early April 26, 2016. Because of her negligence, Rej said, her grandson ingested a small amount of it.

"This nightmare will haunt me for the rest of my life," she told Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret.

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Janice Lipovsky said Rej's statement contradicts what she told investigators a year ago when it happened.

And Maret, the judge, said she didn't believe Rej's daughter was responsible for the methadone, pointing to texts between them where Rej had taken responsibility for it.

Police said when the boy started crying in the middle of the night, Rej got up and made him a bottle, inadvertently grabbing a bottle containing the methadone, putting milk into it and feeding the baby.

When her daughter went to check on her son that morning at 8:30, she couldn't wake him. Rej told her not to panic, to just let him sleep, Lipovsky said. Instead, Rej's daughter called 911, and rescue workers swept him off to the hospital where he recovered.

"Everyone, including yourself, is just very lucky your grandson survived this incident," Maret said. "It could've been a lot different."

She gave Rej a year in county jail, the most she could on the misdemeanor child abuse charge.

With credit for good-time, she'll have to serve about five more months.

In court documents, police said the baby tested positive for methadone and marijuana when he was born in Massachusetts, and his mother had a past addiction to heroin.
[May 15, 2017] Tonino Lamborghini Launches ALPHA-ONE a New Series of Smartphones that Combine Technology with Pure Luxury

SEOUL, South Korea, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 15, the official launch of the brand new limited edition Tonino Lamborghini ALPHA-ONE premium smartphone was held in the Renaissance-styled Turandot Palace in Moscow (www.turandot-palace.ru). Two years after the release of the lavish Tauri88 smartphone, Tonino Lamborghini has launched an astonishing new model dedicated to the most sophisticated and uncompromising connoisseurs of technology and luxury design. ALPHA-ONE targets successful individuals who seek a luxury product with an authentic character that can satisfy day-to-day business and personal requirements. ALPHA-ONE represents a new species of mobile phones that combines technology with pure luxury. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and perfectly symbolizes the character of the targeted consumer: a real leader and trendsetter who has the right driving force to discover what is cool and fashionable in the world. This name perfectly matches with the product characteristi and with the brand values: legendary, timeless, innovative, daring and cutting edge.



The event was hosted by Korasia Inc., commercial partner of DASAN Networks which has worldwide exclusive business rights of Tonino Lamborghini IT products. Special guests of the night: Ferruccio Lamborghini, Vice President of the Italian Tonino Lamborghini brand, Nam Min-Woo, CEO of Korean IT DASAN Networks, Kim Tae-Chul, CEO of Korasia Inc., and Anatoliy Chicherin Commercial Director of EUROSET. "Technology is no longer the only key to success for the smartphone market. In our collaboration with Tonino Lamborghini, we offer high-demanding individuals a product that encompasses the advanced Korea ICT technology with Italian brand philosophy, design and flair," said Mr. Nam Min-Woo, CEO of DASAN Networks.

Korasia Inc. signed a strategic distribution agreement with EUROSET. Korasia will sell ALPHA-ONE in 300 EUROSET brick-and-mortar stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg and on EUROSET's official e-shop. In the U.K., the ALPHA-ONE will be available exclusively at London Department Store Harrods. After Russia, ALPHA-ONE will be released in South Korea, UAE, China and the U.K.; available in retail stores as well as on the official e-shop (www.lamborghinimobile.com). ALPHA-ONE inherits the Lamborghini family's Italian mechanical design and expresses equilibrium of strength and luxury. Similar to the usage of premium quality material in supercar, the key feature of ALPHA-ONE is its usage of liquid metal. More durable than titanium, liquid metal is a metal alloy which protects the device from shock and everyday wear. It ages well and looks more polished with time. The Italian leather back cover is skillfully handmade by Italian craftsman and offers a stylish and comfortable grip. The famous "Raging Bull" metal logo on the back with golden stitching completes the striking design. ALPHA-ONE delivers a premium smartphone experience with combination of luxurious design and cutting-edge technology. ALPHA-ONE's dual speaker uses Dolby Audio System that creates an inside the action feeling with the high quality 3D surround sound. A front-facing 8MP camera and the main 20MP camera provide excellent photo quality with optical and digital image stabilization. The fingerprint sensor at the back improves both user experience and security. ALPHA-ONE is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory for top quality performance. It is a Dual-SIM smartphone and lets the user use two different numbers in a single phone and comes with Android Nougat (7.0) operating system. The ALPHA-ONE's maximum battery capacity is 3250 mAh, providing up to 314 hours on standby and up to 13 hours of talk time. It supports Quick Charge with USB Type-C. ALPHA-ONE features a WQHD (1440x2560) AMOLED 5.5" Display. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170511/1848134-1-a

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[May 15, 2017] Max Baucus Joins LendIt's Lang Di Fintech 2017 Speaker Roster

Former U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic of China will be giving a keynote presentation entitled 'China: Opportunities and Obstacles,' at Lang Di Fintech 2017, in Shanghai on July 15-16, 2017 NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- LendIt, the world's largest lending and fintech conference, returns to Shanghai on July 15-16 for Lang Di Fintech, China's largest fintech conference. For two days, some of the world's most prominent fintech CEOs and investors will focus on critical topics and issues relevant to the future of finance in the region, including: digital banking, financial inclusion, digital wealth management, bank-technology partnerships, insurtech, and blockchain. Financial technology in the Asia-Pacific region surpassed the U.S. as investments in the area doubled to $11.2bn in 2016 from $5.2bn in 2015, according to a report from Accenture. Global investment in financial technology grew by 10 percent to $23.2bn in 2016, largely driven by growth in China. "China has emerged as the center of global fintech innovation and adoption, and LendIt sits at the heart of this surging ecosystem. We welcome Asia's foremost leaders of finance as speakers this year," said Bo Brustkern, co-founder and Chairman of Lang Di Fintech. "China istransforming almost every aspect of financial services. Our speakers will explore Asia's fintech revolution and its impact on the world."



A recent addition to Lang Di's agenda is Max Baucus, Former U.S. Ambassador to the People's Republic of China. Mr. Baucus is uniquely qualified to address issues regarding world trade, US-China relations, and the opportunities and obstacles facing American foreign policy under the Trump administration. As Ambassador to China (2014 - 2017) and Chair of the Senate Finance Committee (2007 - 2014), Max Baucus has extensive experience in issues of international trade. He was deeply involved in orchestrating congressional approval of permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000 and in facilitating China's entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Mr. Baucus will join other esteemed speakers at Lang Di Fintech 2017, including senior representatives from international banks, leading technology innovators, venture capitalists, regulators, government officials and the media.

Now in its second year, Lang Di 2017 expects over 2,000 delegates, making it the largest annual gathering of fintech leaders in China. Three hundred speakers from five continents will focus on the intersection of technology and financial services in Asia, specifically addressing artificial intelligence, machine learning, identity verification through biometrics, the blockchain's impact on capital markets, the emergence of insurtech, financial inclusion, financial wellness, wealth management for the mass affluent, innovation in real estate technology, applying alternative data to credit underwriting and decisioning, the emergence of digital banking, and fintech cooperation with banks. LendIt's mission is to connect every major player, platform, investor and service provider in the fintech industry worldwide. Founded in 2013, LendIt has grown to become the definitive fintech conference in the US, Europe and Asia. For more information, tickets and sponsorship opportunities, please visit www.lendit.com/china. About LendIt

LendIt is a recognized global internet finance industry leader, founded in New York in 2013 by Bo Brustkern, Jason Jones and Peter Renton. Its aim is to gather industry elites to discuss and explore latest trends in the development of international financial technology. LendIt has become the largest fintech industry event in the world as it hosts three annual conferences, LendIt USA, LendIt Europe, and Lang Di Fintech, and dozens of complementary online and in-person industry events. LendIt also owns and operates one of the world's leading industry educational channels, Lend Academy. Media Contact:

Melissa Barto

JCUTLER media group

[email protected] Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/511347/lang_di_Logo.jpg

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[May 16, 2017] TUV Rheinland Acquires Wireless Lab in Sweden

COLOGNE, Germany, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global testing service provider TUV Rheinland has expanded its global involvement in the field of wireless communication technologies by acquiring a wireless lab in the Swedish city of Lund. The acquisition of the laboratory also constitutes the foundation for TUV Rheinland's newly established national subsidiary in Sweden. The wireless lab was acquired from Tech Mahindra, a provider of services and solutions in the fields of information, communication and technology. By acquiring the laboratory, TUV Rheinland has expanded its European wireless network to four locations. In addition to the lab in Sweden, TUV Rheinland also operates corresponding facilities in Cologne, Nuremberg and Leek (Netherlands). "We can now offer testing services to the industry in the field of long-range wireless communication such as 2G, 3G and LTE, as well as antenna performance tests such as Over The Air, known for short as OTA," explains Stefan Kischka, Vice President Wireless / Internet of Things at TUV Rheinland. "The laboratory in Lund is a great platform for TUV Rheinland to tap into the entire Scandinavian market," adds Anders Nordlof, Managing Director of the national subsidiary TUV Rheinland Sweden AB. The Lund laboratory is located in the heart of a technology cluster consisting of research and development companies, manufacturers and integrators. "We will also focus on regulatory tests and approvals as well as various protocol tests at this site in the future," says TUV Rheinland expert Stefan Kischka. Complete range of wireless communication technologies for different industries TUV Rheinland is one of the leading testing service providers and pioneers in the entire field of wireless communication technologie. For example, the testing service provider set up the world's first WiFi lab. The experts from TUV Rheinland were also involved in Bluetooth technology right from the start. Furthermore, TUV Rheinland is also the global leader when it comes to short-range wireless, i.e. WiFi, Bluetooth or ZigBee for smart home applications, where it checks whether the corresponding devices comply with the wireless communication protocols. TUV Rheinland tests many devices at its laboratories in Japan and China, where the majority of these products are made.



TUV Rheinland Center of Excellence Wireless/IoT in Silicon Valley As a member of the fast-growing LoRa Alliance, TUV Rheinland also provides support with the standardization process as well as the testing and certification of products before they are launched on the market. For this purpose, the experts operate specialized laboratories for wireless communication technology and IoT products in Europe and the USA, as well as in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. This way, the testing service provider is always close to manufacturers and users around the world and can offer its competence in the field of wireless communication standards. The same applies to Silicon Valley in the USA, where the testing service provider opened the first laboratory for wireless communication technologies back in 1986. Together with the recently opened laboratory in Fremont, California, the facility forms the "TUV Rheinland Center of Excellence Wireless / IoT" that performs wireless communication tests, for example in the North America region.

Thanks to this diverse expertise and its resources, TUV Rheinland distinguishes itself as a testing service provider that can cover all the wireless communication needs of a customer, regardless of its industry, globally and comprehensively  providing consulting services, test solutions, market access analyses for new technologies, but also independent tests and certifications of existing ones. Like cyber security and autonomous driving, for example, the expansion of testing facilities for wireless communication technologies is one of the future-oriented digitalization topics on which the testing service provider will be placing a stronger focus in the future. Further information is available at www.tuv.com and on the TUV Rheinland platform "Connected to the future" regarding the company's future-oriented topics at www.tuv.com/c2f. TUV Rheinland is a global leader in independent inspection services, founded 145 years ago. The group employs 19,700 people around the globe. Annual revenue is more than Euro 1.9 billion. The independent experts stand for quality and safety for people, technology and the environment in nearly all industrial sectors and areas of life. TUV Rheinland inspects technical equipment, products and services, and oversees projects, processes and information security for companies. Its experts train people in a wide range of careers and industries. To this end, the company operates a global network of approved labs and testing and education centers. Since 2006, TUV Rheinland has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact to promote sustainability and combat corruption. Website: www.tuv.com

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[May 16, 2017] BluePi Wins 'Specialized Partner Award - Big Data and Analytics', PAN India, at Prestigious AWS APN Awards, Summits Held Across Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi

GURGAON, India, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BluePi Wins 'Specialized Partner Award - Big Data and Analytics', PAN India, at the Prestigious AWS APN Awards, Summits Held Across Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512237/BluePi_AWS_s_Specialized_Partner_Award.jpg )

BluePi, a born in-the-cloud company, based out of Gurgaon and Bangalore, recently won 'Specialized Partner Laurel for Big Data and Analytics', at the recently concluded AWS Partner Summit held in Mumbai, on 4th May, 2017. This award celebrates excellence in implementation of customer solutions based on AWS technology. The recognition is for building products to deliver complex workloads on 'Big Data and Analytics', and demonstrate capabilities on 'Real-time Analytics and Machine Learning'. Also, BluePi acquired the most number of referable clients in Big Data stack.



Besides bagging this award, BluePi was also a prominent participant in summits held PAN India - Gold Sponsor in Mumbai, 3rd May and Silver Sponsor in Bangalore, 9th May. The summit held in Mumbai witnessed a footfall of over 2500 delegates and personalities, across verticals of technology; Delhi and Bangalore were no less. The keynote of the summit was delivered by Mr. Werner Vogels, CTO and VP, Amazon Web Services and participated by other tech companies like GitHub, RedHat, SAP etc.

Mr. Pronam Chatterjee, CEO and Founder of BluePi, was one of the eminent speakers at the summit, held in Mumbai. He spoke on 'Three Scalability Fallacies - Consequences and Cure on AWS Cloud'. The session was houseful, with many young Entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, being engrossed in insights and conclusions, he highlighted. About BluePi Consulting Pvt. Ltd. BluePi, established in the year 2012, 4+ Years and multiple successful partnerships later, challenge is what interests us; transformation is what we're adept at! Our vision, mission, and values define us, and have made us into what we are today. We're Futuristic, Enthusiastic and Reliable; all set to 'Imagineer Transformed Tomorrows', solving complex business problems with cutting-edge technology solutions. If you have any queries or want to reach out to us, feel free to drop an email. For more information, vist https://www.bluepiit.com/

Media Contact:

Hemani Sehgal

[email protected]

+91-9910071252

Content Manager

BluePi Consulting Pvt. Ltd.



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[May 16, 2017]

Nokia enhances emergency service response times and situational awareness with ViTrust critical communications portfolio

Press Release

Portable Nokia Ultra Compact Network simplifies operation of broadband services for first responders and other users during emergencies and network outages

Integrated Operations Center enhances situational awareness and command center decision-making by aggregating data sources in use by emergency services

16 May 2017

Critical Communications World 2017, Hong Kong - Nokia is expanding its ViTrust portfolio of end-to-end solutions for critical communications with the introduction of a new Ultra Compact Network - the LTE network that can be deployed in places where network connectivity has been lost - and the launch of the Integrated Operations Center, a solution which aggregates data streams used by emergency services in the field.

These additions to Nokia's ViTrust critical communications portfolio will enable government and local mission-critical agencies to quickly establish and maintain communications using new high-bandwidth push-to-video and other data and voice services in emergency situations. This will allow first responders and command center teams to enhance situational awareness, streamline operations and save crucial time in their mission to save lives.

The new Ultra Compact Network hosts Nokia Group Communications application services including push-to-video, and can also host customer-specific applications such as video analytics and geolocalization. The portable LTE-based Ultra Compact Network incorporates carrier-grade Nokia Flexi Zone small cell radio and integrated core technology. A network serving up to 400 users can be set up in minutes, even in the most extreme conditions where there is no existing coverage or coverage has been lost. An easy-to use, integrated graphical user interface simplifies set-up and configuration, and enables standalone operations with no need for an additional laptop. Nokia will make the Ultra Compact Network available in different versions, including a backpack-based portable model, vehicle-mounted and rack-mounted fixed installation versions, so it can be deployed to meet the needs of a variety of situations.

The Nokia Integrated Operations Center (IOC) will allow critical communications agencies to transform operations at the command center. The service quickly and easily aggregates data feeds from a multitude of sources and vendors' systems in an emergency situation, including high-bandwidth video, data from first responders, information surced from alarm systems, CCTV, legacy application data and even social media. Pre-integrated tools analyze the feeds and alert teams to need-to-know information, triggering automated workflows defined by the agency and Nokia experts. Customized dashboards present this information in the most appropriate way to help reduce response time and enhance cooperation between multiple agencies.







In one potential scenario, backhaul connectivity can be established linking the Nokia Ultra Compact Network to the Integrated Operations Center. This will enable first responder teams in remote regions to connect to a command center and dynamically share their data feeds to enhance decision-making.

Emil Olbrich, Vice President, Signals Research Group, said: "The business and mission critical communications market is a very interesting area with significant growth potential. With the first standards compliant mission critical push to talk system that includes applications, device and infrastructure, Nokia has set themselves ahead of everyone. Whether it is a smart city initiative or public safety the key strength for Nokia is the ability to provide a holistic approach with an end-to-end portfolio that includes network technologies, industry-specific devices, applications and services. The breadth of this portfolio combined with years of expertise gained from working with commercial operators places Nokia in a great position to support critical communications customers as they enter the era of broadband services."

Thorsten Robrecht, head of the Advanced Mobile Solutions business unit within Nokia said: "With the Ultra Compact Network we have placed considerable focus on what the end-user needs. We have combined an industry-specific design with our strong expertise in radio and core technology, including our Flexi Zone family, for a wide range of frequency bands. This flexibility continues at the command center where the Integrated Operations Center combines multiple application and system data, analytics and visualization to enhance situation management for public safety agencies."

Did you know

The Nokia Ultra Compact Network is being used for the Nokia Saving Lives initiative

Nokia is applying its extensive networking and Global Services expertise to help critical communications agencies as they evolve their operations.

The company serves more than 110 mission-critical customers, including the Gotthard Base Tunnel and RATP, France, in addition to 346 LTE network customers around the world.

The Nokia ViTrust portfolio also includes solutions that meet the safety needs of smart cities providing connectivity, transforming businesses and helping people save time.

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We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.

From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com

Media Enquiries

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[May 16, 2017]

Biometrics, CyberSecurity, Physical Security and Ransomware Experts Discuss Solutions "In The Boardroom" On SecuritySolutionsWatch.com - AMAG, Cyberinc, Dell EMC, Extenua, ImageWare, NetWatcher

NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Dell Technologies DVMT, ImageWare Systems, IWSY

Thank You For Joining Us "In The Boardroom" On SecuritySolutionsWatch.Com

Kurt Takahashi, President, AMAG Technology - A G4S Company

Samir Shah, CEO, Cyberinc

Ken Mills, General Manager, Dell EMC, Surveillance and Security

Steve Visconti, President & CEO, Extenua

Jim Miller, ImageWare Systems, Chairman and CEO

Scott B. Suhy, CEO, Netwatcher

*****

 AMAG Technology - A G4S Company, Kurt Takahashi, President

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_AMAG_Takahashi.html

www.AMAG.com

AMAG recently announced:

AMAG Technology Welcomes Key Tracer to Symmetry Preferred Partner Program

http://www.amag.com/en/Company/News/2017/05/01/KeyTracer

RightCrowd Joins Symmetry Preferred Partner Program

http://www.amag.com/en/Company/News/2017/04/25/RightCrowd

Arecont Vision Technology Partner Program Welcomes AMAG

?http://www.amag.com/en/Company/News/2017/04/12/arecont



*****

 Cyberinc, CEO, Samir Shah

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_Shah_Cyberinc.html

www.Cyberinc.com

Isla represents an entirely new approach to cyber security. Until now security solutions have always been based on detecting bad things and blocking them from running. Anti-Virus tries to detect bad files, Web Filters try to detect bad websites, the list goes on and on. Isla takes a different approach to the problem. Instead of detecting bad things, Isla simply isolates ALL web content in a specialized environment located outside of an organizations sensitive network. Since ALL content is isolated no attacks can ever slip through the cracks and compromise the user.

*****

 Dell EMC, General Manager, Surveillance and Security, Ken Mills

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_KenMills_GeneralManager_DeLLEMC.html

www.dellemc.com/surveillance

It is an exciting time to be at Dell EMC right now. Dell Technologies is now #1 In Everything, All in 1 Place and we are bringing this world-class portfolio to the surveillance market. Never before, have our customers and partners been able to modernize their surveillance infrastructure with an end-to-end portfolio like we have a Dell EMC. We are leveraging the same industry-recognized surveillance lab to expand our validated solutions to include the entire Dell EMC portfolio This is a huge step forward for the industry where for the first time, our customers and partners can purchase with confidence all of their surveillance infrastructure needs from one place - Dell EMC.

Public Sector continues to be a key vertical for us. With the demand in public safety at an all time high, the need for cost effective and proven solutions has never been greater. We are seeing strong demand for our Public Safety Data Lake solution built on Isilon. Customers are pushing back on closed single vendor solutions are looking for reliable open platforms for evidence management whether they are deploying on premises or in the cloud. Dell EMC is focused on building solutions that allow our customers choice in how they manage their evidence data. We are also seeing strong demand in airports across the world as airports look to modernize their infrastructure. We are also going to continue to bring the Dell EMC value to our enterprise and commercial customers across the globe.

Learn more here about Dell EMC Surveillance Solutions and the Solutions Portfolio here or here: https://www.emc.com/storage/video-surveillance-storage.htm#!solution_portfolio

And for Dell EMC Partner Validations, please click here or here: https://www.emc.com/storage/video-surveillance-storage.htm#!partner_validations

*****

 Extenua, President and CEO, Steve Visconti

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_Extenua_Visconti.html

www.Extenua.com

Extenua has just released a most timely white paper

This free white paper discusses the challenges of keeping ransomware (Cryptolocker, WannaCry, and the like) out of the corporate data storage, whether it is local, in the cloud or hybrid.

CLOUD2DRIVE-PROTECTED ONLINE STORAGE IS IMPERVIOUS TO RANSOMWARE BY USING SILVERSHIELD

Ransomware is a type of malware that restricts access to the infected computer system, and demands that the user pay a ransom to the malware operators to remove the restriction. Probably the most famous ransomware, even though not the only one, is Cryptolocker, and its certainly something you dont want to deal with. Regardless of the srenuous efforts put in place by Antivirus developers, the rate of infection is astonishing, and these days its becoming even worse with an unprecedented outbreak of infection. To make things even worse, ransomware can also access all the shared folders on your NAS/SAN, so if you backup to a network drive your backups will be compromised too. The ransomware goals include, in fact, preventing you from being able to restore your old (healthy) data from a backup.







Even in case your systems are infected by a ransomware,

you will simply be able to format your computer,

reinstall your operating system,

and restore all your data from an always-healthy backup.

Download the complete White Paper (in PDF format)

http://dl.extenua.com/no-ransomware.pdf

*****

 ImageWare Systems, Chairman and CEO, Jim Miller

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_ImageWare.html

www.iwsinc.com



ImageWare Systems Issues Corporate Update



During the first quarter, we continued to focus on integrating our patented Biometric Engine into the cloud and mobile markets, principally via our GoVerifyID product for enterprise and consumer use, while also expanding into non-government sectors such as commercial, consumer and healthcare, said Jim Miller, ImageWares chairman and CEO.

Due to our business strategy relying on long-term engagements with large organizations, results from these initiatives continue to take time to materialize from a revenue perspective. We remain encouraged by the continued strong demand we are receiving behind the scenes and we anticipate further positive developments in strategic partnerships during the first half of 2017.

In addition to strong market demand, in March, Frost & Sullivan recognized ImageWare with the 2017 New Product Innovation Award for our GoVerifyID enterprise suite. Each year, Frost & Sullivan identifies companies that have successfully introduced new and innovative products into their markets, with emphasis on product quality and customer value. We believe this award further validates our technology and our strategy to bring our solution to market.

Subsequent to the end of the quarter, ImageWare was selected to provide biometric identity management and credentialing software to five Alaskan airports with delivery expected to commence in the second quarter of this year. This represents the third agreement in which an airport has entrusted our multi-modal biometric authentication software to confirm the identity and background of their employees.

And, last week on May 12, 2017 CIO Applications Names ImageWare as a Top 25 Cyber Security Company

*****

 NetWatcher, CEO, Scott B. Suhy

www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Interviews/in_Boardroom_Netwatcher_Suhy.html

www.NetWatcher.com

You now have the option to deploy the NetWatcher NetAgent on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Cloud Servers and take the HIDS/Logs directly to the NetWatcher cloud for correlation. More here

https://netwatcher.com/cloud-security-easily-monitor-aws-azure-google-cloud-and-any-other-cloud-server-with-the-netwatcher-netagent/

*****

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

K(NO)W Identity Conference 2017

May 15th - 17th, 2017 Washington, DC

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

https://oneworldidentity.com/

One World Identitys first annual K(NO)W Identity Conference will bring together the world's foremost identity experts and thought leaders for a unique opportunity to learn, network and collaborate. Featuring over 150 panel and session speakers from organizations including the World Bank, IBM, Google, MorphoTrust, NIST, Payfone, GSMA, the Brookings Institute and more.

*****

Cyber Security Summit: Seattle

Thursday, June 1, 2017 | 7:45AM to 5:00PM | The Westin Seattle

https://cybersummitusa.com/2017-seattle/

*****

Geo IoT World 2017

Where Geolocation Powers IoT Innovation

Conference, Exhibition & Testbed  June 6&8, 2017  Brussels, Belgium www.geoiotworld.com

Geo IoT World is dedicated to the new location-aware technologies boosting IoT opportunities. Over 2 days, 70 speakers will deliver concrete expertise and use cases to innovate with Geo IoT: from IoT networks such as LPWA, Bluetooth LE or UWB to high precision GNSS, from Beacons and new sensors to Big GeoData, the full spectrum of Geo IoT innovation will be addressed. 30 exhibitors and testbed participants will further showcase the power of geolocation in IoT. Geo IoT World will welcome 250+ attendees representing IoT, geolocation and analytics industries along with implementers in multiple Verticals.

*****

SECURING FEDERAL IDENTITY 2017

Hamilton Crowne Plaza Hotel - Almas Temple

1315 K Street NW Washington, DC 20005

June 6, 2017

http://www.securingfederalidentity.com/

*****

Infosecurity Europe 2017

06  08 June 2017

Olympia London

*****

International-Summit-On-Borders

JUNE 13  14, 2017

THE ARMY AND NAVY CLUB, WASHINGTON, D.C.

http://www.internationalsummitonborders.com

*****

IFSEC

20-22 June 2017

ExCel London

*****

MONEY20/20 EUROPE

26-28 June 2017

Copenhagen

https://www.money2020europe.com/

*****

Cyber Security Summit: D.C. Metro

Thursday, June 29, 2017 | 7:45AM to 6:00PM | The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner

https://cybersummitusa.com/2017-dc/

*****

INTERPOL WORLD 2017

Congress: 4-6 July 2017

Exhibition: 5-7 July 2017

Singapore

https://www.interpol-world.com/

*****

The CyberSecurity International Symposium

July 10-11, 2017

Chicago

http://www.cybersecurity-symposium.com

*****

IoT Evolution Expo

July 17-20, 2017

Caesars Palace

Las Vegas, Nevada

*****

ASIS 2017

ASIS International 63rd Annual Seminar and Exhibits

25-28 September 2017

Dallas, Texas

https://securityexpo.asisonline.org



*****

MONEY20/20

OCTOBER 22-25, 2017

THE VENETIAN, LAS VEGAS

https://www.money2020.com/

*****

DSEI

12-15 September 2017

The World Leading Defence & Security Event

ExCeL, London

https://www.dsei.co.uk/welcome

*****

MONEY20/20 Asia

13-15 MARCH 2018

SINGAPORE

https://www.money2020asia.com/

****

THIS PRESS RELEASE, AND ALL ADVERTISING, CONTENT AND ALL OTHER MATERIAL AND INFORMATION WHICH APPEARS ON SECURITYSOLUTIONSWATCH.COM AND/OR SECURITYSTOCKWATCH.COM, ONLINE AND/OR IN PRINT, IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS OF USE, CONDITIONS, AND DISCLAIMER HERE:www.securitysolutionswatch.com/Main/Terms_of_Use.html.









Contact: Deborah Gilbert President [email protected]
[May 16, 2017] Arctech Solar Drafts the 1st Solar Tracker Safety Standard for the IEC TC82 WG7 Meeting

SHANGHAI, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The IEC TC82 WG7 meeting was held recently at the University of Ottawa, Canada. The meeting covered topics on safety, performance, and testing requirements of CPV modules, cells and the safety standard for solar trackers and CPV optics. For the first time, a solar tracker safety standard will be incorporated into an IEC standard. Arctech Solar is the only tracker manufacturer who is specially invited by IEC committee to lead the standard drafting. As a producer and advocate of safety standards for solar trackers, Arctech Solar introduced the tracker safety standards in detail during the meeting, answering all queries from the present and online experts. It has been the only international tracker standard drafted by a Chinese tracker supplier in the history of IEC standardization. The standard has come to the consensus and has been pre-confirmed and improved after serious discussions. It is expected to enter the Committee Draft for Vote (CDV) stage in early 2018.



Bruce Wang , Chief Technology Officer of Arctech Solar proposed that it is necessary to establish an internationally uniform, reliable safety standard for solar trackers. The proposal of standardization is fully recognized and approved by all experts in the committee. Upon request by the IEC committee, Arctech Solar will submit the final revised standard shortly. Arctech Solar will continuously advocate a more recognized industrial safety standard for solar trackers and promote the tracker industry as a whole.

About Arctech Solar Arctech Solar is one of the world's leading manufacturers and solution providers of solar tracking and racking systems. Through 8 years of development, Arctech Solar has set up manufacturing bases in Kunshan and Changzhou in China and set up subsidiaries and service centers in many country's regional markets such as America, Japan, India, Europe and Shanghai. Arctech Solar has cumulatively installed 10GW and completed almost 600 projects in more than 10 countries. With a production capacity of 6GW and 3GW respectively in fixed mounting structure and tracker fields (a total annual capacity of 9GW), Arctech Solar has grown into a reliable partner in the global PV tracking and racking system field. For more information please visit: www.arctechsolar.com

For product sales and other enquiries: [email protected] Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170516/1852845-1

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[May 16, 2017] Carnegie Science Center Honors CEO of Wombat Security Technologies with 'Entrepreneur of the Year' Award

PITTSBURGH, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Wombat Security Technologies (Wombat), the leading provider of cyber security awareness and training, today announces its CEO Joe Ferrara has been named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Carnegie Science Center. Joe receives this coveted award for leading Wombat's mission to reduce security risk among organizations of all sizes through comprehensive security awareness training and assessment programs. The formal awards celebration was held Friday night at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, Pa. "Under Joe's leadership, Wombat has quickly become an industry leader in security awareness and training products, while also becoming a shining example of Pittsburgh's strength in entrepreneurship, technological innovation and research excellence," said president & CEO of one of the nation's most active early-stage investors, Innovation Works, Richard Lunak, who nominated Ferrara for Entrepreneur of the Year. "Congratulations goes to Joe and the entire Wombat team for achieving such impressive growth and receiving this well-deserved recognition." Earlier this year, Wombat reported 100 percent growth compared to the previous year, exceeding its order, revenue and customer targets in 2016. The company's growth has continued to accelerate in the first few months of 2017 due to rapid new customer adoption of its proven product platform. Wombat will host customers and security awareness professionals later this year in Pittsburgh at their 3rd annual a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.wombatsecurity.com/wisdom/conference" rel="nofollow">Wombat Wisdom Conference September 13-14, 2017.



"The Carnegie Science Awards spotlight some of the most innovative minds today, such as Joe and the Wombat team," said Ron Baillie, The Henry Buhl, Jr., co-director of Carnegie Science Center. "These individuals are making a global impact starting with our own region. We know they are already inspiring a new generation of leaders. One of our central missions is to promote education in science, technology, engineering, and math  or STEM. The Carnegie Science Awards winners exemplify the highest levels of success in STEM fields and in STEM education. We are proud to recognize these outstanding awardees and look forward to their continued contributions." Carnegie Science Center established the Carnegie Science Awards program in 1997 to recognize and promote outstanding science and technology achievements in western Pennsylvania. Celebrating more than two decades, the Carnegie Science Awards have honored the accomplishments of more than 500 individuals and organizations that have improved lives through their commitment and contributions in science and technology.

"It's an honor for the entire Wombat team to receive this award by such a highly respected organization as the Carnegie Science Center whose central mission is to promote entrepreneurial innovation and education in STEM," said Ferrara. We are proud to call Pittsburgh home and are dedicated to helping grow the region's technology influence on a national scale," " About Wombat Security Technologies

Wombat Security Technologies provides information security awareness and training software to help organizations teach their employees secure behavior. Their SaaS-based cyber security education solution includes a platform of integrated broad assessments, as well as a library of simulated attacks and brief interactive training modules. Wombat's solutions help organizations reduce successful phishing attacks and malware infections up to 90%. Wombat, recognized by Gartner as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training Vendors, is helping Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 customer in industry segments such as finance and banking, energy, technology, higher education, retail and consumer packaged goods to strengthen their cyber security defenses. About Carnegie Science Center

Carnegie Science Center is dedicated to inspiring learning and curiosity by connecting science and technology with everyday life. By making science both relevant and fun, the Science Center's goal is to increase science literacy in the region and motivate young people to seek careers in science and technology. One of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, the Science Center is Pittsburgh's premier science exploration destination, reaching more than 700,000 people annually through its hands-on exhibits, camps, classes, and off-site education programs. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/carnegie-science-center-honors-ceo-of-wombat-security-technologies-with-entrepreneur-of-the-year-award-300457604.html SOURCE Wombat Security Technologies

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[May 16, 2017] Kagan Releases First Quarter U.S. Multichannel Subscriber Report

MONTEREY, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Traditional multichannel defections picked up speed in the first quarter with an estimated loss of 802,000 subscriptions, according to Kagan, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. The 0.8% decline in a single quarter occurred in the historically strong first three months of the year. The impact of new streaming options suggests an important component of the loss comes from a shift in platforms within the familiar subscription construct rather than outright cord cutting. The estimated total traditional multichannel subscriptions fell to 97.0 million in the first quarter. Adding estimated subscribers from virtual services including Sling TV, DirecTV Now and Playstation Vue, lifts the combined total subscriptions to a package of live linear channels and on-demand content to 99.2 million. Additional takeaways from Kagan's 1st-quarter U.S. Multichannel Subscriber report: Cable operators lost188,000 total video customers. It was a smaller loss than posted by Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) and telecommunications (telco) competitors, but it was cable's worst first-quarter performance since 2013.

The DBS segment stumbled in Q1 after full-year gains in 2016. The two providers, which both have launched virtual service provider (VSP) alternatives, lost a combined 291,000 subscribers in the quarter.

The telcos lost further ground behind several prominent retreats from the multichannel business. Combined, the telcos lost 324,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year.

The combined residential subscriptions for cable, DBS and telco services accounted for 76.7% of the potential residential universe, using figures compiled from U.S. Census reports.



About S&P Global Market Intelligence At S&P Global Market Intelligence, we know that not all information is importantsome of it is vital. Accurate, deep and insightful. We integrate financial and industry data, research and news into tools that help track performance, generate alpha, identify investment ideas, understand competitive and industry dynamics, perform valuations and assess credit risk. Investment professionals, government agencies, corporations and universities globally can gain the intelligence essential to making business and financial decisions with conviction.

S&P Global Market Intelligence a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies and governments to make decisions with confidence. For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kagan-releases-first-quarter-us-multichannel-subscriber-report-300458087.html SOURCE S&P Global Market Intelligence

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[May 16, 2017] Verizon Adds Ensemble to Its Virtual Network Services uCPE Solution

Zero Touch Capabilities of Ensemble Connector Deliver Key Agility and Scalability Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. May 16, 2017. Ensemble, a division of ADVA Optical Networking, announced today that Verizon has selected its Ensemble Connector as part of the deployment of the service provider's universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) solution. Verizon is using the Ensemble Connector as its network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) white box servers. Ensemble Connector's zero touch provisioning enables Verizon to drop-ship servers directly from the COTS supplier to the end customer - dramatically simplifying supply chain logistics. Ensemble Connector further simplifies operational processes with access to the industry's largest collection of virtual network functions (VNFs). "As we expand the number and scope of SDN/NFV-based transformations with our customers, we see significant demand for solutions based on COTS hardware," said Shawn Hakl, vice president, Business Networking and Security Solutions, Verizon. "The demand to move from hardware-based services to software-based, cloud-enabled solutions is growing by the day and is only going to accelerate. Ensemble Connector is an important enabling technology for us to bring these solutions to market. This approach allows us to provide our customers with a simple, rapid installation experience and allows them to securely deploy multiple sotware-based services on a single uCPE installation."



Verizon's uCPE solution has been built from the ground up to provide end customers with greater agility, functionality and scalability. Ensemble Connector improves OpenStack scalability and manageability by embedding local controllers in each COTS white box. This is something no other NFVI technology on the market offers. Ensemble Connector is also unique in that it provides support for wired and LTE connections. This enables the Ensemble Connector to "call home" using the most suitable access available and automatically configure customers' virtualized services without any need for pre-configuration or onsite visits. "What we're announcing here is more than an agreement between Verizon and ADVA Optical Networking; it's a dramatic shift in how companies build next-generation networking solutions," commented James Buchanan, general manager, Ensemble Division, ADVA Optical Networking. "Adding our Ensemble Connector to its VNS uCPE solution will provide Verizon's customers with more choice, more services and more flexibility. Ensemble Connector's capabilities help solve deployment, operational and runtime challenges."

Watch this video for more information on Ensemble Connector: https://youtu.be/pCmZV7mxDRc. Further details on the announcement are also available in these slides: http://adva.li/verizon-vns-ucpe. # # # About ADVA Optical Networking

ADVA Optical Networking is a company founded on innovation and driven to help our customers succeed. For over two decades, our technology has empowered networks across the globe. We're continually developing breakthrough hardware and software that leads the networking industry and creates new business opportunities. It's these open connectivity solutions that enable our customers to deliver the cloud and mobile services that are vital to today's society and for imagining new tomorrows. Together, we're building a truly connected and sustainable future. For more information on how we can help you, please visit us at: www.advaoptical.com. Published By:

ADVA Optical Networking SE, Munich, Germany

www.advaoptical.com For Press:

Gareth Spence

t +44 1904 699 358

public-relations(at)advaoptical.com For Investors:

Stephan Rettenberger

t +49 89 890 665 854

investor-relations(at)advaoptical.com

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Rookie City Councilman Bennie Shobe, and incumbents Leirion Gaylor Baird and Roy Christensen started their four-year terms Monday after being elected by voters almost two weeks ago.

Shobe pointed out that 19,000 of the 38,000 people who voted checked his name. So half the people voted for him and half didnt. "But I represent them all, he said.

We are all in this together, he said of the almost 300,000 Lincoln residents, each with different perspectives and attitudes.

Shobe (the e is silent), Gaylor Baird and Christensen are at-large representatives on the Lincoln City Council, meaning they represent the entire city.

The other four council members (Carl Eskridge, Jane Raybould, Jon Camp, Cyndi Lamm) represent specific geographic districts. Their four-year terms end in 2019.

Camp, who represents southeast Lincoln, began his 19th year on the council, serving the longest time of any council member in history.

The council elected Christensen as chair and Raybould as vice chair for the next year. The council generally rotates the chairmanship by party affiliation. Christensen is a Republic and Raybould is a Democrat.

Though race was not an issue during the campaign, Shobe, who is the fifth African-American in council history, says he feels he'll be a voice for people who have less voice in political situations, the working-class people of all races.

Few African-American Lincolnites have run for office and city voters have shown no hesitation in electing them, Shobe said. As the city gets more diverse, Shobe said he expects more diversity on the council.

Shobe says he'll first try to get to know the other council members and build relationships with them. I have a lot of learning. Im the rookie," he said.

Shobe, 56, a Democrat, replaces Trent Fellers, a Republican, who did not run for re-election. Shobe's election gives Democrats a 4-3 edge on the council, making it easier for Mayor Chris Beutler, a Democrat, to get his policies and budget plans approved.

Shobe, a data analyst for the Nebraska Department of Labor, says he hopes to build cooperative relationships across party lines as Fellers did.
[May 16, 2017] Titan Regulation and Eventus Systems Announce Strategic Partnership

AUSTIN, Texas and SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Titan Regulation (Titan), a provider of compliance solutions to the financial services industry, and Eventus Systems, Inc. (Eventus), a leading national provider of real-time analytics and risk mitigation systems to the financial services industry, have entered a strategic partnership to provide customers with an end to end solution for their compliance and risk management needs.





Validus, which was launched over a year ago, offers both Enterprise and Cloud versions and is installed at Tier 1 banks, future commission merchants (FCMs), brokers, proprietary trading firms as well as alternative trading systems (ATS) spanning equities, futures and equity options. The Validus system provides a real time, centralized dashboard that spans trading, operations, surveillance, compliance and risk management for both buy- and sell-side firms enabling them to make key regulatory and risk decisions faster and with better intelligence. Validus promotes compliance and risk transparency across the organization. Eventus Validus is the onlyrun-time enterprise risk and compliance platform on the market capable of spanning the front-, middle-, and back-office, enabling sophisticated risk management and surveillance.



After an extensive search, we found Validus to be the best risk and surveillance technology we have seen and it will enable us to better support our existing customer base as well as expand into new verticals, said Julie Dixon, founder and CEO of Titan. Partnering with Eventus and implementing Validus dramatically increases Titans ability to perform very precise risk analysis and to further differentiate Titans service offering. Financial firms continue to be under constant scrutiny by regulators as well as trying to cope with the ever-shifting regulatory landscape. The goal of this partnership is to provide customers with a unified solution to both their technology and consulting needs as well as expand the precision of the audit services reducing overall compliance costs and reducing risk across the organization.

"Titan has a strong five year track record of delivering high quality consulting services to regulated financial institutions. In a competitive field of players in the consulting space, we believed that Titans client satisfaction rates, strong growth curve and innovative consulting offerings made them a perfect fit, said Travis Schwab, CEO of Eventus. Were very excited to work alongside Titan as we continue to see strong adoption of the Validus platform across the financial services marketplace." To learn more, contact Eventus Systems at 844.438.3688 or visit www.eventussystems.com or Titan Regulation at 312.724.9026 or visit www.titanregulation.com. ABOUT TITAN REGULATION Titan Regulation is a leading regulatory consulting firm to hedge funds, broker dealers, CTA/CPO firms, banks, family offices, and PE and VC firms. Titans experienced team of compliance experts provides comprehensive regulatory services for SEC, CFTC, FINRA, and exchange-regulated businesses, including compliance program design, administration, regulatory registration services and audit prep. Based in San Francisco with offices in Chicago, Titan has been recognized for excellence in consulting services by HFMWeek, AltCredit Intelligence and CTA Intelligence. www.titanregulation.com ABOUT EVENTUS SYSTEMS, INC. Eventus Systems, Inc. is a financial software firm that helps clients solve pressing industry challenges using intelligent data. Led by a veteran management team, Eventus brings exceptional talent and pedigree in software development, with a particular expertise in capital markets and high-performance data management. Eventus Validus is the only run-time enterprise risk and compliance platform on the market capable of spanning the front-, middle-, and back-office, allowing for sophisticated risk management and surveillance. Through multi-stream data reconciliation and pipelining, Validus offers a high-performance, scalable platform that was built and battle-tested in the toughest market conditions. www.eventussystems.com

CONTACT: Lauren Horning [email protected] 312.724.9036 Travis Schwab [email protected] 844.438.3688

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[May 16, 2017] CTS Acquires European Piezoelectric Sensor & Component Manufacturer

CTS (News - Alert) Corporation (NYSE: CTS) has announced the acquisition of Noliac A/S; a designer and manufacturer of tape cast and bulk piezoelectric components, sensors and transducers. Headquartered in Denmark with manufacturing facilities in Denmark and the Czech Republic, Noliac serves OEMs in the aerospace & defense, test & measurement, medical and industrial markets. Founded in 1997, Noliac leverages twenty years of experience in piezoelectric multi-layer tape cast manufacturing to produce stacked actuators and other components. Since its founding, Noliac has expanded operations to also include piezoelectric bulk manufacturing processes and in-house design and production capabilities for sensors and transducers. "The acquisition of Noliac demonstrates CTS' commitment to our strategy of investing in technologies that Sense, Connect and Move," stated Kieran O'Sullivan, CEO of CTS Corporation. "In 2016 we acuired single crystal production capabilities to strengthen our piezoelectric product portfolio. By acquiring Noliac, we expand our tape cast manufacturing capabilities. This enables us to provide a more complete range of piezoelectric solutions to our customers, while growing our European presence and further diversifying our end market profile."



"On behalf of the team at Noliac, we are excited to join the CTS family," stated Bjrn Andersen, CEO and founder of Noliac A/S. "CTS' high volume production expertise for piezoelectric ceramics and single crystal products is a perfect fit for Noliac. This acquisition provides Noliac with the resources to continue to grow. We are looking forward to reaching the next level with CTS." About CTS

CTS (NYSE: CTS) is a leading designer and manufacturer of products that Sense, Connect and Move. CTS manufactures sensors, actuators and electronic components in North America, Europe and Asia, and supplies these products to OEMs in the aerospace, communications, defense, industrial, information technology, medical and transportation markets. For more information, visit www.ctscorp.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005892/en/

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[May 16, 2017] Josh Levine of Cake & Arrow to Speak at IRCE with Bose's Brian Moore on the Evolving Landscape of Retail Web Design

NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Cake & Arrow announced that Josh Levine, co-founder and Chief Design Officer at Cake & Arrow, will take the stage at IRCE 2017 with Brian Moore, Creative Director at Bose. This year, the annual ecommerce industry event will return to Chicago and will revolve around the rapidly changing nature of the ecommerce industry, with a focus on what retailers can do to keep pace. In their session How Have Retail Website Designs ChangedAnd What Changes Are Next?, Levine and Moore will discuss the evolving landscape of retail web design, and what they see as the emerging trends that will continue to shape the industry going forward. "As a creative professional who has been working in ecommerce for a long time, it's been amazing to see some of the huge steps forward the industry has taken just in the last 2 years," said Levine. "It's an exciting time to be both a designer and a customer, and I'm looking forward to sharing the stage with Brian to talk about what we think the future has in store." Brian Moore, who joined Bose in 2011 to lead the creative for the industry-leading headphone and speaker brand's website, social media and online advertising, has been a part of a variety of successful cutting-edge campaigns and site redesigns. Moore will be alking about what he has learned at Bose and throughout his 20 years working in advertising and user-experience design.



"Customers are at the core of every experience we create at Bose, from products to communications. It's an exciting challenge to continually develop new and engaging site experiences that allow our customers to learn about our brand and products. We strive to meet and exceed their expectations and it impacts everything from how we're integrating omnichannel connections to elevating our product and lifestyle photography," said Moore. Levine has appeared as a featured speaker at IRCE events 6 times since 2009, most recently in 2015, when he discussed 20 tips to improve sales on your ecommerce site.

To learn more about how you can attend the session, which takes place on Friday June 9th at 8:45 am, visit the IRCE website. About Cake & Arrow: Cake & Arrow is a customer-experience agency who partners with fashion brands and retailers to reinvent how they transact business. Cake & Arrow has lead digital initiatives for Saks Fifth Avenue, Catbird, Louis Vuitton, among others, to improve online and in-store conversion, cart size, awareness, and loyalty. About BOSE: Bose was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, then a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Today, the company is driven by its founding principles, investing in long-term research with one fundamental goal: to develop new technologies with real customer benefits. Bose innovations have spanned decades and industries, creating and transforming categories in audio and beyond. Bose is privately held. The company's spirit of invention, passion for excellence, and commitment to extraordinary experiences can be found around the world  everywhere Bose does business. Media Contact:

Emily Smith

[email protected]

6467386179 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/josh-levine-of-cake--arrow-to-speak-at-irce-with-boses-brian-moore-on-the-evolving-landscape-of-retail-web-design-300458196.html SOURCE Cake & Arrow

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[May 16, 2017] HPE Unveils Computer Built for the Era of Big Data

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hewlett Packard Enterprises (NYSE:HPE) today introduced the worlds largest single-memory computer, the latest milestone in The Machine research project (The Machine). The Machine, which is the largest R&D program in the history of the company, is aimed at delivering a new paradigm called Memory-Driven Computing  an architecture custom-built for the Big Data era. The secrets to the next great scientific breakthrough, industry-changing innovation, or life-altering technology hide in plain sight behind the mountains of data we create every day, said Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. To realize this promise, we cant rely on the technologies of the past, we need a computer built for the Big Data era. The prototype unveiled today contains 160 terabytes (TB) of memory, capable of simultaneously working with the data held in every book in the Library of Congress five times over  or approximately 160 million books. It has never been possible to hold and manipulate whole data sets of this size in a single-memory system, and this is just a glimpse of the immense potential of Memory-Driven Computing.1 Scalability & Societal Implications

Based on the current prototype, HPE expects the architecture could easily scale to an exabyte-scale single-memory system and, beyond that, to a nearly-limitless pool of memory  4,096 yottabytes. For context, that is 250,000 times the entire digital universe today. With that amount of memory, it will be possible to simultaneously work with every digital health record of every person on earth; every piece of data from Facebook; every trip of Googles autonomous vehicles; and every data set from space exploration all at the same time  getting to answers and uncovering new opportunities at unprecedented speeds. We believe Memory-Driven Computing is the solution to move the technology industry forward in a way that can enable advancements across all aspects of society, said Mark Potter, CTO at HPE and Director, Hewlet Packard Labs. The architecture we have unveiled can be applied to every computing category  from intelligent edge devices to supercomputers.



Memory-Driven Computing puts memory, not the processor, at the center of the computing architecture. By eliminating the inefficiencies of how memory, storage and processors interact in traditional systems today, Memory-Driven Computing reduces the time needed to process complex problems from days to hours, hours to minutes, minutes to seconds  to deliver real-time intelligence. Technical Specifications

The new prototype builds on the achievements of The Machine research program, including:

160 TB of shared memory spread across 40 physical nodes, interconnected using a high-performance fabric protocol

An optimized Linux-based operating system (OS) running on ThunderX2, Caviums flagship second generation dual socket capable ARMv8-A workload optimized System on a Chip.

Photonics/Optical communication links, including the new X1 photonics module, are online and operational; and

Software programming tools designed to take advantage of abundant persistent memory. Cavium shares HPEs vision for Memory-Driven Computing and is proud to collaborate with HPE on The Machine program, said Syed Ali, President & CEO of Cavium Inc. HPEs groundbreaking innovations in Memory-Driven Computing will enable a new compute paradigm for a variety of applications, including the next generation data center, cloud and high performance computing. To learn more about Memory-Driven Computing and The Machine research program, please visit: www.hpe.com/TheMachine. About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is an industry-leading technology company that enables customers to go further, faster. With one of the industry's most comprehensive portfolios, spanning the cloud to the data center to workplace applications, our technology and services help customers around the world make IT more efficient, more productive and more secure. Forward-looking statements:

The information included in this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If the risks or uncertainties ever materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Hewlett Packard Enterprise may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the need to address the many challenges facing Hewlett Packard Enterprise's businesses; the competitive pressures faced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise's businesses; risks associated with executing Hewlett Packard Enterprise's strategy; the development and transition of new products and services and the enhancement of existing products and services to meet customer needs and respond to emerging technological trends; the execution and performance of contracts by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its suppliers, customers and partners; integration and other risks associated with business combination and investment transactions; and other risks that are described in Hewlett Packard Enterprise's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hewlett Packard Enterprise assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements. ____________________ 1 We qualify a single-memory system as one with a single address space. Editorial contact Simon Bowers [email protected]

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[May 16, 2017] Alterra Power Announces Potential Sale of Blue Lagoon Interest

Vancouver, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Alterra Power Corp. (TSX: AXY) announces that following several unsolicited expressions of interest, its subsidiary HS Orka hf will examine strategic alternatives for its 30% ownership interest in the Blue Lagoon tourist resort, up to and including a full sale. Ross Beaty, Alterra's Executive Chairman, said "The Blue Lagoon has grown substantially over the last several years, attracting significant investor attention from Iceland and elsewhere. Since the asset does not comprise a core part of our renewable power business, we think it's time to look at our options." Stoplar Advisory in Iceland (www.stoplar.com) has been engaged to communicate with potential investors and administer the process. About Alterra Power Corp.

Alterra Power Corp. is a global renewable energy company that manages eight power plants totaling 825 MW of hydro, wind, geothermal and solar generation capacity in Canada, the USA and Iceland. Alterra owns a 385 MW share of this capacity, generating over 1,700 GWh of clean power annually. Alterra also has an extensive portfolio of development projects and a skilled team of developers, builders and operators to support its growth plans. Alterra trades o the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol AXY.



About HS Orka hf

Alterra owns 66.6% of HS Orka, the largest privately owned energy company in Iceland. HS Orka supplies 7% of the country's power needs and approximately 11% of the country's heating needs. Installed geothermal power capacity is 174 MW from the Svartsengi and Reykjanes power plants. In addition, HS Orka generates 190 MW of thermal energy for district heating. The Blue Lagoon resort, 30%-owned by HS Orka, adjoins our Svartsengi power plant in Iceland. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements and information included in this news release are "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking information relates to future events or future performance and reflects management's expectations and beliefs regarding future events as of the date hereof. Examples of forward-looking information in this news release include the possibility of HS Orka hf effecting a full sale of the 30% Blue Lagoon interest. Forward-looking information is based on factors or assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection. Since forward-looking information relates to future events and conditions, by its very nature it requires making assumptions and involves inherent risks and uncertainties. Alterra cautions that although it is believed that the assumptions are reasonable in the circumstances, these risks and uncertainties give rise to the possibility that actual results may differ materially from the expectations set out in the forward-looking information. Material risk factors and assumptions include whether HS Orka hf will be successful in pursuing strategic alternatives around the Blue Lagoon interest, in addition to those set out in the management's discussion and analysis section of Alterra's most recent annual and quarterly reports and in Alterra's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016. Although Alterra has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate and undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information. Except as required by law, Alterra undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect new information, subsequently or otherwise. SOURCE Alterra Power Corp.

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[May 16, 2017] Xylem Highlights Practical Solutions to Increase Resilience of the World's Cities in New Publication

As Infrastructure Week 2017 gets underway in the U.S., leading global water technology company Xylem Inc. (NYSE:XYL) has released a white paper outlining strategies to increase the resilience of cities around the world. According to the United Nations, 66 percent of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050, posing a distinct and urgent need to create more resilient urban centers, capable of withstanding environmental challenges and natural disasters. Xylem's publication, entitled Building Resilience: Creating Strong and Sustainable Cities and Communities, identifies strengthening critical infrastructure as one of four core action areas to improve communities' ability to withstand these risks. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006048/en/ Four Actions to Build Urban Resilience (Graphic: Business Wire) "Increasing the resilience of cities is one of the most complex challenges facing public leaders around the world," said Patrick Decker, President and CEO of Xylem. "Many cities are confronting a "new normal" of weather volatility and aging infrastructure which threatens the critical networks upon which lives dpend. Among those threats is a risk to the supply of clean and safe drinking water as well as critical energy services. By creating robust, intelligent systems that are engineered to withstand variability, cities can proactively protect members of their growing populations for years to come."



"We welcome the focus that Infrastructure Week activities bring to the critical issue of urban resilience and hope that our white paper will provide a platform for meaningful dialogue. At Xylem, we are committed to addressing the world's most pressing water challenges through partnership and collaboration. We stand ready to share our global experience with leaders around the world as they seek to build more resilient and sustainable cities." Xylem's white paper identifies four categories of actions to support resilience building:

Ensuring water security - As one-third of the world's population experiences water scarcity at least one month per year, ensuing water security addresses the vital need for cities to supply clean water to the public continuously and reliably in all conditions.

- As one-third of the world's population experiences water scarcity at least one month per year, ensuing water security addresses the vital need for cities to supply clean water to the public continuously and reliably in all conditions. Strengthening critical infrastructure - Urban infrastructure relies on multiple networks to supply city dwellers with vital necessities, including water, food, energy, transportation and other services. Investments in the resilience of these vital systems can help cities reduce losses, ensure operational continuity and save lives.

- Urban infrastructure relies on multiple networks to supply city dwellers with vital necessities, including water, food, energy, transportation and other services. Investments in the resilience of these vital systems can help cities reduce losses, ensure operational continuity and save lives. Driving response and recovery - Taking action to drive response and recovery efforts can lessen the severe impacts of disasters. By responding quickly in the aftermath of disasters - through rapid dewatering, diligent emergency services, and innovative reconstruction efforts - communities can save lives, time, and money.

- Taking action to drive response and recovery efforts can lessen the severe impacts of disasters. By responding quickly in the aftermath of disasters - through rapid dewatering, diligent emergency services, and innovative reconstruction efforts - communities can save lives, time, and money. Engaging community stakeholders - By involving the public in resiliency planning and decisions, communities are empowered to better withstand unexpected climate events that affect their livelihoods and access to water. Xylem's publication also features a selection of case studies, highlighting services and solutions that are contributing to resilience-building efforts in cities and communities around the globe. About Xylem Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to developing innovative technology solutions to the world's water challenges. The Company's products and services move, treat, analyze, monitor and return water to the environment in public utility, industrial, residential and commercial building services, and agricultural settings. With its October 2016 acquisition of Sensus, Xylem added smart metering, network technologies and advanced data analytics for water, gas and electric utilities to its portfolio of solutions. The combined Company's nearly 16,000 employees bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on identifying comprehensive, sustainable solutions. Headquartered in Rye Brook, New York with 2016 revenue of $3.8 billion, Xylem does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands. The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all - that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at www.xylem.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006048/en/

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[May 16, 2017] Tech Startup, Luvr, Brings Digital Video Capability To Mobile Dating

PHILADELPHIA, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Luvr, a new video-based mobile dating application, is now available for download for iOS and Android devices, the company announced today. Combining video-centric features from social apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and Skype, Luvr offers users a familiar, yet unique digital matchmaking experience that stands apart from the biggest names in the online dating space. Unlike popular digital dating services such as Tinder and Bumble, Luvr's 3-tiered communication model allows users to find potential matches by viewing both pre-recorded video bios and pictures of each other, send Snapchat-like video snaps, and video chat right from the app. "One of the great things about video is that it allows you to pick up on subtle nuances about a person's personality, their mannerisms, their sense of humor, and other traits that tell you much more about who that person is and what they're actually like versus a static photo that might be several years old and not an accurate representation of who that person is today," said Luvr CEO Oliver Buckley. <>To ensure all uploaded video and photo content is up-to-date, Luvr incorporates an official timestamp feature that shows when the video or photo was taken. This also helps eliminate problems with catfishing -- those who create a false online identity or misrepresent themselves to lure would-be partners into a romantic relationship.



Luvr's "Double Swipe Verification System" adds an extra layer onto the familiar swipe left/swipe right functionality. Swiping left lets users pass and continue searching for matches. Swiping right once lets users learn more information about a potential match, and swiping right again means they would consider meeting that person in real life to see. The company has developed an advanced filter process that allows users to narrow their search criteria by sexual preference, body type, and race and ethnicity, with plans to add religious preferences in the future. Users can also simply browse matches aggregated from the app's geo-location-based technology.

When asked about what he saw as the future of online dating, Buckley said, "More and more, people are taking advantage of video as a go-to medium when it comes to interacting with their social groups. Whether that's on Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, you name it. With Luvr, we're simply applying that capability to the mobile dating scene to give people the added benefits it delivers over the limitations of today's photo-only alternatives." To get Luvr for iPhone, click here. To get Luvr for Android, click here. To learn more about Luvr, visit their website here. For more information about this story, contact:

Oliver Buckley | CEO

Luvr, Inc.

[email protected]

215.399.9763

www.luvr.us To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tech-startup-luvr-brings-digital-video-capability-to-mobile-dating-300458235.html SOURCE Luvr

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[May 16, 2017] Deloitte Consulting to launch initiative with SAP to accelerate next-generation digital offerings powered by SAP Leonardo

ORLANDO, Fla., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- To help clients rapidly develop capabilities for addressing some of tomorrow's most complex challenges, Deloitte Consulting today announced its intention to team with SAP America, Inc. to build a new suite of services for enabling digital transformation. Deloitte Consulting and SAP are expected to co-innovate on the development of offerings that will help organizations benefit from the expanded SAP Leonardo portfolioto automate processes, gain deeper insights for decision-making, and deliver innovation and value throughout the enterprise. SAP Leonardo is a Digital Innovation System that combines machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, blockchain technology, analytics, and big data on SAP Cloud Platform to enable rapid innovation that can scale across the entire organization. Deloitte Consulting and SAP also intend to create new "micro-services" that extend the capabilities of SAP Leonardo, with an initial plan to focus on offerings that address evolving machine learning, analytics, and IoT needs in finance and throughout the supply chain. "As businesses strive to adopt digital business models, they are seeking trusted technology that enables them to operate with more agility, to deliver more effective results and to simplify their operations," said Rob Enslin, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and President of Cloud Business Group, SAP. "With SAP Leonardo, we are delivering industry-specific innovation capabilities and services that integrate with core business applications, so that customers can build a seamless bridge between operating and innovating. Working closely with Deloitte Consulting, we expect to develop truly innovative digital solutions." The first solutions planned to launch under the new co-innovation initiative will provide clients with "Lights Out Finance" and "Live Factory" capabilities. With Lights Out Finance, clients might deploy cognitive and robotic extensions to help automate financial processes, includng shared services. Live Factory will be aimed at helping organizations connect the shop floor through SAP Leonardo, enabling predictive decision-making to help improve throughput and reduce bottlenecks.



"These solutions are just the beginning. Through this collaboration, we're building a foundationa set of co-innovation practices and processesthat will help position Deloitte Consulting to continuously develop and refine digital solutions for clients across industries," said Jim Moffatt, Deloitte Managing Partner, Global Consulting. "By working together to invent digital solutions that address tomorrow's finance and supply chain needs, SAP will gain Deloitte Consulting's in-depth business process knowledge and understanding of how organizations will use technologies in the future. In turn, we are gaining from SAP deeper insights into the art of the possible with the power of SAP Leonardo and upcoming enhancements to SAP S/4HANA." What's next? Additional offerings under the umbrellas of "Finance Innovation" and "Supply Chain Innovation" are planned for design and release in the future. Deloitte Consulting and SAP also plan to develop and release a series of industry-specific offerings to help organizations accelerate digital transformation with software as a service (SaaS), providing "SaaS Innovation for Digital Core" to industries.

Finance, the supply chain, and SaaS represent potential hotbeds of activity when it comes to the future of digital. Many leaders seeking to gain an edge in tomorrow's economy understand that these are areas in which they will have to innovate if they want to simplify core functions, manage the bottom line, deliver new products and services, leverage the cloud to streamline business, generate new value, and remain competitive. "It's a terrific fit," Moffatt said. "SAP technology solutions such as SAP Leonardo and SAP S/4HANA Cloud allow organizations to 'run simple.' And Deloitte Consultingas a technology enabler and thought leadercan help organizations deploy those SAP solutions while also positioning them to realize new value in the rapidly evolving digital economy. Clients looking to gain an edge to compete in tomorrow's environment will want the kind of solutions Deloitte Consulting is bringing to market through this new collaboration." As used in this press release, "Deloitte Consulting" refers only to the Deloitte member firms' Consulting practices. About Deloitte

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. Deloitte provides audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries. Deloitte serves four out of five Fortune Global 500 companies through a globally connected network of member firms in more than 150 countries bringing world-class capabilities, insights, and high-quality service to address clients' most complex business challenges. To learn more about how Deloitte's approximately 245,000 professionals make an impact that matters, please connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deloitte-consulting-to-launch-initiative-with-sap-to-accelerate-next-generation-digital-offerings-powered-by-sap-leonardo-300458504.html SOURCE Deloitte

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[May 16, 2017] Preferred Systems Solutions Named Private Company Deal Team of the Year at the 2017 Corporate Growth Awards

Preferred Systems Solutions, Inc. (PSS) was recognized as the 2017 Private Company Deal Team of the Year by ACG National Capital. PSS was selected from a pool of the most accomplished and successful deal teams in the D.C. business community by the 2017 Corporate Growth Awards Committee. The award was presented at a black tie gala on May 11, 2017. "ACG National Capital Corporate Growth Award winners represent the very best in middle-market business management and innovation," said Shooter Starr, Client Advisor at Brown Advisory and the chair of the 2017 Corporate Growth Awards Committee. "The companies and business leaders selected for these prestigious awards are chosen specifically for their accomplishment and creativity in growing their businesses and in driving corporate growth." The ACG National Capital Corporate Growth Awards recognize the enterprises and individuals in the greater Washington, D.C. metro area's business community that have exhibited excellence in corporate growth and dealmaking over the past year. The PSS growth strategy focuses on developing and maintaining the necessary core capabilities to provide the latest technological developments to support our customers' missions. Our organic growth objectives are augmented by targeted acquisitions that significantly expand our professional services core capabilities and substantially increase our presence across a broad spectrum of critical national security programs. Successfully completing six acquisitions in less than 30 months, two f them in 2016, has been achieved by quickly integrating these companies through a coordinated financial and business-driven due diligence process and a parallel "cultural" due diligence process orchestrated by our PSS deal team.



"I am extremely proud of what PSS has accomplished in creating an industry leading company through a purposeful acquisition program that seeks to expand our capabilities and positively impact our customer's missions" said Scott Goss, CEO, Preferred Systems Solutions. "Equally important our holistic approach to integration provides every employee the opportunity for personal and professional growth." About PSS

PSS provides acquisition, financial management, program management, and IT support services to the Intelligence Community (IC), FBI, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Defense Logistics Agency, U.S. Transportation Command, Department of Transportation, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). For more information, visit www.pssfed.com, or email [email protected]. About ACG National Capital ACG National Capital, a chapter of the international association, ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) that serves Washington, D.C., northern Virginia and southern Maryland, drives middle-market growth and increases deal flow. It provides unparalleled opportunities for networking, deal making and professional development for individuals involved in building corporate value through M&A, strategic partnerships, organic growth and capital funding. ACG National Capital's veteran leadership and its membership have participated in nearly every M&A transaction completed recently in the D.C. metro region with over 400 members. For more information, visit www.acgcapital.org or the ACG online publication at www.acgcapitalblog.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006432/en/

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[May 16, 2017] Local Media Consortium Members Address Digital Media in an Era of Change During Spring Meeting in Chicago, May 16-17

SARASOTA, Fla., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Local Media Consortium (LMC), a strategic partnership of leading local media companies, today kicked off its spring 2017 meeting with opening remarks from Rusty Coats, executive director, LMC. More than 150 member representatives, partners and staff across print, digital and broadcast media are in attendance at the two-day event being held at the Hilton Chicago. The conference includes 18 sessions on topics ranging from ad blocking to local media audience extension. Keynote speakers include Mark Stoever, CEO of Monster.com on "Leading a Digital Media Company in an Era of Change;" Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships at Facebook, on "How Facebook is Partnering with News Publishers;" Richard Gingras, Google's vice president of news, on "Building a Better, Open Web;" and Amazon Alexa's Michael Francisco, head of Alexa skills kit partnerships, on "Reaching Local Audiences with Amazon Alexa and the Local Media Consortium." "We're pleased to welcome such a high caliber group of keynote speakers to our event, which we expect to be one of the LMC's most successful meetings ever," said Rusty Coats, executive director, LMC. "This setting and these topics enable us to have meaningful discussions about local media growth in the digital age, including how best to work with technology and marketing leaders like Amazon, Facebook Monster and Google."



Day one of the event will wrap up with a reception sponsored by Monster.com, an LMC service provider partner since 2011. "Monster is honored to have our CEO Mark Stoever speak at the annual Local Media Consortium meeting," said Matt O'Connor, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Monster. "Monster's commitment to the newspaper industry goes hand-in-hand with our longstanding relationship with the LMC, and we highly value the great work this alliance has enabled us to do for and with the LMC's robust community of local newspapers and media companies."

"I'm incredibly proud of the joint efforts the LMC and Monster make to provide innovative content and solutions to the Consortium's members, and to work with these outlets to deliver greater value for their customers and communities by connecting more people and job opportunities in the digital age," added Mark Stoever, Chief Executive Officer at Monster. "I am delighted to have the opportunity to expand on this topic and Monster's commitment to the LMC by speaking at their annual meeting among such an incredible list of fellow presenters." ABOUT THE LOCAL MEDIA CONSORTIUM: The Local Media Consortium is a strategic partnership of leading local media companies focused on increasing member companies' share of digital revenue and audience by pursuing new relationships with a variety of technology companies and service providers. The LMC was founded in 2013 to address the needs of advertisers seeking to reach high-quality audiences on brand safe local digital properties at scale. In addition, the LMC provides members with access to leading technology and content solutions by fostering key partnerships with companies including Google, Monster, Yahoo and others. LMC membership encompasses more than 75 local media companies in top markets across the United States and Puerto Rico, and includes more than 1,700 publications. The LMC audience footprint currently spans 155 million unique monthly visitors and its member companies serve more than four billion page views to readers. More information is available at www.localmediaconsortium.com. Or follow @LMConsortium on Twitter for #LMCSpring17 updates. For further information, contact:

Thatcher+Co

Christina Gilham, 917-825-6990

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/local-media-consortium-members-address-digital-media-in-an-era-of-change-during-spring-meeting-in-chicago-may-16-17-300458551.html SOURCE Local Media Consortium

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[May 16, 2017] Ivanti Releases Free 90-Day Patch License Following WannaCrypt Attack

SALT LAKE CITY, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ivanti has released a free 90-day patch license in response to the global WannaCrypt ransomware attack. Until June 15, 2017, organizations can request the free license, available here, enabling IT teams to rapidly deploy patch management to all Windows workstations and servers in their environments, including legacy platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Server 2003. The WannaCrypt attack, launched on May 12, 2017, is distributed via phishing emails that target end users. After users open and execute a malicious payload embedded in the email, the malware installs itself and starts encrypting files immediately. WannaCrypt then spreads within the network using the "Windows SMB Remote Code Execution Vulnerability," affecting all Windows versions from XP to Server 2016. Microsoft released an emergency security patch for unsupported Windows versions, including XP, Vista, Windows 8, and Server 2003 and 2008 editions on May 13, 2017. Initially the attack appeared isolated to the United Kingdommore specifically to the NHS (National Health Service)but within a few hours it was reported as a global incident. It is believed that 200,000 organizations have been affected in 150 countries, including Russia, Spain, and the United States. Although a "kill switch" was triggered n the day of the attack, the likelihood of further attacks is undisputed. Some security professionals are already claiming that a new variant without a kill switch, Uiwix, has been released. Ivanti's 90-day offer allows organizations to use the Ivanti patch management solution tailored to their Windows environment to remove the vulnerability WannaCrypt and the new variants it is exploiting.



Organizations seeking the free patch license should go to https://go.ivanti.com/Ransomware-Get-Well-Quick.html and answer a few simple questions to receive a patch management solution that is tailored to their needs. The free solution will: Update Windows operating systems and third-party apps

Easily patch legacy operating systems and third-party apps from the SCCM console with no added infrastructure or training

Provide patches thoroughly tested by Ivanti's engineers to ensure proper patch compliance "At Ivanti, we believe that the worldwide technology community must band together to defeat global malicious phenomena like WannaCrypt. That's why we're providing this free 90-day offer," said Simon Townsend, EMEA Chief Technologist of Ivanti. "Moving forward we need to take a more preventative approach to fighting cyber-crime. Antivirus alone simply won't work. Organizations must adopt defense-in-depth strategies to protect networks and infrastructure, including patching the OS and applications, application whitelisting, and minimizing admin privileges."

Ivanti also hosted a webinar on May 15, 2017, where 3,000 customers registered to listen to a panel of Ivanti experts discuss the current state of the WannaCrypt threat and what they could do to protect themselves against the malware and any variants that will follow. The webinar is now available for public use here. About Ivanti Ivanti is IT evolved. By integrating and automating critical IT tasks, Ivanti helps IT organizations secure the digital workplace. For more than three decades, Ivanti has helped IT professionals address security threats, manage devices, and optimize their user experience. From traditional PCs to mobile devices, virtual machines, and the data center, Ivanti helps discover and manage your IT assets wherever they are located, improving IT service delivery and reducing risk. Ivanti also ensures that supply chain and warehouse teams are effectively leveraging the most up-to-date technology to improve productivity throughout their operation. Ivanti is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has offices all over the world. For more information, visit www.ivanti.com. Copyright  2017, Ivanti. All rights reserved. Press Contacts Helen Carroll

Ivanti

+44 1344 407005

[email protected]

Amberly Asay

Method Communications

+1 801-461-9776

[email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ivanti-releases-free-90-day-patch-license-following-wannacrypt-attack-300458659.html SOURCE Ivanti

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[May 16, 2017] Export Portal Responds To US Small Business Administration Linda McMahon's 1% Export Statistic At United Nations

GLENDALE, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- At a recent gathering of American business leaders at the United Nations, US Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon stated that nearly 29 million small businesses in America are "The engine of our economy." However, McMahon continues that only 1% of all of America's small businesses are exporters. Export Portal & ExportPortal.com want Administrator McMahon to know that we feel the pain of this statistic. There is no script when it comes to being scammed by overseas buyers, but Export Portal has spent the past seven years putting togethr the best blockchain trade solution on the market to solve all the questions business people have about exporting goods.



Export Portal's E-Commerce platform is rapidly expanding in international markets and US companies are well known for producing quality products. The United States cannot just turn on the hiring spigot and increase manufacturing without buyers and the "96% of the world's consumers and over three-quarters of the world's purchasing power" that are outside of the country. We hear you Administrator McMahon. We want the value or stock price of all US companies to go up, not down. What's best for all of America is best for business, and no one in America wants to ever hear the phrase, "You're fired." Export Portal invites small and medium sized businesses across America to increase this 1% exporting statistic by joining ExportPortal.com for free!

Tap in to our ExportPortal.com ecosystem and tap out the fear of international expansion when you tag team with global businesses. Export Portal - The online trading website with buyer protection. For more information, visit ExportPortal.com or call at (800) 289-0015. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/export-portal-responds-to-us-small-business-administration-linda-mcmahons-1-export-statistic-at-united-nations-300458693.html SOURCE ExportPortal.com

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[May 16, 2017] Green Bay Packer Jayrone Elliott, UnitedHealthcare Help Beautify Townsend Street School, Announce Second Year of "Blessings in a Backpack" Food Program

Green Bay Packers linebacker Jayrone Elliott and UnitedHealthcare teamed up today for a volunteer service project at Milwaukee Public Schools' Townsend Street School in the Sherman Park neighborhood. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006735/en/ Redona Williams, Townsend Elementary School principal; Jayrone Elliott, Green Bay Packers linebacker; Dustin Hinton, CEO and president, UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin; and Dr. Reginald Lawrence II, regional superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools, announced UnitedHealthcare's $11,000 donation to Elliott's Dreambuilders program at Townsend Street School in Milwaukee. The donation will be used to fund Blessings in a Backpack, a national nonprofit that provides students with bags of nutritious food each weekend (Photo courtesy of UnitedHealthcare). Employee volunteers from UnitedHealthcare helped beautify the school by mulching and pulling weeds, painting walls, and reorganizing and restocking bookshelves in the school library. Elliott, the 2016 Green Bay Packers Walter Payton Man of the Year, joined the UnitedHealthcare employees at the school for the volunteer activity and to announce support of the Blessings in a Backpack program for another academic year. UnitedHealthcare donated $11,000 to Elliott's Dreambuilders program to fund Blessings in a Backpack, a national nonprofit that provides students with bags of nutritious food. Beginning with the new school year in August, more than 100 students will leave Townsend every Friday with healthy food and snacks for the weekend. During today's event, Elliott and UnitedHealthcare donated backpacks of healthy food to all of Townsend's 320 students. "Making sure children have healthy food available on the weekend is very important to me, and I'm excited to partner with UnitedHealthcare to ensre that takes place at Townsend Street School," said Elliott. "The food we give these kids each Friday during the school year through Blessings in a Backpack will make sure they get the nutrition they need."



"UnitedHealthcare is grateful for the opportunity to support Townsend Street School and partner with Jayrone Elliott's Dreambuilders to promote healthy lifestyles and good eating habits," said Dustin Hinton, president and CEO, UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin. Last year, in addition to supporting Blessings in a Backpack, UnitedHealthcare granted funds to Townsend to renovate a student activity center.

"We are fortunate to have partners who care deeply about the community they serve and the children who live in it," said Dr. Darienne Driver, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. "We hope the generosity of UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin and Jayrone Elliott's Dreambuilders program inspires others to action." This project is the latest in UnitedHealthcare's "Do Good. Live Well." employee volunteer initiative, whose mission is to prevent hunger and obesity, inspire service and encourage volunteerism. For more information about the benefits of volunteering and to find local opportunities to get involved, visit www.DoGoodLiveWell.org. Follow @DoGoodLiveWell on Twitter (News - Alert) or "like" Do Good. Live Well. on Facebook. About Blessings in a Backpack

Hunger has both short- and long-term negative effects on children's health and ability to succeed in school. Blessings in a Backpack mobilizes communities, individuals and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry. Blessings in a Backpack currently feeds more than 76,000 children in 44 states and the District of Columbia. For more information visit www.blessingsinabackpack.org. About Dreambuilders

The Dreambuilders Foundation is a non-profit organization that works with pro athletes across the country to help financially, physically and mentally-challenged kids receive the items, opportunities and equipment they need to reach their dreams. About UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with 1 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @myUHC on Twitter. About Milwaukee Public Schools

Milwaukee Public Schools is committed to accelerating student achievement, building positive relationships between youth and adults and cultivating leadership at all levels. The district's commitment to improvement continues to show results: More MPS students are taking college-level Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses;

The MPS Class of 2015 earned $39+ million in scholarships; and

MPS is home to seven of the state's top high schools according to U.S. News and World Report and the Washington Post. Click here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for UnitedHealth Group. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006735/en/

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[May 16, 2017] NOWDiagnostics CEO Kevin Clark to Address Technology Conference

NOWDiagnostics Inc. (NOWDx) CEO Kevin Clark has been selected to deliver one of two keynote addresses at the NWA TechFest regional technology conference on Thursday, May 18 in Fayetteville, Ark. Billed as "For Geeks By Geeks," TechFest brings together the tech community to learn from and interact with one another. The conference also promotes gender diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), economic development opportunities for corporations, and education programs for students and teachers. Proceeds from the conference go to assist STEM-related initiatives in the Northwest Arkansas community. For 2017, NWA TechFest proudly introduces the event's second keynote speaker, Kevin Clark. Clark is a proven leader with extensive experience scaling diagnostics companies from inception to lucrative exit on a global scale. He will speak to the group of self-professed "Geeks" about the importance of technology, data and innovation in healthcare.



NOWDx is a leader in innovative diagnostics testing. Its ADEXUSDx product line features a lab at your fingertip, using a single drop of blood to test for a variety of common conditions, illnesses and diseases with results in a matter of minutes. By eliminating the need to send tests to off-site laboratories, NOWDx has the potential to decrease the waiting period to determine test results by days. The company has been named by Talk Business & Politics | NWA Business Journal as one of the top startups to watch in 2017 and is a finalist for this year's Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) competition. The company's Springdale, Ark., facility was officially registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2014. The company is currently offering an hCG (pregnancy) test in the United States and Europe as well as three cardiac (heart attack) tests and three toxicology tests in Europe. Additional tests are in the development pipeline, including sexually transmitted diseases, more cardiac tests, food intolerances, common infectious diseases and a variety of screening tests.

Among his many accomplishments, Clark was the Executive VP and Founding Member of the Arkansas Biotechnology Association and has served on the Board for the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation and Arkansas BioVentures. NWA TechFest is a technology conference that brings together the tech community to learn from and interact with one another, as well as promote gender diversity in STEM, economic development opportunities for corporations, and education programs for students and teachers. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006782/en/

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Proposed Kentucky constitutional amendment to end right to an abortion defeated in vote
Rolanda Longoria grew up a Malone baby, her life revolving around the neighborhood center near 20th and Vine. She attended its daycare, worked there in high school, took part in its programs.

She was happy when three of her own kids joined the Malone Centers youth groups. They found important peer support there, she said. Strong role models.

But then, earlier this year, the center canceled the groups annual summer trip. Longorias kids were crushed, and she was struggling for the right words.

The question I faced at home was, Mom, you told us to trust adults and do the right things and now look what the adults have done. As a parent, I had no way to answer that. That was the toughest part of it; it destroyed trust with adults that Id worked so hard to instill into them.

Ahsan Naseem grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan, moved to Lincoln 16 years ago and knew nothing about the Malone Center or its canceled youth group trip until he read about it in the news.

I knew probably some solution would come around and then I thought, maybe it wont. If it doesnt, wouldnt that be a shame?

He also thought: What could other immigrants like himself do to help?

What could other Muslims do?

It would be a good opportunity to show, as people who have adopted the U.S. as our home, that we take it seriously. We want to own the problems here, and try to solve them as well.

The problem: The Malone Center's youth groups -- the Talented Tenth for boys, and Strong and Courageous Girls -- were funded for the first time this year by roughly $24,000 in grants from the Nebraska Crime Commission's Community-based Juvenile Services Aid Program, administered by Lancaster County.

The grant's rules all but prohibit out-of-state travel. The Malone Center's application would have had to request permission for the trip -- and it didn't. Also, the governor's travel ban announced last October would have prevented the teens from leaving Nebraska.

By the time Malone Center director Larry Williams realized this, youth group members had spent much of the summer and school year raising more than $9,000 for their summer reward for good behavior.

In late March, Williams killed the trip to save the grant, but the damage was done. Club coordinators Anthony and Evelyn Kelley were fired when they challenged the decision, Anthony Kelley said.

And all of the youth group members quit the Malone Center, Kelley said, choosing to continue meeting with the Kelleys at Quinn Chapel on South Ninth Street.

The relationships Ive built with some of these kids, it was difficult to tell them the programs not going to be there, Kelley said. I was like, No, we need to keep this going.'

The clubs provide social and academic support, Kelley said. They help the teens become stronger members of their family and community. The summer trips serve as an incentive for good grades, school attendance, keeping out of trouble and staying active in the clubs.

Theyve traveled to Kansas City, Minneapolis and Chicago. They were considering going to Florida or back to Chicago this year.

The cancellation felt like another broken promise to the kids, whod held up their end of the deal.

How many times should an underprivileged kid be told something and then it doesnt happen for them? Kelley said. Theyve been hearing this all of their life.

Naseem thought the same thing when he learned about the teens: They worked hard. They should get what they earned.

After contacting Kelley, Naseem helped start an online fundraiser to pay for the trip, so far raising more than $3,600. They need to reach $9,000 by mid-June.

The psychiatrist moved to the United States for his residency at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. His arrival in Lincoln for a job at the VA Hospital was supposed to be temporary.

The plan was to get my green card and move back to Detroit. But we fell in love with his town. We call ourselves Lincolnites. We call ourselves Nebraskans.

Hell take donations from anyone, but hes been urging other new Americans, and other Muslims, to help the teens take their trip. And to send a deeper message.

Immigrants are sometimes categorized in a broad way as being a liability or a strain on American society. That is far from the truth, he said. I want to show that people who are not born and raised in Nebraska are still part of the fabric, and we do our best to try to help.

Longoria has helped, too. In April, she and her mother had a Mexican food sale -- rice and beans and dinner plates -- and raised more than $600.

Shes sad her children are no longer affiliated with the Malone Center, she said, but pleased the groups are still meeting elsewhere. The support is critical.

It gives them a chance to hang with kids their age. They cant always talk to mom and dad about things. This helps them find coping skills to get through their daily tasks.

The trips help her. She couldnt afford to send her kids on a vacation to Florida or Chicago. But the summer trips are more than vacations, she said. They open her childrens eyes to a bigger world.

They let them know there are experiences outside of Nebraska. They dont need to limit themselves to whats here.
ZeniMax Media accused Samsung of using stolen technologies in Gear VR products built for the Oculus platform. The company said in a May 12 complaint to a U.S. District Court that Samsung "was aware, or reasonably should have been aware, that Oculus acquired its VR technology" by violating its intellectual property rights. ZeniMax said in the complaint that it's seeking damages and injunctive relief "that will fairly and fully compensate it" for Samsung's alleged usage of ZeniMax-developed technologies in the various Gear VR products that have debuted since 2015.

This is just the latest of ZeniMax's lawsuits alleging that Oculus was built on the back of its research. ZeniMax said in a 2014 lawsuit that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and CTO John Carmack, who previously co-founded iD Software, stole trade secrets to develop the VR technologies at Oculus' core. That suit wasn't resolved until February, when a jury ordered Oculus, Luckey, and CEO Brendan Iribe to pay $500 million. But it's important to note that the jury cleared Oculus and Facebook of misappropriating trade secrets. The $500 million was awarded for breaking NDAs.

Shortly after the jury's decision, Carmack published a Facebook post taking issue with ZeniMax's expert, who he accused of "misdirection" and "selective omissions." Then, in March, he filed a lawsuit claiming that ZeniMax still owes him $22.5 million for the 2009 acquisition of iD Software. Carmack said that money hasn't been paid because of "sour grapes." Chances are good that a $500 million lawsuit is more than just "sour grapes," and ZeniMax's decision to file this suit against Samsung backs up that notion, but Carmack's complaint is tangential to the core dispute.

That dispute isn't worth repeating again, but the top level is that ZeniMax made several "breakthroughs" in VR technology back in 2012. Carmack led the company's research efforts, and he has been accused of repeatedly sharing information with Luckey before joining Oculus in 2013. According to ZeniMax's complaint against Samsung, Carmack took "thousands of ZeniMax's confidential documents and millions of lines of confidential code" with him to Oculus. That's where Samsung comes in. Here's the crux of ZeniMax's complaint, which was published by Polygon (opens in new tab):

The code and confidential documents stolen by Carmack from ZeniMax permitted Oculus to secretly develop a mobile software developer kit (Mobile SDK) and related software for the Samsung Gear VR. This Mobile SDK and related software  obtained and utilized by Samsung from Oculus uses ZeniMaxs trade secrets and copyrighted code and was obtained by Oculus (and subsequently by Samsung) in violation of the contractual obligations owed by Oculus and Luckey to ZeniMax under the NDA and in violation of the contractual obligations owed by Carmack under his employment agreement with ZeniMax.

Tom's Hardware reached out to ZeniMax to confirm that the suit is legitimate, but we have not yet received a response. We also reached out to Samsung, and a company spokesperson said that "We do not comment on pending litigation." That could be a confirmation of sorts--saying you don't comment on pending litigation is like saying you don't comment on the theft of baked goods when someone asks what happened to their cookie jar--but it could also be a boilerplate response. ZeniMax has demanded a jury trial for this suit, so we'll find out soon enough.

It's clear that ZeniMax carefully decided when to follow this lawsuit. First is the fact that it follows its partial victory against Oculus, which is referenced several times in this complaint as evidence that its intellectual property was used in Oculus' products, even though the company was cleared of misappropriating trade secrets. Second is the release of new Gear VR products, including an updated headset and a new controller, in April. Both factors probably make it much easier to argue that Samsung's benefiting from ZeniMax's research on VR technologies.

ZeniMax Media is something of a gaming juggernaut. It owns iD Software, Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane Studios, Escalation Studios, and others. The disputed tech was developed by iD Software after it was bought by ZeniMax, which would make it the parent company's intellectual property.
May 11 marked the 36th anniversary of Bob Marleys death, and as a solemn tribute to all the great man achieved in his short lifetime, Ben & Jerrys are using his face to sell an ice cream flavour.

Bob Marleys One Love is a limited-batch banana ice cream with caramel and graham cracker swirls and fudge peace signs.

Jeff Furman, a board member at Ben & Jerrys, compares the multinational company to Marley  a noted Rastafarian who rejected much of the systems in place in the Western world as evil and oppressive. I mean, the words, one love, one heart: that touches everybody in every language. Thats very connected to the kind of company we want to be. We dont do it through music, we do it through ice cream.

Its worth noting that a portion of proceeds will benefit the One Love Camp in Jamaica, a youth education and empowerment camp. Its also worth noting that Ben & Jerrys is owned by Unilever, who own hundreds of household brands, and will benefit from this exploitation of Bob Marleys name far more than any camp.

Then again, the ice cream has fudge peace signs in it, and Bob loved peace, so this is quite the moral quandary.
SAN DIEGO -- Politicians speak for a living. So they should be especially careful with their words.

When elected officials make inflammatory statements that exploit fears and drive people apart, they need to be called out and told to pipe down.

Over the years, I have often pummeled Rep. Steve King. The Iowa Republican recently said that whites needn't worry about becoming the statistical minority in America because their saving grace will be a race war between Latinos and African-Americans.

But, as one of the few Latino columnists with a national soapbox, I have a special duty to speak up when the loudmouth elected official is one of ours.

And so, Kevin de Leon, this pummeling is for you.

The president pro tempore of the California Senate is vying to be the state's chief antagonist to President Trump.

This is nice work if you can get it. Hillary Clinton beat Trump in California by 4.3 million votes.

Besides, since Trump often uses Latino immigrants as his foil, who better to shepherd the resistance on the Left Coast than the first Latino to lead the California state Senate in more than 130 years? It's poetry.

De Leon's bid to be the anti-Trump began the morning after the election when he released -- with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon -- a joint statement calling the election results "clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California."

Even for a Never Trumper like me, the level of defiance was stunning.

De Leon then authored a bill, SB 54, that would make California into a so-called "sanctuary state" for people who are in the country illegally. The legislation would bar state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources -- including police officers -- to help with immigration enforcement.

No matter what conservatives say, this isn't sanctuary. Federal immigration agents would still apprehend illegal immigrants in California.

But the de Leon bill does foolishly play into the hands of Republicans who want to portray both Democrats and Latinos as supporting open borders.

When the bill passed the state Senate last month, de Leon called the vote "a rejection of President Trump's false and cynical portrayal of undocumented residents as a lawless community."

Right. Why would anyone consider illegal immigrants a lawless community?

When the president threatened to withhold funds from those fabled sanctuary cities, de Leon called the threat "morally repugnant" and said that Trump's immigration enforcement was fueled by "white supremacy."

It warms the heart to see a unifier in action.

Here's what I've learned after many years of writing about immigration: Much of white America is skittish about the changing demographics of our country, and California is no exception. So, if you're part of the Latino community -- which makes up 39 percent of the state's population -- why kick white folks in the teeth? You'll only create more Trump voters.

Now for the worst part. Looking at de Leon's record in the Legislature -- particularly during the eight years of the Obama administration -- I don't think he believes his own rants. His conversion from Democratic loyalist to racial arsonist is a little too cute. He seems like a phony who would probably be much more compliant if Hillary Clinton were president and leading the crackdown on illegal immigration.

I don't remember de Leon kicking up a ruckus when Barack Obama deported nearly 3 million people, divided hundreds of thousands of families, and dumped tens of thousands of U.S.-born children into foster care after kicking their parents out of the country.

I do remember what the lawmaker said in the summer of 2014. That's when the Obama administration gave a rude reception to more than 80,000 Central American refugees, mostly women and children.

About 575 children between the ages of 13 and 17 were held, in spartan quarters and without legal counsel, in a federal detention facility in Southern California. A group of Latino legislators, including de Leon, toured the compound.

Then-state Sen. Norma Torres, a Democrat who hails from Guatemala and now serves in Congress, was moved and declared the situation a "humanitarian crisis."

De Leon also appeared to have been moved, by the political expediency of not criticizing a Democratic president. After the visit, in a conference call with reporters, de Leon played the good soldier.

"Collectively, we came to the conclusion that we are quite satisfied with the conditions," he said.

You see, in the Trump era, if Kevin de Leon seems clumsy in defending immigrants and refugees, you should cut him some slack. It's all new to him.
"The Hickman Mills School District in Kansas City, Missouri, is trying to recapture the stability and success it enjoyed decades ago. It's new superintendent, Yolanda Cargile, is a big part of that effort. She grew up poor and wants to serve as a role model for today's students."

Better than any other local news outlet, our blog community has followed the misadventures of Hickman Mills amid School Board musical chairs, behind the scenes power plays and phony accreditation schemes.A recent public TV clip attempts to look for a bright side . . .Check the description:You decide:
"Alleges that he was raped by an HIV-infected inmate in the jails medical pod in September. The lawsuit said he was lying on the floor, teeth knocked out, and crying when the guard walked in. Rather than help, she allegedly handed a white substance to the attacker. The victim lawsuit said he later determined the substance was cocaine."
Snow & Co. has opened their new frozen craft cocktail bar in Westport, just in time to bring chilly comfort from the rising temps outside. Owners, Jerry Nevins, Andy Talbert and Lauren Cloud moved their frozen cocktail lounge from its...
SHAME OF THE KANSAS CITY AIRPORT BLOCKING TKC FROM WIFI WHILST BURNS & MAC ATTEMPT TO WIN AN EPIC $2-BILLION NO BID CONTRACT!!!

Actually, we've been annoying airport dude Joe McBride with our complaints over this for about 10 years and he has been rather helpful and patient with denizens ofTo wit . . .It's not really that big of a deal given that our website is optimized for mobile and readers from Bangladesh to South Africa have been able to enjoy our content amid much harsher bandwidth limitations than stingy American telcoms.Still, the censorship practice is somewhat annoying in light of our blog community's currentregarding theunderway when hottie lingerie and unfiltered opinions are the crucial to the discussion and a rush vote pushed forward by Mayor Sly.Again the block has been lifted and reinforced and then foist back upon us constantly . . . Yet we remain consistent about all of the sketchy airport schemes whilst more than a few regimes and power players have crashed and burned.Developing . . .
Trump's Tax Plan Sends Shivers Down Trumpland's Spine Back in April, Donald Trump sent out a pair of Goldman Sachs alums to unveil his grand tax plan. Essentially, it was "tax cuts!" written over and over again in 14-point font that was, amazingly, not Comic Sans. Tax cuts for corporations. Tax cuts for the wealthy.

At the very least, this Vanity Fair hit piece features much more writing talent and vivid description than so many hacks pounding away into the social media echo chamber. Checkit:
CONGRESSMAN CLEAVER CALLS FOR AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO PREZ TRUMP SHARING U.S. INTELLIGENCE WITH THE RUSSIANS!!!

Congressman Cleavers Statement Regarding Leaks of Classified Information

This report that President Trump may have provided highly classified information to senior Russian officials is beyond disturbing. Congress must immediately be briefed on what, if anything, was provided to Russian senior officials, and whether it could impact the national security interest of the United States. Additionally, the seriousness of these allegations cannot be understated. Its past time for an independent commission.

















President Trump says he had thebut the latest political misstep has emboldened Democratic Party leaders.Accordingly . . .Here's the word . . .######And whilst the Congressman is choosing his words carefully, the Prez offers a rabid defense of his actions andthat he shared info with Russian officials per his authority as Prez.Developing . . .
LOOK FOR POLITICOS TO START TALKING ABOUT KANSAS CITY POLICE "CULTURE" AMID A PUSH TO SEEK NEW LEADERSHIP FROM OUTSIDE THE DEPARTMENT!!!

But the reality is that the selection of a new Kansas City Chief of Police is a secretive, byzantine and highly political process with community participation put on mostly for show.

SHOULD THE NEW KCPD CHIEF COME FROM WITHIN OR OUTSIDE THE DEPARTMENT???

Right now the Police Board is on the cusp of a groundbreaking move that would recommend the appointment of the first female Chief of Police in Kansas City history. Opposition from within the department and throughout Missouri hopes to prevent this bit of leadership progress.To wit . . .Personally, most of the names being thrown around are all fine prospective leaders . . .Kansas City voters have absolutely no say in the matter and very little checks or balances against public officials who make this decision thanks to the state-run department - The selection of a Chief is actually one of the more apt arguments in favor of City Hall KCPD control.Still . . . The top cop audition wasn't as fun last night according to insiders and the real impact is that the Gov. and the Missouri GOP hegemony looking to make animpact here in Kansas City by way of tougher law enforcement and a departure from past administrations.And so we put the question to our blog community . . .You decide . . .
The opening of the Aqua Gallery, the exciting new art space of Aqua Vista Hotels, which is housed in the Art Hotel at Pyrgos Santorini, took place with great success on Sunday 7 May. The exhibition entitled From Athens to Santorini: Greeks artists' trips is the first in a series of events which have been planned within the framework of the art platform #Rest@rt, and it was received with the highest critical acclaim.

Aqua Gallery opened its doors for the first time on Sunday 7 May to present the group work From Athens to Santorini: Greeks artists' trips in collaboration with the Eos art gal-lery under the curation of art historian Marina Kanakaki. Twenty talented Greek artists submitted original work to the exhibition, giving everyone an opportunity to take a fascinating journey into the contemporary Greek art scene.

Most of the contributing artists arrived for the opening of Aqua Gallery, which drew a great deal of attention not only from those staying at the Art Hotel, but also from visitors to the island of Santorini and its residents. Representatives of the regional authorities and the executives of Aqua Vista Hotels honoured the gallerys event with their presence, while the opening attracted immense interest amongst those attending, who enthused about the venue and the work on show. Many commented on the high standard and artistic kudos of the event, which was analogous to respective exhibitions in the capital of Athens.

Referring to the opening of the Aqua Gallery, Mrs Sofia Matzourani, Business Develop-ment Manager of Aqua Vista Hotels stated; The opening of the Aqua Gallery demon-strates Aqua Vista Hotelsunique approach to hospitality in the most pragmatic manner possible. The guests of the Art Hotel and the general public will have the wonderful opportunity to familiarise themselves with the extensive scope of Greek hospitality by exploring the contemporary artistic identity of our country at the Aqua Gallery.

More about Aqua Vista Hotels

Aqua Vista Hotels wasfounded in 2005 and today manages a portfolio of more than 30 hotels in Greece on the islands of Santorini, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Lesvos and Skia-thos.

Managed by executives who have a great deal of experience in the hotel and tourism in-dustry, all of whom possess a passion for the hospitality sector, Aqua Vista Hotels is in-volved in the creation and curation of hotels with a unique identity. Handling everything from architectural aspects to the interior design, the group is also responsible for the over-all concept of the experience offered, as well as managing the bookings and the day to day functioning of all departments.

A hotel with a healthy and profitable operation, first class amenities and facilities and the creation of an unforgettable guest experience are all factors which define the objectives of Aqua Vista Hotels when embarking on any venture or collaboration.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
Deloitte is hosting VAT academies in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain this month to help equip businesses and keep clients abreast of all value added tax (VAT) developments in the GCC.

This follows the recent publishing of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) VAT Treaty by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Tax Authority has also published Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on its website announcing it will introduce VAT as of January 1, 2018. The Bahrain Ministry of Finance earlier this year confirmed that Bahrain has also signed the GCC VAT Treaty.

The key question for businesses right now is how long will it take my business to get ready? If businesses have not already started, now is the time for them to start preparing and analyzing in detail what the implications of VAT implementation are, explains Nauman Ahmed, partner and Middle East tax leader at Deloitte.

The VAT Academy in Saudi Arabia will be held on May 21 in Jeddah and May 22 in Riyadh. The VAT Academy for Bahrain, which will cover the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, will be held on May 23.

The Deloitte VAT Academy is designed for legal, tax and finance experts who want to have a better understanding from experts on the VAT legal framework. The course is aimed at analysing the VAT framework and look further at the detailed consequences of the framework for a KSA and Bahraini business in its domestic dealings, and its business within the GCC and the wider world, explained Justin Whitehouse, Middle East indirect tax leader at Deloitte.  TradeArabia News Service
Chicago Pneumatic, a global construction equipment manufacturer, said it has secured a breakthrough sale of its LED (light emitting diode) light towers in Kuwait.



Its authorised distributor General Transportation & Equipment Company (GTE) placed an order for 25 CPLT V15 LED models for a key project in the country.



This represents the first sale of CPLT V15 LED light towers in the Middle East, said a statement from the US-based company.



Chicago Pneumatic is a leading provider of a wide range of pneumatic, hydraulic and petrol-driven equipment, portable compressors and generators, light towers, rig-mounted attachments, and compaction equipment for the construction and demolition industry.



These LED light towers will provide crucial illumination for a time-sensitive oilfield construction project being carried out by local contractor Al Yousifi Engineering and Construction Company, said the statement.



GTE was originally asked to provide metal halide light towers by the contractor working on the project. However, due to the time and cost-sensitive nature of the development, GTE advised them to consider more modern LED models because of the greater efficiencies they offer, it stated.



Ejazul Hassan, the equipment sales manager for GTE, said: "The CPLT V15 LED is highly efficient, making it ideal for projects requiring a large number of light towers. With this model, users can save on both fuel and maintenance costs."



"For instance, the LEDs lifespan is 30,000 hours, compared to 6,000 hours provided by a metal halide bulb. This means the CPLT V15 LEDs bulbs dont need to be replaced for approximately three years," he added.



To highlight the benefits, GTE carried out a live demonstration to compare a metal halide light tower and a CLPT V15 LED at its clients premises.



During this exercise, the contractors technical team observed the features of both units, from the quality of illumination and compactness of the machines to noise levels, among others.



"When we were doing the demonstration, one of the members of the team asked me if the light towers engine was running because he genuinely couldnt hear it. This is because it is very quiet, providing noise levels as low as 86 dBA (LwA)," remarked Hassan.



Throughout the demonstration, the CPLT V15 LED also impressed the technical team with its low operational costs and light coverage, he added.



Following the demonstration, the contractors technical team unanimously decided to retain the LED demo unit and raise a purchase order for 24 more light towers; with the first machines being delivered two months ago.



Amjad Fallatah, the regional product manager for Chicago Pneumatic Construction Equipment in the Middle East, said: "We would like to congratulate GTE for closing this deal and recognise their wonderful performance during recent months, in which they have set trends and increased the awareness of our portfolio in Kuwait."



"We are pleased to have them as partner because they are a strong company in the region and closely share our values and objectives," he added.



Explaining its key features, Fallatah said because of the harsh conditions that the light towers are likely to operate in, the CPLT V15 LED features a polyethylene canopy that protects vital internal components.



"This ensures peak performance and optimises the light towers lifespan and resale value. Not only is the canopy durable, it also features wide wing doors to allow easy maintenance access to the machine, including service components and drains. The light tower also has an environmentally friendly frame that prevents any excess fluid escaping," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
A 19-year-old died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound as the Omaha Police Department's SWAT team executed a search warrant at his home Monday morning, according to police.

Omaha police say the 14-member SWAT team got to 4814 N. 34th Ave. just after 7 a.m. As they got inside the home and were headed to the basement, they heard two gunshots coming from that area. A woman came up the basement stairs as officers heard several more gunshots coming from the basement, a news release said.

Officers removed seven people, ages 17 to 47, from the home and retreated outside. The suspect inside the home was identified as Tyler Krebs-Johnson, who was the subject of an active investigation for illegal drugs and firearms distribution, the release said.

Krebs-Johnson also had a misdemeanor warrant for his arrest.

Omaha police crisis negotiators attempted to talk to Krebs-Johnson through text messages, a bull horn and phone but were unable to reach him.

At 7:08 a.m., Krebs-Johnson posted a message on his Facebook that said, "Last post went out witta bang," the release said.

About three hours later, a camera-equipped robot was sent into the home and showed a person lying on a bed in the basement bedroom. Officers went into the home and found Krebs-Johnson deceased with a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun in his right hand, the release said.

Omaha fire medics pronounced Krebs-Johnson dead at the scene. No Omaha police officers discharged their firearms, the release said.

One witness told police she woke up to the sound of gunshots and heard loud commands of "Omaha police."

Seven spent shell casings were found in the basement, and evidence shows that Krebs-Johnson allegedly fired the handgun up the stairs, the release said.

One of the people removed from the home, Nicholas Paez, 20, was also a suspect in the investigation. Police found acid during the search and arrested Paez on suspicion of possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance.

Per state law, a grand jury will be convened to investigate the in-custody death.
The Chinese government is set to pump in around $40 billion into big development projects in Egypt as part of its ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, said a report.



The investment will be made through Silk Road Fund, considered the largest investment fund in China, reported Daily News Egypt, citing a senior Chinese official.



China's President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion for the OBOR initiative, stated Jin Qi, the chairperson of the Silk Road Fund, on the sidelines of a major forum in Beijing.



Chinese government will look into ways Egypt can benefit from the financial opportunities offered by the fund to the states on the Silk Road within the initiative to reactivate it, remarked Qi during his meeting with Minister of Investment and International Co-operation Sahar Nasr.



They also discussed the possibility of cooperating with several international financing institutions to support projects and establish joint projects between the private and public sectors.



Nasr lauded the strategic and developmental relations between Egypt and China, expressing their readiness to enhance Chinas position among the countries investing in Egypt.



There are 1,300 Chinese companies working in Egypt, stated the Daily News Egypt report.



The Egyptian minister has presented several economic and development projects that are considered the governments priority during this period. They included the new Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) and several transportation projects, it stated.



During the meeting, both of them agreed to carry out cooperation between the ministry and the fund to finance Chinese investments in Egypt in the field of infrastructure, construction, and joint projects between the private and public sectors through injecting Chinese investments to activate projects, increase entrepreneur incubators, and develop the skills of young people in emerging projects in investment zones.



Nasr also invited Qi to visit Egypt or send a delegation to personally see the progress of its projects.
Aleris Corporation, a leader in the production of rolled aluminium for critical surface applications, said it has signed an agency agreement with UAE-based MJ Building Materials Trading DMCC.



As per the deal, the Dubai company will be the exclusive deal for Aleris 55HX, a premium aluminium for architectural applications, in the Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.



On the new tieup, Johan Petry, the VP of Aleris Industrial Products, said: "Our 55HX is already a well-known brand in the European advanced architecture market, and it will grow further in the Gulf region thanks to this partnership."



"By combining MJ Building Materials experience in the region and Aleris know-how in architectural applications, we will strengthen our position in the Middle-East," he stated.



The 55HX is a premium material that has been developed to meet the requirements of the architectural space, said the company based in Ohio, US.

It can be used for inside and outside applications, including facades, wall cladding, ceilings and roofs. One of the projects where this material was selected is the facade of the eye-catching Rezo building in Paris, thanks to the following unique properties:



Flexibility: 55HX can be creatively shaped to adapt to almost any design

High surface quality, further improved after anodization to obtain superior UV, scratch and corrosion resistance while keeping its unique metal look

Colour uniformity across various batches, which provides consistency in color and gloss.



Modar Al Mekdad, the chairman of MJ Building Materials Trading DMCC, said: "Many ambitious high-end projects are currently being developed in our region and we see a lot of potential in the use of aluminium for architectural applications."



"Therefore, it is obvious for us to collaborate with Aleris, which provides high quality material. In particular, its 55HX meets all essential criteria for construction in the GCC region," he stated.



According to him, the 55HX is currently the only plain aluminium that meets the stringent fire requirements of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA 285).



A global aluminium rolling company with 14 manufacturing sites in North America, Europe and China, Aleris has become the supplier of choice for aerospace, automotive and high-end industrial applications, he noted.



With an extensive range of innovative aluminum solutions, Aleris has been recently involved in a few major international architectural projects, such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, the Grand Egyptian Museum or the new Riyadh bridge (still under construction), he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Iran plans to attract $50 billion in foreign investment for the mining sector by 2022 within the framework of its Sixth Five-Year Development Pan (2017-22), said a senior Iranian official.



Iran looks forward to the cooperation of Latin American countries in mine and mineral development projects, Mehdi Karbasian, deputy minister of industry, mine and trade, was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily News report, citing Irna.



He added that the country will boost its gross domestic product by developing mines, and Latin American companies are expected to expand cooperation in this field.



Karbasian further stated that according to exploratory studies, Iran has 37 billion tonnes of proven mineral reserves worth $770 billion.
Equate Petrochemical Company, Kuwait's first international joint-venture in this industry, was recognised by the United Nations (UN) and Kuwaits Secretariat General of the Supreme Council for Planning & Development (SCPD) in appreciation of the companys support for the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM).



Equate played a critical role in the SCPD and UN driven joint programme for the support of PAM. The programme aims to develop work effectiveness, and implement mechanisms to measure performance that aims to realie accomplishments within a short-time frame, said a statement from the company.



Having commenced its cooperation with PAM in 2014, Equate collaborated with the authority to develop a key performance indicators (KPIs) dashboard to establish an evaluation system, develop talents and support the human capital, it said.



Speaking on this occasion, Equates president and CEO Mohammad Husain, said: Partnerships and teamwork are the main pillars of our corporate culture and we believe that human capital is the cornerstone for sustainability, innovation and successful business development.



Realising the innovative potential of the human capital represents successful partnerships for us. We are very proud to have such partnerships with PAM and other organisations as Partners in Success, he said.



A specialise team from Equate provided Six Sigma training to the employees of PAM with the objective of improving quality and daily business practices. Six Sigma methodology is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement to deliver the best possible results while minimising cost, time and effort.



Equate is the first Kuwaiti organisation to adopt Six Sigma methodology. The companys human capital has proven their innovative capabilities, admirable dedication and global achievements.



The Public Authority of Manpower is partnering with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the International Labor Organization (ILO) within the context of UNDP Country Program Document (CPD) for 2015  2018.



The programme will support the achievement of national strategic objectives of economic growth for the state of Kuwait, supporting human and social development, and improving demographic policies to support development and effective government administration.



PAM plans will improve the labour conditions and management system by analysing the demographic imbalance, making sound decisions based on enhanced reporting mechanisms and upgrading its services quality for all economic and social actors.



This joint programme aims to support PAM in its efforts to develop its internal capacity in reporting on its own performance, on labour movement and on its compliance with international labour standards, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Occidental Oman Incorporated (Oxy Oman) and Al Khazaen Company have signed an agreement for rig drilling and logistics services in Muscat, Oman, a report said.



The agreement was signed by Steve Kelly, president, general manager of Oxy Oman and Sheikh Al Abd al Harsoosi, chairman of Al Khazaen Company, reported Oman News Agency (ONA).



Al Khazaen Company will be responsible for the management, operation, maintenance and inspection of wells service rigs and related equipment, as well as providing qualified personnel to implement wells and maintenance service programmes, according to the report.
Saudi Aramco, China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) and Panjin Xincheng Industrial Group, have signed the joint development agreement and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Saudi Aramco-Norinco- Refining, Petrochemical and Retail Project in Panjin, in northeast Chinas Liaoning province.



The idea for this project received a major boost during the visit by King Salman Bin Abdulaziz to China in March 2017, when Saudi Aramco and Norinco signed the project memorandum of understanding (MoU).



Khalid Al-Falih, Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, who was in Beijing to participate in the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, attended the ceremony where Saudi Aramco and Norinco signed an agreement to pave the way for a joint development agreement to build a refining, chemicals, and retail network in Panjin.



Later on site in Panjin, Abdulaziz M Al-Judaimi, senior vice president downstream at Saudi Aramco, attended a groundbreaking event, which was also attended by Yin Jiaxu, chairman of Norinco Group; and Zhang Lei, Liaoning executive deputy governor; Nabil Al Nuaim, president of Aramco Asia; and Gao Ke, Panjin Municipal Party Secretary.



Al-Judaimi said: Norinco and the government of Liaoning province are amongst the best partners to be in this project considering the great value proposition they are bringing to the table. There might be some challenges that we may face in the journey of implementing this project in the future, as in any worthy endeavour, but I am confident that we will be able to overcome them taking into consideration first Saudi Aramcos proven record of project management skills while executing mega projects and second the strong commitment shown by all the stakeholders to work together as one team to make sure this project is a big success.



The governor of Liaoning province Chen Qiufa announced the project commencement and the joint development agreement was signed by Abdulaziz M. Al-Judaimi and Zhao Gang, deputy general manager of Norinco Group.



The project is a key element in Chinas petrochemical industry forward planning and the revitalisation drive for the old industrial base in northeast China. It is a major project in Norincos drive to develop the industrial value chain, facilitating overseas oil exploration and trade, as well as growth in the petrochemical, final chemicals and specialty chemical sectors.



Having completed the environmental impact assessment and won 23 project supporting documents in less than three years, the project obtained final approval from Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission.



The goal of the project is to build a world-class refining and chemical integration base, with global best practice standards of cost-saving, sustainability, and advanced technology. The construction will be based on the principles of integration, clustering development, differentiation and scale up.



The project will further promote the implementation of Chinas Belt & Road initiative and the safe, efficient, and sustainable development of petrochemical industry in China in partnership with the globally recognized enterprise working in this field.



The project will significantly expand Saudi Aramcos footprint in Chinas downstream industry considering the paramount importance of the Chinese economy for Saudi and Saudi Aramcos future investments. It will also enhance the competitiveness of Norincos petrochemical and value-added chemical divisions, and promote the overall economic revitalisation in Liaoning and Panjin. The project will also significantly expand Saudi Aramcos footprint in Chinas downstream industry, said the statement.



"This project will potentially become a key building block in both companies portfolios and a new landmark in the industry since it has all ingredients for integration, optimization, capital efficiency and located in a very promising region. Both partners will bring their best practices in project management and execution and operations to add value to this project," said the statement. - TradeArabia News Service
Nine financial institutions from Europe and Asia have expressed their readiness to fund Iran's purchases of planes from Airbus and Boeing, a report said.



According to deputy minister of Roads and Urban Development for International Affairs, Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, institutions from Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Britain, China and Japan have already approached Iran to fund the purchases, said a report in Iran Daily.



Arragements are being made to hold a tender to choose the winning financier.



"Iran Air is preparing the tender documents so that they would be sent to all credible financers worldwide," Fakhrieh Kashan told IRNA.



"We are in conditions that permit us to choose our desired financers in a competitive atmosphere that a tender creates," he said.
As a part of the very exciting Qatar Airways  Qatar Stopover Program, the Marriott Marquis City Center Doha Hotel welcomed the first transit guests to discover the exciting sights, sounds, and tastes of the sultanate.



Earlier this month, Qatar Airways - in partnership with the Qatar Tourism Authority - launched the Qatar Stopover Program offering its transit passengers a range of stopover options to explore the culture and attractions of the sultanate, including a free hotel stay and two-night stay offers at various five-star hotels from May 7 to September 30, 2017.



We are proud to participate in this prestigious programme by the fastest-growing airline in the world  Qatar Airways, said Andreas Wissdorf, general manager of Marriott Marquis City Center Doha. It provides an exciting opportunity for transit passengers whether travelling for business or leisure to discover the exciting sights, sounds, and tastes of Qatar and truly experience and enjoy Arabian hospitality while on their way to another destination," said Wissdorf.



Qatar boasts of attractive facilities and activities for everyone - from desert safaris, shopping excursions, museum visits to the lively night lights of Doha. - TradeArabia News Service


ON THE MOVE: ITG Hires a Pair; Nomura Hires EMEA Head

Execution broker ITG hired a pair of traders. First, John Emmert will join the firm this week as a Director on the Global Portfolio Trading team, based in New York. Emmert is a 20-year trading veteran with strong client relationships, most recently working for 10 years as a Director in the Global Program Sales & Trading group at Deutsche Bank Securities. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Emmert worked in program sales trading roles at Societe Generale, Susquehanna International Group, BNP Paribas and Bankers Trust, all based in New York.

Also onboarding is Sean OMeara as a Director of ETF Trading. OMeara is a 14-year trading veteran with deep industry knowledge and charged with growing the US ETF team and sales effort. He worked most recently in ETF trading at Abel Noser and also spent 9 years at J.P. Morgan, including as Executive Director of marketing making U.S. listed ETFs. OMeara started his career at Morgan Stanley before moving on to J.P. Morgan where he helped build their ETF business. He is based in New York and joined ITG at the end of March.

If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com

AQMetrics reported that Breige Tinnelly has joined the firm as Head of Sales, U.K. Tinnelly oversees AQMetrics newest office based in London as the firm takes the next step in its ongoing strategic growth initiative. With over 20 years of experience, he was Senior Vice President at U.S. Bank and as Vice President of BNY Mellon. Tinnelly was previously a Managing Partner at Carlingford Capital Ltd, an advisory firm providing consulting services to private equity funds and asset managers.

LiquidityBook announced the addition of Les Vital as Head of Technical Sales. Vital, who brings over 15 years of capital markets experience, will work hand-in-hand with LiquidityBooks sales, onboarding, product management and development teams. Vital joins from Broadridge Financial, where he spent six years as a project manager in its investment management solutions business. Prior to that he served in Eze Softwares business consulting group. He began his career at Morgan Stanley, working as both an operations and trading analyst. He reports to Sean Sullivan, Chief Revenue Officer.

Nomura has hired Fred Jallot as head of its global markets division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to people familiar with the matter. He will join in the summer, one of the people said. Jallot spent the past decade with Citi, where he was most recently head of credit trading for EMEA.

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Omgeo Provides Post Trade Processing to China's Private Funds

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, announced that Omgeo Central Trade Manager (Omgeo CTM), its strategic platform for the central matching of cross-border transactions and which is a part of DTCCs Institutional Trade Processing Product Suite, now enables Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprises (WFOEs) in providing Private Fund Manager (PFM) services in China.

Last year, the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC) unveiled new rules allowing WFOEs to register as PFMs, thereby giving foreign institutional investors the opportunity to provide local PFM services through an established 100%-owned entity in China. The mandate creates opportunities for both foreign and domestic institutional investors that operate in the country, solidifying an important next step to providing new ways to access China  the worlds second largest stock market.

Omgeo CTM provides seamless connectivity from trade execution to settlement, including direct connectivity via FIX from front-to-middle office trade processing as well as via the SWIFT network to a full community of custodian banks for the purposes of settlement notification. And, when used in conjunction with Omgeo ALERT, the industrys standing settlement instruction utility (SSI Utility), users can automatically enrich trades with SSIs, ensuring account information is accurate.

DTCC is proud to have supported and provided solutions to the global community and industry participants in China for the last decade, said George Jia, Country Manager for China, DTCC. We will continue to partner with our global clients as new local reforms are implemented to assist foreign investors in their efforts to access the market. Omgeo CTM supports the WFOE policy by enabling global institutions to match A-shares with their Chinese counterparts.

Following the launch of its first investment fund into international markets, Chinese investment manager, China Southern, pioneered the introduction of automated cross-border trading in China by adopting Omgeo CTM. Omgeo CTM has helped us to achieve automation and reduce operational risks, said Wenge Bao, Chief Compliance Officer, China Southern. When investors ask us to take on more volume, we can confidently say yes because we know Omgeo CTM can handle the workload efficiently.

Speaking on the impact of the WFOE policy, Bao added, Asset managers in China rely on Omgeo CTMs post-trade processing capabilities to assist them when trading across borders and asset classes. As more international firms leverage the solution for cross-border trading into China in order to capitalize on new opportunities, like us, they will find Omgeo CTM to be an important partner.

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United Way and Community Health Charities supporters who gathered April 24 at the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel were ready to celebrate. The annual campaign raised $6,894,855 to support 61 community agencies that provide essential services to those in need in Lincoln and nearly 150 programs that focus on education, income and health.

Campaign co-chairs Todd and Connie Duncan said they were proud of the great individuals and organizations that provided leadership, which resulted in a positive conclusion to the campaign. Connie Duncan, a former teacher and current member of Lincoln Public Schools board of education, said she was thrilled that a new Community Learning Center and Jump Start to Kindergarten will begin at Campbell Elementary as a result of the campaign.

That is a big plus for those children, she said.

More than 400 organizations supported the United Way/Community Health Charities campaign in 2016. The top supporters were Ameritas for its overall employee campaign and Union Bank & Trust for its support of the United Way Impact Fund and initiatives.

Among individuals who received special recognition was Linda Robinson Rutz, who received the 2016 Spirit of United Way Award. Rutz wrote her first check to United Way in 1977 and has been advocating for United Way ever since. The 2016 United Way Presidents Award went to Duncan Aviation for outstanding dedication to the mission of United Way through its leadership, resources and time spent to solve community issues.

Scott Young, executive director of the Food Bank of Lincoln, received the United Way Speaker of the Year Award. Brad Anderson, who represented the Alzheimers Association-Nebraska Chapter, was honored for the second year in a row as Speaker of the Year for Community Health Charities.

Outgoing president of the United Way board of directors, Nick Cusick, noted that The business landscape in Lincoln is ever-changing, but we cannot use that as an excuse to do less for those that need us most. The people that our dollars support are our neighbors. They are our friends and family.

Dr. Steve Joel, superintendent of Lincoln Public Schools, was introduced as the incoming board chair.
The Lincoln YMCAs Northeast branch, 2601 N. 70th St., raised $4,200 for the Lincoln YMCA's annual Campaign-Strong Kids via a silent auction April 3-22. The auction featured Easter baskets and numerous fun-themed experiences, gift cards and more. With bidding open to the community, funds were raised by the Ys members and community supporters.

The staff of the Northeast YMCA sends a special thank you to the 8:15 a.m. Water Exercise class. Led by Eike Marthaler and Diane Peirce, class members were key organizers of the auction, contributing over 70 baskets to the event.

"Without this groups tireless work, the auction would not have been as successful," said Geoff Weller, executive director of the Northeast Y. "A thank you also goes out to our community businesses for their generous donations."

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

The Lincoln YMCAs Annual Campaign-Strong Kids raises funds so that every child and family in need throughout our community has the opportunity to take swim lessons, play Youth Sports, enroll in YMCA afterschool programs, experience Camp Kitaki and more. Donations to the campaign allow the YMCA to offer reduced rates on programs, services and memberships that work to build a stronger community by building up Lincolns youth and families. The Lincoln YMCA offers more than $1 million a year in financial assistance on Y programs.

ABOUT THE LINCOLN YMCA

One of Lincolns largest nonprofit youth-serving organizations, the Lincoln YMCA has served the community for 146 years promoting positive values through programs that build spirit, mind and body for all. Today, the YMCA serves over 82,000 people each year with facilities in all quadrants of Lincoln through programs including swim lessons, Youth Sports, Camp Kitaki, afterschool programs, disease management and more. Everyone is welcome, and Open Doors Financial Assistance is available to those in need. For more information, visit YmcaLincoln.org.
Coco Palm and Coco Bodu Hithi invite Herbert Nitsch, the current freediving world record holder, to conducts talks and practical sessions in the Maldives to celebrate World Oceans Day.



(TRAVPR.COM) MALDIVES - May 16th, 2017 - Keeping up with Coco Collections constant efforts to collaborate with like-minded individuals, this June sees the arrival of Herbert Nitsch to Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu and Coco Bodu Hithi. An Austrian individual, Herbert is the current freediving world record holder and The Deepest Man on Earth, a prestigious title that was given to him when set the world record for freediving at an incredible depth of 702 feet in 2007 and 830.8 feet in 2012. Self-taught, Herbert is a pioneer in terms of developing his own techniques over the years and has set a total of 33 freediving world records so far.

During Herberts time at the resorts, he will take guests through interactive talks and practical sessions. The program starts with The Deepest Man on Earth, a talk with Herbert sharing his story about free diving as a discipline and hobby. He is able to relate how free diving can be enjoyed by anyone of any age and he touches on his passion to conserve the seven seas. Day 2 will see Herbert take guests through a multimedia talk to efficiently prepare the body to free dive at shallow depths, followed by a hands-on in-water session. A screening of Back from the Abyss follows on the same evening, the award-winning documentary about his world record dive, and the aftermath of decompression sickness and the unbelievable way back to free diving again.

The final day of the program takes guests through Free diving with Marine Life, a multimedia talk together with the marine biologist on the island to touch on marine life and ocean preservation, highlighting some more advanced free diving tips. After the talk, Herbert and the resident marine biologist will take guests out on a dive in deeper waters. The final bit of the program ends with a screening of The Last Frontier, a documentary broadcast in over a dozen countries about Herbert, his free diving competitions and the adaptation of the body to severe depths. During one of the days at Coco Palm Dhuni Kolhu, Herbert will be joined by school children from the nearby local island of Thulhaadhoo, ready to pick up some first hands tips on free diving. Over at Coco Bodu Hithi, a group of seasoned Maldivian free divers will gather for a day to join Herbert for a talk and a dive, sharing the Maldivian side of free diving with him.

The Maldives is an amazing place and I am very excited to be coming back; this time to collaborate with a renowned local brand for World Oceans Day, a cause close to my heart. I am eager to explore the vibrant life around both islands, and what I am most looking forward is to share my journey with guests and join them in the water to test their limits. Another interesting aspect of this visit will be the day spent with some local free diving enthusiasts, definitely a highlight I am going to enjoy! Herbert Nitsch comments on his upcoming stay at Coco Palm and Coco Bodu Hithi.

This year, The Ocean Project has announced a theme of Our Oceans, Our Future for World Oceans Day. Taking part in this global day of ocean celebration, Coco Collection takes it a step further to raise awareness by collaborating with Herbert Nitsch, joined by the portfolios resident marine biologist who will incorporate the marine conservation program the resorts are a part of.

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MOUNT PLEASANT  Promotions Unlimited, the former company that closed Jan. 27 without paying employees for their last work week or accrued vacation, must now pay a total of $203,933 to 52 former employees or face action by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

In a letter dated last Thursday, state Labor Standards Investigator Brian Buchanan wrote to Lorraine Greenberg of Roosevelt Capital LLC, the company that did business as Promotions Unlimited, telling her the findings of his two-pronged investigation.

On Jan. 27, Promotions Unlimited, 7601 Durand Ave., discharged its last 48 employees after laying off about 30 others in the preceding several weeks for a total of 77 jobs lost. Employees said the family-owned company, which was a local distributor to independent pharmacies, did not pay them for their last week of work, nor for earned but unused vacation time.

The closing was also a highly charged matter because the payroll company Roosevelt was using, but failed to pay, tried to claw back the pay of employees who had been using direct deposit of their paychecks, sending ex-employees into panic mode.

Moreover, vendors that had been doing business with Promotions had a freight company coming at them for shipping charges theyd previously been charged for by Roosevelt, but that Roosevelt had evidently not paid the trucking company for.

Buchanan was investigating, for the Department of Workforce Development, two types of complaints employees had filed with the state: that they were owed for unpaid wages and vacation pay; and that Roosevelt violated the Warn Act by failing to provide 60 days notice to employees of the shutdown.

On the latter complaint, Buchanan concluded that Roosevelt did not violate the law because the company was pursuing a new line of credit  an attempt that failed  and that denial of the funding was not foreseeable at the time notice would have been required 60 days prior to closing. He ordered that case be dismissed.

Unpaid wages, vacation time

However, Buchanan found that employees who provided records to DWD were indeed owed money by Roosevelt for unpaid wages and earned vacation time. Roosevelt did not dispute those points, he wrote.

But Roosevelt was unable to provide relevant records because of its failure to pay its payroll processor, Buchanan wrote.

When an employer fails to provide records, this department must rely upon the best available information when making its determination, he wrote. In this case, the reasonable records of the complainants are the best available information and are the basis for the unpaid wage determination. He found that Roosevelt owes $77,031 in unpaid wages to 52 former employees.

Buchanan made the same statement regarding unpaid but earned vacation and found Roosevelt owes those former employees $126,902 for that. Additional money may be owed to employees who have not yet filed a complaint, he added.

Individual paychecks

A spreadsheet attached to Buchanans letter shows the employees names and total amounts each must be paid by Roosevelt. Those amounts range from $640 to $10,000.

Buchanan ordered Roosevelt to make out individual checks in the correct amounts to those employees and send them to DWD, minus any legally required deductions, and with pay stubs. The agency will forward the checks to each person.

I dont feel confident that were going to get it, commented a discouraged Michelle Humburg on Monday, a 14-year employee of Promotions Unlimited who had been the sales and customer service lead. Ill believe it when I see it.  I know the states doing what it can.

Im so over it; whatever we get, we get, Humburg added.

Roosevelt has until May 26 to get the checks to DWD.

If I do not receive payment for wages due by (May 26), I will prepare the case file on this matter for litigation, Buchanan wrote to Greenberg. Any referral to court will include a request for the maximum penalty for the late payment of wages.

Its worth noting that liens were filed in early February as DWD asked the state Department of Justice to take proactive steps to pursue whatever action is available to secure owed wages, agency spokesman John Dipko said Monday. Those liens cover all real and personal property that Roosevelt has in the state of Wisconsin.

The Greenbergs have been unavailable for comment.
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Its taken a lot of practice, but Ive learned to take big beer companies acquisitions of legitimate craft breweries in stride.

A Breckenridge here, a Revolver there, a mega-merger over here ... they were interesting stories, both individually and in aggregate, but honestly theres only so much I can say about them. None of them have involved Wisconsin breweries, and hardly any have even sold their beer here.

Generally, I think its a natural evolution of a sector of business that has been largely immune to normal business forces for going on a decade now. I think there are ill effects on small brewers when the largest brewers try to win back the business theyve lost to small brewers. And yeah, the playing field is uneven, in the same sense that Wal-Mart has advantages over mom-and-pop stores.

So, I think these brewery sales are generally bad news, though I dont fault either party that makes them happen.

But this latest one hit harder than all the others. Anheuser-Busch InBev  the maker of Budweiser, Rolling Rock, Stella Artois, Shock Top, Bass, Labatt, Goose Island and many, many other beers  on May 3 announced it had purchased Wicked Weed Brewing of Asheville, North Carolina.

Wicked Weed had been a rapidly rising star in the craft beer world, taking just five years to build a national name around deftly made hoppy beers and, in particular, sour and wild-fermented beers made with traditional barrel-aging techniques. It was a key member of a robust brewing scene that made Asheville, a city of less than 90,000, consistently mentioned among the top beer cities in America.

Wicked Weeds reputation led a road-tripping Wisconsinite to schedule a lunchtime pit stop there with his family last summer, en route from the Great Smoky Mountains to the South Carolina shore.

What I found surpassed my expectations and, to be honest, stole a little bit of my heart.

Wicked Weeds pub in downtown Asheville had everything that has endeared the craft beer scene to me and its legion other devotees. There was great beer, of course, but also a sense of craft, passion and authenticity. I felt that I was surrounded by people  staff and patrons  who appreciated the same things I did. There was a very good salad.

All of it was tied together with an unmistakable sense of place, with a mural of King Henry VIII  alluded to in the brewerys name for his quote labeling hops a wicked and pernicious weed  presiding over it all.

In short, it was cool.

And this, all of it, is what ABI bought.

And that made me a little sad, being reminded of the (likely significant) commercial value on that afternoons experience. Its possible that Wicked Weeds new owner will maintain or even enhance that experience, but I wont be returning when Im in that neck of the woods again. It makes a difference to me if something is bought or made.

Weve been through this before  ABI alone purchased 10 craft breweries since Goose Island in 2011. The strategy from ABI seems clear. Its targeting regional breweries in the 50,000-barrel-a-year ballpark that have either been long established in their home markets but may have owners edging toward retirement or young breweries that have grown quickly into that profile. Goose Islands 312, IPA and Belgian and barrel-aged beers were scaled up for national distribution, but ABI seems content to have most of its other acquisitions fill out roles in a network of regional breweries.

But the craft beer world seemed to gnash its teeth more over Wicked Weed than any ABI acquisition since Goose. And that makes sense, because from a beer and culture perspective, Wicked Weed is a different kind of brewery. The emphasis on modern American sours  a somewhat exclusive class of beer with limited appeal  puts it in rarefied air nationally.

Most of these breweries took issue not with their friends business being sold, but being sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev.

We have deep and serious issues with many of ABInBevs business strategies, mission, and overall ethics as they relate to craft beer in America, Black Project said in its statement about the Wicked Weed sale, citing highly aggressive, predatory and what we consider to be unethical practices. We truly believe that ABInBev intends to systematically destroy American craft beer as we know it.

ABI wholly or partially owns several of the companies that distribute its beer in various markets, and its high-volume brands like Bud Light are the franchise for nearly every distributorship that carries ABI products. That means ABI exerts what independent breweries decry as undue influence in a sector of the beer business that most breweries of significant size are legally required to work with.

The fear is that ABI uses its distributor networks to push its own products onto crowded beer shelves at the expense of smaller breweries who draw less water with distributors. None other than the U.S. Department of Justice has taken notice of ABIs distributor dealings, placing related restrictions on the merger of ABI and SABMiller, and promising extra scrutiny of further acquisitions of American craft breweries.

Weve seen evidence of ABIs craft buying spree and distribution right here in Wisconsin. Beginning last fall a handful of beers from Golden Road, 10 Barrel and Elysian began hitting bottle shop and grocery store shelves. Im not sure how much the Wisconsin market was demanding more good but not particularly distinctive West Coast IPAs, but there they were.

Wicked Weed, though, holds a different niche in ABIs now fully fleshed-out beer portfolio. While I could see its hoppy offerings such as Pernicious IPA and Freak of Nature imperial IPA competing on a national level, the smart money is on ABIs Wicked Weed play being about its sour-beer program. Last year Wicked Weed opened its fourth production facility and its second dedicated exclusively to producing sours.

This had been a gap in ABIs portfolio, and you can almost hear the pitch to a bar or bottle shop owner. Need a great bourbon barrel stout? Heres Goose Islands Bourbon County Brand Stout. Why are you still carrying Samuel Adams Boston Lager? Your customers will love Devils Backbone Vienna Lager. Lagunitas IPA? No, take this 10 Barrel Joe. You dont need Pliny the Elder, we have Elysian Space Dust. And on and on.
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 15

In a major seizure, the CIA staff of the city police have confiscated as many as 235 boxes of liquor, containing over 2,800 bottles of liquor of different brands, which were being smuggled to Jagraon near Ludhiana.

The CIA staff impounded the vehicle and arrested two persons who were travelling in the truck. They were identified as Lakhbir Singh alias Bitta of Agarwarh Khowaja Baju in Jagraon and Jaswinder Singh alias Shander of Sherpura Kalan village in Jagraon. A case under Sections 61, 1 and 14 of the Excise Act has been registered against them. They were produced in the court which sent them to one-day police remand.

Sushil Kumar, investigating officer, revealed that the police had also taken Ravinder Kumar, circle in charge, into custody for further interrogation. He said a preliminary probe revealed that the accused brought the liquor boxes from a godown in the Bhagtanwala area. Karnail Kumar, a Himachal Pradesh resident, was the head of the godown.

He said the police received a tip-off that the accused used to purchase liquor from the city area at lesser rates and later sold it in Jagaon at a higher price. They had loaded the liquor boxes on a truck and were travelling by it. He said immediately after nakas were laid and strict vehicular checking was done. During patrolling, the police intercepted the goods carrier and made the seizure.

He said the police recovered 150 boxes containing 1,800 bottles of Respberry brand, 10 boxes (120 bottles) each of Royal Stag, RC, Imperial Blue, five boxes (60 bottles) of Blenders Pride and 50 boxes (600 bottles) of Thunderbolt beer. The accused could not produce any documents regarding the liquor.

He said further investigations were under progress to identify the person to whom the liquor was to be delivered.
Girja Shankar Kaura

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

Prime Minister Narendra Modis ambitious diplomatic outreach towards Indias new found strategic partner Israel by starting a direct Air India flight to Tel Aviv from New Delhi is facing trouble due to viability of the route.

Air India had planned a non-stop flight to Tel Aviv three times a week starting mid-May, with inaugural flight initially planned for May 16, connecting Tel Aviv with New Delhi ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Israel later this year.

However, it has now emerged that operating such a flight would not be commercially viable till the time India gets permission from the Islamic countries, which fall on the way, to fly in their air space to reach the Israeli city.

Since most of the Islamic and Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, which lie between Mumbai and Tel Aviv, do not allow planes to fly to Israeli cities from its airspace, Air India pilots would have had to take a very circuitous route to avoid overflying countries that have such restrictions for Israel-bound planes.

At present, Israels El Al Airlines flies between Tel Aviv and Mumbai, but the flight takes longer time due to the restrictions by the countries in between that include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

An El Al flight taking off from Tel Aviv for Mumbai goes to the southern tip of the country, fly over Red Sea completely avoiding Saudi and then turn east from the horn of Africa in the Arabian Sea coming straight to the countrys financial capital, making it the most circuitous route.

As a result, the distance of 4,057 km between Mumbai and Tel Aviv is covered in eight hours  almost the time taken to fly the 6,700-km distance between Delhi and London.

This long circuitous route, sources said, makes the flight unviable commercially and as such it has been put on a hold as of now. Reports suggested that India was working on the diplomatic front to get the Islamic countries around.

Apparently, the earlier plans were to start the Mumbai-Tel Aviv flight but Delhi was added later due to an apparent prod from the top.
New Delhi, May 16

Budget carrier IndiGo has allegedly made attempts to poach pilots and technical staff from airlines operating ATR aircraft after announcing plans to procure 50 turboprop planes with an aim to serve tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

According to Alliance Air CEO CS Subbiah, several of its senior officers have been approached with open offers asking them to quote a price.

Those who were made the offers include head of three teams at the Alliance Air, an Air India subsidiary.

According to industry sources TruJet pilots have also been made lucrative offers.

IndiGo has, however, rubbished the allegations.

We havent approached anyone yet, said IndiGo spokesperson Ajay Jasra.

Yes, there has been a spate of approaches to many of our technical staff, engineers and pilots, which is not a very ethical step for any carrier to take. They should enter the market on their own strength and not on the strengths of their competitors, Subbiah told PTI.

Last week, IndiGo had announced it will procure 50 ATR 72-600 planes, 20 of which are likely to be inducted by December 2018. The carrier also hopes to launch its turboprop operation by December 2017.

Alliance Air, too, has plans to expand its fleet in order to participate in the governments UDAN scheme that seeks to connect tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

The airline plans to triple its fleet of 10 ATRs by the end of this fiscal. It has nearly 100 pilots in its team.

The CEO of Alliance Air said attempts by IndiGo to poach its staff is a threat to PM Modis regional connectivity scheme.

It has taken us more than three years to build a resource-based airline and we are progressing on that front because we are sure the regional connectivity will be a success. If by poaching from other carriers it (IndiGo) disrupts the whole regional connectivity scheme, then it needs to stop, Subbiah said.

The CEO also added that regulatory authorities were seized of the matter.

It takes nearly four months and costs approximately Rs 24-25 lakh per pilot for ATR-type rating training.

With readily available trained pilots, IndiGo will save on both time and money needed to equip them and other technical staff with skills to operate the ATR planes.

IndiGo so far has a single configuration fleet comprising A320s.  PTI
Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 16

In a major relief to residents of Mani Majra and nearby areas, the Administration has decided to withdraw the order of a former Finance Secretary-cum-Chief Administrator for the closure of the Mani Majra cremation ground.

The order had evoked a strong protest from the residents as the cremation ground caters to the Mani Majra, Mauli Jagran, Panchkula and Western Command areas. The issue was highlighted in these columns on May 8. Sources said the former Chief Administrator, while rejecting the resolution of the General House of the Municipal Corporation passed in 2016 for the regularisation of the cremation ground, asked the MC to review the decision and denotify the same.

The House had sent the resolution to the Administration stating that the MC land being used as the cremation ground be regularised and had approved further extension of land for the storage of wood. It was also recommended that the drawings of the cremation ground be obtained from the Department of Urban Planning of the Administration. However, the Chief Administrator, citing the Master Plan-2031, stated that the existing cremation ground in Mani Majra fell on the Chandigarh-Kalka road, was highly urbanised and needed to be discontinued. It was also recommended that the area be developed as a green belt.

Sources said the decision to withdraw the order was taken after approval from Punjab Governor-cum-UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore. The Administration is of the view that the decision to close the cremation ground without providing an alternative arrangement will cause problems to the residents.
UNION GROVE  Its not often that students working on big projects would completely start over if it wasnt at the level they wanted.

Bill Wald, multimedia teacher at Union Grove High School, saw some of his students completely go back to the starting point on a project for the American Cancer Society.

If a grade is tied to it, some students will say, Its good enough,  Wald said. But they cared very much, they didnt want to have a bad product  I had some students that started over. They said it wasnt worthy of the cause.

For two weeks, after spring break, students at Union Grove High School worked on their own wooden chairs for the Relay for Life, sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

The finished products will be auctioned off online from May 22-31, and a few in person on June 2 at the Racine County Fairgrounds for the Relay for Life event.

Students affected

by cancer

Hanna Hall, senior, was one of those students who started over.

I did a rocking chair and I painted it like Winnie the Pooh, Hall said. But I didnt like how the paint turned out and I started over and re-sanded the whole chair.

For Hall, cancer was something shes had experience being around.

My grandma is going through cancer right now; I see what shes going through, Hall said, adding that she hopes these chairs help people. I know theyre going through a hard time.

Hall ended up creating two chairs  a Paw Patrol chair and a Lion King chair  in hopes of attracting high bidders.

I hope it raises a lot of money, Hall said. Its going to go for a great cause.

Wald said Hall wasnt the only student working on the project who has had cancer touch someone in their family.

The ones that do talk about it, you hear them talk about how it reminded the about how they lost a grandma or grandpa, or an aunt or uncle, Wald said. You can hear them talking with their peers. Its not something they talked loud about  they dont usually go into deep detail. But its usually to the point where they wanted you to know.

For many students, this was their first time to really help out in a large way.

There were some students working on the chairs that had a motivation that you dont see in them, Wald said. They never had an opportunity to do something like this.

Proceeds go to research, programs

Matthew Elmer, community manager for Relay for Life, said the organization often looks for ways to involve high school students and this is a creative way to get them interested.

Theyre going through school and theyre not always focused on the community, Elmer said. New and interesting things like this is one way to really jump start that.

Elmer said the money raised will go toward cancer research, resources and programs.

The money that has been raised through our Relay for Life events have made an impact both worldwide and locally, Elmer said.

Elmer said there are roughly 30 Relay for Life events that happen in southeastern Wisconsin.

Aside from the event on June 2, there will be another event on June 9 at Caledonia/Mount Pleasant Memorial Park located 9416 Northwestern Ave.

Throughout the two weeks the Union Grove students were building the chairs, the students kept them along a wall in the cafeteria.

This is something that students in the school have seen them progress for the last couple of weeks, Wald said, adding that this sparked ideas for the future community events. Were hoping this could be the start of students thinking that way.
Chandigarh, May 15

The MC is likely to shut down all seven primary schools meant for EWS students to convert them into one big school on the lines of the hi-tech Rajiv Gandhi e-learning school run by the Pune MC.

Impressed by the Pune move, the local MC today tabled reports in this regard at a special House meeting. MC Commissioner B Purushartha said at the meeting, We run seven primary schools from a small space; there isnt much space to bring them into the e-learning process. Either we fix them or close them to convert them into one by arranging land at some other site. We will study it and bring a proposal. Councillors responded in the affirmative and suggested vacant land for the purpose. A councillor suggested land in Mauli Jagran. In case the land is far, we can ferry students in buses free of cost, said the Commissioner.

The Pune school has students from BPL families and slum areas, who dont have to pay fees, while others have to pay. The school provides free uniform, books, breakfast and lunch to the students. All learning is through interactive media. There is an annual budget of Rs 5 crore.

The schools run by the local MC have around 1,800 students and the schools are in bad condition. The MC runs schools at Mauli Complex, Buterla, Sector 12, Railway Colony, Timber Market, Sector 26 and two in Mani Majra.

For students of classes XI and XII, the Pune civic body has tied up with PACE Academy so that students can compete at the national level. A number of students get admission to the IITs and medical colleges every year and even children of senior officers study in this school. There is competition to get admission to the school, said an MC official.  TNS
Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15

Those not paying property and commercial tax despite several reminders have a reason to worry as the Municipal Corporation is planning to play band baja in front of their premises to musically shame the defaulters.

The MC is contemplating replicating the Pune Municipal Corporations move of hiring the services of music bands to recover dues from property owners. Councillors, after returning from study tours of Pune, Visakhapatnam and Mumbai last month, tabled their reports today at a special House meeting.

Mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal told Chandigarh Tribune, This is a good mechanism. We will work on implementing it. We will fix a limit. Those who owe a big amount will be given this treatment.

Former Mayor and councillor Arun Sood said the band company hired by the Pune civic body goes to the premises of defaulters and plays band baja while making announcements. The concept has also been proposed for Chandigarh to collect property tax. MC Commissioner B Purushartha, however, said they were discussing the matter and had invited suggestions.

MC has to recover Rs 17 cr

The MC has already announced that under the self-assessment scheme, it will give a rebate of 10 per cent to those paying commercial property tax between April 1 and May 31.

This year, city residents will not get the huge rebate in house tax which they got in 2015-16 and 2016-17. The MC has scrapped the three rebate slabs -- 40 per cent, 30 per cent and 20 per cent -- and has kept only the 20 per cent slab. The MC has to recover around Rs 17 crore from property and commercial tax defaulters.
Hasan Suroor

WATCHING the outcome of the French presidential election, it was hard not to flinch at the memory of what happened in India this month three years ago when, faced with a similar choice, Indian voters opted for a version of Marine Le Pen. A choice they have since validated several times, most recently in UP. Well, democracy is all about being able to choose freely how one wishes to be governed, and by whom. But it is also about a peoples moral vision of the kind of society they want to live in.

The biggest takeaway from the French election is that, whatever ones individual political preferences, an enlightened society will not compromise on its moral vision. France has sent out a message to other liberal democracies that true nationalism (BJP, take note) means defending the cherished ideals of the republic rather than fighting imaginary fifth columnists out of racial and sectarian prejudice. The French set aside their individual political differences in a collective defence of the countrys core values of liberty, egalitarianism and fraternity that a Marine Le Pen victory would have placed at risk.

The people of France chose to place their nations destiny in the hands of a callow and inexperienced Emmanuel Macron, not because they necessarily believe that he is the best man to steer it out of its deep economic and political crisis but because the alternative  surrendering to a far right populist demagogue  was too horrible to comprehend for a people with a proud liberal tradition. After a long and bitter debate, they concluded that hate, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism was not the French way; and voted against it. They were happy to take a punt on an untested politician and his hazy programme in order to protect the values that defined the republic. As Macron said in his post-victory speech: Tonight, France won.

I wrote in these columns recently that despite the rise of the right, at its heart Europe remains fundamentally liberal  I dare say more liberal than America. And France has confirmed this, the third European country  after Austria and the Netherlands  to give a bloody nose to the hard right. Austrian and Dutch voters decisively rejected candidates who threatened diversity and tolerance. And now Germany, which goes to the polls in the autumn, seems set to defy the popular narrative about the unstoppable march of the populist right. Angela Merkels front-runner rival is not a right-wing demagogue but a veteran Leftist: Martin Schulz of the Socialist Democratic Party, former president of the European Parliament. This is not to wish away the rise of the right but to underline that when it comes to the crunch, Europe still trusts its liberal instincts.

At 39, Macron is the youngest occupant of the Elysee Palace sinceNapolean and brings a centrist message of hope and reform to a country seething with economic and social divisions. He has spoken of a new page being turned in French history. I want it to be a page of hope and renewed trust... Tonight you won, France won. Everyone told us it was impossible, but they dont know France, he said in a sober and reflective post-victory speech that had echoes of Barack Obamas audacity of hope flourish. Indeed, his victory has already been dubbed Frances Obama moment; and his telegenic looks, cerebral qualities, and third way version of politics are drawing comparisons with Justine Trudeau and Tony Blair (of yore).

So far, so good. But what next? For, he is no Obama or Blair, and these breathless comparisons dont quite add up. They were professional politicians backed by highly-organised and well-oiled party machines. They had fought elections; people knew them; they didnt just get up one fine morning and pitched for the highest office in the land. Macron has no political background or experience apart from a brief and botched stint as a minister in Francois Hollandes government. He has no political party to boast of. His EnMarche! movement (renamed La Republique En Marche) launched last year has no coherent structure or grassroots organisation. It has no MP.

Macrons immediate task will be to build a credible organisation and find some 500-odd winnable candidates for next months crucial parliamentary elections. And not just that. He must win a working majority in the National Assembly (French Parliament) in order to be able to push the reforms he has promised. And this, just to get his presidency off the ground. Then comes his policy programme. Its too vague even to give a sense of how it will translate into action. Ironically, his biggest difficulty is likely to be what he likes to promote as his USP  namely, that he is neither left nor right and would do what is good for the people. The problem is that people want their leaders to have a clear policy vision; they have an instinctive suspicion of politicians who appear to be trying to please everyone.

Macron is trusted neither on the left, nor on the right. He presents himself as an outsider, but in truth he is very much part of the Parisian elite widely viewed with suspicion by large swathes of French masses. A former high-flying investment banker, he comes from a privileged background with little connection to the real lives of millions of ordinary French men and women. Francess highly unionised workers see him as part of the problem rather than a solution. His plans to liberalise labour laws to cut unemployment have already provoked street protests. A previous attempt, when he was economy minister, led to such an angry backlash that he was forced to quit. On the right, on the other hand, they see him as a closet leftist because of his proximity to Hollande and socialist intellectuals. And although his election has sent a huge sigh of relief in the EU, not everyone is pleased over some of his proposals to reform this dysfunctional behemoth.

Macron has his work cut out and, as Le Monde noted, the new optimistic President of this depressed country must very quickly show by concrete signs that he has received the message of this campaign.

But, irrespective of how his presidency goes, it doesnt take away from the huge significance of his victory, and the way the French collectively responded to the threat to their notion of a civilised and tolerant society. Indeed, any other response would have been an affront to the French way of life. Some societies still care about such things.

The writer is a London-based commentator
Sushma Ramachandran

THE information technology industry is passing through tumultuous times. The old comfortable scenario was of a set of companies that forged ahead in job creation, hiring thousands of young engineers as they graduated from colleges all over the country. Many of them were then trained specifically in these companies to take up technology jobs abroad, largely in the US through the largesse of the H-1B visa system. This was in addition to the large global software contracts that were bagged by this sunrise industry which ensured that Indias services exports became a booming segment of the economy. It has to be said that this system did not just benefit India. Other countries, notably the US, gained by having top-notch software personnel available for leading companies at a fraction of the cost it would have taken to hire an American for the same job.

But good times do not always last long. The party may not be over, but certainly Indian IT companies are facing a new landscape. This is partly because of the protectionism of the Trump administration and also because the world has moved towards automation and artificial intelligence. The need for vast numbers of employees is slowly receding as these companies are trying to meet the needs of clients for greater digitisation of services. The level of hiring from engineering college campuses is thus declining, an alarming trend for those who expected to be snapped up at graduation. It is also dismaying for the many engineering colleges that mushroomed over the last two decades to meet the seemingly unending demand from the IT industry.

The figures being given for employees to be laid off this year by the top seven IT companies range from 20,000 to 56,000. Nasscom has described recent media reports about the number of layoffs as being speculative and noted that industry continues to hire 1.5 lakh people annually. In any case, there is an annual performance-based system of planned exits in the industry which is about 1-2 per cent of the total estimated 45 lakh employees. This is expected to rise to about 4.5 per cent but even this projection is only a guesstimate for the time being.

As for the reasons for the changing vistas in this sector, the most dramatic is the decision of the new US government to review the entire system of H-1B visas. President Trump has been vocal in his opposition to the existing system which he claims has led to the entry of low-level technology personnel into the country instead of highly qualified technical persons. This, it has been argued, has been to the detriment of equally qualified Americans who are being denied jobs in this sector. Infosys has already sought to mollify such job concerns by announcing that 10,000 people will be hired in the US. Other companies may follow soon with similar announcements. The net result will be a decline in jobs for qualified Indians in the IT sector.

The other important factor behind the tumult in the software industry is the need to change direction in line with the global trend towards automation and use of artificial intelligence. In other words, where many people were needed for some tasks, now only a few will do. This will mean not just retrenchment, but also re-skilling of personnel to meet the needs of the new environment. Re-skilling is a massive task in an industry with lakhs of educated employees. The need for such re-training becomes obvious when one learns that digital revenues apparently account for only about a quarter of the total business in most companies.

The IT industry is seeking to deny there is any turmoil but reports are multiplying not just of retrenchments but of delayed annual performance evaluations. This means delay in increments and promotions. There are some in industry who maintain that these upheavals have taken place in the past and are merely part of the growth process for the industry. It is also argued that the remuneration of many of those affected by the layoffs runs into tens of lakhs annually, so their fate should not be of much concern. The fact is that a layoff is traumatic for anyone and the process of finding another job is not always easy. Though the options now available for highly skilled persons are wider than before, there is a downturn in hiring in many sectors. This includes the burgeoning startup industry where exits are taking place as quickly as new venture launches.

A major concern in this context is that layoffs should not cause social unrest. Fortunately, this is not a prospect that appears to loom large just now. But in case the situation worsens, it would be disastrous to find large numbers of highly qualified individuals languishing for want of jobs. One can only hope that the situation remains under control and that jobs in the IT sector continue to multiply, as is being assured by the industry association.

The plus point is that the big players in industry are gearing up to meet the changes in the global environment. The largest Indian IT company, TCS, for instance, is not likely to be retrenching in a big way and continues hiring at the same pace as in the past. Last year alone, it hired 40,000 employees. Infosys seems to be slowing down but to put it in context, this could be due to its own internal tumult, based on a dispute with the founders over high payouts to top-level managers. Other major players are reported to be revamping strategies to meet the challenges of a new era. There may be criticism over their anxiety to maintain their bottom lines by cutting back on employee numbers but it is critical for these companies to remain highly profitable in the interests of the economy as a whole. Software exports are the major chunk of services exports currently and provide considerable foreign exchange inflows.

Thus course corrections in the long- term strategies of Indian IT companies are inevitable. Otherwise they will not be able to survive in the altered world order. For the time being, the scenario is not so much a crisis but a turning point for industry. In the process, there may be some hardships. One can only hope that the change in strategies will work and these end up being only short term in nature.
S.N. M Abdi

AFTER criss-crossing West Bengal for three days, Amit Shah declared that he can sniff poriborton (Bengali for change) in the air  prompting his lieutenants to announce that come 2019 and the BJP will capture 25-27 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 before bundling the Trinamool Congress out in the Assembly elections of 2021. Such projections reveal that when you build castles in the air, the bricks of fantasy are inevitably cemented by bravado. But, realistically speaking, the BJP's Bengal prospects are rather bleak for two reasons: Mamata Banerjee's record of good governance since 2011 and the Hindu Right's miserable post-Independence record in the state.

The media coverage of Shah's visit itself revealed there is no love lost between the BJP and Bengal. Newspaper headlines were peppered with Dangabaaz  the epithet hurled at the BJP supremo by the Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress. Media commentaries too gleefully recalled Shah's arrest in the Sheikh Sohrabuddin murder case and how Shah apparently got the Gujarat police to keep tabs on a young woman on "Saheb's" orders. With the probable exception of Kerala, in no other province are Sangh demigods treated with such contempt and derision as they are in Bengal.

And therein lies the rub. The Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS), which metamorphosed into the BJP, was fathered in 1951 by none other than a Bengali Brahmin, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, as the political arm of the RSS. For the newborn BJS, the rivers of blood and mountains of corpses in post-Partition Bengal were like manna from heaven. Little wonder then that the first Lok Sabha (1952) had two BJS MPs from Bengal; Mookerjee won in Kolkata and Durga Charan Banerjee in Jhargram, while Hindu Mahasabha's Nirmal Chatterjee was elected from Hooghly. Moreover, nine BJS MLAs got elected. Thereafter, the Hindu Right was totally upstaged by the Communists who won over tens of lakhs of Hindu refugees pouring into Bengal from East Pakistan. Smart handling of refugee politics by Reds ensured that the BJS or Hindu Mahasabha didn't win a single Lok Sabha or state legislative assembly seat in Bengal for 25 years! For a quarter of a century  no less  Hindu refugees and West Bengal Hindus shunned Hindutva forces, reducing them to pariahs in the liberal-secular milieu. After the Emergency, BJS's Bijoy Mondal won from Bankura on a Janata Party ticket in the 1977 Lok Sabha polls. Then there was a drought for 21 years, which ended in 1998 when Tapan Sikdar won from Dum Dum on a BJP ticket. In subsequent parliamentary polls, the BJP has bagged one or two seats. At present, it has two MPs. In 1977, two BJS MLAs were also elected as Janata Party candidates. West Bengal got its first BJP MLA only in 2000. At present, there are three representing a miniscule 1.1 per cent in the 294-strong legislature.

The biggest drawback of the BJP-RSS in West Bengal is its conspicuous failure to win over the intelligentsia. Without its endorsement it can't gain legitimacy. Shah's attempt to convene a meeting of intellectuals last month flopped. What happened in January is instructive. A BJP front, Swadhikar Bangla Foundation, wanted to organise a seminar on Kashmir and Balochistan on the lawns of the Calcutta Club. When realisation dawned that the real objective was to whip up communal passions by fielding right-wingers likes Tarek Fatah, GD Bakshi and Sushil Pandit, the Club called off the event. It informed the Foundation in writing that its booking had been cancelled because the Club wanted "to ensure a cordial atmosphere" on its premises. Obviously, Calcutta Club, a bastion of middle-class Bengali values, felt that the BJP seminar would vitiate the peace of not only the club but the entire city.

In contrast, the acceptance of the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is evident from its sweeping victory last year, bagging 210 seats out of 294  26 more than its 2011 tally. An ascendant Trinamool Congress is rapidly establishing itself as the natural party of governance, thanks to the fast-paced development of the state. Kolkata is today a cleaner, more liveable city than during the Left Front rule. Rural Bengal too is undergoing a seachange through road building. Performance of the Public Distribution System, which supplies subsidised food to the under-privileged, is exemplary. On the sanitation and drinking water front, Bengal's record is the nation's envy as Nadia was declared India's first open- defecation free" district.

Significantly, two flagship programmes which pulled in plenty of votes, are Banerjee's own brainchild. Kanyashree ensured stipends to girls who kept studying and didn't marry until they turned 18. Sabooj Sathi provided bicycles to high school students of government-aided educational institutions. But Banerjee's biggest success story is the Jungle Mahal region. Once a Maoist stronghold, it has developed more in the last six years than since 1947. The eradication of Naxalism from Jungle Mahal, largely due to Banerjee's maternal approach, is in sharp contrast to the consolidation of Maoism in Chhattisgarh during 15 years of BJP rule. It is because of Banerjee that the Home Ministry can today afford to relocate central forces from Jungle Mahal to Sukna, where Maoists killed 37 CRPF soldiers in March-April.

Narendra Modi is a key player in Shah's Mission Bengal but despite his aura of invincibility and clout as Prime Minister, Banerjee has run rings around him. She famously called Modi Danga Babu, or Mr Riot, during the 2014 poll campaign, declaring that she wouldn't hesitate to arrest him if he inflamed Hindu-Muslim passions in Bengal. "I will tie a rope around Modi's waist and send him to jail", she had warned. Not surprisingly, Modi started gunning for her after coming to power turning them into implacable foes. Their personal war climaxed during Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina's recent visit.

Banerjee settled many a score with Modi by aborting the Teesta River water-sharing agreement. Modi wanted to clinch it to project himself as South Asia's elder statesman but Banerjee pulled the plug by announcing that the question of sharing the Teesta waters with Bangladesh doesn't arise as there isn't enough water in the Teesta to meet West Bengal's requirements. Period. She brutally demonstrated before the whole world her capacity to summarily dispose what Modi proposes! Interestingly, her popularity in West Bengal shot up for giving priority to the state's interest over bilateral relations.

Mamata has even ingratiated herself with the business community  Marwaris and Gujaratis entrenched in Kolkata  which is vehemently opposed to the Teesta deal or any improvement in India-Bangladesh relations that would result in Bangladeshi products entering the Indian market without tariff.

Clearly, Banerjee has the political will to take on the BJP. But as the battle for Bengal intensifies and BJP tries to polarise Hindus and Muslims for electoral gains as it did in Uttar Pradesh  she must ensure that the police and civil administration don't succumb to the Sangh's charms. To keep the BJP at bay, the Trinamool Congress must police the police.

The writer, a Kolkata-based journalist, is the former Deputy Editor, Outlook.
London, May 16

The Italian Supreme Court has ruled against a Sikh who wanted to carry a kirpan in public saying migrants in the Western world must conform to the values of the society they had chosen to settle in.

The Italian High Cassation Court on Monday ruled against the Sikh Indian migrant who wanted to carry a kirpan even as it was against the Italian law, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The court said migrants who chose to live in the Western world had an obligation to conform to the values of the society they had chosen to settle in, even if its values differed from their own.

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An attachment to ones own values, even if they are lawful in the country of origin, is intolerable when it violates the laws of the host country, the court said.

The multi-ethnic society is a necessity, but it cant lead to the formation of conflicting cultural groups of islands according to the ethnicities theyre made up of, precluding the unity of the cultural and judicial fabric of our country, which identifies public safety as an asset to defend and as such bans carrying weapons and objects aimed at injury, the court said.

The Sikh man, who has not been named, was appealing against another courts decision ordering him to pay 2,000 euros in fine because he had been caught leaving his home in Goito, northern Italy, armed with a knife measuring nearly 20 cm, the BBC reported, citing local media. PTI
FROM Saharanpur to the old Dalit bashing belt of Rohtak-Gohana, atrocities and browbeating of the most vulnerable section of our society are on the rise. The traditional reasons for the ire against Dalits have been inter-caste marriages, ghurchari during weddings, refusal to work on upper caste-owned farms and abduction of their womenfolk. Now cows too have joined the list of reasons for the provocation that leads to belabouring and intimidation of Dalits. The powerful eddies of Hindutva politics where the insistence is on uniform cultural habits and intolerance towards divergence from the Sangh Parivar notified norms of cultural behaviour have made this section even more vulnerable.

If the intention behind the atrocities before the brazen advent of the Hindutva brigade on the streets  whether under Congress rule or by the so-called socialists  was to remind Dalits about their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the intention now is to forcibly mould their eating habits. The irony is that most of the violence being perpetrated by the Hindutva brigade is led by the backward and other lower castes which in turn are being used by the upper castes to do their dirty work. In Haryana, there have been a series of outrages against Dalits that has regrettably led to counter-violence. But there has rarely been a word of sympathy from the political class except of the opportunist kind from the BSP and the Congress aimed more at earning Dalit sympathy and, later, their votes.

The real reason for the rise in caste tensions over and above the usual average has been the growing religiosity of the Savarkar-defined Hindutva brand and consequent intolerance towards the different way of life of the other. It is, however, remarkable that the ire is focused more in belts where upper castes, having subsumed many backwards to the cause of political Hindutva, are a dominant force. In Kerala, for instance, the BJP candidate in the recent Mallapuram Lok Sabha elections promised halal beef if voted to power. The sad part is political reassurances that help restore social sanity and equilibrium have become rarer than before.
INDIA appeared like an outlier when it chose to sit out Sundays One Belt One Road (OBOR) Summit in Beijing. Two reasons have been cited: sovereignty issues over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Chinas inability to properly explain the connectivity initiative. The first will remain a constant factor for all time to come. Neither will India give up its claim over PoK nor does it have the military strength to wrest it from Islamabad. As for the second, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will get enough opportunities this year when he comes across President Xi Jinping at the summits of the SCO, G20 and BRICS.

As things stand, both India and China need each other. The CPEC will be financially unviable unless India lends its weight to it. China is also slipping into a position of weakness as its economy slows down and it will need the huge Indian market more than ever, especially when Narendra Modis developmental energies are directed towards road building, railways, ports and housing. Being astute businessmen, the Chinese have sensed this. That is why their envoy in India offered to rename the CPEC with a politically more palatable name. Indias unusual political trepidation may well be directed towards getting a better bargain from China than if it had shown school-boyish enthusiasm towards the OBOR.

Credit Suisse and HSBC, both by no means Chinese surrogates, have suggested that India could be the biggest gainer from the OBOR which consists of six economic corridors. Three of them, and not just the CPEC, can boost Indias external trade where it has been a historical laggard. At the same time, the OBOR is a geopolitical project. India may well be speaking up for many other countries, including Russia, when it says the concept and purpose behind the OBOR remain opaque. In the short term, Indias flag-bearer status as an opponent of the OBOR may help it win concessions from the West. But it will be worthwhile to have a long-term strategy to avoid isolation. For, even the increasingly inward-looking US took a U-turn and sent a representative to Beijing.
THE CBI raids on P Chidambaram and his son and the income-tax action against Lalu Prasad and sons would be all in order if these lead to convictions in court. That happens in the rarest of rare cases. In media coverage the distinction between fact and fiction often gets blurred. We are supposed to believe that a person as intelligent and clever as the former Finance Minister-cum-lawyer would keep self-incriminating documents at home for the CBI to come and collect. Two firms with whom his sons name is linked are under investigation for forex rule violations. The charge is Chidambaram as Finance Minister cleared foreign investment proposals without taking them to what the CBI says was the competent authority, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Chidambaram says the proposals were cleared in routine by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board consisting of five Secretary-level officers. The FIPB, he believes, was the competent authority. Whose version is right would be decided in court, provided the case reaches there. Raids lead to instant TV debates in which reputations get shredded. The rule that everyone is presumed innocent until declared guilty by court has become irrelevant. Chidambaram has pleaded victimhood in defence  a columnist targeted for anti-government writings: The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations.

Lalu Prasad, however, has little intelligent to offer by way of defence. He and his offspring are linked to benami land deals worth Rs 1,000 crore. The BJP keeps provoking the Bihar Chief Minister for his silence on Lalu Prasad. Nitish Kumar has finally responded, wisely: If you think your allegations are true, you should move ahead and take legal recourse instead of just indulging in bayanbaji. All the sound and fury over the UPA scams and Vadra land deals has not produced any high-profile conviction. In 2014 Narendra Modi promised swift trial of MPs to have a taint-free Parliament in five years. As he completes three years in office, the lazy, unreformed criminal justice system mocks his government.
Chandigarh, May 16

Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday claimed the BJP government in the state has unleashed "political vendetta" against its opponents to "divert" people's attention from its own failures.

The CBI yesterday had questioned Hooda for nearly nine hours in connection with the Manesar land deal case in which land-owning farmers were allegedly caused a loss of about Rs 1,500 crore.

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Asserting that he has done no wrong in the land deal case, the Congress leader said he too is a victim of "political vendetta".

"People voted for the BJP with high hopes. But, as it has failed to meet their expectations, it is now unleashing political vendetta," he told reporters here.

"This is vendetta and witch hunt. Nothing wrong has been done during my tenure (as the chief minister) and in every case rules were followed," he said.

Read  Manesar land deal: CBI grills Hooda for 9 hours

Hooda claimed that the BJP government's agenda is to level accusations, defame, work with vendetta, slap false cases, start mudslinging campaign and try to muzzle opponents' voices.

"The only credit which can be given to the state government is frequently transferring its officials, indulging in vendetta politics against opponents and changing names of existing schemes and cities," he said.

The CBI had registered the case in September 2015 on allegations that private builders in collusion with unidentified officials of the Haryana government had purchased around 400 acres from farmers and land owners of village in Manesar, Naurangpur and Gurgaon at throwaway prices.

The land was purchased allegedly on the threat of acquisition by the government, between August 27, 2004 and August 24, 2007.

The CBI in its FIR claimed that in the said manner, about 400 acres land whose market value at that time was above Rs 4 crore per acre, totalling around Rs 1,600 crore, was allegedly purchased by private builders and others from land owners for only about Rs 100 crore.

Truth will come out. I have not allotted the land to anyone. We did not acquire anything. As regards their allegation that private builders in conspiracy with unidentified officials of the Haryana government had purchased the land, let them make the names of the officials public," Hooda said.

Claiming that the present BJP government in Haryana released 3,600 acres of land in Bawal that too after award for the land was announced, he said, "But they are silent on this."

Asserting that the Khattar government has failed on all fronts, Hooda said, "Earlier, I used to give them a zero for their poor performance, but now, I am compelled to give them negative marks."

On Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar's upcoming visit to Singapore and Hong Kong to attract investments, Hooda said, "It reminds me of King Bruce and the spider story. All I can say is that the chief minister must try, try and not give up. They may have failed to bring any investment for the state in the past, but if this time they are able to do so, I will be happy."

He also alleged that the law-and-order situation in Haryana has worsened in the last two years and the gang rape and brutal murder of the 23-year-old woman from Sonepat has shaken everyone.

People of the state, especially women, are feeling insecure. In this scenario, who will want to come here and invest," the Congress leader asked.

Terming the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal as the lifeline of Haryana, Hooda said the question of talks with Punjab does not rise and Haryana should put pressure on the Centre to get the canal completed at the earliest because the Supreme Court's verdict is clearly in its favour.

"We must get our due share," he said.  PTI
CALEDONIA  An overheated sprinkler caused an evacuation at Gifford School Monday morning, according to Caledonia Fire Department Battalion Chief Jeff Henningfeld.

On Monday at 10:09 a.m., the Caledonia Fire Department was dispatched to Gifford School, 8332 Northwestern Ave., after the kitchen's sprinkler system went off. Children were then evacuated.

Upon arrival, the fire department determined there was no fire or danger to students. "My belief is that a food service worker in the kitchen left the oven door open and the heat from the open doors activated the automatic sprinkler system," Henningfeld said. Children were allowed to return to their classrooms at approximately 10:25 a.m.

The incident caused lunch to be a bit delayed for students and an alternative lunch menu to be served, Principal Mary Cline said.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15

The CBI questioned former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for nearly nine hours at its office in Sector 30 here today in connection with a case pertaining to the Manesar land deal.

Sources said Hooda entered in the CBI office around 11 am and his questioning continued till 8 pm. He refused to speak to media persons who were waiting outside the CBI office and those who went to his official residence at the MLA flats.

The CBI had registered the case in September 2016 on allegations that private builders, in connivance with some public servants, had purchased around 400 acres from farmers and landowners in Manesar, Naurangpur and Gurgaon at throwaway prices.

After registering the FIR, the CBI had carried out raids in Delhi, Gurgaon, Panchkula, Rohtak and Chandigarh last year. The premises raided included Hoodas residence and that of UPSC member Chattar Singh, who was Chief Ministers Additional Private Secretary during Hooda regime.

The land was allegedly bought between August 2004 and August 2007 by private builders at throwaway prices from farmers who were threatened with acquisition of their land by the government. Being the Chief Minister, Hooda was HUDA chairman during this period.

It was alleged that the then government had adopted the modus operandi of first issuing notifications with the intent to acquire land for public purpose, creating a sense of fear among farmers that they would end up getting low compensation.

The builders had reportedly used this to trap farmers into selling their land at much lower rates than the market price. The notifications were reportedly cancelled soon after the land was acquired.

The Manesar land deal was alleged to be the most conspicuous case with the government withdrawing two land acquisition notifications in August 2007 for 680 acres after almost completing the process.

This was part of the 912 acres for which Hooda government had issued a land acquisition notification to set up a model industrial township. The notifications had been withdrawn just a day before the last date for completing all formalities.

It was alleged that in several cases, private developers had made a windfall. Fearing low compensation rates from the state government, the landowners had sold their plots at rates much lower than market price.

Swamy withdraws plea to summon ex-CM

New Delhi: BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on Monday withdrew his plea seeking summoning of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda as witness in the National Herald case filed against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders. Swamy had earlier told the court that Hooda had been questioned by the CBI in the Panchkula plot allotment case and his deposition would help the National Herald case since both were related. Swamy told Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen on Monday that the present case was not related to the one being investigated by the CBI. The court allowed his plea and posted the matter for further hearing on July 1. Swamy had accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh through which Young Indian Private Limited obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which Associate Journals Limited owed to the Congress. The Gandhis and other accused  Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda  had denied the allegations. On April 22, Swamy arrayed Hooda as a witness in support of his complaint.  PTI
Sumedha Sharma

Tribune News service

Gurugram, May 15

The Gurugram police have constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the incident of gang rape of a woman from the Northeast in a moving car on Sunday.

The SIT, led by Sumit Kuhar, DCP (crime), has released a sketch of one of the accused and is looking for the Swift Dzire car used in the crime. CCTV footages from near the spot and the way the car reportedly took after the incident have been seized. The victims male friend, who was with her before the incident, has been identified and questioned.

This man, who hailed from Shahdara, claimed that he had met the victim for the first time yesterday. They were in touch with each other on social media and WhatsApp and had fixed a meeting. They went for a movie and later, to a bar. The victim took some money from him claiming that she had no cash, said one of the investigators.

In her statement to the police, the victim had stated that she returned from a bar with her friend at around 2 am in a cab. She left the cab near Sukhrali village. She was abducted while she was on the way to her Sector 17 accommodation and raped by three men before being dumped in Delhi.

Court to decide on rape victim's MTP

Rohtak: The matter pertaining to the medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) of 10 year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather will now be decided by the court. The authorities of the PGIMS and the District Child Welfare Committee said the law permitted abortion of foetus up to 20 weeks of pregnancy and the girl's period of pregnancy was on the borderline. TNS Director General of Police (DGP) BS Sandhu has directed all Commissioners of Police and Superintendents of Police (SPs) in all districts to constitute special investigation teams (SITs) at their own level and initiate legal action in case of any sensitive incident. The DGP was presiding over a videoconference regarding Operation Durga. He said in view of the overwhelming response received from people of the state, Operation Durga would be continued to ensure safety of women and provide them a secure environment.  TNS

Court to decide on rape victim's MTP

Rohtak: The matter pertaining to the medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) of 10 year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather will now be decided by the court. The authorities of the PGIMS and the District Child Welfare Committee said the law permitted abortion of foetus up to 20 weeks of pregnancy and the girl's period of pregnancy was on the borderline. TNS
Tribune News Service

Karnal, May 16

Members of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Karnal chapter, met Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar here today and sought modification in the newly introduced policy related to regularisation of nursing homes operating from residential premises. They requested him to exempt the existing nursing homes from the purview the new policy.

IMA representatives, led by district president Dr Gagan Kaushal, handed over a memorandum to the CM, urging him to ensure welfare of doctors. Dr Kaushal said the new policy was not in favour of a large number of nursing homes running from residential premises and several of these would shut. These nursing homes were running for the last several years and at this stage it would be not possible for them to create facilities such as parking for four-wheelers equivalent to the number of beds.

Dr Kaushal was accompanied by Dr Rohit Sadana, Dr Amit Bansal, Dr Deepak Parkash, Dr BK Thakur, Dr Satish Khattar and Dr Salil Gupta. They told the Chief Minister that the new policy should be applicable only to nursing homes that are established after its introduction.

There is no need for regularisation of existing nursing homes as commercial units because these are providing professional medical services and are not trading in goods, said Dr Kaushal.

He added a number of nursing homes were also being used as residence by doctors. In such a situation, the payment of high conversion charges seems unreasonable, he said.

Municipal bodies had allowed some of these nursing homes to be used as residence and they had paid the due fee, he said. Paying conversion charges now would be extra burden on such units, he added

Dr Thakur and Dr Khattar said a large number of nursing homes had been issued trade licences after payment of a fee proportionate to the number of beds. These units had also got the certificate of safety from the Fire Department hence these should be exempted from the condition of compulsory regularisation.

Dr Sadana, Dr Bansal and Dr Gupta said the civil bodies had been charging house tax at commercial rates on the buildings of nursing homes, so these should be exempted from paying conversion charges. Also, these nursing homes had been paying electricity, water and sewerage charges at commercial rates.

Area under horticulture to be doubled: CM

Karnal: Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that the state government had set a target to increase the area under horticulture to 15 per cent from the existing 7.5 per cent. He said that cold stores would also be constructed to enable small farmers store their perishable vegetables and fruits. Chairing a meeting of the Farmers' Produce Organisation (FPO), Khattar said 72 groups, comprising 21,736 farmers, had been formed in the state for enhancing the income of growers. The Chief Minister said Haryana was the first state to identify 140 clusters comprising 340 horticulture villages. He maintained that the state government also launched a Crop Cluster Development Programme for the holistic development of the farmers under the Swarna Jayanti celebrations. The project aimed at ensuring suitable market for the farmers besides, providing them the facility of packaging, cold storage, pre-cooling chambers and others, the CM said. TNS
Our Correspondent

Sonepat, May 15

All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) president Yashpal Malik today said the matter concerning reservation for Jats in the state was pending in the court as well as the Rajya Sabha.

He was addressing a public meeting at Lath-Joli dhana site in the district today. Samiti general secretary Ashok Balhara and senior INLD leader KC Bangar were present in the meeting presided by AIJASS district president Azad Singh Lathwal.

Malik said the process on the demands for giving compensation, government job and withdrawal of cases was under way. On June 1, Balhara would meet members of the committee formed by the government in this connection, he added.

On June 2, we will hold meetings in the state to discuss on the progress made by the government on samitis demands, Malik said while announcing that a meeting of the samitis national executive would be held at the Jassia dharna site in Rohtak district on June 4 to decide the future course of action.

Malik alleged that the government wanted to keep Jats away from the reservation demand by keeping them busy in court cases.
Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, May 15

With an eye on the Vidhan Sabha elections the state government has once again initiated the move to convert Solan Municipal Committee (MC) into a Municipal Corporation.

Since the town fell short of attaining the desired population of 50,000, an endeavour is being made to merge three nearby panchayats of Basal, Anji and Shamti. This move had been initiated in 2015 too but since the panchayats resented the proposal fearing imposition of regulations and high taxes, it could not materialize.

Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kanwar, while confirming the news, said the Municipal Committee has been directed to seek No Objection Certificates from the panchayats lying in the precincts of Solan following which the proposal would be sent to the state government.

The towns population was pegged at around 39,256 as per the census figures of 2011 though a sizeable amount of the population had been left out as the census was conducted in December when schools face annual closure and people move go on vacation, said officials. The inclusion of 16 revenue villages lying in the precincts of Solan will enhance this figure by 14,363, thus attaining a population of 53,619.

The grant of a corporation status will enable the town to get funding from various Centrally sponsored schemes and this will facilitate creation of added facilities like sewage treatment plants, etc.

Executive Officer, Solan, MC, BR Negi, said he has sent letters to three panchayats - Anji, Shamti and Basal - to provide NOCs and has also requested the pradhans that he would be available to answer their queries in case they wanted any clarification on this issue.

Since the villagers had opposed the move tooth and nail earlier, it remains to be seen if the local administration would manage to coax them to give their consent now.

The MC, however, managed to fulfill the other criteria which included an annual revenue of more than Rs 2 crore as revenue generation was as high as Rs 7 crore. Though the town had witnessed the highest population growth of 56 per cent in the last decade in the state, the optimum figure of 50,000 could not be achieved.

With the local MLA DR Shandil having failed to secure adequate votes from the MC area, the move has not found much favour from him.

The Municipal Committee has been directed to seek NOC from the panchayats lying in the precincts of Solan following which the proposal will be sent to the state government.  Rakesh Kanwar, Deputy Commissioner
Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 16

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said that neither he nor his government was shielding the controversial godman Baba Amardev of Kandaghat.

Talking to media persons here today he denied having known the Baba, who is facing resentment from residents of 22 villages in the vicinity of his temple. It is completely false that me or anyone in my government is shielding the Baba, he said.

He said it was the propaganda of the CPM to paint a picture that the Baba was getting shelter from the higher ups. Baba Amardev has been admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) after a clash with the locals. Counter FIRs have been lodged by the Baba and the locals.

The CM also lashed out at the BJP for creating a hype about winning the next Assembly elections in Himachal. Rather than holding big meetings and rallies, the Congress will concentrate on going door to door and apprising people about the development undertaken during the Congress regime, he said.

Virbhadra also clarified that he was not in the race for becoming the state president of the Congress. I have apprised the high command about the political situation in the state and whether organizational elections should be held now or not is a decision to be taken by the Central leadership, he remarked.

Taking a dig at the state Congress president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu without naming him, the Chief Minister said he might be lobbying hard to become the president once again but winning elections is a different game altogether.

He also took strong exception to holding of religious functions in school premises and said that law had been enacted in the state with regard to conversion. It is wrong for the BJP to point fingers at us on the issue of conversions. Moreover, indulging in vandalism and causing damage to government school is just not acceptable, he said.

Book Baba for a fair probe: Kisan sabha

Shimla: Himachal Kisan Sabha (HKS) on Tuesday demand that the police and forest departments should book controversial Baba Amardev for an attempt to murder in view of the attack on a woman with sharp weapon under the Arms Act. He should further be booked under the Indian Forest Act and the Wildlife Protection Act for encroaching upon and cutting trees on the 4.5 bighas of government land in connection with the Romlok temple in Kandaghat. HKS president Kuldip Tanwar today stated that the forest department officials and policemen fear transfer in case they act and evict the controversial Baba from the encroached land. As many as 22 representatives of the panchayats sought action against him and a fair probe into the Ramlok temple incident, he demanded. Tanwar charged that Baba attacked Shanti Devi, a local village woman, with a weapon and he should be booked in an attempt to murder case and Arms Act. The government should start eviction proceedings against him as he has occupied 5.6 bigha of government land. TNS
Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Manali, May 15

Tourists visiting Kullu and Manali are upset as there is no snow near Gulaba, while the Rohtang Pass is still not opened for tourist activity.

Tourists visiting here from different parts of the country were hopeful to enjoy snow activity, but they were not aware that they will have to walk all the way from Gulaba to Rahla Fall to get a glimpse of snow.

Narrow road added to their woes in the hill station, leading to traffic chaos in the area. People were stuck for hours in traffic jams due to huge influx of tourist vehicles from Manali to Gulaba and Solang valley.

Sara Bai, a tourist from Indore, who arrived here two days ago along with her family, said: We had planned our trip to Manali to enjoy the snow, but after reaching Gulaba we found there was no snow near the spot.

Ramesh Kanwar from Jodhpur said the government should improve the road condition, adding that roads leading to tourist points should be widened to avoid traffic jams. Due to poor road conditions and traffic jam, a lot of time was wasted. Due to traffic jam one can hardly visit one or two destinations a day, he said.

However, hoteliers as well as taxi operators urged the district administration to open the Rohtang Pass for tourist activity, which would give impetus to the tourism industry.

However, the district administration is busy making arrangements of parking and toilet facility at the Rohtang Pass before allowing tourist vehicles from Manali, which is likely to be opened soon.
Tribune News Service

Solan, May 15

Seeking an amicable settlement of their grievances pertaining to controversial godman Amardev at Rurra village in the Kandaghat sub-division, a delegation of villagers from the Tundal panchayat met Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in Shimla.

The CM assured the villagers that various aspects of the case, including criminal cases slapped against the villagers, lack of action against Amardev, attack on 52-year-old woman Shanti Devi as well as the antecedents of the controversial godman, would be inquired into within a week and needful would be done to address their grievances.

The villagers gave him a memorandum where they pleaded to debar the entry of Amardev in and around the under-construction Shri Ramlok Temple and also stressed that the state government should take over the reins of the temple. The villagers also demanded rollback of criminal cases slapped against them.

Praveen Kumar, Pradhan, Tundal Panchayat, said they informed the CM that a mahapanchayat comprising locals from 22 panchayats was convened at Rurra village yesterday where they aired their grievances before the Deputy Commissioner.
Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 15

Three police officials were injured after college students clashed with the police today.

The trouble erupted after students of SP College here tried to take out a protest march on MA Road but were stopped by the police.

Upset at being stopped, the students started throwing stones and bricks on the police, resulting in injuries to three police officials. The police used teargas shells to disperse the students.

Eyewitnesses said the clashes initially started on the premises of SP Higher Secondary School which is within the campus of SP College. Later, the students also entered the Government College for Women located nearby and threw stones from there.

The SHO of the Kralkhud police station sustained head injuries and was shifted to a hospital and SP (East) was hit by a stone on leg. Another policeman was also injured, said an official.

The students clashes were triggered in the Valley after the April 15 incident when an Army vehicle entered the Degree College, Pulwama. Clashes after that left 54 students injured. Since then, protests have been continuing in various educational institutions in the Valley.

Youth joins militancy

For the past four days south Kashmirs volatile town of Shopian was observing a shutdown over the disappearance of a local youth, who had gone missing from police custody. On Sunday evening, the youth appeared in a video saying he was safe and joined militant ranks.

A day after the video of missing Zubair Ahmad Turay surfaced on social media, life returned to normalcy in Shopian.

Zubair had escaped from police custody in Keegam on May 1. Locals had alleged that disappearance of Zubair, who had been detained under the Public Safety Act for stone-throwing, was mysterious and sought his whereabouts. They had threatened that a strike would continue in Shopian till the authorities traced him.
Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 16

The Jammu and Kashmir transport system is in complete disarray as the state government has not been able to form any policy for parking of vehicles in the wake of increasing chaos on roads.

Adding to this misery is the failure of the Transport Department to draft a proposal making it mandatory for all vehicle owners to have parking space prior to registration of their vehicles.

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has gone tough on illegal roadside parking wherein the seized vehicle could be released only on the directions of the court.

The road length in Jammu city is just 704.22 km while the density of vehicles is 574 per km. One traffic police official controls around 1,700 vehicles on Jammu roads while the absence of traffic policemen from vital roundabouts make the situation more problematic and chaotic.

The state government has already admitted on the floor of the Assembly that it had no plan in the pipeline to widen the critical roads of the city which generally remain jammed during working hours.

According to sources, the Transport Department had discussed the proposal of making it mandatory for the vehicle owners to show the parking space available with them before registering the vehicle. But nothing has been done so far.

A traffic official manning a critical point at the New Plot area said there was an order from the higher authorities to pick up vehicles parked randomly at the roadsides and move them to Gulshan Ground.

When contacted, Sheikh Fayaz Ahmad, Transport Commissioner, dodged the question on the traffic chaos and refused to comment on the issue.
STURTEVANT  Despite a personal care worker shortage causing a crisis statewide, Racine County is one of the states hotbeds for those looking to start an assisted living facility for the elderly and mentally disabled, according to a head state regulator.

When I went down the highway, I was expecting a sign or billboard saying, open up an adult family home here, said Alfred Johnson, director of the Bureau of Assisted Living of the State Department of Health Services, who spoke to about 100 local care providers Monday at the Gateway Technical College iMET campus, 2320 Renaissance Boulevard, in Sturtevant.

Johnson said the latest data shows while the number of nursing homes has dropped, the number of adult family homes (AFHs)  group homes with four or fewer residents  has nearly doubled in a decade in the state.

While the reason Racine is ripe for starting group homes is unclear, some industry watchers think the supply of affordable housing has an effect, as the AFHs are required to be in residential settings.

People dont understand how difficult it is. They think its an easy way to have a business, said attendee Crystal Miller, president of Frontida, a company that runs eight community-based assisted living homes in five counties, including Racine.

Complaints rising

While Johnson said 82 percent of facilities operate without complaints statewide, the remaining get a lot of attention both from his agency and the media. Complaints are on the rise.

We had 1,200 complaints last year and we are on pace this year for 1,500 complaints, Johnson said of complaints throughout the state.

Suzanne Gitz, executive director of Home Harbor Assisted Living, a Racine-based residential care apartment complex at 1600 Ohio St., called on Johnson and the state to address the shortage of personal care workers, which she said is hurting their businesses on a regular basis.

I think that no matter what license you have, the caregiver crisis and the quality of people in the market for these jobs just dont meet our standard, Gitz told Johnson.

Gitz said caregiver organizations are competing against each other for workers who make an average of about $10.75 per hour.

I have personal care workers who are making more than that but thats because I am willing and able to make it happen. Essentially, I am losing money, Gitz said.

Worker shortage

With about 100 elderly couples at Safe Harbor, workers help with laundry, housekeeping and medicine management needs, but as the residents age they become dependent on other services provided by staff personal care workers including bathing and toilet use.

Gitz said with the estimated $4,000 to $7,000 it costs employers to fill a personal care vacancy, shes putting a lot more effort into making her workplace desirable for candidates.

We care about our culture, and we want it to be such a great place to work those few people who put their whole heart and soul into it want to work for me, Gitz said.

While some companies are able to meet the challenge of staff competition and are able to improve conditions, others are not and it can affect care.

Johnson said that for example citations for supervision issues are one of the top cites for the first quarter of this year, meaning workers are too busy to avoid problems in care. While 2017 date has not been released publicly 2016 data shows the state required offending providers to forfeit a total of $51,000 last year for that Supervision citations alone.

Alfred Johnson acknowledged a caregiver crisis and asked providers who attended the discussion their opinion on what was contributing to the caregiver shortage.

Crystal Miller, president of Frontida, blamed new high-profile businesses in the area, such as Amazon, for raiding the pool of entry-level workers and paying them upwards of $18 an hour.

I know this is a tremendous issue were dealing with in the state and around the country, Johnson said.

Miller said the personal care workers who go out of the industry come back if their hearts are in the right place.

We do really, really hard work, Miller said. You have to care about serving others.

Worker public assistance

Last year, 49 percent of personal care workers in Wisconsin relied on some form of public assistance to get by, according to the New York-based Paraprofessional Heathcare Institute.

Ashley Wricks, human resources director of Home Harbor Assisted Living, said that number is higher in Racine County, as many of the job applicants shes seen are single mothers dependent on public assistance for health care, food assistance and day care funding.

I would say that the majority, some 90 percent, are receiving public assistance, Wricks said. That is a bigger issue. We have to deal with the social side of it. If you want people to care for (your patients), they have their own issues affecting the job they do.

Gitz said shes seeing workers with food insufficiency and their own housing insufficiency.

They dont have reliable transportation, and health care schedules dont align with the bus routes, Gitz said.

To add insult to injury is when workers get by and start getting on a good footing, they become ineligible for public assistance.

When they work they cut back the benefits before any stabilization period. Its a big challenge for them, Gitz said.

Gitz said her organization is not large enough to afford health insurance for workers.

Johnson said the state is addressing the problem, but did not provide further details. He put it on the caregiver organizations to think outside the box and come together to solve the problem.

Maybe there can be a grass-roots type thing. You could go into Case High School and you start talking about this as a classroom. Hopefully, they can meet a need and we can start working together, Johnson said.
Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 15

At least six students of a private school today fainted due to heat and humid conditions inside their classrooms, located on the top floor of the building, in the Janipura area of the city. The temperature was above 40C in Jammu today.

All the students who fainted were rushed to the Sri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital and given first aid. The condition of the students was stated to be stable. The parents of children slammed the authorities of Indira Public Higher Secondary School, Shant Nagar, for inadequate cooling arrangements inside the classrooms and alleged that the school was playing with the health of their wards despite several complaints made to it on this account.

According to the school management, at least six students of different standards (Class IV, V and VI) complained of some uneasiness and fainted. They were immediately hospitalised and provided treatment.

The management, however, denied the allegations that there were no proper cooling arrangements inside the classrooms, saying that ceiling fans have been installed in each and every classroom and the children fainted because of the prevailing heatwave.

The parents, however, criticised the school management for playing with the health of their wards, alleging classrooms on the top floor, having roofs of tin sheets, do not have proper cooling arrangements and even ceiling fans are lying defunct.

Our child told us about the prevailing conditions in her classroom which is located on the top floor of the building. We apprised the school management of it but they left the students to suffer in the scorching heat. They have turned a blind eye to the hardships being faced by the children, a furious mother of a girl student complained.

She alleged that they were never allowed to visit the classrooms of their child on the pretext that it would disrupt the studies of students. Immediately after receiving information from the school, we rushed to the hospital. No teacher was accompanying the students, which reflected the sorry state of affairs of the school, she said.

Meanwhile, school principal Rishu Sharma countered the allegations saying the school has all arrangements for the children and anybody can visit the school to have assessment of the situation. She demanded that the Education Department should announce summer vacation in wake of hot weather conditions.
Amir Karim Tantray

Tribune News Service

Jhangar (LoC), May 15

After a lull of almost 24 hours, the Pakistan army again provoked India by violating the truce pact and firing along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri district this evening.

Although there was no official word from the Army over the fresh firing along the LoC but sources said the intermittent firing that started around 4 pm continued till the filing of last reports. Sources said Pakistan used small and automatic weapons to target the forward Indian posts and populated areas in four villages in the Nowshera sector.

Meanwhile, the migration of fear-stricken people continued from border villages to camps and safer places. Three people have so far lost their lives in the recent heavy shelling by Pakistan along the LoC. This time, the Pakistan army has targeted villages of the Nowshera sector in Rajouri district. Nearly 2,500 people have been forced to migrate to safer places since the shelling began on May 10.

Out of the 2500 people, 1,537 have been absorbed in migrant camps, which are being managed by the district administration.

The situation was calm and there had been no firing for the past 24 hours but the Pakistan army resorted to fresh intermittent firing from automatic and small arms about 4 pm in Sarya, Khamba, Anwas and Bhandar villages. People are still reaching migrant camps to take shelter, said Deputy Commissioner, Rajouri, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary. As many as 457 villages with a population of 4,51,856 are located along the International Border and the LoC in Kathua, Samba, Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch districts in the Jammu region. Of them, over 1.50 lakh people are living near the 224.5-km-long LoC stretch, which is targeted by Pakistan whenever ceasefire violation takes place. Since the 1999 Kargil war, when people were promised bunkers in the border area, nothing has been done on the ground. During forced migration, besides battling problems like hot and humid weather, demand for hygienic food and safe drinking water, the non-availability of bunkers remains the main issue with border residents. The government is yet to fulfil its promise of constructing bunkers for border people. Had there been a bunker in our village, Tufail Hussain and his granddaughter might have been alive today, claimed Tufails neighbour Jagdish Kumar in this Jhangar village. The two were killed in shelling on Saturday.
Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 16

Pakistani Army resorted to indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatic weapons, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naushera sector in Rajouri district on Tuesday evening.

The firing started at 6.30 pm and was on presently.

The Indian Army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively.
Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 15

The recent meeting of two BJP Union Ministers with the officials of the Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking the end to filling of the M-form by displaced Kashmiri Pandits before the next Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in J&K is aimed at bolstering its chances in the electoral politics of the Valley.

Union Minister of State (MoS) in the PMO Jitendra Singh and Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi met ECI Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on May 11 urging it to simplify the process of registration and updating of electoral rolls of the Pandit community. The delegation included members of social organisation Vichar Manch.

After the recent visit of BJP national president Amit Shah, the party is aggressively pursuing its agenda of expanding workers base in the Valley with major focus on consolidating displaced Hindus. To further consolidate its position in the Valley, the party has elected two Kashmiri Pandit MLCs in the upper house of the Assembly, Surinder Amberdar and GL Raina.

As per the data, there are a total of 92,103 migrant electors who belong to the Valley. Srinagar Parliamentary constituency consists of Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam segments comprising 38,278 Pandit voters while the Anantnag segment comprised volatile south Kashmir districts of Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag and Kulgam segments having 33,957 voters belonging to the minority community. A total of 72,235 Pandit voters are enrolled in the Election Commission data. Sources say the number of Pandit voters could increase if the registration process was simplified.

Meanwhile, Pandits are also happy with the step taken by the BJP as they have been complaining about the cumbersome M-forms process and dispute the official figures that say thousands of community members are unregistered and their names have been deleted from the rolls in the Valley after the exodus of 3.50 lakh Hindus in 1989-90.

There were 1.47 lakh Hindu voters in 1996. It went down to 71,000 in 2008. This slightly increased to 92,000 in 2014. The fall is due to the complicated procedure open to manipulation by vested interests. Migrant voters can be increased if the registration process is streamlined, said Dr TK Bhat, general secretary, All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference.

M-form procedure

As per the present system, each migrant family has to file an M-form ahead of every election and list the present address and other family details. Then submit the form to the Relief Organisation for verification, which sends it to the Election Commission. Electoral rolls are finalised only after clearance from Relief Commissioner.
Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 16

At least 15 students were injured during clashes with security forces in north Kashmir after posters carrying the Hizbul Mujahideen stamp surfaced on the premises of educational institutes, asking students to protest.

Hundreds of college and higher secondary school students came out on roads, chanting anti-India slogans and threw stones at the security forces personnel deployed at Pattan in Baramulla district, nearly 30 km north of Srinagar.

Police officers said the students were asked to protest after the morning assembly while teachers were asked to remain silent and allow the students to protest.

As soon as the morning assembly was over, the protesting students came out from Government Higher Secondary School, Pattan, and tried to block the Srinagar-Baramulla highway.

However, the police and paramilitary resisted, triggering a daylong protest, which was joined in by local college students too. The security forces retaliated to the stone-throwing with teargas and pellet shelling. We received 15 injured students, and three of them with pellet injuries were shifted to Srinagar for specialised treatment, said Block Medical Officer, Pattan, Manzoor Hakeem.

Police officers said the posters appeared to be fake and a conspiracy hatched by some local miscreants. They (posters) dont appear to be original Hizb posters. We are investigating whether they were pasted by the Hizb or by some local miscreants, said DSP Aamir Iqbal.

Student protestswere witnessed at Hajin, the hub of counter-insurgents in the 1990s, in Bandipora district of north Kashmir. Students peltedsecurity men with stones, triggering protests. The protesters were dispersed after the security forces resorted to lathicharge.

Protests were also witnessed in Srinagar and south Kashmir. Students of MultiPurpose Multi-Lateral Higher Secondary School and Government Gandhi College in Srinagar took out a protest march today.Security personnel tried to foil the march, triggering clashes. Security men fired teargas shells to disperse the students. A dozen students were arrested, police officers said.

Clashes between students and security personnel also erupted at Degree College, Dooru, after security personnel allegedly thrashed students who were on their way to college. As soon as the news spread in the college, students took to the streets and staged a protest against the security personnel.

Students have been holding protests since April 17 after at least 50 protesting students were injured in police action in Pulwama degree college on April 15.

Nine held for posing with Pakistan flag

Anantnag: Nine youth, most of them students, were arrested on Monday after they were found posing with a Pakistani flag for photographs at Pahalgam in Anantnag district. Pahalgam is a tourist resort and the arrested youth were apparently on a picnic. A senior police officer from Anantnag said: We received inputs that some youth were spotted posing with a Pakistani flag at different places across Pahalgam, he said. He said a team was dispatched and all nine had been arrested. oc
Preetinder Kaur

India is a country of farmers and villages, where more than 60 per cent population lives in the rural areas. These peoples cant take full advantage of the resources available in urban areas. To take care of the development of rural areas, education in rural development and management is much in demand. Government is hiring professional rural managers to assist villagers in the process of growth, improvement and expansion.

As the term rural development encompasses overall development of rural areas with a view to improving the standard of living of rpeopel in these areas, its field includes the development of agriculture and its allied activities, village and cottage industries, handicrafts, socio-economic infrastructure, community services and facilities, and, above all the human resources in rural areas. Study in rural development and management has become one of the most soughtafter courses to study and research at postgraduate level.

Courses and eligibility

Interested candidates can go in for diploma or bachelors courses after Class XII. Some of the courses that you should check out are:

Diploma courses

Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management

Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Development

Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Finance

Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Marketing

Bachelors courses

Bachelor of Arts in Rural Development

Bachelor of Rural Technology and Management

Masters courses

Master of Arts in Rural Development

Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Rural Management

Doctoral courses

MPhil in Rural Development

PhD in Rural Development

Getting in

Many institutions provide admission on the basis of an entrance test. To pursue Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand, the candidates are required to appear the CAT/XAT entrance examination. Admission to MBA programme in rural management is done on the basis of the following entrance exams:

MAT

CAT

XAT

ATMA

Prospects

With a number of institutes offering courses in this field professionally qualified workforce is available and is also in demand for various job openings. With the corporates paying more attention to CSR activities professionally qualified persons have a vast scope of employment. Companies like Tata, Arvind Mills, Reliance etc. have set up their exclusive rural development units.

Apart from the learning within the four walls of classrooms, students of rural development courses also gets practical and hands on training through projects/visits to the field and in the operational areas of the voluntary organisations.

Institute watch

Students can go for rural management and development courses at the following institutions:

Institute of Rural Management, Jaipur

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Institute of Rural Management Anand

Amity School of Rural Management, Noida

Xavier Institute of Management,Bhubaneswar

National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Hyderabad

National Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad

Job profiles

Candidates with a related degree can take up positions as rural managers. Professionals of this field can apply in the government sector for the posts of Village Development Officer (VDO).

Rural managers can also run their own NGOs or can work for an NGO. They can work in rural co-operative sector, agri-business enterprises, agricultural marketing and management of agro products.

The Indian Institute of Rural Management, which is a government-run institution, also recruits candidates holding a degree in rural management .
Usha Albuquerque

The Indian healthcare sector is growing at a tremendous pace strengthening its reach and coverage as well as services in public and private hospitals, nursing homes, clinics - urban and rural, and diagnostics centres. With a requirement of 6,00,000 to 7,00,000 additional beds in the next five to six years it is predicted that the Indian healthcare market, will grow 23 per cent by 2020.

Along with growth comes the need for providing enhanced medical services and care to an ever increasing population. However, most hospitals today are bursting at the seams  known for their lack of sanitation and basic infrastructure like beds and medical facilities. Space is tight, lifts not working, clogged toilets, patients waiting for hours to see a doctor in unhygienic conditions, poorly stored medicines, unclean wards and torn beds. While private hospitals can boast better hygiene, with billions of dollars being invested annually in health care facilities, the facility design of the hospital, with its equipment and technology, has not often been considered with its impact on the quality and safety of patients.

Courses

The Institute of Hospital Engineering was set up to promote, develop and disseminate hospital engineering and technology and educate specialist hospital technologists. The purpose is to promote healthcare facility engineering/ management through the certification of qualified and experienced individuals at different levels. For this purpose IHE has developed two programmes to be conducted concurrently as companion courses, with content that may be common, but application and emphasis which will be different. The two proposed courses are :

n Masters degree programme in Health Facilities Planning & Designing (MHFPD) with emphasis on architectural design, ergonomics, sustainability, patients environment etc.

Eligibility: Bachelor's degree or equivalent in medicine, architecture, town planning, engineering, dentistry, nursing ect)

n Masters degree programme in Health Facilities Engineering and Management (MHFEM) with emphasis on engineering services, asset management, infrastructure, and project/ construction management.

Eligibility: Bachelors degree or equivalent in any branch of engineering/technology.

These courses developed by the Institute of Hospital Engineering under the umbrella of the National Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Architecture (NIHEA) will assist health facilities planning and all aspects of infrastructure development. These will be joint degree programmes with faculties of medicine, planning, engineering and management, utilising their innate strengths. Students will study in a variety of campuses: Medical Architecture Research Unit (MARU) , now South Bank University, London; Health Design Centre (HDC) USA; International Federation of Hospital Engineering(IFHE), UK; the Centre for Health Assets Australasia(CHAA) Australia, and other foreign universities associated as knowledge partners. There will also be emphasis on regional research which it is hoped will lead to efficient and effective healthcare facilities infrastructure development models for rural and metro settings.

In addition, a Health Engineering Polytechnic has been recommended for each state of India and such polytechnics to be established jointly with medical colleges. These polytechnics will train middle level hospital technologists ( 1  years training at post-diploma/ advanced diploma level including six-month practical training in hospitals and industries).

Post-diploma courses in hospital engineering will be awarded with specialisations in:

n Hospital Electrical Engineering Services

n Hospital Planning & Design Services

n Hospital Civil & Public Health Engineering

n Hospital Mechanical Engineering services

n Hospital Information & Computer Services

n Hospital Instrumentation and Control Services

n Hospital Biomedical and Clinical engineering services

n Hospital Chemical/Environmental Engineering Services

There are also advanced modules for technicians ( 6 months) focused on maintenance and repair of hospital buildings, plant, equipment and services, open to qualified graduates in electrical, mechanical, biomedical and other technical trades.

With the imminent need for qualified technologists to handle the growing development of the healthcare sector, there is a need for such programmes to be widely available across the country. At present Punjab Engineering College and Chandigarh College of Architecture will offer the programmes, but it is hoped that there will be many more universities and medical schools coming forward to start these programmes.

Every aspect of a hospital is crucial to the health and safety of the patient whether it is the design, functioning, facilities, or services. An understanding of the multi-dimensional systems at work in a hospital, and a cadre of qualified healthcare technologists to support the infrastructure is one way of achieving it. With ' Health for All'on India's national agenda there is an pressing need to develop heal-tech (healthcare technology) manpower well qualified with high order competencies to design, build and maintain the healthcare centres of the future.

 With inputs provided by Dr JC Mehta, National President, Institute of Hospital Engineering, India and pioneer of study of Hospital Engineering at PGIMER, Chandigarh

Importance of design and architecture of hospitals

The physical surroundings of a hospital have a direct impact on both staff and patients. The design of a facility/structure with its fixed and moveable components can have a significant impact on human performance, especially on the health and safety of employees, patients, and their families. In several studies conducted, researchers have found that there is a link between the physical environment (i.e. single-bed or multiple-bed patient rooms) and patient (e.g. fewer adverse events and better health care quality) and staff outcomes (e.g. reduced stress and fatigue and increased effectiveness in delivering care). Effective physical surroundings reduce staff stress and fatigue. It also improves patient safety and reduces stress. Findings show that patients too are responsive and expressive about their architectural environment. They appear to make significantly better progress in new properly designed hospital buildings.

Hospitals are the most complex of building types. Each hospital comprises a wide range of services and functional units. These include diagnostic and treatment functions, such as clinical laboratories, imaging, emergency rooms, and surgery; hospitality functions, such as food service and housekeeping; and the fundamental inpatient care or bed-related function. This diversity is reflected in the breadth and specificity of regulations, codes, and oversight that govern hospital construction and operations. Each of the wide-ranging and constantly evolving functions of a hospital, including highly complicated mechanical, electrical, and telecommunications systems, requires specialised knowledge and expertise, which is why specialised consultants play an important role in hospital planning and design.

India lacks in this vital area of expertise. India's healthcare industry with its over stretched and straining healthcare delivery systems is evidence of poor institutional environmental health standards and practices with limited emphasis being given to design and facility infrastructure. Architects designing hospital buildings are rarely knowledgeable about medical architecture, space standards, multiple use of space and environmental considerations.

Engineers managing hospitals, medical machinery and biomedical equipment do not have the necessary knowledge in relevant subjects.

There is, thus, a great need for integration of technical & healthcare education to deliver competencies on these new specialised and merging occupations.
Nonika Singh

For you and me, Hoshiarpur might be just another district in Punjab, but for actor Vicky Kaushal, its a go to place, an annual pilgrimage of sorts where he gets to catch up with friends, gorge on aloo ke paranthe and gur, and just while away time, doing nothing. As he puts it, its a complete detox.

No airs about himself

As he was only recently reveling in his Punjabi roots, we wonder whether he leaves the actor and stardom behind too. He says, Frankly the actor in me is sent packing the moment I step out of my sets. Not to take stardom seriously is a lesson he learnt early in life. Born in a chawl in Mumbai watching his father Shyam Kaushal, an action-director, climb the ropes; he saw the other side of glamour far before he could count its blessings. So though his very first film Masaan saw him walking the red carpet at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, he knows success and failure are two sides of the same coin. And though he chooses to speak in chaste Hindi, to express his thoughts on success and failure, he picks up Rudyard Kiplings poem...If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same.

Not surprising, while Masaan picked up several international awards and his performance too was critically acclaimed, the praise only reinforced his desire to deliver his best. As he has just finished the shoot for his first rom.com, Love Per Square Foot, he doesnt think that any role is less or more challenging. Sure playing the dark shades of a delinquent cop in Raman Raghav 2.0 did require him to isolate himself from the rest of the world and for Masaan he lived in Benaras for three weeks to soak in the ambience, but none of these parts, he feels, are any tougher than playing a romantic lover boy.

Right choice

As an actor, his strategy of choosing parts is simple. His first task is to read the script, which by the way he judges not on the basis of the length of the character he gets to play. I imagine myself as an audience member and I say yes if the story rings a bell. On that count and many others, of course, Zubaan, which was the first film he signed after passing the grueling audition test, is very special to him. So is his mentor Anurag Kashyap, from whom he has learnt it all. In fact, prior to acting in Kashyaps home production Masaan, Vicky had worked as an assistant director in Gangs of Wasseypur. No he had no intentions of becoming a director, only wanted to understand the craft of cinema and acting from behind the camera.

A few films old as an actor, he considers himself a mere beginner; only one who has been fortunate enough to be part of not only Kashyaps films but also Raj Kumar Hiranis. Soon to be seen in the biopic on Sanjay Dutt, he gets to play his friend. Working with both greats at such an early stage of his career, he can only sense many similarities between the two ace directors. Both believe in improvisation, only their cinema is different from each other. On rubbing shoulders with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Ranbir Kapoor, he can only bow his head to their tremendous acting prowess. But then the subtle and fine actor who believes in surrendering to the directors vision knows acting isnt about I, me, myself.

Getting into the skin of a whole range of characters requires both giving some part of ones self as well as taking away something. In this give and take, Vickys performance usually is one of the best takeaways.

A true Punjabi at heart

The one thing truly Punjabi about Vicky Kaushal  apart from his undying taste for aloo ke paranthe and safed makhan topped up with homemade aam ka aachar  is how like most Punjabis he thinks from the heart. He laughs, The consequences may not always be positive, but as we Punjabis say dekha jaayega. Adeptly fluent in Punjabi, he shares how his mother-tongue is the language of conversation at home; yes even in aamchi Mumbai the family talks in khaalis Punjabi!
Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15

Dr Dilbagh Singh Athwal, a miracle plant breeder who was among those who laid the foundation of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, passed away in New Jersey (USA) last evening. He was 88.

His family, including his two sons, were by his side when he breathed his last.

Athwal, whose work was much appreciated by Nobel laureate and father of global Green Revolution, the late Dr Norman Borlaug, first developed hybrid bajra (millet) in the early 1960s and later segregated PV-18 and Kalayan-227, two high-yielding wheat varieties, from the material provided by Mexicos International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, also known as CIMMYT.

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Recipient of Padma Bhushan, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Memorial Award and several national and international honours, Athwal was bestowed with the highest honour in 1967, when a wheat variety  Kalyan-227  was christened after his Kalyan village, located on the outskirts of Jalandhar city.

The Kalyan variety, commercially released in 1967-68, not only provided the country salvation from hunger, but India also became wheat-surplus soon thereafter. In fact, the production in 1970s went up so rapidly that there was not enough space to stock wheat. As a temporary arrangement, the stock had to be kept on school premises.

While Athwal was working on the wheat production improvement programme at Punjab Agricultural University, Borlaug visited him in Ludhiana. In 1967, he got an offer from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines. Many state leaders and MLAs requested him to stay back at PAU. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi even wrote to the Punjab CM to persuade him not to leave India, but he had already made a commitment to the IRRI authorities.

In 1977, he joined the International Agriculture Development Services created by the Rockefeller Foundation that later merged with Winrok International Institute.

He retired as a senior vice-president of Winrok in 1991, but remained in touch with Borlaug. Both co-authored some research papers.
New Delhi, May 16

Law enforcement agencies today raided the residences and properties of top Opposition leaders P Chidambaram of the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD as well as businessmen in a multi-city crackdown on alleged corruption and benami properties.

The searches by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (I-T) Department were condemned by the Opposition as political vendetta, with the Congress saying it will not be cowed down by the politics of revenge which was in the DNA of the government.

Edit: The Raid Raj

However, the NDA government hit back, saying today was the day of accountability for the corrupt. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stoutly defended the searches, asserting that the day of reckoning has come for many and they will be held accountable for their misdeeds.

The CBI searched the homes and offices of Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, across four cities, including Chennai, for allegedly receiving money from media firm INX owned by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea to allegedly manipulate a tax probe.

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Separately, the I-T Department raided at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in connection with alleged benami deals stated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad, who is the chief of Rashtriya Janata Dal, and some of his family members. RJD is a partner of the ruling alliance in Bihar.

CBI sleuths fanned out across the Chidambarams properties in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram early in the morning, a day after the agency filed an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas (currently in jail on charges of murdering their daughter Sheena Bora), INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services and its director Padma Vishwanathan.

The FIR related to charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct. The CBI, which searched Chidambarams home in Nugambakkam in Chennai, also carried out searches at the house of Peter Mukerjea, a former media baron, in Mumbai.

It is alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, which was promoted by the Mukerjeas, for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.

P Chidambaram said the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son to silence his voice. The FIPB approval was granted in hundreds of cases, the senior Congress leader said.

The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the secretariat and the competent authority are public officials, Chidambaram said, adding that there was no allegation against any.

There is no allegation against me, he added.

Karti said he has not done anything wrong and alleged political vendetta. The Congress accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also accused the Centre of unleashing political vendetta.

IT officials said the department began raiding the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, Rewari and a few others since early morning in connection with alleged benami deals linked to Lalu Prasad. In the national capital, tax department teams visited posh localities in New Friends Colony, Sainik Farms and a few farmhouses in Bijwasan and South Delhi areas.

Prasad, however, sought to put up a brave face, saying he was not scared at all and will continue to fight against the fascist forces. The IT officials said the searches are also being conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP PC Gupta and a few other businessmen involved in the purchase and sale of real estate assets.  PTI

Revenge in BJPs DNA, says Cong

New Delhi: Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said "revenge was in the DNA of the BJP government". He asked why no action was taken in graft cases against BJP leaders. "Is Vyapam not corruption? Has the PM acted against MP CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan who was also the Medical Education Minister then? Under what circumstances did Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje submit an affidavit in favour of fugitive Lalit Modi? What action has the PM taken in the Rs 20,000 crore Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation scam which unfolded when he was the Chief Minister?" Surjewala asked. TNS

BJP counters chidambaram

New Delhi: Rejecting P Chidambaram's charge that he was being targeted for his columns critical of the government, Union Minister Piyush Goyal claimed the issue was why beneficiaries of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board gave "money to firms owned by his son". "The former Union Finance Minister's columns did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire," he said. TNS

QUOTES

"People in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small matter... day of reckoning has come for many, they will be held accountable... unless there is substantial basis, reason to suspect evasion or crime, depts dont act. Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister

"Government is using the CBI and other agencies to target my son. Its aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, NGOs and civil society organisations. P Chidambaram, Former FM

"BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice... if it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats... BJP was sensing opportunity to destabilise Grand Alliance in Bihar, but alliance is intact. Lalu Prasad Yadav, RJD Chief
Beijing, May 15

China today dismissed Indias concerns over the Belt and Road initiative, saying the mega venture has broad international support and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which is a part of it, will not affect Beijings stand on Kashmir.

Reacting to Indias reservations over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Chinas prestigious One Belt, One Road (OBOR), the Chinese foreign ministry said over 100 countries and organisations were already involved in the venture.

"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an initiative on economic cooperation. It is not directed at any third party, not relevant to disputes over territorial sovereignty and does not affect China's position on the Kashmir issue", the Chinese foreign ministry said.

The response came over the remarks of External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, who had asserted two days ago that India cannot accept a project that violates its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

India skipped the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) due to its sovereignty concerns over the $50 billion CPEC, which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The foreign ministry, however, was silent on Indias boycott of the Belt and Road Forum that ended today. The Chinese foreign ministry referred to President Xi Jinpings remarks after he inaugurating the BRF in which he had said that the Belt and Road should be built into a road for peace.  PTI
New Delhi, May 16

Ahead of his upcoming visit to Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas Indias unwavering support to the Palestinian cause.

After holding extensive talks with Abbas, Modi said India hoped to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

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The two countries also inked five agreements following talks between Modi and Abbas.

India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause, the Prime Minister said in his media statement.

Modi also said that India hoped for an early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides so as to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue. PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

China today made light of India skipping the two-day One Belt One Road (OBOR) Summit that was held in Beijing over the weekend and said Indias skipping was partly a show for domestic politics.

China used its state-controlled media to deliver the message to India. An editorial carried in the Global Times (GT) pointed to the example of the US, which sent a top adviser to the summit, despite the many differences that exist between China and the US. In an advice that sounded caustic, the editorial said, If India sees itself as a big power, it should get accustomed to the many divergences with China, and try to manage these divergences with China.

India refused to attend the summit due to sovereignty concerns. Indias main concern is with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the OBOR Summit. The GT editorial reiterated what China had recently said that it regarded the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan to be a bilateral one and had no intention of intervening. The CPEC is a cooperation project in a purely economic sense with no aim to stir up political trouble, the editorial said.

The editorial also pointed out that New Delhi was upset with Beijing for blocking its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and for blocking the designation of Masood Azhar as terrorist at the United Nations. But in typical Chinese manner, the editorial stated, However, China does not do as it (India) wants.
New Delhi, May 16

West Bengal CM and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee today called for a broad consensus among Opposition parties on fielding a presidential candidate for the crucial July elections and also said the government should take a lead in the direction.

We will work for a consensus candidate who will work for the country and will be better for the country, Banerjee said after meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi at the latters residence for over half an hour. Banerjee said no discussions took place today on a candidate and that consultations were an ongoing process. She didnt comment on the possibility of the Opposition rooting for a second term for Pranab Mukherjee.

The Congress was also non-committal on Mukherjees re-election with partys media head Randeep Surjewala saying, As soon as we reach a consensus on a candidate, we will be happy to inform you.  TNS
New Delhi/Gurugram, May 15

The government today said there was no serious impact of the global ransomware cyber attack on the country, except for a few isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, even as work came to a standstill at four sub-tehsils in Haryanas Gurugram district due to upgrading of the system network in view of the cyber attack.

Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the systems run by the National Informatics Centre were secured and running smoothly. A cyber coordination centre will start operating from next month to take precautions against such attacks, he said.

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The minister said India had started installing patches since March, besides sending advisories regularly to all stakeholders. A patch is a software used to correct any loophole in a programme, including security vulnerabilities.

India is also coordinating with international agencies, cleaning up the malware and conducting cyber drills regularly to foil attacks. Asked about reports of networks of a few banks being compromised, the minister said he had no such information.

India is on high alert against a possible cyber attack on its vital networks by the crippling global ransomware, WannaCry, which has disrupted networks in over 150 countries.

Meanwhile, hundreds of those who visited Wazirabad, Kaadipur, Badhshahpur and Harsaru sub-tehsils in Gurugram were turned away with only two registries being done.

Network upgrading hit work of the Haryana Government machinery. There was speculation that offices would remain closed for two days, but we have been assured of fully efficient systems from tomorrow, so the working would continue, said DRO Hari Om Attri.

The government machinery was also hit in Mewat. Many MNCs stalled working for several hours to upgrade systems. Officials have been told not to access emails, except those coming from official accounts.  TNS/PTI

Putin blames USA for cyber attack

Beijing: Russia had nothing to do with a massive global cyber attack, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, criticising the US intelligence community for creating the original software. Hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries have been hit by the ransomware attack, that began on Friday, exploiting known vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems. As for the source of these threats, Microsofts leadership said the source of the virus was the special services of the United States, Putin said.
Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, May 15

Security was tightened in the twin border districts of Gurdaspur and Pathankot today after the Border Security Force shot dead a woman intruder near Bharial post number 2, falling in the jurisdiction of Behrampur police station of Gurdaspur district, in the wee hours.

The 60-year-old Pakistani woman, whose identity was not disclosed, was gunned down around 3 am after she refused to pay heed to warnings of personnel of 120 Battalion of the BSF manning the International Border.

Police officers, on the condition of anonymity, said the security forces shot her dead after suspecting her to be a human bomb.

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Police sources said Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was trying to infiltrate boys in the age group of 10 to 15 years in the guise of inadvertent crossers for collecting information pertaining to security agencies, before actual infiltration was undertaken by terrorists.

Todays incident cannot be viewed in isolation. It should be seen in a larger context, admitted an officer.

Both the Gurdaspur and the Pathankot police went on an overdrive and security around vital installations was tightened.

Meanwhile, after a lull of almost 24 hours, Pakistan again violated truce in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is in India on a state visit, today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was assured of Indias unwavering support to the Palestinian cause. President Abbass visit here gives India a great opportunity to reach out to an old, historical ally even as PM Modi heads to Israel on a stand-alone visit in July.

President Abbas had visited Pakistan and Bangladesh in February this year, but had skipped India. This was seen by many as a sign of the Palestine leadership being miffed with India over its growing relationship with Israel and especially the fact that PM Modi will not be visiting Palestine when he travels to Israel.

Till date, Indian Heads of States have always chosen to visit both Israel and Palestine together but PM Modis decision is the governments first significant pointer that for India, the Israel-Palestine relationship has now been de-hyphenated.

PM Modi, in his remarks to the media after holding delegation-level talks with Abbas, said, We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. The PMs reaffirmation of Indias faith in a two-nation solution to the Middle East conflict would be welcome news to the Palestine leadership.

India and Palestine also signed five agreements after talks between the two leaders. India also committed to assisting Palestine in developmental projects. PM Modi said, India is undertaking project assistance for a flagship techno-park project in Ramallah. Once completed, it will serve as an IT hub in Palestine offering a one-stop solution for all IT-related training and services.

Earlier in the day, President Abbas was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 16

More than a year after the Prakash Singh committee noted that the Moonak canal breach case points to a grave internal security threat to Indias critical national infrastructure, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today quoted the report while ordering a CBI probe.

The direction came even as Haryana attempted to undermine Prakash Singhs authority by refusing to allow the former DGP to head a special investigation team (SIT) being constituted to probe the Jat stir violence in February last year. The Moonak canal was breached during the stir, affecting water supply to Delhi.

In all, four FIRs were registered (on February 21, Kharkhoda police station; February 22, Kundli police station; February 23, Ganaur police station and February 24, Kharkhoda). Investigations in all four stand transferred to the premier investigation agency, which has been told to submit a report by July 13. Trials in these four cases have, meanwhile, been stayed.

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The Bench of Justices SS Saron and Darshan Singh observed that 3,000-4,000 persons were stated to be involved in arson and breach of the canal. Yet, police reports/challans were filed against only four or five, that too without arrests. Challans were filed in two cases, and untraced reports prepared in two.

The Bench took note of CBIs apparent reluctance to probe the matter for want of manpower, but refused to accept its contention.

Referring to the CBI probe in cases related to the attack on the Haryana Finance Ministers house, the Bench said: Why are you running away? You are already seized of five cases. You took them without objection. Thats also mob violence Cant let things go out of hand Cant allow water supply to the national capital be affected.

The Bench said it was disheartening that the police had done nothing even after it asked the CBI counsel to seek instructions a month-and-a-half ago. The assertion came as Haryana Additional Advocate-General Pawan Girdhar suggested that the SIT, in the process of being set up, could look into the Moonak case too.

Opposing the suggestion, amicus curiae Anupam Gupta argued: If a group of agitators could stop an important source of water supply to the national capital, what a determined group of terrorists could do is rather discomforting.
A Republican U.S. congressman from Green Bay says the White House should give congressional committees the transcript of a meeting in which President Donald Trump reportedly leaked highly classified information to Russian officials.

As of Tuesday morning, there was no comment on the matter from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The Washington Post reported Monday afternoon that Trump had shared classified information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The Post's sources told the newspaper the disclosures "jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State."

White House officials initially denied the report. But Trump appeared to acknowledge it in a pair of tweets early Tuesday.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do ... facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," Trump said.

Gallagher wrote that "while (the president) possesses the authority to disclose classified, even top secret, information, theres a separate question of whether he should."

"For the purpose of transparency, the White House should share a transcript of the meeting with the House and Senate intelligence committees," Gallagher wrote.

Gallagher is a first-year congressman but has a deep resume in foreign relations and intelligence issues. Hes a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War, during which time he worked as a counterintelligence officer, and he went on to work in the U.S. intelligence community, including for the National Counterterrorism Center.

Gallagher said last week that he was concerned by the timing of Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, who had overseen an investigation into Russian interference in last year's U.S. election. The scope of that investigation included whether Trump's campaign was linked to the Russian meddling.
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

The Congress on Tuesday attacked the ruling BJP for unleashing vendetta politics on opposition leaders, the latest being on former union minister P Chidambaram, saying revenge was in the BJPs DNA.

Trashing all allegations of wrongdoing or corruption against the former finance minister, whose son Kartis houses and locations were raided by the CBI in Chennai and Delhi on Tuesday, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, Revenge is in the DNA of the BJP government. Neither P Chidambaram nor any other Congress leader will be cowed down by the threats of probe agencies being unleashed by the BJP.

Surjewala did not comment on the merits of the CBI raids and restricted his remarks to politics and the stature of leaders involved.

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He counter-attacked the BJP and Prime Minister Narenda Modi asking why no action had been taken in serious cases of corruption against top BJP leaders--Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan in the Vyapam scam, Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje for submitting an affidavit to help fugitive Lalit Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for helping Lalit Modi escape law.

May we ask the BJP if Vyapam scam is not corruption? Has the PM acted against Chauhan who was also the medical education minister at the time. Under what circumstances did Vasundhara Raje submit an affidavit in favour of Lalit Modi? May we ask the PM what action he has taken in the Rs 20,000 crore Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation scam which unfolded when he was the state chief minister? Surjewala asked.

The Congress and other opposition leaders, including RJDs Lalu Prasad Yadav, have been accusing the BJP of misusing the CBI and Enforcement Directorate for targeting its political rivals.

The CBI recently moved against Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh in respect of his income probe and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda in a case involving allocation of prime Gurgaon land to Associated Journals at much lower prices than the market rates.
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and his party colleagues today launched a massive offensive against three years of BJP Government questioning the saffron legacy of broken promises.

While Gandhi took to Twitter to criticise PM Modi-led NDA governments record at the Centre, Congress leaders Randeep Surjewala, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Sushmita Dev and Divya Spandana gathered at the Congress headquarters to do the same.

Officially, the Congress released a power point presentation titled Teen saal, 30 tigdam detailing 30 areas where it said the BJP had failed to keep its promises to the people.

These areas included the elusive promise of good days, persisting Pakistan and Chinese aggression on the borders, the challenge of farmers suicide, unemployment and rising petrol and essential commodity prices; crimes against Dalits and women, rising vigilantism, intolerance and mounting buffalo meat exports under a government committed to cow safety, among others.

Three years of broken promises, non-performance and betrayal of a mandate Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide and soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the government celebrating? Rahul Gandhi asked of governments plans to celebrate MODI (Making of Developing India) Fest starting May 26, NDAs third anniversary.

At the Congress office, Scindia cited UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths anti-Romeo squads to ask why the BJP was imposing regimentation to further its policy.

RSS ideologues argue against reservations. Dalits and other marginalised are under threat. Anyone questioning the all-pervasive atmosphere of intolerance is called anti-national. The BJP has belied the hopes on which it rode to power in 2014 May, Scindia said.
New Delhi, May 16

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that triple talaq is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years and hence the question of constitutional morality and equity did not arise.

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The Muslim body also equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya.

"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said.

"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar.

He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

Read: Law panel to go slow on common code; await SC verdict on triple talaq

Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities, including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim. PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today defended the practice of triple talaq as a matter of faith, saying it was like the Hindus belief that Lord Ram was born at Ayodhya which cant be questioned on the basis of constitutional morality.

Triple talaq is there since 637 AD. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic? Muslims are practising it for the last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. You cant bring constitutional morality into it, senior counsel Kapil Sibal told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar on behalf of AIMPLB.

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Triple talaq is not a question of equity and good conscience but of faith, Sibal said, emphasising that Shariat i.e. Muslim Personal Law was not subject to fundamental rights as it was not law within the meaning of Article 13(3) of the Constitution.

If I believe that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then its a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality, Sibal told the Bench.

He added that striking down triple talaq would be like killing a man to save a cow. Very bad example, the CJI commented.
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 15

India and Pakistan today argued their case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and, as expected, exchanged sharp words over Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian national sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for allegedly being a spy.

While New Delhi said the Vienna Convention on Consular Access had been violated as its envoys were not allowed to meet Jadhav, Islamabad claimed its provisions were not intended for a spy involved in terror activities.

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India got to make its observations first and was represented by senior lawyer Harish Salve, who harped on the urgency of the situation: The situation is grave, it is urgent and, hence, we approached this court at such short notice.

India bases its claims solely on the Vienna Convention, which states that any arrest needs to be reported expeditiously to the country concerned. This is prima facie a case of violation of the convention, maintained Salve.

India described Jadhavs trial as farcical and appealed that his death sentence be immediately suspended. India also argued that the 2008 bilateral agreement between the two neighbours for consular access was irrelevant.

Refuting Pakistans charges of Jadhav being a spy, Salve said, Pakistan has claimed overwhelming evidence of covert/spying activities. But despite Indias repeated requests, it has not provided a single shred of evidence or documentation to prove its claim.

Later in the day, Pakistan counsel Khawar Qureshi refuted Indias allegations of violating the Vienna Convention. It sought to draw attention to the 2008 pact between the two nations that India was referring to as irrelevant.

Jurisdiction under the Vienna Convention is limited by the 2008 agreement Pakistan has no desire to waste the courts time and resources to score political points, said Qureshi.

In statements that were caustic in their nature, Pakistan hit out at India, saying it had stuck to its position that Jadhav was indeed a spy and a terrorist arrested from the restive Baluchistan region in 2016.

India has accepted that Jadhav was indeed a former Indian naval officer, but denied charges of espionage levelled against him.

While India took over 90 minutes to present its case, the Pakistan team took less than an hour. The decision of the International Court of Justice could come in the next few days or may even take longer.

Curt Namaskar sums up Indo-Pak chill

Reflecting the chill in Indo-Pak ties, a curt namaskar was all that a senior Indian diplomat had to offer to an extended hand of a member of the Pakistani delegation at the International Court of Justice (in the Netherlands), hearing the Kulbhushan Jadhav case. Deepak Mittal, who heads the Pakistan division in the external affairs ministry and is representing India, ignored the handshake gesture by Mohammad Faisal, Pakistans DG for South Asia and SAARC, and offered a namaskar instead. Interestingly, Mittal shook hands with some of the Pakistan delegation members, including the attorney general, the main lawyer from the Pakistan government. PTI
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

Led by Vice President Rahul Gandhi, the Congress on Tuesday launched a no-holds-barred attack on the Modi government asking what the ruling dispensation was celebrating.

The government is planning Modi (Making of Developing India) fest from May 26 to June 15 to highlight its achievements.

While Gandhi tweeted asking what the government was celebrating after 3 years of broken promises, non-performance and betrayal of a mandate, the Congress fielded five young leaders to slam the governments record since 2014. The party also said it would hold a 24-month public campaign across India to expose the BJPs governance record. The Gandhis are personally supervising the campaign details, the party said.

The youth is struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicides and soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the govt celebrating? Rahul Gandhi wrote.

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At the Congress headquarters, partys chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, alongside MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, ex-MP Sachin Pilot, ex-minister RPN Singh and MP Sushmita Dev, asked a range of questions on the BJPs record.

The party also screened a Teen Saal, 30 Tikdam clip designed to mark the three years of the BJP government saying the government had failed on 30 counts, including the promise of good days, Pakistan front, Chinese aggression, employment, MSP for farmers, promised state packages for Bihar and JK, petrol and pulse prices, and Dalit and womens safety among other areas.

Asked why the BJP was going on winning elections if it was anti-Dalit, anti-poor, anti-farmer and anti-youth as the Congress was saying, Surjewala said, Electoral reverses are part of celebrations of democracy. The Congress is about ideas and ideology. We have learnt from our past mistakes and will present an alternative viewpoint to the people. We will hold a 24-month agitational plan against the BJP and show to people that the BJP is all about lies.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 16

The Lok Insaaf Party today appealed to all political parties to support them to move a private members Bill on the issue of water dispute with Haryana in the upcoming state Assembly session.

In a press conference, Atam Nagar MLA Simarjit Singh Bains said the Speaker should allow them to move the Bill which would prove crucial to protect the states interests on the SYL canal issue.

While sharing the details of the Bill, he said the Supreme Courts decision was not likely to go in favour of Punjab. The only way out for the state is to pass a Bill and seek presidential reference on the legality of Section 78 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, and Section 14 of the Inter-State Water Dispute Act, 1956, in the light of federal structure of the country, which the Constitution ensures, he said.

He said both sections were against the 7th Schedule and Article 262 of the Constitution, respectively. It was thus important that all parties must unanimously pass the Bill, he added.
Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15

Nearly two years after Punjab Police found itself in the dock for allegedly helping an accused get default bail, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has called for a report on how Inspector Jagbir Singh, embroiled in the controversy, was still on duty and drawing his salary.

The Bench had earlier directed the Tarn Taran SSP to explain why action had not been initiated in spite of administrative indictment of officers till date.

The direction by Justice Fateh Deep Singh came after the Bench was told about the passing of punishment orders against four cops. The Inspector had also been identified as guilty official before being nominated as an accused in the pending FIR, the Bench was further told.

As the case came up for hearing, Justice Singh asked the state counsel about the action taken. But the latter was totally unable to make any statement. He only submitted that they received a fax message the previous day for the arrest of the official.

Admittedly, the official concerned is a regular employee, drawing salary from the state exchequer and on duty. Let the report to this effect be called by the next date of hearing, Justice Fateh Deep Singh added.

The police found itself in trouble in August 2015, after it corroborated the alibi of an alleged smuggler that he was with cops in a hotel near Chandigarh. On the other hand, it recorded the statement of a cop claiming that the accused fled from Tarn Taran after being intercepted by a police party.

The developments took place on a petition by Dharminder Singh for pre-arrest bail in a case under the NDPS Act registered on June 19, 2014, at Sarai Amanat Khan police station in Amritsar.

The court was told that the FIR was registered on secret information that accused were smuggling heroin through the international border with Pakistan. A vehicle coming from Attari border was then intercepted. While Balkar Singh was apprehended, Davinder Singh, Swaran Singh and Dharminder Singh fled. As the police failed to submit challan within the prescribed period, Balkar Singh was granted bail.

Departmental inquiry was ordered against officials responsible for the late presentation of challan. Besides, the petitioners alibi was accepted that on the day of occurrence he was in a hotel on Zirakpur-Shimla highway along with Inspector Jagbir Singh, Inspector Bhupinder Singh and DSP Tejinder Singh Virk.

The bench had asserted, This court finds the stand of the investigating agency totally contradictory. Besides, it is inexplicable how on the day of occurrence, officials of the police were with Dharminder Singh, who is stated to be a criminal indulging in cross border smuggling.

Conflicting statements

The police found itself in trouble in August 2015 after it corroborated the alibi of an alleged smuggler that he was with cops in a hotel near Chandigarh. On the other hand, it recorded the statement of a cop claiming that the accused fled from Tarn Taran after being intercepted by a police party. The developments took place on a petition by Dharminder Singh for pre-arrest bail in a case under the NDPS Act registered on June 19, 2014, at Sarai Amanat Khan police station in Amritsar.
Tribune News Service

Muktsar, May 16

Nine persons, including a woman, were injured in a clash between Congress and SAD workers at Ennakhera village in Malout today.

The Congress workers were admitted to the local Civil Hospital, while the SAD supporters were taken to the Community Health Centre at Alamwala village. The Sadar Malout police have started an investigation, even as a case was yet to be registered at the time of filing of this report.

Jaswinder Singh, a Congress worker who was injured, alleged, I had lodged a complaint against SAD men who had encroached upon the village common land. In retaliation, about 20 persons today attacked us at my residence.

He said his mother Jaswinder Kaur, son Lovedeep Singh, nephew Inderjit Singh and Jatinder Singh were also injured. When I pulled out my revolver, the attackers snatched it and fled, he alleged.

The SAD workers, including Baj Singh and his son Jatinder Singh, alleged, We were carving out a water channel in our fields, but Jaswinder took away our bricks from there. When we confronted him, he attacked us.

Sources blamed an old rivalry for the clash. The two groups reportedly fired shots into the air.
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 16

The Finance Department of the Punjab Government has made it clear that government officials or employees can avail leave encashment equal to 10 days of earned leave even if they apply for leave travel concession (LTC) against a travel on their personal vehicle.

An official spokesman said the employees had to submit substantial evidence along with the claim for LTC to prove their visit to the declared place. He said evidence such as proof of stay at that place on that date would be required to be presented with a bill.

The spokesman said such evidence would be treated as correct only if it fully satisfied the competent authority and audit requirements. The spokesman said that in the absence of clear evidence of travel to the declared place of visit, the claim of leave encashment would not be accepted.
San Francisco, May 16

Ramin Forouzandeh had applied to 13 PhD economics programmes in the United States, but after President Donald Trump signed his first travel ban in January, the 25-year-old Iranian turned to Canada for other options.

He said he had focused on US schools because they hosted most of the worlds top 20 economics programmes. By late March, US courts had halted two versions of Trumps travel ban, yet Forouzandeh signed for University of Torontos Rotman School of Management and turned down the University of Minnesotas prestigious PhD programme.

His countryman, Mahdi Ebrahimi Kahou, 30, was well into his first year of the Minnesota programme when he decided to transfer to the University of British Columbia because of Trumps executive orders that banned travel from seven and later six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. I lost my motivation to work completely, he said.

A survey of 19 Canadian universities showed a spike in international applications, most notably from Iran and India. Five top Canadian economics and business PhD programmes are getting at least half of their new Iranian students this fall because of the ban. Most of those, like Forouzandeh and Ebrahimi Kahou, are opting out of US programmes in a field where the US both dominates and relies on foreign talent.

This strikes at the heart of what has made US higher education the envy of the world, said Mary Sue Coleman, chair of the Association of American Universities. Its this notion that the US is no longer a welcoming place for the best and the brightest.

Iranians are by far the biggest group among students directly affected by the bans and form a small but notable part of the talent pool in areas such as engineering and economics, where US academic institutions excel.

In 2015, at least 35 per cent of graduate students at US universities granting graduate degrees in science, engineering and health were foreigners. This year, about 60 per cent of graduating PhDs from the top 10 US economics departments come from other countries.

Youve got an issued order thats been temporarily blocked that applies to six

countries. But the destabilisation of the whole situation for international students and faculty could not be overstated, said Rice University President David Leebron.

He said that for foreign students, everything from getting a visa on time to employment opportunities had been thrown into question.

According to Rices dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies, this years PhD programmes will have slightly fewer Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern students than expected.

In British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University has admitted 20 per cent more international students for the fall term.

The prestige of the US programmes remains a big draw, but those committed to a US career are more aware of risks. For example, Soheil Ghili, who is getting a PhD in economics from Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management this month and will start as a post-doctoral fellow at Yale this summer, is hedging his bets. Let me put it this way: I will be more careful to not miss networking opportunities with people from Toronto and London.  Reuters
New York, May 16

A gang member was sentenced to 49 years in prison on Monday for the murder of a transgender teen, in the first ever transgender hate crime prosecution in the United States.

Joshua Vallum pleaded guilty last December to the 2015 murder of his former romantic partner, 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson because she was transgender.

The 29-year-old man appeared in a Gulfport, Mississippi, courthouse before a federal judge who could have imposed a maximum sentence of life without parole.

Harper Jean Tobin, spokeswoman for the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), a Washington DC advocacy group, said the murder was part of an "epidemic of violence against transgender people" in the United States.

"It's essential that biased crime against trans people be recognised as a serious national problem," she said in a phone interview.

In 2009, the US Congress expanded a federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's sexual orientation among other factors.

Vallum, a member of the Latin Kings street gang, believed to the largest Hispanic gang in the United States, secretly dated Williamson during the summer of 2014, according to prosecutors.

He decided to kill Williamson fearing that he could face retribution from other gang members if word spread she was a transgender woman, prosecutors said.

After luring his former lover to his father's home in Mississippi, in the United States' Deep South, Vallum shocked Williamson with a stun gun before stabbing her repeatedly with a pocket knife.

He struck deadly blows to Williamson's head with a hammer after she tried running away, prosecutors said.

This was the first case where a victim had been targeted because of gender identity that had been prosecuted under the US federal hate crime law, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

"Today's sentencing reflects the importance of holding individuals accountable when they commit violent acts against transgender individuals," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a statement.

Vallum had previously been sentenced to life in prison in a state court for the same murder.

But federal prosecutors brought an additional lawsuit for hate crime because Mississippi lacks a statute protecting people against hate crimes based on their gender identity, the Department of Justice said.

According to a 2015 NCTE survey, nearly one in 10 US transgender people said they had been physically attacked because of being transgender in the year prior to completing the survey.

Last week, a Virginia state court angered LGBT activists by ruling that attacks motivated by the victim's sexual orientation could not be prosecuted as hate crime under the state's law. Reuters
London, May 16

Britains Opposition Labour Party has included the demand by some British Sikh groups for an independent inquiry into the UKs alleged involvement in the Operation Bluestar in 1984 as a manifesto pledge.

The manifesto for the June 8 general election, released by party leader Jeremy Corbyn today, also makes a reference to working towards political negotiations in Kashmir. Labour remains committed to an independent inquiry into Britain's military role in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Diplomacy section of the manifesto states.

A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine. We will also urge negotiations towards a political resolution in all regions currently experiencing conflict, including Kashmir, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, and support those countries already working to end decades of division, including Colombia, Cyprus and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the section notes.

The Sikh Federation UK, which has been lobbying for a public inquiry into Britains alleged involvement in the military action on the Golden Temple in 1984, welcomed the partys stand. We are delighted with the commitment shown by the Labour Party by making the pledge of an independent public inquiry in the manifesto. This pressures the Conservatives to revisit the issue and acknowledge the need for a fresh independent ptobe. We will be increasing legal pressure before June 8 and the British government will want to avoid the truth being dragged out in the courts, said Bhai Amrik Singh, the chair of the Sikh Federation UK.

The group had written to the Labour Party earlier this year on the issue. Corbyn had then written to British PM Theresa May calling for a "fresh, independent investigation" into Britain's exact role in the Indian Army operation on the Golden Temple in 1984.  PTI
Seoul, May 15

North Korea said on Monday it had successfully conducted a mid-to-long-range missile test and would continue such launches any time, any place, defying UN Security Council resolutions and warnings from the US.

North Korea, which regularly threatens to destroy the United States in a sea of flames, has accused Washington of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war with recent military drills with South Korea and Japan.

The Norths KCNA news agency said Sundays test launch verified the homing feature of the warhead that allowed it to survive under the worst re-entry situation and accurately detonate. It also tested the Norths capability to carry a large-size heavy N-warhead, KCNA said.

The test-fire proved to the full all the technical specifications of the rocket ... like guidance and stabilisation systems ... and reconfirmed the reliability of new rocket engine under the practical flight circumstances, KCNA said.

The test represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile, John Schilling, an aerospace expert, said in an analysis on the US-based 38 North website.

It appears to have not only demonstrated an intermediate-range ballistic missile that might enable them to reliably strike the US base at Guam, but more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile flew 787 km on a trajectory reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 km.

North Korea has been developing a long-range missile capable of striking the mainland US mounted with a nuclear warhead. That would require a flight of 8,000 km or more and technology to ensure a warheads stable re-entry into the atmosphere.

The test-firing of ICBMs will occur at any time and place, at the will of North Koreas highest leadership, North Koreas ambassador to China, Ji Jae Ryong, told reporters in Beijing on Monday, a day before the UN Security Council meets in New York to discuss the test.  Reuters
Beijing, May 15

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow was opposed to any new countries acquiring nuclear weapons, but that the world should talk to North Korea rather than threaten it.

Putin, speaking in Beijing, said nuclear tests of the type that Pyongyang had been carrying out in recent weeks were unacceptable, but that a peaceful solution to rising tensions on the Korean peninsula was needed.

I want to confirm that we are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear powers, including with the Korean Peninsula and North Korea, said Putin, who said any such move would be harmful and dangerous.

But at the same time, we understand that what we have observed in the world recently, and specifically flagrant violations of international law and incursions into the territory of foreign states, changes in regime, lead to such kinds of arms races.

Putin did not specify what countries he had in mind, but he has in the past repeatedly criticised the US for military operations in Iraq, Libya and Syria. In this connection, we need to act in a joined-up way, (and) strengthen the system of international guarantees with the help of international law and with the help of the UN Charter, said Putin.  Reuters
Washington, May 16

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended having disclosed information to senior Russian officials last week, saying he had an absolute right to do so and had shared facts to get Moscow to step up its fight against the Islamic State.

The President took to Twitter to counter a torrent of criticism, including from his fellow Republicans, after reports that during a White House meeting he had revealed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation.

Two US officials said Trump shared the intelligence, supplied by an ally of the US in the fight against the militant group, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during a meeting last Wednesday.

The disclosures late on Monday roiled the administration as it struggled to move past the backlash over Trumps abrupt firing on May 9 of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating potential ties between Russia and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign. The turmoil overshadowed Republican legislative priorities such as healthcare and tax reform and laid bare sharp divisions between the White House and US intelligence agencies, which concluded in January that Russia had tried to influence the election in Trumps favour.

Russia has denied such meddling, and Trump bristles at any suggestion he owed his November 8 victory to Moscow.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, Trump Tweeted. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism. In a later tweet, Trump took aim at LEAKERS in the intelligence community, a frequent target of his months-old administration.

The Kremlin also came to Trumps defense on Tuesday, calling reports that he had disclosed classified material complete nonsense.

Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and national security adviser, HR McMaster, issued statements saying no sources, methods or military operations were discussed at the Russian meeting.

McMaster said the story, initially reported by The Washington Post, was false.

The US officials said while the President has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement.

US allies, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, cited the White House denials and said intelligence sharing would continue. Some analysts, however, said the reports could undermine trust between partners.

The reports came days before Trump departs on Friday for his first overseas trip as President, to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium. The two top Republicans in Congress, which is controlled by the party, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, were muted in their response. Ryans office said he hoped for a full explanation, while McConnell told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday he wished for a little less drama from the White House.

Other Republicans, however, expressed concern. Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday even though the President has legal authority to disclose classified information, it would be very troubling if he did share such sensitive reporting with the Russians. She called for the Senate Intelligence Committee to be briefed on the matter.  Reuters



The info classification

Confidential: Information that reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security if disclosed to unauthorised sources

Secret: The same wording as mentioned above, except it substitutes serious damage

Top secret: Again, the same wording except to substitute exceptionally grave damage

Codeword: Adds a second level of clearance to top secret, so that only those cleared with the codeword can see it. The material discussed by Trump with the Russians was under a codeword, sources told The Washington Post

I have the right to do so

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Donald Trump, US President
London, May 16

Britain's Opposition Labour party has included the demand by some British Sikh groups for an independent inquiry into the UK's alleged involvement in the Operation Bluestar in 1984 as a manifesto pledge.

The manifesto for the June 8 general election, released by party leader Jeremy Corbyn today, also makes a reference to working towards political negotiations in Kashmir.

Labour remains committed to an independent inquiry into Britain's military role in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the "Diplomacy" section of the manifesto states.

"A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine. We will also urge negotiations towards a political resolution in all other regions currently experiencing conflict, including Kashmir, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, and give our strong support to those countries already working to end decades of division, including Colombia, Cyprus and the Democratic Republic of Congo," the section notes.

The Sikh Federation UK, which has been lobbying for a public inquiry into Britain's alleged involvement in the military action on Golden Temple in 1984, welcomed the party's stand on the issue.

"We are delighted with the commitment shown by the Labour Party by making the pledge of an independent public inquiry in the manifesto. This puts real pressure on the Conservatives to revisit the issue and acknowledge the need for a fresh independent investigation.

"We will be increasing legal pressure before the 8 June and the British government will want to avoid the truth being dragged out in the courts," said Bhai Amrik Singh, the chair of the Sikh Federation UK.

The group had made a written submission to the Labour party earlier this year on the issue.

Corbyn had then written to British Prime Minister Theresa May calling for a "fresh, independent investigation" into Britain's exact role in the Indian Army operation on Golden Temple in 1984.

Corbyn's letter to Downing Street, dated January 4, read: "Given concerns regarding the effectiveness and integrity of the January 2014 review, I believe we must consider a fresh, independent investigation into this episode in British history.

"It is clear to me from my discussions with Sikh groups in the UK that there remains significant resentment that over the 30 years since this most appalling event, questions remain about the role which the United Kingdom played."

In 2014, then Prime Minister David Cameron had ordered the Heywood Review into the exact nature of British involvement after documents released previously under the 30-year declassification rule had implied British SAS commanders had advised the Indian government as it drew up plans for the removal of militants from the Sikh shrine.

The report concluded that the nature of the UK's assistance was "purely advisory" and provided to the Indian government at an early stage of planning.

The Sikh Federation UK has since been pursuing the matter with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and await a hearing on its Freedom of Information request for four Cabinet Office files they believe contain more details on the exact nature of Britain's alleged involvement in Operation Bluestar.  PTI
Max Fuller, co-founder of U.S. Xpress, is known for being on the leading edge of new trucking technology. After all, it was the logo of the Tennessee-based truckload giant that was emblazoned across the Nikola hydrogen-electric truck prototype unveiled last fall. But Nikola and Tesla arent the only companies bringing technology into trucking that dont have experience in the industry. Some of the hottest companies attracting venture capital these days deal with trucking apps, especially those that promise to do for trucking what Uber did for passengers.

The problem, Fuller says, is these new entrants into the trucking tech arena dont know what they dont know  which makes it tough for those in trucking to figure out what these apps are going to mean to the industry.

And its not like there arent already enough apps out there to make your head spin, whether youre a trucking exec like Fuller or an independent owner-operator.

You can find hundreds of trucker-oriented apps for smartphones and other mobile devices on the Google Play Store or Apple Store. Truckers can use apps to find parking, find the lowest priced fuel, bypass weigh stations, find freight  the list seems endless.

The term app is used all the time, but it actually can apply to a few different things: a computer application similar to those used on desktop computers; an application that allows access to a web-based platform (Facebook for instance), or a true mobile app designed specifically for mobile devices. Mobile apps tend to be task-specific  finding a parking spot or checking the weather, for example.

In a recent report, market research firm Frost & Sullivan outlined 70 apps widely used in trucking. It grouped them into three categories:

Apps focused on the driver (truckstop locators, driving directions, social media, etc.) Apps that deal with freight (load matching and load boards, for instance) Apps focused on fleet needs (dispatching, tracking and tracing, etc.).

Why are apps the buzz?

Truckings growing use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets is generating a bumper crop of apps, according to Ken Harper, marketing director at DAT Solutions, a longtime player in the freight-matching business.

Most truck drivers  estimates say upward of 90%  carry at least one mobile device. Harper says his company has seen a big shift in mobile usage, reporting that 70-75% of the users of its services now access DATs website via a mobile device. Another thing thats relative here is the ratio of truckers to brokers using mobile devices, he says. We figure anywhere from 80-90% of the smart device users are carriers.

DAT has seen technology morph from its start with truck stop load boards (its original name was Dial-A-Truck), to products available via the internet, to mobile apps. As the company has developed companion apps for its load board products, Harper says, There has been this seismic shift. We adapted to try to address that.

The same is true for many trucking management system providers. Most large fleets have invested heavily in sophisticated TMS software and mobile communication systems over the years. With the increasing number of small technology providers offering lower-cost web and mobile apps, there has been a corresponding response from the more established vendors. A few examples:

Users of PeopleNets onboard communication devices can use the ConnectedDriver app. This companion app to PeopleNets in-cab device lets drivers stay connected to dispatch and other information when they are away from the truck.

TMW Systems new Parts Room app lets parts room workers use a smartphone to conduct inventories, scan bar codes, and other tasks. Much of that work had already been automated, but the ability to use a smartphone reduces costs for carriers, says Alan Tomlinson, director of key accounts. Many shops use handheld computers for inventory work, but these are bulky devices with a proprietary operating system, he explains. They are expensive and only run apps that are written for that device. Mobile apps offer an attractive alternative. I totally believe that mobile apps are the wave of the future. Why would companies buy several-thousand-dollar devices when you can switch to these much less expensive alternatives?

Fleet management technology and telematics company Zonar recently introduced the GTC (Ground Traffic Control) FieldView app. It works on Android mobile devices and allows managers to keep track of vehicles and drivers in the field even when theyre out of the office.

And then there are all the driver-focused apps. For instance, Trucker Path, launched in 2013, now boasts over 450,000 active users, or 30% of all Class 8 truckers, the company says. The app helps truck drivers plan their routes with updated information on parking availability, weigh station statuses, fuel prices, and other locations of interest.

On average, a driver saves around 11 hours per month by using the app, according to CEO Ivan Tsybaev. A key element of the apps success is that it is crowdsourced, he says. Information is updated by users in real time. This helps deliver the best, most reliable results.

Source: Frost & Sullivan, Mobile Apps Driving Trucking Industry Transformation in North America, 2016-2017, January 2017

Uber for trucking?

The most buzz, however, is centered around apps that some have nicknamed Uber for trucking, and this is where a lot of the new players in the trucking app space are focused.

Amazon reportedly is secretly building an Uber for trucking app. And Uber apparently is getting into the act itself, with a plan to eventually tie it to its autonomous truck technology. On a panel discussion at the American Trucking Associations annual management conference last fall, Ubers Anthony Levandowski outlined a vision for the future of transportation of liquidity and automation. Liquidity, he explained, is the ability to match carriers with shippers. If youre delivering people, as Uber does via its ride-sharing app, why not food, why not packages, and why not freight, he asked.

However, the Uber for trucking moniker might not be the best analogy, except in terms of thinking about disruptive technologies. The ride-sharing app Uber and the trucking industry apps hoping to emulate its success address similar business problems: matching vehicles with passengers (in Ubers case) or freight. Of course, the freight market is nothing like the taxi market that Uber and similar companies, such as Lyft, have disrupted. The regulatory, contractual and other issues involved in moving freight are very different.

However, using digital tools to help match freight with trucks is gaining traction. Armstrong & Associates, a marketing and research firm specializing in third-party logistics, suggested in a 2016 report that it makes more sense to describe these products as digital freight matching apps.

Whatever you call them, Armstrong reports that the segment has attracted over $180 million in venture capital funding since 2011. Armstrong looked at 27 such offerings and categorized them as:

Uber-like: Cutting out the middleman or broker, with GPS alerts, trace and track, and automated payments

Load board plus: Mobile app extensions of existing load boards

Broker plus: Proprietary apps that brokers make available to their customers

Specialty apps: Focusing on specialized freight

Last mile: Used for e-commerce fulfillment and local delivery.

It bears noting that freight-matching services deal with spot freight. The majority of freight is moved under contract, but the spot market accounts for 15-25% of all freight, according to DATs Harper. That number can rise due to factors such as seasonal changes or weather disruptions, he says. During the severe snow storms in the Northeast a few years ago, for instance, the spot market jumped to about 40% of freight.

A recently introduced product called Doft does bill itself as Uber for trucking. The company is here to disrupt one of the oldest businesses in the country, explains founder and CEO Dmitri Fedorchenko. The app matches freight with trucks, like Uber matches passengers with taxicabs, and it is designed to make these matches in less than 60 seconds.

Another company, Loadsmart, also matches loads with carriers. Diego Urrutia, the companys chief commercial officer, says the founders wanted to add more value beyond listing loads and trucks. Noting that 90% of motor carriers operate fewer than 10 trucks, the company built a free fleet management platform that any company can use.

Rather than have carriers go to the load board to pick freight, instead we are going to push targeted business to them, Urrutia explains. By analyzing how carriers use the service, they can streamline the process. For the carriers on the platform, we have an idea of what they like [in terms of freight], and where they go. We are only sending them relevant business  loads they can actually pick up and want to pick up.

One of the criticisms of the digital freight matching model is that, in some ways, it represents a negative auction  the lowest rate wins. Loadsmart allows carriers to bid up a load, Urrutia says. There is an option of bidding it up or bidding it down  the carriers dont have to feel compelled to accept a load.

Trucker Path has also entered the digital load matching space with Truckloads. It is designed to connect shippers and carriers via both web-based and mobile applications. Carriers use custom searches that allow carriers to find loads that fit their specific needs. Other freight-matching startups in recent years have included Convoy, Cargo Chief, and others.

Truckloads is a freight-matching app from Trucker Path. Photo: Trucker Path

Easier said than done

But some in the industry are skeptical about the ability of outsiders to come in and understand the complexities of matching freight and trucks, despite large amounts of investor funding.

Bob Voltmann, president and CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, has said publicly that these types of apps arent going to put brokers and 3PLs out of business. Theres plenty of room in the market, he contends, noting in a session at last falls TMW/PeopleNet In.Sight user conference that the third-party logistics industry has been growing two to three times faster than GDP. The lack of commonality of truck freight means its tough for an app to do it all, and Voltmann points out that 3PLs already are technology adopters.

Photo: TMW

Robert Nathan, CEO of Load Delivered, a 3PL that specializes in food and beverage, says such technology is great for our industry. But he notes that large 3PLs and brokers have been doing this sort of thing for some time. If you walk around the top 100 3PLs, all of us are doing in our own way what the new players are doing with freight matching algorithms. If you look under the hood of an Uber for trucking app, its the same as a pure 3PL or broker. They gave it a sexy name and suddenly their valuations [skyrocket]. These are intelligent investors who are unintelligently investing in basic brokerage.

According to Richard Dick Metzler, chief marketing officer of uShip, another early online freight shipping marketplace, theres been a lot of venture capital that has poured into dozens of startups that aim to take the low-tech business of arranging cargo shipments online. Metzler, who had a long career at traditional logistics companies, such as FedEx Logistics and XPO Logistics, before moving into the high-tech marketplace, calls this the fear of missing out effect, and believes most of these companies are unlikely to continue to get financing.

One early and high-profile Uber for trucking entrant, Cargomatic, launched in 2014, and in early 2015 announced $8 million in investor funding to help it expand its platform. But by September of last year, published reports indicated that the company was struggling, with the departure of key executives and insiders saying the company was running out of cash. (Cargomatic did not respond to our request for an update.)

Trucker Path helps drivers plan their route, find trucking and other points of interest. Photo: Trucker Path

Beyond the freight

A number of apps aim to do more than just match loads and freight. For instance, SmartTruckRoute, a mobile GPS app, combines truck routing and mapping with the Trulos Load Board. Targeted at owner-operators, the app shows truckers available loads along their current route or a future route theyve mapped out on the system. The company says the app helps simplify obtaining backhauls, full or partial loads.

FreightRover, a recently introduced app, is designed to connect carriers in a more efficient manner with their owner-operators, says Michael Pecchia, FreightRover CEO. The company found that being able to pick their own route was a major sticking point with owner-operators. The FreightRover app allows each owner-operator to self-dispatch.

FreightRover is a load matching app designed to let leased owner-operators self-dispatch. It can run on multiple devices. Photo: FreightRover

In a sense, it is similar to a load board, he says, but the app eliminates any phone calls the driver might have to make. We do that automatically. The app also features track and trace and geofencing functions. They began testing the app last April with a 30-truck unit at Indianapolis-based truckload fleet Celadon. In July, it was opened to all Celadon owner-operators.

Pecchia says driver performance has improved with the app, such as a 1% increase in on-time percentage. Plus, the app relieves some of the pressure from dispatch. It interfaces with the companys TMS software so dispatchers receive updates on loads, but they dont have to assign those loads  they only need to deal with the exceptions.

The company is working on an open model, probably four to six months away, that will let them solicit loads directly from shippers and post them like a load board so drivers can pick the loads they need. Under this app, shippers control who sees their loads. Only their favorite carriers can see those loads, or they can open up to all carriers, Pecchia explains. FreightRovers goal is to connect everyone through one portal  carriers, shippers, and drivers.

The sheer number of mobile apps available for trucking can be overwhelming. But not to worry. According to the analysts at Frost & Sullivan, consolidation within this space is inevitable, with some companies acquiring others, and established vendors forging partnerships with new entrants  or new entrants working with fleets such as Celadon and U.S. Xpress.

Whether from a new startup or a long-time provider, in trucking there is definitely an app for that.

Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge contributed to this story.
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fantasy of gun-control

By Rob Morse. May 12th, 2017

Bigotry works for politicians. After the civil war, white Democrats promoted fear of newly freed blacks. Today, black Democrats promote fear of free blacks who will defend themselves and the people they love. Politicians always wrap themselves in the cloak of public safety. In fact, that cloak is usually the white sheet of bigotry directed against minorities and the poor.

Democrat Congressman John Lewis said we need him so we can be safe. Lewis also said that honest gun owners are not welcome in Atlanta. "I must say to the NRA that you are not welcome here in the 5th district, you are not welcome here in Atlanta." That would have come as quite a shock to gun owner Martin Luther King Junior who was born in Atlanta. Last month Congressman Lewis said, "We need to make our cities, our states, our neighborhoods free of gun violence."

Murder isn't a racial problem. Murder isn't a national problem. Murder is a local problem, and let's see if Democrat politicians actually keep us safe. Research by the Crime Prevention Research Center found out that here in the US only a few counties produce most of our homicides. These are populous counties, to be sure, but there remain large areas of peace and quiet even within our most violent counties.

Los Angeles gives us a living example. California has strict statewide gun laws. In Los Angeles today, ordinary citizens can not get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public. Those are the restrictions Congressman Lewis asked for, yet Los Angeles County had over 500 murders and thousands of assaults last year. .......

On May 1st we referred to the local/regional nature of homicides, something that Rob Morse also refers to here - murder is not a national problem but a local one. Indeed, to condemn the innocent (all the good guys) for the actions of the few is the classic approach from the bigotted anti-gun movement, who consistently paint the situation with the same broad brush of innaccuracy and distortion of facts for their own ends.

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Judge excuses juror for illness; black alternate joins jury

One of the 12 jurors was excused for an undisclosed illness Monday.

The woman was replaced with an alternate. Two alternates had been chosen from the pool of potential jurors to sit through the trial and be ready to fill in when someone in the jury box could no longer proceed.

The alternate is the only black man in the jury. Race has been a major issue in the case, and the lack of black male jurors caused a number of complaints and concerns early in the trial. As of Monday evening, the jury consisted of nine white people and three black people.

Spectators have to remove ribbons supporting Crutcher to enter

Several spectators on the sixth day of the trial wore purple and green ribbons in support of Terence Crutcher, but they had to remove them before entering the courtroom.

Beverly Scott, who attends church with the Crutcher family, said she made 35 ribbons to pass out to supporters before the start of testimony Monday morning. She said she chose those two colors because purple stands for royalty and signifies that the wearers are Gods people, while lime green is her ministers favorite color.

She said the ribbons were a small way to show that the community is standing behind the Crutchers.

Its a small gesture, but it means a lot, she said.

A Tulsa County deputy instructed those in line to remove the ribbons if they wanted to enter the courtroom. Last week, Crutcher supporters wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts were told to turn the shirts inside-out. After a request from Shelbys attorneys, the judge forbid items and attire that could improperly influence the jury.

At least two women wore Shelby support bracelets Monday. They are easier to conceal than the ribbons, and one appeared to wear the bracelet into the courtroom.

Jurors hear about Crutchers prior instances of resisting, obstruction

Two officers testified Monday about previous contacts Crutcher had with law enforcement that resulted in his arrest on complaints of obstruction or resisting. Because prosecutors had introduced evidence of Crutchers character through their witnesses, District Judge Doug Drummond on Friday said he would allow testimony about four instances when Crutcher was accused of obstruction.

Tulsa Police Lt. Michael Zenoni, who now works in the Homicide Unit, said he had to use force during a 1995 incident with Crutcher because he would not comply with orders.

Oklahoma State University Police Officer Jack Robison, who is assigned to the Tulsa campus, discussed a 2012 encounter in which Crutcher was arrested for public intoxication and obstruction. Robison described Crutcher as very noncompliant and very defiant toward police, saying he had to use his Taser on him twice.

He said Crutcher, who didnt have a weapon, appeared to be under the influence of some substance because he had a wild look in his eyes and was sweaty.

But Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray emphasized during cross-examination that Robison chose to use less-lethal force against Crutcher, despite him doing all of those behaviors.

Shelby thought of training video during Crutcher encounter

Shelby testified Monday that during her deadly confrontation with Crutcher, she recalled a training video in which an officer was fatally shot.

During her six months at the police training academy, Shelby said she watched videos of real-life situations that served as lessons of what to do and not to do in the field. One involved an officer who pulled over a vehicle and was fatally shot by the driver.

Shelby said that type of training impacted me so much that I saw the video in my head moments before pulling the trigger.

She also testified about being taught to never let subjects who reach into their vehicle pull their arm back out because they could have a gun. A delay in decision time is deadly, she added.

If you hesitate, if you delay, then you die, Shelby said.

 Kyle Hinchey and Samantha Vicent, Tulsa World
OKLAHOMA CITY  Apparently not satisfied with the progress on the state budget, the Senate amended a House bill with a Senate budget proposal Monday and sent it back to the lower chamber for consideration, Senate Pro Tem Mike Schulz said.

But House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, said the Senate proposal contains a poison pill  an increase in the fuel tax.

Senate Minority Leader John Sparks, D-Norman, who voted against the bill, said, I fear this bill is dead on arrival on the other side.

He noted that the proposal includes raising the cigarette tax by $1.50 to generate $215 million.

The $1.50 tax increase failed Monday on the House floor but was held on a motion to reconsider the vote. It can be brought up again.

Even if that is approved by the House, the Senate plan also includes raising the tax on gasoline and diesel by 6 cents a gallon to generate $125 million.

Tax increases must garner at least three-fourths support in both chambers of the Legislature or go to a vote of the people, and the Senate already knows that the fuel tax is a poison pill to any bill, McCall said. By introducing that, it guarantees failure in the House.

McCall issued a statement later Monday, saying: The Senate budget plan has already been proposed by House Republicans, and it was found to have no bipartisan support for the fuel tax. The Senate has known this for weeks, so what they proposed today is not a real solution to the budget problem. Per our constitution, revenue raising measures must start in the House. We have a bipartisan plan in place in the House that, with Senate approval, would unlock $436 million in revenue for the budget.

The Senate Republican plan would also eliminate $43 million in oil and gas rebates and $16 million in manufacturing sales tax exemptions for the wind industry, Schulz said.

All of those items combined would generate between $510 million and $515 million, Schulz said.

Gov. Mary Fallin has already signed measures that should generate about $69 million, he said. Combined with some Rainy Day money, the measures would raise about $878 million, Schulz said.

The plan would allow the state to hold education, corrections and the Department of Human Services harmless with minimal cuts of less than 5 percent to other agencies, he said.

Schulz noted that the Legislature is 10 days away from the end of session, and the (state) constitution says we will balance a budget before we leave here.

It is time to stop with gimmicks, he said. It is time to stop with political games. It is time to do the hard work that the voters of Oklahoma sent us up here to do, and that is to lead this state and put this state on a better path forward.

The amended version of House Bill 2360 passed the Senate by a vote of 36-10.

But McCall said the House already has a budget plan.

The Senate knows what that consists of, McCall said. If they will take up that measure and move that forward, we will have the necessary revenue in this years budget to ensure that education  common education, public education  is held harmless, that we have a teacher pay raise, that the Department of Public Safety, corrections, health care and transportation are all held harmless. We are excited about the House plan to address the budget this year.

Key planks of the House budget plan have yet to pass the House.

House Democrats support increasing the gross production tax, and at this time, there is not a consensus in the House of Representatives on that measure, McCall said.
Good lord, Rep. Ritze!

Rep. Mike Ritze, long known as one of the most conservative Republicans in a very conservative, very Republican state House, has topped himself for dreadful ideas.

The Broken Arrow Republican suggested to KWTV in Oklahoma City last week that the state could save money by asking federal immigration authorities to consider deporting Oklahoma public school students who dont speak English.

No, really. Thats what he said.

He went on to suggest that the state might not be responsible for educating children who arent in the country legally and that there might be as many as 82,000 kids in Oklahoma schools who dont speak English.

All of that is, in a word, wrong. Factually and morally.

First, the state certainly certainly is responsible for educating children who are in the nation illegally. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared up that issue 35 years ago.

Second, the state has nowhere close to 82,000 students who dont speak English. The state Department of Education puts the number of English learners at 49,536.

When an Associated Press reporter tried to check out Ritzes 82,000 claim the only way he could come close was by including 32,000 bilingual students.

But most important, refusing to educate students who dont speak English  and suggesting that we would seek their deportation  is just outrageous.

If the students were born in the United States, they are U.S. citizens. In the United States, we dont deport our own citizens.

Even if they arent U.S. citizens and they arent in the nation legally, we still want them to be educated. Our nation is better and stronger if its children receive a quality education, regardless of their legal status. Denying children of any nationality an education doesnt make the children go away. It just makes them ignorant, less productive and more likely to turn to crime in the future.

Good lord, Rep. Ritze! Youve suggested some doozies in your time in the Legislature, but this time youve really topped yourself. That said, we cant aim all of our outrage at you. We also have to shake our heads in wonder at the 13,000 Broken Arrow citizens who voted for you in November.
Just 4 more episodes of The Leftovers remain before fans stare down the conclusion for Kevin Garvey and the cluster of characters deeply affected by the Sudden Departure of Season One.

Based largely in Australia, Season Three is the culmination of Damon Lindelofs vision for his acclaimed HBO series. It was Australias new wave of cinema, Wake in Fright, Walkabout, The Next Wave, Picnic at Hanging Rock that drew producers down under.

I felt Melbourne was the place.

Producer / Director Mimi Leder says, I went on a scout all over Australia and landed on Melbourne. I went to Sydney, Broken Hill, Adelaide and to Melbourne with 2 of my other producers. Knowing what the story was going to be I felt Melbourne was the place.

Filming took place in Melbourne, Broken Hill and the You Yangs south west of Melbourne.

The first episode was exclusively in the outback and theres another that is exclusively in the city. So it feels like a completely different show, from Walkabout to Bourne Identity.

Im not saying thats the tone of the scripts. Its all buildings as opposed to desert.

Leder is full of praise for the Australian actors and crew who joined the series, notably Indigenous actors for scenes in Broken Hill.

We always knew there was a great group of Australian actors who have come to the States but casting day players in Australia has been great because there are so many good choices. There are so many seasoned people.

Working with the Indigenous people was truly inspiring, and a really soul-searching, learning experience for an American, she reflects.

The Americans who come here dont know too much about the Indigenous culture and what happened here, compared to what happened with the native Americans. Weve seen it through your films and cinema, but its not something we learn in school.

It was fantastic.

Every Australian director I approached was unavailable

Yet while Aussie Robert Humphries is one of the shows 2 Directors of Photography, Leder was unable to secure a local Director.

Every Australian director I approached was unavailable, she reveals.

I went to so many, especially female directors, but it just didnt happen.

It was Damons choice to say This is where I want to end it.

While she gives nothing away about the conclusion, Leder acknowledges it was a tough decision to wrap the series at just 3 seasons.

Its smart to end a show where you think it should end and not extend it for numerous reasons (such as) everyone likes it, or you want to make money. It was Damons choice to say This is where I want to end it. This is the story I want to tell. Not many artists get to do that, or have the courage to do it, she continues.

Im not thinking about the ending because I will start crying! It will be brutal. Well all be on our knees, but in a beautiful way.

The Leftovers airs 8:30pm Thursdays on Showcase.
A crew with the nonprofit MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) shuttle a group of people plucked from the Mediterranean to the Phoenix rescue vessel, November 2016.  UNHCR/Giuseppe Carotenuto

Reports emerging from the sea rescue effort between Italy and Libya suggest around 20 men, women and children are missing and feared dead after rescuers were able to pluck some 500 survivors from the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend.

Information gathered by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in Italy indicates that the survivors were rescued from four rubber boats on Sunday by the SeaEye NGO and a merchant vessel called Ohio in the Central Mediterranean Sea. UNHCR is gathering more information from those rescued and about the circumstances of the rescue efforts.

Among the 20 feared dead it is reported that some were crushed by other people in the boat, while others drowned at sea. The victims include a child, women and some men  mostly from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and reportedly from Bangladesh. Seven bodies were recovered and taken with the survivors to Trapani.

With this latest incident, it is estimated more than 1,350 people are now missing or dead in the Mediterranean Sea. Over the past few weeks alone, over 95 people have lost their lives.

UNHCR reiterates its call for credible alternatives to these dangerous crossings for people in need of international protection, including accessible and safe ways to reach Europe such as family reunification, resettlement and private sponsorship.

Saving lives must be the top priority. With continued horrifying reports of smuggler abuse, action is needed before people are caught and exposed to horrendous abuses at the hands of smugglers and before they board unsafe boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea. This also means redoubling efforts to solve conflicts, especially in Africa; and making better use of development resources.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
A crew with the nonprofit MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) shuttle a group of people plucked from the Mediterranean to the Phoenix rescue vessel, November 2016.  UNHCR/Giuseppe Carotenuto

TRAPANI, Italy  As the rubber boat packed with men, women and children started to take on water in the choppy seas off the coast of Sicily, some threw themselves into the water in a panicked attempt to save themselves.

We could see people in the water slowly drifting away, it was terrible, one young survivor from Mali said. At some point we only saw life jackets, no more people, said another young man from Mali.

The pair were among 500 people plucked from the Mediterranean Sea by rescuers last week, saved from an increasingly lethal route plied by smugglers profiting from the desperation of refugees and migrants.

Reports emerging from the rescue effort between Italy and Libya suggest that around 20 men, women and children are missing and feared dead.

Information gathered by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in Italy indicates that the survivors were rescued from four rubber boats on Sunday by nonprofit SeaEye and a merchant vessel called Ohio.

Saving lives must be the top priority."

Among the 20 feared dead it is reported that some were crushed by other people in the panic aboard the boats, while others drowned at sea. The victims include a child, women and some men  mostly from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Bangladesh. Seven bodies were recovered and taken with survivors to Trapani.

The [Sea Eye] rescue crew stayed with us all day, one Sudanese survivor told UNHCR staff after disembarking at the Sicilian port of Trapani. They kept repeating: Stay united, rescue is on its way.

With this latest incident, it is estimated that at least 1,364 people are now missing or dead in the Mediterranean Sea. Over the past few weeks alone, over 95 people have lost their lives.

UNHCR reiterates its call for credible alternatives to these dangerous crossings for people in need of international protection, including accessible and safe ways to reach Europe such as family reunification, resettlement and private sponsorship.

Saving lives must be the top priority, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters at a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, May 16.

With continued horrifying reports of smuggler abuse, action is needed before people are caught and exposed to horrendous abuses at the hands of smugglers and before they board unsafe boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

Spindler said the response also requires the redoubling efforts to solve conflicts, especially in Africa; and making better use of development resources.
UNHCR assistance is distributed for more than 6,200 individuals in Taizz's embattled district of Mokha, one of the worst affected areas in the governorate. Since the beginning of the year UNHCR assistance to those displaced in Taizz has so far reached 69,857 individuals.  UNHCR/Adem Shaqiri

Hostilities in the Red Sea governorate of Taizz, south of Al Hudaydah, have displaced almost 50,000 people since the start of 2017. This is in addition to the three million who have been uprooted since the beginning of the conflict in Yemen, of whom two million remain displaced and one million have provisionally returned home to precarious conditions.

UNHCR field teams have last week returned from emergency distributions in Taizzs embattled district of Mokha, one of the worst affected areas in the governorate where humanitarian access has been challenging due to ongoing clashes and movement restrictions imposed by parties to the conflict.

UNHCR has managed to secure access to Mokha for the third time this year. The latest UNHCR aid distribution in Mokha will cover more than 6,200 people with emergency assistance, adding to the 69,857 already reached since the start of this year. Another 17,745 people have been reached in Hudaydah in the same period.

Taizz governorate has been a flashpoint in the conflict, generating 27 per cent of internally displaced people in Yemen, and also hosting another 303,672 displaced people. Many who have attempted to flee hostilities in Taizz have been displaced elsewhere across the governorate.

In Mokha, UNHCR teams observed worsening conditions for both those displaced by conflict and the local communities hosting them. Many people are living out in the open in harsh conditions and without adequate shelter, protection and material assistance.

In Hudaydah, UNHCR field teams also observed a huge spike in humanitarian needs. Displaced people are now living on the streetswith some taking shelter on pavements, and others most vulnerable including female and child-headed households turning to negative coping strategies to enable their survival such as through begging and child labour, which is now rampant across the governorate.

UNHCR has warned late last month an intensification of conflict in Al Hudaydah would lead to large-scale displacement of up to an additional half a million people, further increasing needs and vulnerabilities in an high-need area which is already host to a sizeable displaced and conflict affected population and suffering from critical levels of food insecurity.

With Hudaydah host to more than 109,000 displaced individuals, many are reporting anxiety about reports of possible intensifications in hostilities in the governorate, unsure of how and where they would flee.

In anticipation of any further intensification in hostilities, UNHCR is leading efforts with humanitarian partners to respond to additional displacement under different scenarios. UNHCR is pre-positioning supplies to respond to affected people and in the event of anticipated displacement, will help establish, multi-sector service hubs along major displacement routes to offer respite to people fleeing violence.

UNHCR will also provide mobile core relief kits, essential protection services, emergency shelter and household assistance at the final destinations of the displaced in the form of shelter materials, vouchers, financial assistance or cash subsidies for rent, depending on needs.

With UNHCRs current supplies at critical levels, millions remaining displaced across the country, UNHCR is appealing for urgent support to respond to current and anticipated displacement. UNHCRs response to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is only funded by less than a quarter to date.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Fatima Jaish Ali and her family are among millions of Yemenis facing hardship and hunger.  UNHCR/Shabia Mantoo

AL HUDAYDAH, Yemen  When the fighting reached his doorstep last year in the city of Hajjah, 130 kilometres northwest of Yemens capital Sanaa, Mohammed Saeed and his four children fled to the neighbouring Hudaydah governorate in search of safety.

The 60-year-old former electrical engineer had brought his children up alone since the death of his wife before the outbreak of conflict in 2015. But while they were able to escape the bullets and bombs, the terrible hardship that accompanied their forced displacement was to have tragic consequences for his youngest son, aged just 10.

Because of the situation, I lost one of my children to malnutrition, Mohammed explained. We just dont have enough to eat. Sometimes we have food and sometimes we dont. We are very poor, we have no means to support ourselves and we just depend on whatever we get from humanitarian organizations.

"I lost one of my children to malnutrition."

Mohammeds plight is sadly all too common in a country where two million people are currently displaced and 17 million are considered food insecure as a result of the conflict, now in its third year.

Hudaydah is currently host to more than 109,000 displaced Yemenis, who along with the conflict-affected local population are said to be facing critical levels of food insecurity.

Amid warnings of a possible intensification of fighting in Hudaydah itself, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, recently warned that up to half a million people could be displaced by an increase in hostilities there. In response, the agency is leading efforts with humanitarian partners to respond to any fresh displacement.

UNHCR is pre-positioning supplies to be able to respond in the event of mass displacement and will help establish humanitarian hubs along major displacement routes to offer respite to people fleeing violence, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, May 16.

It will also provide mobile core relief kits, protection services, emergency shelter and household assistance at the final destinations of the displaced, in the form of shelter materials, vouchers, financial assistance or cash subsidies for rent, depending on needs.

Fatima, a 35-year-old mother of five from Hajjah, fled to Hudaydah shortly after the start of the conflict in early 2015. Their escape followed an explosion near their home that left Fatima badly burned, and she still suffers severe pain from her injuries as a result of not being able to afford proper medical treatment.

We just dont have enough to eat."

With Fatimas husband  a former construction worker  unable to find work in Hudaydah, they are currently living in an unused building with 20 other families, and have had to resort to scavenging food from restaurants and sending their children to beg in the streets just to survive.

Many of those displaced in Hudaydah like Fatima are anxious about possible intensifications in hostilities, unsure of how and where they would flee.

We are scared by the situation but what are we supposed to do?, Fatima asked. Even where we live now, a bomb fell near our building. We are very afraid.

With UNHCRs humanitarian supplies at critically low levels, the agency has appealed for US$99.6 million in order to respond to current and anticipated displacement in Yemen, but has so far received less than a quarter of the requested amount.
Dispute delays Bharatpur vote count by more than 8 hours

UML supporters stage a protest against the delay in counting of votes in front of Covered Hall in Bharatpur, Chitwan, on Monday. POST PHOTO: SHIVA PURI
Following the huge downfall of Windows Phones in stocks, Microsoft made a long launch gap in its handset lineup. But, Microsoft fans will still have something to look forward to. Microsoft's highly anticipated Surface Phone is said to function like a laptop with complete support of Win32.

Although there is no word on the Microsoft Surface Phone development, tech enthusiasts will still have something to look forward to. Reports are mounting up on the internet claiming that the Microsoft Surface Phone will work like a portable laptop, which is one thing that tech fans have always wanted to see in a Windows Phone.

News about the Microsoft Surface Phone has been all around the internet. Recently, Microsoft's current CEO, Satya Nadella, made it known that the tech giant will be rolling out the Surface Phone soon. Nadella claimed that the upcoming Microsoft Surface Phone will be different from a typical handset that people uses every day, BGR reported.

As Microsoft's Surface brand has already changed the way a person look at these devices, the radical change in the design of the Microsoft Surface Phone would match with the rest of Microsoft's Surface devices. Microsoft is said to launch an ultimate handset that would totally shake up the smartphone universe.

Nonetheless, the Microsoft Surface Phone is expected to have a 5.5-inch AMOLED screen and a 4GB of RAM. The Microsoft Surface Phone will have a various storage options from 64GB to 128GB. The Microsoft Surface Phone will feature both a rear-view and a front-facing snapper with the former being 21MP and the latter being 8MP, Ledger Gazette reported.

Microsoft is said to host an event in Shanghai on May 23. Tech fans and experts are expecting that the tech giant might make an official announcement about the Microsoft Surface Phone at the event. The tech giant is definitely looking for a huge comeback in the smartphone industry by rolling out its Surface Phone.

Watch The Video Here:
On Monday, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from launch pad 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center with Inmarsat satellite that will complete the latter's fifth-generation broadband network. This has been Falcon 9's second flight in two weeks.

According to Space, Inmarsat planned to put its $250 million F4 satellite into orbit last year. However, the flight was delayed after a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded on the launch pad while being fueled for a preflight engine test. The 23-story rocket has successfully flown six times since the accident.

SpaceX is famous for introducing reusable rockets in the space exploration scene. So far, 10 Falcon 9 first stage boosters have returned intact after launching. Meanwhile, the same company owned by Elon Musk hopes to launch another second-hand rocket next month for Bulgaria Sat. For the record, this was the first time Inmarsat flew with SpaceX and probably not the last.

Apparently, this mission is only the sixth in 20 projects Falcon 9 is set to take part in. The F4 communications satellite weighs about 13,400 lbs. (6,100 kg). It holds the record for the heaviest spacecraft to be pushed by a Falcon booster into a "geostationary" transfer orbit some 22,300 miles (35, 800 km) above the Earth's surface. The satellite separated from the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 roughly 32 minutes after liftoff.

Dubbed as the "End of the Beginning", the Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite completes the company's four-member broadband network worth $1.6 billion. That broadband network is named as the Global Xpress. Per Florida Today, it will provide worldwide mobile communications for airlines, ships, and government agencies.

The package was built by Boeing and is set to deliver a downlink speed of up to 50 megabits per second. The uplink, on the other hand, reaches up to 5 megabits per second. To better illustrate, this is 100 times faster than Inmarsat's previous system. Customers for the in-flight Wi-Fi services from Global Xpress include Lufthansa Group and Austrian Airlines.

The Boeing-built satellite makes Inmarsat's fleet big with 13 spacecraft. A 14th launch is set to happen this June. Global Xpress's final location is yet to be determined but is believed to move from Europe to India. Well, airline passengers could now watch a video on their phones or tablets while military services could enhance their high-bandwidth communication devices.
Gurkhas kick off Everest season with summit success

The Gurkha Everest Expedition reached the top of Everest on Monday, becoming the first to scale the worlds tallest peak this year. The 14 summiteers included soldiers serving with the Brigade of Gurkhas and high-altitude mountain guides.
Large number of youngsters participate in Chitwan polls

Chitwan witnessed a large number of young voters in Sundays local elections. Many of them were exercising their franchise for the first time while even those people who sat out the Constituent Assembly elections of 2008 and 2013 turned up to vote.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Nepal proposes China for road, rail links

Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Ramesh Lekhak proposed to Chinese Transport Minister to link Nepals border with road and railways connectivity.
By: Koushan Das, Business Intelligence Associate at Dezan Shira & Associates

According to the Vietnam Sea Culture Association, exports of marine aquaculture produce are predicted to reach US$12-13 billion (VND 276-299 trillion) by 2020 and US$30-35 billion (VND 690-805 trillion) by 2030. To achieve their goals, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has approved a project to increase competitiveness in seafood sector with financial support from the State Budget and foreign businesses, to restructure the sector towards improving its value added products.

Aqua farming in Vietnam

Since 2012, Vietnam has been among the top 10 marine aqua farming countries with increasing exports. Marine fish output has increased from 15,700 tonnes in 2010 to 28,300 tonnes in 2016 with Khanh Hoa, Quang Ninh, Kien Giang and Ba Ria-Vung Tau emerging as the leading producers. The countrys long coastline of over 3,000 kilometers and numerous islands offer excellent opportunities for marine aquaculture farmers. With the growing global population, demand for seafood-based protein is expected to grow by 1.7 times by 2050, with farmed items accounting for 62 percent, which opens up opportunities for Vietnams farmers.

Current challenges faced by the industry are the small scale of operations, lack of technology, lagging efficiency of supply chains, and inadequate policy support from government needed to attract investments.

With the growing per capita consumption of major export markets such as US and China, Vietnam needs to increase food safety, sustainability, social compliance, and traceability standards if it wants to stay competitive.

Government support for the seafood industry

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) recently approved a project to make seafood sector more competitive, with financial support worth US$4.47 million (VND 102 billion) from government and foreign businesses. The State Budget will provide US$1.75 million (VND 40 billion), while the remaining US$2.73 million (VND 62.2 billion), will be supported by international businesses.

Along with the funding, the project will also be revising regulations for imports of seafood destined for export processing, certificates of origins rules, preservation methods, and custom policy as per international standards. In addition, regulations and checks on seafood breeding, feeding, processing, and export packaging will also increase.

The overhauling of regulations is expected to increase foreign investment for development of the freshwater, brackish water, and saline water aquaculture sector leading to high-quality seafood breeds, probiotics, and feed. An increase in investments will also develop the offshore fishing capabilities with technology upgrades for existing vessels and introduction of modern equipment.

Future prospects for aquaculture in Vietnam

Going forward, as competition increases and international standards become more stringent, the government needs to be more aggressive in attracting investments and increasing quality of produce. Marine farms and activities should be made eligible for preferential credit to foster growth. Upgrading existing feed facilities and building large-scale breeding stock production units are imperative to increase production of value-based products.

The government should also set up an effective marine environment monitoring and regulation program to ensure regeneration of marine eco-systems. These measures will increase the scale of production, develop value chains, and help in expanding exports and domestic markets.

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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.



Managing Contracts and Severance in Vietnam

In this issue of Vietnam Briefing, we discuss the prevailing state of labor pools in Vietnam and outline key considerations for those seeking to staff and retain workers in the country. We highlight the increasing demand for skilled labor, provide in depth coverage of existing contract options, and showcase severance liabilities that may arise if workers or employers choose to terminate their contracts.
I- Conditions to arrest a ship

A. Type of claims

According to section 149 of the Cemac merchant Code, the maritime debts which may give rise to ship arrest are the same enumerated by section 1 of the Bruxelles convention :

a) Loss or damages caused by exploitation of the vessel ;

b) Death or corporal injuries arising, onshore or offshore, in direct relation with the exploitation of the ship ;

c) Operations of rescue or assistance, as well as all contracts of rescue or assistance, including, as the case may be, for special indemnity concerning operations of rescue or assistance to a ship which, by itself or by its cargo, was running the risk of causing damage to the environment ;

d) Damages caused or likely to be caused by the ship to the environment, to the coast or to connected interests ; measures taken to prevent, reduce or eliminate the damages ; indemnity for these damages ; cost of reasonable measures to repair which was effectively taken or to be taken ;

Losses suffered or likely to be suffered by third parties in relation to these damages ; and damages, costs or losses of a similar nature to those which are indicated in this item d) ;

e) Costs and expenses related to the retrieving, removing, recovery, destruction or neutralization of a sunk, wrecked, grounded or abandoned ship, including all what is found or was found on board the ship, and costs and expenses related to the conservation of an abandoned ship and the up keep of its crew ;

f) Every contract related to the use or hire of a ship by chartering or otherwise ;

g) Every contract related to the transportation of goods or passengers by ship, by chartering or otherwise ;

h) Losses or damages suffered by, or in relation to, goods, including luggages transported by the ship ;

I) General average ; j) Towing or piloting of a ship ;

k) Goods, materials, supplies, oil-fuel tank, equipments, including containers supplied or services rendered to the ship for its exploitation, its management, its conservation or its maintenance ;

l) Construction, reconstruction, repairs, transformation or equipment of a ship ;

m) Port, canal, dock (dry-dock), anchoring and inland waterways duties and fees ;

n) Wages and other sums of money payable to the captain, naval officers and other crew members, by virtue of their engagement on the ship, including repatriation fees and social insurance contributions payable on their behalf ;

o) Payments made on behalf of the ship or its owners ;

p) Insurance premiums, including annual insurance contributions, in relation to the ship, payable by the owner of the ship or by the charterer by devolution or on their behalf ;

q) Agency fees or brokerage commissions or other in relation to the ship, payable by the owner of the ship or by the charterer by devolution or on their behalf ;

r) Every dispute arising from the ownership or possession of a ship ;

s) Every dispute between the co-owners of a ship in relation to its exploitation or the right to the proceeds of exploitation of the ship ;

t) Mortgage or rights of a similar nature over a ship ; u) every dispute arising from a contract of sale of a ship.

u) Every clash arising from a contract of sale of a ship.

B. Conditions relating to the ship owner and the ship

The CEMAC code indiscriminately states that, a ship can be arrested provided it is the ship to which the claim relates, or any other ship owned by the owner at the time when the claim arose.

1. The vessel/ship to which a claim is related, or arrest "in rem".

According to the said code, an arrest order can be executed either on the vessel to which the claim relates, or any other vessel belonging to the owner at the time when the maritime claim originated, the vessel of the owner to which the claim emanates.

Thus, in terms of the CEMAC code and the Bruxelles convention, an action against a ship is an action in rem.

Also, an arrest can be executed even when ownership of the same vessel has been transferred by the initial owner. This simply necessitates that the debt to be recovered must be linked to the concerned vessel.



2. The ship-owners fleet to which the claim relates is the security of creditors.

Article 144 (1) of the CEMAC Code provides that the creditor may arrest any vessel belonging to the owner at the time when the maritime claim arose, the ship owner which the claim relates, This provision highlights a cumulative application of the concepts, action in rem and in personam.

It suffice to state the Bruxelles convention which extends the maritime claim to <<all ships at the moment of the birth of the debt, even those inherited by the owner.

II- The rules of procedure

The stating of the competent jurisdiction and the means of the arrest is prior to the presentation of the applicable measures of execution.

A. The method of arrest

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 150 of the CEMAC Code, the proceedings are commenced by way of an application.

Prior to the filing of the application, it is imperative to request the approval of the competent maritime authority, which in Cameroon is the Minister of Transport based in Yaounde.

B. The competent courts

The competent judge in Cameroon is the President of the Court of First Instance, with the emphasis that this country has three ports including the Kribi in the South region, Douala in the Littoral region and Limbe in the South West region.

Further, the creditor has a deadline of one month from the execution of the arrest order to initiate proceedings on the merits in order to obtain a writ of execution. To this end, the creditor may apply to the High Court of the place of seaport.

In the event where there exist an arbitration clause or a court chosen by the parties to the contract it is mandatory for them to seize the chosen jurisdiction.

III- The measures of execution

The measures are carried by a sheriff bailiff (1) with the assistance of the Maritime Authority (2).

A- The Sheriff bailiff

The arrest is executed by the sheriff bailiff by way of bailiffs report which is notified to the captain of the ship, the port authority and the maritime authority.

B- The Maritime Authority

There is a constituted ship guard against remuneration ; the maritime authority upon receipt of the bailiffs act makes an order to prohibit the sail.

From the moment the arrest order is executed, the creditor is required to fulfill certain formalities for the grant of an enforcement order for the sale of certain ship .Bien assuming or debtor has not deposited a bond or letter of guarantee.

Of course in this stage of the proceeding, the debtor has not deposited a caution or a letter of guarantee.

The sale in terms of pecuniary value will be evaluated separately.
Oil tankers to be fitted with high-tech locks

A long-awaited high-tech locking system will be installed on oil tankers this week, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) said. The advanced security locking system is expected to prevent gasoline theft during transportation from India to Nepal.
The Asia-Pacific region has always been a focus of Viet Nams foreign policy, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said yesterday at the opening session of the 24th Pacific Economic Co-operation Council (PECC) in Ha Noi.-VNA/VNS Photo Van iep

Minh, who is also the Chairman of the APEC National Committee 2017, stressed that Being in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region, Viet Nam has continuously promoted comprehensive reform, deepening international integration and active policy implementation and multilateral foreign relations.

The future of the region is the future of Viet Nam, he said.

"Looking back over the past three decades, we can be proud of the transformation of Asia-Pacific for becoming a region of peace and a driver of global economic growth and linkage," Minh said.

According to Minh, the region is a testament to the commonwealth that can be achieved through greater economic co-operation and connection, as well as trade and investment liberalisation. Therefore, the 21st century forecast is that the century of Asia-Pacific is not overstated, he said.

However, Minh said that the regions prospects also depended on the handling of three major groups of challenges in the short and long term.

The first group includes productivity stagnation; increased inequality in each economy and among economies; population challenges, including aging, poverty, urbanisation and unprecedented impacts of climate change.

The second group includes the degree of readiness for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the third group are potential risks of geopolitical conflict and the lack of a viable regional governance mechanism.

Human resources development

In another APEC 2017 event yesterday, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu uc am highlighted that human resources were the centre of development, especially in the digital age.

Speaking at the opening session of the APEC High-Level Policy Dialogue on Human Resources Development in the Digital Age, am said that the development of science and technology, particularly information technology, was setting new requirements and creating new conditions for human resource development.

Technology not only helps increase labour productivity but also connects all people around the world, he said, adding that it encourages individuals to affirm their personal creativity and value.

The Deputy PM also mentioned the Industrial Revolution 4.0 with IT as its foundation, saying that the appearance of new jobs to replace the old ones requires basic changes in education and training, not only for developing countries like Viet Nam but for all nations.

He stressed the need to ensure equal access to education for all vulnerable groups in society, inspire creativity among children, align theory with practice, connect schools and businesses, and most importantly train people in the necessary skills of a global citizen.

Noting the importance of making forecasts on technological developments, Dr. Alan Bollard, APEC Secretariat Executive Director, said this dialogue would discuss a draft framework on human resources development, the labour market and social welfare for disadvantaged people which will be submitted for APEC higher-level meetings for consideration.

A press conference on the outcomes of the meeting later the day revealed that a framework on human resources development in the digital age was adopted.

The framework proposes a group of suitable policy orientations and measures to support the APEC member economies in preparing labourers for joining the employment market amid opportunities and challenges from the Industrial Revolution 4.0, said Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Doan Mau Diep.

The specific objectives of the framework are to provide high-level policy orientations to strengthen regional collaboration in human resources development in the digital age.

It also aims to identify and implement activities in priority co-operation areas where APEC can contribute supplementary value such as the future of work in the digital age and labour market policies, education and vocational training, and social security.

The representatives from the 21 APEC economies proposed implementing the framework between 2017 and 2025.
The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt

Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard.

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people.

Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched.

At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre.

In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units.

In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix.

Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter.

This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors.

This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency.

However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options.

With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said.

He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces.

Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy.

The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc's dialogue with the private sector on May 17 is the second one since he was elected

Nguyen Trong Dieu - Chairman of the Vietnam Private Business Association

The business environment is positively transforming to become more accommodating for enterprises. The tremors of these changes echoed through the countrys socioeconomic development in 2016 and the first four months of 2017.

However, thee are still debilitating weaknesses in the business environment, which are reflected in the recently released Provincial Competitiveness Index and the Public Administration Performance Index 2016 (PAPI).

At present, it is important to realise the policies mentioned in the Resolution of the Fifth Central Meeting of the 12th Plenum of the Communist Party of Vietnam. These include the policies on land, finance, credit, labour and salary and policies on education, science, and technology, as well as policies on trade promotion.

It is necessary to eliminate regulations that go against the mission of encouraging the private sectors development, such as the regulations that restrict the right to do business and the ones that increase firms input costs.

Especially, the state governance should catch up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The government cannot say that because it cannot control it has to restrict or forbid activities related to application of knowledge and high-tech to create an economy with rapid development and high competitiveness.

With these changes, enterprises will be able to compete in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as speed and creativity are the keys to success. Besides, the government should see to the challenges in improving the quality of human resources and IT security.

Dang Vu Thanh - Vice president of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association

In an effort to remove obstacles for enterprises, it is necessary to improve the management ability of ministries and localities.

For instance, in inspection in export-import activities, the dispersion, overlap, and duplication will make businesses tired because they have to carry out many procedures.

Import and export procedures should focus on the one-stop shop principle, managing risk according to international practices. Also, different agencies should believe each others inspection results to reduce time and expenses.

Nguyen Trung Anh - R & D director of The Pan Group Joint Stock Company

The government needs to re-channel resources, instead of controlling and allocating them.

Currently, the government is conducting a research on a credit package of VND60-100 trillion ($2.8-4.73 billion) to support high-tech agriculture. However, the roadmap for implementation has not been established clearly yet. It is necessary to clarify the allocation mechanism and conditions for receiving this credit package to avoid inefficiency when enterprises call for support.

In the future, tax incentives should be adopted to orient resources instead of allocating them through preferential credit packages to enterprises.

Le Van Hieu - Vice chairman of the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association and chairman of the Danang Young Entrepreneurs Association

At present, the inspection and examination of enterprises shows no signs of reducing, however, the government has introduced many measures to promote transparency. If in the coming years, the government increases transparency, especially in terms of tax, even the operations of small businesses can be made more manageable. For instance, if the government provided tax and invoice software to these enterprises, it would increase the government revenue and create transparency and formalise the activities of enterprises.

In addition, it is essential to adopt solutions to take full advantage of the common resources of the state and enterprises. For example, the state now owns abandoned factories and has made them available for the private sector to avoid waste as well as support production and business.

The phrases of state-owned enterprise and private sector have created a distinction in investment and production. To eliminate this distinction, it is necessary to review and amend policies to create fairness among enterprises.

Mac Quoc Anh - Vice chairman of the Hanoi Small and Medium Enterprises Association

Government agencies do not yet work well together and the administrative management is not yet professional.

Some enterprises said the inspection of imports and exports today is causing difficulties for businesses. Although the customs have reduced paper-based procedures, they remain inconsistent with the relevant agencies, such as banks, forcing companies to submit different documents at places that the customs agents do not issue.

Enterprises hold great faith in the 2017 conference between the Prime Minister and companies. Resolution 35 has set out a plan that government agencies and localities have been implementing for a year. But we need to build a solid cooperation between state agencies and businesses. Only when the relations between the two sides tighten can the state remove the difficulties for businesses.

Duong Tuan Anh - Chairman of the Hue Business Association

The association will continuously petition the government to consider setting up a series of centres to support enterprises at localities.

Resolution 35/NQ-CP on developing and supporting companies between 2016 and 2020 mentioned comprehensive policies, the responsibilities of ministries, branches, and localities. However, the content on the establishment and operation of supporting centres for businesses has not been implemented in practice.

In addition, policies to support enterprises still give favourable conditions to attract foreign investment, and less favourable conditions for private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam.

The attraction of large foreign enterprises is necessary, but even when Vietnam cooperates with foreign companies, it needs to give level conditions with local businesses and local workers.

Therefore, it is necessary to have a centre with legal power to connect and attract investors in the localities.

Vu Tien Loc - Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry

One year after the first meeting between the prime minister and the private sector in 2016, 75 per cent of enterprises said that state agencies have been positively transformed. However, nearly 30 per cent of them also added that these transformations are unsatisfactory.

Resolution 35 states that firms should be only inspected once a year, but in practice, firms are inspected and examined frequently, some even six or seven times a year. Of all the frequently-inspected and examined firms, half of them said that the checks overlapped.

The proposals to cut down on firms costs such as decreasing interest rates to increase loan access, lowering insurance and logistics costs are important. Besides, firms also proposed to adjust regulations on bankruptcy proceedings, dispute resolution, and inspection and examination.

State agencies should avoid deep intervention in the market.

Accordingly, the government can serve enterprises, but it should not do their work for them. The government should divest from public services and promote private sector participation. Even when supporting firms, the government should not delve too deep into consulting, training, and promoting. Instead, it should encourage the private sector to supply services to support firms.
A crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is seen inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, DC. (Photo: AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Trump told reporters Monday he was "moving rapidly" to pick a replacement for Comey, whose shock dismissal triggered accusations that the president was trying to obstruct an FBI probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the November election his way.

At least a dozen different names are being mentioned in US media as candidates to replace Comey.

"Almost all of them are very well known. They've been vetted over their lifetime, essentially. But very well known, highly respected, really talented people," Trump said over the weekend.

He said he might make a decision before leaving late in the week on his first major international trip, to the Middle East and Europe.

The possible candidates include men and women with experience in law enforcement or national security, and others more associated with politics.

Among the group are the current acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, senior Republican Senator John Cornyn, New York judge Michael Garcia, former Justice Department official Alice Fisher, former presidential adviser Fran Townsend, Republican former congressman Mike Rogers, and Trey Gowdy, who led a congressional panel that probed the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

Trump's pick to succeed Comey will have to first appear at hearings before a Senate panel, before their nomination is put to a vote in the entire Republican-controlled Senate.

But Democratic lawmakers are making such a vote contingent on the Justice Department naming a special prosecutor to probe Russia's alleged interference in the US election - and the question of possible collusion with Trump's campaign.

"To have that special prosecutor, people would breathe a sigh of relief, because then there would be a real independent person overlooking the FBI director," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday.

Democrats cannot actually prevent a Senate vote on a new FBI director. But they could delay it with foot-dragging measures, and that would be rare for a vote on the FBI chief. Such nominations tend to get support from both parties.

ARE THERE RECORDINGS?

As it stands, no senior Republican lawmakers have supported the naming of a special prosecutor in the Russia affair. But that does not mean they are happy with Trump's actions of late.

Some Republicans are upset with Trump for admitting he had the FBI's Russia probe in mind when he fired Comey.

Trump is described as livid over seeing his name mentioned constantly in connection with the investigation when, according to the president himself and several lawmakers, he is not a target of the probe.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will brief the Senate behind closed doors Thursday on the circumstances surrounding Comey's firing.

A memo from Rosenstein criticizing Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton private email server probe was initially offered by the White House as justification for the FBI chief's dismissal.

The president insinuated in a tweet last week that he might have recordings of private conversations he held with Comey.

That sent Washington - rattled and surprised almost daily by the shoot-from-the-hip Trump presidency - into a veritable lather, and sparked comparisons with the behavior of Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal.

The Washington Post quoted former Trump business associates and journalists as saying they have long suspected that Trump recorded his own phone calls.

If Trump did record conversations with Comey, under the law, he cannot destroy or hide them.

"If there are any tapes, they have to be turned over," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday.

Graham said the next FBI director should be "beyond reproach" and free of political trappings so as to ensure an independent probe of the Russia affair.

Democrats are asking the White House to release any recordings Trump may have made so as to determine if he tried to intimidate Comey or even obstruct justice.

Last week, White House spokesman Sean Spicer refused to confirm or deny the existence of any Oval Office recordings.

When pressed on the issue again Monday, he used nearly the same formulation he had employed last week: "I was very clear that the president would have nothing further on that last week."
Vietnams main imports from South Korea serve the purposes of manufacturing, processing products for exporting. Photo: manufacturing at Doosan Vina

Slipping deeper into the red

According to statistics recently released by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in the first four months of this year, Vietnams trade deficit towards China totalled at $9 billion, while it was $9.3 billion towards Korea.

Hence, South Korea is the new champion trading partner of Vietnam, taking over China, despite the fact that the largest portion of Vietnamese imports is still sourced from the latter. Specifically, in the first four months of the year, Vietnam imported $17.6 billion worth of products from China, an increase of 19.4 per cent, while the import turnover from South Korea was $13.7 billion, up 45.3 per cent in comparison with the same period last year.

In fact, warnings about Vietnams growing trade deficit towards South Korea have been souding for about a dozen years now, probably since Samsung started investing a large amount in manufacturing complexes in Vietnam. In 2008, Vietnams trade deficit with South Korea was $6.27 billion. This figure increased to $8.46 billion in 2011, to reach $20.6 billion in 2016. In the first four months of this year, Vietnams trade deficit towards South Korea reached $9.3 billion, not breaking the monotonously increasing trend.

For years, the public opinion seemed to be sharply focused on China instead of South Korea. However, since South Korea unexpectedly surpasses China in trade deficit, economists have been warning to exercise caution.

It is not too difficult to explain why the trade deficit to South Korea has been soaring. After Samsung started making large investments in manufacturing complexes in the country, the wave of investment from South Korea has been increasing strongly. As of April 2017, South Korean accumulative investment capital was over $54 billion, topping off the list of countries and territories investing in Vietnam, going far beyond rank two Japans $10 billion. South Korean enterprises have been investing heavily in Vietnam, bringing about a demand to import machinery, equipment, and materials.

Vietnam Export-Import Report 2016, published by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, also mentioned this issue. According to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh, Vietnams main imports from South Korea serve the purposes of manufacturing, processing, and exporting products. Only in 2016, the total import turnover from South Korea was $32 billion, up 15.9 per cent on-year. Many trade items saw increases at a similar pace.

Trade items Y-O-Y increase (against 2015) 2016 Import Turnover Computers, electronic products and components 28.8 per cent $8.7 billion Machinery, equipment and spare parts 14.1 per cent $5.8 billion Phones and components 18.4 per cent $3.6 billion Fabrics 5.5 per cent $2 billion

Looking for solutions

The large trade deficit towards South Korea is not an overly large concern because Vietnams main imports focus on materials and equipment serving production, business, and investment. However, an over-large trade deficit may have unhealthy implications.

During the meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea Yun Byung-se in March 2017, Pham Binh Minh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggested that the South Korean government take effective measures to gradually balance trade and reduce Vietnams trade deficit, as well as facilitate the import of Vietnamese agricultural, forestry, and fishery products into South Korea.

The two-way trade between Vietnam and South Korea grew dramatically since large South Korean corporations have been flocking to invest in Vietnam, especially after the Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement (VKFTA) came into effect. However, the growth rate of South Korean imports from Vietnam failed to meet expectations, as many Vietnamese export products have yet to properly penetrate the South Korean market.

For example, among the countries entering into free trade agreements with South Korea, Vietnam is the first partner that can access the market for highly sensitive products, such as garlic, ginger, honey, and sweet potatoes. However, it is difficult to export these items massively because the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) adopted by South Korea and applicable to fresh fruits, are impeding Vietnamese goods.

Removing the difficulties related to the SPS is essential for Vietnam to boost exports to South Korea. However, according to economists, in order to reduce the trade deficit towards South Korea, it is important that Vietnam restructure the economy and develop supporting industries. If the dependency on imported materials persists, the trade balance between Vietnam and South Korea will grow to significant proportions.
State President Tran Dai Quang, photo source: VNA

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the State and people of Viet Nam, I wish to welcome all participants in this Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on APEC toward 2020 and Beyond. It is an honor for Viet Nam to host APEC for the second time, thereby contributing to the development of the premier economic forum in the Asia - Pacific, an organization that accounts for 39% of the world's population, 57% of its GDP, and 49% of global trade.

Six months ago in Peru, APEC leaders and I agreed to start a process of reflection on APEC post-2020 vision. Todays Dialogue is an important step towards the realization of that process. Developing APEC's vision will require the concentration of our intellect, extensive cooperation and passion. The very diverse audience of stakeholders, ranging from the public to private sectors, academics, women and youths present here today will help shape APEC's future.

Distinguished delegates,

Over the course of 28 years of development, and 23 years of realization of the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment, APEC has recorded numerous important achievements in economic development of the region. The efforts by APEC in realizing its three pillars: trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, and economical-technical cooperation have had a positive impact on regional economic growth. From 2000 to 2015, APEC trade grew by 2.5 folds, from 6.4 trillion USD to 16.5 trillion USD; tariff on average had been slashed by half, from 11% in 1996 down to just 5% in 2015. These are animated statistics that attest to the success and important role played by APEC over the past 30 years to help millions out of poverty.

As APEC soon enters its fourth decade, the world is undergoing profound and rapid changes. We have all agreed to pursue the Sustainable Development Goals to 2030. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly digital technology, has fundamentally changed the global economic landscape. While technology is further connecting mankind and opening up new development opportunities, it also brings no few challenges. Extensive economic integration and shifts in technologies, particularly automation and artificial intelligence, are revamping industries much faster than economies can adapt. A burgeoning middle-class and aging demographics also present new requirements for growth and regional economic integration.

In this new context of development, APEC businesses and people, from mega corporations to millions of MSMEs are asking questions that must be genuinely addressed: What has APEC done, and what will it do for them? These questions are even more urgent as the region faces slow and uncertain recovery, inequality, and the widening wealth gaps among and within economies which risk undoing the socio-economic progress that we have achieved.

Distinguished delegates,

Looking toward 2020, accelerating the realization of the Bogor Goals is even more important given the growing doubts about the benefits of globalization and free trade. Globalization is an inevitable and irreversible trend. However, we can take part in giving it shape to be more people-centered, inclusive and sustainable. More than ever, now is the time for APEC economies to send a strong message affirming their continued commitment to open markets, deepened regional economic integration, and support for a new, more advanced process of globalization. In addition, developing a post-2020 vision can help give shape to APEC's values and role in the evolving regional economic and global architecture.

The key to APEC's success today is to place people and businesses at the center of development. We need to promote sustainable, inclusive and innovative growth, allowing all segments of society to participate in and enjoy the fruits of development and shared prosperity. At the same time, we should better communicate the benefits of globalization, of free trade and investment to the public, and jointly develop a more sustainable growth model. By definition:

Growth cannot be sustainable unless it is economically, financially or socially inclusive.

Growth will not be sustainable unless economic restructuring, improving innovation and competitiveness of the economy and businesses are promoted.

Growth will not be sustainable unless we address the increasingly negative impacts of climate change, natural disasters, and social and economic challenges.

APEC should pay particular attention to promoting education and training, developing high quality human resources, and implement proactive and positive social policies and solutions to ensure that all members of society can actively take part in and benefit from the technological revolution in the digital age. Viet Nam's own socio-economic success over the last thirty years and our development strategies for the future are also in line with this goal.

Distinguished delegates,

APEC should respond to changes in the region and the world. Its track record over the past three decades testifies to responsiveness and resilience of APEC. The 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis did not make APEC falter. They made even more pronounced the Forum's role in leading growth and economic integration trends in the region and the world. Following up on previous years, with the theme "Creating new dynamism, fostering a shared future", Viet Nam and APEC economies are heading in the right direction in their efforts to promote restructuring, quality growth, increased connectivity, development of global value chains, trade, investment and services liberalization, human resources development and capacity building.

Over the next two to three decades, APEC will need to showcase its vitality, dynamism, resilience and relevance. APEC needs to assume its global leadership role in addressing regional and global challenges, particularly climate change, aging population, income inequality, natural hazards including disasters and epidemics...

In order to turn this into reality, APEC will need to play need to play on its strength as a voluntary, flexible cooperation forum to truly be an incubator of ideas, innovation, and engine for growth and regional economic integration. APEC must be the common thread for various regional cooperation mechanisms to foster increasingly effective regional and global economic integration. For its part, ASEAN, with 50 years of experience in integration, has much to share with APEC in fostering an increasingly connected socio-economic community.

Distinguished delegates,

At our important Dialogue today, I ask that we engage in in-depth discussions to clarify the following:

First, specific measures and areas of cooperation to accelerate the realization of the Bogor Goals by 2020.

Second, APEC's goals and timeframe for the post-2020 period as well as its cooperation pillars.

Third, steps that should be taken to develop a post-2020 vision for APEC.

Eleven years ago, in this same Convention Center, APEC Leaders endorsed the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan Roadmap towards the Bogor Goals comprising specific measures and schedules. Since then, APEC has continually strived to realize the Bogor Goals. Let's do our best so that the future of the 21st century begins from the Asia - Pacific, an economically dynamic, socially inclusive community that is secure and stable, and truly people-and-business-centric.

To conclude, allow me to wish our Dialogue a success, expand on ideas and measures to develop APEC post-2020 vision, and feed into the success of the APEC Economic Leaders' Week in Da Nang this coming November.

I thank you.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and French President Emmanuel Macron shake hands after talks at the chancellery in Berlin. (Tobias SCHWARZ/AFP)

Macron, the fervently pro-European centrist sworn in as head of state on Sunday, in keeping with tradition made his first trip abroad to Berlin, its power couple partner at the heart of the European project.

There, the 39-year-old leader urged a "historic reconstruction" of Europe to battle populism sweeping the continent, following his defeat of far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Merkel, in power for a decade, agreed the two core European powers wanted to give "a new push" to their cooperation and "new momentum" to the Franco-German axis.

"There is a common understanding that we can't just focus on Britain leaving the EU but that, first and foremost, we have to think about how we can deepen and crisis-proof the European Union, and especially the eurozone," she said at a joint press conference.

Ahead of his visit, Macron's ideas on reforming the eurozone - including setting up a separate budget, legislature and finance minister for the currency bloc - had sparked scepticism in Berlin.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had warned that such deep-reaching reforms would require EU treaty changes, which were "not realistic" at a time when Europe was hit by a surge of anti-euro populism.

But Merkel left the door open, saying that "from the German point of view, it's possible to change the treaty if it makes sense", while Macron also said that there was "no taboo" on this issue.

Macron also soothed German concerns over the mutualising of "old debt" between eurozone countries, saying he does not favour the idea of so-called eurobonds, but adding that he was open to sharing future burdens.

REDRAW MAP

Earlier Monday in Paris, Macron named centre-right lawmaker Edouard Philippe as prime minister in a further effort to splinter the country's traditional parties and redraw the political map.

Philippe, a little known 46-year-old MP and mayor of the northern port of Le Havre, comes from the moderate wing of the right-wing Republicans party and is seen as a pragmatist.

His appointment was seen as a strategic move by Macron, who is trying to woo modernisers of all stripes to his new centrist party, the Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM), having already won over dozens of moderate Socialist MPs.

Former investment banker Macron, who trounced Le Pen in the May 7 presidential run-off, aims to take votes from both the Republicans and Socialists in next month's crucial parliamentary election.

Philippe has been presented as his Trojan horse on the right of the spectrum.

Taking over from outgoing prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve during a short ceremony, Philippe described himself as "a man of the right" who was driven by "the greater good".

'BREAK THE RIGHT'

Like Macron, Philippe is a product of France's elite ENA college who once worked in the private sector and has little truck with the country's fraying left-right divide.

Relatively unknown outside his northern fiefdom, he has never served in a national government.

After campaigning for Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard as a youth, he switched to the right, becoming a close ally of centre-right former prime minister Alain Juppe.

The German-speaking father of three, who writes crime novels in his spare time, was elected to parliament in 2012.

Juppe on Monday praised him as "a very talented man".

His appointment is a further blow to the Republicans, who have been trying to regroup after the presidential vote and prevent defections to Macron's camp.

POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION

Republicans secretary-general Bernard Accoyer said there were no immediate plans to expel Philippe from the party but that he would have to "clear up the ambiguity" about his loyalties.

Some in the party have argued in favour of an alliance with Macron.

Around 20 MPs on Monday issued a statement urging the Republicans and centre-right UDI to "accept his outstretched hand", saying the right needed to "take the full measure of the political transformation taking place before their eyes".

Macron needs a majority to push through his ambitious plans to loosen France's strict labour laws, boost entrepreneurship and reduce class sizes in tough neighbourhoods.

But his year-old party faces a battle for seats, with the Republicans, Le Pen's National Front, the radical left and other losers of the presidential election all plotting revenge.

Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon said that Philippe's appointment as premier showed the right had been "annexed" by the tentacular Macron.
Private sector growth stalls in the face of overbearing institutional setup

Are they big enough?

Big companies in the Vietnamese private sector are still relatively small compared to big companies around the world, despite their significant growth in recent years. The total revenue of the ten largest Vietnamese companies in 2015 was $7.23 billion, only 3.4 per cent of the $211.32 billion total revenue of the top ten of Fortune 500, the list of the 500 biggest corporations in the US.

Similarly, the bottom ten companies in Vietnams Top 500 earned a total revenue of $80 million, only 1.5 per cent of the $5.19 billion revenue generated by the bottom 10 of the Fortune 500. Apparently, Vietnams largest companies are tiny compared to US giants.

In fact, they are classified as small and mid-sized enterprises as per US standards. Among these domestic giants, Vinamilk earned the most revenue in 2016 with $2.08 billion, which only amounted to 28.9 per cent of Hanwha Chemicals revenue, the South Korean company which ranked 2000 globally in the same year.

Despite the modest revenue by global standards, Vietnams largest firms hold a vast share of national assets.

The total assets of Vietnams Top 50 were greater than the national GDP both in 2014 and 2015. The total assets of the Top 500 amounted to double the countrys GDP. These large companies apparently make up the majority of the Vietnamese economy.

A closer look reveals that the Top 50s total assets grew by nearly 10 per cent in 2015, higher than the years 6.6 per cent GDP growth.

Fated to be meagre?

In terms of the number of companies, the private sector is taking up the majority of Vietnams Top 500. Their number has been rising steadily over the past five years.

In 2007, only 103 private-sector companies were included in the VNR 500, the list of the 500 largest Vietnamese enterprises by revenue. In 2012, this number more than doubled to 225.

However, in terms of their contribution to the economy, little has changed since 2007. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have always contributed a larger share among Vietnams top companies. In 2015, the public sector accounted for 58 per cent of the total revenue of the top companies, higher than in 2007.

The total revenue among the largest private sector enterprises in 2015 only accounted for 20 per cent of the VNR 500, a slight decrease since 2007.

Insurmountable constraints?

Although dwarfed by SOEs, the Vietnamese private sector is solidifying its position in the economy.

Last years data on Vietnams 2017 Top 500 list showed that the top companies in the private sector employed almost 40 per cent of labour, generated 22 per cent of the revenue, and held 35 per cent of assets, as well as earned 22 per cent of the total after-tax profit. These companies have been dynamic and effective in striving for high growth in recent years. Notably, many of these companies are in the food and beverage and the manufacturing sectors, both fields that require long-term investments.

However, surveys and interviews with business leaders in the Vietnamese private sector suggested that many big companies face obstacles to further growth.

The first general lament was about market constraints, especially as the pace of the public sector reform is slow and the divestment from SOEs has all but ground to a halt. The very big presence of SOEs in many industries continues to restrict the private sector.

Second is access to resources, given the lack of fair competition and red tapes in the market for economic inputs, such as land and capital.

Third, the legal framework for property rights is weak, particularly the mechanisms to resolve disputes between companies and between companies and government agencies. Therefore, many company owners hesitate to make long-term investments.

Fourth, management abilities remain a weakness. Espionage and embezzlement are rampant in many big private sector players. Internal controls are circumvented. External oversight exists, but with little to no effect. Both these problems damage the long-term prospects of large companies, hurting shareholders as well as the economy.

With these impediments, big players in the private sector find it difficult to pursue all three long-term strategy options: (1) investing in high technology to achieve efficiency, (2) ramping up export and investment in foreign countries, and (3) diversifying and expanding into new industries.

As a result, many companies resorted to short-sighted strategies, leading to wasting capital, unnecessary investments and expansions, and damage to the environment. Their global competitiveness, therefore, is barely improving.

It all hangs on policy

Clearly, despite their recent growth and dynamism, big companies in the private sector are facing insurmountable challenges. Radical changes to the Vietnamese business environment are crucial to help these companies to grow and compete globally. The healthy growth of Vietnamese private-sector companies is closely tied to the progress and success of institutional reform.

First, the removal of monopolies, unfair treatment doled out by authorities, and administrative barriers would cut the costs of doing business.

Second, SOEs should be reformed and the states stakes should be sold in companies where controlling ownership is not necessary.

Third, it should be ensured that the market determines who gets resources, especially land. Public investments should be better managed.

Fourth is building a project on encouraging the development of large private companies from now to 2025.

In summary, big companies in the private sector play an important role in the modernisation of the Vietnamese economy. However, in reality, they face several constraints and their sustainable future growth will depend on the progress and success of the reforms of the institutional system as well as the structure and direction of the economy.
Photo courtesy of Kaspersky Lab

The VNCERT, under the Ministry of Information and Communications, has issued warnings as well as offered protection measures to all users to guard against the ransomware and its variations, which target Microsoft Windows - an operating system that is widely used in Viet Nam, especially the outdated Windows XP.

Kaspersky has listed Viet Nam among the top 20 countries most affected by this ransomware; the other countries and territories include Russia, Ukraine, India, Taiwan, and mainland China.

The VNCERT said the ransomware is extremely dangerous as it is capable of stealing information and decrypting the entire system that has been infected.

Once the computers data have been encrypted, or locked down, a message would appear saying that the users files are no longer accessible. Should they want to get their data back, users are asked to pay up large sums of money to get a decryption key. The longer the users wait, the higher the ransom money. The hackers behind WannaCry only accept ransom paid via BitCoin, a digital currency that ensures that the transaction cannot be traced back.

WannaCry exploits a Windows vulnerability codenamed EternalBlue, which has been patched by Microsoft in an update deployed on March 14. However, not everyone has installed the patch yet, and those who have not are vulnerable to WannaCry.

The exploitation of EternalBlue, suspected to have been developed using a hacking method leaked from US National Security Agency, allows the malware to spread through file-sharing protocols set up across the internal networks of organisations, many of which criss-cross the globe, according to Financial Times.

WannaCry developers have prepared a Q&A section in various languages, offering infected users localised instructions on how to recover data and how to pay the ransom.

Vu Ngoc Son, deputy head of the anti-malware department of Bkav Corporation, the largest internet security firm in Viet Nam, said that the WannaCry ransomwares behaviour is not new, but he believes that the use of this ransomware will not really ease up as it can directly earn large profits for hackers.

Bkav recommends that all computer users immediately install updates and security patches and hotfixes via Windows Update. Users are also advised to back up valuable data regularly.

Currently, an estimated 200,000 victims in 150 different countries are reported to have been hit by the cyberattack.
Spain's national cryptology centre said the ransomware used affected the Windows operating system. (AFP/DAMIEN MEYER)

WHO BEARS THE BLAME?

Because hackers exploited a security hole in some Windows versions discovered by the National Security Agency, Microsoft says the intelligence agency bears some responsibility.

"This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem," Microsoft president and general counsel Brad Smith said in a weekend blog post.

Steven Weber, faculty director at the Centre for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, said "the fault is pretty distributed - there are plenty of people to blame."

Weber said the NSA's primary mission is intelligence: "If I were sitting at the NSA I would push that argument right back to Microsoft," he argued. "They would say, 'It's our job to stockpile those weapons and use them against our adversaries.'"

Other factors were the large number of old, outdated software programmes in use and often ineffective security systems.

Cornell University computer scientist Stephen Wicker blamed "profound ethical lapses" both on the part of the US government and the computing public.

The flaws "were known to the NSA and CIA, but were kept secret by those organisations to be exploited for their own data collection purposes," Wicker said.

But he added that a large number of businesses and other users failed to install a patch issued by Microsoft in March, and also share the blame for spreading the malware.

President Donald Trump's homeland security advisor Tom Bossert dismissed the idea that the US is to blame.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," Bossert told reporters. "This was a vulnerability exploit as one part of a much larger tool that was put together by the culpable parties and not by the US government."

HOW DID HACKERS GET THIS TOOL?

Microsoft effectively confirmed analysts' diagnosis that the ransomware known as "WannaCry" was designed to exploit NSA software that was leaked earlier this year by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia - which has been accused of cyber meddling in several countries - had nothing to do with the massive cyberattack, and criticised the US intelligence community for creating the original software.

But Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for IBM Resilient Systems, has suggested that a state-sponsored actor, most likely Russia, was probably responsible for the initial hack of the NSA.

"Whoever got this information years before and is leaking it now has to be capable of hacking the NSA and/or the CIA, and willing to publish it all," Schneier said in a recent blog post.

"The list of countries who fit both criteria is small: Russia, China, and ... and ... and I'm out of ideas."

Map showing the extent of the 'Wannacry' ransomware attack. (AFP/Jonathan JACOBSEN, Valentina BRESCHI)

James Lewis, a cybersecurity specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he believes the exposure of the flaw likely "leads back to Moscow" - but that the hackers who designed the malware are probably not Russian.

"One of the rules in Russia is that Russian criminals are not allowed to hack Russian targets," Lewis said. "This does not fit the pattern of Russian-sponsored activity."

"The cybercrime market is really innovative," he added, "and they are quick to take advantage of vulnerabilities."

WHAT ABOUT COMPUTER SECURITY AT LARGE?

The attacks came a day after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for improved cybersecurity in the federal government and better cooperation with the private sector.

But few see this or any single initiative as a silver bullet.

Weber said the attacks show the risks of an overreliance on computerized systems that are not fully secure.

"We have built an increasingly digital society on a very insecure foundation and we are starting to see the consequences of that," he said.

Weber warned there is no single entity capable of fixing this problem in the near future, since security depends on so many factors.

"If you want to look for an upside, it would be this would be a wakeup call," to improve computer security, he said.

At the same time, Weber noted that the attack could prompt more people to shun digital technology and turn back to analog systems that can't be hacked.

Weber said there are already some signs that the public is losing confidence in the digital world as a result of security problems.

"For Silicon Valley and technology companies, their future depends on these underlying systems working," he said.
Preparations over for PPA talks: NEA

The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has readied to start negotiations with Nepal Water and Energy Development Company (NWEDC) to sign a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydroelectric Project.


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Running your own business can be a rewarding experience, but it also comes with many risks. It's important to know what those
Rules to curb jaywalking postponed till next week

The traffic rules for pedestrians and jaywalkers in Kathmandu Valley, originally scheduled for implementation from May 15, has been postponed until next week due to the local level elections.
The US House of Representatives returns to work on Capitol Hill after a tumultuous week caused by President Donald Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey Tuesday. The resulting political firestorm set off renewed calls by Democratic lawmakers urging their Republican colleagues to fund and create an independent investigation. VOA's Congressional reporter Katherine Gypson has more on the pressure lawmakers face in their home districts.
The world's No. 1 opium-producing country, Afghanistan, is braced for an exploding poppy harvest this year, as farmers are cultivating the illicit crop in areas where it has never grown before.

Unfortunately, the narcotics production is on the rise this year, Javed Qaem, Afghan deputy counternarcotics minister, told international donors in Kabul Tuesday. We are concerned that narcotics would increase this year, including in areas and provinces where previously we had zero opium production.

A new United Nations survey said Friday the total area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 10 percent, from 183,000 to 201,000 hectares, compared to the previous year, leading to a significant rise in the production of illicit opium. The illicit drug is fueling insecurity, violence and insurgency among other problems to discourage private and public investment in Afghanistan, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its survey report.

Qaem's comments come amid growing international concern that the Taliban, who are fighting Afghan government troops in rural areas of the country, are fueling the poppy trade by engaging in trafficking and skimming hundreds of millions dollars in profit to fuel their militancy.

Taliban insurgents, according to U.S. officials, net 60 percent of their war chest from narcotics.

Top producer of opium

Afghanistan is thought to produce an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin. As poppy cultivation spikes, U.S. intelligence officials warn that the war-torn country is likely to see more armed violence this year.

The intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018, even with a modest increase in [the] military assistance by the United States and its partners, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a Senate hearing last week.

Since 2002, the U.S. has spent more than $8.5 billion on counternarcotics in Afghanistan  about $1.5 million a day, according to the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

In addition to war, opium fuels corruption and organized crime in Afghanistan, a country already ranked among the five most corrupt states in the world by Transparency International.

Only 13 of the country's 34 provinces were reported poppy-free in 2016, and this number has dropped into single digits this year, Afghan officials say.

Areas of cultivation increase

Afghan authorities said poppies, which traditionally have been grown in southern provinces, have found fertile lands in several northern and northeastern provinces, including Balkh and Jawzjan.

A large-scale increase also is expected in provinces with previously little opium crops, such as northwestern Badghis and Ghor.

Opium is cultivated in almost half of the province, including areas under the government influence, a resident in northeastern Baghlan province told VOA on condition of anonymity for safety concerns. Poppy crops are seen everywhere in the northeastern region. Badakhshan  which borders Tajikistan and China  is the epicenter of narcotics in the north.

Helmand province a top producer

Around 50 percent of the poppy crop in Afghanistan is produced in southern Helmand province, which borders Pakistan.

The Afghan government says the increase in drug production and trafficking is taking place mostly in conflict-hit areas.

Opium cultivation, production and trafficking take place in remote areas that are under the control of militants, terrorists and the Taliban, said Afghan General Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, the deputy interior minister for counternarcotics.

The Afghan government says it, along with aid agencies, has been trying to help Afghans find a sustainable alternative crop source. But those efforts appear to be failing.



Afghan counternarcotics police said they last year seized almost 650 tons of contraband drugs. The confiscated drugs included raw opium, heroin and hashish. Around 2,683 smugglers and traffickers, including 67 women, were arrested last year, Ahmadi said.

Experts say worsening security and immediate economic benefits for farmers are major reasons for the rise in poppy cultivation.

A satanic triangle of smugglers, terrorists and corrupt government officials is involved in drug production and trafficking, Haroon Rashid Sherzad, former Afghan acting minister of counternarcotics, told VOA. Security is an important reason, but several other factors fuel the drug production and trade in Afghanistan. Corruption at the local government levels encourages poppy cultivation.

Afghan response is lacking

Experts also believe that the increase is partly due to weak counternarcotics efforts by the government.

The government lacks political will to fight opium production, Abdul Aziz, a Kabul-based counternarcotics expert, told VOA. For the last 16 years, the government has done little to rid the country of narcotics and provide alternatives to farmers.

According to Sherzad, counternarcotics efforts require a comprehensive approach and coordination among government departments, which, he said, is lacking. He added that narco-entrepreneurs control large portions of government lands in several provinces where they cultivate poppies.

VOA's Afghan service contributed to this report from Kabul.
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to highlight what it says is a dramatically worsening situation for human rights activists across the globe. The group hopes its Brave campaign will persuade governments to live up to their UN treaty commitments on protecting human rights defenders. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
Amnesty International has launched a campaign to highlight what it says is a dramatically worsening situation for human rights activists across the globe. The group hopes its Brave campaign will persuade governments to live up to their United Nations treaty commitments on protecting human rights defenders.

Amnesty says attacks on human rights activists across the world have reached a crisis point. Figures from the campaign group Front Line Defenders show 281 people were killed in 2016 for defending human rights, compared to 156 the year before. Guadalupe Marengo, head of Amnestys Human Rights Defenders Program, said authorities must take action now.

In the current context of us versus them, of demonization, of a full frontal attack actually I would say on human rights, it is crucial that we take stock and that we call on the authorities to stop these attacks immediately, said Marengo.

In Russia, Amnesty says the persecution of human rights activists is accelerating with the ban on non-governmental organizations.

Protests earlier this month marked the anniversary of demonstrations against President Vladimir Putin. Several human rights campaigners have been jailed. Opposition political activist Gennady Gudkov spoke at the protest in Moscow. He said the states actions were serving to provoke the opposition and its backers into a tougher resistance, while also showing that the law in Russia is worth nothing.

Amnestys Marengo said a copycat effect appears to be taking hold across some countries in the treatment of activists.

Only in the last week or so, Hungary is trying to have a bill similar to the one that Russia has, where its going to be very difficult to form associations and fight for human rights if youre getting funding from external sources, said Marengo.

Turkey is accused of an unwarranted clampdown on human rights following last years failed coup. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested or fired from their jobs. Ankara claims they are part of a large anti-government plot.

As well as arrests, abductions and killings, Amnesty says human rights defenders across the globe are attacked using online tools. Surveillance tools are used to track activity. Smear campaigns are launched on social media to cultivate hostility.

They are accused of being terrorists; they are accused of being criminals, they are accused of defending immorality, said Marengo.

Amnesty hopes its Brave campaign will highlight the worsening situation for many human rights activists worldwide  who it claims are often the last line of defense in a free society.
The rock band Bon Jovi surprised graduates and guests at Fairleigh Dickinson University's commencement exercises Tuesday by putting on an impromptu performance.



Fairleigh Dickinson won a nationwide contest to bring the New Jersey-based band to play their graduation by generating the most interest on social media.



Jon Bon Jovi, who was born and raised in Sayreville, New Jersey, spoke to the graduates before the band performed "Reunion," a song about a class gathering years later to share memories of their lives.



"Today marks the end of one chapter in your life and the start of another," he said from a stage at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, where the band has played to sold-out crowds many times. "Enjoy the book; you're the one writing it.



"Don't take anything personally. Accept both praise and criticism equally, but take neither to heart. There are many surprises awaiting you on the journey."



The contest was run by MTVU, and asked students across the country to tweet their best college moments with the hashtag #JBJReunionContest.



"Reunion'' was first performed by Bon Jovi in 2015 at the commencement exercises for Rutgers University, and appears on the band's current album "This House Is Not For Sale.''



Most of the students did not know Bon Jovi would be appearing until they were already inside the stadium, home field for the NFL's Jets and Giants. Although best known for '80s-era hits like "Livin' On A Prayer," "You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Wanted Dead Or Alive," Bon Jovi's current album went to No. 1 on the charts and they were the top-selling live band in the U.S. for the first three months of 2017, making them popular with students whoseparents watched the band on MTV decades ago.



Iman Suleiman of Garfield, said she loves Bon Jovi because his music was featured on an episode of her favorite TV show, "Glee."



"Our generation is one of the last generations that love Bon Jovi," added Isabelle Nemeh, of Wayne.



And Jessica Awad, of Wyckoff, enjoyed Bon Jovi, even though she had someone else in mind.



"I would have preferred Justin Bieber, but it's still cool," she said.



In an interview inside the Giants locker room before the ceremony, Jon Bon Jovi told The Associated Press he hopes the graduates remain flexible about their plans.



"Whatever your vision of how your life is going to be going forward, do it in pencil," he said. "The great thing is the journey is about to begin. You may take some turns along the way that may take you to somewhere you never even dreamed of going. It's a great journey."
Chinese President Xi Jinping says countries participating in the two-day Belt and Road Forum have agreed to an action plan with a list of 270 goals

Speaking at the end of the forum, China's leader said the 30 heads of state who attended the summit in Beijing and nearby Yanqi Lake signed a communique to promote an open global economy, rebalance globalization, and deepen trade liberalization.

Xi's Belt and Road development initiative focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries primarily China and the rest of Eurasia. It includes the land-based "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the oceangoing "Maritime Silk Road".

The strategy underlines China's push to take a bigger role in global affairs. Xi stressed China would not base cooperation on ideology or use the Belt and Road to pursue a political agenda, allaying concerns of critics who have highlighted the massive projects possible geopolitical impact.

We have every reason to have full confidence in the prospects for the Belt and Road initiative, Xi said. At the same time, the Belt and Road initiative is an expansive project and the road ahead is very long and cooperation is key.

Expansive Belt and Road

Although many of the more than 100 countries and organizations participating in the summit welcome Chinas efforts to boost trade and to play a bigger role in global affairs, participation in the forum was mixed. Some countries sent representatives, but have yet to officially back the project.

The forum included representatives from the United States and North Korea.

Countries such as the United States and Germany have emphasized the need for transparency and a level playing field.

Germany as a country has not asked to be a part of the initiative, but German companies have asked to be part of it, said Brigitte Zypries, German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, who attended the forum. It is obviously relevant to know what is going to be built and the procedures to take part in this building are the same for every company and every country.

The Belt and Road Initiative originates from China, but it belongs to the world, Xi said, in remarks before the leaders' summit Monday. The Belt and Road construction spans different regions, development phases and civilizations. It is an open and inclusive cooperation platform.

Sunday, Xi outlined his vision for the plan and pledged to use development to fight a wide range of problems from terrorism to poverty. Xi's plan involves the creation of six economic corridors that would link China to 65 countries. The participation of those countries would account for 60 percent of the world's population and 30 percent of global GDP.

An estimated $900 billion would be spent on connectivity projects across land and sea, making the Belt and Road initiative the most expensive development plan in history, several times larger than the U.S. Marshall Plan that was used to rebuild Europe after World War II.

China has offered to shoulder a big slice of the responsibility, pledging $124 billion, which is double of what the World Bank lent in 2016. Analysts said Beijing can easily bear the burden. China has foreign exchange reserves exceeding $3 trillion. Last year, Chinese companies invested $170 billion in overseas projects.

Empire building

Xi offered to establish 50 scientific laboratories with participating countries, train 5,000 foreign scientists and invited 500 foreign research groups to visit China. The plan will also launch 100 "happy home" projects, 100 poverty alleviation projects and 100 health care and rehabilitation projects in countries along the Belt and Road, he said.

But based on how the project has been outlined, China appears to be trying its hand at a new form of economic colonization, said Mohan Malik, a professor at the Institute of Asian Security in Hawaii.

China is in an empire-building mode: an empire of exclusive economic enclaves that would create a Sino-centric unipolar Asia, Malik said in an emailed response. Chinese officials, in jest, talk of buying off smaller countries instead of invading them.

Malik adds that with its slowing economy, China risks imperial overreach with such a massive venture.

David Kelly, director of research at the private China Policy consultants said if successful the outcome could be a positive thing, but the Belt and Road is swiftly becoming a measure of Chinas global standing.

"But if it doesnt work, if it runs into problems, if its impractical, if its too costly, if it falls over, it will cost Chinas standing in the world. And that is what worries people because it is essentially an educated bet, an educated gamble, Kelly said.
A regional drought has displaced more than half a million people in Somalia and left the country at risk of famine. A cholera outbreak is further complicating relief efforts, in particular in the southern part of the country where some villages remain under al-Shabab control.

Somalia continues to report between 200 and 300 cases of cholera nationwide each day.

Bay Regional Hospital, the biggest in the southwest federal state, is filled with patients suffering from stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

Cholera has sickened more than 40,000 people in Somalia since December. More than half of the cases have been in this state. Most of the victims have been malnourished children.

Five-year-old Fatuma was admitted to the cholera treatment ward last night. Her mother, Bisharo Mohammed, says she can not lose another child.

She says her eldest daughter was suffering from diarrhea, and she died two months ago in Busley village on the outskirts of Baidoa. She says the girl was seven years old.

Cholera treatment



Cholera is treatable. The World Health Organization recommends prompt administration of oral rehydration salts. Mohamed says Fatuma is already feeling better with treatment. They hope to be released soon.

But they will not be going home.

Aid agencies say the areas worst hit by cholera and hunger are villages like Busley, which are under al-Shabab control. Accessing them is a challenge. Fatuma and her family are among the tens of thousands of people who have walked to government-controlled areas like Baidoa to seek help and are now living in makeshift camps.

World Health Organization cholera expert Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar says the outbreak is getting worse due to security challenges.

If you look at Bay, Bakool, Middle Juba, Gedo, some of those areas where none of us is able to access, the deaths and cases due to cholera [are] very high, and we expect the situation will get worse, says Abubakar.

Rains this month in southern and central Somalia have contributed to a surge in cholera cases, according to Salima Sheikh Shuaib, cholera treatment ward deputy supervisor at Bay Regional Hospital.

She says the cholera cases were going down, but the past three days we have seen an increase in cholera cases. This morning, we have received 16 cases and most of them are children under the age of five.

Life in camps



More than 150,000 displaced people are living in the makeshift camps around Baidoa and more continue to arrive.

At the camps, many families do not have plastic tarps or covered places to sleep. Stagnant puddles and mud dot the walkways. There is no regular food provided. Clean water is available, but it is not enough.

Medics supported by UNICEF and the WHO are going to IDP camps around Baidoa to provide oral cholera vaccination to children.

But Abubakar of the WHO says it is hard to contain the spread of cholera so long as the general humanitarian situation is not improving.

We cannot only solve cholera. We cannot only deal with cholera unless we deal with food insecurity, unless we deal with water issues, malnutrition and I think collectively, both the wash, the health, the nutrition, and the food security partners, we are working closely and we are coordinating but again in Somalia one of the challenges we are facing [is] a shortage of resources to support all these interventions, said Abubakar.

Somalia continues to report between 200 and 300 cases of cholera nationwide each day.
Bill Cosby says he doesn't expect to testify at his Pennsylvania sexual assault trial.



The comedian spoke to Sirius radio host Michael Smerconish in an interview being broadcast Tuesday.



Smerconish says he agreed to air an uncut, 82-minute conversation between Cosby and his daughters in exchange for the interview.



Cosby says his lawyers won't let him speak about the criminal case. But he says he has "never, never" lost the support of his wife.



Daughter Ensa Cosby says she believes "racism has played a role" in the accusations against her father.



Bill Cosby replies, "It could be."



Cosby says his health is generally good, but glaucoma has left him legally blind.



Cosby says he isn't trying to influence jurors, who will be selected next week for the June 5 trial.
India skipped Chinas just ended Belt and Road summit citing concerns that the project runs through disputed Kashmir and analysts say New Delhi is deeply uneasy about the strategic implications of an initiative that would dramatically increase Beijing's presence in neighboring countries. But questions have also been raised whether New Delhi risks being isolated by staying out.

Indias criticism of a project, which Chinese president Xi Jinping has called the project of the century, was unequivocal. No country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity, said Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gopal Bagley pointing out the flagship initiative of the Belt and Road project passes through Pakistani Kashmir  a territory that India claims.

Chinas assertions that it does not want to get involved in the territorial dispute between the two countries has meant little to India, which believes endorsing a project spearheaded by a close ally of Pakistan would mean endorsing its arch rivals claims on the Himalayan region.



Now by making these investments it [China] obviously has as we say put its feet on the ground and backed Pakistan, says Jayadeva Ranade, a China specialist formerly on the governments National Security Advisory Board.



Beijing has been keen to involve India, which straddles one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean. China's ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, told an Indian military think tank recently that the Belt and Road initiative was good for both countries and fits into India's "Look East" policy of strengthening ties with southeast and northeast Asia.



But that did little to allay Indias mistrust of its giant neighbor, with which border disputes linger more than five decades after they fought a brief war, and with whom New Delhis ties have plummeted in the past year.

China says its initiative, an ambitious multibillion-dollar project to build a transport network spanning 65 countries, is a new way to boost global development.

But many in India believe that in addition to economics, the initiative is part of Chinas expansionist policies designed to extend it economic, military and diplomatic clout across Asia, up to Europe, and beyond.

If this is globalization, it is globalization 19th century style,said an editorial in the Times of India newspaper supporting Indias bold decision to stay out.



India is wary of how the project could massively increase Chinese influence and presence not just in Pakistan, but in other neighboring South Asian countries. Drawn by the prospect of massive infrastructure building and huge investments that could lift their economies, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Myanmar have joined the project. Sri Lanka was represented by its Prime Minister and Nepal by its deputy prime minister at the summit. These countries have signed preliminary agreements for several infrastructure and power projects.





Calling the initiative, a new kind of colonization, Chintamani Mahapatra, a professor at the School of international studies at New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the OBOR [One belt, One road] project is very clearly Chinese-initiated, promoted by China with a strategic goal simply because China has a lot of money. When multiple countries are involved in a huge project like this, it should not be proposed, funded by only one country.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Bagley also underlined the need for transparency, saying that it could drive communities into debt.

China, however, points out that over 100 countries around the world and international organizations have got involved in the initiative, which it says has gotten a warm response from the international community.





Indeed some analysts caution India on missing out on an ambitious initiative that aims to integrate Asia with Europe through a network of rail lines and ports and create new trade corridors.



T.N. Ninan, editorial director of the Business Standard newspaper, questioned in a column if India is the last man left standing. Does the country risk being enclosed in a geographical cocoon if it spurns a multi-continent project for which everyone else has signed up?, he asked.



For the time being, Indias answer is to step up on infrastructure projects it has planned in neighboring countries, although these cannot match the scale and size of Chinese investments.



But India is not shutting the door on its participation completely on a project whose contours are still to take shape.

It is a possibility provided there is something worked out with regard to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. That is a problem unless China does something to mitigate our concerns there, said Ranade.
A pregnant 10-year-old girl in northern India will be allowed to have a late-term abortion, a local court announced Tuesday.

The girl, who is about five months pregnant and reports being raped repeatedly by her stepfather, appealed for a termination. Indian law does not permit abortions after 20 weeks unless doctors can prove that the mother's life is at risk.

The decision was made after a local court accepted the recommendation of doctors at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in the state of Haryana.

The pregnancy came to light last week when the girl's mother suspected her daughter was pregnant and took her to a doctor. The girl was reportedly often left at home during the day when her mother was at work.

The stepfather, who is also the child's paternal uncle, was arrested and is currently in jail, according to police, who added that the abuse had been going on for years.

Child rape is extremely common in India, where it often goes unreported for fear of losing family respect. Local reports say the stepfather had warned the girl to keep quiet.
UML, NC ahead in Manang and Mustang districts

The CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress (NC) have won three and two seats of village council chiefs out of the total six declared so far in Mustang and Manang districts. The other seat went to an independent candidate.
Award-winning reporter Javier Valdez has been shot dead in the north-western state of Sinaloa.

Valdez, who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was killed Monday when unidentified attackers opened fire on his car in the city of Culiacan where he was working.

Valdez, 50, received the International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in 2011 for his coverage of drug trafficking. He was a correspondent for a national newspaper, La Jornada, and also co-founded the respected Riodoce publication and authored several books delving into narcotrafficking and organized crime.

Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March.

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned what he called an "outrageous crime."

"I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy," he tweeted.

Journalists targeted in Mexico are most often local reporters in places where the rule of law is tenuous, but there have also been killings of journalists with national profiles such as Valdez and Regina Martinez Perez, who was slain in 2012. The recent spate of slayings includes Miroslava Breach, correspondent for La Jornada in the northern state of Chihuahua, who was gunned down in March.

On Saturday, seven journalists were assaulted and robbed by a mob of about 100 armed men on a highway in the troubled southern state of Guerrero.

Sinaloa has long been a drug-trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. Experts say Guzman's arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the gang.

"Drug trafficking there is a way of life," Valdez said in an October interview with Rompeviento TV. "You have to assume the task that falls to you as a journalist  either that or you play dumb. I don't want to be asked, 'What were you doing in the face of so much death ... why didn't you say what was going on?'"
After breaking the story about the systemic torture and extrajudicial killings of gay men by Chechen security officials in an unofficial prison outside Grozny, Elena Milashina of the Russian-language Novaya Gazeta newspaper has been forced into hiding.

Faced with a fatwa by Chechen clerics who have vowed to kill the reporter along with any journalists associated with her publication, Milashina recently agreed to speak with VOA from an undisclosed location via Skype.

Like her late colleague Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta investigative reporter who was gunned down in the doorway of her Moscow apartment building in 2006, Milashina has reported on numerous human rights violations under Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Although the Russian Embassy in Israel on Thursday said a recently completed Kremlin probe had disproved Milashina's report, the gruesome details of covert Chechen concentration camps for gays have been corroborated by multiple international news outlets and human rights organizations.

Saying she was prepared to die in the line of journalistic duty, Milashina told VOA why Chechnya's treatment of gays marked the end of a Kremlin-backed "culture of impunity" that has flourished in the deeply conservative, predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republic, which she describes as Kadyrov's own feudal kingdom.

The following transcript has been edited for brevity.

VOA: As someone who has covered Chechnya since 2004, how does this latest story on Chechen human rights abuses stand apart? What has the impact been regionally?

Elena Milashina (EM): This was about a campaign in Chechnya that was organized in the end of February and lasted throughout the whole of March against men in Chechnya who were suspected of being gay. And this was the only reason they were legally detained and put in secret prisons and tortured, and some of them were killed. The only reason why they were tortured with electricity twice daily was to get information about other gays. This is the only reason. First of all, we were able to save a lot of people by eventually publishing a hotline for victims, through which some gay man began applying for help. So far, we've saved more than 100 people who were tortured and detained and had other problems with the Chechen police. Now they're in a safe place, and now we're trying to help them escape Russia. That's the main result.

The other result is that the whole world, through this story, has refocused on human rights [abuses against] the Chechen people, and what kind of regime the Kremlin has established there over the past decade. It has also put pressure on the Russian government to start preliminary steps toward an investigation that may lead to a criminal case, which would be the first time that's happened since Kadyrov has ruled over Chechnya. And that's the biggest result.

VOA: Do you think most people understand what is happening in Chechnya? That it has basically become a state within a state?

EM: In Russia, people understand. And that's why Chechnya continues to be a high-level news item in Russian media. Because people in Russia are very afraid of Kadyrov's Chechen regime; they're afraid of Kadyrov himself and his [officials], their ability to go anywhere and commit crimes without punishment. This fear explains their interest in news from Chechnya, and the Russian government understands this. I'm very sure about this.

As for international society and governments: Just over the past two years we've seen this huge number of Chechen refugees trying to get to Europe. And European countries won't give them visas. They don't want to let them in. [European officials] were saying, actually, that Chechnya is a peaceful region, that there is no war there, everything is good, that life is OK, and so [the refugees] should go back. Now, after this story, nobody is saying this anymore.

VOA: How are gay people living today in Chechnya now? Those who didn't escape?

EM: They're in hiding. They trust no one, and it's very hard to convince them to contact the hotline we arranged for victims. They're terrified, and I think they're still in grave danger. When Chechen authorities decide to do something, they will do it no matter what. So, if they decide to cleanse Chechen society of gays, they will do it, and nobody can push them not to do this. Even if they're stopped, [Chechen authorities] will wait for a while, then start again. There is a big threat for Chechen gays, and the Chechen gays understand this. That's why a lot of them call us for help, but still there are a lot of gay Chechens in hiding who trust nobody but themselves, who try to manage their problems alone.

VOA: Many people outside Chechnya, accurately or not, still think of Chechnya as only a breeding ground for radical Islamist militants. Some critics of Kadyrov have said he abuses the counterterror mandate to attack anyone he chooses. But does domestic terrorism remain a problem, or is it time to look at this from a different angle?

EM: I would say that this cliche is coming away because the level of terroristic threats have been coming down for the whole North Caucasus region, and we have far fewer attacks than we used to have. And now a lot of Russians are scared of Chechen people, because it's the Russian opinion that Chechens can do anything and get away with it. For Russian society, this is scarier than terrorism.

VOA: You've seen many horrifying stories in Chechnya over the past 12 years  people disappearing, people tortured, families torn apart. As such, did this story still shock you?

EM: For me, it doesn't matter if the person is gay or suspected of being a terrorist or a Salafist or a drug user. I see them all equally because, in Chechnya, all those people can be illegally detained, tortured, even killed. I see how this situation is developing. For me, the attacks on gays by Chechen authorities is a logical end to the culture of impunity. When a lot of other Chechens were detained, tortured, killed  the world was silent. But this crime is something special. We've never had this in Russian history; we've never had this in the history of Russian-Chechen relations  during two wars, even. This is a crime against humanity. Because this was sanctioned by authorities, because it was produced by Chechen police, and because of the motive  that the only guilt of these people is that they are gay  it is an absolutely textbook definition of a crime against humanity. And I don't think Russian authorities understood this from the beginning, but now they're starting to realize that if they won't do anything about this, they are implicitly covering up crimes against humanity. And, if that's the case, nobody can know what's next in Chechnya. As I said, it was a logical, step-by-step situation development in Chechnya. It went from targeting anyone suspected of being terrorists to targeting gays.

VOA: Do you see other groups or minorities being threatened?

EM: It depends on Ramzan Kadyrov, whatever or whomever he would like to target next. If he decides it's Chechen lesbians, then we'll have a campaign against Chechen lesbians. If he decides tomorrow that the target is children whose drawings offend him. ... Anything can be a target, because only one man is deciding. That is the problem of Chechnya. One man can order his police or his army to take, detain and torture people  and for what? For whatever he deems harmful to Chechen traditions.

VOA: About your personal safety: Have things improved? Can you work or even go out in the open?

EM: The problem is that no matter what President Vladimir Putin might tell Ramzan Kadyrov about stopping aggressive behavior toward journalists, we're not sure whether Kadyrov would obey, because of his impunity. So we're not sure about our safety, because we're not sure if [Kadyrov is] even under control. That's why we're deciding to take security measures. I actually moved out of the country for a while. I will definitely continue developing this story on gays in Chechnya, and we'll continue our work covering Chechnya, but we're taking measures.
A U.S. judge sentenced a Mississippi street gang member to 49 years in prison in the first federal hate crime trial involving a transgender victim.

Josh Vallum is already serving life in prison on state murder charges for killing Mercedes Williamson.

Vallum apologized for killing her, saying there is no excuse for what he did.

But federal judge Louis Guirola said killing someone because of sexual orientation "is particularly heinous and can't be tolerated by an enlightened society."

The 29-year-old Vallum pleaded guilty to the murder in December, saying he was afraid his fellow gang members would kill him if they found out he was dating a woman who was born a male.

Vallum apparently did not know the 17-year-old Williamson had male genitalia until the two started dating.
Nigerians celebrated last week as 82 of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram were released and returned to the capital, Abuja. A total of 103 girls have been released since the kidnapping more than three years ago.

Despite the joy, questions remain about the fate of the 113 girls still being held captive. Additionally, some are questioning the ethics and long-term implications of the negotiating tactics used by the Nigerian government.

Talks to free the girls date back several years. In October 2016, 21 girls were released, although few details were given at the time about what was exchanged for their release.

Prisoner swap part of deal

This time, the government revealed that a prisoner swap was part of the deal, including the release of field commanders for Boko Haram.

There is a lot of speculation about the centrality of these commanders to Boko Haram's tactics and to its operations, but no further information has been released, said Hilary Matfess, senior program officer at the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja. "There are unsubstantiated rumors that for both the initial release of the 21 Chibok girls and this subsequent negotiation that money was also exchanged, but it is nearly impossible to prove that."

The latest negotiation also may have been successful because of the secrecy that surrounded it.

Talks involved the Swiss government, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and local intermediaries like barrister Zannah Mustapha and Asiha Wakil, a lawyer and human rights activist.



I think the reason why the last two negotiations in the end of 2016 and the one just this week have been successful is that it has been below the radar, said Jacob Zenn, an expert on Boko Haram and African affairs analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, speaking to VOA's Hausa service from Abuja.

In other words, there have been very few leaks. Those involved in the negotiation are keeping a very close circle, and Boko Haram has always hated leaks, said Zenn. They [Boko Haram] don't want information coming out, so I think there must be some modicum of trust.

Success takes time

Zenn believes the negotiations will continue for the remaining girls, but at a slow pace, perhaps stretching on for another six months or so.

He also said it is important to acknowledge the cost of the exchange, which involves the release of high-level fighters who could restore Boko Haram's weakened fighting capacity.

That's the price that needs to be paid and it's likely a high price, but given the importance and the trauma that Nigeria as a country has faced in this whole Chibok situation, the government obviously deemed it was acceptable, said Zenn.

Negotiations continue

The Nigerian government has vowed to continue pushing for the release of the remaining girls.

We will not relent until all are back," said Aisha Alhassan, minister of women's affairs and social development.

The final push may be the most difficult. Matfess said thousands of women have been abducted by the group over the years, but the Chibok girls have garnered the most media attention. However, rescuing them is complicated by a number of factors, including the fact that some have been married or impregnated by fighters and may not want to be freed.

Stockholm syndrome?

Over the weekend, Maida Yakubu, one of the Chibok girls, appeared in a video explaining why she doesn't want to return to her parents. Speaking in Hausa and holding an AK-47 while wearing a black burqa and sitting along with three other girls, she said she had not been forced to marry and now believes her parents are not correctly worshipping Allah.

I urge you to join us, she told the audience of the video.

There is fear that a lot of them have developed Stockholm syndrome for their captors, Matfess said. Stockholm syndrome is term for a kidnap victim's development of trust in or feelings of affection for a captor  a psychological alliance that serves as a survival strategy.

It's worth noting that one of the first Chibok girls to escape  and this happened a number of months back  escaped with her husband and actually was questioning when she was in front of the media what had happened to her husband and saying that she missed him.

"That's certainly a hurdle  you can't force them to agree to be released, so that may complicate negotiations going forward, Matfess said.
The head of the U.S. Pacific Command warned Wednesday that the combination of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads in the hands of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un represents "a recipe for disaster."

Speaking at an event in Tokyo, Admiral Harry Harris Jr. said every test North Korea carries out brings it a step closer to the ability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles.

"I must assume that Kim Jong Un's claims are true, because I know his aspirations certainly are," Harris said. "So I take him at his word ... and that should provide all of us with a sense of urgency to address this problem now."

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told countries Tuesday that they must join the effort to prevent North Korea from getting a nuclear weapon, warning they could face sanctions themselves if they help the rogue state achieve nuclearization.

Nikki Haley spoke ahead of a closed meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by the U.S. and council member Japan, along with South Korea, to discuss Pyongyang's latest illicit ballistic missile launch.

"You either support North Korea or you support us, because that's what it comes down to," Haley told reporters.

Speaking of the enforcement of international sanctions, she added this warning: "The United States is not past looking at third-country entities who are helping North Korea, and putting sanctions on them, because if you are supporting North Korea, you are against the rest of the international community."

Council members met Tuesday following Pyongyang's May 14 launch of a mid- to long-range missile that traveled 800 kilometers before landing in the sea west of Japan.

Strong condemnation

It was North Korea's second missile test in as many weeks, and came just four days after Moon Jae-in took office as president of South Korea.

"Obviously, Pyongyang, with this missile launch, Pyongyang tried to test the resolve of the new government in its pursuit of denuclearization of North Korea," Seoul's U.N. Ambassador Cho Tae-yul told reporters.

He said South Korea's new leader had been clear that his government would respond to North Korean provocations and would consider dialogue only if and when there was a change in the North's behavior.

In a statement Monday evening, Security Council members "strongly condemned" both of the recent missile launches and expressed their "utmost concern" over North Korea's "highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council."

North Korea's Foreign Ministry rejected the statement, saying it called into question the country's nuclear deterrence for self-defense purposes.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the launch, saying it violated Security Council resolutions and was a threat to peace and security in the region. He urged Pyongyang to ensure full compliance with its international obligations and return to the path of denuclearization.

"We need to put further pressure on North Korea to make them feel that they have to change course," Japan's U.N. envoy Koro Bessho told reporters.

Sanctions expected

Many are expecting additional and stronger international sanctions. Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directly called on the international community to act before North Korea carries out a more serious provocation and to impose new sanctions. Washington and Beijing have been discussing possible measures, but it did not appear that a new resolution is imminent.

"China was really working with us in terms of tightening the sanctions, in terms of what they were saying to North Korea in trying to convince them," Haley said. "We have not seen anything from them in the past week, but we are encouraging them to continue moving forward."

The U.N. Security Council has imposed several rounds of increasingly harsh, targeted sanctions on North Korea since 2006. The last round, imposed in November 2016, took three months to negotiate.
North Korea's latest missile launch suggests a major step forward in Kim Jong Un's quest to develop a nuclear tipped intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the U.S. mainland, analysts say.

Pyongyang claimed on Monday that the missile it fired over the weekend was a "new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket" capable of carrying "a large, heavy nuclear warhead."

The missile, dubbed the Hwasong-12, was launched at a high trajectory on Sunday, reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometers and traveling 787 kilometers before landing in the sea near Russia, the North's official news agency KCNA reported.

"The test-fire proved to the full all the technical specifications of the rocket," KCNA said. "It also verified the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re-entry situation and accurate performance of detonation system."

Technical progress?

South Korea's military, however, minimized the Kim regime's claim of technical progress in re-entry technology, which, if successful, allows a warhead to reach its target without burning up while re-entering the atmosphere. The military said that although more analysis is required to verify the North Korean claim, "we believe the possibility of that is low."



North Korea has made no secret of its desire to develop an ICBM capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland, but many had believed it was far from mastering the re-entry technology needed for perfecting an ICBM, which uses similar engineering in early flight stages.

The Trump administration has made stopping the development of a North Korean ICBM a top priority, and stressed the U.S. would consider military action to take out launching sites and nuclear facilities, if needed.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told VOA that "this is definitely a step toward an ICBM technology, so I find this kind of launch much more concerning than the satellite launches."

Advanced capabilities

If North Koreans had fired the missile at a lower angle, rather than "almost straight up,  it would have gone maybe as much as 4,000 kilometers, and that is not technically an intercontinental [ballistic missile], but it's still a longer range" than any North Korean missile had previously tested.



McDowell said the increased velocity and altitude and the range of the launched missile, which appeared to be an improved version of the mid-range Musudan model, indicate that the communist state might have advanced its missile capabilities through its test launches over the years.

Similar assessments came from aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling, who wrote on the website of 38 North, a monitoring project based in Washington, that the missile test represents "a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile."

The test seems to have not only "demonstrated an intermediate range ballistic missile that may enable the regime to reliably strike the U.S. base at Guam in the Pacific," Schilling said, but "more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile."

An early test for Moon Jae-in

The North Korean missile test occurred days after Moon Jae-in, of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, was sworn in as the president of South Korea, replacing his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye, who was recently ousted in a corruption scandal. Moon campaigned on a promise to engage North Korea, in contrast to Park, who was bent on cutting all ties to the reclusive regime.

"We should understand that just because a liberal president has been elected, it doesn't mean that Pyongyang is going to suddenly stop testing," Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses, told VOA. "This launch could be designed to see how Moon Jae-in reacts."

Kim is testing Moon to determine whether he is going to interact with the U.S. and China and seek refuge in the alliance as part of a united front against North Korea, or if he is going to reach out to Pyongyang in an effort to seek an inter-Korean solution, Gause said. "Knowing these answers will help Kim Jong Un calibrate his foreign policy toward the new administration in Seoul."

Test could lead to talks

Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, reads Pyongyang's launch of the latest missile as a gesture to encourage South Korea's newly elected president to contact the regime.



"North Korea does not believe that adopting soft or accommodating positions is the best way of inducing dialogue, but rather sees demonstrations of strength as most likely to eventually produce the negotiated outcomes it wants," Romberg said in an email to VOA.

In response to Sunday's launch, Moon strongly condemned North Korea, saying there still remains the possibility of a productive inter-Korean dialogue but that the South would deal rigorously with any such provocation.

Jenny Lee contributed to this report.
The streets of tiny York Springs, Pennsylvania, are often empty these days.

For Rent signs are posted in front of some of the houses, a mix of brick and clapboard structures, where a few years ago, residents say, there was no rental housing to be had.

"Before it was different; it was more relaxed. People would go out and walk around," a former fruit picker, who called himself Arturo, lamented in Spanish. "Today  people are in hiding."

Many residents attribute the climate of fear in York Springs to the election of President Donald Trump, who has vowed to take a tough stance toward illegal immigration.

Located near Pennsylvanias southern border in Adams County, York Springs population of 800 is 42 percent Hispanic, mainly from Mexico.

Recent raids have reinforced the fear, causing some to stay indoors and others to quit their jobs and move away.



U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told VOA that its agents detained 15 people in York Springs from January through March. Of these, four had criminal records, four were re-entry cases, and one was a visa overstay. The rest were simply undocumented.

There are reports that more sweeps have taken place since March.

Many of York Springs' residents work in nearby orchards or the many fruit processing and packing plants in the area, and their fear may have economic consequences, especially for the fall harvest.

Hollabaugh Brothers

The Hollabaugh Brothers family farm has been raising fruits and vegetables in Adams County for 61 years. Three generations of family members run the operation.

But they could not do it without the help of immigrant labor to tend fields, prune trees, and harvest fruit and specialty crops like asparagus and blackberries  hard work few Americans want to do.

The farm hires immigrants who present the requisite documents, Kay Hollabaugh says, and they pay taxes.

But her workers are running scared.

"The message that is going out about the raids is sending a ripple through the immigrant workforce," she says.

Without them, Kay Hollabaugh says, "It will be the end of our business. Seventy-five people will not have a job, and my family,[which] has been here over 60 years, will lose this."

Rice Fruit

At harvest time, the Rice Fruit Co. employs about 200 people to pack apples, peaches and nectarines, which are then shipped mainly to states along the Eastern seaboard, but also exported to Central America and the Caribbean. During the rest of the year, the company has about 100 workers working in its packing operation  most of them Hispanic.

David Rice, who represents the third generation to run the 100-year-old firm, says the prospect that he will not be able to find enough workers at harvest time keeps him up at night.

"We cant run an operation here if the fruit doesnt get harvested," he says. "And many of our workers are an itinerant population that comes in briefly for the harvest. And to the extent that that flow is constricted, the downstream ramifications will be huge in that we would not be able to get the fruit harvested that we depend on for filling our storage bins in the fall and then packing out to our customers."

Rice goes on to say he's looking at various options if there's a labor shortage, including further automating his apple-packing assembly line and downsizing his workforce. A dramatic reduction in farmworkers, he warns, will have dire consequences for everyone.

"It would not only affect the price of food," he says. "But it would affect so many local economies in terms of the work force and the money they spend and the companies they work for, for their basic viability."

Feeding the nation

The Adams County fruit industry generates $580 million a year, according to one study, and almost 20,000 jobs.

Overall, U.S. agriculture contributes a trillion dollars to the country's gross domestic product (GDP)  dollars that are heavily dependent on immigrant labor.

Craig Regelbrugge, a senior vice president at Americanhort, which represents the nursery industry that supplies orchards with trees, says estimates based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data are that at least half the agricultural workforce is unauthorized to be in the U.S. legally.

Advocates of aggressive immigration enforcement argue that America's farms will not disappear if large numbers of illegal immigrants are deported; crops will continue to be grown and harvested. But those who produce specialty crops, like apples and other fruits and vegetables, would be seriously hurt, according to Regelbrugge.

"Hand labor is most associated with speciality crops, nursery crops, as well as dairy," he points out. "Whats important about the specialty crops is that they are of much higher value and the on-farm payroll creates a much bigger footprint in terms of taxes paid and in terms of goods and services consumed."

President Trump has assured a group of farmers he will seek to prevent his tough immigration policy from harming U.S. agriculture, Reuters news agency reports after interviewing participants in last month's meeting, Trump reportedly said he does not want to create labor problems and would look into expanding a legal visa program that brings in temporary farm workers.

However, for Kay Hollabaugh and many others in the Adams County fruit industry, the answer is for Congress to reform immigration laws and grant some kind of legal status to immigrant farmworkers. "If we could simply stop producing food for a month, I think perhaps that would make some bells go off in Congress," she says.

"Like, 'oh my gosh, we really have a problem here; we need to address this problem,' because it is these fantastic immigrant laborers who are feeding our nation."
The White House was in crisis mode yet again Tuesday after reports emerged claiming that President Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to shut down an investigation into Trump's ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's ties to Russia.

An administration statement said the reports aren't true. But the claims raise new concerns that Trump was attempting to obstruct an investigation that Comey had been leading into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The reports said Trump made the request of Comey during a February meeting.

According to a memo that Comey wrote following the meeting, the president said, "I hope you can let this go," referring to the investigation into Flynn. The details of Comey's notes were first reported by The New York Times and then confirmed by The Washington Post and other news outlets.

But a statement from the White House said the report is "not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.'' It said while the president has repeatedly expressed his view that Flynn is a "decent man,'' he never asked Comey or anyone else to end any investigations involving the national security adviser.

Flynn's resignation came hours after it was reported that the Justice Department had warned the White House weeks earlier that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump took office on January 20.

FBI controversy

Trump abruptly fired Comey last week, creating a firestorm of political controversy and increasing calls for a special prosecutor or independent commission to look into any Russia-Trump connections.

White House officials have stressed that the Russia probe had nothing to do with Trump's firing of Comey, although Trump himself has suggested in interviews that it was at least partly a motivation.

The Times said Comey's memo was part of a "paper trail" that the FBI director kept to document allegedly "improper" pressure by Trump in the FBI's Russia investigation, raising the possibility of a paper trail of evidence.

Colleagues of Comey have said the former FBI director took careful notes of meetings, especially politically sensitive ones, and there had been rumors for weeks that such memos existed.

A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the details of the Comey memo.

Reaction from Congress

As the latest reports surfaced Tuesday, reaction from lawmakers in both parties was swift, with intensifying calls for Comey to testify before Congress.

"I would like to see that," Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a high-ranking Republican congresswoman, said of Comey testifying.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that he's asked Comey "to come before the Judiciary Committee to tell his side of the story."

Comey turned down a recent request to testify in a closed session, but reports have suggested that he would do so if the hearing were public.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a prominent Republican who heads the House Oversight Committee, said in a tweet that he "is going to get the Comey memo, if it exists. I need to see it sooner rather than later. I have my subpoena pen ready."

On the floor of the Senate, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he was "shaken" by reports that Trump tried to shut down an active investigation. "The country is being tested in unprecedented ways  history is watching," Schumer said.

Any movement on an independent investigation depends upon the votes of House Republicans. With a year-and a-half still to go until 2018 midterm elections, many members of Congress are carefully watching polling numbers for Trump back in their home congressional districts.

"The people who did vote for him continue to support him," Congressman Trent Franks of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said Tuesday.

Franks said the media is looking at Trump in the most negative way possible, while voters "just look at the big picture and say, well who is really fighting for America here  and I think they've concluded, rightfully, that that's Donald Trump."

Seeking independent investigation

But for House Democrats, the revelations are just the newest reason on a long list that should move Congress to pass legislation creating an independent investigation into Russian election interference.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted, "If reports are true, Trump's attempts to shut down the FBI's Flynn investigation is an assault on the rule of law."

There already have been calls for Trump to turn over records of any conversations with Comey. That was especially the case after Trump, in a tweet earlier this week, appeared to threaten Comey into silence by saying Comey better hope there are no "tapes" of their conversations.
The U.S. Senate's top Democrat called on the White House on Tuesday to provide a transcript of President Donald Trump's meeting last week with Russian officials, in which the president himself has acknowledged sharing sensitive intelligence.

The president took to Twitter early Tuesday, asserting he has "the absolute right" to share intelligence with Russia for humanitarian reasons and to pressure Moscow to "step up their fight" against Islamic State. The tweets did not reassure the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Mark Warner of Virginia.

"No, I'm not satisfied," he said. He said there were "a whole host of issues" raised by the president's actions, both legal and strategic  including the reaction of allies and the need for maintaining the trust of the U.S. intelligence community.

Trump's tweets seemingly undercut assurances by senior White House officials about the scope of what the president revealed to the Russians, not to mention a denial from Moscow that Trump had shared secret information at all. In a White House briefing Tuesday, national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters that Trump's disclosure to the Russians was "wholly appropriate" and based on open-source reporting.

Declining to comment

With indisputable facts in short supply, many Republican lawmakers, like Senator John Cornyn of Texas, were declining to comment.

"I, of course, don't know the facts," he said. "So I really don't feel comfortable expressing a view until I know what the facts are."

If facts are in dispute, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put forward a solution.

"I am calling on the White House to make the transcript of the meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador available to the congressional intelligence committees as soon as possible," the New York Democrat said. "And if the president has nothing to hide, he should direct that the transcript of the meeting be made available."

Although not joining Schumer in demanding White House transcripts, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said more information was needed.

"We'll have to try to learn a lot more about it," he said. "But it's a serious concern, and we have to know who it is he [Trump] may have unmasked by giving that information [to Russia]."

By "unmasking," McCain was referring to identifying the source of the intelligence Trump shared with Russia, reported to be so sensitive that the information had not been revealed to close U.S. allies. Asked what was at stake with the president's action, McCain replied, "The cooperation of our allies."

Comparison with Clinton case

McCain's concerns aside, Democrats like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island were taking note of the largely muted Republican response so far  and comparing it with the GOP pronouncements about Democrat Hillary Clinton's handling of emails as secretary of state.

"It [Republican reaction] is a little bit different than when the completely harmless but technically classified emails of Hillary [Clinton] were the issue," he said. "Then, you had people chanting, 'Lock her up.' Now that he [Trump] has actually revealed genuinely dangerous secret information to the Russians, of all people, there's a new tune in town [from Republicans]."

In daily floor remarks Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, did not mention the latest Trump controversy, focusing his remarks on health care instead.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir issued several decrees Monday night, creating major army leadership changes.

The army will be restructured into three separate forces: a ground force, an air force and navy units. The changes are in line with resolutions approved in June by the fifth SPLA Command Council Conference. Kiir's restructured army starts with the president at the helm as commander-in-chief.

Under the new hierarchy, the chief of defense forces will have three assistant chiefs to oversee personnel and finance, training and intelligence, and logistics and procurement. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said the council would be the army's supreme decision-making body.



"It will make the SPLA effective because there will be a shared responsibility instead of putting them under one person," said Ateny.

Mainstream media reported Kiir's decree had also changed the army's name from SPLA to South Sudan Defense Forces, but Ateny insisted that part of the decree had been misunderstood, saying, "The real thing is that the SPLA still remain SPLA."

"If the change happens, it will happen in the future, not now," he added.

The president's decree also reinstated SPLA General Dau Aturjong, who joined Riek Machar's SPLA-IO in 2014 but defected back to the government last July.

Abraham Awolich, senior policy analyst with the Sudd Institute, believes the change is a positive step.

Awolich says calling Kiir commander-in-chief does much to improve the image of the army, since most South Sudanese view the institution as a tribal army.

"I think it is an attempt to try to rebrand the army, both to silence critics but maybe also to portray an image of a professional institution," said Awolich.

The defense council solves past tensions that used to exist between the SPLA chief of staff and the defense minister, according to Awolich. He said in the past, the chief of general staff could report directly to the president instead of the defense minister.



Awolich said it's clear Kiir is trying to restore the public's trust in the army, whose reputation has suffered since the fresh wave of fighting erupted in Juba in July. The United Nations and several rights groups have accused the army of mass killings, rape, the burning of villages and looting.

Awolich said such changes are fine, but the president must focus on implementing security reforms outlined in the 2015 peace agreement, "which say that opposition forces will be integrated in the army. I think that is a necessary step."

As South Sudan marked the 34th anniversary of the SPLA, some soldiers said the army has lost its vision.

On May 16, 1983, the Sudan People's Liberation Army began its struggle for liberation from the Khartoum government.

The Red Army celebrated that day Tuesday by recognizing the diversified unity of the Southern Sudanese people to respect their culture, tribes and religious artifacts. The Red Army Foundation, a nonpolitical organization, was established in July 2012 by veteran SPLA soldiers who helped liberate South Sudan.



Deng Bol Aruai Bol, chairman of the Red Army Foundation, said over the past few years, the SPLA has failed to meet its vision and abide by its own principles.

"The SPLA we have today is not purely the SPLA we used to have in 2005, where everyone was loyal, everyone has a common purpose, everyone cared about civilians," Aruai said.



Aruai said people now are following individuals rather than abiding by the constitution.

He said although the army has failed to protect the people for the last 10 years, Kiir still has a chance to turn things around.



"I think there is need to identify all soldiers, all SPLA cadres, bring them together and organize them. When you organize them, you start training the new ones so that they have the doctrine of the SPLM/A  that these are soldiers that are friendly to civilians," Aruai said.

A soldier who identified himself only as "Charles" for safety reasons said he joined the army in 2006 but had lost interest because there was no rule of law. Charles said he's not been paid for the last three months and his family is starving.

"This is not fair work," he said.
US recognises Nepals effort in conducting first phase polls

The United States has recognised the first phase of local level elections conducted in Provinces 3, 4 and 6 on May 14 saying that the election appears to have been largely peaceful and broadly supported.
Syria's Foreign Ministry is denying U.S. allegations that the Assad government carries out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burns their bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital of Damascus.

The state-run SANA news agency quoted the ministry calling the U.S. accusation a "Hollywood story detached from reality."

The U.S. State Department said Monday as many as 50 prisoners a day are being hanged at the Saydnaya prison. It alleged that the government of President Bashar al-Assad then is using the crematorium to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said Syria "has sunk to a new level of depravity," with the continuing military assistance of Russia and Iran, two countries that have supported the Assad government's six-year fight against various rebel groups attempting to overthrow it. About 400,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Jones stopped short of accusing Moscow of involvement with the crematorium, saying the State Department had not presented evidence of the mass killings to Russian officials.

But he said the U.S. has "an ongoing conversation with the Russians, talking about the problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created. And we have urged the regimewe urged the Russian government to hold the regime responsible for these atrocities."

U.S. President Donald Trump last month ordered a missile attack on Syria after the Damascus regime's alleged chemical weapons assault on civilians.

Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as Trump has said the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior."

The State Department official said that "since Syrias civil conflict began in 2011, the Assad regime has treated opposition forces and unarmed civilians as one and the same -- committing widespread violations of international law, including the law of armed conflict and human rights law.

"Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented," Jones said, "we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya."

He said the U.S. claim is based on information from its intelligence community and credible humanitarian groups.

Jones did not give an official estimate for the total number killed at the Saydnaya facility. But he cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the prison between 2011 and 2015.

He alleged that the Syrian government had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period.

"The idea of a crematorium of course has dreadful connotations for those with a memory," Anthony Billingsley, a Mideast lecturer at the University of New South Wales, told VOA. "The idea of massacres in prisons  there was one in Iran, there was one in Libya  it doesn't surprise, and I suspect that the U.S. and Amnesty, who previously reported on this, have reasonably good intelligence about this facility."

The State Department released newly declassified commercial satellite photos of what it said is a building at the prison used as the crematorium.

But the latest photo dated to January 2015, more than two years ago, taken during the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was not immediately clear why the United States waited to present its evidence.
The Taliban has categorically stated that seeking a peace deal with the current government in Afghanistan would be tantamount to a surrender to the enemy and contrary to Islamic faith.

The Islamist insurgency issued the statement to media, including VOA, in response to reports its representatives told a former insurgent group that the Taliban is willing to enter into peace talks with the government.

The announcement, and reported U.S. plans to send additional American troops to the war-torn country to help Afghan forces contain the Taliban, strengthen widespread concerns of an escalation in hostilities and bloodshed this year.

The Taliban's denunciation of engaging in talks with Kabul also deals a critical blow to the U.S.-backed governments hopes a recently concluded, much-touted peace deal with notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar may encourage Taliban leaders to also quit violence and join political reconciliation efforts.

The stance of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] is that laying arms to the enemy and assisting them in achieving their sinister designs is not only contrary to the national aspirations of millions of martyrs, but Shariah [Islamic faith] too, said Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the insurgency.

He also rejected as groundless propaganda reported claims by members of Hekmatyars group, the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin [HIG], that Taliban officials in the country and those in its Qatar-based so-called political office have established contacts with them and are willing to join the government-led peace process.

While the Taliban has long maintained its insurgency was aimed at forcing U.S.-led international forces to quit Afghanistan, the group is increasingly making clear it is fighting to regain power in the wake of significant territorial gains over the past two years.

Professor Marvin Weinbaum of Washington-based Middle East Institute, however, said the Taliban has not been interested in entering into a peace process from the outset and internationally-backed efforts to nudge the insurgents to the negotiating table were based on a misguided notion of having a negotiating partner.

The Taliban have come to this with a different vision. Its a vision not of this constitutional liberal system. Its a vision rather of a Sharia state thats willing to make accommodations but not to deviate from its basic objectives of an [Islamic] Emirate. And I submit to you that remains the major stumbling block [in the way of peace talks], he said.

The Taliban would use Islamic Emirate for their government in Afghanistan before it was ousted by the U.S.-led military invasion in late 2001.

The Islamist insurgency, meanwhile, has intensified battlefield hostilities across most of Afghanistan since launching its yearly so-called spring offensive two weeks ago. The Taliban is currently said to be controlling or influencing an estimated 40 percent of the Afghan territory.

Critics say years of alleged covert support from neighboring Pakistan, coupled with overt legitimacy lately lent to the Taliban by Russia and Iran, have emboldened the insurgency to evidently seek a settlement on its own terms, a proposition unacceptable for the Afghan government and its international backers, fueling fears the precarious security situation is bound to deteriorate in the months ahead.

The United Nations has already warned Afghan civilians, particularly women and children, are increasingly bearing the brunt of the protracted conflict and the number of civilian casualties have already hit a new high in the first quarter of 2017.

The first four months of 2017 witnessed the highest recorded number of child civilian casualties resulting from conflict-related incidents in Afghanistan, including the highest number of children killed, for the same comparable period since the mission began documenting cases [in 2009], reported the U.N Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, on Monday.

It said that nearly 1,000 child casualties, including 283 deaths, occurred between January 1 and April 30 this year, showing a 21 percent increase in child deaths compared to the same period in 2016.
The Thai government is looking at a range of policy steps, including stepped up security, to restore confidence in the economy of the southern border provinces in the wake of a recent insurgent attack on a super store.

The explosion from a car bomb on May 9 parked outside the Big C super store left at least 60 people injured, but no fatalities thanks to prompt action by security guards to close access after a small decoy blast.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, a security advisor to the government, said the government is looking to policies, including economic incentives, to boost confidence.

The recovery of the supermarket is on the way. The government sent special representatives, [Deputy Prime Minister] General Udomdej [Sitabutr] were in the area a few times to assist in the recovery of the supermarket, including the reopening to return to normalcy. We are told that very soon in a matter of days that the supermarket will be fully reopened, Panitan said.

The store is the only one of its type in the largely Muslim Southern border provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, which have a population of 2 million.

Anusak Suwanmongkol, owner of the CS Pattani Hotel, which has also been targeted, said the attack marked another blow to the local economy.

It will affect the investment climate, it will affect the economy in general because the indiscriminate attack on the people who go to Big C supermarket and overall it will take some time for the economy to pick up, Anusak said.

Thailands southern border province insurgency reignited in 2004, and since has claimed almost 7,000 lives despite intense security.

Muslims targeted



Victims of the conflict have largely been Muslim, while attacks on symbols of the Thai state have included the torching of state schools and the murder of scores of teachers, and state officials.

Thai security forces have also been accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings and torture.

Along with the human toll, the region has also suffered economically from the conflict.

The state-run think tank, the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), in a 2015 assessment, said the southern border regions faced low or negative growth.

The NESDB said the regions suffered low personal incomes and poverty rates of 33 percent -- well above the Thai national average of 7.2 percent.

Srisompob Jitiromsri, a political scientist at the Prince of Songkla University Pattani campus, said years of conflict have left a mark on the local economy.



The problem of the violent situation and the lack of confidence is the investment from outside (of the region). It has a strong impact on the local economy. This is why we can see the poverty still high when compared with other regions," he said.

The conflict has also seen the flight of many in the local minority Buddhist population. In 2003, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said some 22 percent of those living in the three provinces identified as Buddhists.

But Srisompob said since then the Buddhist population, threatened by the conflict, has fallen to less than 10 percent.

Income disparity



The World Bank, in a April 2017 assessment, warned that household income and consumption disparities in Thailand  including the Southern provinces  were "significant and growing."

Since 2004, successive Thai Governments have initiated spending and development policies to boost local incomes, along with support from non-governmental organizations and United Nations backed programs.

Panitan said the key Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) has channeled aid into the region.

The SBPAC in particular has schemes and compensation measures to assist the local economy. This is not the first time that local commercial centers have been attacked. So they have different packages to assist the recovery including loan and compensation, he said.

Thai fiscal spending on the region has stood at $7.36 billion since 2004. In 2016 alone, the allocation was $858 million - more than double the 2004 budget of $375 million.

But Anusak said only an end to violence will lead to a return of business confidence.

In order to have potential investors to come in the area to establish business you usually have to also have safety, you have to establish safety, you have to establish a safe climate also, Anusak said.
White House officials on Monday continued to deflect criticism of President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and insisted the search to name his successor was moving quickly.

Six days after Trump fired Comey, the firestorm over the decision raged on in Washington, with Democrats ramping up their calls for a special prosecutor to look into possible Russia-Trump ties.

Although the extent of the political fallout remained unclear, the decision to fire Comey has become a distraction from the president's legislative agenda, which already was facing major roadblocks.

Before being fired, Comey was overseeing an investigation into alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election, as well as into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Many Democrats think the firing amounted to obstruction of justice, and Trump himself acknowledged that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he fired Comey.

Not 'up to the job'

On Monday, White House officials again dismissed the controversy as a partisan attack.

"The president has every right to fire a person because he believed Director Comey lacked the judgment and the decision-making skills and wasn't up to the job," White House ppess secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing.

For a second consecutive briefing, Spicer also refused to clarify a tweet from last week in which the president appeared to threaten Comey into silence.

"I was very clear. The president has nothing further on that," said Spicer.

Trump, meanwhile, spent much of Monday immersed in presidential ceremony, surrounding himself with police and laying a wreath during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol to honor slain officers.

His only public mention of the firing of his FBI chief came during a meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Trump said the process to name Comey's successor was "moving rapidly."

Democrats' stance

Some opposition Democratic senators said they would not confirm Comey's successor until a special prosecutor was appointed to carry out an independent investigation of Russian interference in the election, which was aimed at helping Trump defeat his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But White House spokesman Spicer said there was "frankly no need for a special prosecutor," because the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Comey headed and committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives already were conducting probes of Russia's involvement.

The Trump administration has interviewed at least eight candidates for the top FBI job, and Trump has said a decision could come before he leaves Friday on his first overseas trip as president.

Even some of Trump's supporters have criticized the firing of Comey, especially after the White House offered changing explanations for the decision. They also were put off by an ominous tweet by the president that said the ousted FBI leader had better hope there were no "tapes" of their conversations.

'You can't be cute'

On Sunday, lawmakers urged Trump to turn over any tapes of conversations with Comey. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the White House must "clear the air" about whether there are any taped conversations. "You can't be cute about tapes. If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over," Graham told NBC's Meet the Press.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday found 29 percent of Americans approved of Comey's firing, while 78 percent supported an independent commission or special prosecutor to investigate Russia's interference in the election.
Developments on Monday concerning President Donald Trump, reports the president leaked highly classified intelligence information to Russian officials, the continuing controversy around the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Trump's upcoming travels, news that the president's youngest son will attend a private Maryland school in the fall:

White House Denies Trump Leaked Highly Classified Intelligence to Russian Officials  U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other members of the Trump administration have denied the accuracy of published reports that the president revealed highly classified information to Russian officials in the Oval Office. The original story, first reported by The Washington Post, "is false," McMaster told reporters on the White House grounds late Monday. Several U.S. news organizations reported that the president, in the Oval Office meeting, disclosed information considered highly classified.

Trump Downplays Comey Controversy, Says Search for New FBI Director 'Moving Rapidly'  White House officials on Monday continued to deflect criticism of Trump's firing of FBI Director Comey and insisted the search to name his successor was moving quickly. Six days after Trump fired Comey, the firestorm over the decision raged on in Washington, with Democrats ramping up their calls for a special prosecutor to look into possible Russia-Trump ties.

Trump Signals Shift in Middle East Strategy With Symbolic First Stop in Saudi Arabia  President Trump is about to embark on his first foreign trip, a nine-day journey that takes him to the seats of the worlds three great Abrahamic (monotheistic) religions and signals a 180-degree shift from his predecessors approach toward the Middle East.

Tillerson: Trump Concerned About Moving Embassy to Jerusalem  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the president is concerned about how moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would affect the Mideast peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted immediately to Tillerson, saying, "Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem will not harm the peace process. It will do the opposite. It will advance it by righting an historical wrong and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel."

Israeli TV: US Tells Israeli Officials Western Wall is 'Not Your Territory'  Israeli officials are reported to be shocked and "astonished" after a U.S. official allegedly told them the Western Wall  Judaism's holiest site  is in the West Bank and "not your territory." The exchange, reported by Israel's Channel 2 television, is threatening to create a fierce diplomatic storm as Israel gets ready for a visit by Trump later this week.

Lawyers Argue in Second US Travel Ban Appeal Hearing  A second U.S. appellate court this month is considering whether to uphold the suspension of travel restrictions for the nationals of six countries to the United States, as well as the arrival of refugees. Three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Seattle on Monday morning, after the government challenged a decision by a judge in Hawaii that paused the most substantive parts of a revised executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March.

Trump: Search for New FBI Director Moving 'Rapidly'  President Trump said the search for a new FBI director is moving "very rapidly" following his decision last week to fire Comey, who was leading the investigation into Russia's meddling in last year's presidential election and links between Trump campaign aides and Moscow interests.

Deputy AG to Brief Senate on Trump's Firing of FBI's Comey  Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will conduct a classified briefing on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) for the full U.S. Senate on the president's firing last week of the FBI director, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday.

First Lady: Barron to Attend Private Episcopal School in MD  First lady Melania Trump said on Monday that her son, Barron, will attend St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, a private school, beginning this fall.

Trump Taps Callista Gingrich to be Ambassador to Vatican  The Trump administration has tapped the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.

Trump: We Will 'Take Care Of' Violent Crimes Against Police  President Donald Trump is asking the Justice Department to develop strategies to prevent and prosecute violent crimes against law enforcement. Trump says in the Oval Office that police officers have "had it with what's going on" and notes that 118 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2016. Trump signed a proclamation to mark Peace Officers' Memorial Week and Police Week. He was speaking Monday to the National Peace Officers' Memorial Service on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers Urge Trump to Avoid Picking Partisan for FBI Job  As the president considers a replacement for fired FBI Director Comey, lawmakers are urging the president to steer clear of appointing any politicians. The advice came Sunday amid more criticism over Trump's dismissal of Comey during an FBI probe of Russia's meddling with last year's election and any ties to the Trump campaign. James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said the Founding Fathers created three co-equal branches of government with checks and balances, but with Trump as president, that was now "eroding."
A week after U.S. President Donald Trump sparked anger in Turkey by authorizing arming of Syrian Kurds, he is hosting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks Tuesday at the White House with an expected focus on that dispute, as well as the wider conflict in Syria.

The U.S. sees the Kurdish force, the YPG, as a key part in the fight against Islamic State and the effort to oust the militants from their de facto capital in Raqqa. But Turkey considers the YPG terrorists because of their links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party that has been waging a three-decade insurgency inside of Turkey.

Erdogan called the decision to provide U.S. arms "contrary to our strategic relations to the U.S."

But he said last week ahead of the trip that he views his visit to Washington as "a new beginning in Turkish-American relations."

Both Turkey and the United States have backed rebels in Syria during the six-year war against President Bashar al-Assad's forces and allies. And the NATO allies have been heavily involved in battling Islamic State since the group swept into large areas of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria in mid-2014.

Erdogan is also likely to bring up with Trump the status of Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric living in the United States whom the Turkish president blames for a failed coup attempt last year. Turkey has asked the U.S. to extradite Gulen, but that request has gone nowhere.
After meetings Tuesday at the White House, President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, praised the strength of the two countries' relations, while at the same time sidestepping their differences over strategies for confronting Islamic State extremists in northern Syria.

Both Trump and Erdogan described bilateral ties as strong. "We've had a great relationship," the U.S. president said, "and we will make it even better."

Neither leader mentioned Trump's decision last week to supply heavy weapons to Syrian Kurdish rebel militias, the YPG, who make up a key part of a U.S.-backed alliance preparing to march on the Islamic State's de-facto capital, Raqqa, later this year.

WATCH: Trump on US-Turkey Relationship

Full agreement

Turkey, which has battled Kurdish separatists since 1984 in its southeast, has voiced broad opposition to the presence of YPG fighters in the anti-jihadist coalition. Erdogan has argued that YPG's ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party make it likely that any U.S. weaponry supplied to the Syrian Kurds will eventually end up in Turkey, in the hands of the outlawed PKK.

Erdogan has called the decision to provide U.S. arms "contrary to our strategic relations to the U.S." But there were no public signs of friction Tuesday, as Trump and Erdogan struck public poses suggesting full agreement on the need to capture the IS stronghold at Raqqa.

WATCH: Erdogan: Trump Administration 'New Awakening for Turkey-US Relationship

"There is no place for the terrorist organizations in the future of our region," Erdogan said.

Ahead of his visit, the Turkish leader had pledged he would try to persuade Trump to change his mind about arming the YPG. Erdogan also ordered airstrikes last month on sparsely-populated Kurdish areas along the Iraq-Syria frontier.

Turkish journalist Semih Idiz, writing for Al Monitor, said the strikes appeared to carry a domestic political message, showing the depth of Erdogan's determination to fight the PKK.

Prior to Erdogan's arrival at the White House, a violent altercation broke out between Erdogan supporters and a group of a few dozen people protesting the president outside of the Turkish ambassador's residence. Erdogan bodyguards were also involved.

Washington's fire and emergency medical services department said nine people were hurt, including one person with serious injuries. The police department said it arrested two people.

Similar clashes happened last year when Erdogan visited Washington for a nuclear security summit.

IN PHOTOS: Demonstrations Outside White House as Trump, Erdogan Meet
Ukraine ordered the blocking of access to a number of Russian websites Tuesday in the latest round of sanctions since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

President Petro Poroshenko's office announced the decree, which he signed a day earlier, banning operations of popular Russian websites, such as search engine Yandex, for three years.

The listed websites were still functioning in Ukraine Tuesday, and it is unclear how and when the government plans to block them.

The Ukrainian government cited security concerns, saying the ban was imposed partly to protect against companies "whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine," according to a statement released by the Security and Defense Council.

The latest round of sanctions adds Yandex and social media sites Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte to the list of over 400 Russian firms blacklisted by Kyiv since Moscow's annexation of Crimea and consequent pro-Russian separatist uprising in 2014. According to the Reuters news agency, the Kremlin has threatened retaliation.
The U.N. Security Council is set to hold a closed-door meeting Tuesday on North Korea's latest missile test, a day after condemning the launch and threatening to impose new sanctions.

The council signaled Monday it was ready to act against North Korea because of its "flagrant and provocative defiance" of earlier demands to end all nuclear testing.

In a unanimous statement backed by China, the council voiced "utmost concern" about Sunday's launch, described by Pyongyang as a mid-to-long range missile that traveled 787 kilometers before plunging into the Sea of Japan.

The council statement called the launch "highly destabilizing behavior" that "is greatly increasing tension in the [East Asia] region and beyond." It further called on all countries to implement the six North Korean sanctions resolutions already adopted by the world body "in an expeditious and serious manner."

Earlier Monday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he is sending special envoys around the world in a push to strengthen Seoul's global ties in the wake of the launch. The presidency said the envoys will meet with high ranking officials to exchange ideas and explain the new South Korean government's policy plans.

North Korea boasted early Monday that the latest launch was personally supervised by leader Kim Jong Un. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said the launch aimed at showing the technical capability to carry a "large scale heavy nuclear warhead."

KCNA also quoted Kim as accusing the United States of "browbeating" countries that "have no nukes," and said Kim warned Washington "not to misjudge the reality that its mainland is in the North's "sighting range for [a] strike."

International reaction

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday the test was "absolutely unacceptable" and represented "a significant threat" to Japan and the U.S. He spoke after meeting with the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris.

A White House statement said the test should serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Sunday it is time for many nations to "send a strong, unified message that this is unacceptable, and I think you'll see the international community do that." She said the United States will continue to "tighten the screws" against Pyongyang.

U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this month he would be "honored" to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "under the right circumstances," but Haley said that "having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the president, because he's absolutely not going to do it."

Russian President Vladimir Putin called North Korea's latest missile test "counter-productive, harmful and dangerous."

Speaking Monday in Beijing, Putin said, "We are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear powers." He also urged other world leaders to "stop intimidating North Korea and find a peaceful solution to the problem."

History of defiance

Pyongyang conducted two unauthorized nuclear test explosions last year and about two dozen rocket launches, in a years-long push to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities.

North Korean leader Kim declared in a speech on New Year's Day that his country's program to build inter-continental ballistic missiles had "reached its final stage.

Pyongyang has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006, along with an international arms embargo aimed at slowing the development of its banned nuclear and missile programs.

Since then, Washington and a host of world governments have repeatedly demanded that the North denuclearize the Korean peninsula. World leaders, however, have yet to devise a plan that would either compel the North to cooperate or create incentives for it to do so.
North Korean claims that its newly-tested ballistic missile can carry a nuclear warhead appear to explain a subtle but significant shift in the way U.S. intelligence views Pyongyang.



Top officials, who once described North Korea as a second tier adversary with more intent than capability, now refer to it as an increasingly grave threat bent on demonstrating that the United States will soon be within its military reach.



We have assessed this as a very significant, potentially existential threat to the United States that has to be addressed, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week on worldwide threats.



It is the highest priority, one of the highest, if not the highest priority of the intelligence community at this time, Coats added.





Coats comments seem to contrast the view taken by his predecessor, James Clapper, who just over a year ago told lawmakers that among nation states, Russia and China were the prime threats to the U.S.



And earlier this month, then-FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Russia poses the greatest threat of any nation on Earth, given their intention and their capability.



Current and former officials, however, caution the intelligence communitys use of increasingly stronger language to describe the threat from North Korea is not so much a change in thinking as it is a stark acknowledgment of an evolving threat.



Likewise, they warn that the elevation of North Korea on its list of threats should in no way diminish the danger posed by Russia.



"It's hard to rack and stack the North Korean and the Russian threat, former CIA and National Security Agency Director, Gen. Michael Hayden, told VOA via email.



Russia is more global, more powerful but also in its own way more restrained, he said, while North Korea is more willing to conduct provocative and unpredictable action."



Such unpredictability, combined with what officials have described as a ratcheting up of its development and testing program over the past year, has many now describing the North Korean issue as one that has escalated from a regional threat to a global one.



The ever more dire warnings appear to have found a receptive audience, both in the White House and Congress.



Asked about Comeys testimony earlier this month describing Russia as the greatest threat, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters the president has been very clear about his views regarding the North Korea nuclear threat.



Likewise, during last weeks Intelligence Committee hearing, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein called the latest assessments on North Koreas activities deeply concerning.



I would argue that the greatest danger to the United States is North Korea, she said.



Making the situation even more worrisome for U.S. officials is what they described as a persistent lack of clarity about what is going on inside such an isolated country.



In response, the CIA last week announced the creation of a Korea Mission Center to get back on our front foot with respect to foreign intelligence collection, according to CIA Director Mike Pompeo.





We should not all focus simply on the ICBM's either, Pompeo told lawmakers.



In fact, the latest, unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment raises significant concerns about North Koreas conventional military force.



North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has further expanded the regimes conventional strike options in recent years, the assessment warns, citing better training and upgraded artillery systems.

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo told the countrys parliament Tuesday that not only was Sundays missile test successful, but that the program itself was developing faster than expected.



Theres a worry about where theyre really going with this march forward -- how far are they going to take it? said Cortney Weinbaum, a senior technical analyst at the RAND Corporation. It adds a very thick layer of uncertainty that makes a lot of people very nervous.



Weinbaum, who spent 14 years working for U.S. intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, said the uncertainty alone would merit elevating North Korea on the list of threats.



Adding to the concerns is a growing realization that while international sanctions may have slowed North Koreas progress, they have not stopped it altogether.



The North Koreans have really perfected their networks and driven them deep underground, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton said at forum in Washington late last month.



Its very necessary for the international community to come together and share information and go after some of these companies that are providing either products or equipment that contribute to the weapons program or financial measures that continue to the sort of sustainment of the regime, she said.



U.S. officials say China, for one, has shown a willingness to take significant financial and economic action against Pyongyang, pointing to the recent ban on North Korean coal imports, but caution it is just the start.



The intelligence suggests we're going to need more to shake free this terribly challenging problem, said the CIAs Pompeo.
Capella Space may look like just another Silicon Valley technology startup, with people coding at their desk. But just a year old, Capella has a unique customer: the U.S. military.

We like to work with the government because we think we can help the government save money, bring a capability that doesn't exist, and through that hopefully save some lives, said Payam Banazadeh, co-founder and chief executive officer of Capella Space.

An immigrant from Iran, Banazadeh now builds a special kind of satellite that allows its user to take imagery, even through clouds and at night. What makes it unique is its size. It is just a bit bigger than a shoebox.

Theyve (military) had this for a very long time. In fact, this is a military type technology. The problem is the satellites that the military uses are massive. Theyre the size of a school bus, Banazadeh explained.

Unlike the military, Capella Space can build satellites that are smaller, cheaper and faster than traditional military satellites. The military can now quickly become one of Capella Space's customers for its Satellite data through a new group under the U.S. Department of Defense, called Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx.

The Department of Defense is the worlds largest bureaucracy. It has 3 million members of it, both military and civilian. In any large organization, things just take longer to do and for certain things that makes a lot of sense, said Raj Shah, managing partner of DIUx.

There are some things that are of a secret nature and must be protected. And of course, everything that our soldiers touch could have life or death implications, explained Shah.

As a result, the military tends to be risk averse, and in many cases, will only adopt technology when it is perfect. However, by that time, the technology is often already outdated.

The culture in Silicon Valley and many other tech startup ecosystems is the opposite, where risk and speed drives innovation.

Have this minimal viable product that you launch really quickly into the market and learn about it and iterate and try to do this as quickly as possible, said Banazadeh.

At the Milken Institute Gobal Conference recently, experts from Silicon Valley and the military emphasized the importance of keeping up with technology by working with innovative startup companies.

As a broad statement, government systems are very poorly secured. As a broad statement, government systems are not using the latest forms of operating systems, encryptions and mechanisms, said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Googles parent company, Alphabet.

Given the speed at which technology is advancing, that if we dont accept less than a 101% solution, were going to fall yet further behind, said Norton Schwartz, former chief of staff, U.S. Air Force and president and CEO, Business Executives for National Security.

As the most recent global cyber attack proves, it is a constant race to stay ahead of threats.

With an office in Silicon Valley and in several other tech hubs across the U.S., the mission of DIUx is to bridge the different cultures of tech startups and the U.S. military to meet national security needs.

Housed in Silicon Valley, the mission of DIUx is to bridge the different cultures of tech startups and the U.S. military to meet national security needs.

Technology is always changing and if you have only legacy equipment, that actually gives the bad guys more time to figure out what the vulnerabilities are. If were constantly evolving, its a cat and mouse game between attackers and defenders and we want to be on the winning side of that, said Shah.

It starts with DIUx removing much of the paperwork and bureaucracy traditionally involved with having the military as a customer. Since its inception 18 months ago, DIUx has worked with more than 30 tech companies from across the U.S. and the globe. The technology ranges from robot sailboats to small satellites.

The innovative ecosystems will be very good at certain types of technologies and products and we should play to their strength. Theyre not the answer to everything. We dont expect the next company out here to build the next fighter jet. But they may build some of the software that sits on it, said Shah.
The United States Supreme Court has declined a bid by Republican lawmakers in the eastern U.S. state of North Carolina to revive a state law requiring voters to present identification at polling places.

The state's Republican-controlled legislature passed the law in 2013 with advocates saying new measures that also eliminated same-day voter registration and reducing the number of days for early voting were necessary to prevent voter fraud.

But opponents, which include rights groups and Democrats, say those steps unfairly target African-American and Hispanic voters who are less likely to have a photo ID or have easy access to polling places on election day.

An initial federal court decision rejected those concerns, but on appeal the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said the legislature passed the law "with discriminatory intent."

The 4th Circuit opinion cited research done by the lawmakers before crafting the law, saying they requested data broken down by race on the use of different voting practices.

"Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inept remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist," the court said.

North Carolina's then-governor asked the Supreme Court to reverse that decision, but when a new Democratic governor took office in January, he and his attorney general asked the court to dismiss the case. Republican leaders in the legislature subsequently asked that they be allowed to represent the state against those challenging the law.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited the confusion in his two-page notice denying the appeal Monday, and specified that the court declining to hear the case was not a statement on the legal merits.

Governor Roy Cooper welcomed the decision as "good news" for the state.

"We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder," Cooper said. "I will continue to work to protect the right of every legal, registered North Carolinian to participate in our democratic process."

State House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger issued a joint statement saying those who want stricter voter ID measures have been "denied their day in court."

"All North Carolinians can rest assured that Republican legislators will continue fighting to protect the integrity of our elections by implementing the commonsense requirement to show a photo ID when we vote," the statement said.

Currently 32 of the 50 U.S. states have a law requiring or requesting voters show some type of identification before they are allowed to vote, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Supreme Court could be asked to consider another case regarding the issue in the near future, as a legal challenge against a voter ID law in the southern state of Texas moves through the court system.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his absolute right to share information with Russian officials at a White House meeting last week, pushing back against media accounts that he disclosed highly classified intelligence related to Islamic State.



In early morning Twitter comments, Trump said he wanted to pass on facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety as he met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Moscow's U.S. ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and urge Russia to "greatly step up up their fight" against Islamic State and terrorists.

What media reported Monday



Several U.S. news organizations reported that Trump disclosed the information considered highly classified during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump appeared to be boasting about inside knowledge of a looming threat to aviation, according to the Washington Post.

The New York Times reported that the information, which was deemed to be especially sensitive, had not even been shared widely within the U.S. government or shared with other allies.

The two newspapers, and others, further said the information could jeopardize a critical source of intelligence about Islamic State and the manner in which it was collected.

A U.S. president has the power to declassify nearly any information, so what Trump did does not appear to be illegal. But intelligence officials, quoted by the newspapers, expressed concern that the information, provided by a U.S. partner government, could harm crucial relationships.



As he defended his disclosure Tuesday, Trump also said that from the beginning of his administration in January he has been pressuring the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others in the U.S. government "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community." After-the-fact published reports of Trump's interactions with foreign leaders have at times angered him.



McMaster denies accuracy of media reports



U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other members of Trump's administration denied the accuracy of the reports.

As the controversy over Trump's remarks unfolded, the Senate majority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, gently chided the president.

"We could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so we can focus on our agenda," McConnell told Bloomberg Television.

Other lawmakers voiced concerns about Trump's revelations to the Russians.



Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told VOA that Trump "has the ability to disclose classified information. That doesnt make it right. And where its sensitive and could put sensitive relationships and sources at risk, its just as dangerous whether its legal or not."



Another Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, said, "There are a whole host of issues here, both legal and strategic  trusted allies, trust of our intelligence community. And it seems we have one more action by this president that continues to show a pattern of, frankly, disrespecting and disregarding the leadership of the intelligence community.



Republican Senator John McCain, a key foreign affairs expert, said Trump's disclosure risked the cooperation of allies in future intelligence-gathering operations. "Its a serious concern and we have to know who it is he [Trump] may have unmasked [the intelligence source] by giving that information" to the Russian officials, McCain said.



Tillerson backs up McMasters

Late Monday, McMaster told reporters at the White House that the original story, first reported by the Post, is false. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operation that was not already publicly known.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said he also attended the May 10 meeting with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador, backed up McMaster's characterization of the conversation, adding in a statement that "a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counterterrorism."

Neither official denied that classified information was disclosed.



A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday denied that Trump revealed any classified information at last week's meeting, calling the reports "fake."

The Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency declined immediate comment when contacted by VOA.

Since the early days of the Trump administration, the presidents apparent willingness to work with Russia had some U.S. allies ill at ease.

"It's a key concern," a Western diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity told VOA at the time. "Russia has been a very disruptive player."

But some former intelligence officials think the repercussions from the Oval Office meeting will be minimal, if any.

No damage - no sources or methods revealed, said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer now with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.

Pregent, who worked with McMaster in Iraq, said it is unlikely the national security adviser would have allowed the president to cross any lines.

Instead, Pregent sees an opportunity to have turned the Russian visit to the White House to Washingtons advantage.

Sharing this info with the Russians calls them on their inaction against ISIS in Syria, he said.

Comey controversy



The story broke as the White House remains embroiled in controversy over Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey. That occurred one day prior to the Oval Office meeting with the Russians.



The FBI is investigating alleged links between Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.



In a joint statement, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, Elijah Cummings and John Conyers, called for the release of any audio recordings of Trumps meeting last week with the Russians.

National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Capitol Hill correspondents and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
With the deportation of 67 people last week, the U.S. has now removed about 326 Somali nationals since January, more than the total for all of 2016. This makes it the third year in a row that the number of Somalis removed from the U.S. has increased, stoking fears of raids, detentions and deportations.

The Somali citizens are part of a broader trend. In the first three months of 2017, the U.S. ordered the deportation of more than 1,200 Africans, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Citizens of Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia and Kenya have so far received the most removal orders.

Recent deportation orders reverse a decade-long trend. From 2006 to 2016, the number of Africans deported annually from the U.S. fell from 2,100 to just over 1,000. By the end of this year, the deportation rate will surpass 2016 numbers fourfold, if current rates hold.

Sudden spikes

Last week's deportation was the third such removal of Somali citizens in 2017. Despite recent spikes, however, the rate at which Somalis are deported from the U.S. is less than half the average for all immigrants. And, overall, immigrants from African countries are far less likely to be removed from the U.S. than other immigrant groups.

African citizens represented less than 0.4 percent of all deportations from the U.S. in 2016. That's partly because most immigrants coming to the U.S. are from non-African countries. In 2015, less than 5 percent of all immigrants in the U.S. were from Africa, according to Pew Research.

But Africans are also deported at far lower rates. Compared to all nationalities, citizens of African countries are about 10 times less likely to be deported. In 2016, one out of every 1,087 African immigrants was deported. That same year, one out of every 94 foreign nationals was deported, based on data from Pew Research Center, the Migration Policy Institute, and the U.S. Census.

Depending on their country of origin, some African immigrants are more likely to be deported, though these rates are still well below the overall average. The African countries with the highest deportation rates in 2016 were Somalia (one out of every 217 immigrants deported), Nigeria (one out of every 728 immigrants deported) and Ghana (one out of every 889 immigrants deported).

Almost 5,000 Somali nationals have received final orders of removal from the United States, according to ICE spokesman Brendan Raedy. The U.S. had held off on deporting Somalis because of a civil war in the country, but in 2012, the situation was considered stable enough that deportations were resumed.

As of April 1, 2017, there were 4,801 Somali nationals with final orders of removal, Raedy said last week.

Rejected asylum applications

Immigrants face deportation when they commit crimes, but non-criminal deportations are even more common. Last week's removals, for instance, included individuals whose asylum applications were denied.

According to an ICE official, An immigration judge presided over full and fair immigration proceedings for each individual. After considering the merits of each case, the judge found them ineligible for any form of relief and ordered them removed. ICE effectuated their orders of removal in accordance with applicable U.S. law.

However, hundreds of African refugees have been resettled in the U.S. this year, including 1,679 Somali refugees and 334 Sudanese refugees, according to U.S. State Department data from the Refugee Processing Center. Both countries are included in President Donald Trump's executive orders limiting travelers and immigrants from some majority-Muslim countries for 90 days. The current travel order has been halted by the courts and is now on appeal in two higher courts.

Fears, perceptions

Overall, removal rates may remain comparatively low, but that doesn't change the impression of African immigrants living in fear of deportation.

Recent research published in Frontiers of Public Health suggests that anti-immigration policies, heated rhetoric, and persistent stereotypes can undermine the well-being of all immigrants, even those not facing deportation.

Despite African immigrants' high levels of education and an English proficiency rate that trails only immigrants from Europe and Canada, only 26 percent of Americans have positive views of African immigrants, according to a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center. Perceptions about immigrants' impacts on crime and the economy fueled this low rate, Pew found.

Victoria Macchi contributed to this report
The European Union has added Zimbabwe to its blacklist of airlines banned from flying over its skies.

According to the Seattle Times, Air Zimbabwe planes do not meet EU safety standards.

Air Zimbabwe was added on Tuesday to the list together with Nigerias Med-View, Mustique Airways of St. Vincent and the Granadines and Ukraines aviation company, Urga.

There are 181 airlines from 16 nations currently banned from EU skies, while an additional six can only fly to the 28 EU-member states using certain types of aircraft.

The EU removed all airlines from Benin and Mozambique from its air safety blacklist after the companies addressed the blocs safety concerns, according to the Seattle Times.

The EU blacklist is regarded as a major business incentive for airlines to uphold safety standards.

Reacting to the ban, Zimbabwes Transport Minister, Joram Gumbo, said the EU informed airline management and government officials in a meeting recently about its safety violations.

On the 26th and 27th of April we were called to go and explain to the European Union Commission on Safety what the situation was with Air Zimbabwe, which we did. We were not the only one. There were three or so countries from Europe also and I think two from Africa called to the same meeting.

We were pleased that out of some of the conditions the European Union wanted us to fulfill only two were the ones that were critical which they put at level one and two. These were that we were not maintaining properly our aircraft and we agreed that that was the position because what they look at is whether you are following up as per the manual all the maintenance records and to maintain them as per what is required.

He said, If you dont do what you are supposed to do by a week or so, you its already a mistake or fault and that is where we faulted.

He said Zimbabwe is pleased to note that it has been given some time to correct its mistakes.

He noted that Air Zimbabwe was also condemned for not computerizing its records.

Air Zimbabwe is saddled with a debt of over $300 million, which led to the seizure of some of its planes by creditors in Britain, South Africa and USA.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his absolute right to share information with Russian officials at a White House meeting last week, pushing back against media accounts that he disclosed highly classified intelligence related to Islamic State.



In early morning Twitter comments, Trump said he wanted to pass on facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety as he met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Moscow's U.S. ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and urge Russia to "greatly step up up their fight" against Islamic State and terrorists.

What media reported Monday



Several U.S. news organizations reported that Trump disclosed the information considered highly classified during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump appeared to be boasting about inside knowledge of a looming threat to aviation, according to the Washington Post.

The New York Times reported that the information, which was deemed to be especially sensitive, had not even been shared widely within the U.S. government or shared with other allies.

The two newspapers, and others, further said the information could jeopardize a critical source of intelligence about Islamic State and the manner in which it was collected.

A U.S. president has the power to declassify nearly any information, so what Trump did does not appear to be illegal. But intelligence officials, quoted by the newspapers, expressed concern that the information, provided by a U.S. partner government, could harm crucial relationships.



As he defended his disclosure Tuesday, Trump also said that from the beginning of his administration in January he has been pressuring the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others in the U.S. government "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community." After-the-fact published reports of Trump's interactions with foreign leaders have at times angered him.



McMaster denies accuracy of media reports



U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other members of Trump's administration denied the accuracy of the reports.

As the controversy over Trump's remarks unfolded, the Senate majority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, gently chided the president.

"We could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so we can focus on our agenda," McConnell told Bloomberg Television.

The original story, first reported by the Post, is false, McMaster told reporters on the White House grounds late Monday. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operation that was not already publicly known, he added.

I was there. It didnt happen, McMaster concluded, then turned around and re-entered the West Wing without answering reporters questions.



Tillerson backs up McMasters

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said he also attended the May 10 meeting with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador, backed up McMaster's characterization of the conversation, adding in a statement that "a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counterterrorism."

The Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency declined immediate comment when contacted by VOA.

Since the early days of the Trump administration, the presidents apparent willingness to work with Russia had some U.S. allies ill at ease.

"It's a key concern," a Western diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity told VOA at the time. "Russia has been a very disruptive player."

But some former intelligence officials think the repercussions from the Oval Office meeting will be minimal, if any.

No damage - no sources or methods revealed, said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer now with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.

Pregent, who worked with McMaster in Iraq, said it is unlikely the national security adviser would have allowed the president to cross any lines.

Instead, Pregent sees an opportunity to have turned the Russian visit to the White House to Washingtons advantage.

Sharing this info with the Russians calls them on their inaction against ISIS in Syria, he said.

Alarm from Capitol Hill

Monday's reports prompted immediate bipartisan alarm on Capitol Hill.

"I am shocked by reports that President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats last week. This certainly raises questions about whether the president recognizes the serious implications of disclosing such sensitive information to an adversary," said Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking member on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. "I will be meeting later this week with National Security Adviser McMaster in a classified session, and will seek answers about what was revealed and how it could damage American national security."

'Inexcusable'

The vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Democrat Mark Warner, said on Twitter that "risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."

Trump's comments, if true, are a "slap in the face" to the U.S. intelligence community, Warner added.

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order," the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker, told reporters. "Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they have to figure out ways to come to grips with all that's happening."

The story broke as the White House remains embroiled in controversy over last week's firing by the president of FBI Director James Comey. That occurred one day prior to the Oval Office meeting with the Russians.

FBI probe looks at link

The FBI is investigating alleged links between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

In a joint statement, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, Elijah Cumming and John Conyers, called for the release of any audio recordings of Trump's meeting last week with the Russians.

"After an unprecedented week in which many thought it would be impossible for President Trump to be any more irresponsible, he now may have sunk to a dangerous new low," the two Democrats concluded.

Jeff Seldin and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
Botswana Member of Parliament for Tati East, an area close to the Zimbabwe border, says his government should erect an electric fence along the two countries' borders.

Samson Guma-Moyo, a former minister and ruling party chairperson, says Zimbabwe has shown reluctance in the fight against foot and mouth disease spreading across the two nations.

As a result, Guma-Moyo says the only solution is the electric fence.

The construction of the electric fence, mooted previously, strained relations between Harare and Gaborone, which led to the shelving of the idea.

Zimbabwe then argued the fence was meant to keep out its citizen in a Gaza-style barrier.
With time, many political leaders throughout the world have reinterpreted the  Arab Springs . What at first seemed to be spontaneous revolutions against authoritarian governements is today perceived for what it is  an Anglo-Saxon plan for the destabilisation of an entire region of the world in order to put the Muslim Brotherhood into power. The memory of the  Arab Revolt of 1916  - during which Lawrence of Arabia raised the whole region against the Ottoman Empire by feeding the People dreams of liberty in order, finally, to submit them to the British Empire - shows that London has the know-how.

It seems that the Anglo-Saxons are preparing a new wave of pseudo-revolutions in Latin America. Everything began with a decree by Barack Obama, on 9 March 2015, declaring a state of emergency in view of the extraordiary menace that the situation in Venezuela could bring to bear on the United States. This document caused an upsurge of indignation on the continent, forcing the US President to apologise during an international summit. But the decree was not cancelled, and the preparations for a new war continue.

Different from the Syrian Accountabilty Act by George W. Bush (2003), the text by Obama on Venezuela is a presidential decree, not a law. Consequently, the Executive does not need to account for the preparations to the Legislative body. It took eight years for the Anglo-Saxons to pass this act in the Arab world in general, but numerous elements lead us to believe that it will not take them as long to launch a programme for the destruction of Latin America.

At the time of the Olympic Games, trouble broke out in Brazil, aimed against President Dilma Rousseff. She was destituted after a parliamentary procedure which, although it was perfectly legal, was totally contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. This coup dEtat was carried out under the control of the Central Bank  whose n2 was a Brazilo-Israelian  by deputies, many of whom have been shown to be guilty of corruption. The State security services remained curiously passive during the coup. This may be because, during the Olympic Games, they had been placed under the coordination of Israeli experts. Currently, the new President, Brazilo-Lebanese Michel Temer, is now widely contested.

The situation in Mexico is hardly any better. The country is currently divided, de facto, into four. The North is enjoying strong expansion, while the South is in full recession. The political leaders have sold the national oil company, Pemex, and all its reserves, to the United States, who therefore have no further need of Middle East oil. Only the army seems to persist in believing in their homeland.

Exploiting the economic errors of the government, the Venezuelian opposition has managed to organise a few major peaceful demonstrations. Simultaneously, it also organised some small and extremely violent demonstrations during which several police officers and demonstrators were killed. Creating confusion, the international Press agencies are giving the impression that an anti-Chavez revolution has now begun, which is not the case at all.

Thus, the three main Latin-American states are destabilised at the same time. It seems that the US neoconservatives are anticipating the possibility of peace in Syria, and are pushing forward their Latin-American projects.

On Friday, during a televised speech, Venezuelian President Nicolas Maduro warned his people about the Anglo-Saxon project for a  Latin Spring . He frequently mentioned and repeated the previous cases of Libya and Syria, speaking before an audience of intellectuals from the region, with whom, Syrian of heart, I was associated.
Syrian Arab Television has broadcast the confessions of Walid Hendi, a Syrian who had been recruited to support armed groups.

Hendi indicated that he had participated in a section of the White Helmets during which time he was actively involved in making a film broadcast on Turkish television documenting a fake chemical attack on Aleppo. It was necessary to concoct false evidence so that the finger could be pointed at Damascus for failing to respect its undertaking to destroy all its chemical weapons and for using some of them.
The Ministry for Heritage has announced that three new interpretation panels have been placed within our Old Town in order to provide information on our Medieval History, namely our Islamic and Spanish Periods.
The Xenomorph of Alien: Covenant. Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

The writers of the 1979 sci-fi horror movie Alien conceived of their title entity as a perfect killing machine, which the Swiss designer H. R. Giger translated into the realm of the biomechanical  a fusion of phallic symbols and motorcycle parts, in the words of the films concept artist, Ron Cobb. Thus equipped, the black, drooling, helmet-headed alien became the mascot of a subgenre that would come to be known as body horror. Neither fully male nor female, it murdered people by raping them (through the mouth, via a squiggly face-hugger) and implanting a seed that quickly led to a grisly birth. Subsequent Alien films have featured corporate-funded scientists who sacrificed unwitting employees to capture this rare species and harness its power for war and profit. Meanwhile, audiences wondered, How did it evolve in the first place?

Actually, I didnt wonder. I rather liked the mystery of it. But for reasons that would take another sort of evolutionist to chart, studio blockbusters have produced a weird relationship between greedhead businessmen and sci-fi geeks, and so 20th Century Fox and director Ridley Scott have set out to explain  in multiple installments  how this perfect killing machine came to be. Their first prequel, Prometheus, was a tease that left most audiences irritated by the absence of, well, aliens. The latest is more revelatory  and much, much gorier.

And it opens like Passengers! A ship  the Covenant  carrying colonists to a distant, habitable planet is threatened by an explosion in space that forces crew members out of suspended-animation pods and incinerates the commander (a cameo by an overexposed star whom most of us could do, in this instance, without). While theyre awake, they pick up a faint human signal from a closer, more habitable planet. Its eerie, that signal: You can hear a John Denver song. Is it a siren luring them to their deaths? If it werent, this wouldnt be a horror picture, so you start looking at the characters as meat and wondering in what order theyre going to be eviscerated. You certainly can count on the new commander, played by Billy Crudup, to make the wrong decision. Singled out by others in the crew because hes a man of faith, he cant conceive of a universe as fundamentally nihilistic as this one.

The focus of Alien: Covenant turns out to be less on the title character than on an android called David, who appeared in Prometheus and whose birth is depicted in a prologue. Played once more by Michael Fassbender, hes rather fey in his form-fitting white bodysuit attempting to mimic the gait of a human. You know you should worry when his first question to his creator (Guy Pearce) is, If you created me, who created you? Its a bit early for existentialism.

Co-screenwriter John Logan also wrote the final and much-reviled Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Nemesis (I liked it), and he knows his way around android f2fs. When David ultimately meets his brother, Walter (Fassbender), a member of the Covenant crew, the two discuss the ins and outs and what-have-yous of being human. In Star Trek, that man-machine nexus was  as in all things Star Trek  hopeful. Here, theres some doubt about Davids ultimate motives, which puts Alien: Covenant squarely in the tradition of the Terminator and Matrix movies. And, of course, the novel Frankenstein, which carried the subtitle The Modern Prometheus. No less than Stephen Hawking  who survives with the aid of machines  has predicted that we have 100 years to live before evolved machines take human imperfection as justification for wiping us all out.

Meanwhile, the dialogue of Alien: Covenant is often clunky and its plot repetitious. (As usual these days, there are too many climaxes.) But its scary and splatterful, which is all it really needs to be. It holds you. Katherine Waterston is a good protagonist, a spokesperson for  and champion of  humankind who loses someone dear and spends the rest of the movie in a state of hyperalertness, waiting for the cosmic anvil to fall. Danny McBride brings the earthiness as a guy called Tennessee. Fassbender gives David a distracting touch of camp  youd think hed be, if anything, overearnest  but his Walter is subtle and likable. The supporting cast includes Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, and Amy Seimetz, actors who deserve the paychecks that come with studio franchises.

This will not, needless to say, be the last Alien. I give it two more installments before the computer-generated young Sigourney Weaver and her fellow space truckers board the Nostromo, after which probably there will be a spinoff or reboot. You can take out aliens, but franchises are indestructible.

*This article appears in the May 15, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Aziz Ansari and Eric Wareheim. Photo: Netflix

Ecco, signore e signori! Behold, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the premiere of Aziz-caps! As a special supplement to your regularly scheduled recaps of Master of None, weve asked New York Magazine cover star Aziz Ansari to give us the behind-the-scenes breakdown of the making of each episode, pieced together from multiple conversations over the past several months.



Related Stories Master of None Recap: Amazing Bites

Episode 2: Le Nozze

A little context. This episode is a continuation of an arc started in episode one, in which Dev has moved to the small town of Modena, Italy, to learn how to make pasta. (Which is actually what Aziz Ansari did in real life.) Eric Wareheim, who plays Devs Big Bud Arnold on the show, really did come to visit him, just like Arnold visits Dev. Wareheim will guest star in this Aziz-cap, too.

Travel

Aziz Ansari: Eric really did come to visit me. I told him, Lets hang out here and Im sure some things will happen that we can put in the episode. So we really did drive around just the two of us for a few weeks, and we got into some deep conversations about life and relationships. Thats where we got the idea of Arnold going to Tuscany and exploring the difficulty of going through a breakup when youre a little older and have to really consider the ramifications of whether that person was supposed to be your person.

Eric Wareheim: Aziz and I became friends before we started working together on Master of None. I directed a couple teaser commercials for him and we just started traveling together and having fun and talking about girls and life and culture and everything that became our characters in the show, which are these really close friends and our two different sides. Like, Im a little bit crazier. Hes a little bit more heavy and down to earth.

Aziz is so obsessed with realness. He was like, Come to Modena. There are no Americans here. Im making pasta. Ill show you the craziest shit. Well drink Lambrusco. No one in Modena knew who he was; he could walk around all day and no one would stop him. I just showed up there and he introduced me to his friends that hed met and then wed travel around these small towns taking photographs, seeing how the different scenes could go. When we vacationed in Formentera [a Spanish island just south of Ibiza] last year, we got scooters and looked so funny, a big guy and a little guy, that we were like, We have to shoot that. A lot of those travels, you could literally go through Instagram and be like, This is where that came from.

AA: We shot that [Kanye West] Famous video when Eric came to visit and we were in Sicily and Rome. People thought we were filming [Master of None], but we were just kind of running around and having some experiences we could write about. We also went to Noto [a town in Sicily], which is actually where stuff in [Michelangelo Antonionis] LAvventura was filmed.

(Ansari for the rest of the Aziz-cap.)

Filming

Filming those two episodes in Modena was the happiest thing Ive ever done. [Laughs.] I mean, to be running around Italy with your friends, filming the show  that was a dream. We were just drinking spritzes and espresso all the time. Modena is such a charming, amazing town, I couldnt believe we were doing it. I couldnt believe we pulled it off.

I directed the first two episodes, and it was just a little tricky because youre shooting in Italy, so a lot of people and actors are only speaking in Italian. I obviously had people who could translate for me, but you want to speak directly as much as you can to people. Those times when Im directing, acting, and everything were really hard, but it was such a fun challenge.

The people at Osteria Francescana, where Arnold surprises Dev for dinner, were so nice when I came to Modena. They knew me a little bit from friends of friends, people like [Momofuku impresario David] Chang and whoever our mutual friends were in New York. [Food writer] Faith Willinger had advised me to go to Modena to do this thing and she was friends with them, too. So they knew I was coming and were so ready to take care of me.

The wine cellar at Osteria Francescana.

I didnt want to bother them and film there, even though I knew it would be cool because theyd just been named the No. 1 restaurant in the world, and when we film in a restaurant its not an easy thing. Its a whole ordeal, right? But one of my best friends in Modena was a guy who works there and he was like, Oh man, were kind of bummed youre not filming in Francescana. And I was like, Wed love to film there. We just didnt want to bother you guys! And he was like, Its not a bother. We can figure it out. And I was like, So when can we film?  this was while were filming  and hes like, Well, you could film today. And I was like, Today?

Its one of those things where I pull aside Alan [Yang, Master of Nones co-creator] and I pull aside our first AD and our line producer and Im like, Uh, Francescana said we could film there but it has to be today. And when youre adjusting the schedule of a shoot like that its not a simple thing. So we rewrote all the stuff, we moved the scene into Francescana, and then somehow our amazing production just made it happen. We had a very limited window and Massimo [Bottura, the chef-owner] was like, Im just going to start making you guys food. And they start pouring us wine. And someone on the crew is like, No, well just use grape juice for that. And theyre like, Fuck you! Youre not using grape juice! Theyre gonna drink wine. Youre not going to film them drinking grape juice in our restaurant. [Laughs.] And so all that food, all that stuff was all real.

So wed film little bits and Id take a couple bites and wed change cameras or whatever and Id be like, All right, Ive eaten so much of this stuff! I cant eat anymore! And Id pass it along and some of the crew would start eating this food.

The best thing was that little Nicolo [Ambrosio, the little boy in episode one] was just running around, and I introduced him to Massimo. I said, This is Nicolo. Hes the star of these episodes, and he loves food. So one of Massimos signature dishes is called the crispy part of the lasagna. And the idea is that little kids in Emilio-Romagna, when they were kids, would eat lasagna, and their favorite part was the top part, the crispy part. He made a dish in such a way that its just the crispy part.

So he goes up to little Nicolo and hes like, Whats your favorite part of lasagna? And Nicolo goes, Oh, the soft part. And Massimos like, Get the fuck out of here! What do you mean, the soft part? You like the top part! You like the crispy part! And Nicolos like, No, I prefer the soft part. So Massimo just started making dishes and bringing them out to Nicolo, whos in the back by the kitchen. Little Nicolo ate like the whole Francescana tasting menu, just standing outside on the street holding bowls and gobbling up whenever Massimo put in front of him. And whenever Id go out there in between takes, he was just going nuts! The kid is so funny. Like, Massimo goes up to him and is like, Is this tagliatelle better than your moms? Nicolos like, Yeah, yeah! And then he goes over to his mom and his moms like, Is it good? And hes like, Its not as good as yours. But its good.

Real-life Inspiration

This episode was really inspired a lot by stuff that happened on the trip Eric and I took. Id been to Tuscany a few times and thought it would be cool to show this wedding in Pienza and have us on scooters. We were just trying to capture the visuals of the fun of that area.

Most helpful of all was, we were riding around in Sicily driving in these pretty tiny roads, and of course we got lucky enough to get stuck in an alley. And people are endlessly asking me whats real and what really happened, and that thing of getting stuck in a car is exactly what happened to us in real life. We were driving around, we see this tight little alley, and Im navigating, like, Yeah, it says were supposed to go through there, and then were like, I dont know. And just like in this show, this truck barrels through, so were like, Okay, well be fine. And we got stuck. Luckily it wasnt too hard to get out. But it was very similar to the show and people were honking at us.

Theres a picture on my Instagram of us stuck, and thats what I kept showing to the production people, like Its got to be like this. And it was one of the hardest scenes to direct and one of the hardest scenes to create. Because finding an alley like that, getting a car stuck inside it, and making it look like that was a tricky thing to pull off. I kept showing that picture, being like, This really happened. If what we film is not as funny as what really happened, weve failed. But when we screened it and it got a huge laugh, it was a big sigh of relief for me. I was really happy with it. That was one of my favorite sequences.

The one thing we exaggerated was that the real car was a Volvo and in the show its a Fiat. And actually, when Eric got into the Fiat he was too big to fit in and drive. So they had to remove the seat and hes really sitting on a makeshift fake seat. So now we have proof that Eric cannot sit inside a Fiat and have his legs be in a place to properly use the pedals. He cant do it! It was very ridiculous.

Themes

When Eric and I were actually in Italy, we had a lot of conversations about how when youre in close relationships at the age where were at, there are so many more stakes and its really scary. When you go through a breakup at this age, its a really tricky ordeal because you have the same thoughts those characters have when things end. In Erics, or Arnolds case, its someone from 11 years ago, and in Devs case someone a little more recently, but its a scary thing to not have that connection with someone anymore. You have bouts of loneliness, and I guess in both those characters cases, they were broken up with, but you worry whether youll ever have anything like that again. Because you remember when you were really happy with the person, and the idea that you wont have that again in your life is something that crosses your head. [Laughs.] Its a dark, scary idea. Thats what that episode is about.

With Dev and Rachel, theyre in that period you go through after a breakup when youre figuring out how much you want to stay in communication with this person that you were once deeply in love with, and may be still deeply in love with. Thats a weird period and thats the period were trying to show. The end of episode two is Dev deciding to tell Rachel, Yeah, us joking and flirting on text isnt helping me move on.

The Wedding

Way before we were writing this episode, we knew of this guy who looked like Eric. Hed done some commercials, and some people were like, This guy has Erics look, and wed joked about that guy. Then during writing we were like, What if Eric goes to the wedding of his ex-girlfriend and the guy looks just like Eric? And then we were like, Oh shit, we need to get the guy to play him!  the guy, Barak Hardley, ended up doing the role and he was really good.

One thing thats cool is that during that ending scene, it started raining, like, really hard, and we couldnt film. And then our production designer was like, Oh, this is like in La Notte [an Antonioni film] when they have the party outside and it starts raining and people just run in the pool. And I was like, Oh shit! And we looked at each other and were like, Yeah, we should have everybody jump in the pool! So we just came up with that and then were like, See which background people would want to jump in the pool. And all these people were like, Well jump! Well jump!

We did that on the fly, but it was cool because it actually was raining and it helped us come up with this thing that was totally improvised because of the weather. It wound up being such a great ending beat for the whole thing.

Leaving Italy

I was definitely sad. Living there and then filming there, like I said, was one of the most fun, magical things Ive ever done in my life. I really cannot believe it was something I was fortunate enough to do. But we were excited to get back to New York. Whats great is that episode ends with that Clash of the Cupcakes thing. [Dev gets offered a job hosting a reality-competition cupcake-baking show.]

We built that whole [Clash of the Cupcakes set]. Our team did such a great job, and whats amazing is you can go to them with the craziest idea, like, What if theres a cupcake that rises up and I walk out of it? And theyre like, Okay, cool. And you show up a couple of weeks later and theres a giant cupcake moving up and down! That episode ends with such a great energy. So by the time that episode ends, youre propelled to see what happens with this guy when he goes back to New York.
To new beginnings, indeed. Howard and Chucks toast over Macallan 66 was meant to signify life beyond sibling rivalry for the elder McGill, but could just as easily have commemorated Hector and Guss mutual efforts to disentangle from one another or Jimmys emancipation from his brothers torment. Though with the benefit of a Breaking Bad viewers foresight, its fair to say that tonights most seminal fresh start was the first official appearance of slippery salesman Saul Goodman on KWBVs airwaves.

Befitting Sauls (or Genes, if you will) ultimately uncelebrated role in the saga of Walter White, his alter-ego origin story is absurdly pragmatic. Its desperate, actually, a shift that suggests what kind of turn Jimmy is taking at this fork in the road presented by his year suspension from practicing law. The scrappy Jimmy of seasons past, whose guerilla marketing typified that Charlie Hustle get up and go Howard admired, has soured into self-parody. Mr. Show fans (present company included) will love seeing Bob Odenkirk Karloff this thing and transform into a bearded, barking protoSaul Goodman soliciting clients for a cockamamie commercial-production venture thatll help him float his share of his and Kims commercial rent (while rightly debating whether they favor Odenkirk in the guise of deadpan cock-ring pitchman). But those close to Jimmy, like Kim, have to wonder whether stubbornness has gotten the best of him, and if hell ever live for anything other than converting his harshest critics. Its his most inescapable sunk cost.

Chuck isnt exactly satisfied with the return on his investment in sabotaging Jimmy, either, however he may have pacified Howard. Alone in his study, he clutches the batteries from that telltale tape recorder and clenches down on his pain and panic, waiting for it to pass. He wraps himself up in space blankets and takes to the streets of Albuquerque, a theoretically courageous confrontation with his fears motivated by vengeance. He endures blurring lights, baffled stares, and searing currents, stumbling to a pay phone to speak with Dr. Cruz (Clea DuVall, who will presumably return as the shows biggest EHS skeptic), less a humbled man in retreat than super-villain regaining strength.

Though not everyone is so sure whos right and wrong. Rebecca interjects as a relatively objective voice in this incestuous feud, admonishing Jimmy and reminding him, Hes mentally ill. Whats your excuse? Its a reasonable but not terribly persuasive line, even if it stings just enough to crash the high of sipping Champagne from his Davis & Main mug (who needs a company car?). Jimmy could just as easily have rebutted, How could you have lived with him and divorced him without detecting that there were some underlying issues capable of manifesting themselves into a condition I sacrificed my own career trajectory to manage?

This is hammered home earlier, when Kim makes her closing argument to the bar for punitive leniency. She cites his daily 5 a.m. wake-ups, long drives to the only newsstand that carried the Financial Times, and time and labor spent handcrafting his brother a space blanket. What comes through clearest in her plea is how much she admires and loves Jimmy, so much so that when she sees his ad as Saul, her curiosity is piqued but few red flags go up. Its possible Rebecca merely sees that Jimmy and Chuck are incapable of either estrangement or reconciliation, and all she can do is appeal to Jimmys clear-headedness on behalf of her unwell ex to avoid a ruinous outcome  not that far afield from Kims rationale that keeping Jimmy from his elderly clients would be counterintuitive and extreme.

The flipside of all this occurs in Nachos world, where its all about black and white, good and evil, boss or bitch. When Nacho lets Krazy 8 walk out of El Michoacano with an ostensible extension to deliver his take, Hector needles him for being soft. Frustrated, if anything, by his lack of options in the situation (i.e. bear your bosss haranguing or discipline through brutality), he catches Krazy 8 before he can head back to Tampico and does Hectors bidding. That night, while working on upholstery at his fathers shop, Nacho stops just short of serious self-injury with a sewing-machine stylus. Hes frozen solid by the feeling that hell die thanklessly in service of his boss despite barely being able to live with himself. When Guss men pull a weapon on him at a subsequent product hand-off, Hectors solution is to seize on Nachos fathers shop as a front for their operation. Nacho, like Chuck and everyone else, is at a crossroads, and the day is coming when  not unlike Jimmy  hell snap and cross a line thats hard to erase.

If theres anybody in Better Call Sauls universe who can appreciate wanting to get out from under Hector and the cartels cavalier rule (or perhaps from Chuck and corporate laws) and run a more refined, independent business, it would be Gus. Its a thrill to see him lay eyes upon the dry-cleaning facility that would offer added cover for his drug distribution, now that Los Pollos Hermanos has drawn eyes. Or, more to the point, the space that would eventually serve as Walter Whites high-tech meth-making lab. Let alone when he gets into the passenger seat of an unknown drivers luxury sedan (Gus almost always drives himself), and his ride is revealed to be none other than Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser), Breaking Bads shady Madrigal exec and Stevia enthusiast.

Glacial as Better Call Sauls pace can often seem, each key player has made or inched toward the definitive decisions that propel them toward fated common ground with Walter White. All of the cameos this season seem to be incrementally building toward an inevitable brush with the unlikely suburban kingpin himself, or possibly Jesse Pinkman and his low-level cohort. Tragedy is foreshadowed wherever you look. Even that playground Mike agrees to help build is, its safe to assume, the same one where he last spends time with Kaylee shortly before his death. If only those carpet-store owners would have gone for Jimmys toe-in-the-water package.

Apart From All That

 While this Saul Goodmans number is 505-842-5662, future Sauls is actually 505-503-4455.

 With Chuck disowned and no other living relatives, who needs Jimmy anyway? After all, Its just a name.

 Havent those UNM kids graduated by now?

 Jeez, Stacey, Mike was a young man when he built that carport.

 Chuck read my mind asking Howard if he was okay to drive.

 Timeline confusion: Just when I thought we were in 2003, theyre drinking a 35-year-old bottle of scotch from 1966.

 Oh, Francesca, Hawaii aint happening for at least several years.

 The local art house theater in New Mexico is showing Bunny Lake Is Missing  a movie about a person who never existed.

 First Chuck is a trailblazer for EHS discovery, now hes Clarence Darrow. No wonder Jimmy hates him.
Cosby. Photo: Matt Rourke/Pool/Getty Images

Next month, Bill Cosby will face accusations of sexual assault made against him for the first time in criminal court. Ahead of the trial, Cosby has broken his media silence in his first public interview in over two years, speaking with SiriusXMs Michael Smerconish. In it, Cosby responded to his daughter Ensas comments that the dozens of accusations against Cosby may have been racially motivated. I believe that racism has played a big role in all aspects of this scandal, she recently said in a statement. Bill Cosby now says that might be a possibility, though hes vague on specifics. Could be, could be, he told Smerconish. I cant say anything, but there are certain things that I look at and I apply to the situation. And there are so many tentacles. So many different  nefarious is a great word. And I just truly believe that some of it may very well be that.

Asked how racism could be at play when his accusers have different racial backgrounds, Cosby said he believes racism is only one factor, implying that greed or revenge may also be the accusers motive. When you look at the power structure, and when you look at individuals, there are some people who can very well be motivated by whether or not theyre going to work, or whether or not they might be able to get back at someone, he said. Its not all, not every, but I do believe theres some. Cosby also argues that the only reason more accusers came forward was to build a stronger legal case against him and have the public turn on him. I think that the numbers came because the numbers prior to [these] numbers didnt work, Cosby said. So the piling on, so to speak, is a way  and certainly an impressive, impressive way  to get public opinion to come to the other side. Cosby would not, however, say if he thinks these accusers are lying, a legal strategy his attorneys have said they would enforce at trial. Cosby also told Smerconish that he wont testify at his trial.


Photo: NBC

When Dave Chappelle hosted Saturday Night Live in November, he suggested that we all give the newly elected President Trump a chance. That was a mistake, he admitted in a stand-up set this week. I was the first guy on TV to say give Trump a chance. I fucked up. Sorry, Chappelle told the audience at a benefit dinner for Robin Hood, according to a tweet from NBC host Willie Geist.

Dave Chappelle tonight in NY on his November SNL monologue: "I was the first guy on TV to say 'Give Trump a chance.' I f***ed up. Sorry."  Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) May 16, 2017

Chappelle made the comment during his set at the @RobinHoodNYC benefit tonight.  Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) May 16, 2017

During Chappelles monologue, the comedian said he wished Trump luck and would give the new president a chance, adding that, We, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one, too. With the latest leaks to come out of Trumps White House, Chappelles generosity toward Trump is no longer on the table.
Photo: Amazon

Jeffrey Tambor has played the role of Maura, Transparents anxious matriarch, to much critical acclaim, but the transformation doesnt come easy to the veteran actor. In the following excerpt from his new memoir Are You Anybody?, out today, Tambor describes how he painstakingly prepares to take on the groundbreaking character.



*******************

People say to me, You must be having the best time of your life. And I say, Yes. What I dont say is it can also be very hard because I get into a bit of a state when I play Maura.

It would be wrong to say nervous, because Im not scared, or not performer scared. The word that comes to mind is cranky. Its bad moodadjacent, just a bit north of grumpy. And its because I am obsessed with doing Maura right.

Its like having a rope around your neck. When Im away from the set, the rope is very loose, but I know the rope is there. If I have a 10:00 a.m. call, the rope begins tightening at 7:00 a.m. when I wake up. Its tighter by 8:00 a.m. when I have yogurt; 8:30, granola, tighter. By the time my assistant, Van Barnes, picks me and the vultures up for the ride to the set, I cant talk. Van thinks Im just being actory and preparing, but Im actually just asking myself, Can I pull this off again? Every day I drive past the Paramount gates, I get in that mood. I get uncomfortable. And its the ideal mindset, because that discomfort is exactly how Maura feels every day. This is the most successful Ive ever been, and its the most antsy Ive ever been. At the same time, I love playing Maura from Action to Cut.

It began on a Thursday in July 2013. I flew to L.A. to appear on an interview show called The Talk. In the car from LAX to the Fairmont Hotel, where I always stay when Im in town, I opened an e-mail from my agent, Leslie Siebert. Shed attached a script for the pilot of a new series written by Jill Soloway. Look at Mort/Maura, she said. This is a game changer. The last time she said that was when she told me I had been cast in The Larry Sanders Show. Another game changer? Mort/Maurawhat the  ?

I believe it was on page eighta scene about eating barbecueas my car was passing Whole Foods on Lincoln Boulevard, that I said to myself, Oh my God. Game changer? I had never read anything like this beforea family whose patriarch comes out as a woman? The Pfeffermans are West Coast Jews who put the d back in dysfunctional. You could describe the Tambors of Westlake the same way.

I called Leslie as soon as I got to my room. Im in. Tell them Im in.



Well, you have to meet Jill Soloway.

Fine, whatever, Im in.

The next day I did my segment on The Talk, a CBS show filmed in the Valley. I arranged to meet Jill right after that at a Le Pain Quotidien right around the corner from The Talk on Ventura Boulevard. I walked in and Jill met me at a table and told me to wait just a bit as she finished up with a reporter who was interviewing her for Afternoon Delight, for which she had won the directing prize at the Sundance Film Festival. While she was telling me this, the first thing that hit me over the head was Jills eyes. There is such a presence, and they shine and go deep. There is just no doubt that she sees, that she is a seer.

When she was done, she came over to my table and sat down to talk. She showed me pictures of her parent, Carrie, who had recently come out as trans and was the inspiration for the show.

This is how the conversation went:

Jill said a sentence, and I said, Im in.

Jill said another sentence, and I said, Im in.

Jill said another sentence, and I said, Im in.

I all but threw myself at her, because this script of hers had struck me in much the way Id been struck by The Larry Sanders Show and Arrested Development. In all three, there were risk and great characters and great writing. All three also shared a nontraditional platform: Larry Sanders was one of the first original shows on HBO, Arrested was one of the first original shows on Fox, and now Transparent was going to be a streaming show on Amazonits television that isnt even on television.

But this show had so much more, because Mort Pfefferman becomes one of the most fantastic people I have ever encountered Maura Pfefferman.



Im in.

I put my hand up to high-five her, and she put up hers but stopped. Not quite yet, she said. Give me a little time. Was there another actor in line ahead of me? I had no idea. I still have no idea. And no, never tell me, ever.

I went back to my room at the hotel and watched a copy of Afternoon Delight that Jill had sent me. I loved it. I could see that Jill never rushed a moment; she let a moment play all its truth. Her director of photography was the brilliant Jim Frohna, and she was bringing him on board for Transparent. I loved the films star, the great Kathryn Hahn, who plays Rabbi Raquel in Transparent.

I called Jill (in the same way I called Garry Shandling years earlier) and left a message telling her how floored I was and Im in. We swapped a few e-mails. Days passed.

Finally, my agent called. Yes! Jill wants you for Transparent. YES!

And here was a bonus: among my amazing costars was my friend from the Milwaukee Rep more than forty years before, Judith Light.



I flew out to L.A. two weeks before we were to begin shooting the pilot. Kasia and the kids stayed in New York.

Our first table read was on the Paramount Studios lot. There were no nameplates, no scripts premarked in yellow, but there was this: Jill Soloway seated at the head of the table. I want to make the world safe for my parent. With that mission statement, the actors beganas Neil Young would sing itand that baby lifted right off the ground. It sailed and soared, and it ended with a trio of three actresses accompanied by a lone guitar singing Operator by Jim Croce: Operator, well could you help me place this call?

As the music came to an end, there wasnt a dry eye in the house. There was silence, and then the room burst into applause that lasted forever. I was sitting next to Judith, and we looked at each other. We had just witnessed the best table read of our careers.

But there were a lot of days I spent alonenot lonely, but alone. I had rented a bungalow in Pacific Palisades. It was very small, with just the fundamentalssofa, table, chairs, all covered with the first drafts of Season One. I was paralyzed in the face of the daunting task and season ahead of me. There were friends in the PalisadesI used to live there back in the daybut I couldnt pick up the phone. It was just me, the bungalow, and all the scripts from Season One of Transparent.

One night my friends Jay and Julia Phelan invited me to dinner at a local restaurant, but during the meal I realized I couldnt understand what they were talking about and I was unable to talk. I saw them stealing looks at each other. That was my last night in public till filming. I hadnt found Maura, nor did I have the technique of playing Maura or really know what I was doing. I took me and my paralysis back to our bungalow.

I met with Jenny Boylan, Zackary Drucker, and Rhys Ernst, my trans teachers. How do I, Jeffrey Tambor, how do I do this? This is not putting on clothes, or getting a mani-pedi. This is a transition to another life. How do you do it right?



All of this Sturm und Drang, the shaky hands, became a godsend, an unintentional way to Maura. She too is alonenot lonely, but aloneshe too has shaky hands. She too doesnt know how to do Maura; she just has to. She has no choice.

I remember dropping my kids off at a French summer camp in Montreal, and as I was leaving I turned and saw Gabriel sitting by himself eating his awful dinner, and the table came up to his nose. We got in the car, and Kasia drove while I blubbered. The reason I was blubbering is, I am that kid. And thats the universality of Maura. Theres alone and theres alone.

Then Jill arranged a field trip for a few of us to a bar in the Valley called the Oxwood. It would be Mauras debut. Jill, Jim Frohna, Rhys Ernst, and Zackary Drucker came to my room609, Fairmont Hotel, Santa Monica, to be forever called the Maura Suite (I stay there still)and we talked a long time. They helped make me up and dress as Maura. I remember her coming to life in the mirror and meeting my new friend for the first time. She looked nice, friendly, rather pretty, and a bit shyshe kept averting her glance.

I walked unsteadily through the hotel lobby to the car. I thought, Dont ever forget this feeling because this is every day of Mauras life. My new friend and I were stepping out.

When I got out of the car in front of the bar, the valet said, Do you know whos here tonight? Judith Light!

I walked in and Maura was welcomed by everyone there. It wasnt about Jeffrey, it was about her. The staff knew what we were doing, and they were incredibly supportive. We all danced that nightJill, Judith, Rhys, Zackary, Jim, and Maura.

When I needed to use the bathroom, Judith said, Where are you going to go?



Im going to the ladies room.

Do you want me to come with you? she asked and started to follow.

No, Im going to go on my own.

I took Maura on another field trip, to Gelsons Market, because I thought thats where she would do her grocery shopping. I stood in the middle of an aisle thinking, What would Maura eat? Another shopper looked at me and smirked. It was one of the meanest smirks Ive ever seen. Oh my God. I had been clocked. So thats what that feels like. Dont forget this feeling.

Zackary and I got a couple of salads to eat in the seating area outside the store. There were no free tables, so Zackary pointed toward one where a man was seated talking on his cell phone.

No, I said.

Go, Zackary said.

We sat down and the man kept talking, glancing up at us every once in a while. He finished his call and stood up. Have a good day, ladies, he said and walked away.



Zackary beamed and immediately high-fived me as I spiritually flew around the world.

Reprinted from ARE YOU ANYBODY? Copyright  2017 by Molly Productions, Inc. Published by Crown Archetype, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
Twin Peaks actors Dana Ashbrook, Sheryl Lee, and Lenny Von Dohlen in the Psych homage. Photo: Alan Zenuk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Who killed Paula Merrell?

Thats the question begged by an anonymous emailer a few minutes into Dual Spires, an episode roughly halfway through the fifth season of USAs long-running series Psych. If viewers werent familiar with a particular 90s seminal drama bearing a striking resemblance to a few rapid-fire opening motifs  the aforementioned dead girls body discovered wrapped in plastic by a body of water; a few asides about the disputed merits of silent window shades; a newspaper called The Great Northern  this mightve seemed like a slightly more dramatic installment of the popular USA dramedy. But, as many quickly realized, this was actually a Very Special Episode: an expertly executed homage to David Lynch and Mark Frosts Twin Peaks.

As soon as I knew we were going to be doing tribute episodes, and as soon as I knew the landscape of Psych allowed us to do homages, the show creator and I both had respective dreams. His was a musical episode, and mine was a Twin Peaks episode, James Roday recently explained to Vulture, who starred in the series as psychic detective Shawn Spencer and co-wrote the episode. It was crazy, because I was the superfan on staff and the amount of freedom that was given to me, both by USA and Universal, was pretty remarkable. They were like, Youre the one who knows the show, go and try to make this happen. I couldnt believe we were going to do this.

While executing a homage to such an iconic TV series might seem daunting, the process was surprisingly easy for the Psych team. Roday was tasked with filling the script with as many Twin Peaks references as humanly possible  it was definitely the more the merrier  and he recruited frequent Psych writer Bill Callahan to form the mystery and keep the narrative moving. What ensued was a central story line that involved the drowning murder of a local teenage girl, whose body is discovered during Dual Spires annual Cinnamon Festival. Shawn and his crime-solving partner Gus (Dule Hill) are invited to the secluded and quirky town under the guise of attending the festival, but the true motivations for their summons  solving the murder  are eventually revealed via an email address at underthenail.com. (Get it?)

I did decide that Im going to focus primarily on the first 15 episodes, because I feel like that, for me, is the seminal part of the Twin Peaks magic carpet ride, Roday said. I decided to stick with the town, and Laura, and solving her murder as much as possible, because thats the stuff casual fans appreciate the most. And then I tried to throw in late-game stuff so the super die-hard fans could appreciate that, too.

Sherilyn Fenn, in her element. Photo: Alan Zenuk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Of course, a script can only do so much. Psych needed guest stars to give the episode a bona fide Twin Peaks seal of approval, so Roday opened up his handy Rolodex. I called my good friend Dana Ashbrook, who was the linchpin of putting the cast elements together, he explained. Ashbrook, as any casual Twins Peaks fan will tell you, played the troublemaking Bobby Briggs in the original series. Not everybody knew Psych and not everybody knew to trust that it was going to be a love letter and not some kind of screwup. So it was Danas job to tell everybody, Guys, Roday is legit. This is totally legit and its going to be good and theres nothing to worry about. One at a time, others followed: Sherilyn Fenn, Sheryl Lee, Robyn Lively, Lenny Von Dohlen, Catherine E. Coulson, and Ray Wise (who already had a recurring role on Psych) all ultimately signed on for various roles we wont spoil here. (Madchen Amick was initially booked for Livelys role, but due to an unexpected family matter, she had to pull out.) Even Twin Peaks dream-pop chanteuse, Julee Cruise, agreed to reinterpret Psychs theme song for the episode  and the ending scene fades out with her 1993 Angelo Badalamentiarranged toe-tapper Kool Kat Walk.

Catherine Coulson and her beloved log. Photo: Alan Zenuk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Like all of Psychs episodes, filming took place in Vancouver, and it was during the first day on set when Roday realized the significance of his feat, which has only grown since the announcement of the Twin Peaks revival. (Not to mention, the privileged feeling of working with Coulson, who has since passed away.) There was such a tenderness to the way all of them hold that experience and hold that material. You just knew you were a part of something special while it was happening. Having all of those people in the same place and creating that energy was really palpable, Roday explained. It wasnt like, Oh, Ill schlep up to Vancouver for all of those days and do this thing. It was an experience. What we didnt realize is that a lot of them hadnt seen each other for a long time. Sherilyn and Sheryl saw each other for the first time in 15 years, and they both burst into tears. Everybody felt it. I like to think, in any small way, it played a role in letting Showtime know that theres still an appetite out there for that show. I feel like thats my legacy.

Though David Lynch wasnt involved in the making of the episode, Roday eventually received whats arguably the next best thing: the auteurs stamp of approval. After the episode aired, his daughter Jennifer directed a couple of Psych episodes and has become a friend. She insinuated that he had seen it at some point and he was pleased. That was pretty awesome. Sadly, Rodays homage-writing prowess didnt get his name on the revivals overflowing cast list. It wasnt for a lack of trying, he said. Trust me.

Dual Spires is available for purchase on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu.
Jude Law as the Young Pope. Photo: HBO

White smoke alert: God has blessed us with a new pope. HBO announced today that Paolo Sorrentino is returning to create a Young Pope spinoff called The New Pope. The limited series is being written by Paolo Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello, and will be a joint production between HBO and Sky. The New Popes ascendance means no more lewks from Lenny, and no more Diane Keaton in that Im a Virgin But This Is an Old Shirt T-shirt: Per HBOs press release, Casting for the title role, as well as additional roles, will begin soon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new series will begin production late next year in Italy. Hallelujah! Back to the modern papacy we go.
Photo: Jason Koerner/Getty Images

If Zac Efron had a sling on his arm, there would be a line of people down the block waiting to help him carry his books to his car. Which is just one of the many qualities that make him a fitting casting choice for director Joe Berlingers Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Extremely Wicked tells the story of the infamously charming necrophiliac serial killer, who murdered at least 30 women across seven states during the 1970s. The story will be told from the perspective of his longtime on-again, off-again girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer. Kloepfer eventually began to suspect Bundy was responsible for several deaths in Washington and Utah, and repeatedly contacted the police with her concerns about him even as the pair continued their romantic involvement. Zac Efron has definitely already got the disarmingly normal-seeming part down pat. Now hes just got to nail, you know, all the other stuff.
From the outside, meditation seems like the simplest of tasks: sit silently and focus on your breath as it moves in and out of your body so as to be completely in the present. Easy peasy, right?

But anyone who has attempted meditation, either laying in bed, sitting in a chair or in full lotus position, will tell you its not that simple. Even the most eager yogi can sit, take a deep breath, find themselves relaxing and congratulate themselves on how well meditation is going. But then, maybe you focus on your breath and immediately Faith Hills Breathe plays back in your mind (or else Fabolouss Breathe). Regardless, you will soon find yourself face to face with what many teachers and practitioners refer to as monkey mind. Leaping, playing, spinning, making lists of chores to finish and emails to fire off, phone calls that need to be made, that monkey mind makes us realize that calming the modern mind is not a simple task, but in fact a Herculean one.

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, so goes the oft-misquoted line from playwright William Congreve, but music also has the ability to calm the monkey mind and allow a greater sense of calm to come to its listeners. With the surge in interest in Eastern philosophy and meditation in the West beginning in the 1960s, music was often used to transport its audience into heightened states of awareness. Jazz musicians like John and Alice Coltrane sought to infuse Eastern sensibilities to Western music to achieve a universal sound, which often included sitar and tambura in a jazz setting. They werent alone: Musicians like Tony Scott and Paul Horn began to travel with their horns through the East, bringing such sensibilities back with them.

And when Brian Eno began releasing a series of albums in the mid-70s under the banner of ambient, a new sound world emanated from turntables in living rooms everywhere. With albums like 1975s Discreet Music and 1978s Music for Airports, Eno introduced a way of perceiving  or not perceiving  sound that was equally valid. As he wrote on the back of Music for Airports, his intent with the music was to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

That ability to both tune in and drop out to a sound led to a cottage industry of meditation music catering to relaxation, stress relief, lucid dreaming, chakra auditing, yoga, and meditation. Dating back to the late 60s, New Age music arose thanks to the sonic questing of composers and musicians like Iasos, Paul Horn, Steven Halpern and Irv Teibel and his influential Environments series. Music and meditation are two aspects of the same phenomenon, wrote Indian mystic and guru Osho. Without music, meditation lacks something; without music, meditation is a little dull, unalive.

To our ears, dull meditation music is not all that enlightening either, even if its functional when playing at the spa or at your next Bikram yoga class. And so, here are a few albums to cue up and enliven your next meditation attempt. Some are serene, some hushed, some with washes of noise and drone at their root. Some come from 40 years ago, some from the new century. Pay attention or tune them out as you will. Set them at the lowest volume on your Sonos or crank them up in your earbuds. As British-born Zen philosopher Alan Watts once esteemed: If you cant meditate in a boiler room, you cant meditate.

Tony Scott, Music for Yoga Meditation (1972)

Throughout the 1950s, Tony Scott contributed his cool style of clarinet for the finest ladies in jazz, such as Sarah Vaughn, Chris Connor, and Billie Holiday. But at the end of the decade, bebop took over and his gigs dried up. So Scott split from America and traveled through Southeast Asia, ultimately winding up in Japan, playing in a Hindu temple and getting hip to Lord Krishna. Upon his return in the mid-60s, he released Music for Zen Meditation and Other Joys, his clarinet playing moving slow as a mountain stream. Its an important precursor to the rise of New Age music, but Music for Yoga Meditation is the one to reach for, as Scotts clarinet moves with sitar across ten tracks that trace the rise of Kundalini energy through the chakras.

Charlemagne Palestine, Strumming Music (1974)

Charlemagne Palestine is the enfant terrible of New York minimalism in the 1970s, in the lineage of composers like La Monte Young and Terry Riley, but riding on his own wavelength. Born and bred in Brooklyn, Palestine sang in synagogue and wound up as carillonneur at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Manhattan, ringing bells every day and playing with their massive overtones for passersby. Palestine also began making noise on the gallery scene, with punk-like performances wherein he smashed himself against gallery walls or else did piano performances in a cognac-fueled trance surrounded by teddy bears. Which makes the steadfast, almost maniacal buildup of overtones on his first album, Strumming Music, feel all the more profound. Deeply focused and attuned to the play of overlapping drones that arise from the hammered piano keys, Palestine creates a sustained sound that is transportive.

Steve Hillage, Rainbow Dome Music (1979)

British guitarist Steve Hillage is a legend in prog-rock circles, bending strings and minds as member of bands like Gong, Khan, Kevin Ayers, and, bizarrely, alongside the likes of snotty punks Sham 69. In 1979, he was asked to create an ambient atmosphere in London for the 3rd Festival for Mind Body Spirit, a gathering of the tribes for folks interested in astrology, UFOs, Earth mysteries, yoga, dance, natural living, and more. Hillage obliged with a blissed-out soundtrack piped into a rainbow dome, creating this 43-minute opus full of treated guitars, twinkling ARPs, gurgling water sounds, and Tibetan bells. In the age of punk, it may have been seen as a hippie soundtrack, but by the end of the 80s, it became a staple of chill-out rooms. Hillage soon found himself back at the fore of adventurous electronic music, collaborating with merry pranksters The Orb and System 7.

Craig Kupka, Clouds (1981)

Not much is known about Craig Kupka, though he now serves as a faculty member at California State University and  as one comment on the record-nerd-heavy Waxidermy message board proclaimed  wow, this guy was my high school jazz band instructor. Before he was on RateMyProfessor.com, Kupka released a series of records in the late 70s meant to serve as modern dance technique environments, and at the turn of the decade, he released two ethereal albums on the Folkways label, putting his music in libraries around the country. Clouds was designed for classes in relaxation, meditation, quiet times in elementary schools, homes or office, as a non-eastern musical alternative for Yoga, the liner notes attest on his stunning drift of cumulous chords. [It]  can be used in Dance Therapy & Modern Dance Classes, anywhere that quiet non-rhythmic music is desired. Utilizing bells, vibraphone, bass guitar, synthesizers, and wind chimes, Kupka created a beatific, slow-moving suite, perfect for watching its subject matter float across the sky, or for letting your mind let go of all its temporal concerns.

Brian Eno, Thursday Afternoon (1985)

As the man most responsible for codifying the notion of ambient music, itd be remiss not to include his work here. And while albums like Discreet Music and Music for Airports are classics of ambient music, we suggest spinning his equally gorgeous mid-80s effort, Thursday Afternoon. Originally conceived as a soundtrack to a video painting of Christine Alicino (which was presented in a vertical format, meaning you had to lie down to view it properly), this hour-long piece sounds simple enough. An acoustic piano (which bears the slightest resemblance to the resonant piano from 1/1 of Airports) slowly moves through a progression as halos of synth glow behind it. Its soft enough that oft times the piece hovers at the edge of perception. But everything is phased in such a way that the relationships between notes and washes slowly shift. Focus on any one element and the whole grows fuzzy, to where your perception of the piece appears to alter the whole. A fine piece to observe, as Jamaican guru Mooji puts it, you are the knower of knowledge; you perceive perceiving.

Laraaji, Essence/ Universe (1987)

In a now infamous story, in the late 1970s comedian-musician Larry Gordon was busking in Washington Square Park on his autoharp, eyes closed as he went deep into his performance. Upon opening his eyes, he found a note from Brian Eno, saying he would like to talk about recording. Soon after, Gordon went into Enos studio, had his strings run through a light patina of electronic effects and came out with the epochal Ambient 3: Day of Radiance album; a new name, Laraaji (his first name and last name initial combined); and a new career as a conduit of transportive New Age music. He has released numerous cassettes over the years, but few reach the sumptuous highs as this 1987 album. Much like the cover photo suggests (which Laraaji took while on a flight), the album takes you above the clouds. Featuring two extended improvisations on zither, each treated and shaped by producer Richard Ashman, each piece takes you to vistas of gorgeous sound. If theres the sound of the heavens exhaling to attune your own breathing to, this is it.

Henry Wolff and Nancy Hennings, Tibetan Bells III (1988)

In the midst of classic rocks golden days in the early 70s, Henry Wolff and Nancy Hennings decided to hole up in the Island Records studio and make a record with just Tibetan bells and singing bowls. Using little more than struck metal from the Far East and capturing those subtle vibrations on tape, the duo found themselves at the fore of New Age music. Theyve now presented more than a few sequels to their original, and while almost any is a fine entry point into their immersive catalog, Tibetan Bells III features long excursions like Crossing the Line and The Empty Mirror. Rather than sound your own singing bowl as you sit, allow these two to sound the centering tones of these bells and take you on an inward journey.

Pauline Oliveros/ Stuart Dempster/ Panaiotis, Deep Listening (1989)

In 1971, Pauline Oliveros published a selection of text-based scores called Sonic Meditations. Part Fluxus, part listening exercise, part body awareness, part spiritual koan, these pieces might read like Meditation No. 5: Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears. Whether you allow your feet to become ears or not, awareness of the space surrounding you is crucial in meditation. And its a concept that became paramount on Oliveross 1989 album Deep Listening. Recorded inside of the 2 million-gallon Fort Worden Cistern in Port Townsend, Washington  which has a 45-second reverberation time that suggests the infinite in every utterance  this album explores the sound of the void. That length of reverb demands patience from its players, and so Oliveross deep-breathing accordion joins Stuart Dempsters trombone and didgeridoo, as well as Panaiotiss low murmurs, the trio converging and filling the very air around them with something approaching sublimity.

Eliane Radigue, Trilogie de la Mort (1998)

A momentous three-hour work that this underappreciated French electronic composer (and devoted Buddhist) made between 198593. Carefully filtering the frequencies of her mainstay instrument, the ARP 2500 modular synthesizer, Radigue transforms such circuitry until its a celestial hum. A series of early works from that decade were dedicated to the Tibetan yogi Milarepa, while Trilogie tackles a more formidable source, Bardo Thodol, or The Tibetan Book of the Dead. As a slowly undulating drone centers and transports, the work doesnt feel like an experiment in electronics so much as a pilgrimage towards the divine.

Gas, Pop (2000)

In the past few years, the Japanese notion of Shinrin-yoku (or forest bathing) has begun to catch on the West. It was originally coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in the 1980s, perhaps as a way to bring more people to their trails, but many today perceive it as a way to be at one with nature. That trend might not have reached electronic music producer Wolfgang Voigt when he was a young boy in Germany, but he wandered through the Konigsforst for its meditative properties from an early age. With his Gas project, Voigt pays tribute to the sounds of the forest, a brilliant run of ambient techno that peaks with 2000s Pop. It opens with gurgling rivers, bird trills, and synths like sunshine twinkling through the branches, before moving deeper and darker. Voigts beats turn subliminal as if pounding through the tree trunks. For those looking to visualize a nature walk as they sit in meditation, 2000s Pop can set you among the pine needles.
The city of Dallas in the summer of 2016 offered $3 million to anyone who would open at least one grocery store and preferably more to eliminate a sprawling food desert in south Dallas, an area dotted by impoverished, high-crime neighborhoods.

That offer so far has gone begging, but the chronic problem of residents having few options for buying nutritious food at reasonable prices continues to generate concern.

About a dozen community leaders and representatives of organizations committed to finding a solution traveled Friday to Jubilee Food Market at North 15th Street and Colcord Avenue in Waco. The 6,000-square-foot grocery store represents the vision of Mission Waco executive director Jimmy Dorrell and residents of a North Waco neighborhood living in a food desert of their own.

I was more than impressed. I was inspired, said Owen Lynch, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University and a senior research fellow at the Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity, whose causes include fighting poverty.

What I was most struck by was ownership of this project by the community, people from all over buying shares to raise money to make it happen, Lynch said. Jubilee Food Market demonstrates that you can provide a high-quality product  fresh, healthy food  as an alternative to sugary products, lottery tickets and cigarettes.

Mission Waco and the neighborhood raised between $500,000 and $1 million in private donations, corporate gifts, and donated or reduced-cost labor and materials to convert a building that housed a Safeway store decades ago into a grocery selling meat, fresh produce, canned goods and household items.

Crews also have installed an aquaponics system adjacent to the grocery store. This allows the growing of leafy greens using nutrients supplied by fish or aquatic animals.

The system cost about $62,000, Dorrell said, not counting installation of a 36-by-72-foot greenhouse. Mission Waco also has arranged for the installation of a rainwater catchment system and solar panels. A commercial composter built in Malaysia will arrive this week from Houston, and mid-June is the target date for putting it to use, Dorrell said in an email message.

The aquaponics system is slow starting because we have to create the ecosystem, Dorrell said. Were actually growing algae now before the first planting. It takes months for the PH factor in the water to stabilize for optimum growth. The fish and crawfish are added months later, though we will have some plants growing.

Anga Sanders, founder and director of Feed Oak Cliff, said she would love to replicate the Jubilee model several times over.

I had visited the store a month or so ago, and this time I wanted to bring a larger group, Sanders said. We have tried to recruit grocery stores to our area, and the process has been frustrating. We realized we are going to have to expand our method of accomplishing our goal, and we wanted to find out the back story of a nonprofit forming a grocery store. Jimmy Dorrell has quite the story to tell and was very gracious about meeting with us.

She said she agreed with Dorrells assessment that people who are part of the problem must be part of the solution, and that community input is vital to the success of such an undertaking.

If you plop something down and say, This is a great gift from the goodness of our heart, you will be told to take a hike, she said. If I didnt know this store was created by a nonprofit, I would think it is a typical grocery store. It is all anyone would want, unless your preference is a 50,000-square-foot superstore with a Starbucks, a floral department and a deli inside.

Stores are expensive

She added, Grocery stores are expensive, and the city of Dallas offer of $3 million may sound like a drop in the bucket to some of these chains. The official deadline for receiving the money, which was called a Notice of Funds Availability, has expired. But the city has said if it can find someone willing to get involved in such a project, it will still make the money available.

Froswa Booker-Drew, director of community affairs and strategic alliances for the State Fair of Texas, said some of those attending the meeting with Dorrell on Friday were representing organizations that could provide funding to assist with launching a grocery.

I was one of those who came down about a month ago, but we wanted more stakeholders this time who might catch the vision, she said. We look at what Jimmy has done here and see it as the framework for what we could do in Dallas.

She said the Fair Park area of Dallas is not without resources to help those desiring fresh fruit and vegetables. She said the Big Tex Urban Farm, for example, makes hundreds of pallets loaded with fruits and vegetables available to the community.

But the whole ecosystem that Jimmy Dorrell has set up is amazing, she said. He is so invested in that community and so well-respected. It takes having that kind of leader to drive the process. The other piece of the puzzle is that the community was willing to invest as well. So many partners got involved. When you can get Wal-Mart and H-E-B to provide funding, which they did, that is impressive. And I think we can do the same.

Lynch, the SMU professor, said much of Dallas entire southern sector is considered a food desert, meaning a population already strapped for disposable income must travel farther to shop.

If they are using public transportation, getting groceries means a three-hour round trip, Lynch said, adding that residents in low-income areas spend a larger percentage of their income on groceries.

Dallas is the third-fastest-growing city in the country, but it has 38 percent of its children living in poverty, he said. Were growing faster than most, but so is the poor population.
More than 30 Jack in the Box restaurants in Central Texas, including three in Greater Waco, have closed temporarily and will reopen by months end after an ownership change.

The franchisee for the restaurants defaulted on payments to the San Diego, California-based chain, which is assuming ownership of the locations, company spokesman Brian Luscomb said.

The owner was not meeting our brand standards, Luscomb said. There were building and maintenance issues, and money was owed to Jack in the Box.

Restaurants in Waco, Killeen, Copperas Cove, Hillsboro, College Station, Lufkin and Nacogdoches are part of the temporary closures, Luscomb said.

Locations in Greater Waco becoming corporate restaurants are located at 5125 Bosque Blvd., 725 S. University Parks Drive, 201 Hewitt Drive and 1525 Interstate 35 North in Bellmead.

Were going to look brand new on the inside, said Jeffrey Collins, an employee at the Jack in the Box on Bosque Boulevard.

Collins said staffers are giving the restaurant a thorough cleaning and taking inventory of equipment.

Luscomb said employees hired by the franchisee must go through a rehiring process when the corporate takeover is complete.
Testimony opened Monday in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a Corsicana woman who died at the former Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center 48 hours after she was admitted for lower back pain in 2011.

Daniel Gann, a former chaplain at Hillcrest; his two sons; and Marjorie Coslett, his deceased wifes mother, are suing Scott & White Memorial Hospital, doing business as Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, in what the family claims is the drug overdose death of his 35-year-old wife, Sarah.

Attorneys in the case selected a jury in 170th State District Court jury Monday morning and gave opening statements Monday.

Plaintiffs attorneys Jim Walker and Todd Kelly told jurors in opening statements that the hospitals lackluster record keeping and inattention to detail led to a lethal overdose of pain medications after Sarah Gann was admitted to the hospital complaining of back pain similar to kidney stones on Oct. 5, 2011.

Dallas attorney Stan Thiebaud, who represents the hospital, countered that Gann twice had been admitted to a hospital in Georgia the previous year and was given larger doses of pain medications than she received at Hillcrest. He said an autopsy showed she had an enlarged heart, which he said was more likely the cause of her death.

Case predates partnership

The lawsuit was filed before the hospital partnered with Baylor to become Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center.

Walker told jurors that Sarah Gann, a certified medical assistant and phlebotomist, was a loving mother, wife and daughter who adopted two sons and cared for a total of 35 foster children in their home.

This case is also about trust, the trust Sarah Gann put in the hands of the doctors and nurses at Hillcrest and what they did with that trust, Walker said.

Gann was given Dilaudid, a powerful pain medication, in the emergency room but had a negative reaction to it, Walker told jurors. The reaction was not properly noted in her charts, Walker said, and her pain continued after she was admitted on a level of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

As the pain persisted, hospital staff members gave her morphine through the night. When that didnt work, they gave her Dilaudid again, which, coupled with the morphine, depressed her respiration and caused her to Code Blue, Walker said.

When she was discovered, the lack of oxygen had damaged her heart and her brain. So they gave her Narcan. There is one and only one use for Narcan, and that is to reverse the effects of a narcotics overdose, Walker said. They knew she was overdosing, and they are the ones who gave it to her.

History of poor health

Thiebaud told jurors that it will be important to review Ganns medical history before she was admitted at Hillcrest. He said she was admitted to a hospital in February 2010 and again a month later for kidney stones and headaches.

During those admissions, she was given far more painkilling drugs that she ever got at Hillcrest, he said. It doesnt make sense that she overdosed, and it is not consistent with scientific evidence.

Thiebaud said the adverse reaction Gann experienced in the emergency room was to a transfusion, not the Dilaudid. Later, when the morphine was not easing her pain and she could not sleep, another small dose of Dilaudid got her to sleep and goal achieved, Thiebaud said.

She was given appropriate drugs in appropriate doses at appropriate times, he said. The drugs didnt cause her death. She was given drugs in therapeutic ranges that wouldnt be expected to cause her death.

Thiebaud said doctors, nurses and a respiratory therapist were caring for her during the night.

Thiebaud also asked the jury to judge the credibility of the expert witnesses each side will call in the case.

Kelly said Daniel Gann, who has since remarried and is a missionary in Fiji, also has paramedic training and could hear the urgency in the voice of the hospital employee who called him about his wife early that morning.

He understood the tone in that voice, Kelly said. The first thing he asked was, Did she code? Did she code? 

He later had to make the painful decision to disconnect his wife from life support, he said.

Court officials expect the trial to last two weeks.
Marlin Independent School District documents show an administrator who alleged two other administrators made moves to improperly award students course credit, leading to a review by the Texas Education Agency, may have herself played a key role in the students being improperly awarded the course credit and culminating in the TEA review.

Earlier this year, Marlin High School assistant principal RoShon Jackson filed a complaint with the TEA on behalf of multiple students, alleging administrators between March 29, 2016, and March 29, 2017, knowingly placed students in the districts Success Academy to skirt content requirements for courses and pass students in a shorter amount of time than a course actually takes, according to a TEA letter sent to the district April 24.

A document related to the complaint and submitted by Jackson allege Remy Godfrey, the Marlin High School principal and district assistant superintendent; and Sue Willert, an administrator at the districts Success Academy, directed at least seven special-education students to be placed in the academy to complete studies and receive course credit.

Jackson filed the TEA complaint six days after she was placed on administrative leave for unknown reasons. Her position within the district was also recently eliminated as part of a reduction in force by district officials to save money.

The allegations came just weeks before the districts graduation. The complaint was also made one day before the districts state-appointed board of managers voted to eliminate several special-education positions to help the district recover from a $1.1 million deficit budget.

The district also is facing the possibility of closure if it does not pass state academic accountability ratings this school year after failing the ratings five years in a row.

At least two major statements are factually incorrect in Jacksons complaint to the TEA. The academy  which helps students at risk of dropping out close achievement gaps, finish courses and improve state testing scores  did not exist last school year as the complaint states, Superintendent Michael Seabolt said. The academy started in fall 2016.

And documents obtained by the Tribune-Herald show that Jackson and several others who make up the Admission, Review and Dismissal Committee  which designates individual education programs and placement for special-education students  were responsible for making recommendations to place students in the academy.

Godfreys name is never mentioned, and Willerts name is only mentioned twice, while Jacksons handwritten signature is on all seven ARD recommendations made during the time frame of alleged wrongdoings, ARD minutes show.

However, in her complaint to the TEA, Jackson said the students were placed in the Success Academy under the direction of Remy Godfrey and Mrs. Sue Willert, yet did not state that Jackson herself signed off on the students admission to the academy.

The district has been doing its own internal investigation into the issue, Seabolt said. The superintendent did not want to talk about the complaint and referred the Tribune-Herald to Godfrey.

Godfrey confirmed the internal investigation and said Monday no student has been awarded course credit improperly to the best of the districts knowledge, but some deficiencies were discovered in how officials were using software to get through courses.

Not to pinpoint any of this, but its just a lack of knowledge, Godfrey said, referring to Jacksons complaint. They dont know, and theyre angry and theyre too busy trying to point the finger at someone else.

Prior to the Success Academy, the district had a learning center that served the same purpose and operated under the Falls County Co-op. When the district left the co-op several years ago, TEA officials told district officials that Marlin ISD needed something to fill its place. Thus, the Success Academy was created, Godfrey said.

Godfrey has been with the district for about four years, and the Success Academy has had about 14 students this first year, she said.

We have a bunch of kids . . . at risk of dropping out, who will come and tell you, I dont want to be here, Im dropping out. They dont come to school, its an issue, and thats kind of how we get a feel, Godfrey said. If youre here, and youre behind one or two credits, we dont even consider that. If youre behind a years worth, then yes, you are considered, and thats how people are considered for that program.

For special-needs students, the Success Academy is an option only if parents or students request the placement during an ARD meeting, Godfrey said. When an ARD committee convenes, they discuss the option and determine a plan of action, Godfrey said. Godfrey said she doesnt sit in on any ARD meetings.

It becomes the recommendation by the committee at that point if its a good thing or not, Godfrey said. That committee can turn down anything at any time. So if they dont agree in that room, it doesnt occur. If they agree in that room, it occurs. Thats why it kind of baffles us that we get a complaint on this when that is a legal, binding committee. No one can overturn that committees decision but that committee.

The only time I would sit in there is if she (Jackson) was out, but usually its recommended our (assistant principal) sit in on the ARDs because we have to do curriculum and everything else, so its part of the administrative duties.

ARD deliberation forms

On all seven ARD deliberation forms from Sept. 21, 2016, to March 1, 2017, Jackson is listed as the administrator on the committee. Four of the seven recommendations also state Jackson specifically made the recommendation, with the committee reaching a consensus as a whole. She also signed off on the other three recommendations.

Jacksons complaint also alleged students were completing courses in time frames impossible to meet, like a student finishing an entire math section for the year in less than two minutes. She alleged in the complaint that students course content was being reduced drastically.

But Godfrey said the district in its internal investigation discovered a lack of understanding about software called Odysseyware, an online learning experience used to measure completed courses by Success Academy officials and high school employees.

Weve kind of addressed that before. That program is built that if a kid needs to print off vocabulary . . . and the kid hits print, (then) close, then the lessons over with because the kid has to print it off, write on it and submit it back in and upload it to the system, Godfrey said. That doesnt mean that anything was smoozed off, its just done. Or it may say, upload your digital photography album. Well, it doesnt take two minutes to upload, so the lessons already done. Its already been recommended by the TEA for some of these people that are listed here (on the complaint) that you may want to go back and understand the system a little bit more.

Jackson said Monday afternoon she couldnt comment on the matter and referred the Tribune-Herald to her attorney, John McCormick. McCormick, who specializes in employment and educational law, was not available for comment.

Willert also was unavailable for comment.

The TEA is reviewing the complaint, but it has yet to reach the agencys special investigations unit, TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said earlier this month. The TEA is expected to have a decision on the complaint by May 28, the TEA letter states.
Students starting at McLennan Community College this fall will select one of six academic pathways designed to encourage graduation and a focus on career options.

The pathways are business and industry; creative arts; health professions; liberal arts; public service; and science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Its focusing on completion, and completion in a more effective time frame for the students, Dean of Health Professions Glynnis Gaines said.

The program was born out of American Association of Community Colleges research indicating students sometimes take unnatural routes to degrees or certificates by taking too many courses or earning credits irrelevant to their degree plans.

The research also pointed to high costs, low graduation rates and years-long delays to complete two-year degrees, according to an MCC press release. Under the Pathways program, students can go without a specific major for their first semester at MCC.

Mandatory advising and career service meetings also keep a focus on career opportunities.

Its not just the certificate or the degree, but actually what you can do with that, Gaines said. And, exploring those careers within the degrees, our pathways look into those as well. Theres a destination on the pathway.

Improving ties with high school students taking MCC dual credit courses is an added goal of the program, said Londa Carriveau, program director of High School Pathways. Dual credit students choose a pathway after completing 18 college credit hours.

Even though theyre taking these classes in high school, theyre college courses, Carriveau said. We dont want those to be taken randomly or capriciously. We want them to select those with a goal in mind so those credits will go with them on a degree path they pursue after high school.
Two decades is a long time to spend at one company. That is how long our newly beatified education crusader David Gonski has been on the board of Coca-Cola Amatil (CCL) before retiring as its chairman after the shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

But CBD could not help but feel that something was missing from the investor-fest.

Like a modest mention of that sugary brown fizzy liquid that provides the lion's share of the company's earnings: Coke.

If the company's name did not include the words Coca-Cola, it would not have featured at all in his speech, or that of his replacement, Ilana Atlas.
Property developers are leading a revolt against the Victorian government's stamp duty changes, with 24 industry leaders signing a letter warning of a "dramatic slowdown" and "significant impact" on construction jobs.

A cohort of high-profile property developers including industry veteran Max Beck, Hickory's Michael Argyrou, young rich-lister Jonathan Hallinan and Evolve's Ashley Williams have written to Treasurer Tim Pallas saying the changes will hurt property buyers and the industry.

"We believe there will be a significant loss of construction jobs throughout Victoria," the developers said.

About 83 per cent of cranes on Melbourne's skyline are building residential projects.
Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions' recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths - before giving an interview to NBC's Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

Trump accompanied that confession with self-serving - and manifestly false - assertions about having been assured by Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump's own account, he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as director.

Further reporting suggests the encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge "loyalty" to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump - something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of "obstruction of justice" is to empty that concept of all meaning. Obstruction of justice was the first count in the articles of impeachment against Nixon and, years later, a count against Bill Clinton. In Clinton's case, the ostensible obstruction consisted solely in lying under oath about a sordid sexual affair that may have sullied the Oval Office but involved no abuse of presidential power as such.

But in Nixon's case, the list of actions that together were deemed to constitute impeachable obstruction reads like a forecast of what Trump would do decades later - making misleading statements to, or withholding material evidence from, federal investigators or other federal employees; trying to interfere with FBI or congressional investigations; trying to break through the FBI's shield surrounding ongoing criminal investigations; dangling carrots in front of people who might otherwise pose trouble for one's hold on power.
No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.

This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries.

The Tesla S electric car has only 18 moving parts.

Seba's premise is that people will stop driving altogether. We will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are 10 times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel.

Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand. It will become harder to find a petrol station, spares, or anybody to fix the 2000 moving parts that bedevil the internal combustion engine.
The government has hit back at Ken Henry after the NAB chairman and former Treasury secretary lashed the government's $6.2 billion bank levy and criticised its lack of consultation with the banks.

In comments published on Tuesday, Dr Henry said the new tax on Australia's big four retail banks and investment giant Macquarie Bank was a burden on their capital reserves, and the government should be honest about the cost being passed onto consumers.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told ABC radio the banks should not pass the extra costs onto customers.

"He knows as well as I do that the banks can well afford to pay this," Mr Turnbull said.
A 19-year-old man has been charged over an attempted armed robbery at an East Perth supermarket on Tuesday morning.

Police spokesman Adam Brouwer said the man entered the supermarket on Adelaide Terrace shortly after midnight brandishing a knife and threatened a staff member, demanding money.

Police located the armed man near the alleged attempted robbery. Credit:Georgia Matts

The man left the store empty-handed after the attendant refused to hand over the cash.

Officers from the Regional Investigations Unit, Central Metro Response and Dog Squad searched the surrounding area and found the man on St Georges Terrace near Sherwood Court shortly after.
A WA school teacher indecently recorded several dozen of his students over a three year period in classrooms, during recess and lunch, on school buses and in storerooms using cameras and mobile phones, a Perth court has heard.

Christopher Ryan Jones, 31, entered guilty pleas earlier this year to 62 charges, including 57 counts of indecently recording a child.

Christopher Ryan Jones will be sentenced next week.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing and producing child exploitation material.

The majority of his offending related to the indecent recording of female children wearing stockings and skirts at the schools he taught at. Some of the girls were as young as six.
The news was first reported by The Washington Post and, soon after, many organisations - including BuzzFeed, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times - quickly published their own accounts of the disclosure.

Mr Trump's Twitter posts on Tuesday morning appeared to undercut the carefully worded statements made by his advisers on Monday night to try to dispute the original news reports without taking issue with specific facts in them. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that the president "did not discuss sources, methods or military operations" with the Russians. Mr McMaster, likewise told reporters that Mr Trump had not disclosed intelligence methods or sources.

But The Post and the other news organisations did not report that he had done so. Instead, they focused on the breach of espionage etiquette, and on the possibility that US allies might be discouraged from sharing intelligence with the United States. They also noted Mr Trump's tendency to go off-script, at times to the chagrin of his advisers.

Mr McMaster told reporters on Monday that The Post's account "as reported" was "false," but in his Twitter posts on Tuesday morning, Mr Trump made no such assertion and instead sought to justify what he had done. In his briefing several hours later, Mr McMaster suggested that there was no distinction. "I stand by my statement I made yesterday," he said. "What I'm saying is the premise of that article is false."

This has become something of a pattern: On Thursday, Mr Trump told NBC News that the FBI's investigation of his campaign's ties to Russia had been a factor in his decision to fire the bureau's director, James Comey, and that the decision was not related to a recommendation from the deputy attorney general. Those comments undercut the accounts provided by his vice president and other advisers.

In his Tuesday posts on Twitter, Mr Trump tried to turn attention away from whether he had leaked information to finding those who had disclosed what he had done. "I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community," he wrote.
The 12th Meeting of the CPLP* Customs High Level Working Group, was held in Dili, Timor-Leste, from 25 to 28 April 2017 to discuss the implementation stage of the Technical Assistance and Cooperation Integrated Programme (PICAT). The Minister for Planning and Strategic Investment of Timor-Leste, Mr. Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao welcomed the delegates to his country and emphasized the relevance of hosting the meeting considering several recent strategic economic and political achievements by Timor-Leste, such as the approval by the government of implementation and use of ASYCUDA, the adoption of the Arusha Declaration and the development of a Single Window project.

The CPLP Customs Administrations, represented by Angola, Brazil, Portugal, S. Tome and Principe and Timor-Leste, discussed the implementation of the 5th Edition of PICAT, established to enhance the supportive actions among members, which includes the work developed by specialized working groups on the Harmonized System, the Revised Kyoto Convention, and the virtual working groups on Domestic Tax, on Maritime and on Airways Procedures. Delegates also shared the latest technical and political developments at their Administrations.

The WCO praised the efforts of the CPLP Customs Secretariat and the work done by the RKC working group to translate and harmonize the Portuguese version of the Convention, and congratulated the accession to the RKC by Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Portugal, recognizing the complex process for the accession and implementation of the Convention. The WCO reminded delegates of its availability to provide the necessary support for both processes.

The meeting also discussed the strategic and strong cooperation between CPLP and the WCO, particularly by allocating a representative at the Secretariat, under the Career Development Programme, to promote the Portuguese language in the international arena. The current CPLP representative at the WCO from Angola appreciated the support by the CPLP, the WCO, the CCF Japan and the Angola Revenue Administration in the challenge of providing technical and administrative support to both organizations, while at the same time being given the opportunity to develop personal and professional qualities.

The latest initiatives from the WCO regarding Gender Equality were presented, among those the important Gender Equality Organizational Assessment tool (GEOAT) which has been developed to support the Customs Administrations in assessing their own policies, practices and activities to promote diversity and gender equality. The WCO Gender Equality survey developed by the Capacity Building Directorate is used to collect updates on current policies and practices implemented by the Members. A new module on Gender and Diversity in the WCO Leadership and Management Development Workshop was also presented. The CPLP Members were invited to include this topic on their Customs reform and modernization programme. Delegates were reminded that promoting Gender Equality and Diversity at the workplace has been shown to encourage innovation as well as improve individual and organizational performance.

*CPLP  Portuguese Speaking Countries Community
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By Tim Brockwell May. 16, 2017 | 04:29 PM | MARSHALL COUNTY, KY

A food pantry in Marshall County that has helped feed thousands of people over the years is celebrating six years of serving the community.Marcella Perkins says she decided to start Marcella's Kitchen at 242 Griggstown Road after working to feed the hungry in McCracken County. She began meeting with local volunteers in Marshall County, and before long things were up and running."We got started because I worked in Paducah's Community Kitchen for a couple of years. During that time I guess I wondered if Marshall County needed one, and so we had our first meeting at the Woodmen of the World building in January of 2011. We've been up and running for six years now." Perkins said.Over the years, Perkins and other volunteers have served well over 100,000 meals to those in need. One thing she says that sets her kitchen apart from some other food pantries is their no questions asked policy for anyone who needs a meal. Anyone can come in and sit down to eat, without fear of any judgement or rejection."We've served about a hundred thousand meals now in six years to our friends in Marshall County," Perkins said. "We have a free meal five days a week, and we don't ask any questions. You don't have to qualify to be here."Perkins says they serve about 70-80 people on an average day, but Tuesday's anniversary celebration brought in about 110 people. As a true non-profit, she says her kitchen relies solely on donations from the community to supply the resources to feed so many people. "Our largest fundraiser is the Empty Bowls Project. We've had it in the spring, but we're moving it to the fall this year. It will be at Marshall County High School on September 9th. We've had Woodmen of the World have a food drive for us, 4H Club and different things like that. Some of the churches have us in their budgets, and then we have individuals that donate once a month." She said.Perkins added that she is proud to serve Marshall County. "It's been quite a blessing, and the county has been very supportive of us." She said.Marcella's Kitchen is open Monday through Friday, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. To learn more or to donate call Grace Forte at 270-205-0223, or email galw1984@gmail.com.

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By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 16, 2017 | 05:51 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

A Graves County man was arrested over the weekend on methamphetamine and marijuana charges.

According to the Mayfield Police Department, officers responded on Friday to a suspicious person at South 2nd and Jones streets. Officers arrived and spoke with 24-year-old Joseph Tylor Jones of Mayfield.

Jones gave police permission to search his back pack. Inside the back pack, officers reportedly found methamphetamine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

When police tried to arrest Jones, he tried to flee on foot. Officers were able to apprehend Jones and arrest him.

He was lodged in the Graves County Jail on charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest and fleeing or evading police.
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press May. 15, 2017 | 10:38 AM | FRANKFORT, KY

The Republican Party of Kentucky says executive director Mike Biagi is stepping down to take a position with a Louisville-based lobbying group next month.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Biagi will join The Rotunda Group, a business advocacy firm that specializes in government relations and business development. There was no immediate word on who would succeed Biagi as executive director.

State Republican Party Chairman Mac Brown praised the work of Biagi, who helped Republicans gain control of the state House for the first time in nearly a century.

Republican House Speaker Jeff Hoover of Jamestown called Biagi's leadership "crucial in winning our new majority."

Biagi was a Kentucky staffer for U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell before becoming executive director of the state GOP.

___

Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
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The opening moments sum up the show. Six schoolgirls in kilts step forward, hands folded neatly. They lift their eyes to the hills and sing a snatch of Mendelssohn like angels. But the second the strains of song die away, they slump, puff out their cheeks and emerge in the disaffected pose of youth.

And that's Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour for you  a musical adaptation by Lee Hall of Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos. Its surface is all foul-mouthed attitudes and bolshie teenagers, as its heroines use the excuse of a choir competition to go on the lash in Edinburgh. But underneath beats a heart of pure emotional gold. It is simultaneously the rudest, the most exuberant and the most touching show in the West End.

The plot is a thin thread, beautifully woven. Hall's structure and Vicky Featherstone's swift, tight direction take the girls from excited anticipation  "Let's go fucking mental"  to drunken disaster  disqualification from the choir competition when one of their number "threw up during the Vaughan Williams"  and final reckoning back in home in Oban, where all face expulsion. En route, they encounter a whole host of characters from frightened bar tenders, to prim nuns, to predatory and ridiculous men, every one of them played, with a twitch of the shoulders, or a curl of the lip and a swagger of the hips, by the six actresses who also play the choir.

The vignettes of their encounters are punctuated by music, both sacred and very profane, from Bach to the Electric Light Orchestra, all sung with zest and skill. Everything about the show gleams with care  the playing of the all-female band, Imogen Knight's choreography, Chloe Lamford's deliberately shambolic set, dominated by a statue of Our Lady with a red, beating heart. And above all the writing, which has the precision and rhythm of urban poetry.

I've seen this National Theatre of Scotland and Live Theatre co-production three times now as it has journeyed from its Traverse Theatre premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 2015 via a national tour and a sojourn at the National Theatre which enabled it to pick up the Olivier for best comedy. Each time has been pure pleasure but what I noticed watching the opening night of its West End season is that is has simultaneously broadened and deepened. It has expanded its comedy and its musical panache  it really rocks the house  while the performances mine deeper into the subtlety of the characters portrayed.

It deserves to turn its six excellent actresses into stars  five of them have been with the production from the first, and the new girl slots in so effortlessly that she might as well have been. They find touching individuality in each of their characters who, without their care and conviction, could have lapsed into caricature.

So we grow to understand brassy Chell (Caroline Deyga) who still misses her dead father, lost at sea ("We kept his shaving things on a shelf in case he was stranded on an inlet"); reluctant virgin Orla (newcomer Isis Hainsworth, making an astonishing stage debut) who knows she is dying of cancer; posh girl Kay (Karen Fishwick) who has blighted her own life chances; sad Manda (Kirsty MacLaren) so poor yet so determined to be happy that she treats herself to "Cleopatra baths" made with two spoonfuls of powdered milk, mouthy Kylah (Frances Mayli McCann) who dreams of musical stardom; and bolshie Fionnula (Dawn Sievewright) whose horizons open and whose sense of possibility blossoms even as she sees the lives of her friends tumbled into chaos.

They effortlessly embody the play's compassionate gaze at lives that are pinioned and restricted by circumstance, but are lived by people who want to suck out of every passing moment each chance of happiness and each golden morning. It's a glorious, rude thing, full of life and hope. Everyone should see it.

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is currently booking at the Duke of York's Theatre until 2 September.
Ajax have released a new away kit for next season and betcha-by-golly-wow its a bit of a stunner.

Its inspired by the stone cold classic navy and red number the Dutch club wore while beating AC Milan in the 1995 Champions League final  which, coming just a few weeks before their imminent appearance in the 2017 Europa League final, feels pleasantly fitting.

Just like the 95 vintage, the new blue strip features a graphic print, though its slightly more subtle than its predecessor, with the red detailing limited to the stripes across the shoulders

Sweet Jesus, aint she purdy?

Legend has it, if you stare long enough into that pattern, a 3D Magic Eye image of Louis van Gaal eventually emerges.
Hard to fathom, we know, but it turns out that Mino Raiolas recent brag that Zlatan Ibrahimovics super strong knees have been deemed worthy of medical research were a little over-egged.

Raiola was speaking after his client went under the knife at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to fix the cruciate ligament injury suffered against Anderlecht in mid-April that prematurely ended his season.

He claimed that, during the operation, the doctors were so struck by the constitution of Zlatans joints that theyd asked to use him as a test subject in their ongoing research.

His knee is so strong that the doctors said they had never seen anything like it, Raiola told Expressen.

They research a lot on the subject and that is why they are better than everyone else, and doctors want back Zlatan to do research on him.

However, one of those very doctors, Dr Volker Musahl, has since downplayed Raiolas grandiose claims, telling German paper Die Welt:

It was a routine surgery. There were no complications. Zlatan has a very good bone structure and his knee is absolutely in a good condition. But it is a bit of an exaggeration to say it will be a research object.

We know, we know. Just when you thought youd found a global mega-agent you could trust
Polska Press sp. z.o.o informuje, ze wszystkie tresci ukazujace sie w serwisie naszemiasto.pl podlegaja ochronie. Dowiedz sie wiecej.

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Welcome to the first instalment of Jen Tries, a semi-regular feature in which Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti will try something new and report back.

ANOLA  Upon arriving at 10 Acres Farm, a bucolic petting farm and animal rescue just east of the city, I feel my whole body exhale. Its one of those perfect mid-spring evenings, when the sun is warm but the breeze is cool. I am here to try goat yoga  which is just like regular yoga, but with goats.

If goat yoga sounds like something out of a Portlandia sketch, youre not far off: the goat yoga craze began in Oregon. Lainey Morse, the owner of No Regrets Farm in Albany, Ore., began offering yoga classes with her eight goats. By January, numerous media outlets from the Washington Times to CNN reported on her classes, which had a waiting list of 1,200. Now, goat yoga is a bona fide wellness trend, with classes being held on farms all over North America.

Tara McKean, owner of 10 Acres Farm, decided to bring the idea to Manitoba. It seemed like a great idea, she says. I already had the petting farm, and the animals love people. Its great therapy for the animals. By April, the farm was offering classes on weeknights and weekends, and the response has been overwhelming. Were already booking into June, McKean says.

Tonights hour-long class begins at 6 p.m., but it doesnt start on time. The vibe at 10 Acre Woods is relaxed. About a dozen of us are participating: the members of a synchronized swimming team, my Free Press colleague Erin Lebar and me.

Jessica Finn / Winnipeg Free Press A goat cosies up to Winnipeg Free Press reporter Jen Zoratti (left) as she tries to focus on her yoga pose. In the background, another goat gets friendly with multimedia producer Erin Lebar.

There are a few things you should know about goat yoga heading in. For one, its more like farm yoga. Everyone is invited: sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, the occasional pig and Barry. Barry is an extremely chill alpaca, but hes more of an observer than a participant. Hes new to the farm and is working on his social skills.

Two, there will be poop. Far less poop than I was expecting, mind you, but enough poop. You have to be cool with the possibility that one of your new furry, fluffy or feathered pals will poop near or on your mat. You will come to truly understand the expression like shit through a goose.

Three, you will end up doing approximately 12 minutes of actual yoga.

Jessica Finn / Winnipeg Free Press Lenora the goat was born a triplet and had an underbite, so she was disowned by her mother. Lucky for her, she sleeps with the chicks in their enclosure at night.

We roll out our mats in the middle of the yard and begin the class. I have some trouble getting focused. A little goat wanders up to me and starts nibbling on the hem of my yoga pants. Another is snacking on my shoelaces. A goose almost steps directly onto my face. The goats are friendly and curious; theyll stand on your back when youre in Childs Pose or weave between your legs while youre in Warrior II. They are so cute I want to scream.

The yoga itself, if youre here for it, is quite intermediate  but Christine Collett, tonights instructor, is more than willing to be flexible with those of us who are not at all flexible. I love the idea of yoga, but I am not what youd call a yogi. My regular yoga practice consists of bookmarking yoga videos and thinking, I should really get into yoga! Here is a complete list of activities I do in yoga pants: drink wine.

Tonights class confirms two things: 1. I am bad at yoga. 2. I am some kind of incredible baby-goat whisperer. At one point I have no less than five baby goats on my mat, which is realistically too many goats to be conducive to yoga. Taking breaks to interact with the goats is heartily encouraged by Christine, so eventually, I abandon the yoga part entirely and start taking selfies with Moojo and Carly, two snoozing baby pygmy goats who have passed out in the warm evening sun on the foot of my mat. They smell like freshly-mown grass and happiness. As it turns out, snuggling with those little goats is just as restorative as the yoga.

We stretch out in savasana. Relax, says Christine, soothingly. Listen to the sound of the animals. Which, in that exact moment, is a close-range cacophony of honking geese. Goat yoga doesnt take itself too seriously.

Jessica Finn / Winnipeg Free Press A goat gets comfortable on Winnipeg Free Press reporter Jen Zoratti yoga mat at the 10 Acre Woods Petting Farm and Animal Rescue in Anola.

After we say namaste, McKean tells us about some of the animals, many of whom are rescues and orphans. One of the sweetest baby goats is Little Lenora, who was abandoned by her mother because of an underbite that prevents her from suckling. Which is normal in the animal world, McKean says. Its more humane to let them die quicker than to make them suffer by starving each day. McKean tried bottle-feeding, but that was a no go because of the underbite. She set up Lenora in with the chicks, so she could die where it was peaceful and warm  and the chicks taught Lenora how to drink out of a bowl. I have no doubts shell make it now, and she has her own herd of chicks, McKean says.

We dont care if you have issues here, McKean says of her animals, but she could just as easily be talking about the people who find refuge and healing at 10 Acre Farms. Many folks dealing with mental-health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety have reaped the therapeutic benefits of hanging out with animals. The animals are also able to build trust with humans.

There are some house rules at 10 Acres Farm: no running, chasing or picking up the animals.

Weve seen phenomenal things happen with the animals and certain people, McKean says. We have one lady who comes and she sits with the pigs. They all come and lie right down beside her, and theyre her pigs. Those connections are huge.

Shes not wrong. I left 10 Acres Farm happier than a yogi in goat poop.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @JenZoratti

Jessica Finn / Winnipeg Free Press. Kate Tucker, 15, from Cornerbrook, NFLD, focusses on the horizon while goats get comfortable on her mat.
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Northern Manitoba resources sector was hit with another blow Tuesday morning with the announcement that Vale Canada is suspending operation of one of its Thompson mines throwing about 200 out of work by the beginning of October.

The unexpected news that the Birchtree Mine will go on care and maintenance is added grief for workers with Vale in Thompson who are already preparing for 500 job losses when the smelter and refinery close in 2018.

The mine has been under review since 2012 and company officials said capital investment and commitment by the workforce has done well to keep it operating this long. A few years ago the projected life of the mine was 2016.

The Thompson nickel mine complex

A company official stressed the role the employees have played in making it possible to keep the mine open as long as it has, adding the suspension of operations is all about economic conditions.

But thats little solace for workers, many of whom have lengthy careers in the Thompson nickel mines.

Les Elsworth, the president of the United Steel Workers local 6166 in Thompson, said, Ive been here for 33 years and this has been my worst day except for when a member has been killed on the job.

He said workers and the company have worked well together since the last labour dispute in 1999 but he said there is a feeling workers were left in the lurch this time when the decision to close the mine was made without any consultation with workers.

Over the last few years the company and union have succeeded in cutting more than $100 million of costs out of the operations.

Mark Scott, vice-president, of the Manitoba operations said in a prepared statement, Birchtree Mine and the men and women who work there have been an important part of the Manitoba operations for much of our 60-year history. The mine has been especially challenged over the past several quarters as it nears the end of its life of mine plan, and in light of the prolonged downturn in the nickel price cycle.

On Tuesday, nickel was trading at US $4.13 per pound on the London Metals Exchange down from about US $9.75 in April 2014.

The latest news means Vales current workforce in Thompson of 1,400 will be cut in half by the end of 2018.

Ryan Land, Vales manager of corporate affairs and organizational development, said the company realizes it is more challenging news for the employees and the community.

He and Scott said the company remains committed to a long-term mining and milling future in Thompson.

But the elimination of 200 jobs this fall and another 500 in a year and a half  jobs that pay upwards of $100,000 per year  could be devastating to the city of 13,750.

Thompson Mayor Dennis Fenske said it was unexpected bad news but efforts have been underway for some time to develop a diversification strategy.

We have lots of work to do. Its not going to be easy, he said. It is going to take all levels of government plus industry to deal with this. We could say the sky is falling but that doesnt help anything. We need to deal with what we are faced with. Im confident in the community and the organizations here that we will come through it.

The latest mine closure is one more blow to the Northern economy. It is still reeling from the closure of the Port of Churchill and the uncertainty over the future of the Hudson Bay Railway which has already reduced freight service from The Pas to Churchill.

Then there is the looming closure of the major mine in Flin Flon that HudBay Minerals is forecasting will happen in 2020. The Pas dodged a bullet last year with the announced closure of the kraft paper plant that was forestalled by the purchase of that plant by Canadian Kraft Paper Industries Limited.

Elsworth was particularly disappointed by the lack of outreach from the Pallister government, none of whom called the union office to express interest or concern.

It appears the North is dying and the government is sitting out there watching while all this happening, he said. We are left up here as if we are forgotten about.

Though he didnt call the workers, Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen did extend his sympathies to workers and families affected by the closure.

Obviously, it was a very tough business decision that Vale had to make at this point in time, he said Tuesday. Clearly this is a financial decision they had to make.

Tom Lindsey, the NDP MLA for Flin Flon, said the closure is bad news for the community of Thompson. If youre talking about a couple of hundred jobs disappearing, where are those folks going to go? And whats the government doing?

Lindsey said the Pallister government has long promised to unveil a northern economic strategy, but so far its done next to nothing about it.

Christian Sinclair, chief of Opaskwayak Cree Nation near The Pas, is co-chair of the provinces Look North, Northern economic development initiative. He said the initiative has produced some thinking outside the box.

There is a realization that people need to work together with more collaboration whether between First Nations and /or townships and municipalities and small businesses and the resource industries, Sinclair said.

 with files from Larry Kusch

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The maker of Budweiser, facing more competition in America from craft brews and cocktails, is spending billions to fight back.

Anheuser-Busch InBev will devote US$2 billion in U.S. capital spending to bolstering its flagship brands and improving distribution. The money also will help support the companys forays into near beer, alcoholic sparkling water, and other products  such as tea  that are far afield from its original mission.

The investment, which extends through 2020, is a bet that Anheuser-Busch can push into new categories without neglecting its core business: traditional beer brands. Striking that balance will be key to the companys future, Anheuser-Busch CEO Joao Castro Neves said in an interview.

The first US$500 million will be spent this year on what Castro Neves calls the companys three pillars: elevating its biggest beer brands, building its presence in craft brews and imports, and pushing beyond regular beer into low-alcohol beverages and other drinks.

Anheuser-Busch has already bought nine U.S. craft-beer brands, and its in the process of closing a deal for Asheville, N.C.-based Wicked Weed, which makes beers with names such as Angel of Darkness, Iron Lady and Barrel Aged French Toast.

Castro Neves sees the companys craft and smaller-scale producers as key to keeping up with rapid shifts in customer preferences. They are very close to consumers, and they help us stay ahead of the curve, he said.

The companys capital spending will help foster some of its smaller brands. Castro Neves cited a US$15-million investment at a facility in Fairfield, Calif., that will allow craft partner Elysian Brewery to produce its Space Dust beer there. (Elysians website describes the hops flavour as pure starglow energy.)

Expanding the portfolio is critical because beer volumes are declining, particularly in Anheuser-Buschs top categories.

The investments will include US$200 million this year to improve operations at the companys 12 largest U.S. breweries and US$180 million to enhance packaging and expand the production of aluminum bottles. Anheuser-Busch will spend US$82 million on its supply chain, including new distribution centres in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, and US$10 million to expand nonalcoholic production in Baldwinsville, N.Y.

We are investing big behind this market because its so important, Castro Neves said.

But also because we see growth opportunities.

 Bloomberg News
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy will help lead a new group looking for solutions to the global refugee crisis.

Axworthy has been appointed to the World Refugee Council, an independent group of global leaders and innovators launched by the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., with support from the federal government.

With the crisis in Syria entering its sixth year and new crises emerging in Africa and around the world, the current refugee protection system is struggling to meet the needs of states and refugees alike, Axworthy said in a news release. Now more than ever there is an urgent need for bold and innovative thinking on how we can improve international co-operation and ensure more predictable outcomes for refugees and states alike.

Lloyd Axworthy has been appointed to the World Refugee Council. (Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press files)

The council will offer advice on broad reforms and new ideas to reinvigorate the global refugee system, the release said. It will develop a transformative agenda to help ensure that international co-operation for refugees is predictable, equitable and just.

The council will provide research and recommendations on structural reform, including how best to manage refugee movements, the release said. It will directed by Fen Osler Hampson, who runs the Centre for International Governance Innovations global security and politics program, and Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.

We have reached a tipping point within the global refugee crisis where new models of collaboration are desperately needed, Hampson said in the release. Our goal is to work with civil society, international organizations, the private sector and governments to improve outcomes for refugees and states alike.

Axworthys co-chairs are Jakaya Kikwete, former president of Tanzania; Hina Jilani, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan; and Rita Sussmuth, immigration reform advocate and former president of the German Bundestag.
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This article was published 15/05/2017 (2004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Pallister Investments 22 Ltd., is a holding company, the premier told the legislature Monday during another insult-laden question period.

What precisely does it do? Fort Garry-Riverview NDP MLA James Allum demanded. The people of Manitoba need to know whether the premier has a conflict.

Pallister answered, but offered little detail.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier Brian Pallister faces media after question period at the Legislative Building, Wednesday, May 10, 2017.

Its a holding company, he said. It holds the retained earnings of 40 years of work; thats what a holding company does.

The NDP continued to attack Pallister over the lack of detail about the company, and about how and with whom he communicates while hes away at his vacation home in Costa Rica.

The NDPs Andrew Swan claimed last week during the premiers estimates that Pallister first disclosed the company among his properties and investments in November, but the premier said Monday he disclosed his ownership in the company in 2013 and has gone beyond the required information.

Theres nothing new here, Pallister said. They try to score cheap political points, and then misrepresent the fact. I know (Swan) made up information about his previous leader, so I shouldnt be surprised that he would make up information about me.

Dont make stuff up, Pallister told Swan (Minto).

Citing Saskatchewan Premier Brad Walls decision last week to use only government email, Swan demanded Pallister do the same.

The premier said hes talking to experts  including the clerk of the executive council and the auditor general  about ways to improve the security of his communications, and accused Swan of embarrassing himself by raising issues already addressed.

Pallisters estimates had been scheduled to resume Monday afternoon, as were the estimates of Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen, But Olivia Billson, the premiers press secretary, said they were busy with a cabinet committee.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 15/05/2017 (2004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The court is still waiting to hear the results of a not-criminally responsible assessment that could determine the fate of a truck driver-turned-fugitive accused in the death of a 21-year-old man.

With a trial only three weeks away and ongoing concern about court delays in the nearly four-year-old case, Crown and defence lawyers said Monday they still havent received the NCR assessment for Randolf Enns, which was ordered in January.

Enns, in his mid-30s, is charged with dangerous driving causing the death of 21-year-old Derek Bossuyt in a July 2013 crash near Headingley. Enns was reportedly living in Paraguay for months, avoiding the charges against him, after he failed to show up for his trial in October 2014 and a Canada-wide warrant was issued for his arrest. He was arrested on that warrant more than two years later after landing in Toronto. Enns had booked a flight from South America to Toronto, intending to return to Winnipeg from there on Nov. 10, 2016. A Manitoba RCMP spokesman told the Free Press police werent sure whether it was Enns intention to turn himself in.

Submitted photo Derek Bossuyt, above, was killed in a July 2013 crash on the Trans-Canada Highway near Headingley when the pickup truck he was driving was hit head-on by a semi truck driven by Randolf Enns. Enns was later charged with dangerous driving causing death and resisting arrest, but he skipped his trial and was believed to be living in Paraguay.

During a brief court appearance Monday, Crown attorney Manoja Moorthy and Enns defence lawyer, Laura Robinson, said the psychiatrist tasked with completing the NCR report has not yet finished it despite being granted an extension in March.

The Crown expressed concern that Enns trial, now set to begin on June 5, will be delayed further. The case was simply adjourned until next week with no new trial dates set.

Enns defence team requested the NCR assessment to determine his mental state at the time of the fatal crash, which had happened more than three years earlier. The assessments are meant to find out whether an accused was suffering from a mental disorder that made it impossible for him to understand what he was doing was wrong. Under Canadian law, a not-criminally-responsible assessment can be ordered even after an accused is found guilty, but before they are officially convicted.

Bossuyt was killed after the pickup truck he was driving was hit head-on by a semi-truck that had crossed the centre line of the Trans-Canada Highway near Headingley on July 22, 2013. Enns, formerly of Ladysmith, B.C., was charged with dangerous driving causing death and with resisting arrest. He is now also charged with failing to attend court and breaching his bail conditions.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kenora is mourning the loss of its last city police chief, who was identified Tuesday as the man killed last week in a kayaking accident in Manitoba.

Dan Jorgensen, 59, was kayaking from his hometown to Gimli  where he planned to go skydiving with friends to mark his 60th birthday  when his kayak overturned in rough waters at the base of Sturgeon Falls in Whiteshell Provincial Park.

RCMP reported the death Tuesday, but it occurred Friday night.

Facebook photo Dan Jorgensen, 59, a former chief of the Kenora Police Service, was killed last week while kayaking in Whiteshell Provincial Park.

In a news release, RCMP said they took a call about 8:20 p.m. Friday from witnesses who had spotted a kayaker in distress in Nutamik Lake in the Whiteshell. They were too far away to help him.

When RCMP arrived, an officer went onto the lake in a patrol boat with a conservation officer. They found Jorgensen, who was wearing a life jacket.

Jorgensen was an avid outdoorsman who spent a lot of time canoeing and kayaking in regional lakes and rivers. His Facebook account is full of photographs of himself and various wildlife he encountered against backdrops deep in the boreal forest.

In his retirement, Jorgensen was a strong advocate for social justice, working to build relationships and services with Kenoras homeless and indigenous populations.

Its just a tragic day for everybody in the city, Kenora city Coun. Sharon Smith said by phone. Dan was so well-loved. He was such a community man, such a good father and grandfather, a friend to all.

Jorgensen oversaw the dissolution of the Kenora Police Service, when city council disbanded the force in 2009 and contracted the service out to the Ontario Provincial Police.

He once played a key role in a pivotal murder trial in Kenora. As a constable, Jorgensen stumbled on suppressed evidence and tipped off the Crown, braving the anger of his fellow officers to blow the whistle on wrongdoing.

The evidence led an explosive scandal and a 2004 Ontario Superior Court ruling that found a group of police officers had suppressed evidence in a racially charged murder trial for the homicide of a local man, Max Kagegamic, in 2000. No one was ever convicted in the murder.

Resignations of senior officers followed almost immediately after the ruling.

Smith, who recalled those days, said it was a brave thing for Jorgensen to step forward, and afterward, his principled stand made him the best candidate to take over leadership of the fractured force. He did his best to rebuild the service, she said, but in the end it was disbanded, and he retired.

Thats when he started working on the issues that were really important to him, working with marginalized people, Smith said. To lose a person like that, who had so much credibility with everyone  its going to be very difficult to go on, she said. Theres no one who can replace him.

Jorgensens funeral is set for 1 p.m. next Tuesday at the Whitecap Pavilion.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 15/05/2017 (2004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In celebration of Manitoba Day last Friday, the province brought back into service the first-ever mace used in Manitoba this afternoon.

The mace, which hasnt been used in 133 years, was carried into the Manitoba legislature chamber to start todays question period.

The mace is a highly ornamented staff symbolizing the authority of the legislature. When the sergeant-at-arms places the mace on the table, that signals the house is in session. When the sergeant-at-arms carries the mace out of the chamber, this signifies the end of the days business.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Sergeant-at-arms Ray Gislasonshows off Manitoba's first mace before carrying it into into the Legislative Assembly Monday afternoon.

The original mace will be placed on a table alongside the star blanket mace cushion and the beaded mace runner that were gifted to the legislative assembly by aboriginal peoples in 2010.

A soldier of the Wolseley Expedition carved the first mace from the hub of a Red River cartwheel. He included in its design, the rose, thistle, harp and fleur-de-lis.

The mace made its first formal appearance on March 15, 1871, at the first legislature, in the home of A.G.B. Bannatyne. Fire destroyed this temporary home of the legislature in December of 1873, but the mace was saved.

This original mace, retired after 13 years of service, is now on display in the Speakers office in the Legislative Building.
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister accused New Democrat MLA Andrew Swan Tuesday of disgusting behaviour over Swans unrelenting attacks on Pallisters communications from Costa Rica and a holding company he owns.

Pallister demanded several times that Swan apologize  and hes still waiting.

Their incessant squabbling led to the premiers estimates committee bogging down completely and finally having to call it a day as the NDP forced the entire legislature to vote on its complaint about Pallisters refusal to answer questions until Swan apologized.

New Democrat MLA Andrew Swan, left and Premier Brian Pallister continued to butt heads today.

The Tory majority easily squashed that motion.

Pallister had declared in committee, Ill confirm for the member anything he asks, once he apologizes.

Swan then tabled a motion calling on the legislature to investigate the alleged violation of Swans privileges as an MLA by the premiers refusal to answer his questions.

That prompted interim NDP leader Flor Marcelino to offer her own undefined apology to Pallister  with no reference to Swan  if it would get the hearings back on track.

Pallister accepted, on conditions there be no more false accusations coming at him from Swan. Thats when the NDP moved that Swans motion be put to a vote, lost on a voice vote and then called on the entire legislature to convene for a recorded vote.

As civility broke down Tuesday afternoon, Pallister told his estimates hearing Swan is misrepresenting him in an effort to get in the paper again.

Anything for a headline, Pallister said.

Pallister rejected Swans claim it was only this past November that Pallister had declared ownership of Pallister Investments 22 Ltd. for the first time.

The premier said hed declared ownership before, even though he wasnt required to because the holding company did not meet the public disclosure threshold of $500 a share.

Hes attacked my integrity, impugned it, Pallister said. This member has a bit of trouble respecting people. Darned right Im petulant, I dont like getting my integrity attacked.

Swan told Pallister the threshold for reporting ownership of investments is anything worth more than $500, not $500 a share.

That is the most ridiculous explanation Ive heard, snapped Swan.

Pallister and Swan had earlier continued their almost-daily sniping Tuesday in question period.

We have a premier who has trouble keeping his stories straight, said Swan, again demanding Pallister agree to only use government email and phones when in Costa Rica.

Ill commit to developing the best protection of privacy and the security of information, was again as far as Pallister would go.

On Swans persistent raising his ownership of what the premier has called a holding company, Pallister said, There are clear implications Im trying to hide something.

I dont have a new company, I dont have a new numbered company, I dont have a new numbered company in Costa Rica, Pallister said. Why would any Manitoban take what he says seriously?

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The provincial government introduced legislation Tuesday that would prevent sanctions against a health professional who refuses to participate in a medically assisted death.

In introducing Bill 34, The Medical Assistance in Dying (Protection for Health Professionals and Others) Act, Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said it would ensure medical professionals are not disciplined for their beliefs.

The legislation will protect the rights of those who do not wish to participate in a medically assisted death for conscious, faith or other reasons, he told the legislative assembly.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kelvin Goertzen, Minister of Health, Seniors and Active Living

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled physicians can assist in the consensual death of a patient. The federal government subsequently brought in legislation setting out the parameters in which medically assisted death could legally occur.

The federal law already specifies no one is compelled to participate in a medically assisted death.

Under Bill 34, an individual can, without disciplinary or employment repercussions, refuse to participate in a medically assisted death because of their personal convictions.

The bill also prohibits a professional regulatory body from requiring its members to participate in a medically assisted death.

NDP Justice critic Andrew Swan said there are already protections in place for medical professionals who are opposed to medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Swan said he doesnt why the government feels compelled to introduce legislation at this point.

I dont know if there is a specific concern that the minister will be able to tell us about as we move into discussing the bill, he said.

Goertzen was unavailable for comment after introducing his measure.

Swan said terminally ill Manitobans who are suffering unbearable pain and a greatly diminished quality of life have a right to receive information about MAID and access to medical practitioners who will carry it out.

There is no mention of patient rights in Goertzens bill, he noted.

There may be a specific concern that this bill addresses, Swan said. Were prepared to listen to the minister on that, but I think that the minister also needs to make it clear that he supports people having reasonable access and reasonable information to something the Supreme Court has said is a right in Canada.

If were not providing that information, if were not providing that access for assisted death, then were not really providing that right for Manitobans.

Swan said the government should not be in a hurry to pass the bill.

I think it is a good time to have a broader examination of how this is working in Manitoba and to work constructively as an Opposition to make sure the law and the process is as good as it can be, he said.

There are established protocols medical professionals must adhere to before assisting in ending someones life.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba has also established professional standards for doctors in MAID, including guidelines for conscientious objectors. The college, which licenses MDs, says physicians may refuse to provide medical assistance in dying or personally offer specific information about it to patients. They can even refuse to refer the patient to another physician who will provide the service.

However, physicians must promptly inform the patient of their conscience-based objection. And the college says they must provide the patient with timely access to a resource that will provide accurate information about MAID. They must also continue to provide unrelated care to the patient and turn over any medical records to physicians providing MAID to the patient.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people who threw a puppy into a fire pit in a northern Manitoba community last week.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said Monday the incident happened May 7 in Red Sucker Lake when the eight-month-old dog, named Polo, was taken from his familys porch and thrown into the flames.

The little blond dog suffered second-degree burns to most of his body. After his family contacted Katie Powell from Winnipeg-based Save A Dog Network Canada, Polo was rushed to Winnipeg for emergency veterinary care.

The fire singed away most of the dogs fur and left him with a swollen throat and lungs and ulcers on his eyes. He is expected to recover after a long treatment and recovery period.

Powell, president and founder of Save A Dog Network Canada, said she was told the puppy was thrown on the fire by two children aged 10 to 12.

The RCMP is investigating the attack. PETA acknowledged the RCMP investigation, but said the $5,000 reward is being offered to help determine who burned Polo.

Somebody out there tried to burn this puppy alive, leaving him with second-degree burns all over his body, PETA vice-president Colleen OBrien said in the release. PETA urges anyone with information about this case to come forward immediately so that whoever tortured this dog can be held responsible and stopped from hurting anyone else.

PETAs motto is that animals are not ours to abuse in any way and advises families to keep their animal companions safely indoors and never leave them unattended outside, where they may be taken or hurt by cruel people. Dogs should always be accompanied in the backyard and escorted on walks on a comfortable, secure harness and leash.

Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to call the Island Lake RCMP detachment at 204-456-2290.

For more information, go to PETA.org.
Opinion

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This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is a well-known fact in certain political circles that Premier Brian Pallister loves going to movies. And when possible, he likes to go alone.

A voracious consumer of the cinema, Pallister has a long tradition of attending movies by himself. Not exclusively, but certainly more than the average movie buff. Its a fascinating bit of personal detail about a man who is otherwise a very private individual.

Heres the thing: I have some pretty solid intel about the theatre the premier visits most regularly on his solo movie nights, but Im not going to include it in this column because I believe that would be an invasion of his privacy. The fact Pallister attends movies on his own is a great bit of personal trivia; where he attends movies is really nobodys business but his.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier Brian Pallister has refused to confirm the exact method that he uses to stay in contact with the provincial government while he's vacationing in Costa Rica.

Although politicians live very public lives, there are things about them the rest of us simply dont need to know. Over the years, I have come into possession of troves of very sensitive, very personal information about very public people: failed marriages, family illnesses, tragic deaths, substance-abuse problems and all manner of generally bad behaviour. In most instances, I have been very comfortable with a decision to leave these details out of my columns.

When does some small personal detail in a politicians life become a legitimate matter of public interest? A couple of examples may prove instructive.

Its not really newsworthy if a politician is seen in public drunk as a skunk. It becomes newsworthy as soon as someone sees that politician stagger out to a car, get in the drivers seat and turn the key.

Just as it really isnt anyones business where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau goes on his family vacations, unless that vacation is an all-expenses-paid junket that takes him to an exclusive private island owned by a reclusive billionaire engaged in a myriad of business dealings with the government the prime minister leads.

Which brings us back to Pallister and his ongoing war with the media and Opposition to draw a firm line between his public and private lives.

Pallister has been hammered by the NDP over the details of how he keeps in touch with his office when vacationing at his home in Costa Rica. Pallister has refused to confirm the exact method of communication, claiming it would be an invasion of his privacy and possibly compromise government security.

Concerns have also been raised about the existence of a company Pallister registered in Manitoba that was included in a public disclosure of his assets as required under conflict of interest laws. When first asked about the company, Pallister told an NDP critic it was none of your business. Only later, after being hounded about it, did he confirm it was a holding company that controls the retained earnings amassed during his time as a financial adviser.

Is the premier being treated unfairly? Probably. The NDP is trying to manufacture a scandal where one doesnt necessarily exist. However, it would be wrong to lay all the blame on the Opposition. This is very much a scenario of his own making.

Every time Pallister is accused of being less than forthright, his accusers are taking advantage of two key mistakes the premier has repeatedly made since coming to office.

First, the premier has been, at times, dishonest.

He refused to admit he was in Costa Rica during the 2014 floods and at one point concocted a story about being at a family wedding in another province to cover his tracks. He was forced to admit his fibs when public records from Costa Rica confirmed he was at his vacation home.

Pallister refused to include his assets and other holdings in Costa Rica in his disclosure to the conflict of interest commissioner. He claimed it was unnecessary under Manitoba law but did eventually disclose a series of companies in Costa Rica through which he owns property.

Which brings us to the second mistake the premier has repeatedly made.

To defend his decisions to withhold certain details about his personal life, Pallister has relied on the fact that in leaving certain things out, he was still in compliance with current conflict of interest laws. This is an extraordinary claim given Pallister promised during the 2016 election to overhaul the laws to make his the most accountable and transparent government in Manitoba history. Complying with laws you pledged to change isnt much of an accomplishment.

Pallister and his senior advisers need to overhaul their strategy when it comes to mischievous inquiries from the Opposition or media. If the truth of the matter is mundane or innocent, then fess up and be done with it. Arrogantly dismissing those inquiries only makes the premier look like he has something to hide.

As well, if Pallister wants the Opposition and the public to take him at his word when he says there is nothing to a story, then he should ensure the earlier acts of dishonesty are fuzzy, distant memories when he goes back to the polls in 2020. Pallister needs to deluge his enemies with transparency until they lack the will to dig any further into his private life.

Finally, he must stop telling people his life is none of our business. When Pallister became premier, his life became an open book. That means details about his personal finances, his family and his vacation plans are, for the most part, in the public domain. The simple fact is citizens have a right to know many of the intimate details of a premiers life.

Except, maybe, where he likes to see movies.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/05/2017 (2004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, I shared the story about a couple of pals who were outraged because they werent able to get a Duffys taxi after a social at the Brooklands Legion. They had to pay $100 up front to convince an end-of-shift Unicity driver to pick them up, plus get a stranded and intoxicated stranger they had met to her destination.

That story  and that the general managers from the cab companies declined to comment  unleashed a torrent of anger and similar stories in my email inbox, including one from one of the citys most prominent citizens.

I loved your article about the taxi runaround, Gail Asper began.

John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press files A column about struggles getting a late-night cab generated a lot of reader feedback.

My whole family has experienced similar things like this. My son recently tried to get a taxi at 11 p.m. on a Saturday.

I overheard the conversation with Duffys, which went something like: Id like to get a taxi please. When do you think it will be here? Well, can you give me some kind of ballpark figure as to when you think itll be here? Like 10 minutes? An hour?

Yes I understand that youre busy and its Saturday night, but can you please tell me when you think the taxi will come?

Asper said that when the taxi dispatcher couldnt offer her son any indication as to when, or if, a taxi would come, he gave up.

He could have taken a car, gone drinking and driven home drunk, she said.

Instead, her son made the sensible choice and enlisted her to drive him to his friends place. Later, she returned and got him safely home, too.

But think of how many people wouldnt be so responsible. They want to take taxis, but they simply arent available. And not only that, the taxi companies are downright rude and arrogant in their attitude. Imagine that they are actually busy on a Saturday night!

Asper went on to contrast that experience with the one she had with Uber in Los Angeles a week earlier.

Within minutes of calling for an Uber car, it showed up, gave me a set fee and delivered me in the most expeditious manner because theres no incentive to overcharge the client since the fee is set before you get in the car.

I had a lovely young woman driver who was telling me about the fact that she had just landed her dream job working for a music company.

I asked her if she was still going to continue driving for Uber and she said absolutely! She said: I have no life whatsoever so instead of sitting around on, say, a Thursday night watching TV all night, when taxis are really needed, Ill jump in my car, work for few hours and make a ton of money.

I asked her if she felt unsafe as a single female driving and she said no, because her car has a camera in it and she tells all of her fares that there is a camera. And not only that, because the transaction is tracked online, you know exactly who the last client was, so both the client and the driver are protected.

Asper went on to say that since our local taxi companies refuse to put more cars on the street, other than during the holiday season, the only solution for safe driving in this city is Uber. And she, like so any others in Winnipeg, can hardly wait for the ride-booking company and its app to arrive here.

She mentioned something I didnt know.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) recently issued a news release that enhances her case for the ride-sharing company.

GORDON SINCLAIR JR. / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Elmwood Cemetery executive director Bruce Birchard, along with volunteers, handed out 500 carnations to Mothers Day visitors at the cemetery on Sunday.

MADD and Uber have created a long-term national partnership to jointly promote safe and sober driving.

Uber, the news release said, is now the official designated driving app of MADD Canada.

Later, Asper added a P.S.: Thank heavens we have a local newspaper to raise these important issues and hopefully a mayor and premier with the backbone to make Uber happen finally!

REMEMBERING MOMS: Elmwood Cemetery was alive with people on Sunday. There were about 1,000 visitors, according to the estimate of Bruce Birchard, the executive director of the 115-year-old resting place of so many more thousands.

It was Mothers Day, of course.

And Birchard, along with volunteers from the Friends of Elmwood Cemetery, handed out more than 500 red or white carnations as relatives arrived to pay loving tributes to their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great grandmothers and, of course, their wives.

Mothers Day is the busiest day of the year at Elmwood Cemetery and this year it was enhanced by 17-year-old bagpiper Kieran Norberg of the Lord Selkirk RFM Pipe Band.

Bob Stankey, who was there to watch this year, said he used to play the bagpipes at the cemetery on Mothers Day, but three hours of piping became a bit much for an older guy like him.

I used to do it on Fathers Day, too, Stankey said.

But he stopped doing that earlier, and for another reason: hardly anyone was bothering to show up for dead old Dad.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For many years, Winnipeg has had an image problem. The popular depiction has been one of a city frozen in a never-ending winter with a downtown filled with nothing but dusty old buildings. Most tourists only recognize Winnipeg from the route map on the screen in the airplane seat in front of them as they pass by at 30,000 feet.

Something appears to be happening lately that is altering this perception. Winnipeg has begun to make regular appearances in international travel blogs and periodicals, including Vogue, Elle and Readers Digest, all celebrating the unique Winnipeg experience. Somehow, the citys rough-around-the-edges character has become cool. To outsiders, our frozen city in the middle of nowhere seems oddly exotic, exemplified by its place alongside Seychelles, Bhutan and the Hawaiian volcanoes in a National Geographic list of the Best Trips of 2016.

The irony of this transition is that the very things that have for so long served as fodder for Winterpeg ridicule, are now being celebrated as unique attractions. Eating dinner on the frozen river, skating among artistic warming huts or wandering through a largely intact century-old warehouse district are hailed as must-see, uniquely Winnipeg experiences.

BRENT BELLAMY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Design Quarter Winnipeg is a grassroots initiative thats pushing to make downtown Winnipegs artistic community a tourism destination.

The world is becoming smaller, travel is becoming easier and globalization is making cities more homogenous. As a result, tourists have begun to look more often for unique stories and authentic, local experiences in non-traditional destinations.

In recognition of this changing trend, last Friday a new initiative was launched to further attract this evolving tourist market as well as provide Winnipeggers with a new experience in their own city.

Design Quarter Winnipeg is an organically organized, grassroots initiative hoping to position downtown Winnipegs artistic community as a design and cultural tourism destination.

The idea hopes to bring together local, independent, design-focused events, shops, services and organizations under a single marketing umbrella, empowering them by establishing a broader collaborative network. Its modelled after existing programs in similarly isolated winter cities Reykjavik, Iceland and Helsinki, Finland, where the design district concept has strengthened their civic image as design centres and tapped into new opportunities in the growing trend of cultural tourism.

The name Design Quarter Winnipeg suggests a rebranding of a physical neighbourhood in downtown, but it would be more accurate to describe the initiative as creating a Winnipeg design experience. A walkable one-kilometre radius has been identified across several downtown neighbourhoods, and a curated walking tour has been developed. Visitors can navigate the area with digital or printed maps, social media and a website, guiding them through a series of destinations featuring local products and services, tailored to appeal to a design-conscious visitor.

With coordinated marketing and promotion, through partnerships with the Exchange District Biz, Travel Manitoba and Tourism Winnipeg, the intent of the Design Quarter is to build on the existing creative industries in downtown and attract new independent developments. The hope is a new energy is brought to downtown, putting more pedestrians on the sidewalks and establishing the area as a true destination for a unique local experience.

Design Quarter Winnipeg will operate as a non-profit organization funded through membership fees. To become part of the network, businesses and organizations must meet certain criteria, including such things as a sidewalk presence, a commitment to the local community and to quality design. The goal is to create a level of expectation that visitors can trust, becoming the go-to destination to learn about new design-focused events, shops and services in downtown Winnipeg.

The Design Quarter begins with 46 members and has set a goal of having 60 members after the first year and 100 in three to five years. Members currently include shops, hotels, fashion designers, restaurants, galleries and cultural events.

Helsinkis Design District has been very successful because it reinforced the creative culture that already existed in that city. Nurturing this authenticity will be critical if Design Quarter Winnipeg is to find similar traction. Branding initiatives can unify and provide a strength in numbers for independent businesses, but they must look to build on what already exists without trying to create something that is not organically there.

In support of this concept, Winnipeg has established a long history as a creative and artistic community. With only two per cent of Canadas population, the city has 12 per cent of its musicians. Winnipeg has the countrys oldest civic art gallery, French-language theatre, English regional theatre, and dance company. It is home to a renowned symphony and iconic ballet company and holds more than 200 festivals each year. Winnipegs arts and creative industries represent six per cent of the citys labour force and four per cent of its GDP.

Adding to this artistic undercurrent, the Exchange District and other areas of downtown have experienced momentum in the growth of local design-focused retailers, restaurants, studios and galleries over the last number of years. If the Design Quarter can successfully build on these existing creative networks, reinforcing, and celebrating a new, authentically Winnipeg experience, we might one day see design listed along with winter and old buildings in a magazine list of must-see reasons to come to Winnipeg.

Brent Bellamy is chairman of CentreVentures board and the creative director at Number Ten Architectural Group.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The race for Mexicos 2018 presidential elections has drawn zero interest in the United States so far, but it should be in the headlines. Thanks to U.S. President Donald Trumps fake claims about Mexico, the country may soon elect its first populist leftist president in recent memory.

The latest polls show that Trumps Mexico-bashing has had the predictable effect of creating a nationalist backlash in Mexico, which is helping leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador climb steadily in the polls for the July 1, 2018, election.

According to a May 6 poll by BGC Associates and the daily Excelsior, Lopez Obrador  a former Mexico City mayor  is leading the race with 26 per cent of voters saying they would cast ballots for him, followed by centre-right candidate Margarita Zavala with 21 per cent and ruling party hopeful Miguel Angel Osorio Chong with 19 per cent.

ANDREW HARNIK / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Mexico's presidential candidate Lopez Obrador

But the most interesting part of the poll is a chart with Mexicos voting trends over the past 12 months. It shows a steady rise by Lopez Obrador and his Morena party, especially after the U.S. elections last November.

Trumps false claims about an alleged upsurge in illegal immigration from Mexico  in fact, the number of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. has fallen 5.6 million in 2016 from 6.4 million in 2009, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center  and other untrue assertions about Mexico have given Lopez Obrador the perfect ammunition to cast himself as the only one who can save Mexico from its aggressive northern neighbour.

Curious about Lopez Obradors rise in the polls, I asked former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda whether its too early to predict a Lopez Obrador victory. After all, Lopez Obrador had also led in the polls at various times in the campaigns for the 2006 and 2012 elections, but didnt win.

Castaneda responded that there is a serious chance that, unless something unexpected happens, Lopez Obrador will win.

Several things are converging to help Lopez Obradors candidacy, Castaneda told me.

Trumps constant Mexico-bashing, Mexicos lackluster economic performance  in part due to a halt in investments while Trump decides what to do about his campaign pledge to scrap or re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement  and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nietos low popularity rates because of corruption scandals and rising violence are creating a perfect storm that is working in Lopez Obradors favour, he said.

What Trump and his people dont seem to understand is that, at the end of the day, the overriding U.S. interest in Mexico for the past 100 years has been Mexicos stability. The United States has had the extraordinary luxury of not having to worry about its southern neighbour since the days of Pancho Villa, Castaneda said. Trump may now change all of that by helping elect Lopez Obrador.

Lopez Obrador told me in an interview several years ago that he had never met with late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez nor with Cubas Fidel Castro. But Lopez Obrador sounds exactly like Chavez did when he ran for office. Lopez Obrador lashes out against corruption, vows to reverse what he calls the privatization of Mexicos oil resources and wants to revert to Mexicos old nationalist foreign policy.

Earlier this week, when Lopez Obrador was asked in an interview on Imagen television about the anti-government protests that have already left at least 37 dead in Venezuela, he echoed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduros line of blaming opposition leaders for the deaths. Lopez Obrador called on opposition leaders to stop sacrificing people.

Asked about Mexicos decision to join all major Latin American countries in officially asking Maduro to call free elections and restore Venezuelas democratic rule, Lopez Obrador called on Mexicos government to pursue a policy of non-intervention and respect for peoples self-determination  code words used by dictatorships across the world to defend themselves from foreign criticism.

My opinion: its time for Trump to retract from his fake claims about Mexico, and to deactivate the political time bomb now ticking in that country, partly thanks to him. Otherwise, Trump will be responsible for helping elect an anti-American, leftist president in Mexico whose populist policies will scare away investors, make the country poorer and produce more illegal immigration and more drug trafficking across the U.S. border.

Andres Oppenheimer is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

 Tribune Content Agency
Many people want to give back to the community, but may not have a lot of time to volunteer. The American Red Cross reminds eligible individuals that in only about an hour, volunteer blood donors can help save lives and feel instant gratification.

Blood is a perishable product that can only come from generous volunteers. By donating blood, individuals can make a difference in the lives of patients in their community and throughout the nation.

In Columbus, a blood drive will be held at Zion Lutheran Church, 812 Western Ave., on Tuesday, June 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Donors can download the American Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-733-2767 to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed. A blood donor card or drivers license or two other forms of identification are required at check-in.
A New Lisbon man was arrested for his seventh operating while intoxicated offense and also faces four additional charges after an alleged stabbing incident.

Orrin Tyler Cloud, 46, was arrested in the early morning hours of April 30 in New Lisbon. For the OWI charge, Cloud could receive a $25,000 fine, a prison term of no more than 12 years and six months, or both. If convicted, Clouds driving privileges could be revoked for at least two years, no more than three, and he would have to submit to an alcohol and drug assessment and comply with treatment for his license to be reinstated.

For the second degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a deadly weapon offence, Cloud could get a $25,000 fine, a prison term of no more than 10 years or both. Cloud could face a $10,000 fine or a prison term of no more than three years and six months, or both, for both the substantial battery, domestic abuse, use of a deadly weapon charge and the injury by negligent use of a dangerous weapon, domestic abuse charge. For disorderly conduct, Cloud could be fined $1,000 and face a prison term of 90 days.

According to a criminal complaint:

An officer from the New Lisbon Police Department was called to an apartment in New Lisbon to investigate a possible stabbing. A man living at the apartment said a male came to his apartment complaining his girlfriend stabbed someone in the chest.

Upon an investigation, the officer could hear three subjects talking in an apartment with one man saying he was hurt badly. Two officers entered the apartment and saw a male with his shirt unbuttoned and very pale. He also appeared to be cold and was shaking. An officer also saw a white towel on the sink covered in blood and blood on the floor.

The man claimed a female acquaintance threw a knife at him. Awhile later the woman, identified as Cloud, arrived at the apartment and was questioned by police. Cloud refused to go with officers and attempted to resist being placed in handcuffs. While walking outside, Cloud could not walk in a straight line. Officers noticed a strong odor of intoxicants coming from Cloud.

After Cloud was detained, officers located the knife outside the apartment and there was blood on it. The knife was a switchblade and the blade was about 3.5 inches long. Upon being interviewed by police, Cloud said he didnt know what happened, thats why he returned to the apartment. Cloud was taken to Hess Memorial Hospital for medical clearance. While being transported, Cloud claimed the alleged victim told him to come to the apartment and made him smoke pot. They started to fight and Cloud claimed the victim followed him out to his car. He didnt admit to driving, but said he did go to Kellys Bar.

While being interviewed at the hospital, Cloud wanted to see the victim and began crying thinking he would not see him again.

Cloud has been previously convicted of five OWIs in Sauk County and one in Juneau County; the first was in 1994. Cloud has an initial appearance scheduled for May 17 at 9 a.m. at the Juneau County Justice Center. He is being held in the Juneau County Jail.
After hitting a low point in 2006, Juneau County has improved its overall state health rankings, but it still has plenty of work to do.

County officials received an update on the countys current health status and received information on a promising new program during the county board meeting May 16 at the courthouse in Mauston.

Barb Theis, county health officer, presented her annual report to the county. It was just over 10 years ago when a state ranking showed Juneau County ranked as the unhealthiest county in Wisconsin.

We were not happy about that, Theis said. Usually health-related matters dont get much attention, but after that report was made public, my phone was ringing off the hook. People were asking me how we can make this better.

The outpouring of concern led to positive improvements. Juneau County now ranks 54th out of 72 counties in overall health.

Were no longer in the bottom tier, but we still have a long way to go, Theis said.

County residents still rank just 66th in health outcomes, which concerns Theis and other health administrators. In analyzing trend data, Theis noticed the county improved in many factors, except health behaviors. The county still has a high rate of tobacco use, along with alcohol and drug abuse. Obesity is also high.

Improving health outcomes often starts with bringing healthy options to schools. If children are taught to live healthy at an early age, they tend to retain those habits as they grow into adults. In recent years, the county health department has worked with local schools to expand the Farm to School program, which brings fresh produce to students straight from area farms. For the first time last year, the health department conducted a youth health risk survey with the countys five school districts. Theis said schools have already implemented programs to improve health for its students.

Jennifer Timm, an assistant professor in the nursing department at Winona State, talked to the board about Health in all Policies, a plan to improve overall health in rural areas. Timm said it takes both health and non-health professionals working together for a healthier community. She said the plan has gained popularity in the United Kingdom and has seen strong results.

Juneau County is actually in a good position for this because you have a lot of officials who know each other and can work together, Timm said.

The county recently started a steering committee to advocate the plan. In order for it to work, a community must have champions who support its efforts, according to Timm. She said Mauston has done a good job by improving city parks and adding a river walk to its downtown.

There are really endless opportunities here, but it takes everyone working together, Timm said.

Contract to raze county buildings

Also on May 16, the county approved a contract for Devine, Inc. to raze the Annex and Hickory buildings to make way for the new government facility.

Bill Devine, president of the contractor, said demolition will likely take place next March. He said employees working in those buildings will probably be moved to the new office, which should be completed by mid-February.

Devine said construction of the new building is slightly behind schedule due to the recent rainy conditions.

Nothing can be demolished until the new building is done, Devine said.
A full day.

Teresa Fitzgerald, public affairs specialist at Fort McCoy, said the facilitys Armed Forces Day Open House Saturday, May 20 is a day packed with activities.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the public is invited to visit and view a sample of what goes on at the fort, Fitzgerald said.

Basically its a family-friendly event, and its for all ages, Fitzgerald said. (Nowadays) you have to have a reason to come to Fort McCoy. The Armed Forces Day Open House is a day you dont have to have a reason to stop by except to see and learn about Fort McCoy and its history, where its at and where its going in the future.

Were opening our doors and welcoming you.

Some of the planned activities include:

A narrated bus tour

Sandbag-filling station

Camouflage face painting

Personalized ID tags

Military equipment displays

A returning favorite is the military equipment display, Fitzgerald said.

Most people can get in a vehicle and sit in the drivers seat in a safe environment, she said. They can get in ... and feel what its like to be in a military vehicle. Its nice for the units to be able to do it. They get to talk to people about their unit and what they do.

The installations Commemorative Area will be a hub of activity showcasing the History Center, Equipment Park, five World War II-era buildings and Veterans Memorial Plaza.

The Wisconsin Army Cadets from Appleton will also attend the event and put on a confidence course for younger kids. Its fun for the kids and a great way for them to expend some energy, Fitzgerald said.

Army, Navy and Marine recruiters will also be in attendance as well as the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

New this year is a Welcome Home ceremony for Vietnam War veterans. It will be held at 1 p.m. in the Veterans Memorial Plaza within the commemorative area.
Dr. Michael Thom of UW Health resigned and surrendered his license in February, amid an allegation of sexual misconduct with a patient, in a manner that allowed the case to remain secret.

Allegations that Thom, 67, of Madison, inappropriately touched a female patients breasts and sent her photos of his penis were very serious, the state Department of Safety and Professional Services said, according to records made public Monday by Fox 6 (WITI-TV) in Milwaukee. The Wisconsin State Journal obtained the records from the state on Tuesday.

Thom didnt deny the photos were of him and said the sexual relationship was consensual, said his attorney, Patti Putney. He didnt respond to a phone message from the State Journal seeking comment, and he declined comment to Fox 6.

A state attorney told a member of the Medical Examining Board to promptly accept Thoms surrender of his license so a medical board committee meeting a few days later wouldnt open a case against him, which would make the action public.

Once opened, the surrender would have to be accomplished by a public order, which is what Dr. Thom seeks to avoid in light of the embarrassing circumstances, Joost Kap, an attorney for the state licensing department, wrote Feb. 9 to Dr. Mary Jo Capodice, secretary of the medical board.

There is no danger to patients or the public in accepting the surrender now, and doing so would conserve Board and Department resources, Kap wrote.

Nine minutes later, Capodice approved the surrender, effective the same day. Thom resigned from UW effective Feb. 15.

Arthur Thexton, a former licensing department attorney who investigated cases there for 24 years, told Fox 6 the way the department handled the case was completely inappropriate.

I never saw a case handled this way, Thexton said. This is basically secret discipline.

The medical board is not there to protect the licensees, he said. They are there to protect the public.

Alicia Bork, spokeswoman for the licensing department, said the resolution of the case eliminated the risk of lengthy litigation which could have resulted in an uncertain outcome that may have ultimately allowed Dr. Thom to remain eligible to practice.

Dr. Thom agreed to surrender his medical license and never seek licensure in Wisconsin nor any other state; he simultaneously resigned from his position, Bork said. Those two actions decisively ended a 40-year medical career that was free of professional discipline.

Bork said UW and the state reported the case to the National Practitioner Data Bank, which licensing agencies and employers can check but does not publicly identify providers disciplined.

UW Health spokeswoman Lisa Brunette said no other patients made any kind of allegations against Thom, who had worked in internal medicine at UW since 1996.

UW investigated the situation in December, during which Thom didnt see patients, and sent its report to the state, Brunette said.

Its not unusual for doctors under investigation by the state to surrender their licenses, but that typically happens after cases are opened, eventually making some details of the cases public.

UnityPoint Health-Meriter fired Dr. Shawn Yetman in 2011, prompting the state to open a case in 2013 that led Yetman to surrender his license in 2014.

After the State Journal reviewed the public order against him in 2015, the newspaper obtained other state records that said Meriter fired Yetman after two of the seven patients he operated on during his short time at the hospital died.

Yetmen left the heart-bypass surgery patients on a heart-lung bypass machine too long and mishandled their bypasses, state records said.

The families of the patients  Nancy Glumske, 61, of Elroy, and Thomas Pliner, 77, of Waunakee  didnt know that Yetman had been fired or why until the State Journal contacted them. They filed lawsuits against Yetman and Meriter, which are pending.
Items are listed under the day of the event only, running as space permits prior to the event. To submit items, call 745-3511, email jcutsforth@wiscnews.com or visit www.portagedailyregister.com. Include name and phone number.

TODAY

Knitting and crocheting group: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgwater St., Portage. Bring your projects and share your progress with friends. We will also be doing knit-alongs where we work on a project together. A free pattern will be provided. Feel free to bring your lunch along with your knitting.

Lake Wisconsin Alliance educational seminar: 6:30 to 8 p.m. Camp Rest Park and Boat Launch near N3814 Tipperary Road, Poynette. LWA received a grant from Alliant Energy to conduct nearshore fishery surveys on Lake Wisconsin. Dave Marshall and Tim Larson were contracted by LWA to conduct the surveys in 2015 and 2016. They will demonstrate surveying methods and provide an opportunity for attendees to see these unique fish species up close. In case of inclement weather, LWA will announce the cancellation of the via the Lake Wisconsin Alliance Website (www.lakewisconsinalliance.org) and an announcement will be on local radio stations. A rain date has been set for May 18, same time and location. For more information, contact Melissa Keenan at 608-355-4838, or mkeenan@co.sauk.wi.us.

Zumba Toning and Pound: 4:30 p.m. Woodridge Primary School, Portage. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17

Biking: 6:30 p.m. Portage Pedalers Wednesday night ride, meet at Pat and Dougs house, W7956 Douglas Center Road (East of Briggsville on Highway 23 North via 3rd Avenue). Wear a helmet, bring water bottle and bikers under 18 must ride with a parent. Monthly ride leaders: May  Kim Andruss; June  Dennis Crass; July  Roger Kyburz (meet at R19&26); August  Jon Steidinger/Gordon Dunn (meet at MacKenzie Environmental Center); September  Doug Cook (meet at 6 p.m. at Pat and Dougs house.

Bingo: 5:30 p.m. Old Chicago, 147 N. Main St., Pardeeville. Bingo will be played every Wednesday, except the first one of the month.

Cambria Farmers Market: 4 to 7 p.m. Tarrant Park, East Edgewater Street, Cambria. Runs Wednesdays through October.

Clinic: 8 a.m. to noon, Columbia County Public Health Walk-In Clinic, Columbia County Division of Health, 2652 Murphy Road, Portage. Use door No. 4. Bring childs immunization record. Visit www.co.columbia.wi.us for more information.

Free blood pressure screenings: 1 to 5 p.m. Divine Savior Healthcare, 2817 New Pinery Road, Portage. No appointment necessary. Call 745-6405 for more information. Do not eat, smoke, drink caffeine or exercise for 30 minutes prior.

Historic Indian Agency House: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, 1490 Agency House Road, Portage. Open through Oct. 15. School tours are welcome by appointment, please call 608-742-6362. For more information, visit www.agencyhouse.org.

Senior meal: 11:30 a.m. Portage Area Senior Citizens Group, Municipal Building, 115 W. Pleasant St., Portage. The meal will be provided by the Columbia County Nutrition Center. If you wish to have a meal, call Marj Margelowsky at 608-742-3926 by noon Tuesday to register. The cost is a cash donation which will be directly put back into the nutrition program. The meeting will start at noon with cards to follow.

St. Vincent de Paul free medical clinic: 9 a.m. to noon. Wilz Drugs lower level, 140 E. Cook St., Portage. No appointments needed. Information needed is name, date of birth and a contact number. A foot clinic is available every week. The clinic can do exams and prescribe medications. Physical therapist available. Discounted medications are available at Wilz and Walmart. Call Bonny Oestreich, RN, at 608-234-0159 for information.

Welsh Cemetery annual meeting: 7 p.m. Sandy Gustafson residence, 132 E. Marion St., Portage.

Zumba/Zumba Toning: 5 p.m. Montello. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com.

Zumba: 5:30 p.m. 1208 Northport Road (the former Freedom Carpeting building). This is a $5 drop-in class. For more information, contact Deb at DJMACK00001@yahoo.com or Rena at 697-6713.

THURSDAY, MAY 18





Bingo: 6:30 p.m. Endeavor Lions Club Bingo, Endeavor-Moundville Fire Department, Endeavor.

Brats and burgers sale: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Elks Lodge veranda, West Conant Street, Portage. Runs every Thursday during the Portage Farmers Market.

Portage Farmers Market: noon to 6 p.m. Commerce Plaza, downtown Portage. The market is hosted every Thursday through October and features homegrown produce items, homemade items and handcrafted items.

Making A Difference Study Group: 9 to 10 a.m. Portage Public Library, Bidwell Room, 253 W. Edgewater St. Portage. Making a Difference is a group that is meeting to turn concerns into action. Open to the public. What are your concerns?

Museum: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Portage World War II Museum, 119 E. Cook St., Portage. Free tours for veterans every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The tours take 2 1/2 hours. For information, call 608-697-3690.

Portage Family Skate Park public meeting: 5 to 6:30 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. All interested people are welcome to attend. Meetings will be held on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Cancellations will be announced on our Facebook page. Call 608-742-4959 for more information.

Portage Presbyterian Church Community Fundraiser: 4:30 to 8 p.m. Pizza Ranch, New Pinery Road, Portage. A percentage of receipts from the event will be donated to the Mission Trip fund to help offset costs for Portage Presbyterians young people and adults who are heading to New Orleans in June.

TOPS weight loss group: 1 p.m. Grace Bible Church, county Highway CX, Portage. For information, call Patricia Figueroa at 608-742-4853.

FRIDAY, MAY 19





Gala for the Glen: Celebrating Our Heritage Fundraiser: 5:30 p.m. Durwards Glen Retreat Center, W11876 McLeisch Road, Baraboo. Dinner tickets are $50; raffle tickets are $10. Prizes include one-week stay on the ocean at Carolina Beach, queen-size handmade quilt, two-night stay at the Artist Cottage at the Glen, Spring Pond Series childrens books, and hand-made silver chain mail bracelet (values from $75 to $1,850). Email theglen150@gmail.com or call 608-356-8113 for information, or visit www.durwardsglen.org.

Hope House support group: 1 to 2 p.m. Portage Public Library, 253 W. Edgewater St., Portage. Has domestic violence touched your life in some way? Find connections with supportive individuals who have similar life experiences as you at Hope Houses newest support group. All are welcome. Held on the first and third Friday of the month. For more information, contact Katie Fluger, outreach advocate, at 608-356-9123.

Lodi Valley Farmers Market: 2 to 6 p.m. 902 N. Main St., Lodi.Meet the Author event: 1 to 3 p.m. Readers Realm Gallery of Books, Gifts and Whimsy, 147 E. Montello St., Montello. Novelist James Jacobs will present his new book, No Ordinary Season. Jacobs is the brother of Sharon Samuelson from Montello. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 608-297-2200.Seniors Bowling Social: 1 p.m. Fireball Lanes, 817 E. Wisconsin St., Portage. Cost is $6 and includes three games of bowling and shoe rental.

St. Marys Best Fest: 5 to 11 p.m. St. Marys Church, West Cook Street, Portage. Food, music, carnival, book sale, raffles, beer tent and more. Runs through Sunday.

Unique Singles: 5 p.m. Trails Lounge, Wauona Trail, Portage. All single men and women older than age 50 welcome. The group is strictly social with no dues or officers.

SATURDAY, MAY 20





Annual Devils Lake State Park to Gibraltar Rock Hike: Meet at 9 a.m. at the Devils Lake State Park Roznos Meadow parking lot, Highway 113. Hike from Devils Lake State Park and end at Gibraltar Rock, a distance of about 11 miles, through some of the most beautiful and unique terrain in southern Wisconsin. A bus will be waiting at Gibraltar Rock to shuttle hikers back to Roznos Meadow. Please dress appropriately for hiking and the weather. Bring lots of water and a snack/lunch. For more information, call Bill at 608-843-3926 or email at billpatti@charter.net. This excursion is an activity of the Lodi Valley Chapter of the Ice Age Trail Alliance.

Community free meal: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 207 W. Pleasant St., Portage.

Davidson Family Spaghetti Fundraiser: 5 to 7 p.m. Portage United Methodist Church, 1804 New Pinery Road, Portage. Cost is $10 and includes spaghetti, salad, bread, cookies and beverage. An ecumenical service of healing will be held at 7 p.m. David Davidson passed away April 26, and all proceeds will help to pay for medical and other mounting expenses.

Fire Truck Rides and T-Shirt Sale Fundraiser: 9 a.m. Wal-Mart parking lot, 2950 New Pinery Road., Portage. This fundraising event will support the new Portage Fire Department training facility and will feature a fire truck ride and a PFD T-shirt from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cost is $15 for a fire truck ride with a T-shirt or $10 for only a T-shirt.

Museum at the Portage: 804 MacFarlane Road, Portage. Open from 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday in April and May; and 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday in June, July and August. Admission is free.

Pardeeville Fire and Ambulance Heroes and Military Day: Indian Trails Campground, Pardeeville. Parade at 10 a.m., Dual County Community Band concert to follow parade, blood drive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., fire, EMS and police demonstrations at 11:15 a.m., bingo from noon to 3 p.m., MedFlight demonstration at 2:30 p.m., and live auction at 4:30 p.m. Hot dogs and pork sandwiches served from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Face painting, bounce house, dunk tank and more.

Poynette Area Farmers Market: 8 to 11 a.m. Pauquette Park, Main Street, Poynette.

St. Marys Best Fest: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. St. Marys Church, West Cook Street, Portage. Run/walk, food, music, carnival, book sale, raffles, beer tent and more. Runs through Sunday.

SUNDAY, MAY 21





Bingo: 5 to 7 p.m. VFW Hall, 215 W. Collins St., Portage. Doors open at 4:15 p.m. Hard cards are $1 and chips are available. All are welcome. Runs the first and third Sunday of each month.

St. Marys Best Fest: 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. St. Marys Church, West Cook Street, Portage. Food, music, carnival, book sale, raffles, beer tent and more. Mini raffle drawing at 2:30 p.m. and raffle drawing at 3 p.m.

Zumba: 5:30 p.m. Rusch Elementary School, Portage. $5 drop in fee. Contact Tami at 608-346-3971 or 4dreamers@frontier.com.
Capturing the imagination is the whole point of pilots flying over the Wisconsin River and water performances courtesy of the Portage Fire Department and Tommy Bartlett Show, which are scheduled to kick off Canal Days next month.

I really believe in the power of big events, said Jared Pierson, the organizer of the very first Portage Fly By, especially events that connect with our next generation.

The Fly By so far features seven to 10 airplanes, a helicopter, the Portage Fire Departments hovercraft, and Tommy Bartlett Shows involving a FlyBoard and jet ski. The event will be visible along West Conant Street, west of Pauquette Park, and will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 3.

I want to create that glimmer of hope that changes their day or week, or maybe for some, changes their lives, Pierson said.

Aside from fostering that flash of inspiration in attendees, the more specific purpose of the Fly By is twofold, Pierson explained: to create more family-friendly activities in Portage and to generate broader interest in the city.

Getting the Fly By organized, Pierson said, was a matter of reaching out to several people until it came to fruition, pursuing them like crazy and often working into the middle of the night. Pilots, Portage Fire and Tommy Bartlett Show representatives ultimately wanted to participate, for free, because theyre really excited about supporting the local community, Pierson said.

The show  subject to favorable weather conditions  begins with the flyover of airplanes and a helicopter, which will take off from Portage Municipal Airport, directed by airport manager John Poppy.

Possible pilots and aircraft, according to Pierson and Poppy, include Howard Hill in a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza; LaVerne Griffin and Peter Jensen in a Meyers 200; Dr. James Foskett in a Scottish Bulldog, which is used as a Swedish Air Force trainer; David Tesch in a Cessna 172; Dave Lytle in a Grumman Traveler; Steve Johnson in an Aeronca; Bill Robicheau in a Champion; Poppy in a Cessna 172; Leif Gregerson in a Ranger; and Eric Peterson, flying a Bell helicopter, which is a $4 million piece of equipment, Pierson said.

The airplane and helicopter fly-over will be followed by a demonstration of the Portage Fire Departments hovercraft, which is used for water rescue. Its a boat that rides on air, said Fire Chief Clayton Simonson. You can go on water, land, snow, ice, as long as you keep a cushion of air underneath, you can go pretty much anywhere.

The Fire Department has had the craft since 1999 and regularly takes it out to Silver Lake for training, Simonson added.

Following the hovercraft demonstration will be a boat of waving Portage High School cheerleaders, leading the way for the events finale featuring two Tommy Bartlett Show performances. The first act will feature the FlyBoard that looks like theyre shooting a water rocket out of their feet, Pierson said.

They look like Iron Man.

The second act will be the jet skier doing all kinds of tricks. Tommy Bartlett, based in Wisconsin Dells, is bringing its own announcer for the event, Pierson said.

Attendees should gather at the big, white event tent, which, along with a sound system, will be set up west of Pauquette Park.

Separate from the Fly By and Canal Days will likely be helicopter rides at the Portage Municipal Airport, after the event. Rides would be $50 per person. Pierson is currently working on pre-scheduling 20 rides. For more information about helicopter rides, call Pierson at 566-4239.

Positive momentum

Weathers huge, Poppy cautioned, so if theres a fog or rain, we cant do it.

If the weathers good, however, the airports manager expects the event could be big for Portage. Anything that brings positive momentum to the city of Portage is great, he said. Thats my opinion.

Poppy pointed out Waunakee holds a similar event each year  a way to showcase the local airport. Who knows, maybe next year well get more (participants)? Poppy said.

And it might pique somebodys interest to start taking lessons.

Poppy expects the fly-over itself will last only about 10 minutes, with aircraft taking off one minute apart from each other, following the same route.

Be on time, he recommended. Aircraft will fly at about 500 feet above ground, and thats as low as we can go. If no ones on the water, however, pilots might go right down to its surface. Regardless, 500 feet really isnt that far away and should provide for an enjoyable show for families and children, he said.

Pretty big

The Fly By is officially put on by Jared Pierson Enterprises.

This is something I thought of because I have the desire to support our downtown, in the way I can contribute, which is creating inspiring, family events that are fun and get the kids excited, Pierson said. Thats a big part of my mentality.

I try to think of things that not only get Portage people out, but others, too. I think well get all kinds of people coming down (to Portage), because this is a pretty big tourist event.

Serving people is important to me, Pierson said, thats part of the core of who I am.
GREEN LAKE  Daniel Buchholz answered the first question with a question of his own.

The first question, for a panel discussion at Mondays Intercounty Coordinating Committee meeting, was, What keeps county information technology directors up at night?

Buchholz, IT director for Marquette County, replied, How long is this meeting?

Of the six ICC counties  Columbia, Dodge, Green Lake, Jefferson, Marquette and Sauk  four were represented on the panel of IT directors, which also included Bill Hutchinson of Green Lake County, Ruth Otto of Dodge County and Roland Welsch of Jefferson County.

In addressing what keeps IT directors up at night, Buchholz cited the reality that there are more threats to technological security than there are people to keep up with them.

Picking up on that theme, Hutchinson noted that his department is composed of just two employees, and his co-worker, with more than 20 years of experience, is about to retire.

Welsch said counties have a hard time hiring IT personnel, because the private sector pays them so much more  meaning that county IT departments rely more heavily on contracted services, and the people who they do hire tend to be inexperienced recent graduates who will gain on-the-job training from the county before moving on to much more lucrative job.

I see private businesses paying IT professionals more and more and more, and the county doesnt have the ability to treat the IT department differently than the rest of the county departments, he said.

Otto pointed to aging technological infrastructure as a constant worry.

But Hutchinson had some observations about new infrastructure that might have been tough for the Columbia County delegation to hear.

In a new facility, he said, systems are more complex. And complex systems fail in complex ways.

About seven years ago, Green Lake County departments did what most Columbia County departments are about to do in a couple of weeks  move into a brand-new building.

Hutchinson said all the technological infrastructure was brand new in the new structure, located on Highway A outside of downtown Green Lake. And yes, it was an improvement over the situation that some county IT directors have to face  rewiring buildings that may be a century or more old, to accommodate 21st-century technology.

However, Hutchinson said, some of the infrastructure in the new building began to fail within a few years. And, since all the infrastructure is about the same age, he said, it all tends to deteriorate at the same time.

Columbia County Supervisor Andy Ross of Poynette said he had not thought to invite Columbia County Management Information Services Director John Hartman to participate on Mondays panel  and its probably just as well, because the move to the new building will keep him busy. Hartman will need to be among the first county employees to move into the Administration Building at 112 E. Edgewater St., to get computers, phones and other technology up and running for approximately a dozen Columbia County departments that will soon occupy the building.

Otto pointed out, however, that information technology encompasses more than computers and phones  and thats part of the challenge of county IT directors.

Climate control systems, for example, have computer chips built in. She noted that the December 2013 hacking of Target customers credit card information, which affected more than 40 million accounts, happened via the HVAC system.

Kathleen Haas, community resource development educator for the University of Wisconsin-Extension Columbia County, said she has found that its important to communicate with the countys IT department before utilizing new technology on the job, to get a sense of how that technology, such as social media, might affect the countys systems.

Buchholz said county employees might not realize that clicking on a particular link or website might unleash a virus or other harmful software.

Theres always going to be somebody whos click-happy, and who clicks on things that they shouldnt, he said.

Internet use policies for county employees will not, by themselves, prevent such problems, Hutchison said, because its impossible for any IT department to block employees access to all potentially harmful sites.

And once it happens, he said, its already too late.

Jenny Erickson, community resource development agent for the University of Wisconsin-Extension Sauk County, said this is a reason why county employees must be educated, frequently, about safe use of technology.

We have enough turnover, she said, that we have to do it every year.
State Superintendent Tony Evers praised Lake Delton Elementary School for being among 178 schools in the state that received Wisconsin Title I School of Recognition honors for the 2016-17 school year during a special May 1 ceremony at the State Capitol in Madison.

The state superintendent recognized 21 High-Achieving schools and 21 High-Progress schools as identified by results from 2015-16 statewide assessments; nine schools earned both High-Achieving and High-Progress honors. Four schools earned the award for a 10th consecutive year, while nine schools earned the award for a fifth consecutive year.

Our Schools of Recognition are staffed by dedicated educators, Evers said. Their success is something to celebrate; it serves as an example of the importance of schools, families, and communities working together to ensure that every child graduates ready for college and careers.

It is so rewarding to see the Lake Delton Elementary School receive this award as the staff have embodied the districts mission statement of Connect, Inspire, Achieve, Everyone, Every Day! The staffs relentless pursuit of continuous improvement and teamwork is on display each day, and the students are eager to learn, said District Administrator, Terry Slack. This marks the fourth consecutive award for Lake Delton Elementary, and I know that they will be eager to earn a fifth next year.
South Jersey Industries, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides energy-related products and services. The company engages in the purchase, transmission, and sale of natural gas. It also sells natural gas and pipeline transportation capacity on a wholesale basis to residential, commercial, and industrial customers on the interstate pipeline system, as well as transports natural gas purchased directly from producers or suppliers to customers. As of December 31, 2021, the company had approximately 147 miles of mains in the transmission system and 6,815 miles of mains in the distribution system; and served 384,062 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in southern New Jersey. In addition, it markets natural gas storage, commodity, and transportation assets on a wholesale basis for energy marketers, electric and gas utilities, power plants, and natural gas producers in the mid-Atlantic, Appalachian, and southern regions of the United States. Further, the company owns and operates rooftop solar-generation sites. Additionally, it owns oil, gas, and mineral rights in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania; acquires and markets natural gas and electricity to retail end users, as well as provides total energy management, fuel management, and energy procurement and cost reduction services. The company was founded in 1910 and is headquartered in Folsom, New Jersey.
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Chegg, Inc. operates direct-to-student learning platform that supports students starting with their academic journey and extending into their careers with products and services to support and help them better understand their academic course materials. The company offers Chegg Services, which include subscription services; and required materials that comprise its print textbooks and eTextbooks. Its subscription services include Chegg Study, which helps students master challenging concepts on their own; Chegg Writing that provides students with a suite of tools, such as plagiarism detection scans, grammar and writing fluency checking, expert personalized writing feedback, and premium citation generation; Chegg Math, a step-by-step math problem solver and calculator that helps students to solve problems; Chegg Study Pack, a bundle of various Chegg Services product offerings, including Chegg Study, Chegg Writing, and Chegg Math Solver services, which creates an integrated platform of connected academic support services; Busuu, an online language learning solution that offers a comprehensive solution through a combination of self-paced lessons, live classes with expert tutors, and the ability to learn and practice with members of the Busuu language learning community; and Thinkful, a skills-based learning platform that offers professional courses along with networking, interviewing, and career services. The company also provides other services, such as Chegg Life, Chegg Prep, and Chegg Internships; provides personal and professional development skills training; and rents and sells print textbooks and eTextbooks. Chegg, Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Commencement awards celebrate excellence at W&M

The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award: Daniella Rosa Aron-Schiavone and Terelle Lamar Robinson are the two student recipients of this year's award, given to those who demonstrate characteristics of heart, mind and helpfulness to others. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award: The non-student recipient of this year's award was Deborah Boykin, associate vice president for campus living and director of residence life. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The Lord Botetourt Medal: Bernadette Marie Deschaine is the recipient of this year's award, given to a graduating senior who has attained the greatest distinction in scholarship. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The James Frederic Carr Memorial Cup: Awarded to a graduating senior on the basis of character, scholarship and leadership, this year's Carr Memorial Cup went to Timothy Peter Beck. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The Thatcher Prize for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Study: Isaac David Irby is this year's recipient of the Thatcher Prize, awarded on the basis of scholarship, leadership, character and service. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The Thomas Ashley Graves, Jr. Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching: One of two recipients of this year's award, Elizabeth L. Barnes, is a professor of English and American studies. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

The Thomas Ashley Graves, Jr. Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching: Beverly T. Sher, senior lecturer and chief health professions advisor, is one of two recipients of this year's award. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

Several awards are presented annually to graduates, staff and faculty members during the William & Mary Commencement ceremony. Below is a list of the awards that were presented during this year's ceremony on May 13. - Ed.

The Lord Botetourt Medal

The Lord Botetourt Medal was established in 1772 for the honor and encouragement of literary merit. In contemporary times, it is given to the graduating senior who has attained the greatest distinction in scholarship.



The 2017 recipient is Bernadette Marie Deschaine 17.



A faculty nominator described Deschaine as one in a million, and her experiences at W&M would seem to back up that assertion.



She graduated with a perfect grade point average, received Monroe and Dintersmith Fellowships from W&M and won a nationally competitive Goldwater Fellowship. Deschaine also tutored her fellow students in lab techniques, volunteered at a local hospital and worked at William & Marys Writing Resource Center.



A faculty nominator wrote of Deschaine, Bernadette took microbiology a year or two earlier than most students. In a class of 1009, she was the single top student; in fact, she was the top student over several years. She handles the most complex topics not only with ease, but with pleasure. Bernadette brims with enthusiasm . . . when others fear being wrong or embarrassed.



Deschaine plans to apply to some of the nations finest M.D.-Ph.D. programs following a year spent researching parasitology.

The James Frederic Carr Memorial Cup

Timothy Peter Beck 17 is the recipient of the Carr Cup, which is awarded to a graduating senior who best combines the qualities of character, scholarship and leadership. The cup is named after James Carr, who came to W&M in 1914, served with distinction in World War I and who lost his life before he could return to the university. It is understood that recipients carry within themselves a willingness to give themselves to a cause.

A native of South Dakota, Beck served two year-long tours in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger. During that time, his observations of the work provided by medics in combat greatly influenced him to become a physician.

A double major in kinesiology and health science with a minor in biochemistry, Beck achieved a 3.7 GPA through his junior year, and has been admitted to medical school.

Becks other activities reinforce one nominators evaluation of him as relentless, determined, dedicated and completely selfless.

He mentored transitioning veterans, was a leader in the universitys orientation efforts for new veterans, represented veterans needs to university leadership, and organized and participated in veterans recognition efforts. In appreciation of his efforts, President Taylor Reveley appointed him to serve on the University Working Group on Veterans and Military Affairs.

Thatcher Prize for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Study

Isaac David Ike Irby Ph.D., M.P.P. 17 received the Thatcher Prize, created in honor of the 21st Chancellor of William & Mary, Margaret, The Lady Thatcher. The award recognizes an outstanding student in graduate or professional study, and is selected on the basis of scholarship, leadership, character and service. Irby graduated with joint degrees, a Ph.D. in Marine Science and a masters in public policy.



His dissertation combined his interests in environmental computer modeling and regulatory policy. His scholarly research is already having a significant impact on Chesapeake Bay management policy, largely because of his ability to synthesize complex computational analyses into a succinct message that is understandable not only by his numerical modeling colleagues, but also by environmental managers and state representatives.



According to a faculty nominator, Ike is so successful at communicating science, technical advisors at the Environmental Protection Agency have requested that he routinely present them with updates on his research, thus assuring his results are already directly informing managers and decision-makers in the Chesapeake Bay region.



Irbys accolades include many awards and recognitions. He was the regional champion of the NASPAA Climate Change Policy Simulation Competition, and was selected for the highly prestigious Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology internship, housed within the Office of Science and Technology at the White House. Through this position he developed reports to advise President Barack Obama on pertinent issues encompassing all aspects of science and technology.



Irby led the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences Graduate Student Association and served as the VIMS representative to the W&M Graduate Council. He was also a founding member of the W&M Graduate School of Arts, the Science Journal Club and the universitys chapter of Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, a national organization for LGBTQIA members of STEM fields.



Irby plans to pursue a career in science policy at the national level.

Thomas Graves, Jr. Awards for Sustained Excellence in Teaching

The Graves Award is named for the universitys 23rd president and selected annually by the president of the university from nominations submitted by each of the academic deans.

The 2017 recipients honored for teaching excellence were Elizabeth L. Barnes, professor of English and American Studies, and Beverly T. Sher, senior lecturer and chief health professions advisor in Biology.

Elizabeth L. Barnes

Barnes teaches and works in the area of 19th and early 20th-century American literature, with a particular interest in the ways literature both reflects and shapes social and cultural categories like gender and age.

Her undergraduate students in the English department, the graduate students she works with in the American Studies Program, and her colleagues all attest that two key words from the title of her first book  sympathy and democracy  characterize her teaching.

Barnes passion for connecting with the literary works she studies and teaches; for connecting with her students; and for connecting her students to the literature they read, to themselves, and to one another, affects all deeply, according to nominators. And this effect runs from those who have chosen to pursue graduate degrees in literature themselves, to those who have gone on to medical school, to those who have found she gave them the ultimate teachers gift, the license to shape my own education and to ask my own questions.

Barnes' students said they are inspired by her erudition. They see her creativity, originality, risk-taking and effort as a teacher-scholar as the high standard she asks them to reach for. But they also see and highly value how carefully she guides and supports them, individually and collectively, in that aspiration.

Your capacity to inspire, challenge and engage your students is striking, said Reveley. Students feel they are learning as theyve never learned before when they take a class from you.

Barnes mastery of teaching extends beyond the classroom to mentoring. Students recounted moments during office hours or chance encounters on campus during which she showed them important things about themselves by sharing herself, both intellectually and emotionally.

This effect resonates beyond the university to the readers of her scholarship and to other teachers.

I often refer to her articles as models, wrote one of her former students, now in graduate school and an apprentice teacher. I am very grateful for [her] pedagogical example.

Beverly T. Sher

Sher teaches the universitys most popular freshman seminar while mentoring and teaching almost all of its premedical students. With an academic background in immunology and medicine, she also has 20 publications on teaching.

You bring your skills and joy for discovery to the classroom, Reveley said.

In her Emerging Diseases freshman seminar alone, she has inspired more than 1,000 W&M freshmen in the past 20 years, receiving evaluations consistently at the highest level.

Three current and former department chairs applauded Shers excellence in teaching for 25 years with unsurpassed loyalty and commitment. Each heard from numerous students that Dr. Sher is the best teacher I have ever had.

In the words of several students, teaching is her joy, and she is delighted by the successes of her students. Professor Sher guided our class through carefully-directed analysis of text, figures and tables. In class, she challenged us to understand, and never just accept words in a published paper.

One student went on to add that after class, Sher would return students discussion points covered with insightful comments, sometimes with papers stapled to them, and perhaps even a recent research paper that echoed one of their ideas.

Her teaching breathed into us a sense of wonder, the student added. Dr. Shers classes are boundless.

Sher also was described as a wonderful teacher and mentor outside the classroom. A former student wrote, In class, I always felt that Dr. Sher was teaching the course material just for me. Out of class I was amazed at her quick responses to my questions and concerns. And I was amazed by her ability to make me feel unique and special  something I also heard from many other students.

A former chairperson described her as a font of wisdom for students and priceless in value as a dedicated advisor who provides wise advice on the challenging pathway to a career in the health professions."

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards (students)

Named in honor of Algernon Sydney Sullivan, a lawyer and activist, the Sullivan Awards are distributed each year to two graduating students and one non-student in recognition of their influence for good, taking into consideration such characteristics as heart, mind and helpfulness to others. This years student recipients were Daniella Rosa Aron-Schiavone 17 and Terelle Lamar Robinson 17.

According to the award citation, Aron-Schiavone is described as an elegant leader whose inner core thrives on giving herself to others  Her ability to enact change is not limited to the individual scale. Danis inherent drive for compassion is clearly visible through her involvement in organizations both on and off campus.

As one of the founders of the popular website Humans of William & Mary, Aron-Schiavone connected students to one another by sharing their stories, thoughts and beliefs. During her time at W&M, Aron-Schiavone also founded a Williamsburg-based non-profit called Revelo Photography, which donates funds to HOPE Lodge in New York City for patients battling cancer.

Her summers have been spent in service to those in need, too: Aron-Schiavone worked as a counselor for Camp Starfish, an organization that caters to children struggling with emotional, mental and physical disabilities, and as an intern for a veteran support group in Washington, D.C.

Perhaps what made Aron-Schiavone most deserving of the award was her willingness to help without expecting anything in return. According to the citation, she shares her ideas with humility and she draws in others with her warmth and maturity. She doesnt help in order to make herself feel good. She doesnt help so that people will like her. She helps because it is her purpose to live and love healthfully.

Robinson overcame many obstacles in his early life in order to fulfill his dream of one day graduating from W&M. After earning his associates degree from Richard Bland College, Robinson transferred to W&M and has been a fixture on campus ever since.

According to the award citation, Terelle has been able to forge and nurture relationships with all sorts of people, from his friends and peers, to professors, school administrators and members of the community. He cultivates those relationships by being forthright and honest, willing to share his own perspectives and being interested in other peoples experiences.

As an orientation aide and mentor to other African American males with the African American Male Coalition, Robinson made it his mission to inspire others to succeed at W&M. He was also highly engaged in the community, from his participation in the Ebony Expressions Gospel Choir to his work as a fellow in the Washington Centers Leadership and Community Engagement Institute.

Robinson is currently taking steps to pursue a degree in law. As one faculty nominator said, Robinson is always on the move, smiling, ready with a hug, surrounded by friends and just happy to be at his dream college.

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award (non-student)

Deborah Boykin 76, M.Ed. 82 was this years non-student recipient of the Sullivan Award.

As the associate vice president for campus living and director of residence life, Boykin has been a mainstay on campus for four decades, including her time as a student.

According to one nominator, Deb leads with compassion, fairness and a sensitivity for doing what is right for students. It doesnt matter if you are a new professional, a confused freshman, a custodial worker, a faculty member, a colleague, a concerned parent or a frustrated student; Deb listens and makes those around her feel valued.

Boykin has been instrumental in a number of initiatives that make campus life more enjoyable for students. Under her direction, new buildings were added, including Lemon and Hardy Halls, and existing buildings renovated for student use. Shes played significant roles in shaping student opportunities, policies and programs, and has made it a point to meet and interact with every student staff member within Residence Life.

Boykins talents extend outside of W&M, too. She has served on national committees offering professional guidance and has traveled to South Africa to help the university system there develop college housing.

As one nominator said, Deb handles herself with a personal grace and humility, leading by example and by her caring attitude. She truly loves the work she does, the students she does the work for, the colleagues she does the work with and the university she does the work within.
Is anyone ever ready for Rembrandt? Shelle Butler is.

Bound for Amsterdam Shelle Butler (left) a graduate student in chemistry, adjusts optics for the SERS apparatus with her mentor, Kristin Wustholz. Butler won a place in a competitive NSF-funded program to work with Rembrandt paintings in the Rijksmuseum. Photo by Joseph McClain Photo - of - Hide Caption

Shelle Butler is going to Amsterdam this summer to work with some of the worlds most highly valued works of art.

But I wont be actually touching the Rembrandts, she said, affecting a little wide-eyed shudder of horror. Ill be back over there in the corner with my lasers.

The apprehension may be fake, but the Rembrandts are very real. Butler will be part of a team working to identify pigments used by Rembrandt van Rijn in the 17th century. And, yes, there will be lasers.

Butler is pursuing a masters degree in William & Marys Department of Chemistry. She is one of four U.S. graduate students chosen to participate in one of National Science Foundations programs known as IRES  International Research Experiences for U.S.-based Students (IRES).

Her program, Cultural Heritage Research in the Netherlands, is administered through Northwestern University. The work will be primarily in the Atelier Building (Ateliergebouw), the conservation workshop of the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands.

Butler cant speak about which Rembrandt paintings she will work with. There are plenty of possibilities: Wikipedia puts the Rijksmuseums Rembrandt census at 25, including many cream-of-the-crop works such as The Night Watch and the wedding portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, described in a Rijksmuseum video as the Kim Kardashian and Kanye West of the Golden Age.

Even though Butler is a first-year masters student, she is already an experienced color chemist, having acquired enough lab chops to be selected for the competitive IRES program over candidates pursuing Ph.D. degrees.

Butler has worked within a long-standing and fruitful collaboration between Shelley Svoboda, a senior conservator of paintings at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Kristin Wustholz, associate professor of chemistry at William & Mary. Svoboda and Wustholz have mastered a technique for chemical analysis of paints and pigments used in historic and vintage paintings.

Butler has considerable experience with the Svoboda-Wustholz Technique, beginning with an understanding of the division of labor.

It all starts with Shelley, the conservator, Butler explained. The conservator collects samples from the painting. Then I go over to Shelleys lab.

Svoboda transfers the paint samples to a microscope slide and then Butler takes over, spotting the minuscule samples with even smaller silver nanoparticles.

Then I take the treated samples back to our lab in the ISC, she continued. The samples go through a technique known as SERS  surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

I use a laser to excite the sample and so the pigment and the silver nanoparticles will have an interaction. Essentially, the silver nanoparticles amplify the chemical fingerprint of whatever pigment we have.

It works because the laser causes each pigment to produce its own Raman spectrum, the phenomenon that Butler called a fingerprint. Just as a police officer looks through a library of actual fingerprints for a match to a print lifted from the scene of a crime, Butler checks a library of chemical color fingerprints for a match to her SERS result. Wustholz refers to the technique as minimally destructive, which in laymans terms means that a conservator needs to remove only the teeniest chip of paint for analysis.

Butlers pigment experience came from working on a number of paintings, some of them with the staff of William & Marys own Muscarelle Museum of Art, others, such as works by William Dering and Charles Willson Peale, in the big leagues of historic paintings.

But there are the big leagues  and then there is Rembrandt.

I think Shelles ready. I hope she is, Wustholz said. But is anybody ever really ready for Rembrandt?

She added that if anybody is ever ready for Rembrandt, its Shelle Butler. In the first place, Wustholz expects the laser-enhanced spectroscopy conducted in the Ateliergebouw to be very familiar work for her student. Butlers Svoboda-Wustholz experience is excellent preparation for the work ahead in Amsterdam.

Not many labs in the world are using SERS for art and historical artifacts, Wustholz said. Maybe a dozen or so.

She said Butler will bring both theoretical and practical experience to the laboratories of Amsterdam. Wustholz noted that Butler has worked through some challenges, addressing some knotty issues with the synthesis of the silver nanoparticles necessary for the technique. Plus, Butler heads to Amsterdam with substantial experience in analysis of period colors, especially reds.

So far, lets see: Ive worked with lots of carmine red, which is really cool, because that originates from cochineal insects, she said. You get them dried and you mortar-and-pestle them. Madder red is plant-based. Ive also looked at Prussian blue  thats an inorganic synthesized dye that dates to the early 18th century. Its really neat finding the origins of these artist pigments. Essentially, theyre animal, vegetable or mineral.

One of the most common concerns for conservators of historic paintings is the source of the red pigments used. Svoboda explained that even in works that don't seem to show much red, the color is a necessary component of skin tones.

Though the color can be very subtle, particularly in the case of organic reds, they are particularly sought after in the flesh areas throughout the history of painting, she explained. Certain artists really found that these organic dye-based colors give a living quality that not other non-fading pigments.

The plant- and insect-based reds fade in the light, becoming what is known as a fugitive color. SERS excels at chasing down the identity of a fugitive pigment. Svoboda points out that a museum armed with knowledge of a works pigments is prepared to address a number of issues. One such issue might be how best to go about repairing damaged areas through a process known as inpainting.

Museums, of course, want to stop or slow fading, keeping fugitive colors from fleeing even farther. SERS can answer important questions about optimum conditions for fade-resistant displaying of Peales, Rembrandts and other masterpieces. Svoboda said SERS analysis can revise long-standing best practices in museums.

Its been assumed that many oil-based paintings have no organic dye-based color content, she explained. So, it was naturally assumed that they are able to take higher light levels than, perhaps paper objects or textiles.

Butlers work in the Ateliergebouw will help to provide answers as the Rijksmuseum considers best courses of action for their collection of Rembrandts. Shell leave June 2 for a two-month stay. She is an Air Force veteran and has lived in Europe before, but this will be her first trip to Amsterdam. She goes with some basic guidance from her mentor.

My advice to her is to just apply what youve learned on a more modest scale, Wustholz said. Breathe. Be calm. Observe everything. Write down everything.




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First Iter plasma chamber tool ready for shipment

16 May 2017

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The first vacuum vessel sector sub-assembly tool for the Iter fusion reactor has passed factory acceptance tests in South Korea. The tool is by far the largest custom-designed tool for the reactor, currently under construction at Cadarache in southern France.

A ceremony marked the completion of factory acceptance tests (Image: Iter)

As part of its procurement contributions to the international Iter project, the Korean Domestic Agency is responsible for the design and fabrication of the sector sub-assembly tools as well as 128 other purpose-built assembly tools. For the sector sub-assembly tools, its main contractor - SFA Engineering Corp - has contracted with Taekyung Heavy Industries (THI) for the fabrication of all structures, sub-assembly and testing, and on-site installation.

A ceremony was held on 11 May at THI's manufacturing facility in Changwon, South Korea, to mark the end of the factory acceptance test phase of the first of nine sector sub-assembly twin tools. The tests were conducted in the presence of observers from the Iter Organisation and the Korean Domestic Agency.

Iter's plasma chamber, or vacuum vessel, will be formed from nine wedge-shaped steel sectors that measure over 14 meters in height and weigh 440 tonnes. The sector sub-assembly tools - each about 22 meters in height and weighing around 860 tonnes - are designed to support the weight of one vacuum vessel sector, two toroidal field coils and thermal shielding, which together weigh some 1200 tonnes.

Iter said, "Lessons learned on the realisation of the first tool will serve in the fabrication of the second, which has started now in Korea."

Workers have begun dismantling the tool for shipment to Iter. The structural steel work and auxiliary components will be packed into 90 shipping crates and transported to the Iter construction site in five shipments between June and August. Installation of the first tool will begin in the Assembly Building in September, with the installation of the base rails. The complete tool is expected to be in place by the end of the year. The installation work will mainly be carried out by THI's local contractor CNIM (France).

Kijung Jung, head of the Korean Domestic Agency, said: "This is a step forward for the procurement efforts for Iter in Korea and for the project as a whole. Like all Iter members, Korea's participation in Iter contributes to our industrial and scientific capabilities and positions our nation to be a future player of consequence in the promising domain of fusion."

Iter, which stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is a major international project to build a 500MW tokamak fusion device (requiring an input of 50MW) designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy.

The European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Under a revised schedule established by the Iter organisation last year, first plasma is planned for 2025, with deuterium-tritium fusion experiments commencing in 2035. Construction costs are expected to be around 20 billion ($22 billion), with components contributed by the Iter members on an 'in-kind' basis.

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by World Nuclear News

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National Grid puts Moorside plans on hold

16 May 2017

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The UK's National Grid said today it has "paused" plans for grid infrastructure work needed for the Moorside nuclear power plant whilst developer NuGeneration (NuGen) conducts a strategic review of the project. National Grid unveiled proposals last October for a 2.8 billion ($3.4 billion) project to connect the planned plant in West Cumbria to the country's electricity network, ahead of ten weeks of consultation it completed in early January.

A spokeswoman for National Grid told World Nuclear News today: "Following NuGen's announcement of a strategic review of their project, we will work with them to understand the implications for the timescales of their project. In line with NuGen's review, we are pausing work on our connection. This will ensure we can align our plans both for the application for consent and the development of the infrastructure itself."

NuGen, a 60-40% joint venture between Japan's Toshiba and France's Engie - plans to build a nuclear power plant of up to 3.8 GWe gross capacity at Moorside. NuGen has said it combines the strengths of its two globally-recognised parent companies, with proven operating and engineering experience, and AP1000 nuclear reactor technology provided by Westinghouse Electric Company, Toshiba's US nuclear unit.

UK regulators announced on 30 March that the AP1000 had successfully completed the Generic Design Assessment process. But the day before, on 29 March, Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors to enable strategic restructuring amid "financial and construction challenges" in its US AP1000 power plant projects. Yesterday, Toshiba Corporation said it expects to report a consolidated net loss of JPY950 billion ($8.4 billion) for the 2016-2017 financial year, ending 31 March, according to unaudited results. The figures are projections only since the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC, have refused to sign them off owing to discrepancies over losses at Westinghouse.

Toshiba Corp said on 14 February it would reduce its exposure to reactor construction projects outside Japan, but NuGen said the same day Toshiba remained committed to Moorside. A NuGen representative said then that the company "had not yet secured an EPC structure to build at the site, but did not intend to utilise Toshiba's services", adding, "It was always NuGen's plan to identify an independent constructor."

Toshiba received notice from Engie on 3 April that it had exercised its right to require Toshiba to purchase all shares held by Engie in NuGen.

Strategic Review

In a statement today, National Grid said: "NuGen has announced it is conducting a strategic review to look at its ownership and technology vendor. NuGen is confident this review will lead to an outcome that provides a more robust, stable and sustainable platform to meet its commitment to deliver the next generation of nuclear power. As a result of focusing their efforts on this review, NuGen are pausing work on their development consent order for Moorside. In light of this, we have decided to pause our work to consent NuGen's connection and take the time to understand NuGen's program to make sure our projects are aligned. It is important that we make sure the consents run broadly in parallel, so the Planning Inspectorate can examine the consent application for our connection knowing there is a strong need for it.

"Despite this pause, we are confident the connection will still be ready when NuGen requires it and are continuing to work closely with them. We would like to thank people and stakeholders once again for all their efforts in responding to our previous consultation. We will let you know more about how we are developing our connection as soon as we are able."

When National Grid unveiled its proposal for the Moorside project last October, it said it planned to put lines underground and under Morecambe Bay to protect the Lake District National Park and that more than a quarter of the connection could be underground. According to the proposal, some 23.4km (14.5 miles) of new line is to be laid underground through the entire western section of the national park. This could see the existing lines there being removed completely, leaving this part of the park free of pylons for the first time in 50 years, the National Grid said. This would be in addition to: putting cables through a tunnel measuring about 22km under Morecambe Bay to avoid the south part of the national park at a cost of 1.2 billion; removing many of the existing pylons owned by Electricity North West (ENW) and replacing them with fewer, taller pylons of its own operating at a greater voltage; and replacing the low voltage line in the area around the Hadrian's Wall UNESCO World Heritage Site with underground cables.

National Grid said it was confident that along the 164km route of the proposed connection, it could remove many of the existing pylons owned by ENW, which carry low voltage power lines around the west coast of Cumbria. It would replace them with fewer, taller pylons carrying lines of its own operating at a higher voltage. Engineers are already developing proposals, it said when it announced the proposal, for a 1.2 billion tunnel under Morecambe Bay, which would avoid putting new lines through the southern part of the Lake District.

National Grid had aimed to submit an application for consent to build the new connection to the Planning Inspectorate this year. A decision would then be made by the Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. If consent were granted, construction work would be expected to start in 2019. National Grid also said it was contracted to provide NuGen with the first phase of the connection into its transmission network by 2024.

Transitional phase

NuGen said today that its CEO, Tom Samson, had "held a series of meetings with elected representatives and technical and special interest groups in Cumbria to discuss the company's current transitional phase".

Samson outlined NuGen's "tough start to 2017" when the extent of the financial issues affecting Toshiba and reactor vendor Westinghouse became apparent. He said these issues, unconnected to Moorside, had then prompted current shareholder Engie to decide to exit the project in line with shareholder agreements.

"At the end of March, it became clear we at NuGen had to take a step back due to these circumstances and revisit some fundamental elements on which we had been building the program to deliver Moorside," Samson said, according to the company statement.

"As has been reported, we took the decision to 'hit the pause button' in order to explore our options to move forward to our objective - which is to deliver the next generation of low-carbon baseload electricity by the mid-2020s, for the benefit of the UK's future prosperity."

There is a "universe of options", he said, but NuGen cannot exercise those options unilaterally, and has launched a strategic review, sanctioned by its board and in consultation with the UK government, "to explore a range of options which could include new investors, technology and financing solutions to ensure Moorside is delivered".

He added that NuGen has "100% backing" from Toshiba as it moves through this transition.

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Kazakhstan opens nuclear security training centre

16 May 2017

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Kazakhstan has opened a new facility to provide security training to its nuclear facility personnel. The Nuclear Security Training Centre (NSTC) has been developed with the support of the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

Representatives from Kazakh and US organisations mark the opening of the new centre (Image: NNSA)

Kazakhstan announced plans to establish the NSTC in its national statement to the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. Construction work began in late 2015 at a site adjacent to Kazakhstan's Institute of Nuclear Physics at Alatau, near Almaty. The centre will train personnel from local, regional and international nuclear facilities and organisations in security disciplines, including physical protection systems, nuclear material accounting and control systems, response forces, and secure transportation.

The centre was designed and constructed with support from the NNSA, which will continue to collaborate with the NSTC by assisting with management and operations plans and training the centre's staff in curriculum development and delivery.

"This training centre demonstrates the Republic of Kazakhstan's commitment to nuclear security. Further, it highlights how nations working together can enhance nuclear security worldwide," NNSA acting deputy administrator for defence nuclear non-proliferation David Huizenga said.

Kazakhstan to build fuel cycle



Kazakhstan intends to create a vertically integrated nuclear fuel cycle company by 2020, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced yesterday. "Kazakhstan is interested not only in the extraction and supply of natural uranium, but also in the production and marketing of higher-grade uranium products with high added value," he told the country's lower house, the Majilis.

According to the Kazinform news agency, the opening ceremony was attended by the USA's ambassador to Kazakhstan, George Krol, US Consul General in Almaty Mark Moody, representatives of the NNSA, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and Gumar Sergazin, deputy chair of the Kazakh Ministry of Energy's Committee for Nuclear and Energy Supervision and Monitoring.

Kazakhstan is the world's leading uranium producer and though it does not have an operating nuclear power plant, it does have operating research reactors. It also produces nuclear fuel pellets and has plans to further develop its fuel cycle activities. The country is also to host the low-enriched uranium fuel 'bank' - scheduled to open later this year - on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"All this wealth carries the risks of sabotage and information leakage, which can occur even without breaking into the building," Petr Chakrov, deputy director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics, said. "Therefore, to implement security measures we need specialists and training systems."

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Canada has many diverse ecosystems which are home to different animal species. However, due to human activities such as overexploitation and conversion of grasslands into agricultural land, some of these species have been on a rapid decline with some nearing extinction. According to the IUCN, there are about 26 endangered species in Canada out of which five are critically endangered. The Canadian government and other local and international bodies have initiated several recoveries and conservation efforts such as introducing legislation and establishing protected areas.

Endangered Animals Of Canada

Bocaccio Rockfish

The Bocaccio rockfish is a critically endangered species in the rockfish family. The fish occupies shallow waters with rocky reefs, piers, floats, and kelp beds during the juvenile stages shifting to deeper and cooler waters with deep reefs as they grow. In Canada, the fish is found along the coasts of British Columbia. Recreational and commercial fishing have been responsible for the decreasing populations of the species. The Bocaccio rockfish has a longer shelf-life - making it a major target among fishers.

Eskimo Curlew

The Eskimo curlew is another critically endangered Canadian bird species. The shore bird, previously found in large populations in Canadas western Arctic tundra, has become rare due to overhunting for food. In Canada, the bird is fully protected under the law, with its hunting outlawed. Other factors such as habitat loss due to encroachment by human activities such as agriculture have also contributed to the declining population.

Roundnose Grenadier

The Roundnose grenadier is a ray-finned fish, and a critically endangered species of the Atlantic Ocean. The fish has been exploited since the 1960s as a source of food and is loved for its pleasantly textured white meat. The fish occupies Canadian waters at Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Davis Strait. Other populations are found in Iceland, Greenland, Baffin Island, and Norway. Though fishing has been regulated across the North Atlantic waters, deep fishing still captures populations of the grenadier. The recovery chances of the species remain low due to slow growth and maturity rates.

Shortnose Cisco

The Shortnose Cisco is another critically endangered freshwater fish previously found in large populations in the Great Lakes of Canada. Some wildlife conservation bodies consider the species extinct due to its rare occurrence. Currently, the species is restricted within Lake Huron. Environmental degradation, interbreeding, commercial overexploitation, and predation by other species (especially introduced species) are identified as the primary factors behind the drastic decline and near extinction of the Shortnose cisco fish.

Vancouver Island Marmot

The Vancouver Island marmot is a critically endangered rodent species and one of the worlds rarest species endemic to mountains of Vancouver Island. The Vancouver Island marmot is a rodent in the squirrel family. Factors such as predation and habitat loss and alterations due to human activities and climate have contributed more to their decrease than increase. Predators of the Marmot include the golden eagle, wolves, and cougars. Conservation efforts such as captive breeding have been made by several bodies such as the Toronto Zoo to keep the species from extinction.

Other Endangered Species Of Canada

Also on the list of endangered animals of Canada are the American eel, the Atlantic Bluefin tuna, the Atlantic halibut, the black-footed ferret, the Blandings turtle, the blue whale, and the copper redhorse.
Iceland is an island country in the North Atlantic, located south of the Arctic Circle. It is approximately 290 kilometers off south of Greenland, 860 kilometers from Scotland, and about 4,200 kilometers from New York. Although the country comprises numerous islands, the main island covers 98.8% of the countrys total area (101,826 square kilometers of the 103,000 square kilometers). The main island is Europes second-largest and the worlds 18th largest island. Iceland has a coastline of about 4,970 kilometers.

Map of Iceland showing major glaciers, water bodies, islands, etc.

Contents:

Climate

The climate of Iceland can be described as subpolar oceanic and sub-arctic climates. The subpolar climate dominates the southern coastal areas, while the sub-arctic climate is common in highland areas. The countrys climate is influenced by the North Atlantic Current, which makes the conditions much warmer than other places on the same latitude. However, the countrys weather is unpredictable and varies with location and topography. The north coast is colder, drier, and less winder than the south coast, while central highlands are the countrys coldest areas. The northern lowland areas are the driest.

Aerial image of Reykjavik the capital of Iceland after heavy snowfall in winter.

Icelands climate is characterized by cool, damp summers and mild, windy winters. Winters are generally mild due to the maritime and warm ocean current influence. Winter temperatures average 14 degrees Fahrenheit in the north, with the lowest ever recorded temperatures being -39.5 degrees Fahrenheit. During summers, temperature averages 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit in the southern parts. However, temperatures can reach 77 degrees Fahrenheit on warmer summer days. Thunderstorms are rare across the islands, with less than five storms annually. The storms result from air masses originating from Europe.

Islands

Panorama of Heimaey Island and city at Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, Iceland.

Iceland comprises one big island, at least 30 smaller islands, and numerous rock formations. However, the sizes of these islands vary from time to time due to sea action and volcanic activities. Besides the main island, only four islands are inhabited, while the rest are tourist or birds nesting spots. The four inhabited islands are Heimaey, Flatey, Hrisey, and Grimsey. The main island covers about 99% of the countrys total land area (101,826 sq. km of 103,000 sq. km).

At 13.4 square kilometers, Heimaey is the largest island off the main islands coast and Vestmannaeyjars largest island, hosting some 4,200 people. Hrisey is approximately 8 square kilometers but hosts less than 200 people. Grimsey, located 40 kilometers off the main islands north, covers 5.3 square kilometers and is home to about 76 people. Flatey is the largest of the West Iceland islands, which comprises over 40 small islands and islets. It is home to about five people. Other Icelandic islands are Hjorsey, Brokey, and Popey.

Mountains

Scenic view of Iceland's mountains.

Iceland has mountains and volcanoes of all sizes and shapes. In Westfjords, mountains have table-like tops with fjords, while in the east, the mountains are generally rugged. The Westfjords mountains date back 10-16 million years and were shaped by glacial activities. The younger mountains were mainly formed when the Eurasian and American plates collided. Several mountains can be seen from the capital, Reykjavik, including Snfellsjokull, Esjan, and Akrafjall.

Ten Icelandic mountains are at least 1,500 meters tall, of which two rises above 2,000 meters. Orfajokull, an active volcano, is Icelands highest volcano. Hvannadalshnukur, one of the volcanos peaks, is the countrys highest mountain at 2110 meters. Bararbunga is the second-highest peak, at 2009 meters. Other major mountains are Kverkfjoll, Snfell, and Hofsjokull.

Rank Highest Mountains in Iceland Elevation 1 Hvannadalshnjukur 2,110 meters 2 Baroarbunga 2,000 meters 3 Kverkfjoll 1,920 meters 4 Snaefell 1,833 meters 5 Hofsjokull 1,765 meters 6 Heroubreio 1,682 meters 7 Eiriksjokull 1,675 meters 8 Eyjafjallajokull 1,666 meters 9 Tungnafellsjokull 1,540 meters 10 Kerling 1,538 meters

Volcanoes

Lava Flows from Mount Fagradalsfjall, Iceland.

Iceland is one of the Earths youngest landmasses located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Iceland hotspot. The location and age make the island a geologically active region with frequent volcanoes and earthquakes. The island itself formed from a large crack on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the American and Eurasia plates meet. Today, Icelands land area is growing at a rate of 5 cm annually.

Iceland is characterized by frequent volcanoes, including Eldfell, Hekla, Herubrei, and Eldgja. Eyjafjallajokull erupted in 2010, causing transportation delays, especially European air traffic. Grimsvotn erupted in 2011, while Holuhraun is the latest volcano to erupt, erupting continuously for seven months between August 2014 and February 2015. The 1.4 cubic kilometers of lava produced by the erupting volcano covered about 85 square kilometers, Icelands largest lava field since 1783.

Orfajokull is Icelands largest volcano and the countrys highest peak, at 2119 meters above sea level. This active, ice-covered volcano is located in the Vatnajokull National Park. Orfajokull last erupted in 1728, with increased earthquake activities recorded in 2017 and 2018. Other large volcanoes are Bararbunga, Kverkfjoll, and Hofsjokull.

Rank Name Elevation (m) 1 Orfajokull 2119 2 Bararbunga 2005 3 Kverkfjoll 1920 4 Hofsjokull 1782 5 Esjufjoll 1760 6 Grimsvotn 1725 7 Laki 1725 8 Herubrei 1682 9 Eyjafjallajokull 1666 10 Loki-Fogrufjoll 1570

Glaciers

Skaftafell glacier, Vatnajokull National Park, Iceland.

Although Iceland lies close to the Arctic Circle, glacier covers only 11% of its total land area, about 11,400 square kilometers. The island is home to about 269 glaciers of all kinds, including ice caps, mountain glaciers, outlet glaciers, alpine cirque glaciers, piedmonts, and ice streams. Glaciers are Icelands major tourist attractions, with glacier tours popular throughout the country. However, climate change is increasingly leading to ice loss, a concern to the government and conservation societies.

Icelands ice caps cover less than 50,000 square kilometers and are common in highland areas, including summits of volcanoes such as Grimsvotn and Bararbunga. The Bararbunga ice cap covers about 60 square kilometers, while Grimsvotn is 100 square kilometers. However, Vatnajokull is the countrys largest and Europes second-largest ice cap by area, spanning 7,900 square kilometers, about 8% of the countrys total area. It is Europes largest ice cap by volume, at 3,000 cubic kilometers. The ice has an average thickness of 380 meters. There are numerous volcanoes under the ice cap, some of which continue to erupt, leading to flooding incidences.

Rank Glacier or Ice Cap Area km 1 Vatnajokull 8,300 2 Langjokull 953 3 Hofsjokull 925 4 Myrdalsjokull 596 5 Drangajokull 160 6 Eyjafjallajokull 78 7 Tungnafellsjokull 48 8 orisjokull 32 9 Eiriksjokull 22 10 randarjokull 22

Lakes

Lake Myvatn in Iceland.

There are numerous lakes in Iceland which formed from different geological and geographical processes. Some lakes like orisvatn and ingvallavatn are of tectonic origin, while Skorradalsvatn and Logurinn resulted from the valley deepening by glacial erosion or lava flow. Lakes like Grnalon were dug by glaciers and occasionally empty beneath the glacier, causing jokulhlaups to form. Although Iceland receives about 2,000 mm of rainfall annually, some lakes are filled by the melting glacier.

20 Icelandic lakes have a surface area of more than 10 square kilometers, and 40 other lakes are between 2.5 and 10 square kilometers. ingvallavatn is the countrys largest lake, at 84 square kilometers, followed by orisvatn, at 83-86 square kilometers. However, orisvatn is the largest lake by volume, at 330 gigaliters, while Lake Oskjuvatn is Icelands deepest lake, at 217 meters.

Rank Name Of The Lake Area Occupied By The Lake (in km) 1 orisvatn 8386 2 ingvallavatn 84 3 Halslon 57 4 Blondulon 57 5 Lagarfljot (Logurinn) 53 6 Hagongulon 37 7 Myvatn 37 8 Hop 2944 9 Hvitarvatn 30 10 Langisjor 26

Waterfalls

Waterfall in Iceland.

Due to the impact of glaciers, Iceland hosts some incredible waterfalls on Earth. The waterfalls are surrounded by nature and scattered throughout the country. They contain some of the pure glacier water that carves through rocks to create fascinating shapes. The glaciers result from the frequent snow and rains and the countrys location near the Arctic. Some of the famous waterfalls in the Iceland area Dettifoss, Gulfoss, Haifoss, Skogafoss, and Selfoss.

Dettifoss is Icelands most powerful waterfall located in Vatnajokull National Park. It is considered Europes second most powerful waterfall after Rhine Fall. Dettifoss is 100 meters wide 44 meters wide, with a water flow of 193 cubic meters per second. Morsarfoss, also located in the national park, is Icelands tallest waterfall, with a height of 240 meters.

National Parks

Ice Cave in Vatnajokull, Iceland.

Before 2008, Iceland had four national parks. However, two of the national parks, Skaftafell and Jokulsargljufur, were merged and became part of the Vatnajokull National Park. The other two national parks are Snfellsjokull and ingvellir. Vatnajokull National Park is Icelands largest national park, spanning over 14,141 square kilometers. It is located in South-East Iceland and has varieties of features, including volcanoes, rivers, and the Vatnajokull glacier, Europes largest glacier. The glacier has a surface area of about 7,900 square kilometers and a thickness of 400-600 meters. The glacier is surrounded by high plateaus, broad wetlands, and high mountain ridges. It was declared a World Heritage Site in July 2019.

Snfellsjokull is located in West Iceland and covers about 170 square kilometers. The parks main attraction is the 700 thousand-year-old ice-capped stratovolcano known as Snfellsjokull. The national park was established in 2001. ingvellir is a national park in Southwest Iceland used as Icelands annual parliament site (Aling) between 930 CE and 1998 CE. The park is about 40 kilometers off Reykjaviks northeast. It is an important cultural, geological, and historical park.

Natural Resources

Fishing ships in Husavik Harbour, Iceland, Europe.

Iceland has three major natural resources that have contributed significantly to its economic growth over the years. These major resources are fisheries, water, and renewable energy. Fishing has been one of the countrys major economic activities since ancient times. Fisheries were so important to Iceland that they fought the UK over fishing limits. Today, Icelands exclusive economic zone is approximately 751,345 square kilometers. Fish accounts for about 40% of the countrys export value. In 2011, the sector contributed 27% of the GDP. According to the labor department, fisheries employ over 5% of the total workforce.

Geothermal power plant located at Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland.

Iceland has vast amounts of geothermal and hydroelectric power due to its location. The country generates almost all its energy from clean sources, making it the worlds largest renewable energy user. About 90% of homeowners use geothermal power to heat their homes. The government has constructed geothermal plants throughout the country, including Krafla and Nesjavellir.

Although Iceland is surrounded by the saline Atlantic Ocean, it has plenty of pure water. It is one of the major exporters of bottled water, with its water becoming more popular globally. Water remains an essential natural resource in Iceland because of its industrial and home use. Up to 70% of the countrys electricity is hydropower, while other industries also rely on water for production.
Cement is a fine powder commonly used as a binder in construction. When the substance is mixed with water, gravel, and sand, concrete is formed. Mixing cement, water, sand, and lime will create mortar. Cement is manufactured from different materials including limestone, chalk, shells, or marble combined with clay, iron ore, silica sand, shale, and slate. These resources are heated to high temperatures to form a rock-like material which is subsequently ground to form cement.

1. China

In 2014, China produced 2,500 million metric tons of cement. The nation has the worlds largest cement industry. China is urbanizing at a rapid rate characterized by the growth of small and large cities and metropolises. More and more people in China are moving from rural areas into cities every year and the government has invested in infrastructure from roads, railways, and buildings. The majority of residents in China live in structures made from cement (unlike some countries like the US where many houses are built of wood). Most of the countrys cement companies are owned by the state and therefore access cheap capital and government support. These factors have boosted over-production. The cement industry in China has been praised and criticized in equal measure. While improved infrastructure has expanded the Chinese economy, large-scale cement manufacture has also contributed to massive environmental pollution.

2. India

Indias cement industry produced 280 million metric tons in 2014. Cement production in the country records a 5-6% growth annually. The top players in the nations cement sector are Ultratech Cement which commands 22% of the domestic market followed by ACC and Ambuja with an estimated 15% and 13% market share respectively. Residential real-estate construction is the biggest consumer of cement in India. Infrastructure and commercial real-estate construction in addition to industrial development are other cement users in the country.

3. The United States

The US is home to the third largest cement industry in the world. In 2014, 83 million metric tons of cement was produced in the nation. 34 American states have cement manufacturing plants. The states of Texas, Missouri, Alabama, California, and Florida produced nearly half of the total cement manufacturers in the US in 2013. The US also has two plants located in Puerto Rico. In 2015, 10% of the cement consumed in the nation was imported with the bulk coming from Greece and Canada. Portland cement in the US is produced by leading companies such as CEMEX, Lehigh Hanson Inc., Texas Industries Inc., and LafargeHolcim.

4. Iran

The total cement produced in Iran in 2014 amounted to 75 million metric tons. The country has increased its capacity to become the largest cement producer in the Middle East. Iran is a major cement exporter destined for countries such as Iraq, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. In 2015, the country had 71 cement plants which together have a capacity of 80.6 million tons/year. The leading cement companies such as Fars and Khuzestan Cement Company and Ghadir Investment Company are backed by the government.

Emerging Trends

The manufacture of cement is associated with the release of greenhouse gasses. Urbanizing countries such as India and China have been blamed for the increasing cement-related pollution. The concept of green cement was developed as a substitute for the current methods of producing cement. Green cement uses less natural raw materials, energy, and water and it is emerging as a replacement for Portland cement. Research is ongoing to develop innovative manufacturing methods of green cement with the aim of reducing and even eliminating the emission of greenhouse gasses and other toxic pollutants.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Man driving car (illustration)

By: Emily Lewis WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A man became extremely distraught after failing a driving test, which would have permitted him to legally operate a bulldozer, according to police in the United Arab Emirates.

Al Qusais police said that they have arrested the 25-year-old man, who was not identified, after being accused of attempting suicide.

At the Dubai Court of Misdemeanours, the suspect pleaded not guilty to one count of attempting suicide.

According to the police investigation, the suspect spent his entire life savings to cover the costs of taking driving tests for the operation of bulldozers.

Over the past year, the suspect tried and failed taking the test multiple times.

On Sunday, the suspect and his 23-year-old friend went to the Galadari Motor Driving Centre, to take the driving test for operating bulldozers.

After failing the test again, the suspect became extremely angry and frustrated. He then repeatedly said that he wished to die.

The man waked to a nearby gas station and bought diesel. The suspect then doused himself with the fuel. The man then reached into his pocket to grab a cigarette lighter.

The suspectas friend and another man quickly sprang into action and prevented the man from lighting himself on fire. Officials at the Galadari Motor Driving Centre called police, who arrested the suspect.

During questioning, the suspect told police that since he had no money left, he decided to kill himself.
Armed Police Execute Firearms Warrant In Ruabon

This article is old - Published: Tuesday, May 16th, 2017

Armed police attended an address in Ruabon this morning based on intelligence from the local community.

Several police vehicles with armed police and a dog unit attended an address on Daniels Drive in Ruabon around 7:20am.

An eyewitness told Wrexham.com that one person had appeared to be detained, yet North Wales Police later said no one had been arrested.

CI Dave Jolly of North Wales Police said: Based on intelligence from the local community we executed a firearms warrant at an address off Daniels Drive, Ruabon this morning.

A gas powered hand gun was recovered. No one has been arrested.

I appreciate that this operation may have caused some disruption and I would like to thank local residents for their understanding.

Just after 10am the Alliance Armed Policing Unit tweeted a picture with the same marked 44 police vehicle saying: Early start to the day for #AAP who conducted Armed operation in partnership with @NwpWrexhamRural #OneTeam.
On Sunday, the Presidium of the Austrian Peoples Party (OVP) elected 30-year-old Sebastian Kurz as the new party leader, granting him dictatorial powers. Kurz has a free hand in the selection of leading personnel, the content of the party programme, the details of electoral slates, conducting coalition negotiations and the selection of ministers. Editorials speak of a one-man party.

The new party leader will take part in the next national election with a slate named after him (The Kurz/New Peoples Party slate), which will be supported by the OVP, but which can also nominate non-party members. The OVP will continue to function as a framework and financial donor, but only one person will determine the direction of travel: Sebastian Kurz, commented the Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Kurz, who has been foreign minister for three years in the grand coalition of the Social Democrats (SPO) and the Austrian Peoples Party (OVP), had been preparing the putsch-like takeover of the party presidency for months. He sought to distinguish himself through an aggressive refugee policy, which hardly differs from that of the right-wing extremist Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), touring through the federal states and conspiring against former party chair Reinhold Mitterlehner.

On Wednesday, an exasperated Mitterlehner finally quit the party chairmanship, as well as his offices as vice chancellor and economics minister, making way for Kurz. Kurz then presented the party with a seven-point ultimatum, to secure himself unlimited power over the party.

Point 3 reads: The party leader shall have the right to determine personnel decisions, he alone shall be responsible for the federal slate [of candidates] and shall have a veto on provincial slates. According to point 4, he chooses the General Secretary and the government team and no longer needs a decision of the executive committee. Point 5 gives him a free hand for negotiating coalitions and point 6, the right to specify the political direction of the party.

In an interview with Kronen Zeitung, Austrias most prominent tabloid, Kurz explained that his conditions were non-negotiable. He would be no longer available to the party if they were not fulfilled. On Sunday evening, the party presidency accepted the ultimatum at a crisis meeting and unanimously selected Kurz as the new party leader.

Kurz is now seeking the dissolution of the grand coalition and early elections this autumn. Both the SPO and the FPO have indicated that they agree. The election is expected to pave the way for the right-wing extremist FPO into government, which is currently running at 30 percent in the polls, ahead of the Social Democrats (28 percent) and the OVP (21 percent). Less than a year after the defeat of the FPO candidate Norbert Hofer in the presidential election, the FPO would thus be able to enter government.

Kurz has left no doubt that he is prepared to form a government together with the right-wing extremists. However, he only wants to do so if he can take over the office of chancellor. To expand his parliamentary base, he has already begun inviting representatives of other parties to his election slate. Matthias Strolz, head of the liberal NEOS party, which, with 5 percent of the vote, has been represented in parliament since 2013, complained on Twitter: Sebastian Kurz, stop calling our people. That is shameless and scheming.

The SPO is also prepared to form a government with the FPO. It has already done this at state level in Burgenland, and Chancellor Christian Kern, a former manager, has repeatedly made clear that he would also be ready to do so at federal level.

The transformation of the OVP into an authoritarian election association serves to prepare the way for an extremely right-wing government, which will pursue anti-working class, anti-democratic and militarist policies. A party leader who neither accepts democratic decisions nor brooks opposition in the ranks of his own organisation will not do so as head of government.

The OVP is one of the major, traditional conservative parties of Europe, and has repeatedly headed the Austrian government since 1945. The fact that it is now undergoing such a profound change shows how far advanced is the erosion of democratic principles in ruling circles.

The bourgeois media tirelessly denounces Turkish President Erdogan, Russian President Putin, and Hungarian government leader Orban for the use of authoritarian methods and heading parties that follow lockstep in their path. But when this happens on their own doorstep, they not only keep silent, but support it.

The daily Die Presse came to the defence of the OVP against the accusation that what was now going on in its ranks was a pre-fascist coup, an authoritarian turn, the return of the 1930s and that its protagonist is located somewhere between Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This, according to Die Presse, is pure hatred, because Every boss of a larger company in Austria has that: sovereignty over personnel questions and the strategic direction of his company. Yes, he can even choose the name of his company. The OVP leader is now getting something like this.

Presenting the command structure of a company as a model for the organisation of a political partyone cannot formulate the breakdown of any form of democracy more clearly. President Donald Trump acts according to the same principles, viewing any unwanted parliamentary or judicial decision as an interference with his authority and the business interests of his family, and is increasingly turning to authoritarian methods of rule.

The erosion of bourgeois democracy is a result of the deep, international crisis of capitalist society and heralds fierce class battles. After decades of a tiny minority enriching themselves at the expense of the majority, social tensions are approaching the boiling point. The ruling elites are reacting by drawing closer together and turning to the right.

In Austria, the mechanisms of social partnership and political compromise were institutionalised after the Second World War in a manner only otherwise seen in Scandinavia or Germany. Time and again, social democrats and conservatives ruled in a grand coalition, developing an impenetrable network of nepotism and corruption. The anger and frustration that this generated are now being exploited by Kurz in the call for a strong man. His politics, however, are not directed against the privileges of the ruling elites, but against the remaining social achievements of the working class.

Sebastian Kurz, who began his political career 14 years ago in the OVP youth organisation and who was promoted by todays European Commissioner Johannes Hahn and other party officials, is often compared with the new French president, Emmanuel Macron. Macron also began his political career in the ranks of the establishment, only now to present himself as a new face standing above the old parties. Both look for their real base within the security apparatus and the military.

In Germany as well, Kurzs authoritarian aspirations meet with sympathy. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) praised him, saying he stood for freshness and a new beginning. Although Austria is smaller than the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg, it enjoys nine federal states and countless groups of influence alongside the federal administration. To provide fresh windthese federal structures should be broken up. Only then, concluded the FAZ, will Austria modernise, as is urgently needed. This applies primarily to the economy and the state finances.

In other words, an authoritarian party and a right-wing, dictatorial regime are necessary to restructure the economy and state finances at the expense of the working class.
In a lengthy interview with the journal Forschung & Lehre (Research & Teaching), published by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers, Jorg Baberowski insists that Hitler was not vicious. The right-wing historian from Berlins Humboldt University said this previously in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel published three years ago.

The interviewer asks, Statements from you are shared by far-right platforms such as those of the NPD [German National Democratic Party] and Breitbart. Does that not cast doubt on the way you expressed yourself? Baberowski replies, Ive compared Hitler to Stalin. Stalin was a psychopath, Hitler was not. Stalin enjoyed violence, Hitler did not. Hitler knew what he was doing. He was an armchair perpetrator (Schreibtischtater), who did not want to know about the bloody consequences of his deeds. This does not make his deeds morally better, but worse. Nobody can really misunderstand what I mean.

Indeed, this is a statement that nobody can misunderstand. The assertion that Hitler was an armchair perpetrator who did not want to know about the bloody consequences of his deeds and did not enjoy violence is a monstrous trivialisation of the worst crimes committed in the history of mankind. This justification of the Nazi regime explains why Breitbart News, the NPD and other neo-Nazi publications support Baberowski.

The fact that Baberowski compares Hitler to Stalin in order to exonerate the former does not alter the apologetic character of his statement. On the contrary, it confirms that Baberowski follows the argument of the German revisionist historian Ernst Nolte, whom he has defended in the past. In 1986, Nolte claimed that the crimes of the Nazis were an understandable response to Bolshevism. Nolte later became a doyen of the far-right.

Baberowskis exoneration of Hitler makes clear that he is not a genuine historian, but rather an extreme right-wing ideologue. Recent research on National Socialism, based on extensive and reliable source material, has substantiated the extent of Hitlers personal participation in the crimes of the regime inseparably linked to his name. This is elaborated in a number of Hitler biographies by well known historians that have appeared since the turn of the century. They completely disprove Baberowskis presentation of an armchair perpetrator who did not want to know about the bloody consequences of his deeds.

In his more than 1,000-page biography of the Nazi leader, published in 2015, Peter Longerich stresses that Hitler was not simply a catalyst of historical processes. Rather, he shaped them in an extremely independent and very personal manner by channelling, amplifying and bundling existing forces and energies, mobilizing unused potential, and brutally exploiting the weakness or passivity of his opponents before destroying them. What comes to light is less a man fulfilling a program or an ideologue, but first and foremost an unscrupulous and proactive politician. [1]

This is a very different picture from that of an armchair perpetrator issuing decrees and instructions in the quiet of his office, thoroughly impervious to the consequences of his actions.

Longerich describes the fanatical anti-Semitism, the criminal energy and the personal vindictiveness with which Hitler planned and implemented the monstrous crimes of his regime.

In the summer of 1934, Hitler personally travelled to Bad Wiessee to lead the arrest of SA leaders, who were subsequently shot on his orders. On the pretext that SA leader Ernst Rohm had planned a coup, Hitler liquidated over a hundred rivals from within and without the NSDAP [Nazi Party], personally ticking off their names from lists. Among the victims were his predecessor as Reich chancellor, Kurt von Schleicher, and his wife, as well as other opponents with whom he settled old accounts, including some who were no longer politically active.

The initiatives for the euthanasia program, the war of annihilation in the East and the Holocaust all stemmed from Hitler himself. In executing these crimes, Hitler worked closely with two key figures, SS chief Heinrich Himmler and his closest collaborator, Reinhard Heydrich, with whom he maintained almost daily contact.

Longerich writes: Immediately after the start of the war, Hitler launched a radical racist policy: he made the fundamental decision to subject Poland to a brutal policy of Germanization; on his initiative a first attempt was made to deport Jews from the Greater German Reich to a death zone in Poland; in the Reich, he initiated the systematic assassination of patients in mental asylums, which resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people by the summer of 1941. [2]

It was also Hitler, according to Longerich, who made the decisions in the spring and early summer of 1942 that resulted in the murder of all European Jews during the war. [3]

In his Hitler biography of 2013, Volker Ullrich also refers to the Rohm-Putsch [4], and describes how Hitler, in the course of the slaughter, fell into downright ecstasy, a kind of exceptional psychological condition in which he was capable of any sort of brutal violence. To the end of his life he maintained the capacity to work himself up into a rage of violence, only to appear affable a short time afterwardstypical characteristics of a psychopath.

The best answer to Baberowskis revision of history is given by Ian Kershaw in the epilogue of his well known Hitler biography. He summarizes Hitlers role as follows:

Never in history has such ruinationphysical and moralbeen associated with the name of one man Hitlers name justifiably stands for all time as that of the chief instigator of the most profound collapse of civilization in modern times. The extreme form of personal rule which an ill-educated beerhall demagogue and racist bigot, a narcissistic, megalomaniac, self-styled national saviour was allowed to acquire in a modern, economically advanced and cultured land, known for its philosophers and poets, was absolutely decisive in the terrible unfolding of events in those fateful twelve years. Hitler was the main author of a war leaving over 50 million dead and millions more grieving their lost ones and trying to put their shattered lives together again. Hitler was the chief inspiration of a genocide the like of which the world had never known, rightly to be viewed in coming times as a defining episode of the twentieth century. [5]

Now the department head of the most prestigious university in the German capital reaffirms in the official journal of the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers that the very same man, Adolf Hitler, was not vicious and did not want to know the bloody consequences of his deeds. As if this is not enough, Baberowski is supported and defended by the presidium of Humboldt University, many professors and the overwhelming majority of the German media.

The dispute with Baberowski has now been going on for three years. In February 2014, he declared in Der Spiegel: Hitler was not a psychopath, he was not vicious. He did not want to talk about the extermination of Jews at his table. [6] When the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) and its youth organization, the IYSSE, protested against this in articles and public meetings, winning support from students and workers, a political storm erupted.

The university administration sought, unsuccessfully, to stifle any criticism of Baberowski. The media, led by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, organized a veritable witch-hunt in the spring of 2015. It presented Baberowski and his colleague Herfried Munkler, who had also been criticized, as victims of slander and bullying.

Shortly afterwards, Baberowski emerged as a political figurehead for the new right. In numerous articles, talk shows and interviews he agitated against refugees and campaigned for an authoritarian state. When in March this year the Cologne District Court (where Baberowski had sued the Bremen University student association) ruled that the professor could be described as a right-wing extremist, his defenders stepped up their campaign.

In an official statement, the presidium of Humboldt University declared all criticism of Baberowski to be unacceptable. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung rained down lies and slanders on the SGP and the IYSSE. It described criticism of Baberowskis far-right opinions as character assassination, which threatened the university as a place for free discourse and scientific dispute, intellectual thought experiments and free speech without censorship, as well as the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of science. The daily Die Welt, the magazine Cicero and other media outlets adopted the same line.

In all of the sound and fury directed against the SGP and the IYSSE, none of Baberowskis defenders mentioned the book (Scholarship or War Propaganda) and the numerous articles that had been published carefully documenting and analyzing his far-right positions. Not one of them addressed the arguments raised by the SGP and IYSSE. None of the material published by the SGP and the World Socialist Web Site constituted personal attacks on Baberowski. The criticisms were directed exclusively to statements he has written or made in public appearances. It is Baberowski and his followers who attempt to suppress and ban the exposure of historical falsifications that trivialise Hitlers crimes and to pave the way for his rehabilitation.

The campaign against the IYSSE is a reaction to the considerable response it has received from students. Student associations (AStas) in Bremen, Hamburg, Luneburg and Heidelberg, as well as the student parliament of the Free University in Berlin, have protested against Baberowskis right-wing extremist positions. At the end of April, the Humboldt University student parliament passed a motion by an overwhelming majority calling upon the university administration to publicly withdraw its statements of solidarity with Professor Baberowski.

In his interview with Forschung & Lehre, Baberowski now goes even further in his attempts to exonerate Hitler. The fact that a magazine that, according to its own description, is addressed to professors and scientists and sent out to more than 30,000 members of the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers, prints such a whitewash of Hitler without comment is a scandal. Previously one associated such statements only with far-right publications.

Moreover, the interview with Baberowski is conducted at a level that has no place in an academic journal. It has more in common with the type of hate speech found on right-wing Internet forums than with factual debate. Baberowski reaffirms his right-wing extremist views, does not address a single word in response to the arguments of his critics, and slanders them in a manner typical of the far right.

He denounces the SGP as a sect and psycho-terror group that moves with criminal energy against him. He claims that the SGP published a leaflet on which my head and a swastika were to be seen, connects the SGP to threats of murder and attacks on his house, and accuses it of using false names in order to avoid public discussion. These are open lies without a shred of evidence to support them. In fact, the IYSSE has organised public discussions with hundreds of participants who were able to speak freely, including defenders of Baberowski.

Other allegations Baberowski makes are simply absurd. On the one hand, he asserts that the SGP and the IYSSE consist of five insignificant persons whom no one takes seriously, while on the other hand he accuses them of excluding him (a prominent figure who has the widest access to the media and is regularly featured on TV, radio and in the newspapers) from public discourse.

In 1986, when Ernst Nolte sought to exonerate National Socialism by claiming that Hitlers crimes had been provoked by Bolshevism, he unleashed what became known as the Historians Debate. Jurgen Habermas, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and many other renowned academics intervened to oppose his position. Nolte lost the debate and was discredited as a historian for the rest of his life. Today, Baberowskis arguments, which go much further than Noltes, either win support or are met with silence. How can this be explained?

It is evident that major political and social processes are at work. The trivialization of Hitlers crimes is closely linked to the resurgence of German great power politics and militarism, which find increasing support not only in traditionally conservative, but also in formerly liberal academic circles.

The ruling class in Germany cannot return to a policy of war and militarism without whitewashing its historical crimes and reviving the political traditions that have played such a devastating role in German historynationalism, racism and the suppression of opposition. This is why the organ of the Association of University Professors and Lecturers and conservative daily newspapers provide a platform for Baberowski to promote his far-right opinions while slandering his critics.

Similar developments are taking place in other spheres of society. The neo-Nazi terror cell in the German army (Bundeswehr) that has been uncovered in recent days could thrive and remain undetected for such a long time only because the glorification of Nazism and the Wehrmacht (the military under Hitler) is widespread in the army and supported and encouraged by senior officers.

**

Notes

[1] Peter Longerich, Hitler, Pantheon Edition, April 2017, pp. 11-12 (translated from German)

[2] Ibid. p. 1009

[3] Ibid. p. 1011

[4] Volker Ullrich, Adolf Hitler. Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 18891939. Biographie, Band 1, Frankfurt am Main, 2013

[5] Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945, Nemesis, Penguin, 2000, p. 841

[6] Culpability Question Divides Historians Today, Spiegel Online, February 14, 2014
The two-day international Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forum, which concluded in Beijing yesterday, has underscored the shifts and conflicts in geo-economic and political relations resulting from the rise of China to the position of the worlds second largest economy.

While it received little attention in the media, the fact that the US was little more than a bit player at an economic gathering, dubbed by some as advancing the 21st century equivalent of the post-war Marshall Plan, points to the historic decline of its economic position.

The forum, which included the heads of 28 states and representatives from 100 countries, was the international launch of the so-called One Belt, One Road project initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013.

Invoking the history of the Silk Road of medieval times, the BRI envisages the construction of a series of ports, railway lines and roads connecting the major economic centres of China with Europe.

The forum was convened in a $1 billion complex constructed north of Beijing and was accompanied by a massive publicity campaign by the Chinese government.

Opening the gathering on Sunday, Xi had two objectives: to win international support for the BRI, which envisages the expenditure of more than $1 trillion on infrastructure projects, thereby enhancing Chinas global position, and to cement domestic support for his regime as he enters his second term as president.

Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes embody the spirit of peace and co-operation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and benefit, he said, hailing the initiative as the project of the century.

We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win co-operation; and we should forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance.

Under conditions where both Russia and China face increasing pressure from the United States, President Vladimir Putin was given pride of place among the international representatives at the forums opening.

Xi told his Russian counterpart that their countries were the ballast stone of world stability. Behind the smiles and handshakes however, there are tensions between the two powers. Russia has its own plan for extending its economic and political influence in central Asia and the former republics of the Soviet Union under its Eurasian Economic Union and there are fears that it could be subordinated to the BRI.

Both Xi and Putin sought to keep the issue in the background, with Putin emphasising that the Chinese and Russian projects were complementary and that Eurasian integration is a civilisation project for the future.

For his part Xi said the BRI was not aimed at cutting across the initiatives of other countries. Besides the Russian EEU project, Turkey has a plan to link up Turkish speaking states in a so-called Middle Corridor.

Xi insisted that the Chinese project was not intended to replace existing partnerships. The aim of Belt and Road is not to reinvent the wheel. Rather, it aims to complement the development strategies of countries involved.

However, for all Xis words about the need for greater openness, co-operation, the rejection of protectionism, the need to develop win-win outcomes, coupled with assurances that China is concerned about development for all, international tensions made their presence felt.

Japan the second largest economy in the Asia region boycotted the forum altogether viewing it as a means through which China is seeking to enhance its regional and global power.

India also boycotted the forum because of what it called sovereignty issues.

These relate to the Chinese decision to label the $50 billion Xinjiang to Gwadar port project which passes through parts of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, which India claims, as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Indian snub came after considerable efforts by the Chinese to secure its attendance, issuing assurances that it would abide by international rulings on the Kashmir question.

Indian external affairs spokesman Gopal Baglay said the CPEC was being promoted as a flagship initiative of the One Belt One Road and no country can accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity. Behind the official reason there are concerns that Chinese investment will strengthen Pakistan economically.

The heads of states attending the meeting came from less developed countries with the major powers sending lesser representatives, reflecting both concerns about whether the project will actually materialise, while seeking at the same time to place themselves in the best position to exploit economic advantages that do arise.

Germany, which is regarded as a key player in the initiative because of its position as the major European economy at the head of the new Silk Road, sent the economics and energy minister Brigitte Zyrpies. She was accompanied by a significant representation of German big business.

But she expressed reservations about the project, saying at the outset that Germany would not sign a joint statement unless certain guarantees demanded by the European Union on free trade and the establishment of a level playing field were met.

Germany does want to take part, but tenders need to be open to everyone; only then will German companies take part, she said. It must also be clear what is actually going to be built. At this point, its not clear.

She also noted that Chinese restrictions on allowing foreign companies to buy assets were also a problem. We want German companies to be able to operate in China in the same way Chinese companies can in Germany. But at this point there was no clear timetable for dismantling restrictions.

In the event, Germany, along with other European powers, including Britain, did not sign a communique on trade because of concerns over transparency over procurement as well as social and environmental standards. There are also concerns among European officials about the growth of Chinese influence in central and eastern Europe.

While it joined other European countries in expressing reservations on how it would operate, Britain expressed its overall support for the project. Its delegation was headed by the chancellor of the exchequer in the May government, Philip Hammond, who was accompanied by representatives of UK banking and financial firms.

In March 2015, the Tory government of David Cameron defied pressure from the US and its own security agencies and decided to join the Chinese-sponsored Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, a decision that reflected the interests of the City of London in exploiting the opportunities, which could open up.

And those interests were very much on display again at the BRI forum. Sherry Madera, the City of Londons special adviser for Asia, said London could play a key role in financing the initiative.

She said that while the UK was talking about Brexit, Asia was talking about business.

Weve always been a global financial centre. Banks and investors from the US, Middle East and Asia are all within easy walking distance, and that is the ecosystem that is London. Thats what makes it by far the most important global financial centre, far and away beyond the likes of Hong Kong or New York.

Initially the United States had decided to send only a minor official to the forum but given the size of the gathering and the fact that countries throughout South East Asia were taking part, it decided to upgrade its representation, sending Matt Pottinger, the senior director for East Asia on the National Security Council.

Powerful sections of the US political establishment regard China and its economic initiatives as the single most important threat to the global position of the United States.

These views were reflected in an opinion piece published on Fox News by John Moody in the forum headlined Chinas silky threat to American leadership.

It said while the Sunday talk shows were obsessing about Trump and sacked FBI head James Comey, China was hosting a top-level gathering which will kick off the biggest challenge ever to Americas place in the world economy. The initiative was a brazen attempt to seize worldwide economic leadership from the United States binding emerging trading partners to Beijing by offering them access to Chinas vast consumer market.

Apart from the potential for international conflicts set off by the project, the Xi regime confronts problems in the Chinese economy itself.

The project is widely regarded in ruling circles not only as a means of expanding Chinas global position but also as providing an outlet for excess industrial capacity.

But how willing Chinese firms and banking institutions are to invest in projects that may not earn them a sufficient return, and from which they could even incur losses, is another question.

On the eve of the forum, the Financial Times reported that investment in BRI projects declined last year raising doubts about whether commercial enterprises are committed to a strategy for a new Silk Road defined as much by geopolitics as by profit-seeking.

According to the report, foreign direct investment from China to countries identified as being part of the BRI declined by 2 percent in 2016, falling an additional 18 percent so far this year. It cited bankers and representatives of state-owned enterprises who complained that the government was pressuring them to undertake BRI projects that were not profitable.

This development points to a conflict between the motivations of the regime to advance the project in the interests of its domestic and international political concerns and the logic of the market, which pushes investment towards the more developed economies.

There is no question that the unification of the Eurasian landmass through the most modern transportation systems could provide significant economic advancement.

But in a global socio-economic order dominated by the striving for private profit, together with the divergent aims of capitalist nation-states and imperialist great powers, the project has already become a mares nest of conflicting interests.
The Fair Work Commission, the federal governments industrial tribunal, ruled on Friday that it will proceed to a full-bench hearing in the legal challenge brought by Penny Vickers, a Brisbane supermarket worker, to a 2011 agreement between Coles and the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), the countrys largest retail union. The deal slashed wages for thousands of low-paid workers.

The case was the subject of nervous commentary in the financial press last month, with business figures, Labor and Liberal-National politicians and union bureaucrats all warning that if the agreement is overturned, it will threaten the entire framework of enterprise bargaining that has been used to decimate the jobs, wages and conditions of workers for the past 25 years.

At a Fair Work Commission hearing on Thursday, lawyers for Coles, a supermarket giant, and the SDA, came together in a bid to block the case from proceeding, arguing that it was not in the public interest.

On Friday, Fair Work Commission Vice-President Adam Hatcher rejected this argument, stating, I consider that the number of employees to which the 2011 agreement applies is so large as to make the question of the termination of the 2011 agreement a matter of public significance... No date has been set for the full-bench hearing.

The ruling was a blow to the company, and the union, which have worked to quash the legal challenge since it was brought last year, with both seeking to delay its progression through the industrial tribunal and prevent a full bench hearing. There are also suggestions that Coles and the SDA have sought to prevent the disclosure of the impact of their agreement on thousands of workers.

In comments cited in the Sydney Morning Herald, Vickers warned against attempts by the company and the union to present a small group of workers who would back the 2011 agreement. There is no utility or point in hearing from 85 like-minded, handpicked, above-award-pay day workers, out of Coles workforce of over 75,000, Vickers said. It would be a waste of time and resources.

Coles and the SDA reverted to the 2011 deal after another worker, Duncan Hart, prosecuted a successful challenge to a 2014 agreement, which also included pay levels below award-mandated rates, in a 2015 Fair Work Commission case.

According to an investigation last year by Fairfax Media, some 43,000 Coles workers since 2011 have been paid less than they were owed as a result of the two agreements. The average underpayment is estimated at $1,500 a year, a substantial sum given that many of supermarkets employees work on a casual or part-time basis, with annual wages as low as $10,000$15,000. The wage-cutting saved Coles up to $100 million a year.

Vickers is arguing that the 2011 agreement fails the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) in current industrial legislation, which supposedly requires that no worker be worse-off as a result of an enterprise agreement. Her invocation of the clause, routinely violated by the major companies and the unions, has triggered calls from Liberal-National politicians, former Labor figures and union officials to remove BOOT from legislation.

The line-up of the SDA with Coles, against one of the workers they falsely claim to represent, is a graphic expression of the thoroughly corporatised character of the trade unions, which function as an arm of company management, enforcing pay cuts and suppressing industrial, political and legal opposition from workers.

The Fairfax Media investigation found that the SDA had signed similar agreements with a host of major employers. Under a 2013 deal between the union and fast-food chain McDonalds, workers reportedly receive almost one-third less than the award-mandated minimum wage. Total underpayment is estimated at around $50 million per year, with fast-food employees who earn as little as $10 an hour among those hit by the deal.

Around 60,000 employees at Woolworths, Coles main competitor, have also allegedly been underpaid by tens of millions of dollars as a result of an SDA agreement. Fairfax claimed workers at Hungry Jacks, another fast food outlet, have been underpaid by up to $5,000 a year, while their counterparts at KFC have also been affected.

All up, around 250,000 workers, most of them young and impoverished, have been covered by SDA wage-cutting agreements. Many of the deals have slashed or abolished night and weekend penalty wage rates, upon which retail and fast food workers have traditionally relied. In other words, if Vickers challenge is successful, it could have far broader implications.

It is not just the SDA, that is implicated in Coles wage-cutting deals. The Australian Workers Union (AWU), the countrys largest union, also sought to have Vickers challenge thrown out of court last week, and was a party to the 2011 and 2014 Coles agreements.

All of the major unions, including the national umbrella organisation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, have maintained a stony silence on the case brought by Vickers. They are fearful that it threatens a host of pro-business arrangements and deals, which have netted the union bureaucracy substantial sums of money.

The AWU, for instance, including when it was headed by current Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, signed a series of pro-business agreements slashing wages and conditions for cleaners and other low-paid workers.

Other unions, such as the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), promoted as left-wing and militant, have also enforced real wage cuts. The CFMEU has had close ties to property developers involved in phoenix operations, in which the business is liquidated, and employee awards and entitlements withheld. The union also imposed a 5 percent pay cut affecting up to 900 workers at the Maryvale paper mill in Victorias Latrobe Valley in February.

A spate of recent cases have made clear that underpayment is the new norm, either directly enforced by the unions, or as a byproduct of their collaboration in the destruction of secure, full-time work over the past three decades, which has spurred a rise and rise in casual, low-paid employment. To cite only a few examples:

 In May operators of six Little Vienna sandwich chain stores in Sydney were fined in the Federal Circuit Court after it was alleged some employees were underpaid $111,781 between December 2012 and April 2015. The migrant workers received between $11 and $13 an hour.

 Last month Fairfax reported that celebrity chef, George Calombaris, had allegedly underpaid around 200 workers in his high-end restaurants by a total of $2.6 million. Calombaris said the underpayment was a result of poor processes in classifying employees.

 Also in April, Guardian Property Services, a major cleaning company, agreed to compensate underpaid workers by up to $50,000 each. The move followed allegations that cleaners had been given a flat-rate of $14 an hour and were denied entitlements, including superannuation and annual leave.

Other cases have emerged at restaurants and cafes across the country, along with seafood businesses, among cleaners and even security guards at state-owned art galleries in Victoria. The reports come amid the lowest national wage growth since records began in 1969, of just 1.8 percent across the private sector in 2016.

The wage theft, which amounts to a vast redistribution of wealth from the poorest sections of the working class to the corporate and business establishment, is a direct product of the enterprise bargaining system set in place and defended by successive Labor governments and the trade unions.

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What the Royal Commission into Australias trade unions revealed: Five-part series

[2 June 2016]
After several months of futile, demoralizing negotiations, the 279 workers of auto parts supply company GM&S Industry, the second largest employer in the Creuse district of central France, destroyed two machines on Thursday. They are threatening to blow up the entire plant, which has been placed in bankruptcy, if it is not kept open.

The workers aim to pressure GM&S main clients, automakers Renault and PSA, who they assert are blocking talks on a resale of the plant to other buyers. They have wired gas cylinders and gasoline cans to detonate. Trade union delegate Vincent Laboursse said, Its enough. They are attacking us for being radicals by attacking our machines, but we are not any more radical than they were: they took away our orders by having the parts made elsewhere and threw us into the hands of another buyer who is incompetent.

Renaud Le Youdec, the court-appointed crisis negotiator named in April, blamed Renault and PSA: French automakers are responsible when they pull out orders they have made with French companies, in order to find parts suppliers elsewhere. According to Le Youdec, the automakers position is all the weaker in that his proposals for GM&S are entirely coherent and reasonable given the improvement we are seeing in the stamping sector of the industry.

The ruthless position of the automakers underscores the bankruptcy of the strategy proposed by the trade unions. They isolated the GM&S workers, did nothing to mobilize workers in solidarity and in defense of GM&S workers jobs and capitulated to all the reactionary demands of company management.

The only way forward is a broad mobilization of workers to defend jobs at GM&S and beyond, in a political break with the union bureaucracies, which support newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron.

Le Youdec recounted all the give-backs the GM&S workers made in a fruitless attempt to persuade the corporations not to launch bankruptcy proceedings and try to close the plant. Since I arrived here, he said, workers made real efforts. They continued to produce and pledged not to protest. Moreover, and it was not clear they would do so, but they accepted the principle of layoffs and even took my advice to respond favorably to an urgent request from Renault to make more parts, because those that had been made were blocked [in Brazil].

Renault and PSA have taken the position that the negotiations did not go far enough to save GM&S. Labrousse said, For six months, we let the negotiations proceed. A week before the hearing in Poitiers, we can only conclude that the French automakers took us for a ride from the beginning to the end. They knew very well, when they found other suppliers for the same parts, that they were condemning us to asphyxiation. And a week from the final deadline, they are continuing to play with our future.

These passages are an exposure of the role played by the unions, who block workers struggles against the attacks they are facing, while at the same time negotiating layoffs and other reactionary measures with big business and the state.

The attack on GM&S workers continues the broader onslaught against autoworkers in France and internationally since the beginning of the international financial crisis in 2008. This process has seen the destruction of thousands of jobs in France, and far more internationally. In the US, autoworkers saw a massive cut in wages negotiated by the UAW and the Obama administration, in order to improve the companies profitability.

The French automakers moves to destroy jobs at GM&S are reportedly a cold-blooded and vindictive decision to punish them for having organized strikes in the past. According to Le Youdec, What the corporations blame them for is a social protest that cut off the supply of parts several years ago, as well as negative decisions by potential buyers.

This is a warning that the bourgeoisie intends to deal ruthlessly with social opposition. The May 7 election of Macron, the former Rothschild banker, as president underscores the fact that the social counterrevolution is picking up steam. Macron was a minister of a Socialist Party (PS) government that carried out war and austerity, and also suspended democratic rights under the state of emergency, in order to brutally repress protests against PS policies.

The new president is preparing to destroy the Labor Code and to slash public and social spending in France, as the European Union did in Greece, to boost French corporate competitiveness.

In the second round of the presidential elections, Macron had the support of virtually the entire French political establishment, including the trade unions. They refused to mobilize workers more broadly in solidarity with GM&S workers, as they have at plant closures across France over the last decade, as this would have cut across Macrons presidential bid.

There is explosive social anger in France and across Europe against layoffs and austerity. But only a politically independent struggle of the working class on a socialist and internationalist platform, breaking with the trade unions support for Macron, can mobilize workers against the social attacks now being prepared.

The role of the unions, as demonstrated at GM&S and beyond, will be to delay as much as possible and then to finally launch isolated struggles under the most unfavorable conditions possible, in order to avoid destabilizing Macrons unpopular government. The only way forward for workers is to take their struggles out of the hands of the trade unions, set up their own independent rank-and-file organizations and take up the political struggle.
Indian authorities are intensifying their repression in disputed Kashmir, while ratcheting up tensions with Pakistan, which they hold wholly responsible for the mass opposition to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Indias northernmost and only majority-Muslim state.

The Indian military has resumed large-scale sweeps of civilian areas in J&K in an attempt to terrorize villagers suspected of supporting anti-Indian, Pakistan-backed insurgents. Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani troops stationed along the Line of Control (LoC) that separates Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir have resumed heavy cross-border firing, forcing thousands of civilians to flee.

A sense of imminent threat pervades disputed Kashmir and indeed South Asia as a whole, as the regions rival nuclear powers exchange bellicose threats.

Indias government and military have repeatedly vowed that they will punish Pakistan for an alleged May 1 incursion by Pakistani troops inside Indian-held Kashmir and the killing and subsequent beheading of two Indian soldiers. On Saturday, after Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa toured Pakistani forward positions along the LoC, its military press office issued a statement threatening that any incursion by the Indian Army across the LoC will be a miscalculation, that shall be answered with full force and could lead to unintended consequences.

Indian security forces mounted house-to-house searches May 4 across twenty villages in Jammu and Kashmirs Shopian District, which lies near the states summer capital Srinagar. Authorities called the operation, which involved helicopters, drones and more than four thousand soldiers, paramilitaries and police, unprecedented.

Patterned after Israeli Army tactics, the raids were presented as a rapid response to intelligence reports of Islamist Kashmiri insurgents hiding in Shopian. However, an unnamed senior Army official was subsequently cited in the Indian Express as saying the operation was in fact long planned and had little to do with any immediate provocation.

In the end, the Shopian raids only provided further evidence of Kashmiri Muslims mass alienation from, and opposition to, the Indian state. Villagers spoke of a warlike atmosphere and bitterly complained that security forces had ransacked houses and vandalized property. In several villages, the residents were all ordered to congregate in a central area, where they were detained by gun-toting security forces, as others searched their homes.

In some places villagers fought back, with hundreds pelting security forces with stones.

After ten hours, the military called off the operation, having failed to ferret out even a single insurgent. However, as they withdrew, an army convoy came under brief gun attack, resulting in the death of one of the militarys civilian drivers and the wounding of two soldiers.

Antigovernment protests have convulsed Jammu and Kashmir, especially the northern parts of the Kashmir Valley, for the better part of a year.

There is a decades-long history of mass protests against Indian authorities in J&K. But Indias ruling elite has been rattled by the intensity of the wave of opposition that erupted last July after security forces killedlikely via summary executionBurhan Muzaffar Wani, the 22-year-old commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a Kashmiri separatist Islamist insurgent group.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government have pressed security forces to resort to ever-harsher measures to suppress the protests, while lashing out at Pakistan, including with scarcely veiled threats to support the separatist insurgency in Pakistans southwestern province, Balochistan.

Last summer and fall, scores of young people were killed and thousands wounded as security forces systematically sprayed protests with pellet-gun fire. Nevertheless, youth, including teenagers and in at least one case a school of girls, continue to risk their lives by coming onto the streets to impede security operations.

In an incident that underscores both the extent to which the half-million Indian security forces deployed in J&K are a law unto themselves and their difficulty in cowing the protests, Indian army troops charged with providing security for an April 12 parliamentary by-election tied a 26-year-old Kashmiri youth, Farooq Dar, to the jeep heading their convoy, so as to dissuade protesters from pelting them with stones.

After video and photos of Indian troops using Dar as a human shield appeared on Twitter, BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav complimented the officer who had ordered him seized and tied to the jeep, declaring, Everything is fair in love and war.

As for the by-election, it proved a fiasco. Only 7.5 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Consequently, Indias Election Commission cancelled the by-election in J&Ks Anantnag constituency and ordered that a second vote be held May 25.

The Kashmir crisis is rooted in the reactionary 1947 communal partition of the subcontinent into an expressly Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India. The Congress Party of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi presented itself as the victim of Partition. In reality, the Congress leaders readily accepted and enforced it, so as to get their hands on the capitalist state machine erected by South Asias departing British colonial overlords, secure the privileges of the native bourgeoisie, and defuse the threat that the mass anti-imperialist movement could come under the leadership of an increasingly rebellious working class.

In the ensuing seven decades, both the Indian and Pakistani bourgeoisies have manipulated and abused the Kashmiri people, while placing their rival claims to control all the territory of the former British Indian princely state of Jammu and Kashmir at the center of their reactionary military-strategic rivalry.

In the late 1980s, when mass opposition erupted in J&K to the rigging of the 1987 state elections by Rajiv Gandhis Congress Party government, Pakistan intervened to turn it in a communalist direction and advance its own interests against India by organizing and arming Islamist insurgents, including former Afghan mujahedeen.

The Indian elite, for its part, has increasingly fanned Hindu communalism. This process finds its apogee in Indias current government, which is formed by the Hindu supremacist BJP and led by Narendra Modi, who presided over the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat.

Since coming to power in May 2014, Modi and his BJP have taken numerous actions that could only antagonize and frighten Indias Muslim minority. They have promoted legislation criminalizing beef consumption and encouraged Hindu chauvinist vigilante groups that have lynched Muslims under the guise of cow protection. In March, Modi appointed a Hindu priest and arch-Hindu chauvinist, Yogi Adityanath, as chief minister of Indias most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Adityanath, who personally commands a vigilante Hindu youth group, the Yuva Vahini (Youth Battalion), has sent a spasm of fear through Muslims and Dalits (the former Untouchables) by targeting the buffalo-meat business, a major source of employment and income for both groups.

Whatever legitimacy the Indian state had in Jammu and Kashmir is rapidly being eroded as the result of the never-ending repression, New Delhis open promotion of Hindu communalism, and its eagerness to pursue confrontation with Pakistan, even at the risk of a wara war whose first battleground would likely be Kashmir and that could potentially have catastrophic consequences for all South Asia, if not the world.

Modi and his government have rejected out of hand any discussion about the grievances of the people of J&K until the violence stops, just as it is refusing any serious high-level contact with Islamabad until Pakistan demonstrably halts all logistical support to the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir from its territory.

In pursuing this hard line, Modi and the Indian elite are seeking to leverage New Delhis new status as a prized strategic ally of Washington in its military-strategic offensive against China. With the aim of integrating India into its anti-China Pivot to Asia, the US has showered strategic favors on New Delhi for the past decade, while downgrading relations with Pakistan.

In 2016 this reached a qualitatively new level, with the Modi government signing an agreement giving the Pentagon routine access to Indian air bases and ports and the US supporting Indias provocative and illegal late September cross-border strike inside Pakistan.

Some sections of Indians ruling elite are becoming concerned that Modis Kashmir policy is untenable.

In a May 3 column in the Hindu, M.K. Narayanan, who served as Indias National Security Adviser for six years ending in 2011, warned that India has effectively lost control of the situation in J&K and argued that to avert a disaster, in the form of an intifada, New Delhi should abandon its muscular policy and even reach out to Islamabad.

Narayanan, who for years helped oversee the repression in Kashmir, makes a number of damning admissions. These include that Pakistani interference and terrorism are not the main cause of the current wave of popular protest in J&K and that the Pakistan-supported insurgent and separatist political groups have little control over it.

There is little chance, however, that the Modi government will heed Narayanans counsel, nor does he have anything new to propose when it comes to reconciling the people of Kashmir to the Indian state.

The reality is that the intractable dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has now become enmeshed with the US drive to contain and thwart China, adding a massive new explosive charge to each.

A progressive solution to the grievances of the Kashmiri people can only be realized through the united struggle of the working class of India and Pakistan against imperialism, imperialist war and South Asias reactionary, communal-laced nation-state system, and for the Socialist United States of South Asia.
South African-born director-actress Liesl Tommys Macbeth (starring Jesse J. Perez and Nikkole Salter as the famous couple) is an intense affair. The Shakespeare Theatre Company production at Harman Hall in Washington, D.C., which runs through May 28, places the tragedy about the 11th century Scottish noble whose lust for power eventually leads to his own downfall in the context of a modern-day Western intervention or regime change operation.

The audience is first introduced to Macbeth via the sound of rapid-fire automatic weapons. A montage of a civil war unfolds across the stage, as African soldiers with machine guns open fire on civilians fleeing from the carnage. One hears the dialogue of the weird sisters spoken over the chaos. In Tommys version of the play, the three witches who first foretell Macbeths fate are depicted as three Westerners dressed in business or military attire, or both, representing the pernicious presence of imperialism.

The title character (played by Shakespeare Theatre Company veteran Perez) is something of a military strongman. On receiving word of the witches prophecy, according to which the lowly Thane of Glamis shall eventually ascend to the throne of Scotland, events are set in motion that will only end in a final bloody denouement.

There is much that is truthful and chilling in Tommys decision to remove the supernatural elements of the original plot and replace them with the all-too-real hand of imperialist meddling. The directors Tony-winning 2015 Broadway play Eclipsed, starring Lupita Nyongo, treated the impact of the Second Liberian Civil War (1999-2003) on several female victims of the conflict.

Nearly three decades of nonstop US military intervention in the so-called developing world has indeed left its mark on popular consciousness. Who benefits from whispering into the ears of an ambitious general that their time has come, that they should murder for power? says the director in a production note.

In my world, growing up on the continent of Africa, that answer is obvious: Western interests intent on our resources always find a way to install a corrupt puppet and enjoy untold profit from our water, oil, diamonds, coltan and so on. Tommy locates her drama within this context, declaring a central theme of her play was the personal cost of political chaos or instability  (emphasis in original).

When Macbeth is instructed by the three witches to be bloody, bold, and resolute, the scene has all the elements of a CIA intelligence briefing, in which the plays main figure is treated as a military-intelligence asset of an unnamed superpower.

Perez is effective as the lead character, although at times he appears somewhat overwhelmed and merely swept along by the welter of events. Macbeths terrible anxiety and brooding over his murderous actions are heightened both by the performance and the precise use of lighting effects. Through this, the audience is given insight into the internal feelings and thoughts and external actions of the character. Salter is convincing as the intense, regal Lady Macbeth, driven mad by the knowledge of the crimes she has committed. In lesser roles, actors McKinley Belcher III as Banquo and Marcus Naylor as Macduff, Macbeths nemesis, both deliver powerful performances.

In general, the lighting, minimalist music and stage design are strengths of the playeach element heightening the tense moral and dramatic struggle enveloping and eventually annihilating the main characters.

Inevitably, contradictions emerge in a production in which the script of an early seventeenth-century tragedy is thrust into a present-day setting. At times, the lines from the original play seem imposed somewhat arbitrarily or artificially onto what we see on stage.

It would have benefited both the natural flow of the drama and the performers themselves if certain references, particularly those made by the witches/CIA officials, were slightly altered or removed altogether so that references to Eye of newt, and toe of frog would not appear so awkward in a scene depicting an intelligence briefing. In any event, it doesnt all work.

Far more worrisome is the directors effort at certain moments to promote the same US militarism that she criticizes elsewhere. Tommys inclusion of a Vladimir Putin-type character, complete with Russian accent, to play Hecate, the leader of the witches, is a clear nod to the American establishments effort to paint Russias government as having intervenedwithout evidence to prove itin the 2016 US elections on behalf of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Tommys intentions are made clear in an interview in which she admits the role of Hecate has been changed because of our current administration.

This tasteless and absurd inclusion (appropriately enough, the character of Hecate is considered by many historians to have been added by a writer other than Shakespeare) diminishes the impact of the plays criticisms of Western intervention, while also highlighting the fairly superficial attitude of the plays producers toward militarism. Apparently some forms of US intervention are justifiable? Are the scenes of hijab-wearing civilian women fleeing government soldiers a criticism of the USs actions in the Middle East and Africa, or are they a plea for further intervention to stop mad dictators with shadowy Russian benefactors, such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria? The director is ambivalent on such issues.

These significant issues aside, Liesl Tommys Macbeth is visually compelling and makes an attempt to place the Shakespeare classic within the context of modern political and social developments. Benefiting from many fine acting performances, the production is worth attending.
The day after his inauguration at the Elysee palace, French President Emmanuel Macron chose a right-wing graduate of the elite National Administration School (ENA) as prime minister, before flying to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The friendly meeting between Macron and Merkel in Berlin underscores that his installation in the Elysee is part of a social counterrevolution and surge of militarism spreading across Europe. Berlin, the champion of austerity, which in 2014 broke with seven decades of military restraint following the defeat of the Nazi regime and launched the remilitarization of its foreign policy, hailed Macron, a supporter of deep austerity and a return of the draft.

Macron plans to use the labor law of his predecessor Francois Hollande, rammed through the National Assembly without a vote in the face of mass protests and the opposition of 70 percent of the French people, to tear up contracts and social benefits by decree.

He began his joint press conference with Merkel by insisting that austerity was not being dictated to him by the European Union or Germany, but was the policy of his government. The French agenda will be a reform agenda in the coming months, not because Europe is asking us, but because that is what France needs, he said.

He proposed very close collaboration with Berlin to work together on a common road map for the European Union and the euro zone. He added, These are subjects of the greatest importance I will be a frank, direct and constructive partner because I think that the success of our two countries is intimately linked.

Merkel sought to give the greatest possible support, in words at least, to the new French president. I have full confidence in him, he knows what he has to do, she said, referring to Frances social and economic policy.

She also said that Berlin could consider revising the treaties on the structure of the EU in order to give Macron more room for maneuver, both in political and budgetary terms. She said that from a German point of view, it is possible to change [the treaties] if it is done reasonably. She continued: We are in favor of changing the treaties if the result is to reinforce the euro zone. I have always felt troubled when I heard claims that the Lisbon treaty is perfect.

There will be no taboos, Macron said on the issue of revising EU treaties.

However, the idea of revising these treaties in the interests of his government is little more than a political mirage, pointed to by Macron in order to give his austerity policies, which continue and intensify those of his discredited predecessor Francois Hollande, a false air of novelty.

Influential voices in Berlin, starting with Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, spoke up to explain that Macron could never carry out such a policy. In an interview with Frances right-wing daily Le Figaro, he bluntly dismissed Macrons proposals as not realistic. According to Schauble, These propositions, such as a budget for the euro zone, require a modification of the EU treaties [that] would require the unanimity of the 27 member states, as well as referendums in many of these countries.

While Macron was in Berlin, Edouard Philippe was on the 8pm TV news on TF1 to introduce himself to the French people and lay out the social attacks he is preparing. Concerning Macrons plans to impose social cuts by decree, he said: The president of the Republic has committed his authority to this proposal. He explained that it is indispensable to transform the framework of labor legislation. It is very heavy, very complex. It does not protect workers well. We cannot be inactive.

As a student at the Political Sciences School (Sciences-Po), Philippe briefly joined Hollandes Socialist Party (PS) to support Michel Rocard before joining the right and supporting Alain Juppe. From 2007 to 2010, he worked in French imperialisms neocolonial operations in Africa with nuclear energy giant Areva.

Due to this background, he felt the need to insist that he was a man of the right who defends a strong and repressive state, stressing his strong conviction that the state has a role to play and that the states authority must be defended. This is yet another signal that Macron intends to maintain and develop the police mobilization set up by the PS under the state of emergency, which suspends basic democratic rights in France.

Macrons installation of Philippe as prime minister and his close ties to Merkel underscore the bankruptcy of arguments that voters were morally obligated to vote for Macron against the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen in order to oppose nationalism, dictatorship and militarism. Not only did the media and the traditional parties of government call for a Macron vote, but forces such as Jean-Luc Melenchon of Unsubmissive France and the New Anti-capitalist Party let it be known that they understood the justifications being advanced for a Macron vote.

This has now produced a profoundly reactionary government that is leading the entire bourgeois political setup in a shift far to the right. Not only are Paris and Berlin coordinating a violently antisocial austerity policy, but they are collaborating closely on attempts to use the EU as a framework to develop an aggressive militaristic foreign policy for European imperialism.

Macrons calls for a return of the draft and for stepped-up military operations are of a piece with moves of the German ruling elite to relegitimize militarism and war in the aftermath of the 2014 shift in Berlins foreign policy. Despite the deep divisions between them, the European powers, faced with the challenge from Brexit and the nationalistic policy of the Trump administration, are seeking to band together to more aggressively conduct military interventions.

As the Macron-Merkel meeting took place in Berlin, EU foreign ministers met in Brussels for a meeting devoted to coordinating the EUs military and foreign policy, particularly in Africa. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini raised a broad range of subjects, including intervention in the Horn of Africa as well as in southern Libya to halt the flow of refugees across the Mediterranean.

The attempt to unify the EU on the basis of imperialist interventions overseas, backed by the draft, is reactionary and will encounter broad opposition among European youth and workers. It will only exacerbate already explosive social tensions in Europe.

Even if Berlin allowed Paris to carry out a superficial remodeling of the EU treaties in its interests, this would not benefit the working class. It would be done on the basis of a common agreement among all the EU governments on austeritythe essential framework of European social policy since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union a quarter century ago. This policy has devastated large parts of Eastern and Southern Europe, most notoriously Greece, since the 2008 Wall Street crash.

The way forward, as the Parti de legalite socialiste stressed in its call for an active boycott of the second round of the presidential election between Macron and Le Pen, is an independent and internationalist mobilization of the working class against French and European capitalism. There is deep and growing opposition to austerity and militarism in France, Germany and across Europe, and Macrons attempts to dictate austerity will face broad resistance.
Isaac Oseas is the president of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at New York University. He is currently a candidate for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Student Senator position, as part of the IYSSEs fight to build a socialist movement on campus and in the working class.

NYU GSAS students will be able to vote Oseas from May 15 to May 19 by going to the link StudentVote.nyu.edu and logging in with his or her NetID and Password.

Below is a statement from Oseas in opposition to militarism on campus.

***

The revelation that NYU has been involved in developing a code-breaking computer for the US Department of Defense (DoD) further exposes the close ties between the university and the military.

According to The Intercept, an American digital security researcher came across hundreds of pages of documents hosted on an insecure server inside NYUs Tandon School of Engineering. The documents included a detailed description of a supercomputer, codenamed WindsorGreen, that was administered by NYU, the DoD and IBM.

Many of the documents discovered by the researcher were marked with warnings such as DISTRIBUTION LIMITED TO U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ONLY, REQUESTS FOR THIS DOCUMENT MUST BE REFERRED TO AND APPROVED BY THE DOD, and IBM Confidential.

The supercomputer is far more advanced than what is commercially or academically available, and is clearly designed to crack encrypted emails and texts.

Gregory and David Chudnovsky, world-renowned mathematicians that head Tandons Institute for Mathematics and Advanced Supercomputing, authored many of these documents and maintained correspondence with members of the US military, according to The Intercepts source.

The leak provides students and workers at NYU and across the country a rare insight into the intersection between academia, Wall Street and the US military and spying apparatus.

While the NYU administration has since denied any knowledge of the Windsor program, the university has developed a specialization for training future NSA agents and crafting legal justification for mass surveillance.

The Tandon School has remained one of only 16 institutions in the country to be designated a Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) by the NSA, which allows schools to apply for grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

NSF funding is used for scholarship for service programs, such as ASPIRE (A Scholarship for Service Partnership for Interdisciplinary Research and Education).

Students who receive the scholarship must spend two years in government service. According to a 2015 article by the Guardian, roughly 29 percent of the students who receive the scholarship are placed in the NSA. Most of the rest are slotted into other intelligence, spying, police or military agencies.

The NYU School of Law also houses the Center on Law and Security, which works to make our national security policies more effective, legitimate, and sustainable. The centers Board of Advisors is comprised of former and current CIA and State Department Officials and their corporate backers. This includes figures such as David Cohen, the former deputy CIA director under Obama; Gus Coldebella, former General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security; Rajesh De, former General Counsel for the NSA; Randal Milch, former Verizon executive vice president; and Elizabeth Rindskopf-Parker, who between 1984 and 1995 worked for the CIA, the NSA and the State Department.

The intersection of corporate and military/state personnel is not limited to any single college or program, but influences the entire institution. In 2009, Cheryl Mills, the former chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, negotiated the establishment of the Abu Dhabi campus while employed by both the State Department and NYU.

In 2015 NYU convened a group of government officials, academics and members of the defense industry to develop a public-private partnership for the DoD. The group put out a report as part of the summit titled National Security Technology Accelerator: A Plan for Civil-Military Industry Innovation.

Many of the NYU Board of Trustees are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a think tank with close ties to the US government. This includes Laurence Fink, founder and chief executive officer of the worlds largest hedge fund, BlackRock, Inc.; Boris Jordan, President and CEO of the Sputnik Group, Ltd., which manages the largest foreign private equity funds invested in Russia; and John A. Paulson, a leader of the Paulson & Co. hedge fund management firm.

Kenneth Langone, a co-founder of supply and retail company The Home Depot, is a trustee for both NYU and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a leading imperialist think tank. In 2016 CSIS was commissioned by the DoD to draw up a report that detailed plans for a military confrontation between the US and China.

As a member of the IYSSE and GSAS Student Senator candidate, I put forward the following demands:

First, complete disclosure from the NYU administration of all ties between the university and the military and spying agencies. The severance of all ties between the university and the military and the state. Universities must be centers of learning, not government propaganda and research in the service of war.

Second, the student government must establish a student-led committee to evaluate the impact of the military and surveillance agencies on academic decisions made by the administration.
Over the past four days, some 350,000 computers have been infected by the so-called WannaCry malware, including 70,000 devices such as MRI scanners, blood storage refrigerators and operating equipment used by Britains National Health Service. As a result of the attack, the NHS was forced to turn away emergency room patients and divert ambulances, potentially resulting in serious illnesses and even fatalities.

The worm is a piece of ransomware that encrypts users data until the creators receive a payment. It uses exploits developed by the US National Security Agency as just a small part of the NSAs catalog of hacking tools.

When NSA researchers discovered the vulnerability in the Windows operating system targeted by WannaCry, they refused to inform Microsoft. The company found out about the existence of the vulnerability only shortly before the general public, when it was leaked by the Shadow Brokers hacker group on April 14 of this year.

On Saturday, Microsoft President Brad Smith, in a tersely worded blog post, faulted the NSA for failing to share its knowledge of the exploit. This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem, he wrote, adding that this most recent attack represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world todaynation-state action and organized criminal action.

He concluded, We need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits.

Microsoft is far from blameless when it comes to the NSAs operations. It has established a standing practice of reporting bugs to the US government before they are repaired and publicly acknowledged, allowing the NSA to use these vulnerabilities to break into systems.

Regardless, Smiths statement represents a stinging indictment of the operations of the US intelligence apparatus, implying that its actions are only once removed from those of criminals.

The hacking tools used in the WannaCry malware serve an even more malevolent purpose than any ransomware: illegal spying on the population of the whole world as part of a systematic practice of subversion and cyber aggression.

In May 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the US intelligence apparatus collects, processes, reads and catalogs a vast quantity of private communications, both in the United States and internationally. Snowden explained that the stated aim of the NSA, the signals intelligence arm of the US intelligence apparatus, is unfettered access to all private information. Its mottos are, according to a leaked internal presentation, Collect it All, Process it All, Exploit it All, Sniff it All and Know it All.

Illegal domestic surveillance operations authorized by the Bush administration after 9/11 resulted in the vastly expanded scale of government spying that was exposed by Snowden. With the collaboration, both voluntary and coerced, of the major telecommunications companies, the US government was able to vacuum up nearly all phone conversations, email and chat messages exchanged on digital devices.

In subsequent years, common communications platforms substantially improved their security capabilities, with nearly all Internet communication systems enabling encryption by default. These developments prompted US intelligence officials to complain of the Internet going dark to the NSA and CIA, prompting repeated calls by politicians, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to criminalize the use of encryption.

The NSA responded by vastly expanding its use of Tailored Access Operations, the arm of the NSA devoted to computer network exploitation, commonly known as hacking. The agency adopted the slogan, Your data is our data, your equipment is our equipmentanytime, any place.

The NSA worked to build up a catalog of cyber weapons, known as exploits, which allow it to easily break into almost any Internet-connected device. One internal NSA document from 2012 claimed that the NSA worked with the largest telecommunications and technology companies in the world to insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, networks and endpoint communications devices used by targets.

The NSAs massive team of security researchersthe largest in the worldalso worked to discover and exploit vulnerabilities within existing products, keeping these bugs a secret from manufacturers in order to allow the NSA to exploit them to gain access to computers, networks and Internet-connected devices before other researchers could discover them and recommend fixes to manufacturers.

In addition to using these tools to carry out mass surveillance, the NSA weaponized them in order to carry out cyberattacks against Washingtons geopolitical adversaries. The most notorious of these efforts was the release of the Stuxnet worm in 2010, which ruined some 1,000 Iranian nuclear centrifuges. The cyberattack was coordinated with a series of car bomb murders, attributed by the media to the US and Israel, which killed at least three Iranian nuclear physicists.

The fact that over 70 percent of the initially reported WannaCry infections took place in Russia raises the very real possibility that the current disaster is the result of a Stuxnet-like cyberattack by the United States. The other country disproportionately affected was China.

Speaking in Beijing on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, As for the source of these threats, Microsofts leadership stated this directly. They said the source of the virus was the special services of the United States.

White House Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert declared that finding those responsible for cyberattacks is something that sometimes eludes us. Attribution can be difficult here.

Bosserts statement contrasts sharply with the declaration by the director of national intelligence in October 2016 that the US spy agencies were confident that the Russian Government directed recent compromises of emails related to the Clinton campaign.

That declaration was part of a vast campaign by the Democratic Party, the media and much of the political establishment aimed at demonizing Russia by claiming it had hacked the 2016 US elections. As part of that campaign, media outlets, led by the New York Times, sought to present Russia as a global hacking powerhouse, subverting the spotless US electoral system.

One can only imagine what would have happened if, instead of the current malware attack mainly affecting Russia and largely bypassing the US in its initial stages, the situation had been reversed. The media would be up in arms about Russian hackers, with demands that the Trump administration retaliate with sanctions, cyberattacks and more menacing military moves. The Democrats would be in the forefront of calls for new war-mongering resolutions in Congress.

An examination of the facts exposed by the WannaCry attack, however, show that the worlds biggest band of cyber criminals by far is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) announced on Friday that delegates meetings in Victoria had approved its sell-out industrial agreement with the state Labor government. More than 55,000 public school teachers, education support (ES) staff and other Department of Education and Training workers covered by the agreement, must now vote on it in a secret ballot.

The union reported that 1,554 delegates had voted for the deal, and 334 against, or 82 to 18 percent. Delegate votes were allocated to schools on the basis of one per 20 unionised teachers and ES staff.

The outcome of the delegates meetings is the first product of a calculated, anti-democratic operation carried out by the AEU bureaucracy, which has been determined, from the outset, to prevent teachers from having any opportunity to discuss and consider the terms of the deal before voting on it. The delegates vote will now be used to try and pressure the bulk of teachers and ES staff to accept it as well.

The AEU is advocating a Yes vote in the secret ballot. Socialist Equality Party (SEP) members and supporters, who work in public education and oppose the government-union agreement, will step up their campaign among rank-and-file teachers and ES staff for a No vote.

The AEU deal with the government is the first time that a four-year industrial agreement has been made without any strike action by public teachers and ES staff, and without a single mass meeting. In 2013, there were three state-wide strikes and mass meetings, involving tens of thousands of school staff. This time, the union feared it could rapidly lose control of such actions, due to the already palpable hostility among many staff to government attacks on public education.

In March, the AEU announced that it was shutting down planned industrial action before it even began, insisting that the agreement represented a significant gain.

After announcing the deal through the media, just days before a two-week term holiday, overworked teachers and ES staff had only two weeks before the AEU ratification meetings began, to convene meetings at their schools to discuss it and elect delegates.

During this period, the union deleted any posts that were critical of the deal from its Facebook page, including articles published on the World Socialist Web Site. At numerous schools, only a small minority of teachers took part in the selection of delegates. The delegates meeting themselves had a far smaller attendance than comparable meetings in 2013.

Underlying the 18 percent no vote by union delegates, however, and the abstention from voting, is growing anger among broader sections of teachers over the accelerating assault on public education and the intolerable working conditions in chronically underfunded and understaffed schools.

Wherever teachers and ES staff have had an opportunity to examine and consider the real content of the agreement, sharp opposition has emerged.

If the AEU deal is ratified, conditions for teachers, and the quality of public education for hundreds of thousands of youth, will rapidly worsen:

* Excessive workloads will continue, with teachers working an average of 15 hours unpaid overtime each week;

* The unions touted wage increase is less than the annual rise in the cost of living;

* Contract employment will remain rife in schools;

* All the previous union betrayals, including allowing the sacking of teachers deemed excess to school requirements, or underperforming, have been entrenched;

* The union is facilitating the governments drive to tie school funding to teacher performance, assessed on the basis of student standardised test outcomes (see What the Australian Education Union is suppressing);

* The NAPLAN standardised testing regime, which is utterly inimical to the intellectual, cultural, physical and psychological development of young people, will continue.

A definite shift among school staff has been evident since the previous sell-out deal imposed in 2013. A number of younger teachers are coming forward to oppose both the agreement and the AEU leadership, with the most advanced layers closely following the SEPs campaign, including through its teachers and ES staff Facebook page.

This was demonstrated at both the local branch and delegates meetings where SEP members and supporters spoke against the union deal. AEU vote tallies at those delegates meetingsAbbotsford, Deer Park, Eltham, Westmeadows, and Meltonshowed a significantly higher percentage of no votes than the overall state figure.

At the first meeting on May 1 in Abbotsford, SEP member and secondary teacher Will Marshall moved for the calling of a state-wide stoppage and mass meetings. The AEU ruled this out of order, but his demand for a proper discussion opened up the meeting and encouraged other teachers to speak in opposition (see Teachers oppose Australian Education Union sell-out deal at Victorian delegates meeting).

At several meetings, SEP members moved a procedural motion limiting the AEUs main report to 15 minutes and allowing at least an hour of open discussion, so that those both for and against could speak. They noted that in previous delegates meetings, AEU bureaucrats had provided pro-deal spin for nearly an hour, before anyone else could ask a question or speak.

SEP members also condemned anti-democratic union rules that allow no more than two delegates to speak against before the union asks two speakers for to address the meeting. If no-one wishes to speak for, the meetings are immediately shut down. At several ratification meetings, AEU bureaucrats discouraged teachers and ES staff from staying for the discussion, actively encouraging them to register, vote, and leave immediately.

When SEP member and primary school teacher Sue Phillips explained these issues at the May 10 Westmeadows meeting, in Melbournes working class north, two teachers rose to express their support for a full discussion. They also used the opportunity to express their hostility to the proposed agreement, and opposition to the AEUs claims that it included gains on workload.

After the AEUs state president Meredith Peace promoted the agreement for her allocated 15 minutes, a lively question-and-answer period ensued. Several teachers and ES staff, from different primary and secondary public schools in the area, raised their opposition to various aspects of the AEU deal.

Numbers of longstanding teachers, with knowledge of previous agreements and conditions in schools, expressed fears that higher-paid, older teachers were being targeted, named in excess, and then forced to compete for their jobs against graduates.

A teacher from John Fawkner College raised concerns about peer observation and its connection with inspectors. An SEP member demanded to know why the union had submitted a log-of-claims that allowed teachers to opt out of peer observation if requested, but had then agreed to mandatory peer observation by a new category of school staff, labelled learning specialists. Peace asserted that this had been a big ticket item and something that the government really wanted.

A teacher from Northcote College asked who had proposed the four new professional practice days a yearthe government, or the unionsince far from providing relief, teachers classes still have to be covered while they do assessment and planning work. The union has falsely promoted these four days as a gain for reducing workloads. When asked who had proposed the measure, the government or the union, Peace hesitated, pretended she could not remember, then admitted, probably them.

In other delegates meetings, SEP members cited government figures showing that the new professional practice days would cost just $300 million over four years, compared to $800 million if teachers had an additional one hour per week for planning. They also emphasised that the AEU had provided the government with a blanket commitment to support its education reform agendawhich is part of a wider assault on public education in Australia and internationally.

The extent of opposition that has already been revealed demonstrates that the task now is to ensure that as many teachers and ES staff across Victoria are made familiar with the content and implications of the agreement before they vote. The union bureaucracys calculated efforts to try and ram the deal through underscores that teachers and ES staff will need to take matters into their own hands.

Teachers and ES staff should demand that a meeting take place at their school, at least a number of days prior to the secret ballot, and involving all staff, union and non-union. Time must be afforded for both a democratic debate, in which the case for and against the deal can be made, and for staff to carefully consider how they will vote. SEP members with intimate knowledge of the details of the agreement will, if invited, be available to attend school meetings to make the case for a No vote.

More critically, the experience of the past weeks shows the need for new organisations that are independent of the AEU. Democratic, rank-and-file committees must be established within the schools, uniting teachers, ES staff, students and parents against the substandard state of facilities and resources at many public schools, the contemptuous working hours, pay and conditions being imposed on teachers, and against NAPLAN testing and performance ranking.

For such committees to be genuinely democratic, and politically and organisationally independent of the teacher unions, they must be based on a socialist perspective, aimed against the capitalist profit system itself.

To contact the SEP and become active in the fight for genuine high quality, free public education at all levels, and for the broader social rights of the working class, click here. To invite SEP representatives to speak at a meeting at your school, email sep@sep.org.au.

The authors also recommend:

The political issues in the fight to reject the Victorian teachers EBA

[21 April 2017]
A sensationalized report published on the web site of the Washington Post Monday afternoon claims that President Trump conveyed classified information to two high-ranking Russian officials during their well-publicized meeting last Wednesday at the White House.

The article, headlined, Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats, claims that Trump discussed possible terrorist attacks by ISIS using laptops carried on passenger aircraft during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

According to the Post report, Trump disclosed information obtained from a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government, officials said. The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trumps decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.

The newspaper claimed that after the meeting, recognizing the potential damage, White House officials called the CIA and the National Security Agency, which were in contact with the government that was the source of the information on ISIS.

The incident, assuming it is accurately reported and not a piece of deliberate disinformation from the US intelligence apparatus, suggests, among other things, that at least one country allied with Washington still maintains friendly relations with ISIS. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar come to mind.

Washington itself played a role in the creation of the Islamic fundamentalist group, initially built up as part of the US regime-change operation in Syria directed at the government of Bashar al-Assad, Russias only ally in the Middle East. ISIS only came into direct conflict with the US after it sent forces across the Syria-Iraq border in 2014, and particularly after its rout of the Iraqi Army in the capture of Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, in June 2014.

ISIS has been sustained since then with supplies and new recruits who have been able to reach its landlocked territory either through Turkeya NATO ally of the United Statesor through Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both non-NATO allies of the US. Any one of these countries, as well as the sheikdom of Qatar, which has heavily financed Sunni fundamentalist groups like ISIS, could be the U.S. partner described in the Post report.

In terms of US domestic politics, the Post report is clearly aimed at providing another boost for the anti-Russian campaign alleging that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russian intelligence agencies in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

No significant evidence has yet been produced to substantiate claims that the Russian government was responsible for the hacking of materials subsequently published by WikiLeaks. Nor has there been any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. The anti-Russia campaign has been launched in opposition to Trumps initial suggestions of a more cooperative relationship with Moscow, including a pullback from efforts to overthrow Assad in Syria, to focus more military resources on China and East Asia.

The nature of the security breach alleged in the Post article hardly justifies the screaming headlines in the newspaper, the breathless reports that led the Monday evening news broadcasts on ABC and CBS, and the hours of cable television coverage that have ensued.

Trumps major blunder, if the report is accurate, is to share information about potential ISIS terrorism with Russia without having permission to do so from the U.S. partner, an action that jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, according to the Post.

From the standpoint of the deepening US political crisis, the main question raised by the Post report is how details of a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office made its way to the newspaper. The most likely sources are the CIA and NSA. The two spy agencies were either represented at the meeting or informed of Trumps comments afterwards by White House homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert.

In other words, the Post report is another shot fired in the internecine war within the American state apparatus, initially focused on foreign policy, particularly in relation to Syria and Russia, but more generally provoked by the personalist, authoritarian character of the Trump administration, and Trumps role as a loose cannon in both domestic and foreign policy.

White House officials flatly rebuffed the Post claims that Trump released information inappropriately. The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser said in a statement. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

The Post claims that Trump revealed to Lavrov and Kislyak the name of a city in ISIS territory where the details of the new terrorist threat had been learned, but the newspaper would not reveal this name to its readers, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

In other words, the newspaper chose to enlist in the ranks of the military-intelligence officials waging political warfare against Trump.

The reported blurting out of classified information to the Russians led several Democratic congressmen to recall Republican criticism of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for being extremely careless with classified information that was found on the private email server she used while secretary of state.
During the past two weekends, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) held public meetings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Australias largest cities, to discuss the growing danger of nuclear war.

Entitled, Stop the drive to world war! For peace, equality and socialism! the meetings were attended by workers, professionals, youth, university students and retirees.

SEP and IYSSE speakers explained the economic and political background to the Trump administrations recent reckless military provocationsin Syria, Afghanistan and against North Korea; the escalating drive towards global military conflict, and the escalating attacks on jobs, living standards and social rights in every country.

On May 14, SEP national secretary James Cogan and University of Melbourne IYSSE president Evrim Ekin spoke at the Melbourne meeting while SEP assistant national secretary Cheryl Crisp addressed the Brisbane event. Nick Beams, a member of the WSWS international editorial board, and IYSSE spokesperson, Oscar Grenfell, spoke at the Sydney meeting on May 7.

James Cogan began his address by pointing to the possibility of military conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons, between North Korea and the US. He warned that US President Trump, now embroiled in bitter conflicts with powerful sections of the American establishment and the military intelligence state apparatus, could attempt to cling to power by plunging North Asia into war. This is the daily reality in which we now live, he said.

Cogan detailed the background to the increasingly complex geo-political tensions around the worldthe 25 years of US-led interventions in the Balkans, Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and the military build-up against China.

War is not the outcome of evil intentions or any other subjective motivation, but the outcome of the contradictions of capitalist society itself, the speaker said. The rise of war and militarism, he continued, was in stark contrast to growing antiwar sentiment. Referring to a recent European survey, he said that young people were not consumed with militarism and nationalist hatreds, or committed to the continuation of capitalism.

The problem, however, the speaker said, was that a genuine socialist and revolutionary perspective and leadership had not yet been taken up by significant sections of the working class. All the political work of our world movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, he explained, was directed towards overcoming that political contradiction.

We have to educate the working class by patiently explaining what the real causes of war are, and therefore why it cannot be prevented by the methods of protest and appeals to reason. It can only be prevented, in the final analysis, by socialist revolution.

Cogan reviewed the political lessons of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Under the leadership of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, the Russian working class had taken political power, demonstrating to the international working class that the barbarism of World War I, and the capitalist system itself, could be ended and the conditions created for a new stage in mankinds historical progress.

At the Sydney meeting, Oscar Grenfell detailed the growing government attacks on students, youth and welfare recipients along with the promotion of militarism. This campaign involved rewriting history, he said, a process well underway in all the imperialist powers, especially in Germany and Japan.

Grenfell attacked the Australian political establishments ongoing multi-million-dollar celebration of the countrys involvement in WWI, and noted the government and media silence about the mass opposition to conscription and war that had developed throughout the country during that catastrophic war.

The anti-war movement intersected with an upsurge of the working class, culminating in a six-week strike, in August, 1917, involving more than 100,000 workers in New South Wales and Victoria. The capitalist press responded by warning darkly of foreign agitators and the dangers of revolution, Grenfell explained.

Nick Beams told the Sydney meeting that the immense dangers facing humanity could not be resolved by quick-fix methods. The global protests in 2003 against the Iraq War, he said, were diverted into appeals to one or another set of capitalist politicians.

It is not possible to pressure capitalist politicians to stop military conflict, because war is a product of the capitalist profit and nation-state system over which they preside. The insanity of the bourgeois politicians is the political expression of something more fundamental: the objective insanity of an outlived socio-economic order.

Beams detailed the historical emergence of the capitalist nation-state system, the growth of the world economy and the seizure by the great powers of colonies, spheres of influence and resources on a global scale. Each of the capitalist great powers sought to establish itself as the preeminent global world power. But in doing so, they came into conflict with each other, and world war was the outcome.

In 1914, the working class had to develop its own solution to this historical problem, Beams said, by fighting for, as an immediate practical program of the day, the perspective of world socialist revolutionthe overthrow of the capitalist profit and nation-state system. This was the perspective that guided the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution in 1917, and, the speaker insisted, it is the same task that is posed before the international working class today.

Commenting on the current rapid slide towards imperialist war, Beams pointed out that sections of Australias political elite had raised concerns about the political dangers of involvement in a US-led war against China. South Australian senator Nick Xenophon and others, had stepped forward to try to head off an anti-war movement and to ensure that, if it does develop, then it remains firmly within the confines of bourgeois politics.

Xenophon had called for a more independent foreign policy, Beams said. That a political manoeuvre within the existing capitalist framework could avert war, however, was a dangerous illusion.

The integration of Australia into the US war machine, Beams continued, was not a matter of a parliamentary vote but an established fact, with interoperability between the US and Australian military already underway and military facilities in Australia involved in minute-by-minute operations of the US military forces.

A break from the US war drive, Beams said, could not be achieved through a change of foreign policy orientation but only through the complete overturn of the existing social and economic relations, and the state structures which rested upon themin short by means of socialist revolution, not only in Australia but on an international scale.

The decisive political question, Beams concluded, was the building of the revolutionary party. He appealed to all those in attendance to join the SEP

Extended discussions followed the reports at all three meetings and over $2,300 was donated to the SEPs monthly fund. Questions were asked about the deepening conflict between the Trump administration on the one hand, and the Democratic Party and military-intelligence apparatus on the other; about the details of North Korean missile testing; and about the French elections.

In Brisbane, questions included the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalinism in 1936-39; the emergence of left political candidatessuch as Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, who both claimed to be socialist; and the role of the IYSSE internationally following its victories at Humboldt University in Berlin, in exposing Professor Jorg Baberowski and other advocates of German militarism.

WSWS reporters spoke to participants after the meetings. Tegan, an unemployed design studies graduate, attended the Melbourne meeting. It was her first SEP event.

The drive toward war is alarming, she said. The meeting today gave me a broad political and socialist perspective that I was looking fora deeper understanding that I was hoping to get out of this meeting. It has inspired me to understand more and keep reading. I guess I understand that I dont know enough and therefore I need to keep reading.

When Trump was elected as president I didnt think it was going to be as bad as it is. A lot of what he said he was going to do he is actually now doing, which is quite frightening.

I thought the figures that were given by the speaker, on the opinions of young people whether they think banks rule the world, or are politicians corrupt and so on, were great, and a positive surprise. It shows young people want change.

I think revolution is necessary and I dont understand why there isnt more people involved at the meeting. There is so much social inequality. Probably a while ago I wouldnt have been interested, but now I am trying to make sense of the world and I do want to see change.

Babak, a young engineering student from Iran attended the Sydney meeting. I came to the meeting to be familiar with this discussion and the options we have, and what we can do to prevent war, he said.

Much of the information we are given by the media might be a lie. For example, the [SEP] presenter told us that George Bush told a lot of lies to start a war. So why should we believe them?

The meeting, he continued, opened my eyes to the realitiesnot to just trust the political statements but to do some research on history and know the purpose behind the official statements. War comes out of capitalism itself  If we can change the whole system, definitely we should do it. I totally agree it is not a good system. It is against humanity and all the values that we have and is just based on the profits of the wealthy people.

Referring to the US-led attacks in the Middle East, he said: We have been victims of these incorrect decisions by the prime ministers and presidents. They invaded Iraq and started a big war just because of their own profits.

Even now, they have come into Syria on the pretext of protecting the Syrian people. They have brought their planes and everything, but they are actually fighting against the legal government of Syria, not the terrorists 

Iran is also on the target list. I dont know what is going to happen to my friends and family there. It seems to depend on the decisions of one mad person, a multi-billionaire who knows nothing about any of the problems, but only thinks about making more money. But it is the whole system that made him president, with the support of the Pentagon and Wall Street  It is not a correct system.
Although promoted in the name of political reform, economic development, and drought relief, the London Conference on Somalia, hosted by the British government in London from May 12 to 13, served as a planning forum for imperialist military projects in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. The main outcome of the conference was a Security Pact that commits the United Kingdom and unnamed international partners to support the creation of a new Somali National Army (SNA). The SNA force is planned to include 18,000 regular soldiers, 4,000 special forces, and a Somalia Air Force and Somalia Maritime Force, and will be tasked with defending the Federal Government of Somalia (FSG).

In opening remarks to the conference, British Prime Minister Theresa May outlined a revised federal constitution and a political agreement on resource and power sharing, based on agreements signed by Somalias regional elites in April. The revised Somali constitution, May said, will enable the FSG regime in Mogadishu to gain support for a centralized army, by granting greater political autonomy to Somalias semi-autonomous regional governments in Somaliland and Puntland.

Somalias forces need to be built up through a federated model that also brings in regional forces, May said.

In exchange for their collaboration with the security framework, the African national elites assembled in London can expect financial and military backing from the United Kingdom and the international community, May made clear.

In return, the international community will back these reforms with better targeted support for economic recovery. This will include the targeting of donor support on key investment prioritiesand support for mobilising development finance and working towards securing debt relief, May said.

The British PM assured attendees that the SNA will enjoy support from the American and British militaries and their regional allies. She touted the array of foreign military projects under way inside Somalia, including the UKs commitment to train Somali forces in Baidoa, the UAEs development of a state of the art training facility, Americas training and equipping of Danab Special Forces and Turkeys work to train Somali officers and NCOs. [1]

European Union (EU) High Representative Frederica Mogherini offered reengagement with international financial institutions as an incentive for Mogadishus fulfillment of its pledges to build up Somalias security apparatus and enact structural reforms to its economy. Mogherini vowed that EU financial support to Somalia will increase from 800 million to 3.5 billion by 2020.

The European Union is ready and willing to accompany this process. But I want to be very clear; before we can make decisions about our financial support, we need to see effective coordination and burden sharing in managing this transition towards a Somali-owned security system, with full participation by regional countries. We are ready and willing to be fully engaged in this process, Mogherini said.

In comments outside the London Conference, United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters he was heartened by talks with Somalias president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. The former Marine Corps general, who personally oversaw the US militarys genocidal assault against Fallujah, Iraq, praised President Mohamed as a very good leader in terms of understanding the need for military security.

When asked whether the Pentagon is preparing further deployments of US ground troops, beyond the dozens of US paratroopers sent to Somalia in mid-April, Mattis replied: Thats a decision [more US troops to Somalia] well take if its broached to us, and well decide yes or no.

The Somali people have to be defended, said Mattis.

Washington is absolutely determined to maintain its grip over Somalia, even if this means a significantly larger air and ground war, comparable to those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. American imperialism cannot accept the loss of Somalia, which overlooks the Gulf of Aden and the Mandeb Strait, the most important commercial waterway and strategic chokepoint worldwide. The Pentagons largest military base in Africa, Camp Lemmonier in neighboring Djibouti, is a central logistical and command hub for US military operations throughout Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia.

The US government is clearly aiming at a military solution, retired UN Africa official Peter Schumann told Deutsche Welle, commenting on the attitude of the Trump administration toward the London Conference.

Humanitarian experts are warning that any further military escalation in Somalia will severely disrupt relief efforts, amid record-breaking levels of drought, famine, and disease. The number of malnourished children living in Somalia may grow to nearly 1.5 million in the coming year, surging by more than 50 percent from last years total, according to UNICEF. Across Somalia as a whole, 6.2 million are severely food insecure, 439,000 are at risk of famine, and 275,000 malnourished children are at risk of starvation, the UN secretary general reported Thursday. The worst of the famine is concentrated in Bay, Bakool, Banadir, Gedo, Lower Shabelle, Nugaal, Middle Shabelle and Banadir regions, according to ReliefWeb.

The international humanitarian system is at its breaking point, Dominic MacSorley of the humanitarian NGO Concern Worldwide said.

The Western and African troops tasked with defending the FSG will confront a Somali population that is increasingly restive, desperate, and sympathetic to the insurgents. The militaries of no fewer than five other African states, with national interests opposed to those of the FGS, are active on Somali territory. In his remarks from London, Somali President Mohamed acknowledged the dire situation confronting his regime by pleading for the major powers to supply his government with heavy weaponry.

For far too long, our security forces and terrorist groups have been fighting using the same type of light weapons, mostly AK47s, he said. Somalia must have qualitatively better equipment and weapons than the terrorists.

Somalias president warned: If we dont have more sophisticated and better weaponry, this war will definitely continue for another 10 years.

US officials brushed aside President Mohameds request, pointing to the longstanding arms embargo against Somalia. The Trump administration has nonetheless proven ready to arm the regional powers with high-tech armaments. Last week, the White House approved the sale of $250 million worth of high-tech weapons to the Kenyan government of President Uhuru Kenyatta. The sale includes 12 MD530F Cayuse Warrior light attack helicopters, 24 heavy machine gun pods, 24 HMP400 machine gun pod systems, 24 M260 rocket pods, 4,032 M151 high-explosive rockets, 1,536 M274 smoke rockets, 400,000 rounds of .50 calibre ammunition and communications/navigation equipment.

Responding to speculation about the withdrawal of AMISOM, President Kenyatta pledged last week that the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) will remain in Somalia until al Shabaab is completely defeated.

Notes:

[1] As in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria and elsewhere, Washington strives to organize new proxy armies in Somalia. The Danab unit referred to by May is a special commando force, whose members are trained by American soldiers and fight in close coordination with US Special Forces. Soldiers for Danab are contracted by security firms based out of the United States, and function as mercenaries under the direct control of US military-intelligence handlers.
A crowd of white supremacists wielding torches rallied at a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday to protest its planned removal by the city.

From 1862 to 1865, Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia, the most important formation in the military of the Confederacy, which seceded from the United States in an effort to preserve the institution of slavery.

After the war, Lee, who scored a series of stunning military victories against superior Union forces, was lionized as a hero of the so-called Lost Cause by white supremacists and supporters of segregation. Statues of Lee and other Confederate military and political figures were built throughout the South in the aftermath of Reconstruction which ended in 1877 and particularly after the beginning of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation and disenfranchisement of blacks at the last decade of the 19th century.

Media reports of the event made the obvious connection between the torch-wielding crowd, which chanted slogans such as we will not be replaced, and the night-time, torch-lit gatherings of the Ku Klux Klan, which carried out savage acts of violence against black people in the decades after the Civil War.

The demonstration lasted only 10 minutes until clashes with counter-demonstrators prompted police to intervene, according to the Washington Post.

Among those in attendance, some press reports described him as the protest leader, was the prominent neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, the self-proclaimed founder of the so-called alt-right movement. At a similar demonstration held at another park earlier in the day, Spencer declared, We will not be replaced from this world. Whites have a future. We have a future of power, of beauty, of expression. The phrase you will not replace us was repeated by demonstrators as a slogan during the night-time protest.

Spencer made national news last year, shortly after the election of Donald Trump, when he gave a speech to a far-right gathering replete with anti-Semitism, stock phrases from Nazi propaganda and calls for the conversion of the United States into a whites-only ethnic enclave. America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us, Spencer declared. Video surfaced online of Spencer leading his audience in shouts of Heil Trump! Heil our people! Heil victory, some of whom responded with Nazi salutes.

Proposals for the removal of Confederate monuments and symbols, which largely began after the 2015 shooting at a black church by young white supremacist Dylan Roof, has become something of a cause celebre among extreme-right circles.

Earlier this month, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and gubernatorial candidate David Duke held a rally in New Orleans at Lee Circle, a prominent landmark in the citys downtown featuring a statue of the Confederate general, in opposition to the plans by Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu to remove four prominent Confederate monuments. Protesters, including some carrying assault rifles, have kept vigil around the citys remaining statues.

The entire local political establishment attempted to distance themselves from this weekends protests in Virginia. Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, a Democrat, issued a statement calling the demonstration profoundly ignorant and declaring that such intolerance is not welcome here. Erich Reimer, the chair of the citys Republican Party, released a statement calling the demonstration utterly disgusting and beyond words.

However, the growing assertiveness of white supremacist and fascistic layers is above all the outcome of the shift to the right of the entire political establishment. In particular, President Donald Trump has sought to build the foundations of a new far-right movement.

Before Trump, however, the connections between the Republican Party and far-right groups had long been an open secret. In 2014, it was revealed that Louisiana Republican congressman Steve Scalise had spoken at a white supremacist conference called by Duke. This did not prevent his confirmation as House majority whip, a post which he holds to this day.

In Virginia, which is currently in the midst of a gubernatorial election campaign, Republican candidate Corey Stewart has made opposition to the removal of the monuments a major plank in his campaign, declaring his goal to defend Virginias heritage and comparing the removal of Confederate statues to the destruction of archaeological sites by ISIS.

Shortly after his election victory, Trump appointed Stephen Bannon, former editor of the alt-right web site Breitbart News, to the post of chief strategist and senior counsellor, an important but unofficial position not subject to Senate confirmation, as with regular cabinet members.

Many of Trumps actions since taking office have been calculated directly to appeal to the extreme right, such as his discriminatory and racist ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries, originally drafted by Bannon himself, his invocation of America First rhetoric and his attacks on immigrants, whom he defames as criminals and scapegoats for the economic distress within the American working class.

Unsurprisingly, many watchdog groups have reported a significant uptick in hate crimes nationwide. The Anti-Defamation League reported last month that anti-Semitic incidents have risen 86 percent over last year so far. The Council of American-Islamic Relations reported last November that hate crimes against Muslims jumped by 67 percent in 2016, during the peak of the presidential election campaign.

However, white supremacist and fascistic groups do not enjoy widespread support among the American population as a whole. Both the Charlottesville and New Orleans far-right demonstrations were met with far larger counter-protests. A recent speech by Spencer at Auburn University in Alabama, nearly canceled by university officials over security concerns, likewise was met with large protests.
Teachers across the UK are at loggerheads with the Conservative government over its huge cuts to education funding. Over the next four years, 3 billion in funding will be cut from school budgets, under a supposedly fair national funding formula for England.

Anger is mounting, with three schools in southeast London having already held strikes against the cuts imposed by a Labour-run council. At Forest Hill School, teachers have held seven days of strikes in opposition to Lewisham council, which is demanding cuts of 1.3 million.

Last week, members of the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) threatened to go on strike for the first time in six years over education cuts. This brings home the gravity of the situation, considering the NAHT has only been out on strike once in 120 years.

Teaching assistants in Durham, also run by a Labour council, have been striking for months against pay cuts.

The impact of education cuts continue to worsen, with the latest story coming from a Cheshire primary school.

Speaking to the BBC, Andy Canham, chair of governors at Elton Primary School and Nursery, said, Were already having to consider over the next three years losing at least two teachers, merging year groups and potentially shortening the school week by one or maybe half a day.

There have already been a number of protests led by parents in Cheshire over this issue, and parents have set up groups to fight for funding for their schools. The fact that groups of parents, headteachers and governors have been left to take up isolated struggles against education cuts is an indictment of the trade unions.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) highlighted a survey that showed that schools are increasingly relying on money from parents. Based on almost 4,000 responses, it found that 18 percent of parents have been asked to sign up for direct debits or standing orders for their children's school, typically for about 50 per year. In some cases the cost to parents was found to be even more, with more than 1 in 20 parents paying 400 or above. A further 13 percent of parents have been asked to make donations in cash or cheques.

The issue of funding cuts and the willingness of teachers to fight them was the main theme of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) April conference.

Because of action taken by teachers and various campaigns that have sprung up, NUT General Secretary Kevin Courtney motioned a vote, which was supported, for the mobilisation of teachers against funding cuts.

However, even before the conference Courtney had ruled out any national strikes. A week before, he had stated, National strikes are a possibility. I dont think thats where we are immediately. National action is not where our planning horizon is at the moment.

At the conference, strikes during the general election campaign were ruled out, with the NUT stating that any initial action would only go ahead in the summer termwith the caveat that this only happens if there is no change in the Tory governments policies. Courtney said the union must take immediate steps to identify regions where national strike action could be called using the existing funding ballot and to call a one-day strike in those regions before the end of the 2016/17 academic year.

The stalling of any action against the cuts is standard NUT policy. NUT branches called for strikes in September 2016 over funding and asked the executive to reconsider its position, as Courtney had argued against naming dates for further strike action.

Not only is the union opposed to any mobilisation of teachers nationally, it is actively working to ensure that any action that does go ahead is strictly curtailed, and isolated on a regional basis with limited impact.

While the NUT continues to oppose action, the other education unions like the NASUWT are equally concerned about preventing strikes.

Courtney is not averse to using rhetoric to condemn the cuts, while doing precisely nothing to oppose them, hailing as he does from the ranks of the pseudo-left.

He is the chosen candidate of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), who backed him for years as he rose through the ranks of the union bureaucracy. Before he was general secretary, Courtney was a leading member of the Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA) within the National Union of Teachers (NUT), where members and supporters of the SWP have long been active.

The SWP supported his campaign to become deputy and subsequently general secretary. They also supported the then NUT general secretary Christine Blowers and Courtneys ticket, against a pairing of a joint ticket of the Socialist Partys Martin Powell Davies for general secretary and the Alliance for Workers Libertys Patrick Murphy for deputy general secretary. Whether he remains part of the SWP today makes no difference, as Courtney can be sure of their constant hailing him as a fighting union leader.

The SWP and Socialist Party (SP) are playing a critical role in seeking to prop up the increasingly discredited NUT, and ensure that the line of the trade union bureaucracy holds sway. They carry out such a role, not simply to provide a left cover for the bureaucracy, but as an integral part of the union hierarchy, with a comfortable career with its many perks and privileges.

The SP proposed the regional action with one of their members, James Kerr from Lewisham, south east London, moving the amendment for it. This was moved despite Kerr acknowledging that the struggle was a national dispute. The NUT had to remain in control and the union needed a strategy to win, he said.

At the conference, there were calls for the union to take immediate steps alongside others to organise a national demonstration to defend education.

SWP leading member Paul McGarr, while telling delegates, we need strikes. Strikes work, praised the NUT for instead calling a lobby of parliament. Lets make that a mass lobby, he said. McGarr advocates this in the knowledge that any such event would be utilised by the NUT only to allow teachers to let off steam, with Courtney having the opportunity to spout rhetoric from the stage as he tells all that nothing can be done.

The union bureaucracy is yet again using the anti-union laws in order to prevent a unified offensive by workers. In March, the latest such legislation, the Trade Union Act, became law. It did not take the NUT long to cite these laws in order to oppose the mobilisation of teachers.

Courtney stated that the Trade Union Act means that, barriers to national action are higher.

We would have to do an awful lot of work to pass the 50 percent [of union members voting] threshold, and the 40 percent yes vote thresholds that apply in education.

School workers have power that other groups dont have, he said adding, its true that the Trade Union Act is draconian. But unions shouldnt simply accept its limitationsand they should defy it.

This is a cynical fraud. As Courtney is well aware, no union has defied the anti-union laws in the last 25 years, to the extent that the government has not even had to enforce them. They have successfully relied on the union bureaucracy to oppose strikes and, where they have broken out, to ensure their isolation and defeat.

The NUTs conference demonstrates that in order to oppose the education cuts, teachers and parents must break out of the straitjacket of the union bureaucracy. Teachers must organise themselves in rank and file committees, independent of the unions and based on a socialist programme, which fights for free, and high quality education for all.
On Saturday May 13, students from the Rio Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) marched in San Juan to denounce the governments austerity measures and attempts to criminalize their protests. A student strike at the main campus of the islands university system has entered its fifth week.

Anger is growing throughout the US territory after the May 3 declaration of bankruptcy by Governor Ricardo Rosello and proposals by the Fiscal Control Board (JCF) for sweeping attacks on pensions, public sector jobs and social services to pay the islands creditors, which include major Wall Street hedge funds. This was followed by the May 5 announcement that 179 public schools would be closed, forcing the relocation of nearly 30,000 students and layoff of 2,000 teachers.

The UPR students, many of them dressed in red to symbolize their anger, marched behind a banner that demanded Rosello put his own criminals on trial. This was a reference to the arbitrary arrest of protesting students on April 17 and May Day while corrupt government officials who colluded with the banks have gotten away scot-free. Other signs read, No more budget cuts, Not 4 Sale the University of Puerto Rico.

Along the march, many pedestrians, including tourists in the Coronado beach district, voiced their support for the students. We want to awaken their interest; for them to seek out information on what is going on, declared a spokesperson for Movimiento Estudiantil (Student Movement), which organized the march.

On Thursday May 11, scores of students occupying the campus in the San Juan borough of Rio Piedras defied a court order mandating the reopening of the blocked gates of the institution, which serves 18,000 students.

The students have denounced the court order as an invitation to suppress their protest. Pickets circulated in front of the gates leading into the UPR, as police helicopters circled above. How much more are they going to cut? declared some of the pickets.

So far, university authorities have declined sending in the police against the students, who are supported by many professors, university employees refusing to cross the student picket line, and the public, many of whom are donating food, water and other supplies to the students inside. The court of appeals is considering bringing charges against the UPR administrators for not repressing the student occupation and ending the strike.

In addition to Rio Piedras, students are on strike at the Bayamon campus, south of San Juan. Last week the US Department of Education declared the UPR Carolina campus ineligible for financial aid because of the paralysis of education, according to governing board chairman Carlos Perez, even though students decided to lift their strike at the Bayamon campus.

Perez, interviewed by the English language San Juan Daily Star, declared that the same measures would also be taken against other striking institutions. According to the Daily Star, this is the worst crisis the islands main public university has experienced in its history.

The latest plan the Fiscal Control Board (JCF) is mandating for the US territory includes yearly budget cuts of $7 billion (10 percent), slashing working hours and pensions, and forcing workers to take unpaid furloughs. It also includes a $450 million budget cut by 2025 for the University of Puerto Rico. This was coupled with a yearly debt service of $3.5 billion.

Governor Rosello has called on the public to help UPR by donating loose change in collection boxes at stores where they shop. Several UPR administrators resigned in protests when the cuts were announced in February.

The cuts will lead to higher tuition and fees at UPR, postponing building maintenance, the cancellation of classes, and mass layoffs of education workers and maintenance personnel. The Rio Piedras campus faces an infrastructure crisis, including the need to replace an aging air conditioning system and many building repairs.

The slashing of funding to the University of Puerto Rico system will also have a devastating impact on the social services UPR provides outside of its walls. This includes health services through a network of hospitals, technical support to agriculture, and earthquake and infrastructure projects. These benefit hundreds of thousands beyond the 60,000 students at the UPR campuses.

Movimiento Estudiantil is asking to meet and negotiate with the Financial Control Board, which students correctly point out only represents the banks and hedge funds. They are asking the board to accept one of various proposals to pay down the debt, including increasing property taxes on expensive homes or taxing the profits of US-owned businesses in Puerto Rico.

The idea that the Puerto Rican population can negotiate with or pressure the Wall Street banks and their political front men to carry out more humane debt payments is politically naive at best. Roselloa Clinton delegate at the Democratic National Conventionis a tool of the banks and is preparing to use state repression against popular opposition, while collaborating with the trade unions to contain and crush social anger.

Last week, Jose Carrion III, the head of the Financial Control Board, voiced his concern over the UPRs refusal, so far, to end the occupation of the University by force. At a meeting of engineers Carrion, a wealthy insurance CEO and bankruptcy specialist, shed crocodile tears over UPRs finances. All the members of the JSF board are worried and saddened by what goes on at UPR, he claimed, while making it clear the financial assault on UPR is nonnegotiable, as are all the austerity measures mandated by JSF. With the official declaration of Puerto Rican bankruptcy Carrion and others insist the strike and occupation of the university is the work of a minority of students who are infringing on the rights of the majority that supposedly welcome the brutal financial restructuring.

The student strike was approved by majorities in two student assemblies and is an expression, still in an initial form, of far broader popular sentiment against austerity, which is centered in the working class. The financial control board, on the other hand, is made up of an unelected group of eight representatives of the banks, insurance companies and Wall Street vulture hedge funds who are accountable to no one except the financial aristocracy.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order May 11 creating the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a bipartisan commission that on the pretext of investigating voter fraud will seek to justify new attacks on the right to vote. This follows Trumps false claims after the November 8 election that he lost the popular vote due to illegal voting by undocumented immigrants.

Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency, but lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by approximately 3 million votes. He declared in January that he would investigate voter fraud in the election, claiming that anywhere from 3 million to 5 million votes were cast by illegals and all of those votes went to his Democratic opponent.

The commission will review policies and practices that enhance or undermine the American peoples confidence in the integrity of federal elections, and provide the president with a report that identifies system vulnerabilities, stated Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House spokesperson. The order makes no mention of voter suppression or unwarranted restrictions on voting, but specifies only improper and fraudulent registration and voting as issues to be explored. The report is scheduled to be complete in 2018.

Several Democratic Party politicians and civil rights groups in the US have criticized the commission, arguing that vote fraud will be used as a pretext to justify voter suppression tactics. Some of them fear that the commission will recommend erecting new barriers to voting such as requiring photo ID cards at the polls. Such measures tend to hinder voting by minorities and youth, who disproportionately lack such ID, and who tend to favor Democrats.

Much of the suspicion about this commission is based on the selection of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as its vice chairman. With Vice President Mike Pence named as chairman, but unlikely to spend much time on it, Kobach will be the real driving force of the commissions work.

Kobach is notorious as a proponent of anti-immigrant laws and efforts to make it more difficult for minorities and youth to vote. He was one of the instigators of Arizonas SB 1070, which requires police to determine a persons immigration status where there is reasonable suspicion that they are undocumented.

He also pushed through a Kansas law that required new voters to produce a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers as proof of citizenship. A federal court struck down the state law last year, finding that it had deprived 18,000 state residents of their constitutional right to vote, while not a single illegal immigrant voter was detected or prosecuted.

Last month Kobach finally won his first case against an alleged illegal voter, more than six years after taking office in Kansas, and after dozens of elections and millions of votes cast in the state.

Some Democratic state officials have been induced to join the commission and justify its title as bipartisan, including New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner and Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap. Dunlap stated that the commission should go forward and show that the presidents claims will remain unfounded. Im as far away politically as you can get to the positions of the President and Vice President, but theyre elected and in office. Give them the benefit of the doubt, he said.

Past research has shown that voter fraud is negligible and is so insignificant that it has virtually no influence over the outcome of elections. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated that theres simply no evidence of widespread voter fraud in this country. Period. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking whatever information the Trump administration is using as a basis for creating this commission in the first place.

Nathaniel Persily, a professor of political science at Stanford, who performed such research for a similar commission in 2012, told the New York Times that there are problems in the registration system that dont translate into fraud, there are sporadic and very rare instances of fraud, and voter impersonation is the rarest of all. The notion that there is widespread voting by undocumented immigrants or other ineligible voters has been studied repeatedly and found to be false.
Health authorities in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa have declared a state of emergency as a rapidly spreading cholera epidemic has claimed the lives of over 180 people in the span of little more than two weeks. Abdullahkim al-Kuhlani, a spokesman for the health ministry, reported that there have been 11,034 suspected cholera cases reported across several Yemeni provinces.

The disease is rarely seen and easily treatable in populations with ready access to food and clean water. It has the potential to wreak a catastrophic death toll, particularly among children in Yemen. The countrys basic infrastructure, including water, sanitation and health care systems, has been laid waste by a US-backed bombing campaign that has been waged by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for over two years.

An estimated 12,000 civilians have been killed with tens of thousands more wounded and millions displaced in this war, which is being fought by the wealthy Arab Gulf oil sheikdoms against the poorest nation in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia and its fellow reactionary Sunni monarchies intervened in a bid to restore the US- and Saudi-backed regime of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was installed in a one-candidate election in 2012 and then overthrown three years later by Shiite Houthi rebels allied with military forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The systematic targeting of health care facilities has left barely 45 percent of the countrys hospitals still functioning, while the blockade imposed upon the country, with the aid of the US Navys Fifth Fleet, has cut the supply of essential medicines by more than 70 percent.

Two thirds of the population have no access to safe drinking water, while the cutoff of food imports has placed 17 million Yemenis at imminent risk of famine, while leaving three million malnourished Yemeni children in grave peril of death, according to the United Nations. Under these conditions, cholera can spread like wildfire.

In the clearest signal yet that Washington is preparing to substantially escalate the US support for this criminal warinitiated under the Democratic administration of Barack Obamathe Trump White House has organized back-to-back meetings and massive arms deals with the crowned rulers of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

On Monday, Trump welcomed to the White House Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the de facto ruler of the UAE. Trump appeared with the royal dictator in the Oval Office, calling Sheikh Mohamed a very special, very special person, highly respected. He said that the sheikh loves his country. And I think loves the United States, which to us is very important. Sheikh Mohamed, whose regime systematically suppresses all political opposition, subjecting its opponents to forced disappearances and routine torture, remained mum.

On the eve of the UAE rulers visit, the US State Department gave its approval for a $2 billion deal under which Lockheed Martin and Raytheon will provide the oil sheikdom with Patriot missile systems.

Trumps meeting with Sheikh Mohamed is to be followed at the end of this week by his first overseas trip since taking office. The first stop is Saudi Arabia. As with the UAE, Trumps meeting with the dictatorial Wahhabi monarchy in Riyadh is being accompanied by another massive US arms deal.

A senior White House official told the Reuters news agency last Friday that Washington is close to completing $100 billion worth of new arms sales, including advanced missile systems, fighter jets and other heavy weapons. The official added that over the next decade, the sales could amount to $300 billion.

The weapons sales represent only a slight departure from the policies pursued under the Obama administration, which oversaw the sale of over $115 billion worth of weapons and military services to the Saudi monarchy. At the same time, it established a Joint Planning Cell in Saudi Arabia through which the Pentagon coordinated US military and intelligence support for the Saudi war against Yemen. US planes also provided mid-air refueling of Saudi fighter jets to enable the murderous bombing to continue around the clock.

While the Obama administration provided the bombs and missiles and other aid needed to murder thousands of Yemenis as part of a policy aimed at assuaging Saudi Arabias anger over the 2015 nuclear deal reached between Tehran and the US and other major powers, the Trump administration has denounced the agreement and threatened to rip it up.

After a horrific Saudi double-tap bombing of a packed funeral hall in Sanaa in October 2016 that left 827 civilians killed or wounded, the Obama administration halted a planned sale of precision-guided munitions as a token gesture, while continuing to provide the support without which the war on Yemen could not have continued.

Such minimal restrictions are now being lifted, and the Trump administration is adopting a relentlessly hostile stance in relation to Iran, which both Saudi Arabia and Washington have charged, without substantiation, of providing major assistance to the Houthi rebels.

In March, US Defense Secretary James Mattis formally requested approval for stepped-up Pentagon support for the Saudi war in Yemen. A memo submitted to the White House claimed that such aid would serve to combat a common threat supposedly posed by Iran, US imperialisms principal regional rival for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

The immediate aim of an increase in US military aid is to support a planned operation by UAE military forces to seize Hodeida, the countrys main port, through which 70 percent of the countrys imports now flow. The taking of the port would tighten the stranglehold imposed by the naval blockade, potentially condemning millions to death by starvation.

The more far-reaching objective being pursued by Washington is the imposition of US imperialist hegemony across the Middle East through a military confrontation with Iran and the preparation for a global conflict with Washingtons principal rivals, Russia and China.
MIAMI (AP) - A string of fast-food robberies with a gun has netted a Florida man 25 years in federal prison.

The sentence was imposed last week by a Miami federal judge on 46-year-old Zeddrick Smith, who pleaded guilty in March to robbery and weapons charges.

The Miami Herald reports that Smith knocked over two Farm Stores, two Domino's Pizza outlets, a Burger King and a Dairy Queen in November and December of last year. Court records show he stole a few thousand dollars in the robberies.

Smith earlier served more than 13 years in prison for an unlawful weapons transport conviction. If he serves this latest 25-year term, Smith will have been imprisoned for three-quarters of his adult life.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Commissioners in a major Florida city are discussing whether a statue recognizing Confederate veterans should be removed from a downtown park.

Some protesters waved Confederate flags outside Orlando City Hall on Monday before commissioners discussed what to do with the 116-year-old statue nicknamed "Johnny Reb."

Local media reported that Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer suggested moving the statue to a nearby cemetery, where there already is an area set aside for Confederate soldiers.

The question of what to do with Confederate statues has been faced by city officials in at least two other cities in recent weeks. In New Orleans, workers have removed two of four statues honoring Confederate-era figures. Last weekend, a scuffle broke out at a statue of a Confederate general in Charlottesville, Virginia, over its planned removal.

(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
SUWANNEE COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) - The Florida Department of Health in Suwannee County issued a rabies alert for an area in the eastern section of Suwannee County adjacent to the City of Live Oak.

This is in response to a confirmed case of rabies in a raccoon.

The area affected is more particularly described at US 90 to the North; 104th Street to the South; SR 49 to the East; and Lee Street to the West.

Officials say all residents and visitors in Suwannee County should be aware that rabies is present in the wild animal population and domestic animals are at risk if not vaccinated. The public is asked to maintain a heightened awareness that rabies is active in Suwannee County.

The recent rabies alert will be active for 60 days.

The center of the rabies alert is the eastern section of Suwannee County adjacent to the City of Live Oak.

Residents and visitors are advised to take the following precautions:

o Keep rabies vaccinations up to date for all pets.

o Keep your pets under direct supervision so they do not come in contact with wild animals.

o If your pet is bitten by a wild animal, seek veterinary assistance for the animal immediately and contact the local animal control agency.

o Call your local animal control agency to remove any stray animals from your neighborhood.

o Do not handle, feed, or unintentionally attract wild animals with open garbage cans or litter.

o Never adopt wild animals or bring them into your home.

o Teach children never to handle unfamiliar animals, wild or domestic, even if they appear friendly.

o Prevent bats from entering living quarters or occupied spaces in homes, churches, schools, and other similar areas, where they might come in contact with people and pets.

Persons who have been bitten or scratched by wild or domestic animals should seek medical attention and report the injury to the Florida Department of Health in Suwannee County at 386- 362-2708. For further information on rabies, click here.
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The political upheaval of 1977 took place 40 years ago this week: The Likud party beat the Maarach (the Labor Party in its previous configuration), which had been in power since the State of Israels establishment, and in fact since as early as the 1930s in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. It was a welcome and inevitable event, because without a change of government, democracy would have turned from practice into theory.

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The setting for the change of throne was prefect: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had resigned following the exposure of an illegal US dollar bank account held by his wife Leah; senior Mapai official Michael Tzur was sentenced to 15 years in prison; Asher Yadlin, who was about to be appointed governor of the Bank of Israel, was convicted of bribery; and Housing Minister Avraham Ofer committed suicide after being suspected of corruption, although he was not charged.

This feast would not have been possible had it not been for the Yom Kippur War, when the Maarach lost its grip and immunity. If we reached a situation on Yom Kippur in which we are losing our third temple, as Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said desperately, what could happen? Well take chance and try out Menachem Begin for a change.

Menachem Begin celebrates 1977 election win. Brought religion into the coalition

Up until then, Begin was not considered capable of leading state. He was something between Rabbi Meir Kahane and a stand-up comedian. The Herut movement was not seen as a movement for quality government, in any sense, or as a corruption eradicator. Its main fundraising foundation, the Tel-Hai Foundation, was exposed in all its disgrace two weeks before the elections: Foreign currency smuggling, theft, involvement in the black and grey markets.

Several days before the elections, a helicopter crashed in a military exercise in the Judean Desert, and 54 officers and fighters were killed. The IDF Spokespersons Unit waited two days, until the end of the exercise, before releasing the report. The entire country went into deep mourning upon learning about the disaster. There were no cellphones, WhatsApp or text messages at the time, but there were political urgesas well as audacity. The Likud published a huge ad in the newspapers, saying: What else has to happen?

In what kind of style will you run the state, Begin was asked immediately after being elected. In a Jewish style, he replied, marking the beginning of the repression of Israeliness in favor of Judaism. He later exempted all yeshiva students from military service. He also forbade El Al to fly on Shabbat. Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz said that religion forbids Jew to fly, not planes. In general, Leibowitz said, religion should be in constant opposition to the government. But Begin, unlike his predecessors who brought the religious parties into the coalition, brought religion into the coalition.

Begin made peace with Egypt. His historic act, a glorious page in our history, set both a price and a precedent: A return to the 1967 borders. The Likuds finest sons grew up and realized that the songs they had sung and their partys platform may be suitable for television panels and storytelling events, but not for reality. They changed their views and their taste: Ezer Weizman, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, David Levy, Roni Milo, Dan Meridor, Tzipi Livni, Ronnie Bar-On, Meir Sheetrit, Michael Eitan, Zeev Boim, Jacob Edery, Moshe Kahlon and others.

The Likud has been in power for 40 years, apart for a short three-year break when the Rabin-led Labor Party won the elections. The Kadima party was the Likuds own flesh and blood. Ehud Barak was prime minister for a little over a year, but in light of his eccentric performance and the fact that the Labor Party had shrunkit doesnt really count.

All Likud leadersin fact, all prime ministers excluding Benjamin Netanyahuwere guided by two principles: One, the state is more important than me and my family members; and two, nationality comes before the partywhat is known today as the base. Begin raised the supremacy of law and order to a level of sacredness. Yitzhak Shamir, who opposed the peace agreement with Egypt wholeheartedly, abstained in the vote because as Knesset speaker it would have been inappropriate for him to vote against it. Several years later, he favored a coalition with the Labor Party over a coalition with the right-wing base.

Throughout the generations, Israel has been governed by centrist and right-wing parties. Labor was centrist and the Likud is rightist. The Left has never been in power. We have never had a leftist government. Neither have we had a Sephardic prime minister.

Amnon Abramovich is a Channel 2 News commentator.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan could be satisfied that some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners had launched a hunger strike four weeks earlier in the prisons under his authority. This was good news for his voters.

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And then came even better news: The Shin Bet, in a planned move, hid a chocolate bar in the prison cell of the striking inmates leader, Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti couldnt resist the temptation. He went into the bathroom and took a bite. A camera installed there recorded the bite. Erdan didnt initiate the chocolate ambush. He isnt that smart. But he did take credit for the videos distribution rights. He wont let Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu steal his thunder.

The hunger-striking prisoners include murderers and mass murderers. There is not a shred of sympathy in me towards them. Their nutrition habits dont concern me. What does concern me is the extent of cynicism and cowardice around the government table.

Barghouti caught eating in his cell. As the strikes leader, he is a legitimate target. The question is what should be done with the video (Photo: Israel Prison Service)

The prisoners strike is primarily a result of the conflict between Barghouti and his supporters and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his supporters. Its a conflict within the Fatah movement. It is partially connected with Israel, but like previous hunger strikes, it carries potential damage for Israel, both within and outside the prisons.

Some security officials believed that the strike could be prevented. Some of the demands presented by the prisoners were reasonable. They demanded, for example, the installment of sprinklers on the prisons rooftops to cool them off in the summer heat. This week, such sprinklers are being installed on the roof of the Gilboa Prisons security ward, and in the coming weeks they will be installed in additional prisons. The striking prisoners were not asked for anything in return.

In the cabinet discussions on the eve of the strike, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) presented a policy of opposing any negotiation. The reasoning behind such a course of action, or lack thereof, was that this strike must be broken, as a lesson for all to see.

We want to deny the prisoners this tool, acting IPC Commissioner Asher Vaknin told me on the eve of the strike, following orders he received from Erdan. The cabinet heard the argument and approved. Not a single minister dared open his mouth, for fear that he would be accused of being a leftist.

There is another reason for the silence of the lambs in the cabinet. The ministers met with the families of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, whose bodies are held by Hamas. The ministers, led by Netanyahu, knew that the first demand raised by the familiesto starve Gazawould not bring back the bodies. At the most, it would drag the IDF into another war in the strip. They made the families false promises.

In the next stage, the families demanded an aggravation of Hamas prisoners jailing conditions. The ministers knew that such a move would be useless too, but were afraid to tell the families the truth. The hunger strike was launched by Fatah prisoners, not Hamas prisoners. They definitely wont return Goldin and Shaul. But the cabinet ministers are afraid that someone will launch a tweet accusing them of betraying the fighters.

Erdans chocolate show was the highlight of the events politicization. The trick was justified: Barghouti, as the strikes leader, is a legitimate target. The question is what should be done with the video. One option that was raised was to approach Barghouti, show him the footage and suggest that the film be shelved in return for cooperation; another option was to make sure that the video reached Barghoutis enemies in the Palestinian Authority. They would have taken care of the rest. Erdan chose, as we know, the third option, which for a moment turned him into the Rights hero on social media and the envy of his fellow ministers.

The IPS is not the only one adding fuel to the prisoners strike. Before the strike, the Red Cross decided to reduce the frequency of its prison visitsfrom twice a month to once a month. The prisoners are demanding a return to the previous arrangement. The Red Cross agrees, but one of the security organizations in Israel currently objects.

Another example: Kindergarten-aged children were not allowed to cross the Hizma and Tulkarem checkpoints to visit their father in prison, as they had no crossing permits, and this led to a great unrest in the prisons.

A third example: The report about the plan to bring doctors from a foreign country to force-feed the striking prisoners. There is no such plan in the IPS, and in the meantime, there are no courts in Israel that will order force-feeding. Someone in the government thought this was the commanders spirit, and created a storm.
SEOUL -- North Korea on Monday boasted it successfully launched a new type of "medium long-range" ballistic rocket that can carry a heavy nuclear warhead, an escalation of its nuclear program that the UN Security Council warned could bring new sanctions on Pyongyang.

Outsiders saw a significant technological jump in the weekend test, with the rocket apparently flying higher and for a longer time than any other such previous missile.

Amid condemnation in Seoul, Tokyo, Washington and Moscow, a jubilant North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised more nuclear and missile tests and warned that his country's weapons could strike the US mainland and Pacific holdings.
US President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two US officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.

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The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.

The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak with President Trump (Photo: EPA)

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.

Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and "reckless". Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.

Secret compartment

The latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure "compartment" to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

President Trump and Sergei Lavrov (Photo: EPA)

After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a "total scam," sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.

The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been "careless" with classified information.

'No filter'

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

Photo: AP

Some US officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.

One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: He has no filter; it goes in one ear and out the mouth.

One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure particularly unfortunate, as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important US allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.

The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration.
Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh has instructed police to prohibit protests from being staged outside the homes of elected officials and senior public figures. Such protests have recently taken place outside the homes of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Minister of Education Naftali Bennett.

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According to Alsheikh's directive, such demonstrations will only be allowed if the official does not have an office out of which he or she works. Additionally, demonstrations against public officials will only be permitted outside their offices.

Protests outside of Bennett's home

Alsheikh's directive was made following a High Court ruling on the matter.

The Israel Police issued a statement, saying, "The recent High Court ruling states that as a rule, demonstrations or protest rallies should not be held near the private residences of public figures when there is an effective alternative. Currently, the attorney general is working on amending the directive on this matter and the police will act in accordance with the established guidelines."

The new directive comes as dozens of parents and children demonstrated outside Bennett's home last Shabbat in Raanana, protesting the transfer of the Lag B'Omer holiday vacation.
KABUL -- Afghan security forces have regained control of a district centre close to the northern city of Kunduz that fell to Taliban insurgents earlier this month, officials said on Tuesday.

A statement from the interior ministry said security forces had launched their operation to retake Qala-i-Zal, a district to the northwest of Kunduz, on Tuesday morning and had secured the district governor's office, police headquarters and other areas.

"Right now, a massive operation in insecure areas of Qala-i-Zal is ongoing," it said. "Afghan security forces will not let Taliban insurgents rule our people in any part of the country."
The United Nations Security Council condemned North Korea's recent ballistic missile tests on Monday, warning that the launches contributed to the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and were greatly increasing tensions.

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North Korea fired a ballistic missile that landed in the sea near Russia on Sunday in a launch the United States called a message to South Korea days after its new president took office pledging to engage Pyongyang in dialogue.

UN Security Council (Photo: Reuters)

In a unanimously agreed statement, the 15-member council said it was of vital importance that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions."

"To that end, the Security Council demanded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the council said, adding that it was ready to impose further sanctions on the country.

The statement also condemned an April 28 ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang.

Following that launch, Washington began talks with North Korean ally China on possible new UN sanctions. Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated new measures before involving remaining council members.

North Korean ballistic missile (Photo: EPA)

The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has strengthened the measures in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

"The members of the Security Council vowed to fully implement all measures imposed on (North Korea) by the Security Council and strongly urge all other member states to do so in an expeditious and serious manner," the statement said on Monday.

North Korea made a global appeal in a letter released on Friday for states to reconsider enforcing UN sanctions on the Asian nation.

North Korea has in the past year stepped up its ballistic missile tests, firing dozens of various types of rockets, according to South Korea.

Experts said Sunday's successful launch signals major advances in developing an intercontinental ballistic missile, such as mastery of re-entry technology and better engine performance key to targeting the United States.
ISTANBUL -- Turkish prosecutors ordered the arrest of 85 staff at the energy and education ministries under a investigation targeting the network of a US-based cleric whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating last July's attempted coup, broadcaster CNN Turk reported on Tuesday.

No further details were immediately available. Some 50,000 people have been formally arrested as part of investigations targeting supporters of cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting Washington, is seeking Gulen's extradition.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) is expected to deliver a speech before the Russian parliamentary plenary session in Moscow at the end of next month, during which he will reflect on the past 30 years since being released from Soviet incarceration.

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Prior to his imprisonment, Edelstein was denied the right, along with thousands of other Soviet Jews, to emigrate to Israel. Only in 1987 when he was released from the USSRs prison did he finally make aliyah.

The speech, which will be made as part of a state visit to Russia, will be the first to take place in the Duma (Russias parliament) by an incumbent Knesset chairman. Edelstein will be hosted by Valentina Matviyenko, chairman of the Russian Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament.

Yuli Edelstein (Photo: Amit Shabi)

The former Soviet prisoner will deliver his speech both in Hebrew and in Russian and will also meet during his 3-day stay with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, and Russian members of parliament affiliated with the Association for Friendship with the Knesset.

In addition, Edelstein will meet with leaders of the Jewish community in Moscow and will visit the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. He will also tour areas in the Russian capital where he was an activist as a refusenik, (an individual who was denied the right to emigrate to Israel by Soviet authorities), including the site where he was arrested and the court where he was tried and sentenced to jail.

Obviously this is a special and very exciting visit. The aim is to develop further the excellent relations between the states and especially the ties between the Knesset and the Russian parliament that we have developed, Edelstein said. They are better than ever before, with excellent cooperation in different fields and with a deep friendship.

But Edelstein also reflected on the symbolic power of his journey from a Soviet prisoner to an Israeli politician occupying one if the countrys most prestigious roles.

But the symbolism of a person who was a prisoner in the Soviet Union and will now stand before parliament in Moscow and deliver a speech as the Knesset chairman cannot be ignored.
Cybersecurity researchers have found evidence they say could link North Korea with the WannaCry cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers worldwide as global authorities scrambled to prevent hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.

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A researcher from South Korea's Hauri Labs said on Tuesday their own findings matched those of Symantec (SYMC.O) and Kaspersky Lab, who said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, identified by some researchers as a North Korea-run hacking operation.

Screen shot of the ransom virus

"It is similar to North Korea's backdoor malicious codes," Simon Choi, a senior researcher with Hauri who has done extensive research into North Korea's hacking capabilities and advises South Korean police and National Intelligence Service.

Both Symantec and Kaspersky said it was too early to tell whether North Korea was involved in the attacks, based on the evidence that was published on Twitter by Google security researcher Neel Mehta.

The attacks, which slowed on Monday, are among the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.

Damage in Asia, however, has been limited.

Vietnam's state media said on Tuesday more than 200 computers had been affected. Taiwan Power Co. said that nearly 800 of its computers were affected, although these were used for administration, not for systems involved in electricity generation.

FireEye Inc (FEYE.O), another large cyber security firm, said it was also investigating but cautious about drawing a link to North Korea.

"The similarities we see between malware linked to that group and WannaCry are not unique enough to be strongly suggestive of a common operator," FireEye researcher John Miller said.

US and European security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it was too early to say who might be behind the attacks, but they did not rule out North Korea as a suspect.

An official at South Korea's Korea Internet and Security Agency said on Tuesday the agency was sharing information with intelligence officials on recent cases reported for damages but was not in position to investigate the source of the attack. The official declined to comment on intelligence-related matters.

A South Korean police official that handles investigations into hacking and cyber breaches said he was aware of reports on North Korea link but said the police were not investigating yet.

Victims haven't requested investigations but they want their systems to be restored, the official said.

North Korea has denied being behind the Sony and banking attacks. North Korean officials were not immediately available for comment and its state media has been quiet about the matter.

Hauri researcher Choi said the code bore similarities with those allegedly used by North Korean hackers in the Sony and bank heists. He said based on his conversations with North Korean hackers, the reclusive state had been developing and testing ransomware programs since August.

In one case, alleged hackers from North Korea demanded bitcoin in exchange for client information they had stolen from a South Korean shopping mall, Choi added.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment on Monday.
An Israeli Cabinet minister has called off a long-planned visit to Jordan for a joint scientific venture following a spat between the countries after an Israeli officer shot dead a terrorist who stabbed and moderately wounded him in Jerusalem on Saturday.

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Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis says he is skipping Tuesday's event in Amman marking the launching of the "Sesame" particle accelerator because of Jordan's reaction to the incident, in which the government stated that it held Israel responsible for the killing of the terrorist, who was later identified as Mohammad Abdullah Salim al-Kasji, a 57-year-old Jordanian citizen.

Footage of the attack (Photo: Israel Police)

Video footage showed the 57-year-old man repeatedly swiping a knife at the officer in the Old City of Jerusalem before knocking him to the ground, in what Israel described as part of a wave of stabbing attacks against Israeli forces over the past two years.

It said the attacker entered Israel on a tourist visa and the officer shot the attacker in self-defense.

Jordan said it holds Israel responsible for killing its citizen and denounced it a "crime." The Israeli government called the Jordanian reaction "outrageous," with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office calling on Jordan to cease playing a "double game" and condemn terror everywhere.

Akunis told Israel's Army Radio his diplomatic protest is the minimal response to the incident.

"The scientific project is important, the peace with Jordan is very important but standing up for the truth is more important than anything," he said.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday that Jordan "will confront all kinds of terrorism," but did not refer to the Israeli comments.
Israeli entrepreneur Eiran Gazitone of the founders of Mini Israelhas set up a large scale miniature model of Jerusalem in the heart of Times Square in Manhattan.

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The model of Jerusalem is part of Gazit's $40 million project called "Gulliver's Gate," which includes meticulous miniature models of other world cities. The expansive project takes up 5,000 square meters in total, 10% of which is dedicated to the city of Jerusalem.

Model of Jerusalem (Photo: Alon Levita)

The Jerusalem model was built in Israel at a cost of $1.2 million. It includes the Old City, the city center, Yad Vashem, the String Bridge, the Knesset, the Supreme Court and even the famous statue of the "monster" of Kiryat HaYovel.

The hope is that the model will help encourage tourism to the Holy City. Gazit hopes that Gulliver's Gate will also attract around a million visitors a year, with each ticket costing $30.

"This is a natural continuation of Mini Israel," said Gazit, who also explained that each city was created in its home country before being transported to New York by an Israeli company.

Eiran Gazit and the Jerusalem model

The area upon which Gulliver's Gate will stand has its own "Jewish history," as it were. The property once belonged to Haredi billionaire Lev Leviev, before eventually being acquired by none other than Jared Kushner.

According to Gazit, the establishment of the project in the United States was much easier and more pleasant than in Israel, where bureaucratic difficulties delayed previous projects of his, including Mini Israel.

"In New York, they understand that such an initiative brings jobs and contributes to the municipal budget through taxation. Everyone earns. It's a partnership. Here, in contrast to Israel, the clerks serve the citizen and not the opposite."
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman presented President Reuven Rivlin his diplomatic credentials Tuesday during an official ceremony, pledging to do all within his power to take the Israel-US relationship to "new heights."

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During their meeting, Rivlin called on the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's official capital a day after American officials preparing for President Trump's visit told their Israeli counterparts "the Western Wall is not in your territoryit is in the West Bank."

Amb. Friedman presenting President Rivlin his credentials (Photo: Noam Rivkin Fanton)

President Rivlin further called Friedman's attention to the fact that "Next week, we will celebrate 50 years since Jerusalem was united, and the Jewish people were able to once again pray at the Western Wall. But Jewish Jerusalem is not 50 years old. Since the days of King David, this city has been our capital. It is time for the whole world to recognize Jerusalem as the official capital of the State of Israel."

Rivlin added that Israel is excitedly awaiting Trump's May visit, which he said is a symbol of the unbreakable bonds between the two countries.

"We look forward to working with the new administration to find new ways and to think of new ideas, of how to move forward and build trust between Israelis and Palestinians." added Rivlin.

Following Rivlin's statement, Ambassador Friedman opened by echoing Rivlin's nod to the the Jewish people's biblical connection to Jerusalem. "As a seventh generation Jerusalemite, you continue the connection to Jerusalem that began with King David some 3000 years ago, he began.

Photo: Reuters

Serving the US as its Ambassador to the State of Israel, is the greatest honor of my life, and I pledge to you to do all that I can to strengthen and enhance the relations between our two great nationsthat you accurately described as unbreakable and, I would add, without limits, he added, before thanking President Trump for appointing him to his new post.

I am so grateful to President Trump for giving me the opportunity, for having confidence in my abilities, and most importantly for sending me off this past week with the unequivocal and unambiguous mandate to support the State of Israel in every way, and in all ways," Friedman continued. "As you know, the President has chosen Israel as the site for his first international visit this coming week. His love for and commitment to the State of Israel is rock-solid and enjoys his highest priority.

Friedman concluded his remarks by saying that he intended to work to reinforce relations between the US and Israel. I look forward to working with you and the people of Israel to do even more to bring together the United States and Israelin every field, from culture to education, life sciences, high technology, commerce, trade, and of course military and strategic cooperation and so many other things.
COPENHAGEN -- A 17-year-old Danish girl who offered to fight for Islamic State was found guilty on Tuesday of planning bomb attacks at two schools, one of them Jewish, court documents showed.

The girl was arrested at her home in January last year, when she was aged 15, and charged with planning the attacks after acquiring chemicals for making bombs, police said.

Police who searched the residence found a handwritten note with the words "Allahu Akbar!" (God is greatest), a date, and the address of the Jewish school in Copenhagen

A second note was marked "bomb attack on the infidels" and gave the address of her own school near Holbaek, a town west of the capital.

Police said they also found chemicals, a list of ingredients for making a bomb and a container marked "Tatp" - a common abbreviation for the explosive triacetone triperoxide.
Syrian media reported Tuesday that a man from a Druze town in the Golan Heights has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Nazareth District Court for supplying information about the IDF to Syrian intelligence forces.

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According to the reports, Sudki al-Maqat from Majdal Shams, was convicted of cooperating with a foreign agent and transferring information to the Syrian regime.

Sudki al-Maqat (Photo: Muhammad Shinawi)

Al-Maqat, 50, had already spent 27 years in prison for spying for Syria prior to this latest conviction. He was released in August 2012 and resumed his activities shortly after his release.

According to information contained in his indictment, it appears that al-Maqat documented IDF activity on the Israeli-Syrian border and transferred the information to the Syrians by uploading it to various media outlets on the internet and Facebook.

Al-Maqat was charged with espionage, assistance to the enemy during wartime, support of a terrorist organization, contact with a foreign agent and a host of other security offenses. He was arrested in February 2015 and the indictment was filed three months later. Al-Maqat's lawyer, Kamil Faraj, said they are considering appealing the verdict.

SANA, a Syrian news agency, reported that al-Maqat sent a letter from prison, claiming that the "malicious verdict awaiting me is meant to silence, punish and prevent me from exposing the truth about the support the Israeli occupation authorities provide terrorist gangs and criminals in Syria."

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed US Ambassador David Friedman to Israel and thanked him for visiting the Western Wall.

The PM also told Friedman that Israel looks forward to working with President Trump "to strengthen our great alliance."
The Shin Bet arrested several operatives of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement on the suspicion that they were planning to carry out a shooting attack against IDF soldiers, it was cleared for publication Tuesday afternoon.

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In a statement released by the Shin Bet, the attack, which was to be carried out against soldiers in Israel's southern Negev, was planned in retaliation for the government declaring the organization illegal in the last year.

Suspects arrested by the Shin Bet (Photo: Shin Bet)

According to the Shin Bet, the operatives that were arrestedall Israeli Arabswere in the advanced stages of planning the attack and had gathered intelligence on the movements of IDF soldiers in transportation stations and even acquired a submachine gun with which to carry out the shooting. In addition they had purchased bomb-detonating devices.

Indictments against two of the three suspects, Firas al-Omri and Mahmoud Lawisi, were filed several weeks ago over crimes against state security.

The arrest of Lawisi led to the renewal of the investigation into the attack, and in the context of the renewed investigation, Faras al-Omri, 45, a senior activist in the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, was also arrested. In the interrogation, it became clear that al-Omri was the one from whom the members of the cell had requested permission to carry out the attack plan.

(Photo: Shin Bet)

An investigation into the case revealed that in the second half of November 2015, Masri and Lawisi came to the protest tent in Umm al-Fahm, which was established following the outlawing of the Islamic Movement. Al-Omri spoke with the two in private and asked to enlist them to protest against the decision by spraying slogans. Later on, the three concluded that it was not enough to spray slogans and decided to carry out a terrorist attack in Israel.

"The northern branch of the Islamic Movement has maintained close ties with Hamas over the years. The investigation showed that the common ideological basis and the deep connection that exists between the terrorists in both organizations carries a great security risk, with an emphasis on (replacing) alleged humanitarian activities with carrying out terror attacks," said the Shin Bet.

"The Shin Bet emphasizes that law enforcement will continue to take all necessary steps to enforce the declaration of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization, with an emphasis on preventing any activity on behalf of the faction in light of the danger it poses to the security of the state."
Millions of shekels earmarked for developing and bolstering Israel's geographic and social periphery were instead invested in housing projects in central Israel, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira determined in a report released on Tuesday.

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The comptroller, who examined the Construction Ministry's conduct from 2013-2015 under Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi), found that Ariel appointed close associates who share his political and ideological interests to key positions in the ministry and allowed them to interfere in the implementation of a government plan to develop the periphery.

In September 2013, the housing cabinet passed a Strategic Plan to Encourage and Bolster Settlements, whose main objective was to "use all available measures to lower housing prices and make the development of Israel's geographic and social periphery into a national goal."

Uri Ariel (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem)

According to the comptroller, Ariel's close associates excluded the ministry's professional staffincluding the director general and legal advisorfrom discussions on the plan, making important decisions without the professional input of the ministry's employees.

"Ariel allowed a situation in which strategic decisions were made not by the ministry's professionals, but by interest groups seeking to promote their own affairs on both the political and business levels," the comptroller wrote.

"Minister Ariel's decisions to involve his political associates in (the plan's implementation) ... raises concern he acted to ensure that decision to provide budgetary support to settlement groups is entrusted to those who have close ties to the minister's political and ideological activities and who have significant and direct ties to some of those groups."

According to the comptroller's report, the Construction Ministry and the Settlement Division set the criteria for financial aid eligibility in a way that gave projects in well-established communities equal status to that of projects in disenfranchised communities.

The Housing Ministry transferred the entire budget allocated for the plan, some NIS 51 million, to the Settlement Division, the comptroller found.

And so, settlement groups in Tel Aviv with ties to one Ariel associate received NIS 1.129 million from the Construction Ministry and the Settlement Division. Groups in another city with ties to another interested party received NIS 704,000 in aid money.

One of the settlement groups established by an Ariel associate received NIS 86,000 in aid money even though it did not meet the necessary criteria. Another group headed by an Ariel associate was allocated NIS 317,000, but this request was denied by the Construction Ministry's Neighborhoods Rehabilitation Department because the group did not meet the basic criteria.

All in all, only 39 percent of the budget allocated for the government plan to encourage settlement in the periphery went to projects in the Negev and Galilee regions, while 43 percent were invested in central Israel.

Settlement groups from low socioeconomic status communities received the least amount of aidsome NIS 4 million. Meanwhile, groups from high socioeconomic status communities like Modi'in, Raanana and Tel Aviv received twice as much, some NIS 10.5 million, most of which were invested in the cities' established neighborhoods.

Shapira called on the attorney general to investigate the ministry's conduct in giving funds earmarked for the periphery to settlement groups in cities with a high socioeconomic status in the center of Israel, which according to the comptroller were not eligible for the money.

Ariel's office said in response to the report that the minister "respects the state comptroller's conclusions and has already instructed the relevant bodies to act in accordance with the comptroller's recommendations.

"It should be emphasized that the comptroller did not recommend the attorney general to investigate Minister Ariel's conduct, but rather the conduct of certain settlement groups, which the minister had no hand in their budgeting.

"All gatekeepers, legal advisors, and accountants in the different government ministries adopted and authorized the plan and played part in its writing, determining the criteria for funding, and its implementation."

(Translated and edited by Yaara Shalom)
WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump is welcoming Turkey's president to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting Tuesday, even as Turkish officials fumed over a US decision to arm the Syrian Kurds.

Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to address the Syrian civil war, the refugee crisis and the fight against the Islamic State group.
Persian Gulf states have offered to take concrete steps to improve relations with Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to restart the peace process with the Palestinians, halt settlement construction, and ease the blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

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The proposal was presented to Israel and the United States ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to the region next week.

According to the report, the measures proposed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia include establishing telecommunications lines with Israel, allowing Israeli planes to fly through their national air space and lifting various trade restrictions.

Trump and the King of Saudi Arabia (Photo: AFP, MCT)

Netanyahu's office declined comment on the report.

The Gulf states' proposal, according to the Journal, is detailed in a document that has yet to be released publicly. With this proposal, UAE and Saudi seek to align themselves with President Trump's effort to recruit Arab states' help in promoting peace in the Middle East.

Trump is currently devoting time and resources to diplomacy in the region. Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met the president in Washington on Monday.

The president was scheduled take off for Saudi Arabia on Friday and then continue to Israel.

Ties between Israel and the Sunni Gulf states have improved in recent yearsmost of which was done through unofficial channelsas part of the fight against joint enemies: Shiite Iran and ISIS.

Among other things, Israel has increased intelligence cooperation with Gulf states in an effort to thwart Iran's arms shipments to their proxies in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.

Israeli officials have reportedly made secret visits the Persian Gulf, mainly to the United Arab Emirates, even though there are no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"We no longer see in Israel an enemy but a potential opportunity," said an Arab official involved in the talks.
On Tuesday, Hamas held a press conference in which it presented a photograph that allegedly captures the assassin who killed Mazen Fukha in the Gaza Strip at the end of March as he is seen leaving the scene.

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On Friday, Fukha's family reported that the suspect was Ashraf Abu Laila,37, a Palestinian from the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip.

Photo showing alleged murderer

The press conference featured videos of two other detainees allegedly involved in the assassination. The videos recounted the preparations for the operation, which lasted eight months, and the instructions they received from the Shin Bet.

Since the publication of the arrest in the Gaza Strip, Gaza officials claim that Abu Laila used to be a member of Hamas' military wing and was expelled from it for moral offenses. Later, it was claimed that he joined one of the Salafi groups in the Gaza Strip and was recruited by Israel.

Other sources noted that the suspect was a car dealer and that his brother was a senior member of the military wing of Hamas. It was also claimed that some of Abu Laila's family members work in various government institutions in Gaza that are subordinate to Hamas.

Fukha was assassinated at close range near his home in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of southwest Gaza City by an assassin or assassins who used weapons with a silencer. They shot him in the head with four bullets and fled. He died instantly.

L-R Abu Laila, Mazen Fukha

After the assassination, Hamas pointed an accusing finger at Israel and claimed that it wanted to create fear among the other released prisoners who had been deported to the Gaza Strip and felt that they were protected from liquidation. During the investigation, Hamas imposed a siege on Gaza and prohibited the entry and exit of any person except for exceptional humanitarian cases.

Fukha, a Hamas member from Tubas, was sentenced in 2003 in Israel to nine life terms after having been convicted of sending a terrorist to carry out a suicide bombing attack. The terrorist blew himself up on an Egged bus near Safed killing 9 people.

He was released from prison in the Shalit deal in 2011 and due to the gravity of his actions, he was deported to the Gaza Strip.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
TEHRANA reformist candidate dropped out of Iran's presidential election on Tuesday and threw his support behind President Hassan Rouhani, in a widely expected move that will strengthen the incumbent's campaign against a hard-liner.

Eshaq Jahangiri, senior vice president under Rouhani, dropped out, leaving just four candidates in the race. "I will dedicate all my abilities to support Rouhani" in Friday's election, Jahangiri said in a statement.
MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett of leading the public on when promising that the US Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem.

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Netanyahu and Bennett, she told Ynet in an interview, "are feeding the Israeli public pipe dreams that would never come to pass."

"Netanyahu did it to me during Operation Cast Lead (while he was still in the opposition). He said, 'We'll beat Hamas,' and ended up talking to Hamas," Livni added. "His disciple Bennett is now doing the same thing. He says 'I will keep Jerusalem safe, I will strike Hamas, me, me, me.' In the past, Arik Sharon was there to stand up to Netanyahu, rise above him and make difficult decisions. Today, Bennett is faced with Netanyahu, who is busy trying to be more right wing than him."

Livni at Ynet's studio (Photo: Eli Segal)

Livni, who served as Israel's peace negotiator in the previous government, has criticism towards the Palestinians. "Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) made a historic mistake when he refused John Kerry and Barack Obama's proposal in 2014," she asserts.

So why should he accept it now?

"I never said, 'Let me speak to the Palestinians for 20 minutes and there will be peace.' I am first and foremost Israeli. I want Israel to determine its own interests, and Israel's interests are not necessarily Netanyahu's political interests. The interest of the State of Israel is to separate from the Palestinians."

Do you think the US Embassy should be moved to Jerusalem?

"Like every Israeli, I want to see the US Embassy and the other embassies move to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel."

Then, what is the problem?

"The problem is that Netanyahu in this loud-mouthed diplomacy is not scoring any achievements for the State of Israel. His inability to set real priorities tremendously damages our most basic and important things. Those who insist on building in isolated settlements harm the major settlement blocs. Those who insist on (keeping) the Arab villages as part of Jerusalem, will eventually lose the most important places to us in Jerusalem."

On the one hand, you want to promote peace negotiations with the Palestinians, while on the other, you want the US Embassy in Jerusalem, but I think the Americans say that one doesn't go with the other.

"Fine. It is the Americans' right and the duty to consider their own interests. Our job as Israelis is to say what we would like to happen and their job is to consider the consequences of all our actions."

Do you think the US administration and Trump himself are committed to diplomacy?

"I have no doubt. Trump said so publicly immediately after his press conference with Netanyahu, when he announced that he was committed to the deal, which is his priority."

Are you expecting a real clash between Netanyahu and Trump?

"Even if there are clashes between Netanyahu and the new administration, this does not mean that there is a conflict of interest between Israel and the US. Both nations are interested in creating a regional process and making Israel part of the region, together with the moderate Sunni states against Iran."

Those were the same interests four and eight years ago as well.

"Now Netanyahu's interest is different from that of the State of Israel, and his interest is to maintain the coalition."

Do you think Trump can subjugate Netanyahu?

"Trump said he does not want to impose a settlement, and I respect that statement, but the last thing Netanyahu needs today is to prove that he is always quarrelling with the American administration. I think that Trump has great leverage, as does Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab countries in the region. This leverage can be put to use as long as the State of Israel's basic interests are kept in security and in safeguarding the settlement blocs."
President Donald Trump will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest prayer site, the White House said on Monday amid controversy in Israel over reported comments by a US diplomat that the wall was in the West Bank.

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Trump will say a prayer at the Western Wall, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said, as well as pay a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered by Christians to be the site of Jesus' tomb.

The wall, representing the remains of the Jewish Second Temple, sits on territory Israel gained control over in the 1967 Six-Day war and has been a flashpoint of violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Trump canceled a planned speech at Masada due to the heavy heat. American sources said the speech would be held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem instead.

Israel will be the second stop on Trump's first foreign trip, following Saudi Arabia. The Republican president will meet with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The announcement of Trump's visit to the Western Wall came amid the controversy in Israel over a report that a US diplomat preparing Trump's visit referred to the WeJewish holy site as a part of the West Bank.

Israel's Channel 2 reported that during a planning meeting between US and Israeli officials, the Israelis were told that Trump's visit to the wall was private, Israel did not have jurisdiction in the area and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was not welcome to accompany Trump there.

An official in Netanyahu's office said on Monday that Israel has contacted Washington about the matter.

Asked about the matter, a White House official told Reuters on Tuesday: "These comments were not authorized by the White House. They do not reflect the US position and certainly not the president's position."

McMaster sidestepped questions on Tuesday about whether the Trump administration considers the Western Wall part of Israel.

"That sounds like a policy decision," he said during a daily briefing.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira documented inadequate medical services provided to IDF soldiers in his annual report released Tuesday, also shedding light on the ease with which ultra-Orthodox men can receive exemptions by declaring themselves mentally unable to serve.

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Approximately 300 of the 1,901 pages in the 67th annual report are devoted to the Ministry of Defense and the IDF. One of the subjects the report deals with is the serious flaws it found in the medical service offered to soldiers in mandatory service.

"Many soldiers go through 'suffering' when they seek medical care, from the difficulty of scheduling an appointment with a doctor by phone, to long waiting times for the appointment. These situations could lead to some soldiers not receiving the medical treatment they need," retired judge Yosef Shapira wrote.





Photo: Shutterstock

In January 2011, the IDF launched a new plan to privatize and outsource medical services to soldiers serving in two of its major Tel Aviv area basesthe Kirya IDF headquarters and the Tel HaShomer base. A considerable number of the military clinics in those bases were closed and the treatment was entrusted to private clinics belonging to health maintenance organizations (HMO).

A year later, the army also outsourced emergency medical care to the private company Bikur Rofeh, which provided medical care to soldiers after hours when HMO clinics were closed.

However, the IDF decided to roll back the reform in November 2014, returning care of soldiers back to the military clinics.

The state comptroller found that the reform's rollback impaired the availability of primary medical services to soldiers in the two major bases. Soldiers found it difficult to reach the clinics by phone, especially in the morning, with many soldiers giving up before speaking to a representative.

The comptroller also found that the average waiting period for an elective procedure was two to three weeks long. Combat and non-combat soldiers had to wait for an appointment with a specialist for much longer than the standard set by the Chief Medical Officer, which is 14 days on average for a combat soldier and 21 days on average for other soldiers. Thirty-two percent of soldiers who were referred to a specialist noted that they waited two to four weeks for an appointment, while 30 percent indicated that they had to wait longer.

The comptroller further found that in 2014 and 2015, military doctors failed to follow up on 58 and 64 percent (respectively) of referrals, running the risk the medical problem could worsen if allowed to go unchecked.

The comptroller noted soldiers were having difficulty setting appointments with mental health professionals as well, with over 16 percent of soldiers waiting more than four weeks for such an appointment. Furthermore, referrals for psychiatric examination were incorrectly entered into the database, making it difficult to ensure that all the patients referred to a psychiatrist were properly treated.

Special treatment for the ultra-Orthodox

Shapira found that prospective ultra-Orthodox recruits received 2.5 to three times more exemptions from military service for mental reasons than the rest of the population.

From March to July 2014, 1,094 Haredi yeshiva students arrived at the IDF induction centers, with more than half of them (607) of them receiving a recommendation for exemption from service due to mental reasons. From January to October 2015, 77 percent received the same recommendation.

Haredi men at the IDF recruitment center (Photo: Ofer Amram)

The Chief Medical Officer told the comptroller's representative that "the difficulty stems from the fact prospective recruits who are not interested in enlisting get the entire 'establishment' to help themtheir family, their teachers and their doctors. In such a situation, the mental health professionals cannot prove whether they are pretending."

The comptroller wrote that even though the IDF has been aware of this "loophole" since 2012, it has yet to find a solution.

IDF responds to the report

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit responded to the comptroller report's various criticisms of its conduct and policies.

On the long waiting times soldiers experience to set a doctor's appointment, the IDF said that "it should be noted that despite the fact there is no binding procedure in Israel for a preliminary medical appointment, the Chief Medical Officer, Brig. Gen. Dudu Dagan, decided that the maximum waiting period for non-urgent doctor appointments would be seven days." It added that "to reduce the long waiting times, the phones are manned at 110 percent capacity.

"The Medical Corps operates in a number of ways to improve waiting times for specialists and is committed to providing optimal medical treatment to all soldiers in all positions. Moreover, soldiers in combat units have a quota of designated lines reserved for them."

On the "loophole" taken advantage by ultra-Orthodox men to obtain exemptions, the IDF said that "the issue of enlisting ultra-Orthodox recruits is a significant challenge not only from the mental health perspective, but in general. The IDF is looking at different alternatives for incorporating Haredim into the army, including on the mental health level."
The classified intelligence US President Donald Trump revealed to Russian officials was allegedly provided by Israel, US officials familiar with the issue told the New York Times and NBC News Tuesday evening.

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Earlier in the day, the Times reported that the sensitive information came from an "ally in the Middle East," which even warned Americans that passing such sensitive information would cease if the information is passed on.

The White House declined to comment on whether Israel had provided the sensitive information.

During a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak, Trump reportedly revealed information about a planned ISIS attack. According to American sources, at least some of the details the Americans had about the plot came from the Israelis.

The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post.

Trump and Lavrov (Photo: EPA)

US National Security Adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster said that "In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom hes engaged."

"It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. Thats what he did," McMaster added.

President Trump himself also defended his decision by saying he had an "absolute right" to share information with Moscow.

During a press conference at the White House with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump said that his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was "very successful and will contribute to the war on terrorism."

R-L Kislyak, Trump, Lavrov (Photo: EPA)

The disclosure that Trump had leaked top-secret intelligence obtained by Israel to the Russians could damage the US-Israel relationship.

There is concern in Israel that the sensitive information might have been leaked or would be leaked to IranRussia's close ally.

Israeli sources did not confirm that Israel is the source of the information Trump shared. In a statement to the New York Times, ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer said the two countries would continue their close cooperation against terrorism.
A New York police official said there was a suspicion that an ancient synagogue was set on fire earlier this week in Manhattan. According to NBC, the structure of the "Great Beit Midrash" that was built in the 19th century was completely destroyed.
LINCOLN  A legume that is generally considered a fringe crop in Nebraska has taken root in the state and is flourishing.

Planted in March, the yellow field pea has been growing in popularity with dry-land farmers who practice no-till farming in the semiarid region west of North Platte, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.

Wheat, corn and soybeans just dont hack it anymore, farmer Steve Tucker said.

In recent years, peas have gone from being planted on only a few Nebraska farms to covering about 55,000 acres in 2016. Last year was the first year the crop got popular enough in Nebraska to be included in the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Agricultural Statistics Service reports.

Tucker said one reason peas are growing in popularity is the development of a market for them. He said that while farmers planted them in the 1990s, they just sat in bins or were fed to cattle.

We planted them and had nowhere to go with them, Tucker said.

The development of health-food and pet-food markets has created a need for peas, which are a source of high protein. Peas are often used in non-dairy shakes and in foods marketed as free of gluten, dairy, nuts or soy.

Peas are also frequently used in the U.S. governments foreign food aid distribution program. Joseph Janzen, a researcher at Montana State University, said that food aid consumed 17 percent of all dry peas produced and represented 24 percent of all dry pea exports between 2002 and 2012.

New Alliance farmer Mark Watson says that the one downside to peas is how much yields can vary due to adverse weather.

USDA figures show that Nebraska farmers planned to plant 45,000 acres of peas this year.
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.

Vote

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Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and National Australia Bank (NAB) have both warned that the new $6.2bn bank levy issued by Treasurer Scott Morrison during last Tuesdays budget would cause severe distortions in financial markets, including the risky derivatives market and the RBAs interbank lending market.

The lenders have called for a wide array of carve outs from the proposed levy following a series of meetings between Treasury officials and the banks chief financial officers last Thursday.

Ian Narev, CEO of CBA, said his bank would continue to express its concerns about the surprise levy, as it would slap a 0.06% tax on banks with liabilities in excess of $100bn.

Over four years, the levy would raise $6.2bn from the Big Four and Macquarie Group. These lenders collectively generate around $30bn annually in profits after tax. About three-quarters of these profits are paid out to shareholders.

Australias ongoing prosperity depends on all stakeholders working together cooperatively to ensure that our banking system remains strong and fair. To that end, we must be, and will be, prepared to speak openly about policies that could weaken our banks, Narev told The Australian Business Review. However, we are committed to working constructively with the Treasury to ensure that, even if this is bad policy, it is implemented as well as possible.

Gary Lennon, NABs chief financial officer, said being asked by the federal government to provide feedback on the levy in just two business days is highly unusual and reflects poorly on Australias public policy-making process. Lennon has requested the government produce a regulatory impact statement as well as a period of consultation on the draft legislation.

CBA confirmed that the government brought in the levy for four reasons:

To assist a return to surplus To complement other policies designed to make the banks stronger Level the playing field for smaller banks Charge for the subsidy provided by the implicit government guarantee

Both Narev and Lennon said the government should include a sunset clause on the levy in the event of a budget surplus, and asked that the levy be set at a fixed rate. It is not appropriate for the levy to become an ongoing tool for governments to fill budget gaps at the expense of the banking industry, Narev said.

Related stories:

State governments earn billions in property tax revenue

Federal budget changes will impact property buyers, investors
Zabka, Warszawa, 166 m2

Lokal znajduje sie w budynku apartamentowym Unimax Development w inwestycji Viva Vitolin, przy ul. Grochowskiej 87 w Warszawie. Bedzie dostepny w 4Q 2023 roku (podpisanie umow przeniesienia wasnosci).
Johannesburg: Three Indian-origin persons were arrested here by police for allegedly selling seats to Indian students to study medicine and other health science courses at a university in South Africa.

Accused Varsha (44) and Hiteshkumar Bhatt (46) are the owners of Durban's "Little Gujarat" restaurant while Preshni Hiramun (55) is a former school teacher.

The trio is accused of working as agents in conspiring together with a syndicate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa to illegally enrol students in the health science faculty and school of medicine, news portal Independent online reported on Monday.

The accused chatted to interested parents, negotiated bribes and liaised with university staff who helped get the parents' children enrolled, according to the report.

This was done even though the students involved did not meet the minimum requirements for the courses. The three suspects allegedly charged R250,000 ($19,000) for admission to the health sciences faculty.

They charged R500,000 ($38,000) for a place in medicine. The reports also said that the trio was involved in the sale of examination question and answer papers for an additional R30,000 ($2,278).

The trio were charged with fraud and contravention of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act and were later granted R40,000 ($3,000) bail each in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court on Monday.

Their arrest came after a sting operation was conducted by a weekly newspaper on Sunday.

The elite Hawks Organised Crime Unit raided the homes and businesses of the three accused and arrested them last week. Their passports were confiscated and they have been asked to report to the Durban North Police station once a week.

Police seized two Mercedes-Benz cars, laptops, hard-drives and flash drives from the Bhatts. At Hiramun's home in Somerset Park, laptops were found hidden in a washing machine, the report said.

Documents pertaining to the syndicate were also seized, according to the report. The trio was also asked to refrain from contacting any witnesses or staff at UKZN.

Hawks investigator Mandla Mkhwanazi said more arrests were on the cards and that the investigation was at a sensitive stage hence too much information could not be divulged.

The accused will appear in court again in August for the state to prepare its investigation.
Washington: US President Donald Trump welcomed Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan at the White House, for their first face-to-face meeting.



Crown Prince Al-Nahyan is a "very special person, highly respected", Trump said during a brief photo opportunity in the Oval Office on Monday.



"And loves his country, I can tell you that, loves his country. And I think loves the United States, which to us is very important," USA Today quoted the President as saying.



The two leaders spoke about "regional security matters," trade and bilateral investments, as well as about the defence cooperation agreement between the two countries, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily press briefing.



The Pentagon announced a week ago that the sale of 160 Patriot missiles to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been approved at an estimated cost of $2 billion, the aim of which is to fortify the Arab nation`s defence ability.



The meeting came four days before Trump begins his first international trip, which first will take him to Saudi Arabia where the President wants to encourage Washington`s Arab and Muslim partners to take new and bold steps to promote peace in the region, according to National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.



Despite Trump`s anti-Muslim discourse during his election campaign and his signing of two executive orders blocking US entry to refugees and citizens from several Muslim majority nations - although those orders were blocked by US courts - the White House has insisted that the measures are not designed to persecute those who profess the Muslim faith.



Trump is also slated meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.
Brampton: Jagmeet Singh, the deputy leader of Ontario's New Democratic Party, on Monday night threw his hat in the ring and declared himself a candidate for the leadership of the national party in Canada.

With this, Ontario legislator Jagmeet Singh has become the first Sikh to do so.

Addressing a gathering at an event hosted at restaurant `Bombay Palace` in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto, the 38-year-old member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament representing Bramalea-Gore-Malton said: People are hungry for new leadership in this country, they are hungry for new leadership in our party a leadership that will bring people to build a Canada that is truly inclusive for everyone to realize their dreams.

Thats why today I am proud to announce that I am running to be the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada," announced Singh amid shouts of Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal.

Notably, the NDP is one of the three major national parties in Canada.

Born in Scarborough (Ontario), Singh, a lawyer by training, said in an event that was also live-streamed on Facebook that he sought to build a Canada that is inclusive and where everyone can realise their dreams.

Thats what drove me to law, thats what drove me to public life and thats what drove me to be your leader and thats what drove me to be your next prime minister, said the first turban-wearing Sikh to sit in Ontario's legislature.

Lashing out at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Singh said, Weve had enough of empty promises and were ready to get the job done.

Jagmeet Singh, who had moved a motion in the Ontario Assembly in 2016 to have the 1984 anti-Sikh riots termed `genocide`, is likely to be the only elected representative in the Western world to have been denied a visa to India, reported Hindustan Times.
Amman: Two car bombs killed at least six people and wounded several others in Syria`s sprawling Rukban refugee camp near the border with Jordan late on Monday, a rebel official and a resident said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

One explosion was near a restaurant and the second targeted the camp`s market nearby, they said.

"There are at least six civilians dead and the number is expected to rise," said Mohammad Adnan, a rebel official from Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair who runs the policing of the camp.

Islamic State said in a statement on its Amaq news agency its fighters "carried out the Rukban camp attack", according to the U.S.-based SITE monitoring group. It gave no further details.

In January, a car bomb killed a number of people in the camp, and Islamic State militants have since launched attacks on Syrian rebels in the area.

Rukban, near the joint Syria-Iraq-Jordan border, is home to refugees and also to rebel groups, including the Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair, which fight both President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State movement. It was also hit by bomb attacks last year.
Davao: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said today he was open to exploring the South China Sea's natural resources with rival claimants China and Vietnam, after securing a "windfall" while in Beijing.

Duterte also emphasised he had no immediate plans to pressure China over an international tribunal's ruling last year that its sweeping claims to most of the sea were unlawful.

"If we can get something there with no hassle at all, why not," Duterte told reporters when asked about a proposal for jointly exploring the sea with China and Vietnam.

He emphasised the deal would have to be "fair and balanced".

Duterte made no mention of Malaysia and Brunei, the two other Southeast Asian nations that also have claims to the sea.

The competing claims to the sea, which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits, have for decades made it one of Asia's potential military flashpoints.

China's efforts to cement its claims in the sea in recent years by building artificial islands and

expanding a military presence there have added to the tensions.

Duterte, who took office last year, abandoned the policy of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, to forcefully challenge Beijing in diplomatic circles and instead sought to repair bilateral relations.

Duterte has said his decision has earned the Philippines billions of dollars in Chinese investments and aid.

Duterte spoke Tuesday morning immediately after returning from Beijing, where he had separate meetings with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang.

Duterte praised China's leaders as "generous", "very liberal" and "sincere".

Duterte described his trip to Beijing, his second since assuming office, as a "windfall" for the Philippines, saying more Chinese investments or aid had been offered although he gave few details.

Duterte said he told Xi and Li that he would not raise last year's international tribunal ruling, which was filed by Aquino and deeply angered China.

"We decided that there is a time for me to ask about the ruling but it is not now," Duterte said.

The Philippines and China are due this week to hold direct talks on the sea, which Aquino had avoided for fear of placing the Philippines in a vulnerable negotiating position.

Duterte said he wanted the talks to involve a code of conduct for the sea, which China and Southeast Asian nations have been discussing for more than 15 years.

The Philippines, under then president Gloria Arroyo, entered into an agreement with China and Vietnam in 2005 to jointly study potential oil deposits in the sea.

But the deal collapsed after Filipino politcians questioned its legality. They alleged it infringed on Philippine sovereignty and accused Arroyo of treason.
Maruti Suzuki, Indias largest carmaker, has launched the all-new Dzire sedan today at a starting price of Rs 5.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). Into its third-generation, the Dzire is built on the same Heartect platform that also underpins the current-gen Baleno hatchback. While this platform is lighter than that on the outgoing model, it promises to be more rigid in its setup. As youd expect, the upcoming Swift will also be built on the same platform.

In terms of dimensions, the 2017 Swift Dzire is still a sub-4 metre, four-door sedan. When compared to the outgoing model, the length of the new model is exactly the same. Like before, the LXi/LDi and VXi/VDi trims get 14-inch steel rims but the ZXi/ZDi and ZXi+/ZDi+ variants get 15-inch alloy wheels. However, thats where similarities end. The new-gen Maruti Suzuki Dzire is 40mm wider, 40mm shorter in height and gets a 20mm longer wheelbase. The boot space can now gulp 378 litres of stuff, which is 62 litres more than before.

The ground clearance on the new model has gone down by 7mm and now stands at 163mm. It will also have a roomier cabin than before, with an improvement of 20mm in the front shoulder room and 30mm in the rear. The company claims that thanks, primarily, to the lighter platform, the petrol variants will be 85kg lighter and the diesel trims will be 105kg lighter in weight.

Under the hood, Maruti Suzuki is offering the same set of petrol and diesel engines as before. While the 1.2-litre petrol motor is tuned to produce 83PS/113Nm, the 1.3-litre diesel generates 75PS/190Nm. These engines can either be had with a 5-speed manual or 5-speed automated manual transmission (AMT). The automatic gearbox (4-speed torque converter) is no longer on offer. Impressive fuel-efficiency is another ace up the Dzires sleeve. While the petrol-powered manual and AMT variants can return 22.0kmpl (up by 5.5 per cent), the manual and AMT diesels can clock 28.4kmpl (up by 6.8 per cent). These figures make the new Dzire the most fuel efficient sedan in its segment.

In terms of features, the 2017 Maruti Suzuki Dzire is a far cry from the outgoing model. The feature list includes LED projector headlamps, DRLs, reverse parking sensors, reverse parking camera, SmartPlay infotainment system with built-in navigation support and voice command (Android Auto and Apple CarPlay enabled), push button start/stop with smart key, automatic climate control, auto headlamps, rear AC vents and electronically adjustable/foldable ORVMs. As far as safety is concerned, all variants are offered with dual airbags, ABS, EBD with BA, ISOFIX anchorages and, pretensioners and force limiters in the front seat belts as part of their standard kit.

With the new Dzire, Maruti Suzuki will hope to retain the top spot in this segment. Its list of rivals includes the Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent, Volkswagen Ameo, Ford Figo Aspire and two models from Tata Motors - the Tigor and the Zest.

Heres the variant-wise price-list (ex-showroom Delhi):

Petrol

LXi: Rs 5,45,000

VXi: Rs 6,29,000

VXi AGS: Rs 6,76,000

ZXi: Rs 7,05,000

ZXi AGS: Rs 7,52,000

ZXi+: Rs 7,94,000

ZXi+ AGS: Rs 8,41,000

Diesel

LDi: Rs 6,45,000

VDi: Rs 7,29,000

VDi AGS: Rs 7,76,000

ZDi: Rs 8,05,000

ZDi AGS: Rs 8,52,000

ZDi+: Rs 8,94,000

ZDi+ AGS: Rs 9,41,000

Source: CarDekho.com
New Delhi: Dismissing former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's claims of allegedly being pressurised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-backed government, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad while defending the Centre said it has no intentions to 'threaten or pressurize anyone'.

"The raids are being conducted as per procedure. We have no intention to intimidate anyone," he told ANI.

Seeking clarification on the matter, Prasad further asserted that if the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief is confident of no scam involved, he should clear it out with the Income Tax officials.

"There have been reports of the massive property owned by his son and daughter in both Bihar and Delhi. Why has there been no clarification? A profit worth 1000 crores is questionable, and hence he is under the scanner," said Prasad, alleging that the state was looted during his tenure as Chief Minister.

Drawing upon the 'harbinger of good governance' Nitish Kumar, Prasad said it is time for the former to look into the matter and deploy similar rules to all political leaders, irrespective of their political stature.

Earlier today, raids were conducted by the Income Tax department at 22 locations in Delhi, Gurugram on companies and people associated with Lalu.

A team of about 100 tax department officials and police personnel are reportedly carrying out the raids.

Responding to this, Lalu took to Twitter to slam the BJP, saying the saffron party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are trying to pressurise him, knowing that he will expose their 'lies, loot and jumlas.'

Challenging the Centre to reveal the names of the 22 places raided, the former Bihar chief minister said, "At least tell which 22 places were raided, you illiterates. Lalu is not scared of BJP-backed media and government puppets."

Lalu further said that the BJP lacks courage to suppress his voice and if they try to do so, then million more Lalus will emerge all across India.

In a challenging voice, Lalu cautioned the BJP saying, "I am not scared of the BJP. There is a lot more to be done by bringing together all the parties sharing the same ideology."

As per sources, the raids are being conducted on the charges of illegal (benami) land deals worth Rs. 1,000 crore.

The searches are reportedly also being conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP P C Gupta and few other businessmen.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD) is already under scanner in the fodder scam case.
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday came out in support of RJD chief Lalu Prasad after the Income Tax Department conducted raids at 22 places in and around Delhi in connection with an alleged `Benami` property case involving him and his family.

A day after arriving in the national capital to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Banerjee said she has accepted the invite of Lalu Prasad for his mega rally.

"Laluji we accepted your invitation to be there on August 27. We will be there," Banerjee tweeted.

Banerjee`s response came two days after the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo on May 14 said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would jail him before the mega rally of his party on August 27.

"BJP says they will jail me asap, so our proposed 27th August Maha-Rally can`t take place. Haha. My name is Lalu and I pity for such intimidators (sic)," Lalu said in a tweet.

On Tuesday, the IT Department sleuths carried out searches at Lalu`s premises as also at the premises of party MP P.C. Gupta and several businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi and Haryana`s Gurugram and Rewari.

Soon after the IT Department raids, the RJD supremo said that he was not afraid and he would not bow before any one and fight "fascist forces" till his last breath.
New Delhi: The CRPF on Tuesday killed 20 ultras in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district in extensive anti-Naxal operations, weeks after dozens of jawans were gunned down in a Maoist ambush, considered one of the deadliest in recent years.

According to CRPF, around 350 jawans are taking part in the operations.

Citing the CRPF IG, ANI reported that for the first time COBRA batallions have been deployed.

On April 24, 25 CRPF jawans were killed by Naxals in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district.

The encounter between 74th battalion of the force and Naxals occurred around 12:25 pm in Kalapathar area of south Bastar region.

The CRPF jawans were part of the road opening party when they were attacked by Naxals.

Weapons of jawans were also looted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the attack and described it as cowardly and deplorable.

We are proud of the valour of our CRPF personnel. The sacrifice of the martyrs will not go in vain," the prIme minister had said.
New Delhi: A court here on Tuesday discharged the caretaker of the Batla House flat where two suspected militants were killed in an encounter in 2008.

Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kumar Tripathi discharged Abdul Rehman who is the caretaker of the building and is accused of harbouring tenants alleged to be engaged in terrorist activities.

Defence Counsel MS Khan said the police have failed to produce the original lease deed, the crucial piece of evidence, which was allegedly forged by Rehman.
New Delhi: The Delhi government on Tuesday said the national capital was facing a "water crisis", which could affect areas in central Delhi, which houses the Prime Minister's office, the Rashtrapati Bhawan, residence of several union ministers, among others.

The Delhi government has sought intervention of the PMO to tackle the situation, while accusing the Haryana government of not giving the capital its legal share of water.

Addressing a press conference, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said around 80 MGD of Delhi's water supply has been stopped by Haryana government despite court's order.

"I have requested the Lt Governor to seek the PMO's intervention to deal with water crisis. This is a political issue and PMO should intervene at the earliest. We should go beyond politics on this issue," he told reporters here.

Sisodia, who is holding the additional charge of water since former minister Kapil Mishra was sacked from the Delhi Cabinet last week, said chief secretarial talks of both Delhi and Haryana could not reach any conclusion.

"I have also told the LG that there has been a talk on water crisis at the level of officers, but there is still no solution to water crisis. If water shortage continues, we will have to cut down water supply in central areas of Delhi," he said.

"Delhi water crisis still not resolved. Water being stopped despite court order. I have directed DJB to file contempt petition in HC," he said in a tweet.

Delhi's water requirement is 900 million gallons per day, but it is falling short by about 50 MGD since May 8, according to a senior Delhi Jal Board (DJB) official.

The official said areas of north and central Delhi were affected by the shortage. Water supply was severely affected in NDMC areas, including parts of the President's estate in the evening.

The situation arose mainly because production of the Chandrawal water treatment plant was hit.

In the evening, Sisodia held a high-level meeting with the officials of DJB and directed them to take all necessary measures to ensure that the city continues to get its legally obligatory uninterrupted water supply so that no inconvenience is caused to the residents.

Sisodia asked the DJB to keep all its options ready.

Yesterday he had directed Chief Secretary M M Kutty to talk to his Haryana counterpart and ensure restoration of full water supply to Delhi.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the investigation into the case of missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed from the Delhi Police.

The high court had earlier rapped the Delhi Police for the delay in recording the statements of the suspects behind the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmad, who has gone missing for over six months.

A Bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli transferred the matter to CBI with immediate effect on a plea by the student's mother after the Delhi Police said it has no problem with such a direction.

The court said the probe by the CBI would be supervised by an officer not less than the rank of a DIG.

While transferring the matter, the court noted that the Delhi Police had implemented all directions and suggestions given by the court.

The matter will be taken up next on July 17.
New Delhi: Najeeb Ahmed's family has pinned its hope on the Central Bureau of Investigation, which was asked by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday to trace the missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student.

"I hope the CBI finds my son," Najeeb's mother Fatima Nafees said, accusing the Delhi Police - so far in charge of the case - of not doing enough to find Najeeb, missing for the last seven months.

Delhi Police, however, insisted it had done all it could, and had succeeded in ruling it out as a case of abduction.

Nafees, while welcoming the transfer, said though they wanted an independent inquiry into the case, the family was satisfied that it had been transferred to the premier investigating agency.

"The district police didn't do anything. When the probe was transferred to the Crime Branch, they didn't do anything either," she alleged.

The mother said the police "tarnished" Najeeb's image by saying that he suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

"They kept saying that Najeeb had OCD when he was only undergoing treatment for insomnia. Even if he was depressed, that doesn't mean that the police could blame my son for his disappearance and not probe those who had beaten him up before he went missing," she said.

The investigators from the Crime Branch, however, said that the High Court had noted that the police had followed the court's directions.

They pointed out they had also traced the autorickshaw driver who had ferried Najeeb from JNU to Jamia on the day he went missing.

"There were many angles that we worked on and one of them was the abduction angle. But with the auto driver being traced, it emerged that Najeeb had left the university on his own," a senior police officer said.

Last week, the police had approached mosques in the national capital and UP, requesting them to make regular announcements about Najeeb, in the hope of making a headway.

They also wrote to the directors general (DGs) of police and prisons of all states and railway police, urging them to to share any information they might get about the student.

But the case being moved to the CBI was largely hailed by JNU students and teachers. They welcomed the High Court order, but wondered if the government agency would be allowed to probe the case.

"It is a good move, but we were demanding an independent enquiry monitored by the court. Even the CBI functions under the ambit of the central government and can be influenced as we have seen in several cases," JNU students' union (JNUSU) president Mohit Kumar Pandey said.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli today transferred the case to the CBI responding to a plea filed by Nafees after Delhi Police said it had no problems with the case being moved.

The court said the probe by the CBI would be supervised by an officer, holding a rank not lower than that of a DIG.

The student went missing in October last year following a scuffle at his hostel with some students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a students' group affiliated to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma said he welcomed the move, but hoped the CBI would trace Najeeb and also unearth "his alleged links with the ISIS which Delhi Police has been hiding".

JNU Teachers' Association president Ayesha Kidwai urged the CBI to take up the search for Najeeb with an "earnestness" that "nobody, neither the police nor the JNU administration" had exhibited so far.
New Delhi: A day after ending his indefinite hunger strike, suspended Aam Aadmi Party leader Kapil Mishra will on Tuesday approach the Central Bureau of Investigation and Central Board of Direct Taxes to file corruption cases against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Meanwhile, Mishra this morning tweeted that the Delhi CM should have thought once before betraying the nation.

Soon after being discharged from the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital yesterday where he was admitted after he had fainted at a press conference on Sunday, Mishra said he would go to the offices of the CBI and the CBDT on Tuesday.

"Doctors won't discharge until I start taking liquids. I have to go to CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes). Starting on liquids now," Mishra said in a tweet before ending his fast.

"Tomorrow (Tuesday) case of hawala, black money, money laundering and operating through shell companies will be filed in CBI and CBDT against Arvind Kejriwalji," he said in another tweet.

Attacking the Chief Minister, the sacked water minister said that the "foundation laid on lies was rattled. And hence those who spread lies were hiding inside their houses".

"The people with black money are unable to understand the request of truth," he said.

Today, Mishra tweeted:

Mishra had been on an indefinite hunger strike since May 10, demanding that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief must reveal the source of funding of the foreign trips of five AAP leaders -- Sanjay Singh, Ashish Khetan, Raghav Chadha, Satyendar Jain and Durgesh Pathak -- in the last two years.

On Sunday, Mishra accused the AAP of lying to the Election Commission (EC) about donations and laundering money through shell companies.

The AAP has dismissed his charges as a "conspiracy" by the BJP and accused the latter party of shooting from his shoulders.
New Delhi: Banks did not operate some ATMs running on old software in view of threat from ransomware 'WannaCry' as part of precautionary measures.

Most automated teller machines (ATMs) were running fine, there could be some which may not have updated Microsoft's Windows operating system, sources said.

Such ATMs could be prone to attack so as precautionary measure banks running such ATMs refrained from feeding cash, sources added.

Meanwhile, the RBI has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation CERT-In on ransomware, which has impacted various IT networks in over 150 countries.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has come out with a list of dos and dont's and webcast on how to protect networks from the global ransomware attack.

However, there was no official information in this regard from the RBI in this connection till late evening.

There are a total of 2.2 lakh ATMs in India, of which few may be running on old Windows XP.

In a separate malware attack last year, 3.2 lakh debit cards were compromised in the country. Data of the users who transacted from ATM machines of Hitachi were compromised during three months of May, June and July last year. The Hitachi ATMs deployed by many White Label ATM players and Yes Bank were impacted by the malware.

With PTI Inputs
Manali: Hundreds of tourists who descended on the Himachal Pradesh resort here to enjoy the snowy landscape were inconvenienced on Tuesday as taxi drivers went on a daylong strike.

More than 2,000 taxis remained off the roads to protest against the local administration's decision restricting the entry of tourist vehicles bound for the Rohtang Pass beyond Gulaba, Raj Kumar Dogra, President of the prominent Him-aanchal Taxi Operators Union, told IANS.

Gulaba is on the way to the Rohtang Pass and is some 26 km from here.

He said the BRO (Border Roads Organisation) had cleared the snow leading to the Rohtang Pass from here in the last week of April and the administration assured that the tourist vehicles bound for the pass would be allowed in the first week of May.

"Till date the tourists are not allowed to go beyond Gulaba," Dogra said.

It is the snow that is only attracting the tourists to Manali this season, he added.

"At Gulaba the entire snow has melted. We are requesting the administration to allow the tourist vehicles to reach up to Marhi, which is just eight km ahead of Gulaba, so that the tourists can enjoy the snow there," Dogra added.

Auto operators and private mini bus operators of Manali also joined the protest.

The picturesque Rohtang Pass, located in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas and 52 km from here, is a major attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists. Till mid June it is covered in snow.

"We have specially come all the way from Kolkata to enjoy the snowy landscape. On reaching here we were told that the tourists are not allowed to go there. This is unprofessional attitude of the local authorities," an agitated Abhijit Chatterji said.

Official sources said currently vehicles carrying locals and government officials, who are bound for Lahaul-Spiti district are allowed to ply across the Rohtang Pass, located at an altitude of 13,050 feet in Kullu district.
Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Tuesday expressed anguish over the Italian Supreme Court upholding a ban on wearing of `kirpan` and plan to raise the issue at appropriate platforms to ensure "justice" to Sikhs settled in Italy.

In a statement here on Tuesday, Akali Dal secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the Italian court has "ignored" the fact that carrying of `kirpan` is essential and a mandatory part of religious code of conduct of an `Amritdhari` (baptized) Sikh.

"It is a question of faith and a fundamental right of a Sikh. Banning of `kirpan` means that no `Amritdhari Sikh` will be able to live in Italy after this order," Cheema pointed out.

Cheema said the Akali Dal and SGPC would raise this issue at appropriate platforms to ensure "justice" to Sikhs settled in Italy.

"The party will also take up of the matter with the External Affairs Ministry and urge them to take up this matter with the Italian government at the earliest," Cheema said.

The Akali Dal expressed deep concern and anguish over the decision of the Italian Supreme Court upholding a ban on wearing of `kirpan`, a small sword-like weapon considered a Sikh religious symbol, on the pretext of public safety.

"The decision of the Italian Supreme Court has shaken the Sikh community the world over," Cheema added.

Italy has a large number of immigrants from India, especially Sikhs from Punjab.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat would be in the Kashmir valley where they would review the security situation, amid a spike in militant attacks and incidents of violence, officials said on Tuesday.

Jaitley, who also holds the finance portfolio, will be in Srinagar primarily for the two-day meeting of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council on May 18 and 19.

However, he is also likely to review the security situation in the restive valley region and take stock of counter-terror operations, they said.

Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat is leaving for Kashmir tomorrow where he would be briefed by top Army commanders about incidents of cross-border firing and ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops.

It was not immediately known if the two would review the ground situation together or separately.

Jaitley and Rawat's Kashmir visit comes in the wake of beheading of two Indian security personnel by Pakistani military in Poonch district earlier this month which was termed "barbaric" by India.

While Rawat hinted at retaliation to avenge the killings, Jaitley had said the sacrifice of the two soldiers will not go in vain and that the armed forces will react "appropriately".

The Kashmir valley has witnessed a spurt in incidents of violence and militant attacks in the last couple of months.

The Pakistani troops were involved in 67 ceasefire violations in the first four months of 2017, with maximum of 26 incidents reported in April, according to Army sources.

They said a total of 27 militants were killed between January and April in counter-insurgency operations.
New Delhi/Chennai/Patna: The premises of two top Opposition leaders, P Chidambaram and Lalu Prasad Yadav, were on Tuesday raided by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Income Tax officials with Karti Chidambaram accused of getting pay-offs for helping a media company get FIPB clearance, while the former Bihar CM was accused of 'benami' land deals.

The CBI searched the homes and offices of Chidambaram's son Karti across four cities for allegedly receiving money from a media firm owned by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea to scuttle a tax probe, a charge denied by him.

CBI sleuths fanned out across 14 locations including the Chidambarams' properties in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurgaon early in the morning.

Karti in the dock:

The investigating agency had filed an FIR yesterday against Karti, Indrani and Peter Mukerjea last evening on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct.

The agency did not rule out investigating the alleged role of P Chidambaram.

In an unusual move, the agency pitted its Joint Director (anti-corruption) Vineet Vinayak to brief and face the queries of the media on the politically-sensitive case.

When asked if the former union finance minister is under the probe of the agency, the 1995-batch IPS officer said, "We have set the process of investigation in motion with the FIR. All the issues relevant to this FIPB approval will be investigated."

"All the people whose involvement has come forth will be examined in due course," he added.

He said the agency is at the initial stages of investigation.

Giving details of the searches, Vinayak said the agency has recovered mails, hard disks which need to be examined. He also clarified that the searches took place only at the residence of Karti.

It is alleged that Karti received money from INX Media for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.

The CBI has also recovered vouchers of Rs 10 lakh which were allegedly paid for the services. These vouchers were issued in favour of Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited, a firm "indirectly" owned by Karti, Vinayak alleged.

He added that invoices of Rs 3.50 crore have also been recovered by the agency.

Talking to reporters in Chennai late in the evening, Karti said he "has never interceded on anybody's behalf to the government of India".

"This is a completely bogus and fabricated charge. I am being harassed politically. I will face this politically," Karti said.

Also Read - Govt denies role in I-T, CBI raids at Lalu Yadav, Karti Chidambaram's residences

His father issued a strong statement in response to the raids saying that the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son.

FIPB approval was granted in "hundreds of cases", the senior Congress leader said.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends... The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations," he said, as per PTI.

He asserted that he would continue to speak and write.

The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB secretariat and the competent authority in each case are public officials, Chidambaram said, adding that there was no allegation against any of them.

According to the CBI, INX Media clearly states in its records that Rs 10 lakh was given to Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited for management consultancy charged towards FIPB notification and clarification.

The FIR also alleges that invoices of approximately Rs 3.5 crore were raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which Karti had substantial interests "directly or indirectly".

The agency has registered an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas (currently in jail on charges of murder their daughter Sheena Bora), INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services and its Director Padma Vishwanathan.

The allegations levelled by the CBI are based on the information given by "source", the FIR has claimed.

Ironically, though the FIR names Karti and claims that he exerted his influence on finance ministry officials, it does not identify the officials of either the FIPB or the ministry or list them as accused.

The CBI searched Chidambaram's home in Nugambakkam in Chennai where Karti also stays.

It also carried out searches at the house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea in the posh Worli area in south Mumbai, sources said.

INX Media was seeking investment from Mauritius, an official explained. The investment was allowed by the FIPB board and the finance minister with the condition that only Rs 4.62 crore could be received; for investment in INX News Pvt Ltd, a separate proposal was required.

The company allegedly violated the conditions set by the FIPB and received investment to the tune of 26 percent in the capital of INX News which included foreign investment.

It allegedly generated more than Rs 305 crore of FDI in INX Media against the approved inflow of Rs 4.62 crore by issuing shares to foreign investors at a premium of more than Rs 800 per share.

The violation prompted an Income Tax department probe. INX Media claimed that the investment was done as per FIPB conditions. In order to wriggle out of the situation without any punitive action, INX Media entered into criminal conspiracy with Karti, the agency alleged.

It said officials, by virtue of the influence exercised over them by Karti, not only ignored serious illegalities on the part of INX Media but also showed undue favours by abusing their official position and advised the company to file for fresh clearance.

The officials of the FIPB unit ignored the request of the revenue department to investigate how the investment was made by the company without FIPB approval.

The company, on the advice of FIPB officials, filed a fresh request which was cleared by the Finance Ministry and the Finance Minister.

I-T raids in connection with 'benami' land deals by Lalu, kin:

In the other case, the I-T department conducted raids at 22 places in and around Delhi in connection with alleged 'benami' property deals allegedly to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore involving RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Besides the Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo, the IT raids were also carried out on the premises of party MP PC Gupta's residence as well as several businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi and Haryana's Gurugram and Rewari.



The raids started around 3 am on Tuesday, in which over 100 officials were involved.



Income Tax officials also searched over 10 premises of some government officials.



The IT Department's action comes in the wake of the allegations made by former Bihar deputy CM and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.



He has accused Lalu and his children - Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav and Rajya Sabha Parliamentarian Misa Bharti - of being involved in corrupt land deals.



Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said if there was documentary proof or solid evidence against the RJD chief and his family then the central government should take legal action, as per IANS.



Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had earlier alleged that the RJD chief's daughter Misa Bharti has not disclosed these assets in her election affidavit and demanded that the Election Commission take action against her.



The BJP leader also alleged that the land deals were done during Lalu Prasad's tenure as Union Railway Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.



Following the I-T raids, Sushil Modi told the media in Patna that his stand has been "vindicated".



Senior RJD leader and former Union Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said the I-T raids are part of the BJP's political vendetta against rivals.

"BJP has been conspiring against Lalu for his vocal criticism and his bid to unite all non-BJP parties ahead of the 2019 General Elections," Singh said.

Day of reckoning has come, says: FM Arun Jaitley

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today defended searches at the homes of Chidambaram and his son as also Lalu, saying the day of reckoning has come for many and they will be held accountable for their misdeeds.

Jaitley said the tax department or the CBI do not act unless there is a "substantial basis and a reason to suspect" that there is a tax evasion or a crime has been committed.

"Now people in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small matter and I think the day of reckoning has come for many, they will all be held accountable," the FM told reporters here.

He was asked about the opposition charge against the government of using CBI and I-T department to go after opposition leaders.

"Unless there is a substantial basis and a reason to suspect that either there is evasion or a crime has been committed, these departments don't act. Because ultimately whatever action that is taken has to bear some results," he said.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday denied any role in the IT and CBI raids being carried out at the residences of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and ex-union minister P Chidambaram's son Karti.

There's no role for govt with regard to IT raids, or CBI cases, against either Chidambaram's son, Lalu Yadavji, Mayawatiji or Mulayam Singhji, Union minister and senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said.

He also rejected claims that the government agencies were being misused to target political rivals.

We haven't used or misused any of the agencies, we have allowed them to function independently, whether it is CBI, IT department or ED, Naidu said.

P Chidambaram evades question after CBI conducted raids at his residence in Chennai, and locations of Karti Chidambaram

Earlier in the day, the Income Tax department raided several locations linked to Lalu Yadav and RJD MP PC Gupta as well as businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurugram and Rewari.

Over 100 officials were reportedly involved in the raids which began around 3 am on Tuesday.

IT officials also searched over 10 premises of some government officials.

Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also raided Karti Chidambaram's residences in the national capital and Chennai in connection with alleged favours granted in FIPB clearance to a firm.

According to PTI, the searches were spread across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Gurugram.

The probe pertains to the cleareance given to INX Media in 2008 when P Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Manmohan Singh government.

"Searches are underway, there are mails, hard disks that need to be examined; searched premises of Karti Chidambaram," CBI Joint Director VVinayak said.

"Have set process of investigation in motion; all people whose involvement comes forth will be investigated," ANI quoted him as saying.

PM Modi had earlier accused Lalu Yadav and his children of being involved in corrupt land deals.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had on Monday said that if there was documentary proof or solid evidence against the RJD chief and his family then the central government should take legal action.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had demanded a CBI probe into the "shady" land deals.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has alleged that RJD chief's daughter Misa Bharti has not disclosed these alleged assets in her election affidavit and has demanded that the Election Commission take action against her.

The BJP leader also alleged that the land deals were done during Lalu Prasad's tenure as Union Railway Minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas India's "unwavering support" to the Palestinian cause.

After holding extensive talks with Abbas, PM Modi said India hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

PM Modi also said that India hopes for an early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides so as to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue.

"The relationship between India and Palestine is built on the foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle. India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause. And ,we hope to see the realization of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to President Abbas during our conversation today," PM said.

He added, "We had extensive exchange of views on the situation in West Asia and the Middle East Peace Process. We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means. India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution. At the bilateral level, India is committed to be a useful development partner of Palestine."

PM Modi further said, "President Abbas and I agreed that both sides, through practical cooperation, will work together to build Palestines economy and contribute to improving the lives of its people. We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine. The agreements concluded today are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction."

On his part, Abbas expressed his appreciation for India's continued support and solidarity for the Palestinian cause on international forums.



He said he updated PM Modi on his meeting with US President Donald Trump regarding the Middle East peace process and his talks with his German and Russian counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vladimir Putin, respectively, on the issue.

Abbas also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and voiced support for all regional and international efforts to fight this menace.



Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan here following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.



External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.



Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.



He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.

(With inputs from IANS and @PIB_India)
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that India hopes for Palestine and Israel to move towards finding a comprehensive solution to their long-standing conflict.

Describing Palestine as one of India's 'old friend', Prime Minister Modi said "We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to President Abbas during our conversation today."

"Our relationship is built on a foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship; India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause," he added.

Prime Minister Modi and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas also discussed the situation in West Asia and the Middle East.

"We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means," the Prime Minister said.

Prime Minister Modi said both India and Palestine have agreed to work together through practical cooperation on building Palestine's economy and contribute to improving the lives of its people.

"We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine," he added.

The Prime Minister said the agreements signed between the two countries reaffirmed India's intent to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

"We have also taken up for particular emphasis the areas of information technology, youth and skills development in the assistance provided by India. India is undertaking project assistance for a flagship techno-park project in Ramallah," he said.

Once completed, it would serve as an IT hub in Palestine offering a one-stop solution for all IT-related training and services, the Prime Minister said.

Prime Minister Modi said India is looking to expand its cultural exchange with Palestine by adding new elements to yoga exchanges.

"We look forward to the Palestinian people participating in large numbers during the International Day of Yoga celebrations next month," he added.

The two countries today inked five Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), including visa exemption on diplomatic and official passports, on cooperation in youth affairs and sports, on agricultural cooperation, on cooperation in health sector, and on cooperation in information-technology and electronics.
Beijing: India's refusal to join China's Belt and Road Forum was "partly a show" for domestic politics and aimed at piling pressure to get Beijing's "special attention", a state-run Chinese daily said on Tuesday.

"India hopes that it can shape bilateral relations more actively, and expects China to give special attention to the interests of India. But this is not how countries interact," an editorial in Global Times said.

"India's objection to the B&R is partly a show for domestic politics, partly to pile pressure on China. However, the absence of New Delhi in the B&R has not affected the forum in Beijing, and it will exert even less effect on the progress the initiative will make in the world," it said.

India skipped the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The daily said if India sees itself as a big power, it should get accustomed to the many divergences with China, and try to manage these divergences with China.

"It is almost impossible that two big countries can reach agreements on all things. This can be proved by the many differences between China and the US. But China and the US have maintained smooth bilateral relations, from which New Delhi can learn," it said.

It said both the countries should be vigilant about people with destructive power.

Stating that the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation concluded here yesterday with "fruitful" results despite India's absence, it said, "as so many large delegations participated, including from the US, Japan, and South Korea, the international community has shown a very positive response to the infrastructure-building initiative."

"However, India sent no official representatives. The country's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said Saturday that India cannot accept a project that violates its sovereignty and territorial integrity. India appears to be the only country that has expressed disapproval of the initiative in recent days," it said.

About the status of India-China relations, it said: "Sino-Indian relations have not seen a serious downturn. The border between the two countries has been peaceful in these years, the most important force for stable bilateral relations."

It said both the countries have prioritised economic and social development in their national strategies.

"Maintaining friendly ties conforms to the two countries' fundamental interests. The specific frictions between Beijing and New Delhi should not be regarded as a signal for intense geopolitical competition," the daily said.

Referring to India-China differences over Beijing`s opposition to New Delhi's admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and UN listing of JeM leader Masood Azhar as a terrorist, it said, "Overall, these new problems are caused by India's requirements for China. However, China does not do as it wants."

"India hopes that it can shape bilateral relations more actively, and expects China to give special attention to the interests of India. But this is not how countries interact," it said.

Another report in the daily quoted Observer Research Foundation chairman Sudheendra Kulkarni, who attended the BRF, as saying that India should rethink its position on the Belt and Road initiative, and China, Pakistan, and India should address disputes and find innovative cooperative solutions.

"The main reason behind India staying out of the forum is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of which passes through the disputed territory of Kashmir," Kulkarni told the daily.

He suggested that two major connectivity initiatives be built: an India-China Economic Corridor and an India-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and these corridors should be connected in a way that Kashmir becomes a "bridge", rather than a barrier, between India and Pakistan.

He said India will deprive itself of huge benefits if it stays out of the inter-continental, collaborative agenda mooted by China and endorsed by almost the entire world.

"The initiative is going to be the most powerful economic growth engine in world history," he said.

Srikanth Kondapalli, chairman of the Centre for East Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who attended the event told a session on think-tank exchanges at the forum that China and India can cooperate in the low-carbon industry and the construction of a smart city, and that the initiative can also contribute to education, public health, and gender equality.
New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal has lashed out at the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over the delay in finalising Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) for the states and union territories.

The green panel said the authorities were primarily shifting the blame between the states and the Centre and the execution of the direction was being "kept in abeyance" without any justifiable reason.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the Environment Ministry to file an affidavit by the Joint Secretary concerned in this regard.

"It is a matter which must be attended with utmost priority and expeditiousness. The affidavit will clearly say, if not in all the States, but at least in some of the States demarcation of hazard line, high tide line, low tide line and preparation of CZMP should be completed within the fixed time with no variation.

"In the event of default, the Ministry and the State Government shall fix the responsibility on the erring official," the bench said.

The tribunal also issued notices to various states including Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and four Union Territories of Daman and Diu, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar.

The direction came on a plea filed by one Mehdad and others seeking expeditious framing of CZMP for different states and UTs.

Coastal zone management involves managing coastal areas to balance environmental, economic, human health, and human activities.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas here ahead of India-Palestine delegation-level talks.

"A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

On Monday, addressing a gathering at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here, Abbas said that he would seek the help of Modi's good offices to reach the two-state solution that envisaged an independent, sovereign Palestine with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.
New Delhi: The Congress party on Tuesday said its top leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will hold discussions with opposition parties on a candidate for the Presidential elections in July.



"(About) the candidature of individuals, the Congress President and Vice President will confer with various people, that is other political parties, and try to build consensus around it," Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told the media here.



He said the names of the candidate would be announced once a consensus is reached.



"It is the role of the President of India and Vice President to counsel the government when it loses its way. So bereft of political partisanship, you need on these posts individuals who will be able to uphold the highest principles as enshrined in the Constitution," he said.



Surjewala said the Congress was proud that current President Pranab Mukherjee came from the pedigree of thought process and an ideology that has been a centre-point of this country since its formation up till today and would be in future.


New Delhi: As BJP plans to celebrate three years of the NDA government in a grand way, a survey shows that 61 percent people are happy with the Narendra Modi government.

The survey was conducted by LocalCirles and the results are based on over 2,00,000 votes collected from various parts of the country.

The BJP government at the Centre has something to worry about. Last year 18 percent of the people believed that the Centre had exceeded their expectations, whereas this year 17 percent opined the same.

About 81 percent of those who participated in LocalCircles survey said that PM Modi has improved India's image in the international arena. Last year the support figure stood at 90 percent.

However, 64 percent of people backed New Delhi's approach towards Pakistan.

Last year 46 percent people opined that government performed on the expected lines, while this year it only around 44 percent citizens felt so.

39 percent of the people have spoken about their dissatisfaction with the government. Last year 36 percent had said government's performance was below expectation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to kick off his governments third-anniversary celebrations from Assam on May 26, as the BJP makes vigorous efforts to expand its presence in the north east.

The Modi government has reason to cheer as 59 percent believed that it will fulfill the promises made in the election manifesto.

65 percent of the citizens believed that government managed the Parliament effectively and took the Opposition along to clear key economic bills.

However, 66 percent of the people felt that cost of living and the prices of essential commodities have gone up in Modi's 3-year rule.

In a major set back for the BJP government about 60 percent of the people who participated in the survey felt that crime against women and children has not come down. Only 38 percent participants said the same last year.

Also, only 35 percent believed that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan brought cleanliness.

63 percent participants felt that unemployment remains as it was earlier, while only 43 percent of the people felt so last year.

39 percent said that demonetisation said the bold move helped eradicate corruption. 51 percent of the particiapnts believed that demonetisation was a right decision, which helped in curbing black money.
New Delhi: On the fourth day of the hearing, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that triple talaq is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years.

The Muslim body further likened triple talaq to the Hindu belief that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya.

Therefore, the question of constitutional morality and equity does not arise, said former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB.

"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity."

"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar.

He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Fali Nariman, Uday Umesh Lalit and S Abdul Nazeer.

The Central government on Monday told the Supreme Court that if the latter invalidates the men-centric triple talaq that is discriminatory to Muslim women, then it would bring a new divorce law that would be fair and equal to both men and women in the community.

As Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi argued against triple talaq and stressed the need to strike it down, the bench asked him if this is done, then what will happen to Muslim men who went to end their marriage.

Without losing a moment, Rohatgi told the bench that if they strike down all three practices - triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy, then the government will bring a new law.

Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.

(With Agency inputs)
Srinagar: A Kashmiri youth who topped the recruitment exam for Border Security Force (BSF) has been receiving death threats from militants in the Valley, a media report said on Tuesday.

According to ANI, Nabeel Ahmed Wahi has approached the Women and Child Development Minister Meneka Gandhi for protection.

Nabeel reportedly claimed that both he and his sister have received death threat from the militants after he topped the recruitment exam.

The news comes days after Hizbul Mujahideen militants executed a young Army officer in Kashmir a day after his abduction.

The 22-year-old officer hailed from Shopian district.

However, Fayaz's body reportedly did not bear any torture marks.

Police have found two empty cartridges of an INSAS rifle at the place where Fayaz was shot dead by the militants.
Srinagar: Chaos erupted on Tuesday in an event where Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was to address a gathering.

Mehbooba was to address an audience at Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) but the whole event got cancelled as panic was created in the premises. The reason of the chaos is unknown.

"Women were present in large numbers and probably a lady fainted. Seeing that others panicked. Hope this programmme is organised again because it is an important event," said Mehbooba.

Attending the same conference, a girl namely Zeenat Zaira said that a girl complaint that somebody hit her with a stone from behind and the fear spilt in the room hence all of them ran from there.
New Delhi: Expressing optimism, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Tuesday asserted that the government is ready to answer back Pakistan over the ceasefire violations.

"We would revert back to the Pakistan Government. The army has been working hard on the border to ensure safety of the people. The Centre and the state have been coordinating and planning to bring a stable situation in the state very soon," Singh told media.

He further said that the wounded army personnel have been shifted to the camps.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that the 90 percent of the cultivation of the crops could be protected but the rest ten percent has been damaged due to the violations.

In the aftermath of the constant ceasefire violations being carried out by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC), Singh earlier on Sunday asserted that the attacks are a reflection of Pakistan's desperation and are being carried out as a way to hide its ongoing internal conflict.

At least two civilians including a minor girl were killed and nine people, including four soldiers were injured as Pakistan pounded 35 villages and Indian posts with mortars along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district earlier on Saturday.

In wake of the attacks a total of 193 families, comprising of 743 persons took shelter in camps. As many as 609 border residents were evacuated late last evening.

Furthermore, over 51 schools of the Nowshera region and 36 of Manjakote and Doongi zones have been closed for an indefinite period.

Highlighting the security arrangements made by the authorities, Singh said evacuation procedures have been put in place to ensure the safety of civilians in the region.

Families of those killed during the firing will be given compensation as per the norms.

The Centre has assured Rs. five lakh, while the state government will be giving the kin Rs. one lakh.

The government has set up make-shift tent camps and arranged food for the dislocated.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir government has banned the sale of the pesticide Ethephon, widely used in ripening fruits and regulating plant growth, citing harmful effects on human and plant health.

The state's horticulture department secretary MH Malik said the decision was taken after a recommendation by the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K) and the law enforcement directorate.

The horticulture department had requested the SKUAST-K to examine the issue and advise on the pesticide's effects.

"A detailed report received from SKUAST-K reveals that by use of such ripening agent, the quality of the crop gets deteriorated. Besides, such fruits cannot be stored for longer periods," Malik said.

Ethephon, if used continuously year after year, may render the tree unproductive and also reduce the life of the plant. Ethephon-treated fruits are not recommended for consumption immediately after the pesticide's application as it results in dehydration due to its diarrheal properties, Malik said.

He said the SKUAST-K report indicates the hazardous effects of the use of Ethylene (Ethephon) especially on the plant heath, fruit quality, shelf life and harmful effects on human health.
Bhopal: Three persons were found dead with their throats slashed in Katni district of Madhya Pradesh, while the head of one was missing, the police said on Tuesday suspecting the hand of either a tantric or a mentally unstable person.

Superintendent of Police Shashikant Shukla said that the crime took place on Monday night in Chapra village of Katni district.

The deceased have been identified as Pusia Bai, Jagdish Singh Rajput and Jalam Singh. Their belongings, however, were not looted. Those killed were not financially sound, according to the police.

The police are investigating the killings.
Mumbai: In a bone-chilling incident, a newly-wed lady was murdered by her husband and his parents and friend, four days after her marriage on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Different parts of Priyanka Sidhesh Gurav's dead body were found scattered across Mumbai last week.

Wrapped in a plastic bag and a bed sheet, Priyanka's head was found on Sunday in a forest on the Shahapur-Nashik Road in Thane.

Police have arrested five people in this regard - Priyankas husband, Siddhesh (25), his parents  Manohar Sitaram Gurav (50) and Madhuri (48); friends Durgesh Patwa (31) and Pradeep Jain (34).

The police had on Saturday revealed that the conspiracy to murder Priyanka was hatched before her marriage.

The Hindu quoted a police source as saying that Siddhesh's family wanted to get rid of the 23-year-old victim as she was pressurising their son to marry her.

The marriage on April 30 was fixed once the murder plan was hatched.

Priyanka had complained to the police about Sidheshs reluctance to marry her despite having a physical relationship with her. Madhuri often met Durgesh, an imitation jewellery maker, and complained about Priyanka mounting pressure on Sidhesh to marry her. Durgesh then planted the idea of eliminating Priyanka in their minds. They family agreed to pay Durgesh Rs 40,000 as advance and a total of Rs 1 lakh for severing and dumping Priyankas body, the daily quoted the source as saying.

Sidhesh and his parents choked Priyanka to death using a pillow when she was asleep on May 04. Durgesh then severed the victim's body into three parts and packed them in separate plastic bags. He then used a borrowed black Santro car to dump the torso in Mahape nullah, limbs on Shilphata Road and the head on Kalyan Road.

"We summoned her husband and parents-in-law. They claimed a missing person's complaint was lodged at Worli police station on May 6 as she did not return home after going for an interview on May 5.However, when they were grilled individually, their lies were nailed. Her mobile tower location showed it to be at their home on May 5 but the body was decomposed, indicating the murder happened earlier," The Times of India quoted senior inspector Jagdish Kulkarni of Navi Mumbai crime branch as saying.
Agartala: Ahead of the assembly elections, the banned militant outfit National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) is trying to regroup to create disturbances, a top state police official said here on Tuesday.

The NLFT recently appointed Subir Debbarma as its President replacing Biswamohan Debbarma, who been made advisor, a top police official said quoting an intelligence report.

The official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the NLFT, based in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh, is trying to regroup themselves to create troubles before the next year's assembly elections.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, addressing a public rally at Belonia in southern Tripura on Monday, also confirmed the change of leadership in the NLFT and warned of its resurgence.

"A section of political leaders belonging to opposition parties are trying to contact the new leader of NLFT to create violence ahead of the assembly elections. This clandestine plan is also to disture peace and on going development activities in the state," said Sarkar, who also holds the Home portfolio.

"The NLFT helped a tribal organisation to forcibly capture the politically important Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council in 2000 after creating terror," he said.

The police official said that NLFT's new supremo Subir Debbarma alias Yamorok, a resident of Bargachia area in Mohanpur sub-division in western Tripura, was a long-standing member of the outfit. Arrested during a counter insurgency operation in 2013, he got released on bail and went to Bangladesh before joining the terrorist group once again.

"Subir's wife Minati Tripura is a teacher by profession and engaged in a school at Khagrachari in the CHT. They have two children," the official said adding that despite change in leadership in NLFT, the banned outfit is unlikely to withdraw its demand of sovereign Tripura.

The border state has, since 2009, emerged as an island of peace in the otherwise violence-prone northeastern region of India.

In 2015 and 2016, according to official and unofficial records no incident of militancy took place in Tripura while in a decade ago in 2005, 115 terror violent incidents took place claiming 130 lives while at least 65 civilians were abducted.

In 1998, outlawed militant outfits gunned down at least 360 people and kidnapped 390 men in 340 terror incidents.
Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday expressed happiness over the opening of the prestigious National Film and Television Institute and Animation (NFTIA) here that began teaching courses on film making from Monday.

The sister branch of Kolkata`s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) began its classes from the temporary campus here with 25 students enrolled They are pursuing a ten-week course `Journey to Cinema`.

Khandu told SFRTI Director Debamitra Mitra, who called on the Chief Minister at his office to discuss the newly functional institute, that the ambience in Arunachal provides best shooting spots.

Mitra explained Khandu about the basic course involving cinematography, editing, sound designing and direction.

Khandu suggested the institute enroll as many students from Arunachal who are naturally gifted with creativity and felt that such institutes would catalyse promotion of talent in different aspects of film making.

To help youths who wants to explore the field of creativity such as film making, Khandu said the state government has come up with Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Swalamban Yojana to support funding for such projects.

Discussing the institute`s permanent campus proposed at Jote area in Papum Pare district, Khandu said the construction work would start before September.

He also ensured full support of the government for the fficient functioning of the temporary campus.

The Chief Minister assured support to the institute in obtaining affiliation from a UGC-recognised university for its degree courses and post-graduate diploma courses, which will be a value addition for the students.

Khandu said the film institute in Arunachal Pradesh was a very prestigious project for the state as it was announced in the Union Budget 2017 and assured all possible help from the state.
New Delhi: Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma on Monday posted an interesting picture on Instagram. In the image, the 29-year-old diva was spotted outside superstar Shah Rukh Khan's vanity van at Yash Raj Films' studio.

A few hours after uploading the photo, it went viral and social media users posted interesting comments. Even King Khan noticed the same. The 51-year-old actor then reposted the same image online but with a better caption.

"I am going to report her for stalking me!!!" SRK wrote.

A post shared by AnushkaSharma1588 (@anushkasharma) on May 15, 2017 at 1:51am PDT

Shah Rukh and Anushka are currently working together for filmmaker Imtiaz Ali's next. Earlier, they had shared the screen space in hit films like 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' and 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'. Both of the flicks were produced by YRF.
New Delhi: While the whole nation is going crazy over Telugu actor Prabhas' performance in filmmaker SS Rajamouli's 'Baahubali', Twinkle Khanna has chosen someone else as her favourite. No, it is not even hunk Rana Daggubati. Instead, she is calling Kattappa (Sathyaraj) her 'bae'.

"Kattappa is my bae - All right perhaps I am a bit obsessed- but try it- say Kattappa 3 times and you won't be able to stop- it's like eating wafers - addictive!" she posted on Instagram after watching both the films back-to-back on Sunday.

Twinkle has also been calling her daughter by the name of Kattappa. However, she felt that husband Akshay Kumar might not be happy with her choice of words for obvious reasons.

A post shared by Twinkle Khanna (@twinklerkhanna) on May 14, 2017 at 6:42am PDT

"Saw Baahubali & I've been calling my daughter Kattappa much to her dad's annoyance-Perhaps he would prefer her being called Rowdy instead," the 43-year-old star tweeted.

Saw Baahubali & I've been calling my daughter Kattappa much to her dad's annoyance-Perhaps he would prefer her being called Rowdy instead:)  Twinkle Khanna (@mrsfunnybones) May 14, 2017

The film which revolves around the battle between two warring brothers from a fictional ancient Indian kingdom, released in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam on April 28.
New Delhi: The gorgeous Kareena Kapoor Khan is on a weight losing spree and has often been spotted wearing her fitness wear and sweating it out. She practices yoga reportedly and has already shed some 12 kgs post delivering baby boy Taimur Ali Khan.

According to Pinkvilla.com, Kareena will soon be shedding some more kilos as she preps up for her part in Sonam Kapoor starrer 'Veeray Di Wedding'. The report quotes her yoga instructor Anshuka Parwani as talking about her regime. She said that Kareena is on 'flying fit' routine which includes 60 to 75 minutes of aerial twists, along with a high-intensity yoga and pilates workout, apart from the usual mix of Pranayam, meditation and Surya namaskars.

She told a leading daily, It's not about jumping but holding postures. Kareena can hold the position for up to two minutes which is an achievement. Her workout is tailor-made and we keep changing the routines. Post pregnancy, it's been a lot more about balancing out hormones and the endocrine system. She practices the 'Aerial Silk Yoga' which uses a low-hanging hammock to aid traditional postures by supporting your entire body weight mid-air."

She further said, "Kareena and I are always working towards achieving more aligned postures through relaxation and breathing. I usually travel with her so we don't miss a session and when I can't she does cardio."
Mumbai: Suniel Shetty says he was called "wooden" when he began acting but he went on to have a successful film career despite facing criticism.

The actor made his debut in 1992 with "Balwaan" worked in hits like "Dilwale", "Border" and "Hera Pheri".

"My first film released and the title (given to me) was 'wooden', 'lakda', 'can't act', 'he should go back to the restaurant business'. After 26 years, I am still here. The person who wrote it, (I) don't know where he is (now)," the actor told reporters here.

The actor says he considered everyday as a new learning experience and camera still makes him nervous.

"I face the camera every day as a student as there is a lot to learn. You become an actor when you put emphasis on smaller details.

The actor attended the launch of Tata Sky's initiative 'Acting Adda' with Ajay Devgn and the actor was full of praise for his "Dilwale" co-star.

"If you want to learn how to stay grounded despite success, you've to learn it from Ajay. He is one of the finest human beings and he is here because of our friendship."
New Delhi: Around 4.5 lakh Bihar government's employees and 3.5 lakh pensioners are likely to get 14 percent hike in salaries after implementation of Bihar state Pay Commission report.

The Bihar Pay Commission headed by former state Chief Secretary G S Kang on Monday submitted its report to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The state Pay Commission has recommended a 14 percent hike in salary for state government employees and pensioners on the lines of the 7th CPC recommendations for the central government employees and pensioners.

The state cabinet had on December 21, 2016 set up a three-member pay commission headed by Kang to decide the hike in salaries and allowances of government employees and pensioners.

The Commission was supposed to submit its report within three months, which was later extended by another two months, Kang said adding, it took time because more than 350 representations were made before the Commission by various groups, associations and individuals.
Mumbai: After the roaring success of SS Rajamoulis two-part magnum opus  Baahubali, Bollywood actresses have expressed their desire to work with Telugu superstar Prabhas. Recently, Alia had spoken about her wish to share screen space with the hunk.

Prabhas, who had invested over 5 years for the epic film, will be seen next in Saaho. And the makers of the film are busy finalising the leading lady for the film.

If the reports are anything to go by, then the makers wanted to cast a Bollywood actress opposite Prabhas to give their film a pan-India appeal.

According to a report in DNA, Shraddha Kapoor and Disha Patani were approached by the producers for the lead role but the ladies apparently quoted an exorbitant price.

Shraddha was our first choice. She heard us out and was almost jumping with excitement during the narration. Then, she quoted a price that had the team running out of her residence as fast as possible, DNA quoted an insider as saying.

The Ok Jaanu star reportedly asked for Rs 8 Crores as remuneration while Disha Patani demanded about Rs 5 Crores.

She (Disha) started her career in Telugu cinema. So we thought she would be keenly interested in the project, as it stars Prabhas, the source said.

But surprisingly, she was difficult to reach Disha wouldnt meet us. When she finally did, she said shed let us know. Later, her team members informed us that she liked the script, but would want Rs 5 crore as her fee. We want to know which Bollywood producer pays Disha that kind of money? asked the source.

Since the deal couldnt be finalised in Bollywood, the makers have now decided to cast a Telugu actress, the report suggests.
New Delhi: Retaliating against former Union Minister P Chidambaram's allegations of the Centre targeting him and his son Karti under the pretence of raids, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday, while defending the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said, 'nothing else can be expected from him'.

"Cannot expect anything else from Chidambaram. He is accountable for the property his son holds and will have to answer to the CBI and cooperate with their procedures," he told ANI.

With the CBI raiding the Chidambaram residence here today in connection with the FIPB approval in several cases, the senior Congress leader lashed out at the Centre, accusing it of using national agencies to target his son.

"FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said in a statement.

Asserting that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram added that the approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," the senior Congress leader added.

Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the national capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval.
Mumbai: A cyber security firm on Tuesday said it has detected over 48,000 ransomware attack attempts in the country, with West Bengal witnessing the most incidents.

Quick Heal Technologies has "detected over 48,000 MS-17- 010 Shadow Broker exploit hits responsible for 'WannaCry ransomware' outbreak in India", it said in a statement.

"Our observation is that the attack is not focused towards any particular industry but it is widely spread across industries especially those organisations which are online and connected," Quick Heal Technologies' managing director Sanjay Katkar said.

The Pune-based company said 60 per cent of the attempts by the malicious WannaCry ransomware were targeted at enterprises, while 40 per cent were on individual customers.

It said there have been over 700 distress calls by customers in the last few days, following the discovery of the attacks which has impacted 150 countries globally.

The top five cities impacted by the WannaCry ransomware are Kolkata followed by Delhi, Bhubaneshwar, Pune and Mumbai, while the top top five states with maximum detections are West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, NCR (Delhi), and Odisha, it said.

The company claimed it "successfully detected" the ransomware activity and "cleaned the malicious file responsible for file encryption from all the attacked systems".

It said computers running on the desktop and server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system are most impacted.

"Systems which did not apply a patch update for this vulnerability were affected by the WannaCry ransomware which uses wormlike behaviour to affect vulnerable systems on the network," it explained.

Indian computer systems have largely escaped a global ransomware attack as the government and companies installed security patches to gain an upper hand against the first wave of an unrivalled global cyber attack.

Over two lakh computers in at least 150 countries are said to have been infected, according to Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency. In India, only a few isolated incidents in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat were reported.
London/Washington: As the world struggles to identify the cybercriminals behind the global ransowmware attack that hit 150 countries over the weekend, Neel Mehta, an Indian-origin security researcher working with Google, has claimed on Twitter that the hackers may have links to North Korea.

According to Mehta`s discovery, the "Lazarus Group" that works on behalf of North Koreans may be behind the attack as the hacking group has, in the past, used the same coding and tools as were used in "WannaCrypt" -- the software used in the current hacking into the Microsoft operating software, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Mehta, a University of British Columbia graduate who earlier worked with IBM Internet Security Systems, posted "codes" on Twitter, potentially pointing at a connection between the "WannaCrypt" ransomware attacks and the malware attributed to the infamous "Lazarus Group", responsible for a series of devastating attacks against government organisations, media and financial institutions.

"Our researchers analysed this information, identified and confirmed clear code similarities between the malware sample highlighted by the Google researcher and the malware samples used by the `Lazarus Group` in 2015 attacks," Altaf Halde, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab (South Asia), told IANS.

"Neel Mehta`s discovery is the most significant clue to date regarding the origins of WannaCrypt," Kaspersky Lab added.

In 2014, Mehta uncovered the "Heartbleed" security bug that left millions of websites, online stores and social networks with a major security hole in place, exposing user information and financial information to hackers.

"Lazarus Group", that according to Mehta is based in China, was responsible for a major hack on Sony Pictures in 2014 and another on a Bangladeshi bank in 2016.

Kaspersky Lab, however, noted that a lot more information was needed about earlier versions of "WannaCrypt" before any firm conclusion could be reached.

"We believe it`s important that other researchers around the world investigate these similarities and attempt to discover more facts about the origin of `WannaCrypt`," the cyber security company added.

Though North Korea has never admitted any involvement in the Sony Pictures hack, security researchers and the US government are confident in the theory and neither can rule out the possibility of a false flag.

"Although this similarity alone doesn`t allow proof of a strong connection between the `WannaCrypt` ransomware and the `Lazarus Group`, it can potentially lead to new ones which would shed light on the `WannaCrypt` origin which to the moment remains a mystery," Halde noted.

There are possibilities that skilled hackers might have simply made the hack look like it had origins in North Korea by using similar techniques.

Kaspersky noted that false flags within "WannaCrypt" were "possible" but "improbable", as the shared code was removed from later versions.

There is another possibility that "Lazarus Group" may be working independently and without the instructions from North Korea, the report added.

Meanwhile, the White House said on Monday that less than $70,000 has been paid in the ransomware attack globally.

"We are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery," White House Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert said at a daily briefing.

Specially, no US federal systems are affected, he said.
The Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari, dedicated to Swami Vivekananda, was founded by Late Eknath Ranade, a social activist and a spiritual seeker. He was greatly inspired by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and was instrumental in establishing the Vivekananda Kendra and Rock Memorial in the southern most part of India.

Soon after entering the main compound of the Kendra, one comes across a newly built structure that pays tribute to Lord Rama and his valour. Built in white, the building also features a huge statue of Lord Hanuman that stands 27 feet tall.

Once you enter the one-storeyed structure you will be amazed to see a pictorial narration of the significant episodes from the Ramayana. The intricate detailing and the sheer magnificence portrayed on canvas and framed in ornamental teakwood frame will leave you in awe. Thus you can move back in time and experience the glory of Lord Rama's era.

In the first floor, you will come across a 12-feet tall statue of Bharat Mata made of pure brass. The spirit of patriotism and spiritualism run gracefully high here while her beauty and elegance will leave you spellbound.

Besides the Bharat Mata statue, the building is also adorned with a life-size brass idol of Padmanabhaswamy (Lord Vishnu resting in the Ananta Shayanam posture). Apart from this, there are paintings, carvings and sculptures of other deities including the ones dedicated to Vivekananda and Goddess Kanyakumari.

Within the compound of this building, you will find a captivating marble idol of Lord Shiva installed above a raised platform. His masculine persona and the stream of Ganga flowing through his matted locks will virtually take you to Kailash.

Photography is strictly prohibited inside the Ramayana Darshanam building and visitors are required to maintain silence to preserve the sanctity of this place. The exhibition is open for viewing from 9 AM to 1 PM and 5 PM to 8 PM.

So the next time you plan a trip down south, do not forget to visit Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari. The society also provides accommodation facilities. You can thus unleash the mystic in you by exploring the essence of spirituality.
New Delhi: Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor, an avid traveller, was on Monday announced as brand ambassador of online travel portal Yatra.com.

"I am an avid traveller myself and travel has played an important part in my films. So a partnership with a travel brand like Yatra was a natural fit for me. I am particularly excited to be part of this new journey and I am looking forward to a long and fulfilling 'Yatra' with the brand," Ranbir said in a statement.

Popularly known for portraying versatile and youthful roles on screen in films like Tamasha and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Ranbir has been chosen to endorse the platform as he is "technologically savvy, modern and has a passion for travelling".

On roping in the actor, Sharat Dhall, Chief Operating Officer (B2C), Yatra.com, said: "Ranbir's persona is in line with these qualities, and he also brings with him a sense of casual coolness that today's youth relates to."

The fact that Ranbir appeals to all age groups and demographics is also exciting for the brand officials, said Vikrant Mudaliar, Chief Marketing Officer, Yatra.com.
Kolkata: Expressing confidence in the "adequate" security arrangements in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, a senior Indian Navy officer has said that the authorities should focus on developing the archipelago as a commercial hub.



"We should look at developing Andaman and Nicobar commercially, specially (its capital) Port Blair as it is central to the islands. A lot of tourism related activities are happening already in the Andamans," Vice Admiral H.C.S. Bisht, chief of the Eastern Naval Command, said at a workshop on Monday.



The workshop on `India`s Maritime Connectivity: Importance of the Bay of Bengal` was organised by the Observer Research Foundation in the city.



"The security arrangement in the island is in place. We have strong Navy and Army base in the islands. Adequate amount of surveillance and patrolling is done in the adjoining Indian Ocean region (IOR) by the Indian Navy, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard forces."



"So, if Andaman and Nicobar is developed as a commercial hub in future, we would have the security arrangement to protect it," Bisht said.



To buttress his point, the Vice Admiral referred to Singapore.



He said the sovereign city-state, also an archipelago, has seen immense development as a commercial hub in Southeast Asia.



"The geographical location of the (Andaman and Nicobar) Islands provides it an excellent advantage. It can become a trans-shipment hub like Singapore in the future," Bisht said.



"Singapore is a major port, where major ships come because of its geographical location and from there on smaller ships are used to carry the cargo around the region. From that point of view, the Andaman and Nicobar provides a much better geographical advantage," he explained.
Mathura/Agra: Jewellers associations have voiced deep concern after two bullion traders were shot dead in Mathura by six persons who escaped with gold worth Rs 4 crore, and another jeweller was shot at in Agra and valuables worth Rs 8 lakh looted.



Two traders, brothers Vikas and Megh Agarwal - were gunned down by six armed persons who entered their shop Mayank Chain, in the Koylawali Gali, in the busy market area of Holi Gate on Monday night.



They opened fire and wounded four persons. The customers rushed out as other shopkeepers downed their shutters.



Megh, 30 and Vikas 38, were declared dead at the district hospital, while Mayank and Ashok were referred to Niyati Hospital.



Additional Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Singh told IANS on a phone that so far there has been no breakthrough in the twin murder case.



Mathura SSP Vinod Kumar Mishra said eight teams had been formed to crack the case and nab the culprits.



The SSP addressed a press conference seeking the cooperation of the public to control crime.



In the other case, half a dozen armed bandits barged into a jeweller`s shop in the busy Holi Gate area in Agra on Monday night.



Around 8 p.m., as Dwarika Jewellers was about to close, two unidentified persons entered and opened fire, injuring the owner, who was rushed to a private nursing home.



The CCTV cameras showed five persons on two mobikes. The shop owner Dinesh Agrawal is in a serious condition with a bullet injury on his thigh and another on his stomach, family members said. The armed bandits disappeared with a booty of around Rs 8 lakh in a bag, sources told the police.



IG Agra zone Ashok Jain Mutha also reached the site.



Forces from many police station areas were deployed for a combing operation late in the night. A forensic team also reached the site. Officials said the DGP Sulkhan Singh has called for a report.



Jewellers Associations in Mathura and Agra on Tuesday morning expressed deep concern and called for immediate arrest of the criminals. Jewellers, they said were becoming easy targets.
Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly witnessed uproar for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with the opposition raising the matter of the killing of two bullion traders in Mathura, and alleging that law and order had collapsed in the state under the Yogi Adityanath government.

Responding to the charges, the Chief Minister said there would be rule of law in the state and that ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power crime in the state had decreased.

Congress lawmakers protested against the Saharanpur incident in which a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian had allegedly led a mob to ransack the residence of the then SSP. The Congress staged a walk out of the House.

The first day of the session on Monday was marred by pandemonium as opposition benches joined ranks against the BJP government and disrupted the address of Governor Ram Naik to the joint session of the House.

This session is special for reasons other than being the maiden session of the 17th Assembly as it is for the first time that proceedings of the House are being telecast live on Doordarshan.

While the treasury benches have time and again said that the people were witnessing the unruly and unparliamentary behaviour of the opposition lawmakers, the latter say they will continue to raise pertinent issues facing the people.
Kolkata: Controversial cleric Maulana Nurur Rehman Barkati, the Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque, may be sacked from his post for making highly objectionable and inflammatory remarks against the country.

We condemn his (Barkatis) recent statements. Those remarks were highly objectionable. We have decided to remove him,Muhammad Shahid Alam, the co-trustee of Prince Ghulam Mohammed Shah Waqf Estate, was quoted as saying by News18.com.

Alam further informed that a letter is being drafted at the moment and Barkati will be served with a notice regarding his removal as Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque for his anti-national comments soon.

He also alleged that Barkatis supporters had forcibly taken the keys to the Imams office and are refusing to vacate the premises.

We have informed the Kolkata police and lodged a complaint against his supporters, Alam said.

The development comes in the backdrop of caustic comments made by Barkati against the Narendra Modi government and the Centre's ban of using red beacons for ministers, bureaucrats and dignitaries.



Barkati had rejected the Centres April 19 directive against the use of lal battis on non-emergency vehicles from May 1 and threatened to launch jihad if one tries to make the country a Hindu rashtra.

On May 12, Barkati had said he would take off the red beacon from his vehicle if the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues were ready to live without security guards. There have been at least three police complaints registered against him in West Bengal.

A leading Muslim cleric, Maulana Qari Fazlur Rahman, who leads the Id prayer on Red Road in Kolkata, has slammed Barkati saying, The damage has already been done. Whatever he said was wrong and I would like to warn him to not make such comments in the future.

Meanwhile, Bengal Imams Association and Welfare Trust had also condemned Barkatis statement.

Several Muslims scholars, Imams and Maulanas have come together and disapproved Barkati's anti-India comments.
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is due to meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the national capital on Tuesday.

While the main purpose of Trinamool chief's meeting with Congress president is the upcoming presidential elections, the two leaders are also likely to discuss the formation of an anti-BJP coalition to counter Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Congress chief has taken the lead to identify a candidate who is equally acceptable to all the opposition parties.

Sonia and her son Rahul had held deliberations with senior leaders of opposition parties to build consensus on a unanimously accepted candidate.

Last week, when she was hospitalised following complaints of food poisoning, the 70-year-old Congress chief had called Banerjee.

Since President Pranab Mukherjee's term will expire in July, Gandhi had already met Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and NCP chief Sharad Pawar over the issue.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has deliberated with the Left's Sitaram Yechury and Samajwadi leader Akhilesh Yadav.

Interestingly, in the garb of selecting an acceptable candidate, the Congress-led Opposition is also seen as moving to engineer a coalition of non-BJP parties for 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term.

But the coming together of Congress and TMC at the Centre is likely to create problems as Sonia Gandhi's party is in alliance with the Left in West Bengal and had unsuccessfully contested the last assembly elections against Mamata's party.

But the new political alignment is creating discomfort in Kolkata, where the Congress is an ally of the arch-enemy of the state's ruling Trinamool Congress, the Left Front. The two parties are trying to play down the impression that while they are shaking hands in Bengal, the Congress and the Trinamool seem to be drawing closer in Delhi.

West Bengal Congress unit chief Adhir Choudhury has reportedly written to Sonia Gandhi, warning that a discussion of anything but presidential polls with `Banerjee could injure the Congress in the state.
Kolkata: The West Bengal HS Result 2017, WBCHSE Class 12th Results, WBCHSE Class XII Exam Result 2017, WBCHSE Class 12th Results 2017 expected to be released on Tuesday.

The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) will declare WBCHSE 12th Class Result 2017, WB HS Exam Results 2017, WB 12th Exam Results 2017, WBCHSE 12th Board Results 2017, WBCHSE Board 12th Class Result, WB HS Result 2017, WBBSE 12th Results 2017.

Check official website wbresults.nic.in to access WBCHSE West Bengal Board class 12th Result 2017, West Bengal HS Result 2017

The WBCHSE Class 12 Exam were held from 15 March - 29 March.

How to check West Bengal Higher Secondary Result 2017:

1: Access the boards official website

2: Enter your details such as roll number and other required details in the respected fields.

3: Click on Submit

4: Your results will appear on the screen

West Bengal Board 12TH Result 2016 details:

- 7,79,453 students appeared for the examination.

- Total number of students passed 6,79,453.

- Total pass percentage  83.65 percent.

- Swagatam Halder topped with 99% marks.

About West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education

The Government of West Bengal has established the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, under West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, Act 1975. The council is the main body which looks after the education system in the 10+2. The council has its main office at Salt Lake, Bidhannagar, Korunamoyee, Kolkata along with 4 regional offices.

The Council is a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal, and is entitled to acquire, hold and dispose of property, to enter into contracts and to do all other things necessary for the purposes of this Act and shall by its name sue and be used. Its functions are executed through an Organisation Structure.

The Council consists of members like The President appointed by the State Govt.and other ex-oficio members like: The President of the Board of Secondary Education-Ex Officio, The Director of School Education-Ex-Officio, The Director of Technical Education-Ex-officio, The Director of Industries-Ex-officio, The Director of Agriculture-Ex-Officio, The Director of SCERT-Ex-officio etc.
Tokyo: Amid ongoing discussion about his abdication, Japan's Emperor Akihito has cancelled his engagements due to health problems for the second time in 2017, an Imperial Palace spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Akihito, 83, has been absent from his engagements since Monday afternoon due to symptoms of fever, a cold and cough, although he is getting better, the spokesperson told Efe news.

The Emperor was on Tuesday scheduled to receive soldiers being honoured by the government, but the event was attended by his son Crown Prince Naruhito instead.

Akihito also missed a meeting with a group of volunteers in charge of cleaning the palace, and was replaced by his wife Empress Michiko.

The Emperor previously cancelled several other commitments in late January due to a fever.

In August 2016, Akihito expressed the desire to abdicate the throne, citing his age and poor health.

A government panel has proposed to devise special legislation for the abdication, without amending the 1947 law which has no provision for a ruling Emperor to abdicate.

The Japanese monarch has been in ill health for several years.

In 2003, he was treated for prostate cancer, and in 2012, he underwent coronary bypass surgery.
Manila: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said he will not sign any peace agreement with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) unless the rebels stop their attacks.

Duterte's statement comes ahead of the fifth round of peace talks that will resume in the Netherlands on May 27, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the President, he as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces has to assure the safety of his soldiers.

"For me, for as long as they are killing government security forces, I will not sign anything. I cannot do anything. I have to protect my soldiers. I am the Commander-in-Chief," Duerte said.

He also reiterated his call on CPP founding chairman and peace talks panel consultant Jose Maria Sison to return to the country along with his offer to shoulder his hospital expenses.

"My offer to Sison stands. He can come here in peace. I will guarantee safety and I will even underwrite his hospitalization. I will not have him arrested. He is sick... We do not fight people who are helpless," he said.

Duterte scrapped the peace talks with the rebels in February this year after the leftist group continued its ambush attacks against military and police forces despite unilateral ceasefire declared by the government and CPP.

The CPP demanded the release of 400 rebels who it said were political prisoners. Duterte rejected the demand.

Peace negotiations between the government and the CPP will resume on May 27 to June 1 in Noordwijk, Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines Erik Forner said.

Forner did not elaborate on the agenda of the upcoming talks but Manila said both panels will discuss more on finalising the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms, the most contentious agenda in the talks, including land reforms and national industrialisation.

The armed conflict between the Philippine government and the communist movement's armed wing, the New People's Army, has lasted for almost 50 years.

The number of leftist guerrillas dwindled from 26,000 in the mid-1980s to less than 4,000 this year, according to the military.

Nevertheless, Duterte has expressed confidence that he could make the rebels agree to a peace agreement during his term, which ends in June 2022.
Seoul: North Korea`s latest missile launch represents a significant step forward in its weapons capabilities, analysts say, but Pyongyang could be looking to secure a position of strength before a return to the negotiating table.



The intermediate-range missile fired by the North at the weekend, named the Hwasong-12, was its longest-range rocket yet, analysts say.



It was its 10th launch this year, after dozens in 2016, as it accelerates efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won`t happen".



Leader "Kim Jong-Un has stepped up testing compared to his father and grandfather, and it is starting to pay off," Melissa Hanham of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California told AFP. "This is a clear indication of progress."



Pyongyang has long had missiles that can reach targets across the South -- the 500 kilometre Scud -- and Japan, the 1,000-1,300 kilometre Rodong.



But with an imputed range of 4,500 kilometres the Hwasong-12 puts US bases on the Pacific island of Guam within reach.



More significantly, the new missile could be a stepping stone to a properly working ICBM -- which would fundamentally change assessments of the threat posed by Pyongyang.



"This is not that missile but it might be a testbed, demonstrating technologies and systems to be used in future ICBMs," wrote aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling, adding that it could represent the first two stages of such a device.



Pyongyang "may be closer to an operational ICBM than had been previously estimated", he said on the respected 38 North website.



A functional ICBM would need a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on to a missile.



The North`s official Korean Central News Agency claimed the latest test had proved its guidance and re-entry technologies, and said the rocket was "capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead".



It was "plausible that they have made a compact warhead after five nuclear tests", Hanham told AFP, but KCNA`s phrasing was "interesting but vague".



"It`s really hard to take their claims seriously without verification from other governments," she added.The launch came just four days after the inauguration of South Korea`s new left-leaning President Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation and dialogue with Pyongyang to curb its nuclear ambitions.



Moon was part of the South`s last liberal government nearly a decade ago, which pursued a "Sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, and declared at his swearing-in that he would go to Pyongyang "in the right circumstances".



Instead, said Koo Kab-Woo of Seoul`s University of North Korean Studies, he had been posed "an extremely difficult question" by the launch.



"Under the current circumstances, it`s very hard" to hold any talks with the North, Koo said.



But the timing of the launch so close to Moon`s installation was largely coincidental, he said. "They are just going their way consistently towards the goal of attaining nuclear deterrence capability."



Moon slammed the launch as a "reckless provocation" saying that dialogue would be possible "only if Pyongyang changes its behaviour".



The North "strongly wants to talk with Washington", Koo said, as expressed by a senior North Korean official following a meeting with former US officials in Oslo, Norway.



That remark came just two weeks after President Donald Trump said he would be "honoured" to meet Kim, after their tit-for-tat sabre-rattling raised tensions in the region.



Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to defend against the threat of invasion by the US, and shows no indication of any willingness to give them up, whatever concessions are offered.



The North`s young leader is more focused on presenting Pyongyang to Washington and Beijing as their equals, equipped with weapons as devastating as their own, said Choi Kang of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.



"The bigger you are, the bigger the advantage you will have over negotiations. Otherwise, you will be looked down on," he told AFP.



"In the Kim Jong-Il era, North Korea launched missiles to get Washington`s attention," he said. "But now it`s different."
Islamabad: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has dismissed reports about its crew members being detained at the Heathrow Airport, saying they had finished their duty hours after flying from Islamabad to London and stayed back in the country.

Geo News quoted a spokesperson for the national flag carrier as saying that the crew members, including the pilot who the British authorities claimed to have detained at the airport, were never scheduled to fly on PK-758 from London to Lahore in the first place.

He informed that flight PK-758 landed in Lahore earlier today accompanied with a new crew.

The spokesperson further said the crew members also had their passports with them.

The PIA management in London was trying to find out reasons behind the searching of the plane and reports of detention.

Earlier reports said that 14 crew members of a PIA flight were detained at London's Heathrow Airport on Monday night and later let off after the aircraft was thoroughly searched for over two hours post-landing.

The Dawn and the Express Tribune newspapers quoted PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar, as saying that Flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London arrived at Heathrow Airport at 2.50 p.m. on Monday, and after passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by authorities.

It is yet not known why the crew was detained.

Tajwar said nothing was found on the plane, adding that the PIA plans to take up the case with the British aviation authorities.
London/Washington: As the world struggles to identify the cybercriminals behind the global ransowmware attack that hit 150 countries over the weekend, Neel Mehta, an Indian-origin security researcher working with Google, has claimed on Twitter that the hackers may have links to North Korea.



According to Mehta`s discovery, the "Lazarus Group" that works on behalf of North Koreans may be behind the attack as the hacking group has, in the past, used the same coding and tools as were used in "WannaCrypt" -- the software used in the current hacking into the Microsoft operating software, the BBC reported on Tuesday.



Mehta, a University of British Columbia graduate who earlier worked with IBM Internet Security Systems, posted "codes" on Twitter, potentially pointing at a connection between the "WannaCrypt" ransomware attacks and the malware attributed to the infamous "Lazarus Group", responsible for a series of devastating attacks against government organisations, media and financial institutions.



"Our researchers analysed this information, identified and confirmed clear code similarities between the malware sample highlighted by the Google researcher and the malware samples used by the `Lazarus Group` in 2015 attacks," Altaf Halde, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab (South Asia), told IANS.



"Neel Mehta`s discovery is the most significant clue to date regarding the origins of WannaCrypt," Kaspersky Lab added.



In 2014, Mehta uncovered the "Heartbleed" security bug that left millions of websites, online stores and social networks with a major security hole in place, exposing user information and financial information to hackers.



"Lazarus Group", that according to Mehta is based in China, was responsible for a major hack on Sony Pictures in 2014 and another on a Bangladeshi bank in 2016.



Kaspersky Lab, however, noted that a lot more information was needed about earlier versions of "WannaCrypt" before any firm conclusion could be reached.



"We believe it`s important that other researchers around the world investigate these similarities and attempt to discover more facts about the origin of `WannaCrypt`," the cyber security company added.



Though North Korea has never admitted any involvement in the Sony Pictures hack, security researchers and the US government are confident in the theory and neither can rule out the possibility of a false flag.





"Although this similarity alone doesn`t allow proof of a strong connection between the `WannaCrypt` ransomware and the `Lazarus Group`, it can potentially lead to new ones which would shed light on the `WannaCrypt` origin which to the moment remains a mystery," Halde noted.



There are possibilities that skilled hackers might have simply made the hack look like it had origins in North Korea by using similar techniques.



Kaspersky noted that false flags within "WannaCrypt" were "possible" but "improbable", as the shared code was removed from later versions.



There is another possibility that "Lazarus Group" may be working independently and without the instructions from North Korea, the report added.



Meanwhile, the White House said on Monday that less than $70,000 has been paid in the ransomware attack globally.



"We are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery," White House Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert said at a daily briefing.



Specially, no US federal systems are affected, he said.
Washington: Top US lawmakers, including those from the ruling Republican party, today expressed worry over a report that US President Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials and sought an explanation from the government.

Though National Security Advisor HR McMaster described the story as false, several lawmakers termed it "dangerous" and demanded a probe into Trump's relationship with the Russian government.

"I want to know more about it. Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening, Republican Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of powerful Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

"The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes ? it creates a worrisome environment, Corker said after The Washington Post in an explosive news report alleged that Trump shared classified information about the fight against ISIS with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when the latter met him at the White House last week.

National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster described the story as false, saying security of the American people is top priority for Trump.

"And I was in the room. It didn't happen," McMaster said as Democratic lawmakers and Trump's political opponents refused to believe in.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said if the report is true it is very disturbing.

"Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country, Schumer said.

The president owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation, he said.

Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi in a statement, said. The information President Trump allegedly handed to Vladimir Putin's regime last week is so highly- classified that our government does not share it with our own allies. In his meeting in the Oval Office, the president reportedly exposed a key intelligence source because he felt like bragging to representatives of a hostile power.

As a member of the Oversight Committee, I can honestly say there is no excuse left to not create an independent commission to perform a full-scale investigation of the Russian government's interference in our democracy and the potential complicity of members of both the Trump presidential campaign and President Trump's administration, he said.

Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called for an independent investigations into Trump's relationship with the Russian Government.

"This should concern us all. With each action, Donald Trump puts us all at risk -- and further strengthens the argument for his administration's possible ties to the Russians. This news, paired with the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, should be cause for deep concern, she said.

Congressman John Delaney said the report, if true, is one of the most "shocking and distressing" news stories.

"If this report is true, President Trump has undermined our fight against terrorism. Revealing highly-classified information to an adversary like Russia is either pure incompetence or an attempt to place Russia above our allies and key partners either way the implications are amazingly worrying,? Delaney said.

Speaker Paul Ryan expects full explanation about it from the Trump administration, said his spokesman.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount. The Speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration, his spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement.

"Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians, Senator Mark R Warner, Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said in a tweet.

According to Politico, the news has brought in chaos in the White House.

"It never stops," one White House official said via text message last night to Politico.

"Basically chaos at all times," the official said.
Geneva: A new round of Syria peace talks opens on Tuesday, the latest United Nations push to resolve a six-year conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people.

Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations have failed to yield concrete results and hopes for a major breakthrough remain dim.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has strengthened his position on the ground, with the rebels reeling from a major setback in the capital Damascus.

Assad has also recently called the Geneva process "null", telling Belarus`s ONT channel that it had become "merely a meeting for the media".

The Syrian leader has however given more credit to a separate diplomatic track in Kazakhstan`s capital Astana, which is being led by his allies Russia and Iran along with opposition supporter Turkey.

The Astana track produced a May 4 deal to create four "de-escalation" zones across some of Syria`s bloodiest battlegrounds.

The UN`s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has dismissed suggestions that the Astana negotiations were overshadowing the Geneva track.

"We`re working in tandem" he told reporters on Monday.

The UN negotiations are focused on four separate "baskets": governance, a new constitution, elections and combating "terrorism" in the war-ravaged country.

With Assad`s negotiators and the main opposition High Negotiations Committee expected to be in the Swiss city until the weekend, de Mistura said he wanted to drill down on several issues in hopes of generating solid proposals.

But one issue -- Assad`s fate -- remains a daunting roadblock.

The HNC has insisted the president`s ouster must be part of any political transition, a demand unacceptable to the Syrian regime.

Aron Lund, a fellow at The Century Foundation, said the Geneva talks were revolving around the "dead end" issue of Assad and were not "moving forward in any visible way."

De Mistura, who has lasted as Syria envoy far longer than his two predecessors, has consistently tried to resist pessimism.

The alternative to peace talks is "no discussion (and) no hope", he said.

The Syrian regime delegation is being headed as usual by UN ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari and the HNC will be led again by Nasr al-Hariri and Mohammad Sabra.

The opposition position has weakened since the last round ended on March 31 after the government secured the evacuation of three rebel-held districts, bringing it closer to exerting full control over the capital for the first time since 2012.

Another shifting force influencing the talks is the role of the United States, an erstwhile opposition supporter that largely withdrew from the process under President Donald Trump.

De Mistura said Monday he was "encouraged by the increasing engagement, the increasing interest, by the US administration in finding a de-escalation".

However, Washington late Monday warned Russia to not turn a blind eye to Assad`s crimes, with the State Department releasing satellite images that it said backed up reports of mass killings at a Syrian jail.
Washington: Donald Trump has been accused of sharing "highly classified" information with the Russian foreign minister and the country's ambassador here during a White House meeting last week, but the defiant US president asserted today that he has an "absolute right" to do so.

Trump had revealed highly classified details to minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the meeting, The Washington Post reported, citing current and former US officials, who said the president's disclosures jeopardised a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

"The information the president relayed had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government," the report said.

Though the US president is allowed to declassify and share classified information at any moment, the issue has sparked a huge uproar over whether Trump compromised national security by disclosing the details to Russia, long considered a hostile country to the US.

The report alleges that Trump shared information about laptops on planes, which was given to the US by an ally who did not give consent for it to be shared with Russia.

Reacting to the allegations, Trump tweeted, "As president I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled White House meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining...To terrorism and airline flight safety."

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism," he said.

In another tweet, Trump warned those who were "leaking" information. "I have been asking director Comey and others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the leakers in the intelligence community," Trump said.

Comey, who was leading a probe into possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia, was fired as FBI director a day before last week's White House meeting.

During a media interaction with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, Trump continued to appear defiant in the face of criticism over the meeting with Russian officials.

"We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia. Our fight is against ISIS," Trump said.

"So we're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible and that's one of the beautiful things that's happening with Turkey," he said.

"The relationship that we have together (US and Turkey), we'll be unbeatable," Trump said, side-stepping questions over the meeting with Russian officials.

Earlier at a White House briefing, his National Security Adviser H R McMaster defended Trump saying, "Conversation with Russian foreign minister was wholly appropriate with our national security. No compromise with national security."

"The president was meeting with a foreign minister on terrorist threat. It was wholly appropriate to share the information as a basis for common action against terrorist.

"The president in no way compromised sources and method of national security. National Security is at risk by leaks like this," said McMaster, who was present at the meeting with Russian officials at the White House.

From the very beginning of the Trump presidency, his administration has been hit by a series of leaks. Trump and his team allege that this was being done at the behest of those who are still loyal to the previous Obama government.

The Post has stood by its report, saying the president acknowledges that "facts" were shared with Russian envoys.

"Trump's tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late Monday, that he had shared sensitive, 'code-word' information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week, a disclosure that intelligence officials warned could jeopardise a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State," the daily said.

The allegations were earlier refuted by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and also by McMaster, who said that there was no discussion of specific threats with the Russians.

Tillerson said: "During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations."

McMaster has previously said Trump and Lavrov "reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation." "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."

He described the story as false to reporters.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen," McMaster said.

The report, quoting an unnamed US official, said, "This (the information shared) is code-word information." Code-word information is a terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies, the daily reported.

Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," the newspaper said, adding that following this, US officials have gone into damage-control mode.

According to the daily, the sensitive, classified information was given to the US by one of its allies, which had not given it permission to share it with the Russians.

The Trump administration has also vehemently denied the allegations. "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," said Dina Powell, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy, who also attended the meeting.

But Opposition Democratic party and several lawmakers from Trump's own Republican party expressed concern over the episode. The Democratic party and its leadership called for appointment of a special prosecutor to probe for links between Trump, his team and the Russians.

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that if the news reports are true, Trump has "compromised a key source of intelligence collection" against the Islamic State and jeopardised the security of the American people.

"Even if President Trump unwittingly blew a highly classified code-word source to the Russians, that would be dangerous enough.

"If the president outed a highly classified code-word source intentionally, that would be even more dangerous," Pelosi said.

She demanded that Congress must be given a full briefing on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.
London: The aviation officials in the UK have briefly detained all 14 crew members of a Pakistan International Airline flight here following security concerns, a media report said on Tuesday.

The 14 detained crew members of a PIA flight let off after the aircraft was thoroughly searched for over two hours post-landing, the TOI reported.

Citing Pakistani media reports, TOI reported that after the passengers disembarked from flight PK-785, the crew and the aircraft were searched.

The aircraft had arrived in London's Heathrow Airport at 2.50 p.m from Islamabad on Monday.

It is not immediately known why the crew was detained but nothing was found on the plane.

The Pakistani now plans to take up the case with the British aviation authorities, the report said.

Citing Pakistani media, the report further said that crew was detained over 'alleged security threats via confidential information' and their passports were also withheld.
YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan Mayor Taron Maryan has issued a statement following the victory in Yerevan City Council elections. As Armenpress was informed from the election office of Taron Margaryan said in his message,

Dear co-citizens,

Honorable residents of Yerevan,

Yerevan City Council elections are over, and today I express my gratitude to you for participating in the elections.

I am thankful for that you reaffirmed by your vote that the continuity of Yerevans development has no alternative, which is both a great honor and responsibility to continue working day and night during the coming 5 years and to bring into life all the projects we have introduced to you for the sake of Yerevan and its citizens.

I am also thankful to all the members of electoral commissions, all the observers, all the bodies that ensured the lawful and natural process of the election, as well as all the journalists and news outlets that covered the election campaign and the election, Taron Margaryan said, specially thanking those citizens who voted in favor of his team, adding that during the coming 5 years they will continue the implementation of the programs that had been launched years ago.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The diplomatic relations between Armenia and Poland have always been on the high level and currently remain on the same level, Armenias Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Poland Edgar Ghazaryan said in an interview with Armenpress talking about the 25th anniversary of the Armenian-Polish diplomatic relations.

-Mr. Ghazaryan, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Armenian-Polish diplomatic relations. How would you assess the current level of the Armenian-Polish relations?

-The diplomatic relations between Armenia and Poland have always been on the high level and currently they remain so. They have always been and are in friendly nature based on mutual trust and respect. Poland is among the first states that recognized the independence of Armenia by establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Over the past 25 years Armenia and Poland signed numerous inter-state and inter-agency agreements that created sufficient legal framework for the citizens and businessmen of the two states aimed at carrying out active mutual partnership and developing the cooperation. The history of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Poland is also rich of a number of high level mutual visits, the last one of which was in 2013 when President Serzh Sargsyans delegation arrived in Poland on an official visit.

-What are the recent achievements of the Armenian-Polish diplomatic relations?

-The most important achievement of the diplomatic relations between Armenia and Poland is the constant dynamic development of our friendly relations. It is important to mention that Poland is one of the countries that officially recognized and condemned the Armenian Genocide [Sejm (lower house of the parliament) of Poland adopted a special resolution on the Genocide on April 19, 2005]. Poland has always showed balanced approach on the Artsakh issue by always assisting the peaceful settlement of the conflict in the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs format. We are actively cooperating with Poland not only in bilateral relations, but also within the frames of international organizations. This year Armenia supported Polands candidacy for non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Poland is one of the initiator countries of the EUs Eastern Partnership Program, thus, our mutual partnership has always been active on the sidelines of the EU.

-Poland remains one of the key partners of Armenia. What prospects on expanding the economic partnership between the two countries do you see?

-Poland is really an important country for us not only in terms of political cooperation, but also of development of trade-economic ties. It is worth mentioning that Poland is one of the EU countries having major economy, with diversified economic structure and positive trends of stable economic development. Even during the global financial crisis, Poland managed to avoid the economic decline, and in recent years Polands economy with its growing trends is one of the leaders in the European Union. This factor is very important for us to intensify our commercial ties with Poland. The Polish market of 40 million in its turn must be attractive for Armenian producers aimed at exporting the Armenian products to Poland, and then to other European countries. In recent years the Presidents attach great importance to the development of trade-economic ties, therefore, our efforts are aimed at expanding those ties. In its turn Armenia as well presents a new attractiveness for the Polish investors and businessmen since Armenias membership to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the establishment of free economic zone on the border with Iran, the existence of free trade with Georgia and other countries, with the EU, GSP+ trade regime provide new opportunities for the European businessmen to develop their businesses towards the East via Armenia. Currently we carry out active works on this path within the frames of Armenian-Polish inter-governmental commission on trade-economic cooperation which holds yearly sessions both in Poland and in Armenia, by setting concrete directions for cooperation. In recent years the Armenian companies are taking part in various expos in Poland by presenting their production types and services.

-What is the volume of trade turnover and whether the existing figures are sufficient enough?

-The annual trade turnover between Armenia and Poland amounts nearly 40 million USD, which, of course, is not satisfactory figure in a sense that in our opinion it doesnt correspond with the existing potential. However, there is one important factor in terms of trade turnover that it always has a growing trend. In particular, in 2016 compared to 2015 these volumes increased over 23%, moreover, growth has been registered in both export and import. It is worth mentioning that compared to the CIS states, Poland recorded a growth in external trade volumes only in relations with Armenia. This positive dynamics inspires hope to make new efforts to develop them.

-What are the opportunities in terms of developing the tourism between Armenia and Poland? Are there concrete directions? What in Armenia can be attractive for the Polish tourists and vice versa?

-The development of tourism is one of our priorities. It has two key components: the first one is, of course, the economic component, and the second, is the recognition component. After visiting Armenia people have more complete and objective information about our country, by becoming Armenias friends in the whole world. Armenia presents great attractiveness for Polish tourists. The religious tourism is especially important and valuable. The Polish people, being a deeply religious Christian people, show great respect towards the millennium-old Christian history, culture and heritage of the Armenian people. Thus, people want to visit Armenia, to get acquainted with our old history and traditions. In this sense the organization of regular flights from Warsaw to Yerevan plays an important role which is operated by the Polish LOT airlines. There are numerous cases when Polish tourists prefer regional travel, by visiting both Armenia and Georgia during one visit. We believe that the entry of new budgetary airlines to the Armenian aviation market can boost tourism development from Poland to Armenia, and vice versa, since Poland also is a very interesting country which deserves the attention of Armenian tourists.

-Are high-level mutual visits planned for this year?

-We are working with our Polish partners on organizing high-level mutual visits. Both sides show great interest, however, no exact dates are set. We hope such visits will be held in near future which will significantly boost and give a new impetus to the development of our relations.

-Mr. Ambassador, what is the Embassys agenda for 2017? Mainly in what direction does the Embassy carry out active works?

-The agenda of the Armenian Embassy in Poland derives from Armenias foreign policy priorities and all issues that the President of Armenia, the Government and the Foreign Ministry task to us. The development of political, commercial, educational, scientific, cultural, military-technical bilateral cooperation is on our agenda. We need to take huge steps to more thoroughly present our perfect country, its history, current opportunities and advantages. We also attach importance to the right presentation of the unique history of the Armenian community of Poland to our Polish friends.

Among the priorities of our activity are the development of commercial ties, the creation of opportunities to export Armenian products to Poland, the promotion of investments by Polish businessmen in Armenia, as well as the development of tourism.

We attach special importance to the development of parliamentary diplomacy, and wonderful preconditions exist for that. The Poland-Armenia friendship group operates in the Polish parliament. Such friendship group also exists in Armenias parliament. I am confident such group will be formed in the new parliament of Armenia as well. A number of our parliamentary delegations frequently visited Poland in the last two years, they established cooperation with Polish partners in various inter-parliamentary assemblies.

Interview by Anna Gziryan
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Germanys Federal Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel is strictly concerned that Turkey banned the Bundestag lawmakers to visit the Incirlik air base, Deutsche Welle reports.

The German FM hopes Turkey will refuse from wrong decision. Sigmar Gabriel said if this decision remains as final, then they will think about removing the German troops from Turkey. He expressed hope Turkey will change its stance and will allow the lawmakers to visit the air base.

Currently 260 German soldiers are stationed in the Incirclik air base within the frames of fight against the Islamic State terrorist group.

On May 15 the Turkish government again banned the German Bundestag Defense Committee members to visit the German soldiers stationed in Incirlik air base. The German Foreign Ministry told Committee Chairman Wolfgang Hellmich that the Turkish government announced on May 10 the rejection of the request to visit the German soldiers in Incirlik air base. One reason given for the denial of access was Germany's granting asylum to a number of Turkish officers who faced persecution following the failed coup in Turkey on July 15 last year.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Arsen Poghosyan, deputy chief of the general department of civil aviation of Armenia, held a meeting on May 16 with Eamonn Brennan, Chief Executive of the Irish Aviation Authority, and his delegation.

Several issues of cooperation in air transportation sector between Armenia and Ireland were discussed, including the possibility of establishing direct flights, which will positively impact the development of cooperation between the two countries.

The sides also touched upon the works and upcoming election in the Eurocontrol international organization.

At the end of the meeting, the Irish delegation toured the Armaeronavigation CJSC and the Zvartnots international airport.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. There is nothing unusual in Azerbaijans aggression. Azerbaijan is usually making criminal actions, and this time it took such steps again, David Babayan, spokesman of Artsakhs President told ARMENPRESS.

Fortunately no one was hurt, also we didnt lose important military hardware. Azerbaijans action is not only a display of aggression against Artsakh, but also against the entire civilized world. Azerbaijan is behaving in similar aggressive conduct against the international community. For example the closure of the OSCE office. The international community must respond with relevant steps, and not organize events of Pan-European significance in Baku. Numerous international organizations have lost their immune system by tasting the Azerbaijani caviar. Thats why this situation exists, Babayan said.

Babayan links the Azerbaijani activeness with serious economic problems in the country. Manifestations of financial crisis exist in Azerbaijan. They deliver a blow to the interests of numerous people, a difficult social situation is being created in the country. What must be done? Of course, the clan doesnt want to lose the billions which it has stolen daily, therefore, in order to distract the Azerbaijani population from social problems, it must take terrorist actions. In addition, the factor of close cooperation with Turkey exists, according to Babayan Turkey also urges Azerbaijan to take such actions.

Babayan emphasized that Artsakh is doing its best to suppress the aggressor. This kind of terror acts do not chance the military-political balance in the region, Artsakhs Defense Army remains in control of the strategic proactiveness.

Azerbaijani forces made over 55 ceasefire breaches in the Artsakh line of contact on May 15 and overnight May 16, firing more than 1200 shots from various caliber firearms at Artsakhs military

Azerbaijani troops also fires 60mm mortars (3 shells) and anti-tank grenade launchers (9 shells) in various parts of the line of contact.

In the eastern direction, Azerbaijan fired a SPIKE anti-tank guided missile, partially damaging a military hardware.

The defense ministry of Artsakh told ARMENPRESS the Defense Army took countermeasures to suppress the Azerbaijani aggression.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. There are no Armenian citizens in Yemen where the cholera disease broke out, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan said on Twitter.

According to the information clarified by Armenias Embassy in Egypt, there are no Armenian citizens in Yemen, he writes.

Yeman declared a state of emergency over cholera crisis. The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) announced that 115 people were killed in cholera outbreak within two weeks, more than 8000 people are considered contagious. The capital Sana and nearest regions appeared in the disaster zone where 8 million people live. The Yemen authorities asked for aid from international healthcare organizations aimed at overcoming the crisis.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Mayor of Artashat Argam Abrahamyan, the son of former prime minister Hovik Abrahamyan, has resigned.

In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Abrahamyan mentioned that he worked with great devotion and responsibility, not sparing efforts to realize his promises to Artashats citizens and improving the town.

I wont argue that Ive implemented all my desires and dreams for our city, but a lot has been done with the joints efforts of myself and Artashats citizens. I am stepping down from this highly responsible post, for assuming a more difficult responsibility as a Member of Parliament for serving my city, my province and my country, the former Mayor namely said in the statement.

Argam Abrahamyan was elected to the Parliament under the regional list of Tsarukyan bloc.

34,415 citizens had cast their ballots for Argam Abrahamyan in the Ararat province
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what so called "Democracy" does exists.
A comic book should not be chosen because it will make education easier for a student, but because it will make it harder, as it forces him to think and argue about both the word and the picture. Neither should a comic book be chosen as a way to depart from the classic texts of Western civilization, but rather as a way to integrate the study of those texts with Western civilization's classic images.

Many English departments are now beginning to offer courses on graphic novels, which integrate text and visual imagery. Graphic novels are increasingly studied alongside traditional literature, in some cases supplanting more standard text-based curricula.For example, one course at UNC Chapel Hill titled "The Visual and Graphic Narrative" can be taken to satisfy the literary appreciation part of a student's general education requirements. (Students are only required to take one literary appreciation class.) The university also offers a course titled "Comics as Literature" as a first-year seminar Given these courses' rising popularity among students, administrators and instructors may view them in terms of their ability to renew student interest in the humanities. But while graphic novels do have artistic merit, and are of aesthetic interest, the rise of undergraduate courses on graphic novels is problematic.One reason is that the majority of graphic novels tend to advance political agendas. The graphic novels found on course syllabi and on reading lists often deal with controversial political issues such as social justice, immigration, gay rights, etc. This is part of a larger trend in the humanities, where focus often is on oppression and identity politics.For example, Ursinus College assigns the widely acclaimed and controversial Fun Home by Allison Bechdel in undergraduate literature courses. Bechdel's graphic novel is written as memoir, and discusses her experiences growing up in a dysfunctional family. The reader follows Bechdel as she learns about her father's homosexuality and her lesbianism.Another graphic novel, Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario, is a popular choice on university reading lists. It is about a boy who, in search of his mother, illegally immigrates to America.Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with reading about these topics or with discussing them. But what is particularly concerning about assigning these politically charged books is that it seems to be part of a larger push to rid the university of its traditional focus, and to push a social justice agenda.For example, last semester North Carolina State University English professor Maggie Simon gave a talk titled "Comics and Graphic Novels-The New Literature." In her talk, Simon praised graphic novels like Fun Home for their accessibility to "diverse communities of readers." She explained thatThat view of graphic novels is seen in the general education classes that undergraduates can take. For instance, the previously mentioned "Comics as Literature" class offered at UNC Chapel Hill describesIn addition to the fact that graphic novels often are used to further a political agenda, it seems that they don't possess the same merit as traditional literature. Given students' limited time in college, it is pressing that they be presented with more intellectually demanding readings. This is especially true when a student's general education course may be the only exposure to literature that he or she receives during college.Part of the problem with substituting graphic novels for text-based books lies in the medium itself. Grappling with a text to understand its meaning is a more intellectually demanding task, and requires a greater use of one's reasoning skills.As Neil Postman argues in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death,Even though there are many ways to learn, Postman suggests that the written word is most effective in training students to think about complex ideas.His primary argument in favor of the written word is that "[reading is] essentially a rational activity" and thus is most conducive to developing strong and coherent reasoning skills. It is difficult to believe that reading a graphic novel could do the same in this regard as having to digest, say, The Iliad.This is because reading requires a unique interplay of intellect and imagination. In a recent Martin Center interview, Ashley Thorne of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) argued that readingTexts without pictures require students to exercise abstract reasoning in comprehending the meaning of the text, leaving the accompanying visualizations to their own imagination. The images found in graphic novels, on the other hand, remove much of the need for students to exercise their intellects in order to process the main ideas.Of course, there is no doubt that, in some sense, graphic novels and literature are equally capable of inviting the reader to contemplate complex ideas. But the portrayal of content is only part of a work's literary value.For example, a book, a movie, and a graphic novel can all tell the same story. Maus , for instance, is a graphic novel about a Jewish man's experience as a holocaust survivor. In the story, the Jews are portrayed as mice and the Nazis are portrayed as cats. Admittedly, this vivid and captivating interplay between images and narrative text can be quite engaging and informative.But the same could be said about films. The film Life is Beautiful portrays the story of the holocaust just as accurately and vividly as Maus does. But that does not mean that one medium has the same value as the other, or could supplant the other. It certainly does not imply that we might replace literature classes with film-watching classes.Students, therefore, should not be led to believe that graphic novels are just as valuable as books from the literary canon. Reading a graphic novel like Fun Home is not a fitting replacement for Sense and Sensibility or Hamlet.Nevertheless, graphic novels continue to be popular choices on campus. They have made their way onto many universities' summer reading lists. The National Association of Scholars provides an annual report on the books that appear on these lists. The report mentions thatWhile graphic novels are not capable of the same literary complexity as written books, this does not mean that they do not have their own aesthetic value. Although they should not constitute the entirety of a student's exposure to literature in college, their artistic qualities are worthy of being studied, even in a university setting.Perhaps instead of being used to fulfill general education requirements, it would be more reasonable that graphic novels be studied in upper division elective courses. In other words, such courses should build upon the student's already firm foundation in classic books from the literary canon. This argument was made recently by David Randall in his article "Comic Books in a Liberal Education":Graphic novels should not substitute written texts in satisfying students' literary arts requirements, especially when the motive behind the assignments is often political in nature. Universities should instead present students with works of literature that will truly challenge their minds and strengthen their ability to reason. Graphic novels can complement, but cannot replace, the canon in fulfilling this role.
Roberts' order suggests it wasn't clear who would defend the state in lawsuit since McCrory was no longer governor

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down the Republican-led General Assembly's laws requiring voter identification at the polls, altering early voting, and abolishing same-day voter registration. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wasted no time hailing the decision and using it as a fundraising tool.Greg Wallace, a constitutional law professor at Campbell Law School, said,There are many reasons the Supreme Court denies review, and it's hard to determine why, Wallace said. It's especially difficult in this case because Chief Justice John Roberts clearly stated the court's denial to review the case has nothing to do with the merits of the lawsuit.Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said the decision did not address the merits of the case. They said they will continue fighting the appellate court decision.Cooper celebrated the decision.Cooper said in a written statement.In a separate press release issued by his political campaign, Cooper urged recipients of the e-mail: "If you're with me in this fight, chip in today." A link was provided for campaign contributions.Wallace said it was curious that Roberts laid out questions about who has standing to defend the law. They included whether the legislature has standing to defend the law in federal court if a state's attorney general and governor refuse to do so.He noted that there is precedent at the federal level when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Obama administration would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The U.S. House of Representatives intervened to defend the law, but ultimately lost the case.In a joint statement, Berger and Moore lashed out at Cooper and Stein. They ignored state law, and flouted conflicts of interest to kill voter ID in North Carolina, the lawmakers said.In February, Cooper and Stein asked the federal justices to dismiss the state's case, which had been brought by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory shortly before he left office.Berger and Moore said at the time the move violated state law because outside counsel had been hired to defend the election laws.Neither Cooper nor Stein had authority to fire outside lawyers or terminate their appeal, according to Berger and Moore.Stein had testified on behalf of left-leaning interest groups that opposed the voter ID law before he ran for attorney general. Stein's father also had represented the plaintiffs in the voter ID case, Berger and Moore' release said.They said those conflicts of interest should have prevented Stein from representing the state.
This week at the rabbit patch, passed swiftly and full of details. Our annual spring dance performance happened last night. I do not get to say this often, but I have danced every day of the week, lately. Supper was from a crock pot several days and Kyle brought chicken home one night. All week, I slept soundly, which gets me to thinking of the many benefits of physical activity.The event, normally takes place outside. Most days were beautiful and I was glad to be outside. The stately magnolias on campus and the wild honeysuckle, along the edge of the woods, are blooming. While waiting their turn to dance, little girls made clover chains and I wore a necklace of them, most every day. Little boys presented "good sticks" they found and a fair share of bugs. It was a lovely time. On Thursday night, the rain came. The chill in the air warranted a jacket on Friday morning. I surveyed the campus and called our administration to tell them there was a puddle right by the area where the children were dancing. They asked about the size of it and I told them in the best way I could describe, "that it would hold three large pigs." We moved the performance to the gym, on account of that.Jenny, Lyla and Mama attended. Jenny was impressed and Mama praised my work. Lyla was not impressed in the least. She was not understanding why her very own "Honeybee" was putting attention elsewhere. Several times, I announced the next performance with Lyla on my hip. If I put her down, she ran for the drums . Several times, I handed her off to whoever was standing next to me. Still the children danced their folk dances and we were all proud of them. Jenny said Lyla was asleep before they were out of the parking lot.Now, Saturday morning has dawned cool and overcast, and the only current details revolve around Sunday Dinner. I could not commit to any menu, til now. In between, the dances, words like "potato salad" would pop in my thoughts. Now, on this cool quiet morning, I have a plan and will not need to enter a grocery store and shop desperately. I will make potato salad, as it turns out.Now that, I have the menu for the Mothers' Day dinner, I can think about this last week at the rabbit patch. The elderberry has bloomed. I have a great affection for the flowers of the elderberry. They are flat lacy flowers that make the night air smell heavenly. There are plenty of them in the young patch of woods on the rabbit patch. When the elderberry blooms, the whippoorwills sing. I have heard them this week. The whippoorwill sings in the evening. This habit, seems to make their song a lonesome one. I love the sound of the whippoorwill , but I may become overly nostalgic and lonesome for every thing beautiful that has ever passed from me, if I listen too long. My friend, Julie says that springs makes all of us nostalgic , and I have found her to be right on most subjects.Thank Goodness, for the "Bob White". He sings when the elderberry blooms, as well. I remember my daddy teaching me to identify the bird that sings his name. "Bob Whites" sing their name out, like they are glad about things in general. Their song is easy to mimic and they always answer for as long as you call to them. I have never been able to whistle, but the "Bob Whites" of my childhood did not mind, and answered me anyway. I am as likely to call out to one now, as I was a long time ago.Dear Diary, Every day in May seems to bear witness to lovely things-things like whippoorwills and Bob Whites-children dancing in sunshine and presenting jewelry made with clovers and the "best sticks" . . . and it all happens in May . . .when the elderberry booms .Share this:
Jim Cain didn't feel any sense of urgency when he noticed his daughter had texted him on the morning of March 22, 2016. Nor did her immediate follow-up phone call cause concern.The former U.S. ambassador to Denmark was talking to a friend while waiting at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. He had scheduled an early flight to New York. Neither the text nor the call interrupted the conversation.Once Cain had a chance to read the text, he still didn't grasp the significance. Cameron Cain had written that Alex, her boyfriend of four and one-half years, "was on the flight in Brussels."Not too long after reading that message, Cain started to piece together the facts that led to the story he recounted Friday in Raleigh. That story, told for the first time on U.S. soil and only the second time ever, led off a panel discussion on "Terrorism and Security" during the John William Pope Foundation and Jesse Helms Center's one-day conference on "Foreign Policy and Trade Challenges in the Age of Trump."It's a story of fear, uncertainty, a bittersweet secret revealed, and dysfunctional government. But it's also a story of resolution in the face of anguish. It's a story that stands today with a legal fight against one of the world's largest social-media companies. It's a story that features a plea for the Western world to get serious about terrorist threats and for the United States government to support victims of terrorism - wherever they might be.There were no murmurs or side conversations in the room as Cain detailed the steps that helped him discover that Alexander Pinczowski and his sister Sascha were standing in line at a Delta Airlines ticket counter in Brussels the day that terrorists affiliated with ISIS bombed the airport. Attacks on the airport and a metro station killed 32 people and injured hundreds.Cain made one more significant discovery. As he and his wife and daughter searched frantically for information about Alex and Sascha,The search for a missing boyfriend had turned into the search for a missing son-in-law and husband.And the search wasn't easy. The Cain family flew to Brussels and spent a day-and-a-half searching local hospitals for Alex and Sascha.Cain recalled. As 20 families from 17 different countries using at least a dozen languages huddled in the "horrible hot" basement of a military hospital, Cain noted "an abysmal lack of what you might call customer service." There was no counseling. No therapy. No support.At one point, a nurse told Cain's wife that four victims in the hospital remained unidentified, but the special prosecutor handling the case would not allow any family members to see them. Eventually, the hospital produced a list of living victims and told the families they could presume that anyone not named on the list was dead.Cain learned later that Alex and Sascha were killed in the first bomb blast.he said.The search for "purpose and meaning" in the aftermath of these events drove Cain toward several messages for American officials. The first involved the fight against terrorists.The Brussels bombers were part of an ISIS cell that had attacked Paris in November 2015.Cain said.In addition to American leadership in a more serious Western approach toward terrorism, Cain offers a second point.That's what prompted Cameron Cain in January to serve as lead plaintiff in Cain v. Twitter.Jim Cain said. He contends that Twitter hosted 40,000 active ISIS-related sites in 2016.The suit intendsJim Cain told the Raleigh audience.The former ambassador offers one final lesson from his family's recent ordeal.he said. As Cameron Cain visited her husband in a Brussels morgue on March 25, 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wasJim Cain said.A revival of the U.S. support program instituted after 9/11, or a new program modeled on one used worldwide today for British terrorism victims, could provide comfort to Americans who have suffered devastating losses.Cain will never interact with Alexander Pinczowski as his son-in-law. He hopes his family's experience can lead to changes that make similar stories less likely in the future.
Le Moulin Rogue de Danse and Billy Elliot made for a full weekend at AOP!

Little Art Fundraiser Underway

School Night - A Film made by Northside Students !

Little Art Exhibit Closing Reception!

$5 Friday Theater for Kids

Free Friday - Pamlico Sounds

Call for Artists for Member Art Exhibit!

Community Theater Tickets on sale now!

Don't miss these Open Venues:

Monday Art: 12 pm - 3 pm

Pamlico Writers Group: 2nd and 4th Tuesday Evening 6 p

Rock the Pamlico Jam 1st and 3rd Tuesday Evening 6:30 p

BCTMA Thursday evening 6:30 p and Saturday Morning Jams 10 a

Contact: Arts of the Pamlico

Arts of the Pamlico 252-946-2504

Tutus and tap shoes were in abundance this past weekend at the historic Turnage Theatre! Shannon Reising and her troupe presented "Warped" a themed recital for parents and fans and even included a couple of our AOP staff in the fun. We saw full houses Friday and Saturday evening and introduced many people to the beauty of the Turnage. Sunday, we had the distinct pleasure to celebrate Mother's Day with a screening of our latest offering in our Broadway on the Big Screen series, "Billy Elliot". Patrons were delighted by the score and story of hope this musical brought to life.Buy your number now for the annual Little Art Exhibit! Proceeds to benefit children's programming at AOP. Numbers are only on sale through Wednesday May 17th, hurry in to secure your numbers now! The cost for a number is $30 for 1 number or $100 for four numbers. Purchased numbers allow you to collect 8 x 10 donated works by local artists with the matching number! Pick up your works on May 18 at the closing reception.May 16th at 6:00 pm. Join us to support the Northside Film Production Club as they debut their feature length film that has been two years in the making. The film is being offered at no cost.May 18th at 5:30 pm. You have bought the numbers, now what fantastic art work will you get? Come by the Turnage and enjoy a few light appetizers and see what is in store for you! The reception will be held from 5:30-7:00 pm.3-5 pm. Come join Dylan for theater fun and games on Friday afternoons. Learn how much the theater can be!May 19th 6:30 pmJoin us at AOP on the third Friday of the months of April - September for a rotating showcase of local and regional talent on stage. Suggested donation of $5. Beverages, popcorn and snacks sold before and during event.BCTMA opens the night at 6:30 p.m.I.C. Comedy improv show at 7:30 p.m.R&B with Danny Mallison starts at 8:30.Calling all AOP artist members: AOP's annual member exhibit will be accepting submissions for this annual show beginningMay 25 through May 30. Please note AOP is closed on Mondays.Then mark your calendar too and plan to join us for the members exhibit opening reception on June 1 from 5:30 - 7 PM at the Historic Turnage Theatre.The exhibit will be on display and open to the public from June 2 - June 27Both Season Tickets and show tickets for "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" are on sale. Season tickets are $25 and include a ticket, with the date of your choice, to each of the following shows: "I Love You, You Perfect, Now Change" June 9th-11th "The Murder Room" September 8th-10th; and "The Tempest, In Space" November 17th-19th.Individual tickets are also on sale for "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change". The musical will run June 9th - 11th. The performance on the 11th is a matinee and will start at 3 pm. Tickets are $10.Please contact Virginia at AOP to get your tickets today!
"The self-spreading 'WannaCry' internet worm, which ripped through 160,000 computers and crippled hospitals and other businesses, is now being linked to a North Korean cyber gang," reports Kevin Poulsen at Daily Beast.

Snip from his reporting:

Google security researcher Neel Mehta was first to cautiously connect the DPRK to the WannaCry attack. In a cryptic tweet Monday, Mehta referenced two seemingly different breeds of computer attack code. One was an early version of the WannaCry code that was found in the wild last February. The other was the "Contopee" backdoor program previously used in the Lazarus Group's attacks on Asian financial institutions.

Mehta drew attention to a section of code that, upon inspection, turned out to be nearly identical in each program. Such commonalities are considered a key metric in determining that a common actor is behind two hacks, and other researchers quickly affirmed the importance of the find. "For now, more research is required into older versions of WannaCry," wrote analysts at Kaspersky Lab. "We believe this might hold the key to solve some of the mysteries around this attack. One thing is for sureNeel Mehta's discovery is the most significant clue to date regarding the origins of WannaCry."

Security giant Symantec says it has been thinking along similar lines. Over the weekend the company discovered that early versions of WannaCryused before the NSA code was addedhad a way of turning up on victim computers right after a confirmed Lazarus Group attack. "However, we have not yet been able to confirm the Lazarus tools deployed WannaCry on these systems," wrote Vikram Thakur, technical director at Symantec, in a statement. "In addition, we found code in WannaCry that historically was unique to Lazarus tools."
A 2014 survey of 175 US law enforcement agencies found that they ranked "sovereign citizens" as the top domestic terror threat, and with good reason: members of the heavily armed, white-supremacist-adjacent movement regularly kill cops during routine traffic stops and other interactions.



But Donald Trump's DHS will refocus its "countering violent extremism" (CVE) program to focus exclusively on radical Islam.





The sovereign citizen movement is part of a constellation of far-right groups that includes overt white-supremacists, militias, and other groups of "middle-aged white guys" who see "profound change and seeing that they have been left behind by the economic success of others and they want to return to a never-existent idyllic age when everyone was happy and everyone was white and everyone was self-sufficient."

The movement has been around for a long time, but it was supercharged by the waves of foreclosures as deregulated, bailed-out banks stole trillions of dollars' worth of Americans' homes in acts of overt fraud, and got away with it.

The movement is getting younger, and takes its cues from Alex Jones, a snake-oil peddler who uses conspiracy theories to sell millions' of dollars worth of nostrums like Infowars Life Silver Bullet Colloidal Silver, Infowars Life Brain Force Plus, Infowars Life Super Male Vitality, and Infowars Life Liver Shield.

In 2009, a man with white supremacist and anti-government views shot five police officers in Pittsburgh, three fatally. In 2012, self-described sovereign citizens shot four sheriff's deputies, two fatally, in St John the Baptist, a Louisiana parish. In 2014, two Las Vegas police officers eating lunch were killed by a husband-and-wife pair inspired by the Patriot movement; the couple were killed by police before following through on their plan to take over a courthouse to execute public officials. The same year, survivalist Eric Frein ambushed a Pennsylvania state police barracks, assassinating one state trooper and wounding another, then led law enforcement on a 48-day manhunt. In 2016, a marine veteran-turned-sovereign citizen killed three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge and wounded three others.

They hate the US government, and they're multiplying: the terrifying rise of 'sovereign citizens'

[J Oliver Conroy/The Guardian]
Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is scheduled to meet with the classified-information-leaking U.S. President Donald Trump one day after this story breaks.

From Reuters:

Turkish prosecutors ordered the arrest of 85 staff at the energy and education ministries under a investigation targeting the network of a U.S.-based cleric whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating last July's attempted coup, broadcaster CNN Turk reported on Tuesday.

No further details were immediately available. Some 50,000 people have been formally arrested as part of investigations targeting supporters of cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting Washington, is seeking Gulen's extradition.
Manitobans still remain in the dark when it comes to how their premier communicates while in Costa Rica and a series of odd, often contradictory statements by Brian Pallister have only added to the mystery.

Does he use a government-issued cell phone or government email? How do staff reach him while he is on vacation? What is the communication protocol for when the premier is abroad?

It all began when a freedom-of-information request by the New Democrats revealed no records of him emailing or phoning senior staff while at his vacation home in the Central American country. If you ask the NDP, it's a sign the premier is unplugged while he is abroad.

Pallister says that isn't so, but has refused to offer more details. He said it would be a security risk to give out that information. He contends that while records may not show up through a freedom-of-information request, it also means information and communications sent to him are secure.

CBC News went through two media scrums with Pallister and Hansard from the legislature this week in an effort to fact-check and clarify some of his statements.

Pallister on using a government phone and government email

What he said: "I understand that is a challenge, with certain means of communication, it is a difficult thing to track. And I also understand it is difficult to track if you are not using a government-issued device. But you have to marry that will concern about access and protection. So I am trying to find the best possible system to safeguard both of those things. To be transparent, which why I am out here, because I value that. At the same time I want to make sure Manitobans aren't reluctant to contact me on the basis they are concerned that information will get out."

Pallister on government communication protocols

He said: "I am following the same protocols that the previous government utilized, no one asked the previous government anything about these questions. I am answering the same way they would have if they had been asked because our instructions are clear: don't outline how you communicate too clearly because it would facilitate those who might try to find out what the confidential info that you are dealing with is.

Story continues

"I'm in contact everyday, I am available everyday, not to suggest every Sunday someone on staff is going to give me a phone call. I endeavour to make sure I am available."

Pallister on how every government would refuse to offer this information

He said: "The system that hasn't facilitated leaks because it is not fully known to the world and that is part of maintaining security. I am told that was the same instructions given to the (previous government) and that they followed it. They did not share with you how exactly they communicated.

"If you ask me questions about specific protocols to how I communicate I will not be forthcoming, nor would the previous government, nor would any government in Canada."

Pallister on vacation days

He said: "I work harder than any premier that has been here for a long, long time. I don't have to defend my work ethic to you or anyone else and I won't. I take less vacation than the previous premier and the one before that. Yet nobody asks those questions. I know that. You do your research."
A Mountie wounded in Justin Bourque's deadly shooting rampage in Moncton, N.B., on June 4, 2014, testified Monday that police felt like they were being "hunted" that night.

Const. Eric Dubois of the Codiac detachment said he had only his 9-mm pistol as he and a colleague crouched behind a shot-up police car, under fire by Bourque, who was armed with an M305.308 semi-automatic rifle and a Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun.

"We knew we didn't have the power to respond," Dubois told the trial examining whether the RCMP violated Canada's Labour Code in connection with the shooting deaths of three Moncton Mounties and the wounding of two others.

The national police force is charged with violating four provisions of the Labour Code by allegedly failing to provide members with appropriate use-of-force equipment and training for responding to an active threat or active shooting event, and failing to ensure the health and safety of every person employed by the force.

"If I had a carbine, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind [Bourque] would have gone down," said Dubois, referring to the high-powered, short-barrelled rifle that has a longer and more accurate range than a pistol or shotgun.

In 20 minutes, Bourque gunned down five officers, including Dubois, who suffered wounds to his left bicep, the lower part of his left leg and upper part of his right leg that required surgery.

Dubois, who teared up as he recalled what happened that day, said it all started shortly after he began his shift at 7 p.m. Police responded to reports of a man dressed in camouflage walking around with a rifle in a residential area in the city's north end.

At the scene, one of the many citizens out on the streets told him the man had two rifles, a bow, a knife and a "focused" set of mind.

"It was weird," said Dubois, who radioed the information to his colleagues and tried to get curious onlookers who were taking videos and approaching police with questions to leave the area.

Story continues

Police didn't know Bourque's intentions. But once he started firing, the threat became real, said Dubois.

"We were feeling like the hunted," he said.

Dubois, who worked in a morgue prior to joining the RCMP, said he saw Const. Fabrice Gevaudan on the ground and knew right away he was dead.

"There was nothing I could do."

A few seconds later, Dubois heard another colleague's desperate pleas over the police radio.

"He's shooting at me, he's shooting at me. Help me, help me," he recalled Const. Martine Benoit saying.

"At that point, I didn't think about my security at all," said Dubois, who rushed to assist Benoit. "I just wanted to get there and do the best I can  I'm going to do whatever is needed, even give my life.

"When I decided to join the RCMP, I was not a teenager. I was an adult. I knew the risk and I accepted that risk," he said with a shaky voice.

Earlier in the trial, Benoit testified about responding to reports of shots being fired, only to find herself under fire and unable to escape because the engine of her shot-up vehicle "was gone."

"It was a chaos situation," she said.

'It's not a movie, it's reality'

Dubois drove up beside her disabled cruiser, pulled her out and dragged her behind his vehicle, where they both took cover. That's when Dubois got shot.

"I could see the hole in my pants and shirt and the blood coming out," he said.

Dubois said he knew Bourque's weapon was a semi-automatic because the shots were coming so fast.

Bourque was in his line of vision for three of four seconds as he crossed the street in front of him, approximately 30 to 37 metres away, he said.

Dubois thought about shooting at him, but didn't. The maximum range of his duty pistol was about 25 metres, and there were houses behind Bourque.

"It was more than obvious I was going to miss the target," he said. "It's not a movie, it's reality."

Officers are accountable for every bullet they fire, Dubois said, and "when you shoot, you shoot because you're sure."

A shotgun would also have been too dangerous to use because of its unreliable spread pattern and the risk for civilian casualties, he said.

Handgun vs. carbine

A carbine, however, could have made the difference, he suggested.

"It's night and day compared to the handgun," said Dubois. "It's easy to handle, manipulate. It's really accurate and precise."

"With [a] pistol, I have to always get closer and put myself in jeopardy." Being armed with a carbine would have enabled him to hide from the target and shoot from a safe distance, he said.

No carbines were available to the Codiac detachment on the night of the shootings, the trial has heard.

- On mobile? Follow our live coverage here

During cross-examination by RCMP lawyer Mark Ertel, Dubois said he had asked to "have a better bulletproof vest."

RCMP have Level 2 bulletproof vests, but many police forces have Level 3, he said. Dubois said he was willing to pay for the better vest himself, but wanted the force to approve it so he could wear it legally.

Although there was new hard body armour in the trunk of his car, Dubois chose not to put it on. He said the ceramic plates weigh the vests down and might slow him down.

"At that particular moment, I was more confident to go the way I did go," not wearing it, he said.

Off-duty officer offered to help

The court also heard Monday from Const. Simon Grenier, who was off duty on the night of the shootings, but put on his uniform and headed to the office to offer his help after a neighbour told him an officer had been shot.

He said he tried calling the office first, but couldn't get an answer. He called dispatch and "it was just ringing and ringing."

When he finally got through, he asked, "Is it true? Do you need members?" The dispatcher replied, "I don't [expletive] know," and hung up, he said.

Made own decisions

He said he did ask a supervisor for one of the new Colt Canada C8 carbine weapons before heading out, but was told none were available. They were in Oromocto, being used to train officers from another detachment, the trial has heard.

Although Grenier had not been trained on carbines by the RCMP, he was previously in the military and served in Bosnia, where "you basically sleep with it."

He felt carbines were the weapon they needed that night. They're fast because there's no need to reload and accurate, making it easy to hit the target, he said.

Grenier, who now works on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's security detail, said he jumped in a vehicle with a colleague anyway and headed to the scene.

Asked by the Crown who made decisions through the night, Grenier said he made his own decisions, echoing the previous testimony of other officers.

"Communications sucked that day," he said.

Justin Bourque is serving five life sentences with no chance of parole for 75 years after pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Two months have been set aside for the Labour Code trial, which started April 24.

It's scheduled to resume on Tuesday morning with testimony from Sgt. Sam Tease, who worked on the 2015 MacNeil Report, which reviewed the Moncton shootings and made 64 recommendations, including that officers be equipped with carbines.
TUESDAY, May 16, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of heart attack increases sharply after a respiratory infection, a new study finds.

But the absolute risk that any one episode will cause a heart attack is low, the Australian researchers added.

The researchers looked at 578 people who suffered a heart attack and found that 17 percent had experienced symptoms of respiratory infection within seven days before the heart attack, and 21 percent within the prior month.

The risk of a heart attack is 17 times higher in the week after a respiratory infection, the University of Sydney team concluded.

In a second analysis, the researchers focused on upper-respiratory tract infections, such as the common cold, sore throat, hay fever and sinus infections.

"For those participants who reported milder upper-respiratory tract infection symptoms, the risk increase was less, but was still elevated by 13-fold," study author Lorcan Ruane said in a university news release.

"Although upper-respiratory infections are less severe, they are far more common than lower-respiratory tract symptoms. Therefore, it is important to understand their relationship to the risk of heart attacks," he explained.

The study was published May 15 in the Internal Medicine Journal.

According to study senior author Dr. Geoffrey Tofler, "Possible reasons for why respiratory infection may trigger a heart attack include an increased tendency towards blood clotting, inflammation and toxins damaging blood vessels, and changes in blood flow." Tofler is a cardiologist from the University of Sydney, Royal North Shore Hospital and Heart Research Australia.

"Our message to people is while the absolute risk that any one episode will trigger a heart attack is low, they need to be aware that a respiratory infection could lead to a coronary event. So consider preventative strategies [such as flu and pneumonia vaccines] where possible, and don't ignore symptoms that could indicate a heart attack," he advised.

"The next step is to identify treatment strategies to decrease this risk of heart attack, particularly in individuals who may have increased susceptibility," Tofler concluded.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more on heart attack prevention.
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Police search homes of opposition newspaper owner, staff

Police searched the homes of the owner and three employees of the daily newspaper Sozcu, one of the last remaining large media outlets that opposes the government, the newspaper reported today.

Istanbuls Seventh Court of Penal Peace issued warrants allowing police to search the home of Burak Akbay, Sozcus owner, Mediha Olgun, the newspapers online responsible news editor, Yonca Kaleli, the newspapers finance manager, and Gokmen Ulu, the newspapers correspondent in the western Turkish province of Izmir, the newspaper reported, disputing a previous report in the pro-government daily newspaper Sabah that there were arrest warrants for the four on charges of committing crimes in the name of a [terrorist] organization without being a member, and that they were also under investigation for making it easy to commit physical attacks on the president and fomenting armed rebellion against the government of the Republic of Turkey. Akbay is abroad, Sozcu reported.

Ulu, the newspapers Izmir correspondent, reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was on holiday in the resort city of Marmaris at the time of the failed, July 2016 military coup.

Police arrest journalist from his home

Police in Istanbul arrested Pnar Gayip, a correspondent for the leftist Ekin News Agency (ETHA), in a raid of his home, the newspaper Gazete Sujin reported today. The reasons for Gayips detention were not immediately clear, the newspaper reported.

Jailed reporter released on probation pending trial

Diyarbakrs Fifth Court for Serious Crimes ordered Mazlum Dolan, a former reporter for the shuttered Dicle News Agency, released on probation pending the conclusion of his trial on terrorism charges, the news website Dihaber reported on May 16.

Police detained Dolan while he reported from the Sur District of the southeastern province of Diyarbakr, on February 19, 2016. He was arraigned by the Diyarbakrs First Court of Penal Peace on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization on February 23.

Dolan had been following urban clashes between the Kurdish rebel group the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) and Turkish security forces for months when he was trapped in fighting in Sur District, which was placed under military curfew on February 17. Dolan was trapped in a basement with others, and DIHA issued a statement voicing concerns about the reporter, recalling that at least one journalist had been killed while sheltering in a basement in the southeastern town of Cizre in early February.

Dolan left the area when a security corridor was opened during fighting on February 19, but was detained with four other people, including three relatives, as he tried to flee.

Jailed radio journalist released pending trial

Mersins Seventh Court for Serious Crimes ordered Fatma Olmez, a radio journalist arrested in December 2016 as she worked, released pending the conclusion of her trial on charges of being a member of a [terrorist] organization, the leftist daily newspaper Evrensel reported yesterday.

[May 19, 2017]

Editor jailed pending trial

Istanbuls Second Court of Penal Peace yesterday ordered Oguz Guven, the online editor for Cumhuriyet newspaper, jailed pending trial on charges of making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization, his employer reported. The charges relate to a tweet Guven published saying a truck had mowed down the Mustafa Alper, the prosecutor responsible for the first indictment of suspected followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen on terrorism charges.

Guvens lawyers appealed the order today, Cumhuriyet reported, arguing that the tweet was online for 55 seconds only before it was deleted, and that in any case Guven was not solely in control of Cumhuriyets Twitter account.

Yesterday CPJ reported that the charges related to a headline on Cumhuriyets website, citing news reports. Those reports were incorrect.

Two convicted of terrorism charges for show of solidarity with newspaper

Istanbuls 13th Court for Serious Crimes yesterday convicted writer Murat Celikkan and academic Beyza Ustun of making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization for the contents of the shuttered newspaper Ozgur Gundem on the days on which each symbolically acted as co-editor of the newspaper, the news website Bianet reported. Over the course of Spring 2016, dozens of journalists, intellectuals, artists, and activists participated in the campaign to protest the persistent judicial harassment of Ozgur Gundems staff before the newspaper was shuttered in April 2016.

In two separate trials, the court sentenced Celikkan to 18 months in prison, and gave Ustun a suspended 15-month prison sentence. Celikkan is free, pending appeal.

Journalist briefly detained

Police in the Dargecit district of Turkeys southeastern Mardin province yesterday briefly detained Beritan Irlan, a reporter for the pro-Kurdish news website Dihaber, as she reported, Dihaber reported, without elaborating.

[May 16, 2017]

Police detain editor

Police in Istanbul on May 12 detained Oguz Guven, the online editor of the pro-opposition daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, the journalist wrote on Twitter and his employer subsequently reported. Police first took the journalist to Vatan Police Station, and prosecutors subsequently ordered him detained for seven days, according to Cumhuriyet.

The newspaper reported yesterday that the editor is being investigated on charges of making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization and defaming a persons memory in relation to a headline Cumhuriyet briefly ran on its website, A truck mowed down Chief Prosecutor [Mustafa] Alper, who drafted the first Fethullah Gulen Terrorism Organization indictment, before replacing it with an edited version. Alper was killed in a car crash on May 10. Turkish newspapers routinely use the verb to mow down (bicmek or bicme) to refer to a vehicle or train crushing a person or a thing.

According to Cumhuriyet and CNNTurk, authorities are also investigating Twitter users who shared the article and online readers who commented on it.

Cumhuriyet is under heavy judicial pressure. Police have arrested Cumhuriyet journalists, staff, and directors.

Reporter released

Abdullah Kaya, former reporter for the shuttered Dicle News Agency or DIHA, was released from prison on May 11, Dihaber reported. Police in the eastern province of Agr arrested Kaya in January, CPJ reported at the time. Dihaber provided no further details about the journalists release.

Report: Turkish ambassador to Vatican says Popes plea could not secure Die Welt journalists release

Turkey would not release jailed Die Welt correspondent Deniz Yucel if the Pope himself asked for it, Turkish Ambassador to the Vatican Mehmet Pacac told the Catholic News Agency (CNA), according to the Turkish service of Deutsche Welle. Yucel, a dual citizen of Germany and Turkey, has been jailed pending trial on charges of propagandizing for a [terrorist] organization and provoking the people to hatred and animosity, based on his journalism for Die Welt, since February 14.

German-Turkish news agency translator arrested

Police in Istanbul on April 30 arrested Mesale Tolu, a translator for the leftist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), the Turkish service of Deutsche Welle reported on May 12. German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schafer told journalists that the Turkish government failed to fulfill their diplomatic obligation to inform German counterparts that Tolu, a dual citizen of Turkey and Germany, had been arrested. On May 6, a court ordered her jailed pending trial on charges of being a member of a [terrorist] organization and making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization.

According to the May 12 Deutsche Welle report, Schafer told reporters that German consular officials were attempting to visit the detained translator.

Turkey safe for foreign journalists, minister says

Turkey is unequivocally safe for foreign journalists, Turkish European Union Minister Omer Celik said in remarks quoted by the press on May 12. My country is secure for those seeking to perform real journalism. Turkey is safe for real journalists. But this doesnt necessarily mean that we wont take necessary measures for those coming our country under the mask of journalism but helping terrorist organizations behind the scenes. Attending the terrorists meetings and joining the terrorist activities cannot be deemed within the scope journalistic activity.

Leftist news website censored for 39th time

The Turkish telecommunications regulator BTK on Thursday blocked access to the leftist news website sendika.org for the 39th time, the website reported via its new address, http://sendika40.org.

Pro-Kurdish website blocked

The BTK also blocked access to the pro-Kurdish news website Rojava Medya, the news website Gazete Karnca reported on May 12. Ethnic Kurdish journalists founded Rojava Medya to fill the gap left by the governments closure of Azadiya Welat, Turkeys only Kurdish-language national daily newspaper, by decree using emergency powers it assumed following the failed military coup of July 2016.

Court orders censorship of dozens of social media accounts

Ankaras Third Court for Penal Peace ordered the censorship of at least 22 accounts on the social media services Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and at least one iPhone app, according to a document published on Twitter by the volunteer press-freedom collective Ben Gazeteciyim (I am a journalist). The accounts had reported alleged fraud and other irregularities in Aprils referendum on constitutional amendments that increased the powers of the presidency.

Suspended sentences for nationalist group that threatened newspaper

A Turkish court convicted members of a nationalist group of threatening and publicly insulting the bilingual, Turkish-Armenian, weekly newspaper Agos on the basis of race or religion by laying a black wreath in front of its office and releasing public threats against it in April 2015, Agos reported on May 12. The court gave each of the suspects a suspended, 10-month prison sentence, the newspaper reported.

[May 15, 2017]
Catholic Church leaders in Indonesia have deplored the nations rejection of the abolition of the death penalty in the southeast Asian nation.





Abolishing the death penalty was one of the recommendations put to Indonesia by member states at the 27th session of the U.N. Universal Period Review in Geneva, Switzerland.





Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, who led the Indonesian delegation, rejected the recommendation, saying the death penalty was an integral part of President Joko Widodo's fight against narcotics, which she said was one of the top-three causes of death among Indonesian youths.





Father Paulus Siswantoko of the Commission for Justice, Peace and Pastoral Care of Migrants of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Indonesia (KWI) said the government's insistence on keeping the death penalty shows its failure to handle drug-related crimes.





The government has often argued the death penalty is a deterrent, but this is not the case, he said. "Drug-related crimes and serious violence continue to occur unabated," the priest said.





Teguh Budiono, from the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Catholic lay group, said retaining the death penalty will perpetuate a culture of violence in society. "Instead of providing a deterrent effect, this practice will only provide an affirmation of the passion of revenge," he said.

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Firing squad execution in Somalia (file photo)

In Somalia, a country long troubled by deadly violence, there's a disturbing new trend: an increase in summary executions.





Somali military courts and the militant group al-Shabab have each executed about a dozen people so far in 2017, all of them killed in public settings as crowds of between 30 and 300 people looked on.





While executions in Somalia are nothing new, the sudden increase has drawn the attention of human rights groups like Amnesty International as well as the local European Union delegation, which has asked Somali authorities to enact a moratorium on the death penalty.





Activists have been particularly critical of executions carried out by military courts, which they say are trying cases beyond their jurisdiction and failing to give defendants fair legal process.





Military courts put to death 11 people in April alone, including a policeman convicted of murdering a civilian, a soldier convicted of killing a civilian, and 4 al-Shabab militants sentenced for explosions that killed some 80 people in the town of Baidoa.





The execution of 5 young men by firing squad in the semi-autonomous Puntland region on April 8 sparked the most controversy. Amnesty International says the defendants, all accused of murdering officials in the town of Bossaso, were too young to be tried as adults, never given access to a lawyer and coerced into giving false confessions.





Tortured





The rights group says that according to family members, the boys confessed to the killings only after being beaten, raped, subjected to electric shocks and burned with cigarettes on their genitals.





"These horrific allegations of torture must be fully and independently investigated and those found responsible held to account," said Michelle Kagari, Amnesty's deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.





The head of Puntland Military Appeals Court, Salah Liif, said the court does not force confessions and denied the allegations about the defendants being underage.





"Puntland Administration does not execute children and will never do that," he told VOA's Somali service. "It was a propaganda spread by elements playing human rights groups against Puntland."





Al-Shabab gives defendants virtually no legal process at all. On the morning of May 6, residents of tiny Quar'a Madobe village were going about their business when al-Shabab militants ordered them to assemble. Dozens gathered to see the militants holding 2 men in civilian clothes at gunpoint.





"They brought the men in front of a tea restaurant, and told the residents they were captured enemy soldiers," said a witness who spoke to the Somali service. One militant then recited a Quranic verse, he said, and 2 others used large knives to slice off the men's heads, as those watching gasped and screamed.





A Somali National Army colonel identified the men as Mowlid Hussein and Ahmed Ya'qub, and said they were driving to the town of Jowhar to tend to family emergencies when al-Shabab intercepted their vehicle. The colonel said they were "off duty, uniformed and unarmed."





On May 1, al-Shabab executed 2 other men - Ahmed Ibrahim Ragow, 29, and Yusuf Ali Bajin, 22 - for allegedly raping a girl and killing her brother in the city of Beledweye. 1 was shot by firing squad; the other was publicly stoned.





Hassan Shire Sheikh is chairperson of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (EHAHRD). In an interview with VOA Somali, he called for a complete stop to the executions.





"Carrying out executions abruptly won't help the nation as it can cause the death of innocents," said Shire. "The current executions represent retrogressive and unjustifiable [policy], as there is no evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishment."



Cleric backs death penalty





Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, an influential cleric and the chairman of the Council of Religious Scholars of Somalia, said his council backs use of the death penalty, which describes as "a strong principle in our Islamic law."





The cleric, who survived a car bomb in Mogadishu in 2013, is one of the few Somali clerics to publicly criticize al-Shabab's extreme ideology and terrorist attacks. He supports any harsh sentences against the militant members.





"We generally believe that al-Shabab militant members disrespect human life, kill innocent people indiscriminately and destabilizes people's peace and norm, so we support any iron hand dealing with them," he said.





Source: New Delhi Times, May 16, 2017





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J.W. Ledford Jr.

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency for J.W. Ledford Jr., who will be executed Tuesday for the January 1992 murder of 73-year-old Dr. Harry Buchanan Johnston Jr. in Murray County.



The decision by the five-member parole board "came after an exhaustive review of the inmates parole case file and following a meeting today to receive information for or against clemency," according to a press release from the State Board of Pardons and Paroles. The hearing began this morning.





The Georgia Department of Corrections has scheduled Ledfords execution for Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.





Ledford was convicted of malice murder, as well as two counts of armed robbery, one count of burglary and one count of kidnapping.





The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ledfords request to appeal on April 3. The Murray County Superior Court issued the order for the execution of Ledford.





"The parole board maintains a comprehensive file on each death row inmate," according to the press release. "The file contains the history of the inmates life, including the inmates criminal history and the circumstances of the crime that was committed resulting in the death sentence. Prior to todays meeting the board members had thoroughly reviewed that information."





Source: Dalton Daily CITIZEN, May 15, 2017









Condemned killers family asks parole board to stop Tuesday execution





Advocates for condemned killer J.W. Boy Ledford asked the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop his execution set for tomorrow and give him a chance to continue supporting his son and other inmates on Death Row.





Ledfords mother, his six sisters, his son, other family members and his lawyers spent about 2 hours with the five-person board while others on his legal team continued to push his case through the federal courts.





Before deciding on his clemency petition, the board will hear from those who want to see Ledford, 45, punished for stabbing to death his 73-year-old neighbor and the physician who delivered him, Dr. Harry Johnston, 25 years ago.





Georgia Death Row Inmate Seeks Execution By Firing Squad





In their clemency petition, his lawyers write that Ledford deserves mercy because he regrets killing Johnston, because he is intellectually disabled and because at the time he was intoxicated and under the influence of drugs, addictions he had suffered since he was a child.





Ledfords appeals to the court also complain that he is at risk of suffering a horrific death because the lethal injection drug Georgia uses may not work as it should and the pain he experiences would violate his constitutional protection from cruel and unusual punishment.





They write that Ledfords brain chemistry has been altered by taking a medication for years to address a chronic nerve problem. The lawyers say that drug will reduce the efficacy of pentobarbital, the drug Georgia uses in its executions.





Ledfords lawyers wrote that death by firing squad would more likely ensure a painless death, while lethal injection could mean he will not be unconscious enough by the time his lungs begin to shut down. Georgia law only allows executions by lethal injections.





The U.S. District Court on Friday rejected that argument, so he has taken his appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Last week, the federal appeals court in Atlanta turned down an Alabama Death Row inmates request to be allowed to die either by electrocution or firing squad instead of lethal injection.





Ledford was 20 years old when he murdered Johnston on Jan. 31, 1992.





According to court records, Ledford said the older man was giving him a ride into town when Johnston accused him of stealing from him and turned around to return to his Murray County home.





Johnstons wife, Antoinette, said she saw her husband drive off in his truck with someone she couldnt identify in the passenger seat. A short time later, Ledford came to the door asking to see the doctor. He returned 10 minutes later to ask her to tell her husband to come to his house that evening. Then another 10 minutes after his second visit, Ledford returned with a knife.





He tied up the woman and left with cash, a rifle, a shotgun and two handguns he found in the house. Antoinette told police she saw Ledford drive away in her husbands truck. He was arrested a short time later, after he had pawned Johnstons rifle and shotgun.





The next day Ledford confessed but said he killed Johnston in self-defense because he pulled a knife on him.





Johnston was stabbed repeatedly. One wound was so deep he was almost decapitated. His body was found under some limbs next to the garage near his house.





Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 15, 2017









State considers stay of execution for Murray County man





A clemency hearing for a Murray County man whose execution is set for Tuesday evening is underway.





The five-member state Board of Pardons and Paroles convened this morning to hear arguments for converting J.W. Boy Ledford Jr.s death sentence into a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.





His mother, Mattie Ledford, sisters and others are scheduled to speak this morning.





Board members will then hear arguments this afternoon for why they shouldnt reduce Ledfords sentence. They could make a decision as soon as this evening.





If Ledfords request for clemency is denied, he will be the first person to be executed in Georgia this year.





Ledford was convicted in 1992 of killing his neighbor, 73-year-old Dr. Harry Johnston. Prosecutors and law enforcement officials have described the murder as being especially brutal, with the doctors head nearly severed in the attack.





Five jurors, though, have since said that they would have preferred to send Ledford to prison for the rest of his life had it been an option at the time, according to Ledfords application for clemency.





Ledfords attorneys, led Monday by John Cline of San Francisco, have also asked the board to consider Ledfords remorse as well as his young age at the time of the murder and his intellectual disability.





The 45-year-old has also unsuccessfully sought to be executed by a firing squad rather than lethal injection.





His attorneys argued that death by lethal injection is unconstitutional because it would he would suffer an excruciating death due to Ledfords long-term use of prescription medications for severe and chronic nerve pain, according to court documents.





His long-term exposure to this medication has changed the chemistry of his brain so that (Ledfords) lethal injection drug, pentobarbital, will not reliably render him unconscious and insensate, attorneys argued in court documents.





Source: Tifton Gazette, May 15, 2017







J.W. Ledford's Bid for Firing Squad Rejected on Execution Eve

A federal appeals court has denied a stay of execution to a Georgia man who argued a firing squad would be a more humane way to die than the lethal injection the state has planned.



A few hours earlier, the state Parole Board rejected a bid for clemency for J.W. "Boy" Ledford Jr., who is on death row for murdering the doctor who delivered him into the world.



Ledford, 45, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday at 7 p.m. His execution would be the 1st this year in Georgia, which killed 9 prisoners last year.



Much of the debate about execution drugs across the nation has centered on midazolam, a sedative that has been used in several lethal injections that did not go as planned.



Georgia uses pentobarbital, seen as a more reliable drug, to induce unconsciousness and then death. But Ledford's lawyers argued that because he has been taking a prescription drug to treat nerve pain for years, the pentobarbital won't work as intended.



"Accordingly, there is a substantial risk that Mr. Ledford will be aware and in agony as the pentobarbital attacks his respiratory system, depriving his brain, heart, and lungs of oxygen as he drowns in his own saliva," they wrote in court papers.



Court rulings require prisoners challenging 1 execution method to offer an alternative, and Ledford suggested a firing squad, even though Georgia law doesn't include that as a method of execution.



The state offered analysis from its own expert, who said the amount of pentobarbital in the injection "is more than sufficient" to cause death without pain regardless of Ledford's past use of a nerve drug.



In his application for clemency, Ledford, 45, cited a horrific childhood in an abusive home, early exposure to drugs and alcohol, an allegedly low IQ, and his remorse.



"He does not try to hide away from the harm he caused and is open with anyone he knows about the pain and about his sadness for the family," his attorneys wrote.



"His son says that when he finally asked his father if he did what they said, his father looked him straight in the eye and said, yes, and that he was sorry and when you take a man's life you can never give it back."



Ledford killed Dr. Harry Johnston after the physician gave him a ride; the victim was nearly decapitated. He then went to the doctor's home and tied up and robbed his wife; she has since died.



"I've seen the pictures," Conasauga District Attorney Bert Poston, who presented the state's case for execution to the parole board, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.



"I've been doing this for 25 years and I've handled a lot of murder cases and I can't think of many that come close."



Source: NBC news, May 16, 2017





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Can smart technology make government, well, smarter? Its already happening: Through AI-based applications, developers are looking to transform the public sector by automating tasks and much more. But for optimal gain, agencies must make tough choices about where and how to introduce new technologies.

Artificial intelligence already helps run government, with cognitive applications doing everything from reducing backlogs and cutting costs to handling tasks we cant easily do on our own, such as predicting fraudulent transactions and identifying criminal suspects via facial recognition. Indeed, while we expect AI-based technology in the years ahead to fundamentally transform how public-sector employees get work doneeliminating some jobs, redesigning countless others, and even creating entirely new professions1its already changing the nature of many jobs and revolutionizing facets of government operations.

Agencies today face new choices about whether some work should be fully automated, divided among people and machines, or performed by people but enhanced by machines. Our latest report, AI-augmented government, conservatively estimates that simply automating tasks that computers already routinely do could free up 96.7 million federal government working hours annually, potentially saving $3.3 billion. At the high end, we estimate that AI technology could free up as many as 1.2 billion working hours every year, saving $41.1 billion.

AIs impact

Cognitive technologies could eventually revolutionize every facet of government operations, from virtual desktop assistants to applications that can govern large, shifting systems.2 Indeed, they are already having a profound impact on government work, with more dramatic effects to come. AI-based applications can reduce backlogs, cut costs, overcome resource constraints, free workers from mundane tasks, improve the accuracy of projections, inject intelligence into scores of processes and systems, and handle many other tasks humans cant easily do on our own, such as sifting through millions of documents in real time for the most relevant content.

Four automation choices

AIs potential benefits for government are clear. But which functions should be automated or made smart, and to what degree? Assessing different options business implications involves four main approaches to automation: relieve, split up, replace, and augment.

Relieve: Technology takes over mundane tasks, freeing workers for more valuable work. The Associated Press, for example, uses machines to write routine corporate earnings stories so that journalists can focus on in-depth reporting.22 Her Majestys Revenue and Customs Agency has automated the most tedious aspect of its call center work, opening case numbers for advisers so they dont have to search the database. The agency estimates this has reduced handling times by 40 percent and processing costs by 80 percent.3 The relieve approach allows government to focus on reducing backlogs or shifting workers to higher-value tasks.4

Split up: This approach involves breaking a job into steps or pieces and automating as many as possible, leaving humans to do the remainder and perhaps supervise the automated work. Relying on machine language translation and leaving professional translators to clean up the results is one example. For example, at the United Nations, machines could handle live translation of the assembly meetings for spectators, while expert translators could revise transcripts for later release to news outlets. Several federal entities, from the White House to the US Customs and Immigration Services, have chatbots designed to answer basic questions and leave complicated responses to a human.5

Replace: In this approach, technology is used to do an entire job once performed by a human. The US Postal Service uses handwriting recognition to sort mail by ZIP code; some machines can process 18,000 pieces of mail an hour.6 The best opportunities for replace include repetitive tasks with uniform components, decision making that follows simple rules, and tasks with a finite number of possible outcomes. If youve ever fought a computer program (maybe on an airline website?) because your situation lay outside the narrow possibilities its designers imagined, you know how frustrating it can be.

Augment: In this approach, technology makes workers more effective by complementing their skills. This is the true promise of AI: humans and computers combining their strengths to achieve faster and better results, often doing what humans simply couldnt do before. When technology is designed to augment, humans are still very much in the drivers seat. An example is IBMs Watson for Oncology, which recommends individual cancer treatments to physicians, citing evidence and a confidence score for each recommendation, to help them make more fully informed decisions.7

For each of these automation approaches, government agencies should consider their priorities. A cost strategy uses technology to reduce costs, especially by reducing labor. A value strategy focuses on increasing value by complementing human labor with technology or reassigning it to higher-value work. Of course, the two can be combined.

Ultimately, cognitive technologies will fundamentally change how government worksand the changes will come much sooner than many think. Strategic workforce planning must evolve beyond a focus on talent and people to consider the interplay of talent, technology, and design. As technologies advance in power, government agencies must bring more creativity to workforce planning and work design. Mission, talent, and technology leaders must work together to analyze the issues and opportunities and propose a path forward.

For our full report on how cognitive technologies could transform the public sector, see AI-augmented government.
With the House having passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the complex task of forging a consensus ACA-repeal-and-replace bill has moved to the Senate. If, as expected, Senate Democrats unanimously oppose any repeal-and-replace legislation, supporters would need to garner 50 out of 52 available Republican votes (with Vice President Pence presumably on hand to cast the 51st). This leaves the majority with very little margin of error for defections if they are to pass a bill. Of late there have been a number of press articles detailing the difficulty specifically of crafting Medicaid provisions that can receive unified Republican support.

The relevant background here is that the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or so-called Obamacare) dramatically expanded Medicaid by increasing the numbers and categories of eligible individuals, as well as by creating an elevated level of federal support for covering the expansion population. Before the ACA, Medicaid generally covered small children and pregnant women who were either in poverty or just above the poverty line, as well as older children in poverty, and disabled individuals and seniors who were also eligible for the federal SSI program. The ACA expanded Medicaid coverage beyond these highly vulnerable groups to include childless adults up to 138% of the poverty line. Importantly, the ACA provided a much higher level of federal support for this expansion population (paying 100% of costs from 2014-16, phasing to 90% in 2020 and beyond) than was given for Medicaids historically eligible population (57% of costs on average). Legislators must decide what to do with these provisions.

The following principles may helpful in considering how Medicaid should be modified in repeal and replacement legislation.

#1: Distinguish between problems created by the ACA and those that existed before. Medicaid had a lot of problems long before the ACA was passed, including: unsustainable cost growth rates, care access problems arising from provider scarcity, low value for participants relative to dollars spent, and inefficiencies arising from states not facing the full bill for cost-increasing decisions. When health policy reform was debated in 2009, CBO was already projecting that Medicaid costs would double as a share of GDP over its long-term budget outlook. CBO was also then projecting that Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security would between them account for all projected federal non-interest spending growth relative to GDP over the long term, and that Medicaid and Medicare alone would account for 90% of that growth.

Medicaid costs are now growing at an unsustainable rate as shown in Figure 1  substantially faster than Gross Domestic Product -- but only part of this is due to the ACA. The portion of cost growth due to the ACA could theoretically be addressed (policy merits aside) by repealing the laws expanded eligibility criteria and elevated federal match rate. By contrast, proposals to place per-capita caps on Medicaid spending growth, or to give states increased flexibility and incentives to improve efficiencies, are not really about repairing the ACA per se but about addressing Medicaids longstanding structural problems.

Some advocates may believe that pending repeal-and-replace legislation represents a onetime opportunity to enact Medicaid reforms. Whether it actually is such an opportunity is a tactical evaluation. It represents an opportunity if including these long-sought Medicaid reforms makes it easier to enact a repeal-and-replace law, or conversely if the perceived necessity of enacting a repeal-and-replace law makes it easier to enact long-sought reforms. If instead the inclusion of broader Medicaid reforms jeopardizes the prospects of enacting repeal-and-replace legislation, then their inclusion does not represent an opportunity but rather a discretionary complication. Structural Medicaid reforms will clearly be necessary at some point; the open question is whether they can be agreed to this year in a form that makes broader repeal-and-replace legislation easier to pass.

#2: Distinguish between the ACAs Medicaid eligibility expansion and its elevated federal match rate. The ACA expanded the number of individuals whom states could cover under Medicaid, while also providing a higher federal match rate for covering this expansion population. These are two distinct policy choices and they should be evaluated and communicated separately.

Much of the press discussion surrounding the ACAs Medicaid expansion has to do with whether individuals who became newly eligible for Medicaid coverage under the ACA (childless adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty line) will remain eligible. It is important for those monitoring this issue to understand that maintaining the ACAs broadened federal Medicaid eligibility requirements does not require (or even suggest) that the ACAs elevated federal match rates be continued.

Some argue that resetting the ACAs elevated match rates to equal those provided for other beneficiaries is tantamount to rolling back Medicaid expansion, because states will not cover the expansion population at historical match rates. If this is true, however, it is not a persuasive argument for continuing inflated match rates. It would effectively signal that states do not genuinely prioritize expansion unless virtually the entire bill is picked up by the federal government, to an extent that was not done for Medicaids far needier historically eligible population.

The only way states can make a fair assessment of whether Medicaid should cover the ACAs expansion population is if they are presented with the same incentives to do so as exist for the rest of the Medicaid-eligible population. This could be done by preserving the ACAs expanded Medicaid eligibility criteria while repealing its inflated federal match rate.

#3: Recognize that the ACAs Elevated Match Rate is a Problem Warranting Correction. It is difficult to justify the ACAs inflated expansion match rate except in terms of a political bargain between the federal government and states. The match rate is inequitable in that it provides greater federal support for less needy populations (e.g., able-bodied childless adults above the poverty line) than it does for more vulnerable groups (e.g., pregnant women and children in poverty). It has increased the numbers of needy individuals competing for access to Medicaids limited supply of health care services. It has also had the predictable effect of inducing excess cost growth, with states passing on virtually the entirety of any cost-increasing decisions to the federal government. The inflated match rate is undoubtedly a primary reason why per-capita expansion costs in each of the last two years of 2015 and 2016 came in more than 60% higher than projected in the 2013 Medicaid actuarys report.

CMS Medicaid actuary estimates of per-capita costs of newly eligible adults

Year 2014 2015 2016 2013 Report $4,636 $3,976 $3,625 2014 Report $5,517 $4,281 $3,606 2015 Report $5,488 $6,366 $5,910 2016 Report $5,511 $6,365 $5,926

Reasonable people can differ on how many people should receive their health insurance coverage through Medicaid. But providing states with far higher reimbursement rates for the expansion population than for other beneficiaries will produce predictable and costly problems for as long as it continues.

Legislators face a number of tactical and substantive choices in crafting the Medicaid provisions of repeal-and-replace legislation. They must decide whether to focus reforms on problems caused by the ACA or to expand their reach to address problems Medicaid has faced since long before. They must also decide whether and how to split the issue of the ACAs Medicaid eligibility expansion from its inflated federal match rates. The case is strong for separating the two questions so that states thereafter make coverage decisions based on an even-handed assessment of where their citizens needs are the greatest. This would require, no matter how expansive lawmakers ultimately decide Medicaids coverage should be, that the federal government phase out the preferential match rate and treat new and old beneficiaries as equals.

Charles Blahous, a contributor to E21, holds the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Chair at the Mercatus Center and is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He recently served as a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare.

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A rocket

For an Indian student, even the sky is not the limit.

Eighteen-year-old Rifath Shaarook designed what he describes as the worlds lightest satellite, from scratch. The device weighs a mere 64 grams (0.14 lbs), making it even lighter than a smartphone. We did a lot of research on different cube satellites all over the world and found ours was the lightest, Shaarook said about his 3D-printed, carbon fiber small-scale satellite.

Named KalamSat, the device is named after Indias Missile Man, former president APJ Abdul Kalam. Kalam was a space-research pioneer in the country and he led Indias Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.

It will have a new kind of on-board computer and eight indigenous built-in sensors to measure acceleration, rotation and the magnetosphere of the earth, the budding scientist told Business Standard about his 4-centimeter cube design. Shaarook and his team created the satellite for under Rs1 lakh ($1,561).

rifath shahrook

Rifath Shahrook and his 64-gram satellite.

The 12th graders design scored him a win in the Cubes in Space competition for school-age students, organized by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the education organization I Doodle Learning. His prize? The device will now go on a four-hour mission aboard a sub-orbital flight during which it will operate for around 12 minutes in a micro-gravity environment of space.

KalamSat is one of 80 experiments to be selected from among 86,000 designs from 57 countries. It will be launched on a research rocket from Nasas six-square-mile Wallops Island Facility in Virginia on June 22, Amber Agee-DeHart, the founder of Cubes in Space program told Quartz. (The rocket will enter space for a few minutes, not orbit the Earth. The purpose is to test whether or not the 3D-printed technology will withstand launch conditions.)

Story continues

Shaarook, who hails from the town of Pallapati in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is the lead scientist at Chennai-based space education and innovation organization Space Kidz India, BBC reported. The outfit sponsored his research.

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China's new Silk Road promises trade and riches, with President Xi at helm

By Ben Blanchard and Sue-Lin Wong

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping and 29 other heads of state on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to build an open economy and ensure free and inclusive trade, under the ambitious Belt and Road initiative led by Beijing.

As a two-day summit on the project in Beijing wound up, the 30 nations also agreed to promote a rules-based, non-discriminatory trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core and to oppose protectionism, according to a joint communique signed by their leaders.

In the communique, China and other nations underlined the importance of expanding trade and investment based on a level playing field.

"It is our hope through the Belt and Road development, we will unleash new economic forces for global growth, build new platforms for global development, and rebalance economic globalization so mankind will move closer to a community of common destiny," Xi said at the close of the event.

The inclusive tone of China's Belt and Road push stands in stark contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy, which included the scrapping of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, a regional trade pact involving Pacific Rim countries but excluding China.

Xi on Sunday pledged $124 billion for the new "Silk Road", which aims to bolster China's global leadership ambitions by building infrastructure and trade links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.

Some Western diplomats have expressed unease about the initiative, seeing it as an attempt to promote Chinese influence globally. They are also concerned about transparency and access for foreign companies.

Germany said its firms were willing to support the Belt and Road initiative, but more transparency was needed.

European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told Reuters on Monday that EU member states would not be signing ministerial statements connected to the summit, though he downplayed the significance.

Story continues

"The European Commission, who has a mandate, who has the capacity to negotiate on behalf of member states on trade-related issues, we were not given a chance to negotiate on the text," he said.

"But it's not an issue. The event, what Chinese authorities have organized here, and the joint understanding of what should be done and what must be done, is very positive."

Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo said on Sunday Canberra was receptive to exploring commercial opportunities presented by the initiative, but any decisions would remain incumbent on national interest.

India refused to send an official delegation to Beijing, reflecting displeasure with China for developing a $57 billion trade corridor through Pakistan that also crosses the disputed territory of Kashmir.

A spokesman for its foreign ministry also said there were concerns about host countries taking on too much debt to fund Silk Road infrastructure.

Questions for investors in host countries include whether new infrastructure is useful for the local economy, what the recurring costs are and whether it creates opportunities for local suppliers of materials, labor and finance, Exotix Partners wrote in a note on Monday.

"And ultimately how much political sovereignty is sacrificed, and what is the risk to completion of projects in the event of a disorderly slowdown in the domestic Chinese economy," said the U.S. investment firm specializing in frontier and illiquid markets.

INCLUSIVE TONE

Earlier on Monday, Xi urged major multilateral institutions to join the Belt and Road initiative, stressing the importance of rejecting protectionism in seeking global economic growth.

"We need to improve policy coordination and reject beggar-thy-neighbor practices," Xi told the forum.

Xi, seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was speaking at a convention center by a lake in northern Beijing on the summit's second and final day.

"We need to seek win-win results through greater openness and cooperation, avoid fragmentation, refrain from setting inhibitive thresholds for cooperation or pursuing exclusive arrangements and reject protectionism," he said.

Xi said China's Belt and Road plan would be open to all. He said deep-seated problems in global development had yet to be addressed effectively, with international trade and investment sluggish, and economic globalization encountering headwinds.

"In a world of growing interdependency and challenges, no country can tackle the challenges, also the world's problems, on its own," Xi said.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni were also at the meeting, as were the heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Xi said China would host the second Belt and Road Forum in 2019.

"We have every reason to be confident in the future of the Belt and Road," Xi said. "That said, there is still a long way to go as the Belt and Road is a long-term undertaking."

(Additional reporting by Brenda Goh, Michael Martina, Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
donald trump

The acting solicitor general argued on Monday that President Donald Trump's statements during the 2016 campaign should not be a factor in determining whether an executive order temporarily banning travel from several majority-Muslim nations is constitutional.

Jeffrey Wall told the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle that Trump's travel ban should be judged based on its text and that Trump's statements during the election were "not statements in an official capacity."

"People say things on a campaign trail," Wall said. "We shouldn't start down the road of psychoanalyzing what people meant on the campaign trail."

Wall argued that the Supreme Court's 1972 ruling in Kleindienst v. Mandel determined the president has the authority to deny the entry of noncitizens based on "facially legitimate and bona fide reasons."

Trump's revised travel ban, Wall said, withstands the Mandel test because it was signed with the country's national-security interests in mind.

"You've got to have an affirmative showing of bad faith" on the part of the president, Wall said. "Whatever the bad-faith exception is, to say that the commander in chief, head of the executive branch, and multiple members of the Cabinet acted pretextually, I think you ought to require the strongest showing for that kind of remarkable holding."

The court's three judges  Ronald Gould, Richard Paez, and Michael Hawkins  seemed to be aware of the unique nature of this case, Hawaii v. Trump.

"Is there any case  there is no case like this, is there?" Paez said.

Hawaii trump travel ban

Wall said that "no one has ever attempted to set aside" a "neutral" law based on "campaign-trail comments."

Representing Hawaii, Neal Katyal, who was acting solicitor general under the Obama administration, pushed back on Wall's statements, saying the president never disavowed his comments about Muslims, which critics said were discriminatory.

Story continues

In December 2015, Trump issued a statement calling for a "complete and total shutdown" of Muslims entering the US. He later said he believed "Islam hates us" and that the US couldn't "allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States."

When Paez said those statements were made "during a highly contentious" election, Katyal brought up the district court's ruling that the president "rekindled" his campaign trail statements after taking office.

Katyal said that there was "no such statement" from Trump in which he disavowed his previous statements. He added that Trump made discriminatory remarks about Muslims "both pre- and post-inauguration."

"First, when he issued the first executive order, he read the title of the first executive order, looked up at the camera and said, 'We all know what that means,'" Katyal told the judges. "And that is a reference to something else. And indeed, when he issued both executive orders, he had left on his website that very statement about the complete and total shutdown of Muslims.

"Even last month, the president said it's a lot easier for Muslims to immigrate than Christian refugees from the Middle East, and that he's 'going to be helping Christians, big league,'" Katyal said.

NBC News' Hallie Jackson asked press secretary Sean Spicer during Monday's press briefing whether Trump would disavow his previous statements about Muslims.

"Right now, the president's focused on making sure that we make the appropriate arguments to get the ban in place," Spicer replied.

travel ban

In arguing on behalf of Hawaii, Katyal said, "I think the question is: What would the objective observer view these statements as? And as the district court found, it would view them as the establishment of a disfavored religion of Islam."

Paez also touched upon the broad nature of Trump's travel ban.

"When I read Mandel, it's clearly dealing with a specific application of standards to a specific visa denial, and that's not what we have here at all," Paez told Wall.

"In the context of this case, the executive order is an extremely broad order," Paez said. "We're not dealing with an individual one-off determination by a consular officer."

Wall rebutted the idea it was extremely broad, pointing to an Obama administration policy as precedent.

"But how many nationals does it apply to in those countries?" Paez said. "A large number."

"Well, whatever the number of nationals who try to travel to the country and can't otherwise obtain waivers, we don't know yet, obviously, because we haven't been able to implement the order," Wall said.

Katyal pointed to Washington v. Trump, in which US District Judge James Robart issued a temporary restraining order on the first executive order and later a preliminary injunction, which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld. Katyal said the case nullified Wall's arguments that the second travel ban was issued for national-security reasons and should be judged on its face value.

He added toward the end of the hearing that the case's circumstances were unique because of Trump's statements before and after taking office.

"This is a very limited, you know, and a really unusual case in which you have these public statements by the president," Katyal said. "Indeed, if you affirm the district court, there's not a thing that any president has done in our lifetime that would be unconstitutional.

"No president has done this," Katyal added.

The case was brought to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals after Hawaii District Judge Derrick Watson issued an injunction in March halting the implementation of Trump's revised travel ban, one day before it was set to go into effect.

Around the same time, a Maryland judge issued a separate ruling that stopped the enforcement of certain aspects of the ban. Both the Hawaii and Maryland judges said the executive order discriminated against Muslims.

NOW WATCH: Yale history professor: Trump's path to tyranny is unfolding





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President Donald Trump is hosting the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Monday ahead of a key meeting with Saudi Arabia that will essentially reset U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Relations with the long-time U.S. ally were strained under the Obama administration as the decision to not follow through with the red-line in Syria, and the lifting of the Iranian sanctions, have caused major concerns of stability in the region.

These meetings come at a critical time as the war on terror is heating up and the rise of the U.S. shale oil producer is changing the traditional relationship dynamic we have had with these OPEC members. Historically, it was thought that our relationship with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia was one based on oil. We would offer them protection in return for a reliable supply of oil. Yet, now with the resurgence of the U.S. oil producer, our relationship is shifting to more of alliance in the war on terror.

Iran is a big threat to the United Arab Emirates and the region. Irans dreams of regional domination, along with the rise of ISIS, is making our mutual relationship more critical than ever. Iran is fighting a proxy war in Yemen that the UAE and the Saudis are on the opposite side of. The UAE has been a strong ally in the war on terror and under President Obama the federation felt like it was thrown under the bus.

The Obama administration had the UAE ready for action in Syria before the president changed his mind, even when that red line was crossed. That fateful reversal of fortunes led to more pain for the Syrian people and put countries like the UAE in a much more vulnerable position. It led to the proliferation of more terrorists and emboldened Iran. This was strange because during the Obama years the UAE was viewed as the most important Arab partner because of its military capabilities and opposition to religious extremism.

This reversal on Syria strained U.S. relations and was one of the reasons the UAE helped lead an oil production war that was designed to take out U.S. energy producers including the shale industry. In fact, the UAE made it very clear that U.S. shale was their target and they were out for themselves. They were seemingly suggesting that the U.S. and our foreign policy had hung them out to dry and they were none too happy about it. This was tough talk from a U.S. ally that was usually quiet and left it to the Saudis to do their bidding.

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Yet things are changing quickly under the Trump administration; President Trumps approval ratings might not be tremendously high here in the U.S., but in the UEA, they are soaring. The United Arab Emirates has applauded Trumps tougher line on its foe Iran and cheered his decision for the U.S. tomahawk strike against Syrian government forces that had crossed more than one red line. The Trump doctrine of taking quick, decisive action against terrorists or foes that cross red lines is much more welcome in a region like the UAE where it seems there are enemies surrounding them.

Ahead of the meeting with President Trump, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of 60 Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) PAC-3 and 100 Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) GEM-T missiles for the UAE Patriot air defense system worth $2 billion. The UAE may be looking for even more purchases in the future.

President Trumps pro U.S. energy agenda may increase tensions with the UAE at some point because about 40% of the countrys gross domestic product is directly based on oil and gas output, but for now standing up to Iran and ISIS is of more importance to the Emirates. The UAE appears to be on board with the extension of OPEC production cuts. Instead of a relationship of dependence, our relationship is being reset as two strong partners defeating terror in the world. Tension over rising U.S. oil output is for another day as these two allies work together to fight against extremism and terror.

Phil Flynn is senior energy analyst at The PRICE Futures Group and a Fox Business Network contributor. He is one of the world's leading market analysts, providing individual investors, professional traders, and institutions with up-to-the-minute investment and risk management insight into global petroleum, gasoline, and energy markets. His precise and timely forecasts have come to be in great demand by industry and media worldwide and his impressive career goes back almost three decades, gaining attention with his market calls and energetic personality as writer of The Energy Report Opens a New Window..

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Hallie Jackson and Sean Spicer

NBC News' Hallie Jackson grilled White House press secretary Sean Spicer during Monday's press briefing over the existence of audio recordings President Donald Trump may be keeping of his conversations with other officials.

And Spicer deflected repeatedly when pressed, echoing his line of answering from Friday's press briefing, which followed Trump's initial eyebrow-raising tweet that said ousted FBI Director "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

Here's that exchange:

Jackson: "Why won't you just explain whether or not there are recordings of the president's conversations?"

Spicer: "The president has made it clear what his position is."

Jackson: "That's not my question. It's why won't you explain it."

Spicer: "I understand that because that's what the president's position is."

Jackson: "So given that you refuse to confirm or deny any of this, how is any senior official supposed to feel comfortable having a private conversation with the president?"

Spicer: "As I've said Hallie, the president has made it clear what his position is."

Jackson: "Even with these Congressional lawmakers calling to see if they exist?"

Spicer: "Hallie, I've asked the ... Hallie, I answered the question over and over again the same way."

It's unclear what Spicer meant by Trump having already made his position clear. On Friday, Spicer said he spoke to the president about the tweet and that Trump would have "nothing further to add to that."

"The tweet speaks for itself," Spicer said. "I'm moving on."

Trump's tweet seemed to reference his conversations with Comey in which the ousted FBI director reportedly assured Trump he was not under FBI investigation. One of those instances was a January dinner between the two. Comey has not made any public statements about whether he assured Trump he was not under investigation.

When Trump previously used scare quotes around a phrase in a tweet, such as he did when he claimed on Twitter without evidence that former President Barack Obama "wire-tapped" him in March, the president said phrases encased within those quotes should not be taken at literal face value. In that instance, he said wiretapping meant all forms of surveillance.

Story continues

A "source close to Comey" told NBC News on Friday that the ousted FBI director "hopes there are tapes."

"That would be perfect," the source told NBC.

Additionally, a number of top Democrats have made requests for any such recordings.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that Trump "has a long history of secretly recording calls," per former associates of his. The Post also referenced a pair of occassions when Trump recorded Post reporters during interviews.

Comey, whom Trump fired last week, announced in March that the FBI, as a part of its counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, was looking into potential collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian government officials. That investigation was launched in late July.

Watch the exchange between Jackson and Spicer:

Good Q @HallieJackson: WH won't deny Trump is secretly recording conversations  how are people supposed to feel comfortable talking to him? pic.twitter.com/FKOVbNay88  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 15, 2017

NOW WATCH: Yale history professor: Trump's path to tyranny is unfolding





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donald TRUMP

The Washington Post, citing current and former US intelligence officials with knowledge of the situation, reported Monday evening that President Donald Trump shared highly classified and sensitive information with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, during a meeting in the Oval Office last week.

Among some on the far right, though, the real story is so-called deep-state actors working from inside the intelligence community to undermine the president.

Following The Post's story, one White House official told The Daily Beast that Trump's "animus and suspicion towards 'Deep State'" actors would most likely skyrocket.

Breitbart News, the far-right outlet that has consistently supported Trump, published a post in the immediate aftermath of The Post's story with the headline, "Deep State Leaks Highly Classified Info To Washington Post To Smear President Trump."

The modern history of the "deep state" in American politics  real or imagined  starts with real leaks of classified information and ends as a conspiracy theory on popular yet dubious websites.

And how it got there raises serious questions about whether the intelligence community is trying to subvert a new president or whether it's a convenient scapegoat for an administration that has had its share of early foibles.

A deep state is a network of embedded members of a government's agencies or military who operate against a democratically elected government. It might work to undermine an elected presidents authority or legitimacy and has been common in countries such as Egypt and Turkey.

The concern in the US started shortly after Trump took office. In early February, The New York Times and The Washington Post published a series of explosive reports about the intelligence communitys investigations into the Trump campaign's communications with Russian officials during the 2016 election.

The reports, citing anonymous officials, revealed that the then-incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had discussed US sanctions against Russia with Kislyak before Trump took office, despite Flynn's claims that he and Kislyak had not discussed anything sensitive during their phone calls.

Story continues

The next day, The Times broke a story on what it said were "repeated contacts" that Trump associates had with Russian officials during the campaign. CNN published another report that night in which sources said communication between Trump associates and Russian officials during the campaign was constant.

Flynn resigned a short time later.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions later had to recuse himself from any Department of Justice investigations into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia after additional leaks revealed that he had also had contact with Russian officials during the campaign.

An American deep state?

The steady drip of leaks about Trump's young administration has led some to speculate about the beginnings of an American deep state.

The term is derived from the Turkish "derin devlet," which refers to an intricate network made up of government officials, often including those from the military and intelligence communities, whose primary goal is to subvert a democratically elected leader's agenda and ultimately remove that leader from power.

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo

Turkey's deep state is tethered to the army but consists of elements from the intelligence community, the judiciary, and the mafia. Turkish leaders, like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have waged political campaigns aimed at inciting public anger against the deep state.

In Egypt, less than a year after Mohammed Morsi was elected president, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, backed by Egypt's military, detained Morsi and toppled his government. El-Sisi is now Egypt's head of state. El-Sisi's ascent to power is thought by many to have been the result of an Egyptian deep state's response to the 2011 Arab Spring.

But experts and former government officials have warned against using the term deep state to refer to rifts between the US president and the intelligence community.

The deep state, as it exists in Turkey and Egypt, has two defining characteristics, Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider. First, it involves cooperation across multiple government agencies, like intelligence officials, military officials, and often executive-branch officials. Second, the execution of the deep state's agenda often results in bloody outcomes.

"You see dramatic results like assassinations, mass killings, pogroms, bombings  it's not about tension between the executive and the bureaucracy, it's not about a failure to work together," Erdemir said, adding that he would recommend "extreme caution" in adapting the term deep state from other political cultures and applying it to the US.

"'Deep state' I would never use," Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, told MSNBC in March. "That's a phrase we've used for Turkey and other countries like that, but not the American republic."

From the fringe to Washington

But soon after the possibility of the beginnings of an American deep state was first raised by the mainstream media, the idea took hold of the far-right media, quickly reaching a fever pitch.

"The Deep State Bumps off General Flynn. Who's Next?" blared a February Breitbart headline after the resignation of Flynn. The article pointed to the mainstream media as an arm of the deep state, saying the "ultimate target, of course, is Trump himself."

InfoWars editor at large Paul Joseph Watson recorded a segment posted to YouTube in early March titled "The Deep State War on Trump."

"Purge your administration of this globalist fifth column," Watson said. "There can be no compromise. These people literally want to overthrow a democratically elected government."

From the fringe, the idea of a deep state working against the Trump administration made its way to the mainstream conservative media.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity, the Fox News host who is an ardent Trump supporter, reiterated Watson's words during a segment that aired a week after Watson's video was posted on YouTube. "Tonight, it's time for the Trump administration to purge these saboteurs before it's too late," Hannity said, referring to "deep-state Obama-holdover government bureaucrats who are hell-bent on destroying this president."

And from there, the fears of an American deep state powered by intelligence leaks, which started out as mild speculation and reached the heights of conspiracy theory, made their way to the halls of Washington.

Trump has repeatedly and emphatically expressed his belief that there has been a concerted effort, fueled by politicians, those within the intelligence community, and the "fake news" media, to undermine his presidency and policy agenda.

He notably, without citing evidence, accused President Barack Obama of personally ordering the surveillance of phones at Trump Tower before the 2016 election. Trump seemed to have made the accusation based on a monologue by a far-right radio talk-show host and a Breitbart write-up of the host's belief that a "silent coup" was underway to overthrow Trump.

Trump's cold war with the intelligence community

The president has also publicly castigated the media and the intelligence community.

"Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!" Trump tweeted in February, shortly after Flynn resigned.

"The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!" he said.

In a meeting later with several members of Congress, he added: "We're going to find the leakers, and they're going to pay a big price."

As the news media continued publishing sensitive information, Trump tweeted that "information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?). Just like Russia."

"The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by 'intelligence' like candy," he continued. "Very un-American!"

Trump's loyalists quickly followed his lead, pointing to the intelligence leaks as a key piece of evidence they say supports the existence of an American deep state. They have also consistently singled out Trump's chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, as a source of knowledge on the American deep state.

Bannon is the former head of Breitbart, a largely Trump-friendly outlet that has published a slew of articles asserting the existence of an American deep state.

Steve Bannon

"We are talking about the emergence of a deep state led by Barack Obama, and that is something that we should prevent," Iowa Rep. Steve King told The New York Times. "The person who understands this best is Steve Bannon, and I would think that he's advocating to make some moves to fix it."

Echoing Hannity's and Watson's words, King later said Trump "needs to purge the leftists within the administration that are holdovers from the Obama administration, because it appears that they are undermining his administration and his chances of success."

Trump adviser Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, also believes in the deep state and has said he discussed the concept with Bannon. "Of course, the deep state exists," Gingrich told the Associated Press in March. "There's a permanent state of massive bureaucracies that do whatever they want and set up deliberate leaks to attack the president."

"This is what the deep state does: They create a lie, spread a lie, fail to check the lie, and then deny that they were behind the lie," Gingrich said.

He added that he and Bannon had discussed the idea and that Bannon compared its perils to the plot of the new season of "Homeland," which includes a storyline in which career intelligence officials try to undermine the president-elect.

Though Bannon has never used the term deep state publicly, he has repeatedly expressed distrust toward American institutions and the intelligence community.

After he was removed from his post on the National Security Council in April, Bannon said he was put on the council to "ensure that it was de-operationalized" and added that the NSC had returned "to its proper function."

'There have always been scandals  this is not new'

Despite the theories and headlines, the leaking of classified information is not all that unusual and not enough to prompt suspicions of a legitimate deep state in the US, according to former intelligence officials.

Intelligence leaks "happened during the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, and long before that," Bob Deitz, a veteran of the NSA and the CIA who worked under the Clinton and Bush administrations, told Business Insider.

"It's possible that they came from directly within the White House, perhaps from people from the intelligence community on loan to the White House," he added. While the classified leaks that have been published in the media have reflected poorly on the administration, "there are a lot of leaks from people in the White House that reflect badly on them," Deitz said. "Just look at all the reports of infighting between Bannon and Kushner."

"There have always been scandals," Glenn Carle, a former CIA clandestine-services officer who is an expert on national security, told Business Insider. "The torture black sites were leaked, the Pentagon Papers were leaked, the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident was leaked. This is not new."

Both Carle and Deitz added that more often than not, leaks of classified information come from the Hill. "It is rare for them to come from the rank-and-file of the CIA" or other intelligence agencies, Carle said.

Donald Trump Salute Salutes

'If you serve the state, you betray it. If you betray the state, you betray it.'

The dangers of a president and his allies believing in the existence of a covert effort to undermine him are profound, experts say, and it has placed those in the intelligence community in a tough position.

"The president has cast doubt on proven truths, undermined the laws, undermined the judiciary, the free press, the intelligence community," Carle said. "He's undermined the very values upon which this society was built. So, what do you do if you're an intelligence official? If you serve the state, you betray it. If you betray the state, you betray it," he continued.

This dilemma, Carle said, has been widely discussed among those in the intelligence community, who have been forced to assess which is the greater threat: Trump's "authoritarian tendencies" that threaten "the fabric of the nation," or the clear national security risks posed by a sustained stream of classified information being made public.

In this particular situation, in which campaign surrogates of the US president are under an active counterintelligence investigation for their suspected ties to a foreign power, "when leaks come from the intelligence community, it's not to undermine the president or to protect the deep state. It's to protect democracy  it stems from a sense of profound patriotism," Carle said.

Whatever the cause, classified information being leaked on a prolonged basis is treacherous, because it can send a message to the broader US intelligence community and government officials that leaking information is permissible.

"Everybody knows the White House has leaked information in pursuit of various foreign-policy objectives throughout American history. When people see that, they might think, 'So, leaks are OK when the White House does it but not OK if they come from somewhere other than the White House,'" Deitz said. "You lose the moral high ground."

A 'gold mine' for foreign intelligence

Numerous national-security risks can result from tension between a president who believes he's being undermined and the government officials or agencies that find themselves the target of that president's ire.

"By definition, information is classified because its release could jeopardize national security," Deitz said, adding that while there were instances of overclassification, "people cannot decide for themselves what information is OK to leak and what isn't. It doesn't work that way."

If the administration continues to publicly attack the intelligence community based on the belief that the national security apparatus is working against it, that could also open doors to hostile foreign powers looking to infiltrate American society.

Vladimir Putin

"I spent my career exploiting the positions into which foreign officials were placed when they wanted the best for their society and wanted to uphold the oaths they made to their laws, and yet, the actions of their government undermined the very oaths they took," Carle said.

Now, he said, American intelligence officials may well be in the same position.

"This is a gold mine of opportunity for foreign intelligence services," he said.

There are other national security risks posed by the actions of a president who believes in the existence of a shadow government. In some cases, it has placed intelligence officials in the position of having to determine whether they can share information with their commander in chief.

In February, for instance, The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence officials had withheld some sensitive information from the president. Though information has been withheld from presidents and congressional members in the past, officials told The Journal none of those past decisions were affected by concerns about a president's trustworthiness or discretion. This decision to withhold information from Trump highlighted the "deep mistrust" between Trump and the intelligence community.

And if the rift between a White House that believes it's being undermined by the institutions designed to serve American interests and those institutions themselves continues to widen, the risks to national security could be almost as severe as those posed by a legitimate deep state.

"The deep state does not exist in fact but it exists in the minds of Trump supporters," Carle said. "That's just as much a threat to society."





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Updated: May 15, 2019

Its fun to travel. And with social media showcasing a lot of wonderful destinations, who wouldnt be tempted to travel, right? I actually know someone who has his travel agency on speed dial in his mobile phone!

As you may know, traveling is not just about fun and leisure. A lot of people also travel for business. And this market will be your primary customers if youre running a travel agency business in the Philippines.

Establishing a travel agency can provide you with a steady income as it is always in demand. Additionally, you actually dont need a lot of capital to start this business.

If youre interested to put up a travel agency business, then here are five quick tips that can come in handy.

1. Determine what type of travel agency you will be.

According to the travel industry in the Philippines, there are two types of travel agencies.

First, there is IATA Agents or the Accredited by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). They are the international regulating body for airline and airline-related departments.

Having this kind of accreditation will let your customers know that you are reliable and trusted by airlines to issue tickets. You also have the power to rebook, reissue, or revalidate tickets if needed.

Second, is the Non-IATA Agents. These agencies are not accredited by the IATA, and are therefore not allowed to issue tickets.

The way they do business instead, is to buy tickets from the airline directly or an IATA-accredited travel agency. Setting up this type of agency is easier, but your profit will be smaller. Its recommended for those with little capital.

2. Have both online and offline presence.

People are now comfortable with buying plane tickets online. This means most travelers will almost always check online first if they need a travel agency.

Have a website and maintain a social media account to serve as your sales and marketing channels online.

However, aside from the online presence, you must also have an office. Most corporate accounts will want to deal with an agency with a physical business address.

3. Market the destinations.

Its important to provide quality service and competitive prices to your customers. But when it comes to your marketing strategies, your focus should be in promoting the destinations that you offer.

Especially in social media, you can do content marketing on popular tourist spots. This way, if the need arises to travel to that destination, your target market will remember your business first.

Creating packages for these destinations will also be helpful. If you can partner with hotels, then that would be advantageous also, particularly for group travelers and business travelers.

4. Register your business.

Register your travel agency business early on and dont operate as a fly-by-night travel agent because you will not get corporate clients this way.

Before going through the usual process of registering a business, check first with the permits and licensing office in your city. Ask them about the requirements of a travel agency business.

Each city in the Philippines can have different processes, thats why this will be your first step.

Lastly, it is optional but it would certainly be helpful if you can apply and get accreditation from the Philippine Department of Tourism. This will boost your credibility as a travel agency business.

5. Have the necessary equipment.

Travel agencies require minimal equipment to operate. The most important are a computer with an internet connection, preferably two phone lines, a scanner, a printer, and a fax machine.

When it comes to the aesthetics of your office, be sure to have comfortable chairs for clients. And showcase high-quality photos or posters of your destinations to attract visitors.

I hope you find these five quick tips helpful.

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For immediate release

FLOW TRADERS RELEASES APRIL 2017 ETP MARKET VOLUMES

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 15 May 2017 - Flow Traders N.V. ("Flow Traders") (Euronext: FLOW), today releases the monthly ETP (Exchange Traded Products) market data for the month of April 2017. This refers to general market data only.

In April 2017, the Global ETP Assets under Management grew marginally to a new high of

EUR 3,622bn (US$ 3,944bn), +0.33% versus March 2017 (Source: BlackRock ETP Landscape April 2017). The average VIX for the month of April improved to 13.14 (versus 11.90 in March), with a low of 10.36 (versus 10.96 as low in March) and a high of 15.96 (versus 13.12 in March) (Source: Bloomberg).

For a complete historical overview of the market data, please visit our website http://www.flowtraders.com/investors

Contact details

Flow Traders N.V.

Serge Enneman / Investor Relations Officer

Phone: +31 20 7996799

Email: Investor.relations@flowtraders.com





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This publication is prepared by Flow Traders N.V. and is for information purposes only. It is not a recommendation to engage in investment activities and you must not rely on the content of this document when making any investment decisions. The information in this publication does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice and is not to be regarded as investor marketing or marketing of any security or financial instrument, or as an offer to buy or sell, or as a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell, securities or financial instruments.

The information and materials contained in this publication are provided 'as is' and Flow Traders N.V. or any of its affiliates ("Flow Traders") do not warrant the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the information and materials and expressly disclaim liability for any errors or omissions. This publication is not intended to be, and shall not constitute in any way a binding or legal agreement, or impose any legal obligation on Flow Traders. All intellectual property rights, including trademarks, are those of their respective owners. All rights reserved. All proprietary rights and interest in or connected with this publication shall vest in Flow Traders. No part of it may be redistributed or reproduced without the prior written permission of Flow Traders.

Flow Traders expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update, review or revise any statements contained in this publication to reflect any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which such statements are based. Unless the source is otherwise stated, the market, economic and industry data in this publication constitute the estimates of our management, using underlying data from independent third parties. We have obtained market data and certain industry forecasts used in this publication from internal surveys, reports and studies, where appropriate, as well as market research, publicly available information and industry publications. The third party sources we have used generally state that the information they contain has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable but that the accuracy and completeness of such information is not guaranteed and that the projections they contain are based on a number of assumptions.

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By Samuel Ssebuliba

The Uganda Prisons Services authorities have distanced themselves from the management of Nalufenya detention center, which has of lately been described as a torture chamber.

This comes at the time when several suspects arrested in connection to the murder of former police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi are said to have been tortured while at Nalufenya.

Appearing before parliaments budget committee yesterday to lobby for Shs19 billion for feeding inmates, James Mwanje the Assistant Commissioner General of the prison services said Nalufenya is strictly under the police force.

He added that they are too concerned about the reports of torture that come out in the media especially the case of Kamwenge Mayor Geoffrey Byamukama but this is beyond their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, in what appears to be bowing to pressure and growing criticism by the public and rights bodies including Human Rights Watch over the alleged torture of civilians, the police spokesperson Asan Kasingye says implicated officers are to be paraded before journalists to explain the said torture of suspects.
Ocean View, Delaware, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Solar PV Module Market share is poised to surpass USD 30 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc. Paradigm shift from depleting conventional to sustainable resources for electricity generation will drive the global solar PV module market size. Rising concern towards greenhouse gas emissions coupled with growing measures towards energy conservation will further stimulate the product demand.

In 2016, British Columbia introduced the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act which defines standards and emissions norms to be abided by industrial power generation units in the region.

Germany solar PV module market size is set to exceed 2.5 GW of annual installation by 2024. Government initiatives pertaining to replacement of fossil fuels with clean energy resources will considerably complement the business landscape. In 2017, The German Renewable Energy Act renounced annual targets of 2.5 GW PV installations. Feed in tariff, tax benefits, subsidies introduced by government will further boost the product landscape.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1563

Utility solar PV module market is anticipated to witness strong growth owing to favorable government initiatives including investment tax credit, low import duty and other financial assistance. In 2017, Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam announced FiT scheme for utility scale solar power projects and the net metering scheme for rooftop systems.

Financial and technical assistance by institutions including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) along with easy availability of soft loans will propel the crystalline silicon solar PV module market. Rising environmental concerns with improved operational efficiencies will further boost the business landscape. In 2017, DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions launched its latest DuPont Solamet photovoltaic metallization paste with an aim to achieve module efficiency of about 21.15%.

Government initiatives such as net metering, subsidies, tax benefits, power purchase agreement coupled with growing measures toward rural electrification will stimulate the on-grid solar PV module market. In 2017, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in India, exempted the procurement of PV components and materials for grid connected systems from customs and excise duty.

UK solar PV module market is set to expand owing to government initiatives towards sustainable energy integration. The export tariff introduced by the UK government facilitates USD 0.06 per unit for the surplus electricity injected back to the grid by the generator. Favorable government reforms with ambitious plan towards carbon footprint reduction will further boost the business outlook.

Browse key industry insights spread across 400 pages with 838 market data tables & 12 figures & charts from this 2017 report Solar PV Module Market in detail along with the table of contents at:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/solar-pv-module-market

For Middle East & Africa, UAE solar PV module market share is set to expand over 18% by 2024. Growing investments towards optimum resource utilization and sustainable energy mix will propel the business outlook. Low Levelized cost pertaining to Independent Power Project (IPP) bids and Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) programs across the region will further thrust the industry landscape.

Notable players across the solar PV module market include Canadian Solar, Trina, JA Solar, Jinko, Yingli, First Solar, SFCE, Hanwha Q-Cell, SunPower, ReneSola, Lanco, Vikram Solar, Su Kam, Moser Baer, GCL, Hareon, Motech etc.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1563



Browse Related Reports:

Vertical Farming Market Size 20172024

Vertical Farming Market size was more than USD 2 billion in 2016 and is estimated to witness growth more than 27% over the projected timespan. Soaring population levels, declining food self-sufficiency, scarcity of farming land, higher productivity yields across the globe will be the foremost factors cropping up the global vertical farm market size over the forecast timespan.

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/vertical-farming-market

Hydropower Market Size 20172024

Hydropower Market size for 2016 was over 1,000 GW of cumulative installation and is set to witness gain over 2% by 2024. Growing focus toward adoption of renewable energy integration coupled with its wide applications range including water supply for irrigation and flood control will propel the hydropower market growth.

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/hydropower-market





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Lithuanian English

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-05-16 15:26 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In accordance with the decision adopted in AB Litgrid (legal entity code - 302564383) Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders on 25 April 2017, on 15 May 2017 AB Litgrid and UAB Lietuvos energija (legal entity code 301844044) have signed an agreement to sell UAB Technologiju ir inovaciju centras shares owned by Litgrid. Under this agreement AB Litgrid has transfered to UAB Lietuvos energija the ownership of 1000 units of ordinary registered non-material shares of UAB Technologiju ir inovaciju centras (legal entity code 302464881). This constitutes to 0.004 % of all UAB Technologiju ir inovaciju centras shares.

Shares were sold for EUR 847, calculated in accordance with the point 1.1 of the shareholders agreement no. SUT-309-15. The transfer of the selling price is considered the moment of share ownership transition to UAB Lietuvos energija.
- One of the arguably prettiest female gangsters in Nairobi, Kenya, has been brutally killed

- The mother of one, wife of a fellow gangster, was caught robbing members of the public in Kayole

- She was shot in the face after exchanging fire with the police

The lady known as Cleah Addi Vybz was killed by police officers as revealed by a famous police officer based in Kayole.

READ ALSO: Nigerians react after Pastor Adeboye asked them if they've prayed for Buhari

The officer also known as Hessy wa Kayole updated the Kayole Crime Free Facebook page revealing Cleah was among two who were killed on Tuesday, May 9,, during a shootout in Kayole.

She was in the company of three other suspects who were robbing members of the public in broad daylight.

READ ALSO: Gullible student loses his school fees to Hushpuppi

The deceased Cleah was the wife to a fellow gangster known as Mwani and had an adorable baby boy together.

She participated in the robberies and always accompanied the husband, who was always in hiding, carrying and ferrying weapons.

READ ALSO: Woman disguises as a man for years to do hard work

The no-nonsense cop announced her demise saying he warned her but she never heeded his advice.

He further warned other gangsters including Mwanii of ending up in the same fate soon if they fail to change from their notorious behaviour.

Meanwhile, watch this video below:

Source: Legit.ng
A desperate mother deserted her baby in a taxi with a note: Please forgive me!

On Sunday at the Pavilion, a new-born baby was found hidden under the seat of a minibus taxi. A note of apology from his mother was stapled on the babys shirt.

Source: Destiny Man

READ ALSO: Woman disguises as a man for years to do hard work

"I apologize for what I did, please forgive me. There is nothing I can do. The father is denying the baby. I don't have an ID to apply for a grant because I left it at home in the rural area. Please take good care of the baby or send it to the police," the note reads.

Zokuthula Ngcobo, a nurse at Westville Hospital nurse, told a news team: I had been waiting for transport home after a shift when I was approached by a flustered taxi driver.

Source: News 24

READ ALSO: Edo state police officers cuff man to moving van and dragged him along the road (photos, video)

"I went with him to the taxi and the baby was on the seat. His eyes were so swollen and he was screaming. The driver was afraid to touch him. I picked up the baby and I think that he had been hidden under the seat for a long time because the driver had taken a full load from town to Pinetown and then back to the Pavilion before he heard the crying," she said.

Zokuthula Ngcobo took the abandoned baby to the nearest hospital. He was then fed and examined by the doctor.

Source: News 24

READ ALSO: Lady dies during delivery at Lagos hospital

She also said that another ambulance came. Along with the police, they took the baby to Addington Hospital, South Africa.

What would you tell the mother who abandoned the baby?

Source: News24

Meanwhile, watch this video below:

Source: Legit.ng
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
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 ...
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new study has found that children in Head Start who miss 10% or more of the school year have fewer gains in academics than their peers who attend preschool more regularly. Many researchers see high-quality preschool programs as a way to reduce long-term disparities in education. Placing an emphasis on attendance in preschool programs may be important to maximizing benefits.

The study, from researchers at the University of Virginia and The Ohio State University, appears in the journal Child Development.

"Preschool absences may undermine the benefits of high-quality preschool education," explains Arya Ansari, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Virginia, the study's lead author. Ansari cautioned that while the findings of the study are not causal, they highlight the scope and consequences of preschool absences. "Given the large investments in early childhood programs, we need to consider the ramifications of more frequent absences for children's early learning, especially in programs such as Head Start, the largest federally funded preschool program in the United States."

Little is known about absences in preschool, in part because, unlike in K-12 schooling, attendance is not mandated by law for preschoolers and programs like Head Start do not always track it. In this study, researchers looked at nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort, which included 2,842 children ages 3 and 4 years who attended Head Start in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Most children in the study were from ethnic-minority households (e.g., Latino, Black, Asian), and most came from single-parent families and had a mother who was not employed. Most families had incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

At the end of the school year, parents reported on their children's school absences, and direct assessments provided information on children's academic performance in language, literacy, and math.

On average, children missed eight days of the school year. In addition, 12% of children were chronically absent - defined as missing 10% of the school year or more - and missed an average of 22 days of school. Children who missed more days of school, especially those who were chronically absent, demonstrated fewer gains in math and literacy during the preschool year, the study found. Moreover, excessive absenteeism was especially problematic for the early academic learning of children who entered Head Start with a less developed skill set, meaning that they started school with the lowest language and literacy skills. The study also found that minority children were less likely to be absent than White children. In addition, children were less likely to be absent when they were enrolled in classrooms that operated for more hours per week, and in larger and bilingual classrooms. The quality of interactions between teachers and children facilitated children's development of literacy skills, but the benefits were roughly twice as large for children who were absent less often.

The findings of this study have implications for both practice and policy, the authors suggest. "Preschool teachers and administrators, as well as researchers and policymakers, should make efforts to reduce preschool absences," says Kelly M. Purtell, assistant professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University, who coauthored the study. "One way to do this is to discuss the challenges to attendance that parents face and work with them to reduce these barriers." Early childhood educators may also want to develop ways to ensure that parents understand the importance of preschool to their children's learning, and see it as education as well as care.

The authors recommend that researchers pay closer attention to the implications of these absences in evaluating the quality and effects of preschool programs.
A leading psychology professor at The University of Texas at Arlington has focused international attention on how a chronic pain patient's irrational doubts about never getting better can influence both his reactions to pain and even treatment outcomes.

Chronic pain costs the U.S. up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity, and is considered a problem of epidemic proportions. The influence of these irrational beliefs on both patient behavior and chronic pain treatment success is of growing interest to the scientific community.

"We are seeing that patients who tend to have these irrational beliefs are at greater risk of misusing opioid medicines and take longer to return to work when experiencing work disability for acute lower back pain," said Robert J. Gatchel, UTA Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Nancy P. & John G. Penson Endowed Professor of Clinical Health Psychology.

"A more complete treatment model around this problem would promote changes in lifestyle habits and attitudes, and strengthen social support systems, alongside medical treatments. We need to take into consideration a series of treatment components that people have not considered before," he added.

The irrational or maladaptive beliefs that the pain will never get better are clinically known as pain catastrophizing. Gatchel has edited one of the first special issues dedicated to this subject for this month's Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research, bringing together new studies from Asia, Europe and North America, as well as his recent review of the literature.

"We hope that this special issue will spark more interest in this significant construct and help guide further clinical research," Gatchel said. "New research on brain imaging and the genetics of catastrophizing are highlighting the increased complexity of these beliefs and underline the need for a more complete model for pain treatment."

Perry Fuchs, UTA's chair of psychology, congratulated Gatchel on this achievement and his research program, which contributes to the University's strategic theme of Health and the Human Condition within the Strategic Plan 2020: Bold Solutions|Global Impact.

"There is a long history of evaluating the cognitive appraisal of pain on therapeutic outcomes and Dr. Gatchel's analysis of catastrophizing and comprehensive treatment approaches highlights certain aspects of why patients might feel less pain, why some patients recover faster, and how some better manage their conditions," Fuchs said.

More information: Robert J. Gatchel, Introduction to the "Special Issue on Pain Catastrophizing", Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research (2017). Robert J. Gatchel, Introduction to the "Special Issue on Pain Catastrophizing",(2017). DOI: 10.1111/jabr.12088
As thyroid cancer rates rise, more people are having surgery to remove all or part of their thyroid. A new study suggests complications from these procedures are more common than previously believed.

Overall, 6.5 percent of thyroid cancer patients had general post-operative complications in the month after surgery, and 12 percent had complications specific to thyroid surgery within the year after their operation. But the risks were significantly higher for certain groups, suggesting the opportunity for targeted interventions and education to improve outcomes.

"That 12 percent of patients overall had thyroid surgery specific complications is concerning. Most of our surgeons quote a 1 to 3 percent rate. This is quadruple what we had thought," says lead study author Maria Papaleontiou, M.D., assistant professor of metabolism, endocrinology and diabetes at Michigan Medicine.

The majority of previous studies on thyroid surgery complications have been from single institutions, often high-volume centers, which are known to have better outcomes.

The new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, looked at 22,867 people who had surgery for thyroid cancer between 1998-2011. Data was collected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results-Medicare linked database.

Researchers looked at general post-operative complications - fever, infection, blood clots or swelling - that occurred within the first 30 days after surgery. They also looked at complications specific to thyroid surgery, such as hypoparathyroidism, hypocalcemia, and vocal cord or fold paralysis. These conditions can have lifelong impact on patients.

"When we work with patients to treat thyroid cancer, we're always balancing benefits and risks. This study shows there are more complications from surgery for thyroid cancer than expected. It suggests an opportunity to educate both patients and providers to decrease complications and improve outcomes," says senior study author Megan R. Haymart, M.D., assistant professor of metabolism, endocrinology and diabetes at Michigan Medicine.

The researchers identified three groups for which both general and thyroid surgery specific complications were more common:

Patients older than 65

Patients with more advanced thyroid cancer

Patients with other co-existing medical conditions

Older patients were about three times more likely to have complications than those younger than 65. Ten percent of older patients developed general post-operative complications and 19 percent had thyroid surgery-related complications. For patients younger than 65, 3 percent had general complications and 6 percent had thyroid surgery-related complications.

Advanced disease was associated with the highest number of complications: 23 percent of patients whose cancer had spread throughout the body had thyroid surgery specific complications, a number the researchers call "alarming."

"Thyroidectomy is considered a fairly safe operation in general, but some populations are more vulnerable and need extra attention in pre- and post-operative care," Papaleontiou says.

The researchers suggest better educating patients and providers so that those at risk of complications seek out high-volume surgeons that tend to have better outcomes. Other studies have shown that low-volume surgeons perform a disproportionate number of thyroid surgeries in the United States.

In addition, the researchers say it's crucial to educate endocrinologists - who typically treat hypoparathyroidism or hypocalcemia - on the likelihood of these risks on patients who have had thyroid cancer surgery.

In addition, Haymart says conversations about limiting surgery for those with low-risk disease may be appropriate.

"Even in low-risk patients, the risk of vocal cord paralysis is still 2 percent and the risk of hypoparathyroidism is 8 percent. This is higher than we'd like to see," Haymart says. "Are there options to do less extensive surgery for these patients? If the cancer control benefits are similar but the risks of long-term complications would be less, we need to provide patients with this option."
Scaffold for bioprosthetic mouse ovary printed with gelatin: A scientist holds a bioprosthetic mouse ovary made of gelatin with tweezers. Credit: Northwestern University

The brave new world of 3-D printed organs now includes implanted ovary structures that, true to their design, actually ovulate, according to a study by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and McCormick School of Engineering.

By removing a female mouse's ovary and replacing it with a bioprosthetic ovary, the mouse was able to not only ovulate but also give birth to healthy pups. The moms were even able to nurse their young.

The bioprosthetic ovaries are constructed of 3-D printed scaffolds that house immature eggs, and have been successful in boosting hormone production and restoring fertility in mice, which was the ultimate goal of the research.

"This research shows these bioprosthetic ovaries have long-term, durable function," said Teresa K. Woodruff, a reproductive scientist and director of the Women's Health Research Institute at Feinberg. "Using bioengineering, instead of transplanting from a cadaver, to create organ structures that function and restore the health of that tissue for that person, is the holy grail of bioengineering for regenerative medicine."

The paper will be published May 16 in Nature Communications.

How is this research different from other 3-D printed structures?

What sets this research apart from other labs is the architecture of the scaffold and the material, or "ink," the scientists are using, said Ramille Shah, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at McCormick and of surgery at Feinberg.

That material is gelatin, which is a biological hydrogel made from broken-down collagen that is safe to use in humans. The scientists knew that whatever scaffold they created needed to be made of organic materials that were rigid enough to be handled during surgery and porous enough to naturally interact with the mouse's body tissues.

"Most hydrogels are very weak, since they're made up of mostly water, and will often collapse on themselves," Shah said. "But we found a gelatin temperature that allows it to be self-supporting, not collapse, and lead to building multiple layers. No one else has been able to print gelatin with such well-defined and self-supported geometry."

That geometry directly links to whether or not the ovarian follicles, organized hormone-producing support cells surrounding an immature egg cell, will survive in the ovary, which was one of the bigger findings in the study.

"This is the first study that demonstrates that scaffold architecture makes a difference in follicle survival," Shah said. "We wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't use a 3-D printer platform."

Variety of scaffold structures: A look at multiple kinds of scaffold structures that can be created using gelatin. Credit: Northwestern University

How does this impact humans?

The scientists' sole objective for developing the bioprosthetic ovaries was to help restore fertility and hormone production in women who have undergone adult cancer treatments or those who survived childhood cancer and now have increased risks of infertility and hormone-based developmental issues.

"What happens with some of our cancer patients is that their ovaries don't function at a high enough level and they need to use hormone replacement therapies in order to trigger puberty," said Monica Laronda, co-lead author of this research and a former post-doctoral fellow in the Woodruff lab. "The purpose of this scaffold is to recapitulate how an ovary would function. We're thinking big picture, meaning every stage of the girl's life, so puberty through adulthood to a natural menopause."

Laronda is now an assistant professor at the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital.

Additionally, the successful creation of 3-D printed implants to replace complex soft tissue could significantly impact future work in soft tissue regenerative medicine.

Technically, how does biological 3-D printing work?

3-D printing an ovary structure is similar to a child using Lincoln Logs, said Alexandra Rutz, co-lead author of the study and a former biomedical engineering graduate fellow in Shah's Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) lab at the Simpson Querrey Institute. Children can lay the logs at right angles to form structures. Depending on the distance between the logs, the structure changes to build a window or a door, etc.

"3-D printing is done by depositing filaments," said Rutz, who is now a Whitaker International Postdoctoral Scholar at Ecole Des Mines De Saint-Etienne in Gardanne, France. "You can control the distance between those filaments, as well as the advancing angle between layers, and that would give us different pore sizes and different pore geometries."

In Northwestern's lab, the researchers call these 3-D printed structures "scaffolds," and liken them to the scaffolding that temporarily surrounds a building while it undergoes repairs.

"Every organ has a skeleton," said Woodruff, who also is the Thomas J. Watkins Memorial Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. "We learned what that ovary skeleton looked like and used it as model for the bioprosthetic ovary implant."

In a building, the scaffolding supports the materials needed to repair the building until it's eventually removed. What's left is a structure capable of holding itself up. Similarly, the 3-D printed "scaffold" or "skeleton" is implanted into a female and its pores can be used to optimize how follicles, or immature eggs, get wedged within the scaffold. The scaffold supports the survival of the mouse's immature egg cells and the cells that produce hormones to boost production. The open structure also allows room for the egg cells to mature and ovulate, as well as blood vessels to form within the implant enabling the hormones to circulate within the mouse bloodstream and trigger lactation after giving birth.

The all-female McCormick-Feinberg collaboration for this research was "very fruitful," Shah said, adding that it was motivational to be part of an all-female team doing research towards finding solutions to female health issues.

"What really makes a collaboration work are the personalities and being able to find the humor in the research," Shah said. "Teresa and I joked that we're grandparents of these pups."

More information: A bioprosthetic ovary created using 3D printed microporous scaffolds restores ovarian function in sterilized mice, Nature Communications (2017). Journal information: Nature Communications A bioprosthetic ovary created using 3D printed microporous scaffolds restores ovarian function in sterilized mice,(2017). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/NCOMMS15261
Credit: Helmut Januschka

A recent study by researchers at North Carolina State University and the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) finds that "moral enhancement technologies"  which are discussed as ways of improving human behavior  are neither feasible nor wise, based on an assessment of existing research into these technologies.

The idea behind moral enhancement technologies is to use biomedical techniques to make people more moral. For example, using drugs or surgical techniques to treat criminals who have exhibited moral defects.

"There are existing ways that people have explored to manipulate morality, but the question we address in this paper is whether manipulating morality actually improves it," says Veljko Dubljevic, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of philosophy at NC State who studies the ethics of neuroscience and technology.

Dubljevic and co-author Eric Racine of the IRCM reviewed the existing research on moral enhancement technologies that have been used in humans to assess the effects of these technologies and how they may apply in real-world circumstances.

Specifically, the researchers looked at four types of pharmaceutical interventions and three neurostimulation techniques:

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays a critical role in social cognition, bonding and affiliative behaviors, sometimes called "the moral molecule";

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often prescribed for depression, but have also been found to make people less aggressive;

Amphetamines, which some have argued can be used to enhance motivation to take action;

Beta blockers are often prescribed to treat high blood pressure, but have also been found to decrease implicit racist responses;

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a type of neurostimulation that has been used to treat depression, but has also been reported as changing the way people respond to moral dilemmas;

Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) is an experimental form of neurostimulation that has also been reported as making people more utilitarian; and

Deep brain stimulation is a neurosurgical intervention that some have hypothesized as having the potential to enhance motivation.

"What we found is that, yes, many of these techniques do have some effects," Dubljevic says. "But these techniques are all blunt instruments, rather than finely tuned technologies that could be helpful. So, moral enhancement is really a bad idea.

"In short, moral enhancement is not feasible  and even if it were, history shows us that using science to in an attempt to manipulate morality is not wise," Dubljevic says.

The researchers found different problems for each of the pharmaceutical approaches.

"Oxytocin does promote trust, but only in the in-group," Dubljevic notes. "And it can decrease cooperation with out-group members of society, such as racial minorities, and selectively promote ethnocentrism, favoritism, and parochialism."

The researchers also found that amphetamines boost motivation for all types of behavior, not just moral behavior. Moreover, there are significant risks of addiction associated with amphetamines. Beta blockers were found not only to decrease racism, but to blunt all emotional response which puts their usefulness into doubt. SSRIs reduce aggression, but have serious side-effects, including an increased risk of suicide.

In addition to physical side effects, the researchers also found a common problem with using either TMS or TCDS technologies.

"Even if we could find a way to make these technologies work consistently, there are significant questions about whether being more utilitarian in one's decision-making actually makes one more moral," Dubljevic says.

Lastly, the researchers found no evidence that deep brain stimulation had any effect whatsoever on moral behavior.

"Our goal here is to share a cautionary note with those who are discussing different techniques for moral enhancement," Dubljevic says. "I am in favor of research that is done responsibly, but against dangerous social experiments."

More information: Veljko Dubljevic et al. Moral Enhancement Meets Normative and Empirical Reality: Assessing the Practical Feasibility of Moral Enhancement Neurotechnologies, Bioethics (2017). Veljko Dubljevic et al. Moral Enhancement Meets Normative and Empirical Reality: Assessing the Practical Feasibility of Moral Enhancement Neurotechnologies,(2017). DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12355
A positive attitude toward and desire to take up hookah smoking are the most likely predictors of a young adult becoming a hookah tobacco smoker, University of Pittsburgh researchers found in the first nationally representative analysis of hookah use by young adults over an extended follow-up period.

The findings indicate that prevention efforts are likely to be more successful if they work to counter the image of hookah tobacco smoking as a fun activity for socializing and relaxing, rather than focusing on the negative health consequences. The research is published in this month's issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

"What this study showed us is that young adults who take up hookah tobacco smoking do so because they think it's cool and attractive, and they weren't dissuaded by the health dangers of smoking," said lead author Jaime E. Sidani, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant director of Pitt's Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health (CRMTH). "We need to find an effective way to combat those positive attitudes. That might include regulations on advertising and flavorings, coupled with solid counter-messages and educational programs encouraging young adults to think critically about marketing."

Sidani and her colleagues analyzed data from 1,785 adults ages 18 to 30 who reported on their hookah tobacco smoking habits, knowledge and attitudes in 2013 and again 18 months later in 2014. The participants were from across the U.S., equally male and female, and 57 percent white, 22 percent Hispanic, 13 percent black and 9 percent "other."

Forty-three percent reported having an education level of high school or less, making this study even more notable, as most hookah-related studies focus on college students due to the prevalence of hookah bars near university campuses.

Initially, 69 percent of the participants reported never smoking tobacco from a hookah, also known as a waterpipe, and 25 percent reported having smoked from a hookah at least once. The remaining 6 percent reported smoking from a hookah in the previous 30 days and were characterized as "current" smokers.

After 18 months, 7 percent of people who reported never smoking hookah had transitioned to having smoked at least once, while 4 percent of those who reported ever smoking had transitioned to current users.

Participants who initially reported that they intended to smoke tobacco from a hookah at some point in the future had seven times greater odds of starting to smoke from a hookah in the following 18 months, compared to those who reported they had no plans to use a hookah. And people who reported a positive impression of hookah smoking were nearly twice as likely as their peers to start smoking from one.

However, a negative attitude toward hookah smoking did not have any association with decreased odds of participants becoming hookah smokers, nor did overall knowledge of the harmful components of hookah smoke. This suggests that simply educating young adults on the negative aspects of hookah smoking is likely to be ineffective.

"When we extrapolate our findings to the greater population, that translates into nearly 9 million nonsmokers ages 18 to 30 who may have some intention to participate in hookah tobacco smoking," said Sidani. "Considering the strong association we found between intention to smoke and becoming a hookah smoker, it is clear that this is a ripe opportunity to target prevention efforts at this age group."

More information: Jaime E. Sidani et al. Initiation, Progression, and Sustained Waterpipe Use: A Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study of U.S. Young Adults, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention (2017). Journal information: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention Jaime E. Sidani et al. Initiation, Progression, and Sustained Waterpipe Use: A Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study of U.S. Young Adults,(2017). DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-16-0687-T
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The blood-brain barrier is biology's proverbial double-edged sword.

An impermeable shield of endothelial cells that protects our brains from toxins and other threats that may lurk in circulating blood, the barrier can also exclude therapeutic drugs and, at times, essential biomolecules required for healthy brain development.

A case in point is the rare but severe psychomotor disease Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS), a congenital condition that affects only males and starves the developing brain of thyroid hormone, resulting in cognitive impairment and atrophied muscles and motor skills. The condition is not only untreatable, but seems to be peculiar to humans, meaning scientists have been unable to study the disease and seek new treatments by modeling it in an animal like the mouse.

But now, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have used the cells of AHDS patients to recreate not only the disease, but a mimic of the patient's blood-brain barrier in the laboratory dish using induced pluripotent stem cell technology.

"This is the first demonstration of using a patient's cells to model a blood-brain barrier defect," explains Eric Shusta, a UW-Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering and a senior author of the new study published today (May 16, 2017) in the journal Cell Stem Cell. "If we had just the (compromised) neural cells available, we wouldn't have been able to identify this key characteristic of AHDS."

The new work not only establishes a laboratory model for Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome, but also hints at therapies that could prevent or reduce the debilitating effects of the disease, says Clive Svendsen, director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, a senior author of the new study and an expert on diseases of the central nervous system. The Wisconsin-Cedars-Sinai collaboration also included UW-Madison Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Sean Palecek and Abraham Al-Ahmad, now a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Texas Tech University.

Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome is caused by defects to a single gene that controls the flow of thyroid hormone to the brain. It affects the developing male brain beginning before birth and results in moderate to severe cognitive disability, impaired speech, underdeveloped muscles and involuntary movement, among other symptoms. As patients age, the condition progresses and many become confined to wheelchairs.

The flawed gene, says Shusta, blunts the work of a biomolecule called MCT8, a transporter that shepherds thyroid hormone through the blood-brain barrier. In the earliest stages of development, several studies suggest a fetus obtains significant amounts of thyroid hormones from the mother.

"The blood-brain barrier forms pretty early in gestation, so the thyroid hormone, even from the mother, is probably not getting through the barrier and into the brain, likely leading to developmental deficits," says Shusta, whose group was among the first to develop blood-brain barriers from patient-derived stem cells in the lab dish.

The ability to recapitulate both the affected neural cells and the blood-brain barrier, according to Shusta and Svendsen, provides detailed insight that not only reveals the mechanics of the syndrome, but also raises the possibility of identifying drugs that may help overcome the diminished ability of the hormone to nurture the developing brain.

In addition, several other neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease may involve dysfunction in the blood-brain barrier, explains Gad Vatine of Cedars-Sinai, the lead author of the report. "The significance of this study expands beyond the limits of AHDS research, to the possibility of stem cell modeling the blood-brain barrier component in many other neurological diseases," Vatine says.

As an example, Leslie Thompson and coworkers at the University of California, Irvine, have used the blood-brain barrier model developed in the Shusta laboratory to study abnormalities in the blood-brain barrier of Huntington's disease patients. That work is published in the May 16 edition of Cell Reports.

More information: Gad D. Vatine et al, Modeling Psychomotor Retardation using iPSCs from MCT8-Deficient Patients Indicates a Prominent Role for the Blood-Brain Barrier, Cell Stem Cell (2017). Journal information: Cell Stem Cell , Cell Reports Gad D. Vatine et al, Modeling Psychomotor Retardation using iPSCs from MCT8-Deficient Patients Indicates a Prominent Role for the Blood-Brain Barrier,(2017). dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2017.04.002
A Nepalese member of an international flu vaccine research team surveys villagers in the subtropical terai plains of southern Nepal in Asia. The researchers report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases that vaccinating pregnant mothers year-round against flu in this resource-challenged region reduced infant flu virus infection rates by an average of 30 percent and increased birth weights by 15 percent. Credit: Cincinnati Children's

Vaccinating pregnant mothers year-round against flu in the resource-challenged region of subtropical Nepal reduced infant flu virus infection rates by an average of 30 percent, increased birth weights by 15 percent and resulted in babies having less influenza, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Reporting their data in a study published online May 15, an international research team says expanding year-round flu vaccinations during pregnancy would also benefit children in other tropical and subtropical parts of the worldwhere flu viruses can be pervasive and circulate 8 to 12 months a year.

"The development of a child inside the mother affects that child its entire life, and low birth weight has lifelong health implications for a child," says Mark Steinhoff, MD, corresponding author on the study and director of the Global Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The overall positive effect of performing these vaccinationswhich is not expensiveis quite significant."

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (grant 50274), the research team focused its study on the subtropical terai plains of southern Nepal in south Asia. This underdeveloped, agrarian region is known for a subsistence lifestyle, high rates of malnutrition and limited access to healthcare, and is representative of many tropical regions where 40% of the worlds births occur,

Village visits

Researchers traveled to villages in southern Nepal during normal routine health visits by Nepalese members of the team. Participating households were then followed up and surveilled on a weekly basis during home visits. Collaborating on the study were researchers from the Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project and the Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine, both based in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.

In households where women between the ages of 15 and 40 were pregnant, volunteer participants were administered either influenza vaccine or placebo as part of a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 4 clinical trial. The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the institutional review boards of participating institutions. From April 2011 through September 2013, 3,693 mothers were recruited and randomized into two different annual research groups (or cohorts).

In the first cohort of 2,090, 1,040 mothers were given placebo, and 1,049 were administered seasonally recommended trivalent inactivated vaccine (which contains three inactivated flu viruses). In the second cohort of 1,603 mothers, 805 were given placebo and 798 received vaccine. There were a total of 3,646 live births in both groups.

The researchers assessed three primary outcomes: the incidence of laboratory confirmed infant influenza from 0-180 days post birth; the incidence of low birth weight; and the incidence of influenza-like illness in mothers 0-180 days following delivery.

In cohort 1, compared to the placebo group influenza-like illness was reduced by 9 percent in pre- and post-partum mothers who received vaccine. In cohort 2, flu-like illness was reduced by 36 percent. This placed the average flu reduction rate for both groups of vaccinated mothers at 19 percent.

For infants, lab-confirmed flu infections in cohort 1 decreased 16 percent in babies with vaccinated mothers. In cohort 2 they decreased by 60 percentputting the average rate of reduction for both cohorts at 30 percent.

As for birth weight, flu immunizations in pregnant mothers reduced the rate of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams/5.5 pounds) by 15 percent in cohort 1 and by 15 percent in cohort 2 (average 15 percent for both groups).

There were 111 infant deaths during the study50 in the placebo group and 51 in the vaccine group; and seven maternal deathsfive in the placebo group and two in the vaccine group.

Follow up

Researchers are following up their current study by gathering additional data to support the expansion of year-round flu vaccination to other regions where it is needed. Steinhoff said this is especially important for developing countries like Nepal and where influenza has a more significant impact on birth weights than in developed nations.

An estimated 40 percent of the world's population lives in subtropical/tropical zones, although flu vaccine is not widely used in these areas, according to the authors. The benefits of vaccinating pregnant women is well documented in developed countries. Its use has not been prevalent in underdeveloped subtropical/tropical regions, where many local officials have believed until recently that influenza virus does not even exist.

Climatic conditions

Study authors note that the timing, circulation and type of flu virus are highly variable in subtropical and tropical regions.

During the current study in Nepal, the circulation of flu increased during the South Asian Southwest monsoon season in July-October. Active symptomatic flu virus was present among study participants for 24 (or 66 percent) of the study months, with two more strains of virus circulating during 18 of these months.

Researchers also pointed out that most of positive effect from flu vaccination was observed in the second study group of mothers and infants. This second group received two different formulations of flu vaccine with a broader range of antigens to account for virus variability in the region.

This high variability of influenza virus in the study region (and other subtropical/tropical climates) will require improved vaccines with broader antigenic coverage, the authors report.

More information: Mark C Steinhoff et al, Year-round influenza immunisation during pregnancy in Nepal: a phase 4, randomised, placebo-controlled trial, The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2017). Journal information: Lancet Infectious Diseases Mark C Steinhoff et al, Year-round influenza immunisation during pregnancy in Nepal: a phase 4, randomised, placebo-controlled trial,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(17)30252-9
Cape Town residents say a shortage of rental accommodation in the city has caused rental prices to soar, and have blamed the popularity of hospitality platform Airbnb.

According to reports, homeowners and investors can now make more money from shorter stays than from long-term tenants.

This follows urban planner Siri Veracruz telling Private Property that Airbnb can be a threat to cities.

Cape Towns plans

Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport and urban development at the City of Cape Town, said efforts are underway to address the Airbnb issue.

The City of Cape Town must mitigate against any displacement of residents who have lived their lives in suburbs that are now experiencing exceptional growth in property prices or are facing displacement for other reasons, such as the use of Airbnb, said Herron.

They can do this by ensuring there is affordable housing in the Cape Town CBD, where rentals are subsidised.

He said Cape Towns Transport and Urban Development Authority will champion a social housing agenda for Woodstock and Salt River during this term.

There are several more social housing projects which should also come to fruition in the coming months and years.

I am hopeful that the projects we have been working on and are planning will become visible in the next few months.

The projects currently on the table could yield a number of affordable housing opportunities in and around the city centre. This is a good start.

Not just Cape Town

Herron said that many metro cities across South Africa are facing a housing crisis due to rapid urbanisation.

Urban planners the world over are grappling with this and it has been stated by experts that urbanisation is the challenge of our century: how to provide for the millions of people who migrate to cities?

He said the biggest migration to cities is currently happening in countries within Africa and Asia.

Cape Town will need to provide an additional 650,000 housing opportunities across the city, at an estimated cost of R101 billion, over the next 20 years.

This finding is contained in its Integrated Human Settlements Framework, which the city adopted in 2013 to address housing needs.

Addressing such a scale of need requires a radical shift in our financing and planning strategies and delivery methods. The Transit-Oriented Development Strategic Framework, which was adopted in March 2016, is the new order of business.

First, they will need affordable housing in the inner-city and around transport corridors.

Secondly, they will leverage City-owned properties to achieve spatial transformation.

We have already identified well-located land which can be developed in terms of access to public transport, density, and mixed use, said Herron.

In these areas, residential developments will have to consist of a combination of social housing, affordable housing, and middle and upper-income housing.

Not taking houses off the market

Velma Corcoran, Airbnbs regional market manager for Southern Africa, said house prices were a complex issue and driven by many factors.

Weve met countless Airbnb hosts in Cape Town and seen how home sharing has helped them pay their bills and stay in their homes. The typical Airbnb host in Cape Town earns R36,700 per year by sharing space in their home for 23 nights per year, said Corcoran.

They arent taking houses off the market, they are sharing their homes and the cities they love, and using the additional income to help pay the bills.

Now read: Airbnb offering free housing to people stranded by Trump travel ban
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor says the departments Research and Development and Support Programme will transfer R693 million to the National Research Foundation to ensure the completion of the MeerKat  the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) demonstrator project.

The Minister said this when she briefed the media ahead of tabling the departments R7.5 billion Budget Vote for the 2017/18 financial year in Parliament, Cape Town, on Tuesday.

The SKA will be the worlds largest and most sensitive radio telescope.

Key economic benefits from this investment will be the leveraging of foreign direct investment from the SKA Organisation for construction costs of phase one of SKA, she said.

The Minister said in the time ahead, the department will focus on the South African innovation of energy security, poverty alleviation and health care funded through the Technology Innovation Programme. An allocation of R1.1 billion is allocated towards this, the Minister said.

Highlighting other key priorities, the Minister said the department would ensure greater economic and social returns from intellectual property generated from innovation activities using public funds.

She said the department will transfer R36 million to the National Intellectual Property Management Office to ensure that publicly funded intellectual property is used to create products, processes and services that contribute to quality of life in South Africa.

The Department aims to position bio-innovation as a mechanism for achieving governments industrial and social development goals, guided by the departments 2013 Bio-economy Strategy.

Under the Technology Innovation Programme, R156 million is allocated for bio-innovation in the health, agricultural and industrial biotechnology sectors, she said.

R4.3bn allocated to research development, support

The Minister said in the year ahead, the department would invest in human capital development through the Research Development and Support Programme.

It is through this programme where knowledge generation is increased. The programme is also a source of research funding for higher education institutions.

In the 2015/16 financial year, 4 315 researchers were awarded research grants through programmes managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the department.

This figure is expected to increase to 4 500 in 2017/18.

In 2017/18, no fewer than 32 792 pipeline postgraduate students will be awarded bursaries through the NRF/ DST funded programmes, she said.

She said the department will continue to work towards ensuring that South Africans have access to internationally comparable research and innovation infrastructure.

Between 2017/18 and 2019/20, 90 new research infrastructure grants will be awarded in response to the needs across the innovation value chain  and the total available broadband capacity provided through the SA National Research Network will be increased to 3 500 Gigabits per second (or 3.5 Terabits per second), which will assist in providing more efficient transmission of data to all research and academic institutions, she said.

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A petition will soon be submitted to Russian police, in connection with provocation organized by the Azerbaijani Diaspora on May 9, in Moscow.

German Ananyants, vice chairman of the Union of Armenians of Russia (UAS), told Armenian News-NEWS.am that UAS Chairman Ara Abrahamyan convened a meeting, during which this matter was discussed.

At present, the said petition is being finalized and coordinated with lawyers.

The petition will be very harsh, added Ananyants.

As reported earlier, Armenian Diaspora representatives participatedon Tuesday, May 9in a traditional World War II Victory Day anniversary march in the Russian capital city. But Azerbaijani Diaspora members, who had not applied previously to take part in this march, showed up to interfere. These Azerbaijanis were representatives of the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress, whose activities are suspended by the Russian Ministry of Justice. One of them snatched the flag of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR), from the hand of the person at the end of the Armenian procession, and broke its handle. But the Armenians responded, and they put these provocateurs in their place. Even though the Armenians were trying to avoid a brawl, it was apparent that these Azeris were attempting to incite a quarrel in every way.

A similar incident occurred also in Saint Petersburg, Russias second-largest city after capital city Moscow.
The 360 images of cultural monuments of Western Armenia and Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia will be exhibited in the National Gallery of Armenia from May 16 to June 16 (photos).

Last year Ucom LLC and 360Armenia implemented a rather important project aimed at finding out what the generations know about their historical homeland, which of the lost treasures are still preserved and which state they are currently in. The camera crew of the companies disclosed the architectural structures of Mus, Van, Sassoun, Urfa and other famous settlements.

With the help of 360 images, the most important monuments of history, culture and natural wealth of Western Armenian were captured.

Armenian Minister of Diaspora, Hranush Hakobyan, attended the opening of the exhibit. Getting familiarized with the capacities of the virtual tour, the minister noted: Unfortunately, the Armenian monuments located in Turkey and Azerbaijan are in a rather dangerous zone in terms of their preservation. Each second the barbarians are destroying and eliminating them. However, such technical capacities allow us to fully possess our heritage.

Introducing the project, General Director of Ucom, Hayk Yesayan, stressed: We attach great importance to the digital possession of the historical and cultural monuments found in the territory of Turkey. We know that not everyone gets the chance to leave for Turkey and see our historical and cultural monuments. This is a very simple virtual way to see what monuments and fortresses there are and how all of them decreased over these hundred years. Unfortunately, we see that various monuments are changing and becoming the possession of another country. This is a value, which we must preserve.

Yesayan also stressed that over 40 monuments have been presented within the framework of the project.
Maybe embattled Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) CEO Eddie Lampert should just keep his mouth shut.

Shares of the dying owner of Sears and Kmart plummeted 12.3% to $8.31 on Monday, following an 11% plunge last week, as Lampert came out against a vendor in a new 697 word blog post. "One World [Technologies] has informed us of their intention to take the very aggressive step of filing a lawsuit against us as they seek to embarrass us in the media to force us to let them out of their contract," wrote Lampert. "But Sears has nothing to be embarrassed about - we have lived up to our word under our contract, and we will take the appropriate legal action to protect our rights and ensure that One World honors their contract."

To be sure, it has been a bizarre few days for Sears.

In part, the sell-off in Sears' stock could be tied to nasty first quarter earnings misses from fellow mall playersMacy's (M) - Get Free Report and J.C. Penney (JCP) - Get Free Report . Given their struggles to kick off the year, investors may now be concerned Sears' sales got even worse from when it provided guidance in late April.

The other component to the harsh action in Sears shares could be a further loss in confidence in what looks to be an unhinged Lampert.

In a rare and borderline completely out-of-touch interview with the Chicago Tribune last Wednesday, Lampert blamed media reports for his inability to get the retailer out of its sure decline to death and suggested that the company is "ahead" of rivals J.C. Penney , Macy's (M) - Get Free Report and Target (TGT) - Get Free Report .

"Some of them have greater financial resources than us or certain advantages in certain categories," Lampert said. "Clearly we have our challenges. Every time people use the word bankruptcy, somebody who reads that doesn't get past that word. It makes it very unfair for us, and it's a very uneven playing field for us."

Lampert added that the media has only been focused on its massive number of store closures and financial issues, hindering its ability to successfully transition back to profitability.

"It is true that on the left, we're closing stores," Lampert said. "We're not making money. On the right is where we're going. A lot of these things are happening and they're happening in plain sight."

Then at Sears' annual shareholders meeting the same day, Lampert continued to sound bullish on the retailer's future. That is after he kicked off the meeting showing a slide of negative headlines on Sears.

"We don't need more customers. We have all the customers we could possibly want," Lampert said. "As soon as we start making money, people are gonna say, 'How did I miss this?'"

"I give you my assurance I am not in denial," Lampert continued.

Lampert also proceeded to go off on the media.

"It's irresponsible and it's been irresponsible for too damn long. We're just looking for a fair chance," Reutersreported Lampert as saying. "Excuse my rant but a lot of what we're doing deserves a chance to see the light of day."

Lampert's comments raise a very simple question: how could one not be overly focused on the demise of Sears?

The dying retailer said recently that same-store sales since the start of the year crashed 11.9 percent between both its Sears and Kmart banners. Excluding one-time gains related to the sale of the Craftsman tool business and certain real estate, Sears lost between $190 million to $230 million. That is worse than a year ago when it lost $181 million.

Sears also announced the departure of CFO Jason Hollar, who had only been on the job for about six months. The company hinted strongly it will move to shutter more stores beyond the round of 150 closures it just completed.

To try and keep the lights on a little while longer, Sears has outlined more than $1 billion in cost savings this year through layoffs, store closures and other restructuring efforts.

But, the inability of Sears to turn a profit despite significant store closures and other cost cuts is unlikely to alter the dire predictions of the ratings agencies that apparently Lampert really hates. S&P has come out this year with its probability of default model, which calculates the possibility of default for a one- to five-year time frame, and found that Sears is most at risk among major retailers with a one-year probability of default reading of 23.84 percent.

"With negative news like this, it's never good for confidence on the company," Moody's VP Christina Boni told TheStreet in the wake of Sears disclosing in March it may be unable to stay in business. Earlier this year, Moody's downgraded its credit rating on Sears to Caa2 from Caa1. The downgrade reflected the accelerating negative sales performance of Sears' business and risk of possible default.

It could be easily argued that what's happening to Sears today is a byproduct of Lampert's failed leadership. It was Lampert who orchestrated the 2004 merger of Kmart and Sears. Since then, the combined company has grossly under-invested in its stores, lost legions of customers to Walmart and Target (names Lampert believes Sears is ahead of) and subsequently, has sought to shutter hundreds of stores. Locations that haven't been closed, and which Sears owns, have been sold off to raise badly needed cash.

Even still, Sears drained its cash position to $286 million in 2016 from a high point of $1.7 billion in 2009. It hasn't generated cash flow from its operations or seen revenue growth since 2006. Shares of Sears have crashed by about 93 percent since hitting a high point in October 2006. Earlier this year, Sears even closed the first-ever Kmart store.

All of this suggests Sears has one foot in the grave, not on the cusp of a turnaround as Lampert suggests.

Sears spokesman Howard Riefs didn't respond to a request for comment.

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New York Freelance Law to Benefit 500,000 Workers

"Freelancers aren't free," Mayor Bill de Blasio said May 15. "It's now the law in New York City that they be paid on time, have the written contracts they deserve, and have the tools to defend their rights."

The Freelance Isn't Free Act, billed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as the nation's first law of its kind, is now in effect. The law gives freelance workers the legal right to written contracts, timely payment, and freedom from retaliation; they can file a complaint with the Department of Consumer Affairs' Office of Labor Policy & Standards, which will provide court navigation services to freelance workers pursuing their claims in court.

The department marked the new law's being in effect with a "Day of Action" to educate the public, launched a social media campaign, and co-hosted a launch event with Freelancers Union at LMHQ, a collaborative workspace in Manhattan.

The city estimates there are 500,000 freelance workers who will benefit from the law, based on a 2013 study of New Yorkers who received 1099-MISC tax forms (a common income tax form for individuals operating as contingent "freelance" workers).

"Freelancers aren't free," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "It's now the law in New York City that they be paid on time, have the written contracts they deserve, and have the tools to defend their rights."

"This law is an important step toward securing financial stability for the many freelance workers who bring their talents to companies but then struggle to make ends meet because of unpaid wages and broken promises," said DCA Commissioner Lorelei Salas. "By requiring hiring parties to issue written contracts, we can better ensure that workers are paid on time and in full. DCA's Office of Labor Policy & Standards is committed to working on behalf of all freelancers to create a more secure workforce for today's evolving economy."

A freelance worker is defined as any individual hired or retained as an independent contractor by a hiring party to provide services for compensation. The law protects freelance workers against non-payment by:
If you attended Gallery Night in Greendale or the Pabst Brewery Grand Opening Street Festival this weekend, you may have spied a brand new mobile food operation, Lumpia City.

If not, you're in luck. The new food truck will celebrate its official grand opening  along with its new home base in Milwaukee  on Wednesday, May 17 at Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave., in Bay View.

As its name suggests, Lumpia City specializes in lumpia, a traditional Filipino dish that, like Chinese spring rolls, features a thin crispy wrapper thats usually filled with ground beef or pork and vegetables. But, in the case of Lumpia City, owners Alexa Reyes and Samantha Klimaszewski have reintroduced the time-honored dish with a new twist.

Reyes, whose family is from the Philippines, says she grew up making and eating traditional lumpia. But, she says her light bulb moment happened when she realized the rolls would make a good basis for a food truck.

"My aunt and uncle used to play around with flavors, adding things like carne asada and cheese," she says. "And they were really delicious. When you think about it, there are endless possibilities, and with fusion food getting to be so popular, it seemed like a great idea."

Flavors include the "Five Cheese Mac," which features ditalini pasta in a five-cheese sauce, Sriracha pork and carne asada (three for $6 or six for $9). Special rolls include pizza lumpia with Italian sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms (three for $9) and Dutch apple pie, a classic dessert-turned-lumpia (three for $6 or six for $9). A combination plate includes six lumpia along with a side of LC fries, seasoned shoestring French fries drizzled with cilantro lime aioli and parmesan.

From California to Milwaukee

Klimaszewski and Reyes met in San Diego, California, where they launched Lumpia City in spring 2015. Originally, the "truck" was nothing more than a pop-up canopy, says Kimaszewski. But, after a successful start in California, the two entrepreneurs made the decision to bring their lumpia to the Midwest last December.

Klimaszewski, who was born and raised in the Milwaukee area, says Lumpia City did well in the San Diego market. But, they were eager to see how the truck would do in a smaller market that wasnt as familiar with lumpia. And she says its been great so far.

"Im very excited to see what happens here," she says. "The last two events weve done have gone really, really well. And we really love the food truck culture here. People really want to help one another out, and I think its a great place to get more recognition for what were doing."

Reyes agrees. "Knowing that we have a product thats so different is fun too," she says. "Its cool to see peoples reactions when they try it for the first time."

Klimaszewski says one of their goals for the business is to really begin to create more community connections.

"Right now were working with a local photographer to do t-shirts," she says. "And were looking for more ways to be involved in raising money and helping others. We want to be part of something bigger, so were also looking for different ways to contribute to various organizations."

You can find Lumpia City at Sugar Maple tomorrow from 3:30 to 8 p.m., as well as at a variety of events throughout the city. You can track its location on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The following is an excerpt from PTO Director Michelle Lees keynote address today, at George Washington University Law School. Read the full remarks here.- DC

How do we continue to incentivize  incredible innovations? First, we must ensure that the USPTO issues the highest quality patents as quickly and efficiently as possible. This means, at a minimum, continuing to bring down our backlog and pendency so that good ideas can be patented quickly. Which is why I am proud to report that weve reduced our backlog of unexamined patent applications by almost 30 percent from its peak in January 2009, despite a 32 percent increase in applications over this time period. Our so-called first action pendencies  that measure the time from filing an application to the time of obtaining an initial decision from the examiner are down by 43 percentfrom 28 months in 2011 to 16 months today. Our total pendencies  the time from filing an application to the time of obtaining a final office action, such as an allowanceare down by 26 percentfrom 35 months in 2010 to 26 months today. Our backlog of Ex Parte Appeals  thats not AIA proceedings, but our internal appeal process to the Board after the examiner issues her decision  has also gone down. We have reduced our inventory of ex parte appeals by 45 percent from a high of about 26,000 in 2012 to about 15,000 today. And, we have reduced the average pendency for appeals by 30 percent from 28 months in 2016 to 19 months today. In short, our backlog and pendencies are now lower than theyve been in more than a decade, and they will continue to go down. Simply stated, this means more inventors are obtaining more patents more quickly. . . .

We constantly welcomein fact, we solicitfeedback and input. And we have shown that we are willing to refine and improve as many times as needed. For example, weve provided applicants with more access to examiner interviews more than doubling the number of interview hours in just eight years. Weve had more RFCs, Proposed Rules, and public roundtables than ever before  including on such topics as our Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative, our 101 guidance, and our Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceedings. Weve also brought a broader range of services to support American innovators where and when needed, including through four regional offices across the country, and through over a dozen IP attaches across the globe. For those of you who may not know, our attaches in China, the EU, India, Brazil, and other locations help U.S. innovators obtain and enforce IP rights outside the US, and also help advocate for improved IP laws outside the U.S. . . .

Examining patents quickly and efficiently is only part of the job. The public relies on us to issue quality patents. Today, we have about a dozen programs underway that we believe will meaningfully improve patent quality. These include programs for making sure were getting the most relevant prior art before our examiners as early as possible by making prior art cited in our PTAB proceedings available to examiners handling related applications, and transitioning all our examiners from the decades old, antiquated U.S. Patent Classification System to the updated, increasingly global Cooperative Patent Classification System. Developing best practices such as for enhancing the clarity of the record. And developing new and better ways to measure our progress. For example, with our Master Review Form, we are now processing twice as many reviews, and capturing data not only about the correctness of our actions, but also about the clarity of our actions. This helps us identify trends, and helps us pinpoint very specific areas for training. Finally, and, importantly, for the first time in 40 years, we are doing a comprehensive review of the amount of time our examiners need to do their work in light of the many recent changes within the patent system. We are already seeing measurable and statistically significant results in our patent quality efforts even in the short amount of time since we began the Enhanced Patent Quality Initiative. And you can look forward to more improvements in the future. In sum, the USPTO is operating well, and is issuing more, higher quality patents than ever. 

What work lies ahead? Our top priority today is to make sure the Patent Trial and Appeal Boards AIA proceedings are as effective and as fair as possiblewithin our Congressional mandate. Now is the right time to examine and make any needed reforms to these proceedings, because we have five years of data and experience to guide us. 

Lets take a look at where we are with the AIA trials today. We have shared regular updates on the number of cases and the results of those cases, but we want to break down the numbers even further so that everyone has the facts, as there have been many numbers cited  some of which are accurate, some of which are not.

This waterfall slide is our attempt to present even more data in a more accessible and transparent format. According to waterfall slide data, which shows the status of every petition filed since beginning of AIA, of those petitions that have reached some sort of final disposition (i.e., are not pending), about one third of all petitions are denied institution and do not go to trial; about one third of all petitions settle either before or after the decision to institute; and only about one third of all petitions ever reach final written decision. It is only at that point of reaching final written decision is it relevant to talk about the patentability or unpatentability of the claims of a patent. And, at that point, it is true that 66 percent of petitions will find all instituted claims of the patent unpatentable, 17 percent of petitions will find all instituted claims of the patent patentable, and an additional 17 percent will have mixed results (some instituted claims will be found to be patentable and some will be found to be unpatentable). So statements that all or 95 percent or even 80 percent of patents are found unpatentable are not supported by the data and do not account for prior disposition by settlement or by denial of institution.

Drilling down further on the institution rate, here is some helpful data from the years the AIA trials have been in effect. As you can see, the institution rate in our proceedings has been steadily declining from a high of 87 percent in the beginning, to about two thirds today. These are the numbers, and these are the facts. Now, our stakeholders have understandably asked how the rates of unpatentability in AIA proceedings, reflect on the quality of all of the other patents weve issued. . . . [T]here are almost 2.8 million patents in force. Incredible. Of those 2.8 million about 4,000 patents have been challenged in AIA trials. This represents less than 0.2 percent of the patents currently in force. 

As I have said many times in the past, the USPTO is constantly looking for ways to make the AIA trials as effective and as fair as possible within our Congressional mandate. And we welcome your suggestions and ideas, the more specific, the better. To this end, weve set up a mailbox where you can submit your ideas at PTABProceduralReformInitiative@uspto.gov. This is an early opportunity to provide input. Your feedback here will help form the basis for our recommendations to the administration on next steps.

In fact, we have already heard from a number of you regarding a number of issues. As discussed:

Multiple petitions, and how best to curb abusive practices. Whether to provide other opportunities to amend claims later in the proceedings when patent owners may have a better sense of where their claims stand, Whether to reevaluate our claim construction standards in view of new data and experiences, and How to best incorporate the findings and legal conclusions of prior proceedings at the USPTO, including examination and other post-grant proceedings, as well as, importantly, proceedings conducted in the federal courts. What considerations should go into a decision to institute, for example, how can we better take into account considerations such as the interests of justice, economic factors, and hardship. As to decisions to institute, whether there should be additional review of institution and termination decisionsand by whom. When and how to permit parties to join proceedings. When and under what circumstances might it be appropriate to extend the length of the proceedings beyond 12 months and what impact would extensions have on litigations before, not only the Board, but district courts. . . .

[W]e are [also] streamlining the way the Board identifies and designates opinions as precedential, with the goal of designating more opinions precedential. Why? Because doing so 1). Improves the consistency across panels of the Board, and 2). Provides greater notice to the public to help you make better informed decisions on how to manage your Board proceedings. . . .

Fees: Finally, we are also proposing increases to our AIA trial fees. . . . We believe, as many of you do, that these proceedings should be self-funded. I commend our team for making thoughtful initial cost projections and for recommending revisions to ensure that these proceedings are fully self-funded. There is much to do on AIA proceedings, patent quality, and in many other areas, and I promise you that we are working diligently, with a sense of purpose, every day.

In closing, we all want whats best for this countrys inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs. Because it is through their efforts that our country remains at the forefront  economically and globally. Simply statedand I think President Trump and Secretary Ross would agreewe want the United States to out-innovate and out-perform our global competitors, producing new jobs and new technologies and new industries that benefit all Americans, including individual inventors and those in our small businesses and startups. Lets not forget that the modest businesses and unknown inventors of today may become the largest and most well-known drivers of our economy tomorrow. To make that happen, Congress, the courts, the administration (especially the USPTO), and even all of you here today, must all work together to make sure the system envisioned by our Founding Fathers lives up to its purpose to promote innovation. You have the commitment of the entire USPTO team that we will play our part to ensure that we continue to incentivize the kind of innovations that make our lives better and safer And that put men and womenlike Mr. Iver Anderson with his lead-free solderin the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Our future depends upon it. Thank you.
During the ACE-ENA campaign, ground instruments at the Eastern North Atlantic atmospheric observatory on Graciosa Island will coordinate with those aboard the G-1 research aircraft. To the left is the sphere-like X-band scanning ARM precipitation radar, a second-generation ARM radar that will see its first use during a campaign. Credit: US Department of Energy

Low clouds populate the first two kilometers of the atmosphere. Cumuliform clouds heap high and are made from columns of fast-rising air. Stratiform are sheet-like and show little vertical air movement.

Since low clouds are globally abundant, they impact the planet's radiation energy budget and its climate to a vast degree. Part of that impact is from the influence low clouds have on the Earth's albedo, a measure of how much solar energy is radiated back into space.

Yet low clouds are poorly represented in earth system models, a great source of uncertainty in climate simulations. Gaps in observational data are largely to blame. In remote marine regions, for instance, low cloudscalled Marine Boundary Layer (MBL) cloudsare hard to measure for their condensate loading, for their radiative properties, and for how they are organized on scales of up to 100 kilometers.

Another source of uncertainty is how low clouds respond to changes in the aerosolsthe suspended solid or liquid particleswithin them. In aerosols, both natural and anthropogenic (human) perturbations can affect how clouds scatter or absorb radiation, how they create precipitation, and how long they live.

Starting this June, a new research campaign sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will address such modeling uncertainties. The Aerosol and Cloud Experiments in Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA) campaign, an attempt to fill in some observational data gaps, is slated to run in two 40-day phasesone in June and July this year, and one in January and February of 2018.

The campaign's operational center is Eastern North Atlantic (ENA), a fixed atmospheric observatory on Graciosa Island in the Azores west of Portugal. It's managed by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, a DOE science user facility with three fixed observatories in climate-sensitive regions of the globe.

While examining key cloud and aerosol processes in a remote marine setting, ACE-ENA scientists will also address a range of science objectives. They will investigate budgeting and seasonal variations in cloud condensation nuclei; the microphysical and macrophysical structures within MBL clouds; how environmental air mixesentrainsinto currents and clouds; and how well present-day algorithms deal with new airborne measurements of turbulence, liquid water content, and the size of droplets from both drizzle and clouds.

From above and below, synergy

Combining ground and aircraft observations creates a fruitful synergy at the heart of ACE-ENA measurements, says campaign principal investigator Jian Wang, an atmospheric scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York. "You get a more complete picture of aerosols and clouds."

Ground-based fixed instruments run continuously over a long time, he says. Aircraft cover shorter time frames, but pull in more detailed information on interconnected aerosol and cloud processes related to trace gases, drizzle, and atmospheric thermodynamics. Aerial measurements, says Wang, also help validate those from the ground.

Similar campaigns in pursuit of data on low marine clouds have been executed off the coast of Chile and California, he says, but ACE-ENA will be the first to significantly coordinate air and ground observations in the eastern North Atlantic.

One measure of the campaign's novelty and promise is the number of scientists who not only signed on as co-investigators and collaborator but who will appear on site during the campaign, even just to help with weather forecasting. "Quite a good number of people will show up," says Wang. He is a long-time ARM data user and is active on committees and working groups for the DOE's Atmospheric System Research, which coordinates with the ARM Facility on gathering and analyzing cloud and aerosol data.

ACE-ENA will be the first campaign to significantly coordinate air and ground observations in the eastern North Atlantic in pursuit of data on low marine clouds. Credit: US Department of Energy

During ACE-ENA, a lot of the data scientists need are best collected from aerial platforms. Doing the heavy lifting will be ARM's Gulfstream-159 (G-1) research aircraft, the centerpiece of the ARM Aerial Facility (AAF) managed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington. It will carry 55 instrument systems during intricately programed flights of spirals and legs.

In spirals, the aircraft flies up and down through a range of altitudes to gather vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds. Legs are flown at multiple altitudes to take in data from below, within, and above cloud cover. Leg flight patterns provide detailed data pictures of the vertical distributions and horizontal variations of low clouds and aerosols.

Legs are also sometimes flown in the free troposphere, high above boundary layer clouds. Data from this atmospheric region will help scientists understand if the observed aerosol particles are coming from local sources, or are being transported over long distances.

The experiment's 6060-kilometer flight grids will focus on ENA's Graciosa Island ground site. Most of the airborne tracks will be within the range of ENA scanning radars, enabling scientists to get the kind of detailed microphysical information needed to evaluate the algorithms used to retrieve cloud information from the radar observations.

For good data, lots of flight time

The G-1, a twin-turboprop airborne research laboratory, will fly two 40-day missions during the two-phase campaignabout 20 flights each time, for as much as four hours at a time. "We will fly as much as we can," says AAF manager Beat Schmid, an atmospheric scientist at PNNL.

During ACE-ENA, the G-1 will be based 90 kilometers from Graciosa, at a joint U.S.-Portugal airbase called Lajes, on the island of Terceira.

Meanwhile, by April 20 the G-1 instrument package will have been fully integrated and tested at an airport not far from PNNL, a process that started February 10. Then about half of that gear had to be packed and shipped separately, says Schmid, "so we have enough fuel" to cross the Atlantic from a stopover in St. John's, Newfoundland. Once at Lajes, on June 15, both plane and instruments will be reintegrated.

On board, in a first for a DOE aircraft, will be a Holographic Detector for Clouds (HOLODEC), a wing-mounted device that takes "incredibly detailed" multi-dimensional pictures of cloud droplets, says Schmid. "It's not an image in a conventional sense." The process is so data-intensive, he adds, that the resulting huge filestoo big for the Internethave to be shipped back to ARM on disks.

The HOLODEC provides information about how cloud droplets interact on microphysical scales. It will also help ACE-ENA scientists study how the size distribution of cloud droplets is affected by mixing cloudy air with drier, non-cloudy air.

The G-1 aircraft will also be flying the fast integrated mobility spectrometer (FIMS), a unique instrument developed at BNL that is used to measure both aerosol concentrations and aerosol particle size distribution.

The instruments of ACE-ENA, on the ground and in the air, all share one collaborative missionto get the best data ever on the climate-consequential low clouds in a remote marine setting.

"If you get them wrong in the models," says Schmid, "it has a huge impact."
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Mature chestnut trees often grew straight and branch-free for 50 feet and could grow up to 100 feet tall with a trunk diameter of 14 feet at a few feet above ground level. For three centuries many barns and homes near the Appalachian Mountains were made from American chestnut and the trees provided untold tons of food for wildlife and humans. Credit: American Chestnut Foundation

The nearly century-old effort to employ selective breeding to rescue the American chestnut, which has been rendered functionally extinct by an introduced diseaseChestnut blight, eventually will succeed, but it will take longer than many people expect.

That is the gist of findings from a new study conducted by a research team composed of scientists from Penn State, The American Chestnut Foundation and State University of New York. This research should tamp down expectations of both the public and some members of the science community that victory is imminent, but it also provides reassurance that the rescue ultimately will result in chestnuts flourishing in forests again, according to lead author Kim Steiner, professor of forest biology, Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.

To reach their conclusions, researchers reviewed and evaluated decades of breeding records and transgenic experiments, new experimental data, and made projections related to how recurrent selection and incorporation of transgenic material into breeding lines will expedite blight resistance. They considered experimentally based estimates of heritability and genetic gain for blight resistance that were never available before this research was conducted.

"Those estimates are why we know, now, for sure that it is just a matter of time," Steiner said.

"Very few people understand the magnitude of the breeding challenge embarked upon by The American Chestnut Foundation when it began in 1983. Just to complete the B3F2 generation of breeding and selectionthe final generation as originally envisionedhas meant that 73,000 trees must be created by hand pollination and grown and tested in plantations for a minimum of three years."

B3F2 is the third backcross, intercrossed generation of Chinese and American chestnuts.

The chestnut blight, accidentally introduced to North America sometime after 1904 when Chryphonectria parasitica was brought into the United States on Japanese nursery stock, killed billions of trees. It is estimated that in some places, such as the Appalachian Mountains, one in every four hardwoods was an American chestnut. Credit: Michael Houtz

The process began in 2002 with the foundation's main breeding program and probably will not be completed until 2022, Steiner added. Furthermore, it is being duplicated through the work of volunteers in 13 affiliated state programs. The Pennsylvania program is overseen by Sara Fitzsimmons, a research technician in Penn State's Department of Ecosystem Science and Management and one of the study's co-authors.

Developing an accurate and comprehensive status report on the chestnut-rescue effort and identifying next steps and expectations of progress were the main reasons behind the research, explained Steiner, who is a board member of The American Chestnut Foundation and senior science adviser to the board.

"For a number of years, the foundation has made seed from B3F2 trees available for special purposes," he said. "But the average blight resistance of those seedlings was not expected to be high until the B3F2 plantation is completed and culled to the few hundred most-resistant trees. Our current findings indicate that, even then, average levels of resistance will not match Chinese chestnut."

However, some seeds from the B3F2 plantation will carry genes for high resistance, and there may be enough of them to begin restoration work, Steiner noted. Ultimately, he explained, the foundation's goal is to give the American chestnut the "genetic wherewithal" to survive to maturity and evolve on its own. "So we are not concerned about uniformity from tree to tree in the way that a landscape nursery must be."

In the research, recently published in New Forests, progress and future steps were summarized in two approachesThe American Chestnut Foundation's system of hybridizing with the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut species and then backcrossing repeatedly to recover the American-type tree, and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry's transformation of the American chestnut with a resistance-conferring transgene. That effort has been sponsored by the New York Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation.

Several decades of effort have been invested in each approach, and more work remains, researchers noted, but results provide the best experimental evidence since the blight hit North America sometime after 1904 that success is within practical reach.

Each generation of crossbred and transgenic chestnuts is inoculated with the chestnut blight to determine which young trees are resistant. In experiments at State University of New York, Syracuse, the young trees on the left had no resistance and are dying a few weeks after innoculation. The transgenic chestnuts in the middle, or B row, expressing the oxalate oxidase transgene, show no signs of wilting. Credit: State University of New York

"We believe that the breeding program may need an additional one or two generations of recurrent selection to maximize resistance," Steiner said. "The New York transgenic tree still must undergo regulatory review before release, and it must be tested in harshly competitive, natural environments before its true worth is understood. If it proves out, we expect that the New York work will be integrated with the foundation's conventional breeding program because both lines of work have inherent strengths."

Steiner, who is director of The Arboretum at Penn State, where the Pennsylvania program's B3F2 plantation is growing, called the chestnut-restoration effort the most ambitious, protracted and technically difficult rescue of a species that ever has been undertaken. And he credits the volunteer members of The American Chestnut Foundation for making it happen.

As a graduate student at Michigan State University in the fall of 1970, Steiner wrote a breeding plan to solve the American chestnut problem as a class assignment. He clearly remembers the professor's assessment that the plan was workable but utterly impractical. Industry, the professor said, had no interest in American chestnut, and government agencies would not undertake to breed a blight-resistant chestnut after abandoning two earlier long-term programs with the same goal.

"As it turns out, now 47 years later, he was correct on those two points," Steiner recalls. "But he did not reckon on the ability of a nonprofit organization like The American Chestnut Foundation to accomplish a 'lost-cause' conservation task through the power of thousands of volunteer citizen-scientists and philanthropic supporters."

Their enthusiasm and the wonderful example of this model inspired Steiner in the late 1990s to offer his services to the organization as a volunteer science adviser. And he is not alone. A great many university, agency and industry scientists have assisted the foundation in small and large ways.

The promise that the foundation's breeding program will succeed has leveraged tens of millions of dollars in supporting research, according to Steiner. "And since the mid-1990s, there has been an explosion in published research about American chestnut, a species that has been ecologically and economically insignificant since the early decades of the last century," he added.
A specimen of Unruhdinium jiulongensis. Note the nuclei of the dinophyte host (on the left) and its endosymbiotic partner (on the right), a diatom. Credit: Haifeng Gu

Unicellular algae, to which the so-called dinophytes belong, are important primary producers in marine and freshwater habitats and, as such, they provide a vital source of food for other organisms. They also serve as indicator organisms, and are used to monitor the status of fish populations, as well as playing an important role in ecosystem modeling. Many dinophyte species are under certain circumstances capable of dominating planktonic communities  giving rise to so-called algal blooms, which are often accompanied by the local accumulation of algal toxins. Given their potential ecological impact, monitoring of changes in dinophyte diversity and population dynamics is advisable  and this of course requires the ability to identify and quantify the present algal species. Researchers led by LMU's Professor Marc Gottschling, in collaboration with Chinese colleagues, have now identified two new genera of dinophytes, which they named Blixaea and Unruhdinium in honor of the Berlin industrial musicians Blixa Bargeld and N.U. Unruh. These findings appear in the journal Phytotaxa.

In many instances, the systematic definition of algal species is based solely on the morphology of the corresponding type specimens. However, in the era of molecular systematics based on DNA sequencing, this method is no longer adequate. Hence, one of Gottschling's primary research interests is to revise the taxonomy of algal groups that were originally classified by now outdated methods, focusing in particular on dinophytes. His approach to systematics makes use of freshly collected algae from the type locality which are cultivated under laboratory conditions, and subjected to morphological examination with the electron microscope and sequence-based genetic analysis. The establishment of the genera Blixaea and Unruhdinium forms part of this effort to place the taxonomy of dinophytes on a secure footing. Moreover, the species assigned to the two new taxa belong to an especially fascinating group of dinophytes, informally known as 'dinotoms', which exemplify the phenomenon of "tertiary endosymbiosis". These algae have apparently lost their own photosynthetic organelles, but harbor a diatom or siliceous alga which  in the fashion of a Russian doll  also possess its own plastids. Thanks to their resident diatom, these dinophytes can still carry out photosynthesis. "This group is comprised of only 15 to 20 known species, and is probably most closely related to dinophytes that live as photosynthetic endosymbionts in colonial radiolarians, just like the zooxanthellae found in reef-building corals," Gottschling explains.

By deciding to name these organisms after members of the band Einsturzende Neubauten, the authors of the new study hope to stimulate discussion as to whether the current guidelines on taxonomic nomenclature, which were formulated early in the last century, have outlived their usefulness. Since then, botanists  unlike their zoological confreres  have avoided naming newly recognised species after individuals who have no personal link with the natural sciences. "In light of the fact that there are myriads of organisms, particularly among the algae and fungi, which have yet to be formally named, it makes little sense to restrict the choice to acceptable terms," says Gottschling. "What's more, making the current rules more flexible would represent a return to the tradition initiated by Linnaeus, who named many plant genera after Classical Greek heroes  none of whom became famous for their contributions to botany.

More information: MARC GOTTSCHLING et al. Two new generic names for dinophytes harbouring a diatom as an endosymbiont, Blixaea and Unruhdinium (Kryptoperidiniaceae, Peridiniales), Phytotaxa (2017). DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.306.4.6
In this Feb. 16, 2015 file photo, a man surfs Internet on his laptop computer at a Starbuck cafe in Beijing. Security researcher say China's fondness for pirated software left it especially vulnerable to the latest global cyberattack. Beijing has tolerated rampant use of unlicensed software copies despite repeated promises to crack down and warnings by industry groups that China is leaving itself open to being hurt by malicious code. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

China's fondness for pirated software left it especially vulnerable to the latest global cyberattack.

Beijing has tolerated rampant use of unlicensed software copies despite repeated promises to crack down and warnings by industry groups that China is leaving itself open to being hurt by malicious code.

Some 70 percent of computers in China run unlicensed software, the highest level among large countries, according to BSA The Software Alliance, an industry group. Rates for the United States, Japan, Germany and Britain range from 18 to 22 percent.

That leaves millions of Chinese computers without security support and made China among countries most affected by the WannaCry ransomware that spread last week, according to security researchers.

Microsoft issued a patch in March for the flaw in its Windows operating system that was exploited by WannaCry, but pirated versions "couldn't use that service, leaving them vulnerable," said Zhao Boyu, a senior network engineer at Bright Prospect Technologies in Beijing.

"Most of the victims in China are unlicensed users," said Zhao.

As of Saturday, some 29,372 institutions and hundreds of thousands of computers across China were affected, according to a security software supplier, Qihoo 360 Technology Ltd. It did not provide updated figures.

The country's main Internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, did not respond to questions about how the government was responding to the cyberattack. A foreign minister spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said she had no information about official activity or possible cooperation with foreign governments.

China has long been a global center for unlicensed copying of goods from designer clothing and music to software and pharmaceuticals.

Beijing has responded to foreign complaints by promising to crack down. It has required computer vendors to preload licensed software and prohibited government agencies and state companies from buying pirated versions.

Despite that, news reports say Chinese universities and other schools were hit hard by WannaCry, suggesting many use pirated software. Railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services were also said to be affected.

Adding to the potential for disruption, China has the world's biggest online population at 730 million.

E-commerce is growing rapidly and other industries are shifting operations online, often using computers running pirated software.

The security environment is "increasingly threatening and damaging," the BSA said in its latest annual report on software piracy.

"This link between unlicensed software and cyber risk is one that CIOs should sit up and pay close attention to," it said, referring to corporate chief information officers.

In China, sellers of pirated software often make products more vulnerable to hacking by adding "back doors" to gain access to users' computers, said Zhao.

WannaCry still is spreading in China but the rate at which new devices are being infected "has significantly declined," the Cyberspace Administration of China said on its website.

China has a reputation for relatively poor computer security even though its military is a leader, along with the United States and Russia, in cyber warfare, or technologies to disable an enemy's computer systems.

Hacking attacks on Western companies over the past decade have been traced to China. U.S. authorities charged five Chinese military officers in 2014 with breaking into computers of American companies.

China's security so lax that in at least some cases, researchers say, that foreign hackers might hide their identities by taking over Chinese computers and using them to launch attacks.

The authorities have tightened legal controls on data but foreign business groups say such restrictions will limit market access for foreign security products and might increase the risk of information theft.

A Cybersecurity Law due to take effect June 1 and separate rules for insurance companies would require providers to show authorities how security products work and to store information about Chinese citizens within the country.

In a letter this week to regulators, a coalition of 54 industry groups from the United States, Europe, Japan, Mexico and other countries appealed to Beijing to postpone enforcing the Cybersecurity Law.

"China's current course risks compromising its legitimate security objectives (and may even weaken security) while burdening industry and undermining the foundation of China's relations with its commercial partners," said the letter.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Climate change with its extreme weather conditions poses a serious threat to the global food security, especially those who live in rural areas and are highly dependent on natural resources. Credit: Ragnar Vaga Pedersen

Thanks to the ClimaAdapt project, 90,000 Indian smallholders now have access to extensive knowledge on how they can adapt their agricultural practise to a changing climate.

Countries in the tropics and sub-tropics are particularly vulnerable to climate change, as extreme weather conditions pose a serious threat to their food security. In India, droughts and damaging floods are continuously affecting the well-being of a growing population, of which the vast majority reside in rural areas and are highly dependent on natural resources for their food, shelter and income.

To address these issues and find solutions to climate-related challenges for Indian agriculture, ClimaAdapt, an interdisciplinary and integrated research project, was initiated in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu states in 2012. The project had its final meeting in May 2017.

ClimaAdapt's coordinator, Dr Udaya Sekhar Nagothu from the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, NIBIO, explains that active participation and continuous dissemination of research results and other information between researchers, policy makers and stakeholders, has been essential in the project.

"Climate change is a complex issue and different disciplines and people have had to simultaneously interact and work together, and not least, communicate with each other. This link between science, stakeholders and policy, has been key to ClimaAdapt's success." Dr Nagothu says.

"In the past five years we have developed climate-smart rice growing and irrigation technologies and improved the adaptive capacity of farmers and selected agriculture and water sectors through various measures. Together, we have ensured that the food security and livelihood of 90,000 Indian smallholders, one third of these women, has been vastly improved," he adds.

Farmers central to food security

The main outcomes of ClimaAdapt include farmer driven testing, refining, upscaling and finally, the implementation of several new rice growing and irrigation technologies as well as seed varieties. This has contributed to a reduction in water use by 40 percent and a 25 percent yield increase. Eight Village Knowledge Centres have been established in the project, providing close to 25,000 local farmers with good and relevant information and training on farming and climate adaptation. An additional 65,000 farmers have benefited from this, gaining access to information through farmer-to-farmer communication and exchange of knowledge processes.

ClimaAdapt has also resulted in the establishment of three climate cells, as well as three stakeholder advisory centres.

Norway's Minister of Agriculture and Food, Jon Georg Dale, visited India and the project areas in February 2017. He says he is impressed by the complexity and scale of the ClimaAdapt project, in which thousands of farmers, several NGO's, scientists and government officials have worked towards a common goal of securing food production for the future.

"In my opinion ClimaAdapt is an excellent example of how we can contribute to food security and sustainable development in a changing climate," Dale says. "The project puts the farmer in the centre which is important, not least to recognize the role of farmers, all over the world, in feeding the people and farmer's contribution to global food security".

NIBIO's Director General, Nils Vagstad, agrees.

"ClimaAdapt has been particularly successful in that the project's main focus has been the farmer. By helping smallholders adapt their agricultural practice to a changing climate, we can contribute to food security for a growing population - not only in India, but also on a global scale," he says.

More crop per drop  new rice growing technologies

In ClimaAdapt, three different rice growing and irrigation methods have been tested, upscaled and implemented. These are SRI, or system of rice intensification, alternate wetting and drying, and direct sowing of rice. All work towards reducing the amount of water used on the rice crops while at the same time increasing the yield.

"SRI is one of the main technologies we've promoted because we discovered that by modifying the cultivation system from the traditional one, which is more of a flood based irrigation system, this technology can contribute to a 20-25 percent reduction in water usage," says Professor V. Gheeta Lakshmi from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

She adds that the alternate wetting and drying method has proven advantageous for the nutrient uptake of the crops, as well as other biochemical reactions in the soil. This results in higher yields.

Women play an important role in Indias agricultural development, both as farmers and agricultural labourers, but are often not taken into account as far as decision making goes. By employing women at the Village Knowledge Centres, they are included in agricultural matters they otherwise may not have been a part of. Credit: Ragnar Vaga Pedersen

Dr Johannes Deelstra from the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research confirms this, and says their measurements show that the new rice growing alternatives introduced by ClimaAdapt result in an increase in yield and a reduction in water use.

"This leads to an improved water use efficiency  which basically means more crop per drop," he says.

Dissemination is key

The implementation of these new rice growing and irrigation technologies, would not have been successful unless they were made known to and acknowledged by Indian policy makers.

"One thing is the production of scientific results, but if these weren't communicated to policy makers at an early stage, we would have failed to disseminate them and put them into policy guidelines. Science and policy linkage has been crucial in ClimaAdapt," Dr Nagothu says.

As well as linking science and policy, ClimaAdapt has strongly emphasised the importance of stakeholder involvement. Already at an early stage, Village Knowledge Centres were set up as an integrated part of the project.

The centres, of which there now are eight, focus on climate awareness, training and capacity building of small-scale farmers at a local level.

Sharing information through local knowledge hubs such as these, and making use of various digital platforms, has proved to be an efficient way of transferring knowledge on climate adaptation practices and agricultural expertise to rural communities. This has been important in a country where conventional methods of agricultural extension services and knowledge transfer methods have not always addressed the specific problems of farmers and their local challenges in a sufficient way.

Extensive use of ICT

In recent years, however, India has seen a shift toward a more demand-driven agricultural extension service with the use of new information and communication technologies.

The Village Knowledge Centres have made use of this, and mobile services are now used to send out text messages several times a day to farmers in the participating villages. The messages include weather or market related information, or information linked to farming practices during the cropping season.

"One main focus of ClimaAdapt has been to provide farmers with timely information on climate resilient crop technologies, farming practices that farmers need to take up during the course of a cropping season, soil management, planting, crop management, need-based fertiliser and pesticide application, harvesting and marketing", says Dr Nagothu.

"Our aim has been to link farmers together and provide need-based and correct information that help them adapt to climate change, as well as increase their yields and income. Thanks to new information and communication technologies such as internet services and mobile phones, we have been able to reach farmers faster and provide them with relevant information  even in the remotest of villages," he adds.

The Village Knowledge Centres also serve as an important platform for farmer interaction, not only with other farmers, but with scientists, government agencies and other stakeholders. The Centres have developed into extensive information hubs, both for agriculture, and for additional services within for example health, livestock research and social services.

Sustainable services with female Knowledge Workers

Now that the ClimaAdapt project has ended, the idea is that each village and the farmers themselves take hold of their centre and carry on the services it provides. The project partners have also encouraged the Indian government and private sector to scale up the centre model, so that larger areas can benefit from its services.

"We have built a system at the community level, which is managed by the community itself, so that they are able to source knowledge from different areas. In connection with this we have trained locals to become what we call Knowledge Workers," says Dr Nancy J. Anabel from the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.

90,000 Indian smallholders now have access to extensive knowledge on how they can adapt their agricultural practise to a changing climate. This will hopefully ensure a food secure future for generations to come. Credit: Ragnar Vaga Pedersen

Many of these Knowledge Workers are women, as women are often ignored in traditional agricultural extension systems in India. This is a problem seeing as they play an important role in India's agricultural development, both as agricultural labourers and farmers.

"Traditionally, women are busy in the household and have not been able to meet extension workers. By hiring women as Knowledge Workers at the Village Knowledge Centres, women are included in a different way," Dr Nagothu explains.

"Gender has been an important component of ClimaAdapt, because of the role of females in agricultural in general, especially in India. Without the engagement of women, I don't think any adaptation strategy or programme will succeed," he says.

A success story

On the 11th and 12th of May this year, ClimaAdapt held its final workshop in Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. The international workshop brought together researchers, stakeholders and policy makers from all over India and abroad, among these Dr M.S. Swaminathan, UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology and the founder of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai.

In 2015 Dr Swaminathan, also known as the Founding Father of India's Green Revolution, said that the most important output of ClimaAdapt would be the development of new technologies, i.e. new seeds, new methods for water conservation and soil enhancement, as well as new methods for overcoming extreme fluctuations in temperature, sea level and floods.

"The project will enhance the coping capacity of the Indian people and thereby enrich their food and livelihood security," he said.

Two years on, and this is certainly the case. By linking scientists, stakeholders and policy makers to work towards common goals throughout the project duration of five years, the outcomes have benefited close to 90,000 Indian small-scale farmers so far, and will continue to do so for years to come.

Not only that, the project model is now being used in other projects as well, the most recent being EU-funded InnovAfrica which will work towards ensuring food security in Africa through smallholder adaptability.

"I'm struck by the complexity of the program  the number of institutions and thematic areas  and the way they have kept it together in an impressive manner  keeping the focus. I have not seen anything like it. So it is a "well done project" from my side," the representative from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, NORAD, recently wrote in her end review of ClimaAdapt.

Or to put it in Dr Swaminathans words:

"It is expected that climate change with its adverse changes in temperature, adverse changes in precipitation, and higher sea level will affect the livelihoods of millions and millions of people. We are grateful to the Government of Norway on deciding to help the poor farmers of India, to help them to deal with climate change in a more knowledgeable way, in a more scientific way - and in a more successful way."

ClimaAdapt in brief

To help Indian farmers combat the challenges linked with climate change, it is critical to provide them with good and relevant information at the right time and develop climate-smart agriculture technologies.

The primary objective of the ClimateAdapt project has been to improve the adaptive capacity of the farming communities and agriculture and water sectors in the three Indian provinces of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. This has been done through pilot testing of selected adaptation measures and developing methodologies for upscaling the tested measures, as well as capacity building of local stakeholders and agencies involved in climate change adaptation.

The project was initiated in 2012 and had its final meeting in May 2017.

Approximately 25-30 scientists with expertise in various disciplines including climate and hydrology modelling, agronomy, soil science, irrigation, pests and diseases, economics, policy and gender have been affiliated with the project.

Provided by NIBIO  Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research
As part of the largest, most comprehensive study of larval dispersal ever conducted, scientists were able to determine that most of the juvenile clownfish stayed relatively close to home, settling at mean distances of 10-15 kilometers from their natal reefs. Credit: Simon Thorrold, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Marine reservessections of the ocean where fishing is prohibitedpromote coral reef sustainability by preventing overfishing and increasing fish abundance and diversity. But to be effective, they need to be sized right, and in a way that accounts for how far juvenile fish travel away from their parents after spawning.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), along with researchers from Australia, France, and Saudi Arabia, have successfully measured the dispersal distances of two coral reef fish species across a 3,000 square mile section of the oceanan area the size of Yellowstone National Park. The study, published in the May 8, 2017, issue of the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, marks the largest, most comprehensive study of larval dispersal ever conducted and has important implications for the sizing and spacing of marine reserves.

"How far fish will disperse in their lifetimes is critical when you start thinking about how marine reserves should be designed," said Simon Thorrold, co-author of the study and a senior scientist at WHOI. "This is the first time we've been able to measure dispersal distances on spatial scales that are relevant to marine reserves, which means we can now provide data that informs management on optimal spacing and sizing."

Size matters

Marine reserves come in many shapes and sizes. But if a reserve is too small, it can't accommodate enough larvae to sustain populations. And if it's too big, larvae will simply stay within the confines of the reserve without contributing to surrounding fisheriesa critical secondary role marine reserves need to play to improve fisheries management.

To get a read on fish dispersal in the past, scientists relied on population genetics approaches that lacked the power to measure dispersal over space and time scales relevant to protected areas of the ocean. More recently, ecologists have turned to computer-generated models of water currents to track particles through virtual oceans. According to Thorrold, this approach also has limitations since there was no way to verify the accuracy of the models. "The software can generate a lot of cool-looking graphs, but it was impossible to test the skill of those models in any real way."

An empirical approach

To overcome these limitations, Thorrold and his colleagues took direct measurements of dispersal distances in the field. They collected DNA samples from thousands of adult and juvenile clownfish and butterflyfish throughout Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, in 2009 and 2011. The entire sampling process occurred underwater, with the 30-person science team spending thousands of man-hours on SCUBA over several weeks in the field each year.

How far fish will disperse in their lifetimes is critical when you start thinking about how marine reserves should be designed, according to WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold, co-author of the new study. The research team found that butterflyfish dispersed further than clownfish, averaging distances of 43-64 kilometers before settling into their new habitats. Credit: Simon Thorrold, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

When the scientists returned to the lab, they used DNA parentage analysis, a sequencing technique that allowed them to match the juveniles up with their parents based on the DNA samples and spawning and settlement location data. From that, they were able to determine that most of the juvenile clownfish stayed relatively close to home, settling at mean distances of 10-15 kilometers from their natal reefs. The butterflyfish dispersed further, averaging distances of 43-64 kilometers before settling into their new habitats.

"Since we knew the respective locations of the adults and babies, we were able to come up with the exact linear distances that the larvae had dispersed. We're no longer talking about estimates," said Thorrold.

Benefits beyond design

In addition to helping inform the design of protected areas, the measurements can help to test the ability of reserves to perform key conservation functions. For example, one way a marine reserve network may improve fish population sustainability is through the so-called "rescue effect." In theory, if fish in a reserve suffer catastrophic mortality, the reserve can be repopulated by larvae from other reserves within the network. Thorrold and colleagues were able to track larvae from one reserve to another in the study area, confirming that rescue effect is likely to occur in real-world reserve networks.

The dispersal measurements could also allow fisheries managers to monitor the effectiveness of existing reserves, helping answer the question of whether or not a particular reserve is contributing to fish populations beyond its boundaries. This, according to Thorrold, has been a big unknown.

"If you can trace larvae from one reserve to a place that's fished, you can come up with a direct measure of how many fish the reserve is contributing to exploited populations beyond the reserve," he said. "This helps when trying to convince fishermen that networks of marine reserves are a good management tool."

Future work

According to Thorrold, as coral reef seascapes continue to face pressure from man-made stressors, marine reserves will continue to serve as an important conservation management tool. As such, it will become increasingly important to be able to provide direct measurements of larval dispersal, and find ways to apply the information to other regions of the ocean.

"The next thing we are working on is developing a coupled bio-physical model of the area that will allow us to take the results from this study and generalize them to other coral reef seascapes around the world," he said. "Limited resources for ocean management, particularly in the developing world, means that we need to maximize the chances of successful conservation outcomes from these efforts. These types of scientific insights will be critical for ongoing efforts to promote resilience of coral reef ecosystems in the face of human exploitation and climate change."
The tiny vaquita marina porpoise, native to Mexico, may soon be extict if drastic conservation measures are not taken, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature says

The vaquita marina, a tiny porpoise native to Mexico, could be extinct by next year if urgent action including a ban on gillnets is not taken, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature warned.

Fewer than 30 of the rare mammals (Phocoena sinus) still live in the wild, all in the upper Gulf of California, the WWF said in a report Monday.

The vaquita population has plummeted 90 percent in less than six years, down from 250 in 2011.

"If we don't do something today, the vaquita could be extinct by 2018," said Maria Jose Villanueva, director of strategy and science for WWF Mexico. "Losing it would be like losing a piece of Mexico."

Villanueva told reporters that the only known threat to the survival of the vaquita"little cow" in Spanishare gillnets, long walls of netting hung vertically that trap fish by the gills when they swim through.

The nets are meant to illegally catch totoaba, an endangered fish about the same size of the vaquita.

Deadly gillnets

Smugglers ship dried totoaba swim bladders to China, where they fetch up to $20,000 per kilo. Totoaba bladder is consumed in soup or used for medicinal purposes.

Gillnets also catch a large number species that are not targeted. The WWF says the nets accidently kill some 700,000 marine mammals and birds around the world each year.

Some 374 gillnets have been removed in the Gulf of Mexico between February 2016 and April 2017, but the vaquita population continues to dropsix have been reported to have died this year alone, Villanueva said.

Nets up to two kilometers long have been removed in the area, Villanueva said.

The Mexican government's two-year ban on gillnet use is set to expire in less than two weeks.

Mexican environmental authorities and conservation groups are working on an emergency plan expected to begin around September to move the vaquitas to a "temporary sanctuary" where they can safely reproduce.

The WWF experts support the measure, despite reservations.

'Desperate measure'

"We see it as a desperate measure," said Jorge Rickards, the interim director general of WWF Mexico.

"We consider this a high-risk measure because nothing like this has ever been done before," he said, fearing the death of even a single vaquita.

Rickards called on the Mexican government for "an urgent plan of action" that includes a permanent gillnet ban in the Gulf of California.

He said the government must also help area residents whose livelihoods depend on fishing.

The Gulf of California, which was officially listed as a World Heritage site in 2005, is a source for half of Mexico's fisheries production.

A broad array of species live in the area, including over one third of the world's marine mammal species, five of the world's seven sea turtle species, and almost 900 fish species, the WWF says.

In its report, titled "Vanishing Vaquita: saving the world's most endangered marine mammal," the WWF called on the government to clamp down on the totoaba trade, and to commit to a plan "for the recovery of the vaquita within its natural habitat that includes specific population increases and timelines."

The conservation group also called on the US and Chinese governments to collaborate with Mexico "to halt the illegal fishing and trade of totoaba" by increasing efforts to "intercept and halt the illegal transport, entry and sale of totoaba products."

 2017 AFP
In this Wednesday, April 22, 2015, file photo, Stijn Vanveerdeghem, left, an engineer with Cisco, shows graphics with live wireless traffic to FedEx employee Barry Poole during the RSA Conference in San Francisco, where threat analysts, security vendors and corporate IT administrators gathered to talk about malicious software, spear-phishing and other attacks that can steal money or secrets from companies and consumers. As the Friday, May 12, 2017, global cyberextortion attack that held people's computer files hostage slows, authorities are working to catch the crooks behind it, which is a difficult task that involves searching for digital clues and following the money. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

Cybersecurity experts are pointing to circumstantial evidence that North Korea may be behind the global "ransomware" attack: the way the hackers took hostage computers and servers across the world was similar to previous cyberattacks attributed to North Korea.

Simon Choi, a director at South Korean anti-virus software company Hauri Inc. who has analyzed North Korean malware since 2008 and advises the government, said Tuesday that the North is no newcomer to the world of bitcoins. It has been mining the digital currency using malicious computer programs since as early as 2013, he said.

In the attack, hackers demand payment from victims in bitcoins to regain access to their encrypted computers. The malware has scrambled data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses since Friday, but an expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize after the weekend, in part because security researchers had already defanged it .

Choi is one of a number of researchers around the world who have suggested a possible link between the "ransomware" known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Researchers at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have found similarities between WannaCry and previous attacks blamed on North Korea.

While Choi's speculation may deepen suspicions that the nuclear-armed state is responsible, the evidence is still far from conclusive. Authorities are working to catch the extortionists behind the global cyberattack, searching for digital clues and following the money.

"We are talking about a possibility, not that this was done by North Korea," Choi said.

ABOUT THAT NORTH KOREA LINK

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users' computer files and displayed a message demanding $300 to $600 worth of the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data scrambled and likely beyond repair .

The hackers appeared to have taken control of computers and servers around the world by sending a type of malicious code known as a worm to file-sharing protocols. The worms quickly scanned computers with vulnerability, in this case the older versions of Microsoft Windows, and used those computers as hackers' command and control centers.

This method, which allows quick and massive infections of computers with security weaknesses, has been found in previously known North Korean cyberattacks, including the Sony hack in 2014 blamed on North Korea.

"Since a July 2009 cyberattack by North Korea, they used the same method," Choi said. "It's not unique in North Korea but it's also not a very common method."

Choi also cited an accidental communication he had last year with a hacker traced to a North Korean internet address who admitted development of ransomware.

South Korea was mostly spared from the latest ransomware attack, partly because constant threats from the North have made the government and companies careful about always updating their software.

South Korea has been a frequent target of cyberattacks that it traced to its northern neighbor. Some high-profile attacks between 2009 and 2013 shut down government websites, banking systems and paralyzed broadcasters.

On Monday, the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab said portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack.

But it's possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection. Kaspersky said "further research can be crucial to connecting the dots."

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, and said it's "continuing to investigate for stronger connections."

If North Korea, believed to be training cyber warriors at schools, is indeed responsible for the latest attack, Choi said the world should stop underestimating its capabilities and work together to think of a new way to respond to cyber threats, such as having China pull the plug on North Korea's internet.

"We have underestimated North Korea so far that since North Korea is poor, it wouldn't have any technologies. But North Korea has been preparing cyber skills for more than 10 years and its skill is significant. We should never underestimate it," Choi said.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments. There have been three accounts identified so far, and there's no indication yet that the criminals have touched the funds.

Although bitcoin is anonymized, researchers can watch it flow from user to user. So investigators can follow the transactions until an anonymous account matches with a real person, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with the California security company McAfee.

But that technique is no sure bet. There are ways to convert bitcoins into cash on the sly through third parties. And even finding a real person might be no help if they're in a jurisdiction that won't cooperate.

TELL-TALE SIGNS

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said U.S. investigators are collecting forensic informationsuch as internet addresses, samples of malware or information the culprits might have inadvertently left on computersthat could be matched with the handiwork of known hackers.

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCry's "kill switch." That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message "hey, I'm infected" to the hidden address, Weaver said.

That means the very first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to "patient zero"the first computer infected with WannaCry. That, in turn, might further narrow the focus on possible suspects.

THE PLAYERS

Forensics, though, will only get investigators so far. One challenge will be sharing intelligence in real time to move as quickly as the criminalsa tricky feat when some of the major nations involved, such as the U.S. and Russia, distrust each other.

Even if the perpetrators can be identified, bringing them to justice could be another matter. They might be hiding out in countries that wouldn't be willing to extradite suspects for prosecution, said Robert Cattanach, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney and an expert on cybersecurity.

On the other hand, the WannaCry attack hitand annoyedmany countries. Russia was among the hardest hit, and Britain among the most high-profile, and both have "some pretty good investigative capabilities," Cattanach said.

Anick Jesdanun and Barbary Ortutay in New York, Lori Hinnant in Paris and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this story.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Credit: Northeastern University

A global cyberattack unleashed Friday has reportedly affected more than 200,000 computers across more than 150 countries. The "ransomware," called "WannaCry," exploits a vulnerability in the Windows operating system. The attacks hit companies and governments, encrypting users' computers and demanding bitcoin payments in exchange for unlocking the files. Asia was hit particularly hard Monday, because many businesses there had closed when the attack first struck on Friday.

We asked four faculty membersprofessors Engin Kirda and Alina Oprea, experts in cybersecurity, and professors Jeffrey Born and Martin Dias, of the D'Amore-McKim School of Businessto assess the nature of the cyberattack and what it means for the businesses and other affected institutions going forward.

How would you characterize the significance of the scale and scope of these attacks?

Kirda: The scale was large, but I would not say that it was surprising. "Ransomware" has been a problem for a while, and many different organizations have been hit in the past. In this specific case, the interesting issue was that a specific "ransomware" campaign managed to infect many organizations in a very short period of time. Looking at this historically, however, we have seen this type of thing before. For example, in the 90s and early 2000s, internet worms used to spread this quickly as well. The main difference today, though, is that the attackers are aiming to make money.

Oprea: One interesting aspect of this attack was the synchronization across different countries and continents and the variety of targeted organizations, which ranged from hospitals to academic institutions. Clearly, this was a well-organized attack with a larger scale than previous campaigns.

As The Washington Post notes, "The attack was notable because it took advantage of a security flaw in Microsoft software found by the National Security Agency for its surveillance tool kit" and that flaw was leaked online. Should the NSA or any other entity be partially blamed for this cyberattack?

Oprea: We could not blame a single entity for this attack, as cybersecurity is a complex ecosystem. But this attack shows that intelligence and government agencies need to work closely with vendors and industry to patch vulnerable software and prevent large-scale catastrophic effects such as the ones we just experienced.

In light of these "ransomware" attacks, what would you identify as critical cybersecurity priorities going forward? Where should more resources be dedicated?

Oprea: Cybersecurity should become a priority for all organizations across various sectors, and this incident demonstrates this one more time. Organizations need to develop basic security programs that involve patching their software, deploying various defenses, and having clear plans for incident response. They should try to become more proactive about preventing these incidents, rather than trying to recover after the fact.

Various news outlets reported that an expert stopped the spread of attack by activating the software's "kill switch." What is a kill switch, and why would something like this be built into a cyberattack?

Kirda: A kill switch in any system is a mechanism that would deactivate that system right away. In this specific case, the malware, apparently, was contacting a domain name that hadn't been registered yet. Whenever the domain was available, the malware would stop spreading. We can only speculate on why the authors of the malware would choose to have a kill switch like this. Anything is possible.

The attackers demanded bitcoin in exchange for unlocking users' files. Why they would want to be paid in this currency, and does this situation raise concerns over its use going forward?

Born: I think the ransom demand for bitcoins has a lot more to do with the perceived cybersecurity of the "currency" rather than the recent price strength in bitcoins. Bitcoins are not issued by countries, and their transfer has become even more difficult to trace. This provides the criminal element an opportunity to conduct transportation in virtual secrecy. Bitcoins have always been popular with those looking to cover their financial tracks. The development of the block-chain technology has made them even more stealthy, which has helped drive their market prices up substantially. It may not be an ideal endorsement in a marketing sense, but this use as a ransom will no doubt drive bitcoin popularity even higher.

What do these attacks mean for how businessesand perhaps consumersapproach their information systems going forward? What lessons, if any, can be learned?

Dias: When considering cybersecurity for businesses, we tend to break out three goals for what is called "information assurance"confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility. If our information systems were water systems, we might say our goals are no leaks, no pollution, and no blockage. "Ransomware" attacks hurt organizations by creating a blockage. On some accounts, "ransomware" attacks have doubled in frequency from 2015 to 2016, and these attacks are gaining in publicity.

Going forward, more resources will be allocated to data backups. Companies and consumers are already moving toward more cloud-based storage platforms, which generally should improve recoverability from "ransomware" attacks. In addition, more attention will be given to upgrading existing systems to at least update security patches. I also think you will see more businesses attempting to make more effective business use of the cybersecurity monitoring and alerting tools they invest in. Artificial intelligence is currently used in many organizations to identify anomalies in customer and employee online behavior. When Big Data analysis makes more effective use of cybersecurity monitoring tools, then you will see even more attention and resource given to protecting the information assets of firms.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The beginnings of agriculture changed human history and has fascinated scientists for centuries.

Researchers from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield have shed light on how hunter-gatherers first began farming and how crops were domesticated to depend on humans.

Domesticated crops have been transformed almost beyond recognition in comparison with their wild relatives - a change that happened during the early stages of farming in the Stone Age.

For grain crops like cereals, the hallmark of domestication is the loss of natural seed dispersal - seeds no longer fall off plants but have become dependent on humans or machines to spread them.

Professor Colin Osborne, from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield, said: "We know very little about how agriculture began, because it happened 10,000 years ago - that's why a number of mysteries are unresolved. For example why hunter-gatherers first began farming, and how were crops domesticated to depend on people.

"One controversy in this area is about the extent to which ancient peoples knew they were domesticating crops. Did they know they were breeding domestication characteristics into crops, or did these characteristics just evolve as the first farmers sowed wild plants into cultivated soil, and tended and harvested them?"

The new research, published in the journal Evolution Letters, shows the impact of domestication on vegetable seed size.

Any selective breeding of vegetables by early farmers would have acted on the leaves, stems or roots that were eaten as food, but should not have directly affected seed size.

Instead, any changes in vegetable seed size must have arisen from natural selection acting on these crops in cultivated fields, or from genetic links to changes in another characteristic like plant or organ size. In the last instance, people might have bred crops to become bigger, and larger seeds would have come along unintentionally.

The University of Sheffield researchers gathered seed size data from a range of crops and found strong evidence for a general enlargement of seeds due to domestication.

They discovered domesticated maize seeds are 15 times bigger than the wild form, soybean seeds are seven times bigger. Wheat, barley and other grain crops had more modest increases in size (60 per cent for barley and 15 per cent for emmer wheat) but these changes are important if they translate into yield.

"We found strong evidence for a general enlargement of seeds due to domestication across seven vegetable species," said Professor Osborne.

"This is especially stunning in a crop like a sweet potato, where people don't even plant seeds, let alone harvest them. The size of this domestication effect falls completely within the range seen in cereals and pulse grains like lentils and beans, raising the possibility that at least part of the seed enlargement in these crops also evolved during domestication without deliberate foresight from early farmers."

Professor Osborne added: "Our findings have important implications for understanding how crops evolved, because they mean that major changes in our staple crops could have arisen without deliberate foresight by early farmers.

"This means that unconscious selection was probably more important in the genesis of our food plants than previously realised. Early increases in the yields of crops might well have evolved in farmers' fields rather than being bred artificially."
Talk about stressed out. Cauliflower coral larvae are feeling the heatliterally.

At least they were when UC Santa Barbara marine scientists exposed them to warmer water in an effort to understand how future climate change might impact coral reefs.

The results? Less tolerance for stress. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"This study really looks at how ocean changes like warming and acidification will impact the ability of coral larvae to disperse and contribute to creating new reefs," said senior author Gretchen Hofmann, a professor in UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology. "If certain coral parents make tougher progeny, then there's some hope that we'll see really rapid tolerance of future climate change conditions."

Hofmann's graduate student Emily Rivest and Taiwanese colleagues studied the larvae of cauliflower coral (Pocillopora damicornis) from Moorea and Taiwan, locations that nearly span the range of the species. They wanted to determine how the young coral life stages reacted to two co-occurring environmental stresses: elevated temperature and ocean acidification.

Specimens from Taiwan, the scientists discovered, exhibited less stress tolerance to warmer water than did their counterparts in Moorea. Faced with conditions of ocean acidification, however, larvae at both sites exhibited no signs of stress. The investigators, who also catalogued differences in the natural seawater conditions at each site, observed that local adaptation might also play a role in responses to temperature.

The researchers gathered specimens of adult cauliflower coral to collect their larvae, which are released at night. They analyzed the fat content, including two different types of lipid.

"The lipids are important energy stores for the coral," explained lead author Rivest, who conducted this work at UCSB as part of her doctoral thesis and is now an assistant professor at Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "The larvae rely mostly on these lipid stores to fuel their dispersal, and their lipid levels can influence how far they can travel, impacting the ability for one reef to repopulate or save a nearby reef."

It turned out that the larvae's energy stores at "birth" differed depending on where the specimens originated. Rivest measured lipid stores immediately after larvae were released from adult corals and again after a 24-hour exposure to warmer and more acidic water. She then subtracted one from the other to determine both the amount of lipid used by the larvae in response to the temperature and ocean acidification conditions, and the remaining lipid levels.

"In response to high temperatures, the larvae from Taiwan consumed more lipid, which meant that they found that condition to be quite stressful," Rivest explained. "At the end of the experiment, they didn't have as much lipid to last them the rest of their dispersal, so it meant they might not be able to travel as far."

Larvae in Moorea, which were born with more fat, weren't as sensitive to temperature. This makes sense, Rivest noted, because corals in Moorea already live in warmer water. "Because of their genetics or other aspects of their physiology, they already may have the tools they need to tolerate higher water temperatures without having to burn that extra energy," she said.

Where larvae come from is important, according to Rivestat least for cauliflower coral. "The environmental conditions unique to each location shape the ability of these animals to tolerate future change in their environment," she said. "While there isn't one solution that fits all, it appears that there are places where corals will fare better under future changing conditions. If we continue to work at this, then we can help identify reefs that will be more resistant to environmental consequences of human-caused climate change."

More information: Emily B. Rivest et al. Lipid consumption in coral larvae differs among sites: a consideration of environmental history in a global ocean change scenario, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2825 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, c. 1660 - 1661. Credit: Mauritshuis, The Hague

An oil painting is not a permanent and unchangeable object, but undergoes a very slow change in the outer and inner structure. Metal soap formation is of great importance. Joen Hermans has managed to recreate the molecular structure of old oil paints: a big step towards better preservation of works of art. He graduated cum laude on Tuesday 9 May at the University of Amsterdam with NWO funding from the Science4Arts program.

Paint can fade, varnish can discolour and paintings can collect dust and dirt. Joen Hermans has examined the chemical processes behind ageing processes in paints. 'While restorers do their best to repair any damages that have occurred, the fact remains that at present we do not know enough about the molecular structure of ageing oil paint and the chemical processes they undergo', says Hermans. 'This makes it difficult to predict with confidence how paints will react to restoration treatments or to changes in a painting's environment.'

Visible to the naked eye

Hermans explains that in its simplest form, oil paint is a mixture of pigment and drying oil, which forms the binding element. Colour pigments are often metal salts. 'When the pigment and the drying oil are combined, an incredibly complicated chemical process begins', says Hermans, 'which continues for centuries'. The fatty acids in the oil form a polymer network when exposed to oxygen in the air. Meanwhile, metal ions react with the oil on the surface of the grains of pigment.

'A common problem when conserving oil paintings is the formation of what are known as metal soaps', Hermans continues. These are compounds of metal ions and fatty acids. The formation of metal soaps is linked to various ways in which paint deteriorates, as when it becomes increasingly brittle, transparent or forms a crust on the paint surface. Hermans: 'You can see clumps of metal soap with the naked eye on some paintings, like Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp or Vermeer's View of Delft'. Around 70 per cent of all oil paintings show signs of metal soap formation.'

Conserving valuable paintings

Hermans has studied in detail how metal soaps form. He began by defining the structure of metal soaps. One of the things he discovered was that the process that causes metal ions to move in the painting is crucial to the speed at which the painting ages. Hermans also managed to recreate the molecular structure of old oil paints, making it possible to simulate and study the behaviour of old paints without actually having to remove samples from Rembrandt's Night Watch. Hermans hopes this knowledge will contribute towards a solid foundation for the conservation of valuable works of art.

More information: Paint Alterations in Time. Implications for Conservation, Presentation and Storage of Oil Paintings from Van Eyck to Mondrian. www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-res  jects/i/59/8159.html
Mike Krainak (left) and Diego Janches recently won NASA follow-on funding to advance a spaceborne sodium lidar needed to probe Earth's poorly understood mesosphere. Credit: NASA/W. Hrybyk

A team of NASA scientists and engineers now believes it can leverage recent advances in a greenhouse-detecting instrument to build the world's first space-based sodium lidar to study Earth's poorly understood mesosphere.

Scientist Diego Janches and laser experts Mike Krainak and Tony Yu, all of whom work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are leading a research-and-development effort to further advance the sodium lidar, which the group plans to deploy on the International Space Station if it succeeds in proving its flightworthiness.

NASA's Center Innovation Fund and the Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science programs are now funding the instrument's maturation. However, the concept traces its heritage in part to NASA's past investments in promising lidar instruments, called Sounders, originally created to measure carbon dioxide and methane in Earth's atmosphere.

From its berth on the orbiting outpost, the instrument would illuminate the complex relationship between the chemistry and dynamics of the mesosphere that lies 40-100 miles above Earth's surfacethe region where Earth's atmosphere meets the vacuum of space.

Given the progress the researchers have made with the Earth-observing sounding instruments, coupled with Goddard's legacy in laser technology, they are optimistic about the instrument's ultimate success.

The Big Leverage

"What we're doing is leveraging what we learned with the CO2 and Methane Sounders," Krainak said. Both instruments have demonstrated in multiple aircraft campaigns that they accurately measure greenhouse gases using lidar.

Lidar involves pulsing a laser light off Earth's surface. Like all atmospheric gases, carbon dioxide and methane absorb the light in narrow wavelength bands. By tuning the laser across those absorption lines, scientists can detect and then analyze the level of gases in that vertical path. The more gas along the light's path, the deeper the absorption lines.

With NASA technology-development funding, a Goddard team of scientists and engineers will advance a sodium lidar instrument for use in space. This image shows the laboratory breadboard. Credit: NASA/W. Hrybyk

"The same principle applies here," Janches said. "Instead of carbon dioxide and methane, we're detecting sodium because of what it can tell us about the small-scale dynamics occurring in the mesosphere."

Sodiumthe sixth most abundant element in Earth's crustis a useful tracer for characterizing the mesosphere. Though this atmospheric layer contains other granules of metals, including iron, magnesium, calcium, and potassiumall produced by the evaporation of extraterrestrial dust when it encounters Earth's atmospheresodium is easiest to detect. Literally, a layer of sodium exists in the mesosphere.

Because of its relative abundance, sodium provides higher-resolution data that can reveal more information about the small-scale dynamics occurring in the upper atmosphere. From this, scientists can learn more about how weather in the lower atmosphere influences the border between the atmosphere and space.

The group has begun developing its instrument, which is electronically tuned to the 589-nanometer range, or yellow light. While in orbit, the lidar would rapidly pulse the light at the mesospheric layer, down one to three kilometers over a swath measuring four to eight kilometers in width.

The light's interaction with sodium particles would cause them to glow or resonate. By detecting the glow-back, the lidar's onboard spectrometer would analyze the light to determine how much sodium resided in the mesosphere, its temperature, and the speed at which the particles were moving.

Scientists have used sodium lidars in ground-based measurements for at least four decades, but they never have gathered measurements from space. As a result, the data is limited in time and space and does not offer a global picture of the dynamics. With a specially designed spaceborne sodium lidar, however, scientists would be able to illuminate specific areas, revealing the small-scale dynamics that currently are the biggest unknown, Janches said.

The team will use NASA's funding to fine-tune the technology that locks the lidar onto the sodium lines. "It's like a guitar string," Krainak explained. "If you want a certain tone, you need to lock down the string at a particular length. It's the same thing with the laser cavity length."

The team also plans to demonstrate an environmentally tested engineering test unit of the laser, thereby improving its technology-readiness level to six, which means that the technology is ready for flight development.

"We've made significant progress on the laser," Krainak said. "If we win, we could be the first space-based sodium laser spectrometer for remote sensing."
Carpanak - from peninsula to an island. Credit: EAWAG: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

The sediments of Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey) are a valuable climate archive. Now, using the salinity measured in sediment porewater, scientists have reconstructed the huge lake-level fluctuations that occurred over the past 250,000 years. This approach  based on simple physical concepts  is likely to be more widely applied in the future.

In 2010, an international research team collected sediment cores from the bottom of Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia. Since then, scientists at Eawag and the Universities of Bern, Bonn and Istanbul have used core samples to reconstruct 600,000 years of climatic and environmental history. The sediments of Lake Van  a waterbody seven times the size of Lake Constance, with no outflows and remaining icefree even during ice ages  provide a record not only of seasonal changes but also of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and extended glacial and interglacial (warm) periods, as well as other environmental data. Lake Van is the world's largest soda lake. With a salinity (salt concentration) of approximately 23 grams per litre and a pH of 10, its water can be (and is, by local communities) used directly for washing.

Fluctuations of more than 300 metres

Further light has now been shed on the lake's history by a group of scientists led by Eawag and the University of Bern. Based on variations in the salinity of porewater extracted from sediment cores, major changes in lake level over the past 250,000 years have been reconstructed  ranging from 200 metres below to 105 metres above the current lake level. In the study, published in Nature's Scientific Reports, the authors explain the essentially simple principle underlying their analysis: as the amount of salt dissolved in the lake, in absolute terms, remains constant, the salinity of the lake water is inversely proportional to the volume of water in the lake basin. Because the morphometry of the basin is known, once the water volume has been calculated, the lake level can also be determined. Two major lake-level increases (248,000 and 135,000 years ago) and one major decrease (30,000 years ago) were thus identified. Earlier lake-level changes could not be determined, as the measurements in older sediments reflect the long-term steady-state lake salinity.

Periods of freshwater conditions

The lake levels estimated using porewater salinity are in agreement with other indications, such as lake terraces still visible high above the current lake surface, or erosive channels now submerged. Previously it was not possible for these structures to be precisely dated, as the lake lies within a highly active tectonic zone  at the junction of the Eurasian, Afro-Arabian and Persian plates. When the lake was at its highest level, there must have been an outflow into the Tigris, in the southwestern part of the basin. As salt was thus exported, salinity must have declined sharply  a finding supported by other evidence, e.g. the occurrence of unbroken shells of freshwater mussels in lake terraces.

Insights into past climatic conditions, but not the future

As the water balance of Lake Van is mainly controlled by river discharge and evaporation, the lakelevel reconstruction also provides insights into past precipitation regimes in the lake catchment. Not far from the lake is Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark is supposed to have come to rest after the biblical flood. First author Yama Tomonaga comments: "We cannot, of course, identify individual wet years or decades, but changes that lasted for ten thousand years are evident."

Unfortunately, Tomonaga adds, no conclusions can be drawn from the study as to whether the lake level is likely to rise or fall in the future. The authorities in Van would welcome a projection, as the lake level has risen by around two metres since 1960 (see chart). However, Tomonaga emphasizes the fascinating prospect that the straightforward methodology and the model developed for this study could also be applied to other landlocked salt lakes, such as the Caspian Sea. Indeed, if the ocean is regarded as the Earth's largest closed-basin system, the model offers a completely new approach for estimating  at least in an order-of-magnitude approximation the oceanic salinity balance and average global sedimentation rate.

More information: Yama Tomonaga et al. Porewater salinity reveals past lake-level changes in Lake Van, the Earth's largest soda lake, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00371-w Journal information: Scientific Reports

Provided by EAWAG: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Human teeth evolved from the same genes that make the bizarre beaked teeth of the pufferfish, according to new research by an international team of scientists.

The study, led by Dr Gareth Fraser from the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, has revealed that the pufferfish has a remarkably similar tooth-making programme to other vertebrates, including humans.

Published today (Monday 15 May 2017) in the journal PNAS, the research has found that all vertebrates have some form of dental regeneration potential. However the pufferfish use the same stem cells for tooth regeneration as humans do but only replace some teeth with elongated bands that form their characteristic beak.

The study's authors, which include researchers from the Natural History Museum London and the University of Tokyo, believe the research can now be used to address questions of tooth loss in humans.

"Our study questioned how pufferfish make a beak and now we've discovered the stem cells responsible and the genes that govern this process of continuous regeneration. These are also involved in general vertebrate tooth regeneration, including in humans," Dr Fraser said.

He added: "The fact that all vertebrates regenerate their teeth in the same way with a set of conserved stem cells means that we can use these studies in more obscure fishes to provide clues to how we can address questions of tooth loss in humans."

The unique pufferfish beak is one of the most extraordinary forms of evolutionary novelty. This bizarre structure has evolved through the modification of dental replacement.

The beak is composed of four elongated 'tooth bands' which are replaced again and again. However, instead of losing teeth when they are replaced, the pufferfish fuses multiple generations of teeth together, which gives rise to the beak, enabling them to crush incredibly hard prey.

Students at Sheffield have access to the latest innovations in animal and plant sciences  giving them an opportunity to deepen human understanding of organisms, ecosystems and the interdependencies of life to build a sustainable future.

Alex Thiery, a PhD student at the University of Sheffield who contributed to the study said: "We are interested in the developmental origin of the pufferfish beak as it presents a special opportunity to understand how evolutionary novelty can arise in vertebrates more generally.

"Vertebrates are extraordinarily diverse, however this doesn't mean that they are dissimilar in the way in which they develop. Our work on the pufferfish beak demonstrates the dramatic effect that small changes in development can have."

Common origins for hair, feathers and shark skin teeth.

In an additional study published in the journal EvoDevo, Dr Gareth Fraser and his team from the University of Sheffield have also found that shark skin teeth (tooth-like scales called denticles) have the same developmental origins as reptile scales, bird feathers and human hair.

Previous studies have revealed that human hair, reptile scales and bird feathers evolved from a single ancestor  a reptile that lived 300 million years ago  but this new study from the Fraser Lab at Sheffield has found that the skin teeth found on sharks also developed from the same genes.

Sharks belong to a more basal group of vertebrates and their scales have been observed in the fossil record over the course of 450 million years of evolution, so the Sheffield researchers believe this indicates that all vertebrates, whether they live on land or in the sea, share the same developmental programme for skin, teeth and hair that has remained relatively unchanged throughout vertebrate evolution.

"Our study suggests the same genes are instrumental in the early development of all skin appendages from feathers and hair to shark skin teeth. Even though the final structures are very different this paper reveals that the developmental origins of all these structures are similar. Evolution has therefore used these common underpinnings as a foundation that can be modified over time to produce the vast diversity of skin structures seen in vertebrates," Dr Fraser added.

More information: Alexandre P. Thiery et al. Spatially restricted dental regeneration drives pufferfish beak development, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1702909114 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A reconstructed skeleton of the most complete individual skeleton from the Mary Rose to date, alongside a model of him as the archer. Credit: The Mary Rose Trust

For the first time in 500 years, scientists examining human remains from Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose will be able to determine if any bones come from the same person.

Research by Dr Garry Scarlett, a DNA expert at the University of Portsmouth, should enable museum staff to recreate accurate skeletons of some of the crew.

Only a handful of the ship's 500 crew survived when Henry VIII's flagship was sunk in the Solent in 1545. Remains of about a third of the crew have been found, with the rest lost to the sea.

Eventually, Dr Scarlett's research might also be able to shed light on where some of the crew came from.

Dr Scarlett said: "It's wonderful that science can help find new ways to engage people in the life of the ship, its fateful battle and in history.

"I hope, once we have determined for certain which bones belong with which, some whole skeletons might be able to be reassembled."

Dr Scarlett's earlier research determined the sex of the ship's dog, whose skeleton was also found inside the ship's hull in 1981. He was also able to identify which modern breed she was most closely like.

Dr Scarlett's latest research is funded by charity The Pilgrim Trust.

His team will work with maritime archaeologist Alex Hildred from the Mary Rose Museum.

She said: "The ability to recreate individuals from bones from DNA analysis rather than having to rely on physical matching has huge benefits; unless key parts of the skeleton of an individual are present it is difficult to associate a skull with a body, or an upper body with a lower body. Only about a third of our 92 partially reconstructed skeletons have skulls, yet we have 179 skulls.

"This technique should enable us to recreate the faces of many more of our crew. Enlarging the number of re-constructed skeletons means we can tell more about them  height, age, provenance, wounds they sustained, diseases they may have had.

"Our museum is dedicated to the men of the Mary Rose, and these techniques inform us about them. Displayed alongside their possessions, the collection is seen within the lives of these men, within the context of the ship which was their home, workplace and sepulchre."

The museum is in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, a stone's throw from where Mary Rose was built and about two miles from where she sank defending England from a French invasion fleet larger than the Spanish Armada. She had completed just 34 years at sea and been through three wars.

The museum houses a spectacular cross section of the ship's hull, submerged for nearly half a millennium in mud.

In addition to the hull, the museum houses thousands of well-preserved artefacts, including weapons, jewellery, furniture and medical equipment.

The ship was rediscovered by divers in 1971 and excavated between 1979 and 1982 when the hull was raised. Further excavation between 2003 and 2005 revealed significant timbers from the bow of the ship, suggesting that the site still has many secrets to reveal.
Perna viridis mussels. Credit: Wikipedia

(Phys.org)A team of researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea has developed a new skin application designed to reduce skin scarring due to injury. In their paper published in the journal Biomaterials, the group describes the glue-like substance they created and how well it worked on rats.

Scarring that occurs after accidents or surgical procedures can be both unsightly and uncomfortable, and for that reason, scientists have been looking into ways to prevent it from happening. Prior research has shown that scarring occurs due to an inability of the skin to weave collagen fibers in a scaffolding pattern over wide expanses in skin due to cuts or tearsbunches are created instead, resulting in scar material that is quite different from normal skin. One substance that has been shown to be effective to reduce scarring is decorin, a protein produced naturally by the skin. But thus far, it has proven difficult to synthesize it in the lab, and is therefore not commonly used. In this new effort, the researchers found a way to create a simpler version of decorin and have combined it with other ingredients to make a glue-like material that is able to fill in gaps in injured skin.

The glue-like material was made by mixing the simplified version of decorin with a molecule that binds with collagen and then made it sticky by mixing in a substance secreted by mussels. The result was a glue-like material that could be applied directly to a wound.

The researchers tested their glue by cutting the skin of several test rats and then applying it to the affected areathey then covered it with a clear plastic film. For comparison, they did the same with another group of rats, covering their wounds with the same plastic but without the glue. They then took pictures of the wounds and compared the results between the two groups. They report that by the 11th day, 99 percent of the wounds of the glue treated rats were closed, whereas only 78 percent of the untreated rats' wounds were closed. By the 28th day, all of the wounds in both groups of rats had healed, but the treated rats showed far less scarring than those that went untreated.

The researchers note that rat skin is different from human skin, so it is still not clear how well it might work in peoplethey plan to test their glue on pigs, which have skin much more like humans.

More information: Eun Young Jeon et al, Natural healing-inspired collagen-targeting surgical protein glue for accelerated scarless skin regeneration, Biomaterials (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.04.041 Abstract

Skin scarring after deep dermal injuries is a major clinical problem due to the current therapies limited to established scars with poor understanding of healing mechanisms. From investigation of aberrations within the extracellular matrix involved in pathophysiologic scarring, it was revealed that one of the main factors responsible for impaired healing is abnormal collagen reorganization. Here, inspired by the fundamental roles of decorin, a collagen-targeting proteoglycan, in collagen remodeling, we created a scar-preventive collagen-targeting glue consisting of a newly designed collagen-binding mussel adhesive protein and a specific glycosaminoglycan. The collagen-targeting glue specifically bound to type I collagen in a dose-dependent manner and regulated the rate and the degree of fibrillogenesis. In a rat skin excisional model, the collagen-targeting glue successfully accelerated initial wound regeneration as defined by effective reepithelialization, neovascularization, and rapid collagen synthesis. Moreover, the improved dermal collagen architecture was demonstrated by uniform size of collagen fibrils, their regular packing, and a restoration of healthy tissue component. Collectively, our natural healing-inspired collagen-targeting glue may be a promising therapeutic option for improving the healing rate with high-quality and effective scar inhibition. Journal information: Biomaterials

 2017 Phys.org
A Portland State University researcher discovered that a rabbit known for centuries to exist in South America is different enough from its cousins to be its own unique species.

"At a time when species are going extinct every day, it's encouraging to know we can add one back on the list of survivors," said PSU biology professor Luis Ruedas.

His findings will be published May 17 in the Journal of Mammalogy.

Ruedas made his discovery after studying rabbit specimens at the Naturalis museum in Leiden, in The Netherlands. The specimens, collected in 1983 from the small country of Suriname on South America's northeast coast, were labeled as South American cottontails.

Ruedas studied the anatomy of the museum specimens and determined they were larger and shaped differently than other rabbits throughout South America - so much so that they deserved to be classified as a distinct species.

The creature will be only the third new rabbit species named in South America since the start of the modern classification system 260 years ago.

The discovery follows another finding that Ruedas published this year showing that the South American cottontail, which was considered to be a single species distributed over a vast area from Mexico to most of South America, really only occupies a small area of Brazil. The other rabbits on the continentperhaps as many as 35 species in allwill have to be renamed, he said.

The rabbit from Suriname will be the first on that list.

Ruedaswho has traveled around the world studying small mammals and discovering new species - said the rabbit discovery in South America could affect how animal species are identified as unique, which is an important step when determining if a species is endangered. Ruedas said it could also lead to conservation efforts in Suriname, where environmental degradation is threatening the rabbit's habitat.
New Zealand's mainland yellow-eyed penguins face extinction unless urgent action taken, according to University of Otago researchers. Credit: Thomas Mattern

Iconic Yellow-eyed penguins could disappear from New Zealand's Otago Peninsula by 2060, latest research warns. Researchers call for coordinated conservation action.

In a newly published study in the international journal PeerJ, scientists have modelled factors driving mainland Yellow-eyed penguin population decline and are calling for action to reduce regional threats.

According to the researchers' prediction models, breeding success of the penguins will continue to decline to extinction by 2060 largely due to rising ocean temperatures. But these predictions also point to where our conservation efforts could be most effective in building penguins' resilience against climate change.

The Yellow-eyed penguin, classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is a key attraction for New Zealand tourism. Yet, the chances of seeing the penguins in the wild are quietly slipping away, the new research suggests.

Lead study author Dr Thomas Mattern of the University of Otago says his team's predictions are conservative estimates and do not include additional adult die-off events such as the one seen in 2013 in which more than 60 penguins died.

"Any further losses of Yellow-eyed penguins will bring forward the date of their local extinction," Dr Mattern says.

If the recent poor breeding years - 2013 onwards - are included in the simulation of the future penguin population, things get progressively worse.

"When including adult survival rates from 2015 into the models the mean projection predicts Yellow-eyed penguins to be locally extinct in the next 25 years", adds Dr Stefan Meyer, another of the co-authors.

The researchers note that Yellow-eyed penguins are iconic within New Zealand. Dr Mattern says these birds greet visitors to the country on billboards in all major airports, are featured on the NZ $5 note, and are widely used for branding and advertising.

"Yet despite being celebrated in this way, the species has been slowly slipping towards local extinction," he says.

"It is sobering to see the previously busy penguin-breeding areas now overgrown and silent, with only the odd lonely pair hanging on," says Dr Ursula Ellenberg, who has researched Yellow-eyed penguins for the past 14 years.

Increasing sea surface temperatures in part explain the negative trend in penguin numbers.

"The problem is that we lack data to examine the extent of human impacts, ranging from fisheries interactions, introduced predators to human disturbance, all of which contribute to the penguins' demise," says Dr Mattern.

"However, considering that climate change explains only around a third of the variation in penguin numbers, clearly those other factors play a significant role. Unlike climate change, these factors could be managed on a regional scale," he says.

Professor Phil Seddon, Director of Wildlife Management at the University of Otago, says besides shining an alarming light on the state of the Yellow-eyed penguin on the New Zealand mainland, the study also underlines the importance of long-term data sets.

"In the current era of fast science, long-term projects have become a rarity. Without more than 35 years' worth of penguin monitoring data we would probably be still at a loss as to what is happening to a national icon, the Yellow-eyed penguin", Professor Seddon says.

Despite this urgency, Yellow-eyed penguins continue to drown as unintentional bycatch in nets set in penguin foraging areas, suffer from degradation of their marine habitat because of human activities, and die from unidentified toxins.

The authors conclude that "now we all know that Yellow-eyed penguins are quietly slipping away we need to make a choice. Without immediate, bold and effective conservation measures we will lose these penguins from our coasts within our lifetime."
Mastercard is Becoming the Ticket to Ride in More Than 80 Global Cities

MONTREAL  May 16, 2017  As residents and visitors of the worlds major cities look for the best way to get around, Mastercard is making commuting easier, faster and more consistent. In over 80 cities around the globe, Mastercard and its partners are enabling users to pay for their train or bus simply by tapping their card or swiping their phone.

With one of the years major vacation periods approaching, consumers will be able to use the devices they already carry to access public transport in a growing number of cities, including popular tourist destinations such as London, New York, Chicago, Milan and St. Petersburg.

With a Mastercard in their wallet, more and more people have a go-to transit pass for the city theyre in, said Ian Slater, senior vice president, enterprise partnerships, Mastercard. In todays connected world, having to figure out a new ticketing system every time people visit a new city is the opposite of a seamless experience. Our technology is helping to make the world a smaller, more accessible place.

Contactless and mobile ticketing get users on the way

Moving towards a world beyond cash, Mastercard is partnering with cities and other technology companies to improve overall quality of life, while helping them manage their logistics in a more efficient way.

For example, since the introduction of contactless payments across Londons transit system in 2014, 40 percent of daily pay-as-you-go journeys on the citys underground, buses and commuter rails are paid that way. When commuters tap their contactless card or device at one of the readers, theyre guaranteed the best available fare at the end of a day or week.

In New York, travelers can Masterpass their ticket on their mobile device to access commuter rail lines. In Bogota, more than 20 million trips on the citys public transport system each year are made using a combined payment and transit card.

In Singapore, contactless ticketing was recently launched across the citys transit network, making it the first city in Asia to bring this convenience to its commuters.

While every city has its own characteristics, virtually all of them are dealing with congestion and pollution, hence they are eager to shift passengers from cars to public transport, said Pablo Tomasi, senior analyst, smart cities and IoT, IHS Markit. With constraints on their budgets, cites are looking for smart, cost efficient ticketing and demand management solutions that enhance urban life.

As city and industry representatives convene in Montreal for the biannual Global Public Transport Summit (UITP) this week, Mastercard will be showcasing its latest solutions for contactless and mobile ticketing, as well as data analytics.

For more information about Mastercards presence at the event, visit newsroom.mastercard.com.

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.
NCR Aloha POS Technology Proves Invaluable to Blue Orleans Creole Restaurant

DULUTH, Ga.(BUSINESS WIRE)When Tennessees finest Creole cooking restaurant, Blue Orleans, was recently faced with massive productivity delays caused by their new point of sale (POS) system, the owners turned to NCR (NYSE: NCR), a global leader in omni-channel solutions. Blue Orleans had used NCR Aloha POS technology for over nine years before making the decision to switch systems. After less than two weeks of constant complications with the new system, the owners returned to NCR and had the latest version of NCR Aloha POS installed in a matter of days.

Blue Orleans decision to replace their original NCR Aloha solution with an alternative system unleashed a proverbial avalanche of operational malfunctions at their new downtown location, creating a bad impression for many of their new customers. The local NCR Aloha channel partner, Hospitality Control Solutions, quickly replaced the system with a new NCR Aloha POS solution that was more feature-rich and intuitive than their previous installation, along with new terminals and printers. The new solution dramatically improved operations because it was more complete, far faster, more flexible and user-friendly than the system it replaced. NCR Aloha technology quickly went to work the way it always does, giving management the ability to streamline food preparation and delivery, bring gift cards back online and easily run promotions again with simplified back-office management.

Incorporating the NCR Aloha POS software had Blue Orleans back up and running like a well-oiled machine overnight. Not only did NCRs technology get the staff back to full productivity, but the software exceeded the restaurants expectations by helping them serve their customers faster and easier than ever before.

We should have never switched providers, said Cherita Adams, owner of Blue Orleans. NCR knows the restaurant business inside and out and continuously aims to help restaurant operations run smoothly and efficiently. Thanks to Aloha, we were able to focus on what we do best  efficiently and flawlessly serving up the finest Creole cooking.

Restaurants need quick, flexible and productive operations, driving them to find the right solution to boost customer satisfaction, said Don Zimmerman, general manager, Hospitality at NCR. Our innovative, multi-functional POS platform delivers operational efficiency for restaurants to better manage client demands and meet their business goals. We are thrilled with our renewed partnership with Blue Orleans and look forward to supporting their growing business.

Blue Orleans is a Creole seafood restaurant in the heart of Chattanooga, TN. Created in 2007, owners Mike and Cherita Adams are dedicated to serving their family-style, Louisiana cooking to the Chattanooga community.

About NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) is a leader in omni-channel solutions, turning everyday interactions with businesses into exceptional experiences. With its software, hardware and portfolio of services, NCR enables nearly 700 million transactions daily across retail, financial, travel, hospitality, telecom and technology, and small business. NCR solutions run the everyday transactions that make your life easier.

NCR is headquartered in Duluth, Ga., with over 30,000 employees and does business in 180 countries. NCR is a trademark of NCR Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

NCR encourages investors to visit its website, which is updated regularly with financial and other important information about NCR.

Other POS News:
Point of Sale Market Leader Toast Inc. to Expand Headquarters Overlooking Fenway Park

BOSTON, April 27, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)  Toast, the all-in-one restaurant technology platform and one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in the U.S., today announced it will expand its Boston headquarters within Samuels & Associates Landmark Center in The Fenway, while at the same time announcing recognition by BostInno as its 2017 Tech Madness winner; out of 150 companies, Toast was voted the most valuable tech company in five years.

On the heels of this win, Toasts expanded headquarters will significantly grow the companys footprint in order to accommodate its breakout growth. Toast is expected to hire 250 or more employees in 2017 as it grows into the new office space.

From our founding as a three-person team in a basement to our expansive growth in Landmark Center, weve remained unwavering in delivering the best customer service and restaurant POS system built for restaurant success. Clearly, this commitment has resonated with leading brands across all 50 states, said Chris Comparato, CEO of Toast. Our achievements stem from having the best team in the industry, a world-class restaurant POS system, and an obsession with customer success. We are committed to doubling down on this vision in the years ahead, and look forward to expanding within Landmark Center to foster an environment of innovation, creativity and collaboration.

Toast moved into Landmark Center in the summer of 2015, part of a nearly half-million square foot influx of office tenants drawn to the neighborhoods diverse workspaces, restaurants, shops, parks and transit accessibility.

Toasts success is a perfect example of what it means to grow in The Fenway, said Peter Sougarides, principal at Samuels & Associates, which owns and manages Landmark Center. Companies here are at the center of it all, and when the neighborhoods creative, entrepreneurial spirit becomes part of their DNA, the growth potential is limitless.

To learn more about Toast POS and career opportunities, see here: https://pos.toasttab.com/careers.

About Toast, Inc.

Toast is an all-in-one restaurant technology platform. Built specifically for restaurants, Toast offers a mobile, cloud-based point of sale (POS) system that incorporates key facets of the guest experience into one platform, connecting the POS system with integrated online ordering, gift card and loyalty programs, and labor and sales reporting. Since launching Toast in 2013, the company has grown to hundreds of employees and thousands of restaurants, ranging from fine dining to fast casual, from independent businesses to national chains. Learn more about Toast at www.toasttab.com or on their Facebook page.

Other POS News:
Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether 

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THE MATERIAL ON THIS WEBSITE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. AGAIN, CHANGES IN LAWS, RULES, REGULATIONS AND NEW COURT AND ADMINISTRATIVE DECISIONS MAY AFFECT THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS LAWBLOG. THE MATERIAL PRESENTED IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE AND THE USE OF ANY MATERIAL POSTED ON THIS WEBSITE DOES NOT CREATE AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP.
Newborn poison frogs of Peru have quite an appetite. If left home alone in their hatching pool, the ravenous tadpoles will eat each other. To keep the tadpoles from gorging on their siblings, their doting father will carry them one at a time on his back and drop them in separate pools, where other food is available.

Some frog fathers, however, abandon their young. For unknown reasons, these males leave and never return to fetch their developing offspring.

Researchers have now found that abandoned tadpoles don't wait for their father to return, because they run the risk of getting eaten by cannibalistic siblings. Instead, they try to piggyback on any adult frog that happens to visit the pool to breed, sleep or cool off in it. What's more, the researchers found that it made no difference to the tadpoles if the visiting adult belonged to the same or a different species. [40 Freaky Frog Photos]

Lisa Schulte and Michael Mayer, of the Department of Biogeography at Trier University in Germany, studied the behavioral response of tadpoles of the Neotropical poison frog Ranitomeya variabilis toward adults of the same species as well as two different species (Ranitomeya imitator and Hyloxalus nexipus).

To perform the experiments, the researchers set up a makeshift laboratory in an unused coffee plantation next to a forest in Peru. They left tadpoles hatched from the same egg clutch in a plastic bowl filled with water and then placed an adult frog in the bowl. The researchers noticed that the tadpoles approached adults of all three species and tried to wriggle their way up the frogs' backs.

"The tadpoles beg for transportation; it surprised us that for them it does not matter if it is their own species or not," Mayer told Live Science in an email from Peru.

Out of 39 tadpoles, two were able to hop on the adult's back  one on the R. variabilis male (same species) and the other on the R. imitator male (same genus but different species). The tadpoles received no help from the adult frogs, which expressed no interest in piggybacking the tadpoles, "affirming that the tadpoles followed the frogs, not vice versa," Schulte and Mayer wrote in their study, published online May 5 in the Journal of Zoology.

Story continues

"When in acute danger, they do not passively wait for their parents to pick them up," the researchers wrote, "but instead show a strong, nearly aggressive form of approaching and mounting adults."

Original article on Live Science.

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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark said on Tuesday it would disregard a European Union directive to lift temporary border restrictions within six months unless the bloc "miraculously" secured its external frontiers against undocumented migrants. More than a million people sought asylum in the EU in 2015. An EU deal with Turkey last year reduced the influx to a trickle though thousands of migrants are still reaching Europe from Libya via sea routes to Italy. With the number of arrivals well down since 2015, the European Commission said on May 2 that Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway should remove lift border controls within six months. But Danish Prime Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen told parliament on Tuesday that the flow of refugees and migrants into Italy and further into Europe "is (still) far too high". He added: "We will continue border controls unless the EU miraculously finds ways to regain control of its outer frontiers and Italy curbs the flow of refugees onto (its territory) and further into Europe." As part of the EU's response to the surge of refugees and migrants in 2015, the bloc approved emergency controls in its passport-free Schengen travel zone, despite concerns about the impact on trade. Earlier this month, the EU executive approved maximum six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, Austria's frontiers with Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. Norway is in the Schengen zone but outside the EU. The Swedish government has said it will remove ID checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden. Germany has argued that despite the fall in migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans, it needs the controls to counter the threat of Islamic militancy in Europe. (Reporting by Erik Matzen; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The European Union on Tuesday set a June deadline for Poland and Hungary to start admitting their share of migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece or risk sanctions. Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland have opposed an EU plan adopted in 2015 to take in 160,000 Syrian, Eritrean and Iraq asylum seekers from Greece and Italy. "I call on Poland and Hungary who have not relocated a single person... to start doing so right now," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters. "If no action is taken by them before the next (Commission) report in June, the Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties and to open infringement procedures," he said. Avramopoulos said a total of 18,418 asylum seekers have been relocated to other EU countries from the two Mediterranean states. Under so-called EU "infringement proceedings" Brussels sends a letter to national governments to demand legal explanations over certain issues, before possibly referring them to the European Court of Justice. EU states can eventually face stiff financial penalties if they fail to comply. European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and other EU officials have long expressed frustration with the slow pace of relocation of asylum seekers aimed at tackling the worst migration crisis since World War II. More than one million migrants have poured into the bloc in the last two years. The relocation plan was launched to help people fleeing the mainly Muslim war-torn countries of Syria and Iraq as well as the repressive east African state of Eritrea.
By John Davison BEIRUT (Reuters) - More than 1,000 insurgents and their families left an opposition-held district of Damascus on Monday, completing an agreement between the Syrian government and rebels, Syrian state media outlets and a war monitoring group said. Well over 3,000 people have left Qaboun in two days of evacuations, paving the way for the government to regain control of the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. They headed for areas still under opposition control east of the Syrian capital, or for the northwestern province of Idlib, also held by insurgents, it said. Syria's military released a statement saying it had "returned peace and security to the Qaboun area" after killing many insurgents and blowing up tunnels they had used for supplies. "This strengthened the perimeter of security around Damascus and chokes the terrorist groups" to the east, it said, referring to rebels. Damascus has done a number of similar deals in recent months with the Syrian opposition, supported in some cases by Syria's ally Iran and Qatar, which backs the rebels. The government sees the deals as an alternative to failing peace talks. The opposition says the agreements amount to forced displacement of President Bashar al-Assad's opponents from areas around the capital, and are often reached after months or years of siege by government forces and their allies. The United Nations has criticised both the use of siege tactics which precede such deals and the evacuations themselves as amounting to forcible displacement. State TV quoted the Damascus provincial governor as saying that Qaboun "is empty of militants". It said army engineering teams had entered the district, on the city's northeastern edge, to begin clearing it of mines and unexploded ordnance. The Observatory said 1,300 rebel fighters and their families had left on Monday. On Sunday, more than 2,000 rebels and their family members left Qaboun, state media said. State TV said several hundred fighters had decided to stay in the district under the agreement as government forces took control. Many residents and some rebels have chosen to stay, preferring not to move to Idlib, areas of which are frequently targeted by air strikes. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
Iran's reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, on Tuesday pulled out of this week's presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, ISNA news agency reported. "I will vote for Mr Rouhani in the presidential election," Jahangiri said as he announced he was withdrawing his candidacy. "I have completed my historic duty and, together with you, I will vote for Rouhani to help continue on the path to progress for this country," he told a crowd of several thousand people gathered in the southern city of Shiraz. "Vote for Rouhani because he is the man for difficult situations... I ran as candidate to make the voice of reformists heard," said Jahangiri. His decision comes one day after Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf withdrew from the race, paving the way for a head-to-head battle between Rouhani and conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi. Jahangiri, a 60-year-old confidante of the moderate president, was a surprise last-minute entry for Friday's election. It was assumed Jahangiri ran to back up Rouhani in pre-election debates and he said at his registration that he stood "side-by-side" with the president who is seeking a second four-year mandate.
By Ayman al-Warfalli BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar staged a large military parade on Tuesday for the third anniversary of his campaign to control Benghazi, as his troops fight to secure two last districts in Libya's second city. Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) has become the dominant force in eastern Libya over the past three years, though it continues to face armed resistance in Benghazi and other regions, and to take heavy losses. The LNA is aligned with a government and parliament based in eastern Libya that rejects a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli. That has frustrated Western efforts to end a conflict between two loose and shifting alliances that escalated in 2014, worsening the divisions and instability that surfaced with the 2011 uprising against the late strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar, a divisive one-time Gaddafi ally, launched "Operation Dignity" against Islamist militants who had carried out a wave of bombings and assassinations in Benghazi, though he has also fought former rebels opposed to military rule. He has received backing from foreign powers including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. On Tuesday, thousands of LNA troops paraded in Tocra, 40 miles (65 km) northeast of Benghazi, in front of Haftar, other LNA commanders and senior politicians from the eastern government and parliament. Tanks, Grad rocket launchers, helicopters and fighter jets were also displayed. The event, billed as the largest of its kind since 2011, was reminiscent of military parades under Gaddafi. It was broadcast in full on pro-Haftar TV. "WE WILL NEVER KNEEL" In a speech delivered as parachutists with Libyan flags attached to their feet descended in front of him, Haftar presented the LNA as fighting against the odds to prevail. "They imposed an arms embargo on us and supported terrorists and cut off men's heads and fired rockets and blocked oil exports - all of this to make us kneel. But we will never kneel except before God," he said. Haftar and his allies say the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) of being beholden to militias, including some with Islamist allegiances. In his speech he repeated pledges to help stabilise the capital, saying the army was for all Libyans. "We will not leave Tripoli as a hotbed of terrorists and the country will not rest until Tripoli returns to the homeland," he said. Haftar's rivals fear he will try to take military control of the capital, though most doubt he has the capacity to do so. Haftar has recently appeared more open to dialogue, meeting the GNA's head in Abu Dhabi. But subsequent comments by the foreign minister in Tripoli suggesting acceptance of Haftar as head of the army sparked an angry reaction amongst factions in western Libya. The LNA took over key oil ports in September but briefly lost control of them earlier this year. It is still fighting in the Benghazi neighbourhoods of Souq al-Hout and Sabri, where a military spokesman said one of his men was killed and one wounded by a landmine explosion on Tuesday. At least 15 LNA troops were killed and 60 wounded in a military push there last week. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday he was open to exploring the South China Sea's natural resources with rival claimants China and Vietnam, after securing a "windfall" while in Beijing. Duterte also emphasised he had no immediate plans to pressure China over an international tribunal's ruling last year that its sweeping claims to most of the sea were unlawful. "If we can get something there with no hassle at all, why not," Duterte told reporters when asked about a proposal for jointly exploring the sea with China and Vietnam. He emphasised the deal would have to be "fair and balanced". Duterte made no mention of Malaysia and Brunei, the two other Southeast Asian nations that also have claims to the sea. The competing claims to the sea, which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits, have for decades made it one of Asia's potential military flashpoints. Beijing's efforts to cement its claims in the sea in recent years by building artificial islands and expanding a military presence there have added to the tensions. Duterte, who took office last year, abandoned the policy of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, to forcefully challenge Beijing in diplomatic circles and instead sought to repair bilateral relations. Duterte has said his decision has earned the Philippines billions of dollars in Chinese investments and aid. Duterte spoke Tuesday after returning from Beijing, where he had separate meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang on the sidelines of a summit on a global trade infrastructure project. Duterte praised China's leaders as "generous", "very liberal" and "sincere". Duterte described his trip to Beijing, his second since assuming office, as a "windfall" for the Philippines, saying more Chinese investments or aid had been offered although he gave few details. - 'Important partner' - Duterte said he told Xi and Li that he would not raise last year's international tribunal ruling, which was filed by Aquino and deeply angered China. "We decided that there is a time for me to ask about the ruling but it is not now," Duterte said. Xi hailed the "all-round improvement" of relations between the two nations during the forum, calling the Philippines an "important partner" in his Belt and Road infrastructure project. Chinese and Philippines officials will meet in China on Friday for the first round of bilateral talks on their dispute. Aquino had avoided direct talks with China for fear of placing the Philippines in a vulnerable negotiating position. Duterte said he wanted discussions to involve a code of conduct for the sea, which China and Southeast Asian nations have been discussing for some 15 years. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and Philippine Ambassador Jose Santiago Santa Romana will co-chair the meeting in China's southern Guizhou province, the Beijing said on Tuesday. Their talks will follow the 14th meeting on Thursday of senior officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the implementation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday that the talks would help Beijing and Manila "properly manage differences and promote maritime cooperation for the final settlement of relevant disputes". The Philippines, under then president Gloria Arroyo, entered into an agreement with China and Vietnam in 2005 to jointly study potential oil deposits in the sea. But the deal collapsed after Filipino politicians questioned its legality. They alleged it infringed on Philippine sovereignty and accused Arroyo of treason.
By Noah Browning and Mohammed Ghobari DUBAI/CAIRO (Reuters) - Spilling into the hallways of crowded Yemeni hospitals, children writhe in pain from cholera. Displaced villagers roam baking hot plains and barren mountains to evade warring militias. The escalating outbreak of disease and displacement of tens of thousands by recent fighting has inflamed one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, pushing Yemen's war-pummelled society ever nearer to collapse. Cholera - a diarrhoeal disease spread by food or water tainted with human faeces - has killed 180 people in less than three weeks, according to the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Samira Ali, a worried mother, expressed shock at the scene at Sabaeen Hospital in Sanaa, the ancient capital in the north held by the armed Houthi movement since late 2015. "My young son suddenly started suffering from severe diarrhoea. We went to the hospital and found it full, we couldn't find a place," said Ali, a teacher. "Only with difficulty were the doctors able to give him the medicines which saved his life. This situation is tragic." The United Nations now estimates that in Yemen a child under the age of five dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes, two million people have fled fighting near their homes and only half of hospitals have staff and supplies to function normally. Already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, Yemen was engulfed in 2015 by civil war pitting the Houthis against the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States intervened on Hadi's side and has carried out thousands of air strikes targeting the Houthis, though U.N. officials said last year these had killed more than 2,000 civilians as well. The alliance believes the Houthis, who hold most of Yemen's main population centres, are a proxy for their arch-foe Iran. The Houthis deny this and say they are defending Yemen from domineering neighbours and U.S. hegemony. The war has been largely stalemated for 18 months since the coalition retook swathes of the south and east. Over 10,000 people in all have died, but the last serious peace talks lapsed almost a year ago. As U.S. President Donald Trump makes his first visit abroad with a stop in Riyadh this week, advancing the shared U.S.-Saudi struggle with Iran may prove the priority despite the humanitarian disaster next door. HANGING BY A THREAD More than ever before in the war, state institutions are losing their ability to withstand the spread of pestilence and the mounting death toll. A battle for control of the central bank has left salaries in Houthi-held lands in and around Sanaa largely unpaid for six months, ruining the lives of hospital and sanitation workers. Pumps to sanitise the water supply sit idle for lack of fuel, while maintenance agencies tasked with chlorinating aquifers go without salaries and supplies. Doctors treating the cholera outbreak fare little better. "The health system has been hanging by a thread," UNICEF's spokesman in Yemen, Rajat Madhok, said. "Wages haven't come in, humanitarian workers and doctors are trying their best but some leave their work to seek jobs where they can get paid. Declining value of the currency hurts and all this has a cascading effect that is badly hurting the sector." A streak of misery runs the length of Yemen's western Red Sea coast - from fighting in the north along the border with Saudi Arabia to a new coalition-backed offensive working its way up to the main port of Hodeidah from the south. The campaign has forced around 50,000 to flee for safety from the area this year, according to the United Nations, many of whom had already escaped homes affected by fighting there. Clutching her young son on Hodeidah's streets, 19-year-old Saleha Ahmed Ali recounted her weary trek down the coast from the northwest. "We're from Haradh, but because of the war we fled to Bajel to be safe there. But when the air strikes got worse in Bajel, we fled to Hodeidah," she said. "There's no food or milk for our children. We can't even find a mat to sleep on or a bucket to wash our children. They haven't given us tents and it rained yesterday. We don't know where to hide. We've lost our homes. This war has dragged us from place to place." Speaking to Reuters by phone from Sanaa, Shabia Mantoo of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR wondered why the scale of the suffering had not spurred more peacemaking efforts. "It was already catastrophic, how much worse can it get? Nineteen million people are going through real suffering. Yemen now is an inventory of misery - what more will it take to get the world's attention?" HAWKISH ON IRAN Diplomats and aid workers fear that if Hodeidah turns into a war zone, up to half a million people could be uprooted, stretching already strained aid groups to breaking point. But resolving Yemen's burning humanitarian crisis may take a back seat to scoring a blow in the regional rivalries with Iran. U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said last month that U.N.-backed talks are needed to resolve the conflict. But the Trump administration is considering an increase in intelligence cooperation with the Saudi-led coalition and has not ruled out U.S. assistance for an assault on Hodeidah. "The Americans are now much more hawkish on Iran," a Western diplomat told Reuters. "It's possible that they could support an escalation of the conflict in Yemen in order to send Iran a message." (Additional reporting by Abduljabbar Zeyad in Hodeidah; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)
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Did you know that on average business lawyers charge anywhere from $100 per hour in a rural area or small town to more than $1,000+ per hour in a big city at an elite law firm? Its true.

Getting legal advice isnt cheap, and it is often out of reach for most small businesses that are just starting up. However, saying you dont have the cash for legal assistance and ignoring things is simply not an option; the risks are far too great.

In fact, there are many legal challenges in business you can face, including protecting your intellectual property (e.g., patents, trademarks and copyrights), warding off lawsuits that could potentially land you in court and much, much more.

Given the cost of hiring a lawyer and the risks you can face, its no surprise that many start-ups and small business owners want to know if there is free legal help for their business. The good news is that there are plenty of free resources available where you can get sound legal aid and questions answered by the experts.

This guide showcases 12 of the best places to go for free legal assistance to help you get the answers and guidance you need when you need it. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all legal approach, so do a good deal of research before you find the solution that fits you and your company.

Why Advice from Legal Services is so Important in Business

The laws pertaining to business can be complex and hard to understand, especially for small businesses that are just starting out. And even though laws pertaining to business can be tough to understand sometimes, its important to get them right.

Here are five critical reasons to start seeking legal advice for your small business:

It will help you form the right business structure: The business structure you choose will have a significant impact on your tax obligations, business liability and operational costs. Youll have a better understanding of your legal obligations and risks: Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and as a business owner you have a legal responsibility to understand your obligations and risks. It can help you avoid costly disputes: Disputes with employees, customers, or suppliers can be extremely costly for small businesses. Legal aid can help you resolve these disputes without them turning into expensive legal battles. To avoid costly mistakes: When drafting important contracts and agreements good legal counsel can help you avoid costly mistakes, such as including clauses that are unenforceable or illegal. Prevent violations: If you dont know what the law says and how it applies to your business, youll likely violate them. Legal counsel will help you avoid running into legal issues such as fines, penalties or even litigation where you may get dragged into court.

12 Best Places to Find Free Legal Advice Online

Now that youve seen why legal advice is so important, the next step is to find the right people who can help you and provide you with the right answers. There are a lot of resources online, but some of them charge quite a bit of money or grant limited access. Luckily, there are plenty of free places on the internet where you can get some solid legal recommendations from experts and professionals.

Next, weve listed the 12 of the best places to get legitimate and free legal help online.

1. The Small Business Association (SBA)

One of the best places to find free legal help is through your areas small business association. For example, many local SBAs offer members access to a panel of lawyers who can answer questions about specific legal issues affecting small businesses.

Youll usually have to be a member of the association to get access to this type of service, but its usually worth it. Some associations offer other benefits as well, such as discounts on business products and services, training opportunities for employees, mentorship programs for entrepreneurs and workshops designed specifically to help small businesses succeed in their local area. Additionally, most of these local organizations have a website that lists their contact information and membership fees (if any).

2. Your Local Chamber of Commerce

Another place where you can get free legal advice is your local chamber of commerce. Many chambers offer members access to lawyers who can answer questions about specific legal issues affecting small businesses in their area, as well as other benefits.

Just like with your local small business association, youll usually have to be a member of the chamber to get access to this type of service. However, there are some chambers that offer free membership for entrepreneurs who are just starting out. You can find your local chamber of commerce by visiting the website of an organization like the United States Chamber of Commerce or contacting the nearest Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for help.

3. Local Non-Profit Agencies

Non-profits are a great resource for free legal help. Many non-profit organizations offer services such as business law clinics, workshops on starting your own small business or connecting entrepreneurs with mentors who can help them navigate their way through employment law and the process of opening up shop.

These programs will often be run by lawyers and other professionals in the community who are passionate about helping small businesses succeed. There are also non-profit agencies and organizations that give legal help and services free or at reduced costs to specific groups like minorities, the military and veterans and people with disabilities.

4. The Secretary of State

If youre looking for information about starting a business in your state, the Secretary of State is a good place to start. Most states have websites that offer detailed information about how to form and register a business in their area.

Some states also offer online legal resources such as templates for articles of incorporation or LLC formation documents, which you can use to get started. You can search and get contact information for the Secretary of State where your business is located on the National Association of Secretaries of State website.

Small businesses should also be aware of their states laws and regulations, as well as any licenses or permits that may be required to operate in that area. You can find this type of information on your states website for the Secretary of State or by contacting the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for assistance.

5. Attorney Communities

Attorney communities allow you to look up helpful legal information or bounce your legal question off their members in an ask a lawyer fashion. These companies operate a lot like a consultation with a professional attorney in the way that they provide information that skims the surface to get you started. You will get help here that consists of licensed attorneys who answer questions based on their practice area.

They include the following (bear in mind that some of the companies on this list limit their services to people with low incomes):

See Also: Meditation App Helps Small Business Owners in the Legal Profession

Although they arent perfect, these Q&A communities will start you on the right path and help you avoid what could turn into a legal issue. Many of these services also offer low-cost plans by the month and by the year for more detailed legal help. These plans often come with a free trial, so you can try out their legal resources in more detail before you decide if its the right option for you.

6. The Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission is a government agency that deals with issues related to business and advertising. One of their primary functions is to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive practices by businesses. They also have a wealth of information on their website about credit & finance, how to start and run a small business, including topics like trademarks, copyrights, and e-commerce for selected industries.

7. The Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service has a comprehensive Small Business and Self-Employed Tax Center page, which provides small companies legal recommendations on various matters on anything from filing tax returns to the ins and out of how the ACA works to specific tax reforms that could impact your company. Also, they have an online e-file system for filing taxes electronically, which is convenient if youre not comfortable filling out forms by hand or dont want to take the time needed with paper filing.

Another government agency to use besides the IRS is the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ provides free legal advice for small and disadvantaged businesses through its Small Business Legal Clinic Program, which offers attorneys who specialize in advising small-business owners on a variety of topics, including intellectual property rights and contract law.

8. Online Law Libraries

If youre looking for a more in-depth understanding of business and corporate law resources, an online law library might be a good resource for you. Although they arent free, these libraries are often maintained by private companies or organizations and offer access to their entire collection of legal resources for a very low monthly or yearly subscription fee.

CALI is Computer-Assisted Legal Instructions written by law professors at CALI-sponsored educational institutions. You can use it to study several business law topics. The interactive tutorials featured in the CALI law library database can be used as lessons for reading up on specific business legal topics, such as sales and leases, secured transactions and negotiable instruments and other payment systems.

9. Pro Bono Clinics

Pro Bono lawyers are students who are affiliated with a legal aid organization. They volunteer at legal assistance clinics at no cost. They are part of internship programs that help law students gain professional ethics and gain a deep understanding of their responsibility to their community.

In addition, you can use the SuperLawyers website to search for pro bono attorneys that will provide you with free legal aid if you cant afford a lawyer. Likewise, you can use the American Bar Associations website about pro bono lawyer support questions. They must be non-criminal questions, though. However, keep in mind that there is often an income threshold for getting help in this manner.

10. Business Law Websites

Websites such as FindLaw and Nolo publish information about laws related to business and offer a variety of resources, including articles, blog posts, videos, and even e-books on various legal topics. They also have searchable databases of attorneys who practice in specific areas of the law, so you can find a business attorney whos right for your needs. Youll also find information about specific topics like employment laws, intellectual property, and small business taxes on these websites.

The owners of these websites understand legal assistance can be very expensive for small businesses which is why they provide legal advice at little or no cost.

For example, Nolo.com offers a free online course about the basics of business-related laws for small businesses, which you can take at your own pace or find out more by checking out their website.

FindLaw also offers a free online course on legal matters and resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs. This one is geared specifically toward helping new business owners get started with their ventures and includes information like how to form an LLC or corporation, what kind of licenses and permits you need to run a business in your state, how to hire employees instead of contractors (and vice versa), etc.

11. Law Schools

Some law schools offer their legal services for free or at reduced costs to individuals or startups. Here, students studying law and instructors that teach legal curriculum can give you basic guidance and answers about any legal issue that you have. Similar to how it is with pro bono lawyers, helping businesses in this way gives law students knowledge of real-world experiences and a sense of community as they work toward finishing school.

Note that supervision of these law students is provided by legal organizations and professional attorneys since the students arent licensed yet. It is unethical for them to independently give anyone or an entity free (or paid) legal advice until they receive their degrees.

In addition, there are law school clinics that are geared to serving a clientele of small businesses, sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, which means that you can potentially receive complimentary help from the right lawyer about legal questions pertaining to your business.

You can find a list of clinics near you by visiting the website of the American Bar Association or your state bar association. You can also Google law school clinic followed by your city or towns name. For example, if you live in Atlanta, search for law school clinic Atlanta.

If you cant find answers to what youre looking for, try contacting your local economic development office or the nearest Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for help.

12. Free Consultations with Lawyers

For free legal assistance, most local lawyers will provide an initial consultation at no charge or give you low-cost legal counsel. This initial chat could possibly assist you in:

Gaining more understanding and insight into the information youve collected so far.

Receiving answers to the questions you have regarding the legal aspects of owning and running a company.

You dont have to sit down in an office to talk to them about your legal issue, either. Instead, you can consult with real lawyers for free 24/7 through their online chat features.

Their areas of expertise could include laws about business, along with family law, personal injury law, family law, litigation, bankruptcy, patents, trademarks and more, meaning they could give free answers and legal help to you on a business and personal level.

Attorney consultations are excellent starting points if the matter your want to discuss is not too complex. They are also good if you need a good starting point on some basic areas of your business. Meanwhile, as your company gets bigger, the more complex its operations and legalities get. b12q b q2As you probably know, free lunches rarely exist in life, and eventually, time will run out on an attorneys generosity (usually at around the 30-minute mark of the consultation).

In that case, its better to pay for future consultation and retain a lawyer rather than attempt to handle complex legal matters by yourself.

What is the best company to use to get answers to my legal questions free?

This is an excellent questionbut its not so simple to answer. To explain, there are many companies out there that offer free legal advice, and they all have their pros and cons.

For example, some of these companies will give you generic answers to your legal questions (which may be helpful if all you need is general information). Others may have attorneys on staff who will provide more specific legal help, but you may need to be a member of their organization in order to get this help.

There are also some companies that offer free legal consultations specifically for small businesses. This can be a great option if you want to sit down with an attorney and discuss your business in detail. However, keep in mind that these consultations are usually very short, and you may not be able to receive answers to all of your questions.

Finally, some companies offer free legal advice in the form of online resources or articles. This can be a great way to learn more about specific topics, but its important to remember that these resources should not be relied on as being the same as the legal recommendations youd get from a professional attorney.

Take LegalZoom for example, the company has a good rating with the Better Business Bureau and on review sites such as TrustPilot. However, they are not lawyers and cant practice law. Therefore, they are no substitute for a professional attorney.

Think of Ask a Lawyer sites like LegalZoom as more of a DIY portal to legal documents and FAQs. Still, they can be excellent resources for forming an LLC, business registration, trademark protection or other similar small business needs.

If you are forming your business, Inc Authority is the best for-profit company mentioned in this guide since they offer both LLC formation services and a year of registered agent service for free.

On the other hand, we saw that business programs at local non-profits are often managed by lawyers and other professionals, so that is another good resource you can tap into for several types of legal questions and assistance.

Where is the best place to find free legal advice about criminal law relating to business?

Pro bono lawyers are a good place to start when it comes to free advice about your business. legal issue. But who you ultimately go to for legal advice is going to depend on the nature of the criminal matter in question. Many online resources, including the ABA, will not answer any questions related to criminal legalities whatsoever.

For instance, if you want to ask something about workers compensation when it comes to potential wrongdoings, an Ask a Lawyer website is not qualified to help you. Also, it would be unethical to answer questions like this since they are not technically lawyers.

Unfortunately, business attorneys say that the majority of business owners come to them when they are already in legal trouble. Thats not a good best practice, and its also expensive. More importantly, its not really an area you want to skimp on for your business.

Many of these organizations offer free or low-cost legal aid, and they can connect you with attorneys who specialize in criminal law relating to a business. You can also find general information on these organizations websites such as how to file a trademark and where to find free legal advice about criminal law relating to business.

For example, you might be able to get help with debt collection issues, intellectual property rights (trademarks), or even employment laws if they are relevant for your business. The Small Business Development Center has resources for small business owners on a variety of topics, including taxes and legal issues related to starting up your own company.

If you dont want to run into legal issues, then its essential to get some legal advice from a professional business lawyer as early as possible in the process. After all, laws change and can be complex, so its important to have an up-to-date understanding of them.

Also, many attorneys will work with you regarding your bill. For instance, they could put you on a payment plan or work with you on a contingency basis.

So, be sure to get the legal assistance you needfree or otherwise. That, along with some good business insurance, will go a long way toward protecting your business.

Andgood luck in your business endeavors!


Your business may understand the importance of clearly outlining your target customers. But do you really have a personal understanding of what those target customers want?

Thats what makes the case of Rebecca Minkoff so notable. Minkoff is a fashion designer whose brand targets for millennial women. And she also happens to fit into that group herself.

Not only does Minkoff relate to her target customers on a personal level, but she has also focused her marketing efforts on communicating with those customers directly. Shes also known for connected with fans and bloggers instead of relying on celebrities to spread the word about her products. Some of them feel so connected to her brand that theyve dubbed themselves Minkettes. A look at Twitter gives a quick impression of the kind of engagement Minkoff gets from her fans.

Bf went to a Rebecca Minkoff sample sale for me ???? #bestBFever pic.twitter.com/fCVnFsE50W  ?p (@xoxosweetp) May 13, 2017

@RebeccaMinkoff NYC sample sale opens today at 11 at @260SAMPLESALE  Ill be sharing a peek inside in my Insta stories ?#rmsamplesale pic.twitter.com/lGcTiIbNiL  Michelle Blashka (@LeHoarder) May 8, 2017

Some in the industry have advised Minkoff not to respond to customers on social media or elsewhere online directly. But since she feels she knows her target customers better than the so-called experts, she has taken the risk and it has paid off.

Connections with Customers Drives Brand Effectiveness

For small businesses, the lesson here is about really tapping into what your target audience wants rather than just going with conventional wisdom that might work for other types of businesses. Even if you dont personally fit into your target audience, as Minkoff does, you can still learn from how she personally connects and learns from those who buy her products and spread the word about her brand.
Canada, Latin America  May 16, 2017  Tanner Mirrlees

Stories about Canadas role in the world define who Canadians are and who they are not. The story that gets told most is a positive one. Canada, benign and benevolent, promotes free markets, democracy and multiculturalism while protecting peace, stability and human rights in each country it engages in or does business with. Optimistic and confident, this glowing story about Canada in the world is packaged and sold, over and over again, year after year. It shows up in the speeches of Prime Ministers and in the press releases spun by the major parties; it circulates across the news media and in popular cultural forms; it carries daily conversations.

Nonetheless, the story of Canada abroad may get Canadians to think and feel themselves to be global subjects even when many are local. Unlike diplomats and CEOs, most people cannot afford to be footloose. Bound to place by waged work, many Canadians do not have the money, time or privilege to de-territorialize.However, this story of Canada the do-gooder abroad often deflects attention away from real social problems at home. Hard to consume social facts  class inequality, poverty and homelessness, racist and sexist oppression, the legacy of settler colonialism, and the rise of white Right extremism  are minimized if not denied in the story we tell about our way of life around the world. In a time when the Canadian State tries to sell a soft power-maximizing brand image of Canada to the world, the antagonistic bits and pieces of Canadas history and present get buried.

Furthermore, the story of Canada in the world makes it seem as though all Canadians make foreign policy decisions. Yet, only a few Canadians have the power to decide what Canada actually does in the world and why. For the most part, Canadas most consequential global actions are not shaped by all, but by a few Canadian business elites and their ministerial boosters at Global Affairs and National Defence.

In this regard, the story of Canada in the world is often little more than PR for those who run Canadas multi-national corporations and administer the Canadian States geopolitical strategy on their behalf. This is not a national story written by all Canadians, but one crafted by Canadian elites. It is a story that masks Canadas conflicts at home and distracts Canadians from the violence done in their name abroad.

For those seeking a class conscious and genuinely internationalist alternative to the reigning story about Canada in the world, Tyler Shipleys new book, Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras (Between the Lines, 2017) is a must read.

According to Shipley, Canada is a secondary imperial power whose global incursions and ventures work to secure the ideology of neoliberalism and the profits of big corporations in a world capitalist system already rigged in their favour.

Far from having virtuous effects, Canadas diplomatic emissaries and Bay-street backed industrial giants have tacitly and explicitly dispossessed indigenous peoples of lands, resources, and cultures, destabilized democracies, and thwarted human rights.

Shipleys book centers on the Canadian States support for the 2009 military coup detat of Hondurass democratically elected and popular president, Manuel Zelaya, and interrogates how the Canadian State propped up an oligarchy-friendly dictatorship hospitable to Canadian capital. [Ed.: for more on the coup, see Bullet No. 231, 234, 238, 290.] Taking this specific case to be paradigmatic of the new Canadian imperialism, Shipleys accessible and lucidly written book debunks several of the cherished myths that Canadians are taught about their country (p. 3). It makes a timely and valuable contribution to contemporary political economy and critical cultural studies research about Canadas real role in the world.

Todd Gordons Imperialist Canada , Jerome Klassen and Greg Albos edited collection, Empires Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan , Jerome Klassens Joining Empire: The Political Economy of the New Canadian Foreign Policy , Paul Kellogs Escape from the Staples Trap: Canadian Political Economy After Left Nationalism , and Todd Gordon and Jeffrey R. Webbers devastating Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America are keyworks in 21st century studies of Canadian imperialism.

Shipleys book is a great addition to this field as well as to historical materialist international relations.

Bringing Canadian foreign policy down to earth from the heights of liberal idealism and up from Left nationalist defensiveness, Shipleys book deters readers from seeing Canada as an anti-American hero or as a pathetic periphery of the U.S. Empire. It gives evidential weight to the argument that Canada is an imperial power in its own right.

Moreover, Shipleys book disassembles the nuts and bolts of Canadas imperial machinery and demolishes the hubris of Canadian foreign policy spin. It introduces readers to the movements of the Honduran people struggling against homegrown oligarchs and militarists and foreign-owned mining, garment and tourist companies.

Significantly, Shipleys book pushes for international solidarity between Canadian and Honduran social movements and presses for global solidarity among all who are struggling for a world without imperialism, neoliberalism and militarism.

Crucial to building global solidarity is the re-energizing of a heterogeneous and democratic socialist movement in Canada that is capable of replacing the ruling classs story of Canada in the world with one that supports cultural dignity, social justice and peace for all. 
The most unemployed graduates were in Presov Region, followed by Kosice and Zilina.

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Most of the secondary school and university graduates were registered as unemployed for less than six months in the end of last year.

While the labour offices registered 3,300 school graduates as unemployed for less than three months, more than 6,700 graduates were without a job between four and six months. They comprised altogether 69 percent of the total number of unemployed graduates registered with the labour offices, the SITA newswire reported, referring to the data of the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (UPSVaR).

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As for the rest of the 14,600 school graduates registered by the labour offices in the end of 2016, nearly 2,800 of them were jobless for seven-nine months, while another 356 for nine months to one year. Nearly 1,500 graduates were without a job for more than 12 months, of whom seven for more than two years, SITA reported.

The most unemployed graduates were in Presov Region: 3,500 at the end of last year. Second came Kosice Region with nearly 2,600 unemployed graduates, followed by Zilina Region with nearly 2,100 jobless graduates.

On the other hand, the fewest unemployed graduates were registered by the labour offices in Bratislava Region (801) and Trnava Region (928), SITA wrote.
Cooperation between companies and schools should help diminish the lack of qualified workforce in key industries.

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A shortage of qualified workforce is one of the main negatives of the Slovak labour market. Companies are trying to solve this problem by training their own staff in dual education programmes.

One of the strategic problems of the further development of the automotive industry is the lack of qualified labour, Juraj Sinay, president of the Association of Automotive Industry (ZAP), said at a press conference in February 2017.

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Dual education controls the fluctuation on the job market. It also lowers the costs of employers for recruitment and requalification as they can prepare employees according to the needs of a particular industry.

The number of companies offering dual education options is increasing each year. A student signs a contract with an employer, who has an agreement on dual education with a school. The student receives theoretical education at the school and practical training at the employer.

One of the main benefits is the fact that the student takes part in the practical training directly in the operation at the employer, said Martina Pavlikova, spokesperson of the state rail infrastructure operator Zeleznice SR (ZSR).

Based on the statistics of the Education Ministry, the largest number of student contracts for the school term 2016/2017 was signed in machinery and metal processing (636), electro technologies (210), and economics and organisation, trade and services (118).

Geographically, the largest number of students involved in dual education is in Zilina Region (297), followed by Trencin Region (194), Bratislava Region (171) and Nitra Region (168). The lowest number is in Presov Region, with only 50 contracts.

In Slovakia, the dual system of education is presented only in connection with manual occupations, said Julius Hron, chairperson of the education commission of ZAP, adding that the trend should move to other industries as well.

Driven by the automotive

The most active employer in dual education in Slovakia is currently Volkswagen Slovakia, which proves the dominance of the automotive industry. The company views the system of dual education positively as it enables companies to acquire qualified workers immediately upon completing their studies.

We support it [dual education] also from the perspective of the lack of a qualified workforce in Slovakia, said Lucia Kovarovic-Makayova, spokesperson of Volkswagen Slovakia.

In September 2016 Volkswagen Slovakia, together with partners Matador, Siemens and Bratislava Region, opened the Dual Academy in Bratislava.

In the past we needed many welders; currently there is high demand for qualified workers who can operate the robots, said Kovarovic-Makayova.

More than two-thirds of the education is practical training, including working directly in the Volkswagen manufacturing plant with the technologies.

Read also:

Read also: Where are the workers?, investors ask Read more

The education is free and the company contributes to the accommodation, transport and food of the students.

They can also get a company scholarship, bonuses for good work productivity and other benefits of dual education, specified Kovarovic-Makayova.

Upon graduation, the students get a vocational diploma, a certificate of full secondary education  called maturita in Slovak  and an internationally valid certificate of expertise.

They also have a job placement at the selected employer, said Kovarovic-Makayova.

Another carmaker, Kia Motors Slovakia, entered the first terms of dual education in 2016.

We will continue the dual education system also for the 2017/2018 term, in cooperation with the technical school of mechanical engineering in Kysucke Nove Mesto, said Juraj Hammer from the department of training and education at Kia Motors.

Kia offers three study programmes: mechanical engineering specialist, programmer of cutting and welding machines, and mechatronics engineer.

Know your employees

Dual education programmes are also available in food and service industries. Supermarket chain Lidl plans to open training programmes at eight schools in Slovakia as of September 2017. Moreover, about 20 out of the 128 Billa supermarkets in Slovakia are already certified for dual education.

The interest in the retail sector is not high but it is improving with the cooperation of other employers, said Richard Havrila, HR manager of REWE group Slovakia that operates Billa supermarkets, who sees dual education as an opportunity for personal development of the employees who train them. Gradually, we will certify further operations every year and also be ready for accepting more students into the first grade.

Practical training at the employer provides the students with the company culture. This cuts the adaptation period when the students enter the work, which lowers the costs of business operations.

Read also:

Read also: Schools and employers lack motivation to train pupils Read more

A big advantage is also the acquisition of professional competence before actual completion of studies, said Pavlikova of ZSR.

Tatry Mountain Resorts (TMR), operator of mountain resorts and provider of tourism services, is also preparing students in the dual education programmes. Seven hotels from the TMR group have entered the scheme of dual education.

It creates conditions for the further development of the company, Zuzana Fabianova, spokesperson of TMR, told The Slovak Spectator, adding that it is better prepared to react to the increasing requirements of the customers, which is a competitive advantage in this sector of business.

TMR puts stress on building relationships with secondary schools and universities, so that it can effectively create sources of qualified and highly professional employees, said Fabianova.

Since September 2016, 18 students from the hotel school in Liptovsky Mikulas have been involved in the scheme of dual education at the company. In September 2017, the overall number of students will increase to 54, expanding the programme to the hotel school in Kezmarok as well.

The students see how we work, they are confronted with the highest quality standards from the beginning and they have access to good equipment and the latest technologies in the industry, explained HR manager of TMR Marek Schwarz.

Focus on practice

Implementation of dual education is demanding on time and legislative, therefore it is important to motivate the people at the company and give them clear information about their duties in the dual education process.

They take over the responsibility of the practical training for the entire length of the study, said Fabianova.

Hammer considers the system of dual education a positive step towards interconnection of education and practical training in companies.

The opportunity to train qualified workforce for the company, where there is currently a lack of such, is an interesting aspect among the sphere of employers, he said.

He pointed out that the main disadvantage of dual education is low participation of the state in the system. Companies must put great effort in promoting the new educational system among the public.

First, we would welcome systemic changes on the part of the state, that would make the system of dual education more attractive and known, said Hammer. Also in cooperation with other entrepreneurial entities and professional organisations we expect creation of favourable conditions for its stabilisation and further development.

Currently, there is space for improvement in the educational plans, update of the curricula and creation of better conditions for the training of masters of vocational training.

We put focus on the practical preparation, which now covers 70 percent of the education, explained Kovarovic-Makayova. In the future we would welcome the system of dual education also at the level of university education.

Havrila calls for more flexibility but also for stricter assessment criteria for students, so that they feel that they earn their marks. Moreover, the system of grading should be unified across the whole system.

Pavlikova of ZSR sees as another drawback in the low information awareness not only of parents but also of companies, educational consultants and students about the availability of dual education. Thus, it is up to the employers to promote dual education at schools and various events that focus on professional education.

Often students find out about the benefits of dual education too late and they cannot enter as it is not enabled by the law, said Pavlikova.

Definitely, dual education in this form is still a novelty for the education sector and the employers and not all the processes are set up properly, Havrila said. Yet it is improving and we are fixing the shortcomings.
He was detained within the international operation Pacifier.

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Several Slovaks were among at least 870 people detained by the police in the historically biggest raid against child pornography, with one of them already being accused. He is threatened with up to eight years in prison if found guilty, the Pravda daily reported.

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The police operation titled Pacifier, carried out by Europol and FBI for nearly two years, focused on the internet website Playpen that ran on the so-called darknet. Nearly 300 child victims were identified.

The police detained more than 368 people only in Europe. Europol then moved the information necessary for their identification to the national police departments in the Czech Republic, the UK, France, Ireland, Croatia and Slovakia, Pravda wrote.

Spokesperson for the Slovak Police Corps Presidium Denisa Baloghova confirmed to the daily that based on Europol information, they have identified several users of the encrypted website with child pornography in Slovakia. Moreover, they carried out one house search.

The charges were laid against one person in the case, Baloghova told Pravda, adding that the investigator also launched a criminal prosecution for the crime of spreading child pornography.

She refused to provide more details due to the ongoing investigation.
Finance

Illinois District Streamlines Accounting Operations

An Illinois school district has parlayed its long-time use of a financial system into building a culture focused on continuous improvement. North Shore School District 112 in Highland Park adopted applications from Skyward for accounts receivable and fiscal management in 2011.

In 2016, when Christopher Wildman joined the district as the chief financial officer, he sought new ways to use the technology, which he had had experience with in a previous job. For example, the school system maintained 12 bank accounts, one for each of its 12 schools. The business office has streamlined cash handling activities, consolidating those 12 accounts into one fund. The office now handles all check writing and cash handling processes through Skyward's accounting system.

"That's 12 accounts that don't need to be reconciled every month and 12 accounts that don't need to be monitored by 12 people," said Wildman in a press release. "It's just one fund that can be tracked by one accountant versus 12 people  now that's a real time saver."

The business office has also sought out other ways to improve operations. "We collaboratively ask questions of our current processes and where we need to improve, then we use Skyward to help us strengthen and build those processes," he explained.

Skyward offers school business suite with tools for accounting, human resources, payroll and timeclock, employee self-service and asset management. The company also has a student information system with functionality for student and classroom management, student services and family engagement.
Policy & Assessment

Oregon Drops Smarter Balanced for High School

Next year Oregon's high schoolers will be taking different summative assessments than the one they have been taking. The state's Department of Education announced that it would be pulling out of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium specifically for its higher grades. The state also reported that it had no plans to switch testing for grades 38. That's a topic the department will be taking up for the 2017-2018 school year.

In a prepared statement the department noted that the change "comes in response to feedback received from stakeholders around the state that the statewide high school assessment should provide a direct benefit to students beyond meeting graduation requirements." Specifically, Oregon will drop grade 11 English language arts and math testing previously provided by Smarter Balanced.

Other states, such as Nebraska, have adopted college entrance exams as their assessments. Oregon already offers a "preliminary SAT" exam in grade 10 as an optional assessment.

The state expects to issue a request for information to solicit input from replacement vendors about their assessment offerings. If that process is successful, the department said, any new assessments would first be administered starting in the next school year.
By Aziz El Yaakoubi, Julia Payne and Libby George DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss trading giant Glencore and U.S. private equity investor Carlyle Group have teamed up in an attempt to buy Morocco's only oil refinery, hoping to recoup about $600 million (465.2 million) in loans they issued to the plant before it went bankrupt, industry sources said. Two sources close to the process said the Moroccan government wanted at least $2 billion for the plant at Mohammedia, on the Atlantic coast near Casablanca. However, no decision on any sale is imminent, due partly to its complex debts. The 200,0000 barrel per day refinery fell foul of the global oil price crash. It stopped operating in August 2015 after the government froze the bank accounts of its loss-making operator, Samir, seeking 13 billion dirham (1 billion) in unpaid taxes. If the deal goes through, it would become Glencore's first oil refinery and allow the plant to restart production, a crucial condition for repaying debts to a wide group of foreign creditors. A Moroccan court ruled last year that Samir should be liquidated despite attempts to restart production by the company, which was controlled by the Corral Petroleum Holdings group of Saudi billionaire Mohammed al-Amoudi. On top of the unpaid taxes, several large oil companies and trading houses, including Glencore, are owed around $1 billion by Samir. This debt was extended mainly in the form of crude oil which they lent to the refiner in return for repayment in cash or refined products later. However, Samir became the biggest casualty of the 2014-2015 oil price crash in the Mediterranean region, becoming unable to repay the debts from sales of petroleum products. Glencore, the world's second largest oil trader after Vitol, has repeatedly insisted the plant needs to restart production so creditors can gradually recoup the money. It has now joined Carlyle , which already co-owns refineries in Switzerland and Germany with Vitol, in offering to buy the plant, four industry sources familiar with talks said. The sources declined to be named as talks are confidential. Glencore and Carlyle declined to comment. Mohammed El-Krimi, appointed by a Moroccan court to oversee the plant's liquidation, said information about bidders and the process was confidential. "I cannot confirm or deny," he told Reuters. Glencore has a $200 million prepayment deal with Samir funded by loans from banks Natixis and APICORP. A source familiar with the situation said negotiations to restructure the debt were on hold until there was clarity on the fate of the plant. Trading houses have been specialising for decades in lending to clients in financial difficulty and earning extra money by getting preferential access to their oil or product flows. Apart from Glencore, Samir's creditors include Vitol, BB Energy, Socar Trading and the trading arm of oil major BP . Among Samir's biggest lenders is Carlyle Commodity Management, a subsidiary formerly called Vermillion, which has been previously unseen in active commodities lending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Vermillion loaned oil worth over $400 million to Samir. DIFFICULT PROCESS The price sought by the government remains up in the air. "Estimates are ranging wildly between $2 billion to $3.5 billion with or without debts and overdue taxes," one of the sources close to the process said, adding that there was no deadline for completing a sale and that a decision was not close. At stake for Morocco are rebuilding its strategic fuel stocks, which had been stored at the plant, and the livelihood of the town of Mohammedia. According to Samir's website, the refinery and accompanying assets provided employment for 4,200 people. However, the sale process has been described by several participants as lacking transparency on the total debts involved. Any buyer will also have to upgrade the plant after a long shutdown, which could cost hundreds of millions of dollars more. "No adviser was approved to interact with potential investors... That is not the way to sell a desperate refiner to a foreign investor," a source with one of the creditors, who is not bidding for Samir, said. "If you want to get documents about court proceedings, the only option is to go and read them in court," the source said, adding that photocopies were not allowed. "The process can be best described as the blind leading the blind." (Additional reporting by Samia Errazzouki in Rabat, Dmitry Zhdannikov and Ron Bousso in London, Writing by Julia Payne, Editing by Dmitry Zhdannikov and David Stamp)
Airport staff seized hundreds of critically endangered tortoises worth 200,000 following a tip-off.

Authorities in Malaysia foiled an attempt to smuggle the reptiles into the country from Madagascar.

The 330 ploughshare and radiated tortoises were intercepted at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Sunday after officials were alerted by a member of the public.

Found alive in five crates in the airport's cargo warehouse, the rare tortoises are estimated to be worth 214,000.

Both types of tortoise are classed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list.

They have regularly been targeted by smugglers, with the tortoises likely to have been sold as pets or as food items in Malaysia or other countries.

Customs officials said in a statement: "It is a big haul. It could be for the local market or for re-export. We are investigating.

"Based on public tip-off, customs officials raided the cargo area of the airport and found five suspicious crates."

The statement added the crates had arrived on an Etihad Airways flight from Antananarivo airport, Madagascar.

Abdul Wahid Sulong, deputy customs director, said the crates had been labelled as stones for delivery to a false address.

No arrests have been made but anyone found guilty of importing critically endangered animals can be jailed for up to three years under Malaysian law.

The ploughshare tortoise is one of the rarest land tortoises in the world, while the radiated tortoise, which has been known to live for as long as 188 years, is considered one of the most beautiful species of the reptile.

The confiscation of the tortoises follows the interception of African pangolin scales worth 1.6m a fortnight ago at the same airport.

Last month, rhino horns worth 2.4m were also seized at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - An 81-year-old German far-right activist has been arrested in Hungary on a European warrant for offences committed while serving a prison term for denying the Holocaust, Hungarian police said on Tuesday. Horst Mahler, once a founding member of Germany's leftist Red Army Faction guerrilla group in the 1960s before veering to the ultra-nationalist right, was detained in Sopron near Hungary's border with Austria, on Monday, police said. The Budapest chief prosecutor said in a separate statement that based on the European warrant Mahler's arrest was "justified". Hungarian officials made no further comment. German media reported in April that Mahler had left the country to avoid a new prison term for writing far-right tracts while serving a previous sentence for inciting racial hatred and denying Nazi Germany's Holocaust against Jews. Mahler was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009 on those charges but freed on health grounds in 2015. He became a far-right activist in later life and joined Germany's fringe neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. (Reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto in Budapest, Joseph Nasr in Berlin; editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Daniel Trotta NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army soldier responsible for a massive leak of classified material, will walk out of prison on Wednesday after seven years to find a country that has grown more accepting of her transgender identity but less enamoured with the cause that led to her incarceration. In 2010, the former military intelligence analyst, then known as Private First Class Bradley Manning, provided thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks, an international organization that publishes such information from anonymous sources. It was the most sweeping breach of its kind in U.S. history. After Manning's 2013 conviction, the soldier was sentenced to 35 years in prison. But former President Barack Obama, during his final days in office, commuted the remaining 28 years on the sentence. After being convicted of espionage, Manning said she identified as a woman and began her transition, even as the U.S. Army kept her in the men's prison, requiring a male haircut. Her lawyer said she twice tried to commit suicide and faced long stretches of solitary confinement and denial of health care. While Manning was in prison, the U.S. Defense Department last year lifted a long-standing ban against transgender men and women serving openly in the military. This freed 7,000 active and reserve transgender members to tell the truth about their gender identity, according to Pentagon estimates. Although transgender people still complain of widespread discrimination in education, employment and medical care, awareness of the issue has exploded since Manning went to jail. Celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have become part of the mainstream. Manning, 29, is likely to become a transgender advocate after her release from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented Manning. "She is someone who is driven by a sense of justice. And I don't see her fading into a private life," Strangio said, listing transgender youth, prisoners and women of colour as potential causes. Still, Manning faces a difficult transition to freedom, Strangio said. Social conservatives reject expansion of transgender rights, and many national security experts revile her for providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks while serving as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad. Manning said she disclosed classified information "out of a love for my country" to expose truths about the civil war in Iraq. "Chelsea is going to come out of prison a public figure, a polarizing figure, a person who has a lot of recognition and that people project a lot onto, but who has very few resources herself. And so she's going to have a lot to navigate," Strangio said. At the same time, the reputation of WikiLeaks has declined as part of the ebb and flow of public perceptions of national security, said Robert Deitz, who previously served as general counsel at the National Security Agency, senior councillor to the director of the CIA, and other national security positions. "Public perception of intel changes according to what's going on in the world," Deitz said, noting an increase in prestige after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a decline after robust surveillance led to concerns about privacy. WikiLeaks also published emails in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 presidential election that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded were hacked by Russian intelligence from the Democratic National Committee as part of a campaign by Moscow to influence the election. On April 13, Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service." Deitz said Manning was getting off lightly and should have served the full 35 years. "She did enormous damage to the intelligence community," Deitz said. "People need to take responsibility for their actions. When you put people's lives in danger, I don't care how high-minded you think you are. You should face up to what you did." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Angela Moore; Editing by David Gregorio)
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The seventh annual Leaving a Legacy of Leadership (L3) Summit, scheduled May 22-25 at the University of North Georgia (UNG), will bring together 75 students from universities and colleges across the state.

L3 is designed to help student leaders improve their leadership skills and advance the mission of their campuses and institutions along the way. The participants are selected by their institutions as promising leaders of their school communities.

The idea for the summit was developed at UNG and the summit, staffed by educators and student mentors from different University System of Georgia (USG) colleges and universities, is held on UNG's Dahlonega Campus each summer. For the second year, the summit also includes an Advisor Track that provides professional development and networking opportunities for student involvement professionals from throughout the USG.

"Students and peer mentors attending the L3 Summit can look forward to an immersive leadership experience that helps them truly discover their own leadership potential," said Mallory Rodriquez, director of Student Life-Leadership Programs at UNG. "As an administrator, its exciting to consider the impact each one of them will have in the future because of the four days they spend with us learning about various aspects of leadership from goal-writing to inclusive leadership and team development to ethical decision-making while in a fun, energizing setting."

Designated by the USG as a state leadership institution, UNG's mission is focused on preparing students to become leaders in a diverse and global society. The four-day L3 Summit drives personal development, teamwork and ethics, and it encourages students to cultivate individual missions and goals to take back to their institutions. Programming includes presentations about the various aspects of leadership and team-building activities as well as a day at UNG's Pine Valley Recreation Center, where groups work together to maneuver through challenges on the leadership reaction course.

At the end of the summit, students present the visions, missions and goals that they intend to implement over the next nine months at their own institutions. Many of the students serve or will serve in executive positions in groups such as student government associations, activity boards, multicultural organizations, and residence life groups.

The summit also builds leadership skills for the 14 peer mentor leaders who help facilitate the L3 sessions; peer mentors are undergraduate college students or recent graduates who mentor to a group of emerging leaders during and after the L3 Summit.

UNG student Nicholas Carruth, a communications major with a focus in organizational leadership, said the importance of having a vision for your organization was his key take-away from participating in the summit last year.

Vision is the end goal, the place youd like to be in an ideal situation and its the standard you hold yourself and others to so you can achieve it. It keeps us accountable and reminds us just why we as students are putting so much work into an organization, Carruth said.

As a peer mentor this summer, Carruth looks forward to working with and developing teams, serving as a facilitator and developing leaders.

I hope to gain experience in these areas so that I can bring them back to the organizations and individuals I'm involved with now and in the future, so that they can grow and eventually become leaders themselves, Carruth said. I am a servant leader, so I want to help others and this would provide training and experience for me to do this the rest of my life.

New for L3 this year is a partnership with the Mike Cottrell College of Business BB&T Center for Ethical Leadership. Rose Procter, director of the center, will guide participants in determining how their "ethical lens" can impact their goal setting projects. Procter also will conduct a session on ethical decision making in the context of participants' campus leadership positions.
After her family moved to Georgia from Mexico, Martha Rodriguez, 16, saw great potential among her Hispanic peers but few actual leaders. When she came to UNG, she set out to change that.

The relationships she formed here  as a freshmen mentor, orientation leader, and member of the Latino Student Organization and various other clubs  developed her leadership and confidence.

"UNG focuses on building leaders in our community," Rodriguez said. "Thats why Im most proud of my university. Every workshop, every conference is always about being a leader, how to improve yourself and teach others."

Rodriguez earned a degree in management from UNG in 2016.

She grew even more independent when she studied in Spain at the CESTE International Business School. She took Spanish-taught courses in world economy and financial mathematics, and visited some places shed never beenEngland, Ireland, Portugal, and Poland.

"To study abroad and experience a different culture, you grow so much as a person and leader," Rodriguez said. "I feel like every student should go through that because thats when you really grow as a person. After six months, I came back and believed I could accomplish anything."

When she returned from Spain, she wanted to show Hispanic youth they could accomplish all that she hadand more. Thats why she is leading 130+ high school juniors and seniors across Georgia with HoPe, a nonprofit focused on reducing high school dropout rates among Hispanic youth.

"In elementary and high school, most Hispanic students didnt feel very included in our community," Rodriguez said. "They didnt have that one person who understood them and knew what they were going through."

Shes making it her mission to be that person.

"To succeed, youre going to need people to build you up and encourage you," Rodriguez said. "UNG does that for you. It brings out your full potential."
This blog has MOVED to https://robertwaters.wordpress.com
Albuquerque Police are looking for a suspect following a call to a Northeast Heights home early Monday morning, according to an Albuquerque Police Department spokesman.

Officer Fred Duran said an arrest warrant has been issued for Aaron Gorham, 35, for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment.

He said the charges stem from a domestic dispute call that turned into a SWAT situation early Monday.

Duran said officers responded to the domestic dispute call from Gorhams wife just after 11 p.m.

The wife told police Gorham threatened her with a gun and refused to let her or their children leave.

Duran said the wife left the residence in fear for her life but told police the children were inside sleeping.

Officers requested SWAT assistance due to the violent nature of Gorham and the unknown access to other weapons, he said.

Duran said the four children were unharmed and returned to their mothers care while Gorham was no where to be found.

It appears that Gorham may have left the residence after the victim ran out of the residence to call police, Duran said. He is considered armed and dangerous.
MOSCOW  Russia and Saudi Arabia said Monday they want to extend oil production cuts through the first quarter of 2018, in a move the two major producers say would support the market price.

Oil prices rose on the announcement that the countries want to extend the deal, which encompasses both nations in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC countries like Russia.

The Russian Energy Ministry says extending the cuts through March 31, 2018, would show producers determination to ensure stability, predictability and incremental development of the market.

Russia and Saudi Arabia will now hold consultations with other producers with the aim of achieving complete consensus on the extended production cuts before the scheduled OPEC meeting May 25 in Vienna.

I met the managers of all the main oil and gas companies in the country, and the minister of energy, behind closed doors and we discussed this issue, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in comments reported by Russian news agencies. We support this proposal.

The international benchmark for crude oil was up $1.35, of 2.7 percent on the day, at $52.19 a barrel on the news.

In late November, OPEC agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day, the first such reduction agreement since 2008. The following month, 11 non-OPEC oil-producing countries pledged to cut another 558,000 barrels a day, bringing the overall reduction to 1.8 million barrels a day.

Oil producers have been trying to boost prices, as crude futures trade around $50 a barrel, less than half their level from early 2014, though above the low of below $30 in early 2015.

The joint announcement by Russia and Saudi Arabia chimes with a statement Friday by major producers Iraq and Algeria, which argued for extending the cuts through the end of the year.

Following the Russia-Saudi statement, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said Kazakhstan should follow the trend, in comments reported by Russias RIA Novosti agency. However, Bozumbayev said Kazakhstan would find it technically difficult to keep output down because it started bringing a large new field online last year.

Azerbaijan said it would support a continuation of the cuts, in comments by Energy Ministry spokeswoman Zamira Aliyeva to the Interfax-Azerbaijan agency. There was no comment on Russia and Saudi Arabias March 31 date.
PHOENIX  Two collisions on Interstate 17 sent nearly a dozen people to the hospital and brought the highway to a complete standstill for nearly five hours, prompting drivers to get out of their cars to take walks and children to motor around on scooters to pass the time.

Authorities say 11 people were taken to hospitals for non-life threatening injuries suffered during wrecks that caused the miles-long backup.

The first wreck occurred about 5:45 p.m. Sunday near Black Canyon City, when a motorcyclist lost control and was thrown off the bike. Traffic began to back up when drivers stopped for the motorcyclist.

Three minutes later, a big rig collided with the back of a tour bus, which then rear-ended a pickup truck and halted traffic returning to the Phoenix area on the main north-south route to Flagstaff.

The Arizona Department of Transportation said traffic was backed up seven miles at one point during the closure, which ended at 11 p.m. Traffic was detoured through Prescott and Wickenburg during the closure.

Brian Swanton was caught in the backup with his wife and three daughters. He said the drive from Camp Verde to his home in Phoenix should have taken about an hour, but ended up taking six. He said he felt lucky that the weather was nice and his family was not in a rush to get home, unlike a couple he befriended on the interstate that missed their flight home to New York.

Cars initially inched toward the shoulder to make room for emergency vehicles, but people began to get out of their cars after one emergency vehicle split the two lanes of traffic down the middle. Children chased each other on scooters, and others tossed bean bags, walked their dogs and handed out candy and water.

People parked their cars on the shoulder and created a party atmosphere in between, Swanton said.

His family took a walk up the interstate to pass the time, and other drivers got out of their cars to get to know their short-term neighbors. Swanton added he couldnt get reception on his phone, but his daughter was following the Arizona Department of Transportation Twitter account for updates.

Monika Alesnik, who was driving with her family from Sedona to their home in the Phoenix area said it was a challenging Mothers Day night because her family couldnt figure out what was going on without cell service. Still, everyone around looked out for each other.

It was a very cordial environment, considering everyone was frustrated, Alesnik said.

The crash occurred along a stretch of highway that has long been susceptible to wrecks that create nightmarish commutes on a heavily traveled corridor connecting Phoenix with Flagstaff. Traffic also backs up during busy weekends like Memorial Day and Labor Day when Phoenix residents head to higher elevation to cool off.

The Arizona Department of Transportation is studying the interstate for possible solutions to the traffic and accident problems.
ILFRACOMBE, England  A young British computer expert credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he doesnt consider himself a hero but fights malware because its the right thing to do.

In his first face-to-face interview, Marcus Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, said Monday that hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries.

Im definitely not a hero, he said. Im just someone doing my bit to stop botnets.

The 22-year-old computer whiz from the south coast of England, discovered a so-called kill switch that slowed the unprecedented outbreak on Friday. He then spent the next three days fighting the worm that crippled Britains hospital network as well as computer systems around the world.

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows by encrypting users computer files and displaying a message demanding anywhere from $300 to $600 to release them; failure to pay would leave the data mangled and likely beyond repair.

Hutchins said he stumbled across the solution when he was analyzing a sample of the malicious code and noticed it was linked to an unregistered web address. He promptly registered the domain, something he regularly does to discover ways to track or stop cyber threats, and found that stopped the worm from spreading.

Salim Neino, CEO of Kryptos Logic, said Hutchins took over the kill switch on Friday afternoon European time, before it could fully affect the United States.

Marcus, with the program he runs at Kryptos Logic, not only saved the United States but also prevented further damage to the rest of the world, Neino said. Within a few moments, we were able to validate that there was indeed a kill switch. It was a very exciting moment. This is something that Marcus validated himself.

He said the company was not able to identify Patient Zero, the first system infected, which would give researchers more information about who was behind the attack. Nevertheless, he said the worm was poorly designed  patched together and a sum of different parts with an unsophisticated payment system.

Kryptos Logic is one of hundreds of companies working to combat online threats for companies, government agencies and individuals around the world.

Hutchins himself is part of a global community that constantly watches for attacks and works to thwart them, often sharing information on Twitter. Its not uncommon for members to use aliases, to protect from retaliatory attacks and ensure privacy.

Hutchins has long tweeted under the handle MalwareTech, which features a profile photo of a pouty-faced cat wearing enormous sunglasses. But he realizes his newfound fame will mean an end to the anonymity.

After all, now hes a computer celebrity. Hes been in touch with the FBI, as well as British national cyber security officials.

I dont think Im ever going back to the MalwareTech that everyone knew, said the curly-haired young man, shrugging and flashing a winning smile.

It is likely to be a big adjustment. Hutchins lives with his family in this seaside town, where he works out of his bedroom on a sophisticated computer setup with three enormous screens. He will soon become a local hero  but if you ask him, his life of celebrity will be short lived.

I felt like I should agree to one interview, he said. But even that made the fame-averse Hutchins so nervous that he initially misspelled his last name, leaving out the letter n when doing a sound-level for the cameras.

His mother Janet, a nurse, couldnt be prouder  and was happy to have the veil of anonymity lifted.

I wanted to scream, but I couldnt, she said.

Many will be following his next moves though. CyberSecurity Ventures, which tracks the industry, estimates global spending on cybersecurity will jump to $120 billion this year from just $3.5 billion in 2004. It forecasts expenditures will grow between 12 percent and 15 percent annually for the next five years.

While all other technology sectors are driven by reducing inefficiencies and increasing productivity, cybersecurity spending is driven by cybercrime, the firm said in a February report. The unprecedented cybercriminal activity we are witnessing is generating so much cyber spending, its become nearly impossible for analysts to keep track.

After more analysis, Hutchins, an avid surfer, plans to take a vacation  traveling to Las Vegas and California on the company dime.

One guess on what hell be doing:

Yes, surfing. On waves this time.

___

Associated Press writer Sheila Norman-Culp in London contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to correct name to Hutchins instead of Hutchis.
CHICAGO  In March, two undocumented immigrant teens were accused of attacking and raping a 14-year-old girl in a Maryland high school bathroom stall. The girl had reported the boys to the police, claiming that theyd held her down as she cried and tried to break free, and repeatedly told them to stop as they took turns assaulting her.

The incident was used by the Trump administration to illustrate the narrative of the south-of-the-border rapist and murderer that Donald Trump has been pushing since announcing his run for president.

It turns out that the prosecutors in the case had to drop the sexual assault charges because text messages underscored the defendants claim that the sex had been consensual, and school surveillance video footage backed up their claim that the schoolgrounds tryst had been prearranged.

Unfortunately, sexual behavior goes on in high schools  and, now, increasingly, in middle schools  all the time. These days, sexting, videotaping sexual encounters and engaging in sexual contact in taboo settings are just part of the landscape when it comes to young people who have high-powered, web-connected cameras in their hands 24/7.

The real issue in the Maryland case was the legal status of the perpetrators.

So, now that the two teens have been cleared of rape and sexual offense charges, its time to reinforce the fact that not all  not even most  illegal immigrants are criminals who are here to harm U.S. citizens.

Entering the U.S. without permission  or entering on a visa and then overstaying it  is a civil offense, not a criminal one.

In an analysis of data that included both individual self-reports of crime and official records, researchers from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Texas at Dallas reiterated the low crime rates among immigrants and found no evidence that foreign-born, first-generation immigrants under-report their arrest history. In fact, when evidence of divergence exists, it is in the direction of immigrants over-reporting arrests.

Research going back nearly a century affirms that the foreign-born are involved in crime at significantly lower rates than their U.S.-born peers.

The reason this is not better understood is that we cant directly compare the number of crimes committed by the foreign-born to those committed by the U.S.-born.

When the FBI releases data on crime, they dont release the proportion of arrests that are committed by the undocumented  their numbers come from 15,000-odd police departments who dont have the field for immigration status as part of their data collection, said Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Texas at Dallas and co-author of the new study. So we dont know how many are undocumented, and we also dont know how many are living here. We have back-of-the-envelope estimates of about 11 million, but we dont know for sure.

Piquero told me that there are political aspects implicit in how data is collected. For instance, up until 2013, the FBI did not sort out Hispanics  they were lumped into the white or black categories.

And, in terms of municipalities collecting immigration-status data, Piquero said, Im not a member of any immigrant advocacy organizations, but its easy to see how they might see it as a double-edged sword. Yes, you might want to capture information on legal status to demonstrate that the undocumented arent a problem, but then that might open them up to being detained and deported.

So we must nibble at the edges of the data we do have to gain a better understanding of who commits crime. According to the most recent Department of Justice report on federal arrest statistics, in 2014 non-U.S. citizens made up 41.8 percent of defendants charged in U.S. District Court and 37 percent of those were in the country without legal authorization.

Were talking about 23,783 unlawfully present defendants out of a total U.S. foreign-born population of 42 million, in 2014. Thats a rate of 0.057 percent of all foreign-born immigrants charged in federal court, and about a third of those cases were immigration-related.

Surely, all crime is far too much crime. And all reasonable people want law and order to prevail. But our country will not get less violent or more safe if we collectively choose to pretend that our crime problem would go away if only we could get rid of all the illegal immigrants.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  An incident command team from the Minnesota Department of Health is overseeing a coordinated effort to stop the spread of measles, as the department fights an outbreak that is now the states worst since 1990.

The team, which includes about two dozen members, has identified 7,000 people exposed to the virus at 11 child care centers, three schools and about 20 health care settings. Theyve asked nearly 500 people to limit public contact because they lack immunity protection.

The team has been meeting daily to monitor new cases, review infection control efforts and coordinate with local health officials. The outbreak has grown to 58 cases.

A low vaccination rate among Somalis has contributed to the spread of the disease in child care centers. In the past four weeks, nearly 1,600 Somali children have been vaccinated. Thats up from just 140 in the month before the outbreak.

The more people you get that are not susceptible makes it harder and harder for the virus to get to those who are susceptible, said Kris Ehresmann, the departments infectious disease director. It is all about building that wall around the virus.

A major part of the control effort is finding people who have been exposed to known cases, especially people who arent immune to measles. Public health officials can potentially prevent them from getting sick and infecting others by intervening early.

You want to get ahead of the outbreak and catch cases early, said Melissa McMahon, an epidemiologist for the department.

State health officials were notified Thursday about a Minneapolis child care center that wasnt cooperating with efforts to stop the spread of measles.

We could continue to see new cases from this, said Jennifer Heath, who leads the departments efforts with child care centers and schools.

Heath and the group contacted the Minnesota Department of Human Services, which oversees child care providers, to ask for enforcement help.
Students from low-income families graduate from high school at a lower rate than other students. Students who are not proficient in English graduate at a lower rate than those who are. About 58 percent of New Mexico high school seniors qualify as low-income, and about 27 percent of the states students are considered English Language Learners, the highest percentage in the nation.

So it is of little surprise that in 2015, New Mexico had the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation, 69 percent. The statistics, gleaned from a new report by Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, are as disheartening as they are familiar. Studies of American educational systems always have New Mexico at or near the bottom.

But there are some interesting details within those statistics: For example, 67 percent of high school seniors in California are low-income, yet their graduation rate was 78 percent. In West Virginia, 66 percent of its seniors were low-income, but nearly 83 percent of them graduated.

Clearly, those two states are having much more success graduating low-income students than we are.

Meanwhile, the nations overall graduation rate hit a record-breaking 83 percent in 2015.

Here in our backyard, Albuquerque Public Schools was second from the bottom on the list of graduation rates for the 100 largest school districts  62 percent. Only the Milwaukee School District was worse, at 58 percent.

New Mexico Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera didnt question the report, titled Building a Grad Nation, but offers a hopeful note: In 2016, the statewide graduation rate was up to 71 percent, and showed progress among Hispanic, African-American, low-income and disabled students. Similarly, APS graduation rate rose to 66 percent last year.

While the trend is slightly upward in New Mexico, its true nationwide as well, which means that closing the gap and moving off the bottom of the statistics will take even greater effort.

As legislators and Gov. Susana Martinez work to craft a new state budget  and it will clearly take a gargantuan effort on both their parts  theyd do well to remember our continually disappointing graduation rates.

Because you cant build an economy without an educated workforce, and you cant build a tax base without taxpayers. But simply throwing more money at the problem will never be the solution; targeting investments on data-driven solutions is.

Maybe California and West Virginia can offer some suggestions.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
A Santa Fe Democrat who describes himself as a political outsider is jumping into New Mexicos 2018 gubernatorial race.

Peter DeBenedittis, who formally announced his campaign Monday, has spent much of his time in recent years on alcohol prevention issues, including advocating for an increase in the states alcohol excise tax rate.

In his Monday campaign announcement, DeBenedittis said his campaign would focus on expanding early childhood programs, providing health care for all New Mexicans and fixing the states tax code, among other issues.

He also described his status as a political unknown as an advantage.

When politicians brag about how much money theyve raised, that should be a big red flag for voters, he said. It means theyre not really going to be able to put people first when they make policy.

DeBenedittis is the third Democratic candidate to enter the race to be New Mexicos next governor, joining higher-profile candidates Michelle Lujan Grisham and Jeff Apodaca. No Republicans have officially launched campaigns yet.

Gov. Susana Martinez, the states two-term GOP chief executive, is barred from seeking a third consecutive term next year.

BALDERAS WATCH: Another potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate, state Attorney General Hector Balderas, is expected to make up his mind soon about his 2018 campaign plans.

A campaign spokesman for the first-term attorney general, who is also a former state auditor and legislator, told the Journal last week that Balderas would announce a decision within the next two weeks.

If Balderas were to enter the fray, he would likely be a top contender for the Democratic nomination, due in part to the fact he reported last month having more than $687,000 in his campaign account.

Balderas could also opt to run for re-election as attorney general next year, however, and would likely not face significant primary opposition as the incumbent in the race.
This years New Mexico Spirit of Achievement Dinner will honor the CEO of PNM Resources along with two local business owners and philanthropists.

The annual event raises about $60,000 to help cover the cost of care for New Mexico patients of National Jewish Health, an internationally renowned hospital in Denver, dinner committee member Joanne Fine said.

(When) their respiratory issue is such that they have exhausted whats available here, Fine said, they can go to National Jewish and payment should not be a problem. Thats what this event is about.

This years honorees are Pat Vincent-Collawn, president and CEO of PNM, and Harold and Carole Albert, the driving force in the establishment of the Jewish Community Center.

Harold Albert is a retired attorney, real estate broker and developer, according to the event website. Carole Albert remained an active philanthropist as she ran the high-end womens clothing store Shma-Tays for nearly two decades.

Vincent-Collawn is the chairman, president and CEO of PNM Resources, the parent company of PNM and a Texas electricity provider, according to the event website.

While at PNM Resources, it says, she has led the company from a partially deregulated entity to a pure-play electric utility.

According to a news release announcing the event, National Jewish Health saw 354 patients from New Mexico last year. The hospital specializes in respiratory, cardiac, immune and related disorders.

The dinner is scheduled for 6 to 11 p.m. Thursday at Hotel Albuquerque. Fine said 300 people are expected to attend, and tickets are still available for purchase online at nationaljewish.org.
LAS CRUCES  Dona Ana Community College on Monday said it plans to close a satellite campus in Hatch next month due to stagnant enrollment and budget constraints.

The recession and resulting market declines have negatively impacted overall DACC enrollment and utilization of the Hatch Learning Center, said DACC President Renay Scott in a statement.

The Hatch campus taught five in-house courses per semester and served 42 regular students and 16 English as a Second Language students in the recent spring semester.

New Mexico has 31 colleges and universities for a population of about 2 million. Many of those institutions have branch campuses, as well as branches of the branches  twig campuses called learning centers. In addition to its Hatch center, DACC operates learning centers in Sunland Park, Anthony and Chaparral.

Questions have been raised about whether such campuses are competing or cooperating with other regional public institutions of higher education.

In a news release, DACC said it tried to find ways to make the Hatch campus successful: A faculty member who is also a Hatch resident was tasked in 2014 with boosting enrollment in the small farming community north of Las Cruces. The efforts didnt work, DACC said.

The Hatch learning center didnt generate the resources to sustain itself.

That reality and state funding cuts this past year led to the decision, DACC said.

Faced with shrinking state revenue, legislators voted to reduce funding to higher education in a special session last fall. In the recent legislative session, a stalemate over a $6.1 billion budget package approved by legislators and rejected by Gov. Susana Martinez prompted the governor to veto all higher education funding  a move she said was meant to bring lawmakers back to the negotiating table.

Martinez has said higher education funding will be reinstated in a special session.

According to DACCs website, the 6,764-square-foot Hatch campus houses a computer lab, a light manufacturing lab, a computer classroom and office space. It is adjacent to Hatch Valley High School and offers dual-credit courses to HVHS students.

DACC, which is part of the New Mexico State University system, said it will use the universitys real estate arm to sell or close the building. Two jobs will be eliminated.
SANTA FE  Former state Democratic Party chairwoman Debra Haaland, a longtime party activist who has been at the forefront of some of New Mexico Democrats biggest recent ups and downs, is setting her sights on an Albuquerque-area congressional district race.

Haaland will formally launch her campaign today for the 1st Congressional District seat that will be vacated next year by incumbent Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for governor.

If elected, the Laguna Pueblo member and former San Felipe Pueblo tribal administrator would be the first Native American woman to serve in Congress. She said she would bring unique qualifications to the increasingly Democratic-leaning congressional district, which has not been won by a Republican candidate since 2006.

I feel like as a woman, and a woman of color, in this time of Trump  its so important for our voices to be heard out there, Haaland said in a recent interview.

Haaland oversaw the Democratic Party of New Mexicos efforts as chairwoman from mid-2015 until last month, when her two-year term expired. During last years election cycle, Democrats reclaimed control of the state House of Representatives and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump by a comfortable margin in New Mexico, winning the states five electoral votes in an ultimately unsuccessful bid.

But Haaland faced criticism from some Bernie Sanders backers during the presidential campaign, who accused state Democratic Party leaders of favoring Clinton over her Democratic rival.

Haaland has disputed the criticism, saying she never took sides in the race before the primary election, and says shes not concerned about it becoming an issue in next years election.

If were divided, I dont necessarily see it in the results, Haaland added.

Before her work as party chair, Haaland was the 2014 lieutenant governor nominee, but the Democratic ticket  headed by then-Attorney General Gary King  was soundly defeated by incumbent Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican.

Haaland also worked as the state Native American vote director for then-President Barack Obamas re-election campaign in 2012, and said her past personal experiences allow her to connect with voters.

I know what its like to have to apply for food stamps, said Haaland, who raised her daughter as a single mother. I know what its like to get to the front of the grocery store and have to put groceries back because you dont have enough money to pay for them.

If elected to Congress, Haaland said top priorities would include expanding renewable energy projects in New Mexico, improving veterans services and strengthening the states public education system.

Before that, however, Haaland would have to win the Democratic Partys nomination in the June 2018 primary election. Three other Democrats are also seeking the nomination: Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis; former University of New Mexico School of Law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez; and Albuquerque physicist Dennis Dinge.

No Republican candidates have entered the race yet.
New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera blasted teachers unions Monday, calling them a well-funded entrenched political establishment that holds back progress and advocates for adults over children.

Skandera spoke during a luncheon hosted by NAIOP, the New Mexico chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. The panel included three other Republican-appointed Cabinet secretaries: Celina Bussey, Workforce Solutions Department; Barbara Damron, Higher Education Department; and Monique Jacobson, Children, Youth and Families Department.

Asked to describe their career accomplishments and disappointments, Skandera placed the unions firmly in the disappointment category.

We have an entrenched political establishment called unions that fundamentally enjoy keeping us where we are because they serve the adults, she said. At the end of the day, the politics around the adult issues have too many times sacrificed our kids and their education.

Skandera characterized the states two teachers unions  the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico and National Education Association New Mexico  as well-funded operations that pull in about $7 million a year. The vast majority comes from teachers dues, but the unions national offices are also investing about $2 million a year to fight putting kids interests first, Skandera said.

The disappointment is they still have quite a loud voice, and if youre not vigilant they do continually take ground, she said.

For years, the New Mexico Public Education Department has battled both unions over its controversial teacher evaluation system, PARCC testing and school grades.

Skandera said she believes the unions have not communicated her policies accurately to their members, so she is making an effort to reach educators directly through events like a summer Teacher Summit.

During a Journal interview, she called for every New Mexican to push back against the unions agenda.

Our voice needs to be louder than an association that advocates for adults only, Skandera told the Journal.

Stephanie Ly, president of AFT NM, countered that Skandera is blaming others for her failings.

Teachers and their unions have worked to stop Skandera from turning our schools into nothing more than data points on a spreadsheet, Ly said in an email statement.

Charles Goodmacher, NEA N.M. government and media relations director, highlighted teachers dedication under difficult conditions.

New Mexicans know the biggest problems in New Mexico are a lack of funding for public schools overall, a need for more parent involvement, an end to the overuse of standardized student testing, and out-of-school factors like poverty, family instability and such, he said in an email statement.

Like Skandera, the other Cabinet secretaries also decried the politics that comes with their positions during their comments at the NAIOP lunch.

They also called for greater connections between New Mexicos business and education communities to boost student opportunities.

While New Mexico has struggled in 49th place on nearly every measure of educational attainment for years, there is hope for change, particularly if the state adopts a can-do attitude, the secretaries said.

We can turn this around, but we have to have that mindset that we can do it, Damron said.
SANTA FE  A former grade-school teacher in the Santa Fe and Espanola public schools accused of improper contact with female students dating back many years  and previously the subject of lawsuits from girls families, including one that resulted in a $3.2 million settlement  now faces criminal charges.

Gary Gregor, 60, with an Espanola address, was indicted late last month on three counts of rape of a minor, four counts of kidnapping and five counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor.

The accusations against Gregor over the years have raised issues about how he managed to move among different school districts, in different states, after facing repeated accusations of wrongdoing.

Before he came to New Mexico, he faced criminal child sex abuse charges in Utah that were dismissed in 1995 for lack of evidence. He also worked as an educator in Montana where, according to a New Mexico lawsuit, he was fired under a school policy barring after-school activities with students.

The April criminal indictment, handed down by a Rio Arriba County grand jury, say the alleged crimes in New Mexico took place during the 2007-2008 school year, when Gregor worked at Fairview Elementary School in Espanola. The indictment lists alleged crimes against two victims 12 years old or younger. Gregor pleaded not guilty at his court arraignment Friday.

The case is being prosecuted by the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office. Its unclear what prompted a criminal case against Gregor now. The accusations against him involving Santa Fe and Espanola students became public when the state Public Education Department rejected renewal of his teaching license in 2011.

We cannot comment on these specific charges, but can say that Attorney General (Hector) Balderas is committed to utilizing Office of the Attorney General resources to ensure the protection of children, said James Hallinan, spokesman for the AGs Office. Now that the defendant has been arraigned we are focused on preparing this case for trial.

In December, the accusations that have trailed Gregor were cited in a major series of investigative reports by USA Today on how teachers who sexually abuse children continue to work in schools.

Last year, the Espanola school district settled a lawsuit that accused Gregor, fired by the district in 2010, of twice asking a fourth-grade girl to spend the night at his home, giving the girl gifts like candy and teddy bears and touching her private parts. The suit alleged a principal failed to report complaints about Gregor.

The settlement called for a $3.2 million payment, and the district may have to pay almost all of that amount itself instead of relying on insurance coverage. A private insurer has maintained the Espanola schools knew about potential claims against Gregor before coverage was provided. The insurance issue is in mediation.

Cammie Nichols, plaintiffs attorney in the lawsuit, said in November that the Espanola girls family came to her law firm only after police investigated Gregor in 2009, turned information over to the District Attorneys Office and nothing was happening, so they became very, very frustrated.

The suit also originally targeted Santa Fe schools for giving Gregor a neutral reference despite allegations of inappropriate behavior with minors before he resigned from SFPS in 2004. A judge dismissed SFPS from the case.

The Espanola district also faces a suit filed last year by Nichols for another former Gregor student, based on a similar set of facts. The latest suit says public records show Gregor disclosed to the New Mexico Public Education Department in 1998, before he got a teaching license here, that he had been fired from a Montana school district for what they considered insubordination, school policy was that after school activities with students was (sic) not allowed.

On Friday, Judge Jennifer Attrep set a $75,000 bond for Gregor. As of Monday, he was still in the Rio Arriba County jail.
LAS CRUCES  Growing up, Dan Johnson, now 14 and a student at a local high school, tried his best to fit the typical girl mold. But something about it didnt feel right.

Since I was the only girl in the family, there was a lot of pressure to just be  the little princess and all that stuff, said Johnson, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. But it just got to a point where I got really depressed and I just didnt want to live.

Instead, Johnson decided to take control of his happiness by exploring where he fit on the gender spectrum.

At first, Johnson thought he might be gender-fluid, so he experimented going between male and female identities. After about two years of experimentation, Johnson found he felt most comfortable identifying as male, and came out to his parents as transgender in eighth grade.

If I identify myself as a female, it just feels like Im lying to everybody and thats just not something I was about, because you only have a certain amount of time living here, Johnson said. You dont know when youre going to die. So, I was going to try to live my life to where I was happy and not try to please others so much.

Still, he refrained from coming out at his middle school, where he faced ridicule and bullying from students for his masculine appearance. Today, Johnson said he is fortunate to go to a school where he is accepted for who he is and has the support of friends and parents. Johnson has also taken the next step in his transition from female to male with hormone therapy, which he began about six months ago.

Johnsons confidence and strength make it hard to believe he once contemplated suicide, but those feelings arent uncommon among transgender people. According to the National Center for Transgender Equalitys 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 40 percent of respondents said they had attempted suicide in their lifetime, nearly nine times the U.S. rate of 4.6 percent.

Thirty-nine percent of the surveys respondents also said they experienced serious psychological distress in the month before completing the survey, compared with only 5 percent of the U.S. population.

Help available for those who need support

Some of the most common mental health issues transgender people face are depression and anxiety, said Andrea Dresser, a licensed marriage and family therapist who works with several transgender clients.

Anxiety in transgender people can often be caused by the trepidation of coming out to family members, deciding which bathroom to use, workplace situations that may arise and how to deal with being misgendered, Dresser said.

It creates a lot of discomfort and anxiety for the person, she said. Should I correct my boss? Should I not correct my boss? Its an educational process for everybody.

Dresser said while seeing a therapist can help transgender individuals cope with depression, anxiety or other issues, its critical that they also connect with others who may be going through similar life changes  such as through a support group.

Meeting other people who have successfully transitioned and are living the life they want can give hope to those who feel like its impossible. Attending a support group can also help lift people out of depression, Dresser said.

If someone is depressed, they tend to isolate themselves and its that isolation, where youre stuck in your own thoughts and it kind of spirals down and you want to get people out of that isolation, she said.

Gabe, 15, a local transgender teen who asked to keep his last name anonymous, said hes had to deal with depression caused by both societys expectations and the expectations he has for himself, his body and how he feels in it.

I can deal with society more than how I feel about myself because I know that society has a bad mind, but Im trying to get more loving toward myself, Gabe said.

Dresser said while many parents may be quick to assume a child who comes out as transgender is just going through a phase, that is usually not the case.

I think teens go through a phase of maybe questioning their sexuality or experimenting, but for a transgender child, its a little different; its not a phase, she said. They know from the time theyre young that somethings not right.

Dresser said parents who have a transgender child should educate themselves on the subject as much as possible to provide them with the support they need.

Both Gabe and Johnson said they could see themselves getting surgery in the future to transition to the sex they identify with.

Surgery is one of those things that I need ASAP for my own emotional well-being and mental well-being, Johnson said.
When my friends Katy and Nathan moved to Boston in 2014, they joined November Project, whose members gather for free early-morning workouts in cities around the country. It didnt take long before they were hooked  on the workouts and the community.

Like an organized religion without the religion, Nathan says, November Project offered a network of people with shared values, including interests in good health and friendships as well as a willingness to embrace such rituals as hugs and chants. For me, he says, its essentially the Church of Playing Outside and Working Out.

It may sound almost cultlike  a description that some November Project devotees embrace. And theyre not alone. Options for group exercise with ritualistic twists and devoted followers include CrossFit, SoulCycle, Bikram Yoga and Fit4Mom (along with plenty of gyms and studios that sell fitness alongside promises of fun and friends).

For some, a tribe-like atmosphere keeps them coming back for more. But others fail to get hooked, and then drift away.

Its not clear what separates these joiners from those whod rather not, and that mystery echoes a bigger question facing both fitness studios and public health experts: Why do so few people stick with exercise?

Despite national guidelines that recommend 150 minutes of moderate activity each week for major health benefits plus strength work such as weights or push-ups, only about half of American adults get enough aerobic exercise, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly 30 percent get no physical activity in their spare time.

Even when intentions are good, about half of people who start exercise programs drop out within the first six months, says Rodney Dishman, an exercise scientist at the University of Georgia in Athens. After two years, Dishman says, 80 percent have given up. Those numbers havent budged over three decades of research, he adds.

Researchers have found plenty of reasons for quitting, including waning motivation, lack of easy access to exercise facilities or walkable neighborhoods, and false expectations about how quickly results will appear. Injury and discomfort are other common excuses, says Jack Raglin, an exercise psychologist at Indiana University in Bloomington.

To get folks to keep coming back, many fitness studios work to create an enticing environment, often with an emphasis on community, even peer pressure, and competition.

SoulCycles website promises empowerment to clients, claiming it doesnt just change bodies, it changes lives. November Project has a page on its website for teasing people who said theyd come but then skipped a morning workout. And in Minneapolis, a studio called The Firm boasts: We make working out an event, driven by pride, passion and love, building community one name at a time.

Theres no publicly available data to show whether the community-building  or the guilt  works. But social support can be a powerful motivational tool, some research suggests.

Raglins research, for example, has found that, when people enrolled in an exercise program with a spouse, more than 90 percent stuck with it for a year, compared with slightly more than half of those who enrolled alone. When one member of a couple drops out, though, the other usually does, too, Raglin says. That echoes other research showing that friends and family can enhance or sabotage exercise rates.

And not everyone responds the same way to social pressure. In a 2016 study, British researchers found that CrossFit members reported a greater sense of community belongingness than did people who went to traditional gyms. But overall, the two groups exercised the same amount, suggesting that people who like to exercise with others may simply seek out more-social gyms.

It either works, Raglin says, or it backfires.
SANTA FE  New Mexicos capital city will host the 2018 summer meeting of the National Governors Association, the group announced today.

While not all 50 governors typically attend the NGAs summer meeting, landing the event could be an economic boost for Santa Fe and give the state national political exposure  at least for a few days.

It could also serve as a capstone of sorts for Gov. Susana Martinez, who offered to host the event and will be in her final year of governor next year after being elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.

This is great news for New Mexico, and Im very much looking forward to sharing all our state has to offer with my fellow governors, Martinez said in a statement.

Next years meeting will mark the first time New Mexico has hosted the NGAs annual meeting.

The National Governors Association said it picked Santa Fe due in large part to its range of accommodations and venue options.

This years NGA summer meeting is being held on July 13-15 in Providence, R.I.
As mid-May rolls around, we have found ourselves right smack dab in the middle of summer blockbuster season.

There are a ton of movies coming out, leading those of us on a budget trying to figure out how to pick which to pay $15 to see at the local theater and which to wait and grab from Redbox six months from now. You might be tempted to take a look at what the Siskels and Eberts of the world say about each one, choosing where to spend your money based on how many stars, thumbs or Rotten Tomatoes each receives.

According to a study published May 9 by New York University neuroscientist Pascal Wallisch and Rutgers University-Newark researcher Jake Alden Whritner, that might be a mistake.

In brief, we were wondering how subjective movie taste is and if movie critics make (for) good recommendations, Wallisch said in an interview Friday. The answers are extremely and no.

Regular readers may recognize Wallischs name. The neuroscientist is the very same who did an extensive scientific study on The Dress, an internet phenomenon involving a cocktail dress that appeared to be either black and blue or white and gold to observers. Wallisch has come the closest to solving the mystery of how two people can look at the same dress and see two different color schemes, and I have to say I geeked out hard when he emailed me to thank me for recognizing him in this column.

It turns out, his team at NYU started studying taste in movies well before The Dress came to their attention, but he said the two research projects share a common theme.

Just like with the dress, Im interested in the subjective experience that people have, even when looking at the same stimulus  dress or movie, Wallisch said.

The question caught the neuroscientists attention largely because research shows that when we watch movies, we all see pretty much the same thing, and yet our perception of that same movie can differ wildly.

Objectively, we see the same movie, and filmmakers have a rich took kit that tightly controls where our attention is during the film. Neuroimaging research confirms it, suggesting that watching a movie synchronizes brain activity between observers, particularly in the back of the brain.

And yet, viewers can still have radically different experiences. Their enjoyment is entirely subjective and dependent on their own taste, rather than any set of objective standards.

With that in mind, it suggests that movie critics judgments are largely irrelevant, and just as subjective as anyone else.

People have been talking about the critic/non-critic divide for a long time, Wallisch said. But as far as I can tell, we are the first ones to study it empirically and show it.

Wallisch and Whritner chose 209 major motion pictures released between 1985 and 2004 and asked 3,204 participants to rate those theyve seen on a nine-point scale from zero to four. They also gathered ratings for the movies from iconic critic Roger Ebert, the Internet Movie Database, Film Comment, Allocine and Rotten Tomatoes.

Thus, we ended up with two distinct datasets  one from study participants and one from professional movie critics  that were analyzed separately, reads the study.

After that analysis, they found that what critics like and what the movie-going public likes dont really line up. Wallisch describes peoples taste as radically idiosyncratic and goes so far as to say those who see more movies tend to have more discerning taste in movies. While critics tend to have similar taste, that doesnt extend to your average viewer.

This suggests that vaunted critics like the late Roger Ebert gain prominence not by the reliability of their predictions, but other factors such as the force of their writing, he said.

The topic caught his interest on another level as well. Wallisch admits to being a former movie buff, though he said his two kids havent left him much time for films.

As a matter of fact, Roger Ebert used to be a childhood hero of mine, Wallisch said. Out of respect, I delayed publication of this piece until well after his death. I had learned that he fell ill with cancer and didnt want to add to his woes.

Ebert died April 4, 2013, after 46 years as the Chicago Sun Times movie film critic. Wallischs study includes a nod to Ebert; each film selected as part of the sample has a publicly accessible rating by him.

Despite his respect for Ebert, Wallisch recommends people find what he calls a movie twin if they want help choosing a movie to see. Youre better off asking someone who shares your taste than checking with a critic.

Visit Pensees.pascallisch.net for more information on Wallischs study.
DALLAS  The agency running Dallas Countys school buses has sold public land to combat financial troubles, but taxpayers will have to fund the long-term costs of the $25 million deal.

KXAS-TV (http://bit.ly/2qoeNJk ) reported Dallas County Schools sold four parking lots only to lease them from the new owner since theyre still needed to operate the school-bus system.

County taxpayers are expected to pay more than $47 million in lease payments over the next 20 years. The deal leaves Dallas County Schools responsible for property maintenance, taxes and insurance. The agency was previously exempt from paying property taxes when it owned since government agencies are tax exempt.

Dallas County Schools said it had a $42 million budget deficit in January because of a revenue shortfall and it laid off 100 employees. Some state lawmakers said the deal raises concerns about the agencys handling of taxpayer money and are calling for the agency to be closed.

The House will have a hearing Tuesday to discuss a bill that would allow voters to decide this fall whether to shut down the agency.

Denise Hickman, the agencys executive director of business during the deal, raised concerns when paperwork showed Louisiana businessman Slater Swartwood Sr. profited from the deal. Swartwood is linked to Force Multiplier Solutions, a company Dallas County Schools worked with on the camera business venture that got the agency into financial trouble in 2012.

The purchase agreement describes Swartwood as the agencys broker. He earned a $750,000 fee and nearly $200,000 was paid by the agency. Swartwood told the TV station in an email that he worked as a consultant for the buyer and didnt know Dallas County Schools paid a portion of the fee.

Force Multiplier Solutions is also linked with more than $245,000 in campaign contributions to the agencys board president, Larry Duncan.

Every penny is legal, honest, open and ethical, Duncan said about the campaign donations.

Don Southerland, a former FBI agent and forensic auditor, said out-of-state donors are allowed to contribute, but questions remain about whether donations were made in exchange for business, which is illegal.

___

Information from: KXAS-TV, http://www.nbcdfw.com
LAS CRUCES, N.M.  The judge presiding over the retrial of a New Mexico sheriffs deputy charged with killing another deputy in 2014 has denied a request by the suspects lawyers for the case to be dismissed.

The lawyers on Monday claimed prosecutorial misconduct occurred because a transcript of suspect Tai Chans statements to investigators omitted declarations he made that could be used to justify he acted in self-defense.

The court has to take some judicial notice that this is shocking, said one of the lawyers, Tom Clark.

Judge Fernando Macias declined the request for the case to be dismissed, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported (http://bit.ly/2pHhGGi ).

The prosecutor, District Attorney Mark DAntonio, said the omission of the statements by Chan was unintentional and probably happened when a technician edited the seven-hour recording.

This was inadvertent and unfortunate errors, DAntonio said.

Chan is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 29-year-old Jeremy Martin inside a hotel. His lawyers have said he acted in self-defense and a deadlocked jury last year forced a mistrial.

During one omitted statement, Chan said was shot at and he tried to kill me; he tried to kill me.

Chan also said: I was so scared for my life.

Macias said he believed the omissions would have minimal impact on jurors.

___

Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, http://www.lcsun-news.com
BEIRUT  Syria on Tuesday rejected U.S. accusations it carried out mass killings at a prison near Damascus and then burned the victims bodies in a crematorium, describing the allegations as lies and fabrications.

The allegations are a new Hollywood plot to justify U.S. intervention in Syria, Syrias Foreign Ministry said, noting what it called a U.S. track record of using false claims as a pretext for military aggression.

The State Department said Monday it believes that about 50 detainees are hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, a 45-minute drive north of Damascus.

Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place, said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East. He accused the government of President Bashar Assad of sinking to a new level of depravity.

The Syrian government forcefully denied it.

The U.S. administrations accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in Saydnaya prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false, the Foreign Ministry said.

The new allegation comes at a time when the Trump administration is weighing its options in Syria, where an estimated 400,000 have been killed and half the population displaced by the 6-year-old civil war.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it has frozen any assets that five Syrian people and five Syrian companies may have in U.S. jurisdictions and has barred Americans from conducting any financial transactions with them, citing Syrias relentless attacks on civilians. Among those named were cousins of Assad.

Also on Tuesday, President Donald Trump met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House for talks on the conflict, refugee crisis and the fight against the Islamic State group.

Last month, the U.S. fired cruise missiles on a government air base after accusing Assads military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have accumulated evidence of mass killings in Syrian prisons, though there have not been any substantiated allegations so far of the use of a crematorium.

The State Department released commercial satellite photos showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photos, taken over several years starting in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such a facility.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syrias military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before removing bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday that the world body cannot independently verify the U.S. report, saying Damascus has systematically rejected repeated requests to visit prisons and detention centers where thousands of prisoners are believed to be subjected to cruel treatment.

But Dujarric said various U.N. entities have regularly documented and reported on human rights violations in Syria, including torture in the context of detention.

A former Syrian army colonel who joined the opposition said what the State Department revealed about Saydnaya is not surprising.

Defector Ahmad al-Hammadi added that had the international community punished Syrian authorities for such killings they carried out from the start of the uprising in 2011, we wouldnt have reached this point.

Al-Hammadi, a spokesman for the Northern Division rebel group, added that Saydnaya is a seven-star facility, so you can imagine what happens at the dungeons of security agencies.

Satan can take lessons in crime from the regime, he said by telephone from Turkey. Regarding cremations, these are usually secret matters but not surprising. They are killing thousands. So how are they going to get rid of their bodies?

Others are buried in mass graves that mark the dead with numbers instead of names, he said.

The accusations cast a shadow over Syria peace talks Tuesday in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives met separately with the U.N. envoy. The meetings were the sixth round of talks brokered by U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura.

Syrian opposition spokesman Salem Meslet said the U.S. allegations about the use of a crematorium to cover up the mass killings were credible and not surprising.

Meslet, in Geneva for the talks, told Saudi-owned TV station al-Hadath that the government was known to move prisoners around from site to site for interrogations and, in some instances, executions.

Syrian activists, meanwhile, said government forces were escalating attacks on opposition-held areas protected under a recently brokered cease-fire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it has recorded the first deaths in the countrys four de-escalation zones since the agreement came into effect 10 days ago. The deal was brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

The Observatory said two women were killed by rocket fire in a Damascus suburb and another was killed by aerial bombardment in Homs province.

Local activists reported higher death tolls. Wael Abou Rayan, a media activist in the Homs countryside, said the bombing of Homs had eased since the agreement, but never completely stopped.

Two children were killed by government artillery fire in the rural town of Rastan two days ago, while another woman was killed in an airstrike in the village of Kafrlaha on Tuesday, according to Abou Rayan.

Outside Damascus, the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group said three surface-to-surface rockets hit the Hamouriya area, killing six and wounding dozens, including women and children.

Video from the group showed rescuers pulling children from the rubble of a multistory building.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Edith M. Lederer in New York and Hashem Osseiran in Beirut contributed.
SANTA FE  New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas ended months of speculation Tuesday by announcing he will not run for governor next year and, instead, will seek re-election to a second term as the states top attorney.

Balderas, a Democrat who is a former state auditor and legislator, suggested he could have a significant impact by staying in his current job for another four years.

Its been an honor to serve New Mexico and I plan on running for re-election next year in order to continue to fight for our state, Balderas said.

As attorney general, Balderas has joined a challenge against Trumps executive order restricting immigration from certain countries and is part of a lawsuit over the environmental impact of new coal leases.

By not running for governor, Balderas will also avoid a potentially expensive and hard-fought race for the Democratic Party nomination.

Three other Democrats have already formally entered the 2018 race: U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, media executive Jeff Apodaca and political outsider Peter DeBenedittis of Santa Fe.

The states current chief executive, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, is barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor, and no GOP candidate has launched campaigns to succeed her yet. A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a potential Republican heavyweight, said Tuesday he is taking time to decide whether to enter the gubernatorial contest after recently traveling through 11 northern New Mexico counties.

While Balderas would have been among the top tier of gubernatorial candidates due to his name recognition and ability to raise campaign funds, he will likely be favored to win re-election as attorney general next year.

Balderas, 43, last month reported having more than $687,000 in his campaign account. He would have been able to use that money in a gubernatorial run but can also tap into it for his re-election bid.

The Republican Governors Association in a Tuesday news release said Balderas had decided to play it safe by not running for governor, describing it as a discouraging sign for Democratic recruitment efforts.

But longtime New Mexico political analyst Brian Sanderoff called Balderas decision politically savvy.

I think this is good news for Michelle Lujan Grisham and other prospective candidates in the Democratic primary, because Hector Balderas would have been a formidable candidate, Sanderoff said. Hes a relatively young man who has a bright future in New Mexico politics.

A native of Wagon Mound, Balderas became the youngest Hispanic statewide elected official in the nation in 2006, when we was elected state auditor. He also sought the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2012 but was defeated by Martin Heinrich in a race in which both candidates refrained from negative attacks.

Since winning election as attorney general in 2014, Balderas has pursued high-profile public corruption cases against several elected officials, including former Secretary of State Dianna Duran, a Republican, and former Democratic state Sen. Phil Griego of San Jose.
PNM Resources top five executives could earn $8.66 million in total combined compensation for 2016 if they meet all performance goals, following approval of new salaries, benefits and incentive pay at the companys annual shareholders meeting Tuesday morning.

Thats down from about $10 million in total combined compensation approved for 2015, but up from $7.48 million in 2014.

PNMR Chairman, President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn could earn $4.118

million. That compares with $5.24 million last year and $3.35 million in 2014.

Only $792,000, or 23 percent, of Vincent-Collawns compensation is base pay. The rest is in stock options, incentive awards and benefits, most of which she would only receive in future years if she meets performance goals.

Ratepayers are responsible for just a small percent of base pay, said PNM spokesman Pahl Shipley. Shareholders pay for all the incentive-based compensation.

Meanwhile, shareholders also voted against two climate change-related proposals at the meeting, held at PNMR headquarters Downtown. That included resolutions requiring the companys local utility, Public Service Co. of New Mexico, to prepare a report on transitioning away from fossil fuels to help meet climate change goals, and a risk assessment on potential for stranded costs from PNMs carbon-emitting generation as the grid shifts to renewable energy.

The PNMR board said its transition plans are already available through the companys triennial integrated resource plan, or IRP, which PNM will file with the state Public Regulation Commission in July. It said the risk assessment would be too speculative to be useful.

The resolutions came from PNM Shareholders for a Responsible Future, a small group that acquired stock in recent years to attend annual meetings and introduce proposals.

This year, the meeting included some passionate comments by those stockholders, and from the traditional New Mexico Utility Shareholders Alliance, which opposed the resolutions.

Vincent-Collawn said PNMs new IRP already calls for making PNM coal-free by 2031, completely shutting the San Juan Generating Station near Farmington by 2022, and abandoning PNMs 13 percent stake at the nearby Four Corners Power Plant a few years later. In addition, the company continues to add renewable resources to the grid.

Transformative change will shape the future, Vincent-Collawn said in her annual speech. The way energy is produced and how customers use it is quickly evolvingWe all embrace this revolution and continue to address it in our business plans.

As in past years, environmental groups and clean energy advocates demonstrated outside PNMRs offices. During the meeting, protest drums echoed up to the shareholder conference.

Were providing moral support for the shareholders proposing the climate resolutions inside, said NM350.org co-coordinator Tom Solomon. We appreciate what theyre doing.
The U.S. Postal Service and thousands of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho residents delivered last Saturday, to the tune of 175,600 pounds of food as part of the 25th annual Stamp Out Hunger drive.

It is truly amazing how the efforts of our community can impact our continued role to supply food to hundreds of partners throughout New Mexico for the benefit of our hungry neighbors, said Melody Wattenbarger, president and CEO of Roadrunner Food Bank.

Thank you to everyone who contributed food this Saturday! Your generosity will help us prepare for the busy summer months when hunger is at its highest, she added.

The local and nationwide collection is the largest single-day food drive in the country, according to a news release.

This years drive beat out last years achievement of 142,000 pounds of food collected.

Anyone still interested in contributing to this years drive is welcome to bring nonperishable food to Roadrunner, their post office or to any year-round drop-off locations  find them at www.rrfb.org/dropoff.

Donations of fresh produce and frozen food should be brought directly to the food bank, officials said.

And anyone interested in volunteering is welcome as well. All the food collected and delivered to the food bank will require many additional volunteers to help sort and prepare it for distribution. Anyone interested in volunteering is encouraged to register online at www.rrfb.org/cervis.

Some 10,000 communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam participate in Stamp Out Hunger annually.

National partners with the Postal Service and letter carriers included the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Valpak, United Way Worldwide, the AFL-CIO, the AARP Foundation and Valassis.

We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com.
WASHINGTON  Firing FBI Director James Comey is already coming back to haunt President Donald Trump.

In dismissing Comey last week, Trump created the very real possibility that a respected law enforcement official known for an outspoken nature and willingness to buck political convention could resurface in public.

And while Comey himself has been silent, his associates have been exposing intriguing details of his encounters with Trump.

On Tuesday, an associate revealed that Comey had written a memo in which he described Trump asking him to shut down an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey, who was known to keep a paper trail of sensitive meetings, chronicled the presidents request soon after the February Oval Office meeting with the president, an associate who has seen the memo told The Associated Press. The associate was not authorized to discuss the memo by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday on accounts of the memo, which was first reported by The New York Times. The White House disputed the account.

The conversation occurred weeks after the FBI interviewed Flynn regarding his contacts with the Russia ambassador to the United States and after the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, warned the White House that Flynn had misled them about those conversations and could be vulnerable to blackmail.

Flynn was forced to resign Feb. 13 after reports of the Yates-White House conversation.

News Tuesday of Trumps request of Comey immediately renewed concerns from congressional Democrats that Trump was trying to obstruct an investigation thats been examining potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

We are witnessing an obstruction of justice case unfolding in real time, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Judiciary Committee member and former federal prosecutor, said in a statement. He called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate.

Some Republicans also called for action, asking Comey to speak to Congress and demanding that any memos or recordings of his conversations with the president be presented to them.

Comey, appointed as FBI director in 2013 by President Barack Obama, spoke often about his desire to be as transparent as possible about FBI actions and about proving to the public that his agency was independent, competent and thorough.

Were not on anybodys side, ever, he said in a March speech. Were not considering whose ox will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by this or that  we just dont care and we cant care.

He riled administrations of both parties with his moral certitude and decisions that critics said strayed from ordinary protocol, such as his public announcement  without the involvement of the Justice Department  that the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her email use.

Testifying before Congress is familiar to Comey, a former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

As FBI director, he was accustomed to hours-long oversight hearings before Congress covering a wide range of topics. In 2007, years before his appointment as FBI director, he recounted to a rapt congressional audience a dramatic hospital room clash three years earlier with fellow Bush administration officials over the approval of a domestic surveillance program.

The associate who described the memo said Comey is willing to testify but wants to do it in public to ensure a full airing of events. Comey created several memos of encounters with Trump to ensure that a record would exist of conversations he found odd or troubling, according to the person.

Comey was abruptly fired May 9 and learned of the dismissal as he was giving a talk in Los Angeles. While the White House initially cited a Justice Department recommendation and Comeys very public handling of the Clinton email investigation as reasons, those explanations quickly shifted.

Trump later admitted in a television interview about Comeys firing that he was bothered by this Russia thing and said he would have fired Comey regardless of the Justice Department recommendation. He also tweeted a veiled threat last Friday warning the ex-director against leaking information.

Soon after the firing, a Comey associate told the AP that Comey recounted being asked by Trump at a January dinner if he would pledge his loyalty. The White House has denied that report.

The associate also confirmed an account from the Times that Trump vented about media leaks during his conversation with Comey, and that the president expressed support for seeing reporters in prison.

The associate also confirmed that Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to leave the room before speaking privately with Comey about Flynn, and that the president told Comey he believed Flynn was a good guy and asked if the FBI could end the investigation into him.

After Tuesdays revelation, the White House said in a statement, While the President has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the President has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn.

There is no sign the FBIs Russia investigation is closing. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told Congress last week the investigation is highly significant and said Comeys dismissal would do nothing to impede the probe.

___

Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman, Julie Pace, Chad Day and Stephen Braun contributed to this report.
AUSTIN, Texas  Texas legislators are seeking to deny work-study aid to immigrants attending public college under a temporary residency permit, a move that starkly contrasts with a policy enacted 16 years ago that positioned the state as the nations most welcoming place for foreign-born students.

Under the proposal, which is on the verge of clearing the Texas Legislature, only individuals eligible for federal financial aid would qualify for the states off-campus, work-study program.

That group includes U.S. citizens, permanent residents and refugees. It doesnt include students who came into the country illegally as children and have a work visa allowing them to stay longer, or immigrants granted permission to stay in the country because they were crime victims.

It wasnt immediately clear how many Texas college students would be denied services if the measure is enacted.

Sen. Charles Schwertner, who sponsored the amendment, would not respond to requests for comment on the floor of the state Senate. At a hearing earlier this month he said the measure simply served to ensure that students receiving state-subsidized employment are legally eligible to work in the United States.

This amendment simply requires that the student qualify for federal financial aid, he said. You must have a Social Security card or be a U.S. citizen.

But immigrant advocates said that, to their knowledge, this is the first bill denying work-study aid to foreign-born students who are protected from deportation because of a temporary visa. The young people who benefit are called dreamers because the program mimics versions of the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided legal status for young immigrants but was never passed by Congress.

We were surprised to see this amendment, said Nicholas Espiritu, a Los Angeles-based staff attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, who said his organization was not aware of another similar law.

Immigration attorney Jacqueline Watson, the former Texas chairwoman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, explained that the state rules for financial aid are historically broader and have broader eligibility requirements than federal financial aid.

As long as youre authorized to work you could participate in work study, so a DACA recipient could qualify, said Watson, referring to Obama administrations Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is the federal program through which the immigrants receive temporary legal status.

The new restriction was tacked on as an amendment to a non-contentious bill that cleared both chambers of the Legislature but awaits a final version.

Watson said enacting the measure would represent an unfortunate change for Texas. It was the first to offer in-state college tuition for some immigrants in the country illegally back in 2001, under the Texas Dream Act, which benefited about 30,000 students in 2015, according to information compiled by the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

This is a setback from how weve been traditionally treating students, Watson said. As long as they were Texas students we wanted to make sure they were educated.

Karla Perez, a Houston DACA recipient currently in law school, said the prohibition was one of many state efforts to undermine DACA, including a Texas proposal in 2015 to remove in-state tuition for the students, similar to legislation filed this year.

There are a lot of obstacles for DACA students, said Perez, 24, noting that many of the DACA recipients she knew in Texas had not even realized they could participate in the work study program in the past. Theres a lot of misinformation out there.

This session, the Legislature approved a law compelling local police to inquire about peoples immigration status during routine interactions like traffic stops, and even threaten with jail time sheriffs and other law enforcement officials who refuse to comply. Opponents call it a show your papers law similar to one that sparked years of federal legal challenges in Arizona, but top Republicans say it will keep Texas safer.
Journalist Mini Menon has partnered with history enthusiast Akshay Chavan to launch Live History India, a digital platform focused on bringing alive Indian History and taking it to a wide array of new age audiences across the world.

Live History India will showcase short format and long format content based on the story types, including documentaries and shows like Blast from the Past. The content will be multimedia led, incorporating videos, text and animation into it. At present, the platform is not outsourcing any content and promises to deliver stories and facts to India, by India.

LHI Digital, the holding company of Live History India, has also announced that it has received first round of funding from a group of strategic investors, including Cyrus Guzder, Chairman and Managing Director of AFL logistics and Technology Consultancy; and seed funding firm 5F led by Dr Ganesh Natrajan, former Chairman of Nasscom Foundation.

Commenting on the new venture, Mini Menon, Editor and Co- Founder of Live History India, said, We are excited to launch Live History India. We believe it is time to create an India-centred and focused new age content platform on Indian history and culture. We aim to use innovative multimedia formats to create exciting content on India and bridge the gap by taking history outside text books. With more and more Indians spending money to travel across India, LHI believes that there is a huge need gap that needs to be filled. LHI has a rich multimedia content pipeline planned for this.

When asked about the genesis behind launching Live History India digitally, Menon quipped, Live History India combines the best of the past with best of the future at the present with the digital media and how it allows you create innovative product to reach a wide array of people across the world. So the idea came because it really combines the passion of the founding theme  that is, the combined experience and skillset that Akshay Chavan and I bring together. I have about 18 years of experience in doing FB format of television in terms of news and setting up news channels and last as the Feature Executive Editor of Bloomberg TV. I realised the potential of digital in taking programming to a wider range of people. A lot of our shows had a far better place and reach through digital rather than television network because digital offers you the ability to have the content outside to everybody to respond to and stay for 24 hours. The digital platform also offers you that value of having content available anytime, anywhere in the world perpetually. So thats a huge advantage.

Live History India has a team of eight core people involved with 22 team members and a network of 60 historians, who bring very different skillsets to the table, both in terms of content creation and deep research.

On the first round of funding, Menon said, Live History India is positioned right in the centre of Digital India, Make in India, Start up India, Smart Cities and Incredible India. We have been lucky to get some great strategic partners and history enthusiasts on board as investors. Our investors share our vision of creating a world class product on India, from India.

Speaking about his investment in LHI Digital Network, Cyrus Guzder said, Live History India is an exciting new age content platform that will go a long way in creating public awareness about Indias rich history. This is essential to ensure the conservation of our built heritage. Local communities have played a critical role in the area of heritage conservation the world over and we need a public movement around this in India as well. LHI will act as a catalyst for this.

Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Founder and Chairman of 5F World, another investor in the venture, added here, We see LHI Digital as an extremely significant investment since it will operate at the confluence of Social and Cultural relevance, Skill Building and Digital Platform enablement. We look forward to being strategy and technology partners to Mini and Akshay as they build a great company.

The launch of Live History India on the web was preceded by a social media teaser launch of LHI on January 14, 2017. We have been extremely encouraged by the response we have had on the social media. We have had over 500,000 likes in just a short time and data shows that it is the youth, those in the 18-24 age group, who have been our biggest supporters, said Akshay Chavan, Co-Founder & Head of Research.

Menon added here, The fact that a vast array of audiences, especially the youth, are tuning in to LHI in the social media has iterated our belief that there is a lot of latent interest in Indian history which has not been adequately served. LHI aims to fill that gap by combining great content with exciting formats.

Chavan, who is driving the initiative of reaching out to leading historians and authors across the world, informed, We have over 50 top historians and authors as our contributors. Each of them has been selected for their deep insights and body of work. By the year end, we expect this number to cross 100.

Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal; renowned columnist and Director of Mumbai Literature Live!, Anil Dharkar; former Bureaucrat and Indias first Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah; and Malvika Singh, Publisher of Seminar, will be joining Cyrus Guzder and Dr Ganesh Natarajan on the Live History Indias Board of Advisors.

Speaking about his association, Shyam Benegal said, Nehru called India a palimpsest, where each epoch has left its cultural, social and political imprint on the age that existed before. Over the millennia there have been layers upon layers of these imprints, but none have totally erased the layers beneath them. This multi-layered accumulation of cultures and histories make India among the most unique nations of the world. Live History India is a first of its kind attempt on a digital platform that brings together the work of a large number of historians and authors on the many and varied influences that have gone into the making of modern India.

Live History India also has a robust revenue plan and will work with a cross section of brands and stakeholders, including State Governments, to build content on Indias history, culture and travel. As part of the launch bouquet, LHI has a wide array of properties that include:

Amazing India - On the relatively unknown wonders of India

SnapShort Histories - easily accessible History in Shorts, a series of Videos that bring together the many stories that make India.

A large focus of LHI is on Living History, that is, the continuum of traditions in areas like food, textiles and the arts. LHI brings properties like History in a Dish, Forgotten Treasures and the Weaves of India.

The technology platform that LHI is using has been built by Quintype, a start-up based in California/ Bangalore. Quintypes Audience Technology Platform and their experience in digital publishing, big data & analytics and hyper personalisation will help LHI customise content.

We have a rich pipeline of properties and we look forward to partnering with all brands that have India at their heart and think India first, Menon concluded.
We can help you make sense of the agribusiness industry, extending from chemicals and fertilizers used as inputs into agriculture, to the commodities, food and by-products that are an output to farming, with policy and regulation applied at every step of the value chain.
Ever since Veronica Delphey witnessed her sister, Shannon, win first attendant and miss congeniality at the local Spanferkel Festival in Mindoro last year, all she wanted was to win a crown.

However, Veronica was born with Down syndrome and has developmental and cognitive delays. So, when her parents learned that she had made it on the Melrose-Mindoro prom court, they were excited that their daughter would get a chance to live out her dream.

They knew Veronica wanted a crown. They just knew that so when she got voted onto court, the class made the decision to give all of the girls on the court little crowns so that she would get one whether she won or not, said Cindy Delphey, Veronicas mother.

Then Veronica was crowned queen, something she seemed to know all along as she threw up her hands and celebrated during the crowning.

She was so excited and this is what she really wanted and we all just rallied behind that and helped her get that dream, said Sydney Tracey, a classmate who was also on prom court. Everyone knows her and how sweet she is and it was an easy decision to pick her.

Cindy said that Veronicas class has always been supportive like this.

She has a great class, Cindy said, adding that Veronica has been with them since second grade. She has fallen in nicely with that group of kids and they have been so good to her. They have included her. She is in high school plays and they just route her around to where she needs to go and what she needs to be doing at the time. The inclusion is just incredible. This school district has been nothing but accommodating and friendly.

Cindy said that Veronica has even entered talent competitions with some of her classmates and when they are done, the school will give a standing ovation for her.

Prom night

Veronica went to prom with her boyfriend, Aaron Hulse, who also has Down syndrome. The night was complete with a limo, dinner at Three Rivers Lodge and pictures with the court at Riverfront Park in La Crosse.

Aaron and Veronica met when their parents became involved in an organization called Children of the Heart, which Aarons parents helped create.

Tracey remembers when Veronica won the crown, She was smiling so big and she stepped right forward and let them put the crown on her.

After winning the crown, Veronica danced with the prom king, Drew Blakken.

She was dancing with the king and her boyfriend Aaron stood and said, Hey, thats my girl! at Drew Blakken. Then he [Aaron] just stood there just 10 feet from them just staring at them, said Cindy.

At the end of the night, Cindy said Veronica put her crown on the fireplace mantel so she could show it to everyone that came in the house.

Life with Down syndrome

Ever since Veronica was born, Cindy and her father Mark have learned everything they could about Down syndrome, including joining organizations like the Down Syndrome Association of Wisconsin, which used to be Children of the Heart.

Veronica is very lucky as far as her Down syndrome goes. She doesnt have a lot of the other medical problems that go along with Down syndrome, for example heart disease, Cindy said. It has been a challenge getting her to speak. She has been in speech therapy since she was a baby.

With Veronicas lack of speech, it makes understanding when there is a problem harder to figure out. In December Veronica had her gall bladder taken out, which took a year to discover the issue.

That is typical of an individual with Down syndrome. If there is something wrong, you see a change in their behavior. She doesnt act out, she just retreats, Cindy said.

Veronica also takes music therapy at Life and Harmony in West Salem and is involved in a mentoring program through University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, which was started by Dr. Garth Tymeson, director of adaptive physical education.

I think this program has really opened the gates to what it is like to socialize with people more in her age group and to experience situations where Mommy and Daddy werent right there to intervene, Cindy said. The program connects college students with mentees in an effort to promote health, exercise and socialization.

Veronicas ability to socialize with her peers is one of the reasons she does so well in school.

She is a sweetheart and is always smiling and likes to be at school. We are lucky to have her here at school and I think all of our kids and teachers feel that way, Melrose-Mindoro Principal Jeff Arzt said.

Veronica also likes to sing in the choir; watch Disney movies including her favorite, Frozen; and swim at the YMCA.

She also has a long-haired calico cat named Hera, which Cindy said looks out for her.

Community support

Even though Veronica has a supportive family, Cindy is very appreciative of the community that her family lives in.

Sometimes when you live in a more rural area like this, we take for granted how lucky we are. It takes a village to raise a child and when you have a special needs child, that is even more true because they cant advocate for themselves often and how they express themselves is often different than a child with typical development, Cindy said.

Aly Tracey, Veronicas classmate who was on the court, said, I think it (looking out for each other) is how our community is, including our school and our class.

After graduating next year, Cindy hopes that Veronica can enter into a vocational rehabilitation program, which could include her working for the school.

I cant say enough about Melrose-Mindoro, Cindy said.

Veronica has four siblings: Katie who is a foot and ankle surgeon in Illinois, Kyle who is on active duty for the Navy in Virginia, Angela who also has developmental disabilities and Shannon who is a sophomore at Melrose-Mindoro.
On Tuesday, two European privacy watchdogs rebuked Facebook over the methods the company uses to collect data about its users. French and Dutch officials said that Facebook broke European rules surrounding privacy and data protection. According to the two separate statements, Facebook had collected information about users (and non-users) through third-party sites without their knowledge, and in addition had not provided users with sufficient control over how the information was eventually used by the company. In addition, Facebook must pay a fine of 150,000 (approximately $164,000) to the French regulator, the Commission Nationale de lInformatique et des Libertes (CNIL). The Dutch privacy authorities have reportedly yet to impose a financial penalty on Facebook, saying that they were satisfied that the company has made changes, although there is still a strong possibility that they may still decide to impose some sanctions.

This investigation has been going on for around two years and had also involved Spanish and German authorities. Europe has very strict privacy laws and regulators have long had concerns over the way Facebook collects and uses data, not just about their users, but also internet users who happen to land on third-party sites. Those authorities have felt that the way that Facebook collected data was unclear, and did not give users enough options to opt out. The Dutch data authority also stated that they had additional concerns that the social networking company was targeting its adverts to users based on sensitive, and very personal information, such as their sexual preferences. From next year, any company who is found to be in breach of privacy regulations in Europe may face extremely stiff penalties under a new law which comes into effect in 2018. The General Data Protection Regulation allows for huge fines to be levied on companies -up to 4% of their annual global revenues  which, for Facebook, would amount to a a significant sum.

A Facebook spokeswoman, Lena Pietsch, reportedly said in a statement that Facebook has long complied with E.U. data protection law through our establishment in Ireland, we remain open to continuing to discuss these issues with the CNIL. The company has not yet stated whether it plans to appeal the ruling, although last year, Facebook won an appeal against Belgian authorities who had concerns that Facebook was collecting too much data about its users.
Google removed the ability to send Google Play Store Digital Gifts to other users via email, a customer support representative of the Mountain View-based tech giant confirmed in a recent exchange with one user. The feature was removed with a recent update to the service due to security reason, the rep revealed, without clarifying on the matter. The Google Help Play pages describing the feature arent reflecting the change as of this writing as theyre still detailing the process of purchasing and sending whats essentially Google Play Store credit, digital books, and Google Play Music subscriptions. According to the same source, the Google Play Store still supports Digital Gifts that were purchased from third-party retailers, though its currently unclear whether the company is also planning on discontinuing that feature at some point in the future.

Digital Gifts that Google Play Store users were able to send to other people via email were originally introduced in November 2015 and the functionality hasnt changed during its relatively short lifespan. While the feature was available, users could have paid for Google Play Store gift cards valued at $10, $15, $20, $25, $50, or $100 and send them to other users via Gmail, essentially loading the predetermined amounts of real currency to Google Accounts of their recipients. Credit gifts were only available in the United States and while some consumers were expecting that the Alphabet-owned company will expand their availability in the future, the Internet giant apparently had different plans. Its currently unclear whether Google Play Music subscriptions and Google Play Books that users in select territories were also able to send are still supported by the service.

It remains to be seen whether Google eventually launches an alternative to Digital Gifts or discloses whether its discontinuation of the feature was prompted by a particular security concern. Being one of the companys flagship products, the Google Play Store is often undergoing changes and improvements and will likely continue doing so in the future, though feature removals still arent an everyday occurrence. The tech firm might reveal more details about its plans for the Google Play Store at Google I/O 2017 thats scheduled to start tomorrow.
One of the highlight features of HTCs newest smartphone, the HTC U11, is its support for both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The inclusion of these two personal assistants gives HTC U11 owners the choice on which assistant to use, especially if they are more invested in one smart home ecosystem over the other. Google Assistant will be shipped with the smartphone once it is released and is immediately available for users globally once they finish setting up the device. Meanwhile, Amazon Alexa will only be available 30 days after the phones release through a Play Store update and even so, it will only be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. In China, HTC is also collaborating with the Chinese search giant Baidu to incorporate its personal assistant, the Baidu Duer, in the HTC U11 units sold in Mainland China.

It is interesting how HTC decided to include many personal assistants into a device, especially since HTC has its own assistant, the Sense Companion. HTC itself has stated that it will incorporate more personal assistants to its flagship, and it will ensure that the included assistants will be treated as equals. For example, an always-on microphone will detect the keywords for both Google Assistant and Alexa, which then triggers the preferred service. Also, the Edge Sense can be programmed to trigger either Google Assistant or Alexa. That doesnt mean that Sense Companion is gone. HTC thinks that the inclusion of Alexa and Google Assistant will simply complement, rather than replace, its own AI-based assistant.

People who are going to buy the device should expect the latest and greatest in smartphone hardware, especially with Qualcomms latest chipset, the Snapdragon 835, powering the device. Aside from the inclusion of two personal assistants in select regions, HTC has also included some interesting features like Edge Sense which detects input on the sides of the device, and improved audio recording using the devices four microphones. The smartphone is also IP67 certified, meaning the device can be submerged under 1 meter of water for 30 minutes. The HTC U11 will be available globally beginning early this June and its already available for pre-order in the United States.
Google I/O is nearly here again. At last years event, Google announced the launch of Google Home, their smart speaker device which allows users to interact with Googles personal assistant service, known as Google Assistant. Many have been expecting that major updates to the device will be announced at this years annual event, which takes place in Mountain View, California. Developers at XDA have taken a look at the APK file of the latest update to the Google Home app and its suggested that there is a string which appears to add reminder controls, among other new features. Reminder controls is something that many users have likely felt is a long-overdue feature to the platform. According to XDA, it appears that the new reminder function may be accessed in a similar manner to the Home Control, Shopping, and Music functions within the apps slide out menu.

This latest update to the app, which is version 2.3, also appears to show that support for some other features has also been added. Following the recent launch of the Google Assistant SDK, it appears that support for third-party Google Assistant devices will become available. This means that Google Assistant may be available in other smart home speakers in the future, such as the Spot speakers produced by NVIDIA.

Another new feature which appears to be in the latest update is cloud casting. Up until now, casting has only been possible with Google Chromecast when devices are placed close together or are both on the same network. This latest update to the Google Home app appears to suggest that casting media such as photos, videos, and music will now be possible from further afield, outside the local network. This could prove a very useful update, although it is not known at this time, of course, whether this feature will actually be seen. It is also unclear how this would work in practice. All of these new features are not currently part of a live build and could be reconsidered or tweaked by Google at any time, meaning they may not appear in a future release at all. That said, if Google has plans to introduce them this weeks event would be a good place to make an announcement.
Three new Mercedes-Benz cars now support Android Auto, as revealed by the official website of Googles smartphone projection standard. The list of compatible vehicles manufactured by the German automaker includes the 2017 SL, 2017 GLS, and the 2017 SLC, which span a variety of price categories. While Mercedes-Benz is mostly known for making luxury vehicles and none of the aforementioned models can be considered affordable, their prices still range from approximately $47,000 for a base model of the 2017 SLC to more than $87,000 for the 2017 SL convertible class. Owners of any member of those premium lineups can now enjoy Googles multimedia platform in their vehicles as long as they own a compatible Android-powered device and live in a territory thats officially supported by the projection solution. Android Auto has been expanding its support to numerous countries in recent times and is currently available in the majority of Googles key markets including the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

Prior to the latest expansion, Mercedes-Benz already supported Android Auto with a number of its vehicle lineups, including the 2017 A-Class and B-Class, CLS Coupe, and the E-Class Sedan. The Stuttgart, Germany-based carmaker only supports Googles handset projection standard on its latest series of cars and is expected to extend its support for the ecosystem in the future. Earlier this month, the Android Auto app received a minor update that showed some traces of new home screen Cards that the Mountain View-based tech giant might be looking to add in the future. Its currently unclear what kind of elements is the company experimenting with, but more details on Googles plans for Android Auto are expected to be unveiled tomorrow once Google I/O 2017 kicks off.

Likewise, the Alphabet-owned company is expected to use the latest iteration of its developer conference as an opportunity to shed more light on its recently established partnership with Audi and Volvo that will see the two automakers ship cars running a modified version of the Android operating system. The same solution was already showcased powering a Chrysler several months back, and Google said that the system will make its way to Audi and Volvos entire fleets in the near future.
Tim Baxter, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Samsung Electronics America (SEA), has been promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the tech giants American division, the company announced on Monday. The promotion is part of the firms latest organizational changes made with the goal of growing its business in the region through a variety of initiatives, Samsung Electronics said in a statement, without clarifying on the matter. Baxter  whos been with Samsung for the last 11 years  was appointed at President and COO of SEA in 2015 and has proven to be an integral part of the firms operations in the region, the South Korean tech giant said, adding that the newly named CEO will now directly lead all of the companys local businesses and divisions.

Gregory Lee, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America (SENA), will continue performing his duties and his position in the company isnt affected by the latest wave of management changes. Lee has been leading the North American division of Samsung Electronics since 2013 and has been focused on growing and maintaining the companys list of subsidiaries. SENAs chief will be looking to expand the firms regional presence in the future with a number of mid-term initiatives, Samsung said. Lee and Baxter have been collaborating within the company for many years and are expected to bring their partnership to a higher level following the new organizational change. The two are expected to continue promoting local talent and closely monitoring market trends in an effort to further improve SEAs performance, though it remains to be seen how exactly will they strive to accomplish that goal.

The Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer announced a number of other major management changes earlier this month, having named a new chief of mobile marketing and head of its China operations. The mobile marketing division of the company is now being helmed by its long-term executive Choi Kyung-sik, while Samsungs struggling China-based business has been entrusted to one Kwon Kye-hyun. The company previously confirmed it will make a number of other high-profile management changes later this year after delaying its annual organizational reshuffle thats usually conducted at the end of each calendar year due to a corruption scandal in its home country that resulted in the arrest of Samsung Groups Vice Chairman and heir apparent Jay Y. Lee.
Samsung is expanding its mobile payment solution to the United Kingdom starting today, the company announced. Consumers residing in the UK can now acquire the Samsung Pay application on their Samsung devices through the official Galaxy Apps store and start using the service throughout the country. Visa and Mastercard cards issued by Nationwide, Santander, and MBNA are currently supported by the service, while those from HSBC, M&S Bank, First Direct, and American Express will be supported soon.

Samsung Pay first debuted in South Korea back in August 2015, and since then the service continued to expand into new regions, including the United States. The platform was released in a handful of other countries throughout 2016, including China, Spain, Brazil, Russia, Canada, and Australia. Since the beginning of 2017, Samsung Pay was also introduced in Malaysia and India, while earlier in April this year, Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates have all joined the list of countries offering support for Samsungs mobile payments system. The United Kingdom is the latest addition to Samsung Pays ecosystem, and unlike the platforms release in Hong Kong and Switzerland last month, this doesnt appear to be a beta launch. Having said that, Samsung smartphone users in the UK who happen to own devices compatible with Samsung Pay can now download the application from the Galaxy Apps store and sign up for the service. However, considering the fact that the app was launched earlier today without Samsung sharing many details about the event, there is a chance that the registration process wont go without a hitch in the first few hours of availability.

As far as device compatibility is concerned, Samsung Pay previously required a smartphone from the Samsung Galaxy S or Galaxy Note series running Android 5.0 Lollipop or higher, though the service should soon be compatible with select Galaxy J models, as well as the Galaxy E5 that already support it in other countries, and the same goes for the Samsung Gear S2 and Gear S3 smartwatches. As for the platform itself, Samsung Pay is expected to continue expanding into other regions over the course of this year, while more details on its availability will likely follow shortly.
Samsung says they wont be offering refurbished Galaxy Note 7 devices for rent or sale in the U.S., though a recent rumor suggests that Samsung Galaxy Note 7R model, which is essentially a refurbished unit, could be released within the region and it could see a release as early as June according to the rumor. The timeline was derived given that the device was listed on May 13 for Bluetooth wireless approval, and that process often isnt lengthy. Another sign that the phone may be headed to US shores is that Samsung even received US regulatory approval for its Note 7R by the Federal Communications Commission on May 5th.

Earlier this year, Samsung confirmed that it would make updates to its original Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, a device that was recalled and has since been pulled off the market due to concerns over overheating, fire and explosion, and sell the device in South Korea. The Galaxy Note 7 was originally released in August last year, but it was quickly pulled off the market when users reported issues with overheating and fires. Samsung claimed that faulty batteries were to blame at that time, and re-released the phone later that month. Fire concerns persisted which led to Samsung discontinuing and recalled all Galaxy Note 7 devices. Since then, the company had issued an apology, investigated the incident more thoroughly and concluded that defects in the battery were to blame.

Eight months have since passed, and if Samsung had correctly identified the issue, the Galaxy Note 7R may be safer. The phone will launch with a smaller 3,200 mAh battery, but it will retain all of the flagship specs of the original device. Additionally, Samsung is expected to price the phone very attractively if it does make it to the US, with Samsung expected to give the Galaxy Note 7R mid-range pricing. While the Samsung Galaxy Note 7R wont come with a button-less design that Samsung uses on its current Galaxy S8 flagship it will still have a large 5.7-inch QHD resolution screen with curved edges, an iris scanner, and Samsungs highly rated camera experience. Despite indications that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7R may be headed to US soil, Samsung may still decide against actually launching the updated model in this market given the potential for further brand damage with the Note 7 name.

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Update:

Samsung has issued an official statement regarding the Galaxy Note 7 refurbished units stating that The objective of introducing refurbished devices is solely to reduce and minimize any environmental impact. The product details including the name, technical specification and price range will be announced when the device is available. Samsung will not be offering refurbished Galaxy Note 7 devices for rent or sale in the US.
Smartphone batteries still represent one of the biggest issues when it comes to todays smartphones. The vast majority of you probably recharge your smartphone on a daily basis, most people leave it to charge during the night, but you might prefer to charge it whenever you can during the day, especially if you have fast charging. Luckily for us, fast charging has managed to become a standard these days, and more or less every modern smartphone offers some sort of fast charging. Having said that, Meizu had introduced its all new Super mCharge fast charging solution during this years Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, and its insanely fast, well, were here to talk more about it and see how good is it.

Now, according to Meizu, Super mCharge can recharge a 3,000mAh battery from 0% to 100% in only 18 minutes and 55 seconds, and no, thats not a typo. In comparison, Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging solution can charge up such a battery from 0% to 50% in 30 minutes, and Quick Charge 4.0 is 20% faster, according to Qualcomm. Most people would probably prefer for their batteries to last a week or something of the sort, than own an extremely fast charging solution, but we dont really have a choice here, and such fast charging solutions are definitely helping, and are good alternatives until batteries finally evolve. That being said, most of you are probably wondering how safe is this charging solution, can batteries take it and what not, well, Meizu claims they can, without a problem. Now, Meizus Super mCharge fast charging solution is using a 55W charging, after years of work and research, Meizu finally managed to achieve that, and accelerate charging speeds by 5.5 times. The company claims that theyve managed to release the first 55W fast charging solution in the world, well, at least as far as the mobile industry is concerned.

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Now, for comparisons sake, standard USB charging is 5W, and some other OEMs are offering 15W-18W charging solutions, including Motorola and Samsung, for example. Do keep in mind that Meizus fast charging is using a special kind of battery which was tweaked so that it can take such increases in current, that the Super mCharge brings. The Super mCharge is using the charge pump technology, it is comprised out of two groups of circuits, and the charge pump exports half the voltage after transformation. In the end, this fast charging solution improves charging efficiency by 8%, claims Meizu. The company says that their new fast charging solution yields 98% efficiency, while other charging solution can battery reach 90%, some even cant.

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Now, heating up and battery safety is not an issue here, or at least Meizu claims it isnt. Meizu tested this charging with a special 3,000mAh battery, which theyve charged and discharged 800 times. That battery managed to retain 80 percent of its capacity after that, which means that it should be able to withstand 2 years of normal use without a problem. Now, as far as safety is concerned, Meizu is using an optimization algorithm while the phone is charging, and the battery reaches only 39C/102F while charging, in an ambient temperature of 22C/72F (a bit higher than body temperature), which are great news, and heat definitely should not be a problem. It is worth noting, though that Meizus Super mCharge fast charging solution will not become commercially available until 2018 or 2019, so we still have some time to wait until we can test this ourselves and enjoy such fast charging speeds. On top of everything, its worth mentioning that other companies are doing their best to bring forth high-voltage wireless charging to the table, Bosch is trying to do that, and theyre planning to use 60W current in order to do so by 2020, but well see what happens when the time comes.
Two premium Nokia smartphones have leaked online showcasing that the Finnish manufacturer has some high-end devices on the way. Both of the new devices are currently unannounced which means there is no details regarding the hardware just yet, and theyre not alone as theyre being advertised next to the Nokia 3 and the Nokia 5, both of which are devices that launched a little earlier this year and were announced even earlier at Mobile World Congress back in February.

The two phones along with Nokias already available Nokia 3 and Nokia 5 made a brief appearance on the video sharing website Vimeo before being pulled not long after it went up. The video which looked to be an official promotional advertisement for the phones was complete with music and the Nokia branding at the end of the clip, so that suggests that eventually Nokia will end up publishing the video advertisement at some point in the future, and judging by the accidental leak of the video which looks finalized, these two new phones could be coming up soon with an official announcement.

While there are little bits and pieces of the two new devices that are different when it comes to the design scheme, most of the phones look similar to the other Nokia smartphones and follow along the same path in the design department. The left-most device in the image above has a dual rear camera for example, but its also contained in the same style of metal plate that surrounds the cameras on the other Nokia android devices that have recently launched. The left-most phone also appears to have a mirror-like finish, which could suggest that the body material used was glass, not too unlike the HTC U11 which was just announced earlier this morning. There isnt any concrete information about either of the two new phones, which are the two devices on the left, but rumors are suggesting that they could be the Nokia 9, Nokia 8, or Nokia 7. Whatever they end up being, it seems likely that both of the two unannounced devices will be higher tiered than the Nokia 6, which could satisfy consumers who have been waiting on Nokia to launch a premium device.
It may not be the media capital of the world, but the future leaders of journalism could be sitting in a Black River Falls classroom.

The Student Reporting Lab is a class that partners with PBS News Hour to give kids an experience in the world of journalism.

The class started in 2013 in BRF after Julie Tiedens, who teaches the class, was signed up as a teacher for the lab.

PBS provides prompts and curriculum for the students with a more national focus, with the students providing a more local angle.

Sometimes some of the pieces we send out or that other classes send out ends up on the News Hour broadcast which is really cool for the kids, Tiedens said.

Students from all over the country that participate in these classes have the opportunity to then participate in a week-long workshop in Washington, D.C. and get some real journalism experience.

There are students from as far away as Hawaii attending, and Black River Falls will be sending one of its own to represent the Tigers in the nations capital.

Kim Leadholm made a video pitch and was selected as one of twenty other students.

She really put in a lot of hard work, said Tiedens.

The students will be put together into groups and given a topic to work on during their workshop in the capital to give them some hands-on experience.

I really hope this will give me more insight and help me decide on a career, Leadholm said.

Insight shouldnt be hard to come by in a group of people who are all interested in the field of journalism like Leadholm.

Leadholm came into the class after being recommended to join it by another teacher and decided to give it a chance.

Not knowing if it would be something she would be interested in, she said she really started to enjoy the class the more she participated.

Leadholm said the day she was selected for the workshop she was full of nerves.

I was really nervous the whole day cause I knew I was going to find out and I really wanted it, Leadholm said.

Tiedens pulled her into class to let her know that she was selected, which came as a big relief to Leadholm.

I was so super excited because I knew she was going to be excited, Tiedens said recalling the feeling she had when receiving the notice that one of her students was selected.

As a teacher, Tiedens is especially excited at the opportunity. Its an all expenses paid trip with people who have been in the industry a long time, a real unique experience for any student.

Im really excited for the opportunity to meet all these people who have so much information and knowledge that I can come back and use here in the classroom or in the future, Leadholm said.

A workshop like this helps surround a student with like-minded people who are interested in the field, which allows them to really dive into it.

Plus the skills they learn in the workshop and in the class at BRF help create more active and engaged citizens even if they dont go into the field of journalism.

The Student Reporting Lab at BRF also partners with Wisconsin Public Television to bring in mentors who can provide students with their experience and help guide them in their careers.
YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Syrian Arab Army units on Saturday entered Tishreen neighborhood at the eastern outskirts of Damascus city, beginning wide-scale and precise combing operations in the area, Armenpress reports, citing SANA agency.

SANAs correspondent said that army units are now deployed in all parts of Tishreen neighborhood and are now dismantling IEDs and landmines planted by the terrorists in the area.

Hundreds of gunmen and some of their family members exited Tishreen neighborhood and Barzeh area on Monday as per the settlement agreement reached to end all armed manifestations in the area.

On a relevant note, SANAs correspondent said that combat operations in al-Qaboun neighborhood have ceased completely as of noon on Tuesday after terrorist organizations in the area announced that they accept the settlement and that their remaining members will leave.

The correspondent said that the entirety of al-Qaboun neighborhood is now quiet following violent clashes between Syrian Arab Army units and terrorist organizations that have transformed the neighborhood over more than 4 years to a hotbed and used it to target neighboring areas with shells.

The terrorists surrendered after a few hours from the army establishing control connecting al-Qaboun to Erbin in the Eastern Ghouta area in Damascus Countryside. That tunnel was the last one leading to the Ghouta west of the international highway and terrorists had been relying on it in carrying out operations targeting the army and civilians in the area.
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Two firms acted as a private equity outfit acquired a majority stake in a major exploration business in the country. Herbert Smith Freehills advised Australian private equity fund manager Allegro Funds in buying a majority stake in mining exploration business Terrex Seismic, which was advised by Corrs Chambers Westgarth . Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.Perth businessman Steve Tobin sold the stake in Terrex Seismic, which offers seismic and surveying services to oil and gas and mining companies, as he doubles down on the business.Tobin told Business News Western Australia that he is focusing on Terrex and other interests in the oil and gas space again because he expects resurgence in oil and gas exploration. In addition to selling the Terrex stake, Tobin has also put up his Aravina Estate winery on the market for up to $20m.We needed a fair amount of cash to secure a new seismic acquisition system, he said.The systems global launch will be at the ongoing APPEA 2017 Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition in Perth.Tobin remains a major shareholder and senior executive in Terrex Seismic. His holdings are reduced to just under 50% of the company, he said.The HSF corporate team was led by partner Mark Currell, who was supported by senior associate Jacob Kahwaji and solicitor Lucy Gemmell. Partner Melita Cottrell led the finance aspects of the transaction with the support of senior associate Adam Jeffrey and solicitor Calvin Lau.Allegro is a long-time HSF client. The global law firm advised Allegro on its acquisition of the master franchisee licence for Pizza Hut in Australia from US-based parent company Yum! Brands, its acquisition of pizza chain Eagle Boys out of administration, and its acquisition of specialist drilling services business JSW Australia out of administration. This is Allegros second investment in mining services, after it bought late last year.The Corrs Chambers Westgarth team was led by partners Christian Owen, Simon Reid, and Mark Payne.Melita CottrellMark Currell
The Interfaith Shoulder to Shoulder Network group in La Crosse is taking a page out of the no smoking handbook to snuff out hostility, too, with its Hate Has No Business Here campaign.

The organization endorsed member Wale Elegbedes idea to provide what he described as a practical and easy way for businesses and people living in La Crosse and the surrounding areas to help our cause with increasing peace, tolerance and understanding.

Shoulder to Shoulder is piggy-backing on the national Main Street Alliances initiative to thwart hatred, encouraging businesses and residents to download alliance posters from its own Facebook page to bring anti-hate messages home.

One poster encourages solidarity with Muslims, refugees and immigrants in the Coulee Region. The other voices respect for women, the value of black lives, harmony with the LGBT community and support for immigrants, refugees and members of all faiths.

I think this can serve as our community traffic light and reminder to leave hatred, unconscious bias and xenophobia out of our businesses and homes, said Elegbede, a native of Lagos, Nigeria, who has lived in La Crosse for 18 years and is an American Muslim.

Hopefully in time, these will be left out of our hearts as well, adds the Shoulder to Shoulder Facebook page.

The concept is similar to all the signs that say no weapons allowed inside a building or no smoking. If we start to force ourselves to practice leaving out hatred, fear of others, unconscious bias, xenophobia, Islamophobia, fear of people with disabilities, etc., we can change our society for the better, Elegbede said.

The alliance also encourages people to sign a statement, in support of the campaign, and it offers the option of buying posters in bulk instead of downloading just one.
Being on the run in Central America has not doused the spirits of an American lawyer wanted for fraud, as he found time to greet a prosecutor after being the first to follow him on Twitter earlier this month.After following Fred Giggenbach on Twitter, lawyer William Lester tweeted to the assistant Kanawha County prosecutor: My Man Fred! Welcome to Twitter. Send my Best to All!Lester faces charges of fraudulent schemes and computer fraud stemming from allegedly billing West Virginia for work he did not do, according to a report from the Charleston Gazette-Mail . Over a two year period, the lawyer is said to have billed the government more than $600,000 for court-appointed work as a criminal defence lawyer.The investigation found that the lawyer billed the state for more than 24 hours a day on at least 17 days, local station WCHS said. He did not show up for his arraignment last summer, when he was believed to be in Costa Rica.Giggenbach said that prosecutors are aware that Lester has internet access. However, they do not want to go deeper into what authorities are doing to apprehend him. Prosecutors are working with the US Marshal Service and an international extradition effort is underway.Every time I saw him hed say the same thing, My man, Fred, Giggenbach told the Gazette-Mail.Maybe we can tweet him a plea deal, he joked.
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Less camouflaged than previous prototypes, the Arona were talking about today features halogen headlights that dont incorporate LED daytime running lights. The cheapo specification, however, is made better by the rear end, where the taillights are embellished by LEDs.Its impossible to tell whats hiding inside the Arona from this set of spy photos, but to the subcompact crossovers defense, the cabin receives sufficient natural light from all sides thanks to the sizable greenhouse. In terms of proportions, its fairly obvious that SEATs Arona has many things in common with the Volkswagen T-Roc Customers that desire to get the best-looking Arona out there will have to settle for the FR trim level , which combines sporty styling cues with crossover-ish motifs. As far as performance aspects are concerned, SEAT doesnt plan to do a Cupra-ified Arona, at least not for the time being. In other words, a 150 PS (145 horsepower) 1.5-liter TSI Evo will have to make do as the most potent powerplant.Lower down the suck-squeeze-bang-blow food chain, the all-new Ibizas 1.0-liter TSI three-banger turbo is expected to be offered alongside a fuel-sipping 1.6-literturbo diesel. A seven-speed DSG transmission is on the menu too, as is 4Drive all-wheel-drive. The latter is made possible by theA0 vehicle architecture, a platform which is based on the MQB that underpins larger models.Expected to be shown in all its glory in July 2017, the SEAT Arona will be followed in 2018 by a mid-sized sport utility vehicle with not two, but three rows of seats. The Spanish automakers answer to Skodas Kodiaq, the yet-unnamed model is rumored to be christened Alora.
Published on Nikitas Behance page , the renderings in question are all sorts of wonderful. But in real life, chopping the roof off a Demon is not sensible at all. First of all, adapting a coupe to convertible guise would translate in less structural rigidity, and obviously enough, more weight.Fret not, though, for in due time, Dodge will launch a drop-top muscle car: the Barracuda . Expected to arrive sometime in 2018 for the 2019 model year with Alfa Romeo Giorgio underpinnings, the 21st century Cuda will have large shoes to fill. The rumor mill also suggests that the next-generation Challenger will utilize the Italian automakers platform.Then theres the Challenger SRT Demon Pursuit, which looks fine as long as you ignore the heavy-duty steel wheels. Thing is, is there any law enforcement agency with enough funding to change the rear tires every Thursday or so? In real-life scenarios, 770 pound-feet of torque is a lot, even for Nitto NT05R street-legal drag radials . Its rather clear, then, that the all-new Demon isnt made to catch speed freaks on the highway. For it to be chased by the police well, thats a different story.On that note, its worth remembering that only 3,300 such vehicles will ever be made for the 2018 model year: 3,000 for the U.S. and 300 for the Canadian market. The scarcity of the Demon, however, wont stop the aftermarket from having its way with the supreme muscle car. The peeps at Hennessey, for example, are already looking into a 1,500-hp tune
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Naysayers and trolls have come together to deem the otherwise lavish DS halo crossover unworthy of the presidential status, comparing it to the famous DS and SM that served past French leaders.In a somewhat predictable manner, it didn't take long for the Internet to come up with a reply, one you can find above.Opulence debate aside, noticing the presidential figure in a Bugatti Chiron seems like an aptly-rendered melange. After all, we have to keep in mind that the tale leading to the birth of the Bugatti Veyron is built on an iconic German-French partnership.The pixel rearangement comes from Laurent Schmidt , who describes himself as a transportation designer. The man has even dropped an YouTube clip showing the Photoshop process that brought us this image - you can find the video at the bottom of the page.And finding arguments in favor of this digital play shouldn't be too difficult. For one thing, Bugatti's Chiron has yet to quench the thirst of hypercar aficionados who prefer to drive with the wind in their hair. In fact, the rumor mill is currently divided between sources claiming that the Veyron 's successor will remain a hardtop-only proposal and those who discuss the possibility of an open-air derivative.Regardless of what the VW Group plans for its velocity ambasador, the render we're looking at gifts the 1,500 horsepower machine with a removable roof panel.Perhaps a mix between thereality and the Bugatti digital fantasy would also be possible. For instance, it shouldn't surprise one to come across an image portraying Emmanuel Macron inside the Bugatti Megalon - in case you're wondering about what lies behind the Megalon nameplate, we'll remind you the moniker was used for a recently-rendered Molsheim crossover.
The PDK wielder you're looking at was purportedly left barefoot over in a town called Stavnas, but this now seems to be an unimportant matter for the owner.That's because the (supposedly GT Silver) Neunelfer was reportedly stolen one day later. We can across the info via Autogespot , with a Facebook post talking about the theft having taken place on May 13/14.The post also mentions the email of the owner and, if you have details, you could be able to reach the man here: johan [at] heycom.se. The guy supposedly also dropped the VIN of the Zuffenhausen machine (WP0ZZZ99ZGS189886).We couldn't find any other info that verifies the crime described here, so we advise you to take the whole thing with the mandatory grain of salt brake dust.Speaking of which, we've only seen aftermarket-touched 991 GT3 RS models with steel brakes so far, but these images come to change that.Of course, one might wonder why the owner of such a Neunelfer would give up the PCCB (Porsche Carbon Ceramic Brakes) hardware for a set of steel brakes.As we explained when showing you such rear-engined fetishes, it all has to do with a track-biased wheel alignment that required 19-inch rollers to be fitted. And since the PCCB goodies would no longer fit inside the new wheels, slightly smaller steel brakes were installed. Getting past the fading resistance drawback, we'll mention this setup also helped reduce running costs. And, when you spend tons of time on the track, that's no small feat.
The U.S. plan to ban laptops from airliner cabins on flights originating in Europe is drawing increasing resistance from the European Union, a UK pilot union and business travelers. EU aviation authorities will meet this week to consider the proposed laptop ban. The issue became the center of a Washington political firestorm this week on reports that President Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian diplomats related to intelligence on terrorists plans to use laptops as explosive devices.

The Department of Homeland Security in March banned laptops in cabins of U.S.-bound flights originating in 50 cities, most in the Middle East. It has proposed expanding the ban to include European departure cities, but no effective date has been announced. The proposal hasnt been received warmly in Europe.

The British Airline Pilots Association said this week that banning laptops creates a catastrophic fire potential in aircraft baggage holds. In a statement released on May 14, BAPAs Steve Landells said, Given the risk of fire from these devices when they are damaged or they short circuit, an incident in the cabin would be spotted earlier and this would enable the crew to react quickly before any fire becomes uncontainable. If these devices are kept in the hold, the risk is that if a fire occurs the results can be catastrophic. Indeed, there have been two crashes where lithium batteries have been cited in the accident reports.

Landells added that the union doesnt doubt the security threats represented by laptops improvised as bombs, but it urged authorities to assess the additional fire risk before solving one problem by creating a worse one. Meanwhile, European governments planned to meet with DHS officials on Friday, worried that the ban will create logistical chaos on the worlds busiest transoceanic travel corridor. EU officials want to know if the proposed ban is in reaction to any specific threat, but DHS has said it is not. The head of CNAPS, a French security agency regulator, agreed that the initial implementation would be chaotic. You need a lot of time to inform them and a lot of time for it to enter peoples heads until it becomes a habit, said Alain Bauer. After a week of quite big difficulties, 95 percent of people will understand the practicalities, he added.

The Business Travelers Coalition is also protesting the ban. The organization said lost productivity is an issue, but the larger concern related to demand for business travel. Most organizations  corporations, universities, governments  will not allow employees to check laptops, most of which have sensitive information on them. IT chiefs and risk managers are very conservative and assume everything on a laptop is sensitive, such as emails, contacts, hiring, marketing and sales strategies, new product diagrams , said BTCs chairman, Kevin Mitchell in a letter to DHS. Simply put, the ripple effects of this could create an economic tsunami of the likes which terrorists are dreaming of, he added.

Other countries are reviewing policies on laptops in cabins. Canadian officials say they arent considering a laptop ban for now, but Australia is considering following the U.S. lead on laptop restrictions, according to ABC Online.
Several upcoming airshows in the U.S. and Canada have been canceled, following an announcement Monday evening that the Canadian Forces Snowbirds have temporarily suspended air show performances. The team made the announcement on its Facebook page, following an appearance at the Memphis (Tenn.) Airshow. A reduced training period hampered by poor weather which continued into the show season, resulted in numerous canceled practices, said Major Patrick Gobeil, Snowbirds team lead, in the Facebook post. As a result, more training is required before the Snowbirds resume the 2017 schedule. The team typically completes about 20 practices during spring training, but this year completed only 13. The grounding is expected to continue through at least June 4.

The 2017 Rochester (N.Y.) International Airshow has been cancelled, as well as the Airshow YQG in Windsor, Ontario. Military performers, and particularly the demonstration teams like the Snowbirds,are the main draws of a show, Windsor airshow director Paul McCann told CBC News. When theyre not able to participate, the financial impact is significant. The Rhode Island National Guard Airshow in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, will go on without the Snowbirds. Appearances in Fort Erie, Ontario; Whiteman, Missouri; and Duluth, Minnesota, also are cancelled. The team has returned to their home base at CFB Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and will return to the air show circuit once we have the consistency required for our dynamic nine-aircraft aerobatic performance, according to the Facebook post.
Toyota has long been rumored to have an interest in flight (see here and here for example) and recently they put some money into backing the Cartivator flying-car project, based in Japan. The investment is modest  about $375,000 over three years  but Cartivator is staffed by 15 young volunteer technicians, and the company says the money will go far to support work to accelerate engineering development to achieve CRMs aim to light the flame with a flying car at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic/Paralympic Opening Ceremony. Currently Cartivator is working to build a full-scale model of their design, which they have been working on for three years.

To realize the dream of a compact flying car is very difficult, the teams blog acknowledges, due to noise control, all-weather treatment, and security of absolute safety. Details about the technology are scanty, but an illustration shows a small one-seat vehicle, with the passenger riding in a semi-reclined position beneath a canopy, with a large front window. It has two wheels beneath the passenger seat, one small wheel in front, and four horizontal rotors arrayed at the four corners. The team hopes to have a production version available for sale to the public in 2023, then start mass production by 2040 for both the developed world and the developing countries. By 2050 they hope to achieve a world where anyone can fly in the sky anytime.

The recent Uber Elevate conference also set a goal of 2020 to have flying-taxi test projects up and running in both Dallas and Dubai.
Americans and Europeans are again riveted on intelligence leaks, cyber hacking and the latest surge of inward-looking fervor. In Beijing, though, the talk the last couple of days has been of globalization on a historic scale  the construction of a more than trillion-dollar global web of roads, ports, railroads and energy projects, all of them leading back to China.

The One Belt, One Road project would connect about 65% of the world's population and a quarter of its GDP, according to McKinsey, the consultant firm. If the project is realized as envisioned, much of world trade would be linked to Chinese economic strategy.

That may turn out fine for the US and the rest of the world  or it may not, since China's aim isn't the free movement of goods, the basis of the US-run trading system of the last half-century. "It's about selling their stuff," a European official attending a two-day Beijing summit on the project told The Wall Street Journal.

Data: Xinhua; Map: Andrew Witherspoon / Axios

One Belt, One Road spans Asia, Europe, Africa, with links to South America. Since jettisoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership  the Obama administration's trade treaty meant to insinuate the US at the center of Asian trade  the Trump administration has offered no answer to One Belt, One Road.

Jonathan Hillman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me that China may be seriously over-extending itself  it may be financing transportation projects with no economic viability. But the project envisions decades of spending and the jobs related to it, while officials in Washington can barely agree on six months of spending. "The West is kind of consumed with its own domestic issues and in some cases paralyzed and politically fragmenting," Hillman said. "While that is going on, China is trying to connect with the world."
An Israeli official told BuzzFeed News that Trump sharing their intel with Russia is the country's "worst fears confirmed," likely due to the balance of powers between the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Iran, since Russia could share the new information with Iran, an adversary of Israel. What we know:

Israel was the source of the classified information Trump disclosed to Russian officials about an ISIS plot to carry laptops laced with explosives onto planes, per two Israeli officials. The NYT first reported Israel was the source Tuesday.

Israeli intel officers are "boiling mad and demanding answers" about whether to continue sharing intel with the U.S., one of the officials said.

U.S.-Israel trust hangs in the balance: One official said "I would not trust a partner who shared intelligence without coordinating it with us first."

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been special on a number of counts, and now tack intel onto that list; the officials report that Israel's intel-sharing with the U.S. is unique and that they don't have a setup like it with any other country. The upcoming decision on whether to continue intel-sharing is one to watch.
Israel was the source of classified information President Trump reportedly shared with top Russian officials last week, "a current and a former U.S. official familiar with how the U.S. obtained the information" told The New York Times. The officials told NYT that "at least some of the details" Trump shared regarding an ISIS-held plot came from the Israelis.

Why this matters: Trump is set to visit Israel  the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East  during his upcoming trip abroad. The claims that Trump passed classified information shared by Israel to Russia could be detrimental to the U.S./Israel relationship.

One big problem: This leaves the door open for Russia to share that information with its close ally Iran  one of Israel's biggest adversaries, as the NYT points out.

Don't forget: When Washington Post broke the news, they noted their decision to withhold "most plot details," due to the sensitivity of the intelligence, noting that it had not even been shared with key allies:

"The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State."

Previous concerns: According to reports in Israeli media, U.S. officials had warned Israeli intelligence against sharing sensitive intelligence with the Trump administration due, as the NYT puts it, to "Mr. Trump's openness" Vladimir Putin.

Update: NBC News has confirmed the NYT report.
After the Washington Post posted its bombshell that President Trump "revealed highly classified ['code-word'] information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week," the White House issued a series of carefully worded denials  "playing word games," according to Greg Miller, one of the Post authors, along with Greg Jaffe.

Why it matters: Several national-security experts told me that lives could well be lost as a result of an ISIS mole hunt that's sure to follow. And a key ally (the name of the country was withheld by the Post at the White House's request, but it's apparently in the Middle East) may deny future intelligence as a result of the episode.

All this as Trump is about to head out on his first international trip, including stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

I talked to several White House officials last night, and their denials hinge on the argument that the president has broad authority to declassify, so whatever he says is by definition unclassified.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who was in the meeting with the Russians, said in the White House driveway: "At no time ... were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

But the report didn't say they were. The Post's Aaron Blake reads between the lines: "[T]he report states clearly only that Trump discussed an Islamic State plot and the city where the plot was detected by an intelligence-gathering partner. Officials worried that this information could lead to the discovery of the methods and sources involved, but it didn't say Trump discussed them."

Be smart: what the disclosure tells us about President Trump:

This is the price of inexperience . A top Obama national-security official told me: "He just didn't know any better. It's not his background. I don't think there was any malicious intent  it's not the world he comes from."

. A top Obama national-security official told me: "He just didn't know any better. It's not his background. I don't think there was any malicious intent  it's not the world he comes from." He isn't learning fast enough on the job. A Republican very close to the West Wing said: "The president has no context for operating in the environment he's currently in  as head of state and head of government of the most powerful enterprise in all of history. And because he has no context, he's not good at compartmentalizing information."

A Republican very close to the West Wing said: "The president has no context for operating in the environment he's currently in  as head of state and head of government of the most powerful enterprise in all of history. And because he has no context, he's not good at compartmentalizing information." It's illuminating about how he thinks of Russia: He wasn't on his guard, wary that Russia can be an adversary with interests that differ notably from those of the U.S.

how he thinks of Russia: He wasn't on his guard, wary that Russia can be an adversary with interests that differ notably from those of the U.S. He's super-loose at high-stakes moments. Allied governments tell us of shocking asides he makes in meetings. One West Wing visitor told me: "He just rambles. ... He doesn't care."

at high-stakes moments. Allied governments tell us of shocking asides he makes in meetings. One West Wing visitor told me: "He just rambles. ... He doesn't care." He has trouble putting together two good days. Some of his friends tell me they'd now settle for one.

Read next: The White House response, a timeline.
President Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in an Oval Office meeting last week, according to a Washington Post report since confirmed by the New York Times, Buzzfeed News and CNN.

What Trump reportedly said: After "boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat" he described a specific ISIS plot and the city where it was detected.

The potential consequences: The intelligence-sharing system through which the U.S. learned of the plot is incredibly sensitive, and could now be at risk.

What the administration says: National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster called the Post's report "false" but did not deny its key claims. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a similarly incomplete denial.

Complete coverage: timeline of WH response, the incomplete denials, GOP reaction, Dem reaction, and Trump on classified leaks.

The Post pushes back: Greg Miller, one of the reporters who broke the story, accused the White House of "playing word games" in its denial, and National Editor Scott Wilson tweeted that McMaster "had the opportunity to call the story 'false' before we published it (we quoted him on the record.) He did not."

Key excerpts

Trump in the meeting , per an official: "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day."

, per an official: "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day." Another U.S. official to the Post: "Russia could identify our sources or techniques. I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."

"Russia could identify our sources or techniques. I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out." An official to Buzzfeed: "It's far worse than what has already been reported."

"It's far worse than what has already been reported." NYT: "A Middle Eastern ally that closely guards its own secrets provided the information, which was considered so sensitive that American officials did not share it widely within the United States government or pass it on to other allies."

A question of intent

A White House adviser tells Politico: "He doesn't really know any boundaries. He doesn't think in those terms. He doesn't sometimes realize the implications of what he's saying. I don't think it was his intention in any way to share any classified information. He wouldn't want to do that."

"He doesn't really know any boundaries. He doesn't think in those terms. He doesn't sometimes realize the implications of what he's saying. I don't think it was his intention in any way to share any classified information. He wouldn't want to do that." Per Lawfare Blog, "what Trump thought he was doing might well inflect whether we should see this as an act of carelessness, an act of carelessness bordering on treachery, or an act of judgment (even if misjudgment) of the sort we elect presidents to make."

Insights and reactions:

Republican Sen. Bob Corker: "The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order.Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening. To compromise a source is something that you just don't do."

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner: "A slap in the face to the intel community."

"A slap in the face to the intel community." NYT's Maggie Haberman: "Trump likes to show off his office toys. This is the intel equivalent of Trump showing ppl Shaq's shoe at Trump Tower."

"Trump likes to show off his office toys. This is the intel equivalent of Trump showing ppl Shaq's shoe at Trump Tower." NYT's Glenn Thrush: "Reported fact-chain: 1) Comey requests more $ for Russia probe 2) Trump cans Comey 3) Trump invites Russians to Oval, divulges state secrets."

Looking ahead: Trump departs Friday for his first foreign trip, beginning in the Middle East, and meets with Turkish President Erdogan Tuesday. Both events will put additional strains on a White House that is clearly in damage control mode.

People are paying attention:
President Trump tweeted Tuesday morning defending himself from the Washington Post's report stating Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Secretary Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in an Oval Office meeting last week.

Roughly 30 minutes earlier: The AP reported that a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman denied reports that Trump shared classified information with the Kremlin's senior officials.
As the aftershocks from the Washington Post report that President Trump shared classified information with the Russians reverberate through Washington, the White House is insisting that Trump's actions were "wholly appropriate," and more details are emerging about what exactly was disclosed.

The latest:

The New York times reported that Israel was the source of the intelligence, with Israeli intel officials confirming that to Buzzfeed News and describing the disclosure as their "worst fears confirmed."

The information was related to an ISIS plot to bomb U.S.-bound flights, per Buzzfeed

Trump's position: "We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible."

Full coverage: Report: Israel was source, Israel outraged by disclosure, Trump speaks, Dems react, Spicer dodges, CIA to brief, Europe concerned, How media covered it.

What McMaster did and didn't say when briefing reporters

Was the intel classified? Didn't answer.

When did Trump decide to share the intel? On the fly during the meeting.

Why did he do it? To expand the anti-ISIS fight and protect U.S. national security.

Did Trump know who the source of the intel was? No.

Does he stand by denial of Washington Post report? Yes, because "premise" was false.

Point, counterpoint

McMaster implied Trump revealed the city the tip came from, a key aspect of the Post's reporting, but said "it was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting."

the tip came from, a key aspect of the Post's reporting, but said "it was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting." CNN's Jake Tapper says CNN had the name of the city previously but was urged not to report it: "By reporting the city's name, Trump administration officials insisted, that would tip off American adversaries about sources and methods used to gather the intelligence. It would, they insisted, get people killed."

Highlights from Sean Spicer's briefing

Claimed the tip regarded a common threat: "Why wouldn't we want to share a common threat?"

"Why wouldn't we want to share a common threat?" On leaks to press: "What has occurred here... is frankly dangerous. It undermines our national security."

The pattern

Some revealing excerpts from the NYT's Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush:

"There is a fear among some of Mr. Trump's senior advisers about leaving him alone in meetings with foreign leaders out of concern he might speak out of turn. General McMaster, in particular, has tried to insert caveats or gentle corrections into conversations when he believes the president is straying off topic or onto boggy diplomatic ground Mr. Trump has referred to him as 'a pain.'"

"A dozen of Mr. Trump's aides and associates spoke candidly, in a way they were unwilling to do just weeks ago, about the damage that was being done to the administration's standing and the fatigue that was setting in after months of having to defend the president's missteps, Twitter posts and unpredictable actions."

"Three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling  and honest  defense of the president: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of printed briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence gathering that would do harm to United States allies."

The consequences
The president's decision to "share" intel with Russia is landing with a thud in Europe:

The big story: A "senior European intelligence official" told the AP that his country, which was not identified, could stop sharing information with the U.S. to protect its sources.

A "senior European intelligence official" told the AP that his country, which was not identified, could stop sharing information with the U.S. to protect its sources. One named quote: German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka told the AP it would be "highly worrying" if the story was true, adding such behavior would make Trump "a security risk for the entire world."

German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka told the AP it would be "highly worrying" if the story was true, adding such behavior would make Trump "a security risk for the entire world." Why it matters: The U.S. regularly shares and receives classified security information with European countries. Jeopardizing those relationship could long outlast the Trump administration.

Related: Get up to speed fast on Trump's Russia sharing
The Yerkir Tsirani party led by opposition parliamentarian Zaruhi Postanjian has asked the Central Election Commission (CEC) to annul the results of the Sunday municipal elections in Yerevan, claiming large-scale fraud and violations, including vote buying, by the ruling party.

Yerkir Tsirani, which was founded only weeks before the elections, managed to poll nearly 8 percent of the vote, entitling it to forming a minority five-member faction in the 65-seat Council of Elders of the Armenian capital.

Another opposition force  the Yelk alliance  gained 21 percent of the vote in the elections won by the ruling Republican Party of Armenia and its incumbent mayor Taron Markarian by a landslide (over 71 percent).

In its application to the CEC, Yerkir Tsirani claimed large-scale fraud implemented by the HHK with the assistance of police officers that included vote buying, guidance of voters, as well as violence against Postanjian and her proxy.

Postanjian, who ran for mayor in the elections, personally went to one of HHK campaign offices located in Markarians home district of Avan on the day of the voting to expose what she claimed was a vote buying scheme. Along with her daughter, Lilit Drampian, who also acted as her proxy she was forced out of the HHK premises by police officers called in by ruling party activists.

In a statement released on Monday Postanjian claimed violence was used against her and her daughter, who suffered a concussion. She also deplored the lack of response from appropriate law-enforcement bodies to the incident.

Listing these and other violations observed during the elections, the opposition party also alleged that election-related documents kept at the safes at electoral precincts had been tampered with in favor of the HHK.

We demand that, based on Article 142 of the Electoral Code, the results of the elections be annulled, as the above-mentioned violations have had an impact on the outcome of the elections and cannot be redressed, the opposition party said.

The concerns stated by Yerkir Tsirani, Yelk and some other Armenian political and civic groups were echoed on Monday by local observers, who spoke about a wide range of violations, including pressure on voters, use of administrative resource, open ballot, guidance of voters, the presence of fake observers acting as ruling party proxies at polling stations, obstructions to the work of observers and even violence and threats against them, during a press conference in Yerevan.

HHK representatives have brushed aside the accusations, insisting that the few violations registered during the elections could not have any significant impact on the outcome of the vote that otherwise represented a serious step forward in comparison with the previous municipal polls.

CEC Chairman Tigran Mukuchian also suggested that separate incidents and violations reported during the vote could not overshadow the electoral process as a whole and that the process took place in accordance with the requirements of the Electoral Code.
16 May 2017 11:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Azerbaijani Armed Forces destroyed an Osa surface-to-air missile system of the Armenian Armed Forces on May 15, said Azerbaijans Defense Ministry.

Noting that Armenia continues to carry out provocations in order to once again escalate the situation on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Ministry said that an Osa surface-to-air missile system, belonging to the Armenian Air Defense Forces, was taken to a new position on the frontline in the Fuzuli-Khojavand direction and an attempt was made to take control over airspace.

The Osa missile system, a re-supply vehicle and personnel of the Armenian Armed Forces were destroyed in order to eliminate the real threat to Azerbaijani aircraft and suppress the enemys activity.

An Osa surface-to-air missile system, the crew of which consists of five people, is capable of detecting air targets within a radius of 45 kilometers and destroying them at a distance of nine kilometers.

The Armenian side constantly breaches the ceasefire and resorts to attempts of sabotage against Azerbaijan. Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces, using large-caliber machine guns, have 122 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by 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.
16 May 2017 12:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is ready to contribute to the formation and functioning of the Food Safety Agency in Azerbaijan.



FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia Vladimir Rakhmanin announced about this in an exclusive interview to Trend.



I am pleased that the government of Azerbaijan has decided to create a Food Safety Agency  through a presidential decree based on the preparatory work of the Food Safety Commission  as of January 2018, he noted.



Rakhmanin pointed out that this is a critical and positive decision taken by the government to ensure efficient and effective food safety system in an area that lies at the core of FAOs mandate.



Establishment of this agency will yield improved food safety standards in the country and support the export capacity of Azerbaijan, he added.

FAO is ready to support the formation and functioning of the Food Safety Agency by strengthening national food control regulatory frameworks and enhancing Azerbaijans participation in the Codex Alimentarius Commission, said Rakhmanin.



Support can take the form of independent scientific advice to support the standard-setting work of Codex; enhancing food safety management along the food chain to prevent diseases and trade disruptions; and promoting food safety emergency preparedness to build resilient agrifood chains, he explained.

Rakhmanin noted that FAO also develops online platforms for global networking, databases for information sharing, and tools to support food safety management, from which Azerbaijan can benefit.



This February, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve food safety system in the country.

To ensure the implementation of state control for all stages of food production in Azerbaijan, Food Safety Agency will be created, according to the decree.

The partnership between Azerbaijan and FAO has steadily grown over the past two decades. Since last year, this partnership has entered into a new phase through signing agreements on FAO-Azerbaijan Partnership Programme and Establishment of FAO Partnership and Liaison Office in Baku.

FAOs cooperation with Azerbaijan is shaped by the 2016-2020 Country Programming Framework (CPF) which sets 6 priority areas including animal health and plant protection; supporting investments in agriculture; capacity development; strengthening the policy and institutional framework; improved crop, fisheries and livestock production; and sustainable, equitable and efficient forestry; land and water resource management. These are the areas where FAO and Azerbaijan plan their joint initiatives.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2017 10:49 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

The 30th International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) World Ports Conference will be held in Azerbaijan.

A delegation of Baku International Sea Trade Port CJSC attended the conference, which was held in Bali, Indonesia, Azertac reported.

CEO of Indonesia Port Corporation Elvyn G. Masassya and IAPH President Santiago Garcia Mila addressed the solemn opening ceremony of the conference.

The conference also featured the opening an international exhibition. Nearly 1,000 conference participants viewed the stand of the Port of Baku here. The event was followed by sessions.

Director-General of Port of Baku Taleh Ziyadov made a presentation on "Azerbaijan's grand hub vision: implications for connectivity in Eurasia".

He read out First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva`s message of greetings to conference participants.

Further, officials watched short promotional film on Azerbaijan and Port of Baku.

The event also saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Port of Baku and Indonesia's Port Corporation.

The International Association of Ports and Harbors was established in 1955 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Its annual conferences feature discussions on important issues that include: port stability and security, the development of new port facilities, the impact of environmental change, information technologies and port operations. The 2015 annual conference was held in Hamburg, and Bali (Indonesia) is the venue for 2017.

The IAPH has more than 300 members from 88 countries, and Baku International Sea Trade Port has been a full member since 2010.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2017 13:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A Memorandum of Understanding in the Field of Technical Regulation, Metrology, Standardization and Conformity Assessment was signed between Azerbaijan and China in Beijing on May 15.

The document was signed by State Committee head Ramiz Hasanov and Vice Minister of the Chinese General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Wu Qinghai.

Prior to signing ceremony, Hasanov and Chinghai hold a meeting, where the sides agreed on export of environmentally friendly agricultural products to China and mutual recognition of quality infrastructure systems.



Chine will recognize the certificates issued for products manufactured in Azerbaijan and strengthen cooperation with accredited certification bodies, according to mutual agreement. In addition, China will support Azerbaijan in its desire to join international organizations that carry out activities in the field of accreditation.

Then the parties signed a MoU, which is aimed to remove technical obstacles in trade between the two countries and strengthen economic ties, as well as enhance the potential of non-oil exports of Azerbaijan.

Under the document, the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan will develop cooperation with the Main Directorate of China on Supervision, Quality Inspection and Quarantine in the areas of technical regulation, metrology, standardization and conformity assessment, as well as appropriate measures will be taken to ensure unimpeded export of Azerbaijani products to Chinese market.

The Chinese market is new for Azerbaijan. The national production entered the Chinese market just about a year ago, and experts say that the dynamics is good enough.

Last year, the country sent trade missions to China (Hong Kong and Guangzhou), where certain agreements had been reached.

The country reached an agreement on the wine supply to China and delivered the first batch of supplies earlier this year. Under the deal, Azerbaijan will supply some 500,000 bottles of wine to the world's second-largest economy.

Beijing held international forum "One belt - one way" within the framework of the economic development strategy on May 13-15.

Hasanov also participated in the forum as part of the Azerbaijani delegation. In total, the event was attended by the heads of state and government of 29 countries, representatives of the public and private sector from 110 countries, investors, and representatives of more than 60 international organizations.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
16 May 2017 13:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

A delegation headed by Azerbaijan Railways chairman Javid Gurbanov, who was in Beijing to participate in the international forum within the framework of the One belt - one way strategy, met with Deputy Head of the Commercial department of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Kun Guohua, and Deputy Head of the state the border crossing point of this region Joo Dong.



During the meeting the sides expressed satisfaction with the successful development of relations between Azerbaijan and China in all spheres. They noted that the agreements reached during the state visit of President Ilham Aliyev to China in 2015 contributed to deepening cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

Then, a MoU on the joint promotion of the Economic belt of the Silk Road was signed, which further strengthened the relations between the two countries.

One of the main directions of cooperation, which are of great interest to both parties, is the transport sphere, including railway transport and freight traffic.

Officials of the Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region, which is of great importance in China's cargo transportation, expressed a desire to take advantage of the transport and logistics capabilities of Azerbaijan, which enjoy an advantageous geographical location. They noted that they can use the transport corridors that pass through Azerbaijan to transport goods produced in the northern part of China, to Eastern Europe, to the Middle East, including Turkey and Georgia.

Javid Grubanov informed in detail the officials of the Chinese Autonomous Region about the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, the transport and logistics capabilities of Azerbaijan, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which will provide the shortest railway connection between Europe and Asia, the North-South transport corridor.

He noted that Azerbaijan can make a great contribution to the implementation of the China Economic Silk Road Initiative, which provides for deepening economic relations between the countries located on the historical Silk Road.

Gurbanov also noted that Azerbaijan is ready to render any assistance to the Chinese side to transport cargo through Azerbaijan and invited the delegation of Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region to pay a visit to Azerbaijan to discuss the related issues.

Economic ties between Azerbaijan and China play a large role in the bilateral political relationships. The two share a common interest in boosting the collaboration and partnership, as the rapid rise of China and Azerbaijan, and the growing integration between them, has a clear boost for regional projects.

The Great Silk Road is a general name of a caravan road, which has been the main two-way trading bridge of East and West since III century BC up to now. The Great Silk Road starts in Japan and China stretches up to Europe cutting through India, Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Northern Africa including/connecting Indian Ocean, Chinese sea, Japanese sea, Red sea, Caspian sea, Black sea, Azov Sea and Mediterranean sea.

Azerbaijan, a modern south Caucasus country on the Caspian Sea - rich in oil and natural resources - is a key link in the Silk Road Economic Belt, the Chinese vision for a route connecting Asia, Europe and the rest of the world.

Azerbaijan actively participates in the restoration of the Great Silk Road having in view its geographical and strategic position and economic demand. The Great Silk Road was not only a means of trade between the East and the West, but an important means for the exchange of cultural values. The active cooperation between China and Azerbaijan strongly contributes to the realization of the Great Silk road program.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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16 May 2017 14:32 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

The total volume of investments in fixed assets from all financial sources for the development of economic and social spheres in Azerbaijan amounted to 4.5 billion manats ($2.6 billion) for January-April, which is 3.5 percent less than the same period last year.

The State Statistics Committee reported that about 3 billion manats ($1.8 billion) was invested in the oil sector, 1.5 billion manats ($881 million) - in the non-oil sector.

The volume of direct investment in construction and installation works in January-April amounted to 72.7 percent. Of the total volume 83.9 percent was invested in construction of production facilities, in facilities in the service sector - 11.2 percent, 4.9 percent accounted for the construction of residential buildings with a total area of 506.5 m2.

Some 36.5 percent of the total volume of investments fell on domestic financial sources.

Of the total amount invested in fixed assets, 72.8 percent was financed by enterprises and organizations, 10.8 percent - bank loans, 10.3 percent - budgetary funds, 4.4 percent - personal funds of the population, 1.2 percent - funds of off-budget funds, 0.5 percent - other funds.

In late 2016, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree endorsing Strategic Road Maps for the National Economy and Main Economic Sectors, which outlined the medium- and long-term goals for the development of the economy and eleven key sectors.

The strategic road maps cover almost all sectors of the economy, including, development of the oil and gas industry, the manufacture and processing of agricultural products, the manufacture of small and medium entrepreneurship-level consumer goods, development of heavy industry and machinery, tourism, logistics and trade, vocational education and training, financial services, communication and information technologies and utilities.

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16 May 2017 15:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), within the next stage of the recovery process, has started voluntary restructuring of liabilities to foreign creditors, as a result of which international rating agencies Fitch and Moody's revised the rating of the IBA.

Fitch assigned the Bank a CCC rating, and Moody's rating was revised to Caa3.

IBA Board Chairman Khalid Ahadov, commenting on the decision of international rating agencies, noted that this is consistent with international practice.

"This is a normal practice and a decision that is quite expected for us. Similar cases occur in the practice of other financial structures that have passed through a similar process. In accordance with the methodology of rating agencies, the ratings of financial structures that are in the process of restructuring liabilities are reduced for a short period of time. Upon completion of the process aimed at improving the financial performance of the institution, the ratings are re-established. The downgrade of the IBA ratings is also temporary, " the Chairman said.

In July 2015, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the measures for rehabilitation related to the preparations for privatizing the state-owned shares of the International Bank of Azerbaijan JSC.

The shortcomings in the management, investment and loan policy of the IBA, as well as financing of less efficient, risky investment projects worsened the Bank's financial state, caused increase in the share of distressed assets and reduced its liquidity.

The restructuring plan contemplates a restructuring process to be effected through an exchange of IBAs senior and junior foreign currency obligations for direct sovereign obligations of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Pending the implementation of the planned restructuring process, and to ensure equal treatment of all affected creditors, IBA has suspended payments of principal and interest with respect to all obligations to be included in the operation (other than interest under trade finance facilities).

The process will lead to a meeting of all creditors affected by the restructuring plan. If approved by two-thirds of the affected creditors by value the plan will be accepted and become binding on all of them.

The IBA has been operating since 1992 and is one of the country's two state banks.

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16 May 2017 16:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan and Bulgaria discussed measures to increase the bilateral tourist flow. The discussions were held during a meeting of Bulgarian Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova with Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mammadguliyev, Trend reported.

Among the topics discussed were measures to facilitate the visa regime. Further, both sides agreed to work on developing a program for using the opportunities of Bulgarian SPA and sanatorium products by Azerbaijani citizens.

Angelkova informed Mammadguliyev that during the 105th session of the UN World Tourism Organization in Madrid, she held a conversation with her counterpart, Culture and Tourism Minister of Azerbaijan Abulfas Garayev, and already sent an invitation to the Minister to visit Bulgaria.

In turn, Mammadguliyev reminded that this year Bulgaria and Azerbaijan celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries, and joint events maybe held in this regard.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in June 1992 and the embassy of Bulgaria in Azerbaijan was opened in December 1999.

Intergovernmental commission on commercial and economic and scientific technical cooperation between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria was established in 1995.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria over the past five years amounted to about $ 1billion.

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16 May 2017 17:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijans Deputy Agriculture Minister Ilham Guliyev announced that a three-fold increase is expected in silk production in the country by late 2017.

Guliyev, addressing a press conference dedicated to the opening of the 23rd Azerbaijan International Food Industry Exhibition, said that currently, agricultural production in Azerbaijan is rapidly growing.

The biggest growth is observed in cotton growing, sericulture, tobacco growing, grain production and other sectors of agriculture, according to him.

Azerbaijan produced only 236 kilograms of silk, while in 2016 this figure amounted to 71 tons, Guliyev said, adding that according to estimates, the volume of silk production in 2017 will increase by 2-3 times.

The cocoons imported to the country were distributed among 3,013 producers, living in 739 villages in 31regions of the country, Guliyev said. This will allow to improve material state of more than 3,000 families. If on average each family will harvest 200-300 kilograms of silk, then in total the monthly earnings of one family will amount to 1800-2700 manats.

This, as Guliyev said, also applies to the field of cotton growing, tobacco growing, and other areas of agriculture.

In late 2016, President Ilham Aliyev ordered on state support of silk manufacturing. Under the Order, the producers are subsidized for each kilogram of cocoons taken by the enterprises on processing cocoons and silk production.

The history of sericulture in Azerbaijan dates back to almost fifteen hundred years and has very rich history.

When it comes to silk in Azerbaijan, the first place that comes to mind is ancient city of Sheki, which once considered the largest center for the production of silk and silk farming in the Middle Ages. Delicate fabrics, beautiful clothes, and colorful kelagayis (silk headscarf) manufactured by Sheki craftsmen from raw silk, were exported to foreign countries, so the city became famous for its silk throughout the world.

In the Soviet period, Azerbaijan ranked second after Uzbekistan for the production of silk cocoon, but was considered first in fiber quality. The country annually produced 7,800 tons of raw cocoons in 1960-1970.

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16 May 2017 17:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan and China discussed expansion of the cooperation in the ICT sphere.

Azerbaijans Economy Ministry reported that the discussions were held as part of the meeting of Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev with Huaweis President for Central Asia and Caucasus Region, James Chen that took place during the Azerbaijani delegations visit to China.

The sides considered cooperation in the ICT sphere and noted that the economic relations between Azerbaijan and China continue to develop.

As part of the visit, Mustafayev also met with Vice-President of CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd Chen Yufang, where the sides discussed the prospects of development of cooperation.

The ICT sector is considered to be one of the crucial spheres for the further development of the economy and an integral part of the economic and political reforms which are currently implemented in Azerbaijan.

The country, which is a regional leader in the ICT sector, intends to expand its international cooperation to further develop the sector. The income obtained in the sector in Azerbaijan is projected to hit $9 billion by 2020.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and China amounted to $395.56 million in January-April 2017, some $183.79 million of which accounted for the export to China.

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, in high technology and tourism.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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16 May 2017 17:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Heavy rains did not damage agricultural production in Azerbaijan, said Deputy Agriculture Minister Ilham Guliyev said at a press conference dedicated to the opening of the 23rd Azerbaijan International Food Industry Exhibition.

Rainy weather is a positive factor for the development of production in such sectors as cereals, cotton growing and in general for the development of crop production, according to him.

"According to our data, downpour and hail in some mountain regions of Azerbaijan did not cause damage to the production of agricultural products. Of course, we want natural cataclysms in general not to damage the agricultural sector. As for cloud seeders, there are certain reasons why this method can not be used, this is primarily due to the fact that Azerbaijan is currently in a state of war, Guliyev said.

WorldFood Azerbaijan 2017, one of the most important and significant events in the regions food industry, will take place from 17-19 May at Baku Expo Center. Over the years, the exhibition has established itself as a leading event in the Caspian regions food industry. WorldFood Azerbaijan provides a unique impetus for developing the food industry and is rated in terms of the number and quality of food industry professionals visiting.

WorldFood Azerbaijan supported by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) and National Confederation of The Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan Republic (AEC). The organisers of WorldFood Azerbaijan are Iteca Caspian and ITE Group.

A number of leading companies from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Russia, Spain and other countries will take part in the annual exhibition.

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16 May 2017 12:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Silkway Fashion Festival will be held in the ancient part of Baku  the Old City on May 24-26.

The festival will be held as part of Azerbaijan Fashion Week, Trend Life reported. The project aims to increase the interest of Baku residents and city's guests to Azerbaijan's national values.

This will be the first such kind of festival in Baku.

The festival in the Old City will feature "Pet Show" with participation of famous fashion figures and their lovely pets.

The festival is co-organized by the Administration of State Historical-Architectural Reserve "Icherisheher" and Azerbaijan Fashion Week.

Azerbaijan Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2017-2018 will be held in Baku on May 23-27.

AFW showroom will be opened at Fairmont Baku Hotel where guests will get a chance to buy trendy fashion style clothes presented at the shows.

Tickets are available at website iticket.az

For more information, please contact:

055 202 01 88

Website: www.afw.az

Azerbaijan Fashion Week is held twice a year in November and May. More than 40 designers from Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, France and Spain participated in last two seasons.

The main purpose of the Week is to popularize growing fashion industry in Azerbaijan and give an opportunity to young and talented designers to show their work to the world. It's a place that gathers local and international buyers, press and fashion critics together.

Media partners of the event are Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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16 May 2017 13:55 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

May 18 will mark the 25th anniversary of occupation of the Lachin region, an important Azerbaijani strategic settlement, by the Armenian armed forces.

Lachin, considered a fortress gate for Azerbaijan, was seized by the Armenian armed forces on May 18, 1992.

The Lachin region included 121 villages with a total area of 1,835 square km. More than 300 military men and civilians were killed or went missing during Lachin's occupation, and 103 people were wounded or disabled. 18 Azerbaijani children were killed, 225 were injured, and 31 lost both parents. Some 63,341 Azerbaijani citizens were driven out of their homes as a result of the occupation.

The Armenian invaders destroyed hundreds cultural facilities and dozens settlements, villages and historical monuments.

Azerbaijan Carpet Museum will host an event devoted to the 25th anniversary of occupation of Lachin region on May 16.

The event entitled "Lachin, what's left of you" is supported by the Shusha Branch of Azerbaijan Carpet Museum.

The head of department for cultural institutions and folk art at Azerbaijans Ministry of Culture and Tourism ,Fikrat Babayev, the director of Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, Chairman of the ICOM Azerbaijan, Shirin Melikova, the head of the Social Studies department at Azerbaijan Technical University, Shikar Gasimov, director of Lachin Museum of History and Geography Turkana Nuruyeva, Chairman of the public association on Protection of historical and cultural monuments in the occupied territories, Faig Ismailov will speak at the conference.

The winner of "International mugham contest 2011" Ehtiram Huseynov and Elshad Abbas will perform at the event.

The video about Lachin region will be also presented to the guests.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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Wisconsin regulators are asking a La Crosse judge to reconsider his decision to halt work on a 7-mile stretch of a controversial high-voltage power line between La Crosse and Madison.

The town of Holland had asked the court to overturn the Wisconsin Public Service Commissions approval of the Badger-Coulee transmission line, arguing that the panel responsible for protecting utility consumers erred when it authorized a consortium of utility companies to build the nearly $580 million project.

The town also challenged the PSCs decision to route the line along the Hwy. 53 corridor on separate poles across the highway from another high-voltage line.

Judge Todd Bjerke denied the towns primary challenge but found the PSC failed to provide a rational basis for the routing and ordered construction of the La Crosse County portion stopped while the commission re-evalutes the route.

Attorneys for the PSC filed a motion appealing Bjerkes May 1 order, arguing it was based on misunderstandings of the facts and of his authority.

A joint venture of American Transmission Co. and several regional utility companies, including La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative, the 180-mile line will run between the Madison suburbs and Holmen, where it will connect to another high-voltage line, CapX2020, that runs across Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

The owners say the lines will make the electric grid more reliable and provide a pipeline between remote locations with strong wind resources with population centers like Madison and Milwaukee where the energy is needed. The cost will be shared by customers in 15 Midwestern states and one Canadian province.

The town argued that Badger-Coulee is not necessary to keep the lights on in western Wisconsin.

While deferring to the PSCs decision on need, Bjerke said the PSCs record supporting its decision was incomplete, inaccurate, defective and/or false in part because the PSC did not provide its environmental impact studies.

PSC attorneys said they did submit the documents, which they listed on a 45-page affidavit submitted to the court.

Commission attorneys also argue that Bjerke overstepped his authority when he ordered work stopped and that he erred in his review of the siting decision.

The PSC says Bjerkes order will harm the state because the project is expected to mitigate expected overloads on the existing grid between now and 2023.

ATC, which is spearheading the project, began pre-construction work on the La Crosse County portion of the line in April. The southernmost segment, in Dane County, is completed, while ATC has yet to secure the necessary federal wetland permits needed for much of the rest of the construction.

A company spokesperson said its not clear whether the injunction would delay completion of the line, slated for late 2018.

Bjerke has scheduled a hearing for May 24.
16 May 2017 14:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The genocide in Azerbaijan's occupied town Khojaly is one of the most terrible massacres against innocent people in the history of mankind. This tragedy can be considered the most horrible example of Armenian vandalism against Azerbaijani people.

Two months ago, Russian historian and political analyst Oleg Kuznetsov prepared a petition addressed to the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation on recognition of the Khojaly tragedy as genocide. To date, almost 20,000 people have signed the petition.

Kuznetsov, talking to Day.Az, said that every fifth person, who read the petition, signed it  that means that almost 100,000 people around the world have read the information about the Khojaly genocide from the petition.

He reminded that the petition aims to get the attention of the Russian Parliament to this issue and initiate parliamentary hearings on the tragedy in Khojaly. Therefore, it is necessary to get sufficient public support and many signatures for the petition.

The expert noted that hearings in State Duma can be initiated by one of the Russian MPs-members of the inter-parliamentary working group consisting of the MPs of the Russian and Azerbaijani parliaments.

Kuznetsov assumed that 100,000 votes would be sufficient to initiate hearing in the State Duma.

The youth and intelligentsia are the two social forces, on which we must rely, if we want the campaign for the recognition of the Khojaly genocide by the Russian Parliament to be successful, Kuznetsov said, adding that it is necessary to use the potential of universities for this purpose.

The petition is accessible at http://bit.ly/2n0cOY3

Late into the night of February 25, 1992, Khojaly came under intensive fire from the towns of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by Armenian armed forces. The Armenian forces, supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment, completed the surrounding of the town already isolated due to ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population of the neighboring regions. The joint forces occupied the town, which was ruined by heavy artillery shelling.

Of 3,000 people who were in the town of Khojaly at the moment of the Armenian attack 613 were killed, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elders. 487 people were severely wounded, including 76 children. 1,275 people were captured and subjected to unprecedented torture, the fate of 197 people still remains unknown. Eight families were totally annihilated, 130 children lost one and 25 lost both parents.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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16 May 2017 14:46 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) will meet on July 5-9 in Minsk for its 26th Annual Session, the OSCE PA reported on May 16.

With some 300 parliamentarians from North America, Europe and Asia expected to participate, the theme of this years Annual Session is Enhancing mutual trust and co-operation for peace and prosperity in the OSCE region.

The report of Swedish rapporteur Margareta Cederfelt that touches upon the issues of solving conflicts in the OSCE region, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, will also be read out and discussed during the Annual Session.

The report reflects the regret of the OSCE PA because of lack of progress towards the settlement of the conflict.

A return to the negotiation table by all parties is needed to avoid further military confrontation and de-escalate the situation. Participating States should refrain from using unilateral decision-making and violence that would hinder diplomatic negotiations and dialogue initiatives, the report stated.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 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 regions. 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 Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

The message by the OSCE PA noted that the Annual Session, consisting of several days of meetings featuring high-level speeches and debates, will culminate in the adoption of the Minsk Declaration. This political document will contain recommendations to national governments, parliaments and the international community in the fields of political affairs, security, economics, environment and human rights.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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16 May 2017 11:37 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev signed an order providing funding for the construction of Mehdiabad-Fatmayi-Goradil highway.

Under the presidential order, 1.8 million manats will be allocated from the State Budget to Azeravtoyol for the building of the highway, which connects three residential areas with a total population of 16,000.

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16 May 2017 15:16 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The foreign ministers of the EU member states discussed progress in the implementation of initiatives to strengthen the common defense policy of the EU and relations with the Eastern partners - Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia at the scheduled meeting on Monday.

The Foreign Ministers in Brussels discussed the prospects of the Eastern Partnership initiative, which includes above-mentioned countries, Sputnik news agency reported.

The common position of European diplomats is 'there will be partnership.' The European Union also outlined priority issues in relations with Baku, Minsk, Tbilisi, Kishenev, Kiev and Yerevan. They include economic development, public administration, communication, energy efficiency, mobility and people-to-people contacts.

In total, during this program, EU has allocated 3.2 billion euros to the Eastern Partnership member countries for the implementation of various development programs.

The sides promised to present a new vision at the development of the initiative at the ministerial meeting of the EU and the Eastern partners, which will be held in Luxembourg in June, as well as the summit of this project, which is expected to be held in Estonia in November.

Meanwhile, Belarus offers its platform for strengthening interconnections and convergence of integration in Central and Eastern Europe.

At the same time, Azerbaijan and the EU are expected to sign the new strategic partnership agreement in the near future. The new EU-Azerbaijan agreement on strategic partnership will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint initiative involving the EU, its member states and 6 eastern European partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

It is based on a commitment to the principles of international law and fundamental values - democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms. It also encompasses support for a market economy, sustainable development and good governance.

The EU and partner countries leaders meet every other year in Eastern Partnership Summits. The latest Eastern Partnership Summit Declaration, agreed in May 2015 in Riga, reviewed the cooperation and provided the direction for further joint action.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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16 May 2017 17:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans Parliament held next plenary session on May 16, and discussed 10 issues.

The MPs considered amendments to the Urban Planning and Construction Code, Administrative Offences Code, as well as Laws "On Passports", "On Telecommunications", "On freedom of religion, On Tobacco use and more.

The Parliament adopted the Law On Restriction of the Use of Tobacco Products. The bill specifies places where smoking cigarettes is prohibited.

To protect the environment and prevent diseases caused by tobacco smoking, the relevant executive authority will be able to prohibit smoking in certain areas, buildings and facilities, to change tax and pricing policies to reduce the demand for tobacco products, prohibit or restrict the sale and tobacco advertising, etc.

The Parliament also reduced the duration of the construction permit through adopting changes to the law on Urban Planning and Construction Code. The changes will greatly simplify urban planning standards.

Moreover, customers will be able to get initial information about construction parameters by applying to the relevant authorities before building a facility. Customers should get responses to these requests within 10 days.
16 May 2017 11:58 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Crude prices rose on May 16 following the announcement that Russia and Saudi Arabia want to extend oil production cuts through the first quarter of 2018, in a move the two major producers say would support the market price.

On NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange) cost of the US Light crude oil increased $0.19 to stand at $49.04. Price of the Brent crude oil at the London ICE (Intercontinental Exchange Futures) rose $0.18 to trade at $52.

The price of a barrel of Azeri Light crude oil increased $1.49 to stand at $53.11 on the world markets.

Both countries want to extend the deal, which encompasses both nations in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC countries like Russia.

The Russian side said that extending the cuts through March 31, 2018, would show producers determination to ensure stability, predictability and incremental development of the market.

Russia and Saudi Arabia will now hold consultations with other producers with the aim of achieving complete consensus on the extended production cuts before the scheduled OPEC meeting May 25 in Vienna.

In December 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached their first deal since 2001 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1.

Oil producers have been trying to boost prices, as crude futures trade around $50 a barrel, less than half their level from early 2014, though above the low of below $30 in early 2015.

The joint announcement by Russia and Saudi Arabia supported an earlier statement made by major producers Iraq and Algeria, which argued for extending the cuts through the end of the year. Kuwait's oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Tuesday that his country supported the Saudi/Russian initiative. Azerbaijan also supports prolonging the supply curbs, said earlier Energy Minister Natig Aliyev.

"The agreement needs to be extended as we will not reach the desired inventory level by end of June," said Khalid Al Falih, Saudi Arabias energy minister, said during the event with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak. "Therefore, we came to the conclusion that ending [the deal] will probably be better by the end of first quarter 2018."

Russias president Vladimir Putin said later on the same day that its right that the decision was made not for two, three, four months but for nine months.

"That is the most important condition for stability," he said at a separate press conference in Beijing. Theres a "good chance" that Russia, a non-OPEC nation, will extend its cooperation with the organization because Saudi Arabia wants price stability and is complying with its obligations in the deal.

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16 May 2017 13:28 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Azerbaijan is a reliable partner of Europe in ensuring the energy supplies and their diversification, Bulgarian Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said at a conference devoted to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries on May 15.

"Over the past 25 years, relations between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan have reached the level of strategic partnership. We will continue strengthening economic cooperation, while focusing on the energy sector," the minister said, Bulgarian media reported.

Bulgaria attaches great importance to ensuring the security of energy supplies and their diversification in the region, and in this regard, Azerbaijan is a reliable partner, which can be counted on, according to Petkova.

Bulgaria is involved in the projects on construction of two interconnectors Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) and Turkey-Bulgaria.

"More than two years ago the state of IGB construction project was alarming, but during this period weve managed to achieve serious progress, which couldnt be achieved without our partners from Azerbaijan," she said.

The construction of IGB, which will become a branch of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2018.

Bulgaria is highly dependent on natural gas supplies, while prices for the commodity in the country are among the highest in Europe. The country imports over 95 percent of its natural gas, while Russia is currently a dominant supplier.

In this regard, the Southern Gas Corridor is a project of strategic importance for the entire region of South-East Europe, including Bulgaria, which has supported the project since its initiation.

To reach its objective Bulgargaz signed a contract with Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR for supplies of one billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year from the Shah Deniz 2 project.

The gas will be delivered through the Southern Gas Corridor, namely: the South-Caucasus Pipeline, Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB).

The SGC envisages transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region to Europe via Georgia and Turkey.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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16 May 2017 17:49 (UTC+04:00)

May 17 will mark the one-year anniversary since construction started on the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), one of Europes largest and most strategic energy (natural gas) infrastructure projects.

TAP reported that activity in each of the three host countries is on time, on track and on budget. Much has been achieved over the past twelve months.

As of early-May 2017: The project has a world class site safety record with lost time frequency levels well below international norms. TAPs contractors cleared approx. 49% of the project route in Greece and Albania (371km out of 765km). Also, 22.6% of welded steel pipes are already in the ground (backfilled). In Italy, work is ongoing with the first batch of olive trees temporarily stored, so that construction of the 1,5km micro-tunnel can start later in the year. 68.5% of the total 55,000 pipes to be used for the construction of the pipeline have been received in Greece, Albania and Italy. More than 5,200 people have been working for the project across TAPs host countries, over 85% of which have been employed locally. TAP implemented a wide range of social and environmental investment (SEI) programmes in the communities along its route. 70 additional projects with a total value of approximately 15 million are due to be rolled out in the upcoming months. In total, TAP will invest over 55 million in SEI in Greece, Albania and Italy.

TAP Managing Director Ian Bradshaw voiced gladness with the performance.

In terms of overall project progress, we are approximately 41% complete, including all engineering, procurement and construction scope. We are on track to deliver first gas from Shah Deniz II in 2020, becoming an active part of the European energy network, enabling more competitive and secure energy to reach homes and businesses.

I am particularly pleased that today, approximately 173km of welded steel pipes  around 21 times our project length in Italy  have been put in the ground in Greece and Albania. TAP remains fully committed to reinstate land to its original condition or better. A project of this scale and magnitude will face daily challenges, however, we are well positioned to address and manage them by working closely with our teams, our supply network and alongside communities. Bradshaw added.

TAP has an equally ambitious programme for the next twelve months. By this time next year, it plans to have completed the clearing and grading of the route across Greece and Albania and have approximately 67% of welded pipes placed in the ground (backfilled).

TAP will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe. The approximately 878 km long pipeline will connect with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border at Kipoi, cross Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

TAPs routing can facilitate gas supply to several South Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and others. TAPs landfall in Italy provides multiple opportunities for further transport of TAPs shareholding is comprised of BP (20%), SOCAR (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (19%), Enagas (16%) and Axpo (5%).

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16 May 2017 16:28 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The sixth round of Syrian peace talks began under the auspices of the UN in the Swiss city of Geneva on May 16 as part of efforts to facilitate a political resolution to the long-lasting Syrian conflict.

Five previous rounds of United Nations-backed negotiations have failed to produce concrete results and hopes for a major breakthrough remain dim.

The parties to the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva are examining the possibility of establishment of a special mechanism for discussing Syria's constitution during the current round of talks in Geneva, sources close to the negotiations process told Sputnik.

The 6th round of Syria talks in Geneva will be organized slightly different compared to the previous ones, as the sides are going to have businesslike intensive meetings and are not going to deliver press stakeouts.

"Technical details of this mechanism have not been coordinated yet. Its composition and work format will be the main topic for the talks in Geneva," a source said, Sputnik reported.

Another source added that a working group for constitutional matters can be created, but the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) and Damascus delegations are so far skeptical about it.

The fact that constitution is going to be the main topic on the agenda at the sixth round of talks in Geneva was also confirmed to Sputnik by the leader of the Astana platform of Syrian opposition, Randa Kassis.

"De Mistura wants to work on the constitution," Kassis said, when asked what the new round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva is going to focus on.

The latest round of Geneva talks concluded on March 3, with the parties agreeing on a number of separate "baskets" to be addressed during the next rounds, including the issues of governance, constitution, elections and counterterrorism.

Syrias warring sides have also attended four rounds of peace talks brokered by Iran, Russia and Turkey in the Kazakh capital, Astana. The Astana talks have recently resulted in a memorandum of understanding on creation of de-escalation zones in Syria.

The civil war in Syria between government and opposition with various terrorist groups involved, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), began back in March 2011.

According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the countrys pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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MADISON  This year, like the years before, Sen. Fred Risser plans to bike one mile for every year of his age.

It takes a full day, and good weather, said the Democratic lawmaker representing Madison.

It makes no difference that Risser turned 90 years old Friday  or that hes still an active state senator after more than 60 years in Wisconsin politics.

Born and raised in Madison, Risser served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and became a practicing attorney before his election to the Wisconsin Assembly at age 29.

Risser, the longest-serving state lawmaker in the country, shows no signs of slowing down. He hasnt missed a Senate vote in 50 years. He credits his wife, Nancy, for that.

I couldnt do it without her, he said.

Things have changed since Risser was first elected to the state Assembly in 1956. Dwight Eisenhower was president. Walter J. Kohler Jr. was governor. Elvis topped the music charts. There was no legal smoking age.

I introduced a bill my first session to try to outlaw smoking under the age of 16, and it only got one vote, Risser recalls. And it was mine.

Despite that first road bump, Risser went on to have a hand in passing several major bills.

Medicine advanced. Public opinion about smoking began to change. After 25 years of work on the bill, Wisconsin enacted the Indoor Air Act in 2010, banning indoor smoking throughout the state.

And I think that has helped the state quite a bit, Risser said. It took a long time to work on that one.

He said hes particularly proud of his early support of and work in womens issues.

I was the author of the bill that took contraceptives off the indecent article list, Risser said. They originally were illegal in the state, and you couldnt get them with a doctors prescription in some cases.

Back in those days, he said, the state Senate was a white mans club. When he was elected as a senator in 1962, there were no female senators or people of color.

The state Legislature is much more diversified now, which is good, Risser said.

He has also seen state politics become increasingly partisan over the course of his career.

He said that worries him. Voting in the Legislature is overwhelmingly party-line. Though Risser is a Democrat, he said lawmakers ultimately need to answer to the people, not the party.

The only answer, of course, is selecting representatives who will represent their constituents, and act in the best interest of the state, Risser said.

Risser also sees voters holding big responsibility in the state. He said low voter turnout, like in Aprils election, concerns him.

Until we get enough people voting, were not gonna get any change, Risser said.
Last week, I was honored to be included on a panel discussion titled The Search for Truth in an Age of Fake News. Two real journalists, a tech entrepreneur, a neuroscientist from the University of Pennsylvania and Christine I Cant Believe They Asked Me to Sit Here Flowers engaged in a two-hour discussion of what is real, what is fabricated, how to tell the difference and whether it actually matters.

It does, of course, matter. As I said from the stage trying desperately to sound as intelligent as my co-panelists, we are all entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. I know what youre thinking, but Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is dead, so I prefer to call it tribute as opposed to plagiarism.

The evening was a smashing success and proved that people of good faith and inquisitive minds can transcend their biases, if only for a few short hours, and reach across the intellectual and emotional chasms. In some ways, we have already built that wall, so the discussion provided a glimmer of hope that we can also tear it down, Mr. Gorbachev.

And in the afterglow of the evening, I started thinking about whether there really is such a thing as fake news, or whether it is all a matter of a Rashomon, personal prism of perception and naivete. But when I came home to hear that FBI Director James Comey had been fired by President Trump, and when I found out the justification for it from the White House, I realized that we truly are wallowing in an era of falsehoods.

I also realized that its basically our own fault for swallowing the deceptive sludge.

So I sat down and made a list of the fake news thats been bandied about, and not just since the election of Donald Trump  because, as I recall, hes not the one who said, If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it or I did not have sex with that woman, or even Im not a crook.

In no particular order, here are some of my favorites:

James Comey was fired because of the mess he made of the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails.

First of all, anyone who actually believes Trump is upset about the botched operation that played a critical role in making Melania miserable for the next four years is clearly one brain wave short of an EEG. There arguably are several reasons why Trump canned Comey in the most classless, inept and suspect way possible, but concern for Clinton is not one of them.

Democrats are protesting the firing because they resent the insult and injury to an honorable public servant and the danger it poses to our national integrity.

What Trump did is troubling and dangerous and the timing is suspect. But thats not why the Democrats are breaking out in hives. Those opportunistic liberals see this as a way to exploit another convenient PR misstep from the Donald (even though his ardent supporters will act like extras from The Walking Dead and stumble along, blindly making excuses).

People who put annoying signs on their front lawns are truly more virtuous than the average schmuck.

I live in one of those towns where more than a few homeowners have plopped Hate Has No Home Here signs in full view of the neighbors. I have no desire to put that sort of thing on my grass. In fact, Ive been looking for something that says Hate Rents a Room on My Second Floor, but I cant find it in 78 different languages. Im as hateful (or not) as the next person. I just dont let stupid signs do my heavy moral lifting.

Women who wear pink crochet hats care about human rights.

This one is way too easy. Just ask an unborn child. Which brings me to:

Science is important to liberals.

This is partially true. Theyre worried about global warming, spotted owls, the rip in the ozone and other depressing topics. They march in the streets and say horrible things about Trump. But when it comes to the science of pregnancy, they put their fingers in their ears and go la la la.  They refuse to consider the fetus as anything more than a sack of cells, one that becomes human only when mama says so. As far as life is concerned, science is optional.

Caitlyn Jenner is a woman.

No menopause, no club membership.

And finally, Russia elected Trump.

They tried, they really did. But Hillary blew it all by herself.
It was announced today that a new consortium called The Bridge Network has been launched at University College Cork.

Led by UCC, the consortium comprises four technology transfer offices from University College Cork, Teagasc, Cork Institute of Technology and Institute of Technology Tralee and represents the largest consortium with a combined research revenue of 145 million.

Building on significant success to date in terms of licensing, spin out companies and research income, the technology transfer consortium will create an effective link for knowledge transfer expertise to be shared and used in the member institutions, enhancing the innovation ecosystem regionally and nationally.



Funded by Enterprise Ireland and supported by Knowledge Transfer Ireland, the Bridge Network consortium will apply its combined expertise to support the commercialisation of research, early stage spinout companies, licensing and ultimately effective relationships with industry.



Over the last 2 years, UCC has had the largest industry-funded research income of universities in Ireland with CIT similarly leading the Institutes of Technology in terms of income from industry sources. Together with Teagasc and IT Tralee, the consortium hopes to create a model of national and international excellent practice.



The Bridge Network will also create a programme, that supports engagement between spinout companies and venture capitalists and angel investors, institutional investors and national agencies. Bringing together experienced tech enterpreneurs to act as mentors to early stage companies will also feature in the activities of the consortium.

With a combined research funding value of 130 million, the Bridge Network Consortium brings together key players in the Irish ecosystem with the aim of collaborating effectively on the commercialisation of research agenda.

Speaking at the launch, UCC President Pat OShea said, "By working together, the Bridge Network of the 4 technology transfer offices is an exemplar of effective collaboration, creating best practice for commercialisation of research through sharing of expertise while managing IP effectively. There have already been many success stories from our technology transfer offices, and together we are in a position to accelerate and drive further success in this area."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
May 15, 2017  Gatineau  Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

Today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a competitive call for applications for a new television service offering national multilingual and multi-ethnic programming including news and information. If licensed, this service would receive mandatory distribution on the digital basic service starting in 2020.

The CRTC recognizes, however, that there is an exceptional and immediate need for Canadas ethnically diverse communities to have access to multilingual programming, and in particular news and information programming, made from a Canadian perspective, without having to pay for additional services and packages.

As an interim measure, the CRTC has approved the licensing and mandatory distribution of OMNI Regional, a multilingual, multi-ethnic service, on all digital basic television packages in Canada. The CRTC is concerned, however, that this service as proposed by Rogers Media will not fully meet the needs of Canadians. For this reason, OMNI Regional is receiving mandatory distribution for a three-year period only.

OMNI Regional will not necessarily be renewed after the interim period. An application will have to be submitted in order to be considered in the competitive public process.
Licence renewals of large television groups

May 15, 2017  Ottawa-Gatineau  Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

As part of the licence renewals of the large television groups today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is supporting the creation of diverse, compelling and original Canadian content.

The CRTC ensures on stable funding for Canadian production in all program categories, by focusing especially on dramas, documentaries, and musical and variety shows. As such, broadcasters have the tools they need to stay competitive in an on-demand environment, and consumers have access to a wide range of programming.

With respect to the underrepresentation of certain groups, the CRTC has put in place credits that give an incentive to Indigenous producers and producers from official language minority communities to create programming.

In addition, as part of the licence renewals, the CRTC is implementing the local television policy to ensure that Canadians have access to local news and programming that reflect them and inform them about their communities.

Finally, the CRTC recognizes that women face a number of challenges with respect to key positions in the production and creative sectors. To promote womens access to leadership positions, the CRTC will organize an event on women in production.
Modified On Jun 06, 2017 03:08 PM By Rachit Shad for Maruti Dzire 2017-2020

Comes with two options each for engine and transmission

Maruti Suzuki, Indias largest carmaker, has launched the all-new Dzire sedan today at a starting price of Rs 5.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). Into its third-generation, the Dzire is built on the same Heartect platform that also underpins the current-gen Baleno hatchback. While this platform is lighter than that on the outgoing model, it promises to be more rigid in its setup. As youd expect, the upcoming Swift will also be built on the same platform.

In terms of dimensions, the 2017 Swift Dzire is still a sub-4 metre, four-door sedan. When compared to the outgoing model, the length of the new model is exactly the same. Like before, the LXi/LDi and VXi/VDi trims get 14-inch steel rims but the ZXi/ZDi and ZXi+/ZDi+ variants get 15-inch alloy wheels. However, thats where similarities end. The new-gen Maruti Suzuki Dzire is 40mm wider, 40mm shorter in height and gets a 20mm longer wheelbase. The boot space can now gulp 378 litres of stuff, which is 62 litres more than before.

Also Read: 2017 Maruti Dzire Brochure Leaked

The ground clearance on the new model has gone down by 7mm and now stands at 163mm. It will also have a roomier cabin than before, with an improvement of 20mm in the front shoulder room and 30mm in the rear. The company claims that thanks, primarily, to the lighter platform, the petrol variants will be 85kg lighter and the diesel trims will be 105kg lighter in weight.

Under the hood, Maruti Suzuki is offering the same set of petrol and diesel engines as before. While the 1.2-litre petrol motor is tuned to produce 83PS/113Nm, the 1.3-litre diesel generates 75PS/190Nm. These engines can either be had with a 5-speed manual or 5-speed automated manual transmission (AMT). The automatic gearbox (4-speed torque converter) is no longer on offer. Impressive fuel-efficiency is another ace up the Dzires sleeve. While the petrol-powered manual and AMT variants can return 22.0kmpl (up by 5.5 per cent), the manual and AMT diesels can clock 28.4kmpl (up by 6.8 per cent). These figures make the new Dzire the most fuel efficient sedan in its segment.

Also Read: First Look Review  New Maruti Suzuki Dzire

In terms of features, the 2017 Maruti Suzuki Dzire is a far cry from the outgoing model. The feature list includes LED projector headlamps, DRLs, reverse parking sensors, reverse parking camera, SmartPlay infotainment system with built-in navigation support and voice command (Android Auto and Apple CarPlay enabled), push button start/stop with smart key, automatic climate control, auto headlamps, rear AC vents and electronically adjustable/foldable ORVMs. As far as safety is concerned, all variants are offered with dual airbags, ABS, EBD with BA, ISOFIX anchorages and, pretensioners and force limiters in the front seat belts as part of their standard kit.

Also Read: Five Things That Could Have Made The New Maruti Dzire More Desirable

Maruti Suzuki has confirmed that it has received 33,000 bookings for the new Dzire till date and the waiting period has already stretched up to 8 weeks. With the new Dzire, Maruti Suzuki will hope to retain the top spot in this segment. Its list of rivals includes the Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent, Volkswagen Ameo, Ford Figo Aspire and two models from Tata Motors - the Tigor and the Zest.

Heres the variant-wise price-list (ex-showroom Delhi):

Petrol

LXi: Rs 5,45,000 (Rs 6,556 less than the old LXI (O) variant)

VXi: Rs 6,29,000 (Rs 2,243 more than the old VXI (O) variant)

VXi AGS: Rs 6,76,000 (NA)

ZXi: Rs 7,05,000 (Rs 2,496 more than the old ZXI variant)

ZXi AGS: Rs 7,52,000 (NA)

ZXi+: Rs 7,94,000 (NA)

ZXi+ AGS: Rs 8,41,000 (NA)

Diesel

LDi: Rs 6,45,000 (Rs 8,554 more than the old LDi (O) variant)

VDi: Rs 7,29,000 (Rs 7,141 more than the old VDI (O) variant)

VDi AGS: Rs 7,76,000 (NA)

ZDi: Rs 8,05,000 (Rs 2,460 less than the old ZDI variant)

ZDi AGS: Rs 8,52,000 (Rs 5,534 less than the old ZDI AGS variant)

ZDi+: Rs 8,94,000 (NA)

ZDi+ AGS: Rs 9,41,000 (NA)

Watch New Dzire Review

Also Read: Spec Comparison: 2017 Maruti Suzuki Dzire Vs Rivals
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. owns and leases freight railroads. It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut.
The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. 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Limited, Sedgwick Consulting Group Limited, Sedgwick Dineen Group Limited, Sedgwick Financial Services Limited, Sedgwick Forbes Middle East Limited, Sedgwick Group, Sedgwick Group (Australia) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Group (Bermuda) Limited, Sedgwick Group (Zimbabwe) Limited, Sedgwick Group Limited, Sedgwick Internationaal B.V., Sedgwick Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Singapore) Pte Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes (UK) Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Group Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Limited, Sedgwick Overseas Investments Limited, Sedgwick Private Limited, Sedgwick Re Asia Pacific (Consultants) Pte Ltd (for dissolution), Sedgwick Trustees Limited, Sedgwick UK Risk Services Limited, Sedgwick Ulster Pension Trustees Limited, Settlement Trustees Limited, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Company Ltd., Shorewest Insurance Associates LLC, Sirota Asia Pacific Pte. 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ACLJ files UN case for jailed Christian pastor, accuses Turkey of human rights violations

The American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed a case with the UN over the Turkish detention of Christian pastor Andrew Brunson, ahead of President Trump's meeting with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today.

The ACLJ, a religious freedom advocacy group, announced yesterday it had submitted a formal written statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council over the case of Andrew Brunson, who has been detained in Turkey for several months.

He was held in October when he and his wife were detained on immigration violation charges after running a small church in Izmir, on Turkey's western coast.

The arrest followed a government crackdown after a failed military coup. The charges have since escalated to accusations of terrorism, though Turkey have produced no evidence for the claims.

ACLJ's written submission reads: 'As a founding Member State of the UN, Turkey is obligated to adhere to norms set forth in the UN Charter, such as those requiring members "[t]o achieve international cooperation . . . in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and . . . fundamental freedoms . . . without distinction as to [inter alia] religion".

'Pastor Brunson's detention appears to be related to his work as a Christian minister. By detaining and imprisoning Pastor Brunson because of his religious expression, peaceful association, and assembly of religious believers, Turkey is violating not its obligations under the UN Charter, but its own Constitution as well as Pastor Brunson's fundamental rights: freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression, freedoms of peaceful assembly and association.

'Therefore, these violations concern not only Turkey, but every member state and every agency of the UN.'

The letter urged the UN to remind Turkey 'of its continuing obligations under its constitution as well as the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) and UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) to respect and value the freedom of religion' and to 'make every effort to ensure that Pastor Brunson is not only treated with great care, but that he is quickly released and allowed to return home to the United States without injury or delay'.

In late March Brunson pleaded in a letter for US intervention in his case, saying: 'Will the Turkish government face no consequence for stubbornly continuing to hold an American citizen as a political prisoner?'

He added: 'Even though I have a long public track record as a church pastor, they falsely accuse me of being a member of an Islamist terrorist group.'
State Sen. Duey Stroebel is bringing back a bill that legislators rejected last session, one that would destabilize Wisconsins public pension system, even though the system is one of the best managed in America.

Many schools in our area are facing a teacher shortage, yet hes proposing to weaken pensions for new teachers. As a teacher myself, I know this would be a serious problem as schools try to convince professionals to enter and stay in our schools despite low starting pay and high student debt.

I wonder why Sen. Stroebel continues to make things more difficult for teachers and other working people. Sen. Strobel has consistently voted to shift the tax burden from the wealthiest 1 percent onto the middle class with his regressive tax ideology. A good example is declining Medicare expansion dollars that Wisconsin taxpayers paid into, and then turning around to cut education funding.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sen. Stroebel reported owing no state taxes in 2009 and 2010, and he also gets money from the federal Conservation Reserve Program in excess of $1,000 per year.

The Wisconsin Retirement System is money earned as part of total compensation by school teachers, school secretaries, school bus drivers and other dedicated public servants. Its not funded by tax dollars. So, whats behind his latest move to steal our pensions?

Opposing this latest ploy isnt just a public employee concern. If this bill gains any traction, it will be one more reason promising new professionals say no
Afghan Christian mother killed in Germany, investigated as religiously motivated attack

A Christian Afghan mother was stabbed and killed just over a week ago in Bayern, Germany. Police are investigating a 'religious motivation' for the attack.

A 29-year old Muslim asylum seeker has been accused of stabbing the mother, who was killed in front of her children, according to Evangelical Focus.

The 38-year old woman, known only as FS, was stabbed on Saturday 29 April outside a supermarket, and died of her injuries in hospital. She had hailed from Afghanistan and was an 'example of integration', according local authorities in the town of Prien am Chiemsee, Bayern, where she had sought refuge.

FS was a committed Christian who was baptised eight years ago. She had been a member of an Evangelical Protestant church in Prien, and supported an Afghan Bible study group organised by a neighbouring free evangelical church. She leaves behind her two children, aged five and 11.

Her suspected attacker is a Muslim who is known for being psychologically unstable, and has been temporarily sent to a psychiatric institution, according to RT. It is also believed that he knew FS.

FS' sister told German newspaper Bild that she 'was killed because she was a Christian'.

Police spokesman Stefan Sonntag said that 'a religious motivation is being examined, although we cannot confirm this yet'.

Dozens of neighbours, friends, and Christian leaders reportedly gathered to support the relatives of the mother at the victim's funeral, where about 200 attended.
Catholic priest arrested in Italian mafia bust, accused of embezzling millions meant for migrants

A Catholic priest is among 68 people arrested in Italy in a bust on a large-scale mafia scam.

Italian authorities carried out a raid on Monday. The accused face charges of illegal arms possession, fraud worth millions of euros and local mafia association.

A local reception centre designated for needy asylum seekers was allegedly a cover for a mass scam. Millions of euros intended for the good of refugees at the Sant'Anna migrant centre was syphoned off to criminal organisations, according to Crux.

The arrested include Father Edoardo Scordio, who ran the migrant centre in Isola di Capo Rizzuto, in the southern Italian region of Calabria. Scorio also founded the Confraternity of Mercy, an initiative meant to serve migrants.

The vice president of the contrafraternity Leonardo Sacco was also arrested, and is alleged to have been the second in command of the scam.

Operation 'Jonny' involved a coalition of Italy's three major police forces targeting the operation run by the notorious Arena clan, part of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

'Today's operation confirms that where there is power or money the 'Ndrangheta pops up in order to exploit the needs even of the desperate,' said Nicola Gratteri, chief prosecutor of Calabria's capital Catanzaro.

Sant'Anna is believed to have had its public funds syphoned off since 2009. Prosecutors said that one third of $109 million allocated to the centre had gone instead to the Arena clan.

Gratteri said that if 500 meals were needed to feed those at the reception centre, the centre would only serve 300, keeping the saved money for themselves. After receiving vast funds through various means, Sacco and Scordio have been purchasing various expensive properties in the region. Sacco won around $24 million in public funding for the care of migrants.

'The priest, the governor, and the Arena (clan) fatten on the skin of these poor people and buy theatres, villas, and whatever,' Gratteri said.

Pope Francis was quizzed on the corruption while on his return flight from Fatima, Portugal.

'I know there is an issue and the investigations are moving ahead,' the Pope said. 'I hope that they continue and that the whole truth comes out.'
Christian lawyer in Pakistan receives death threats for efforts to help persecuted minorities

A Christian lawyer in Pakistan has been warned she will be killed if she does not stop defending people accused of blasphemy against Islam.

Jacqueline Sultan has also been warned that if she wants to stay alive, she must stop helping Christians and other minorities who have been forced to convert to Islam and to marry Muslims.

She has advised the police and the Karachi Bar Association and other authorities of the threat to her life. The association is calling on the police to investigate and to provide security to protect the lawyer.

Sultan, who heads United Alliance Global Human Rights, is just the latest prominent Christian in Pakistan who is being threatened for standing up for her faith. According to the charity Open Doors, Pakistan is at number four on the list of countries where Christians are most severely persecuted.

Sultan, a member of the Karachi Bar Council, found the letter in her chambers in Karachi, Christians in Pakistan reported.

The Alliance reports that Sultan had been advocating for the rights of minorities and raising her voice against forced conversions of girls from minority communities. In the letter she was warned 'not to pursue struggle for the rights of minorities' or else she would be killed.

Other recent incidents of attacks on Christians reported by the Alliance include a young Christian sanitation worker gunned down in Pakistan in March for refusing a prominent Muslim's order to clean his outhouse on his day off.

Noman Munir Masih, 20, of Sheikhupura in Punjab Province, whose father died two years ago, was the main breadwinner for his Pentecostal family. His mother, three sisters and two brothers survive him.
Christians From Pakistan Refused Visas To Visit UK Church  Because They Are Too Poor

Two Christians from Pakistan are "shocked and depressed" after being refused visas to visit the United Kingdom because they are "not wealthy enough".

Their visit was to have been paid for by the Church of Scotland.

The Church's Glasgow presbytery sent a delegation last year to a congregation in Hyderabad and wanted to reciprocate by inviting the two Christians back to Glasgow this year.

The Church said: "Immigration officials refused the applicants visas on the basis they could not prove they were wealthy enough to be allowed into the UK."

The visits were intended to be part of the Church's attempts to develop a formal "twinning" link with the Hyderabad diocese.

Rev Graham Blount, clerk of the Glasgow presbytery, said they will not let the set back get in the way of forging links with Pakistan.

"We remain committed to our twinning link with the diocese of Hyderabad, with whom we enjoyed tremendous hospitality when members of our presbytery visited Pakistan last year.

"The Church of Scotland has spoken of its concern for Christians in Pakistan who, like other minority faith groups in that country, face growing threats in practising their religion.

"We are deeply concerned at the refusal of the UK Government to grant visas to two of our invited partners, despite the Church of Scotland guaranteeing their travel arrangements as well as their accommodation and subsistence while they are here, the refusal seems grounded in their personal financial circumstances."

The visa refusal document acknowledged that the Church of Scotland would have paid all costs of the visit, but nevertheless stated that the Pakistani Christians did not satisfy immigration rules.

It stated: "In brief I am not satisfied the bank statement is an accurate reflection of your financial circumstances. Given the above, I am not satisfied you are genuinely seeking entry as a general visitor for a limited period as stated by you not exceeding six months.

"Unless financial circumstances change future applications are likely to be refused. The refusal is not subject to appeal or administrative review."

Blount said: "The two individuals are very depressed and shocked at the way the applications have been handled. We have now rearranged the visit for a third time to take place next February, when we expect the two remaining members of the delegation who have dual nationality will finally be able to visit our city.

"We are now writing to the UK Government and local MPs to make our concerns known, and we are encouraging our members and anyone else who shares our concern to do the same.

"We are particularly worried that the UK Borders Agency's stance that this refusal threatens to frustrate not only our twinning link but also other major international events  like the World Council of Churches General Assembly for which a bid is currently being  in the future if only those whose personal finances meet the criteria are likely to be granted visas."

Wilson Choudhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association told Christian Today: "Fewer then 150 Pakistani Christian asylum seekers apply for refugee status in the UK every year. Despite this low risk, Pak-Christians applying to the UK through established churches and Christian groups for ministry work are often declined a UK visa even when organisations and individuals meet all government guidelines. Sadly the same level of scrutiny fails when hate preachers often enter our shores.

"This latest refusal is a poor indictment of the UK Home Office process which clearly is not free of bias. I will be praying for the family and will register concerns with the Home Office and Foreign Affairs Select Committee over the obvious maladministration and request a review of the decision. I hope something can be done to revoke the decision which flies in the face of common sense."

The Church of Scotland's World Mission Council faithshare visitors programme was to have paid for the visit and will still do so when if it goes ahead as planned with the two dual-nationality members next year. Faithshare finances about 150 similar visits each year, often from some of the poorest countries in the world and the poorest communities within these countries, the Church of Scotland said.

A Home Office spokesman said: "It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure they submit the required evidence to show they meet the financial requirements for the visa category they have applied for. Where this evidence is not provided, applications will be refused."

The immigration rules state that an applicant wishing to enter the UK as a visitor needs to provide evidence that they are a genuine visitor and have a genuine intention to leave the UK at the end of their proposed visit. They must also be able to maintain and accommodate themselves during their visit without working or having recourse to public funds.
Church of England rebukes breakaway conservative parish

The Church of England has rebuked a conservative parish that consecrated its senior minister a bishop in a breakaway move.

Rt Rev Paul Williams, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, told evangelicals 'this is no time to be distracted by further fragmentation' as he urged British Anglicans against a split in a blog post on the CofE's official Facebook page.

That Williams  himself an evangelical  made the first major episcopal intervention after Rev Jonathan Pryke of Jesmond Parish Church was provocatively made a bishop is arguably part of the CofE's attempt to avoid further division.

It is the latest in an ongoing row since Pryke's consecration that could herald a rupture with a separate Anglican structure effectively being set up in rivalry to the CofE.

In a question and answer sheet handed out to its congregation on Sunday, Jesmond's leaders warned conservative ministers are being 'filtered out' in the current CofE system.

'The aim is not to create a new denomination,' parishioners were told according to the Thinking Anglicans blog.

'This is one small but necessary step on behalf of faithful Church of England ministers and congregations nationwide in our mission to the nation.

'This is not a step of "leaving the Church of England". It is the theologically liberal bishops and clergy that have "left the Church of England" doctrinally.

'This is a step to preserve the Church of England's heritage and mission which we have received.'

But Williams said although 'we are living in challenging times for our world and nation which creates uncertainty, leading to fear and fragmentation', Anglicans are called to 'unity in the body of Christ'.

He wrote: 'We have experienced a period of significant social change in the UK, manifested in changing attitudes over issues such as human sexuality.

'While Christians may hold different viewpoints on how the Church should respond, we are unwavering in our resolve to value every human being as made in the image of God, calling all people to repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

'Whatever some would like to claim, the Church of England is and remains faithful to the teaching of Scripture as we have received it on these matters, including the understanding of marriage.'

In a direct challenge to a lecture given at Jesmond where the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were labelled heretics, Williams wrote: 'Let it be said, lest there be any doubt, that, whatever the challenges, we are greatly blessed to be led by two archbishops, Justin Welby and John Sentamu, with a passion for the gospel and faithfulness to the teaching of Christ.'

He said the Church of England was in a time of 'extraordinary opportunity' and warned the breakaway move would not 'help the cause of the gospel in our nation', directly appealing to evangelicals' desire to grow the church.

'As we navigate the challenges ahead let us take care to use well the very great opportunities given to us at this time in our nation to make Christ known, reflecting this in our resolve to remain united in the gospel we proclaim,' he wrote.
Church of Scotland set for key vote on gay marriage

The Church of Scotland is expected to take a significant step toward accepting gay marriage next week.

Proposals to allow ministers to preside over LGBT weddings are thought likely to pass a vote in the Kirk's General Assembly next Thursday.

The suggestion by the Church's Theological Forum insists there must be protections for 'conscientious refusal' from conservative clergy but evangelicals fear the move could lead to all ministers being forced to take gay weddings, even if it is against their beliefs.

So although the recommendations are thought to pass, there could be several years of legal wrangling before same-sex ceremonies take place in the Church of Scotland.

The Kirk's governing General Assembly, which meets in Edinburgh from Saturday, will also vote on whether to apologise to gay people for past discrimination.

'We recognise that as a Church we have often failed to recognise and protect the identity and Christian vocation of gay people and believe that the Church as a whole should acknowledge its faults,' said former Church moderator Professor Iain Torrance, convenor of the Theological Forum.

He added that the suggestions sought to allow for both positions, similar to the Church of England's compromise arrangement to allow women bishops.

'In years past there has been an idea that in time one side in this argument would emerge as the sole victor.

'We don't think like that now,' he said.

'That is why we are arguing for what, last year, the Forum called "constrained difference". This is saying that within limits we can make space for more than one approach.

'It is closely similar to what the Archbishop of Canterbury calls "mutual flourishing".

'This is a centrist report, aimed at encouraging mutual flourishing.'

The wide-ranging report covers human rights, sexuality and the history of marriage and offers an in-depth analysis of the arguments on both sides.

Addressing the issue of the importance of the Bible, the report insisted that God speaks outside and beyond Scripture as well as within it.

On the conservative argument that homosexual relationships are 'intrinsically unnatural and a violation of the oft-claimed complementarity of a man and a woman', the report retorts: 'The counter argument is evidently that it is natural to them' and adds: 'homosexuality is more common in nature than may be realised'.

The report signalled a softening of the Kirk's attitude to gay couples by withdrawing any mention of 'man' and 'woman' from its view of marriage.

'Consent within a covenanted relationship between two persons remains at the heart of our understanding,' it said.

'The Forum does not believe there are sufficient theological grounds to deny nominated individual ministers and deacons the authority to preside at same- sex marriages,' it added.

'However, the Forum does not believe that such permission should be granted until there is assurance that the conscientious refusal of other ministers and deacons to preside at such marriages is protected.'
Court rules that Christian T-shirt printer can refuse orders promoting LGBT lifestyle

A Christian American T-shirt designer has won a significant victory in a case about the freedom of Americans to run a business according to their beliefs.

A Kentucky appeals court has ruled that a Lexington printer can decline orders where he would be promoting a message in conflict with his religious beliefs.

The case has been running for more than five years.

In 2012, Adamson declined to print shirts with a message promoting the Lexington Pride Festival, an event hosted by the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization.

He found another printer for the organisation, which eventually delivered their T-shirts for free, but still filed a complaint about Adamson's refusal.

In 2014, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission ruled that Blaine Adamson of Hands On Originals must print messages even if they conflict with his faith when customers ask him to do so.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys appealed to the Fayette Circuit Court, which reversed the ruling.

The commission then appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals, and lost.

ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell said: 'Americans should always have the freedom to believe, the freedom to express those beliefs, and the freedom to not express ideas that would violate their conscience.'

He said the decision was a victory for printers and other creative professionals who serve all people but cannot promote all messages.

'It is also a victory for all Americans because it reassures us all that, no matter what you believe, the law can't force you to express a message in conflict with your deepest convictions.'

The appeals court opinion written by Chief Judge Joy A. Kramer found that Adamson did not engage in unlawful discrimination.

She explained that no evidence demonstrates that Hands On Originals 'refused any individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations it offered to everyone else because the individual in question had a specific sexual orientation or gender identity'.

In fact, Adamson regularly does business with and employs people who identify as LGBT.

The concurring opinion by Judge Debra Hembree Lambert says that Hands On Originals is protected by Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Statute, and that Adamson has the right under that law to operate his business consistently with his 'sincerely held religious beliefs'.

Adamson, in a video about his case, says: 'There came a point where I was so broken, I just went home and laid in bed with the lights out.'

He says that because he believed himself to be accountable to God for what appeared on the T-shirts, he could not print anything he in conscience disagreed with. 'It speaks a message the second it goes off the press. I'm accountable, first to God, that what goes off the press, we promote.'
'Evangelicals are destroying our Church,' says Syrian Orthodox leader

A church leader in Syria has accused evangelical Christians of helping 'destroy' the ancient Orthodox Church of the East by offering aid if they start worshipping at house churches.

Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh, who heads the development and ecumenical arm of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate af Antioch in Syria, said evangelicals from the United States and other countries are 'stealing our faithful' by offering to help poor and vulnerable Orthodox Christians aid if they 'convert'.

He was speaking to The Christian Post while taking part in the World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association last week.

He said the Orthodox Church had received no direct help from the US.

'For us personally, I didn't see any help from the American church directly. Perhaps, [aid went] to our brothers and sisters in the Protestant Church or Baptist Church or other church denominations we have there. But for us, we didn't receive any help from the Church in [America],' he said.

Further, the US evangelical community was actively working against the interests of the Orthodox.

Instead of helping the ancient Antiochean Church, they are actually 'doing the opposite' and are in Syria to 'steal our faithful'. And it is not just the United States. Evangelical Christians from Syria's neighbours in the Middle East are also doing this.

'[They are] giving them some money to say "Come to my church. I will give you money or I will let you go to Europe or to US."

'So it is not a nice way, especially in this crisis, to come and to destroy the work of a Church, which is for more than 2,000 years in the area. Now, [Syria] is a place for everybody coming there to do what he or she wants to do because of the economic situation and the lack of income. We really suffer sometimes in some places because of the behaviour of some pastors in the evangelical churches and groups.'

Pastors from Lebanon or Syria are also involved.

'They go to some poor families, convincing them to come to their church. The church is a house or a whatever because they don't have the tradition and it is easy to receive some money, some assistance.

'When you go to someone and you say, "I believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in Jesus Christ, so come to my church", people in need, they will go there to receive some assistance.'

Asked if this was really helping 'destroy' the Antiochian Church, he replied: 'Of course'.

He cited an Orthodox village, Mhardeh, with 23,000 Orthodox Christians, where evangelicals are now doing mission.

'It's not nice. I think we have to help each other in a way that we have, or still have, our [traditions and systems] in Syria that are very powerful.'

He even said that the evangelical outreach is tantamount to 'persecuting Christians'.

He said: 'If I am persecuted from somebody outside of the Christian family, I can understand. But I can't understand that another Christian would persecute me in another way.'

Christianity spread from Antioch to the whole world, after St Paul carried the word there. 'I cannot understand how somebody nowadays doesn't support the Antiochian Church. She is the mother church of your congregation,' said Chehadeh.
How many books are there in the New Testament? You might need to know this, if you are an asylum seeker

Some Christians seeking asylum from persecution in Europe are converts. And they come from countries where blasphemy laws and restrictions on freedom of religion mean their lives are at risk on a daily basis.

Others arrive in the West as refugees from war and hunger, and once here they might encounter Christianity perhaps for the first time  and convert.

But in some countries, such as Sweden, simply finding faith in Jesus is not enough.

To successfully claim asylum, the new Christians must master facts that few who are Christians from birth are even aware of  facts such as how many books are in the New Testament, and what is the difference between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Now church leaders and lawyers in Sweden are criticising migration officials for the tests, arguing that they examine technical knowledge rather than faith.

'I think it's terrible. I have repeatedly had to interrupt administrators who ask these questions because they are not relevant and are far too complicated,' said lawyer Serpil Gungor, according to The Local.

Gungor now urges clients to make careful study of the Bible carefully before they go for the mandatory interview before they can be granted asylum. Some Swedish parishes also prepare fact sheets about Christianity for asylum seekers to learn.

The Migration Agency defended the tests. A spokesman said: 'It is a reasonable demand that the asylum applicant should show some knowledge of the Bible - this should come naturally, and isn't something you need to study.'
How should Christians decide how to vote? 5 checks to help you choose

Brenda from Bristol's reaction to the news that the UK was facing a snap election was, 'You're joking  not another one!' It seems voting opportunities are like London buses  after waiting ages with nothing, three turn up at once. It's no wonder many of us, like Brenda, are feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I can't tell you whom to vote for in the general election, but here are five checks I use when filling in my polling card.

1. Vote to the glory of God

In more than 20 countries around the world voting is a compulsory requirement for citizens. In some countries, like Belgium, consistent non-voters not only lose the right to vote but may find it almost impossible to get a job in the public sector. There is some advantage to this. Democracy as a system is predicated on the idea that all citizens hold all leaders to account; it is one of the best antidotes to tyranny where an individual or a minority exercise uncontrolled and unaccountable power over the majority.

The UK does not force voting, so we have to make a choice  not only whom to vote for, but whether to vote at all. Some argue that we get the leaders that God decides (Romans 13:1-2) so there is no need to vote. Taken to its logical extreme, that argument could be used to say we needn't work, take out insurance, educate our children or care for our elderly, as ultimately God is in control of everything. But the Bible mandates us to play our part in society nonetheless. God is in control, yet he also holds us accountable for our actions and choices.

The paradox of divine sovereignty and human accountability is not simple to resolve: the Bible teaches both, and so we must trust God's sovereignty while still acting in good faith. Slaves are instructed in the New Testament to have as their primary concern honouring and pleasing God, and as a secondary motivation, working to obey their masters. Similarly in our task to determine the leadership of our nation, while trusting the power of God, we also should exercise our right and power to vote by seeking first the glory of God.

2. Vote for the common good

We have all seen those political leaflets that are trying to buy your vote. They pitch certain manifesto promises in order to bribe voters to choose them. Perhaps they may offer free tuition fees to gain the student and parent vote. Or perhaps they offer a tax break for the high earners, to gain the vote of the leaders in society and business. The implication is simple: politicians assume that citizens vote for selfish reasons. But Christians are called not to think of our own needs first of all; instead we are to put other people's needs ahead of our own. If the primary motivation in all Christian activity is the honour and glory of God, the second greatest commandment is that we love our neighbours. Jesus' most famous parable, about the Good Samaritan, helps us to understand that a neighbour is anyone who is in need and within our capability of helping. When Christians vote it must include obedience to this principle. Through taking part in the political process we have the opportunity to influence how the most vulnerable people in our society are treated. How will the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the sick, the outsider be treated according to each party's manifesto? What difference will their policies make to vulnerable children, the elderly and the refugee? These are protected categories that the Bible takes particularly seriously, and so must we.

3. Vote strategically and intentionally

I want to vote for someone I believe in and a party that affirms my Christian and personal values. The problem is no political party that exactly matches my views.

In this complex world, we have to choose which battles to fight and which issues to prioritise. Typically Christians have campaigned for a small number of hot button issues that revolve around human sexuality and the right to life. In some countries if a party will take a conservative line on those issues they can be all but guaranteed to receive the backing of large groups of Christian voters irrespective of what else is on their agenda. This kind of voting strategy means that it is relatively easy for Christians to become a political tool for government and sadly it often means Christians are easily manipulated, making them often less effective and influential in politics. As in all things in life Christians are called to be as innocent as doves but as cunning as snakes (Matthew 10:16). This means we need to vote with pure motives but also with great insight, thinking about a whole range of Christian values whether the issues are moral, financial, social, legal, global or practical.

4. Voting is the least we can do

Imagine that the only time you attended a church meeting was when the budget was being discussed. Or imagine if the only time you showed any interest in your family is when wills are being read out. It would be fair to challenge your commitment to politics if your only involvement with the political process is during elections. Christians are called to be a transformative influence in the world not only on polling day, but every other day too. The parable of the talents explains that we will be held to account for the gifts we have received from God and the parable of the sheep and goats demonstrates our accountability to God for the opportunity we have had to serve him. Both of those parables have important implications for our engagement with the public life of our communities and nations. Not everyone is called to be a politician, but all of us must consider carefully our responsibilities and opportunities to use our voice, our influence, our experience and our gifts to serve the wider public. Voting is the least we can do.

5. Vote with your head and your heart

I was on a radio debate not long ago about whether the UK should receive refugee children, and one of the participants argued that we should use our heads not our hearts when it came to decision making of this nature. This was both a naive and an arrogant statement. It was naive as it assumed that human beings have the ability to think perfectly objectively, that we can separate out our heads from our hearts, our rationality from our subjectivity. But it was arrogant because it asserted that cold rationalism is superior to warm compassion, and that therefore his views had more weight because he had excluded any empathy towards those being adversely affected by his decisions.

Christians are told in scripture to love God with all that we are, our rationality, our emotions, our wills, our bodies and everything else that makes us who we are. Voting and our wider participation in politics is a field of service to our God and so we should bring our whole selves into it. When we care about who we vote for and why and the people around us who will be affected by our vote, then we can know, head and heart, that we voted well.

I have met Christians MPs from all of the mainline political parties. I respect them as sisters and brothers in Christ even when we disagree on political ideology and policy. I think our political parties are stronger, wiser and kinder because of the diligence and presence of Christians in politics across the spectrum. Vote well this election and whatever happens, let us continue to work together to seek God's glory and to care for our neighbours.

Make sure you are registered to vote.

Dr Krish Kandiah's latest book God is Stranger is published by Hodder (2017) and tackles issues such as our response to refugees and the most vulnerable in society.
'I have failed,' says new Bishop at Lambeth  but I am a loved child of God

Rt Rev Tim Thornton, Bishop of Truro, is to become Bishop at Lambeth and a key adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. This is his final address to his diocesan synod, reprinted with permission.

'So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid' (Mark 16:8).

How can that be the end of the Gospel, the good news? Good news means not just the news that makes you smile but the Good News, the news that transforms lives and turns the world upside down. These words are supposedly the end of Mark's account of the gospel. How can that be? What an odd ending, how downbeat and how confusing. Does that in any way remind you of the Church of today  downbeat and confusing?

A frightened people running away from a place they did not understand fully and all of them made silent with anxiety and fear. They said nothing to anyone.

I am aware that this is my last address and therefore am afraid that I am in danger, as I so often have in the past, of saying nothing. Too many words trying to make too many clever points and in fact not communicating at all.

I have failed and I want to confess that, here, in this synod. I have failed in many ways in my time as bishop and I am sure you can all think of particular ways in which I have failed. The way that is foremost in my mind now is that I am all too aware that I have not communicated well what I wanted to say. I think I know what I am saying but somehow other people hear something very different.

For example, I think I have said something stern and difficult and other people think they have had an encouraging meeting. Or, I think I am being nice and pastoral, and people go away feeling they have been ticked off.

On a wider scale it is clear and you will hear this as a theme running through this synod that I have failed as your bishop in communicating some of the essential messages in the diocese. So for example, still people seem to believe there is a cupboard somewhere in Truro full of strange people whose life's work is to devise ways in which 'the diocese', whatever that is, can ask more and more, in particular more money of parishes with no explanation why or on what the money will be spent.

Or, still people believe there is a magic tree on which grow wonderful priests all of whom want to come and work in Cornwall and somehow I am preventing them from coming here.

Or again, still people believe if only we get our structures right, by which they often mean turning the clock back to a previous system, then all our problems will be solved.

Or yet again, still people believe it is all 'their' fault  insert any number of people or groups into the word 'their'  and if only 'they' (whoever they are) would recognise it then everything would be alright.

This failure of mine to communicate is not confined to myself. I suggest it is a widespread if not universal issue.

Recently bishops in the CofE were addressed by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Andrew Dillnot, and I am aware as I say that you will not believe a word he says because of the word 'statistic'. He showed us many graphs, one of which showed the drastic reduction there has been over the last few years in teenage pregnancies in this country. Yet it is commonly held, and many of you as I tell you this will probably believe, that there has been an explosion of teenage pregnancies in this country. Who do we believe and why, and how do we hear and why, and what news makes us change our behaviours and how do we face our deep seated fears and move to being liberated, loved children of God? O, I have failed.

So I have failed to communicate. I have not told people what I should and I have not told people what I should not.

So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

But how can that be since we are here today? And if the disciples really told no one, how would we know that Jesus is alive and that we are full of joy because we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song?

At the last session of General Synod a report was debated entitled Setting God's people free. It is a long report and contains many words and many good ideas. At its heart it is calling for a shift in culture. That is, that we move away from being a Church focused on systems and structures and we move towards a Church which takes the discipleship of each and every one of us seriously. Ninety-eight per cent of the Church are lay people, and yet how much time and effort and resource do we spend on how we might equip, encourage, enable and challenge our disciples, our wonderful lay people to flourish in their discipleship! A shift of culture from clericalism to embracing and allowing to flourish the whole body of Christ.

As I say that I see I have failed again, as whatever my words, I can imagine some people are saying, 'There he goes again talking about lay people and not supporting the clergy. There he goes again asking for more and more money and he will want to appoint lots more people to work in the "centre" rather than the parishes.'

I have failed.

We have of course all failed and do so on a regular basis. It is sobering and important that we have a presentation today from the Friends of the Holy Land reminding us that the Christian churches in the home of Christianity are under persecution and more than that are also under threat of extinction. Imagine the Holy Land with no Christian Churches  unthinkable  or is it? We have failed to support them enough with our prayers, yes, and also with our presence.

...

The report Setting God's people free has many recommendations and will no doubt be debated in many worthy synods and lots of words will be used in the doing thereof. The question always has to be, so what?

I have failed, and, in particular, I have failed to communicate. So what do I want to communicate?

So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

The first disciples didn't say nothing, they can't have done otherwise we would not be here today. The first disciples were afraid but they did not let their fear paralyse them. Their fear turned into the energy and excitement of that first Pentecost. But it did not do so straightforwardly or without problems and difficulties. They also found it difficult to communicate. The early Church was criticised for being cannibals and holding orgies because they shared the kiss of peace and ate the body and blood of Christ.

Communication is so difficult and so frustrating. Who speaks to whom? Who listens to whom? Communication begins deep inside us and so does fear and anxiety. Communication is not limited to words. In fact, as my failure proves, people do not listen to words they decide on a whole range of criteria what they think they have heard or want to hear.

What we say comes from deep within us and its causes are very hard to understand and even more difficult to challenge and change. Fear equally has deep, deep roots and a long, long history. Fear prevents things from happening, we speak of being paralysed by fear. Fear also enable things to happen. We talk about doing things that we would never otherwise consider doing because we are afraid.

Rowan Williams in his book on Mark (Meeting God in Mark) suggests that this stark and shocking ending of the Gospel makes the reader go back to the beginning and start reading it again to try and make some sense of it. That is what we all need to do over and over again.

Mark has written an account of the gospel, that is the good news. We are trying to hear it in a world in which we don't know what good news is and we speak now only of fake news. To whom do we listen, really listen? What would it take to make us change our habits, our practices, our minds? Here we are in a general election campaign and will any of the words we hear make any of us change our minds? Do we even listen to the words or have we already decided for lots of other reasons? I urge you all to vote and exercise your duty as citizens and I urge you to consider how you vote through the lens of your faith.

Which brings me to the end.

I have failed and so what do I want to encourage you to do and to hear as we meet for this synod and have the wonderful, awesome opportunity to consider how we affect the discipleship of each other. Yes, I want God's people to be set free but that will not happen through layers of meetings and acres of reports. It is intriguing to notice Setting God's people free is a document calling for culture change which results in recommendations it wants synod to debate.

I passionately believe in the good news, the radically inclusive good news, that Christ is alive. I am afraid, afraid that my weak faith and inability to communicate prevent me from standing up and shouting from the rooftops that Christ is alive. I am afraid and so I do not accept deep deep down in myself that I am a loved child of God. That in the words of the Abbot of Landevennec, who spoke to some of us this week, God believes in me. I am afraid that my life is not radically different enough to ensure others will notice and perhaps themselves discover something of the wonder, joy and challenge of the gospel, the good news.

I am afraid that we so overcomplicate the joyful relationships into which we are called as Christians that people turn away from the gospel because of the inability we display to be infected by God.

Bishop Jack Nicholls, sometime Bishop of Sheffield, when asked what he thought the prescription for putting right the wrongs of the Church was, said two things more prayer and more parties.

I believe we need to focus on our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. In doing so we have to begin and continue asking the very intimate, hard and complicated question of ourselves  of what are we afraid and why. Dare we allow ourselves to live our lives so that we flourish and celebrate the amazing wonder of being loved by God, accepting that God believes in me and you and knowing that Christ is alive?

'So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.'
Middle East's first ordained female minister denied entry for a trip to the UK over fears she won't return home

The first ordained female Christian minister in the Middle East has been denied a short-term visa to the UK, with the British government fearing she may not leave the country at the end of her trip.

Rev Rola Sleiman, 42, was due to attend the annual gathering of the Church of Scotland  the week long General Assembly due to begin on Saturday  according to The Herald.

Syrian-born Sleiman, who now pastors Tripoli Evangelical Church, was refused a visa for her trip with the Home Office telling her in a letter that it was 'not satisfied you intend to leave the UK at the end of your proposed visit'. It had previously called for verification from the Church, which the Church provided. It has now said it does not believe the Church of Scotland is paying for Sleiman's visit.

Very Rev Dr John Chalmers, principal clerk to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said the visa refusal was 'disturbing and mystifying'.

He said: 'We have been looking forward to receiving Rev Rola Sleiman as representative of the National Evangelical (Protestant) Church of Syria and Lebanon at the General Assembly.

'She is the first woman to be ordained in the Middle East and became pastor of her own congregation in Lebanon in February this year.

'Her contribution to our discussion on gender justice and on the situation in the Middle East would be of great significance.'

Chalmers said the Church was 'desperately disappointed' by the government's denial and is appealing for a reversal of the decision.

He added: 'Over the years we have invited hundreds of overseas visitors to our General Assembly and this is the first time that our commitment to covering the costs of their stay has ever been questioned.

'We also have a 100 per cent record of our visitors returning to their own country.

'However, time is not on our side and the fact that parliament has been dissolved and MPs are on the campaign trail is making it difficult for us to make headway.

'We remain hopeful that more senior UK government figures will overturn this injustice and allow Ms Sleiman to participate in our General Assembly.'
Most Americans believe the Bible is divinely inspired, but fewer than ever take it literally

Most Americans still believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, but the number who believe it should be taken literally (24 per cent) is at a 40-year low.

A May poll by Gallup found that less than one in four Americans believe the Bible to be 'the actual word of God, and is to be taken literally, word for word'. In contrast, 26 per cent view it as 'a book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man'.

The poll finds the number of those who take the Bible literally at its lowest in 40 years, and is the first time that the number of biblical sceptics has exceeded the number of biblical literalists.

However, just under half (47 per cent) of Americans still believe the Bible is 'inspired by God, not all to be taken literally'. That leaves a combined 71 per cent of Americans who still believe the Bible to be in some way inspired by God.

The study comes from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-7, which surveyed 1,011 US adults.

From the mid-1970s through to 1984, around 40 per cent of Americans believed the Bible to be the literal word of God  a figure that has been steadily declining to this day. Meanwhile, scepticism about the Bible's divine origins has risen, a tendency most pronounced in young adults (12 per cent take the Bible literally, a fall from 32 per cent in 1976), suggesting it is likely to accelerate in coming years.

College graduates were less likely than non-college graduates to take the Bible literally. Among Christians polled, the majority of all denominations described it as 'inspired', while more Protestants took it literally (35 per cent) than Catholics (21 per cent).

However, even for those with 'no religion', seven per cent still believed the Bible to be the 'actual word of God'.

The full study can be read here.
'One life is all we have': The surprising sainthood of Joan of Arc

On this day in 1920, the woman known as Joan of Arc was canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church. The move might have surprised Joan, since 500 years earlier, the Church had burned her at the stake.

The setting for Joan's story is the 15th century, in the intense conflict between England France known as the Hundred Years War. England's king, Henry V had claimed the French crown and conquered some of the country.

When he died, his young son Henry VI was the supposed king of England and France. The resident French king Charles VII was reluctant to take a stand against the English population.

So Joan, a 13-year-old peasant girl raised on a farm, went to the French court with a mighty claim. She said voices and visions from heaven had told her to dress as a knight and lead the French into battle. It was decided she was telling the truth. Joan rallied the nation, led the French into battle and defeated the English.

Unfortunately, she was eventually captured by the English, who put her on trial as a witch. They said the voices she'd heard were not from God, but Satan. In 1431 at age 19 she was burned at the stake for heresy, several times over so that only ashes and no relics would remain.

Over time however, it was determined that Joan's trial had been unjust, and she became an icon to the French and the Church  and showed that grace and greatness could be shown by anyone of any class. The young woman known as 'The Maid of Orleans' would also become to Catholics the patroness of soldiers and France.

She was beatified in 1909, and further canonised, making her officially a saint, in 1920. She is also venerated in the Anglican Communion as a visionary, and her feast day is on May 30.

This quote is ascribed to Joan, and captures her dynamic legacy: 'One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it.

'But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.'
Tim Farron: I didn't parade my faith, but I won't hide it

Tim Farron, who has faced repeated hostile questions over whether he thought gay sex was a sin, has insisted his Christian faith should be respected.

Speaking to Christian Today on a campaign visit to Bath, he denied ever making a big deal of his faith and said it was important to open about your beliefs.

'I'm one of those people who thinks it's important you are not dishonest with people but also that you don't go around ramming it down people's throats.

'I think in the end we live in society where we are secular, where we respect people's right to hold a faith or not hold a faith.

'It would be a shame if we lived in a country where you had to hide it.'

The Liberal Democrat leader, who once said that Christianity is 'the most important thing in this universe bar none', eventually said he did not believe gay sex was a sin after weeks of ducking repeated questions from reporters.

After a tour to Bath College to promote his 'start-up allowance' policy to give entrepreneurs 2,600 towards living costs in the first six months of setting up a business, he said it was important 'someone with a different vision to Theresa May does well in this election'.

He told Christian Today: 'It's worth noting that Jeremy Corbyn, UKIP and the Conservatives all voted together to push Britain off the cliff edge of the most extreme version of Brexit which will be bad for our economy and bad especially for our children.

'Therefore I am in no mood to hang my head and give up.

'Providing some alternative direction for our country and some hope is vital. The Lib Dems are doing that.'

The tightly fought West Country seat is a key target seat for the Lib Dems. With 61 per cent of residents voting to Remain in the EU referendum, they will hope their anti-Brexit will cut through.

Across the other side of Bath, Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat's last-minute candidate for the key target seat, admitted her late arrival was a 'challenge' but said the team had been preparing for a snap election.

Also a Christian, she said the public should be tolerant of all faiths.

'A lot of what I do comes not just from my faith but the values that our Western societies are inspired by and at the bottom of that is a lot of the Christian faith,' she said after a hustings with Church of England primary school children.

'For me it is about solidarity  love your neighbour. Those are the key values that can go into politics and be very valuable there as values that we stand for,' she told Christian Today.

'They have very much informed me in the way I am looking at the world and look at society.'

Pressed on what role faith should play in society she initially said, 'I wouldn't change anything'. But when asked about Bishops in the House of Lords she said the UK's second chamber should be elected.

But Ben Howlett, Bath's Conservative candidate who is also a Christian, warned faith was being used to score party political points.

'I think people should be a lot more vocal about their religion and about their spiritual beliefs. We should respect all beliefs.

'But I think at the moment it has been used for a bit more party political point scoring I'm afraid to say.'

Howlett overturned the previous Lib Dem MP Don Foster's majority of nearly 12,000 to win in 2015.

He went on to say the Church of England has a long way to go on LGBT rights.

'I think the Church of England is going through a big journey at the moment,' he told Christian Today.

'I have to say, as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was my former vicar in the University of Durham, he has been a very good advocate in shifting the Church of England to being more progressive.

'I think there is a long way to go particularly when it on the LGBT issue for the Church of England in the coming years.'

Although parliament shouldn't tell the Church what to do directly, MPs do and should pressurise it to be more progressive, he said.

'What we are seeing is questions coming up time and time where parliamentarians ask the Church Commissioners to intervene or make representations.

'I don't think parliament should intervene in the Church, however I think we should be the main pinnacle of debate on this particular issue and we have been pushing that issue forward over the last two years I've been in parliament at least.'
Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians at Oval Office meeting, officials claim

President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two US officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.

The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.

The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.

'The story that came out tonight as reported is false,' HR McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

'At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen,' he said.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.

Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct 'dangerous' and 'reckless'.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations 'very, very troubling' if true.

'Obviously, they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to come to grips with all that's happening,' he said of the White House.

Secret compartment

The latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified 'Top Secret' and held in a secure 'compartment' to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a 'total scam', sharply criticised his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.

The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been 'careless' with classified information.

'No filter'

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on 'great intel every day', an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

Some US officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.

One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: 'He has no filter; it's in one ear and out the mouth.'

One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure 'particularly unfortunate' as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important US allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.

The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumours that he might shake up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration.
'We're not going anywhere': Leading conservative evangelical pledges to fight for the gospel from inside CofE

There will be no mass exodus of evangelicals from the Church of England, one of the country's leading evangelical Anglicans said today.

Lee Gatiss, director of the Church Society, wrote in his latest 'Topical Tuesday' column that many evangelicals view the current climate in the Church of England, and the battle over how far to go in accepting LGBT people, as comparable to Brexit.

He said they are asking: 'Where shall I go to church? Where shall I offer myself to serve in ministry? Is it time to leave the CofE?'

But it is not a straightforward question, binary question as Brexit was.

'Evangelicals will not en masse leave the CofE. There is no fabled blueprint or master plan for doing that. And there never has been,' he says, going on to criticise those calling most stridently for division.

'Interestingly, those who often seem to talk "toughest" on all this, cannot bring themselves to actually do it themselves. They are happy to urge others to leave but I've noticed some of the most strident advocates for leaving, on social media and elsewhere, are all still in Church of England parishes and vicarages and pension schemes.

'Though they try to push others into much more precarious family and financial and fellowship situations than they themselves happen to enjoy.'

He said Credible Bishops, a discussion document revealed exclusively by Christian Today, was a useful discussion paper by two individuals on an important subject which must be discussed. There was no vote on it at the conference. But he insisted it was not a widely accepted plan.

'Anglican evangelicals do not all agree on tactics or that the victory of the liberal agenda in the Church is inevitable and imminent as some say,' he added.

But doing the wrong thing can be worse than doing nothing. 'What we must try to do is the right thing.'

He noted that in 17th century many who left the Church of England ended up as Unitarians, especially those who were decidedly against systematic theology and wanted to only talk about and study the Bible.

In the 18th century, the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion was detached.

In the 19th century the Free Church of England people began to leave.

In the 20th century the C of E (Continuing) was formed.

As for where they are all now, about 1,000 people meet each week in the Countess of Huntingdon's churches.

'Of those who left in the 19th century, the Free Church of England is still small.

'The Church of England (Continuing) may not continue for very much longer. It has four congregations (and two bishops) soldiering on with the King James Version and the 1662 Prayer Book alone.'

Secession is never easy, and such things need to be much more carefully thought through, he said.

'The vast majority of conservative evangelicals in the Church of England are not about to go anywhere, or do anything wild. They are united around the agenda of staying in and fighting on, for the glory of God and the good of England.'

He dismissed the Newcastle consecration as the work of a 'perplexingly idiosyncratic church' which has 'gone a bit rogue'.

But is own Church Society is the 'main game' in town.

'So today, we in Church Society reaffirm our commitment to working within the structures of the Church of England, for reform and renewal, and the re-evangelisation of our spiritually needy land,' he said.

'So either way, let's fight for Jesus in ways Jesus would approve. And Jesus's people will, we pray, see something attractive and worth being part of  for the glory of God and the good of his world.'
What happens when you put politicians in front of primary school children

As Tim Farron talked to students at Bath College in the crucial West Country seat, his colleague, Bath's Lib Dem candidate, was facing a much tougher grilling.

Wera Hobhouse sat alongside her rivals in front of 163 primary school children at St Swithin's Church, Bath, for a Year 5 and 6 hustings.

'My question is about foodbanks,' said Zac. 'Why are we using foodbanks when we are the sixth wealthiest country?'

A stinger.

'Because we are not paying people enough money.' The Greens' Eleanor Field got in there first.

'It's a scandal,' agreed Hobhouse.

Attention turned to sitting Conservative MP Ben Howlett who began to talk how he was involved helping in the city's foodbanks.

'Now you're not really answering the question, are you, Mr Howlett?' interjected Mrs East, head teacher of St Andrew's Church of England primary school, giving Julie Etchingham a lesson in moderating.

Scolded, Howlett admitted 'it is a massively complex issue'.

Labour's Joe Rayment impressed with his final summary. 'When Labour is in power things get better,' he told the schoolchildren.

'It was Labour that brought down child poverty,' he said before the excited children from three CofE primary schools across Bath trooped off to a ballot box to cast their vote.

Acting Returning Officer Rev Timothy Gleghorn, rose to announce the results moments later.

Hobhouse had failed to impress. Just 10 of the decidedly left-leaning nine and ten-year-olds backed the Lib Dem contender.

Even the Tories' Ben Howlett pipped her with 11 votes.

The Green's Eleanor Field had a strong 47 votes but Labour's Joe Rayment stormed to victory with 95.

Sadly for Labour, the result here on June 8 is unlikely to be the same. A key target seat for the Lib Dems with 61 per cent backing Remain in the referendum, Jeremy Corbyn's message is unlikely to cut through. It will be a tough head to head between the Conservative's and the Lib Dems.

For all the triviality of the primary school hustings, it was both entertaining and inciteful. The candidates were asked difficult questions on everything from the environment and poverty to education and Brexit.

It exposed soundbites and highlighted who could communicate simply and effectively and who only operated with a Westminster-based outlook.

If Theresa May won't face Jeremy Corbyn in a television debate, a much sterner test could be to return to St Swithin's for round two.
In Jonathan Swifts classic fable, Gullivers Travels, a shipwreck maroons Lemuel Gulliver, the ill-fated crews sole survivor, on a remote island (Lilliput) inhabited by people only six inches tall. Upon reaching shore, the exhausted Gulliver falls asleep, unaware of the islands tiny occupants. When he awakens, he finds himself helplessly bound by a web of string, with which the puny creaturescalled Lilliputianshave tied him to the ground. So it is that highly focused public employees can come to dominate the much larger group of taxpayers they supposedly serve, especially iflike Gulliverthe taxpayers fail to apprehend the threat until it is too late.

For the purposes of this argument, Texas is Lilliput, and the 27 million residents of the state are Gulliver. The nearly 1.5 million state and local government employees in Texas are the Lilliputians. The Lone Star State has more state and local employees per capita than Illinois or California. Approximately 325,000 of these employees work for the state of Texas; approximately 1.2 million work for local governments (cities, counties, school districts, and other political subdivisions of the state).

Texas is a fast-growing right-to-work state with a robust economy. Only 4 percent of the workforce in Texas belongs to a labor union, less than half the national average. Therefore, the common perception is that organized labor is weak in Texas. Moreover, Texas voters are overwhelmingly conservative. Both houses of the Texas legislature have lopsided Republican majorities, and for decades, only Republicans have been elected to statewide office. The Texas Model of low taxes, business-friendly regulation, and comprehensive tort-reform legislation is key to the states current prosperity, as is its ban on collective bargaining by public employees (a condition that has contributed substantially to Californias economic decline).

Most residents thus assume that Texas has been spared the burden of excessively powerful public unions. Theyre wrong: the dirty secret in Texas is that public employees, especially those working in public safety, education, and large cities, are represented by powerful unions that promote the interests of their members at the expense of unsuspecting taxpayers.

How could so many Texans be unaware of this situation? The basic statute (reflecting Texas law, in effect since 1947) holds unambiguously that An official of the state or of a political subdivision of the state may not recognize a labor organization as the bargaining agent for a group of public employees. The statute also emphatically declares that An official of the state or of a political subdivision of the state may not enter into a collective bargaining contract with a labor organization regarding wages, hours, or conditions of employment of public employees (emphases added).

Cursorily inspected, the law in Texas seems clear. Unfortunately, the statutory ban on public-sector unionization is subject to little-known exceptions, enacted decades later, for certain categories of politically influential government employees, beginning with police officers and firefighters. Thus, the Texas legislature quietly exempted public-safety employees from the unionization ban under certain circumstances. As a result, police officers and firefighters in Texas often unionize and negotiate rich compensation and benefit arrangements with the political subdivisions that employ them. As noted in a comprehensive report issued by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Largely as a consequence of the local public-safety loophole in Texas ban on exclusive union bargaining in the government sector, firefighter and police compensation packages in the states large cities include many costly perks one might expect to see in a Los Angeles, Chicago, or New York union contract. In fact, Houston and Dallas are tottering on the brink of insolvency due to overly generous (and badly underfunded) pension plans for unionized public safety employees, a predictable outcome when powerful government-employee unions bargain with the same city officials they helped to elect.

A second loophole in Texas law, enacted in 2005, allows cities with a population of at least 1.5 million (only Houston, for now, though San Antonio and Dallas are getting closer) to enter into a mutual agreement with an exclusive bargaining representative regarding wages, salaries, rates of pay, hours of work, [and] other terms and conditions of employment. Houstons taxpayers did not lobby the legislature to give city employees more clout with which to extract higher wages, more generous benefits, and greater job security. In a textbook display of public-choice theory, the special-interest group that stood to benefit mosthere, the union affiliated with AFSCME and SEIU, representing Houstons dues-paying city employeeswielded its political clout to create an obscure loophole giving itself special privileges and even more power.

In the sneakiest power-grab of all, Texass teachers circumvent the ban on public- sector bargaining by persuading large urban school districts to adopt exclusive consultation policies that allow only one designated organization to meet and confer with the school board about educational issues and employment conditions. Invariably, the designated organization just happens to be a labor association representing the teachers, who account for a large percentage of local government employees. School districts in Austin, Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio have adopted these policies. The TPPF report concludes that Even though the school board is supposed to make all final decisions, the decisions often closely resemble what teacher union officials have advocated. This is de facto collective bargaining, in contravention of Texas law.

Like the Lilliputians who entrapped Gulliver, public-employee unions in Texas have been busy: lobbying the legislature; electing local officials disposed to doing their bidding; enriching union members at the public expense of tax increases and diminished services; amassing campaign warchests from union dues; contributing $1.6 million to state lawmakers in Texas during the 2016 election cycle; controlling many urban school districts; and building municipal political machines. Like Gulliver, Texas taxpayers have been sound asleep, oblivious to the incessant activity gradually rendering them helpless.

When Republican legislators make even tepid efforts to resist the unions agenda, they are foiled by GOP House Speaker Joe Straus, who maintains his leadership through an unusual alliance between House Democrats and a small number of moderate Republicans aligned with Texass public-employee unions. Texas is hardly a pro-union state, but thanks to Strauss machinations, even basic taxpayer protectionssuch as forbidding the government to collect union dues from public employees paycheckshave consistently failed to pass. This is tantamount to political acquiescence, though similar bans on dues collection have been enacted in far less conservative states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin.

To see what happens when public-employee unions grab too much power, look to California, where, as author Steven Greenhut reports, government employees are grossly overpaid relative to their private-sector counterparts, retirement benefits for civil servants are piratical, overtime is paid in excess of employees already-inflated annual salaries, and even low-level positions such as lifeguard are compensated into six figures. In California, public-employee unions are so strong that legislation theyre backing to deny public access to the details of labor negotiations until they are completed is advancing in the state legislature. Public-employee unions are one of the biggest donors to political campaigns, ensuring their continued dominance.

Unlike in the private sector, where market conditions and competition constrain labor negotiations, the allocation of finite taxpayer resources in the public sector is a quintessentially political decision. Allowing one faction to rig the political decision-making process in its favor, without transparency or consensus, sabotages representative self-government. Texans (and affected taxpayers in other states) must become alert: a well-organized foe is intently constructing a web of bondage, from which it may be impossible to escape.

Mark Pulliam is a contributing editor at the Library of Law and Liberty. He writes from Austin, Texas.

Photo by Ronald Martinez/GettyImages
Last week, my high school alma mater in the prosperous Montgomery County suburbs of Philadelphia went viral. A video of a student brawl injuring four security officers and eight teachers appeared on YouTube, bolstering long-whispered rumors of the districts decline. Four students were taken into custody; one of them, 18 and charged as an adult for four counts of aggravated assault, is still in jail as I write. All four of the students were black females.

I havent visited Cheltenham High since I graduated in the faraway American Graffiti era, but I ventured back for a packed emergency community meeting about the May 4 events. In addition to memories, I found a stark illustration of the nations evasions about racial gaps in education.

It became clear almost immediately that the brawl was no one-off. Really we have experienced [this kind of fight] our entire high school career, said the student council president, the first speaker lined up at the audience mikes. We complained. We never got any response. We were told all disputes were personal and the school was safe. Why now? she asked tearfully. Because a video of it was leaked to the media? Students described rape threats, stalking, kids sent back to classrooms after menacing teachers or classmates, teachers walking past fighting kids, security guards looking the other way. The problems, students insisted, werent limited to the high school; they remembered thuggery in middle and even elementary school, too.

There was no way to chalk up these complaints to adolescent theatrics. A February survey of CHS teachers had already revealed a school that resembled Lord of the Flies. Cursing, yelling students roamed the halls, pushing, shoving, ramming each other into walls, sometimes accidentally colliding with teachers. Thirty-six out of 79 teachers surveyed believed that they were unsafe in the hallways, and those who didnt acknowledged either being big enough to stare down students or practiced at minding their own business. What are you going to do about it? You cant do anything, Fuck off, crazy old motherfucker, were some of the choice rejoinders they told of hearing. If I feel uncomfortable by the language and noise level a student displays, one teacher wrote, I can 1) address it and open myself up to insubordination and/or a verbal retaliation for which no consequences will be delivered or I can 2) choose to ignore it which I struggle with ethically because then I feel complicit. Its a complete no-win, and I battle this every day.

What could not be said out loud was that the problem kids were all black, though the district superintendent did delicately indicate that the schools trouble is racialized. Like many inner suburbs, once predominantly white Cheltenham has become increasingly African-American over the past decades. Back in the day, only about 10 percent of the high school population was black; Reggie Jackson, who graduated two years before me, remains the schools most famous alum. The large majority of my classmates were the sons and daughters of second-generation Jews who had followed the immigrant dream into Phillys northern suburbs in the postwar years. (Yoni Jonathan Netanyahu, who would die in the 1976 Entebbe raid, graduated the same year as Reggie; his brother Bibi picked up his diploma three years later. Their unflattering view of their coddled American baby boomer classmates is the subject of this blunt 2015 Washington Post article.)

Today, the district is 53 percent black, though the demographics defy easy generalization. Most of those students are the children of a growing black middle class that had moved to Cheltenham for the same reason postwar Jewish families had: its relatively affordable, attractive homes and its highly regarded schools, the holy grail of American house-hunting parents of all races. A number of black parents at the meeting spoke poignantly of the hopes that had brought them to the district. I moved heaven and earth to make sure my child had a chance, one voluble mother of a 12-year-old pleaded. I could have lived in a wonderful house in Philly. No way Im sending my girl to those schools. Id rather live in a box and let my kid get a good education.

Some of Cheltenhams arrivals are spillovers from nearby North Philadelphia, the citys immense and long-suffering black ghetto. They have moved into aging apartment complexes on the districts border, bringing with them the old neighborhoods broken culture. Forty-five percent of the black children in Cheltenham are born to unmarried mothers; its jolting to realize that illegitimacy, as it was once called, was almost unheard of at the time my peers were piling into school bleachers to cheer Reggie Jackson. Poverty rates for these kids are well below the national average, but almost 30 percent of single-parent households in Cheltenham are nevertheless in the ranks of the poor or near-poor.

If those households are like the struggling single-parent homes studied by social scientists, then the children are experiencing radically different domestic lives than their middle-class black and white classmateswith few routines, disappearing fathers and stepfathers, and little adult interest in homework, teachers, and discipline. Researchers have repeatedly found that boys growing up in single-mother households are especially prone to externalizing behavior like fighting, impulsiveness, rudenessin other words, precisely the sort of behavior that the community meeting was demanding the administration do something about.

This class and family divide, intertwined as it is with race, is off-limits to polite discussion, leading conversations like the one at the community meeting into a verbal traffic jam of contradictions and dodges. The student council president shed tears over the mayhem in one breath and in the next demanded an end to the black-white achievement gap and adoption of data-driven solutions like restorative justice. (Unsurprisingly, this popular education fad has yet to be subject to careful study.) The audience retreated to the familiar litany of policy fixes with a long history of uneven or meager results: more black teachers! More counselors! More mentors!

One solution is alternative schools, which would place the small number of students making education impossible for the majority into schools explicitly designed for kids unable to function in ordinary education environments. The February teacher survey showed that the vast majority of instructors supported the approach; several black parents also endorsed it at the meeting. (A white father reviled the idea as stigmatizing.) For three hours, parents and students demanded that the administration impose clear consequences for fighting and rudeness. The administrators have their self-contradicting marching orders: stigma-free consequences.

Those anxious about stigma shouldnt worry. Between public racial sensitivities, current federal regulations, and (its a good bet) their own reluctance, the administrators hands are more or less tied. In 2013, the Obama administrations Department of Education Civil Rights Division warned school districts that schools violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race (authors emphasis). Cheltenhams ruffians will be safe from discipline and stigma, though not, of course, from each other.

The bitter irony of the widespread evasion about racial discrepancies in externalizing behavior is that it harms Cheltenhams blacks above all. The large majority of kids who are well prepared to walk the halls and talk to teachers with a modicum of civility are forced to cede their educations and safety to the uncivilized few. Cheltenham has a committed (for now) cadre of white parents dedicated to diversity, but the townships population is considerably whiter than its schools; a sizable number of whites have clearly already fled the local schools or decided not to move there in the first place. Theyre not alone. Several disgusted black parents said that they had pulled their children out of the local schools despite paying astronomical taxes in order to live in the reputedly excellent district.

Now this lovely suburb with once-envied schools is facing black as well as white flight. Lets see how the Education Departments Civil Rights Division deals with that.

Kay S. Hymowitz is a City Journal contributing editor, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back.

Photo by Tim Boyle/GettyImages
Sir Vince Cable has urged more charities to consider a social enterprise model as a way to further their missions, in an interview with Governance & Leadership magazine.

The former Business Secretary and Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate has recently become the chair of HCT, a community transport charity which runs commercial bus services to subsidise its charitable activity.

He praised HCTs social enterprise model and said he wants to see it taken up more widely.

I had overall responsibility for social enterprise in government but it was immensely frustrating because while I thought it was a great model for a company, it wasnt really happening in the real world, he said.

My aspiration is to see HCT, which is a very successful company, replicated elsewhere.

HCT has expanded its reach in recent years and Cable said he expects this to continue.

Subscribers to Governance & Leadership can read the full interview here.

The May issue of Governance & Leadership is out today and all the content is available to subscribers online here. Find out more about subscribing.
Hugh Radojev reports last week's Fundraising First Thing where Mike Thiedke, director of public engagement at Plan International UK and Adeela Warley, chief executive of CharityComms, discussed the changing roles of both internal and external communications.

Over the last 12 to 18 months, the phenomena of (predominantly) large charities merging once disparate fundraising and communications teams  and indeed often other directorates such as marketing, service delivery, campaigning to name a few  into one large directorates has become more common.

While it might be drawing a slightly long bow to suggest that many of these mergers were a result of the media storm of 2015, many charities which fundraise on a large scale are now increasingly aware of the need to communicate in a unified way with supporters.

For one thing, unifying directorates which directly communicate with supporters  be that through fundraising asks, or through awareness campaigns  should, in theory at least, make it more straight forward to monitor supporters individual preferences. A unified communications and fundraising directorate can also help ensure that all communications are, to use a marketing phrase, on brand.

Merging directorates under a single umbrella brings its own set of challenges though, both internally and externally. With that in mind, heres a few things we learned from both Mike Thiedke and Adeela Warley.

Merging directorates is not about overriding individual expertise but about maximising potential

The key message from Mike Thiedke for the morning was that managing a single directorate populated by professional fundraisers, communications experts and marketers is not about overriding expertise but about increasing the income, profile and influence of the organisation.

For Thiedke, who has been in charge of a combined directorate at Plan International UK since it merged in 2013, it is important to let people get on with their jobs as much as possible, without letting the almost infinite possibility for bureaucracy, red-tape and, of course, meetings get in the way.

Being responsible for over 90 staff, which generated 46 per cent of Plans total income in 2016 and accounted for nearly half of the organisations total expenditure, Thiedke said that integrated teams often feel the need to talk to each other all of the time. To sit in on each others meetings and constantly feel that you need to inform each other of what youre doing all of the time. Thiedke said that this is simply not true.

At the same time however, Thiedke said that in order for a combined directorate to succeed, individual fundraisers, marketers and comms people would need to set aside their professional egos and buy-in completely with the overarching theme and goals of the organisation as a whole.

Each unit within the Engagement directorate at Plan International UK lead their own areas of work and are in charge of their budgets, Key Performance Indicators, BAU activity and execution, he said but long-term plans are massive and inclusive, budgeting is coordinated and there are, inevitably, more management coordination meetings.

The end result of all this though can be truly transformational, as Thiedke pointed out. Plans Because Im a Girl campaign was able to force constitutional change in Malawi outlawing child marriage.

When the campaign moved on to Uganda, the overlap in supporters between the two was 75 per cent, with a further 25 per cent of cold supporters signing up. That, said Thiedke, with characteristic understatement, is the sought of thing you want to communicate with your supporters.

Indeed.

Old school fundraising is dead, the future is holistic engagement!

The vast majority of fundraisers have heard a statement similar to this at some point over the last few years. The traditional tools of the fundraiser: the direct mailing and the collection bucket, have less and less of a place in an ever more digitalised age.

However the point that Adeela Warley was making went beyond simply the tools of the fundraising trade, so to speak, but about the entire way fundraisers think about campaigns moving forward. At the end of the day, said Warley, an organisations fundraising department must be interconnected to its communications team, in the same way that its branding ought to be linked to its campaigning or marketing functions.

Drawing on her experience of working at Friends of the Earth, where she was head of communications and supporter experience, Warley said that ultimately supporters are not fans of your organisations fundraising department or your communications team. Theyre supporters of your whole organisation. Without the whole, they wouldnt donate money or read your campaign material.

In Fundraising Magazine

Warley also said that, at Friends of the Earth, each of the heads of the individual units within the organisation presented quarterly reviews from other departments to the charitys board. For example Warley, head of communications at the charity, would present to the board about the charitys fundraising, and the charitys head of fundraising would present on its communications and so on.

This technique, she said, gave all the different heads of department across the charity an intimate understanding of the way other areas of the organisation worked.

For Warley, this was why the BeeCause Campaign the organisation ran in 2013 proved to be so successful, not just in terms of the 560,000 it raised but also that it was able to affect a new law to protect bees.

The next Fundraising First Thing will be on the 12th of September 2017, and will be on the topic of: Legacies, data and the era of responsible fundraising. For more information, and to book, click here
Kathy Tu is working some personal things out in the most public way. Take the premiere of the LGBTQ podcast she co-hosts, Nancy, in which Tu once again broached her sexuality with her conservative Taiwanese mother. Or the programs latest episode, released Sunday, in which she described her reluctance to get a 90s boy-band haircut and apprehension toward the word that may be associated with it, butch.

Im working on my insecurities right in front of people, Tu says in WNYCs lower Manhattan office, a three-story jungle of audio studios and conference rooms. Anything Im feeling anxious aboutthey make me do a story on it.

Tus co-host, Tobin Low, chimes in with comedic timing no doubt honed behind the microphone: Its great for the show.

Part personal essay, part reported feature, Nancy is a weekly exploration of queer stories that weave together the diverse quilt of LGBTQ culture. The shows premisetwo friends discovering their own identities, and inviting you to discover your ownwas one of two winners selected in WNYCs podcast accelerator two years ago. Its launch last month provides the latest glimpse into how the public radio station is reorienting itself to take full advantage of the podcast boom.

Our show makes queer people the defaultwe talk about you like youre a normal guy, Tu says playfully, pointing at Low, a professionally trained cellist. The pair met at an audio workshop in 2013, when they were both trying to switch careers (Tu had just finished law school). Their chemistry is what makes Nancy a success.

In some ways, the intimacy of podcasting seems best suited for a topic that is at once immensely personal and in some ways universal. The series adroitly opens with both hosts recounting how they came out to their parentswho had widely divergent responses. And then, Low says, we were really intentional in saying, Lets start the second episode by watching porn. Jumping from emotional coming-out stories to a visceral odyssey in sexual education risked throwing listeners off balance. But it also set the mood for a show that attempts to tiptoe between typical media narratives around queerness of either celebration or alienation.

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Both those things can be true and are true, Low says. But one doesnt have to come at the expense of the other. Take Nancys sixth episode, which featured two gay men from different eras in a powerful conversation about testing positive for HIV. While Nancys more arms-length reporting, like its deep dive on gay Republicans, can feel stiff, its conversational journey through stories of self-discovery is rewarding. Add in slick production and creative sound design for a rich listening experience.

What was going on in your life at 29? For David, that was the year his partner died and he tested positive for HIV. pic.twitter.com/ayGUvMRwEV  Nancy Podcast (@NancyPodcast) May 12, 2017

Nancy is the latest bid for WNYC Studios, the public radio stations podcast arm, to grow its footprint far outside of New York. Indeed, the number of weekly podcast listeners in the US has more than doubled in the past four years, to 15 percent of Americans, according to Edison Research surveys. These audiences skew younger, more affluent, and better educated than the general population. Media companies are investing heavily in the medium in the hope of capitalizing on this inherently mobile storytelling format.

There are startups, like Gimlet Media, Crooked Media, and The Ringer, designed wholly or largely around podcasting. Slate has built out a robust, well, slate of longform talk shows, and The New York Times has launched a so-far-impressive daily newscast.

But the tested radioheads at the likes of NPR, This American Life, and WNYC still dominate the nascent market for on-demand audio content. The latters shows drew an estimated 35 million streams and downloads in April, according to the analytics firm Podtrac. And the stations betting that shows like Nancy can help expand that base by targeting audiences that wouldnt necessarily tune in for broadcast programs.

Radio needs what radio needs, and thats different from podcasts, says WNYC Chief Content Officer Dean Cappello. The tough part is finding people with unique points of view. And once weve done that, I would argue weve solved about 80 percent of our problems.

That was the central mission of WNYCs podcast accelerator in 2015, when Tu and Lows pitch for a personality-driven LGBTQ magazine show, Gaydio, was one of two chosen from hundreds of entries. Were always looking for new voices, for things people arent finding right now, says Paula Szuchman, WNYCs VP of on-demand content. Were trying to reflect the city were in.

The idea behind the accelerator was to spot new talent and incubate it in-house. And over the following few months, Tu and Low produced a pilot that Szuchman pitched internally to the WNYC production staff and sales teams. The show that was eventually greenlighted, Nancy, features themes of self-exploration and acceptanceNew York valueswith far-reaching appeal.

This is totally consistent with what is happening with on-demand video and comedy shops, Cappello adds. Are you backing Mad Men or are you backing Matt Weiner? Its the age of the creator.Lets support the really creative people and let them deliver over and over again.

The station already boasts a cadre of these creative types, whove delivered massive successes with the likes of Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, and, to a lesser extent, Death, Sex & Money and Heres The Thing, hosted by Alec Baldwin. Such heavy-hitters have allowed WNYC Studios to try to build on its core audience through concepts and voices not typically heard on public radio.

On the more conventional end of the spectrum, the Radiolab spinoff More Perfect dives deep into how the Supreme Court affects daily life. 2 Dope Queens, hosted by two women of color, injects a potent blend of comedy and social commentary into a format that has been criticized for its overwhelming whiteness. Nancy, which has the feel of a boutique program, nevertheless reached iTuness top-10 chart the week it premiered.

In episode 2 we explore the role of Asian men in gay porn. Listen: https://t.co/Rp0r7ibGsm pic.twitter.com/6LTPX3kuNk  Nancy Podcast (@NancyPodcast) April 15, 2017

Despite the difficulty of drilling deep into podcasts audience size, revenue equations for the medium often start with advertising, including the familiar bits about gourmet meal delivery services and deodorizing toilet sprays. Podcasting, in particular, seems like it could also be super attractive to major donors who want to support something new and interesting, Cappello adds. And then the final part is that were doing more work on how you take the idea of membershipon radio, thats a fund drive three or four times a yearwhen you have on-demand content?

That last aspect seems particularly promising, as listeners are often intensely loyal to their favorite podcasts and hosts. With the popular lefty program Chapo Trap House, for example, more than 13,000 Patreon donors support the show to the tune of $60,000 a month. Youre going to hear things over the next year about building community, and then asking that community to help support those shows, Cappello says of WNYC Studios.

Nancy is attempting to cultivate that community with frequent Facebook Live Q&As, among other forms of engagement. But the core of the programs appeal is ushering the audience into Tu and Lows friendship as it plays out on air. When we go in the studio, our job is not to have that producer brain but to be really authentic, to be in the moment, and to trust [production staff] to tell us when we got it and when we dont got it, Low says. No pre-planned jokes, adds Tu.

That also means being open to a producers idea of, say, turning the recent end of her relationship into a story. All I do is open up on this podcast, Tu says. So, this show has been great for me, personallyminus the breakup.

An earlier version of this story misspelled Paula Szuchmans surname.

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David Uberti is a writer in New York. He was previously a media reporter for Gizmodo Media Group and a staff writer for CJR. Follow him on Twitter @DavidUberti.
ERBIL, Iraqi KurdistanThe November day dawned much like any other in the battle to retake Mosul: clear and cold, with a high probability of suicide bombers. It had been five weeks since the start of the operation, and Iraqi Security Forces were still battling Islamic State militants on the eastern outskirts of the city.

I was driving into a newly liberated eastern neighborhood with two other freelance journalists and our fixer when I got a phone call. Another freelancer had just been injured by an Islamic State suicide truck bomb, which had brought a house down on top of him.

A moment later, the pressure changed inside our armored car and a dirty gray cloud rose high in the air a kilometer down the road. The sound of the explosion reached us a moment later. Another car bomb had detonated. During a short roadside discussion, we reasoned that if we returned without our stories, we would still have to pay our fixer. We pulled on flak jackets and helmets and resolved to continue with caution.

Shortly afterward, injured 27-year-old freelance filmmaker Joshua Baker was driven out of Mosul along the same road. By the time he reached the hospital in Erbil, where an X-ray showed he had a fractured spine, journalists hed never met were waiting for him. The first ones at the hospital were freelancers, Baker said over Skype in January from his home in London, where he was recovering. These people were not part of my production, but members of the freelance community who recognized the need to support each other.

The battle for Mosul is the biggest urban battle since World War II, accessible to freelancers but also exceedingly dangerous. But while recent conflicts in the Middle East have highlighted the vulnerability of freelancers, Mosul is illustrating a new trend: The freelance community today is better prepared to face risk than at any point in the past. More aware now of the limits of what our industry will do for us, freelancers have realized the onus is on us to protect our own. At the same time, we are well aware that there is only so much we can do to take care of each other.

***

On a rooftop in a residential neighborhood of Erbil in late November, a group of 15 freelance journalists and local fixers grappled to apply tourniquets to mannequins slick with fake blood under the watchful eye of a former Danish special forces medic. The exercise, which occurred about a week before Baker was hurt, was part of a two-day medical and security training organized in haste after the Mosul operation began. We just saw a huge need, says Danish freelance multimedia journalist Anne Alling, co-founder of the Warzone Freelance Project. The project started as a way to highlight members work through multimedia exhibitions across Europe, but members covering the Mosul offensive saw a need for greater safety training among some of their colleagues. The idea is to hold the training in the conflict areas and to tailor the content to that specific conflict, says Alling.

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The UK-based Rory Peck Trust was one of several organizations that provided financial support to two of these trainings in Erbil. Since 1995, the trust has offered practical assistance and support to freelance news-gatherers and their families worldwide, but has only recently started supporting group security and medical trainings around the world. The initiative to organize this kind of thing has come from the freelance community, says Catalina Cortes, the trusts program officer for training bursaries.

The trust also offers grants for individual freelancers to undertake hostile environment training. Cortes says applications for these have increased markedly in recent years, from 49 in 2009 to 65 last year. (The trust gave me a grant to complete a four-day hostile environment training course in England in 2015.)

Increased interest in security training for freelancers has coincided with a tough period for freelancers, particularly in the Middle East. The popular uprisings that swept much of the Middle East and North Africa starting in late 2010 initially offered an unusually ripe environment for young freelancers to earn their credentials as conflict journalists. Plummeting advertising revenue during the previous decade had resulted in cost cutting, foreign bureau closures, and layoffs of experienced staffers. Freelancerswilling to work for less, without the safety net of insurance and support traditionally afforded by legacy publicationswere eager to fill the gap.

The blossoming of peaceful protests was initially labelled the Arab Spring, but soon metastasized into dark conflicts in Syria and Libya that proved deadly training grounds for journalists. The deaths of photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya in April 2011 prompted a reevaluation of the way freelancers were reporting conflict. Libya was a turning point, says photojournalist Ivor Prickett, who has worked across the Middle East since 2009. After Tim and Chris got killed and a whole lot of others got hurt, it became so much less acceptable for young people to be running around without a flak jacket and insurance.

Following the two photojournalists deaths, their friend and colleague Sebastian Junger set up Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC), which offers free medical training training to freelancers. Following a four-day course involving battlefield simulations, every participant receives a medical pack to wear in the field. RISC has since trained 288 freelancers (I received RISC training in 2016).

Since the 1990s, hostile environment training has gradually become an industry standard for staff correspondents, but it is only now becoming a prerequisite for freelancers working in conflict zones. When I began reporting in the late 1970s, no one talked about risk assessments or safety equipment or contingency planning, veteran correspondent Judith Matloff wrote in an email. An editor handed a staffer a bottle of Scotch and said, Good luck.

Since then concern for the safety (and to a lesser extent, mental well-being) of staffers has become somewhat institutionalized, but progress for freelancers has until recently lagged behind. Matloff now runs safety workshops for journalists through the Columbia Journalism School and says that 62 people applied for 17 available places on the most recent course. [That] shows that folks, or at least these folks, are taking security more seriously.

Much of the impetus for freelancers to take a more formal approach to safety and security stems from editors growing reluctance to accept content from freelancers working in conflict zones unless they can demonstrate a professional approach to mitigating risk.

Much of the impetus for freelancers to take a more formal approach to safety and security stems from editors growing reluctance to accept content from freelancers working in conflict zones unless they can demonstrate a professional approach to mitigating risk. I think Syria was the watershed, says AP reporter Balint Szlanko. It was so dangerous,

Szlanko is currently coordinating the APs coverage of the Mosul offensive. But in 2013, when he was a freelancer, Szlanko was kidnapped in Aleppo. At the time, many inexperienced freelancers were filing from Syria for major publications and the wires, he says. It doesnt work like that anymore.

Szlanko was eventually released, unlike his colleagues James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

I didnt know Foley or Sotloff personally, but I vividly recall warm tears running down my face in an airport bar as I watched Foley kneel in the sand in an orange jumpsuit. It was August 2014, and I was moving from Cairo, where I had spent two years as an editor and reporter for local Egyptian English language publications, to northern Iraq, where I planned to freelance. Seeing the execution videos shook from me the last naive laxity toward my own safety.

In Iraq, I found that while many major publications were reluctant to commission freelance material from conflict zones, some were more relaxed. Some provided insurance; others asked for risk assessments ahead of assignments. Still others signed off with the same Good luck Matloff had received with that bottle of Scotch in the 1970s.

Since 2013, though, a collective of freelancers had been pushing for better treatment from clients. The Frontline Freelance Register is a representative body that advocates for its members well-being, while promoting a code of conduct encouraging freelancers to take responsibility for their safety. It now has four sets of body armor to loan to membersincluding one in Erbil. Members have organized briefings on topics such as IED awareness training and mental trauma, and the groups Erbil representative has coordinated hospital visits for wounded freelancers. Thanks in part to their efforts, by the time the Mosul operation launched, it was unthinkable for most in the community to turn up at a frontline without flak jackets, helmets, and medical kits for both journalist and fixer.

As in any other war, though, plenty of inexperienced journalists have been drawn to the conflict here in Mosul. One returned from his first trip to a frontline to post the accomplishment of a life goal on Facebook: Became a war reporter. Another inexperienced freelancer wasnt wearing body armor when he entered an Islamic State-held village at the vanguard of a Peshmerga column and was seriously injured in an explosion. Many had difficulty publishing enough work to sustain themselves. For one thing, most major outlets had correspondents on the ground, and with so many journalists in town, the costs of hiring a fixer skyrocketed.

Within the first few days of the operation, the Committee to Protect Journalists counted over a dozen journalists injured; local television reporter Shifa Gardi and and cameraman Ali Resan were killed covering the offensive.

Adding to the inherent danger of urban warfare was a willingness by Iraqi and Kurdish forces to let journalists embed in frontline units. The Iraqis are very good hosts and theyre trying to accommodate journalists, but the safety aspect is often less prominent in their minds, says the CPJs journalist safety specialist Colin Pereira. Theyre taking higher risks than Western armies and sustaining higher casualties theres almost an expectation that the journalists will do the same.

Filmmaker Baker had thought he was in a safe area when he bedded down for the night with an Iraqi army unit on a residential street filled with families a mile back from the frontline. The next morning he and his crew awoke to cries of moufakhakhahbomb. Shortly afterward, he found himself dazed and buried in rubble. Stumbling around, pulling wounded soldiers from a collapsed house, and administering first aid, it was 45 minutes before he realized how badly inured he was. Fortunately, his security planning involved having an evacuation vehicle waiting nearby, so he could be driven to the hospital without waiting for an ambulance.

After treatment in Erbil, Baker flew home to the UK to recover. Both in the field and at home, he found the support of the freelancer community overwhelming. In particular, he relied on the Rory Peck Trust to provide access to a mental health professional to talk through his experience after his employers insurance company declined to cover it. Freelancers are especially susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues, according to research by psychiatrist Anthony Feinstein, author of Journalists Under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War. Symptoms are higher in freelance journalists than other journalists, Feinstein says, partly because health care provided to freelancers is not as good.

The [freelance] community is much more organized and prepared to look after each other now, and that is a byproduct of too many of our employers not looking after us, Baker says. The big news organizations, when something goes wrong, its often the first time theyve dealt with something like that. It was the freelance community that truly looked after me in Iraq and back here.

But Bakers experience also highlights the limits of what freelancers are able to do for themselves, and the need for higher industry standards for the treatment of freelancers. What the employers have got a lot better at is covering themselves from a legal standpoint, Baker says, noting that concern for freelancer safety is often more about financial liability for an organization. In some circumstances, they are telling you between the lines to take that risk, and that is incredibly dangerous and leaves freelancer vulnerable, because when it goes wrong, its on the freelancer.

Part of that is exactly right, acknowledges Sharbil Nammour, who is the global director for security and risk at Vice. Eight months ago, Nammour began working in the newly-created role at Vice, which has been criticized for its treatment of freelancers. Were making sure that we have a clear editorial prerogative on safety versus the story thats at the risk assessment stage, he says, adding that Vice has initiated training sessions with editors to make that happen.

Vice is working hard in other areas to improve its relationship with freelancers, Nammour says. Were broadening the duty of care to include absolutely everyone who is on our team. According to Nammour, that duty of care will afford freelancers and local staff the same security, legal, and insurance protections as staffers. If we slap $200 on the hood of your beat up Mercedes and ask you to drive for us then youre part of the team and were going to treat you as such.

Vice is also one of more than 90 major news companies and organizations to partner with freelancers in a recent initiative that aims to resolve issues that cant be solved by individual freelancers or publications alone. A Culture of Safety Alliance, known as ACOS, is pressing employers to adopt standards that would increase security for their freelance reporters. What we want to do in promoting that culture of safety is make sure we all take a share of responsibility, says ACOS executive director Elisabet Cantenys.

One major initiative is to create a medical insurance pool for freelancers, a massive challenge for underwriters, Cantenys says, given the variable numbers of freelancers to be covered by a plan. Cantenys says shes confident the group will be be able to offer an affordable plan to freelancers soon, but the goal is ambitious and results have been slow to materialize.

Another goal of ACOS is to extend safety training to editors, to ensure they are aware of the dangers freelancers face. We need to reach out to editors and news organizations to make sure they also take their responsibilities seriously, she says.

Organizations within ACOS have begun responding to this call. According to Cantenys, BuzzFeed has made three places available at its in-house safety training in London for freelancers, and AP is now offering six spots on its upcoming hostile environment training course in Istanbul.

The freelancers who I interviewed for this article agreed that while any progress is positive, equitable treatment with staffers is still a long way off. Most of us are now living up to our responsibilities as professional journalists. Its time for the rest of the industry to reciprocate.

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Campbell MacDiarmid is a freelance journalist based in northern Iraq. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
Youve gone through TSA screening at the airport. Your laptop, shoes, jacket, cellphone, and bag of liquids are splayed in a couple of plastic bins, which roll out of the X-ray machine and bang into your suitcase. Lots of other suitcases and bins are piling up behind yours, so you hurriedly grab your stuff and try to find a place to put yourself back together.

At the airport in Milwaukee, theres a helpful sign: Recombobulation Area.

Who says the government has no sense of humor?

You wont find recombobulate in any curated dictionary, meaning one put together by lexicographers, linguists, or etymologists. But do you really need a definition?

Okay, heres one from Urban Dictionary: Something being put back the way it was, or into proper working order.

Recombobulation is a word formed from necessity. When youve gone through TSA screening and are dropping all your belongings, you might feel like youre falling to pieces, or discombobulated. You need an antonym, an opposite word.

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Enter recombobulation.

Its been around since at least 1970, when the feminist author Carolyn Heilbrun used it in her novel Poetic Justice, one of many she published under the pseudonym Amanda Cross.

To return, Reed said, to the conversation of last night, why has misrule and horseplay brought you to such a state of discombobulation? Or, since it has, may I offer my help in recombobulation?

The humorist Garrison Keillor seems fond of recombobulation. He wrote about it in 2010, referring to that airport sign but in a more political context, and again just before the 2016 election, urging the American electorate, Its time for recombobulation, after this long-running smash-hit presidential campaign.

We wrote about discombobulation a few years ago, as part of a column about words with negative prefixes but no correlating positive one. Weve also written about words with negative suffixes but no correlating positive ones, like feckless.

ICYMI: Facebook got rid of bots following news organizations. One outlet saw its followers decimated.

But not all words that seem to be formed with negative prefixes or suffixes actually have been. Discombobulate is one: English never had a word combobulate to which the negative prefix could be applied. Most dictionaries trace discombobulate to a variation of discompose, discomfit, or discomfort, all of which were formed by adding negative prefixes to existing words. Discombobulate entered English on its own, probably as an American regionalism, The Oxford English Dictionary says. (It still calls discombobulate chiefly U.S.)

Recombobulate is spreading beyond airports and politics. A staff member at an arts association said she enjoyed interacting with convention panelists while they prepare before or recombobulate after their sessions. A blogger used it to describe the efforts of getting dressed or undressed for Minnesota winters. A news feature described a discombobulated oil cap that had to be recombobulated to stop it from spewing oil. The Washington Post used it twice in two months last year, once in an education column and once in a television commentary that seems to use it more to mean combined than put back together. And so on.

At least one blogger is calling for recombobulation to be added to the OED. It is not caught by Microsoft Words spelling checker. The language expert Anne Curzan discussed recombobulate at a conference of copy editors. So its probably just a matter of time before it gets its due. After all, if its good enough for the TSA, an entity of the government not known for using jargon or obfuscation, it must be good enough for the rest of us.

ICYMI: A Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks movie has former New York Times journalists pretty ticked off

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Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.
The number of live videos posted to The New York Times main Facebook page has consistently surpassed regular videos in the 12 months since Facebook began paying select media partners to use its nascent streaming platformyet viewing figures for Facebook Live lag far behind.

The Times is one of about 140 media companies and celebrities the platform giant enticed to produce content for Facebook Live through deals totalling a reported $50 million last year. According to The Wall Street Journal, the 12-month deal signed by the Times was worth $3.03 million, a figure surpassed only by the $3.05 million Facebook paid to BuzzFeed.

Now that its been a year, how did the Times adapt its video strategy to accommodate Facebooks investment? An analysis of every video posted to the Times Facebook page from February 2016 to April 2017 shows fewer views for the live ones, but higher engagement. Ultimately, the cost-benefit equation for publishers distributing video content on social platforms remains unclear.



The first year

Since the Times cross-posted its first Live video in February 2016, a total of 1,417 Live videos have been added to its main Facebook pageconsiderably more than the 1,244 regular videos posted during the same period. Since the contract is believed to have begun in April 2016, there were only two monthsNovember and December 2016in which the number of Live videos did not exceed the number of regular ones. The precise number of videos the Times was obligated to post by the terms of its agreement with Facebook is unknown, but from April 2016 to April 2017, it posted an average of 4.4 Live videos per day on weekdays (1.4 of which were cross-posted from other Times accounts), and 1.6 per day at weekends (0.5 cross-posted).

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The volume of daily posts has fluctuated considerably. One or more Live videos were posted on 344 of the 395 days between April 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017. There have been seven occasions on which 10 or more Live videos have been posted in a day, with the 18 posted on January 20, 2017, the day of Donald Trumps inauguration, marking the highest daily peak.

Facebook Live was rolled out to publishers in early 2016 following its launch in August 2015. In March of 2016, Facebook announced it would pay a select group of content creators to produce video for its live platform.



RELATED: Facebook is eating the world

The first Facebook Live video posted to the Times page was a live Q&A cross-posted from op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristofs page in February. The Times posted the first Live video of its own on April 5, a live Q&A with the editor of The New York Times Food and the editor in chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Given that Facebook paid the Times and others significant sums to create Live videos as part of a broader push for video across the platform, the output bankrolled by the big-money deals struck by Facebook has been subject to close scrutiny. In August 2016, around four months into the Facebook deal, the quality of the Times Live output came in for criticism from Times Public Editor Liz Spayd. Spayd opined in Facebook Live: Too Much, Too Soon:

Too many dont live up to the journalistic quality one typically associates with The New York Times Its as if we passed over beta and went straight to bulk. What I hope is that The Times pauses to regroup, returning with a rigor that more sharply defines the exceptional and rejects the second-rate. After all, the world has a glut of bad video and not enough of the kind The Times is capable of producing.

The Times Live output also lags far behind its standard, non-live videos in terms of views. As of May 1, 2017, the 1,417 Live videos posted to the Times main page had accrued a total of around 243 million views (an average of 172,000 per video). During the same period, regular, non-live videosof which the Times has posted 173 fewercollected almost 740 million views (an average of 595,000 per video).

Analysis of the most popular videos on the Times Facebook page highlights the importance of the 2016 election in driving views of Live output. Of the 10 most viewed Live videos, eight related to the election. These included live broadcasts of the three presidential elections (2nd, 6th, and 9th most viewed), analysis of the presidential race by Times journalists (4th and 5th), Obamas farewell speech (7th), and Trumps inauguration and victory speeches (9th and 10th, respectively). With 5.8 million views, the four-hour stream of the Womens March in January 2017 is the Times most watched Live video to date.

RELATED: The Facebook rescue that wasnt

The 10 most viewed regular videos since April 2016 are far more varied by comparison. Only three captions mention Trump or Clinton, and none reference the election. The most viewed video, a profile of Olympic athlete Simone Biles, has been viewed well over 50 million times. A video exposing the vulgar language used by attendees of Trump rallies has accrued over 23 million.

Live video breeds engagement

The Times told us that success is often less about numbers, and more about encouraging journalists to embrace a new platform. The most valuable metrics go beyond views: how long people watched a segment, did they share a live segment, did they comment? Indeed, the metric through which Live videos typically outperform regular ones is comments. According to our data, Live videos accrue an average of 1,011 comments, more than double the average of 536 on regular videos.

The accompanying captions suggest that soliciting engagement through comments is an active part of the Times Live strategy. Fifty-five percent of the Live videos contained explicit calls to action encouraging viewers to leave comments. While these typically take the form of questions for journalists or their interviewee, they have also been used for other purposes, such as crowdsourcing answers to the Times crossword.

The three Live videos with the most comments were the three presidential debates, with the first garnering a whopping 169,057 comments. The other Live video to generate over 50,000 comments came after the Trump campaign circulated a survey about the mainstream media via its email list and the Times invited viewers to comment saying how they would answer the questions.

Is Facebook Live worth it?

The unique selling point for Live is the opportunity to engage with Times journalists over a topical issue in real time, be it a presidential debate or the days crossword. This kind of engagement has potential to build bridges between the Times and the enormous Facebook user base and ultimately develop brand loyalty. But it also comes at a costwith no obvious way of measuring the benefits.

For publishers, weighing up the pros and cons of Facebook Live is far from straightforward. On the plus side, publishers are provided with a ready-made live streaming infrastructure, they have new ways to try and reach Facebooks vast user base, and their journalists are able to experiment with a new platform and new forms of storytelling. Concurrently, though, publishers have to dedicate expensive resources to creating and moderating videos which are effectively exclusive content for Facebookthey do not control the audience data generated by their output. While they receive (potentially unreliable) data regarding the scale and reach of their videos, and may eventually receive a share of revenue from mid-roll ads, they cannot effectively measure the returns on their investment. In other words, the costs of producing Facebook-exclusive Live videos can be quantified, but the tangible benefits to brand and subscription base cannot.

For Facebook, the benefits of Live appear more clear cut: Following an initial financial outlay, a wide range of publishers continue to deliver vast swathes of exclusive live video to its platformvideo that Facebook has not hidden its desire to monetize. For publishers wanting to know if those videos will ever deliver a worthwhile return in their bottom lines, its a familiar guessing game.

The first year of Facebook Live epitomizes why social platforms are centerstage in the existential crisis around journalism. Despite the fact publishers are fighting a losing battle for digital advertising revenue, most feel unable to disregard the eye-watering scale social platforms can deliver. In the case of Live, publishers create content that not only directs users to Facebook but keeps them there, further strengthening Facebooks hand with advertisersall, presumably, in the hope that they will eventually benefit from a share of the spoils. Yet it remains a relationship premised on potential: the promise of jam tomorrow. For now, the question of whether that potential will ever be realized remains impossible to answer.

ICYMI: A Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks movie has former New York Times journalists pretty ticked off

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Pete Brown is the Research Director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and runs the Content Analysis Hub for the Publishers and Platforms project.
Thailand's Internet Service Provider Association ( Tispa ), under pressure from the government to block access to Facebook , said the social media giant will not remove illicit content until it receives proper court warrants, local media reported.

The government had given Facebook a Tuesday 10 a.m. local time deadline to remove the content or face legal action, the Bangkok Post reported Tuesday.

The report added that Tispa and internet gateway providers sent an email to the managing director of Facebook Thailand on Friday with the request and reportedly said 131 URLs had been deemed inappropriate have yet to be removed.

After the ultimatum passed, Tispa president Morakot Kulthamyothin told Khaosod English that Facebook stands by its policy.

"They [Facebook] said the request to block 131 URLs lacked court orders in the documents, and they said that if the documents are completed, they will proceed with the requests," she told the Thai media.

A Facebook spokesperson told CNBC that the company will review requests such as that by the Thai government and remove content that violates the law.

"When governments believe that something on the Internet violates their laws, they may contact companies like Facebook and ask us to restrict access to that content. When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content. If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted."

Last week, Reuters reported that Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission said Facebook had failed to remove 131 of 309 web addresses on the platform that were deemed a threat to national security or violated "lese majeste" laws that make it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the king, queen heir to the throne or regent.

Read the full Bangkok Post report about Facebook's shutdown threat in Thailand here

Read the full story by Khaosod English here
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New York, May 15, 2017Kazakh authorities should swiftly and thoroughly investigate yesterdays stabbing of journalist and press freedom defender Ramazan Yesergepov and should bring all those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesergepov, who spent three years in prison for his work as an editor and who now runs the press freedom group Journalists in Trouble, was stabbed on an overnight train bound for the capital Astana.

Yesergepov had scarcely begun the journey of roughly 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) north from Almaty to Astana to discuss threats to media freedom with foreign diplomats when he was stabbed in the abdomen, local and international media reported. He was taken to a hospital in Shu, the nearest city, where doctors performed an emergency surgery and listed him in stable condition, media reported.

We call for a thorough investigation into the stabbing of Ramazan Yesergepov, including whether the attack was meant to obstruct his work as a defender of press freedom, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. Yesergepov has suffered retaliation for his journalism before. Kazakhstan should show it is a country built on rule of law, a country where citizens, including journalists and their defenders, cannot be harmed with impunity.

Speaking to the Kazakh-language service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty after the surgery, Yesergepov said he believed the attack was directly related to his work. Two men, one with a knife and one with what appeared to be a gun, approached him on the train and asked his name before the man with a knife stabbed him, he told RFE/RL. He told the broadcaster he had been scheduled to meet with officials from the Lithuanian and German embassies in Astana to discuss his past imprisonment and the case of Zhanbolat Mamay, the editor of the independent newspaper Sayasi kalam/Tribuna, who has been jailed since February on suspicion of illegally receiving money from an exiled opposition leader.

The Almaty-based press freedom group Adil Soz reported today that the local police launched an investigation into the attack.

A court in 2009 jailed Yesergepov, then the editor of the now-defunct independent weekly Alma-Ata Info, for three years on charges of collecting information that contains state secrets in reprisal for his publishing internal memos of the KNB, Kazakhstans national security service, CPJ reported at the time.

CPJ advocated for his release and in 2010 unsuccessfully attempted to visit the journalist in prison. Yesergepov was released in 2012 after serving his full sentence. He has since petitioned for financial damages and for his criminal record to be expunged, in accordance with the March 2016 recommendations of the U.N. Human Rights Committee, according to media reports.
When newly minted board chair Russ Siemens realized how much information was available on CUES website, he knew he would need an organized approach to sift through the offerings.

Siemens, who was appointed chair at SaskCentral, Regina, Saskatchewan, in March 2015, has also been on the board at $1.9 billion Innovation CU, Swift Current, Saskatchewan, since its inception 10 years ago. He felt further education was required to fulfill his new duties, but where to start?

I began by reaching out to our CUES Canada support person, [VP/sales and member relations] Leiha Fiddler, and she guided me to the appropriate resources and the CUES Learning Tracker, recalls Siemens. SaskCentral and Innovation CU are both members of CUES Center for Credit Union Board Excellence, giving Siemens access to resources tailored for directors.

Once pointed to CCUBE, Siemens discovered learning plans, tools that group content under topics important to directors and chairs, such as CEO relations, risk management and strategy. CUES Learning Tracker automatically tracked his learning activities and allowed him to report on his progress. If he attends CUES learning events, such as the Board Chair Development Seminar, theyll show up in the tracker, too.
FBI Director James Comey and Head of National Security Agency Michael Rogers will testify Monday on the conclusion reached by the intelligence community that Russia interfered win the presidential election of 2016, and they will face questions related to possible collusion between the Kremlin and associates of current President Donald Trump.

The hearing will be before the Houses Intelligence Committee and comes amidst controversy that was ratcheted up by the president a few weeks ago when he released a tweet that provided no evidence that former President Barack Obama ordered the phones at Trump Tower to be tapped.

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It is expected that Comey will publicly refute that Trump allegation according to the ranking member of the committee Rep. Adam Schiff a Democrat from California.

Comey will testify following a number of former and current senior officials that have said there was no evidence of any wiretaps on President Trump or the Trump Tower.

Comey has privately told some lawmakers last week there was no basis for the Trump claim.

Only hours prior to the start of the Houses hearing, Trump posted a number of tweets that claimed Democrats made up allegations of Russian contact as a way to try to discredit the Republican Party during last years presidential campaign.

Trump urged as well federal investigators to shift focus and probe the disclosures of material that is classified.

He added that the real story the FBI, Congress and others should be focusing on is the leaking of information labeled Classified.

On Sunday, the chairman of the committee Rep. Devin Nunes a Republican from California, who served on the transition team for Trump countered the assertions of the president.

The FBI has conducted a counterintelligence investigation of wide ranging proportions into the covert role of Russia in last years election.

The bureau, as part of that investigation, has explored the potential links between associates of Trump and Moscow, but Comey has not publicly acknowledged that at any time.

He has upset lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and leaders of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate have threatened to hold up confirmation of a deputy attorney general until he gives the committee a brief on this matter.

The probe by the FBI combines its investigation into the hacking operations by spy agencies from Russia with efforts of understanding how Moscow sought to be manipulative and to influence the outcome of the election.
Lawmakers from the GOP moved on Thursday to tear down landmark protections covering Internet privacy for consumers in a first decisive strike against technology and telecommunications regulations created under the Barack Obama administration and what is looked at as the beginning of more deregulation.

In a vote of 50-48 that was partisan voting, the Republican majority in the Senate voted on Thursday to overturn privacy rules that were created last October by the FCC.

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It is expected that the House will mirror the action taken by the Senate in a vote next week, followed by the signing of the measure by the President.

This move means AT&T, Comcast or Verizon will be able to track and share the app and browsing action of users without asking permission.

The vote by the Senate has alarmed Democrat lawmakers and consumer advocates, who warned that providers of broadband will have the biggest view into the habits online of Americans.

Without these rules, Democrats said, the companies will have additional power to collect all the data they want on people and then sell the information.

The determined and brisk action taken by Congressional Republicans only two months into the new White House administration, has foreshadowed a wider ranging rollback of conservative members of Congress and companies such as Charter, Verizon and AT&T.

GOP lawmakers and Ajit Pai the new FCC chairman has said privacy rules had been onerous and strapped regulations unfairly on telecom companies, but not on companies on the Internet such as Google and Facebook that provide access as well, to content online.

The vote in the Senate was a big win for giant cable and telecommunications companies. Tom Wheeler, the chairman under the FCC during the Obama administration, had said that broadband would be more heavily regulated by categorizing service under the same regulatory grouping as telephone services that are looked at as utilities.

The move acknowledged how important internet was for communications, work, commerce and education, and a need for protecting users online said Wheeler.

Under the privacy rules for Internet that were passed by Wheeler apart from providers of broadband needing to ask users permission to track their browsing and other activities online, the companies also were required use of reasonable measure as a way to secure data of consumers against hackers.

Privacy rules were to go into effect the end of 2017.
Opponents of the decision by President Donald Trump to rollback policies of climate change put in place by former President Barack Obama say they are going to organize a campaign to pursue legal means to challenge it.

New York and California issued one joint statement that said they were continuing to fight climate change. Environmental groups hired a number of lawyers to fight Trumps move that increases the production of fossil fuel.

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Trump supporters say ending the rules for climate change that Obama brought in would create thousands of new jobs in coal, gas and oil.

The governors in California and New York said that Trumps stance had been misguided and surprisingly ignores science.

In the same statement, California Governor Jerry Brown and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo both Democrats, wrote that with Washington or without Washington we are working with partners across the globe to fight in an aggressive manner climate change as well as protect our future.

The pair of states have set targets that are more strict for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions required by the rules set by Obama and have plans that are far reaching to convert to sources of energy that are renewable for the production of electricity.

Governor Brown wrote that eliminating climate change might take place in the mind of Trump, but not anywhere else.

A number of legal issues are likely on their way. California holds a waiver allowing it to have tougher measures for emissions from vehicles. Trump could rescind that waiver, but a fierce challenge would likely occur.

Trump could ask Congress as well to revoke the current Clean Air Act. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling that carbon dioxide gas was considered a pollutant under the CAA.

Some experts think the ultimate goal of Trumps order is to overturn that particular ruling.

Already in courts is the Clean Power Plan put into force by Obama, which seeks to slash fossil fuels for production of electricity.

Many activist groups are preparing to make legal challenges to the rollback put in place by Trump.

The Energy Independence order by Trump suspends over a half dozen measures that Obama enacted. Although during his campaign he vowed to pull the US from the climate deal made in Paris, he has not spoken of his current intentions related to that.
The Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch faces its most dramatic week to date as senators are preparing to make important votes that could cause a splintering of the chamber and a divisive change in the rules imposed by the Republicans that would ensure that by Friday they can confirm him to the high court.

With just three Democrats announcing they would support the 49-year old Gorsuch, its looks more likely he will not get the needed 60 votes to overcome the filibuster by the Democrats.

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If that is to hold, as senators and aides for both parties expect, a promise was made by the Republicans to use their nuclear option, that would change rules in the Senate over the Democrats objections so members of the GOP could can advance the judge on a vote along party lines.

Informal talks amongst bipartisan senators have been held to prevent this crisis from taking place, but to date there has been not sign of a deal.

A number of senators have become concerned that if the GOP can weaken the filibuster for nominees of the Supreme Court, in the same fashion the Democrats did for all presidential appointments back in 2013, the senate would be slipping down a slope and filibuster for legislations might someday be completely diminished.

Their belief is that would make the chamber much more partisan that it already is and less likely to respond to the needs of the nation.

Democrats have argued that Gorsuch is not in the judicial mainstream and had been selected off a list from during the campaign compiled by the president to satisfy the Republican Partys far-right.

The Democrats want Gorsuch blocked and to force the president to choose another nominee that could be supported by them.

If the judge cannot gain the 60 votes needed, the only answer is not to change the Senates rules, but to change who the nominee is, said Chuck Schumer the Minority Leader of the Senate, who is a Democrat from New York.

Democrats remain upset that the Republicans would not act on the Supreme Court nominee of former President Barack Obama, who picked Judge Merrick Garland over a year ago for the same vacancy.

Republicans say Gorsuch is highly qualified and has support from legal scholars. They believe that the Democrats are just politically motivated and would not confirm a nominee for the high court that is picked by the President and that justifies the use by them of the nuclear option.
Former national security adviser under President Barack Obama Susan Rice said on Tuesday she absolutely never looked to uncover names of Trump campaign and transition officials for political purposes who were concealed in intercepts by intelligence and said suggestions she leaked their identities were completely false.

Rice said she did not leak anything to anybody and never has and never would. That was in response to the most recent charges as well as countercharges that are flowing from investigations that are politically charged into the interference by Russia in last years presidential election.

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Since they surfaced for the first time this past weekend, the reports involving Rice quickly overtook the revelations about connections to the Kremlin that have been dogging President Donald Trump for months.

The subject was the dominant theme on Tuesday across cable news as well as on Twitter.

As has become customary, the president took to Twitter to voice his opinion on this matter by retweeting an article that Rice had ordered intelligence documents on him.

Many Republican lawmakers say that Rice should have to testify before inquiries in Congress into what intelligence in the U.S. had said were efforts by Russia not to only cause problems with the presidential race, but to tip the scales in the favor of Trump.

Lindsey Graham and GOP senator from South Carolina said that every American needs to know whether or not President Obamas national security adviser had been involved with unmasking transition members of Trump for political purposes.

Beyond the tweets from Trump, the White House appeared surprisingly restrained on Rice, as its Capitol Hill and media allies expressed their outrage on behalf of it.

The ranking Democrat from the House Intelligence Committee Rep Adam Schiff from California called all the attention being focused on the former national security adviser just a diversionary tactic.

Schiff said that Rep Devin Nunes a Republican and the committees chairman, who was part of the transition team for Trump and a Californian as well, should recuse himself.

On Tuesday, Rice was asked if she would be willing to testify, and replied that everyone should see would is to come.

Investigations about the involvement of Russia in the electoral process are important, they are serious and each American should be interested in them going in whatever direction the evidence takes them, said Rice.

The current focus on Rice arrives as lawmakers attempt to determine why Nunes visited the White House a few weeks ago to look at documents he later said had suggested that names of the transition team of Trump were unmasked improperly.
Twitter on Thursday filed a lawsuit to block that order it received from Homeland Security seeking the microblogging site to reveal its user of an account that has been very critical of the immigration policies of President Donald Trumps administration.

Tweets from account  @ALT_uscis  seem to indicate it is operated by a person who is a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employee. The division is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

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Advocates of free speech said the order from the DHS appeared to be a first by the government to attempt to use the power it has to expose a critic who remains anonymous.

This is a development, that if successful, could have chilling and grave effects on free speech of the account, along with other accounts critical of government of the U.S., said Twitter.

According to court filings by Twitter, DHS had unlawfully abused a limited purpose tool for investigative purposes to find out the person behind the account in question.

The case means a possible showdown will take place over free speech between Washington and Silicon Valley. Washington has battled over whether U.S. tech companies can resist orders by the government seeking identities or personal information from suspected terrorists and criminals.

For instance, Apple in 2016 would not unlock the phone of one of the shooters in the massacre in San Bernardino, California and refused to build-in back doors that would provide law enforcement a path to breaking into the handsets.

This move sparked a heated battle between the FBI and Apple, with the FBI eventually paying a private tech expert to unlock the iPhone.

However, the case involving Homeland Security hit advocates of free speech as even more remarkable since the request for information was for the identity of a critic of the government and not for public safety.

An attorney specializing in freedom of speech said Twitters argument is strong. It does appear as if the government was going after one of its critics. There is not anything in the Customs and Border Protection summons sent Twitter that authorizes such a request under the power it has, said the attorney.

The account in question, which was made this past January, has let loose with attacks against the new White House administration.

In one tweet on January 26, the account said that over 40% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were overstays for Visas from other developed nations not Mexico.
President Donald Trump has returned to square one with his tax reform as he seeks wide-ranging support from Republicans beyond legislation to give the tax systems an overhaul.

Officials in the White House said that it was now unlikely an overhaul in taxes would meet the deadline of August set by Secretary Mnuchin.

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The Trump administration is attempting to learn from its failure in bringing to life a new law for healthcare that would replace the Affordable Care Act and take an active role in the passing of the legislation.

Aides at the White House said Monday that the administrations goal is to cut the tax rates sufficiently enough to help improve the economic outlook in both industrial and rural areas across the U.S.

However, so far the administration has pushed aside different ways for increasing revenues like a carbon tax, to help offset lower rates.

Trump as of yet has not mentioned which trade-offs might be accepted and remained noncommittal on the leading plan for tax reform from Texas Representative Kevin Brady a Republican and Ways and Means Committee chair.

Brady proposed a system of border adjustments, which would end corporate deductions for imports, to receive more than $1 trillion during the next 10 years and could be used to fund the lower corporate rates.

However, the possibility upset retailers who have said it would lead to an increase in prices and threaten jobs, while other lawmakers worry that it would violate rules of the World Trade Organization.

Brady said he intends to make amends to his blueprint but would not spell out what he was planning to do.

One other option being talked about amongst congressional members on Capitol Hill changes the GOP plan in the House to eliminate the majority of payroll tax and cut tax rates for businesses and possibly require a dedicated Social Security funding source.

That change, offered by a lobbyist for the GOP with ties to the White House, would transform the plan of Brady on imports into something more similar to a value-added tax by eliminating the labor expenses deduction.

That would then bring it into lie with the rules of the WTO and would generate more than $12 trillion in additional revenues over the next decade.

The additional revenue would then enable the White House to end the 12.4% payroll tax, which funds Social Security.
In a letter sent to President Donald Trump and top leaders in Congress on Wednesday, close to 1,500 economists outlined the benefits brought into the U.S. economy by immigrants and urged the U.S. Congress to modernize the immigration system in the country.

The letter stated that immigration was one of the significant competitive advantages the U.S. had in todays global economy. With the necessary and proper safeguards set up immigration represents a huge opportunity instead of a threat to the economy and to workers in the U.S.

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Amongst the benefits for the economy that immigration brings are many entrepreneurs who open businesses, young workers that replace the retiring Baby Boomers and people that have sets of diverse skills that keep companies in the U.S. competitive as well as innovative in fields of high-growth such as STEM, stated the letter.

Tuesdays letter had been signed by economists from across the entire economic spectrum, and included Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served under former President George Bush, as well as Austan Goolsbee, a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Obama. The group included six economists who were Nobel laureates.

Eakin said that immigration was not only a good thing, but a necessity.

Last month, 285 economists from major corporations in the U.S. were surveyed by the National Association of Business Economics. The survey found that a distinct majority thought that the restrictive stance of President Trump related to immigration was a mistake.

The economists favored immigration policies that are more relaxed that they believe will help increase the economy and noted that a fix of the H-1B visa program is more important than the deporting of undocumented immigrants.

Earlier in 2017, Trump said he preferred moving away from an immigration system that was family based toward one that was merit based, like that of Australia or Canada, which gives a preference to immigrants with skills and education.

However, systems that are merit-based also allow typically for some family reunification.

Eakin added that immigration reform needs to include reunification of families along with visas for both low-skilled and high-skilled workers.

They all do not have to be workers in the area of STEM, markets reward skills with value and today, running machine tools is considered a skilled trade.

Eakin said there should be a visa system which recognizes the market shortages and allows for those with skills to fill that shortage into the U.S.
On Monday, United States Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea it could receive the same treatment as Afghanistan and Syria, both of which the White House bombed recently, if it were to continue with its nuclear testing program.

The stern warning, delivered by the vice president in Seoul following his visit to the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, could spark speculation that the Trump administration is contemplating military action against the Pyongyang regime.

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Pence said the White House administration wants to convince the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear weapons via peaceful means. However, he repeated the warning by the administration that all options remained on the table.

Pence arrived in Seoul only hours after the most recent ballistic missile launch by North Korea. The missile exploded within seconds of blast off. The weekend also included much fanfare across North Korea as the regime paraded what looks to be new missiles designed to reach the U.S.

During his trip to the zone between to two Koreas, and later during remarks to the media, Pence issued his strong warnings to North Korea.

He said in only the last two weeks, the world has witnessed the resolve and strength of our new U.S. president in actions taken in Afghanistan and Syria.

He added that North Korea should not test the presidents resolve or the strength of the U.S. armed forces in the area.

Earlier in April, on the command of Trump, the military launched cruise missiles (59) at a military airfield in Syria as retaliation for the chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians.

Less than one week later, the military dropped a bomb that weighed 22,000 pounds, which is the largest bomb that is non-nuclear ever used by the U.S. in combat, on forces from the Islamic State in Afghanistan.

Any potential military strikes against North Korea would likely bring diplomatic crisis for the U.S. with China, which is a main economic lifeline of North Korea.

Both U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson along with Pence stated that the strategic patience from the Obama policy of pressuring North Korea is over and military action is now a viable option to make North Korea shut down its nuclear program.

The decision by the U.S. Navy to reroute a strike group on an aircraft carrier to the region as tensions increased has also fueled more speculation the White House might make a pre-emptive strike on military facilities in North Korea.
Three times in just two months a federal judge knocked down an executive order related to immigration by President Donald Trump. This time he used Trumps own comments against him.

On Tuesday, in his ruling Judge William Orrick used a quote of Trump as support for his decision to put a block on the executive order that would have withheld funding from so-called sanctuary cities, which do not cooperate with U.S. federal immigration officials.

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Trump when announcing his executive order called it a weapon against communities that disagree with his immigration policy, said the Judge. The judged cited as well an interview in February in which the president had threatened to cut funding off to California calling the state out of control in many ways.

His first comment was evidence the administrations intent of the executive order was to apply broadly to various types of federal funds, and not only a relatively small amount of grant money as had been argued by the Justice Department, said the Judge.

The second statement gave evidence that two governments in California that had sued to stop the order  Santa Clara County and San Francisco  thought they would be a target, said Orrick.

The ruling by Orrick was another setback for immigration policy at the White House as it nears day 100 later in April.

The sanctuary city executive order was amongst a flurry of measures involving immigration that Trump had signed during late January, including the banning of travelers from seven countries that are Muslim-majority and a directive that called for the building of a wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

The words of Trump were cited as well by federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland, who in March blocked the revised visa ban on people from six countries that are Muslim-majority.

Both Judges said that comments by the president supported allegations that the visa ban had been aimed at Muslims.

The preliminary injunction by Orrick against the order will remain in place during the time that the lawsuits by San Clara County and San Francisco go through the court system.

The government has yet to cut off any flow of money or to declare any community
Bipartisan leaders in Congress reached an agreement last Sunday to fund the U.S. government through the end of the fiscal year in September, effectively bringing to an end any suspense related to a possible shutdown of the government next weekend.

A vote still must be taken by all members of Congress, but the agreement includes more funding for the U.S. military as well as for security at the border.

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However it does not include any funding for President Donald Trump to build the wall along the border between U.S. and Mexico, which was one of the presidents biggest promises during his presidential campaign last year.

This deal also includes an increase to the funding of the National Institutes of Health even though the White House requested that the budget be lowered for the remainder of this fiscal year.

It allocated millions of dollars in reimbursement costs incurred by law enforcement agencies around the country that protect Trump along with his family. That is big for New York City, which must help protect the Trump Tower.

This spending package, if passed, will be the first bipartisan measure of significance approved by the Congress during the 102 days Trump has been President.

Republicans, despite maintaining control of both the House and Senate, along with the White House, could not pass any legislation of substance during Trumps first 100 days in office.

This agreement should spare GOP members the embarrassment of a shutdown while they are in control of Congress.

However, it gives a good glimpse of how reluctant lawmakers are to bend to the spending priorities of Trump, such as a desire to make steep cuts in medical research funding.

It leaves the wall at the border still over their heads to be fought over in future negotiations for spending, especially of Trump puts more pressure, as he promised to do at a Saturday night rally marking the first 100 days in the White House.

No details were made public about the agreement Sunday night, but many congressional aides outlined some of its key parts. The agreement will be in force for the remainder of this fiscal year which ends September 30.

Congress had taken action prior to keep the federal government operating while they put the finishing touches on the spending bill. Last Friday, Congress approved a spending measure of one week that averted Saturdays scheduled start to the government shutdown.
One of President Donald Trumps top aides said that members of the Republican Party would be rewarded for what he called doing what is right by voting for overhauling a collapsing and failing healthcare system.

At the same time, Democrats as well as one or more outside groups have started to lay the groundwork for challenging the GOP for control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections of 2018.

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Save My Care, which is a health advocacy organizations on Monday said it was launching a six-figure digital and television advertising campaign starting this week that targets 24 Republican members of the House who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act enacted under former President Barack Obama.

However, chief of staff at the White House Reince Priebus does not believe the Republican will lose House control in 2018.

The chief of staff said the healthcare bill that narrowly made it through the House a week ago, and faces significant changes in the Senate is an improvement over the limited choice current system that has rising costs.

Priebus said sometimes you need to do what is right not politically expedient and we are doing what is best for the people and get it done. He added that he believes the Republicans will be rewarded for what they are doing.

Paul Ryan the House Speaker from Wisconsin said he is not concerned over possible political fallout due to the vote.

The speaker said the Republicans were keeping their word and people expect their elected officials to do what they promise in their campaign and that is what the GOP is now doing.

Ryan also argued that disaster for the Republicans politically would take place if they go back on their world.

California Democrat Nancy Pelosi who is the Minority Leader in the House was happy at the thought of reclaiming the gavel in the House in 2018. She told Republicans they would glow in the dark because of last weeks vote.

The party that is in the White House normally loses some seats in the House and Senate during midterm elections. Unknown however is 18 months prior to the election, is how the vote for the healthcare bill could complicate matters.

Amongst the Washington lawmakers that will be targeted in the campaign by Save My Care is New Jerseys Tom MacArthur a moderate Republican who was responsible for reviving the measure.

He wrote a new amendment to the bill that satisfied lawmakers worries over how the new measure would treat those people that have pre-existing conditions.
On Tuesday, James B Comey was fired as the FBI Director by President Donald Trump, after officials in the Department of Justice recommended the firing.

Officials said Comey had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly and by doing so had damaged the Justice Department and FBI credibility.

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The surprising development arrives as Comey was heading up an investigation of counterintelligence to determine if associates of Trump might have been coordinating with Russia to interfere with the presidential election in November of last year in the U.S.

It was not clear how the ouster of Comey would affect the probe of Russia, but Democrats expressed concern his ouster would derail that investigation.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Andrew McCabe, who was Comeys deputy director, would act as director of the FBI until a replacement for Comey was found.

While campaigning for the presidency, Trump criticized Comey as well as McCabe for the roles they played in the probe of Clinton while at other times praising Comey for the guts he showed.

The attorney general and deputy attorney generals recommendation was accepted by the president regarding dismissing the FBI director, said Sean Spicer the White House press secretary. He added that the firing took effect immediately.

Wednesday morning Trump lashed back at the Democrats who expressed outrage at the firing of Comey.

Trump tweeted that the Democrats said worse things about Comey, including he should be fired, but now play sad.

In another tweet, Trump posted that Comey lost the confidence of nearly everyone in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike.

Trump defended his decision by saying that Comey was to be replaced by someone who will do much better and who will restore the prestige and spirit of the Bureau.

Comey was attending a recruiting trip on Tuesday in Los Angeles when he received word of his firing.

Officials said he had been fired due to senior officials in the Justice Department concluding he violated procedures and principles of the DOJ in 2016 when he publicly discussed the Hillary Clinton investigation over her using a private email server while serving as secretary of state under former President Barrack Obama.

Democrats long argued that the decisions by Comey in the days prior to the presidential election hurt the standing of Clinton with voters and had affected the election outcome, but Trump and advisors said Comey was too easy on Clinton and her aides.
The following companies are subsidiares of Aramark: 1ST & Fresh LLC, AIL Servicos Alimenticios e Participacoes Ltda., AIM Services Co. Ltd., AMP Limited Partnership, ARA Catering and Vending Services Limited, ARA Coffee Club Limited, ARA Coffee System Limited, ARA Food Services Limited, ARA Marketing Services Limited, ARA Offshore Services Limited, ARAMONT Company Ltd., Active Industrial Unif, Alcatraz Hospitality, AmeriPride Services, American Snack & Beverage LLC, Aramark (BVI) Limited, Aramark Airport Services Limited, Aramark American Food Services LLC, Aramark Asia Management LLC, Aramark Aviation Services Limited Partnership, Aramark B.V., Aramark Beverages Limited, Aramark Business & Industry LLC, Aramark Business Center LLC, Aramark Business Dining Services of Texas LLC, Aramark Business Facilities LLC, Aramark CCT Trustees Limited, Aramark Campus LLC, Aramark Canada Ltd., Aramark Canadian Investments Inc., Aramark Capital Asset Services LLC, Aramark Catering Limited, Aramark China Dining Services (Shanghai) Limited, Aramark China Holdings Limited, Aramark Chugach Alaska Services LLC, Aramark Cleaning S.A., Aramark Cleanroom Services (Puerto Rico) Inc., Aramark Cleanroom Services LLC, Aramark Co. Ltd., Aramark Colombia SAS, Aramark Concessions Services Joint Venture, Aramark Confection LLC, Aramark Construction Services Inc., Aramark Construction and Energy Services LLC, Aramark Consumer Discount Company, Aramark Correctional Services LLC, Aramark Defence Services Limited, Aramark Denmark ApS, Aramark Distribution Services Inc., Aramark Educational Group LLC, Aramark Educational Services LLC, Aramark Educational Services of Texas LLC, Aramark Educational Services of Vermont Inc., Aramark Entertainment LLC, Aramark Entertainment Services (Canada) Inc., Aramark Executive Management Services USA Inc., Aramark FHC Business Services LLC, Aramark FHC Campus Services LLC, Aramark FHC Correctional Services LLC, Aramark FHC Healthcare Support Services LLC, Aramark FHC Kansas Inc., Aramark FHC LLC, Aramark FHC Refreshment Services LLC, Aramark FHC School Support Services LLC, Aramark FHC Services LLC, Aramark FHC Sports and Entertainment Services LLC, Aramark FSM LLC, Aramark Facility Services LLC, Aramark Food Service LLC, Aramark Food Service of Texas LLC, Aramark Food and Support Services Group Inc., Aramark Global Group S.a.r.l., Aramark Global Inc., Aramark GmbH, Aramark Gulf Limited, Aramark Gulf Limited Catering Services LLC, Aramark Healthcare Support Services LLC, Aramark Healthcare Support Services of the Virgin Islands Inc., Aramark Healthcare Technologies LLC, Aramark Holding Deutschland GmbH, Aramark Holdings GmbH & Co. KG, Aramark Holdings Ltd., Aramark Industrial Services LLC, Aramark Intermediate HoldCo Corporation, Aramark International Finance S.a.r.l., Aramark International Holdings S.a.r.l., Aramark Inversiones Latinoamericanas Limitada, Aramark Investments Limited, Aramark Ireland Holdings Limited, Aramark Japan Holdings Limited, Aramark Japan LLC, Aramark KSA LLC, Aramark Kazakhstan Ltd., Aramark Lakewood Associates, Aramark Limited, Aramark Management GmbH, Aramark Management LLC, Aramark Management Services Limited Partnership, Aramark Manning Services UK Limited, Aramark Mexico Group, Aramark Mexico S.A. de C.V., Aramark Monclova Manufacturing de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Aramark Monclova Support S.A.de C.V., Aramark Norway SA, Aramark Organizational Services LLC, Aramark Partnership Limited, Aramark Personnel Services, Aramark Peru S.A.C., Aramark Peru Servicios de Intermediacion SRL, Aramark Processing LLC, Aramark Property Services Limited, Aramark Qualified Opportunity Fund, Aramark Quebec Inc., Aramark RBI Inc., Aramark Rail Services LLC, Aramark Receivables LLC, Aramark Refreshment Group, Aramark Refreshment Services LLC, Aramark Refreshment Services of Tampa LLC, Aramark Regional Treasury Europe DAC, Aramark Remote Workplace Services Ltd., Aramark Restaurations GmbH, Aramark S&E/QCF Joint Venture, Aramark S.A., Aramark S.A. de C.V., Aramark S.R.O., Aramark SARL, Aramark SCM Inc., Aramark SM Management Services Inc., Aramark SMMS LLC, Aramark SMMS Real Estate LLC, Aramark School Catering Facility Ltd., Aramark Schools Facilities LLC, Aramark Schools LLC, Aramark Senior Living Services LLC, Aramark Senior Notes Company LLC, Aramark Service Industries (China) Co. Ltd., Aramark Services Inc., Aramark Services SA, Aramark Services of Kansas Inc., Aramark Services of Puerto Rico Inc., Aramark Servicios Industriales S. de R.L. de C.V., Aramark Servicios Integrales S.A., Aramark Servicios Mineros y Remotos Limitada, Aramark Servicios SRL, Aramark Servicios de Catering S.L., Aramark Servicos Alimenticos e Participacoes Ltda., Aramark Sports Facilities LLC, Aramark Sports LLC, Aramark Sports and Entertainment Group LLC, Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services LLC, Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services of Texas LLC, Aramark Sub Investments Limited, Aramark Technical Services North Carolina Inc., Aramark Togwotee LLC, Aramark Trademark Services, Aramark Trustees Limited, Aramark U.S. Offshore Services LLC, Aramark Uniform & Career Apparel Group Inc., Aramark Uniform & Career Apparel LLC, Aramark Uniform Holding de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Aramark Uniform Manufacturing Company, Aramark Uniform Services (Canada) Ltd., Aramark Uniform Services (Matchpoint) LLC, Aramark Uniform Services (Rochester) LLC, Aramark Uniform Services (Supply Chain), Aramark Uniform Services (Syracuse) LLC, Aramark Uniform Services (Texas) LLC, Aramark Uniform Services (West Adams) LLC, Aramark Uniform Services Japan Corporation, Aramark Venue Services Inc., Aramark WTC LLC, Aramark Workplace Solutions (UK) Ltd., Aramark Workplace Solutions Yonetim Hizmetleri Limited Sirketi, Aramark Worldwide Investments Limited, Aramark-Clarksville Club, Aramark-FINCO of Texas LLC, Aramark-Gourmet DPS LLC, Aramark-KWAME of St. Louis LLC, Aramark-SFS Healthcare J.V. L.L.C., Aramark/Dasko Restaurant and Catering Services S.A., Aramark/GM Concessions Joint Venture, Aramark/Giacometti Joint Venture, Aramark/Globetrotters LLC, Aramark/Gourmet HE-1 LLC, Aramark/Gourmet HE-2 LLC, Aramark/HF Company, Aramark/HMS LLC, Aramark/Hart Lyman Entertainment LLC, Aramark/Martin's Stadium Concession Services OPACY Joint Venture, Aramark/QHC LLC, Aramark/SFS Joint Venture, Avendra, Avendra Canada Inc., Avendra Gaming, Avendra Replenishment, Avoca, Avoca Handweavers Designs Limited, Avoca Handweavers Limited, Avoca Handweavers NI Limited, Avoca Handweavers Shops Limited, Avoca Handweavers UK Limited, Beijing Golden Collar Dining Ltd., Boompjes Hotel BV, Brand Coffee Service Inc., BuyEfficient, CDR Mantenimiento Integral S.A., Campbell Catering (Belfast) Ltd., Campbell Catering (N.I.) Ltd., Campbell Catering Holdings Limited, Campbell Catering Limited, Campbell Catering Ltd., Campbell Catering Services, Canadian Linen and Uniform Service Co., Canyonlands Rafting Hospitality LLC, Catering Alliance Limited, Caterwise Food Services Limited, Central Multiservicios S.R.L., Central de Abastecimiento Limitada, Central de Restaurantes Aramark Limitada, Central de Restaurantes Aramark Multiservicios Limitada, Central de Restaurantes S.R.L., Centrapal S.R.L., Centro de Innovacion y Servicio S.A., Cliff House Hospitality, Comertel Educa SLU, Comertel Residencia SLU, Comertel SA, Complete Purchasing Services Inc., Corporate Coffee Systems LLC, Crater Lake Hospitality, D.G. Maren II Inc., Delicious on West Street LLC, Delsac VIII Inc., Distributor JV Limited, Dongguan Best Property Management Co., Doyon/Aramark Denali National Park Concessions Joint Venture, Effective Partnerships Limited, Filterfresh Coffee Service, Filterfresh Coffee Service LLC, Filterfresh Franchise Group LLC, Fine Host Holdings LLC, Food JV Limited, Freedom Ferry Services, GTB Gastro Team Bremen GmbH, Gestion de Alimentacion y Limpieza Colectivadades SLU, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Concessions LLC, Glen Canyon Rafting Hospitality, Glenrye Properties Services Limited, Golden Collar, Good Uncle Services, Gourmet Aramark Services LLC, Guaranty Energy Group 1981, HPSI Purchasing Services LLC, Harrison Conference Associates LLC, Harrison Conference Services of North Carolina LLC, Harry M. Stevens Inc. of New Jersey, Harry M. Stevens Inc. of Penn., Harry M. Stevens LLC, Hunters Catering Partnership Limited, Institutional Processing Services, Instituto ICS S.A., Inversiones Aramark Chile Limitada, Inversiones Centralcorp Limitada, Inversiones Palm Limitada, Inversiones en Aseo y Mantenimiento S.A, Irish Estates (Facilities Management) Limited, L&N Uniform Supply LLC, Lake Tahoe Cruises LLC, Landy Textile Rental Services LLC, Lifeworks Restaurant Group LLC, Lotus Facilities Management, MESA, Masterplan, Medical Equipment Solutions & Applications Sagl (MESA), Mill Mount Weavers Limited, Muir Woods Hospitality, MyAssistant Inc., New Aramark LLC, Nissho Linen, North Rim Hospitality, Old Time Coffee Co., Olympic Peninsula Hospitality LLC, Orange Support Services Limited, Overall Laundry Services Inc., Paradise Hornblower LLC, Pelican Procurement Services Limited, Philadelphia Ballpark Concessions Joint Venture, Prem Hospitality Limited, Premgroup Franchise Services Limited, Premier Management Company (Dublin) Limited, Premier Partnership (Catering) Limited, Quebec Linge Co., ReMedPar, Restaura Inc., Rocky Mountain Hospitality LLC, Rushmore Hospitality LLC, SeamlessWeb, Seguricorp Servicios S.A., South Rim Hospitality LLC, Spokesoft Technologies Limited, Stuart Cabeldu Catering Limited, Sun Office Service Inc., Tarrant County Concessions LLC, The Aramark Foundation, The Original Food Company Limited, Travel Systems LLC, Trinity Hospitality Services GmbH, Trinity Hospitality Services SARL, Trinity Purchasing N.V., Vector Environmental Services Limited, Vector Workplace and Facility Management Limited, Veris Plc, Veris Property Management Limited, Veris UK Limited, WearGuard, Wilderness River Adventures, and Yosemite Hospitality LLC.

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Cardinal Health, Inc. operates as an integrated healthcare services and products company in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It provides customized solutions for hospitals, healthcare systems, pharmacies, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, physician offices, and patients in the home. The company operates in two segments, Pharmaceutical and Medical. The Pharmaceutical segment distributes branded and generic pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, and over-the-counter healthcare and consumer products. The segment also provides services to pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers for specialty pharmaceutical products; operates nuclear pharmacies and radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities; repackages generic pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter healthcare products; and offers medication therapy management and patient outcomes services to hospitals, other healthcare providers, and payers, as well as provides pharmacy management services to hospitals. The Medical segment manufactures, sources, and distributes Cardinal Health branded medical, surgical, and laboratory products and devices that include exam and surgical gloves; needles, syringe, and sharps disposals; compressions; incontinences; nutritional delivery products; wound care products; single-use surgical drapes, gowns, and apparels; fluid suction and collection systems; urology products; operating room supply products; and electrode product lines. The segment also distributes a range of national brand products, including medical, surgical, and laboratory products; provides supply chain services and solutions to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, clinical laboratories, and other healthcare providers; and assembles and sells sterile, and non-sterile procedure kits. The company was incorporated in 1979 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.
The following companies are subsidiares of Barclays: Adler Toy Holding Sarl, Aequor Investments Limited, Alymere Investments Limited, Alynore Investments Limited Partnership, Analog Analytics, Analog Analytics Inc, Analytical Trade Holdings LLC, Analytical Trade Investments LLC, Analytical Trade UK Limited, Archstone Equity Holdings Inc, Ardencroft Investments Limited, B D & B Investments Limited, B.P.B. (Holdings) Limited, BB Client Nominees Limited, BBAIL SAS, BCAP LLC, BIFML PTC Limited, BMBF (No.24) Limited, BMI (No.9) Limited, BNC Brazil Consultoria Empresarial Ltda, BNRI ENG 2013 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG 2014 Limited Partnership, BNRI ENG GP LLP, BNRI England 2010 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2011 Limited Partnership, BNRI England 2012 Limited Partnership, BNRI Limehouse No.1 Sarl, BNRI PIA Scot GP Limited, BNRI Scots GP LLP, BPB Holdings SA, BVP Galvani Global S.A.U., Barafor Limited, Barclay Leasing Limited, Barclaycard Funding PLC, Barclaycard International Payments Limited, Barclays (Barley) Limited, Barclays Aldersgate Investments Limited, Barclays Alzin Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Asia Limited, Barclays Asset Management Limited, Barclays BR Investments S.a r.l., Barclays BWA Inc., Barclays Bank (Suisse) S.A., Barclays Bank Delaware, Barclays Bank Ireland PLC, Barclays Bank Ireland Public Limited Company, Barclays Bank Mexico S.A., Barclays Bank PLC, Barclays Bank UK PLC, Barclays Bayard Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bedivere Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Bordang Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Brasil Assessoria Financeira Ltda., Barclays CCP Funding LLC, Barclays Cantal Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Capital (Cayman) Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Asia Limited, Barclays Capital Canada Inc., Barclays Capital Casa de Bolsa S.A. de C.V., Barclays Capital Derivatives Funding LLC, Barclays Capital Effekten GmbH, Barclays Capital Energy Inc., Barclays Capital Equities Trading GP, Barclays Capital Finance Limited, Barclays Capital Futures (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings (Singapore) Private Limited, Barclays Capital Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Inc., Barclays Capital Japan Securities Holdings Limited, Barclays Capital Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Capital Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.2) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees (No.3) Limited, Barclays Capital Nominees Limited, Barclays Capital Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Capital Real Estate Finance Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Holdings Inc., Barclays Capital Real Estate Inc., Barclays Capital Securities Client Nominee Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Limited, Barclays Capital Securities Mauritius Limited, Barclays Capital Trading Luxembourg S.a r.l., Barclays Claudas Investments Partnership, Barclays Claudas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Commercial Mortgage Securities LLC, Barclays Converted Investments (No.2) Limited, Barclays Corporation Limited, Barclays Direct Investing Nominees Limited, Barclays Directors Limited, Barclays Dryrock Funding LLC, Barclays Electronic Commerce Holdings Inc., Barclays Equity Holdings Limited, Barclays Equity Index Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Europe Client Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Firm Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Europe Nominees Designated Activity Company, Barclays Executive Schemes Trustees Limited, Barclays Financial LLC, Barclays Financial Planning Nominee Company Limited, Barclays Funds Investments Limited, Barclays Funds and Advisory Japan Limited, Barclays Global Service Centre Private Limited, Barclays Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Group Holdings Limited, Barclays Group Operations Limited, Barclays Group US Inc., Barclays Index Finance Trust, Barclays Industrial Development Limited, Barclays Industrial Investments Limited, Barclays Insurance Guernsey PCC Limited, Barclays Insurance Services Company Limited, Barclays Insurance U.S. Inc., Barclays International Luxembourg Dollar Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Investment Management Limited, Barclays Investment Solutions Limited, Barclays Investments & Loans (India) Limited, Barclays Korea GP Limited, Barclays Lamorak Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Leasing (No.9) Limited, Barclays Leto Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Long Island Limited, Barclays Luxembourg EUR Holdings S.a r.l, Barclays Luxembourg Finance S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg GBP Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Global Funding S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Barclays Luxembourg Holdings SSC B, Barclays Marlist Limited, Barclays Mauritius Overseas Holdings Limited, Barclays Mercantile Business Finance Limited, Barclays Merchant Bank (Singapore) Ltd., Barclays Nominees (George Yard) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Guernsey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Jersey) Limited, Barclays Nominees (Manx) Limited, Barclays Oversight Management Inc., Barclays Payment Solutions Inc., Barclays Pelleas Investments Limited Partnership, Barclays Pelleas Investments S.a r.l., Barclays Pension Funds Trustees Limited, Barclays Principal Investments Limited, Barclays Private Asset Management (Monaco) S.A.M, Barclays Private Bank, Barclays Private Clients International Limited, Barclays Receivables LLC, Barclays SAMS Limited, Barclays Securities (India) Private Limited, Barclays Securities Japan Limited, Barclays Security Trustee Limited, Barclays Services (Japan) Limited, Barclays Services Corporation, Barclays Services Jersey Limited, Barclays Services LLC, Barclays Services Limited, Barclays Shea Limited, Barclays Singapore Global Shareplans Nominee Limited, Barclays Switzerland Services SA, Barclays Tenedora De Immuebles SL., Barclays Term Funding Limited Liability Partnership, Barclays UK Investments Limited, Barclays US CCP Funding LLC, Barclays US Funding LLC, Barclays US GPF Inc., Barclays US Investments Inc., Barclays US LLC, Barclays Unquoted Investments Limited, Barclays Unquoted Property Investments Limited, Barclays Wealth Management Jersey Limited, Barclays Wealth Nominees Limited, Barclays Wealth Services Limited, Barclays Wealth Trustees (India) Private Limited, Barclayshare Nominees Limited, Barclaytrust Channel Islands Limited, Barcosec Limited, Barsec Nominees Limited, Blossom Finance General Partnership, Branchcall Computers (Pvt) Limited, Braven Investments No.1 Limited, CP Flower Guaranteeco (UK) Limited, CP Newco 1 Limited, CP Newco2 Limited, CP Newco3 Limited, CP Propco 1 Limited, CP Propco 2 Limited, CP Topco Limited, CPIA Canada Holdings, CPIA England 2008 Limited Partnership, CPIA England 2009 Limited Partnership, CPIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, CPIA Investments No.1 Limited, CPIA Investments No.2 Limited, CRE Diversified Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe Holdings LLC, CREW Tahoe LLC, Calthorpe Investments Limited, Capton Investments Limited, Carnegie Holdings Limited, Central Platte Valley Management LLC, Chapelcrest Investments Limited, Charles Schwab Europe, Claudas Investments Limited, Claudas Investments Two Limited, Clydesdale Financial Services Limited, Cobalt Investments Limited, Compania Regional del Sur S.A., Compania Sudamerica S.A., Condor No.1 Limited Partnership, Cornwall Homes Loans Limited, Crescent Crown Land Holding SPV LLC, Crescent Legacy LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential L.P., Crescent Plaza Residential LLC, Crescent Plaza Residential LP LLC, Crescent Real Estate Member LLC, Crescent Resort Development LLC, Crescent TRS Holdings LLC, Crescent Tower Residences GP LLC, Crescent Tower Residences L.P., Curve Investments GP, DBL Texas Holdings LLC, DMW Realty Limited, Desert Mountain Development LLC, Desert Mountain Properties Limited Partnership, Develop Training Group Limited, Dorset Home Loans Limited, Durlacher Nominees Limited, EWRD Summit LLC, Eagle Financial and Leasing Services (UK) Limited, East West Resort Development V L.P. L.L.L.P., East West Resort Development VII LLC, Equity Limited Partnership, Equity Value Investments No.1 Limited, Equity Value Investments No.2 Limited, Erimon Home Loans Ireland Limited, Expobank, FIRSTPLUS Financial Group Limited, Finpart Nominees Limited, First Assurance, Foltus Investments Limited, Full House Holdings Limited, Gallen Investments Limited, Global Dynasty Natural Resource Private, Globe Nominees Limited, Gracechurch Services Corporation, Grays Station LLC, Grupo Financiero Barclays Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hawkins Funding Limited, Heraldglen Limited, Holding Stuttgarter Strae GmbH, Hurley Investments No.1 Limited, Imalivest Mineral Resources LP, Investors In Infrastructure Limited, J.V. Estates Limited, JV Assets Limited, Kirsche Investments Limited, LTDL Holdings LLC, La Torretta Beverages LLC, La Torretta Hospitality LLC, La Torretta Operations LLC, Lagalla Investments LLC, Leonis Investments LLP, Liability Partnership, Long Island Assets Limited, Long Island Holding A LLC, Long Island Holding B Limited, MK Opportunities GP Ltd, MK Opportunities LP, MVWP Investors LLC, Maloney Investments Limited, Marbury Holdings LLC, Menlo Investments Limited, Mercantile Credit Company Limited, Mercantile Leasing Company (No.132) Limited, Meridian (SPV-AMC) Corporation, Mintaka Investments No. 4 Limited, Mira Vista Development LLC, Mira Vista Golf Club L.C., Mountainside Partners LLC, Murray House Investment Management Limited, Naxos Investments Limited, Nile Bank, North Colonnade Investments Limited, Northstar Mountain Properties LLC, Northstar Trailside Townhomes LLC, Northstar Village Townhomes LLC, Northwharf Investments Limited, Northwharf Nominees Limited, OGP Leasing Limited, Oakes Millers Ltd, Ownership Trustee Limited, PIA England No.2 Limited Partnership, Palomino Limited, Pecan Aggregator LP, Pelleas Investments Limited, Pelleas Investments Two Limited, Pippin Island Investments Limited, Preferred Liquidity LLC, Preferred Liquidity Limited Partnership, Procella Investments LLC, Procella Investments No.1 LLC, Procella Investments No.2 LLC, Procella Investments No.3 LLC, Protium Finance I LLC, Protium Master Grantor Trust, Protium Master Mortgage LP, Protium REO I LP, R.C. Grieg Nominees Limited, RVH Limited, RVT CLO Investments LLP, Razzoli Investments Limited, Real Estate Participation Management Limited, Real Estate Participation Services Limited, Relative Value Holdings LLC, Relative Value Investments UK Limited, Relative Value Trading Limited, Roder Investments No. 1 Limited, Roder Investments No. 2 Limited, Ruthenium Investments Limited, SPM GP Limited, Securitized Asset Backed Receivables LLC, Servicios Barclays S.A. de C.V., Societe Civile Immobiliere 31 Avenue de la Costa, Solution Personal Finance Limited, Southern Peaks Mining LP, Standard Life Aberdeen, Surety Trust Limited, Surrey Funding Corporation, Sussex Purchasing Corporation, Sutton Funding LLC, Swan Lane Investments Limited, TPLL LLC, TPProperty LLC, Tahoe Club Company LLC, Tahoe Club Employee Company, The Logic Group Enterprises Limited, The Logic Group Holdings Limited, Third Energy Holdings Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No. 2 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.1 Limited, US Real Estate Holdings No.3 Limited, US Secured Investments LLC, Union Center LLC, United Counties Bank, Verain Investments LLC, Walbrook Group Ltd, Wedd Jefferson (Nominees) Limited, Wessex Investments Limited, Westferry Investments Limited, Wilmington Riverfront Receivables LLC, Woolwich Homes Limited, Woolwich Plan Managers Limited, Woolwich Qualifying Employee Share, Woolwich Surveying Services Limited, Woori BC Pegasus Securitization Specialty Co. Limited, and Zeban Nominees Limited.

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The government of Thailand is urging the countrys internet service providers to prevent their customers from accessing Facebook after the social media firm denied a government request to remove content.

Thailands Criminal Court last week ordered Facebook to remove 131 posts deemed illegal by the countrys authorities by Tuesday morning (May 16th), under threat of legal action. This order is the latest in a spate of censorship demands made by Thailands government over the past few months.

However, Facebook has argued that none of the offending pages are in violation of its community standards and has consequently not taken them down. Facebook was still accessible in Thailand an hour after Tuesdays deadline.

The Bangkok Post reported that Facebooks head of Thailand was told last Friday by the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA) and internet gateway providers that if Thai authorities find any illegal content in our system  particularly the 131 URLs which have not yet been removed  concerned authorities will request that we shut down the CDN of www.facebook.com and other parts of the network to block such illegal content.

Thai regulator NBTC (National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission) noted that of the 309 posts that the government had deemed illegal, Facebook had complied in removing 178 of them. However, NBTC secretary general Takorn Tantasith noted that despite this cooperation, some issues have not been solved.

TISPA has emphasised that the government would be more inclined to shut down the site than take legal action, denying Facebook access to the social media firms 14.8 million Thai users.
Hurricane Electric has added new regional network connectivity in Africa by establishing a new point of presence (PoP) at the Djibouti Data Centre (DDC).

The move bolsters its ongoing commitment to the economic development of the region through the provision of improved IP connectivity and global network access. By joining the DDC ecosystem  including the Djibouti Internet Exchange (DjIX)  Hurricane Electric is leveraging new capabilities to provide higher performance and low latency Internet connectivity across many of the worlds fastest growing emerging markets.

With the launch of the companys latest PoP in Djibouti, Hurricane Electric is further expanding access in east Africa to the companys IPv4 and IPv6 network through 100GE (100 Gigabit Ethernet), 10GE (10 Gigabit Ethernet) and GigE (1 Gigabit Ethernet) ports.

We are very excited about having Hurricane Electric join the DDC community, which is now a leading regional hub providing advanced services in Africa to our partners, said Anthony Voscarides, Chief Executive Officer of the DDC. The DDC and DjIX ecosystem is well placed in east Africa to attract major Internet service providers and positions the hosting DDC ecosystem as a major Internet hub in Africa for the good of the Internet and the rapidly growing Internet communities across all of Africa.

Mike Leber, President of Hurricane Electric, said: Companies hosted at the DDC can now utilise Hurricane Electrics extensive IPv4 and IPv6 network and as a result, will be able to experience increased throughput, reduced latency and improved reliability. Additionally, companies at the DjIX will gain additional peering capacity.

In 2016, the DDC implemented the neutral, open, and independent Djibouti Internet Exchange (DjIX), which gives global and regional telcos, mobile network operators, ISPs, content, and CDN network service providers greater control over their Internet traffic flow to better serve the populations in east Africa. The DjIX leverages the core DDC ecosystem and its unique access to 11 international and regional fibre cable systems to provide a high speed, reliable and resilient IP exchange facility.
Shares in Greatland Gold gained almost 30% as it entered into an agreement with Newmont Exploration Pty Ltd (Newmont) regarding the former's 100%-owned Ernest Giles gold project.

Newmont -- subsidiary of Newmont Mining Corp -- has been granted access to Greatland's Ernest Giles project tenements and exploration database for a period of six months.

"Additionally, Newmont is granted a right of first refusal should Greatland wish to sell or joint venture the Ernest Giles project during that six month period," it said.

The Ernest Giles project covered more than 1800 sq km of a virtually unexplored greenstone belt that hosted multiple gold exploration targets.

Under the agreement, Newmont had the right to apply certain proprietary exploration methods across this portfolio of targets.

Greatland's chief executive, Gervaise Heddle, was delighted with the agreement, and hoped it would significantly accelerate the realisation of the potential value of this exciting gold project.

"This agreement represents a major step forward for the Company and reinforces our view that the Ernest Giles project has the potential to host several multi-million ounce gold camps."

At 13:05 BST, shares in AIM-listed Greatland Gold were up 28.12% to 0.41p each.
Life sciences business OptiBiotix Health announced the successful launch of its SlimBiome and LPLDL products at the Vitafoods Europe trade show in Geneva from the 9-11 of May on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded company said the event provided the opportunity to connect with 16,500 industry decision makers from the supplements, nutraceutical, functional food and beverage industries.

Its board said the event is viewed as one of the world's leading trade fairs for the food and drinks industry.

OptiBiotix said it launched the first of its range of heart health products containing LPLDL called CholBiome and CardioBiome, and its SlimBiome weight management technology.

Both product types were exhibited in the New Products Zone and at Sacco's and Nutrilinea's stands.

Sacco and Nutrilinea are OptiBiotix's European manufacturing and formulation partners and reportedly have an extensive European network to maximise the commercial opportunity provided by the products.

Both LPLDL and SlimBiome were extremely well received, the OptiBiotix board said, with high interest in the distribution and sale of the products from partners across Europe, Japan, India, Asia, Australia and the US.

We are extremely pleased with the very high level of interest from both national and multinational companies interested in selling our products, said CEO Stephen O'Hara.

This has already resulted in some companies sending through draft contracts.

OHara said the company anticipated that the interest would start to generate revenues from both ingredient supply, and as a component in high value white label and branded formulations and presentations, across multiple territories.

We are at the start of the commercialisation process but are really excited at the high level of interest in our products.

We look forward to building commercial partnerships, market presence, and multiple revenue streams in both consumer health and pharmaceutical markets around the world.
These were the movements in some of the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:

Longer-term Gilts underperformed at the start of the week on Monday following news of a surprisingly strong showing for the German Chancellor in a key regional election at the weekend.

Angela Merkel's CDU made off with 33% of the vote in the country's most populous state, against 31.2% for rival socialist party SPD.

Nevertheless, analysts at Barclays cautioned investors not to read too much into the results, saying: "history suggests that the NRW electoral outcome is not a reliable predictor of the national outcome, however."

To take note of as well, investors were expectant ahead of a meeting scheduled for Monday afternoon between Merkel and newly-elected French presidnet Emmanuele Macron, amid calls for the Eurozone's economic architecture to be revamped.

To take note of, late in the session data from the US Treasury Department revealed that China had increased its holdings of US government debt by the most in two years.

Chinese purchases of US debt across all maturities increased by $27.9bn in March to reach $1.09trn.
Crude-oil futures continued to trot higher on continued hopes that Opec-led production curbs will last into 2018, but investors have a wary eye on two sets of US inventories data due out this week.

At 14:55 BST, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate crude was up 0.51% to $49.10 a barrel. Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was ahead 0.5% to $52.08 a barrel.

"Investors will be keenly watching tonight's (industry) API inventory data for any indication of a continued decline in US inventories (last week)," said analysts Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft at Accendo Markets.

The American Petroleum Institute data on US stores of the precious black liquid would be followed on Wednesday by those from the government's Energy Information Administration.

They would also be listening out for further production-cut extension pledges from other Opec members to inspire further bullishness, the pair added.

A wave of optimism swept through the oil market on Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia said supply cuts needed to last into 2018, but not all pundits are convinced.

The supply cuts should be extended for some nine months, said energy ministers from the two countries, meaning they would last until March 2018.

Opec, Russia and other oil producers had previously agreed to lower production by 1.8m barrels a day in the first half of 2017, with scope to extend that by six months.

SwissQuote market strategist Yann Quelenn said crude crude was continuing to bounce on a short-squeeze move.

"We consider that further weakness are very likely," said Quelenn.

Meanwhile, on Comex, gold was up 0.36% to $1234.4 an ounce. Silver rose 0.61% to $16.71 an ounce, and copper gained 0.3% to 254.65 cents a pound.

"Gold seems on its way back up. Hourly support is now located at $1195. Expected to show further upside pressures," said Quelenn.

"In the long-term, the technical structure suggests that there is a growing upside momentum. A break of $1392 is necessary to confirm it."

Van Dulken and Croft added that the safe-haven yellow metal was trying to regain yesterday's highs, and resume last week's bounce from 2017 rising support.

"Now safely above the 200-day moving average at $1230, assisted by USD weakness and questionable US data before a likely Fed rate hike next month, might $1250 be on the cards?"

On the London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were ahead. Copper rose 0.96%, aluminum added 0.77%, zinc rose 0.67% and tin added 0.15%.
US President Donald Trump reportedly shared classified information about Islamic State with senior Russian officials, though the White House quickly denied the allegations.

Meeting Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trump allegedly shared classified information despite the fact it was highly restricted even within the administration, according to the Washington Post.

Trump's relationship with Russia has been under the spotlight since his victory over Hillary Clinton in last November's election, with his recent sacking of FBI director James Comey ramping up the pressure on the Republican.

According to a senior US official in the WP, Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies".

The information is thought to be in relation to an ISIS plan to use laptops when carrying out attacks on aircrafts.

Trump was quick to defend his actions during the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak during a series of tweets posted on Tuesday.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump posted.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

"EXTREMELY DANGEROUS"

Secretary of state Rex Tillerson denied the accusations pointed at Trump, saying "a broad range of subjects were discussed."

"During President Trumps meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism," Tillerson said.

"During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations," he added.

National security adviser HR McMaster said: At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that werent already publicly known. I was in the room. It didnt happen.

The leading Democrat in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, said that if the allegations were confirmed it would represent an "extremely dangerous" move from the President.

"Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country," Schumer said in a statement. "The President owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation."
A fire that broke out at ASOS 's distribution centre outside Berlin in the early hours of Tuesday morning may have damaged around 6.3m worth of stock.

A full evacuation was conducted, with no injuries to staff and the fire was contained to one of the company's four chambers in the first phase of the development at the new Eurohub 2 distribution centre. ASOS said contingency plans were executed successfully with customer orders currently being fulfilled via its Barnsley warehouse.

The business held around 7m units of stock at the facility. ASOS said there were around 2m units of stock in the affected chamber with a cost value of approximately 25m, around 25% of which could be compromised by fire and water damage. However, ASOS said it is fully insured for loss of stock and any subsequent business interruption.

It added that none of the technology, automation or structure of the building has been affected and the clean-up process is underway. The other three chambers of the site will be operational again later on Tuesday.

This is not the first time ASOS has been hit by a fire. In 2014, its main UK distribution centre in Barnsley caught fire, costing the company 30m in damage. Meanwhile, in 2005, its only warehouse was badly damaged by an explosion and fire at the Buncefield oil deport near Hemel Hempstead.

Atif Latif, director of trading at Guardian Stockbrokers, said: "We await more updates to see if this will affect distribution or delay any of the orders. We are yet to quantify the real stock level of the loss taking into account the potential for smoke/sprinkler damage to other goods."

At 1147 BST, the shares were down 0.6% to 6,118p.
Specialist healthcare company BTG reported a drop in full-year pre-tax profit on Tuesday as it said translation benefits from a weaker sterling were offset by hedging losses on forward contracts.

For the year to the end of March, the company made a pre-tax profit of 31.6m versus 57.5m the year before, despite revenue rising to 570.5m from 447.5m.

Product sales were up 37% to 387.3m while licensing revenues grew 12% to 183.2m and BTG said Interventional Medicine is now the largest and fastest growing revenue contributor, delivering 15% organic growth at constant exchange rates.

Chief executive officer Louise Makin said: "We have delivered strong double-digit product sales growth and generated significant cash flows, enabling us to invest in product innovation, clinical data, geographic expansion and acquisitions. We have a broad portfolio and a scalable platform, and there is momentum across the business. With the financial strength to continue our investment plans, we are well positioned to capture further value in the growing Interventional Medicine space and to deliver sustained business growth."

The group said it expects to deliver continued double-digit product sales growth beyond 2017/18, driven by a strong Interventional Medicine performance, aided by the anticipated opportunity from Varithena and PneumRx. In addition, it expects a sustained performance in Specialty Pharmaceuticals to underpin product sales over the medium term.

Holding company for Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, CYBG, posted its interim results for the six months to 31 March on Tuesday, reporting a "stable" net interest margin at 226bps, which it said reflected "active" margin management against a backdrop of a competitive market.

The FTSE 250 firm said income growth was 1.2% at 497m in H1 2017, with continued cost reduction as underlying costs reached 348m - 5m lower than H1 2016.

Underlying earnings per share totalled 9.0p, which was up 25% on 31 March 2016, and the companys asset quality reportedly improved with "continued low impairment charges".

CYBGs common equity tier 1 ratio remained stable at 12.5%, while its underlying return on tangible equity was 6.3% in H1 2017, up from 4.5% H1 2016.

Statutory profit before tax reached 46m, after the deduction of restructuring and charges for legacy conduct matters.

Annualised mortgage growth was 5%, which the board said was ahead of market, as mortgage balances increased to 22.4bn.

The bank's core SME book growth was 3% annualised, with over 1bn of new loans and facilities granted under CYBGs commitment to make 6bn of lending available to SMEs over three years to 2019.

"CYBG has had a good start to 2017, building on the momentum created in our first year as an independent business," commented chairman Jim Pettigrew.

"We remain focused on our strategy to leverage our digital capabilities and scalable infrastructure to support our growth ambitions and deliver a superior customer experience."

Pettigrew said the group's financial performance had been "good" in the first half of the year and it continued to target a modest inaugural dividend in respect of 2017.

"CYBG offers a true alternative in UK banking - a full service challenger bank designed around our customers' lives, which is supporting households and businesses across the UK."

David Duffy, CEO of CYBG, added that in the first half of the year the company maintained momentum in delivering its strategic priorities and commitments, and as a result was delivering significantly improved financial performance.
London's FTSE 100 was up 0.9% to 7,522.81 in afternoon trade, breaching the 7,500 level for the first time.

Mobile-focussed telco Vodafone rallied. Although the company posted a 6.1bn loss for the year to the end of March, mostly on the back of a 3.7bn writedown of its Indian unit, investors welcomed its EBITDA guidance for full-year 2018 of 14bn to 14.5bn versus consensus expectations of 13.8bn.

Easyjet flew lower after reporting a headline loss before tax of 212m, which included around a 45m impact from Easter not falling in the first half and a negative net currency impact of 82m. The airline said it flew a record number of passengers in the first six months of its financial year, though revenue per seat decreased and cost per seat increased.

Micro Focus International was weaker as it emerged it has not been included in the MSCI as expected.

Business support group DDC was in the red despite saying full year pre-tax profits rose 23.7% to 268.2m on the back of a 17% rise in revenue to 12.2bn.

United Utilities and Severn Trent were under the cosh after Deutsche Bank downgraded the stocks to 'hold' from 'buy' saying they were at fair value following target price increase to 1,050p from 1,000 and 2,450p from 2,300p, respectively.

Hargreaves Lansdown was a faller amid news that US fund manager Vanguard has launched a direct-to-consumer service, also slashing fees to less than half the UK average. Reports suggested Vanguard will offer the cheapest way to buy funds and investment ISAs in the UK, with fees half the level charged by the likes of Hargreaves and Fidelity Funds Network.

Risers

Vodafone Group (VOD) 220.95p 4.67%

Kingfisher (KGF) 358.00p 2.58%

Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 7,507.00p 1.96%

BT Group (BT.A) 309.40p 1.94%

Ashtead Group (AHT) 1,638.00p 1.93%

Diageo (DGE) 2,326.00p 1.93%

British American Tobacco (BATS) 5,491.00p 1.80%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,068.00p 1.61%

Relx plc (REL) 1,637.00p 1.55%

Next (NXT) 4,325.00p 1.43%

Fallers

easyJet (EZJ) 1,228.00p -6.26%

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,382.00p -4.49%

Micro Focus International (MCRO) 2,438.00p -2.48%

DCC (DCC) 7,225.00p -1.90%

United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,011.00p -1.46%

Severn Trent (SVT) 2,404.00p -1.03%

Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 347.10p -1.03%

Centrica (CNA) 190.80p -0.78%

Intu Properties (INTU) 274.00p -0.58%

SSE (SSE) 1,439.00p -0.35%
Mobile telecoms and consumer staples paced gains in the market on Tuesday, with shares of Vodafone spearheading gains after promising shareholders it was set to generate considerably greater free cash flow next year.

Vodafone said free cash flow in 2017/18 would reach 5bn up from 4.1bn the year before and well ahead of analysts' forecasts calling for 4.66bn.

FCF, which strips out the accounting impact of purely financial charges and one-off gains is considered by many analysts as a much better guide to a company's performance that profits before tax, or 'accounting profits'.

Fixed line telecoms operators such as BT Group and TalkTalk also shared in the gains, alongside other defensives issues from the beverages and tobacco sectors.

Hargreaves Lansdown and Henderson Group accounted for weakness in the financial services space.

According to The Guardian, US fund manager Vanguard was set to lower the fees it charges smaller retail investors to half the UK average, undercutting its rivals HL and Fidelity Funds Network.

Top performing sectors so far today

Mobile Telecommunications 4,952.15 +3.82%

Industrial Metals & Mining 2,186.13 +2.40%

Fixed Line Telecommunications 3,568.59 +2.04%

Beverages 18,666.53 +1.91%

Tobacco 60,735.00 +1.82%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Software & Computer Services 2,085.26 -0.71%

Financial Services 10,528.48 -0.64%

Forestry & Paper 21,984.34 -0.10%

Insurance (non-life) 2,963.69 -0.06%

Electronic & Electrical Equipment 6,009.01 -0.02%
LOS ANGELES (May 16, 2017) -- Scientists for the first time have assembled a "disease in a dish" model that pinpoints how a defect in the blood-brain barrier can produce an incurable psychomotor disorder, Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome. The findings point to a path for treating this syndrome and hold promise for analyzing other neurological diseases.

The blood-brain barrier, formed by blood vessels, protects the brain from toxins circulating in the body's blood system. It also can keep out therapeutic drugs and, when defective, biomolecules that are needed for healthy brain development. The latter is what happens in Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome, according to investigators from Cedars-Sinai and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The rare, congenital syndrome causes cognitive disability, impaired speech and underdeveloped muscles, among other symptoms.

Clive Svendsen, PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, said the model developed by the collaborative team's study, published May 16 in the journal Cell Stem Cell, may shed light on other neurological conditions that involve possible dysfunctions in the blood-brain barrier. These conditions include Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease, which together affect millions worldwide. A related paper, involving Svendsen, his colleague Gad Vatine, PhD, and a team from University of California, Irvine, published the same day in the journal Cell Reports, used a similar approach to study Huntington's disease.

"This model could have far-reaching implications to advance the understanding and treatment of neurological disorders," said Svendsen, senior author of the Cell Stem Cell study.

To develop their "disease in a dish" model, the team took skin cells from patients with Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome and reprogrammed them into induced pluripotent stem cells, which then can be developed into any type of tissue in the body. Using these cells, the team modeled the patients' neurons and blood-brain barrier in a laboratory dish.

"To our surprise, the neurons were normal," said Vatine, a postdoctoral scientist in Svendsen's laboratory and first author of the study. "But the blood-brain barrier was not."

The dish model showed that the thyroid hormone, which is critical to neuron development, wasn't getting into the brain. This hormone requires a biomolecule to transport it across the blood-brain barrier. Due to a gene mutation in Allan-Herndon-Dudley patients, there was not enough of the biomolecule in the barrier to do the job.

"The blood-brain barrier forms pretty early in gestation, so the thyroid hormone, even from the mother, is probably not getting through the barrier and into the brain, likely leading to developmental deficits," said Eric Shusta, a professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a senior author of the study.

One potential way to treat Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome, based on this model, may be to develop an artificial version of the thyroid hormone that does not need the biomolecule to cross the blood-brain barrier, Vatine said. It also may be possible in the future to repair the gene mutation using gene-editing technology, which the investigators were able to do in the laboratory dish, he added.

###

Research reported in this publication was supported by grants from the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and the National Institutes of Health under award numbers NS083688, AA020476, NS085351 and R37DK15070.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2017.04.002
INDIANAPOLIS -- With funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse Nicholas Manicke of the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis is developing a new method to screen for lethal designer drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoids including K2 and Spice.

In the United States, deaths from fentanyl, a potent opioid with heroin-like effects, increased at least 200 percent between 2013 and 2015, according to NIDA. The number of fatalities from synthetic cannabinoids -- man-made mind-altering chemicals sprayed on dried, shredded plant material and then smoked or sold as liquids to be inhaled -- has also been climbing rapidly. Fentanyl, often mixed with heroin and/or cocaine, and synthetic cannabinoids account for the majority of emergency room visits related to designer drugs in the U.S.

Drug testing in hospital emergency departments, often done by urine analysis, misses these potentially deadly compounds, leaving physicians in the dark about the specifics of the overdose they are treating. Public health officials are similarly unaware of the precise nature of the drug problem facing their community or state.

Now, IUPUI's Manicke and his team are developing a rapid, sensitive, low-cost screening method to help emergency room physicians treating overdoses of these lethal compounds and to inform public health officials combating their growing use in the nation's cities, suburbs and rural areas.

Unlike current mass spectrometry methods used for screening, a new mass spectrometry process Manicke and his team are developing requires only minimal sample preparation, enabling quick turnaround of drug screens. Mass spectrometry is an attractive option for performing synthetic drug screens because it is sensitive and selective and can be adapted relatively quickly as new harmful drug compounds become available to consumers.

"One of the difficulties in dealing with the public health crisis caused by designer drugs is that the actual drug compounds associated with acute intoxications are unknown," said Manicke, principal investigator on the NIDA grant. "We hope to enable mass spectrometry-based drug screening in the ER by developing an inexpensive, disposable cartridge that combines all the sample workup.

"People often say that mass spectrometry instruments are too big and expensive for hospitals, but I don't think that's true," Manicke said. "They are smaller than, and a fraction of the cost of, an MRI machine. If we can just simplify the analysis procedure, the barriers to implementing these sorts of tests will become much lower."

Manicke's new mass spectrometry cartridges enable qualitative and quantitative analysis from a blood sample without sample purification in about 30 seconds. It is estimated that the disposable cartridges will cost less than $10 each.

This summer, the emergency departments in Eskenazi Health and IU Health Methodist Hospital will begin testing mass spectrometry screening for lethal designer drugs using the novel cartridges.

"In the short term, these cartridges could be used by health facilities of any size, anywhere, and mailed to a central lab -- rapidly generating data alerting health and law enforcement to the chemical composition and geographic distribution of the drugs out there," said Indiana Poison Control Medical Director Daniel Rusyniak, an IU School of Medicine professor of emergency medicine and a co-investigator on the NIDA-funded study. "In the longer term, the cartridges could be used to give clinicians vital information on specific altered patients."

###

NIDA is supporting this work with a two-year $410,000 grant, R21DA043037, to Manicke, who is an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology and a faculty member in the Forensic and Investigative Sciences Program in the School of Science at IUPUI.

The School of Science at IUPUI is committed to excellence in teaching, research and service in the biological, physical, behavioral and mathematical sciences. The school is dedicated to being a leading resource for interdisciplinary research and science education in support of Indiana's effort to expand and diversify its economy.
The team of researchers at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) are developing the multifunctional scales, which can monitor health and inform about potentially dangerous life conditions, such as arteriosclerosis or cardiac arrhythmia

Weighing oneself has become one of the most common morning rituals. However, your weight is not the only message that can be delivered by your bathroom scales: the team of researchers at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) Institute of Biomedical Engineering are developing the multifunctional scales, which can monitor your health and inform about potentially dangerous life conditions, such as arteriosclerosis or cardiac arrhythmia. "Hospitals are fully equipped with advanced technologies for diagnosing illnesses and critical conditions, but it is too expensive to use this equipment for everyday health monitoring. On the other hand, people do not have many devices for personal health monitoring at home, and these devices could be very practical", says Vaidotas Marozas, the Director of the KTU Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

He is convinced that although elderly people today are relatively cautious of technologies and prefer to be treated by medication, the future generations will rely on personal health monitoring technologies more. Bathroom scales, a common accessory of every household, can become a useful tool for health monitoring.

A team of KTU researchers have already developed a prototype of multifunctional body composition scales, and are now improving the model by adding new functions and parameters.

Monitoring Arterial Stiffness

Body composition scales supplemented by handlebar and matching technologies can measure a person's pulse through sensors on the handlebar and footpad electrodes. KTU researchers have developed a method, which can help identify the problems in the person's arterial condition by the pulse arrival time from heart to the feet.

"We are measuring the speed of blood pulse wave: the faster the speed, the stiffer the arteries, which, in turn can already warn about the development of arteriosclerosis, and the latter can be the cause of increased blood pressure and other conditions", says Birut? Paliakait?, KTU biomedical engineering master's student, working with the team of researchers from the very start of the project.

Paliakait? for the research on monitoring arterial condition with body composition scales was awarded by the Lithuanian Academy of Science.

More than 20 Parameters to Be Measured in the Future

"When a person has final stage of renal insufficiency syndrome, he or she has to undergo the dialysis several times a week. As kidneys cannot manage keeping the balance of microelements in the organism, the risk of potentially life threatening conditions, such as increased potassium concentration in blood, i.e. hyperkalemia, arises", says Paliakait?.

Therefore, KTU researchers, collaborating with medical professionals, are aiming to integrate the function of recognising the development of hyperkalemia into the scales. When indicating this potentially life-threatening condition, the scales would notify the doctor, who might decide to move the planned dialysis into earlier date.

"We are continuously increasing the number of parameters, that can be measured using our scales. For example, alongside arterial stiffness, the scales can also detect cardiac arrhythmia. I believe, that in the future, the multifunctional body composition scales will measure more than 20 various health parameters", says Marozas.

Head of the Institute, Professor Vaidotas Marozas is convinced that such household health monitoring device would be affordable for everyone.

"Our technology is less complex than that of a smart phone, which needs expensive materials and elements. We are creating data processing algorithms, and our main resource is our intellect", says Marozas.

###

The research was partly funded by CARRE, funded by the European Commission under the grant No. FP7-ICT-611140. The EC evaluated the project as excellent (achieving its objectives and technical goals) and even exceeding expectations.
Used 3-D printing to create bioprosthetic mouse ovary to restore fertility, boost hormone production

Targeted to women who survived childhood cancer, have had treatments that affect hormones and fertility

"The holy grail of bioengineering for regenerative medicine"

CHICAGO --- The brave new world of 3-D printed organs now includes implanted ovary structures that, true to their design, actually ovulate, according to a study by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and McCormick School of Engineering.

By removing a female mouse's ovary and replacing it with a bioprosthetic ovary, the mouse was able to not only ovulate but also give birth to healthy pups. The moms were even able to nurse their young.

The bioprosthetic ovaries are constructed of 3-D printed scaffolds that house immature eggs, and have been successful in boosting hormone production and restoring fertility in mice, which was the ultimate goal of the research.

"This research shows these bioprosthetic ovaries have long-term, durable function," said Teresa K. Woodruff, a reproductive scientist and director of the Women's Health Research Institute at Feinberg. "Using bioengineering, instead of transplanting from a cadaver, to create organ structures that function and restore the health of that tissue for that person, is the holy grail of bioengineering for regenerative medicine."

The paper will be published May 16 in Nature Communications.

How is this research different from other 3-D printed structures?

What sets this research apart from other labs is the architecture of the scaffold and the material, or "ink," the scientists are using, said Ramille Shah, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at McCormick and of surgery at Feinberg.

That material is gelatin, which is a biological hydrogel made from broken-down collagen that is safe to use in humans. The scientists knew that whatever scaffold they created needed to be made of organic materials that were rigid enough to be handled during surgery and porous enough to naturally interact with the mouse's body tissues.

"Most hydrogels are very weak, since they're made up of mostly water, and will often collapse on themselves," Shah said. "But we found a gelatin temperature that allows it to be self-supporting, not collapse, and lead to building multiple layers. No one else has been able to print gelatin with such well-defined and self-supported geometry."

That geometry directly links to whether or not the ovarian follicles, organized hormone-producing support cells surrounding an immature egg cell, will survive in the ovary, which was one of the bigger findings in the study.

"This is the first study that demonstrates that scaffold architecture makes a difference in follicle survival," Shah said. "We wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't use a 3-D printer platform."

How does this impact humans?

The scientists' sole objective for developing the bioprosthetic ovaries was to help restore fertility and hormone production in women who have undergone adult cancer treatments or those who survived childhood cancer and now have increased risks of infertility and hormone-based developmental issues.

"What happens with some of our cancer patients is that their ovaries don't function at a high enough level and they need to use hormone replacement therapies in order to trigger puberty," said Monica Laronda, co-lead author of this research and a former post-doctoral fellow in the Woodruff lab. "The purpose of this scaffold is to recapitulate how an ovary would function. We're thinking big picture, meaning every stage of the girl's life, so puberty through adulthood to a natural menopause."

Laronda is now an assistant professor at the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital.

Additionally, the successful creation of 3-D printed implants to replace complex soft tissue could significantly impact future work in soft tissue regenerative medicine.

Technically, how does biological 3-D printing work?

3-D printing an ovary structure is similar to a child using Lincoln Logs, said Alexandra Rutz, co-lead author of the study and a former biomedical engineering graduate fellow in Shah's Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) lab at the Simpson Querrey Institute. Children can lay the logs at right angles to form structures. Depending on the distance between the logs, the structure changes to build a window or a door, etc.

"3-D printing is done by depositing filaments," said Rutz, who is now a Whitaker International Postdoctoral Scholar at Ecole Des Mines De Saint-Etienne in Gardanne, France. "You can control the distance between those filaments, as well as the advancing angle between layers, and that would give us different pore sizes and different pore geometries."

In Northwestern's lab, the researchers call these 3-D printed structures "scaffolds," and liken them to the scaffolding that temporarily surrounds a building while it undergoes repairs.

"Every organ has a skeleton," said Woodruff, who also is the Thomas J. Watkins Memorial Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. "We learned what that ovary skeleton looked like and used it as model for the bioprosthetic ovary implant."

In a building, the scaffolding supports the materials needed to repair the building until it's eventually removed. What's left is a structure capable of holding itself up. Similarly, the 3-D printed "scaffold" or "skeleton" is implanted into a female and its pores can be used to optimize how follicles, or immature eggs, get wedged within the scaffold. The scaffold supports the survival of the mouse's immature egg cells and the cells that produce hormones to boost production. The open structure also allows room for the egg cells to mature and ovulate, as well as blood vessels to form within the implant enabling the hormones to circulate within the mouse bloodstream and trigger lactation after giving birth.

The all-female McCormick-Feinberg collaboration for this research was "very fruitful," Shah said, adding that it was motivational to be part of an all-female team doing research towards finding solutions to female health issues.

"What really makes a collaboration work are the personalities and being able to find the humor in the research," Shah said. "Teresa and I joked that we're grandparents of these pups."

###

This work was supported by the Northwestern University Watkins Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Translational Research in Reproduction and Infertility (NCTRI); grant P50HD076188 from the Center for Reproductive Health After Disease; grant UH3TR001207 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Office of Women's Health Research (ORWH), and NIH Common Fund; grant 1K01DK099454-01 from the NIH; the Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award at the Scienti?c Interface; and grant DGE-1324585 from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The University of Virginia Center for Research in Reproduction Ligand Assay and Analysis Core is supported by grant P50-HD28934 from the NICHD/NIH (NCTRI). Imaging work was performed at the Northwestern University Center for Advanced Microscopy generously supported by NCI CCSG P30 CA060553 awarded to the Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. This work made use of the EPIC facility of the NUANCE Center at Northwestern University, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF NNCI-1542205); the MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1121262) at the Materials Research Center; the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN); the Keck Foundation; and the State of Illinois, through the IIN.
Hundreds of new psychoactive substances have emerged in recent years, and determining their prevalence is essential to cultivating effective prevention efforts. One example of new street drugs is synthetic cathinones, a.k.a.: "bath salts." "Bath salts" are new amphetamine-like stimulants, and researchers and users know little about their effects. The "bath salt" called "Flakka" (alpha-PVP) has been linked to widespread and bizarre incidences of behavior in Florida.

Current methods to monitor use of new street drugs rely mainly on data from seizures and poisonings, with little effective survey data on self-reported use. Adding to the limitations of survey data, use of new substances is often unknown or unintentional, since drugs such as ecstasy ("Molly") are commonly adulterated with one or more of these new substances. This makes it harder to gauge specific usage from traditional drug-use survey methods.

"Research was needed to determine how to ask about use of these new drugs on health surveys," said Dr, Joseph Palamar, PhD, MPH, of the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (NYU CDUHR). "There are hundreds of new drugs, and many go by multiple street names, so it is difficult to accurately ask about use on surveys".

To address these current limitations in research, Dr. Palamar and his team conducted a study, "Assessing Self-Reported Use of New Psychoactive Substances: The Impact of Gate Questions," published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. This is the first paper published in the journal's new Methods in Addiction Research section. The study tested the impact of "gate" questions as a method of reducing respondent burden when presented with lists of possibly unfamiliar new and/or uncommon substances.

Used on major health surveys such as the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, gate questions ask a single yes/no question to establish whether the participant has ever used a particular substance from a list of drugs in a particular drug class. If the response is "yes," then subsequent drug-specific follow-up questions are provided on the following page(s). Answering "no" allows the participant to skip the follow-up questions and proceed to the following section.

"We know that gate question methods work well on national surveys, but these studies don't ask about hundreds of new drugs, so it was unknown how survey participants would respond," notes Dr. Palamar. "In addition, it is likely that most participants on major drug surveys have at least heard of the majority of drugs queried. Lists of potentially unfamiliar drugs can confuse participants."

The team surveyed 1,048 individuals entering electronic dance music (EDM) parties in New York City throughout the summer of 2016 about their drug usage, randomly assigning surveys with and without gate questions.

Since "bath salts" were of particular interest of the researchers, participants were asked about use of specific "bath salts" regardless of their answer to the gate question. Interestingly, almost one out of ten participants who reported no "bath salt" use as per the gate question then reported use of one or more drugs in this class, providing evidence of under-reporting.

"There are a lot of people using drugs such as methylone in the EDM scene, but many users are unaware that methylone is a 'bath salt'," said Dr. Palamar. "It seems that some people didn't pay attention to the list of drugs that are considered 'bath salts' and simply checked off 'no' to use. 'Bath salts' are now highly stigmatized drugs by a lot of partiers, yet many don't even know some of the drugs they use are in fact 'bath salts'. Adding to this, in another study we detected 'bath salts' in ecstasy users' hair samples who were unaware they were using these drugs."

Of the eight drug classes queried, prevalence of reported use was higher when the gate question was not used regarding use of DOx (such as DOM, a.k.a.: STP), "other" stimulants (such as 4-FA), and "other" psychedelics (such as LSZ), with some differences in reported prevalence as high as 5%.

These findings suggest that providing participants with the actual list of drugs, initially, may be associated with more attention paid to the list and it also may reduce survey burden, resulting in more accurate answers.

"As NPS continue to emerge at a fast pace, there is an urgent call for research focusing on use of these compounds, as it is essential in order to inform prevention," said Dr. Palamar.

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Acknowledgments :

This project was funded by the NIH (K01 DA-038800, PI: Palamar; P30 DA011041, PI: Deren). None of the authors have any declarations of interest to declare.

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: Joseph J. Palamar,1,2 Patricia Acosta,1 Fermin Fernandez Calderon,3 Scott Sherman,1,2 and Charles M. Cleland 2,4

1. Department of Population Health, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

2. Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, New York University College of Nursing, New York, NY, USA

3. Department of Clinical, Experimental and Social Psychology, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain

4. New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, New York, NY, USA

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.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Central American tropical forests are beginning to disappear at an alarming rate, threatening the livelihood of indigenous peoples there and endangering some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in North America.

The culprit? Cocaine.

The problem is not the cultivation of the coca plant - which is processed into cocaine - that is causing this "narco-deforestation." It results from people throughout the spectrum of the drug trade purchasing enormous amounts of land to launder their illegal profits, researchers say.

Results of the study, which was funded by the Open Society Foundations and supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, have just been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

"Starting in the early 2000s, the United States-led drug enforcement in the Caribbean and Mexico pushed drug traffickers into places that were harder to patrol, like the large, forested areas of central America," said David Wrathall, an Oregon State University geographer and co-author on the study. "A flood of illegal drug money entered these places and these drug traffickers needed a way that they could spend it.

"It turns out that one of the best ways to launder illegal drug money is to fence off huge parcels of forest, cut down the trees, and build yourself a cattle ranch. It is a major, unrecognized driver of tropical deforestation in Central America."

Using data from the Global Forest Change program estimating deforestation, the research team identified irregular or abnormal deforestation from 2001-2014 that did not fit previously identified spatial or temporal patterns caused by more typical forms of land settlement or frontier colonization. The team then estimated the degree to which narcotics trafficking contributes to forest loss, using a set of 15 metrics developed from the data to determine the rate, timing and extent of deforestation.

Strongly outlying or anomalous patches and deforestation rates were then compared to data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy - considered the best source for estimating cocaine flow through the Central American corridor, Wrathall pointed out.

"The comparisons helped confirm relationships between deforestation and activities including cattle ranching, illegal logging, and land speculation, which traffickers use to launder drug trafficking profits in remote forest areas of Central America," Wrathall said.

They estimate that cocaine trafficking may account for up to 30 percent of the total forest loss in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua over the past decade. A total of 30 to 60 percent of the forest losses occurred within nationally and internationally designated protected areas, threatening conservation efforts to maintain forest carbon sinks, ecological services, and rural and indigenous livelihoods.

"Imagine the cloud of carbon dioxide from all of that burning forest," Wrathall said. "The most explosive change in land use happened in areas where land ownership isn't clear - in forested, remote areas of Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, where the question of who owns the land is murky."

"In Panama, the financial system is built to launder cocaine money so they don't need to cut down trees to build ranches for money laundering. In Honduras, land is the bank."

Farming and cattle ranching aren't the only money laundering methods threatening tropical forests, the researchers say. Mining, tourism ventures and industrial agriculture are other ways drug money is funneled into legitimate businesses.

Wrathall said the impact affects both people and ecosystems.

"The indigenous people who have lived sustainably in these environments are being displaced as the stewards of the land," he said. "These are very important ecological areas with tremendous biodiversity that may be lost."

The authors says the solutions include de-escalating and demilitarizing the war on drugs; strengthening the position of indigenous peoples and traditional forest communities to be stewards of the remaining forest lands; and developing regional awareness of the issue.

"We are cruising through the last of our wild spaces in Central America," Wrathall said. "Obviously, ending the illegal drug trade would be the best solution, but that isn't going to happen. In fact, when drug enforcement efforts are successful, they often push the activity into remote areas that haven't had issues before, such as remote biodiversity hotspots."

Wrathall is an assistant professor in Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. He specializes in the impact of climate change on the distribution of the human population and other factors that affect human migration.

"The surge of violence in Central America that has accompanied drug trafficking is recognized as a major driver of migration in the region."

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Reporting results from the first randomised study to compare these two DAPT regimens, lead author Thomas Cuisset, Interventional Cardiologist at CHU Timone, Marseille, France, predicted that they would change clinical practice.

Newer P2Y12 inhibitors such as prasugrel or ticagrelor in combination with aspirin have become the first-line initial DAPT following an ACS and this has been extended, by default, to one year. Previous studies have shown that this DAPT regimen achieves a greater reduction in ischaemia in the first 30 days but this is followed by a significant increase in bleeding risk during longer-term maintenance treatment.

The TOPIC (Timing of Platelet Inhibition after acute Coronary syndrome) study investigated whether giving one-month initial treatment with a newer P2Y12 inhibitor plus aspirin after a PCI for ACS and then switching to maintenance DAPT with aspirin plus clopidogrel could reduce bleeding risk without any ischaemic adverse effects.

TOPIC recruited 646 ACS patients undergoing PCI who were treated with a new P2Y12 inhibitor plus aspirin for one month before being randomised to continue with this dual antiplatelet therapy or switch to aspirin (75 mg) plus clopidogrel (75 mg).

The combined primary endpoint of death, urgent revascularisation, stroke and bleeding (with a Bleeding Academic Research Consortium [BARC] classification  2) was 52% lower at one year in patients switched to aspirin plus clopidogrel compared to those continuing on a new P2Y12 inhibitor plus aspirin (13.4% with switched DAPT vs. 26.3% with unchanged DAPT, hazard ratio [HR] 0.48, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.34-0.68, p<0.01).

There was no difference in ischaemic events between the two dual antiplatelet regimens (9.3% of patients on switched DAPT had an ischaemic event vs. 11.5% of patients on unchanged DAPT, HR 0.80, 95% CI: 0.50-1.29, p=0.36). However, the rate of bleeding (BARC 2) was 70% lower in patients who switched DAPT compared to those on unchanged DAPT (4.0% vs. 14.9% at one year, HR 0.30, 95% CI: 0.18-0.50, p<0.01).

"In patients without adverse events at one month after undergoing PCI with stenting for ACS, switched dual antiplatelet therapy is superior to unchanged DAPT in reducing bleeding events without increasing the risk of ischaemic events," said Cuisset.

"This strategy could be proposed in ACS patients," he suggested, adding, "We think that this trial could change practice." However, he noted that many physicians already use switched DAPT so the likely impact would be to increase the number of patients treated this way. He cautioned, "The remaining question will be to assess which patients can be switched at one month and which patients should continue with 'stronger DAPT'."

Commenting on the results, Stefan James, Professor of Cardiology at Uppsala University, Sweden, said, "The trial results suggest, as expected, that switching therapy reduces minor bleeding events." However, he cautioned that the trial was "underpowered to evaluate clinically important ischaemic events that, unexpectedly, were fewer with the switching strategy," and was limited by its single-centre, open-label design. He concluded, "This precludes any meaningful interpretation for clinical practice. Several major pivotal trials have shown a continuous benefit of longer-term therapy with potent and predictable platelet inhibition. Thus the TOPIC study should not change clinical practice."

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Contact information

Contact: Thomas Cuisset, CHU Timone, Marseille, France

Email: Thomas.CUISSET@ap-hm.fr

Corresponding session

EuroPCR 2017 session: Tuesday 16 May 11:30-12:50: Hot Line/Late-breaking trials, Coronary Interventions, Interventions for Valvular Disease, Left main and multivessel disease, NSTEMI, STEMI, Stents and scaffolds, TAVI; Main arena

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Notes to Editors

What is EuroPCR?

EuroPCR, the official annual meeting of the European Association for Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology, is the world-leading course in interventional cardiovascular medicine. PCR has established a distinctive format for educational activities in the field of cardiovascular interventions. Beyond its flagship course in Paris that gathers more than 11,500 participants every year, PCR organises annual courses in Singapore, London UK, Dubai EAU, Johannesburg RSA, Milan Italy, Chengdu China and Tokyo Japan.

For further information on EuroPCR, PCR London Valves, PCR Peripheral, PCR-CIT China Chengdu Valves, GulfPCR-GIM, AsiaPCR, AfricaPCR, PCR Tokyo Valves, and all PCR activities, please contact: Celia Vila: cvila@europa-organisation.com.

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A new study has found that children in Head Start who miss 10% or more of the school year have fewer gains in academics than their peers who attend preschool more regularly. Many researchers see high-quality preschool programs as a way to reduce long-term disparities in education. Placing an emphasis on attendance in preschool programs may be important to maximizing benefits.

The study, from researchers at the University of Virginia and The Ohio State University, appears in the journal Child Development.

"Preschool absences may undermine the benefits of high-quality preschool education," explains Arya Ansari, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Virginia, the study's lead author. Ansari cautioned that while the findings of the study are not causal, they highlight the scope and consequences of preschool absences. "Given the large investments in early childhood programs, we need to consider the ramifications of more frequent absences for children's early learning, especially in programs such as Head Start, the largest federally funded preschool program in the United States."

Little is known about absences in preschool, in part because, unlike in K-12 schooling, attendance is not mandated by law for preschoolers and programs like Head Start do not always track it. In this study, researchers looked at nationally representative data from the Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort, which included 2,842 children ages 3 and 4 years who attended Head Start in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Most children in the study were from ethnic-minority households (e.g., Latino, Black, Asian), and most came from single-parent families and had a mother who was not employed. Most families had incomes at or below the federal poverty level.

At the end of the school year, parents reported on their children's school absences, and direct assessments provided information on children's academic performance in language, literacy, and math.

On average, children missed eight days of the school year. In addition, 12% of children were chronically absent - defined as missing 10% of the school year or more - and missed an average of 22 days of school. Children who missed more days of school, especially those who were chronically absent, demonstrated fewer gains in math and literacy during the preschool year, the study found. Moreover, excessive absenteeism was especially problematic for the early academic learning of children who entered Head Start with a less developed skill set, meaning that they started school with the lowest language and literacy skills. The study also found that minority children were less likely to be absent than White children. In addition, children were less likely to be absent when they were enrolled in classrooms that operated for more hours per week, and in larger and bilingual classrooms. The quality of interactions between teachers and children facilitated children's development of literacy skills, but the benefits were roughly twice as large for children who were absent less often.

The findings of this study have implications for both practice and policy, the authors suggest. "Preschool teachers and administrators, as well as researchers and policymakers, should make efforts to reduce preschool absences," says Kelly M. Purtell, assistant professor of human sciences at The Ohio State University, who coauthored the study. "One way to do this is to discuss the challenges to attendance that parents face and work with them to reduce these barriers." Early childhood educators may also want to develop ways to ensure that parents understand the importance of preschool to their children's learning, and see it as education as well as care.

The authors recommend that researchers pay closer attention to the implications of these absences in evaluating the quality and effects of preschool programs.

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The study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Summarized from Child Development, Absenteeism in Head Start and Children's Academic Learning by Ansari, A (University of Virginia), and Purtell, KM (The Ohio State University). Copyright 2017 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.
MIAMI--Researchers believe they have found a new way to monitor the intensity and location of hurricanes from hundreds of miles away by detecting atmospheric waves radiating from the centers of these powerful storms.

In a new study, scientists from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presented direct observations of the waves, obtained by NOAA aircraft flying in hurricanes and by a research buoy located in the Pacific Ocean. The waves, known as atmospheric gravity waves, are produced by strong thunderstorms near the eye and radiate outward in expanding spirals.

"These very subtle waves can sometimes be seen in satellite images," said David Nolan, professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and lead author of the study. "We were able to measure them in aircraft data and surface instruments."

In addition, says Nolan, computer simulations performed at the UM Center for Computational Science can reproduce the waves, showing that the wave strengths can be related to the maximum wind speed in the core of the storm. These findings suggest that hurricanes and typhoons could be monitored from hundreds of miles away with relatively inexpensive instruments, such as barometers and anemometers, much like earthquakes from around the world are monitored by seismometers.

The researchers analyzed data obtained from 25 different penetrations by NOAA P3 aircraft into five hurricanes in 2003 and 2004, as well as data from the Extreme Air-Sea Interaction (EASI) buoy deployed in the Pacific Ocean by UM Rosenstiel School scientists in 2010.

"The waves cause very weak upward and downward motions, which are recorded by the NOAA P3 as it flies through the storm," said Jun Zhang of the Hurricane Research Division, a veteran of many hurricane flights. "But we were surprised at how clearly the waves could be detected at the surface."

"Of course, hurricanes are very well observed by satellites. But these waves can reveal processes occurring in the eyewall of a hurricane that are obscured from the view of satellites by thick clouds," said Nolan. "Any additional measurements, even if they provide similar information as satellites, can lead to better forecasts."

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The study, titled "Spiral Gravity Waves Radiating from Tropical Cyclones," was published April 30, 2017 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The National Science Foundation (grant #AGS1132646) and NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (grant #NA14NWS4680028) provided funding for the study.

Typhoon Meranti GW Animation VIDEO: https://youtu.be/VaNK5dckRcQ

About the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School

The University of Miami is one of the largest private research institutions in the southeastern United States. The University's mission is to provide quality education, attract and retain outstanding students, support the faculty and their research, and build an endowment for University initiatives. Founded in the 1940's, the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science has grown into one of the world's premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. For more information, visit: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu.
PITTSBURGH, May 16, 2017 - Results of a randomized controlled trial show that endovascular treatment (ET) to remove a stroke-causing blood clot in the brain is effective in some patients even when performed within 6 to 24 hours after a stroke. Current guidelines for acute stroke treatment endorse clot removal only when performed within six hours of a stroke. The findings are presented today at the European Stroke Organisation Conference 2017 in Prague.

"This still means that you need to be rushed to the hospital as soon as possible after a stroke has occurred because the mantra "time is brain" still holds. However, our study shows that even if treated outside the time window, patients will have significantly reduced disability with clot removal," said Tudor Jovin, M.D., director, UPMC Stroke Institute, and professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh, who co-led the trial.

The trial sets a new selection paradigm based on physiology, showing for the first time that looking at patients fulfilling certain imaging and clinical criteria, physiological state of the brain is a much better approach to determining whether patients will benefit from endovascular therapy as opposed to adhering to strict time windows, noted co-principal investigator Raul Nogueira, M.D., professor of neurology, neurosurgery and radiology at Emory University School of Medicine, and director of neuroendovascular service and neurocritical care service at Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center, Grady Memorial Hospital.

In the study, researchers randomly assigned stroke victims who arrived at the hospital outside the six-hour time window to either receive endovascular therapy or receive only standard medical therapy.

Brain imaging and clinical information (neurological deficit) was used to identify and enroll patients who had a small area of irreversibly damaged brain and a significantly larger brain tissue area that was imminently threatened by loss of blood supply, but still alive--a criterion known as clinical core mismatch.

The results showed that almost half of the patients (48.6 percent) receiving endovascular therapy had a good outcome at 90 days after treatment--defined as the patients being independent in activities of daily living--showed clinical benefit while only 13.1 percent showed benefit in the group that received clot-busting drugs alone. There was no difference in mortality between the two groups.

The researchers planned to enroll 500 patients over the course of the study period. However, an intermediate review of the treatment effectiveness before enrollment was completed led the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board overseeing the study to recommend early termination of the trial after it was demonstrated that ET provided significant clinical benefit in the selected patients.

The multi-center international study known as the DAWN trial included trial locations in the United States, Spain, France, Australia and Canada. The trial was sponsored by Stryker Corporation, which manufactures the clot removal devices used in the study.

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About UPMC

A $14 billion world-renowned health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. UPMC provides nearly $900 million a year in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region's most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates 65,000 employees, more than 25 hospitals, 600 doctors' offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 3.2 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical and behavioral health services insurer in western Pennsylvania. Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC ranks No. 12 in the prestigious U.S. News & World Report annual Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. UPMC Enterprises functions as the innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC while UPMC International provides hands-on health care and management services with partners in 12 countries on four continents. For more information, go to UPMC.com.

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

As one of the nation's leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt ranked fifth among all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support.

Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region's economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see http://www.medschool.pitt.edu.

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The beginnings of agriculture changed human history and has fascinated scientists for centuries.

Researchers from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield have shed light on how hunter-gatherers first began farming and how crops were domesticated to depend on humans.

Domesticated crops have been transformed almost beyond recognition in comparison with their wild relatives - a change that happened during the early stages of farming in the Stone Age.

For grain crops like cereals, the hallmark of domestication is the loss of natural seed dispersal - seeds no longer fall off plants but have become dependent on humans or machines to spread them.

Professor Colin Osborne, from the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield, said: "We know very little about how agriculture began, because it happened 10,000 years ago - that's why a number of mysteries are unresolved. For example why hunter-gatherers first began farming, and how were crops domesticated to depend on people.

"One controversy in this area is about the extent to which ancient peoples knew they were domesticating crops. Did they know they were breeding domestication characteristics into crops, or did these characteristics just evolve as the first farmers sowed wild plants into cultivated soil, and tended and harvested them?"

The new research, published in the journal Evolution Letters, shows the impact of domestication on vegetable seed size.

Any selective breeding of vegetables by early farmers would have acted on the leaves, stems or roots that were eaten as food, but should not have directly affected seed size.

Instead, any changes in vegetable seed size must have arisen from natural selection acting on these crops in cultivated fields, or from genetic links to changes in another characteristic like plant or organ size. In the last instance, people might have bred crops to become bigger, and larger seeds would have come along unintentionally.

The University of Sheffield researchers gathered seed size data from a range of crops and found strong evidence for a general enlargement of seeds due to domestication.

They discovered domesticated maize seeds are 15 times bigger than the wild form, soybean seeds are seven times bigger. Wheat, barley and other grain crops had more modest increases in size (60 per cent for barley and 15 per cent for emmer wheat) but these changes are important if they translate into yield.

"We found strong evidence for a general enlargement of seeds due to domestication across seven vegetable species," said Professor Osborne.

"This is especially stunning in a crop like a sweet potato, where people don't even plant seeds, let alone harvest them. The size of this domestication effect falls completely within the range seen in cereals and pulse grains like lentils and beans, raising the possibility that at least part of the seed enlargement in these crops also evolved during domestication without deliberate foresight from early farmers."

Professor Osborne added: "Our findings have important implications for understanding how crops evolved, because they mean that major changes in our staple crops could have arisen without deliberate foresight by early farmers.

"This means that unconscious selection was probably more important in the genesis of our food plants than previously realised. Early increases in the yields of crops might well have evolved in farmers' fields rather than being bred artificially."

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Additional information

Read more about the research at: http://theconversation.com/how-did-the-first-farmers-produce-crops-from-wild-plants-77434 The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures

The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures is an ambitious and innovative collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment.

For more information please visit http://grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/ The University of Sheffield

With almost 27,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the world's leading universities.

A member of the UK's prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2017 and was voted number one university in the UK for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education in 2014. In the last decade it has won four Queen's Anniversary Prizes in recognition of the outstanding contribution to the United Kingdom's intellectual, economic, cultural and social life.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Glaxo SmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.

For further information, please visit: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk

For further information please contact: Amy Pullan, Media Relations Officer, University of Sheffield, 0114 222 9859, a.l.pullan@sheffield.ac.uk

To read other news releases about the University of Sheffield, visit http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news
MADISON, Wis. -- The blood-brain barrier is biology's proverbial double-edged sword.

An impermeable shield of endothelial cells that protects our brains from toxins and other threats that may lurk in circulating blood, the barrier can also exclude therapeutic drugs and, at times, essential biomolecules required for healthy brain development.

A case in point is the rare but severe psychomotor disease Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS), a congenital condition that affects only males and starves the developing brain of thyroid hormone, resulting in cognitive impairment and atrophied muscles and motor skills. The condition is not only untreatable, but seems to be peculiar to humans, meaning scientists have been unable to study the disease and seek new treatments by modeling it in an animal like the mouse.

But now, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles have used the cells of AHDS patients to recreate not only the disease, but a mimic of the patient's blood-brain barrier in the laboratory dish using induced pluripotent stem cell technology.

"This is the first demonstration of using a patient's cells to model a blood-brain barrier defect," explains Eric Shusta, a UW-Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering and a senior author of the new study published today (May 16, 2017) in the journal Cell Stem Cell. "If we had just the (compromised) neural cells available, we wouldn't have been able to identify this key characteristic of AHDS."

The new work not only establishes a laboratory model for Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome, but also hints at therapies that could prevent or reduce the debilitating effects of the disease, says Clive Svendsen, director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, a senior author of the new study and an expert on diseases of the central nervous system. The Wisconsin-Cedars-Sinai collaboration also included UW-Madison Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Sean Palecek and Abraham Al-Ahmad, now a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Texas Tech University.

Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome is caused by defects to a single gene that controls the flow of thyroid hormone to the brain. It affects the developing male brain beginning before birth and results in moderate to severe cognitive disability, impaired speech, underdeveloped muscles and involuntary movement, among other symptoms. As patients age, the condition progresses and many become confined to wheelchairs.

The flawed gene, says Shusta, blunts the work of a biomolecule called MCT8, a transporter that shepherds thyroid hormone through the blood-brain barrier. In the earliest stages of development, several studies suggest a fetus obtains significant amounts of thyroid hormones from the mother.

"The blood-brain barrier forms pretty early in gestation, so the thyroid hormone, even from the mother, is probably not getting through the barrier and into the brain, likely leading to developmental deficits," says Shusta, whose group was among the first to develop blood-brain barriers from patient-derived stem cells in the lab dish.

The ability to recapitulate both the affected neural cells and the blood-brain barrier, according to Shusta and Svendsen, provides detailed insight that not only reveals the mechanics of the syndrome, but also raises the possibility of identifying drugs that may help overcome the diminished ability of the hormone to nurture the developing brain.

In addition, several other neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease may involve dysfunction in the blood-brain barrier, explains Gad Vatine of Cedars-Sinai, the lead author of the report. "The significance of this study expands beyond the limits of AHDS research, to the possibility of stem cell modeling the blood-brain barrier component in many other neurological diseases," Vatine says.

As an example, Leslie Thompson and coworkers at the University of California, Irvine, have used the blood-brain barrier model developed in the Shusta laboratory to study abnormalities in the blood-brain barrier of Huntington's disease patients. That work is published in the May 16 edition of Cell Reports.

###

Terry Devitt

608-262-8282

trdevitt@wisc.edu

This work was supported by the Sherman Family Foundation, the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CNS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH NS083688 and AA020476, EVS and SPP; NS085351, SPP and EVS; NIH R37DK15070, SR).
The Welsh Governments flagship bovine TB data document  TB Dashboard  has revealed "disappointing" progress towards the eradication of bovine TB in Wales, a farming union has said.

According to the data presented, the levels of bovine TB in Wales have remained fairly static overall, with variable results across the counties.

Indeed, whilst the TB Dashboard document reports a general fall in TB herd incidence since 2012, the number of cattle slaughtered in the 12 months leading to January 2017 was 22 per cent higher than in the previous 12 months.

Dr Hazel Wright, Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) Senior Policy Officer, said: Although the data from TB Dashboard shows improvement in some areas, the number of cattle slaughtered remains on the rise.

According to Welsh bovine TB statistics, with the exception of 2008 and 2009, the number of cattle slaughtered in the 12 months to January 2017 was higher than in any other year since 1996.

Recurrence rates have remained relatively flat in recent years, however almost 30 percent of the TB incidents closed in 2014 entailed a recurrence in the subsequent two years.

Losing TB-free status is devastating to farming families and their businesses. The restrictions on a farm business can be incredibly destructive and it is extremely distressing for our members to have worked hard to gain TB-free status, only to lose it again in the subsequent years.

A TB breakdown is not only financially crippling for the farm, but also impacts more widely as struggling farm businesses are less able to contribute to the both the local economy and further afield.

'High TB areas'

According to Dashboard, over 80 per cent of new TB incidents are in the areas classified as High TB areas, including Pembrokeshire in the West.

In the last quarter of 2016, there were 71 new incidents in this region.

The Farmers' Union of Wales said that whilst this is a minor improvement from the year before, the longer term results are variable and suggest that cattle measures alone cannot work to eradicate TB.

The latest official report on the IAA, published after the cessation of the 3.7 million badger vaccination programme in North Pembrokeshire, concluded that consistent trends in indicators of bovine TB incidence have not yet been seen over the 5 year period examined.

The industry is well aware that the results after four years of badger vaccination in the IAA showed levels of bovine TB which are no different to other comparable areas where badger vaccination did not take place, added Dr Wright.

The number of cattle herds registered in Wales has declined by 43 percent since 1996 and the industry has lost dairy producers at an alarming rate.

Bovine TB is one of the most serious issues facing Welsh cattle farmers and a more holistic approach, which seriously tackles the wildlife reservoir, is required urgently.
More than 250,000 people and over 600 organisations have sent the European Union a strong message - the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is in need of a fundamental rethink.

In the largest ever public consultation on agricultural policy, thousands of people, businesses and organisations across the EU have demanded a better food and farming system.

On Thursday (11 May) Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan was presented with the logos of 600 organisations that called for a radical reform of the CAP.

Commissioner Hogan was handed the logos before a high-level conference on the future of the CAP in Brussels.

'Major inefficiencies'

BirdLife, a European-wide organisation which is one of many organisations to sign the message, said CAP has 'major inefficiencies'.

The organisation said in a statement: The available evidence analysed so far points to major inefficiencies resulting from the lack of a coherent set of objectives, ineffective and partly conflicting instruments, and poor uptake of knowledge.

We also identified very poor relevance of the objectives themselves, and that both farmers and the public are unsatisfied with the CAP and its outcomes.

While the design and implementation of CAP instruments fails to meet current sustainability challenges, the good news is that the knowledge and tools needed to move towards a better and smarter CAP are available. Whats needed now is the political will to use them.

Underlining the need for a strong CAP and budget with modern tools to help farmers face the 'increasing challenges' facing them, EU agricultural co-operative Copa and Cogeca highlighted improved infrastructures and broadband access in rural areas to enable farmers to profit from the digital revolution and smart farming.

Investments need to be in place to help their businesses perform, Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen said.

'Step up to the plate'

During his keynote speech, Commissioner Phil Hogan admitted that the CAP had flaws and that the EU needed to do much more.

We must always strive to do more, and the CAP needs to step up to the plate and help to deliver on our ambitious international agreements, such as the SDGs and the Paris agreement on climate change, he said.

The European Commission is expected to present the outcomes of the Consultation during a conference on 7 July 2017. The EU's new Common Agricultural Policy should be implemented in all Member States by 2021.

The programme is the most expensive scheme in the EU - accounting for more than 40% of its annual budget - and one of the most controversial.

Life after CAP

The CAP has received numerous criticisms in the past. A report released this month said the current CAP framework set up by the European Commission has 'significant design weaknesses'.

However, a report looking into the UK's post-Brexit farming policies said that the agriculture and food sectors face 'enormous challenges' after leaving the EU and subsequently CAP.

Life after the EUs Common Agricultural Policy will not be easy for the many UK farmers who rely on its financial support, the House of Lords report said.

But leaving the EU is also an opportunity for the UK, and its constituent nations and regions, to move away from the EUs one-size-fits-all policies on farming and food. We will be able to really think about what we want to do with agriculture, food and the environment.
The BBC are on the look-out to find three UK families who will take on a challenge of living and working in a remote farm.

The BBC One Wales and BBC Two series, with the working title The Family Farm, will be shown next spring.

The programme will test three families who think theyve got what it takes to be full-time farmers.

Filming will take place at Welsh hill farmer Gareth Wyn Joness farm in Llanfairfechan in August, who will be presenting the show with Kate Humble.

The families will live side-by-side in a purpose-built camp, working together on some tasks and competing against each other as they try to convince a panel of expert judges they can handle the good life.

Presenter Kate Humble has made the move to the country herself, leaving the city behind to live and work on a small holding in the Wye Valley. Shell be on hand to keep an eye on the contestants and judge their efforts.

Gareth Jones has farming in his blood. His family have farmed in the Carneddau mountains for over 350 years. He will guide the families through each of the challenges but warns hes as a tough taskmaster who wont go easy on his new apprentices.

Every week Kate and Gareth will be joined by a guest judge - an experienced farmer, a food producer or a top chef.

Together theyll assess and judge each of the families on how well they perform in each task.

The series is being produced by Folk Films and the closing date for applications is 11 June. To apply email familyfarm@folkfilms.tv or phone 02920 727 801.
A farmer, who has suffered more than 50,000 worth of vandalism, has walked away free from court after being cleared of assault.

Alan Hogarth, a 44-year-old dairy farmer from Ayrshire, Scotland, detained a boy he caught on his land. Hogarth performed a citizen's arrest on him before calling police.

The farmer has suffered more than 50,000 vandalism to his property in recent years, but he was nevertheless charged with assault after the nine-year-old claimed he had attacked him.

Mr Hogarth was riding a quad bike to check on his dairy herd at Sorbie Farm near Ardrossan, Ayrshire, when he spotted a group of boys on his land. He asked for their names but one ran off, prompting Mr Hogarth to vault a gate and catch hold of him.

Mr Hogarth told Kilmarnock Sheriff Court the boy said he had the "right to roam" on farmland.

"I said if he wasn't going to give me his name, I was going to take him to the police station," he added.

"But he decided he would leg it so I grabbed him in a one-handed hold because I wanted to get his name. He was one of the ones I'd told to get off the farm previously. All I wanted was a name and he'd be free to go."

'Farmer trying to protect his land'

The farmer continued: "I was going in that direction to get to the cows and I stopped three of them," he said.

"I'd seen one of them the day before on top of farm machinery. It was more a danger to himself but he was climbing on machinery with a whole bunch of kids. I wanted all three of their names  that's what the police told me to do."

Mr Hogarth said: "I grabbed him by his clothing and his feet were never off the ground as far as I'm aware.

"I didn't shout and swear. My nine-year-old daughter was there and I'm not in the habit of swearing in front of children."

Defence solicitor Nigel Scullion said: "What we have here is a farmer trying to protect his land and the safety of people on it," he said.

Sheriff Shirley Foran found Mr Hogarth not guilty of assault and threatening or abusive behaviour in September 2016.
The National Farmers' Union has warned farmers in upland areas to be aware of a plant that is poisonous to both sheep and cattle, causing serious kidney problems.

Bog asphodel has become more prevalent in the uplands in recent times, partly due to the management regimes put in place for agri-environment schemes.

It's found on acidic damp habitats  wet heaths, wet and boggy moorlands up to about 1,000m in elevation - and produces spikes of bright yellow flowers in summer.

The photosensitization causes various chemical reactions in the skin (Photo: NFU)

The plant is poisonous to both sheep and cattle, causing serious kidney problems and a photosensitive disorder (variously called 'alveld' in Norway, 'saut' in Cumbria and 'plochteach', 'yellowses' and 'head greet' in Scotland).

The photosensitization causes various chemical reactions in the skin on exposure to the sun, resulting in tissue damage. It can be fatal, but if caught early animals can be saved.

The NFU is urging farmers who have bog asphodel on pastures to 'carefully consider' a grazing regime to minimise the risk.

"If you are entering, or in, an agri-environment scheme for pasture with bog asphodel present, you will need to discuss grazing arrangements with your Natural England project officer", the NFU said.

The NFU has asked Natural England to warn applicants about the risks to animal health.
Following the scare of a drought, the UK is now being prepared for potential flooding.

Leading rural insurer NFU Mutual is warning people across the UK to prepare for torrential rain forecast for Wednesday (May 17) with potential to cause flooding and consequent damage to homes, vehicles and businesses.

The extreme rainfall is forecast across a large part of the UK on Wednesday and NFU Mutual said it is on standby to launch its emergency claims plan should serious floods occur.

The concern is of particular importance due to weeks of unseasonably dry weather. Land across the country will be parched, creating a situation which could quickly lead to flooding.

'Warrants concern'

When extreme weather strikes our first priority is to get immediate help to people whose families and animals have been put at risk, said Tim Price, NFU Mutual Rural Affairs Specialist.

Despite the massive amount of technology now used by weather forecasters, its still difficult to accurately predict the intensity and path of storms  but tomorrows forecast does warrant concern and we recommend homeowners and farmers in flood-prone locations take simple precautions.

Were particularly concerned because after weeks of unseasonably dry weather, land across the country remains parched which means heavy rain can run-off quickly and cause flash floods.

He added: For updates and further information on storm and flood precautions its worth regularly checking local weather forecasts and Environment Agency flood warnings.
The Soil Association, working as part of an industry initiative, wants to introduce people to large-scale horticulture due to a falling number of new entrants.

The farming charity's goal is to highlight the "innovative and exciting" approaches that producers in the sector are adopting and create a better understanding of these businesses.

UK grown vegetables are worth 1.3 billion annually while UK grown fruits are worth 695 million.

These numbers have been steadily increasing over recent years, creating new opportunities. However, while the sector contributes considerably to the economy, there is a lack of new entrants into horticulture.

Across agriculture in general, around 60% of total labour is provided by the farmers themselves or their immediate family. A further 20% are regularly employed workers and around 15% are casual (non-regular or seasonal) workers.

In the fresh produce sector employment of non-UK labour has been expanding in recent years.

Of those regular and non-regular workers, less than 1% of the UKs working population are employed in agriculture and this has continued to gradually decline over the past decade.

The majority of horticultural workers are migrants, who may be unable to work in the UK following the exit from the European Union.

Getting hands dirty

In the summer of 2017, the Soil Association will be hosting two on-site study visits for people interested in finding out more about the employment opportunities in the sector.

The first will be held in Nottinghamshire and the second in Worcestershire. Each visit will be open to just 15 students, free of charge.

Across two days, the Soil Association will be taking students to visit a mixture of both conventional and organic UK growers.

Liz Bowles, head of farming at the Soil Association said: Only 1% of the UKs working population are employed in agriculture and this has continued to gradually decline over the past decade. Different training programmes are needed to bring UK workers into horticultural jobs and show them that it can provide an exciting and rewarding career.

Our aim is to give participants a better understanding of the day-to-day functioning of large-scale horticulture and allow them to get their hands dirty.

During the visits, we will also be leading a series of discussions to better understand the students pre-existing perception of horticulture and to highlight the innovative practices that are being adopted worldwide.

A copy of the application and details for submission are available here. The deadline for applications is 16th June.
Tenders are being invited from farmers interested in a once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a tenant farmer on the spectacular East Devon Jurassic Coast.

Stantyway Farm is a 264 acre arable organic farm located just above the idyllic village of Otterton between Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth.

It was farmed by the same family for two generations until their retirement three years ago and, until now, it has been part of Clinton Devon Estates in-hand farming operation.

This is the first time in 20 years that the owners, Clinton Devon Estates, have let a farm on the open market.

Stantyway Farm is one of 30 tenant farms on the 25,000 acre estate which encompasses farmland, forests and public open space as well as residential and commercial property across North and East Devon.

'Incredibly rare opportunity'

Estates Surveyor Clare James said it is an 'incredibly rare' opportunity.

Stantyway presents an incredibly rare opportunity for a new farmer to farm on the estate. Most farms are passed down the generations and its not often that one becomes available. We hope to encourage entrepreneurial farmers in East Devon and beyond to bid for the chance to join us.

Stantyway Farm is a 264 acre arable organic farm

We are very proud of the close and enduring relationships we have with our tenant farmers and, in many cases, we work with them to support their business aspirations, whether its in terms of investment or diversification goals.

Stantyway Farm is in a coastal location which is widely renowned as a breeding habitat for the Cirl bunting.

High environmental standards

Conservation and protecting the environment is important to the estate

Although the farm has organic status, the land and property details state that there is no requirement for the incoming tenant to continue farming organically.

Clinton Devon Estates commits to high environmental standards and regards itself and its farmers as custodians of the natural environment.

Clare James explains: Stantyway Farm is an excellent example that farming with high conservation standards can be achieved in a sustainable way, benefitting wildlife, the landscape and the local community.

With Brexit approaching, and the end of Britains promise to match the EUs farming subsidies scheme set for 2020, Clinton Devon Estates hopes that its new tenant farmer will be 'eco-conscious in their approach to farming, but of a resilient disposition'.

Conservation-related subsidy

In total, UK farmers receive around 3bn a year in subsidies, including 700m for agri-environment schemes.

What will replace these essential payments when Britain leaves the Bloc is subject to much speculation.

Clinton Devon Estates Head of Property and Land, Leigh Rix says: We believe that the current basic payment subsidy which is based on farm size is likely to switch over to a conservation related subsidy which encompasses the sustainable soil and water management of the land as well as other public goods and services.

Conservation and protecting our environment is incredibly important to the estate. You cant farm successfully unless you maintain these scarce resources.

In addition to this, our climate is changing and weve seen evidence of it again this spring, where we had two months of virtually no rain; so an innovative and resilient attitude in our farmers in the face of Brexit and climate change is going to be more important than ever, added Mr Rix.

Stantyway Farm includes a recently refurbished four-bedroom detached farmhouse and a range of modern, well-kept farm buildings on an easily accessible yard.

Harvesting is due this summer, after which it will be left as grassland and stubble for the new tenant in September.
Farmers have been warned about the possible spread of a large rat-like rodent in Ireland, which can attack crops.

Farmers and the general public are being asked to report sightings of any coypus, sometimes mistaken for otters, after one was spotted in or near the River Lee, Cork.

It is believed that two or three of the animals were released on the Curraheen River several years ago, which lead to the spread.

The metre-long semi-aquatic rodent is native to South America, but it is believed they have been breeding over the last two years.

But with reports from other locations becoming more frequent, it is now seeking the publics help to monitor their spread, as it is on a list of major environmental concerns across the EU.

Their burrowing can undermine river banks and possibly coastal defences, and they can do a lot of damage to crops, especially root crops that they feed on, said NWPS south-west region conservation ranger, Danny OKeeffe.

Invasive species

The animal is classified as an invasive species that poses a danger to local agriculture because it burrows into soil used for flood management and eats crop roots.

With millions of pounds having to be spent in a decades-long eradication programme in the UK, keeping track of their spread is essential to restrict the potential longer-term costs associated with the invasive species.

As a response to the copyu population peak of the late 1950s, the UK government set up two initiatives: the first a coypu research laboratory in 1962, and the second a trapping campaign to run through over time, which eventually eradicated the animal by the late 1980s.

The animal was originally introduced into Britain in 1929 for fur farming.
JC International Group Limitedsays it is exploring funding options worth up to $2 million with investors in China and other countries.It comes as the China-based workforce outsourcing service provider, responded to series of ASX queries about its operations and funding.The company told the ASX its past negative cash flows were hampered on the back of impacts from Chinese New Year and increased project funding.When the ASX questioned if it would continue its operations, to meet its objectives, JC International said it signed two contracts in April; one with an Australian workforce solution provider, and another for labor services in Algeria.Shares in JC International Group Limitedlast traded 0.58% lower to 86 cents.
Doing Homework on Vaccines this Back-to-School Season? Here are 10 Ways to Separate Fact from Fiction.
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Meet the Money2017 wrapped up last week at the Hyatt Regency LAX, and looks to be one of our most successful years yet! More than 350 hotel industry leaders gathered to hear from 130+ speakers who gave their expert perspectives on the current hospitality market, the national and global economy, and where trends might take us as we move towards 2018.

The conference will return May 7-9, 2018Watch www.MeetTheMoney.com for program and registration information.

In the meantime, you can download all the presentations the conference completed last week from the RESOURCE CENTERat www.Hotel.Lawyer.com, or individual presentations as listed below:

2017 LIIC Top Ten. Mike Cahill, CEO and Founder of Hospitality Real Estate Counselors (HREC) rounds up LIICs annual member survey results. What markets should you avoid? Where are we in the hotel real estate cycle? Challenges and trends are identified in the LIIC Top Ten for the current year.

Hotels Values & Cap Rates. Suzanne Mellen, Senior Managing Director of HVS, provides valuable data on historical hotel sales from 2006-2017 (total dollar volume and price per key), hotel transaction volume (year-over-year and by quarter), most active markets for the past 3 years, hottest urban markets, most notable sales, and what is happening to hotel cap rates.

Hotels Trends: Public Market Perspective. Michael J. Bellisario is a Senior Research Analyst at Baird. His presentation includes an overview of the US hotel capital markets including stock performance, industry fundamentals, valuations, capital allocation strategies, and insights on current transactions, trends and forecasts.

California Hotel Market Overview. Alan X. Reay, President of Atlas Hospitality provides an overview of the California hotel markets  current and historic analysis of sales volume, median price and performance by local market. There is data for every year from 2001 through the present. Alan also sees some interesting similarities and differences between the 2016 California hotel market with that of 2007. Could history be repeating itself?

The Boutique Hotel Report 2017. Kim Bardoul, Consultant at Highland Group provides The Highland Groups 2017 data-filled report on the boutique hotel industry, including lifestyle hotels, soft brand collections and independent boutiques.

U.S. Lodging Industry 2017  Good For Some; Cautious Optimism For Others. In this presentation, Daniel Lesser, President & CEO of LW Hospitality Advisors, points out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in his U.S. Hotel Industry SWOT Analysis.

Bright Horizons.Dusty Dawns. Mark Woodworth, Senior Managing Director of CBRE Hotels, discusses the state of the economy, the impact new supply has, buyer and seller markets, and forecasts for the rest of this year and 2018.

Three Issues for Real Estate. Keynote speaker, Dr. Richard K. Green, Chair, Lusk Center for Real Estate, University of Southern California, breaks looks in detail at 3 key issues affecting real estate and the economy: tax reform, the Fed and mortgages, and trade. But there is a bigger issue. Dr. Green goes in depth to answer these questions and discuss the principal source of U.S. manufacturing job loss (hint: its not trade).

Fine Tuning Management and Operations for Greater Profit and Value. Michelle Russo, CEO & Founder of HotelAVE, and her panel present a very timely issue. As the hotel industry enters its 7th year of recovery, we may have gotten laxe in driving revenues and controlling costs. What tools and components are necessary or unnecessary?

This is Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and hotel lawyer, signing off. Weve done more than $68 billion of hotel transactions and have developed innovative solutions to unlock value from hotels. Whos your hotel lawyer?
DusitPrincess Moonrise Beach Resort to Open in Vietnam

Thailand-based Dusit International will make its Vietnam debut this December with the opening of the DusitPrincess Moonrise Beach Resort on the country's largest island, Phu Quoc.

The result of a long-term franchising arrangement with Linh Chi Limited Company, the new hotel will comprise 108 rooms in a lush location overlooking popular Bai Truong beach on the island's west coast, only eight minutes' drive from Phu Quoc International Airport.

Elegantly and stylishly designed, the rooms will range from 32 sq m Deluxe rooms to 56 sq m Grand Suites, all providing sea views, while facilities will include an all-day-dining restaurant, a spa, an outdoor pool, a lounge and pool bar, a fully-equipped conference room, and a kids' zone.

Phu Quoc, also known as Pearl Island, is located in the south of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand. An up-and-coming tourist destination, the island is known for its long, sweeping beaches, rich coral reefs, and dense, tropical jungle. Popular attractions include Phu Quoc National Park, a Unesco Biosphere Reserve; and Dinh Cau Temple, built in 1937 to honour Thien Hau, the Goddess of the Sea.

Phu Quoc International Airport is currently served daily by 10 domestic flights from Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi, while international destinations served include Cambodia, China, Finland, Korea Sweden, and the UK. The airport is currently being upgraded and expected to welcome more than four million travellers per year. A visa exempt rule grants international visitors 30 days upon arrival.

"Phu Quoc's growing reputation as a major tourist destination is only set to flourish over the next ten years as many high-end developments are slated to open on the island," said Ms Suphajee Suthumpun, Group Chief Executive Officer of Dusit International. "Following our strategy for sustainable and profitable growth, which includes building our portfolio of international properties, the new hotel will open under our newly developed franchise model, which helps property owners gain maximum returns while providing them with all the benefits they expect from a global brand. We are very much looking forward to working with Linh Chi Limited Company on this special project."

Mr Do Van Chanh, Director of Linh Chi Limited Company, which owns the new hotel, said, "We are delighted to be furthering the island's tourism industry by debuting Dusit's gracious hospitality at this unique hotel development. This beautiful island has a bright future ahead, and we are confident that, with Dusit International's guidance and expertise, DusitPrincess Moonrise Beach Resort will be a huge success when it opens its doors later this year."
Andrews Federal to Sponsor Older Americans Month Health & Wellness Fair

Posted by Press Releases on Tuesday, 05-16-2017 3:53 am

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Event will provide seniors in the District of Columbia with much needed and vital medical screenings and information.On Friday, May 19, Andrews Federal Credit Union will serve as a sponsor of the 2017 Older Americans Month Health & Wellness Fair, coordinated by Terrific, Inc.Each May, the Administration for Community Living (ACL) leads our nations celebration of Older Americans Month (OAM). This years theme, Age Out Loud, gives aging a new voiceone that reflects what todays older adults have to say.We stand on the shoulders of older Americans who have paved the way for the success we experience today, said Andrews Federals Antoine McStay, Brightwood Branch Manager. It is an honor and privilege to support those who have supported so many.The event will be held at Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, 4606 16th Street NW, Washington, DC from 10:30 AM 2:00 PM and will provide seniors in the District of Columbia with much needed and vital medical screenings and information.Abou...

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Learning Expert Elliott Masie Delivers Keynote at Vector Solutions Client Summit 2017

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Annual Summit Brings Industry Leaders from Across the Country Together to Explore Learning Trends and Technology.Vector Solutions, the leader in eLearning and performance support solutions for the architecture, engineering, construction (AEC), industrial, public safety, IT and education fields, today announced Elliot Masie, an expert learning and development analyst, will provide the keynote address during the companys annual client summit to be held from May 16 through 18 at the Don CeSar in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Vector Solutions Client Summit 2017 will explore progressive learning trends and topics that transcend industries and shape the future of eLearning and corporate development.I am honored Vectors Solutions asked me to speak for the second consecutive year, said Elliott Masie. Online learning continues to mold the future of how we learn and develop and understanding these trends and best practices needs to remain at the center of corporate training strategy. It is th...

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Proven techniques of great story telling A tough challenge for many in business is convincing enough prospects to hire them. To become more persuasive, it pays to know how humans are hardwired for stories. If you want the prospect to think it over, give them lots of facts and figures. If you want them to decide to hire you, tell them the right story. Storytelling helps persuade on an emotional level. Maybe that is why so many Fortune 500 companies are putting an emphasis on teaching their sales and business development professionals storytelling techniques that will move units and convince prospects to come aboard. Now any business leader or sales professional can easily use proven techniques of telling a great story employed by Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street by employing The Simple Six-Step Heroic Storytelling Formula to gain the chance to make a proposal or close the sale. These stories must be true case studies, but told in a certain way. Here is a quick overview of the formula: 1: Start with a Main Character. Every story starts with the name of a character who wants something. This is your client. Make your main characters likable so the listeners will root for them. To make them likable, describe some of their good qualities or attributes. Generally, three attributes work best: Marie was smart, tough, and fair or Johan was hardworking, caring and passionate. For priva...
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Montreal, 15 May 2017  Shaesta Waiz, the courageous 29 year old pilot of the 2017 Dreams Soar solo round-the-world flight for STEM, touched down in Montreal today at Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport and was greeted by a team of ICAO VIPs and the senior management of the STRATOS Aviation flight school.

Later this summer, when she completes her adventurous journey through 30 stops and 18 different countries, Shaesta will have become the youngest woman in history to embark on and complete a solo round-the-world flight.



Its really incredible to have Montreal, the Headquarters of ICAO and the World Capital of Civil Aviation, as one of my very first Dreams Soar stops, Shaesta commented. ICAO especially has been a huge help since Dreams Soar was first conceived, introducing me to aviation officials in so many of the countries Ill be visiting, providing flight safety and route advice, and mainly just by helping to organize the global support and cooperation that projects like this really depend on.



ICAOs support for Dreams Soar is part of its Next Generation of Aviation Professionals (NGAP) programme, which is focused on attracting the best and brightest to fill the hundreds of thousands of careers which will soon be available for new pilots and other skilled air transport personnel. Greater Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) educational capacity and access globally is a critical prerequisite to developing this 21st century aviation workforce, making Dreams Soar a very natural mission to support for the UN specialized agency for civil aviation.



ICAO is honoured to be a main Dreams Soar supporter, and we are very pleased that Shaestas objectives align so well not only with our established NGAP programme, but also the new Gender Equality Programme we have recently launched, commented ICAOs current and first female Secretary General, Dr. Fang Liu. Only 3-5% of commercial pilots globally are women today, and that percentage must rise significantly if aviation is to effectively address its long-term human resources challenges. Dreams Soar is an amazing opportunity for us to bring this important message to young women all over the world.



Id only add that while my mission is all about inspiring a new generation of girls to become pilots, I also want them to better understand how important a decent STEM education is to making their career dreams a reality, Shaesta added. Access for girls to STEM learning is not only about resources, but attitudes as well in many parts of the world, and Dreams Soar hopes to be a positive force for change at every stop along our route.



The Dreams Soar mission will be spending the entire week of 15-19 May in Montreal, conducting a wide range of student outreach visits and official events with ICAO support.



For more information on the Dreams Soar mission details and global route, please visit the ICAO NGAP website or the main Dreams Soar site.

Resources for Editors

ICAO Next Generation Aviation Professionals programme

Dreams Soar  official website

Dreams Soar  B-roll footage of take-off

Dreams Soar  Shaesta photos

Dreams Soar  main promo video

Dreams Soar  General B-roll

Dreams Soar  A36 Bonanza aircraft

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.



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

Twitter: @wraillantclark
We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
Karl Fradgley

The big night is tonight.

The remaining 26 competing countries take to the stage in a glittery, bombastic, drama infused, musical battle for the coveted glass microphone .... but only one will emerge the champion of Eurovision 2017.

Italy has remained the strong favourite for months .... until yesterday when Portugal overtook Italy to become the bookies favourite. Portugal have never won in 40 years of trying. Italy last won in 1990.

Bulgaria has since closed on these two - Bulgaria have also never won and only qualified for the final twice before. In all this looks set to be a 3 horse race, but at Eurovision you just never know.

Tuesday and Thursday saw a bloodbath of semi-final selections. There were surprise qualifiers - looking at you Cyprus! and there were shock exits namely Finland who were outstanding on Tuesday.

There was also the not so shocking exit of Ireland - despite a brave performance of a dud of a song, this will be the 4th year in a row Ireland will not be in the grand final line-up.

The "how do we fix that for next year" is a whole other article but something really needs to be shaken up in RTE. The team working on the Irish entries is just not getting it right - on any level really.

Ireland maybe out but there is still plenty to cheer in tonight's show.

Israel opens proceeding and France closes the show with a dizzying visual. The six prequalified finalists get to show off their wares tonight.

Italy - "Occidentalis Kharma" - 2nd favourite and I would have said almost impossible to beat. Last years winner was dark this is up beat and fun - complete with dancing ape and all( it's a metaphor people). Its a been a massive hit on the continent and is officially the most watched Eurovision entry ever online.This would suggest Italy can't be beaten.

Ukraine - as hosts are automatically placed in the final. It's a rock song called "Time" and it's a strong entry, assured of a mid table result but nothing more, which is probably the desired result for the producers in Kyiv.

Spain - have not won since 1969 ... believe it or not they are not gonna win this year either. In face, I would say this is a contender for last place. "Do it for your Lover" is basic, boring rubbish and about as Spanish as sushi. With such a rich musical culture and history - Spain you should and could be doing much better than this .... really!

United Kingdom - "Never Give Up On You"

This is an interesting one. Wonderfully performed with pitch perfect staging this would be a serious contender in any other year. A top ten seems very likely for UK though. It's amazing what happens when you listen to the fans and start giving a s**t. - looking at you RTE! Great draw for this in the running order too and I wouldn't be surprised if UK break the top five. Bravo BBC.

Germany - "Perfect Life" .... it's perfectly fine but, as a buddy of mine said yesterday .... "she has the charisma of a packet of digestives"

Another bum result for Germany ..... where is Lena when you need her?

France - "Requiem"

France came 6th last year and another good result is on the cards this year. Alma sings this well and its gorgeously presented with a 360 view of rotating Paris by night. Taking the cliche and owning it ! Last in the running order will hamper France's chances though, which is a real pity - Eurovision in Paris would just be amazing.

So that's your lot folks. 42 songs previewed, 26 finalists for your pleasure and only 1 winner. So who is it going to be?

Portugal is my absolute favourite entry this year. I have been saying Italy will win by 100 points for weeks. Bulgaria have a real star on their hands .... I am sure it will be one of these three.

I am gonna stick with my original prediction and say Italy will do it. Portugal for second and Bulgaria third. That said .... I really really really want Portugal to win.

Enjoy tonight people .... I know I will :)
Asia Cash and Chemicals: for Laos, Chinese Banana Boom a Blessing and Curse

Workers wash bananas in a packing line inside a banana plantation operated by a Chinese company in the province of Bokeo, Laos on April 25, 2017. / Jorge Silva / Reuters

BOKEO, Laos  Kongkaew Vonusak smiles when he recalls the arrival of Chinese investors in his tranquil village in northern Laos in 2014. With them came easy money, he said.

The Chinese offered villagers up to US$720 per hectare to rent their land, much of it fallow for years, said Kongkaew, 59, the village chief. They wanted to grow bananas on it.

In impoverished Laos, the offer was generous. They told us the price and asked us if we were happy. We said okay.

Elsewhere, riverside land with good access roads fetched at least double that sum.

Three years later, the Chinese-driven banana boom has left few locals untouched, but not everyone is smiling.

Experts say the Chinese have brought jobs and higher wages to northern Laos, but have also drenched plantations with pesticides and other chemicals.

Last year, the Lao government banned the opening of new banana plantations after a state-backed institute reported that the intensive use of chemicals had sickened workers and polluted water sources.

China has extolled the benefits of its vision of a modern-day Silk Road linking it to the rest of the worldit held a major summit in Beijing on May 14-15 to promote it.

The banana boom pre-dated the concept, which was announced in 2013, although China now regards agricultural developments in Laos as among the initiatives projects.

Under the Belt and Road plan, China has sought to persuade neighbors to open their markets to Chinese investors. For villagers like Kongkaew, that meant a trade-off.

Chinese investment has given us a better quality of life. We eat better, we live better, Kongkaew said.

But neither he nor his neighbors will work on the plantations, or venture near them during spraying. They have stopped fishing in the nearby river, fearing it is polluted by chemical run-off from the nearby banana plantation.

Chinese Frustration

Several Chinese plantation owners and managers expressed frustration at the government ban, which forbids them from growing bananas after their leases expire.

They said the use of chemicals was necessary, and disagreed that workers were falling ill because of them.

If you want to farm, you have to use fertilizers and pesticides, said Wu Yaqiang, a site manager at a plantation owned by Jiangong Agriculture, one of the largest Chinese banana growers in Laos.

If we dont come here to develop, this place would just be bare mountains, he added, as he watched workers carrying 30-kilogram bunches of bananas up steep hillsides to a rudimentary packing station.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was not aware of the specific issues surrounding Chinese banana growers in Laos, and did not believe they should be linked directly to the Belt and Road initiative.

In principle we always require Chinese companies, when investing and operating abroad, to comply with local laws and regulations, fulfill their social responsibility and protect the local environment, he told a regular briefing on Thursday.

Laos Ministry of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment for this article.

China is the biggest foreign investor in Laos, a landlocked country of 6.5 million people, with over 760 projects valued at about $6.7 billion, according to Chinese state-run media.

This influence is not only keenly felt in the capital Vientiane, where Chinese build shopping complexes and run some of the citys fanciest hotels. It also extends deep into rural areas that have remained largely unchanged for decades.

Banana Rush

Lao people say Chinese banana investors began streaming across the border around 2010, driven by land shortages at home. Many headed to Bokeo, the countrys smallest and least populous province.

In the ensuing years, Lao banana exports jumped ten-fold to become the countrys largest export earner. Nearly all of the fruit is sent to China.

For ethnic Lao like Kongkaew, Chinese planters paid them more for the land than they could earn from farming it.

For impoverished, hill-dwelling minorities such as the Hmong or Khmu, the banana rush meant better wages.

At harvest time, they can earn the equivalent of at least $10 a day and sometimes double that, a princely sum in a country where the average annual income was $1,740 in 2015, according to the World Bank. They are also most exposed to the chemicals.

Most Chinese planters grow the Cavendish variety of banana, which is favored by consumers but susceptible to disease.

Hmong and Khmu workers douse the growing plants with pesticides and kill weeds with herbicides such as paraquat. Paraquat is banned by the European Union and other countries including Laos, and it has been phased out in China.

The bananas are also dunked in fungicides to preserve them for their journey to China.

Switching Crops

Some banana workers grow weak and thin or develop rashes, said Phonesai Manivongxai, director of the Community Association for Mobilizing Knowledge in Development (CAMKID), a non-profit group based in northern Laos.

Part of CAMKIDs work includes educating workers about the dangers of chemical use. All we can do is make them more aware, she said.

This is an uphill struggle. Most pesticides come from China or Thailand and bear instructions and warnings in those countries languages, Reuters learned. Even if the labeling was Lao, some Hmong and Khmu are illiterate and cant understand it.

Another problem, said Phonesai, was that workers lived in close proximity to the chemicals, which contaminated the water they wash in or drink.

In a Lao market, Reuters found Thai-made paraquat openly on sale.

However, some workers Reuters spoke to said they accepted the trade-off. While they were concerned about chemicals, higher wages allowed them to send children to school or afford better food.

There is no guarantee the governments crackdown on pesticide use in banana production will lead to potentially harmful chemicals being phased out altogether.

As banana prices fell following a surge in output, some Chinese investors began to plant other crops on the land, including chemically intensive ones like watermelon.

Zhang Jianjun, 46, co-owner of the Lei Lin banana plantation, estimated that as much as 20 percent of Bokeos banana plantations had been cleared, and said some of his competitors had decamped to Burma and Cambodia.

But he has no plans to leave. The environmental impact on Laos was a road that every underdeveloped country must walk and local people should thank the Chinese, he said.

They dont think, Why have our lives improved? They think its something that heaven has given them, that life just naturally gets better.
Asia Chinas Xi Offers Help for Burma Peace Process

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they meet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 16, 2017. / Damir Sagolj / Reuters

BEIJING, China  Chinese President Xi Jinping told Burma leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday that China would continue to help the country achieve peace, and called for both sides to maintain stability on their shared border, state media said.

Fighting in March in Burma pushed thousands of people into China to seek refuge, prompting Beijing to call for a ceasefire between ethnic militias and the security forces there and carry out military drills along the border.

Xi met Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyiwho serves as Burmas foreign minister while also being de facto head of its civilian governmentfollowing Chinas Belt and Road Forum on Sunday and Monday.

China is willing to continue to provide necessary assistance for Burmas internal peace process, Chinas official Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying.

The two sides must jointly work to safeguard China-Burma border security and stability, Xi said.

The news agency did not elaborate on what assistance China would provide.

China has repeatedly expressed concern about fighting along the border that has occasionally spilled into its territory, for instance in 2015, when five people died in China.

Xi also said China would work to enhance cooperation with Burma on his Belt and Road development plan, which aims to bolster Chinas global leadership by expanding infrastructure between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond.

The president promised $124 billion on Sunday to expand the reach of the initiative during the two day summit of world leaders in Beijing.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told Xi that Burma was grateful for Chinese help and that it would work with China to safeguard stability in the border region, Xinhua said.

Beijing last month offered to mediate a diplomatic row over the flight of around 69,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh to escape violence in Buddhist-majority Burma, according to officials from Bangladesh.

Burma has been sharply criticized in the West over violence against the Rohingya.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency under Burmas army-drafted constitution, but effectively leads the government through the specially created post of state counselor.
As an elected official, I must face the voters every two years to see if you all approve of the laws weve put into place. This accountability is what keeps my colleagues and me grounded when making decisions in Madison. I strive to run an accessible office and I welcome feedback on every vote I cast.

Wisconsins economy is seeing steady, lasting growth. Our unemployment rate is at its lowest point since 2000. We were named the 10th best state for business by Chief Executive magazine, up from 41st before Republicans took back control of state government in 2011. Wisconsin families are seeing their personal income growth continue to rise. Theres little question: Wisconsin workers are reaping the benefits of conservative leadership and reforms.

As we continue to prioritize an atmosphere in Wisconsin that is conducive to job creation and business growth, it has become increasingly clear that our regulatory environment is in need of some changes.

Wisconsins regulatory environment is heavily impacted by state agencies, such as the Department of Transportation or the Department of Natural Resources. In many ways, these agencies have the ability to create regulations that carry the same weight as laws passed by the legislature. The obvious problem with this model is, unlike elected public officials, these agencies and bureaucrats have no accountability to the people of Wisconsin to guide their rule-making process.

This problem has prompted the REINS  Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny  Act, which will make several changes that will improve the transparency of the administrative rule-making process. This bill was approved by the Senate earlier this month, and as the Majority Leader of the state Assembly, Im committed to bringing it to the floor for a vote in June. The REINS Act will provide critical legislative oversight to agency rules as the legislature will now be able to vote on costly regulations. It also puts into place mechanisms to allow the legislature to hit the pause button, or even block a rule if its determined a proposed regulation is too costly or simply a bad deal for taxpayers.

This is a good starting point. The next logical step is to look at the volumes upon volumes of regulations that already exist here in Wisconsin. As a state, we not only need reform for how rules and regulations are created, but we also need to have the ability to go back and review the rules already on the books.

If you can believe it, the current structure allows bureaucrats to set rules that can be in place forever, with limited public input. Wisconsins regulations need to be reviewed from time to time to ensure they are not over-burdensome and that they are doing what they were intended for. Many states provide a sunset provisions on rules, requiring legislative action for the rule to continue after a set amount of time. If a rule does what it is supposed to do and costs what it is supposed to cost, it can easily be renewed any number of times. I think its time for Wisconsin to start exploring a review process similar to other states.

By returning some of the responsibility of rule-making back to elected officials, I believe Wisconsins regulations will more closely align with the needs of our constituents rather than whims of individuals within state agencies. Ridding our state of excessive red tape will inevitably result in a stronger climate in which our economy can grow. All levels of government, and especially all laws, should get routine inspections by the general public to make sure they are, in fact, working for you.

Republican Jim Steineke, Kaukauna, represents the 5th Assembly District and is state Assembly majority leader.
Burma Arakan Commission Calls Meeting With Burma Army Highly Productive

Members of the Arakan State Advisory Commission meet Burma Army representatives. / Ghassan Salame / Twitter

RANGOON  Arakan State Advisory Commission member Al Haj U Aye Lwin said a meeting between Burma Army Chief of General Staff Lt-Gen Mya Tun Oo and the commission was highly productive.

The army promised that it would help in whatever the advisory commission needed. There were no objections or negative comments during the meeting, said U Aye Lwin.

The meeting was held with Lt-Gen Mya Tun Oo in Naypyidaw on Monday.

Commission member Dr. Tha Hla Shwe said the army gave its comments on the interim report, which was launched in March.

Al Haj U Aye Lwin told The Irrawaddy over the phone on Tuesday that the meeting took place in line with government protocol, but that the leaders of both sides have been in direct contact throughout the process.

Before the meeting with army generals, the commission also met with the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) on Sunday. But the party refused to make recommendations to the commission, still objecting to its formation and international involvement in internal affairs.

U Aye Lwin said the rejection was overstated and that despite a lack of official party response, the USDP chairman and central executive committee members shared their experience regarding the issues in Arakan State.

He added that the USDP has rejected the overall formation of the commission so was choosing not to release official party stances regarding a commission they do not recognize.

Al Haj U Aye Lwin said the army reiterated that the current ground situation in Arakan State was still unsafe, in reference to the continued limited access to humanitarian assistance groups and media.

The army general also claimed during the meeting that the army had halted counterinsurgency operations and handed security matters in Arakan State over to the home affairs ministry and local law enforcement.

According to commission members, he also discussed the controversial citizenship application process, which has left the Rohingya Muslims in the region stateless and in apartheid-like conditions.

The commission will submit a final report to the government in August.

CORRECTION: This article was edited to correct erroneous information that the commission had initially intended to meet with Burma Army commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Burma Farmers Plan to Sue Govt Departments Over Event Cancellation

Mandalay City Development Committee building. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  Farmers set to discuss land rights at Pyin Oo Lwin City Hall today are planning to sue the township and divisional departments for what organizers said was canceling permission to use the city hall the night before the event.

About 1,000 farmers from Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin District were due to discuss issues including land grabs with Mandalay Divisional Farmers affairs negotiation committee this morning at the hall.

But U Hla Myo, the general administration officer for Pyin Oo Lwins municipal department, told the organizers last night they needed to apply for a permit for the gathering to go ahead.

We feel that our rights have been abused, said U Sai Kyaw Aye, one of the organizers. Since theyve cancelled us in the last minutes, weve lost about 10 million kyats, which we deposited for food, accommodation and transportation.

We do not want the money back; we just want our rights respected, he added.

The organizers said they would file lawsuits against the Mandalay City Development Committee (MCDC) and Pyin Oo Lwin Township municipal department.

Since Pyin Oo Lwin City Hall is under the administration of the MCDC, we believe they are responsible, so we will sue them, too, added U Sai Kyaw Aye.

The organizers said they were briefly shown the cancellation letter at the townships municipal office. The general administration officer of Pyin Oo Lwin had signed the letter, they added.

As citizens, the farmers did not need to apply for a permit to use the city hall, argued the organizers. They planned to discuss land rights issues, which farmers in the area have endured for decades.

The townships general administration officer U Hla Myo said: I just sent a notice saying they needed to apply for a permit in accordance with the law and not canceling the event. I do not have the authority to cancel such an event.
Burma Locals Flee, Fearing Conscription in Southern Shan State

Villagers who fled conscription at a monastery in Na Hi Village, Shan State. / PHWC

More than 170 locals from two villages in Mawkmai Township, southern Shan State have fled their homes, fearing conscription by an ethnic armed group.

Locals from Pone Sote and Me Ta Se villages are currently taking shelter at a monastery in the village of Na Hi, director Khun Nay Htoo of the Pa-Oh Health Working Committee (PHWC), which is providing healthcare to them, told The Irrawaddy.

There are 104 villagers from Me Ta Se, and 74 from Pone Sote. Most of them are Pa-O or Karenni. They fled respectively on May 9 and 12, Khun Nay Htoo told The Irrawaddy.

According to Khun Nay Htoo, people who claimed to be commanders of the Shan State Restoration Council/Shan State Army-South (RCSS/SSA-S) arrived at the two villages during the first week of May and told locals in Shan language to enlist or they would be forced out of their villages.

Villagers told Khun Nay Htoo that they were unsuccessful in dissuading the commanders, so they fled with their families.

Lt-Col Sai Meung, an RCSS spokesperson, denied the conscription.

This must be a misunderstanding. We have not conscripted anyone since we signed the NCA [nationwide ceasefire agreement]. Im afraid this was someone elses handiwork, said Lt-Col Sai Meung.

The RCSS signed the NCA with former President U Thein Seins administration in Oct. 2015. According to the NCA, signatories are not allowed to recruit new members.

Villagers said they have faced conscription in the past. They fled this time because they were threatened, said Khun Nay Htoo.

Currently, only the monastery in Na Hi Village is providing them with food and shelter.

The Irrawaddy phoned a number of civil society organizations engaged in providing relief for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Shan State and all of them replied that they were unaware of the situation.

U Nay Lin, a volunteer helping IDPs said: Villagers who live near armed groups always face this [conscription]. This news is not new in both northern and southern Shan State.

Last February, more than 100 locals fled their homes in Mongyang Township in eastern Shan State after rumors circulated that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) would conscript new members.

The UWSA also denied planned conscription and told The Irrawaddy that its troops were not stationed in that area.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Rangoon School Bus System to Launch in June

School buses in downtown Rangoon / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON Yangon Region Transport Authority (YRTA) announced plans to introduce school buses for basic education schools in downtown Rangoon, in an effort to ease traffic in the commercial capital.

School buses will serve 22 of 26 government-run schools in the downtown area, according to lawmaker U Kyaw Kyaw Tun representing Hlaing Constituency (1) in Rangoon divisional parliament.

[The school bus system] will be launched when the academic year starts [in June], but not for all schools, he said, adding they will first be introduced in places where traffic congestion is worst.

According to the citys traffic police, congestion is worst around Kamayut Township, TTC Yangon on Pyay Road, and Basic Education High School No. 1 in Dagon Township, where many parents use private cars to take their children to school.

Rangoon divisional government signed a deal to purchase 200 new school buses from Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) and Posco Daewoo Corporation on May 10, according to state media.

It is not compulsory for school bus operators to buy those buses, it is up to them. But they are not allowed to operate with light trucks and Dyna trucks. Well only allow buses and mini-buses, said the lawmaker.

The school bus system will be introduced in three phasesto cover 30 percent of students in June, another 30 percent in October, and the remainder in December.

Most of the vehicles now engaged in the school run are privately operated light trucks. But under the new system, they will be managed by concerned school authorities and YRTA.

The new school buses will be sold through a hire-purchase system and will be exempt from taxes, according to YRTA.

School buses were first suggested during a Nov. 2014 workshop on public transport in Rangoon and were initially implemented under the now-defunct Rangoon Motor Vehicles Supervisory Committeeknown by its Burmese acronym Ma Hta Thain 2016 without success.

In late April, the divisional government and officials of 26 downtown schools met to discuss a standardized system of school buses for students.

It is not compulsory for students to take school buses. But we want them to take school buses because they have a higher safety now. Maybe it will become compulsory next year, said U Kyaw Kyaw Tun.

YRTA said the move was to ensure the safety of children as well as reduce traffic congestion. But parents are still concerned about childrens safety.

I learned that there will be gathering points for students to take the buses. But some families dont even use the school ferries that come to the front door of their houses over safety concerns, said a mother from Hlaing Township.

I dont think Rangoon is a safe place to just put children on a school bus, she said.

U Chit Zaw Hein, a school shuttle conductor, said: We bring and drop the children in front of their houses. But, their parents still repeatedly ask us to take care of their children. Under the new system, well bring and drop students at a stop. And Im afraid many parents will not accept it.

This article was translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Sources: UNFC to be Invited to Panglong as Observers

The Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), led by the State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, met in Naypyidaw on May 24. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  Ethnic armed groups forming the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) will only be invited to the upcoming Union Peace Conference as observers, two sources from within the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) told The Irrawaddy.

The sources, who wished to remain anonymous, also confirmed that the government would not invite international observers to attend the conference, also known as the 21st Century Panglong peace conference, later this month.

The issue of invitations was discussed at a meeting of the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led UPDJC, which includes representatives from the Burma Army and eight ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), at a meeting in Naypyidaw last week.

Vice chairman of the UNFC Nai Hong Sar told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that the blocs position had not changed and if we are only to listen to the talks, we will not attend.

Nai Hong Sar said the UNFCa group of six EAOs who laid out eight points agreed to by the government and military to signing the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA)was yet to receive an invitation to the conference.

He said even if the government did invite UNFC members as delegates there was not ample time to conduct national-level consultations with civil society and other stakeholders within the EAOs areas.

The upcoming Union Peace Conference, scheduled to begin on May 24, will differ from the previous edition in August and September last year as many EAOs have said they will not attendincluding the Northern Alliance comprised of NCA non-signatories the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).

The TNLAs Brig-Gen Tarr Jode Jarr told the Irrawaddy that the Northern Alliance members would not attend if they were invited as observers.

A spokesperson for the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), the political wing of the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), Col Sai Hla said the RCSS and fellow NCA-signatory the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) were unhappy that they could not conduct consultations with local stakeholdersknown as national level political dialoguesprior to the conference.

The dialogue collects public opinion on issues such as political rights, land disputes, and the environment. The dialoguesbased on region, ethnicity and themeare a mandatory step in the process laid out by the NCA.

The government, however, has not allowed the ALP to hold public consultations, citing the instability due to ongoing conflict in Arakan State and the Burma Armys reluctance to allow the RCSS to gather the public in the Shan State capital Taunggyi has delayed the groups attempt for ethnic-based dialogue.

In an interview with Shan Herald Agency for News, Col Sai Hla said he told UPDJC members at the meeting in Naypyidaw last week that he will only be able to bring views from the RCSS, not all of the Shan people.

Delegates to the Panglong conference will discuss issues relating to federalism based regional national level political dialogues conducted by the government, Karen National Union (KNU), the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), the Chin National Front (CNF), and the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF).

[The conference] will not reflect the country if it is only based on limited regional talks, said Col Sai Hla.

Nai Hong Sar said the conference was useless if not all EAOs were invited to attend. He suggested the government had planned for a limited number of attendees to make it easier to agree on federal principals.
Two Buddhist monksU Pyinnya Wuntha and U Thuseitta of the Patriotic Monks Unionand another laypersonMyat Phone Mohare still at large.

Police arrested Ko Latt, also known as Tin Htut Zaw, who was involved in the confrontation, and his wife near Kandawgyi Lake on Thursday.

According to witnesses, the nationalists turned hostile toward the Muslim residents when police found no Rohingya in the area.

Buddhist monks led nationalists into the Muslim neighborhood before midnight on May 9, claiming ethnic Muslim Rohingya were there illegally, according to police and residents.

Tin Lin Htike and Tin Htay Aung, who are among the seven nationalists and Buddhist monks charged with incitement to commit violence, were the second pair arrested for involvement in the incident.

RANGOON  Two people involved in last weeks confrontation between Buddhist nationalists and Muslims in Rangoons Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township handed themselves over to the townships police station on Monday.

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Guest Column Taking Advantage of Open Data to Foster Innovation, Transparency and Civic Participation

A tech-savvy Rangoonite uses the mVoter app to monitor election results. / Tin Htet Paing / The Irrawaddy

In May 2015, I attended a talk given by a group of Indonesian technologists. They told the story of how President Joko Widodo won the 2014 elections with the help of hundreds of volunteers who, armed with mobile phones, fought against voter fraud. It was a crowdsourcing campaign that enabled anyone with an Internet connection to upload election results directly from polling stations. In a close election in which both Jokowi and his rival were declaring victory, citizens equipped with technology and data made a real difference. I was incredibly moved by that story, and thought about how amazing it would be if the same thing could happen in Myanmar. I quickly dismissed those thoughts as wishful thinking, only to find myself a few months later in the midst of a similar project that would help voters in Myanmar, through technology and data, as they took to the polls for the most important election the country has seen in decades.

Things move very quickly in todays Myanmar. Out of the many changes that are shifting the countrys political, economic and social fabric, two particular transformations are important to highlight: First, the unprecedented pace of mobile phone and smartphone adoption that followed the liberalization of the telecoms market. Second, the reforms in the media sector that have significantly reduced the draconian limitations on press freedoms. In 2010, we were a country that read newspapers only for the obituaries because everything else in them was propaganda. Two years later, in 2012, truthful and honest journalism was suddenly no longer followed by a prison sentence (most of the time), and dozens of new, independent media outlets were established. Three years after that, in 2015, everyone was getting their news (both real and fake) on their smartphones from whatever was trending on Facebook. A public sphere, one that had not existed since our grandparents time, seemed to have appeared overnight  and just as suddenly, it had leapfrogged into the Internet era.

What will it take to build resilient democratic institutions in this rapidly changing space? I believe that a citizenry equipped with technology and data is a crucial part of that answer. My work at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in downtown Yangon, has given me the chance to observe some of these changes quite closely. The organization was founded in 2014, specifically to use information and communications technology to accelerate the change-agents that were driving the country forward  the entrepreneurs, technologists, civil society organizations, and independent media. The elections in 2015 were a great test case for using technology to foster social impact.

Alongside The Asia Foundation and many other groups, Phandeeyar was involved in organizing the Mae Pay Soh voter education project. It was an effort to collect, digitize and open up data about candidates and parties to the public, in conjunction with a competition for local technologists to develop apps and other digital tools to use that data to educate voters on issues ranging from voting procedures to profiles of candidates. About 137 participants formed 30 different teams to take part in the two-week competition. The winning teams mobile app, mVoter, was built by a team of young software developers who were in their early twenties. Their app was widely publicized prior to the elections and was downloaded more than a quarter of a million times. It provided valuable information for voters who accessed the database millions of times in the lead up to the elections. The Myanmar public was incredibly proud of the young technologists who took part in the competition and it demonstrated that there was plenty of homegrown talent who were eager to do their part in the countrys transformation.

This was all possible, of course, because the government agreed to open up this data to the public. Even though the Union Election Commission had been very supportive of the project from the get go, it was still an arduous task to take what had been a thoroughly analog process and digitize it. The process illustrated the extent to which simple things that are taken for granted in other countries can be significant hurdles in Myanmar. Six thousand candidates registered for the elections, and did so by filling out paper registration forms in various towns across the country. They were then all faxed to the Election Commissions headquarters in Naypyitaw. These forms then needed to be sorted and categorized. Enter the Ministry of Educations alphabetization experts, who were tasked with the esoteric job of sorting the forms of the candidates in alphabetical order. Sorting in Burmese is not something that a normal Burmese speaker can easily do since the script has 33 consonants, 11 medials, 32 finals, 4 tones, and many other nuances. On top of that, older dictionaries use a different sorting method from the more modern oneshence the need for alphabetization experts. After the experts had sorted all the candidate registration forms, a cadre of typists painstakingly entered the information from the forms into a computer, where they encountered another choice between competing standards, between the infamous local Zawgyi encoding system and global standard Unicode encoding system (in addition to the other older Burmese fonts that the Union Election Commission continued to use). It took weeks of work to finally produce a database that had all the candidates information and was accessible online by the public.

Open data is data that anyone can access, use or share. The simple definition belies the immense value that it can provide. Globally, it is estimated that business opportunities made possible through open data can create a market value of US$3 to 5 trillion a year. In terms of intangible benefits, it is one of the main pillars for ensuring transparency and accountability from governments and other institutions in todays complex world. In order to fully reap these benefits, opening up the data is only the first step. Technologists need to have civic values that induce them to use their skills for positive social impact, as well as have an understanding of the needs of users to create tools that make the data usable and understandable. Civil society and media also have to become skilled in using technology and data. Last but not least, governments must also commit to releasing data, and also to incorporate insights from data into their decision-making. On all these fronts, Myanmar has a long way to go. But, as the example above demonstrates, there are small, positive signs amid the drastic changes taking place in the country.

There are now a handful of organizations in Myanmar dedicated to promoting the use of open data. Phandeeyars own open data portal called Open Development Myanmar, the Myanmar Information Management Unit, the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation, and the One Map Myanmar Project are all working towards greater accessibility of open data and also working to promote data literacy in civil society, government and media. Some civil society organizations specialize in collecting data related to a specific topic. For example, the Open Myanmar Initiative collects all available public data about the Myanmar parliament, such as questions, motions, and the passage of bills. Philanthropic and development assistance funds are also increasingly being directed at promoting the use of open data as a crucial part of improving transparency and accountability, and also at improving data driven decision-making within government.

Until recently, it was almost impossible to get formal training as a journalist in Myanmar. With the media landscape opening up over the past few years, many are now eager to join the profession. Formerly exiled media such as The Irrawaddy, DVB, and Mizzima have started operating within the country once again. New dailies and weeklies have emerged, joining the competition for readership and advertising. However, paid readership has decreased every year as the tradition of buying newspapers has rapidly been replaced by the consumption of free news via social media. The advertising market is still not a large enough revenue source in an emerging market like Myanmar. Amateur journalists, tough competition, and dwindling revenues do not make for a healthy market for independent media, and the alarming number of journalists recently being prosecuted under the much despised Article 66(d) defamation clause has not helped. And yet, despite all these difficulties, I believe it is crucial that journalists in Myanmar pick up some data literacy skills.

All over the world, in both developed and developing countries, independent media is facing similar sets of challenges to the ones described above (although Myanmars challenges do seem more intractable than others). Many newsrooms have taken on the task of reinventing themselves to innovate their way through the challenges. La Nacion from Argentina and Indiaspend from India are examples of media that have focused on data journalism in order to set themselves apart from the competition, and this has made them leading news outlets in data journalism in South America and South Asia respectively. Small, dedicated teams of journalists can have a big impact if they have the skills to analyze government budgets, election results, census and municipal data to inform the public with evidence based reporting on issues such as corruption and effectiveness of policies. Journalists from La Nacion, for example, worked together with technologists to create a database of leaked documents from 26,000 emails to report on corruption, and a similar tool to sieve through 90,000 poll worker reports to check for election irregularities.

But perhaps most importantly, the success of open data in Myanmar hinges on the governments attitude towards it. Open-washing is a phrase used to describe situations where institutions pay lip service to open data as a public relations move. This might involve releasing some datasets while restricting access to other crucial datasets that might be politically sensitive, or releasing data that is incomplete, inaccurate, too aggregated (i.e. summarized very broadly, without being broken down into finer details) or otherwise not useful; for example, when the 2014 Myanmar census data on religion was finally released in 2016 after being delayed for a year, it turned out that the data was only disaggregated to the state or region level, unlike the rest of the census data, which was available down to the level of townships, and in the case of population figures, even down to the village tract level. Without commitment from the highest levels of government and a true belief that transparency is beneficial for all, open-washing is a trap that many governments and organizations can easily step into.

On the bright side, there have been some high profile cases of various government organizations in Myanmar opening up their data. Releasing the data from most of the 2014 census, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative for 2013-2014, the 2015 Myanmar Business Survey, the 2015 Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey, and the Yangon Region governments release of information for all the routes of the Yangon Bus Service in 2017 are recent examples of positive developments. This move to open bus route data has already yielded considerable benefits. Local developers have volunteered their time and skills to create a wide range of route finder apps, route maps, chat bots and an online complaint collection system that has been officially adopted by the Region Government. All of these products would have cost considerable amounts of money to develop if they were contracted out to private companies. On the other hand, Myanmar has yet to adopt a Freedom of Information law that mandates that all but the most sensitive data has to be provided to the public on request. If such a law could come about, it would be an invaluable tool for the opening up of government data.

Professor Mary Callahan wrote in a recent article that State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyis vision for civic engagement in Myanmar bears similarity to one of John F Kennedys much quoted lines. She is noted to often say, Think of what you can contribute for the development of your country, not what benefits you can have from your country. I believe that line underpins what is already happening in Myanmar, and resonates with the convictions of many passionate and dedicated individuals that I have had the pleasure and honor of meeting over the past few years: the civic minded software developer in Yangon, the budding journalist in Mandalay, the civil society leader in Tanintharyi, and the civil servant in Naypyitaw. They are already contributing much to the development of the country, and with access to more open data, they can contribute even more.

Yan Naung Oak is a Senior Advisor at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in Yangon. He is a School of Data fellow for 2017 and also a freelance data visualization designer.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.
Largest Group of Freeman Asia Interns Set for Work Abroad

Freeman Asia interns (front row, from left): Kasie Floden, Josephina Blumberg, Lisa Cheng, Christina Fitsalos, Giana Biddle, Chase Bandolik, Christopher Collins, Nathan Newman. (second row, from left): Payton Letko, Megan Zsorey, Ojaswee Shrestha, Linh Le, Ngan Pham, Ruihan Li, Sean OCarroll, Sara Dust. (Third row, from left): Jacob Morris, Shenyu (Cooper) Lyu, Kim Do, Katie Cevaal, Randi Wilson, Qingying Huang. (Fourth row, from left): Brock Taylor, Lindsey Peters, Shravya Bommaveddi, Annika Anderson. (Top row, from left): Laurence Henderson, Jillian Runyon, Ross Hettinger.

May 16, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. The largest group of IWU Freeman Asia interns in the programs three-year history will begin their assignments this month, thanks to the continued funding of a $400,000 grant from the Freeman Foundation.

Thirty-four students  double the number of Illinois Wesleyan students participating in 2015  will intern at one of 14 sites in Asia. The Freeman Foundation grant covers airfare, housing, a living allowance, and all internship placement and visa costs for the students.

The expansion of the program this year has many highlights, according to Professor of Sociology Teddy Amoloza, who has served as director of the program from its inception. This year 11 students will travel to Japan and will work at one of seven sites, compared to two sites last year. New internship sites have been added in Hong Kong and in the Philippines. And for the first time this year, the Freeman Foundation has allowed international students to participate in the program provided the internship site is not in their home country.

I am thrilled at the continued student interest in this program, said Amoloza. This is largely due to faculty support in promoting this internship and to the returnees who encourage their fellow students to check out the opportunity. Recent graduates cite their experiences in Asia as the highlight of their undergraduate career. On the other side, our partners in Asia are very pleased with our students and they continue to work with us on this program.

Psychology and biology double major Randi Wilson 18 (Elmhurst, Ill.) will intern at the Food and Nutrition Research Institute in Manila, a site that continues from last year. I will be assisting with the planning and execution of forums and seminars on technology in the Business Development Unit, said Wilson.

She said she could not afford to study abroad without the Freeman opportunity. The programs summer timetable was also appealing, Wilson said. I hope to gain a variety of different experiences this summer, she said. It will definitely be an eye-opening experience.

Joining Wilson at the Food and Nutrition Research Institute  Shravya Bommaveddi 18 (biology major from Bloomington, Ill.), Kathryn Halford 19 (English-writing major from Springfield, Ill.), Shenyu (Cooper) Lyu 19 (biology major from Dalian, China), and Ross Hettinger 18 (English-writing major from Eureka, Ill.);

Other sites that continue from previous years and the students selected for those sites this year include:

International Rice Research Institute, Philippines  Annika Anderson 18 (biology major from Groveland, Ill.), Giana Biddle 18 (chemistry and biology double major from Lombard, Ill.), Kim Do 18 (biology major from Saint Paul, Minn.), Megan Dolan 19 (biology major from Bloomington, Ill.), Ojaswee Shrestha 18 (environmental studies major from Bhaktapur, Nepal), Brock Taylor 18 (biology major from Mattoon, Ill.);

Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm, Philippines  Katie Cevaal 18 (environmental studies major from Glen Ellyn, Ill.), Laurence Henderson 18 (environmental studies major from Peoria Heights, Ill.), Jacob Morris 18 (environmental studies major from Chicago), Jillian Runyon 19 (biology major in pre-veterinary track from Pekin, Ill.);

Human Nature, Manila  Christopher Collins 18 (economics major from Arlington Heights, Ill.) and Nathan Newman 19 (economics major from DeKalb, Ill.);

Technos International College, Tokyo  Payton Letko 19 (English literature major from Toulon, Ill.);

New internship sites this year and their interns include:

Shiro Oni Studio, an arts collective in Onishi, Japan  Chase Bandolik 19 (business administration, marketing concentration from Mount Prospect, Ill.) and Christina Fitsalos 19 (business administration and voice double major from Naperville, Ill.);

Kanda University of International Studies, Chiba, Japan  Qingying Huang 18 (psychology major from Beijing, China);

Second Harvest Japan, Tokyo  Lisa Cheng 19 (psychology and sociology double major from Vernon Hills, Ill.) and Ngan Pham 19 (biology major from Chicago);

Friends of Earth Japan, Tokyo  Ruihan Li 19 (business management major from Huangshi City, China);

Mizuno Corporation, a sporting goods manufacturer in Osaka, Japan  Sara Dust 19 (business administration, marketing concentration major from Chicago) and Sean OCarroll 18 (international business major from Arlington Heights, Ill.);

World Friendship Center, a bed and breakfast with a peace mission in Hiroshima, Japan  Lindsey Peters 19 (environmental studies and Hispanic Studies double major from Chesterfield, Mo.) and Josephina Blumberg 19 (international studies major from Normal, Ill.)

Mission for Migrant Workers, a nonprofit in Hong Kong  Ann Crumbaugh 19 (political science and economics double major from Le Roy, Ill. and Olivia Heffernan 18 (political science and economics double major from Fisher, Ill.);

Make-a-Difference Travel, Philippines  Kasie Floden 18 (psychology major from McHenry, Ill.) and Savanna Steck 18 (English-writing major from Frankfort, Ill.);

EarthRights International, Thailand  Linh Le 19 (interdisciplinary education studies and psychology double major from Hanoi, Vietnam) and Megan Zsorey 19 (international studies and political science double major from Chandler, Ariz.).

The Freeman Foundation works to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the United States and countries of east Asia. The $400,000 grant, received in 2016 and payable over two years, is the second internship grant received from the Freeman Foundation, which maintains offices in New York and Honolulu. Amoloza has worked closely with Hart Career Center staff and the International Office, and with Asian Studies and International Studies faculty to implement the IWU Freeman Asia internship program.
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Donald Trump is most probably not a Russian spy. He may have unusual connections to Russian businessmen (that isnt clear), and seems to have made $100 million off Russia since 2008 (not that huge a sum for a multi-billionaire).

Donald Trump is a braggart. He grabs a piece of information the way a crow grabs paste jewellery. Unlike the crow who will likely hoard it, Trump passes it around for all to see.

Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe at WaPo got the story. Trump was bragging to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak and a whole gaggle of Russian reporters from outlets like RT and Sputnik (the US press was excluded, apparently for being the worst people in the world).

We have the best intelligence, he said.

Then he told the story of how we know from an ally who has a spy inside ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) in a particular city, and who discovered that ISIL has an evil plot. They want to take the batteries out of laptops, and fill the space in with a special explosive that is hard to detect. That explosive has to be detonated with a fuse lit on fire, it cant be done remotely. So the plan was to get a laptop-bomb aboard a plane and light a quick match and  kablooie. This is a variation of previous al-Qaeda plots the shoebomber put the material in the heel of his shoe, which is why we have to take off our shoes at the airport. They were thinking of dissolving it in a big cup of liquid, which is why we cant take receptacles of liquid bigger than 3 oz. The underwear bomber over Detroit in 2009 used the same substance, but it is hard to ignite and he had it in a pouch in his underwear, and well, I think he probably cant have kids anymore, besides doing life in a Federal penitentiary. The underwear bomber had a pouch on his body, which is why those machines at the airport want to see under our clothes.

The big deal is not that Trump told the Russians the vague outlines of the plot. It had more or less been announced because the US is putting pressure on the airlines not to let customers bring laptops into the cabin. I figured that out immediately on hearing it.

The big deal is that Trump told them from which city the foreign intelligence partner of the US derived the information, i.e. which ISIL cell has been penetrated. The US has not told that to anyone among allies, for fear of compromising an ongoing intelligence operation.

Trump may have just killed the spy who with incredible bravery penetrated ISIL.

But if Trump had wanted to slip the Russians this information, he could easily have done so indirectly, through back channels, using some of his private bag men.

He wasnt deliberately leaking.

He cannot understand the concept of classified information or the consequences of revealing sources and methods.

Despite the attempt to whitewash all this by National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, it is clear that a serious violation was commited by Trump.

Trump is not fit to be president, as a matter of temperament. But his temperament was on full display before the American public and they voted for him anyway, so those voters deserve him.

I cant let another irony go by. The intel officials who leaked all this to the Washington Post were doing exactly what Edward Snowden did. The WaPo editorial board, despite having itself published some Snowden revelations, has called for him to be jailed. Would they like to call for these leakers to be jailed, too? Or are only some leaks good and others bad.

Another irony is that Snowden is not proved to have endangered any US intelligence assets, whereas we now know that Trump has certainly endangered that of an ally. Snowden made his revelations to protect the US constitution from the American deep state. Trump made his to show off to Lavrov, sort of the way he would boast of his sexual prowess to a night club date.

We have the best intelligence.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

CBS Evening News:  How serious is Trumps information leak?
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By Gregory Alonso Pirio | (Informed Comment) |  

The colossal refugee crisis confronting humankind today has created an unprecedented opportunity to awaken our sense of common humanity and compassion. No doubt, the challenges of offering care to strangers can be daunting. It is, however, in the compassionate response to such challenges that we may become more fully human, making connections to others, to whom we may have been closed off, and at the same time advancing our personal empowerment.

And then, we may also discover that the refugee has much to offer us. Certainly, some of the worlds great religions are replete with stories of refugees, their trials of expulsion and flight, and their transformative spiritual creativity. Just look at Adam and Eve; Moses and the children of Israel; baby Jesus and his parents; and the Prophet Mohammed and his followers, to name a few.

The refugee story as person and archetype sheds light on one of the fundamentals of the human condition: change is our constant companion in this world of natural evolution and of human inventiveness, endlessly creating for us occasions of risk and potential suffering, and also opportunities for rebirth and growth. Despite their best efforts, refugees are pushed into a crisis  and how they respond determines their fate. And like a refugee, whenever we are expelled from a comfort zone, this is the opportunity for persons and societies to grow.

The urge to run away from the pain and discomfort that may have been thrust upon us by unwanted change  whether by circumstance, fate or people  is assuredly behind the impulse to reconnect to the spot we have been thrust out of  in the hope of finding a footing on familiar ground. The Make America Great Again slogan we hear today seems to derive from this familiar, common urge to reconnect to or reconstruct the corner of comfort and security from where we came or at least as we conceived it to have been. But like a refugee we cannot reconnect to that historic homeland that no longer exists.

It is in such moments of historic expulsion, like that of Adam and Eve, that we become fully human. Like them, we no longer live a life of dependence, we are required to seize the opportunity of choice and create our new world. In making creative choice, we exercise true freedom.

Responding positively to the present-day refugee crisis also represents an opportunity to grow personally and spiritually. The connecting to the refugee in need helps erode the legacy of othering that we have inherited.

History is awash of examples of how economic and political actors have exploited the physical, cultural and religious differences among human kind both to divide and rule and to self-enrich. The British colonialist othered the Irish Catholic, slave interests othered the black African, Western colonizers othered Muslims, Hutu politicians othered the Tutsi, Al Qaeda leaders othered Christians and moderate Muslims; American expansionists othered Mexicans; the Nazis othered Jews. And on and on. Welcoming the refugee helps us to overcome this othering. In the act of compassion, we become one.

In embracing the refugee, the other, we also embrace some parts of ourselves that may cause us discomfort from which we seek escape. In such an embrace, we confront our own sense of vulnerability  our own fear that we too could find ourselves in difficult straits. So much of the fixation on achieving material successfulness arguably finds its origins in the impulse to flee a sense of inadequacy and vulnerability. The trappings of external success, however, provide insufficient reprieve from the discomfort of such fears.

Ironically, it is in the embrace of the other in need that we find an authentic rescue from such fear. This rescue does not come from denial or the pursuit of external measurements of success; it comes from forging community. We as persons are only truly realized in community. It is only in community, knowing that we can call upon each other for support when needed, that we can truly feel rich. Richness does not come from accumulation. Richness comes from belonging.

The refugee crisis is our opportunity to redefine, engage and empower self and community. Lets not waste this opportunity by succumbing to the temptation of othering.

However we may feel about the social and political issues that have resulted in people leaving their homes, reaching out to them is basically an expression of our humanity. So, lets embrace.

Gregory Alonso Pirio earned an M.A. in African Studies and a Ph.D. in African History from UCLA. His dissertation was entitled, Commerce, Industry and Empire: The Making of Modern Portuguese Colonialism in Angola and Mozambique, 1890-1914. He is also author of The African Jihad: Bin Ladens Quest for the Horn of Africa (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 2008). Dr. Pirio was editor of Rebuilding Shattered Nations and Lives: Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa (UNHCR, 2009), for which he wrote the introduction, African Conflicts in Historical Perspective. He has published and produced studies on numerous topics, including on media issues, Pan-Africanism, global health, African conflicts and terrorism.

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Al Jazeera English:  Venice Biennale: Refugee crisis takes centre stage
Coulee Region Rosemalers will hold its 31st annual show at the Westby Community Center on Syttende Mai weekend, Saturday May 20 (9 a.m.4 p.m.) and Sunday, May 15 (10 a.m.4 p.m.).

The rosemaling show is a Westby Syttende Mai tradition where members showcase a variety of painting styles. Coulee Region Rosemalers are dedicated to preserving the authentic folk art of rosemaling, which flourished in Norway in the 1700s to around 1850.

Club members have been busy rosemaling and will present a public show highlighting their creations, along with live music by Buddy Rundhaugen and its ever-popular Scandinavian style lunch and pastries. The weekend wouldnt be complete without a bowl of homemade rommegrot made by Bertha Johnson, Westbys own Rommegrot Queen. Proceeds of the rommegrot sales benefits the Syttende Mai organization.

During the two-day event the public is invited to vote for the Peoples Choice award, while the 2017 Syttende Mai royalty will select a Princess Award, and Owen and Naomi Bekkum will choose the Bekkum Memorial Award.

Demonstrations of rosemaling will be ongoing at the show, where you can watch a rosemaler paint and ask questions about the traditional folk art. This years show will highlight rosemaling by charter member Joyce Fulford of La Crosse. She will have a display of her rosemaled creations at the show. Read all about Fulford in a special feature article in this issue of the Westby Times.

Each year the Coulee Region Rosemalers hold a raffle which enables the club to support Syttende Mai, and bring rosemaling artists to teach the authentic folk art locally. This year a rosemaled round box by Kay Bjornstad of Coon Valley, and a large rosemaled plate by Edith Kling of Taylor, will be raffled off.

Raffle tickets are available at Dregnes Scandinavian Gifts, at the two-day show and from club members. Raffle winners will be chosen at 4 p.m. on Sunday May 21. Winners names will be announced at the Syttende Mai information booth on Main Street following the drawing and winners will also be contacted directly. You need not be present to win.

The support of the community is what helps Coulee Region Rosemalers to continue to preserve and promote authentic rosemaling in the Coulee Region. Please join us May 20 and 21 in the Westby Community Center and admire all the excellent artwork on display, while enjoying good food, good music and conversation with the rosemalers, Karen Hankee, Coulee Region Rosemaler member said.
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - May 15, 2017) - Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX: GCM) announced today the release of its unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and accompanying management's discussion and analysis (MD&A) for the three months ended March 31, 2017. All financial figures contained herein are expressed in U.S. dollars ("USD") unless otherwise noted.

Lombardo Paredes Arenas, Chief Executive Officer of Gran Colombia, commenting on the Company's results for the first quarter of 2017, said, "We have kicked off 2017 with a number of positive corporate and operational developments, including the recent news that 2020 Debenture holders have given us their consent to extend the maturity of $47.0 million of senior secured debt to 2024. Execution of our operating plan at Segovia is continuing to yield solid results with improvements in production, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, excess cash flow and mineral resources at Segovia reported this quarter. We remain on track to meet our guidance for this year."

First Quarter 2017 Highlights

Gran Colombia successfully completed the two proposals that had been announced on March 6, 2017 aimed at improving its capital structure following the comprehensive debt restructuring completed in 2016. On April 24, 2017, shareholders approved a one-for-fifteen consolidation of the Company's issued and outstanding common shares and on May 12, 2017, the Company announced that it has received consent to extend the maturity date for $47.0 million of its 2020 Debentures to 2024, expected to be made effective May 31, 2017.

of the Company's issued and outstanding common shares and on May 12, 2017, the Company announced that it has received consent to to 2024, expected to be made effective May 31, 2017. Gran Colombia's adjusted EBITDA of $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2017 represented a 17% increase over the first quarter last year. This brings the trailing 12-months adjusted EBITDA to $68.0 million, up 3% from the end of 2016. See the Company's MD&A for the computation of this non-IFRS measure.

of $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2017 represented a 17% increase over the first quarter last year. This brings the trailing 12-months adjusted EBITDA to $68.0 million, up 3% from the end of 2016. See the Company's MD&A for the computation of this non-IFRS measure. The Company generated a total of $2.3 million of excess cash flow (see the Company's MD&A for the computation) in the first quarter of 2017 that has been deposited into the sinking funds for the 2020 Debentures and the 2018 Debentures (collectively, the "Senior Debentures"). The Company expects that its excess cash flow and sinking fund deposits in respect of 2017 will total approximately 10% of its total Senior Debentures currently issued and outstanding.

(see the Company's MD&A for the computation) in the first quarter of 2017 that has been deposited into the sinking funds for the 2020 Debentures and the 2018 Debentures (collectively, the "Senior Debentures"). The Company expects that its excess cash flow and sinking fund deposits in respect of 2017 will total approximately 10% of its total Senior Debentures currently issued and outstanding. In April 2017, the Company used $0.6 million of the cash available in the 2020 Debentures' sinking fund to complete two block purchases under its Normal Course Issuer Bid ("NCIB") reducing the aggregate principal amount of the 2020 Debentures issued and outstanding by $0.7 million to $100.5 million. With the extension noted above, as of the end of May 2017, the 2020 Debentures will be reduced to $53.5 million. The Company intends to continue using the sinking fund balance to repurchase 2020 Debentures in the open market under the NCIB.

Gold production in the first quarter of 2017 totalled 39,008 ounces, up 24% from the first quarter last year led by continuing strong performance at its Segovia Operations. With the trailing 12 months' total gold production as of the end of March 2017 increasing 5% over 2016's annual production to 157,227 ounces and a further 14,332 ounces produced in April 2017, the Company remains on track with its production guidance for the 2017 calendar year of a total of 150,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold.

in the first quarter of 2017 totalled 39,008 ounces, up 24% from the first quarter last year led by continuing strong performance at its Segovia Operations. With the trailing 12 months' total gold production as of the end of March 2017 increasing 5% over 2016's annual production to 157,227 ounces and a further 14,332 ounces produced in April 2017, the Company remains on track with its production guidance for the 2017 calendar year of a total of 150,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold. Revenue of $45.7 million in the first quarter of 2017 was 33% better than the first quarter last year largely reflecting the increased gold production this year that contributed to a 29% increase in gold ounces sold over the first quarter last year.

of $45.7 million in the first quarter of 2017 was 33% better than the first quarter last year largely reflecting the increased gold production this year that contributed to a 29% increase in gold ounces sold over the first quarter last year. Gran Colombia's total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs ("AISC") were in line with the Company's expectations, averaging $748 per ounce and $941 per ounce, respectively, in the first quarter of 2017. Appreciation of the Colombian peso ("COP") against the USD had an adverse impact of approximately $40 per ounce on the Company's total cash cost and AISC per ounce in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the first quarter last year. In addition, AISC in the first quarter of 2017 included an $88 per ounce increase in sustaining capital expenditures compared with the first quarter of 2016 as the Company continues its planned exploration, development and modernization programs at its Segovia Operations. The Company continues to expect that its total cash cost and AISC averages for the full year will remain below $720 and $900 per ounce sold according to its guidance for 2017. See pages the Company's MD&A for the computation of these non-IFRS measures.

and were in line with the Company's expectations, averaging $748 per ounce and $941 per ounce, respectively, in the first quarter of 2017. Appreciation of the Colombian peso ("COP") against the USD had an adverse impact of approximately $40 per ounce on the Company's total cash cost and AISC per ounce in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the first quarter last year. In addition, AISC in the first quarter of 2017 included an $88 per ounce increase in sustaining capital expenditures compared with the first quarter of 2016 as the Company continues its planned exploration, development and modernization programs at its Segovia Operations. The Company continues to expect that its total cash cost and AISC averages for the full year will remain below $720 and $900 per ounce sold according to its guidance for 2017. See pages the Company's MD&A for the computation of these non-IFRS measures. The net loss for the first quarter of 2017 was $0.8 million, or $0.04 per share, compared with net income of $10.8 million, or $2.23 per share, in the first quarter last year. The prior first quarter 2016 net income included $14.5 million of non-recurring after-tax gains related to the Company's Gold and Silver Notes.

for the first quarter of 2017 was $0.8 million, or $0.04 per share, compared with net income of $10.8 million, or $2.23 per share, in the first quarter last year. The prior first quarter 2016 net income included $14.5 million of non-recurring after-tax gains related to the Company's Gold and Silver Notes. Adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2017 was $3.1 million, or $0.16 per share, compared with $0.3 million, or $0.05 per share, in the first quarter last year. See the reconciliation in the Company's MD&A for the computation of this non-IFRS measure. The increase in adjusted EBITDA combined with reductions in finance costs and wealth tax, net of an increase in adjusted income taxes, in 2017 were the primary drivers behind the improvement in adjusted net income in the first quarter of 2017.

for the first quarter of 2017 was $3.1 million, or $0.16 per share, compared with $0.3 million, or $0.05 per share, in the first quarter last year. See the reconciliation in the Company's MD&A for the computation of this non-IFRS measure. The increase in adjusted EBITDA combined with reductions in finance costs and wealth tax, net of an increase in adjusted income taxes, in 2017 were the primary drivers behind the improvement in adjusted net income in the first quarter of 2017. On April 19, 2017, the Company announced that its Measured and Indicated Resources at its Segovia Operations increased to 2.9 million tonnes at a grade of 12.0 g/t totalling 1.1 million ounces of gold, up 174% compared to the Mineral Resource estimate as of December 31, 2016. The Company also added 398,000 ounces of gold to the Inferred category at Segovia bringing total Inferred Mineral Resources to 3.1 million tonnes at an average grade of 9.9 g/t representing 978,000 ounces of gold. The Company is currently preparing an updated mineral resource estimate for Marmato Underground, expected to be completed mid-2017, incorporating the 2016 drill results announced on March 13, 2017.

The Company announced on March 16, 2017 that it has signed an option agreement with IAMGOLD Corp. for the exploration and potential purchase of an interest in the Company's Zancudo Project.

Financial and Operating Summary

A summary of the financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2017 and 2016 follows:

First Quarter 2017 2016 Operating data: Gold produced (ounces) 39,008 31,489 Gold sold (ounces) 38,434 29,686 Average realized gold price ($/oz sold) $ 1,174 $ 1,144 Total cash costs ($/oz sold) (1) 748 685 All-in sustaining costs ($/oz sold) (1) 941 790 Financial data ($000's, except per share amounts): Revenue $ 45,717 $ 34,470 Adjusted EBITDA (1) 13,591 11,586 Net (loss) income (784 ) 10,826 Basic and diluted (loss) income per share (2) (0.04 ) 2.23 Adjusted net income (1) 3,084 251 Basic and diluted adjusted income per share (1) (2) 0.16 0.05 Excess cash flow (1) 2,276 23

(1) Refer to "Additional Financial Measures" in the Company's MD&A. (2) Per share information has been adjusted to reflect the 1:15 consolidation completed on April 25, 2017.

March 31,

2017 December 31,

2016 Balance sheet ($000's): Cash and cash equivalents $ 2,889 $ 2,783 Cash in trust for Senior Debentures (3) 2,813 537 Senior debt (4) 88,050 84,602 Other debt, including current portion 1,325 1,652

(3) Represents amounts deposited into sinking funds for the Senior Debentures, net of cash used for the NCIBs. (4) Represents carrying amounts, which are at a discount to principal amounts, for the Senior Debentures. At March 31, 2017, the aggregate principal amounts of the 2018 Debentures and 2020 Debentures issued and outstanding were $46.0 million and $101.2 million, respectively (December 31, 2016 - $49.7 million and 101.2 million, respectively).

Segovia Operations

At the Segovia Operations, gold production in the first quarter of 2017 totalled 32,768 ounces, up 26% from the first quarter of 2016. The Company continued to benefit from strong performance in the high-grade contract mining areas at its El Silencio and Providencia mines while it continues its development and modernization activities in the Company-operated areas within these mines. The Company processed an average of 881 tonnes per day ("tpd") with head grades averaging 12.62 g/t at Segovia in the first quarter of 2017, an improvement from 730 tpd at an average head grade of 12.87 g/t in the first quarter of 2016. With the trailing 12 months' total gold production as of the end of March 2017 at Segovia increasing 5% over its 2016 annual production to 133,030 ounces and 12,323 ounces produced in April 2017, the Company continues to expect that Segovia's gold production will fall within its production guidance range for the 2017 calendar year of 126,000 to 134,000 ounces.

Segovia's total cash costs were $690 per ounce in the first quarter of 2017, up from $659 per ounce in the first quarter of 2017. Appreciation of the COP against the USD over the USD over the last year contributed to $29 per ounce of the increase in total cash costs at Segovia compared with the first quarter of 2016.

The Company's AISC for the first quarter of 2017 included $5.4 million of sustaining capital expenditures, equivalent to $143 per ounce sold and $88 per ounce higher than the first quarter of 2016. Of this total, sustaining capital expenditures in the first quarter of 2017 of $5.0 million at the Segovia Operations, equivalent to $131 per ounce sold, included (i) $2.0 million for exploration and mine development, (ii) $1.3 million for the mines including completion of a ventilation shaft at the Providencia mine, commencement of ventilation improvements at the El Silencio mine, installation of mine refuge stations, mine equipment and other infrastructure upgrades, (iii) $1.0 million for further upgrades of equipment in the Maria Dama plant and initiation of the project to expand the tailings storage facility, and (iv) $0.6 million to commence installation of a water treatment plant at the Maria Dama plant site to reduce the environmental discharge fees being incurred by the Company.

Marmato Operations

At the Marmato Operations, tonnes processed averaged 997 tpd in the first quarter of 2017, up 22% compared with the first quarter of 2016, benefitting from a mill expansion completed last year. Although head grades are running slightly below last year, mill recovery has shown the expected improvement to 87.2% in the first quarter this year. As a result of these factors, Marmato's gold production of 6,240 ounces in the first quarter of 2017 was up 14% compared with the first quarter last year. This brings Marmato's trailing 12 months' gold production at the end of March 2017 to 24,197 ounces, up 3% over its 2016 annual production and within its 2017 calendar year production guidance range of 24,000 to 26,000 ounces.

Total cash costs at the Marmato Operations in the first quarter of 2017 were $1,061 per ounce, up from $847 per ounce in the first quarter of 2016. The COP appreciation referred to above contributed approximately $100 per ounce of the year-over-year total cash cost increase and the balance of the increase was attributable to the impact on total cash costs on a per ounce basis of the impact on gold production in the first quarter of 2017 of the lower head grades compared with the first quarter last year.

Outlook

The Company has started off 2017 with a total of 53,340 ounces of gold production in the first four months and continues to expect to produce a total of 150,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold for the full year compared with the 149,708 ounces produced in 2016.

The Company's total cash cost and AISC averaged $748 and $941 per ounce sold, respectively, in the first quarter of 2017. These results were in line with the Company's expectations and the Company continues to expect that its total cash cost and AISC averages for the full year 2017 will remain below $720 and $900 per ounce sold, respectively.

The Company recently deposited a total of $2.3 million representing its Excess Cash Flow for the first quarter of 2017 into the sinking funds for the Senior Debentures. In 2017, provided gold prices remain at least at the current levels, the Company intends to generate excess cash flow for the full year equivalent to approximately 10% of the aggregate principal amount of its Senior Debentures currently issued and outstanding and, to the extent possible, will use the cash in the 2020 Debentures' sinking fund to make open market repurchases of the 2020 Debentures for cancellation.

Webcast

As a reminder, the Company will host a conference call and webcast on Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss the results.

Webcast and call-in details are as follows:

Live Event link: http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/5m34rv2o Toronto & International: 1 (514) 841-2157 North America Toll Free: 1 (866) 215-5508 Colombia Toll Free: 01 800 9 156 924 Conference ID: 44833416

A replay of the webcast will be available at www.grancolombiagold.com from Tuesday, May 16, 2017 until Thursday, June 15, 2017.

About Gran Colombia Gold Corp.

Gran Colombia is a Canadian-based gold and silver exploration, development and production company with its primary focus in Colombia. Gran Colombia is currently the largest underground gold and silver producer in Colombia with several underground mines in operation at its Segovia and Marmato Operations. Gran Colombia is continuing its expansion and modernization activities at its high-grade Segovia Operations.

Additional information on Gran Colombia can be found on its website at www.grancolombiagold.com and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Maxtech Ventures Inc. ( CSE : MVT) ( CSE : MVT.CN) ( CNSX : MVT) ( FRANKFURT : M1N) ( OTC PINK : MTEHF), ("Maxtech" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a strategic development partnership with Morocco-based Green Energy Resources ("GER") to evaluate established mineral and mining concessions in Morocco for potential acquisition or joint venture.

GER and Maxtech are actively evaluating several advanced stage manganese assets in Morocco with an emphasis on fully permitted mining concessions with established histories of manganese production. These existing permits have been targeted for either 100% purchase or joint venture. The Company expects to report on its negotiations shortly.

The mining industry of Morocco is important to the North Africa region and the national economy of Morocco. The country is the world's third largest producer of phosphate, and contains about 75% of the world's estimated reserves. Mining contributed for approximately 35% of exports and 5% of GDP in 2011. Foreign investors have found the investment climate, infrastructure, fiscal situation, and political stability very favourable to the mining business (http://data.worldbank.org/country/morocco).

Peter Wilson, CEO of Maxtech said "This partnership provides a unique opportunity for Maxtech to expand into Morocco with a goal to eventually supply manganese into the European marketplace. It is an excellent jurisdiction in which to operate and with the help of Green Energy's in-country presence we will be able to evaluate new manganese claims efficiently."

About Maxtech Ventures Inc.

Maxtech Ventures Inc. is a Canadian based diversified industries corporation with gold and manganese mineral properties. Its focus is on mining and the products that are derived therefrom.

For additional information see the Company's web site at http://www.maxtech-ventures.com

Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
VANCOUVER, May 16, 2017 /CNW/ - Red Eagle Mining Corporation (TSX: R, BVL: R, OTCQX: RDEMF) is pleased to announce financial results for the three months ending March 31, 2017 and business highlights to date including:

Declared Commercial Production at the San Ramon Gold Mine on March 31, 2017 (news release dated April 10, 2017);

(news release dated April 10, 2017); Acquired the high grade California Gold Project through Red Eagle Mining's controlled public subsidiary Red Eagle Exploration Limited (news releases dated February 15, 2017 and March 15, 2017);

Closed bought deal equity financing of common shares with BMO Capital Markets for gross proceeds of C $17,250,000 including the entire over-allotment option (news release dated February 21, 2017);

including the entire over-allotment option (news release dated February 21, 2017); Brian Peer was appointed General Manager of the Santa Rosa Gold Project on February 18 , 2017. Mr. Peer has 31 years of mining experience including 19 years in senior management. Most recently, he was Country Manager of Mexico for Alamos Gold, responsible for the safe and efficient operations of two mines and the development of an additional two mines. Previously, Mr. Peer worked for Coeur Mining and for 10 years at Barrick Gold; and

was appointed General Manager of the Santa Rosa Gold Project on , 2017. Mr. Peer has 31 years of mining experience including 19 years in senior management. Most recently, he was Country Manager of for Alamos Gold, responsible for the safe and efficient operations of two mines and the development of an additional two mines. Previously, Mr. Peer worked for Coeur Mining and for 10 years at Barrick Gold; and Completed 2016 detailed ore production stope delineation drilling at the San Ramon Gold Mine. Results from the delineation drilling exceeded expectations with many intercept grades significantly higher than the reserve grade of 5.2 g/t Au. (news release dated January 17, 2017).

Operations Update

Mine Development

Underground development continues to advance well in competent granodiorite without support at an average of 16 metres per day. The main and secondary ramps have advanced 2.8 kilometres from the portal. A 57 metre vertical ventilation shaft has been completed and connected to the underground workings.

Initial poor ground conditions were encountered in the stopes, particularly close to the saprolite contact and historic workings, resulting in slower mining rates and greater dilution than planned in start-up. Accordingly, the mining method has been adjusted to include conventional along with mechanized cut and fill stoping optimizing mining the narrower high grade veins and reducing dilution. Stope lengths have been reduced to 40 metres, a paste back fill program has been tested and is being implemented and ground controls have improved to minimize dilution.

Mill

The processing facility commissioning is complete and exceeding design throughput with the capability to process up to 1,200 tonnes per day. The processing facility was batch processing lower grade stockpiles through February 2017. During March the Mill processed 763 tonnes per day. Higher grade ore was blended with lower grade stockpiles to ensure operating efficiency throughout March, moderately reducing recoveries from 93% to 90% during the month.

Safety

Operations have continued to adopt and promote best practices in safety with many awareness programs in place and monitoring occurring on a continuous basis. The results have been demonstrated in the safety statistics to date

Social and Environmental

Red Eagle Mining continues to maintain positive relationships with and be involved with the local communities. Continuous information flow has been maintained with all stakeholders regarding the advances of the operations. Red Eagle Mining is committed to maximizing local employment and is proud to have already employed 56% of its workforce from the local municipality of Santa Rosa de Osos. Red Eagle Mining continues to strictly adhere to the terms of its Environmental License and the associated Environmental Management Plan. The Environmental Agency, along with local committees, has maintained a strict monitoring program as the project has progressed with visits at least monthly. Red Eagle Mining has received positive inspection reports from all inspections.

Outlook

Underground production crews continue to build on their expertise and efficiency. Production rates and grade continue to increase as the underground team adjusts to more controlled mining methods and additional production faces open up. The -100 and -125 metre levels, measured from surface, are currently being mined with seven ore development headings. The -150 metre level will be accessed during June with the additional faces allowing much more production flexibility.

The Mill is currently processing approximately 750 tonnes per day with planned shutdowns for routine maintenance when stockpiles are depleted. The current processing run commenced April 20 and is expected to continue through late May. With higher grade ore being processed recoveries are expected to return to 93%.

A mining stope delineation drill program is planned to commence in June and continue for the life of the mine. The 2016 drill program and underground face samples positively reconciled grade against the resource model. Exploration drilling is currently underway testing the eastern extent of the San Ramon Gold Deposit and multiple targets approximately 3 kilometres to the west of the processing facility.

Production guidance for 2017 is 30,000 to 40,000 ounces of gold.

Key Pre-Commercial Production Metrics

Total Q1 2017 Decline Development (metres) 808 Ore Development (metres) 589 Ore Mined (tonnes) 34,210 Ore Processed* (tonnes) 23,666 Au Produced* (ounces) 1,758 Recovery* 90% Average Per Day Development (metres) 16 Ore Mined (tonnes) 380 Ore Processed* (tonnes) 763

*March only as processing commenced March 1, 2017

Selected Financial Data

The following selected financial data is derived from our unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2017, as prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (all amounts in thousands of US dollars, except per share amounts).

For the three months ended March 31, 2017 March 31, 2016 Net Loss $ 2,591 $ 145 Comprehensive Loss (Income) 2,181 (1,293) Basic & Diluted Loss per Share 0.01 0.00

As at March 31, 2017 December 31, 2016 Cash & Cash Equivalents $ 5,917 $ 4,202 Total Assets 136,800 122,020 Total Liabilities 87,506 84,591 Shareholders' Equity 49,254 37,429

For the three months ended March 31, 2017, Red Eagle Mining reported a net loss of $2.6 million (2016: $0.1 million). The net loss increased compared to the 2016 period primarily due to an unrealized foreign exchange gain on the construction credit facility during the 2016 period and increased expenses associated with the ramp up of the San Ramon Gold Mine and Mill during the 2017 period, which also resulted in the increased values of Total Assets and Shareholders' Equity. The increase in Total Liabilities primarily relates to amounts outstanding on the construction credit facility.

This press release should be read in conjunction with the unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended March 31, 2017. These documents can be found on Red Eagle Mining's website or profile at www.sedar.com.

The technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Red Eagle Mining's Vice President of Exploration, Jeff Toohey P.Eng., who is a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101.

About Red Eagle Mining

Red Eagle Mining is a gold producer focused on building shareholder value through discovering, developing and operating gold projects with low costs and low technical risks in Colombia, a jurisdiction with prolific historic production but until recently limited modern exploration. Red Eagle Mining owns 100% of the Santa Rosa Gold Project where the San Ramon Gold Mine has commenced commercial production. Red Eagle Mining also operates and controls Red Eagle Exploration which owns 100% of the California Gold, Vetas Gold, and Santa Ana Silver Projects and is actively consolidating high grade precious metal deposits in Colombia.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Sarama Resources Ltd. ("Sarama" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SWA) is pleased to advise that it has agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Botoro exploration property ("Botoro" or the "Property") in south-west Burkina Faso. Botoro complements Sarama's mineral property interests in the highly prospective southern Hounde Belt and increases the size of its 100%-owned4 ThreeBee Project to approximately 660km.

Highlights

Acquisition is consistent with Sarama's strategy to enhance, diversify and materially increase its position in the southern part of the prolific Hounde Belt

Botoro Property covers 224km and is located within trucking distance of Sarama's 100%-owned Bamako, Djarkadougou and Bouni Properties, altogether forming the ThreeBee Project

Underlain by a diverse suite of volcanic and meta-sedimentary rocks known to host gold deposits of significant size in the region, with prospectivity further enhanced by district-scale faults and shear zones traversing the Property

Botoro shares geological similarities to Sarama's Djarkadougou Property, which hosts the Bondi Deposit (historical estimate mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au measured and indicated and 0.1Moz Au inferred 3 )

) Potential to build on existing gold occurrences within the ThreeBee Project which includes the Bondi Deposit and yet to be followed-up drill intersections at the Bamako Property which include 15m @ 6.17g/t Au from 9m and 6m @ 1.78g/t Au from surface

No systematic modern-day exploration has been conducted on Botoro

Substantial artisanal mining infrastructure previously established in several areas within the Property

ThreeBee Project is independent of, but complementary to other projects in the region including Sarama's South Hounde Project which hosts a gold mineral resources of 2.1Moz1 and also Teranga Gold Corporation's ("Teranga") Golden Hill Project where encouraging new gold discoveries have recently been announced6

Sarama's President and CEO, Andrew Dinning, commented:

"We are excited about the acquisition and the exploration potential of the Botoro Property and also the strengthening of our position in the southern Hounde Belt. Importantly, Botoro complements our 100% owned ThreeBee Project and provides us with additional options outside our current joint ventures in the Hounde Belt.

Teranga's recently announced discoveries at their Golden Hill Project, situated less than 20km from Sarama's Bondi Deposit, further shows the potential on the eastern part of the belt and we look forward to the results from our generative exploration work on Botoro that has already commenced."

Botoro Property Location & Strategic Fit

The 224km Botoro Property is located on the eastern margin of the Hounde Belt and is well positioned relative to Sarama's existing mineral property interests in the area. Apart from having untested exploration potential itself, the Property is a key component of the Company's 100%-owned ThreeBee Project, which also includes the prospective Djarkadougou, Bamako and Bouni Properties.

Botoro is located approximately 20km from the centroid of the Bondi Deposit (on the Djarakdougou Property) which has a historical estimate of mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au measured and indicated and 0.1Moz Au inferred3 and offers potential for the discovery of truckable feed to support eventual project development.

The ThreeBee Project is also complimented by the early-stage exploration properties of Bamako and Bouni upon which reconnaissance drilling programs by Sarama have returned encouraging historical5 drill intersections including:

15m @ 6.17g/t Au from 9m (FRC384, Bamako);

6m @ 1.78g/t Au from surface FRC384, Bamako);

3m @ 3.81g/t Au from 63m (FRC489, Bamako);

4m @ 1.94g/t Au from 48m (FRC385, Bamako);

3m @ 2.43g/t Au from 37m (FRC108, Bouni);

4m @ 1.40 g/t Au from 26m (FRC101, Bouni); and

5m @ 1.14g/t Au from 33m (FRC101, Bouni).

These intersections were returned in 2011/12, but have never been fully followed-up by Sarama given the Company's coincident discovery on the South Hounde Project which subsequently became the primary focus. When considered in the context of the demonstrated prospectivity of Sarama's other properties within the ThreeBee Project, these historical intersections demonstrate good potential for the discovery of exploitable gold mineralisation.

It is notable that the Botoro Property is underlain by the same geological sequence of rocks as Teranga's emerging Golden Hill Project to the north. Recent exploration by Teranga6 on the project has returned several higher grade intersections over mineable widths which reinforce the excellent historical drill results of previous operators6 on the Golden Hill Project.

Botoro Property Geology and Gold Occurrences

The geology of the Botoro Property is typical of other properties in the Hounde Belt where Sarama has had significant exploration success and broadly consists of a sequence of alternating volcanic and metasedimentary rocks oriented in an approximate north-south orientation (refer Figure 2). In addition to the presence of a regionally extensive granitic belt along the eastern and northern margins of the Property, several localised felsic intrusions are also present, all of which result in zones of deformation and contact metamorphism. A property-scale fold structure is interpreted, which is bounded on its eastern side by a district-scale north-north-east trending shear zone. The diversity of these geological units and their litho-structural contacts present areas of interest for gold exploration.

The Property is also interpreted to feature several regionally extensive first and second-order faults and shear zones, further adding to the Property's exploration potential.

Site visits conducted by Sarama have identified several areas of significant gold exploitation by artisanal miners. In general, these activities targeted gold-bearing quartz veins down to depths of approximately 40m (refer Plates 1 and 2). Gold was also noted in the weathered zones of both mafic and felsic rock units.

Sarama plans to focus initial exploration activities on artisanal mining areas and prospective zones located proximal to major structural features within the Property. Forward work programs include geological mapping, regolith mapping, soil geochemistry surveys and data collection from artisanal workings.

Figure 1 - Location Plan of Botoro Property (ThreeBee Project in Red)





Figure 2 - Geology Map of the Botoro Property





Plate 1 - Artisanal Gold Mining Infrastructure Established to Depths of 40m





Plate 2 - Extensive Artisanal Gold Mining Workings in Prospective Areas





ABOUT SARAMA RESOURCES LTD

Sarama Resources Ltd (TSX VENTURE: SWA) is a West African focused gold explorer with substantial landholdings in Burkina Faso. Sarama is focused on consolidating under-explored landholdings in Burkina Faso and other established mining jurisdictions.

Sarama's flagship properties are situated within the Company's South Hounde Project area in south-west Burkina Faso. Located within the prolific Hounde Greenstone Belt, Sarama's exploration programs have built on significant early success to deliver an inferred mineral resource estimate of 2.1 Moz gold1. Acacia Mining plc is earning up to a 70% interest in the South Hounde Project by satisfying certain conditions, including funding earn-in expenditures of up to US$14 million, over a 4-year earn-in period and may acquire an additional 5% interest, for an aggregate 75% interest in the Project, upon declaration of a minimum mineral reserve of 1.6 million ounces of gold.

Sarama holds a 31% participating interest in the Karankasso Project Joint Venture ("JV") which is situated adjacent to the Company's South Hounde Project in Burkina Faso and is a JV between Sarama and Savary Gold Corp. ("Savary"). Savary is the operator of the JV and in October 2015, declared a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 671,000 ounces of contained gold2 at the Karankasso Project JV.

Sarama has also agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Bondi Deposit from Orezone Gold Corporation (refer news release May 24, 2016). Bondi has a historical estimate of mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au (measured and indicated) and 0.1Moz Au (inferred)3.

Together, the South Hounde Project, Bondi Deposit and the Karankasso Project form a cluster of advanced gold deposits, within trucking distance of one another, which potentially offers a development option for a multi-source fed central processing facility in the southern Hounde Belt region of Burkina Faso.

Incorporated in 2010, the Company's Board and management team have a proven track record in Africa and a strong history in the discovery and development of large-scale gold deposits. Sarama is well positioned to build on its current success with a sound exploration strategy across its property portfolio.
Ensuring that a conference discussing health did indeed practice what it preached, day two of this years Health Datapalooza got off to an early start with a Stride Health-sponsored 3 and 5 mile fun run. Back at the conference venue, the days content began on the main stage with Dr. Mark McClellan, Director of the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and Former Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Marks opening comments characterized the politics of healthcare as one of consistent bipartisan stories, since healthcare spending has historically been prioritized over much of everything else. To put that into perspective, the healthcare budget for CMS this year is on the order of $1T. The national defense and homeland security budgets together represent approximately $600B. However, while healthcare spending has remained stable, education, social service, and infrastructure programs have shrunk over time. It was always assumed that health outcomes improved when progress in medical care occurred. However, as Mark showed, the US is becoming an outlier as health outcomes have leveled off and sometimes decreased in certain sub-groups of the population. Mark argues that while progress has been made on coverage, that alone is not enough. Some of the programs being shrunk in favor of the healthcare budget could in fact be more effective at moving the needle for many struggling sub-groups of the overall population.

Following the opening session, attendees jumped right into a set of back-to-back breakout sessions. The topics of these sessions ranged from leveraging digital health tools to benefit underserved communities, to transforming care delivery. One breakout session titled Using Advanced Analytics and Interactive Visualization in Value Based Payment Reform covered work by a team at the New York State Department of Health developing an analytics platform to measure the results and track the pulse of care being provided in the state.

The session was moderated by Greg Allen, Director at the New York State Department of Health, whose team, also speaking on the panel, included Marc Berg, Principal Advisory at KPMG, Jeff Wendth, VP at CMA Consulting, and John Amisano, Principal Consultant at Salient. Part of the impetus behind the project was the weak performance of the state on avoidable hospital use and cost and in most metrics related to good care coordination. For example, New York was listed dead last at #50 on the Commonwealth Score Card. As a result, the state set the goal to reduce avoidable hospitalizations (emergency department and inpatient visits) by 25% over 5 years through the multi-pronged Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program. The program used pay-for-performance incentives to encourage providers to form networks of Performing Provider Systems (PPSs) who would collaborate towards achieving improved care coordination goals while capturing and reporting on a number of different data points throughout the process. To support DSRIP, the project team developed Performance Dashboards which provided meaningful analytics to both the state and to providers. The goal was to create a platform that was not just documentary but directional, interpretive, easily consumable, and actionable to providers tracking towards performance benchmarks and stretch goals tied to pay-for-performance equations that determine a providers bonus. A couple use cases highlighted involved diving into performance metrics to identify which provides are driving cost and comparing the value of care across all state payers and providers.

Another session on Consumer Technology Ecosystems brought together panelists to talk about the role of consumer technologies, such as mobile health platforms, in achieving better consumer satisfaction, engagement, and integration with their care. Margo Edmunds from AcademyHealth moderated the panel. First to speak was Erin Mackay, Associate Director of Health Information Technology programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families. Erin spoke about GetMyHealthData, an initiative to make it easier for consumers to have access to their electronic medical records and other health data. The most recent iteration of the initiative expanded to also support providers in redesigning their information sharing processes. Erin shared a number of examples highlighting the effort required to access ones records which today can reside in various, unintegrated patient portals, profiles, and physical records. While new ways of transmitting information, such as email, are allowed under Meaningful Use, many providers are still not taking advantage of easier ways to provide patients with their medical information. Second, Chris Fierer, Director of Innovation at Medfusion, spoke about his companys patient experience platform built on top of a data network centered around the patient. Echoing a mantra from earlier in the conference, Chris stressed the point that consumer technologies in health should not be built with the expectation that patients will come to them, but should rather aim to meet patients where they are already. To that end, Chris believes that opportunities for these types of experiences take place when solutions bring together data, including medical, financial, and other sources of information, workflow of the target user, and context that makes the information collected meaningful. Next, Gillian Christie, Health Innovation Manager at Vitality, spoke about a set of guidelines for personalized health technology outlined in Vitalitys Guidelines for Personalized Health Technology Final Report published in March 2016. The five guidelines are:

Build health technologies informed by science Scale affordable health technologies Guide interpretation of health data Protect and secure health data Govern the responsible use of health technology and data

Last up was Valerie Monet, Health Insurance Practice Leader at J.D. Power, who shared a wide range of data giving evidence to the fact that while consumer technologies designed to engage patients still have a long way to go in terms of adoption, those that are in use can have a significant impact on patient satisfaction and access to care. J.D. Powers data showed that the satisfaction scores of patients who accessed their health plan through a website were significantly higher than patients who did not. Importantly, the improvement in satisfaction, or difference in the two scores, was even higher when patients accessed their health plan through a mobile app. Mobile apps also resulted in a higher percentage of patients understanding how to receive preventative services and knowing their health plan offers prescription drug adherence programs, behavioral health or stress management programs, and health assessment or risk screenings compared to patients who had no mobile app contact. Finally, while there is only a slight improvement in a patients perception of their overall health when engaging through a mobile app (56% vs. 48%), use of a mobile app does significantly increase the percentage of patients engaging in at least one health management activity (92% vs. 62%).

After the breakout sessions, attendees reconvened for the lunch presentations kicked off by Dr. Patrick Conway, Director and Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality at CMS. Following Patricks opening remarks, Colin Hill, Chairman and CEO of GNS Healthcare led an Innovation Showcase beginning with David Vinson, Founder and Chairman of Xcertia. David spoke about Xcertia, a collaboration between the AHA, AMA, DHX, and HIMSS, to create a comprehensive set of requirements and recommendations for the development, selection, and usage of mobile health apps. The guidelines provided by Xcertia, still in creation, will broadly touch on five areas: content, usability, privacy, security, and operability.

Following David were co-presenters from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) Steve Posnack, Director of the Office of Standards and Technology, and Adam Culbertson, HIMSS Innovator in Residence, to talk about the Patient Matching Algorithm Challenge. While the typical data matching process includes data pre-processing, indexing, comparison, and classification, there is currently a gap in what should be the fifth step in the process: evaluation. There is no set of criteria today to evaluate patient matching algorithms. This is what the Patient Matching Algorithm Challenge is asking the data community to solve. The competition will be launching in early June with more information to come at HealthIT.gov.

The latter half of the Innovation Showcase included presentations from Umer Mujeeb, Director of Software Engineering at Softheon, Kim Klupenger, Chief Experience Officer, and Laurie Coleman, Business Development Executive, from OCHIN, and Dr. Jason Gerson, Senior Program Officer at PCORI. Kim and Laurie shared OCHINs latest product Acuere, a medical data aggregation tool differentiated by its ability to provide real-time data generated through seamless integration with existing record systems and accessed through easy-to-use reporting tools backed by dedicated consulting and support personnel. Features of the tool include provider report cards, care gap reporting, patient risk stratification, and cost of care analysis taking into account patient risk scores. Jason spoke about PCORIs Open Science Initiatives wherein PCORI-funded studies and findings are already made publicly available through PCORIs website and other resources such as ClinicalTrials.gov. PCORIs next step is to make the underlying data and data documentation of these studies available as well. At this point, PCORI has created a Draft Policy on Data Access and Data Sharing to soon be followed by a Data Sharing Pilot Project.

Dr. Katherine Hempstead, Senior Adviser to the Executive Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), took the stage next with two announcements. The first was a new RWJF call for proposals: Health Data for Action. With a goal to generate actionable insight from hard-to-access health data, RWJF is bringing together two partners in the Health Care Cost Institute and athenahealth who will be making their data available to successful applicants at no cost. Three to five successful applicants will receive $150,000 to complete 12 month projects utilizing this data; applications are due May 24. The second announcement was the release of a new dataset: HIX Compare. The dataset, developed by Vericred with support form RWJF, is a 50-date health insurance database of every individual and small group marketplace plan offered from 2014 to 2017. While there are some gaps, Katherine believes that the database and its documentation is now at a point where the public can begin to take advantage of the potential insights the dataset can provide.

Joining by videoconference, Founder and Chairman of Leavitt Partners, Former Governor of Utah, and Former Secretary of HHS Michael Leavitt gave his observations regarding transitions and transformations in healthcare today with questions prompted by President and CEO of Leavitt Partners and Former Chief of Staff of HHS Rich McKeown. Former Governor Leavitt called the current activity in DC a grand negotiation that is an iteration in the 40 year transition towards value-based, which he believes will ultimately keep the healthcare system in the US sustainable. One of the challenges the former governor highlighted is that the payers and the government are moving more quickly to a new model than providers are willing or ready to go. He elaborated how this is the same challenge that occurred during the shift from paper to electronic medical records (EMRs) and that many of the same mistakes are again being made with the lack of standard definitions and competencies which initially plagued EMRs. Ending with a charge, Former Governor Leavitt claimed that every US generation faces a major challenge that they must overcome and that healthcare is that challenge for the current generation which, in the former governors opinion, can be solved.

After a short update on the modernization of the Department of Veterans Affairs by the current Secretary, The Honorable David J. Shulkin, Bob Kocher, Partner at Venrock, moderated the last main stage session of the event on How Data Drives Business Transformations. Panelists for this final session included Len DAvoilio, CEO and Co-founder of Cyft, Tim Kelsey, Chief Executive of the Australian Digital Health Agency, and Donald Trigg, President of Cerner Health Ventures.

Len believes that data is creating an environment where personalization of healthcare is possible and where doctors can have a better understanding of which of their patients are the sickest and need to be prioritized for care and support. That kind of specificity is something Len has seen in other industries but which is only now possible in healthcare. Donald also pointed to other industries, commenting that indicators of disruption in other sectors such as increased levels of choice and decreased levels of cost are now being seen in healthcare and should ultimately converge in an appetite for patients to take advantage of data and make it part of their strategy around care.

Tim brought an interesting perspective to the conversation, given than in Australia use of personal health records to access medical information from a smartphone is a centerpiece of healthcare policy. One program that Tim is part of to make this a reality in Australia is My Health Record, which already has over 5 million patients signed up. My Health Record gives patients complete control over their medical information, even going as far as to allow patients to prevent a doctor from accessing a specific part of their medical record. This represents a level of buy-in, access, and control that the US is still working to achieve.

One final series of breakout sessions covering topics from integrated data systems for population health to international technology ecosystems closed yet another successful Health Datapalooza. With a great range of content around healthcare data access, usage, and security, attendees will be sure to continue internalizing many of the innovative ideas and opportunities shared at this years event for days to come. The challenges and competitions announced over the two days of the event provide avenues to dig even deeper into some of the more poignant topics discussed. We look forward to seeing what comes out of these opportunities and will be on the lookout for any news and updates until next years Health Datapalooza.

Link: Health Datapalooza 2017 Day 1: Data Liberation, Sharing, and Analytics
by Jess Nelson , May 15, 2017

A majority of Americans do not consider email outside of working hours to be burdensome, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Almost 60% of Americans check their email outside of working hours, according to a poll of 812 working adults -- but 91% of those who do think that the amount is reasonable.

Furthermore, the majority of email users who use email after hours say it does not impact their well-being or family life. Only 15% of respondents said email after-hours negatively influenced their well-being, while 12% of respondents thought checking email outside of normal hours affected their family relationships.

Gallups poll surveyed 812 working adults, employed either full-time or part-time. It would be interesting to see the same study conducted for full-time employees in industries with a heavy volume of email communication. Twenty-one percent of respondents said it was extremely important to check their email outside of normal hours in order to advance in their company, a demographic that likely finds email much more stressful.

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Email inbox overload is a real concern, and email marketers need to grapple with sending promotional material through a channel that can cause negative mental health effects. A 2015 study by the London-based Future Work Centre advised consumers to turn off their phones automatic email notifications to reduce anxiety.

France recently passed a labor reform bill that limits email after work hours in French companies with 50 or more employees. Six out of ten Americans would favor similar legislation in the United States, according to Gallup, but workers who already use email after-hours were less likely to favor a law restricting digital communication outside of working hours.
by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, May 15, 2017

Dean Foods 94-year-old Mayfield Ice Cream brand is launching its largest-ever campaign  including television  to support a significant regional expansion and a return to its original name, Mayfield Creamery Ice Cream.

The brand is an ensconced favorite in the Southeast, including Tennessee, Alabama and Atlanta. Now, its expanding into new markets across the South and Southwest, including Dallas, Houston and Phoenix.

Traditionally, marketing support for Mayfield has been locally based, with radio, digital, out-of-home advertising and in-store promotions leading the way, Mark Schneider, ice cream marketing director for Dean Foods, tells Marketing Daily.

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The new campaign represents a substantial investment increase from previous years, and the commitment will give us a leadership-level share-of-voice across our expansion markets, Schneider says. While the campaign is regional, if scaled nationally, media spend alone would exceed $16 million.

The centerpiece is a TV spot (below), in 30- and 15-second versions, that spotlights the brands Southern heritage, homemade taste and signature recipes that use fresh cream, with no artificial growth hormones, from the Tennessee-based Mayfield Dairy.

The spot features third-generation family member Scottie Mayfield, who began working at the creamery when he was 11 and has served as the brands spokesperson for decades.

The ad launched today and will air in markets including Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro and Wilmington, N.C.; Charleston, Columbia, Greenville-Spartanburg and Myrtle Beach-Florence, S.C.; Savannah and Augusta, Ga.; and Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala.

In addition to a packaging refresh to reflect its name reversion, the Mayfield Creamery brand, which previously shared a Web site and social channels with the Mayfield Dairy, has launched its own site and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels.

The social channels will be used to share product news and local events information in the brands markets (e.g. Mayfield Night at Frisco Rough Riders stadium in Dallas on May 18), and help elevate brand awareness in new markets.

Very precise digital advertising is also being used to raise awareness in the new markets, reports Schneider. The brand is working with partners that can leverage sophisticated location targeting to drive to specific stores where Mayfield is sold.

Digital OOH ad units (billboards, malls, office buildings, movie theaters) and an Ibotta campaign with a cash rebate are also in the mix.

In addition, public relations programming and shopper marketing and in-store promotions efforts will reach across the brands new and legacy markets.

Cincinnati-based agency Curiosity created the television spot.

Legend is managing social media and PR, Shoptology is managing shopper marketing, and Horizon Media handled media buying.
by Sara Guaglione , May 15, 2017

Wenner Media has promoted Michael Provus, Chief Revenue Officer ofto the same title across the parent company, one of many changes to its sales and marketing team. It is as an effort to collaborate across all of Wenner Medias brands.

This will enable further growth of the company and provide additional opportunities for advertisers, said Gus Wenner, head of Wenner Medias digital operations.

Provus will oversee advertising sales and marketing teams at Rolling Stone, Mens Journal and gaming site Glixel, Wenner Medias newest venture, which launched last November.

Jay Gallagher, Mens Journal Chief Revenue Officer, has been named head of sales of Wenner Media.

Matt Habib, Rolling Stones executive director of digital advertising, has been named head of digital sales of Wenner Media. Kerri Mackar, Rolling Stones head of marketing, has been named head of marketing of Wenner Media.

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Wenner Media claims Rolling Stone and Mens Journal attract a total print and digital audience of nearly 35 million.

The publisher sold Us Weekly to American Media Inc., which owns tabloids Star and OK!, in March.

In April, Rolling Stone, Wenner Media and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo over a debunked 2014 article published in the pop culture magazine, A Rape On Campus, about an alleged assault at a fraternity.

Rolling Stone still faces a $25 million lawsuit from the Phi Kappa Psi chapter of the University of Virginia.

Separately, Conde Nast has hired Jonathan Schaaf as chief agency officer. He will oversee agency and advertising sales at the publishing house. Schaaf begins his new role at the end of this month and will report to Lisa Valentino, Chief Revenue Officer of industry and agency for Conde Nast.

Schaaf was previously president of enterprise partnerships for Omnicom Media Group.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 15, 2017

A partnership announced Monday with Audi and Volvo will build Android into their next generation of car infotainment systems that will allow consumers to control their air conditioning, sunroof, and windows, find the nearest restaurant with Google Maps, listen to Spotify or NPR, or just ask your Google Assistant for help.

Consumers will gain access to Android apps developed by Google, Audi, Volvo and third parties even when they leave their smartphone behind. Since the launch of Android OS for cars three years ago, Android Auto now supports about 300 car models and aftermarket stereos.

The goal is to offer "hundreds of popular apps and the best integrated experience in this broad, connected environment to personalize the experience, according to Henrik Green, SVP of research & development at Volvo Car Group. "We are making an important strategic step with the Google partnership," Green said in a statement.

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Volvo also said it will update recent Volvo models by adding Google Local Search, a location-based service application. The car manufacturer plans to release the technology through an update to customers with Sensus Navigation.

Google first announced Android Auto -- which initially was just a means to connect the smartphone app to the car's display -- at the company's I/O conference in 2014, and it debuted in one of Hyundai's cars in May 2015. Android Auto allows car owners to control GPS navigation, music, and Internet searches.

While the companies plan to announce additional details at the Google I/O developer conference on Wednesday, it seems that the operating system will integrate directly into the car and consumers will no longer need to use their smartphone other than to transfer and update information.
Diving headfirst into a thorny policy debate, Microsoft says governments are partly to blame for the WannaCrypt -- or WannaCry -- wordwide cyberattacks.

The WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were drawn from the exploits stolen from the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the United States, Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer, accuses in a new blog post.

This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem, according to Smith.

Even before the WannaCrypt disaster, Smith said he and his colleagues had already seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks.

Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage, Smith added.

The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call. They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world, he said.

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Since late last week, the WannaCry cyber scourge has blocked customers the world over from accessing their data  unless they paid a ransom using Bitcoin.

Trying to stem the spread of this so-called ransomware, Smith said that Microsoft has been working night and day to address the problem. This included a decision to take additional steps to assist users with older systems that are no longer supported, Smith notes.

Presently, the software giant has roughly 3,500 security engineers, by Smith count.

These ranks work with law enforcement agencies and governments around the globe through Microsofts Threat Intelligence Center and Digital Crimes Unit.
by Tanya Gazdik , May 16, 2017

Alaska Airlines and Delta Air Lines are the top performers this year in a study by J.D. Power.

Alaska has held the top spot for 10 consecutive years, with an index score of 765. The airline performs particularly well in all seven factors of the study. Delta Air Lines improved in all seven factors, according to the North America Airline Satisfaction Study for 2017.

Among low-cost carriers, Southwest Airlines ranks highest for the first time with a score of 807, performing particularly well in all seven factors. JetBlue Airways ranks second (803), improving in six of the seven factors.

Lower fares, better on-time performance, fewer lost bags, and the lowest bump rate ever recorded have contributed to steady improvement in overall customer satisfaction with North American airlines, according to J.D. Power. The study reveals that overall satisfaction has increased by 30 points, up to 756 on a 1,000-point scale.

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Airlines still rank among the bottom tier of most service industries tracked by J.D. Power -- far lower than North American rental car companies or hotels -- but things are improving.

The average North American airfare fell 8.5% in 2016 to $349, helping to drive satisfaction levels in the cost and fees factor in the study to the highest level since 2006. Improved on-time performance, fewer lost bags, historically low bump rates and high scores for flight crews also contribute to the overall increase in airline customer satisfaction.

Social media is the travelers feedback tool of choice. Among business travelers, 21% posted a comment about their airline experience on social media, while 8% of leisure travelers did the same. It is worth noting that nearly three-fourths of social media comments are described as positive by those posting. The most commonly used social media platforms are Facebook (81%) and Twitter (41%). When an airline responds to any social media post  whether its positive or negative  there is a noteworthy 121-point lift in passenger satisfaction.

Finally, regarding those inflammatory recent incidents, the study found that although bumping occurs infrequently, it significantly affects satisfaction. However, when there are delays, such as those caused by weather or mechanical issues, satisfaction levels fall by 101 points when a traditional carrier is delayed and by 59 points when a low-cost carrier is delayed.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, May 16, 2017

McDonalds apologized Monday for an ad that is running in the UK and has been perceived as exploiting and trivializing childhood bereavement.

In the ad, from Leo Burnetts UK operation, a widow and her sad-looking son are seen at a McDonalds restaurant. Hes looking for a connection to his dead father and the mom tells him that his dad liked the chains fish filet sandwich, just like he does.

A McDonalds spokesman told The Guardian: We apologize for any upset this advert has caused. This was by no means an intention of ours. But the spokesman also told the publication the ad would remain on air, despite a barrage of criticism in the Twittersphere.

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One tweeter said she was sickened and disgusted by the ad, noting she had lost her dad when she was nine. Memories? Yes. Burgers? No! Shameful ad #McDonalds.

The Guardian also reported the countrys regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Authority, was considering an investigation.



Update: Since the initial posting of this story McDonald's has decided to discontinue airing the controversial ad.


by Tobi Elkin @tobielkin, May 16, 2017

The Media Rating Council (MRC) on Tuesday issued a draft version of its new Digital Audience-Based Measurement Standardsdocument for a 60-day public comment period.

The standards are expected to build on MRCs prior work to establish viewable impression measurement and the effective filtration of invalid traffic, and provide a set of recommended practices for the collection and processing of information used in assigning audience characteristics to impression-level data.

Standards are expected to set benchmarks for digital measurement based on in-target audiences rather than based solely on gross impression counts, and will also set the stage for the creation of additional standards to allow for the comparable measurement of audiences across media types.

The document was developed in a working group comprised of representatives from a wide range of media companies, advertising agencies, brand marketers, measurement vendors, and ad tech companies.

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Once theyre issued, the standards will serve as a linchpin in MRCs Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative, a joint industry effort supported by the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Industry stakeholders can comment on the draft until July 17. Some of the issues involved are:

--The use of viewable impressions as the basic measurement required for the inclusion of a digital ad exposure into an audience-based metric calculation, such as a gross rating point (GRP).

--Guidance for attributing audience characteristics to impression-level data using a variety of approaches, including panels, census data collection techniques, and third-party large data sets, etc.

--Specifications on internal and quality controls needed to prepare digital audience data, including requirements for the application of sophisticated invalid traffic processes when measuring ad impressions to be used as input to audience measurements.

--Guidance on projection, calculation, and weighting processes, including a requirement that digital video ad impressions intended for cross-platform measurements apply duration weighting techniques when reported across platforms.
AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
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S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson Infusion Therapy UK, Becton Dickinson Insulin Syringe Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings II Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings III Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson International Holdings Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Israel Ltd., Becton Dickinson Italia S.p.A., Becton Dickinson Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi, Becton Dickinson Korea Holding Inc., Becton Dickinson Korea Ltd., Becton Dickinson Ltd., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Global Holdings Sarl, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings II S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings III S.a.r.L, Becton Dickinson Luxembourg Holdings V S.a.r.L., Becton Dickinson Malaysia Inc., Becton Dickinson Management GmbH & Co. KG, Becton Dickinson Matrex Holdings Inc., Becton Dickinson Medical (S) Pte Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Products Pte. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Medical Technology (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Global Holdings II C.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings B.V., Becton Dickinson Netherlands Holdings II B.V., Becton Dickinson Norway AS, Becton Dickinson O.Y., Becton Dickinson Overseas Services Ltd., Becton Dickinson Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd., Becton Dickinson Penel Limited, Becton Dickinson Philippines Inc., Becton Dickinson Polska Sp.z.o.o., Becton Dickinson Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Becton Dickinson Pty. Ltd., Becton Dickinson Research Centre Ireland Limited, Becton Dickinson Rowa Germany GmbH, Becton Dickinson Rowa Italy Srl, Becton Dickinson S.A., Becton Dickinson Sample Collection GmbH, Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.L.P., Becton Dickinson Scot Financing L.P., Becton Dickinson Sdn. Bhd., Becton Dickinson Slovakia s.r.o., Becton Dickinson Sweden AB, Becton Dickinson Sweden Holdings AB, Becton Dickinson Switzerland Global Holdings SarL, Becton Dickinson Technology Campus India, Becton Dickinson U.K. Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing I Limited, Becton Dickinson UK Financing II Limited, Becton Dickinson Venezuela C.A., Becton Dickinson Venture LLC, Becton Dickinson Verwaltungs GmbH, Becton Dickinson Vostok LLC, Becton Dickinson Worldwide Investments Sa.r.L., Becton Dickinson Zambia Limited, Becton Dickinson and Company Ltd., Becton Dickinson de Colombia Ltda., Becton Dickinson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Becton Dickinson del Uruguay S.A., Bee IT Solutions, Benex Ltd., Biometric Imaging, Bridger Biomed Inc., C. R. Bard (Portugal) - Produtos e Artigos Medicos e Farmaceuticos, C. R. Bard Do Brasil Productos Medicos Ltda., C. R. Bard GmbH, C. R. Bard Inc., C. R. Bard Netherlands Sales B.V., C.R. Bard Inc, CME America LLC, CME Ltd., CME Medical (UK) Limited, CME UK (Holdings) Limited, CRISI Medical Systems, CRISI Medical Systems Inc., Caesarea Medical Electronics, Cardal II LLC, Care Fusion Development Private Limited, CareFusion (Barbados) SrL, CareFusion (Shanghai) Commercial and Trading Co. Limited, CareFusion 213 LLC, CareFusion 2200 Inc., CareFusion 2201 Inc., CareFusion 302 LLC, CareFusion 303 Inc., CareFusion Asia (HK) Limited, CareFusion Corporation, CareFusion Corporation., CareFusion D.R. 203 Ltd., CareFusion France 309 S.A.S., CareFusion Israel 330 Ltd., CareFusion Italy 312 S.p.A., CareFusion Manufacturing LLC, CareFusion Mexico 215 S.A. de C.V., CareFusion Netherlands 328 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 503 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands 504 B.V., CareFusion Netherlands Financing 283 C.V., CareFusion Resources LLC, CareFusion S.A. 319 (Proprietary) Limited, CareFusion Solutions LLC, CareFusion U.K. 244 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 305 Limited, CareFusion U.K. 306 Limited, Carmel Pharma AB, Carmel Pharma Inc, Cato Software Solutions, Cell Analysis Systems Inc, Cellular Research, Cellular Research Inc., Clearstream Technologies Group Limited, Clearstream Technologies Limited, Clontech Laboratories Inc, Corporativo BD de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Critical Device Corporation, Cubex, Cytognos, Cytopeia Inc, DLD (Bermuda) Ltd., DVL Acquisition Sub Inc., Davol Inc., Davol International Limited, Davol Surgical Innovations S.A. de C.V., Difco Laboratories Incorporated, Distribuidora BD Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dutch American Manufacturers (D.A.M.) B.V., Dymax Corporation, Embo Medical Limited, Enturia de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Enturican Inc., FJ International Inc., FlowCardia Inc., FlowCardia LLC, FlowJo LLC, Franklin Lakes Enterprises L.L.C., GSL Solutions, Gamer Lasertechnik GmbH, GenCell Biosystems, GenCell Biosystems Ltd., GeneOhm Sciences Canada ULC, GeneOhm Sciences Inc, Gentest Corporation, Gesco International Inc., Gesco International LLC, Glentech Inc, HandyLab Inc, HandyLab Inc., IBD Holdings LLC, Iontophoretics Corporation, JoHome LLC, Kabushiki Kaisha Medicon (Medicon Inc.), Liberator Health and Education Services Inc., Liberator Health and Wellness Inc., Liberator Medical Holdings Inc., Liberator Medical Supply Inc., Limited Liability Company Bard Rus, Loma Vista Medical Inc., Loma Vista Medical LLC, Luther Medical Products Inc, Lutonix Inc., Med-Design Corporation, Med-Design Investment Holdings Inc., Med-Safe Systems Inc, Med-Safe Systems Inc., MedChem Products Inc., Medafor Inc., Medegen LLC, Medinservice.com Inc., Medivance Inc., NAT Diagnostics Inc., NAT Diagnostics Inc., NOW Medical Distribution Inc., NOW Medical Distribution LLC, Navarre Biomedical LLC, Navarre Biomedical Ltd., Neomend Inc., Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd., Omega Biosystems Incorporated, P.R.C. (Isialys) Societe a responsabilitie limitee, PT Becton Dickinson Indonesia, PharMingen, PharMingen., Plasso Technology Ltd, PreAnalytiX GmbH, Pristine Access Technologies Inc., ProSeed Inc., Procesos para Esterilizacion S.A. de C.V., Productos Bard de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Productos Para el Cuidado de la Salud S.A. de C.V., Puls Medical Devices AS LC, PureWick Corporation, Roberts Laboratories Inc., Rochester Medical Corporation, Rochester Medical Ltd., Saf-T-Med Inc, Safety Syringes Inc., Scanwell Health Inc., Sendal S.L.U., SenoRx Inc., SenoRx LLC, Shield Healthcare Centers Inc., Sirigen Group Limited, Sirigen II Limited, Sirigen Inc., Sistemas Medicos ALARIS S.A. de C.V., Specialized Cooperative Corporation, Specialized Health Products Inc., Specialized Health Products International Inc., Specialized Health Products International LLC, Staged Diabetes Management LLC, Straub Medical AG, Straub Medical AG, Surgical Site Solutions Inc., TVA Medical Inc, TVA Medical Inc., Tepha Inc, Tepha Inc., Tissuemed Ltd., Tri-County Medical & Ostomy Supplies Inc., TriPath Imaging Inc., Tru-Fit Marketing Corporation, Vas-Cath Incorporated, Vascular Pathways Inc., Velano Vascular, Velano Vascular Inc., Venclose Inc., Venetec International Inc., Venetec International LLC, Visitec, Y-Med Inc., Y-Med LLC, and ZebraSci Inc..

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ResMed Inc. develops, manufactures, distributes, and markets medical devices and cloud-based software applications for the healthcare markets. The company operates in two segments, Sleep and Respiratory Care, and Software as a Service. It offers various products and solutions for a range of respiratory disorders, including technologies to be applied in medical and consumer products, ventilation devices, diagnostic products, mask systems for use in the hospital and home, headgear and other accessories, dental devices, and cloud-based software informatics solutions to manage patient outcomes, as well as provides customer and business processes. The company also provides AirView, a cloud-based system that enables remote monitoring and changing of patients' device settings; myAir, a personalized therapy management application for patients with sleep apnea that provides support, education, and troubleshooting tools for increased patient engagement and improved compliance; U-Sleep, a compliance monitoring solution that enables home medical equipment (HME)to streamline their sleep programs; connectivity module and propeller solutions; and Propeller portal. It offers out-of-hospital software solution, such as Brightree business management software and service solutions to providers of HME, pharmacy, home infusion, orthotics, and prosthetics services; MatrixCare care management and related ancillary solutions to senior living, skilled nursing, life plan communities, home health, home care, and hospice organizations, as well as related accountable care organizations; and HEALTHCAREfirst that offers electronic health record, software, billing and coding services, and analytics for home health and hospice agencies. The company markets its products primarily to sleep clinics, home healthcare dealers, and hospitals through a network of distributors and direct sales force in approximately 140 countries. ResMed Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.
The following companies are subsidiares of Vodafone Group Public: 360 Connect S.A., 3@ Telecom, A-ccelerator B.V., A-ccelerator Holding B.V, AAA (Euro) Limited, AAA (MCR) Limited, AAA (UK) Limited, Acorn Communications Limited, Africonnect (Zambia) Limited, Ag Mercantile Company Private Limited, Al-Amin Investments Limited, Amsterdamse Beheer- en Consultingmaatschappij B.V., Apollo Submarine Cable System Limited, Array Holdings Limited, Asian Telecommunication Investments (Mauritius) Limited, Aspective Limited, Astec Communications Limited, Autoconnex Limited, Aztec Limited, BelCompany BV, Bluefish Apac Communications Pte. Ltd, Bluefish Communications, Bluefish Communications Limited, Business Serve Limited, C&W Worldwide Nigeria Limited, C.S.P. Solutions Limited, CCII (Mauritius) Inc., CGP India Investments Ltd., CGP Investments (Holdings) Limited, COOP Mobil s.r.o, CT Networks Limited, CWGNL S.A., CWW Operations Limited, Cable & Wireless Access Limited, Cable & Wireless Americas Systems Inc., Cable & Wireless Aspac Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Services Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Svyaz LLC, Cable & Wireless Capital Limited , Cable & Wireless Communications Data Network Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Starclass Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Technical Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd (Beijing Branch), Cable & Wireless Europe Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless GN Limited, Cable & Wireless Global (India) Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Business Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Holding Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Telecommunication Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Holdco Limited, Cable & Wireless Networks India Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Trade Mark Management Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Waterside Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Pension Trustee Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Voice Messaging Limited, Cable & Wireless a-Services Inc, Cable & Wireless a-Services Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited Indian Branch Office, Cable and Wireless Nominee Limited, Cable and Wireless Worldwide South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cavalry Holdings Ltd, Celfocus  Solucoes Informaticas Para Telecomunicacoes S.A, Cellops Limited, Cellular Operations Limited, Central Communications Group Limited, Central Telecom (Northern) Limited, Centurion GSM Limited, Chelys Limited, City Cable (Holdings) Limited, Cobra do Brasil Servicos de Telematica ltda., Commnet Cellular Inc., Complete Network Technology, Connect (India) Mobile Technologies Private Limited, Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Limited, Dataroam Limited , Device Insight, Digital Island (UK) Ltd, Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited, East Africa Investment (Mauritius) Limited, Emtel Europe Limited, Energis (Ireland) Limited, Energis Communications Limited, Energis Holdings Limited, Energis Local Access Limited, Energis Management Limited, Energis Squared Limited, Erudite Systems Limited, Esprit Telecom B.V., Eudokia Limited, Euro Pacific Securities Ltd., Eurocall Holdings Limited, Europolitan Holdings AB (now Europolitan Vodafone AB), FB Holdings Limited, FM Associates (UK) Limited, FinCo Partner 1 B.V., FireFly Networks Limited, Flexphone Limited, GS Telecom (Pty) Limited, Gateway Communications Africa (UK) Limited, Gateway Communications Tanzania Limited, General Mobile Corporation, Generation Telecom Limited, Ghana Telecommunications, Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited, Global Cellular Rental Limited, Globe Limited, GrandCentrix GmbH, Grupo Corporativo ONO S.A.U., H3ga Properties (No 3) Pty Limited, HBO Nederland Cooperatief U.A., HBO Netherlands Channels sro, HBO Netherlands Distribution B.V., Hellas Online, How2 Telecom Limited, Hutchison Essar Ltd, Indus Towers Limited, Intercell Communications Limited, Internet Network Services Limited, Invitation Digital Limited, Ipergy Communications NV, Isis Telecommunications Management Limited, Jaguar Communications Limited, Jaykay Finholding (India) Private Limited, Jupicol (Proprietary) Limited, KABELCOM Braunschweig Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, KABELCOM Wolfsburg Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Deutschland Holding, Kabel Deutschland Holding Erste Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Holding Zweite Beteilgungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Neunte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Siebte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabelfernsehen Munchen Servicenter GmbH & Co. KG, LG Financing Partnership, LGE HoldCo V B.V., LGE HoldCo VI B.V., LGE HoldCo VIII B.V., LGE Holdco VII B.V., LLC Vodafone Enterprise Ukraine, Le Bunt Holdings Limited, Legend Communications Limited, Liberty Global, Liberty Global Content Netherlands B.V., London Hydraulic Power Company, M-PESA Foundation, M-PESA Holding Co. Limited, ML Integration Group Limited, ML Integration Limited, ML Integration Services Limited, MV Healthcare Services Private Limited, Mannesmann AG, MetroHoldings Limited, Mezzanine Ware Proprietary Limited (RF), Mirambo Limited, Misrfone Trading Company LLC, MobiFon S.A., Mobile Commerce Solutions Limited, Mobile Phone Centre Limited, Mobile Wallet VM1, Mobile Wallet VM2, Mobile by Sainsburys Limited, Mobiles 4 Business.com Limited, Mobileworld Communications Pty Limited, Mobileworld Operating Pty Ltd, Mobilvest, Motifpros 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Multi Risk Indemnity Company Limited, Multi Risk Limited, ND Callus Info Services Private Limited, Nadal Trading Company Private Limited, Nat Comm Air Limited, National Communications Backbone Company Limited, Navtrak Ltd, Netforce Group Limited, Netgrid Telecom SRL, Number Portability Company (Proprietary) Limited, ONO, Omega Telecom Holdings Private Limited, Oni Way  Infocomunicacoes S.A, Oskar Mobil S.R.O., Oxygen Solutions Limited, P.C.P. (North West) Limited, PPL Pty Limited, PT Network Services Limited, PTI Telecom Limited, Peoples Phone Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Group Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Limited, Plex Limited, Plustech Mercantile Company Private Limited, Prime Metals Ltd., Project Telecom Holdings Limited, Quickcomm Software Solutions, Radio Opt GmbH, Rian Mobile Limited, SBC SMART CITY 1517 B.V., SMMS Investments Pvt Limited, Safaricom Limited, Safenet N.P A., Sarmady Communications, Scarlet Ibis Investments 23 (Pty) Limited, Scorpios Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Silver Stream Investments Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Ltd., Singlepoint Payment Services Limited, Siro Limited, Spar Aerospace (Nigeria) Limited, Sport TV Portugal S.A, Starnet, Stentor Communications Limited, Stentor Limited, Storage Technology Services (Pty) Limited, T.W. Telecom Limited, T3 Telecommunications Limited, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern Beteiligungs GmbH, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern GmbH & Co. KG, TNAS Limited, TSM NZ Limited, Talkland Airtime Services Limited, Talkland Australia Pty Limited, Talkland Communications Limited, Talkland International Limited, Talkland Midlands Limited, Talkmobile Limited, Tele2 Italia SPA, Tele2 Spain, Telecom Investments India Private Limited, Telecommunications Europe Limited, Ternhill Communications Limited, The Cobra Group, The Eastern Leasing Company Limited, The Old Telecom Sales Co. Limited, Thus Group Holdings Limited, Thus Group Limited, Thus Limited, Thus Profit Sharing Trustees Limited, TnT Expense Management LLC, Tomorrow Street GP S.a r.l., Tomorrow Street SCA, Torenspits II B.V., Townley Communications Limited, Trans Crystal Ltd., UMT Investments Limited, UPC Nederland Holding I B.V., UPC Nederland Holding II B.V., UPC Nederland Holding III B.V., Unified Communications, Uniqueair Limited, Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH & Co.KG, Usha Martin Telematics Limited, VAPL No. 2 Pty Limited, VBA (Mauritius) Limited, VBA Holdings Limited, VBA International (SL) Limited, VBA International Limited, VEI S.r.l., VM SA, VND S.p.A, VSSB Vodafone Shared Services Budapest Private Limited Company, Verwaltung Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH, Victus Networks S.A., Vizzavi Finance Limited, Vizzavi Limited, Voda Limited, Vodacall Limited, Vodacash s.p.r.l., Vodacom (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business (Angola) Limitada, Vodacom Business (Ghana) Limited, Vodacom Business (Kenya) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group Services Limited, Vodacom Business Cameroon SA, Vodacom Business Cote Divoire S.A.R.L., Vodacom Congo (RDC) SA, Vodacom Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Group Limited, Vodacom Insurance Administration Company (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Insurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom International Holdings (Pty) Limited, Vodacom International Limited, Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom Payment Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No.2 (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Tanzania Limited Zanzibar, Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company, Vodacom UK Limited, Vodafone (NI) Limited, Vodafone (New Zealand) Hedging Limited, Vodafone (Scotland) Limited, Vodafone 2, Vodafone 4 UK, Vodafone 5 Limited, Vodafone 5 UK, Vodafone 6 UK, Vodafone Albania Sh.A, Vodafone Alternatif Telekom Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Americas 4, Vodafone Americas Virginia Inc., Vodafone And Qatar Foundation L.L.C, Vodafone Asset Management Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Automotive Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Automotive Electronic Systems S.r.L, Vodafone Automotive France S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Iberia S.L, Vodafone Automotive Italia S.p.A, Vodafone Automotive Japan K.K, Vodafone Automotive Korea Limited, Vodafone Automotive SpA, Vodafone Automotive Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd, Vodafone Automotive Telematics Development S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Telematics S.A, Vodafone Automotive UK Limited, Vodafone Belgium SA/NV, Vodafone Benelux Limited, Vodafone Bilgi Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Business Services Limited, Vodafone Business Solutions Limited, Vodafone Canada Inc, Vodafone Cellular Limited, Vodafone Central Services Limited, Vodafone China Limited (China), Vodafone China Limited (Hong Kong), Vodafone Connect 2 Limited, Vodafone Connect Limited, Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited, Vodafone Corporate Limited, Vodafone Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Czech Republic A.S., Vodafone DC Pension Trustee Company Limited, Vodafone Dagitim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Data, Vodafone Distribution Holdings Limited, Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications S.A.E., Vodafone Elektronik Para Ve Odeme Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Empresa Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, Vodafone Empresa Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Vodafone Enabler Espana S.L., Vodafone Enterprise Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Austria GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Bahrain W.L.L., Vodafone Enterprise Bulgaria EOOD, Vodafone Enterprise Chile SA, Vodafone Enterprise Communications Technical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Denmark A/S, Vodafone Enterprise Equipment Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited  Czech Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited  DubaiI Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Finland OY, Vodafone Enterprise France SAS, Vodafone Enterprise Germany GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Global Businesses S.a r.l., Vodafone Enterprise Global Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network HK Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network Pte. Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Hong Kong Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Italy S.r.L, Vodafone Enterprise Korea Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Luxembourg S.A., Vodafone Enterprise Netherlands BV, Vodafone Enterprise Norway AS, Vodafone Enterprise Regional Business Singapore Pte.Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Singapore Pte.Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Spain S.L.U.  Portugal Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Spain SLU, Vodafone Enterprise Sweden AB, Vodafone Enterprise Switzerland AG, Vodafone Erste Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Vodafone Espana S.A.U., Vodafone Euro Hedging Limited, Vodafone Euro Hedging Two, Vodafone Europe B.V., Vodafone Europe UK, Vodafone European Investments, Vodafone European Portal Limited, Vodafone Finance Limited, Vodafone Finance Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Finance Sweden, Vodafone Finance UK Limited, Vodafone Financial Operations, Vodafone Financial Services B.V., Vodafone Fixed Ltd, Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone Foundation Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Gestioni S.p.A, Vodafone Ghana Mobile Financial Services Limited, Vodafone Global Content Services Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Hong Kong) Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Italy) S.R.L., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Japan) K.K., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Russia LLC, Vodafone Global Enterprise Taiwan Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Telecommunications (Hellas) A.E., Vodafone Global Network Limited, Vodafone Global Network Limited  Slovakia Branch, Vodafone Global Services Private Limited, Vodafone GmbH, Vodafone Group (Directors) Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Pension Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Services GmbH, Vodafone Group Services Ireland Limited, Vodafone Group Services Limited, Vodafone Group Services No.2 Limited, Vodafone Group Share Trustee Limited, Vodafone Hire Limited, Vodafone Holding A.S., Vodafone Holdings (Jersey) Limited, Vodafone Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Holdings Europe S.L.U., Vodafone Holdings Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Finance Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Receivables Pty Limited, Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, Vodafone India Digital Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Vodafone India Services Private Limited, Vodafone India Ventures Limited, Vodafone Institut fur Gesellschaft und Kommunikation GmbH, Vodafone Intermediate Enterprises Limited, Vodafone International 1 S.a.r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone International 1 S.a r.l., Vodafone International 2 Limited, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., Vodafone International Holdings Limited, Vodafone International M S.a r.l., Vodafone International Operations Limited, Vodafone International Services LLC, Vodafone Investment UK, Vodafone Investments (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Investments Australia Limited, Vodafone Investments Limited, Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Ireland Distribution Limited, Vodafone Ireland Ltd., Vodafone Ireland Marketing Limited, Vodafone Ireland Property Holdings Limited, Vodafone Ireland Retail Limited, Vodafone Italia S.p.A., Vodafone Jersey Dollar Holdings Limited, Vodafone Jersey Finance, Vodafone Jersey Yen Holdings Unlimited, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Kundenbetreuung GmbH, Vodafone Kenya Limited, Vodafone Leasing Limited, Vodafone Libertel B.V., Vodafone Limited, Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone M-PESA SH.P.K., Vodafone M-Pesa S.A, Vodafone M.C. Mobile Services Limited , Vodafone Magyarorszag Mobile Tavkozlesi Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Vodafone Malta Limited, Vodafone Marketing UK , Vodafone Maroc SARL, Vodafone Mauritius Ltd., Vodafone Mobile Commerce Limited, Vodafone Mobile Communications Limited, Vodafone Mobile Enterprises Limited, Vodafone Mobile NZ Limited, Vodafone Mobile Network Limited, Vodafone Mobile Operations Limited, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, Vodafone Multimedia Limited, Vodafone Nederland Holding I B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding II B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding III B.V., Vodafone Net Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Network Pty Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Foundation Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Limited, Vodafone Next Generation Services Limited, Vodafone Nominees Limited1, Vodafone ONO S.A.U., Vodafone Oceania Limited, Vodafone Old Show Ground Site Management Limited, Vodafone Overseas Finance Limited, Vodafone Overseas Holdings Limited, Vodafone Panafon International Holdings B.V., Vodafone Panafon UK, Vodafone Partner Services Limited, Vodafone Payment Solutions S.a r.l., Vodafone Portugal  Comunicacoes Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Procurement Company S.a r.l., Vodafone Property Investments Limited, Vodafone Pty Limited, Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., Vodafone Retail (Holdings) Limited , Vodafone Retail Limited, Vodafone Roaming Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Romania S.A, Vodafone Romania M - Payments SRL, Vodafone Romania Technologies SRL, Vodafone Sales & Services Limited, Vodafone Satellite Services Limited, Vodafone Servicios SL.U, Vodafone Servizi E Tecnologie S.R.L, Vodafone Servicos Empresariais Brasil Ltda., Vodafone Shared Services Romania SRL, Vodafone Specialist Communications Limited, Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland Gemeinnutzige GmbH, Vodafone Technology Solutions Limited, Vodafone Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Tele-Services (India) Holdings Limited, Vodafone Telecel-Comunicates Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Telecommunications (India) Limited, Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S, Vodafone Towers Limited, Vodafone UK Content Services Limited, Vodafone UK Investments Limited , Vodafone UK Limited1 , Vodafone US Inc, Vodafone Ventures Limited1 , Vodafone Vierte Verwaltungs AG, Vodafone Worldwide Holdings Limited, Vodafone Yen Finance Limited , Vodafone m-pesa Limited, Vodafone-Central Limited Vodaphone Limited, Vodafone-Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications Company S.A., VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V, Vodata Limited , Vouchercloud SA (Pty) Ltd, Wataneya Telecommunications S.A.E, Waterberg Lodge (Proprietary) Limited, Wayfinder, Wheatfields Investments 276 (Proprietary) Limited, Wireless Interactions & NFC Accelerator 2013 B.V., Woodend Cellular Limited, Woodend Communications Limited, Woodend Group Limited, Woodend Holdings Limited, XB Facilities B.V, XLink Communications (Proprietary) Limited, Your Communications Group Limited, ZUM B.V., ZYB, Zelitron S.A., Zesko B.V., Ziggo B.V., Ziggo Bond Company B.V., Ziggo Deelnemingen B.V., Ziggo Finance 2 B.V., Ziggo Financing Partnership, Ziggo Holding B.V., Ziggo Netwerk B.V., Ziggo Netwerk II B.V., Ziggo Services B.V., Ziggo Services Employment B.V., Ziggo Services Netwerk 2 B.V., Ziggo Zakelijk Services B.V., and Zoranet Connectivity Services B.V..

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L3 Technologies, Inc. provides aircraft sustainment, simulation and training, night vision and image intensification equipment, and security and detection systems used on military, homeland security, and commercial platforms in the United States and internationally. It operates in three segments: Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Systems; Communications and Networked Systems (C&NS); and Electronic Systems. The company offers engineering, modernization and sustainment, space avionics and imaging payload, counter unmanned aircraft systems (CUAS) mission, cyber and electronic warfare, special mission command and control, modeling and simulation, and life cycle support services for ISR, airborne sensor, warrior sensor, space and sensor, aircraft, and intelligence and mission systems, as well as for military aviation services and advanced programs. It also provides network and communication systems, secure communications products, radio frequency components, satellite communication terminals and space, microwave and telemetry products, and secure data links in various business areas, such as broadband communication, naval power, space and power, and maritime sensor systems, as well as in advanced communications. In addition, the company offers components, products, subsystems, and systems, as well as related services to military and commercial customers in various business areas, including commercial aviation solutions, precision engagement systems, link training and simulation, and security and detection systems. It serves the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense and its prime contractors, the U.S. Government intelligence agencies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, foreign governments, and commercial customers. The company was formerly known as L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to L3 Technologies, Inc. in December 2016. L3 Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
It has been a long and winding path back to the big leagues for White Sox righty Gregory Infante, as Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago writes. After briefly making his MLB debut at 22 years of age, the now-29-year-old had bounced around the upper minors waiting for another shot. That finally came after Infante threw 13 dominant innings at Triple-A Charlotte to open the current season, earning him a ticket back to the majors. I am very happy and glad to get this opportunity, Infante said. The last seven years were tough years, but I also worked a lot in the last seven to get to this point because this is where you want to be as a player.

That White Sox bullpen of which Infante is now a member figures to draw plenty of attention over the coming months. With a variety of interesting arms  closer David Robertson , injured setup man Nate Jones , and suddenly interesting righties Tommy Kahnle and Anthony Swarzak  on hand, the rebuilding organization could be in quite a nice selling position at the deadline. In the meantime, manager Rick Renteria tells Hayes, the organization plans to carry eight relievers  helping to spread the burden in the pen and alleviate any innings shortages from the rotation.

bullpen of which Infante is now a member figures to draw plenty of attention over the coming months. With a variety of interesting arms  closer , injured setup man , and suddenly interesting righties and  on hand, the rebuilding organization could be in quite a nice selling position at the deadline. In the meantime, manager Rick Renteria tells Hayes, the organization plans to carry eight relievers  helping to spread the burden in the pen and alleviate any innings shortages from the rotation. Tigers reliever Joe Jimenez is expected to miss about a month with a back injury, writes John Wagner of the Toledo Blade. Jimenez, 22, has been working at Triple-A after a rough debut in the majors. Since his demotion, Jimenez has continued the dominant path he charted over the preceding four seasons, racking up 13 strikeouts against four hits and two walks over 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Had that continued, he may well have been positioned to return to the bigs in relatively short order. Instead, hell first have to rehab the injury.

reliever is expected to miss about a month with a back injury, writes John Wagner of the Toledo Blade. Jimenez, 22, has been working at Triple-A after a rough debut in the majors. Since his demotion, Jimenez has continued the dominant path he charted over the preceding four seasons, racking up 13 strikeouts against four hits and two walks over 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Had that continued, he may well have been positioned to return to the bigs in relatively short order. Instead, hell first have to rehab the injury. Indians outfielder Austin Jackson appears to be progressing from his toe injury, as Jordan Bastian of MLB.com reports on Twitter. The veteran is with the club today, participating in agility drills and baserunning work. Its not clear whether hell require a brief rehab stint once hes back to health, but presumably hell be ready for MLB duty in relatively short order once his toe is healed.
In the spirit of Nigeria's Independence day, Ariyike talks about those things we do as Nigerians that make us different from People from other countries. No matter where in the world we travel to or relocate to, that "Naija" thing remains in us. From screaming in excitement when the Live band stops playing and the DJ takes over at Weddings to being overly dramatic when we are are gisting and many more. Watch Ariyike as she shares some of the things that make us stand out. Let's make this fun as you also share the things that make Nigerians stand out from others.



Vlog watchers from other parts of the World can also share the things they do that are common amongst their People. Let the fun begin...


Hello FM last Sunday organised a free breast cancer screening exercise for more than 1,000 mothers at the Kumasi Cultural Centre (Amamere Fie) in Kumasi to celebrate this year's Mothers' Day.

According to the management of Hello FM, the screening exercise was aimed at creating public awareness about the disease.

In addition to the free breast cancer screening, mothers also benefitted from free screening of hepatitis B, blood pressure, among others.

Mothers who had the opportunity to attend the free breast cancer screening exercise took home gifts and souvenirs from the organisers and sponsors of the event.

The event attracted a number of personalities like the Ashanti Regional Deputy Minister, Madam Elizabeth Agyemang, Daniel Aboagye, MP for Bantama, among others.

There were live musical performances from some popular seasoned gospel artistes who mounted the platform one after the other to entertain mothers and music fans.

By George Clifford Owusu
If youre an entrepreneur or investor looking where to invest your money with good returns, the following are smart investment opportunities in Nigeria that you can leverage on. Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency, shares 4 smart investment opportunities in Nigeria that you can take advantage of.

Livestock Farming

This is one of the fastest growing business opportunities in Nigeria especially with the federal governments ban on the importation of live or frozen poultry beds. Its generally a booming business in Nigeria and with the 170+ millions mouths to feed, there will always be demand for livestock. The major challenges of this venture are lack of technical know-how and use of crude equipments, which hampers the industrys growth, however if you have the adequate knowledge and patience to nurture this venture, you will reap immensely.

Sewing Specialized Uniforms

There are over 500 schools (creche, primary and secondary) in Lagos alone and that number is still on the increase. These schools need uniforms and you can be the one to provide that. Aside educational institutions, individuals and corporate institutions also need uniforms for security personnel and staff, even military, paramilitary and non-paramilitary organizations need uniforms. You can position yourself to supply these uniforms and make good money from it.

Real Estate

People are always going to need homes, apartments, residences, office spaces etc. Rather than piling your money up in the bank, invest in real estate. You can buy a land in a good location, give it time to appreciate and sell at a much higher price, or rent out an existing property.

If you dont want to go through the ups and downs of running a real estate development business,you can simply invest the development of shopping malls, residential apartments, events and conference halls etc. Some real estate consulting firms that can help with this are Cappa DAlberto, Whitebricks, Propertylink Real Estate Investment Limited, Elegant Court etc.

Daycare Center

It is surprising that more people are not leveraging on this business opportunity considering the increasing demand for quality child daycare services. Both parents are now working harder to generate enough income to keep the family going, thus increasing the demand for these daycare services. Yes there are a number of daycare centers but not many are of the exceptional and reassuring quality most parents are looking for, thats why many parents will rather leave their children with a relative.

You can leverage on this and come into this venture with exceptional service, recommendations and quality to help you stand out positively. You can start small as a small-scale babysitting service or nanny agency and expand to a full-scale childcare center.
Deputy Minority leader James Klutse Avedzi has said there is an economic lesson for Ghana in Sundays investiture of French President Emmanuel Macron.

According to the MP, even though France is the 5th richest country in the world, they were economically prudent and modest in the inauguration of their president.

Even though I do not know whatever cost that would have been incurred, my costing of what I saw today may not exceed $50,000.00. France is the 5th richest country in the world yet the inauguration of president elect was so simple.

Unnecessary costs have been saved and I am wondering if Ghana cannot adopt a moderate way of inauguration of our future president elects in order to avoid unnecessary costs that currently characterized inauguration of our presidents, Mr. Avedzi wrote on his Facebook wall Sunday.

Macron, who won a sensational victory in the French polls, is the youngest president to have led the country since the Second World War.

He had 66 percent of the votes cast.

Below are details of the comments by the dep. Minority leader

*INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT MACRON OF FRANCE: ANY LESSONS TO LEARN FOR GHANA?*

Today, I watched the inauguration of Emmanuel Macron on BBC. It was a very simple program which lasted for about one and half or at most two hours.

President elect Emmanuel Macron arrived in a very similar 44 vehicle of a size similar to *Hyundai i35* at the Presidential Palace where the out-going President Hollande was waiting to receive him.

They both walked upstairs for a close door meeting which lasted for 45 minutes after which they came down for the new president to see the former president off. The vehicle that brought the new president was used to take the former president away.

The new president was then presented with the Legion (symbol of authority) after which he signed a book and then went straight to give his address which also lasted for about 10 minutes.

The total number of people gathered and were all standing at the inner perimeter of the Palace would number about 500 people including Journalists who were also there to cover the program.

Even though I do not know whatever cost that would have been incurred, my costing of what I saw today may not exceed $50,000.00. France is the 5th richest country in the world yet the inauguration of president elect was so simple.

Unnecessary costs have been saved and I am wondering if Ghana cannot adopt a moderate way of inauguration of our future president elects in order to avoid unnecessary costs that currently characterized inauguration of our presidents.

Just thinking aloud.

James Klutse Avedzi

Deputy Minority Leader.
Tripoli (AFP) - Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti on Monday handed over to the Libyan coastguard four patrol boats repaired in Italy as part of cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration.

The crews were trained in Italy "to monitor Libyan territorial waters... and contribute, together with Italy and Europe, to security in the Mediterranean", Minniti said in remarks translated into Arabic.

A Libyan naval officer told AFP the vessels had been due for delivery in 2014, but this date was pushed back because of violence and instability in the North African country.

Libya has long been a stepping stone for migrants seeking a better life in Europe. People smugglers have stepped up their lucrative business in the chaos which has engulfed the country since its 2011 revolution.

Minniti said on Monday another six patrol boats would be handed over to Libya soon after the training of the crews.

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti (C) and Libyan Defence Minister of the UN-backed Government of National Accord, Al-Mahdi Al-Barghathi (C-R), speak to the press in the capital Tripoli on May 15, 2017

Libya's authorities have complained about lacking the means to deal with the floods of migrants who try crossing the Mediterranean in makeshift boats.

Italy registered nearly 42,500 migrant arrivals by sea by mid-April, 97 percent of them from Libya, Minniti said in a joint letter written with his German counterpart to the European Commission.

In the letter dated May 11, which AFP obtained a copy of on Sunday, Minniti and Thomas de Maiziere said they "are convinced that we all must do more" to "prevent that hundreds of thousands of people once again risk their lives in Libya and on the Mediterranean Sea in the hands of smugglers."

Last year, a record 181,000 migrants reached Italy, 90 percent of them from Libya.

During his brief visit on Monday to Tripoli, Minniti also held talks with Government of National Unity head Fayez al-Sarraj on fighting illegal immigration.
Accra, May 15, GNA - The Ghana Community Network Services Limited, GCNet has urged government to speedily set up revenue courts at the country ports as part of measures to address leakages in the revenue mobilisation chain.

Mr. Jimmy Allotey, the Tema Branch & Transit Manager of GCNet, who made the call, said the establishment of revenue courts at the ports and the full enforcement of post clearance audit laws with punitive sanctions would help in the fight to block all revenue leakages.

Mr Allotey was addressing a 17-member delegation from the Select Committee on Finance of Parliament who were on a working visit to GCNet to familizarize themselves with the company's role in trade facilitation, the ease of doing business, business competitiveness and revenue mobilization through e-solutions to facilitate Government business as well as that of the private sector.

Led by the Chair of the Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, the members were taken on a guided tour of the operational facilities, including the state of the art Data Centre by the Executive Director, Mr. Emmanuel Darko and members of Senior Management.

They briefed the committee on the operational structure of the company and also some key product deployments about to be launched, including the Enhanced Valuation Module (e-Valuator) and the new GCMS III among others.

Mr. Darko told the Committee members that GCNet was currently engaged in an advocacy to develop a charter to fast track integration of the reporting regimes of the various agencies on its e-MDA portal to enhance synergy in fast tracking processes to facilitate clearance processes.

He further stressed the need for the necessary political will to address challenges that needed urgent attention so the full benefits of the e-solutions deployed by GCNet are realised.

Chairman of the Select Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah noted the massive infrastructure and network base of GCNet clearly positioned it as the leader in the provision of e-Solutions and must be supported especially as an example of one of the most successful Private Public Partnership (PPPs) in the sub-region and Africa.

He reiterated the Committee's commitment to work with GCNet on key proposals made to Government to address unnecessary complications as a result of non-clarity of roles of some new entrants in the trade facilitation space.

Members of the Committee also used the occasion to learn more about the robustness of the valuation models currently in use to drive revenue

The visit also provided an opportunity for the Committee members to be briefed on one of the key e-solutions - the Letter of Commitment module deployed at no cost to the Bank of Ghana - to help track exports proceeds into the country and also boost the availability of forex in the economy.

The Product Development Manager of GCNet, Mr. Carl Sackey noted that revenues from exports proceeds had increased significantly with the introduction of the LoC which initially started with gold exports and now extended to cover all exports.

He also announced that to further strengthen the tracking of exports proceeds, for instance, the Bank of Ghana had directed that all exports payments should be accompanied with a mandatory SWIFT number and added that as a result LoC had significantly aided the elimination of human elements and interference in export monitoring.

GNA
15.05.2017 LISTEN

Accra, May 15, GNA - The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Construction Sector Executives have called on the Minister of Business Development Mr Mohammed Awal and the Chief Executive of the Public Procurement Authority Mr. Agyenim Boateng Adjei.

The visits were part of the stakeholder engagements by the contractors as they seek to advance the cause of their sector.

The Chairman of the AGI Construction Sector Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah, who led the team, said a number of challenges were confronting and inhibiting the success of the industry.

They included improper regulation of the sector, delayed payments and the general unfriendly business climate.

Mr Dogbegah told the Business Development Minister that there were many contractors in Ghana with the potential to provide jobs to the teaming youth.

He, however, said that the great potential could only be realised if efforts were made to address the challenges that confronted the industry.

He, therefore, called for a joint cabinet memo by all ministries that has stake in the construction industry for the creation of the Construction Development Authority.

He also called for a Delayed Payment Act, a skills development programme for the industry as well as a retooling of the Factories and Shops Inspectorate to make it more effective.

He said the Construction Sector had developed a strategy document and required government buy-in to actualise it.

The Minister on his part commended them for being proactive and pledged to champion their cause.

He said government was already working to address the skills challenge, adding that it formed part of the broader policy to support small and medium scale enterprises.

When they called on the Chief Executive of the Public Procurement Authority, the Executives of the AGI Construction Sector called for a review of the tendering system which they said was cumbersome and burdensome.

They also called for clarity on pricing used in determining the cost of projects.

The PPA Boss told the contractors of reforms taking place within the public procurement system as part of the e-Governance project.

He said public procurement will go electronic, which will make the system more effective.

He commended the Contractors and supported the idea of a continuous engagement.

The Construction Sector is made up of construction firms under the umbrella of the Association of Ghana Industries. It was previously known as the Metals, Building and Construction Products.

GNA
15.05.2017 LISTEN

Accra, May 15, GNA - The Cola-Cola Bottling Company of Ghana (TCCBCG) has won the 'Bottling Company of the Year' and the 'Beverage Manufacturing Company of the Year' awards in the Ghana Manufacturing Awards ceremony held in Accra.

The Ghana Manufacturing Awards, aimed at bringing together key players from across a wide variety of domains from the manufacturing industry to reward outstanding achievements from local and international companies, institutions and individuals that have proved to play a defining role in moving the increasingly powerful industry forward.

A statement issued by the company and copied to the GNA said after going through a complex assessment process in which an independent advisory board processed and analysed the information submitted by the various participating nominees, The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Ghana emerged the 'Bottling Company of the Year' and 'Beverage Company of the Year' (Non Alcoholic).

The company was awarded for achieving sustainable growth and becoming the best beverage company in Ghana and one of Africa's leading Coca-Cola system.

Mr Felix Gomis, Managing Director of Coca Cola Ghana, who received the awards on behalf of the Company, was quoted as saying: 'It is a great honour for us to receive these prestigious recognitions for our work. These awards proof that our hard work has made a real impact. We will keep working harder than ever so as to achieve new milestones'.

He dedicated the awards to the Company's consumers, thanking them for making Coca-Cola number one.

The Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company (ECCBC) started in 1989 in Africa with the concession of Equatorial Guinea. Subsequently, other countries such as Guinea Conakry, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia, joined the venture. ECCBC was founded in 1997 as a new company to combine the operations of all these countries. Last two decades ECCBC has expanded operations to Ghana, Morocco and Algeria.

GNA
Jirapa, May 15, GNA- The myth surrounding the 100 percent success story of confirmation of District Chief Executives in the Upper West Region has been shuttered by the Jirapa District Assembly.

Madam Christine-Bonbanye Amadu, the newly confirmed District Chief Executive of Jirapa garnered 47 votes of the 48 members present who cast their votes representing 98 per cent.

Madam Amadu who is one of the two women nominees in the region was however confirmed in a land slide victory even though the expected 100 per cent record was broken this time round.

In her acceptance speech, Madam Amadu, commended the Assembly Members for the confidence they reposed in her as the representative of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo in the district, saying the victory was a sign of patriotism.

'You have demonstrated an act of selflessness, patriotism and abiding commitment to nation building and above all, love for the Jirapa District', she said.

Madam Amadu said she would effectively coordinate the efforts of the Assembly for the rapid development of the district through the implementation of a District Strategic Development Plan.

She assured the people that she would maximise the efforts of traditional leaders, opinion leaders, civil society organisations, women groups and the youth as well as other vulnerable groups among others in her quest to scale up the development of the district.

Madam Amadu appealed to the people including the Members of the Assembly to take advantage of the government's policies such as 'Planting for Food and Jobs', 'One-District-One-Factory', and 'One-Village-One-Dam' among others for their personal development and the development of the district as a whole.

Dr Francis Bawaana, Member of Parliament for Jirapa urged the Member of the Assembly and the general public to eschew political differences and to cooperate with the District Chief Executive in her line of duty for the swift and smooth development of the district.

In a related development, Wechiau District Assembly has endorsed MrEdward Laabiir Sabo, a 38-year-old Teacher at the Daffiama Senior High School as its District Chief Executive.

All the 40 members present out of the 42-member house of the Wa West District Assembly voted unanimously to approve Mr Sabo by 100 percent.

He promised to run an open administration and appealed to people in the area to make their expertise avail for rapid development of the district.

GNA

By Bajin D. Pobia/Philip Tengzu, GNA
Calabar (Nigeria) (AFP) - When bulldozers rolled into their forest at the start of last year, the Ekuri community in southeast Nigeria protested: "Indigenes say no!"

They didn't want a superhighway that would wipe their ancestral lands in the Cross River National Park off the map.

Under pressure, the earthmovers left to do their work elsewhere.

But community spokesman Martin Egot said: "They destroyed all the crops, the source of our wealth: cassava, cocoa, plantain... ."

The 800-billion-naira ($2.6-billion, 2.3-billion-euro) highway project, launched in 2015, is huge.

It envisages six lanes, 260 kilometres (162.5 miles) long linking the regional capital Calabar and a new deep water port with Benue state to the north.

'Ecological disaster'

A member of the the Obung community speaks about the Cross River Super Highway, in Calabar, Nigeria

At nearly 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 square miles), the Cross River National Park is the biggest forest in Nigeria, a paradise of endangered gorillas, elephants and other species.

In Africa's most populous nation, the countryside has increasingly been tamed by rampant urbanisation, forest management and poaching.

"Our fathers, our grandfathers used to live in this forest before us and we value what we inherited. It gives us all that we need," said Egot.

The isolated Ekuri -- who live in the middle of the forest -- have been fighting for 30 years to maintain their lifestyle of sustainable subsistence farming.

The mammoth road project threatened to strip more than 50,000 people of their land rights and their homes.

Trees and villages were to have been razed in a corridor 20 kilometres wide, which environmentalists said would have been an "ecological disaster".

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has criticised the lack of transparency and consultation on the project by the Cross River state government.

It "could allow developers to cut down, burn and replant one of Africa's oldest intact rainforests with palm oil or other farming", the environmental charity added.

Power struggle

At nearly 4,000 square kilometres, the Cross River National Park is the biggest forest in Nigeria, a paradise of endangered gorillas, elephants and other species

For the last year those for and against the superhighway have been locked in a power struggle.

The project's main backer, Cross River state governor Ben Ayade, has repeatedly vaunted the future economic benefits of linking Calabar with the rest of the country.

"How will this state grow, how will we continue to sustain the payment of salaries, how will we manage our demographics, with 80 percent of our population below the age of 35?" he said in March.

"God made those plants and animals for us and not the reverse. You must have a delicate balance between development and environmental protection."

Against it, two petitions have garnered more than 350,000 signatures, leading Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend the project pending an environmental impact survey.

After stormy negotiations, the road's route was changed to spare some of the communities and endemic species under threat.

The 20-km wide corridor has also been significantly reduced.

Few environmentalists are convinced, however.

"It's a first step," Odey Oyama, the head of the Rainforest Resource and Development Centre (RRDC) in Calabar, told AFP.

"But the superhighway is still crossing the park, which is completely unacceptable."

The environmental activist said he had received a number of death threats because of his opposition to the road and the uncontrolled expansion of the palm oil industry in the region.

But he has not been deterred from taking powerful multinationals to court.

Palm oil

Obung community village leader Chief Ntufam Igne (C) speaks during an interview with the AFP, in Calabar, Nigeria

The damage, in part, may have already been done.

Wilmar International, a Singapore-based palm oil giant, in 2011 and 2012 obtained several concessions in the region totalling 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres).

Friends of the Earth in 2015 accused Wilmar of having expanded its activities into the national park and other protected areas, where thousands of hectares have already allegedly been deforested.

The company has said its acquisition was legitimate and that it "categorically" refutes claims of encroachment on to the park.

Logging is of particular interest to companies working in the area, according to one environmentalist.

"The park is home to an abundance of valuable timber. That is a lot of money," said the activist, on condition of anonymity.

According to a map drawn up by WCS from satellite images, other companies such as Dansa Agro Allied, which specialises in pineapple plantations, are also operating illegally in the park.

The company is a subsidiary of the Dangote Group, owned by Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote.

The firms themselves reject the claims, asserting that their activities respect international environmental standards and have created thousands of jobs.

Dansa's lawyers have said the company has no operations in the park and has supported its conservation.

Divided communities

The fate of the superhighway remains on hold pending the final decision of the Abuja authorities, expected in the coming weeks.

It also continues to divide locals, where some villagers support the project enthusiastically.

Glory sat on a makeshift stool at the side of a rutted track having her long hair braided.

"We have no good roads, no good water, no electricity, we are suffering a lot," she complained. "The superhighway will help us."

The signs of poverty are everywhere in Obung, a village of houses with roofs of corrugated iron sheets that lies on the park's southern flanks.

Like elsewhere, recession has hit hard and the few employers in the remote region have packed up and left months ago.

Obung's inhabitants are hanging on to the governor's promises to bring modern life to the village.

"The national park didn't bring anything to us. We cannot hunt anymore, we cannot cut timber anymore, we don't have anything to do again," said the village chief, Ntufam Igne.

"With the superhighway, Obung will become a big city. We pray for it."
The Mahama administration's free cocoa fertilizer distribution scheme has been officially scrapped, the government has announced.

In its place, the NPP government has re-introduced a long-standing policy of subsidies on fertilizers.

A bag of granular fertilizers is expected to be sold at GH80, slashed from GH171.75 representing a 53.4% reduction.

Liquid fertilizers sold at GH105 is now expected to go for GH20, an 80 percent fall in prices.

A statement by COCOBOD dated May 15 revealed these new prices which takes immediate effect.

The fresh subsidies becomes the first mayor reversal of the former administration's policies.

The NPP had promised to subsidies cocoa fertilizers. But in response, President Mahama told the NPP, you cant subsidize what is given free.

[L] President John Mahama and some government officials spent time with some cocoa farmers

Over 1.6 million bags of inorganic fertilizers, 220,000 bags of organic fertilizers and 1.7million litres of foliar fertilizers distributed freely in 2014.

In the 2016 election year, the free distribution was stepped up with government announcing the sharing of some 2.5 million bags of granular fertilizer and 1.4 million litres of liquid or foliar fertilizer.

Despite government's good intentions, some cocoa farmers have been complaining that the fertilizers does not reach the intended targets.

The distribution chain was 'ambushed' by local power brokers reported to have diverted the fertilizers although a taskforce had been set up to ensure transparency.

"I have received 20 bags of fertilizers for my four acres' farm, though they say it is free but we always pay something to the officers. If you don't pay they won't give you," a 37-year-old former, Moro Ayana told The Africa Report .

President of the Offinso Municipal Cocoa Farmers Association Nana Kwaku Duah had criticized the policy and asked the government to discontinue it.

He complained that the free fertilizers from the Cocobod come in late  defeating the very goal of the otherwise laudable policy.

He wondered how anybody could apply fertilizer on their farms when the rains had ceased and expect to achieve a reasonable increase in crop production.

Despite the free distributions, cocoa production declined. In the 2015/2016 cocoa season, government missed a 850,000 metric tonnes target producing 690,000 metric tonnes.

It therefore missed its target by 160,000 metric tonnes.

Since 2011, cocoa production has been generally reducing for factors blamed on bad weather, swollen shoot disease, poor management, smuggling, politicisation of mass spraying exercise and corruption.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com
Accra May 15, GNA - A pro National Democratic Congress (NDC) group-the Action Movement-has called on Former President John Dramani Mahama to publicly explain the cause of the defeat of the Party in the 2016 elections.

The group said: 'If JM does not come out immediately for what he has taken responsibility for, then it would not be morally right for him to organise himself as a candidate for the Party.

'JM must not dare 2020 if he does not clear the air for what he has taken responsibility for.

'JM should do what is honourable; he is causing our Party a great harm by just saying that, he has taken responsibility of our lost. JM should stop the silence torture on our electorate and say exactly what he is taking responsibility for'.

Mr Kodzo Hamenya Keglo, the Spokesperson of the group, stated this at a news conference in Accra on Monday by cataloguing a number of setbacks it believes caused the electoral defeat of the NDC.

The group said the NDC lost the election due to a statement made by the former president that 'he is a dead goat'.

According to the pro-NDC group, the Party's downfall started as soon as former President Mahama made the statement before the polls, which meant it did not matter to him if he won the 2016 election or not.

Ex-President Mahama said in an address to the Ghanaian community in Botswana that he's a dead goat, apparently to mean that he did not care any longer about the numerous complaints being made by Ghanaians about the severe economic crisis that faced the country during the first few years of his tenure as a president.

This, Keglo said, was disrespectful to Ghanaians and an indication that Mr Mahama did not care about the plight of Ghanaians whose mandate he needed to rule the country.

The group said Mr Mahama could not see the last four years as a project that demanded from him to call his appointees to order to control the Party but neglected their actions which led to the loss of the NDC.

The group also observed that the leadership of the NDC ignored the 10 Regional Women Organisers of the Party, who were the backbone of the party.

On the issue of the Kwesi Botchwey Committee Report, the group observed that the insults and the gunshots that the body experienced on the field during their work, was clear evidence that people were not excited with their performance and should come out immediately with the outcome, to cause more harm.

'We support Mr Victor Smith for his decision that the National Party Chairman and his entire executives should resign.

'The NDC is being managed today like a private company; we pray that soon the NDC will be managed as a congress once again, and our core principles fully applied for the comfort of our people,' the group said.

The news conference nearly came to anti-climax when a mob suspected not to be in agreement with the event invaded the premises and disrupted Mr Keglo who was delivering his address.

Mr Keglo however managed to deliver his speech despite the commotion.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency he said the organisers received a text message from an unknown person, saying the news conference had been called off.

Mr Keglo said they ignored the text message and decided to go ahead with it.

GNA

By Kojo Adams/ Kwamina Tandoh, GNA
Accra, May 15, GNA- President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Monday left Ghana to begin the second phase of his official working visits to the countries of the ECOWAS region.

The President has already toured the three countries bordering Ghana; Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire- in a wider move to introduce himself to and deepen relations with countries in the ECOWAS region.

The tour would further the President's quest to strengthen bilateral ties and to restate Ghana's commitment to the ECOWAS project. He would in the month of May, pay official working visits to Nigeria, Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

President Akufo-Addo during the first-leg of his ECOWAS tour, rallied his counterparts to strengthen the regional bloc and give true meaning to the ECOWAS Protocols on Free Movement of Goods and Persons by promoting open borders in the Community.

He explained that such a move would promote regional cohesion and economic development and would boost trade and tourism, and, thus ensure that the peoples of the ECOWAS reaped the economic benefits thereof.

'The opening of our borders will give true meaning to the ECOWAS Protocols on Free Movement of Goods and Persons, and will spur on progress and prosperity for our peoples,' he stated.

The President also pledged to strengthen the ties of cooporation between Ghana and countries in the region.

President Akufo-Addo would be in Senegal from May 15 to May 17, 2017, visit Guinea from May 17 through May 19, 2017 and enplane to Cape Verde from May 19 to May 21, 2017.

He will return to Ghana on Sunday, May 21, 2017.

The President was accompanied by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway and officials of the Presidency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In his absence, the Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, shall, in accordance with Article 60(8) of the Constitution, act in his stead.

GNA

By Ken Sackey, GNA
16.05.2017 LISTEN

Accra, May 15, GNA - An Internal Audit Committee for the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), has been inaugurated to help advice the Ministry on how to deploy financial discipline in its operations.

The five-member Committee, chaired by Mr Armstrong Amanor of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), has other members as Ms Patricia Appiagyei, Deputy Minister of Environment and Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Ms Salimata Abdul-Salam, Chief Director of MESTI, Mr Martin Adjei of the IAA and Mr George Akwasi Boateng of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Per the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, Act 921, the Committee shall work to ensure that the Ministry pursues the implementation of any recommendation contained in an internal audit report, Parliament's decision on the Auditor-General's report, the Auditor-Generals Management Letter and the report of an internal monitoring unit in the covered entity concerned particularly, in relation to financial matters raised.

The committee would also work to provide an annual statement that would indicate the remedial action taken or proposed to be taken to avoid or minimise the recurrence of an undesirable feature in the accounts and operations of a covered entity and indicate the period for the completion of the remedial action, among others.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Minister of MESTI, assured the Committee that the sector would do its work very well and with diligence to ensure that there was sound financial management so that the committee would not find many adverse findings against the sector.

He, however, said an Audit Committee had a very difficult task as per its duties as outlined by the law and so there was the need to give it the needed co-operation to enable them work in accordance to its mandate.

He said per their selection, three members of the Committee were external staff while two were from the sector Ministry, and that indicated that the Committee would be more serious with its internal audit work.

Ms Abdul-Salam, said the purpose of setting up the Committee was one of the important position in the revise Financial Management Act.

She said the purpose was to support the Ministry to be able to utilise funds to yield value for money and to keep the Ministry on its toes in the expenditure and in the performance of its duties, looking at the financial audit.

Mr Ransford Adjei, Acting Director-General of the IAA, who inaugurated the Committee into office, charged them to work as high level Committee members that would work to ensure sanity in the finances of the Sector.

He said its main work would involve monitoring and evaluation of event as it advices on risk management of the Ministry and come out with solutions to identified risk.

Mr Adjei said the current financial Act had clear sanctions that held Ministries, Departments and Agencies responsible for their operations should they failed to comply with the Act, saying that would help institutions to operate better.

Members of the Committee took the oath of office and of secrecy.

The Chairperson of the Committee was later elected by the members in a meeting.

Mr George Akwasi Boateng, on behalf of the Committee said they would discharge their duties diligently to ensure financial discipline and safeguard the public purse.

He said the members would also discharge their duty with discipline and integrity to the service of the nation. GNA

By Lydia Asamoah, GNA
We wonder whether Ghana could have survived another four-year bout of corruption and general rot which bedeviled the country under the tenure of the erstwhile political administration.

There are so many of such instances that we might lose count of them as the days elapse. With only a tip of the iceberg now visible, we are convinced that many more wait to be announced in the coming months.

Those which are yet to surface could threaten the survival of those already on the spotlight by their sheer quantum.

This week opened with yet another mind-boggling tale from the National Communications Authority (NCA) thievery from the public purse and this taking place in the twilight of the John Mahama administration poses many valid questions.

It would seem that the idea of the importation of the spyware to eavesdrop phone conversations of Ghanaians and the like was driven more by the desire to rip off the state than undertake a so-called counter-terrorism operations.

We now understand why some disgruntled Ghanaians think that all politicians are obsessed with ripping off the state. Otherwise the 'create, loot and share' corruption concept would not have gained such a deep-root in our body-politics.

It is such a shame that a section of our political elite would stoop to such a level of cheating even as many youth are unemployed and parents of those at school unable to meet the cost of educating their kids.

It is ironic that the Israeli company from which the equipment originated received only a million dollars of the four million dollars cost of the spy gadget: the lion share was doled out to various individuals in the country, some of them board members of the NCA in the previous political administration and even a former Deputy National Security Coordinator.

Where are they, who think such malfeasances should not be probed but confined to the bottom of the carpet? Ghana would remain stagnant if we allow such open thievery of the state coffers to continue unabated. What better way to allow it to wax stronger than refuse to take action against those who perpetuated it?

Even as the looted amounts of money are sitting in the private accounts of NDC apparatchiks, the equipment has been transferred to a private location.

In spite of this smelly transaction, nobody has been detained. Even more disturbing is the fact that the transition engagements with the outgoing government did not contain any aspect of this subject. It makes us think, and rightly so, that the whole idea of the import was shrouded in a complex thievery intended to outwit even the most curious. That was how things got so bad under the previous administration.

Who are the persons who thought a ploy of excluding this transaction from the transition committee's deliberations? Their action must be informed by criminality which must be probed by the appropriate state agency.

The nonsense about witch-hunting if the authorities allow it to impede their work, would deal a worrying blow to the efforts at ridding the country of corruption and the acts of malfeasance which were features of the previous political order.

We risk retarding the progress of this country if we consider other options besides a probe and the application of the necessary sanctions as prescribed by law in the face of this wanton pillaging of the country's kitty.


FORMER PRESIDENT John Dramani Mahama's intention of contesting for the presidency again on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2020 is gathering momentum, even though it is shrouded in secrecy.

The ex-president went to Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, in a private jet last Sunday where he is alleged to have held secret meetings with several top guns in the NDC about his intention of running for the presidency again.

The venue of the said meeting, reportedly held Sunday evening, remains a mystery, as Mr. Mahama's camp doesn't want their potential opponents in the party to monitor their actions and strategies.

But credible sources confirmed to DAILY GUIDE that the main agenda for the confab was about what could be done, in terms of strategy and planning, to help Mr. Mahama become the NDC presidential candidate and get the support of the opinion leaders.

Tough Congress Ahead

Unconfirmed reports have it that a group of experts from South Africa, allegedly employed by Mr. Mahama to plan his presidential bid, has advised that he (Mahama) would not have it easy during the NDC presidential primary.

The experts, who left the country on Saturday for their home country, reportedly admonished Mahama to immediately start wooing people  who are considered to be influential in the NDC across the country  into his camp in order to avert any shock during the NDC polls.

Mr. John Mahama, who is not treating the advice given to him by the experts with kid's gloves, had since started criss-crossing some parts of the country, with Kumasi being his latest destination, ostensibly to woo top NDC members into his camp. He will soon embark on a nationwide tour to 'thank Ghanaians' for supporting his government.

Persuasive Message

Mr. Mahama, who was said to sound very convincing throughout his delivery in Kumasi, allegedly told his audience that he has what it takes to lead the NDC to recapture political power from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2020.

According to sources, the former Ghanaian leader stated that he has unfinished business, regarding the effective and proper management of the country, recounting his contributions towards Ghana's growth whilst in political office.

The former president, the sources noted, did not sound divisive during his delivery as he did not touch on blame game  regarding who in the party caused the NDC's shocking electoral defeat to the NPP's Nana Akufo-Addo during the 2016 polls.

The sources indicated that he sounded like a person who had done post-mortem to identify what really caused the NDC's overwhelming defeat, as he indicated that returning the NDC to political power was not difficult for him.

Official Announcement

Mr. Mahama was also reported to have given the assurance that in due time he would officially announce his intention of leading the NDC as the presidential candidate for the next national elections.

In the meantime, he said, he was quietly touring the country and meeting with influential people in the party to canvass for their support towards his high ambition, which he claimed is very feasible.

Recent Happenings

The ex-president's quest to lead the NDC again as its flagbearer was initially considered by political pundits and Ghanaians in general, as one of the usual rumours in the political arena.

Mr. Mahama has reportedly met several power brokers in the NDC in recent times and was able to convince them to rally behind him so that his dream of becoming the NDC flagbearer again would be a foregone conclusion.

Photo Shoot

The former NDC leader, who was said to have lodged at the Golden Tulip Kumasi City Hotel Sunday night, reportedly engaged in a photo shoot Monday morning with some of his fans in the city before departing for Accra.

His known supporters in Kumasi, led by Appiah Stadium, Kromo and Forty, reportedly rushed to the hotel where other NDC members had converged, to take snapshots with him amidst broad smiles.

2020 Campaign

Later, Forty pasted a video of himself, Mr. Mahama, Appiah Stadium and Kromo at the Kumasi Airport on 'Snapchat,' with deafening shouts of I will be back all over the background as Mr. Mahama jetted off.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi
THE OFFICE of former President Jerry John Rawlings has registered its displeasure over recent false reports on social media and other online platforms to the effect that he is dead.

A statement issued yesterday in Accra signed by Kobina Andoh Amoakwa of the Communications Directorate of the office of the former president, indicated that the outfit had taken a serious view of the falsehood and warned the public against peddling such false news.

The former president strongly cautioned persons who have made it their pre-occupation to publish such falsehood to desist from such 'reckless and insensitive actions' as such information have the potential of causing harm to family, friends and sympathizers of the former president.

Persons responsible for such distasteful publications should recognize that they are liable to prosecution under the law if they are flushed out.

Media personnel who want clarification on matters to do with the former president should also contact our office whenever the need arises, it advised.
A PRO-National Democratic Congress (NDC) pressure group, Action Movement, has warned former President John Mahama to forget about contesting for the party's 2020 presidential election ticket if he cannot come out clearly to explain what went wrong in 2016, leading to the party's humiliating defeat in the general elections to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

It would be recalled that ex-President Mahama addressing his former appointees recently said the party should blame him for its defeat in 2016.

Some party members have blamed the executives of the NDC for the party's defeat and in view of this, a thirteen member committee led by Prof. Kwesi Botchway was tasked to investigate the party's defeat.

But ex-President Mahama in a meeting with his former appointees on April 12, this year, said Of course, as the general who led us into battle, I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election and so if it will satisfy those people, blame me for the loss.

However, addressing a press conference yesterday in Accra, the group indicated that it was just not enough for the former President to accept responsibility for the loss the party suffered in the hands of its opponents.

Some individuals believed to be from ex-President Mahama's quarters had stormed the conference, shouting that what the group was telling the media was untrue, causing disruption to the meeting at some point after some faceless individuals had earlier sent fictitious release, indicating that the press conference had been cancelled by the group even though it was scheduled to take place.

Spokesperson for the group, Kodzo Hamanya Keglo reading a statement on the occasion, said JM should do what is honourable; he is causing our party a great harm by just saying that, he has taken responsibility of our lost.

He said on behalf of the group that 'JM should stop the silence torture on our electorates and say exactly what he is taking responsibility for.

Who failed, who did not do his/her work well, where should money go for work and it did not go, the group asked the former President.

If JM does not come out immediately for what he has taken responsibility for, then it won't be morally right for him to organize himself as a candidate for the party. JM must not dare 2020 if he doesn't clear the air for what he has taken responsibility for, the group observed.

Greedy Bastards

The group had earlier blamed the NDC's defeat on the appointments of numerous 'greedy bastards' by ex-President John Mahama.

They also claimed that the Mahama's brothers were the main reason why the NDC lost the 2016 elections, accusing them of collecting all contracts from airport, roads, Cocobod, GNPC, ECG, VRA, Ministry of Power and all major contracts in the country.

If you don't see JM brothers, you cannot get a contract and if you see them, then you have to pay money before you get the contract, frustrating foreign contractors and companies by taking Ghanaian contractors for granted and creating enemies for the NDC party, the group alleged.

Grassroots

The group indicated at the press conference that the grassroots of the NDC shall no longer be allowed to be ignored by the party's executives, saying take your executive positions and we will take our party. Our aim is to win power for the party come 2020.

The group lamented that the principles on which the NDC was founded were eroded under former President Mahama.

Instead of being there for the people, our being causes gnashing of teeth and pain on our people. We have to bring back our principles, it said, noting how Mr. Mahama succeeded during his four years tenure in breaking the women's wing of the opposition party.

The group indicated that the Founder has always advised the NDC that power is for the people, but not for the executives. What we experienced in JM's administration was appointee power, executive power and disrespect and deceit for the grass root.

BY Abigail Owiredu-Boateng
From left: Yussif Yakubu, Razak Abdul Shaibu, Banabas Kayase and Opoku Agyeman

An investigator attached to the Odorkor Police Station in Accra yesterday testified in the ongoing trial involving the four persons who allegedly robbed Akua Donkor, founder of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP).

Led in evidence by Chief Superintendent Duuti Tuaruka, Detective Sergeant Jonas Ghebe corroborated the robbery of Akua narrating the circumstances leading to the arrest of the accused persons.

They are Yakubu Yusif, trader; the Central Regional Chairman of the GFP, Banabas Kayase, driver/secretary of the party; Opoku Agyemang, trader, and Abdul Razak Shaibu, a member of the GPRTU task force.

In his evidence, the police officer said on December 30 last year, he was the CID on duty when Yakubu and Banabas who had been arrested by the Lapaz police were brought together with Akua to the station.

He said the complainant had told the police that she was on board her vehicle at about 4:30am with Yakubu and Banabas heading for the Kotoka International Airport to board a flight.

D/Sgt. Gebe stated that on the way from Sowutuom, Banabas who was the driver slowed down the speed of the vehicle and suddenly Opoku called Banabas on phone telling him that the people were waiting for him who also asked him (Banabas) where they had reached.

According to the fifth witness, Banabas started showing the trafficator, indicating that no sooner than later, Razak and one Joe currently at large on motorbike seeing the trafficator crossed the vehicle of Akua and attacked her with a gun.

The witness said the accused persons pulled the complainant from the car at gunpoint and snatched her travelling bag containing a plane ticket, Ghanaian passport, voter ID card, $30,000 and GH3,000.

The court heard, among others, that during investigation, Yakubu and Banabas informed the police that they are members of the GFP and that Akua promised them some money but failed to honour the promise and as a result had planned to kill her and take custody of the car and the property in it.

D/Sgt. Gebe stated that further police investigation revealed that Yakubu had told his accomplices that killing is the highest offence and that he knew Razak who is very good at robbery can do the job.

Hearing continues today.

[email protected]

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson


Vodafone Ghana has launched another product to empower customers with knowledge, shape their skills, connect them to the things that matter most to them, and also reward loyalty.

The product, Vodafone VIM, (Vision In Motion) is designed to provide customers with weekly motivational voice clips and a series of educational and self-development videos on seven main courses including T-shirt printing, soap making, beauty, fashion, baking, juice making and decor.

Agnes Essah, director of marketing at Vodafone Ghana, said VIM offers unequalled minutes for calls to Vodafone and other networks, in addition to data for browsing the internet.

She also noted that VIM has a unique loyalty programme that will touch the lives of over 100 loyal customers per quarter in various vocational courses, award them certificates and provide essential working tools to enable them to succeed.

She said everyone with an entrepreneurial spirit to succeed qualifies to benefit from the new product but particularly people who are mostly involved in small scale trading, buying and selling.

Vodafone VIM has been designed to meet the specific needs of these people and satisfy their passion. These groups need VIM to become what they want to be  and we want to be the platform that gives them this VIM to go all out and succeed, she added.

Julius Owusu Kyerematen, head of strategy and innovation, explaining how the product works said for just GH 3, VIM customers get to enjoy GH 55 worth of minutes to call Vodafone numbers, GH 1.30 worth of minutes to call any other network, and 300MB data for the internet for 7 days.

He said to subscribe to the offer, existing Vodafone customers should simply dial *556# to activate or get a Vodafone SIM to sign-up.

He hinted that customers can only sign up to one of the many Vodafone bundle offer at a time. However, you can add more data to your VIM bundle by dialing *700# and select your preferred bundle, he said.

Rewards

Mr. Kyerematen observed that Vodafone VIM customers can win a fully paid professional training and working tool by being active on the offer, and must have finished viewing all the tutorial videos for a minimum of 12 weeks.

Send us evidence of you practising what you've learnt by sharing pictures and videos through our dedicated WhatsApp platform, in addition to a formal request stating the reasons why you should be considered for the loyalty package for the quarter in question.

An independent body of judges selected from institutions in the defined vocational sectors shall select the best customers per vocational skill. This is going to be a free and fair process to select the most deserving subscriber, he added.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri


Bamako (AFP) - Four Malian Red Cross employees, kidnapped Sunday in the country's restive centre, have been released, a local official told AFP.

"The four Malian workers of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) were released Monday afternoon by their kidnappers. No ransom was paid," the local official said Monday on condition of anonymity.

"They are all in good health".

According to another official who saw the workers after they were freed, "the fact that they are all originally from the region is what probably facilitated their release".

"Our colleagues abducted in the region of Mopti have just been set free without conditions," ICRC tweeted a little after 8pm (2000 GMT) Monday. "Thank you to all who supported us to make this happen".

The Red Cross, which had briefly suspended operations in the northern city of Kidal following a burglary at its offices last month, has suffered kidnappings of its staff in the past by jihadist groups.

In April 2016, three Red Cross workers were taken hostage by Islamist group Ansar Dine in northeastern Mali, but were released days later.

However it is unclear who exactly was behind this weekend's kidnapping.

A foreign security source in Mali's north said the two kidnappers claimed "extremist" ties. A Malian security source had previously told AFP that the kidnappers were "probably Islamists".

The workers targeted in the kidnapping were "conducting a survey of the humanitarian situation" on Sunday around 7 pm "when unidentified and armed individuals said they had to come with them," the Red Cross had posted on Facebook Sunday.

Armed men abducted five Malian workers, the Malian security source had said, including one woman who "was immediately let go".

Northern Mali fell to jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in March 2012, and although these forces were driven out of key towns by a French-led military intervention the following year, the Islamists have now spread further south.

Three Malian jihadist groups with previous Al-Qaeda links recently joined forces to create the "Group to Support Islam and Muslims" (GSIM), led by Iyad Ag Ghaly of Ansar Dine, and have claimed several attacks against foreign and domestic forces.
Addis Ababa (AFP) - A judge in Ethiopia's capital on Tuesday found a former opposition spokesman guilty of encouraging terrorism with a series of anti-government Facebook posts.

Yonatan Tesfaye was arrested in December 2015 after writing on the social media platform that the government had used "force against the people instead of using peaceful discussion with the public."

While Yonatan's lawyer and defence witnesses argued the former spokesman of the opposition Blue Party was exercising his right to free speech, judge Belayhun Awol ruled the comments "exceeded freedom of expression" and amounted to encouraging terrorism.

"I think the government's intent and what it seeks is this: to restrict others from speaking freely," Yonatan's lawyer Shebru Belete Birru told AFP after the verdict.

The guilty verdict for "encouragement of terrorism" means Yonatan faces a possible sentence of between 10 and 20 years under the country's anti-terrorism laws, which have been criticised by rights groups and Ethiopia's allies, such as the United States, for being used to stifle dissent.

Yonatan's comments came shortly after protesters belonging to the country's largest ethnic group, the Oromos, took to the streets in towns outside the capital Addis Ababa, claiming a plan to expand the city's boundaries into their region amounted to a land-grab.

The protests led Ethiopia's government to declare a state of emergency last October, which was extended for another four months in March.

Yonatan was originally charged with being a member of the banned separatist Oromo Liberation Front, but prosecutors changed the charges against him last year.

Shebru said he plans to appeal the verdict.


TWO OUT of the five women appointed by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to serve as Chief Executives at the various Municipal and District Assemblies in the Greater Accra Region have been confirmed.

On Monday, one of the nominees was rejected by members of the Assembly after she failed to secure the two-thirds of the votes required to carry the day.

The nominee for the Ledzokuku-Kwowor (LEKMA), Adjeley Twum Gyamrah was last week confirmed by Assembly Members to become the MCE for the area.

She polled 33 out of the 33 votes cast, representing 100 per cent of the votes.

Janet Tulasu Mensah, the nominee for Ga East Municipal Assembly (GEMA), was however not that lucky. The initial round of voting did not favour her. She polled 8 out of 14 votes cast. But she believed she would make it in the second round.

Meanwhile, President's nominee for the Ada East District Assembly, Sarah Dugbakie Pobee was kicked out by the Assembly Members.

Of the 36 members of the assembly, comprising 27 elected and 9 appointees present, 13 voted 'yes', in her favour, representing 36.1 percent while 23 voted against her nomination as the new District Chief Executive (DCE).

The result also meant that she would not have the chance for second round of voting as she fell short of the 50 percent requirement.

The exercise was supervised by the Regional Electoral officer of the Electoral Commission (EC), Kwame Amoah and witnessed by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ishmael Ashitey, NPP Regional Women's Organiser, Joyce Zimpare, and Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Comfort Doyoe Cudjoe Ghansah and other dignitaries.

There was intense lobbying for the votes of the assembly members prior to the voting yet she was denied the endorsement.

The Regional Minister appealed to the assembly members to eschew petty politics and confirm the nominee.

The assembly is expected to meet to fix a date for another attempt to confirm or reject the nominee; that is if the president re-appoints her. The nominee until her appointment was a business woman and currently the Deputy Women's Organiser for Ada East Constituency.

However, Mrs. Jenifer Dede Afagbedzi and Gladys Mann Dedey, nominees for La Nkwantanang Madina Municipal Assembly (LaNMMA) and La Dade Kotopon Municipal Assembly (LaDMA) respectively are awaiting their fate as they are yet to be voted for.

From Vincent Kubi, Ada-Foah


16.05.2017 LISTEN

Since the beginning of May this year, most public senior high schools in the country have re-opened for the 3rd term of the 2016/17 academic year. However, for the schools in the three Northern Regions - Upper West, East and Northern, there has been a delay for a week or two. This is as a result of the untimely release of the feeding grants of students to the school authorities and the problem has existed for a long time.

It must be noted that, since the colonial era, our brothers and sisters in the Northern origin have been enjoying the Northern Scholarship Scheme which covers feeding grants and registration fees. This has enabled the country to produce high profile personalities like former president John Mahama, Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Bawumia, Hon. Alban Bagbin among others.

What is so interesting is that, most Northerners who have their basic education in the South continue their secondary education in the North in order to benefit from the scheme. A typical example is John Mahama who completed his basic education at Achimota Primary in Accra, but ended up at Tamale Secondary notwithstanding his father being a Minister of State.

Currently, the government of Ghana pays GHC459.04 to each student per term and this amounts to GHC1377.12 per academic year. For sometime now, the timely release of this grant to Northern schools has become a problem to both government and school authorities. The delay in the release of the funds obviously affects academic calendar and consequently the performance of students in the final examination.

For instance, the 3rd term of 2015/16, the 1st term of 2016/17 academic years and the 2nd term of the 2016/17 academic years were all in arrears, but the schools managed to fall on their suppliers for food to feed their students over the period.

Fortunately, the NPP government under Nana Akufo-Addo has paid two of the arrears leaving that of the 2nd term of 2016/2017 academic year. The government is working behind the scene to offset the remaining ones in due course to bring the academic calendar to a successful end.

Following the commitment shown by the current government, Northern schools will be re-opening on Monday, May 22, 2017 for the 3rd term. This is a very good news for our kids in the North and I think the NPP government deserves a commendation for that.

For me, however, the solution to this perennial educational problem does not lie solely on the implementation of the proposed free senior high school programme. This because, if the government is finding it difficult to release feeding grants for less than 150,000 students in the North, how could the same government manage with over 700,000 students from next academic year and beyond?

The solution lies on how our farmers could be empowered financially and technically to produce enough food to feed the schools, if we are not ready to turn our senior high schools into Day Institutions. After all, it is the 'koko', the 'banku', 'gari', beans, yam, rice, vegetables etc that have sustained us and I don't think these are types of foreign food.

Let's give priority attention to agriculture by making it more attractive to woo the youth into it. In the US, only 6% of the population is involved in agriculture, but they able to produce enough not only to feed their people, but also, export and give food aid. The opposite is what we see in Ghana: 60% in the agriculture industry, but we are a net-importer of food.

Would the "Planting for Food and Jobs" be a solution? Your guess is as good as mine!

Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang - 0202471070

Asante Bekwai-Asakyiri
BouakA (Ivory Coast) (AFP) - Rebel troops in Ivory Coast on Tuesday said they were ending a four-day mutiny after coming to an agreement with the government over a pay dispute.

"We have found a basis for agreement. We are returning to barracks," Sergeant Cisse Fousseni told AFP as others said all their demands had been met.

The government offered an immediate payment of five million CFA francs (7,500 euros) and an extra two million to be paid next month, source among the mutineers said.

Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi announced late Monday that an agreement had been struck with the mutineers, but disgruntled troops had continued to fire their weapons into the air in a display of scepticism.

The four-day mutiny, which spread to barracks across the west African nation, was the latest in a string of protests by angry troops, most of them former rebels who had been integrated into the army.

Ivorian soldiers with the Republican Guard guard a checkpoint close to the Akouedo military camp in Abidjan, on May 15, 2017

After a mutiny in January, the government agreed to pay the ex-rebels bonuses of 12 million CFA francs (18,000 euros) each.

They were given a partial payment of five million francs and the remainder had been due to be paid this month, with the soldiers' protest resuming when it wasn't.

pgf/ccr/hmw
The Minority in Parliament has petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States to commence investigations into the NPP government's 2.25 billion dollars bond issued this year.

A statement on the petition by the Minority and copied to Citi Business News said,

The SEC will primarily be investigating suspected conflict of interest and insider trading which are violations of US law by the Hon. Trevor G. Trefgarne who is a Director of Franklin Templeton and a Board Chairman of Enterprise Group  a company owned and founded by the Finance Minister of Ghana, Hon. Ken Ofori Atta.

Government in April this year raised $2.25 billion from four bonds including a 7 and 15 year bond, at a rate of 19.75%.

The bond which was open to resident and non-resident investors raised a lot of concerns especially from members of the opposition NDC.

The Minority raised issues of possible conflict of interest following the purchase of 95% of the bonds by Mr. Trefgarne who is a Director of Franklin Templeton and a Board Chairman of Enterprise Group.

Gov't defends bonds issue

Government has since defended the bonds issue explaining that it did not flout any regulation.

For instance, at the recent World Bank/IMF Spring meetings in Washington, the Vice President, Dr. Bawumia criticized the Minority describing their stance as a display of ignorance on the situation.

Some financial analysts have also said government did no wrong concerning issues of conflict of interest raised by some critics.

The Minority's petition, Citi Business News understands, was filed early this month (May) by the Ranking Member on Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee  Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on behalf of the Minority.

The US SEC has since acknowledged receipt of the petition.

Lawyer demands authentic details of $2.25bn bond

The move by the Minority follows a similar one embarked on by private legal practitioner, Victor Kojogah Adawudu.

He has written to the government requesting for more information on the controversial $2.25 billion domestic bond which was issued in April 2017.

According to the lawyer, Victor Kojogah Adawudu, he exercised his right to information due to the scanty details provided by the Ministry of Finance on the issue.

In a letter addressed to the Attorney General and copied to the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Adawudu, who also enclosed a processing fee of GHc 1,000, said the information he is seeking is aimed at addressing several concerns voiced on the matter.



By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
BouakA (Ivory Coast) (AFP) - Rebel troops in Ivory Coast on Tuesday said they were ending a four-day mutiny after coming to an agreement with the government over a pay dispute.

"We have found a basis for agreement. We are returning to barracks," Sergeant Cisse Fousseni told AFP as others said all their demands had been met.

The government offered an immediate payment of five million CFA francs (7,500 euros) and an extra two million to be paid next month, source among the mutineers said.

Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi announced late Monday that an agreement had been struck with the mutineers, but disgruntled troops had continued to fire their weapons into the air in a display of scepticism.

The four-day mutiny, which spread to barracks across the west African nation, was the latest in a string of protests by angry troops, most of them former rebels who had been integrated into the army.

After a mutiny in January, the government agreed to pay the ex-rebels bonuses of 12 million CFA francs (18,000 euros) each.

They were given a partial payment of five million francs and the remainder had been due to be paid this month, with the soldiers' protest resuming when it wasn't.
Education is the key to empowering individuals in every society and country. Leaders and adults in communities believe that giving the younger generation the education needed is a way of empowering them to become independent people and individuals in society. The future of every country depends greatly on the level of knowledge imparted onto the younger generation to enable them become worthy future leaders.

Suffice it to say that education and learning comes in different forms and ways and learning never ends. As much as learning is channelled towards the younger generation, the older generation also learn, as issues in life always teaches us new things every day. Education is a cycle that goes round and every situation in life is a learning curve.

Formal education is seen as the epitome of life and people who may be unfortunate to attain it to a certain level may even be looked down upon by society. People dwell so much on this that they forget about the importance of informal education and encouraging children and the youth to equally concentrate on gaining societal and home knowledge as well. It is important to get the right balance between attaining the highest level of formal education possible and learning to fit into society by adapting to life situations through education from our cultural, ethnic and home backgrounds.

Parents who encourage and push their children to attain the highest level of education but fail to give them the same amount of education concerning societal values may be causing a level of harm to their children as such children may find it difficult to fit into society at some point in their lives. As much as attaining all the degrees is beneficial in a persons life, parents need to find out from their children and know what their interests and passions are and encourage them, support them and invest toward it. It is common in most African societies to see parents living their unfulfilled dreams through their children by pushing them into educational sectors they might not have any interests in. The question therefore is: As much as it is important to give our children the best education, are we doing it right? Are they being pushed in the right direction?

People who have the opportunity to be educated see the need to keep upgrading themselves on the educational ladder whereas those who lack education just move along with whatever societal situations they find themselves in to make a living. This could thus be related to the economic concept of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. However, in a world that is becoming so global, one wonders how we can keep up with the dynamics and make the best out of what we are presented with in life. This is where I wonder whether the future of the younger generation is based on how well they are educated or not to face the challenges of the real world.

Ghanas education system makes it compulsory to acquire basic education to the secondary school level. Whatever happens after Secondary school is mostly a matter of interests for some individuals, financial and economic factors and sometimes an education system that seems to be biased and not fair to everyone.

The government has over the years improved and provided more options for people to develop themselves to prepare them to become self-sufficient in future. Is there however enough awareness to the youth to help them utilize these facilities even if they cannot make it to the university? Having a degree is not a guarantee that one will make it in life as there are countless unemployed graduates in the country. It is about having the right charisma, the right attitude, skill, knowing what your interests are and getting educated in the right sector to become useful to yourself, our families and the nation as a whole.

More awareness needs to be created on all the different avenues one can get an education and not limited to being a graduate. People who are gifted with handicrafts such as sewing, cooking, carpentry, fitting, hairdressing, etc need to be encouraged and given the necessary support to become professionals by getting educated in those sectors.

In conclusion, I strongly believe it is about finding the right balance and having a passion for what you do. Get the necessary education in the field that moves you and gives you the passion to do more. There is nothing better that being paid and getting the reward and recognition for something that you love doing.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

God bless Africa.

The writer, Samuel Asante Gyamerah can be contacted by mail, [email protected]
16.05.2017 LISTEN

The Informers Ethnocentric Publication: Classic Example Of Unprofessional Journalism

The Media Foundation for West Africa has read with utter dismay a story titled: Used and Dumped, Voltarian Dotse Swerved - which was published in the May 15-16 edition of The Informer newspaper.

The publication under reference did not just speculate but claimed, without providing any facts, that Supreme Court Judge, Justice Jones Dotse, was overlooked for the post of Chief Justice of Ghana because he is from the Volta Region.

The newspaper also alleged, again without any concrete evidence, that Justice Dotse had been manipulated to do the bidding of the New Patriotic Party as a Justice of the Supreme Court only for him to be disappointed when the party was expected to reward him with the post of Chief Justice.

This kind of publication is not only unethical, ethnocentric and demeaning of a very senior person of the judiciary but also and more importantly, it is the kind of bad journalism that is very dangerous for press freedom, said Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the MFWA.

The MFWA wonders what the editors of The Informer newspaper sought to achieve by the obviously unprofessional publication and the blatant attempt to divide Ghanaians along ethnic lines.

Only one Ghanaian from among the Justices of the Supreme Court or from outside the Court could have been named Chief Justice and he or she would certainly belong to one ethnic group and come from a particular region.

What is important is for the media to focus on the qualification, competence and merits of whoever is appointed to the high office. Indeed, if there are any issues that make an appointee unfit, unqualified and incapable of holding the office, the media have a responsibility to highlight those deficiencies in the exercise of their constitutionally mandated watchdog role.

The MFWAs continuous advocacy for press freedom is anchored on the belief that the media have a crucial role in strengthening and consolidating transparent, accountable and participatory governance that results in inclusive development. But bad journalism, such as exhibited by The Informer newspaper in the publication under reference constitutes a major setback to efforts at consolidating press freedom.

The media should be focused in strengthening institutions and building cohesion rather than weakening institutions and sowing seeds of disunity through partisan, unprofessional, sensational publications.

The MFWA calls on the National Media Commission to assert its authority in enforcing ethical and professional standards in the media. Publications such as The Informers is a classic lesson in how not to do journalism and the editors of the newspaper need to be reminded and brought to order by the NMC.
Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh

16.05.2017 LISTEN

Students of Klikor Senior High Technical School located in the Ketu South municipality are appealing to stakeholders, NGOs and philanthropists to help them with academic necessities which will enhance teaching and learning activities in the school.

In an exclusive interview with the students, they said they are lacking so many things in the school which include classrooms, workshops, dinning hall and administration block, as well as dormitories which will help and improve their academic performances. They did indicate that, though the administration is doing their best, it is not enough since one hand cannot clap.

Confirming the story to this reporter, one leader of the group said "it is true that some of our classrooms are old and there are cracks and leakages on some of the old classrooms and if it rains or the sun shines, we don't find peace in the classrooms especially when we are having our lessons. This problem was happening before I got admitted in 2015. We made so many complaints to the administration but all prove fruitless. The problems keep moving from bad to worse"

Furthermore, another student revealed "our school is a technical school but the school does not have a workshop and equipment that can be use practically. At times, we the students learn on our own. It's only few times that the teachers do some practical teachings but for that one too, it's once a while so it's affecting us academically. Our classrooms and dormitories are always hot when the sun is shining. We are appealing to stakeholders and the public to come and help us because we are the future leaders" she stated....

The headmaster Mr. Joshua Yaovi Vidzro declined to speak but information's gathered during conversations with the headmaster indicates the administration is however aware of such challenges and they are putting measures in place to solved the problem.

He said "I heard about the issues and I have asked some carpenters to see me quickly for the solutions. The school lacks a lot but we are trying our best in the smallest way but I will soon meet with the chiefs and stakeholders to bring a lasting solutions to the problems.

The school cannot boast of a workshop though it is the only Senior High technical school in the whole Ketu South municipality. We must have a place that the students can have a skill development, handle and do things practically but we don't have it. The old students too are not helping us so they must be up and doing to help develop the school " he explained......

The students finally lamented on how their future would be in doomed if possible measures are not taken soon and appealed to stakeholders and N.G.Os to come to their aid and help them, saying they are the future leaders of the land who will take the mantle if their time comes so they suppose to have a better education that will help them to be good leaders.

There are some allegations from the headmaster that the assembly member of the area Hon. Saviour Abotsi is not helping them and he don't come to the school as expected but only when he needs some money or help from the school. The school which was founded by a joint consultative committee of Klikor Citizens Union of Accra/Tema in 1992 as a private school and was later absorbed into the public system in October 1997 and to date is a Government assisted Senior High Technical School.
Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Three female suicide bombers have attacked a herding community in northeast Nigeria, killing two people and injuring seven others, according to a village elder and a civilian militia member.

Ali Musa said the trio, believed to have been sent by Boko Haram jihadists, struck at Shuwari Buri village, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri at around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Monday.

"Two of them rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives, killing two brothers who had retired for the night," he added.

"The third bomber detonated her explosives among residents who had gathered ... injuring seven."

The three bombers had earlier told villagers they were travellers and asked them for accommodation for the night. But they were refused on security grounds.

Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia assisting the military with security, gave an identical account.

Shuwari Buri is in the Konduga area, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings and gun attacks.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations.

Many of the bombers have been women and young girls.

The phenomenon has increased as the Islamist militants lost captured territory to the military due to a sustained counter-insurgency that began in early 2015.

The rebels' push for a hardline Islamic state in the region has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria alone and displaced more than 2.6 million others.

Civilians are still facing the fall-out from the conflict: 5.1 million people are severely food insecure and dependent on handouts from aid agencies.
Government has promised caterers under the Ghana School Feeding Program it would clear all arrears owed them before their contract elapse by July 2017.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and signed by the sector Minister Otiko Afisah Djaba apologized to caterers for the delay in the settlement of their debts.

We would like to apologise for the delay in payment to The Ghana School Feeding Caterers and the severe challenges this may be posing to them. The current School Feeding contracts will end this July 2017 and we can assure you that all arrears will be paid before then, she revealed.

The Minister said government appreciate their commitment but wants them to bear with the ministry stating that Ghana School Feeding Program which is pre-financed by the caterers and there are several government agencies involved in processing the payment of the arrears

The Government inherited arrears of GHC 114.00m from the previous NDC administration for 75 cooking days for caterers in 2016. There is the need for us to adhere to the strict governance process for the arrears to be paid and inspite of the competing demands for public funds, the Ministry of Finance has processed the release of the arrears for 2016 and for 2017. As a result we implore all partners and stakeholders of the Ghana School Food Program to effectively expedite action to improve on the caterer payment situation

This new Government has demonstrated its commitment to dealing with this issue by allocating funds for the 2016 arrears and GHC200.00m solely for School Feeding out of the GHC255.00m from GOG Funds for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ministry of Finance is working diligently to clear the arrears.
16.05.2017 LISTEN

Investing in the youth of Africa is the theme of the 2017 edition of UNESCO's Africa Week, which will be held at the Organization's Headquarters from 22 to 24 May under the patronage of Alain Claude Billie-By-Nze, Gabon's Minister of the Digital Economy, Communication, Culture and the Arts.

The event featuring concerts, film screenings, exhibitions and round table debates is organized by the group of African Member States of UNESCO under the chair of Mozambique.

The three-day celebration of African culture will include fashion shows by young designers Diana Magesa from Tanzania and Tatenda Sipula from South Africa on 22 May at 4 pm in Hall Sagur.

Fine leather craft will be on display in a workshop organized by the Maison Andridz of Madagascar on 23 May at 2.30 pm in the Mir Room, where it will be followed by a recital of traditional African stories by Fouma Traore of Burkina Faso at 3.30 pm.

A children's programme featuring drums, dance and masks is scheduled for 24 May at 10 am at Sagur Hall, where Patricia Essong of Cameroon will give a concert at 4pm.

Roundtable debates on the role and prospects of Africa's youth will be held on 23 and 24 May in Room IV with the participation of academics, entrepreneurs and representatives of both government and civil society.

Swirl in Bamako, a feature film directed by Dominique Philippe will be screened on 23 May at 6 pm in Room IV.

From 22 to 24 May the young Congolese chef Dieuveil Malonga will take command of UNESCO's restaurant which will serve his creative interpretation of African gastronomy.

Africa Week is held every year to showcase Africa through the wealth of its cultural and artistic heritage. It marks the anniversary of the establishment on 25 May 1963 of the Organisation of African Unity, which became the African Union in July 2002.
The Minority in Parliament says its decision to petition the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the controversial $2.25 billion bond scandal is not a vote of no confidence in the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice.

Ghana's anti-corruption and human rights body has begun investigating the conflict of interest allegation raised against the Finance Minister over the same matter but even before a verdict will be reached, the minority has filed a similar allegation in the US against Franklyn Templeton, the company at the centre of the bond sale.

Member of Parliament for North Tongu Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said while the issues remain the same, CHRAJ may have issues of "jurisdictional challenges" if it were to investigate Franklyn Templeton.

"We have petitioned the Independent Federal Regulatory Body in the US to see if ethical boundaries have been crossed by Franklyn Templeton in the issue of the $2.25 billion bond," he stated.

According to him, the minority's petition to the US body is deemed to have been "successfully filed" and they have been given a reference number.

The Minority has been raising conflict of interest allegations over the transaction described by the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as the deal of the year.

In that deal, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta raised the cedi equivalent of $1.12 billion in 5 and 10-year bonds.

These activities raised a total of $2.25 billion and resulted in the lengthening of the maturity profile of the instruments available on the domestic market. This issuance represents the largest amount issued by a sub-Saharan African country in a day, a statement from the ministry indicated.

Interestingly, the money raised would not necessarily add to Ghanas ballooning debt profile but rather be used to offset part of the existing debt and also for infrastructure development.

According to the statement, the pricing obtained was also consistent with the initial price range of 18.95%  19.85%.

The issuance attracted a number of global portfolio investors, including a very substantial investment in the 15-year bond by a very well respected global financial investor, it stated.

The bond sale according to report, was managed by three financial institutions  Barclays, Stanbic Bank and Strategic African Securities SAS.

But the joy that came with transaction quickly gave way when the Minority accused the Finance Minister of cooking up the transaction to favour his family, friends and business partners.

At a press conference, a former Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson says the inclusion of Mr Trevor G. Trefgarne, a director at Franklin Templeton, the institution that bought 95 per cent of the bond smacks of conflict of interest.

Trefgarne is also a Director at Enterprise Group Limited, a company which has Ghanas Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta as co-founder.

The Minority also raised issues about lack of transparency in the deal and failure to give other investors the opportunity to take part in the bond sale.

The Ashanti Regional Youth Organiser of the NDC, Brogya Genfi petitioned the CHRAJ to look into the conflict of interest allegation against the Finance Minister but even before it will begin full scale investigations into the matter, the Minority has proceeded to the US raising conflict of interest against Mr Trevor Trefgarne.

Critics have suggested the double-barreled petition smacks of lack of confidence in CHRAJ by the NDC but Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa insists that is not the case.

CHRAJ is looking at conflict of interest in Ghanaian law; but SEC is looking at the conflict of interest allegations against Franklin Templeton in the US laws, he explained.

With both institutions conducting parallel investigations on the same issue but from difference jurisdictions, it remains to be seen what the outcome of the investigation will be.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
Kumasi, May 16, GNA - Mr Simon Osei-Mensah, Ashanti Regional Minister, had sworn-in fourteen (14) newly-elected Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs) at a ceremony in Kumasi, urging them to be development-oriented.

He said they should work in partnership with all stakeholders to identify potential areas of investment in their respective districts in order to create jobs and alleviate poverty among the masses.

'Indeed your appointments offer you the rare opportunity to contribute your quota to the development of your areas and that at the end of your tenure, you will be judged, not only by the appointing authority, but particularly by public opinion, as to whether you served them well or not,' he noted.

The inductees' nomination, were confirmed by their respective assemblies recently, and included the Ejura-Sekyedumase, Obuasi and Mampong Municipal Assemblies, as well as Adansi-South, Afigya-Kwabre, Asante-Akim North, Ahafo-Ano North and Ahafo-Ano South Districts.

The rest are Amansie-Central, Sekyere- Kumawu, Sekyere-Central, Sekyere-Afram Plains, Atwima-Mponua and Amansie-West Districts.

This brings to twenty-three (23) the number of Chief Executives who had so far been sworn into office in accordance with Article 243 (1) of the 1992 Constitution, following their successful approval by the assemblies.

Mr. Osei-Mensah advised the Chief Executives to adhere to the implementation of the Local Governance Act 936 of 2016 and Legislative Instrument (LI) 1961, which were currently in force.

These laws, he stated, imposed greater responsibilities on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives to supervise staff of the decentralized departments to bring efficiency in the discharge of their duties.

The Regional Minister said they were expected to check absenteeism, lateness and also ensure that every worker did what was expected of him or her.

He announced that an orientation course would soon be organized for the Chief Executives to keep them abreast of their core responsibilities within the context of the government's socio-economic policies.

Mr. Osei-Mensah advised the inductees to be transparent and accountable in their activities, saying they needed to work assiduously for the judicious utilization of assembly resources.

GNA

By Stephen Asante, GNA
Koforidua, May 16, GNA - With 29 no-votes, the New Juaben Municipal Assembly rejected the President's nominee Madam Mary Asante, as the New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) at a special meeting held to endorse her nomination on Monday.

She polled 48 votes out of the 78 total votes cast in a poll supervised by the Electoral Commission.

To pass the threshold, the nominee needed 52 votes from the assembly members made up of 54 elected members and 24 appointees to confirm her nomination.

Earlier, Mr Samuel Kwakye-Darfuor, the Eastern Regional Minister, said President Nana Akufo-Addo, would ensure that the appropriate measures are put in place to enable the citizens enjoy quality and improved living conditions.

He urged the assembly to foster a united front in order to take full advantage of the one-million dollar per constituency project promised by the president- hence the need to endorse the President's nominee.

Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, the Board chairman of Ghana Cocoa board and former Member of Parliament (MP) for New Juaben North; Nana Adjei Boateng, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development and former and MP for New Juaben North were there to support the nominee.

Others were two former Chief Executives of the assembly under the NDC, Dr Kwaku Owusu-Acheampong and Mr Kwabena Okyere-Kusi, the Regional Chairman of the NDC and a host of NPP stalwarts and family members thronged the assembly to support the nominee.

GNA

By Bertha Badu-Agyei, GNA
It came on the heels of Mr. Mahama Ayarigas rather below-the-belt shameless accusation that during his recent commissioning of the start of work on the 400 Mega-Watt Tema-based LPG Bridge Power Plant, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had deliberately and ungratefully neglected to acknowledge the contractual contribution of his immediate predecessor to the project, to wit, former President John Dramani Mahama.

So none of my regular and avid readers ought to be surprised that when the most recent power outage occurred throughout the country, I was verging closely towards a conspiracy theory. It ought not to surprise any of my readers because strategic sabotage is what the disgruntled and disconsolately sulking apparatchiks of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) do best.

Well, on the question of whether, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo had deliberately neglected to mention the name of his much younger immediate predecessor, I had to promptly remind Mr. Ayariga, the former Minister for the Environment, Science, Technology and Special Projects, that the then-President Mahama had done even worse to his more diplomatically mature and astute predecessor, namely, former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, when the former Atta-Mills arch-lieutenant inaugurated the $600 million Chinese government-sponsored Bui Dam Power Plant, the second-largest hydroelectricity generator in the country, after the Nkrumah-constructed Akosombo Dam, or the globally renowned Volta River Project.

Then, I also promptly suggested to Mr. Ayariga that maybe he might do himself and his political and ideological ilk great good by investigating to find out the sort of contractual renegotiation that likely took place between the relevant leaders of the Akufo-Addo Administration and the Bridge Power Plant contractor. The fact of the matter is that President Akufo-Addo and his cabinet appointees have had to renegotiate the overwhelming bulk of the largely politically motivated and amateurishly negotiated energy-supply agreements executed by key operatives of the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime. Then on Wednesday, last, came the news that no staunch supporter and/or sympathizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) wanted to hear: the entire country had been plunged into Stygian darkness, in classical Shakespearean parlance.

Some media headlines even appeared to gloat over the apparent return of Dumsor, which would automatically have rendered the current administration no significantly better than the previous one. It would have also afforded much capital to infamous NDC child molesters like Mr. Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, who have been curiously jockeying for their partys presidential-election ticket in the lead-up to Election 2020, appear to have a fighting chance. Well, I call Mr. Mubarak Muntaka a child molester because he is widely known to have statutorily raped and impregnated a 14 or 15-year-old girl-woman in his Kumasi-Asewase NDC constituency.

Some even claim the woman to have been below 14 years old. But what is even more disgusting is that the NDCs Parliamentary Chief Whip is known to have once seized the august floor of the House to fervidly and desperately advocate for the nubile age of Ghanaian women to be significantly lowered for the coital pleasure of sexual predators like himself. That alone should tell the critically thinking reader how abysmally low the moral standards of the leadership of our country have presently fallen. I mean, when a clinically impudent plagiarist like Mr. Haruna Iddrisu begins to spoil for the presidency, you can be quite certain that something has gone terribly awry with the moral fabric of Ghanaian society.

Well, the good news here is that within 48 hours  actually 24 hours  of the plunging of the country into total darkness, at least 85-percent of power had been restored, according to Mr. William Boateng, the Communications Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). Which is all well and good, because it delectably hints at the fact of Akufo-Addos Ghanas being healthily on the verge of being vaulted into the enviable status of an upper-level middle-income economy, God willing, he would have promptly added, were the President to have been directly interviewed by yours truly for this piece (See 85 Percent of Countrys Power Restored After Nationwide Blackout Graphic.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/4/17).

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
Airtel Ghana, the Smartphone Network, has presented cash prizes of GHC45,000 to two winners in the trailblazing Wo Mmere Nie recharge promotion. The presentation was made after a market activation in Tamale, in the Northern Region of Ghana.

Wo Mmere Nie Ghanas biggest and most rewarding recharge promotion, which is set to end in June has introduced GHC 2,000 daily cash prizes and ramped up the weekly cash prizes to reward customers who participate in the promotion.

The ceremony which took place at the Tamale taxi rank attracted a large crowd of excited patrons. The company presented GHC 10,000 each to Joel Ameah and Daniel Kumafo who were winners for week 12 and 13 respectively. Daniel Kumafo also walked away with GHC 25,000 for accumulating the highest points at the end of month 3 bringing his total cash prize to GHC 35,000.

Making the presentation, Samuel Sarpong, Airtels Director of Sales & Distribution, said This promotion has so far rewarded over 2.5 million customers  a testament to the transparency around it. Today we are delighted to reward Daniel and Joel for accumulating the highest points in their respective weeks. In response to customers demand for an extension of the promo, we announced last week our decision to extend Wo Mmere Nie till June to allow more customers to participate and win.

He continued We have also introduced a daily cash prize of GHC1, 000 each for two customers who accumulate the highest points at the end of each day. Indeed there is no better time to join Ghanas biggest recharge promo than now. And you can partake simply by recharging GHC 2 and above or playing the SMS trivia by sending Start to 477. To all our customers, I say, this is your time. Wo Mmere Nie 

The winners

Joel Ameah is a digital marketer and has been using Airtel for more than 2 years. He could not hide his joy as he commended Airtel for enriching his life and that of other Airtel customers. He said I am really excited to be one of the numerous winners in this promo. Initially I was not sure I could win as much as GHC 10,000 just by recharging and playing the SMS trivia but here I am today. I will invest the money in a bank for now and plan on what to do next with it.

Daniel Kumafo, a credit officer who won GHC 35,000 as the winner for week 13 and month 3 said When I received the call from Airtel saying I was a weekly winner I was very happy, but coming here and being called out again as the monthly winner did not come as a surprise, because in addition to recharging, I played the SMS trivia. I am super excited to have won an additional GHC 25,000. My eyes are set on the ultimate cash prize of GHC 150,000 so I will continue recharging and playing the SMS trivia.

Revamped Daily and weekly Cash prizes

Two customers with the highest points at the end of each day will now receive a cash price of GHC 2000.

The customer with the highest accumulated points at the end of each week will receive a cash prize of GHC15, 000

Grand prize of GHC 150,000

At the end of the promotion, the customer with the highest accumulated points wins the ultimate cash prize of GHC 150,000.

The first and second runners-up take home a whopping GHC 100,000 and GHC 75,000 respectively.

SMS Trivia to build points faster

Customers also have the opportunity to build up points by playing the innovative SMS trivia by sending START to 477 to subscribe and answer questions.

Double points for recharges using Airtel Money

Airtel prepaid customers who recharge or purchase data bundles using Airtel Money automatically receive double points for every recharge worth GHC 2 and above.

Points accumulated weekly and monthly are automatically rolled over to the following month to give every customer an increased opportunity to win.

Customers can check their accumulated points by sending POINTS to 477.

Airtel Wo Mmere Nie is Ghanas biggest consumer recharge promotion and is transforming lives of Airtel customers across the country.

About Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 17 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed home broadband, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 372 million customers across its operations at the end of March 2017. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com

About Airtel in Africa

Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com, or like the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle @airtelghana.
The Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko has described past agreements in the energy sector as deal-driven and not strategy-driven.

He argues that most of the agreements with Independent Power Producers failed to fully address the energy needs of the country and has pledged to employ some strategic policies to guarantee the efficient generation and efficient distribution of power across the country.

Often times I have maintained and this is a personal view that the Energy Sector has been deal-driven instead of strategy-driven and therefore we do not approach the sector with a comprehensiveness that is required, the Minister said at the National Policy Summit in Accra today [Tuesday].

He indicated that the concentration of power generation in the East; Tema enclave to the neglect of other parts of the country has created what he calls a load imbalance.

Let me give you an example. All the major loads in the country in terms of power generation is concentrated in the East; Tema enclave. There is very little in the Aboadze and there is absolutely nothing in the middle of the country; that in itself creates a load imbalance for GRIDCo ..Because we were driven by the deals we could get, there was no plan to distribute the load around the country. That is my personal view as I have observed it. Even now people prefer to build power plants around the over crowded enclave of Tema.

Proffering suggestions to these challenges, the Minister emphasized the need to make power sector a strategy driven place where business men find their deals so power will be competitively procured.

We will also use standardized procedures and documentation so that all the liquidity and security documentation that comes with power procurement will be standardized. Investor A faces the same standard document as investor B, the Minister added.

Government had earlier argued that some of the power agreements including Ameri and Karpower, that the Mahama government entered into were bloated.

Government in a bid to ensure value for money set up a 17 member committee under the Energy Ministry to review the Ameri power deal which was believed to have been bloated by $150 million.

The 17-member committee was also constituted on grounds of other financial, technical and legal issues, and insisted that AMERI must be made to re-negotiate the deal or be rejected by Government on grounds of fraud.

The committee maintained that AMERI in its agreement with government dated February 10th, 2015, charged Ghana significantly higher than what it was charged by the Turkish registered company, PPR, which financed and executed the project.

The Turkish firm pegged the total cost of the project which is to span over a 5 year period at a maximum of 360 million dollars. However, the Build Operate Own Transfer (BOOT) agreement signed between government and AMERI was pegged at a minimum of 510 million dollars.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @EfeAnsah
Nairobi (AFP) - At least four people died on Tuesday when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device in a small Kenyan town near the border with Somalia, police said.

The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres (310 miles) further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists.

Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks.

Tuesday's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians.

"Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device."

Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected.

Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident.

The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers.

Notable encroachments into Kenya included the 2013 Westgate mall and 2015 Garissa University attacks, while the group also attacked the Ugandan capital Kampala in 2010.
Kinshasa (AFP) - Thousands of people fleeing troubled Central African Republic have streamed into DR Congo following an outbreak of sectarian violence in the border city of Bangassou, the UN's refugee agency said Tuesday.

A UNHCR statement which described the flow as "massive" said at least 2,750 people arrived during the weekend in northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The flow continued in some areas early this week," the statement added.

A UN peacekeeper was killed at the weekend, the sixth in a week, in an attack in Bangassou by the mainly Christian anti-Balaka group from CAR.

The UN mission in that country, MINUSCA, said the assailants were members of a wide coalition including the anti-Balaka group who "attacked civilian populations, targeting in particular Muslims".

The UN has deployed 10,000 troops and 2,000 police to CAR following bloody sectarian fighting that erupted after the 2013 overthrow of leader Francois Bozize.

Among Africa's poorest countries, CAR subsequently descended into bloodshed pitting the anti-Balaka fighters against the mainly Muslim ex-Seleka rebels.

"The refugees who arrive are in bad condition with few personal belongings" and many are hurt, UNHCR said.

The UN agency said that DR Congo, which is also rife with violence, as of end March was hosting 103,000 Central African refugees.
Staff of energy distribution company, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have refuted government's claim that its debt keeps worsening on a daily basis.

The Public Utilities Workers Union of TUC Ghana has expressed shock and regret at what they described as "unfortunate" the statement by Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko featured in the May 15 edition of the Daily Guide newspaper.

In a statement Tuesday signed by Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi, the PUWU said "the Minister's assertion that ECGs debt stock appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness is not supported by the facts."

Mr Agyarko had told a group of journalists and officials of Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) after the inauguration of a 7-member ECG PSP Stakeholders Committee in Accra that the growing debt stock at the ECG was worsening by the day.

What happens to the balance? You look at their inventory and they have 20 years supply of spares. You have locked up that money in spares that would be obsolete, he said.

He further observed that ECGs debt accumulation on a monthly basis is GHS66 million...every month, they add GHS66 million to their cost. And if this happens in the next five years, what prevents the EOCO from laying you off?

But PUWU said "ECGs currently average weekly collection is GH103,918,594.11, as against a target of GH130,000,000. This excludes indebtedness by MMDAs and Ghana Water Company Limited, which are state entities."

"We want to state that as the Sector Minister, we expect him to provide strategic direction and policy guidelines for the Company, and not to descend into these minor operational areas which the Management of the Company can easily deal with.

"There are bigger issue to make the Company operate efficiently, and we thought that these are the issues which should occupy the mind and attention of the Minister," PUWU said.

Below is the statement

The Public Utilities Workers Union of TUC Ghana, has read with shock the publication in the Daily Guide Newspaper of May, 15 2017, with respect to a statement purported to have been made by the Minister of Energy, Honourable Boakye Agyarko, under the caption Energy Minister Uncovers ECGs Rot.

The statements attributed to the Minister are very much regrettable, and as workers of the Company, we find it very unfortunate that at such a critical stage in the life of ECG, the sector Minister will make such sweeping statements.

The assertion that ECGs debt stock appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness is not supported by the facts. On the contrary, ECGs currently average weekly collection is GH103,918,594.11, as against a target of GH130,000,000. This excludes indebtedness by MMDAs and Ghana Water Company Limited, which are state entities.

If there is any accumulation of debt, then it is just coming from the angle of the MMDAs, and this has come about because of political directives not to disconnect the MMDAs because government has promised to pay the bills of the MMDAs. However, as at the end of 2016, the MMDAs debt stood at GH1,390,966,034.74. For the first three months of 2017, the MMDA debts totalled GH226,967,736.08, and of this debt for 2017, government has paid GH18,133,575.17.

As at the end of March 2017, total debt including that of GWCL was GH1,599,800,195.66, so it is strange for the Minister to attribute this accumulation of debt to the reckless acts or behaviour of ECG employees. If there is any debt accumulation, then it is the direct action of government for non-payment of MMDA bills, and not any inaction on the part of ECG employees.

There have been several instances where efforts to collect amounts owing from MMDAs have been frustrated and sometimes interfered by political pressures, such that even organisations that were disconnected were asked to be reconnected by political authorities.

Concerning the assertion that the US Embassy demands bills and ECG has not been able to provide the Embassy with bills is also very strange because as far we know to date, the US Embassy does not owe ECG in terms of bills. So if they were not getting bills, would they have paid all their indebtedness till date?

So this is a statement we find very unfortunate, and ask the Minister to provide further details. Similar details are also required about the issue of spare parts. Currently ECG is having shortage of materials which is affecting the one day service that was introduced by the Company.

With respect to MTN owing ECG about GH35,000,000 as asserted by the Minister, this is basically an issue of billing arrangement and some challenges with the initial CMS as it was deployed, which has been identified, and efforts made towards correcting this situation. MTN has over 1000 sites, and some MTN sites are already being billed through the Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system, so bills are read automatically from remote areas.

It is the few areas which are not on the AMR that arrangements are being made to sort out the actual amounts that MTN has to pay, which some of the residential sites are being made to pay. However, the billing anomaly has been identified and the corrections are being made, so it is not accurate to say that MTN owes that much and nothing is being done to collect monies from MTN.

It is also strange for the Minister to assert that ECGs networking capital is negative. It is a fact undisputable that Africa, south of the Sahara, with the exception of South Africa, ECG has the widest coverage in terms of electricity distribution, about 80%, despite the challenges with supply upsetting at a point in time, ECG has been distributing power to significant numbers of its customers, so it is strange that a Company which has a negative networking capital of GH2,000,000 will be able to continue servicing its customers on such regular basis.

And anybody who has taken time to go around the Country can attest to the fact that ECG, with the support of some external financing agencies, is constantly improving its distribution network, and building a lot of sub-stations as well as warehouses to improve its operational activities. We will therefore urge and challenge the Minister to come up with specifics with regards to such statements about this negative GH2,000,000 GHC networking capital of ECG.

In conclusion, we want to state that as the Sector Minister, we expect him to provide strategic direction and policy guidelines for the Company, and not to descend into these minor operational areas which the Management of the Company can easily deal with. There are bigger issue to make the Company operate efficiently, and we thought that these are the issues which should occupy the mind and attention of the Minister.

Four months into the new government, a Company like ECG has no Board, and with an Acting Managing Director. How do you expect key decisions to be taken to ensure improvement in the Companys operation? Is it the question of giving the dog a bad name, so to hang it?

And we also want to draw the attention of government that such kind of pronouncements will not inure to the benefits of the Company or Ghana, because at the end of the day, even if you are going ahead with this PSP, you are projecting a very weak Company that will weaken the negotiations with any prospective bidder, and we think that the Minister ought to look at the bigger picture and see how to position ECG to be a Company that can provide value for Ghana and for Ghanaians.

Signed.

Lawyer Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim
16.05.2017 LISTEN

Some residents of Akosombo in the Eastern region who hit the streets to demonstrate against the Volta River Authority (VRA) have agreed to give the authority a one-week ultimatum to address their grievances.

This follows a demonstration earlier this morning by the residents over what they described as killer electricity tariffs.

The demonstrators, blamed the high tariffs on an exercise undertaken by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to change their meters.

The situation, according to them, forced most residents to close down their businesses.

A resident, who was part of the demonstrators Kwabena Boateng told Citi Business News the VRA has promised to look into the situation and get back to them in a weeks' time.

So they addressed us and they pleaded with us that they were going to look into it because the whole thing is about the meters, Mr. Boateng said.

He was of the view that the meters which were distributed to the residents are suspected to have been rejected by others from different parts of the country.

This meter issue came out some time ago but it was something they wanted to send to some other location but they rejected it because it doesn't give the correct reading. I mean somebody who was paying GHS100 now receives a bill of GHS1,500 and its going on. Now that everyone has been put on that meter all the residents are going through this that is why we demonstrated so that they have a second look at it, he said.

Background

Scores of residents of Akosombo in the Eastern Region poured on to the street today May 16, 2017, demonstrating over what they describe as killer electricity tariffs.

The demonstrators, some of who joined from surrounding communities said, the problem of high tariffs started when the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) changed their meters.



By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
The $150 million World Bank-funded Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water Project will benefit from an extension and another opportunity to reach some targets despite no significant undertaking with a year to go.

On the Citi Breakfast Show, the project coordinator, George Asiedu revealed that the World Bank had agreed to extend in lieu of the challenges the program has encountered.

The World Bank was actually responsive to some the issues we bring up for discussions and so the World Bank at this level has agreed with us to extend the project because having identified the challenges and having made some progress towards dealing with it, they have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

The coordinators acknowledged the project had so fallen short of expectations and noted that they may not have gotten some aspects of the project right.

No master plan three years in

Breaking down some aspects of the project on the, Mr. Asiedu explained that the project had largely been marching time because it is yet to formulate a master plan for implementation, which they said is projected to cost $3.1 million after the two year formulation period.

Furthermore, a consultant is required to work on the master plan and Mr, Asiedu insisted that it would take a year to recruit a consultant, in line with procurement processes in Ghana.

That master plan is seeking to provide the road plan that will be used to manage solid waste and until we come up with a programme or a plan which will be acceptable to all stakeholders, we cannot even put money or any capital investment in any intervention to deal with solid waste management, he explained.

So what we need to do now with the GAMA project is to come up with an integrated master plan. We are using the word integrated because hitherto, we used to have master plans for solid waste, liquid waste and drainage but we realised that these separate plans are related.

But once the plan is ready, Mr. Asiedu said: they will begin to put in the capital investment to implement the plan.

In the meantime, GAMA project cannot do anything regarding the construction of landfill sites, the collection of solid waste, the treatment of solid waste as required by the components of the project.

The sanitation aspect of the GAMA Water and Sanitation Project is to take $100 million of the money provided by the World Bank, and a critical part of the project is the provision of toilet facilities.

But according to Mr. Asiedu, until the midterm review, the project made provision for a $100 million but none of the amount was to be used to construct toilets.

What we needed to do was to do sensitization, create demand and educate the people on the need to have toilets in their homes, the project coordinator added.

The GAMA project was to see the building of school toilets, a faecal treatment plant as well as the carrying out drainage improvement in identified areas that are susceptible to flooding.

Average cost of toilet at GHc 4,000

Despite the provisions being targeted at low-income Ghanaians in the GAMA area, Mr. Asiedu revealed the average cost of the toilets they were providing costs GHc 4000.

At the midterm review, the project found it necessary to negotiate with the World Bank and they agreed to a 50 percent subsidy.

So far, Mr. Asiedu reported that 9,000 people submitted their names for toilet construction but only 1,300 have paid some money and out of the 1300 we have been able to full complete 900 because only 900 have been able to come out with the 50 percent.

More funds needed

The $150 million provide the project will not be enough, according to Mr. Asiedu, as but we want to exhaust what we have before we can even ask them for any funds.

I can tell you that the funds available may not be enough. We need more and as we sit, we have a lot of the table that we want to do but because of constraints with funding, we cannot do that. We will be able to exhaust these funds and we may need even more.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
16.05.2017 LISTEN

Accra, May 16, GNA - The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), with funding from the European Union, has handed over vehicles, Information and Communication Technology equipment and other items to the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to enhance their capacity to effectively manage borders.

The equipment, valued at GHE2.3 million include two four-wheel drive double Cabin Nissan Pick-Ups, with their accessories, computers, motorbikes, Anti-Virus-Kaspersky 2016, Flashlights, Swivel Chairs, Projectors and Statistical Analysis Software (Analytic Pro).

They would be deployed to the Migration Information Bureau Unit, Border Patrol Unit and the Management Information Unit of the GIS.

They were acquired under the European Union-funded Ghana Integrated Migration Management Approach (GIMMA) project, which aims to bolster the Government's migration management efforts through enhanced border management and strengthened data collection mechanisms.

It would also enable potential migrants to make informed migration decisions.

Mr William Hanna, the Head of European Union (EU) expressed concern about the state of migration to the European countries saying, 'In 2016 a total of 5,636 Ghanaians arrived in Italy by boat, which was an increase of over 27 per cent as compared to 2015'.

He stated that the top priority of the EU was to save the lives of migrants.

'Mobility can benefit both Europe and Africa- but it must happen legally and safely, not by turning the Mediterranean and the Sahara into mass graves,' he said.

'This is the core message since the Valletta Summit, and the basis of our partnership with Africa and with Ghana'.

Mr Kwame Asuah Takyi, the Comptroller-General of the GIS, extolled the achievements of the GIMMA project, which he said, embraced the finalisation of the GIS Training Syllabus and Curriculum, the construction of five ultra-modern posts along the Eastern and Western regions and the construction of a 70-Seater ICT laboratory at the Training School at Assin Foso.

He, therefore, expressed appreciation to the EU and its member countries for their continuous support.

Mr Henry Quartey, the Deputy Minister for the Interior, said the Government fully identified with, and shared the commitment of the International Community and supported the principle that humane and orderly migration benefited the host and origin countries as well as migrants.

'Government, therefore, views the commitment and support of our development partners as crucial in the fight against irregular migration through burden sharing to effectively manage migration in our mutual interests,' he said.

Ms Sylvia Lopez-Ekra, the Chief of Mission at the International Organisation for Migration, commended the EU and reminded the GIS of the need for the application of proper care in handling the equipment to serve its intended purposes.

The donated IT equipment and vehicles would be used at the GIS Headquarters, Kotoka International Airport and the Aflao, Elubo and Paga borders.

GNA

By Kwamina Tandoh/Jamila Abubakar, GNA
Microphone and US Flag View Photos

In the Democratic Weekly Address, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) characterized the American Health Care Act as cruel and argued, Nobody should be penalized just because they got sick. Or for being a woman. Or because they were born with a rare condition.

Gillibrand was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are her words:

Hi, Im New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Like millions of moms all across America, I celebrated Mothers Day with my family this weekend. And with the debate happening on Capitol Hill right now over the future of health care Mothers Day is making me think a lot about how fortunate I am:

My husband and I are healthy, and we have two healthy kids  and we have a healthcare plan that will protect my family if any of us ever get sick.

But let me tell you one of the reasons why this is so personal to me.

I have two girlfriends, both my age, who survived cancer this year.

Both are moms of young girls, and both moms had the insurance and care they needed.

Both would not be with us today if they didnt have access to the surgery and chemotherapy that saved their lives.

Those kids need their moms on this Mothers Day  like all kids.

I understand that for too many, healthcare is still too expensive, and we should work to make Obamacare more affordable but today, they can go see a doctor and get treatment if, God forbid, they ever get sick.

You probably know people who have the same fears or experiences of being diagnosed with life-threatening diseases without access to care. Or maybe thats similar to your own story.

Its time to stop the nonsense, and put people over politics.

I look at my kids, and I dont know what I would do if our family was going to be on the losing end of this cruel bill.

Please imagine how heartbreaking it would be if your child was sick and needed care, but couldnt afford the medicine, the treatment, or the surgery that was needed to save their lives.

Its unbearable to consider, and it goes against our American values.

A lot of us just watched Jimmy Kimmel painfully tell the story of his son Billys open heart surgery.

Nobody should be penalized just because they got sick. Or for being a woman. Or because they were born with a rare condition. But if we dont stop this bill from passing the Senate, heres what could happen to millions of people:

If youre over 50, but too young for Medicare, insurance companies could start charging you five times as much as they charge younger Americans.

And states could be allowed to tell insurance companies to ignore that limit and charge even more.

Thats an age tax  and it just isnt right.

Tom Price, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, recently tried to sidestep the question when he was asked if there are going to be any losers with this bill.

He refused to tell you the truth: If youre a woman watching this right now, one of the biggest losers from this bill is going to be you and your family.

This bill means that you might have to pay thousands of dollars a year, out of your own pocket, just to get maternity care and preventive care.

Thats a tax on women.

Here in the Senate, the healthcare bill is being written by 13 men. Even for Washington, thats shocking.

They may not understand how important affordable preventive care is for women. So let me tell them why its so important:

Millions of women all across America rely on their health insurance to pay for their breast exams to detect breast cancer, and their screenings for cervical cancer, every year.

Do they know how much birth control pills cost each month, or any other prescription needed for reproductive care?

Do they pay those bills? Do they realize that Planned Parenthood provides that basic care for 2.5 million people every year?

This care saves lives, whether they believe it or not.

If you dont like the sound of this bill  youre not alone.

Millions of Americans have been raising their voices and speaking out against this legislation.

Healthcare should not be for the wealthy and privileged only.

No one should be forced into bankruptcy because they are sick.

So I urge you to join with us and oppose this bill.

Write a letter to the editor, spread the word on social media, and call your representatives and tell them how this bill would hurt you. And get everyone you know to call them too.

This issue affects all of us. Please be heard!

The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
Tree Work sign View Photos

Sonora, CA  Residents with concerns about public safety due to winter storm-ravaged roads, bark beetle-killed trees and what may be a very challenging fire season are invited to a public forum this week.

Scheduled for this Thursday in downtown Sonora the event will be co-hosted by several public agencies at the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors fourth-floor chambers (2 South Green Street). While it will begin at 4 p.m., according to Stanislaus National Forest spokesperson Diana Fredlund, the forum is expected to last for at least a few hours, allowing for residents to attend it around home and family obligations.

Along with county officials, representatives from CAL Fire, the US Forest Service, the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), Caltrans, PG&E, Hetch Hetchy Water and Power, and the Bureau of Land Management will be on hand.

Members of the public are encouraged to bring their questions. Organizers say anticipate that, among specific topics being covered are updates on the local road closures, plus alternate routes and current safety precautions.

Too, tree mortality and related removal projects will be detailed for interested residents, including those where assistance is available to homeowners for removing trees and debris. CAL Fire will also discuss its defensible space inspections and what residents responsibilities are for maintaining those spaces around the home and property.
Afe Babalola University is one of the best accredited private universities in Nigeria. It offers quality academic programmes in a conducive environment. We have compiled for your attention a list of courses offered at Afe Babalola University. Each course is grouped under their corresponding faculties and colleges.

Afe Babalola University is a private university in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. It offers academic programs in six colleges. Here is a list of Afe Babalola University Accredited courses:

Faculty of Administration

- Business Administration;

- Tourism and Event Management.

READ ALSO: Unilorin cut off mark 2017/18

Faculty of Arts and Humanities

- English Language;

- History and International Studies;

- Linguistics;

- Philosophy and Religious Studies;

- Theatre Arts.

College of Engineering

- Chemical Engineering;

- Civil Engineering;

- Computer Engineering;

- Electrical /Electronic Engineering;

- Mechanical Engineering;

- Mechatronics Engineering;

- Petroleum Engineering.

College of Law

- Law.

College of Medicine and Health Sciences

- Anatomy;

- Human Nutrition and Dietetics;

- Medical Laboratory Science;

- Medicine and Surgery;

- Nursing;

- Physiology.

College of Sciences

- Biochemistry;

- Chemistry;

- Computer Science;

- Geology;

- Human Biology;

- Industrial Chemistry;

- Information and Communication Technology;

- Mathematics;

- Microbiology and Biotechnology;

- Physics;

- Plant Science;

- Sport Science;

- Statistics;

- Zoology.

College of Social and Management Sciences

- Accounting;

- Banking and Finance;

- Economics;

- Intelligence and Security Studies;

- International Relations and Diplomacy;

- Media and Communication Studies;

- Peace and Conflict Studies;

- Political Science;

- Psychology;

- Public Administration;

- Social Justice;

- Sociology.

Hope this article was useful for you. Choose the right course and invest in your future success.

READ ALSO: Joseph Ayo Babalola University school fees 2017

Source: Legit.ng
- The presidency has promised to give the 2017 budget the urgency it merits

- They promised by signing it into law immediately it is transmitted to it.

- It assured that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo would not hesitate to perform the all-important ritual

The presidency has promised that the 2017 budget will be signed immediately by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo when it gets to them.

According to a report by Vanguard, the presidency assured that it would not hesitate to perform the all-important ritual.

The presidency however stated that the Clerk of the National Assembly was yet to transmit the document, even as it says it is anxiously waiting for it to arrive at Aso Rock.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has the full powers constitutionally to assent to the bill

The National Assembly passed the Appropriation Bill into law on Thursday, May 11 after much delay that held up the document for five months.

READ ALSO: Senate investigate banks over $62b alleged fraud

Details of the budget showed that N434.4 billion was appropriated for statutory transfers to the National Judicial Council (N100 billion); Niger Delta Development Commission (N64.02 billion); Universal Basic Education (N95.2 billion); National Assembly (N125 billion); Public Complaints Commission (N4 billion); INEC (N45 billion); and National Human Rights Commission (N1.2 billion).

Legit.ng gathered that a top presidency source assured Nigerians of speedy presidential assent to the bill especially as the life of the 2016 budget had elapsed early last week.

The budget has not been officially transmitted to us yetso until it is transmitted formally by the Clerk of the National Assembly we should not be discussing signing.

But the presidency is keenly awaiting the budget and we have assurances that it is on its way. We shall act with urgency and promptly when we get it, the source said.

Legit.ng had reported on Tuesday, May 9 that the Senate had received the 2017 budget report after much delay.

President Buhari and Acting President Osinbajo has worked seamlessly despite the president's illness

READ ALSO: Buharis top aide in trouble as plot to stop Osinbajo from acting revealed

The 2017 appropriation report was laid before the upper house of legislature by chairman of the senate committee on appropriations Senator Goje during plenary on Tuesday.

The budget had been expected to be passed last week, before Friday, May 5, when the 2016 budget officially expired but was stepped down by the upper house of legislature.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerians sharing their opinion on whether the Senate should be scrapped or not.

Source: Legit.ng
- The Nigerian Army troop arrested a Boko Haram kingpin

- The 35 year old suspected terrorist is popularly known as pepper

- For more reports on Boko Haram, please visit: https://www.legit.ng/tag/boko-haram.html

The Nigerian army troop stationed at Forward Operation Base, Potiskum has arrested a suspected notorious Boko Haram commander in Yobe state.

The suspect, a 35-year-old man called Abubaka Adamu, popularly known as 'Pepper' was arrested around New Prison area, Potiskum, Potiskum local government area, Yobe state.

Legit.ng learnt that Adamu was arrested on Sunday, May 14, by the Troops of 233 Battalion, 27 Task Force Brigade, of the Nigerian army.

READ ALSO: Presidency 2019: Peter Obi pays special visit to Obasanjo at Otta farm

Adamu was arrested on May 14 by army troop and vigilantes.

According to a statement by the Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman, Adamu was arrested with the help of local vigilantes.

Preliminary investigation shows that the suspected terrorist hailed from Yerimara village, Potiskum LGA and that he has participated in carrying out attacks and other terrorists activities in the north east. Investigation is still ongoing.

In a related development, combined troops of 231and 331 Battalions foiled an armed robbery attempt at Chanchara village, Shani LGA. They recovered an AK-47 Rifle, Machetes and ammunition.

READ ALSO: 11 crucial facts about Buhari's corruption war - Saraki

Meanwhile, eleven farmers have been killed in Amarwa village in Konduga LGA, after Boko Haram insurgents reportedly stormed the village in search of food.

Legit.ng learnt that the village, which was about 16 kilometers away from Maiduguri metropolis was very close to Alau Dam which was heavily guarded but no help came from there during the attack.

Watch Legit.ng video of survivors of Boko Haram talking about the horrors inflicted by the terrorists:

Source: Legit.ng
- A Nigerian has emerged best graduating student from the Lincoln University in Pennsylvanian

- Victor Pere made a straight A average in computer science from the university

- He hails from Igbedi in Bayelsa state

A Nigerian from Igbedi in Bayelsa state has emerged the best graduating student from the Lincoln University in Pennysylvania.

Victor Pere made a straight A average in computer science from the university.

Speaking at the 158th graduation ceremony, the star boy said there is no limit in life to what any individual wants to achieve.

Life as we know it has no limits, Pere said.

READ ALSO: Finally! Soldiers arrest notorious Boko Haram leader known as 'pepper' (Photo)

Pere said although he had challenged of late fee payment, he never allowed such issues blur his vision towards achieving his focus in life.

He also informed his classmates that he love his school and has learnt that people create their own future and jobs.

A Nigerian has emerged best graduating student from the Lincoln University in Pennsylvanian

Pere said: It is one thing to dream and another to achieve. I loved the Lincoln experience, he said.

READ ALSO: Doctor allegedly sneaks out after woman died during delivery at Lagos hospital

Leave a legacy behind just like the ones you met, but even greater than that, discover yourself," he added.

Likening his life to that of the biblical Joseph, Pere said: It was the life of a dreamer. One who knew where he would be, but had no idea what the process would look like.

There are people who have sacrificed beyond measure to make sure we are better than they are now. There are those whose dream is that you be something. That is enough motivation to continue on your dreams and to continue with the fire and passion for it," the fresh graduate said.

The event was attended by over 400 fresh graduates.

READ ALSO: 11 crucial facts about Buhari's corruption war - Saraki

The first president of Nigeria late Nnamdi Azikiwe attended the Lincoln University which was founded in 1854 as Americas first degree-granting historically black college and university.

The institution was originally chartered as Ashmun Institute but was renamed Lincoln University in 1866 in honor of president Abraham Lincoln.

Watch this Legit.ng video of Nigerians lamenting JAMB registration hassles below:

Source: Legit.ng
- A Nigerian political party has asked Abuja High Court to sack Buhari and Osinbajo

- The party, Hope Democratic Party (HDP) also told the court to nullify the 2015 presidential election won by the All Progressives Congress (APC)

- HDP said that APC violated campaign expenses limit during the polls by the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

One of the political parties that contested 2015 general election, Hope Democratic Party (HDP) has filed a suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja to nullify the 2015 presidential election won by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Legit.ng gathered that the court was also asked to order President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to quit office as well as dissolve the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

READ ALSO: Confusion as Fayose removes PDP logo from campaign office, billboards

The legal request was based on the ground of violation of campaign expenses limit during the polls by the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Abuja Court asked to sack President Buhari and Osinbajo

Both parties were said to have breached sections 3, 14, 15, 30 and 139 of the 1999 Constitution and sections 91 and 92 of the Electoral Act 2010 on the N1 billion campaign expenses limit.

The court action, with reference No. FHC/ACT/CS/405/2017, was instituted by Barrister Udegbunam Emmanuel on behalf of the plaintiff, one of the political parties in the country.

The defendants are APC, President Buhari, Independent National Electoral Commission, PDP and Prof. Osinbajo as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th defendants respectively.

The case was predicated on the recently released findings and report of the Independent National Electoral Commission on the 2015 general election review, which reportedly indicted APC and PDP for exceeding the N1 billion campaign expenses and showed specifically that APC expended about N500 billion and PDP almost N1 trillion on the poll.

The plaintiff asked the Court to determine whether by virtue of sections 3,14,15,30 and 139 of the 1999 constitution and sections 91 and 92 of the Electoral Act 2010, the May 29, 2015 inauguration of a four-year tenure government under President Buhari cannot be abridged, questioned and dissolved following the reported revelation of the INEC that the 2015 presidential election based on which the government was constituted, was predicated on violations of the laws limiting presidential campaign expenses not above or beyond N1 billion.

The court was also asked to determine whether by virtue of the provisions of the law conferred on the court under section 6(6), 14, 15 and 139 of the 1999 constitution and section 90 of the Electoral Act 2010, the Presidential Election of 2015 based on proven illegalities established by INEC was not liable to be investigated and probed and for the court to dissolve same based on the breach of the provisions of the law.

The HDP therefore sought court declaration that by virtue of the 1st, 2nd and 4th defendants reported violation of the law on campaign expenses limit, the inauguration of the APC Federal Government under Buhari was unlawful and dissolvable.

The party also applied for an express order of the court abridging the four-year tenure of the APC-led government under Buhari and dissolving the Federal Executive Council to make way for early fresh election.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Again, Nigeria inflation declines

In the alternative, the party said by the doctrine of necessity, the court should order immediate constitution of an all-inclusive government of national unity to be headed by its presidential candidate in the 2015 election, Chief Albert Ambrose Owuru, being the most progressive, revolutionary and visionary candidate at the election pending the conduct another election by INEC.

No date has yet been fixed for hearing of the suit.

Meanwhile, the man in the Legit.ng video below says President Buhari is the general overseer of corruption.

Source: Legit.ng
- Three female suicide bombers have attacked a Borno community

- The bombers attack killed two while seven persons sustained serious injury

- Two of the bombers were said to have rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives and killed two brothers who had retired for the night

Three female suicide bombers have attacked a herding community in northeast Nigeria, killing two people and injuring seven others, according to a village elder and a civilian militia member, Ali Musa.

Vanguard reports that Ali Musa said the trio, believed to have been sent by Boko Haram jihadists, struck at Shuwari Buri village, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri at around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Monday May 15.

READ ALSO: Abuja Court asked to sack President Buhari and Osinbajo

Two of them rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives, killing two brothers who had retired for the night, he added.

The third bomber detonated her explosives among residents who had gathered, injuring seven.

Legit.ng gathered that the three bombers had earlier told villagers they were travelers and asked them for accommodation for the night. But they were refused on security grounds.

Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia assisting the military with security, gave an identical account.

Shuwari Buri is in the Konduga area, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings and gun attacks.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations.

Many of the bombers have been women and young girls. The phenomenon has increased as the militants lost captured territory to the military due to a sustained counter-insurgency that began in early 2015.

The rebels push for a hardline Islamic state in the region has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria alone and displaced more than 2.6 million others.

Civilians are still facing the fall-out from the conflict: 5.1 million people are severely food insecure and dependent on handouts from aid agencies.

Meanwhile, at least five people have been reportedly killed and four others injured after suspected Boko Haram terrorists attacked an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Borno state on Monday night, vigilante sources said.

Three female bombers stormed an unofficial IDP camp in Konduga town on Monday night, killing themselves along with two others while injuring four women.

A rescue worker told SaharaReporters by phone that it occurred about 9:20 p.m. around Bakin Kogi area of Konduga town.

READ ALSO: Biafra agitation: Tension as Nnamdi Kanu shakes up IPOB leadership

"They blew up themselves simultaneously. Two people died and four were seriously injured. It could have been worse, he said.

He told our correspondent that the four injured women have been evacuated to the Borno State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri where they are currently receiving treatment.

Source: Legit.ng
- The federal government is not resting on its oars in its fight against corruption

- The government says despite its successes in the anti-graft war, there will be more prosecutions

- This was made known by the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed

The federal government has warned looters of the national treasury that there will be more prosecutions despite its successes in the anti-graft war.

This was made known by the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed at the mid-term town-hall meeting of the federal government in Abuja on Tuesday, May 16.

The event which had nine ministers in attendance, was attended by traditional rulers, women and youth groups, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other pressure groups.

Minister Mohammed vowed that there will be more prosecutions in the federal government's fight against graft

READ ALSO: Senate summons Amaechi for omitting eastern rail lines from upgrade

Alhaji Mohammed said: "We have taken on corruption at its core. There are more prosecutions and there will be more convictions for public sector corruption than Nigeria has ever seen.

"We have acted to address the leakages in government spending that make corruption possible. We are restoring the sanctity of our judicial system."

The minister stated that the federal government is already implementing an economic recovery and growth plan designed to reset the Nigerian economy and remove the country's reliance on oil production and oil revenues forever.

"We must be able to own our own future. We cannot be a hostage to oil price or production levels," he added.

Cross section of ministers at the event

READ ALSO: Nigerians react after Pastor Adeboye asked them if they've prayed for Buhari

Meanwhile, the minister of agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh has raised an alarm that eight ships filled with low quality rice are on their way to Nigeria from Singapore.

Ogbeh who made the comment at the town hall meeting, however said government is ready to prevent the goods from entering Nigeria.

"Information reaching us indicates that 8 ships loaded with low quality rice are heading to Benin Republic to enter Nigeria, but we are waiting for them," Ogbeh said.

Watch the Legit.ng TV video below of the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi talking about the achievements of the federal government.

Source: Legit.ng
- The EFCC has won the case to bring Fred Ajudua to trial over an alleged $8.4m fraud

- The man referred to as a serial fraudster had tried to quash his trial but lost

- Justice Oyefeso of the Lagos state High Court sitting in Ikeja, on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, dismissed his application

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced that the alleged serial fraudster, Fred Ajudua will now face trial following his failed attempt to dismiss an $8.4m fraud case.

On Tuesday, May 16, Justice J.E. Oyefeso of the Lagos state High Court, Ikeja, dismissed an application filed by Ajudua, to quash his trial.

The EFCC will now re-arraign him on an amended 28-count charge bordering on conspiracy and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of $8.4m.

Fred Ajudua in court

The alleged fraudster along with others who are still at large is facing trial for allegedly collecting various sums of money from Lt. General Ishaya Bamaiyi ( retd.), while they were both in custody at the Kirikiri Prison, Lagos.

The EFCC said:

The defendant and his accomplices had allegedly approached Bamaiyi, who was facing trial for the attempted murder of Alex Ibru, the late Publisher of The Guardian Newspaper, and assured him that they could secure his freedom.

This is not the first time he is facing trial for fraud

Justice Oyefeso dismissed the application to stop the trial on the grounds that it lacked merit.

The judge said: "I have concluded on the fact of this case. The application lacks merit and is hereby dismissed."

The defendant pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to him. Justice Oyefeso ruled that defendant should continue to enjoy the bail earlier granted by the Court of Appeal.

Ajudua pleaded not guilty in court on Tuesday, May 16

READ ALSO: EFCC reveals name of governor who built $3m hotel with Paris Club refund

The case was then adjourned till July, 12 and 13, 2017 for trial.

Meanwhile, the EFCC has also rearraigned a former minister of aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode before a Lagos division of the Federal High Court.

Fani-Kayode was rearraigned alongside Nenadi Usman, a former minister of state for finance on a 17-count charge of money laundering and alleged diversion of N4.6 billion.

Watch this Legit.ng video of Fani-Kayode speaking on his discussion with President Buhari:

Source: Legit.ng
- Tukur Buratai, the chief of army staff, has warned soldiers of involving in politics

- The army chief also raises coup alarm

- Consequently, the issue has been raised with Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo

The chief of army staff, Tukur Buratai, has warned army officials to stay off politics and politically related activities.

The chief said this on Tuesday, May 16, in a statement issued by the Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, a brigadier general.

He said: This is to inform the public that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Nigerian Army, has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts.

The army chief warned all officers and soldiers interested in politics to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith

READ ALSO: Blood bath in Ijebu Ode as Imam, wife, 4 children assassinated

Premium Times reports that although the spokesperson did not disclose the political reasons, but military sources said that the Army was disturbed by rumours of a coup being planned by junior officers.

A top military official also told the news outlet that Buratai, had raised the issue with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

It was also reported that the coup rumour was the reason for the postings of top military generals last week.

READ ALSO: Price of rice falls in April

The army chief warned all officers and soldiers interested in politics to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith.

Any officer or soldier of Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conducts such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame, the army spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian army troop stationed at Forward Operation Base, Potiskum has arrested a suspected notorious Boko Haram commander in Yobe state.

The suspect, a 35-year-old man called Abubaka Adamu, popularly known as 'Pepper' was arrested around New Prison area, Potiskum, Potiskum local government area, Yobe state.

Legit.ng learnt that Adamu was arrested on Sunday, May 14, by the Troops of 233 Battalion, 27 Task Force Brigade, of the Nigerian army.

However, watch Legit.ng video of survivors of Boko Haram talking about the horrors inflicted by the terrorists:

Source: Legit.ng
Season 3, Episode 6: Off Brand

With your indulgence, let me start on a somewhat pedantic note. The man who appeared in that exuberant TV ad for TV ads at the end of this episode was Saul Goodman, a guy who should not be confused with Saul Goodman. Saul Goodman is an attorney with a side order of huckster. With Saul Goodman, the huckster is the whole meal. The two should not be confused.

I mention this only because Ive lamented before that the namesake of this show was yet to appear, and as far as Im concerned, that absent streak  think Lou Gehrig in reverse  continues. If there is any doubt that the writers of Better Call Saul understand that they are tantalizing us here, consider the episodes closing line.

Its just a name, Jimmy tells Kim.

Oh no its not! The heartless teases of the shows writing room are basically telling us: Yeah, were pretty committed to drawing out this whole Waiting for Goodman thing. And we are amused by your impatience.

That said, we have before us a slightly new and promisingly upbeat iteration of Jimmy McGill, a man who has been given a 12-month suspension for his putatively felonious behavior. In Kims closing argument, she gets to the heart of the matter by saying that the destruction of evidence charge involving the cassette of Jimmys secretly taped confession is nonsense. Why?
Millennials have enough problems as it is. Must they give up their avocado toast, too?

In an interview with Australias 60 Minutes on Monday, Tim Gurner, a 35-year-old real estate mogul in Melbourne, suggested that young adults would be more likely to be able to buy a home if they curbed their discretionary spending, citing that expensive brunch item.

When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasnt buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each, he said. Were at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day; they want travel to Europe every year.

The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, he said, adding that they saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder.
The issue, and the principle at stake, has put abortion rights supporters in the unusual position of opposing Medicaid funding for family planning services.

The Texas program, now called Healthy Texas Women, provides contraception and screenings for cancer, H.I.V. and sexually transmitted diseases, and as of last year, screening and treatment for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, to women ages 15 to 44, with income up to 200 percent of the poverty level  about $23,760 for an individual  who do not qualify for Medicaid. It used to be what is known as a Medicaid waiver program, financed 90 percent by the federal government and 10 percent by the state. About half the states have similar programs for low-income women not otherwise eligible for Medicaid, Ms. Nash said.

But Texas turned its version into an entirely state-financed program in 2013, when it cut out providers that perform or promote elective abortions, or contract or affiliate with providers that do so.

Other states have recently expressed a willingness to forfeit Medicaid funds if doing so allows them to block Planned Parenthood from receiving tax dollars. This year, Missouri ended its Medicaid waiver program for family planning services and instead set up a state-financed program that excludes abortion providers. Iowa is planning to do the same.

The reduced funding in Texas has led to a drop in women receiving services through the program. The Texas program had an average monthly enrollment of about 79,000 last year, according to the state, down from 126,000 before it cut out Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. In the first 18 months after the change  which resulted in a loss of $35 million a year in federal Medicaid funds  thousands of women stopped getting long-acting birth control, and Medicaid pregnancies increased by 27 percent, according to a research paper published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Bishop Daily was named as a defendant in dozens of suits filed by people who claimed that Father Geoghan, who was later defrocked, had molested them in his three decades as a priest. In 2002, the Boston archdiocese settled the Geoghan lawsuits for millions of dollars.

Father Geoghan, who was accused of molesting almost 150 boys, was convicted of groping a 10-year-old boy and was serving a sentence of nine to 10 years in a Massachusetts state prison when he was strangled by another inmate in 2003.

Asked in a deposition why he never investigated whether Father Geoghan had molested children beyond those of a family he had met with in 1982, Bishop Daily replied: Im not a policeman. I am a shepherd. I am a pastor who has to go after the Lords sheep and find them and bring them back to the fold and give them the kind of guidance and discipline them in such a way that they will come back.

James M. OToole, a history professor at Boston College, said of Bishop Daily by email that without excusing anything that he did or did not do, it seems to me that at some level he simply did not know what to do.

Should Daily have done more? Mr. OToole continued. Obviously. But there was something in the way that he and other priests of his generation had been trained that prevented them from recognizing the larger patterns of abuse.

Each case seems to have been handled individually. Only later did the full, systemic dimensions of abuse become clear to everyone. For that reason, though there was surely culpability on his part and that of other bishops, there was for me also a kind of sadness to it  that a fundamentally good man did such a tragically poor job in addressing this issue.

Thomas Vose Daily was born on Sept. 23, 1927, in Belmont, Mass., a Boston suburb, to John Daily, an official of the Knights of Columbus, and the former Mary McBride.
ALBANY  As the latest ethical scandal swirled around the State Capitol, New York lawmakers on Monday faced a barrage of questions about the propriety, and even legality, of a raft of questionable stipends given to seven senators.

The senators had served as vice chairmen or vice chairwomen of their committees yet were paid as though they were chairmen  a maneuver that enabled them to receive tens of thousands of dollars earmarked for others.

The senators were falsely identified in payroll information sent to the comptroller as chairmen or chairwomen. The actual chairmen and chairwomen  all Republicans  earned larger stipends for other leadership positions; they are allowed only one stipend payment, commonly known as a lulu. Under state law, chairmen of Senate committees explicitly receive stipends; vice chairmen do not.

On Monday, one of the seven senators, Patty Ritchie, a Republican from Watertown, near Lake Ontario, said she would consider returning some of the $15,000 she was paid this year after being misidentified as the chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee. Another senator, Pamela Helming, a Republican from Central New York, told local reporters she would not cash the checks, which were sent in March and April.
At the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, apartment Officer Ali shares with his sister, a welcome home sign in large multicolored letters still hung on his bedroom wall, and a slightly shriveled red-white-and-blue balloon clung to its last gasp of buoyancy. Their apartment was filled with mementos from Officer Alis military career: a plaque for outstanding service in the fight against the Islamic State, a collage of photographs from his deployment to Afghanistan in 2013 and his Combat Action Badge, awarded to soldiers engaged in ground combat, which he earned while deployed to Iraq during the surge in 2008.

At the moment, he was preoccupied with passing the Police Departments sergeants exam, having fallen behind in his studies during his long deployment to Kuwait. As an officer in the Army Reserve, Officer Ali was granted a leave of absence from the department for the duration of his mobilization.

He spoke earnestly about how much he enjoyed making people feel safe while patrolling the subway. In one case, he said, he chased down a thief who had stolen a smartphone from a mute woman who communicated using hand gestures.

All I cared about was that we were able to help this girl, Officer Ali said. Its a true euphoric feeling of doing what I signed up to do.

Officer Alis detention that night in late April was not the first time he was sent to secondary inspection. Officers took him aside and checked his identity on a previous trip. He said he had no problem with the polite and expeditious way they had handled him then.

I understand there are folks out there who might do bad things who have a name similar to mine, said Officer Ali, 34, who came to the United States with his parents from Bangladesh when he was 3 and grew up in Woodside, Queens. He enlisted in the Navy before he turned 18 and, after graduating from college, was commissioned in the Army.
His inability to focus his attention makes it hard for him to learn and master facts. He is ill informed about his own policies and tramples his own talking points. It makes it hard to control his mouth. On an impulse, he will promise a tax reform when his staff has done little of the actual work.

Second, most people of drinking age have achieved some accurate sense of themselves, some internal criteria to measure their own merits and demerits. But Trump seems to need perpetual outside approval to stabilize his sense of self, so he is perpetually desperate for approval, telling heroic fabulist tales about himself.

In a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care, he told Time. A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber, he told The Associated Press, referring to his joint session speech.

By Trumps own account, he knows more about aircraft carrier technology than the Navy. According to his interview with The Economist, he invented the phrase priming the pump (even though it was famous by 1933). Trump is not only trying to deceive others. His falsehoods are attempts to build a world in which he can feel good for an instant and comfortably deceive himself.

He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought hed be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.
So here it is: Voting fraud is extremely rare, and in-person fraud  the only kind that would be caught by voter ID laws  is essentially nonexistent, as study after study has shown. And as for those foreigners, a new survey of local election officials in 42 jurisdictions turned up a total of about 30 cases of suspected noncitizen voting last November  out of more than 23 million votes.

Meanwhile, voter ID and other suppression laws keep losing in court, where judges demand actual evidence in support of claims. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the decision of a federal appeals court last year striking down as unconstitutional North Carolinas stunningly harsh anti-voter law, which required photo identification at the polls, cut early voting and eliminated same-day registration, among other measures. That decision found Republican state legislators had deliberately targeted African-Americans with almost surgical precision. A similarly severe Texas law was struck down by a federal judge, also for intentionally discriminating against minorities.

The purported purpose of Mr. Trumps commission  to restore confidence in elections  is laughable, not only because Republicans have spent the past decade sowing seeds of doubt with hyped-up tales of fraud. In reality, voters confidence is mainly affected by whether their preferred candidate wins, not by the existence of voter ID or other laws.

Robert Bauer, co-chairman of the last presidential commission on elections, said Mr. Trumps commission is not intended to bolster confidence, but to undermine it, and on the strength of this program, to advance reforms that are costly, unnecessary and a burden on lawful voting by eligible voters. Real reforms should include improved technology, more opportunities for early voting, and better-trained poll workers, as a comprehensive 2014 report produced by Mr. Bauer, a Democrat, and his Republican colleague, Benjamin Ginsberg, found.

The report also showed that bipartisanship is central to any credible effort to fix Americas voting systems. In contrast, Mr. Trump has put his commission in the hands of Kris Kobach, a hard-line conservative from Kansas who is the nations most aggressive peddler of the voter-fraud myth.
He went on, though, to emphasize that the attack had demonstrated the degree to which cybersecurity has become a shared responsibility between tech companies and customers, the latter of whom must update their systems if they want to be protected. He also pointed his finger at intelligence services, since the latest vulnerability appeared to have been leaked from the National Security Agency.

On Monday, a Microsoft spokesman declined to comment beyond Mr. Smiths post.

To prepare for fallout with customers, Judson Althoff, a Microsoft executive vice president, sent an email to the companys field sales team on Sunday encouraging them to be supportive of businesses targeted by the attack, or even those who were simply aware of it.

Our key direction to you is to remember that we are in this with our customers  we are trusted advisers, counselors, and suppliers to them, he wrote. More than technical guidance, I want you to make sure you are spending the time needed to understand the concerns they have and that they know we are here to help.

While Microsofts reputation has suffered in the past because of security problems, the companys stock is barely down from the close of trading on Thursday, just before reports of the ransomware.

People have extremely short memories when it comes to this, said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research. I think, realistically, people will move on pretty quickly.
When I think about visual displays meant to intimidate and shock, I was thinking about cross burnings. But so many torches all together in a public park next to a Confederate symbol is reminiscent of that approach.

Since the weekend, youve been on the receiving end of anti-Semitic tweets and online abuse. What do you make of these, and how do you respond to it?

I think that this is similar to the torches, in that theyre both efforts to intimidate and silence people.

Here in Charlottesville, we had a very full, transparent public debate on the issues of these statues. There were different opinions. We had a divided vote on whether to move one of the statues. We had a Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces that held 17 public meetings and gave us over a dozen recommendations on how we could change our narrative in Charlottesville and tell the full story of race through our public spaces. Weve done many things like this. Weve put $80,000 toward the rehabilitation of an African-American cemetery that fell into disrepair.

What I witness nowadays with the demonstration and the anonymous trolls is a bullying, simplistic approach meant to silence anyone who has views they dont agree with through intimidation. The key thing is not to be intimidated and to stand up for American principles like freedom of speech, religious toleration, checks and balances, and civic dialogue.

Does this feel personal?

I dont actually think its personal  I think its a pattern that goes back thousands of years. It has rightly been relegated to the trash heap of history.

As painful as it is for people to read these tweets, I see them as the last gasps of a failing, retrograde, toxic element in American politics that knows that its failing. And thats why theyre so angry. But that doesnt absolve us of the responsibility to speak out against it, which is one of the reasons Ive been calling out the cowardice in these anonymous tweets selectively.
Mrs. Clinton went on to praise the work of several grass-roots groups that have emerged as part of a broad liberal movement opposed to Mr. Trump and his policies. Onward Together will support those groups, she said, though she did not describe what form the assistance would take.

Onward Together is registered as a 501(c)(4) group, the Internal Revenue Service designation for so-called social welfare nonprofits, which are often cited for a rise in dark money in politics because of their ability to protect donor anonymity.

Mrs. Clinton said that Howard Dean, who has been a presidential candidate, the Vermont governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, would be involved, though she did not describe what role he would play.

According to a mission statement posted on its website, Onward Together aims to advance progressive values by encouraging political engagement.

Theres no telling what we can achieve if we approach the fights ahead with the passion and determination we feel today, and bring that energy into 2017, 2018, 2020 and beyond, the statement says.
WASHINGTON  The news that President Trump disclosed highly classified information about the Islamic State during a meeting with Russian officials, jeopardizing an allys intelligence source, has raised interest in legal issues surrounding disclosures of classified information.

Who sets the rules for declassifications or disclosures?



The classification system is regulated by executive orders, which presidents periodically update and replace. The current version is Executive Order 13526, which President Barack Obama signed in late 2009. Under its rules, original classification authorities  like the heads of various departments and agencies  can normally classify and declassify information owned by their organizations. They can then authorize its disclosure to someone who has the proper security clearance and is deemed to need to know it. But the president oversees all the agencies and can also directly exercise his powers.

Did Mr. Trump have legal authority to disclose the information?

Yes. The designation of information as a restricted national security secret is considered part of the presidents constitutional powers as commander in chief. Because the classified information system was not established and is not regulated by congressional statutes, Mr. Trump has the power to declassify or disclose anything he wants.

The classification system is not based on a law, said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists. It is an expression of presidential authority, and that means that the president and his designees decide what is classified, and they have the essentially unlimited authority to declassify at will. The president defines the terms of the security clearance system and the parameters that determine who may be given access to classified information.
TULSA, Okla.  Betty Jo Shelby, the white Tulsa police officer charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of an unarmed black driver in September, testified on Monday that during the encounter, she relied on her training in how to deal with potentially dangerous suspects.

I have all the indications that he has a gun, Officer Shelby said under questioning by the prosecutor, Kevin Gray, of her response when the driver, Terence Crutcher, failed to follow her orders to stop moving toward his car. I do not pull a Taser out, which is less lethal. I meet a gun with a gun.

In this situation, though, Mr. Gray said, youre not meeting a gun with a gun. Youre meeting a guess about a gun with a gun.

Responding to questions from her lawyer, Shannon McMurray, Officer Shelby testified that she thought Mr. Crutcher had a gun when he reached into a car window, and that she had been trained to shoot before he could take a shot.
For months, Washington has been bracing for North Korea to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, waiting to see how close it could get to the United States and how aggressively President Trump should react.

Now, it looks as if Kim Jong-un, the Norths 33-year-old leader, has a different plan  one intended to improve his ability to strike the United States without setting off an American military response.

Instead of going for distance, he has stepped up the testing of missiles that fly high into space  on Sunday, one reached a height of more than 1,300 miles  and then plunge down through the atmosphere, mimicking the kind of fiery re-entries a nuclear warhead would undergo if fired over a much longer distance. Instead, the payload lands in waters a few hundred miles or so from North Koreas coast.

They can simulate an ICBM warhead on this kind of trajectory, David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., said in an interview. Its a kind of steppingstone.
WASHINGTON  The White House ran into static with the Israelis on Monday on a series of small, but sensitive, diplomatic issues, ranging from the legal status of the Western Wall to President Trumps repeated promise to move the American Embassy.

The fuss came a week before Mr. Trump was scheduled to visit Israel.

During a meeting between American and Israeli officials to discuss the visit, an American official reportedly told his Israeli counterparts that the Western Wall, one of the holiest prayer sites for Jews, was in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and not under the jurisdiction of the Israelis.

The exchange, which was reported by Channel 2 TV in Israel, came after the Israelis asked whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could accompany Mr. Trump on a visit to the wall. The American official told the Israelis that because the site was not part of Israel, the Israeli prime minister was not welcome to join the president on what was a private visit.

If true, the comments were not authorized by the White House, said Michael Short, a spokesman for the White House. They do not reflect the U.S. position, and certainly not the presidents position.
A Man and His Apparitions

KOMA, THE GHOST FESTIVAL

Performed May 11 through 13 at St. Marks Church, Manhattan.

Walking past St. Marks Church in the East Village last Thursday night, pedestrians slowed to look at the man in billowy white on top of a trailer, raising a white flag. It was Koma Otake, in the closing moments of his new work, The Ghost Festival. Having spent the past hour summoning spirits, he looked like an apparition himself.

Koma, known by his first name, built a career over four decades with his wife, Eiko Otake; until recently, Eiko & Koma, as they call themselves, were best known as a pair, an inseparable unit, celebrated for meditative, sculptural performances that evoked a vastness of space and time.

But in the past several years, their paths have diverged, with Eiko developing her site-specific series A Body in Places, and Koma nursing a foot injury. The Ghost Festival, presented by Danspace Project, is his first multidisciplinary solo work.

As a soloist, Koma revels freely in qualities that were more concealed in the couples collaborations, just as Eiko has on her own: a whimsy, slyness and almost slapstick sensibility. Its a pleasure to see this other side come out of hiding.
A basement in Newton, Mass., has yielded a trove of forgotten photos and blueprints by the photographer Edward Steichen and the Art Deco architect Eugene Schoen that were used to plan a worlds fair pavilion that promoted engineering marvels and natural wonders across New York state.

In 1933, Steichen and Schoen produced the material while collaborating on New Yorks exhibition rooms at the Century of Progress worlds fair in Chicago. The paperwork, rolled up for decades, is slated to be auctioned on June 4 at Tremont Auctions in Newton Upper Falls, Mass., in two batches that are estimated to bring $7,500 each.

The pavilion, part of the fairgrounds sprawling Hall of States complex, was lined in Steichens black and white photos of Manhattan, Albany and forested state parks. Nearby hung the designer and architect Joseph Urbans murals of skyscraper girders and Niagara Falls. The Steichen prints in the auction lots, which have labels from the Steichen studio, include views  many abstracted  of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, the George Washington Bridge, Lower Manhattan waterfronts, as well as the colonnaded State Education Building in Albany and some lumberjacks in a pine grove at the shores of Lake George. Handwritten notes indicate where the images were meant to be arranged along the walls, and the blueprints from Schoens office have minute details of joists and wiring.

Douglas W. Stinson, an owner of Tremont Auctions, said that the Steichen prints may have been used to create a full-scale mock-up for the room.
Mr. Cosbys interview follows a statement last month by one of his lawyers, who indicated a new strategy to change the optics for a defendant who she said many people have already decided is guilty of abusing women. That interview coincided with the release of a supportive statement by one of Mr. Cosbys daughters, and another, written interview by Mr. Cosby that he gave to BlackPressUSA, in which he discussed his blindness.

In the radio interview, in which he described his experience during the past two years as an attack on him, and nefarious, Mr. Cosby said that it might have been partly motivated by racism and partly by some kind of revenge.

When you look at the power structure and when you look at individuals, there are some people who can very well be motivated by whether or not theyre going to work or whether or not they might be able to get back at someone, he said.

A good portion of the interview was spent discussing matters not directly related to the criminal case, such as the issue of whether Mr. Cosby intends to perform again some day. (He would like to.) But Mr. Cosby did not address in any detail why his accusers should be mistrusted or clarify who he felt may be acting out of revenge or racism.

Mr. Cosby acknowledged that, even if exonerated at trial, public opinion was a different issue.

If a jury says so forth and so on, theres still public opinion, he said. And if the jury comes for the other side of the so forth and so on, its still public opinion. So I think its something that you never will be able to satisfy all minds and all behaviors. I know the side that Im on and the side that Im hoping for.

His wife, Camille, has attended none of the pretrial hearings in Pennsylvania over the past year and a half, during which Mr. Cosby has sat largely silent at the front of the court. It is not clear whether she will attend the trial.
SHAKE IT UP

Great American Writing on Rock and Pop From Elvis to Jay Z

Edited by Jonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar

601 pages. Library of America. $40.

When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, there were three basic reactions among word people. One: This is a coup for sanity and wit. Two: Dylan is a genius but what he makes isnt literature, thus a category error has been made. Three: This is a spiritual disaster on par with Donald J. Trumps election.

I was in the first camp. It was a gut instinct. Id too often felt misled by the Swedish Academy, as if I were Hansel in the fairy tale, toward the well-appointed houses of glum mediocrities who wished to eat my high spirits alive. Yes, Philip Roth and Louise Gluck deserve the Nobel more. For now, Dylan will do.

The inimitable journalist Nat Hentoff wrote the liner notes for Dylans second album, The Freewheelin Bob Dylan, in 1963. (Let us pause to mourn the demise of liner notes.) These notes are the first entry in Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop From Elvis to Jay Z, edited by Jonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar.
Image Ada Calhoun Credit... Jena Cumbo

In Wedding Toasts Ill Never Give, Ada Calhoun takes a much more lighthearted approach to the toils and snares of marriage in the hazy light of midlife. Springing from a New York Times Modern Love column, Calhouns memoir reads like a series of light and funny essays, formed from original, engrossing anecdotes interspersed with somewhat more predictable life lessons. Calhoun and her husband have been married since they were in their 20s, and she writes, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be single again. When their son was a toddler, her husband confessed that he had feelings for another woman. Later, Calhoun had a brief dalliance with a handsome colleague while she was out of town on a book tour. Even so, the stakes never feel that high: The couple decide together that seeing other people is a bad idea. In spite of his own brief emotional entanglement, her husband comes across as a charming weirdo who seems just as willing to own his blind spots and weaknesses as she does.

Calhoun offers marital anecdotes rich with the alternating warmth and pathos that typify a long-lasting union: When her husband discovers her on the floor sorting Playmobil pieces from Legos and asks What are you doing? Calhoun memorably replies, A dramatization of why there are no Great American Novels by women. But her attempts to summarize the eternal themes of marriage present a jarring change in tone, one that constitutes the books weakest passages. Its as if every time we downshift from the delightfully odd specifics of Calhouns family life to the sweeping, perfume-infused inquiries of lady magazines (How might we learn to appreciate our spouses quirks in the moment?), a little angel trades in its tramp stamp for a waffle iron. But considering the fact that wedding toasts are either surprisingly moving or hopelessly dull, it probably makes sense that Calhouns extended paean to marriage is a little bit of both.

In her memoir of midlife reckoning called Love and Trouble, Claire Dederer sidesteps both theatrical prose and broad cliches in favor of frank and colorful admissions of impatience, lust and guilt. Maybe because Dederer never tries to sweeten her suffering with sentimentality, it feels less onerous to ride sidesaddle on her journey through the barren flats of holy matrimony. Dederers midlife struggle is also less focused on disappointment or frustration than it is on her own shifting identity: She feels older but still wants to be ravished. She feels liberated from outdated expectations of herself but still wants more excitement in her life. And alarmingly enough, work doesnt provide the same refuge it once did. A new inertia has overcome you, she writes. You are shaken and insecure, and simultaneously enervated. Dederer is struggling with an odd mix of writers block, midlife crisis and sexual reawakening.

Image Claire Dederer Credit... Jenny Jimenez

But just as a potential affair seems to present itself, Dederer swerves into an extended reminiscence of her reckless formative years as a sexual conquistador. These pages are more detailed than expected, and include, among other things, an elaborate map of the Seattle cool-kid hangouts from her high school years (all the dishwashers at Pizza Haven were heavy metal guitarists); a recollection of her first serious boyfriend, who had floppy Steve Prefontaine hair and manual techniques that left much to be desired; and a veritable laundry list of drugs taken, sexually transmitted diseases treated, and attempts at achieving True Lust thwarted. Dederers comical, erratic storytelling is nuanced and unpredictable, dwelling on the recklessness of youth without ever selling short the courage and daring it took to be so reckless. She brings all of the arrogance and longing of early sexual exploration to vivid life with real empathy and verve.

But theres darkness in the mix, here, too: After her mothers adult male friend climbs into her sleeping bag when she is 13 years old, her understanding of her own desire is muddled irreparably. This explains why were offered not one but two chapters that are open letters to Roman Polanski, an indulgence we might be more willing to endure if the books initial seduction werent dropped and never revisited, while another encounter in a hotel  which serves as a kind of climax to her crisis  remains unnervingly vague: A man slips into the room with me before I can stop him. Wait  who is this stranger? Is this an assault? She never explains.
TESTIMONY

By Scott Turow

485 pp. Grand Central Publishing. $28.

The Bosnian war and its aftermath is an excellent period in which to set a legal thriller because, more than 20 years after the end of that messy conflict, it is still unclear exactly who was responsible for doing what to whom. The war remains one of the bloodiest whodunits of 21st-century international relations.

The breakup of Yugoslavia, and the declaration of independence by the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, sparked interethnic carnage in which Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims butchered one another and were murdered with a brutality and complexity that horrified and baffled the outside world in equal measure. At least 100,000 people were killed, many by systematic ethnic cleansing. The fallout and legal accounting from that war continues today. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, was finally captured in Belgrade in 2008 and brought before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague. Last year, Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Scott Turow has set his latest novel, Testimony, against this background, swapping the American courtrooms of previous books like Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof for the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. The result is fast-paced, well researched and, like the background it describes, distinctly tangled. This is a crime novel that requires a level of concentration and engagement with international politics some readers may balk at.

After a successful career as a United States attorney and criminal defender, Bill ten Boom, Dutch in origin, all-American in instinct, is having a Force 12 midlife crisis. At the age of 54, he has left his home in Illinois, his wife, his family and his job, concluding that despite all his success, he has never felt fully at home with myself. At the suggestion of an old friend, a senior intelligence officer, he accepts an offer to work for the I.C.C. at The Hague and prosecute an unsolved case left over from the Bosnian war: the disappearance of several hundred Roma, or Gypsies, in the wake of the conflict.
THE LEAVERS

By Lisa Ko

338 pp. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $25.95.

Should fiction be relevant or timeless? Should it aim to put a human face on issues of the day? And if so, is that enough? Should it do more?

Lisa Kos debut novel, The Leavers, brings these perennial questions to mind. Her book centers on a Chinese boy named Deming Guo. Conceived by a strong-willed woman who does not want to have to marry the boys father, and who ships off for America only to discover that she cannot abort a 7-month-old fetus here, Deming is first sent back to China to live with his grandfather. When his mother can support him, though, he is reunited with her  formerly Peilan, now Polly Guo. They live in the Bronx with her boyfriend, Leon, as well as Leons sister and her son, Michael, a brother-like boy about Demings age. Deming is a rambunctious student. Polly, an undocumented worker in a nail salon, works brutally long hours. So, too, does Leon.

Still, their makeshift family is happy until Polly disappears. Has she simply moved to Florida for a better job, as she intended? Deming had insisted he didnt want to move. But would she really abandon him as a result? Why does she never even call? And why does Leon disappear shortly after that?

Motherless Deming is eventually taken in by a well-meaning couple. Professors in a small, all-white upstate New York community, Kay and Peter give Deming a new name, Daniel Wilkinson. They try to get him to pay more attention to his schoolwork and less to the guitar. In moments of frustration they remind him of how much they are doing for him, and how grateful he should be. Then a crisis ensues when, out of the blue, Daniel/Deming hears from Michael. Soon he is headed back to China to solve the mysteries of his life.
1. President Trump asked the former F.B.I. director, James Comey, to close the investigation into Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote at the time.

Mr. Comey, above, logged the request in February, according to two people who have read it. Its the clearest evidence that Mr. Trump tried to influence the federal investigation into links between his associates and Russia.

Earlier, Mr. Trump strongly defended what he called his absolute right to share classified information about an ISIS plot with top Russian officials.
SAN FRANCISCO  Bill Maris surprised many people in August when he decided to step down from GV, the huge venture capital fund associated with Google  and left many wondering what he would do next.

Now, he is unveiling his new effort.

Mr. Maris announced on Tuesday that he has opened a new fund, Section 32, with about $150 million under management. It will invest in a variety of industries, from health care to agriculture technology.

I left GV and knew that I wanted to start a fund of my own, he said in a telephone interview. My whole career has been about building things from scratch. I just wanted to do it at a different scale.

It is the latest career move for Mr. Maris, who began his career at the Swedish investment firm Investor AB before founding a web hosting company that he later sold. But he is best known for joining what is now Alphabet, Googles parent company, and setting up what was initially known as Google Ventures.
Good performance, mediocre results or even downright ugly returns. When it comes to hedge funds, it scarcely matters. Even as some investors begin to sour on these high-priced stock pickers, the top fund managers still haul in enormous paychecks.

The 25 best-paid hedge fund managers earned a collective $11 billion in 2016, according to an annual ranking published on Tuesday by Institutional Investors Alpha magazine.

Even managers who had a tough year were able to cash in. Nearly half of the top-25 earners made single-digit returns for their investors, a lackluster sum in a year when the Standard & Poors 500-stock index was up 12 percent, accounting for reinvested dividends.

The top earner of 2016 was James Simons, the former code breaker for the National Security Agency and the founder of Renaissance Technologies, who made $1.6 billion. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates who is best known for his philosophy of radical transparency, came in a close second with $1.4 billion. Further down the list was Robert Mercer, the co-chief executive of Renaissance and one of the biggest backers of Donald J. Trumps presidential campaign, who earned $125 million.
Last year was a tough one for hedge funds.

Fed up with lackluster returns, investors took $70 billion out of the $3 trillion industry.

Despite that, even hedge fund managers who underperformed the broader market managed generate hefty paychecks for themselves, according to an annual ranking published by Institutional Investors Alpha magazine.

Nearly half of the top 25 earners made single-digit returns for their investors, even as the Standard & Poors 500-stock index rose 12 percent, accounting for reinvested dividends.

The top earner was James Simons of Renaissance Technologies, who made $1.6 billion. Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates was a close second with $1.4 billion.


A court in Austria ordered Facebook to remove messages it says unfairly attacked Green Party leaders.

This came after Germany approved a plan last month to fine social media up to $55 million if they fail to remove untrue and hateful postings.

Elsewhere in Europe, there are other efforts to remove hateful and threatening posts from social media. And the European Union is considering similar EU-wide rules.

Barbara Perry is an expert on online hate attacks at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology in Canada.

She said, Increasingly, we are seeing hate speech flourish online and become an organizing base for folks who otherwise would be sitting in their basements and drinking beer.

Often, the targets of threatening posts have found little they could do to stop them, she said. Many come from people who do not provide their real names.

New efforts to stop hate speech on social media

In Austria, Green Party officials requested a court order to remove posts they said were not only hateful, but included false information. Some postings said a Green Party candidate was very sick.

The candidate was forced to release medical records to show he was healthy, the Austrian Green Party said.

In its recent ruling, the Austrian court said Facebook must remove certain postings about the Green Party, not only from its Austrian pages, but worldwide. Facebook did not provide an immediate comment.

James Grimmelmann is a law professor and expert on internet laws and regulations at Cornell Tech in New York City.

He said the Austrian Courts ruling follows recent trends on online hate speech.

Online hate speech has been subject to European bans for many years, Grimmelmann said. Some European countries are considering giving people the right to be forgotten by not having their internet history captured by search engines such as Google, he said.

Regulating speech always requires a careful balance, Grimmelmann said.

Hate speech and anti-terrorism laws are used in other countries to suppress the political opposition, he said. It is still to be determined, he said, if the Austrian courts can strike the right balance between threatening speech and people expressing unpopular opinions.

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Hillary Clinton campaign complained people were regularly posting false stories on social media.

Some postings said she was very sick, some said she had committed crimes and others gave false information about her positions on important issues.

Canadian asks for help stopping attacks on women

Last year, Canadian lawmaker Sandra Jansen asked fellow members of the Alberta Legislature to stand up against social media attacks on her and other women politicians.

She told CBC radio that she was being hit regularly with hateful messages.

Among the comments, she told CBC; Dead meat. Sandra should stay in the kitchen where she belongs. Fly with the crows and get shot."

Attacks on social media are not limited to public officials.

Last month, The Southern Poverty Law Center posted a lawsuit against a neo-Nazi website it said was terrorizing a Jewish women and her family.

The lawsuit says that Andrew Anglin used his web site, the Daily Stormer, to start a troll storm against the Tanya Gersh family of Montana. A troll storm is when people target a person by posting many critical, and often false, online comments.

Anglin complained that Gersh, who helps people buy and sell homes, had pressured the mother of a White Nationalist to sell her home. Her lawyer says the charge is false.

Anglin urged his readers to take action against Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana. He posted phone numbers, and social media information for the family -- and that brought threats of physical violence and anti-Jewish comments, the lawsuit says.

The federal court in Montana does not list a lawyer for Anglin. He has not posted any papers with the court.

I'm Lucija Milonig.

And I'm Bruce Alpert.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English based on reports from Reuters and other sources. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and share your views on our Facebook Page. Have you ever been hit with hateful messages on social media? How do you think people should deal with such attacks?

___________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

post - n. a message on an online site

flourish - v. to do well

basement - n. the part of a building that is entirely or partly below the ground

regulate - v. to make rules or laws that control something

suppress - v. to end or stop something

kitchen - n. a room in which food is cooked

crow - n. a large black bird that has a loud and harsh cry

lawsuit - n. a process by which a court of law makes a decision to end a disagreement between people or organizations
LONDON  The European Unions highest court ruled on Tuesday that a 2014 trade deal with Singapore required the approval of parliaments from the blocs 28 members, leaving in place an obstacle to future negotiations  including talks with Britain over its withdrawal from the union.

The European Commission, the blocs executive arm, has concluded many aspects of trade deals in the past, and Tuesdays ruling mostly supported that approach. Yet in maintaining the status quo, the court also made clear that parts of trade agreements, particularly those that concerned investment, were contingent on approval by national governments, leaving them open to shifting domestic politics.

The requirement that trade deals be approved by dozens of parliaments has been a sticking point in the past. An agreement with Canada nearly fell apart last year after a Belgian regional assembly initially voted against it, calling for greater protection for local dairy farmers.

Although the impasse was eventually resolved, the dispute highlighted the extent to which a vast array of groups can effectively veto deals that can take years to negotiate.
SEOUL, South Korea  Kim Gwang-ho, an automotive engineer, did something last year that many South Koreans saw as an act of betrayal: He became a whistle-blower.

Mr. Kim was then a 25-year veteran of Hyundai Motor Group, one of South Koreas most successful companies and an icon of its industrial might. But he believed Hyundai was hiding dangerous defects from the public and the authorities, and he sent a batch of internal Hyundai documents to officials in South Korea and the United States to prove his allegations.

If someone higher-ranked than you says you do it, you do it, no questions asked, Mr. Kim, 55, said in an April interview, echoing critics who say South Korea suffers from a rigid hierarchical corporate culture. His eyes showed signs of fatigue that he attributed to months of publicly clashing with Hyundai. If you talk back to a boss frankly, youll get fired, he said.

Hyundai, which fired Mr. Kim, disputes his allegations. But on Friday, the government ordered Hyundai to recall 240,000 vehicles in South Korea and said that it would refer accusations that it hid defects to prosecutors. The government cited manufacturing issues brought to its attention by an insider it did not identify, but Hyundai, government officials, the local news media and Mr. Kim have all said that he is that insider.
Developing nations and environmental groups are challenging some of the worlds biggest companies and wealthiest countries over the role corporate lobbyists play in United Nations climate change negotiations.

The dispute opens an additional battle in the struggle over how to fashion a global response to climate change, one that corporate interests appear to be winning, for now.

Though companies are not permitted to participate directly in the climate talks, representatives from almost 300 industry groups are free to roam the negotiations in Bonn, Germany, as stakeholders, and to lobby negotiators on behalf of corporations that may seek to slow action, the developing nations and their allies say.

Negotiators from Uganda, Ecuador, the Philippines and other countries have proposed guidelines on lobbying and conflicts of interest that could help curb the corporate presence at the talks. They cite rules that reduced the role of cigarette companies in the global treaty on tobacco as a precedent.
Outside Mexico, at places like Cosme and Empellon in New York; Hoja Santa, the Adria brothers restaurant in Barcelona; Broken Spanish in Los Angeles; and Cala and Californios in San Francisco, chefs are carefully combining Mexican flavors with modern ideas and local references. At Atla, in Manhattan, the tostada with Arctic char, farmers cheese and capers deliberately echoes the Lower East Sides traditional bagel with scallion cream cheese and lox.

The pop-up restaurant Noma Tulum, an extension of Noma in Copenhagen that is also known as Noma Mexico, is up and running here, built by the innovative chef Rene Redzepi, along with Ms. Sanchez, more than a hundred employees and dozens of local carpenters, metalworkers, farmers, ceramists and cooks. Until May 28, dishes like octopus sealed and steamed in fermented corn husks and a spicy-sweet dried pasilla Mixe chile stuffed with chocolate sorbet will be served under the stars by a cadre of earnest young people in linen uniforms and matching Birkenstocks.

Is this the authentic Mexican food that many admirers of the cuisine have tried to recreate? No. But the struggle over authenticity may be giving way to something more rewarding: a worldwide conversation about Mexican food that is respectful and inquisitive.

How did Mexican food, often viewed by those beyond the countrys borders as cheap, dull and heavy, move to being seen as artful, fresh and fascinating?

It began with more Mexican people being able to travel, with the internet, with a younger generation who started to care about food being fresh and healthy, said Gabriela Camara, the chef and owner of several influential restaurants in Mexico City and Cala in San Francisco.

Ms. Camara had no culinary training when she opened the restaurant Contramar in 1998 at age 23, to bring fresh seafood from the coasts to landlocked Mexico City. At that time, most ambitious restaurants in the capital were French or Italian. Even Montezuma had fish from Veracruz carried to him in relays, she said. We only had frozen fillets from the Mediterranean.
Nearly 40 years after the world was jolted by the birth of the first test-tube baby, a new revolution in reproductive technology is on the horizon  and it promises to be far more controversial than in vitro fertilization ever was.

Within a decade or two, researchers say, scientists will likely be able to create a baby from human skin cells that have been coaxed to grow into eggs and sperm and used to create embryos to implant in a womb.

The process, in vitro gametogenesis, or I.V.G., so far has been used only in mice. But stem cell biologists say it is only a matter of time before it could be used in human reproduction  opening up mind-boggling possibilities.

With I.V.G., two men could have a baby that was biologically related to both of them, by using skin cells from one to make an egg that would be fertilized by sperm from the other. Women with fertility problems could have eggs made from their skin cells, rather than go through the lengthy and expensive process of stimulating their ovaries to retrieve their eggs.
Take a look at the map above and place your finger on North Korea.

If you have no idea, you are not alone. The New York Times asked 1,746 adults Where is North Korea? and just 36 percent got the answer right. Do you think it matters for citizens around the world to know geography well? Why or why not?

In If Americans Can Find North Korea on a Map, Theyre More Likely to Prefer Diplomacy, Kevin Quealy writes:

When asked which policies the United States should pursue regarding North Korea, Americans diverged on their views depending in part on whether they knew where it was. North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile on Sunday, and the White House called for all nations to put in stronger sanctions. An experiment led by Kyle Dropp of Morning Consult from April 27-29, conducted at the request of The New York Times, shows that respondents who could correctly identify North Korea tended to view diplomatic and nonmilitary strategies more favorably than those who could not. These strategies included imposing further economic sanctions, increasing pressure on China to influence North Korea and conducting cyberattacks against military targets in North Korea. They also viewed direct military engagement  in particular, sending ground troops  much less favorably than those who failed to locate North Korea. The largest difference between the groups was the simplest: Those who could find North Korea were much more likely to disagree with the proposition that the United States should do nothing about North Korea.

What drives these differences? Simple partisanship is one possibility. On average, Republicans  and Republican men in particular  were more likely to correctly locate North Korea than Democratic men. And Republicans were more likely to be in favor of almost all the diplomatic solutions posed by the researchers. (Women tended to find North Korea at similar rates, regardless of party.) Geographic knowledge itself may contribute to an increased appreciation of the complexity of geopolitical events. This finding is consistent with  though not identical to  a similar experiment Mr. Dropp, Joshua D. Kertzer and Thomas Zeitzoff conducted in 2014. They asked Americans to identify Ukraine on a map and asked them whether they supported military intervention. The farther a respondents guess was from Ukraine, the researchers found, the more likely he or she was to favor military intervention.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us:

Is a good working knowledge of geography important for students to be able to fully understand current events, politics, history and other subjects in and out of school? Why or why not?

Does geography skill make a person a better citizen? Explain your answer.

How well do you know your geography?
Watch this New York Times slide show of Google technology being used in a public school classroom in Brooklyn, New York. What is the technology like in your classroom?

What are the problems that occur with using different types of classroom technology  for students, teachers and parents?

To answer the questions below, read the first part of the long article, up to the subhead Dethroning Microsoft.
Free college is a lovely, sensible notion  but countries seem capable of embracing it only when enough of their top earners pay 50 percent or more of their income in taxes. In the United States, New York is the sole state to have taken the step of offering to cover tuition at all its public colleges and universities. And even this new benefit, the Excelsior Scholarship, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law last month, helps only a small fraction of the states residents  households earning less than $125,000 that are not already covered by financial aid  and their grants convert into loans unless graduates both live and work in the state for as many years as they benefited from the program. It also does not cover living costs.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, a self-described scholar-activist who teaches higher education policy at Temple University, has a more expansive idea: Make the first two years free for everyone who attends a community college (all of which are public) or four-year state school. Directing more resources to the first two years of college would help people from lower-income families overcome the biggest barrier to their success, which is the living costs associated with housing, food, transportation and books while they attend school.

When students are able to focus on college, and not work, they graduate, Goldrick-Rab told me recently. The federal government currently gives tens of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies each year to private colleges and for-profit trade schools in the United States, despite the fact that public colleges educate three-quarters of the students pursuing a postsecondary degree. I say let the privates and for-profits fend for themselves, Goldrick-Rab says, and put that money instead toward what she sometimes calls Grades 13 and 14.

Finishing high school might once have provided enough education to find employment that pays well. But globalization and automation are decimating those jobs. Even manufacturing work that remains in (or returns) to America requires knowing how to operate the computers that run todays factory floors, at least if you expect to earn anything close to a living wage. Its hard to do almost any job now without a 13th or 14th year of schooling, Goldrick-Rab says. The establishment of universal high school in the early 20th century helped the United States economy surge past those of countries in Europe and elsewhere that lacked a similar educational standard. Making 14th grade the new 12th grade might be essential if the United States is to maintain its status as an economic powerhouse.
None of us see animals clearly. Theyre too full of the stories weve given them. Encountering them is an encounter with everything youve ever learned about them from previous sightings, from books, images, conversations. Even rigorous scientific studies have asked questions of animals in ways that reflect our human concerns. In the late 1930s, for example, when the Dutch and Austrian ethologists Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz towed models resembling flying hawks above turkey chicks, they were trying to prove that these birds hatched with a hard-wired image resembling an airborne bird of prey already in their minds that compelled them to freeze in terror. While later research has suggested it is very likely that young turkeys actually learn what to fear from other turkeys, the earlier experiment is still valuable, not least for what it says about human fears. To me it seems shaped by the historical anxieties of a Europe threatened for the first time by large-scale aerial warfare, when pronouncements were made that the bomber will always get through, no matter how tight the national defense.

Simply knowing that fragment of history, and knowing that domesticated turkey chicks freeze when hawks fly overhead, make them more complicated creatures than farmyard poultry or oven-ready carcasses. For the more time spent researching, watching and interacting with animals, the more the stories theyre made of change, turning into richer stories that can alter not only what you think of the animal but also who you are. It has broadened my notion of home to think of what that concept might mean to a nurse shark or a migratory barn swallow; altered my notion of family after I learned of the breeding systems of acorn woodpeckers, in which several males and females together raise a nest of young. No one I know thinks that humans should spawn like wave-borne grunion or subsist entirely on flies. But the various lives of creatures have led me to feel there might not be only one right way to express care, to feel allegiance, a love for place, a way of moving through the world.

You cannot know what it is like to be a bat by screwing your eyes tight, imagining membranous wings, finding your way through darkness by talking to it in tones that reply to you with the shape of the world. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel explained, the only way to know what it is like to be a bat is to be a bat. But the imagining? The attempt? That is a good and important thing. It forces you to think about what you dont know about the creature: what it eats, where it lives, how it communicates with others. The effort generates questions not just about how being a bat is different but about how different the world might be for a bat. For what an animal needs or values in a place is not always what we need, value or even notice. Muntjac deer have eaten the undergrowth where nightingales once nested in the forests near my home, and now those birds have gone. What to my human eye is a place of natural beauty is, for a nightingale, something like a desert. Perhaps this is why I am impatient with the argument that we should value natural places for their therapeutic benefits. Its true that time walking in a forest can be beneficial to our mental health. But valuing a forest for that purpose traduces what forests are. They are not there for us alone.

For some weeks, Ive been worried about the health of family and friends. Today Ive stared at a computer screen for hours. My eyes hurt. My heart does, too. Feeling the need for air, I sit on the step of my open back door and see a rook, a sociable species of European crow, flying low toward my house through gray evening air. Straightaway I use the trick I learned as a child, and all my difficult emotions lessen as I imagine how the press of cooling air might feel against its wings. But my deepest relief doesnt come from imagining I can feel what the rook feels, know what the rook knows  instead, its slow delight in recognizing that I cannot. These days I take emotional solace from understanding that animals are not like me, that their lives are not about us at all. The house its flying over has meaning for both of us. To me, it is home. To a rook? A way point on a journey, a collection of tiles and slopes, useful as a perch or a thing to drop walnuts on in autumn to make them shatter and let it winkle out the flesh inside.

Then there is something else. As it passes overhead, the rook tilts its head to regard me briefly before flying on. And with that glance I feel a prickling in my skin that runs down my spine, and my sense of place shifts. The rook and I have shared no purpose. For one brief moment we noticed each other, is all. When I looked at the rook and the rook looked at me, I became a feature of its landscape as much as it became a feature of mine. Our separate lives, for that moment, coincided, and all my anxiety vanished in that one fugitive moment, when a bird in the sky on its way somewhere else pulled me back into the world by sending a glance across the divide.
Month after month, dozens of airport workers have rallied to pressure the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for better pay, training and health benefits. Outfitted in matching T-shirts, they have demanded a minimum wage of at least $15 an hour  to no avail.

So the powerful union that represents many of those workers is taking its plea to state lawmakers in Albany and asking for an even higher base wage. The union, 32BJ Service Employees International, is backing a bill that would set a minimum wage of nearly $18 an hour for as many as 40,000 employees of companies that operate in New York Citys main airports and commuter bus and train stations.

Unarmed security guards for the airports already receive a minimum wage of $17.98 an hour. All of the other workers in those transportation hubs, which rank high on the list of potential targets of terrorism, deserve the same pay and benefits, said Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ.

This is really about modernizing and improving the way that our transportation hubs operate, Mr. Figueroa said in an interview. They should not be sweatshops. They should be places that operate at the highest possible level, especially with the billions and billions of dollars that we are about to invest in them.
Security experts are studying a computer software virus that has affected computers in at least 150 countries.

The cyber-attack, first reported last Friday, hit companies, government agencies and hospitals across the world.

Attackers used malware, which infects computers and takes control of user data. The infection encrypts the records and blocks use of computer files. The virus can spread quickly to other electronic devices linked to the infected computer.

The cyber-attack was described by experts as ransomware. They chose this term because the computer is held hostage until the hackers receive a ransom payment.

Officials said affected computers received a message demanding payment of $300 to unlock data. Victims were told the ransom would rise to $600 within three days. Security experts said paying the money did not guarantee a fix for infected computers.

The malware used in the attack was said to be similar to a program stolen from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). It was identified in NSA documents published online without the agencys knowledge. The NSA does not publicly discuss its activities. But the agency reportedly developed the malware to be used for surveillance.

The malware only affected Windows operating systems. In March, Microsoft released a software update to protect the Windows operating system. But experts said many organizations did not apply the fix or were using older software programs.

The attack locked up computers at factories, banks, government agencies and affected transport and communications systems. Europe's police agency Europol said the attack had affected more than 100,000 organizations.

Among the victims were the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain and Russias Interior Ministry and national railway service. Also hit were Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, French carmaker Renault and American shipper FedEx.

NHS officials said the attack affected about one-fifth of regional groups that operate British hospitals and centers. This led to thousands of canceled appointments and operations.

The British health care system was still having problems on Monday. But health minister Jeremy Hunt said no new attacks were reported. He added that the level of criminal activity is at the lower end of what was expected.

Thousands of infections were reported on Monday - mainly in Asia, where businesses were closed when the malware first hit.

Chinese media said the attack affected 29,372 organizations as well as hundreds of thousands of electronic devices. Universities and other schools were among the hardest hit. Hospitals, train stations, mail delivery and other government services were also reportedly affected.

In Japan, 2,000 computers were reportedly infected. Companies including Hitachi and Nissan Motor Co. experienced problems, but said operations were not seriously affected.

In Indonesia, the malware locked patient information at two Jakarta hospitals, causing delays.

In the United States, officials said they were working to identify those responsible for the attack.

Tom Bossert is a homeland security adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking to American television, Bossert described the attack as an "extremely serious threat." But he added the situation had been brought under control for now.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn adapted this story for VOA Learning English. His report was based on information from VOANews.com, the Associated Press and Reuters. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

cyber  adj. of or involving computers or computer systems

malware  n. a computer software program that is designed to damage or disable computers and computer systems

encrypt  v. to electronically change (information) from one form to another, especially to hide its meaning

ransom  n. money paid in order to free a person being held

surveillance  n. the act of watching someone or something carefully, especially in connection with law enforcement

apply  v. to use in a particular situation

online  adj. of or related to a computer or telecommunications system, such as the Internet

unlock  v. to open or undo; to free from restrictions
On Monday, officials announced a new plan to address soaring subway delays in New York City. After several major disruptions in recent weeks, riders have grown increasingly frustrated with the reliability of the system. Here is what you need to know about the plan:

What is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority doing to fix subway service, and will I see any improvements on my line?

The authority is rolling out several new initiatives to reduce delays on the Eighth Avenue lines in Manhattan, which have been particularly plagued by problems. This includes 19 stations on the A, C and E lines between 125th Street and Fulton Street. If the plan is successful there, officials want to expand the program to the rest of the subway system. The first phase will also focus on two bottlenecks in the South Bronx: the stations at 149th Street-Grand Concourse and Third Avenue-138th Street.

What is in the plan?

Subway officials want to address the root causes of delays: overcrowding, sick passengers and track and signal problems. The plan includes expanding rapid response teams to fix problems on the tracks; assigning EMTs at five crucial stations to respond when passengers need medical assistance; and directing riders to less crowded areas of a platform to make it easier for them to get on and off trains. Stations might have painted zones and signs aboard trains to direct traffic  measures already used in other cities like London.

Will it help?

Transit advocates praised the authority for finally recognizing the pain subway riders endure on a regular basis, though some said the plan did little to address systemic issues, like antiquated signals. Benjamin Kabak, who writes the Second Ave. Sagas subway blog, called the plan a combination of smoke-and-mirrors with some potential for real improvement. John Raskin, the executive director of the Riders Alliance, an advocacy group, said he hoped the short-term ideas were effective and called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who oversees the authority, to focus on the challenge. Fixing the problem will require real funding for our subways and buses, he said, as well as sustained attention from Governor Cuomo, who ultimately runs our transit system.
TITLE: Undue Burden DIR: GINA POLLACK RUNNING TIME: [07:19] [montage of voices] My dad doesnt even know. They would just be like I cant believe you did that. Like they would never look at me the same. Until you walk in my shoes, dont judge me. [fade to black]  [fade into driving shot] TEXT: In 1992, the Supreme Court made it illegal to place an undue burden or significant obstacle in the path of women seeking abortions. But in recent years, state lawmakers around the country have doubled down on creating hundreds of new restrictions. - FRANK HOFFMANN, State Representative (R), Louisiana House: Weve been named the top pro-life state in the country for the last 3 years, maybe even longer than that and we do it by making it tough to get an abortion in Louisiana. Unfortunately, Roe v. Wade says you cant make a lawbut until then, we want to make it as difficult as possible for the people doing that. So thats what its all about. LOWER THIRD: LOUISIANA [00:46]  LOWER THIRD: Womens Health Care Center, New Orleans PATIENT 1: [00:59] I came from La Place, Louisiana, which is about 50 milesjust to get here. Over the phone I was told it 850. When I got here, it was 1100 dollars. The price range changed according to the pregnancy weeks. By the time the surgery comes, which is Tuesday, itll be more, which will be at 1800. I would say its impossible to get that amount of money. So even if I was to wait to get it, I would be farther in weeks so the amount would just keep on increasing. FILMMAKER (O.S.): And so why did they suggest going to Shreveport? PATIENT 1: It would be affordable. But its another brick wall because of the distance. Its hours away and its already, it was already a handful getting here [pause] PATIENT 1: Its a lot of frustration. I dont really know what route is best to take at this point. - PATIENT 2: [02:33] Im paying with money that I saved up, for Christmas. You know, its gonna cut me real close. If I hadnt had money saved up for Christmas, I wouldnt be able to afford it. Ive heard about it my whole life and honestly Ive always been pro-life, but sometimes when you get to a situation and you know youve basically taken on more than what you can handle, youre at a point and its like well, you know, sometimes we gotta change our minds. You may view things one way for years and then all of a sudden wake up and say Oh my god, is that really what it looks like on the other side? Being as I already have a child, itsit makes it easier and harder at the same time. Im real motherly with my daughter and its hard to know that Im giving that up. [starts to cry] I dont want to give up my childs life, but I cant afford it, so Im only doing whats bestyou cant bring a child into the world if you cant take care of it. You know its not fair and it wouldnt be fair to my first child either. Cause then I wouldnt just be taking away from one, Id be taking away from two.  LOWER THIRD: St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana PATIENT 3: [4:28] When I found out, I cried. And I got on my phone and I looked up places to go to. I live so far away that, in the woods, I have to hold my phone in the air, walk away from my house until I finally get a signal, then I cant moveso I got my arms over my head trying to type and research on Google. The buses dont even go as far as I live so I had to pay to get a ride here. And then you have to wait 24 hours and make the trip all over again the following day. I want this to end. Its just like it just drags it out. Im not gonna change my mind. This is what I want to do, I dont need 24 hours, Ive been thinking about itsince I found out I was pregnant Ive been thinking about it. I mean, if you were raped by your brother, or a stranger, or your daddy, Im supposed to carry this baby in my belly? That Imessentially, Im gonna, Im gonna hate him. Cause its a product of a rape. But I have to carry that child to full term and then try to raise it? FILMMAKER (O.S.): Are you talking about yourself or just theoretically? PATIENT 3: Im talking about personally. PATIENT 3 (V.O.): I just want to get it done. I just want to get this done and over with..and put behind me. I want to move forward in my life. TEXT: [06:23  6:53] Mandatory waiting periods remain active in 27 states. Most women pay for their abortion out-of-pocket. 75% of those women are low income. [end credits 06:53- 07:39]
The great new dividing line in American life is the four-year college degree. The line runs through virtually every part of society.

The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else has soared in recent years. The unemployment gap has, too. So have gaps in physical and social health. College graduates are living longer than they used to, getting divorced less and eating better. All of these trends are darker for non-graduates.

Then there is politics. Americans without a college degree are todays swing voters. White non-graduates shifted sharply to Donald Trump last year, relative to 2012, and black non-graduates affected the result by staying home in larger numbers. Both decisions  voting for Trump or not voting at all  stemmed in part from alienation.

In an alternate universe, Trump would devote his presidency to a conservative agenda that improved the lives of the people who elected him. Remember when he proclaimed, I love the poorly educated? In this universe, he sure has a funny way of showing his love. He is trying to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, while lavishing tax cuts on the affluent.
The same is true of most people in Mr. Trumps orbit. To serve this president is to be diminished.

It took Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein a mere two weeks in the administration to trash his sterling reputation through his involvement in Mr. Comeys firing. Trump associates have tried to pin the blame for the presidents manifold displays of incompetence on the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus  whose internal nickname, according to The Week, is Rancid  but the truth is that Mr. Trump is ruining Mr. Priebuss reputation, not vice versa. Lesser-known figures will also probably find that their time in the administration has hindered, rather than helped, their career prospects.

You dont find people who mentioned they worked at the Nixon White House unless they were high enough and conspicuous and had to admit it, John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, told me.

Certainly, some who are serving should stay put for the good of the nation. We need sane and competent people like Secretary of Defense James Mattis to remain in government and dissuade the president from cavalierly starting a nuclear war. Its understandable why career officials in the Justice Department or the State Department would want to hunker down and try to preserve their institutions from Mr. Trumps wrecking ball. But there are a great many other people, both famous names and faceless officials, whose jobs have nothing to do with safeguarding the republic.

Mr. Trumps entire communications staff could resign tomorrow without imperiling the citizenry. And for their own good, as well as the good of the nation, they should.

Out in America, Mr. Trump still has plenty of genuine admirers, people who view him as a brilliant, iconoclastic businessman. But there is scant evidence of such respect among the people who actually work with him in Washington. The New York Times recently reported that there are deep resentments among his scarred staff, and The Washington Post writes of aides bewildered and alarmed by how Trump arrives at his decisions. These men and women are suffering personally while propping up a presidency they appear to hold in contempt. They are allowing themselves to be permanently tarnished through their association with a man whose name is destined to become the root of a political epithet signifying disgrace, like McCarthyite or Nixonian.
PARIS  In the end the French election turned on the most unlikely of subjects: Europe. Yes, the ugly European duckling of 2016 politics  rejected by Britain, mocked by President Trump  ushered Emmanuel Macron into the Elysee Palace as Frances youngest president.

Macron, throughout his campaign, was strong in his support of the European Union and its shared currency, the euro. That was risky; identification with the European Union hardly seemed a winning ticket. But it was precisely on the euro and the union that Marine Le Pen, the rightist candidate of the National Front, committed public political suicide.

In the final TV debate, days before this months vote, she babbled and blundered for minutes on end about Europe and its currency. It was, as Macron put it, du nimporte quoi  roughly meaningless garbage. And it was garbage that touched the French in a very sensitive area: their pocketbooks.

The French, unlike Americans, dont talk about money but they think about it as much as anyone else.
One state that has benefited by adopting a much more enlightened approach is California. The states business and professions code made noncompete agreements generally unenforceable there. Experts say the law has helped make that state a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, workers in Silicon Valley frequently hop between companies and leave to start their own businesses without fear of being sued by former employers. And many of these businesses find ways to protect valuable intellectual property without noncompete agreements.

Proponents of noncompete agreements might argue that lawmakers dont need to intervene because these are private contracts between consenting adults. But researchers say many workers are not aware that they are subject to such agreements, which are often buried in documents they sign when hired. Often, people are not told that they will have to sign until they have accepted jobs, at which point they may not be able to walk away. Even workers who recognize the perils might see no choice but to consent because they need a job.

State and federal lawmakers should adopt reforms like those the Obama administration recommended last year. For instance, state legislatures and Congress can make noncompete agreements unenforceable when they are applied to employees who earn less than, say, $56,500  the median household income in 2015  or to workers who do not have access to trade secrets. They can make contracts unenforceable when businesses lay off or fire workers without cause. States can also require employers to present noncompete agreements before candidates accept jobs.

The spread of noncompete agreements is one of many ways in which the workplace has been rigged against workers and why household incomes have stagnated in recent decades. Other examples include the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts and concerted efforts by businesses to diminish the role of labor unions. All elected leaders, especially those like President Trump who claim to represent the interests of working people, need to fight such unfair and unjust practices.
To the Editor:

Rafael Arenas Garcia has every right to express his opinion on Why Catalonia Should Stay With Spain (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, May 9). Of course, there are many Catalans who have a different opinion, just as not everyone in America was convinced by King George IIIs call for unity.

Where do you go from here? Groups in favor of independence say there should be a full public debate and a referendum. Groups against (including the one that Mr. Arenas used to lead), together with the Spanish government, say that a referendum is illegal and that public debate should be restricted.

Earlier this month the president of the Catalan Parliament was in court facing charges for having allowed the elected representatives to debate independence.

Whatever opinion you may have on Catalan independence, the key question now is whether or not you agree that political differences should be resolved through free speech and democracy.
WASHINGTON  In what is perhaps the gravest accusation of presidential misconduct in a scandal-ridden four months, news outlets have reported that President Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian government officials during their visit to the Oval Office last week. These are among the most serious charges ever made against a sitting president, though there is much we do not yet know. As additional information emerges, there are important points to keep in mind.

The reporting so far indicates that Mr. Trump did not violate any criminal laws concerning the disclosure of classified material. The presidents ability to classify national security information flows from his constitutional powers as commander in chief. That means, in short, that he gets to determine what is classified in the first place and he may  even on a whim  lawfully declassify it or share it with whomever he sees fit. Even where the presidents conduct does potentially involve violating the law  as with allegations that he obstructed justice by asking F.B.I. Director James Comey to drop an investigation  the preliminary question is still political and not legal: the president must be impeached before he can be indicted.

The question of criminality, however, is by no means the only issue here.

Mr. Trump is reported to have disclosed national security information of profound consequence: that relating to the sources of intelligence and methods of its collection. Sources and methods, as its known in the intelligence community, is especially crucial because it relates not only to the substance of intelligence, but also to the manner in which it was obtained. When this kind of information is revealed, the nation may no longer be able to use this method of collection in the future, with long-term security consequences.

Its important to understand that information related to sources and methods is handled with the same degree of care as actual sources and methods. That is for good reason. For example, imagine Bad Guy A and Bad Guy B discuss a terrorist plot over a single channel that they think is secure. If someone revealed that the government knew about the plot, and the bad guys learned that, they would also be able to deduce that the government had intercepted the communication channel and they would not use it to discuss the plot again. This is the kind of information Mr. Trump is accused of revealing to Russia.
In the last years of Philip Gustons life, the painter found comfort in the melancholia of T.S. Eliot, especially his Four Quartets. At least that is how his daughter, Musa Mayer, remembers it. I think he connected to the way Eliot was able to find meaning in the darkness, Mayer says. Of course, throughout his life, he always felt a certain allegiance to poetry. I think its because of the metaphysical aspect of poetry, the way in which symbols and imagery are used to suggest something larger, something deeper.

In a new exhibition at the Gallerie dellAccademia di Venezia in Italy, the curator Kosme de Baranano connects the dots between poetry and the artists work with a show titled Philip Guston and the Poets. The survey hones in on five literary giants: D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Eugenio Montale and Eliot, and uses their words to explore the psychology behind Gustons oeuvre.

As the guardian of Gustons estate, Mayer was struck by Barananos proposal to create a survey of her fathers work that abandoned traditional structures. When I read Barananos essay, I thought it provided a unique opportunity to look at [Gustons] work through new eyes.

His large shows have tended to be organized either chronologically or stylistically, Mayer says. This is neither. Abstract paintings arent segregated from the figurative ones, they are mixed together to reveal something new.
A measles outbreak has hit the midwestern state of Minnesota, with 50 cases reported in recent weeks.

Health officials say at least 45 cases were among children in the Somali-American community in the city of Minneapolis. Nearly all of those affected were not vaccinated against measles.

Measles is a serious disease that can cause breathing problems, brain swelling, or even death. It spreads very easily among unvaccinated people.

U.S. health officials recommend that all children receive a combined vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella. This combination vaccine is called MMR. But many parents in the Somali community oppose vaccinations because they believe they can cause a child to develop autism.

A 2014 study by the American Board of Family Medicine found that 35 percent of Somali parents surveyed in Minneapolis believed the MMR vaccine causes autism. Just 8 percent of non-Somalis held the same belief.

Autism, also known as Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a developmental disability. It affects a persons ability to communicate and do things with other people.

The University of Minnesota reported in a 2010 study that about one in 32 Somali children aged 7-9 in Minneapolis developed ASD. Another highly publicized study from a British researcher in 1998 linked autism to the MMR vaccination.

The 1998 study was later discredited and withdrawn by the British journal The Lancet, which reported it. Other research in recent years has failed to support the 2010 studys findings.

One major study involving 95,000 American children was released in 2015. It found no harmful link between the MMR vaccine and ASD, even in children already at higher risk for ASD.

Other American communities with low vaccination rates have also experienced measles outbreaks in recent years.

Dr. Mohamed Hagi Aden is with Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. He told VOA's Somali Service all parents should inform themselves about the latest research suggesting no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

The Minnesota Department of Health is taking steps to win back trust in vaccines. Two Somalis are now working with the department on outreach efforts. One visits mothers' groups, day care centers and schools to talk about vaccines. The other informs parents about autism and provides information about resources for special-needs children.

Minnesota health officials have requested $5 million in state money to deal with the measles emergency, as well as other recent outbreaks of tuberculosis and syphilis.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Mohamed Olad Hassan and Steve Baragona reported on this story for VOA News. Bryan Lynn adapted it for Learning English, with additional material from the Associated Press and other sources. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Do you think parents should accept official recommendations to vaccinate their children? Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

outbreak  n. sudden start of disease breaking out

swelling  n. area of the body that grows larger than normal because of illness or injury

recommend  v. suggest something is good for a particular purpose

discredit - v. something revealed to be not true

outreach  n. going out into a community to provide information or services
Did you know that you may be more susceptible to having your valuables, such as watches and cellphones, stolen when youre on vacation? So many things are new on a vacation, and while youre taking it all in, your guard drops a bit, leaving you vulnerable to theft, said Matt Dumpert, a senior director at Kroll, a security consulting company based in New York.

Before he entered the security field, Mr. Dumpert had his camera stolen on a trip to Brussels  an episode, he said, that ruined his getaway.

He is now wiser on his travels and shares his tips on how others can protect themselves, too:

LIMIT WHAT YOU BRING Most travelers bring valuables on their trip that they dont need, like expensive watches and jewelry. If losing an item will cause you significant financial loss, dont bring it. If a high-value item is a must, however, Mr. Dumpert recommended buying a travel insurance policy that covers personal property loss so you can recoup your money in case of a theft.

DONT BE FLASHY Avoid being outwardly showy, but realize that showiness can be interpreted differently depending on your location. If youre in London, for example, you wont be conspicuous if youre toting the latest cellphone. But in less-privileged countries youll be perceived as extremely affluent. These signs of wealth make you a prime target for crime, Mr. Dumpert said.
Legislators and victims advocates in Connecticut called on Tuesday for changes in how the state investigates police shootings, after a video revealed contradictions between the way a teenager was killed last week and what the police initially reported.

Jayson Negron, 15, was killed on May 9, when officers in Bridgeport, Conn., tried to stop a stolen vehicle after a very brief chase, according to a May 10 statement from the Connecticut State Police, who are investigating the shooting.

The Bridgeport officers approached the vehicle, which was being driven by Jayson, when it began to move, the statement said.

As the Bridgeport officers approached, the operator of the stolen vehicle accelerated in reverse and struck at least one Bridgeport Police officer, it said. As a result, a second Bridgeport Police officer fired at least one round from their duty weapon, striking both the operator and front seat passenger. The passenger, identified as Julian Fyffe, 21, of Bridgeport, was taken to a hospital and survived.
WASHINGTON  President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

I hope you can let this go, the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Mr. Trumps request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trumps associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.
WASHINGTON  Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, lacking support from Senate Democrats and possibly several Republicans, on Tuesday took himself out of consideration to be the next director of the F.B.I.

I have always considered public service to be a great privilege, Mr. Cornyn said in a statement, adding: Now more than ever the country needs a well-credentialed, independent F.B.I. director. Ive informed the administration that Im committed to helping them find such an individual, and that the best way I can serve is continuing to fight for a conservative agenda in the U.S. Senate.

Another congressional Republican, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, has also said he does not want to be considered for the job, which became open when President Trump fired James B. Comey last week.
WASHINGTON  Members of Congress from both parties escalated calls on Tuesday for former F.B.I. director James B. Comey to appear before them after reports that President Trump had asked him to drop an investigation into Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser.

Democrats were aggressive in seeking new hearings and an independent investigation. Republicans, on the whole, reserved judgment until they learned more or heard from Mr. Comey himself.

The country is being tested in unprecedented ways, said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader.

The news of Mr. Comeys memo  on the same day Israel was identified as the source of the sensitive intelligence Mr. Trump gave to Russian officials  added another layer of chaos and uncertainty on Capitol Hill, diverting attention from debates on health care and tax policy and increasing many lawmakers reservations about the president.
WASHINGTON  President Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to share sensitive information about an Islamic State threat with Russian officials as the White House once again struggled to reconcile seemingly conflicting accounts of the presidents actions.

A day after his advisers disputed a news article about the conversation, the president focused instead on justifying what he did and blaming those who disclosed it. In a series of early-morning posts on Twitter, he said he had the absolute right to give facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety to Russias foreign minister and ambassador.

Asked about the conversation by reporters during a later appearance with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, Mr. Trump again did not deny providing the information, but he instead cast it as an attempt to collaborate with Russia in the war against the Islamic State. Were going to have a lot of great success over the coming years, and we want to get as many to fight terrorism as possible, he said.

The White House tried to clarify, sending out Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, for the second time in less than 24 hours. General McMaster stood by his Monday night statement, when he said the original Washington Post article about the conversation as reported was false. And while he would not confirm that Mr. Trump disclosed classified information, General McMaster said the president did not expose the source because he was not told where it came from.
SAN JUAN, P.R.  It is a proudly Spanish-speaking territory at a time when the White House has taken down the Spanish version of its website. It is as materially poor as it is culturally rich. And Puerto Rico has entered a new and exotic version of bankruptcy, facing a staggering $123 billion in debt and pension obligations.

In short, it is difficult to imagine a worse time for governing-party officials in this struggling Caribbean commonwealth to persuade Washington it is ready to become the 51st American state.

But they have pledged to make their case anyway.

Tell them that it seems impossible, and they will conjure the long moral arc of the universe and how it bends toward Puerto Rican statehood. Thats what they told the blacks, an indignant Ramon Rosario Cortes, Puerto Ricos public affairs secretary, said in an interview last week. That they were wasting their time attending the marches of Martin Luther King Jr. because nobody was ever going to hear the cry of the people!

A vigorous push for statehood was a central campaign promise of Gov. Ricardo Rossello, 38, who was inaugurated in January. Next month, he will ask residents to vote, in a nonbinding referendum, for statehood as part of a long-term fix for a commonwealth facing a period of severe austerity that is likely to include shuttered public schools, frozen salaries, slashed pensions and crimped investments in public health. The island remains in the grip of a recession that has lingered for much of the past decade.
Large blue letters projected over the entrance to the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Monday night read Pay Trump Bribes Here, an allusion to questions about President Trumps business affairs with foreign governments.

Two other images were projected in rotation: Emoluments welcome at the top as images of the flags of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey appeared, and the Emoluments Clause in its entirety.

The clause is an obscure provision of the Constitution that critics of Mr. Trump say he should be held to if he benefits from transactions with companies controlled by foreign governments.

Emolument means compensation for labor or services. The clause says that no person holding any office of profit or trust shall accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state unless Congress consents.
A Mississippi man was sentenced to 49 years in prison on Monday for killing his transgender former girlfriend, a case the Justice Department said was the first involving violence against a transgender person to be prosecuted under the federal Hate Crimes Act.

The man, Joshua Vallum, 29, killed Mercedes Williamson in May 2015, after the end of their relationship, because a friend learned that she was transgender, a fact Mr. Vallum kept hidden from friends and family while they dated. Local news reports said that Ms. Williamson was 17 at the time of her death.

Mr. Vallum is a member of the Latin Kings gang and decided to kill Ms. Williamson because he believed he would be in danger if other gang members learned that he had once dated a woman he knew to be transgender, the Justice Department said in a statement. He pleaded guilty to a state-level murder charge and was sentenced to life in prison last July.

In December, Mr. Vallum pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a federal hate crime statute signed into law in 2009.
YANGON, Myanmar  Thiri Aung Tin said her boyfriend had persuaded her to elope, then locked her in a dark room for days on end. It was the start of an ordeal of captivity and verbal abuse that lasted more than two years, she said, and eventually drove her to attempt suicide.

When he was arrested in February for abduction and wrongful confinement, two days after she reported him to the police, she hoped he would face adequate punishment. But he was released without bail in early March, and accused only of violating a section of Myanmars 19th-century penal code on cheating that is sometimes applied to unfaithful partners and carries a maximum jail term of one year. A trial is pending.

I feel that this is totally unfair, Ms. Thiri Aung Tin, 21, said of the turn in the case.

Change is coming to Myanmar as it transitions to democracy. But when it comes to protecting women from violence, the needle has barely budged.

Myanmar lags behind many of its Asian neighbors on the issue, human rights groups say, citing a penal code that does not recognize marital rape and the countrys lack of a domestic violence law.


From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

We spend about one-third of our lives asleep. This may sound like a lot of time, but it is not wasted.

Our bodies need sleep to stay healthy. Not getting enough sleep, or as we sometimes say shut-eye, can make us sick.

Sleep and our immune system

The immune system protects the body from diseases and infections. Not getting enough sleep hurts this protective system.

The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit research hospital in the United States. Its website explains that when we sleep our bodies release proteins that support sleep and help us fight infections. They add that infection-fighting antibodies and cells are reduced during periods when you don't get enough sleep.

A new study from the University of Washington in the U.S. seems to confirm this. Dr. Nathaniel Watson was the lead writer of the study. He is also co-director of the universitys Medicine Sleep Center at Harborview Medical Center.

Watson says his study shows that the immune system works best when the body gets enough sleep.

For the study, Watson and his team studied 11 pairs of identical twins. This is an important difference from other sleep studies. Other research did not study identical twins.

The identical twins, however, had different sleep patterns. Researchers found that the twin who slept less had a weaker immune system.

Watson says his study showed for the first time that a long-term lack of sleep shuts down parts of the immune system. He says parts that move white blood cells around the body are affected. White blood cells fight infection in the body.

Watson adds that the results confirm a finding of other sleep studies. They found that when sleep-deprived people are given a vaccine, fewer antibodies are produced. If sleep-deprived people are then exposed to a virus, he says, they are more likely to get the virus.

Watsons study provides more evidence that sleep is important to overall health and well-being. And sleep is especially important to immune health.

The researchers published their findings in the journal Sleep.

How much sleep is enough?

To stay in good health, experts at the Mayo Clinic say that adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep. Teenagers need nine to 10 hours. And school-aged children may need more than 10 hours of sleep a night.

Experts say the quality and quantity of our sleep becomes poor as we age. This happens because brain circuits that control sleep slowly begin to weaken.

Experts say the process begins in our 30s. By the time we reach our 50s, the average person has lost 50 percent of their ability to have a restful sleep.

These people also have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep through the night. From middle age on, they say these problems only get worse, and they can affect our health.

Signs you may not be getting enough sleep

The website Health.com lists several signs that may mean you are not getting enough sleep.

Youre always hungry or youve gained weight. A lack of sleep can affect the hormones that tell your brain you have eaten enough.

A lack of sleep can affect the hormones that tell your brain you have eaten enough. You have trouble making decisions. A lack of sleep may affect your higher level brain functions, such as problem solving.

A lack of sleep may affect your higher level brain functions, such as problem solving. You have trouble remembering things. Sleep helps prepare the brain for new memories.

Sleep helps prepare the brain for new memories. You feel very emotional. People who are sleep deprived may feel unable to control their emotions, whether they be angry, sad or happy.

People who are sleep deprived may feel unable to control their emotions, whether they be angry, sad or happy. Your skin doesnt look good. When we sleep, the body repairs damaged cells, like skin cells. (We dont call it beauty sleep for nothing!)

When we sleep, the body repairs damaged cells, like skin cells. (We dont call it for nothing!) You are having trouble seeing. When youre tired you may not be able to control your eye muscles.

How to improve your sleep

There are things people can do get better sleep.

Health experts recommend exercise and avoiding work on computers and electronic devices before bed. A cool room is also a better environment for sleeping.

And thats the Health & Lifestyle report.

Im Anna Matteo.

Jessica Berman reported on the study from the University of Washington for VOA News. Anna Matteo adapted it for Learning English and added additional information from several websites. Mario Ritter was the editor.

What are your sleep habits? Do you think youre getting enough beauty sleep? Or could you use more shut-eye? Let us know in the Comments Section.

_______________________________________________________________

Quiz - Are You Getting Enough Sleep? Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

shut-eye  informal n. sleep

antibody  n. a protein produced in the blood to fight diseases by attacking and killing harmful bacteria

identical twins  n. either member of a pair of twins that are produced from a single egg and who look exactly alike

deprive  v. to take something away from (deprivation)

well-being  n. the state of being happy, healthy, or successful

quantity  n. an amount or number of something

brain circuit  n. the network of interconnected neurons in the nervous system

beauty sleep  informal n. the sleep that someone needs in order to feel healthy and look attractive
SEOUL, South Korea  They take legitimate jobs as software programmers in the neighbors of their home country, North Korea. When the instructions from Pyongyang come for a hacking assault, they are believed to split into groups of three or six, moving around to avoid detection.

Ever since the 1980s, reclusive North Korea has been known to train cadres of digital soldiers to engage in electronic warfare and profiteering exploits against its perceived enemies, most notably South Korea and the United States. In more recent years, cybersecurity experts say, the North Koreans have spread these agents across the border into China and other Asian countries to help cloak their identities. The strategy also amounts to war-contingency planning in case the homeland is attacked.

Now this force of North Korean cyberhacking sleeper cells is under new scrutiny in connection with the ransomware assaults that have roiled much of the world over the past four days. New signs have emerged not only that North Koreans carried out the attacks but also that the targeted victims included China, North Koreas benefactor and enabler.

As evidence mounts that North Korean hackers may have links to the ransom assaults that destroyed more than 200,000 computers, their motives appear twofold: financial gain  which does not appear to be turning out so well  and proof that Pyongyang has the means to cause significant damage, with or without a nuclear weapon.
This month, however, Mr. Somsak published what he said was a message about the post that he had received from a Facebook spokesman who identified himself as Tim. The message said that Thailands Digital Ministry for Economic and Social Affairs had sent the company a court order saying the post violated the Computer Crime Act.

Also this month, the domestic news media quoted the Thai Internet Service Provider Association as saying that it would be forced to shut down Facebook by Tuesday morning if the company had not removed all 131 pages. That shutdown did not occur, and the standoff was not receiving much attention on social media in the country on Tuesday.

The lese-majeste law carries a maximum jail term of 15 years.

The king ascended to the throne in December, after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in October after reigning for seven decades.

King Bhumibol was widely beloved by Thais who saw him as an advocate of the common people. King Vajiralongkorn, by contrast, once maintained a lavish European lifestyle full of romantic intrigue, prompting critics to question whether he is suited for the monarchy.

The video has been blocked in Thailand but was still available outside the country on Tuesday.

Facebook, which opened an office in Thailand in 2015, declined to answer questions about its operations in the country or the pages that the government wants to remove. A spokeswoman, Clare Wareing, said only that the companys policy was to comply with requests by governments to restrict access to content that officials believed violated local laws.

When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content, Ms. Wareing said in an emailed statement. If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted.

Facebook has faced political blowback in the region for posts on its social network.

In Indonesia, for example, a proliferation of political propaganda and fake news on the site over the past year led to government calls for the company to do more to control the problem. And in Vietnam, the government demanded Facebooks help in tamping down fake accounts and other posts it said violated its laws.
UNITED NATIONS  The American ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday called for stiffening sanctions against North Korea and perhaps even punishing those who continue to help it, even as she acknowledged that there was no consensus yet with the Norths powerful backers in China.

We have to turn around and tell the entire international community: You either support North Korea or you support us, the ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, told reporters. The United States is not past looking at third-country entities who are helping North Korea and putting sanctions against them. If youre supporting North Korea, youre against the rest of the international community.

Ms. Haleys comments came as the United Nations Security Council met to discuss how to respond to North Koreas latest ballistic missile test over the weekend. Asked if China had agreed to new sanctions, Ms. Haley said: We dont have it done yet. We are working with Beijing along with South Korea as well as Japan.

She also pointedly reminded Russia that the Norths latest missile test had reached close to Russias border. You either support North Korea or you dont, she said. But you have to choose; you have to pick a side.
Trash on East Beach, Henderson Island, in the South Pacific Ocean. A new study estimated that the white sand beaches were littered with 17.6 tons of debris, deposited there by ocean currents.

Credit... Jennifer Lavers/Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, via European Pressphoto Agency
SYDNEY, Australia  The refugees and asylum seekers had been waiting in the detention camp in the hope of a fresh start in Australia, or perhaps some other country. But on Monday, some of the residents said, they were told to prepare for a different outcome  the imminent shutdown of the camp.

Parts of the center, on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, will close in weeks, according to the detainees, who said they had been told of the decision at a meeting on Monday. The rest of the compound, which was financed by the Australian government, will shut down later this year.

You cannot stay at the regional processing center, an official said in a recording first obtained by the Australian news media. You need to consider your options. No one will be resettled in Australia.

Asylum seekers and refugees have been sent to the island, in northern Papua New Guinea, as part of an agreement between the country and Australia. Under the deal, which has been condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations, people who tried to reach Australia by boat were placed in the detention center as their refugee claims were being considered.
LONDON  Ian Brady, whose murders of five children in the company of his lover horrified Britons and were viewed by generations as the distillate of evil, died on Monday night at a high-security psychiatric hospital in Liverpool, England. He was 79.

Julie Crompton, a spokeswoman for the facility, Ashworth Hospital, confirmed his death there. No cause was given. The Associated Press reported that at a court hearing in February, lawyers said Mr. Brady had been bedridden for the last couple of years and that it was fair to say he was terminally ill with emphysema and other ailments.

His accomplice, Myra Hindley, died at 60 in a hospital in November 2002. Despite appeals for parole, she was never released from prison.

Image Mr. Brady and his lover, Myra Hindley, became known as the Moors Murderers. Credit... Greater Manchester Police, via Agence France-Presse  Getty Images

Mr. Brady, who went on a hunger strike in 1999 and was force-fed on the orders of judges who had ruled him mentally ill, never expressed remorse for the killings, some of them involving beatings, torture and sexual abuse. He had been held at the psychiatric hospital since 1985.
MOSCOW  President Trumps acknowledgment that he shared intelligence on terrorism with Russia was something of a coup for President Vladimir V. Putin, whose mantra about forging a global alliance to fight violent extremists never gained much traction in the West.

Mr. Putins repeated calls for unity in fighting terrorism  delivered from the podium of the United Nations, at countless global summit meetings and after every grisly attack around the world  have often been met with skepticism, interpreted as smoke screens to cloak the violence fomented by the Kremlin in places like Chechnya, Ukraine and Syria.

Then on Tuesday, an American president seemed to take up that call, at least momentarily, with Mr. Trump writing on Twitter that sharing sensitive intelligence information with Russia on counterterrorism was a good idea. I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism, he wrote.

That could signal a major policy shift, political analysts said.

The Kremlin has been so skillful in getting the president of the United States to cooperate in an unusual way, said Maxim Trudolyubov, a Russian political analyst and columnist. It is a big and completely unexpected coup for the Kremlin.
WASHINGTON  President Trump on Tuesday praised President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey as a stalwart ally in the battle against Islamic extremism, ignoring Mr. Erdogans authoritarian crackdown on his own people and brushing aside recent tensions between the United States and Turkey over how to wage the military campaign against the Islamic State.

Welcoming Mr. Erdogan to the White House, Mr. Trump said, Today, we face a new enemy in the fight against terrorism, and again we seek to face this threat together.

Mr. Trump said the United States supported Turkeys battle against both the Islamic State and the P.K.K., a Kurdish militant group carrying out an insurgency inside Turkey. The Trump administration has decided to supply weapons to the Y.P.G., a Syrian Kurdish militia fighting alongside Syrian Arab forces against the Islamic State. That has caused tensions with Turkey, which says the Syrian Kurds are allied with the Turkish Kurds.
A mother travels to Syria to find her son after he ran away to join the Islamic State. A Christian renounces her faith and plots to blow up a church. A black-clad matron tells teenage girls to rest up before they are raped by extremist fighters.

These frighteningly familiar stories of life under the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will this month become plotlines on prime-time television across the Arab world.

A sprawling, 30-part dramatic series is scheduled to make its debut on MBC 1, the Arab worlds most watched satellite channel, during the holy month of Ramadan, said Ali Jaber, the director of television for the MBC Network.

The network shared with The New York Times video, available below, from three episodes of the program, Black Crows.
Intelligence officials worried that Mr. Trump provided enough details to effectively expose the source of the information and the manner in which it had been collected.

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, defended Mr. Trumps move, saying the president made a spur-of-the-moment decision to tell the Russians what he knew and did not expose the source of the intelligence because he was not told where it came from.

Moreover, General McMaster said that by discussing the city where the information originated, the president had not given away secrets. It was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting in terms of a source of concern, he said. And it had all to do with operations that are already ongoing, had been made public for months.

Two senior United States military officials said that Mr. Trumps disclosures seemed to align with an increasing concern that militants responsible for such attacks were slipping out of Raqqa, the Islamic States self-proclaimed capital, and taking refuge in other cities under their control, such as Deir al-Zour and Mayadeen.

These officials said they had no specific knowledge of what Mr. Trump told the two senior Russian diplomats in the Oval Office last week, or how that related to a likely decision expected soon by the Homeland Security Department to expand its ban on carrying portable electronics. But the officials said the timing of the events seemed hardly a coincidence.

American and British authorities in March barred passengers from airports in 10 predominantly Muslim countries from carrying laptop computers, iPads and other devices larger than a cellphone aboard inbound flights to the United States after intelligence analysts concluded that the Islamic State was developing a type of bomb hidden in batteries. Homeland Security officials are considering whether to broaden the ban to include airports in Europe and possibly other places, American security officials said Tuesday.

Mr. Trumps disclosure was also likely to fuel questions about the presidents relationship with Moscow at the same time that the F.B.I. and congressional committees are investigating whether his associates cooperated with Russian meddling in last years election. Mr. Trump has repeatedly dismissed such suspicions as false stories spread by Democrats to explain their election defeat, but his friendly approach toward President Vladimir V. Putin in spite of Moscows intervention in Ukraine and other actions has stirred controversy.
North Korea on Monday claimed it had successfully launched a new kind of medium long-range rocket that can carry a large, heavy nuclear warhead.

Outside observers saw an important technological jump in Sundays test. They said the rocket flew higher and longer than any other missile tested by North Korea.

The missile flew for half an hour on Sunday. It reached a very high altitude before landing in the Sea of Japan, close to Russia, according to Japanese and Russian officials.

The governments of South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Russia condemned the missile test. The United Nations Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss this latest move from North Korea. The U.S., Japan and South Korea requested the meeting after the test on Sunday.

South Korea said Monday its new President, Moon Jae-in, is sending special envoys around the world as the country seeks to strengthen its global ties after this latest hostile missile test.

Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised more nuclear and missile tests. He warned that his countrys weapons could strike the U.S. mainland and territories in the Pacific.

Scientists: not yet an ICBM

The official North Korean news agency KCNA said it flew 787 kilometers and reached an altitude of 2,111 kilometers.

South Koreas Defense Ministry said more analysis is needed to verify the Norths claim on the rockets technology. North Korea has successfully launched long-range rockets into space twice before. But a South Korean spokesman said it is unlikely that North Korea has mastered re-entry technology.

This technology is necessary for an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, to strike a far-away target. The rocket may go far and high, but if it cannot re-enter the atmosphere, without breaking apart, the missile cannot hit its target.

Observers say the high trajectory was a sign it may be a new, two-part liquid fueled rocket.

This is kind of a big deal. But its not an ICBM. Thats the good news, Union of Concerned Scientists co-director David Wright told VOA.

If flown on a normal trajectory, the missile fired by North Korea Sunday morning would have a range of up to 4,500 kilometers, according to Wright.

Guam, an American territory with two large U.S. military bases, is 3,400 kilometers from North Korea. Until now, the island was believed to be outside the range of North Koreas most powerful rockets.

KCNA quoted Kim as accusing the United States of "browbeating" countries that "have no nukes," and warning Washington not to misjudge the reality that its mainland is in the North's "sighting range for strike."

International reaction

Russia's President Vladimir Putin said North Korea's latest missile test was "counter-productive, harmful and dangerous." Speaking Monday in Beijing, Putin said, "We are categorically against the expansion of the club of nuclear powers."

Putin also urged other world leaders to "stop intimidating North Korea and find a peaceful solution to the problem."

China is North Koreas major trading partner and its ally. Chinas Foreign Ministry expressed opposition to Pyongyang's violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. But it called for restraint to avoid increasing hostilities in the area.

In a statement, the White House said the test should serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Sunday it is time for many nations to "send a strong, unified message that this is unacceptable.

She said the United States will continue to "tighten the screws" against  meaning put more pressure on -- North Korea.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be "honored" to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "under the right circumstances." But Haley said "having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the president, because he's absolutely not going to do it."

The United Nations first imposed sanctions against North Korea in 2006. The organization has since added tougher sanctions but the isolated nation still continues with its nuclear and missile testing program.

Im Ashley Thompson.

And Im Anne Ball.

Anne Ball adapted this story with information from VOA News, the Associated Press and Reuters. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story

altitude  n. the height of something (such as an airplane) above the level of the sea

trajectory  n. the curved path along which something (such as a rocket) moves through the air or through space

browbeat  v. to use threats or angry speech to make (someone) do or accept something

nuke  n. informal name for a nuclear weapon

categorically  adv. to say in a very strong, clear and definite way

implement  v. to begin to do or use (something, such as a plan) : to make (something) active or effective

unified  v. past tense of joining or bringing together
BEIRUT, Lebanon  The Syrian government forcefully rejected on Tuesday accusations by the United States that the bodies of thousands of political prisoners had been disposed of in a crematory at a prison near Damascus, describing the allegations as lies to justify American aggression.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad has long been accused of killing thousands of prisoners and burying them in mass graves. But on Monday, the Trump administration made a new charge, accusing Damascus of burning corpses at the Sednaya prison to destroy evidence of war crimes.

U.S. administrations continue fabricating lies and allegations to justify their aggressive and interventionist policies in other sovereign countries, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to the state news agency SANA. These allegations are totally untrue and are only fabrications by the imagination of this administration and its agents.

The response from the Foreign Ministry, which likened the accusations to the script of a Hollywood movie, came on the first day of a new round of negotiations in Geneva on the Syria crisis.
I met one teacher who was fired by the government. He keeps a bag packed just in case the police come for him in the middle of the night.
U.S. President Donald Trump is defending his absolute right to share information with Russian officials at a White House meeting last week.

Trump pushed back against media reports that he gave Russia highly classified intelligence related to the Islamic State group.

The presidents comments appeared on Twitter Tuesday morning. He described his White House talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russias ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Trump wrote that he wanted to give the two men facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. He added that he wanted to urge the Russians to "greatly step up their fight" against Islamic State and terrorists.

The Washington Post newspaper said that Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of a possible threat to air travelers.

The New York Times reported that some officials thought the highly classified information was especially sensitive. They believed it had not even been shared widely within the U.S. government or with Americas allies.

The two newspapers and others said the information could put at risk an important source of intelligence about Islamic State and the method in which it was collected.

A U.S. president has the power to declassify nearly any information, making it available to others. So what Trump did does not appear to be illegal. But intelligence officials expressed concern that the information could harm relationships with other countries. The newspapers reported their comments.

Trump noted that since becoming president, he has been pressuring the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others in the U.S. government "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community."

After-the-fact published reports of Trump's interactions with foreign leaders have at times angered him.

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has denied the accuracy of the news reports on Trump's meeting with the Russian officials. He said that at no time were sources or methods discussed.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed support for McMasters statements. Neither official denied that classified information was discussed.

Reports about the White House meeting has led to reaction overseas.

On Tuesday, a European intelligence official warned that his country might stop sharing information with U.S. officials if it confirms Trump shared classified details with Russia.

The official told the Associated Press that doing so could be a risk for our sources. The official spoke only on condition that neither he nor his country be identified because he was not permitted to talk openly about the subject.

David Firestein formerly worked for the U.S. State Department. He told VOA it is too early to judge the classified information without knowing more details.

Im not sure that we yet know enough, and that what we know we know authoritatively enough to be able to make any really well informed assessments about the propriety, the damage and so forth and so on. Obviously, if information was shared that shouldnt have been shared, and that damaged sources and methods, and it causes damage to the interests of the United States, then thats enormously problematic. Im not sure that we know that is what occurred just yet."

Im Jonathan Evans.

This story was based on reports from VOANews.com and the Associated Press. George Grow wrote the story for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

absolute  adj. completely from restraint; without restrictions

classified  adj. kept secret from all but a few people

pertaining  v. relating to

boasting  v. calling attention to oneself

source  n. starting point; something or someone who provide information

declassify  v. to remove or reduce the security classification

accuracy  n. free from mistakes

authoritatively  adj. clearly knowledgeable

assessment  n. the action of making a judgment about something

obviously  adv. clearly

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.
Vladimir Posner, who spent his youth in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union, and who cohosted a show with Phil Donahue on U.S. television for years, met with a group of visitors to Moscow from the U.S. on Monday, offering his well-informed views on a range of media-related topics.



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Posner said that for years he worked on Soviet propaganda aimed at the United States. The first blow to his full belief in the rectitude of the USSR came, he said, with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He eventually concluded that he was not telling the truth, that by telling only good things he was telling half the truth, which is a falsehood. He quit the job and he quit the Communist Party.

In the days of Gorbachev, Posner was permitted to travel, and moved back to the United States, where he co-hosted that program with Donahue until CNBC got a new president by the name of Roger Ailes. The new boss demanded the right to approve or reject topics or guests. "That's censorship," Posner told him. "I don't give a rat's ass what you call it," Ailes replied.

So, back to Moscow it was. Posner has hosted his current weekly television show in Russia for 8 years. He says he will never again work for a government or a party, and he'll sign a contract with a company only if it leaves him independent control.



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We had heard from other Russian journalists in the preceding days who had painted a very positive picture of Russian media, telling us that there is no censorship, and that more newspapers in Russia oppose Putin than support him. Posner has a bit stricter definition of censorship, I think, as well as a television perspective. "Anyone who told you there are no restrictions on Russian media was not telling you the truth," he said.

He said that Russia's state television channels (1, 2, and 4, and Red TV) serve the government and dominate the audience. "There are things you cannot say and people you cannot invite on," he said. "You cannot criticize Putin on those networks." On smaller, private networks you can, as well as in print and on radio. "The smaller your audience, the greater your freedom." Posner agreed that several newspapers oppose Putin, but denied that they are a majority, and dismissed their audience as no more than 1 million readers, albeit an elite readership. One of the main reasons that Putin has 80% support, Posner said, is state television. The party line in Russia and the company line in the U.S. amount to about the same thing, Posner said.

Asked later for the most common complaints with Putin, Posner didn't offer any. Instead, he tried to explain Putin's popularity; and the explanation may have been understood as functioning through television spin, but it also seemed factual. Posner said that people see Putin as having stood up to the 800-pound American gorilla, restoring pride to the disrespected federation of Russia. Russians were ready to be hugged when they got rid of communism. Instead they were given the rotten deals of the 1990s and now endure sanctions that have lowered incomes by 10% to 12% (while benefitting Russian agriculture) -- a state of affairs that Posner predicted would win absolutely no concessions out of Russia.



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Posner offered as an example of a dishonest company line Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who had never been to Crimea, reporting that people in Crimea voted to rejoin Russia only under the threat of Russian soldiers. "She was lying."

Posner suggested that David Remnick of the New Yorker is better informed yet seemingly writes something very different from what he must know. Posner said that the New Yorker's ownership by Conde Nast is typical of a trend away from independence in the U.S.

Asked about Russia Today (or RT, Russian TV for Americans) he dismissed it as propaganda showing only the good in Russia and only the bad in the United States. But for those of us who ignore RT reporting on Russia and appreciate its reporting on uncovered topics in the U.S., Posner seems right only up to a point when he states that no audience will ever turn to a foreign source over a domestic one. In fact, Posner immediately offered the counter-example of the popularity of the Voice of America, the BBC, and German broadcasting in the USSR.

Posner glides effortlessly from criticizing Russian media to criticizing U.S. media and back again. The U.S. media, he says, has demonized Russia since 1918 and has done so far more than Russian or Soviet media has ever done the same to the United States. In Posner's estimation, Putin is demonized in U.S. media in ways that even Stalin was never subjected to. He cited as an example a graphic depicting Putin's shadow as falling over a downed airplane in Ukraine. Putin asked to join the EU, for goodness sake, he asked to join NATO, and the U.S. turned him down, explained Posner.

Posner said that when he was a kid in the United States, Americans knew that it was the Soviet Union that won World War II, and loved Russia for it. Now, Americans have no idea. Russians, meanwhile, have come to identify Americans with their government's hostile policies to a degree not seen during the Cold War. Everyone used to like Americans and dress like Americans, etc.

Posner explains the Russian attitude as the product of Russian propaganda and of the absence of stories of Americans protesting Washington. (I gave Posner thousands of messages from Americans hoping to fill that gap.) Posner also blamed the failure of the U.S. to provide anything like a Marshall Plan in the 1990s, or to assist in the development of democracy, something Russia had never had. Asked whether the Marshall Plan in Germany and Japan had left Europe and Japan totally subordinate to the United States, and whether Russia would have suffered the same fate, Posner seemed inclined to believe that is not what would have happened.

In explaining Russia's lack of a democratic tradition, Posner said that Putin actually believes that the U.S. president can call up the New York Times and ask them to print a story, and they will. Well, label me a Russian autocrat, but we know of many cases of the White House feeding stories to the New York Times, and many of it suppressing stories at the New York Times. The drone kill list story of 2014 comes to mind as an example of the former (or, if you prefer, the aluminum tubes story of 2003), and the NSA mass-surveillance story of 2004 as an example of the latter.



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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Monday (May 15) reserved its judgment on India's appeal for a provisional stay on the execution of its citizens, Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to death last month by Pakistan.

India asked the ICJ judges on Monday to order Islamabad to stay the execution of Jadhav, a case that has escalated tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

India argued in a preliminary hearing that Pakistan had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying the condemned man access to legal and other assistance from India.

Pakistan told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that India is using the court as a stage for political theatre, adding that solid evidences were provided regarding alleged spy's 'activities'. Pakistan also said India has been unable to provide an explanation for Jadhav's passport which bears a Muslim name.

Monday's hearings focused on India's request for so-called "provisional measures" that can be granted at short notice to ensure a dispute between states does not deteriorate during full ICJ proceedings, which typically take several years.

India Monday demanded immediate suspension of Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence, expressing fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at the ICJ was over.

"Jadhav has not got the right to get proper legal assistance and the right to consular access," India told the court in opening remarks.

At the core of the dispute is the fate of Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, an Indian former naval officer who was arrested in March 2016 in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.

India, in its appeal to the ICJ, had asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the Indian Navy.

According to Pakistan, Jadhav confessed to being tasked by India's intelligence service with planning, coordinating and organizing espionage and sabotage activities in Balochistan "aiming to destabilize and wage war against Pakistan".

However, the ICJ declined to play the alleged confessional video of Jadhav when Pakistan offered it as evidence during the afternoon session of the court.

In April, a Pakistani military court sentenced him to death. No date was set for the execution. Pakistan has said Jadhav's conviction and sentence remain open to appeal.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

India's representative at the ICJ hearing described the charges against Jadhav as "concocted" and his trial as "farcical."

The hearings were being held in front of 11 of the court's 15 judges, including President Ronny Abraham of France, and Indian Judge Dalveer Bhandari. The judges are elected for nine year terms by the Security Council and General Assembly.

The ICJ decisions are final and binding. However, it has no means to enforce rulings and they have occasionally been ignored.

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Net neutrality protesting outside of Ajit Pai's home

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Reprinted from popularresistance.org

Despite public opinion and the facts, he intends to serve the Telecom Industry. Pai is behaving like he is still Verizon's lawyer, not someone required to serve the public interest.

Arlington, VA -- Ajit Pai, the Chair of the FCC, is on a mission to destroy the Internet by reclassifying it so that it is no longer a common carrier where we all have equal access and repeal net neutrality rules so Comcast, Verizon and A&T can discriminate based on content.



Net neutrality protesting outside of Ajit Pai's home on May 14, 2017.

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Net neutrality protesting outside of Ajit Pai's home on May 14, 2017. By Anne Meador, DC Media Group.

Net neutrality activists began a vigil at the FCC chairman's home in Arlington on Sunday, May 14 to protest. They will continue on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday until the public meeting at the FCC on Thursday, May 18. Twenty people stood outside of his home holding signs urging "Save The Internet," "We Want Democracy Not Net Monopolies," "Ajit Pai Stop the Lies" "Protect the Internet" and "Equal Access for All."

The protest was supported by every neighbor who spoke to them, one even offered the use of their bathroom if net neutrality advocates needed it. Three of the participants were from the neighborhood and attended because the week before they found a door hanger describing Ajit Pai and the issue on their front door. The door hangers were placed on 200 doors in Pai's neighborhood so when the protest occurred,people would understand what was happening.



Some of Ajit Pai neighbors came out and joined the protest in his neighborhood. May 14, 2017

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Some of Ajit Pai neighbors came out and joined the protest in his neighborhood. May 14, 2017. Photo by Eleanor Goldfield.

Pai has made it clear in public statements that he intends to repeal the Title II classification of the Internet as a common carrier. He also intends to repeal net neutrality rules that allow regulation so that there can be no discrimination in access to content on the Internet. The former Verizon lawyer is acting in the interests of his former employer and other big telecoms rather than in the public interest. He is announcing what looks like a sham public comment proceeding on May 18 since he has already announced his decision. It is going to take an overwhelming mobilization of people to prevent him from destroying Internet freedom.

CLICK HERE TO SEND HIM A DIRECT MESSAGE.



Lee Stewart protests outside Ajit Pai home on May 14, 2017.

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Lee Stewart protests outside Ajit Pai home on May 14, 2017. Photo by Eleanor Goldfield.

The Internet has been a vibrant tool for innovation, creativity, free speech and independent media and an engine for the economy because there is equal access. Under Title II, as it is currently classified, the Internet is a common carrier like electricity coming to your home. Title II is also essential for putting in place net neutrality rules as the DC Court of Appeals ruled when Verizon sued the FCC in 2014. Net neutrality is the idea that access to the Internet should not be based on content. If the content is legal then it should be treated like all other content on the web. Preference cannot be given to sites whose content is approved by the Internet Service Providers, e.g. Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, and corporations and people cannot purchase better service than others. Equal access for all is the current rule and we must protect it.



Kevin Zeese protesting outside of Ajit Pai home on May 14, 2017. .

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Murder scene

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According to the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department, the nation's capital reported 135 homicides last year. One of those homicides, the killing of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich on July 10, 2016, continues to make news ten months later.

Who killed , and why? We may never know for sure. On the other hand, a significant piece of the puzzle may have just fallen into place.

Fox News, citing a federal investigator as source, reports that Rich may well -- as long rumored -- have been the source of DNC emails published by WikiLeaks, less than two weeks after he was shot twice in the back during a robbery in which, curiously, nothing was apparently taken from him.

That email release, which revealed an internal DNC conspiracy to ensure the nomination of Hillary Clinton for president at the expense of her opponent, Bernie Sanders, wounded Clinton's campaign and cost US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz her position as DNC chair.

The federal source, as well as an investigator hired by the Rich family (former DC homicide detective Rod Wheeler), claims that Rich communicated with (now deceased) WikiLeaks director Gavin MacFadyen.

WikiLeaks founder/director Julian Assange, in line with the organization's policy against outing sources, has resolutely declined to confirm or deny Rich as the DNC leaker. However, WikiLeaks did put up reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of his killer or killers -- and retweeted, without comment, the Fox News story referenced above.

For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. In the case of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the right-wing conspiracy theory project of putting every fatal heart attack and accidental traffic death in America on a constantly updated, Internet-circulated "Clinton Body Count" list tends to make the rest of us cautious about just assuming skullduggery on the part of the Clintons and their associates in any given instance.

Still, it can't be denied that Hillary Clinton has, as what her husband called his "co-president," as a US Senator, and as US Secretary of State, proven herself to have both a sense of political entitlement and a distinctly murderous bent. If you doubt this, watch the CBS News video of her giggling "we came, we saw, he died" response to the killing of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Clinton's publicly flaunted attitudes lend credibility to claims, admittedly listed as "unproven" (not necessarily "false") by pro-Clinton site Snopes.com, that as Secretary of State she once seriously proposed the assassination of none other than Julian Assange: "Can't we just drone this guy?"

Is it really that far-fetched to hypothesize that Clinton, or officials in her campaign or party -- many of whom are accustomed to exercising power of life and death when actually in office -- would quail from likewise killing in pursuit of their political interests? The DNC leak (and therefore the DNC leaker) arguably cost Clinton more than the 80,000 votes or so by which she lost the 2016 presidential election.

As the straight news types like to say: Developing.
Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.

His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:

http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/

Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of (more...)


This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

War, American-style, in the twenty-first century hasn't exactly been a sterling success story. (How did the Brits ever manage to run that empire of theirs for so many years with such modest numbers of troops?) Take Afghanistan, for example. We now know something of Washington's latest plans for pursuing the war in that country well into its 16th year. They are, according to media reports, just landing on President Trump's desk with the enthusiastic support of his national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, the Pentagon, the intelligence services, and General John Nicholson, the U.S. Afghan commander. Pushback seems to be coming only from the administration's Bannonite wing. Basically, those plans seem to boil down to sending in more U.S. troops and more Special Operations forces, putting them in more combat-like situations, and supporting them with more U.S. air power -- or put another way, more of exactly what there has regularly been more of for the last 15 years. Call it a mini-surge. All of this, in turn, is supposed to "break the Afghan deadlock," shift the war in the favor of the U.S.-backed government, and lead to successful peace negotiations. Oh, and it's grounded in the conviction that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is capable of weeding corrupt and ineffective commanders out of his military.

It might cross your mind that all of the above could only have been dreamt up by "strategists" who had been on another planet for the last decade and a half. However, the generals who came up with this brilliant plan (for a president who, in 2013, tweeted, "We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Their government has zero appreciation. Let's get out!") have been deeply involved in America's wars across the Greater Middle East in those years. And since it's hard to believe that they meant to create a failing strategy, the only alternative is to assume that they've been involved in this sort of war-making for so long that they are no longer capable of imagining anything else. In other words, what we're witnessing is a brain-dead version of strategizing that will leave another set of officials in Washington wondering what to do next somewhere down the line.

In the face of such "planning," woefully typical of Washington's war on terror, it's always good to look for some bright spot and there does happen to be one area where the U.S. military remains the undisputed global champ: military bases. As TomDispatchregular David Vine has shown in his essential book, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, the U.S. garrisons the globe without competitors and in a fashion previously unimaginable. That "rising power" China, for instance, is only now building its first base outside its own territory -- in the small African country of Djibouti, just miles from a large U.S. base, leaving it approximately 799 global garrisons short of Washington. Britain and France each still have some bases, generally left over from their days of imperial glory, and the Russians also have a handful, including two particularly active ones in Syria and another, just unveiled, in its own far northern territories near the Arctic Circle. That's its second base in the melting north. About such moves, Washington is already raising the alarm. (Secretary of Defense James Mattis at his confirmation hearings typically said, "The U.S. must ensure that Russia doesn't expand those efforts to dominate the region.")

Still, at the moment, the U.S. stands alone when it comes to garrisoning Planet Earth, a success story that, strangely enough, never seems to impress the mainstream media enough to consider it a subject worthy of coverage, which is why it's so useful to have David Vine on hand at moments like this. Tom

Forty-Five Blows Against Democracy

How U.S. Military Bases Back Dictators, Autocrats, and Military Regimes

By David Vine Much outrage has been expressed in recent weeks over President Donald Trump's invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, whose "war on drugs" has led to thousands of extrajudicial killings. Criticism of Trump was especially intense given his similarly warm public support for other authoritarian rulers like Egypt's Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (who visited the Oval Office to much praise only weeks earlier), Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who got a congratulatory phone call from President Trump on his recent referendum victory, granting him increasingly unchecked powers), and Thailand's Prayuth Chan-ocha (who also received a White House invitation). But here's the strange thing: the critics generally ignored the far more substantial and long-standing bipartisan support U.S. presidents have offered these and dozens of other repressive regimes over the decades. After all, such autocratic countries share one striking thing in common. They are among at least 45 less-than-democratic nations and territories that today host scores of U.S. military bases, from ones the size of not-so-small American towns to tiny outposts. Together, these bases are homes to tens of thousands of U.S. troops. To ensure basing access from Central America to Africa, Asia to the Middle East, U.S. officials have repeatedly collaborated with fiercely anti-democratic regimes and militaries implicated in torture, murder, the suppression of democratic rights, the systematic oppression of women and minorities, and numerous other human rights abuses. Forget the recent White House invitations and Trump's public compliments. For nearly three quarters of a century, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in maintaining bases and troops in such repressive states. From Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have, since World War II, regularly shown a preference for maintaining bases in undemocratic and often despotic states, including Spain under Generalissimo Francisco Franco, South Korea under Park Chung-hee, Bahrain under King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and Djibouti under four-term President Ismail Omar Guelleh, to name just four. Many of the 45 present-day undemocratic U.S. base hosts qualify as fully "authoritarian regimes," according to the Economist Democracy Index. In such cases, American installations and the troops stationed on them are effectively helping block the spread of democracy in countries like Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This pattern of daily support for dictatorship and repression around the world should be a national scandal in a country supposedly committed to democracy. It should trouble Americans ranging from religious conservatives and libertarians to leftists -- anyone, in fact, who believes in the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. After all, one of the long-articulated justifications for maintaining military bases abroad has been that the U.S. military's presence protects and spreads democracy. Far from bringing democracy to these lands, however, such bases tend to provide legitimacy for and prop up undemocratic regimes of all sorts, while often interfering with genuine efforts to encourage political and democratic reform. The silencing of the critics of human rights abuses in base hosts like Bahrain, which has violently cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators since 2011, has left the United States complicit in these states' crimes. During the Cold War, bases in undemocratic countries were often justified as the unfortunate but necessary consequence of confronting the "communist menace" of the Soviet Union. But here's the curious thing: in the quarter century since the Cold War ended with that empire's implosion, few of those bases have closed. Today, while a White House visit from an autocrat may generate indignation, the presence of such installations in countries run by repressive or military rulers receives little notice at all. Befriending Dictators The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases (who often lack the power to ask their "guests" to leave). They are part of a historically unprecedented global network of military installations the United States has built or occupied since World War II. Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are around 800 U.S. bases in foreign countries. That number was recently even higher, but it still almost certainly represents a record for any nation or empire in history. More than 70 years after World War II and 64 years after the Korean War, there are, according to the Pentagon, 181 U.S. "base sites" in Germany, 122 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Hundreds more dot the planet from Aruba to Australia, Belgium to Bulgaria, Colombia to Qatar. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, civilians, and family members occupy these installations. By my conservative estimate, to maintain such a level of bases and troops abroad, U.S. taxpayers spend at least $150 billion annually -- more than the budget of any government agency except the Pentagon itself.

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For what's it's worth (the same I am paid for writing), here is my perspective on the view that Trump and Pence will go down together leaving the Democrats to pick up the pieces. 1. Just as JFK picked a man he detested and who detested him (LBJ), as his VP, Trump has chosen a man, for political purposes (to gain the support of all those Republicans who hate him), whom he despises and who despises him. 2. As I have written, the feuds between Trump and the FBI and CIA are fake fights....intended to cover up their collusion in defeating the even more despised Clinton (hatred seems to be the nexus of US politics) thinking Trump, being an empty suit full of bluster, could be easily controlled. 3. It is absurd to think that the man who got Trump elected, Comey, is his enemy seeking to take him down. Rather, I think Comey wants to cover up his collusion to defeat Clinton by investigating Trump and revealing it AFTER Trump took power. If he really wanted to take down Trump, he would have exposed the investigation before the election. In this view, the investigation is a sort of limited hang out cover-up with no real purpose other than to mask the underlying collusion that brought Trump to power and an attempt for Comey to distance himself from the coming Trump disaster.

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4. Comey was not fired by Trump but by the Attorney General

s Office, which explains why Trump has had no coherent reason to explain the firing.

5. Behind the firing, forced upon Trump, is the agenda of Pence and the Republican Establishment (Never Trump) to take him down and put Pence in control.

6. When Trump goes down, the mainstream Republicans will take back what they see as a coup and Trump will blame Obama and claim he has had enough of a system so corrupt he can no longer, with honor, participate. That was his narrative when he thought he was losing the election to Clinton and will likely be his narrative to explain why he is resigning.

Too outrageous? How many of you predicted Trump would win and that his peace with Russia was fake and that he would populate the swamp of the White House with Goldman-Sachs alumni?

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Kall's Bottom-up explores refreshing yet timeless ways of seeing and ways of thinking about economics, knowledge and wisdom. He presents his message, that decentralized, local and small are both good and healthy in business and economics, in a model that makes sense and offers practical solutions."



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"Rob Kall's book, Bottom-Up points the way to a more caring and connected world. This stimulating book combines realistic facts with idealistic optimism at a time when both are so urgently needed."



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Hello--My name is Judge Moishe Pipick. I have a tough decision to make and I need some help in the matter. The decision I must make is: "Who, exactly has the right to express his or her opinion in the voter's booth?" My decision is related to a subject that has been in and out of the news in the past few years. You might have heard a presidential candidate use the term "the Citizens United decision." This was a puzzling 5-to-4 majority Supreme Court decision involving a company called "Citizens United" contesting a Congressional act prohibiting corporations from airing commercials for political candidates within 30-60 days of a federal election. It had been designed by Congress to prevent corporations from inundating the airwaves with political commercials in an effort to purchase elections for their pet candidates.

By the time that the five-justice majority was done, PACs or political action committees would still to be allowed to accept unlimited amounts of money collected from secret donors to be distributed to their candidates of choice. This "privilege" would be protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution under the auspices of "freedom of speech," that is the expression of the donor corporation opinion or approval of a candidate. According to the majority Court decision, however, this special "privilege" of freedom of speech would not be extended to an individual donor's very same opinion if expressed at the polls in the form of something called a "vote." In short, freedom of speech is not a "right," guaranteed to a U.S. citizen as a voter, but a "privilege" granted only to those who agree to pay money to candidates.

In fact, this concept has been advanced time after time by supposed "Constitutionalists" or "originalists" such as Antonin Scalia and his four apparent fellow stooges on the Supreme Court. In their drooling contempt for American voters. According to their theory, the original authors of the Constitution omitted any reference for the "right" of the individual to to vote. In fact, the original authors neglected to state just how their legislators from each state were to be chosen; those same legislators needed, in turn, to choose the eventual electors of the president and vice president of the nation. This "omission" was apparently corrected in the Seventeenth Amendment, finally ratified in 1913. ("The Senate of the United States shall be elected by the people thereof...") The "original" authors of the Constitution had included only legislators and electoral-college members as voters. Apparently, any other rights of citizens to vote were to be left to the states to decide . According to their theory of "autocratic selection," originalists alone have been endowed by their creator with the special privilege of ignoring any amendment to the constitution they choose, because the amendment was not in the "original" Constitution. Thus their decision basically confirms that states are in charge of federal elections and can make it harder for their citizens to vote and may even override the federal government's First Amendment duty to protect the voter's right to express his opinion at the ballot box.

To anyone but a Supreme Court justice, an arrogant constitutional lawyer, the ACLU or various other disinterested players, this would appear to be a literal, if not classic example of a "protection" racket. The only way a voter's opinion can qualify as protected under the First Amendment is to "pay" for that protection! Now, before you say that what I've said is "parsing" and ask "why should I care?," consider what has been occurring in so many Republican-controlled states in recent years. Not only have thousands of congressional districts been absurdly gerrymandered or drawn up in such a way that the party winning the clear majority of votes loses a significant number of congressional seats (a clear nullification of the voters' expression of opinion), but draconian laws and practices have been employed in these same states to keep specific groups of people from voting. Only recently, the courts finally ruled that it was somehow unfair to honor an NRA I.D. but not a state-college I.D. at the polls. Ya think maybe the opposition party might do the same sort of thing to you the next time they get into power, Texas Republicans?

To make matters worse, although it can be argued that the First Amendment protects people, corporations, parrots and even Mr. Ed's freedom of speech, the same cannot be said as confidently of the Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection). Over and over the Court seems to have ruled that the amendment applies only to "people" and not corporations. So if people have "rights" under the Fourteenth Amendment that corporations do not, how do five justices on the Supreme Court decide that "corporations" should have "rights" that "people" don't. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Well, as we have seen, if you were Antonin (Nino) Scalia you might claim that voting is nothing but the meaningless act of pushing of a button. If you were Clarence Thomas, you might say "Huh? I'll have to ask my lobbyist wife, Virginia, just how she wants me to vote. You know, I need the money." If you were Samuel Alito you might just click your heels and whisper "I wish I were in Kansas, I wish I were in Kansas." Justice Anthony Kennedy might ask Chief Justice Roberts "How do Charlie and David (Koch) say we should vote?"

In the end, I think the two questions that need to be answered before I make my decision are:

(1) To the five majority Supreme Court justices: "From which end did you just express that opinion, your front end or back end?" and

(2) To the reader: "Are the "Five Stooges" better slapstick comedians than "The Three Stooges?'"

Allen Finkelstein, 4/14/17


.Civic duty,. except go ahead and try if you want to vote Democratic!

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Paper ballots are crucial to the future of election integrity, a panel of seven distinguished experts all agreed at a congressional briefing on Strengthening Election Cybersecurity yesterday, May 15. And bipartisan cooperation is vitally necessary toward this goal.

Paper is essential to elections, in the form of paper ballots used for voting on optical scanners, with voter-verified auditable paper trails (VVPAT) as generated by some touchscreens an alternative, but ditching the DREs (direct-recording electronic voting machines ) altogether is vitally necessary. The problem is that most states can't afford to purchase new machinery. The nationwide cost of replacing systems more than ten years old and hence out of date (running on Windows XP if not older operating systems) as well as beyond their usability limits and lacking security, would be around $100 to $200 million--a price low by most governmental standards, said James Woolsey, former CIA Director and Chair of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. If the federal government can't provide it, certainly wealthy "angels" can, or NGOs or foundations. Like the Koch brothers or George Soros, he later joked.

But too much public alarm over cybersecurity, or any other issues at the voting level will reduce voter confidence. That fact was not disputed.

So many issues were touched on and there was only an hour and a half for each panelist to speak and audience questions to be taken. The event was so stimulating I wish it had lasted longer.

The distinguished panel was moderated by Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University Law School. She was joined by Ambassador Woolsey; Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (ret.), a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a contributor to Fox News; Lawrence Norden, deputy director of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice; Susan Greenhaigh, election specialist at the Verified Voting Foundation; James Scott, senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology; and Alex Halderman, professor of computer science and technology at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Greenberg began the discussion with a theme that all agreed was necessary to any progress on cybersecurity, bipartisan cooperation. So far, legislation addressing election integrity and machinery has been sponsored and cosponsored by Democrats. All the members of the new congressional caucus on fair elections that was formed last year are Democrats. President Trump promises to include Democrats among the consultants included in his proposed Commission on Election Integrity, which is really about "scientifically" rationalizing away Hillary Clinton's 3 million popular vote victory over him in Election 2016 (click here). Whom will he appoint? Perhaps Ambassador Woolsey, who humorously described himself as a Lieberman-style Democrat?

Professor Halderman, well known among election integrity activists for successfully hacking into Internet voting machinery introduced for possible use in the District of Columbia in 2010, noted that 52 different election system models are used in this country. All are subject to virusing singly or contagiously or at an even wider range if central tabulators are used, even those not connected to the Internet.

Countrywide our decentralized technologies, have systems varying in most cases from county to county. A few are centralized statewide, but municipalities are very wary of interference by the central government. Hacking is hardly impeded, however. Expert hackers like Russia, Guccifer, Anonymous, or even ISIS choose the most vulnerable models in the most critical, battleground areas.

In Michigan, he said, 75 percent of counties outsource management of their systems to outside providers, making the whole state vulnerable to hacking. He praised and advocated the use of paper in elections, comparing it to the old-fashioned magnetic compasses airplane pilots use when their computers fail. In 2016 more than 70 percent of votes were on paper ballots, most of which weren't resorted to even where final tallies were close, which is when paper ballots are most useful in providing exact and accurate vote counts.

Further, we must have risk-limiting audits--that is, post-election audits of a number of ballots statistically valid in the context of the total number of votes--a system that must be in place by Election 2020 "or we'll be sitting ducks."

Ambassador Woolsey, who said that he wasn't a cyber expert, demonstrated deep expertise on the art of "disinformation," a form of deception in which Russians excel other countries and on which they devote a huge amount of taxpayer money, all to deceive the West. An example was pro-communism propaganda, which they spread among 30 million Western Europeans successfully, as apparent in their election results, despite all of the post World War II aid the United States supplied to them. We are the world's biggest target and Russia's favorite one.

Dr. Scott, next to speak, the author of the newly published best-seller Hacking Elections Is Easy, addressed the problems of malicious software, espionage, and disinformation. Iranians have yet to invade U.S. systems, aiming, along with others, at state-level tabulators, which are most vulnerable to outside invasions. Hackers have an easy time keeping the "backdoors" of the machines "open" to such penetration.

Hammertoss is a "backdoor" program used by the Russian group APT29 that receives its instructions or commands from Twitter or other popular websites and mimics the behavior of legitimate software as it invades systems and extracts data from them--the most complex form of manipulation.

An easier form of malware, used in the United States, is fractionalization or decimalization [discovered by Bev Harris's associate Bennie Smith], which, with predetermined agendas according to polling where it is used, assigns "weights" to each vote, either less than one or more than one but never zero (to my knowledge) or two. The votes total exactly the number predetermined--more votes in white areas, fewer in nonwhite areas, of course, and the software is entirely undetectable. Results will have been manipulated by assigning 1 vote-plus-a Fraction to a number of desirable voters (depending on bias of the programmers) and reducing, by Fraction, the votes of a greater number of voters to less than 1. If equally weighted, the majority would have won, but with the Fraction allocations, they lose. The software is entirely undetectable except in rare cases where an operator carelessly leaves a Fraction in the results, which a practiced operator will "close" to whole numbers after the program has done its job. Dr. Scott anticipated that it would be used in "one or two swing states" in the next federal election. Dr. Scott anticipated that it would be used in "one or two swing states" in the next federal election. I couldn't help but compare the ante-bellum system that assigned two-thirds of a vote to every slave, though slaves couldn't vote. The point was to make the number of votes in the less-populous slaveholding South comparable to that of the industrial Northern states.

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A crying Statue of Liberty

With all the relentless harrumphing coming from the corporate MSM over Trump's firing FBI Director James Comey last Tuesday and some Senate Dems likening it to the Nixon/ Watergate era calling for a special prosecutor there was something about the whole affair that came off as deliberately skewed.

To get some clarity I read Robert Parry's account referring to Trump's firing Comey as "The 'soft coup' of Russia-gate". [1]

Parry suggests re-watching Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" to "remind us how crazy Americans can get when they are pumped up with anti-Russian propaganda, as is happening now".

Going further he writes, "I realize that many Democrats, liberals and progressives hate Donald Trump so much that they believe that any pretext is justified in taking him down, even if that plays into the hands of the neoconservatives and other war mongers. Many people who detest Trump view Russia-gate as the most likely path to achieve Trump's impeachment, so this desirable end justifies the means" and "that is the responsibility of the major news media, the law enforcement and intelligence communities, and members of Congress to engage in a 'soft coup' against Trump-also known as a 'constitutional coup' or 'deep state' coup-for the good of the country."

Then reading Mike Whitney's latest, "The Russian Hacking Fiasco" [2] , he writes, "There's no proof that Russia hacked the US elections. There's no proof that Russian officials or Russian agents colluded with members of the Trump campaign. There's no proof that Russia provided material support of any kind for the Trump campaign or that Russian agents hacked Hillary Clinton's emails or that Russian officials provided Wikileaks with emails that were intended to sabotage Hillary's chances to win the election."

"So far no one in any of the 17 US Intelligence agencies has stepped forward and verified the claims of Russian meddling or produced a scintilla of hard evidence that Russia was in any way involved in the 2016 elections".

"No proof means no proof...unsubstantiated rumors completely devoid of substance"...is 100 percent, unalloyed baloney."

"The call for a special prosecutor is not based on evidence, it is based on politics...because Donald Trump had the audacity to win an election that was earmarked for establishment favorite and globalist war monger Hillary Clinton. That's what this witch hunt is all about, sour grapes".

Let's face it Dems and the MSM have suffered apoplexy ever since Trump was elected so as Parry relates any means necessary justifies the end to achieve Trump's impeachment.

It's simply Neo- McCarthyism writ large over the American political landscape.

Only today there's no Edward R. Morrow to set the current dystopia straight.





[1] "The 'soft coup' of Russia-gate" by Robert Parry, Information Clearing House, May 13, 2017

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This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Here's a footnote to America's present wars that's worth pondering for a few moments. The U.S. Air Force is running out of ordinary bombs, smart bombs, and in some cases missiles. No kidding. The air war over Syria and Iraq that began in August 2014 and is now two-and-a-half years old has eaten through America's supply of bombs. The usual crew of weapons makers evidently can't produce such munitions fast enough to keep up, so the U.S. military is, for instance, cutting into its stockpiles of smart bombs in Asia to send some to the Middle East and Africa simply to keep pace with demand -- and, according to recent reports, it may nonetheless be failing to do so. Consider this a longer term problem since, in the era of Donald Trump, the generals are increasingly running their own wars, which, if the daily drumbeat of news about them is accurate, are only ramping up further.

Everywhere you look, from Yemen to Iraq, Syria to Somalia, the American military is growing more assertive as civilian casualties rise and constraints of any sort, whether on special operations raids, drone strikes, or the use of the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, fall away. Only last week, for instance, came news that Trump's generals plan to put recommendations on his desk soon to turn the tide in America's longest war, the largely forgotten one in Afghanistan, which the U.S. military now refers to as a "stalemate." (Who cares that, on the ground, the Taliban has in recent months seemed increasingly ascendant and the U.S.-trained, U.S.-supplied, and U.S.-backed Afghan military increasingly battered?) Those recommendations -- so claims acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Theresa Whalen -- will help the U.S "move beyond the stalemate." This will evidently be done by sending 3,000 to 5,000 more U.S. troops there to train the Afghan military. Yes, you read that right. Almost 16 years after the invasion and "liberation" of Afghanistan in 2001, the solution to the never-ending war there is to send in a few thousand more U.S. military personnel to work with a force filled with "ghost soldiers," into which this country has already reportedly poured $71 billion and which has suffered both staggering casualties and startling desertion rates in recent years. Just off the top of your head, tell me how you think that's likely to go. And oh yes, once those troops are there, one thing that will certainly be needed: more bombs and missiles to support their activities.

All of this is part of what TomDispatchregular Army Major Danny Sjursen, author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, refers to today as the U.S. military's "more" strategy. With the generals ascendant in the Trumpian universe and all those stars twinkling in Washington's firmament, "more" is distinctly in the saddle. Whether in Afghanistan or in Syria and Iraq, where that massive air campaign against the Islamic State is now well into its third year, it has lent a significant hand to the rubblization of major cities across both of those countries. (In Syria, the Russian and Syrian air forces have offered a similarly helping hand in the process, as has ISIS with its suicide vehicles and booby-trapped buildings.) As a result, while the Islamic State is not yet defeated, the region is now in genuine chaos, overrun by millions of uprooted refugees from countries increasingly in ruins and in disarray. In other words, what started as a "war" against al-Qaeda, a modest-sized group of fanatics largely located in Afghanistan (with scattered cells of followers elsewhere), has now become a catastrophe stretching from Afghanistan to the former state of Libya in North Africa and beyond. As ever, the American solution to this crisis, as Sjursen points out, is: more! Tom

The Hazards of Military Worship

Everyone Loves the Troops and Their Generals, But History Indicates That Military Advice Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be

By Danny Sjursen More, more, more. I was guilty of it myself. Commanding a small cavalry troop of about 85 soldiers in southwest Kandahar Province back in 2011, I certainly wanted and requested more: more troopers, more Special Forces advisers, more Afghan police, more air support, more supplies, more money, more... everything. Like so many others in Afghanistan back then, I wanted whatever resources would protect the guys in my unit and fend off the insurgent threat. No one, of course, asked me if the U.S. military should even be there, nor did I presume to raise the question. I was, after all, just a captain dug into a tough fight in a dangerous district. It's funny, though, people sometimes ask me now, "What's really going on in Afghanistan?" They ask the same question about Iraq, where I led a unit back in 2006-2007. I mean, the implication is: If you served over there, unlike those (liberal!) pundits and politicians who regularly mouth off on the subject, who would know better? But I've learned over the years that what they don't want to hear is my real answer to such questions, so I rarely bother to tell them that historians, analysts, and thoughtful critics, even ones who haven't been within thousands of miles of our war zones, probably understand the "big picture" better than most soldiers. That's the dirty little secret of America's wars: despite the omniscient claims of some veterans, most soldiers see their version of war as if gazing through a straw at 30,000 feet. Combat and dedication to your unit and mission naturally steer you toward such tunnel vision. And here's the sad thing that no one wants to admit: that mantra applies as strongly to generals as to sergeants (and if you don't believe that, just check out our wars of the last 15 years). So it's worrisome when president after president defers to and all too often hides behind the supposed wisdom of active and retired three- and four-star flag officers. Don't get me wrong, some of these guys can be impressive. No one is perfect, but former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey was a gem with genuine scholarly and combat bona fides. But consider him and a few others the exceptions that prove the rule. Which is why civilian control of the military, and of the policymaking process that goes with military action, is not just a constitutional imperative but desirable for thoroughly practical reasons. Which, in turn, is why the makeup of the current administration -- with an unprecedented number of generals in key positions -- raises some serious questions. And yet the problem is so much bigger than that. Somehow -- and this should be truly unnerving -- Americans have gotten to a place where, it seems, they trust only soldiers. In June 2016, for instance, a Gallup poll found that 73% of Americans had "quite a lot" of confidence in the military, versus 36% for the presidency and 6% for Congress. Such disparities ought to inspire distress about the direction of our public institutions, but rarely do. Where the nation puts its money both reflects this reality and aggravates it. Consider that in this fiscal year military spending exceeded $600 billion, or 12 times the State Department's budget. Worse still, the new president's proposed budget would cut State by more than one-third -- despite former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates's quip that there are already more members of military bands than Foreign Service officers. The Myth of (Infallible) Military Judgment By now, it's part of American lore that, facing a thorny problem or potential conflict abroad, a president should throw some stars at it. If only generals were indeed pixie dust. Historically speaking, though, since World War II, calling on the generals has often resulted in abject failure. There's plenty of evidence of that in the last 15 years of, at best, inconclusive war in the Greater Middle East, but first, let's take a brief tour of military advice from the previous century's crises. MacArthur in Korea In October 1950, just months after the Korean War began, President Harry Truman met General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the coalition forces in Korea, on Wake Island. There, MacArthur assured the president of two things: that the Chinese would not intervene in the war and that the fighting would be over by Christmas. A month later, hundreds of thousands of Chinese "volunteers" streamed across the Yalu River into northern Korea, sending MacArthur's troops into headlong retreat. Wrong once, the general promptly called for a massive U.S. troop escalation and the bombing of China, perhaps even nuclear attacks on that country. Truman recoiled, fired the general, and opened negotiations, all while avoiding nuclear war. And what happened to the twice-wrong MacArthur? In April 1951, with the war still underway -- an armistice wouldn't finally come until July 1953 -- he received a record-breaking 19-mile-long ticker-tape parade through New York City in which 3,249 tons of paper rained down on him.

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As breweries go, Sanctuary Brewing Company is in its own league. The all-vegan microbrewery has been working to win hearts, minds and taste buds since opening its doors in a cozy little North Carolina town two years ago.

Founded by partners Lisa McDonald and Joe Dinan, the brewery is one of the first in Hendersonville, N.C., just 30 miles outside of Asheville (aka Beer City, USA)  and the only one dedicated to advocacy for humans and animals alike.

Set in a 4,000-square-foot former warehouse with towering ceilings and twinkly lights, beer-istas serve cleverly named beers from 20 rotating taps: the Weekend Joe Coffee Stout on nitro; the Raspberry Beret Saison; the Karma Kanic Coffee Porter; and the Lil Sebastian Pale Ale, to name a few.

In addition to beer, the brewery is known for live local music, puppy-cuddling pup crawls, Thanksgiving celebrations, free meal Sundays, yoga with cats and a lengthy list of other philanthropic pursuits.

To learn more about the little brewery thats breaking the mold, Paste spoke to co-owner McDonald about how SBC came to be. Note: the author has an established relationship with SBC.

Paste: How did Sanctuary Brewing Company get started?

Lisa McDonald: I was in legal consulting for close to 20 years. At the same time Joe was in accounting and he got this crazy interest in beer. So he bought a homebrew kit, taught himself to make beer and absolutely loved it  and hated accounting. He was totally dissatisfied with his job so I said quit and get into the bar industry. Then we moved down here and bought a farm and I became kind of disenfranchised with my career, too.

Basically, we moved to save animals and grow food, so wed starting doing that, we had a bunch of dogs and cats and chickens. And we were talking one day and I said, wouldnt it be cool if we could open a brewery and save a bunch of money and start a sanctuary? We both kind of looked at each other like, this is it. We thought wed see if we could get Sanctuary Brewing so I filed the copyright the next day and we just started planning.

We wrote a business plan, but it was still kind of like a pipe dream. Then I quit my job and I went to Haiti and I had this whole realization, like, I cant live my life like this anymore. Part of the business plan was to look at properties for cost estimates and we found our location just doing research. We thought, we have to do this because if we dont its going to end up being the biggest regret of our lives. So we were totally not ready to do it and we did and thats how we started.

Paste: How did you originally become vegan?

LM: I lived in Australia for a while and when I came back I didnt have anywhere to go so I moved in with two of my best friends Kelly and Shawn. They were vegan at the time. I always loved animals but I hadnt made the connection, I just didnt get that I loved dogs and had a cow on my plate. So I moved in with them and Kelly was an awesome cook so I thought, Ill just eat what they ate for awhile and see what I think. I never went back.

I think when you make that change, regardless of what your reasons are, you start to become more informed. You start to become more passionate about animals and finding out about their torture  then there are health implications and environmental implications. I was still vegetarian for about eight years. We had chickens so we would eat their eggs, and with cheese I was like  oh that animal is fine. In truth I think dairy cows are mistreated more than any other animal. Its probably the biggest atrocity that humans perform on a daily basis.

So I went vegan, found vegan cheese, love vegan cheese and I dont hurt any animals anymore.

Paste: What made you decide SBC was going to be a vegan business?

LM: From the beginning I said this business is going to be an extension of who we are; Im not compromising to please other people. So we decided to make it vegan. Its been extremely positive. Easter Sunday of 2016 was the first time I made a free vegan meal for the public and it went over so well and I liked doing it so much that weve done it every Sunday since. So its kind of a double win. You can feed people and families who otherwise might not have a hot meal that week. Then the people who do have money and can donate for the food are being introduced to really hearty, rich, vegan meals which changes the perception of what we eat. Last week we did hot dogs and chili and I heard a guy say, I dont care if its vegan, its delicious. That kind of thing. I think people think we sacrifice so much and its just not the case so every time I can kind of expose that element of veganism I really like doing that.

If you really want to be a kind person in the world, you cannot participate in suffering, even if its removed from you. Its easy to look at how you treat your fellow man and say, Im a kind person, but if youre ingesting torture youre carrying that around with you by extension. I think if you want to be nice to people you have to be nice to animals. Compassion is universal, it doesnt relate to one species over another.

Paste: Considering a lot of your customers arent vegan themselves, how have people reacted?

LM: Its been very positive. You get an internet troll every now and again but thats very few and far between. A lot of people love dogs and cats and they really admire what we do for those animals and the vegan thing is just on the side. And then there are other people who are extremely passionate about veganism. Those people think its pretty miraculous that we built an extremely liberal brewery in a very conservative town and its vegan and were successful at it. I think thats because it is an extension of ourselves. Were not bullshitting anybody, this is who we are. We try to do some good in the world, not cause any harm, be generous, work hard, and I think that shows. I also think that mitigates any negativity even from hunters or meat eaters  they appreciate the fact that were trying to do some good.

Paste: What are some of the different things you do to help people and animals?

LM:Lets talk about the human element first. We have something called the kindness wall which is a place where people can donate items or they can pick them up. Theres a big homeless population in Henderson County which I dont think most people realize  and I think its got to be pretty humiliating to have to ask somebody for things that are basic necessities in this world, like a coat. So the reason we did it outside of the brewery is so people can take whatever they need at any time.

In the summer we take the donations from our free meals and we use that money to buy essentials bags and put those out on that wall. Theyre bags filled with things like deodorant, toothpaste, aspirin, hand gel, tampons, water bottles  anything people might need. We fill those bags and hang them outside. Well post on social media like, Hey we just restocked the essentials bags! and theyll go in like two days. So you know people need them and theyre taking them and it feels great.

In addition to those two things, in our first year of business we raised over $10,000 for different charities. One of those being Ales for ALS; we made over $4,000 for them in one day.

Thats the human side of it. We also work with a number of different sanctuaries and shelters and rescue groups so we for animal advocacy weve probably raised another $6,000 or so, and adopted out about 150 dogs and cats.

In addition we run a microsanctuary out of our home where we have at any given time between 12 and 15 of our own animals, and we probably foster another 40 or so every year. We save hundreds of animals by the money we raise for those groups, and we pay half the adoption fees for events. So we do a wide variety of things.

Paste: Whats surprised you the most about this journey?

LM: I think its how quickly we integrated into the community. We had been in Hendersonville for three years before we opened, but because I was a consultant I was never here. We didnt really know anybody. Joe was working in Asheville and I was gone about 75% of the time traveling to NY and LA and then when I was home I just wanted to be with my animals, I didnt want to go anywhere. Im still very much like that so its funny that I own a brewery. But when we opened this little town just embraced us and I feel like Ive always been here and people are so wonderful. I love this town.

Paste: Has your business model changed since you first came up with the idea?

LM: When we first opened I used to say it was like putting on a blindfold and jumping out of an airplane. Leaving every single thing you know is terrifying; it was the scariest thing Ive ever done. After we started to become a little bit more comfortable in it it just started getting easier and I think its just a big learning curve of knowing how to operate every week. Overall the business model  be kind to humans and animals  thats pretty much the baseline for everything we do. And make awesome beer.

Paste: Tell me about the beer.

LM: All of our beers are vegan. Most people dont realize that a lot of beer isnt. Some beers are made with gelatin as a clarifying element, and isinglass made with fish bladder, so if you dont know what to look for you might be drinking a non-vegan beer. And then there are just add-ons that breweries use, like milk for milk stout, bacon-flavored beers  those clearly arent vegan. So weve always made vegan beer.

We have 20 taps currently. Theyre almost always serving our beers and we do everything from American styles to Belgium styles, light to dark. We recently released sours that were aged in chardonnay barrels. The beer is fantastic which is kind of a bonus because I feel like if you market your business well and you truly believe in it, it helps to have great beer but thats not going to make you successful.

Fortunately for us our beer is pretty outstanding. So much so that we competed in the Great American Beer Festival in 2016. It was our first year and we didnt medal but we got our sheets back and two of our beers scored extremely well. Like insanely well! Wed only been in business one year and we brought our beers to Colorado and we were able to afford to take our staff up there and compete, so we were very proud of that.

Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Brewing Company

Paste: How do you come up with the beer names?

LM: We name a lot of beers after animals or things that our friends say or television shows that we love, namely Game of Thrones and Parks and Rec. Those shows are very important to us so they tend to sneak their way into a lot of what we do. Our flagship IPA is named Hop Pig which is named after our pig Oliver. We also have an imperial version of that called Ollie the Destroyer, because hes a destroyer. Ironically some people think we called it that because of Game of Thrones  really it could go either way.

Paste: What are your future plans for SBC?

LM: We just applied for a foundation, so were keeping our business profit but turning our home sanctuary into a nonprofit so we have access to donations and things like that. Right now all of our animal care and our mortgage is paid for out of pocket from the money the brewery makes, so we never have money to do anything, all of it goes right back to the animals. Luckily we have a lot of generous people who come in to help out. Recently we had a volunteer day and regulars from the bar helped us build a turkey coop for a new rescue resident. So the foundation is one big part of it.

Ultimately wed like to have a bigger sanctuary with a brewery and a restaurant and lodging on the sanctuary. With that you could do any number of things  take cooking classes, take kindness lessons by spending time with animals who have been abused, go camping, learn how to farm. It could be educational but also a resort, like a large utopian place for humans and animals with beer. Thats the dream. We need like Leo DiCaprio to give us $10 million.

Hannah Sentenac is a freelance writer and journalist who covers veg food, drink, pop culture, travel, and animal advocacy issues. Shes written for Live Happy magazine, Foxnews.com, MindBodyGreen.com, and numerous other publications and websites. Hannah is also the Editor-in-Chief of LatestVeganNews.com, a publication dedicated to positive, original news from the vegan and plant-based world.
August 21, 2017 will bring the first total solar eclipse observable from the continental U.S. in about 40 years. Astronomers may want to get a move on with booking a place to stay to view the solar eclipse this year, because hotels are filling up fast in areas with a good view.

Several states have gathered attention for being prime viewing spots for the eclipse. Xavier Jubier, whose map of the eclipse path has been used by NASA, predicts that Kentuckys totality (when the sun is entirely covered by the moon) will be the longest at 2 minutes and 40 seconds. In Casper, Riverton and Jackson, Wyoming, onlookers will have a 2 minute and 25 second view. And for those who would prefer to experience the view in the outdoors, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will see totality for about 2 minutes and 39 seconds.

Wyoming has done its best to put itself on the top of the list for eclipse spectators. Many of its hotels have planned special activities for guests in town for the solar eclipse. The Wind River Hotel and Casino in Riverton will host a Native American Arapaho eclipse ceremony. In Jackson, the Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole will have a private viewing party with their own astrology team, or viewers may instead opt to camp out for the event in the Grand Teton National Park.

Top photo by Takeshi Kuboki, CC BY 2.0

Lead photo by Hiroki ONO, CC BY 2.0

Madison Gable is a freelance writer based out of Athens, Georgia.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 10:03:01

Online printer expands its range and slashes prices massively

Advertising Equipment and Large-Format Printing  Print Better Online at print24.com

unitedprint.com SE

Maria Lehmann

0049 (0)351 / 27225388

presse@unitedprint.com

The online print shop, UNITEDPRINT SE, owner of the renowned brand print24.com, is launching many new Large-format printing products as well as expanding its current Advertising equipment portfolio to include new styles  and at permanently reduced prices with even faster delivery times!

In addition to the large expansion of its product range, for example, the new Roller Banners in extra-large sizes of up to 2 x 3 metres and double-sided Signboards, print24.com also offers Canvas prints in customised special formats, large-format Flags as well as new accessories for their popular Beachflags.

print24.com customers can also find not only popular items such as Tarpaulins and Banners of up to 10 metres in size, but also 18/1 Large-format posters and Advertising column posters for outdoor advertising in extra-large dimensions, Hanging banners for trade fairs and other events, and Light box posters to efficiently catch everyones attention in city traffic  for both daytime and night-time use.

Weve invested massively to improve our delivery times and make our prices more attractive, and have thoroughly expanded our product range for our customers, explains Ali Jason Bazooband, Managing Director for Innovation/Marketing at print24.com. Were particularly proud of our Roller Banners, which will now be even more affordable than ever before in all styles, and delivered in super-fast turnaround times.

Most of the products in the Advertising equipment and Large-format printing categories are of course available in print runs of 1 piece or more  with super-fast delivery times and at extremely attractive prices. By using the new, practical product search bar on print24.com, it is now even easier to find the required product and order it directly.

print24.com is a UNITEDPRINT SE brand, a global and innovation-oriented e-commerce company for print and media. As one of Europes leading online print shops, UNITEDPRINT SE employs a staff of around 700 people and operates the renowned brands print24, Easyprint, Unitedprint, getprint, printwhat, FIRSTPRINT, DDK PRINT BIG, infowerk, and Unitedprint Shop Services (USS) in 26 locations worldwide (in Germany, 21 other European countries, and in Brazil, China, Canada, and the US). In addition to the standard print products, Unitedprint provides its customers with high-quality products and services ranging from textile printing, photo printing, large-format printing, advertising material, advertising equipment and the hospitality/gastronomy sectors.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705160051
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:46:01

AHF Ukraine: For The First Time in the History of the Eurovision Song Contest, in Kyiv, Participants and Visitors Have an Opportunity to Take HIV Tests and Receive Condoms

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

Denis Godlevskiy, Advocacy and Marketing Director, AHF Europe

Denis.godlevskiy@aidshealth.org

Mobile +79111101310, +380503845959

or

Sergiy Fedorov, Country Program Director, AHF Ukraine

Sergiy.fedorov@aidshealth.org

Mobile +380503849090

For the first time in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, the participants and visitors have an opportunity to take HIV tests and receive free condoms. AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Ukraine (AHF Ukraine) opened HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted diseases (STD) testing points in 4 Eurovision fan zones. During 10 days of fan zones work in Poshtova, Kontraktova, Sofiyska and Troyitska Squares of Kyiv all Eurovision guests can take HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis rapid tests; receive counseling on prevention and safe sexual behavior issues; and access free condoms.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705150067

"Ukraine unfortunately is a leader in the spread of HIV in Europe. A lot of guests are visiting Kyiv during the Eurovision Song Contest and all of them are young and active. We go to the most visited places of the capital - to the fan zones - to equip people with the means of contraception and with the knowledge of their HIV status. The social component is very important during such significant events as the Eurovision Song Contest; it is a great opportunity, that has to be taken a full advantage of," says Serhiy Fedorov, AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Ukraine, AHF Ukraine.

Acting Minister of Health Uliana Suprun also supported the initiative and encouraged Ukrainians and Eurovision guests to take a rapid HIV test.

"Ukraine is committed to take care of the health of its citizens. We realize importance of prevention as the most effective way to have a healthy nation. Today, HIV, viral hepatitis and STDs are a real challenge for the public health system of the country. And all of these diseases can be easily prevented by following simple rules, such as use of condoms and regular testing," says the statement from Acting Minister of Health Uliana Suprun.

The testing points will work from 10.00 to 22.00 till May 13th. AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Ukraine, AHF Ukraine is planning to perform up to 5,000 tests and distribute over 80,000 condoms.

"Kyiv is a unique place. It is a city with a thousand-year history, which certainly has its own, special soul, character and unique mosaic of personal identity. And every resident or guest of our city is a unique piece of this mosaic. Therefore, in my opinion, it is essential to take care of everyone's health and safety. Nowadays, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, unfortunately, constitute a significant threat to public health of the city and the country in general. To protect yourself and your closest people it is enough to stick to the simplest means of prevention the infection transmission  use condoms, regularly undergo testing and, if necessary, begin treatment on time"  adds Diana Popova, Director of Department of Culture of Kyiv City Administration.

Also, activists and volunteers of AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Ukraine, AHF Ukraine organized an impressive flash mob to attract attention of the fan zone visitors to the problem of HIV/AIDS. Flash mob participants  people of all ages, nationalities, sexual orientations, and people with and without disabilities  have created a symbolic necklace - the symbol of the Eurovision Song Contest in Ukraine. In such a way the organizers wanted to declare that "we are all so different, but at the same time in the face of the HIV epidemic we are all the same." Therefore, it is important to undergo regular HIV testing to know ones status and to use condoms consistently. Indeed, over 60% of the cases of infection occur due to unprotected sex.

Reference:

In total, 287,968 new HIV infection cases have been registered in Ukraine since 1987, 39,885 people died of AIDS in the country. More than 135,000 people with HIV-infection are under medical supervision.

The highest prevalence of HIV-infection is registered in Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions and also in Kyiv. Since 2008, Ukrainians most frequently are infected through unprotected sex. In 2005, 33 percent of people being diagnosed with HIV were infected through sexual contact, in 2012 this percentage increased to 51. For the first time, more than half of new cases of HIV-infection occurred because of unprotected sex. In 2015, this rate increased to 60 percent. Nowadays most of new HIV cases in Ukraine are registered among young people aged from 25 to 49 years.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation was established in 1987 in Los Angeles, as a small community association, whose members were trying to alleviate the suffering of people who were doomed to die of AIDS. At present, as part of comprehensive health programs, AHF provides care, treatment and services to more than 700,000 patients living with HIV in 38 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and North America.

Testing and treatment are basic principles of AHF's strategy in fighting the AIDS epidemic globally. In 2016, the HIV test services as part of AHF global testing program were used by 4,876,984 persons, and results of 139,351 of them were found positive. Most of those who received a positive test results are already linked to treatment. This means that within 30 days these clients turn to a medical facility, where they are prescribed treatment against HIV infection.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705150067
Anti-Malarial drugs Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:48:24

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Anti-malarial drugs are the medicines used to prevent and treat malaria. The malaria is the disease caused due to the parasite known as Plasmodium, belongs to the organism group Protozoa. The malaria disease occurred in the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world. Around 3.3 Billion people as half of the worlds population are at a risk of contracting malaria. Every year near about 250 million malaria cases leads to the death of 1 million globally. The anti-malarial drugs are work in the treatment of malaria in individuals, prevention of infection in individuals and conventional intermittent treatment in the specific group in most prevalence endemic regions. Generally, malaria is treated by the single drug therapy as a first line therapy, and sometimes the combination drug therapy is for the second line of infection. Anti-malarial drugs are available in the market in the form of tablet, injectables, and capsules.Malaria is considered as a most dreadful disease as it causes of death due to limited availability of the anti-malarial drugs which has become the opportunity for the growth of the anti-malarial drugs market over a forecast period.The global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented on the basis of product type, solution delivery type, solution type and end user.On the basis of malaria type, the global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented into:Plasmodium FalciparumPlasmodium VivaxPlasmodium MalariaePlasmodium OvaleRequest For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3774 On the basis of drug type, the global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented into:QuinineChloroquineAmodiaquinePyrimethamineProguanilSulfonamideMefloquineAtovaquonePrimaquineArtemisinin and derivativesHalofantrineDoxycyclineClindamycinOn the basis of application, the global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented into:ResistancepreventionOn the basis of distribution channel, the global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented into:Hospital PharmacyRetail PharmacyE- CommerceOthersThe global anti-malarial drugs market is anticipated to register a significant CAGR over a forecast period. The increasing prevalence of the malarial disease globally is expected to boost the demand of the anti-malarial drugs and drives the global anti-malarial drugs market. The increasing research and development activities for the new drugs and new combinations of drugs due to resistance by the parasites to the currently available drugs, also anticipated to drives the global anti-malarial drugs market. The strong initiatives taken by the various state governments and regulatory bodies such as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reduce the prevalence of malarial disease throughout the world, also expected to fuel the demand for the anti-malarial drugs and has become the one of the factor drives the global anti-malarial drugs market over a forecast period.However, the possible side effects of the anti-malarial drugs such as insomnia, vivid dreams, mental clouding, dizziness, and anxiety may hamper the demand for the anti-Malarial drug and restrain the growth of the global anti-malarial drugs market. The availability of pure quality of drugs in the Southeast Asia and Saharan African countries leads to the inadequate treatment, which may pose a threat to the demand of the anti-malarial drugs and restrain the growth of the global anti-malarial drugs market over a forecast period.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3774 On the basis of regional presence, the global anti-malarial drugs market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Currently, North America is contributing the leading shares to the global anti-malarial drugs market in terms of value and anticipated to register a significant CAGR over a forecast period. The Europe is also contributing the moderate shares to the market due to the advanced medical facilities and availability of the anti-malarial drugs in the market. APAC is the most lucrative market for the anti-malarial drugs due to the highest prevalence of the malarial diseases in the region and expected to show a robust growth to the global anti-malarial drugs market. MEA is at a nascent stage to the global anti-malarial drugs market and anticipated to register a decent growth to the market over a forecast period. Overall, the global anti-malarial drugs market is expected to show significant growth over a forecast period.Market PlayersSome of the major market players in anti-malarial drugs market globally include Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Ranbaxy Laboratories, Ipca Laboratories Ltd., Zydus Cadila, Merck KGaA, Novartis AG, Alvizia Health Care, Bayer AG and Roche Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 11:04:01

Paris, Amstelveen, 16 May 2017 - Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, announces its partnership with OutSystems, the company that provides the number one platform for low-code application development, to offer its customers an ideal platform to speed up application delivery. Now clients can modernize their application landscape by rapidly rebuilding legacy applications and building mobile and web applications. Two-speed-IT enables businesses to update legacy apps whilst developing new mobile and web apps to support new business.

Low-code platform

Atos has chosen OutSystems as a strategic partner to develop mobile, web and business applications. When used with an agile approach, timelines are reduced to just weeks for an initial delivery, and days for updates. The joint market approach focuses on Benelux first, followed by other countries in Europe.

The joint service is particularly interesting to customers whose ability to innovate is slowed down by their legacy applications. Using OutSystems will speed up application delivery, which are intuitive by nature, and which can be deployed on cross-platforms, such as Azure, Amazon and iOS.

Key advantages of low-code platforms:

Rapidly delivers new functionality to existing applications

Quickly develops new applications

Supports new business opportunities and new business models

Supports new ways of thinking, which is more agile and competitive, with fewer specs, less programming and lower costs.

Peter 't Jong, CEO at Atos in Benelux & The Nordics explains: "Together with OutSystems we can help our joint customers to modernize their application landscapes and speed up the digitalization of their businesses to up to 10 times faster. We believe that this innovation is a crucial tool in today's digital transformation. We have a pioneering role to play in rolling-out low-code platforms and showing our clients that innovation is in our DNA".

Paulo Rosado, CEO at OutSystems explains: "We see a large number of organizations which are embracing low-code platforms and improving their agility and competiveness by reducing the time-to-market of their applications. With our solution they can increase their customer satisfaction and market share".



OutSystems named leader by Forrester

OutSystems has been recognized as a Leader in The Forrester WaveTM: Mobile Low-Code Development Platforms, Q1 2017 and as a Leader in The Forrester Wave: General Purpose Low-Code Development Platforms, Q1 2017 . OutSystems is named a leader in achieving the highest possible score in 13 criteria including integration, app scale and performance, mobile offline, number of customers, partner ecosystem, pricing strategy, and strategy assessment.

Atos invests heavily in on-shore development teams at OutSystems, with the ambition to certify 100 developers on the OutSystems platform before the end of 2017, and an increasing number over the coming years.

"We see an incredible opportunity with OutSystems, especially when it comes to delivering modernization projects," said Kees Kranenburg, Portfolio manager Application Transformation at Atos. "When our clients need to move away from legacy systems and towards more modern, nimble technology, low-code is a critical tool for successful delivery. In addition, we can quickly develop mobile and web applications that are fully integrated with back-end systems, so we can enter into new communication channels with consumers and citizens". He concludes: "At Atos in Australia we have seen our first joint results with OutSystems. In The Netherlands we have various Proof of Concepts that show tangible advantages to the customer: cost advantages and competitive advantages. The first 25 certified Associate OutSystems Developers are engaged on recently acquired projects."

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 72 countries and annual revenue of around  12 billion. The European number one in Big Data, Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Digital Workplace. The Group provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

About OutSystems

Thousands of customers worldwide trust OutSystems, the number one low-code platform for application development. Engineers with an obsessive attention to detail crafted every aspect of the OutSystems platform to help organizations build enterprise-grade apps and transform their business faster. With OutSystems, you visually develop your entire application, easily integrate with existing systems, and add your own custom code when you need it. Visit us at www.outsystems.com, or follow us on Twitter @OutSystems or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/outsystems.

For more information, please contact:

Atos- Jose de Vries| jose.devries@atos.net | +31 6 30 27 26 11 | @josee_devries

OutSystems - Monika den Os | monika.denos@outsystems.com | +31 6 57 44 60 42





This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: ATOS via Globenewswire


PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 10:04:02

Manufacturer-licensed Data Automatically Accessed and Updated via the Cloud; Eliminates Need to Perform Software Updates and Upgrades

New Service to be Showcased at NACE Automechanika Chicago

Autologic Diagnostics Introduces AssistConnect, the Only Service Providing Access to Multiple Vehicle Manufacturers Licensed Data in Real Time

Autologic Diagnostics

Susan Lewis, 303-766-4343

slewis@pairelations.com

Autologic Diagnostics, a worldwide provider of the first cloud-based, vehicle-connected aftermarket automotive diagnostic solution, announced today the release of its new solution, AssistConnect.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705160054

Autologic Diagnostics' New AssistConnect (Photo: Business Wire)

AssistConnect is a revolutionary and centralised web-based system that provides automotive repair shops and technicians direct access to the latest approved, licensed vehicle manufacturer data immediately via Autologics secure cloud server. Customers are able to access the cloud server through their AssistPlus scan tool device.

AssistConnect is the only service that provides instantaneous access to multiple vehicle manufacturers licensed data without requiring multiple downloads. With AssistConnect, there is no longer a need to perform software or data updates or upgrades. Since AssistConnect is cloud-based, Autologic automatically manages the update process so that customers are always assured they have the most up-to-date data with this service.

Additionally, connecting to the cloud provides direct connection to the Autologic Fault2Fix team of nearly 100 master technicians. Similar to all other Autologic solutions, users of AssistConnect gain direct access to the Companys award-winning Fault2Fix team of master technicians via a dedicated live support website, mobile app or phone line.

AssistConnect uses Autologics Communication Interface (ACI), allowing customers to connect the vehicles on which they are working directly to Autologics cloud solution. Data is stored in the centralised Autologic Dynamic eXchange (ADX) database, which provides instantaneous, multi-user access to services and solutions that can be shared in real-time. This dynamically enables the movement of work across teams as well as easy management of myriad resources in the workshop repair realm. Once the virtual, dealer-trained master technician expertise from Autologic is accessed and applied to repairs as needed, the shop can fix vehicles properly and efficiently, thereby reaping a very high fix rate. View infographic revealing how AssistConnect works here.

AssistConnect is launching initially through a license agreement with Volvo in North America and Europe. View the specific list of data availability by country through AssistConnect here.

AssistConnect also draws on an extensive online knowledge base of step-by-step guides to diagnosing and repairing vehicles that has been written by technicians, for technicians - and puts this detail directly into the hands of repair shops and technicians while they are working on vehicles.

A video demonstrating the power of the new AssistConnect system can be viewed by clicking here.

Autologic also announced that current customers using its AssistPlus device will have an opportunity to experience AssistConnect on a complimentary trial basis for 30 days. Current AssistPlus customers can inquire here.

AssistConnect is yet another powerful way Autologic demonstrates its capabilities in bringing a complete fault-to-fix solution to the global marketplace. We are once again staying ahead with our advancements by further leveraging the benefits of the cloud to streamline automotive diagnostics and repairs cost-effectively, through our newest solution, explained Jeremy Fry, Autologic chief executive officer.

This novel, cloud-based approach to automotive diagnostics and repairs allows for the processing of diagnostic data faster than any offline tool. Since AssistConnect renders vehicle manufacturer data into an accurate, actionable diagnosis, it affords users the information necessary for servicing, maintaining and fixing vehicles more proficiently and safely. AssistConnect complements our suite of diagnostic solution options, including our AssistPlus, our diagnostic device, and the flexible AssistFix programme, offering the easy purchase of access to our Fault2Fix team. Customers can now find faults faster, repair vehicles even more quickly while improving productivity and efficiency in their shops, Fry noted.

The safe and secure access provided by AssistConnect directly addresses industrywide concerns relating to data security, retrieval of accurate OEM information and consumer safety, all of which has come to light with the arrival of the connected car. This is another key benefit to using AssistConnect at the shop level.

Autologic will be hosting live, ongoing demonstrations of AssistConnect in action during NACE Automechanika Chicago, one of the industrys largest trade shows. The Company will also host an event for the media in attendance on Wednesday, July 26 at 2 PM on the main Media Stage. To register to attend the Autologic AssistConnect media event, please email info@pairelations.com.

Autologic is recognised industrywide for its Autologic Assist solution that spans a suite of capabilities that uses state-of-the-art technology to combine extensive online third-party vehicle data resources and a superior diagnostic (AssistPlus) device with real-time access to the Companys Fault2Fix team, who provide vehicle diagnostic support globally. Assist simultaneously integrates this expert knowledge and service, innovative software, and a multi-faceted touch screen device -- helping ensure vehicle issues are diagnosed correctly the first time. Assist supports European models, including Audi, BMW, Citroen, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Peugeot, Renault, Volkswagen, across more than 120 countries. The Autologic Fault2Fix team offers repair support and advice for fix solutions to thousands of Autologic customers from three major Vehicle Diagnostic Support centres: United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

About Autologic

Founded in 1999, Autologic Diagnostics, based in the U.K. and the U.S., is a worldwide provider of the first fully integrated, cloud-connected aftermarket automotive diagnostic system, Autologic Assist, which helps workshops quickly identify faults in vehicles and repair cars faster. This fault-to-fix, fast approach quickly and correctly identifies vehicle problems the first time with fewer dealership referrals resulting in improved productivity, increased financial benefit, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Autologic was the first company to bring to market a diagnostic support system like Assist, that joins -- on a multi-functional device with one screen -- online data resources and superior diagnostic tools together with real-time access to a team of expert technicians around the globe. Autologic Assist specifically diagnoses Audi, BMW, Citroen, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Peugeot, Renault, and Volkswagen vehicles, among the worlds most complex vehicles.

From Assist Centres in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, the Company serves more than 8,000 customers spanning 120+ countries. From the more than 300,000 cases submitted by customers in the past 12 months, Autologics 100+ Assist technicians providing support worldwide identified in excess of 50,000 fault codes, supported more than 1,200 different automobile models, and successfully fixed 97.5% of all cases submitted.

For more information, visit www.autologic.com, or follow the Company on Facebook, Twitter @autologicassist and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705160054

New AssistConnect, OEM data delivered via the cloud
Barrier Tube Packaging Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:38:44

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Tubes are commonly used for packaging of viscous fluids such as gel, cream, ketchup, etc. Consumers prefer tubes for the products to be used in smaller quantity as tubes offer the convenience of using a product frequently and efficiently. Barrier tubes can carry products that are volatile in nature, thus for preventing the materials from getting leaked, oxidized manufacturers alter the barrier properties of the tube. Tubes are commonly made of plastic and manufacturers use various combinations of materials to improve the barrier properties of the tube packaging. Barrier tube packaging has wide range of application such as pharmaceutical industry, personal care industry, household goods, the pharmaceutical industry, food industry, etc. Tube packaging provides opportunities for the manufacturer to supply product in various quantities and raw material being cheaply available for tube form of packaging is widely preferred by the manufacturers.Barrier Tube Packaging Market: Market DynamicsThe need of making packaging more user-friendly has led to the evolution of tube packaging. Barrier tube packaging is co-related to the flexible packaging market. Flexible packaging is estimated to be about US$ 238 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% over the forecast period. On the backdrop of the convenience offered by the tube packaging the use of the tubes for packaging of viscous fluids influences the barrier tube packaging market. The need for improving the shelf life and efficiency in the usage of products has widened the area of application for barrier tubes. The ability of barrier tube to provide protection against moisture, light, heat, etc. is an important factor contributing to the growth of the barrier tube packaging market. However, the inability of the barrier tubes to offer bulk packaging can limit the growth in barrier tube packaging market. Moreover, the presence of substitutes of barrier tube packaging such as stand up pouches which are as cheap and efficient as barrier tube for utilization of viscous fluids can hamper the barrier tube packaging market. The rising concern of the regulatory authorities on the backdrop of increasing plastic waste can resist the growth of the barrier tube packaging market. However being a sustainable form of packaging can open new opportunities for barrier tube packaging market over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3737 Barrier Tube Packaging Market: Market SegmentationBarrier tube packaging market can be segmented by the types of materials used and end-use industry.Based on the types of materials used, barrier tube packaging market can be segmented into:PlasticLDPEHDPEPPPAEVOHMetalAluminumTinBased on the end use industry barrier tube packaging market can be segmented into:Pharmaceutical industryConsumer packagingFood packagingPersonal careConstructionOthers (home care, stationery, etc.)Barrier Tube Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global barrier tube packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanNorth America is expected to lead the barrier tube packaging market over the forecast period due to the barrier tube packaging being aligned with the consumption pattern in the region. Latin America and APEJ region is expected to exhibit rapid growth for the barrier tube packaging market owing to the changing lifestyle of the consumers in the region. Western Europe and Japan region is anticipated to contribute the significant amount of revenue for barrier tube packaging market attributing to the significant per capita expense on the packaging. While the demand for barrier tube packaging market in Eastern Europe and MEA region is expected to be sluggish.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3737 Barrier Tube Packaging Market - Key Players:Some major players of the barrier tube packaging market are Essel Propack Limited, Ampac Holdings, LLC, Montebello Packaging, Viva IML Tubes, Uflex Limited, Tubapack, a.s., IntraPac International Corporation, Tekni-Plex, Inc., Skypack India Pvt Ltd, Guangzhou Amy Plastic Tube Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Unique Pack Products Co., Ltd., Yangzhou Zhongjidingsheng Trading Co., Ltd., Rego Packing Industry Co., Ltd., Nantong YouRong Equipment Co., Ltd., etc.
Breathable Lidding Film Packaging Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:39:38

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The need for making fresh produce to last long has provided far reaching impetus to innovations in breathable lidding films. In the United States half of the fresh produce is wasted due to short shelf life of the fresh produce. Breathable lidding film increases the shelf life of the fresh produce by controlling the oxygen transmission rate for packaging through micro-perforations, thus reducing the expiry rate of the product. According to the product and the storage conditions, breathable lidding film is manufactured to make the product last longer. Food and beverage industry has been estimated around US$ 2 trillion for the year 2016, and it has been expanding, and the need for breathable lidding films have been increasing on this backdrop. The use of breathable lidding film is expected to decrease the loss of the food hence improving the profits for the retailers and food packaging market.Breathable Lidding Film Packaging Market: Market DynamicsThe breathable lidding film is a significant part of the lidding film market. Lidding film market is estimated to be US$ 4 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% over the forecast period. The need for making fresh produce last long is the key driver for breathable lidding film packaging market. The increasing penetration of the modern retail outlets in the APEJ region is another factor driving the demand for the breathable lidding film packaging market. With increasing influence of the western culture, the lifestyle of the eastern countries is changing which is driving the demand for the packed food while influencing the breathable lidding film packaging market. However, breathable lidding films are unable to protect the products from chemicals and physical damages from the external environment. Despite these restraints, the ability to increase the shelf life of the products with breathable lidding film, the market is expected to grow vertically upwards. With the increasing population and decreasing cultivation area, the need for protecting fresh produce to last long may provide significant opportunities for the lidding film packaging market in future.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3738 Breathable Lidding Film Packaging Market: Market SegmentationBreathable lidding film packaging market is segmented by material type, by substrate type, by end use and by seal type.Based on the type of material used, breathable lidding film packaging market is segmented into:PlasticLDPEPPPaperWoven SacksBased on the type of substrate, breathable lidding film packaging market is segmented into:CPETAPETPPPVCPEBased on the type of end use, breathable lidding film packaging market is segmented into:Bakery & Confectionery ProductsProduce grainProduce vegetableProduce fruitsDried fruitsOther food productsBased on the Seal type, breathable lidding film packaging market is segmented into:peelsemi-weldweldBreathable Lidding Film Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global breathable lidding film packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanNorth America and Western Europe region is expected to lead the breathable lidding film packaging market owing to the current lifestyle and of the consumers and packaging manufacturers practice being aligned with the market needs. Latin America and APEJ region are expected to register the highest growth for the breathable lidding film packaging market over the forecast period owing to the high economic growth rate in the emerging economies present in the region. Japan is expected to hold significant breathable lidding film packaging market share attributed to its highest per-capita spending for packaging. While demand for breathable lidding film packaging market in Eastern Europe and MEA region is expected to be moderate over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3738 Breathable Lidding Film Packaging Market: Key Players:Some key players of breathable lidding film packaging market are Eastern Web Handling, Inc, Golden Eagle Extrusions, Inc., Teinnovations Inc., Flexopack, Bollore Inc., Syntech NZ Ltd., Hubei Hawking Packaging Material Co.,Ltd , Shamrock Packaging Group, Hui Zhou Hadway Foil Packaging Co., Ltd., Green Packaging Material (Jiangyin) Co., Ltd.
Case Erectors Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:33:02

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# 580 Words

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Case erectors are machine making boxes that erect folded cardboard boxes in square shape, and finally seal the box, to make it available for industrial and consumer packaging. Statistically paper form of packaging accounts to more than 30 percent of overall packaging market, of which paper box packaging is predominantly used for the industrial packaging. Traditionally, production of case erectors was dominated by countries such as Germany, Japan, and U.S.A, wherein over the years the percentage has shifted in favor of Asia Pacific regions, such as India and China being the key market for case erector. Currently, with the rising growth in food and beverage and cosmetics are a primary reason for case erector packaging gaining traction and highly demanded in packaging.Increasing use of steel material for case erector machine and technological advancement providing automation of case erector machine have increased the speed of paper box packaging which ultimately saves the labor cost of manufacturers.Corrugated material have a high resistive property to absorb pressure which has increasingly derived the attention of manufacturers. Such factors will further fuel the growth of case erector market and are expected to witness over five percent growth over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3732 Case Erectors Market - Market Dynamics:With the inventions of robotics case erectors, it has increased the ergonomics of packaging providing customization of different sizes from the same case erector machine which saves a huge cost of manufacturers for installing different case erectors machines. This has substantially created opportunity for the manufacturers to penetrate into untapped region of developing economies by serving multiple segments of industrial and consumers product.Some the key highlighting factor for the growth of case erector market are increasing demand for food and beverages and cosmetic industry in the emerging region. Also, the growth of industrial development such as manufacturing sector has increased the demand of case erector market. Government and other regulatory bodies augment the use of paper packaging and immense spending of resources on research and development boost the innovation capacity for case erectors manufacturers.Case Erectors Market - Market Segmentation:Global case erectors market is segmented on the of basis machine type, end use type, received order type.On the basis of machine type, the global case erectors market is segmented into semi-automatic erector and automatic erector.On the basis of end use type, the global case erectors market is segmented into food and beverages, chemical and petrochemical, electronics, cosmetics, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, automobile, others.Case Erectors Market - Regional Outlook:North AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanThe global case erectors market in term of production and consumption are dominated by North America and Western Europe region in volume. Countries such as United States of America, China, Japan, and Germany are the highest contributor of case erectors market. While over the last few years, regions of the Asia Pacific, Middle-East have seen a rapid high CAGR and are further expected to showcase a high growth over the forecasted period.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3732 Global Case Erectors Market  Key Players:Some of the players operating in the global case erectors market include Wexxar/BEL Packaging, Lantech, Wayne Automation Corporation, Combi Packaging System LLC, Hamrick Manufacturing & Services, WestRock Company, Marq packaging System, Lenze, FilSilPek, Arpac LLC, Recopak Machinery PTY Ltd., Pearson Packaging Systems, and A.B. Sealer Incorporated.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Coal Bed Methane Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2014-2020" report to their offering.

Coal Bed Methane Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:48:39

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# 714 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Under the purview of energy, coal bed methane primarily refers to the natural gas or methane recovery from un-mined coal seams and adjacent sandstones. Such methane recovery usually occurs prior to mining, whereas in some cases, coal seams remain un-mined and methane recovery from such sites is known as virgin coal bed methane. Coal bed methane recovery from un-mined coal mines is of strategic importance as absolute or maximum drainage of the methane seam is necessary to avoid the risk of explosion as well as mitigate the emission of methane in the atmosphere from coal mining operations. From the estimated global coal bed methane reserve of about 4,000 Tcf to 5,000 Tcf, about 20% to 25% is recoverable.The fact that the coal in some sites is at a greater depth, makes it not feasible to extract it on account of the associated safety. This and other environmental and economic considerations serve as the drivers for the global coal bed methane market. Further, the shifting focus towards the use of unconventional energy sources serves as another factor for the growth of global coal bed methane market. The constraints of the coal bed methane are dependent on the accessibility of coal seams. Major constraints of the global coal bed methane market include environmental, regulatory, technical and economic challenges. Among these, environmental constraints include risk associated with greenhouse gas emission. The economical challenges associated with the global coal bed methane market are more prevalent in the early stages of the recovery, when large quantities of water are pumped in with minimal recovery of revenue producing gas. This dewatering and produced water disposal cost is of significant importance for any carbon bed methane project. Although the development cost for the coal bed methane project is relatively lower, it is always a challenge to keep it within minimal range to achieve profitability. The technical constraints of the coal bed methane market depend on the well completion and optimization design to achieve maximum production with optimum number, spacing and location of wells. Also, handling and disposal of water at a minimal cost alongwith the efficient reservoir characterisation are other key technical restraints for global coal bed methane market. Also, coal bed methane requires a low pressure pipeline system which acts as an economical constraint. However, the potential of carbon bed methane to serve as a supplement for conventional natural gas supply and its contribution towards the global energy mix will act as an opportunity for global coal bed methane market. However, the market expansion of the global coal bed methane will be dependent upon the growth of newer technology and development.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-136 Market segmentation of global coal bed methane can be done on the basis of application, technology and geography. On the basis of application, the global carbon methane market includes commercial application, industrial application, power generation, residential application, and transportation. On the basis of technology, the global carbon bed methane market includes fracturing techniques including hydro-fracturing, proppant-based fracturing and chemical additive based fracturing, exploration, and drilling. Among these, fracturing techniques have been utilised most frequently for coal bed methane recovery. On the basis of geography, the global coal bed methane market includes North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East & Africa. Among these, the largest carbon bed methane resource bases are found in Canada, China, US, Soviet Union and Australia, with Canada accounting for the maximum share followed by the Soviet Union, China, Australia and US. On a broader level, any country with abundant coal reserves and population, and high energy demand will serve as a potential market for carbon bed methane development at a global level. The demand for coal bed methane gas is evident alongwith the demand for natural gas in China and other Asian countries. Associated exploration in the US has been active in the past few years whereas Canada witnessed lower exploration and the development offewer extraction technologies pertaining to global coal bed methane market.Some of the prominent players of the global coal bed methane market include Santos, Quick Silver Resources Inc, Baker Hughes Incorporated, BG Group, Arrow Energy, Blue Energy Limited, Halliburton, Dart Energy Ltd., Fortune Oil PLC, ConocoPhillips and Metgasco Limited.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-136
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 12:08:56

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Future Market Insights (FMI) announces the release of its latest report titled, Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015 - 2020. According to the report, the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market was valued at US$ 402.0 Mn in 2014 and is expected to reach US$ 788.4 Mn by 2020, registering a CAGR of 12.1% during the forecast period, 2015 to 2020.Global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is driven by increasing number of diabetic patients and growing number of geriatric people across the world. Moreover, usage of advanced technologies such as artificial pancreas in continuous glucose monitors and increasing awareness of people towards diabetes are driving growth of the continuous glucose monitoring systems market. However, high prices of continuous glucose monitors and inadequate reimbursement policies pose a challenge for growth of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-694 The global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is segmented on the basis of end use sector, components and geography. Moreover, company wise market share has also been indicated in the report. By end use sector, global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is sub-segmented into household and hospital & diagnostic centers. Household is a larger segment as compared to hospital & diagnostic centers and is expected to dominate the continuous glucose monitoring systems market throughout the forecast period exhibiting a CAGR of 11.9%. The household segment held 68.5% market share in 2014 and expected to account for US$ 538 Mn by 2020, owing to the convenience and ease of use offered by continuous glucose monitors at home. Hospitals & diagnostic centers sub-segment accounted for approximately 31.5% of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market value share in 2014, and is expected to gain market share to account for 31.8% of the global market by 2020.On the basis of component, the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is sub-segmented into transmitter & monitors, sensors and insulin pumps. Among the aforementioned sub-segments, transmitter & monitors is expected to dominate the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market with over 39% market share throughout the forecast period. Owing increasing trend of sedentary lifestyle in some developing and developed economies such as India, China and Japan, and increasing obesity rate globally, demand for continuous glucose monitoring is expected to increase significantly in the near future.Send An Enquiry@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-694 Value wise share in the report has been provided for key players in the market, which includes Medtronic, Dexcom, Abbott and cumulative share of other players. Medtronic dominated the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market in 2014 and is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast period, expanding at a CAGR of 11.2%.Geography-wise, North America was dominant, accounting for over 50% of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market in 2014 in terms of revenue. However, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is foreseen to witness a relatively high CAGR during the forecast period.Competitive LandscapeKey players considered in the continuous glucose monitoring systems market include Medtronic, Dexcom, Abbott, OmniPod, Animas, Glysens, Roche, Ypsomed and Bayer.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 11:48:01

Guidewire study shows why insurers need to rely on new technologies in the future

Difficult to Impress - Generation Y Wants Better Service from its Insurer

OneChocolate

Stefanie Obexer, +49 89 388 892 00

GuidewireGer@onechocolatecomms.de

or

Louise Bradley, +44(0)7474 837 860

PR & Communications  EMEA

lbradley@guidewire.com

According to a recent survey commissioned by Guidewire Software (NYSE:GWRE), a provider of software to property and casualty insurers, while young insureds in Germany depend on household insurance, the service quality leaves much to be desired. On average, only half of all the 20 to 30-year-old Germans surveyed were happy about service levels. In Central Germany it is even lower (42%). The study shows that the call for omni-channel solutions is getting louder. Thus, it is important for the majority (82%) to have a human contact in the event of a claim. At the same time, however, the issue of digitization is becoming more and more important: more than half (55%) of the interviewees say that they might manage contracts and losses online as well. The survey shows that insurers should make the customer journey as comfortable as possible, especially when it comes to the long-term commitment of younger customers.

Younger generation hard to impress

Almost one-third (32%) of the 20 to 30-year-olds who have household insurance have reported a claim to their insurer. Only half (48%) of them say that the claim process ran smoothly. Especially younger customers are hard to impress with regard to service. Thus, in the group of 20 to 23-year-olds, only a quarter shared this view (23%). Among the 27- to 30-year-olds the satisfaction rate was more than half, which is above the national average (59%). The study also revealed that regional differences exist. In the east of Germany, only 5% agreed with the statement that the claims handling was "laborious and did not impress me," and more than a quarter (26%) shared this opinion in southern Germany. The reason for low satisfaction levels is often due to outdated systems, which can contain faulty and incomplete customer data, thereby slowing down claims processing, or making it worse overall. Especially when customers consult comparison sites increasingly for their advice, this leads, at worst, to a customer migration. Insurers need to upgrade their systems in order not to lose out to the competition.

Generation Y wants to be understood

According to the study, only 50 percent of the 20 to 30-year-olds who have insured their household against damage felt that their needs were understood by their insurer and that they receive offers adapted to those needs. In the UK, it is only 30 percent, as seen in a parallel study commissioned by Guidewire. Individuality is important in both countries. Although it is often assumed that personal contact with their insurer is of less significance, especially in the younger generation, the study proves the opposite: 82 percent of German 20 to 30-year-olds want a real contact in the event of a claim. This was the same in Great Britain. At the same time, just over half of the surveyed Germans (55%) claim to manage contracts and claims online as well. In the case of the British, 83 percent of the interviewees want the possibility of online administration. For insurers, this means that multi-modal touchpoints and synchronized communication channels will be indispensable in the future to meet the growing demands of Generation Y.

New technologies for better customer retention

The call for individuality is getting louder in this time of digitization. If insurers want to connect with their customers successfully, now and in the long term, they should employ modern technologies that focus on the customer. In order to be able to supply tailor-made offers, corresponding core systems are essential. These ensure that customer data is synchronized at all times, and on each channel, thus enabling the best possible service. "Generation Y is quite rightly demanding, especially in terms of service," says Rene Schoenauer, EMEA Product Marketing Manager at Guidewire. "To meet this high expectation, insurers must understand the needs of their customers. With the right platform, they can ensure that customers are served optimally across all touchpoints, and that all information is available at all times."

About Guidewire Software

Guidewire delivers the software that general insurers need to adapt and succeed in a time of rapid industry change. We combine three elements  core operations, data and analytics, and digital engagement  into a technology platform that enhances insurers ability to engage and empower their customers and employees. More than 300 general insurers around the world have selected Guidewire. For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com. Follow us on twitter: @Guidewire_PandC

NOTE: Guidewire, Guidewire Software, Guidewire ClaimCenter, Guidewire PolicyCenter, and Guidewire BillingCenter are registered trademarks of Guidewire Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705160057
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Digital Telepathology Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2016-2026" report to their offering.

Digital Telepathology Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:53:59

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# 712 Words

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Pathology is the study of diseases and one of the major fields in medicine & diagnosis. It is mainly concerned with the cause, origin and study of different diseases. It is done by examining bodily fluids, tissues, & organs. It is currently divided into eight main areas of study. With the advent of Information Technology and the digital age, a new field has sprung up  the digital telepathology market. As the name suggests, it is pathology with the help of telecommunications technology. As opposed to general pathology which is conducted at a short-range, digital telepathology is typically performed at distance. Pathology image-rich data is transferred great distances for the purpose of diagnoses, education or even research purposes. The term was coined by Dr Ronald S. Weinstein in 1986 and he also spoke about the potential of this in a journal publication back then. He is rightly known as the father of telepathology. The digital telepathology market is mainly focused on serving the need for medical research, education, subspecialty pathology, histopathology diagnoses, second opinion diagnosis, and also that of frozen section specimens.Digital Telepathology Market DriversOne of the main drivers of the digital telepathology market is bound to be the information technology wave sweeping across the world. Western countries already have a strong digital infrastructure, but Internet penetration is rapidly increasing in the developing world. This can enable pathologists to examine, study, and diagnose patients not only in remote locations within the country but also anywhere else in the world. A second factor is a flexibility and convenience offered to seek a second opinion. The digital telepathology market will enable pathologists in any part of the globe to consult their peers in other countries, which will ensure an appropriate diagnosis. According to the W.H.O, cancer cases are expected to increase by nearly 70% in the next twenty years with nearly 1.4 million of them being misdiagnosed. Thus, quick (and appropriate) diagnoses will be critical to saving millions of lives. The third driver is expected to be increasing digitisation in the field of research. Digital pathology is relevant in the field of medical education, histopathology and even for examining frozen section specimens. With the help of digital technology, pathologists could convert physical data into digital files, eliminating the need to physically store it. This would also help them drive down their cost and improve efficiency.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2393 Digital Telepathology Market RestraintsThere are a few challenges faced by the digital telepathology market, one of the biggest being cost. Digital telepathology equipment is very expensive which will almost certainly be a problem in developing countries. Government reimbursements are typically unavailable there which makes the initial investment quite difficult. Another issue is regulatory concerns. Digital telepathology walks a fine line between both medicine & technology so each country would have different laws concerning both. There can also be resistance from pathologists themselves. Few pathologists today can truly operate these systems and they might even be unwilling to trust the results. These are some of the reasons why the digital telepathology market is still a niche one at present.Digital Telepathology Market Key RegionsThe digital telepathology market serves the following main geographic regions  North America, the E.U., Asia-Pacific, MENA and the rest of the world. North America is the largest market and is anticipated to show moderate growth over the next decade. This is due to a strong healthcare system, regulations like the Affordable Care Act, the high prevalence of various cancers and an ageing population requiring medical assistance. It is also boosted by world-class medical education & research facilities, eager adoption of technology and government reimbursement being available in these critical fields. Europe is the second largest market but is expected to remain flat or post negative growth. However, the high prevalence of cancer in this region will ensure that there remains a strong future for the digital telepathology market there. Asia-Pacific is anticipated to be the market of the future mainly because of China, India and Japan.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2393 Digital Telepathology Market Key Market PlayersSome companies involved in the digital telepathology market include Leica Biosystems, Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., GE Healthcare, Olympus Corporation, Philips Healthcare, MikroSkan Technologies, Inc. and many others.
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Gas Leak Detectors Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2014-2020" report to their offering.

Gas Leak Detectors Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:43:19

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# 685 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

A gas leak detector is a piece of equipment or a device that senses and detects the existence of gases in a particular area. These devices are used as a part of safety systems installed in factories, homes and commercial complexes. A gas leak detector system detects the gas leaked and generates a signal to take proper action. Industrially, gas detector systems are fitted with a sound alarm to evacuate the area in case of toxic gas leakage. The popularity of such devices is growing due to the influx of new chemical facilities across the world. Further, the growing gas storage facility network across the globe has deployed a significant number of gas leak detectors for safety systems.Due to their design modifications, gas detectors are broadly categorised on the basis of technology as electrochemical, infrared imaging, infrared point, ultrasonic, semiconductor and holographic. On the basis of product type, the global gas detectors market is bifurcated into portable gas detectors and fixed gas detectors.Portable gas detectors are widely used in lab application whereas fixed detectors find their maximum application in gas extraction and processing fields. Fixed gas detectors can also be used for residential applications such as using itin a bedroom. Further, industrial fixed type gas detector application includes SCADA monitoring.Gas detectors are used in applications such as gas turbines, building and construction, health care, food and beverages, water treatment, oil and gas refineries, chemical plants, underground gas storage facilities, and others. The segments for refineries and chemical plants applications dominate the global market at present. Nevertheless, gas detectors are widely used in underground gas storage. The growing gas supply network is spurring the demand in this segment.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-67 One of the major driving factors for gas leak detectors market is the ever growing oil & gas industry. The increasing number of gas field explorations and widening gas supply network has been fuelling the demand for gas leak detectors. In addition, active government organizations have been imposing safety regulations on the industries. This, in turn, has propelled the demand for gas leak detectors. Further, Asia Pacific is likely to lead the league in terms of growth of the industrial sector, mining sector, medicine and healthcare sector, and construction sector. This is likely to create opportunities for the growth of theglobal gas leak detectors market. However, the market is facing strong competition due to the influx of new players in the market and frequent product launches.Multi-gas detector coupled with an analyzer system is one of the emerging trends in the global leaked gas detector market. This kind of detector is gaining popularity due to its compact designs and better features as compared to conventional gas leak detectors. It is expected that the after sales market is likely to develop further in future and a number of market participants will enter this segment. It is also expected that the gas leak detector manufacturers will expand their business to aftermarket sales through forward integration and strategic alliances.A number of product launches can be seen in the global gas leak detectors market. For instance, market participants such as Scott Safety, GE and RAE Systems recently launched a few new gas leak detectors. The global gas leak detectors market has also been witnessing strategic alliances such as that between Cbiss and Old Man Partner. To expand the business globally, a number of gas leaked detectors manufacturers have acquired other companies such as the acquisition of Edinburgh Instruments Ltd by Techcomp Group Ltd., the acquisition of RAE Systems by Honeywell International Inc. and the acquisition ofGroveley Detection Ltd by Emerson.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-67 Some of the prominent players in global gas leak detectors market are City Technology Ltd., Honeywell International Inc., Mine Safety Appliances Co., Dragerwerk AG & Co., KGAA, Testo AG, ABB Ltd, Industrial Scientific Corporation, California Analytical Instruments Inc., Figaro Engineering Inc., Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Hitech Instruments Ltd, Ametek Inc., Emerson Electric Co.,Halma Plc, Trolex Ltd,GE Measurement & Control, Gasmet Technologies OY, Enerac Inc., Xtralis Pty. Ltd, Horiba Ltd and others.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 13:03:57

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# 949 Words

ACN Newswire+65 6304 8926

HONG KONG, May 16, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The eighth HKTDC Hong Kong International Medical Devices and Supplies Fair opened today at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and co-organised by the Hong Kong Medical and Healthcare Device Industries Association (HKMHDIA), the three-day fair (16-18 May) showcases the latest medical equipment, technology and related services, providing a one-stop business platform for the medical industry.This year's Medical Fair welcomes a record 270 exhibitors from 14 countries and regions. The HKTDC has also organised 37 buying missions, bringing more than 1,400 buyers to the fair, including representatives of Ziwell Medical (S) PTE LTD and NTUC Unity Healthcare Co-operative Ltd from Singapore, ServiPlus Medical Equipment Inc from the Philippines, Malaysia's Felco Medical Supplies Sdn Bhd, and Health-Care Equipment from the United Kingdom."The aging population and increasing awareness of healthcare needs have resulted in a flourishing global demand for medical and healthcare products," said HKTDC Deputy Executive Director Benjamin Chau. "As technological advances are hugely important in the medical devices industry, there is also growing demand for new equipment for the medical industry. In response to the rapid development of the medical devices and healthcare industries, the Medical Fair is launching the new 'World of Healthcare' and 'Startup' zones. The Medical Fair also features a number of specialised products zones, including the 'Household Medical Products' zone and 'Rehabilitation and Elderly Care' zone, creating a comprehensive trading platform to help the industry grasp the rapidly growing medical supplies market." - New pavilions present the latest equipment and technologyThis year, the Medical Fair welcomes new group pavilions from the US State of Illinois, as well as from the Czech Republic, India and Poland's Wielkopolska region. An exhibitor from the United States is showcasing a professional ultrasonic fetal heart monitor and surgical equipment for gynecological cryotherapy. Returning pavilions include those from the Chinese mainland's Ningbo city, Pakistan and the HKMHDIA, which comprises about 30 companies. Exhibitors from Korea, Singapore and Thailand also made their debut at the fair, further enriching the variety of medical equipment and devices on show.- Debut of "World of Healthcare" and "Startup" zonesResponding to growing awareness of the importance of personal health, the fair introduces the "World of Healthcare" to present healthcare products and services, including fitness products, health food and beverages, and nutritional supplements. The medical industry is also becoming a popular sector for entrepreneurs, with many start-ups developing new medical supplies and technologies in recent years. The "Startup" zone, which is being introduced at the Medical Fair this year, showcases the creativity of Hong Kong start-ups, allowing them to meet with buyers and potential business partners to explore new business opportunities. One of the start-ups offers an automated full bathing system with temperature control, surrounding water jets and warm-air drying, and features that reduce the risk of falls during a shower (Booth no: 3G-D23). Another start-up is showcasing a series of products for treating and relieving back pain (Booth no: 3F-J03).- Special zones for quality medical equipment and technologyOrganised into more than 15 specialised product zones for easy sourcing, the Medical Fair gathers a wide spectrum of medical and healthcare equipment and services. According to the United Nations, the total global population is estimated at around 7.5 billion people, with 960 million or 13 per cent of the total population who are aged 60 or above in 2017. To keep pace with rising demand in the "silver market," the Rehabilitation and Elderly Care zone showcases products and services for general care and rehabilitation after illness or injury among elderly people. Products include an exercise machine equipped with various muscle-training programmes that improve respiratory and cardiovascular system functions among patients with Parkinson's disease (Booth no: 3F-F15), as well as an innovative tank-top developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which features a bio-feedback system with multiple sensors used to treat scoliosis (Booth no: 3F-F09). As household medical products and services grow more popular, many companies have launched products specific to the household market. The Household Medical Products zone, another fair highlight, presents various household medical devices, including an electrocardiograph smart-watch band (Booth no: 3F-G03) that can facilitate immediate diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.With new innovations in medical technology, there is growing demand for diagnostic and surgical equipment. The Hospital Equipment zone showcases specialist equipment and technology, including ultrasound and imaging tools, as well as a range of surgical instruments. The fair's Physiotherapy zone presents the latest physiotherapy equipment, devices and related services and products, including a therapy mattress, therapy light, physiotherapy plinth and physiotherapy massage equipment.Please see the full release at http://bit.ly/2pFOT54 Hong Kong International Medical Devices and Supplies Fair: www.hktdc.com/hkmedicalfair Product Highlights: http://bit.ly/2pqlIyN Photo Download Link: http://bit.ly/2pfi92u To view press releases in Chinese, please visit http://mediaroom.hktdc.com/tc About HKTDCEstablished in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body dedicated to creating opportunities for Hong Kong's businesses. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China, Asia and the world. With 50 years of experience, the HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in international markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus . Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Contact:HKTDCCommunication and Public Affairs DepartmentJoe KainzTel: +852 2584 4216Email: joe.kainz@hktdc.org
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Fuel Cell Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2014-2020" report to their offering.

Fuel Cell Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:42:31

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# 695 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Fuel cells convert electrical energy sourced from chemical energy, through an electromechanical reaction with oxygen or other oxidizing agents. Primarily, a fuel cell functions as a battery, but is different in the way that in a fuel cell, fuel is supplied from an external source and fuel is converted to electricity without any involvement of a burning process. The demand for alternative energy sources is growing at a global level, which in turn propels the development of associated products. The first commercial application of fuel cells happened with NASAs space programs. Fuel cells were used for application in probes, satellites and space capsules. Generally, fuel cells utilize oxygen and hydrogen during the electrochemical reaction process and generate electricity, heat and water. These cells are used where continuous flow of electricity is required. The cells provide continuous flow of electricity as long as source fuel is supplied. As fuel cells are carbon-free due to their non-burning nature, environmental norms support the development of this market.At a global level, various fuel cell design modifications are available. This includes solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), proton exchange membrane (PEM), molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) and a few others. Furthermore, the fuel cell market can be categorized on the basis of source type as hydrogen powered, methanol powered, biogas powered, natural gas powered and hydrocarbons powered. Fuel cell technology finds application in stationary power, portable power and transportation power, and specialty vehicles, fuel cell electric vehicles, auxiliary power units and material handling equipments. Fuel cell technology has become one of the dominant technologies in the power generation industry owing to its carbon-free, non-burning nature and safe energy source.Rising environmental concerns along with stringent regulations, especially in North America and Europe to reduce carbon emission, is likely to fuel the demand for fuel cell systems over the forecast period. Furthermore, various other factors such as consistently declining fuel cell cost due to technological advancement and uncertainty of the source of fuel cell are likely to spur growth of the fuel cell market.. Such factors limit the application of fuel cells to a narrower spectrum. Depletion of global oil and gas reserves coupled with the demand for clean energy are fuelling the global fuel cell market. Moreover, companies and governments worldwide promote the shift in focus towards renewable energy generation options.Request For Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-65 In the past few years, fuel cell market has witnessed different levels of developments, especially occurring in North American and European countries. FMI also analyzed MEA, Latin America and Asia Pacific as potential markets for the fuel cell technology. In addition, Asia Pacific has become hub for consumer electronics; where electronic goods are produced at relatively lesser cost. Fuel cell market is likely to take advantage of such factors and is expected to witness increment in the penetration in Asia Pacific.Institutional organizations such as Sandia National Laboratories and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHV) are constantly conducting extensive research in order to improve the efficiency of fuel cells. Key players (manufacturers) in the industry adopt strategies such alliances and partnerships to expand their product lines. Furthermore, strategic alliances are helping market players to penetrate into relatively newer application areas. Fuel cell manufacturers are also involved in enhancement of product offerings. For example, Ballard Power Systems, Inc. and Plug Power, Inc. signed an agreement to supply fuel cell stacks to Plug Power, Inc. for three years to be used in forklift trucks. Fuel cell manufacturers are also involved in the operational expansion through the setting up of new plants. Recently, Daimler AG and The Linde Group entered into strategic alliance to build hydrogen fuelling stations in Germany. Such initiatives are helpful to commercialize fuel cell application in the transportation sector. Furthermore, fuel cell-powered vehicles require hydrogen filling stations, and with such initiatives, it is possible to commercialize fuel cell-powered automobiles.Dominant market participants in the fuel cell market are Toshiba Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Hydrogenics Corporation, Kyocera, AFC Energy, Ballard Power Systems, Inc., Ceres Power Holdings PLC, Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited and Doosan Corporation.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-65
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:36:27

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# 719 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

All forms of flexible packaging has a drawback of permeability wherein at some level they allow oxygen or gasses to penetrate through the packaging. To overcome this drawback, packaging manufacturers innovated high barrier coatings to prevent the external environment from influencing the internal atmosphere of packaging. These high barrier coatings are commonly made of metal or combination of metal and plastic to achieve barrier properties for specific or general factors such as moisture, gasses, UV rays, heat, etc. The combination of coating is applied to various form of packaging such as pouches, bags, films, over wraps, liners, etc. Metalized barrier film provide technological advantages to the flexible packaging market as compared to rigid packaging market by making it efficient for insulating the products at lesser cost.Metalized Barrier Film Packaging Market: Market DynamicsMetalized barrier film packaging market is sustained by the flexible packaging market. Flexible packaging market is estimated to be about US$ 238 Bn and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% over the forecast period. The ability of the metalized barrier film from not letting the light, moisture to penetrate the packaging is driving the metalized barrier film packaging market. The use of metalized barrier film offers chemical manufacturers the ability to reduce the carbon emission as the material required by the films is lesser than the rigid packaging. Products which may get spoiled even with little moisture exposure can be stopped with the use of metalized barrier film hence metallized barrier films are efficient in raising the shelf life of the product in comparison with the other form of packaging. However, metalized barrier film is expensive than the regular films which curb out the profits of shifting to flexible packaging from rigid packaging. The metalized barrier film are non-microwavable, which may limit the proliferation of metalized barrier film packaging market. The main property of the metalized film is its high barrier property, and the packaging industry is moving towards the non-metalized high barrier films to achieve transparent property in packaging hence hampering the metalized barrier film packaging market. The innovations in metalized barrier film to develop new glue applied film bases for labeling and achieving transparency in packaging can provide new opportunities for metalized barrier film packaging market.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3735 Metalized Barrier Film Packaging Market: Market SegmentationMetalized barrier film packaging market is segmented by the type of material used and by the end use industry.Based on the type of material used, metalized barrier film packaging market is segmented into:FilmsBOPETBOPPCPPMetalAluminum (Alox)Silica (Siox)Based on the type of application, metalized barrier film packaging market can be segmented into:Decorative applicationInsulation ductingSandwich LaminationsLidding ApplicationsPouch PackagingBased on the end use industry, metalized barrier film packaging market can be is segmented into:Pharmaceutical industryConsumer packagingFood & beverage packagingPersonal careConstructionOthers (home care, stationery, etc.)Metalized Barrier Film Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global metalized barrier film packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanEuropean region holds the major market share for the metalized barrier film packaging market followed by the North American market due to the manufacturing practices being aligned with the metalized barrier film packaging market. APEJ region holds smaller portion of the metalized barrier film packaging market, but is expected to be the most buoyant region and is expected to outrun European and North American market over the forecast period. Metalized barrier film packaging market in Latin America region is expected to grow rapidly due to high growth rate in the region. Rest of the world is expected to account for considerable share of the APEJ region.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3735 Metalized Barrier Film Packaging Market: Key Players:Some key players of metalized barrier film packaging market are Cosmo Films Ltd., Uflex Ltd, SRF Limited, Polyplex Corporation Ltd, DUNMORE Corporation, Toray Plastics (America), Inc, Jindal Films Americas LLC, Hongcheng Telecommunication Material Co., Ltd., Dongguan City Best Craftwork Products Co., Ltd., Wenzhou Starlead Film Material Co., Ltd., Tianjin TEDA Ganghua Trade Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Pengyuan New Material Co., Ltd., Shanghai Kingsign International Trade Co., Ltd, Huizhou Yang Rui Printing And Packaging Co., Ltd.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 10:10:26

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NANJING, CHINA, May 16, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - A future where faecal transplants in China will cure conditions like autism, IBD, arthritis, Parkinson's disease and even MS was presented by global Faecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) leader Professor Thomas Borody (MD, PhD) in his keynote presentation on non Clostridium difficile conditions, to open the international China Microbiota Transplantation Conference in Nanjing (April 12-14, 2017).Professor Borody, the Founder and Medical Director of the Centre for Digestive Diseases (CDD) in Sydney, Australia said many diseases have a unique microbiome profile which can be progressively changed to a normal profile with FMT treatment. At the state-of-the-art CDD facility, Prof. Borody and his team have performed more than 12,000 FMTs.Prof. Borody is at the forefront of FMT research, being the first to report successful treatment of IBD in 1988. He invented, among other therapies, the freeze-dried oral FMT capsule system. He is also recognized as the first physician to successfully formulate the highly effective Triple Therapy that would become the gold standard for treating Helicobacter pylori infection, which can lead to peptic ulcers and stomach cancer, so common in China.In his keynote presentation, Prof. Borody also shared findings from recent ground-breaking clinical trials in IBD and autism, which he personally designed and remained involved in, as examples of the need for greater FMT clinical trial investment in serious diseases:-- The FOCUS Study - the first adequately powered randomized double blind controlled trial for ulcerative colitis-- The Autism Study - where cognitive improvement change was found after just 5 weeks of treatmentHe said more research funding was needed to bring FMT treatment into the mainstream medical world. "The healthy human flora or its components, appears to be the most complete probiotic treatment available today, capable of eradicating 'bad' bacteria and spores and supplying 'good' bacteria for recolonization of the damaged gut microbiome," said Prof. Borody.Prior to the conference Prof. Borody visited the FMT Bank in Nanjing with China's FMT leader Professor Faming Zhang, who was the first to perform FMT in China and has carried out over 1600 treatments to date. Prof. Borody has collaborated closely with Professor Faming Zhang, who is the Director of Intestinal Diseases Center at the 2nd Affiliated Hospital, Nanjing Medical University.Like the US and Australia, China is facing increasing challenges around the management of diseases, many with rising incidence including IBD, Parkinson's disease, MS, and many autoimmune conditions.About:What is Faecal Microbiota TransplantationThe human bowel contains a complex population of bacteria known as the gut microbiota. These organisms and the chemicals they produce can affect the bowel and the body as a whole, and these effects can have both positive and negative impacts on a person's health. The human gut microbiota protects us from pathogenic or 'bad' bacteria.FMT involves the infusion of healthy human donor faecal bacteria via colonoscope or enema into a bowel that contains abnormal bacteria that are making the bowel 'sick'. This infusion process can be a single infusion or it can be repeated over a period of time, depending on the severity of the patient's condition.The use of healthy human flora appears to be the most complete probiotic treatment available today, capable of eradicating 'bad' bacteria and spores and supplying 'good' bacteria for recolonisation of the gut in certain conditions.The Centre for Digestive Diseases offers FMT primarily for the treatment of Clostridium difficile and treats selected patients with ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel sydrome, constipation and Crohn's disease. Other conditions are assessed on a case by case basis.About:Prof. Thomas BorodyBSc (MED) (HONS), MBBS (HONS), MD, PhD, DSc, FRACP, FACG, FACP, AGAFMedical Director, Gastroenterologist ( www.cdd.com.au) Prof. Thomas Borody is the founder and Medical Director of CDD. His keen interest in medical research led to the establishment of the Centre to provide both diagnostic procedures and effective treatments.Prof. Borody has published over 250 articles and abstracts. His knowledge and expertise has been sought after by patients from around the world. He is a reviewer for numerous medical journals and has developed novel therapies in gastrointestinal areas such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Parasite infestation, ulcer disease and resistant Helicobacter pylori and C. difficile. Prof. Borody continues to conduct research in order to improve current therapies and develop new treatments.Contact:Susan Fitzpatrick-NapierDigital Mantra GroupTeam@ dmgpr.com SG +65 6809 3869AU +61 2 8218 2144USA +1 650 798 5238Topic: Trade Show or ConferenceSectors: BioTech, HealthCareFrom the Asia Corporate News NetworkCopyright  2017 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. A division of Asia Corporate News Network.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 09:02:01

Panelists at TITANIUM EUROPE 2017 Share Insights, Estimates on World Supply & Demand Trends and More

International Titanium Association

Jennifer Simpson, 1-303-404-2221

Executive Director

ita@titanium.org

International Titanium Association (ITA), Industry executives and business analysts will provide outlooks on titanium world supply and demand, illuminate developments on the ever-lengthening global supply chain, offer forecasts on near-term business trends, and report on the dynamics of new industrial markets and innovative products. The event will take place 17-19th May at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam the Netherlands. Attendance is anticipated at 400 delegates with 50 exhibitors.

Speakers for the World Titanium Industry Demand Trends will feature Wade Leach of ATI; Henry Seiner of TIMET; Albert Bruneau of Neotiss High Performance Tube; Michael Metz, VSMPO Tirus US; Jeremy Halford of Arconic followed by the Titanium Aerospace Demand & Integrated Supply Chain segment with distinguished speaker Raphael Duflos, Vice President Metallic Materials Procurement for Airbus SAS.

Members of the Amsterdam conferences World Titanium Industry Supply Trends speaker panel will include Sylvain Gehler, Specialty Metals Co., Nick Corby, ELG Utica Alloys Inc., Vincent Rocco, AMETEK Reading Alloys, and Thomas Hohne-Sparborth, Roskill Information Services Ltd.

Last year, at the TITANIUM USA conference held in Scottsdale, AZ, speakers on the World Titanium Industry Supply Trends panel estimated that global titanium melting capacity had reached 450,000 metric tons in 2016. According to most analysts, China, the United States, Russia and Japan are the four countries with the largest titanium melting capacities. By way of comparison, an online report from the Brussels-based World Steel Association estimated that global crude steel production in 2016 registered 1.6 billion metric tons in 2016, with China identified as the worlds largest steel producer.

Meanwhile, world titanium sponge capacity was projected at 275,000 metric tons. China, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Japan are believed to have the largest sponge-producing capacities. (It should be noted that capacity estimates do not necessarily reflect actual output levels.) It will be interesting to compare titanium supply trend estimates given by panelists at the Amsterdam gathering.

Sylvain Gehler is the managing director of Specialty Metals, based in Brussels, and also serves as the chairman of UST Kamenogorsks titanium and magnesium plant, a leading integrated producer of titanium sponge and magnesium located in Kazakhstan. Nick Corby, the titanium product manager at ELG Utica Alloys, oversees worldwide business development, marketing, purchasing, and sales operations. The company, with its headquarters in Duisburg, Germany, has facilities in North America, Mexico, Europe and Asia.

Thomas Hohne-Sparborth joined London-based Roskill in 2012 and currently manages Roskills in-house economic analysis team. He is closely involved in Roskills consultancy assignments related to market outlooks, cost modelling, and price assessments. Vincent Rocco is the sales manager of Reading Alloys. AMETEK Reading Alloys, located in Robesonia, PA, is a leading supplier of titanium powder to the global medical implant industry.

It is not too late to register for the TITANIUM event, interested participants may visit www.titaniumeurope.org for more information.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705160052

Panelists at TITANIUM EUROPE 2017 Share Insights, Estimates on World Supply & Demand Trends and More #ITATitanium
Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Mining Equipments Market: Latin America Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2014-2020" report to their offering.

Mining Equipments Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 07:45:40

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# 674 Words

616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

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 For 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.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.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-la-68
Smart Tag Packaging Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-16 08:37:37

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616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comAbhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

The expansion of online retail format and the increased use of the internet for tracking of logistics has created the need for linking online transactions and physical products. A smart tag is one such technology which has been widely providing the solutions to link this gap. Commonly used smart tags are QR code, Electronic article surveillance (EAS) and RFID tags. A smart tag has an advantage of having the wide range of application over traditional bar codes. QR codes are not need to be aligned in particular direction. Electronic article surveillance are used to prevent thefts from the stores whereas RFID tags have multiple application of giving the information about the product. The penetration of the smart phones has widened the customer base for the smart tag packaging market. A smart tag is playing an important role in supply chain management by enabling the manufacturers and suppliers to keep track of logistics and optimally maintain the inventory level. Smart tags being a responsive form of packaging can play a vital role in future by making the transactions more efficient and faster thus benefiting both customer and seller.Smart Tag Packaging Market: Market DynamicsThe smart tag packaging market is related to the responsive packaging market. Packaging market is estimated to be over US$ 800 Mn and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% over the forecast period. With the increase in the geographic spread of customer base, companies are now using more shipping services and to keep a track and account of the goods smart tag is playing an important role. With the increasing penetration of the e-commerce market in the APEJ region, online transaction is expected to increase while positively influencing the smart tag packaging market. Changing consumer lifestyle and increasing installation of modern retail outlets have boosted the growth in smart tag packaging market. The current trend of consuming the products in smaller quantity has increased the number of goods being packed and is expected to propel smart tag market over the forecast period. However, the lack of industrial standards and mechanical susceptibilities can limit the growth of smart tag market. The cost associated with the Smart tag is another factor resisting the proliferation of smart tag market. The application of the smart tag to keep the track and optimally maintain the inventory level hence protecting the production process can provide new opportunities for the smart tag market.Request For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3736 Smart Tag Packaging Market: Market SegmentationSmart tag packaging market can be segmented by the type of material used and by the end use sector.Based on the type of smart tags, the smart tag packaging market is segmented into:QR CodeElectronic Article Surveillance (EAS)RFIDBased on the end use sector, smart tag packaging market is segmented into:RetailManufacturingFMCG (fast moving consumer goods)MedicalAutomotiveOthersSmart Tag Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global smart tag packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEAJapanNorth America being the biggest organized region is expected to lead the smart tag packaging market over the forecast period. Eastern and Western Europe is expected to follow the North American market owing to its well-established retail sector in the region. Smart tag packaging market in APEJ region is expected to grow rapidly over the forecast period attributed to the changing lifestyle of the consumers in the region and presence of densely populated areas in the region. While Japan and MEA region are expected to witness moderate growth rate for smart tag packaging market.Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3736 Smart Tag Packaging Market: Key Players:Some key players of Smart tag packaging market are Smart Label Solutions, LLC, Shenzhen Jianhe Smartcard Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zdcard Tech Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Top tags Technology Co., Ltd., Chengdu Mind Golden Card System Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Laxcen Information Technology Inc. Limited, Alien Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Muehlbauer Holding AG, Thin Film Electronics ASA, Zebra Technologies.
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.




If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.
The Pardee RAND Graduate School (PardeeRAND.edu) is home to the only Ph.D. and M.Phil. programs offered at an independent public policy research organizationthe RAND Corporation.
As Uganda undergoes a period of rapid urbanization (expected to increase from 13% in 2010 to 60% by 2040 [ PDF ]), the number of people eating meals outside the home is also on the rise. Most urbanites seem to be looking for food that is convenient and affordable, and Kampala's growing street food industry delivers. Food processing and sales account for more than 30% of the informal market and provides economic opportunity for the poor or marginalized in urban centers, especially women. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations has recommended ( PDF ) street food enterprises as a good way to diversify household income with little capital investment, highlighting how small enterprises can continue to grow over time. But what about households who rely on sales as their only form of income? More often than not, food vendors get trapped living day-to-day, and are unable to further develop their enterprises.

Street food vendors typically cater to lower-income, price-sensitive consumers and need to keep prices low to compete successfully in the marketplace. In addition, a fair amount of their income must be used to purchase ingredients for the next day's food offerings. After paying their daily living expenses, too many street vendors don't have sufficient capital to maximize their sales and profits.

The Pardee RAND Graduate School recently teamed up with the African Center for Economic Transformation on a project promoting highly nutritious, drought-tolerant native grainsmillet and sorghumin Uganda, culminating in a Superfood Cook-off Competition finale that paired professional chefs with local vendors to create nutritious and affordable street foods using these sustainable grains. After the event, we interviewed the participating street vendors to find out more about their business goals and the obstacles they face.

Consta Adong, 40, from Lira, Uganda is single and has no children. She operates a vending booth at the Nakawa Market in Kampala and sells traditional food from the region where she was born. Adong had been able to save enough money to rent a market stall and buy a cooking stove to prepare larger meals. However, she usually runs out of food before she runs out of customers. After selling about 50 plates per day, earning the equivalent of $32 to $44, and paying her helpers, she only has enough left to buy ingredients for another 50 plates of food the next day. Adong says she believes there is demand for at least 100 plates of food per day but without credit, she cannot afford the ingredients to meet that demand and must forego the potential profits.

Milly Sebuliba, a 45-year-old mother of six children, has been operating a vending booth in Nakasero Market for over 10 years. Sebuliba typically sells about 40 plates per day, and has at least 10 to 15 clients looking to buy food after she has run out. She rents space at the market, but because she cannot afford the license fees to cover a one-year period, she pays a higher rate to rent month to month. A long-term license would save her money and provide more stability, according to Sebuliba. She says an infusion of the equivalent of about $150 into her business would give her ample capital to secure her position in the market and allow her to purchase more supplies. Sebuliba estimates she could pay it back in six months.

Another street vendor said he sees opening a restaurant as an opportunity to make a better income. Asiimwe Nicholas, 30, completed a college degree in hotel management and has a wife and a baby. In the street food business for three years, he targets university students with items such as chips (French fries), roasted chicken, and sausages. He estimates that a loan of about $2,650 in U.S. dollars would allow him to open a brick-and-mortar establishment and that it would take him between 18 months and three years to repay the loan.

The street food vendors all appeared to be hardworking and enthusiastic. But their reality is starkmany are one family or health crisis away from losing everything. In Kampala, selling food on the street is technically illegal, and the Kampala City Council Authority intermittently cracks down on local vendors. However, many of the sanctioned markets are already full, and renting a space costs money. Micro-loans could potentially help move these vendors up the economic ladder, but a broader social safety net in addition to a small influx of capital is needed. Improved vendor registration, regulations regarding the cost of renting market booths, and the provision of safe and energy-efficient cooking equipment could improve the economic stability of vendor households.

Street vendors would greatly benefit from the development of an appropriate infrastructure in tandem with food safety standards, rules of hygiene, and an increased focus on healthful products. Kampala's growing population also would benefit from receiving increased access to nutritious and affordable foods.

Michele Abbott is an assistant policy researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Deborah Cohen is a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation. This blog post was written for the Pardee Initiative for Global Human Progress.

Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
The third and fourth seasons of the BBCs Emmy-winning factual series Life Below Zero is to be shown across all screens by History Latin America.





Life Below Zero follows seven people as they battle for the most basic necessities in Alaska, one of the least populated states in the US. The deal, announced by BBC Worldwide, the UK public broadcasters commercial arm, will see season three hit screens in 2017, with season four next year.This agreement underscores the interest in BBC Worldwide's content and validates our strategy to offer audiences in Latin America some of our most popular titles across a diversity of platforms including pay-TV transmissions, video streaming platforms and [broadcast] television, remarked Anna Gordon, executive vice president and managing director of BBC Worldwide Latin America/US Hispanic. Agreements like todays signed with History Latin America will soon allow us to deliver the best British content in the world to Latin American audiences.Added Miguel Brailovsky, SVP of programming and production for History LATAM parent A+E Networks Latin America: We believe that Life Below Zero has all the ingredients that fans of factual television look for in a series: great characters, monumental natural scenery, and the adrenaline to face extraordinary lives with dangers that are unknown for most of us. The BBC has built an exciting programme which complements perfectly the other original content of History.
Basking in the success of Versailles, TF1s TV production and distribution subsidiary Newen Group has announced the launch of a 50 million investment fund focused on acquiring UK drama.





The distribution company says it is actively looking to make significant investments to support producers projects from early development to deficit funding. Its international distribution business, Newen Distribution, will invest in high-end scripted series from UK production companies through the fund, in order to build a strong presence in English-speaking content.In addition to Versailles, Newen has delivered some of Frances most successful drama series, such as the Emmy-award-winning Braquo for Canal+, as well as the hit daily series Plus belle la vie and the long-running, female-driven cop show Candice Renoir for public broadcaster France Televisions. It also sold the hit cop drama Spiral to the BBC, the first ever sale of a non-English language prime time drama series to the corporation. This was also the first non-English language series sold to Netflix USA in 2011.To achieve its aims, the company will look to partner on three to four what it believes will be outstanding scripted series, both returning and mini-series. The investment will be supported by an international sales presence headquartered in Paris, a strong emphasis on global marketing and a new London office focused on UK content partnerships. Julien Leroux has been appointed as its Executive Vice President of Sales & Content Development.We all know the challenges distributors face in funding the best drama in the UK market. We believe that it is the perfect time to be proactive in the UK, offering producers cash at an early stage, rapid decision-making and privileged access to major Continental European markets, as well as our strong worldwide trading relationships, explained Newen Distribution managing director Malika Abdellaoui. We want to apply Newens successful entrepreneurial spirit to the UK distribution and coproduction market. We are open to different kinds of partnership to create a special route between Europe through core territories such as France, giving access to more financing and broadcasters at a very early stage. The Newen group is ready to take risks and, thanks to its own production pipeline, can offer far more than just investment.
The Afghan government says its forces have retaken control of a district center near the northern city of Kunduz from Taliban fighters.

The Interior Ministry said security forces launched early on May 16 an operation to regain control of the Qala-i-Zal district, and secured the district governor's office, police headquarters, and other areas.

One militant was killed in the offensive, according to the Defense Ministry. There was no word on any casualties among security forces.

On May 6, Taliban militants seized the Qala-i-Zal district, west of Kunduz, as they stepped up pressure on the city at the start of their annual spring offensive.

Kunduz is in government hands, while the Taliban control most of the surrounding districts.

Over the past 18 months, Taliban fighters have twice succeeded in seizing the city center for brief periods.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Khaama Press


Armenia and the separatists who control Nagorno-Karabakh have warned that a missile strike by Azerbaijani armed forces targeting an air defense missile system in the breakaway region "will not remain unanswered."

Spokesmen for the Armenian Defense Ministry and the self-described defense ministry of the breakaway region issued the warning on May 15 in identical messages posted on their Facebook accounts.

They said the missile system was damaged in the strike, which they described as a "provocation," and denied there had been fatalities.

Earlier, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said its forces had destroyed an Osa air defense system along with its crew, adding that its deployment near the line of control was a "provocation" and a threat to Azerbaijani aircraft.

Nagorno-Karabakh is officially part of Azerbaijan, but Armenia-backed separatists seized control of the mainly ethnic-Armenian populated region during the early 1990s in a war that killed some 30,000 people. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict during the last 25 years have brought little progress.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani and Armenian Services
Broad public discussion of a series of amendments to the Georgian constitution drafted by a commission dominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party is currently under way.

The planned changes include abolishing direct elections for president, and fine-tuning the electoral system in a way that would benefit whichever party garners the largest number of votes.

Georgian Dream argues that those changes will strengthen multiparty democracy. The opposition, by contrast, argues that they are intended and will serve solely to enable Georgian Dream to remain in power indefinitely.

Several opposition parties are therefore campaigning for the amendments to be put to a nationwide referendum, which Georgian Dream is reluctant to condone, even though the current constitution stipulates that referendum results are nonbinding.

Meanwhile, civil society groups and NGOs have appealed to the Council of Europe's Venice Commission of expert constitutional lawyers to rule on whether the planned amendments are appropriate and acceptable in the Georgian context.

Plans for amending the constitution were announced late last year by Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili following the reelection of Georgian Dream in the October parliamentary ballot.

The objective, Kvirikashvili explained, was to replace what he termed "the very unbalanced constitution" Georgian Dream inherited in 2012 from the former ruling United National Movement with "a truly European, democratic constitution" that would "preclude the possibility of a single party ever again usurping and monopolizing power."

That statement is a clear allusion to the way the United National Movement had systematically tweaked the constitution in the hope of ensuring its reelection in 2012 and facilitating then-President Mikheil Saakashvili's transition to the post of prime minister after the end of his second presidential term one year later.

Dogged By Disagreement

The process of drafting the amendments has been dogged by disagreement and controversy from the outset, however. It has also exacerbated the already strained relations between Georgian Dream and Saakashvili's successor as president, Giorgi Margvelashvili.

The most contentious changes affect how the president is to be elected, some of his prerogatives, and the distribution of parliamentary mandates.

Others include adding to the constitution a definition of marriage as "the voluntary union of a man and a woman with the aim of creating a family" and removing the stipulation that the seat of the parliament is Kutaisi, Georgia's second-largest city. (The transfer of the legislature from Tbilisi to Kutaisi was one of numerous constitutional amendments pushed through parliament by the United National Movement between 2004 and 2012.)

At present, Georgia's president is elected by a nationwide vote. Initially, switching as of 2018 to the indirect election of the president by the parliament had been proposed.

That proposition elicited an outraged response from Margvelashvili, who is widely expected to seek a second and final presidential term next year.

Margvelashvili had declared in December that he and his staff would boycott the work of the constitutional commission because he was not named to co-chair it.

Electoral College?

The constitutional commission then suggested a compromise whereby the transition to an indirect presidential election would take place only in 2023, after Margvelashvili's anticipated second presidential term expired. From that juncture, the president would be elected by an electoral college comprising the 150 lawmakers plus a further 150 representatives from all of Georgia's various regions, including the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

That failed, however, to mollify Margvelashvili, who declared in a TV interview in early March that "I still have not heard a single cogent argument" why the Georgian people should be stripped of the right to elect their president.

Margvelashvili apparently enjoys overwhelming public support on this point: his parliamentary secretary Ana Dolidze was quoted on April 18 by InterpressNews.ge as saying the latest opinion polls reveal that 98 percent of Georgians favor retaining direct presidential elections.

WATCH: Georgian Protest Proposed Constitutional Amendments

Margvelashvili is also against the proposed abolition of the National Security Council, which is subordinate to the president in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces.

According to parliament speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, the constitutional lawyer who chaired the constitutional commission, the abolition of the National Security Council was recommended by the Venice Commission on the grounds that the council advises the president on issues that are the prerogative of the government, not of the president.

At the same time, Kobakhidze explained that, while the president will retain the post of commander in chief under the amended constitution, the armed forces are not directly subordinate to him, InterpressNews.ge reported on May 5.

Kobakhidze's related assertion that the proposed amendments do not affect other presidential powers is not strictly speaking true insofar as the amendments deprive the president of the right to request that the cabinet address specific issues and participate in discussion of them, and of the right to nominate a certain number of Supreme Court judges.

Margvelashvili has duly launched a personal campaign, under the slogan: "The constitution belongs to everyone." His stated aim in doing so is to solicit citizens' views on what the revised constitution should look like, but some observers suspect that pique and injured pride were also a motivating factor. Margvelashvili is simultaneously participating in the ongoing public discussion of the amendments.

Controversial Voting System

The proposed revision of the voting system in parliamentary elections has likewise proven controversial.

True, the amendments meet the opposition's demand for switching from the current mixed system, under which 73 of the 150 parliamentary deputies are elected in single-mandate constituencies and the remaining 77 under the proportional system, to a fully proportional system. But Georgian Dream insists on retaining the existing 5 percent barrier to qualify for parliamentary representation, and also on abolishing the option of forming electoral blocs.

The rationale for those changes, as outlined by Kobakhidze, is to promote the emergence of some six or seven strong and viable political parties by weeding out smaller political groups that enjoy only minimal support.

Of the 27 political parties and six electoral blocs that were registered for the October 2016 parliamentary ballot, just three qualified for parliamentary representation. Kobakhidze's predecessor as parliament speaker, former Republican Party leader Davit Usupashvili, similarly affirmed during a long interview he gave to InterpressNews.ge in August 2016 that "unless we make the transition to a parliamentary system of government, political parties will never become any stronger."

To that end, in future, political parties not represented in the outgoing parliament must submit the signatures of no fewer than 25,000 supporters to register for a parliamentary election. Smaller parties reject those changes as discriminatory, and have demanded that the barrier for parliamentary representation be lowered to 3 percent of the vote.

'Unfair' Proposal

The opposition is even more incensed by the proposal that those parliamentary mandates not allocated under the proportional system be given to the party that garners the largest number of votes, rather than shared among all parties that surmount the 5 percent hurdle.

It was precisely that system, according to United National Movement lawmaker Otar Kakhidze, that kept Italy's World War II Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in power.

Georgian Dream lawmaker Vakhtang Khmaladze, who has participated in the drafting of Georgian constitutions since the late 1980s, branded that proposal "unfair," while President Margvelashvili commented during a public discussion in Gori on May 11 that "not only does it sound unfair to me, I think a strong party should not need to resort to this."

In a joint appeal to the Venice Commission, 85 civil society organizations aligned in the Georgian National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum pointed out that, in all elections between 1995 and 2016, the average votes wasted because of the 5 percent threshold stood at about 20.1 percent. That would give the winning party 30 additional mandates.

Despite such criticisms, Georgian Dream continues to maintain that the amended constitution will guarantee the optimum balance between promoting political pluralism and preserving stability.

Parliament speaker Kobakhidze argues that "we are changing a very bad constitution for a very good one." He says the switch to the proportional system would virtually preclude any single party gaining a constitutional majority in parliament (which Georgian Dream currently has), and that in this respect "for the first time ever, the constitution is being amended to the detriment of the ruling force."

Those assertions have proven less than convincing. In early April, the opposition parties represented on the constitutional commission walked out one after the other, complaining that none of their proposed revisions had been taken into account, and therefore failed to participate in the formal vote approving the finished draft.

Rival Initiative

One month later, the United National Movement and the political parties European Georgia, the New Rightists, the State for the People, and the National Democratic Party established a rival initiative, named Defend the Constitution, to Margvelashvili's "The Constitution Belongs to All," the news portal Caucasian Knot reported.

At the same time, the European Georgia party, which split in January from the United National Movement, called for a nationwide referendum on the planned changes, Caucasian Knot reported on April 22. To date, four other parties the United National Movement, the Alliance of Patriots, and the extraparliamentary Free Democrats and the Republican Party, have added their voices to that demand.

Khmaladze, however, argues that a referendum is inappropriate because the majority of the electorate does not understand the nuances of the issues involved.

Georgia's leaders may also be unwilling to risk the charges of manipulation of the outcome that have plagued similar referendums on constitutional amendments over the past two decades in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

It is not clear whether Georgian Dream's seeming obduracy was simply a negotiating tactic, and the party will ultimately agree to modify the proposed changes in order to demonstrate both good faith and the depth of its commitment to a genuinely democratic electoral system.

Even before the constitutional commission got down to work, Kobakhidze stressed that the parliament will not endorse any proposed changes to which the Venice Commission raises an objection.

If Georgian Dream goes back on that pledge, the confrontation between Georgian Dream and the political parties and NGOs that oppose the amendments could prove reminiscent of the Soviet-era Radio Yerevan joke: "Will there be a Third World War? "No, but there will be such a struggle for peace that not a single stone will be left standing."

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.


Russia has launched multiple suicide drones on Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding people and damaging civilian facilities, the head of the regional military administration said, as fierce battles are under way in the eastern Donetsk region and in the south.

"The occupiers attacked the area massively with kamikaze drones, said Governor Valentyn Reznichenko. Ukrainian air defense destroyed some of the drones, but others hit targets. The Russian forces also used drones in an attack on the city of Dnipro, targeting a logistics enterprise. Reznichenko said four employees were wounded, and three of them are in serious condition in hospital.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Russian forces also bombarded the Nikopol district in the region with Grad missiles and heavy artillery. Reznichenko said the shelling damaged private houses, a factory, and a power line, but no one was injured.



A fire spread over more than 3,000 square meters but was extinguished, Reznichenko said.



Russian troops regularly shell the Dnipropetrovsk region with various types of weapons, in particular the Nikopol, Kryvorizky, and Synelnyk districts.

In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed Ukraine will not "surrender a single centimeter of our land" in Donetsk, and he thanked Ukrainian troops who are holding positions in the Donbas region.



The epicenter of the battle for the industrial region of Donetsk is around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar, and Avdiyivka.



"The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level -- dozens of attacks every day," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on November 8.



"They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same: to advance on the administrative boundary of Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimeter of our land," he said.



Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it annexed in September following referendums considered a sham by Kyiv and its Western allies.



Fighting has taken place there between Ukrainian military and Kremlin-backed separatist forces since 2014, the same year Russia illegally annexed Crimea in the south.

Zelenskiy said the goal of the Russian troops is to push to the administrative border of the Donetsk region.



"We clearly understand the enemy's plans, so we act accordingly: carefully, thoughtfully, and in the interests of the liberation of our entire territory. We are strengthening our positions, breaking Russian logistics, and consistently destroying the potential of the occupiers to keep the south of our country under occupation," Zelenskiy added.



Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said the most intense battles were taking place in Bakhmut and Soledar where the Ukrainian military repels dozens of Russian attacks per day.



Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the region's military administration, said the city of Bakhmut was badly damaged, and there is not a single surviving house in Avdiyivka, Maryinka, or Krasnohorivka. Russian troops are trying to wipe the cities "off the face of the Earth," he said.



Fierce fighting was also going on on the edge of the town of Snihurivka, in the southern Mykolayiv region, according to Yury Barabashov, the town's Russian-appointed mayor, as cited by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.



Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in the southern Kherson region, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had tried to advance on three fronts, including Snihurivka.



Vitaly Kim, the Ukrainian governor of the Mykolayiv region, apparently quoting an intercepted dialogue between Russian troops, suggested Ukrainian forces had already pushed the Russians out of the area.



"Russian troops are complaining that they have already been thrown out of there," Kim said in a statement on his Telegram channel.



The information could not be independently verified.



The Ukrainian military said it destroyed two Russian ammunition depots in southern Ukraine on November 8, one in Snihurivka, and one in Kostromka, in the neighboring Kherson region.

WATCH: Paratroopers with Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade say they're holding positions around the small city of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine despite daily Russian attacks.

Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists in recent months seeking to stave off an offensive launched by Ukraine to regain Russian-occupied territories.



Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said on November 8 that 21 Russian conscripts had surrendered to Ukrainian forces around Svatove in the eastern Luhansk region.



"These poor mobilized men -- really poor, they had had nothing to eat or drink in three days -- of course they decided to surrender," Zhdanov said on his YouTube channel.



In the southern Kherson region, a battle between advancing Ukrainian forces and the Russian occupiers has been looming for weeks in the city by the same name, the only regional capital Russia has captured intact since its unprovoked invasion in February.



Kherson is arguably the most important of the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia says it annexed. It controls both the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also commented on the fighting in eastern Ukraine on November 8. He was quoted by TASS as saying that information released about casualties among Chechen fighters near Lysychansk, a city in the eastern Luhansk region, was false.



"Not a single fighter of ours was killed in the aforementioned area," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that he didn't want to comment on "such falsehoods" but found it necessary "to reassure all sane and concerned people."



Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, released video footage that it said showed a drone strike obliterating a Ukrainian tank that was hiding in an urban area and shelling Russian troops.



"A Russian squad of unmanned aerial vehicles spotted the Ukrainian tank and destroyed it using a precision strike," the ministry said on November 8, according to TASS.



The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Russian troops used drones and artillery on November 8 to shell communities along the Sumy region's border with Russia in northeastern Ukraine. The only damage reported was to utility poles.



Sumy borders three regions of Russia: Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod. The border regions of Ukraine are regularly shelled by Russia.



Neither side's battlefield claims could be independently verified.



The Ukrainian military has accused Russian troops of more looting and destroying infrastructure in Kherson.



"A convoy of trucks passed over the dam of the Kakhova hydroelectric station loaded with home appliances and building materials," the military said.



Russians were dismantling mobile phone towers and taking equipment, it said, adding that near the city of Beryslav, Russian forces "blew up a power line and took equipment from a solar power station."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and CNN
A lot has happened in the past three years. But Oleh Sentsov hasn't been able to experience any of it.

Because three years ago this month, FSB agents seized the acclaimed Ukrainian filmmaker from a street in Simferopol, the capital of Russian-occupied Crimea.

They threw a bag over his head, interrogated him, transported him to Russia, charged him with terrorism in a bizarre Soviet-style show trial, and sentenced him to twenty years in a Siberian prison colony.

The case against Sentsov and his co-defendant Oleksandr Kolchenko was designed to send a message to anybody who dares oppose Moscow's occupation of Crimea.

For three years, Sentsov has effectively been a Russian hostage.

But he's also been more than that.

His case was also part of an elaborate Kremlin propaganda campaign to legitimize its illegal seizure of Crimea.

Sentsov was tried as a Russian citizen, which means that Vladimir Putin's regime stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship against his will.

He was tried and incarcerated in Russia, even though he was apprehended in Crimea, which according to international law remains Ukrainian territory.

And by charging him with plotting terrorist acts, the Kremlin sought to legitimize the fiction that it seized Crimea to protect ethnic Russians.

The Sentsov case was Moscow's way of showing the world that the annexation of Crimea was a fait accompli.

It was an attempt to prove that Russia could seize not only Ukraine's territory, but its prominent citizens and their citizenship as well.

And it was a message that all the fairy-tales the seizure of Crimea was based upon, would be treated as self-evident facts.

Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.
Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine.

But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown.



The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes  dual-use technology.

The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case.

The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war.

At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products.

But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States.



A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers.

These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations.

To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components.

The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China.

Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU.

"Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24.

"Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions.

Chinese Cameras, California Chips

Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets.

Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media.

"The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019.

The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components.

One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone.

Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers.

Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military."

The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology.

Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone.

Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication.

Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone.

Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran."

"TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said.

Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions.

"This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes.

AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

'No Authorization'

Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP).

The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia."

"As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. .

But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020.

The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries.

The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine.

BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward."

The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes.

"For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations."

BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines."

Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report.
Iranian voters head to the polls on May 19 in a presidential election. Incumbent Hassan Rohani is hoping to be reelected to a second term after striking a landmark nuclear deal with world powers in 2015 that eased sanctions. Rohani is facing challenges from hard-line conservative opponents who say the accord hasn't delivered on its promised economic benefits. (AFP, AP, Reuters)
ASTANA -- A court in Kazakhstan has sentenced labor union leader Amin Eleusinov to two years in prison.

The court handed down the sentence on May 16 after convicting Eleusinov, a union leader at the Oil Construction Company (OCC), of embezzlement and of publicly insulting, assaulting, and refusing to obey a representative of state authority.

Eleusinov was arrested in January after hundreds of OCC workers went on hunger strike for two weeks to protest the closure of a trade union alliance.

The strike was stopped after a court in the Central Asian nation declared it illegal.

Union activist Nurbek Qushaqbaev, who was arrested along with Eleusinov, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in April after a court convicted him of instigating an illegal strike.

Amnesty International condemned Qushaqbaev's conviction, calling it part of the "destruction of the independent trade union movement in Kazakhstan."

Oil and gas revenues are crucial to Kazakhstan's economy, and budget, and longtime President Nursultan Nazarbaev's government tolerates little dissent.


BRUSSELS -- European lawmakers have delayed the disbursement of financial assistance to Moldova after several political groups in the chamber voiced concerns about the political situation in the country.



Negotiators from the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission were due to meet on May 18 to agree on the modalities of the disbursements, but the talks were postponed for at least one month.



A Liberal Lithuanian member of the European parliament, Petras Autrevicius, told RFE/RL on May 16 that concerns were raised about the media situation in Moldova, the rule of law, and recent changes to the electoral law.



In January, the European Commission agreed to provide up to 100 million euros in grants and loans as part of a new Macro-Financial Assistance program to help the country meet its financing needs.
Vladimir Bizik, an analyst for the European Values think tank in Prague, spoke with RFE/RL's Pete Baumgartner on March 15 and 16 about the ongoing WannaCry "ransomware" attack on computer operating systems around the world.

Bizik discussed the origins of the outbreak -- which has affected everything from hospitals in Britain to schools and businesses in China and more than 100 other countries -- and how to prevent it from attacking your computer.

RFE/RL: Tell me a little bit about what "ransomware" is.

Vladimir Bizik: Ransomware is a type of malware -- malicious software -- that once it reaches a started computer and is launched and executed it encrypts all the information on the computer, or it can [just] be select information, and then it demands the user to pay a ransom if the user wants to recover the data. Generally the ransom is paid with crypto-currency, Bitcoin, to ensure complete anonymity so that the perpetrator cannot be traced.

RFE/RL: Is this attack something that has happened before, or is this really the first time we've seen it?

Bizik: This has happened many times...[but] it's been on quite an upsurge in the recent two or three years. And it can be said that right now it's among the most dangerous and the most prevalent type of malware that is in circulation.

RFE/RL: I saw Microsoft saying that they had issued a security patch for this a couple of months ago, and if people had just properly installed that patch on their computers this wouldn't have happened. Is that true?

Bizik: Exactly. That's one of the main problems, and I would venture to guess that more than 90 percent of all the cyberattacks like this happen because the user is not vigilant enough and doesn't use best practices to protect his or her data. And, generally, users consider it a nuisance to update their software and they tend to ignore all the prompts. And if they would do it, if it was like second nature to them [to upgrade their software], [the attack] wouldn't have happened to them because the patch completely closes the hole in the software.

So I guess it is a cultural problem. Because we are from early childhood taught how to close doors and how to lock the doors to protect our home; but now we have all our data and money and basically our whole lives stored on the computers and the Internet, and it's not yet a part of the culture to protect our data [on our computers].

RFE/RL: Is this the worst or the most widespread malware attack that we've had so far?

Bizik: Yes, to my knowledge it's the most widespread. Other outbreaks have been contained to hundreds or thousands of computers, but this so far has attacked around 200,000 so far and counting, though it's been slowing down. It seems that it has been contained for now, and no second outbreak has been reported as of now. Most of the new infections are reported in China, which is known for widely using counterfeit and unpatched software.

RFE/RL: Who could be behind such a thing? Is it just one small group or even a single person, or people spread out around the world? Who can we start to think might be behind something like this?

Bizik: The short answer is we have no idea. But it's not necessary for a big hacker group -- it doesn't take many people or a lot of skill to devise such malware. It could have easily been one person -- it's not technically very complicated to program, such software, and it exploits a hole in the Windows operating system that has been disclosed as part of a security leak from the American National Security Agency [NSA] and was available in the public for several months now. So anybody could have made use of that.

Malware researchers have found some links between WannaCry ransomware and North Korea. They found an identical code between WannaCry and several other pieces of malware that were traced back to North Korea, via the group of hackers that styles itself as Lazarus Group and has been responsible for causing hard drives in South Korea to self-destruct in 2013 and stealing almost a terabyte's worth of data from Sony Pictures in 2014.

The pieces of code are things that we already have at our disposal, though, and the link between the current ransomware and Lazarus Group is unclear -- and they have not claimed responsibility. So the link with North Korea is very faint, and it's impossible to tell what sort of objectives it could fulfill for North Korea -- it behaves just like any other criminal ransomware. One hypothesis would be that the malware was programmed by the same party that North Korea could have hired to perpetrate some of the attacks attributed to it in the past. We are in the dark as for their identity or domicile.

RFE/RL: And when was this security leak for Windows exposed and by whom, do we know?

Bizik: It was exposed by a group called the Shadow Brokers, which has gained some prominence last year, I believe. And they have gained access to a list of security exploits [or lapses] which were hoarded, basically, by the NSA in the United States to enter investigative computers. And this group, the identity of whom and even [the] location of whom we don't know about, they leaked this information and WikiLeaks actually published it.

So the culprits [of this malware outbreak], apart from the users who don't update their systems, are definitely the NSA, who uses these exploits and hoards them and doesn't disclose them to even Microsoft and then also [WikiLeaks], who didn't contact Microsoft first and they went on to publish these exploits immediately.

RFE/RL: Is there a way for us now that it is out? How are we going to get past this and prevent it from happening in the future?

Bizik: [For] this particular ransomware, the only thing to prevent infection is to have your system up to date -- if it's the Windows operating system, just make sure automatic updates are turned on; so just don't tamper with default settings and you should be fine. As for future attacks, again, just keep your system updated, there is no other single rule or advice apart from this.

What's out is already out; there is actually a person who found a "kill switch" for this specific malware, and he published it and it seems he has been getting a lot of death threats about this on the Internet but...there are new versions [of ransomware] which are already immune to this kill switch. Even after encrypting the files, one specific early version can be turned off [with the kill switch] without having to pay [a ransom] but newer versions are immune to that.
Cybersecurity firms have found clues that last weekend's global "ransomware" attack, which infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries, could be linked to North Korea.

The security companies Sympantec and Kaspersky Lab said on May 15 that portions of the "WannaCry" ransomware used in the attacks have the same code as malware previously distributed by Lazarus, a group behind the 2014 Sony hack blamed on North Korea.

"This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kaspersky researchers said.

But it's possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection, the companies said.

Symantec said the similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools "so far only represent weak connections. We are continuing to investigate for stronger connections."

Israeli security firm Intezer Labs said it agreed that North Korea might be behind the attack.

Vital Systems Paralyzed

The WannaCry virus over the weekend paralyzed vital computer systems around the world that run factories, banks, government agencies, and transport systems in some 150 countries.

The virus mainly hit computers running older versions of Microsoft Windows software that had not been recently updated.

But by May 15, the fast-spreading extortion scheme was waning. The only new outbreaks reported were in China, where traffic police and schools said they had been targeted, but there were no major disruptions.

The link to North Korea found by the security firms will be closely followed by law-enforcement agencies around the world, including Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser said on May 15 that both foreign nations and cybercriminals were possible culprits.

Symantec and Kaspersky said they need to study the code more and asked for others to help with the analysis. Hackers reuse code from other operations at times, so even copied lines fall well short of proof.

U.S. and European security officials told the Reuters news agency that it was still too early to say who might be behind the attacks, but they did not rule out North Korea as a suspect.

The Lazarus hackers, acting for impoverished North Korea, have been more brazen in pursuit of financial gain than some other hackers, and have been blamed for the theft of $81 million from a Bangladesh bank.

'Highly Destabilizing'

Moreover, North Korea might have motives to launch such a large-scale, global attack as its economy is crumbling under some of the stiffest-ever UN economic sanctions imposed over its repeated testing of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles.

The United Nations Security Council on May 15 condemned Pyongyang's latest missile test the previous day, and vowed to take further measures, including possible new sanctions, in response to its "highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance" of existing prohibitions against such tests.

Whoever is responsible, the perpetrators of the massive weekend attacks have raised very little money thus far -- less than $70,000 from users looking to regain access to their computers, according to Trump's homeland security adviser Tom Bossert.

Some private sector cybersecurity experts do not believe the motive of the attacks was primarily to make money, given the apparently meager revenues that were raised by the unprecedented large operation. They said that wreaking havoc likely was the primary goal.

The countries most affected by WannaCry were Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine, and India, according to Czech security firm Avast.

Bossert denied charges by Russian President Vladimir Putin and others that the attacks originated in the United States, and came from a hacking tool developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was later leaked online.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data. This was a tool developed by culpable parties, potentially criminals or foreign nation-states, that were put together in such a way as to deliver phishing e-mails, put it into embedded documents, and cause infection, encryption, and locking," Bossert said.

British media were hailing as a hero a 22-year-old computer security expert who appeared to have helped stop the attack from spreading by discovering a "kill switch" -- an Internet address which halted the virus when activated.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters


LGBT activists in France say they have filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the leader of Chechnya alleging genocide following reports of the torture and killing of gay men in the southern Russian region.

Three gay-rights groups said on May 16 that they filed the complaint with The Hague-based court a day earlier against Ramzan Kadyrov, calling him the "logistician" of "genocide" and "the organizer of torture camps with a desire to exterminate homosexuals."

The complaint comes amid mounting international pressure over the alleged abuses against gay men in Chechnya, first reported last month by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Kadyrov denies any such campaign has taken place in the mainly Muslim region -- and has said that homosexuality does not exist in Chechen society.

Since the Novaya Gazeta report early last month, gay men from Chechnya have given personal accounts to RFE/RL and other media of their escape from the abuse they faced in the region in the North Caucasus.

Putin has said he would speak to top law enforcement officials about the allegations, which Western governments have called on Russia to investigate. He has also suggested that the reports are merely "rumors."

Rights watchdogs say Russian authorities are unlikely to thoroughly investigate the allegations against Kadyrov, who has ruled Chechnya with an iron hand and strong Kremlin support for a decade.

Putin last year formally withdrew Russia's signature from the founding statute of the ICC, which was established to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The French LGBT rights groups argue that the court still has a mandate to investigate the matter until November 2017, when Moscow's withdrawal formally takes effect.

Etienne Deshoulieres, a lawyer representing the groups in the matter, said in a statement that it is the first time that the ICC "will have to deal with a genocide committed against homosexuals."

"The court has jurisdiction to hear the case. It is its duty to initiate an investigation," he said.

Russia, like the United States, has never ratified an agreement to join the ICC. Moscow has called the court "one-sided and inefficient."

The announcement of the ICC complaint came on the same day as a debate in the European Parliament in Brussels on LGBT rights in Chechnya.

Christos Stylianides, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid, said during the debate that "we have seen Chechen authorities implicitly justifying the violence and the Russian federal authorities downplaying it, dismissing the reports as exaggerations and fake news."

"We will continue to call on the Russian authorities for an effective and thorough investigation into the reports of abduction and killings of gay men in Chechnya," Stylianides said.

"This is indispensable so that anyone found guilty of or complicit in such crimes are brought to justice. This is our strong conviction."

With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, Le Monde, and RTS.ch
KAZAN -- A court in Russia's Tatarstan region has ordered a local activist to serve 10 days in jail in connection with a rally in support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

In a May 15 ruling, the court in Kazan ruled that Albert Abuzarov violated legislation on public gatherings and refused to obey police requests.

Abuzarov, who holds Russian and Australian passports, was detained along with four other activists during a May 14 rally in downtown Kazan to express support for Navalny.

Abuzarov's lawyer, Elza Nisanbekova, told RFE/RL that she would appeal the decision.

The four activists who were detained along with Abuzarov were released but informed that they face hearings on May 30 on the same charges.


A Kremlin-connected billionaire has sued the Associated Press (AP) for defamation and libel over a report on his business ties to U.S. President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman.

In the federal lawsuit filed at a Washington court on May 15, aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska said AP's March story about his connections with Paul Manafort falsely accused him of criminal activity.

The news organization says it stands by its story.

The AP report said that, while working for Deripaska several years ago, Manafort proposed a plan aimed at influencing politics, business dealings, and news coverage across the United States, Europe, and the former Soviet Union in ways that would favor Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After the story was published, Deripaska purchased advertisements in U.S. newspapers accusing the AP of generating a "massive and misleading campaign" against him.

Manafort resigned as Trumps campaign chairman in August 2016 following allegations that he received illicit funds from a Ukrainian political party.

Based on reporting by AP and TASS
Teenage refugees living in a camp in Serbia have found a new way to express themselves at a Belgrade theater. After five days at a drama workshop, they formed new friendships, learned about themselves, and discovered talents they may have never known they had. (RFE/RL's Balkan Service)
ON MY MIND

The trial of blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky for insulting the feelings of religious believers for playing Pokemon Go in church has yet again illustrated the degree to which the Kremlin is playing the traditional-values card.

Vladimir Putin's regime has been using this tactic -- support for "Christian values" and opposition to LGBT rights -- to shore up support at home and to drive a wedge into Western societies.

But it is still unclear the degree to which the Kremlin has truly gone ideological, or whether the values card is simply window dressing to legitimize a kleptocratic regime.

But what is becoming evident is that the power of such ideological appeals appears to be wearing off as demonstrations against corruption, against a new road tax that benefits Putin's cronies, and against the planned destruction of Khrushchev-era apartment blocks in Moscow persist.

As the Kremlin positions itself as the guardian of traditional values, opposition leaders like Aleksei Navalny and a critical mass of Russian society appear to be rallying behind a different set of values -- civic values.

This struggle between so-called traditional values and what appear to be resurgent civic values should prove to be a key dynamic going forward.

IN THE NEWS

U.S. media are reporting that U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister during a meeting last week, potentially jeopardizing a source of intelligence about the extremist group Islamic State.

Kremlin-connected billionaire Oleg Deripaska has sued the Associated Press for defamation and libel over a report on his business ties to U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman.

A court in Russia's Tatarstan region has ordered a local activist to serve 10 days in jail in connection with a rally in support of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declined to state publicly whether he plans to seek a new six-year term in a March 2018 election.

A portrait of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has been hung at a Moscow subway station in celebration of the 82nd anniversary of the opening of the Russian capital's underground transport network.

Yevhen Hrytsyak , one of the leaders of the 1953 Norilsk uprising, a major protest by inmates of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system, has died in Ukraine at the age of 90.

Major oil exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia say that an agreement to cut output should be extended through March 2018.

Hundreds of young activists have disrupted public discussions of Georgia's constitutional amendments proposed by the ruling Georgian Dream party.

LATEST POWER VERTICAL BLOG

In case you missed it, in my latest Power Vertical blog post, The Russophobia Weapon, I traced the history of one of the Kremlin's favorite slurs against its opponents.

WHAT I'M READING

Criminalizing Atheism?

In a video commentary on Channel One, television anchor Vladimir Posner asks, in response to the conviction of blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky for playing Pokemon Go in church, if Russians can now be prosecuted for atheism.

The End Of The 'Post-Soviet Era'

Vadim Dubnov has a piece in Novaya Gazeta about how only one leader of a former Soviet state, Moldova's Igor Dodin, came to Moscow for this year's Victory Day celebrations. Dubnov argues that this illustrates that the "post-Soviet era" is being replaced by the "Russian world."

Russia's Political War On The West

Mark Galeotti, a senior policy fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, has a piece in the NATO Review explaining how Russian intelligence is waging a political war on the West.

And in a piece on the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) website, veteran Kremlin-watcher Edward Lucas looks at how Russia's attempt to meddle in the French presidential elections was foreshadowed by Moscow's actions in Central Europe.

The Axis Of Emptiness

Galeotti also has a piece in BNEIntellinews on what he calls the "axis of emptiness" in U.S.-Russian relations

Dangerous Exercises

Colonel Tomasz K. Kowalik, director of the Military Foreign Affairs Department at the Polish Defense Ministry, and Dominik P. Jankowski, head of the OSCE and Eastern Security Unit at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have a piece on the CEPA website on why Russian military exercises are potentially dangerous.

Ukraine's Biggest Enemy

Peter Dickinson, publisher of the magazines Business Ukraine and Lviv Today, has a piece on The Atlantic Council's website arguing that Putin isn't Ukraine's biggest enemy.

Ukraine's KGB Archives

In Euromaidan Press, historian Ihor Vynokurov explains what Ukrainians have learned from the opening of the KGB archives.

The Great Game In The Balkans

In a blog post for the London School of Economics, Jaroslaw Wisniewski, a visiting fellow at the LSE European Institute, explains how Russia is upping its game in the Balkans.

My Home Is My Fortress

In his column for Republic.ru, opposition journalist Oleg Kashin looks at the protests in Moscow over the planned destruction of Khrushchev-era apartment blocks.
U.S. President Donald Trump has defended what he called his "absolute right" to share information with Russian officials amid controversy over classified information.

Trump's comments, made in series of Twitter posts on May 16, appeared to confirm U.S. media reports that he had disclosed highly classified material to Russia's top diplomat during a meeting at the White House last week.

The disclosure, which may have jeopardized intelligence sourcing about the Islamic State extremist group, further roiled lawmakers and policymakers in Washington, which is still grappling with the fallout from Trump's abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey a day before the meeting with the Russians.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. [White House] meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," he wrote

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he added, using an acronym for the IS group.

On May 16, during a brief White House appearance with Turkey's visiting president, Trump brushed aside reporters' questions about the disclosure, saying only that the talks last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were "very, very successful."

"We're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years," Trump said. "We want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible."

The Kremlin described the reports published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters, and other media late on May 15 as "complete nonsense."

But congressional Democrats and some Republicans condemned the reported disclosures as "troubling," "dangerous," and "reckless."

"Reports that this information was provided by a U.S. ally and shared without its knowledge sends a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future," John McCain, an influential Republican senator and vocal critic of Kremlin policies, said in a statement on May 16.

The media reports, which cited anonymous officials, said the information Trump relayed to Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during their May 10 meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner country through a highly sensitive intelligence-sharing arrangement.

The reports quoted the sources as saying that the partner had not given Washington permission to share the material with Moscow, and that Trump's alleged decision to do so jeopardized cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of IS.

'Off-Script'

During his Oval Office meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak, Trump reportedly went off-script and began describing details about an IS threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, reports said.

They said that in his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump boasted about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day."

The New York Times reported on May 16 that the ally that had provided the intelligence was Israel.

While discussing classified matters would be illegal for most people, the president has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that Trump's disclosures broke the law.

After the reports of Trump's disclosures emerged on May 15, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, denied that anything improper took place.

At a press briefing at the White House on May 16, McMaster repeated those remarks.

"In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged," McMaster said.

The president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation, he said.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for more information on the reports. Meanwhile, CIA Director Mike Pompeo will brief members of the House Intelligence Committee later on May 16.

Pompeo will likely be questioned by lawmakers about the same reports.

'Worrisome Environment'

Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that such disclosures would be a "slap in the face" to the U.S. intelligence community.

"Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians," Warner said on Twitter.

The second-most-senior Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called the reported disclosures "dangerous" and "reckless."

he Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, told reporters that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline...it creates a worrisome environment."

On May 16 in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the media reports, saying, "We don't want to have anything do to with this nonsense. It's complete nonsense, not a subject to be denied or confirmed."

In an acerbic Facebook post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that the reports were "the latest fake," but did not comment directly on their substance.

In response to what she said was a wave of requests for comment, she wrote: "Guys, have you been reading the American papers again? You shouldn't do that."

With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, The Washington Post, and Interfax
Turkey's president has warned the White House against moving forward with a plan to arm Kurdish militia fighters in Syria, even as he told U.S. President Donald Trump he wanted to repair strained relations between the two NATO allies.

In a joint appearance at the White House May 16, both Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Trump struck an optimistic note about their discussions, with Erdogan saying that they were "laying the foundation of a new era."

But Erdogan said that Turkey will never accept U.S. collaboration with the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia battling Islamic State (IS) militants that the White House plans to arm.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.

Washington, along with the European Union, also consider PKK to be a terrorist organization.

Trump told reporters that his talks with Erdogan "will be very successful."

"We've had a great relationship and we will make it even better," he said.

The White House meeting came amid intense and complex diplomacy over the war in Syria, where Turkey and the United States both support forces in opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's government.

New Round Of Talks

A new round of Syria peace talks opened in Geneva on May 16, but hopes for a major breakthrough remain dim.

Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations aimed at ending a six-year conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people have failed to yield concrete results.

Trump's meeting with Erdogan also comes after Russia, Iran, and Turkey agreed at separate talks in Kazakhstan on a plan to set up four "de-escalation zones" in Syria.

Rebels have criticized the plan and the United States has voiced reservations, citing concerns about Iran's role and pointing to the failure of past agreements whose stated intention was to decrease fighting.

Meanwhile, Erdogan, who pushed through a referendum strengthening his powers last month, also said he would pursue "to the end" Turkey's demand for Gulen's extradition.

The Turkish president blames the U.S.-based cleric's supporters for last year's failed coup, which was followed by a purge of tens of thousands of Turkish state employees accused of links to Gulen's network in a crackdown that has drawn criticism from Washington.

Gulen denies any involvement in the plot.

Ahead of the talks, rights activists and opponents of Erdogan urged Trump to raise the issue of human rights and democracy.

"Turkey is under a state of emergency since [the failed coup], during which human rights have been trampled on," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a legislator from Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP. "The media and press freedoms have been placed under government control. Torture and ill-treatment have increased."

Trump congratulated Erdogan after the referendum, while the State Department urged his government to "protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all its citizens" regardless of how they voted.

Lobbying For Reza Zarrab

In addition to the extradition of Gulen, Erdogan has also been seeking the release of Reza Zarrab, who is charged with acting as a go-between to help Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other Tehran clients evade U.S. sanctions.

Court documents made public last month revealed that Zarrab's attorneys, led by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, met with Erdogan on the case in February and afterwards attempted to initiate Zarrab's release from jail through a diplomatic process. Erdogan has since openly called for Zarrab's release.

Giuliani's law firm is registered as a foreign agent for Turkey. A former prosecutor who advised Trump during his campaign, Giuliani appeared on a list of potential nominees for FBI director this week after Trump fired James Comey.

Guiliani's ties with both Trump and Turkey have been under intense scrutiny by the Manhattan judge in the Iran sanctions case, who asked at one point whether Giuliani was working for Erdogan or Zarrab. On May 15, the judge demanded to know more about Giuliani's ties to Trump.

'Political' Settlement?

Giuliani has spoken of trying to arrange a "political" settlement of the case between Washington and Ankara, using Zarrab's past associations with Erdogan as a bargaining chip.

In 2013, U.S. prosecutors say Erdogan pressured Turkish prosecutors to drop criminal charges in a high-level bribery case brought against Zarrab. Erdogan's pressure as then-prime minister resulted in the firing of the prosecutors who brought the charges against Zarrab.

U.S. prosecutors say the 2013 charges pertained to a massive bribery scheme executed by Zarrab involving the payment of tens of millions of dollars to cabinet-level Turkish officials and high-level bank officers in Turkey to facilitate Zarrab's transactions on behalf of Iran.

Ahmet S. Yayla, a professor at George Mason University in the United States and a former Turkish prosecutor, wrote in Modern Diplomacy this week that he believes Erdogan knows that "Zarrab is going to testify against him unless Turkey finds a way to save him from prison," Yayla said.

Yayla wrote that he believes Erdogan will use the U.S. lease on the vital Incirlik air base in southern Turkey as leverage to pressure Trump to accede to his demands.

With reporting by AP, Modern Diplomacy, and Deutsche Welle


The Ukrainian parliament has approved legislation introducing fines and potential jail time for people who appear in public wearing a black-and-orange ribbon widely viewed a patriotic emblem in Russia, but which many Ukrainians see as a symbol of Russian aggression.

Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada on May 16 passed the bill taking aim at the St. George's ribbon, which has become a state-embraced symbol of military valor in Russia, where it is associated with commemorations of the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany.

For many in Ukraine, however, the ribbon has come to symbolize Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in a war against government forces that has killed at least 9,940 people since April 2014.

If signed into law by President Petro Poroshenko, the bill would introduce fines of up to 2,550 hryvnyas ($96) for those who publicly use, display, or wear the ribbon -- and up to double that amount or 15 days in jail for repeat offenders.

The bill, whose passage triggered angry responses from Russian officials, included an explanatory note saying it would help strengthen "public order."

It allows the display of the ribbon in several instances, including on official state documents, flags, and awards issued before 1991, as well as in museums, on gravesites, and in personal collections and archives.

Nationalist lawmaker Anton Herashchenko said the bill will help battle "Russian aggression."

In a May 16 Facebook post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the parliament's backing of the bill as "antidemocratic and antihistorical."

Frants Klintsevich, a senior lawmaker and prominent foreign-policy voice in Russia's upper chamber of parliament, accused Ukraine of declaring "all the veterans of the Great Patriotic War its enemies."

The bill was approved with 238 votes, 12 more than required for passage.

The vote came the same day that Poroshenko imposed sanctions on several leading Russian social networks and search engines, ordering them to be restricted or blocked entirely in Ukraine.

With reporting by UNIAN, Gordonua.com, and Interfax
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will conduct a closed-door briefing on May 18 for the full U.S. Senate on President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, senators said.

The top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said on May 15 that she has asked for a similar briefing for House members.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said senators will use their briefing to get to the "full truth" about Comey's dismissal and to press Rosenstein to appoint a special prosecutor to look into allegations of Russian meddlng in the U.S. election.

Comey had led the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe into possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Russia denies it sought to interfere in the election and Trump has dismissed the probe as "a hoax."

Democrats have been calling for a special prosecutor or select committee to investigate, saying getting to the bottom of foreign interference in the U.S. election is too important to leave to the partisan whims of the White House and Congress.

Some Republicans have also called for an independent investigation.

Based on reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has ordered Russian troops to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnieper River in the partially occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, another retreat amid a number of setbacks for Moscow on battlefields in Ukraine's east and southeast.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

"Begin to pull out troops," Shoigu said at a televised meeting with the commander of Russian troops in Ukraine, Army General Sergei Surovikin, on November 9, adding that the withdrawal must be implemented in "the nearest future."



"The lives of the Russian military personnel are always a priority for us. We must also take into account threats imposed on the civilian population and make sure that all civilians who chose to leave can do so," Shoigu said. "We also need to start withdrawing the troops and undertake all necessary measures to secure the move of military personnel, arms, and equipment to the other side of the Dnieper."



Kherson was the first city fully captured by Russia during what Moscow calls a "special military operation" and the only regional capital controlled by the Russians since the offensive began on February 24.



Ukraine's forces for weeks have been capturing villages as they advance toward the city, and Kremlin-installed leaders in Kherson have been evacuating civilians.

Earlier on November 9, the Moscow-installed deputy head of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, died in a car crash.



Shoigu's order came after Surovikin said it was impossible to deliver supplies to the city of Kherson and other areas on the western bank of the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions "step by step" in the south.



"There is a lot of joy in the information space today, and it is clear why, but...the enemy will make no gifts to us," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.



Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelenskiy, said earlier on Twitter that the Ukrainian side sees "no signs that Russia is leaving Kherson without a fight."



Part of the Russian group remains in Kherson city, he said, adding that additional reserves are being sent to the region. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, are "liberating territories based on intelligence data, not staged TV statements," he said.



Zelenskiy has suggested that the Russians could fake a retreat in order to lure the Ukrainian Army into an entrenched battle in Kherson city.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden said Moscow's order to withdraw from Kherson was "evidence of the fact that they have some real problems with the Russian military."

Moscow and Russian-installed officials in Kherson have said for weeks that they are evacuating residents of Kherson -- both the city and the region -- to "other parts of the Russian Federation" for their safety. Ukraine has said the Russian move amounted to their forced deportation.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the withdrawal announced by Shoigu is "part of an overall pattern or picture we have seen over the last month that Russia has absolutely lost the momentum."



But Stoltenberg also cautioned against underestimating Russia.



"They still have capabilities," he said in an interview with Sky News during a visit to London. "We have seen the drones. We have seen the missile attacks. It shows that Russia can still inflict a lot of damage."

Kherson is considered by many military analysts as the most important of the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia announced as annexed in September.



It controls both the only land route to Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine.



Earlier on November 9, Russia launched multiple suicide drones on Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding people and damaging civilian facilities, the head of the regional military administration said, as fierce battles were under way in the eastern Donetsk region and in the south.



"The occupiers attacked the area massively with kamikaze drones, said Governor Valentyn Reznichenko. Ukrainian air defense destroyed some of the drones, but others hit targets. The Russian forces also used drones in an attack on the city of Dnipro, targeting a logistics enterprise. Reznichenko said four employees were wounded, and three of them are in serious condition in hospital.



Russian forces also bombarded the Nikopol district in the region with Grad missiles and heavy artillery. Reznichenko said the shelling damaged private houses, a factory, and a power line, but people were not injured.



Zelenskiy vowed Ukraine will not surrender a single centimeter of our land in Donetsk, where heavy fighting has been under way, and he thanked Ukrainian troops who are holding positions in the Donbas region.



The epicenter of the battle for the industrial region of Donetsk is around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar, and Avdiyivka.



"The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level -- dozens of attacks every day," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on November 8.



"They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same -- to advance on the administrative boundary of the Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimeter of our land," he said.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it annexed in September following referendums deemed as sham by Kyiv and its Western allies.



Fighting had been going on there between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatist forces since 2014, the same year Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and CNN
This 2008MY Apache RTR 160 scrambler project was undertaken by Brilliant Custom Motorcycle (BCM)

TVS Motor Company introduced its Apache series back in 2006 as a strong rival to Bajaj Autos Pulsar range. Back then, the Bajaj Pulsar 150 and 180 DTSi models ruled the streets and were popular symbols of cool (alongside the likes of Hero Hondas Karizma). Hence, the Hosur-based automaker had every reason to make its new four-stroke sports series a good package. TVS could not see an overwhelming market response initially but today, the Apache series is easily one of the best in the 160-200cc category (and definitely better than entry-level Pulsar models).

In foreign markets, Bajaj Autos Pulsar range could be the more popular choice. However, TVS Motor Company has a good customer base in several ASEAN countries, especially Indonesia. The Emerald of the Equator has a large community of automotive customisation studios, for both four-wheelers and two-wheelers. Here is a scrambler based on a 2008MY Apache RTR 160 by Brilliant Custom Motorcycle (BCM) in Jawa Barat (or West Java).

BCMs scrambler project looks nothing like its donor motorcycle. If we consider only aesthetics, the team has done an impressive job. Even though the term scrambler stands for a stripped-down motorcycle with off-road capabilities, on paper, this particular example looks bulkier than its original avatar.

The fat Shinko Trail Master E-705 dual-sport tyres shod on Rossi spoke wheels further add to the overall mass. With the stock engine (or even with some minor upgrades), we doubt if the motorcycle would be able to perform as its looks suggest. The 5-speed 2008MY TVS Apache RTR 160 (now in BS6 format) came with a 159.7cc carburetted SOHC single-cylinder mill. It made roughly 14.6bhp @ 8,500rpm and 13.1Nm @ 6,500rpm while new.

This concern goes out of the picture to a good extent thanks to BCMs mechanical and creative expertise. Adi Prasetio from BCM shares that there have been no proper scramblers based on the TVS Apache. The lack of reference was a challenge at first.

The team at BCM had to re-engineer the frame with some U metal components. The flat, thin and brown leather seat fits perfectly with the custom-made battery compartment underneath. BCM has opted a whitewashed silver colour with gold and black pinstripes, which blends well with the overall design. In typical scrambler fashion, the rear end is stripped to its bare bones with just the registration plate and a small round LED tail lamp.

Other improvisations include USD forks, custom headlamp assembly, raised handlebar and aftermarket grips, BCM-built swing arm and muffler, upgraded brakes and more. The overall project cost Brilliant Custom Motorcycle 3 million Indonesian Rupiah or almost 15,000 INR (yes, it is surprisingly cost-effective).

Source
The Information Age has drastically changed the landscape of one of humanity's most creative processes, idea generation or ideation. The emergence of crowdsourcing platforms, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, has enabled a greater, more diverse audience to contribute to the creative process from the comfort of their own homes.

"However, the very nature of crowdsourcing means that ideators can be overwhelmed by the number of ideas generated, rather than inspired by them," says Victor Girotto, a PhD candidate at the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. "There are several issues that need to be considered in systems that operate at this scale, such as the organization of the ideas, as well as the subsequent convergence on the best ones," adds Erin Walker, an assistant professor at the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University.

In an effort to enhance idea generation within the crowd context, Girotto and Walker partnered with Winslow Burleson, an associate professor at NYU's Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Together, the trio sought to determine what effect peripheral tasks -- such as rating and combining others' ideas had on ideation performance.

"Embedding peripheral micro-tasks within the ideation process may enable such systems to move from passive to active forms of inspiration and support, resulting in a stronger ideation session," said Burleson.

Through a series of four experiments on Mechanical Turk, the group tested their hypothesis, utilizing an online module of their own design. Each experiment had a control, an exposure group, and multiple task groups. In every study, where each group was given the same problem for which they were to contribute ideas. The control group only received the problem prompt. Members of the exposure group were given access to an inspiration panel, where they could prompt the system to display others' ideas. Task groups were given access to the inspiration panel, however, subjects were required perform microtasks on the inspirations: rating, comparing, or combining others' ideas.

"To determine what, if any, impact these microtasks had on ideation we measured the number of ideas generated by each user as well as the breadth and depth of their ideas," said Girotto. Breadth is a measure of the number of concepts an ideator explored, whereas depth is the number of ideas within an ideator's most explored concept. Furthermore, the researchers measured the number of inspirations each user requested, as well as inspiration influence -- a user's average similarity between an idea and the most similar of its preceding inspirations.

"Through our trials we found the performance of the microtask groups to be as good or better than the exposure groups in terms of the breadth of the ideas they generated," said Burleson. However, the team found these effects to depend on two factors: time of ideation and productivity of the ideator. For time of ideation, they found greater effects on the second half of the ideation session, when ideators are more likely to be running out of ideas, and thus may receive greater benefits from inspirations. As for their productivity, it makes sense that those who generated more ideas would also be more affected by the different inspiration types, as they may be more willing and capable to use them effectively.

"Our research provides some support and guidance in explicitly embedding microtasks into ideation, which will not only be aiding ideators in their idea generation, but will also be generating information useful for converging on the best ideas." said Girotto. The full findings of this research are detailed in "The Effect of Peripheral Micro-tasks on Crowd Ideation."

Find more information at: http://faculty.engineering.asu.edu/ewalker/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CHI-2017.pdf
Nothing beats nature. The diverse and wonderful varieties of cells and tissues that comprise the human body are evidence of that.

Each one of us starts out as a mass of identical, undifferentiated cells, and thanks to a combination of signals and forces, each cell responds by choosing a developmental pathway and multiplying into the tissues that become our hearts, brains, hair, bones or blood. A major promise of studying human embryonic stem cells is to understand these processes and apply the knowledge toward tissue engineering.

Researchers in UC Santa Barbara's departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology have gotten a step closer to unlocking the secrets of tissue morphology with a method of three-dimensional culturing of embryonic stem cells using light.

"The important development with our method is that we have good spatiotemporal control over which cell -- or even part of a cell -- is being excited to differentiate along a particular gene pathway," said lead author Xiao Huang, who conducted this study as a doctoral student at UCSB and is now a postdoctoral scholar in the Desai Lab at UC San Francisco. The research, titled "Light-Patterned RNA Interference of 3D-Cultured Human Embryonic Stem Cells," appears in volume 28, issue 48 of the journal Advanced Materials.

Similar to other work in the field of optogenetics -- which largely focuses neurological disorders and activity in living organisms, leading to insights into diseases and conditions such as Parkinson's and drug addiction -- this new method relies on light to control gene expression.

The researchers used a combination of hollow gold nanoshells attached to small molecules of synthetic RNA (siRNA) -- a molecule that plays a large role in gene regulation -- and thermoreversible hydrogel as 3D scaffolding for the stem cell culture, as well as invisible, near-infrared (NIR) light. NIR light, Huang explained, is ideal when creating a three-dimensional culture in the lab.

"Near-infrared light has better tissue penetration that is useful when the sample becomes thick," he explained. In addition to enhanced penetration -- up to 10 cm deep -- the light can be focused tightly to specific areas. Irradiation with the light released the RNA molecules from the nanoshells in the sample and initiated gene-silencing activity, which knocked down green fluorescent protein genes in the cell cluster. The experiment also showed that the irradiated cells grew at the same rate as the untreated control sample; the treated cells showed unchanged viability after irradiation.

Of course, culturing tissues consisting of related but varying cell types is a far more complex process than knocking down a single gene.

"It's a concert of orchestrated processes," said co-author and graduate student researcher Demosthenes Morales, describing the process by which human embryonic stem cells become specific tissues and organs. "Things are being turned on and turned off." Perturbing one aspect of the system, he explained, sets off a series of actions along the cells' developmental pathways, much of which is still unknown.

"One reason we're very interested in spatiotemporal control is because these cells, when they're growing and developing, don't always communicate the same way," Morales said, explaining that the resulting processes occur at different speeds, and occasionally overlap. "So being able to control that communication on which cell differentiates into which cell type will help us to be able to control tissue formation," he added.

The fine control over cell development provided by this method also allows for the three-dimensional culture of tissues and organs from embryonic stem cells for a variety of applications. Engineered tissues can be used for therapeutic purposes, including replacements for organs and tissues that have been destroyed due to injury or disease. They can be used to give insight into the body's response to toxins and therapeutic agents.
A new study suggests that an aggressive reef competitor -- the Threespot Damselfish -- may have impeded the recovery of Caribbean long-spined sea urchin populations after a mysterious disease outbreak caused a massive die-off of these animals over three decades ago.

The research led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego scientists helps shine a light on the importance of curbing overfishing to protect coral reefs, which are in decline worldwide.

Threespot Damselfish populations have exploded in recent years due to overfishing of predatory fish such as groupers and snappers.

Long-spined sea urchins, known as Diadema antillarum, were once found everywhere on Caribbean reefs, until 1983, when an unknown pathogen rapidly spread throughout the region, killing 90 percent of the species within a year. These urchins are an important part of reef ecosystems since they eat algae that accumulate on corals. Many Caribbean reefs have become overgrown with algae since the die-off.

To understand why the long-spined urchins have not returned to the reef more than 30 years later, Scripps scientists Katie Cramer and Dick Norris analyzed the amount of fossilized urchin spines that accumulated in reef sediment layers over the past 3,000 years to paint a picture of life on the reef before it was altered from the disease outbreak and human activities such as fishing and pollution.

The researchers sorted the fossils out of the reef sediment to track the amount of long-spined and other urchin species over time. They then used a modeling approach developed by Scripps ecologist George Sugihara and colleagues to detect cause-and-effect relationships in ecological systems.

Cramer and Norris found that as one coral species, staghorn coral, increased in abundance, the long-spined urchin populations decreased. They theorized that this is due to the aggressive territorial activities of the Threespot Damselfish, a competitor of the long-spined urchin that takes refuge in the coral.

"These damselfish pick up urchins and move them off the coral with their mouths," said Cramer, a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps and lead author of the study. "Damselfish populations appear to have grown recently as their predators have been overfished, which is one plausible explanation as to why long-spined urchin populations have failed to recover."

Since urchins produce large numbers of eggs throughout the year, scientists initially expected that they would recover rapidly following the disease outbreak. Their failure to do so is a looming question among coral reef scientists. This issue has been hard to resolve since no detailed scientific studies of Caribbean reefs were conducted prior to the outbreak to help researchers understand reef dynamics and what might impede their recovery.

"This study sheds light on the many surprising ways that fishing can alter reef ecosystems," said Norris, a paleooceanographer in the Geosciences Research Division at Scripps and a co-author of the study. "Our findings suggest that these effects should be considered in the future management of Caribbean reefs."

Algae-eating fish and corals once dominated Caribbean reefs. Important reef fish, such as parrotfish, that control these algae have largely disappeared on Caribbean reefs today due to overfishing.

In January, the Scripps researchers published a similar analysis of fossilized parrotfish teeth that showed when there are more algae-eating fish on a reef, it grows faster. They attributed the loss of parrotfish to overfishing as well.
Vaccinating pregnant mothers year-round against flu in the resource-challenged region of subtropical Nepal reduced infant flu virus infection rates by an average of 30 percent, increased birth weights by 15 percent and resulted in babies having less influenza, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Reporting their data in a study published online May 15, an international research team says expanding year-round flu vaccinations during pregnancy would also benefit children in other tropical and subtropical parts of the world -- where flu viruses can be pervasive and circulate 8 to 12 months a year.

"The development of a child inside the mother affects that child its entire life, and low birth weight has lifelong health implications for a child," says Mark Steinhoff, MD, corresponding author on the study and director of the Global Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "The overall positive effect of performing these vaccinations -- which is not expensive -- is quite significant."

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (grant 50274), the research team focused its study on the subtropical terai plains of southern Nepal in south Asia. This underdeveloped, agrarian region is known for a subsistence lifestyle, high rates of malnutrition and limited access to healthcare, and is representative of many tropical regions where 40% of the worlds births occur,

Village visits

Researchers traveled to villages in southern Nepal during normal routine health visits by Nepalese members of the team. Participating households were then followed up and surveilled on a weekly basis during home visits. Collaborating on the study were researchers from the Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project and the Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine, both based in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu.

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In households where women between the ages of 15 and 40 were pregnant, volunteer participants were administered either influenza vaccine or placebo as part of a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 4 clinical trial. The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the institutional review boards of participating institutions. From April 2011 through September 2013, 3,693 mothers were recruited and randomized into two different annual research groups (or cohorts).

In the first cohort of 2,090, 1,040 mothers were given placebo, and 1,049 were administered seasonally recommended trivalent inactivated vaccine (which contains three inactivated flu viruses). In the second cohort of 1,603 mothers, 805 were given placebo and 798 received vaccine. There were a total of 3,646 live births in both groups.

The researchers assessed three primary outcomes: the incidence of laboratory confirmed infant influenza from 0-180 days post birth; the incidence of low birth weight; and the incidence of influenza-like illness in mothers 0-180 days following delivery.

In cohort 1, compared to the placebo group influenza-like illness was reduced by 9 percent in pre- and post-partum mothers who received vaccine. In cohort 2, flu-like illness was reduced by 36 percent. This placed the average flu reduction rate for both groups of vaccinated mothers at 19 percent.

For infants, lab-confirmed flu infections in cohort 1 decreased 16 percent in babies with vaccinated mothers. In cohort 2 they decreased by 60 percent -- putting the average rate of reduction for both cohorts at 30 percent.

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As for birth weight, flu immunizations in pregnant mothers reduced the rate of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams/5.5 pounds) by 15 percent in cohort 1 and by 15 percent in cohort 2 (average 15 percent for both groups).

There were 111 infant deaths during the study -- 50 in the placebo group and 51 in the vaccine group; and seven maternal deaths -- five in the placebo group and two in the vaccine group.

Follow up

Researchers are following up their current study by gathering additional data to support the expansion of year-round flu vaccination to other regions where it is needed. Steinhoff said this is especially important for developing countries like Nepal and where influenza has a more significant impact on birth weights than in developed nations.

An estimated 40 percent of the world's population lives in subtropical/tropical zones, although flu vaccine is not widely used in these areas, according to the authors. The benefits of vaccinating pregnant women is well documented in developed countries. Its use has not been prevalent in underdeveloped subtropical/tropical regions, where many local officials have believed until recently that influenza virus does not even exist.

Climatic conditions

Study authors note that the timing, circulation and type of flu virus are highly variable in subtropical and tropical regions.

During the current study in Nepal, the circulation of flu increased during the South Asian Southwest monsoon season in July-October. Active symptomatic flu virus was present among study participants for 24 (or 66 percent) of the study months, with two more strains of virus circulating during 18 of these months.

Researchers also pointed out that most of positive effect from flu vaccination was observed in the second study group of mothers and infants. This second group received two different formulations of flu vaccine with a broader range of antigens to account for virus variability in the region.

This high variability of influenza virus in the study region (and other subtropical/tropical climates) will require improved vaccines with broader antigenic coverage, the authors report.
The sediments of Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey) are a valuable climate archive. Now, using the salinity measured in sediment porewater, scientists have reconstructed the huge lake-level fluctuations that occurred over the past 250,000 years. This approach -- based on simple physical concepts -- is likely to be more widely applied in the future.

In 2010, an international research team collected sediment cores from the bottom of Lake Van in Eastern Anatolia. Since then, scientists at Eawag and the Universities of Bern, Bonn and Istanbul have used core samples to reconstruct 600,000 years of climatic and environmental history. The sediments of Lake Van -- a waterbody seven times the size of Lake Constance, with no outflows and remaining icefree even during ice ages -- provide a record not only of seasonal changes but also of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and extended glacial and interglacial (warm) periods, as well as other environmental data. Lake Van is the world's largest soda lake. With a salinity (salt concentration) of approximately 23 grams per litre and a pH of 10, its water can be (and is, by local communities) used directly for washing.

Fluctuations of more than 300 metres

Further light has now been shed on the lake's history by a group of scientists led by Eawag and the University of Bern. Based on variations in the salinity of porewater extracted from sediment cores, major changes in lake level over the past 250,000 years have been reconstructed -- ranging from 200 metres below to 105 metres above the current lake level. In the study, published in Nature's Scientific Reports, the authors explain the essentially simple principle underlying their analysis: as the amount of salt dissolved in the lake, in absolute terms, remains constant, the salinity of the lake water is inversely proportional to the volume of water in the lake basin. Because the morphometry of the basin is known, once the water volume has been calculated, the lake level can also be determined. Two major lake-level increases (248,000 and 135,000 years ago) and one major decrease (30,000 years ago) were thus identified. Earlier lake-level changes could not be determined, as the measurements in older sediments reflect the long-term steady-state lake salinity.

Periods of freshwater conditions

The lake levels estimated using porewater salinity are in agreement with other indications, such as lake terraces still visible high above the current lake surface, or erosive channels now submerged. Previously it was not possible for these structures to be precisely dated, as the lake lies within a highly active tectonic zone -- at the junction of the Eurasian, Afro-Arabian and Persian plates. When the lake was at its highest level, there must have been an outflow into the Tigris, in the southwestern part of the basin. As salt was thus exported, salinity must have declined sharply -- a finding supported by other evidence, e.g. the occurrence of unbroken shells of freshwater mussels in lake terraces.

Insights into past climatic conditions, but not the future

As the water balance of Lake Van is mainly controlled by river discharge and evaporation, the lakelevel reconstruction also provides insights into past precipitation regimes in the lake catchment. Not far from the lake is Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark is supposed to have come to rest after the biblical flood. First author Yama Tomonaga comments: "We cannot, of course, identify individual wet years or decades, but changes that lasted for ten thousand years are evident."

Unfortunately, Tomonaga adds, no conclusions can be drawn from the study as to whether the lake level is likely to rise or fall in the future. The authorities in Van would welcome a projection, as the lake level has risen by around two metres since 1960 (see chart). However, Tomonaga emphasizes the fascinating prospect that the straightforward methodology and the model developed for this study could also be applied to other landlocked salt lakes, such as the Caspian Sea. Indeed, if the ocean is regarded as the Earth's largest closed-basin system, the model offers a completely new approach for estimating -- at least in an order-of-magnitude approximation -the oceanic salinity balance and average global sedimentation rate.
Healthy mass transit systems could contribute to healthier communities, according to a new study by University of Illinois researchers that determined higher mass transit use was correlated with lower obesity rates in counties across the United States.

"As local communities seek to allocate public funds to projects that will provide the most benefit to their residents, our research suggests that investing in convenient and affordable public transit systems may improve public health by reducing obesity, thereby providing more value than had been previously thought," said Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science at Illinois. He conducted the study with graduate student Zhaowei She and Douglas M. King, a lecturer of industrial and enterprise systems engineering.

The study used publicly available county health and transportation data. To get the clearest picture of the relationship between mass transit use and obesity, the researchers controlled for a number of factors that could influence health or transportation, such as household income, poverty rate, education level, leisure physical activity and access to health care among the adult residents of each county.

"By viewing this link at the county level, we provide a national perspective by considering data from counties throughout the United States," King said. "Our research suggests that, in addition to benefits to the environment and greater access to transportation for residents, community-level investments into public transit systems may also benefit public health by reducing obesity rates."

The analysis found that for each 1 percent increase in a county's population who frequently ride public transit, obesity rates dropped 0.2 percent. The study is published in the journal Preventive Medicine.

The latest findings correlate well with previous work by Jacobson and King that found a reduction in daily driving, even by a mile a day, was associated with a reduction in body mass index.

"The choice to ride public transit instead of driving can create an opportunity for physical activity," Jacobson said. "For example, when someone rides a bus, they may begin their trip by walking from their home to a bus stop before boarding the bus. Then, once they get off of the bus, they may still need to walk from a bus stop to their destination. Alternatively, if they had driven a car, they might simply drive directly from their home to their destination and eliminate the walking portion of the trip."
T hese are the five biggest stories from the last 24 hours in the capital and across the globe.

Moors Murderer Ian Brady dies

Notorious murderer Ian Brady has died after spending more than five decades behind bars.

Ian Brady / PA

The bedridden 79-year-old had been held at a high-security hospital in Merseyside after torturing and killing five children with partner Myra Hindley.

His death, hours after he was urged to "do the right thing" and reveal where the last of his child victims is buried, means he takes some of his secrets about the horrors to his grave.

Terry Kilbride, the brother of victim John, said he will still have to deal with the "nightmare" Brady has left behind.

Labour candidate slams sexist harassment

A Labour candidate has hit back after being bombarded with "disgusting" sexism.

Emily Owen is standing in Aberconway, Wales / @Emily4Aberconwy

Emily Owen, a 22-year-old who is standing in the General Election, was sent vile messages on social media asking about the size of her "rack" and what sex acts she would perform to get votes.

Ms Owen, who is standing in Aberconway, Wales, posted a 'polite reminder' in response to the harassment.

"I highly doubt you'll be asking the male candidates their penis size in order to make a decision about their politics..... sexism is not okay, she said.

Manhunt launched for cyber attack crooks

An international manhunt is underway to find those responsible for the crippling cyber attack that paralysed swathes of NHS services over the weekend.

Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world / AP

Home secretary Amber Rudd said the National Crime Agency, NCA, and National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, were now part of large-scale efforts to find the perpetrators of the attack, which hit 200,000 victims in 150 countries around the world.

It came as 22-year-old IT expert hailed an accidental hero for helping to slow the cyber attack down spoke out.

Marcus Hutchins, 22, said: "I'm definitely not a hero. I'm just someone doing my bit to stop botnets."

Macron picks centre-right prime minister for France

New French president Emmanuel Macron has named a relatively unknown right-wing politician as prime minister.

Edouard Philippe / REUTERS

Edouard Philippe, mayor of the northern port city Le Havre, is not from the presidents own party but from the moderate wing of the centre-right Republicans party.

The pick could attract other Republicans to Macron's cause as the centrist president works to gain a parliamentary majority to pass promised economic reforms.

Stormzy donates 9,000 to university crowdfunding campaign

Stormzy made a South London students dream come true when he donated 9,000 towards her Harvard crowdfunding campaign.

Grime artist Stormzy / Getty

Fiona Asiedu, an Oxford University student from Tulse Hill, had aimed to raise 12,000 in four weeks to cover the cost of a Masters programme in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

But Stormzy helped her to smash the target within hours after he gifted her 9,000.
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The government has adapted to lower oil prices and economic sanctions but has done so by cutting and reorganizing government spending. This is dangerous because the latest economic revival plan calls for cutting benefits to older Russians. The government wants to change the retirement age (at which Russians become eligible for a government pension) by doing what many nations have been forced to do; increase the age of eligibility. In Russia it is currently 55 for women and 60 for men. The new plan will change that to 63 and 65. Currently 30 percent of Russians draw a pension and the fact that Putin increased pension benefits when he took over in 1999 has been a key element in his continued popularity.

Since oil prices collapsed and sanctions were imposed in 2014 the defense budget has been cut 25 percent and the government is trying to prevent further cuts. Russia admits that this will slow the rate of replacing Cold War era technology and the development of modern military technology. The biggest loss has been access to Western technology. While Russia could not buy the latest military tech they did have access to non-military tech and that enabled them to build modern commercial aircraft and upgrade their manufacturing industries. Until 2014 it also enabled them to buy some Western weapons systems often including licensing agreements to assemble and partially manufacture armored vehicles, warships and other Western weapons in Russia. The main reason for doing that was to upgrade the Russian defense industries, which remained largely state-owned and inefficient after 1991. There was a lot of resistance to buying foreign weapons, mainly from those running the defense industries. The more pragmatic generals and Defense Ministry officials were able to force these changes to be made, until the sanctions and low oil prices made these deals impossible. This was difficult for Russian military reformers to accept and the government initially pitched it as an opportunity for Russian defense firms to do better. It soon became obvious that the reformers had a point about the Russian defense industries being resistant to change.

It was also soon noted that China was still had plenty of cash and access to Western tech and were making great strides. Russian defense experts had long dismissed Chinese efforts as little more than copying (often with stolen tech) Western and Russian designs. But now it became obvious that the Chinese were facing the same problems as the Russians since the Cold War ended and were adapting more effectively. Because the Soviet Union began developing modern military tech in the 1930s and the Chinese didnt really get going until fifty years later the Russians believed they would be ahead of the Chinese for a long time. But now the Chinese are gaining on Russia even faster because of the low oil prices (which are a plus for major oil importers like China) and far fewer sanction restrictions.

Thus China is moving ahead on developing fifth generation stealth warplanes while Russia has had to scale back their effort. China is building a new, and very modern, navy while Russia is watching its modern (in the 1980s) Cold War fleet die of old age and neglect with fewer replacements. But the most painful loss is the inability to modernize defense industries that are clearly being outclassed by their Chinese counterparts.

Thus the numbers do not tell the whole story. On paper Russia has gone from number four on the list of largest defense spenders to number eight. But in terms of potential to do better Russia has slipped even further and that trend shows no sign of reversing itself anytime soon. Russia has also accepted the reality of permanent lower oil prices (because of fracking and more use of other energy sources) and, for the moment, shows no signs of ending the aggressive policies towards its neighbors that triggered the economic sanctions. Russia has, for the moment, chosen to downsize itself economically and militarily.

Ukraine

To make their Syria intervention work Russia had had to resort to Russian private security companies. About half these private security firms are believed to have organized combat units that are reliable enough to be used in place of scarce army special operations troops. By monitoring Russian language social media activity (which anyone can do) it has been noted that recent military veterans working for several of these private security companies have been in Syria and Ukraine. Casualties were suffered in both places although the duties of the contractors were different. In Syria the security contractors mainly guarded Russian bases but were also used in combat when they provided security for Russian artillery units supporting Syrian Army troops. In a few cases the contractors were sent in to assist Syrian troops who got themselves in trouble. Russia described these men as special operations troops, because outside Russia the security contractors often wear Russian military uniforms. But social media revealed that many of these dead Russians in Syria (about 32 so far) were actually contractors. In Ukraine at least one private security company has been used as enforcers to punish troublesome pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels. Often this just meant arranging an accidental death for a disobedient rebel leader but in a few cases a larger number of rebels had to disappear. The Russian supported rebels came to call these contractors cleaners and were justifiably terrorized and impressed.

The most reliable source of data on Russian casualties in Donbas are groups representing the families of the Russian dead. These are active on the Internet and use the net to share and compile casualty data. These groups believe about 1,500 Russians have died in Donbas since 2014 and many of those were contractors rather than conscripts or career military.

In eastern Ukraine the Russian use of contractors extends to the leaders of the local rebels, who are largely ethnic Russians whose families migrated to Donbas before World War II. Not all these rebels get along with their Russian overlords, who insist on keeping the extent of Russian support and control of the rebels secret. Since that often involves Russian agents killing rebels leaders who refuse to cooperate, it has also led several rebel leaders to flee Donbas and, if necessary, Ukraine (because of Russian assassins). But Western and Ukrainian intel services have questioned the defecting rebel leaders and can confirm their authenticity and also obtain a lot of details of how Russia runs its local rebellion in Donbas. Meanwhile Ukraine has negotiated a visa free travel deal with the EU (European Union). This took effect on May 11th and to many Ukrainians the visa deal marks a link with the rest of Europe that Russia has been trying to prevent. Ukraine is also participating in a growing number of NATO and EU military training events. In effect Ukraine is becoming an unofficial member of the EU and NATO.

Middle East

Russia has some tricky opportunities here. In addition to the Palestinian problem Israel considers Iran the major military threat and for that reason is actively involved opposing Iran in Syria. Irans allies there, Russia and Turkey, are not backing Iranian efforts to destroy Israel once ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is destroyed in Syria. Russia is quite open about its good relationships and cooperation with Israel while Turkey is making it clear that if pressed to choose sides, they would prefer Israel to Iran. Nevertheless Turkey is still run by an Islamic political party that is highly critical of Israel, and the West in general. But thats another problem.

Iran is losing this war with Israel and seeking a way to do better. This is important inside Iran where the government has long publicized victories (usually invented) over Israel. Highly visible defeats by Israel, as are happening in Syria, does little to prop up the unpopular religious dictatorship that has been running the country since the 1980s. Another embarrassment is the success of Russian air power and ground forces (mainly special operations and artillery) to help the Assad forces win back territory. Until 2016 Iranian forces were seen as the key to Assad survival and the Assads were not shy about praising their Iranian saviors. But that changed in 2017 as the alliance with Turkey and Russia began to come apart. Iran blames this on Israel which, in this case, is partially correct. Israel knows that Iran wants to establish a pro-Iranian militia in Syria similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Assads know this would mean they would have to share power in Syria with Iran. Most Syrians dont care for this, just as most Lebanese dont care for the Hezbollah presence since the 1980s. No one, including Russia, Turkey and Israel, want another Hezbollah established in Syria. Iran will not back down on this and that has damaged their relationships with their allies.

Turkey is still technically an Iranian ally in Syria but that has changed since late 2016. This is mainly because Turkey is trying to prevent the Syrian Kurds from establishing an autonomous region in northern Syria and that goal outweighs everything else. The Turks are the only member of the anti-ISIL coalition that wants to keep the Kurds out of the final offensive to crush ISIL in Syria. The Turks are also opposed to the growing Iranian presence in Syria and Iranian plans to make that presence (and control of the Syrian government) permanent. Turkey also favors the Sunni Arab states when it comes to disputes between Iran and the Arabs. This was clearly the case when Turkey demanded that the Assads be overthrown in the wake of the April 4th nerve gas attack. Israel also opposes the Iranian presence but is neutral about the Kurds and has the support of Russia and the United States for that. Russia and the United States are trying to prevent the offensive against ISIL from being disrupted because of growing hostility between the Turks and the SDF (Kurdish led secular rebel coalition) but are not having much success.

While Russia is officially in Syria to defeat ISIL and keep the Assads in power they (semi-officially) also want to maintain good relations with Israel and Sunni Arab countries while doing it. This annoys Iran. Israel has made it clear that there can never be peace in Syria if Iran tries to establish a permanent presence there. The Iranians say they are in Syria to stay and the Russians (so far) have said they oppose that. Iran wants to stay in Syria as part of its decades old effort to destroy Israel and a centuries old effort to make the Shia form of Islam dominant in the Islamic world (that is over 80 percent non-Shia). Meanwhile Israel says it can live with the Assads as long as Iran is not maintaining a military presence in Syria. Many Turks agree with Israel on that point and newly elected U.S. government has come out strongly against any permanent Iranian presence in Syria. The Americans still want the Assads gone but despite that the U.S., Israel and Turkey agree on some key goals.

Central Asia

The U.S. accuses Russia of colluding with Iran, or Iranian arms smugglers, to supply the Taliban with weapons. Apparently Russia is again trying to destabilize the Afghan government so that they, and their ally Iran, will have more influence. This has been going on since the 1800s. But for over a thousand years before that warlords in Iran and northern India fought to control parts of Afghanistan, especially those areas that were part of the Silk Road between the Middle East (and Europe) and China (as well as stops along the way, like India and Iran.)

Russia further complicates the issue by currently hosting Afghanistan peace talks that involve leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and China but not the United States. Even many of the invited participants point out that this makes no sense. But for Russian leaders the idea that most problems in Russia and with Islamic terrorism worldwide are the work of the United States is important to maintain. This makes the Afghan peace effort pointless because the non-Russian participants know nothing will work without American participation.

May 15, 2017: The government openly disagreed with the American decision to send more weapons to Kurdish forces in Syria. This criticism of the Kurds and Americans is part of a Russian effort to maintain good relations with the Turks who, in turn, will go along with Russian plans to keep the Assads in power. The Americans are arming the Kurds because the most effective ground troops in Syria who are willing to defeat ISIL are the Kurds (and their Arab allies). This coalition is currently surrounding the ISIL held city of Raqqa. Russia and Turkey are not willing to help but the Assads have offered to take control of Raqqa once someone else has cleared ISIL from it.

May 12, 2017: For the second time this week Russian media reported that Russian jets in the Black Sea forced an American P-8A maritime reconnaissance aircraft to turn away from the Russian coast. The P-8A was over international waters at the time and in both cases a Russian fighter flew very close (less than 20 meters/61 feet) to the American twin-jet patrol aircraft. The Russians also report seeing American UAVs (like the RQ-4) in the Black Sea but Russian fighters have not tried to intimidate a UAV yet.

May 11, 2017: In the Far East a Russian Su-24 fighter-bomber flew south until it got close enough to South Korea to cause two South Korean F-16s to come and investigate. The Su-24 came near (about 150 kilometers away) to an American carrier task force training with South Korean and Japanese warships nearby. Aircraft incursions like this are on the rise in this region. Japan is the most common target and nearly all from China and Russia. These incursions near Japanese airspace hit record highs in 2016.

May 10, 2017: Russia accused the United States of intimidating North Korea and thus being responsible for a lot of the erratic and threatening behavior from North Korea. Russia suggests that the Americans should negotiate with North Korea and try being nice. After the Cold War ended it was confirmed that it was Russia, not China, that was responsible for putting the Kim dynasty in charge of North Korea and ordered the invasion of South Korea in 1950.When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 Russia halted its three decades of economic and military support for North Korea, which led to a famine and the death of over a million North Koreans. Now Russia is concerned about the threat from North Korea and recently announced that air defenses (interceptors and missile systems) were being increased near the North Korean coast. This decision was prompted by the most recent North Korean ballistic missile test, where the missile went north and landed off the Russian coast.

May 6, 2017: Russia reinstated the deconfliction agreement they with the United States regarding each others warplanes operating over Syria. Russia had cancelled this on April 8th to protest the American reaction to the Assads use of chemical weapons. This agreement avoids accidental clashes and the U.S. observed the agreement by informing Russia shortly before the American cruise missiles were launched on April 7th. Russia did not cancel a similar agreement with Israel.

May 5, 2017: Russia delivered (by ship) another 21 M30 122mm howitzers to Syria. These were widely used during World War II and production continued until 1955. They are still used by over 20 countries because they are cheap, reliable, easy to operate and rugged.

May 3, 2017: The pro-Assad coalition of Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government began two days of peace talks with each other about how to settle the Syrian mess. This took place in the Central Asian city of Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). This time some rebel factions were there as well but the rebels soon left because they described the Astana talks had nothing to do with peace but everything to do with how to defeat the rebels. The rebels refused to attend the last round of talks in March and were enticed back with assurances that things would be different during the May talks. That was not true. The rebels see the decision by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government to establish de-escalation zones in rebel held areas (Idlib province, of Homs province; near the Israeli border and outside Damascus) were just a ploy to make it easier to defeat the rebel forces there. By the terms of this the zones would be no-fly zones for all aircraft except those from Russia, Turkey and Syria. The Assads and their supporters (Russia, Iran and Turkey) would establish checkpoints around the zones to control ground access. This would, in theory, allow emergency aid to get in (or be blocked) and eliminate air attacks on civilians. But the rebels point out that in previous ceasefire agreements the Russians and Assads ignored the terms and attacked rebels and civilians claiming they were reacting to rebel violence. In the case of the four de-escalation zones thats exactly what happened.

Israeli and Russian officials are increasingly open about how the two nations coordinate military operations in Syria and cooperate in other areas as well.

Another Russian soldier was killed in Syria while working with Syrian soldiers fighting rebels and ISIL. That makes 32 Russians killed in Syria since mid-2016. Another Russian apparently died in the same incident but he seems to have been a contractor. It appears that Russia does not give much publicity to contractor deaths which are believed to be at least equal to military casualties, if not two or three times higher.

May 2, 2017: Twelve senior officials (most of them generals) of the Interior Ministry were fired. This is believed to be another side effect of the creation of a National Guard in 2016. This paramilitary organization of some 400,000 soldiers and police is officially a rapid reaction force for dealing with terrorism or any other threat to Russia that requires quick and decisive action. There is growing resistance in parliament to a recent Putin request for new laws that allow the National Guard to fire on Russian citizens whenever the government wants to without warning. In addition National Guard leaders are to be immune to any prosecution for anything they are ordered to do. This reminds too many people of the kind of power the Soviet era KGB (secret police) had. The new National Guard is suspected of being the new KGB army. As organized the new National Guard is taking nearly all of the best trained and most effective units from the Interior Ministry. That is seen as weakening an existing force that could prevent a new KGB from misbehaving. Putin, a former KGB officer, also made the National Guard immune to FSB (the post-Soviet KGB) oversight. Another interesting aspect of the National Guard is that the many para-military groups formed by the pro-Putin government of Chechnya are now considered part of the National Guard. A growing number of Russians are calling the National Guard Putins Private Army. This sort of force is an ancient practice. Thus in pre-2003 Iraq Saddam Hussein had his Republican Guard, a force that was filled with the best paid, best armed men in the armed forces who were, above all, loyal to Saddam. All other successful dictatorships have similar forces. In Soviet Russia the secret police (KGB) employed over a million domestic spies and informers backed by several divisions of troops trained and equipped to deal with rebellions by the population, or the armed forces. Iran has a similar force, the Revolutionary Guard that serves a similar role as the old KGB. The Saudi monarchy has its National Guard and surviving monarchies usually have a least a ceremonial remnant of the once powerful guards. Even the pope still has a Swiss Guard. In 2016 ISIL formed a 4,000 man Shield of Islam force which is composed of the most skilled and resourceful ISIL fighters, including many foreigners (especially hundreds of the much feared Chechens). During World War II, Adolf Hitler had the SS, Gestapo and his private army, the Waffen SS, all of which kept Germany fighting until the very end. The new Putin version of the KGB army is being created by taking most of the armed personnel available to the Interior Ministry (the national police and various riot control, SWAT and special operations forces) as well as investigators and intelligence experts and assigning them to the new National Guard which swears to protect the president of Russia (currently Putin), not the Russian people.

April 29, 2017: One of four new A-50 AWACs aircraft has shown up in Syria. This new version entered service in 2011 but foreign ELINT (electronic intelligence) operations have not yet had a good opportunity to see how effective the new A-50 is. To do that you have to get your ELINT aircraft close to an A-50 in a combat zone. Israel believes the A-50 was brought in to deal with a possible air battle between Russian and American warplanes and also to keep track of the F-35 stealth fighters Israel has received this year and are already flying close to the Syrian border and, possibly, across the border as well.

April 27, 2017: A Russian intelligence collection ship (the Liman) sank off the Turkish Black Sea coast near the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The Liman was operating in a thick fog and collided with a cargo ship. The Liman crew (of 78) suffered no losses and was helped off their sinking ship by Turkish coast guard ships.

In Syria Israeli missiles, apparently fired from inside Israel, hit Iranian warehouses near the Mazzeh Air Base outside Damascus. This was a night attack and cell phone videos showed that these buildings apparently contained weapons because there were numerous secondary explosions as in a missile setting off ammunition or missiles stored there. The Israeli missiles also hit a fuel storage site, causing large secondary explosions and fires. This attack went after munitions and fuel used by Iran mercenaries in Syria in addition to missiles and other weapons meant to be smuggled into Lebanon. Some Iranian and Hezbollah personnel were killed. Later in the day Russia condemned the attack as a violation of Syrian sovereignty. Despite this public demonstration of anger Russia understands that Israel has a legitimate need to protect itself from Iranian attack via Hezbollah or similar Assad forces. This angers Iran but so far the Iranians have kept their criticisms quiet. Before the end of the day Israel confirmed that it had fired one of its Patriot missiles at an aircraft (apparently an Iranian made UAV) flying from Syrian into Israel. Iran is desperate to obtain some kind of victory over Israel and the Gulf Arabs are content to stand aside and watch these two unpredictable adversaries have at each other. Israel has tweaked (modified) the software in its two AWACS (Airborne Early Warning Aircraft) so the CAEW (Conformal Airborne Early Warning) radar system can spot small, low flying UAVs as well as manned aircraft.

April 26, 2017: Russia got into another dispute with Turkey over how to deal with the Syrian violence. This all began on the 24th near where the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq meet. Turkish jets and two UAVs attacked Kurds and secular rebels. These attacks killed at least 30 of the rebels and many more were wounded. The Turks warned the U.S. and Russia an hour beforehand and there were no U.S. troops with the rebels attacked. The Americans and Russians tried to persuade the Turks to back off on attacking rebel forces that have not fought the Turks and concentrated on overthrowing the Assad government. Turkey believes the Kurds are a permanent threat. Yet the Turks were careful to make sure the United States did not have any troops with the targets bombed. It turned out that the closest American troops were about ten kilometers away. Since then there has been more fighting with Turks and Kurds firing at each other across the Syrian border and Turkish airstrikes continuing. Iran condemned recent Turkish attacks on Kurds in Syria and Iraq.

April 25, 2017: The U.S. released a report that accused Syria of not surrendering all its chemical weapons as it promised to do in a Russian arranged deal that gave the Americans an excuse to not attack the Assad forces.

April 23, 2017: In eastern Ukraine (Donbas) an OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) vehicle hit a landmine, killing one OSCE observer (an American) and wounding two others (a German and a Czech). In three years that OSCE has been monitoring the Donbas violence this is their first fatality. In the time Russia has regularly been accused of interfering with the OSCE efforts. The OSCE presence is recognized by Russia and is supposed to be monitoring the situation in Donbas and verifying who is doing what. That has proved to be difficult because the Russian backed rebels (and sometimes Russian troops pretending to be rebels) regularly interfere with OSCE monitoring team. The Russians ignore or harass OSCE whenever they feel the need to, or simply feel like it. The pro-Russian rebels continue to block the movement of observers in their territory. The OSCE has found that Russian backed rebels are responsible for most (sometimes 90 percent) of the violent incidents in eastern Ukraine. The 600 OSCE staff (most of them roving monitors) in eastern Ukraine and Donbas, whose job is to oversee the ceasefire, have been complaining since 2015 that they are being restricted by rebels and, less frequently Ukrainian forces from carrying out inspections. Since early 2016 the rebels have been violating the ceasefire on a daily basis. Anyone in or near Donbas (as a lot of foreign journalists are) can hear or see the daily machine-gun, mortar, rocket and artillery fire by Russian and rebel units. Russia denies everything and insists that any evidence is fabricated. Some OSCE observer teams report coming under rebel fire which, in some cases, is believed to be deliberately directed at the OSCE personnel. The treatment of the OSCE is regularly reported back in the various West European nations they come from and that has eroded European confidence in Russia telling the truth about anything.

April 21, 2017: In the south (Stavropol) two men died in a gun battle with police at a checkpoint. The two refused to stop and opened fire. Police later identified one of them as a member of ISIL while the other man belonged to a different Islamic terrorist group.

In the Far East (Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border) a man armed with a pistol, first identified as a neo-Nazi, killed a guard at a shooting range and then entered an FSB (secret police) facility and opened fire killing an FSB member and a civilian before being shot dead and a suspected accomplice was arrested. ISIL later claimed the attacker as one of theirs. This is the second ISIL attack in Russia this month, the first one being a suicide bomber in a Moscow subway on April 3rd that killed 14.

April 19, 2017: Russia blocked a UN vote to censure North Korea for its latest ballistic missile test. China backed the measure, continuing its abandonment of voting with Russia to block UN measures hostile to North Korea.

April 18, 2017: Another Russian soldier was killed in Syria while working with Syrian soldiers fighting rebels and ISIL.
Thirty New Zealand Defence Force personnel and a Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules strategic airlift aircraft are supporting New Zealand, Australian and coalition operations in the Middle East.

Leading the air transport mission is Squadron Leader Brad Scott, from the northern Waikato town of Taupiri, who was encouraged by his parents to sign up for the Air Force and train as a pilot 11 years ago.

I look forward to the opportunity and the challenges of commanding the mission. This is the first time I will be leading a deployment and the positive reaction from my peers has been encouraging, says Squadron Leader Scott.

The aircraft and the supporting detachment are being deployed until mid-June at the request of the Australian Defence Force and will operate as part of their Air Mobility Task Group.

The Hercules primary task is to transport people, equipment and supplies in support of New Zealand and Australian operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and the Sinai Peninsula. It may also support coalition operations in these countries, says General Tim Gall, the Commander Joint Forces New Zealand.

Thirty New Zealand Defence Force personnel and one of the Royal New Zealand Air Forces C-130 Hercules strategic airlift aircraft left this morning to support New Zealand, Australian and coalition operations in the Middle East.

He says the short-term deployment aimed to provide additional capacity during a period of high operational tempo.

The upcoming mission also marks our latest contribution to security and stability in the Middle East and affirms our longstanding commitment in the region, says Major General Gall.

This is the second time an RNZAF air transport team has been deployed to the Middle East in the past 12 months. A Hercules aircraft and a 32-member detachment were sent to the Middle East in May 2016 to provide logistics support to coalition operations for six months.

The detachment includes aircraft technicians, logistics specialists, maintenance personnel, and an Air Movements Load Team to support coalition aircraft in the region.

A pilot and flying instructor for the C-130 aircraft, Squadron Leader Scott joined the Air Force in January 2006. During his last year at Hamilton Boys High School, he thought about becoming a field engineer in the New Zealand Army after attending a leadership programme at Waiouru camp.

Before handing in his application to for the Armys Officer Cadet School, he sought advice from his parents, who suggested that he consider the other Services.

My recruiter, who was an Air Force C-130 pilot, came to my parents farm and over coffee, convinced us that joining the Air Force was a pretty good career choice, he recalls.

Squadron Leader Scott has previously been deployed to the Middle East, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines and Timor-Leste.
Hackers promise to leak the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales if Disney doesnt pay ransom

Hackers have said that they have access to the screener print of Disneys Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. They have promised to leak the movie on The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, and ExtraTorrents if the Disney doesnt pay the ransom. Neither the hackers nor the studio has divulged the ransom amount which is considered to be exorbitant.

The news coming on the back of the now famous WannaCry ransomware attack indicated that ransom is the new mantra for cyber criminals. According to a report by Deadline, a group of hackers has illegally obtained a copy of Disneys upcoming Pirates of The Caribbean movie and is now demanding ransom.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is the fifth and latest installment in the popular medieval pirate fantasy and is expected to hit theaters later this month. The film stars Johny Depp as Jack Sparrow and will be seen fighting evil Capt. Salazar (Javier Bardem) to escape from the Devils Triangle. The film is scheduled to be released on 25th May in Italy and a world release thereafter.

The hackers claim that they have obtained a screener print of the movie and will leak it to all the torrent websites including TPB, KickassTorrents, and ExtraTorrent if Disney doesnt pay up the ransom. A screener version of the movie is often sent to critics, reviews and other people from the studio for their opinions. The hackers are reportedly demanding an exorbitant amount of money via Bitcoin from Disney, which has so far refused to pay the ransom and is working with the FBI to apprehend the culprits. Although Disney CEO Bob Iger did not reveal which movie the ransom hackers claim to have, he did reveal to ABC employees during a town hall meeting in New York on Monday that the incident had occurred.

Holding studios for ransom is not a new business. Hackers had similarly held Netflix to ransom for not releasing Orange is the New Black. However, after Netflix refused to pay the ransom, the hackers went on to release the entire season of Orange is the New Black on torrent websites.
It's not often that you get to create a new university from scratch: space, staff - and curriculum. But that's exactly what we're doing in Mauritius, at one of Africa's newest higher education institutions. And decoloniality is central to our work.

I am a member of the Social Science Faculty at the African Leadership University. Part of our task is to build a canon, knowledge, and a way of knowing. This is happening against the backdrop of a movement by South African students to decolonise their universities; Black Lives Matter protests in the United States; and in the context of a much deeper history of national reimagination across Africa and the world.

With this history in mind our faculty is working towards what we consider a decolonial social science curriculum. Weve adopted seven commitments to help us meet this goal, and which we hope will shift educational discourse in a more equitable and representative direction.

Seven commitments

#1: By 2019, everything we assign our students will be open source

Like most institutions of higher education in Africa (and across much of the world) ALUs library is limited. Students often deal with this by flouting copyright and piracy laws and illegally downloading material. We dont want to train our students to become habitual law breakers. Nor do we want them to accept second-tier access to commodified knowledge.

Our aspiration is that by 2019 everything we assign in our programme will be open source. This will be achieved by building relationships with publishers, writers and industry leaders, and negotiating partnerships for equitable access to knowledge. This will ensure that a new generation of thinkers is equipped with the analytic tools they need.

It will also move towards undoing centuries of knowledge extraction from Africa to the world that has too often taken place with little benefit to the continent itself.

#2: Language beyond English

Students who read, write and think in English often forget that knowledge is produced, consumed, and tested in other tongues.

We commit to assigning students at least one non-English text per week. This will be summarised and discussed in class, even when students are unable to read it themselves. Our current class comprises of students from 16 countries who between them speak 29 languages. English is the only language they all share. Exposing students to scholarly, policy, and real-world work thats not in English means they are constantly reminded how much they dont know.

As we grow, students will also be expected to learn languages from the continent: both those that originated in colonialism (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese), and those that are indigenous such as isiZulu, Wolof, or Amharic.

#3: 1:1 Student exchange ratio

Having cross-cultural experiences, particularly as an undergraduate, has become an important part of demonstrating work readiness and social competency in a globalised world. But scholars have shown that globalisation is often uneven. Strong currencies enable such experiences, so those who benefit usually come from Europe and North America.

This has had huge implications for higher education, where student exchange usually takes place at a ratio of 10:1  ten Americans or Norwegians, for instance, exploring South African townships, for one Ghanaian who might make it to the Eiffel Tower.

In Social Sciences the body is the research tool and the mind the laboratory in which experiments are undertaken. We support as much exchange as possible across the broader institution. But our commitment when it comes to student exchange is strictly 1:1  one ALU student goes abroad for every one exchange student we welcome into our classroom.

#4: Text is not enough

Africas long intellectual history has only recently begun to be recorded and stored through text. If students are exposed only to written sources, their knowledge is largely constrained to the eras of colonisation and post-coloniality.

To instil a much deeper knowledge and more sensitive awareness to context and content, we are committed to assigning non-textual sources of history, culture, and belief: studying artefacts, music, advertising, architecture, food, and more. Each week students engage with at least one such source to attend to the world around them in a more careful way.

#5: We cannot work alone

Social scientists often assign themselves the role of deconstructor: unpacking power, race, capitalism and consumption with glorious self-righteous abandon. My colleagues and I recognise that we cannot work alone, and require our students to play a central role in contributing to the universitys outputs.

We design our curricula in such a way that students are compelled to create, iterate, work with feedback, apply that feedback, and critically appraise it. We want them to collaborate with as wide a range of other people as possible, stretching them to use language and the tools of analysis that they acquire in their training with real world implication. For example, students recently worked with our legal, policy, and learning teams to write the universitys statement on diversity.

#6: Producers, not only consumers

The students who choose to come to the university bring with them tremendous insight and experience. These are often developed and augmented by spending time in the quintessential multi-cultural environment of the campus and dormitories. That allows certain fusions, tensions and commonalities to emerge much more clearly than they might in other places.

Working and living within this environment, its essential that students start contributing to discourses surrounding Africa as early as possible. It might take years to know how to write a publishable scholarly article  but an op-ed, podcast or YouTube video is not quite so demanding. This allows students to get accustomed to their voices contributing to and shaping public dialogue in and about Africa.

#7: Ethics above all

Social Sciences both reflect and shape the world. Our programme, then, is committed to the principle of do no harm, and also to be an impetus for good.

Students will learn to think and act to the highest ethical standards, and to feel confident in asking the same of others working with them. This is essential in bringing into being a world in which Africas place is both central  as it has arguably always been to global capitalism  and also respected.

Collaboration

Its early days at ALU. Theres a lot we still need to do, and it will take time for us to build the institution into what we collectively envision. These seven commitments are an important foundation for the Social Sciences.

Were inviting responses and collaborations through our blog, through email or through collaborations with our students.
An underpass built beneath the historic Church of the Holy Trinity to enhance access to the Toronto Eaton Centre has caused the walls of the church to crack, a legal claim filed in Ontario Superior Court alleges.

The Incorporated Synod of the Diocese of Toronto, which owns the property at 21 Trinity Square where the church has stood since 1847, is seeking $2 million in damages from the Cadillac Fairview Corp., which owns and operates the mall on behalf of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.

The cracking began after 2004, when a second underpass was put into use in concert with a tunnel beneath the church that was dug during construction of the Eaton Centre in the late 1970s, according to the claim.

The tunnels are used by trucks making deliveries to businesses at the Eaton Centre.

The Synod states that it was reasonably foreseeable that the design, construction and use of the underpass, in such close proximity to the church, would cause damage to the church, according to the claim, filed in April.

While the lawsuit has been registered with the court, it has not yet been legally served.

We havent served it because were hopeful we can sit on the same side of the table and resolve it, said Robert Kennaley, of Kennaley Construction Law, representing Holy Trinity.

We want to give the negotiation process a chance to work.

A spokesperson for Cadillac Fairview declined to comment on the matter because it is subject to potential litigation.

The cracks are clearly visible inside the church, which still ministers to the community, including many of the homeless in the downtown core. It still holds two services on Sunday and one on Wednesday. It is a tourist attraction, rated by Lonely Planet as a top stop for travellers.

Sherman Hesselgrave, parish priest, said the cracks were repaired and the foundation reinforced, and the problem seems to have abated for the time being.

The church is seeking to recover the cost of the repairs, he said.

The engineers said to leave it for a year to make sure there is no further settlement before patching the cracks, said Hesselgrave.

He said the repairs included putting 15 50-foot screws into the bedrock beneath the corner of the church where the cracks are. Then a concrete table was built on top of the screws, which the foundation now sits on.

Its basically sitting on bedrock  or connected to bedrock now  so there hasnt been any additional settlement, he said.

For many years, the neighbourhood around the church was a slum occupied by struggling Irish immigrants. The church built the Mary Lambert Swale public housing on Jarvis St., now under City of Toronto management, said Hesselgrave. More recently, the church has sponsored 130 refugees in Canada.

It also maintains a homeless memorial, to remember the names of those who have died on the streets in Canada.

According to the wishes of its founder, Mary Lambert Swale, it remains free and open to the public.

According to the statement of claim filed in Ontario Superior Court, in the late 1970s, the Eaton Centre and related developments were constructed around the church premises, including a tunnel that serviced two underground truck loading docks facilities, located at the north and south ends of the mall.

In the early 1980s, the claim says, the corporate predecessors of Cadillac Fairview decided a second tunnel or underpass would be constructed to provide access to the original tunnel, in a location below and beside the churchs foundations and footings, below grade on the church premises.

The Synod granted an easement for the construction and use of the underpass and it was designed and constructed in about 1991. The underpass was not put into use until June 2004.

Although the agreement called for the companies to reimburse the Synod for the cost of monitoring the status of the church in the aftermath of the underpass coming into permanent use, they refused to do so after Oct. 31, 2007, according to the claim.

Thereafter, and over time, the church gradually began to exhibit signs of distress, cracking and settlement . . . the cause(s) of which were unknown, according to the document.

By the spring of 2015, it was clear that repairs were needed, according to the claim.

The Synod now states that the problems arose as a consequence of the design, construction and use of the underpass.

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SOUTHFIELD, MICH.Ford Motor Co. plans to trim about 10 per cent of its global salaried workforce while retaining the tech talent its recruited to develop driverless and electric cars, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

Jobs are being cut as Fords directors pressure Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields to boost profit and a lagging stock price. The reductions are expected to target salaried employees mostly in North America and Asia, said the person, who asked not to be identified disclosing internal discussions. Some are also expected in Europe, where Ford already has retrenched.

Fields is working to cut costs by about $3 billion this year. With Fords stock down about 37 per cent since he became CEO in 2014, Fields is caught between pleasing a board pressuring him to boost fading profits while placating U.S. President Donald Trump, who is pushing automakers to add U.S. jobs. Ford also is pouring billions into electric, self-driving cars and ride-sharing as its struggles more than General Motors Co. with a slowing U.S. market.

Read more:

Fords Q1 net income falls 35 per cent

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This has to be done surgically rather than randomly or otherwise you lose the talent you need the most, said Maryann Keller, an industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut. This will be offered to the traditional automotive staff.

Ford fell 0.3 per cent to $10.91 as of 12:06 p.m. in New York trading. The shares have declined 10 per cent this year, compared with a 3.6-per-cent drop for GM and 23-per-cent gain by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Reducing costs and becoming as lean and efficient as possible is a priority, Ford said in an emailed statement. We have not announced any new people efficiency actions, nor do we comment on speculation.

Retrenching in the U.S. risks reopening Ford to criticism from Trump. Fields and Executive Chairman Bill Ford have curried favour with the president this year, giving him advance notice of hiring and investment at American plants and cancelling a small-car factory in Mexico.

Trump has pointed to carmakers plans and claimed theyre restoring American manufacturing because of him.

Ford temporarily laid off 130 workers at an Ohio truck plant earlier this month to match lagging output with slower customer demand. Automakers have widespread shutdowns planned for the summer to adjust to the U.S. car markets recent slowdown following seven years of gains, conflicting with Trumps more upbeat portrayal of the state of the industry.

Fields, 56, discussed the cost cuts that Michigan-based Ford plans for this year in a call with analysts last month when the company posted a 42-per-cent plunge in first quarter adjusted earnings.

We are continuing our intense focus on cost and the reason for that is not only mindful of the current environment that were in, but also I think preparing us even more for a downturn scenario, Fields said April 27.

Ford earlier this year hired 400 employees from BlackBerry Ltd. to help develop wireless technology, deepening an ongoing partnership between the two companies involving in-car connectivity.

Its also investing $1 billion in a Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI, which will develop the virtual driver system for fully autonomous vehicles scheduled to arrive in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander are former leaders of the self-driving car teams at Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google.

In the U.S., Ford has about 30,000 salaried workers. The company employed a total of about 201,000 workers as of the end of last year, including about 101,000 in North America, according to a regulatory filing. Hourly workers wont be targeted in this round of cuts, according to the person familiar with the plan.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Fords job-reduction plans late Monday.

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OTTAWAA Nova Scotia senator was kicked out of the Conservative caucus Tuesday over his decision to attend a dinner hosted by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Sen. Stephen Greene said he was given an ultimatum by Larry Smith, the Conservative leader in the Senate: abandon plans to attend the dinner later Tuesday or be dropped from the Tory caucus.

Smith used the words "betrayal" and "treasonous" to describe his intention to break bread with Trudeau, said Greene, who described the situation as "beyond silly."

"I would accept a dinner invitation from any prime minister who offered one," said Greene. "But that was too much for the Conservative caucus."

He said he was "shocked" and "amazed" at the ultimatum and "crushed a little bit" to be kicked out of the caucus after refusing to give up the invitation.

And he accused the Conservatives, who are the only senators still formally affiliated with a political party in the Senate, of clinging to the old-fashioned way of doing things in the chamber rather than adapting to the new reality of an upper house that is less partisan and more independent.

But Smith was unapologetic, arguing that the dinner was the last straw. He said Greene has been reprimanded a number of times in recent months for, among other things, agreeing to sponsor a government bill and voting in favour of reforms to the Senate that would "effectively eliminate the Opposition" in the chamber.

"Well, we are the Opposition," Smith said.

"You can't be half in or half out. You're part of a caucus or you're part of a government and we truly believe that the Opposition plays a very serious role in our federation."

The dinner invitation was to all senators who have sponsored government bills. Greene had sponsored what he called an "innocuous" bill to formalize a taxation agreement with Taiwan and Israel.

Greene was appointed to the Senate by former prime minister Stephen Harper. He previously was chief of staff to Reform party leader Preston Manning and is currently the Nova Scotia chair for Maxime Bernier's leadership campaign.

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Millennials have enough problems as it is. Must they give up their avocado toast, too?

In an interview with Australias 60 Minutes on Monday, Tim Gurner, a 35-year-old real estate mogul in Melbourne, suggested that young adults would be more likely to be able to afford to buy a home if they curbed their discretionary spending, like on this trendy and expensive brunch item.

When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasnt buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each, he said. Were at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day, they want travel to Europe every year.

The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, he said, adding that they saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder.

The advice spread on social media and it was not well received. Some found the statement impractical or insulting.

Research suggests that people between the ages 18-34, a group often referred to as millennials, are no more freewheeling with their spending on travel and dining than other generations. And it would take a lot of skipped avocados to put a dent in the heavy costs of home ownership, which is not always a prudent financial goal.

Read more:

Millennials are generation screwed on real estate

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According to the Food Institute, which analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics expenditure data from 2015, people from the ages of 25-34 spent $3,097 on average on eating out. Data comparing this age group against itself through the decades was not readily available. But the bureaus report indicated that this group spent $305 more than people between the ages of 55-64  a group that encompasses some baby boomers  and $89 more than the overall average, including spending among people ages 35-54.

The truth is, even if a millennial assumed the eating out habits of a baby boomer, it would take around 113 years before they could afford a down payment on a home (assuming a 20 per cent down payment on the median price for a home in the United States, $315,000 in March 2017, and a 1 per cent yearly yield rate).

Yes, you would surely save money by choosing to make your own avocado toast at home. The average price of a single avocado in March was $1.25, according to the Hass Avocado Board. One Twitter user, Nora Biette-Timmons, calculated that it costs her about $1.65 per serving  or about 1/477,896 the price of an average home in Brooklyn. Compare that with New York City brunch prices, where you are likely to spend $10-$20 for ornately dressed toast, and the savings are clear.

But all generations of Americans are eating out now more than before, with food away from home rising from 25.9 per cent of food expenditures in 1970 to 43.1 per cent in 2012. It is not clear if millennials are driving that trend.

As for Gurners second suggestion  skipping the European vacation  there is indeed an opportunity for savings, but research suggests millennials are the generation spending the least on travel.

Millennials spent $4,832 per year on vacations, just below $5,078 by Gen-Xers and $5,012 by Boomers, according to MMGY Globals Portrait of American Travellers in 2016. The study surveyed 2,948 adult travellers with annual incomes above $50,000.

Millennials were less likely than older generations to say they were cutting back on travel because of budget concerns, but were most likely to have difficulty getting time off work. They were also most likely to say they were too busy to get away.

Another wrinkle in pitting age-specific preferences against buying a house: Home ownership is historically lower among young adults and has declined across most age groups since the financial crisis, as the ratio of home prices to median household income climbed.

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NEW YORKThe largest U.S. retail associations called on new Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to support the North American Free Trade Agreement, aiming to salvage an accord that has come under fire from his boss.

Leaders of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the National Retail Federation, Retail Industry Leaders Association and U.S. Fashion Industry Association sent a letter to Lighthizer on Tuesday urging him to tread lightly on the 23-year-old pact.

NAFTA supports hundreds of thousands of U.S. textile and clothing jobs, along with retail operations in all 50 states, the organizations said.

We agree that the agreement should be updated to reflect todays business reality and better prepare for future trade patterns, the groups said in the letter. However, we ask for support from the administration to ensure that renegotiation will do no harm to the successful supply chains that we rely on today.

Read more:

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Lighthizer was sworn in Monday, clearing the way for the administration to seek an overhaul of NAFTA. U.S. President Donald Trump called the treaty a disaster during the election campaign and has threatened to withdraw from the agreement with Mexico and Canada if renegotiated terms arent favourable enough.

In a draft letter circulated in March that laid out its goals, the administration told lawmakers it wanted to strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base and level the playing field with its NAFTA trading partners on tax treatment. Retailers, which rely heavily on imports, have opposed any changes that would tax imports at a higher rate.

Our approach is if you look across the textile, apparel and footwear industry, theres a very broad consensus that NAFTA works  that it creates jobs, that theres a supply chain that supports workers and communities on both sides of the border, Steve Lamar, executive vice president of the AAFA, said in an earlier interview. Perhaps it can be improved, but we dont want to start the negotiations from the perspective that this is a bad agreement.

Retail groups say NAFTA could be updated to account for digital commerce, which was virtually nonexistent when the agreement was enacted in 1994.

The ultimate concern for the business community at large is failure to come to a deal that ends in the U.S. pulling out of NAFTA, said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply-chain and customs policy at the NRF. We dont think that should be on the table.

An imperiled NAFTA comes during a challenging time for apparel retailers. Falling prices, increased competition and a lack of style trends have made it harder for clothing companies to maintain sales and profit. Now they may lose access to Mexico, a country that supplies goods at prices Americans are willing to pay.

If the trade deal changes, apparel trade groups say the industry could be faced with rising costs and another blow to its already-fragile profit margins. Mexico is the largest Latin American supplier of apparel products to the U.S. and the fifth-biggest worldwide  behind countries like China and Vietnam  according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

A renegotiated NAFTA needs to enhance the economic co-operation with these key trading partners, the retail groups said in Tuesdays letter. Any improvements should provide for seamless integration with the existing NAFTA agreement.

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The 2017 Cannes Film Festival press badge comes with a bright red button and an amusing slogan in gold letters that translates as, I did not understand it, but the film was really good.

The levity is unusual for a festival that prides itself on doing things exactly right with all cinematic matters big and small, from the choice of auteurs competing for the Palme dOr to personal comportment on the red carpet into the Palais des Festivals (selfies are forbidden, flat shoes for women are frowned upon).

A bit of fun is welcome and perhaps necessary, as Cannes begins to celebrate its 70th anniversary Wednesday while worrying about the safety of celebrants and anxious about the future of film as a big-screen medium. Its the most tense Ive seen the fest in my 20 years of attending it.

Read more:

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Cannes finally embraces TV and online rivals: Howell

Cannes lineup includes small-screen gems: Howell

Security around the Palais and all roads leading to its Riviera waterfront location have been beefed up even beyond last years unprecedented escalation, following terrorist attacks in Paris and nearby Nice. The country is officially still in a state of emergency, although that is supposed to end shortly.

Local police have been issued handguns and bulletproof vests, a first in a country where normally only national police are armed. Airport-style metal detectors are now outside the Palais, even on doors into the adjacent souvenir shop.

A more subtle yet also serious concern for the 12-day festival is the encroaching threat of online operators like Netflix and Amazon, which both have films among the 19 in the hunt for the Palme. Thats another first for the fest, which Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux justified on the grounds that We want to look to the future. Its a decision he now seems to regret.

The two Netflix films are Bong Joon-hos Okja, a sci-fi fantasy  reminiscent of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial  about a young girl who befriends a friendly monster resembling Pink Floyds giant pig, starring Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal; and Noah Baumbachs The Meyerowitz Stories, a dysfunctional-family drama starring Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller.

The directors are of the kind courted by Cannes and their films are deemed worthy of the Palme competition. But Netflix and the festival have recently crossed swords over the streaming services refusal to have a proper theatrical release in France for Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories. The online entity stubbornly sticks to its business plan of releasing films only on TV and computer screens, with rare exceptions.

Frances theatrical-exhibitors guild has objected to Netflixs elevation to the Palme competition, issuing dire warnings that it represents the death of film if a small-screen operator can skirt the countrys strict release rules designed to protect the big-screen movie experience. (Its an interesting coincidence, perhaps, that Michel Hazanavicius Le Redoubtable, a drama about director Jean-Luc Godard and his provocative la mort du cinema proclamations, is among the Palme contenders).

With no compromise in sight, Cannes last week took the extreme measure of stating that Netflix wont be invited back to next years fest unless circumstances change, although it is permitting Okja and The MeyerowitzStories to remain in this years Official Selection.

Online rival Amazon Studios is in a happier position. It embraces both big and small screens, as it did for Oscar-feted Manchester by the Sea, and it will have theatrical releases for its two Palme contenders: Todd Haynes Wonderstruck, an adventure film starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, based on a popular childrens novel; and Lynne Ramsays You Were Never Really Here, a drama about a good deed gone wrong starring Joaquin Phoenix and Alessandro Nivola.

There has also been some hand-wringing this year over the dearth of major studio films at Cannes and the big-budget beach parties that often accompany them.

The festival usually programs a few crowd-pleasers, and there had been rumours that Denis Villeneuves Blade Runner 2049 and Christopher Nolans Dunkirk might bow on the Croisette. The rumours proved unfounded, and it seems the urge to party has been similarly diminished, especially for celebrity attendees. The combination of high security, noise complaints by locals and the fear of career-threatening smartphone videos of naughty behaviour has quelled the rowdy Cannes antics of old.

Cannes has totally killed the glamorous aspect, Wild Bunch CEO Vincent Maraval, a dedicated partier, complained to the Hollywood Reporter.

The legend of Cannes is Bardot at 8 a.m. on the beach after the night. That will never exist again.

But the fest is really about the films, as it should be, and this years crop is among the best in recent memory  although there is no Canadian film in the Palme competition, a disappointing turn of events.

Competition screenings usually begin with the films least likely to court Palme attention, but this year theyre front-loaded with the likes of Wonderstruck, which is already generating Oscar buzz, and Andrey Zvyagintsevs Loveless, a missing-child drama from the Russian director whose previous film Leviathan energized the 2014 Cannes fest with its scathing critique of life under Vladimir Putins rule.

Critics are also anticipating new works by two-time Palme winner Michael Haneke (Happy End); Force Majeure director Ruben Ostlund (The Square); Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Killing of a Sacred Deer); and a feminist remake, by Lost in Translations Sofia Coppola, of Don Siegels 1971 sexual warfare drama The Beguiled.

Siegels The Beguiled starred Clint Eastwood as a Civil War Yankee soldier attempting to romance his way out of the Southern girls boarding school where circumstance and wild desire are holding him. Coppolas remake has Colin Farrell as the conflicted soldier in a film brimming with female talent: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning also star in it and theyre all expected to walk the red carpet for the May 24 world premiere. Eastwood, meanwhile, will undoubtedly refer to The Beguiled when he delivers one of the fests popular master-class lectures. (Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron is also due to conduct a master class here.)

All this, and TV too, as Cannes follows the lead of TIFF, Sundance and other fests by also showing new small-screen works by two previous Palme winners: Jane Campions Top of the Lake, which also stars Kidman, and David Lynchs Twin Peaks, although the embrace of television seems almost as chilly as the Netflix hug. Just two episodes of both series will be screened, midway through the fest, and in the case of the revived Twin Peaks revival, the Cannes screening on May 25 will be four days after it premieres on television in North America  and the rest of the world via online bootlegs, no doubt.

Hard to figure why Cannes is even bothering to show it, but lets be positive and hope the press-button slogan proves to be prophecy for the 2017 festival.

The Cannes Film Festival runs May 17-28. Follow Peter Howell on Twitter and Instagram: @peterhowellfilm.

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LOS ANGELESAn unusual lawsuit accusing Conan OBrien of stealing jokes is moving forward.

A federal judge in San Diego refused last week to toss the lawsuit that alleges OBrien lifted punchlines about Caitlyn Jenner, Tom Brady and the Washington Monument.

Read more:Conan O'Brien accused of lifting jokes off Twitter

Writer Robert Alexander Kaseberg accused the late-night comedian of copyright infringement for stealing jokes he posted online.

Kaseberg has written for various publications and had more than 1,000 of his jokes told by OBriens rival Jay Leno.

OBrien, his company and Turner Broadcasting System deny the allegations and claim the material was original.

Judge Janis Sammartino says three jokes by Kaseberg are entitled to thin copyright protection.

But it will be up to judge or jury at trial to determine if OBrien did rip off the jokes.

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PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA-We merge into the centre of the street, ready to make a left but veering maybe a little too closely to a huge, churning cement truck, big buses packed tightly with rush-hour commuters and little motorbikes carrying families of five.

The flow of traffic on the roaring and buzzing Preah Monivong Blvd. morphs, by the second, from five lanes to six, then back to four as the vehicles occupying every square inch of asphalt create a kaleidoscope of hurried formations.

Along the edges, buildings from decades past give way to glassy skyscrapers, so shiny and new I imagine my reflection in their windows as we whiz past. And the septuagenarian man behind me? Hes pedalling like theres no tomorrow.

Cyclos, a leftover from the French colonial era, can be spotted around Phnom Penh, a sort of cross between a pedicab and an oversized pram  one big enough to comfortably seat a single adult passenger, even one like me, who has swelled considerably from eating a few too many buttery Khmer curries.

Im in Cambodias capital to experience a unique moment in time. Chinas prosperity is overflowing into this Southeast-Asian nation, bringing with it modern condominiums, designer boutiques and even outlet malls. Im here to see a more traditional cross-section of Cambodian life, the best way I know how  in the seat of a cyclo.

Im part of a group tour consisting of roughly half a dozen North Americans riding around in these charmingly antiquated contraptions  pedalled exclusively, it seemed, by men as elderly as my own driver  a young, smiling architecture graduate named Virak Rouen. With impeccable English, he leads our daylong journey through the dynamic streets of Phnom Penh.

Rouen takes us from era to era, starting at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal, a grand hotel that retains its 1920s charm. We pile into the cyclos and make the 10-minute trip to the former heart of the city.

French rule began here in 1863, and in 1866, Rouen says the colonial decision-makers moved the capital to Phnom Penh, formerly a sleepy fishing village. They proceeded to build a city in their own image, laying out a grid and creating administrative structures that today, if you squint a bit and use your imagination, could look at home in Paris.

We visit the imposing central post office, view its high ceilings and louvered windows, perfect for keeping things cool in a time before air conditioning, then see the former Hotel Manolis, once one of the finest lodgings in the city.

Rouen explains that after the Khmer Rouge essentially emptied out Phnom Penh during its reign of terror in the 1970s, those returning to the city afterward grabbed whatever rooms they could find, and the hotel now serves as a sort of ersatz apartment building.

Rouen takes us up a back staircase and through well-worn halls, and we view the original-but-tarnished floral and checkerboard-tile floors and wooden doors, still inscribed with hotel-room numbers.

We stop for a break at an outpost of Brown Coffee, a homegrown Starbucks doppelganger that sells $5 lattes in a country whose average income hovers around $1,000 (U.S.) per year. I ask Rouen about the changes hes seeing here.

Someone who left a few years ago and just came back  they wouldnt recognize this city, he says. All these highrises . . . I think the first ones were built just five years ago.

Perhaps in response, he takes us next to Phnom Penhs Chinatown, a lengthy pedal to the north. After a quick visit to Chinese House, a 1903 Chinese villa that now operates as an upscale restaurant (we do dinner, drinks, the whole nine, a hipster bartender in a tight white T-shirt tells me in breezy English), we visit a 1913 Taoist temple, then delve deeply into the labyrinthine lanes that snake behind it.

Reminiscent of Beijings now-endangered hutongs, every bend brings a new slice of life. In one small room, a circle of friends play cards on the floor, in another, a woman cooks a chicken with a blowtorch. Barefoot children chase after us, gleefully crying, Hello! Hello! Hello!

You could call this a slum, Rouen says, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. I prefer to call it an informal community.

More lay ahead on our tour  19th-century canals and classic shop-houses and plenty more harrowing twists and turns on Phnom Penhs packed streets. At that moment I realize, for better or for worse, this particular, dynamic community probably wont be here five years from now.

Tim Johnson was a guest of Raffles Hotel Le Royal, which didnt review or approve this story.

When you go

Get there: I flew with Cathay Pacific (cathaypacific.com), which flies directly from Toronto to Hong Kong, and from Hong Kong to both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh via its sister airline, Cathay Dragon.

Do this trip: Cyclo adventures in Phnom Penh can be organized through About Asia Travel (aboutasiatravel.com), a Cambodian tour operator that specializes in tailor-made experiences throughout the country.

Stay: Fresh off an extensive renovation, Raffles Hotel Le Royal (raffles.com) retains its period charm, combining Khmer, French and art-deco influences. Stay in a personality suite (including one themed after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who lodged here in 1967), grab a drink in the revitalized Elephant Bar, or just swim and relax in one of the two pools, situated in a sunny courtyard, an oasis amidst the bustle of the capital.

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The entire system by which Canada indefinitely jails the people it wishes to deport is unconstitutional and should be dramatically redesigned, Federal Court heard on Monday.

Lawyers representing former immigration detainee Alvin Brown, who was deported to Jamaica last year after spending more than five years in maximum-security jail awaiting his removal, argued that Canadas immigration detention system violates multiple sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely the rights not to be indefinitely and arbitrarily detained and to be protected from cruel and unusual treatment.

Not only does Canadas current system not protect those rights, lawyer Jared Will told Justice Simon Fothergill, it sanctions their violation. Maintaining the status quo is unjustifiable and unconstitutional, Will said.

The more complicated question is how to fix it.

Canadas border police agency detains thousands of non-citizens every year if they have been deemed inadmissible to the country and classified as a danger to the public because of past criminal convictions, or unlikely to show up for their deportation. The average length of detention is about three weeks, but many cases drag on for months or years. One common problem is detainees who lack documentation to prove their citizenship, so their home country refuses to take them back. Although the detainees have not been charged with a crime, many are sent to maximum-security provincial jails, where they are treated the same as those serving criminal sentences or awaiting trial.

A Star investigation this year into immigration detention in Canada found a system in which hundreds of unwanted immigrants were languishing indefinitely in conditions meant for a criminal population. The Star found that detainees are also poorly served by the quasi-judicial Immigration and Refugee Board, which reviews their detentions.

Last month, Ontario Superior Court ordered the immediate release of Kashif Ali, a 51-year-old West African man, profiled by the Star, who spent more than seven years in maximum-security jail because the government could not deport him.

Calling Alis situation unacceptable, Justice Ian Nordheimer roundly criticized the government, saying it could not justify indefinite detention.

Will, who also represented Ali, cited Nordheimers decision Monday as he tried to persuade Fothergill to declare Canadas laws governing immigration detention unconstitutional and to impose a six-month limit on detention for immigration purposes.

In a court room packed with supporters of the End Immigration Detention Network, a coalition of advocacy organizations that was granted third-party standing at the hearing, Will and his colleague Jean-Marie Vecina outlined a litany of problems with the immigration detention regime. Among them:

The monthly detention reviews are procedurally unfair, offer insufficient protection for detainees rights and amount to little more than a rubber stamp.

There is a legislative vacuum regarding where detainees can be held, granting Canadas border police agency wide latitude and unchecked discretion to jail detainees wherever they like. (They can put one person in a five-star hotel and the other person in a maximum-security jail, Will said.)

The lack of a defined maximum length of detention  as is currently in place in other countries and has been recommended by the United Nations  permits indefinite detention even when there is no reasonable prospect of removal.

In calling for a six-month limit, Will pointed to countries that already have such a prescribed deadline in place, including those in the European Union, which affords an extension to hold someone in immigration detention for up to 18 months, at which point they must be released. Some countries have set much shorter limits, while courts in the U.S. have ruled that if the government cant prove deportation is reasonably foreseeable after six months, the detainee should be released.

There is nothing novel about this, Will said.

The government itself this year announced it was exploring policy changes to reduce the length of immigration detention, expand alternatives to detention and limit the use of criminal jails, but it has yet to make any meaningful changes.

Will suggested that if Fothergill agrees the current system is unconstitutional, he could use either a scalpel or a sledgehammer to fix it. Will argued the scalpel was better because if Fothergill were to dismantle the current system and order the government to build a new one, thousands of people would continue to be detained under unconstitutional laws while the government wrote new ones.

Instead, he argued that in addition to imposing a six-month limit on immigration detention, the court could make specific changes to existing laws, such as ensuring the burden is on the government to justify continued detention, empowering Immigration and Refugee Board members to order release if a detention has become indefinite, and giving the board some say over the location of detention.

The government will make its case in defence of immigration detention on Tuesday.

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LITTLE GRAND RAPIDS, MAN.A woman on a night-time walk was attacked and killed by a large group of stray dogs in a remote Manitoba First Nation, RCMP said Monday.

The attack in Little Grand Rapids, a fly-in settlement 300 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, renewed concerns about the dangers of dogs left to roam small communities in the north.

RCMP said in a news release that they received a report on Saturday that the body of a woman had been found at a construction site.

The initial investigation has determined that a 24-year-old female from Little Grand Rapids First Nation was on her way home from another residence in the early hours of Saturday morning when she was attacked by a large group of stray dogs, the release said.

The victim succumbed to her injuries sustained during the attack.

Chief Roy Dunsford told CTV News the womans body was found surrounded by about 30 dogs. He said one of the dogs has been put down.

RCMP did not name the woman, but she was identified by several media outlets and the Southern Chiefs Organization, which represents First Nations across southern Manitoba, as Donnelly Rose Eaglestick.

She will always be remembered as a loving, caring mother and a person of great character, read a message on the organizations Facebook page.

Dozens of people from the First Nation gathered Sunday night at a candlelight vigil to remember the young mother.

Donnelly was a happy person, Doris Mayham, Eaglesticks aunt told CTV. She was loving and caring to her six-year-old little girl.

Stray dogs have long been a problem on remote reserves across the Prairies and have killed some people. In 2007, a five-year-old boy died after being attacked outside his home on the Cumberland House reserve in northeastern Saskatchewan.

Communities sometimes organize culls to reduce the population, and animal rescue groups try to find new homes for strays in the south.

Katie Powell, head of the non-profit Save A Dog Network Canada, said her group relocates 40 to 50 dogs a month from the north. Poverty, long absences by owners and a lack of veterinary services all lead to dogs being left to run loose, Powell said.

We use the term loosely owned, she said.

Left to fend for themselves, dogs gather in packs to breed and search for food.

Powell would like to see more veterinary services in remote communities and more awareness about the dangers of letting dogs roam free.

We need to educate the community members. We need to provide the resources and ... there needs to be long-term support for community members.

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OTTAWACanadas famed Snowbirds have hit pause on their airshow season after deciding they need more practice.

In a rare move, the team has abruptly cancelled scheduled appearances in six cities in Canada and the United States over the coming weeks.

Instead, the team, formally known as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, is returning to its base in Moose Jaw, Sask., for additional practice and training before returning to the airshow circuit sometime in June.

In a Facebook posting, the team said that despite several well-executed shows so far, more training was needed.

A reduced training period hampered by poor weather which continued into the show season, resulted in numerous cancelled practices. As a result, more training is required, said Maj. Patrick Gobeil, the Snowbirds team lead, said in the posting.

Lt. (N) Michele Tremblay, spokesperson for the team, said there were no safety issues in the shows they have flown this season. Instead, Gobeil noted that the consistency of the team was beginning to deteriorate. He acted right away before catastrophe, she said.

Its returning to our home base, practices twice a day, getting back to where hes happy with our consistency level, she said in a telephone interview during one of the refueling stops as the team flew back home Tuesday.

The Snowbirds fly nine single-engine Tutor jets in a range of dramatic maneuvers, often just 1.2 metres apart, with each pilot keeping their assigned spot in the formation. While seamless to most spectators, Tremblay said that at this point in the year, the formations should be tighter.

Scrubbed from the schedule are performances in Rochester, N.Y., Quonset Air National Guard Base, R.I., Fort Erie, Windsor, Whiteman, Mo. and Duluth, Minn.

In the wake of the decision by the Snowbirds to pull out, organizers in Windsor and Rochester cancelled their shows entirely.

Although we are disappointed, we support the Snowbird decision, understand the rationale and hope to see them again in Windsor soon, said Paul McCann, director of the Windsor airshow.

Flying from their base in Moose Jaw, the team spends the winter working on the maneuvers that will make up the show, starting first in loose formation with two or three jets, and then adding more aircraft and flying closer together as the pilots  all veteran air force members  become more proficient.

In the spring, the team moves to Comox, B.C., for several weeks of intense flying to work out the final kinks before hitting the road to airshows across the continent. But Tremblay said that training time this year was hampered by bad weather.

The team launched their 2017 season in Gatineau on April 30, where they were joined by the French demonstration team, Patrouille de France. The Snowbirds flew two more complete shows in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. and Memphis, Tenn.

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Toronto has opted, after years of study, to not follow Mississaugas lead with a dedicated levy to help pay the huge and rising costs of stormwater runoff and basement flooding protection.

Mayor John Torys executive committee on Tuesday shelved indefinitely, at his urging, a city staff proposal to go back to stakeholders for more consultations and then, in 2019, give councillors options for a stormwater charge.

Currently, Torontonians pay for pipe replacement and other parts of a stormwater management plan through water fees, based on consumption. City staff had suggested shifting more of the costs to owners of homes and businesses with the biggest hard surfaces, such as parking lots or roofs, responsible for the most rain and snow runoff.

In 2013, council told staff to look at options including a dedicated levy and big hikes in water fees.

Two years later council directed staff to draft the stormwater plan based on funding from a dedicated charge, with a possible extra charge for homeowners with parking pads.

Tory noted issues identified in the newest staff report, including an expected demand for exemptions from school boards, no guarantees that landlords savings from the change would be passed on to tenants, and residents wanting any fee based on the specifics of their property.

The mayor suggested, unlike staff, that those problems are insurmountable, so the idea should be shelved.

The report says what you have to try to do here, if you want to proceed in 2019 or 2029 or next week, is try to unscramble an egg, Tory said before his executive committee colleagues voted in favour of his deferral motion.

Councillor Gord Perks, a former Greenpeace campaigner, called the move shortsighted.

With most of our beaches and part of the island under water, theres never been a better time to provide a financial incentive for large property owners to manage their stormwater better, Perks said in an interview.

By making it expensive to have a lot of water running off your property, we provide an incentive for people to manage it onsite so it doesnt enter our storm sewers and flood our beaches.

Mississauga added last year, after a vote by that citys council, a stormwater charge on Peel region water bills ranging from $50 to $170 per year, depending on rooftop size. More than $30 million in annual revenues are being pumped into a dedicated fund to pay for stormwater infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.

Torontos annual costs include about $70 million spent on basement flooding protection measures.

In July 2013 a storm dumped 126 mm of rain on the city, flooding thousands of basements  often with overflow from city sewers that couldnt handle the deluge. More recently, Toronto got almost one normal months worth of rain in a week.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who rallied his Ward 7 York West residents to kill the proposed surcharge he dubbed a roof tax, said I told you so.

I said its not going to work, the suburbs are going to be upset  short of punching me in the chops, everybody just disregarded what some of us had to say, Mammoliti said.

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Politicians huff and planners puff, but for better or worse its developers who build the place up. Though most arent particularly good at it, theyre the ones who put their money where the citys mouth is.

Municipal officials do what they can to make bad projects good and just as often to make good projects bad. In either case, the city is always in reaction mode. Though mediocrity is ubiquitous, a few developers have moved beyond the bottom line to a point where they see the city not just as a cash cow but an investment worth making. Compare their projects, which are fully engaged in the urban context, with those that are in the city but not quite of it.

Two recent Toronto developments, The Well (at Front and Spadina) and Mirvish Village (the Honest Eds site at Bloor and Bathurst), represent the sort of projects cities can only hope for. Rather than fill the property with monolithic structures designed by accountants disguised as architects, these schemes embrace and celebrate the city in all its complexity.

Complexity, of course, is another hobgoblin of little minds, especially those of developers and planners. How much simpler it is to reduce a project to necessities and eliminate all the costly details that make things interesting  and expensive. The modernists, who remain largely in control, were good at this. Think of St. James Town, that agglomeration of midrise towers built in the 1960s for smart young people. Theyve all left and its 19-odd buildings now look cheap and depressingly dull. Even worse, at ground level theres nothing to enliven this earnest but deadly precinct.

The planning orthodoxies and architectural verities of the day, which viewed communities as a series of systems, were based on ideas and theories that had little to do with what people need, let alone want.

The worst excesses of 20th-century modernism are no longer acceptable, but you dont have to go far to find the updated version. Todays St. James Towns are made of glass and steel instead of concrete, and they sit on podiums occupied by lowest-common-denominator retail outlets. Theyre much more attractive, but what will they look like when theyve been around as long as the originals? One things certain, they wont be pretty.

Much of this is justified in the name of density. As projects like The Well and Mirvish Village make clear, however, there are other ways to achieve that goal. The former, a large, 7.8-acre mixed-use community, includes highrise and lowrise buildings in addition to structures new and old that perform a full range of functions. Walkways run through the site between Wellington, Front and Spadina. Unlike St. James Town, The Well addresses the surrounding streets. Drawings show a place that outsiders would use for anything from taking a shortcut to sitting down for a coffee.

Similarly, Mirvish Village includes a variety of building types and sizes. It embodies diversity and will have space for small shops as well as large. Its location on one of the most important intersections in Toronto can easily handle the intensification. This is a corner that desperately needs it. And by integrating existing buildings with new construction, Mirvish Village will avoid that monolithic look so characteristic of mega-developments. Its also a pedestrian-oriented precinct focused on passersby as well as residents.

In other words, both schemes avoid the temptation to differentiate and separate themselves from their neighbours. Instead, they make it clear they would rather fit in and belong to the larger context of the city. This may not sound significant, but in the age of the gated community, the guarded luxury condo and enforced exclusivity, the shift to openness and shared urbanity marks a turning point of sorts.

The development industry is growing up, not always happily, but Mirvish Village and The Well are prime examples of a new sophistication. They understand that the city is their greatest asset, not simply something to be tolerated. Despite the suburban mindset that dominates city council, more people than ever are choosing to live downtown.

It doesnt help that city-building is a lost art and that the civic bureaucracy can be the biggest obstacle to excellence. Timid, rule-bound and suffocating in red tape, official Toronto has never been more dependent on the mindfulness of developers. Neither have Torontonians.

Christopher Humes column appears weekly. He can be reached at jcwhume4@gmail.com

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Eighty-year-old Sung-hak Choi keeps active and healthy by volunteering in the community and caring for her seven grandchildren.

There are many challenges for immigrant seniors to stay healthy. Many come with their children, at an older age. They are cut off from the support network in their old country said Choi, who immigrated to Canada in 1982 with her family and four children.

I am lucky I can communicate in English. Language is the biggest barrier for these seniors. They are not familiar with the system here and must depend on other people who can speak English to help them.

With the latest census showing more seniors than children living in Canada, a new study by the Wellesley Institute has identified significant disparities in self-reported health and mental health between Canadian and immigrant seniors, especially those who are racialized  or racial minorities  and from non-English background.

Immigrant seniors, especially those who arrived more recently, reported poorer health status, in both overall health and mental health, than non-immigrant seniors, said the report, Seniors Health in the GTA, released Tuesday.

While only 19 per cent of non-immigrant seniors reported fair/poor health, 34 per cent of recent and mid-term immigrants and 26 per cent of long-term immigrants rated their health as fair/poor. Similar patterns were found in self-reported mental health.

According to census data released in May, there were 5.9 million people aged 65 and older in Canada, just above the 5.8 million children under 14  showing the countrys elderly population surpassing its youth population for the first time.

In the GTA, nearly two in three seniors were immigrants. Among all immigrant seniors, 43 per cent were visible minorities and 69 per cent reported a mother tongue that was not English.

The composition of immigrant seniors in the region is also changing rapidly, with 82 per cent of the recent arrivals being from a racialized background and 88 per cent reported a non-English mother tongue (versus 27 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively, among long-term immigrant seniors who have been in Canada for more than 30 years).

Two thirds of seniors in Greater Toronto are immigrants. The demographics has changed, the need for health care has changed, said Seong-gee Um, a co-author of the study with fellow researcher Naomi Lightman.

There has been more recognition of these changes, but not much has been done to address the gaps.

Based on the Canadian Community Health Survey data collected between 2007 and 2014, the researchers identified a sample of 10,125 seniors and compared the five social determinants of health (income, employment, education, sense of belonging and health-care access) with the self-reported health status among Canadians and immigrants who have been in Canada for different lengths of time.

They also examined if the health status of the immigrant group varied for those who were visible minorities and have a mother tongue beside English.

Overall, 40 per cent of seniors rated their general health as excellent/very good, while 67 per cent of seniors described their mental health the same.

However, the ratings differed significantly across the diverse senior populations by immigration status, length of time in Canada, mother tongue and if the subjects are racial minorities.

Um said the disparities in health have much to do with how ones racialized identity, English language ability and immigrant background impact negatively on the social determinants of health.

The study found:

 Racialized immigrants were nearly twice as likely as non-racialized immigrants to rely on social assistance as their main source of income (14.7 per cent versus 7.5 per cent).

 The rate of low-income for racialized seniors was 15.4 per cent, more than twice as high as the rate for non-racialized seniors (7.2 per cent).

 Three in 10 seniors with English as mother tongue have been employed or self-employed in the last year, compared to just 21.5 per cent among their non-English mother-tongue counterparts.

 Sixty per cent of recent immigrant seniors reported a strong sense of belonging, compared to 75 per cent for Canadians, 64 per cent of those who have been here for 21 to 30 years and 73 per cent who had been here for 31-plus years.

There is definitely a need for more targeted approaches in service planning and delivery to improve health equity and make sure we have proper ethnospecific care, said Um.

It doesnt necessarily mean we need additional resources. It just means we need to redeploy some of our existing resources to cater to the changing needs and be creative.

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MEXICO CITYJavier Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in Mexico.

Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the worlds deadliest countries for media professionals.

Valdez was shot to death in the early afternoon in the state capital of Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he co-founded, Riodoce. State Prosecutor Juan Jose Rios visited the scene and said authorities were investigating all possible motives, including that the killing could have been due to Valdezs work, though he gave no details.

The national newspaper Milenio reported late Monday that another journalist and her son were shot dead by gunmen in the city of Autlan in Jalisco, another state known for cartel activity. Jalisco officials did not immediately respond to phone calls seeking confirmation.

Riodoce reported that Valdez was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen. Valdez was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, which reported that he was pulled from his car and shot multiple times.

Images in Mexican media showed a body lying in a street covered by a blue blanket and surrounded by 12 yellow markers of the kind typically used to flag evidence such as bullet casings.

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned what he called an outrageous crime.

I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy, he tweeted.

The federal Attorney Generals Office said it was investigating.

Valdez was a nationally and internationally recognized journalist who authored several books on the drug trade, including Narcoperiodismo and Los Morros del Narco. The former is a look at the relationship between journalism and organized crime, and the latter chronicles the lives of young people swept up in Mexicos criminal underworld.

Jan-Albert Hootson, Mexico representative for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said Valdez and Riodoce were known as a rare source of independent, investigative journalism in Sinaloa.

And for that same reason, he and his magazine and his co-workers were always under threat of violence, Hootson said.

According to CPJ, in 2009 unknown attackers threw a grenade into the Riodoce offices days after it published an investigation on drug trafficking. No one was hurt.

By the groups count, some 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico for reasons confirmed as related to their work since 1992. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.

Journalists targeted in Mexico are most often local reporters in places where the rule of law is tenuous, but there have also been killings of journalists with national profiles such as Valdez and Regina Martinez Perez, who was slain in 2012. The recent spate of slayings includes Miroslava Breach, correspondent for La Jornada in the northern state of Chihuahua, who was gunned down in March.

On Saturday, seven journalists were assaulted and robbed by a mob of about 100 armed men on a highway in the troubled southern state of Guerrero.

Sinaloa has long been a drug trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. Experts say Guzmans arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the gang.

Drug trafficking there is a way of life, Valdez said in an October interview with Rompeviento TV. You have to assume the task that falls to you as a journalist  either that or you play dumb. I dont want to be asked, What were you doing in the face of so much death ... why didnt you say what was going on?

Hootson described Valdez as a warm, friendly man, well-liked by other journalists who frequently sought his help to navigate and understand the complex, dangerous state.

His door was always open. ... Everybody always deferred to his knowledge, Hootson said. And in that sense, its a huge loss for everybody.

In 2011, CPJ recognized Valdez with its International Press Freedom Award for his bravery and uncompromising journalism in the face of threats, the group said in a statement. His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country.

In a report this month, CPJ noted that most killings of journalists go unpunished in Mexico. It added that even when there are convictions, they are often limited to the immediate killer and do not clarify the motive.

By not establishing a clear link to journalism or providing any motives for the killings most investigations remain opaque, the report said. This lack of accountability perpetuates a climate of impunity that leaves journalists open to attack.

Valdezs slaying came less than two weeks after a CPJ delegation met in Mexico City with Pena Nieto and other top government officials.

Last Wednesday, the federal Attorney Generals Office replaced the head of its division responsible for investigating journalist killings. Ricardo Sanchez Perez del Pozo, a lawyer with a background in international law and human rights, took over the post.

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Even as many businesses are worried about hackers taking control of their computers as part of the worldwide WannaCry ransomware crisis, Disney may be facing a slightly different ransom situation of its own.

Hackers have obtained a copy of an upcoming Disney film and are threatening to release more and more snippets of it unless the company pays a huge sum of bitcoins, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Citing remarks that chief executive Bob Iger made to employees Monday, THR reports that the film could be the latest entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, or perhaps Cars 3. The company is reportedly refusing to pay.

A spokesman for Disney didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. But the report marks the latest attempt by hackers to wring Hollywood for cash. It comes two weeks after Netflix confirmed that hackers were responsible for leaking new episodes of its hit series, Orange Is the New Black.

It is unclear how much the hackers demanded of Netflix, but the company refused to pay.

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U.S. President Donald Trump asked the FBI director, James Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

I hope you can let this go, the president told Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Trumps request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and FBI investigation into links between Trumps associates and Russia.

Late Tuesday, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House oversight committee, demanded the FBI turn over all memoranda, notes, summaries, and recordings of discussions between Trump and Comey.

Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Comey created documenting what he perceived as the presidents improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation. An FBI agents contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

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Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior FBI officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Comeys associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter.

I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Trump told Comey, according to the memo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Trump told Comey that Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

Comey did not say anything to Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: I agree he is a good guy.

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that Gen. Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving Gen. Flynn, the statement said. The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.

Chaffetzs letter, sent to the acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe, set a May 24 deadline for the internal documents to be delivered to the House committee. If true, these memoranda raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede the FBIs investigation as it relates to Lt.-Gen. Flynn, Chaffetz wrote.

In testimony to the Senate last week, McCabe said, There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.

McCabe was referring to the broad investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The investigation into Flynn is separate.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment.

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Comey created similar memos  including some that are classified  about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

Trump fired Comey last week. Trump administration officials have provided multiple, conflicting accounts of the reasoning behind Comeys dismissal. Trump said in a television interview that one of the reasons was because he believed this Russia thing was a made-up story.

The Feb. 14 meeting took place just a day after Flynn was forced out of his job after it was revealed he had lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about the nature of phone conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Despite the conversation between Trump and Comey, the investigation of Flynn has proceeded. In Virginia, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas in recent weeks for records related to Flynn. Part of the Flynn investigation is centred on his financial ties to Russia and Turkey.

Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Trump told those present  including Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions  to leave the room except for Comey.

Alone in the Oval Office, Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Comeys associates.

Trump then turned the discussion to Flynn.

After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Comey shared it with senior FBI officials. Comey and his aides perceived Trumps comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret  even from the FBI agents working on the Russia investigation  so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation.

Comey was known among his closest advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question, according to two former confidants, who said Comey was uncomfortable at times with his relationship with Trump.

The Oval Office meeting occurred a little more than two weeks after Trump summoned Comey to the White House for a lengthy, one-on-one dinner in the residence. At that dinner, on Jan. 27, Trump asked Comey at least two times for a pledge of loyalty  which Comey declined, according to one of Comeys associates.

In a Twitter posting on Friday, Trump said that James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

After the meeting, Comeys associates did not believe there was any way to corroborate Trumps statements. But Trumps suggestion last week that he was keeping tapes has made them wonder whether there are tapes that back up Comeys account.

The Jan. 27 dinner came a day after White House officials learned that Flynn had been interviewed by FBI agents about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. On Jan. 26, acting attorney general Sally Yates told the White House counsel about the interview, and said Flynn could be subject to blackmail by the Russians because they knew he had lied about the content of the calls.

Democrats were aggressive Tuesday in seeking new hearings and opening an independent investigation. Republicans, on the whole, reserved judgment until they learned more or heard from Comey himself.

The country is being tested in unprecedented ways, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening. I say to all my colleagues in the Senate, history is watching.

Lawmakers in both parties were largely confounded by the latest controversy, one in a series of crises that have hobbled their ability to move forward with any of Trumps policy priorities.

As the day began, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who had been mostly silent on the presidents increasing troubles concerning Russia, carefully pleaded with the administration to stop impeding the Republican agenda. But even as he tried to change the conversation to health care, the focus remained firmly on the president and Russia.

I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda, McConnell said in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday morning, reflecting the Republican majoritys increasing frustration over the White Houses mishaps.

Later, when asked during a news conference on Capitol Hill whether he was concerned about Trumps competence in handling intelligence information, McConnell paused for several beats before responding, No.

By evening, the drama swelled with the news of Comeys memo, and Democrats began demanding an even more aggressive investigation of Trump.

Youre watching an obstruction of justice investigation developing in real time, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Senate judiciary committee. If there were ever any question about the need for an independent special prosecutor, this report is the nail on the argument.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the report solidified the need for Comey to brief lawmakers again. He said they also wanted to see his notes.

Enough is enough, Schiff told reporters. Congress needs to get to the bottom of this.

But most Republicans, who hold majorities in the House and Senate, were far more tempered in their assessments.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina suggested that he was withholding judgment, saying he was not going to opine about a memo.

If the FBI director feels the president did something inappropriate, he should come in and tell us, Graham told reporters.

Asked if he was any more inclined now to embrace a special prosecutor to investigate ties between Trumps associates and Russia, Graham said no.

Nobodys showing me a crime anywhere, he said.

In an interview on CNN, Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who typically votes with Democrats, was asked whether the revelation of the Comey memo had made impeachment proceedings more likely.

Reluctantly, I have to say yes, he said.

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SEOUL, KOREA, REPUBLIC OFCybersecurity experts are pointing to circumstantial evidence that North Korea may be behind the global ransomware attack: the way the hackers took hostage computers and servers across the world was similar to previous cyberattacks attributed to North Korea.

Simon Choi, a director at South Korean anti-virus software company Hauri Inc. who has analyzed North Korean malware since 2008 and advises the government, said Tuesday that the North is no newcomer to the world of bitcoins. It has been mining the digital currency using malicious computer programs since as early as 2013, he said.

In the attack, hackers demand payment from victims in bitcoins to regain access to their encrypted computers. The malware has scrambled data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses since Friday, but an expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize after the weekend, in part because security researchers had already defanged it.

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Choi is one of a number of researchers around the world who have suggested a possible link between the ransomware known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Researchers at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have found similarities between WannaCry and previous attacks blamed on North Korea.

While Chois speculation may deepen suspicions that the nuclear-armed state is responsible, the evidence is still far from conclusive. Authorities are working to catch the extortionists behind the global cyberattack, searching for digital clues and following the money.

We are talking about a possibility, not that this was done by North Korea, Choi said.

How it worked

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users computer files and displayed a message demanding the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data scrambled and likely beyond repair.

The hackers appeared to have taken control of computers and servers around the world by sending a type of malicious code known as a worm to file-sharing protocols. The worms quickly scanned computers with vulnerability, in this case the older versions of Microsoft Windows, and used those computers as hackers command and control centres.

Experts say that the rapid spread of the worm globally suggests it did not rely on phishing, a method whereby an email is sent to people with the aim of having them click on infected documents or links.

Rather, analysts at the European Union cybersecurity agency say the hackers likely scanned the internet for systems that were vulnerable to infection and exploited those computers remotely.

The worm then is likely to have spread through a channel that links computers running Microsoft Windows in a network. The channel is typically used to share files within a network or to link to a printer, for example.

The North Korea link

This method has been found in previously known North Korean cyberattacks, including the Sony hack in 2014 blamed on North Korea.

Since a July 2009 cyberattack by North Korea, they used the same method, Choi said. Its not unique in North Korea but its also not a very common method.

Choi also cited an accidental communication he had last year with a hacker traced to a North Korean internet address who admitted development of ransomware.

The Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab has said portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack. Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools.

But its possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection.

If North Korea, believed to be training cyber warriors at schools, is indeed responsible for the latest attack, Choi said the world should stop underestimating its capabilities and work together to think of a new way to respond to cyber threats, such as having China pull the plug on North Koreas internet.

We have underestimated North Korea so far that since North Korea is poor, it wouldnt have any technologies. But North Korea has been preparing cyber skills for more than 10 years and its skill is significant. We should never underestimate it, Choi said.

Follow the money

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments. There have been three accounts identified so far, and theres no indication yet that the criminals have touched the funds.

Although bitcoin is anonymized, researchers can watch it flow from user to user. So investigators can follow the transactions until an anonymous account matches with a real person, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with the California security company McAfee.

But that technique is no sure bet. There are ways to convert bitcoins into cash on the sly through third parties. And even finding a real person might be no help if theyre in a jurisdiction that wont co-operate.

Tell-tale signs

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said U.S. investigators are collecting forensic information  such as internet addresses, samples of malware or information the culprits might have inadvertently left on computers  that could be matched with the handiwork of known hackers.

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCrys kill switch. That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message hey, Im infected to the hidden address, Weaver said.

That means the very first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to patient zero  the first computer infected with WannaCry. That, in turn, might further narrow the focus on possible suspects.

The players

Forensics, though, will only get investigators so far. One challenge will be sharing intelligence in real time to move as quickly as the criminals  a tricky feat when some of the major nations involved, such as the U.S. and Russia, distrust each other.

Even if the perpetrators can be identified, bringing them to justice could be another matter. They might be hiding out in countries that wouldnt be willing to extradite suspects for prosecution.

It can take months or even years to gather all the evidence and build a case, said Costin Raiu, head of Kasperskys global research and analysis.

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ILFRACOMBE, ENGLANDAs a vast ransomware attack raced from computer to computer, infecting tens of thousands around the world, a young tech expert worked from his bedroom in England to bring the rampage to a halt.

But Marcus Hutchins doesnt consider himself a hero.

The 22-year-old credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he fights malware because its the right thing to do.

In his first face-to-face interview, Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, said late Monday that hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries.

Im definitely not a hero, he said. Im just someone doing my bit to stop botnets.

In the first hours after the virus struck Friday, the computer whiz and surfing enthusiast who lives with his family in a small seaside town in southwest England discovered a so-called kill switch that slowed the unprecedented outbreak. He then spent the next three days fighting the worm that crippled Britains hospital network as well as factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses around the world.

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WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows by encrypting users computer files and displaying a message demanding a ransom of $400 to $820 to release them; failure to pay would leave the data mangled and likely beyond repair.

Hutchins said he came across the solution when he was analyzing a sample of the malicious code and noticed it was linked to an unregistered web address. He promptly registered the domain, something he regularly does to discover ways to track or stop cyber threats, and found that stopped the worm from spreading.

Kryptos Logic chief executive Salim Neino said Hutchins quick work allowed him to slow the virus on Friday afternoon European time, before it could fully affect the United States.

The cyberattack that took computer files hostage around the world appeared to slow on Monday as authorities worked to catch the extortionists behind it, a difficult task that involves searching for digital clues and following the money.

Marcus, with the program he runs at Kryptos Logic, not only saved the United States but also prevented further damage to the rest of the world, Neino said in an interview from Venice, Italy. Within a few moments, we were able to validate that there was indeed a kill switch. It was a very exciting moment.

Neino said the worm was poorly designed  patched together and a sum of different parts with an unsophisticated payment system.

Kryptos Logic is one of hundreds of companies working to combat online threats for companies, government agencies and individuals around the world. Hutchins himself is part of a global community that constantly watches for attacks and works to thwart them, often sharing information on Twitter.

Its not uncommon for members to use aliases, to protect from retaliatory attacks and ensure privacy, and Hutchins has long tweeted under the handle MalwareTech, which features a profile photo of a pouty-faced cat wearing enormous sunglasses.

But he realizes his new-found fame will mean an end to the anonymity.

I dont think Im ever going back to the MalwareTech that everyone knew, said the curly-haired young man, shrugging and flashing a winning smile.

Hutchins mother Janet, a nurse, couldnt be prouder  and was happy to have the veil of anonymity lifted. When her son made the breakthrough, she said, she wanted to tell the world about it.

I wanted to scream, but I couldnt, she said.

And now hes a celebrity. Hes been in touch with the FBI, as well as British national cybersecurity officials.

His new life is likely to be a big adjustment. Hutchins works out of his bedroom in the seaside resort town of Ilfracombe on a sophisticated computer setup with three large screens. The concept of celebrity was clearly foreign to him.

He was nervous about giving an interview. The journalists were given the address minutes before it started, and had to provide a password before Hutchins would let them in. As he did a sound-check for the camera, he was so anxious he misspelled his last name, giving it as H-U-T-C-H-I-S, without the n. His mother made tea and coffee for the visitors.

Once Hutchins started to talk, he relaxed. Constantly smiling, he was shy and polite, and happy to explain how he fights malware. He said he was eager to get through the media frenzy and go back to his normal life.

I felt like I should agree to one interview, he said.

Many will be following his next moves. CyberSecurity Ventures, which tracks the industry, estimates global spending on cybersecurity will jump to $160 billion this year from just $4.8 billion in 2004. It forecasts expenditures will grow between 12 per cent and 15 per cent annually for the next five years.

While all other technology sectors are driven by reducing inefficiencies and increasing productivity, cybersecurity spending is driven by cybercrime, the firm said in a February report. The unprecedented cybercriminal activity we are witnessing is generating so much cyber spending, its become nearly impossible for analysts to keep track.

After more analysis, Hutchins, an avid surfer, plans to take a vacation  travelling to Las Vegas and California on the company dime.

One guess on what hell be doing:

Yes, surfing. On waves this time.

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NEW YORKOscar Lopez Rivera, the Puerto Rican nationalist who spent more than three decades behind bars for his role in a violent struggle for independence from the U.S., will be celebrated as a hero upon his early release Wednesday and honoured next month in New York Citys massive Puerto Rican Day parade.

We have to thank him for giving his life for our island, said Nelson Cortes, a 45-year-old waiter who supports Puerto Rican independence. Its exactly what we need right now.

But Lopez Riveras story isnt that simple: He was a member of the leftist group FALN that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings across New York, Chicago, Washington and Puerto Rico in the 1970s.

One still-unsolved bombing, at New Yorks landmark Fraunces Tavern in 1975, killed four people and injured more than 60. And those affected by the violence dont understand how Lopez Rivera can be seen as a hero. To them, hes a terrorist.

Ive had long hours in the middle of the night trying to figure out what I am missing, why he has all this support, said Diane Berger Ettenson, 70, who was six months pregnant when her husband, Alex Berger, was killed at the tavern.

Lopez Rivera, now 74, is to be released from house arrest in Puerto Rico, where he has been since shortly after president Barack Obama commuted the rest of his 70-year prison term. Hell be feted across the island and in Chicago later this week. Supporters also plan to honour him at the June 11 parade down New Yorks Fifth Avenue with the title Procer de la Libertad  National Freedom Hero.

That decision has caused conflict among some New York Puerto Ricans, the largest such community off the island, and a petition circulated slamming it.

Organizers of the parade, which draws more than 1 million people, insisted in a statement: Oscars involvement does not endorse the story that led to his arrest or any form of violence. Rather it is the recognition of a man and the struggle of a nation for its sovereignty.

The FALN, the Spanish-language acronym for Armed Forces of National Liberation, emerged in the mid-1970s, a turbulent time when militant groups such as the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army were operating.

On Oct. 26, 1974, a bomb went off outside a Manhattan bank around 3 a.m. Soon after, someone called the citys Associated Press bureau and directed them to an Upper West Side phone booth, where a FALN letter claimed responsibility for attacking major Yanki corporations.

Law enforcement caught up with the group years later when a drug addict ransacking a building in Chicago found bomb-making material and missives. Lopez Rivera, a Vietnam War veteran who came to Chicago from Puerto Rico as a child, was arrested during a traffic stop.

He and about a dozen comrades were convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States in Puerto Rico by force, armed robbery and lesser charges.

Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States and thus the Puerto Rican people have a right to fight for independence, using all means possible, Lopez Rivera said during the trial.

He and the others were never tied to specific bombings, which caused few injuries. He served more than a decade in solitary confinement after a second conviction for attempting to escape.

This is not about people fighting for independence. You can do that without killing people, said Anthony Senft, a former NYPD bomb squad detective blinded in one eye by a FALN blast in 1982.

When then-President Bill Clinton offered clemency to several of the jailed FALN in 1999, Lopez Rivera rejected the offer in part because it excluded two comrades. They have since been released, making his the longest-served sentence in the history of the Puerto Rican independence movement.

Those who have supported him, including former president Jimmy Carter, Pope Francis and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, say the draw is more about what they say he symbolizes: the plight of Puerto Rico.

The U.S. territory is currently mired in a decadelong recession for which many blame the U.S. government, partly because of the elimination of tax credits that many say led to the collapse of the islands manufacturing sector. But independence has received less than 6 per cent of the vote in four previous referendums.

One can disagree or agree with him politically, but he is a symbol of resolve and conviction, said Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who pushed for clemency.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the House of Representatives, said shes seen how Lopez Rivera unites the country.

I think that he paid a high price. And that it is important for this son to be returned, she said.

But for Joseph Connor, who was 9 when his dad, Frank, was killed at the tavern table, the struggle is much more personal.

Every time I have to defend my fathers life, it takes a little more of my life away, he said. My kids never met my dad, but they certainly had to deal with this. We never asked for it.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump is welcoming Turkeys president to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting Tuesday, even as Turkish officials fumed over a U.S. decision to arm the Syrian Kurds.

Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to address the Syrian civil war, the refugee crisis and the fight against the Islamic State group.

Shortly after Erdogan arrived in Washington, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his party members that U.S. co-operation with Syrian Kurds is not something acceptable for Turkey.

Turkey is determined to root out terror, Yildirim said, if necessary guarantees for Turkeys sensitivities and issues pertaining to Turkeys security are still not given.

Read the latest on U.S. President Donald Trump

The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to respond to the crisis in Syria, taking unprecedented action against Syrian President Bashar Assads government over its use of chemical weapons against civilians.

But with Iran and Russia working to bolster Assads government, the Trump administration is turning to regional allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for help as it crafts its Syria policy.

Complicating that effort, however, was an announcement by the Trump administration that it plans to arm Kurdish Syrian fighters in the fight against the Islamic State group. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the Kurdish militants in Syria for years and doesnt want them spearheading the Raqqa effort.

Turkey believes theyre linked to a Turkish Kurdish group, known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization.

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Trumps deal-making skills will be put to the test as he works to assure Erdogan that the decision to arm Kurdish fighters in Syria will not result in weapons falling into the wrong hands.

Erdogan arrived Monday in Washington, the Turkish flag hanging prominently outside the Blair House, a historic presidential guest house across the street from the White House.

The meeting is considered high stakes for the nascent Trump administration as it looks to engage regional allies in delicate security matters while enforcing international standards for human rights.

Trumps willingness to partner with authoritarian rulers and overlook their shortcomings on democracy and human rights has alarmed U.S. lawmakers of both parties. That puts added pressure on him to get results.

Trump has gone out of his way to foster a good relationship with Erdogan. After a national referendum last month that strengthened Erdogans presidential powers, European leaders and rights advocates criticized Turkey for moving closer toward autocratic rule. Trump congratulated Erdogan.

But Erdogan may not be amenable to accepting the U.S. military support for the Kurds in a quid pro quo. Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about six miles (10 kilometres) away. His government has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

Washington is concerned by rising anti-Americanism in Turkey that Erdogans government has tolerated since the July coup attempt. The U.S. also has pressed unsuccessfully for the release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor, and other detained U.S. citizens.

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The suspect whom police officer Stephen Mader confronted was visibly distraught, and his hands were behind his back.

Following orders from Mader, the man showed his hands, revealing a handgun. The officer ordered him to drop the weapon.

I cant do that, the man said, according to court documents. Just shoot me.

Just shoot me, he said a few more times.

Mader, who is white, didnt, thinking deadly force was not necessary. He believed that the man, Ronald Williams, who is black, was a threat to himself but not to others.

Another officer shot and killed Williams, but Maders decision to not shoot would cost him his job as a police officer for the city of Weirton, W.Va., according to allegations in a federal lawsuit he filed last week against his former employer.

The complaint described Maders 2016 encounter with Williams and alleged that city officials wrongfully fired Mader. Williams wanted to commit suicide by cop, the complaint said - and the handgun he was carrying was not loaded.

Timothy OBrien, Maders attorney, said what happened to his client is uncommon.

Its more ironic that we had many instances where an officer uses deadly force and nothing happens to them, OBrien told The Washington Post. Here, we have an officer who uses restraint and he gets punished. Odd would be an understatement.

Weirton Police Chief Rob Alexander did not return a call from The Washington Post seeking comment, but officials have told local media that Mader was fired for other reasons in addition to his encounter with Williams. Cy Hill, a private attorney for the city, said he cannot comment.

Williams death and Maders subsequent firing come at a time when some police departments use of deadly force, particularly in interactions with black suspects, has come under fire.

The incident occurred May 6, 2016, when police received a call from Williams girlfriend, who said hed threatened to kill himself with a knife. After finding out that an officer was on the way, Williams got his unloaded handgun from his car, saying he will get the officer to shoot him, according to the complaint.

The woman called 911 again and told the dispatcher that Williams had a gun but that it was not loaded. But Mader did not know that when he arrived at the scene because that information was not radioed over to him or to the two other officers who arrived later, OBrien said.

Mader tried to persuade Williams to drop the gun, believing he was not aggressive or violent, the complaint said. But Williams, his hands to his side, pleaded with Mader over and over to just shoot him.

The two other officers arrived. At that point, Williams waved the unloaded gun, and one of the two officers fatally shot him.

All three officers were placed on administrative leave as part of standard procedure. Mader returned to work a few days later, but he was again placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the incident.

He was fired June 7, 2016, for failing to meet probationary standards of an officer and apparent difficulties in critical incident reasoning, the complaint said. Hancock County Prosecutor Jim Davis later announced in a news conference that the shooting was justified.

In September, Mader spoke about the circumstances of his termination, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Alexander, the police chief, had told him that he placed the two other officers in danger and that he was fired because of that.

City officials held a news conference shortly after and said the Williams shooting was not the only reason they fired Mader. Alexander told reporters that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story was inaccurate and relied on a one-sided story from a disgruntled employee.

A news release from the city describes two other incidents that officials say led to Maders termination. One involved mishandling a death investigation by failing to determine that it was a homicide. The other involved searching a mans vehicle without probable cause or a search warrant and cursing at the mans wife. In the Williams shooting, officials said, Mader froze and did not communicate with the other officers involved.

We had done different avenues in terms of retraining, placing him with a different training officer, City Manager Travis Blosser told reporters. None of those seemed to work.

OBrien, however, said neither of the two other incidents resulted in disciplinary action against Mader. In the one about the mishandled death investigation, other officers more senior than Mader were at the crime scene, he said. OBrien added that hed talked to the woman who was cursed at and that she said she complained about the conduct of another officer, not Mader.

OBrien argued that officials fired Mader to give themselves cover for the use of force on the part of the other officer and that they painted him as a bad cop in retaliation for speaking publicly about the termination.

Its very difficult to discern someones motivation, he said. All that we can do is look at the facts and draw the reasonable inferences.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also reported that a four-page investigative report that Mader received with his notice of termination included two pages detailing his failure to shoot Williams and only briefly mentioned the other incidents.

Its very evident, very clearly established that the reason and determinative factor that resulted in Mr. Mader losing his job was that he chose to not use deadly force when he did not believe that the force was necessary under the circumstances, OBrien said.

Maders firing became a controversy in Weirton, a city of more than 19,000 people just west of the Pennsylvania border, and drew criticism toward police and city officials.

Whats disappointing is the phone call and the hateful messages and the emails that we have received today are just dumbfounding to me, Alexander said, according to NBC affiliate KTOV. All based on a one-sided statement. Thats changed my outlook on a lot of things. Thats devastating.

Maders firing surprised civil rights advocates.

Joseph Cohen, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia, said Mader did not just see a black man with a gun when he confronted Williams.

He was able to look at the full situation, the body language, words that used, and determined that Mr. Williams was not a threat to other people, Cohen said. We were flabbergasted. Here was a police officer who did everything that we want police officers to do.

Cohen said the Constitution prohibits police officers from using deadly force unless theres a probable threat.

The fact that he would be fired for that, for honouring Mr. Williamss constitutional right to not be shot, blew us away, the ACLU official said.

According to The Posts database of officer-involved shootings, police have fatally shot 354 people this year. Of those, 147 were white and 90 were black. Last year, police fatally shot 963 people. More than 400 of them were white, and more than 200 were black.

Recent shootings, including the deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn., intensified tensions between law enforcement and the black community. It also raised questions on when police officers should use deadly force.

Jack Dolance, an attorney for the Williams family, said the family believes Mader did the right thing.

He took his time and looked at RJ as a person and not a dangerous subject, Dolance told CNN.

OBrien also pointed to Maders previous experience in the military, having completed a tour in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Mr. Mader was trained to assess the threat level posed by individuals he encountered, including taking into account an individuals demeanour, physical appearance, and actions, the complaint said.

Mader was hired as a probationary officer for the Weirton Police Department in June 2015 and completed training at the West Virginia State Police Academy later that year.

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Who cares about the human rights of two Canadian toddlers held hostage by a Taliban-aligned group for their entire lives? What is Canada doing to secure their release? Canadas murky hostage protocols make it difficult to know.

The little boys Canadian father and American mother were last seen pleading for their family in a December Taliban video. They begged the U.S. government to negotiate an end to atrocities and threats against them. The children, born in captivity, fidget on their father Joshua Boyles lap, keeping a close eye on their captors filming. The haunting face of Caitlan Coleman, the little boys now-gaunt mother, flatly tells the remote video audience that her children have seen their mother defiled.

Since October 2012, the family has been held by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani Network, which seeks to exchange them for network members held by Afghanistan. This includes Anas Haqqani, who is now appealing a death sentence. The family is now believed to be in Pakistan. All four are threatened with death if Afghanistan executes Haqqani. The Boyle family in Canada has received no ransom demand.

In the context of ongoing armed conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Boyle/Coleman familys captivity is a war crime. The long list of human rights violations against them includes deprivation of their rights to liberty; freedom from torture, ill-treatment and gender-based violations; physical and psychological well-being, not to mention threats to their lives. In addition, the childrens special rights to protection, development and survival are overridden.

What are Canadas duties in the face of these violations? Victims  including their family in Canada  have the right of access to justice and remedies. The Convention on the Rights of the Child gives Canada duties to ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child, and requires Canada to give primary consideration to ensuring the best interests of the children.

The notion of a right to a remedy sounds hollow. More than four years after the capture of Boyle and Coleman and the births of their two children in 2013 and 2016, a dismal picture has emerged. The Toronto Stars series on hostage taking last year shows how Canadas hostage protocols relegate the fate of captive citizens and their families at home into the hands of leaderless and poorly resourced interdepartmental teams with continual staff turnover.

The result is inadequate communication with families, poor interdepartmental coordination, empty hostage war rooms and lost momentum for rescue. Government secrecy means victims families suffer alone and lack needed advocacy.

Families fear prosecution under anti-terrorism laws for paying ransoms. They may lose government help if they engage private hostage experts. Thus, they face dire consequences if they take action to free loved ones held captive but are kept in the dark about government action or inaction. The tragic consequences to hostages may be prolonged captivity or death.

Canadas government violates its obligations to provide access to justice by failing to ensure effective policies for the release of hostages and access to remedies by families. Urgent change to policy and protocols is needed if Canada is to work effectively with U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan governments and non-state actors to insist they all fulfil their human rights obligations by working to achieve the Boyle/Coleman familys release.

Canada needs a competent, well-coordinated system, properly led, staffed and funded, working in constant consultation and co-operation with families and any private experts they engage to assist them.

To ensure protection and fulfilment of rights of victims of hostage-taking, Canada must structure and equip its hostage response system to ensure cabinet-level leadership of a collaborative multi-departmental team that can engage quickly and effectively in high-level diplomatic co-operation that will maximize possibilities of rapid release of hostages and accountability of perpetrators. Canada could consider the 2015 U.S. example, including removing the threat of prosecution of families for paying ransoms privately. The value of prohibiting ransoms remains controversial.

Boyle and Coleman were travelling in Central Asia when they were captured in Afghanistan in 2012. Their innocence, youth and citizenship in Canada and the U.S. made them ideal hostages. They  and their children  are innocent of wrongdoing or involvement in Afghanistans conflicts. This family is no less entitled to protection against human rights violations than diplomats, aid workers or journalists. Instead of inspiring public outrage at their captivity, they have been forgotten.

The Canadian government must act immediately at the highest levels to make the rights of the children and their parents a top priority.

Catherine Morris is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria where she taught international human rights for over a decade. She has taught courses in peace and conflict studies on five continents and chairs the non-profit Peacemakers Trust. She monitors human rights in several countries for Lawyers Rights Watch Canada.

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With the recent increase in refugee claimants crossing unannounced into our country from the U.S., Canadas approach to refugees is once again being hotly debated.

While there is a commonly held view amongst Canadians that we have been, and continue to be, a very welcoming country when it comes to refugees and other immigrants, the reality is that over the last 150 years nearly every large wave of immigration has faced significant resistance. And, in pretty much every case, the arguments against allowing in whichever group it is at the time have largely been the same.

Our lack of historical memory concerning our often-conflicted attitude toward immigration prevents us from learning from the past and leads us to keep repeating the same tired debate over and over again.

When a boatload of desperate Tamils arrived off of Vancouvers shores in 2010, the Harper government declared it a national emergency, recalled parliament from summer recess, passed new laws and argued that the 400 or so bedraggled people posed a significant threat to our security.

Canada had virtually the same reaction in 1939 when a boatload of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution on the MS St. Louis tried unsuccessfully to land in Nova Scotia, and in 1914 when the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver waters carrying Sikhs.

Like many Canadians, I have always been proud of the role that Canada played in providing sanctuary to African Americans fleeing slavery via the Underground Railway. However, at the time, many of our ancestors viewed the fleeing slaves as illegals who, because they were not properly screened, represented a potential security threat and integration challenge. Sound familiar?

Exactly the same arguments are now being used against the few hundred poor souls that are currently crossing our borders each month fleeing persecution in the hope of finding a better life.

What is interesting is that over the years, the reasons cited by those opposed to each major wave of immigration and refugee resettlement have almost always been the same. They have argued that immigration from this particular group should be minimized because these people have a different culture, a different system of values and beliefs; that they wont be able to integrate; that they will be a drag on our economic resources; that there are too many and as a result that they will swamp our society and change our national identity. That they are a security threat.

In the early 1900s immigration from China was resisted since there was a fear that numerically they would swamp us and that our security was threatened by the Asian diseases they would bring with them.

From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s there was considerable hostility to Irish Catholic immigration. For many, the Irish represented an undesirable cultural group whose allegiance was more to Rome and the Catholic Church than to Canadian laws and values.

Leading up to and during the Second World War practically no Jewish refugees were allowed into the country because, it was argued, they had different religious and cultural beliefs and practices, which would make it hard for them to integrate. And once again, the security concerns were raised  how could we be sure that no German agents were hiding amongst the valid Jewish refugees, ready to attack our country once they were resettled into Canada?

Given that the same alarmist, anti-newcomer arguments have proven, in every case, to be invalid over the last 150 years, perhaps its time that we acknowledge there is nothing to fear from these waves of immigration. Instead, lets recognize that, as in the past, each new wave does in fact end up integrating into our society and contributing to making this country the vital, culturally rich and economically strong mosaic that it is.

Canadians should have greater faith in the overarching strength and resilience of our Canadian identity and the universal appeal of our values when concerns about newcomer integration are raised. We have a wealth of historical experience to show that this faith would be well-founded.

Andrew FitzGerald is an ex-corporate banker who co-founded and is the chair of the Ripple Refugee Project and is a steering committee member of Canada4refugees.org.

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Vodafone Group plc (VOD) - Get Free Report shares rose to the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard Tuesday after a bullish 2018 outlook offset weaker-than-expected full year profits and slowing revenues.

Vodafone said its adjusted operating earnings rose 5.8% from last year to 14.149 billion ($15.6 billion), missing the 15.1 billion estimate complied by FactSet. Group service revenues for the full year, Vodafone said, rose 1.9% to just under 42 billion, while group revenues fell 4.4% to 47.631 billion, a figure that fell short of the 52.5 billion FactSet consensus. Vodafone's total dividend per share was lifted 2% to 14.77 pence, the company said.

Vodafone will post a reported loss for the year of 6.1 billion thanks in part to a net tax impairment of 3.7 billion linked to its operations in India. However, Looking into the current fiscal year, Vodafone said it expects to see organic adjusted operating earnings growth of between 4% and 8% and free cash flow of "around 5 billion", which would be a 20% jump from the year ended in March.

"Our focus on excellence in customer experience has enabled further improvements in our overall commercial and financial performance during the year," said CEO Vittorio Colao. "Sustained investment in network quality has provided the platform to offer more generous plans to our mobile customers in Europe, stabilising contract ARPU, and has allowed us to capture strong data growth in our emerging markets operations."

"We continue to be Europe's fastest growing broadband provider, seizing the opportunities created by convergence and winning revenue market share, supported also by our Enterprise business which continues to outperform its peers," he added.

Vodafone shares were marked 3.75% higher in the opening 30 minutes of trading in London, the biggest jump since early January, to change hands at 219 pence each, taking the year-to-date gain to around 9.33%, firmly ahead of the 5.6% advance for the Stoxx Europe 600 Telecommunications Index.
European auto stocks fell across the board Tuesday after industry data showed a pullback in sales last month led by a near 20% collapse in U.K. registrations following changes to vehicle tax rates.

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association said overall registrations fell 6.8% in April to 1.23 million vehicles, although the pace of sales over the first four months of the year is still 4.5% higher than last year at 5.49 million vehicles.

U.K. sales fell by 19.8% last month, the AECA said, thanks in part to new tax rules that apply a flat annual charge to most new cars sold after April 1 while registrations in Germany fell 8%.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index was marked 0.66% lower in early trading as investors pulled back from the benchmark's 18 month high.

Peugeot (PEUGF) was one of the report's notable decliners, with group registrations falling 6.7% and the number of new vehicles registered by the Opel brand that it intends to buy from GM (GM) - Get Free Report fell by 13.3% making it the hardest hit of all large manufacturers during April. Opel also lost significant market share last month, according to AECA data, with its piece of the collective pie falling 50 basis points to 5.9%. Peugeot's share held steady at 10.5%

Peugeot's fell 0.6% in the opening hour of Paris trading to change hands at 19.13 each, trimming the year-to-date gain to around 23%.

Ford (F) - Get Free Report saw the next most significant decline after the number of new cars registered by the brand fell by 11.5%, with the bleak data came on a morning when markets were already speculating that the American auto giant could cull as much as 10% of its global workforce.

Ford also gave up 30 basis points of market share during the month, helping to feed share gains at the German car firms and elsewhere across the market.

German car makers were a mixed bag during the month, with Volkswagen (VLKAY) seeing new vehicle registrations drop by 9%, while BMW (BMWYY) posted a 6.4% fall.

Daimler (DDAIF) , which recently saw its Mercedes-Benz vehicles become the best selling luxury cars worldwide, saw registrations fall by just 2.5% during the period.

Nonetheless, Daimler stock was down in line with the broader trend in auto stocks Tuesday, changing hands 0.46% lower at 68.75. BMW and Volkswagen were down 0.30% and 0.38% respectively.
America retail colossus Walmart (WMT) - Get Free Report is bracing for competition out of Europe, as German grocer Lidl is making its way to the U.S. with plans to open 20 stores in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina by the summer, the Wall Street Journal reports. Another 200 stores are planned over the coming years.

Lidl has a habit of disrupting grocer markets, having turned the U.K. market on its head when it arrived there in 1994. Another German grocer already in the U.S. since 1976, Aldi, is looking to boost its American business. The company plans to spend $1.6 billion to remodel and expand its 1,300 U.S. locations and build another 650 by next year.

Walmart isn't just sitting on the sidelines however, executives are preparing to compete with the German companies, as well as its U.S. peers.

"The work that's been done to be positioned to compete started happening two years ago," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said, according to the Journal.

Retail's downturn giving you the blues? Jim Cramer has a list of retailers that are currently oversold, giving investors a leg up one of the market's most volatile sectors.
Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the country's telecoms regulator, said today that it has no immediate plans to restrict access to Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report, after threatening to block the site last week.

The telecoms regulator said the block of Facebook was averted because it expects the social media giant to comply with a court order directing it to remove content deemed a threat to national security.

The regulator had given Facebook a Tuesday deadline to take down 131 web addresses containing content it saw as threatening security or violating strict lese majeste laws.

"Facebook has cooperated well in terms of taking steps to block the URLs that we asked them to in the past," Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of Thailand's telecoms commission, said.

(Facebook stock is held in Jim Cramer's charitable trust Action Alerts PLUS. See all of Cramer's holdings with a free trial.)
Shares of Russian search site Yandex (YNDX) - Get Free Report were lower by 1% to $28.64 on Tuesday morning, after Ukraine imposed sanctions on some of Russia's largest Internet groups. Yandex said that it does not see the sanctions as having a material negative impact on its consolidated results.

Ukraine is a small part of Yandex's business, the company told Reuters, noting that it regretted Ukraine's decision to deny the 11 million users in the country access to the website.

Ukraine says the sanctions are a way to protect against cyber attacks.

Jim Cramer and the AAP team are discussing fallout from first-quarter earnings from Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report and Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report and how to play the big tech names. Get his insights or analysis with a free trial subscription to Action Alerts Plus.
Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said today that he anticipates that the Trump administration will notify Congress of plans to renegotiate NAFTA at the beginning of next week, Reuters reports.

Guajardo also stated that he would meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Vietnam on Thursday, adding that a dispute over sugar with the U.S. could be resolved within two weeks.

Formally notifying Congress of renegotiation intentions would commence a 90-day period for discussions.

"We're going to make some very big changes, or we're going to get rid of NAFTA once and for all," President Trump said last month while speaking at a tool maker in Kenosha, Wis.

Over on Real Money Jim Cramer give advice to investors looking at how to play the Trump Trade. Get his insights or analysis with a free trial subscription to Real Money.
Impinj, Inc. operates a cloud connectivity platform in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its platform, which comprises multiple product families, wirelessly connects individual items and delivers data about the connected items to business and consumer applications. The company's platform comprises endpoint ICs, a miniature radios-on-a-chip that attaches to a host item and includes a number to identify the item. Its platform also consists of systems products that comprise reader ICs, readers, and gateways to wirelessly provide power to and communicate bidirectionally with endpoint ICs on host items, as well as to read, write, authenticate, and engage the endpoint ICs on those items; and software and algorithms that enables its partners to deliver use cases, such as retail self-checkout and loss prevention, and warehouse pallet and carton tracking to end-users. The company primarily serves retail, supply chain and logistics, aviation, automotive, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, sports, food, datacenter, travel, banking, and linen and uniform tracking sectors through distributors, system integrators, value-added resellers, and software solution partners. Impinj, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, Offshore, Canadian Manufacturing, U.S. Manufacturing, and Retail segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen and heavy oil in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. This segments Foster Creek, Christina Lake, Sunrise, and Tucker oil sands projects, as well as Lloydminster thermal and conventional heavy oil assets The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, Clearwater, and Rainbow Lake operating in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as interests in various natural gas processing facilities. The offshore segment engages in the exploration and development activities. The Canadian Manufacturing segment includes the owned and operated Lloydminster upgrading and asphalt refining complex, which upgrades heavy oil and bitumen into synthetic crude oil, diesel fuel, asphalt, and other ancillary products, as well as owns and operates the Bruderheim crude-by-rail terminal and two ethanol plants. The U.S. Manufacturing segment comprises the refining of crude oil to produce diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, asphalt, and other products. The Retail segment consists of marketing of its own and third-party refined petroleum products through retail, commercial, and bulk petroleum outlets, as well as wholesale channels. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
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One of the most popular posts on TreeHugger ever was one on a mirrored treehouse hotel in Sweden; it totally broke our site. So with some trepidation I post herein the OOD; it is a design out of Estonia for an instant prefab mirrored hotel room pod; just add to Airbnb and you are in business.

 Maris Tomba for OOD

OOD hotel rooms are designed for short-term accommodation and intended for fast growing Airbnb and Booking.com markets. OOD hotel rooms are sized as small houses, delivered to you as a complete set. The distinctive design of OOD hotel rooms will help you maximise your return on investment.



 OOD

It is plug and play, coming with everything you need.

OOD is convenient to manage for its lessor  functions such as temperature, lights and locks are adjustable remotely. The interior design of OOD puts the customers comfort first. The room is furnished with custom made bed, carefully chosen mattress, pillows, adjustable lights, fast internet connection, large touch screen for the ultimate movie night experience, Bose sound system, adjustable floor heating, well chosen books, sound isolation, etc.



 OOD

And why is this on TreeHugger? because no doubt it could be applied to other uses, and it is quite well designed to some pretty green and slick specifications. The 10' x 20' box has walls insulated with 8" of mineral wool, while the glass has a really good metric U-value of 1.1 W/m2K, which by my rough calculation is around R-10 in the usual BTUs per hour per square foot. There is an air to air heat pump and hot water heater.

 OOD

They do make it sound so easy, but it does need six posts, a sewer, septic system or tank, along with water, electricity and internet. That can be hard to do and expensive for a little cabin out on its own. But as an accessory building, or if you bought a few of them, it is not so bad. And if your land happens to be in Estonia (which right now is the only place they sell it) you don't need a building permit.

 OOD

It is a lovely little unit that would work well as a little cottage, bunkie or even tiny home; According to Lucy Wang in Inhabitat, It costs US$ 65,000 inclusive of value added tax.

 OOD

 Maris Tomba for OOD

In our original post on the mirrored treehouse, the first comment was negative: "This tree house will undoubtedly kill hundreds of birds as they cannot perceive the difference between the reflected environment and the real environment. A green building is not truly green if it kills wildlife." On Curbed, Jenny Xie looks at all that mirrored glass in this model and asks:

What about the birdies? In this case, OOD has stated that its working with a local specialist on tactics to keep birds away. The method that has been successful so far is installing artificial eagles on the roof (which do not seem visible from these photos and would foreseeably detract from the structures clean lines.) From September 2016 there have not been any dead birds yet, the company writes.

 Maris Tomba for OOD

Lots more photos on Inhabitat and at OOD.
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Ukraine is ready to cooperate with the Israeli business and to facilitate the implementation of investment projects between the two countries.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said this, commenting on the meeting with the Israeli businessmen during the official visit to the country.

"During the meeting with representatives of business in Israel, I stressed that we are open to cooperation with Israeli business and are ready to contribute as much as possible to the implementation of investment projects that will ensure the development of trade and economic cooperation between the countries and strengthening the economy of Ukraine," the PM stressed, noting that the investment development is one of the priorities of the Government's activity.

Groysman added that the Ukrainian Government has always supported the legal, transparent business. We will do everything possible to make every entrepreneur successful. I am ready to serve the business as this is a real investment in success," Groysman stressed.

ol
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will pay a state visit to the Republic of Malta on May 16-17.

This has been reported on the website of the President of Ukraine.

"A state visit of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the Republic of Malta will be held on May 16-17, 2017. During the visit to the country, which currently holds the presidency of the EU, the Head of the Ukrainian State will meet with the President and the Prime Minister of Malta, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Malta," the statement said.

During the meeting, a number of bilateral documents that will contribute to the intensification of cooperation between Ukraine and the Republic of Malta in various fields will be signed.

ish
President Petro Poroshenko will hold consultations with the leaders of the G7 countries in the near future.

The Head of State said this on the air of ICTV channel, the Presidents press service reported on Tuesday.

"I'm going to hold consultations with the leaders of the Group of Seven in the near future. I'm starting with Germany. On May 20, I leave for Berlin to hold informative negotiations with Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel," the President said.

Poroshenko has recalled that the meeting of the Chancellor of Germany with newly elected President of France Emmanuel Macron was held, and noted that consultations will continue with both countries as participants of the Normandy format. "We will thoroughly discuss the issue of coordination of our actions," he said.

The President has also said that telephone conversations and meetings with other leaders of the G7 countries are also planned in order to prepare for the summit at the highest level.

ish
Ukrainian Defense Minister General of the Army of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak states that extension of sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation should remain in force in the future.

He said this during a meeting with Dr. Norbert Rottgen, the Chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Foreign Affairs, the press service of the Defense Ministry reports.

"All countries of the world should understand what is happening and have political unity regarding the situation in Ukraine. The extension of sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation should remain in force, as none of the clause of the Minsk agreements has been fulfilled by Russia," Poltorak said.

He thanked Dr. Norbert Rottgen for the consistent and clear position that he and his colleagues provided to Ukraine on all world platforms and during events where there was a discussion about the events in our country.

ish
Malta will continue to support Ukraine's European integration aspirations, as well as its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

President of Malta Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said this during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Malta will continue to support Ukraine and its desire to be closer to the EU, as well as Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she said.

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has welcomed the visa waiver for Ukraine, stressing that her country will do everything possible to improve the Ukraine-EU interaction and expressed clear support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Head of Ukrainian State expressed gratitude to the President of Malta for an unwavering support of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, particularly in the issue of the policy of sanctions against the country-aggressor.

ish
Ukraine is interested in deepening cooperation with Israel in the military and technical sectors.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said this during a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Jerusalem, the Governments portal reports.

"Ukraine is interested in developing mutually beneficial cooperation with Israel in the military and technical sectors," Groysman said.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister informed the Israeli side about the situation in Donbas, in particular about the latest shelling by the pro-Russian militants of Avdiivka, as a result of which civilians died.

He called on the Israeli Government to extend assistance to Ukraine that is needed to cover the requirements of the country's security and defense sectors.

According to Groysman, Kyiv is interested in Israel's experience of medical treatment and rehabilitation of people who took part in hostilities.

ish
Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed ambitious hopes yesterday for Asian and European governments to work closely on finance, law enforcement and a broad range of other issues under a Beijing-led trade initiative as leaders of 30 countries ended a meeting to promote the effort.

The Belt and Road project is Chinas biggest foreign initiative to date as Beijing looks for global stature to match its economic success. It calls for expanding trade across Asia, Africa and Europe by investing in ports, railways and other facilities, but governments including Russia, Washington and India are uneasy Beijing also is using it to gain political influence.

Xi said the project has no political agenda. But he also expressed hope governments that participate will coordinate policy in areas from finance and law enforcement to technology and education.

It is our hope that through the Belt and Road development, we will unleash new forces for global economic growth, Xi said at a brief news conference at a conference center in the hills north of the Chinese capital.

The two-day meeting included Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and presidents or prime ministers from Italy, Hungary and Greece, as well as most of Chinas Asian neighbors, but no major Western leaders.

Britain, France and Germany were represented by finance or trade officials. The U.S. delegation was led by the Asia director of President Donald Trumps National Security Council.

Xi acknowledged the initiative is in its early stages and faces daunting obstacles.

One single feather does not make a bird fly high, he said.

The Chinese leaders declaration of plans to pursue cooperation in areas well beyond trade could increase potential obstacles.

Chinese officials insist the initiative is purely commercial, but foreign diplomats and political analysts also see an effort by the Communist Beijing government to promote its ambitions of rewriting global rules on trade and security and to reduce the U.S. presence in Asia.

Diplomats have expressed concern Beijing is promoting a vision of trading networks centered on great powers such as China, which would erode the rules-based system under the World Trade Organization in which all competitors are treated equally.

Trumps plan to focus on domestic issues and downplay foreign affairs has given Beijing an opening to try to play a bigger leadership role in trade, climate and other global issues.

China is the biggest trading partner for all of its Asian neighbors and a growing investor. But other Asian governments are uneasy about Beijings strategic ambitions, especially after it built artificial islands and military bases in the South China Sea to enforce its claim to most of the region.

Trumps decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed regional trade pact, has left Asian governments that want to use ties with Washington to offset Chinas growing dominance off balance.

Xi said Beijing wants Belt and Road to improve cooperation in making industrial and financial policy, speed up development of infrastructure, make trade and investment flow more easily and improve interaction on education and other people-to-people ties.

Other governments welcome Chinese investment in a region that the Asian Development Bank says needs to spend USD7 trillion this decade on ports, railways and other trade-related facilities to keep economies growing. But governments have expressed concern Beijing might use Belt and Road to promote Chinese exports by encouraging its neighbors to adopt Chinas industrial standards for railways and other goods.

Xi tried to mollify concern about a potential Chinese-dominated trade bloc by saying Belt and Road is meant to be an open and inclusive platform for development.

Earlier yesterday, the Chinese leader appealed in a speech to the visiting foreign leaders to pursue greater openness and cooperation and to reject protectionism.

China has promoted itself as a global champion of free trade in response to pressure in the United States and Europe for restrictions on imports, despite complaints by Beijings trading partners that China is the most-closed major economy.

Also yesterday, the Philippine defense minister, who attended the Beijing meeting, said he signed a letter of intent with a Chinese military contractor to purchase weapons for Manilas army, navy and air force.

The minister, Delfin Lorenzana, said the Chinese government was offering a loan at the tune of about $500 million to finance the purchases. Lorenzana said no decisions had been made about what arms might be bought or how much. Joe McDonald & Matthew Brown, Beijing, AP

Putin sits down at piano, plays soviet songs

After speaking at Beijings summit Sunday morning, Putin headed to meet President Xi Jinping at his residence. Putin is habitually late for meetings, but this time he was the one who was made to wait. So, Putin played some songs on Xis piano. Russian state television showed excerpts of at least two tunes he played  Moscow Windows and City on the Free Neva  both Soviet classics.
UNICEF/Khuzaie

RABAT, 15 May 2017  According to a recent UNICEF analysis covering 11 countries in the Middle East and North Africa[1], poverty continues to impact at least 29 million children  one in four children in the region. These children are deprived of the minimum requirements in two or more of the most basic life necessities including basic education, decent housing, nutritious food, quality health care, safe water, sanitation and access to information.

Child poverty is about so much more than family income  its about access to quality education, healthcare, a home and safe water. When children are deprived of the basics, they are at risk of getting trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, said Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), at a regional conference on child poverty held in Rabat, Morocco.

Country level information on child poverty has been aggregated for the first time in the MENA region. While important progress has been made in most countries to reduce poverty, the number of children living in poverty continues to be high. Countries affected by conflict are seeing a rapid regression of gains made in past decades.

The studys key findings include:

Lack of education was found to be one of the key drivers of inequality and poverty for children. Children who live in households that are headed by an uneducated family member are twice as likely to live in poverty. One quarter of children aged 5 to 17 are not enrolled in school or have fallen two grades behind.

Almost half of all children live in inadequate housing with poor flooring and overcrowding.

Almost half of all children are not fully immunized or were born to mothers who did not get enough antenatal care or birth assistance.

One in five children are forced to walk more than 30 minutes to fetch water or use unsafe drinking water. More than one third of children live in homes with no tap water.

Major challenges stand in the way of measuring the impact of poverty on children and taking collective action towards poverty alleviation. To start with, countries in the region dont consistently collect data on poverty while widespread and ongoing violence and displacement make it extremely difficult to get data from conflict-affected countries. Absence of a full understanding of childrens reality, including the most marginalised or invisible, risks that existing policies and actions fall short from addressing child poverty effectively.

The return on investing in the most vulnerable children now is a peaceful and prosperous region in the future said Cappelaere. It takes a combination of true leadership and courageous public and private investment from governments, civil society, private sector, individuals and the international community.

###

Notes for editors:

[1] Algeria, Comoros, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, the State of Palestine, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. These countries make over three quarters of the population in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Boston, MA (UroToday.com) As primary RCC is increasingly identified on radiographic imaging, and as imaging modalities continue to improve, we continue to learn more about how these modalities can help guide our management and help predict outcomes.In this single-institution, retrospective study of 43 patients with small renal masses undergoing robotic partial nephrectomy following an abdominal MRI, the authors correlate radiographic findings with surgical outcomes, specifically the risk of positive surgical margins. As this is an important clinical outcome during partial nephrectomy, and as MRI becomes more common, this study provides some basic initial knowledge regarding its utility.In this study, the MRI was reviewed by a Urologic Oncologist in all cases. The urologic oncologist then graded the psuedocapsule according to a scale they developed called the i-Cap score. Of note, 26 underwent enucleation and 17 underwent partial nephrectomy. 88.4% were RCC on final pathology.Of the 43 patients, 14 were cystic masses and 29 were solid renal masses. For both categories, they identified the MRI phase that best exposed the parenchymal-tumor interface (PTI). A traditional hypointense band on T2 Haste/SSFSE was characteristic in most of the cystic masses (13/14), while patients with solid masses exhibited a pseudocapsule best seen on either T2 post-contrast scans (15/29) or T2 Haste/SSFSE (14/29). A capsule was seen in all the patients, but it was circumferential in 76.7% of cases. A smooth PTI was seen in 36 cases, but 3 patients had evidence of infiltration on MRI. In terms of outcomes, 2 of those 3 with pre-operative infiltration on MRI had positive surgical margins (PPV 66%). Two of three patients had had standard partianl nephrectomy, while one had enucleation.Limitations / Discussion Points:1. Nature of partial nephrectomy  the majority of the patients had enucleation, which makes it a little more different to comment on positive surgical margin status. Ideally, standard partial nephrectomy or partial nephrectomy would be ideal.2. Width of the PTI not indicated  this would be useful information for planning for surgical margins needed at the time of the partial nephrectomy.3. How does it change management?  the authors do not specifically comment on this, but it is likely to early to make any conclusion.4. As 12% were not RCC at the time of final resection, how could surgical margin status be assessed? This was not made clear.While the authors conclude that an MRI is useful in delineating the PTI, this is very clearly an early experience, retrospective study. Of 200 eligible robotic partial nephrectomies, only 40 had pre-operative MRI  likely contributing to a selection bias.Presented by: Arpeet ShahCo-Authors: Shalin Desai, Connor Snarskis, Mara Hehemann, Kristin Baldea, Gopal N. GuptaWritten By: Thenappan Chandrasekar, MD, Clinical Fellow, University of TorontoTwitter: @tchandra_uromdat the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting - May 12 - 16, 2017  Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Boston, MA (UroToday.com) There are numerous subtypes of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and the aggressiveness of the subtypes can vary substantially. As the literature grows, we have come to realize that there are many relatively indolent, incidentally found subtypes of RCC. Multilocular cystic clear cell renal cell neoplasm of low malignant potential, also known as multilocular cystic renal cell carcinoma (MCRCC) is one of those subtypes.In this study, the authors provide their single-institution retrospective review of 76 cases identified over an 8 year period. In their institution, this represented 1.7% of the 4345 cases of RCC. The authors subsequently go on to note that most of the patients were asymptomatic and young (mean age 46.7 years). Their main findings, however, are that the nuclear grade was unrelated to the TNM stage (P=0.451). Of the 76 patients, 66 (86.8%) were followed up for a median of 52 months (<5 years), and no tumor recurrence or metastasis was found, no differences were found in the prognosis of different TNM groups.With no recurrence or progression, I feel it is hard for them to make any conclusion on the effect of TNM stage and nuclear grade on outcomes. Additionally, as the majority of the patients had <4 cm, Fuhrman grade 1, pT1a, we wouldnt expect poor prognosis anyway. The authors should be careful about making such statements with limited follow-up and no events.Additionally, the authors did not comment on the role of renal tumor biopsy in their practice and whether that may affect management.However, prior work by our colleagues at the University of Toronto demonstrated similarly good outcomes with MCRCC (Bhatt et al. 2016) using a provincial cancer registry in Canada. Both of these studies establish that MCRCC is likely an indolent disease that is being over-treated.The authors do suggest that follow-up can be extended to help reduce unnecessary imaging.References:Bhatt JR, Jewett MA, Richard PO, Kawaguchi S, Timilshina N, Evans A, Alibhai S, Finelli A. Multilocular Cystic Renal Cell Carcinoma: Pathological T Staging Makes No Difference to Favorable Outcomes and Should be Reclassified. J Urol. 2016 Nov;196(5):1350-1355. doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2016.05.118. Epub 2016 Jun 21.Presented by: Teng Li, PhDCo-Authors: Kan Gong, Xianghui Ning, Shuanghe Peng, Jiangyi Wang, Qun He, Xinyu YangWritten By: Thenappan Chandrasekar, MD, Clinical Fellow, University of TorontoTwitter: @tchandra_uromdat the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting - May 12 - 16, 2017  Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Boston, MA (UroToday.com) Renal tumor biopsy (RTB) has been demonstrated to be a safe, feasible procedure without the risk of seeding that was concerning historically. As the authors note, up to 30% of small renal masses (SRMs) are benign, and of those that are malignant, many have low-metastatic potential. With a well-known history of being strong proponents for RTB prior to treatment, the authors initiated a survey to better assess RTB utilization in the management of SRMs and to identify the barriers to a more widespread adoption of RTB.A survey contained questions regarding the physicians practice patterns, RTB utilization and potential barriers of RTB was sent to all 767 members of the Canadian Urological Association and the Quebec Urological Association, with 223 (29%) ultimately responding, including 10 residents/fellows. After excluding 35 due to incomplete responses, the remaining were divided as follows: 38 (20%) practiced in an academic center, 72 (38%) in a university-affiliated center and 78 (41%) in a community/rural hospital. 25% had training in urologic oncology.Only a minority of responders (12%) requested RTB in >75% of cases while 53% never performed or performed RTB in less than 25% of cases. Physicians with urologic oncology fellowship-training were more likely to request a biopsy than endourologists (p=0.01) and physicians with no fellowship-training (p=0.003). Number of years in practice and volume of consults were not significant predictors.The greatest management-related barrier was the perception that biopsy wouldnt alter management (36%). On the other hand, the risk of obtaining a false-negative or a non-diagnostic biopsy was reported as the greatest pathology-related barrier to a more widespread adoption of RTB in the management of SRMs.Ultimately, the authors states that RTB remains underutilized in Canada, and emphasize that education is needed to help improve its utilization. However, it should be noted that RTB is likely more utilized in Canada than in the United States. As such, if utilization is so low even in Canada, it is likely much lower amongst AUA members.Limitations:1. Survey sent to only Canadian Urologists and CUA/QUA members.Presented by: Patrick Richard, MDCo-Authors: Patrick O. Richard, Lisa Martin, Luke Lavallee, Phil Violette, Maria Komisarenko, Kunal Jain, Michael Jewett, Antonio FinelliINSTITUTION(S): Multi-institutional, CanadaWritten By: Thenappan Chandrasekar, MD, Clinical Fellow, University of TorontoTwitter: @tchandra_uromdat the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting - May 12 - 16, 2017  Boston, Massachusetts, USA
During the last few days, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) found several cases relating to identification documents forgery, the PSP spokesperson said in a press conference held yesterday.

In the first case reported, the police found three men, between the ages of 30 and 50 years, in activities deemed suspicious by the officers patrolling the Rua Norte do Patane on May 11 around 6.25 p.m.

Questioned and asked to present identification documents, the men produced six documents (three Macau IDs of non-permanent residents and three Construction Safety Cards issued by the Labor Affairs Bureau).

The officers were suspicious of the documents, as their print quality was poor.

Further questioning revealed that all of the documents presented to the police officers were fake and had been obtained a few days earlier through a person in mainland China who charged them RMB200 each for the forgeries.

The men also told the police that the purpose of obtaining such documents was to be able to come to Macau to gamble.

In a separate case, the PSP encountered a case of a forgotten identification card, this time of a Hong Kong resident aged 40.

The case unfolded when the police were called to intervene in a dispute between two people at the Avenida da Ponte da Amizade.

Arriving at the location, officers requested identification from the parties involved which was when they spotted a Hong Kong ID card that appeared to be of poor quality and was consequently suspected of being a forgery.

Further investigation led to the suspects acknowledgement that the card was in fact a forgery that he had acquired it with the help of a man he had met online on a social media platform for the amount of HKD600.

Although it was not clear why the neighboring region resident decided to acquire a forged ID, the man has allegedly justified such actions with the fact that he wanted to come to Macau to gamble and he had lost his own Hong Kong ID.

Old swindling case finally closed

A Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson claims that a case dating back to 2012 has finally come to an end with the arrest of the ringleader of a group responsible for several scams involving local residents.

The case from early 2012 involved a total of six women from mainland China who attracted local residents to the scam by claiming to have received a large inheritance from family members in the mainland and deciding to create an investment fund for charitable purposes.

Investors in such funds would be able to capitalize their investment tenfold.

The scam was said at the time to have granted the ringleaders earnings of about MOP7.6 million.

From January to September of 2012 the PJ detained and brought to justice five of the women involved, however the ringleader managed to escape tothe mainland.

The women were all tried in Macau and sentenced to over four years imprisonment.

One of the suspects was tried in absentia and recieved a similar sentence.

On May 12  almost five years after authorities began their search  the leader was finally found in Zhuhai due to a complaint made by a local resident. The woman had tried once again to perform the scam, but on mainland targeting local residents.

In cooperation with the Zhuhai authorities and through the mechanism of cooperation between the judiciary authorities of both sides, the woman was arrested and finally delivered to local authorities.
Boston, MA (UroToday.com) Katherine Fleshner, a medical student, presented her interesting study focusing on the concordance between physician documented and patient reported comorbidities in the setting of prostate cancer urology visits. She described a novel web tool utilized in the urology clinic at Memorial Sloan Kettering and called: Baseline Medical History. This online tool allows patients to report their own medical history from home before their doctor visit. Subsequently, the physician would review the information with the patient during the clinic visit and modify it accordingly, before being entered into the electronic medical record. This was origionally implemented in order to lower the burden of multiple interviews. The authors aimed to examine the concordance between this novel online patient filled tool and the traditional physician-documented collection of comorbidities.Overall, comorbidities were collected for 213 new prostate cancer visits to the urology clinic through an online survey, before the clinical encounter. The frequency distributions of comorbidities as reported by patients before physician review was compared to those documented by physicians for a sample of 298 consecutive patients presenting to the same urology clinic before the survey began.The results demonstrated that patient were extremely satisfied with the survey. Comorbidities and life expectancy estimates were highly comparable between the two groups. A few comorbidity categories were reported in higher frequency in the patient-reported group compared to the physician-documented group. These included: cardiovascular (25% vs. 20%), vascular-related (8.5% vs. 4.4%), neurologic (7.5% vs. 1.7%), gastrointestinal (30% vs. 25%), musculoskeletal comorbidities (30% vs. 21%), as well as other cancers (30% vs. 12%). In contrast, genitourinary comorbidities, including lower urinary tract symptoms and erectile dysfunction were more commonly reported in the physician group (68% vs. 53%).In summary, in this elegant presentation it was shown that patients completing a novel online web-based tool, focusing on their medical history, provide relatively accurate and complete information, even before physician review.Presented by: Katherine Fleshner, London, Ontario, CanadaWritten By: Hanan Goldberg, MD, Urologic Oncology Fellow (SUO), University of Toronto, Princess Margaret Cancer CentreTwitter: @Goldberghananat the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting - May 12 - 16, 2017  Boston, Massachusetts, USA
The United Nations says conflict-related incidents in Afghanistan killed more than 280 children in the first four months of this year, a 21 percent increase compared to the same period in 2016.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, released the figures Monday, noting the number of child fatalities is the highest for the same comparable period since it began documenting civilian casualties in 2009.

"Between 1 January and 30 April 2017, UNAMA preliminarily recorded 987 child casualties [283 deaths and 704 injured]," the mission said.

While ground fighting was blamed for 42 percent of the child deaths, the rest were caused by explosive remnants of war, aerial operations by pro-government forces and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, planted by insurgents.

UNAMA said it was deeply concerned by the continued increase in child deaths this year and called on parties to the conflict to take urgent steps to reduce harm.

The latest incident of Afghan child casualties took place Sunday when an unexploded mortar round killed five boys from the same family in the eastern Laghman province. The victims ranged in age from six to 12 years old, according to local officials.

"A family destroyed in seconds. This horror is just one of too many incidents documented at the onset of this fighting season," UNAMA quoted its chief, Tadamichi Yamamoto, as saying.

It noted that child deaths have risen during 2017, largely as a result of persistent use of indirect and/or explosive weapons in civilian-populated areas and due to the use of illegal and indiscriminate improvised explosive devices.

"Many of the more than 700 children injured in conflict-related incidents have suffered life-changing injuries, including loss of limbs, as well as significant and lasting trauma such as witnessing the death of siblings, parents, destruction to their homes or displacement," according to UNAMA.

Civilian casualties, however, are expected to increase this year because of a widely anticipated escalation in Afghan hostilities.

The Taliban has vowed to expand the conflict to all Afghan provinces, and U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is considering sending several thousand additional troops to help Afghan forces reverse insurgent gains.
A cholera outbreak in Yemen has killed at least 180 people since April 27, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.

Two years into a war between Houthi rebels and government forces allied with a Saudi-led Arab military coalition, which has killed more than 8,000 people, Yemen has declared a state of emergency in the capital Sana'a over the outbreak.

Fighting has taken a toll on medical facilities in the war-torn country, as more than half of Yemen's facilities, which are now operated by Houthi rebels, no longer function.

The U.N. says some 17 million of Yemen's 26 million people lack sufficient food and at least three million malnourished children are in "grave peril."

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick and other international officials met with the health ministry in the Houthi-run capital of Sana'a, urging aid donors to assist to avoid an "unprecedented disaster."

Yemen, which is the Arab world's poorest nation, is now classified by the World Health Organization as a level three emergency, alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.

Cholera is highly contagious and can be contracted from ingesting contaminated food and water.
Tehran has warned Islamabad that it would hit bases inside Pakistan if the government does not confront Sunni militants who carry out cross-border attacks.

An anti-Iran Sunni Muslim militant group called Jaish-ul-Adl (JA), which calls itself the Army of Justice, took credit for an April 26 ambush in which 10 border guards were killed in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Tehran said the militants crossed into Iran from neighboring Baluchistan province in Pakistan.

Here's what is known about the group:

What is Jaish-ul-Adl?

Jaish-ul-Adl  known as JA  is a Sunni insurgent group in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province and fights Iranian security forces in the region.

The group was founded in April 2012 by Abdul Rahim Mollazehi, a Baluch militant, after the Iranian regime captured and executed Abdul Malek Rigi, former leader of the insurgent Jundullah group that claimed to be fighting for "equal rights of Sunni Muslims in Iran," in June 2010.

JA was first comprised of members of a weakened Jundullah. JA's first attack killed at least 10 members of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Forces (IRGC), days after the group formed.

Where is JA based?

JA operates primarily in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, but it also operates from bases in neighboring Baluchistan province in Pakistan where it gets support from local Baluch tribes.



"Most militant groups in Baluchistan are based on tribal connections," said Abdullah Haqyar, who told VOA he is a former JA member. "These tribes have a tradition of helping and harboring members of allied tribes. Many tribes in Pakistani Baluchistan support their oppressed brothers in Iran."

Local tribes control large swaths of the region and neither Iranian nor Pakistani security forces have a permanent presence in the region.

What does JA fight for?

The group describes itself as a "political-military" movement and claims to be fighting to achieve justice for the "oppressed Sunni Baluch" people.

Sistan-Baluchistan, which is home to many Sunni Baluch and Sistani Persians, is one of the most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken areas in the country. The minority Sunnis in Iran are highly underprivileged and have been deprived of political and economic opportunities.

According to Iranian lawmaker Hamid Reza Pashang, over 70 percent of the province population lives in "absolute poverty."

JA says it must fight the Shi'ite-dominated regime in Iran because it persecutes the Sunni minority.

"Since this regime only uses the language of force and humiliation, we have no other means but to fight back," JA said in a video statement in late 2012.

JA also said it opposes Iran's military involvement in Syria where elite Iranian forces and the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah are supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.

Who are JA fighters?

According to a statement on the group's website, JA is "composed of young Iranian Sunnis who have come together to defend the oppressed to the divine command."

The exact number of JA members is unknown, but according to some reports, it has over 500 members and followers. The number of active fighters is said to be over 100. Some of its fighters are seasonal, including some from Pakistan, who are called upon for occasional operations against Iranian security forces.

How many attacks has JA conducted?

Since 2012, JA has claimed responsibility for conducting more than 200 attacks and killing and abducting more than 150 Iranian security forces members.

In its attacks, JA has taken credit for shooting down a military helicopter and destroying dozens of army vehicles. Iranian authorities have confirmed some of the JA claims.

In addition to the April 26 ambush, which killed 10 border guards, JA claimed responsibility for attacks that killed eight border guards in April 2015 and 14 in October 2013 near the Pakistani border.
A second U.S. appellate court this month is considering whether to uphold the suspension of travel restrictions for the nationals of six countries to the United States, as well as the arrival of refugees.

Three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Seattle on Monday morning, after the government challenged a decision by a judge in Hawaii that paused the most substantive parts of a revised executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March.

The court did not immediately issue a ruling.

At the center of the case is a question of whether the 90-day ban on most travelers from six majority-Muslim countries and a 120-day stop on refugee arrivals is discriminatory and unconstitutional.

"The executive order sets out national security justifications, but how is a court to know whether in fact it's a Muslim ban in the guise of national security justification?" Judge Ronald Gould asked.

The government rescinded a January version of the order, replacing it after lawsuits across the country alleging what was then a seven-country ban on travel disproportionately targeted Muslims. Trump, who called the second order on March 6 a "watered-down" version, until last week maintained a 2015 statement on his campaign website that called for a ban on Muslims coming to the United States.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall attempted to distinguish between Trump's words before his inauguration Jan. 20, and his executive orders in the following weeks and months, in the Seattle courtroom.

"People say things on a campaign trail and then they take an oath to uphold the Constitution, they form an administration and they consult with them on the policies that they develop, and we shouldn't start down the road of psychoanalyzing what people meant in the campaign trail," Wall argued.

Attorney Neal Katyal, who represented the plaintiffs, told the judges the president showed a "repeated pattern" of behavior that supports a discriminatory attitude toward Muslims, and a ruling in favor of the government would set a precedent for discrimination.

"This is something new and unusual in which you're saying, 'This whole class of people, some of which are dangerous, we can bar them all,'" Katyal argued.

Monday's hearing followed similar arguments in a Richmond, Virginia, court last week, when a panel of 13 judges in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments regarding a Maryland judge's suspension of the 90-day moratorium on travel from six majority-Muslim countries. The court has not yet ruled in that case.

The administration has to win both cases to fully reinstate the order.

If it loses either case, the next step would be the Supreme Court  a step Trump enthusiastically tweeted in favor of last month.
A New Hampshire man who was injured in a house explosion is thanking Siri for saving his life.

Christopher Beaucher says he was checking on his mother's vacant cottage in Wilmot on May 1 when he saw something suspicious and went inside.



He tells WMUR-TV that when he switched on a light, the house exploded.



"The whole place caught fire," Beaucher said. "Part of it collapsed while I was in it during the initial explosion, so I couldn't really tell where I was."



Beaucher's face and hands were badly burned. He grabbed his cellphone but was unable to dial because of his injuries. He says he somehow asked his iPhone's voice-controlled virtual assistant Siri to call 911, believing he was going into shock.

A spokeswoman for Apple said Monday that statistics on Siri being used for emergencies weren't available, but noted some recent emergencies in which it was used. Those include three boaters off the Florida coast in April who used the water-resistant phone when their craft capsized; a 4-year-old boy from London who used his mother's thumb to unlock her iPhone and called Siri after she collapsed at home in March; and a man in Vancouver who collapsed, became paralyzed, and was able to use his tongue to use Siri.



Beaucher is undergoing treatment for his injuries and says he hopes to return to his job as a cook and tend to his farm.



"I'm very, very, extremely lucky to be alive," he said.



The New Hampshire state fire marshal's office is investigating the explosion.
Ankaras apparent intention to build a wall along its border with Iran is being met with skepticism by some regional experts who question its practicality and whether it will curb cross-border terrorism as Turkey intends.

A report last week in the Hurriyet Daily News, written by a reporter close to the Turkish government, quoted unnamed Turkish authorities as saying the wall is necessary to keep out militants in Iran associated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting the Turkish State for greater autonomy.

The PKK has a lot of camps on Iranian territory along the border with Turkey, the newspaper quoted a government source as saying. These camps house between 800 and 1,000 Kurdish fighters. They cross the border, commit attacks in Turkey and run back.

As a precaution against this, we are going to build a wall along 70 kilometers of the border near Agr and Igdr, and we will close the rest of it with towers and iron fences, the official said.

The wall proposal copies what Turkey has done along its Syrian border since 2014. Turkey put up concrete barriers topped with razor wire along about 900 kilometers of its border with Syria at a cost of $672 million. The enhanced border security is designed to keep out Islamic State infiltrators and forces associated with PKK in Syria.

Iran supports plan

Tehran reacted positively to the Turkish proposal along the Iranian border, according to Iranian state-run media.

"We are not principally against Turkey's project to build a wall on the Iranian border, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official told the Tehran Times. Yet every action that takes place on the border should be reported to Tehran."

Tehran hopes a wall will alleviate the smuggling of clothing and other goods from Iran, an illicit trade Tehran says is worth $2 billion annually.

We even encourage this should happen sooner and the flow of contraband to Iran should be curbed, an Iranian government source told Tehrans IRNA news.

But some experts say walling and fencing Turkeys border with Iran, which stretches more than 500 kilometers, is impractical.



Considering the fact that most of this borderline is inaccessible, mountainous and in high altitude, building such a wall all along the border is neither possible nor rational, said Savas Bicer, a retired Turkish Army colonel with expertise in Turkey-Iran border affairs.



And as for curbing cross-border activities of the PKK, Rebwar Karim Mahmood, an Kurdish Iraqi international affairs expert, said the PKK is skilled at getting insurgent help from across Turkeys borders in Iran, Syria and Iraq.



Building a wall on some parts of the border with Iran cannot prevent PKK who know the border and its passages like the back of their hand from conducting operations or passing into Turkey, he said.

Syria wall working



But Turkish analyst Hakki Uygur, who runs the Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara, cities what the Turkish government calls a success in the barriers with Syria.



A Turkish military colonel told Reuters recently that smuggling attempt numbers, which peaked in 2014 at 3,474 incidents, dropped to 77 in 2016. Illegal crossing attempts fell to 8,531 from more than 12,000 over the same period, Reuters reported.

.

We can surely say that such a wall can prevent PKK and other hostile groups from moving and conducting operations in Turkey at some points if not completely, Uygur said of the Turkish-Iran border proposal.



Turkey has long blamed Iran for providing safe harbor for PKK affiliates inside its territory and accuses the Iranian regime of turning a blind eye to PKK activities. The Iranian border town of Maku is known by locals as a hub for PKK activity with much of it centered in a mosque in one district.



They [PKK] hold meetings, recruit and even fundraise in that mosque built by a notorious local smuggler  all under the nose of Iranian security forces, Ahmed Najmuddin a Maku resident told VOA.
In South Africa on Monday, the Constitutional Court heard arguments on whether the upcoming parliamentary vote of no-confidence against President Jacob Zuma should be a secret ballot. The court's ruling could have political consequences.

Lawyers representing the opposition parties argued in favor of their petition before a full bench of the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.

"The core submission is that the function of the court is to create conditions in which members of the National Assembly can carry out their constitutional duty of oversight and that the only way to create that condition is to allow a secret ballot," said Geoff Budlender, a legal representative of the opposition. "The fear is that if there is an open ballot, you will be expelled from the party and expelled from parliament through that mechanism. That is why there needs to be a secret ballot."



Lawyers representing President Jacob Zuma and the speaker of parliament countered that no-confidence votes have never taken place in secret. They argued the constitution does not allow the courts to tell parliament how to conduct its business.

Outside the court, members of other opposition parties, civil society organizations, and religious groups demonstrated in support of a secret ballot.

Zuma has faced mounting criticism following several corruption scandals in the past year and a controversial Cabinet reorganization last month. Members of his ruling coalition have been among those calling on him to step down.

While the questions before the Constitutional Court are legal, the stakes are highly political.

The opposition needs to garner a two-thirds majority in parliament to vote Zuma out. To get it, the opposition would need some ANC lawmakers to break ranks.

The ruling African National Congress has already instructed its MPs to back Zuma.

Speaking to reporters last month, ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe said a secret ballot will not change the way the ANC lawmakers vote.

"There will be no ANC member who will vote in either way for a motion of the opposition. We are members of the ANC in a party political system and we will not vote against the ANC," said Mantashe.

Once the court delivers its judgment on how the vote can be conducted, parliament is expected to set a date to consider the motion of no confidence. Zuma's second elected mandate does not expire until 2019.
U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Tuesday said information about terrorism and threats to international aviation that President Donald Trump shared with Russian diplomats last week was "wholly appropriate" and did not compromise U.S. intelligence sources.

McMaster stood by his earlier statement that the premise of U.S. news accounts was false that Trump had divulged highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak about a possible Islamic State plan to smuggle bombs hidden in laptop computers aboard airliners. The president met Lavrov and Kislyak behind closed doors in the Oval Office last week.

WATCH: McMaster on Whether Trump Shared Classified Info with Russians

"I'm not concerned at all," said McMaster, who said he was at the Oval Office meeting. "That conversation was wholly appropriate to the conversation, and I think wholly appropriate with the expectation of our intelligence partners.

"The president in no way compromised any sources," McMaster said.

The national security adviser also rejected news reports that Trump may have inadvertently divulged the source of the information. "The president wasn't even aware of where this information came from," said McMaster. "He wasn't briefed on the source or the method of the information either."

WATCH: McMaster on Whether President Knew Source of Shared Info

Israel reported as source

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the source of the information was Israel, one of America's closest allies in the region. That report has since been corroborated by diplomatic and intelligence sources.

In an off-camera briefing, White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not comment when asked if Israel was the source. But he did say the U.S. is pleased with "the strong relationship that we have with Israel, and appreciate the exchange of information that we have with them."

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, also would not comment on the intelligence. But in a statement, he expressed satisfaction with his country's ties with the United States. "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States, and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Dermer said.

White House reaction

Spokesman Spicer said the White House is clearly irritated at the leaks that have dominated the news since the story was broken by The Washington Post. "The idea that someone who has been given access to information is pushing that information out to the media undermines our national security," he said. "And I don't think there is any other way to say it than it is, frankly, dangerous."

The spokesman argued that it was appropriate for Trump to discuss the subject of airline terrorism with Russian officials.

"Russia would be a logical partner in the fight against attacks on airliners, since it has also been a victim of a deadly airliner attack," Spicer told reporters. "There was information about a shared aviation threat. They had an airplane that was taken down in October 2015 in which 200 lives were lost. They shared in disgust a shared threat that our two countries have. I think that was extremely appropriate."

Trump made only indirect comments about the controversy Tuesday during an event with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We had a very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia. Our fight is against ISIS," Trump said, using an acronym for Islamic State. "We want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible."

Trump on Twitter

Earlier, Trump used Twitter to mount a defense of his "absolute right" to share information with the two Russian diplomats. He tweeted that he met with Lavrov and Kislyak to urge Russia to "greatly step up their fight" against Islamic State and terrorists.

Schumer calls for transcripts

As the controversy over Trump's remarks unfolded, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the White House to release a transcript of Trump's meeting with the Russian officials to lawmakers on congressional intelligence committees.

"If the reporting is accurate," Schumer said, "in one fell swoop, the president could have unsettled our allies, emboldened our adversaries, endangered our military and intelligence officers [the] world over, and exposed our nation to greater risk."

Republican Senator John McCain, a key foreign affairs expert, said Trump's disclosure risked the cooperation of allies in future intelligence gathering operations. "It's a serious concern and we have to know who it is he [Trump] may have unmasked [the intelligence source] by giving that information" to the Russian officials, McCain said.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday denied that Trump revealed any classified information to Lavrov and Kislyak, calling the reports "fake."

Analysts disagree

Analysts noted that a U.S. president has the power to declassify nearly any information, so what Trump did does not appear to be illegal. But intelligence officials have expressed concern that the information, provided by a U.S. partner government, could harm crucial international relationships.

Several former CIA directors have spoken publicly, differing sharply in their opinions about the gravity of Trump's information sharing episode.

Leon Panetta, who headed the agency for two years under President Barack Obama, described Trump as a "loose cannon." Speaking on CNN, Panetta said the president "must come to terms with the idea that his words now have gravity as the leader of the free world."

James Woolsey, who was CIA chief in the Clinton administration, told VOA the president was within his rights to divulge classified information as long as he did not reveal where it came from or how it was gathered. "It depends entirely on whether the president and anybody with him disclosed sources and methods," Woolsey said. "They said they did not. Therefore, it's a nothing burger."
Global cyber chaos was spreading yesterday as companies booted up computers at work following the weekends worldwide ransomware cyberattack.

The extortion scheme created chaos in 150 countries and could wreak even greater havoc as more malicious variations appear. The initial attack, known as WannaCry, paralyzed computers running Britains hospital network, Germanys national railway and scores of other companies and government agencies around the world.

As a loose global network of cybersecurity experts fought the ransomware hackers, Chinese state media said 29,372 institutions there had been infected along with hundreds of thousands of devices.

The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, a nonprofit providing support for computer attacks, said 2,000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were reported affected so far.

Government agencies said they were unaffected. Companies like Hitachi and Nissan Motor Co. reported problems they said had not seriously affected their business operations.

In China, universities and other educational institutions were among the hardest hit, about 15 percent of the internet protocol addresses attacked, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

That may be because schools tend to have old computers and be slow about updates of operating systems and security, said Fang Xingdong, founder of ChinaLabs, an internet strategy think tank.

Railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services also were affected, Xinhua said, citing the Threat Intelligence Center of Qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security services company.

Elsewhere in Asia, officials in Japan and South Korea said they believed security updates had helped ward off the worst of the impact.

The most public damage in South Korea was to cinema chain CJ CGV Co. It was restoring its advertising servers at dozens of theaters after the attack left the company unable to display trailers of upcoming movies.

The attack was disrupting computers that run factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems in scores of countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain, India and Japan, among others. Russias Interior Ministry and companies including Spains Telefonica, FedEx Corp. in the U.S. and French carmaker Renault all reported troubles.

Experts were urging organizations and companies to immediately update older Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows XP, with a patch released by Microsoft Corp. to limit vulnerability to a more powerful version of the malware  or to future versions that cant be stopped.

Paying the ransom will not ensure any fix, said Eiichi Moriya, a cyber security expert and professor at Meiji University.

You are dealing with a criminal, he said. Its like after a robber enters your home. You can change the locks but what has happened cannot be undone. If someone kidnaps your child, you may pay your ransom but there is no guarantee your child will return.

New variants of the rapidly replicating worm were discovered Sunday and one did not include the so-called kill switch that allowed researchers to interrupt its spread Friday by diverting it to a dead end on the internet.

Ryan Kalember, senior vice president at Proofpoint Inc. which helped stop its spread, said the version without a kill switch could spread. It was benign because it contained a flaw that prevented it from taking over computers and demanding ransom to unlock files but other more malicious ones will likely pop up.

We havent fully dodged this bullet at all until were patched against the vulnerability itself, Kalember said.

The attack held users hostage by freezing their computers, popping up a red screen with the words, Oops, your files have been encrypted! and demanding money through online bitcoin payment  USD300 at first, rising to $600 before it destroys files hours later.

Just one person in an organization who clicked on an infected attachment or bad link, would lead to all computers in a network becoming infected, said Vikram Thakur, technical director of Symantec Security Response.

Thats what makes this more troubling than ransomware was a week ago, Thakur said.

The attack has hit more than 200,000 victims across the world since Friday and is seen as an escalating threat, said Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, Europes policing agency.

The numbers are still going up, Wainwright said.

Microsofts top lawyer is laying some of the blame at the feet of the U.S. government. Brad Smith criticized U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and National Security Agency, for stockpiling software code that can be used by hackers. Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers who launched this weekends ransomware attacks used a vulnerability that was exposed in NSA documents leaked online.

It was too early to say who was behind the onslaught, which struck 100,000 organizations, and what their motivation was, aside from the obvious demand for money. So far, not many people have paid the ransom demanded by the malware, Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth told The Associated Press. Yuri Kageyama & Louise Watt, Tokyo, AP
The United States accused Syria on Monday of carrying out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burning their bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital of Damascus.

The U.S. State Department said as many as 50 prisoners a day are being hanged at the Saydnaya prison. It alleged that the government of President Bashar al-Assad then is using the crematorium to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said Syria "has sunk to a new level of depravity," with the continuing military assistance of Russia and Iran, two countries that have supported the Assad government's six-year fight against various rebel groups attempting to overthrow it. About 400,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Russia's role in question

Jones stopped short of accusing Moscow of involvement with the crematorium, saying the State Department had not presented evidence of the mass killings to Russian officials.

But he said the U.S. has "an ongoing conversation with the Russians, talking about the problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created. And we have urged ... the Russian government to hold the regime responsible for these atrocities."

U.S. President Donald Trump last month ordered a missile attack on Syria after the Damascus regime's alleged chemical weapons assault on civilians.

Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as Trump has said, the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior."

Soldiers, civilians treated same

The State Department official said that "since Syria's civil conflict began in 2011, the Assad regime has treated opposition forces and unarmed civilians as one and the same  committing widespread violations of international law, including the law of armed conflict and human rights law.

"Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented," Jones said, "we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya."

He said the U.S. claim is based on information from credible humanitarian groups and its intelligence community.

Amnesty International report

Jones did not give an official estimate for the total number killed at the Saydnaya facility. But he cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the prison between 2011 and 2015.

He alleged that the Syrian government had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period.

"The idea of a crematorium of course has dreadful connotations for those with a memory," Anthony Billingsley, a Mideast lecturer at the University of New South Wales, told VOA. "The idea of massacres in prisons  there was one in Iran, there was one in Libya  it doesn't surprise, and I suspect that the U.S. and Amnesty, who previously reported on this, have reasonably good intelligence about this facility."

The State Department released newly declassified commercial satellite photos of what it said is a building at the prison used as the crematorium.

The latest photo dated to January 2015, more than two years ago, taken during the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was not immediately clear why the United States waited to present its evidence.
Heres the funny thing about canned tuna: Even as Americans lost their taste for the fish and demand dropped steadily for years, the price of a can seemed to hold steady or rise.

For some, it was an economic riddle.

Given what was happening to demand, the price of tuna should have declined, said Andrew F. Smith, author of American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Fish.

It didnt.

Now, theres a new theory for the price of tuna. According to a lawsuit filed by one of the nations largest retailers, the price of tuna was held aloft because executives at the nations three largest tuna brands  Bumble Bee, Starkist and Chicken of the Sea  were colluding to fix prices.

Citing email, industry conferences and phone calls, attorneys for Walmart allege that the tuna brands set the price of tuna in order to defy economic forces that ordinarily would have pushed prices down.

Last week, in a related criminal case filed by the Justice Department, Bumble Bee Foods pleaded guilty to conspiring to fix prices sold in the United States between 2011 and 2013. The firm has agreed to pay a $25 million fine.

In addition, two Bumble Bee senior vice presidents, Ken Worsham and Walter Scott Cameron, pleaded guilty to fixing prices. They agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the ongoing criminal investigation.

The Walmart lawsuit alleges a much broader and longer-lasting conspiracy among the three tuna brands. None of the three answered invitations to comment.

We believe there is strong evidence that suppliers of canned tuna to Walmart conspired to artificially inflate and wrongfully fix prices in order to increase their own profits at the expense of consumers, said Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for Walmart.

In Walmarts view, laid out in court documents, the conspiracy among the three companies, which control about 80 percent of the U.S. market, began by 2010, at the latest, and lasted through July 2015. During that period, Walmart alleges it was overcharged by the tuna companies.

Senior executives met at least twice annually and regularly discussed prices and shared sensitive customer information, according to the Walmart lawsuit. Walmart also alleged that the tuna companies agreed to spurn aggressive sales tactics  that is, they werent going to compete too hard.

In the past, industry officials have described the steady or rising price of tuna as the result of scarce supply. And indeed, the wholesale price of the fish has fluctuated. But according to the May 2015 Food Outlook of the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization tuna prices had dropped considerably in 2014: tuna prices declined significantly due to excess supply, with frozen skipjack prices hitting a 6-year low.

Yet, according to Walmart, despite changes in supply and demand that should have led to lower prices, [Walmart] continued to pay higher prices for packaged tuna products.

But the extent of the alleged collusion, according to Walmart, extended beyond price-fixing. According to the lawsuit, the tuna companies sought to resist pressure from environmental groups such as Greenpeace. Those groups were pushing to outlaw fishing methods that ensnare other animals besides the tuna, including endangered sea turtles and sharks.

Executives from Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist were concerned that a switch to a more sustainable method of fishing would decrease supply and put pressure on their margins, according to the lawsuit.

Citing emails, the Walmart attorneys said that the companies agreed in February 2012 not to sell tuna branded as FAD-free or free of the devices blamed for the excessive taking of sea creatures.

The lawsuit comes as the canned tuna industry continues to decline as an American staple. Some of its fall is blamed on Americans turning to fresh fish; some of it was fear of mercury in tuna; other seafoods have become more popular.

Whatever the cause, without tunas slide in popularity, the collusion and its discovery might never have happened.

The shrinking of tuna sales has led to a series of mergers, and it was one such merger that helped spur the interest of federal prosecutors. In December 2014, Thai Union, the owner of the Chicken of the Sea brand, announced it would acquire Bumble Bee for $1.5 billion. A year later, Thai Union suspended the proposal after announcing that federal investigators had begun an antitrust investigation into the industry.

The troubles in the industry also led the big brands to work together, creating a setting that Walmart attorneys suggest was ripe for collusion. In 2011, the three brands, as part of the Tuna Council, paid for an advertising campaign to revive American interest in canned tuna.

Tuna the Wonderfish, was the name of the campaign.

That didnt work either.

In 1990, per capita consumption of canned tuna was 3.9 pounds and by 2011, it was 2.6 pounds. And despite the campaign, it kept declining. By 2013, the figure had dropped to 2.3 pounds.
TECHNOLOGY

Co-founder Biz Stone returning to Twitter

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said Tuesday that he is rejoining the company six years after he left, becoming the second creator to return to help revive the struggling social-media service.

Stone said in a post on Medium that he is not replacing another executive or filling a vacancy but that his new role will be focused on company culture. He was invited back to Twitter by chief executive Jack Dorsey, another co-founder, who returned in 2015 after also stepping away for years.

Its important that everyone understands the whole story of Twitter and each of our roles in that story, Stone said. Ill shape the experience internally so its also felt outside the company. Stone left Twitter in 2011.

Stones presence could help boost morale at Twitter after several years of management turmoil and multiple rounds of job cuts. The San Francisco-based company has been fighting to reverse a slowdown in revenue growth and jump-start stagnant user numbers, and in September considered selling itself.

 Bloomberg News

COAL MINING

Ex-CEO asks Trump not to punish execs

Former Massey Energy chief executive Don Blankenship asked President Trump on Tuesday to resist attempts in Congress to enhance criminal penalties for coal executives who violate mine safety and health standards.

Blankenship, recently freed from federal prison, also asked Trump in a letter to reexamine a federal investigation into the nations worst coal mining disaster in four decades.

Blankenship served a year in prison after being convicted of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards at Masseys Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, where 29 workers died in a 2010 blast.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and others have tried without success to pass laws to stiffen penalties on mine safety crimes.

Mine safety will greatly improve if technology-related legislation is passed to allow Americas coal miners to mine coal at less risk to themselves, Blankenship said in his letter.

The White House said in a statement that Trump is committed to his promise to the American people to rid government of wasteful regulations.

 Associated Press

Also in Business

The United Nations predicts that the global economy will expand in the next two years, spurred by stronger growth and a modest recovery in trade and investment. The U.N. on Tuesday forecast global economic growth of 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent in 2018, compared with a revised figure of 2.3 percent in 2016. For the United States, the U.N. forecast economic growth of 2.1 percent in both 2017 and 2018, compared with 1.6 percent in 2016. But it forecast negligible per capita growth in central, southern and west Africa, as well as in South America in 2017-2018.

Construction of new homes fell for a second straight month in April, pushing activity to the lowest point in five months. Housing starts fell 2.6 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.17 million units, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. That followed a 6.6 percent decline in March. The weakness was led by a big drop in construction of apartments, a volatile sector. Applications for building permits, an indicator of future activity, fell 2.5 percent in April. Construction of single-family homes edged up a slight 0.4 percent last month. Construction of multifamily units dropped a sharp 9.2 percent.

Facebook will refund some advertisers after finding a bug that wrongly attributed video carousel ad clicks as clicks to the advertisers websites. When users tried to expand and watch the video carousel on the mobile Web browser, the bug inadvertently directed the click to the advertisers website, leading to incorrect billing, Facebook said in a blog post Tuesday. The company said it had fixed the bug, which was not found on the desktop version or the mobile app.

Delta Air Lines scored the best for on-time flights in March, the U.S. Transportation Department reported Tuesday. The report said 79.9 percent of flights on the 12 largest airlines arrived on time, down from 81.5 percent in March 2016. Delta had an 86.9 percent on-time rate, followed by Hawaiian, United and American. Only 65.5 percent of Virgin America flights arrived on time. Airlines canceled 1.8 percent of domestic flights, up from 1 percent a year earlier. Consumer complaints filed with the government fell by nearly one-third, with Spirit having the highest complaint rate.

 From news reports

Coming today

Earnings: Target
When the National Security Agency began using a new hacking tool called EternalBlue, those entrusted with deploying it marveled at both its uncommon power and the widespread havoc it could wreak if it ever got loose.

Some officials even discussed whether the flaw was so dangerous they should reveal it to Microsoft, the company whose software the government was exploiting, according to former NSA employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue.

But for more than five years, the NSA kept using it  through a time period that has seen several serious security breaches  and now the officials worst fears have been realized. The malicious code at the heart of the WannaCry virus that hit computer systems globally late last week was apparently stolen from the NSA, repackaged by cybercriminals and unleashed on the world for a cyberattack that now ranks as among the most disruptive in history.

[Clues point to possible North Korean involvement in massive cyberattack]

The failure to keep EternalBlue out of the hands of criminals and other adversaries casts the NSAs decisions in a harsh new light, prompting critics to question anew whether the agency can be trusted to develop and protect such potent hacking tools.

(Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

Current and former officials defended the agencys handling of EternalBlue, saying that the NSA must use such volatile tools to fulfill its mission of gathering foreign intelligence. In the case of EternalBlue, the intelligence haul was unreal, said one former employee.

It was like fishing with dynamite, said a second.

The NSA did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

[How to protect yourself from the global ransomware attack]

The consequences of the NSAs decision to keep the flaw secret, combined with its failure to keep the tool secure, became clear Friday when reports began spreading of a massive cyberattack in which the WannaCry software encrypted data on hundreds of thousands of computers and demanded a ransom to decrypt it.

The attack spread virally because the criminal hackers combined EternalBlues ability to penetrate systems with other code that caused it to spread quickly, like a computer worm, something the NSA never intended. The resulting digital concoction snarled hospitals in Britain, the Interior Ministry in Russia and tax offices in Brazil.

An unlikely combination of voices, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to a top Microsoft official to Russian President Vladmir Putin, has singled out the NSA for its role in creating and eventually losing control of computer code.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, in a blog post Sunday, compared the mishap to the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen.

Putin, for his part, echoed Microsoft: They said that the first sources of this virus were the United States intelligence agencies. Russia has absolutely nothing to do with this.

While few critics are saying that the NSA should never develop malicious software  cracking into the computers of surveillance targets is key to its work  the WannaCry incident has revived concerns about internal security at an agency that in 2013 lost massive troves of secret documents to contractor Edward Snowden.

Theyve absolutely got to do a better job protecting [the hacking tools]. You cant argue against that, said former NSA director Keith B. Alexander, who ran the agency from 2005 to 2014 but said he was unable to comment on any particular tool. You had somebody stealing you blind. The government has got to do better at that.

The global backlash to the Snowden revelations added urgency to the governments efforts to revamp rules on when to report flaws to companies and when to use them for surveillance. Alexander said that about 90 percent of discovered flaws are reported to the companies that make the software.

Richard Ledgett, who retired last month as the NSAs deputy director, said disclosing all flaws would amount to unilateral disarmament. He said the idea that everything would be just fine if the NSA disclosed all the vulnerabilities it finds is nonsense.

In August, a mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers dumped a set of exploits  or hacking tools  online. The exploits are built to take advantage of software flaws.

The agency eventually warned Microsoft after learning about EternalBlues theft, allowing the company to prepare a software patch issued in March. But the Shadow Brokers did not just release the flaw, which would take time and talent to turn into a tool. They released the exploits, which means even a novice hacker could use them to cause damage.

After fashioning their own tool, WannaCry hackers deployed it last week, causing an immediate outcry. The White House convened an emergency meeting of Cabinet-level heads led by Trump administration homeland security adviser Thomas Bossert.

U.S. systems were mostly spared, but the damage could have been far worse. Since the NSA began using EternalBlue, which targets some versions of Microsoft Windows, the U.S. military and many other institutions have updated software that was especially vulnerable.

The NSA also made upgrades to EternalBlue to address its penchant for crashing targeted computers  a problem that earned it the nickname EternalBlueScreen in reference to the eerie blue screen often displayed by computers in distress.

To mitigate its instability in the early days, the NSA hackers were under strict usage rules that required approval from a senior supervisor on a target-by-target basis to use the exploit, the employees recalled.

After a few years, its stability was improved, but NSA was still mindful of the potential for harm if the tool somehow was breached.

If one of our targets discovered we were using this particular exploit and turned it against the United States, the entire Department of Defense would be vulnerable, the second employee said. You just have to have a foothold inside the network and you can compromise everything.

The Shadow Brokers first dump of exploits in August sparked a robust discussion within the Obama administration. By that point, the intelligence value of the exploits was degraded, so it was decided that NSA would alert whatever vendors were affected, a former senior administration official said.

For years, NSA had its own internal process for weighing whether to disclose software flaws to the vendor or to keep them secret so they could be used to build surveillance tools. In the spring of 2014, the Obama administrations National Security Council kicked off a new process to vet vulnerabilities among agencies including the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and Department of Homeland Security.

Some security experts say that the process to debate and disclose vulnerabilities worked in this case but that there was a failure to signal the seriousness of the need to apply fixes.

NSA identified a risk and communicated it to Microsoft, who put out an immediate patch in March, said Mike McNerney, a former Pentagon cybersecurity official and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project. The problem, he said, is no senior official took the step of shouting to the world: This one is very serious and we need to protect ourselves.

But critics say the government got off easy this time. What if the Shadow Brokers had dumped the exploits in 2014, before the government had begun to upgrade software on its computers? What if they had released them and Microsoft had no ready patch?

Vulnerabilities that are found in widely used software can also provide some of the most valuable intelligence because they may enable access to a larger number of targets, said Samir Jain, a former senior White House cyber official. But the fact that a vulnerability is widely used and therefore the harm could be broad should be a significant factor. At the end of the day, its a balancing act.

Governments around the world will continue using these hacking tools, so the issue is that NSA needs to do a much better job of securing them, current and former officials said.

[Ex-NSA contractor pleads not guilty to spying charges in federal court]

It is not clear how the Shadow Brokers obtained the hacking tools, which are identical to those breached by former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin III, according to former officials. Martin was arrested in October after the FBI found evidence that he had over the years stolen a massive quantity of classified data from a variety of agencies. The most damaging breach was at the NSA, where Martin allegedly had filched virtually the entire library of hacking tools. Martin has been charged with stealing government property and retaining classified information.

When the breach was discovered last summer, NSA Director Michael S. Rogers told President Obama that he considered himself accountable for it.

The NSA certainly failed to build an environment that protected these extraordinary secrets that weve got, said a former senior U.S. official. Weve got extraordinary capabilities, and its a huge responsibility to manage them on behalf of the nation.

Elizabeth Dwoskin in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Some ideas  the Unicorn Frappuccino, Ryan Seacrest, American government  look better in theory than in practice. Same goes for the Hogarth Shakespeare project, a clever-sounding plan to ask well-known authors to write novels based on the Bards plays. The series, which started in 2015 with Jeanette Wintersons revision of The Winters Tale, has grown to include Howard Jacobson on Merchant of Venice, Anne Tyler on Taming of the Shrew and Margaret Atwood on The Tempest.

Our age is so uniquely fixated on originality that the project feels a bit larcenous  indeed, thats its appeal. But Elizabethan playwrights didnt hesitate to steal well-known characters and stories. Ironically, Shakespeare wrote his greatest work by nabbing others plots, while these brilliant modern authors have written only middling novels by borrowing his.

Now, we have Tracy Chevaliers New Boy. Theres no risk of it overshadowing Shakespeares Othello the way Othello has completely eclipsed Cinthios A Moorish Captain. But thats neither here nor there. What Chevalier has done is recast the play to illuminate the peculiar trials of our era. If its not a classic novel, its at least a fascinating exercise.

New Boy takes place in an elementary school in a Washington suburb. At first, that setting might sound infantile for the adult machinations of Shakespeares play, but give it a moment, and the anachronisms of this mash-up start to feel oddly appropriate. In Chevaliers handling, the insidious manipulations of Othello translate smoothly to the dynamics of a sixth-grade playground, with all its skinned-knee passions and hopscotch rules. Whats more, that commentary works in both directions: The gentlemen of Venice often behave like foolish children, and sixth-graders, as Chevalier makes plain, can be unnervingly mature.

[Margaret Atwood rewrites Shakespeares The Tempest]

The passage of time is a curious challenge in Othello, which seems to hurtle from marriage to murder in a matter of days. But Chevalier makes that procession even more compressed by setting the five parts of New Boy in a single school day. Its one of many adjustments that works surprisingly well. The playground, you may remember, is a field of tempestuous emotions and lightning romances. If anything, the story feels a little more plausible hanging from the monkey bars than it does sailing for Cyprus.

The scene opens on a spring day. Dee, the most popular girl in sixth grade, notices the new boy first. The only black student in school, hes standing apart from the other kids and dressed too formally. Dee is fascinated by his outsider status and immediately feels determined to protect him. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, she introduces herself and learns that hes from Ghana and that his name is Osei. It is easier to call me O, he tells her, and they immediately share a laugh about the coincidence of their names: O and D. O had beautiful straight teeth, Dee thinks, a flash of light in his dark face that sparked something inside her.

Author Tracy Chevalier (Nina Subin)

O sparks something else inside others, which allows the novel to explore a spectrum of racial attitudes  from sympathy to fascination to outright revulsion. The 1970s setting allows Chevalier to follow reactions across the playground and into the teachers lounge at a time of revolutionary social change. The all-white staff is divided between those determined to be welcoming, despite their anxiety, and those who feel no need to hide their suspicions of this dark interloper. Along the way, we hear all the usual excuses. Some, fortunately, sound antiquated, like This school isnt ready for a black boy. But other comments are still disappointingly fashionable, such as The color of his skin has nothing to do with this, which remains a cherished canard for racists today.

But Os troubles do not come from the teachers and administrators, whose attitudes he can already recognize and negotiate effectively. This is, after all, his fourth school in six years, and his older sister has been tutoring him in the philosophy of Malcolm X. He knows all about white people and their prejudices, their ignorance of Africa, their creepy desire to touch his hair, their pathetic appropriations of black culture.

What hes not prepared for is a fellow student such as Ian, harboring the green-eyed monster in his adolescent soul. We first meet him while hes making some fourth-graders nauseous on the merry-go-round. He spots O and immediately surmises Dees attraction. Ian would always notice anyone who stepped into his domain, Chevalier writes. Ian was the shrewdest. The most calculating. The quickest to respond to a new situation and turn it to his advantage. He cannot abide Os quiet confidence and the attention he attracts from their classmates.

As a mean-spirited sixth-grader, Ian is more sympathetic than Iago, whose dark motives have been the subject of debate for centuries. Even as we watch Ian inject his poison into O and the rest of the class, we learn that hes beaten at home and that hes the youngest of a series of tough brothers. Toxic as he is, its apparent that hes developed a manipulative personality in response to his circumstances.

How Chevalier renders Iagos scheme into the terms of a modern-day playground provides some wicked delight. Shes immensely inventive about it all, substituting, for instance, a pencil case decorated with strawberries for the handkerchief that Othello gives Desdemona. And the other characters of Shakespeares cast line up neatly with archetypal figures playing kickball during recess. Even the plays fierce sexual energy finds an appropriate correspondence among these adolescents storming through puberty.

Of course, Othello works better, but thats inevitable. Shakespeares highly stylized language accommodates equally artificial actions on the stage, while that harmony is thrown out of whack in Chevaliers novel. Her realistic prose and naturalistic characters eventually clash with the melodrama that overtakes the plot. But by that time, the story of O has reached such a disturbing pitch that you cant do anything but stand stock still in the sand and watch this poor boys life crash.

Ron Charles is the editor of Book World and the host of TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com .

On May 25 at 7:30 pm, Tracy Chevalier will be at the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol St. SE. folger.edu.


Ted van Griethuysen and Kate Eastwood Norris in The Father, through June 18 at Studio Theatre. (Teresa Wood)

No one brings more pleasure to being miserable than Ted van Griethuysen. Of course, by design its hard to tell whether the actor himself is having a good time in The Father, a sober medical manual of a play about the dementia afflicting a once-vital Parisian engineer.

But he certainly is able to fill a space in Studio Theatres complex on 14th Street NW with the joy of his formidable technique. His Andre, a retiree placing exhausting demands on his heartsick daughter, Anne (Kate Eastwood Norris), is another of his superlative portrayals, on this occasion one requiring him to embody Andres increasingly futile efforts to cover up his advancing affliction.

Playwright Florian Zeller, whose 90-minute play has been translated from French by Christopher Hampton, brings a puzzle masters diabolical brain to the job of dramatizing Andres decline. In scenes staged with a surgical assurance by director David Muse, Zeller deftly reveals Andres confusion over where he is, who everyone else is and whether whats happening at any given moment is real or a hallucination.

Still, The Father never quite sheds the impression of being most useful as a learning exercise for budding gerontologists. Norris and the productions four other actors, Erika Rose, Manny Buckley, Caroline Dubberly and Daniel Harray, share the rather dull task of portraying figures of shifting identity in Andres cloudy head. Theres not much else for them to do here, except wring their hands or look worried or erupt impatiently at Andres bitter tirades and fading comprehension.



Kate Eastwood Norris, left, Ted van Griethuysen and Caroline Dubberly in The Father. (Teresa Wood)

This reactive construct and the plays curiously ambiguous frame of reference  at some points, we seem to be inside Andres mind and at others watching as if we were indeed at a clinical distance  leave us with the rather empty feeling that The Father is a cold body still waiting for its circulatory system to warm things up. We learn early in the evening that Andre is severely disabled, and from there its just a chronicle of his struggle to make sense of things as his sense begins to fail him.

The playwright strives to create a compelling picture of the incremental mental losses Andre sustains, through some simple and effective repositioning or removing of objects in his apartment from scene to scene. Ah, but is it his apartment? (The Father asks you to play mnemonically along, as wall hangings and side tables and even whole rooms disappear.) Is this Anne really his daughter, and which of these guys who materialize sipping red wine is her mate, Pierre?

Thats about the only vigorous level on which the play operates  the one lingering issue being Andres cavalier treatment of Anne, whom hes constantly comparing with Elise, his other, unseen, daughter, the one he professes to prefer. In this regard, Norris acquits herself admirably, communicating the mix of shame, compassion and anger summoned by a paternal disdain thats stirred by either authentic resentment or illness.

Through it all, van Griethuysen exposes an audience to the productions other lesson, in acting. He plays the role here in a way that will be recognized by anyone who has or had to cope with or nurse loved ones suffering from the slow departure of their faculties. The air of casual dismissal he effects, leading eventually to an expression of deep, solitary despair, comes across as the poignantly credible arc of a proud mans pitiable trajectory.

Thats where the joy comes in. Even as Andre disintegrates, you sense the powers of an actor who can confidently escort you into a phantom zone of wan self-consciousness. The result, in this case, is a play that touches you more with the illusion an actor can create than with the collapse of a characters whole world.

The Father by Florian Zeller, in a translation by Christopher Hampton. Directed by David Muse. Set, Debra Booth; costumes, Wade Laboissonniere; lighting, Keith Parham; sound, Ryan Rumery; fight direction, Robb Hunter; casting, Stuart Howard; production stage manager, Sarah Elizabeth Ford. About 90 minutes. Tickets: $20-$85. Through June 18 at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Call 202-332-3300 or visit studiotheatre.org.


Injera tacos at the new Etete. (Deb Lindsey/For The Washington Post)

Two summers ago, as part of owner Sileshi Alifoms ongoing campaign to refine his food at the white-tablecloth Das Ethiopian Cuisine in Georgetown, he attempted to create an East African lasagna. Semi-frozen sections of injera, the fermented Ethiopian flatbread, served as his noodles, which Alifom layered with a yellow split-pea puree, collard greens, red-lentil stew and a mild cheese, all flavors native to his mother country.

While unorthodox, the Ethiopian lasagna does have a foundation in East African cooking. Neighboring Eritrea was an Italian colony for decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Italians, under Benito Mussolini, occupied Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941. Italian food and drink left a permanent mark on both countries, one of the very few outside influences on cooking in the region.

Yet, regardless of its legitimacy, Alifoms lasagna did not set firmly, nor was it particularly pleasing to the eye. It was delicious, but was it something that was usable and sellable? says Alifom, who has a food and beverage background with Marriott Hotels. When you started digging into it, the thing was moving left and right.

[The 10 best Ethiopian restaurants in the Washington area]

You might wonder why anyone would feel the need to refine one of the worlds most singular cuisines, a spicy and essentially sweet-free set of dishes that are consumed with your hands, the tactile experience as important as the gustatory one. Chefs and owners have their motivations: They might be threatened by creeping gentrification. They may feel the need to raise the price of what some consider cheap immigrant food to cover expenses. Or they may just want to see the food evolve, as part of the creative process that pushes all cuisines forward, whether Spanish, Chinese or Japanese.



A traditional platter at Merkamo, an Ethiopian restaurant in Springfield, Va., that is now closed. (Dayna Smith/For The Washington Post)

Whatever the reason, anyone who wishes to adapt Ethiopian food for a modern diner must confront the same problem Alifom did: Dishes such as red-lentil wat and split-yellow-pea alicha are loose and stewy, their wet ingredients hard to corral or, worse, potentially corrosive to inventions such as Ethiopian lasagna with injera. Alifom learned fast that to incorporate the flavors of Ethiopia into upscale preparations, he would need more culinary skill than he possessed. He would need a chef, someone trained to see a stew not just as a stew but as a combination of components that could be transformed into something altogether new.

Historically, such a person has been hard to find in  or even introduce to  the Ethiopian immigrant community in the United States. Most Ethiopian chefs in America learned their skills at home, passed down from one generation to another, and many of these chefs do not willingly share their secrets with strangers, other chefs or their own family members.

Mom doesnt share the recipes. Like, the kids dont really know them. One knows, kind of, says Christopher Roberson, the newly installed chef at Etete on the edge of the rapidly gentrifying Shaw neighborhood in Washington.



Tiwaltengus Etete Shenegelgn, namesake and former chef of the restaurant Etete, with new chef Christopher Roberson. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

The Mom in this case is Tiwaltengus Etete Shenegelgn, the namesake behind Etete, which means mama in Amharic. She is the mother of Yared and Henok Tesfaye, brothers who co-founded U Street Parking and channeled their profits into a restaurant to showcase their moms cooking. Stylish in decor but still traditional in cuisine, Etete debuted in 2004 in the 1900 block of Ninth Street NW, a strip that once sought official city recognition as Little Ethiopia.

The block was actually not the first D.C. neighborhood to entice Ethiopians, who began fleeing their country in the mid-1970s, following the overthrow of emperor Haile Selassie and the installation of a military government. The refugees first landed in Adams Morgan, which soon became the nerve center of Ethiopian food and culture in Washington, a city that had long attracted the East Africans with its mix of political power and educational opportunities.

[R.I.P., Meskerem: The Ethiopian restaurant that shaped Adams Morgan]

But like Adams Morgan before it, the Ninth Street strip eventually grew too expensive for the mom-and-pop restaurants and businesses that had helped make it a destination. So the Ethiopian community shifted its base again, settling in suburbs such as Silver Spring, where expats continued to do what theyve always done: cater to their own kind, in a region that can accommodate such radical movements. The Washington area, after all, has the highest concentration of Ethiopian immigrants in America.



Diners at Etete in Shaw. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

This pattern of rebuilding a community in a new location has meant that Ethiopian restaurants have rarely been forced to adapt to new diners and new palates. The restaurants largely serve the Ethiopian community, says Harry Kloman, a journalism instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, who has been researching and reporting on Ethiopian eateries since the early 2000s. You go into most Ethiopian restaurants in D.C., you will find that most of the clientele is Ethiopian.

Besides, as celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson says, his fellow Ethiopians are not always open to change, perhaps a carry-over from their homeland, which has remained largely independent throughout its history.

Were very traditional as people, Ethiopians, says Samuelsson, the chef behind Red Rooster in Harlem and Marcus at MGM National Harbor. If you look at most other African countries, theyve been colonized. So they were much more open to other things. Were not.

[This place serves modern Ethiopian food that you dont eat with your hands]

The Tesfaye brothers were determined to remain a presence on Ninth Street, even if it meant blowing up everything about their original Etete, including the prices, which now cross the $20 threshold for larger plates. They have essentially conformed to a neighborhood where one-bedroom apartments can run $3,000 a month and where the retail options run the gamut from an art-house movie theater to a grocery store committed to products from the Chesapeake watershed.



Marcus Samuelsson, right, at the launch of the MGM National Harbor casino and hotel, where he opened the restaurant Marcus. From left: chefs Bryan Voltaggio and Jose Andres, actress Sarah Jessica Parker and chef Michael Voltaggio. (Bill OLeary/The Washington Post)

The siblings found inspiration in the work of restaurateurs such as Ashok Bajaj, the New Delhi native who had pioneered upscale Indian cooking in Washington with the four-star Rasika in Penn Quarter. Were catching up with the neighborhood, Yared Tesfaye said weeks before the remodeled Etete reopened in mid-March. Were trying to make it the Rasika of Ethiopian restaurants.

[Rasika: a national treasure in D.C.]

The new Etete would not just mimic restaurants such as Das in Georgetown or Ethiopic on H Street NE, where traditional Ethiopian dishes are presented in more refined settings, sometimes served on elegant plateware rather than gebeta trays covered with injera. Nor would the new Etete follow the lead of counter-service operations such as Ethio Express Grill in Silver Spring, where you can cobble together a fast-casual meal that only passingly resembles Ethiopian cooking, or the stylish-but-tradition-minded Letena in Columbia Heights, where you can substitute rice or pita bread for injera.

No, the Tesfaye brothers wanted a more comprehensive overhaul. They wanted a restaurant that pushed Ethiopian food into previously unexplored areas, seeking not only refinement but also, perhaps, a fusion with other cuisines. But the siblings, like Alifom at Das, knew they were out of their element. They and their mother couldnt create such a restaurant by themselves. They would need help, and not just the help of longtime friend Nancy Koide, co-owner of the restaurant SEI, who updated the interiors and operations at Etete.



Ethiopic restaurant. (James M. Thresher/For The Washington Post)

What Yared and Henok Tesfaye really needed was a chef. Enter Roberson, 30, an African American chef who grew up near Frederick., Md., the son of parents who taught him to appreciate hard work and a good challenge. Roberson is not formally trained, but he has studied under some of the finest chefs in Washington, including Cedric Maupillier when he led the kitchen at Central Michel Richard; Jeffrey Buben when Vidalia was still a viable concern; and Morou Ouattara when the Ivory Coast native embraced everything from African spices to modernist techniques at the late Farrah Olivia in Alexandria.

Roberson was not naive about the difficulties of his assignment. He was familiar with Ethiopian cuisine, both as a diner and as a cook who occasionally prepared the food at home. But he doesnt speak Amharic, which presented problems in collaborating with Shenegelgn, who has not mastered the English language. But perhaps most problematic, Roberson didnt grow up with the taste of Ethiopian food on his tongue. He would have to train himself to know when the flavors were right, no small task.

Shenegelgn proved to be a tough but patient teacher, especially in instructing Roberson on the art of cooking Ethiopian vegetables.

She was like, You have to do the lentils this way, and you have to know how to make it,  Roberson says.  Were going to make these things four times, five times. I want you to make it, and I want to taste it. I want you to keep making it until it tastes right. 

Yet the chef was not limited to the flavors or techniques of Ethiopian cooking when composing dishes. The owners gave Roberson carte blanche to draw inspiration from his own culinary background.



Beef tartare kitfo at Etete. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

As a result, the opening menu at the revamped Etete reads unlike anything youve seen before in an Ethiopian restaurant. Roberson has created an injera taco, stuffed with doro wat, the signature chicken stew of Ethiopia. Hes rejiggered the raw beef dish, kitfo, into a steak tartare preparation with injera crisps. Hes even added black-eyed-pea fritters to the menu, for a taste of West Africa. Traditionalists need not worry: There are also a couple of large-format offerings served on a platter with injera.

Most of Robersons dishes are small plates, borrowing the format common to countless restaurants in the Districts contemporary, tapas-centric dining scene. Such plates may be foreign to Ethiopian restaurants, but they preserve, in their own limited way, an important element in Ethiopian dining: the communal feast.

Robersons dishes, in fact, are not far removed from what other chefs have created in their limited experiments with Ethiopian flavors. When Samuelsson opened Marcus at MGM National Harbor late last year, he had a pot pie on the menu. It was filled with doro wat, chopped liver and egg. At Merkato 55, his short-lived adventure in Pan-African cooking in New Yorks Meatpacking District in the late 2000s, Samuelsson served a rack of lamb rubbed with berbere, the nuclear Ethiopian spice blend. Likewise, on his menu at Cockscomb in San Francisco, chef Chris Cosentino offers berbere-spiced carrots with charred dates and labneh.

You got to do it with a wink, Samuelsson says. My aim is to make something delicious, not to be authentic. Were not in Ethiopia, you know what I mean?



Diners at Etete. (Deb Lindsey /For The Washington Post)

Whom, you may ask, is this upscale Ethiopian food designed to feed? American diners who want to try Ethiopian cuisine but dont want to eat with their hands? Second- or third-generation Ethiopian Americans who are not invested in authenticity?

Kloman, the journalism instructor and Ethiopian dining expert, thinks such fare may alienate the very people who used to frequent places like Etete. I think most everyday Ethiopians would not be the least bit interested in something like this, he says.

But then Kloman pauses and thinks about a strange phenomenon in Ethiopian restaurants: Americans are the ones who usually order the beers imported from Ethiopia, not the expats. Ethiopian immigrants apparently prefer Guinness or Heineken, which they view as status symbols.

So, Kloman reflects, maybe some immigrants would take to fancy Ethiopian food after all. As a pretense, he says, they might be interested.
The 10 finalists in the 2017 National Geographic Bee held in Washington. Anish Susarla, bottom left, and Max Garon, bottom center, are both from the D.C. area. (Mark Thiessen/National Geographic)

Two D.C.-area students are among the 10 finalists at the 29th National Geographic Bee, which is being held this week in Washington.

Max Garon, a seventh-grader at Sidwell Friends, is representing the District for the second year in a row.

I was surprised to make it this far, Max told KidsPost. I guess I prepared better than last year.

Anish Susarla, a sixth-grader at Belmont Ridge Middle School in Leesburg, Virginia, will also compete in the finals.

The top prize is a $50,000 college scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos Islands. The second-place winner will receive $25,000; third-place winner, $10,000.

The Washington area has had only one winner since 1989: Akhil Rekulapelli of Dulles, Virginia, was the 2014 champ.

Max and Anish were among the 54 state finalists who gathered Sunday and Monday for preliminary rounds, which included a written test and 10 rounds of oral questions.

The winner will be decided Wednesday, and the finals will be broadcast Friday at 8 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel.
In sixth grade, Marsha Pintos teacher wanted her to talk more loudly and more often, repeatedly telling Pinto that she would never succeed if she didnt participate in class discussions and group work. The teacher may have had good intentions, but she called on Pinto daily, and when Pinto was bullied, the teacher suggested it was because she didnt stand up for herself.

She even said if I didnt participate, I would fail, says Pinto, a recent college graduate who now lives in New York City.

Pinto was quiet, often slumped in her seat and kept her head down. She easily got lost in books and tended to spend recess alone, generally by choice. The cluster seating and collaborative work that her teacher preferred made Pinto feel detached and more awkward. Those feelings were exacerbated when the teacher called on her. The pressure from the teacher, along with bullying by a group of girls who regularly teased Pinto about being weird, took its toll.

I came home crying a lot, never wanting to go back to school, says Pinto, now 21.

Pinto was, and is, an introvert. Linda Silverman, director of the Gifted Development Center in Denver and author of Upside-Down Brilliance, says extroverts get energy primarily from others, while introverts can become overloaded or drained by the outside world and sometimes just dont need or care about it. Its somewhat different from shyness, which can be a debilitating discomfort around others, often despite a strong desire to be more social.

(Molly Walsh/ for The Washington Post)

There is greater understanding of introverts, and their talents, now than there was even 10 years ago. Even with all of the Internet memes celebrating introversion, though, we still live in a culture that champions outgoing leadership, vocal collaboration and visible performance. That can make it tough for introverts to feel as though they fit in.

But Pintos parents were supportive of her natural tendencies. Instead of pushing her to be more extroverted, they appreciated her as she was and advocated for others to do the same. They found the sweet spot that experts recommend between supporting and understanding Pinto, while encouraging her to get involved in small after-school groups.

We felt that pushing her into activities and forcing her to speak would make her feel that she was lacking in something, and that could affect her confidence, says Pintos father, Melwyn Pinto. We only encouraged and supported her when she wanted to pursue things.

That gentle encouragement helped her discover strengths, including public speaking. She became the star of the student morning broadcasts in middle school and tried to participate in class more. Marsha Pinto thrived in classes with teachers who appreciated her quiet involvement, often because her parents clued them in to her natural tendencies. Now, she works as an advocate and spokeswoman for young introverts.

By the time Pinto was in high school, increased public awareness about introverts  fueled by books, Ted Talks, support groups and advocates  helped. But she says it was her parents support that was most critical to her success.

I just got a message from a parent worried about her child not having friends, says Pinto, who is completing an internship in speech and language therapy. I told her if her child seems happy, its fine. Make your child feel valued because unfortunately in our society, the quiet ones often arent. Mine looked at my strengths instead of judging me, and encouraged me to do things I liked and was good at.

Silverman agrees that parents of introverts need to relax and embrace their childs strengths.

Parents and teachers arent working overtime turning extroverts into introverts, Silverman says, but they do try to remake introverts into extroverts. And they dont need to.

[Your introverted child has secret strengths, says Susan Cain in her new book Quiet Power]

Research shows that introverts are less impulsive and better able to avoid risks and are often more creative and get better grades than extroverts, Silverman says. Some research shows that they are more attractive to others and have better relationships. They may even live longer and are often comfortable being alone or with just a few friends with similar interests.

Introverts think before they act, digest information thoroughly, stay on task longer, give up less easily and work more accurately, says Susan Cain, author of Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts. She says extroverts, like dandelions, can thrive in any circumstances, while introverted orchid children need a bit more care but become a flower of unusual delicacy and beauty.

Here are suggestions, from Silverman and other experts, on how parents can help their introverts thrive.

Nudge, but be patient. Accepting your childs introversion doesnt mean you shouldnt gently push them to expand their comfort zone.

John Zelenski, a psychology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, has studied introversion extensively. His research shows that with more engagement, introverts can refine their social skills and increase their confidence. Children also change, and over time may become more interested in socializing or even leadership roles, and then could regret not having developed those skills, he says.

Cain agrees, saying that parents shouldnt shelter them from difficult social situations and should show them that they understand and sympathize and want to help.

Silverman says parents who pay attention will intuitively understand when and how to encourage their children to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone.

Provide practice. Give your child safe places to try being more outgoing, and allow them to get comfortable with it. Encourage them carefully, Cain says. Ask an introverted child to explain an interest to a familiar adult, for example, or suggest they order their own food at a restaurant and pay the cashier. Have an older child write the teacher a note about an unfair grade or a friend about a confusing encounter  and, perhaps, have them ask for time to talk.

At home you can also create scenarios and have a child talk through or act out responses. What will they do when they have to choose a seat at lunch?

Help them find a niche. Cain suggests parents should help introverts find activities they enjoy and are successful at, even if they seem to contradict the childs quiet nature. Actors and other performers often are introverts. Pinto found she was comfortable as a speaker when the words were provided and she had a captive audience.

Others, however, may be more comfortable behind the scenes as the editor of the school literary magazine or newspaper. A tech-savvy high school junior may shine explaining the workings of a robot to middle school students after school, and a good musician might give basic piano lessons. Provide options and encourage, or even require, participation in one.

[How I learned to understand my introverted child]

Carefully plan encounters. Cain notes that introverts might feel more comfortable if they arrive early for a birthday party or go with a friend. Allow them to join activities slowly or stay on the outskirts and plan for a break if they get overwhelmed. Always have an exit strategy, Cain says. Even if they dont intend to use it, knowing its there can ease their mind.

Escapes and backup plans are essential so the child doesnt feel trapped, says Silverman. Parents tell me, however, that once they participate, they enjoy it. If thats your childs pattern, remind them of how much fun it was last time.

Build in structure. At home, give your introverted child quiet time, but have normal expectations for chores, homework and keeping to a regular schedule. Introverts, warns Sophia Dembling, author of The Introverts Way, can get lost in a book or a movie, so structure is important.

Work with them to develop a plan for the evenings. Include time reading or on the computer, but also a chore that requires thought beyond their private world and perhaps social interaction. Demblings parents asked her not to read at the table, and she is happy they did.

She notes, however, that a completely unstructured day once a week might be very good, too, for an introverted kid.

Teach mindfulness. Yes, its trendy and can help pretty much everyone. But some research shows that introverts benefit from mindfulness and relaxation techniques more than extroverts because their brains are more easily aroused, which causes them to avoid stimulation and feel better when they calm it down, according to Peter OConnor, a professor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia who has studied therapies to help shy and introverted people. He recommends childrens yoga, simple breathing exercises or progressive muscle relaxation exercises for five to 10 minutes.

Zelenski also suggests that they may be happier if they consciously try to improve their mood by thinking more positively.

And being patient while gently encouraging your introvert can pay off.

Pintos parents remember when she told them that she planned to participate in a speech competition.

She spoke about her shyness, and she won it, Melwyn Pinto says. This quiet, introverted kid won the public-speaking competition. The stone the builders rejected suddenly became the cornerstone.

More from On Parenting:

6 ways good parents contribute to their childs anxiety

My child is a perfectionist. Heres how we find balance.

Teaching my daughter the art of negotiation
(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

On Capitol Hill, Republican senators were troubled.

Troubled, on Tuesday, as they deboarded their little underground trams, which run underneath U.S. Capitol grounds, and as they scurried between their office buildings. Concerned, as they slipped onto their private senator elevators. Re-troubled, as they re-boarded their trams, all while being stalked by a roving mass of news reporters seeking statements about the latest borscht-scented scandal  Mr. Trump, in the Oval Office, running his mouth  to plop out of the White House.

Obviously, this is concerning, said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) as he settled into a tram seat. If the reports are accurate, theyre concerning.

It is unquestionably important to protect the sources and methods used to collect intelligence, said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), clasping his hands together and casting his eyes downward, as if lost in thought, as if he had not already been asked the same question by several other masses of reporters.

Im troubled when [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov is in the Oval Office, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), waiting for his elevator in the Russell building. I cant imagine why hed ever be allowed in the Oval Office.

So. . . do you think should there be consequences, senator?

What consequences do you think that I have? McCain snapped, clearly frustrated. You tell me. You are asking me what the consequences could be when you arent even telling me what consequences there could be. I cant answer your question. I cant and no one else can. Ive been around here a long time, my friend, and if someone asked me a rational question, I would be more than happy to try to answer it.

Later, he apologized. Im sorry if Im short with you.



Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) speaks with reporters on his way to a Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting Tuesday. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), speak after the committee meeting on Tuesday. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

So troubled. Lawmakers  particularly those in the party controlling the White House and both houses of Congress  have spent the majority of this administration in a state of being so achingly, tenderly troubled.

Last week, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) was troubled by former FBI director James B. Comeys abrupt firing, as was Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). Back in January, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was troubled by allegations that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had inappropriate discussions with a Russian contact during the transition.

The contact in question? Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who resurfaced this week as one of the Russian visitors  along with Lavrov  who were recipients of Trumps Oval Office intelligence-dishing, a man whose repeated cameos in the American political drama will surely turn into an assignment for a regular SNL cast member.

Being troubled is a measured reaction  a grown-up, politically safe one. If you say youre troubled, no one can say you approached the situation with too much glibness. Nobody can accuse you of histrionics. Being troubled in times of politically charged scandal is the equivalent of sending thoughts and prayers in times of politically fraught tragedy.

The phrase is always appropriate. The phrase is eventually meaningless.

Im glad that theyre troubled, sighed Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) as he, too, navigated the Capitol grounds on Tuesday. Saying youre troubled is pretty empty if youre not willing to do anything about it.

The troubling trouble, on Tuesday, seemed to be that nobody was exactly sure what to do about it, at least not yet. You want to let the dust settle, Flake said.

Im going to wait and withhold judgment, said Cruz.

I dont know what the consequences are going to be except for the decision of the American people, McCain said. (Can the American people appoint a special prosecutor? Can the American people issue subpoenas?)

At one point early Tuesday morning  the usual twitching hour for President Trump  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) launched his own Twitter blitz, sharing biblical phrases with his followers, in an apparent attempt to seek guidance from a higher power than the U. S. Congress.

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, he wrote, quoting a verse from the book of Proverbs in one tweet. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid, he wrote in another, quoting the book of John.

Do not let your hearts be troubled? Was this a tweet mean to calm his fellow senators? (What 140-character guidance might he have for the rest of the American public? Do not let your heart have a heart attack, and hold onto your butts, folks?)

Back at the Capitol, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was actually not troubled.

I dont use that word, he said as he disembarked from a tram. He noted that he is a man who pilots small airplanes, sometimes upside down, and therefore does not trouble easily. Besides, he said, he trusts the account of national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who told reporters in a news conference Tuesday that Trump didnt do anything untoward.

I trust him more than I trust the media, Inhofe said of McMaster. I think we have all the information we need.
Three car bombs have exploded in Dublin, killing 23 people and injuring more than 100 others during rush hour.

Five more people died and another 20 were hurt in a blast which hit the border town of Monaghan an hour later.

Up to 15 of the dead are believed to be women and two are thought to be baby boys.

Irish Prime Minister Liam Cosgrave condemned the bombings and said on TV: I do not know which evil men did this but everyone who has practised violence or preached violence or condoned violence must bear his share of responsiblility.

It will bring home to us what the people of Northern Ireland have been suffering for five long years.

The drama unfolded at around 1725 when two of the bombs tore through Talbot and Parnell Street before a third blast rocked South Leinster Street near Trinity College.

A fourth explosion struck a public house in Monaghan shortly after. The city was immediately declared a disaster area.

A police spokesman said: There were no warnings. These were acts of outright war. People had no chance.

We are detaining everyone we think can help with inquiries. We believe the people behind this come from Northern Ireland.

Talbot Street, which was even more crowded than usual because of a corporation bus strike, was the worst hit area. Several bodies lay in the road for half an hour as ambulances struggled to get through traffic jams.

Witness John Casey, who was walking into a Talbot Street hotel when the bomb went off, said: Hundreds of people were in the street. They were running and screaming aimlessly.

A newspaper stand was blown into the air past me and the newsboy next to it just disappeared in front of my eyes. Immediately after the bombings the Ulster Defence Association in Belfast denied planting the bombs as did the Provisional IRA.

But police later discovered that all four cars had Ulster registration plates and two of them had been hijacked in Protestant areas in Belfast.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

The final death toll in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which included a pregnant woman and a stillborn child, stood at 33.

The loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force eventually admitted carrying out the bombings in 1994.

But relatives of the dead and wounded still believed many questions were left unanswered and they formed the Justice For The Forgotten organisation in 1996.

The group has continued to press the Irish government for a public inquiry into the truth behind the bombings ever since.

Many believe the UVF were helped by British intelligence.

Eventually a private inquiry into the bombings was set up in 2003 by retired Judge Henry Barron.

But the British authorities were unwilling to co-operate and to provide the necessary files and information.

As a result his findings were inconclusive.

In July 2004 the Irish government agreed to set up a commission of inquiry into the bombings.

Nobody has ever been convicted of the atrocities..
Dear Readers: If you receive a phone call, and the voice on the other end, whether live or recorded, says, Can you hear me? what should you do?

The Federal Trade Commission (consumer.ftc.gov) is aware of this situation and has some hints:

 Dont say anything; just hang up.

 Let your phone carrier know so that a record can be made and a pattern, if any, established.

 Put your number on the Do Not Call registry by calling 888-382-1222.

 Register a complaint with the FTC at ftccomplaintassistant.gov, or call 877-382-4357.

Protecting ourselves from scams is an important task that we all must take seriously.

Dear Heloise: Ive found a simple way to defuse a situation if I feel tense, especially when dealing with customer-service representatives on the phone. Sometimes I get upset and stressed out.

All I do is calmly say, Im really mad right now. This helps me confront my feelings, and the representative, who cares about service and the customer, will know Im unhappy.

Once I say it, I instantly feel better. Theres no reason to be rude to the representative; he or she is trying to help. But if I calmly state how I feel, it makes me feel better, and we can work together to solve the problem!

Diane V. in Illinois

Dear Heloise: Our extended family of 20 enjoys renting a beach house occasionally. After having half-empty soda cans, iced-tea glasses and water glasses sitting around with no one claiming them, it seemed to be extremely wasteful.

I bought insulated beach-themed tumblers with matching lids and straws. When we arrived, each family member was told to pick one and label it with his or her name.

Throughout the week, each person was responsible for filling the tumbler, washing it and keeping track of it. When it was time to go home, that was the persons souvenir.

It worked beautifully! We had not wasted the beverages like in previous years, and it saved the dishwasher some work.

A Smart Grandma in Pennsylvania

Dear Heloise: I would like to enter contests, I would love to write to a company about its products, or write if I have a question or I am happy with the products.

But I dont have a cellphone with an Internet connection or a computer, so I cant. Most companies dont put their address on their products anymore  it is all .com!

Do you think you could write in your column to put these addresses on their products? Its hard if you have a question, etc.

A Reader in Ohio

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.
People near the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Park in Charlottesville protest plans to remove the monument on Saturday. (Allison Wrabel/Daily Progress via AP)

In response to a Ku Klux Klan-like protest over plans to remove a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello wrote on Twitter, Get your white supremacist hate out of my hometown.

The Democrats denunciation was commendable. But his response makes the protesters seem like bothersome gnats that can easily be swatted away.

That doesnt come close. White supremacy in America is an all-encompassing system designed to keep economic and political power in the hands of those at the top. The Confederate sympathizers were merely pawns, useful idiots manipulated into blaming blacks and immigrants of color for their woes. Their use of torches only added to the theatrics.

Heres what white supremacy really looks like:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions gearing up for another war on crime. But first, he has to manufacture enough fear of people of color. He recently tried by declaring, falsely, that New York continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the citys soft on crime stance.

Sessions threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal grants from the citys police department if the city didnt start turning in undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.

[Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy ]

In other words, if New York doesnt have a crime problem now, Sessions would cut police funding until it did have one.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, citing the citys low crime rate, called Sessionss remarks outrageous and pitiful. Sessions later conceded that New York police had created some of the best techniques for fighting crime.

But thats not the end of it.

Under the Trump administration, local police departments are slated to get more powerful weaponry and expanded powers to use them. Corporate prison complexes could see an increase in profits if Sessionss push to bring back mandatory minimum sentences moves forward. Rural communities in majority white areas will get new prisons  along with jobs overseeing a veritable plantation of mostly black and Hispanic inmates.

The judiciary is a key component in the maintenance of this system. Police are rarely charged for fatally shooting someone while on duty. According to an analysis by The Washington Post and researchers at Bowling Green State University, 54 officers faced charges for such shootings between 2005 and 2015, a fraction of the fatal police shootings that occurred across the country in that time. The majority of the officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted, The Post found.

The Post also reported: Among the officers charged since 2005 for fatal shootings, more than three-quarters were white. Two-thirds of their victims were minorities, all but two of them black.

[Thousands dead, few prosecuted]

It is as if the vision of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who recently declared that white culture and demographics are our destiny, are coming true. In effect, black and brown lives do not matter.

And with voting rights under attack, the chances of getting elected officials who might take a stronger stance for justice becomes slimmer by the year.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower courts ruling that North Carolina legislators had acted with almost surgical precision to blunt the influence of black voters. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made clear in a separate opinion that the ruling did not mean that court was taking a stand for or against the actions. Encouraged by the high courts statement, the legislators have vowed to keep at their obstructionist ways.

President Trump, having fomented fears of Mexican rapists during his campaign, announced Monday that he was cracking down on a Mexican gang. MS-13 is going to be gone from our streets very soon, believe me, he said, during a ceremony for slain police officers. When policing is reduced, its often the poorest and most vulnerable Americans who are the first to suffer. We have all seen the tragic rise in violence and crimes in many of our disadvantaged communities.

But Trump offered no plan for dealing with that disadvantage. Nothing about more jobs or affordable housing. Not better health care  just more police officers with bigger guns.

No need for the white protesters to wave Confederate flags and chant white power. Trump and Sessions know how to placate them by attacking black freedoms.

As for Perriellos desire to banish the bigots: Sorry, Tom. You might be able to get the white supremacists out of your home town, but you cant get your home town out of America.

To read previous columns, go to washingtonpost.com/milloy.


Interim principal Denise L. Bloomer directs children to their classrooms at Greater Grace Charter Academy in Vacherie, La., in late March. (Max Becherer/Polaris Images for The Washington Post)

 At the new public charter school in this Mississippi River town, nearly all the students are African American. Parents seem unconcerned about that. They just hope their children will get a better education.

I wanted my girls to soar higher, said Alfreda Cooper, who is black and has two daughters at Greater Grace Charter Academy.

Three hours up the road, students at Delta Charter School in Concordia Parish are overwhelmingly white, even though the surrounding community is far more mixed.

As the charter school movement accelerates across the country, a critical question remains unanswered: whether the creation of charters is accelerating school segregation. Federal judges who oversee desegregation plans in Louisiana are wrestling with that issue at a time when President Trump wants to spend billions of dollars on charter schools, vouchers and other school choice initiatives.

[Trump seeks to slash Education Department but make big push for school choice]

In February, a judge found that Delta Charter had violated the terms of the parishs court-ordered desegregation plan and asked the parties to submit proposals for how to move forward. The local school board in Concordia not only is seeking reimbursement of millions of dollars, but also wants the judge to require the charter school to cancel its enrollment and start over with the aim of creating a more diverse student body. That would include offering transportation to the school  something that could make it possible for more black students to attend.

The nations schools have become more segregated by race and class over the past two decades, according to federal data, and some research indicates that charter schools are more likely to be segregated than traditional public schools. Some charter advocates say they are more interested in creating good schools for marginalized children as quickly as possible  no matter the consequences for the racial makeup of enrollment.

I aint got time for people talking about integration when were trying to meet the needs of these children, said Howard L. Fuller, an education professor at Marquette University who supports charter schools, private-school vouchers and other efforts to give parents more say in education.

More than 60 years after separate was declared unequal in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, research shows that schools serving mostly poor children of color have fewer resources, more inexperienced teachers and limited access to rigorous coursework.

No one is saying that charter schools are bad, said Deuel Ross, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund involved in one of the Louisiana cases. But research and hundreds of years of history have shown that segregated schools are not whats best for black children.

Choice vs. integration

The first charter schools  taxpayer-funded and privately run  were founded a quarter-century ago as an experiment to give teachers more freedom to innovate. Today, advocates say the institutions provide disadvantaged students with a high-quality education, while critics say they siphon money out of traditional public schools, at least partially privatizing an essential government function.

Charters account for a small share of public school enrollment  about 5 percent in 2014, federal data shows. Trumps interest in expanding charters could accelerate their growth, forcing state and local leaders to make difficult decisions about how and whether to balance the ideals of parent choice and integrated schools.

Concordia Parish, which stretches for 70 miles along the Mississippi border, has been trying to desegregate its schools for decades, under the eye of the federal government. In 2013, a federal judge allowed Delta Charter School to open there on the condition that its student body reflect the demographics of the school district.

At the time, the district was split almost evenly between black and white students. But the charter, in the predominantly African American town of Ferriday, has never enrolled a proportionate share of black students. Seventeen percent of Delta Charters students were black at the start of the 2016-2017 school year, court records show.

[On the anniversary of Brown v. Board, new evidence that U.S. schools are resegregating]

The local school board also contends in court documents that the charter school has siphoned $11.6 million from district schools in the past four years, making it harder for the parish to carry out its desegregation plan, which includes a districtwide magnet program.

The charter school opened in a building that once housed a segregation academy  one of the all-white private schools that emerged decades ago in the South to resist court-ordered integration. That symbolism is not lost on the community. Adding to the tension, a veteran teacher in the school district said many of the areas high-performing students and involved parents have decamped for the charter.

Its kind of looked down upon if you go to a public school, said teacher DShay Oaks, referring to the traditional public schools.

The students left behind have lost academic role models, she said. And the school has lost fundraising and volunteer power, delaying an effort to update its computer lab and make other needed improvements.

A lawyer for Delta Charter declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. But Sheena Mize, whose son and daughter attend the charter, says the school is succeeding academically and should not be penalized for the communitys long-standing racial divide.

It is the way it is in this area, said Mize, who is white. The community separated themselves on their own. I dont think its anyones fault the way it ended up.

Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, defended the school. Delta Charter should not be asked to bear the burden of solving societys complex racial struggles and history, she said. The school  which is rated a B on the states A-to-F scale  has done more to create a high-quality public school that is open to all residents than the district has achieved in the past 60 years, she said.

Charter schools do not use neighborhood boundaries to determine enrollment. Theoretically, that gives them the potential to create more student diversity than traditional schools. But for most charters, desegregation has not been the primary goal.

Of the states that allow charter schools, about a third require affirmative steps toward diversity. Even then, most have no mechanisms for enforcing such provisions, according to Erica Frankenberg, a Pennsylvania State University professor and expert on school segregation.

And there is mounting evidence that charters contribute to the broader resegregation of the nations classrooms. Researchers with the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles found in 2010 that black students in charter schools are far more likely than their counterparts in traditional public schools to be educated in an intensely segregated setting.

Other studies in California, North Carolina, Minnesota and the District have reached similar conclusions. But some experts caution that many factors, including housing patterns and geography, can influence the racial distribution of students at any given school.

Nationally, evidence on charter school performance is mixed. Some are mired in financial difficulty and academic mediocrity. But there are clear examples of charter schools that provide poor and minority children with stronger educational opportunities.

[Five myths about charter schools]

The KIPP charter network says its students graduate from high school at a rate 20 percentage points higher than their low-income peers across the country do. At the all-male Urban Prep Charter Academy in Chicago, 100 percent of graduates have been accepted to college, including to Ivy League universities, over the past eight years.

Another option

People in Vacherie hope Greater Grace Charter Academy will be one of these beat-the-odds schools.



Teacher Lynette James leads students in an interactive learning exercise with the help of a touchable video screen at Greater Grace Charter Academy. (Max Becherer/Polaris Images for The Washington Post)

Housed in a cinder block building leased from a local church, Greater Grace is located in a town situated amid sugar cane fields on the west bank of the Mississippi. Each morning, students clad in maroon uniforms stream inside as flatbed trucks whiz by on the highway out front.

During the day, the children learn in trailers in the back, and at dismissal, they board the charter schools yellow bus, bound for all corners of 260-square-mile St. James Parish, where the school is located.

But Greater Grace does not reflect the demographics of a parish school system that also has been trying to diversify its classrooms for decades under a court-ordered desegregation plan. Of the 3,800 students in St. James Parish, roughly two-thirds are black, and a third are white. At Greater Grace, more than 90 percent of students are black, giving rise to concerns that the new school has created yet another racially isolated setting.

[As D.C. gentrifies, some charter schools aim to reach broader spectrum]

When a federal judge allowed Greater Grace to open, he emphasized the value of parental choice. But black parents and the NAACP have appealed, arguing that Greater Grace should be closed until it can reopen with a more integrated approach. Oral arguments are scheduled for June at a federal appeals court in New Orleans.

Rhoda Johnson, a black plaintiff in the case, said she is troubled by the segregated nature of the new charter. As a child, she attended an all-black district school not far from where Greater Grace now stands.

We used hand-me-down books from the white school, recalled Johnson, 56, whose son and grandsons attend schools in the St. James public district.

Locals say that in this parish, dotted with antebellum plantations once powered by slave labor and now dependent on tourist dollars, one side always has been predominantly black and the other predominantly white. Even after decades of desegregation efforts, traditional public schools within the parish also remain intensely segregated, according to court records.

Claudette Aubert, the charter schools founder, said it was time to give families in her rural community another option.

She opened Greater Grace last fall after learning that many students were falling years behind in reading and math at traditional public schools. The charter school offers small class sizes and computer-based instruction to help meet students at their level, Aubert said.

A pastor in St. James Parish and former special-education teacher, Aubert says she spent years educating residents about the possibilities a charter school could bring to their community.

It is still too early to tell whether Greater Grace will make good on its promise of a better education. But when the school opened its doors last year, 85 students enrolled.

They showed up, Aubert said. They wanted another choice.

Emma Brown contributed to this report, which was produced in partnership with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, where McLaren is a student.
THE DISTRICT

Ex-dentist pleads

guilty to sex assault

A former Georgetown dentist Monday pled guilty to five counts of sexually assaulting five male patients at his practice while the patients were under anesthesia.

In addition to the five patients, Bilah Ahmed, 44, also pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two employees of his at his former practice.

The incidents occurred between 2010 and 2014, prosecutors say, at Ahmeds former practice, Universal Smiles, at 2311 M St. NW.

Prosecutors initially charged Ahmed, of Falls Church, Va., with sexually assaulting one patient when he was arrested in 2016 by New York authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport after deplaning a flight from Pakistan.

Since his arrest, prosecutors discovered additional victims.

Ahmeds dental license was suspended in the District in 2014. He remains on home confinement and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 10 by D.C. Superior Court Judge Zoe Bush. Ahmed faces decades in prison.

 Keith Alexander

MARYLAND

Man charged with killing girlfriend

A 35-year-old Oxon Hill man confessed to Prince Georges County police that he killed his girlfriend and disposed of her body in a dumpster in April, officials said.

Authorities charged Michael Proctor, of the 4500 block of Wheeler Road, with first- and second-degree murder in the death of 41-year-old Turkessa Paige.

On April 27, a family member reported Paige missing. Detectives interviewed Proctor on Friday, and he admitted strangling her in their apartment on April 13, police said.

Police are searching forPaiges body, officials said.

Investigators did not release a motive in the case.

 Clarence Williams

VIRGINIA

One victim of hotel shooting dies

One of three people shot at a hotel in Alexandria over the weekend has died, police said Monday.

Desmond A. Roseboro, 28, of Alexandria, succumbed to his injuries Sunday. It is the citys first homicide this year.

The shooting occurred shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday at the Extended Stay America hotel in the 200 block of Bluestone Road.

Two other victims, women ages 21 and 35, remain hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening. The 35-year-old woman is also an Alexandria resident.

Crystal Nosal, a spokeswoman for the Alexandria Police Department, would not discuss a possible motive, and police have not identified a suspect in Roseboros death.

 Rachel Weiner
A 4-year-old died in Virginia on Monday after shooting himself in an Orange County home where a child-care service operates, authorities said.

At about 12:45 p.m. Monday, Orange County Sheriffs Office deputies responded after a 911 call reported a child shooting himself at a residence on Mine Run Road, according to a department statement. The child, who was not identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The residence where the child-care service operates is also the home to a Stafford County deputy sheriff. The officer was not at home at the time of the incident, according to the statement, and the firearm in the shooting was not a service weapon.

In a statement, the Stafford County Sheriffs Office said the officer, whose name was not released, is a recruit at the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy who started working with the department in December.

The Orange County Sheriffs Office is investigating the incident, and an autopsy has been ordered.
A convicted drunk driver who was on the run for three days after ducking a Maryland court appearance over a fatal crash was captured with cash and other belongings that suggested he was planning to stay on the lam, law enforcement officials said.

Kenneth Kelley, 27, was caught Monday and is jailed without bond, awaiting a sentencing reset for June 9.

The new sentencing date comes after Kelley did not show up to his original sentencing hearing Friday. Kelley, of Southeast Washington, had pleaded guilty to 28 counts connected with the crash that killed three women and two children, including negligent manslaughter and drunken driving.

A judge issued a bench warrant for Kelley on Friday, and Prince Georges County sheriffs deputies found him in a Suitland-area hotel on Allentown Road on Monday night, authorities said.

There was clear evidence he was looking to head of out town, said Sharon Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Prince Georges County Sheriffs Office. Our deputies acted quickly and captured him without incident.

John Erzen, a spokesman for the Prince Georges County States Attorneys office, said Kelley was in jail without bond. Judge Albert Northrop also charged Kelley with contempt of court when he failed to appear at his sentencing Friday.

[Man who killed 5 in drunken-driving crash didnt show up for sentencing]

Erzen said prosecutors will ask the judge for the maximum 50-year sentence in the crash deaths. He killed five people and forever changed the lives of so many more, Erzen said.

Kelleys attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Kelley slammed the Mercedes-Benz he was driving Oct. 10, 2014, into the back of an Acura stopped at a red light at Livingston Road and Livingston Terrace in Oxon Hill, prosecutors said.

The crash killed Dominique Green, 21, who was a passenger in the car with Kelley. Four people in the Acura also died: Typhani Wilkerson, 32; Tameika Curtis, 35; Hassan Boykin, 1; and Khadija Ba, 13.

Wilkerson and Curtis left behind 10 children.

Kelley was out on a $100,000 bond pending sentencing and was supposed to be under GPS monitoring, but the tracking device had somehow been removed, prosecutors said.

When he failed to show in court, the sheriffs office said, deputies and a U.S. Marshals task force attempted to track him and worked through the weekend to canvass communities in the District, Maryland and Virginia where Kelley might have ties.

[Fathers helping 10 kids cope with grief after their mothers die in Md. crash]

Taylor, the sheriffs spokeswoman, said an anonymous tipster helped lead to Kelleys capture.

Deputies conducted surveillance of the hotel where Kelley was spotted and executed a warrant in a room where he was staying, according to the sheriffs office.
The family of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich rejected Fox News reports that he had leaked work emails to WikiLeaks before he was fatally shot last year near his home in the District.

The reports, which gained traction on social media, said that an FBI forensics examination showed that Rich transferred 44,053 DNC emails and 17,761 attachments to a now-deceased WikiLeaks director.

Richs parents, Joel and Mary Ann Rich, said Tuesday through a spokesman that they do not think their son gave any information to WikiLeaks. Rich was shot July 10, 2016, in Northwest Washingtons Bloomingdale neighborhood. D.C. police have repeatedly said that they think Rich was killed in a random robbery attempt, but several conspiracy theories have emerged about his death. No arrests have been made.

As weve seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press, Richs family said in a statement. We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seths murderers.

[How killing of Seth Rich became politicized]

(Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Several federal and local law enforcement authorities also said Tuesday that they were not aware that Rich sent any DNC information to WikiLeaks.

There is nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate, said Dustin Sternbeck, the chief spokesman for D.C. police, which is leading the investigation into Richs death. He would not be more specific.

FBI spokesmen declined to comment, saying that the agency is not involved in the case, and referred questions to D.C. police.

Law enforcement officials have said that Richs computer and email activity have been examined and suggest nothing that would connect him to WikiLeaks  which, 12 days after Richs death, published 20,000 emails that embarrassed former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and forced the ouster of its chairwoman.

The DNC said in a statement: We know of no evidence that supports these allegations.

The allegations were reported by Fox News, including WTTG (Channel 5), its affiliate in the District. The reports cited a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, whom Fox said was hired by the Rich family and had previously worked for D.C. police. He also has been an on-air contributor to Channel 5. Fox News later cited an unnamed federal investigator, who said that Rich had transferred thousands of emails to a WikiLeaks director between January 2015 and May 2016.

Fox News did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Post.

Richs killing has been the subject of intrigue, with speculation centered on Russia, the DNC and the bitter presidential campaign. WikiLeaks has added $20,000 to a reward to find Richs killer but has not said whether he had been working with or in contact with the group.

Various theories have purported that Rich may have been the source of the DNC email leaks or that he was about to reveal Russia as the hacker. Then-FBI Director James B. Comey testified in May that intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was behind the DNC hack.

The Rich familys spokesman, Brad Bauman, said that Wheeler had not been hired by the family but by a third-party he identified as Ed Butowsky, a Dallas financier who regularly appears on Foxs business channels and on other networks. Bauman said that Wheeler offered his services to the family, claiming he wanted to help.

Butowsky said that he talked to Seth Richs father and recommended Wheeler. He denied paying Wheeler or financing the investigation.

[WikiLeaks adds to reward to help find Seth Richs killer]

This is devastating to the family, Bauman said. They have confidence in the police investigation and believe that every single one of these fake news stories actually harms the ability of the police department to get to the bottom of what actually happened.

Wheeler said that he worked for D.C. police from 1989 to 1998 and once was a detective in the homicide unit. He said in an interview that he was told by a D.C. police detective involved in the investigation that there is evidence that DNC files were possibly transferred from Richs computer to a WikiLeaks representative. He declined to identify his source, and he did not return phone calls seeking comment after Richs family had publicly criticized him.

D.C. police said that Wheeler worked as an officer from 1990 to 1995, and officials were checking records to determine if he served in homicide. Sternbeck, the police spokesman, said that Wheeler was fired from the agency.

Ann E. Marimow, Devlin Barrett and Keith L. Alexander contributed to this report.
For the second time in a week, government lawyers will try to persuade a federal appeals court to reinstate President Donald Trumps revised travel ban  and once again, they can expect plenty of questions about whether the ban was designed to discriminate against Muslims.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled arguments in Seattle over Hawaiis lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nations refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judges decision putting the ban on ice. They peppered Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall with questions about whether they could consider Trumps campaign statements calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., with one judge asking if there was anything other than willful blindness that would prevent them from doing so.

The arguments mark the second time Trumps efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide  a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel.

The president then rewrote his executive order, rather than appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in March, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu blocked the new version from taking effect, citing what he called significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus in Trumps campaign statements.

Again, in this court, the President claims a nearly limitless power to make immigration policy that is all but immune from judicial review, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin wrote to the 9th Circuit. Again, he must be checked.

The administrations lawyers are seeking to persuade the judges that the lower courts decision is fundamentally wrong, and that the presidents order falls squarely within his duty to secure the nations borders. The order as written is silent on religion, and neither Hawaii nor its co-plaintiff, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, has standing to sue, they say  arguments that were rejected in the lower court. AP
Two key Republican lawmakers are crafting a bill that would punish sanctuary cities, force parents of undocumented teenagers to wear electronic ankle monitors so their children do not skip deportation hearings, and establish five-year minimum prison sentences for immigrants who illegally re-enter the United States after being deported, according to a congressional aide and a draft of the proposed legislation obtained by The Washington Post.

The bill by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), which was being reworked Tuesday, also would increase detention space and boost the number of immigration judges on the border to speed deportations.

It calls for increased criminal prosecutions of immigrants who cross the border illegally and would reimburse governors who deploy their states National Guard to help patrol the U.S. border, according to a congressional aide with direct knowledge of the bill and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the bill is in its preliminary stages.

The White House declined to comment on the bill Tuesday.

The wide-ranging proposal, which is being refined with input from the Department of Homeland Security, aims to boost border security and immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

But hard-line anti-immigration groups who have seen drafts of the proposed legislation say it falls short by failing to provide for President Trumps long-promised border wall; sanctions against businesses that hire undocumented immigrants; or E-Verify, the employment-verification system that has been a staple of previous immigration talks on Capitol Hill.

These critics also say that even if the bill passed the House, it would be unlikely to pass the Senate, where Democrats have signaled that they would be unwilling to compromise on legislation unless it includes a path to legal residency for the countrys 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Theres not a single thing about work-site enforcement or anything at all against employers, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, who has seen a draft of the bill. Its tinkering around the margins.

The proposal comes after several court challenges by Democrats and civil liberties groups that have temporarily paralyzed many of Trumps efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants and sanctuary cities, among other provisions.

Trump also has run into trouble securing financing from Congress for a bigger wall on the U.S.-

Mexico border.

Cornyn chairs the Senate Judiciary Committees subcommittee on border security and immigration, while McCaul heads the House Homeland Security Committee. Both lawmakers have questioned proposals to build a border wall, especially as border-related apprehensions have declined  resistance that has earned the congressman the nickname No-wall McCaul.

The most recent draft of their bill seeks to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by significantly expanding the pool of federal grant money that could be denied to cities and towns that prohibit or limit cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation agents.

A federal judge in California last month temporarily blocked Trumps plans to strip a more limited amount of grant funding from sanctuary cities. But the reasoning the judge gave was that only Congress can impose conditions on federal funds.

There are more than 100 sanctuary cities that refuse to turn over immigrants they have arrested for state or local crimes to ICE for civil deportation proceedings.

Vaughan said the Cornyn-

McCaul measure combines separate proposals that perhaps could pass on their own, including a bill known as Kates Law, named for Kathryn Steinle, who was shot and killed in 2015 in San Francisco, allegedly by a Mexican national who had been deported several times but had returned to the United States. There is also a proposal that mirrors legislation from Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) that would prod sanctuary cities to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Earlier this year, Cornyn said he was working with members of Congress and the Trump administration on legislation that would secure the border.

Ive said it before, and Ill say it again that border security is really a question of political will, he said at the time. The last administration did not have it, and I know this administration does have the political will to get it done, so we are trying to work together to demonstrate to them what we think the means to achieve that goal should look like.

Robert Law, director of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the draft proposals contain some useful tools for enforcing immigration law, but in general the bill still keeps missing the mark.

Its the same failed attempt every single Congress, said Law, whose group favors slashing legal immigration in addition to stepping up deportations. New Congress, and nothing changes in actually securing the border.

Ed OKeefe contributed to this report.
Amtrak assistant conductor Brandon Bostian outside a train in St. Louis. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said that Bostian will face charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in connection with a deadly 2015 Amtrak crash. (2007 photo by Huy Richard Mach/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via Associated Press)

Relatives of a victim of the deadly 2015 Amtrak crash have used a little-known provision of Pennsylvania law to push state prosecutors to file charges against the engineer  an abrupt turn of events in the high-profile case that last week had appeared to reach its end.

The announcement late Friday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro that Brandon Bostian would face charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment capped a week of legal maneuvering. Just days before, the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office announced it would not prosecute Bostian in connection with the crash that killed eight people and injured more than 200 others.

The district attorneys office said that while Bostians actions likely caused the Northeast Regional train traveling at twice the posted speed limit to derail at a curve, there was not enough evidence to pursue a criminal case.

But the husband and father of Rachel Jacobs, a technology executive who was among those killed in the crash, thought otherwise.

Less than 24 hours after the district attorneys announcement, the two men used Pennsylvanias private criminal complaint process to argue that Bostian should be charged.

Rescuers gather around a derailed carriage of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia. The May 2015 crash killed eight people and injured more than 200 others. (2015 photo by Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

As per the law that has been on the books for decades, but is not often used, they took their complaint to the district attorneys office, which cited its original decision in deferring the matter. Then along with their attorney  Thomas R. Kline, working with Richard A. Sprague  appealed to President Judge Marsha H. Neifield of Philadelphia Municipal Court.

[Engineer in deadly 2015 Amtrak crash will not be charged]

Neifield reviewed the complaint and on Thursday ordered the district attorneys office to file charges. Because of their previous involvement, the office referred the case to the state attorney generals office, which late Friday announced that Bostian would be charged with eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count of causing or risking a catastrophe and numerous counts of reckless endangerment.

As of Monday, Bostian had not surrendered to authorities. His attorney, Robert S. Goggin III, did not respond to requests for comment.

When the district attorneys office announced its decision, the victims of Amtrak 188 felt that justice had been derailed, said Robert Mongeluzzi, who is also representing families and victims of the May 2015 crash. Forty-eight hours later when the attorney general announced he would be filing charges, they felt that justice was back on track.

Amtrak 188 had left the District and headed for New York on the night of May 12, 2015, when it entered a curve just north of Philadelphias 30th Street Station. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board determined the train was traveling 106 mph, more than twice the posted speed limit of 50 mph, when it hit the curve; the engine and all seven cars derailed.

Investigators said Bostian may have lost track of where he was and might have thought that he was entering a different curve where the speed limit is 110 mph.

Attorneys Thomas Kline, left, Richard Sprague and Robert Mongeluzzi at a news conference on Thursday. (Matt Rourke/AP)

It was Amtraks worst crash in more than 20 years.

[Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia, killing eight]

In October 2016, Amtrak paid $265 million to settle claims related to the crash. Federal law limits how much money passenger rail companies must pay in damages.

Jules Epstein, director of advocacy programs at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, said the law allowing privately initiated complaints used by Jacobss family has been around for years, but is generally used in small disputes between individuals.

He said, however, that even though Bostian now faces charges, there is no guarantee he will face trial.

There was nothing in the judges order that preordains the outcome, Epstein said. The prosecution may later move to dismiss, offer pretrial probation, negotiate a deal for probation or prosecute and seek jail time.

A handful of other states have similar laws that allow private people to file criminal complaints, according to research done by Jeffrey B. Welty, an associate professor of public law and government and director at North Carolina Judicial College at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Pennsylvania law limits complaints to misdemeanor charges only.

The decision by the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office came after a two-year investigation. In a statement that accompanied the announcement, the office explained why it opted not to charge Bostian.

We cannot conclude that the evidence rises to the high level necessary to charge the engineer or anyone else with a criminal offense, the statement said. Nor do we believe there is sufficient evidence to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, criminal recklessness, which would be the only other basis for criminal liability.

According to the office, Pennsylvania law specifically says that a person acts with criminal recklessness when he or she consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk.

Based on the available information, we do not have evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the engineer consciously disregarded the risk, the written statement said.

Mongeluzzi, however, disagreed.

There is no doubt from the black box recordings that Mr. Bostian was conscious, he said. There is no doubt the actions he took were conscious. This is no different from a car wreck. If you are going 106 miles per hour into a 50 mile per hour curve, you would be charged. That is exactly what the attorney general said.


Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in the June 13 primary election, debates at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke on May 4, 2017. (Heather Rousseau/Associated Press)

RICHMOND  Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has taken heat from environmentalists for refusing to condemn a pair of natural gas pipelines being built in the state, but a recent letter from Virginias biggest utility suggests the potential political payoff from his neutral stance.

Dominion Energy chief executive Thomas Farrell sent a letter May 12 to the companys 76,000 employees, retirees and shareholders throughout Virginia that urged them to consider Dominions pipeline project when voting in the June 13 gubernatorial primary.

Dominions Atlantic Coast Pipeline is one of the largest and most important projects our company has ever undertaken, Farrell wrote. (The other Virginia pipeline, the Mountain Valley, is sponsored by EQT and several partners).

Farrell went on to list several benefits of the project, saying it would reduce energy bills, help further the goal of cleaner air and open up the southeastern area of the state to economic development. Without it, Hampton Roads lacks the natural-gas infrastructure to attract big employers, he said.

Then he noted that the pipeline has been an issue in the statewide political campaigns. With both parties holding primary elections on June 13, [p]lease take time to review the candidates positions and see how they stand on critical projects such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Farrell wrote. I urge you to exercise your constitutional right to vote in the primary of your choice.

[Virginia power broker in the hot seat in governors race]

While he did not mention any candidates by name, the point of Farrells letter was clear to anyone following the governors race in Virginia  particularly the closely fought Democratic contest, where the pipelines have been one of the few policy distinctions between the two candidates.

Northam has said only that the pipelines should get strict environmental review, while his rival for the nomination, former congressman Tom Perriello, has flatly opposed them.

At a recent candidates forum in Charlottesville, two University of Virginia climate activists interrupted Northam and demanded that he denounce the pipelines, which are being built in the southern and western parts of the state.

Northam praised the students for exercising their freedom of speech and said he served in the Army to guarantee their rights, but he declined to elaborate beyond his routine answer. The activists jeered him, and about 10 sang and danced in front of the stage while moderators pleaded with them to stop.

Dominion has come under scrutiny this year for the enormous influence that it wields in Richmond as the states top corporate campaign donor. Northam and other candidates come under criticism for owning shares in Dominion and for taking contributions from the company.

Republican candidates Ed Gillespie and state Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach) have also taken donations from Dominion, and have endorsed the pipelines as good for the economy. The third Republican candidate, Corey Stewart, has criticized Dominion and received no donations, recent campaign finance disclosures show.

Perriello, who has refused any Dominion donations, regularly makes the utility a target in debates and campaign appearances. He criticizes its pipeline as bad for the environment, and asserts that Dominion has too much sway with elected officials.



Dominion Energys Possum Point Power Station in Dumfries, Va. (Kate Patterson/The Washington Post)

But Dominions influence extends beyond politicians. It is one of the biggest corporate employers in Virginia, has tens of thousands of shareholders in the state and touches millions of customers. When it talks, that audience listens.

And many of them are older and relatively affluent  the very people most likely to come out and vote in a low-turnout primary.

A spokesman for Dominion said the company tries to keep its constituents regularly informed about where it stands on issues.

Its not unusual for the company to encourage participation  both in the form of philanthropic volunteerism . . . or politically as part of the democratic process, spokesman David Botkins said. Dominion employees are active and engaged and appreciate being communicated with directly by company leadership.

That type of corporate influence is common and permissible under campaign finance laws, said Ken Gross, who leads the political law practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in the District.

Northams campaign says that he is not swayed by donations or attempts at corporate lobbying. It is not fair to single out one corporate contributor, Northam has said; he has called for barring all businesses and corporations from giving to political campaigns and for requiring nonprofit contributors to reveal their donors.

His spokesman said Northams position on the pipeline has nothing to do with the political clout suggested by Dominions letter.

As the lieutenant governor has previously stated, he only makes decisions based on whats best for Virginians. Period, spokesman David Turner said. Its why he believes the facts and process should dictate the [pipeline] decision.

Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.
Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va), increasingly critical of President Trump, joined Democrats and some Republicans Tuesday in demanding that the White House brief Congress on what highly classified information the president disclosed to Russian diplomats.

Once again we are faced with inexplicable stories coming from the White House that are highly troubling, Comstock said in a statement about the information President Trump acknowledged sharing last week with Russias foreign minister that may have jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

We need to have immediate classified briefings on what occurred at this meeting so that Congress can at least know as much as Russian leaders and know the impact on our national security, our allies, and our men and women protecting our country, she wrote.

Comstock, who is facing a competitive race for reelection in 2018, had already broken ranks with the Trump administration over last weeks firing of FBI director James B. Comey and the ongoing investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

She was also among just a handful of House Republicans who voted against the latest version of the American Healthcare Act to overhaul the current health care system.

Both Democrats and Republicans attacked the FBI Director at various times for various reasons and called for his ouster, she said in a statement about Comeys termination. However, I cant defend or explain tonights actions or timing of the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

About Russia and the election, she said: There must be an independent investigation that the American people can trust.

In an interview last week, Comstock said she believes that the FBI and Senate probes into any Russian ties to the administration should continue before a special commission is considered.

Comstock has mostly steered clear of Trump, but has delivered some criticisms  most notably when she called the language he used about women recorded in an Access Hollywood video leaked to The Post last October disgusting and vile.

But Democrats called her more recent stances against Trump political posturing, arguing that she hasnt taken any action that would lead to an independent investigation into Russias role in the presidential election.

Instead of holding President Trump accountable for his reckless and dangerous decision to share code word classified information with a foreign adversary, Representative Comstock just wants to make sure she knows as much as the Russians do, said Cole Leiter, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Comstock either doesnt understand the gravity of what President Trump did or shes more interested in political posturing than holding the President accountable.

Comstock faces increasing competition from Democrats out to stop her from winning a third term in a Northern Virginia congressional district that has become increasingly moderate.

The 10th congressional district spans the Washington suburbs and conservative counties on the West Virginia border. Comstock won reelection last November by 6 points, but her constituents favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by a 10-point margin, making the district one of Democrats top targets for next year.

Five Democrats have announced plans to run in their partys primary for the chance to oppose Comstock. State Sen. Jennifer Wexton, a former prosecutor; Lindsey Davis Stover, a former Obama administration official; Dan Helmer, an Army veteran; Kimberly Adams, past president of the Fairfax teachers union, and David B. Hanson, a retired Naval intelligence officer from Clifton, have announced their campaigns.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) ordered state officials Tuesday to create regulations that will reduce carbon emissions from power plants and emphasize clean energy sources such as solar, a plan similar to the federal policy that President Trump has threatened to rescind.

McAuliffe, hoping to have new rules in place before he leaves office in January 2018, said states cannot wait any longer for the federal government to act, especially when the sea-level rise predicted in coastal communities as a result of global warming is already threatening Hampton Roads. Half of Virginias inland counties face increased risk of water shortages in the next 30 years because of climate change, he said.

I wish we had a national standard, McAuliffe said after signing the directive at an event at Alexandrias water treatment plant. But Virginia cannot and will not stand idly by while the federal government abdicates its role.

His action has the potential to alter the national dialogue on climate change, said Walton Shepherd, a senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This will be enough when other states follow Gov. McAuliffes lead and cut their carbon as well, he said. A 2.5 percent reduction in carbon emissions annually over the next dozen years would result in a significant drop, he noted. If other states get involved, that will drive significant enough changes to honor our international agreements.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network issued a report last year that gave McAuliffe a grade of D+ on carbon pollution and clean power. But its director, Mike Tidwell, on Tuesday called McAuliffes order very compelling and argued that McAuliffe should now drop his support for offshore drilling and gas pipelines from West Virginia.

It looks like the governor, although very late in his administration, has pulled together a regulatory approach that could make a real difference, Tidwell said. This has the potential to be a really big deal.

McAuliffes plan sparked immediate pushback from Republicans.

House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) called McAuliffes action a broad assertion of regulatory authority, Washingtonesque in both its nature and scope. The governor is attempting to implement a failed national policy in the commonwealth that will further hamper economic growth at a time when we desperately need policies to get Virginia moving again.

Howell said McAuliffe is ignoring the legislative process with his directive, and he will take every action necessary to ensure that major policy changes go through the General Assembly.

The chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia also denounced McAuliffes plan, saying in a statement that the free market has led to significant year over year reduction in carbon emissions. Terry McAuliffes decision to resist common sense environmental policy will drive up prices for consumers, cost Virginians jobs, and make it even more difficult to grow our economy.

McAuliffe appeared Tuesday with business leaders, the head of the regional branch of the American Lung Association and a retired rear admiral, who testified to the importance of reducing greenhouse gases and preparing for the effects of the change that is underway. Solar energy firms now employ 3,236 people in the state, twice as many as coal companies employ.

Virginias secretary of commerce and trade, Todd P. Haymore, said companies that are considering moving to the commonwealth are increasingly asking about renewable sources of energy.

As we recruit [businesses], it is always part of the deal, he said. We may talk about workforce and transportation and incentives, but our commitment to renewables is always asked about. Ten years ago, even five or six years ago, we didnt really have that discussion.

Also Tuesday, a new Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans say increasing use of renewable energy is a top or important priority for the nation, and a majority think government regulations are necessary to ensure that goal.

McAuliffe and 11 other governors sent a letter two weeks ago to Trump urging him to honor the Paris climate agreement, which calls for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The Virginia governor said he will partner with those states to multiply the impact of the carbon cap and make sure the state is ready to allow organizations to trade their right to emit carbon.
Two homeowners near a Dominion Virginia Power plant in Possum Point are suing the utility company for several million dollars, alleging that coal-ash water dumped into a Potomac River tributary caused their drinking wells to be contaminated with toxic metals.

The lawsuits, filed in Prince William County Circuit Court this week, claim that Dominion was being negligent when it released 27.5 million gallons of untreated coal-ash water into Quantico Creek in 2015.

State environmental authorities have said that the release of the water was legal. The plaintiffs, who live in Dumfries, say they were worried about their health because they used the wells for months before learning that they had been contaminated.

Daniel Marrow and his family are seeking $6 million in compensatory damages, while Brian G. West is seeking $3 million, the lawsuits state.

Dominion spokesman Robert Richardson declined to comment on the lawsuits.

Last year, Dominion offered to pay to connect local residents to the Prince William County water system because of the well contamination. Three of the eight affected residents have accepted, Richardson said.

Dominion, which stopped using coal at the Possum Point site in 2003, is awaiting state approval to bury 1 million tons of treated coal ash there.
Hong Kong authorities have rejected asylum requests from a group of refugees who sheltered Edward Snowden four years ago, in what their lawyer said is retaliation for helping the former NSA contractor.

Immigration officials in the southern Chinese city denied the applications by the four adults and three children from Sri Lanka and the Philippines, Robert Tibbo said yesterday.

Snowden hid out in Hong Kong for two weeks in June 2013 after he leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance.

His whereabouts were a mystery during that time and it was not until last year that the role Tibbo and his clients played in sheltering Snowden was revealed.

Tibbo said his clients will appeal the ruling, which leaves them at risk of being detained or deported to their home countries. They have also applied for refugee status in Canada.

He said he represents 50 to 60 other clients who are applying for asylum in Hong Kong, where cases typically take years to be processed. But so far only these cases have received a speedy decision from immigration officials  issued last Thursday  in a sign they have been targeted by authorities, Tibbo said.

The Hong Kong government has repeatedly tried to question the four adults about their involvement with Mr. Snowden. For example, about how long had Mr. Snowden been staying with them, what was Mr. Snowdens movement in the territory, which is irrelevant to the [asylum] claims, he said.

Tibbo said that when they refused to answer the questions, their social assistance payments for rent and food were cut off.

The group includes Ajith Pushpakumara, a former Sri Lankan soldier; Vanessa Mae Rodel, who is from the Philippines and has a 5-year-old daughter; and a Sri Lankan couple, Supun Thilina Kellapatha and Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis, and their two children.

Tibbo decided to go public with their identities last year after learning that movie director Oliver Stone had found out about them and would incorporate their role into his film on Snowden, released in October. The three families, who didnt realize they were harboring one of the worlds most wanted figures at the time, said they feared being sent back.

Im an army deserter person, said Ajith, adding that if he returned to Sri Lanka, I will be tortured again. I dont want to be tortured.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that asylum claims are handled in a fair, impartial and efficient manner, and that it found no substantial grounds for believing that the claimants, if returned to their country of origin, will be subject to real and substantial risk of danger.

Rodel said she had no regrets helping Snowden, who gave her a hug when he left her tiny apartment four years ago.

This guy is the most wanted man in the world and he had a big hug with me, Rodel said. I am very proud of that. AP
MISSISSIPPI

49-year term in killing of transgender person

A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 49 years in prison for the first conviction on federal hate-crime charges arising from the killing of a transgender person.

A federal judge on Monday sentenced Joshua Vallum, who previously had been sentenced to life without parole on state murder charges.

Vallum acknowledged guilt in the 2015 death of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson. The case had been closely watched by LGBT advocates nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola could have sentenced Vallum to life in federal prison, but he stuck to a sentence suggested in a plea agreement between defense attorneys and prosecutors, citing the neglect Vallum suffered in childhood.

Prosecutors say Vallum killed Williamson to keep fellow members of the Latin Kings gang from discovering they had been having sex.

 Associated Press

OREGON

Man carrying mothers severed head stabs clerk

A man killed his mother on Mothers Day at a rural Oregon home, then showed up at a grocery store in a nearby town carrying her severed head and began stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued, authorities said Monday.

An autopsy was underway Monday on the body of Tina Marie Webb, 59, whose body was found Sunday at her home in Colton, Ore., near Portland. Her son, Joshua Lee Webb, 36, later showed up at a Thriftway in downtown Estacada, about 12 miles to the north, covered in blood, carrying a large kitchen-type knife and what appeared to be a severed human head, authorities said.

He began stabbing a checkout clerk, Michael Wagner, 66, but he was quickly overwhelmed by other employees. Wagner was hospitalized and was expected to survive.

David Webb, the father of Joshua Webb, said his son had vision problems and received Social Security payments. He lived at home so his parents could care for him. David Webb said they had recently bought his son a dog because he wanted one.

 Associated Press

S.C. teen died of too much caffeine: A healthy 16-year-old South Carolina high school student died of heart problems after drinking too much caffeine, a coroner said Monday. Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said Davis Cripe had no preexisting heart condition that might have caused him to collapse and die in a classroom last month. Watts said Cripe drank a large Mountain Dew, a latte from McDonalds and an energy drink in the two hours before his heart fell out of rhythm at Spring Hill High School near Chapin on April 26.

 Associated Press
MISSOURI

Special requirements for Ferguson shut down

The Missouri Supreme Court has struck down portions of a law that imposed special requirements on Ferguson and other cities and police in St. Louis County following unrest after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The court ruled Tuesday that the 2015 law was unconstitutional because the state failed to justify provisions treating St. Louis County differently from the rest of the state.

One stricken section required St. Louis County police agencies to be accredited and cities to maintain balanced budgets. Another limited the countys cities to getting no more than 12.5 percent of their revenue from traffic fines and court fees, as opposed to 20 percent elsewhere in Missouri.

The U.S. Justice Department investigated following Browns 2014 death in Ferguson, finding that the St. Louis suburb operated a profit-driven municipal court system.

 Associated Press

ALABAMA

Lethal injection records can be secret, judge says

Alabama can keep secret its records from recent lethal injections, including documents about an inmate who coughed for the first 13 minutes of the procedure, a judge has ruled.

Montgomery Circuit Judge J.R. Gaines refused to make the Alabama Department of Correction release execution logs. Alabama death row inmate Tommy Arthur, who is scheduled to be executed May 25, had gone to court after the prison system refused his public records request seeking the logs and other records. On Monday, Gaines sided with the state prison system.

Any release of the execution logs would be detrimental to the best interests of the public, Gaines wrote.

Arthurs lawyers argued that witness accounts suggested executed inmates might not have been fully anesthetized after being given the sedative midazolam. His lawyers said the state has refused to turn over records related to the states past two executions, including one in which inmate Ronald Bert Smith repeatedly coughed.

The U.S. Supreme Court halted Arthurs execution in November, but turned down his latest appeal last month.

 Associated Press

CALIFORNIA

7,000 birds seized in cockfighting bust

Authorities in Los Angeles County said Tuesday that they have seized 7,000 birds in one of the largest busts of illegal cockfighting in U.S. history.

The sheriffs department said the birds were seized Monday in a remote area of Val Verde, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles.

Several dead roosters also were found, along with equipment used during cockfights.

Sheriffs Sgt. Bob Boese told the Santa Clarita Valley Signal that about 10 were detained, including the property owners and people working on the property.

Authorities say 2,700 birds were seized during a raid on the same property in 2007.

 Associated Press

Estranged husband of Ohio house-fire victim held: The estranged husband of one of seven people killed in an Akron house has been detained on a suspected parole violation. Officials did not specify the violation by Patrick Boggs, 47. He is the husband of Angela Boggs, 38, who died in the fire early Monday along with her partner, five children and a family dog. Patrick Boggs, from Ravenna in northeast Ohio, spent more than a decade in prison for pouring kerosene on Angela Boggs and threatening to set her on fire with a lighter in February 2001. He was released in 2013.

 Associated Press
Malaysian authorities said yesterday that they have seized 330 exotic tortoises from Madagascar worth 1.2 million ringgit (USD276,721), in the latest heist of illegal wildlife and animal parts being smuggled into the country.

Deputy customs director Abdull Wahid Sulong said that 325 Indian Star tortoises and five Ploughshare tortoises were packed into five boxes and labeled as stones. He said the live tortoises, usually kept as pets, arrived via Etihad Airways from Antanaviro Airport in Madagascar on Sunday.

Customs officials found the boxes at the Kuala Lumpur airport cargo warehouse on the same day based on a tip, Abdull Wahid said.

The import of exotic tortoises requires a special permit from Malaysias Wildlife Department. No arrests were made and the case is still under investigation, Abdull Wahid said.

Two weeks ago, airport customs officials seized African pangolin scales worth $2.1 million at the airport cargo warehouse. Last month, they confiscated 18 rhino horns worth $3.1 million believed to have been flown in from Mozambique and declared as art objects. AP
ITALY

Police say Mafia stole millions in migrant aid

Italian authorities arrested 68 people Monday, including a priest and the head of a huge Catholic volunteer group, Mercy, and accused them of being in cahoots with a major Mafia clan that allegedly skimmed millions in public funds destined for asylum seekers at a welcome center in southern Italy.

Investigators said the Arena clan of the Calabrian Ndrangheta mob had a lock on servicing the Isola di Capo Rizzuto migrant center for the past decade, thanks in part to its links to Mercy and its regional head, Leonardo Sacco.

Sacco is well connected, and several politicians are linked to him. Mercy runs migrant centers and provides other volunteer services across the country, and the Calabrian holding center is one of Italys largest.

Investigators said Mercy subcontracted catering services to firms run by the Arena clan, which allegedly skimmed about 36 million euros ($39.5 million) of the 103 million euros in public funds destined for migrant care at the center from 2006 to 2015.

Police said the Rev. Edoardo Scordio, a priest affiliated with Mercy, was the organizer of a true system of exploitation of public funds destined for the migrant emergency.

Scordio in 2007 pocketed 132,000 euros for spiritual services he offered the refugees, police said.

 Associated Press

EGYPT

Trump reportedly wants to visit Cairo

Egypt said on Monday that President Trump had told President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi during a phone call that he wanted to visit Cairo at the earliest opportunity to discuss ways to counter terrorism in the Middle East.

A statement from the Egyptian presidency said Trump had called Sissi to stress the importance of strategic relations between their two countries.

There was no indication of when Trump might visit Egypt. Sissi traveled to Washington last month for talks with Trump intended to reset relations that had become strained under President Barack Obama.

Egypt has long been one of Washingtons closest allies in the Middle East, receiving $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid annually. It is fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula in which hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police officers have been killed.

Trump is making his first international trip as president this month, and Sissi is expected to be among regional leaders who will meet with him in Saudi Arabia over the weekend. Trump is also expected to visit Israel.

 Reuters

Cholera outbreak in Yemen kills 124 in two weeks: The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen said a cholera outbreak has killed 124 people in two weeks. Jamie McGoldrick said 11,100 people are believed to have been infected. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Shiite rebels in Yemen since March 2015, in a war that has killed more than 10,000 civilians. The World Health Organization said last month that fewer than 45 percent of health facilities in Yemen are fully functioning.

Lawmakers kill impeachment case against Duterte: Philippine legislators killed an impeachment complaint accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of crimes against humanity for the thousands who have died in his anti-drug crackdown. The Justice Committee of the House of Representatives, dominated by Duterte allies, declared that though the complaint was sufficient in form, there was insufficient substance to proceed. Dutertes war on drugs has killed 7,000 to 9,000 suspected drug dealers and addicts, according to human rights groups.

Israeli navy kills Palestinian fisherman: The Israeli navy fatally shot a Gaza fisherman on a boat in the Mediterranean after the craft ignored warning shots and continued to stray out of its authorized zone, the military said. Israel maintains a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamist militant group Hamas, and restricts fishing vessels to a seasonally adjusted zone. The military is investigating the incident.

India heads to U.N. court to bar officers execution: India took Pakistan to the United Nations highest court in a bid to save the life of an Indian naval officer sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court after being convicted of espionage. India claims that Pakistan breached an international convention on consular relations by not granting access to Kulbhushan Jadhav after his arrest last year. India wants Islamabad to take steps to annul the military court verdict.

 From news services
SYRIA

Government rejects claims of mass killings

Syria on Tuesday rejected U.S. accusations that it carried out mass killings at a prison near Damascus and then burned the victims bodies in a crematorium, describing the allegations as lies and fabrications.

The allegations are a new Hollywood plot to justify U.S. intervention in Syria, Syrias Foreign Ministry said.

The State Department said Monday that it believes that about 50 detainees are hanged each day at the Sednaya military prison, north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place, said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry forcefully denied the allegations.

The U.S. administrations accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in [Sednaya] prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false, it said.

The allegations come at a time when the Trump administration is weighing its options in Syria.

The Treasury Department said, meanwhile, that it has frozen any assets that five Syrian people and five Syrian companies may have in U.S. jurisdictions and has barred Americans from conducting any transactions with them.

 Associated Press

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

U.N.: Surge in violence is highly worrying

Attacks in remote areas of the Central African Republic have forced more than 15,000 people to flee their homes in the past week, while at least 130 are feared dead, authorities said Tuesday.

Among the victims are six U.N. peacekeepers, marking the deadliest month for the mission since it began in 2014.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights warned that the violence in areas previously spared major sectarian bloodshed was highly worrying.

The commander of the U.N. mission said at least 30 people were killed and 32 were wounded when fighters from the largely Christian anti-Balaka militia attacked the southeastern town of Bangassou over the weekend.

Aid agencies indicated that more than 7,200 people fled Bangassou after the fighting.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said unconfirmed reports suggest that up to 100 were killed in attacks in the town of Alindao. About 8,500 people have been displaced by violence there, said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general.

These areas had been largely spared the bloodshed that erupted in late 2013 and forced Muslims from the capital, Bangui.

 Associated Press

CANADA

Rule will protect those on overbooked flights

No one who has bought a ticket for a domestic or international flight in Canada will be allowed to be removed because of overbooking under a new passenger bill of rights, the transportation minister announced Tuesday.

Marc Garneau said the shoddy treatment of air travelers outlined in recent news reports will not be tolerated on any domestic flight as well as any flight leaving or arriving in Canada.

A month ago, cellphone video captured a passenger being dragged off a United Airlines flight in Chicago after he

refused to give up his seat to accommodate a crew member.

Garneau said that if airlines cannot get a volunteer by offering a minimum level of compensation, they will have to increase the amount offered.

Minimum compensation standards also would be set for damaged baggage.

The government hopes to have the new rules in place in 2018.

 Associated Press

2nd Ebola case confirmed in Congo: The World Health Organization said a second case of Ebola has been confirmed amid an outbreak in a remote corner of northern Congo. The WHO said that among the 20 suspected cases, two have tested positive. Ebola was blamed for more than 11,000 deaths in West Africa from 2013 to 2016. Congo has had seven much smaller outbreaks.

Reformist drops out of Iranian election, backs Rouhani: A reformist candidate has dropped out of Irans presidential election and thrown his support behind incumbent Hassan Rouhani, in a widely expected move sure to strengthen Rouhanis campaign. The exit of Eshaq Jahangiri leaves four candidates in the race.

Austria sets snap election for Oct. 15 : Austrias main parties have agreed to hold early parliamentary elections on Oct. 15, Chancellor Christian Kern said, a vote that might bring the far-right Freedom Party into government. The government had been locked for months in disputes between Kerns Social Democratic Party (SPO) and its conservative Peoples Party (OVP) coalition partner. The OVP called for early elections last week.

 From news services
IT HAS BEEN called Chinas version of the Marshall Plan: a $1 trillion complex of infrastructure investment and aid stretching from Kyrgyzstan to Central Europe, with extensions to Southeast Asia, Africa and even Latin America. President Xi Jinping, who touted the belt and road initiative at a heavily orchestrated two-day summit that concluded in Beijing on Monday, clearly hopes the geopolitical effects will be analogous. China would consolidate a sphere of influence across Eurasia and make itself a superpower with global influence rivaling, if not exceeding, that of the United States.

Its possible that this scheme will realize what Mr. Xi calls the China dream; it can be hoped that it will, at least, provide badly needed rail lines, ports and power plants to poor countries such as Pakistan, Laos, Burma and Indonesia, where work is already underway. Those who worry about a Chinese juggernaut, however, may be comforted by the fact that the top-down, autocratic nature of the belt and road plan and Chinas self-interested structuring of the projects mean that it is likely to fall short of its aims.

In short, Mr. Xis Marshall plan is likely to be hamstrung precisely by its differences from the Marshall Plan, which channeled U.S. aid to allied European democracies rebuilding after World War II. There is nothing democratic or transparent about the Chinese initiative. Deals for infrastructure investment are being struck by Chinese companies with elites, some of whom may pocket some of the proceeds even as China gains new means to export its goods or, in the case of ports such as Gwadar in Pakistan, potentially refuel its navy. Some deals, such as the building of a port in Sri Lanka, have already triggered a political backlash.

The $124 billion Mr. Xi pledged to invest on Sunday will help Chinese steel and cement firms struggling with overcapacity. Chinese construction firms will gain business, and tens of thousands of Chinese workers may travel abroad to do much of the work. Most of the money will come in the form of loans from Chinese banks, meaning that poor countries such as Laos and Kenya, where China is completing a railroad, may struggle under the resulting debt burdens.

Thats not to say there will be no benefit for Chinas neighbors. Pakistan, struggling with crippling power shortages, desperately needs the power plants China is building. Railroads in Southeast Asia and east Africa will provide means for Chinese imports, but also exports of commodities. Western companies, for their part, are hoping to get a piece of the action; envoys from the Trump administration and European Union countries spent their time at the summit lobbying for open procurement processes  something that could lower costs and corruption, if Beijing allows it.

Mr. Xi strikes a pose as a champion of free trade and investment; his propagandists describe belt and road as globalization 2.0. His neighbors, and Western businesses trying to compete in the Chinese market, know thats not true. But President Trumps withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade treaty, which would have bound the United States with 11 Pacific countries, means the United States now lacks an alternative to offer. If Mr. Xi succeeds in creating a Chinese sphere of influence, it will be on ground willingly ceded by Washington.
Fethullah Gulen is an Islamic scholar, preacher and social advocate.

As the presidents of the United States and Turkey meet at the White House on Tuesday, the leader of the country I have called home for almost two decades comes face to face with the leader of my homeland. The two countries have a lot at stake, including the fight against the Islamic State, the future of Syria and the refugee crisis.

But the Turkey that I once knew as a hope-inspiring country on its way to consolidating its democracy and a moderate form of secularism has become the dominion of a president who is doing everything he can to amass power and subjugate dissent.

(Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

[Read this piece in Turkish: Artk Tanyamadgm Ulke Turkiye]

The West must help Turkey return to a democratic path. Tuesdays meeting, and the NATO summit next week, should be used as an opportunity to advance this effort.

Since July 15, following a deplorable coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has systematically persecuted innocent people  arresting, detaining, firing and otherwise ruining the lives of more than 300,000 Turkish citizens, be they Kurds, Alevis, secularists, leftists, journalists, academics or participants of Hizmet, the peaceful humanitarian movement with which I am associated.

As the coup attempt unfolded, I fiercely denounced it and denied any involvement. Furthermore, I said that anyone who participated in the putsch betrayed my ideals. Nevertheless, and without evidence, Erdogan immediately accused me of orchestrating it from 5,000 miles away.

The next day, the government produced lists of thousands of individuals whom they tied to Hizmet  for opening a bank account, teaching at a school or reporting for a newspaper  and treated such an affiliation as a crime and began destroying their lives. The lists included people who had been dead for months and people who had been serving at NATOs European headquarters at the time. International watchdogs have reported numerous abductions, in addition to torture and deaths in detention. The government pursued innocent people outside Turkey, pressuring Malaysia, for instance, to deport three Hizmet sympathizers last week, including a school principal who has lived there for more than a decade, to face certain imprisonment and likely torture.

In April, the president won a narrow referendum victory  amid allegations of serious fraud  to form an executive presidency without checks and balances, enabling him to control all three branches of the government. To be sure, through purges and corruption, much of this power was already in his hands. I fear for the Turkish people as they enter this new stage of authoritarianism.

It didnt start this way. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came into power in 2002 by promising democratic reforms in pursuit of European Union membership. But as time went on, Erdogan became increasingly intolerant of dissent. He facilitated the transfer of many media outlets to his cronies through government regulatory agencies. In June of 2013, he crushed the Gezi Park protesters. In December of that year, when his cabinet members were implicated in a massive graft probe, he responded by subjugating the judiciary and the media. The temporary state of emergency declared after last July 15 is still in effect. According to Amnesty International, one-third of all imprisoned journalists in the world are in Turkish prisons.

Erdogans persecution of his people is not simply a domestic matter. The ongoing pursuit of civil society, journalists, academics and Kurds in Turkey is threatening the long-term stability of the country. The Turkish population already is strongly polarized on the AKP regime. A Turkey under a dictatorial regime, providing haven to violent radicals and pushing its Kurdish citizens into desperation, would be a nightmare for Middle East security.

The people of Turkey need the support of their European allies and the United States to restore their democracy. Turkey initiated true multiparty elections in 1950 to join NATO. As a requirement of its membership, NATO can and should demand that Turkey honor its commitment to the alliances democratic norms.

Two measures are critical to reversing the democratic regression in Turkey.

First, a new civilian constitution should be drafted through a democratic process involving the input of all segments of society and that is on par with international legal and humanitarian norms, and drawing lessons from the success of long-term democracies in the West.

Second, a school curriculum that emphasizes democratic and pluralistic values and encourages critical thinking must be developed. Every student must learn the importance of balancing state powers with individual rights, the separation of powers, judicial independence and press freedom, and the dangers of extreme nationalism, politicization of religion and veneration of the state or any leader.

Before either of those things can happen, however, the Turkish government must stop the repression of its people and redress the rights of individuals who have been wronged by Erdogan without due process.

I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.
North Korea said yesterday the missile it launched over the weekend was a new type of medium long-range ballistic rocket that can carry a heavy nuclear warhead. A jubilant leader Kim Jong Un promised more nuclear and missile tests and warned that North Korean weapons could strike the U.S. mainland and Pacific holdings.

North Korean propaganda must be considered with wariness  Pyongyang has threatened for decades to reduce Seoul to a sea of fire, for instance  but yesterdays claim, if confirmed, would mark another big advance toward the Norths goal of fielding a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. Some experts, including officials in Tokyo, estimate that Sundays launch successfully tested a new type of missile in Pyongyangs arsenal.

The test is also an immediate challenge to South Koreas new leader, Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last week who expressed a desire to reach out to North Korea. Pyongyangs aggressive push to boost its weapons program also makes it one of the Trump administrations most urgent foreign policy worries, though Washington has struggled to settle on a policy.

North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency called the missile a new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket, and said the Hwasong-12 was capable of carrying a large, heavy nuclear warhead. Kim Jong Un witnessed the test and hugged officials in the field of rocket research, saying that they worked hard to achieve a great thing, according to KCNA.

The rocket, newly designed in a Korean-style, flew 787 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 2,111.5 kilometers, the North said, and verified the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re-entry situation and accurate performance of detonation system.

South Koreas Defense Ministry said more analysis is needed to verify the Norths claim on the rockets technological features. Spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said its still unlikely that North Korea has re-entry technology, which would return a warhead safely back into the atmosphere.

Japanese officials said the missile flew for half an hour and reached an unusually high altitude before landing in the Sea of Japan.

North Korea is not thought to be able yet to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, though some outside analysts think they can arm shorter range missiles with warheads; each new nuclear and longer-range missile test is part of the Norths attempt to build a nuclear-tipped long-range missile.

Kim said the North would stage more nuclear and missile tests in order to perfect nuclear bombs needed to deal with U.S. nuclear blackmail.

The launch complicates the new South Korean presidents plan to talk to the North, and came as U.S., Japanese and European navies gather for joint war games in the Pacific.

Moon, South Koreas first liberal leader in nearly a decade, said as he took his oath of office last week that hed be willing to visit the North if the circumstances were right.

The U.N. Security Council will hold closed consultations about the launch today, according to the U.N. Mission for Uruguay, which holds the council presidency this month.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on ABC television that the United States has been working well with China, Pyongyangs closest ally, and she raised the possibility of new sanctions against North Korea, including on oil imports.

The Security Council has adopted six increasingly tougher sanctions resolutions against North Korea.

President Donald Trumps administration has called North Korean ballistic and nuclear efforts unacceptable, but it has swung between threats of military action and offers to talk as it formulates a policy.

While Trump has said hed be honored to talk with leader Kim Jong Un under favorable conditions, Haley seemed to rule out the possibility. Having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the president, because hes absolutely not going to do it, she told ABC.

The launch came as troops from the U.S., Japan and two European nations gather near Guam for drills that are partly a message to North Korea. The USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft supercarrier, is also engaging with South Korean navy ships in waters off the Korean Peninsula, according to Seouls Defense Ministry. AP

Australia says China responsible for N. Korea



Australias prime minister has called on China to use its leverage over North Korea to end the regimes missile testing.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in Sydney yesterday that North Koreas conduct was reckless, provocative and unlawful. Australia will work with the United States and other countries to impose sanctions on Pyongyang. The greatest responsibility for bringing North Korea to its senses [] lies with China, Turnbull says. They have the overwhelming dominant economic relationship with North Korea and because they have the greatest leverage, they have the greatest responsibility, he added.
PRESIDENT TRUMPS disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian officials was the most disturbing demonstration yet that he is dangerously unprepared to handle sensitive national security matters. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump essentially confirmed a Post report that he provided details of the Islamic States plotting of airline attacks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in an Oval Office meeting last week. The Post reported that the information could allow Moscow to identify the source of the intelligence, which came through a foreign government with which U.S. spy agencies have a special relationship.

The consequences of the presidents lapse could be far-reaching. In addition to disrupting a vital flow of intelligence and possibly endangering agents on the ground, Mr. Trump has let the world know that he and his administration cannot be trusted with sensitive information. Governments that share their secrets with the CIA, from Britain to Israel  which was reported to be the source of the information  may feel compelled to recalibrate their cooperation. Those that dont have a cooperative relationship, such as Russia and China, will try to use their access to Mr. Trump to extract more indiscretions.

The administrations attempts to defend the leak only underlined the continuing chaos in the White House. When the Post article first appeared Monday, senior administration officials issued denials: National security adviser H.R. McMaster and deputy adviser Dina Powell both called it false. Mr. Trump then undercut them by confirming on Twitter that he provided the Russians with facts pertaining . . . to terrorism and airline flight safety, which, he said, I have the absolute right to do. By midday Tuesday, Mr. McMaster found himself simultaneously arguing that he was right to call the article false and spinning the presidents leak as appropriate.

In fact, everything about Mr. Trumps engagement with the Russian officials reflected the gross inadequacy of his knowledge of foreign affairs as well as the weakness of the staff and processes he has put in place to aid him. His decision to meet with the chronically dishonest Mr. Lavrov and with Mr. Kislyak, who already had several questionable contacts with senior administration officials, itself reflected poor judgement; the Obama administration had refused to give Mr. Lavrov an Oval Office meeting since 2013. As the meeting began, U.S. journalists were banned from the room, while a Russian news-agency photographer was invited in, producing embarrassing photos and raising the possibility of a security breach.

Mr. Trumps subsequent disclosures appeared to flow from two of his deepest flaws, vanity and an obtuseness about the regime of Vladimir Putin. As The Post reported it, he appeared childishly boastful about his great intel. And as the president subsequently described it, he was hoping the Russians would respond to the leak with greater cooperation with U.S. operations against the Islamic State, as opposed to using it to undermine them.

(Bastien Inzaurralde,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

That was a naive and dangerous conclusion, as any CIA briefer would have told the president. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump doesnt pay much heed to intelligence professionals, even as he misuses their materials, endangers their operations and impugns their professionalism. The processes in place to ready the president for interactions with foreign leaders are shockingly attenuated: A lot of the spade work is done by his inexperienced son-in-law, Jared Kushner, while key positions at the National Security Council and State Department remain unfilled. As the president prepares for his first trip abroad later this week, including meetings with key Middle Eastern and European allies, the potential for further gaffes  and damage to key U.S. alliances  is alarmingly high.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) aptly described Mr. Trumps presidency on Monday as in a downward spiral. Arresting the fall would require a thorough revamping of White House staffing and function, one that replaces disorder and ignorance with discipline and competence. That, in turn, would require corrective action by Mr. Trump  for which the nation can only hope.
Regarding the May 13 front-page article Sessions is resurrecting tough charging policies:

Someone should tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions that we tried this before, especially in New York state when the Rockefeller drug laws were in effect. It did not work then, and it wont work now. The war on drugs is our longest war: almost 50 years and counting.

Lou Candell, Williamsburg, Va.

The writer is a retired special agent of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and Drug Enforcement Administration.

Its no surprise that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing for harsher prison sentences. He gave his support for more privately owned prisons, and now he needs to provide the customers for them. Republicans really arent against all government spending. Its only when nobodys getting rich from it that they have a problem. Thats why we had former vice president Dick Cheneys Halliburton and the Blackwater private military company, which made billions in Iraq.

Now along with the private prisons we will likely have more private schools where earning profits is likely to come first and educating the students second.

Jim Todd, Pamplin, Va.
Michael Leiter was director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 2007 to 2011.

North Korea. Iran. The Islamic State. Russian meddling and aggression. Chinese influence. Global cyber-insecurity. The list of national security challenges and potential flash points facing the United States and our allies is long and deeply worrying. But increasingly we face a more foundational national security crisis that is of our own making: the breakdown of trust between the president and our critical national security agencies  the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and others. This crisis of distrust and dysfunction will weaken our ability to protect U.S. interests around the globe and put vital international cooperation at risk.

Since his election, President Trumps words and actions have often put him deeply at odds with his national security agencies. First, there was the near-constant stream of disparaging tweets, many of which made accusations that were nothing short of fighting words. He evoked Nazi Germany in a diatribe about the alleged disloyalty of intelligence officials. When confronted with the intelligence communitys consensus assessment that Russia had interfered in our election, he dismissed it with a sneering reference to mistaken claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He has embraced WikiLeaks despite its universally recognized undermining of U.S. intelligence.

More recently, the president crossed the line from words to action with the unceremonious firing of FBI Director James B. Comey. Although the president of course has the constitutional authority to fire the director, the manner in which Comey was terminated, combined with Trumps deeply troubling mention of the ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling, casts a serious pall over his actions. The presidents subsequent tweet referring to still-mysterious tapes darkened the picture even more.

And finally, there is the presidents apparent disclosure of sensitive intelligence information to Russian officials during their curiously timed visit to the Oval Office last week. Taken on its own, this might be viewed as an inexperienced president stumbling in the relatively arcane world of classified intelligence. Unfortunately, however, it is part of a larger pattern. It is but the most recent ingredient in a toxic stew of distrust between the president and our national security organizations.

Such distrust makes all Americans less safe for several reasons. First, and most obviously, we all rely on the quiet and good work of our intelligence organizations to collect and analyze intelligence as professionally and objectively as possible. This is not a partisan imperative; it is an American one. Attacks on the members of the intelligence community  and on objective factual analysis more broadly  contribute to demoralization, intensify aversion to risk and challenge our ability to find sources who will risk their lives for the United States.

Second, current trends endanger our indispensable relationships with our global partners. Our allies will hold back intelligence information because of our inability to control that information, whether via the president or other leaks. And they will question the nonpartisan, professional nature of our intelligence services after the humiliating firing of Comey in the midst of a critical investigation that, in many cases, reflects their own fears about Vladimir Putins Russia.

Third, the current environment virtually guarantees that leaks of classified information and sensitive policy discussions will continue to grow. Leaks are indefensible, but the reality is that thinly veiled presidential threats directed at national security agencies and their leaders will fuel distrust and, ultimately, more leaking. No presidential or congressional outrage or criminal investigation will stem this tide if the presidents relationship with his own administration remains so sour.

Finally, and perhaps most worrisome in our democracy, we are at risk of breaking the bond of trust between the public and our security services. Carefree use of phrases such as the deep state, fake news and Nazi Germany leads many Americans to believe there is an active war being fought against their elected representatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Agencies and people committed to truthful intelligence collection and criminal investigation are deeply patriotic and loyal to simple principles of truthfulness and the Constitution. And although undoubtedly imperfect, our oversight mechanisms help ensure this is the case.

Concrete actions are required to quickly reverse these trends. First, the presidents nomination of a new FBI director offers a key opportunity to highlight the bureaus law-enforcement independence and, more broadly, the importance of brutal, fact-based honesty from the intelligence community. Second, public officials should refrain from speculative or premature commentary about the Russia investigation  on all sides  pending completion of the necessary reviews. Third, bipartisan congressional leadership must vocally and forcefully voice support for our national security organizations and make clear that their oversight will guard against more conspiratorial fears.

Finally, Congress should create a nonpartisan panel of experts to examine comprehensively our systems of intelligence oversight  legislative, executive and judicial  to ensure that all Americans have greater faith in our security services. Sadly, the oversight mechanisms we have built up over the past 40 years have proved both onerous and inadequate to the task of building public trust. Failure to take such action will only deepen our own domestic crisis at the very time we must face so many abroad.
The appalling truth about the Trump administration can be found in something Maya Angelou once said to Oprah Winfrey: My dear, when people show you who they are, why dont you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are?

The chaos and dysfunction we have seen since Jan. 20 constitute, I fear, the new normal. Anyone holding out hope for some magical transition from lunacy into sanity will surely be disappointed. President Trump has shown the nation who he is.

There are leading Republicans, people whose integrity I respect, who have been telling me since the inauguration that the administration is on the cusp of settling down and that Trump is starting to appreciate the solemnity of his new role. One such person who is in regular contact with the president told me the administration had finally hit the reset button  just days before Trump rashly fired FBI Director James B. Comey in an act compared to Richard Nixons Saturday Night Massacre. Trumps honorable well-wishers are in denial.

Other supporters, including most Republican members of Congress, are being dangerously cynical. With majorities in both chambers, they hope to use Trump to enact a far-right agenda of huge tax cuts for the wealthy, massive reductions in government aid for the poor and across-the-board deregulation. To get what they want, they are willing to pretend the emperor is wearing clothes.

Imagine the reaction had President Barack Obama fired Comey while the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton. Articles of impeachment would have been drawn up within hours.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

For Democrats and others who opposed Trumps candidacy, there is no solace to be taken in the Trump campaign promises that sounded vaguely progressive. In early rallies, he flirted with the idea of universal medical care, which eventually morphed into a pledge of health insurance for everybody. But he threw his full support behind the House attempt to snatch insurance away from at least 24 million people and cut Medicaid by some $800 billion. His budget director recently mused that diabetics are to blame for their own preexisting condition.

The most significant single accomplishment of the administration  putting Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court  is not anything progressives are likely to celebrate. And Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is trying to reverse the progress the Obama administration made on ending mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses.

Meanwhile, Trump promised an America First foreign policy of nonintervention. But he ordered a military strike in Syria, drawing us deeper into that bloody conflict, and has decided to send more troops to Afghanistan. Rather than emphasize human rights, he has had warm words of support for autocrats and strongmen such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is scheduled to visit the White House on Tuesday. Trumps bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin smolders on.

There is no silver lining that I can discern. There is no realistic hope of sudden salvation.

Thinking some transgression or another will eventually prove to be a tipping point for Republicans is logical but not realistic. The see-no-evil GOP response to the Comey firing is instructive. Trump said during the campaign that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose popular support. For House Republicans to impeach him, presumably there would have to be multiple victims.

There are those who entertain the fantasy that Trump will get bored or frustrated and eventually resign. But hes already bored and frustrated with the drudgery of governing, and he has developed coping mechanisms  he stages campaign-style rallies, chews out his hapless staff, vents on Twitter. When he invited House members to the White House to celebrate that awful health-care bill, he interrupted his speech to say, Hey, Im president! Can you believe it, right? Hes not going to voluntarily give that up.

If news reports are correct, he is mulling a substantial shake-up of his White House staff. But no communications team is going to look good while having to defend the crazy, indefensible things Trump regularly says. No chief of staff can institute orderly processes if Trump is going to ignore them and fly by the seat of his pants. Trump is used to running things a certain way. Hes not going to change.

1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  A look at President Trumps first year in office, so far View Photos The presidents term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. Caption Scenes from the Republicans beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Wait 1 second to continue.

We are where we are. Democrats need to flip one or both houses of Congress next year to slow this runaway train. It wont stop itself.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
President Trump hasnt decided whether to sign off on his generals request for more troops for Afghanistan. Ironically, this would be one instance in which Trump  and the country  would benefit from repudiating President Barack Obamas example. Instead of yet another troop surge in Americas longest war, now heading toward its 16thbirthday, Trump should adopt the advice that then-Sen. George Aiken (R-Vt.) offered about Vietnam in 1966: Declare victory and get out.

General John W. Nicholson testified that he wants an additional 5,000 soldiers to break the stalemate in Afghanistan. In the first months of his presidency, Obama signed off on a surge that ended with 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. His generals also promised to break the stalemate. Today, the Taliban controls more of the country than it has since 2001. A surge of 5,000 or even 10,000 troops wont defeat the Taliban. It is simply a recipe for more war without end and without victory.

Why are we still there? We went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to get Osama bin Laden and to punish the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda. Now bin Laden is dead; al-Qaeda is dispersed; the Taliban has been battered. Afghan civilians have been killed, wounded or displaced in increasing numbers. The United Nations reports that there were more than 11,000 war-related civilian casualties last year, and 660,000 Afghans were displaced, adding to the countrys massive refugee crisis.

The war has now cost us over $1 trillion, making it the second-costliest U.S. war, after World War II. In fiscal year 2017, the war will cost about $50 billion, nearly a billion every week. Weve lost over 2,350 soldiers, with 20,000 more suffering injuries. And as Trevor Timm of the Guardian noted, in a couple of years, there will be soldiers fighting in Afghanistan that werent even born at the time of 9/11.

Were no longer fighting to defeat an enemy; were engaged in nation-building. Good luck with that. Afghanistan is a landlocked country, with a brutal combination of severe mountains and harsh deserts. It remains one of the poorest nations in the world, despite more than $117 billion in U.S. development appropriations since 2002. Its leading industry is illegal opium production, producing an estimate 70 to 80 percent of the worlds supply. Despite the aid and the opium profits, Afghanistan is still near the bottom of multiple categories in the United Nations Human Development Index, ranging from infant mortality to life expectancy, per capita income and more.

The United States is pouring money into a corrupt sewer. The World Justice Projects 2016 Rule of Law Index ranked Afghanistan 111 of 113 countries assessed. Despite U.S. arms, aid and training, its divided and demoralized security forces cant stand up to the Taliban.

We are asking our military to build a nation on the other side of the world, dispatching soldiers who dont know the language, the culture, the religion, the ethnic and sectarian divisions or the history. The one thing that may unify Afghanistans tribes is their pride in their independence. Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. Its people routed the British forces repeatedly from 1839 to 1919 when Britain ruled the world. Its mujahideen defeated the Soviet Unions invasion in the 1980s. The United States, with the most powerful military in the world, may avoid defeat for as long as it wants to waste lives and resources, but it will not win.

The military has no strategy for victory, merely a plan to avoid defeat. After 15 years, no president wants to accept defeat. Yet a feature of Trumps campaign was his scorn for the United States wasting $6 trillion in Middle Eastern wars we dont win. He ought to read his 2013 tweet: We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we go in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first.

Obama let the generals  and his arrogant national security advisers  convince him that a surge of troops could deliver victory in what he considered the good war. After eight years, he was more sober and far wiser: Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world with the lowest literacy rates in the world before we got there, he said last year, It continues to be. The country was riven with all kinds of ethnic and tribal divisions before we got there. Its still there.

When the military dropped the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan last month, Trump boasted , We have the greatest military in the world, and said, We have given them total authorization, and thats what theyre doing. But there is no reason to accept the militarys advice on Afghanistan, given its record in the Middle East. As Andrew Bacevich has detailed, its invasion of Iraq has been the greatest debacle since Vietnam, leading to a continued quagmire and eventually to creation of the Islamic State. Its humanitarian intervention in Libya produced a failed state, scarred by violence, that provides a new breeding ground for the Islamic State. The intervention in Syria has succeeded only in contributing to the humanitarian catastrophe there.

Trump should fulfill his campaign rhetoric and pull the plug. Praise the troops and bring them home. Use the money and lives saved to rebuild America. Redirect a tiny fraction of the United States bloated military costs fighting in Afghanistan to mitigating the refugee crisis and addressing that countrys needs. This is one policy area where deciding not to follow in Obamas footsteps would actually help Trumps flagging popularity.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster had been cut off at the knees, but somehow he managed to make himself visible above the lectern in the White House briefing room Tuesday.

The night before, he had declared false a Post report that President Trump had given highly classified information to Russia, saying it didnt happen.

But Trump himself acknowledged in a tweet Tuesday morning that it did happen, saying he had the absolute right to share facts with Russia.

And so McMaster marched to the podium with a new line. Trump, he said, shared information in a way that is wholly appropriate. McMaster was on message: He used the phrase wholly appropriate nine times in his brief appearance.

But in one of these iterations he let slip why he thought Trumps behavior was appropriate: It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. In other words, its appropriate for Trump to say anything he wants. If Trump says it, its by definition appropriate.

This aligns nicely with a defense already being offered by some Trump loyalists, including Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), who said Trumps handing of secrets to the Russians was legal because he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process. So its no longer classified the minute he utters it.

But that dangerously distorts the presidents role. Just because its legal for a president to do something doesnt mean its right. A president could do all kinds of things that are legal but disastrous. Our system relies on having a chief executive who practices some self-restraint that keeps him from testing the limits of power. Trump lacks such control  and thats what is so alarming.

He can fire the FBI director, even one leading an investigation of him  though reports that he pressured James B. Comey to drop the investigation of former Trump aide Michael Flynn, if true, suggest possible obstruction of justice. He can have all kinds of undisclosed business conflicts of interest and use the presidency to enrich himself. He can share secrets with adversaries, compromising the cooperation of allies. The assumption is  or was  that a president wouldnt.

The troubling fact is the president has sweeping authority to wreak virtual havoc on this country and the world if he chooses to do so, said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. And Trump, he said, seems to have a better understanding of the exemptions governing presidential conduct than the expectations.

A president could, if he chose, legally release the names of all covert operatives spying for the United States around the world. He could start a war if he claimed an imminent threat. He could launch a nuclear attack. He could pardon and release every federal prisoner in the United States. He could recognize North Korea and cut off diplomatic relations with Germany. He could close the White House to all reporters and visitors, end all contacts with the media and declare any information  even information already published in newspapers  to be classified. He could demand the resignation of every political appointee across the government. He could, arguably, ignore the debt limit and order wiretaps on national-security grounds without court approval. And with some unspecified provocation  say, a terrorist attack  he could suspend habeas corpus.

Certainly, a president could be impeached for such actions  but that wouldnt stop him in the short term.

Institutional restraints  the checks and balances in the Constitution  can never fully obviate the need for certain human virtues, Christopher Nadon, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, wrote recently for the conservative Weekly Standard. Chief among these: self-control. The Founding Fathers, Nadon told me, wrote often of the president guided by honor and decorum and reined in by public scrutiny and humility. They certainly thought the type of person who would get through to that office would have self-restraint, he said.

The Constitution gives the president both specific powers (veto, appointments, treaties) and inherent powers in his role as executive. Modern presidents have stretched the bounds of executive authority. George W. Bush, guided by lawyers practicing the unitary executive theory, claimed new powers to conduct military trials and even to torture detainees. Barack Obama tested the bounds with executive actions on health care and immigration.

But those abuses both seem quaint now that we have a president governing with a terrifying combination of impulsivity and ignorance. McMaster, in the closing lines of his briefing Tuesday, offered an admission about the intelligence Trump gave Russia: I should just make, maybe, the statement here that the president wasnt even aware, you know, where this information came from.

So Trump gave secrets to Russia  but thats okay because he didnt know what he was doing. This is supposed to make us feel better?

Twitter: @Milbank

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PRESIDENT TRUMP wrote in his 1987 bestseller, The Art of the Deal : People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. Its an innocent form of exaggeration  and a very effective form of promotion. That approach seems to have guided administration pronouncements about the new 100-day action plan on trade with China, agreed on between the Trump administration and President Xi Jinpings representatives May 11  which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross billed as the first real breakthrough that weve had with China in decades.

To call that an overstatement would be an understatement. The agreement would allow American beef producers to sell to the Peoples Republic, expedite rulings on certain American genetically modified seeds and authorize a limited number of American bond rating agencies and underwriters to provide services there, along with U.S. credit-card issuers. At most, the deal, if fully implemented by Chinas notoriously grudging bureaucracy, would provide a few billion dollars worth of business for relatively pro-Trump constituencies  red-state agriculture and Wall Street. In granting this market access, however, China would be doing little more than reversing a scientifically obsolete 13-year-old ban on U.S. beef and obeying a five-year-old World Trade Organization ruling against its credit-card protectionism. Additionally, the plan offers China the right to purchase U.S. liquefied natural gas, which is a potentially lucrative area, though China does not actually commit to buy any.

On the whole, Mr. Trumps action plan positions the United States as a supplier of primary products and financial services to a tech-producing nation with which we would still enjoy a massive deficit in manufactured goods. Eliminating the latter was supposedly the Trump administrations top goal with Beijing, but there isnt even a reference in the plan to the United States most legitimate complaint regarding Chinese industrial mercantilism  its overcapacity in steel and aluminum. In any case, the administrations focus on market-by-market bilateral governmental management, which this plan epitomizes, is economically irrational and plays to state capitalist Chinas strengths.

Alas, Mr. Ross appears to have more of the same in mind for future negotiations with Canada and Mexico. In an important speech to hemispheric diplomats on May 9, the commerce secretary said the U.S. principal objective in those talks would be increasing American exports, and that this could be done by having our trading partners give us a higher market share of products they already buy both from the U.S. and other countries. The U.S. would impose tariffs or other barriers as a last resort to get its way. This could mean nothing more than a toughening of NAFTA domestic-content rules to require more sourcing of auto parts from within the trade bloc. Or, it could be Mr. Rosss way of saying, If you want to keep doing business with us, youll have to squeeze out other countries.

These are the dilemmas inherent in any attempt to manipulate and manage trade flows, but these recent policy moves suggest that managed trade is the new administrations preferred option.
President Trump told a whopper about his tax plan this month. But its not the one that everyone is focusing on.

In an interview with the Economist, Trump said his expensive proposal to cut taxes was akin to priming the pump, a phrase he declared hed invented just a few days earlier.

Lots of commenters, critics and comedians pounced on this coinage claim. They noted not only that the expression priming the pump was in use a century ago, but also that Trump himself uttered the phrase many times before the date he claimed to have devised it.

Fun as it is to mock this silly etymological fib, doing so misses the much larger lie: that Trumps tax plan is in any way akin to the useful economic policy tool of pump-priming. Its this lie that will help him scam the American public.

Literal pump-priming refers to injecting a little water into a pump so you can draw much more water out (from a well, for example). Metaphorical pump-priming, in economic contexts, refers to the fact that sometimes governments need to inject a little public money into the private economy to get a much larger amount of private money moving.

In practical terms, that means cutting taxes or increasing government spending to rev up companies and consumers. Its a colorful way of characterizing the Keynesian response to a shortfall in aggregate demand: When the economy is in recession, you temporarily endure bigger budget deficits in order to encourage more private-sector activity.

Trumps tax plan, however, is basically the opposite.

First of all, the economy is not in recession. Unemployment is 4.4 percent, and long-term stock market price-to-earnings ratios are at their highest levels in 15 years. These are hardly the kind of conditions suggesting need for Keynesian-style stimulus.

Second, pump-priming refers to a temporary deficit-financed stimulus  emphasis on temporary. It is not a permanent giveaway. If your water pump is working correctly, you dont continue dumping more and more water into the well.

Trumps deficit-financed tax cuts, as far as we know, would be permanent. (The only reason they might end up being temporary would be to skirt a Senate rule against increasing long-term deficits.) We dont have enough detail to know how much the cuts would cost, but a Tax Policy Center estimate of an earlier version of the plan ballparked it at $7.2 trillion over the first decade and $20.9 trillion by 2036.

And third, even if we were in a recession, and even if the cuts were temporary, the terrible design of this tax plan seems unlikely to do much stimulating at all.

Simplifying the tax code and reducing distortions in economic activity caused by wacky loopholes would indeed be worthy goals and would probably help the economy. But thats not the thrust of Trumps proposal.

Instead, hes proposing bigger loopholes, and enormous tax cuts weighted toward corporations and the wealthy.

So you have to ask: What exactly is the mechanism by which any of this would stimulate the economy?

Maybe you think putting more money in the pockets of the rich would lead them to spend more, or devote more hours to working, creating more economic activity and more jobs. In other words, trickle-down.

In fact, in a recent paper, University of Chicago Booth School of Business economics professor Owen Zidar looked at changes to the tax code over the postwar period, with an eye toward comparing the economic effects of tax cuts felt by the rich vs. the poor. He found that the relationship between tax cuts and job growth is primarily driven by cuts for lower-income groups and that the economic effects of tax cuts for the top 10 percent are tiny.

A slew of earlier studies on the earned-income tax credit supports this view that tax policy aimed at putting more money in the pockets of the poor and lower-middle-class provides a bigger bang for your buck.

Or maybe you think cutting corporate taxes and capital gains rates would encourage more investment. This argument would be more convincing if companies were not already sitting on mountains of cash that they cant find sufficient investment opportunities for. Or if the last time we tried something similar there had been any effect at all on corporate investment. (There was none.)

Its impossible to know why Trump made his ridiculous, easily disprovable claim of coining pump- priming. But if hes smart, distracting the media from his plan to drain the well  and divert all its water to those already well-hydrated  would be a pretty useful objective.
Philippine lawmakers yesterday killed an impeachment complaint accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of crimes against humanity for the thousands of people who have died in his anti-drug crackdown.

The Justice Committee of the House of Representatives, which is dominated by Duterte allies, declared during the first hearing on the matter that while the complaint was sufficient in form, there was insufficient substance to proceed.

The decision to stop the impeachment complaint, which also accused Duterte of murder, corruption and unexplained wealth, was expected. But the presidents critics hope the procedure could bolster a lawsuit against him before the International Criminal Court for alleged extrajudicial killings by showing that domestic efforts to stop Duterte have failed.

The dismissal of the complaint, filed in March, bars any new impeachment case against Duterte until next March.

Since taking office in June, Dutertes war on drugs has killed 7,000-9,000 suspected drug dealers and addicts, according to human rights groups. The government refutes that, releasing data on May 2 showing nearly 4,600 people have been killed in police anti-drug operations and homicides found to be drug-related.

During the hearing, Rep. Rodolfo Farinas, the majority floor leader, questioned Rep. Gary Alejano on whether he had personal knowledge of allegations he made in his complaint, including the more than 8,000 people killed in the anti-drug war and the billions of pesos supposedly in Dutertes bank accounts.

Alejano said he had no personal knowledge as a witness, but that he had personal knowledge as a complainant based on official records, affidavits of witnesses and Dutertes public pronouncements. His appeals to be allowed to explain were rejected.

Opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman urged the committee to allow Alejano to be heard, saying to determine substance, there only needs to be a recital of facts on offenses charged and determination that they are under the committees jurisdiction.

While it is true that an impeachment proceeding is a political exercise, it is not a partisan enterprise, Lagman said.

After an executive session, several lawmakers pointed to Alejanos lack of personal knowledge about the alleged crimes, calling his allegations hearsay. Forty-two of 49 committee members then voted to declare the complaint sufficient in form but insufficient in substance. AP
President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meet in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump on Tuesday pledged continued support for Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, highlighting the importance of the U.S.-Turkish alliance despite mounting tensions over Washingtons support for Kurdish rebels in Syria.

Speaking alongside Erdogan at the White House, Trump said Turkey and the United States would act together against extremist groups including the Islamic State. Again, we seek to face this threat together, he told reporters.

Trump welcomed Erdogan, fresh off a narrow electoral victory that granted him wide-ranging new powers, to Washington just a week after the Pentagon announced a plan to directly arm Kurdish militiamen in Syria for the first time.

While Erdogans government had long warned U.S. officials against expanding support for the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), empowering a group Turkey sees as an existential threat, the warm public remarks from both leaders reflect the NATO allies need to hold together a key partnership at a time of intense strain.

[Turkey threatens military action against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters]

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Aaron Stein, a Turkey scholar at the Atlantic Council, said the modest goals for Erdogans two-day visit reflected the constraints of a relationship that has generated friction on both sides but that both nations cannot afford to jettison.

It was mission accomplished, if your expectations are that you want people who are smiling in the photographs, he said.

For the United States, Turkey has been a key ally in the Middle East. Most recently, the use of Turkish military facilities has been critical in the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State in Syria. For Ankara, the backing of NATOs most powerful member has been an important boost as Turkey has asserted itself on the world stage.

In a reflection of those mixed sentiments, Erdogan heaped praise on his host  saying Trump had presided over a legendary triumph after last years elections  but reiterated his objections to the U.S. partnership with the YPG.

We should never allow those groups to manipulate the religious structure and the ethnic structure of the region, making terrorism as a pretext or an excuse, he said. Turkey views the YPG and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the same organization, to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish group that Ankara and Washington have labeled a terrorist movement.

Taking YPG and PYD into consideration in the region will never be accepted and it is going to be against a global agreement that we have reached, Erdogan said.

While U.S. military officials have acknowledged Turkeys concerns, they say they have little choice in backing the YPG, the most effective fighting force they have been able to recruit in their bid to dislodge the Islamic State from Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the militants de facto capital.

President Trump meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday in the Oval Office. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)

Erdogan also made reference to another of the issues creating friction in U.S.-Turkish ties: Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, whom Erdogan has accused of plotting a coup attempt last July.

Turkish officials have repeatedly asked the United States to extradite Gulen, who oversees a vast educational and religious network in Turkey, over his suspected involvement in that episode.

[Fethullah Gulen: The Turkey I no longer know]

The Justice Department must decide if Turkey has a case; if it does so, a federal court would then rule on extradition. So far, despite Turkeys submission of what it says is voluminous evidence, Justice has made no determination.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Tuesday, Gulen denied any involvement in the coup attempt.

Turkey has issued threats on the U.S. stance on Gulen and the YPG, saying future ties would hinge on its extradition request, and more recently saying it would take further military action against Kurdish militiamen if the United States provides new support.

The official visit was also an opportunity for the Trump administration to demonstrate its backing for Erdogan, who faces growing criticism for his governments crackdown against an array of perceived opponents, including the arrest of tens of thousands of people from the media, military and judiciary.

On Tuesday, dozens of people demonstrating for and against Erdogans visit clashed outside the Turkish ambassadors residence in Washington. Nine people were injured and two were arrested, D.C. police said.

In the latest sign of his administrations reluctance to publicly criticize allies on matters of human rights, Trump made no mention of those issues.

Erdogan expressed optimism that his visit would mark an improvement in U.S.-Turkey ties.

President Trumps recent election victory has led to the awakening of a new set of aspirations and expectations and hopes in our region, he said. We know that by the help of the new U.S. administration, these hopes will not be lost in vain.

Karen DeYoung, Victoria St. Martin and Martin Weil contributed to this report.
The White House offered shifting explanations for President Trumps disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian diplomats last week, a scattered defense that began with an early-morning Trump tweet that he had the absolute right to share facts.

Administration officials went from denouncing the Washington Post article as false to either confirming or declining to challenge nearly every key aspect of the account, which described how Trumps sharing of sensitive details about a terrorist plot jeopardized access to a stream of intelligence from a critical U.S. ally.

As President I wanted to share with Russia . . . which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety, Trump said in two postings to his Twitter account, the first at 7 a.m. He then shifted the focus from his conduct to prod the FBI to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.

Trump also enlisted his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, to help contain the fallout from the latest damaging revelations about the administrations relationship with Russia. Trump revealed the classified intelligence in a White House meeting with Russias foreign minister and ambassador one day after firing FBI Director James B. Comey over frustration with the bureaus investigation of any ties between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, McMaster refused to say whether Trump had shared classified information with the representatives from Moscow, falling back on a refrain that Trumps disclosures were wholly appropriate.

(Bastien Inzaurralde,Jayne Orenstein,Dalton Bennett,Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom hes engaged, McMaster said. It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. Thats what he did.

McMaster did not explain how sharing classified information with Russian officials advanced U.S. interests. The long-standing adversaries sometimes alert one another to security threats, but otherwise engage in little if any intelligence cooperation. Indeed, U.S. spy agencies earlier this year concluded that their Russian counterparts engaged in an unprecedented covert influence campaign to upend the 2016 presidential election.

Current and former U.S. officials said that Trump went well beyond outlining basic threat information in his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump described steps the Islamic State was taking to pursue a plot involving the use of laptop computers on civilian aircraft, officials said. He discussed measures the United States has taken to suppress the threat, including military operations in Syria. Trump also identified the city in the Islamic States territory where the U.S. ally had been monitoring the plot through a valuable and ongoing stream of intelligence.

Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies, according to one current U.S. official.

Trump did not identify the particular method of intelligence gathering employed in the operation or the partner nation. But officials cited concern that Moscow emerged from the meeting with clues that Russian spy agencies could use to zero in on the U.S. allys sources and methods.

The Washington Post withheld details about the intelligence-sharing arrangement and plot at the request of White House officials, who cited concern over national security. By Tuesday, however, the New York Times and other news organizations identified the partner country as Israel.

(Bastien Inzaurralde,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

Israel has in the past complained about the United States inability to safeguard secrets. In a statement, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said that despite the disclosures, Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.

The disclosures about the Oval Office meeting came as Trump prepares for his first foreign trip  a multi-stop itinerary that will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bethlehem in the West Bank, and the Vatican, as well as Brussels for European Union and NATO meetings and back to Italy for a gathering of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies. White House officials had hoped the trip would distract from some of the political turmoil in Washington, but it is now likely to be dogged by close scrutiny of Trumps performance in multiple foreign settings and how allies react to him.

On Capitol Hill, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressed concern and alarm about the presidents sensitive disclosures to the Russians.

As an intelligence officer by training, I know firsthand the life and death implications of safeguarding classified information, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a freshman lawmaker and former Marine intelligence officer, tweeted Tuesday. Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed, he wrote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pleaded for less drama from the White House.

Democrats, who had been demanding that Trump turn over any tapes of his conversations with Comey, broadened their requests to include transcripts of his meeting with the Russians.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump should release the alleged transcript if [he] has nothing to hide.

Until the administration fully explains the facts of this case, the American people will rightly doubt if their president can handle our nations most closely kept secrets, Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

McMaster sought to play down the significance of Trumps disclosures during a briefing at the White House. But when pressed on specifics, McMaster confirmed certain essential aspects of the story and refused to address others.

He retreated from his initial assertion Monday evening that the Post article was false, saying that his remark applied only to its premise.

He refused to answer whether Trump had revealed classified information, saying that we dont say whats classified; acknowledged that Trump had wandered off script during the meeting; and confirmed that Trump had mentioned the city where the U.S. intelligence partner saw the threat emerging.

At one point, McMaster said that the information Trump revealed was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting. But that raised the question of why his own aides had felt it necessary to place calls to the leaders of the CIA and National Security Agency to alert them to what Trump had disclosed.

At first McMaster said that his subordinates may have done so from an overabundance of precaution, but he then said he couldnt be sure because he had not spoken with the subordinate who had made the calls, Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Finally, McMaster said that Trump wasnt even aware of where this information came from, a comment intended to reinforce that the president couldnt have revealed the source but left open the question of why Trump had been kept in the dark on that detail.

Later in the day, following a meeting with the Turkish president, Trump responded to a shouted question about his interaction with the Russians last week, casting a rosier picture of the potential partnership between the two nations than even many of his own advisers think is realistic.

We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia  our fight is against ISIS, the president said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. So were going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible, and thats one of the beautiful things thats happening with Turkey. The relationship that we have together, well be unbeatable.

William Booth, David Nakamura and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.
There is a growing obstacle standing in the way of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) becoming the next director of the FBI  his own Republican colleagues.

Led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a chorus of GOP senators has signaled that they would prefer President Trump to nominate somebody other than the second-ranking Republican senator, despite his status as a well-liked and influential figure on Capitol Hill.

Their message: Its nothing personal. But if Trump were to nominate Cornyn, who has shown interest in the job, it would trigger a raft of consequences that could be detrimental to McConnell and the broader GOP agenda.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) offered a response that was common among Republican senators Monday, praising Cornyns qualifications before adding: Id hate to lose him.

My own selfish thing would be to say, Oh, hes a terrible person  dont do it,  Tillis quipped.

(Victoria Walker,Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

Senate Republicans are hoping Trump takes their concerns into consideration as he zeros in on his choice. The president said Monday that his search was moving rapidly. McConnell predicted that Trump would make an appointment in a week or so.

One possible candidate removed himself from consideration: Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). Our country and the women and men of the FBI deserve a Director with not only impeccable credentials but also one who can unite the country as we strive for justice and truth, Gowdy said in a statement.

The same sentiment has led other Republicans to urge against Cornyns selection, despite their high opinion of him. Among other concerns, some fear that nominating a top political leader would roil a confirmation process in which Democrats are already emboldened to cry foul over former director James B. Comeys abrupt firing. Since Trumps inauguration, Cornyn has been a loyal defender of the president  including on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, which have been looking at the Trump campaigns ties to Russia.

I told him I thought hed be a good FBI director under normal circumstances, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in an interview. But I think the politics of this is just  he gets it. Hed be an outstanding FBI director. But I just, quite frankly, think that last week made it tough.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said there is a need now for someone who can lead us in the direction we need to go, and that doesnt eliminate partisan folks, but theres no question that the country seems to be  to find more confidence and credibility in someone whos probably not involved in partisan politics.

Cornyn is one of at least eight candidates who have spoken with top Justice Department officials about the job. Cornyn is close to Attorney General Jeff Sessions from their days serving together in the Senate.

On Monday, Cornyn offered no clues about the process. Im not really talking about that today, he said when asked whether he wanted the job. He wouldnt opine on his chance of getting it, either.

(Amber Ferguson,Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

McConnell, meanwhile, has sent what some senior Republican strategists saw as an unmistakable signal that he does not want Cornyn to be nominated. His close confidant and former chief of staff, Josh Holmes, said on Fox News Sunday that McConnell thinks it would be a fantastic idea if Trump nominated Merrick Garland, as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested last week. Garland was widely praised by Democrats when he was picked by Barack Obama for the Supreme Court, a nomination that was blocked by Republicans.

Asked about Cornyn on Monday, McConnell instead made his prediction about the one-week timeline for the president to make the nomination.

For McConnell, there are several reasons losing his top deputy would be a blow. The biggest is the messy political firestorm that would likely ensue over his nomination.

But McConnell would also have to worry about keeping Cornyns seat in Republican hands in a special election. While Texas is solidly Republican, Trumps unpopularity could be a drag there, potentially forcing Republicans to spend millions playing defense.

For Cornyn, however, the FBI directors job would provide a move to a prestigious post at a time when his future in the Senate GOP hierarchy is unclear. He is term-limited as majority whip, and McConnell has shown no signs he is ready to step aside. Behind Cornyn is an ambitious crop of Republicans looking to move up the leadership ladder.

Cornyn arrived on the Senate floor for an unrelated vote Monday afternoon and received warm greetings from senators on both sides of the aisle.

The new FBI director, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) shouted, slapping Cornyn on the back in jocular fashion. Several members of the Democratic caucus, including Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Angus King (I-Maine), had good-natured talks with him. His home-state GOP colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz, who has at times has clashed with Cornyn, had a long conversation with him in the Senate well.

Cruz said Cornyn would be a terrific choice to be FBI director. Still, the predominant sentiment among Republicans was to pivot away from hyping him for the job.

Garland, who has not interviewed for the job, is not the only alternate name that has been floated by Republicans.

I think that Cornyn would be great, but I also think it might be nice to have Fran Townsend, the first woman in history to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), speaking of the former homeland security adviser under George W. Bush. McCain added: Shes never been political.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said her choice would be former congressman and ex-FBI agent Mike Rogers. She also said she would be happy with Garland.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) reiterated a view held by many Democrats: That no matter who Trump nominates, they shouldnt be confirmed until the Justice Department appoints a special prosecutor to look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential ties between Trump associates and Russia. Comey had been leading the FBIs investigation into those matters.

Whoever is nominated to be FBI director should have no political background, should have, obviously, expertise and experience in criminal justice, preferably as a prosecutor. And should certainly take no loyalty oath to the president, said Blumenthal, a former state attorney general.

If Cornyn were confirmed and stepped down from the Senate, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would appoint an interim senator and schedule a special election, probably later this year. Texas political observers said that Cornyns departure would create a wide-open contest, likely featuring many Republicans and a handful of Democrats.

Among Republicans, much of the early focus would be on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, an ardent, tea-party-backed conservative who is one of the most outspoken and popular GOP figures in the state. Elected independently of Abbott, the Texas lieutenant governor is a powerful figure who holds sway over the legislative agenda. But with Texass biennial legislative session wrapping up this month, Patrick would be free to consider running for higher office.

Current and former federal law enforcement officials expressed surprise at the public and hurried nature of the search for the new FBI director, since historically the quest for a director is kept closely under wraps by the White House.

Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House counsel during the Obama administration who led the search process that resulted in Comeys nomination, said there are stark differences in how the Trump administration is handling the hunt for his replacement.

The very big difference is it was a highly confidential process, it was a rigorous process, and everyone on both the long list of candidates and what became the shortlist was subject to extensive vetting, and there were multiple layers of vetting, she said, a process that took months. Its just not possible to subject candidates to that kind of rigor in this type of compressed time frame.

Typically, the interview process is a closely guarded secret, taking place not at the Justice Department but at the White House. Some of the officials said they could see a justification for shifting that screening process more openly toward the Justice Department, given the circumstances of Comeys firing. By having Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein more directly guiding the candidate screening, they said, the Trump administration may be trying to insulate itself from accusations that the president is trying to politicize the FBI.

The intensity of the political debate over Comeys ouster already threatens to end one long-held tradition  near unanimous support for confirming FBI director picks. Comey was confirmed by the Senate 93-1. His predecessors, Robert Mueller and Louis Freeh, were both confirmed on unanimous voice votes.

Paul Kane, Mike DeBonis and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
Congressional Republicans on Tuesday showed growing concern over the controversies enveloping the Trump administration, with a key House committee asking the FBI for records of communications between President Trump and the agencys former director James B. Comey, following reports that the president sought to shut down a federal investigation into former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, requested the documentation be delivered by May 24 and said he would subpoena the information if necessary.

His request came in response to media reports disclosing the existence of a memo written by Comey, who Trump fired last week, alleging that Trump asked him to end the Flynn investigation during a meeting at the White House in February.

@GOPoversight is going to get the Comey memo, if it exists, Chaffetz wrote on Twitter. I need to see it sooner rather than later. I have my subpoena pen ready.

Chaffetz, in a letter to FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, cited a report from the New York Times stating that Comeys memo describes a conversation in which the President referenced the FBI investigation . . . and said to Comey, I hope you can let this go.  He asked the FBI to provide all memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings related to Comeys communication with Trump.

(The Washington Post)

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) directed the Oversight Committee to track down the Comey memo.

We need to have all the facts, and it is appropriate for the House Oversight Committee to request this memo, Ryan spokeswoman Ashlee Strong said in a statement.

The pressure on congressional Republicans to step up their oversight of the Trump administration intensified this week when The Washington Post on Monday reported that the president shared classified information related to the Islamic State with Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week.

The White House on Tuesday sought to tamp down the controversy with national security adviser H.R. McMaster telling reporters that what the president shared with the Russian officials was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom hes engaged.

But Democrats and a growing number of Republicans called on Trump to provide a transcript of the meeting to the congressional intelligence committees as a way to check the White Houses claim that what Trump disclosed was appropriate.

Trump last week suggested that he records his conversations while defending Comeys firing  a controversy many lawmakers were still dealing with when the latest developments began to cascade this week.

Memos, transcripts, tapes  our list keeps getting longer, Mark R. Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

I keep using troubling, but troubling is an understatement, he said.

Nearly 24 hours after news of Trumps disclosure to the Russians first broke, none of the leaders of the Senate or House Intelligence committees had spoken to White House officials who were in the Oval Office and could say what happened.

Wed like to understand what was said, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told reporters Tuesday. When it comes to Trumps ability to handle classified information, that will either confirm our confidence or possibly shake our confidence, he said.

We owe the White House the chance to present us with the information, present us with the truth, Warner said. We also want to see if there are, again, these supposed transcripts [and] get a copy of them.

White House aides have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility that Trump records his conversations.

The collision of the two stories escalated the sense of chaos that has permeated Capitol Hill since Trump was inaugurated and increased the sense of frustration with the president that emerged among some Republican lawmakers and aides in the past week.

Following news of Comeys memo, Democrats railed against the president with charges that some had previously shied away from using, including obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense.

If these reports are true, the Presidents brazen attempt to shut down the FBIs investigation of Michael Flynn is an assault on the rule of law that is fundamental to our democracy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Many Republicans remained silent or took a wait-and-see approach.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, said it was disappointing if Trump moved to curtail the Russia probe with intentionality, although he said it could havebeen just a casual conversation.

Asked whether Congress needs to see the Comey memo, he said, Instinctively, thats where were going to want to go. But he stopped short of calling for subpoenas, saying that Congress needs to pursue a unified response.

Its been frustrating, no question, he said of the recent revelations, adding that he wished the Republican agenda could be moving forward.

Above all, he was critical of Trumps tone. Reverence  we want to see more of that, Walker said.

Frustration has been a theme in some private conversations among Republican lawmakers, according to one GOP senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They worry that their ambitious agenda is grinding to a halt because of Trumps controversies.

Publicly  and even in large but private group settings  GOP senators have almost tried to pretend the problem isnt there. Trumps disclosure of classified information to Russia was not a focal point of a weekly lunch Tuesday, after which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave terse answers to reporters questions about Trump.

Weve talked about health care more often. I hate to be flippant  we really have, said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.).

At the same time, they say they want to learn more.

I think everyone, Republicans and some  many  Democrats need to know more about exactly what transpired, said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Both lawmakers and aides within the GOP described feeling a sense of weariness as they stare down the latest Trump-related controversy.

Its just a very surreal environment where you have a president who is self-destructing, said one Senate Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. Another GOP staffer described the situation as constant chaos.

There is a worry that questions about Trumps credibility have diminished his ability to lead the party.

It never helps. It never helps, said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), repeating himself for emphasis.

McConnell declined to offer specific critiques of Trump when speaking with reporters midday Tuesday, saying only that it would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the White House.

Asked whether he had concerns about the presidents ability to properly handle classified information, McConnell paused, let out a short laugh and said simply, No.

Are you starting to lose confidence in President Trump? a reporter asked. No, McConnell said.

Across Capitol Hill, a varied coalition of Republicans began to coalesce around the demand that the White House brief lawmakers about Trumps disclosure to the Russians. Its members included Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), whose Northern Virginia district went for Hillary Clinton in November by 10 percentage points, and Reps. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-N.J.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), whose districts swung heavily for Trump.

Lawmakers requests will probably be complicated by the sensitivity of the information that Trump shared. One White House aide called for the problematic portion of Trumps discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients  efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

Trump tried to explain away the situation in a series of tweets Tuesday morning, writing that he had the absolute right to share facts pertaining to terrorism with the Russian officials. Later, McMaster defended Trumps conversations as wholly appropriate but declined to discuss whether the information shared by the president was classified.

[Trump acknowledges facts shared with Russian envoys at White House]

Karoun Demirjian, Paul Kane, Ed OKeefe, Jenna Portnoy and Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
Playing on concerns about the safety of nuclear power in the wake of Japans Fukushima disaster in 2011, South Koreas Moon Jae-in promised during his successful presidential campaign to scrap or suspend new atomic plants.

Now that Moon is president, that anti-nuclear stance is seen as a threat to South Koreas ambitions to become a bigger exporter of nuclear equipment and technology  a market valued at as much as USD740 billion over the next 10 years.

If the new government withdraws its support for nuclear development in South Korea, this could send a negative signal to foreign countries looking to purchase reactors, Kerry-Anne Shanks, a Singapore-based analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd., said by email. An anti-nuclear stance could challenge Koreas ambitions to export nuclear technology to other countries.

The irony is that even as Moon turns his back on nuclear, South Korea has proven itself as one of only a few nations capable of successfully designing and starting up a nuclear reactor using the most advanced technology available.

South Korea, which has been building reactors since the 1970s, has been positioning itself as a potential successor to pioneers of the industry such as Westinghouse Electric Power Co. and Areva SA, which have become mired in cost overruns and construction delays.

Coming on the heels of Westinghouses bankruptcy, the political shifts in South Korea are further threatening the global industry and possibly narrowing the field of reactor builders. One South Korean firm, Kepco, said it would consider sponsoring a reorganization of Westinghouse if requested, according to a spokesman at the time.

South Korea has 25 nuclear reactors, which provide roughly a third of its energy needs, according to the World Nuclear Association. The Asian nation has the sixth-largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world, accounting for about 23 gigawatts of capacity.

Besides the curbs on new nuclear facilities, Moon also campaigned to cancel any lifetime extensions for existing nuclear plants and to develop a roadmap to eventually rid the nation of atomic power altogether. In nuclears place, Moon would place greater emphasis on natural gas and renewables. On Monday, the new president ordered the shutdown for the month of June of 10 coal-fired power plants that have been operating for more than 30 years to cut pollution.

If Korea stops building reactors domestically it will definitely hurt their export market, said Jessica Lovering, director of energy at Breathrough Institute, an environmental think tank. A big part of what makes Korea competitive in the global nuclear market is they have a thriving domestic industry with a proven track record of declining costs and reactors built on time.

The global civil nuclear market is expected to be valued at $500 billion to $740 billion in the next 10 years, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. An average of $80 billion a year will be needed in nuclear power investment through 2030 in order to meet a goal of keeping global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing carbon emissions from burning fossil-fuels, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Exporting nuclear power plants requires substantial up-front financial support from the vendor and its home government, said Rod Adams, publisher of Atomic Insights, an industry news website. There is already some evidence suggesting that the anti-nuclear stance of President Moon Jae-in will make it more difficult for South Korea to export nuclear reactors.

One challenge to South Koreas ambitions regardless of the election outcome is competition from other nuclear-exporting nations.

Russia and China, which have governments that provide financing for projects, have emerged as new leaders of the global nuclear industry. Russia has more than 20 nuclear reactors confirmed or planned for export, totaling $133 billion at the end of 2016, according to the WNA.

China is actively promoting export of its homegrown nuclear reactor, the Hualong One. China has signed deals with several nations, including the U.K., Argentina and Pakistan.

The competitors being Russia and the upcoming Chinese offerings are challenging to South Korea, given the comparative limited footing of Korea from a global economic perspective, Neil Todreas, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said by email. MDT/Bloomberg

White house visit penned for june

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House next month for a summit with President Donald Trump amid worries over North Koreas progress in building a nuclear and missile arsenal, Seouls presidential office said yesterday. The announcement came days after North Korea successfully tested a powerful new missile that analysts believe could reach Alaska when perfected. According to South Korean government officials, both countries have reaffirmed their common goal of the complete discarding of North Korean nuclear weapons and said they will pursue all methods, including sanctions and dialogue to reach this goal. The allies agreed that dialogue with North Korea could happen under the right conditions, said a South Korean government spokesperson.
Ukraine on Tuesday put in place new sanctions seeking to block Russian media and online networks from operating in the country, including VKontakte, the nations most popular social network.

The decision, signed by President Petro Poroshenko, was announced in an updated sanctions list, which included the Russian search giant Yandex, social media sites like Odnoklassniki, and a number of Russian state and private television channels.

The spokesman for the Kremlin described the new sanctions as unfriendly and shortsighted and warned that there could be retaliation.

The sanctions, which target the companies that run the sites, mean they cannot do business in Ukraine, but it is not clear if the country has the legal and technical means to totally block them.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the sites were still available in Ukraine. But in a statement posted online, a representative for Ukrtelekom, the countrys largest internet provider, said it would voluntarily follow the ban, and work on blocking the sites in the coming weeks.

In response to the ban, Mail.ru, an email service, posted an online tutorial in how to use Virtual Private Networks to access sites being blocked by the government.

Ukraines Security and Defense Council said the sanctions were in part to protect people from companies whose activities threaten information and the cyber security of Ukraine, according to a statement cited by Reuters news agency.

Ukraine, along with Western countries, has targeted Russia with sanctions because of Moscows annexation of Crimea in 2014 and material support for separatists in the countrys southeast, including with direct military means. Even before Tuesdays additions, the sanctions list totaled more than 400 Russian entities.

Some Ukrainian officials, particularly in the Interior Ministry, had called for a ban of VKontakte because it helped promote Russian propaganda.

According to data put out by the market research agency Kantar TNS for April 2017, VKontakte was the third most visited site in Ukraine following Google and YouTube.

Mail.ru, an email client also on the list and the owner of Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, was the fourth most popular site in the country, while Yandex, the Russian search engine, is the fifth most popular site.

In a statement, Mail.ru said it regretted the move, adding that 26 million users would be affected by the sanctions but its operations in Ukraine only made up an insignificant share of its total revenue.

Read more:

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When H.R. McMaster first met with his National Security Council staff in the White House this year, he told them that he was as surprised as anyone to be standing there.

The lieutenant generals plan had been to retire from the Army this year and look for a teaching position at Harvard or Yale, he told his new staff. And he vowed that he was coming to the job of national security adviser with a completely apolitical mind-set. His sole focus as an active-duty military officer was on defending the country, he said.

On Tuesday, McMaster took on a different role: He strode into the White House briefing room to defend an embattled President Trump amid allegations that the latter had revealed highly classified information in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

What I am saying is really the premise of that article is false, McMaster said of The Washington Posts initial report on the meeting and intelligence disclosure.

For McMaster, who has kept a relatively low public profile since taking the job, the moment marked a critical test.

(Bastien Inzaurralde,Jayne Orenstein,Dalton Bennett,Alice Li,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

Trump chose McMaster to lead the National Security Council following the ouster of his predecessor, Michael Flynn, in part because of McMasters reputation for candor over a 33-year career.

In Dereliction of Duty, which McMaster wrote as a young officer, he was harshly critical of top Vietnam-era generals for not speaking frankly to the president and in public when they thought the war was going badly. As an Army colonel in northern Iraq overseeing a 5,000-soldier armored cavalry regiment, McMaster was known for his independent streak and willingness to buck a strategy that did not seem to be working.

The real challenge for McMaster is that he has a lot of credibility, particularly with key constituencies that may not trust President Trump at this point, said Peter Feaver, former senior official in George W. Bushs White House. He can use that credibility to support the president, but if hes wrong or the president undercuts him, he loses his capacity to serve the president well the next time.

Privately, senior White House officials said that McMaster has been respectful of Trump, a relative foreign-policy newcomer who has little interest in slogging through thick briefing books.

In Oval Office meetings, senior aides said that McMaster often steers Trump away from counterproductive or impractical ideas by gently suggesting that the National Security Council study them and get back to the president in a few days or weeks.

Publicly, however, McMaster often faces a tougher challenge in a new role that he probably still is learning to manage, said some of the generals former colleagues and friends.

All military generals serve at the presidents discretion and in that sense are political appointees. But the national security adviser is a political appointee in a much broader sense, Feaver said. He should be privy to every meeting that the president has touching on foreign policy.

(Video: Reuters)

In addition to helping the president develop and execute foreign policy, McMasters job includes helping sell the presidents plans to the American people. When controversy erupts, the national security adviser is expected to shield the president. Your job is to take incoming fire to try to protect the boss, said Derek Chollet, a senior national security official in the Obama administration. Ideally thats because the president has made a very tough decision, and you have to defend it. This strikes me as more of a cleanup exercise.

The last week has forced McMaster to play both of those roles  somewhat uncomfortably. On Friday, he appeared before reporters in the White House briefing room to outline the presidents first big foreign trip.

The general dodged questions about Trumps controversial decision to fire FBI director James B. Comey and defended the presidents sometimes rough treatment of allies.

He also finessed an earlier disagreement with Trump over the phrase radical Islamic terrorism, which the president has used to describe the threat posed by extremist groups throughout the Middle East and South Asia. McMaster has privately and unsuccessfully urged the president to jettison the label as too broad.

Under the spotlight, McMaster seemed to settle on a compromise. He said Trump on his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia would relay a strong, respectful message that urges the United States Muslim allies to take a stand against a radical Islamist ideology that uses a perverted interpretation of Islam to justify crimes against all humanity.

As the controversy over Trumps revelations to the Russians exploded Monday, McMaster initially avoided the press. This is the last place in the world I wanted to be, he cracked when he accidentally bumped into a scrum of reporters outside of the White House press secretarys office.

Later that evening, he delivered a terse statement supporting the president, calling The Posts initial story false.

By Tuesday, McMaster was back in front of reporters in the White House. This time he did not dispute the storys central facts. He declined to say whether Trump had shared sensitive intelligence with the Russians and speculated that calls from the White House to intelligence agencies to mitigate damage from the revelations were made out of an overabundance of precaution.

None of us felt in any way the conversation was inappropriate, he said of Trumps meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

For McMaster, the public appearances this week are especially fraught. Unlike his short-lived predecessor in the job, McMaster does not have a long relationship with Trump. Recently some senior administration officials have complained that McMasters push to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a betrayal of the nationalist foreign policy that Trump outlined on the campaign trail.

The biggest burden for McMaster, though, may be own words as captured in Dereliction of Duty. The president was lying, and he expected the Chiefs to lie as well or, at least, to withhold the whole truth, McMaster wrote in the books epilogue, referring to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although the president should not have placed the Chiefs in that position, the flag officers should not have tolerated it when they had.

To some in Washington, McMaster failed that test this week. Eliot A. Cohen, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration and Trump critic, accused McMaster in an essay for the Atlantic magazine of peddling parsed half truths that are as bad, and in some cases worse than lies.

Others defended McMaster as making the best of a tough situation.

Lets say the president misspoke or went too far, Feaver said, then part of his job is damage control.
Intelligence officials say President Trump might have damaged relations with allies, who will now be more cautious in sharing sensitive information with the United States. Democrats say hes a hypocrite, having lambasted Hillary Clinton for her own handling of classified information. But when Trump spoke about highly classified information with Russian officials in a White House meeting last week, he did not break the law, legal analysts say.

The president is essentially the ultimate arbiter of what is classified and what is not. While the heads of particular agencies also have original classification authority  the power to deem material classified or not classified  their authority is limited to their departments and bound by their departments particular rules.

The president, as the head of the executive branch, knows no such restrictions  his power on the matter comes straight from the Constitution, legal analysts say.

[Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister, ambassador]

When it comes to classification issues and those kinds of things, hes not above the law, said Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a criminal-defense lawyer who has done significant work on cases involving classified information. He basically is the law.

Trumps aides have offered shifting defenses of his disclosure of information, but the president has been clear: What he did was allowed.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, he wrote Tuesday on Twitter. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism. ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State.

President Barack Obama spelled out guidelines on classified information in an executive order in 2009  though that was largely targeting agencies, rather than putting restrictions on the presidents authority.

Legal analysts said Trump is right that he committed no crime, though some said it was fair to question his judgment in revealing material to the Russians  especially since it originated with a partner country and could damage intelligence-sharing arrangements.

He can do it at a whim. There really is no process for it, said Barry J. Pollack, a white-collar criminal-defense lawyer who has done work on high-profile leak cases, including representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He has the ability to do it as he wishes. Whether or not it is a wise practice or whether it will cause diplomatic or intelligence-gathering concerns obviously are other issues, and most presidents would consult with the intelligence community before choosing to declassify it.

The presidents revelation of information to Russia does not mean he has declassified the material he discussed, analysts said. Obamas executive order explicitly allows the dissemination of classified information to a foreign government in accordance with the direction of the President  though it does not say such material is automatically declassified.

MacMahon said that when he was defending Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, he wanted to enter into pleadings information about Guantanamo Bay detainees that at the time was classified. After President George W. Bush mentioned the detainees in his State of the Union address, MacMahon said, he inquired with the government about whether that material was now public.

The answer was no, MacMahon said.

Other people can be charged with crimes for revealing classified information. Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, for example, was convicted under the Espionage Act for revealing to a New York Times reporter details of a secretive operation to give faulty nuclear plans to Iran. Former CIA director David H. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials for letting his mistress and biographer access highly sensitive information in notebooks he kept.

MacMahon, who represented Sterling, said prosecutors could probably pursue a case against those who talked to reporters about the presidents revelation  even if they could not charge the president.

Whatever it was that was said at this meeting, if somebody asks me if a crime was committed, Id say by the person who disclosed it to the media, he said. Thats who violated the law.

The Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel has opined in the past that the president cannot be indicted or prosecuted at all, because it would impermissibly interfere with the Presidents ability to carry out his constitutionally assigned functions and thus would be inconsistent with the constitutional structure. Trump could be impeached for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, and in previous impeachment proceedings, Congress has cited presidents with violating the oath of office.

Taken on its own, though, Trumps revelation of classified information to the Russians would seem to fall well short of that, MacMahon said.

Now whether its wise for a president to do that, he said, thats a different judgment.
The backlash to President Trumps alleged disclosure of classified information to Russian diplomats rippled across Europe on Tuesday as Russian officials denied the reports, while U.S. allies said they might limit information sharing with the White House.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump shared highly classified information in a controversial Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, potentially jeopardizing a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

In response, a European intelligence official, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said E.U. countries may limit information sharing with the White House because it could be a risk for our sources.

On Tuesday, Russias Foreign Ministry spokeswoman denied that Trump revealed classified information during last weeks meeting, while President Vladimir Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, called the report another piece of nonsense, and we do not want to have anything to do with this nonsense at all.

There is nothing here to confirm or deny, he added during a telephone briefing with journalists.

(The Washington Post)

Maria Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, posted a comment on Facebook that described the reports of Trumps disclosures as yet another fake.

But the denials from Moscow were expected as a way to potentially deflect demands for further details.

Shortly after the Russian statements, however, Trump posted tweets saying that facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety were shared during the White House meeting May 10.

[Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials]

Trump added in the tweets that he has the absolute right to share the information, which was described to The Washington Post as highly classified and intended to remain only within a tight circle of allies.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining . . . to terrorism and airline flight safety, Trump wrote. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism, he added, using an acronym for the Islamic State terrorist group.

Read more:

(Video: Reuters)

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Journalist Javier Valdez long chronicled underworld activities in the Pacific-coast state of Sinaloa, home to the drug cartel once led by Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. Valdez wrote on the cartels internal power struggles, profiled its players  everyone from capos to grunts  and untangled the unseemly alliances the traffickers forged with the government.

Valdez, 50, on Monday published the last of his weekly columns in Riodoce, the publication he founded in 2003. He was fatally shot that afternoon as he drove away from the newsweeklys offices in the state capital, Culiacan  a city beset by a battle for control of the criminal empire of Guzman, who was captured last year.

Valdez was among Mexicos most prominent journalists. His killing has shocked the nation, even as it experiences an upswing in homicides, with statistics showing Mexico on pace to experience one of its most murderous years in recent memory. Some media outlets decided to cease activities Tuesday in a show of solidarity with Riodoce.

Valdez was the sixth Mexican journalist slain this year. His death came amid a wave of attacks against media professionals, who frequently resort to self-censorship to avoid attacks by criminal groups. Journalists often receive little sympathy from police and politicians  some of whom are in cahoots with the cartels

[So many journalists have been killed in Mexico this year that a newspaper is closing]

The murder of Javier is one more link in a long chain of impunity, said Javier Garza Ramos, former editor of El Siglo de Torreon, a publication whose offices have been shot at five times. Four of its reporters were kidnapped in 2013 and held for 10 hours. Anyone who wants to silence the press can do it and have the confidence nothing will happen to them, he said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that since 1992, at least 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico because of their work, while motives in the cases of 50 other reporters slain in the same period remain uncertain.

Riodoce reported that Valdez was pulled from his Toyota Camry and shot 12 times in a daytime attack made to look like a carjacking. Police have no suspects. The federal attorney generals office announced that it would investigate.

The gunmen were going to kill him, the newsweeklys director, Ismael Bojorquez Perea, said in an interview. There is no doubt about that.

Valdez and his colleagues  particularly those who reported on the illegal drug trade  knew the risks involved in their work.

We worked in fear, knowing that some day this could happen, Bojorquez said. As word of Valdezs killing spread, journalists rushed to the crime scene, crying, hugging and mourning the death of their friend in a state of shock, he said.

Valdez is perhaps the most high-profile Mexican journalist killed in recent years. He was honored with the CPJs International Press Freedom Award in 2011. His publication also received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, awarded for outstanding journalism in the Americas.

Mexican politicians expressed regret for the killing and pledged protection for reporters.

I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy, President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted.

The government recently replaced the special prosecutor tasked with investigating crimes committed against journalists. But critics say the office, set up to pull cases out of states where investigations are compromised by organized crime, has proved ineffective. It has won just three convictions since its creation in 2010.

One former lawmaker said the climate of fear created by attacks on the press suits politicians, who sometimes have surrogates harass reporters for investigating corruption or even mentioning criminal activity that could make public officials look bad.

Politicians allow [attacks against journalists] to occur because they end up benefiting from the fear and terror that make journalists not publish their work, or self-censor, said Gerardo Priego, the former lawmaker who led a special commission in Congress on protecting journalists.

Journalists, meanwhile, vented outrage over the killing of another colleague.

6 journalists murdered in 2017. Zero arrests. Mexico without freedom of expression, multiple journalists tweeted, using the hashtag #NiUnoMas, or NotOneMore.

Several journalists covering the illegal drug trade have come under attack in recent months. Miroslava Breach, a reporter for the national daily La Jornada, was killed March 23 in northern Chihuahua state as she drove her son to school. Norte, a local newspaper to which she contributed, subsequently closed, citing safety concerns.

Seven reporters, targeted last weekend in southwestern Guerrero state by an estimated 100 gunmen, were pistol-whipped and robbed. The reporters were eventually released.

Still, one photojournalist in Guerrero said he has encountered more challenges with the state than with criminals growing and smuggling opium poppies. The state government recently proposed an agreement with the media to minimize news on crimes and killings to protect the image of its main tourist attraction, Acapulco.

I have never had threats from organized crime, said the photojournalist, Alejandrino Gonzalez, who freelances for international news agencies, but I have had threats from the system. The threats include intimidation from state police and being the subject of unflattering stories by journalists receiving state government money, he said.

Valdez expressed some trepidation at covering crime  assailants tossed a grenade at his office in 2009  but also seemed uneasy with the government.

I worry more about how the government responds than how the narcos respond, he told the Mexico City daily Reforma last year.

Always upbeat, sporting thick glasses and a Panama hat, Valdez often assisted foreign correspondents reporting in Sinaloa. He was well known for his books on the drug trade and chronicles of life in a state where cartels came to be seen as big business and benefactors of the poor.

Reporters at Riodoce wondered how the publication would continue without Valdez at the helm.

Weve been defeated, one of them said. Its a stab in the heart.

Samantha Schmidt in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more

How Mexico secretly launched a crackdown after Penn met El Chapo

Mexican drug lord El Chapo Guzman extradited to the U.S.

Mexican narcos drop bodies, and warnings, from the skies

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
A coalition of 54 global business groups appealed to Chinese authorities yesterday to postpone enforcing a cybersecurity law they warned violates Beijings free-trade pledges and might harm information security.

The appeal by groups from the United States, Japan, Britain and other countries adds to complaints Beijing is improperly limiting access to its markets for technology products, possibly to support its own fledgling suppliers.

In a letter to Chinese regulators and the ruling Communist Partys cybersecurity committee, the groups said the Cybersecurity Law due to take effect June 1 might violate Beijings trade commitments and make theft of information easier. It would limit use of foreign security technology and require data about Chinese citizens to be stored within the country.

Signers included the Business Software Alliance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade groups for insurers, technology suppliers and manufacturers from Britain, Japan, Australia, Mexico and South Korea.

Many of them were among 46 groups that made a similar appeal in 2016 for changes in the cybersecurity law, which werent made.

We are deeply concerned that current and pending security-related rules will effectively erect trade barriers, said the letter. Chinas current course risks compromising its legitimate security objectives [and may even weaken security] while burdening industry and undermining the foundation of Chinas relations with its commercial partners.

The groups appealed to Beijing to postpone enforcing the law until it can be made consistent with Chinese market-opening commitments and World Trade Organization rules.

The complaint coincided with a trade forum in Beijing that began Sunday at which Chinese President Xi Jinping appealed to foreign leaders from two dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Europe to resist political pressure to limit trade.

Xis government has promoted itself as a champion of free trade in response to calls in the United States and Europe to limit imports. Despite that, Chinas trading partners complain it is the most-closed major economy and business groups say Beijing is further reducing access to markets for technology and other products in which it is trying to develop its own suppliers.

Communist leaders say China needs the data controls to prevent terrorism and anti-government activity. But officials of Chinese industry groups quoted in the state press have said previous restrictions on use of foreign security technology also were intended to shield the countrys fledgling providers from competition.

Trade groups have previously said planned Chinese data storage rules do nothing to improve security and create market barriers for foreign providers.

They say the requirement for foreign e-commerce and other companies to store data about Chinese customers within the country would add to the cost and difficulty of doing business by requiring them to set up duplicate storage operations.

Restrictions on use of security technology in an earlier Chinese anti-terrorism law and rules for banks prompted a similar outcry from business groups that said they would prevent most use of foreign products. AP
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President Donald Trump is welcoming Turkeys president to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting, even as Turkish officials fumed over a U.S. decision to arm the Syrian Kurds.

Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to address the Syrian civil war, the refugee crisis and the fight against the Islamic State group.

Shortly after Erdogan arrived in Washington, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his party members that U.S. cooperation with Syrian Kurds is not something acceptable for Turkey.

Turkey is determined to root out terror, Yildirim said, if necessary guarantees for Turkeys sensitivities and issues pertaining to Turkeys security are still not given.

The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to respond to the crisis in Syria, taking unprecedented action against Syrian President Bashar Assads government over its use of chemical weapons against civilians.

But with Iran and Russia working to bolster Assads government, the Trump administration is turning to regional allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for help as it crafts its Syria policy.

Complicating that effort, however, was an announcement by the Trump administration that it plans to arm Kurdish Syrian fighters in the fight against the Islamic State group. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the Kurdish militants in Syria for years and doesnt want them spearheading the Raqqa effort.

Turkey believes theyre linked to a Turkish Kurdish group, known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization.

Trumps deal-making skills will be put to the test as he works to assure Erdogan that the decision to arm Kurdish fighters in Syria will not result in weapons falling into the wrong hands.

Erdogan arrived Monday in Washington, the Turkish flag hanging prominently outside the Blair House, a historic presidential guesthouse across the street from the White House.

The meeting is considered high stakes for the nascent Trump administration as it looks to engage regional allies in delicate security matters while enforcing international standards for human rights.

Trumps willingness to partner with authoritarian rulers and overlook their shortcomings on democracy and human rights has alarmed U.S. lawmakers of both parties. That puts added pressure on him to get results.

Trump has gone out of his way to foster a good relationship with Erdogan. After a national referendum last month that strengthened Erdogans presidential powers, European leaders and rights advocates criticized Turkey for moving closer toward autocratic rule. Trump congratulated Erdogan.

But Erdogan may not be amenable to accepting the U.S. military support for the Kurds in a quid pro quo. Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only 10 kilometers away. His government has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

Washington is concerned by rising anti-Americanism in Turkey that Erdogans government has tolerated since the July coup attempt. The U.S. also has pressed unsuccessfully for the release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor, and other detained U.S. citizens. Vivian Salama, Washington, AP
Brad Pitt

NEW YORK (AP)  Brad Pitt and Gen. Stanley McChrystal  the inspiration to Pitt's four-star Afghanistan commander in the upcoming Netflix war satire War Machine  would seem to be worlds apart. One, an affable member of Hollywood's elite; the other a hard-charging lifetime military man. But Pitt found one connection with his character: a swollen ego, and the damage done.

"Hubris is a trap and it's the trap of every great nation that has been number one for too long. You start believing your own stink," Pitt says. "Anytime I've gotten in trouble, it's because of my own hubris."

Pitt, at the moment, may be particularly empathetic to such a drastic swing as the one that sank McChrystal via an infamous Rolling Stone profile. Pitt is now, for the first time since Angelina Jolie Pitt filed for divorce from him last September, stepping back into the limelight. He hasn't been timid. In his first post-separation interview, to GQ, Pitt was unusually candid, speaking frankly about his struggles with alcohol and the pains of dividing their family.

Pitt was similarly forthright in a wide-ranging interview last week with The Associated Press. He called directly  "Hey man, it's Brad"  and over the course of half an hour, discussed his present state of mind, his current attitude about acting, and his alarm at the possibility of expanding the war in Afghanistan. Why the openness?

"I've got no secrets. I've got nothing to hide," said Pitt. "We're human and I find the human condition very interesting. If we're not talking about it, then we're not getting better."

It's undoubtedly a fraught period of transition for the 53-year-old actor. He said he's spending his time now "keeping the ship afloat" and "figuring out the new configuration of our family." ''Kids are everything," he said, of their six children. "Kids are your life. They're taking all the focus, as they should anyway."

Story continues

He's getting through it, he assured. "I'm not suicidal or something," Pitt said, laughing. "There's still much beauty in the world and a lot of love. And a lot of love to be given. It's all right. It's just life."

Pitt was most keen to discuss War Machine and the strong passions behind it. The film, written and directed by the Australian filmmaker David Michod (Animal Kingdom), is based on Michael Hastings' 2012 book The Operators, which chronicled McChrystal's tumultuous and short-lived stewardship of the war in Afghanistan.

War Machine, which debuts on Netflix May 26, takes a slightly fictionalized approach. Pitt's character is named Gen. Glen McMahon, but the events and personalities covered correspond accurately with McChrystal's downfall. The switch, made after the project was announced, saved the film from some potentially thorny legal issues.

"We had no interest in impugning General McChrystal or any of his guys," said Pitt. "For me, the problem is more systematic."

"The impetus for me was a visit to Walter Reed," added Pitt, who visited the military medical center in 2014. "Those young men and women  who are absolutely heroic in a very harrowing situation  their lives are forever changed and so are their families. It just really made me question who is spending this currency of dedication. Who's writing the check? Who's making the order?"

Particularly galling to Pitt was the request last week by advisers to President Donald Trump and military officials for several thousand more American troops in Afghanistan, a war that has already spanned more than 15 years. It's time to rethink what "winning" means, he says.

"Nothing that we've ever done has said that more troops are going to do anything but cause any more damage, more loss of life and limb," said Pitt. "We talk a lot about supporting our troops but I think supporting our troops is much more than giving them money and a pat on the back. I think it's being responsible to how we use that ultimate dedication."

Trump's top advisers have said the president has not made any final decision about adding more troops in Afghanistan.

In War Machine, Michod summons some of the spirit of war comedies like Catch 22 and M-A-S-H. The film captures an American military driven by politics, illusions and personal aspirations. Pitt's general, with a deeper, gruffer voice than McChrystal's, comes charging into Afghanistan with outlandish delusions of grandeur and departs amid self-inflicted scandal.

"We were tapping into a melding of war and comedy  two things that used to co-exist quite conformably, but in this day and age don't," said Michod. "It's very interesting to see how the two coexist in the public sphere given how strangely earnest all conversation about war has gotten in a possibly warped way. But there's something almost truer in that kind of great comedy treatment of decades past than the nature of the discussion that goes on today."

Michod grants it's an approach that makes for some wild swings of tone in War Machine, but he says a mix of absurdity and tragedy is ultimately more realistic.

"At core, the thing to me that's most powerful about War Machine and what made it feel important to me was that it was about the way personalities can have an incredibly powerful and often a powerfully damaged ripple effect across the world," said Michod. "The movie is called War Machine, but that machine is made up of individuals, individuals with their own strengths and ambitions."

Pitt said he discussed the film with McChrystal. "I feel for him," said the actor. "He's a product of us. He's us." McChrystal, who retired from the Army shortly after resigning command, has since launched a management consulting firm and penned a memoir. He declined to comment for this article.

Little about War Machine is typical for a Hollywood production. It would have never gotten made, Pitt said, without Netflix. The streaming service bankrolled the film for $60 million, making it one of Netflix's most ambitious projects yet.

"The degree of difficulty on this one was ten," said Pitt, "which is what makes it worth it for me to go get in front of the camera now."

Through his production company Plan B, Pitt has become a remarkably successful producer. He was behind two of the last three best-picture winners (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave) as well as other acclaimed releases like James Gray's The Lost City of Z. At times, Pitt  though he's prepping numerous projects, including a possible World War Z sequel  sounded almost as though his movie star days are behind him.

"I feel myself as I'm older gravitating more to the producing side than being in front of the camera," said Pitt. "It's a big commitment, a film, and it does take you away from your family. I just have to balance that. It's not less important, itself, it's just not as important as family. (War Machine) I loved because it's after something and we don't know where we're going to end up. It's a delicate tightrope to walk."

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Brad Pitt Makes Rare Public Appearance in L.A.: AP Video:
CHINA-PHILIPPINES Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping resolved to strengthen their countries friendship during their meeting in Beijing, with China pledging to speed up infrastructure projects it is funding in the Philippines. Duterte said he didnt raise last years South China Sea arbitration ruling while in Beijing.

THAILAND backed off a threat to block Facebook yesterday, instead providing the social media site with court orders to remove content that the government deems illegal. Thailand made the threat last week as it wanted Facebook to block more than 130 posts it considers a threat to national security or in violation of the countrys lese majeste law.

NEW ZEALAND Researchers who traveled to a tiny uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean were astonished to find an estimated 38 million pieces of trash washed up on the beaches. The density of trash was the highest recorded anywhere in the world, despite Henderson Islands extreme remoteness.

US-RUSSIA President Donald Trump yesterday claimed the authority to share facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety with Russia, saying in a pair of tweets he has an absolute right as president to do so.

GERMANY A German court has convicted a 32-year-old Iraqi man of raping two Chinese college students in the western city of Bochum. The dpa news agency reported yesterday that the court sentenced the man to 11 years in prison.

DENMARK Authorities say that a Danish national has been arrested upon an extradition request from Rwanda where hes suspected of committing crimes against humanity in 1994. Prosecutor Martin Stassen says the 49-year-old man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of taking part in a massacre in a church and at a university where more than 1,000 people were killed.

EU The European Union has removed all airlines from Benin and Mozambique from its air safety blacklist after the companies addressed the blocs safety concerns. EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said yesterday that the airlines removal from the blacklist showed their reforms and cooperation have paid off.

BRAZIL A few hundred national Brazilian security forces are patrolling parts of Rio de Janeiro following a surge in violence. Several public buses and cargo trucks have been burned in recent weeks. There has also been an increase in violence in large slums like Alemao.

UNITED NATIONS The U.N. is predicting expanding global economic growth in the next two years, spurred by stronger growth in the last six months and a modest recovery in trade and investment. In its mid-year update released yesterday, the U.N. said the acceleration is underpinned by firm economic growth in many developed countries and strengthened prospects in countries in transition.
Quora

Photo: Quora

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by Joab Hodge.

We are tiny.

Very tiny. But we look in the sky, and wonder, Man oh man, if I ever tried walking around the Earth once, itd take me a lifetime.

Well, you arent wrong. The surface area of Earth is HUGE, but hold on, if we see the world as big, then what must this look like to us?

jupiter

Photo: Quora

Yes, my friends, that small little blue planet is us, compared to our relatively far neighbor, Jupiter. That big Hunk is over 122 times larger than us. Crazy right? We could NEVER walk around that planet.

Lets step it up a bit, how about Mr. Sun?

sun

Photo: Quora

That dot is again, us. HOLY COW! That is massive. The sun is a whopping 1,300,000 times bigger than our little blue planet. Wanna get bigger?

Wait, theres bigger?!

Yes.

sun - uy scuti

Photo: Quora

Meet UY Scuti, one of the largest stars currently discovered. Remember when our planet was a dot next to the sun? Well, now the Sun is merely a PIXEL compared to this super-massive giant.

So. wanna get bigger?

WHAT?

quasar cluster

Photo: Quora

Aww, look at that wee little thing, isnt it cute?

No, its actually terrifying. This is a Quasar Cluster, actually a depiction of a real cluster formed of 73 Quasars. This beast stretches BILLIONS of light years across. In case you dont know, a light year is how far light travels in a single year. A light year to us is EXTREMELY and absolutely barbaric in size. Seriously. A light year is SO long. This thing is BILLIONS, I repeat, BILLIONS of light years across. Scientists say this cluster is so massive, it defies the mathematics we use on Earth and claims it as too simple for the Quasar Cluster

..Yep. You guessed it. Were still growing!

multiverse

Photo: Quora

This is just a theory, but scientists are assuming that we might be living in something known as a Multiverse, which are multiple universes clustered in giant locations. That Quasar clustered listed above would be MICROSCOPIC compared to these giant clusters.

Story continues

Guess what? We arent done.

Theories support hints of gamma-radiation being left over from the big bang, traveling between these multiverses, and no technology predicted, could ever reach or see such a MASSIVE scale. If we kept zooming out, wed reach small white and black clusters that look like germs on a Petri-dish, known as.. Outer space.

Outer space expands faster than LIGHT speed. It is never ending, never stopping, and we can NEVER catch up to the unknown void and darkness that is space. Its absolutely insane to think that Earth is massive, and it is, to us, but compared to other things, we are insignificant and it keeps growing.

We are tiny.

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Donald Trump sacking of James Comey is 'more dangerous than Watergate'

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted immediately after the US leader sacked Mr Comey, who had until last week been leading the investigation into the possible collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and Russias alleged efforts to influence the presidential election.

It subsequently emerged that at a private dinner Mr Trump had reportedly asked for his FBI directors loyalty. Mr Comey is said to have declined.

The survey found Americans were unhappy with Mr Trumps decision. Just 20 per cent said they approved of the sacking, while 38 per cent disapproved. The remaining 32 per cent said they did not know.

Of those who expressed an opinion, 58 per cent of Republicans and 66 per cent of Democrats are unhappy with the move.

Almost one in three (30 per cent) voters said Mr Trumps firing of Mr Comey had made them less favourable to the US President.

Overall, Mr Trumps approval rating stands at 39 per cent  much lower than that of other recent US presidents at this point in their term.

Even supporters of his own Republican Party, disapprove of his performance, compared to 66 per cent of Democrats and 36 per cent of independents.

Mr Trumps decision to sack Mr Comey was met with widespread condemnation, with many accusing the Republican of attempting to hinder the FBIs investigation into his alleged links with Russia.

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Donald Trump: FBI was in "virtual turmoil"

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Almost half (46 per cent) of Americans agree with that claim while only 38 per cent believe the decision was related to Mr Comeys competence in handling an investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server.

Mr Trump has defended his decision, albeit by giving different justifications for the move.

The White House initially claimed the President had simply been following the advice of the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, who had recommended the sacking.

However, Mr Trump later told NBC News he would have made the decision regardless of the advice he received.

Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey," he said. "The FBI has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that.
Anti-Maduro protests continue in Venezuela A demonstrator astride her bicycle with her face painted in the Venezuelan national colors, holds a Venezuelan flag during a national sit-in against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro staged sit-ins and roadblocks across Venezuela on Monday, May 15, to press for elections, sparking new unrest.

Demonstrators have been on the streets daily since early April to demand elections, freedom for jailed activists, foreign humanitarian aid to offset an economic crisis, and autonomy for the opposition-controlled legislature.

Maduro accuses them of seeking a violent coup.

At least 38 people have died, including protesters, government sympathizers, bystanders and security forces, during six weeks of protests in Venezuela. Hundreds have been hurt and arrested.

The current wave of protests, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on some days, has drawn greater support from the poor, who backed late leader Hugo Chavez massively but have soured on Maduro, his successor, and suffered the most from four years of recession.

But the main protests have still been in middle-class areas.

Maduro, 54, who narrowly won election in 2013 after Chavezs death, says he is the victim of an international right-wing conspiracy that has already brought down leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years. (Reuters)

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The parents of US college student who died after fraternity hazing event have accused fellow members of treating him "as roadkill and a rag doll".

After joining the Beta Theta Pi (Beta) fraternity at Pennsylvania State University in February, Timothy Piazza, 19, took part in a hazing ritual called the gauntlet.

The obstacle course requires contestants to drink approximately five alcoholic drinks in two minutes.

After completing his run, security footage captured Mr Piazza staggering around the fraternity's after party. At one point, he can be seen staggering toward the basement stairs. Out of sight of the cameras, he allegedly fell approximately 15 feet  head first  to the bottom of the flight.

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Chicago University apologies for racist emails from student fraternity

After finding him face-down at the bottom of the steps, his fraternity brothers carried him upstairs to a couch, where they attempted to rouse him.

Despite his non-responsiveness and a large bruise growing across his abdomen, the brothers allegedly refused to call the emergency services. One young man who suggested calling 911 appeared to have been thrown against a wall by his brothers.

"Everybody was surrounding him, basically laughing and pointing, one brother, Kordel Davis, told ABC News, adding: They thought calling for help was just unnecessary."

Left largely unattended, Piazza proceeded to fall several more times throughout the night  once striking his head on an iron railing. One brother can be seen on surveillance footage stepping over Piazzas unconscious body on his way to get water.

Members of the fraternity did not call 911 until after 10 the next morning - around 15 hours after his first fall - when they found Piazza unresponsive, rigid, and cold to the touch.

When surgeons began operating, they found his spleen shattered and brain swollen. Doctors said 80 per cent of the student athlete's total blood supply had bled into his abdomen.

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He died in the surgical intensive care unit on 4 February. Coroners later testified he had consumed a life-threatening amount of alcohol.

"It was horrific,'' Jim Piazza said of his sons death. "This wasn't boys being boys  They basically treated our son as roadkill and a rag doll."

"Nobody should consume that much alcohol,'' his mother, Evelyn, said. "That's torture."

Eighteen members of the fraternity are now facing charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to tampering with evidence in the death of 19-year-old .

The Centre County District Attorney said more than 850 charges had been filed.

Text messages from older fraternity members about the new initiates broadcast their desire to fuck with them and get them fucked up, they said.

Tonight on Nightline, Pennsylvania State University fraternity brother Kordel Davis speaks out on death of Timothy Piazza. pic.twitter.com/5z2a04j2MG  Nightline (@Nightline) May 9, 2017

Makes me so upset knowing how he suffered and no one helped him, love you so much tim and you deserved so much better  https://t.co/3RwjE2fD5J  Kaitlyn Tempalsky (@kaitlyntempals) May 5, 2017

Penn State has since banned Beta Theta Pi from campus, announced a strongly enforced prohibition on underage drinking, and cancelled rush week for Autumn 2017. Officially known as recruitment week, rush week is the period of time when fraternities and sororities recruit students to their respective Greek letter organisations.

But court documents suggest hazing and underage drinking at Penn State wont be easy to combat.

Beta publicly represents themselves as a dry fraternity, but reports show the Penn State chapter provided alcohol for at least three of their rush week events. Receipts from that time period reveal Beta members spent at least $1,179 (917) on alcohol in an eight-day span. Party attendees attest the alcohol was readily available to minors.

Despite publicly condemning hazing, Beta members from multiple years told law enforcement their brothers repeatedly hazed them during initiation  including forcing them to run the gauntlet. At least one other member was hospitalised as a result of the initiation process in recent years.

Nationwide, more than half of all college students involved in clubs, teams, or other organisations have been hazed. At least one student has died in a hazing-related accident every year since 1970, according to journalist and hazing expert Hank Nuwer. The vast majority of these deaths involve alcohol.

In a statement following Piazzas death, Penn State called binge drinking on college campuses a national problem that has been worsening.

"Penn State initiated aggressive enforcement, education and monitoring measures to address these issues well before the tragic death of Timothy Piazza, and announced additional measures following, the school said. Our actions will continue, and represent our ongoing commitment to drive change in tackling binge drinking at universities."
The Defenders are expected to have a major presence this year at San Diego Comic-Con  and fans will have the chance to take a key member of Marvels super-team home as a souvenir. With SDCC just two months away, Yahoo TV has your first glimpse at one of the top toy exclusives that will be offered: Daredevil.

Hasbros deluxe 12-inch Legends take on the Man Without Fear, based on Marvels classic comic character (as opposed to the Netflix incarnation played by Charlie Cox), is fully articulated and comes with a variety of interchangeable parts and accessories to put the action in action figure.

The packaging, featuring original artwork by Joe Quesada, Marvels chief creative officer, includes braille on the back. There are also two posters inside the box.

The $59.99 figure will be available to Comic-Con fans at the toy makers booth during show hours from July 20-23. Afterward, a limited number will be sold at Hasbros online store.

Daredevil is expected to be one of Marvels featured superheroes at Comic-Con. After two successful seasons on Netflix, the blind vigilante is joining together with fellow street-level heroes Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) to battle a looming supernatural threat in New York City. The Defenders premieres Aug. 18 on the streaming service.

Watch: How Netflix Brought Iron Fist and The Defenders to Life:

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Dave Chappelle regrets wishing Donald Trump luck. (Photo: Getty Images)

Dave Chappelle is over Donald Trump. After urging people to give the president a chance when he hosted Saturday Night Live six months ago, the 43-year-old comedian has seen enough in these 100-plus days.

At the Robin Hood Foundation benefit in New York City on Monday Night, Chappelle addressed his former plea to America. I was the first guy on TV to say, Give Trump a chance. I f***ed up. Sorry, he confessed, according to guest Willie Geist.

Dave Chappelle tonight in NY on his November SNL monologue: "I was the first guy on TV to say 'Give Trump a chance.' I f***ed up. Sorry."  Willie Geist (@WillieGeist) May 16, 2017

Back in November, Chappelle hosted the first postelection Saturday Night Live, and during his monologue, he suggested viewers be open-minded with President Trump  after getting a few jokes in, of course.

I didnt know that Donald Trump was going to win the election. I did suspect it. Seemed like Hillary was doing well in the polls and yet  I know the whites. You guys arent as full of surprises as you used to be, he said during his monologue. America has done it. Weve actually elected an Internet troll as our president.

Chappelle concluded his monologue with an anecdote about attending an event at the Obama White House that had many black guests.

I saw how happy everybody was, these people who had been historically disenfranchised. And it made me feel hopeful. And it made me feel proud to be an American. And it made me very happy about the prospects of our country, he shared.

Im wishing Donald Trump luck, Chappelle concluded. And Im going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.

Clearly, Chappelle is taking that olive branch back.





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(Reuters) - A white Tulsa police officer charged with killing an unarmed black motorist took the stand in her own defense on Monday, saying she fired because training taught her to act quickly against a perceived deadly threat, according to local news reports.

Betty Shelby, 43, could face between four years and life in prison if convicted of manslaughter in the September 2016 killing of Terence Crutcher.

Lawyers for Shelby have said she believed that Crutcher, who was 40, may have been trying to reach through a partially open window for a weapon in the vehicle when she shot him.

"If you hesitate, if you delay, then you die," Shelby was quoted in a Tulsa World news story as telling the state district court.

Police videos of the incident were seen globally, and some civil rights advocates have argued that race was a factor in the fatal shooting, something Shelby has denied. Rights advocates saw the Crutcher case as another in a string of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of the police in the United States that has spawned periodic protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the videos, Crutcher can be seen with his hands in the air shortly before he was shot. Tulsa police have said Crutcher was unarmed and there was no weapon in his vehicle, which was blocking a road.

Shelby told the jury that she was taught during law enforcement training that if a suspect reaches into an area like a car, an officer does not let them pull their arm back because they might be holding a gun, the Tulsa World reported from the court room.

She said the first time she fired her weapon on duty was when she shot Crutcher, who did not speak during their encounter, according to court testimony from officers on the scene.

Prosecutors have said there was no reason for Shelby to fire on a man who was walking away from her. They blame her for turning a routine traffic matter into a deadly confrontation by acting unreasonably and escalating the situation.

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The Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office said that Crutcher had 96 nanograms per milliliter of the hallucinogenic drug PCP in his bloodstream at the time of his death.

Prosecutors have previously said Crutchers drug use was not reason enough for Shelby to resort to deadly force, local media reports said.

(Reporting by Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton in Tulsa and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Associated Press

There has already been two coaching changes halfway through the NFL season with Indianapolis firing Frank Reich this week four weeks after Carolina did the same to Matt Rhule. The NFL had a record-tying 10 coaching changes last offseason and three-quarters of the teams have changed head coaches at least once in the past five years. Here's a look at some coaches who figure to be on the hot seat if things don't turn around in the second half of the season and some assistants who could be in line for head coaching jobs.
The White House has been engulfed by fresh chaos over allegations Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials, sparking bizarre scenes as aides reportedly turned up televisions to drown out shouting between top aides.

Dozens of reporters crowded into the hallway outside Sean Spicers office after the Washington Post published its report on Mr Trumps discussions with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Press officers walked through the pack in silence as journalists asked for more information, while televisions in the press area picked up on the story, just days after the furore over the sacking of FBI director James Comey.

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Trump says he has 'the absolute right to share facts with Russia'

This is the last place in the world I wanted to be, said national security adviser HR McMaster, as he stumbled into the crowd of waiting journalists in the West Wing. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

He was dispatched to deliver a 45-second statement to waiting television cameras, without answering questions.

Mr McMaster dismissed claims Mr Trump had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign intelligence agency - a move that allegedly put cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis at risk.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said.

mcmaster-press-conference.jpg

National Security Adviser HR McMaster makes a statement outside the West Wing of the White House. (AP)

The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

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Meanwhile, Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, White House communications director Michael Dubke, Mr Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders held an emergency meeting.

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Buzzfeeds White House correspondent Adrian Carrasquillo said journalists in the hallway could soon hear yelling coming from the room where officials are.

Minutes later, televisions were turned up super loud in an apparent attempt to drown out the shouting and prevent reporters overhearing the heated discussions.

At around 7.30pm local time (12.30am BST), Ms Sanders emerged to announce that White House officials would not be answering any more questions for the evening.

We've said all we're going to say, she said, asking reporters to clear the hallway.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

None of the statements specifically denied that Mr Trump had revealed classified information, sparking allegations that aides were playing word games.

Officials refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong, ensuring it would dominate a week that White House officials hoped would be quiet in advance of the President's first foreign trip.

The newspaper cited current and former US officials said Mr Trump had divulged information provided by an ally through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.

It did not claim that the President revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered, as Mr McMaster's denial suggested.

The Russian foreign ministry has also dismissed the allegations as fake news.

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

The allegations are particularly damaging given Mr Trumps repeated attacks on Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server to handle classified information.

The scandal, which was the subject of an FBI investigation widely credited with swinging the election in Mr Trumps favour, saw him label his rival crooked Hillary and lead chants of lock her up at rallies.

Mr Comey, who led that investigation, was abruptly fired from his post last week.

White House statements said he was dismissed over the Clinton email investigation, although the FBI director was also leading a probe into alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia.

Additional reporting by AP
Donald Trump's administration is in "a downward spiral" after allegedly leaking classified information to Russian officials, a Republican senator has claimed, joining a chorus of condemnation in Washington.

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order," Republican Senator Bob Corker said. "Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening."

The Washington Post first reported that Mr Trump had released highly classified information about Isis to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week. Sources later confirmed the report to BuzzFeed News, adding that the disclosure was far worse than what has already been reported".

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Trump 'revealed highly classified information' to Russian minister

The information was reportedly obtained from an American ally through a highly sensitive intelligence-sharing arrangement.

Politicians on either side of the aisle quickly deemed the reports disturbing, damning, and almost inconceivable.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told CNNs Wolf Blitzer that so-called code-word information is one of the most highly classified forms of intel available.

It would be almost inconceivable that any president would let something of that nature out, Mr Leahy said.

Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, echoed this sentiment, calling the disclosure a slap in the face to the intel community.

Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians, he tweeted.

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin called the reports "dangerous and reckless". Fellow Democrat Joe Manchin added that they appear "very damning, very damaging.

If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians. https://t.co/CRiSC024F7  Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) May 15, 2017

Several other Republicans cautiously denounced the leaks, while adding the disclaimer if true.

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Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent critic of Mr Trump, called the reports troubling. Fellow national security hawk Senator John McCain called the allegations disturbing, but later couched his remarks, adding: We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information but the president does have the right to do that."

John McCain probably revealed less to the KGB in 5+ years of torture at the Hanoi Hilton than Trump did in 5 minutes in the Oval. https://t.co/mlq6ndE9FE  David Kochel (@ddkochel) May 15, 2017

Meanwhile, David Kochel, a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, has compared Mr Trump's alleged indiscretion with Senator McCain's time as a prisoner of war. "John McCain probably revealed less to the KGB in 5+ years of torture at the Hanoi Hilton than Trump did in 5 minutes in the Oval," he tweeted.

US law permits the president to de-classify information at his or her own discretion.
The maker of Budweiser, facing more competition in America from craft brews and cocktails, is spending billions to fight back.

Anheuser-Busch InBev will devote $2 billion in U.S. capital spending to bolstering its flagship brands and improving distribution. The money also will help support the companys forays into near beer, alcoholic sparkling water, and other products  like tea  that are far afield from its original mission.

The investment, which extends through 2020, is a bet that Anheuser-Busch can push into new categories without neglecting its core business: traditional beer brands. Striking that balance will be key to the companys future, Anheuser-Busch Chief Executive Officer Joao Castro Neves said in an interview.

What we are trying to do is the and and not the or, he said.

The first $500 million will be spent this year on what Castro Neves calls the companys three pillars: elevating its biggest beer brands, building its presence in craft brews and imports, and pushing beyond regular beer into low-alcohol beverages and other drinks.

Anheuser-Busch has already bought nine U.S. craft-beer brands, and its in the process of closing a deal for Asheville, North Carolina-based Wicked Weed, which makes beers with names such as Angel of Darkness, Iron Lady and Barrel Aged French Toast.

Castro Neves sees the companys craft and smaller-scale producers as key to keeping up with rapid shifts in customer preferences. They are very close to consumers, and they help us stay ahead of the curve, he said.

The companys capital spending will help foster some of its smaller brands. Castro Neves cited a $15 million investment at a facility in Fairfield, California, that will allow craft partner Elysian Brewery to produce its Space Dust beer there. (Elysians website describes the hops flavor as pure starglow energy.)

Expanding the portfolio is critical because beer volumes are declining, particularly in Anheuser-Buschs top categories. Beers share of the U.S. alcohol market lost ground to liquor for a seventh straight year in 2016, falling a percentage point to 47 percent, according to the Distilled Spirits Council, a trade organization. Spirits rose to 36 percent from 35 percent.

The shift has led Anheuser-Busch to look outside beer for growth. The brewer has acquired SpikedSeltzer, an alcoholic sparkling water, and formed a partnership with Starbucks Corp. to brew, bottle and sell ready-to-drink Teavana teas. Anheuser-Busch also has a joint venture with JAB Holding Co.s Keurig to develop an at-home drink maker.

The investments will include $200 million this year to improve operations at the companys 12 largest U.S. breweries and $180 million to enhance packaging and expand the production of aluminum bottles. Anheuser-Busch will spend $82 million on its supply chain, including new distribution centers in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, and $10 million to expand nonalcoholic production in Baldwinsville, New York.

The investment outlook was updated after Anheuser-Busch moved forward on its $103 billion acquisition of SABMiller. It brings the brewers total U.S. investment to $4.5 billion over the 2011-2020 period.

The company wanted to revamp its plans for the U.S. to ensure it doesnt lose its focus on the worlds biggest beverage market, Castro Neves said.

We are investing big behind this market because its so important, he said. But also because we see growth opportunities.
Donald Trump reportedly revealed highly classified information about Isis to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week.

The information revealed by the President while in the Oval Office, was said to have been provided to the US by an American ally through a sensitive intelligence sharing arrangement.

In a scoop that threatened still further to weaken the President's credibility and sent shock waves through the political universe, The Washington Post said the partner had not given permission for the information to be shared with Russia. After the meeting, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency. It has not been reported which third country was involved. The British Embassy in Washington declined to comment when contacted by The Independent.

This is code-word information, one US official told the newspaper, a reference to one of the highest classification levels used by the American intelligence agencies. [Trump] revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.

After the Post detailed Mr Trumps alleged actions, reaction was swift and harsh.

Democratic senator Chris Murphy called it another in a very disturbing trend of careless behaviour by this administration.

If this story is true, its another brick in the wall of a really, really troubling connection between Trump and the Russian government, he said.

The development was the latest incident to shake Washington, still stunned by the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The White House has been scrambling to project a sense of order, after Mr Trump himself created mayhem by contradicting his own officials explanation for the firing.

The report on Monday evening said one the most concerning aspects of the slip, was that Mr Trump revealed the city in Isis territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat. There were claims that Russia could use the information to undermine the US, or its ally.

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Video not available for syndication

Russian foreign minister Lavrov uses live TV appearance with Tillerson to joke about Comey firing

Mr Trumps national security advisor, HR McMaster, told the newspaper: The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation.

He added: At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

Later, Mr McMaster told reporters in a brief statement delivered outside the White House, that the Post report was wrong and that at at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed.

I was in the room. It didn't happen, he said.

During the election campaign, Mr Trump had often talked of the possibility of working with Russia to confront Isis. He frequently defended Russias military actions in Syria, disagreeing with many Western analysts to say Moscows role was crucial to stopping the spread of the Islamists.

The meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, took place one day after the firing of Mr Comey, something Mr Lavrov had joked about.

The Post said during that meeting, Mr Trump went off script and began describing details about an Isis threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

It said that for anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Mr Trump has authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

In his meeting with Mr Lavrov, Mr Trump was said to have boasted about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, Mr Trump reportedly said.

Mr Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned from a key US partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how Isis was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances.

Mr Trump's identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic as Russia could use that detail to help identify the US ally, the newspaper said.

The Post said it was withholding most details of the plot. It quoted one former US intelligence counterterrorism official as saying: Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling.

Senior Republican senator John McCain called the allegations disturbing, if true. We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information but the president does have the right to do that, he added.

Another senior Republican with large experience in foreign and intelligence affairs, Senator Lindsey Graham, said: I have no idea if its true. If it is, it would be very troubling. I'm not going to comment any further.

Repubican Senator Bob Corker, a staunch supporter of Mr Trump, warned that the White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order.

Speculation about which intelligence partner of the United States provided the information shared by the president immediately focussed to the so-called Five Eye group. This is the vital alliance which has linked Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand with the US in an iron-solid intelligence-sharing arrangement since the end of World War II.

Mr Trump has frequently railed against people who leak information. He said in February: "The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by "intelligence" like candy. Very un-American."

A Russian photographer took photos of part of the meeting in the Oval Office that were then released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No US news media was permitted to attend any part of the meeting.
Donald Trumps reported intelligence leak to senior Russian officials will get Americans killed, according to a former CIA officer.

President Trump told Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak top secret information regarding a highly sensitive intelligence operation against the extremist group Isis, the Washington Post reported, citing government officials.

The information came from a third country that is an ally and intelligence partner of the US, the sources said, but was so sensitive it had not been shared with US allies and most of the US government.

Concerns have since been raised over the fate of the intelligence source, presumed to be an intelligence agent in Isis territory.

Video not available for syndication

White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

The White House has called the allegation false. And as President, Mr Trump also has the power to declassify information whenever he chooses.

But experienced intelligence operatives have voiced serious concerns. Speaking on CNN, Robert Baer, who had an extensive intelligence career across the Middle East, said Mr Trumps alleged leak could put lives at risk.

[Speaking] as a former case officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, getting a source inside the Islamic State (Isis) is almost impossible.

We rely on our allies whether its Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel to get inside these groups. Theyre closer. This is part of their world. To lose these sources, to lose these liaison services is a catastrophe.

We have to understand that breaches like this will get Americans killed eventually. Theres no better way to put it.

Former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem added that the intelligence source is likely dead, a concern echoed by other security experts.

Experts have also raised concerns that the alleged admission could have seriously harmed intelligence relationships and that the unknown security agency which supplied the intelligence will not do so in the future.

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Others said information held by Russians could also be given to Syria and Iran, who are allied to Moscow.

Responding to the reports, Herbert McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, said: "The President and the Foreign Minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

White House pool reporters said Mr McMaster spoke to them for less than a minute and took no questions.

The language of the denial was also criticised, as the original Post story did not report that intelligence sources or methods were discussed, but just information which could lead to them being worked out. There was not an outright denial from the White House that Mr Trump told the Russian officials such information.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied the reports, calling them fake, according to Interfax news agency.

The meeting between Mr Trump and the Russian officials came just one day after Mr Trump sacked the FBI chief, James Comey, in a move which sent shock waves through the security establishment. Mr Comey was heading an investigation into Mr Trumps alleged campaign connections with Russia.
Trump shared intelligence connected to a threat from Isis, reports say

Russian foreign minister and ambassador visited White House last week

Trumps alleged boast could wreck the trust of Americas allies  analysis

Donald Trump with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in the White House last week. Photograph: Alexander Shcherbak/Getty Images

Donald Trump allegedly revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minster Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during an Oval Office meeting last week.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump shared details of intelligence gathered about an Isis threat that had been closely guarded within the United States government and among close US allies.

The report said that while Trump did not describe the specific source used to gather the intelligence, he provided highly classified details, apparently connected to an Isis plot related to the use of laptops on board passenger aircraft.

Top administration officials who attended the meeting swiftly pushed back on the allegations on Monday, saying Trumps meeting with Lavrov consisted only of broad discussions surrounding counter-terrorism.

During President Trumps meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism, Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, said.

During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

HR McMaster, Trumps national security adviser, said the president and Russian foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation.

At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly, McMaster said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters later at the White House, McMaster added to his statement by saying: I was in the room. It didnt happen.

However, the original report did not suggest Trump had discussed sources and methods. The allegation is that Trump shared some information about laptops on planes which potentially put a source at risk and was given to the US by an ally who did not give consent for that to be shared with Russia.



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After the story broke, the White House did not provide any further specifics on the meeting. US officials also confirmed the Post report to other outlets amid the administrations denials.

Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said the report, if true, was very disturbing.



Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country, Schumer said in a statement. The President owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, called for a full briefing to Congress on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.

Even if President Trump unwittingly blew a highly classified code-word source to the Russians, that would be dangerous enough, she said in a statement. If the president outed a highly classified code-word source intentionally, that would be even more dangerous.

The Washington Post said that in the aftermath of Trumps meeting, White House officials went into damage-limitation mode with calls to the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).

The meeting was already under scrutiny because of its timing  a day after Trumps controversial decision to fire FBI director James Comey. Comey had been leading a federal investigation into potential ties between Trump and Moscow, stemming from the US governments conclusion last year that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election and sought to boost Trumps candidacy.



Despite an initial insistence by the White House that Trumps abrupt dismissal of Comey was unrelated to the Russia inquiry, the president himself acknowledged in an interview last week that this Russia thing was a factor.

Questions were raised about the timing of the Trumps meeting with the Russians, and amplified by the fact that American reporters were barred access to the Oval Office while Russian state media was allowed in. The Kremlin-backed Itar-Tass subsequently shared a number of photographs of Trump entertaining Lavrov and Kislyak.

The information shared with the Russians, according to the Washington Post report, is said to have jeopardised a critical intelligence source and been revealed without the consent of the US partner that provided the information to the US.

Trumps alleged indiscretion drew immediate criticism across party lines.



David Kochel, Jeb Bushs top strategist in the 2016 presidential campaign, tweeted: John McCain probably revealed less to the KGB in 5+ years of torture at the Hanoi Hilton than Trump did in 5 minutes in the Oval.

Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, tweeted: If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.

Trumps apparent sharing of classified information with Russia is particularly noteworthy after he spent much of the presidential campaign criticising Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

The breach of security protocol by the president comes against the backdrop of persistent calls for an independent counsel to oversee an investigation into the way Russia mounted an extensive cyberwarfare operation to influence the election.

The US government has said Russia was behind the hacking of emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Tranches of those emails were released on the website Wikileaks at pivotal moments during the election in an apparent effort to undermine Clintons campaign.



Responding to the reports of Trumps exchange with the Russians, the Democratic National Comittee said in a statement: Russia no longer has to spy on us to get information  they just ask President Trump and he spills the beans with highly classified information that jeopardizes our national security and hurts our relationships with allies ...



If Trump werent president, his dangerous disclosure to Russia could end with him in handcuffs.

But while Democrats have aggressively zeroed in on potential links between Trump and Russia, the reaction from Republicans has been far more muted. Even as a handful of Republicans expressed concerns over the timing of Trumps move to fire Comey, House speaker Paul Ryan and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican leaders in Washington, backed the presidents decision.

We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nations secrets is paramount, said Doug Andres, a spokesman for speaker Ryan. The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.

Senior Republican senator John McCain told CNN that if its true, its obviously disturbing. But he cautioned: Lets wait and see what this was all about first.

Public opinion has grown for a special prosecutor, with a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finding that nearly 80% of Americans believe an independent investigator should be appointed to examine Trumps alleged ties to Russia.
Revelations that President Donald Trump gave Russian officials highly classified intelligence during a recent Oval Office visit have pushed Washington into a frenzy, and some have been uttering a term that is never pleasant for a president to hear: impeachment.

Mr Trump may never face impeachment proceedings, but a growing body of US officials  notably, this group is almost exclusively composed of Democrats  have been calling for the House of Representatives to seriously consider impeachment.

Heres what you need to know about impeachment, what Mr Trump may need to worry about, and what weve seen with past presidents.

What is impeachment?

Impeachment does not guarantee removal from office, but it is a serious situation for the president (or other high government official) to find themselves in, and it is the first step toward removal from office.

Technically speaking, impeachment is a formal charge of misconduct levied against a public official by Congress. It is not in any way a verdict or finding of criminality in and of itself.

How does impeachment work?

In the United States, the House of Representatives has the sole right to initiate impeachment charges against a high official in government.

Read more

6 times Trump attacked Clinton for mishandling classified information

The process begins with an independent investigation  this could come from the Department of Justice, from Congress itself, or from an appointed special council  which findings for the basis of charges. That evidence is then handed over to the House Judiciary Committee, which reviews evidence and writes up the Articles of Impeachment.

After debate in the House, the legislative body will vote on the Articles of Impeachment. If a simple majority votes in favour of impeachment then the president is considered impeached.

What happens next?

From there, the Articles of Impeachment are sent over to the Senate for consideration and a trial. The accused mounts their defence and the House Judiciary Committee acts as the prosecution. During the proceedings, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acts as the judge and the Senate acts as the jury.

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If a two-thirds majority in the Senate votes against the President, thats it. The President is removed from office.

Why are people calling for Mr Trumps impeachment?

The Trump administration has been a focal point for scandal, but most calls for impeachment or suggestion that an investigation be started revolve around potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Theres a lot to unpack on that front: The US government has openly claimed that Russia worked to influence the 2016 election, close associates of Mr Trump had repeated contact with Russian officials during the campaign and transition period (mostly notably with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak), and Mr Trump himself cited investigations into his campaign as a reason he decided to fire former FBI Director James Comey on national television. That the president happened to convey highly classified information to Russian officials of all people (including Mr Kislyak) has only raised eyebrows further, even if it may not be at all relevant to those investigations.

The officials calling for impeachment generally cite a concern that Mr Trump is trying to squash or hinder investigations into his campaign's ties (the White House and Mr Trump have denied those accusations).

Could Trump be impeached for 'leaking' classified information to Russia?

Mr Trumps decision to discuss highly classified intelligence with Russian officials appears to be technically within the law. As the president, he has the constitutional power to decide whether or not the US government considers information classified and he can discuss US intelligence with whomever he wants. Thats in contrast to other US officials who would likely be facing prison time if they had done what the President did.

But thats not the only concern, as the legal blog Lawfare points out. Mr Trumps decision to divulge highly classified information could theoretically put American lives at risk or seriously risk intelligence sharing relationships with other countries. Cooperation with other nations is an important part of US intelligence gathering  the US simply doesnt have enough resources to compile all of the intelligence needed to operate.

Depending on why he decided to do so, Mr Trump may have violated his oath of office when he gave the intelligence to the Russians (and its not a criminal act to violate the oath). There are important caveats here: Mr Trump may have had a strategic reason in mind when he spoke with the Russians, for instance. Reports, though, have noted that Mr Trump seemed to be bragging to the Russians about the intelligence he has access to. If thats the sole reason he gave up the information  an act of simple carelessness or negligence  his detractors may argue that giving up the intelligence was a gross violation of his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.

Could violating his oath of office be enough for impeachment charges?

Absolutely. Three US presidents have faced impeachment or have been impeached in the history of the US. All three faced alleged oath violations in their Articles of Impeachment.

President Andrew Johnson, who became president after Abraham Lincolns assassination, surprised many of his allies by offering amnesty to Confederate officials and by vetoing civil rights protections for former slaves. That led to a wave of anger toward him in Congress that resulted in his impeachment on grounds that included being unmindful of the high duties of his oath of office.

President Richard Nixon, who faced impeachment proceedings after his connection to the Watergate scandal were discovered, was said to have acted contrary to his oath.

President Bill Clinton, who faced impeachment after lying under oath about an affair he had with a White House intern, was said to have acted in violation of his constitutional oath in his Articles of Impeachment.

Has impeachment ever led to removal from office?

No. The two presidents who were impeached, Mr Clinton and Mr Johnson, were later exonerated in the Senate. Mr Nixon was not impeached because he resigned from office before the House could complete the process (though it is widely believed that he would have been impeached and removed from office had he fought the charges).

Is impeachment likely for Mr Trump?

It seems unlikely right now since the President enjoys a Congress controlled by his party. Should Republicans in the House face a wave of opposition in the 2018 midterms, leading Democrats to regain control of the House, the voices currently calling for impeachment may have more sway.
Donald Trump has insisted he has the "absolute right" to share selected information with Russia amid allegations he passed on classified intelligence.

The President made his first statement on Twitter following a series of denials from White House officials.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining...to terrorism and airline flight safety," he wrote.

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against Isis & terrorism."

The Washington Post reported that the President shared intelligence from a US ally in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

It cited current and former US officials saying Mr Trump had divulged information provided through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.

The information concerned plans by the Department of Homeland Security to ban laptops and other electronic devices from hand luggage on flights between Europe and the US.

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White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

Britain and the US imposed a similar prohibition in March affecting departures from airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries, following a terror threat.

HR McMaster, the national security adviser, dismissed allegations the President had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign agency - a move that allegedly put cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis at risk.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said. The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

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But Mr Trump's tweets implied that the "facts" he relayed to Russia were new, apparently contradicting Mr McMaster's statement.

The President was accused of hypocrisy in light of his repeated attacks on "leakers" following a series of embarrassing disclosures, and targeting of Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for classified information.

"I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community..." he tweeted later on Tuesday. The message was not immediately completed.

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

Officials have refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong.

Sources speaking to the New York Times and Buzzfeed News also confirmed the claims, while the Russian foreign ministry also dismissed the allegations as "fake news".

Dozens of reporters crowded into the West Wing as the story broke on Monday evening, reportedly overhearing the President's press secretary and top aides "yelling" at each other as they attempted to manage the chaos.

It came just days after the furore over Mr Trump's sacking of FBI director James Comey, shortly before Mr Lavrov's visit.

White House statements said he was dismissed over the Clinton email investigation, which was widely credited with swinging the election in Mr Trumps favour and saw him label his rival crooked Hillary and lead chants of lock her up at rallies.

statista-trump-russia-investigation.jpg

(Statista)



After recommending no charges be brought over her handling of classified information, the FBI director was leading a probe into alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia.

Support for an independent investigation into ties between Mr Trump's campaign team and the Kremlin has been rising to stand at around 60 per cent, according to a chart for The Independent by Statista.

The President and the Kremlin have rejected a report by US intelligence agencies concluding that Vladimir Putin had ordered an effort to disrupt the 2016 election including the Democratic National Committee email hack to damage Ms Clinton.

There were concerns that Mr Trump's discussions with Russian officials may further damage his relationship with American and foreign intelligence agencies, ahead of his first overseas trip.

White House officials reportedly took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency. Both have declined to comment.

Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern about the reports amid mounting fears for the Trump administration's international credibility.

Bob Corker, a Republican Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order", describing it as on a downward spiral".

Chuck Schumer, the Democrats' Senate minority leader, called the story disturbing, adding: Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country.

Additional reporting by agencies
Donald Trumps reported disclosure of highly classified information to high-ranking Russian officials may be a violation of the Presidents oath of office that could lead to his impeachment, national security lawyers have said.

The President reportedly divulged highly sensitive information about a planned Isis operation during a meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The intelligence was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, two officials with knowledge of the situation said.

Questions of criminality aside ... If the President gave this information away through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office, the experts said in a post on the legal blog Lawfare.

Read more

Trump leak allegations 'most serious charge ever against a president'

At his inauguration, the President pledged to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The authors added: Its very hard to argue that carelessly giving away highly sensitive material to an adversary foreign power constitutes a faithful execution of the office of President."

They go on to cite occasions on which oath violations were used or seriously considered as grounds to impeach previous Presidents including Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

"Theres thus no reason why Congress couldnt consider a grotesque violation of the Presidents oath as a standalone basis for impeachmenta high crime and misdemeanor in and of itself," the authors, who include a Harvard Law School professor, said.

Mr Trumps administration was plunged into fresh controversy on Monday after The Washington Post reported the leak.

One official said the intelligence discussed by Mr Trump was classified top secret and only known by a handful of intelligence officials.

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After Mr Trump reportedly disclosed the information in a manner described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the President has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

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Congressman Al Green calls for impeachment of Donald Trump

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Mr Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on great intel every day, an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

One of the officials with knowledge of Mr Trump's meeting with the Russian told Reuters the timing of the disclosure was particularly unfortunate, as the was President preparing for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Isis.

The White House said the allegations were incorrect.

The story that came out tonight as reported is false, HR McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known... I was in the room. It didn't happen, he said.

The initial story by the Post, however, did not report that Mr Trump shared intelligence sources or methods with Russian officials, but rather the contents of the information gathered.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations very, very troubling if true.

Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and they've got to come to grips with all thats happening, he said of the White House.

The latest controversy came as Mr Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

Reuters contributed to this report
A European country has reportedly said it may stop sharing intelligence with the US, if it transpires Donald Trump provided classified information to Russia.

In a warning that will further add to concerns about the US intelligence community amid the fallout of Mr Trumps actions, the senior official said they may take that step, despite the Presidents claim that he had the right to share the details with Russia.

The Associated Press did not identify which country the official came from, but the official said sharing intelligence with Washington, could be a risk for our sources.

McCain releases full statement on Trump revelations pic.twitter.com/fgLgtQ744m  Rebecca Shabad (@RebeccaShabad) May 16, 2017

The warning came as Mr Trump and the White House sought both to deny some of the claims initially made by the Washington Post in its article about the presidents leaking of information to Russia, and defend his actions.

In a series of tweets, Mr Trump sought to defend his actions and issue a warning to those who had leaked the information to the media.

I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining ... to terrorism and airline flight safety, he wrote. Plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

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Stephen Colbert: 'Donald Trump, youre a bad president, please resign'

The Post said that Mr Trump shared details about an Isis terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. The information had come from a third country, apparently in the Middle East, that had asked that it be closely held.

Indeed, so sensitive was the information that it was considered code word classified, one of the highest levels of classification used by the US intelligence community.

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Reports said that Mr Trump later was informed he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA in move to try and minimise any damage.

The White House has pushed back against those reports, but not denied that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting between Mr Trump and Russian diplomats. The Kremlin dismissed the reports as complete nonsense.

Senior Republican John McCain, a senator from Arizona, said the report of Mr Trump sharing the information with Russia was deeply disturbing.

Regrettably, the time President Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians, was time he did not spend focussing on Russias aggressive behaviour, including its interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, he said.
Jayson Negrons family: We were lied to from the moment it happened

Negron, 15, was shot dead in Bridgeport after police fired into car he was driving

Negron died from a gunshot wound to the chest, a postmortem found. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty

The family of a Connecticut teenager who was shot and killed by police last Tuesday say they have been lied to by officers about how he died, after bystander footage filmed at the scene was made public over the weekend.

We werent given the truth. We were lied to from the moment the incident happened, said Giovanni Rivera, a relative of the victim, 15-year-old Jayson Negron.

Police in Bridgeport fired into the car Negron was driving after, they said, he backed his vehicle into an officer and refused calls to stop. Police say the car was stolen.

Rivera said police told him and other family members that Negron was struck in the head by an officers bullet and died instantly.

But Rivera said a video he uploaded to social media, taken by a bystander, raised questions about how Negron died. A figure, thought to be Negron, can be seen handcuffed, lying on the ground, as an officer stands over his body.

The shaky video pans away from Negrons body for a moment, and when it returns a few seconds later, Negrons head is facing in the other direction. Negrons body was left on the pavement for upwards of six hours before being removed. Police attributed this to evidence-gathering.

Nobody called an ambulance. Nobody treated his wounds. They let him bleed out on the concrete, Rivera said.

Negron died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a postmortem.

Rivera said he received the video from a friend of the family who saw the incident but wanted to remain anonymous. Bridgeport is a very small town, everybody knows everybody, and this happened on one of our busiest streets. A lot of people were there, Rivera said.

Negron was the son of Riveras cousin, making Negron Riveras first cousin once removed. Rivera told the Guardian that the two were close and that he used to babysit Negron when he was younger. He has been the primary spokesperson for the family since the shooting.

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The police department did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Bridgeports mayor, Joseph Ganim, said the mayor found it unacceptable that it had taken police so long to move the body from the scene, but declined any further comment.

State police officials, who are handling the investigation, said the vehicle Negron was driving failed to stop when officers tried to pull it over and eventually traveled the wrong way down a busy street, striking several vehicles.

James Boulay has been identified by police as the officer who was struck by Negrons vehicle, and the one who fired the fatal shots. A passenger in Negrons car, 21-year-old Julian Fyffe, was also struck but did not sustain life-threatening injuries. Two Bridgeport police officers sustained minor injuries as well.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates said in a CNN interview that aired Tuesday morning that Russians had serious leverage over former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and that her office had expected the administration to act quickly after she alerted White House counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26.

In clips of an interview with Anderson Cooper that will air in full Tuesday night, Yates said she considered Flynns connections to Russia, and his misleading explanations to Vice President Pence and others, an urgent national security concern.

I think this was a serious compromise situation, said Yates The Russians had real leverage. He also had lied to the vice president of the United States. Whether hes fired or not is a decision for the president of the United States to make, but it doesnt seem like thats a person who should be sitting in the national security adviser position.

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 8. (Photo: Jim Bourg/Reuters)

Yates herself was fired on Jan. 30, just a few days after her meeting with McGahn. The stated reason was her refusal to defend the administrations travel ban as it was being challenged in the courts. No action was taken against Flynn until news reports surfaced that, contrary to his denials, he had discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russian ambassador. President Trump asked for his resignation on Feb. 13.

[ Timeline: The rise and fall of Michael Flynn ]

In the interview, Cooper also asked Yates if she was  as Trump had implied  behind the leaks to the Washington Post about the Flynn story.

Absolutely not, said Yates when asked if she leaked the information or had authorized someone to leak the information. I did not and I would not leak classified information.

There have been a number of tweets that have given me pause, said Yates when asked about the presidents tweet the day of her Capitol Hill testimony last week urging senators to ask her about leaking.

The New Yorker magazines Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza, interviewed Yates last Thursday. In excerpts from his interview released Tuesday, Yates said that Flynns name was not masked in reports about his calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and that  contrary to suggestions from some observers  she would not run for governor of Georgia.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Flight attendants are filing discrimination charges for the lack of workplace accommodations for pregnant and breastfeeding employees. (Photo: James Lauritz/Getty Images)

Two female flight attendants have filed discrimination charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today, claiming that their employer, Frontier Airlines, discriminated against them by failing to provide workplace accommodations for them related to pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Jo Roby and Stacy Rewitzer have worked for Frontier Airlines for 13 and 11 years, respectively. Both say that after giving birth, though they wished to return to work, they were forced on unpaid leave. They also asked for accommodations so that they would be able to pump breast milk, but were told that was not possible and were told they could not pump while on duty, despite often working 10-hour shifts and back-to-back flights.

Roby has been on unpaid leave from work since March 7, 2016, as a result of Frontiers policies. In her complaint, she says she has suffered from stress, anxiety, and financial harm as a result of having to put [her] health and breast milk supply at risk, or lose [her job]. As Frontier does not provide explicit maternity or parental leave for flight attendants, Roby was only able to use unpaid leave guaranteed by the Federal Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and her accrued sick days after she gave birth to her daughter on Dec. 1, 2015, and was scheduled to return to work when her daughter was 2 months old.

When I was pregnant, it was all excitement about what to expect as a new parent, Roby tells Yahoo Beauty. I have been a flight attendant for so long, so I just assumed that I would be going back to work to do the job I know and have done for a long time. I was never concerned that was going to be a problem.

Roby received a two-month unpaid medical leave extension, meaning she was due back at work when her daughter was 4 months old  and still being exclusively breastfed. When Roby asked Frontier for accommodations related to breastfeeding and pumping, she was not provided with any, and instead told she could take an unpaid leave of absence. She told the company she could not afford to take any more unpaid leave and was reminded that she was strictly prohibited from pumping while on active duty onboard an aircraft despite her serving 10-12 hour shifts. Roby had previously pumped mid-flight during breaks in her active on-flight responsibilities and knew from her colleagues and peers in the industry that pumping on-flight was a common occurrence.

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For Roby, the response from the company that she couldnt pump mid-flight was a really big surprise. It is such a common thing.  I heard about it for years before I was a mom, she says. You go to the lavatory to pump. That was something I didnt expect at all they would ever say that it wouldnt be allowed.

In her complaint, Roby says that Frontiers failure to accommodate her need to pump every three to four hours has forced her to continue to apply for unpaid medical leave, which she is still on today. Intensifying Robys situation is the fact that under Frontiers policies, an employee who has been on a leave of absence for more than 90 days must bear in full the cost of medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. In addition, Frontier does not make temporary alternative job assignments available to those flight attendants who are pregnant and are deemed unable to fly by their physician or for flight attendants who are breastfeeding and need the opportunity to pump breast milk.

Pumping on-board the aircraft is something thats been very commonplace in the industry and that just seems like a no-brainer and like something that they could easily permit, Roby says. Same with providing lactation facilities in Denver, so I wouldnt have to sit on the floor in the family bathroom.

Robys attempts to pump in the family bathroom at Denver International Airport, Frontiers hub and Robys base airport, have been challenging as Roby says the conditions are unsanitary. There is no place to sit in the family restroom other than the toilet, so Roby was forced to pump while sitting on the floor. On one occasion, she saw cockroaches in the space. On another, airport cleaning staff told Roby not to use the family restroom because of the presence of urine on the floor.

Roby repeatedly asked her employer for information on alternate locations she could use to pump at the Denver airport, but has yet to receive any such information. Until she receives adequate workplace accommodations, Roby says, she has no option but to remain on unpaid medical leave.

I never anticipated that I would get the resistance I faced [from Frontier],

Roby says. When I thought [about] nursing [when I was pregnant], it wasnt a concern I had. My biggest concern was just learning how to do it and making sure I could do it. Thats why they even have lactation consultants at the hospital to help you. That was what was at the forefront of my thoughts  how to do it and making sure my baby was getting the proper nutrition, not thinking that I couldnt be able to continue to do my job while pumping while I was trying to provide nourishment for my daughter.

The EEOC complaints, filed on behalf of the women by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Colorado, and the law firm of Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP, asserts that Frontiers policies violate federal and state laws against discrimination based on sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and disability in employment, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, Colorados Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and the Colorado Workplace Accommodation for Nursing Mothers Act.

The flight attendants are asking the EEOC to require Frontier to provide clear and convenient accommodations for pumping while on duty (including on-board during flight when necessary), allowing for temporary alternative ground assignments for breastfeeding flight attendants, providing relief from the current strict attendance policy that penalized flight attendants who miss work due to pregnancy, and offering meaningful parental leave for new parents.

I would love for them to look at the accommodations request and make the reasonable accommodations that weve asked for and that will affect so many more moms in the future, Roby says of her hope for the outcome of her complaint. Thats something thats very important  to be able to do your job and to be able to be a mom thats able to nurse and provide nourishment for your baby in that way.

Roby adds that she misses being able to go to work and do a job she loves: I have always loved flying and loved my job and having that be absent, and not by choice, has been difficult.

Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLUs Womens Rights Project, explains that if a person does face employment discrimination at work, filing an EEOC charge is the necessary first step in initiating legal proceedings. Once filed, she says, the EEOC will open an investigation into charges of discrimination and determine how a case will go forward.

Like Jo, a lot of working moms  it doesnt occur to them that they could still be facing these types of challenges [when they return to work after having a child], Sherwin notes. Many women dont realize there is no federal mandate for paid maternity leave, that the only federal mandate is 12 weeks of unpaid leave [through FMLA], and thats only for certain eligible workers. A lot of women are not aware before becoming pregnant that there are so few supports for working parents, and in particular working moms, in the workplace.

Sherwin says that all employees should make sure they are armed with information about their legal rights in terms of sex discrimination, including pregnancy-related discrimination, and should know they can certainly negotiate with their employer to ensure that accommodations are made for them.

Before returning to work, its a good idea to do what Jo and Stacy did, which is try to reach out to your employer and start a conversation about what accommodations are available and to come to the table with options, to be active participants in negotiations and conversations, Sherwin says. Employers will often provide accommodations and support. In some cases, unfortunately, like this one, they will not  and there is legal recourse.

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Emmanuel Macron, Frances freshly inaugurated president, announced his prime minister shortly before taking off to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday. The man of the hour: Edouard Philippe, mayor of Le Havre.

Philippe is not only the head of a town in Normandy, however. He is also a member of les Republicains, Frances major center-right party. Philippe is aligned not to Francois Fillon, the presidential candidate who spent much of the campaign embroiled in scandal and failed to make the second round, but to Alain Juppe, the mayor of Bordeaux, whom Fillon bested back in the primaries.

Macrons time in government was actually as minister of the economy in Francois Hollandes center-left government. But Macrons center-right pick confirms what he himself has long maintained  that he straddles the center. Additionally, it should also be noted that the center-left Socialist party received roughly six percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential contest, making the center-right the richer pond in which Macron can fish.

With the pick, Macron is throwing a line to something like 10, 20, 30 other members of the right, and there are already calls from some members [of the party] to give Macron a hand, Marc Pierini of Carnegie Europe told Foreign Policy.

And that matters, because Macron is heading into Junes legislative elections with a slate of candidates (roughly half of whom are women, including a female horse-mounted bullfighter and air force pilot who flew in Syria) for a party formed barely a year ago.

Many thought, and think, that Macrons En Marche has an uphill battle in the legislative elections, given that many people voted for him in the second round not because they liked him or his policies specifically, but because he was not his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen.

Two things have helped him since then, Pierini said. The first was that Macron won with 66 percent of the vote, which was more than was expected. The second was that his inauguration on Sunday featured intellectual, very smart speeches by Macron.

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And there is, of course, a third: The selection of Philippe, who will form a cabinet this Tuesday (though how long it is in place will depend on Junes elections), and who may pull from more moderate parts of the center-right party.

If people make a positive judgement on the appointment of the prime minister, Pierini said, depending on the composition of the government, you might have a trust him phenomenon, one in which French voters didnt just make Macron their president in May, but empower him as such come June.

Photo credit: JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images
Style in a cool tone: Brigitte Macron, Melania Trump, and Jacqueline Kennedy. (Photo: Getty Images)

At the inauguration of French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, his wife, Brigitte Macron, wore a powder blue, wool Louis Vuitton military-style jacket and above-the-knee dress. It was a fashionable look that boldly showed off the 64-year-old first ladys bare legs. It also immediately drew comparisons to the powder-blue cashmere Ralph Lauren dress and coat American first lady Melania Trump wore to her husbands inauguration in January.

Was this on purpose? Is it some kind of sartorial diplomacy in action, after her husband defeated right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, whose populist message often matched Trumps?

If Id have been in any advising role, Id probably not have recommended her to wear this color, executive image consultant Sylvie di Giusto tells Yahoo Style. As the first lady, you want to be known for your skills, your experience, for the added value youll bring to the table and to the country you serve. You want to avoid distraction for any price.

On the other hand, fashion and beauty editor Mary Alice Stephenson, founder of Glam4Good, thinks this choice was a strategic move.

Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron at the French presidents inauguration on Sunday. (Photo: Getty Images)

Anyone thats savvy enough to help her husband become the leader of France is savvy enough to know what her choice is on inauguration day, Stephenson tells Yahoo of the inevitable comparisons to Trumps outfit. [Macron] and her team  of course they know, and that was smart too. Because what happens is it has people talking about the first lady of France.

That both women chose this shade of blue shouldnt be surprising. Its associated with intelligence, trust and security, and the lighter the blue shade becomes, the more sympathetic, personal, warm and communicative it is perceived, di Giusto said of the color, which is popular in both business and politics.

Though Jacqueline Kennedy wore beige to her husbands inauguration, she wore sky blue gowns to public events at home and on a much-photographed trip to India in 1962.

Michelle Obama wore a cowl-neck Carolina Herrera dress of a similar shade in 2015, to meet Pope Francis on his first trip to the United States. And just last October, Kate Middleton wore a very Jackie O suit by Catherine Walker on her first solo royal visit, to meet the Netherlands King William-Alexander in the Hague.

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Stephenson said there arent quite as many options available for a first lady on Inauguration Day as you might think. You wear red and its too bright and look at me; it steals all the attention away from the man beside you, she says. You wear white, its a little too holier-than-thou and wedding day. Black  too dark, too down, too sad. Navy blue, same kind of thing. Yellow, not so good on blondes.

Pastel blues are fashionable this year. Pantone called a similar shade, Niagara, the most prevalent color for spring 2017 in terms of fashion, and said the denim-like color speaks to our desire for ease and relaxation. Gwyneth Paltrow wore a ruffled light blue Gucci suit in January that made the color look very now.

Color comparisons aside, Macron made a broader statement with her choice on Sunday. Stephenson points out that though the military jacket has many buttons, she wore it open, so it was modern and easy and less buttoned up than Trumps retro look.

I applaud her for showing off her body, Stephenson adds. Some women, as they age, they cover everything up, and there was a real openness [in her style]. This is empowering for women in their 60s to see a first lady looking fashion forward, sexy, and powerful by the side of a younger man.

If Frances first lady continues to style herself this way, Stephenson thinks she will be popular with other women. The reason why women connect so much with Michelle Obama, and why I think theyll connect with Brigitte, is because you can identify with them, she says. Brigitte is not perfect. You see that shes aged. She has wrinkles too. When someone is too buttoned up and too manicured and perfect, shes not real. Women do not identify with that.

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Paris (AFP) - Emmanuel Macron took over as French president on Sunday, promising to heal the country's divisions and breathe new life into the European Union.

Here are quotes from his inauguration speech:

- On France -

"The time has come for France to meet the challenges of our time. The divisions and fractures that run through our society must be overcome, whether they be economic, social, political or moral."

The first of two priorities is "to give back to the French people the confidence that has been flagging for too long."

"I can assure you I didn't think for a single second that (the confidence) was restored as if by magic on the evening of May 7 (the night of his election victory). It will be slow, demanding but essential work."

"I will convince our compatriots that France's power is not in decline, but that we are at the dawn of an extraordinary renaissance because we have all the qualities which will make, and do make, the great powers of the 21st century."

- On Europe and the world -

"The world and Europe need France now more than ever and they need a strong France with a sense of its own destiny."

"We need Europe and it will be reformed and relaunched because it protects us and allows us to project our values in the world."

"The world needs what French men and women have always taught it: the audacity of freedom, the demand for equality and the desire for fraternity."

- On his predecessors -

General Charles de Gaulle "restored France's place among the nations of the world".

Valery Giscard d'Estaing "helped France and French society enter the modern world".

Francois Mitterrand "managed to reconcile the French dream and the European dream".

Jacques Chirac "showed we are a country able to say no to those rushing to war".

Nicolas Sarkozy "spared none of his energy to resolve the financial crisis which hit the world so violently".

Francois Hollande helped bring about the Paris climate warming agreement "and protected the French people in a world hit by terrorism".
JACKSON, Ga. (AP) -- Georgia on Wednesday carried out its first execution this year, putting to death a man convicted of killing his 73-year-old neighbor 25 years ago.

J.W. Ledford's time of death was 1:17 a.m., after an injection of compounded barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson, Warden Eric Sellers told witnesses. Ledford, 45, was convicted of murder in the January 1992 stabbing death of Dr. Harry Johnston in Murray County, northwest Georgia.

Ledford smiled broadly as witnesses entered the execution viewing area. When given a chance to make a final statement, he appeared to quote from the movie "Cool Hand Luke."

"What we have here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach," he said, later adding, "I am not the failure. You are the failure to communicate."

"You can kiss my white trash ass," he added, continuing to smile.

As the warden exited the execution chamber at 1:09 a.m., Ledford began talking again, but the microphones had been cut off so his words weren't audible to witnesses.

Records from past executions show that the lethal drug generally starts flowing within a couple of minutes of the warden exiting the execution chamber. Ledford raised his head to look at his right arm right after the warden left and about a minute later appeared to speak to a guard to his right.

He then rested his head, closed his eyes and appeared to take several deep breaths before falling still within two or three minutes of the warden leaving the room.

Ledford told police he had gone to Johnston's home on Jan. 31, 1992, to ask for a ride to the grocery store. After the older man accused him of stealing and smacked him, Ledford pulled out a knife and stabbed Johnston to death, according to court filings. The pathologist who did the autopsy said Johnston suffered "one continuous or two slices to the neck" and bled to death.

After dragging Johnston's body to another part of Johnston's property and covering it up, Ledford went to Johnston's house with a knife and demanded money from Johnston's wife, according to court filings. He took money and four guns from the home, tied up Johnston's wife and left in Johnston's truck. He was arrested later that day.

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Ledford told police he had a number of beers and smoked a couple joints in the hours before the killing.

Ledford's lawyers had asked the parole board to spare him, citing a rough childhood, substance abuse from an early age and his intellectual disability. After holding a hearing Monday, the board declined to grant clemency. Following its normal practice, the board did not give a reason for its denial.

Ledford's lawyers also tried to get the courts to stop his execution. The challenges were appealed all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected them shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Because of changes in brain chemistry caused by a drug Ledford has been taking for chronic nerve pain for more than a decade, there was a high risk that the pentobarbital Georgia planned to use to execute him would not render him unconscious and devoid of sensation or feeling, his lawyers wrote in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. That would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit said.

When challenging an execution method on those grounds, a U.S. Supreme Court precedent requires inmates to propose a known and available alternative. Ledford's lawyers, therefore, proposed that he be executed by firing squad, a method that is not allowed under Georgia law.

Ledford's lawyers also asked a state court judge to halt the execution because he was only 20 and his brain wasn't done developing when he killed Johnston. Just as juvenile offenders are considered less culpable and not the "worst of the worst" for whom the death penalty is reserved, the execution of those under 21 is also unconstitutional, Ledford's lawyers argue.

Ledford was the first inmate executed this year in Georgia. The state executed nine inmates last year, more than any other state and the most Georgia had executed in a single calendar year since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume 40 years ago.
Get Me Roger Stone: Trumps Most Loathsome Supporter If you want to behold one of the worst human beings currently inhabiting the planet, be sure to watch Get Me Roger Stone, an excellent new documentary now streaming on Netflix. Stone is a political advisor who worked on the Donald Trump campaign and other Republican Presidential efforts extending as far back as Richard Nixons. This documentary about how Stone became Stone is a striking portrait of a venal man, as amoral and unscrupulous as anyone you can imagine.

Stone would love my hostile description; he looks at the camera and says, I revel in your hatred. This film demonstrates the ways he feeds on his own infamy. His first words here are My name is Roger Stone and I am an agent provocateur. Heavily invested in his own self-regard, Stone dresses in chalk-striped double-breasted suits and spats; he embodies the contradiction of being a dandy who fights dirty. Indeed, he was the main purveyor of Nixons dirty tricks campaign strategies in the 1970s, and hes stayed dirty, writing a book published during the most recent Presidential election that accused Bill Clinton of being a serial rapista charge that Trump took up and ran with.

The directors of Get Me Roger Stone Daniel DiMauro, Dylan Bank, and Morgan Pehmehave a lot of choice material here. Stone has never met a camera or a microphone he can resist, and hes willing to claim credit for every Republican victory during his lifetime. (Stone is 64 years old.) The movie is peppered with onscreen printings of Stones Rulesslogans Stone professes to live by, such as Hate is a stronger motivator than love and Its better to be infamous than to never be famous at all. Among the talking heads opining about Stone are some of his fiercest critics, including The New Yorkers Jane Mayer and the great investigative journalist Wayne Barrett (who died before this film was released).

One of the things Get Me Roger Stone does best is to present just how much contempt Stone has for the voters who supported Trumphes shown at campaign rallies manning a bullhorn, spewing bull he knows is not true. He sneers and snickers at Trump supporters wearing Make America Great Again caps and Hillary For Jail t-shirtseven donning one of the latter himself, temporarily taking off his tailor-made business suit to get down with the people.

To the charge made by many onscreen that Stone lies, constantly and arrogantly, you will find no argument from Stone himself: he doesnt ignore criticism, he embraces it as attention he thinks he deserves. Edited with brisk energy, Get Me Roger Stone is a good example of a certain kind of documentaryone that will appeal to opposing sides. Those who think Stone is a crafty mastermind, as well as those who loathe him for his cynical debasement of politics, will find ample confirmation for their opinions.

Get Me Roger Stone is streaming now on Netflix.
A mysterious 50-foot sea creature drew international attention after washing up and decomposing on a beach in Indonesia last week. Pictures showed the behemoth looked unlike anything the public had seen before, prompting inquiries into just what the massive animal could have been.

Scientists appear to have solved that mystery, at least partly. Most experts agreed the rotting corpse was likely that of some sort of whale, though exactly what kind remained unknown.

The bloated creature was found on Hulung Beach on Serum Island in Indonesias Maluku province. Thirty-seven year-old resident Asrul Tuanakota happened upon it accidentally at night, first mistaking it for a stranded boat.

Read: Watch This Mysterious 50-Foot Sea Creature Rotting On An Indonesian Beach

Pictures showed the giant animals decomposing skin turning the surrounding waters red. Initial suggestions speculated that the creature could have been a giant squid, but most scientists agreed, based on the images, that couldnt be the case.

Giant Sea Creature 2

Photo: Abhy Hafik/Facebook

Giant squids are invertebrates and there are clearly bones visible (jaw, skull, vertebrate) so I am very comfortable saying its some type of rorqual whale, Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conversation, told the Huffington Post. Certain species of baleen whales (rorquals) have ventral grooves which run from their chin to their belly button. It is a stretchy tissue that expands when they feed.

Other experts agreed it was likely a type of baleen whale, which would account for some of the red discoloration surrounding the animal.

Whales are full of oil, and its kind of orangey, Moe Flannery, the collections manager in ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences, told Live Science, noting that the coloring was probably a mixture of blood and oil.

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While most guesses concluded it was some type of baleen whale, discerning the species based just off images would be impossible. Scientists in the area took samples of the body in order to find out definitively what it was, but the results had not yet been revealed.

[Based] on the images and videos, in the advanced state of decomposition, it is not possible to determine whether it is a humpback whale or not, Marcus Chua, a museum officer at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum told Mashable. He noted that it might be a baleen whale, but also nixed the idea of it being a giant squid because they are not usually present in the area.

Read: Journey Through The Ocean On The Back Of A Leatherback Sea Turtle

Though the DNA results have not yet come back, residents in the area have a bigger concern: the smell. The creature has begun to reek and locals asked the government to step in to remove it before it gets any worse.

At the very least, scientists concluded the washed up creature was certainly not a species unknown to humans.

There is lots of stuff in the ocean that we dont know about, Alexander Werth, a whale biologist at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, told Live Science. But theres nothing that big.

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Robert Pattinson has spent much of his post-Twilight career making adventurous films with daring filmmakers, from David Cronenberg (Cosmopolis) to David Michod (The Rover) to James Gray (last months The Lost City of Z). Hell be continuing in that vein with his latest, Good Time, which is directed by Josh and Bennie Safdie (Heaven Knows What). And ahead of its premiere at this years Cannes Film Festival, we now have an electric first trailer for the film (watch it above).

Set on the streets of their native New York City, the Safdie Brothers drama stars Pattinson as Constantine Nikas, a low-level hood whose brother winds up behind bars at Rikers Island after the two rob a bank. Desperate to get his sibling out before something terrible happens to him, Nikas embarks on a frenzied quest to raise enough money for bail, leading him down a path that  as evidenced by this debut promo  seems to be rife with peril. With a ratty haircut, rough New York accent, and air of sweaty desperation, Pattinson will be the axis around which Good Times mania swirls and should further cement his reputation as an actor drawn to unconventional projects.

Sure to be marked by the Safdie brothers hypnotic, expressionistic aesthetic style, Good Time will be one of the most exciting American films to premiere at Cannes later in May. Watch the first trailer above.

Read more from Yahoo Movies:
By Tom James

(Reuters) - Civil liberties groups on Tuesday called for the removal of a Kentucky judge who gained national attention last month for announcing that he would refuse to hear cases involving lesbian, gay or bisexual adults hoping to adopt children.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups filed a complaint with Kentuckys judicial conduct commission against W. Mitchell Nance, a judge in the states Family Court, and said in an emailed statement that they were seeking his dismissal from the bench.

His discriminatory beliefs ... prevent him from fairly and impartially acting as a judge for all Kentuckians, Kentucky ACLU Legal Director William Sharp said in the statement.

Staff reached by telephone at Nances office on Tuesday said they had been instructed to decline requests for comment on his behalf.

Nance made headlines in April when he announced that he would recuse himself from adoption cases involving same-sex couples because of his personal objections to gay couples adopting.

That echoed Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis' 2015 refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it violated her religious beliefs.

Nances refusal to hear cases involving such a broad group of individuals is highly unusual, said Russell Wheeler, a law professor at American University and a former deputy director of the Federal Judicial Center who has studied recusal.

Hes announcing he cant be fair to a whole group of people, Wheeler said in a phone interview on Tuesday. The only thing you can say in his favor is that hes honest enough to say that hes biased.

While its relatively common for judges to recuse themselves from individual cases in which they have conflicts of interest, Wheeler said he wasnt aware of any other case where a judge had attempted such a broad recusal.

Its generally accepted that judges will hold individual views about cases in front of them, including religious or other deeply-held beliefs, but the ability to set those views aside and consider cases impartially is one of the primary qualifications for a judge, Wheeler added.

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Patrick Enright and Cynthia Osterman)
By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel wants the White House to explain why a U.S. diplomat preparing President Donald Trump's visit to Jerusalem said Judaism's Holy Western Wall in its Old City is part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an Israeli official said on Monday. Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally, and the Western Wall - the holiest prayer site for Jews - is part of territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel's Channel 2 reported that during a planning meeting between U.S. and Israeli officials, the Israelis were told that Trump's visit to the Western Wall was private, Israel did not have jurisdiction in the area and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not welcome to accompany Trump there. Trump's administration has been sending mixed messages in its dealings with a right-wing Israeli government that had hoped for a more sympathetic attitude from the Republican president after a rocky relationship with his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. "The statement that the Western Wall is in an area in the West Bank was received with shock," said the official in Netanyahu's office. "We are convinced that this statement is contrary to the policy of President Trump ... Israel has made contact with the U.S. on this matter," the official said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, departed from diplomatic protocol by visiting the Western Wall on Monday. The visit, a week before Trump's first foreign trip, coincided with a debate between the two countries on Trump's election pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. It is highly unusual for a new envoy to visit the holy site just hours after arriving in Israel. Friedman is an orthodox Jew who has raised funds for a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank that Israel captured together with East Jerusalem 50 years ago. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state along with the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip that is controlled by Islamist Hamas. A bankruptcy lawyer by profession, Friedman has no previous diplomatic experience. He will officially take up his role when he presents his credentials to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump was considering the best move to facilitate renewing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that have been frozen since 2014, hinting he might not make good on his election campaign promise. "The president is being very careful to understand how such a decision would impact a peace process," Tillerson told NBC's "Meet the Press". Netanyahu responded by saying that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would not harm the peace process, but would do the opposite. "It will advance it by righting a historical wrong and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel," Netanyahu said. Trump will embark on his first international trip since taking office on Friday and begin with visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank and Italy. He will try to relaunch the peace process although the prospects for progress are unclear as both sides are entrenched in long-held positions. Among the main bones of contention are Netanyahu insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and the Palestinians calling for a halt to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. (Editing by Louise Ireland)
US intelligence agents reportedly warned Israeli officials against giving classified information to Donald Trump's administration because it could be leaked to Russia.

Intelligence concerns, discussed in private meetings, were based on suspected ties between the President's close associates and the Kremlin, a report in January said.

The article, by Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, has received renewed attention after reports that Mr Trump allegedly disclosed highly classified information to two senior Russian officials.

Read more

Trump says he has 'the absolute right to share facts with Russia'

Israeli intelligence agents were said to be concerned that information given to Russia could be passed on to Iran.

Moscow and Tehran have formed alliances in conflicts such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria, while Iran severed all diplomatic ties with Israel following the 1979 revolution in the country.

American intelligence officials had expressed despair at the election of Mr Trump in a meeting with Israel, according to the January report,

They said they believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had "leverages of pressure" over the then-President-elect and urged Israel to "be careful" when handing the White House sensitive information.

Mr Trumps administration was plunged into fresh controversy this week, after The Washington Post reported the President had divulged highly sensitive information about an attack planned by Isis to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The intelligence was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, two officials with knowledge of the situation said.

One official said the intelligence discussed by Mr Trump was classified top secret and only known by a handful of intelligence officials.

After Mr Trump reportedly disclosed the information in a manner described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

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While the President has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information, in this instance he did so without asking the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

The White House said the allegations were incorrect.

The story that came out tonight as reported is false, HR McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House.

He added that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed," he said. "The President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known... I was in the room. It didn't happen."

The latest controversy came shortly after Mr Trump was heavily criticised for the controversial sacking of FBI Director James Comey.

The President has since been accused by Democrats and others of firing him because he was heading the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias alleged efforts to influence the presidential election.

The White Houses official reasoning for the dismissal is Mr Comeys handling of the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server.

However, the US leader has stated that he fired him after growing tired of hearing about the FBI investigation into his campaign's possible ties to Russia.

This has led to congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
The tech support scam is one of the more common scams we hear reported at Better Business Bureau, and all too often, people are losing money to it. Its a scam that has the full attention of the Federal Trade Commission, who announced a nationwide and international crackdown on tech support scams, called Operation Tech Trap.

As part of this coordinated effort, the FTC and its partners are announcing 16 new actions, including complaints, settlements, indictments, and guilty pleas, against deceptive tech support operations, writes the FTC. This brings to 29 the number of law enforcement actions brought by Operation Tech Trap partners in the last year to stop tech support scams.

Its good to hear the steps being taken to slow this scam, but nonetheless, theres no better scam-buster than prevention. A number of people have told me their story of losing $200 or $400 or some other amount to this scheme in the past year. Dont be the next victim!

Better Business Bureau breaks down how this scam works:

You get a telephone call or a popup on your computer screen from someone claiming to be with tech support from a well-known software company. Microsoft is a popular choice. Often the scammer will create a sense of urgency  the computer is sending error messages, theyve detected a virus, or your computer is about to crash and youll lose all your data.

You are told only a tech support employee can fix the problem, and youre asked to allow access to your machine. Once access is granted, the caller will often run a scan and claim your computer is infected with viruses. The scammer then offers to fix the problem ... for a fee.

That may not be the end of the scam. If you allow remote access, malware may be installed on your machine. Malware often scans files in search of personal information, which scammers can use to commit identity theft.

Never give control of your computer to a third party unless you know it is the representative of a computer support team you contacted through a verified number. Do research on a company before working with them: check with BBB.

Legitimate tech support companies will never contact you unsolicited claiming knowledge of problems with your system. Remember, scammers can make any number or name appear on a caller ID, even if they are out of the country. In many tech support scams, the fraudster claims to be from large, recognizable computer companies.

If you do get a call like this, just hang up. And, dont click those pop ups! Bad guys can make pop-ups look legitimate  and intimidating  by including official-sounding jargon and making threats. Know what your real anti-virus software notices look like.

To protect your computer and other devices, keep anti-software and system updates current.
American democracy is "under assault" by Donald Trump, the former director of national intelligence has warned.

James Clapper also said the sacking of FBI director James Comey was "another victory" for Russia.

Mr Clapper expressed dismay over the abrupt sacking of Mr Comey amid a probe into Moscow's meddling in the US election and its possible ties with members of the Trump campaign, which historians said was an "unprecedented act of presidential imperialism".

"I think, in many ways, our institutions are under assault, both externally  and that's the big news here, is the Russian interference in our election system," Mr Clapper said.

"I think as well our institutions are under assault internally."

Video not available for syndication

'He's a showboat, he's a grandstander': Trump lays into Comey during NBC interview

When he was asked, "Internally, from the president?" Mr Clapper said: "Exactly."

He said America's founding fathers had created three co-equal branches of government with checks and balances, but that was now "eroding" with Mr Trump as President.

In a later interview with ABC News, Mr Clapper said "the Russians have to consider this [Mr Comey's sacking] as another victory on the scoreboard for them".

No White House aide appeared on the Sunday news shows, leaving Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, to defend Mr Trump.

"The President is the CEO of the country. He can hire and fire whoever he wants," she said.

Democrats and Republicans reprimanded Mr Trump for his actions, which included shifting explanations from the White House for Mr Comey's dismissal and an ominous tweet warning Mr Comey against leaks to the press because he may have "tapes" of their conversations.

They called for a new FBI director without any political background and said Mr Trump would need to hand over to Congress any taped conversations with Mr Comey, if they exist.

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james-comey-fbi-director.jpg

Few FBI directors have served their full 10-year term, as this chart by Statista shows

Less than a week after the President fired Mr Comey, the administration has interviewed at least eight candidates to be FBI director, and Mr Trump has said a decision could come before he leaves on Friday on his first overseas trip as president.

He abruptly fired Comey on Tuesday and later said Mr Comey was a "showboat" and "grandstander" who was not doing a good job.

Mr Trump said in an interview with NBC the Russia investigation factored into his decision.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
A high profile Republican governor has declined to sign into law, a measure that would have made his state the first to ban child marriage without exception.

Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and someone who has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, said such a ban would conflict with religious customs. He did not specify what religions he was referring to.

Reuters said underage marriage is widespread in the US, where about 170,000 children were wed between 2000 and 2010 in 38 of the 50 states where data was available.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vigorously defends child marriage, vetos ban citing "religious customs." https://t.co/Omzzuqm6HM  Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) May 11, 2017

Although age 18 is the minimum for marriage in most of the nation, every state has legal loopholes allowing children to wed. The New Jersey bill would have prohibited any marriage of children under age 18.

Video not available for syndication

Social experiment reveals people's reactions to seeing a child bride



Mr Christie conditionally vetoed the measure, sending it back to the state legislature with proposed changes. He said it should have an exception so a judge can approve marriages for 16- and 17-year-olds.

An exclusion without exceptions would violate the cultures and traditions of some communities in New Jersey based on religious traditions, Mr Christie said in a statement.

Opponents of the measure said exceptions should remain for marriages of young members of the military - 17-year-olds can enlist with parental consent - and pregnant teenagers.

The bill as it was already approved by both houses of the legislature would have made New Jersey the first state to outlaw child marriage altogether, according to Unchained At Last, a group that opposes arranged and forced marriages.

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New Jersey politician, Nancy Munoz, the bills main sponsor, told the news agency she was disappointed. Its not an absolute veto, which is good, she added.

The measure could become law if legislators send it back to the governor with his recommendations.
In the latest wave of journalist killings in Mexico, Javier Valdez Cardenas, an award-winning reporter who specialized in writing about drug trafficking and organized crime was killed Monday in the northern state of Sinaloa, officials said. He was among the six journalists who have reportedly been murdered in Mexico this year.

Cardenas, who was the co-founder of publication Riodoce, was shot to death in the early afternoon near his office. Sinaloa state prosecutor Juan Jose Rios Estavillo arrived at the crime scene and said his department would provide more security to journalists, CNN reported.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international organization, 37 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992, of which eight have been murdered in the past two years.

Mexico

Photo: Reuters

Read: Juarez Newspaper Ceased Its Operation In Mexico Due To Surge In Journalist Killings

On March 2, a freelance journalist named Cecilio Pineda Birto was shot dead in the municipality of Ciudad Altamirano in the Mexican state of Guerrero. A colleague of Birto said at the time he used to contribute to several newspapers and often published crime stories on social media. A Facebook page Birto managed, Las Noticias al Instante, regularly featured crime stories and discussed social issues and corruption. His reporting on these issues attracted weekly threats via social media, his colleague told the CPJ.

Ricardo Monlui Cabrera, who was the editorial director of the Cordoba-based El Politico newspaper, was shot to death March 19 in the municipality of Yanga in the eastern state of Veracruz, reports said.

On March 23, Miroslava Breach Velducea, a correspondent for Mexico's daily publication La Jornada  from the northern state of Chihuahua  was shot eight times by an unidentified assailant. La Jornada reported a note that read, "For being a snitch. You're next, governor.--The 80." was found at the scene of the murder. Police said the note targeted Arturo Quintana, who allegedly, was a leader of a criminal gang associated with an organized crime group that operated in the western part of the state.

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A crime reporter, Maximino Rodriguez Palacios, was shot to death April 14 by unknown assailants in the northern Mexican city of La Paz, his employer was quoted by the CPJ. Rodriguez Palacios reported for Colectivo Pericu, a blog that covers events in the state of Baja California Sur.

Irina Bokova, the director-general of Unesco, condemned the killing of Palacois.

"We cannot allow criminals to attack the media for bringing information to the public. I call on the authorities to ensure that this crime is investigated and that its perpetrators are brought to justice in order to protect freedom of expression and freedom of information," she was quoted as saying on Unesco's website.

Historically, in Mexico the government has failed to understand the role of the press and the difficulties they face in doing their jobs, Esteban Illades, a leading Mexican journalist told Fox News during an interview early April. The criminal justice systems at both the state and federal level are simply inadequate," he told Fox News.

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President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information last week to Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in a White House meeting about a planned Islamic State group (also called ISIS) operation, two former and current U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation said Monday.

The Washington Post reported the incident first and said the information was supplied by a trusted U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS, according to the officials. The report also mentioned that Trump did not disclose the exact source which was used to collect the intelligence, but he provided code-word information, the officials said. "Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," they told the Post.

Read: Trump Tax Plan Could Make It Easier To Hide Money In Offshore Accounts

However, the White House denied the allegation and said it was false. Several administrative officials present during the meeting also said Trump only discussed ways to combat terrorism in a broader aspect.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," Trump's National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters at the White House. "At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

During President Trumps meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

After the incident, legal analysts and secrecy experts have been concerned about the consequences of sharing classified intelligence. However, they also said that the president has wide authority to reveal classified intelligence, which make the commander-in-chief virtually immune from prosecution.

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The term classified information means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution. The disclosure of classified information could lead to imprisonment for not more than 10 years or a fine or both. However, the president has the power to unilaterally disclose any material without having to go through a formal process, according to U.S. code 798.

But Trumps actions could have several other consequences, of which the most important was pointed out by Mark Zaid, an attorney specializing in national security matters. He told USA Today that following Trumps disclosure, U.S. allies could potentially lose trust in the administrations capability to keep highly guarded secrets and thus they might not share valuable information anymore with their U.S. counterparts.

"If we get to the point where our closest allies refuse to share this information, that would be the worst outcome imaginable,'' Zaid said.

The director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, Steven Aftergood, also said the disclosures "could have profound ramifications.''

"His conduct is not a question for the Justice Department; it's a question for Congress," Aftergood added, saying Trump could be impeached if the Congress feels his actions as president are too reckless.

After the Washington Post reported the incident, several lawmakers called the alleged disclosures inexcusable and deeply disturbing.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the report, if true, was very disturbing.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for a full briefing of the Congress on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.

In a tweet, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Trump was failing at protecting national security.

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When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.  Richard Nixon

Lawmakers are calling on President Trump to release the transcript of last weeks meeting with Russias foreign minister and ambassador in which he reportedly revealed top-secret information, assuming the meeting was recorded and a transcript exists.

Democrats had already been asking the Trump administration to release any tapes of his Oval Office meetings after he raised the possibility that he had recorded his conversation with fired FBI Director James Comey.

But after the Washington Post published a bombshell report that Trump had shared top-secret information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, members of both major political parties joined to demand greater transparency from Trump.

Former and current U.S. officials told the Post that sharing the intelligence with the Russians endangers a relationship with a foreign government critical to the fight against ISIS, and is so sensitive that its been withheld from other U.S. allies.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., took to Twitter Tuesday morning to demand that Trump give the U.S. intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation. He said revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts the lives of Americans and those who collect intelligence for the country at risk.

The White House should make the transcript of @POTUS' mtg w/ the Russian Foreign Minister & Ambassador available to Intel Cmtes ASAP  Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 16, 2017

The American people will be justified, Schumer said, in doubting whether Trump can handle the countrys closely guarded secrets until the administration provides an unedited transcript.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Trump is failing at his most important task as president  protecting the United States national security.

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A week ago Trump fired Comey. Now this. It's vitally important that Trump make public any recordings he has of talks in the Oval Office.  Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 15, 2017

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., argued on Twitter that though the president has the legal authority to disclose classified information, theres a larger question about whether he should. Gallagher said the transcript should be handed over to the House and Senate intelligence committees for the sake of transparency and that he anticipates getting a thorough account of the meeting.

As an intelligence officer by training, I know firsthand the life and death implications of safeguarding classified information.  Rep. Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) May 16, 2017

Gallagher said the United States allies must have the utmost confidence that the sensitive information they share with us is not disclosed and that its dangerous for Americans to believe Russia can be reliable in counterterrorism efforts.

The sooner we abandon this fantasy and work with our allies to oppose the Russian-Iranian axis throughout the Middle East, the better.  Rep. Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) May 16, 2017

Sen. Richard Blumenthal. D-Conn., said Monday night that all potential Trump tapes regarding Comeys dismissal or the meeting with the Russian leaders should be subpoenaed to preserve evidence and uncover the truth. He elaborated Tuesday morning on the Today show.

The Congress must subpoena transcripts and tapes, whether they exist or not, Blumenthal said. The only way to know reliably whether there are such transcripts or tapes is to issue a subpoena, probably from the intelligence committees, and make sure that all of the evidence is provided to the appropriate members of Congress. And that is because those transcripts would reveal whether classified information was shared with the Russians.

Other politicians weighed in as well.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., described Trumps actions as appalling and deeply disturbing. He said sharing sensitive information with Russia undermines national security, breaks trust of our allies & puts lives at risk.

If literally anyone else did what @realDonaldTrump is reported to have done, there would be an immediate criminal investigation.  Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBookerOffice) May 15, 2017

Booker asked when Republicans in Congress will start doing their jobs and hold Trump accountable for his actions.

In making his point, Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., referenced an old tweet from House Speaker Paul Ryan suggesting that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be denied further access to classified information considering her allegedly extremely careless handling of it.

I eagerly await @SpeakerRyans statement calling for President Trump to be denied access to our nations secrets. https://t.co/ZVoARfiEfN  Andre Carson (@RepAndreCarson) May 16, 2017

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who was Clintons running mate against Trump and Mike Pence last year, said hes not surprised by the news.

Shocking actions for any American President but sadly unsurprising coming from President Trump. https://t.co/yPgycqLyda  Senator Tim Kaine (@timkaine) May 15, 2017

On Monday night, Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., said sharing intelligence on a mutual threat  ISIS in this case  is warranted at times and the president has the right to do so, but that the United States must take every precaution to protect its sources and methods of gathering information. He said hes deeply concerned about the recent reports and intends to bring up the issue at the House Intelligence Committees next meeting.

Classified intelligence is classified for a reason and must be respected and protected as such at all levels of government.  Frank LoBiondo (@RepLoBiondo) May 15, 2017

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., released a statement calling for the House Intelligence Committee to be briefed on what Trump shared with the Russian officials.

Report that Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russians is deeply disturbing. House Intel needs to be briefed immediately. pic.twitter.com/jHaMKy71am  Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 15, 2017

On Tuesday, Trumps national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, argued that the presidents conversation with the Russians was wholly appropriate and that he has an absolute right to share facts pertaining to terrorism with Russia.

Read more from Yahoo News:
A recent measles outbreak that has thus far sickened dozens of Somali-Americans in Minnesota  nearly all of them children  can be traced to anti-vaccination campaigns that targeted Somali-Americans and suggested that vaccines are linked to autism, health officials said.

On Friday (May 12), the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced that it had confirmed 54 measles cases, 51 of which were in children age 17 or younger  and the majority of those infected were unvaccinated, according to an MDH report published online.

These figures are particularly high when compared to the number of measles cases reported in the state of Minnesota in previous years: a total of 56 cases reported between 1997 and 2016, according to MDH. [5 Dangerous Vaccine Myths]

Measles is highly contagious; if one person is sick, an estimated 90 percent of unvaccinated people who are physically near that individual will also get sick, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains on its website. And while the current outbreak is spreading in a matter of days, its origins can be traced back nearly a decade  to 2008, to be exact, Kristen Ehresmann, director of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control at MDH, told Live Science.

Spreading misinformation

In 2008, local news agencies reported that Somali-American children were accessing special education services in Minnesota school districts more than children in other ethnic demographics. That caught the attention of anti-vaccine groups, who erroneously link immunization to autism (a group of developmental brain disorders), Ehresmann said.

Anti-vaccine activists promptly flooded Minnesota's Somali-American communities with misinformation about links between developmental difficulties in children and vaccination, Ehresmann said. Prominent anti-vaccine spokesperson and discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield met with Somali-American groups in Minnesota "on at least two different occasions," Ehresmann told Live Science. When MHD set up community meetings to talk about immunization, anti-vaccine groups were there, handing out incendiary literature.

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"They have been very aggressive in taking advantage of concerns about autism in this community," Ehresmann said. "Before 2008, Somali immunization rates [in Minnesota] were at or above the rate in the rest of [the] state. Starting in 2008, we saw a dramatic decline  now we're at 41 percent."

In 2016, measles was declared to be eliminated from the Americas, in an announcement by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). However, this meant only that cases no longer originated in the Americas; measles could still appear in the U.S. if they were imported, infectious disease specialist Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told Live Science in September 2016.

"Outbreaks will continue"

Measles outbreaks are also a growing source of unease in Europe, particularly in areas where immunization coverage is low. More than 500 cases emerged in the World Health Organization's (WHO) European region in January 2017, and the disease continues to spread, WHO representatives announced in a statement published online March 28.

"With steady progress towards elimination over the past two years, it is of particular concern that measles cases are climbing in Europe," Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, said in the statement.

"Today's travel patterns put no person or country beyond the reach of the measles virus. Outbreaks will continue in Europe, as elsewhere, until every country reaches the level of immunization needed to fully protect their populations," Jakab said.

As health officials in Minnesota race to contain the outbreak, they continue to work closely with Somali-Americans to address concerns about autism and to improve access to resources for children who have developmental needs. Officials are also collaborating with a health advisory group, made up of leaders in the Somali-American health care community, to further promote awareness of the importance of vaccinations  particularly in children, Ehresmann told Live Science.

In fact, it appears that the outbreak has spurred a backlash among Somali-Americans against the anti-vaccine groups, Ehresmann said.

"The community is really starting to push back and say, 'We don't want this,'" she said. "Physicians and other health care leaders in the community are speaking out, which makes a big difference. We're really seeing the community step up and take action."

Original article on Live Science.

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Efforts to fill the empty FBI director seat left behind by James Comey with Merrick Garland, could have support from one seemingly unlikely corner in Washington: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

A former aide to Mr McConnell, the leading Republican in the Senate who mounted an unprecedented effort to stop Mr Garland from being put on the Supreme Court, has said that his former boss thinks Mr Garland might be a good choice to lead the FBI.

He certainly thinks he will be qualified. And he certainly thinks he would be somebody that he could support, Josh Holmes, a former advisor to Mr McConnell, said on Fox News.

Read more

Trump's attorney argues that nothing he said as a candidate matters

I think the Senate majority leader thinks thats a fantastic idea Mr Holmes said.

Supporting the nomination of Mr Garland to run the FBI would be a significant about-face for the senator, though the idea of instating Mr Garland as FBI director may actually be more attractive for Republicans than one would see upon first glance.

The idea of sending Mr Garland over to the J. Edgar Hoover Building was reportedly first floated by Republican Senator Mike Lee, and the idea quickly gained steam in Washington among both Democrats and Republicans.

But, whether or not Mr Garland would even be interested in the position is questionable.

Mr Garland currently serves as the chief justice on the DC Circuit federal appeals court, a position that is a lifetime appointment. Choosing to walk away from that position  a leading spot on one of the most powerful courts in the country  for a job that would leave him at the mercy of the whims of President Donald Trump, may not be the perfect choice for the judge, even if Democrats have said it sounds like a good idea following his being snubbed by Senate Republicans on his nomination to the Supreme Court last year.
When Donald Trump won I argued that the Democrats should consider working with him in a limited number of areas, like spending more money on Americas roads and railways, to advance their own interests and help sow strife among Republicans. If that seems quaint now, it is because I was overestimating Trumps ability to govern sensibly. By just a little.

No longer need we wonder what path Democrats will take. Resist, frustrate and foul up as comprehensively as possible would sum it up. Trump has earned their unflinching disdain by now. Moreover, the passion of grassroots opposition evidenced in huge marches all across the country  women, scientists, immigrants among them  means they can hardly do otherwise.

The far more urgent question now is about the intentions of top Republicans. What does Trump have to do to persuade them that the time has come to cut the cord. To put country before party. To realise that their own place in history might come not from trying to save a president who may already be beyond saving but from showing some guts and saying enough is enough.

Their reluctance to go there is appalling and also not hard to understand. Nowhere is the pressure more uncomfortable than for Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the upper chamber. So far, at least, these two have failed to show the slightest backbone in the face of Trumps blunder machine. Lame, limp, craven.

I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things, McConnell told Bloomberg News in response to Trump Sin #152. I am not actually counting, but we are getting up there. This would be his Isis aviation-plot mouth fart in the company of, no less, Russias foreign minister and ambassador to the US in the Oval Office.

Look, none of this is easy on Republicans. They believe still that it is in their interest that this president succeeds. For that to happen, he has to have strength. That will require a long stretch without drama, as McConnell intimates. Only if the notion of Trump gradually making headway on his agenda takes hold will his approval ratings begin to tick up and his credibility recover.

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Their power is now immense. Trump evinces swashbuckling independence that allegedly allows him not to care very much about anyone on Capitol Hill, the likes of McConnell and Ryan included. But that is now an illusion. The day they or any of the Republicans, particularly in the Senate, turn their backs on him is the day his presidency starts to come undone.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

So how close are we to that point? How frightened of them should Trump be right now? In less than a week, we have had the bungled firing of FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russias efforts to subvert last years presidential election. And now we have this: a sitting president blabbing secrets to Russia, committing an act of treason, possibly. Committing an act of egregious foolishness, certainly.

First, the polls. Yes, he is burdened with an historically low approval rating, around the 40 per cent mark. But there is, as yet, little to indicate that the core base of Trump voters is fracturing. There are signs that some independent voters who were once willing to give him the benefit of the doubt are starting to drift away. That is a red flag for Republicans but not a storm warning.

The bomb dropped by The Washington Post of Trump blurting a vital intelligence secret to Sergei Lavrov last week triggered a quick pushback from the White House. But as was widely noted, those statements, notably one offered by HR McMaster, the National Security Adviser, to reporters outside, denied things that were never in the Post story in the first place. By morning time, Trump had, via Twitter, confirmed the main substance of the report. He had shared secret intelligence (but he didnt think hed done anything wrong).

With each new Trump debacle, so new levels of Republican disquiet reveal themselves. Inappropriate, was the word chosen (carefully) by Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the day that Trump suggested on Twitter that Comey better hope there wasnt any tape of the conversation the two of them had had over a dinner in January. The release by the Post of the intelligence-leak story earned a strikingly blunt critique of this White House from Republican Senator Bob Corker who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all thats happening, he said.

Read more

More Americans support Trump's impeachment than oppose it

Whether you call it a blunder or something more sinister, Trumps loose-lip moment with the Russians threatens to sound the sirens like never before among Republicans who had been nurturing the hope that at least on the national security front the White House had its act together. This is particularly the case for Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain, the former presidential candidate and now chair of the Armed Services Committee. Especially alarming to them will have been the sad spectacle of McMaster being thrown out to the press wolves to defend what looks like the indefensible.

McCain, like Graham, has so far been carefully calibrated in his criticisms of Trump. But he seemed like a man who had partially lost his footing when reporters caught him unawares within hours of The Washington Post report coming out. I cant comment on every breaking news story, he was quoted as saying, before reflecting a little more on what information Trump may or may not have leaked. Thats why its classified. They have a reason to classify it, OK? And when they say its classified, if it was public knowledge, then it could hurt the national security of the United States. Thats why we classify. If the report was true it would be disturbing, he offered.

McCain is not always so measured and nothing is likely to infuriate him more than McMaster being forced to endanger his own reputation and effectiveness at the behest of a boss undeserving of such loyalty.

To imagine that he and his Republican colleagues are twiddling their thumbs as Trump careens from one calamity to another would be wrong. In private, they are letting the White House know full well of their despair. But standing up to Trump  really standing up to him, for country, never mind party  means doing it in public. And so far they have been unwilling to do that.
By Ange Aboa and Joe Bavier ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Troops were advancing toward Ivory Coast's second largest city on Sunday, part of an operation the head of the army said was launched "to re-establish order" on the third day of a mutiny by soldiers across the country over bonus payments. At least five people were shot and wounded in the city, Bouake, earlier in the day when soldiers broke up a march against the mutiny. One of three protesters shot and wounded by the mutineers on Saturday has died of his wounds. Popular opposition to the revolt is gathering momentum. "These acts of an extreme seriousness are contrary to the mission of protection assigned to the armed forces. As a result, a military operation is under way to re-establish order," Military Chief of Staff General Sekou Toure said in a statement. The government had until Sunday shied away from confronting the mutineers with force. But a large military convoy arrived in the town of Tiebissou, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Bouake, on Sunday afternoon, a witness said. A soldier with the convoy, contacted by Reuters, said it was stopping only for a short time before continuing to Bouake. A spokesman for the mutiny, Sergeant Seydou Kone, said: "We met with the soldiers in Tiebissou and they asked us to lay down our arms and surrender. We refused and we demand our money first ... We're waiting for them." The uprising by the soldiers, most of them ex-rebel fighters who fought to bring President Alassane Ouattara to power, began in Bouake on Friday before quickly spreading to other cities and towns, mirroring a revolt by the same group in January. After allowing traffic to circulate earlier in the day, the mutineers again closed off Bouake, which is on the main axis between the commercial capital Abidjan - one of the region's largest ports - and landlocked neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast has emerged as one of the world's fastest growing economies following a decade-long political crisis ended by a 2011 civil war. But deep divisions persist, particularly in a military assembled from former rebel and loyalist combatants. THE PEOPLE RISE UP The 8,400 mutineers received 5 million CFA francs ($8,400) each in order to end the January revolt. But the government has struggled to pay remaining bonuses of 7 million CFA francs, with a budget hit by the collapse in the price of cocoa, Ivory Coast's main export. On Thursday, following a meeting with authorities in Abidjan, a spokesman for the group said they would drop demands for the remaining money. But that decision was rejected by some of the soldiers. "We just want our money. We'll stay here until the president pays our money," Kone said. The defense minister has vowed not to negotiate with the renegade troops, however, and public anger at the mutineers is growing. The soldiers used gunfire to break up a march against the mutiny in Bouake's city center on Sunday morning. "The population rose up, but the mutineers quickly dispersed the march with shots," said Bouake resident Simon Guede. "Everything is closed." A witness saw five people who had been taken to the city's main hospital with bullet wounds following the aborted march. Other protesters, who had been beaten, were also being treated. Another protest was also broken up by the mutineers in the northern city of Korhogo on Sunday, participants said, though there were no immediate reports of casualties there. Similar rallies and marches were held in the western cocoa hub of Daloa and in Abidjan on Saturday. (Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2014. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta branded President Trump a loose cannon Tuesday and slammed the yes people surrounding him, saying, This president needs to have some grownups around him.

During an appearance on CNNs New Day, Panetta reacted to the recent revelation that Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office.

Panetta praised the White House national security team, but said Trumps unpredictable nature requires them to make very clear to the president what he can and cannot do.

Hes got to have some lines here, Panetta said. Hes got to have some guardrails. The president of the United States cannot just do or say or speak whatever the hell he wants.

After the Washington Post reported Monday that Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats, Trump took to his favorite medium early Tuesday morning to defend that move.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, the president tweeted. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

Panetta, who served as President Bill Clintons chief of staff, said the first thing he would do as Trumps righthand man would be to ban him from tweeting. Asked if that was worth possibly being dismissed, Panetta was emphatic.

Absolutely  thats why youre there, he said. If you have a bunch of yes people around the president of the United States, what good does that do? You need to have people that are willing to say to the president, Youre wrong.

Read more from Yahoo News:
An Ohio police officer suffered a serious fentanyl overdose after accidentally touching the substance while responding to a drug-related call, officials said.

East Liverpool Police Officer Chris Green responded to a traffic stop on Lisbon and West 8th Streets, where the driver of a blue Monte Carlo, identified as 25-year-old Justin Buckel, had allegedly performed a drug transaction just before 9 p.m. Friday, Police Chief John Lane told InsideEdition.com.

When Buckel and passenger Cortez Collins, 24, realized they were being stopped, the pair allegedly tried to get rid of the evidence that officials believe was fentanyl, Lane said.

They [the suspects] rubbed it into the carpet, ripped bags open, got in on their clothes, their shoes, Lane said. There was white powder everywhere.

After arresting the men, Green and his fellow officers followed station protocol for handling drugs by wearing gloves and a mask as they searched the car for evidence, authorities said.

Then they went back to the station, where another officer noticed Green had white powder on his shirt.

Theyre sitting there talking, decompressing... and someone said to him, 'You got something on your shirt. He brushed it off and they went back to talking, Lane said.

Read: Cops: Photos of Adults Overdosing With Child, 4, in Car Shed Light On 'Epidemic'

But Greens condition quickly deteriorated, and he eventually fell unconscious in an suffering an apparent overdose after coming into contact with the powder on his shirt.

He said, I dont feel good, and passed out, Lane said.

Green was given one dose of Narcan at the police station, and then an ambulance rushed him to a local hospital, where he was given three additional doses of Narcan, officials said.

Though his condition has since improved, Green was still recovering from the incident as of Monday.

I know hes been having headaches; his chest is hurting, he said it feels like someone kicked him in the chest, Lane said.

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Though Greens experience was life-threatening, it could have been far worse, Lane said.

Think about this, he said. Nobody sees that on his shirt. He leaves and goes home, takes off that shirt, throws it in the wash. His mom, his wife, his girlfriend goes in the laundry, touches the shirt  boom. They drop. He goes home to his kid. Daddy! Daddy! They hug him  Boom. They drop. His dog sniffs his shirt, it kills his dog. This could never end.

The incident is a harrowing reminder of the dangers first responders are exposed to when dealing with an American drug epidemic that has left some Ohio communities crippled, including Columbiana County and the city of East Liverpool, officials said.

It hasnt gotten any better, Lane told InsideEdition.com, remarking on the issues the area has faced since his department first made headlines for sharing photos in September of a stoic child sitting in the backseat of a car as his grandmother and her boyfriend overdosed on what was believed to be heroin.

What are we supposed to do with this? You cant have an officer doing that [search] by himself. He can go home and die. Its just the smallest amount that can kill, like a granule of sugar  or if it gets airborne, it can kill more than one person, Lane said.

Read: Opioid Addiction Series: Heroin User Reveals How Drug Took Over His Life: 'I Shoot Up in My Toes'

Buckel and Cortez were both charged with tampering with evidence and remained in custody at the Columbiana County Jail Monday, online records show.

They allegedly told police that the substance in the car had been cocaine, but after a field test showed that not to be the case, the men said it was fentanyl.

The substance was removed from the scene and packaged for lab testing. Based on the results of that testing, the men could face further charges, authorities said.

These guys were telling [the police] it was cocaine, they lied, Lane said. Theyre not concerned with the other people who use that car. They throw it out to get it away from them; they dont care about a kid who could find it in the grass. Its insane.

In combatting the issue, Lane said the fight needs to start in schools, where children need to be educated on the dangers of these drugs, the legislative levels to increase the penalties connected to these drugs and on an outreach level to help those grappling with addiction.

We just dont have the resources to do it, he said.

Watch: Aunt Speaks Out After Nephew, 13, Allegedly Overdosed on Dad's Heroin

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WASHINGTON  U.S. presidents have privately shared sensitive intelligence with foreign leaders  including at least one Russian president  but only after a rigorous review to make sure the benefits outweighed the risks, according to one of the foremost experts on how commanders in chief consume and use the nations secrets.

Yahoo News spoke to David Priess, the author of The Presidents Book of Secrets, in the wake of bombshell reports that President Trump disclosed highly sensitive information to Russian officials in the Oval Office last week.

_____

1. How does intelligence typically get to the president?

There are two main mechanisms, Priess explained.

First, there is the presidents daily brief, known in Washington as the PDB. It has been delivered by hand, in a book, for more than 50 years, though some presidents also choose to take in-person briefings, Priess said.

Second, since the 1960s, presidents have also often received classified communication in the secure Situation Room in the basement of the White House. There, the president can have direct access to diplomatic cables, human intelligence reports, intercepted communications, as they stream in in real time, Priess said. More commonly, however, presidents get information filtered through top aides, notably the national security adviser.

President Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak at the White House in Washington on May 10, 2017. (Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP)

There are other ways; presidents can request classified briefings on specific topics if they want a more in-depth understanding of a given situation.

2. Is the president told where on the classification scale a given piece of information is?

In my experience, and in the interviews I did with the former living presidents and CIA directors and other top officials, rarely would the president be told a general classification level, Priess said. That does not happen.

Instead, the entire PDB is assumed to be classified at the top secret level, and exceptionally sensitive information is highlighted for the president, he explained.

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3. Does the president have an absolute right to share classified information?

I dont know anyone who disputes that, Priess said. Classification authority isnt granted by Congress; its a constitutional right of the presidency, derived from their authority as commander in chief, he added. So the president is the supreme classification authority and the supreme de-classification authority.

But Trump appears not to have followed the usual path for providing secrets to foreign officials, according to Priess. Normally what happens is there is an extensive process for sharing info with foreign governments, in which senior officials carefully assess the risks of sharing versus the benefits. By the presidents tweets this morning, he seems to say that process was not followed, and instead information was shared on a whim, Priess said. Thats what is disturbing the intelligence community.

4. How often do presidents reveal classified information to foreign actors?

Former President George W. Bush sometimes invited foreign leaders to his presidential daily brief, Priess said. But what happened was, his chief of staff Andy Card told me, is he asked the intelligence community if he could do this  he did not say it should be one, and that gave the intelligence community time to ensure that the PDBs would be very special books, edited for foreign consumption, he said.

During one of Russian President Vladimir Putins visits to Bushs ranch in tiny Crawford, Texas, he was invited to attend the PDB, Priess recalled. There was a scramble inside the intelligence community to get information that could be cleared for the Russians, he said. Other world leaders who sat in on Bushs PDB included British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

5. How bad is this latest disclosure?

Its impossible to tell, actually, because the Washington Post, which broke the story, withheld what it described as the most sensitive information, Priess said. We may never know.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
The Russian foreign ministry has dismissed reports that Donald Trump revealed classified information during a meeting as "fake news".

Maria Zakharova, the ministry's spokeswoman, described the reports as yet another false story while attacking the US media.

Guys, have you been reading American newspapers again? she wrote on her Facebook page. You shouldn't read them. You can put them to various uses, but you shouldn't read them.

"Lately it's become not only harmful, but dangerous too."

Video not available for syndication

White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

The Washington Post, New York Times and Buzzfeed News reported that the President passed on intelligence from a US ally to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The White House has denied the claims, which have caused a fresh crisis days after the furore over Mr Trump's sacking of FBI director James Comey.

HR McMaster, the national security adviser, dismissed allegations the President had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign intelligence agency - a move that allegedly endangered cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said.

The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

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This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

But officials refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong.

It cited current and former US officials said Mr Trump had divulged information provided by an ally through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont blasted President Donald Trump Monday after reports emerged that the president had shared classified information with Russian officials during a White House meeting. The Washington Post, citing current and former United States officials, reported Monday that the president had revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a meeting last week.

President Trump, in a reckless and dangerous manner, has revealed highly classified information to the Russians at a meeting in the Oval Office, information that could expose extremely important sources and methods of intelligence-gathering in the fight against ISIS, Sanders said in a statement.

Read: Bernie Sanders Says Trump's Tax Plan Makes Rigged System Worse

According to the officials cited by the Post, Trump discussed classified information about a terrorist plot by ISIS related to the use of laptops on airplanes. The information came from a secret intelligence partner considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, the Post reported.

The report called it code-word information, or information that is classified under the highest level by the government. Officials, along with Sanders, said Trumps sharing of the information could hinder cooperation from an indispensable ally.

This could endanger intelligence sharing with a key ally in the Middle East, Sanders said. Protecting our national security is one of the most important tasks a president has and Trump is failing at it.

The Trump administration staunchly denied any classified information was revealed by the president.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, said national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who was present during the meeting. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

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Trump himself also said he had had an absolute right to share facts with Russian officials.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, Trump said on Twitter. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism.

Read: Bernie Sanders Committed To Fighting Trump's Agenda

Sanders concluded his statement by calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Trumps possible collusion with Russia.

All of this makes it vitally important that Trump make public any recordings he has of conversations in the Oval Office, Sanders said. We also need to proceed as soon as possible with the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Other top Democratic officials echoed Sanders sentiments. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on CNN Monday that if the report is true, it undermines the trust we would have with our allies.

We cannot have the President of the United States being casually loose-lipped about confirming something, even if its in the public domain, to an adversarial nation, Pelosi said. This is dangerous.

Its not the first time Trump has been accused of being reckless with information. Trump was accused of discussing sensitive foreign policy information in February with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in public at his Mar-a-Lago resort. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at the time that everyone jumped to nefarious conclusions based on photographs taken of the two leaders.

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Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi King Salman on Monday expressed hope a "historic" summit to be held Sunday between Arab and Muslim nations and US President Donald Trump will enhance ties and promote tolerance.

The summit will be one of three forums held during a visit by Trump, who is making Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop since assuming office in January.

Trump has frequently been accused of fuelling Islamophobia but aides described his decision to visit Saudi Arabia as an effort to reset relations with the Muslim world.

Along with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), at least 18 other Muslim nations have been invited to the summit, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Niger and Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran is not invited.

Salman told a cabinet meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that the meeting "comes in light of the challenges and sensitive situations that the world is going through".

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, "he expressed his hope that this historic summit will establish a new partnership in the face of extremism and terrorism and spreading the values of tolerance and coexistence" while enhancing security.

Trump is to also hold a bilateral summit with Saudi Arabia and talks with the GCC on Saturday.

Washington and Riyadh have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi oil.

But US ties with Riyadh and its Gulf neighbours became increasingly frayed during the administration of president Barack Obama.

Saudi leaders felt Obama was reluctant to get involved in the civil war in Syria and was tilting toward Shiite-dominated Iran.

The Saudis have found a more favourable ear in Washington under Trump, who has denounced Iran's "harmful influence" in the Middle East.
TWIN FALLS  Kyle Smith has a philosophical answer when asked why he and two friends kayaked 300 miles of the Salmon River through the heart of Idaho in one 32.5-hour push.

He also has a short version.

Why the hell not? he said Friday, about 24 hours after the journey ended but still feeling the effects of the cold in his fingers.

Smith, who grew up in Twin Falls and is attending nursing school in Boston, made the trip with Mike Bond and Sam Wells of Boise. Seth Dahl of Boise was their shuttle driver, photographer and videographer.

Their idea was to paddle from the headwaters of the famed Middle Fork Salmon River, through its confluence with the Main Salmon and on to the confluence with the Snake River. Its a trip that takes three to four weeks in the summer. The trio hoped to do it in 24 hours with the extreme runoff this spring, but flows werent quite that high.

The Main Salmon was running at about 63,000 cubic feet per second, Smith said. Thats six times the flow of the Boise River.

He was hoping for 90,000-plus.

The Salmon doesnt have any dams on it, Smith said. Once you start thinking of what you could do in one push  what could the human spirit handle in one go  when you start to look at rivers in that way, it really tends to narrow the field. Idaho is one of those few places, certainly in the United States, that you could do that. That was our initial vision.

The trio werent able to access the headwaters of the Middle Fork because of the snow in the area. Instead, they put in on Marsh Creek northwest of Stanley on Tuesday night, joined the Middle Fork and floated to Dagger Falls, a Class V rapid east of Warm Lake. They camped alongside the river, grabbing five much-needed hours of sleep and hit the water at 6:33 a.m. Wednesday.

They zipped down the Middle Fork, which is a week-long float in the summer, in nine hours to join the Main Salmon west of the town of Salmon in the east-central part of the state. The Main Salmon took them all the way back across the state, through Riggins and to their finish line at the Snake River on the Oregon border, 25 miles south of Asotin, Wash.

The group hit the Snake at 3 p.m. Thursday. They took few breaks after leaving Dagger Falls.

It probably worked out that we took two hours over a 33-hour timeline that we werent actually paddling, Smith said.

All three kayakers have extensive river experience, including time as guides, and knew the terrain well. But the high water changed which areas were easy and which were dangerous.

The only time they walked around a rapid was near the end of the trip, at a spot (The Slide Rapid) that is flatwater during summer flows.

It was one of the biggest rapids Ive ever seen in my life, Smith said. Theres these rock formations on the right side of the rapid that at low water are two to three stories overhead as you float through in a raft. We were at eye level with them and the river was running over the top of them. We stared at it for probably five minutes. All of us had boats that weighed over 100 pounds with all of our gear and we had this really sketchy portage to walk around on this rock slide  loose boulders, ankle-breakers. At the same time, there was this massive rapid chock full of wood and eddies and so violent and powerful. If you messed up, you would either be torn clean from your kayak or pushed into an eddy with Ponderosa pines that are 80 feet long going end over end. After 300 miles, being exhausted and delirious from paddling through the night and on the border of hallucinating, we figured it was probably not the prime time to try to run the hardest rapid of our lives.

Smiths biggest scare came on Chittam Rapid on the Main Salmon. All he could see was the 20 feet or so illuminated by his headlamp. He flipped upside down while his two friends took a different line and passed him.

That was scary, he said. I rolled up after a couple of attempts getting worked in the eddy line, caught my breath ... it just reinforced that what we were doing was not something to take lightly, that situations can get very real very quickly.

Bond, whose wife went into labor three weeks early about the time he returned home, fell asleep while floating, Smith said. All three boaters battled the challenges of the cold, sleep deprivation and fatigue. They wore dry suits made by Idahos NRS, but their heads and hands were exposed. They used liquidlogic Stinger kayaks with a hatch for storage and a rudder to help with steering.

Smith appreciated the rare chance to test himself in ways that arent necessary in modern life.

We dont really get as physically and mentally tested as people used to be when just traveling 100 miles was a big mission, he said. We have to look a little bit further to find adventures like that nowadays, to test ourselves and see what were made of and test our mettle. That was a big part of it  just to see what we could do.

He also considered the trip a tribute to all the people who have fought to preserve Idahos wild places.

Theres this legacy that we wanted to partake in, Smith said, to follow in the footsteps of generations prior.
Nicole Orr, 16, a student in Florida, was asked to change her natural-style hair. (Photo: Courtesy Secily Wilson/Stacy Pierce Photography)

Natural hair, for more and more celebrities, beauty gurus, and other high-profile women of color  including newly crowned Miss USA Kara McCullough  has become a gorgeous badge of honor. But schools across the country, it seems, have remained behind the curve.

So-called grooming policies have banned braids, weaves, dreadlocks, and other styles that target black students  most recently in Massachusetts, where two sisters faced detention for their braids. Now comes another controversy, out of Florida, where 16-year-old high school junior Nicole Orr was recently given detention for her hairstyle, and then told to change it.

I received a call saying that my daughter needed to get her hair done, and she wears her natural, and I was kind of taken aback by it, her dad, Eric Orr, told Fox 35.

Orr, who attends Montverde Academy in Lake County, said, People say they love my hair because its so diverse, curly and Afrocentric.

But Nicoles mom, Secily Wilson, a journalist, says administrators at the private school, where the teen transferred from public school in January, were not so enamored. When she found out why Nicole was given detention, she tells Yahoo Beauty, she felt it was ridiculous, adding, It was very disturbing to me, because here we are at the end of the year and youre saying she has to go get her hair done?

Additionally, she told Fox 35, Nicole literally felt, Wow, whats wrong with my hair? The Caucasian girls are able to wear their natural hair straight. Why cant I wear my natural hair the way that it grows?

School administrators referred the family to the school handbook, which included reference to dread-like hair being forbidden.

That could be ambiguous, and it could give you latitude to target a certain person or a certain group, so we felt we needed to address the issue, Eric said.

He and Wilson (who are former spouses and co-parent Nicole), met with school headmaster Kasey Kesselring, who did not immediately respond to Yahoo Beautys request for comment. He did tell Fox 35, My understanding in talking with the dean of students, I think it was more in line with that neat and organized look that were going for. Not so much the issue of dreadlocks per se.

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At the meeting, Kesselring pledged to change the wording of the handbook, and also struck an agreement with the parents. He asked if Nicole could pull her hair off her forehead when it gets big, and we said OK.  I will compromise, but she will not change her hair.

Wilson posted on Facebook that she was extremely happy with the schools response. The policy in the student handbook will be amended and the reference to hairstyles that represent a certain demographic will be removed. Nicole is able to wear her natural hair  with some MINOR adjustments and Mommy is OK with that, Wilson wrote. Thank you for hearing and addressing our concerns. Not just for our child, but for every other child who may feel inferior about their hair.

Finally, she tells Yahoo Beauty, I needed to be an advocate for my daughter, as well as for other girls, many of whom come from other continents, including Africa, to board at the school. What happens when they get asked to change and their parents arent here? Who speaks for them?

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cameronabadi

With Adam Rawnsley

It never stops. It. Never. Stops. In the latest installment of the daily scandal machine that is the Trump administration, the Washington Post dropped a stunning story late Monday reporting that President Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during their visit to the Oval Office last week.

The story was confirmed later in the evening by Reuters and the New York Times.

And it wasnt just any classified information. This was what is known as code-word information, one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. The information the president reportedly passed on about a plot being hatched by the Islamic State was shared with Washington by an ally who did not authorize its distribution to anyone but a small circle in Washington. Or as one administration official said, Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.

Pushback. Top administration is denying the reports. Or at least is denying something. National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster delivered a quick statement Monday saying, I was in the room  it didnt happen. He added, at no time  at no time  were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a similar statement. Problem is, none of the stories claimed that sources and methods were exposed.

And then on Tuesday morning, Trump dive-bombed McMasters statement that it didnt happen, when he took to Twitter to confirm that in fact he did share classified information with the Russians via Twitter. Trump said he has the absolute right to share with top Russian officials information about an Islamic State threat. McMaster is slated to brief the press in the White House Briefing Room this afternoon.

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As the New York Times said, according to the officials, Mr. Trump discussed the contents of the intelligence, not the sources and methods used to collect it. The concern is that knowledge of the information about the Islamic State plot could allow the Russians to figure out the sources and methods. One current administration official told the paper that Trump shared granular details of the intelligence with the Russians. Among the details the president shared was the city in Syria where the ally picked up information about the plot, though Mr. Trump is not believed to have disclosed that the intelligence came from a Middle Eastern ally or precisely how it was gathered.

Quite a run. Over the past week, the president has stunned his own staff by abruptly firing FBI director James Comey, blown up the carefully constructed story his administration crafted to explain it by admitting he fired Comey over his work investigating possible ties between his campaign and Russia, threatened Comey while suggesting the president secretly taped their conversations, and disclosed classified information to the Russians. It never stops, one White House official told Politico Monday night. Basically chaos at all times.

According to Politico, one adviser said the Oval Office conversation was likely unstructured, and the president doesnt really know any boundaries. He doesnt think in those terms, this adviser said. He doesnt sometimes realize the implications of what hes saying. I dont think it was his intention in any way to share any classified information. He wouldnt want to do that.

Add this! The president leaves later this week for a swing through Saudi Arabia, Italy, and a stop in Brussels for a NATO meeting. And FPs Robbie Gramer has exclusive details about how NATO allies are planning to deal with the unpredictable American leader.

NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trumps notoriously short attention span. The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion. One source briefed extensively on the meetings preparations told FP, its kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump, adding, its like theyre preparing to deal with a child  someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothingtheyre freaking out.

Syrian atrocities. The regime of Bashar al Assad is using a crematorium at its notoriously brutal Sednaya military prison near Damascus to secretly dispose of the bodies of thousands of prisoners it continues to execute, U.S.officials said Monday.

Acting assistant secretary of state Stuart Jones told reporters, what were assessing is that if you have that level of production of mass murder, then using the crematorium would . . . allow the regime to manage that number of corpses . . . without evidence, and we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Sednaya prison.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Whodunnit. Whos behind the global ransomware pandemic that hit Windows machines this weekend? No one knows, but so far investigators are finding preliminary clues that suggest the possibility that North Korea could have had a role in the attacks. The New York Times reports that researchers at Symantec have found that the WannaCry ransomware uses tools with similar code to tools used in attacks previously attributed to North Korea, including the breach of Sonys networks, the theft of $81 million from a Bangladesh bank. However, experts caution that the link is far from conclusive and not enough to attribute the ransomware to Pyongyang.

Espionage for hire. A cybersecurity firm trying to keep Iranian hackers out of a defense contractors network may have stumbled onto a Russian connection. Officials from the cybersecurity TrapX tell the New York Times that the hackers moving through an unnamed defense contractors network used a unique set of tools developed by a Russian hacker-for-hire. The tools were available in the cybercrime underworld, meaning that its possible the Iranian intruders couldve simply downloaded and adapted them. But the hackers use of a server previously used in the hack of a Ukrainian power grid led defenders to believe that the Iranian hackers may have partnered with a Russian mercenary.

PsyOp texts. On the frontlines of Ukraines war against Russian-backed rebels, someone is bombarding the cellphones of pro-government troops with taunting and threatening text messages. The AP got a look at a number of the messages, some of the spoofed to appear as though they came from retreating fellow soldiers while others merely threatened recipients that theyll find your bodies when the snow melts as artillery rained down. The messages are targeted and sent via cell site simulators, hardware designed to imitate a cell tower and trick phones in range into connecting to it.

Knockoffs. American special operators are used to training and fighting with partner forces that use Russian-made arms rather than American gear. So rather than navigate the sometimes shady international arms market to equip allies, Special Operations Command now wants to build their own kit. According to the National Interest, the command is now looking to make a copy of the Russian PKM machine gun. Interested contractors will have to secure their own drawings to see if they can reverse engineer a copy of the weapon fit for the commands use.

Feuds. Germany and Turkeys ongoing political feuds have escalated into a threatened German withdrawal of its forces stationed at Incirlik Air Base. Germanys announcement that its troops participating in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State could leave Turkey follows legislation from the Turkish parliament banning a German parliamentary delegation from visiting soldiers at the base. German officials are considering a range of alternate locations for their troops, including Cyprus, Jordan, and Kuwait.

New phone, who dis? Schiller, dont you lose that number. If you want to dial up Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on his personal cell phone, turns out all you need to do is look closely at pictures of President Trumps bodyguard, Keith Schiller. An attentive reader phoned up the Washington Post to let them know that a picture the paper ran showed a yellow sticky note with a phone number and the words Jim, Mad Dog, Mattis attached to papers carried by Schiller. When a Post report called the number, the voicemail confirmed that it did indeed belong to Mattis.

Photo Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police seized more than two tons of cocaine from a ship with a Venezuelan flag in the Atlantic Ocean and arrested the seven crew members, Spain's interior ministry said on Monday. The operation, carried out alongside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the UK's National Crime Agency and Portuguese police, took place earlier this month, on May 4. The seven people on board were Venezuelan nationals, the ministry said, adding that a gun had also been seized alongside 2400 kg of cocaine. The vessel, a small, rusted fishing boat according to images distributed by police, has since been towed to Spain's Canary Islands. Separately, a shipment of 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for Spain was intercepted off the coast of Ecuador, and 24 people were arrested in that operation, the interior ministry also said on Monday. The shipment was being organized by a drugs ring based in Galicia, in northern Spain, and two people were arrested in Madrid and another two in Vigo by Spanish police. The other 20, including one Spaniard, were arrested on board the cargo ship by Ecuadorian police, who intercepted it before its planned passage through the Panama Canal on its way to Spain, the interior ministry said. (Reporting by Sarah White, editing by Larry King)
Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice speaks at the Center for American Progress Ideas Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington on May 16, 2017. (Photo: Reuters/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON  Former national security advisor Susan Rice strongly defended the Democratic foreign policy worldview and denounced the Trump White House as weakening Americas position in the world Tuesday morning in remarks at the Center for American Progress 2017 Ideas Conference.

Since I left the White House, Ive become deeply concerned that the United States is squandering one of our greatest strategic assets  Americas leadership of the world, said Rice. She repeatedly contrasted the Trump administrations blustering approach to foreign policy with a more nuanced and complex approach involving strong diplomacy, international development assistance and the promotion of American values abroad.

Rice introduced herself with a joke about the unfounded allegations circulating in conservative media that she had ordered the unusual unmasking of the names of Trump associates whose conversations with foreign diplomats had been captured in routine intelligence intercepts during Obamas final year: Im Susan Rice, and you may have seen a parody of me on certain cable news channels.

Rice, who was routinely castigated for her statements in the aftermath of the attack on a U.S. State Department compound in Benghazi, Libya, is used to taking heat from the right. But the political polarization behind such attacks is, she suggested, emblematic of a political environment so toxic that it poses a threat to national security.

At this moment, our single greatest weakness  as a people, a country and a global power  is our profound political polarization, Rice told the Center for American Progress audience.

We need to shake off this national funk and remember that, first and foremost, we are all Americans. We must honor our Constitution, our founding values, and each other.

Surely, we will often disagree, she continued. But we sure as hell need to agree that a hostile foreign power has no business messing with our elections.

Though Rice delivered her speech to a supportive audience of Democrats who gave her a standing ovation at the conclusion, it was also a call for Republicans to act independently in probes into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, rather than back a president who they may privately disagree with.

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If we cannot find our way to put country over party, and democracy over demagoguery, even in the face of such a dangerous external threat, she said, then we might as well hang up our leadership cleats and resign ourselves to becoming a second-rate power.

The choice is ours. We can either squander our greatness or build a common future based on respect for the dignity and value of every American, and all mankind, she added.

Rice repeatedly critiqued Trumps blunt approach to foreign policy and national security. Instead of vowing simply to bomb the bleep out of ISIL, we must use our full arsenal: including cutting off its finances, discrediting extremism online and helping stabilize fragile states, she said.

We cant allow Twitter wars to become shooting wars. So instead of vacillating between reckless saber-rattling and dubbing Kim Jong-un a smart cookie, we should steadily apply increased pressure on North Korea while protecting our allies and homeland, she continued. And instead of excusing Russias outrageous behavior and branding NATO obsolete, we must defend every NATO ally unconditionally, and firmly counter Russias Cold War tactics.

Without a shared framework of values that are defended at home and abroad, America is weaker, she said. Our values and our interests largely converge, she said. Democracies that respect human rights are our most reliable partners. Visit Arlington Cemetery or Allied burial grounds around the world. Our soldiers did not fight as part of some global protection racket. They died for the rights of all people to live in freedom, dignity and equality. These are our values. These are universal values. And they are not expendable when inconvenient.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Photo: Dan Hixson, University of Utah College of Engineering

A cool new option for ecologically responsible period protection is here  and it was invented by college students.

At the University of Utah, a team of students led by Jeff Bates, a materials science and engineering assistant professor, have developed a 100 percent biodegradable maxi pad. The SHERO Pad begins with a processed form of algae as its superabsorbent ingredient. That processed algae is then covered with cotton and the same material that makes up tea bags.

In the United States, there are more than 85 million women of menstruating age, and according to Menstruation.com, they contribute approximately 12 billion pads and 7 million tampons to landfills every year. According to a 2016 Harvard Business School report, nearly 20 billion sanitary pads, tampons, and plastic applicators are dumped into landfills every year, and it takes centuries for them to biodegrade inside plastic bags.

An added bonus of the new biodegradable pads is that theyre much slimmer than other options on the market, thanks to the plant. Most are really bulky because they dont have a superabsorbent layer, Amber Barron, a junior in materials science and engineering who is on the team of students, said in a release from the school.

Graphic courtesy University of Utah

Made up of four layers, the pad has an outer layer of raw cotton similar to a tea bag, a transfer layer of organic cotton to absorb the liquid and pull it from the outer layer, a superabsorbent layer made of agarose gel (a polymer from brown algae), and a final layer made of a corn-based material that keeps the moisture inside and prevents leakage.

The drive to make period protection smarter has been steadily rising over the past few years, and young companies are attempting to address womens needs in innovative new ways.

For example, the Beautiful First Period Kit ($20) includes supplies, a little guidance, and a whole lot of love, according to inventor and momtrepreneur Helen Walsh. Neatly tucked inside the beautifully packaged case are tampons, pads, feminine wipes, and disposable bags. The company stocks each kit with period care essentials that are hypoallergenic and nontoxic as well as BPA-, phthalate-, lead-, and paraben-free.

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And then theres Thinx, the washable period underwear meant to replace tampons, which Yahoo Beauty took for a test drive (with mixed results).

The students originally developed the SHERO Pad for people in developing countries such as Guatemala (which has no public sanitation system). However, they will also start selling the product in the U.S. A working prototype has been produced, and the group has launched a startup company based in Bountiful, Utah. They hope to see their product on shelves stateside and handed out in developing countries within the year.

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President Trump is under fire in the wake of a Washington Post report that he revealed highly classified information during his meeting with Russian officials in the Oval Office last week.

Yet both as a candidate and commander-in-chief, Trump has routinely criticized others for divulging restricted information.

In July, following then-FBI Director James Comeys conclusion that Hillary Clinton and her State Department staffers were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information, Trump branded the Democratic nominee as unfit for the presidency.

Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." Not fit!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016

In October, Trump fumed that Clinton, who at the time was leading him in the polls, nor anyone in her campaign had been charged with a crime.

WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked mishandled classified info, but no one gets charged? RIGGED! https://t.co/FgGxDsS0a1  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2016

In January, then-President-elect Trump assailed those within the U.S. government for sharing a report detailing alleged Russian hacking of top Democratic officials during the 2016 election, and demanded a congressional investigation.

I am asking the chairs of the House and Senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with NBC prior to me seeing it.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2017

Before I, or anyone, saw the classified and/or highly confidential hacking intelligence report, it was leaked out to @NBCNews. So serious!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2017

In February, amid new reports of the Trump campaigns contacts with Russia, the president tweeted that the real scandal wasnt those reported ties but that classified information about them was being given out  like candy.

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The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by "intelligence" like candy. Very un-American!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

A day later, Trump called on the New York Times and other media outlets to apologize for publishing illegal classified leaks.

Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2017

Later that month, after reports that Trumps chief of staff Reince Priebus had asked the FBI to push back against stories alleging the Trump campaigns ties to the Kremlin, the president ripped the bureau for failing to stop the leaks.

Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S., Trump tweeted. FIND NOW.

The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security "leakers" that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017

find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017

In early March, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaigns ties to Russia, Trump tweeted the real story was all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. The president also called the focus on his campaigns ties to Moscow a witch hunt.

Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017

intentional. This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017

to win. The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality. The real story  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017

is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total "witch hunt!"  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017

On March 20, Trump lashed out over the ongoing Russia probe, demanding the leaker of classified information be found.

The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 20, 2017

Last week, hours before former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump suggested the panel ask Yates if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.

Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017

And on Tuesday, after defending his absolute right to share intelligence with Russian officials, Trump again raised the issues of leakers within the intelligence community.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Trumps not the only one in Washington who has a history of ripping rivals over their handling of U.S. intelligence.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Comedy Centrals Daily Show documented the hypocrisy of Republicansincluding House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubiowho were quick to criticize Clinton but did not immediately do the same to Trump.

CNN conservative commentator Ana Navarro argued that had Hillary Clinton divulged classified information as president, Republicans would be drafting Articles of Impeachment.

If Hillary Clinton leaked classified info to a Russian spook/diplomat, Republicans would rightly be drafting Articles of Impeachment N-O-W.  Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) May 15, 2017

Pic of missing spine of most GOP elected leaders should be on side of milk cartons. Last seen Oct 2016. Abducted by a man wearing red tie.  Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) May 16, 2017

Read more from Yahoo News:
Yahoo Finance is tracking TJX Companies, Home Depot and Urban Outfitters in intraday trading on Tuesday.

TJX Cos. (TJX)  The parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods disappointed Wall Street after issuing weak second-quarter earnings guidance and said its same-store sales grew at the slowest pace since 2015. The discount retail chain reported a 1% climb in same-store sales during the first quarter, missing analysts expectations for a 1.5% increase and well below the 8% gain a year ago. TJX reported earnings per share of 82 cents on revenue of $7.8 billion.

Urban Outfitters (URBN)  The retailer is expected to report earnings per share of 15 cents on revenue of $768.75 million, according to Bloomberg. Strong growth in Urban Outfitters online business is expected to help offset weak retail store sales, a trend thats been plaguing the retail industry for some time. Analysts warn that weak customer traffic could have forced the company to discount items, which in turn would pressure margins. Urban Outfitters stock has plunged about 27% since the start of the year.

Home Depot (HD)  The companys profit and sales topped Wall Street expectations in the first quarter, as a rebound in the housing industry boosted sales. Home Depot also upped its outlook for the year, giving Wall Street another reason to cheer. During the earnings call, Home Depot Chairman, CEO and President Craig Menear touted the companys robust traffic growth in e-commerce, as its online sales grew approximately 23% in the quarter. Menear also said that Home Depots supply chain continues to be a source of strength for our business.

For more on Tuesdays big stock movers and earnings after the bell, check out the Final Round, live at 4 p.m. ET, right here on Yahoo Finance.
Photo credit: Getty

From Redbook

When top trainers want to develop stronger, firmer abs, they don't do more crunches. They do an exercise ball workout using that big, bouncy ball you'll find stashed in a corner of the gym. Known as the Swiss ball, this equipment is a crazy effective tool for building total-body strength, and it's particularly amazing at working your abs, explains Ashleigh Kast, trainer at Drive Clubs in New York City and founder of Sophisticated Strength.

"The exercise ball is great for helping to build awareness of good trunk position and is a great tool for challenging stability, which is what core training is all about," Kast explains. Remember, your core is more than just your abs, it's also about building strong glutes, hamstrings, back, and hips.

This exercise ball workout designed by Kast will strengthen your entire core while also training your arms and shoulders and helping to improve your balance - it's efficient and effective. And that's a workout everyone can all get behind.

How to do it: Do 8-10 reps of each exercise one after the other, or pick a few of your favorites and add them to your regular routine.

Photo credit: Designed by Megan Tatem

1. Alternating Ball Climber

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Start in a push-up position with palms resting on top of the ball.

B. Pull right knee under torso while keeping spine long. Return to high plank and switch legs. Do 8-10 reps on each side.

2. Wall Squat With Reach

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Place ball against wall and stand in front of it with back pressing against ball. Squat by sliding butt toward ground and extending arms in front of body at shoulder height.

B. Stay in squat position and reach right arm overhead, then left arm. Then stand to return starting position. Do 8-10 reps.

3. Stir the Pot Plank

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Start in forearm plank on the ball. Make big or small circles to the right and left by moving elbows. Do 8-10 reps on each side.

4. Reverse Lunge Rotation

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Stand tall and hug ball at chest.

B. Step right foot back and lower into lunge while rotating torso to the left. Return to standing. Do 8-10 reps on each side.

Story continues

5. Single-Leg Deadlift

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Stand tall and hug ball at low belly.

B. Hinge at hips and lift right left back while lowering torso toward floor. Return to standing and switch sides. Do 8-10 reps on each side.

6. Swiss Ball Rollout

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Start in a forearm plank with arms resting on top of the ball.

B. Reach elbows forward to move ball away from body while keeping spine long. (The ball may only move a few inches, that's totally fine!) Then return to a plank position. Do 8-10 reps.

7. Swiss Ball Leg Curl

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Start face-up on mat and place heels on top of the ball.

B. Lift hips and keep them lifted as you straighten legs. Then, curl ball back toward you with control. Do 8-10 reps.

8. Swiss Ball Side Plank

Photo credit: Katherine Wirsing

A. Start in a side plank on right side with knees on floor and right elbow resting on top of ball

B. Reach left arm to sky and hold for 20 seconds. Repeat on opposite side.

CREDITS: Trainer, Ashleigh Kast; Gym, Drive 495; Clothing, Lululemon; Hair, Jeffrey Jagling; Makeup, Satsuma Soma

Follow Redbook on Facebook.

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Did you miss any of the crime and court news from March? Here's a collection of the crime reports, notable arrests and important court hearing
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump will urge unity between the world's major faiths on an ambitious first foreign trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Jerusalem, the White House said Tuesday.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster laid out a detailed itinerary for the "historic trip," due to start late this week, and confirmed that Trump would address a gathering of Muslim leaders on his "hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam."

Previous US leaders have generally chosen a US neighbor such as Canada or Mexico for their first presidential voyage, but Trump intends to plunge right into some of the world's most difficult spiritual and political conflicts.

In Saudi Arabia, after a day of talks with King Salman and his crown prince, Trump will attend a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world.

"The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America's commitment to our Muslim partners," McMaster said, adding that Trump will help open a center to de-radicalize extremists.

Trump campaigned for office vowing to destroy "radical Islamic terrorism" and impose "a total ban on all Muslim immigration" to the United States, raising concerns that his election would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world.

In office since January 20, he has already attempted to impose a ban on travellers from a group of mainly-Muslim countries, before his order fell foul of the US courts.

But McMaster stressed that Trump would be visiting sites associated with the world's great religions to stress "that we all have to be united and we have to be joined together with an agenda of tolerance and moderation."

- Western Wall -

After Saudi Arabia, Trump's voyage will take him to Jerusalem, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the Vad Yashem memorial to the Holocaust. The next day he will pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.

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On the same day, he will meet President Mahmud Abbas of the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem on the West Bank "where he will convey his administration's eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends" the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian officials have put their hopes in Trump to revive the moribund peace process, but -- after early enthusiasm for the Republican billionaire's rise gave way to concerns -- Israeli officials have been on edge in the run-up to the visit.

McMaster failed to answer a direct question as to whether the US government considers the Western Wall to be within Israeli territory, and he said Israeli leaders would not accompany him on his visit to the site in Jerusalem's Old City.

"He's going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect with three of the world's great religions," McMaster said.

After Jerusalem, Trump will head to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis. The US leader will celebrate the contributions of Catholics to America and the world, discuss diplomatic issues with the pontiff and tour St Peter's Basilica.

After the Vatican, the trip takes a secular turn with a visit to Belgium to meet European Union officials and attend the NATO summit on May 24-25. He then heads to Italy and the island of Sicily for the G7 summit on May 26 and 27.
A president is only as effective as his staff, and a story in Politico Monday helps explain why Donald Trump has been such an ineffective president. Shane Goldmacher writes:

While the information stream to past commanders-in-chief has been tightly monitored, Trump prefers an open Oval Office with a free flow of ideas and inputs from both official and unofficial channels. And he often does not differentiate between the two. Aides sometimes slip him stories to press their advantage on policy; other times they do so to gain an edge in the seemingly endless Game of Thrones inside the West Wing.

Goldmacher tells several anecdotes that show the problems of this information ecosystem. In one case, K.T. McFarland, the deputy-national security adviser, reportedly gave Trump a pair of Time covers, one from the 1970s, forecasting a new ice age, and another, more recent one focusing on climate change. The problem was that the older cover was a hoax. Other aides scrambled to intercept the president before he spoke or tweeted about the bogus story.

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The Politico story points to three concerning tendencies that have emerged about the president.

He is unable to tell fact from fiction.

As I wrote last week, presidents consistently struggle with how to avoid being caught in a White House bubble, where the information they receive doesnt accurately reflect whats going on outside the bounds of the executive residence. Barack Obama asked staffers to pick through letters to the White House so he could read thembut even those were screened before they reached him. In theory, Trumps free flow of information might help circumvent the bubble.

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The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition

The problem is that Trump is unable to tell real information from fabricated stories. This tendency has led him to repeatedly make false claims, even as he criticizes accurate stories as fake news. This involves both a failure to separate reliable outlets from propaganda, as well as difficulty spotting stories that are simply hoaxes. He is evidently unable to differentiate between a reported article in The Wall Street Journal and a hit piece by the agitprop huckster Charles C. Johnson. Nor does he take the time to investigate something like the ice-age hoax to see if its real.

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The presidents uncommon media illiteracy is a serious problemhis ignorance has also meant that by his own account, a world leader like Chinas Xi Jinping can convince him to change his position after just 10 minutes of conversation. But it might be mitigated by careful staff work, if not for the fact that some of his staff seems to suffer from similar problems. Fired National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn was infamous for glomming onto nonsensical reports, while his son was dismissed from the Trump transition after passing along conspiracy theories like a false claim of a child-sex ring running out of a D.C. pizzeria.

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Giving this president a Time cover is the equivalent of a targeted strike: Trump is weirdly obsessed with the newsweeklys cover, repeatedly and falsely claiming he holds the record for appearances. Whether McFarland was nefarious or naive about the fake Time cover is unclear, but neither is a good sign: A top security aide should neither be trying to fool the president, nor so credulous.

He is hot-tempered and hates to hear bad news.

The best way to focus the presidents attention on any story is to tell him about it personally, even if it is in one of the papers hes already thumbed through, Goldmacher writes. But officials say its a high-risk, high-reward proposition because Trumps frustrations at bad stories can easily boomerang against those delivering him the news.

Trump has raged about leaks and stewed when his press team is unable to spin stories more favorably. When they were unable to garner better coverage of the firing of FBI Director James Comey last week, Trump took it upon himself to speak to NBCs Lester Holt. But Trump merely poured gasoline on the fire, contradicting his vice president, his staffers, and his own stated rationale in a letter and in conversations with members of Congress, and confirming the suspicion that Trump fired Comey to stifle an investigation into Russia interference in the election.

Cowed by Trumps temper and his allergy to bad news, staffers are forced to become yes-men and -women. As a businessman, Trump was known for demanding loyalty and affirmation, and he has brought that tendency to the White House. Thus Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who certainly knows better, sat by during an Economist interview last week as Trump claimed he had invented the phrase priming the pump. When Trump said hed intimidated China into ceasing its currency manipulation, Mnuchin quickly affirmed that as soon as the president got elected they went the other way, although the change dates back to 2014. The problem is especially acute when so much news about the administration is bad news. That only encourages staffers to hand Trump positive, but affirming, fake information.

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One of the few people willing to deliver harsh truths to Trump is Flynns successor as national-security adviser, H.R. McMaster. The general has told Trump that his focus on the phrase radical Islamic terror is counterproductive, and smoothed over tensions with South Korea after the president threatened to make Seoul pay for a missile-defense system. The result was that Trump has, according to Eli Lake, come to dislike McMaster. (Trump denies this.) Perhaps not coincidentally, McMaster has tried to push out McFarland, whom Flynn hired, though a long-rumored job for her as ambassador to Singapore has yet to materialize.

Trump has no interest in policy.

In late April, Trump surprised advisers by saying publicly that hed announce a tax plan within a week. When the so-called plan arrived, it barely fit the descriptor. It was only about 100 words long, and was nearly identical to what hed put out on the campaign trail. During his Economist interview, Trump showed he was unable to answer, and uninterested in answering, any detailed questions about the plan, repeatedly changing the subject or deferring to Mnuchin.

Politico fills in some of the backstory. In April, four Trump-aligned economic commentators published a New York Times column pushing for a new tax plan. Trump summoned staff to talk about it, Goldmacher writes. His message: Make this the tax plan, according to one White House official present. That meant the president got his tax plan quickly, but it was also nearly useless as a blueprint for actual changes to the tax code.

* * *

Each of these three tendencies has had dangerous effects for Trump during a time when the crises that befall him are largely of his own making. Eventually, though, a crisis will arrive from outside. President Trump and his team are going to have to prepare for UFOsunforeseen occurrences, warned former White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty earlier this year. For President Bill Clinton, whom McLarty served, that took the form of a North Korean weapons threat. The moment helped gel a White House that had struggled to find its footing.

The question is what happens when Trump confronts such a crisis. Will the president be able to sort misinformation and bad information from real data? Is he prepared to make real policy, or will he try to lead the country with op-ed solutions? Will his aides be willing to tell him harsh truths, or will they buckle in the face of his temper? The indications during a time of comparative calm are not heartening.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak at the White House last week. (Photo: Handout via the Russian Foreign Ministry)

President Trump reacted Tuesday to the Washington Posts bombshell report that he revealed highly classified information during his meeting with Russian officials in the Oval Office last week.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, the president tweeted. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Trump did not deny divulging what the Post described as code-word information, one of the highest classification levels used in U.S. intelligence agencies, to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

In a carefully worded statement delivered outside the White House Monday evening, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security director, said that the Posts story that came out tonight as reported is false.

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, McMaster said. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

But the Post report did not say that sources or methods were discussed.

The White House is playing word games here, Greg Miller, the Washington Post national security correspondent who co-authored the report with Greg Jaffe, said on CNN. If this was above board and not problematic in any way, why did the National Security Council, coming out of this meeting, feel it was necessary to contact the CIA director and the director of the National Security Agency and give them a heads-up on what Trump had just told the Russians?

Story continues

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry denied reports that Trump revealed classified information to senior Russian officials.

The revelation of Trumps apparent casual sharing of sensitive information is sending shockwaves throughout Washington.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the Trump administration is in a downward spiral right now and must figure out a way to come to grips with all thats happening.

The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes  it creates a worrisome environment, Corker said.

Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. The president owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation.

A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he hopes for a full explanation from the Trump administration.

We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nations secrets is paramount, Ryan spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement. The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called it a slap in the face to the intelligence community.

If literally anyone else did what President Trump is reported to have done, there would be an immediate criminal investigation, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said in a statement of his own.

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., offered a different explanation for Trumps behavior.

I believe that the president is desperate for attention and needs psychological help, Wilson told CBS Miami.

Trump later attempted to place blame on fired FBI Director James Comey and others for not focusing enough on the leakers of intelligence.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community, the president tweeted.

According to CBS News Mark Knoller, a White House spokesman emphatically denied Trumps tweets amounted to a tacit confirmation of the Posts report.

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Jeff Mason and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation during their meeting last week, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation said on Monday. The intelligence, both officials said, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group. The White House said the allegations were false. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," deputy national security adviser Dina Powell said. Reacting to the news, first reported by the Washington Post, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and reckless." The Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true. One of the officials said the intelligence was classified Top Secret and also held in a secure compartment to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access. After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services, and informed them what had happened. While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize what they called a longstanding intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said. The Washington Post said that Trump shared the information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement that Trump and Lavrov discussed a broad range of subjects, "among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism." Tillerson said in a statement. ISLAMIC STATE THREAT During his Oval Office meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak, Trump went off-script and began describing details about an Islamic State threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, the officials told the Post. In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post. U.S. officials have told Reuters that U.S. agencies are in the process of drawing up plans to expand a ban on passengers carrying laptop computers onto U.S.-bound flights from several countries on conflict zones due to new intelligence about how militant groups are refining techniques for installing bombs in laptops. (Additional reporting by David Alexander, Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)
By Jeff Mason and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office. The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said. The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect. "The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation. "At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said. Russia's foreign ministry said reports that Trump had revealed highly classified information were "fake", according to the Interfax news agency. The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false. Still, the news triggered concern in Congress. The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and "reckless". Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true. Obviously, theyre in a downward spiral right now and theyve got to come to grips with all thats happening," he said of the White House. SECRET COMPARTMENT The latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure compartment to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access. After Trump's disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened. While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said. Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government. Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a "total scam," sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server. The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been "careless" with classified information. 'NO FILTER' In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post. Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump. One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: He has no filter; its in one ear and out the mouth. One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure particularly unfortunate, as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State. Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important U.S. allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican. The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration. (Additional reporting by David Alexander, Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell, Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland; Editing by Kieran Murray and Bill Tarrant, Ralph Boulton)
Washington (AFP) - Embattled US President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday he had the right to share "facts" with Russia, one day after bombshell allegations that he divulged highly classified intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.

According to an explosive report from the Washington Post, Trump revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscow's man in Washington Sergey Kislyak.

In a shock twist, the information reportedly came from a US ally who had not authorized Washington to share it with Moscow, a potential blow to intelligence relationships based on trust that secrets will be kept.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump pushed back in an early morning tweet.

Trump wrote that he was motivated by "humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

The US leader's disclosure of classified information did not break the law, according to the national security blog Lawfare, but such revelations could expose sources and methods and "substantially harm" US intelligence gathering partnerships with foreign governments.

"This is perhaps the gravest allegation of presidential misconduct in the scandal-ridden four months of the Trump administration," the blog said. "This story is likely to be immensely consequential."

National Security Advisor HR McMaster denied the president revealed "intelligence sources or methods," but acknowledged that Trump and Lavrov "reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday dubbed the news "nonsense," saying it was not worth confirming or denying.

Story continues

- Latest crisis -

The Post, citing unnamed officials, said Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration recently barred the use of laptops in the passenger cabin from several countries in the Middle East and is mulling the expansion of that ban to cover jets originating in Europe.

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false," McMaster said without elaborating on which elements were wrong.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen."

McMaster earlier refused to answer questions to a group of journalists gathered in the West Wing, saying "this is the last place I wanted to be" before leaving.

The revelations are the latest in a wave of crises to hit the White House, which late Monday was in a state of shock, with aides frantically trying to put out the fire and determine the source of such damaging leaks.

"I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community," Trump tweeted Tuesday.

Since coming to office in January, Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis, lampooning the intelligence services, law enforcement and the media along the way.

Last week, Trump threw his administration into turmoil by taking the rare step of firing his FBI director James Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election.

Trump's meeting with top Russian diplomats came one day after Comey's firing.

- Ryan wants 'full explanation' -

But political and legal experts said this latest misstep is among the most egregious so far of Trump's presidency.

For Trump's already weary allies in Congress, the latest crisis brought more headaches and demanded yet more explanation from an administration that is struggling to leave its legislative mark.

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It's got to happen," said Republican Senator Bob Corker.

"Obviously, they're in a downward spiral right now, and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips (with) all that's happening," Corker said.

Meanwhile, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer accused Trump of potentially putting American lives at risk.

"If the report is true, it is very disturbing. Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country," the New York senator said.

"The president owes the intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation."
By Ann Saphir SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ramin Forouzandeh had applied to 13 PhD economics programs in the United States, but after President Donald Trump signed his first travel ban in January, the 25-year-old Iranian turned to Canada for other options. He said he had focused on U.S. schools because they hosted most of the world's top 20 economics programs. "Before the travel ban, I never really considered other alternatives." By late March, U.S. courts had halted two versions of Trumps travel ban, yet Forouzandeh signed for University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and turned down the University of Minnesota's prestigious PhD program. His countryman, Mahdi Ebrahimi Kahou, 30, was well into his first year of the Minnesota program when he decided to transfer to the University of British Columbia because of Trump's executive orders that banned travel from seven and later six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. "I lost my motivation to work completely," he said. A Reuters survey of 19 Canadian universities showed a spike in international applications, most notably from Iran and India. Five top Canadian economics and business PhD programs are getting at least half of their new Iranian students this fall because of the ban, based on interviews with universities and students. Most of those, like Forouzandeh and Ebrahimi Kahou, are opting out of U.S. programs in a field where the United States both dominates and relies on foreign talent. While those programs represent only one field and a fraction of the U.S. student population, they offer early evidence of the direct impact of Trump administration policies. Academics fear they may also be a sign of things to come if the chilling effect of Trump's "America First" agenda spreads beyond any specific field of study or nationality. BEST AND BRIGHTEST "This strikes at the heart of what has made U.S. higher education the envy of the world," said Mary Sue Coleman, chair of the Association of American Universities. "It's this notion that the U.S. is no longer a welcoming place for the best and the brightest." Iranians are by far the biggest group among students directly affected by the bans and form a small but notable part of the talent pool in areas such as engineering and economics, where U.S. academic institutions excel. Iranians ranked sixth last year among international students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs, according to the Institute of International Education. A survey conducted jointly by five U.S. higher education associations in February showed 38 percent of U.S. colleges reporting a drop in foreign applications, with those from the Middle East down the most, while 27 percent saw no change - a significant cool-down after nearly a decade of steady growth. In 2015, at least 35 percent of graduate students at U.S. universities granting graduate degrees in science, engineering and health were foreigners, according to the National Science Foundation. (For a graphic on U.S. universities, global brains, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2qLARio ) This year, about 60 percent of graduating PhDs from the top 10 U.S. economics departments come from other countries, a Reuters analysis shows. Youve got an issued order thats been temporarily blocked that applies to six countries. But the destabilization of the whole situation for international students and faculty could not be overstated, said Rice University President David Leebron. He said that for foreign students everything from getting a visa on time to employment opportunities had been thrown into question. According to Rice's dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies, this year's PhD programs will have slightly fewer Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern students than expected. More Iranian students declined offers of admission than usual, with several saying that they decided to study in another country because of concerns about getting a U.S. visa. There is no evidence of a mass exodus of foreigners - indeed, Rice will have more students than expected from Europe and Latin America, offsetting declines elsewhere - but academics cite dozens of examples where Trump's policies had an impact. At Arizona State University, for example, Iranians would typically make up a fourth of the economics PhD program, but there will be none in the incoming class this fall. Of those already enrolled, two are moving to Canada. One student who visited his family in Iran over the Christmas break still has not been able to return, leaving the university scrambling to cover the classes he was supposed to teach. The effects of this are big, said Gustavo Ventura, ASU's economics department chair. These people, not just the ones that come to us - anyone who comes to a PhD program abroad - are the cream of their student population." The University of Illinois now has 10 Iranians in its PhD program, and while its not certain why, none of the Iranians whom it offered admission are among the 22 students from 11 countries entering in the fall. At Indiana University's economics program, three Iranians withdrew their applications almost immediately after the travel ban, said Todd Walker, director of the department's graduate studies. "We also had many more international applicants turn us down this year relative to the last three years," he said. "I cannot say definitively how much of this is attributable to the travel ban, but I suspect it played a role." In British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University has admitted 20 percent more international students for the fall term, according to Associate Dean Jeff Derksen. He said queries he had received and an online survey suggested more graduate students were considering alternatives to U.S. programs. "This indicates that the international map of academic knowledge production has changed." The prestige of the U.S. programs remains a big draw, but those committed to a U.S. career are more aware of risks. For example, Soheil Ghili, who is getting a PhD in economics from Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management this month and will start as a post-doctoral fellow at Yale this summer, is hedging his bets. "Let me put it this way: I will be more careful to not miss networking opportunities with people from Toronto and London." (With reporting by Solarina Ho and Alastair Sharp in Toronto and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington; Editing by Peter Henderson and Tomasz Janowski)
Its been over two decades since anyone has set foot in the small, strange town of Twin Peaks, Washington, the bucolic Pacific Northwest setting for David Lynchs short-lived, but intensely loved eponymous TV series, and its 1992 feature film prequel, Fire Walk With Me. But we always suspected wed be invited back; after all, in the 1991 series finale, the spirit of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)  the high school beauty queen whose brutal murder set the series in motion  promised, Ill see you again in 25 years. And, true to her word, Laura, along with many of her fellow townspeople, is back in Showtimes revival of Twin Peaks, which premieres Sunday, May 21 at 9 p.m.

With such a long time gap between visits, its understandable if youve forgotten some of what happened the last time we dropped in on our Twin Peaks friends and neighbors. With that in mind, Yahoo TV has prepared a catch-up guide of five big plot points from the original run that should stir the memories of returning visitors and get newcomers up to speed. So grab a slice of cherry pie and pour yourself a damn fine cup of coffee  heres what you need to know before Twin Peaks returns.

Twin Peaks premieres Sunday, May 21 at 9 p.m. on Showtime.

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Syrian President Assad and President Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP, Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The Trump administration ratcheted up the pressure on the Syrian government of Bashar Assad Tuesday, targeting five individuals  including at least two members Assads own family  for financial sanctions in response to his governments continuing violent attacks on its own citizens.

The action reinforces what appears to be a major shift in U.S. policy, at least rhetorically, towards Assad  a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin. It comes the day after the State Department accused the Assad regime of building crematoriums to burn the bodies of tortured prisoners, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer all but announced that U.S. policy is now to remove Assad. Spicer told reporters: Syria will never be stable and secure as long as Assad is in power.

The Syrian governments relentless attacks on civilians have continued unabated, said John E. Smith, director of the Treasury Departments Office of Financial Assets Control, in announcing the new sanctions. As long as the Syrian government continues its campaign of brutal violence against its own people, Treasury will continue targeting the finances of anyone enabling Assad, and will continue intensifying pressure on Assads regime in support of diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Syria.

The new sanctions, which would result in the freezing of bank accounts and other assets that can be identified in the U.S. or allied countries, target several members of the family of Rami Makhlouf, a billionaire cousin of Assad. Also sanctioned were several Syrian entities, including the Scientific Studies and Research Center, which the U.S. believes is responsible for developing and producing Syrias chemical weapons, according to the Treasury release.

Makhlouf, who was first sanctioned himself by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008, is Syrias wealthiest businessman, who owns huge chunks of the countrys main mobile phone company, its oil industry and a television network, among other properties  in large part through hidden overseas accounts in the British Virgin Islands, Panama and elsewhere, according to multiple media reports.

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The secretive Makhlouf is also a stalwart defender of his cousins government, once telling the New York Times in an interview after the start of the Arab Spring protests that rocked the country in 2011, the regime would fight until the end.

Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf in 2010. (Photo: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images)

The new sanctions announced Tuesday are aimed at Makhloufs vast financial empire: Among those newly targeted are Muhammad Abbas, described as a maternal cousin of Makhlouf who carries out his financial interests, including using a private Damacus-based company, Ajnihah, and a Lebanon front company, Barly Off-Shore, to move Makhloufs assets outside of Syria. (Ajnihah and Barly Off-Shore were separately sanctioned.)

In addition, Treasury targeted the assets of an entity called Al-Bustan Charity, and its director, Samir Darwish; Makhlouf has used the charity to create a vast private network of militias and security-linked institutions  to support and augment Syrian military forces, according to the Treasury release.

Others sanctioned include two of Assads other cousins, Makhloufs brothers Ihab Makhlouf, vice president of Syrias mobile phone company Syriatel (owned by Rami Maklouf) and Ivad Makhlouf, who helps the Syrian regime evade international sanctions, Treasury said.

What is striking about the new actions is that they are aimed at one of Russias main allies at a time when the White House is taking increasing fire over its ties to Moscow, including this weeks allegations that President Trump disclosed sensitive code word intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a meeting at the White House last week. It also appears to represent a sharp shift from Trumps position in the campaign when he attacked Hillary Clinton for wanting to engage in a confrontation with Syria that could lead to World War III.

Now she wants to start a shooting war in Syria in conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. Frankly, it could lead to World War III, and she has no sense, he said at a rally in Miami on Nov. 2.

As recently as six weeks ago, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out  a stance in line with the one Trump took the campaign.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley shows pictures of Syrian victims of chemical attacks as she addresses a meeting of the Security Council, April 5, 2017. (Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP)

But Assads use of poison gas, which was met by retaliation with Tomahawk cruise missiles, seems to have precipitated a shift that, if anything, became much more noticeable this week. During his briefing Monday, Spicer said the U.S. remains open to working together with both Russia and Iran to find solution that leads to a stable and united Syria. That, however, requires both countries to acknowledge the atrocities of the Assad regime.

To be sure, the White House has said nothing about using U.S. military power to remove Assad. So far, the new policy of demanding the Syrian dictators removal is mostly words, said Aaron David Miller, a Mideast expert at the Wilson Center. I dont see how they plan to put the pieces together to translate their aspirational policy into action.

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TWIN FALLS  Tabithea Clifford has often taken center-stage during court proceedings for four people accused of beating and robbing her younger brother, Tigre Darin Martinez, just hours before he was found dead two years ago. Shes been an outspoken advocate for Martinez  whom she still believes was murdered, despite what an autopsy found  especially when condemning the last people to see him alive during her fiery, emotional victim impact statements at sentencings.

But now, Clifford has taken center-stage in a way she never expected, and she fears it will cost her dearly.

On Monday, District Judge Richard Bevan declared a mistrial in the case of Dwayne Lee McCormick, the last of the four suspects in the case and the only one who hasnt pleaded guilty. Defense attorney Steven McRae requested the mistrial just two days into the trial because of Clifford, who on Friday turned over photographs and audio recordings relevant to the case to prosecutors.

It blows up my brothers case, Clifford said over the phone Tuesday through tears. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing  but theres a good chance because of the audio, my brothers murderer will go free.

McCormick, 33, is not charged with murder  an autopsy found Martinez died of a methamphetamine overdose  but was facing trial on felony counts of aggravated battery, robbery and robbery conspiracy. He was accused of beating and robbing Martinez, 45, hours before he died face-down in a Twin Falls basement, blood streaming from his head and face.

But the new photographs and audio recording cast doubt about McCormicks participation in the crime and completely changes our view of the facts, McRae said Monday during a status conference before the trial was to resume Tuesday.

It would have completely changed my trial tactic, the defense attorney said.

The new evidence Clifford turned over shows blood in the upstairs of the house and corroborates a story told by co-defendant Caleb Hinton in which  he stated to law enforcement that Dwayne McCormick was not a part of anything that happened at the house.

Had I had the information, I would have changed my opening argument, McRae told Bevan. I clearly would have cross examined the witnesses who have been put on, that have investigated the house, specifically as to why we have never had this photograph of blood in the upstairs.

Twin Falls County Deputy Prosecutor Trevor Misseldine agreed that Bevan should declare a mistrial, citing new evidence on a two-hour long recorded conversation between Clifford and McCormick.

Listening to it in its entirety, Misseldine said, I think its highly prejudicial for the defendant to not have it before trial began.

Clifford wouldnt say what was on the tape thats so explosive, only saying that its huge.

Ive cried about this for days, Clifford said. My dad patted me on the back and told me, You fought for your brother, you did the best you could do, you turned in your evidence; you did the right thing like I raised you to do.

But her fathers reassurances offer little consolidation.

It dont help, Clifford said.

So how did the victims sister even come across evidence so explosive, evidence that might turn McCormicks case on its head?

Shes kind of done this investigation on her own, Misseldine told the court Monday.

Clifford confirmed that shes been investigating the case herself. In the past, shes expressed her displeasure with the way police and prosecutors handled different aspects of the investigation.

But her personal investigation has led to unexpected consequences: First, the mistrial, and now, she might become a witness in McCormicks case. McRae issued a subpoena demanding she turn over all evidence shes gathered, and Bevan said he would consider requiring her to undergo a deposition.

Ive never granted that in a criminal case, so I know its extremely rare, Bevan said Monday. But given the unique circumstances  where it appears the witness has undertaken an investigation, placing herself in that type of a role  I think its only fair to both parties to allow that, if you want it.

A status conference in the case is now set for June 30, at which time the parties will review the new evidence and see where the case stands.

As for Clifford, who says she tried to turn over the pictures and audio recording earlier, now she simply wishes she would have kept quiet about her own evidence last week.

I feel like I should have never turned in the audio, Clifford said. This would probably all be over by now. Its a hard, heavy burden to carry.
The following material contains graphic images that may be disturbing. Parents are advised that these images may not be suitable for young children.

Libby spent her life covered with tumors due to a condition called neurofibromatosis type 1  has The Doctors intervention made a difference for her?

The name-calling started in elementary school, Libby recalled when she first visited The Doctors. She was called toad and spat on, and even pushed into a garbage can. The external bumps itched, but she had internal ones as well, which were painful. I just wish that I didnt look like a circus freak, she said.

Watch: My Entire Body Is Covered in Tumors

Plastic Surgeon Dr. Andrew Ordon, along with Surgeons Dr. Kristi Funk and Dr. Ritu Chopra, offered Libby new hope through a treatment called the electrodessication technique. He and his associates agreed to remove as many of her tumors as possible  at no charge.

As we explained to you before, we cant remove all of them, Dr. Ordon tells her. The team will focus on the tumors that cause Libby the most distress  the ones on her face, chest, and abdomen. The trade-off? We leave a car for a bump, he cautions. In time those scars will get better. Initially, youre going to have a lot of marks on you.

The three surgeons work simultaneously, lifting and excising tumors from the root. Together they remove hundreds of growths, one at a time, over the course of several hours.

Watch: Living Covered in Tumors

Just weeks later, Libby joins The Doctors. She tells them her initial appearance on the show has brought her an unexpected outpouring of support. Neurofibromatosis sufferers around the world have contacted her to say how much her story has helped them. Shes been able to grow her Facebook neurofibromatosis support group as well  but, she says, Im not done while there are more people to help.

Were not done either! announces Dr. Ordon. The surgical team is going to reunite for another removal surgery targeting more of her tumors, as well as a fractional CO2 laser treatment to improve the skin appearance. Theres been a big improvement, but were not done yet, he assures Libby.
Two Belgrade High School students pose in the outfits they were dress coded for. (Photo: Josie Espinoza)

A number of students at Belgrade High School in Montana staged a protest of the schools dress code on Friday, May 12  and were sent home because of it.

Josie Espinoza, a freshman at the school, posted details of the aftermath to her Instagram account. Today I was dress coded in front of everyone for my shorts not meeting requirements. I was publicly embarrassed by my teacher in front of the whole class. Then had to be sent home to change because I was a distraction,' she captioned the post.

Espinoza tells Yahoo Style that she knew her outfit did not abide by the schools regulations. I was wearing a black romper that did not go past my longest finger and my straps did not make the one inch rule, so I was sent home because I didnt make dress code, she says.

Belgrade High Schools dress code clearly states that straps must be worn and must be one inch wide and hemlines must reach below the students longest finger when shoulders hang loose. Espinoza was looking to send a message to the school administration.

Fifteen other students followed suit and were also sent home for disobeying the dress code. Espinoza shared a memo on Snapchat the night before the protest that was widely circulated to her classmates.

This memo was circulated to a number of Belgrade High School students the night before the protest. (Photo: Josie Espinoza)

If we dont break this dress code nothing will ever happen, the notes on Espinozas Snapchat read. And guess what girls will still be seen as sexual objects instead of strong women who have back bones and that can stand up for what they believe in. Do guys really think writing a letter will get us anywhere? No it wont because they will end up [in the] trash where everything else a student does. Because all they care about is how the school looks. Stand up for once in your life.

Espinoza shares that along with Fridays incident involving dress coding, she was also recently reprimanded for another outfit.

Earlier that week I was dress coded because my shorts didnt make dress code requirements, and I thought they would be okay  due to the fact that very [few] people get dress coded in our school, she says. If youre in a different classroom  each time you will get dress coded differently. If Im in my first period Im going to get dress coded, but if Im in my seventh period I wouldnt.

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She says the difference in coding lies in her teachers judgement of the rules. Not all teachers enforce it because some of them may feel like its not fair I suppose, Espinoza says.

Aside from the fact that she feels its not properly regulated across the school, she believes it is fundamentally sexist.

Its a sexist dress code and it needs to be changed  or it needs to be equally enforced, she says. It bothers me because I feel like dress codes are put in place mainly to set boundaries for the female students in that school and their motto is dress for success. If youre going to make us dress like professionals, you should treat us like professionals. Its not professional for them to stand us up in class and point out why were violating dress code.

The student believes that the idea that girls might be a distraction in the classroom is not right. I feel like it demeans boys more than it demeans girls because boys are seen as animals, and they cant control themselves around girls shoulders or seeing girls thighs.

Espinoza also feels that female students are more often coded than male students at her high school. 90 percent of dress code violations are girls, she says. Our own principal said that its a fact that more girls get dress coded than male students.

The schools principal, Paul Lamb, said dress coding at the high school is not related to the idea that female students might be a distraction.

Thats not the reason and thats not what were telling our students  that theyre being distracting to the boys, Lamb told KBZK. What the administration here is saying is they are in violation of the dress code and it needs to be changed.

Lamb also told the news outlet that he is open to discussing the code with students. I would appreciate if instead of a protest they would sit down with us about trying to make a change if they want a change to be made, he said.

Since the protest on Friday, Espinoza shares that she hasnt received a response from the schools administration and no changes have been made to the code. She has an idea of what she hopes the school will consider in potentially altering the code.

I hope that instead of doing arm length, which can depend on your body type, that they change it to maybe the inseam and allow spaghetti straps. It gets hot in our classrooms, and we dont have any air conditioning  so I feel that it needs to be changed for how hot it is outside. However, Principal Lamb told KBZK that the lack of air conditioning in the school is only an issue for two months of the year.

The freshman in high school has the support of many of her classmates  and even her parents. My parents totally agree with me, she says. They think that I need to stand up for what I believe in. The dress code is not fairly enforced and things need to be changed in our school.

She adds: Our goal is not to have people dress like sluts  but to have an equally enforced dress code.

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The ban was imposed amid fears the Islamic State group was developing a bomb concealed in a laptop (AFP Photo/JOHN MOORE) (GETTY/AFP/File)

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union will hold high-level talks with the United States in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss a possible US airline ban on carry-on computers.

The US Department of Homeland Security sparked deep concern in Europe last week when it said it would soon decide on extending to European airlines a ban on eight mostly Muslim countries.

"The commission will host high-level talks at the political and technical level with the US authorities this Wednesday afternoon in order to jointly assess any new threats and work toward a common approach to address them," European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said at a press conference Monday.

Schinas said Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc took part in a conference call Friday with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to discuss the possible laptop ban.

But he could not say whether Kelly would attend the talks Wednesday.

A US ban on now ubiquitous laptops could cause havoc, with more than 3,250 flights a week scheduled to leave EU airports for the US this summer, according to industry data.

Some experts also say there is a security risk in putting them with checked luggage given the danger of their batteries catching fire.

In March, Washington banned passengers from eight countries in North Africa and the Middle East from bringing laptop computers, tablets and other electronic devices larger than cellphones as carry-on items.

Britain followed with a similar ban applying to incoming flights from six Middle East and North African countries.

The move, which requires passengers to put the devices into checked baggage, came amid concerns that jihadist groups were devising bombs disguised as batteries in consumer electronics items.

A bomb that blew a hole in the fuselage of a Somali airliner in February 2016, killing one person, is believed to have been built into a laptop computer carried into the passenger cabin.
Thai authorities back down on their threat to ban Facebook over posts deemed critical of the royal family after officials said the social networking giant had agreed to expunge such content (AFP Photo/NICOLAS ASFOURI)

Bangkok (AFP) - Thai authorities Tuesday backed down on their threat to ban Facebook over posts deemed critical of the royal family after officials said the social networking giant had agreed to expunge such content.

Thailand ferociously enforces a draconian lese majeste law which outlaws any criticism of the monarchy.

Since ultra-royalist generals seized power three years ago more than 100 people have been charged, many for comments made online, and some people have been jailed for decades.

The authorities have redoubled efforts to purge the Thai web following the October ascension of the country's new king Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Last week Thailand's telecom regulator, the NBTC, said it would file a police complaint against Facebook's Thailand office and shut down the hugely popular site if it did not remove more than 130 "illegal" posts by Tuesday.

"Facebook is cooperating with Thailand," Takorn Tantasith, secretary general of the NBTC told reporters after the 10am deadline passed.

Takorn said some 97 web pages deemed critical of the monarchy remained on the platform but authorities were seeking court orders to send Facebook demanding their removal.

Thai authorities last week said Facebook had already removed some 170 posts.

The social network giant declined to comment on how many posts it had made unavailable in Thailand since the recent requests.

- Photos and videos scrubbed -

Under its published policies, Facebook says it will comply with a country's request to remove content if it receives a valid court order.

"When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content," the company told AFP.

"If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted."

According to its published data, Facebook made 50 posts unavailable to Thai users after requests from the government in 2016.

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No items were restricted in 2015 and 35 items were removed in 2014, the year of the coup.

Vajiralongkorn, 64, became king following the death of his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej who reigned for seven decades.

He has yet to attain his father's widespread popularity.

At least seven people are known to have been charged with lese majeste since he took the throne.

One, human rights lawyer Prawet Prapanukul, is facing up to 150-years in prison after being charged with a record ten separate counts if lese majeste.

Media inside Thailand must heavily self censor when reporting on the monarchy, making it perilous to detail what content has angered the authorities.

Somsak Jeamteerasakul, an exiled Thai academic and monarchy critic, posted a letter from Facebook on his own account informing him that some of his posts were among those censored.

The posts included photographs and video footage taken of Vajiralongkorn in Germany where he spends much of the year.

Thai authorities have previously said they have asked Google -- which also owns YouTube -- and other major web giants to delete pages on the royal family.

Thailand's junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha told reporters on Tuesday some 6,000 web pages have been removed recently by foreign social media platforms and search engines following government requests.

"Now we are trying to work on the remaining ones and we must continue to work by asking for cooperation from foreign governments, the private sector and Thai website administrators," he said.
TWIN FALLS  A felon wanted in connection to a break-in and theft last year led law enforcement on a short pursuit Monday morning through Twin Falls that ended when sheriffs deputies crashed into the back of his Volkswagen to stop the vehicle.

The pursuit began about 7:30 a.m. when Twin Falls County Sheriffs deputies spotted Robert James Troglia, 45, of Twin Falls driving a 2003 Volkswagen at Washington Street North and Addison Avenue East, sheriffs office spokeswoman Lori Stewart said in statement.

The deputies attempted to stop Troglia, who was wanted on two warrants for burglary and grand theft and a warrant from the parole commission, Stewart said. Idaho Department of Correction records show Troglia was a fugitive from parole for burglary convictions out of Twin Falls and Ada counties.

When the deputies tried stopping Troglia Monday morning, he fled and the deputies gave chase, ending the pursuit at Third Avenue West and Gooding Street when they intentionally crashed into the vehicle to stop it using a precision immobilization technique, known as a PIT maneuver.

Troglia and his passenger, 29-year-old Vicki Guzman of Buhl were arrested at the scene. Guzman was taken into custody on suspicion of harboring a wanted felon and possession of a controlled substance, marijuana and paraphernalia.

Troglia was arrested on the outstanding warrants, and the sheriffs office planned to request additional charges for eluding, grand theft, unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and trafficking in methamphetamine.

Court records show the burglary and grand theft warrants were issued Sept. 28, about a month after police say Troglia kicked down a door and stole more than $1,100 worth of electronics and furniture from a Twin Falls home.

That burglary occurred about 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 21 at a home in the 300 block of Jefferson Street, court documents said. The homeowner called police and told officers his home-surveillance system showed him a burglary was in progress.

When officers arrived, they found the back door of the house was kicked in and discovered the thief had taken a 50-inch flat screen television, a coffee table, a drill, the home-surveillance camera and other electronics totaling $1,190. But the surveillance system had captured images of the suspect, and police believed Troglia was the thief.

Both Troglia and Guzman are expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court.
BURLEY  May 16 marked two years since Tiffani Strelings family last saw her.

Tiffanis absence isnt the result of a joyous mission for a church, trek to college or a move across the country to start her own family.

Instead, her family suspects foul play  but so far, their questions remain unanswered.

The vibrant 22-year-old stood 54 tall, weighed 130 pounds and had chunky blond highlights in her chin-length-brown hair. She loved the color pink and talking on the phone.

For those who loved her, she just ceased to exist.

The family held vigils, sold shirts, posted fliers and billboards searching for someone with clues. They even hired a private detective to find out what happened to their daughter.

It drives you nuts. Its an emotional rollercoaster, Tiffanis father, William Streling, said about getting up every day to face another round of the same unanswered questions. Its a good thing that we tend to have our roller coaster days on separate days.

May 16, 2015

The last family members to see Tiffani were her father and stepmother, Stephanie Albert. Tiffani was living with them and went to their home to get her belongings so she could move in with her new boyfriend, James McLaws.

As a young woman, Tiffani struggled to find her place in life. Shed had some minor scrapes with the law but she was holding down a job, despite suffering from bouts of anxiety and depression.

The depression had set in after the death of her 1-month-old daughter, Saphire, in November 2013.

Tiffani and her babys father, Jordan Defilippis, had broken up but remained emotionally close. That day as she gathered her things at her fathers home, Tiffani found Defilippis hiding in her closet where she kept Saphires belongings.

It was odd that he was in the closet, Albert said about Defilippis, who had dated Tiffani for several years and was well-known by the family. But, wed never known him to have a temper, and there was never any physical fighting between the two.

Neither McLaws nor Defilippis could be reached for comment by the Times-News.

McLaws asked William Streling if he wanted him to handle Defilippis that day.

But Defilippis left peacefully, walking away from the home.

When Tiffani and McLaws left the house at 3:30 p.m. she told Streling and Albert that she and McLaws would be back at 5:30 p.m. for dinner.

No one could get a hold of her after that, Albert said.

At 10:30 p.m. McLaws came back to their house upset and said Tiffani was missing.

He said Defilippis had followed him and Tiffani to his house and Defilippis confronted him. He said Tiffani told the two men to work it out, and she went to take a shower. McLaws said he and Defilippis drove to a boat dock on Bedke Boulevard where they talked about Tiffanis relationship with Defilippis. McLaws said he then dropped Defilippis off at Storybook Park.

At the Strelings home that night, McLaws told them I didnt mean to hurt her, Albert said, and that Tiffani had left his home to walk a few blocks to her best friends house.

If she really walked a couple blocks to Ashleys house, how come nobody saw her? Albert said.

Streling and Albert went to the Cassia County Sheriffs Office the next day to report Tiffani missing but were told that McLaws had already reported her missing within hours after her disappearance.

There were a lot of holes in the story and the times were messed up, Tiffanis mother, Melissa Belt, said.

Afterward, Belt and Tiffanis stepfather, Don Belt, asked McLaws to their home for dinner so they could question him about their daughters disappearance.

We were scared of him, Don Belt said, and they kept a gun close by when McLaws came to their home.

He over-explained himself, Melissa Belt said about McLawss rendition of events that occurred during his drive with Defilippis to the boat docks.

He told us the exact route they drove including the street names, Belt said.

Defilippis told the Belts that during the drive McLaws kept asking him questions, like whether he was sleeping with Tiffani.

Every time James would ask a question, he would turn the stereo up like he didnt want to hear Jordans answer, Belt said.

At one point, McLawss former attorney Dave Haley said McLaws was considered a person of interest, in Tiffanis disappearance, but George Warrell, Cassia County undersheriff, said no suspects can be named at this point in the investigation.

We are actively working this case, Warrell said. We realize this is somebodys daughter and without a doubt we are following up every lead.

Warrell said investigators have worked every day on this case, since her disappearance.

Often, he said, its frustrating for officers not to be able to tell family members everything they know about a case.

Hopefully, it will pay off down the road, he said.

Warrell said the case was investigated for the worst possible scenario, and pieces of evidence that were collected will be used when an arrest is made.

In cases where an adult is reported missing, it can sometimes be difficult for investigators to determine whether a crime has occurred, he said. But Tiffanis disappearance prompted immediate action from the office and was investigated from the beginning as foul play.

Bring Tiffani home

Tiffani and her cousin Miranda Thomas were close growing up.

She loved music and hanging out with her friends. She was funny and she was always looking for the latest fashions, Thomas said.

Tiffani also enjoyed being outdoors.

She was family-oriented, Thomas said. Her family meant a lot to her. We miss her dearly.

Tiffanis sister, Christina Tolman, said it is hard some days to force a smile to her lips and face the world.

I dont think Ill ever stop thinking about her, Tolman said.

For Tiffanis father, the memories and sadness also visit daily.

His eyes reflect a moment of despair when his thoughts turn to a small stuffed Peanuts Snoopy dog  pink, her favorite color  that sits on his headboard. Tiffani chose the stuffed animal as the final resting place for her small daughters cremains after her death.

For Streling, it reminds him morning and night of a daughter he misses and what could have been.

In Melissa Belts quiet moments watching television, the wall of family photos is out of her direct view  and thats a good thing, because the photos remind her that her family is incomplete.

Tiffanis old bedroom, painted a pale pink, is now a playroom where grandchildren romp, the sights and sounds offering a momentary relief.

Belt does not keep in touch with family or friends on social media sites and was shocked when she Googled her daughters name, and all kinds of information popped up.

Everyone has a theory, she said. Tiffani just walked away or that she was murdered and by whom.

Her daughter, Belt said, would not have simply walked away, never contacting family members or friends again.

Tiffani had hopes and dreams for the future. She was learning to bake and would get recipes on her phone and take pictures of food.

Belt chuckled at the memory of one photo she saw of Tiffanis efforts at baking cookies, which had melted together.

Just as quickly as the happy memory flows a darker thought replaces it. The thoughts about what may have happened to her daughter never leave her alone, Belt said.

Theyre always there, she said. There is no peace.
Q: I had a double stroller and a 6-year-old with me. There is a section of road where there is no sidewalk, but there is a bike lane. Can I use it? A lady in a parked car was mad at me for using the bike lane because I wasnt riding a bike.

A: Turns out walking can get pretty complicated, depending on where youre walking.

I believe, in general, it is acceptable for pedestrians to walk along the shoulder of the road where there is no sidewalk provided, said Rick Greenawald, a Twin Falls cyclist. Seeing as a bike lane is usually located on the far right side of the road along the shoulder, a pedestrian would be walking in the bike lane, far safer than walking out in the road to the left of the bike lane where they would be more exposed to passing vehicles.

Greenawald rides thousands of miles a year and encounters many walkers and runners in bike lanes, especially on Falls Avenue to the east where there is no sidewalk.

What is extremely annoying, he said, is people parking vehicles in the bike lane, which is clearly illegal. Even worse are the drivers who intrude into the bike lane while driving, putting a cyclist at extreme risk of being impacted.

But whats the law say?

Idaho Code 49-708 states if a sidewalk is not available, pedestrians walking on a highway may walk on a shoulder or far outside edge of the roadway, and should walk only on the left side of the highway.

Ryan Howe, sergeant of the Traffic Unit for the Twin Falls Police Department, said, We drive on the right side of road so pedestrians should walk against vehicular traffic, unless you walk backwards, which would be difficult to do with a stroller. Bicyclists also ride on the right side of the road if they obey the law.

Also, Howe said, The bicycle is considered a vehicle so if the pedestrian is on the highway, they should yield to the bicycle. The bicycle on the sidewalk or in a crosswalk yields to the pedestrian.

In Twin Falls, motorists arent allowed to park in bike lanes, and officers have cited drivers for doing so. But Howe couldnt recall ever issuing a ticket for someone improperly using a bike lane.

A stroller is not the same as a bicycle, Howe said. It might be considered a human powered vehicle.
TWIN FALLS  Theres good news and bad news for College of Southern Idaho students.

The good: Tuition will remain the same for this fall. The bad: Theres a chance it may go up for the spring 2018 semester.

A final decision hasnt been made. CSI trustees debated a proposal during a May 15 meeting to raise tuition $5 per credit  from $130 to $135. Thats a 4 percent increase.

College officials say it would help provide additional revenue needed for the general fund. But some students are worried about yearly tuition increases that have become commonplace.

Idaho Code limits tuition increases to 10 percent each year. This would be substantially below that, said Jeff Harmon, CSIs vice president of administration.

CSI trustees decided May 15 to hold off on making a decision. The topic will come back to the board in July.

Harmon told trustees it was their decision whether to increase tuition for this fall or spring 2018. He recommended the board allow CSI administrators to review fall semester enrollment and have the authority to decide later whether its necessary to raise tuition for the spring semester.

But Michelle Schutt, associate vice president of student services, told the board she had concerns about that recommendation.

I feel like we should be up front with students as early as we can, Schutt said. Plus, she added, having early notice would help CSIs financial aid employees.

Students start registering in November for spring semester classes.

President Jeff Fox said he agreed fully with Schutts comments about students needing notice far in advance.

CSI officials would like to keep the tuition cost down, he said, but the college still has the lowest community college tuition in Idaho by a fair amount.

CSIs Student Senate voted 8-2 earlier this month to support a board decision to raise tuition, if it was necessary. Two students abstained from voting and two were absent.

Student Senate talked about the proposal in length, dean of students Jason Ostrowski said. They were concerned CSI administrators seem to come to them every year with a proposed tuition increase.

During a public comment period at Mondays CSI board meeting, one speaker asked the board why it is not considering an increase for out-of-state tuition.

CSI is trying to recruit out-of-state and international students, Harmon told her, and believes raising tuition beyond the existing $280 per credit would hamper recruitment efforts.

Plus, it costs the same amount of money to educate a student from Elko, Nev., or Ontario, Ore., for example, as a student who lives in Twin Falls, he said.

With nearly half of CSIs student body made up of high schoolers taking dual credit classes, trustee Jan Mittleider said shed like to see state movement toward increasing the $65 per credit cost.

That amount hasnt increased in a decade, she said, and she wants to see all CSI students sharing the load in tuition increases.

Trustee Jack Nelsen said he doesnt think the board can slice things that thin. The college cant have a budget deficit, he added, or be irresponsible with setting a budget.

Under state statute, the dual credit fee could be raised up to $75 per credit, Fox said, and approval would be needed from the Idaho Board of Education.

The board set dual credit fees in April for the upcoming school year.

If CSI requested a dual credit fee increase, it would have to show it would provide enhanced services to those students using the $10 per credit increase, said Todd Schwarz, CSIs executive vice president.

During their Monday meeting, trustees also:

Approved fiscal year 2018 employee contracts.

Approved a continuing budget resolution for July and August. The start of a new fiscal year is July 1. The resolution allows CSI to continue operating under this current years budget for an additional two months until officials can receive more accurate revenue and expense projections.

Granted permission to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Magic Valley to fence a 14,800-square-foot playground area at the Twin Falls club. Special permission was needed because the club leases its land from CSI.

Voted to make a few changes to in-state residency requirements to align with state policy.

Heard presentations from a GNED 101 class that focused on hands-on anthropology and biology, and about the colleges summer bridge program for first-time, full-time, at-risk students.
TWIN FALLS  The citys future City Hall and Public Safety Complex are coming together, according to the head of the firm doing the work.

The basement of the future City Hall, which is going in the former Banner furniture building on Main Avenue, is in the finishing stages and the buildings exterior is fully sheeted, Michael Arrington, president of Starr Corporation, the contractor on the project, told the City Council Monday night.

You can get a feel for what thats going to look like, he said.

The window system, he said, is being constructed in the shop now so it can be installed when the exterior masonry is done.

The building will be energy efficient, with features such as LED lighting fixtures.

As far as the window systems ... and those things, the building was built to be efficient, Arrington said.

City Manager Travis Rothweiler said the city is seeking to get the building Leadership in Energy and Enviornmental Design (LEED) certified, and that it could qualify for the United States Green Building Councils silver certification.

As for the former City Hall being rebuilt to be part of a new Public Safety Complex, Arrington said the demolition work there is mostly done and utility installation is being done now. The structural steel was installed Saturday and over the next few weeks the buildings interior will take shape.

From the outside youre able to see some of the changes in the look of that building, he said.

Arrington said the project is within budget and on schedule.

The Council also voted to give out $100,000 in Municipal Powers Outsource Grants to about a dozen nonprofits. At $25,000, Trans IV buses is the biggest recipient.

The Council also:

Heard a short presentation on the sport of pickleball. City officials are weighing whether to include money for public pickleball courts in next yearss budget.

Voted to buy for $80,000 property near the current Public Works building to provide more parking and better deal with stormwater issues.

Honored retiring police Staff Sgt. Arnold Morgado, who has been on the departments SWAT team since 2000 and is its field commander.
A new propaganda message featuring the son of Osama bin Laden could be evidence that the militant group is trying to rejuvenate its global appeal by using a new generation of the bin Laden family.
Im not sure the average person obsesses over James Comey, Trumps taxes and North Korea. Last week I read a book titled Earning the Rockies. The author is a fellow likely once described as a neo-conservative, but some lessons of history have made Robert D. Kaplan more of a realist. The first work I ever read by him was almost a quarter century ago. A friend from South Dakota recommended Kaplans Balkan Ghosts. It described centuries of a house of horrors known as Southeastern Europe. Kaplans world view was tamed by the second Iraq War.

Two summers ago he climbed into his car and drove across country from east to west. His excursion for 1,500 miles mirrored a trip I made six months earlier. Much like my odyssey, he found himself a fly on the wall in local diners, pubs and convenience stores. During his stops for coffee and meals he listened to the chatter from local people. He describes in the latest book how the folks were mostly pleasant, but the author is critical because they dont much care about what happens in Washington or around the globe. He does, to his credit, realize the interests of people in the Great Plains, Great Basin and the mountains dont match the lifestyles of coastal elites.

Saturday I ate breakfast at a diner in rural Utah. My waitress beamed a bright smile when she saw I was wearing a Minnesota Vikings shirt. She fetched her purse and showed me her Vikings themed bank card. Then she conversed with some fellows at another table about pickup trucks. It seems her husbands first wife was such a spendthrift his credit is awful. Buying a new truck required cash. The discussion then drifted into the merits of extended cabs and extended boxes. This might not impress a Manhattanite, but pickup trucks are a staple of mountain life.

A few weeks ago I was lunching at a diner in Gooding and the neighboring conversations were all about weather. Rain and snow and some years the lack thereof are a business concern. A guy at the next table was sharing the story of a tractor he bought at auction. He got a bargain when you consider the cost of used tractors is skyrocketing and some are bringing record prices. These are things we know matter in this corner of the world. Kaplan acknowledges the character of Americans who settled the West. It was a life-or-death struggle for many. The men and women who came here were individualists or communitarians (the LDS Church). Both groups saw government as distant, often out of touch and generally meddlesome. I believe they also have a healthy skepticism of elites, and that includes news media.

The Comey firing doesnt faze people I meet. Bureaucrats come and go, and the FBI director didnt appear to have many fans on the left and right. As for Trumps taxes, it has faded from headlines as media chases the latest fire. When Trump threatens to end daily news briefings, your buddies at newspapers and TV networks fulminate about the end of the Republic. Can we note our federal Constitution neither mentions daily briefings and the release of tax forms? Our founders wouldve found the notion of a government confiscating your earnings to be anathema. Media in the early days of the United States consisted of pamphlets and broadsheets and both were filled with invective and political opinion. This idea of tradition implies longstanding behavior. Before joining a national ticket, Theodore Roosevelt served as governor of New York. When he encountered reporters outside the capitol he would strike a deal. He would announce he was going to race up the outdoor stairs and anyone who could reach the top alongside him would be granted some comments. Ive been there. Its a long slog. The wheezing nicotine addicts never reached the top. Today Teddy lives forever at Mt. Rushmore. The United States will survive President Trump. The news gang, however, is sure to burst a collective aneurysm.

Many of us are now old enough to remember an America of rapid and stable economic growth. We yearn for a restoration. Those people in those diners where I eat are looking for just a few things in life. Weather may be beyond political efforts but a decent future for our kids isnt too much for asking. People want a job or maybe a better job. They want to be able to afford the tools for their trades. We could be talking about pickup trucks and tractors. They dont want to see all their children move a thousand miles away in search of work. Wholl take care of mom and dad in old age? Wholl run the farm? Wholl ensure the tradition of carving a civilization in the desert survives? This is our national mythology, and its far more important than whining of self-absorbed media elites. Trump has a bigger chore than pleasing pampered columnists at the New York Times.

Donald Trump wasnt my first choice to lead. However, those of us living in flyover country have spent decades waiting for someone to recognize the old, stagnant methods arent working. Action! is what people are demanding, and in this part of the United States it means get out of the way. Trump is a man of action like Teddy Roosevelt but is also reversing much of what his predecessor started in this corner of the country. If it jump-starts a stagnant economy, reporters will be the only people who remain complaining. A writer a few weeks ago labeled flyover country a tourist colony for elites. This isnt Williamsburg. We arent actors. We live here and make our living here.

Im struck by something Kaplan repeated in the book. We appear disinterested in distant cities and foreign affairs but we maintain the clan mindset of Americas real builders. The Celtic peoples from Ulster and Scotland and later Southern Irish. We wont bother you if you dont bother us. Kaplan concludes the old clan response for transgressors is blunt. Mess with us and well come and kill you! Many days I fear the country is very close to a bloodbath. The elites whistle past the graveyard.
Saudi Arabia has been chosen as permanent seat of the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the time the kingdom strives to polish its image on human rights.

The IPHRC is a branch of OIC and will provide on all human rights issues to the Council of Foreign Ministers.

Saudi foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir attended Monday the inauguration of the headquarters of the commission, which will be operating from Jeddah.

The 18-member IPHRC will advise on human rights issues concerning each member state of OIC. The establishment of the commission was decided in Astana, Kazakhstan in June 2011 during OICs foreign ministers summit.

Then the individual member states have to absorb those recommendations, internalize and make policy changes within them, said Marghoob Saleem Butt, executive director at the OIC-IPHRC Secretariat.

The experts, all independent and coming from the OIC member countries, are elected but do not represent their countries on the board.

IPHRC issues recommendations on reports submitted to its appreciation. Reports addressed so far include negative impact of sanctions, Islamophobia and human rights issues in central Africa.

The commission however indicates that its prime concern is human rights issues in Palestinian territories as well as the rights of women and children, and the right to development.

Housing the rights commission is a diplomatic win for Riyadh, which has been taking initiatives to improve its image on human rights.

The kingdom was elected last month as member of the UN Womens Rights Commission. The decision sparked outrage among western human rights activists. Saudi Arabia is repeatedly criticized for ignoring womens rights.
The Morocco-Nigeria landmark project to lay an Atlantic gas pipeline that will carry Nigerian gas through six West African countries up to Morocco and eventually to Europe is heading towards materialization with the signing Monday of new agreements related to the project.

The agreements were signed in Rabat under the chairmanship of King Mohammed VI and in the presence of Nigerias Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama.

The pipeline venture is one of the milestone projects spearheaded by King Mohammed VI, whose vision for cooperation with Africa is underpinned by co-development, exchange of expertise, and a win-win partnership, the ultimate goal being the continents integration.

The Atlantic Gas Pipeline, to stretch over 4000km, will extend the existing West African Gas Pipeline that currently transports Nigerian gas to Ghana, up to the Mediterranean shore, going through Cote dIvoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania.

According to estimates, the project will cost more than $10 billion and Arab financial institutions, which held their annual meeting in Rabat last April, have been invited to get involved in the pipeline project, a model of South-South cooperation.

The involvement of Arab financial institutions could accelerate the timetable of this mega project.

The first agreements on the pipeline were signed by the two countries sovereign wealth funds during the Kings visit to Abuja early December 2016.

Shortly after returning home, the King held a meeting in Casablanca by mid-December with senior Nigerian officials to examine the implementation of the project. Agreements on feasibility studies were then sealed.

The pipeline will have a beneficial impact on Morocco, which will thus diversify its energy mix and reduce dependence on Algerian gas, and on Nigeria, which harbors 30% of the continents gas reserves but whose production remains largely untapped. The entire West African region will also draw benefits from the project regarding its energy independence and security and its electrification efforts. In addition to that, the pipeline will spur West African states efforts to preserve security in the region

The Nigeria-Morocco pipeline will have a positive impact on over 300 million inhabitants, as it will speed up electrification projects across West Africa, and serve as a basis for the creation of a competitive electricity regional market, said Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, during the Monday ceremony.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said the conclusion of these agreements, only few months after the royal visit to Nigeria, evidences the success of the Rabat-Abuja partnership.

The pipeline-related agreements were initialed by CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Kacalla Baru, and the director general of the Moroccan Office for Hydrocarbons and Mining, Amina Benkhadra.

Another agreement was signed during the ceremony between the Moroccan state-owned phosphates OCP group and the Fertilizers Producers & Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN).

FEPSAN President Thomas Ethu underlined that cooperation with OCP group helped, in a first phase, to transfer know-how on the commodity blending, storage and transportation.

CEO of OCP group Mostafa Terrab said that the partnership concluded between Morocco and Nigeria is a model of south-south cooperation.

It concerns the entire agricultural value chain, mainly the setting up of fertilizing solutions that are adapted to the Nigerian soil and cultivation, Terrab said.

During the Kings visit to Abuja, the two sides signed an agreement under which OCP would build a fertilizers factory in Nigeria.

This cooperation will enable to maximize local fertilizer production, through the creation of a platform for basic chemical products, secure fertilizer supply at competitive prices and reinforce local distribution channels, and help thus Nigeria forge ahead with its agricultural development plan.

The Nigerian Foreign Minister acknowledged that thanks to Moroccos fertilizer and phosphate resources, We are now on the way to build a strong agricultural infrastructure.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Masimba Tafirenyika of Zimbabwe as Director of the UN Information Centre in Pretoria, an office that provides service to South Africa and Tafirenyika started assuming his duties as of Monday, a press release said.

Tafirenyika was most recently Chief of the Africa Section in the United Nations Department of Public Information and Editor-in-Chief of its Africa Renewal magazine, since 2009. Previously, he served as Officer-in-Charge of the Pretoria information centre from 2008 to 2009, and as Deputy Director from 2006 to 2008.

Tafirenyika who held several key positions at the UN since 1996 was an Associate Third World Visiting Researcher for a Georgetown University research program, run by the Centre of Concern in Washington, D.C., from 1992 to 1993. Prior to this, he worked as the Research Coordinator for the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 1985 to 1992. He has also worked as a freelance journalist, based in Zimbabwe, writing on political and economic development issues for various publications around the world.

He has a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from Columbia University in the United States and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Zimbabwe.
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Models in France now required to get a doctors note before hitting the catwalk

France has always blazed a trail in the fashion industry; and this time, theyre doing it through a new policy that requires their models to present a doctors certificate to prove that they are healthy enough to work. The policy was issued last week by the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, ABCNews.go.com reported. In a statement, ministry officials said that the aim of the new policy is to end the promotion of unrealistic beauty ideals and prevent eating disorders among the youth. The objective is also to protect the health of a category of the population particularly affected by this risk: models.

Under the policy, doctors are required to pay specific attention to Body Mass Index (BMI) when they evaluate the models health. This could put many underweight models out of work, even though the accuracy of BMI as a health indicator has long been debated. The policy specified that even models under 16 have to go through the same assessment. The medical certificate they present will be valid for two years. Additionally, the ministry issued a measure, effective October 1, that will require advertisements to disclose any image manipulation on a model by marking commercial photographs with the label photographie retouchee.

Violating these policies could cost companies and agencies a lot of money. Those that hire models without medical clearance could face a hefty fine of up to 75,000 euros and be imprisoned for up to six months.

While the move has been applauded by many as a step in the right direction in the campaign against eating disorders, there is some concern about using BMI to evaluate the health of models. In an article published in the journal Obesity, doctors argued that BMI is no longer an effective tool to diagnose obesity, saying that some people with high BMIs are considered unhealthy but are otherwise found to have good blood pressure, properly functioning livers, and normal cholesterol levels.

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The fashion industry has long been criticized for promoting impossible beauty standards, not just to the general public, but among the models that struggle to build a career in a notoriously discriminating field. A recent study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders surveyed 85 female fashion models to assess unhealthy weight control behaviors and perceived pressure from their agencies to lose weight. According to the results, models reported being pressured to lose weight, which increased the risk of engaging in unhealthy weight control behaviors. The study has prompted over 40 top models to sign an open letter urging the American fashion industry to take more measures against eating disorders, saying they will promote the brands and companies that lead the initiative on social media.

The letter, entitled #DEARNYFW, read: too often, models are being pressured to jeopardize their health and safety as a prerequisite for employmenttogether we are challenging you to make a serious commitment to promote health and diversity on the runway. Through our social media platforms, which collectively reach millions of people, we will recognize the industry leaders who step up to this challenge.

While the fashion industry has always been associated with eating disorders, they are not the only ones who experience it. In fact the problem is more widespread than people realize. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), over 30 million people suffer from an eating disorder in the US across all ages and genders. Eating disorders directly result in the death of at least one person every 62 minutes, and have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Additionally, 13 percent of women over 50 engage in eating disorder behaviors, showing that it is not exclusive to teenagers and fashion models.

Sources include:

ABCNews.go.com

Social-Sante.gouv.fr

OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com 1

OnlineLibrary.Wiley.com 2

NationalEatingDisorders.org

ANAD.org
Ushguli village in focus of Wall Street Journal and National Geographic

Stunning scenery, iconic landmarks and unique traditions of the Georgian village of Ushguli, a UNESCO heritage site in the mountainous Svaneti region, are being featured in the Wall Street Journal and National Geographic.Journalists from both world famous media outlets will prepare a short film and article about the beautiful Ushguli village, which also will tell the story of local peoples everyday life.The Georgian National Tourism Administration (GNTA) invited a press tour from Great Britain to entice more international visitors to the historic Caucasian nation.A short film and an article about Ushguli will be published on the websites and social media pages of the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic and Star Airlines.Georgia started active marketing campaigns in March in a bid to attract more tourists.Between March 25  June 30, the GNTA will launch special online campaigns and TV advertisements in order to promote Georgia in 14 countries.
The News in Brief

Red Cross to Identify Remains from Georgias Wars



On May 3, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) started the next round of excavations to search for and identify the human remains of persons, who went missing during and after the armed conflicts of 1990s and the August 2008 in Georgia, ICRC reported to Civil.ge on May 6.



The first gravesites to be excavated by the ICRC forensic experts are located in Gori (two locations) and Kaspi Municipalities (one location) in eastern Georgia.



More than 30 gravesites are to be excavated by the ICRC between May and August in 2017. The gravesites are located in Shida Kartli, Imereti and Abkhazia regions of Georgia, as well as the area around the capital city of Tbilisi. Remains of about 150 missing persons are to be recovered.



Information about these sites was collected in the framework of two ICRC-established coordination mechanisms, one uniting participants from Tbilisi and Sokhumi, and another consisting of participants from Tbilisi, Tskhinvali and the Russian Federation.



The coordination mechanisms were established in 2010 to provide answers for the families on the fate of their missing kins.



Some 249 sets of human remains were recovered in 2010-2016. Of these, 107 were identified, handed over to their families and buried. The identification process of the remaining 142 sets of human remains is still ongoing.

(civil.ge)







Central Park to be constructed at Tbilisi Zoo territory



Tbilisi zoo will be located near Tbilisi sea and Tbilisis Central Park will be constructed at the former zoo territory, Tbilisi Mayor Davit Narmania has said.



According to Narmania, the zoo will be deployed at the new location gradually, as the process will cost up to 30-40 million GEL.



Up to 20 houses for animals will be made this year and the animals will be transported this year, Narmania claimed.

(ipn)







Georgian, Estonian Govts cooperate to improve Georgias education system



A new national curriculum for primary grades based on the Estonian experience will upgrade pre-school and general education in Georgia.



The three year partnership between Georgia and Estonia aims at transforming education in Georgia by introducing innovations and digital technologies in education process.



The Estonian Ministry of Education and Foundation INNOVE in partnership with UNICEF Georgia will support the Georgian Ministry of Education and Science in applying approved national curricula in the primary grades in selected schools and in introducing full-fledged (BA and MA level) programs in state universities of Georgia for pre-service training of preschool and general education teachers to enter into profession.



Georgian Deputy Education Minister Lia Gigauri said this new project will improve the quality of education in Georgia and provide curricula that encourage the children to better perform at their classes.



This cooperation will consist of technical support, capacity development and exchange of experts and experience sharing.



UNICEF Georgia said the memorandum signed today is very important for Georgian educational system. According to the memorandum, Bachelor and Master level programs will be developed for pre-service training of teachers as well as in-service trainings for the working teachers.



To further benefit from the experience of the Estonian education system, which proved to be exemplary for the European Union (EU) and other countries, Foundation INNOVE will bring curriculum experts and academicians from Estonian universities to provide support to the Georgian national universities.



The new partnership is believed to contribute to Georgias on-going process of alignment with the relevant European Union standards and best practices as per the EU - Georgia Association Agreement. The program is supported by Development Cooperation Fund of Estonia.

(agenda.ge)




@MichaelAuslen

Lawmakers left Tallahassee last week without accomplishing an agenda item that has been at the forefront for years: They passed no legislation restricting abortions or targeting abortion clinics.

Its the first time in eight regular sessions of the Legislature  since 2010  that abortion bills havent passed.

A bill (HB 19) that would have allowed women to sue their doctors within 10 years of an abortion if they develop an injury or emotional distress cleared a few House committees but never moved in the Senate. Lawmakers also passed over a bill (HB 203) banning abortion at 20 weeks after fertilization.

Most bills dont make it all the way through the process, explained Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee where HB 19 stalled in the House. You have to address issues that have to be addressed as well as issues that can be addressed and appear to be moving in the other chamber.  Youve got to prioritize based on what can get done.

Because HB 19 never had a single hearing the Florida Senate, which would be required to sign on for it to become law, it wouldn't have made sense to take up valuable committee time continue hearing it in the House, Sprowls said.

Legislation (HB 969) that would have guaranteed a state contract for the Florida Pregnancy Care Network, a chain of clinics that advocates against abortion and whose board includes a former House member and a one-time candidate for state representative, passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

The bills failure is a rare victory for abortion-rights organizations like Planned Parenthood, which in recent years have had to fend off efforts to defund non-abortion services, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period and even an outright ban on abortion. In most cases (except the total ban), bills have passed just to be blocked by judges.

Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, credits grassroots activism for killing the bills.

Ever since the election and Womens Marches in January, Planned Parenthood has seen huge spikes on our volunteers and supporters, she said. As a Planned Parenthood advocate and somebody whos seen an increase in support for Planned Parenthood, I believe it was a factor."

However, it's worth noting that Republican leadership in the Legislature generally doesn't support Planned Parenthood and has for years pushed back against them, including proposing budget language in 2016 that would have stripped funding for non-abortion services from them.

Sprowls has voted against the group's position repeatedly while in office, as have other members of House leadership.

Photo: Planned Parenthood supporters in Tampa this February. (Sara DiNatale, Times)
@PatriciaMazzei

State Rep. Daisy Baez doesnt appear to live in the House district she represents, a possible violation of the Florida Constitution that could haunt her Florida Senate candidacy.

Her residence continues to be a prim Coral Gables house with a stack of her old campaign yard signs leaning against one of the porch walls. On Monday evening, Baez wasnt inside  but her two rescue dogs, Oso and Coco, were. So was her campaign team, working around the kitchen table. Baez was expected back a couple of hours later.

The home is in House District 112. Baez, a Democrat, represents House District 114, whose boundaries begin about half a mile away. Florida requires lawmakers to live and vote in the districts they represent by Election Day. For Baez, a freshman, that was Nov. 8 of last year.

Six days earlier, on Nov. 2, Baez changed her voter-registration address to a Coral Gables apartment within the District 114 boundaries, election records show.

I have two residences, Baez told the Miami Herald in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Baez said she rents an apartment on Anderson Road, about a mile and a half away from her three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on Malaga Avenue where she claimed a homestead exemption on her 2016 property taxes, according to county records. Asked if the apartment was vacant or occupied, Baez cleared her throat several times, sounded uncomfortable and wouldnt respond.

I have kept this home, and I have a rental, she said. I am renovating this house to put it on the market.

Baez then ended the interview, saying she needed to consult with her campaign team before speaking further.

More here.

Photo credit: Scott Keeler, Tampa Bay Times
Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday appointed his communications director and chief spokeswoman, Jackie Schutz Zeckman, to succeed Kim McDougal as chief of staff.

"Jackie has been on my team since my first year in office and has done a great job leading my communications efforts and conveying my vision of Florida as the best destination for families and businesses," Scott said in a statement. "Along with her work on my communications team, Jackie was an integral part of my reelection efforts and has continued to be a trusted advisor in all aspects of implementing our agenda for Florida. I have full confidence that she will do an outstanding job as my chief of staff.

Schutz Zeckman, 31, is a trusted and visible Scott ally who has logged many miles with the two-term governor, both in state government and on both of his campaigns. She became communications director aftter the 2014 election when her friend, Melissa Stone, became Scott's chief of staff. Stone is a top political adviser to the governor.

A St. Petersburg native, she is an interesting pick, particularly after she called House Speaker Richard Corcoran "hypocritical" in a Times/Herald story a few weeks ago. It's rare for a governor's spokesman to attack a presiding officer of the Legislature by name, but it was a vivid example of her personal loyalty to the governor. As chief of staff, she'll have to deal, up close and personal, with Corcoran and his equally loyal inner circle of advisers.

Schutz Zeckman will be Scott's sixth chief of staff in about six-and-a-half years and will take over when his relations with fellow Republicans in the Legislature are at an all-time low.

It's seen as a virtual certainty that Scott will veto a massive amount of line-item spending in the budget in response to his three priorities being rejected by lawmakers. Scott has repeatedly criticized the Legislature's education budget as being inadequate, so his veto of the entire education budget is a realistic possibility. That would likely worsen tensions between the executive and legislative branches and would require a special legislative session before July 1.

McDougal earned $170,000 a year as chief of staff. Schutz Zeckman currently earns $135,000.

As for McDougal, it was widely assumed in the Tallahassee political world that she would have left before the 2018 legislative session begins in January. A sense of urgency was evident in the abruptness of her departure announcement on Monday (effective July 1), and it caught many insiders by surprise.

Few are as well plugged-in as Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who as the likely next Senate president dealt with many high-level issues in the closing days of the session. Galvano told the News Service of Florida that he was not aware McDougal was leaving and that he was disappointed to hear it.

I always felt like she was doing a good job," Galvano told the News Service. "So we'll see where the governor's administration goes from here.
@PatriciaMazzei

Al Cardenas has a few concerns about President Donald Trump's long-term effect on the Republican Party.

Cardenas, the former head of the American Conservative Union and of the Republican Party of Florida, told McClatchy's "Beyond the Bubble" podcast this week that voters are starting to form lasting "impressions" of Trump while the president's White House is in disarray.

"If the elections were held tomorrow, the president wouldn't help the ticket, either in the House or in the Senate," Cardenas lamented.

He criticized Trump for firing FBI Director James Comey while the feds are investigating Russian meddling into the election.

"To remove the FBI director who's in the middle of it all, suddenly -- it's just not good optics," Cardenas said. "I have to believe that the majority of the public did not think that this was a good idea."

Join our political reporters from around the country and listen to the episode here:
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The Clark Fork Coalition, with University of Montana wildlife biology professor Erick Greene, will host a field-based presentation on Missoulas osprey Wednesday, May 17. Greene will give an overview of the Clark Fork River, its history of mining, the Milltown Dam, what osprey tell us about the health of aquatic systems, and why this one osprey pair in Missoula is so special. The event is free and open to the public and will take place from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. Participants are asked to gather at the site of the Hellgate Canyon osprey nest at the new Missoula College site at 1205 E. Broadway, and park in the far east parking lot (closest to the river) Feel free to bring binoculars or spotting scopes.
Forums in Missoula and Helena this week will focus on the number of kids using electronic cigarettes and on preventing a generation of nicotine addicts.

Wednesday's public forum at Sentinel High in Missoula, put on in partnership with the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, will include a panel of expert to discuss the dangers of e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco. Another forum is scheduled Thursday in Helena.

Parents have a lot of questions and they are getting different answers depending on who they talk to, said Nicole Aune, manager for the program run by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

About 60 percent of Montanas 2015 high school seniors reported having tried e-cigarettes, with 36 percent reporting using the product within 30 days of taking 2015 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

An e-cigarette is made with liquid nicotine, which is derived from tobacco. When heated, the liquid produces a vapor that is then inhaled by the user. The vapor is said to contain nicotine, flavorings and either glycerol or propylene glycol, or both, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

The journal has also found evidence of formaldehyde  a carcinogen  in the vapor produced by e-cigarettes.

The long-term effects of these products on adult health are still unknown, said Stacy Campbell, section supervisor for the prevention program. But nicotine in any form is dangerous to kids because their brains are still developing, Campbell said.

It might be safer. We dont know because it is so new, but its not safe, Campbell said.

Montana joined a lawsuit against tobacco companies in 1997, which resulted in a master settlement agreement between states and tobacco companies. The settlement prohibited advertisements targeting kids in advertising. Montana law was updated in 2015 to prevent people under 18 from buying e-cigarettes. But, there are no laws preventing companies from marketing e-cigarettes to kids.

Tobacco company ads tout e-cigarettes as an alternative to, or for people trying to quit, traditional cigarettes. But Campbell and her team are concerned the companies are targeting kids.

The electronic vapor cigarettes come in flavors like bubblegum, cotton candy and gummy bear. The organization Tobacco Free Kids calls this the flavor trap, a strategy used by tobacco companies to make their products appealing to kids. While the sale of flavored cigarettes is illegal under federal law, with the exception of menthol, e-cigarettes flavors are not banned.

Blu eCig, an e-cigarette manufacturer owned by Lorillard Tobacco Co., which owns cigarette brands like Newport and Old Gold, has created a character named Mr. Cool who acts as a cartoon pitchman for the e-cigarette company. Mr. Cool is comparable to Joe Camel, a cartoon character who effectively marketed cigarettes to kids in the 1990s," according to a presentation by Brian King, the deputy director for research translation in the Centers for Disease Controls Office on Smoking and Health.

King cites research that e-cigarettes may help to reduce the number of cigarette users, but marketers have found ways to advertise nicotine replacement therapies, like the nicotine patch, without making the products appeal to youth. Blu eCig advertisements include sponsorship of music festivals and commercials by actress Jenny McCarthy.

The industry has to replace their users, because the product will kill you, Campbell said. So they are always seeking out replacement customers.

E-cigarettes are "so scary because it feels like we are reliving the past," she said.

The Montana Attorney Generals office supported the age restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes, but the regulation of these products is up to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Eric Sell, office spokesman.

In May 2016, the FDA issued new regulations over vape pens, refillable vaporizers and e-juices. The new rules made it illegal to sell the products to minors, banned free samples and required warning labels.

Scott Gottlieb, confirmed last week as the new head of the FDA, will take charge of regulating the e-cigarette industry. Gottlieb served for more than a year as a board member for a company that sold vaping products.

The state prevention program focuses how tobacco companies target kids so parents can better educate their children, Campbell said.

The program wants kids to know how marketers try to manipulate them into buying the product. Local communities can also advocate for keeping these products behind shelves to limit kids' exposure, she said.

The Missoula forum is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Sentinel High School Auditorium, 901 South Ave. W.

The Helena forum is slated for 7 p.m. Thursday at Capital High School Auditorium, 100 Valley Drive.
Two Missoula lawmakers from each side of the aisle talked about the need for greater bipartisanship at a Missoula City Club luncheon on Monday.

Brad Tschida, a Republican who represents House District 97, and Nate McConnell, a Democrat who represents House District 89, spent the hour giving the audience a wrap-up of the recently concluded state legislative session, including what didnt work and what they found successful.

Sometimes we fail to honor the other side of the divide in how we see things, Tschida said. Sometimes we put blinders on and dont look at how what were doing is going to impact what the other side is trying to do.

Tschida said that while he doesnt always agree with McConnell on the issues, hes appreciative of the way McConnell is willing to sit and listen to other viewpoints without being dismissive.

Hes always open to your ideas and hes not going to pigeonhole you, Tschida said of his colleague.

McConnell agreed, saying that its important to be a human being during the legislative session.

However, both men did hint that they partly faulted the other party for some of the failures of the session, including the failure to pass an infrastructure bonding bill.

Tschida blamed Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, for the death of House Bill 8, which would have funded rural water projects.

Tschida said he thinks the governor was retaliating against Republicans for not supporting infrastructure bonding bills, House Bill 645 and Senate Bill 367. Tschida said he didnt support either of those bills because both included the funding of four buildings at colleges around the state that he believed could have been paid for by Long Range Building Project funds instead.

McConnell said he was disappointed that Austin Knudsen, the Republican Speaker of the House, did not allow a vote on an alternative bill that McConnell believed was a good compromise on infrastructure.

There were Republicans and Democrats and the governor working to find a solution, and there was an alternative bill that passed the Senate, and it was sitting in the speakers drawer, and all he had to do was hand it to the clerk to get a House vote, and the bill was not brought out of the drawer, McConnell said. We didnt get to vote on it and I have yet to hear the speaker say why. Its the great untold story of this legislative session.

On the final day of the session, Bullock and the Democrats told Republicans they would compromise on bonding if Knudsen would allow a vote on a cash-only bill to fund some of the Democratic priorities, such as a renovation to a building on the Montana State University campus and construction of a veterans center in Butte. However, after meeting with leaders of the GOP caucus, Knudsen announced he would not support the deal and called for adjourning without letting the bill come to a vote.

It was truly a strange end to the session, McConnell said.

However, both lawmakers touted some successful bills. McConnell said he worked with other Democrats and Republicans to get a variety of criminal justice reforms passed. He also said he was proud of helping expand a pilot program for pre-kindergarten education and getting an Earned Income Tax Credit for the state, which was a bipartisan effort.

Tschida said he was proud of the fact that he didnt vote for any bills that increased property taxes, as that is one of the issues he hears most from his constituents.

In the end, both men said that if they are around for the next session, theyll try their best to work with the other party.

Anybody who is serving in the Legislature is serving on their own dime, because we both know they dont get paid a lot of cash to do it, McConnell said.
The fact that Glacier National Parks namesake ice fields keep melting doesnt qualify as breaking news anymore, but the precision with which we can track the shrinkage does.

Improved satellite imaging techniques helped a team of U.S. Geological Survey and Portland State University scientists confirm that 39 named glaciers in the park and adjacent Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex have lost an average 39 percent of their surface area since 1966, with some losing 85 percent. Thats left just 26 ice fields larger than the 25-acre threshold generally needed to be considered a glacier.

The latest periodic glacier analysis was released on May 10. USGS lead scientist Dan Fagre said improved satellite resolution helped his researchers reveal parts of the glaciers that site visits cant pick up.

Siyeh Glacier had a lot of rock piled on top that obscured lots of its surface, Fagre said. We were tipped off to that because of the resolution of the satellite imagery.

But ground teams still need to visit the actual mountain basins to examine the mass of the ice fields. One team just returned last week from Sperry Glacier, Glacier Parks largest remaining ice field at 215 acres. Fifty years ago, it covered nearly 300 acres beneath Mount Edwards and Gunsight Mountain.

Toward the top, they measured close to 40 feet of snow, Fagre said of the 2016-17 winter accumulation. That bodes well for this year, although it depends on how the summer shapes up. It could all disappear. So it remains to be seen whether the positive snow balance gets maintained through September.

Glacier Park had about 150 glaciers larger than 25 acres when it was originally surveyed a century ago. All were considered small alpine glaciers, which formed about 7,000 years ago. They are very different from the massive Pleistocene epoch glaciers that carved the parks major valleys and peaks.

Tracking these small alpine glaciers has been instrumental in describing climate change effects on Glacier National Park to park management and the public, said Lisa McKeon, USGS scientist who has been documenting glacier change since 1997. The high-elevation ice fields store and deliver cold water to creeks, lakes and rivers below the peaks, regulating temperatures well into late summer and fall. Many species of fish and insects directly depend on cold-water supplies for survival, including native cutthroat and bull trout.

While the shrinkage in Montana is more severe than some other places in the U.S., it is in line with trends that have been happening on a global scale, Portland State geologist Andrew G. Fountain said. The glaciers in Olympic National Park are not receding as fast, but Californias are receding faster.

Montana has about 49 square kilometers of glacial ice fields statewide, or about 12,100 acres. California has just 23 square kilometers of glacial ice. Washington, with its greater snowfall and tall volcanic peaks, has 400 square kilometers of glacial ice.
A Broadwater County Sheriff's deputy with only three years on the job and a wife and three children at home was shot and killed early Tuesday while trying to make a traffic stop.

The shooting touched off a search that resulted in a pre-dawn chase covering more than 140 miles in southwestern Montana and ending in a shoot-out that sent one suspect to the hospital and his father to jail.

Mason Moore, 42, was slain near Three Forks, less than two miles from where a state Highway Patrol trooper was shot and killed in 2010.

"It's difficult to adequately describe how devastating it feels to lose one of our own in the line of duty," said Broadwater Sheriff Wynn Meehan. "Our deputy died protecting the citizens of our county and displayed remarkable courage until the very end."

Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said the incident began Tuesday morning when Moore was pursuing a white SUV near Three Forks shortly before 3 a.m.

Gootkin said dispatchers lost contact with Moore. When a Gallatin deputy arrived at the scene, he found Moore lying dead near the side of the road. The deputy reviewed the dash camera video in the slain officer's car and identified the SUV.

Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester said his department's officers spotted the 1998 Chevrolet Suburban at 3:27 a.m. heading west on I-90 near the Continental Drive interchange. As they were chasing it, he said the passenger, Marshall Barrus, fired a semi-automatic .308-caliber rifle through the SUV's missing back window.

The sheriff said both suspects in the SUV were firing at deputies near the end of the chase.

"There's probably a special place in hell for those individuals and that's where they belong," Lester said of the suspects.

The pursuit reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Butte-Silver Bow officers continued to pursue the vehicle westbound on I-90 through Deer Lodge County and Powell County and into Granite County.

Although its tires were punctured by a spike strip in Powell County, the SUV kept going on its rims until it reached the Rock Creek area. There, Barrus got out of the SUV and began firing at officers. Three Butte-Silver Bow sheriff's vehicles were hit by gunfire, two of them seriously enough to be disabled.

Deputies returned fire, hitting Marshall Burrus in the head. He was taken to the hospital where his condition was not available.

His father and the SUV's driver, 61-year-old Lloyd Barrus, was arrested and booked into the Missoula County jail on suspicion of deliberate homicide.

A section of westbound I-90 was closed Tuesday morning while investigators collected evidence. Lester said the investigation of the slaying and chase is being conducted by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation and the Missoula County Sheriffs Office.

The men and women of the Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department extend our sincerest condolences to Sheriff Meehan, the Broadwater County Sheriffs Department, and the family of the fallen deputy,'' Lester said, echoing condolence messages that poured in Tuesday from law enforcement and elected officials across Montana.

Officers from numerous agencies joined a procession at mid-day Tuesday to transfer Moore's body from Three Forks to Billings for an autopsy. The body arrived in Billings in the afternoon, where firefighters raised a large American flag from a ladder truck.

Moore is the 129th Montana law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty since 1878, just before Montana became a state.

According to the state's Public Safety Officer Standards and Training office, Moore had previously worked for the Department of Transportation's Motor Carrier Services from 2012 to 2015 before joining the Broadwater sheriff's office.

Marshall Barrus has a criminal history in the Bozeman area, including being arrested in November by police in Belgrade. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, in that incident Barrus allegedly broke into a couples home, assaulted a woman and threatened to kill a man. He was awaiting trial for felony burglary.

This story contains information from the Associated Press.
Nine years ago, I became the executive director for NAMI Montana. One of then-U.S. Sen. Max Baucus's legislative staff met with me that summer to talk about the healthcare reform effort that was moving through Congress.

No one knew whether Barack Obama or John McCain would win the presidency, but there was a general bipartisan agreement in Congress that something had to be done about America's healthcare system. Two targets for improvement were people with pre-existing conditions who were being denied access to coverage, and America's working poor who did not receive coverage from their employers.

The staff member explained to me that the high-risk pool model of funding pre-existing condition had proven to be ineffective, so there were only two ways to address pre-existing conditions. The first was some kind of single payer, or Medicare for All, program. The second was a mandate for everyone to buy private health insurance.

The mandate model had been successfully piloted by Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. Baucus' prospective vote count showed that the mandate model was the only option that could pass the Senate at that time. They addressed the second issue through the expansion of the existing Medicaid programs and by establishing health insurance exchanges for those who otherwise couldn't access health insurance.

I've spent the following years trying to help Montana families navigate through the mental illness treatment system. It didn't take me long to realize that the senator's staff member was right in that high-risk pools were about as valuable for the families I served as unicorn saddles. I was never able to get anyone into a high-risk pool. The rates were just too expensive.

In hindsight, the failure of a concept comprised of putting all of the most expensive healthcare clients in the state into a small group insurance plan and then hoping that either the legislature or Congress would effectively subsidize it to the point of being affordable was not surprising.

I also had to explain to people how America's medical system as it was constructed at that time did not require, or even expect, most private insurance to cover people with pre-existing conditions such as mental illness, back injuries, cancer, diabetes, etc. The system also did not have a solution for people who worked low-paying jobs and who could not afford healthcare coverage.

Someone had to deliver that harsh news. I delivered it over and over again. I repeatedly counseled people about the medical bankruptcy process and how it was a built-in part of a healthcare system that had giant coverage chasms.

These hopeless calls slowly stopped coming in as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect. The ACA wasn't perfect, but it did make it so Montanans with existing medical conditions had legitimate options for healthcare coverage. I am deeply concerned about the move back to relying on high-risk-pool unicorn saddles for people with pre-existing conditions. These are real people with real lives at stake. They need access to real health insurance.
The only time Greg Gianfortes New Jersey roots appear is when he speaks. Dont take my word for it. Listen to the archive of his interview with Sally Mauk on Montana Pubic Radio. In it, he does not even try to mask his arrogance, his disdain, his rudeness.

Gianforte exudes a sense of entitlement, as if Montanans owe him a seat in Congress. He blocked Montanans access to public lands. He has attached himself to Donald Trump, a man less temperamentally fit to be president than almost anyone reading this letter.

And he wants to take away our health insurance. He didnt have the courage to admit his position on health care publically. It only came out because someone taped a conversation where he expressed his glee that the U.S. House passed a bill that would kick 75,000 Montanans off health insurance.

A man who is arrogant, condescending and disingenuous, a man who wants to deny health insurance to low-income Montanans and who has blocked access to public lands might be suited to represent New Jersey. But he is not the man to represent us in Montana. For the sake of our future, I implore you not to vote for Gianforte.

Richard Opper,

Helena
What does it mean that the Missoulian endorsed Greg Gianforte?

It means that in a city where Muslims are welcome, the Missoulian endorsed a man who wants to ban Muslims. It means that in a city with a vibrant refugee community, the Missoulian endorsed a man who condemns refugees. It means the Missoulian endorsed a man who wants to build a wall to keep non-white people out.

It means the Missoulian endorsed a man who opposes equal pay for women. It means the Missoulian endorsed a man who opposes Planned Parenthood and a womans right to make decisions about her body.

It means the Missoulian endorsed a man who has questionable support for the merits of public education. In a city with a strong history of environmental concern, the Missoulian endorsed a man who denies the science of climate change and supports the gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior.

I guess the Missoulian endorsement of Gianforte means that we have gone back to 1926, when the Missoulian was bought by the Anaconda Company. Where is K. Ross Toole when we need him?

Loren Pinski,

Missoula
It is the morn of Mothers Day as I sit to write this, and like mothers everywhere, I accept the occasion to ponder the lives of the children Ive made. Are they truly happy, I wonder? Are they fulfilled? Are they safe?

They are adults now, these two young women, and my continued efforts to ensure happiness, fulfillment, and safety must be done from afar, with much less control than I once had. And so, while my lovelies drive their own destinies, I am left to drive my own. With my motherly tasks largely accomplished, where now do I turn?

With each passing day, my mind turns more toward my city, my country, my world. With the time remaining to me, what impact can I have, as a mother, to leave my corner better off than how I found it?

Guidance comes to me from one of the loveliest documents Ive ever read, 17 Sustainable Development Goals issued in October 2015 by the Division for Sustainable Development, a section of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Publication of the document came simultaneously with the launching of worldwide partnerships created to carry out the goals. Those issuing the goals created a website where newly created partnerships may be registered: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/unsummit2015.

In my mind, the document illustrates 17 ways in which we can work collectively to transform our city, our state, our country, our world. As a mother, I find the document to be a guide to building an inheritance for our children.

The goals are at the same time basic and encompassing. No poverty, is the first. Zero hunger, is the second.

Any community  including our lovely Butte-Silver Bow  could use the goals, which can be found here, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals, as a framework for a strategic plan. Here are the 17 goals:

 No poverty (end poverty in all its forms everywhere)

 Zero hunger (end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture)

 Good health and well-being (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages)

 Quality education (ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all)

 Gender equality (achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls)

 Clean water and sanitation (ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all)

 Affordable and clean energy (ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all)

 Decent work and economic growth (promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth; full and productive employment; and decent work for all)

 Industry, innovation, and infrastructure (build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation)

 Reduced inequalities (reduce inequality within and among countries)

 Sustainable cities and communities (make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable)

 Responsible consumption and production (ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns)

 Climate action (take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts)

 Life below water (conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development)

 Life on land (protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems; sustainably manage forests; combat desertification; and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss)

 Peace, justice, and strong institutions (promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development; provide access to justice for all; and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels)

 Partnerships for the goals (strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development)

Partnerships are being developed all over the globe to meet these goals. For example, under the sixth goal related to clean water and sanitation, the Mediterranean Water Knowledge Platform has been established as a prerequisite to the development of sustainable policies for integrated water resources management and climate change adaptation, according to a Sustainable Development Goals document related to worldwide partnerships. Related to the fifteenth goal, life on land, the Ibis Rice Initiative has been launched in Cambodia to promote and market wildlife-friendly rice. The initiatives work links wildlife conservation to improving livelihoods of villagers whose opportunities are limited by the constraints of living in a remote area with little opportunity to expand their farms and limited market access, says the partnership document.

Just look at these 17 goals. How could they be incorporated to better Butte-Silver Bow? How do we create partnerships to address poverty in our community, to implement initiatives that would ensure that we all have decent work? How do we work together to ensure proper management of the Berkeley Pit, to ensure that our community is inclusive to all?

How can I myself, as a healthcare leader, facilitate these partnerships? On a personal level, how can I as a mother leverage these goals to create a better community for our children?

I write this piece on the morn of Mothers Day, in my empty nest. If I work in the coming days on even one of these goals, I will have been a better person. If I work on just one, I will have done my part for my daughters.

And for Mother Earth.
Organisms found in the Berkeley Pit's toxic water are leading to a scientific breakthrough, according to two University of Montana professors who are former Butte residents.

Andrea and Don Stierle paired together two fungi taken from pit water in Butte. That pair produced a compound that has the ability to fight drug-resistant bacteria in a laboratory setting.

The Stierles' new findings are published in a paper that appeared in The Journal of Natural Products last month.

The next step is to begin research to show if the new compound the Stierles created can be turned into a drug.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director at the Washington D.C.-based American Public Health Association, said by phone Monday that it could potentially take 10 years before the Stierles' discovery could make its way to the market. The compound would have to be tested on animals then tested on humans and also go through U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. Issues such as how does the compound fight drug-resistant bacteria, is it safe for human consumption, and what are the potential side effects are all questions the Stierles will have to answer before it becomes an actual drug.

Despite that long road, Benjamin called the discovery "pretty exciting stuff."

State Medical Officer Dr. Greg Holzman echoed that sentiment, saying that the increase of "superbugs," bacteria resistant to antibiotics, is "a major public health issue," leaving health care professionals with "fewer treatment options."

The Centers for Disease Control's website reports over two million illnesses occur each year from superbugs. At least 23,000 people die annually of infections that cannot be treated due to drug-resistant bacteria.

Many of those deaths occur where sick people hope to get better  hospitals.

"Surprise, surprise, hospitals are a reservoir of sick people and antibiotic drugs, which makes them ripe for antibiotic resistance to develop," said Benjamin.

There are multiple reasons why superbugs develop, Benjamin said.

The reasons range from overuse of antibiotics to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed. Throwing away antibiotics, which causes the prescription drugs to wind up in landfills and, ultimately, in the water supply, also results in organisms becoming exposed to drugs designed to kill them. The organisms then mutate and get stronger.

"The ones that survive are resistant to antibiotics," said Benjamin. "We need to address this."

The Stierles' attention has been on the possibilities of Berkeley Pit organisms becoming anti-inflammatory and cancer-fighting agents for the last 21 years. Andrea said that work is ongoing. The Stierles got water samples from the Berkeley Pit in 1996. Andrea said she and her husband "could lock ourselves in our lab for the next 100 years and keep finding things" from those cups of water.

If the Stierles' discovery leads to an actual drug to fight superbugs, its origins will be pretty unique.

Andrea said the fungi from the Berkeley Pit are similar to fungi found in moldy bread, but the chemistry from the pit's fungi is different. Andrea believes the toxic environment in which the fungi grew may have caused them to evolve.

"For all of its awfulness, the pit and its fungi have continued to provide some amazing discoveries, including compounds that block inflammation and the spread of cancer cells," said Andrea. "We have to find silver linings where we can."

The next step for the Stierles is a bit more prosaic  fundraising. Though the university provides lab and office space, the Stierles have to find additional money to pay their salaries and health care and support their research.

"The road from  discovery  to the development of a new drug requires an alignment of the stars," Andrea said.
Republicans in Congress barely had time to get their footing Monday, as another wild development, this time reports that President Donald Trump had revealed sensitive intelligence to Russia's foreign minister and US ambassador, swept the Capitol.

Senators mulled over the latest stunning news, first reported by The Washington Post, as they met inside the chamber.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker said the wave of negative stories related to Trump and intelligence meant the White House is in a "downward spiral."

"They are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Corker told reporters. "You know the shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place, there's good productive things that are underway through them, and through others. But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think  it creates a worrisome environment."

Even some of who had been reluctant to criticize Trump said Monday's report raised questions that needed answers.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican leading one of four congressional probes into Russia's meddling in the US elections, said he was not sure yet if Trump had leaked any intelligence to the Russians -- noting that other stories have been inaccurate.

But he noted that he had a problem with Trump's tweet Friday, threatening to release possible tapes of conversations with Comey.

"I think it was inappropriate, I think if there is a tape we need to know about it. I don't think we can dodge that issue. I want to get back to doing the business of the country. North Korea is developing a missile that can hit the American homeland," Graham said. "I want to help the President where I can, but tweets like that take us off in a ditch."

Lawmakers were largely caught off guard by Monday's development. Many Republican lawmakers said they had not seen details about the report and did not want to comment.

Asked what senators could do if Trump leaked this information to the Russian officials, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said, "I wish I knew."

"This is really concerning that he doesn't understand that certain information you don't share with Russia. You just don't. Share. With. Russia," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat. "Our only chance of keeping this country safe is good intelligence sources. And if he (Trump) thinks classified intelligence information is something you're supposed to brag about to Russia. I mean, this shows a complete lack of information about what classified information is and how important."

Asked if Trump should still have access to sensitive intelligence if he leaks it to Russian officials, McCaskill said: "He's president of the United States. That's the dilemma. He's going to be called upon to make decisions about how we fight our enemies, so you don't want to withhold information from the President of the United States.

This story is developing and will be updated.

CNN's Manu Raju, Jeremy Herb, Phil Mattingly, Ashley Killough, Betsy Klein, Lauren Fox and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.
The direction of our country will be decided in the coming months and Im committed to making sure Montanas voice is heard in Washington. Im running to be Montanas next Congressman because Montanans deserve a champion who will stand strong for our values and our way of life.

Im thankful to have built a life, started a small business, and raised a family in Montana.

I fell in love with Montana more than 40 years ago on a class trip backpacking in the Beartooth Mountains. 24 years ago, my wife, Susan, and I chose Montana to raise our four children hunting, fishing, and backpacking on Montanas public lands. And, when we sat down at our kitchen table to start our company, RightNow Technologies, we chose Montana. At the time, people told us building a global hi-tech business in Montana was impossible. Well, we took on the big corporations in one of the fiercest markets, and Montana won. In fact, we created over 500 high-paying Montana jobs.

Im not a government insider. I spent my entire career creating jobs in the private sector  from mowing lawns as a teenager to founding five different start-up companies.

Im not afraid to step up and take on a challenge. Thats why in Congress, you can count on me to stand up to the special interests and help drain the swamp. Ill always put hardworking Montana families first and will fight to bring accountability and integrity to Washington, D.C.

In the last year and a half, Ive traveled over 80,000 miles across Montana, visiting all 56 counties multiple times listening to your concerns. I understand the issues Montanans are facing and my commitment is to ensure your voice is always heard in Washington.

In Congress, Ill fight back against any tax increases. Ill work to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. Ill protect the promises our country made to our veterans. Ill fight for our coal and timber jobs and push back against excessive Washington regulations.

Ill fight to repeal and replace Obamacare with real solutions that lower premiums, preserve rural access, and protect Montanans with pre-existing conditions.

Ill always defend Montanans right to hunt, fish, and recreate on our public lands because we must keep our public lands in public hands.

Ill always defend the Second Amendment and stand in strong opposition to any attempts to create a national gun registry.

Ill fight to strengthen our military to defend our interests and destroy ISIS.

Ill protect and defend our bordernot allow Montana to become a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes.

Ill support term limits and a ban to end members of Congress from becoming lobbyists. And, Ill hold the politicians accountableif they cant balance the budget, they shouldnt get paid. No balanced budget, no paycheck.

My word and bond to you is that if elected, I will always be on Montanas side.

I humbly ask for your vote, so that I can be your voice.

-- Greg Gianforte is the Republican candidate for Montana's U.S. House seat.
Growing up in rural Montana taught me how to be resourceful and what it takes to thrive in sometimes challenging situations.

I know a lot of Montana families struggle to make ends meet. They dont ask for much. They just dont want the government to punish those who work by stacking the deck against them.

Unfortunately, thats what were getting out of leaders in Washington D.C. We have a system that benefits millionaires and billionaires at the expense of working families. That has to change.

One of my top priorities in Congress would be to stop corporate interests dictating policies that benefit only themselves while leaving everyone else behind.

Each year, millions of American jobs are lost when corporations decide to close down their factories and move their operations overseas. And right now, those corporations are given big tax breaks while small businesses struggle with high taxes and regulations that limit their ability to grow and compete.

My opponent supports the tax system that rewards companies for outsourcing jobs.

In fact, he himself outsourced jobs to India and Armenia and profited off of helping companies eliminate American jobs.

As a small business owner and a product of the Montana farming and ranching community, I know what is at stake. Hard-working middle-class Montana families have been carrying the burden long enough.

My opponent wants to continue a failed system that gives tax breaks to the top. Hell benefit from it but the average Montanan will not. Its big tax giveaways that doesnt help the local economy while passing the buck on to future generations.

In fact, recently, the very D.C. special interest groups funding his campaign for U.S. Congress helped pass a health care bill that not only raises premiums on working Montanans, it also cuts taxes for those at the very top.

No real Montanan would do that.

We cant keep sending millionaires to Washington, D.C. to cozy up to special interests and expect them to look out for the rest of us. Or even to understand what life is like for working Montana families. The contrast in this race couldnt be clearer.

Self-interest and self-serving policies in D.C. have gone on long enough.

As Montanas Congressman, I will fight to give tax breaks to Montana working families and close loopholes that reward corporations that outsource jobs.

Im going to make sure we give small businesses and people who work hard a tax break instead.

Montanans are hard-working, self-reliant people. They dont ask expect handouts. They simply ask that everyone plays by the same rules.

As your next Congressman, I will be an independent voice that will fight to make sure the rules benefit all Montanans.

-- Rob Quist is the Democratic candidate for Montana's U.S. House seat.
"They called a couple minutes later to say they couldn't reach him," Meehan said.

The sheriff was about halfway between Townsend and the scene when he heard another call. This one requested a coroner.

Broadwater County deputy Mason Moore was found dead outside Three Forks. The two men suspected of playing a role in his death are in custody in Missoula.

Moore, who had 15 years in law enforcement, signed on with the department based in Townsend three years ago.

"I lost a good hand," Meehan said. "It's going to be very difficult to try and replace him."

"Our deputy died protecting the citizens of our county and displayed remarkable courage until the very end. His actions will never be forgotten.

Moore, a husband and father of three, including twin teenage boys, moved to Montana from South Carolina, where he served as an investigator in major crimes. Prior to serving as a sheriff's deputy, he worked a couple years as an officer with the motor carrier division in Rocker.

By Tuesday afternoon, Meehan was spent. He, alongside the bulk of his 12-person operation, escorted Moore's body to Billings, where an autopsy was to be performed.

"I don't even know what the stop was for," Meehan said in a phone interview. He said it started as a traffic stop and the vehicle fled.

"It feels like three weeks have gone by, and it's only been 14 hours," he added.

Through his devastation and exhaustion, Meehan also felt thankful for the outpouring of support Moore and his department received throughout the day. On the drive from Three Forks to Billings, a 170-mile trek, the 40 law enforcement vehicles in the procession guiding Moore's body were met with salutes and other displays.

"Every town we came through had fire trucks and flags hanging down," he said. "It was remarkable."

The law enforcement community has stepped up in an awesome way as well, Meehan said. From covering patrols to offering detention officers for the jail to sending in dispatchers, Meehan said he was amazed by the rallying displayed.

"So many have offered to give us a hand," he said. "We need to lean on each other and take care of each other."

Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton, who responded to the scene early Tuesday morning and later joined the procession, said in difficult times like these the extended law enforcement family is vital.

"We have been working to take care of them and cover their county, along with Gallatin County," Dutton said.

"Montana is not that big of a state, and we all feel the loss," he added.

State Attorney General Tim Fox noted the timing of the shooting.

"Its cruel irony that a law enforcement officer was shot and killed the day after Peace Officers Memorial Day. Tragic incidents like this should serve as a reminder to all of us to be thankful every day for those in uniform who serve and protect our communities," Fox said in a statement.

The suspects also fired at officers during a subsequent chase after the shooting.

"We are saddened by deputy Moore's death, but we are also relieved that no other law enforcement officers were killed in the apprehension of the suspects," Dutton said.

Back in Townsend, a local therapist worked with county employees grieving the loss of Moore, who is remembered as a quiet yet intensely funny man. When asked to describe Moore, many county workers responded "he was a good guy."

Moore didn't say much, but when he did, it was worth the wait, Meehan said.

"He had an interesting sense of humor," he added.

Laura Obert, county commissioner, said Moore will be remembered as a smart and compassionate man.

"He had a quiet confidence about him," Obert said. "He truly cared about people and what they thought."

"He was just one of those genuine souls."

Debbie Kelley, accounting manager for the county, said she found Moore impressive as an officer. On his off time, he served with the Three Forks Volunteer Fire Department.

"I think the biggest thing is to help the family," Kelley said. "That's the hard part."

Kelley said Moore was well-liked and a good match for the sheriff's office.

"It's been kind of quiet here today," she said.

"It's too close to home for things like this. It does make it personal."

Officials said a vigil or service will be held to remember Moore. Details will be announced later.

"Even though he's gone, he will always be a part of us," Obert said.
MISSOULA  A Broadwater County Sheriff's deputy with only three years on the job and a wife and three children at home was shot and killed early Tuesday while trying to make a traffic stop.

The shooting touched off a search that resulted in a pre-dawn chase covering more than 140 miles in southwest Montana and ending in a shoot-out that sent one suspect to the hospital and his father to jail.

Mason Moore, 42, was slain near Three Forks, less than two miles from where a state Highway Patrol trooper was shot and killed in 2010.

"It's difficult to adequately describe how devastating it feels to lose one of our own in the line of duty," said Broadwater Sheriff Wynn Meehan. "Our deputy died protecting the citizens of our county and displayed remarkable courage until the very end."

Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said the incident began Tuesday morning when Moore was pursuing a white SUV near Three Forks shortly before 3 a.m.

Gootkin said dispatchers lost contact with Moore. When a Gallatin deputy arrived at the scene, he found Moore lying dead near the side of the road. The deputy reviewed the dash camera video in the slain officer's car and identified the SUV.

Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester said his department's officers spotted the 1998 Chevrolet Suburban at 3:27 a.m. heading west on I-90 near the Continental Drive interchange. As they were chasing it, he said the passenger, Marshall Barrus, fired a semi-automatic .308-caliber rifle through the SUV's missing back window.

The sheriff said both suspects in the SUV were firing at deputies near the end of the chase.

"There's probably a special place in hell for those individuals, and that's where they belong," Lester said of the suspects.

The pursuit reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Butte-Silver Bow officers continued to pursue the vehicle westbound on I-90 through Deer Lodge County and Powell County and into Granite County.

Although its tires were punctured by a spike strip in Powell County, the SUV kept going on its rims until it reached the Rock Creek area. There, Barrus got out of the SUV and began firing at officers. Three Butte-Silver Bow sheriff's vehicles were hit by gunfire, two of them seriously enough to be disabled.

Deputies returned fire, hitting Marshall Barrus in the head. He was taken to the hospital where his condition was not available.

His father and the SUV's driver, 61-year-old Lloyd Barrus, was arrested and booked into the Missoula County jail on suspicion of deliberate homicide.

A section of westbound I-90 was closed Tuesday morning while investigators collected evidence. Lester said the investigation of the slaying and chase is being conducted by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation and the Missoula County Sheriffs Office.

The men and women of the Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department extend our sincerest condolences to Sheriff Meehan, the Broadwater County Sheriffs Department, and the family of the fallen deputy,'' Lester said, echoing condolence messages that poured in Tuesday from law enforcement and elected officials across Montana.

Officers from numerous agencies joined a procession at mid-day Tuesday to transfer Moore's body from Three Forks to Billings for an autopsy. The body arrived in Billings in the afternoon, where firefighters raised a large American flag from a ladder truck.

Moore is the 129th Montana law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty since 1878, just before Montana became a state.

According to the state's Public Safety Officer Standards and Training office, Moore had previously worked for the Department of Transportation's Motor Carrier Services from 2012 to 2015 before joining the Broadwater sheriff's office.

Marshall Barrus has a criminal history in the Bozeman area, including being arrested in November by police in Belgrade. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, in that incident Barrus allegedly broke into a couples home, assaulted a woman and threatened to kill a man. He was awaiting trial for felony burglary.

This story contains information from the Associated Press.
BILLINGS  Yellowstone County has agreed to pay the family of Loren Benjamin Simpson, who was fatally shot by sheriffs deputies in 2015 near Huntley, $1.25 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.

Attorneys for Simpsons estate and Yellowstone County said late Monday afternoon that the parties had reached the settlement after a mediation session recently in Missoula.

A status report filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Billings said a tentative agreement reached April 13 through mediation had been approved by the county.

Simpsons family sued Yellowstone County alleging wrongful death and civil rights violations after two deputies shot and killed Simpson on Jan. 8, 2015, near Huntley.

Simpson approached the deputies on While Buffalo Road while driving a Ford Explorer that had been reported stolen. The deputies fired at the vehicle, striking Simpson multiple times, including a fatal shot that hit him in the back of the head.

Deputies told investigators they felt threatened by the vehicle coming at them. Both deputies resigned five days after the shooting.

A coroners inquest ruled that the deputies did not act criminally in Simpsons shooting death.

Simpsons family sued alleging, among their claims, that the deputies used excessive force and were not entitled to qualified immunity. The case initially was filed in 2015 in state district court and was later transferred into federal court.

Missoula attorney Nathan Wagner, who represents the Simpson family, said in a statement on Monday:

While $1,250,000 does not begin to compensate Lorens family for what they have been through, this settlement is a step in the right direction toward bringing closure to Lorens family. We hope this incident will help to spur reforms in the law enforcement community to prevent excessive use of force against Montanans who pose no threat to law enforcement or the public.

Kevin Gillen, Yellowstone County deputy attorney, confirmed the settlement amount on Monday.

Gillen said the county was not admitting any wrongdoing.

The settlement will be paid with $1 million from insurance and $250,000 from the county.

In January, U.S. District Judge Susan Watters, who is hearing the case, ruled against the county saying the deputies actions were unreasonable and that they were not entitled to protections, known as qualified immunity, under the law.

Qualified immunity provides a government employee sued for money damages under federal Constitutional claims with immunity if it was reasonable for the employee to believe his actions would not violate a clearly established legal or constitutional right.

The judge said a review of the facts, including a dash camera video, suggested it was not objectively reasonable for the deputies to believe that Simpson was accelerating toward (a deputy) or to keep firing at the Explorer after it passed.

Watters ruled that the force used by the deputies was severe, the crime they suspected Simpson had committed was minor, the danger to the deputies was minimal, and the deputies could have used less intrusive means to effect the investigative stop.

A jury, Watters said, could conclude that Simpson was not an immediate threat to the deputies or others at the time he was shot and killed, or even if he posed a threat, that the deputies response to that threat was unreasonable and violated Simpsons Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment protects against unlawful searches and seizures.

Yellowstone County appealed Watters ruling denying qualified immunity to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And Simpsons family filed a motion asking the district court to certify the countys appeal as frivolous.

The settlement was reached while both the countys appeal and Simpson's familys motion were pending, Wagner said.

No trial date had been set.
A young British computer expert credited with cracking the WannaCry cyberattack told The Associated Press he doesn't consider himself a hero but fights malware because "it's the right thing to do."
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The Columbus Community School District's School Improvement Advisory Committee, or SIAC, presented its district-wide goals and objectives to the Columbus School Board on May 10.

Mallory Smith, a committee member, said the list was based on the results of a needs assessment survey completed by the Iowa Association of School Boards, which was presented at the April 27 school board meeting.

The group has set seven goals: Establish school improvement as a shared goal for all district stakeholders; increase expectations for school performance; improve academic achievement measures; involve parents and community members in meaningful ways; promote and celebrate a positive school culture with emphasis on academic achievement and good character; participate in efforts to decrease poverty and increase economic well-being for families in the district; and stabilize enrollment and build a base to reverse negative trends.

I really feel we did what we were supposed to do this year, looking at the (state) code. We think we got pretty broad representation, Smith said.

About a dozen volunteers met throughout the year to develop the recommendations, she said. They also looked at other school district initiatives, academics and other reports.

Measurable and reasonable objectives were established, she said. Board members had questions about those.

Board president Sandy Martin said SIACs recommendation to meet monthly and present monthly reports to the school board might be difficult for a small volunteer group.

Others questions focused on the committees recommendations for spending proposals, meeting higher proficiency levels, decreasing open enrollment numbers and other proposals.

So, would SIAC figure out how to reduce tardiness and absenteeism? Superintendent Gary Benda asked after Smith said one objective was to reduce those numbers by 10 percent.

SIAC isnt involved in the day-to-day operation of the school, but is more of a feed-back loop, Smith replied.

The board does not have a specific timetable for adopting the recommendations.

In other action, the board:

 Learned proficiency levels based on recent Iowa Assessment testing were positive and indicated the school was moving in the right direction;

 Agreed to accept Kauffman Electric as the contractor for a series of electrical energy saving projects;

 Approved a tentative agreement with the Columbus Education Association that will provide a $300 payment for eligible certified staff;

 Approved two sharing agreements with the Highland School District for Business Manager and Human Resources.
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 []
Celebrated media personality Grace Msalame has left Radio Africa Group, the mother company to Star newspaper, KissTV, Bamba TV, Kiss100, Classic105FM, Radio Jambo, X-FM, Gukena FM and East FM.

She leaves Radio Africa having served in different capacities within the media company for seven years, including as tv host, producer, director, and Bamba TV Manager.

Grace, who doubles up as a Christian blogger and Viva brand Ambassador, made the announcement on social media as she said her goodbyes to the Waiyaki Way-based media company last week.

How does one say Goodbye to almost 7years! Its been a good run Radio Africa?? Thank you for the growth that has given me the wings to finally Dare Greatly & set out a New Path.

From hosting to producing, directing & to Management- are all opportunities I will forever be grateful for.

Ive never been one to say goodbye or even know how to for that matter so though I may have chosen this path I say thank you for all the years, all the lessons, all the challenges & most of all for all the support.

And now Jesus take the Lead Your Will, Your Way?? wrote Msalame with the hashtags EndOfTheRoad, NewSeason, DaringGreatly, and GodsWill.

She, however, did not reveal her next endeavor.

Msalame also used Instagram to thank Caroline Mutoko for all the support.



Msalames exit comes two months after the Lions Place media company announced a major restructuring to focus the groups media assets on developing a digital business.

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In March 2016, Radio Africa converged all its content operations to create a single newsroom for the Star, radios, digital and television.

The Groups CEO and co-owner, Ghanaian Patrick Quarcoo, announced back in February that the next phase of the groups change had started.

The next phase of our change, begins this month. We have taken a comprehensive look at our operations and made the tough decisions necessary to focus the company on the significant and promising opportunities of the future, Quarcoo said in an email to staff.

As a result, we are now undertaking operational efficiency measures to reduce overall operating costs in 2017. This will affect some positions and some roles that will be merged or become redundant.

The firm will redirect its investments into the digital space and expects to launch a number of new products in the next four months, including online radio stations and innovative music offerings.
Illinois state senator Kyle McCarters name has been forwarded to US President Donald Trump for consideration for appointment as ambassador to Kenya.

Republican members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation delivered the letter to the White House on Thursday recommending him for the post. The letter cites McCarters history of working in Kenya, including founding the Each One Feed One charity that is based in Tharaka Nithi. The charity caters for the education of hundreds of abandoned, abused and orphaned children. It also provides a medical clinic for those suffering from HIV and Malaria. Together with his wife, Senator McCarter has worked in Kenya for over 30 years.

In the same letter, the Republican members curiously mention his experience in negotiating with tribal chiefs.

Through his work in Kenya, he has experience negotiating with tribal chiefs and other dignitaries, along with logistical and other administrative experience working with the Kenyan government. Additionally, he has experience working with USAID and other organizations, including Compassion International within Kenya to provide health care for over 3,000 Kenyan children.

his experience on the ground in Kenya has provided him heightened insight into the governmental operations and other political, economic, and social realities of both Kenya and the larger region of East Africa. He has outlined specific ideas for reforms of USAID spending, including curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse within the program, the letter states.

On his consideration for the post, Senator McCarter said, Im honored and humbled to have the unanimous recommendation of our Republican Congressional Delegation to serve the United States of America in this new role. Our country has a long friendship with Kenya that began soon after the country won its independence in late 1963, and my familys personal friendship goes back over 30 years. If President Trump selects me for this role, I would be honored to serve.

The Ambassador post requires a Presidential nomination as well as U.S. Senate confirmation.
I have always loved art museums, said Robert Sain, executive director of the di Rosa nonprofit contemporary art center.

For me, museums are about the power of ideas, and where inspiration, awe and wonder intersect.

Museums are also places where people of all different walks of life can come together and thats important now more than ever, said Sain.

Sain has been the executive director at di Rosa since 2016.

1. What was your first job?

I got my start in art museums by starting the first development department at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

2. Whats the worst job you ever had?

Getting up at 4 a.m. as a kid to help a milkman. I grew up in Atlanta.

3. Whats a common question you get about di Rosa?

I encounter two completely parallel universes. One is deep and abiding affection for the place. And the other is they dont know about it.

4. Whats your favorite artwork at di Rosa?

Boy thats a hard one. I would say one piece that is just extraordinary is by Paul Kos. Its based on Chartres Cathedral outside of Paris. Its a multimedia art installation. But you dont realize it at first.

5. Whats your favorite museum outside of Napa Valley?

There are so many. In the Bay Area, SF MOMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Contemporary Jewish Museum are all doing extraordinary work. Plus the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. And youve got the Legion of Honor.

The Bay Area has a depth of museums. Its increasingly become one of the epicenters for the visual arts. Were lucky to be in their backyard.

6. The sheep sculptures in the di Rosa parking lot are gone. What happened?

The poor sheep had been out there for decades. They were metal and they were just not bearing the weather very well. They are still here but they are in better pastures now.

Well look at some other approaches for that space.

7. Whats on your to-do list?

Increase di Rosas engagement with the community.

8. What is one thing you hope to accomplish in your lifetime that you havent yet?

Time travel.

9. If you could change one thing about your business, what would it be?

To make di Rosa more visible throughout the Bay Area.

10. Whats something people might be surprised to know about you?

I love sappy French songs.
When people from around the world gathered at the Culinary Institute of America in April to attend the Worlds of Flavor conference, among them was Xu Bo Chun, making his first visit from China to the Napa Valley.

Each year the three-day conference brings together chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and marketing professionals to explore a trending theme in global dining, and this year, for the 19th annual conference, it was World Flavors, Casual by Design, the rise of fast casual dining.

Xu, who traveled to the U.S. with a group of 19 Chinese visitors, was among the attendees observing as chefs from places as far flung as Mexico, Texas, Chicago, New York  and China  demonstrated the signature dishes that are putting their restaurants on the maps and drawing in throngs of diners.

Fast casual dining is a subject on which Xu is something of an expert himself. His flagship restaurant, The Salt Capital, is a high-end establishment, but he is also the owner of two chains, the New Spicy Way, a fish hot pot restaurant, and The Spicy Rabbit, a casual Szechuan cuisine-themed restaurant. While these restaurants are based in Beijing, between the two of them, they have 238 locations throughout China.

Xu drew the inspriation for his restaurants from his home in Xigon, in the Szechuan region. Speaking through a translator, Xu said that Xigon was traditionally called the salt capital of China because it was situated on a well rich in salt and was therefore important for trade in Central China.

He learned to cook from his grandparents, who catered events at private homes, and from his parents, who often hosted dinner parties for friends and family.

My grandpa was the best chef, and my grandmothers family was good at pickling, and this was important because there was no refrigeration, so they combined their skills ... and I learned these skills from them, Xu said.

While his parents only cooked in the home, Xu decided to make it his business, so he opened a restaurant in Xigon. This first business, however, struggled.

In China, they (diners) always want to see the owner or the chef to come and propose the gambe, (toast) so when my friends came to my restaurant, I became very excited and would say no charge for today. With too many days like this, a business cannot make money, Xu said.

Realizing he had to have a business away from his friends, Xu closed the restaurant in Xigon, and started again in Chengdu, the second largest city in Szechuan. This restaurant became so successful, in 2004, he moved it to Beijing.

But I do not have the skill to run the business side, so I found a partner to manage that part. I control the cooking and the raw material, and he handles the business side and we are very successful.

Xu also controls two other sectors of his empire, a raw material supply business that controls the vegetables and animals from the farm to his restaurants, and one that invests in new restaurants in need of capital.

While China is known to have distinct and highly different culinary traditions in its vast geographic regions, Xus translator, Napa vintner Joe Chuang, explained that today, far more than before, many more people are moving around the vast country, so appetites are growing for different culinary styles. This is how Xus restaurants have thrived outside of Szechuan.

Xu said what inspired him to come to the conference in the Napa Valley was wine as well as food. I am interested in the idea of pairing Napa wines with my food, he said. Last summer, Xu, having secured several bottles of wines from the Napa Valley, tried an experiment at one of the Beijing locations of his Spicy Rabbit restaurant. He put up a sign Free glass of wine from California and soon had a line out the door of people curious to try this Napa wine.

Many people believe Szechuan cuisine is all spicy, but thats wrong, he said. Only about one-third is extremely spicy and the rest is either lightly spiced or not spicy at all, so it would not be hard to pair with Napa wines.

Whats hard is the spicy one, he said, but in my experience, something a little sweet, like a muscat or a chilled chardonnay would pair very well. But some Chinese are so used to very spicy food, and they like a strong liquor with it, so perhaps they could stand strong Napa cab. Because Szechuan cuisine is so varied, the possibilities are endless. Even if its spicy, there are different kinds of spiciness, and that can interact differently with each palate.

During his Napa Valley visit, Xu toured Raymond Vineyards and Firefly Vineyards, and said he was impressed with the level of detail dedicated to each step in winemaking.

It is definitely in our plan to incorporate Napa wines into our list and offer them in our restaurant, he said. While expensive Napa wines might be most suited to The Salt Capital, he did not discount the idea of adding Napa wines to his other fast casual eateries.

Xu said that currently about 10 percent of Chinese consumers drink wine regularly, but he said, with great enthusiasm, that he believes that Chinese consumers will enjoy Napa wines if they are exposed to them often enough.

If you want to make friends or form a relationship, you need constant contact, and that is what we are trying to do. We wish for California wine and the Chinese to fall in love, he said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Five online gun equipment suppliers have agreed to stop selling or advertising large-capacity firearm magazines or magazine repair kits to California customers in a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the companies in February, alleging that they were selling large-capacity magazines, some of which can hold more than 100 rounds of ammunition, in a disassembled state as "repair" or "rebuild" kits, and falsely claimed that they were legal in California.

State law has prohibited the sale, manufacture or import of large-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition since Jan. 1, 2000.

San Francisco voters approved a ban on the possession of large-capacity magazines, in addition to their sale, in 2014, and state voters in November approved Proposition 63, which includes a ban on the possession of large-capacity magazines in most cases. Prop 63 will take effect July 1.

"Californians have spoken clearly," Herrera said. "We don't want these weapons in our communities."

The 10-year, court-imposed injunction that the court is expected to finalize today prohibits the companies from selling the magazines and kits to California customers.

It also requires them to notify customers on their websites that those items cannot be purchased in California, permanently delete any suggestion that they can be legally shipped to California from their websites and remove California as a billing or shipping option for the items.

The companies will also pay $22,500 to cover the city attorney's investigative costs. The companies named in the suit are Badger Mountain Supply, 7.62 Precision, Shooters Plus, LAK Supply and Buymilsurp.com.

Herrera previously filed a similar lawsuit against four companies in 2013, prompting the state Legislature to strengthen laws to specifically prohibit the sale or purchase of such kits.
The St. Helena City Council will discuss the Culinary Institute of America at Greystones dorm plan at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, at Vintage Hall.

The CIA is appealing the Planning Commissions rejection of its plan to expand its dorms on Pratt Avenue. The commission voted 4-0 in March to deny the CIAs application to build two- and three-story dorms, which would increase the dorms capacity by 123 beds, for a total of 224.

The project drew heavy criticism from neighbors in the Pratt/Park/Crinella area. In rejecting the project, commissioners cited neighbors concerns about size, traffic, wastewater, parking and other impacts on the neighborhood.

The CIAs plans also involve reconfiguring the layout of its educational facilities at the Greystone campus, replacing the old Wine Spectator restaurant with a smaller student-run restaurant, and expanding enrollment from 200 to 300 students.
California city to stop using synthetic herbicides in favor or organic pesticides

Councilman Billy OConnell of Huntington Beach, Orange County, California, has proposed a year-long pilot study to have portions of Central Park West use organic pesticides instead of synthetic ones. This move by the seaside city is meant to address the growing concern its citizens have with the many recorded adverse health effects synthetic pesticides provide. These recommendations were unanimously approved by the City Council during the first week of May, making Huntington Beach the third in Orange County to move to a more natural method of pest and weed management.

In an official interview with the OCRegister.com, OConnel said, Many agencies are now considering moving away from the reliance on synthetic pesticides in order to limit exposure to the general public, including children and pets. I propose that the City investigate the use of organic herbicides. In OConnells draft, he recommended that Public Works give updates every six months, with the end of the year signaling either the success or failure of the transition. If the Council finds positive improvement in the safety of its crops, OConnell hopes to make the policy part of their Integrated Pest Management Program. Councilwoman Jill Hardy has, however, further suggested that updates be made every three months instead of six for better tracking and improved transparency. To this suggestion, OConnell has been recorded as saying, Im open to expanding this. I feel its important to our children.

Californias battle against Monsanto

These initiatives made by Orange County are seen to be part of the ongoing battle California is having with synthetic pesticides. Only recently was the state involved in a legal argument with Roundup manufacturer, Monsanto, after members of the Californian government announced their intention to list the main active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, as a known carcinogen. Monsanto retaliated by suing the state over the designation as it would force them to place a warning label on its products. After a few months of deliberation, a California judged ruled against the company, and allowed a cancer warning to be placed on each container of Roundup.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. praised the ruling, saying on EcoWatch.com, Its great to see democracy is alive and well in California where judges are still willing to stand up for science, even against the most powerful corporate polluters. This decision gives Californians the right to protect themselves and their families from chemical trespass.

Sources include:

OCRegister.com

SCPR.org

EcoWatch.com

Toxnet.NLM.NIH.gov 1

Toxnet.NLM.NIH.gov 2
(Natural News) Its amazing how even though Barack Obama is no longer the president of the United States, he still finds ways to remind us of just how self-inflated and egotistical he is. Obama lived like a king throughout his entire presidency, and even though hes been officially out of the Oval Office for nearly four months now, he is still refusing to give up the crown.

Earlier this month, Barack Obama gave a speech on climate change at the Global Food Innovation Summit in Milan, Italy. While the speech itself was naturally riddled with lies, propaganda and scare tactics, the real crime was the way in which Obama traveled to Italy. You see, normal transportation is not good enough for the former president; to him, thats reserved for the lesser folk. Instead, Obama preferred a fuel-guzzling private jet to get to Europe, followed by a 14 car convoy escorted by 300 police officers and a helicopter, all so that he could deliver his Alinsky-style speech on climate change. As seen in this video, the convoy consisted of multiple SUVs, police cars, sedans and a few motorcycles.

The irony of this situation is almost overwhelming. How much carbon dioxide did Obamas private jet throw into the atmosphere while on his way to lecture the rest of us on the dangers of carbon dioxide? How much pollution was emitted from the 14 cars and the helicopter that were used to escort Obama to a speech on the dangers of pollution? You just cant make this stuff up.

But Barack Obamas method of transportation wasnt the only hypocrisy on display at the Milan summit. At one point during his speech, the former president took a moment to warn people about the dangers of eating meat, which according to him is causing a dramatic rise in climate emissions. As reported by Breitbart News, Obama said, As people want to increase meat consumption, that in turn is spiking the growth of greenhouse emissions coming out of the agricultural sector. He went on to say, People arent as familiar with the impact of cows and methane, meaning that the methane gas produced by large herds of cattle is having an increased effect on global pollution.

The man of hope and change argued that while an increase in meat consumption is inevitable over the coming years, there are still steps that can be taken to decrease the amount of methane being sent into the atmosphere. For example, Obama said that more advanced countries could teach their people to have a smaller steak and minimize their overall meat consumption.

True to form, Barack Obama has once again suggested that more government and an expansion of the nanny state is the solution to all of our problems. But even more than that, there is something incredibly hypocritical about Obama lecturing us on how much meat we can consume. How many times has Barack Obama been seen in public eating a big fat juicy burger or a thick steak with a side of fries? How many steaks were cooked up for him during Obamas time in the White House? According to Sam Kass, Barack Obamas former chef, the answer is thousands of steaks.

Kass was with Barack Obama for part of his speech in Milan, and hilariously, the two of them got into a mini argument at one point over just how many steaks Chef Kass had cooked over the course of Obamas two terms. I dont think thousands, Obama said in response to his former chef. Well hundreds maybe, Kass replied. Ive been cooking for you for ten years.

So Barack Obama lectures us on the dangers of carbon dioxide while throwing several tons of the pollutant into the atmosphere just hours prior. Then he tells us to eat less steak, even though he himself has eaten hundreds or even thousands over the past ten years. It must be nice to be king.

Sources:

IJR.com

Breitbart.com
(Natural News) Some of the biggest fruit orchards in the U.S. may soon use robots in harvesting fruits, as two robotics firms are currently developing machines that could accelerate fruit picking. Mechanical harvesting has become a staple practice in many farms for crops such as wheat, corn, green beans, tomatoes and others. However, the harvesting of fragile, easily-perishable crops  such as apples, berries, table grapes and lettuce  are still done through manual labor. Fruit orchards in Washington state alone require thousands of farm workers to do the harvesting.

Israel-based FFRobotics noted that human pickers are getting scarce, with many young people shying away from farm work. The firm also stressed that elderly pickers are slowly retiring. In line with this, the company is currently working on a machine with three-fingered grips designed to grab fruit and twist or clip it from a branch. According to company co-founder Gad Kober, the machine will feature between four and 12 robotic arms, and can harvest as many as 10,000 apples an hour. The machine would also be able to harvest 85 to 90 percent of the crop off trees. The remaining crops could then be manually harvested by workers, Kober noted. On the other hand, California-based Abundant Robotics is developing a machine that makes use of suction technology to vacuum apples off trees. Plans for machine production were discussed in February at an international convention of fruit growers. The company aims to launch the robotic harvesters in the market before 2019.

The two robotics companies are likely to achieve their production targets, with both prototypes projected to be released this fall, according to Karen Lewis. Lewis is a Washington State University cooperative extension agent who assessed the use of robotics in fruit orchards. Lewis also noted that while the machines will serve as game changers in harvesting, fruit orchards across the country may be required to cultivate fruits in new trellis systems to allow the machines to see and harvest the crops.

Experts raise flags on potential losses in migrant laborers

Despite the agricultural advances, the announcement did not sit well with many agricultural experts. According to experts, robot pickers will negatively impact the livelihood of farm workers especially the migrant labor sector, many of whom have been illegally working in the U.S. An analysis by the Pew Research Center revealed that unauthorized immigrant workers accounted for 17 percent of the workforce in the U.S. agriculture industry in 2014.

Washington has long suffered from human power shortages, and has greatly depended on immigrant workers from Mexico to harvest many crops. According to Erik Nicholson, an official with the United Farm Workers union, the eventual loss of jobs among human pickers will have huge implications. Nicholson estimated that about half of Washingtons farm workers are illegal immigrants. However, he stressed that many of them have settled in the state and were productive members of the society. They are scared of losing their jobs to mechanisation [sic]. A robot is not going to rent a house, buy clothing for their kids, buy food in a grocery and reinvest that money in the local economy, Nicholson was quoted in DailyMail.co.uk.

President Donald trumps hard-hitting policies against illegal migrant workers have had farms and orchards scrambling for alternative harvesting methods. Some farms have purchased new equipment in order to cut back on human resources. Other farms have even lobbied with federal officials for deals that would limit the negative effects of recent policies on their livelihoods. Jim McFerson, head of the Washington State Tree Fruit Research Centre, stressed that the recent immigration conundrum is now a matter of survival for many farmers.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

PewHispanic.org
Monday, May 15, 2017 by: Tracey Watson Tags: aetna , healthcare , healthcare exchanges , insurance , obamacare This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) There is no doubt at this point that Obamacare is on life-support. As Republicans work hard behind the scenes to dismantle it completely, insurer Aetna Inc. announced this week that it will no longer be selling Obamacare plans in Delaware and Nebraska  the last two states in which it was still doing so.

At this time have completely exited the exchanges, Aetna said in a statement released May 10.

Though Aetna was initially one of the biggest players in the Obamacare exchanges, this announcement comes as no surprise.

At the end of 2016, Aetna announced that it would cut its participation in the exchanges by 70 percent, reducing the number of states it would sell individual Affordable Care Act plans in from 15 to just four. That decision was made as an effort to claw back some of the companys losses, and came just two weeks after Aetna declared $200 million in pre-tax losses for the second quarter of that year.

As a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured, we regret having to make this decision, Marc Bertolini, Aetnas CEO, said at the time.

Then, back in February, Bertolini criticized Obamacares markets, saying that with the increase in premiums, and more and more healthy individuals dropping out, they were on the brink of failure. In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal he went so far as to say that Obamacare was in a death spiral.

Chief Financial Officer Shawn Guertin indicated earlier this month that Aetna might withdraw from the exchanges completely to limit the financial hemorrhage that Obamacare has meant for the company. Even with representation in just four states, Aetna projects it will lose $200 million on individual health plans this year.

The Obamacare Health Insurance Exchange Marketplace officially opened in October of 2013 as an online marketplace for health insurance. The idea was that Americans would be able to obtain affordable healthcare coverage from competing private healthcare providers. Side-by-side comparisons would allow them to make the best possible choices for their families. On-site calculators would also enable people to determine if they qualified for cost assistance subsidies, Medicaid or CHIP. The promise was that tens of millions of Americans would qualify for such subsidies, available only through the marketplace. It was also claimed that 60 percent of Americans would qualify for coverage at $100 or less per month.

So, what went wrong?

Well, Obamacare has been very unpopular pretty much right from the beginning. While it is true that premiums can be as low as just $75 a month, deductibles often run into the thousands of dollars.

Natural News reported in 2016, that in certain states, premiums had increased by as much as 67 percent in a desperate bid to keep insurers from leaving the exchanges.

Over 8 million Americans were fined an average of $210 per tax return in 2015 for penalties related to Obamacares individual mandate.

Some people were also unhappy that they had to pay higher costs if they were cared for by providers that were not in their network, and that certain medications had been placed in high-cost categories by their insurers.

Critics of Obamacare have also called it a job killer, since employers are forced to obtain insurance for their staff members, increasing company costs.

Perhaps former President Bill Clinton said it best at a rally in 2016, when he said, So youve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. Its the craziest thing in the world.



Sources for this article include:

Bloomberg.com

Bloomberg.com

MSN.com

ObamacareFacts.com

USNews.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) The editors of the Boston Herald recently made tremendous waves by publishing a hit piece on vaccine skepticism, and even going so far as to say that promoting awareness of the potential health hazards created by vaccines should be punishable by death. In the so-called land of the free, it seems that the thought police are out in full force  and theyre ready to pounce on anyone who dares to stand against the will of Big Pharma. Since when is it illegal for any citizen in this country to openly question the safety of a product that it is literally being foisted upon them by their own governments? Apparently, the people at the Boston Herald feel that the First Amendment only applies to them and opinions that they find agreeable. Under the First Amendment, these shills were able to publish their own fictitious and inflammatory statements:

These are the facts: Vaccines dont cause autism. Measles can kill. And lying to vulnerable people about the health and safety of their children ought to be a hanging offense, the Herald writers state.

There are several key issues with this statement. First of all, the issue of whether or not vaccines cause autism is far from definitive, as research has shown that vaccinated children are substantially more likely to develop autism or other neuro-developmental disorders. And as Mike Adams explains, more children in the US have died from vaccines than measles in recent years.

Secondly, regardless of their absolute intent, the use of the term hanging offense explicitly implies that those who do not conform ought to be punished. Even if they dont actually want to hang free-thinking individuals, the point they are getting across is that people who think differently ought to be punished. Killing or jailing people who believe differently than you  does that sound familiar? It almost echoes the Third Reich, only instead of purging society of people based on religious beliefs, the Herald wishes to rid the country of people who dare to think for themselves, instead of blindly being led by what the media tells them is true.

In modern times, the Nazis of the Third Reich would almost certainly be viewed as members of a terrorist organization  and the writers of the Herald and those who support their statement could also be seen as terrorists. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes, or the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

Clearly, advocating for the hanging (or other forms of punishment) for those who promote information you dont agree with is a form of terrorism  especially as vaccines have become something of a political issue, with state governments increasingly becoming involved in the issue of vaccination. This in and of itself is worrisome enough; vaccination should be viewed as any other type of medical treatment  a personal choice that should emphatically not be the concern of the government, state or federal. And yet, here we are: State governments are cracking down on vaccine exemptions and removing parental rights and personal medical freedom, and the media is essentially advocating violence against those who dissent  and in this world, it seems that having a mind of your own is more than enough to be considered a dissenter.

The witch hunting is far from over. It may not be the type of terrorism we typically see on TV (yet), but it is terrorism in its own right: Scaring people into behaving or believing a certain way, for fear of societal retribution or other types of punishment is terrorism all the same.

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

BostonHerald.com
Undergraduate Isabel Serrano with faculty mentor, Bogdan Suceava, professor of mathematics.

The research work of undergraduate mathematics major Isabel Serrano and her faculty mentor, mathematics professor Bogdan Suceava, was selected for the anthology The Best Writing on Mathematics 2016.

Published every year by Princeton University Press, the collection features the best mathematics writing from around the world, including their article, A Medieval Mystery: Nicole Oresmes Concept of Curvitas. The article was originally published in 2015 in Notices, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Mathematical Society.

Serrano plans to graduate in May 2018 with majors in mathematics and history. Suceava, who also has a prolific literary career, wrote his sixth novel, The Republic, recently released in Romania. The novel tells the story of an attempted coup detat from August 8, 1870, in the old Romania. He also has accepted the invitation of the Romanian newspaper Daily Event to write a weekly column.

Other scholarly works recently published are:

Tajuana Bates, an educator in University Extended Education, has written and published The YOLO Guide to Los Angeles & Southern California. The guidebook includes digital access to interactive maps for on-the-go planning and navigation.

Mark Ellis, professor of secondary education, is a co-author of Reimagining the Mathematics Classroom, a comprehensive systems approach to examining elementary mathematics teaching.

Teresa X. Nguyen, an educator in the American Language Program, recently authored Compelling Conversations: Vietnam, an oral language textbook to help Vietnamese learners.
NEW DELHI: Global travel search engine Skyscanner on Monday announced its availability on Microsofts personal assistant Cortana.

Skyscanner's Cortana skill includes the ability to ask about indicative pricing on any flight route, in addition to the best time to book routes and live flight status information.

"This is our first artificial intelligence (AI) skill using short interactions which is uniquely capable of conducting conversations and handling queries over voice and via text on screen," said Filip Filipov, Product Director at Skyscanner.

The Cortana skill has been configured for use on Windows 10 (desktop and mobile), Cortana for iOS and Android.

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Ecosystems of California, a comprehensive reference on California's remarkable ecological abundance, has won the Gold Medal for Contribution to Publishing in the 86th Annual California Book Awards, presented by the Commonwealth Club of California.

Coedited by Erika Zavaleta, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, and Harold Mooney, professor of environmental biology at Stanford University, Ecosystems of California provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type in Californiaits distribution, structure, function, and management.

The Commonwealth Club's California Book Awards are among the oldest literary awards in the country. Zavaleta and Mooney will receive the medal in a ceremony on Monday, June 12.

A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Contributors to the book include the leading experts on each ecosystem and on topics such as climate, fire, and land use.

Earlier this year, the book received the PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics, as well as the Environmental Sciences award, from the Association of American Publishers.

The California Book Awards have honored the exceptional literary merit of California writers and publishers since 1931. Among the winners this year is UCSC alumna Elizabeth McKenzie, who won the silver medal for fiction for her novel The Portable Veblen (Penguin Books).
Heavy shelling and firing exchanges between Indian and Pakistan troops on the Line of Control (LoC) were on Tuesday evening in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district after Pakistan violated the ceasefire, defence sources said. The sources started Pakistan started firing and shelling of Indian positions in Lam area at 6.30 p.m. "Pakistan army used mortars and automatics to target Indian positions... Our troops effectively and strongly retaliated and firing exchanges between the two sides are presently going on in the area," a source said. --IANS sq/vd ( 97 Words) 2017-05-16-20:34:15 (IANS)
"The implementation of the strategy should result in ensuring Russia's economic sovereignty and stability against external and internal challenges and threats," said a document published on the government's legal information website.

The strategy should also "strengthen social and political stability, guarantee dynamic socioeconomic development and improve the people's life quality," it said.

According to the document, the main challenges and threats to Russia's economic security include attempts of developed countries to use their advantages in economic development and high technology as a tool for global competition.

Russia also faces the threat of the use of discriminatory measures against key sectors of its economy, restricted access to foreign financial resources and technologies, and creation of international economic associations without participation of Russia.

Internal threats include the vulnerability of the information infrastructure of the Russian financial and banking systems, low rates of economic growth, high crime rates and corruption in the economic sphere.

The strategy will be implemented in two phases, said the document.

During the first phase, until 2019, the Russian government will develop organisational, regulatory and methodological measures to provide mechanisms for monitoring and assessing the state of Russia's economic security.

At the second phase, from 2019 to 2030, the country is to implement measures to neutralize these challenges and threats.

--IANS ahm/

( 248 Words)

2017-05-16-05:36:10 (IANS)
The two traders, brothers Vikas and Megh Agarwal - were gunned down in Mathura by unidentified assailants during the night, the official said.

They were at their shop when the bike borne assailants came and riddled them with bullets in Koylawali Gali.

A staff member and another person present were also injured in the attack. They were said to be critical.

Additional Superintendent of Police Ashok Kumar Singh told IANS on phone that so far there has been no breakthrough in the twin murder case.

One trader died on the spot. The other succumbed to his injures at a nearby medical facility. Angry bullion traders have raised anti-government slogans.

--IANS md/in

( 152 Words)

2017-05-16-09:18:10 (IANS)
The West Bengal government on Tuesday said it has been able to "contain" the ransomware attack, a day after a section of computers of the state's power distributor were hit by the global malware. "We have seen that in Bengal the magnitude of the problem is not that serious. Our computers have been attacked but it was nothing very serious. We have contained the attacks," state Power Minister Shovandeb Chattopadhyay told the media here. On Monday, of the 500 customer care centres of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL), around 30 centres fell prey to the malware "WannaCrypt" that crippled computers from hospitals in Britain to police stations in India, with hackers demanding hundreds of dollars from the users for them to regain control over their data. "Only a few computer systems at these centres were attacked but it has not affected the services. Government has issued specific directives which are being followed. As of now, we are equipped to handle such cyber attack," he said. The Minister claimed customer data is safe in the central server system. Officials at WBSEDCL claimed there were no fresh attacks. Kolkata Municipal Corporation mayor Sovan Chatterjee said there were attempts by hackers to steal money from his wife's bank account. --IANS sgh/ssp/rn ( 220 Words) 2017-05-16-21:12:10 (IANS)
Israeli Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon called on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath here on Tuesday and expressed his country's desire to cooperate with the state in various sectors. Yogi Adityanath said during the meeting that the state government was interested in using Israel's expertise in development of agriculture, irrigation, horticulture, energy, science and technology, smart cities and other sectors. The Chief Minister told the visiting envoy that owing to the depleting ground water, many regions have been declared dark zones in the state. In these areas, techniques developed by Israel could be of great help as also in the Bundelkhand region, he averred. Adityanath also directed the Chief Secretary to constitute a joint-group to identify the ways and means by which Israel and Uttar Pradesh can cooperate in the fields of agriculture, trade, culture and other policy- related matters. The Israeli envoy thanked the Chief Minister for extending him an invitation to visit the state and said that as a representative of the Israel government, this was his maiden visit to Uttar Pradesh. Carmon further said that strengthening of bilateral ties with India was one of the priorities of the Israeli government and narrated the problems Israel faced during nation-building. He added that apart from solving the problem of water shortage, special attention was accorded to food security for its citizens. The Israeli envoy told the Chief Minister that at present, Israel was assisting India in 40 projects related to agriculture and horticulture of which 15 projects have been completed. Two projects are also being developed in Uttar Pradesh of which one is in Basti and the other is the vegetable development centre in Kannauj district. These projects, which would ultimately benefit 10,000-15,000 farmers, will soon be completed, he added and requested the Chief Minister to inaugurate them. Carmon further said that his country can also extend their cooperation to the 'Namami Gange' project rolled out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. --IANS md/pgh/dg ( 334 Words) 2017-05-16-21:50:22 (IANS)
Actor Miriam Margolye says the "Harry Potter" franchise is over for her and she has no interest in seeing the stage adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" or its spin-off. The 75-year-old essayed the role of Professor Sprout in the franchise. She says that author J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne's "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" play isn't her "kind of theatre", reports femalefirst.co.uk. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course I haven't seen the play. It's over for me. I am not interested in 'Harry Potter' anymore because it's over. I'm glad that it's happening and thrilled at its success, but it's going nothing for me. It's not my kind of theatre," Margoyle told YouTube channel BANG Showbiz. Margolyes isn't the only actor who has no interest in seeing the stage production after actor Daniel Radcliffe, who shot to fame as Harry, is unsure if he will bother to watch the play. The 27-year-old actor said: "It would be a weird one. I could be completely wrong in this, but I feel like if I went to see it that night, there's going to be a lot of 'Harry Potter' fans there in the audience obviously and would that then become a thing? "Would it be more about them watching me watch the show or would it take away from the show. I would never want to do anything that would distract or take away from the show. "I don't know, I'm not sure." --IANS ks/sas ( 256 Words) 2017-05-16-06:56:09 (IANS)
The "Lootera" star is in total awe of S.S Rajamouli's creation which has emerged as the country's biggest blockbuster.

"'Baahubali'. OMFG," Ranveer tweeted on Tuesday.

The second part in the "Baahubali" franchise has amassed over Rs. 1400 crore so far and counting.

The film has crushed box-office records across languages. It collected over Rs. 400 crore from its dubbed Hindi version alone.

Starring Prabhas and Rana Daggubati as the male protagonists, the film is about the warring battle between them for the ownership of an ancient kingdom.

Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Ramya Krishnan and Sathyaraj played pivotal roles in the film.

-*-

Shruti Haasan excited for Cannes

Actress Shruti Haasan says she is really excited to be the part of 70th Cannes Film Festival for her film "Sangamithra".

Shruti on Monday evening took to Twitter to express her excitement.

"Last day in LA but super excited to head to Cannes for 'Sangamitra'!" Shruti tweeted.

A Hindi, Tamil and Telugu trilingual, "Sangamithra" stars Shruti in the title role, while Jayam Ravi and Arya are the chief male protagonists. The film is directed by Sundar C, produced by Thenandal Studios and has Oscar winning composer A.R. Rahman as its music director.

Rahman will walk the red carpet at the 70th Cannes Film Festival with the lead cast, director and producers of the trilingual magnum opus. He will be seen walking the red carpet of the opening night on May 17.

--IANS hp-dc/nv/vm

( 266 Words)

2017-05-16-11:40:17 (IANS)
"Inadequate sanitation infrastructure, coupled with displacement, overcrowded shelters and settlements, increase the risk of person-to-person cholera transmission," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

In response, the UN is supporting 33 diarrhoea treatment centres in Yemen, and ten oral rehydration therapy centres have been opened, he said.

The UN has established two emergency centres, in Aden and Sana'a, with Rapid Response Teams to monitor and treat contaminated water sources, he added.

A cholera outbreak in Yemen has killed 51 people in two weeks and caused around 2,752 suspected cases since April 27, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said last Thursday in a statement on its website.

The cases were reported from 10 provinces, including the capital Sanaa, according to the statement.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen was announced by Yemen's Ministry of Public Health and Population on Oct. 6, 2016.

Yemen, the impoverished Arab country in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been involved in a civil war since two years ago. The war pits Iranian-allied dominant Houthi movement, backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against their foe of Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The war has killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, and displaced over 2 millions, according to humanitarian agencies.

--IANS ahm/

( 259 Words)

2017-05-16-04:46:13 (IANS)
The men were arrested from Akroor Plaza, after cops raided the place under the leadership of Chandausi police station-in-charge Anil Samaniya, who took action after being tipped off by an informer.

According to reports, they were booked for allegedly gambling on an IPL match between Delhi and Bengaluru.

The team seized Rs 1.17 lakh cash, laptop, five mobile phones, books displaying betting rates and diaries and a LCD television.

Earlier, six more bookies were arrested with Rs 70,000 from Ghaziabad in connection with the IPL betting racket.

The police caught the six bookies red-handed along with Rs 70,000, seven Android phones, one Maruti Swift car, one Passion Pro motorcycle from the Link road area of Ghaziabad.

In another case, three bookies namely, Ramesh Shah, Vikas Chauhan and Ramesh were caught along with cash worth Rs. 4, 40,000, two mobiles and a diary from Landmark Hotel in Kanpur.

The arrested accused had come ahead of the IPL clash to be played between Delhi Daredevils and Gujarat Lions at Kanpur's Green Park Stadium .

The teams were staying at the Landmark Hotel and the bookies were betting from this hotel only.

On the same day, the Delhi Police had also busted an IPL betting racket in the Shahdara area of East Delhi and arrested six people.

Police recovered two laptops, 22 mobile phones and LCDs (ANI)
With the CBI raids underway at former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti's various residences, the Congress has asserted this is political vendetta of the worst kind. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh took to Twitter to condemn the ongoing raids. "Strongly condemn raids against Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. Political vendetta of the worst kind," he tweeted. Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said the BJP has always initiated such things with the intention of taking revenge, be it in the Virbhadra Singh case, National Herald case or the present raids. "Right from the day the BJP came into power, it has launched investigations with the intention of taking revenge. It is using the CBI and other legal tools against all its opponents. It did so in Virbhadra Singh case, National Herald, against Manmohan Singh also. Same is it doing now against Chidambaram, who is known for his honesty," Tiwari told ANI. With the raiding the Chidambaram residence here today in connection with the FIPB approval in several cases, the senior Congress leader lashed out at the Centre, accusing it of using national agencies to target his son. "FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said in a statement. Asserting that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram added that the approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India. "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," the senior Congress leader added. Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also. The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the national capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval. (ANI)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah on Tuesday strongly criticised the Kerala Government over the rampant political killings in the state especially those of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) workers. "The Government of left front is not concerned about the attacks over RSS and BJP. 13 murders in this short period cannot be a coincidence. The law and order situation in the state has deteriorated. The police are not taking any action in connection with the matter," Shah told ANI, Shah asserted that these murders reflect that Left front is trying to curb the supporters of BJP in Kerala through violent means. "They cannot curb the rising support of BJP in Kerala. Government should work according to the laws and constitution, not according to their ideology," he added. RSS worker Choorakad Biju was hacked to death allegedly by the CPI(M) activists at Payyanur town that witnessed a series of clashes between the ruling CPI(M) and the RSS for the past one year. Biju was an accused in a case relating to the killing of CPI(M) activist C V Dhanraj in 2016. Police had registered a case against seven identifiable persons in connection with the incident. Meanwhile, the dawn-to-dusk hartal, called by the BJP in Kannur and nearby Mahe to protest the killing was total with shops and business establishments remaining closed. The hartal was peaceful so far except some sporadic incidents of stone pelting, police said, adding that security was intensified and additional force deployed across the district to avoid any untoward incident. The killing of Biju was the first such incident since peace talks in January this year in Kannur, notorious for political violence between the workers of the CPI (M) and the RSS. (ANI)
President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi received Abbas. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"Deepening historically close and friendly ties," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Later, Abbas paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

"Reinforcing support to Palestine. Sushma Swaraj calls on President Mahmoud Abbas," Baglay said.

Abbas will participate in delegation-level talks with Modi. The two sides are expected to sign a series of agreements.

The visiting President will also call on Mukherjee and meet Vice President Hamid Ansari.

The four-day official visit of Abbas comes ahead of Modi's visit to Israel in July. This is the Palestine President's fifth visit to India and the third state visit after 2008 and 2012.

A delegation comprising Palestine Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash is accompanying Abbas.

--IANS rs/py/rn

( 207 Words)

2017-05-16-12:22:09 (IANS)
Additional District Judge Sandeep Yadav's order came on Monday while hearing a plea filed by Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Shakun who has alleged tampering of the EVM and the lock of the gate where the machine were kept was found broken.

Shakun's counsel Vishnu Langawat also told the court that the counting in the Pul Prahladpur ward also began late.

The court issued notice to Delhi state Election Commission, its officials and candidates asking them to file reply till May 25.

-- IANS spk-akk/ksk/vm

( 123 Words)

2017-05-16-12:58:15 (IANS)
CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury has alleged that BJP has been planning to form the government in Tripura through unfair means as they did it in Goa, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Addressing public rally on the occasion of 19th state conferenceof CPI-M student's wing SFI at Belonia in South Tripura last evening, hesaid, however, it will not be possible in Tripura, as Left Front government is powerful with a huge mandate and similarly the people of the state are equally intelligent. "We have full faith in the voters and believe people will prove their ability in the forthcoming assembly election. Politics on religious line and slogan for making Hindu state would not yield any result in Tripura. Moreover, politically aware voters of Tripura have always thrown out such forces several times and this will continue this year too," Yechury stated. Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP government for non-fulfilment of the election pledges, he said BJP had assured of bringing good days but the countrymen were now facing insecurity and the RSS wasalso trying to convert the state as "Hindu Rashtra".UNI BB KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-895586.Xml
Criminals shot dead an RJD leader and onion merchant Pappu Yadav near a railway gate under Fatuha police station area on the outskirts of the state capital today. Police said here that outlaws gunned down Mr Yadav (48) when he was inside his shop. The RJD leader died on the spot, police added. The motive behind the murder was still unknown. A massive manhunt is on to nab the criminals. Meanwhile, Patna Senior Police Superintendent Manu Maharaj shunting out the officer-in-charge of Fatuha police station Sujit Kumar asked him to report to police lines.UNI DH AD1346 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0108-895691.Xml
At least five people, including three women, were killed and 12 others critically injured when a speeding jeep hit a stationary truck near Sharma Mahisauna village under Town police station area in the district late last night. Police said here today that the speeding jeep hit the stationary truck on Lakhisarai-Jamui road killing five people including three women on the spot. At least 12 occupants of the jeep also sustained critical injuries in the mishap. The deceased as well as the injured people hail from Karaura village under Mushari police station area in Muzaffarpur district. All of them were returning from Deoghar after the 'mudan sanskar'of children at Deoghar in Jharkhand. The accident took place when the jeep driver after long hours of drive had a nap, hitting the stationary truck in the process. The deceased were identified as Anoj Das (26), Vinay Das (32), Jailas Devi (60), Kaushalya Devi (45) and Nisha Kumari (12). The injured were identified as Satyam Kumar, Shivam Kumar, Kajal Kumari, Rekha Devi, Reena Devi, Kiran Devi, Lalan Kumar, Sagar Kumar, Sunita Devi, Surjit Kumar, Surendra Das and jeep driver Bhola Mahto. The injured had been admitted to Lakhisarai Sadar Hospital where their condition was stated to be critical. Bodies have been sent for autopsy, police added.UNI XC DH KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-895652.Xml
All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today questioned the Central government's argument in the Supreme Court for calling triple talaq un-Islamic."Triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you (Central government) say it is unconstitutional ? " Kapil Sibal, the counsel appearing for the AIMPLB, told a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar. The four other judges are Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, Kurian Joseph, Uday Umesh Lalit and S Abdul Nazeer. Mr Sibal said ceremonies concerning birth, marriage, divorce, property and death are decided by family influenced by social norms. Family and social norms could never be tested with touchstone of Constitutional morality, a ground the Centre had argued vociferously. The AIMPLB said Muslim marriage is a contract through 'nikahnama' between consenting adults, so is divorce.Mr Sibal responded to yesterday's stand by the Centre that the government will enact a law on Muslim divorce if the SC quashed talaq in all forms. He asked what will happen if the SC quashed talaq in all forms and then Parliament refused to enact a law.Mr Sibal said if Hindus believe Lord Rama was born in Ayodhya, this faith cannot be questioned on the ground of constitutional validity. If faith of Hindus about Rama's birth at Ayodhya cannot be questioned, then triple talaq is also a matter of faith for Muslims.The AIMPLB said the 1937 Sharia Act is not codification of Muslim personal law which is protected under the Constitution. UNI XC SW RSA 1424 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-895708.Xml
Describing the NDA government at the Centre as a failure on all fronts during the past three years of its rule, the Congress today said it would launch a mass movement across the country against the policies of this regime in the next 24 months.Addressing a joint press conference along with AICC spokesperson Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajasthan Congress leader Sachin Pilot, AICC spokespersons R P Singh and Sushmita Deb and Congress leader Divya Spandana, AICC media in charge Randeep Surjewala termed the Narendra Modi Government ''a Government of empty promises''. ''We will launch a mass movement across the country over the next 24 months against the policies of the NDA Government which are marked by 'all words and no action'. We will prepare a blueprint for an alternative governance and present it to the people of the country,'' Mr Surjewala said. Addressing reporters, Mr Scindia said, ''When the NDA Government assumed power in 2014, it had offered several alluring dreams and promises to the people of the country. However in the last three years of the rule of the NDA Government, the hopes of people have been totally shattered.''Charging the NDA Government as being gripped with an anti-Dalit and anti-tribal mindset, Mr Scindia said leader of the ruling party at the Centre had made statement reflecting the anti-Dalit mindset of this Government as evidenced by the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula and assault on Dalits in several parts of the country.It seems that they (BJP) want a 'Dalit-free' India. Through their anti-Dalit statements, leaders of the ruling party have destroyed 'communal harmony, which has been part of the Indian ethos. This evidenced in incidents of killing of Dalits in Dadri and Alwar.''He also charged the ruling party at the Centre with destroying national institutions in the country, citing in this context the eroding of the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India.''This Government has been resorting to an assault on educational instituted in the country. Even the institutes like the RBI, known for their autonomous working, have witnessed an erosion in their autonomous functioning during the rule of the NDA,'' he said. Attacking the Government on the deterioration of the law and order situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he said, ''Kashmir has been burning since last July. Incidents of terrorist violence and Naxal violence have risen sharply. Despite this, the Government has not held any discussion with the Opposition parties.''More UNI AR AE 1600 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-895798.Xml
Tripura BJP today charged with CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar for downgrading the status of India while addressing SFI state conference in Belonia yesterday and sought clarification from them. Addressing mediapersons here, BJP vice president Subal Bhowmik alleged that both the CPI(M) leaders made false statement against central government and development index of India deliberately to lower down the status of the country. Mr Yechury had stated people of India have been suffering from hunger and at present at least five persons died due to starvation everyday in the world and three of them are Indians. Similarly, farmers are committing suicide and a large number of people in India are jobless because of faulty policy of the government. "The statements are completely baseless and far from the truth. India is supplying surplus food grains to at least 40 countries of the world and after Modi led government came in power, farmers were provided insurance besides other benefits. Scope of employment has increased a manifold but Yechury intentionally made it for narrow politics," Bhowmik stated. He demanded Yechury has to substantiate his statement. On the other, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar blamed central government for poor health and education infrastructure of northeast region and alleged that Modi led government did not do anything for the poor and marginalized section of the society. Bhowmik alleged that Sarkar reflected the failure of his government unconsciously. The education, health and infrastructure got a boost in the region in Modi led government and it is evident from the records. However, in Tripura due to poverty and maladministration children sold at Rs 200, youths are committing suicide everyday and atrocities on women is highest in the country during left front's rule. "We demand left front government to release a white paper about the development of the state and success of leftists in last 25 years. Always they accused central government for their failure in implementation of the projects and spend the money properly. The time has come to see the balance sheet of Sarkar," Bhowmik underlined. He further sought clarification from Chief Minister Sarkar for his allegation he made yesterday in the rally that a tribal leader has held meeting with banned NLFT militants recently and asked, "If he knows the details why police is not arresting him."UNI BB AKM 1640 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-896003.Xml
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the state minister of his office Dr Jitendra Singh invited Indigenous Peoples' Front of Twipra (IPFT) for a meeting tomorrow at 1300 hrs in Prime Ministers' Office regarding their longstanding demand of separate tribal land and related issues of tribal. The president of splinter group of IPFT N C Debbarma said here today that a 10 members delegation led by him to leave for Delhi tonight to attend the meeting. The party has already set out its demand and points of discussion with Modi regarding sufferings of tribals under leftist rule. Debbarma pointed out that IPFT has been fighting for separate tribal land for indigenous people of the state since 2009 and several times they had held meeting with central ministers including home ministers but there was no meaningful solution yet. He hoped this meeting would able to find out a solution to bring an end to 60-yrs long sufferings of the tribals of Tripura and IPFT is always ready to talk on the issue at any length for greater interest. UNI BB AKM 1647 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-896014.Xml
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today accused the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre of sitting over the file relating to appointment of two new ministers which was sent to the Lieutenant Governor for approval.Addressing a press conference, Mr Sisodia said,''the strike of Kapil Mishra and media gimmick has ended. Now approve it (the file of two Ministers)."Earlier, taking to twitter, Mr Kejriwal said,''Centre has been sitting for 10-day on the file of two ministers. Many works of Delhi Government have stopped. You have enmity with us, do not take revenge on the people of Delhi.'' The Deputy Chief Minister also said Delhi was facing an impending water crisis as Haryana was yet to release 80 MGD of water for the capital.Mr Sisodia said he had advised the Chief Secretary of Delhi to have talks with the Chief Secretary of Haryana in this regard. However, there was no outcome as of now.The Deputy Chief Minister also held a meeting with Delhi Jal Board officials to discuss the water shortage issue.On May 6, Mr Kejriwal had carried out a reshuffle in his Cabinet and inducted Kailash Gahlot and Rajendra Gautam as new ministers. The appointment came following the removal of Mr Kapil Mishra as Water Minister.The AAP legislators represent Najafgarh and Seemapuri constituencies. UNI APS/AR AE SNU 1851 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-896292.Xml
The CBI on Tuesday raided the residences of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai, Delhi and various other places alleging he could have benefited to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore for helping in the clearance of an FIPB proposal of media company INX Ltd when his father was at the helm in the North Block. The raids that began at 6 a.m. and continued till 1.30 p.m. took place after the Central Bureau of Investigation agency filed an FIR alleging that Karti's invoices for approximately Rs 3.5 crore were raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which he was having "sustainable interests" either directly or indirectly. The raids were conducted at their residence in Nungambakam in Chennai and hometown Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu. The FIPB clearance was given to Mumbai-based INX Media (now called 9X Media) when it was run by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, and Chidambaram was then the Finance Minister. The FIR does not mention the name of Chidambaram, though it states that he had cleared the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval for Rs 4.62 crore Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the FIPB meeting on May 18, 2007. Both Chidambaram and his son denied there was any misconduct on their part and said the whole action was aimed at "muzzling" the voice of Chidambaram senior, who has been writing against the NDA government. Karti said he had committed no crime and the case against him was foisted on account of political vendetta. Chidambaram said FIPB clearance is given in hundreds of cases and there is no allegation against officials, who are members of the FIPB, or against him. Besides Karti, those named in the FIR include INX Director Indrani Mukherjea and her husband Peter Mukherjea, both accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, and some unknown officials of the ministry. However, the CBI said it found that INX made a downstream investment to the extent of 26 per cent in capital without the specific approval of FIPB, which included indirect foreign investment by the same foreign investors and generated more than Rs 305 crore. The FIPB unit in the ministry had clearly stated that for downstream investment in INX, a separate FIPB approval was required. Following a complaint filed in this matter and the FIPB seeking clarifications from it, the company entered into a criminal conspiracy with Karti, Promoter Director of Chennai-based Chess Management Services Pvt Ltd, so as to get issues resolved/addressed amicably by influencing the public servants of the FIPB unit by virtue of his relationship with the then Finance Minister, the FIR alleged. The FIR also claimed that the INX group in its record has clearly mentioned the purpose of payment of Rs 10 lakh to Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) as towards "Management consultancy charges towards FIPB notification and clarification". Separate CBI teams conducted searches at more than ten places in Tamil Nadu, besides carrying out over a dozen raids in Delhi, Mumbai and Haryana's Gurugram, including the residences of those persons mentioned in the FIR. In Gurugram, CBI raided the office of Chess Management Services Private Limited, located in JMD Mehapolis business center on Sohna road in sector 48. The CBI has registered the case under offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification by corrupt or illegal means, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct. It said that the concerned officials of the FIPB by virtue of the influence exercised over them by Karti, not only ignored the serious illegality on the part of INX but also deliberately embarked on showing undue favours to the company. "Such deceitful and fallacious proposal was favourably considered by the Finance Ministry officials and approved by the then Finance Minister," the agency said in the FIR. After the raid at his residence, Karti was seen getting into a vehicle along with CBI officials, who then took him to his office also located in Nungambakkam. At the end of the raids, which lasted for over seven hours, Karti told mediapersons that "they have not found anything at my residence and they have found nothing against me. It is politically motivated act." "They have taken this action to malign my father's name." "I will give a detailed statement later," Karti said before being driven out of his residence. At his office, the CBI reportedly seized some documents. --IANS str-pradeep-rak/vsc/in/vm ( 741 Words) 2017-05-16-16:42:10 (IANS)
Though the two-day "One Belt and One Road" summit has been described as a successful event by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the flagship project faces two very distinct challenges namely 1)overcoming the view that OBOR violates the rule of accepting and respecting international borders, norms and rule of law on the pretext of connectivity and 2countering the f new and barbaric terrorism face of the Islamic State. India, on the other hand, has joined hands with Japan to embark upon multiple infrastructure projects across Africa, Iran, Sri Lanka. To counter China's OBOR initiative, both India and Japan plan to launch an Asia-Africa connectivity for supremacy in the Indian Ocean. China's consistent efforts of aggressively pursuing diplomacy from 2002 and then transforming the same to economic and investment ties from 2013 has resulted in Beijing emerging as a new global economic power.It has thus re-invented the centuries old Silk Road and other routes on land as well as through sea. China has already attained greater connectivity and military might through the one party rule of the Communist Party of China and having bilateral relations with maximum number of countries through soft diplomacy. In fact, the grand economic plan presents China as an emerging economic superpower. Chinese President Xi Jinping is credited with initiating a New Silk Road from China to Europe dubbed as One Belt ,One Road, but what is actually a combination of various routes that facilitate the export of silk and other commodities from China to Asia.In practice, OBOR is a collection of the land -based Silk Road economic belt and the Maritime Silk Road with primary points at Urumqi, Dostyk,Astana, Gomel,Brest and the Polish cities of Malaszewicze and Lodz which would be hubs for logistics and transshipment to other countries of Europe. China's long-term goals, ambitions and initiatives have been shaped byOBOR, that aims to increase connectivity between the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa. Time-line of starting of OBOR On September 7,2013 President Xi raised the One Belt One Road at Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev. August 22,2014- President Xi welcomed neighbouring countries to join the One Belt One road initiative in his visit in Mongolia. October 24, 2014 -The establishment of AIIB: Twenty one countries ,including China and Singapore signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing. December 29,2014 - the Chinese government pledged US$40 billion for the creation of the Silk Road Fund,which is a state owned investment fund of the Chinese government. Feb1,2015 -Advance One belt one road construction Conference was held in Beijing. March 26,2015 -President Xi delivered a speech Boao Forum for Asia, stated that OBOR is to promote mutual economic strategy along countries achieve docking. March 28, 2015 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of commerce issued the vision and actions on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st century Maritime Silk Road. May 7,2015-President Xi visited Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia for the implementation of OBOR. Specifically India which has skipped the summit due to its sovereignty issues as China's OBOR grand plan is under the framework of the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor, a series of projects that stands to connect the Asian giant to Central Asia and Europe .CPEC which connects China's largest province, Xinjiang,with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan, the largest and most impoverished province of Pakistan bordering Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province. India has opposed the CPEC route and development at Gwadar port for several reasons as 1)The route passes through the controversial territories of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. 2)On the pretext of connectivity and economic development China violates sovereignty and territorial integrity of many countries including India. 3)Gwadar will act as a Chinese naval base in the Arabian Sea with access to Mid-East and Mediterranean Sea in Europe. 4)In addition,Chinese navy plans to have access to Indian Ocean at various places including Sri Lanka. China's hegemony and neo-imperialistic designs China has been working on the old tradition of foreign relations as the basis for Imperial China during the times of Qin dynasty and consider all other powers subservient. Under this approach, China has roped in 65 countries somewhat connected and covering more than half of the world's population. That includes: 1)Planned projects to focus on the development of numerous assets ,including ports,roads,railways,airports,power plants ,oil and gas pipelines , refineries and Free Trade Zones 2)The OBOR also includes China -Pakistan -Economic -Corridor and Chinese heavy investment in Myanmar including Bangaldesh-China-India-Myanmar Corridor China's approach begins with soft diplomacy stating that it will not charge hefty amounts for the investments they have already done stressing on the inclusiveness of the other countries in this connectivity corridor.But in the long run Beijing plans to charge them heavily. China insists that the objective of OBOR is to facilitate smoother trade flow within the connected regions and an improved linkage via railways and maritime connectivity will reduce the transit time between Europe and China.The land route will also emerge as an option for the movement of goods Challenges to China's OBOR But China's flagship project faces many challenges in the form of terrorism that currently plagues various areas of the world. CPEC that connect China's Xinjiang is a conflict zone where Uyghur separatists claim that the region is not a part of China but was part of East Turkestan Republic that was illegally incorporated into the People's Republic of China in 1949. Now, the second point of concern is Balochistan has been under attack by separatists,insurgents and Islamic State-Khorasan jihadists for over a decade. Apart from the terrorism angle, regional conflicts can also hinder the initiative and there exists skepticism about Chinese hegemony by various countries. Moreover, the OBOR has had long-term geo-political and strategic implications for Europe, creating political and economic dependencies, accompanied by the real threat of poorer EU states succumbing to the political leverage exercised by China, through massive infrastructure investments.(ANI)
The Central Water Commission (CWC) on Tuesday issued a clarification on the Gujarat Government's request for funds for the Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation Yojana (SAUNI). It was earlier reported in the media that the CWC had rejected the Gujarat Government's request for funds for the SAUNI Yojana on technical grounds, questioning the feasibility of the project. The External Assistance Directorate of the CWC claimed that a section of the press had incorrectly reported the matter. The CWC said the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has conveyed its 'in-principle' approval of the SAUNI-II Project to the Department of Economic Affairs, Government of India in October, 2016. Elaborating on the facts, the CWC said as a standard operating procedure, all major and medium irrigation projects are required to undergo technical evaluation by the CWC and that states should submit a compliance report on the observations of the CWC. "This is a continuous, consultative process, which is taken both at the Preliminary Project Report (PPR) and Detailed Project Report (DPR) stages," the CWC said in a statement. It further added that in the case of the SAUNI-II Project, the CWC had made certain observations on the Preliminary Project Report submitted by the Gujarat Government. "The State Government has since submitted a detailed compliance report and the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has recommended the SAUNI-II Project to the Department of Economic Affairs, Government of India, for obtaining external assistance," it added. It may be mentioned that SAUNI is a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister had inaugurated the first phase of SAUNI at Aji-3 Dam near Rajkot on August 30, 2016. Again, on April 17 this year, Prime Minister Modi dedicated to the nation Phase-1 (Link 2) of SAUNI project at Botad. Here, he also laid the foundation stone of Phase 2 (Link 2) of the project. SAUNI is an ambitious plan to fill 115 reservoirs in water-scarce Saurashtra with waters of overflowing Narmada. (ANI)
According to police, four men looted the cash from the bank in Chakradharpur at gun-point. The criminals also injured the security guard who sought to resist them.

Police have launched an operation to nab the criminals.

--IANS ns/pgh/dg

( 69 Words)

2017-05-16-20:16:09 (IANS)
After a brief lull, Pakistan yet again violated the ceasefire agreement and fired unprovoked at forward Indian posts on the Line of Control in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. ''Pakistani Army initiated indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatics, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars from 1830 hrs along the Line of Control in Nowshera sector of Rajouri,'' a Defence Spokesman here said. The Indian Army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively, while exchange of fire is presently on, he added. Earlier last morning, Pakistan fired heavily in Nowshera Sector, while the firing stopped at 0815 hrs. Two civilians, including a teenage girl, had died and five others got injured on Sunday in heavy shelling from across the border at Jhangar area of Nowshera sector. The district administration shifted the border dwellers to the relief camps set in government institutions in a fleet of buses, while schools along the border are closed indefinitely till further orders. The government had also cancelled the leaves of employees of health department, animal and sheep husbandry and other major wings, asking them to remain prepared to maintain any eventuality. ''More than 1500 border residents are shifted to safer places,'' an official here said, adding that schools have been closed indefinitely, while the classes will function in the camps. The district administration provided an immediate relief of Rs one lakh each to the next of the kin of dead and financial assistance to the injured. Overall, out of 64 villages along the LOC in Rajouri, 23 are located in Nowshera Sub-Division, where eight villages are badly affected and remaining 15 villages sustained minor losses, while five villages in Doongi and nine in Manjakote have been affected. The official said that three cattle were reported dead and in Tarkudi area, 14-15 shells were dropped. In Niaka-Panjgrain village of Manjakote, 3-4 shells were dropped in cross-border shelling. More than 40 shells landed in various areas of Manjakote, where three houses were damaged, he said. He, however, said that 14 buses, seven Mini-buses, 11 Tata Magic and three Tata Mobile vehicles were pressed into action for evacuation with forward areas evacuation through bullet proof bunkers. ''Each family has been provided 11 kg ration, apart from cooked food served in relief camps,'' he added. On April 3, Pakistani troops fired heavily in Poonch and Rajouri sectors. In the same area, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som was killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast on April 1. There had been four ceasefire violations along the LoC in Poonch in March. On March 19, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by resorting to shelling and firing along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali area of Poonch district. On March 13, Pakistani troops resorted to mortar shelling and firing by automatic weapons along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector. On March 12, Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire by resorting to firing and mortar shelling in Krishnagati and Chakan Da Bagh sectors along the LoC in Poonch district. Pakistani shelling caused damage to the LoC Trade Facilitation centre and LOC travel and trade was suspended for a few days. On March 9, Army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch. In 2016, 228 instances of ceasefire violations along the LoC were reported, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violations along the International Border (IB).UNI VBH RJ 2042 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896586.Xml
Her comments came in the wake of the Income Tax Department raid on RJD chief Lalu Prasad and the CBI raid on Karti Chidambaram, son of former union Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday.

"Political vendetta is going on. We also discussed what is going on from this morning. Political battles should be fought politically. If they (BJP) do not like someone, they throw charges at them, they get them raided, they jail them," Banerjee said after meeting Congress President Sonia Gandhi over a common opposition candidate for the presidential election.

Banerjee said that leaders of opposition parties were being targeted.

"Different people are being targeted. Laluji, Mayawati, Akhilesh (Yadav), Naveen Patnaik, Chidambaram, Kejriwal, and our party too. This is not proper," she said.

Banerjee said there was pressure on the media as well.

"But India is a democracy. We would never want that democracy is bulldozed," she said.

--IANS spk/rn

( 180 Words)

2017-05-16-21:14:11 (IANS)
Forest Department officials said that the leopard could have accidentally got trapped in the metal snare near Wadaval village in Bicholim sub districton on Monday and died after much struggle on Tuesday.

"The leopard was around four to five years old and the cause of death will be formally established after a forensic examination. Prima facie, it appears that the animal died to to internal haemmorage after it was caught in the trap," a Forest Department spokesperson told reporters here.

Not far from Bicholim, 30 km from Panaji, a full-grown tiger was similarly found dead some years ago in a metal snare, often planted on game trails by poachers to trap wild boars, much sought for its meat, which fetches a high value.

--IANS maya/vd

( 160 Words)

2017-05-16-21:44:09 (IANS)
The Congress in Goa on Tuesday said it is taking legal opinion over filing a petition seeking disqualification of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who continues to be Rajya Sabha MP. The party's reaction came after Allahabad High Court issued notice to the Attorney General of India over a petition seeking disqualification of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Lok Sabha MP Yogi Adityanath for holding two posts. "With regards to the developments which have taken place in Uttar Pradesh in the Yogi Adityanath case, the Congress in Goa is currently taking legal opinion over whether it can be done here," Goa Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar told IANS. Parrikar, a former Defence Minister and a member of the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, was rushed back to state politics in March this year, to head the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Goa. Parrikar, however, continues to be a member of the Rajya Sabha and party sources here have suggested, that he is likely to relinquish his parliamentary position after the election of the President, scheduled to be held before July 25 this year. On Monday, the Allahabad High Court issued notice to the Attorney General after hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) in which a social activist alleged that since both Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister K.P. Maurya were Lok Sabha MPs and were drawing salaries and other perks, they do not have a right to be in the positions of power in the state government. The petitioner has cited the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act of 1959 and has called for nullifying the appointment of both Adityanath and Maurya. While Adityanath is an MP from Gorakhpur, Maurya is a Lok Sabha member from Phoolpur in Allahabad. --IANS maya/pgh/dg ( 301 Words) 2017-05-16-21:52:09 (IANS)
The Opposition Congress-led UDF today staged a walkout in Kerala Assembly, in protest against denial of an adjournment motion seeking discussion over fees hike by the managements of self-financing medical colleges in the state. Seeking the leave of the House to move the motion in this regard, VT Balram of Congress alleged that the Left Government had surrendered before the private managements which hiked the fees three times, denying medical education to the poor section in the society. Health Minister KK Shylaja said the fees hike for PG courses was fixed by the Fee Regulatory Committee. In the case of Christian managements, the Government reached a consensus with them to hike the fees to Rs 16 lakh for clinical courses and Rs 8.5 lakh for non-clnical courses. Now, the admission to all the self-financing colleges will be from the NEET list under the Central allotment. The Government was also in a position to follow the Supreme Court verdict in this regard, she added. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala alleged that the Health Secretary and the Health Minister have failed to protect the interest of students while fixing the fee structure and sought the Govrnment's financial support in the form of scholarship to SC/ST students.As Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan denied permission to move the adjournment motion, the Opposition members entered the well of the House and disrupted the proceedings leading to the adjournment of the House for some time. When the House assembled again, the Opposition members staged the walkout in protest against the Government stand.UNI DS RJ 2112 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896614.Xml
Yesterday, in a high-level meeting held by the Jharkhand Police, senior officials analyzed security matters plaguing the state especially in regard to Naxals.

Director General of police D. K. Pandey told ANI, "We have seized properties of 17 naxals and criminals as yet. We are keeping a close look on others as well."

The police also decided to increase the number of posts in the border areas of Bihar and Chhattisgarh to combat the problems of Naxal operations.

The DGP also expressed concerns about Naxal interference in the 'beedi season' and hoped to conduct a meeting with contractors regarding it.

The meeting was attended by Additional Director General of Police R. K. Malik, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Inspector General, and several other higher police officials.

The meeting comes in the wake of the soaring incident of Naxal encounters and attack, which are taking a toll on civilians as well as security forces.

In April, two policemen were killed following an encounter with Maoists in Jharkhand.

Later that month, three CRFP personnel were also injured in a Maoist attack. (ANI)
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court today rejected the bail plea of Hizbul-Mujaheedin militant convicted in the killing of a Sarpanch. In the much publicised murder case of Sher Mohammad, Sarpanch of village Changa in which Trial Court awarded imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5000 to HM terrorist Tariq Mattoo code Gorkha of Soti Gandoh, a Division Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court here comprising Justices Alok Aradhe and Janak Raj Kotwal rejected the bail application. On July 4, 2002, as per police report, terrorists Irfan Ali code Babloo, Jan Mohammad code Hamza and accused Tariq Matoo code Gorkha entered the house of Sher Mohammad Rather, Sarpanch, Halqa Changa and fired at him thus killing him on the spot. The terrorists also kept one IED nearby to cause damage to lives of security forces. The Division Bench however, observed that no doubt that the Supreme Court has held that where the appellant has served the half of the jail sentence, the appellant should normally be release on bail but section 497-D of the Code of Criminal Procedure does not apply in this case for the reason that the said section excludes offences for which imprisonment for life is provided for one of the sentences like offence under Section 302 RPC which is punishable with death or imprisonment for life. The appellant was absconding and was apprehended after filing of the charge sheet and two of the co-accused are still absconding and with these observations the Court rejected the bail application, sources here said. UNI VBH RJ 2224 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896652.Xml
Police Inspector K Sreedevi was today withdrawn from her duties of Lake police and attached to the Central Zone Control Room following an enquiry ordered against her for allegedly holding a placard along with protestors at the Dharma Chowk near Indira Park yesterday. Yesterday, two protest programmes were organized at Indira Park, Dharna Chowk by the Dharna Chowk Parirakshana Committee and the local residents who are residing near Dhara Chowk. As a part of bandobust duties apart from uniformed police Mufti Police Men/Woman have been deployed at Dharna Chowk, Indira Park, Hyderabad, said D Joel Davis, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Zone in a release here. In this regard ,. K. Sreedevi, Inspector of Police, Lake PS was drafted for surveillance duty in civic to watch over any anti social elements at Dharna Chowk. It has come to our notice that during the bandobust, Sreedevi, was found holding a placard among the protestors. An enquiry has been ordered for taking further following action in this regard. Pending enquiry, she has been withdrawn from the duties of Lake Police with immediate effect and attached to the Central Zone Control Room, the release added.The enquiry was ordered in the wake of reports, including visuals aired by television channels, of Sreedevi holding a placard during two protest programmes organised at Dharna Chowk by the Dharna Chowk Parirakshana Committee and local residents of the area. The protest had turned violent, with Opposition parties clashing with residents and morning walkers, leaving several injured. Opposition parties were protesting against the government decision to ban agitations at the Dharna Chowk while the residents were in support of the government move. The government had issued directions to the City Police to prohibit all sorts of agitations at the spot, considering the proximity of the area to vital installations including the State Assembly, traffic congestion issues and law and order problems. Implementation of the ban had begun in early March.UNI KNR RJ 2319 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896698.Xml
Mr Rao conducted a review meeting on Commercial taxes with Finance Minister Etela Rajender, Chief Secretary SP Singh, DGP Anurag Sharma and other concerned officials at Pragati Bhavan here.

The CM asked officials to initiate stringent action and ensure that such a thing does not happen again.

The CM also asked the officials whether there is any scope of having Bodhan type of incident anywhere and what are the preventive measures they are taking?

He said a comprehensive probe should be conducted on such matters to bring culprits to the book.

The CM has asked Commercial Taxes Principal Secretary Somesh Kumar to transfer the officials working in Commercial taxes and Stamps and Registration departments in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts who are working here for a long time.

He said no official who commits a mistake, should be spared.

The CM said that the Commercial taxes department, which accrues finances in abundance to the State, should work effectively.

We should not compromise on putting a stop to corruption and this is a malady of the former governments.

Though we have reformed the administration and governance but yet some people are taking undue advantage of our goodness. We have to catch such thieves and ensure that there is no scope for corruption in future. The corrupt atmosphere should not prevail in our state come what may," the CM said.

He suggested to the officials to prepare a proper plan to strengthen the Commercial Taxes department.UNI KNR RJ 2323

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896699.Xml
The assurance by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of stern action and also asking State Director General of Police Sulkhan Singh, to make a personal visit to Mathura to review law and order situation and ensure early arrest of criminals involved in killing of two leading jewelers in the district last night, failed to cool down the anger of the agitated traders.Thousands of businessmen, who closed their establishments to protest the sensational killing of their colleagues on last night, kept the bodies of the victims and staged a huge demonstration on this afternoon. They accused the law enforcing agencies for failing to initiate any action in the matter and demanded that the accused be arrested soon.DGP, Sulkhan Singh, who held a meeting with the senior officers on the issue today had asked the sleuths of the Special Task Force to camp in Mathura and open the case. Luckily the photo of some of the criminals involved in the sensational killing and loot was also captured in close circuit televisions helping the cops to identify the gang involved in the crime. It may be mentioned that over half a dozen armed miscreants raided the jewellery shop ``Mayank Chain'' at Koylewali Gali in Gate Bazar area of Mathura on Monday night. The owner Mayank Agarwal along with his younger brother Vikas Agarwal, were discussing business with another Delhi based jeweler Megh Agarwal, who accompanied one of his gold smith identified as Ashok. The miscreants suddenly opened fire burst critically injured all the four and later taking other staff members at gun point, they looted ornaments and cash all worth several crore of rupees. The miscreants later freely escaped with the booty.The fellow traders who were shocked with the incident rushed to the Agarwal's shop only to find Vikas Agarwal and Delhi based trader, Megh Agarwal, already dead while they rushed the three injured including Mayank Agarwal and Ashok to nearby hospital where they were battling for their lives. Soon after learning of the incident, senior police officers along with local police reached the spot and carried out investigation. They suspected hands of some insiders in the incident and reportedly detained some staff members to grill them. The cops also seized the video cameras of the market along with the installed in Agarwal's shop and managed to get footage of the entire loot.Reacting to incident, spokesman of the State government, Shrikant Sharma, who is also MLA of Mathura said that besides giving instruction to open the case as soon as possible and arrest of criminals involved in it, they also asked the police force to strengthened police patrolling particularly in big markets and crowded places. Directives were also passed to launch a drive against the criminals who were earlier involved in such sensational incidents and to initiate preventing measures against them so that they could not commit crime in the future. Sharma said that in Mathura case, DGP Sulkhan Singh will visit the district on Wednesday and review the situation and ensure time bound arrest of criminals. Meanwhile, when Mathura police was clueless on the jewellers murder case their counterparts of Haryana entered Mathura while chasing hardened criminals in broad daylight today, and gunned down one of them but the local police caught unaware of the entire happing. Only after learning of the encounter from media, the cops wake up from their slumber and revealed the action of Haryana police. Reports said that the cops of the Palwal in Haryana kept chasing some criminals fleeing on a Swift car on Tuesday morning. The cops somehow managed to intercept the vehicle at Nandgaon in Barsana locality of Mathura and after several round of exchange of fire, the cops managed to kill one of the criminals identified as Sudhir, also hailing from Palwal. Haryana police claimed that one more criminal was injured in the firing but he along with two others managed to escape. The Haryana police, who were later joined by the Mathura police claimed to be carrying out combing operation but received no further success.UNI MB RJ 2323 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896701.Xml
The United States has accused the Bashar al-Assad regime of carrying out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burning their bodies in a large crematorium inside its Sednaya military prison outside Damascus, Syria. Acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said that at least 50 prisoners a day are executed in the prison and then the crematorium is used to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings, reports the VOA News. Jones also accused Russia and Iran of indirectly backing this atrocity. "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has carried out these atrocities and others seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran, his main backers," he said in a special State Department briefing on Monday. The information, he said, came from human rights and nonovernmental sources, as well as "intelligence assessments." He also released overhead photographs of the facility. Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as President Donald Trump has said, the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior." Citing an Amnesty International report, Jones said that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the Saydnaya facility between 2011 and 2015. He alleged that the Assad regime had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period. (ANI)
The two-engine plane was a Learjet 35 that crashed on approach to a runway at the Teterboro Airport around 3.30 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

"The aircraft went down about 1/4 mile from the airport in a residential area," said the FAA statement, adding that the jet departed from Philadelphia International Airport and was headed to Teterboro.

Carlstadt police said it is believed that two people killed in the crash were crewmembers and no passengers were onboard.

Airport officials said Teterboro Airport has been closed and flight operations ceased until further notice.

The plane's registered owner is A&C Big Sky Aviation LLC in Billings, Montana.

--IANS ahm/

( 152 Words)

2017-05-16-06:50:09 (IANS)
The White House has denied that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about the Islamic State (IS) terror group to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and claimed the reports as "false". "The story that came out tonight (Monday night), as reported, is false ... At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed," White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said in a brief appearance before reporters. "And the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials were present, including the Secretary of State, remembered the meeting the same way and said so. The on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources," McMaster said. The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump met with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office last week and revealed to them highly classified information concerning the possibility that the IS might use portable computers to carry out terrorist attacks on commercial flights, remarks to which McMaster did not allude in his denial. McMaster also said that he had been present at the meeting. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism." "During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations," Tillerson added. McMaster said the President and Lavrov "reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation," adding that "at no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly." The meeting with the Russian officials came a day after Trump fired Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey. Comey had been heading an FBI probe into possible contacts between Trump's election campaign and the Kremlin. US intelligence services have concluded that Russia interfered with the November presidential election to favour Trump. --IANS ksk ( 344 Words) 2017-05-16-09:24:09 (IANS)
President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two US officials said, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect."The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation."At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and "reckless". Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.SECRET COMPARTMENTThe latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure "compartment" to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a "total scam," sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been "careless" with classified information.'NO FILTER'In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.Some US officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: "He has no filter; it's in one ear and out the mouth."One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure "particularly unfortunate," as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important US allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration. REUTERS SV 0912 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-895401.Xml
Ramin Forouzandeh had applied to 13 PhD economics programs in the United States, but after President Donald Trump signed his first travel ban in January, the 25-year-old Iranian turned to Canada for other options.He said he had focused on US schools because they hosted most of the world's top 20 economics programs. "Before the travel ban, I never really considered other alternatives."By late March, US courts had halted two versions of Trump's travel ban, yet Forouzandeh signed for University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and turned down the University of Minnesota's prestigious PhD program.His countryman, Mahdi Ebrahimi Kahou, 30, was well into his first year of the Minnesota program when he decided to transfer to the University of British Columbia because of Trump's executive orders that banned travel from seven and later six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran."I lost my motivation to work completely," he said.A Reuters survey of 19 Canadian universities showed a spike in international applications, most notably from Iran and India. Five top Canadian economics and business PhD programs are getting at least half of their new Iranian students this fall because of the ban, based on interviews with universities and students. Most of those, like Forouzandeh and Ebrahimi Kahou, are opting out of U.S. programs in a field where the United States both dominates and relies on foreign talent.While those programs represent only one field and a fraction of the U.S. student population, they offer early evidence of the direct impact of Trump administration policies. Academics fear they may also be a sign of things to come if the chilling effect of Trump's "America First" agenda spreads beyond any specific field of study or nationality.BEST AND BRIGHTEST"This strikes at the heart of what has made US higher education the envy of the world," said Mary Sue Coleman, chair of the Association of American Universities. "It's this notion that the US is no longer a welcoming place for the best and the brightest."Iranians are by far the biggest group among students directly affected by the bans and form a small but notable part of the talent pool in areas such as engineering and economics, where US academic institutions excel. Iranians ranked sixth last year among international students enrolled in US graduate programs, according to the Institute of International Education.A survey conducted jointly by five US higher education associations in February showed 38 percent of US colleges reporting a drop in foreign applications, with those from the Middle East down the most, while 27 percent saw no change - a significant cool-down after nearly a decade of steady growth.In 2015, at least 35 percent of graduate students at US universities granting graduate degrees in science, engineering and health were foreigners, according to the National Science Foundation. This year, about 60 percent of graduating PhDs from the top 10 US economics departments come from other countries, a Reuters analysis shows."You've got an issued order that's been temporarily blocked that applies to six countries. But the destabilization of the whole situation for international students and faculty could not be overstated," said Rice University President David Leebron.He said that for foreign students everything from getting a visa on time to employment opportunities had been thrown into question.According to Rice's dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies, this year's PhD programs will have slightly fewer Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern students than expected. More Iranian students declined offers of admission than usual, with several saying that they decided to study in another country because of concerns about getting a US visa.There is no evidence of a mass exodus of foreigners - indeed, Rice will have more students than expected from Europe and Latin America, offsetting declines elsewhere - but academics cite dozens of examples where Trump's policies had an impact.At Arizona State University, for example, Iranians would typically make up a fourth of the economics PhD program, but there will be none in the incoming class this fall. Of those already enrolled, two are moving to Canada. One student who visited his family in Iran over the Christmas break still has not been able to return, leaving the university scrambling to cover the classes he was supposed to teach."The effects of this are big," said Gustavo Ventura, ASU's economics department chair. "These people, not just the ones that come to us - anyone who comes to a PhD program abroad - are the cream of their student population."The University of Illinois now has 10 Iranians in its PhD program, and while it's not certain why, none of the Iranians whom it offered admission are among the 22 students from 11 countries entering in the fall.At Indiana University's economics program, three Iranians withdrew their applications almost immediately after the travel ban, said Todd Walker, director of the department's graduate studies. "We also had many more international applicants turn us down this year relative to the last three years," he said. "I cannot say definitively how much of this is attributable to the travel ban, but I suspect it played a role."In British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University has admitted 20 percent more international students for the fall term, according to Associate Dean Jeff Derksen. He said queries he had received and an online survey suggested more graduate students were considering alternatives to U.S. programs."This indicates that the international map of academic knowledge production has changed."The prestige of the US programs remains a big draw, but those committed to a US career are more aware of risks.For example, Soheil Ghili, who is getting a PhD in economics from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management this month and will start as a post-doctoral fellow at Yale this summer, is hedging his bets."Let me put it this way: I will be more careful to not miss networking opportunities with people from Toronto and London."REUTERS SV 1136 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-895531.Xml
North Korea's missile programme is progressing faster than expected, a South Korean minister said today, hours after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday's test-launch.The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programmes, even from its lone major ally, China, has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the US mainland.US President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang's provocations and has warned that the "era of strategic patience" with North Korea under previous presidents is at an end.South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo told parliament Sunday's test-launch was "successful in flight"."It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced calibre compared to Musudan missiles that have continually failed," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km. Asked if North Korea's missile programme was developing faster than the South had expected, he said: "Yes."The North's KCNA news agency said Sunday's launch tested its capability to carry a "large-size heavy nuclear warhead". Its ambassador to China said in Beijing on Monday it would continue such test launches "any time, any place".The missile flew 787 km on a trajectory reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 km, KCNA said.Pyongyang has regularly threatened to destroy the United States, which it accuses of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war by conducting recent military drills with South Korea and Japan.Trump and new South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet in Washington next month, with North Korea expected to be high on the agenda, South Korean media said.Moon's top foreign policy adviser, Chung Eui-yong, and Matt Pottinger, overseeing Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, met in Seoul on Tuesday in the first direct contact between the two administrations since Moon's inauguration last week."FURTHER SANCTIONS POSSIBLE"In a unanimously agreed statement, the 15-member UN Security Council said it was of vital importance that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions"."To that end, the Security Council demanded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the council said, adding that it was ready to impose further sanctions on the country.The statement also condemned an April 28 ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang.Following that launch, Washington began talks with China on possible new UN sanctions. Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated new measures before involving remaining council members.The Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has strengthened the measures in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.Trump warned in an interview with Reuters this month that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible. In a show of force, the United States sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.Admiral Harry Harris, the top US commander in the Asia-Pacific, said on Tuesday continued missile launches by North Korea showed the importance of the alliance between Japan and the United States."The actions of North Korea are unacceptable," Harris said at the start of a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. "It underscores not only the importance of the US-Japan alliance, but also US-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation."Harris is to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Defence Minister Tomomi Inada later in the day.The US Seventh Fleet carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, left Yokosuka in Japan on Tuesday on its regular spring patrol and will be out for around three to four months, according to a Seventh Fleet spokesman.The spokesman declined to say where it was bound and added he was not aware how long the Carl Vinson would remain in the region.Apart from worries about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programmes used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a North Korea-run hacking operation.REUTERS SV 1237 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-895598.Xml
Kashmiri leaders living in exile in London have described China's ambitious Belt and Road (OBOR ) initiative of which the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the mainstay, as nothing more than a modern day land and market grabbing initiative. Dr. Shabir Choudhry, a Kashmiri writer and director of Institute of Kashmir Affairs in London, told ANI, "There are reports that land is acquired illegally and without paying any compensation to the local people for the CPEC projects; and this is adding to the resentment of the suffering people." He added, "Sad thing is if people complain or protest against this injustice, they are accused of being anti-Pakistan and agent of India. Some unfortunate people are facing sedition charges." Choudhry further told ANI , "There is a construction of an army headquarters in Gilgit Baltistan; and regional headquarters for secret agencies of Pakistan, which will make life difficult for the local people. There will surely be more harassment and intimidation and human rights abuses in Gilgit-Baltistan. Already human rights activists and political workers belonging to different parties face immense pressure and are subject to torture, imprisonment; and some face sedition charges." In 1963, China and Pakistan concluded an agreement in which it was clearly recognised that Gilgit-Baltistan was a disputed territory. Under this agreement, Pakistan transferred around 2000 square miles of Gilgit Baltistan territory, Shaksgam Valley to China which enabled China to create a link with Aksai Chin, which they occupied in a war with in India in 1962. Many Kashmiri political activists told ANI that China is aware that Gilgit-Baltistan is a disputed territory; and Pakistan has no legal right to annex these areas, or go against the expressed sentiments of the local people. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a 51.5 billion dollar China-led, multi-layered infrastructure project, enters Pakistan from China through the Karakoram Highway. Though Gilgit Baltistan plays a key role in the CPEC project, and all roads and pipelines crossing into China from Pakistan will run through this mountainous region, there are no plans for any special economic packages to support the people of Gilgit. Jamil Maqsood, Former Central Secretary, Foreign Affairs, United Kashmir People's National Party told ANI "It's not the Government of Pakistan, but the military of Pakistan is the stakeholder in this billion dollar project. If the Government of Pakistan is not directly benefitting and if the people of Pakistan are not directly benefitting out of this project, one can only dream that the people of PoK and Gilgit Baltistan would have any share in this project. They are completely marginalized, they are completely deprived. Only their resources are used, but they are not given any opportunity to benefit out of this project". Kashmiri political activists also fear a demographic change with large number of Chinese and Punjabis settling in the area, resulting in the indigenous people turning into a minority. Many activists, who have opposed the CPEC, have been slapped with sedition charges and hundreds are languishing in jails across Pakistan. Though touted by the Pakistani government as a 'game changer', there has been a relentless wave of opposition to the project from the local population in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan. (ANI)
An Israeli minister on Tuesday called for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said his rule is the worst since the Nazis in World War-II. Syrian President Bashar Assad need to be killed in the light of the reports that Assad regime carried out mass executions and burned the bodies of the victims, Local media quoted Housing Minister Yoav Galant as saying. A former major-general in the IDF and a current member of the National Security Council was reacting to a U.S. Government statement that the Syrian regime constructed a crematorium to dispose of the bodies of prisoners in what they claim is an attempt to hide evidence of mass killing. Expressing his desire to replace the existing Assad regime, the Minister added that Israel wants to see Assad and his Alawite regime fall from power and be replaced by a moderate Sunni ruler. Galant charged that the rule of the Assad regime was the worst since the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler in Germany during XXII. "People are being executed in Syria, being hit deliberately by chemical weapons, their bodies being burned, these types of barbaric killings we haven't seen in 70 years, red line has been crossed and it is time to eliminate Assad," Galant said while speaking at the Israel Defence publication's Ground Warfare and Logistics at the tank museum in Latrun.(ANI)
The European Commission will decide next month on any legal cases against countries failing to host asylum-seekers as agreed in the bloc, taking a small step towards potential punishment for Poland and Hungary.The Commission, the European Union's executive, said today that member countries could not avoid showing solidarity with Greece and Italy by taking in some of the asylum-seekers reaching those shores from across the MediterraneanThe bloc's 2015 decision to distribute there newcomers across the EU has proven controversial and fewer than 18,500 people have been relocated so far under the two-year plan meant to cover 160,000.While some EU states have been slow and taking asylum-seekers in reluctantly, formerly communist easterners Poland and Hungary have refused to host a single person."It cannot be that while the majority of member states are making real efforts in a real European spirit, others continue to show no solidarity," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference."This is why I call on Poland and Hungary, who have not relocated a single person in need of protection, to start doing so right now."The Commission said it would decide next month on whether to open the so-called infringement procedures over relocation against countries not fulfilling their obligations.Apart from Warsaw and Budapest, which took the whole relocation scheme to the EU's top court, the Commission also singled out the Czech Republic, saying it has not been active on that front for a year.Austria is another EU state that has so far received nobody under the plan but it has now pledged to take in people from Italy. The Commission said it must do the same for Greece.The relocation plan has been agreed amid record-high arrivals of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa into the EU.The bloc took in some 1.6 million people in 2014-2016. Greece has seen numbers drop after the EU sealed a deal with Turkey that cut off this route, but Italy is now under bigger pressure with arrivals from the shores of lawless Libya.The EU's border agency Frontex said separately on Tuesday that April saw nearly 13,000 people disembark in Italy, up a fifth from March.Separate UN data shows 55,215 refugees and migrants have made it across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, compared to more than 360,000 people in the whole of 2016.Those taking the Libya-to-Italy route are more often migrants fleeing poverty in Africa and are less likely to win asylum in Europe than those seeking to escape wars, mainly Syrians. REUTERS RJ 2254 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896684.Xml
Brazilian federal police today opened two separate investigations into whether certain food companies improperly received favorable treatment from the country's Agriculture Ministry, the latest probe ensnaring the country's agribusiness sector.The probes into whether inspection procedures were eased in favor of unspecified meatpacking, dairy and other food companies come two months after sector leaders JBS SA and BRF SA were rocked by allegations of alleged corruption and bribes targeting food sanitation inspectors.The investigations have rocked confidence in Brazil's once-solid farming business, leading some countries to suspend imports of Brazilian meat for about a week and weighing on profits of several powerhouses in the industry.One of the two newly launched probes involves an alleged scheme to delay or cancel fines in which about 3 million reais in bribes were paid between 2010 and 2016, police said in a statement.Police said they were arresting 10 people in the states of Tocantins, Par, So Paulo and Pernambuco related to the allegations.Meatpacker Minerva is among the companies targeted by the latest probes, Arcelino Vieira Damasceno, federal police superintendent in Tocantins, said in a news conference.Minerva, whose shares slumped 3.3 per cent, said in a statement that it was cooperating with the probe, adding that it follows "rigid corporate governance norms" and that its "operations conform to all applicable legislation."The federal police said they are also separately probing improper protection of food companies as well as persecution of government food inspectors through disciplinary procedures and unfounded removals.Several supervisors in the Agriculture Ministry's arm in the southern state of Santa Catarina have been removed from their jobs as part of the probe, which found evidence that unnamed companies imported chemically adulterated fish into the Brazilian market without adequate oversight.A handful of other unlisted meat, poultry and dairy companies including Frango Norte, Laticnio Veneza, Santa Izabel Alimentos, Masterboi, Laticnio Fortaleza and Laticnios Palac are also under investigation, Damasceno said. Those companies could not immediately be reached for comment.Shares of JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, which also reported disappointing quarterly earnings late yesterday, were down 6.6 per cent, making them the leading decliners on Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index."This is another in a string of investigations into the meatpacking sector. Even if JBS is not directly involved, that is definitely not good news," analyst Vitor Suzaki at Lerosa Investimentos said. BRF was down 2.8 per cent.JBS, whose chairman and chief executive Joesley and Wesley Batista are being sought for questioning by police in relation to a separate probe into suspected fraud in loans the meatpacker received from state bank BNDES, said it will maintain plans for listing its US unit in the second half of the year.Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, a billionaire soy producer, earlier this year criticized police for handling the investigation into sanitary and corruption problems in an "alarmist" way. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new probes.REUTERS RJ 2256 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0098-896686.Xml
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-15 21:07:10|Editor: xuxin

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JUBA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A senior South Sudanese rebel official on Monday said the region-backed peace efforts in the war-torn country will not yield fruits unless leaders stopped viewing the exiled former first vice president Riek Machar as a peace spoiler.

Sudan People's Liberation Army-in opposition (SPLA-IO) deputy military spokesman Lam Paul Gabriel told Xinhua that Machar now exiled in South Africa due to pressure from the region but that his absence will not deter them from operating.

"The region thinks without Machar, they will manage to neutralize SPLA-IO but that proved difficult for them to achieve," the spokesman said.

He urged the region to help get their leader out of exile in South Africa for the sake of peace in the youngest nation.

"Without Machar, there will be no peace at all whether they send millions of U.S dollars to convince us to lay down our arms, it won't work. He is still in control of the SPLA-IO forces, but when the SPLA-IO decides to work on its own to make sure its commander in chief is released, Juba will never experience a day of peace," he said.

The rebel spokesman also warned that unless region and the international community helped free Machar from his exclusion, they will keep up the fight against President Salva Kiir's government.

He also said Machar was not weakened in exile, but instead actively restructuring the military wing of the SPLA-IO.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Kiir and his former deputy Machar led to fighting that pitied mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

A peace agreement was signed in 2015 but was shattered in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital, forcing Machar to flee into exile.

And since then the escalation in fighting have dragged in new splinter rebel groups with one under former Deputy Chief of General Staff General Thomas Cirilo Swaka alongside other militia groups operating largely in Equatoria region.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 2 million from their homes, and forced more than 1.5 million to flee into neighbouring countries.
People gather to watch a live of French Presidential election in Paris, France, on May 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Genxing)

PARIS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- French new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe took office on Monday, replacing the outgoing Socialist PM Bernard Cazeneuve.

The handover ceremony started at 15:55 p.m. (1355 GMT), with Cazeneuve greeting his successor, and the two headed into private talks.

Earlier, Philippe was named by French President Emmanuel Macron as prime minister.

The conservative lawmaker is charged to form a government which is expected to include novice and talented faces from different political parties to embody the president's pledge of political renewal.

Philippe, 46, is currently mayor of France' northwestern city of Le Havre and a conservative lawmaker since 2012.

He had been the spokesman of moderate Alain Juppe during the right-center primary in November last year before joining the campaign of Les Republicans nominee Francois Fillon.

Born in Rouen, northern France, Philippe started his political life as a Socialist member when he was a student before switching to the right.

Philippe has a diploma from ENA, a prestigious political university in France. He worked as public affairs director for the state nuclear group Areva between 2007 and 2010.

It is the first time in France's modern history that a president has named a prime minister from outside his party without being forced to by a defeat in legislative contest, a political move may help Macron to win a majority in the upcoming parliamentary election.

Furthermore, by picking a young modernizer for the prime ministerial role, the new head of state, who pledged to turn the page of the right-left ruling era, sent a strong sign of political renewal that he has bet on in order to reunite divided French citizens and make France stronger, analysts said.

In France, the prime minister leads all other government ministries, oversees domestic affairs, and is second only to the president in importance.

The list of new ministers will be announced on Wednesday, according to the Elysee.
VIENNA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The Austrian National Council is poised for early elections in October following agreement from all four opposition parties on Monday.

Leaders from the Freedom Party, Greens, NEOS, and Team Stronach convened in Vienna where they reached agreement on making a joint motion for the next election to be held early.

Local media reported that the two proposed dates are October 8 and 15. The election could otherwise have been held as late as next year.

The motion is presently being drafted by the parties, and it is expected it will be put to parliament on Wednesday.

The anticipated outcome had been sparked last week by the resignation of vice-chancellor and leader of the People's Party Reinhold Mitterlehner. His likely replacement, foreign minister Sebastian Kurz, had demanded an early election as one condition for taking over.

Kurz on Monday also gave his approval to the proposition from the opposition parties, that the election be held on one of the two dates specified.

Chancellor Christian Kern meanwhile had initially been reluctant for the lower house election to be held this year, citing an intent to tackle issues facing the government instead.
ROME, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian police on Monday arrested 68 people in a major operation targeting mafia suspects, who allegedly infiltrated one of Europe's largest migrant centers, authorities here said.

The probe involved the Arena clan of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate based in the southern region of Calabria.

The clan infiltrated the Sant'Anna Cara reception center in the Calabrian town of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, according to Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) prosecutors in Catanzaro who coordinated the operation.

The suspects are thought to have syphoned off funds allocated for the care of migrants and asylum seekers from both the Italian government and the European Union (EU) for years.

Most of those arrested belonged to the Arena clan, and all of them were charged with mafia association, extortion, illegal possession of weapons, fraud, embezzlement of state funds, and theft, police said in a statement.

"The investigation has stretched over a period of about 10 years, in which the migrant center in Capo Rizzuto has been managed through mafia methods," chief prosecutor Nicola Gratteri told a press conference.

The head of the local branch of the association, Misericordia -- a Roman Catholic volunteer group officially managing the migrant center -- and a local priest were among those arrested, according to Ansa news agency.

After the operation, the association announced the whole Calabrian branch would be barred, and put under extraordinary administration.

A number of assets were also seized in the operation, which was carried out overnight by 500 officers from the Carabinieri military police special operations unit (ROS) and financial police.

With an overall capacity of 1,246 places, the Sant'Anna Cara migrant and refugee hub is thought to be one of the largest in Europe.

The clan is believed to have exerted its control over the management -- infiltrating all supply services destined to the center -- thanks to the alleged support of the chief of the Misericordia association, according to prosecutors.

"Specific firms were created to receive funds and provide meals (to the center), yet those funds were used to buy movie theaters, apartments, luxury cars and boats, and plots of land," the chief prosecutor told reporters.

The Arena family have illegally earned an estimated 36 million euros (39.5 million U.S. dollars) out of a total 103 million euros of allocated funds between 2006 and 2015, La Repubblica newspaper reported citing sources from the DDA office.

The clan has been also involved in the catering services to the migrant center in Lampedusa Island, which has been on the frontline of Europe's migration crisis for years due to its close location to the coasts of northern Africa.

Italy took in 181,436 migrants and refugees in 2016, some 175,000 of which were currently hosted in the national network of reception centers, recent data from the interior ministry showed.

Up to May 12, the country has registered 45,118 new arrivals. The government has estimated a budget of 3.4 billion euros for funding the reception centers in 2017, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told parliament in November. (1 euro = 1.10 U.S. dollars)
KHARTOUM, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Sudan said on Monday that the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) has reiterated its support for Sudan's efforts to end the armed conflict in Darfur region.

The comment came as an AUPSC delegation started a four-day visit to Sudan, which includes a tour in the region of Darfur which has been suffering from a civil war since 2003.

"The delegation has praised the great improvement in all the situations in Darfur and the cooperation between the government and the AUPSC in addition to the great facilities provided by the government to the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)," Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a press release on Monday.

"The AUPSC reiterated its strong support to Sudan and its efforts to achieve peace and stability in order to achieve the motto: African Solutions for African Issues," it noted.

Meanwhile, Sudan's Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Abdul-Ghani Al-Naeem expressed appreciation of the Sudanese government and people for the great role played by UNAMID in achieving security and stability in Darfur.

The delegation is expected to travel on Tuesday to Darfur States to inspect the security situations in the region.

The visit of AUPSC to Sudan is the fourth of its kind since the deployment of UNAMID in 2008.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 02:45:40|Editor: Liangyu

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem speaks during a press conference held at the Foreign Ministry in Damascus, capital of Syria, May 8, 2017. Walid al-Moallem said Monday that his government will abide by the de-escalation zones' deal, warning, however, any breach by the rebels will be retaliated. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department said on Monday that the United States was skeptical of a new agreement signed by Russia, Turkey and Iran to reduce violence in certain areas of Syria.

"In light of the failures of the past cease-fire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical," said Stuart Jones, the acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, here at a briefing, adding that Russia must bear responsibility to ensure compliance of the Syrian government.

"During his visit here last week, (Russian) Foreign Minister Lavrov acknowledged that there's no military solution to the Syrian conflict," he added.

The de-escalation zones deal went into effect in Syria at midnight Saturday, according to Syrian local media reports.

According to the agreement, the Syrian government and opposition forces will halt fighting for six months in four zones: the northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Homs, the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus and areas in the Daraa and Qunaitera provinces in southern Syria.

The U.S. State Department in an earlier statement also voiced concerns about Iran's role as a guarantor of the new memorandum to reduce violence in certain areas of Syria.

Also in the briefing on Monday, Jones accused the Syrian government of killing prisoners and burning the bodies in a crematorium outside the capital.

The allegation came less than a week before U.S. President Donald Trump's planned first foreign trip since taking office.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 03:41:49|Editor: Liangyu

UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen Jamie McGoldrick addresses a press conference on cholera in Sanaa, Yemen, on May 15, 2017. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that an estimated 7.6 million people live in areas at high risk of cholera transmission in Yemen, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Monday. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)

UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that an estimated 7.6 million people live in areas at high risk of cholera transmission in Yemen, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Monday.

"Inadequate sanitation infrastructure, coupled with displacement, overcrowded shelters and settlements, increase the risk of person-to-person cholera transmission," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

In response, the UN is supporting 33 diarrhoea treatment centers in Yemen, and ten oral rehydration therapy centers have been opened, he said.

The UN has established two emergency centers, in Aden and Sana'a, with Rapid Response Teams to monitor and treat contaminated water sources, he added.

A cholera outbreak in Yemen has killed 51 people in two weeks and caused around 2,752 suspected cases since April 27, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last Thursday in a statement on its website.

The cases were reported from 10 provinces, including the capital Sanaa, according to the statement.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen was announced by Yemen's Ministry of Public Health and Population on Oct. 6, 2016.

Yemen, the impoverished Arab country in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been involved in a civil war since two years ago. The war pits Iranian-allied dominant Houthi movement, backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against their foe of Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The war has killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians, and displaced over 2 millions, according to humanitarian agencies.
ROME, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian police placed four management offices of discount supermarket chain Lidl under state control and arrested 15 people in a mafia probe, Milan police headquarters said in a statement Monday.

Charges in the probe reportedly include mafia conspiracy, issuing fake invoices, tax fraud, and money laundering on behalf of the Laudani clan of the Sicilian mafia.

"Milan flying squad and Varese finance police arrest 15 and search 60 premises of affiliates of Catania-based Laudani mafia family," Italian state police tweeted.

Lidl Italia has 10 regional headquarters in the country. The four regional offices placed under receivership manage a total of 222 stores across northern Italy, in Sicily, and on Malta, according to the company website.

Anti-mafia investigators say managers at the four regional offices "not only receive money in exchange for assigning jobs in favor of the suspects (...) but have direct or indirect ties to individuals belonging to the Laudani mafia family, who are capable of influencing choices made by management," according to prosecution documents cited by Italian news agency Ansa.

"(For them) it was like fishing in a small pond," Milan Prosecutor Ilda Boccassini told reporters at a televised news conference. "They knew exactly who, where and how to find those to be corrupted."

Lidl is a German grocery store chain with more than 10,000 supermarkets in 27 countries and regions around the world. It has 600 branches and 12,000 employees in Italy, where it opened its first store in 1992 near the northern city of Vicenza, according to its website.

In a statement, Lidl Italia said it learned of the operation from anti-mafia investigators on Monday, that it is cooperating fully with the authorities, and that it has "nothing to do with" the allegations.

The company is not under investigation and no seizures have been carried out, the Lidl Italia statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 04:22:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A charter bus carrying 26 school kids on a field trip from Pennsylvania school to Washington, D.C. overturned on road north of Baltimore on Monday, leaving at least 25 injured including two in critical condition, police said.

No fatalities had been reported so far, the Maryland State Police said.

One child and a female teacher, both in critical condition, were flown away from the scene by state police helicopter to a hospital, the police tweeted. Others were treated at the scene or rushed to nearby hospitals by ambulance.

The white bus rolled over on the driver's side with front-end damage, and appeared to leave damage to trees and an embankment beyond the right shoulder of the road. The guardrail along the right shoulder also was damaged, local media quoted witnesses said.

The Susquehanna Hose Company said the number of the injured reached at least 25, including the two in critical condition.

Steve Allers, a deputy chief with the company, was among the first fire and EMS responders at the scene.

"You just take it one (task) at a time," he said at a news conference Monday at the Havre de Grace Ambulance Corps headquarters about a mile from the scene. "You prioritize ... you do the most good that you can for the most amount of people in the least amount of time."

The injuries of those taken by ambulance to area hospitals included cuts, scrapes, bruises and possibly broken bones, said University of Maryland Medical System spokesman Michael Schwartzberg.

The crash, taking place around 9:30 a.m., involved 26 eighth grade children, two teachers, a parent chaperone and one driver, according to the police and Philadelphia School District superintendent Dr. William R. Hite.

State Police said the initial probe indicates that a passenger car attempted to pass the bus, lost control and came back across the lanes, clipping the front of the bus. However, the cause of the crash is still under investigation and no charges have been filed.

The incident has forced all lanes of I-95 in both directions shut down for about three hours.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 04:57:53|Editor: Liangyu

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets Donald Trump on May 16, 2017 in Washington for the first time as president, hoping to entice the American leader into major policy shifts to solidify a crucial but increasingly strained relationship. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

ANKARA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday will have his first face to face talks with President Donald Trump with a tough agenda as Ankara has set it stakes high particularly on the issue of Syria.

Trump was the only Western leader congratulating Erdogan after his victory at the constitutional referendum on April which granted broader executive powers to the Turkish presidency.

But ties between the Turkish government and the Trump administration have not evolved as Ankara desired since Washington indicated that Turkey's demands are unlikely to be met because the U.S. has firm position on its cooperation with the Kurdish fighters in Syria in its bid to drive the Islamic State (IS) out of the war-torn country.

Turkey and the U.S. have been at odds particularly on a couple of issues that held bilateral ties captured. Ankara wants Washington to end cooperating with the People's Protection Units (YPG) against the IS in Syria, saying they are Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Yet Washington falls on deaf ears on Turkey's concerns, especially over arming YPG fighters ahead of a major offensive to drive the IS from Raqqa town of Syria, although Ankara warns that those weapons could end up with the PKK members.

On the contrary, one week before Erdogan's visit to Washington, Trump has given his authorization for the direct arming of the YPG fighters in an apparent message that Pentagon will continue cooperating with local Kurdish fighters as U.S. proxy on the ground for upcoming Raqqa offensive.

The U.S. partner Syrian Kurdish dominated alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since two years and Washington sees these forces as the most capable anti-Islamic State force in northern Syria. The SDF are now closing in on Raqqa, the de facto capital of the IS.

Whereas the Turkish government has long been proposing its NATO ally for launching Raqqa operation with Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters and Erdogan is expected to raise the offer once more during his talks with Trump.

Last week, the Turkish president sent a high level delegation including chief of army, head of intelligence agency and his close adviser to Washington to lay grounds for his upcoming meeting with the U.S. president.

"They presented a lot of documents to help clear the U.S. stance on YPG. Now we will have the final meeting, and then we will make our final decision. If we are strategic partners, we should make decisions in an alliance. If the alliance will be overshadowed, then we will have to take care of ourselves," Erdogan told reporters in Beijing on May 14, two days before a scheduled meeting with Trump in Washington.

He blamed U.S. bureaucracy left from Obama administration for American insistence for relying on the Syrian Kurdish militia.

A second hot potato for the meeting at the White House is the Ankara's demand from the U.S. temporary arrest and extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled Islamic cleric in Pennsylvania who is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding failed coup attempt on July 15.

President Erdogan is also expected to ask release of Reza Zarrab, the Turkish-Iranian businessman, and Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the deputy general manager of the Turkish state owned Halk Bank, who are both on trial in the U.S. for violating sanctions on Iran.

Zarrap, who has both Iranian and Turkish citizenship, is accused of money laundering and breaching embargoes. The Turkish government asks Zarrab to be given to Turkey since he is a citizen.

Analysts are not hopeful for remarkable progress from the Erdogan-Trump meeting.

"All the signs are that this will not be an easy conversation. Ankara has set the stakes so high with regard to its demands that it has left itself very little room for diplomatic maneuvering," according to Semih Idiz, a columnist from Hurriyet Daily News.

"Washington, on the other hand, has made it amply clear that Turkey's demands are unlikely to be met because the U.S. has firm positions, or obstacles it can't overcome, that make it very hard to please Ankara," Idiz said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 06:23:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MEXICO CITY, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Writer and journalist Javier Valdez Cardenas was shot dead in the city of Culiacan, capital of Mexico's northwestern state of Sinaloa, state authorities announced on Monday.

According to reports, the journalist specialized in covering the drug trafficking was driving at 12 p.m. along the Vicente Riva Palacio street when a gunman stopped him, forced him to get out of his car and shot him dead.

The body of Valdez Cardenas was left lying in the street, near the office of the Riodoce weekly, a publication he founded and edited.

Police later found his car abandoned a few streets away, where it had been left by the gunman, according to the state prosecutor, Juan Jose Rios.

Rios added that the murder is presumed to have been related to Valdez Cardenas'journalistic work.

"It is part of the investigation we will be carrying out," he told the press after arriving at the scene of the crime.

He revealed that investigators and forensic specialists from Mexico's prosecutor-general's office were on their way to help in the inquiry.

Aged 50, the journalist had been a correspondent for national daily, La Jornada, since 1998 and had written a number of books on drug trafficking and gangs in Mexico.

Valdez Cardenas is the fifth Mexican journalist killed since March 2, following other murders in the states of Guerrero, Veracruz, Chihuahua and Baja California Sur.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 06:58:50|Editor: Liu

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SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court heard case Monday against U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban without giving an immediate ruling.

Streamed live through the website of the U.S. Courts for the 9th Circuit from a court room in Seattle, Washington state, the three judges grilled Acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall for his defense on behalf of the Trump administration.

In his 30-minute oral argument, Wall said the president's executive order signed on March 6, which bars nationals of Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days, has nothing to do with his statements about Muslims on campaign trails last year.

Neal Katyal, an attorney representing the state of Hawaii, told the judges that the president had not disavowed the rhetorics until last week, by taking the statements off his campaign website.

The travel ban, the second of the kind, was blocked on March 15 by a federal judge in Hawaii.

Wall tried at the appeals court to repeal the nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) imposed by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson.

However, after more than an hour of hearing, including Katyal's 30-minute argument, the three judges neither gave an immediate ruling, nor hinted when to make a decision.

It was the second time the 9th Circuit Court heard case against travel ban.

On Feb. 9, another panel of judges ruled in San Francisco, Northern California, against reinstating the travel ban signed on Jan. 27 by Trump as part of an executive order.

The president subsequently issued the revised order in early March 6, taking Iraq off the list of seven Muslim-majority countries.

In initiating the legal challenge against the second travel ban on March 9, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin noted that the new order, compared with the initial ban, "nothing of substance has changed: there is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 10:15:39|Editor: en_lyr

A Paris 2024 flag is seen outside the Grand Palais in Paris, France on May 15, 2017. According to the Paris 2024 project, the Grand Palais will host the taekwondo and fencing events. IOC evaluation commission visited some of the venues for Paris 2024 on Monday, followed was a media tour. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 09:40:36|Editor: Liangyu

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TUNIS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- More than 55 percent of Tunisian imports come from the European Union (EU) during the first four months of the current year, Tunisian Minister of Commerce Zied Laadhari said on Monday.

At a press briefing here in the government headquarters, Laadhari said, besides the imports from the EU, 8.4 percent of Tunisian imports come from China, 6.2 percent from Arab countries, 4.6 percent from Turkey, 4.2 percent from North America and 3 percent from Russia.

According to Laadhari, imports from the EU reached 22.16 billion dinars (about 9.086 billion U.S. dollars), including semi-industrial products and industrial equipment.

The Tunisian minister said that 75 percent of Tunisian exports are to euro zone countries, 10 percent to Arab countries, 3 percent to North America and 9 percent to other countries of the world.

The deficit stood at 1.272 billion dinars (about 0.52 billion dollars) by the end of April 2017, said the Tunisian minister of commerce.

According to the minister, in April exports grew by 10 percent, reaching 2.669 billion dinars (about 1.09 billion dollars) against 2.429 billion dinars (about 0.995 billion dollars) in April 2016. On the other hand, imports were curving by 2 percent in the same period.

The deficit of the Tunisian trade balance since the beginning of this year has been mainly caused by the increase in energy imports at the rate of 5 percent.

Moreover, 86 percent of Tunisian imports in 2016 were raw materials and important products for the Tunisian national economy. (1 dinar = 0.41 U.S. dollar)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 10:05:53|Editor: Liangyu

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SYDNEY, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Victoria Police will establish a new intelligence unit to identify, monitor and prevent lone attackers, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The creation of the highly specialized unit, which will consist of Victoria Police officers and mental health experts, comes in the wake of six people being killed by a crazed motorist in Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD) in January.

It is alleged that Dimitrious Gargasoulas hit 37 people when he drove his car into the pedestrian-only section of the Bourke Street shopping mall hours after he stabbed his own brother following a fight between the two.

Victoria Police is optimistic that the new unit will be able to identify fixated people on a path to violence, as they believe Gargasoulas was.

Members of the unit would then coordinate health and social support for those people.

High-concern people would be placed in clinic for treatment.

It is estimated that ten people are killed in Victoria every year by offenders who have been rejected from mental health care.

A similar unit operating in Queensland, the Queensland Fixed Threat Assessment Centre (QFTAC), identifies and deals with 150 possible lone attackers every year.

Michele Pathe, founder of the QFTAC, said that half of those identified as potential threats in Queensland were admitted to clinics as involuntary patients.

"A lot of work may go into even just one individual, but you may well be preventing something much worse that effects a lot of people," Pathe told News Limited on Tuesday.

"If there is no mental illness we don't stop there. It is not primarily about mental illness as much as it is about trying to address the risk."

"If they have guns we get the guns removed, if they need more supports in the community we put structure around them and support."

Victoria Police considers lone attackers a bigger threat than terrorism due to the unpredictable nature.

A Victorian Government spokesperson refused to comment on the new unit which will reportedly cost 1.5 million U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 10:20:59|Editor: liuxin

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URUMQI/KUNMING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China and other countries are working on cross-border environmental protection along the Belt and Road region.

In the Gaoligong Mountains on the China-Myanmar border, a variety of rare species thrive. China has built national and provincial nature reserves there, while Myanmar has two of its own.

The area is prone to forest fires, logging and poaching, particularly in the Nujiang, Baoshan and Dehong areas in Yunnan Province. Such incidents pose threats to both countries, making cross-border environmental protection vital.

In 2015, China and Myanmar established a research lab on biodiversity, to conduct a variety of projects such as field surveys and training. Both sides work together against illegal activities in the region.

"We often meet colleagues from Myanmar," said Li Zhengbo, deputy head of the Baoshan management bureau of the Gaoligong Mountains National Nature Reserve. Foresters on both sides have reached agreements on putting out forest fires, investigating criminal cases, and building environmental protection awareness.

From 2010 to 2015, Yunnan apprehended 130,000 suspects in regard to forest and wildlife crime in the region, many with the assistance of Myanmar.

As the Belt and Road increases pace, more joint eco-efforts are underway. Research projects on environmental protection have begun between China and Pakistan on the riverflow, landscape and geological disasters.

"We will try to find mechanisms to decrease risks and improve regional cooperation," said an expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and research on environmental protection will definitely play an important part in the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the corridor," said Lei Jiaqiang, director of the Xinjiang Institute of E

cology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 10:31:02|Editor: liuxin

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, expressing the hope that joint efforts will be made to ensure bilateral ties develop in the right direction.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 10:51:56|Editor: Liangyu

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CANBERRA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government's new 89 billion AU dollar (66.1 billion U.S. dollar) Naval Shipbuilding Plan is the nation's largest ever peacetime investment, and will deliver world-leading naval submarines and war boats and thousands of jobs for decades, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Tuesday.

Speaking from the Osborne Naval Shipyard near Adelaide, the prime minister said the program would deliver crucial infrastructure upgrades in addition to the construction on 12 next-generation naval submarines, nine frigates and 12 offshore patrol vessels,and 19 patrol boats for neighboring Pacific nations.

"This is the largest investment in our defence capability and in our navy ever in peacetime, and it is at the very forefront of technology," Turnbull told the press on Tuesday.

The prime minister said the announcement typified the government's commitment to investing in "good debt," or debt which stimulates economic activity and creates jobs, by keeping government money in Australia.

"We believe that, historically, we have been too much of a customer and not enough of a supplier for our own defence needs," Turnbull said.

"This is nation building and unashamedly nationalistic but it not only secures the physical assets our defence force needs but it secures the economic future."

Also speaking at the launch, Defence Minister Marise Payne said the government was "getting on" with delivering the promises outlined in last year's Defence White Paper.

"What you see now is the delivery of the Defence White Paper," she said. "These are platforms that we deliver to the Australian navy and the defence force the capability that we need to ensure we are protecting Australia and our interests."

Meanwhile the nation's Defence Industry Minister, Christopher Pyne described the plan as a "hundred year project" which would continue to deliver for all Australians for "decades" to come.

"This is going to be employing thousands of Australians, at least 5,000 by the mid-2020s, but thousands more for decades into the future," Pyne said.

The minister said in addition to the new shipbuilding infrastructure and the construction of the naval vessels, the government would also be investing 25 million AU dollars (18.6 million U.S. dollars) into a new naval shipbuilding college in Adelaide.
CANBERRA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has on Tuesday confirmed that a small contingent of special operations solders worked in the African nation of Niger in February and March, training local soldiers in the fight against radical Islamic extremist group Boko Haram.

U.S. military in March confirmed that their forces were undertaking a training program in Niger, but Australia's defence force only conceded that Australian special forces were also involved in the training of local soldiers on Tuesday, when quizzed by local media.

The three-week long exercise, known as Flintlock, began on Feb. 27 at a military camp near Diffa, a town in Niger close to the border of Nigeria, a region known to be threatened by the extremist Boko Haram group.

A spokesperson from Australia's Defence Department told News Corp that soldiers were involved in a training program which was "part of our regular international training engagements."

"Such engagements allow the participants to broaden their professional experience and knowledge," the spokesperson told News Corp on Tuesday.

The Australian government had not previously announced the presence of Australian troops in the region despite a media release by the U.S. military in March, which said its forces were "regionally aligned to North and West Africa."

"Along with special operations from Australia, Belgium and Canada, (the 3rd Special Forces Group Airborne) make up the western partner force in Niger for Flintlock 2017," the statement said at the time.

"Over three weeks, the partner nations will work together and exchange tactical movement techniques, advanced marksmanship and medical training."

Boko Haram is well known for the kidnapping of more than 250 girls from Chibok, a town in Nigeria's northeast. It is an Islamic militant group intent on creating an Islamic state in Central Africa.
TOKYO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Pieces of wreckage believed to be from the fuselage of a Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) plane that went missing a day earlier were found by search and rescue officials, local media reported Tuesday.

Local police said a piece of wreckage found at 10:14 a.m. local time in a mountainous area near Hokuto City, could indicate the crash site.

Police, firefighters and Self-Defense Force (SDF) personnel have begun intensively searching the vicinity where the wreckage was found and the plane is believed to have crashed.

SDF helicopters have also located what is believed to be part of the missing plane on the east side of Hakamagoshi mountain also in Hokuto City.

The plane with four crew members on board disappeared from radar on Monday morning in the southern part of Hokkaido, in Japan's northernmost prefecture, the defense ministry here said.

There were four male crew members on board the plane when it lost contact with a ground controller at around 11:50 a.m. local time, according to the defense ministry.

The four members included a pilot, a backup pilot and two mechanics, the ministry said.

The LR-2 reconnaissance plane took off in poor weather from Okadama Airport in Sapporo City at about 11:20 a.m. on Monday.

The light plane was heading for Hakodate Airport in the same prefecture and lost communications with air traffic controllers at around 11:50 a.m.

The plane disappeared from radar about 30 km west of Hakodate Airport, the defense ministry said

It was last seen flying at an altitude of 900 meters and was preparing to make an instrument landing due to low visibility.

The twin prop plane is 14 meters in length and has a 10 person capacity. A stretcher for transporting emergency patients is installed in the aircraft, and the plane is also used for reconnaissance missions by the GSDF.

The jet belongs to the GSDF Northern Territory Air Force in Sapporo City and was scheduled to transport a patient from a Hakodate hospital.

GSDF officials and firefighters are looking into the possibility the plane was involved in an accident and have deployed around 1,800 people including the

SDF, police and fire and rescue workers to continue searching for the aircraft on Tuesday.

Search efforts have been hampered however by poor weather, including rain and fog, which meant that aerial searches had to be called off.

Japan's Meteorological Agency had said their was light rain and cloud in the area and there was a low atmospheric pressure in the area when the plane went missing.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 11:56:50|Editor: Yamei

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, expressing the hope that joint efforts will be made to ensure bilateral ties develop in the right direction.

Representing the Japanese government, Nikai attended the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that concluded Monday in Beijing.

Noting that 2017 and 2018 respectively mark the 45th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic relations and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan, Xi said bilateral ties are faced with both new opportunities and outstanding challenges.

To improve bilateral relationship, the two sides should abide by the four political documents and the four-point agreement between the two countries, and uphold the spirit of taking history as a mirror and looking forward to the future, Xi said.

The president said he hoped friendly people in both nations, including Nikai, will continue to pool positive energy for the improvement of bilateral ties.

Xi stressed that since the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic ties, bilateral relationship has seen great improvement thanks to the joint efforts by people with vision in both countries, which has brought tangible benefits to the two nations and the two peoples and played an important role in regional peace and stability.

History has proved that peace, friendship and cooperation are the only right choice for the two countries and meet the expectations of people in the two countries and the international community, Xi said.
UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday both slammed the most recent ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Security Council "strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launches" conducted by the DPRK on April 28 and May 13, the 15-nation UN body said in a press statement.

The Security Council members expressed their "utmost concern" over the DPRK's "highly destabilising behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council by conducting these ballistic missile launches in violation of its international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council vowed to fully implement all measures imposed on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea by the Security Council and strongly urge all other member states to do so in an expeditious and serious manner," said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council agreed that the Security Council would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures including sanctions, in line with the Council's previously expressed determination," the statement said.

On Sunday, the DPRK test fired a medium long-range ballistic missile. The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the test firing of the new ground-to-ground strategic ballistic missile "Hwasong-12" was successful.

The members of the Security Council stressed that the DPRK's "illegal ballistic missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond," the statement said.

The members of the Security Council emphasised "the vital importance" of the DPRK "immediately showing sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond," the statement said.

The Security Council demanded the DPRK "conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in North-East Asia at large, expressed their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation, and welcomed efforts by Council members, as well as other States, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue," added the statement.

Earlier on Monday at a daily news briefing, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the latest missile launch by the DPRK a "violation of Security Council resolutions and a threat to peace and security in the region."

"The secretary-general calls on the DPRK to ensure full compliance with its international obligations and return to the path of denuclearization," he said.

The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the Korean Peninsula's nuclear issue on Tuesday behind closed doors, UN officials and diplomats said here.

According to previous Security Council resolutions, the DPRK is banned from conducting any launches that use ballistic missile technology, nuclear tests or any other provocation.

The council has imposed tough sanction measures on the DPRK, which includes banning the sale and transfer of coal, iron and iron ore from the country's territory.
HANOI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam Computer Emergency Response Team (VNCERT) under the Ministry of Information and Communications has urged organizations and companies nationwide to prevent possible attacks from WannaCry ransomware.

In a statement, VNCERT urged leaders of the central government, ministerial organizations, as well as companies nationwide to prevent and stop spreading of attacks by WannaCry ransomware, reported local Bao Dau Tu (Vietnam Investment Review) online newspaper on Tuesday.

According to VNCERT, this is a very dangerous ransomware, which can steal information and encrypt the entire server system. With the published system vulnerabilities, hackers can carry out the attacks and cause serious consequences.

Above-mentioned units are asked to closely watch out and prevent WannaCry from connecting to the servers as well as update the protection systems such as IDS/IPS, Firewall.

Earlier on Monday, the country's leading security firm BKAV told Xinhua that hundreds of computers in Vietnam have been infected with WannaCry ransomeware which is spreading all over the world.
SYDNEY, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Australia, and the rest of the world are still at risk of being infected by the ransomware attack "WannaCry" on Tuesday, according to Australian cybersecurity experts.

Simon Smith, cyber forensic expert and founder of eVestigator, spoke to Xinhua on Tuesday, after the announcement by Australian Federal Cyber Security Minister Dan Tehan that stated there had been 12 reported cases of the attack on Australian businesses.

"There is definitely a continuing threat. The problem is there are a lot of people who will copy this, even those 12 cases as people try to debunk and fix it, they could also possibly spread it," Smith said.

"There are definitely going to be opportunists who will make multiple versions. There have already been three versions."

Nigel Phair, one of Australia's leading cybercrime experts based at the University of Canberra, told Xinhua that although the government has said there are currently 12 cases reported in Australia, there are potentially a lot more.

"There has been 12 cases reported, but that is different to there has actually been 12 cases," Phair said.

"If I was a business I don't think I would be reporting it, and there is a range of embarrassing commercial reasons why you wouldn't."

According to Smith, Australia is one of the weakest countries in terms of cyber defence, but said that he has a plan to modify the ransomware virus to safeguard against any further attacks.

"I'm actually going to give an option for people to broadcast the Microsoft update through the vulnerability, so in actual fact it will use the same technology to patch it whilst it actually goes through, so if anyone gets infected, they will be infected by the update," Smith said.

"My method is to pump this thing out through the same channels, and broadcast it out to every DNS and every ISP, through the same exact vulnerability."

Smith hopes that this will assist the many people who have been unknowingly infected by the exploit, and have not chosen to update their software, or simply have forgotten to regularly.

"I can't believe that they are exploiting this, it's there and someone needs to fix it. It was fixed for Windows 10, still if someone has a computer and they haven't turned it on for 5 months or so, they're in trouble too." Smith said.

Phair believes that this kind of preventative measure suggested by Smith could possibly be actioned, and said that he assumes that "anything that rides on the back of it is going to get blocked" once the updating is complete.

However, in terms of the ongoing threat caused by the ransomware virus, Phair was explicit, this is not a situation that will likely end any time soon.

"It will be interesting how it pans out. If I was a criminal, I'd already have a couple of variants ready to go, based on the success of this one," Phair said.
MANILA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China complements the efforts of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to integrate as an economic community, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday.

The global trade projects under the Belt and Road Initiative "can be a parallel or platform for growth in the region," Duterte said in Davao City in the southeastern region of The Philippines, upon his arrival from Beijing.

"We can look at ways to complement our integration efforts in Southeast Asia even as we seek to reinforce ASEAN centrality," Duterte said.

He added that ASEAN can use the Belt and Road Initiative "to stimulate growth and improve market access as it facilitates connectivity and provides much-needed funding."

Duterte visited Beijing and attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing on May 14 and May 15. It was his second visit to China since he took office in June last year.

With the initiative, there are opportunities to synergize our efforts to bring about progress and prosperity, as well as peace and stability that our peoples and our region deserve, he said.

"China wants a peaceful region because a peaceful region translates into more prosperity for China," he said.

Duterte said he had the opportunity to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang separately. "I am very happy that they are sincere and they are to comply with their commitments to us," he said.

"We renewed our resolve to strengthen our friendship and mutually beneficial partnership in a broad range of areas. We are resolved to fully use the mechanisms we have established to dialogue openly, monitor progress and ensure implementation of projects," Duterte said.

"Growth and development ride on the back of peace, security and stability," he said.

The Philippines chairs the ASEAN meeting this year which also coincides with its 50th anniversary.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 12:47:47|Editor: Liangyu

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UNITED NATIONS, May 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council on Monday "condemned in the strongest terms" a deadly attack over the weekend on UN peacekeepers, civilians and humanitarian workers in the Central African Republic (CAR), which killed one Moroccan peacekeeper.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the violence by anti-Balaka elements in Bangassou (Mbomou) which intensified on May 13 and May 14, 2017, and targeted a Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) field office, civilian populations from particular communities, as well as humanitarian personnel," said a press statement issued by the 15-nation UN body.

"These attacks resulted in one Moroccan peacekeeper killed and one Moroccan peacekeeper injured, as well as civilian casualties and significant population displacement," the statement said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday strongly condemned attacks against the civilian population and UN peacekeepers in the CAR, urging authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 13:17:22|Editor: ZD

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. Representing the Japanese government, Toshihiro Nikai was in Beijing to attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which ended on Monday. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, expressing the hope that joint efforts will be made to ensure bilateral ties develop in the right direction.

Representing the Japanese government, Nikai attended the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which concluded Monday in Beijing.

Noting that 2017 and 2018 respectively mark the 45th anniversary of the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic relations and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan, Xi said bilateral ties are faced with both new opportunities and outstanding challenges.

To improve the bilateral relationship, the two sides should abide by the four political documents and the four-point agreement between the two countries, and uphold the spirit of taking history as a mirror and looking forward to the future, Xi said.

The president said he hopes friendly people in both nations, including Nikai, will continue to pool positive energy for the improvement of bilateral ties.

Xi stressed that since the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic ties, the bilateral relationship has seen great improvement thanks to the joint efforts by people with vision in both countries, which has brought tangible benefits to the two nations and the two peoples and played an important role in regional peace and stability.

History has proved that peace, friendship and cooperation are the only right choice for the two countries and meet the expectations of people in the two countries and the international community, Xi said.

Xi stressed that reflection should be done to detect the root of the problems that have disturbed the improvement of bilateral ties, and take effective measures to change the situation.

As major economies in the world, China and Japan share common interests in promoting economic globalization and trade liberalization, Xi said, underscoring the Belt and Road Initiative can become a new platform and an "experimental plot" for the two countries to achieve mutually beneficial cooperation and common development.

Japan is welcome to discuss cooperation with China under the framework of building the Belt and Road, Xi said, noting Japan has clearly affirmed the initiative.

Nikai congratulated China on the success of hosting the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. He said Japan and China need to cooperate, expressing the hope that the two countries can have various activities commemorating the two anniversaries, so as to spur the development of bilateral ties.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 13:37:33|Editor: Liangyu

Performers attend a discussion with audience after the performance of experimental Peking opera "Faust" in Wiesbaden, west Germany, May 15, 2017. Experimental Peking opera "Faust" was staged Monday evening in Wiesbaden, starting its 15-day tour in Germany. (Xinhua/Luo Huanhuan)

WIESBADEN, Germany, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Experimental Peking opera "Faust" was staged Monday evening in the western city of Wiesbaden, starting its premiere tour in Germany.

Co-produced by China National Peking Opera Company and Italy's Emilia Romagna Theater Foundation, the play was performed as part of the International May Festival, a world-known traditional theater festival.

The story was based on a breakthrough adaptation of the Western masterpiece "Faust," written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe more than 200 years ago. The play combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance, and acrobatics.

Since its debut in 2015, the opera has been staged over 70 times,triggering warm responses from audience as it offers a creative blend of Western classic with oriental culture as well as presents a perfect cooperation between Chinese artists and performers from Italy and Germany.

"We have come to the homeland of 'Faust' to examine our three years' efforts," said Xu Mengke, co-director of the opera.

"It was a great performance during which I was touched by the actors' and actresses' deep emotion," a German audience told Xinhua after the play, adding that he could well understand the performers' body language although the Chinese dialogue was difficult to catch.

The opera has been added to this year's German-Chinese cultural program, a national event in Germany featuring the theme "China Today" to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The play will be staged in other cities including Duisburg, Kassel and Saarlouis till the end of May.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 14:12:48|Editor: ying

Du Qinglin, a member of the secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Francisco Javier Quintana, secretary-general of the national council of the Republican Proposal party of Argentina, in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said Tuesday the CPC is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Republican Proposal party of Argentina to push forward the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

Du Qinglin, a member of the secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks when meeting with Francisco Javier Quintana, secretary-general of the national council of the Argentine party.

Quintana spoke highly of the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which concluded Monday in Beijing, expressing the hope that the two parties will increase exchanges, share governance experience, and help bilateral ties develop more comprehensively.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 14:17:52|Editor: Liangyu

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SYDNEY, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A host of Victorian businesses have begun an official trade mission to China on Tuesday.

Phillip Dalidakis, Victoria's minister for Small Business Innovation and Trade, toured the headquarters of e-commerce giant Alibaba on Tuesday with representatives from 12 Victorian agribusinesses and 16 food and beverage companies.

The tour offered the companies an opportunity to speak with Alibaba executives in person as they attempt to promote Victorian products on both Taobao and Tmall.

Dalidakis also made a presentation to the Zhejiang Fintech Association on Victoria's strengths in financial technology and blockchain.

Many of the businesses invited on the trip are headquartered in the Latrobe Valley, a region 157 km east of Melbourne which has a below-average rate of employment as the government tries to boost the region's economy.

"We're working closely with Victoria's businesses to make sure they have all the tools and connections they need to trade with the world's largest market," Dalidakis said in a media release on Tuesday.

"China is our most important economic relationship and biggest trading partner, strengthening that relationship will contribute to Victoria's growing economy and create jobs."

He announced that the Zhejiang Fintech Association would lead a delegation to Melbourne later in 2017 to further explore collaboration with Victorian companies in the blockchan sector.

The trade mission comes after the Victorian government committed 750,000 U.S. dollars to hiring mew staff at the state's five trade and investment offices in China in the state budget.

The government said the offices are extremely important due to China's status as the state's largest two-way trade partner.

Trade between China and Victoria was worth 17.74 billion U.S. dollars in Financial Year 2016, with China having notable investments in all Victoria's key industry sectors.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 14:58:09|Editor: ZD

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. Almazbek Atambayev was in Beijing to attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which ended on Monday. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping met with his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev in Beijing on Tuesday, vowing to push forward the two countries' strategic partnership.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Kyrgyzstan 25 years ago, both sides have advanced bilateral ties while upholding the principle of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, said Xi.

The two countries have built a comprehensive cooperation pattern featuring strong mutual political trust, close economic cooperation, mutual reliance in security, mutual exchange and learning in culture, and mutual support in international affairs, said Xi.

China is willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to promote the spirit of good-neighborliness and friendliness, enhance strategic coordination, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward the China- Kyrgyzstan strategic partnership, he added.

China supports Kyrgyzstan's efforts to safeguard independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supports its development path and domestic and foreign policies in accordance with its own national conditions, said Xi.

As important forces in maintaining regional security and stability, China and Kyrgyzstan should enhance anti-terror and law enforcement cooperation, said Xi.

Remarkable progress has been achieved since China and Kyrgyzstan carried out cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative more than three years ago, said Xi, expressing the hope that the people of the two nations will benefit more from the initiative.

Atambayev, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held Sunday and Monday in the Chinese capital, congratulated China on the success of the event.

The great Belt and Road Initiative will help strengthen international cooperation and mutual understanding and trust for all parties, said Atambayev.

China is a good neighbor, a good partner and a good friend of Kyrgyzstan. The strategic partnership is developing on a high level, he said.

Kyrgyzstan thanks China for its long-time support and help and will firmly back China's stance on issues regarding core interests and major concerns, said Atambayev.

Kyrgyzstan is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in various fields such as the economy, trade and security, and actively advance the construction of key infrastructure projects, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 15:18:13|Editor: xuxin

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NEW DELHI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- India's federal government has advised officers working in sensitive and strategic fields to use stand-alone computers to avert ransomeware attacks, officials said Tuesday.

The officers working in these fields have also been cautioned to store data and critical information on the computers without internet connectivity.

The advisory has been sent as a precautionary measure to all those who handle sensitive desks in the ministries of home, finance, defence, external affairs and security agencies.

India's state-run broadcaster All India Radio (AIR) quoting a senior security officer said they keep on advising officers regularly in some ministries and departments to use stand-alone computers for storing sensitive information so that no one can hack them.

In wake of the global ransomeware attacks impacting systems across the world, on Monday India's central banking institution - Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked banks to run their ATMs only after updating their operating system.

The malware named "WannaCry" has affected systems across the globe, taking down computer systems, locking up critical data and demanding bitcoins as ransom for its release.

In India, 102 computer systems of the Andhra Pradesh police were hacked on Saturday and a Nissan Renault car production plant in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) was halted because of the malware.

Indian government's cyber security wing - Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has cautioned the country's key stakeholders like RBI, National Payments Corporation of India, National Informatics Center (NIC) and other organizations of the malware and advised them to protect their systems against the ransomware.

A massive cyber attack on Friday evening struck organizations in some 100 countries across the world. Russia and Spain are among the most affected by the malicious software, reports said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 15:28:18|Editor: ZD

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. Alexander Lukashenko was in Beijing to attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which ended on Monday. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China sees Belarus as an important partner in Belt and Road development, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday, urging more efforts to deepen trade and investment cooperation.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday in Beijing.

China is ready to further tap the potential of cooperation with Belarus for development, Xi said.

The two countries should strengthen policy communication and integrate their development strategies to create new sources of growth, he noted.

The Chinese president called for deepened economic and investment cooperation with Belarus and more balanced and sustainable two-way trade.

The construction of the China-Belarus Industrial Park should be accelerated and local-level cooperation should become a new driver of bilateral cooperation, Xi said.

He also urged closer people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in such areas as education, culture and tourism.

Reviewing China-Belarus relations, Xi said the two countries have firmly supported each other on issues related to their core interests and major concerns, with practical cooperation and close coordination in international and regional issues.

Lukashenko said Belarus and China are sincere partners, noting that his country is ready to expand cooperation with China in trade, investment, industrial capacity, culture, sports, tourism, and science and technology.

He said Belarus welcomes Chinese businesses to participate in major projects in his country, including the China-Belarus Industrial Park.

Lukashenko also praised the "immense success" of the Belt and Road forum.

After the meeting, the two presidents witnessed the signing of several documents on cooperation in Belt and Road development as well as economic and technological areas.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 15:38:59|Editor: xuxin

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UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council on Monday "condemned in the strongest terms" a deadly attack over the weekend on UN peacekeepers, civilians and humanitarian workers in the Central African Republic (CAR), which killed one Moroccan peacekeeper.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the violence by anti-Balaka elements in Bangassou (Mbomou) which intensified on May 13 and May 14, 2017, and targeted a Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) field office, civilian populations from particular communities, as well as humanitarian personnel," said a press statement issued by the 15-nation UN body.

"These attacks resulted in one Moroccan peacekeeper killed and one Moroccan peacekeeper injured, as well as civilian casualties and significant population displacement," the statement said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday strongly condemned attacks against the civilian population and UN peacekeepers in the CAR, urging authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

The council members expressed their deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims, as well as to the Kingdom of Morocco and MINUSCA, the statement said. "They wished the injured a speedy recovery."

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms all attacks and provocations against civilian populations, MINUSCA and humanitarian personnel by armed groups," the statement said.

"They reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes and reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council called on the government of the Central African Republic to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice," it said.

Last week, a Christian rebel group in the CAR ambushed a UN convoy, sparking a firefight and kidnappings that left four peacekeepers killed, eight injured and one missing, the United Nations said.

Despite significant progress and successful elections, the CAR still suffers instability and sporadic unrest.

Clashes between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, mostly Christian, plunged the country of 4.5 million people into civil conflict in 2013.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 15:43:25|Editor: xuxin

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COLOMBO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka will regain access to the European Union(EU)'s GSP plus trade concession this week, the EU office in Colombo announced on Tuesday.

The EU Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Tung-Lai Margue said no EU country has objected to Sri Lanka being granted GSP plus status.

As a result, he says the granting of the GSP plus status will be printed in the official journal on Thursday and Sri Lanka will have access to the facility from Friday.

Sri Lanka earlier lost GSP plus status over its failure to comply with 27 international conventions.

EU's Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) allows developing countries to pay less or no duties on exports to EU, offering them a vital access to EU markets.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 16:23:52|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region saw more days with "good" air quality in April, official data showed Tuesday.

An average daily Air Quality Index (AQI) of under 100 is defined as good under Chinese air quality standards.

The 13 cities in the region reported good air quality 23 days on average, up 16.5 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

Beijing saw 22 days with good air quality in April, up from 18 days in the same month last year, a year-on-year increase of 20 percent. The average density of PM 2.5, one major air pollutant, fell by 22.1 percent year on year.

Air quality improved in China's 338 prefecture-level-and-above cities in April, with the average density of PM 2.5 dropping by 4.8 percent year on year.

Hebei's Handan, Shanxi's Taiyuan and Hebei's Tangshan recorded the worst air quality in April among the 74 cities nationwide monitored by the MEP.

Cities in the Yangtze River and the Pearl River deltas reported worsening air quality in April.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, foreign delegation heads and guests pose for a group photo at the Leaders' Roundtable Summit of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation at Yanqi Lake International Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei) Hi, here is what you need to know about China: BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on global leaders to push for win-win outcomes, enhance policy coordination and deepen practical cooperation in the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi made the remarks at the Leaders Roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Xi called on countries to build partnerships, stay open in cooperation and resolve differences through dialogue. xhne.ws/2sWpl - - - - BEIJING -- Leaders from 30 countries and three key international organizations attending a roundtable meeting of a forum agree to oppose all forms of protectionism, according to a communique. Participants in the Leaders Roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation adopted a joint communique here Monday. "We reaffirm our shared commitment to build open economy, ensure free and inclusive trade, oppose all forms of protectionism including in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative," the communique said. xhne.ws/tq3Ys - - - - BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday met with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, expressing the hope that joint efforts will be made to ensure bilateral ties develop in the right direction. Representing the Japanese government, Nikai attended the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that concluded Monday in Beijing. xhne.ws/rxaPs - - - - NANCHANG -- The death toll from a truck-bus crash in east China's Jiangxi Province Monday has risen to 12, local authorities said Tuesday. Two people, including the bus driver, died at hospital after medical treatment failed. Another six were still being treated. xhne.ws/ORzmP - - - - SEOUL -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday picked special envoys to be dispatched to China, the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Union. Senior presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan made an official announcement of the special envoys in the presidential Blue House. xhne.ws/dLPS7 - - - - BEIJING -- A slew of upbeat economic data pointed to latest restructuring achievements and provided fresh stabilization signs for the Chinese economy. Highly-watched economic figures released Monday, including industrial output, retail sales, fixed-asset investment and housing sales, confirmed the message that the ongoing growth model transitioning is providing new impetus to the world's second largest economy. xhne.ws/AHPZK
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 16:34:35|Editor: ying

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HANOI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The visit to China by Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang is a great success with important results, the country's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Hoai Trung said here on Tuesday.

The deputy minister told media that the president's variety of activities during the visit and at the Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation have made positive and practical contributions to the China-Vietnam cooperation.

"It helps to promote the comprehensive strategic co-operative partnership between the two countries in a stable and healthy manner in the coming time," Trung said.

The deputy minister also highlighted other important results of the visit in the fields of trade, economic and people-to-people exchanges.
A Syrian woman carrying a child walks down a street in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on May 12, 2017.(Xinhua/AFP photo)

DAMASCUS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The rate of the civilian casualties in Syria has dropped 94 percent since the de-escalation zones' deal went into force 10 days ago, a monitor group reported on Tuesday.

The rate of the killings significantly dropped in the areas included in the de-escalation zones deal that was reached by Russia, Turkey and Iran early this month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Still, the report said that 200 civilians have been killed since 10 days ago in areas under the control of the Islamic State (IS) group, whose areas are excluded from the deal.

According to the agreement, the government and opposition forces will halt fighting for six months in four zones, in the northwestern province of Idlib part of Aleppo countryside, the central province of Homs, the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus, and areas in the Daraa and Qunaitera provinces in southern Syria.

Under the deal, the safe zones, or de-escalation zones, will be free of battles and airstrikes, but the battles against terror-designated groups will continue.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 16:49:47|Editor: Lu Hui

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday suggested aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with the European Investment Plan in order to inject new momentum into China-EU ties.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation ended on Monday in Beijing.

Noting that China and Italy both boast ancient civilizations, Xi said the two countries have been connected by the historic Silk Road.

He commended the frequent visits by leaders from both sides and close exchanges between officials at all levels, saying China is willing to work with Italy to further advance bilateral ties.

Both China and Italy are key members of the international community, Xi said. He urged the two countries to maintain the current momentum in high-level exchanges, as well as close contact between governments, legislative bodies, political parties and between regional authorities.

The Chinese president highlighted two-way investment, construction of industrial parks, e-commerce and innovation as areas for further cooperation.

China welcomes Italy to participate in the construction of the Belt and Road, and supports cooperation between the two countries in port management, shipping as well as ship building, he said.

Beijing is willing to maintain communication with Rome on major international issues, and hopes Italy can play a positive role within the European Union in order to safeguard development of China-EU ties, he said.

For his part, Gentiloni said the just-concluded Belt and Road forum had sent a positive signal to the world economy and international trade.

Italy is willing to participate in cooperation under the Belt and Road framework, particularly in the field of infrastructure, and to strengthen collaboration with China in areas linked to economy, technology, agriculture, public health, education, culture, tourism as well as small- and medium-sized enterprises, he said.

Italy sticks to the one-China policy and will play its role in promoting EU-China ties, Gentiloni said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 16:54:13|Editor: xuxin

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CAIRO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump asserted in a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi late Monday the importance of strategic relations between the two countries.

Trump underlined his keenness on developing partnership in all fields, a statement from the Egyptian presidency said.

Trump told al-Sisi that he wanted "to visit Cairo at the earliest opportunity to discuss ways to counter terrorism in the Middle East."

Trump pointed out Egypt's pivotal role in the Middle East and hailed its efforts in combating terrorism and supporting stability in the region.

The statement said that Trump looked forward to meeting the Egyptian president during an upcoming Arab-Islamic-U.S. summit planned for May 21 in Saudi capital Riyadh.

Al-Sisi received an invitation on Saturday from Saudi King Salman bin Abdulazia Al Saud to participate in the summit that will be attended by Trump in his first international trip as president.

Ties between Egypt and U.S. have gone through ups and downs following the army-led ouster of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 17:14:27|Editor: MJ

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HONG KONG, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Australia and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Tuesday announced the official launch of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiation.

The announcement was jointly made here by Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR Gregory So Kam-Leung and Australia's Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Steven Ciobo.

Australia is a very important trade partner of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong and Australia have respective strengths in different businesses, in which some are complementary to each other, the Hong Kong SAR government official said.

He forecast tremendous room for Hong Kong and Australia to boost cooperation and deepen trade and economic liberalization.

He said the FTA between China's Hong Kong and Australia will be instrumental in providing a new platform to enhance capital flow, innovation, interaction between professionals and research and development collaborations which are cornerstones for the two economies to venture into new frontiers and stay ahead in globalization.

The FTA will include key elements such as elimination or reduction of tariffs, reduction of non-tariff barriers, preferential rules of origin, customs facilitation procedures, better market access for trade in services, promotion and protection of investment, and legal and institutional arrangements including a dispute settlement mechanism for the FTA.
TOKYO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Japan's defense ministry said Tuesday that Self-Defense Force (SDF) personnel have found all four male crew members of a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) aircraft that crashed in a mountainous region of Hokkaido in northern Japan on Monday.

The ministry said the four crew members have been transferred by helicopter to an SDF base in Hakodate and are feared dead.

But official announcement on their conditions are yet to be made.

Wreckage of the plane was first discovered earlier in the day by search and rescue officials and debris from the plane was scattered over a wide area of land about 3 km from the peak of Mt. Hakamagoshi in the city of Hokuto in Hokkaido, the defense ministry said.

The crash site was located about 14 km from downtown Hokuto and due to the thickness of forestation covering the mountain and poor visibility due to heavy cloud coverage, search and rescue efforts were impeded.

The wreckage of the plane had been shattered into small pieces, according to local accounts, making it difficult to identify specific parts of the plane, including the overall air frame.

Pieces of wreckage believed to be from the fuselage of the plane that went missing a day earlier were initially found by search and rescue officials at 10:14 a.m. local time in a mountainous area near Hokuto City.

This led police, firefighters and SDF personnel to begin intensively searching the vicinity where the wreckage was found as this was believed to be near the crash site.

SDF helicopters also located what was believed to be part of the missing plane on the east side of Mt. Hakamagoshi, which confirmed the likelihood the plane went down in this region.

The plane with four crew members on board disappeared from radar on Monday morning in the southern part of Hokkaido, in Japan's northernmost prefecture, the defense ministry here said.

There were four male crew members on board the plane when it lost contact with a ground controller at around 11:50 a.m. local time, according to the defense ministry.

The four members included a pilot, a backup pilot and two mechanics, the ministry said.

The LR-2 reconnaissance plane took off in poor weather from Okadama Airport in Sapporo City at about 11:20 a.m. on Monday.

The light plane was heading for Hakodate Airport in the same prefecture and lost communications with air traffic controllers at around 11:50 a.m.

The plane disappeared from radar about 30 km west of Hakodate Airport, the defense ministry said.

It was last seen flying at an altitude of 900 meters and was preparing to make an instrument landing due to low visibility.

The jet belongs to the GSDF Northern Territory Air Force in Sapporo City and was scheduled to transport a patient from a Hakodate hospital.

The twin prop plane is 14 meters in length and has a 10 person capacity. A stretcher for transporting emergency patients is installed in the aircraft, and the plane is also used for reconnaissance missions by the GSDF.

GSDF officials and firefighters are looking into the cause of the accident and had initially deployed around 1,800 people including the SDF, police and fire and rescue workers to continue searching for the aircraft on Tuesday.

Search efforts were hampered however by poor weather, including rain and fog, which meant that aerial searches had to be called off.

Japan's Meteorological Agency had said their was light rain and cloud in the area and there was a low atmospheric pressure in the area when the plane went missing.

The JMA also said that due to a cold westerly front coming in the atmospheric pressure in the area the plane was flying in could have become unstable.
WELLINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Ten schools across New Zealand will receive assistance to deepen their China sister school relationships, said Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Paul Goldsmith in Beijing on Tuesday, according to a New Zealand government release.

The New Zealand-China Sister Schools Fund operates on a co-funding basis to enable schools to further deepen their existing links with Chinese partners. Each school will receive up to 5,000 NZ dollars (3,450 U.S. dollars) from a fund administered by Education New Zealand.

"Through initiatives like the Sister Schools Fund and the Prime Minister's Scholarships for Asia, we're giving young Kiwis the opportunity to develop skills," said Goldsmith.

The fund recipients include seven New Zealand primary and intermediate schools and three high schools.

Most of the schools are planning to take groups of students to visit their sister schools in China. Many have indicated that this funding will subsidize some students who would not otherwise be able to access this opportunity.

The year of 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and China.

"Education has played, and continues to play, an important role in the overall bilateral relationship," said Goldsmith.
Supporters of Iranian President and presidential candidate Hassan Rouhani attend an election campaign in Tehran May 13, 2017. (Xinhua photo)

TEHRAN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The 1979 revolution in Iran, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, transformed the U.S.-backed and monarch-ruled country into a republic system under the Islamic ideology.

Established as the Islamic republic, the new ruling system held first presidential election on Jan. 25, 1980, in which Abolhassan Banisadr, a politician and economist, was elected as the first president in Iran's history.

As the president reaping 75.6 percent of the votes, he was the advocate of market economy and was at odds with conservative-dominated parliament and rivals, which ultimately resulted in his dismissal from office after being impeached by the parliament for incompetence on June 21, 1981.

Following this disturbing political experience in the early life of the Islamic republic, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, the prime minister, was elected the president of Iran on Aug. 2.

Rajaei was assassinated on Aug. 30, 28 days after assuming his presidency.

For the second time in 1981, the Iranians went to the ballot boxes, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the incumbent Supreme Leader, was picked as the third president winning over 95 percent of the votes.

Khamenei became the first cleric to serve in the office from 1981 to 1989. His term in the office fell in during the Iran-Iraq War that left millions killed and injured.

He helped guide the country during the war in the 1980s. As the president, he had a reputation of being deeply interested in the revolutionary ideas, anti-U.S. sentiments, military development, resilient economy, and administrative details.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, another Iranian cleric and moderate politician, was elected president of Iran by an overwhelming margin shortly thereafter and was in the office from 1989 to 1997.

Rafsanjani showed political skills in promoting his pragmatic policies, favoured Iran's international engagement and renewed its ties with Europe as part of a strategy to use foreign investment and free enterprise to revive the country's war-torn economy.

In the 1997 elections, the reformist Mohammad Khatami was one of the four candidates to run for presidency and was open on social and political reforms. With strong support from the country's youth, women, and intellectuals, he was elected the fifth president by almost 70 percent of the vote.

Khatami advocated increased contact with the United States, but his domestic opponents hindered rapprochement between the two countries. Khatami was reelected in 2001 by an overwhelming majority of the vote for another four years until 2005.

In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated his moderate rival, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and became president.

Ahmadinejad presented himself as a populist, focusing on issues such as poverty and social justice. He was very active in foreign affairs, vigorously defending Iran's nuclear program against the West criticism and propagating anti-Zionist opinion.

On June 12, 2009, the presidential results indicated that Ahmadinejad had secured an outright victory, achieving more than 60 percent of the vote.

His second term, which ended in August 2013, was featured with a confrontation with the Khamenei and the parliament.

In March 2013, the moderate Hassan Rouhani entered the race for president, positioning himself as a critic of the outgoing Ahmadinejad's economic policies and confrontational approach to foreign affairs.

Rouhani won a commanding victory, taking more than 50 percent of the vote in the June 14 election.

Following Rouhani's inauguration in August 2013, he launched a diplomatic campaign to improve Iranian engagement with the West.

Rouhani's pledge to restart international dialogue regarding Iran's nuclear activities was fulfilled in early November 2013 with the opening of talks between Iran and a group comprising the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

The agreement was reached in July 2015 that required Iran to reduce its nuclear stockpile and allowed inspections of its nuclear facilities in exchange for gradual reduction of sanctions.

On April 21, out of 1,636 registered candidates, six were qualified, including three principalists, or conservatives as they are commonly referred to, two centrists and one reformist, to compete for a four-year term as the president.

On Monday, however, Tehran's mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a conservative candidate said in a statement that he decides to withdraw from the presidential race to back another candidate Ebrahim Raisi, who is also a conservative nominee.

For May 19 vote, the centrists, led by the President Rouhani, are hoping not to lose their current sovereignty.

If no candidate garners more than 50 percent of the votes, a runoff will be held on May 26 between the two top vote-getters.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 18:00:07|Editor: xuxin

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BANGKOK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A record haul of 2.2 million methamphetamine tablets was seized aboard a cement truck in southern Thailand on Tuesday, police said.

An estimated 2.2 million methamphetamine pills were contained in some 1,100 backpacks hidden inside a trailer truck which normally carry powdered cement in Chumporn province, about 470 km south of Bangkok.

The drug had allegedly been smuggled across the Thai-Myanmar border into Fang district of Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand and destined for Hat Yai City in the southern part of the country, police said.

It was one of the largest single hauls of "speed pills" trafficked and seized in Thailand for decades.

Two Thai males, identified as Thanisorn Sornkla, 48, and Yosawat Watcharathitiladakorn, 33, were arrested on charges of trafficking the drug aboard the cement truck.

Police quoted the drug trafficking suspects as saying they had been hired by an unidentified person to do the job in exchange for 500,000 baht (14,285 U.S. dollars) each.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 18:00:07|Editor: xuxin

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HANOI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and the European Union (EU) have concluded negotiations on an agreement to combat illegal logging and promote trade in legal timber, the Delegation of the EU in the country announced here on Tuesday.

After nearly six years of negotiation, representatives from the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment and the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Tuesday initialed the text of the voluntary partnership agreement on forest law enforcement, governance and trade.

To implement the deal, Vietnam will develop a timber legality assurance system to ensure that its exports of timber and timber products come from legal sources, including systems to verify that imported timber has been legally harvested and traded in accordance with the relevant legislation in the country of harvest.

According to the Delegation of the EU in Vietnam, the country is positioned at the center of the global timber products trade. On one hand, it imports timber from some 80 countries, including from Africa, Asia and South America. On the other, it exports timber products to all the major markets.

Vietnam exported over 2.4 billion U.S. dollars worth of wood and wood-based products to the world market in the first four months of this year, posting a year-on-year rise of 14.4 percent, according to the country's General Statistics Office.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 18:46:01|Editor: ying

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by Peter Mertz

DENVER, the United States, May 15 (Xinhua) -- A senior U.S. professor spoke highly of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, praising it as a revolutionary concept in promoting global connectivity.

"This could be a turning point in world history," retired Denver history professor John Yee told Xinhua in an interview.

Yee, 96, the first professor to teach Chinese history in America's huge Rocky Mountain region, compares the Belt and Road Initiative to the Internet.

"This is a revolutionary concept and has the potential to change Asia beyond what the Internet was to global connectivity," Yee said.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road and maritime trading routes, with a goal to bring beneficial economic outcomes for every nation involved.

Xi described the Silk Road spirit as "a great heritage of human civilization" with peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit at its core.

Yee contends that Xi's strategy reveals China's respect for history and the past by remembering a "2,000-year-old truth" and designing a revolutionary, 21st century solution.

Born in Zhaotong of China's Yunnan Province, Yee has seen first-hand a remarkable amount of world history, and taught Asian history in the United States for 30 years respectively at the University of Colorado, the University of Denver and Metro State University.

"Right about the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Han Dynasty expanded trade routes from the Korean Peninsula to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea," said Yee, recounting the history of the Silk Road.

"The Silk Road is historically significant and connected many parts of Asia -- from spice trade with India and Saudi Arabia to silk trade with Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations," said Yee.

"It could be argued that the Silk Road represents the first civilized exchanges between diverse cultures in the world, especially between East and West," Yee said.

Yee noted that trade between China and the West dates back to 1,000 BC.

"They found Chinese silk in Egyptian tombs and in Germany dating back to 700 BC," said Yee, adding the Belt and Road Initiative is "a revival of a successful route and notion that people can exchange goods and ideas in a mutually-beneficial way."

"So, if you think about it, trade between Europe and China has been going on for almost 3,000 years. In terms of human civilization this is astounding," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 18:46:03|Editor: xuxin

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NAIROBI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's health ministry on Tuesday released an alert on Ebola outbreak following the disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health Jackson Kioko said the government has reactivated the rapid response teams for enhanced surveillance and follow up of travelers with elevated body temperatures and asymptomatic cases with history of travel from DRC.

"We wish to assure Kenyans that there is no suspected case of Ebola virus in the country and they should remain vigilant, look out for any such illnesses and report to the nearest health facility without delay for immediate verification and investigation," Kioko said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

He noted that travelers from the affected areas will be required to provide minimum package of information to guide investigations.

Kioko noted that the government has an adequate stock of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) which is stored in strategic regional hospitals for use if needed.

These include at least 5,000 special full body suits used in situations of highly infectious material.

He said that the ministry has reactivated the multiagency outbreak coordination committee comprising of public health experts in government and development partners to assess the situation.

He said holding rooms at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) have been reactivated to isolate Ebola virus disease suspected cases identified to be high risk while awaiting possible transfer to isolation facilities after thorough assessment.

"The government will remain committed to ensure appropriate and effective measures are instituted in order to protect Kenyans and the general public from imported Ebola Virus," he added.

He however said that the outbreak has occurred in a remote zone in DRC and that with timely effective responses in place, the disease is unlikely to spread widely in the region.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 18:56:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's prime minister and president-elect, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday, in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China is willing to deepen the all-weather friendship with Serbia to boost their comprehensive strategic partnership.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's prime minister and president-elect, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday in Beijing.

Bilateral ties and political trust between China and Serbia are strengthened, Xi said, reaffirming China's willingness to deepen cooperation with Serbia in all areas.

Xi said that the two countries should accelerate coordination of their development strategies, accommodate each other's major concerns, and keep close communication on global and regional affairs.

Efforts should be made to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push for cooperation on key projects and people-to-people exchanges.

China supports Serbia in taking a leading role in setting up a China-Central and Eastern Europe transportation infrastructure cooperation center, expecting Serbia to play a greater role in infrastructure, energy, and education.

Regarding the inter-governmental memorandum of understanding on Belt and Road, Xi called for greater efforts to enhance practical cooperation and development strategy alignment to achieve common prosperity.

Vucic said Serbia is China's staunch friend and reliable partner. Serbia has benefited enormously from participating in the Belt and Road forum. Key projects of the Belt and Road Initiative have yielded positive results.

Serbia expects to deepen cooperation with China in a host of areas including the economy and trade, mining, infrastructure, finance, aviation and tourism.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also met with Vucic Tuesday.

Hailing the Hungary-Serbia railway as an exemplary project in industrial capacity cooperation, Li expected the two sides to seize the good momentum to enhance regional connectivity.

Li applauded Serbia's participation in the "16+1 cooperation" framework, hoping the mechanism would produce win-win benefits for all.

Vucic said Serbia firmly believes China's economic development will benefit other countries. Serbia is willing to enhance bilateral cooperation in industrial capacity, infrastructure and agriculture, and actively advance the "16+1 cooperation."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:00:45|Editor: Liangyu

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas inspects Indian honor guards during a ceremonial reception held at the Indian Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, on May 16, 2017. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks here on Tuesday, officials said. (Xinhua/Partha Sarkar)

NEW DELHI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks here on Tuesday, officials said.

The two leaders reviewed bilateral relations and discussed regional and international issues.

Officials said Modi and Abbas held deliberations aimed at strengthening partnership between India and Palestine.

Abbas told local media that he came to India to seek support for peace efforts.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:15:59|Editor: xuxin

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MOSUL, Iraq, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from the Islamic State group since the launch of a major offensive to free the city from extremist militants, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said on Tuesday.

"The Iraqi forces have freed 89.5 percent of the western side of Mosul from terrorist Daesh (IS group) militants, and what left is only 12 square km," the JOC spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, said at a press conference.

Rasool said that IS militant seized some 108,405 square km in June 2014, which represented 40 percent of total area of Iraq, and now, the terrorist group are only capturing 2,875 square km all over Iraq, which represents 4.6 percent of the total land of Iraq.

Rasool said that the total number of IS militants killed since the October offensive has reached 16,467 terrorists so far.

He said that the troops also destroyed 679 car bombs and 76 car bomb-making sites, along with detonating or defusing some 6,661 roadside bombs.

U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces in the battles against IS militants, told the press conference that the last IS militants remaining in the western side of Mosul were completely surrounded and are "on the brink of total defeat."

Dorrian said that the Iraqi forces will be prepared to defeat IS militants in other areas and the coalition forces will continue to support the Iraqi forces.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the start of a major offensive to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:16:01|Editor: xuxin

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THE HAGUE, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The two giant pandas living at Ouwehands Zoo in the Dutch city of Rhehen will be seen by public for the first time on May 30, the zoo announced on Tuesday.

This comes after they spent six weeks in quarantine since their arrival on April 12.

"Following a 16-year period of consultations and preparations, the two pandas Xing Ya and Wu Wen, who were symbolically gifted to the Netherlands by China during the state visit of our Dutch Royal Couple in October 2015, can finally be admired by visitors from the day following the opening," the zoo said.

Wu Wen, or "Beautiful Powerful Cloud" the female and Xing Ya "Elegant Star" the male, both three-and-a-half-year-old, will stay at Ouwenhands for 15 years. The Netherlands is the seventh European country that hosts this endangered animal.

The Dutch zoo has built a special enclosure called Pandasia for these two lovely mammals whose species symbolizes the efforts at protecting endangered animals. The whole area, built in traditional Chinese style, covers about 9,000 sqm, of which 3,400 sqm is designated for the giant panda enclosure.

The enclosure consists of two sections, a separate indoor and outdoor enclosure for the male and the female, several night accommodations, a nursery, a cold store for bamboo, a veterinary clinic and a keepers' area.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:31:05|Editor: xuxin

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LONDON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A retired teacher unable to afford to complete her higher education degree four decades ago has finally received her degree at the age of 98.

Freda Smith from Ipswich, who worked for 44 years as a teacher becoming head teacher at one school, has been given an honorary degree by the University of Roehampton in London.

She left college two years into her degree course because her parents could not afford to keep her at college.

Receiving the degree, which enables her to use the letters B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) after her name, Smith said it was an honor and a lovely occasion.

Smith, who started her college training in 1936, explained: "I always wanted to be a school teacher. In those days, teachers' certificates took two years. But because I went to London, I wasn't given any grants from Sheffield (where she lived at the time), but my parents mortgaged their house to pay for me to go."

To get a Bachelor of Education degree, a third year of studies was required, but her family did not have the funds for her to complete the final year.

Smiling as she collected her degree at a university ceremony Monday at London's Royal Festival Hall, Smith said: "I must admit, I do consider it to be an honor. When I apply for my next job, I shall be able to say Freda Smith, BEd. It's absolutely wonderful to celebrate a degree like this at my age."

A spokeswoman for the University of Roehampton said: "It was such a nice day for Freda. She was a star of the show with so many people congratulating her. She even brought along a thesis on geography she had written in 1938."

During a career spanning more than four decades, she only had a handful of days from her classrooms through sickness.

Professor Paul O'Prey, vice-chancellor at the University of Roehampton, said the event recognized the hard work and dedication of women and men who have made significant contributions to education and teaching across the world.

The graduation ceremony was part of university's 175th anniversary since it welcomed its first cohort of students.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:36:47|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday said that the 14th Senior Officials' Meeting on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) will be convened on Thursday in Guiyang in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and senior diplomatic officials from ASEAN countries will attend the meeting. Prior to the meeting, there will be the 21st Joint Working Group meeting on the Implementation of the DOC.

"China and ASEAN countries will continue with their discussion on implementing the DOC, pushing forward maritime practical cooperation and issues related to the negotiation on the code of conduct in the South China Sea (COC)," said Hua.

She said that China and the Philippines will convene the first meeting of the bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue in Guiyang on May 19, when the Chinese vice foreign minister and Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Sta. Romana will attend the meeting to discuss the South China Sea issue.

China expects and believes that the two countries will consolidate consensus, enhance trust, and clarify misunderstandings through bilateral talks, while properly handling differences and promoting maritime cooperation, to create conditions for solving relevant disputes, said Hua.

Moreover, Hua said China and ASEAN senior officials will talk on China-ASEAN ties and cooperation within the East Asian region on May 19 in Guiyang.

The DOC, signed in 2002 by China and ASEAN countries, outlines the most important principles in the management of disputes on the South China Sea, and consultations for the COC were launched by the two sides in 2013. Both are aimed at safeguarding peace and stability in the region.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:46:59|Editor: xuxin

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BUCHAREST, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Romania's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same period of the previous year, said the National Institute of Statistics (INS) on Tuesday.

The growth rate was the highest in the European Union (EU) countries, showed a release on the same day of Eurostat, EU's statistical office, which announced a 5.6-percent GDP growth for Romania.

According to INS, the GDP registered a 5.7 percent growth on gross series and 5.6 percent as seasonally adjusted data in the first quarter of this year, and was 1.7 percent higher in real terms than that of the last quarter of 2016.

"An outstanding piece of news for Romania," Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu wrote on his account of social media, stressing that the growth was "much above the initial estimations!"

In the statistics list of Eurostat, Romania was followed by Poland and Lithuania (4.1 percent each), Latvia (3.9 percent), Hungary (3.7 percent) and Bulgaria (3.4 percent).

International financial institutions are optimistic about Romania's economy this year and upgraded their economic growth forecast for the eastern European country in their latest reports.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) last Wednesday increased its projections for Romania's economic growth from 3.7 to 4 percent in 2017, the highest growth level among the European states in which the financial institution operates.

"Consumption will continue to stimulate growth in 2017 and 2018, backed by a rise in the minimum income and wages in the public sector, which are part of the electoral promises of the ruling political party," said the European bank, adding that private investment will be supported by the cancellation of the construction tax and the low cost of funding.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:51:26|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China will require civilian drones weighing more than 250 grams to be registered under real names starting from June 1 to improve civil aviation safety, the country's civil aviation regulator announced Tuesday.

Registration of civilian drones is a common international practice and the foundation for better management, and China will launch the registration system on Thursday, according to Zhang Ruiqing, a senior official with Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The government is also working on systems to share and check civilian drone registration data.

Recent cases have indicated that unregulated civilian drones could pose a threat to the safety of civil aviation.

The CAAC will release information of areas surrounding airports that ban the flying of civilian drones and work with local governments and public security authorities to monitor and crack down on unregulated civilian drones.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 19:56:31|Editor: xuxin

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BUDAPEST, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian economy will grow 4 percent in 2017, National Economy Minister Mihaly Varga told a press conference here on Tuesday.

"Hungary's economy grew by 4.1 percent on an annual basis, according to preliminary data," the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said earlier in a statement on Tuesday.

This was well above the consensus of the experts, who tabled on a figure of 3.5 percent. Compared to the previous quarter, the increase was of 1.3 percent, according to KSH.

"The growth of the whole economy is quite positive in the first quarter, which is mainly due to the performance of the industry, the sector of construction and the services," Varga said.

"Our ministry is expecting the growth of the Hungarian economy to stay above 4 percent during the whole year, and we have every reason to believe that this can be achieved," he added.

Varga also said he hoped that different credit rating agencies and international organizations would respectively modify their expectations regarding Hungary, based on the recent favorable data.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:01:34|Editor: xuxin

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CAPE TOWN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- South African President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday that immense potentials remain to be tapped to further grow the tourism sector in Africa.

African countries should open their beautiful continent to further growth in tourism, Zuma said in his opening address at Africa's Travel Indaba (conference) 2017, taking place in Durban, with the participation of hundreds of representatives from all over Africa.

"Working together as Africans with our global partners, we can open our beautiful continent to further growth in tourism. We are determined to move Africa forward in this business," Zuma said.

In this era of the fourth industrial revolution which may threaten traditional jobs, tourism's labour absorption capacity remains a greater weapon against unemployment, said Zuma.

"It therefore serves us well to look at tourism as a diversification opportunity for the continent's economy because traditional sectors are experiencing challenges.

"Whilst we pursue the increase in global Africa inbound travel market share, we also encourage and promote travel within Africa. Africans must explore their continent as well," Zuma stressed.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, tourism around the world recorded its seventh straight year of sustained growth since the global financial crisis last year.

More than a billion people now travel around the world every year, and world international tourist arrivals grew by four percent on average. Africa enjoyed an eight percent increase in international tourist arrivals to reach 58 million arrivals.

This means that Africa is growing at twice the rate of the global average.

"It is indeed most encouraging that more and more world travellers are discovering our continent. It means they see its value as an exceptional destination for holidays and business events," Zuma said.

But he pointed out that these arrivals to the continent represent only five percent of the one billion global tourists.

This indicates the immense potential for further growth in the continent's tourism sector, said Zuma.

Zuma said his country has benefited from tourism.

The total contribution of tourism to South Africa's economy in 2015 was about 375 billion rand (about 38.8 billion US dollars), according to figures cited by Zuma.

Tourism now supports over 1.5 million jobs in total in South Africa and the country wants tourism to support over 2.2 million jobs by 2026.

"We are working hard to achieve further growth. Our aim is to make South Africa one of the top 20 tourism destinations in the world," he said.

South Africa is trying to attract five million more international arrivals and domestic tourists within the next five years, Zuma said.

More than 10 million international tourists arrived in South Africa last year, 13 percent more than in 2015, according to Statistics South Africa.

This is well over the global average growth rate for the period.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:07:13|Editor: xuxin

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PARIS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- One out of three respondents approved French President Emmanuel Macron's nomination of conservative lawyer Edouad Philippe as France's prime minister, a Harris Interactive-Atlantico survey for RMC radio showed on Tuesday.

A total of 32 percent of 1,011 interviewed people supported the appointment of Philippe as the new chief of the cabinet staff, while 57 percent said they did not know him enough to give their opinions over his nomination.

A day after being swore in himself, Macron picked Philippe as prime minister and charged him to form the government whose members will be unveiled Tuesday.

Philippe, 46, is currently mayor of France's northwestern city of Le Havre since 2010 and has been a conservative lawmaker since 2012.

He was the spokesman of moderate Alain Juppe during the right-center primary in November last year before joining the campaign of Republican nominee Francois Fillon.

Philippe started his political life as a Socialist member when he was a student before switching to the right. He has a diploma from ENA, a prestigious political university in France. He worked as public affairs director for the state nuclear group Areva between 2007 and 2010.

It is the first time in France's modern history that a president has named a prime minister from outside his party without being forced to do so by a defeat in legislative contest. This move may help Macron to win a majority in the upcoming parliamentary election.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:21:40|Editor: xuxin

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TOKYO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Japan's defense ministry confirmed Tuesday that all four male crew members on board a Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) aircraft that crashed a day earlier in a mountainous region of Hokkaido in northern Japan were dead.

Wreckage of the plane was discovered earlier Tuesday by search and rescue officials and debris from the plane was scattered over a wide area of land about three km from the peak of Mt. Hakamagoshi in the city of Hokuto in Hokkaido.

Bodies of the crew members had been transferred by helicopter to an SDF base in Hakodate before the death was officially announced.

The LR-2 reconnaissance plane took off in poor weather from Okadama Airport in Sapporo City at about 11:25 a.m. on Monday and was heading for Hakodate Airport to pick up a patient, a doctor and other personnel there.

The plane lost communications with air traffic controllers about 20 minutes later and was last seen flying at an altitude of 900 meters, preparing to make an instrument landing due to low visibility, according to the defense ministry.

The four male crew members on board the plane when it crashed were a pilot, a backup pilot and two mechanics, said the ministry.

GSDF officials and firefighters are looking into the cause of the accident and had initially deployed around 1,800 people including the SDF, police and fire and rescue workers to continue searching for the aircraft on Tuesday.

Search efforts, however, had been hampered by poor weather, including rain and fog.

Pieces of wreckage believed to be from the fuselage of the plane that went missing a day earlier were initially found by search and rescue officials at 10:14 a.m. local time in a mountainous area near Hokuto City.

This led police, firefighters and SDF personnel to begin intensively searching the vicinity where the wreckage was found as this was believed to be near the crash site.

Wreckage of the plane had been shattered into small pieces, according to local accounts, making it difficult to identify specific parts of the plane, including the overall air frame.

Japan's Meteorological Agency had said there were light rain and cloud and a low atmospheric pressure in the area when the plane went missing.

The LR-2 is a U.S.-made twin-engine turboprop plane with a 10-person capacity. A stretcher for transporting emergency patients is installed in the aircraft, and the plane is also used for reconnaissance missions by the GSDF.

There had been no reports of abnormalities or problems following recent checkups, according to the defense ministry.

Japan currently has eight LR-2s in operation, local media reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:27:19|Editor: MJ

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TAIPEI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A total of 2.54 million visitors came to Taiwan from January to March this year, 9.99 percent lower than the same period last year, data from the island's transport bureau said Tuesday.

It is the first time in 13 years visitor arrivals have registered a drop in Taiwan.

Of the 2.54 million visitors, about 667,000 were tourists, which fell over 15 percent in the first quarter.

A total of 659,575 visitors came from the Chinese mainland, which dropped 42 percent from the same period last year. Visitors from Hong Kong and Macao fell 25 percent to 342,270 while the number of Japanese visitors also dropped slightly by 0.11 percent from January to March.

Taiwan's visitor arrivals surpassed 10 million for the first time in 2015, thanks to a continued rise in the number of Chinese mainland visitors since the island opened up to mainland travelers in 2008.

However, the number of mainland tourists has plummeted since Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen, who has refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus, took office in May last year.

In 2016, the number of Chinese mainland tourists to Taiwan slipped 14.4 percent to 3.61 million, the first drop in eight years, data from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council showed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:41:49|Editor: xuxin

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KAMPALA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan military on Tuesday said it will investigate reports that its troops withdrawing from a regional mission in Central African Republic (CAR) were involved in sexual exploitation and abuses.

Brig. Richard Karemire, the military spokesman told Xinhua by telephone that if the allegations are found to be true, the errant officers would be tried in a military court martial.

"We can't tolerate bad and errant soldiers. Once we get them they will be dealt with and punished according to our laws," said Karemire.

He said already two soldiers are being tried over similar allegations.

Human Rights Watch, a New York based organization on Monday alleged that Ugandan troops deployed in CAR as part of the African Union's Regional Task Force to eliminate the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels were involved in sexual exploitation and abuses of girls and women.

The human rights organization said at least 13 women and three girls were abused since 2015.

Ugandan troops have been deployed in CAR since 2009 as part of a regional force to fight the LRA rebels hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo and CAR jungles. Last month the troops started withdrawing noting that their mission had been accomplished. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:47:28|Editor: ying

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CHANGCHUN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The first private bank in China's rust belt, an industrial area in the northeast, went into operation Tuesday.

Headquartered in Jilin, one of the three northeastern provinces, Yillion Bank was approved in December 2016 by China's banking regulator and was co-sponsored by at least two private capital providers.

The lender mainly attracts deposits from personal consumers and provides financial support to small and micro firms.

"The bank is expected to promote the development of the local private economy, and plays a positive role in rejuvenating the region's economy," said Miao Zhongyou, deputy director of Jilin Province Finance Office.

Over the past two years, the economy of northeast China, which also includes Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces, has grown more slowly than the rest of the country.

In 2014, China approved a pilot scheme to set up five private banks to give private capital a bigger role in the country's financial system. Nationwide, the number of private banks has reached 17, with nine of them having gone into operation.
Turkish Prime Minister and leader of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Binali Yildirim gestures after delivering a speech as people in the audience applaud during the AK Party's group meeting at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) in Ankara, on May 16, 2017.(Xinhua/AFP photo)

ANKARA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Germany needs to choose between Ankara and alleged Gulenist Terror Group who perpetrated the deadly coup attempt, if it wants to improve relations with Turkey, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday.

Speaking at lawmakers' meeting of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Yildirim said Berlin had to decide if it wanted to "improve relations with Turkey and to strengthen its friendly ties coming from the past."

Relations between Germany and Turkey were strained recently.

Last Thursday, Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned Germany's decision to accept asylum applications of some former military personnel affiliated with the Gulen Movement.

On Monday, Turkey's diplomatic sources confirmed that the visit of German lawmakers to Incirlik air base was "considered inappropriate for the time being," state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Gulen and his followers are accused by Turkish government of organizing the 2016 failed coup attempt, which left 249 people dead and some 2,200 injured.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 20:51:56|Editor: xuxin

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KAMPALA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has warned the country's security agencies against use of torture to extract information from suspected criminals.

Museveni in a statement issued on Tuesday said use of torture to extract confessions has three possible mistakes that may even interfere with the fight against crime.

"The use of torture is unnecessary and wrong and must not be used again," Museveni said.

His comments come after reports in the local media of a suspect who was grisly tortured by the police.

The suspect, the mayor of a local council in western Uganda is accused of being part of the gang that killed Andrew Kaweesi, former police spokesman, his driver and bodyguard in March this year.

The gory pictures of the local council official with deep wounds have aroused public anger.

Police said the officers who were involved in the torture of the suspect have been apprehended.

"Our annoyance with these criminals should not make us opt for defective short-cuts. We shall get them using patient means of evidence but not through torture because evidence through torture is not reliable," he said.

Torture was outlawed by the country's Constitution and any security officer found guilty of the act is charged on an individual basis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:02:38|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian soldiers shot dead two militants, believed to be members of a group linked to the Islamic State (IS), in the Central Sulawesi province, a military spokesman said here Tuesday.

The move is part of a military operation launched last year in a deep forest of Poso district in order to hunt for the militants grouped in the Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT).

"A large exchange of gunfire between six (of our) personnel and the eight militants of MIT took place in Blue Mountain area. The bodies of the two slain militants are being evacuated and identified," Major General Wuryanto disclosed.

"Currently, the personnel are tracking down the six other militants who are believed to have escaped to the deep forest in the mountain area," he added.

The spokesman said one soldier was injured in the fire fight and has got a medical treatment.

Santoso, the MTI leader and also the most wanted terrorist, was slain last year in the military operation, which involves over 2,000 soldiers and policemen, according to the Indonesian national police.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:02:40|Editor: xuxin

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GENEVA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported Tuesday that 45,118 migrants and refugees have reached Italy by sea this year, accounting for close to 85 percent of total Mediterranean maritime arrivals in Europe since the start of 2017.

According to the Geneva-based organization, a further 6,095 individuals have landed in Greece, Spain (2,426) and Cyprus (273).

Unsurprisingly, the central Mediterranean route linking north Africa with Italy remains the deadliest route for migrants striving to reach European shores.

According to IOM's latest figures, 1,229 men, women and children have died on that route, with a further 87 drowning on western and eastern passages.

While the number of arrivals by sea in Europe this year remains far below the 189,075 entries recorded last year over the same period, the number of fatalities is almost as high.

IOM reported that 1,316 individuals have died so far this year, just short of the 1,382 deaths recorded over the same period in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:27:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Fijian Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China is ready to enhance all-round cooperation with Fiji for the benefit of the people in both countries.

China is willing to expand cooperation with Fiji on agricultural technology, green development, investment and trade, Xi said during a meeting with Fijian Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing from May 14 to 15.

China and the Pacific island country forged a strategic partnership based on mutual respect and common development in 2014, lifting bilateral relations to a new height.

Xi noted that the two countries are enjoying deeper political mutual trust, stronger pragmatic cooperation and closer people-to-people exchanges, while calling for continued mutual support on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns.

China will encourage more tourists to visit Fiji, and support Chinese enterprises to expand business in the country, he told Bainimarama.

Xi expected closer communication and cooperation with Fiji in such areas as education and culture, as well as more local-level exchanges and cooperation.

He expressed China's willingness to boost coordination and cooperation with Fiji under the United Nations framework, and maintain communication and coordination on major issues such as climate change.

Voicing support for the Belt and Road Initiative, Bainimarama said Fiji is willing to boost cooperation with China under the initiative.

Bainimarama said Fiji will stick to the one-China policy.

Fiji will deepen cooperation with China in areas including agriculture, infrastructure, trade and people-to-people exchanges, while furthering coordination on climate change and sustainable development, Bainimarama said.

While meeting Bainimarama, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the two countries should align their development strategies, expand cooperation, and push forward common development.

Li said China has always been a responsible player in the global fight against climate change and actively implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in an effort not only to fulfill the country's obligations, but also to restructure its economy.

Li expressed China's willingness to support Fiji's presidency of the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Bainimarama welcomed China's long-term support for Fiji and expected greater industrial and trade cooperation between the two countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:27:16|Editor: xuxin

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RIYADH, May 16 (Xinhua) -- One Saudi soldier was killed and five policemen injured in a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack that targeted their patrol in the Eastern Province, Saudi Interior Ministry tweeted on Tuesday.

The ministry tweeted that it will chase those behind the attack and foil their plots.

Last week, a two-year-old boy and a Pakistani man died and 10 others injured in a shooting targeted a construction project in the disturbed Qatif region.

The attackers, according to the ministry, aimed to stop the project that will replace deserted homes being taken as hideout for fugitives.

Qatif is one of few disturbed Saudi areas that are populated with minority Saudi Shiite community. Some of its youth are demanding more rights in the Sunni conservative country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:37:57|Editor: xuxin

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GARISSA, Kenya, May 16 (Xinhua) -- At least four people were killed on Tuesday after the vehicle in which they were travelling in ran over an improvised explosive device (IED) in Dadaab in northeast Kenya.

Regional government official Mohamud Saleh said that the IED might have been planted by suspected Al-Shabaab militants at night.

Saleh said they believe the assailants might have been targeting security officers who have stepped up patrols along the porous border in Garissa County.

"We suspect that it is Al-Shabaab militants who planted the IED on Monday night. Our officers have been carrying out operations in the area. And so we suspect that the militia were targeting one of our security vehicles but unfortunately it exploded on a private vehicle," Saleh said.

He said the incident occurred at Aligabay, 70kms from Liboi town at the border between Kenya and Somalia.

Locals and security sources said the four occupants who were in Landcruiser vehicle died on the spot after their vehicle they were traveling in ran over an explosive device.

The victims included two men, a woman and a child. Saleh said the incident happened just ten minutes after a police Landcruiser full of officers who were heading towards Liboi passed the area.

"We have every reason to believe that that militia were targeting the officers but fortunately for no reason or another it did not step on the IED," said Saleh.

The government administrator said that the officers made a U-turn to see what had happened and traced the foot prints which were going towards Liboi town. No arrest has been made so far.

Kenyan security personnel patrolling the Somalia border have been hit with a series of explosion attacks since Kenya sent its troops to fight Al-Shabaab inside Somalia, often killing or injuring officers.

The latest incident in Garissa County came as police are still trying to piece information that will lead to the arrest of gunmen suspected to be members of Al-Shabaab who shot dead a local government administrator in Mandera region.

Saleh said eight militants whose sole target was to eliminate the chief shot him in the chest, stomach and shoulder before fleeing.

They then searched his house and took with them his personal affects including 2 mobile phones.

Saleh urged members of the public to volunteer information that will assist the police in arresting those behind the two incidences which he described as isolated.

Since Kenyan soldiers crossed into Somalia, several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the Islamist group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:38:00|Editor: ying

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) holds a welcome ceremony for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen before their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed Tuesday that the two countries will enhance economic cooperation and work together to ensure regional stability and prosperity.

The Chinese government is committed to upgrading cooperation with Cambodia, and wants to align their development strategies to increase bilateral trade in both quantity and quality, Li said when meeting with Hun Sen.

Hun Sen is on an official visit to China from May 13 to 17. He attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Sunday and Monday.

Li urged more cooperation with Cambodia in multiple areas including industrial capacity, investment, agriculture, education, tourism, defense and law enforcement.

China is also ready to maintain high-level exchanges and strategic communication with Cambodia, promote people-to-people ties, and strengthen coordination on international and regional issues, the premier said.

The Chinese side supports Cambodia's role in regional and sub-regional platforms and stands ready to work with Cambodia for regional peace, stability and prosperity, Li said.

For his part, Hun Sen said his country is willing to deepen cooperation with China in trade, investment, infrastructure, law enforcement, security and other areas, while pledging to advance bilateral friendly relations to a higher level.

Cambodia will continue to actively promote China-ASEAN ties and Lancang-Mekong cooperation, and safeguard regional peace, stability and development, Hun Sen said.

After the meeting, China and Cambodia signed a number of documents on cooperation in strategy coordination, infrastructure as well as economic and technological areas.

Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), and Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), also held meetings with Hun Sen respectively on Tuesday.

Zhang said the NPC will strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Cambodia's National Assembly and Senate to contribute more to the development of China-Cambodia ties.

Yu said the CPPCC National Committee is ready to have more exchanges with Cambodia's Senate and sustain the momentum of high-level visits.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 21:43:08|Editor: ying

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CHANGSHA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Five people were killed and another injured when an explosion ripped through a dynamite manufacturing plant Tuesday in central China's Hunan Province, authorities said.

Two bodies were retrieved from the debris as of 7 p.m., bringing the death toll of the accident to five, said a spokesman with the county's publicity department.

One person who was injured was taken to hospital and his injuries are not life-threatening.

The plant is owned by Mintai Black Dynamite Limited Liability Company.

The legal representative of the company is in police custody and the cause of the incident is being investigated.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:12:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. Wickremesinghe attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14-15 in Beijing. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for more efforts to advance the strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Sri Lanka.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14-15 in Beijing.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Sri Lanka and the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Rubber-Rice Pact between the two countries.

China highly values relations with Sri Lanka, and supports the efforts made by Sri Lanka to safeguard national unity, peace and national reconciliation, and promote economic development, Xi said.

China is ready to work with Sri Lanka to move forward the friendship between the two countries and lift their strategic partnership of cooperation to a higher level, Xi said.

The Chinese president urged the two countries to strengthen top-level design and policy communication for the development of bilateral ties, and coordinate positions on global issues of common interests.

The two sides should also promote infrastructure construction, maritime and aviation cooperation to realize infrastructure connectivity, Xi said.

The two countries should work to promote a balanced and sustainable development of bilateral trade, accelerate investment, and realize trade and financial connectivity through a free trade agreement, he said.

China and Sri Lanka should take the celebration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to build people-to-people bonds in youth, think tanks, colleges and universities, media, religion, tourism and local affairs, Xi said.

For his part, Wickremesinghe congratulated China for the successful Belt and Road forum, which had gathered many countries and international financial institutions, and achieved fruitful results.

Sri Lanka is committed to consolidating the traditional friendship with China and deepening bilateral cooperation in a variety of areas, Wickremesinghe said.

The Sri Lankan prime minister said his country welcomes China's increased participation in Sri Lanka's industrialization process, and infrastructure construction in particular.

Sri Lanka is ready to work with China on the Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City projects, Wickremesinghe said.

The prime minister also vowed to make the best use of his country's advantageous location to make contributions to the Belt and Road construction.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also met with Wickremesinghe Tuesday.

Li said the two countries should deepen cooperation in trade and investment, infrastructure building and production capacity.

China is willing to work with Sri Lanka to steadily push forward the construction of Colombo Port City, Hambantota Port, and logistics and industrial parks in accordance with market and business principles, said Li.

The Chinese premier urged Sri Lanka to create a good legal, media, policy and security environment for implementing the projects.

Wickremesinghe said his country is ready to closely coordinate with China to create a favorable environment for Chinese companies to invest in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka will also speed up the construction of those key projects, and strengthen production capacity cooperation with China to facilitate Sri Lanka's industrialization and regional connectivity, Wickremesinghe said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:12:51|Editor: xuxin

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DAMASCUS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Syria's Foreign Ministry denied on Tuesday a recent U.S. report that the Syrian authorities are using crematorium to hide mass killing in a military prison near capital Damascus.

In a statement, the military said the accusations by the U.S. administration about the incidents in Saydnaya prison, or the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons allegations are all baseless.

The consecutive U.S. administrations have been keen to make up lies to justify their aggressive policies toward Syria and other countries, said the ministry, calling the prison crematorium accusations as a "new Hollywood narrative that is totally detached from reality."

A day earlier, Stuart Jones, the acting U.S. assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, said the crematorium could be used to dispose of bodies from Saydnaya.

"We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison," said Jones.

The U.S. state department also released satellite footages, showing what it called a new building in the prison's complex that is apparently modified to support crematorium.

It wasn't the first time foreign reports speak about Saydnaya.

In February, the Amnesty International accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of carrying out mass hangings in the same prison, adding that around 13,000 people have been hanged in the notorious prison since the eruption of the Syrian war in 2011.

In a later interview with the Yahoo News, al-Assad said such reports were baseless and lack evidence.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:17:53|Editor: ying

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WUHAN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- More than 30 railway staff from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan attended training on high-speed trains in central China on Tuesday.

The two-day training course in Hubei's capital city Wuhan will lay a foundation for railway projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, according to the organizer.

Wuhan has held similar training sessions before. Last year, about 200 staff from countries such as Thailand and Laos participated in the sessions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:17:54|Editor: ying

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MOGADISHU, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China has inked agreement with the UN migration agency (IOM) for 1 million U.S. dollar of multi-sector assistance that will support IOM efforts to help internally displaced persons, vulnerable communities and returnees in Somalia.

A statement from IOM said Tuesday the project, which will reach over 15,000 people, will support the UN and Somalia-backed 2017 Somalia Humanitarian Response Plan.

It will also provide lifesaving aid to vulnerable populations in areas affected by the ongoing drought and displacement.

"This contribution towards IOM's humanitarian programmes is another milestone in bilateral relations between IOM and China," IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing said.

Swing who signed the agreement in Beijing on Monday with China's Ministry of Commerce on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, described labour migration as an essential element in co-building the "Belt and Road Community".

He said facilitation of movement of capital, goods and services has been of enormous benefit to the global community.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:23:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China is willing to continue to provide Myanmar with assistance in its internal peace progress.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing on May 14-15.

He called on the two sides to jointly maintain peace and stability on the border.

Xi noted that the two countries have a deeply rooted friendship and extensive common interests, and the two sides reached important consensus on all-round strategic cooperation in the new era during Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw's visit to China last month.

He said China and Myanmar should boost their ties and advance the construction of key projects, economic corridors, economic zones and infrastructure.

Aung San Suu Kyi commended the Belt and Road Initiative as one that will bring peace, reconciliation and prosperity to the region and the world at large.

She said Myanmar is grateful to China for its efforts in advancing her country's internal peace progress. Myanmar stands ready to work with China on peace and stability on the border.

In a separate meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged an early cease-fire in northern Myanmar to ensure peace on the border.

Li said China supports the second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference to be hosted by Myanmar. The meeting is an inclusive dialogue designed to open to all armed groups.

On joint projects, Li called for steady progress of oil pipelines, ports, and economic zones. He also demanded proper handling of the Myitsone hydro-power station to "guide cooperation expectation and boost confidence."

The project on the Ayeyawaddy River started in December 2009 but was suspended by the previous government in 2011.

With an installed capacity of 6,000 megawatts, the project was designed to yield 29,400 million kilowatt hours a year on completion by 2019.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:28:00|Editor: Hou Qiang

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Chinese PresidentXi Jinpingmeets with Fijian Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China is ready to enhance all-round cooperation with Fiji for the benefit of the people in both countries.

China is willing to expand cooperation with Fiji on agricultural technology, green development, investment and trade, Xi said during a meeting with Fijian Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing from May 14 to 15.

China and the Pacific island country forged a strategic partnership based on mutual respect and common development in 2014, lifting bilateral relations to a new height.

Xi noted that the two countries are enjoying deeper political mutual trust, stronger pragmatic cooperation and closer people-to-people exchanges, while calling for continued mutual support on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns.

China will encourage more tourists to visit Fiji, and support Chinese enterprises to expand business in the country, he told Bainimarama.

Xi expected closer communication and cooperation with Fiji in such areas as education and culture, as well as more local-level exchanges and cooperation.

He expressed China's willingness to boost coordination and cooperation with Fiji under the United Nations framework, and maintain communication and coordination on major issues such as climate change.

Voicing support for the Belt and Road Initiative, Bainimarama said Fiji is willing to boost cooperation with China under the initiative.

Bainimarama said Fiji will stick to the one-China policy.

Fiji will deepen cooperation with China in areas including agriculture, infrastructure, trade and people-to-people exchanges, while furthering coordination on climate change and sustainable development, Bainimarama said.

While meeting Bainimarama, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the two countries should align their development strategies, expand cooperation, and push forward common development.

Li said China has always been a responsible player in the global fight against climate change and actively implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in an effort not only to fulfill the country's obligations, but also to restructure its economy.

Li expressed China's willingness to support Fiji's presidency of the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Bainimarama welcomed China's long-term support for Fiji and expected greater industrial and trade cooperation between the two countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:28:05|Editor: MJ

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BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Ping will attend the Timor-Leste president's inauguration ceremony as special envoy of President Xi Jinping, Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday.

Zhang, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China, is making the trip at the invitation of Timor-Leste President-elect Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a routine press briefing.

Zhang will also attend the celebration of 15th anniversary of Timor-Leste's restoration of independence, said Hua.

The inauguration of Lu-Olo and 15th anniversary celebration will be held in Dili from May 19 to 20.
LUSAKA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government has vowed to reclaim its top spot as Africa's number one producer of copper, a senior official said on Tuesday.

In 2013, the DRC overtook Zambia to become Africa's largest producer of the red metal, with output of 942,000 tons but the country suffered its first decline in production in 2015 although production was back up to just over 1 million tons in 2016 while Zambia's production last year stood at 770,588 tons.

But Minister of Mines Christopher Yaluma said Zambia was on its way to reclaim its top spot and attributed this to stable policies and the creation of conducive environment that have helped mining firms boost production.

"We're close, very close. I don't see any reason why we can't. It's about stable policies, and finding new ways to encourage mines to perform even better," he is quoted as saying by the Mining Zambia, a premier source of information on mining in the country.

He said the government has projected copper production to reach 800,000 tons this year and expressed optimism that the target will be met due to new investments by mining firms which has boosted production.

He further said the stable political situation in the country has resulted in increased investor confidence.
SOFIA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China's telecom giant Huawei would help Bulgaria to become a leader in IT services in the European Union (EU), said Guo Ping, the company's rotating and acting CEO said on Tuesday.

Next year, Bulgaria will take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU, and furthermore, the country has been selected as one of the two pilot countries for the EU's e-government initiative, Guo said at the opening ceremony of a national summit on cloud computing.

"In this context, our mission is to ensure that Bulgaria will become a leader of the EU in this area," Guo said.

Huawei was also committed to supporting Bulgaria in its strategic efforts to become a regional cloud hub, Guo said.

"This will provide a huge boost to the local IT industry and also give EU companies access to the highest quality cloud services," Guo said.

Speaking about this particular event, jointly organized with the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria and the national telecom giant Vivacom, Guo said it would help to explore the future of cloud services and how the cloud can help Bulgaria enter the intelligent world.

Emil Karanikolov, Bulgaria's Minister of Economy, said in turn that information and communication technologies and outsourcing have been among the leading sectors for attracting investments in his country.

Since 2013, investment projects worth over 1.049 billion U.S. dollars have been implemented in these areas, and over 7,400 jobs have been created, Karanikolov said.

The presence in Bulgaria of such a global company like Huawei, spoke well for the country's policies, he added.

Chinese Ambassador to Bulgaria Zhang Haizhou, who also attended the event, said it marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of cloud technologies in Bulgaria.

Huawei Technologies has been present in Bulgaria since 2004, and has been a major supplier for the telecom market in the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 22:48:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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XI'AN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Over 200 people have been caught for their alleged involvement in an online lottery fraud worth 100 million yuan (14.5 million U.S. dollars), police in northwest China's Shaanxi Province said Tuesday.

Among the 203 arrested, more than 100 will face criminal charges as they were allegedly trained to lure victims in their fake lottery scheme online, said a police officer in the provincial capital Xi'an.

Gang members were asked to develop "clients" via social networking software such as QQ and WeChat as "honey traps," and lure them to buy lottery tickets by sending them fake winning screenshots and promising them high rate of winning.

Police started investigating the case in January, when a victim surnamed Hong said to have paid a total of 45,000 yuan via Alipay or WeChat for the "lottery investment" via a young woman net friend surnamed Li.

After three months' investigation, more than 200 policemen made the arrests in three locations on May 5. More than 200 computers and other equipment were also seized.

Since 2015, the gang had made 50 million yuan from transactions worth of more than 100 million yuan, with victims spread across the country.

Further investigation is under way.
Ugandan soldiers march during the launch of HIV/AIDS campaign in Wakiso District of Uganda, July 29, 2016. (Xinhua/Joseph Kiggundu)

KAMPALA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan military on Tuesday said it will investigate reports that its troops withdrawing from a regional mission in Central African Republic (CAR) were involved in sexual exploitation and abuses.

Brig. Richard Karemire, the military spokesman told Xinhua by telephone that if the allegations are found to be true, the errant officers would be tried in a military court martial.

"We can't tolerate bad and errant soldiers. Once we get them they will be dealt with and punished according to our laws," said Karemire.

He said already two soldiers are being tried over similar allegations.

Human Rights Watch, a New York based organization on Monday alleged that Ugandan troops deployed in CAR as part of the African Union's Regional Task Force to eliminate the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels were involved in sexual exploitation and abuses of girls and women.

The human rights organization said at least 13 women and three girls were abused since 2015.

Ugandan troops have been deployed in CAR since 2009 as part of a regional force to fight the LRA rebels hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo and CAR jungles. Last month the troops started withdrawing noting that their mission had been accomplished.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 23:08:28|Editor: Liangyu

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Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a prolific U.S. expert on China issues, gives exclusive interview to Xinhuanet, in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2017. (Xinhuanet/Wang Hanlin)

by Tamara Treichel

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation has just concluded, with some 1,500 guests from over 130 countries attending, among them Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a prolific U.S. expert on China issues.

Kuhn, who has written and edited more than 25 books and is a much sought-after commentator on China, had some compelling things to say about the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.

The forum was the fourth event on the Belt and Road Initiative Kuhn attended, and he has been following the initiative's progress closely since it was first proposed in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping. He sat down with Xinhua on the sidelines of the forum to speak about this historic event.

Kuhn called Xi's keynote speech at the opening of the forum on Sunday "a grand vision for the Belt and Road."

"This is a change of the Belt and Road from theory and preliminary ideas, from a blueprint to a roadmap, from ideas on paper to projects on the ground," he said, adding that Xi put the initiative in its historical context of East meets West on the Silk Road and showed how much the world needed the Belt and Road Initiative to combat poverty and extreme inequalities that breed instability.

However, Kuhn stressed that the Belt and Road Initiative was not charity by any means. "It is not foreign aid, which is good at times, but it is often not sustainable," he said.

"The Belt and Road starts at the foundation, and builds infrastructure, so it enables the host countries, the developing countries, some very poor countries, to be able to develop their own economies ... You can't develop an economy without a foundation of infrastructure," he said.

He found the cooperation potential under the Belt and Road Initiative especially appealing. "He (Xi) showed that people who have differences in geography, race, religion, ethnicity, different views can work together for common development. But it needs to start with infrastructure."

The expert was especially impressed that China "is making a creative, proactive effort" with this initiative.

As Kuhn was listening to Xi's speech, he was pondering the potential challenges the Belt and Road Initiative faces in its implementation, a topic he is particularly interested in exploring.

"You have to start with a vision, but unless you appreciate all the challenges, the difficulties, it's going to have problems in the future," the expert said.

When asked how other countries can better benefit from China's wisdom and solutions, Kuhn said the countries would derive a dual benefit.

The first benefit would be the projects themselves, which would provide the "desperately needed" infrastructure for an economy to grow and become integrated into the global economy.

The second one would be the "more subtle benefit" of China's reform and opening-up experience that other countries could learn from, for example how to avoid pollution.

The expert also had a lot to say on how the initiative would help the world recover from the economic sluggishness.

"I think you have to look at the Belt and Road Initiative in the long term. I think it's a mistake to try to say the Belt and Road is going to have an immediate benefit," as haste makes waste where infrastructure projects are concerned.

"Infrastructure projects are not measured in years, they are measured in decades," Kuhn said.

"You need to understand the Belt and Road in terms of the real economic matching between risk, reward, investment and return. And it's not short term," he said.

Kuhn remarked on the large turnout at the forum, which underscores the initiative's importance. "The world is collectively agreeing to build infrastructure, recognizing all the challenges involved, and I think that is the most important element that we have here, the results of which we will see over time," Kuhn said.

He suggested that think tanks would play a role in guiding the initiative in the right direction.

The expert also addressed a common misconception about the Belt and Road Initiative, which has been occasionally compared to the Marshall Plan that provided aid to Europe after World War II, or chequebook diplomacy. By contrast, the Belt and Road Initiative is truly win-win, he argued.

"Belt and Road is not foreign aid, which is giving charity ... it is truly win-win. The benefit of win-win is that it's sustainable," Kuhn said, adding that China has been open about the fact that the initiative would benefit its own country as well.

What's more, in Xi's speech at the forum, the Chinese president said that China has neither the intention of interfering in other countries' internal affairs nor would it export its own social system or model of development. Kuhn agreed with that approach.

While implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, participating countries need to respect each others' local cultures and governmental structures while at the same time applying the highest international standards, he suggested.

In sum, "the forum is a milestone in a big transition" from theory to "a major world commitment led by China" to promote global connectivity.

"This makes the commitment absolutely definitive," Kuhn said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 23:13:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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PYONGYANG, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Tuesday rejected a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) press statement issued on Monday condemning its test-firing of a medium long-range ballistic missile.

A spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said that the DPRK "categorically and totally rejects the UNSC's statement which called into question its bolstering of nuclear deterrence for self-defense," according to the Korean Central News Agency.

"The right of self-defense is the first criterion of sovereignty. Therefore, the accusation against it is an undisguised encroachment upon sovereignty and an act of rude interference in internal affairs," said the spokesman.

The DPRK test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday which hit a target some 780 km away into the East Sea, according to its official media.

The UN Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday both slammed the missile launches conducted by the DPRK.

The Security Council "strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launches" conducted by the DPRK on April 28 and May 13, the 15-nation UN body said in a press statement.
BISHKEK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A rehabilitation center for torture victims has opened here, the press service of the National Coalition Against Torture in Kyrgyzstan reported Tuesday.

Torture victims will receive medical, psychological, social and legal assistance at the center, said head of the center Tynchtykbek Asanov.

Both citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic as well as foreigners who have suffered from torture and ill-treatment are eligible to receive services at the center, he said.

Since 2007, a rehabilitation program of the Voice of Liberty Public Foundation, with the support of the United Nations Voluntary Fund and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims in Kyrgyzstan, has been providing assistance to victims of torture in the republic.

Medical, psychological and social assistance has been provided to about 500 victims. Now this program has evolved into a center with six specialists: a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a sociologist, a psychotherapist, a therapist and a case manager, said the report.

The center was created with the support of Voice of Liberty and the Central Asian Alliance Against Dependence.

The center is reportedly the only center in Central Asia that provides assistance to victims of torture.

Sardar Bagishbekov, head of Voice of Liberty, said that a similar rehabilitation center is planned in the south of the country.
KIEV, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree to expand sanctions against Russia, blacklisting a string of Russian media outlets and information technology (IT) companies, the presidential press service said Tuesday.

The restrictions targeted nearly a dozen Russian TV channels and news websites and more than 50 IT companies, including Russia's largest search engine Yandex.

Russian social media networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, which account for 53 percent and 34 percent respectively of Ukraine's daily Internet audience, were also blacklisted.

The decree has obliged Ukraine's broadcasting network operators and Internet providers to block public access to the Russian TV channels and websites.

The sanctions will be in place between one year and three years depending on the company.

Since 2015, Kiev has imposed sanctions against 468 companies and 1,228 individuals over their alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis.

Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of inciting the conflict in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions in east Ukraine. But Russia has denied these accusations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 23:44:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ANKARA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Ankara's Public Prosecutor issued a detention warrant on Tuesday for 85 former govern ment staff members related to the foiled July 2016 attempted coup.

About 60 staff members are from the Energy Ministry and related institutions, whereas the other 25 are from the Education Ministry, reported the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Almost 40 of the wanted suspects have so far been detained and transferred to police headquarters.

The suspects are charged for allegedly using ByLock, an encrypted messaging application the Gulenist Terror Group and his followers are suspected of using to communicate together.

This detention warrant is part of the ongoing investigation into the alleged Gulenist Terror Group, which the Turkish government accuses of perpetrating the failed July 2016 coup.
SINGAPORE, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2 caught fire on Tuesday evening and resulted in significant flight delays.

Stranded passengers were evacuated to Terminal 3 after the incident. Three people were sent to hospital for smoke inhalation.

"All flights departing and arriving at Terminal 2 had been moved to Terminal 3 until further notice," said Changi Airport Group (CAG).

The fire may have started at the aircon unit area at level 5, according to local media reports.

Changi Airport officials said the fire alarm was activated at about 5:40 p.m. local time (0940 GMT) as smoke came through the air vents.

"Evacuation of the terminal was initiated and the Changi Airport Emergency Service team is onsite," a spokesman for the CAG said.

The fire was then put out by Singapore Civil Defence Force using a hose reel jet.

"We expect significant delays to departing and arriving flights at Changi Airport this evening. Changi Airport Group apologizes for the inconvenience caused," CAG added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-16 23:58:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GENEVA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday announced a "landmark" five-year partnership with Microsoft.

It said that Microsoft will provide a grant of 5 million U.S. dollars to support the work of the UN Human Rights Office.

"This represents an unprecedented level of support from a private sector organization," a statement of OHCHR said.

The statement said that a particular area of focus for the partnership will be the development and use of advanced technology designed to better predict, analyze and respond to critical human rights situations.

"We have an untapped opportunity to use the power of technology to collect data, analyze that data, and equip the United Nations to advance human rights around the world," said Brad Smith, President of Microsoft.

OHCHR pointed out that one example that Microsoft might help to establish is Rights View, an information dashboard that will allow UN human rights staff to aggregate large quantities of internal and external data on specific countries and types of rights violations in real time.

It will also help to facilitate analysis, ensure early warning of emerging critical issues and provide data to guide responses, OHCHR said.

According to their agreement, Microsoft will also work with the UN Human Rights Office to raise awareness of the role that companies can and should play in driving respect for human rights and to promote more responsible business conduct across the world.

"This could be a truly ground-breaking agreement," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. "We live in a rapidly evolving age, where technology can either be used to solve human rights problems or misused to erode human rights. Similarly, companies can infringe people's rights, or they can be a major progressive force."

"The private sector has an essential role to play in advancing human rights, and this partnership with Microsoft demonstrates how we can join forces in a constructive way," Zeid said.
VIENTIANE, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Construction of the Laos-China railway is gathering steam with many tunnels being bored despite rainfall, Lao state-run media Vientiane Times on Tuesday quoted officials as saying.

All three tunnels in Lao northern Luang Namtha province, some 360 km northwest of the Lao capital Vientiane, are being bored with the Boten Tunnel having progressed the furthest at more than 50 meters, according to project coordinator for Luang Namtha province Chanthachone Keolakhone.

The Laos-China Friendship Tunnel, which crosses the Laos-China border, has been bored more than 10 meters so far, he added.

In addition, Chinese contractors are preparing to drill the foundations for a bridge connecting Luang Namtha and Oudomxay provinces.

Project coordinator for northern Oudomxay province Phonpadith Phommakit said that about 30 tunnels will be bored in the province.

The railway, which connects Lao capital Vientiane with Chinese border through Lao provinces of Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Oudomxay and Luang Namtha, passes through 75 tunnels.

The Lao and Chinese sides have been working hard to get the tunnels bored before the rainy season so that rainfall will not delay construction, as work can be carried out inside the tunnels during rain.

The China-Laos railway has a total length of 414.332 kilometers with over 62.7 percent of bridges and tunnels, linking Mohan-Boten border gate in northern Laos and capital Vientiane.

Operating speed on the route is designed at 160 km per hour. Construction of the project is scheduled for five years with investment of some 40 billion Chinese yuan (5.8 billion U.S. dollars), 70 percent of which comes from Chinese investment and the rest 30 percent from the Lao side.

China-Laos railway is the first overseas route connecting with the railway system in China, using Chinese technology, equipment and investment.
BRUSSELS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- An European Union (EU) commissioner on Tuesday lambasted Poland and Hungary for not having relocated "a single person in need of protection", warning that the Commission would open infringement procedures if they are still loath to take action within one month.

Speaking at a press conference on the heels of a meeting of EU Commissioners in Strasburg, France, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos, said:" While the majority of member states are making efforts in a real European spirit, others continue to show no solidarity."

"This is why I call on Poland and Hungary who have not relocated a single person in need of protection to start doing so right now." he added.

"If no action is taken by them before the next report in June, the Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties and open infringement procedures," he warned, referring to the EU's report on relocation and resettlement, the latest edition of which was adopted by the Commission Tuesday.

According to the report, the total number of relocations from overburdened Italy and Greece to other EU member states as of May 12 stood at 18,418, a pace still lagged far behind the bloc's target set in September 2015, when member states pledged to relocate a total of 160,000 migrants within two years.

Apart from Poland and Hungary, the report urged the Czech Republic, which "has not been active in the scheme for almost a year", to "restart relocation without delay."

As for resettlement scheme, the report said that it as a whole remained on track, with 16,163 persons resettled to 21 countries since July 2015, when member states agreed to resettle a total of 22,504 asylum-seekers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 00:19:07|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon was preparing to further arm Syrian Kurds with anti-tank weapons despite objections of the Turkish government, according to U.S. media reports.

Citing U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was divided over the Pentagon plan to arm the Syrian Kurds, a key force in the fight against the Islamic State (IS).

While the anti-tank weapons could be used to thwart IS suicide bombing attacks by trucks, the weaponry could also be used to strike Turkish tanks in Syria.

The revelation came less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump approved a plan to arm Syrian Kurds, a local force backed by the U.S.-led coalition against the IS.

The approval for the plan came despite strong objections of the Turkish government, which views the Kurdish fighters as terrorists.

The news also came as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was about to meet Trump at the White House later on Tuesday. The issue of U.S. arming of the Syrian Kurds is expected to be discussed during the meeting.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 00:19:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and visiting French President Emmanuel Macron attend a joint press conference in Berlin, capital of Germany, on May 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)

BERLIN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- German media reported Tuesday that plans to strengthen the eurozone are in motion after newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron met German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Both pro-Europe leaders were keen to show solidarity concerning the eurozone and have broken with previous statements by discussing potential changes to EU treaties.

The move is seen by both nations as a way of healing ongoing EU upheaval, combating the rise of the far right and showing a united front in the wake of Brexit negotiations.

The German chancellor greeted President Macron with warm words during the official press conference and pledged that this new partnership would be one of trust and close cooperation. The French president stated that he wished for an "open, direct and constructive" partner.

The official meeting was the French president's inaugural visit on his first official day in office, and was joined by his newly appointed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who can speak German.

Macron is no stranger to German politics, being closely involved in official discussions in 2012-2014 between the two nations on how to improve economic integration in the eurozone.

During the press conference Monday in Berlin, both leaders raised concerns about inflexible EU treaties for the changing geopolitical landscape.

Their plan includes a joint cabinet meeting in July, after the French parliamentary vote, to further plan joint political collaboration.
by Chrispinus Omar

NAIROBI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Tuesday reassured the public that the government computer systems and networks are secure following the emergence of a lethal ransomware virus that is spreading at an alarming speed and wrecking havoc to computer users globally.

The Ministry of ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru said the government was keenly following developments on the encryption malware which effectively disabled over 200,000 computers running the Windows operating system in over 150 countries.

"We have heightened our cyber monitoring and surveillance mechanisms to prevent and eliminate any remote possibility of attack," Mucheru said a forum in Nairobi.

He was speaking at the Cyber-Security & Banking Forum organized by Citibank and the ICT Authority, where he challenged the financial services sector to improve information sharing and reporting on cyber-security breaches.

Mucheru added that this would also aid in quantifying the exposure and resilience of organizations both in public and private sector to cyber security incidents.

"Breach notification eliminates the clandestine attempts by hackers to attack systems and enables synergized efforts towards the prevention of the criminal activity as well as their prosecution," Mucheru said.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that infects a computer and restricts users' access to the computer until a ransom has been paid.

Once a computer has been infected with the virus, it tries to infect other computers within the network and denies users access to information until they pay ransom. The Authority has warned the public against temptations to yield to those demands.

Michael Mutiga, Managing Director, Corporate and Investment Banking at Citibank said that the creation of a shared industry reporting structure was the next phase in the evolution of Cyber-security awareness in Kenya.

"Breach notification is an important factor in the entire process of cyber-risk management. We have seen other markets develop mechanisms to share this data, within set parameters for the benefit or the industry and overall economy," Mutiga said.

Citibank's Lead Information Security Officer for Middle East and Africa Edward Kiptoo said collaboration is taking place on an international level- attacking a global threat through combining the capabilities of companies and banks across the world.

"The information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) for instance, share information not only internationally, but also across sectors, Kiptoo said.

To stay safe, Kenya has advised computer users to observe a number of precautions including ensuring they have an up-to-date back up of their files offline to ensure the information can be easily restored in the event of an attack.

Mucheru pointed out that although the financial services sector relied heavily on various financial technology to link to each other and the larger economy, it was yet come up to par in terms of cyber-risk preparedness.

"With more than 75.3 percent of Kenyan citizens included in the formal financial services in the country, one would logically expect a corresponding increase in cyber security investments in the industry, statistics indicate this is not the case currently," Mucheru said.

The Kenya Cyber Security Report 2016 by Serianu indicate that about 44 percent of financial institutions run on a cyber-security budget of a paltry 1 U.S. dollars to 1,000 dollars annually, whilst another 33 percent of financial institutions in Kenya have zero spending on all matters cyber security.

The report says that a whopping 175 million dollars has been pilfered from Kenya's economy by savvy cybercriminals.

"We must ensure that our aspirations for innovation in the various sectors of the economy are matched with prudent security risk management especially in the Fintech services area," Mucheru said.
STOCKHOLM, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Over the next 20 years, water and wastewater tariffs need to double in Sweden to cover future maintenance and expansion costs, according to a new report issued by the Swedish Water and Wastewater Association (SWWA) on Tuesday.

"This report clearly shows that major investments are needed and that they must start now," Anna Linusson, managing director of SWWA, said in a statement issued on the association's website.

Currently, Sweden invests nearly 1.4 billion U.S. dollars a year in municipal water and sewerage infrastructure. To ensure clean water in the future, the annual investment should be increased 35 percent over 20 years, the report said. To cover that cost, SWWA proposed doubling water and wastewater tariffs.

"The report's calculations are based on an increase over 20 years, but the immediate needs are even bigger than 35 percent," Linusson said.

Higher tariffs will help cover the cost of improving existing pipes and expanding services into new areas.

"The worst-case scenario is that we cannot deliver safe drinking water and meet the environmental demands. We will have difficulty expanding into and servicing new areas and a hard time meeting international standards," Linusson said.

The report was presented at SWWA's annual water meeting in Karlstad, Sweden, on Tuesday.
KIGALI, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda National Electoral Commission (NEC) has set June as a deadline for receiving nomination applications from presidential candidates ahead of the polls scheduled in August.

The dates for nominating presidential candidates have been set from June 12 to 23, said NEC Executive Secretary Charles Munyaneza on Tuesday.

"We have kicked off the second phase of updating provisional voter registers and this will go up to the end of this month. We are calling upon eligible voters to cross check with local officials at their respective cells and villages to ensure that their names appear on the voter registration forms," said Munyaneza.

According to NEC, candidates are required to gather at least 600 signatures from 30 districts -- a minimum of 12 signatures in each district among others.

Rwanda will go to the polls for presidential elections on August 4 for its third time since the end of the ex-genocidal regime in 1994.

NEC had said that a provisional list of qualified candidates will be announced on June 27. The names of qualified candidates will be published on July 7, a week before campaigns start.

Campaigns for the qualified candidates will officially begin on July 14 and end on August 3, just a day before the elections.

It is estimated that about 6.8 million will participate in the election from 5.7 million who participated in 2010 presidential elections, according to the NEC.
ALGIERS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of passengers have been trapped Tuesday at the international airport of Algiers due to an unexpected strike by maintenance staff that led to the cancellation of several flights.

The maintenance staff members work for the Algerian state run Air Algerie company, as 39 domestic flights and 29 international flights of the national airline departing from all the Algerian airports have been suspended because of the strike.

The strike ended at around 2.30 pm GMT, after a meeting between representatives of the maintenance staff trade union, and the head office of the airline company, TSA news agency reported. The strikers claimed wage hikes, local media reported.

TSA quoted spokeswoman of Air Algerie, Mounia Bertouche, as saying that "the strike ended, as flights have resumed, and we will try to catch up with the caused delays."

Air Algerie witnessed several strike movements in recent years. In July of 2011, aeronautic personel of this state-run company grounded flights, blocking thousand passengers in foreign airports, including in Orley and Marseille, two French cities hosting the largest number of Algerian nationals worldwide.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 01:45:43|Editor: Liangyu

U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster answers questions during a press briefing at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on May 16, 2017. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday that it was "wholly appropriate" for President Donald Trump to share classified information with Russian officials during their meeting in the Oval Office last week. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday that it was "wholly appropriate" for President Donald Trump to share classified information with Russian officials during their meeting in the Oval Office last week.

Trump decided to mention the information in the "context of the conversation" with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, McMaster told reporters in the White House, calling it "wholly appropriate to that conversation" and "consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leader with whom he's engaged."

During those conversations, Trump disclosed the city from which the intelligence was derived, McMaster confirmed.

However, McMaster did not make clear if the information was highly classified as the Washington Post reported one day earlier.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump tweeted that he has "the absolute right" to share certain information with Russia.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he said in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning.

But the president also didn't specifically say whether he spilled highly classified information to Russian officials.

Trump reportedly relayed information from a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The related information-sharing arrangement was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, according to the Post report.

In response, McMaster, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell all issued statements later on Monday, claiming such reports are wrong.

Powell said in a statement, "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly," said McMaster, who participated in the meeting.

The Post report said Trump appeared to be boasting of the "great intel" he receives when he described a looming terror threat, citing an official with knowledge of the exchange.

The information was provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. The partner did not give the United States permission to share the information with Russia, the Post said.

Following the meeting, the White House contacted the CIA and National Security Agency to contain the damage, according to the Post.

As U.S. president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that such disclosures broke the law. However, he is facing a deepening trust crisis as a new poll released Tuesday finds nearly half of U.S. voters (48 percent) said they would support Trump's impeachment, while only 41 percent would oppose such charges.

The White House is in a "downward spiral" and needs to do something to get "under control," Republican Senator Bob Corker said following the Post report.

Trump's approval ratings have been hovering in the high 30s and 40s. According to Gallup, Trump has the lowest approval of any new president since the surveys began in 1953.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 02:05:52|Editor: Liangyu

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JERUSALEM, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A dispute erupted on Tuesday between Israel and the United States over comments by U.S. officials describing the in east Jerusalem's Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, as part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The row erupted a few days before the first official visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to the region.

During a tour to prepare the visit, U.S. diplomats reportedly told Israeli officials that Trump's visit to the Western Wall would be private since Israel has no jurisdiction in the area, according to a report on Israel's Channel 2 TV news.

The diplomats also told the Israelis that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not welcome to join Trump there, Channel 2 reported.

The site resides in annexed East Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan in 1967.

On Tuesday, local media reported that Israel demanded the U.S. to provide explanations for the remarks. "The statement that the Western Wall is in an area in the West Bank was received with shock," an official told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

Israeli officials appear to be increasingly concerned over Trump visit, during which he is expected to attempt to revive the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The last round of talks reached an impasse in April 2014.

Trump voiced pro-Israeli positions during his presidential campaign. He expressed support for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and seemed inclined to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Shortly later, it annexed the territory claiming it as part of its "indivisible" capital. The move has never been internationally recognized.
SOFIA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A photo exhibition "Silk Road: A New Outlook" opened on Tuesday at Sofia University in Bulgarian capital.

The month-long event features 60 striking photographs depicting different topics such as Chinese economy, culture and lifestyle.

Chinese Ambassador to Bulgaria Zhang Haizhou said at the opening ceremony that the exhibition is very interesting, and it will allow students to see landscapes along the Silk Road.

Zhang said he expected that more and more students would be interested in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, as well as in the development of bilateral cooperation between China and Bulgaria.

Associate Prof. Teodor Sedlarski, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, said that the exhibition would contribute to the development of relations between Bulgaria and China within the Belt and Road Initiative.

Sedlarski, who was Minister of Economy in the caretaker government from January to early May, also expressed hope that the exhibition would be the beginning of a series of seminars and discussions together with the Chinese Embassy in Bulgaria.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a press conference at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on April 12, 2017. U.S. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

MOSCOW, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin on Tuesday denied media reports that U.S. President Donald Trump had shared classified information with senior Russian officials.

"For us, it's just another nonsense," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Various U.S. media outlets reported on Monday that Trump leaked "highly classified information" about the Islamic State in Syria to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak during a White House meeting last week.

On Tuesday, Trump defended his right to reveal anti-terrorist information to Russia, but he did not say whether it was highly classified.

"As President, I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W. H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump said on Twitter.

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism," Trump tweeted.
ABUJA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people have been killed in a fresh communal conflict which broke out between local farmers and herdsmen in Nigeria's northeastern state of Taraba, a local chief said on Tuesday.

Scores of people were also injured in the crisis which broke out since Sunday, Zaki David-Gbaa, a local chief and head of the farmers' union, told Xinhua.

He said mostly farmers were killed in the conflict which has spread to at least five remote villages in the state's Bali district.

Local police said three dead bodies have so far been recovered due to the remoteness of the area.

Police spokesman David Misal told reporters that riot policemen had been deployed to restore normalcy in the areas affected.
ABUJA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A total of 27 people were killed in a recent attack by gunmen in the central Nigeria's state of Niger, a local official said on Tuesday.

Ibrahim Inga, head of the State Emergency Management Agency, who confirmed the attack, said the victims were killed when marauders stormed Epogi community in the state's Mokwa district.

According to Inga, 21 people had died immediately after the gunmen unleashed terror on the community early Sunday. Three bodies were later recovered from a river and three more victims died while receiving treatment on Tuesday.

He said security operatives in the area had put the situation under control.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 03:22:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) meets with Zhao Leji, head of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, in Singapore, on May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey)

SINGAPORE, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday that Singapore, as a coordinator of China-ASEAN ties, will actively promote the development of ASEAN-China relations.

Lee made the remarks here when meeting with senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Zhao Leji. He also congratulated China on the success of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing from May 14 to 15.

Zhao, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee's Organization Department, said China attaches importance to its relations with Singapore.

China stands ready to boost cooperation with Singapore in various fields for the further growth of the bilateral ties, he said, hoping that Singapore will actively play its role of the coordinator so as to jointly uphold regional peace, stability and prosperity.

Zhao also noted that the CPC cherishes the friendly relations with Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP), saying the CPC would like to enhance exchanges with the PAP and learn from each other in governance so as to better benefit the peoples of the two countries.

Lee Hsien Loong, for his part, said Singapore and China are important partners of cooperation with a wide range of shared interests, vowing closer friendly contacts between the two parties.

Lee also hoped for Singapore to get further involved in the Belt and Road construction.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aiming at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes of Silk Road.

During his stay in Singapore, Zhao also met separately with Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean and Singapore's Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, and attended the opening ceremony of the China-Singapore Forum on Leadership.

ASEAN refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
DUBLIN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Ireland saw a record trade surplus of 5.05 billion euros in March, which was 557 million euros higher than the surplus posted in February, latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed Tuesday.

March was the first time the surplus has broken the 5-billion-euro mark, the CSO figures showed.

The figures also showed Irish exports were down 4 percent in the month at 10.15 billion euros while imports recorded a big fall of 16.2 percent to 5.1 billion euros.

Business and consumer confidence have been dented to some degree, though not in major way, in recent months by the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, according to Alan McQuaid, chief economist with the Dublin-headquartered Merrion Stockbrokers.

"Indeed, the trade data for last year were positive. Still, the uncertainty over the implications of Britain's decision to leave the EU suggests risks on the external trade front remain elevated going forward, especially for food exporters," he said.

The movement in the euro/sterling exchange rate will be critical in this regard, he added.

Britain is the second largest single country for Ireland's goods and the largest for its services. Ireland imports 30 percent of its goods from Britain.

"The trade outlook going forward remains clouded in uncertainty, but we are still anticipating another solid performance this year," McQuaid said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 03:52:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NICOSIA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The leaders of the estranged Greek and Turkish communities of Cyprus will hold what could be their most crucial meeting on Wednesday in the two-year long negotiations to reunify Cyprus.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci have to decide whether to call it quits or to embark on a final push to end the 43-year long partition of Cyprus, sources familiar with the negotiating process said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

Anastasiades and Akinci have made unprecedented progress in their negotiations, but have become stuck in the past few months on two points -- the allocation of powers between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots and the termination of Turkish military presence in Cyprus.

Turkish Cypriots insist on having veto power on almost all issues of the federal government, a claim which Anastasiades says will lead to the dissolution of the state in no time.

Anastasiades has said he would not put an agreement to a referendum for approval by the people that would not provide for the eventual withdrawal of Turkish troops that have occupied the northern part of Cyprus since 1974, in reaction to a coup by the military rulers of Greece at the time.

"The negotiations have reached a point at which the leaders must decide whether there is still room for maneuvering or to declare the negotiations deadlocked," the source said, commenting on Wednesday's meeting.

Espen Barth Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's special adviser on Cyprus, has been reported to be planning a fresh international conference this summer to tackle the military and security aspects of the problem.

But Anastasiades said he would not oppose reconvening a conference which floundered in November, provided that all other issues will have been resolved, including power sharing and final territorial adjustments.

Eide presided over a meeting of the chief negotiators of the two sides on Tuesday aimed at preparing the leaders' session.

State television reported that they prepared a detailed document listing points of concurrence and divergences and also examined whether any points of agreement were in conflict with European Union (EU) rules.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 03:52:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The UN mission in Mali on Tuesday condemned the attack on Timbuktu UN Base and called for implementation of the peace deal, a UN spokesman said.

"The UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) reports that its camp in Timbuktu was targeted in a mortar attack Monday," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at the daily news briefing. He said four peacekeepers and three members of the Malian armed forces were injured.

Eight shells were reportedly fired in the direction of the airport, close to the UN camp, said Dujarric.

The UN Mission condemned this attack and denounced the increasing violence in several regions in Northern Mali, he said.

The Mission also called on all signatories of the peace agreement to increase their efforts towards the implementation of the agreement, which was the only way to achieve stability in the country, said Dujarric.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, was continuing his visit to Mali, according to the spokesman.

Earlier on Tuesday, he was in Timbuktu with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mahamat S. Annadif. They visited the Liberian contingent at the site of the attack on May 3 in which one peacekeeper was killed and nine others were wounded.

Lacroix conveyed his solidarity when he met with civilian and uniformed staff members and thanked them for their dedication and sacrifices in difficult conditions, the spokesman said.
KHARTOUM, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS) on Tuesday said it is about to launch an urgent relief appeal to meet the growing influx of refugees from South Sudan.

"The SRCS is to launch an appeal within the coming two days to provide assistance for the refugees coming to the country from South Sudan," said Osman Ja'far, SRCS Secretary General, at a press conference in Khartoum Tuesday.

"There are continuing influxes and growing numbers of refugees through the crossing points in the states bordering South Sudan," he noted.

He further said that "after launching the appeal and generalizing its statement, the reserve support by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) will be released to provide the necessary assistance for the South Sudanese refugees."

Ja'far further reiterated readiness of the SRCS to provide the relief assistance for the needy anytime and anywhere.

Last March, the SRCS announced that the numbers of South Sudanese refugees in Sudan has neared one million.

Border crossings between Sudan and South Sudan are witnessing continuous influxes of refugees fleeing war and famine in South Sudan, forcing Sudanese authorities to consider establishing new waiting stations to meet the increasing numbers of new arrivals.

On Aug. 15 last year, Sudan officially decided to consider the South Sudanese fleeing the war in their country as refugees, opening the door for the United Nations (UN) to provide them with aid and funded programs.

Recently, famine has been officially declared in South Sudan.

The South Sudanese government and the UN stated that 100,000 people are facing starvation, and one million people are classified as being on the brink of famine.

The famine was attributed to several reasons including the civil war and economic collapse in the new-born state.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 04:28:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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By Sportswriter Su Bin

PARIS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Evaluation Commission head was impressed by the Paris bid committee's expertise and passion as the 11-member delegation wrapped up their three-day visit here for the 2024 Olympic Games bid here on Tuesday.

"The expertise, the motivation, the passion and enthusiasm shown by this team was very impressive," commented IOC Evaluation Commission chairman Patrick Baumann at a press conference.

The delegation had a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday morning. For Baumann, it was another confirmation that the French capital's bid received a strong support from the top-level government.

"We had a very good discussion. This discussion left no doubt to us that the Paris 2024 bid has a very strong, solid support of public authorities at all levels, from the highest level right down to the city of Paris," he said.

Baumann described the proposed Olympic venues that he visited on Monday as "remarkable". He thought that the Paris bid committee has developed an excellent proposal built around a robust game concept.

"I must say that the venues and sites are remarkable. We see sites which are built around historical buildings and landmarks which are of extraordinary beauty throughout the city of Paris.

Baumann revealed that Evaluation Commission members will meet at the end of this month to finalize the report for the 2024 bids, before publishing it on July 5.

After spending ten days in a nonstop visit to Los Angeles and Paris, Baumann was careful on weighing both cities' pros and cons.

"We are fortunate to have two candidatures that do not present major risks for hosting the Olympic Games in 2024. In fact, both cities can.

"Both cities have the Olympic tradition and the venues that we need to use. Both cities are obviously different in historic and cultural background, and the way of how sport is organized in the respective countries, but if you are asking whether there are any concerns that might pose a threat, we do not see any," he said.

The IOC are weighting on the change of the bidding procedure, in order to split the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to the two candidate cities. But for Baumann and the Evaluation Commission, their job is to finalize the report at the end of May, while IOC vice presidents will work on this particular issue of viability during the course of June.

On the other hand, the Paris bid only put the 2024 Games on their radar.

"It's quite clear since the beginning of the last few days that we are here to only target 2024. We are not here to discuss 2028 with the IOC," said Paris bid committee co-president Tony Estanguet.

Bid committees from both cities will head to Lausanne, Switzerland for their respective presentation in IOC headquarter in July. According to Estanguet, Macron wanted to be present for the presentation of the bid in Lausanne.

"The next step for us on this chapter will be Lausanne. Until this date, we have to concentrate only on 2024," added the three-time Olympic champion.

The IOC members will vote for the 2024 Games host city at the session in Lima, Peru on September 13.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 04:28:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on May 16, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged on Tuesday to repair bilateral relationship fraught with difficulties in the past. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged on Tuesday to repair bilateral relationship fraught with difficulties in the past. However, division between the two sides still run deep.

Speaking at the White House with Erdogan, Trump hailed the Turkish people as "friends and allies for many, many decades" for the United States and pledged support for Turkish fight against the Islamic State (IS) and a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK.

However, the pledge was made as the United States and Turkey were involved in stark disagreement over the Trump administration's recent decision to arm Syrian Kurds, a key force in the fight against the IS in Syria.

Currently, the U.S.-led coalition against the IS is backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprised of mostly the People's Protection Units (YPG) Kurds and some local Arabs.

Also on the eve of Erdogan's meeting with Trump, the Pentagon was reportedly preparing to further arm Syrian Kurds with antitank weapons.

While the antitank weapons could be used to thwart IS' suicide bombing attacks by trucks, the weaponry could also be used to strike Turkish tanks in Syria.

The Turkish government had made clear their objection to U.S. arming of YPG Kurds, whom Ankara has for long regarded as Syrian branch of the outlawed PKK.

Before Erdogan's meeting with Trump, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his party members the U.S. cooperation with Syrian Kurds "is not something acceptable" for Turkey.

During his joint press conference with Trump, Erdogan stressed that militant groups like the PKK and YPG "will never be accepted."

"We should never allow those groups to manipulate the religious structure and the ethnic structure of the region, making terrorism as a pretext or an excuse," he added.

According to Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the issue of arming the YPG by the U.S. was among the top priorities on Erdogan's agenda.

"They see this as the United States siding with terrorists and midwifing a terrorist state on Turkey's border," said Cook in a briefing with reporters.

"President Erdogan was hopeful that he could make it clearer to President Trump why this order (to arm Syrian Kurds) that President Trump has signed is wrongheaded," he added.

While it remained unknow whether Trump would change course on arming Syrian Kurds, recent response from the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon indicated that a consensus had been reached across the Trump administration to arm Syrian Kurds in the fight against the IS.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 04:33:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Stefania Fumo

ROME, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Italian business representatives said Tuesday that the Belt and Road Initiative could benefit the Mediterranean country's economy.

Their comments came at the end of Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's mission to Beijing, where he led a business delegation to the just-concluded Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for what he said was a "long and cordial talk".

The Belt and Road Initiative was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 with an aim to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road routes. It comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Italy is China's 15th trading partner on the global level and its fourth largest on the European level, according to official statistics agency Istat.

Its prime export sectors to China are industrial machinery, cars, and fashion.

"The margins are there for Italy to intercept the movement of goods from China" once the Belt and Road infrastructure is completed, Alessandro Terzulli, the chief economist at Italian export credit agency SACE, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

Terzulli said that the Italian port cities of Ravenna, Venice, and Trieste on the Adriatic Sea have joined with those of Capodistria (Slovenia) and Rijeka (Croatia) will form the North Adriatic Port Association (NAPA).

NAPA has begun working on a 2.2-billion-euro (2.44 billion U.S. dollars) offshore platform off Venice with the capacity to receive large cargo ships coming from the Suez Canal.

While the immediate effects of the Belt and Road Initiative will be on the logistical and ports sector -- in which 160,000 Italian companies worth an estimated 220 billion euros operate -- it will inevitably have "a cascade effect" on other types of businesses such as shipbuilding, construction, and transportation manufacturing, said Terzulli.

"It will put a lot of resources into circulation," he said. "If (Italian ports) become strategic, it will make us more competitive."

This will work both ways, with Italian companies having better access to China, he said.

According to SACE, in spite of the economic crisis that began in 2007, Italian exports contributed 4.2 percent to the country's GDP in 2010-2015.

However, the problem for Italy is that many of its businesses are having trouble engaging on the international market.

"In recent years, the best-performing businesses have been those that embraced the opportunities for internationalization," Sergio Razeto, the president of Friuli Venezia Giulia business association, told Xinhua.

The northeastern Friuli Venezia Giulia region includes the port city of Trieste, which will likely become one of the Belt and Road terminals.

"Undeniably, many Italian businesses have difficulty with international markets because they are too small to compete," said Razeto, whose association represents over 400 companies employing a total 27,000 people.

"This is particularly true for far-away destinations whose mindset is different from our own," explained Razeto.

In this context, "having new sources of financing can only be a positive thing" for Italian SMEs, he said of the proposed Sino-Italian investment fund.

The Friuli Venezia Giulia region had overall exports of 13.2 billion euros in 2016, up 6.3 percent over the previous year.

The strongest sectors were shipbuilding (+687 million euros year-on-year) and machine and equipment manufacturing (+188 million euros).

However the region's exports to China -- principally industrial equipment -- dropped by 18.1 percent in 2016. This was a downward trend that began in 2012, said Razeto.

Also pleased at the outcome of Gentiloni's mission was Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro, who thanked the premier for backing the role of the lagoon city as a Belt and Road terminal.

"It is a sign of great encouragement" for the Venice port authority and "for the Chinese businesses that are already working with Venice", the mayor's statement said.

"The maritime Silk Road will connect Asia and Europe more and more," Brugnaro said in the statement published in local media.

The 65 Central Asian countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative absorb 27 percent of Italy's world exports, and they have high growth margins.

As their economies expand and diversify, it is possible to imagine a future in which Italian companies, which currently operate in the oil and gas sector in those countries, will move in the short term into mechanical engineering and technological upgrades, and in the medium-to-long term into fashion, furniture, and electrical appliances, according to SACE analysts.

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is worth 30 percent of global GDP, covers 38.5 percent of the world and involves 62.3 percent of its population, according to SACE.

The Italian export credit agency operates in 198 countries and supports 25,000 Italian companies to the tune of 87 billion euros in 2016, up from 74 billion in 2011 and 46 billion in 2008.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 04:37:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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STRASBOURG, May 16 (Xinhua) -- In anticipation of a September deadline for the relocation of 160,000 asylum seekers, Members of European Parliament accused national governments on Tuesday of being slow to act on the refugee transfers over the last year and half.

In the context of an unexpected spike in refugee arrivals by sea in the summer of 2015, the European Union (EU) adopted emergency measures to relocate 160,000 migrants from front-line nations Greece and Italy.

With only 18,418 refugees relocated as of May 11, Members of European Parliament (MEPs) criticized EU member states for not following through on their commitments, while still noting that relocation alone would not solve the crisis.

Jeroen Lenaers (European People's Party, the Netherlands) declared that he had "never been in favor of compulsory quotas, but over the past one and a half years we have seen that the voluntary system is not working."

Angelika Mlinar (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Austria) said: "It is not a question of ability, but of willpower. It's high time for member states to follow through on the commitments they entered into."

She compared the efforts made by the EU with those of countries such Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey where millions of refugees have been accommodated.

Only two EU countries, Finland and Malta, appear to be on track to meet their obligations, noted Cecile Kyenge (Socialists and Democrats, Italy).

She asked European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avrampopoulos, present for the debate, what would happen following the September deadline for member states who had not met their commitments.

The commissioner responded that if member states did not increase their relocations soon, the European Commission would not hesitate to launch infringement procedures.

"It is not an issue of capacity, it is purely down to a scandalous lack of political will," said Ska Keller (Greens/EFA, Germany), while welcoming the European Commission's plan to take measures against non-compliant member states.

"We're talking about people who are fleeing from war and persecution, and unaccompanied children who are being left alone in overcrowded camps."

Last year, 63,300 unaccompanied minors applied for international protection in the EU, with 57 percent of all applications registered in Germany alone.

Helga Stevens (European Conservatives and Reformers, Belgium) said it was unfair to criticize northern European countries alone: "Greece and Italy are not managing to organize the inflow of refugees."

She also noted that the Dublin rules, which determine which EU country is responsible for processing asylum applications, were not being respected.

Barbara Spinelli (European United Left / Nordic Green Left, Italy) also criticized the Dublin rules, saying: "As far as Italy is concerned, in 2015 and 2016, there were 5,049 Dublin transfers and 3,936 relocations. In other words, more people were actually sent back to Italy than were transferred elsewhere."

Many MEPs argued that relocation on its own would not solve the migration crisis. Keller declared that "a good Dublin system, common rules and legal pathways are also needed", while Kyenge said: "We need a policy to allow safe and legal migration channels, as well as integration policies in the host countries." Mlinar also lamented the lack of "a proper EU asylum system".

Commissioner Avramopolous closed the debate with a call for solidarity and human consideration in the crisis.

"Relocation is often reduced to numbers, but we shouldn't forget we are talking about people in need of protection. It is our shared moral and political duty to ensure that they get this protection as soon as possible and in a manageable way for the EU."

MEPs will vote Thursday on a resolution on relocation. The European refugee crisis is entering its third summer, and has seen over a million refugees arrive on the continent, fleeing upheaval and conflict in their home regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 04:37:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MEXICO CITY, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Nine people, including five childred, died in a house fire early Tuesday in the city of Guadalajara, capital of Mexico's western state of Jalisco.

Local authorities revealed firefighters rescued a 15-year-old who had suffered burns to 80 percent of his body, while two other people escaped by jumping out of a second-floor window.

Guadalajara's director of civil protection and firefighters, Felipe de Jesus Lopez, told the press the fire started around 5.30 a.m. in the neighborhood of Lomas de Independencia.

The two survivors said the fire spread to the bedrooms quickly while they were asleep, preventing them from trying to rescue their relatives, Lopez added.

An investigation would determine the exact cause of the fire, but initial clues shows it might be sparked by a short-circuit.
MINSK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Belarusian government has set a goal to increase the export of goods and services to China to amount of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, the government press service said on Tuesday.

According to the government's plans, the export of Belarusian goods and services to China would reach 653 million U.S. dollars in 2017, 806.6 million U.S. dollars in 2018, 1.06 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, and 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.

The largest contribution should be provided by Minsk Regional Executive Committee, with the amount of exports to China increasing from 390 million U.S. dollars in 2017 to 930 million U.S. dollars by 2020.

In 2016, the trade between Belarus and China amounted to about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars, of which the Belarusian export to China reaching 500 million U.S. dollars.
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged on Tuesday to repair bilateral relationship fraught with difficulties in the past. However, division between the two sides still run deep.

Speaking at the White House with Erdogan, Trump hailed the Turkish people as "friends and allies for many, many decades" for the United States and pledged support for Turkish fight against the Islamic State (IS) and a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK.

However, the pledge was made as the United States and Turkey were involved in stark disagreement over the Trump administration's recent decision to arm Syrian Kurds, a key force in the fight against the IS in Syria.

Currently, the U.S.-led coalition against the IS is backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprised of mostly the People's Protection Units (YPG) Kurds and some local Arabs.

Also on the eve of Erdogan's meeting with Trump, the Pentagon was reportedly preparing to further arm Syrian Kurds with antitank weapons.

While the antitank weapons could be used to thwart IS' suicide bombing attacks by trucks, the weaponry could also be used to strike Turkish tanks in Syria.

The Turkish government had made clear their objection to U.S. arming of YPG Kurds, whom Ankara has for long regarded as Syrian branch of the outlawed PKK.

Before Erdogan's meeting with Trump, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his party members the U.S. cooperation with Syrian Kurds "is not something acceptable" for Turkey.

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

During his joint press conference with Trump, Erdogan stressed that militant groups like the PKK and YPG "will never be accepted."

"We should never allow those groups to manipulate the religious structure and the ethnic structure of the region, making terrorism as a pretext or an excuse," he added.

According to Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the issue of arming the YPG by the U.S. was among the top priorities on Erdogan's agenda.

"They see this as the United States siding with terrorists and midwifing a terrorist state on Turkey's border," said Cook in a briefing with reporters.

"President Erdogan was hopeful that he could make it clearer to President Trump why this order (to arm Syrian Kurds) that President Trump has signed is wrongheaded," he added.

While it remained unknow whether Trump would change course on arming Syrian Kurds, recent response from the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon indicated that a consensus had been reached across the Trump administration to arm Syrian Kurds in the fight against the IS.
CAPE TOWN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank warned on Tuesday that increased borrowings to cover costs may put African utilities on "a very dangerous slippery slope."

The warning came at the 17th annual African Utility Week which kicked off in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Chris Trimble, senior energy specialist at the World Bank, presented findings of a World Bank report on ways to make power utilities more financially viable.

He told delegates that it is always better for power utilities to be self-sufficient and not depend on government subsidies to avoid becoming trapped in a vicious spiral when debt gets out of control.

The warning followed media reports that South Africa's power utility Eskom had reported increased costs and declining profits.

Trimble refused to comment on Eskom's performance but shared in his presentation the findings and recommendations of the World Bank report on how power utilities in African countries can become more financially viable.

The World Bank report analyzed data of power utilities in 39 African countries, showing that many of these African countries are unable to cover their operating expenditure leading to deficits.

The report shows very few utilities financially viable with only 19 to half of the countries surveyed able to recover operating costs.

This was followed by a credit downgrading by ratings agency Standard & Poor with significant implications for Eskom's borrowing ability.

The Mail & Guardian last year reported that Eskom's debt obligations then already stood at 317 billion rand (about 24 billion U.S. dollars).

These findings highlight a significant revenue gap in most African countries with only two exceptions - Uganda and the Seychelles which recover all their costs, Trimble said.

"It's quite a bleak picture," Trimble added.

With many countries not recovering operating costs sufficiently, it may hamper maintenance of infrastructure which can ultimately also affect the reliability of power provision, Trimble warned.

He proposed measures to recover costs for electricity supply and make it affordable.

These include steps as starting with eradicating operational inefficiencies and gradually increasing tariffs in small amounts.

In his opening speech, SA Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises Ben Martins said the energy deficit in Africa is alarming - costing African economies between two percent and four percent of annual GDP.

He said the conference came at an important time when Africa is facing mounting challenges in terms of access to modern energy sources as a prerequisite for economic development

Martins stressed the importance of regional collaboration as key to securing energy supply and minimizing costs.

He said regional integration is mutually beneficial but remains a challenge.

Martins assured delegates of the South African government's and other stakeholders' commitment to work with them to find solutions to meet the challenge.

Over 7,000 decision makers from over 80 countries are attending the three-day conference where the latest developments, challenges and opportunities in the power and water sectors will be under the spotlight.

Over 300 experts will discuss innovative solutions to the continent's energy and water challenges and the exciting opportunities for utilities and industry players.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 05:18:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SAN FRANCISCO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The College of Engineering at Oregon State University (OSU) has established a new research institute to advance the theory, design, development and deployment of robots and intelligent systems able to interact with people.

CoRIS Institute, short for Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems, would conduct research in robotics and artificial intelligence, as well as machine learning, vision, sensors, devices and new materials, and explore public policy and ethical questions surrounding the deployment of robots and intelligent systems.

Institute director Kagan Tumer said the new institute, with 25 researchers in robotics and artificial intelligence, would enable research in oceanography, forestry, agricultural science and other fields, as well as identify and facilitate possible partnerships with companies to bring algorithms, software, hardware and integrated systems into everyday use.

Collaborators include more than 40 other researchers from across OSU who are looking to apply robotics and AI concepts to their own work.

The college offers a top-tier artificial intelligence program and one of the five doctorate-granting robotics programs in the United States. The two programs received more than 500 student applications for the 40 openings available in fall term 2016.

"The CoRIS Institute will cement Oregon State's position as a national leader in robotics and artificial intelligence," Scott Ashford, dean of the College of Engineering, was quoted as saying in a news release this week. "It will investigate the promise and the risks of robotics in the real world today, tomorrow and well into the future and help us plot a course through uncharted territory."

Tumer acknowledged that early on in the field of robotics, a robot was typically a "big mechanical device on a factory floor, caged away, unpredictable and dangerous, not designed to be interacting with humans in a way that was natural to them."

The moment a robot exits a lab and enters the everyday world, he noted, the complicated issue of human-robot interaction is at play in full force. "There are technical issues to putting robots in homes and also ethical issues. For example, what are the privacy issues of having a robot in your home 24-7? What is the emotional impact of interacting with that robot daily? It's fair to say our emphasis on societal impact is one of the unique aspects of our institute."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 05:23:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- UN officials have spoken out against the increasing violence in the Central African Republic, a UN spokesman said Tuesday.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, met on Tuesday with leaders of political parties in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, to discuss the ongoing attacks against civilians as well as UN personnel and premises, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at the daily news briefing.

The UN Mission briefed political leaders about the ongoing efforts to put an end to the violence and to stabilize the situation in Bangassou by deploying additional troops to neutralize attackers, protect civilians and facilitate critical humanitarian support to the population, said the spokesperson.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 25,000 people out of the 35,000 inhabitants of Bangassou will need humanitarian assistance, said Dujarric.

Meanwhile, clashes that erupted in Bria (Haute Kotto) on Monday caused the displacement of around 1,000 people near the UN Mission's base, while over 500 others have sought refugee at the OCHA compound.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, on Tuesday expressed grave alarm over the expanding attacks by armed groups against the civilian population in several parts of the Central African Republic, as well as attacks against UN peacekeepers.
BUCHAREST, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The higher-than-expected growth in the first quarter of 2017 is a confirmation of the economic measures taken by the government, Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said in a statement on Tuesday.

The 5.7-percent growth registered in Romania is the highest in the European Union in the first quarter of this year, exceeding the expectations of analysts and international bodies, Grindeanu said.

The government will continue to support the economic growth trend by stimulating public investment, accelerating the European funds drawing, improving the tax collection and curbing tax evasion, he said.

"For 2017, we intend to attract substantial European funds to the Romanian economy, namely 5.2 billion euros (5.74 billion U.S. dollars),"Grindeanu said.

"At the same time, I personally monitor the weekly working meetings, the improvement of tax collection and the combat of tax evasion. These are levers that support the pace of the economic growth so that the evolution of the economy can be felt in Romanians' daily life," said Grindeanu.

According to him, exports peaked to a record high of 5.7 billion euros in March, more than 100,000 stable new jobs were created in the first four months of the year and the unemployment rate is "at a historical low after 1989".

The National Institute of Statistics (INS) announced early Tuesday that Romania's gross domestic product (GDP) registered a 5.7-percent growth year on year in the first quarter.

Official statistics showed that the growth was supported by higher domestic consumption and external demand, which boosted the industrial production. The retail trade turnover went up by 6.9 percent while the turnover in industry increased by 10.9 percent, compared to the first quarter of 2016.

For the entire year, the Romanian government forecasts an economic growth of 5.2 percent, while the international institutions and most of the financial analysts estimate a growth rate between 4 and 4.5 percent.
LJUBLJANA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Slovenia has listed cyber security as one of government priorities after a session of the National Security Council on Tuesday, at which the issues of illegal migration and terrorist threat were put on the discussion as well.

Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar said cyber security became prominently important in wake of global attack last Friday even though the threat level remains low in the country, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA).

Cerar said that the Public Administration Ministry regularly upgraded IT systems and other software, while a specialized national authority had been established this year to prepare preventive measures against such attacks.

"Ensuring security in this field is one of the government's priorities," he was quoted by the STA report on Tuesday night.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 05:53:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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By Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump's leaking highly classified intelligence to Russia could be a major distraction from Trump's domestic and foreign agendas, U.S. experts said.

The controversy, caused by a Washington Post article, has dominated U.S. headlines over the past two days, raising fears that sensitive information on intel sources and methods has been leaked.

The Post cited an unnamed source as saying that Trump shared intel on terror group Islamic State (IS) during a closed-door meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials in the White House last week.

The accusations have sparked outrage from Democrats, who contend that Moscow is no friend of Washington, amid a chill in relations that has gone on for the past few years.

The White House strongly denies charges that any intel sources or methods were disclosed to the Russians. In a press briefing on Tuesday, U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told reporters that the discussion with Russia was "wholly appropriate."

But whether the charges are true or false, U.S. experts said this and other White House turmoil is creating, at the very least, the sense that the administration is in a state of disorder.

And that could impact Trump's economic, domestic and foreign policy agenda going forward, experts said.

"These allegations are destroying any momentum that his domestic agenda has, as well as distracting from his foreign policy push-especially with his upcoming first major overseas trip," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua.

He was referring to Trump's upcoming trip next week to the Middle East, that will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Vatican, and Belgium before attending the G7 summit in Italy.

"There already is a narrative about Russia that the White House cannot shake, and each day is more and more about Russia," Mahaffee said.

He expressed concerns about what's going on with the Trump administration.

"In general, I cannot understand why the White House continues to be blind to the public concerns about the relationship with Russia, as well as how these crises - Russia, the Comey firing, and their stalled agenda in Congress - are largely of the President's own making," he said.

He was referring to Trump's controversial firing of James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Critics said the timing was suspect, as Comey's investigation into Trump's alleged ties with Russian had just picked up steam.

"If the Trump Administration wants to restore any momentum to their agenda, there has to be an end to the drama and self-inflicted damage," Mahaffee said.

Trump has been criticized for outlandish statements made on Twitter, which have gotten him into hot water with critics and mainstream U.S. media.

Pundits said the president needs to exercise more control of his emotions and focus more sharply on his policy agenda.

Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies of the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua that Trump clearly "has a blind spot for the Russians and does not understand that the country is not a friend to the United States."

"His views are far out of line even with most legislators within his own party. The United States has nothing to gain from sharing information with Russia and a lot to lose," he said.

"This is something that could destabilize the Republican coalition because leading party members understand this is objectionable behavior and it is not something they want to see repeated from the American president," he added.

Trump strongly defended his action, arguing in a tweet Tuesday that he as the president has "the absolute right" to share certain information with Russia.

McMaster stressed that Trump did not know the source of the intelligence shared. U.S. media reports revealed that Israel, the U.S. ally in the Middle East, is the source of the information on IS.

Many in the U.S. are worried that this leaking controversy could raise concerns among U.S. allies about sharing information with the U.S. in the future.
LONDON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A six-year-old girl was found safe and well Tuesday night after a car thief stole her father's car in London, while the child sat on the back seat.

The agony for the family ended when Beatrice Felicia was found by her grandmother, walking alone along a road in the capital's Leyton area.

The drama started when Beatrice's father met with an unknown man at a gas filling station in Leyton High Road with a view to selling his car.

The would-be buyer suddenly jumped into the car, a VW Passat, and sped off, with the young girl still sitting on the back seat.

It started a desperate search for the child after the alarm was raised.

But two and a half hours later Beatrice's family breathed a sigh of relief when her grandmother spotted her.

The Metropolitan Police in London said late Tuesday night that they were still searching for the missing car as well as the driver who took it.

The Met described the man they are hunting as Asian, aged in his 30s, with short dark hair and a dark beard. He was wearing a dark jacket with white fur lining on the hood and green Nike TN trainers.

The child and her grandmother are Romanians.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 05:58:30|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices snapped a four-day winning streak to settle lower Tuesday as traders were looking for excuses to lock in gains after recent sharp rally.

On Monday, oil prices rose for a fourth straight session, with both U.S. oil and Brent crude surging over six percent in the past four sessions, as Saudi Arabia and Russia said crude supply cut deal needed to be extended into 2018.

Kuwait's Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Tuesday he supported a supply cut extension until the end of March 2018, echoing suggestions from top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia on Monday, according to media reports.

Investors also kept a close eye on U.S. crude stockpile data, which is scheduled for release by the Energy Information Administration Wednesday.

The West Texas Intermediate for June delivery lost 0.19 U.S. dollar to settle at 48.66 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for July delivery erased 0.17 dollar to close at 51.65 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange. Enditem
File photo taken on Aug. 7, 2012 shows that Palestinian refugee children play at a poor suburb in Gaza City before breaking fast during the Holy month of Ramadan. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar)

UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday that one in four children in the Middle East and North Africa live in poverty as poverty continues to impact at least 29 million children in the region.

The report, which featured a recent UNICEF analysis covering 11 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, said that these children are deprived of the minimum requirements in two or more of the most basic life necessities including basic education, decent housing, nutritious food, quality health care, safe water, sanitation and access to information.

"Child poverty is about so much more than family income -- it's about access to quality education, healthcare, a home and safe water," Geert Cappelaere, the UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), said at a regional conference on child poverty held in Rabat, Morocco.

"When children are deprived of the basics, they are at risk of getting trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty," the UNICEF official said.

Country level information on child poverty has been aggregated for the first time in the MENA region. While important progress has been made in most countries to reduce poverty, the number of children living in poverty continues to be high. Countries affected by conflict are seeing a rapid regression of gains made in past decades.

The UNICEF study's key findings include:

-- Lack of education was found to be one of the key drivers of inequality and poverty for children. Children who live in households that are headed by an uneducated family member are twice as likely to live in poverty. One quarter of children aged 5 to 17 are not enrolled in school or have fallen two grades behind.

-- Almost half of all children live in inadequate housing with poor flooring and overcrowding.

-- Almost half of all children are not fully immunized or were born to mothers who did not get enough antenatal care or birth assistance.

-- One in five children are forced to walk more than 30 minutes to fetch water or use unsafe drinking water. More than one third of children live in homes with no tap water.

Major challenges stand in the way of measuring the impact of poverty on children and taking collective action towards poverty alleviation. To start with, countries in the region don't consistently collect data on poverty while widespread and ongoing violence and displacement make it extremely difficult to get data from conflict-affected countries.

Absence of a full understanding of children's reality, including the most marginalised or invisible, risks that existing policies and actions fall short from addressing child poverty effectively.

"The return on investing in the most vulnerable children now is a peaceful and prosperous region in the future," Cappelaere said. "It takes a combination of true leadership and courageous public and private investment from governments, civil society, private sector, individuals and the international community."
U.S. President Donald Trump waits to welcome Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

By Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump's leaking highly classified intelligence to Russia could be a major distraction from Trump's domestic and foreign agendas, U.S. experts said.

The controversy, caused by a Washington Post article, has dominated U.S. headlines over the past two days, raising fears that sensitive information on intel sources and methods has been leaked.

The Post cited an unnamed source as saying that Trump shared intel on terror group Islamic State (IS) during a closed-door meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials in the White House last week.

The accusations have sparked outrage from Democrats, who contend that Moscow is no friend of Washington, amid a chill in relations that has gone on for the past few years.

The White House strongly denies charges that any intel sources or methods were disclosed to the Russians. In a press briefing on Tuesday, U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster told reporters that the discussion with Russia was "wholly appropriate."

But whether the charges are true or false, U.S. experts said this and other White House turmoil is creating, at the very least, the sense that the administration is in a state of disorder.

And that could impact Trump's economic, domestic and foreign policy agenda going forward, experts said.

"These allegations are destroying any momentum that his domestic agenda has, as well as distracting from his foreign policy push-especially with his upcoming first major overseas trip," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua.

He was referring to Trump's upcoming trip next week to the Middle East, that will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Vatican, and Belgium before attending the G7 summit in Italy.

"There already is a narrative about Russia that the White House cannot shake, and each day is more and more about Russia," Mahaffee said.

He expressed concerns about what's going on with the Trump administration.

"In general, I cannot understand why the White House continues to be blind to the public concerns about the relationship with Russia, as well as how these crises - Russia, the Comey firing, and their stalled agenda in Congress - are largely of the President's own making," he said.

He was referring to Trump's controversial firing of James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Critics said the timing was suspect, as Comey's investigation into Trump's alleged ties with Russian had just picked up steam.

"If the Trump Administration wants to restore any momentum to their agenda, there has to be an end to the drama and self-inflicted damage," Mahaffee said.

Trump has been criticized for outlandish statements made on Twitter, which have gotten him into hot water with critics and mainstream U.S. media.

Pundits said the president needs to exercise more control of his emotions and focus more sharply on his policy agenda.

Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies of the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua that Trump clearly "has a blind spot for the Russians and does not understand that the country is not a friend to the United States."

"His views are far out of line even with most legislators within his own party. The United States has nothing to gain from sharing information with Russia and a lot to lose," he said.

"This is something that could destabilize the Republican coalition because leading party members understand this is objectionable behavior and it is not something they want to see repeated from the American president," he added.

Trump strongly defended his action, arguing in a tweet Tuesday that he as the president has "the absolute right" to share certain information with Russia.

McMaster stressed that Trump did not know the source of the intelligence shared. U.S. media reports revealed that Israel, the U.S. ally in the Middle East, is the source of the information on IS.

Many in the U.S. are worried that this leaking controversy could raise concerns among U.S. allies about sharing information with the U.S. in the future.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-17 06:29:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BRUSSELS, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Tuesday said that the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Singapore cannot be concluded without the participation of the EU member states, which would have significant implications on its trade policy as a whole.

The Luxembourg court said it was because some of the provisions envisaged fall within competences shared between the EU and the Member States.

"The provisions of the agreement relating to non-direct foreign investment and those relating to dispute settlement between investors and States do not fall within the exclusive competence of the EU," the ECJ said in a statement.

It was European Commission itself submitted a request to ECJ for an opinion to determine whether the EU has exclusive competence enabling it to sign and conclude the agreement.

The EU and Singapore initialed the text of a free trade agreement in 2013.

It is one of the first "new generation" bilateral free trade agreements which contains, provisions on various matters related to trade, such as intellectual property protection, investment, public procurement, competition and sustainable development, in addition to the classical customs reduction provisions.
Suspected gangster gunned down

Police reported that at 9.20 pm, Atiba Rodriguez was sitting in his car when he was approached by a gunman who shot him several times. Residents who heard the gunshots later investigated and found Rodriguez dead in the drivers seat. Rodriguez girlfriend, who lives in the area, had to be held back when she realised he was dead.

Officers of the Homicide Investigations Bureau visited. The body was taken to the Forensic Science Centre in St James for autopsy. Police sources said that Rodriguez lived in Chaguanas but began staying in the Arima area when police and soldiers moved into the Enterprise, Chaguanas area to deal with deadly gangland violence.

Last Wednesday the body of an unidentified man was discovered in a drain in the same area where Rodriguez was shot and killed.

No arrest has been made.
Man steals gifts for Mothers Day

Yesterday, Daniel Motilal stood before a San Fernando magistrate and pleaded guilty to the charge of larceny. He spent Mothers Day in a cell at the police station.

Motilal, 39, had been an employee of PriceSmart for seven years until Sunday morning when personnel called the police to have him arrested.

Magistrate Indira Misir-Gosine read the charge to him that he stole ladies pants from the store. Court prosecutor Sgt Krishna Bedassie said that at about 12.15 pm on Sunday, employees searched Motilal who was at the time working at the store in La Romaine and found hidden in his pants, two pairs of the ladies pants.

He was escorted to his vehicle parked nearby and on searching it, PriceSmart guards found another two pairs of ladies trousers. Motilal explained to Magistrate Misir-Gosine that after he purchased a pillow for his 70-year-old mother as a Mothers Day gift, he wanted to buy gifts for the mothers of his friends who lived near to him. But he ran out of money.

Motilal said that although his friends mothers had never asked him for anything, he wanted to get them a gift for Mothers Day.

By the time I buy things for my own mother, I ran out of money. I was trying to do a good thing. Sgt Bedassie said that Motilal has had an unblemished record, having never committed a criminal offence before.

Magistrate Misir- Gosine fined him $2,500 which he paid yesterday and was allowed to leave the court.

Outside the courthouse, Motilal was very apologetic, saying that he was indeed sorry for stealing the pants. He said that the result of his action was that he has lost his job with PriceSmart, after seven years. He also did not get the opportunity to spend Mothers Day with his mother.

There was a gathering by a friends house.

My friend did not ask for anything. I am really sorry for doing this.

I let everybody down.

I was locked up and I didnt spend Mothers Day with my mother. I lost my job and my wife is vex with me now. You ever make a stupid mistake in your life? Well this was my stupid mistake, Motilal said as he walked off.
Gymnasts case to start later this year

Justice Frank Seepersad last month struck out the Federations preliminary objection to Williams lawsuit, in which Williams is seeking $11.38 million compensation, for harsh and oppressive actions against her. He also said that the case was of national importance. Justice Seepersads ruling paved the way for Williams claim to move to the trial stage.

At yesterdays hearing, Justice Seepersad issued directions for the filing of witness statements before September 29. A pretrial review will take place on October 3, at which a trial date will be fixed. The judge has, however, indicated that the trial will be heard this year and possible dates are being looked at in November, or early December.

In his ruling last month, Justice Seepersad noted that Williams had alleged that the federations former executive members had colluded and conspired amongst themselves to ensure that she was not able to participate in the Rio Olympics. These are serious complaints that go to the root of the first defendants (TTGFs) method of operation, the judge said, adding that some aspects of Williams lawsuit cannot be adequately addressed by way of dispute resolution.

He also noted Williams deep-rooted concerns of the dispute resolution process being fair, independent, and impartial given the composition of the disciplinary committee.

The issues in this matter are of national importance, he said. She was replaced by Marisa Dick as TTs representative to the Rio Olympic Games.
Second woman charged in burnt body murder

She is charged that between June 7 and June 11, 2014, she murdered Alleyne, 27, at Forres Park, Claxton Bay. Last week Thursday, Gloria Chin, 27, of Hackette Extension Road, Navet Village, San Fernando and Kamal Khan, 26, of Solidad Road, Claxton Bay, appeared before another magistrate for Alleynes murder. They were remanded into custody.

Alleyne was the nephew of former Assistant Commissioner of Police Carlton Alleyne and he went missing from his home on June 7. His burnt body was found under debris on June 14, 2014, in the landfill. His relatives identified him on June 23, by means of dental records, hair texture and bone fragments from the spine.

Detectives from the Homicide Investigations Bureau (Region III) worked for three years on the case and two weeks ago, arrested Chin and Khan.

Thatcher was arrested on Sunday and charged with Alleynes murder.
KFC murder victim shot 8 times

He was shot in the chest and stomach, an autopsy done yesterday, revealed .

Forensic Pathologist Dr Valery Alexandrov performed the autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre in St James. A single bullet remained lodged in the abdomen of Suya which was removed during yesterdays autopsy with all of the other bullets, entering and exiting his body. Yesterday, common-law wife Nashama Cunin went to the Centre and positively identified his body .

Yesterday, the KFC branch where Suya was killed, was opened open for business as normal. Workers refused to speak on the issue when approached by Newsday. According to reports, at about 9.30 pm, Suya went to the outlet to purchase fried chicken when he was accosted by three men in full view of workers and patrons .

He was shot several times by one of the men, with all three then fleeing from the restaurant .

The gunman returned, stood over Suya and shot him several times before leaving in a car parked nearby .

Investigators have since contacted officials at Prestige Holdings, local holders of the KFC franchise, to secure closed-circuit television (CCTV) video footage in an effort to identify the killer and his accomplices .

Suya was originally from Building Five in Maloney but last lived at Harracksingh Trace, Madras Road in Cunupia with Cumin .
Light at the end of the tunnel

Imbert presented the Mid- Year Review in the House of Representatives last Wednesday .

The House subsequently approved the Finance Bill 2017 last Thursday. Imbert opened debate on the bill in the Senate yesterday. In its analysis of the Mid-Year Review, KPMG agreed with Imbert that weakness in tax administration at the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) and Customs and Excise continues to be a problem in TT .

To this end, KPMG supported Imberts intention to bring legislation to Parliament before the end of this fiscal year to establish a Revenue Authority. This much welcomed measure would be supported by a major employment programme consisting of graduates to assist with VAT and other tax collections, the firm said. In reviewing the contents of the Mid-Year Review, KPMG said it was hopeful that, the worst is over and some light has begun to emerge at the end of the tunnel. KPMG welcomed Imberts attempt to shed some light on and increase the level of transparency, regarding the countrys current economic conditions. In noting that the deadline for the implementation of property tax will take place from May 22, KPMG said there are some industrial and commercial property owners who believe the tax applies to them. In this regard, KPMG said Imbert should advise the business community as to whether the May 22 deadline applies to them. Noting the recent passage of FATCA legislation, KPMG said Imbert gave the assurance that the requisite systems are being put in place to assist the BIR in complying with the requirements of the legislation. KPMG encouraged Government to press ahead with its plans to regulate the gambling industry as it can earn the country as much as $10 billion annually. On Imberts updates regarding the sale of assets, KPMG said Government should seek and participate in more sustainable and consistent means of raising revenue .

KPMG said reform of the countrys oil and gas fiscal regime is long overdue. The firm noted that in Imberts presentation, there were little or no statements made about the number of people, retrenched during the downturn. KPMG also said there was little or no mention of initiatives regarding further diversification of the economy, as well as fiscal measures to generate new sources of revenue .

The firm added, We noted that no update/mention was provided on the much touted transfer pricing legislation.
OLIVE BRANCH FOR DUPREY

Plans for the olive branch meeting were afoot yesterday, with Policyholder Group chairman Peter Permell remaining tight-lipped over the venue  only that it is in north Trinidad and will be after lunch. But he confirmed Duprey himself will be there. This is the first time that this policyholders group headed by yours truly has ever met with Mr Duprey or will ever be meeting with Mr Duprey, Permell told Newsday yesterday,

We have never met with him before, never met with him outside of this meeting that is going to come off tomorrow (today). I have never met with him before the crash or since the crash up to today. Permell did not want to reveal the full agenda for the meeting, however he said that at the top is Finance Minister Colm Imberts statements on the CLICO/CLF Resolution Plan during his mid-year review in Parliament last week and the way forward, for his (Permell) group of policyholders to be paid their, just due. In Imberts mid-year review, he revealed that CL Financial now owes approximately $27.7 billion to taxpayers, $20.3 billion of which was directly injected into the companys bailout since 2009. The difference, according to Imbert, was accrued via advisory fees and other costs, and other liabilities,

Imbert further estimated after legitimate non-conflicted third party creditors are paid, CLICO would be left with $2.8 billion in government bonds, cash and equity in several other companies,

Permell believes Imbert was speaking in parables, but truly repeating the governments previously stated unwillingness to pay his group of policy holders,

Imbert said in the Senate in July 7, 2016, that Permells group of assenting policyholders assigned their rights to their policies to the government, when they accepted the former PP governments offer of zero coupon bonds and CLICO Investment Fund shares,

This group gave up their right to accrued interest and these individuals no longer have a contractual arrangement with CLICO, and do not form part of the Resolution Plan, Imbert said,

Permell said the agreement referred to by Imbert was made between Government and the Central Bank-appointed Directors of CL Financial, who were placed in charge of the company when the Central Bank took control,

We have not seen any such agreement and there is no way a government could agree not to pay policy holders money that is due to them from the company, Permell said. Permell said policy holders have a contractual agreement with CLICO,

Their assigning rights to government was only as security for government. However, Permell said as CLICO has returned to some degree of stability as seen in its $2.8 billion in assets, those policies must now be released back to the policyholders and if there is money, then CLICO has to pay the policyholders the difference. Permells group has already been paid $75,000 and the balance in zero interest bonds,

The sum amounted to a very rough estimate of 85 percent of the total amount owed, said Permell. They are now seeking to be paid, all their contractual entitlements. Permell said he has been a loud critic of former group chairman Duprey in the past, but that, Mr Duprey has indicated he is sorry. He apologised to policy holders and wants to pay policyholders the balance of money due to them. But he can only do that of course, if he gets back his money...so everything is linked in that sense, Permell said,

After disappearing from the public eye since the bailout of 2009, Duprey returned in 2015, asking for his majority shares in the regional conglomerate to be returned to him for his fixing. So, if he is telling us that if he gets back his company that he is prepared to make good on the peoples policies, we have an obligation to sit down and hear what he has to say, Permell said,
Happy Mothers Day, rest in peace mom

Ramdeens daughters Anna, Dana, Melani and son Vishnu wept as they held each other near Ramdeens coffin.

The cries of Ramdeens grandchildren also echoed throughout the service at the house of mourning in Bristol Village, Mayaro.

We just want to wish you a Happy Mothers Day ma, you were the best mom in the world...may you rest in peace, Anna said. Ramdeen, a mother of five and grandmother of seven had her throat slit by her 73-year-old estranged companion Andrew Vasquez last week Wednesday. After murdering the woman, Vasquez committed suicide by deliberately driving his Nissan B15 car into an oncoming Jusamco truck which was proceeding in the opposite direction along the Naparima/Mayaro Road in Union Village, Mayaro.

Vasquez who was unconscious in the mangled wreck of his car, was taken to the Mayaro District Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Ramdeen, a single mother and Vasquez shared a tempestuous, on-again/off-again relationship that spanned 17 years.

Ramdeen worked as a foreman with the Forestry Division at Mafeking Village. Vasquez was a pensioner.

Delivering the eulogy yesterday, Ramdeens neighbour Agnes Mansook said she was a mother figure to many children in the village.

Mansook said Ramdeen she did not deserve such a death. Ramdeen, she said, loved her children unconditionally and one of her greatest dreams was for her children to be happy.

Mansook said that when anyone asked Ramdeen for help with anything she would never say no.

She was very hard working and would give her last if she figured you needed it more. She loved her children dearly, Mansook said.

Ramdeen was everyones mother in the village, the neighbour insisted.

A friend said he remembered the mother of five as a fighter adding that it was hard that she then was given a chance to fight for her life.

Officiating at the service pastor Paul Melvin Alexander said, the Devil entered Ramdeens home to do his work.

You are not protected until you have the protection of Jesus. Look at what the devil did here, he entered her (Ramdeen) home, Alexander told mourners. He added that they should always be prepared because no one knows when death would arrive.

Hell is real and Heaven is real regardless of what we say and believe and you must always be prepared, the pastor said. Pink and red roses were placed in the coffin.

Ramdeen was cremated at the Mafeking cremation site.
$4.3M renovation for Womens Hospital

While some of the work has been done in staff areas, visitors and patients to the facility would notice the new flooring in the updated reception area on the ground floor.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, was asked about the project during the ministers Mothers Day visit to MHWH; he was there to meet the sole woman to have given birth that morning. The minister said, This was a facelift that was instituted after a visit I made here about a year ago, where I found the facilities were not conducive, especially to our internal customer; staff, (who) have to be on-call 24 hours a day.

(We) didnt have proper staff facilities yet we expect our staff to perform. So one of the things we did, Deyalsingh added, was to make sure our staff is comfortable and (now) we are totally re-doing the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department. So we are upgrading the facilities to focus on our two main customers - staff and patients. Reporters also spoke to Acting Chief Executive Officer of the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA), Davlin Thomas, about what he described as a complete refurbishment. He said MHWHs entire pharmacy, medical records area and the waiting area on the eastern side will all be completed soon. In addition to that, after the ministers visit a year ago, we had an in-house intervention that is now going to improve the Emergency Department (which) was less than the ministers expectations. In fact, we found a way to improve it exponentially.

So what well have is a first world waiting area soon. It started about a month and a half ago - were moving the A&E department eastward, so that the entire area eastward; from this (reception) room, will become a part of A&E Emergency, with an entrance here. We should be finished at the end of the month (May), Thomas stated.
Dame Louise celebrates 104th birthday

Many people spoke and paid tribute to the former independent senator including Arima businessman and activist Roger Belix who spoke about Hornes contribution to Arima and to the country. He suggested that a wing in the new Arima Hospital be named after her.

Belix of the Jonathan Belix Foundation said Horne who is a founding member of the foundation spent a lot of time lobbying for a hospital in Arima. He said he felt it necessary to celebrate Hornes birthday with her.

It was important that I had to be here you dont give up somebody because of senior years. It is very important that we respect our elders and that is what Im hoping will transcend throughout the country, he said. After giving his suggestion, Deputy Speaker and Tunapuna MP Esmond Forde told Belix he would mention it to Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh but encouraged Belix to put it in writing.

Horne was born in Arima on May 13, 1913 and taught at the Arima Boys Government School for several years. She was later handpicked by late President Sir Ellis Clarke to serve as an independent senator in the Upper House from 1976 to 1991. Also paying tribute to Horne was her adopted son Lennox Pierre. He said she made full use of the 104 years God has given her. He said she played a big role in his development.

She would buy books for me and be a counsel not only to me but to my sisters and my family. She is an exemplar in the sense that that generation they give you a sense of class. A sense of themselves. A sense of being in charge. A sense of making a contribution. She also taught all of us that you need to believe in something and stand for something. And you would realise just listening to her she was no pushover, he said.
SWRHA gets new Ag CEO

Please be informed that with immediate effect, Mrs Gail Miller-Meade has been appointed Ag Chief Executive Officer of the South-West Regional Health Authority until further notice. Kindly extend all courtesies to Mrs Gail Miller-Meade as she interacts with you in the performance of her duties. Miller-Meade is the SWRHAs General Manager, Finance & Supply Chain. In May 2016, previous CEO, Anil Gosine was suspended for a two-week period by Chairman Sinanan. Miller-Meade had also been appointed to the acting CEOs position on that occasion.

Efforts were made to reach both Gosine and Sinanan by telephone but were unsuccessful while the SWRHA PBX telephone system did not seem to be operational. According to RHA regulations, the board may terminate the appointment of a CEO by giving him/her three months notice in writing or paying three months salary in lieu thereof.
Students invited to Colombia

Ambassador Cavadia met the lucky three students from Diego Martin Secondary School and their teacher at the Office of the President on May 5, 2017 when he presented his letters of credence to His Excellency Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

The three students Fericia Rolle, Kerym Suraj and Kadesia Turpin and their history teacher Michael Adamson were the only ones of the four schools invited to witness the ceremony that showed up.

The others failed to show because of transportation problems and or examination issues.

Visibly pleased with the presence of the students and hearing of President Carmonas project to inspire and empower the youths by having them witness governance in action, Ambassador Cavadia said: You students are very fortunate to have a President with that vision and desire for youth empowerment, because of this remarkable initiative, I have to do something.

I cannot buy the plane tickets but I am inviting you to Colombia, to my home town Cartagena where, as your president stated, is one of the most beautiful heritage city of the world.

I will see about your accommodation, meals and all local transport. The Ambassador suggested it be an initiative of a cultural exchange.

In awe, the students and teacher accepted the Ambassadors generous offer. The Ambassador was accompanied by his spouse Lucia Stella Mejia Robles and also Ms.

Paola Andrea Mosquera Arce the Second Secretary, Embassy of Colombia in Trinidad and Tobago.

Ambassador Cavadia was a former Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States.
Stop discrimination against Muslim women

Yesterday (last week Thursday) I went to sit the Social Studies CXC exam and I was in the room for 8.45 am, as the exam was starting at 9 am. The supervisor who was handing out the examination paper, began at the front and my name was the last on the list, so I was at back. After she finished handing out the paper at front, she turned around, looked at me and said, I am not giving you any of my papers to do no exam until you take that thing off your face, Wilson said.

I said, I am not taking anything off my face and no one could make me take anything off my face. Wilson said she showed her ID card to which the examiner then replied, How am I supposed to know that is you? Wilson told her she could take her to the back of the room where she would lift the Niqab (head covering), so she could verify against the ID.

Wilson said the examiner told her, We need some love in here today. Then she (the examiner) walked out of the classroom.

Another supervisor, Wilson said, gave her the examination paper. Wilson said after she finished the exam she went to the office to speak with the head supervisor. She came and she spoke to me. I told her what happened and she said, I really saw you this morning but actually I did not think about asking you for your ID card and asking to see your face. Wilson added when she returned to sit the second exam, the head supervisor came with a Muslim woman and they took her to the staff room where they asked her to raise her Niqab to identify her. She said she then came back upstairs and finished the exam. My issue is that the head supervisor saw me that morning, why wasnt she aware that she was supposed to take me into a private room so I could identify myself? Why did I have to go through that incident first and then have to come and complain to her before they did the proper thing? We need some love in here, is what that examiner told me.

What makes her I think I dont have love in my heart? Because I am wearing my Niqab? She said, This is part of my religion and I choose to cover my face for the pleasure of my Lord. I think no one should judge me because I am covering my face or try to stop me from trying to succeed in certain things in my life. If the next supervisor was not there I might not have been able to sit my examination, Wilson said.

Wilson has made a report to the Ministry of Education on the matter and said she intends to take any other action that is necessary. Wilson said discrimination against Muslim women needs to stop. Not because we choose to cover our body and we choose to cover our face, means we are bad people, she said. When Newsday contacted the educational institute, the person answering our call said that no one would be able to give a comment on the matter.
Panday: Great anxiety on property tax

Asked if she felt the tax needed to be amended, Panday said, In a short answer, yes. But there have been some persons who have filed (court) matters and are calling for certain amendmentsbut I do think yes, to ensure the act is tailored properly. I dont think the act in its current form is workable. She added that once amended, any revenue from property tax should go to Local Government and the Corporations to be used to make peoples lives better. Panday was joined at the press conference by several members of the group among them Ved Seereeram, financial consultant and Dr Ronald Roopnarine, COSTATT senior lecturer and environmental and geo-technical scientist.

She added that the groups problem with the property tax is that it is being hastily enforced to fill governments budget deficit. Since Governments announcement to implement the property tax, it has become clear to us there are thousands of property owners who are unaware of what the property tax will mean to them, she said.

She said it has been creating great uncertainty and unease in the country. This feeling of despair and confusion continues to be fuelled by a barrage of conflicting information from Government, the Opposition and lawyers alike, which includes advice to tear and destroy the form sent by Government requesting information about properties. If Government is serious about alleviating these fears and avoiding mass hysteria, as the time looms nearer to the deadline, the need to do more than simply direct people to the ministry of Finance website.

Hence a desperate need for an effective educational drive throughout the country, she said.

She added that the Property Tax has been law since the first of January 2010 and continues to be law, to date, even though payment was not enforced during the period 1 January 2010 to 31 of December 2015. During the five year period the Property Tax was not repealed or abolished. Panday said the then Government during an Act of Parliament waived your legal obligation to pay and so it follows as soon as the wavier expired on the 31 December 2015, your obligation to pay was revived on the 1st of January 2016. She said this seemed to be why the Government was seeking to collect tax from 2016.

It is unfortunate that the Government is hastily trying to collect the Property Tax without regard for the law and without having put systems in place to fairly implementing it. Most of all, ignoring, the realities that people are reeling under in the economic downturn, loss of jobs and decreased incomes, making them extremely vulnerable to what I describe as undignified scaremongering. Ours is the position, the only justification for some sort of property tax is if it will be used to upgrade and maintain the area where your property, residential, agricultural, industrial, commercial, is located. She said further information, updates and times and the areas the group intends to visit will be posted on her Facebook page and Twitter Account; and from Wednesday, on the groups website, TT can do Better.
Senate tributes to Stretch

These were sentiments expressed by Leader of Government Business Franklin Khan, Senate President Christine Kangaloo, Temporary UNC Senator Chrislyn Moore and Independent Senator David Small as they paid tribute to Dumas who died on Sunday.

They extended condolences to his family.

The Senate observed a minutes of silence in his honour.

Describing Dumas as a true soldier in the red army as they would say in PNM style, Khan said that Dumas passing was very personal to him as they both became ill at about the same time in December last year.

Immediately after he underwent a by-pass surgery for his heart, Khan said, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told him that Stretch suffered a stroke. Since then he had been getting weekly updates from Auntie Joan who I call the mother of the PNM, he said.

Reviewing Dumas nine years of ministerial service under then prime minister Patrick Manning and as a senator, Khan said, Dumas performed creditably in all his functions and had a clear and analytical mind.

When he joined the current PNM Government in 2015 and given the local government and rural development portfolio, he said, Dumas was very instrumental in helping in him carrying out his duties. At the level of the party, he said that Dumas was the voice of the PNM calling for changes to the partys constitution.

Dumas, he said, played leading roles in the Tobago House of Assembly elections and in the call for Tobagos autonomy.

In her tribute, Moore said, their relationship was also personal as Dumas and her father were inseparable before her father had a stroke.

He was one of ours.

He could be found at a village watering hole in Plymouth and across Tobago, she said.

In his later life, she said, He (Dumas) suffered great hardship. He appeared to be alone. However, she said, his true friends and family were there with him to the end.

Small in his tribute said that Dumas served with distinction. When he was ministry of labour, Small said, he was also attached to the ministry and they would meet each other at events.

He described him as one of the most affable ministers, and his demise Evokes a sense of loss as he was dedicated to the advancement of Trinidad and Tobago.
Mark: No light under PNM

Mark made this charge as he responded to Finance Minister Colm Imbert during debate on the Finance Bill 2017 in the House of Representatives.

After rejecting the figures provided by Imbert about the current state of the economy as questionable data, Mark dismissed Imberts explanation about the Central Bank tells commercial banks about how to prioritise the foreign exchange which it injects into the financial system.

Claiming there was a divergence of views between Imbert and Economic Advisory Board chairman Dr Terrence Farrell on this matter, Mark asked where would the foreign exchange for manufacturers which Imbert spoke about, come from.

He wondered whether Imbert would go on another road show to raise the money or, raid the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund to give foreign exchange to manufacturers.

Mark was cautioned by Senate President Christine Kangaloo when he spoke about circumstances which led to the dismissal of Jwala Rambarran as Central Bank governor in 2015.

Kangaloo reminded him this matter was currently before the court.

Mark then claimed another former governor is serving as Imberts advisor.

He further alleged that this person failed to put measures in place to prevent the Clico debacle in 2009. Mark said this has cost TT some $20 billion. He also alleged that the countrys foreign reserves had fallen from US$10.5 billion last September to US$9 billi
Minister: Forex for manufacturers not new

Referring to a Trinidad Express article which claimed that Economic Advisory Board chairman Dr Terrence Farrell that that Central Bank should not be telling commercial banks to prioritise foreign exchange to manufacturers, Imbert said some commentators piggy-backed on Farrells alleged comments, without thinking for themselves. As he explained this practice is not something that fell from the sky, Imbert quoted a March 2, 2009 aide memoir from the Central Bank which supported this position. At least for the last eight years, the Central Bank has been telling the commercial banks what to do with the foreign exchange that it injects into the system, he said. Imbert then quoted from a November 15, 2010 letter issued by the Central Bank, under the then Peoples Partnership government.

In that letter, Imbert said the manufacturing sector reported at that time, it was experiencing acute difficulties in obtaining foreign exchange. He added that the Central Bank requested seven years ago that commercial banks give priority for foreign exchange to manufacturers. I want to put that to rest, the minister said.

Imbert then disclosed he got a lot of letters about property tax from Opposition United National Congress (UNC) members.

When Opposition members queried this, Imbert replied, Anand Ramlogan is not UNC? Gerald Ramdeen is not UNC? Former attorney general Ramlogan is leading a legal team representing former transport minister Devant Maharaj and UNC activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj, who are challenging the taxs implementation.

Imbert reiterated that this countrys property tax is among the lowest in the world and no less a person than his immediate predecessor Larry Howai described property tax as a fair and equitable tax in 2014. Turning to gambling, Imbert reiterated Governments intentions to properly regulate the gambling sector in TT. While he said he, does not know what the inside of a casino looks like, Imbert said Opposition MPs in the House of Representatives were very gung ho in telling him about casinos which operate in their constituencies.
NCRHA external, visits preventative primary health care

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the objective is to reduce the number of visits to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department by people with NCDs. Many of our resources in A&E are taken up by people with chronic diseases (such as) uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension and they present in an emergency situation.

What we are trying to do now; as part of the PNM manifesto on primary health care, is to track those patients and treat them in their homes before it becomes an emergency. The minister said this would achieve four things. Patients have a better quality of life, their conditions are better managed because they are getting primary health care at home, it decreases the demand for A&E (services) and it decreases the demand for acute bed space. The WTTP is also being undertaken to some extent at the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH).

I want to focus this initiative at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex and at SFGH because thats where the burden of NCDs is the greatest in the country. (From their homes), those patients can get their blood pressure checked, get advice and be told how to manage their conditions, so they dont present at A&E. Deyalsingh was speaking with reporters at the Mt Hope Womens Hospital, EW MSC, Mt Hope yesterday after visiting first-time mom, Evanna Peters, who gave birth to a girl at 12.01 am on Mothers Day.

Acting Chief Executive Officer of the NCRHA, Davlin Thomas, said the WTTP creates (temporary) hospitals of churches, mosques, temples (where) we see hundreds of people for preventative medical screening. Adding to this, the minister recalled that during one of their first such screenings; held at the Curepe Presbyterian Church, Curepe, We picked up a young boy, seven-years-old, who had acute stomach pain. It turned out to be appendicitis. If that wasnt picked up and he wasnt rushed immediately here (EW MSC) to have his appendix removed he paused before saying, We saved a life. Deyalsingh said there are such interventions taking place, thanks to Governments promotion of primary health care intervention.
Less sugary drinks in hospital vending machines

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh on the weekend announced his intention to effect this change at all public hospitals, after observing the prominence and dominance of soft drinks and juices with a high sugar content compared to water and flavoured water in vending machines at the Maternity Ward of Port-of-Spain General Hospital and at the Mt Hope Womens Hospital (MHWH), Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.

Out on Mothers Day to visit women who had given birth that day, reporters observed Deyalsingh chatting with officials at both hospitals about reducing the number of sugary drinks in the vending machines in their waiting rooms. Questioned about this after his second and final stop of the day at MHWH, Deyalsingh said, The same way theres a drive to make our schools healthy zones, when I look around public facilities like this and see the amount of products on offer that are not conducive to good health...Im not saying were going to take away all the sugary drinks but instead of having over 20 varieties, lets trim it down.

The minister recommended increasing providing a better space for water, natural fruit juices and coconut water. He reminded that, Part of the NCD (non-communicable diseases) plan is to start to encourage public spaces that are under the management and control of the Ministry of Health, in the first instance, to see how they could offer healthier options.

We want to (promote) healthy options because if we dont do this, we will have to build a hospital in every community to treat diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and then everything becomes acute and chronic. We want to change the paradigm through simple changes in behaviour, Deyalsingh told reporters.

No time line was given though on how soon the public can expect to see a wider variety of healthy drinks stocked in hospital vending machines.
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Its amazing to think how much technology has advanced in recent years and how far its taken us. Weve gone from having computers the size of rooms to handheld computers in the form of smartphones. Technology is coming in smaller and smaller packages these days, with the advent of smartwatches and so on. Thanks to a new partnership between Nokia (News - Alert) Bell Labs and Jasna Rok, technology is going to become even more immersive and discreet.





Jasna Rok, the first FashionTech design studio in Belgium, was founded by Jasna Rokegem in the hopes of reconcile advanced technologies with interactive fashion. To do this, the company partners with tech giants around the world, such as Nokia Bell Labs (News - Alert).

In this case, Rokegem is working with Nokia Bell Labs scientists, who are consulting and collaborating with her on designing a sentient garment that engages emerging technologiesthis includes everything from Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to the Internet of Things (IoT), haptics and augmented intelligence. If all goes according to plan, the sentient garment should act as a smart fashionable augmented skin. Yes, you read that right, skin.

The sentient garment will cover its wearer with an intimate and expanded perception of himself/herself (health, emotions, thoughts), people, things, the world and other communicating garments. According to the announcement, it will even go a step further: All the physical senses such as haptic and tactile interfaces will be explored to create novel modes of communication, whereby, for instance, remote presence can be expressed by touch, and personal contextual state and even physiology can be sent remotely to another person, place, or provider of enhanced human digital services.

Essentially, this technological skin will add a new type of nervous cell to the human experience, thus transforming the way we interact with and see the world completely. This is beyond anything weve seen from the wearables market so far, with Nokia Bell Labs and Jasna Rok taking the idea to extremes.

Marcus Weldon, president of Nokia Bell Labs, commented on the project, saying, At Nokia Bell Labs, we search for the fundamental limits of what is possible, rather than being constrained by the current state of the art. We look to the future to understand essential human needs and to enable a new human existence by exploring unique sensory dimensions, forms of communication and emotional responses. Working together with Jasna Rok we will create the future of connected wearables that elicit, transmit and receive multidimensional sensory experiences, allowing us to explore the future of human communications.

This is certainly an interesting idea and, if everything goes according to plan, we may soon be seeing another revolution in the way we use technology.
The Nigeria-Morocco huge gas pipeline project, agreed upon last year, is taking shape with the signing Monday in Rabat of additional agreements related to the pipeline that will stretch along the West African coast all the way up from Nigeria to Morocco and eventually into Europe.

The agreements were signed at a ceremony chaired by King Mohammed VI.

On this occasion, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita presented the broad lines of the pipeline project that reflects, he said, the shared vision of the two countries leaders, favoring a sustainable, active and solidarity-oriented joint development for Africa, in the frame of a mutually beneficial south-south cooperation.

The Nigeria-Morocco pipeline will have a positive impact on over 300 million inhabitants, Bourita said, noting that it would speed up electrification projects across West Africa, and serve as a basis for the creation of a competitive electricity regional market.

The pipeline project was first discussed by King Mohammed VI and Nigerias president Muhammadu Buhari at the UN Climate Summit COP22 in Marrakech last year in November and was further examined by the two heads of state during the Moroccan Monarchs visit to Abuja the following month.

Besides promoting efforts to boost electrification in the region, the pipeline will add momentum to economic integration in West Africa and will also help Nigerian gas reach Europe.

The pipeline-related agreements were initialed by CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Kacalla Baru, and the director general of the Moroccan Office for Hydrocarbons and Mining, Amina Benkhadra.

The Monday ceremony was also marked by the signing of an agreement between the Moroccan state-owned phosphates OCP group and the Fertilizers Producers & Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN).

FEPSAN Presiddent Thomas Ethu underlined that cooperation with OCP group helped, in a first phase, to transfer know-how on the commodity blending, storage and transportation.

CEO of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority Uche Orji said that collaboration between the investment authority and OCP will help explore and upgrade phosphates reserves in Nigeria, mainly in the states of Sokoto, Ogun, Edo, and Imo.

CEO of OCP group Mostafa Terrab said that the partnership concluded between Morocco and Nigeria is a model of south-south cooperation.

It concerns the entire agricultural value chain, mainly the setting up of fertilizing solutions that are adapted to the Nigerian soil and cultivation, he said.

During the Kings visit to Abuja, the two sides signed a key agreement to build a fertilizers factory in Nigeria by OCP.

This cooperation will enable to maximize local fertilizer production, through the creation of a platform for basic chemical products, secure fertilizer supply at competitive prices and reinforce local distribution channels, and help thus Nigeria forge ahead with its agricultural development plan.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama who attended the ceremony said the conclusion of these agreements, only few months after the royal visit to Nigeria, evidences the success of the Rabat-Abuja partnership.

He described the cooperation agreement with OCP group as a great opportunity for Nigeria, adding that this accord, which the Sovereign has generously facilitated, is a great opportunity for Nigeria in its quest for food self-sufficiency.

We have been concentrating on oil for years, and we have neglected agriculture. Today we are suffering the consequences, said Oneyama, adding that thanks to Moroccos fertilizer and phosphate resources, We are now on the way to build a strong agricultural infrastructure.

The momentum given to Moroccan-Nigerian partnership following the Kings watershed visit to Abuja last December reflects both countries strong willingness to act as drivers of regional economic integration through genuine south-south partnerships.
Moroccan navy is currently taking part off Spanish coasts in the 13th iteration of the multinational maritime exercise Phoenix Express 2017 along with maritime forces from Europe and the United States.

The Moroccan frigate, Tarik Ibn Ziad, took part in the naval exercise, which was sponsored by U.S. Africa Command and facilitated by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet.

The naval exercise is designed to improve regional cooperation, increase maritime domain awareness, information-sharing practices, and operational capabilities in order to enhance efforts to promote safety and security in the Mediterranean Sea, the US naval forces said on its website.

The training is hosted by the Arsenal Cartagena located in Cartagena, Spain, but training will take place throughout the Mediterranean Sea, to include territorial waters of North African nations, the same source said.

The at-sea portion of the exercise will test North African, European, and U.S. maritime forces abilities to respond to irregular migration and combat illicit trafficking and the movement of illegal goods and materials, the source added.

The participating nations in Phoenix Express 2017 include Algeria, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and the United States.
Morocco and Nigeria are making headway towards the achievement of the Atlantic Gas Pipeline that is meant to carry Nigerian gas through six countries to Morocco with a potential for export to Europe.

To materialize this project, additional agreements were signed in Rabat in the presence of King Mohammed VI and Nigerias Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama. Upon completion the pipeline will be a lever for more integrated west Africa.

Forward-looking vision

The project evidenced the multidimensional African policy adopted by Morocco for decades. This forward-looking vision, spurred by King Mohammed VI himself, attaches utmost importance to co-development and the exchange of expertise with African states. Before it applied to regain its legitimate place at the African Union, Morocco laid foundation of a win-win partnership with numerous African countries and geared 80% of its foreign investments towards the continent, notably in the field of finance, agriculture, air transport, education and industry.

The Atlantic Gas Pipeline, to stretch over 4000km, is an ambitious project that will extend to the Mediterranean the existing West African Gas Pipeline transporting Nigerian gas to Ghana.

After the two countries sovereign wealth funds signed the first agreements during the Kings visit to Abuja last year, feasibility studies agreements were sealed. The pipeline will most likely stretch along the coast connecting the already existing pipeline between Nigeria and Ghana with other west African countries including Cote dIvoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania.

The pipeline will have a beneficial impact on Morocco, Nigeria and West African countries. As it seeks to diversify its energy mix and reduce dependence on Algerian gas, the pipeline will give Morocco an additional source of energy. The pipeline will also help Nigeria gain a steady flow of gas export and will drain investments to boost production. With 30% of the continents gas reserves, Nigerias production remains largely untapped and this project may trigger production.

West African countries from which the pipeline will go through will see their electrification efforts boosted. They will also improve their energy security and bolster revenues from royalties of the gas transfer. The pipeline will create a common interest among West African states and will add impetus to collective efforts to maintain the regions security. The project will give momentum to economic integration as well in the ECOWAS region.

In his Speech at the latest African Union Summit in Addis Abeba, King Mohammed VI highlighted the regional impact of the project saying that it will, indeed, contribute to creating a regional electricity market and be a substantial source of energy which will help develop industry, improve economic competitiveness and speed up social development.

The project will thus create wealth for neighboring countries and populations, generating crucial momentum that will stimulate the emergence and the development of parallel projects, the sovereign went on to say, noting that the pipeline will help build more peaceful bilateral and multilateral relations and thus create an environment conducive to development and growth.

Morocco succeeding where Algeria failed

However, the geopolitical situation and security threats in Nigeria and some West African countries made several analysts voice fears that the project may face the same fate as the uncomplete Trans-Saharian gas pipeline that was supposed to channel Nigerian gas to the Mediterranean through Algeria.

Yet, there is no room for comparison between the Atlantic Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Saharian one. Before launching the project, Morocco convinced and received the approval of West African countries that will be crossed by the pipeline. The Kingdoms reputation as a safe investment destination is also making it easy to gather the necessary funds to complete the project, which will cost, according to estimates, more than $10 billion.

This is all the more so given that Arab financial institutions may contribute to the project financing. Actually, in a message to the annual meeting of the Arab financial institutions held in Rabat last April, King Mohammed VI urged these institutions to get involved in the pipeline project, a model of South-South cooperation.

The involvement of Arab financial institutions could accelerate the timetable of this mega project.

The possibility of building the pipeline offshore will also drastically reduce security threats and hazard that may jeopardize the pipeline.

The Trans-Saharian gas project that was negotiated between Algeria and Nigeria in 2002 failed because of a lack of funding. But that is only the facade. The Trans-Saharian project failed notably because of Algerias unwillingness to offer its main client, Europe, an alternative source of gas. Algeria nurtured the illusion of becoming Russias Europe to South.

On the other hand, several reports by international think tanks warned that Algerias domestic consumption of gas is on the rise coupled with a falling production. The countrys export capacity is steadily decreasing making it an unreliable gas supplier. Therefore, the Moroccan-Nigerian pipeline will offer Europe a much needed new source of gas that will reduce European countries dependence on Russian and Algerian gas.

In addition to that, security conditions in northern Nigeria and the Algerian south remain volatile with the presence of terrorist groups taking advantage of porous borders and attacking pipelines and gas installations. This adds to the unfeasibility of the Trans-Saharian project and gives credence to the Atlantic gas pipeline project to channel gas through offshore pipelines.

The project is a result of a south-south cooperation approach that underpins Moroccos African policy. Through launching joint ventures with a beneficial impact on the regions integration and economic development, Morocco is gaining credibility in the continent as a reliable partner. The project evidenced that the era of ideological rhetoric is over and that economic cooperation is a lever of political cooperation in the region. By building shared interests in the region through the gas pipeline, Morocco is making a step forward towards joining the ECOWAS and making new allies in the region.
Merrick Garland possesses the one attribute that makes him uniquely qualified to run the FBI: a key court seat Republicans can fill. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today announced that he has urged President Trump to nominate Merrick Garland as the new FBI director. Garlandmania has been sweeping the Republican Party since conservative Utah senator Mike Lee suggested it last week. The ploy is perfectly transparent: Garland is the chief justice of the D.C. Circuit, the second-most-powerful court in America, and Republicans would very much like to replace him with a member of their own party. The GOP interest in the appointment has persisted despite any indications of interest by Garland, who reportedly wants to keep his judicial seat. Could it possibly be that Republicans have this in mind, and not merely enthusiasm for Merrick Garlands irreplaceable law-enforcement managerial skills?

One imagines Republicans devising their scheme at a brainstorming session. Almost everything has gone wrong for the Republican Party, but the one thing that has gone right is the successful swiping of Merrick Garlands seat on the Supreme Court. A cold self-appraisal of the state of the Republicans would yield the conclusion that their one core competency is stealing court seats from Merrick Garland. So they are trying to do more of that.

However! Garrett Epps points out that Garland would not necessarily have to vacate his court seat in order to accept the directorship of the FBI. He could simply ask for a leave of absence from the chief justice, who happens to be  Merrick Garland.

The ultimate poetic justice would be if Mitch McConnell attempted to swipe another court seat from Garland, by installing him in the FBI, only for Garland to hold on to the seat. And then perhaps direct the FBI to vigorously pursue its investigation of the Trump campaigns ties to Russian hacking.
H.R. McMaster. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

On Monday evening, the Washington Post reported that Donald Trump had disclosed highly classified information about the Islamic State during his Oval Office meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak last week.

A little over an hour later, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster declared this story false  without actually disputing its substance. The basic facts of the Posts account were as follows: 

 Trump surprised White House staff by sharing highly classified information with the Russians.

 This information was given to the United States by an ally  and our government did not have permission to share it.

 The intelligence concerned the Islamic State and potential attacks on aviation.

 Trump disclosed the city where this intelligence was gathered  and that detail might allow Russian operatives to deduce the sources and methods that yielded the information.

 Some national security professionals are deeply concerned by Trumps disclosure.

In his initial statement, McMaster did not directly rebut any of these points. Instead, he emphatically denied that Trump had shared sources or methods  a claim the Post never made. Nonetheless, he declared that the story that came out tonight, as reported, is false. He also said, I was in the room. It didnt happen.

And then, on Tuesday morning, the president posted a pair of tweets that appeared to confirm key aspects of the Posts report.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Trump did not explicitly state that he shared classified information with the Russians. But, as mentioned, the Posts report indicated that the intelligence concerned the Islamic States plans for executing attacks on airlines. And the phrase which I have an absolute right to do reads as an invocation of the presidents privilege to share classified information.

So, when McMaster returned to the podium late Tuesday morning, he had a lot of explaining to do.

And the upshot of the ensuing remarks was this: McMaster disputed virtually none of the details of the Posts story, but took issue with its framing.

The premise of that article is false  that, in any way, the president had a conversation that was inappropriate, or that resulted in any kind of lapse in national security, McMaster said, before insisting that the real national security threat came from those who leaked the details of Trumps meeting to the press. (One may read that last bit as a tacit endorsement of the veracity of the Posts story  were it wholly false, there would be no leakers to hunt down, only fabulists.)

McMaster did not confirm or deny that Trump had shared classified information; or that said information was given to the U.S. by an intelligence partner; or that Trump had disclosed the location where that intelligence was gathered.

Further, the national security adviser did confirm that the decision to disclose this information was the presidents alone: The political neophyte did not request the guidance of anyone in his administration before sharing the intelligence  and decided to make his disclosure in the spur of the moment.

As you know, its wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people, McMaster said. Asked when Trump had made that decision, the national security adviser replied, he made that decision in the context of the conversation.

McMaster explains Trumps decision in the context of the conversation.

McMaster went on to say that, The president wasnt even aware of where this information came from, he wasnt briefed on the source or method of the information.

McMaster: The president wasnt even aware of where this information came from.



Wait, what?



Why didn't Trump know where...



Oh. pic.twitter.com/GrMUUmzLtY  Holly Figueroa O'Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) May 16, 2017

McMaster did contend that Trumps disclosure had not jeopardized the cooperation of any U.S. allies  although he would not say whether the United States had permission to share the information that it did.

The heart of McMasters argument was that it is both legal and proper for a president to decide to share highly classified information in the context of a private meeting with foreign diplomats. Russia has suffered significant civilian casualties from terrorism in the past. Trump pressed the Russians on many difficult subjects during other parts of the conversation, and when the topic turned to ISIS, the president made the calculation that the benefits of providing greater cooperation on intelligence in that moment outweighed the costs. And that was his call to make.

This argument might sound reasonable to someone who just woke up from a coma, and has not yet realized that the president is that Donald Trump.

Right now, our commander-in-chief is a reality star who betrays a conspicuous ignorance of geopolitics any time he discusses them; openly admits that he thought this job would be easier; and refuses to read briefings that are longer than a single page  a quirk that may explain why he was not aware of the source of the intelligence he disclosed.

To believe that it is wholly appropriate for this president to unilaterally decide to disclose highly classified information to an adversary, one must have enormous trust in Trumps judgment.

Which is to say: Either McMaster doesnt actually believe what he is saying, or we no longer have reason to trust in his judgment.
Its all up to Congress. Photo: Pool/Getty Images

Shortly after the Washington Posts devastating report that President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador and jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, Republicans in Congress began to weigh in. We certainly dont want any president to leak classified information but the president does have the right to do that, insisted Senator John McCain. Its no longer classified the minute he utters it, explained Senator Jim Risch.

The argument was eerily familiar. Trump, as his supporters pointed out, had a legal right to fire FBI Director James Comey. Likewise legal, Trumps decision to hold on to his vast and non-transparent business empire, the value of which he can increase through his powers as president. (The laws totally on my side, meaning, the president cant have a conflict of interest, he exulted.) That is true, and the legality Trump enjoys extends much further than even his supporters have suggested. Since the president can pardon anybody, probably including himself, he can operate with hardly any legal restraint at all.

The president has a massive amount of leeway because the system is set up with the unstated presumption that the president is a responsible person who will act in a broadly legitimate, competent fashion. Trumps brief tenure in office so far has supplied a constant stream of evidence that this reasoning does not apply. Fears that Trump could not be trusted with classified intelligence have circulated among allies and the American intelligence community since his election. U.S. officials and analysts fear other countries will hesitate to share information with a Kremlin-friendly Trump administration, reported Politicos Nahal Toosi in January. Israeli intelligence officials are concerned that the exposure of classified information to their American counterparts under a Trump administration could lead to their being leaked to Russia and onward to Iran, reported Haaretz that same month. Now those fears have been vindicated. As one former senior intelligence official tells conservative Weekly Standard editor Stephen Hayes, Sharing of another countrys intel w/o permission is one of the brightest red lines in the intel world.

One of the oddities of the moment is that Republican officials who work closely with Trump almost uniformly regard him as wildly unfit for office. Trumps gross unsuitability for office is the subtext of the constant stream of leaks that have emanated from his administration (and, before that, his campaign). James Comey told associates he found the president outside the realm of normal, even crazy, reported the New York Times recently. A Republican close to the White House told the Washington Post Trump is in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion. A friend of Trump, trying to spin the latest debacle in the most forgiving way, tells Politico, He doesnt really know any boundaries. He doesnt think in those terms  He doesnt sometimes realize the implications of what hes saying. I dont think it was his intention in any way to share any classified information. He wouldnt want to do that. (This was offered as an alternative to the suspicion that Trump is deliberately undermining U.S. intelligence to benefit his Russian friends.)

And yet, outside the inner circle of Republicans with access to the commander-in-chief, Trumps popularity remains respectable, even solid. The conservative base is largely unaware of the constant revelations of Trumps gross incompetence, or has been trained to ignore them as propaganda emanating from the administrations enemies in the deep state or the liberal media. In red America, Trump remains a hero at best, and a competent, normal president at worst.

And so, at the moment, Congress remains in the hands of a party that conceives of its role as Trumps junior partner. His erratic behavior is disconcerting to them, but their pain is mostly private, and mostly confined to the risks it implies to their domestic agenda. The system is designed so that the only remedy for a president who cannot faithfully act in the public interest is impeachment. For the moment, that course of action  the only one that can save the country from the dire risk of its man-child president  is unfathomable to the Republicans who have a hammerlock on government.
Let it go. Photo: Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images

James Comey keeps his receipts. When the Bush administration pursued a warrantless wiretapping program that struck him as unconstitutional, he made sure to keep a written record of his dissent for posterity.

And when Donald Trump asked him to consider ending both the FBIs investigation into Michael Flynn  and the First Ammendment as weve known it  Comey dutifully did the same. As the New York Times reports:

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.



I hope you can let this go, the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.



Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present  including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions  to leave the room except for Mr. Comey.



Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comeys associates.

The White House disputes this account. (But, then, the White House disputes a lot of things.)

Trumps decision to fire Comey last week sparked widespread concerns that the president intended to undermine the independence of federal law enforcement, so as to kill the ongoing investigation into his campaigns alleged collusion with Russian hackers. Those concerns were exacerbated by the presidents subsequent decision to say, in a nationally televised interview, In fact when I decided to just [fire Comey], I said to myself, I said, You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.

Flynn lost his White House gig after news leaked that he had surreptitiously discussed sanctions relief with Russias ambassador while president Obama was still in office, and then (reportedly) lied to Vice-President Pence about it. Since then, the House Oversight Committee has concluded that Flynns acceptance of payments from the Turkish and Russian governments was likely illegal.

According to the Times, Comey kept a paper record of every time the president improperly attempted to influence an investigation.

The report published Tuesday is based on a partial transcript of (just) one of those memos.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 16, 2017. Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump welcomed Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on Tuesday as the administration faces down the latest controversy surrounding Trumps reported leaking of highly classified intel to Russian officials.

Trump hosted Erdogan for a sitdown in the Oval Office before the two delivered a joint address in the Roosevelt Room. In keeping with tradition, Trumps handshake with the Turkish president went slightly awry, this time featuring a rarely seen awkward arm pat.

President Trump says he and Turkish President Erdogan are "going to have long and hard discussions" https://t.co/jlj7oOAFh6  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 16, 2017

It is a great honor to have President Erdogan from Turkey here, Trump said, mispronouncing the leaders name (he used a hard g; its supposed to sound like this). Were going to have long and hard discussions. I know that theyre going to be very successful.

Pres. Trump mispronounces Turkish Pres. Erdogan's name with a hard "Gahn" in their Oval Office mtg. pic.twitter.com/RmypHwJPxc  Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) May 16, 2017

The Turkish presidents White House meeting comes at a critical time. Turkey is a NATO ally and key member of the coalition fighting ISIS in Syria. Yet Turkey has bristled at the U.S.s strategy of arming the Syrian Kurds to battle the extremists on the ground, which it sees as tied to the PKK, which both Turkey and the U.S. consider a terror group. That subject is likely even more fraught now, after the Pentagon announced a plan last week to ramp up the arming of the Kurds for an offensive to retake Raqqa.

And then theres Turkey slipping from democracy toward authoritarianism under Erdogan. The Turkish leader has cracked down on dissent following last summers coup attempt, jailing tens of thousands of civil servants, judges, and journalists and shutting down independent media. Erdogan recently won a controversial referendum that greatly expands his powers, and even received a congratulatory call from Trump, despite the referendums threat to Turkeys democratic institutions.

Those potential conflicts barely came up in the public address by the two leaders. Trump, who again mispronounced Erdogans name, continued his practice of keeping things chummy with authoritarians. He lauded the American-Turkish friendship and alliance (Turkish courage in war is legendary, Trump said. That is so true.) offered support to Turkey in its fight against terror, mentioning both ISIS and the PKK. Trump brought up its role in Syria and the need for a peaceful solution to the civil war, and continued cooperation between the two countries on trade and military matters.

Erdogan started off with some flattery, saying he wanted to congratulate Trump on the the legendary triumph he has garnered in the aftermath of the elections. He also echoed Trumps sentiments for continued U.S.-Turkish cooperation against terrorism and on trade and defense. Erdogan will, according to reports, bring up the Trump administrations support for the PKK privately in meetings.

At WH, Erdogan credits Trump for a "legendary triumph" in the 2016 election. Trump, smiling, mouths, "Thank you."  Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) May 16, 2017

President Trump took just one question after the meeting  on the topic of the sharing of intel with the Russians. Trump did not mention the intel, but said that they had a very, very successful meeting with the Russian foreign minister. Were going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years, Trump said, and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible. Thats one of the beautiful things thats happening with Turkey. The relationship that we have together will be unbeatable.
Sean Spicer at Mondays press briefing, back when he thought the controversy of the week would be taped Oval Office conversations. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When we last left our motley West Wing crew, President Trump was angry at everyone on his staff, though last weeks two major crises  the firing of FBI Director James Comey and Trump possibly admitting to obstruction of justice in a TV interview  were very clearly caused by the president himself. Axios reported that he was considering a huge reboot that could involve the firing of Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, and even some cabinet secretaries.

On Monday morning, administration officials were betting that they could avoid Trumps wrath if no new scandals emerged in the next few days. Top officials  knowing he is often swayed by media coverage  are trying to get through the week without any firings and hope that a 10-day foreign trip goes off without a hitch and changes his often frustrated mood, Politico reported.

If we could get this trip done well, people would forget about the Comey stuff, and we could probably weather it, one White House official said. Another described the trip, which starts on Friday, as a turning point.

Like all Trump pivots, it wasnt meant to be. On Monday night, the Washington Post revealed that Trump divulged highly classified information to the Russians during a meeting in the Oval Office last week.

This set off a now-familiar panic in the White House. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quickly suggested the story was false, but their statements only raised more questions. In a brief press conference, McMaster said he was in the meeting with the Russians and at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed  but no report claimed that the president had disclosed those details. McMaster did not clearly deny that Trump discussed the content of the intelligence with the Russians.

One aide told the Daily Beast that the scene inside the White House on Monday night was tense and like a morgue. Senior staffers were said to be hiding in offices (which is a step up from hiding among the bushes). Reporters said they saw Bannon, Spicer, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Communications Director Mike Dubke enter a conference room. Then they heard yelling coming from the room, and the TVs got very loud.

WH comms staffers just put the TVs on super loud after we could hear yelling coming from room w/ Bannon, Spicer, Sanders  Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) May 15, 2017

Sarah H. Sanders told reporters she didn't know anything about yelling. https://t.co/1CNSSomWKY  Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 15, 2017

Reporters huddled outside the door, waiting for further comment from the communications team. Eventually Sanders told them to disperse, saying: Were not answering any other questions right now, so you guys can clear this hallway.

No more updates about Russia tonight, an official told reporters in a West Wing hallway: There wont be any more questions answered. pic.twitter.com/grfOBWisHS  Tara McKelvey (@Tara_Mckelvey) May 15, 2017

At this point Im wondering if well ever be able to stop talking about Russia, a White House staffer told the Daily Beast after the Washington Post report was published. Its totally self-inflicted. Every time I feel like were getting a handle on the last Russia fiasco, a new one pops.

Maybe they do just need to get the president outside the beltway, as one source told CNN. Trump is set to meet with leaders from Saudi Arabia, which hes accused of failing to pull its weight on defense, Israel, which his administration offended several times in recent days, and NATO, which he once called obsolete. Hell also have an audience with Pope Francis, who hes clashed with on a number of occasions. So yes, there should be ample opportunity for Trump to distract everyone from the Russia scandal.
Chuck Johnson. Photo: charlescjohnson.com

WeSearchr, a platform for crowdsourcing journalistic investigations, was always going to generate controversy, simply by dint of its co-founders: Chuck Johnson and Pax Dickinson. Johnson, as you may know, is a far-far-right troll  hes argued that former president Barack Obama is gay, and notoriously misidentified the anonymous alleged victim from the collapsed Sabrina Erdely Rolling Stone case  who maybe, but probably not, but maybe helped vet certain Trump appointees. If nothing else, Johnson is eager to give the impression that he has deep ties to the Trump administration, and since he used to work for Steve Bannon at Breitbart, its not out of the question. Dickinson is himself a controversial figure who was forced out as Business Insiders chief technology officer in 2013, as a result of offensive tweets he published.

The duo launched WeSearchr last year as a new sort of crowdfunding platform, in which bounties would be placed on certain reporting goals  get Hillary Clintons health records, for example  though, in at least one instance, it has also served as a more basic sort of Kickstarter for Nazis, as when it was used by Nazi activist Andrew Anglin to raise more than $24,000 for a legal fight against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Now, though, there appears to be some drama afoot: The site is down, apparently as a result of Johnson having failed to pay hosting fees, and Johnson and Dickinson have parted ways. Dickinson took to Twitter to explain:

In early 2016, we hired a front-end developer I know to work on WeSearchr for us. /1  Pax Dickinson (@TheNotoriousPAX) May 16, 2017

We didn't have much money, so he agreed to a below-market rate. We promised him an increase when we raised investment in the business. /2  Pax Dickinson (@TheNotoriousPAX) May 16, 2017

We were supposed to raise money in the next couple months, but it ended up taking over a year to get a check. #StartupLyfe /3  Pax Dickinson (@TheNotoriousPAX) May 16, 2017

When we got our (7 figure) check I brought up the promise we had made & said I wanted to give our loyal front end dev a $1K/mo increase. /4  Pax Dickinson (@TheNotoriousPAX) May 16, 2017

In the rest of the tweetstorm, Dickinson claims he resigned as CTO because Johnson refused to fulfill a promise to make it up to a developer they had underpaid while they were trying to raise money. After they finally got a sizable chunk of cash, Dickinson claims, Johnson refused to give the developer in question a $1,000-per-month pay bump, leading Dickinson to resign. After he did, Johnson fired the developer.

As shocking as it no doubt is to learn that Chuck Johnson may not be a paragon of ethics in business, the most fascinating revelation contained in Dickinsons Twitter thread is the apparent million-dollar investment. Theres more money than is often widely acknowledged floating around to fund far-right online content, even content as fringy as a crowdfunding website run by a widely reviled and frequently wrong activist-journalist. In the absence of further information, theres no way to know who Dickinson is referring to, but this is the sort of investment folks like hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah have made in the past (the Mercers, for instance, funded Milo Yiannopouloss explosive college tour, allowing him to charge a $0 speaking fee). Johnson has, in the past, bragged about his connections to Peter Thiel. Once in a while, one gets a brief glimpse at this funding infrastructure: During a public spat between Mike Cernovich and the noxious alt-right personality Tim Treadstone, a.k.a. Baked Alaska, over the latters anti-Semitic tweets in January, for example. Cernovich seemed to indicate that he had paid Treadstone for some of his activities. But its unlikely that Cernovich did that out of the goodness of his heart, so where did Cernovich get his money? If the veil is ever lifted, revealing the alt-rights full funding scheme, it may turn out that a rather small group of wealthy individuals were able to spend a (in the grand scheme of things) small amount to generate a huge amount of trollish, far-right, reactionary content.

Either way, its worth noting that there was always more than a whiff of shadiness to WeSearchr. Johnson seemed to openly admit to Heat Street back in February that the platform was mostly set up as a way for him to get himself paid for information he already possessed, or could get. In fact, thanks to Johnsons friendship with Malik Obama, Baracks very MAGA-enthusiastic half-brother, he (Johnson) was able to collect two of the just five bounties the site had handed out by February, for $38,000. Johnson said he did not remember how much he paid Malik for the two pieces of information: a video of Barack and Michelles trip to Kenya in 1990, and an early draft of Baracks memoir, Dreams From My Father, writes Heat Streets William Hicks. Johnson alleged both contained compromising information about Obama. Naturally.
Girl Scout cookies. Photo: 2013 Getty Images

A Girl Scout troop leader in Kentucky is at large after allegedly stealing $15,000 worth of coveted Girl Scout cookies. Although she remains MIA, 26-year-old Leah Ann Vick was indicted last week on one count of felony theft for her apparent crime, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.

Vick allegedly picked up an order of $15,000 worth of Girl Scout cookies from a distributor on February 1 for the Wilderness Road chapter of the Girl Scouts  an otherwise innocuous task for a woman who leads a troop of the cookies chief salespeople. However, according to the Herald Leader, she never delivered the cookies to her troop, and then she disappeared.

For those who arent in the know, Girl Scouts typically order their cookies and only pay for them after actually selling all of the boxes. But because Vick allegedly ran off with the boxes, her troop is now stuck covering the hefty bill for the cookies. Pike Commonwealths Attorney Rick Bartley told the Herald Leader that no one knows what Vick did with the cookies.

Per the Herald Leader:

She has never paid for any of them and, anyone who has tried to contact her about them, has not been able to contact her, said Bartley. The case was a little confusing because she may have picked up cookies for other groups. The ones that she did pick up, at least for her own troop, were never sold by the troop. She picked up the cookies and never took them to them, so we dont know what she did with them.

Vick apparently has several different addresses across Kentucky, so the alleged criminal mastermind remains on the lam, and state troopers dont really know where to look for her next. It looks like she picked up the cookies and, now, she and the cookies have disappeared, Bartley said.

(h/t Jezebel)
Photo: Courtesy of E! Entertainment

On this weeks episode of the decade-long drama Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the shows vacation arc, like every time the family takes a trip abroad, took place over a few episodes  and days. The days must have been long because the drama was high, hunnies. Last night, our A plot was Scotts abhorrent behavior toward the Kardashian family; our B plot was Khloes agitation with her family; and our C plot was Kims testimony against her Paris attackers. #LEGGO

Scene 1:

Like most weeks this season, this weeks episode picked up right where last weeks left off  Scott being confronted by three Kardashians and one Jenner about sketchily flying a woman to stay with him in his Costa Rican hotel. Scott seems whatever is less than remorseful, claiming that he needs to find some way to move on from Kourtney (and inviting secret fuck buddies abroad is the only way). Finally showing a hint of true emotion toward Scott, Kourtney tells him that his actions are disrespectful to her, their kids, and her entire family. She also starts to understand that Scott hasnt yet been clued in on the base level of respect and appropriateness that most adults can easily comprehend. Thinking hes making a point, Scott says he wouldnt have to do this if Kourtney just let him fuck her while they were on vacation.

Shocked, Khloe asks yet again if he cant go four days without getting his dick wet, to which he replies he cant because hes a sex addict. This is obviously a lie, which Scott admits in his confessional. Fed up, Khloe rises, tosses water on Scott, and leaves. Excited by the drama and possibly concerned about her silence during this scene, Kim leaves too  and on her way out tosses water on Scott for Dubai! Then, Kris, just working for her check, tosses water on Scott too. Both Kim and Kris toss water on Scott with a smile, signaling their forgiveness toward him.

On their way back to the villa, Kim has jokes for score, yelling that the three of them are unfuckable with while also being really fuckable. Khloe gets texts from Scott apologizing and asking to stay in the house with them. She and Kourtney find it amusing and decide to invite him. Like the final scene in last weeks episode, this scene was filmed on January 27, 2017.

Scene 2:

The next morning, Scott meets Khloe at the familys villa. The two had been texting all night, and Khloes decided to include him on their trip to the Springs (yet another high-end resort for the family to lounge about in) because she didnt want to kick him when he was down. Baby girl, dropkick him! Scott is in low spirits because the previous evenings confrontation ruined his night. Khloe takes even more pity on Scott when his kids come up to cuddle with him. Penelope, who exhibits more and more of Kourtneys personality each week, mumbles that she just wants to do nothing all day. After this, Khloe, Scott, his kids, and the rest of the family take helicopters to the Springs, where theyre spending the night. This scene was filmed on January 28, 217.

Scene 4:

Once theyre at the Springs, Khloe is eager for her family to hop immediately to their planned activities. Kims already backed out of tubing, and Kris is playing elderly in a rocking chair as she watches her children prepare for the water sport. Khloe and her fully exposed labia chastise her mom, saying she just cant rock in that chair and make people feel like shes too old to participate. Without Kris or Kim, Khloe takes Kourtney, Corey, Tyga, Kylie, and Scott tubing. They have a wonderful time, and even pass by Kim, whos making Mason watch her jump in and out of the water. When tubing is done, the group meets Kris and Kim in the hot springs and the family wades about in the healing water  healing according to Kourtney. She claims it can cure skin conditions like psoriasis, so Kris collects the hot-spring water in bottles that shes first emptied off the side of the spring like a true mother. Like the scene before, this scene was filmed on January 28, 2017.

Scene 5:

That night, the family has dinner together. The trip is nearing an end, which has Kim feeling anxious  shes set to fly to New York straight from Costa Rica to testify against her Paris attackers. Kim isnt excited to relive the trauma, she explains, nor does she want to falsely send someone to jail since she never saw anyones face fully. Kims family doesnt understand why shes being in any way generous or sympathetic toward her suspects. Kris, who successfully stole water from the hot spring, and packaged it in a portable spray bottle, sprays some on her face right after Kim finishes talking about her robbery trial. Not getting a good read on the outdoor space as the mood is undoubtedly down, Kris says shell do whatever it takes to cure psoriasis and stress relief. Then she recommends the spray to her kids, and Kylie takes her up on the offer and asks to spray it on her little you know, which just appears to be the side of her boob. She says it hurts while making a confused face. Kylies Little You Know was tended to on January 28, 2017.



Scene 7:

The following morning, Kim and Khloe have a Kosta Rican Konfrontation. Khloe complains that their vacations are not what they used to be. Because they family is getting more successful and isolated from normal life, it seems like theyve painted themselves in a corner where they cant simply enjoy themselves with pure family time and its a fucked up way to live. This stems from Kim not wanting to go to the beach due to paparazzi. Kim doesnt agree. Instead, she thinks that Khloe may just have a negative personality. Khloes not buying Kims opinion on her personality and further complains that Kims been practically immobile the whole trip, Kylie and Tyga have been holed up with one another, Kourtney is playing Play-Doh with the kids, and who even knows what Kris and Corey are doing. Kim really doesnt care and accuses Khloe of being snappy. Khloe replies that means Kim should probably be a little more sensitive to her feelings. Kim and Khloes Konfrontation was filmed on January 29, 2017.

Scene 8:

After her altercation with Kim, Khloe hits the pool with Scott. Upset, she breaks the news to him that they wont be headed to the beach because Kims nervous about being snapped by paps. Scott is frustrated  the only reason they came back to the Villa was for a trip to the beach. Kourtney soon joins them, and positions herself with her ass in Scotts face. She decides to have a very serious talk about the fate of her and Scotts relationship in front of their kids, Tyga and Blac Chynas son, King, and Khloe. Kourtney tells Scott that its time for the two of them to move on from one another, and Scott asks if this means that theyll never get married. Kourtney confirms this and quotes the reigning enemy of Calabasas, Taylor Swift, and says that they are never getting back together. Its odd that the two of them had never had this conversation after almost two years of being separated.

Scott seems unfazed. When he and Kourtney take to the water with their kids, he picks her bikini-clad body up and carries her to the edge of the pool and faces her crotch toward the Costa Rican sun, as if to celebrate their broken relationship. Like Scene 7, this scene was filmed on January 29, 2017.

Scene 9:

The same afternoon, Kim calls Kris and Kourtney together to dissect her fight with Khloe. Kim feels bad; shes starting to understand how much Khloe worked to make a great trip for the family. Kim wants her sister to have fun, but at the same time shes annoyed by her sensitive feelings. They decide they should talk to Khloe together, and all go out to meet her on the patio. Khloe knows whats coming and gives a slight grin at the ambush. Khloes prepped to go head-to-head with her family, and says shes tired of peoples unwillingness and ungratefulness. Kims simply had enough, deems Khloe annoying, tells her to shut the fuck up, and calls her a bully. Then she leaves abruptly, mimicking Khloe saying you people! This scene was also filmed on January 29, 2017.

Scene 11:

Khloe tries to decompress from her family fight and hits the gym. She realizes that this isnt creating the perfect example of enjoying Costa Rica, but justifies it by saying she likes exercising. While Khloe gets her workout on in what looks like an underground bunker, Kylie, decked out in a silk onesie, visits and pretends to want to work out with her sister. She also gets a look at Khloes Snapchat glasses, which the Queen of Snapchat herself didnt even know existed. They play with the spectacles for a bit before Kim joins, looking to finally make amends with her sister. Khloe accepts Kims nonverbal apology, and tells her sisters that this is the best time shes had in Costa Rica because its just them hanging out. I would argue that theyve been doing just that the whole trip, but hey  I didnt plan it! If you couldnt guess the pattern from before, this scene was also filmed on January 29, 2017.

Scene 12:

For their final meal, Kris gathers the family for dinner. Once everyones seated, she has everyone go around and tell their peak and pit from this most wretched trip. Kims peak is spending time with her family, while her pit is being away from Kanye. Kylies peak is spending time with her family, and her pit is being away from her Calabasas compound. Khloes peak was tubing and activities, and her pit was complaining. Her peak might have also been this dinner, once she realized she may be the most articulate of them all for being able to detail one specific thing she enjoyed from the trip, and not just using family time as a catchall. After their dinnertime game, Kris sprays herself with more water from the hot spring and joins the family in some dancing. Shockingly, this scene was also filmed on January 29.

Scene 13:

After dinner, Kourtney gears up for a nude photo shoot in one of their villas pools. Before she gets in the water, though, she play-fights with Kylie, who just seems to be hanging around to make sure Kourtney doesnt look better than her in the buff. Once she strips, Kourtneys entire family and team cheer her on while she whips her hair in and out of the water. This scene serves no purpose but to drive home the fact that Kourtneys still got it after three kids, and to knock a jealous Kylie down a peg for not considering doing a similar shoot herself. This scene was filmed on  drumroll, please  JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH.

Scene 16:

After the trip, Kim flies straight to New York, where she meets with Jonathan Cheban, who could stand to work a quarter as hard on his personality as he does his face. She tells Jonathan and the Greatest Assistant of All Time, Steph Shep, that shes anxious about testifying against and being face-to-face with her Paris attackers, who are being charged with attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, and weapons charges. She also has to explain the attack in such detail that actors can re-create the scene to be played in front of a courthouse when the case goes to trial. Jonathan and GOAT Steph Shep assure Kim that shell be fine handling testimony and wish her well. This scene was filmed on February 1, 2017.

Scene 17:

The following day, Kim testifies. It wasnt filmed, but we do get a rundown by Kim to Kris via the phone. Kim feels relieved and was satisfied to hear her attackers being honest, save a few details that would get them a lighter sentence. Shes happy she got this over with and knows that she would have been attacked at some point because they had been following her for years. This scene was filmed on February 2, 2017.

Thats all ya girls got for you this week, Dolls. Remember to keep it locked over here next week for another #KUWTKE recap of Keeping Up With the Life of Kylies Little Thing. #SNAPPY
when did Nicole kidman join this?

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RIGHT?! first i'm hearing of it

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it was announced she was in ~talks to play jason's mom lol but idt they ever confirmed it until now

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LOL it's been months. She was originally offered Queen Hippolyta for Wonder Woman but had scheduling problems with I think either Top of the Lake or Big Little Lies.



Nicole said she wanted to work with James Wan to support a fellow Australian.

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he's cute. too bad people said he sucked in power rangers.

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I really wish I cared about Aquaman so that I could be excited about this movie.

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i'll wait for wonder woman before i start getting excited for this. i don't trust DC even tho i am here for the cast.

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Yes pleaseeee

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yass he;s so hot, idc if it ends up sucking the eye candy is enough for me to go watch it

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Same. I didn't care then but I do now.

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they're still casting ppl for this shit? i feel like it's been filming for 5 years now

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some movies are still casting after they finish filming. i think some of them are actors that were cast and did their stuff and they just don't announce it until later. but aquaman is either just about to start filming or just started, so, we'll probably be getting announcements even after this.

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As lovers? 

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he was so fucking hot in the power rangers movie I wish he would've taken his shirt off because the bargain bin fivehead GreatValue Zac Efron was one ugly motherfucker but girls in the cinema were thirsting for him.

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he should taken his shirt off. dem arms tho





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YAAAS

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That's a cute.

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yesss @ more POC actors in aquaman. i liked him in power rangers. it's too bad it isn't getting a sequel now that it flopped in china. :(

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not just actors! the director is a poc and so is the producer

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Mamoa and Lin. I swear to god if there is even a single shirt in this film...

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Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ

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This photo has awkward hand placement...

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Ha! Looks like Kirsten's hand is in a wormhole and Sofia's hand is where it came out the other end.

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It really does. It's so weird.

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lmao

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Here for their friendship

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mte <3

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Kirsten's so pretty.

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wow they're both so pretty <3

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pretty

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Hurray for the grand total of three women directors in competition this year.

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How depressing.

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has Sofia Coppola ever given a role to a non white woman? everyone's up her ass but her movies are real white from what I've seen

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They are very white. I don't think she's ever had a WOC or any POC in a major role.

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Excuse you, Lost in Translation took place in Japan! Bling Ring had an Asian character and there was a Latina in the real Bling Ring that wasn't included in the movie!!!

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I am totally fine with her all-white casting though. Because as much as I typically like her aesthetic, I doubt she'd be able to portray a woman of color in a nuanced and complex manner. Her movies can stay white.

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As white as the KKK

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Nope, and she excluded Hallie from The Beguiled. She gets none of mycoins.

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Kirsten looks great

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They look nice and I like their outfits.



Does Sofia ever use POC in her films?

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once in the bling ring but that's all I can remember

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That's unfortunate

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Um are you being serious? I can't believe you're even asking this. Sofia is KNOWN as champion for people of color in cinema! jk

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love them and their creative friendship but this cover is boring as hell.

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they look nice

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"the future is white"

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Marie Antoinette and Virgin Suicides. What else have they done together?

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speaking of women directors: sounds like patty jenkins is back for wonder woman 2 , which is a huge relief to me. in cases like this, i'm glad for the DCEU's mostly ill-advised practice of greenlighting movies before they're proven successes and showing loyalty to their directors (i.e. keeping ayer on for gotham city sirens and jenkins on for WW2, not ousting snyder after two critical flops, etc.)

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For what it's worth, DC are very confident in their properties even if they get shit reviews.



I want Wondy to be their new cashcow instead of Batsy.



Edited at 2017-05-16 02:38 pm (UTC)

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this this this

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We taught my 2yr old niece to call him Dump Truck.

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Anyone who voted for him or said to give him a chance..I hate you all! Go fuck yourself! 

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Same! They can all rot.

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mte

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idk why people are surprised dave would make light of sexual violence against women...

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in my opinion, most of his jokes about misogyny, sexual violence, harassment, etc. use the victim as the butt of the joke. do i think dave is a bad comedian, no. but i don't like to watch his material anymore

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Mte

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right? lol i had to stop watching his netflix special because he couldnt stop joking about rape, and then had the fucking nerve to call himself a feminist.

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Klobuchar, Warren, Gillibrand, Harris, Murphy, Booker, McAuliffe

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no kamala harris though?

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I really like Murphy and have a good feeling about him.

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I fucking love Amy Klobuchar so much.



And Franken



I love my senators, and my state representative, Keith Ellison.

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I want Al Franken. All the others are wooden like Hillary. We need CHARISMA to beat Trump.

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Apology not accepted. He needs to sit his misogynistic ass down and get a lesson on consent 101

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As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017



...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

So he DID tell Russia stuff about ISIS. Asking Russia to step in for humanitarian reasons? Idiot did you see what their bff Assad did?

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lmao he's so dumb and I don't feel bad for the staff who repeatedly look dumb in front of cameras. this is what they signed up for.

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You don't have an "absolute right" to do anything, fuckwit.

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The way he constructs his sentences pisses me off.

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mte

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At this point I'm still waiting for the moment he'll be impeached. He's done more than enough to get the boot at this point.

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Why didn't he ask Russia to step in before he bombed the fuck out of Syria because Assad gassed his own people? This whole thing is a bunch of garbage and lies. I'm so fucking irritated.

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Yes, openly scheduled meeting which the US press was pointedly not invited to.

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HE is so easy to play, Putin is cackling rn.

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"absolute right"



And there it is. I've said from the beginning that he keeps doing all this splashy shit just because he can, consequences be damned, and now here's this nice "absolute right" phrasing.



And the kicker is, the president can declassify pretty much anything, so what he did wasn't illegal. But goddamn, classified shit tends to be classified for a reason and that man will NEVER LEARN that "can" does not mean "should."

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...okay, but how about all the other shitty stuff he's said lately?

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Dave jumped the shark so many years ago.

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Wish more people would admit they were wrong. Looking at you, Trump voters.

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WHITE HOUSE: Not a ban

TRUMP: It's a ban



WH: Not fired because of Russia

T: Fired because of Russia



WH: Didn't leak info

T: I leaked info  Daniel Lin (@DLin71) May 16, 2017



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lol seriously.

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I don't know how anyone could work for him. how has anyone not just quit yet? drump clearly is doing whatever he wants and his staff has to scramble to cover his ass. oh to be a fly on the walls of the oval during this admin.

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Hahaha! Accurate tweet is accurate.

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nnnnnnnn

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Orange is the new President



Nice. I'm gonna have to steal that one.



But yeah, his staff keeps trying to cover his ass and then he's like "lol nope I DID IT FOR THAT REASON AFTER ALL" and I cannot imagine willingly staying with him, just wtf.

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the fact that it has taken him this long to figure out it was the wrong thing to say...



last night the WH pretended trump leaking was fake news. this morning trump confirms that he did it via twitter. lets watch all the republicans continue their mental gymnastics to defend him.





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I read a couple of comments, and while they came up with the most mind-boggling excuses, a returning comment that really took the cake amounted to:



'OMG i cant believe the dems are falling for this. its OBVIOUS he is mocking them by having them report FAKE NEWS, and theyre actually falling for it?? muhahaha watch them make a fool out of themselves'

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its amazing how many idiots went to bat for trump tbh

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That's why they're idiots

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i saw MFM live back in december and the guest host (i don't remember her name, only that i really didn't like her) did this story. INSANE.

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I re-listen to that show all the time! Jamie Lee killed it with that story 

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"That's like naming your kid Tawny On The Pole" lmao

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I'm watching right now!

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I read about this story on Buzzfeed last year. I really feel for her but the whole thing is insanely fucked up.

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shit I forgot this aired. I'll add to my list and watch when I get back home thursday



based off that buzzfeed article, i have mixed feelings but ultimately, gypsy was never going to thrive under her mother's care and she reached her breaking point 

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jfc i read about this when it was a long read on buzzfeed and i do want to watch this. it's a very sad and fucked situation. it would make me hate my mom too. one of the most bizarre aspects about this to me was that she didn't even know how old she really was.

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I read an interview with the Dad and I got the impression he didn't care enough to really put in any effort. He provided financially but that's pretty much it.

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I don't even know if that's true. She was definitely lied to but there was a website with a lot of talk from the community on it and a few people came out saying Gypsy was previously with other men and told them she was of age and even had an ID saying so. And that she showed up to several peoples homes walking in the past. That contradicts the Buzzfeed stuff a bit so I'm not sure what is the real truth.

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The mum was a fucking nut. She was caught trying to poison her stepmother's food and it was said that her family knew she had starved her mother to death when she was in her care. That family is insane.

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I havent seen this but did read about this family a while back and was astounded. Gives me something else to watch, thanks!

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wow wtf

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eta: sorry this was supposed to be a reply to vehiclesshockme



Edited at 2017-05-17 01:02 am (UTC) i could imagine him kinda hating the situation he was in as he got older, and was mb selfish in thinking HE was a victim of deedee (which he was to an extent, but as he was older gypsy was moreso) and didn't rly care about gypsy, he was just kinda glad to get away. but THEN him acting like he cares after all that shit went down? nah. like i get he doesn't wanna look like an asshole but just admit it, cause his faux sympathy doesn't even add up with the storyeta: sorry this was supposed to be a reply to's orignal comment

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Oh shit for some reason I had never paid attention to how old dee dee and the dad were when they got together wtf

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Right? I don't understand why people are so willing to give the dad a pass. It's clear that when he could get them out of his life he was happy to put up money to make them go away.

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based on how bugfuck insane dee dee was, he probably just stopped trying entirely to avoid dealing with her anymore. it's so sad, gypsy never stood a chance :(

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MTE. Dee Dee was excellent at manipulating everyone, but if he would have at the very least been consistently present in his daughter's life, maybe he would have seen the inconsistencies or given Gypsy someone to turn to before things reached this point.

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THIS so hard like wtf

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ia, I thought it was weird how the dad seemed to not be involved at all in his daughter's life when he thought she was that sick and living with disabilities. It seemed like he was just fine with the manipulative mother taking over all the work, which worked out for him in that he didn't have to shoulder the "burden" of taking care of her every day (aside from child support, I guess?) and the mother got to have absolute control and do whatever she wanted without anyone questioning her.

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damn wtf

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I didn't expect her dad to be so normal

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this story is wild. i hope gypsy has access to some mental health professionals :(

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God I remember this story it was insane.



Okay but also, ever since then I see that user with the name gypsy rose or something as their handle and I always do a double take.





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I'm so sorry!!



OTL I know that it's just a user handle but my stupid brain is like "okay... But hear me out.... What if?" and then I have to tell myself to shut up again





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Well that sounds like a fucking trip, I'll probably check this out.

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/05/13/finding-lisa-story-murders-mysteries-loss-and-incredibly-new-life/vCCxbYYUD63kjIoIMJQiWM/story.html This is a really interesting article about a girl who was abandoned by her father when she was 5/6 years old. She spent a lot of time in foster care afterwards then later discovered he was not her father. It's essentially a true crime article but it goes into the genealogy too of finding her family.

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this is insane. i just read this whole article and now i'm googling it. idk how that wasn't covered nationally

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Oil prices climbed back up on Monday after Russia and Saudi Arabian oil ministers agreed on an extension of the current output cut deal

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Chart of the Week

(Click to enlarge)

 Refined product exports from the Central Atlantic have been unusually high so far in 2017.

 Exports from the region hit a record high in February at 103,000 bpd.

 Shipments of refined product were elevated because of competitive pricing compared to the global market, a reflection of the glut of gasoline and diesel in the U.S.

Market Movers

 Total (NYSE: TOT) expanded its exploration off the coast of Mauritania with a deal this week. The West Coast of Africa is emerging as a major natural gas exploration region with a string of recent discoveries in neighboring Senegal.

 Eni (NYSE: E) started up a gas project in Indonesia this week, a project that consists of 10 subsea wells in deepwater.

 Chevron (NYSE: CVX) shut its first Gorgon LNG export plant for a month for repairs. This is not the first outage at the $54 billion export facility in Australia.

Tuesday May 16, 2017

The big news of the week is obviously the joint announcement between Saudi Arabia and Russia in support of extending the existing production cuts through the first quarter of 2018. Not only was such a definitive statement not expected before the official May 25 meeting, but neither was the nine-month extension (as opposed to just six months). The news caused oil prices to jump and significantly reduced the chances of another pricing downturn in the weeks and months ahead.

Oil prices could rise further. A series of investment banks see further price gains coming soon. BNP Paribas expects prices to rise back to levels seen earlier this year  mid- to upper-$50s for Brent. Goldman Sachs reiterated its call for Brent to rise to $57 per barrel in the third quarter. After hedge funds and other money managers liquidated their bullish positions over the past month, there is room for oil on the upside. Moreover, with OPEC nearly locked in for 9 more months of restrained output, the downside risk has been substantially reduced. Related: Goldmans Two Conditions For A Successful OPEC Deal

IEA: oil markets already nearly balanced. The IEA reiterated its assessment that the oil market is on its way towards balance. In its latest Oil Market Report, the agency said that global stocks were building at a surprisingly low rate of 0.1 million barrels per day even though stocks rose by much more in OECD countries. But stocks are already drawing down, reflecting a supply deficit. The IEA estimates that the world is seeing a deficit in the second quarter by about 0.7 mb/d. Still, that might not be enough to bring inventories back within the five-year average by the end of 2017, the IEA says, implying that more work will be needed.



Shale response? The big question is how the OPEC extension affects the trajectory of U.S. shale production. Output was already surging, but another round of price gains could lead to a stronger response from shale drillers, particularly if prices rise sufficiently for drillers to lock in hedges for future production, clearing the way for more drilling. It is too early to say with any certainty how much additional U.S. production will result from the OPEC deal, but surely some executives are celebrating this weeks news.

EIA: Shale to grow by 122,000 bpd in June. In its latest Drilling Productivity Report, the EIA projects shale growth of 122,000 bpd next month compared to May. The gains will come from the Permian (+71,000 bpd), the Eagle Ford (+36,000 bpd), plus smaller contributions elsewhere.

Frac sand producers bouncing back with speed. Frac sand miners are seeing robust demand for their product as drillers step up their operations. Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE: HCLP) said it is nearing full capacity and is ramping up hiring.

Libya output edges up again. Libya could play spoiler to the OPEC deal this year, and in a further sign that it is getting back on the right track, the latest data shows that Libyan production is at 814,000 bpd. The National Oil Company is aiming to boost output to 1.2 mb/d this year.

Indias oil demand up, finally. After three consecutive months of falling oil demand, India finally reported an uptick for the month of April, with consumption rising by 3.3 percent. Along with China, India is widely seen as the largest source of oil demand growth going forward, so its demand figures are critical to overall global demand.

EV revolution to see surge in demand for copper, cobalt, nickel and other commodities. The chief of Glencore (LON: GLEN) sees much higher demand for commodities as electric vehicles capture an ever-growing share of the transportation sector. The electric vehicle revolution is happening and its impact is likely to be felt faster than expected, Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg said at a conference on Tuesday. That offers a lot of opportunity for mining giants like Glencore.

China says it will import more U.S. oil and gas. The U.S. has very rich oil and gas resources, and as China pursues a diversification of its crude supply the U.S. will of course be one of the sources. Wang Yilin, chairman of CNPC, said on Bloomberg TV. We will consider exploring cooperation in areas such as jointly developing liquefied natural gas facilities and gas transport. Related: OPEC Expects U.S. Driving Season To Save Oil Prices

Nigerian oil workers strike spreads. Nigerian oil workers staged a strike that has extended to oil majors Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) and a subsidiary of Eni (NYSE: E). The strike stems from the firing of workers of the union by ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM). The strike is only scheduled for three days.

Iran elections on Friday. Iranian voters will head to the polls on Friday, where they will choose between incumbent President Hassan Rouhani and his hardline opponent, Ibrahim Raisi. If Raisi wins, the nuclear deal between Iran and the West could be in jeopardy, as could the detente with the U.S. reached in 2015.

Risk to Venezuela grows. Protests have crippled Venezuela for over a month, and the economy continues to deteriorate. There are growing signs that the economic calamity could accelerate the supply disruptions from Venezuela. According to Reuters, three of Venezuelas four refineries are operating at record low levels, due to malfunction and the lack of parts to fix them. The Paraguana Refinery, for example, is only producing 409,000 bpd, or just 43 percent of its capacity. The outages have led to gasoline shortages and forced Venezuela to step up imports.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Its Infrastructure Week in Washington, and foreign powers are taking note.

Ahead of President Donald Trumps upcoming visit to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has promised to make $40 billion of its sovereign wealth fund available to the United States to bankroll part of the roughly $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements that Trump promised on the campaign trail.

The move is reminiscent of the KSAs strategy amongst its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as well as Morocco and Jordan. This GCC + 2 group of kingdoms is regularly showered with billions of dollars in gifts from its wealthiest members, earmarked for similar construction projects, allowing the most stable Arab countries to remain intimately connected through financial obligations. The monarchial structure of these countries allows the lead executive to accept the sizeable donations without much fuss from the public. Its just the way things are done there, and citizens of those regions generally accept.

But using foreign funds, especially those from a country such as Saudi Arabia - which only garnered favorable reactions from 31 percent of Americans polled by Gallup in February 2017  could be another political trap for Trump.

The KSA had gone all-in on Hillary Clinton before the election, expecting her to continue to tweak policies put in place by Barack Obama. Contributions from GCC nations, especially Saudi Arabia, to the Clinton Foundation total in the millions. Reports of the serial grand donations made voters question Clintons allegiances in the 2016 elections. Trump could suffer a similar loss in faith if he begins accepting funding from monarchies willy-nilly  though censuring the new commander-in-chief in the media for any questionable action has led to fierce resistance from the White House and far right.

Related: Oil Prices Set To Rise On Back Of OPEC Deal Extension

Riyadhs most recent $40 billion gift is an effort to court support in the Trump administration, especially as the Saudi Aramco IPO approaches next year. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman met Trump at the White House in the early days of the new administration. Local media took to labelling the trip a historic turning point in bilateral relations  a marked shift from rumors regarding friction between the two countries during Obamas tenure. Nonetheless, the Department of Defense continued to approve the KSAs weapons orders for use in Yemen and other regional squabbles, and Trump will likely continue that legacy.

The new president has already declared his support for a new U.S.-Saudi program with $200 billion in direct and indirect investments over the course of his presidency for use in technical development in the energy sector and other advancements in financial relationships between the two countries. As Zero Hedge pointed out earlier this week, it would be ironic if the Saudi funds used for energy research end up discovering new ways to lower shale extraction costs for American producers.

Saudi Arabia, the largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has led a vociferous effort to deter additional shale production, particularly from the Permian Basin. The modest jump in oil prices seen after OPEC agreed on a 1.2 million bpd cut allowed hundreds of rigs in the U.S. to reactivate, causing barrel rates to tumble as Libya and Nigeria also tallied rising outputs. Riyadh needs a strong barrel price to guarantee a hefty valuation for Aramco ahead of the IPO, which is why it announced that the nation would extend its cuts through March 2018. Saudi Arabian clout in the oil community would take a hit if the plan to rebalance supply fails over the next few months.

Theres nothing Trump can really do about shale production. Unlike oil-rich countries in the Gulf, Africa, and South America, where nationalized oil companies are the norm, the U.S. oil sector is highly privatized. The CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, and the hundreds of other oil companies active in the country reserve the right to decide when to drill and when not to drill. On top of that, Trumps campaign vow of unleashing exploration and extraction prospects in the U.S. makes it unlikely that the White House would use regulatory power to curtail future fossil fuel development. Carving out a niche in the new administration looks to be an uphill battle for Saudi Arabia.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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When President Trump came into office, he openly resented the major trade deficit with Asias number-two economy and vowed to remedy the situation. While his words smacked of economic protectionism to many, the latest news about China-U.S. economic relations reveal a different picture.

While back in February the U.S. president talked about trade wars, last week he and Xi Jinping struck a deal that would see China receive more U.S. natural gas, as well as additional beef and poultry.

This week, the chairman of the China National Petroleum Corp., the largest state energy company, told Bloomberg in an interview that CNPC would gladly boost its U.S. oil and LNG imports. The U.S. has very rich oil and gas resources, and as China pursues a diversification of its crude supply the U.S. will of course be one of the sources. We will consider exploring cooperation in areas such as jointly developing liquefied natural gas facilities and gas transport, Wang Yilin said.

China can certainly do with the diversification, as its energy needs are growing inexorably. It is already the biggest buyer of U.S. crude, ahead of Canada, importing a total of 8.08 million barrels of oil in February. China imports this much oil on a daily basis, so in the scheme of things, US oil imports are a relatively small portion of the overall, based on Chinas average daily import rate for the same month, but this figure will certainly grow with Beijings diversification drive.

The news is even better for U.S. gas. When the Trump-Xi deal was announced, shares in Cheniere Energy, currently the only LNG exporter in the country, jumped by 3.3 percent. The trade deal will likely provide a major boost for other LNG export hopefuls, too. However, not all will be easy.

First, Chinas diversification is not necessarily focused only on the U.S. On the contrary, Beijing is unlikely to succumb to overreliance on one single source of energy. Whats more, U.S. LNG may find it tough to compete with supply from Australia and Qatar. All that without even mentioning the Power of Siberia gas pipeline that will see China import 38 billion cu m of gas annually, starting in 2025, strengthening ties between Beijing and Moscow.

In a recent report, the CNBC quoted analysts as suggesting the competition may prove too stiff. China is much nearer and much cheaper to ship from Australia, for example, or Qatar, said S&P Platts regional director for energy pricing, Alan Banniser. According to him, Europe is the most logical market for U.S. gas. Related: Oil Prices Set To Rise On Back Of OPEC Deal Extension

Wood Mackenzies Massimo Di-Odoardo, for his part, told the CNBC that the trade deal put the U.S. in a position to benefit from gas import growth to the tune of US$26 billion annually but he, too, was cautious, adding that this will depend on its competitiveness versus other global alternatives and Chinese buyer appetite for exposure to U.S. gas prices.

The average price per thousand cu ft of U.S. LNG in February was US$5.99, up from a trough of US$3.65 per 1,000 cu ft reached in October 2016 but much lower than the US$16.67 from November 2015. Prices fell sharply between November 2015 and February 2016 as a lot of new supply came online and a glut ensued.

The glut is still here, and there is no gas-related OPEC to try and do anything about it, so prices are bound to stay low for a while longer. For how long, it is difficult to say. The good news is that demand for LNG will grow  according to Shells first ever LNG Outlook, by 4-5 percent annually until 2030. Capturing a piece of the Chinese market may be a challenge but the rewards to be reaped sure look like its worth it.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The non-OPEC producers that have signed up to the production cut deal reached a compliance rate of 66 percent in April, up from 51 percent in March, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Overall compliance reached an estimated 66% in April, compared with 51% a month earlier, Sputnik quoted the IEA report as saying.

Last month, Russias compliance averaged 77 percent.

Russia, accounting for the largest share of committed non-OPEC output curbs, reached a compliance rate of 77% in April, reducing supplies by another 55 kb/d from the month earlier. According to Russian officials, the full 300 kb/d reduction had been attained by the end of April, the report notes, as quoted by Sputnik.

At the end of April, Russias Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow had effectively reached its 300,000-bpd production cut target under its agreement with OPEC.

Russia reaching its quota of the cuts has helped non-OPEC compliance increase, following a feeble start at around 40 percent conformity, while OPEC boasted more than 90 percent compliance at that time.

The cartels year-to-date compliance with the cuts remained robust at 96 percent, the IEA said in todays Oil Market Report.

While compliance with the agreed production cuts by OPEC and the eleven non-OPEC countries has generally been strong, we need to keep a close eye on Libya and Nigeria where there are signs that production might be rising sustainably, the agency noted, referring to the two OPEC members exempt from the cuts due to civil unrest and militant attacks that had crippled their oil output.

Compliance estimates, however, are not the sign that the oil market and analysts are mostly looking at. They want to see if the production cuts are achieving the goal to draw down the global oversupply. Oil prices jumped on Monday after Saudi Arabia and Russia said that they had agreed that the production cut deal should be extended by 9 months, until March 31, 2018.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Pengassan, started on Monday a three-day nationwide strike at Chevron, Shell, and Enis unit Agip in a solidarity protest over the layoff of union members from ExxonMobil, Pengassans general secretary Lumumba Okugbara told Reuters on Tuesday.

The industrial action began at Exxons Nigerian subsidiary last week, with employees protesting against a group layoff of oil workers in December last year, when a total of 150 workers lost their jobs, including 82 members of the Pengassan union.

Last week, an Exxon spokesperson had said that there was no impact on oil production.



On Monday, reports suggested that Pengassan had told its members to withdraw their services from production facilities and offices of international oil companies operating in Nigeria, in a solidarity action with the strike at ExxonMobils Nigerian unit. Union representatives have locked workers out at Shell, Eni, and Chevrons offices in Lagos, and at the companies operational bases in the Niger Delta, according to officials of the international companies who spoke to Platts on the telephone.

Analysts reckon the strike could disrupt Nigerias plans to restore its crude oil output to the levels seen before the militant attacks on oil infrastructure began.



Related: Goldmans Two Conditions For A Successful OPEC Deal

Pengassans general secretary told Reuters on Tuesday that Production activities are still on and our members on essential duties are working. Only those in administrative duties are not working in the various multi-national oil companies since yesterday.

The union strike at the oil majors in Nigeria comes as the country plans to boost its crude oil output by the summer. Nigeria is planning to complete repair work on the Forcados pipeline and maintenance at the Bonga field by July. Following these, crude oil production should rise to 2.2 million bpd, from 1.27 million bpd in March. The March crude oil output was affected by maintenance at Bonga, which produces 225,000 bpd.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The Energy Information Administration has estimated that the oil export revenues of OPEC members last year declined by 15 percent on 2015 to US$433 billion, on an unadjusted basis. According to the EIA, this was the lowest result since 2014, affected by the drop in crude oil prices and a decline in exports.

This year, however, the EIA is more optimistic for the cartel, projecting revenues to grow to US$539 billion thanks to higher prices and to higher production. In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, the authority forecast OPEC daily oil output at 32.11 million barrels for the second quarter of 2017, up from 31.92 million bpd in Q1, rising further to 32.86 million bpd in the third quarter, and 32.95 million barrels daily in the final quarter of the year.

However, the STEO was released before a joint statement from the oil ministers of Russia and Saudi Arabia, in which they said the two countries have agreed to extend the oil production until the end of the first quarter of 2018. Incidentally, the EIA forecast that OPEC daily output in the first quarter of 2018 will average 32.99 million barrels.

The revenue forecast for 2017 might also have to be revised as the extension kicks in and exports continue to be limited, unless prices improve much more substantially. At the moment, Brent is trading around US$52 a barrel and WTI is at US$49.05 a barrel.

Earlier this year, Nigerias Oil Minister, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, warned that a production cut is not enough for OPEC to be able to compete effectively with U.S. shale. The organization, he said, voicing the concern of many others, needs to bring down its production costs to become a better competitor. With high production costs, some major OPEC producers need Brent at US$60 a barrel to be able to invest in new production, ensuring the sustainable development of their oil wealth. This price level, however, remains a distant prospect for the time being.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
China North Industries Corporation, a defense conglomerate also invested in the petroleum industry, has signed a deal with Saudi Aramco to build a refinery and a chemicals plant in northeast China worth an estimated US$10 billion (69.5 billion yuan), Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing industry and government sources.

According to plans, Saudi Aramco and China North Industries Corporation, better known as Norinco, will cooperate in the construction of a refinery with a capacity of 300,000 bpd and an ethylene producing complex with annual capacity of 1 million tons, an industry official familiar with the framework agreement told Reuters.

The deal is one of the high-profile pacts signed at a Chinese summit, which is part of the plan of Chinas President Xi Jinping to promote trade and investment.

Earlier this month, Saudi officials, including Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih, embarked on an Asian tour to China, South Korea, and Japan.

Aramco and Norincos plans would give the Saudi state oil giant additional presence in the Chinese refining industry, next to Aramcos 25 percent stake in the Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Company in Chinas southeast coastal area.



In 2015, Norinco obtained regulatory approval to build the refinery complex in the northeast Liaoning province, but back then reports suggested that it could delay the actual investment decision, due to a surplus of refining capacity in the area, which is also far from the biggest consuming regions.



Aramco, apart from being a major exporter of crude oil to China and Asia as a whole, has recently made headlines with downstream projects in India. The Saudi oil group is said to be in talks to buy a stake in a planned refinery expected to be built on Indias west coast that would be the countrys biggest refinery. In addition, Indias ONGC Petrol Additions Ltd is said to be negotiating the sale of half its US$4.6-billion petrochemicals plant with Aramco.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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The United Arab Emirates fiscal machine has adapted to the status quo of global oil markets, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday.

The Gulf country is adjusting well to the new oil market realities, the IMF sad, adding that it expects the nations economic growth to rebound in 2017 due to its large financial buffers, diversified economy, and the authorities robust policy responses [which] are facilitating adjustments while safeguarding the economy and the financial system.

Non-oil growth will reach a 3.3 percent growth rate this year, the IMF estimates, reflecting more gradual fiscal consolidation, stronger global trade, and higher Expo 2020 investment.

Still, the oil GDP will decline by 2.9 percent due to oil production cuts promised to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in November. Most members of the bloc, excluding Nigeria and Libya, agreed to lower production in order to allow global oil prices a chance to recover from a supply glut. In March,, the country cut daily crude oil production by nearly 200,000 barrels, partly due to refinery maintenance.

Over the next two months, the UAE will cut another 278,000 bpd, demonstrating its compliance with its quota under the agreement. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company informed its clients yesterday that it will be selling less crude in May. The company said it will be reducing the shipments of the two local grades, Murban and Das, by 7 percent.

With the prospects of firmer oil prices, the governments budget deficit is projected to decline to 4.5 percent of GDP and the current account surplus to improve to 2.4 percent of GDP in 2017, the IMF report said. Existing financial buffers allow fiscal consolidation to proceed gradually. Reaching the goal of returning gradually to a balanced budget over the medium term would save resources for future resources.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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Jadhav confessed hes Indian spy, Pakistan tells ICJ

THE HAGUE: Pakistan on Monday told the International Court of Justice (ICJ) it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case brought up by India pertaining to sentencing of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav.



Jadhav was handed death sentence by a Pakistani Field General Court Martial (FGCM) last month.



Ambassador Moazzam Ahmad Khan, Dr Faisal and Syed Faraz Hussain were present at the Peace Palace as members of Pakistans legal team. Supreme Court lawyers Khawar Qureshi, Asad Raheem Khan and Joseph Decky also attended the proceedings in The Hague. The arguments for Pakistan were presented by Dr Faisal.



Dr Faisal said told the court that according to the Vienna Convention, the court had no jurisdiction to hear such a case, Radio Pakistan reported. He further said the Indian spy was sentenced to death after fulfilling all necessary legal procedures and that he was also given legal counsel to defend the allegations against him.



Khawar Qureshi, also representing Pakistan, had earlier argued, The ICJ is not a criminal court and cannot decide cases relating to national security. He further appealed the court to dismiss the Indian application. He also pointed out that India was unwilling to explain Jadhavs passport, which bears a Muslim name.



The counsel for Pakistan said that the provisions of the Vienna Convention do not apply to a spy involved in terror activities. Indias allegation regarding the kidnapping of its spy is not true and he [Jadhav] was arrested by Pakistani forces from Balochistan, he maintained.



Pakistani representatives told the court Jadhav has confessed to having been sent by India to wage terror on the innocent civilians and infrastructure of Pakistan. Dr Faisal said the tribunal had been shown a video of the confession which was available on-line for viewers to decide for themselves whether commander Jadhav is confessing voluntarily. He also showed the court a picture of a passport which he said was found in Jadhavs possession bearing a completely different and Muslim name.



India has been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide an explanation for this passport which is the most obvious indication of covert and illegal activity, added Faisal.



India has denied however he was a spy, and last week lodged a rare protest at the ICJ accusing Pakistan of egregious violations of the Vienna convention.



The case has highlighted the recent sharp uptick in tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals, with the two sides outlining starkly different accounts.



India believes that the farcical nature of the proceedings and unjust trial by a Pakistan military court... has led to a serious miscarriage of justice, said Mittal.



India is seeking the immediate suspension of the death sentence against Jadhav who it claims was kidnapped from Iran, where he was carrying on business after retiring.



But lawyer Khawar Qureshi, appearing for Pakistan, shot back that Jadhav is a terrorist and New Delhis story was far-fetched at best.



India invoked the jurisdiction of this court improperly, he said. This court exists to ensure that states engage in peaceful resolution of disputes. This court does not exist for time-wasting and political grandstanding.



The courts president Ronny Abraham said the tribunal would publicly deliver its decision on whether to grant an emergency stay of execution as soon as possible.



Earlier, the UNs judicial body had heard Indias arguments in the first phase of the proceedings. As the proceedings began, India had appealed to the UNs top court to order Pakistan to suspend its planned execution of Jadhav, saying his rights had been violated by Islamabad.



Harish Salve, leading the Indian legal team, had focused his arguments on Pakistans denial of consular access to Jadhav as he presented Indias case before the judicial body.



The situation in which we find ourselves is grave and it is urgent, Salve said. India has made innumerable requests since March 2016 for consular access.
Meteorologist Paul Douglas writes about Minnesota weather daily, trying to go beyond the "highs" and "lows" of the weather story to discuss current trends and some of the how's and why's of meteorology. Rarely is our weather dull - every day is a new forecast challenge. Why is the weather doing what it's doing? Is climate change a real concern, and if so, how will my family be affected? Climate is flavoring all weather now, and I'll include links to timely stories that resonate with me.
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, left Ghana on Monday, May 15, 2017, to begin the second phase of his official working visits to the countries of the ECOWAS region.



This phase will see President Akufo-Addo visiting the following countries:



Senegal: 15th  17th May, 2017



Guinea: 17th  19th May, 2017



Cape Verde: 19th  21st May, 2017



The visits will afford President Akufo-Addo the opportunity to introduce himself, as the new Ghanaian leader, formally to the governments and peoples of our neighbouring countries, explore and deepen our bilateral relations with them, and reiterate Ghanas full commitment to the ECOWAS project.



He will be accompanied by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Shirley Ayorkor Botchway MP, and officials of the Presidency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.



President Akufo-Addo will return to Ghana from the second phase of his tour on Sunday, 21st May, 2017. In his absence, the Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, shall, in accordance with Article 60(8) of the Constitution, act in his stead.



signed



Eugene Arhin



Director of Communications

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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For Immediate Release

Today the U.S. State Department presented evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assads government has been burning bodies at a crematorium at a military prison outside Damascus.

The following statement is attributable to Susannah Sirkin, PHRs director of international policy and partnerships:

If shown to be true, the Syrian governments use of a crematorium demonstrates the extent to which the Syrian government has become a machine that commits mass murder with impunity. As our colleagues at Amnesty International demonstrated earlier this year, Syrian authorities have executed between 5,000 and 13,000 people at Sadnaya prison. Now we know what theyve done with the bodies.

Burning the remains of people whove been murdered constitutes destruction of evidence, which is a violation of international law. Its also an outrage upon personal dignity. As we at PHR have documented, the Syrian government has routinely tortured and executed critics  including doctors and other health professionals  in its network of prisons. Burning the bodies makes remains nearly impossible to identify or return them to families for proper burial. Many of our colleagues in Syria have gone for years without knowing the fates of friends and family members detained during the course of this awful conflict. Now they may never know.

Even if recent efforts to de-escalate the conflict are fruitful, a decline in active fighting cannot be interpreted as an improvement in human rights for all Syrians. In fact, the ability of the Assad government to systematically carry out large-scale operations dedicated to torture, rape, and murder remains unhindered. Any sustainable solution to this conflict must address these ongoing atrocities

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.
For Immediate Release

Tomorrow, U.S. President Donald J. Trump will meet with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has long partnered with Turkish health professionals and human rights advocates to investigate and prevent human rights violations in Turkey and around the world. Since last years coup attempt, the crackdown against critics and human rights defenders has been catastrophic.

President Trump congratulated President Erdogan after a referendum this spring that consolidates his power. And last week U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told diplomats that human rights and other values would take a back seat to security and economic interests. Turkey also plays a pivotal role in the ongoing conflict in Syria. With those factors in mind, PHR suggests President Erdogan respond to the following concerns:

President Erdogan and his government have all but dissolved the rule of law throughout the country  and Turkish security forces have violated human rights with impunity, particularly during operations in the countrys southeast. What immediate steps will President Erdogan take to bring his government into compliance with international and domestic law?

Theres been a wholesale absence of investigations into torture, ill-treatment, and killings, particularly in the southeast, and there has been no accountability for attacks on medical personnel and facilities. The Turkish government has also withheld access to international observers and investigators, including PHR. When will Turkey launch full, transparent, and meaningful investigations into these apparent breaches of human rights and human dignity?

In addition to thousands of arrests and detentions, Turkey has singled out for punishment a number of health professionals. The president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, Dr. Sebnem Korur Fincanc, is facing groundless terrorism charges for taking part in a free speech campaign. And Dr. Serdar Kuni, also a human rights defender in the southeast, has been convicted of supporting terrorist organizations for providing medical treatment to members of alleged armed groups. What steps will Turkey take to address the international criticism of its expanding use of anti-terrorism legislation used to broadly criminalize human rights defenders and political opposition?

If history is any guide, so-called safe zones  which appear to be the guiding idea behind the recent proposal for de-escalation zones in Syria  have never been effective at actually keeping civilians safe. Idlib governorate is home to many Syrians whove been displaced from their homes, and PHR is well aware that any breakdown in the current ceasefire or violation of the de-escalation zone will be a matter of life or death for civilians. As a co-guarantor of a de-escalation agreement in Syria, what will Turkeys government do to ensure civilians are protected?

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.
Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association

Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the Military Writers Society of America.
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HAMPTON  Ray Energy Corp., a wholesale fuel supplier headquartered in Troy, plans to construct a rail-side propane storage and distribution center here.

The project will cut costs and increase efficiency for the company, which now routes its rail shipments through Washington County to a facility in the Albany area, then trucks propane back north to customers in Warren and Washington counties, said Ken Ray, the companys president.

Ray made a presentation last week to the Warren-Washington Counties Industrial Development Agency executive committee.

The rail line runs between Vermont and Whitehall, where it connects with the north-south rail line between Montreal and Albany.

We feel pretty confident this is good planning, Ray said.

The new site will have three full-time and three part-time employees, in additional to trucking jobs, when it opens, and temporary construction jobs while it is being built, said Justin Ray, the companys supply and logistics manager.

Were excited to see a project coming in thats going to benefit the town of Hampton that will have an increased value on the tax roll and will produce some employment, Supervisor David OBrien said.

Ray Energy is seeking an IDA tax abatement under which the value of new construction would be tax-exempt for five years, and 50 percent of the value would be tax-exempt for the next five years.

Ray Energy would continue to pay property taxes based on the current value of the vacant land.

The new tax revenue in five years, even at 50 percent of increased value, would be significant, because the bulk propane storage tanks Ray Energy will be building, worth about $2 million, are assessed as structures, said Robert Morris, a lawyer for the IDA.

OBrien said the site was part of a previous Empire Zone designation, a former state program that designated property in economically disadvantaged communities for incentives.

Another fuel company previously considered developing a storage site at the property but decided against it.

It had been lying fallow and no one was doing anything with it, OBrien said.

Ken Ray said the company is spending about $225,000 to bring three-phase power to the site, which also would increase the chances of the town attracting development to 10 acres next to the Ray Energy project.

Ray Energy is a wholesale supplier of propane, gasoline, and marine gasoline.

Ken Ray said his grandfather started the company in 1904, and it remains family-owned.

Horicon Supervisor Matt SImpson, an IDA board member, praised Rays application and information packet.

You can see why he is successful. He is so very thorough, Hicks said.
FORT EDWARD  A Fort Edward man who was arrested in January for a series of thefts from cars and a bar has pleaded guilty to a felony charge and is headed to state prison.

Daniel S. Murray, 35, pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny in connection with a spate of thefts last fall and winter that occurred in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls.

He was arrested after he stole a credit card from the purse of a customer in a Fort Edward bar in early January and used it at Cumberland Farms in Fort Edward, police said. That led to police discovering he had been involved in a wave of thefts from parked cars that dated back to September, with some car windows smashed to gain access.

Police also discovered credit cards and items that had been stolen from cars in western Vermont and believed Murray used the proceeds for drugs.

He has a prior felony conviction, and faces a 2- to 4-year prison term when sentenced June 2 by Washington County Judge Kelly McKeighan.
QUEENSBURY  The central New York man who was convicted of murder for the killing last summer of Glens Falls resident Kevin Jenks was sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison during an emotional hearing Tuesday.

Warren County Judge John Hall deemed Robert M. Henry a persistent violent felon and imposed consecutive sentences for the killing last July of the 58-year Jenks in his Dix Avenue home and crimes that occurred along with the homicide.

Hall pointed out that Henry had seven prior robbery convictions dating back nearly three decades before he was involved in the killing of Jenks.

He is a cold, calculated killer who deserves the absolute maximum, Warren County Assistant District Attorney Matthew Burin said.

Henry reiterated his innocence before Hall imposed the sentence, saying his co-defendant was to blame for Jenks killing but that he was sorry about being involved in the robbery that led to the killing.

Im not the man responsible for Mr. Jenks death, Henry said.

He went on to read a long statement in which he claimed his rights were violated by police and prosecutors during the investigation, questioned whether he was discriminated against because he is black and said he was denied my right to due process and a fair trial.

Hall imposed the sentence after hearing tearful victims impact statements from Jenks daughter and sister, who told of the loss of a beloved and giving man.

Daughter Monique Reyes urged the judge to lock him up forever after telling the judge her father was a loving, compassionate, giving man.

Jenks sister, Cindy Jenks, explained that her surviving brother, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, doesnt understand why Kevin Jenks is no longer coming to see him.

She said Kevin Jenks was the familys stabilizing force.

It was Kevin who gave our family strength to carry on when tragedy hit us, Cindy Jenks said.

Henrys lawyer, Tucker Stanclift, said his client lost both parents to cancer by age 7 and was deeply affected by the loss. Childhood grief left untreated often leads to drug problems and other emotional issues, Stanclift said.

It is no wonder he has failed to address some of those issues, he said.

Stanclift pointed to Henrys co-defendant, Kevin S. Chapman, saying he lied to Hall and was initially charged with intentionally killing Jenks.

At least Mr. Henry didnt get on the (witness) stand and lie to you, Stanclift said.

The judge, though, pointed out that Chapman pleaded guilty and was remorseful. He also rejected Henrys contention he did not get a fair trial.

Henry, 46, of Ilion was found guilty during a trial earlier this year on charges of second-degree murder, robbery, burglary, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.

He was found to have plotted to rob Jenks, who he knew from Henrys time living in the Glens Falls area several years ago. Jenks was choked to death.

Jenks ran a South Street bar for years and was a manager at the CR Bard Co. medical device plant.

Co-defendant Chapman, 50, of Herkimer, also of was sentenced to 18 years to life after he pleaded guilty and testified against Henry, telling the jury that he watched Henry choke a bound Jenks to death.

Hall determined that Henry was a violent persistent felon because of a criminal history in the New York City area that included four separate violent felony convictions.

The 50-to-life sentence means Henry wont be eligible for parole until he has served 50 years.

Stanclift filed a notice of appeal during the hearing.
QUEENSBURY  Three people were arrested Monday afternoon after a traffic stop on the Northway led to the seizure of more than an ounce of heroin, police said.

Two women from Vermont and a man from New York City were charged after the 2:11 p.m. stop in the northbound lanes near Exit 19, according to State Police.

Police determined the trio were on their way from New York City to the Burlington, Vermont area with heroin, and two of the three were charged with felony counts for possessing the drug with intent to distribute it, authorities said. Their vehicle was stopped for veering out of its lane.

Charged with felony counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance were Gregory G. McDonald, 25, of New York City and Karyn M. Lefebvre, 31, of Winooski, Vermont. Both were arraigned and sent to Warren County Jail for lack of bail.

Also arrested was Jasmine K. Martin, 21, of St. George, Vermont, charged with misdemeanor criminal possession of a controlled substance and noncriminal unlawful possession of marijuana, police said. She was released, pending prosecution in Queensbury Town Court.

Trooper Jason Miller made the arrests, assisted by the Warren County Sheriff's Office and canine Ozzie.
QUEENSBURY  EDC Warren County and commercial real estate broker Stephen Borgos will collaborate on a renewed push to market the former Native Textiles knitting plant on Carey Road for reuse.

The plant, which has been vacant for more than a decade, is one of the largest vacant industrial buildings in the county, said Edward Bartholomew, the economic development groups president, at an EDC Warren County board meeting on Tuesday.

Its a major facility that warrants our attention, he said.

Bartholomew told the board that one company, which he would not identify because of a confidentiality agreement, has inquired about the building recently.

There is a party that is interested, but we have a nondisclosure agreement, he said. I dont think were at the top of their list.

Local economic development and government officials have said they hope that extending municipal sewer to Carey Road business park and other properties in the vicinity would increase the chance of recruiting a company to reuse the building.

So far that is not the case.

EDC Warren County has previously negotiated with three or four companies, none of which followed through, Bartholomew said.

The company that was the strongest possibility wound up locating its operation in New Jersey, which offered a better incentives package then New York, Bartholomew said.

The bidding ended at about $28 million in tax credits, he said.
QUEENSBURY  A three-year dispute over proper use of occupancy tax funds continued on Monday when the Town Board voted 3-2 to approve distributing $70,230 in grants to 16 events, organizations and businesses.

The vote, on which 2nd Ward Councilman Brian Clements and 3rd Ward Councilman Doug Irish voted No, came after lengthy discussion from members of the public about the use of occupancy tax funds and discussion among Town Board members about procedures for bringing resolutions to the floor to be voted on.

Clements said he voted against the funding because he wanted the board to discuss the applications at another workshop meeting before voting.

Fourth Ward Councilman Tim Brewer said the board had already discussed the applications at two workshop meetings, and Clements could have discussed his concerns with Supervisor John Strough ahead of time.

Strough said he sent an email to Town Board members asking if members had concerns.

"I don't know if it's legal to reach consensus through email," Irish said.

Irish said he voted against the funding because he did not think some of the recipients qualify for occupancy tax funding, which comes from a tax on lodging revenue and is supposed to be used to increase tourism.

The county distributes occupancy tax revenue to major events, and provides each town and the city of Glens Falls with a portion of the revenue to distribute.

Irish did not specify which of the 16 applicants he was opposed to receiving funds.

Contacted Tuesday, Irish said he did not remember which applicants he felt did not qualify, and he did not have a list of the applicants with him to check at the time.

Strough said the board will hold a workshop meeting at 7 p.m. Monday to begin discussion of a new application and review process to avoid confrontation in the future.

Strough said he is willing to consider appointing a committee of business leaders to advise the Town Board on future distribution of the towns share of occupancy tax funding.

Strough, a two-term incumbent Democrat, is running for re-election in November against Republican Rachel Seeber, a Queensbury at-large supervisor.

Clements and Irish, the Queensbury Republican chairman, both are members of Seebers campaign committee.

But the occupancy tax dispute dates back further than the ongoing election cycle to 2014, when Irish first raised concerns about the town providing occupancy tax cash to The Hyde Collection art museum and Chapman Historical Museum in Glens Falls. He questioned whether the two museums attract overnight lodging guests to Queensbury.

The board, at that time, changed its application process to require applicants to submit a written explanation of how the money would be used to increase tourism.

Dispute over the proper use of occupancy tax funds has continued, including in January, when Seeber objected to the town distributing $35,000 for marketing, promotion and upkeep of town Recreation Department events and facilities.

Irish, who voted in favor of the Recreation Department allocation in January, reiterated his support on Monday, saying the Recreation Department will use the money to expand its mountain bike trail system and promote events that attract overnight tourists, not for its routine programs and facilities.

Members of the public who spoke at Mondays meeting included two representatives of the newly formed Warren County Lodging Association.

Frank Dittrich, general manager of The Inn at Erlowest in Lake George, said it is important to use occupancy tax cash to increase overnight visitors. Room rentals in the county have been basically flat the past few years, he said.

Return on investment does matter. We do compete (with other tourism regions), he said.

Kevin Markham, general manager of the Ramada at Exit 19 in Queensbury, urged the board to establish a committee of business leaders to advise the board on distributing occupancy tax revenue.

John Salvador, a Queensbury resident, said he is concerned that the town providing occupancy tax to museums could encourage museums to band together to establish a special taxing district, modeled after the Crandall Public Library district.

Travis Whitehead, a Queensbury resident, suggested the town end its economic development contract with EDC Warren County and establish a fund to assist projects that dont attract overnight tourists.

Probably all worthy projects, but not necessarily worthy of tourism money, he said referring to the 16 projects that received funding on Monday.
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The founder of a New York City music school for children was arrested Tuesday morning on federal charges alleging he had sex with teen girls and tried to arrange sexual contact with girls as young as 8 years old, authorities said.



Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations showed up at the Queens home of Oliver Sohngen, owner of the Long Island City Academy of Music, who faces an eight-count federal complaint alleging he engaged in sex trafficking of a minor and other offenses, according to law enforcement sources and the criminal complaint.



Sohngen, whose Facebook page says he is originally from Germany and that he studied at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, allegedly used a pimp to arrange sexual encounters with girls 8 to 17 years old.



The criminal complaint alleges he had sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl, and tried to purchase sexual encounters with others ages 8 to 17.



Sohngen appears to have exchanged text messages with an individual for the purpose of purchasing commercial sex acts with minor girls ranging in age from 8 to 17, Special Agent Miguel Collazo of Homeland Security Investigations said in the complaint. Moreover, on at least two occasions, Sohngen engaged in various forms of sexual contact with 15- and 17-year-old girls, both times arranged by the same individual.



Sometime between late 2015 and early 2016, the complaint alleges, Sohngen was talking by phone to an undercover New York City police officer pretending to be a 15-year-old girl. He allegedly tried to arrange to meet her for oral sex and other sexual contact.



Investigators learned of Sohngen after the pimp whom he is alleged to have contacted was arrested in November 2013, according to the federal complaint. A search of the pimps phone allegedly revealed contact information for Sohngen. The complaint also said two teens identified Sohngen as having paid to have sexual contact with them.



Sohngen is due to appear today in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan for an initial hearing. Its not immediately clear whether he has a defense attorney representing him yet.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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Participants in the vigil, organised by Women's March on London, held hands in silence, to remember victims of the terror attack on the capital last week, which killed four and left at least 50 injured.

Many of the people holding hands were from different backgrounds and were wearing blue  as a sign of hope.

A group of Muslim women spoke of the "overwhelming" emotion they felt when standing on the bridge, and explained that they wanted to stand defiant in the face of terrorism.

"The feeling of what happened here on Wednesday was really strong," Afriha Khan, a GP from Surbiton, told Press Association. "We thought of the ordinary people who were here and were mown down, standing here like this, it was very overwhelming."

Being present for the demonstration showed people in the city are united in support of democracy, added Ayesha Malik. "As a visible Muslim I think it was important to show solidarity with the principles that we all hold dear, the principles of plurality, diversity and so on."

"It was so quiet and impromptu; just for a moment everyone was still," Rev Anna Macham, of St Philips, Camberwell, who attended the event after being told of it by a Muslim friend, said to the Guardian. "It was very emotional. I was so shocked by events this week and I wanted to stand alongside my Muslim sisters and show that what unites us is greater than what divides us."

Part of the action was also to "reclaim" the bridge from the horrors of last week's attacks, Akeela Ahmed, an activist who helped organise the gathering, told the Guardian. "Its important that we say terror will not defeat and divide us and pay respects to those that died. Keith Palmer is a hero and we are marking our respect for him and all the emergency services who protect us."

"Its important that we say terror will not defeat and divide us and pay respects to those that died. Keith Palmer is a hero and we are marking our respect for him and all the emergency services who protect us."

Last Wednesday, Khalid Masood ploughed his 4x4 through the crowds on people on Westminster bridge, killing Leslie Rhodes, Aysha Frade, and Kurt Cochran and injuring dozens more.
The former agent, who spoke on background to provide their candid thoughts on the fallout from President Donald Trump's firing of Comey on Tuesday, said it "caught everybody off guard."

"There wasn't any real triggering event," said the former agent, who served in the bureau for more than two decades. "Whenever there is something like this, there is some kind of lead-up, and it's not totally caught by surprise. There's at least some rumors."

In his letter firing Comey, Trump cited a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that blasted Comey for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. But Trump later told NBC News that he would have fired Comey "regardless" of the recommendation.

Comey also presided over a counterintelligence investigation, which he announced publicly during a March hearing, that included looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. The same day Comey was fired, a grand jury issued the first subpoenas in that investigation, seeking business records of associates of ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, CBS reported.

Trump said during that NBC interview that he received multiple personal assurances from Comey, whom he called a "showboat" and a "grandstander," that he was not personally under investigation. Trump later tweeted that Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

Meanwhile, the White House pushed a narrative that Comey had lost the faith of his rank-and-file agents. Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a briefing last week that many FBI employees told her they were "very happy with the president's decision."

The former agent left the FBI before Comey's confirmation as director in 2013 but maintains strong connections to the organization and has worked with Comey previously. They said he enjoyed a "broad" level of general support at the time of his firing.

But the former agent said Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation created a "sharp division" in the FBI, and that with Trump looking to fill the vacancy in the coming days, Clinton was "not completely out of the woods" regarding the email controversy.

"Trump's unpredictable," the former agent said. "If he goes back to the [campaign], that's still on the table  in my opinion, legitimately on the table."

The former agent said had Comey been fired after his July press conference, in which he laid out the case against Clinton and said the FBI would not recommend charges, those within the organization would have been less surprised.

"But now that the dust has settled and he's moved on and done other things and seemed to be doing OK, then now you're going to be much more shocked," the former agent said.

Surprising as well was the tone of Rosenstein's letter, the former agent said, adding that there was "no way" that letter was put together within the deputy attorney general's first two weeks on the job. ABC News reported on Friday that Comey was "furious" with the lack of respect from the White House.

"So whoever was crafting that communication I think had been working on it for a while," the former agent said. "It is surprising to have that tone for a guy who's only a couple of weeks on the job. Somebody took the time to put this together. It is a little surprising that he would agree in this short period of time, unless he agreed with it all."

As for whether Comey's firing would calm the FBI's Russia investigation, the former agent said the opposite would happen. If Trump's goal was to quash the investigation, this move "backfired," they said.

"That sort of stuff fires them up more than it tones them down," the former agent said. "Nobody gets toned down."

The former agent, however, said Comey left without a major event to help pull the bureau together.

"He was still fairly new, and he didn't have an event like 9/11 like Mueller had to kind of pull everybody together," the former agent said, referring to former Director Robert Mueller. "And so I think the organization is a little more divided in that you don't have that rallying event."

The former agent paused for a second.
Trump fired Comey one week ago, in what the White House initially said was based on the recommendations of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Trump said days later, however, that he had been thinking about "this Russia thing" when he fired Comey, whom he called a "showboat" and a "grandstander" in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt last Thursday. He tweeted Friday that "

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Trump told Comey, according to the memo. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." He also asked Comey to consider jailing reporters for publishing classified information, according to the Times.

Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to leave the room before asking Comey to drop the Flynn probe, according to reports from the Times and CNN. Their meeting came weeks after Trump reportedly asked Comey for his loyalty, twice, during a dinner on January 27.

The FBI is investigating Flynn's contact with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak as part of its probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The bureau interviewed Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak in January as part of that probe.

A White House official said in a statement that Trump "has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country," but he "has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn."

"The President has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations," the statement continued. "This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the President and Mr. Comey."

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said that the report, if true, amounted to "obstruction of justice.

"That is a crime, and that is something that is prosecuted often in the federal courts here," Toobin said.

told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that she warned White House counsel Don McGahn about Flynn's conversations with Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak in January so that the Trump administration "could take action." The Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, was concerned that Flynn could "be blackmailed by the Russians," Yates told the committee.

Enough is enough

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Congress should be given any tapes or notes related to the conversations Trump had with Comey before he was fired last week, "and subpoena them if necessary."

"Enough is enough," Schiff said. "Congress really needs to get to the bottom of this."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in response to the latest bombshell report that "the

Other Democratic lawmakers swiftly weighed in on the report. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said "if true, this is another piece to the puzzle and it does not look good for the White House."
Expat wages up to 900% higher than for local employees, that is according to the global development professionals network research.

Expats abound on the African continent. They work in NGOs, and in for-profit companies. Some public sector organisations such as government ministries have expats providing technical assistance as part of a donor package.

The life of an expat in the Ghana is generally a good one, and usually far superior to the life they left behind.

Imagine finding out that your colleagues earn five times more than you. Not only that, but they get all sorts of benefits youre not eligible for.

They take a month of leave; you get 12 days. Your employer pays for their accommodation, health insurance and even their childrens school fees; you dont get any of that.

But you have comparable skills and qualifications. You do the same work. In fact, you understand the context of your work better than your higher-paid colleagues.

So why are they earning so much more than you? Is it simply because of your nationality?

READ ALSO: Here is how much banks in Ghana charge on mortgage loans

When the expat is recruited they are often paid a relocation allowance to move, given a house in a plush part of town, have their childrens school fees paid (if they have any), and get a ticket to travel back home (with their family) at least once a year.

In Ghana, expats are predominantly white. In a few cases, second generation Ghanaians from the UK/US or middle-class Ghanaians who went abroad to attend university manage to find jobs in Ghana as expats before they move back home.

The incentive for a Ghanaian to aspire to expat status is high. This is the typical example a of package an expat is likely to get as compared to a local folk.

An expat marketing manager working for a telecommunications company in Ghana can earn- Salary  US$10,000 per month;- Full medical coverage;  Use of corporate car with a fuel allowance;--Accommodation in a plush part of town; and- Two vacations home a year with tickets for up to five family members.

A local marketing manager with the same qualifications will earn somewhere in the region of US$3,000-5,000 and will have no housing allowance. And that type of package is still rare to get. This local marketing manager very likely has the same qualifications as the expat manager and may even have attended the same schools abroad.

Local and foreign staff in the same organisation can be on entirely different packages  fair?

Not long ago, Japanese company, Mitsui Ocean Development and Engineering Company, fired fired all of the local workers at its Jubilee Oil Field operation. The local workers were aggrieved by the alleged difference in wages between themselves and expatriate workers, whom they claimed earned up to three times, in some cases despite having the same responsibilities.

According to the workers, they received an average of Ghc2,500 (US$775) to Ghc3, 000 (US$931) a month while their expatriate counterparts take an average of about 5,000 to 10,000 dollars.

In AngloGold Ashanti which is a mining company, the minimum salary of a mineworker is $262.00 per month which is about 340 times the salary of the highest paid executive in Ghana. While in the same the company the average expatriate salary is $19,586.00 per month compared with the Ghanaian Senior Officer who earns $711.00 per month doing the same or similar job.

This obviously is a cause of worry.

Analysis

I recount when I worked on a project with an intern from Canada who actually earned much more than me as a staff. She knew absolutely nothing about the job or the local context and my salary was not even one-fifth of a fraction of hers.

The complexity of running an expat salary and payroll presents may be challenging when exchange rates, local statutory compliance, income taxation at home and in the host country, and the duration of the employment contract are taken into consideration.
After the review of the debt situation, the findings will be made public to enable the Ghanaians realise how their monies were spent by the previous administration, Mr Maafo added.

It is recalled that during the electioneering season, the then main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) accused the Mahama government of excessive borrowing but with little to show for it, an assertion the then governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) rubbished because they thought they had embarked on several infrastructural projects with those loans.

Mr Maafo, speaking during the National Policy Summit on Tuesday May 16, said that the new government was investigating all the debts left behind by Mr Mahama.

We are working on the numbers, the Ministry of Finance gives us the bulk numbers. But they do not all emanate from one source, we have some sitting in energy, some sitting in SSNIT, and we are examining all as a government and we are doing it gradually and slowly because we must be accurate, the ex-Akim Oda MP said.
Reports say several companies continue to default payments of utility bills despite several warnings.

These institutions are highly indebted to the state institutions in millions of Ghana cedis.

Minister of Energy, Mr Boakye Agyarko, in a stunning revelation, disclosed how the US Embassy in Ghana and MTN Ghana, owe the ECG several million Cedis of power supplied.

While the exact outstanding amount owed ECG by the American Embassy with over 160 facilities across the country was not readily available,

MTN on its part says it has an outstanding GHC35million debt to pay the state power distributer.

READ ALSO: US ambassador visits energy minister

Sources at ECG told The aL-hAJJ, many companies owned by Lebanese, Chinese, Indians and other expatriates across the country owe the ECG huge sums of monies.

According to the source, foreign companies within Accra and Tema alone owe the ECG as much as GHC300m. They (foreign companies) owe us (ECG) a lot of money but unfortunately we are unable to chase them for it, the source stated.

Though ECG has been active in disconnecting Ghanaians businesses and households that owe relatively meager sums, the Minister revealed that the state owned power Distributor has failed and or, refused to recover huge debts owed by many multinationals in the country.

Speaking to a group of journalists and officials of Millennium Development Authority at the sidelines of a 7-member ECG PSP stakeholders committee in Accra, Mr Agyrako said he was astounded when ECG has GHC130 million a week in receivables, but only manages to collects GHC 50 million.

What happens to the balance? You look at their inventory and they have 20 years supply of spares. You have locked up that money in spares that would be obsolete, he stated in an utterly jaw dropping mood shocking.

READ ALSO: US Embassy flooded with Visa Lottery requests

Singling out American Embassy and MTN Ghana, the Minister said he was shocked when officials of the two institutions said they have not been billed for several years despite their consistent effort to get ECG to bill them.

He said I had a discussion with the Managing Director. American Embassy has 160 facilities in Ghana. They have not been billed for two years. So they went to ECG and said look, we owe you money. Bring us a bill. Bring us pre-paid meters. We will use it for one year, and whenever we use, we will multiply it by 3 and give it to you. Up to now, the ECG hasnt been able to do that.
Valentina Nana Agyeiwaa replied with this post on Instagram, Oh Bobjackson or whatever your name is...kindly bleach your brains not your ass cos this monkey is not from a ghanaian..this monkey is a Ghanaian who fine pass your mama...i am from Ghana..Thank you...i am ugly n rich just like somebody in your country..we all know him but we won't mention his name..osheyyyy baddast
Premium Times reports that although Gentry's lawyers and friends made efforts to assist him in perfecting his bail conditions in other to secure his release, their efforts were foiled as all the magistrates in Lagos attended a state-wide conference and none of them was available to attend to his bail application as of Monday, May 15.

However, there are high hopes that he will be able to return home by Tuesday, May 16, 2017.

Gentry was arraigned at an Ogba Magistrate Court 1 sitting at Ogba, Ikeja, on three count charges under the State Criminal law 2011.

He was reportedly granted bail in the sum of N500, 000 as well as the provision of tax verification and two sureties, one of whom must own property in Lagos State, but was remanded in jail for failure to perfect his bail conditions before the end of the day.

According to earlier reports, Aigbe reported the alleged attack to the Lagos State Government through the Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team.

The mother-of-two has since become an advocate for the Lagos State Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team.

Gentry was subsequently slammed with a restraining order that keeps him no less than one mile of Mercy Aigbes location at all times.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Waheed and Samson were sentenced by Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye, following a plea bargain agreement in which they pleaded guilty to a charge of robbery.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty to a lesser charge of robbery.

The defendants before me have shown to be first time offenders who are in their mid to late twenties.

However, Section 295 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, which imposes a mandatory sentence of 21 years in prison, must be taken into consideration.

The Comptroller of Prisons, however, is hereby at liberty to apply for early release of the defendants to organisations such as the Prerogative of Mercy.

I hereby sentence Qudus Waheed and Ganiyu Samson to 21 years each in prison, their period of detention should be taken into consideration, Ipaye said.

According to Mr Jide Boye, the State Prosecutor, the convicts committed the offence at 5.30 a.m. on Dec. 20, 2012 at Ogunjobi Junction at the Dopemu area of Agege, Lagos.

The convicts alongside other accomplices, who are at large, attacked one Mr Abolore Olayeni, who was on his way to work by hitting his head with the side of a cutlass.

They stole his necklace worth N15, 000, an X2 mobile phone worth N5, 000 as well as N3, 000.

The convicts were apprehended by the police and arraigned on Nov. 24, 2014 on charges of conspiracy and armed robbery which they plead not guilty to.

They, however, considered entering a plea bargain agreement and approached the court through their counsel and they agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of robbery.

The convicts have been in custody for four years and the offence of robbery under Section 294 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, prescribes at least 21 years in prison, Boye said.

Earlier, before the sentence was passed, Chief Y.A. Ajao, the counsel to the convicts in his allocutus, asked the court for a lenient sentence for his clients.

The defendants are young men and have shown a lot of remorse, they are penitent. They regretted what they did.

On that particular day, they had just left a party and they were drunk and they promised that in their lifetime, they will never cause any trouble.
The Chief Magistrate, Mr Victor Manga, had ordered that Edeh be remanded in prison for beating up his mother and insulting his father as well.

Manga ordered the release of the youth after hearing from his father that his wife (Emmanuels mother) had not been herself since their son was sent to prison.

My Lord, my wife has been sick since I told her that our son has been taking to prison, in order for him to learn his lesson.

She has been disturbing me to go and beg you to please release him, because she knows he must have realised his mistake.

Some days back my wife fainted; after she regained herself, she asked me about her son.

Please sir, for the sake of my wife, who has not, been herself, temper justice with mercy and release him.

Left for me, I would love him to spend more days in prison, the father said.

The magistrate instructed that Emmanuel should write undertaken to be of good conduct and behaviour to his parents.

He added that he should also write that if abuses or insult his parents again, the court should take necessary action against him.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Emmanuel was brought to court by his father to help him instil morals and discipline on his son.
However, the Judge, Mr Hassan Ishaq, granted bail to Ejike in the sum of N50, 000 with a surety in like sum.

He directed that the surety must live within the jurisdiction of the court and that the address of the surety should also be verified by the court.

Ishaq added that the surety must also submit his drivers license or national identity card with the court.

Earlier the Prosecutor, Mr Ismail Mamud, told court that one Fred Eguedike, reported the matter at the Karu Police Station on May 13.

Mamud said that the defendant was in the habit of threatening his neighbors whenever they tried to intervene each time he quarreled with his wife.

The prosecutor said that the defendant had trespassed into the home of the complainant, a neighbour and an uncle to Ejikes wife to terrorise him.

Mamud stated that the defendant went to the apartment of the complainant on several occasions where his wife and six-month-old child sought refuge after each quarrel.
The accused, a.k.a. Alfa, is facing a two-count charge of fraud and stealing.

The prosecutor, Insp. Akpan Ikem, told the court that the accused committed the offence at Market Road, Badagry.

He said the accused collected the money  to cure the complainant, Miss Yemi Akanbi, of marine spirit.

The accused collected the money to buy some things for the cleansing process. He also took her phone.

But he spent the money on clothes for himself and sold the phone, he said.

Ikem noted that the offence contravened sections 312 and 285 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State, Nigeria 2011.

The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Counsel to the accused, Mr Koye Osuntuyi pleaded with the court to grant bail to the accused in liberal terms.

The Magistrate, Mr Jimoh Adefioye, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100,000 and two sureties in like sum.
The defendant, however, entered a not guilty plea.

The Prosecutor, Insp Victor Eruada, told the court that the accused and others still at large committed the offences on April 25, at Karaole Estate, Ogba, in Lagos.

According to him, the defendant received the stolen N13,500 knowing same to have been stolen.

Eruada said that Ike received the amount from two boys who stole it from the woman.

The offences, the prosecutor said, contravened Sections 285 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

The Magistrate, Mrs G.O. Anifowoshe, admitted the defendant to bail in the sum of N10, 000, with one surety in like sum.

She said that the sureties must be relatives of the defendant, gainfully employed and should also show evidence of tax payment to the Lagos State Government.
Uzomba, who lives in Surulere area of Lagos, is facing a three-count charge of false pretences, fraud and stealing.

He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

But the Police Prosecutor Simeon Imhonwa told the court that the accused committed the offences sometime in August 2016 at No. 24, Odetola St., Surulere.

He alleged that the accused obtained property worth N1.6 million from Aurum Group of Companies owned by the complainant, Mrs Maurice Etim, on the pretext of promoting the products.

Imhonwa also said that the accused also collected an EcoBank cheque for N300,000 from the complainant for logistics in promoting the products using his company  Buzz Technic Consult Ltd.

Uzomba sold the products and converted the money to personal use and absconded; efforts to reach him on phone were unsuccessful.

He was, however, apprehended by the police.

The offences contravened Sections 285, 312 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 285 prescribes three years imprisonment for stealing, while Section 312 provides seven years for false pretences.

Ruling on the bail application of the accused, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs B.O. Osunsanmi, granted the accused bail in the sum of N300,000 and two sureties in like sum.
This follows revelations made by the FDA that DKT International imported and distributed hundreds of unapproved abortion pills.

The FDA said it has the greenlight to destroy the packets of fake abortion drugs.

Head of Drug Enforcement Department at FDA, Thomas Amedzro, says although the Authority will do its best to prevent a recurrence of the incident, success will depend on support from the public and other stakeholders.

He said the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service has given them the chance to destroy the drugs after investigations.

Thomas Amedzro said "We need to write officially to the police for the release of the product so that they can also attend and watch the proper disposal of the product."

READ MORE: Hepatitis E outbreak kills 25 in refugee camp

According to investigative piece by Accra-based Joy FM, it revealed that DKT International used unregistered drugs to terminate pregnancies at their facilities, exposing the women to severe medical complications.

It however, revealed how DKT International used thousands of pieces of unregistered abortion drugs to terminate pregnancies in the country.

The fake Misoprostol and Mifepristone pills have the potential to cause severe bleeding in women.

READ MORE: Allied Health Professionals to picket at MoH

About 90,000 packets of the unapproved and unlabelled drugs were brought into the country by DKT International with the assistance of fake drug dealers from Nigeria and Switzerland.

The Food and Drugs Authority, on January 23, 2017 confirmed payment of a GH50,000 fine imposed on the Swiss national.

READ ALSO: Beer better for pain relief than paracetamol

DKT International Country Director Kevin Hudson was recalled by head quarters in Washington DC following the report by Joy FM.
The government promised to pay the farmers about GH11 million as compensation for culling 111,000 birds during the Avian influenza (bird flu) outbreak two years ago.

But the farmers claim that only GH1 million was paid as compensation to 25 farmers.

READ ALSO: Why your bushmeat will still kill you

They now claim that they will rush infected birds to the market for sale as soon as they detect signs of bird flu on their farms, Graphic Business reports.

The deadly H5N1 virus or bird flu has killed so many people worldwide, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, since 2013.
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According to him, Dr. Thomas Anaba will be investigated over some alleged corrupt practices that happened under his care as the director of the hospital.

Omarie Wadie in an interview on Accra-based Kasapa FM said details for his dismissal will soon be made public when EOCO picks him up.

Dr. Anabas appointment was supposed to last till 2020 and had the option to re-apply but has been revoked. He was appointed on February 1, 2016 during the tenure of former President John Mahama.

It is unclear why the Public Service Commission and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Council terminated his appointment.

READ MORE: Nana Addo renews pledge to fight corruption

His appointment was characterised by a series of protests at Ridge after some aggrieved workers of the hospital objected to his selection, citing incompetence and a breach in the selection process.

The staff of the hospital described Dr Anaba as lazy, and rather want Dr Emmanuel Srofenyo, popularly known as Srof, a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist as the head of the hospital.
In an interview with Daily Guide Newspaper, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Osaberima Oware Asare Pinkron III, narrated that the Baatsona police received a complaint from a female on May 8, 2017 that at about 11am the previous day, she was robbed by Corporal Tsagli and his accomplices after withdrawing an amount of GH1,500 from a bank on the Spintex road, community 18 junction.

The Police he said then mounted surveillance leading to their arrest.

Corporal Tsagli and Joseph Ansah were arrested, but two other supposed military men escape.

READ ALSO: Rawlings warns people spreading false news of his death

A search conducted on them showed they had a taser and handcuffs.

The two have denied the offence but investigations are still ongoing.
The demonstrators said the problem of high tariffs started when the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) installed new meters for them.

READ MORE: Minority dares government to go to court over Ameri deal

According to them, the situation has also forced most of them to shut their businesses.

They said the bill is too much for consumption levels.

"We are not technical men but this issue started from 2014 when these new meters were being installed. We had experience from the payments that we made.

"The bills have huge amounts so we approached authorities to come and have a look at those things, but all the effort couldnt materialise into anything positive. We later forwarded our letter to the Chief Executive of VRA, PURC [and the] Energy Minister, but still we did not hear anything. So we decided to embark on a demonstration today just to voice our predicament for our problem to be solved today," one of the demonstrators told Accra-based Class FM.
The general public is, hereby, advised to be wary of any persons or group of persons claiming to recruit into the security services. Any such person or group of persons purporting to recruit into the security agencies should be reported to the nearest police station.

The Ministry said that if any security agency wants to recruit persons into their fold into the service, they will advertise in the dailies.

READ ALSO: Renewed chieftaincy dispute in Bolga claims 2 lives
He was speaking at the swearing-in of five new members of the National Media Commission (NMC) in Accra on Monday (May 15, 2017).

He said that the NMC and other stakeholders need to take a critical look at the upsurge of telenovelas and the decline of standards on Ghanas screens.

READ ALSO: Poultry farmers in Ghana threaten to sell flu infected birds

He also mentioned that the unregulated advertisement of alcohol together with sexually explicit pictures and messages in the media space is very worrying.

"The damage all this inflicts on the moral centre of the youth, in particular, is incalculable."

"In this respect, article 164 of the Constitution which imposes national security, national morality and public order restrictions on the media begs for strict enforcement."

However, Justice Anin Yeboah asked the NMC to use its powers given to them to clamp down on such activities.

In a related development, Chairman of the NMC, Nana Kwasi Gyan Apenteng, said the NMC is poorly resourced among other institutions created by the 1992 4 Constitution.

READ ALSO: Rawlings warns people spreading false news of his death

He stated that the NMC has no permanent office while only a fraction of its budget allocation is often provided.
He said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the campaign ahead of the 2016 general elections promised to fix the economy when voted into power.

He added that Ghanaians listened and voted the NDC out of power. He said Ghanaians do not expect excuses from the governing NPP but solutions.

Now our own words were chewing it, Ghanaians voted for us to fix the economy which was destroyed by the NDC. So no theories anymore, theyve given you the power and we dont want to hear excuses. All we want to hear is that we are going to fix the economy and make sure the teeming unemployed youth get job. So just as Nana Akufo Addo asked President Atta Mills to fix the economy, Dr Bawumia should do same, he said on Adom TV.

The Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta has often stated that the Nana Addo-led government is on course to seal leakages in the system which are affecting revenue mobilisation.

He adds that the leakages have resulted in corruption and joblessness in some circles.
He made this frank statement when he met with the leadership of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) following strike and protest threats by various labour unions in the country.

There are some things that should be easy to deal with but will prove difficult for some time to come largely because there is no money. But now arrangements are being put place that will enhance the generation by the state, the president said.

He partly blamed the erstwhile Mahama-led administration for the current economic outlook of the country.

The economic situation my government and I inherited was not the best; both in terms of the growth of our economy and the balances available in the public treasury. Many of the problems you are putting here are the results of a poor office treasury.

If we had money in the public system, you would find that many of the issues that concern you would not be there, he stated.

President Akufo-Addo said the leaks in the system resulting from corruption, maladministration and the like also contribute to the financial weakness of the country.
He predicted that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) risk losing elections 2020 if the NDC members are not sacked.

READ MORE: Ken Agyapong vows to commit suicide if Mahama is not jailed

He said the party will lose if the grassroot that worked tirelessly to secure win for the party are neglected therefore core members of the NDC holding positions in government institutions must be sacked.

Speaking on Adom TV, Kennedy Agyapong said "The NDC are just lucky to have a fine gentleman like Nana Addo who has not even sacked anyone because he has been too gentle on them and thats why I have a problem with him, because he is always talking about Ghana first. Even with that, the NDC are still ungrateful."

READ MORE: Kennedy Agyapong reveals why NPP will lose elections 2020

He added that he will "go to him [Nana Addo] and beg him to sack all the NDC men at post so the NPP guys can also work else the NPP will lose the 2020 general elections.

READ ALSO: NDC accuses Ken Agyapong of supporting terrorism
In fact, officials in the Trump administration are expected to meet with their European counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss exactly that.

Officially, the DHS has not made a final decision regarding an expansion of the ban, which already affects 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa.

But aviation analyst and airline sources tell Business Insider they see such a ban as inevitable and think one could go into effect within a few weeks.

According to the DHS, rules prohibiting all electronic devices larger than a cellphone from entering the cabin are being considered because of intelligence suggesting terrorists have developed techniques to smuggle explosives in such devices.

So, with an expanded new ban looming, what does this all mean for airlines, airports, and most important, the passengers?

"If the electronics ban is expanded, we're in for a summer of international travel hell," airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt told Business Insider in an email.

For one thing, the scope of a laptop ban on flights coming from Europe dwarfs that of the existing one, which affects 50 daily flights operated by nine airlines.

According to a report issued by the airfare-forecasting app Hopper, a European ban would affect an average of 400 nonstop flights each day from 49 airports operated by 53 airlines.

A policy change affecting such a massive number of international route networks would be exceedingly complex.

Complicating the situation is the fact that the ban when confirmed would be implemented "swiftly and suddenly" to head off any potential terrorist acts, Airways senior business analyst Vinay Bhaskara told Business Insider.

"Airports will become zoos," he told us. "The additional security-screening time may require passengers to arrive at airports four or more hours in advance of flights."

As for the affected airlines, most have remained tight-lipped about their response planning. Those that have spoken with us, however, have acknowledged having a contingency plan in place ready to be rolled out to customers and employees through direct messaging, news, and social media.

For their customers, their message is centered on keeping large electronics at home when it comes time to travel to Europe.

At the same time, some are considering secure laptop valet and loaner laptop services.

Customer experience aside, a laptop ban could have a profound effect on the airlines from a business perspective.

"I am concerned an expansion of the ban may wreak extensive financial impact on airlines," Harteveldt said. "If demand falls, some airlines may lay off workers."

According to Hopper's chief data scientist, Patrick Surry, 80% of the flights affected by an expanded ban are operated by 10 airlines including Delta, British Airways, United, American, and Lufthansa.

"These travelers are often required to keep company-issued electronics with them and are told not to check laptops or other electronics," he told us. "As a result, these travelers may cancel trips or their companies may explore chartering aircraft."

At the same time, Bhaskara seems more optimistic about the potential harm the ban may cause airlines.

"I don't think we'll see a huge effect in the market for flights traveling between Europe and the US as destinations," he said. "If you're going to Europe for business, you're going to Europe for business because you or your company has significant business interests there. This isn't going to stop you from making plans to travel."
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump's disclosures to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office last week "jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State." The report said the intelligence "had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government."

That US partner was Israel, the Times reported on Tuesday, and the intelligence had to do with a reported ISIS plot to smuggle laptop bombs on airplanes. Reports surfaced in early April that US officials had detected the plot over the course of several months, and passengers flying into the US from eight countries in the Middle East and Africa were promptly banned from carrying their laptops on board.

McMaster on Monday night denied that Trump had revealed the intelligence sources and methods used to glean this information. But when asked by a reporter on Tuesday whether Trump revealed the city from which the ISIS plot was detected, McMaster replied that what Trump discussed with the Russians about the Islamic State "was nothing you would not know from open-source reporting."

"All of you are familiar with the threat from ISIS," McMaster said on Tuesday. "All of you are very familiar with the territory it controls. If you were to say, 'Hey, from where do you think a threat might come, from territory that ISIS controls,' you would probably be able to name a few cities.

"It had all to do with operations that were already ongoing and had been made public for months," he said.

According to the Post, however, Trump relayed "code-word information"  one of the highest classification levels used by the US intelligence community.

McMaster would not confirm whether the information Trump disclosed was classified or whether it came from a US ally. But he suggested Trump did not intend to reveal classified information because he "did not even know where that information came from." He added that Trump decided to disclose the information "in the context of the conversation" with the Russian diplomats.

But top White House officials were evidently aware that the disclosure might constitute a misstep. According to The Post, officials scrambled to "contain the potential fallout" from the conversation by quickly contacting the directors of the CIA and the National Security Agency.

When asked about that reaction, McMaster said it may have stemmed from an "overabundance of caution."

Parroting what has by now become a familiar White House talking point, McMaster said the real threat to US national security was US intelligence community leaks to the press.

"We need a high degree of confidence in all of our organizations so that we can do what we need to do for the president," McMaster said.

He also said Trump sought to "emphasize the common interests" between the US and Russia when it came to fighting terrorism.

"We have to work together," McMaster said. "It was wholly appropriate to share what the threat was as a basis for common action and cooperation."

Trump tweeted a similar defense on Tuesday morning.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump said in two tweets. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."
The companies that supply Sears with the TVs, toys, and clothing in its stores are increasingly concerned about the retailer's ability to pay its bills, and some are cutting back on shipments to stores as a result.

That means Sears and Kmart stores are receiving less merchandise to sell, which is a grave problem for a company trying to avoid bankruptcy by reversing years of sales declines.

Sears said this week that One World Technologies, one of its top tool suppliers, threatened to cancel its contract with Sears unless the retailer agreed to reduce its orders. One World Technologies cited concerns about Sears' ability to pay its bills, according to a lawsuit Sears filed on Monday.

Sears says it has always paid its suppliers on time and claims One World Technologies is trying to take advantage of rumors and media reports about Sears' viability to change the terms of its contract.

The tool vendor, which is a subsidiary of China-based Techtronic Industries, isn't the only supplier giving Sears trouble.

Last week, Sears CEO Eddie Lampert told the Chicago Tribune that several vendors had been treating Sears like a "pariah" and questioning its ability to pay for orders "because there are a lot of articles that are speculating, and there are elements of truth, but they're certainly designed to scare people."

"If you're a vendor and want to do business with us, then you have to treat us like a customer," he said. "You don't treat us like a pariah."

In March, Reuters spoke to three suppliers that were cutting back shipments, refusing bigger orders, or demanding earlier payment from Sears.

A textile firm based in Bangladesh told Reuters it drastically cut back on shipments to Sears for the upcoming holiday quarter and was reevaluating whether to accept new orders to protect itself against the risk of nonpayment. The company declined to be identified.

Arnold Kamler, CEO of the New Jersey-based bicycle manufacturer and importer Kent International, told Reuters that Sears tried to purchase more bikes from it last year "because a lot of their current suppliers were either cutting them off or limited them on credit." He said he declined the request.

Suppliers have been worried about Sears' financial health for a while, but their concerns accelerated in the last half of 2016.

The problem has been underreported because few suppliers are willing to discuss the matter openly for fear of triggering a Sears bankruptcy or disrupting their relationship with the company. But the issue is readily apparent in stores, where empty shelves and barren wall displays showcase the effect of the company's declining inventory.

Visits to Sears stores in Richmond, Virginia, and Woodbridge, New Jersey, revealed a clear lack of inventory. At both stores, it appeared employees tried to spread out the merchandise to fill the store, but many areas were nearly empty.

The company is under pressure from years of plunging sales, which have been cut in half since 2007, and it has lost more than a quarter of its executive team in the last five months.

Lampert has said that the company is committed to restoring profitability and continuing retail operations with a smaller physical footprint. But suppliers canceling orders would severely hamper the company's efforts.
The accused  Paul Achong, 31; Ugochukwu Anorue, 26; Sunday Eze, 36; and Kingsley Obumneme, 33  are arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing and break-in.

They all pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them.

Police Prosecutor Chinalu Uwadione had told the court that the accused committed the offences between January and April at No. 10, Adewale Crescent, Oshodi.

He said the first accused, Achong, had broken into the warehouse of Fembosco Engineering Company at Oshodi and stolen iIndoor brilliant lights, energy saving lights and other electrical items valued at N10 million.

The three other accused are alleged to have received the stolen items from Achong.

The offences contravened Sections 287, 309, 328 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

The Magistrate, Mrs A.S. Okubule, admitted the accused to a bail sum of N500,000 each with two responsible sureties each in like sum, who must show proof of tax payment in the last two years.
Olusegun, whose address was not given, is facing a charge of assault.

He said the accused gave the complainant several fist-blows that caused him severe injuries, after a disagreement they had over money.

There was an argument between the complainant and the accused, and the defendant started beating him mercilessly. It was onlookers that rescued the complainant,  he said.

The prosecutor said that the accused was arrested by a policeman on duty at the bus stop where the incident occurred.

Ikem said the offence contravened Section 171 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 171 provides for a three-year jail term for offenders.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The Chief Magistrate, Mr Jimoh Adefioye, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 with one surety in like sum.
FAAN gave the assurance in a statement signed by its Acting General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Mrs Henrietta Yakubu in Lagos on Monday.

Yakubu said that adequate measures had been put in place to checkmate the recurrence of any such outbreak in Nigeria.

She emphasised that all measures adopted in 2014 to curtail the dreaded virus were very much in place and had been fortified.

According to her, the Ebola Screening Points and detecting machines have been fully reinstated at the airports.

ALSO READ: WHO deploys investigation team to DRC

Yakubu said FAAN was also collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Health, through the Port Health Service, to reactivate the Ebola Awareness and Sensitisation Campaign.
The state Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr Paul Dogo, confirmed this when he spoke with newsmen in Kaduna on Monday.

Dogo said that the state had recorded the eight deaths from 11 confirmed cases of CSM as at May 5.

He said that the state recorded 68 suspected cases in 15 local government areas, but 11 cases were confirmed to be CSM and eight among them died.

He said the eight cases were confirmed in Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Igabi and Giwa Local Government Areas.

This makes Kaduna State to be ranked 22 out of the 28 states with confirmed cases of CSM nationwide, the commissioner said.

He said that proactive measures were being taken and DSNOs and ADSNOs personnel were being trained on CSM outbreak investigation and case management.

According to him, relevant personnel of the ministry are handling procurement of spinal needles, pastorex kits and TI bottles as well as repositioning of drugs, ceftriaxone and medical consumables to health facilities for case management.

Dogo said distribution of ciprofoxacin to high risk primary contacts of confirmed cases was going on while meningitis alert had been sent to all medical doctors.

Awareness campaigns through radio jingles and distribution of posters, syringes and gloves, training on CSF sample collection and transportation is also going on to tackle further oubreak, Dogo said.

Meanwhile, the commissioner said that the state had also confirmed two cases of Lassa fever in the state within the period.

We have recorded two cases of Lassa fever in 2017, one male and female, both from Igabi Local Government Area, he said.

Dogo said the two persons came visited the state from Gombe and Ebonyi states, respectively.

While the male patient was isolated in Kakuri IDCC and treated successfully with Ribavirin, the female patient died on the day of presentation and was diagnosed post mortem with blood sample.
Olatinwo said this at the inauguration of the clinic under the Family Medicine Department of the hospital on Tuesday in Ilorin.

He assured that the clinic would strive to promote elders wellbeing by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities in adults.

He said the presidential order mandated that all teaching hospitals in the country must make the care of the elders a top priority.

Dr Sam Alabi, the Head of Department of Family Medicine, UITH, commended the management for establishing the clinic.

He expressed optimism that the clinic would live up to the standards it had been established to achieve.

Alabi informed the audience that people from 40 years upwards are entitled to this privilege.

According to him, the clinic will run every Thursday after which it will commence full operations everyday once fully established.

The Head of Nursing Department, Mrs Elizabeth Aina, appealed to the elderly to endeavour to visit the clinic for their health needs.

Aina said that it was a unique opportunity to have such a facility at the hospital.
The decision was reached on Tuesday, May 16, after Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe brought the exclusion to the Senates notice.

The eastern section of the rail segment, which has a link between the south-east to the north-eastern parts of the rail line is completely excluded from the request, Abaribe said according to The Cable.

The loan being a federal government borrowing would be paid for all sections of the country, therefore every section of the country should be taken into consideration.

There is a railway master plan developed by the ministry of transport and of which such plans has not being referred to in the current borrowing plan," he added.

President Muhammadu Buhari, via a letter sent on April 26, sought the National Assemblys permission to borrow $5.851 billion for the upgrade of various sections of the Nigerian railway.
It is some sweet music to the ears of the average Lagosian. And I am one of those.

VIO personnel have become principalities in Lagos.

That they've become a nuisance as well, isn't even up for debate.

I should know.

Three years ago, a friend was visiting from the United States. As we made our way from Alagbole to Ojodu-Berger during rush hour, there they were. Unsmiling, uncouth and belligerent.

They were belching smoke and fire from every nostril, these officers from hell.

My friend was driving us in her car. Because she doesn't reside in Nigeria, of course some of her "papers" weren't up-to-date.

She had only just arrived the country and we were taking the car for a morning spin.

All pleas fell on the deaf ears of the VIO officers who made us drive to their office, hidden somewhere in Ojodu.

We coughed out some 20k before we were allowed to proceed with our trip.

The fear of VIO in Lagos has become the beginning of wisdom for residents of this bustling city.

Lately, Lagosians have taken to twitter to warn family and friends in advance about where the officers are hiding, with the hashtag #VIOSightings.

Like most uniform wearing law enforcers in Nigeria, these VIO chaps extort money from motorists with the flimsiest of reasons.

It could be that you don't have water in your trunk. Your vehicle could be impounded over something as flimsy as driving close to a kerb!

We've all been there I guess--that moment when a VIO officer jumps in front of your car, demands for your papers and begins to leaf through the bundle with a stern look on his face.

Because you are sure that your vehicle particulars are up-to-date, you crank up the volume of your stereo until the officer who has your papers orders that you "park well" because your car doesn't have a "dustbin certificate" or a decent spare tyre!

Or you could be told that your "vehicle insurance expired this morning" or "your alignment is a danger to other road users".

And so, where traffic is normally hell in Lagos, the VIO officer makes the bedlam on the streets triple that.

They yell, they bark, they harass, they cause road mishaps and they compound traffic in congested Lagos.

It's a good thing that Ambode has also asked men and women of the FRSC to keep off State roads.

The FRSC chaps were 'gentlemen' until recently when they allowed the VIO spirit seize them.

It is not uncommon to see FRSC officers hide around sharp bends these days just to extort and cause traffic bottlenecks.

It's been two years since I applied for a drivers' license at the FRSC office in Ojodu-Berger.

I drive around town with a 'permit' handed me by a driving school right inside the premises of the FRSC.

Of course I could drive at the time, but this 'driving school' offered me no driving lessons. FRSC officers told me to pay the 'driving school' N20,000 for my license and test.

No one has ever asked me to come over for a test.

So, what you find inside FRSC offices are all kinds of 'driving school' outposts who collect N20,000 or more with the express permission of FRSC personnel who announce on radio and TV that a license costs just N6,500.

A syndicate right inside the premises of an agency of government!

It has become rather difficult to distinguish VIO personnel from their FRSC counterparts on Lagos roads; or to tell the 'owo da' miscreants from the law enforcers.

It has become evident that these agencies contribute to the traffic challenges on our roads. We will employ technology to track and monitor vehicle registration and MOT certifications, Ambode said, in what should pass as the understatement of the century.

He was right on the money there.

I don't know of any other 'mega-city' in the world where all kinds of officers wearing all kinds of uniforms are unleashed on busy streets and highways just to apprehend traffic offenders or just to make sure everyone has a fire extinguisher.

There are more civilised ways to rein in offenders, I'm sure.

Hopefully, the Governor goes one better by kicking the men in black--otherwise called police officers--off dark street corners.

Yeah, those guys who are armed with flash lights at the oddest of hours with the phrase: "happy weekend Sir, wetin dey for your boys na?" now uttered by rote.

To make Lagos a better place to do business, we need saner streets.

Kicking out the VIO and restricting the FRSC to federal roads, was exactly what the Doctor recommended.

Why it took Lagos this long, has to be the major concern.
Ali Musa said the trio, believed to have been sent by Boko Haram jihadists, struck at Shuwari Buri village, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri at around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Monday.

"Two of them rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives, killing two brothers who had retired for the night," he added.

"The third bomber detonated her explosives among residents who had gathered ... injuring seven."

The three bombers had earlier told villagers they were travellers and asked them for accommodation for the night. But they were refused on security grounds.

Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia assisting the military with security, gave an identical account.

Shuwari Buri is in the Konduga area, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings and gun attacks.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations.

Many of the bombers have been women and young girls.

The phenomenon has increased as the Islamist militants lost captured territory to the military due to a sustained counter-insurgency that began in early 2015.

The rebels' push for a hardline Islamic state in the region has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria alone and displaced more than 2.6 million others.
Osinbajo gave the order after receiving the SIP update report, a statement by the Vice Presidential Spokesman, Laolu Akande, said on Tuesday, May 16.

Akande said about N41 billion has so far been spent on the SIPs with no fewer than 25 million meals served under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme.

He said 1,051,619 primary school pupils were fed across the seven states of Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, and Zamfara state engaging about 11,847 cooks.

Altogether 8,587 schools are involved in the affected states.

The spokesman said more meals would be served as Delta and Abia States were now to come on the programme later in the week.

Delta state is expected to receive more than N63.3 million to start the feeding of 90, 523 pupils, while Abia is to receive N42.9 million.

"Besides, Kaduna State has now been repaid N3.4 billion for its past expenses in implementing the food programme ahead of FGs roll-out," he added.

A breakdown of the over N41 billion so far spent on the SIPs, showed that N-Power, which is the job programme for unemployed graduates, received N26.418 billion.

This is the single largest spending item of the four social investment programmes under the 2016 Appropriation.

He said the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSFP) received N7.092 billion, Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) N800 million and Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP) N7.301 billion.

"For instance, under the N-Power job scheme for unemployed graduates now running in 36 States and FCT, 162,024 unemployed graduates have been effectively enrolled and validated.

"This means that the enrollees have been cleared to be receiving the N30,000 monthly stipends, out of the 200,000 originally engaged late last year," he said.

Akande said an additional number has just been added to the list of those receiving their pay in the last several weeks noting that effort is being made to validate others.

This, he said, is to ensure that the 200,000 places provided for in the first batch of the programme are effectively enrolled for the first phase of the programme.

He said a date for the reopening of the portal to receive more applications under the programme would be announced soon.

Under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme, Akande said that 26,942 beneficiaries in nine states and 84 local government areas were being funded as at April with the monthly N5,000 stipend.

The states are Borno, Cross River, Niger, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Oyo, Osun and Bauchi.

He said based on the recent directive of the Acting President, the number was expected to rise up to about 400,000 beneficiaries covering more states in the next few months.

The spokesman said 57,234 interest free loans were disbursed under the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP), designed to empower market women, traders and artisans.
Dogara said this on Monday in Abuja at the launch of a book titled Antidotes for Corruption: The Nigerian Story written by Sen. Dino Melaye.

He said that only strong institutions could fight corruption in the country.

According to him, for the war against corruption to succeed, there must be institutional reforms that would help put in place measures to make it near impossible for people to engage in corrupt acts.

Corruption as a disease must be treated from its roots and not just the symptoms, he said.

Dogara explained that it was the moral responsibility of all men and women of goodwill to fight corruption because every individual paid the price of corruption in the society.

As a country, we ran into a situation where corruption was becoming the norm; there was this moral cult that we had created that celebrated corruption, he said.

He added that the motivation was always there for corruption, but that now, what was important was not just fighting the old corrupt system.

Really, if we must make progress, our focus should be to replace the old order that was corrupt with a new order that makes corruption near impossible to take place.

So, when those who celebrate the successes of the fight against corruption in terms of the high profile investigation, high profile prosecution and even detention, they are missing the point because that is dealing with the symptoms of corruption, he said.

Dino is highly opinionated, obviously, he will be a magnet for opinionated and truculent criticism as well, and he will not escape that, he said.

ALSO READ: Dogara releases pay slips for 6 months

Dogara also commended the Nigerian Labour Congress, which protested on May 1, demanding for the rights of workers during the Workers Day celebration in Abuja.

Recently, in the labour community, we went for May Day and some of us were nearly held hostage. You cannot blame the workers.

While they were agitating for their rights, agitating for minimum wage, some of us are talking about living wage.

You see, the workers control, perhaps, about 96 per cent of the budget. In the National Assembly, we have about 92 per cent, judiciary and the rest.

So, if you do not make the environment conducive for those who administer this money not to want to be corrupt, you will end up jailing people, he said.
The projects were inaugurated in Tsamiya, Rakuma, Gwarguwa, Adarawa, Rafin Dankure and Gidan Dakko communities in Bakura Local Government and Jaurin-Fulani and Jaurin-Rogo in Gusau Local Government Area.

The semi-urban water projects were also inaugurated at Garbadu and Morai communities in Talata-Mafara Local Government Area of the state.

Fashola commended Yari for executing the projects, saying they

had direct bearing to the lives of people.

He said what we are witnessing today is the real execution of the manifesto of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

I commend Gov. Yari for these projects that we believe will enhance socio-economic activities among the people.

I am calling on the good people of Zamfara to continue to give full cooperation to the present administration.

In his speech, Yari said the state government spent billions of Naira to execute the projects, aimed at improving socio-economic activities in the state.

He said the present administration always considered the basic needs of the people, noting that that was why we gave priority to education, healthcare, water supply and rural road while executing projects.

He urged the benefitting

communities to watch over the facilities and to avoid vandalism.
Fayose also said that he will make sure husbands who beat their wives are prosecuted.

The Governor also said We are against violence against women in Ekiti. If you do it and I have evidence against you, you will go to prison.

There are several ways of dealing with a woman. There is zero tolerance to violence against woman in Ekiti.

The Governor also revealed that the new Government House in Oke Ayaba, will be named after the former Governor of the Old Western Region, late Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo (Rtd).

He said I have also directed that the new Government House and the General Hospital in Iyin Ekiti be named after him. This is not politics but governance.
The governor stated this while receiving the management of the Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria (RRIN), Benin on a courtesy visit at the Edo Government House in Benin on Monday.

Obaseki noted that rubber once served as a source of foreign earning for the country before the discovery of crude oil.

He, however, said that as crude oil could no longer sustain the economy of the country, it was worthwhile for the state to invest in rubber production as it had all the resources to do so.

Rubber is a global commodity; we are going to look at the global price for the commodity and work on how to improve on the business in the state, he said.

He also said that his administration was planning to create a master plan for rubber production and was ready to collaborate with the institute to achieve the feat.

We want to know the location and soil types where rubber can do well in the state.

We want to agree on how much land we want to make available for rubber cultivation, the quantity of yield to expect and to know the key investors," he added.

Obaseki, however, said that the state government would not be directly involved in rubber production but would give the needed support to boost and sustain rubber production.

He said Our own is to support local farmers and investors to grow rubber plantation.

We need to understand the whole value chain and the stakeholders in the rubber cluster, to make Edo a key rubber producing region on the continent.

The governor promised to rehabilitate the major road leading to the rubber institute and include the institute in the state proposed 5 megawatt electricity project.

He called on the institute to partner with the state government in revamping the Ministry of Agriculture, especially its crop session, going by its vast human capacity and technical know-how.

The governor said that the state would like to adopt a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the institute that would allow for interchange of human capacity between the two parties.

Obaseki,therefore, requested a roundtable with the institute to be attended by other stakeholders to put about 100,000 hectares of land for rubber plantation in Edo in the next 5 years.

ALSO READ:Governor

Earlier, the acting Executive Director of the institute, Dr Airguamen Aigbodion, said the institute had developed rubber clones capable of yielding 2,500kg per year.

He said the clones were believed to be some of the highest yielding clones in the world.

Aigbodion further said the institute was involved in providing technical assistance in all aspects of rubber production to farmers and capacity building for youths and women group involved in rubber production.
Speaking to Daily Post, IPOBs spokesman, Emma Powerful said May 30 will be a remarkable day in Biafras history.

Powerful also added that IPOB is a non-violent group that follows the laid down rules of the United Nations Charter for the rights of the indigenous people.

He said We are advising Biafrans, both home and abroad to observe the remembrance day celebration of our fallen heroes and heroines who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our people to live today in Nigeria.

The May 30 sit-at-home and remembrance day celebration will be a remarkable event in the history of Biafra.

We are going to maintain the peaceful approach in pursuit of our freedom from Nigeria. The Biafra liberation movement is sacrosanct and we are waxing stronger both at home and diaspora and will not go back in the quest for the restoration of Biafra.

Anybody who is thinking to sabotage the struggle is doing that at his or her own detriment, the conditional bail attached to our leader was to cage him and to dampen the high spirits of IPOB family members worldwide.

We blame the judicial commission and Attorney General of the Federation for allowing Justice Binta Nyako to continue messing up the judicial system in Nigeria.

The Attorney General of the Federation should have dropped all the concocted and fabricated charges preferred against our leader, Nnamdi Kanu and others remanded in prison to save their image in the face of the international community.

It is very appalling that a well trained judge like Justice Binta Nyako would allow herself and the court to be used to bar Kanu from exercising his fundamental human rights.

However, the continued detention of these people in different prisons and DSS secret cells across the country remained the weakness on the side of the Judicial Commission and Attorney General of the Federation.

It is very abnormal that the Judicial Service Commission and judiciary in Nigeria that suppose to be the last hope for the common man would turn themselves to be problem for the masses.

With the judgment on April 25, 2017 banning our leader from speaking to the press and staying with more than 10 persons, proves to the world that the judiciary in Nigeria is where truth can never prevail.

According to the information reaching us, those our members detained in different prisons and secret cells across the country are no more safe, almost all of them are sick without proper medical attention, especially those in Kuje prison.

We are calling for their immediate release to enable them take proper medical treatment because we will not take it easy with anybody if anything happens to any of our members in detention anywhere in the country.

We are calling on men and women of good conscience across the globe, Amnesty International and relevant human rights organisations to prevail on the Attorney General of the Federation and the Judicial Service Commission to drop the concocted and fabricated charges preferred against our leader Nnamdi Kanu and others detained illegally alongside him in Kuje Prison because they committed no offence against anybody or Nigeria.

ALSO READ: 6 Conditions for IPOB leader

The injustice against the people of Biafra in Nigeria are numerous to mention, IPOB, under the leadership of Kanu have decided to fight it to a standstill.

Of course, many are aware that this is a project of God Almighty (Chukwu Okike Abiama) which IPOB embarked upon to liberate our people from the shackles of bondage, he added.
On Wednesday, May 10, the State Assembly set up an 8-member panel to probe Emir Sanusi over alleged abuse of office and improper conduct, among other allegations.

The assembly's move followed a step taken by the state's anti-corruption agency to investigate the Emir.

The agency said it was probing allegations of financial impropriety running into billions of naira leveled against Sanusi.

ALSO READ: Outspoken Emir of Kano is facing corruption probe

But at plenary, Rep Aliyu Sani Madaki - APC, Kano - raised a point of order, calling on the House to intervene in the matter.
The Managing Director of the commission, Mr Nsima Ekere, disclosed this at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on two programmes under the Department of International Development (DFID), in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.

The Facility for Oil Sector Transparency and Reform (FOSTER) and the Market Development Project in the Niger Delta (MADE) are the two programmes under DFID, a UK government aid organisation.

Ekere said that NDDC sought assistance from FOSTER and MADE due to the current managements determination to reposition the commission for better service delivery to the nine Niger Delta states.

The core mandate of NDDC is to facilitate rapid and sustainable development of the Niger Delta to one that is economically prosperous, socially stable, politically peaceful and ecologically regenerative.

That explains why upon assumption of office, we felt that we can hardly do it alone without external support and collaboration.

To this end, FOSTER will support improvements to prioritisation of projects and budgeting while strengthening transparency, discipline spending and overhaul NDDCs internal systems, processes and procedures.

Similarly, FOSTER will provide support for project monitoring and evaluation that tracks projects and programmes from award; implementation to impact assessment, he said.

Ekere said that the aid organisation would improve the commissions Quarterly Report and provide technical support and communication strategy for regular engagement with stakeholders in the region.

He explained that MADE, under the terms of the agreement, would work with the commission to assist disadvantaged agriculture marketers with focus to boost agriculture in the region.

According to him, the MoU will also enable grant-funding for sustainable development initiatives that will stimulate growth in Non-Oil Products.

The fund will enhance oil palm production, development of poultry farming, training in the production of finished leather goods and training in aquatic farming, among others.

Economic diversification is vital to the regions long-term economic growth and as such, we must align ourselves with programmes that seek to advance this vital cause.

For this reason, agriculture and other factor markets must be given much needed attention in order to exploit opportunities that can create jobs and boost employment in the region, he said.

Ekere said that both partnership heralded a new future for the commission and was indication of current move by the new NDDC board and management to fast track the regions development.

Team Lead of FOSTER, Mr Henry Adigun, commended NDDC for the opportunity and assured of the organisation's determination to rebrand the commission for efficient service delivery.

He said that DFID under which FOSTER operated was particularly concerned with events in the Niger Delta and was willing to provide other support to the region.
The party also said that they will blow a trumpet to announce the high level fraud going on in Ortoms administration.

The Governor had earlier called on anybody who has an evidence of misappropriation against his government to blow the whistle.

Reacting to Ortoms challenge, Sunday Itodo, a prominent PDP chieftain, through his spokesman, said We read with shocks the recent call by the state governor, Samuel Ortom that people should expose him through the whistle-blowing policy if he or any of his appointees are found to have stolen any public money.

This is a case of the wicked man running while no one is after him. The governor should not forget the adage that says he who fetches ant-infested firewood should not complain when the lizard storms his house.

The governor is calling on people to blow the whistle but we will blow not just whistle trumpet because the sound of the whistle might be too low, considering how Ortom has ruined the state within his two years in power.

Ortom should be ready to explain to the anti-graft agency while civil servants in the state now beg to survive despite obtaining loans, intervention funds and the Paris Club refund allocation.

Ortom has proven that he is truly not capable of leading the state and should be ready to follow the exit door, come 2019.
The Head, Media and Public Affairs at NGF Secretariat, Mr Abulrazque Barkindo, said this in a statement in Abuja.

Barkindo denied allegation that Gov. Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara and Chairman of the Forum, was building a three-million dollar hotel from monies stolen from refunds to states.

Barkindo said that the false allegation gave cause for worry.

"The reports contain harmful, damaging and libelous insinuations which remain largely unsubstantiated, despite the fact that it attributes the leaks to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials in Lagos.

"Governor Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar has said emphatically that he does not even own a plot of land in Lagos not to talk of a hotel," the spokesman said.

He said some EFCC officials in Lagos claimed that "they have found a hotel being constructed by Gov. Yari with three million dollars he stole from London-Paris Club loan refund to Nigerian states."

He also quoted the report as saying that "apart from the $3million, Gov. Yari also diverted N500 million from the Paris Club refund to pay off a loan."

Barkindo described all the claims as wrong, harmful, libelous and misleading disclosures.

"Gov. Yari is not building any hotel in Lagos nor were any monies stolen or embezzled from the Paris-London Club refunds to states or from any other source."

Bakindo said that an online medium quoted the EFCC extensively as its source.

ALSO READ: SERAP urges FG to deal with Governors who allegedly diverted Paris Club Refunds

He said that the NGF was alarmed that the EFCC continued to feed the media fibs at the expense of its hard-earned reputation as anti-graft agency that Nigerians used to respect.

"This is perhaps why the EFCC has lost most of the high-profile corruption cases at the law courts after it had unfairly stage-managed media trials and caused their victims personal pain and public umbrage.

"This report, typical of most of the exclusive leaks that are becoming characteristic of the sources that court some sections of the media, lacks detail and compelling evidence to be fit to print.

Barkindo said that the sources were courageous enough to mention a hotel in Lekki area of Lagos but gave neither a street name nor any specific information on the property to give credibility to the allegations.

"This does no service to any investigation nor does it help the development of our country Nigeria.

"The media, we all know, is entitled to perform its duties as watchdog of society, which is enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
According to him, the mining sector is one of the few sectors that experienced positive growth index even at the peak of the recession.

He pointed out that the sector holds the key to the economic diversification for sustainable development of the current administration.

To achieve this, he said, the Federal Government had put in place adequate regulatory frameworks and investment-friendly policies.

Fayemi said that the policies hoped to attract genuine investment and fast track effectiveness in the sector.

He identified some of the policies to include security of tenure of minerals titles, transparent procedures for granting access to mineral titles and internationally competitive mining incentives.

Others were comprehensive geoscience data of mineral deposits and their locations in Nigeria as well as deferred royalty payments.

The others were exemption from customs and import duties for plant, machinery, equipment for mining operations, three to five years tax holiday and tax concessions.

These initiative is already yielding positive results based on the data from the .

He said that the theme of the fair, Building a Solid Ground for a Resilient Economy, was apt because Nigeria is endowed with vast solid minerals.

The minister, who expressed the need to adequately harness and develop the sector, hoped that the fair would usher greater collaboration between Federal and state governments.

Earlier, the Dr Farida Dankaka, President Kaduna Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, said that the fair was aimed at showcasing the products and services in Nigerias solid mineral sector.

Dankaka added that the forum hope to create awareness on best practices and application of technology to tackle environmental hazards in the mining sector.

According to her, the three-day forum is the first of its kind in northern Nigeria and is expected to provide a platform for stakeholders in the region in harnessing solid mineral deposits that have remained untapped.

We hope that through this gathering, states and local governments would be encouraged to organise and register artisanal miners operating in their domain."

This would ensure safer mining environment and improve revenue generation."

It would equally curb environmental degradation and unhealthy practices that characterised illegal mining in local communities,  Dankaka said.
Though details are not yet established, the film will focus on the activities and impact of the Islamic extremist group, Boko Harama, which is based in northeastern Nigeria.

Tonye Princewill is a Nigerian businessman and politician who was the 2015 Labour Party nominee for Governor of Rivers State.

He was one of the executive producers of the critically acclaimed historical drama, "76," which was directed by Izu Ojukwu, and produced by Adonis Productions and Princewill's Trust.

The cast of "76" were trained for 21 days by the Nigerian Defence Academy.
The partys Chairman, Chief Damishe Sango, made the call while addressing newsmen shortly after a joint Caucus and Executive Committee meeting at the partys secretarieat in Jos.

The meeting noted with concern, the lingering crisis withing the party at the national level.

Having noted that the courts cannot form a party, the meeting was unanimous in acknowledging the fact that we cannot afford to allow the crisis linger on for a while.

We there call on all relevant stakeholders to think outside the box with a view to tackling the issue head on,  he said.

Sango said that the meeting received with sadness, the incident of Friday, when one Gyang Bandung and some people attempted to force their way into the party secretariat with protection from armed police men.

According to him, the May 2016 State Congress is adjudged to be free and fair and therefore, condemns in strong terms, all forces both within and outside the party which masterminded the move.

Consequently, he disclosed the constitution of a seven-man disciplinary committee to deal with erring members following the factions action.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the committee has Mr Ibrahim Kafi as chairman.

Sango said that the party could no longer tolerate the indiscipline being perpetrated by some of its members, particularly two of them who allegedly spearheaded a revolt at its secretariat.

Due to the need to check the excesses of members and to bring order within the rank and file of the party, we decided to constitute a disciplinary committee,  he said.

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On the ongoing INEC registration of voters, the party chairman called on all party members and followers who attained 18 years of age to come out en-mass and register for the 2019 polls.
In 1998, after the death of Sani Abacha, many Nigerians were celebrating the death of the former Head of State. We thought it'd be the last time.

But now, staff of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) are celebrating the suspension of their Vice chancellor, Prof. Olusola Oyewole.

The Federal Government suspended the Vice chancellor last week over a series of allegations and investigations on maladministration and financial malpractices.

By 11.00am, open grounds were already filled in this school with staff unions on the ground, ready to turn up to the Prof's shutdown.

This party, Daily Times gathered, was jointly organised by the Joint Action Congress (JAC). They didn't just show up for the party. They dressed the part.

"End to tyranny in FUNAAB. Honestly, we have every course to have this party. We experienced a period of authoritarian leadership that has never been in the over 20 years existence of this university."

That's what the chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU FUNAAB), Rotimi Fasuwon said of the VC's removal.

Part of this symbolic activity going on at the venue is the frying of akara which in Yoruba culture is done to celebrate the passage of a dead one.

So basically, the VC is dead to them.

But how bad was he?

Really, really bad. According to a student we spoke to.

"All he did was promote his own people and ignore staff," the student said.

The student went on:

"Everyone hasn't been happy with him cause his tenure is easily one of the baddest there has been. The whole school calendar being upside down for the longest time. Robbers have been terrorizing us staying off campus and there wasn't any official statement or reassurance given to the students, a lot of hostels were robbed, students beaten and raped but the school was quiet."

Apparently, his tenure was supposed to end in May, but they wanted to make sure there would be no happy endings for him.

"His tenure is actually supposed to be over this month and he was suspended earlier this month because the man's corrupt."
The papers sold for as high as N200,000, according to the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Prof. Is-haq Oloyede.

According to the Registrar, the fraudsters claimed to have prepared answers to the examination questions being conducted by JAMB.

We know this because he spoke about it during the monitoring of the ongoing UTMEs with the Minister of State for Education Prof. Anthony Anwukah in Abuja.

This is how it's done.

There's no special skill. Just the good old swap-game. They simply take past question papers and redesign them by changing the date and then sell them.

He said some candidates fell for the trick, paying huge sums of money to purchase the question papers only to be disappointed on the examination day.

The registrar said:

This morning, somebody sent me questions. They call it Orijo and he bought it for N200,000 and when I saw it, it was our questions in 1984 and he just put 2017 on it and started selling it and people are buying it.

So, if people are corrupt, I wont have any sympathy if they are duped by corrupt people like themselves. They are just being wise. They went into the past questions of JAMB and just changed the heading.

Somebody else called me and said he had all my questions. I asked him to send them to me and when I checked, I just laughed because none of that was in our questions. What people are just doing, they are making money because people are gullible.

We appeal to people to do things according to the rules. No cutting of corners will work with JAMB and that is why many of the candidates who fell for such blackmail are disappointed.

On performance.

The board has released the results of the examination conducted on Saturday.

He said:

The result of UTME has come out and the performance is not too bad. But we are sure that this is the performance now rather than thinking you can get result one way or the other.

And of course, he talked about the incident where candidates couldn't write their exams at Ladoke Akintola University.

Arrangements are being made by the board to transfer its candidates at the two CBT centres in Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho, Oyo State to University of Ilorin to write their examination.

He said about 440,000 candidates out of the 1.7 million that registered for the UTME sat for the examination on the second day.

Prof. Anwukah hailed the board for smooth conduct of the examination. He had a few things to say too:
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two-day workshop opened on May 16, to end on May 18.

ACE is a World Bank Project for African Universities with a focus on Agriculture, Health, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

According to Blom, the project is meant to give the nations tertiary institutions a facelift, so that they could become internationally-recognised.

Nigeria is the biggest country in African and has ten centres out of the twenty-two centres in Africa."

The country has strong universities but they are not well-recognised internationally."

So the quality needs to be raised with the assistance of the ongoing programme, he said.

Blom noted that Nigerians spent huge funds on education outside the country but said that all the funds could be harnessed locally, if the standard of education was improved.

We need better universities; we need very good teachers curriculum and laboratories so that Nigerian talents can stay in Nigeria and work in country, he said.

Also speaking, Prof Anthony Anwukah, Minister of State for Education, said the Federal Government was satisfied with the progress made so far on the ACE project.

Anwukah, however, commended the universities and the National Universities Commission for their cooperation toward the success of the programme.

The Federal Government through the NUC, has allowed all Nigerian Universities, irrespective of proprietorship, to participate in the project, he said.

The minister reiterated the Federal Governments desire to continue to sustain the project beyond its initial life cycle.

The World Banks Board of Executive Directors in 2014 approved US$150 million to finance 19 university-based Centers of Excellence in seven countries in West and Central Africa.

These competitively selected centres will receive funding for advanced specialised studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related disciplines, as well as in agriculture and health.

This landmark Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) project, which will equip young Africans with new scientific and technical skills, will be financed through IDA credits to the governments of Nigeria (US$70 million), Ghana (US$24 million), Senegal (US$16 million), Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Togo (US$8 million each).

The Gambia will also receive a US $2 million credit and a US$1 million grant to provide higher education, including short-term training, to students, faculty and civil servants through the 19 ACEs.

The World Banks International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960, helps the worlds poorest countries by providing loans (called credits) and grants for projects and programmes that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor peoples lives.

IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the worlds 81 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Resources from IDA bring positive change for 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day.
But that is what the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu is saying  the government wants foreign investors to buy into its smart cities project  and he says the government is not playing around either.

I have had the privilege of speaking with a lot of foreign investors persuading them to come to Nigeria because Nigeria offers a lot of advantage in terms of the huge population.

On the West African sector of the African continent, Nigerias population is more than that of the other 14 countries. That means that there is a huge market and any investor who comes will never regret, says the good minister, according to a New Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report.

Nobody is opposing progress, but news like this seem a bit redundant at this point. All they do is repeat an oft-told story of misplaced priorities and misguided forays into pointless ventures championed by clueless, obstinate leaders. How and why is this even a thing?

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Well, Rwanda is getting on that boat and Oga Shittu is looking to replicate such a feat here in Nigeria. Never mind that Rwanda has a total population of 11 million (thats half the population of Lagos) and a 6.9% GDP growth rate (Nigeria only has 2.7%) and the completely non-existent basis for attempting to replicate  we have bigger fish to fry. Remember how Vodafone has struggled to replicate M-Pesa outside Kenya?

Rwandas blueprint on its smart cities program says a smart city is meant to integrate available technologies at every level of urban management. Mr. Shittus first point of call on the so-called Smart Cities project is solar-powered base stations. For the love of God, we have not even figured out how to install functioning solar-powered streetlights  talk less of base stations.

Nigeria has a well-documented power problem; which is why I assume we are going after wholly solar-powered smart cities? Because that is the only logic that supports pursuing a project such as this in a country of 200+ million people with an output of barely 4000MW. There is also the sheer difficulty that comes with doing business in Nigeria  we are ranked 169 out of 190 countries by the World Bank  but you want foreign investors.

In a country where cost of internet is still astronomical, majority of population still lives on less than $2 a day and the legislative arm plans to spend N55 million on souvenirs, N777 million on photocopying machines, N9 billion on wardrobe allowance, and N197 million for budget coordination activities, is this what we should be considering?
"The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East.

"And these atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran."

And he added a message to President Vladimir Putin's government: "Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now."

Jones' warning came as UN-mediated peace talks between Damascus and the Syrian opposition were about to resume in Geneva, and appeared aimed at maintaining pressure on Assad's backers.

The head of the opposition delegation to the talks welcomed the US statement, but complained it had come too late.

"This is but a drop in the ocean. What happens in the regime's prisons is much uglier than this," Nasr al-Hariri said.

"The time has come for the world -- chiefly the US -- to act to halt these human rights violations."

'Cover up'

One newly released image, a commercial satellite photograph dating back to January 2015, shows snow melting on the roof of a building attached to the Saydnaya military complex north of Damascus.

This, along with an earlier picture allegedly showing heavy-duty ventilation systems on the structure, appears to support earlier claims by rights groups that Saydnaya is an execution center.

"Beginning in 2013, the Syrian regime modified a building within the Saydnaya complex to support what we believe is a crematorium" built in "an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya," said Jones.

Jones, an acting assistant secretary of state, said Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the US "intelligence community" -- implying that classified evidence beyond the commercial pictures exists.

At Saydnaya, Syria holds up to 70 prisoners in cells that are meant for five, Jones alleged.

"And according to multiple sources, the regime is responsible for killing as many as 50 detainees per day at Saydnaya."

He did not give an official estimate for the total number killed, but cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died in the prison between 2011 and 2015.

Assad's regime, he alleged, has detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same period -- the first five years of a civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead.

It was not immediately clear why the United States waited more than two years to present its evidence.

Jones said: "I would say that this information has been developing."

He also said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had raised concerns about Assad's brutality with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to Washington last week.

Sarin attack

Moscow, along with Iran, is Syria's main foreign backer and Washington believes Russian pressure is the only thing that will compel Assad to negotiate a peace deal.

President Donald Trump came to office vowing to focus US efforts in Syria on defeating the Islamic State group, a jihadist force that exploited the civil war to seize the east of the country.

He also said he hoped to work with Putin towards this goal.

But relations with Moscow, already dire under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, have not improved and Assad has continued to bombard civilian areas in his battle with opposition rebels.

Last month, when Assad was again accused of using the banned nerve agent sarin in a strike on his own people, Trump ordered a retaliatory US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.

When asked whether the Saydnaya deaths could trigger action, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump would never "telegraph the actions he takes."
"I will vote for Mr Rouhani in the presidential election," Jahangiri said as he announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.

"I have completed my historic duty and, together with you, I will vote for Rouhani to help continue on the path to progress for this country," he told a crowd of several thousand people gathered in the southern city of Shiraz.

"Vote for Rouhani because he is the man for difficult situations... I ran as candidate to make the voice of reformists heard," said Jahangiri.

His decision comes one day after Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf withdrew from the race, paving the way for a head-to-head battle between Rouhani and conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.
The suspect, aged in his fifties, was arrested in November 2015 as part of the long-running investigation into the murder of Yvonne Fletcher.

The 25-year-old female officer was killed while policing what had been a small and peaceful demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London.

Her family said they were "deeply disappointed and frustrated" at Tuesday's news.

Supporters of Kadhafi -- the longtime Libyan dictator who would be killed in 2011 -- were holding a rival rally on the same day and "a number of shots were fired" from within the embassy, police said. Fletcher was fatally hit in the back.

The Metropolitan police said that although "enough material to identify those responsible" had been identified, it could not be presented in court.

"The key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security". After a review prosecutors decided there was "insufficient admissible evidence to charge the man".

In a statement released by police, Fletcher's family expressed regret.

"We had hoped that the latest turn of events would finally lead to some closure for the family," they said.

The killing of a woman police constable caused deep public revulsion and sparked an 11-day standoff with police outside the embassy, officially referred to as the Libyan People's Bureau.

It led to Britain severing diplomatic relations with Libya until 1999 and has long been an obstacle in ties between London and Tripoli, along with the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres (310 miles) further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists.

Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks.

Tuesday's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians.

"Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device."

Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected.

Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident.

The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers.
"We have tried everything to narrow the gaps, and they have become smaller... but we just couldn't succeed," veteran Dutch politician Edith Schippers told reporters.

She had been leading the effort to forge a common agenda between outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party (VVD) and three others.

The VVD, which won 33 MPs in March elections, has been in talks with the conservative Christian Democratic Appel (CDA) and the progressive Democracy Party (D66), which both won 19 seats.

But to reach a majority in the 150-seat lower house, the negotiations also included the environmental leftist party GroenLinks, whose young, charismatic leader Jesse Klaver boosted his party's MPs from four to 14.

From the beginning, doubts were raised about whether Klaver would be prepared to make the necessary compromises, especially those demanded by the CDA.

Rutte described the failed talks as "a pity," adding: "We wanted them to be successful, but we didn't succeed. We decided together that it just wouldn't work."

Immigration proved the main stumbling block, Rutte said, adding there had also been differences over climate change and income levels.

Asked about the specific reasons for the failure, Klaver reiterated that "we have tried compromises. Sometimes it works but this time it did not."

CDA leader Sybrand van Haersma Buma said he was deeply disappointed.

Had the talks succeeded, the new coalition would have had a total of 85 MPs -- a comfortable majority especially when faced with the far-right anti-Islam party of controversial MP Geert Wilders, who with 20 MPs makes up the largest party in the opposition.

Wilders crowed in a Tweet: "Very good news. No GroenLinks," adding his Freedom Party "is fully available."

Rutte however has vowed not to work with Wilders's anti-Islam anti-EU party even though it came second in the polls.

So it is likely, Rutte will now turn to one of the smaller parties, such as conservative Christian Union which won five seats. That would give them a very narrow 76-seat majority.

Schippers told reporters at a surprise press conference that she has already informed King Willem-Alexander of the failure of the talks, and would prepare a report to go before the new parliament.

It would now be up to parliament to decide what happens next, she added.
In a unanimous statement backed by China, the council vowed strong measures in response to Pyongyang's "highly destabilizing behavior" and demanded a halt to "further nuclear and ballistic missiles tests".

Pyongyang has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of 2016, with the Security Council adopting two sanctions resolutions last year to ramp up pressure and deny leader Kim Jong-Un the hard currency needed to fund his military programmes.

"There's a lot of sanctions left that we can start to do, whether it's with oil, whether it's with energy, whether it's with their maritime ships, exports," US Ambassador Nikki Haley told ABC television's "This Week".

"We can do a lot of different things that we haven't done yet. So our options are there."

The United States is in talks with China -- Pyongyang's sole major ally and main trading partner -- on a possible new sanctions resolution and the council is expected to discuss its steps during a closed-door meeting starting around 2000 GMT Tuesday.

'A substantial advance'

Kim personally oversaw Sunday's test, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and pictures by state media showed him gazing at the missile in a hangar before the launch.

In others he gleefully clasped hands with officers and staff after the black missile -- named as the Hwasong-12 -- ascended into the sky in the dawn light, atop a column of fire.

Under UN resolutions, North Korea is barred from developing nuclear and missile technology, with six sets of sanctions imposed on the isolated regime since it first tested an atomic device in 2006.

The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, with KCNA saying it flew to an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometres and travelled 787 kilometres before coming down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

That suggests a range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) or more if flown for maximum distance, analysts said.

Aside from Pyongyang's space launches, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US told AFP: "This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested."

On the respected 38 North website, aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling said it appeared to demonstrate an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could "reliably strike the US base at Guam" in the Pacific, 3,400 kilometres away.

"More importantly," he added, it "may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)".

The North has made no secret of its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

KCNA cited Kim as saying the North would never succumb to what it called the "highly ridiculous" US strategy of "militarily browbeating only weak countries and nations which have no nukes".

"If the US dares opt for a military provocation against the DPRK, we are ready to counter it," it said.

'Reckless provocation'

Last week South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation with Pyongyang and said at his inauguration that he was willing "in the right circumstances" to visit the North to ease tensions.

But he slammed the latest test as a "reckless provocation" and said dialogue would be possible "only if the North changes its attitude".

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday the North's latest missile test was dangerous, but warned against attempts to "intimidate" Pyongyang.

"We consider (the missile test) counter-productive, harmful and dangerous," Putin told reporters after an international forum in Beijing.

But he added: "We must stop intimidating North Korea and find a peaceful solution to this problem."

In April Pyongyang put dozens of missiles on show at a giant military parade through the capital, including one that appeared to be the type launched on Sunday.
Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a protracted conflict over the disputed region, and frequent exchanges of fire nearly spiralled into all-out war last year.

"Azerbaijani forces destroyed on Monday an Armenian Osa air defence system and its crew in the Fisuli-Khojavend sector of Karabakh's frontline in order to avert the threat it posed to Azerbaijan's aircraft," an official from the press service of Azerbaijan's defence ministry told AFP.

The separatist defence ministry in Karabakh said in a statement that the Azerbaijani army had damaged its military equipment with a guided missile, but denied casualties among its troops.

"Azerbaijani forces' provocation will not be left unanswered," it said.

The incident came after bloody clashes erupted between Azerbaijani and Karabakh troops in February that killed several Azerbaijani servicemen.

In April last year, at least 110 people from both sides were killed as simmering violence flared into the worst clashes in decades over the region.

A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the four days of fierce fighting but attempts to relaunch the stalled peace process since then have failed.

Baku and Yerevan have feuded over the Nagorny Karabakh region since Armenian separatists seized the territory in a war that claimed some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s and ended in a frail 1994 truce.

The two sides never signed a firm peace deal.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan, whose military spending exceeds Armenia's entire state budget, has repeatedly threatened to take back the breakaway region by force.
The summit will be held in Washington in late June, Yoon Young-Chan said, adding that details of the precise date and agenda would be decided later.

Moon backs engagement with nuclear-armed North Korea to try to reduce tensions, while Trump's administration has said military action was an option under consideration.

"We will prepare the summit as an opportunity to cement personal ties and friendship between the two leaders," Yoon said.

The announcement came a day after the North boasted a "successful" launch of the longest-range missile it has ever tested, sparking global alarm.

Tensions have been ratcheted up as Pyongyang and Washington exchanged hostile rhetoric, but Trump recently softened his posture, saying he would be "honoured" to meet the North's leader Kim Jong-Un.

Sunday's missile launch angered the White House which said the North had "been a flagrant menace for far too long" and called for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.

Moon has said he would be willing to visit the North "in the right circumstances", but also slammed Sunday's launch as a "reckless provocation", saying dialogue would be possible "only if the North changes its attitude."

Tuesday's announcement came as Matt Pottinger, senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, vowed joint efforts to curb the North's military ambitions during a visit to Seoul.
Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland have opposed an EU plan adopted in 2015 to take in 160,000 Syrian, Eritrean and Iraq asylum seekers from Greece and Italy.

"I call on Poland and Hungary who have not relocated a single person... to start doing so right now," EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters.

"If no action is taken by them before the next (Commission) report in June, the Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties and to open infringement procedures," he said.

Avramopoulos said a total of 18,418 asylum seekers have been relocated to other EU countries from the two Mediterranean states.

Under so-called EU "infringement proceedings" Brussels sends a letter to national governments to demand legal explanations over certain issues, before possibly referring them to the European Court of Justice.

EU states can eventually face stiff financial penalties if they fail to comply.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and other EU officials have long expressed frustration with the slow pace of relocation of asylum seekers aimed at tackling the worst migration crisis since World War II.

More than one million migrants have poured into the bloc in the last two years.
Duterte, whose nation holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year, held separate meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mongolian Prime Minister Jargaltulga Erdenebat on the sidelines of the summit.

"They want to join ASEAN and since I am now the chair, the Philippines is, they wanted me to sponsor their entry and I said, 'Yes, why not,'" Duterte told reporters in the Philippines.

The 10-member ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

A NATO member bordering the Middle East, Turkey straddles Europe and Asia. It's application for membership of the European Union has been bogged down for years.

Mongolia is a landlocked nation wedged between China and Russia.

Geographic location is the first criterion for ASEAN membership, along with recognition by all other members.

Duterte said Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who also attended the summit in China, asked him if he had considered geography in deciding to sponsor Turkey and Mongolia's ASEAN membership.

However Duterte insisted that the two nations were part of the region.

"They are. I would say that they are," Duterte said.

"Turkey seems to be ambivalent on whether to be a bridge of Europe and Asia or being an Asian ... Sometimes they say they are part of Asia. Sometimes they say they are a bridge of Asia to Europe."

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the ASEAN Secretariat, which is based in Indonesia.
Yonatan Tesfaye was arrested in December 2015 after writing on the social media platform that the government had used "force against the people instead of using peaceful discussion with the public."

While Yonatan's lawyer and defence witnesses argued the former spokesman of the opposition Blue Party was exercising his right to free speech, judge Belayhun Awol ruled the comments "exceeded freedom of expression" and amounted to encouraging terrorism.

"I think the government's intent and what it seeks is this: to restrict others from speaking freely," Yonatan's lawyer Shebru Belete Birru told AFP after the verdict.

The guilty verdict for "encouragement of terrorism" means Yonatan faces a possible sentence of between 10 and 20 years under the country's anti-terrorism laws, which have been criticised by rights groups and Ethiopia's allies, such as the United States, for being used to stifle dissent.

Yonatan's comments came shortly after protesters belonging to the country's largest ethnic group, the Oromos, took to the streets in towns outside the capital Addis Ababa, claiming a plan to expand the city's boundaries into their region amounted to a land-grab.

The protests led Ethiopia's government to declare a state of emergency last October, which was extended for another four months in March.

Yonatan was originally charged with being a member of the banned separatist Oromo Liberation Front, but prosecutors changed the charges against him last year.
The city of Davenport's effort to jump-start redevelopment of a residential area on East 6th Street long plagued by abandoned houses, empty lots and sporadic crime appears to be paying off.

Last week, the Davenport City Council agreed to convey a 1.6-acre vacant parcel on the north side of 6th Street between Grand and Sylvan avenues to architect Andrew Dasso for the building of six new single-family homes, beginning this summer.

Dasso and his family would build and occupy one, another would be built and occupied by a young family and a third would be built by Dasso "on spec." The remaining three lots would be offered for sale, bundled with Dasso-created home plans, and should have homes on them within two years.

The architect's aim is to create a community, not just housing.

His commitment is precisely what the city has been seeking since 2015-16 when it began an effort to spur private investment in the neighborhood by clearing out dilapidated homes and building three, affordable, single-family homes, said Bruce Berger, the city's director of community planning and economic development.

The city expects to build three additional homes this summer. All told, the city will have spent about $2.3 million in the area for acquisition, demolition and construction of homes and the replacement of deteriorated sidewalks and retaining walls, according to figures provided by the city.

"Where we see disinvestment, the government needs to step in more deeply to encourage re-investment," Berger said.

"We're excited," he said of Dasso's plans.

The city-built homes were financed through a $400,000 grant from the HOME Investment Partnership of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Income restrictions required that a single buyer have an annual income not to exceed $37,240 and a family of four have an annual income not to exceed $53,000, Berger said.

Dasso's homes will be market rate.

"We hope to create a community that will provide appraisal value," Dasso said, speaking in his office called (design)(build) by architects at 318 E. 3rd St. "A blighted area doesn't have a lot of appraisal value. We're hoping to pull that up."

Two reasons both the city and Dasso regard the area as prime for redevelopment are great views of the Mississippi River and close proximity to other redevelopments, including the new residential/commercial spaces being built in the former Harbor View building off Federal Street and a new Scott County Family Y planned for the former W.G. Block property.

City incentives

Dasso is getting financial help from the city in the sense that the 1.6-acre parcel will be given to him for free, so he doesn't have land costs. The conveyance comes along with a three-year deadline for when the six homes are to be built.

The parcel in question has been mostly vacant since the 1990s. Some homes were acquired as they came up for tax sales, with the last two purchased in the $30,000 range and demolished to free up the area for redevelopment, Berger said.

In addition to the land, the homes are in an urban revitalization tax exemption zone in which taxes on improvements can be exempt for three years, or abated on a sliding scale for 10 years, depending on what the developer chooses, Berger explained.

But everything else will be private financing.

The city had issued two formal "requests for proposals" for the parcel since 2000, but the only serious inquiry was for a multi-family apartment building, which "wasn't what everyone was envisioning," Berger said.

The city also shopped the idea of a "tiny house" development of perhaps 10 to 12 homes on the parcel, but "ultimately, no one again responded," Berger said.

Speaking about Dasso's project, 2nd Ward Alderwoman Maria Dickmann said she "loves the idea of infill, and the prospect of new families that can bring new life into the central city."

And, "with the modular construction, if you can construct the homes for what they are worth, that's good."

The homes, Dasso's bigger vision

Dasso expects to hold down construction costs by about 20 percent by having the homes based on his custom designs constructed in modules by Homeway Homes, based in Deer Creek, Illinois. The modules would then be brought to the site and "we can finish the exterior," he said.

He is hoping the homes can be built for $175,000 to $250,000.

To maximize the river views, the homes will have walkout basements facing south, with the front door facing 7th Street on the north.

But it's a "bigger vision outside of six homes," Dasso said. "I like to look at this as neighborhood development. We're hoping to create a community where we can raise our children together and have family dinners together and so forth."

The couple building the home next to him, Brad and Robin Wixom, are excited about this prospect, too.

Brad is a machinist for Deere & Co., working in the cylinder division. Robin runs an online craft supplies business from home, and they have a 3-year-old daughter. They currently live about six blocks away from the neighborhood, and are feeling the need for a bigger place to accommodate Robin's growing business.

"When Andrew and Marguerite approached us, we said, 'If you're going to be our neighbors, we're in,'" Robin Wixom said.

Robin has known Andrew since they went to middle school together in Rock Island. They reconnected as adults, and their families have become friends.

"We're excited about this project," Robin Wixom said. "We can't wait. We hope to be moved in by the end of the year. We're just waiting on our builder. We're ready to rock 'n' roll."

Dasso's long-range hope for the area would be for the building of a commercial space, say a coffee shop, where neighbors could meet. He draws inspiration from the redevelopment of the historic Sherman Hill area of Des Moines where he lived several years ago.

"I don't see a reason why it can't happen here," he said.
While the city of Davenport has made some progress toward finding a solution to the zoning problems with Timothy's House of Hope, many residents and business owners continued to protest its homeless outreach services coming to the neighborhood.

A packed house came to the Historic Washington Street Business Association's meeting Monday night at Johnnie's General Store, where Alderwoman Maria Dickmann, 2nd Ward, asked for a week's time to find a compromise.

"There have been some conversations that might lead to a resolution that everyone will be happy with," Dickmann said.

Timothy's House of Hope, a ministry of Compassion Church, moved into 1602 Washington St. last month after relocating from 1407 W. 4th St.

The city issued a cease-and-desist order on April 19 after finding that its meal service did not fit within the acceptable uses of its current C-2 zoning, General Commercial District.

Reversing course, the city has elected to issue Timothy's House of Hope a temporary permit as it changes its current zoning ordinance.

Because of the intent to change the zoning ordinance, City Attorney Tom Warner has said there is no justice in enforcing it if the law will be changed soon.

While Dickmann asked the businesses for a week to work out the issues, many scoffed at the idea, including Larry Nelson, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1975.

"I live right across the alley from them and I'm not interested in compromise," Nelson said. "If I have to compromise, I would like the city to reassess my property because they are not going to pay any. We're the ones who are going to get hit here."

Dickmann was then asked to name one advantage of having the services in the area and if she would want it in her neighborhood, which prompted Ezra Sidran to speak out in her defense.

Sidran pulled out a flier sent to different businesses and residents that referenced concerns about increased crime, littering and loitering, but said those things were already there.

"In the sentence right here, 'they have thrown it in our faces that we are the bad guys,'" Sidran said. "You're not bad guys, but you don't have any compassion, either."

When Dickmann again was asked if she would want those services in her neighborhood, she responded "If it was something that fit in the neighborhood, yes."

One of the major bones of contention though was the lack of meetings between the church and the business owners.

A meeting was supposed to take place Tuesday, but president Rick Piatt confirmed that the business association had canceled the meeting because it sought a more personal conversation between the parties.

"We don't have legal counsel," Piatt said. "That's not fair to us as a group if they are bringing their attorney. What are they scared of?"

In a letter to the city, the church's legal counsel, Mike Meloy, issued an ultimatum as a result.

"If the neighborhood association refuses to meet on May 22, 2017, we will not reschedule another meeting," Meloy said.

While Piatt said the association was adamant about holding the meeting without lawyers, he still held out hope of coming to an amicable resolution.

"I hope they work things out that are fair and honest for both sides," Piatt said. "Everybody can point fingers at everybody for doing something wrong, but I think we're trying to do something right. We're standing up for our neighborhood."
A film that concerns the opioid epidemic in America, produced by a Davenport native, will get its local debut Thursday at the Figge Museum after its premiere in Los Angeles.

"Warning: Take Only as Directed," is the first musical penned by Trish Figge Glowacki, the film's producer. Glowacki's 20-year-old son, Charlie, died in 2011 after a drug overdose, and the film's message seeks to find a way to end events like this.

The 26-minute film screening is included in a program, Thursday 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Figge, 225 W. Second St., Davenport.

Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch will emcee the event, which includes the introduction of Glowacki, who has returned to her hometown of Davenport from Maryland.

The evening includes student performances by the Quad-City Academy of Rock, the jazz choir from Assumption High School, Glowacki's alma mater, and a performance by Wicked Liz and the Belly Swirls, which will be joined by Dale Fisher, a musician who also is helping in local arrangements.

A roundtable discussion will follow, to include Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski, Fire Department Captain Todd Witchelo and others.

 Deirdre Cox Baker
I have a fatal disease: Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. It is destroying my kidneys and will soon require dialysis. Like 100,791 other Americans, I am waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant.

Experiencing kidney failure, dialysis and the uncertainty of transplant is a long, punishing road. Every morning you wake up wondering, "Can I make it through the day?" Thanks to my work family at the Scott County Family YMCA, I know I can.

They recently hosted a fundraiser for me that still overwhelms me with gratitude. I wish I could thank each person who came. It meant more to me than you will ever know.

Let me express my gratitude here, by helping raise awareness both of the disease and the desperate need for kidney donation.

Many different conditions can lead to kidney failure. They include infections and high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. Kidney failure is a dangerous complication, and one that everyone should be aware of.

Lifestyle modifications should be adopted where possible, of course, but lifestyle itself is only one contributing factor. Genetic inheritance is another. My own disease began in childhood. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the age of 19.

African Americans are at increased risk for both high blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes. These diseases have helped place us predominantly on the transplant wait list. We represent 35 percent of those awaiting a donated kidney.

So first, be aware of the need to take your lifestyle seriously. Genetics are not destiny. Eat right and exercise to help keep your health conditions in check, and possibly avoid triggering your genetic predisposition.

Second, please consider giving the gift of life. Check that organ donation box on your drivers license. Learn about becoming a living donor at www.unos.org. Your act of compassion will live on.

Third, African Americans donate organs for transplant at a far lower rate than do Caucasians. The fact is that the strongest and best tissue matches are found within the same ethnic groups.

Finally, to all who came to my fundraiser: Your love blesses and humbles me. Your support will help defray the cost of the many expenses surrounding the procedure, as well as the loss of income I will face during many weeks of recuperation.

Acts of compassion toward someone facing a life-threatening time include fundraising. But they also include simply listening. Offering to help, whether by driving somewhere or preparing a meal: These acts make us feel less alone as we face some pretty tough odds.

Friends, you help me feel surrounded by love with your kindness every day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
CHEROKEE, Iowa  As Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad sat in front of 60 people in an auditorium at the Cherokee Mental Health Institute on Tuesday, he smiled as his biography was read as part of his introduction.

Branstad put his hand over his heart as two Washington High School girls sang "The Star Spangled Banner." He held in his lap a few papers that would constitute his speaking notes, then stood to an ovation, beginning a speech that would last eight minutes.

Holding the microphone in his right hand and sticking close to the podium, Branstad directed a lot of his looks at the front row. His only misstep was calling institute director Cory Turner by the wrong last name, going with Taylor instead.

In many respects, Branstad's participation in announcing Cherokee as the latest and 48th municipality to get the Home Base Iowa designation was like the thousands of public events he's had while serving as Iowa governor for 23 years. Yet there was a difference, as his days as Iowa governor appear to have apparently dwindled to less than a week.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote Monday on the confirmation of Branstad as President Donald Trump's U.S. ambassador to China. His departure in 2017 will create a vacancy in the governorship that by state law will be filled by Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who will become the state's first female governor.

That expected upcoming change meant some people at the Cherokee event had heavier hearts as they pushed up to chat with Branstad, after he was done with his public remarks.

"I believe very firmly that he has done a wonderful job of serving our state of Iowa," Beverly Anderson Zieman said, moments after Branstad held both of her hands as they warmly talked.

Zieman is retired after a 24-year career as Cherokee County auditor. She said she first knew Branstad in 1982, when he won the first of six terms as governor. Zieman added that Branstad's sound experience aided Iowans.

Branstad traveled after Cherokee to Council Bluffs. The rest of his public schedule for this week includes four events on Thursday and Friday in Des Moines.

As has been his practice in recent Iowa events, Branstad didn't delve too deeply into his personal feelings about shifting away from the governor job. It took a third question on the topic, while walking out of the building with a reporter, for Branstad to say he is experiencing some "nostalgic" feelings about no longer being governor.

"I've loved it and I've met a lot of wonderful people and I will miss that," Branstad said.

His years as governor constitute a U.S. record nationally, a mark he reached in December 2015. Had he completed the current four-year term, he would have had 24 years as governor. Branstad has presided over six terms  four from 1983 to 1999 and two more from 2011 to the present.

Branstad earlier in the event cautioned that full Senate approval of his ambassadorship isn't a done deal. However, he said he felt good about his April multi-hour hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"This may be the last time I will be here before I go to China," Branstad told the crowd.

Branstad then told media members his time as governor will end once his ambassadorship passes the full Senate, at which point he will resign the governor post. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, later on Tuesday tweeted the confirmation vote is expected about 5 p.m. Monday.

Branstad said he will undergo three weeks of ambassador orientation, so "I probably won't get to China until June."
By Steve Barry/photos by the author except as noted

Short line railroading is in a constant state of change. With corporations gobbling up profitable short lines, locomotives get shuffled around and paint schemes get standardized. The Maryland Midland (MMID) is a railroad about to undergo change  located in Union Bridge, Md., the MMID has been owned by Genesee & Wyoming Industries since 2007, and its locomotives will soon lose their blue and orange paint, replaced by G&Ws orange and black.

On January 17 I headed down to the Maryland Midland with my brother Bruce Barry, and we met up with Bill Kalkman there. Rumors of new paint were in the air, and we wanted to get one last hurrah of the old blue and orange. The railroad is shaped like a giant cross, with the east-west lines much longer than the north-south. The eastern end of the cross goes to Emory Grove, served on Tuesdays and Thursdays. while the west end goes to the CSX interchange at Highfield, served Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The east-west line is the former Western Maryland main line, and the MMID began operations on this route in segments starting in 1983. The south line goes to a stone quarry, while the north line serves a single industry, and both of those see trains when the mood strikes. The north-south line is the original Maryland Midland, a former Pennsylvania Railroad branch that the MMID began operating in 1980. Indications were wed get a train to Highfield, the most spectacular part of the line, on this Friday.

The Highfield line is the former Western Maryland main line, and makes a spectacular climb from Thurmont to Blue Ridge Summit, Penn. The train usually runs 20-30 cars or more, with four locomotives often leading. Anxiously we set up for a shot just west of the headquarters town of Union Bridge, waiting on the show. Imagine our surprise, however, when the train trundled by with a single unit, GP38-3 No. 303, and only three cars. To add insult to injury, the locomotive was backwards.

Undaunted, the chase was on. The train did not pause at Keymar (where the two lines of the cross connect), heading on towards Thurmont. We got another across the field shot near Rocky Ridge, then waited  a long time  in Thurmont. When the train arrived, we found that it had picked up a boxcar from a brickyard, and was pushing that boxcar in front of the engine. At Thurmont they shoved the boxcar into an industrial siding, ran to the other end of the siding and pulled out a long cut of cars, put the train together and headed up the steep grade towards Blue Ridge Summit. We set up on the grade for a shot (top of page). It would have looked (and sounded) a whole lot better if it had been a more typical big train with multiple locomotives.

At Sabillasville the tracks make a huge horseshoe around the town (its actually a part of a large S as the tracks swing back again up in the mountain above town). We set up for a shot of the train passing a mast where a Western Maryland signal was once mounted. There are several remnants of the WM along the line, including a couple of signals with the heads still in place.

After circling Sabillasville, the railroad briefly pops into Pennsylvania at the top of the grade at Blue Ridge Summit. The station is still here, now serving as the town library. As soon as the train crests the summit it heads back into the adjacent town of Highfield, Md., where the MMID connects to CSXs ex-Western Maryland line that comes down from Gettysburg.

It is not uncommon for CSX to be in Highfield at the same time as MMID. This was not the case on this day. After dropping the cut of cars that had come from Union Bridge and Thurmont, the lone locomotive picked up a string of covered hoppers destined for the cement plant back at Union Bridge. We were about to get rewarded for our chase of a backwards locomotive  we would now have the locomotive facing the right way with good light on the nose for the chase back to Union Bridge.

Changing times on the Western Maryland (ABOVE) On December 16, 1978, Dennis Nehrenz captured classic cab units leading the Union Bridge local through Lantz, Maryland (See the January 2014 Railfan & Railroad to read the full story of Dennis two-day chase). Thirty-six years later, the Western Maryland is only a memory, but trains continue to climb the grade towards Union Bridge. Steve Barry caught up with the Maryland Midland on January 17, 2014.

After a challenging chase through the countryside, Steve Barry caught the Maryland Midland serving the Lehigh Cement plant at Union Bridge, Md., on January 17, 2014.

Except we didnt. High clouds moved into Highfield just as the train was ready to head back down the hill. We set up on the horseshoe curve at Sabillasville for a shot that wasnt bad, but would have been a whole lot better in sun. Outside of Sabillasville we got another nice shot that would have been well-lit if the sun had been out. The clouds were beginning to thin out already, but luck wasnt quite on our side. Finally, as the train arrived in Thurmont, the clouds thinned enough to put some light on the train. We shot it from a hillside adjacent to the cemetery on the west side of town.

I slipped coming down the hillside and landed on my back. Ouch. My camera went flying. Double ouch. However, I picked myself up, found my camera and cell phone (which had also gone airborne) and jumped back in the car. Our next location was near the brickyard. The sun was finally out!!! I put my camera to my eye, went to focus  and discovered I could not focus or set the f-stop. I missed the first properly oriented sunny shot of the trip! Back in the car I quickly deduced that the lens mount ring on my camera was damaged (again  I had first damaged it at the Cass Scenic Railroad last May), but if I held the lens firm against the ring, I could still shoot. The next shot was at Detour, Md., and this one I was able to get.

The sky was much improved, and we buzzed through Keymar and set up for a shot outside Union Bridge. The train took an unusually long time to get to us. The good news was the sun was out. The bad news was the train stopped at Keymar and picked up a flatcar, which it was now pushing ahead of the locomotive. The train would push back into the plant, where it vanished for about a half hour. Thats pretty typical for a run up to the plant. Finally the train came out and we were able to get the money shot from the adjacent hillside as it went past the plant.

The train headed down the hill and pushed back into the yard at Union Bridge. We asked the conductor if there was anything else going on that day, and he said this was it. Bruce and I said goodbye to Bill and we headed for Norfolk Southern in Pennsylvania. It was a challenging day on the Maryland Midland, and hopefully well get back one more time before Genesee & Wyomings paint brushes get to the power.
1. Free weekend for parks and anglers

Once again, South Dakota is encouraging residents and non-residents to visit a state park or wet a line in a lake or stream during the annual State Parks Open House & Free Fishing Weekend on May 19-21.

For those three days, entrance into all state parks and recreation areas is free. Meanwhile, the license typically required to fish in state waters will not be needed that weekend in any state waters where fishing is allowed. It's the best time to get a taste of what many of us already know: South Dakota is flat out a great state for outdoor recreation.

2. Teach a child to fish

Coinciding with South Dakota's annual free fishing weekend, the Hill City Lions Club is hosting its free Kids Fishing Derby at Major Lake on Saturday, May 20 from 9 a.m. to noon.

Children can learn to fish, and they will join those who are already experienced anglers in trying to win prizes in categories such as biggest and smallest fish, youngest angler, biggest first fish and biggest sucker.

The event will also feature an archery clinic where youngsters can learn to shoot safely. For more information, call 605-209-4326 or 605-209-2409.

3. Peace Corps recollections

You'll have to get up early, but it will be worth it to anyone who wonders what it is like to run an agency aimed at bringing more peace into the world.

In the latest installment of the Morning Fill Up series, The Garage meeting space will be the site for an hour-long discussion with Ron Tschetter, who ran the U.S. Peace Corps under President George W. Bush from 2006-2008. Tschetter, a former Peace Corps volunteer in India in 1966, helped raised participation during his tenure. At 7 a.m. on Thursday, May 18, he'll discuss his views on the importance of volunteerism among other topics. Visit garagerapidcity.com, and click on events tab to RSVP; event is free.

4. Make a wish come true

You do the walking, a child will do the wishing, and then Make-A-Wish will do its best to do the granting.

The Black Hills Make-A-Wish group is hosting its fifth-annual Black Hills Walk for Wishes from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 20, at Main Street Square. The event begins with a short presentation, then a brief walk through downtown, and ends with food, drinks and music at the square.

All proceeds will go to Make-A-Wish, which provides inspirational trips or other adventures to sick children. To register or pledge, visit walkblackhills.org.

5. Get informed at the 'Pupdate'

They're calling it a "Pupdate," and while this event will give an update on an important topic, it's really a way for the Humane Society of the Black Hills to say thanks to the community.

The society has arranged for a 1-hour press conference and community discussion about the society itself, but mainly the event will focus on updating the community about the seizure and subsequent adoption of more than 100 animals from a property in Creighton in eastern Pennington County.

The event is set for 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 18 in the Creative Arts Building on the campus of the Central States Fairgrounds. The event is free and open to the public; the program includes three speakers as well as an opportunity to mingle.

6. Give blood, get beef (and maybe a Harley)

Two promotions are coalescing this month at the United Blood Services in Rapid City: one involving cows, the other a "Hog."

To honor Beef Month in South Dakota throughout May, the blood services group is giving any donor across the state a Jacks Link's beef stick after their donation. Those donors will also be entered into a drawing for one of three gift cards for beef purchases valued at either $25 or $100 from the South Dakota Beef Industry Council.

Meanwhile, the Rapid City blood services agency has another donor drive in May and June, in which one lucky donor will be chosen to receive a Harley-Davidson Fatboy motorcycle. Four finalists will get a $100 gas gift card.

Donors can give blood every eight weeks; to make an appointment, call 877-827-4376, or go online at unitedbloodservices.org.
Mandel Ngan/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Reports that President Trump shared classified information with Russian government officials at a White House meeting recall the many times that Trump lambasted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over how she allegedly handled classified information when she was secretary of state.

Trump and his staff have pushed back on the Washington Post report on Monday that the president shared classified information about ISIS with Russian officials.

Trump asserted on Twitter on Tuesday that he had an "absolute right" to share the information, which he did not characterize as classified. He tweeted that he "wanted to share with Russia" at the meeting "facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety."

Here's a look back at some of the times prior to his election that Trump slammed Clinton over claims about how she handled of classified information:

August 2015

Trump, then a longshot candidate for the White House, weighed in on news that there may have been classified information on emails sent over Clinton's private server during her time as secretary of state. "This is a very big deal," he wrote.

150 Clinton E-mails still contain classified information. More sensitive when she was Sec.of State. This is a very big deal.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2015

November 2015

At a rally in Macon, Georgia, on Nov. 30, 2015, Trump said Clinton "shouldn't be allowed to run," considering the alleged presence of classified information on her emails.

"How does a person have that many emails?" Trump asked the crowd. "They have 3,000 here, 5,000 ... How do you have that many emails anyway? But they have thousands of classified-- ... it's disgusting, because frankly she shouldn't be allowed to run. She shouldn't be. But the Democrats are protecting her."

July 2016

One week before the start of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where Trump was set to accept his party's nomination, the GOP candidate said Clinton's email use should be "totally disqualifying in a speech in Virginia.

"This was not just extreme carelessness with classified material, which is still totally disqualifying," Trump told the Virginia Beach crowd. "This is calculated, deliberate, premeditated misconduct followed by a cover-up, followed by false statements and lies to Congress, the media and the American people."

September 2016

Trump referred to the former secretary of state as "lyin' Hillary Clinton" in a tweet addressing news that Clinton told the FBI she did not know that the "(C)" mark at the beginning of paragraphs signaled the inclusion of classified information, believing instead it was a reference to alphabetical order.

Lyin' Hillary Clinton told the FBI that she did not know the "C" markings on documents stood for CLASSIFIED. How can this be happening?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2016

Later in the month -- one week after Clinton made her now infamous comment at a fundraising event that "You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables" -- Trump spoke at a rally in Miami, Florida.



"Welcome to all of you deplorables," Trump began. He went on to claim that Clinton put classified information "in the reach of our enemies."



"Her comments displayed the same sense of arrogance and entitlement that led her to violate federal law as secretary of state, hide and delete her emails ... put classified information in the reach of our enemies," Trump told the crowd.

October 2016

In arguably the most tumultuous month of a wild election, when leaked emails from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta were getting released on a nearly daily basis by WikiLeaks, Trump blasted Clinton on Twitter, claiming that the emails indicated her campaign knew her email use had violated the law.

WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked mishandled classified info, but no one gets charged? RIGGED! https://t.co/FgGxDsS0a1  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2016

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
PIERRE | Gov. Dennis Daugaard says South Dakota has launched a pardon website for people to go online to seek clemency.

The Republican governor said Tuesday that South Dakota is the first state to have an online, paperless pardon process. The governor's office says the tool is part of Daugaard's efforts to make government more efficient.

The new website, https://doc.sd.gov/pardon/, offers a guided, interactive process to assist applicants in determining eligibility, completing an application and submitting their request online.

Daugaard's office says the website is mobile-friendly, so people seeking clemency can apply on their phones.
SIOUX FALLS | A South Dakota woman is accused of stealing thousands of dollars raised to pay funeral expenses for a friend's daughter.

Thirty-three-year-old Stephanie Lea Blaine of Sioux Falls is charged with grand theft, a felony that carries a maximum five years in prison. Court documents say Blaine raised about $3,900 online to help her friend with expenses.

The mother checked with the funeral home and hospital where her daughter was treated and discovered no payments had been made. She informed the online fundraising website gofundme.com.

The Argus Leader reports court documents say gofundme.com froze the account after discovering that Blaine had made nine withdrawals.

The website reimbursed the grieving mother.

No phone listing for Blaine could be found.
PIERRE | The 2017 list of topics for legislative issue memorandums doubled, and then some, Monday.

The Legislatures Executive Board approved seven. Dave Ortbahn began with a suggestion of three, based on his survey of Legislative Research Council staff. Ortbahn, the councils chief analyst for research and legal services, said they would get the seven done.

The goal would be to have something to you before the November e-board meeting, he told the board.

The board approved the three he suggested: a history of South Dakotas initiatives and referendums processes; the state's three-tier system for alcohol sales; and South Dakotas taxes on cigarettes and tobacco generally.

Rep. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, asked that the alcohol memo compare South Dakota with other states. Whats the landscape look like, and where do we fit on it? Mickelson said.

As House speaker, Mickelson is the boards chairman this year.

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Spencer Hawley of Brookings, said the alcohol analysis is a good idea. Id be interested in that, he said.

The board also approved Hawleys suggestion for a white paper on tax increment financing. TIF has come to be broadly used by local governments in South Dakota. It probably doesnt need to be a 40-page paper, but Id like to understand them better, Hawley said.

Local governments use TIF to put additional tax they collect from increased property valuation toward community improvement.

Mickelson said TIF started narrowly and has been blown open.

But, he added, thats what happens in life.

The board gave its OK for a report comparing tuition and fees at South Dakotas four public technical institutes, in Watertown, Mitchell, Rapid City and Sioux Falls with those in neighboring states.

Hawley suggested adding state universities to the study. I would be curious as long as were going to do it, Hawley said. The board agreed.

The board approved the proposal of early childhood education as a topic. Senate Democratic leader Billie Sutton of Burke offered it.

The board also added refugee resettlement at the suggestion of Sen. Jeff Partridge, R-Rapid City.

Partridge said he and Rep. Spencer Gosch, R-Glenham, spoke about immigrations role for South Dakota. It would be very interesting to me, Partridge said.

Its a good topic, Mickelson said. Its not well understood, and its good information.

Partridge added, My intention is truly the facts.

Rep. Steven Haugaard, R-Sioux Falls, said his understanding is Sioux Falls is one of nine regional hubs designated for resettlement of refugees. Why these towns, why these hubs? Gosch asked.

One idea that didnt make the cut came in a pre-meeting of the boards executive committee of Mickelson, Hawley and Sen. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark.

Mickelson suggested studying the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints compound in Custer County. But LRC Executive Director Jason Hancock said there wouldnt be much to accomplish, other than to raise its visibility.

Hancock said the best thing would be to have our authorities talk to Utah law enforcement officers and find out why people have been moving from an FLDS compound there.

I dont think its a legislation issue, Hancock said. Theyve been dealing with these folks for a long time.
The Upper Niobrara White Natural Resources District (UNWNRD), along with a dozen partners, hosted the 13th Annual Northwest Nebraska Conservation Festival at the Assumption Arena in Chadron May 2. A day full of environmental education was well-attended by approximately 190 area students from four schools, including Alliance, St. Agnes Academy, Crawford, Chadron and a couple home schooled children as well.

Natural resources education is the focus of the Northwest Nebraska Conservation Festival which aligns well with the science standards and the work of numerous natural resource entities who participate in the event each year. During the Festival, Bryan Kahl, Brad Carlson and Aaron Sanford hosted a GPS Hunt while Robin Foulk and Cody Gibbons, Travis Reeves and Wade Beins engaged the youth with a soil education activity called Soil Detectives including a Worm Tunnel. Each of those individuals is with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Dave Carlson, UNWNRD Board Member and Leah Gremm from Dawes County Extension utilized a watershed model to enlighten students about different pollution sources that may impact a watershed. Youth learned about trees and forest resources by navigating a scavenger hunt with Amy Seiler and Fred McCartney of the Nebraska Forest Service (NFS) and Scott Schremmer with City of Chadron.

The Panhandle Research Integration for Discovery Education (PRIDE) Committee members Dan Wordekemper, Kristi Paul, Jason Rust, Jeff Lampmann, Nancy Adler and Jan Bruhn taught youth about noxious weed control. Erin Divine with the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and Nevin Price with the NRD utilized a wildlife game called Quick Frozen Critters. Steven Sibray Hydrogeologist with Nebraska Extension and Haley Anders from UNWNRD educated students about ground water and its connection to lakes, streams and rivers. Melissa Mracek of Sheridan County Extension and Ray Thewke with the City of Chadron involved the students in an activity called Water Sleuths. A Fire Dynamics station with a simulation display that illustrates how fire can move though a landscape, led by NFS Fire Management Specialist Seth Peterson and Jack Arterburn was very popular with the children and teachers alike. While students enjoyed lunch at Finnegan Park, Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl made a guest appearance to promote the messages of wildfire and pollution prevention thanks to several staff from the U.S. Forest Service.

Promoting outdoor learning with stewardship topics, the UNWNRD and partners listed above coordinate and host the Northwest Nebraska Conservation Festival each spring. The event is open to fifth-grade students throughout the District. At the end of the event, each student was given a gift bag including a Colorado blue spruce seedling and numerous educational prizes from participating agencies.
For fans of local beer, it's time to pull up a bar stool and get ready for a long and delicious week of craft brews.

Black Hills breweries are unveiling new beers and holding a bevy of events this week to celebrate American Craft Beer Week.

Lost Cabin Beer Co. on Omaha Street is celebrating its one-year anniversary this week with new beers and special events, including a beer and cigar pairing at the Tinderbox on Wednesday. Beers to be released by the Rapid City brewery this week start tonight with the barrel-aged Lord Grizzly, A Biere De Garde with Peaches on Friday and its Batch 100 Dark Saison on Saturday.

A few blocks away in downtown Rapid City, Hay Camp Brewing Co. will offer beer trivia at 6:30 p.m. today. On Wednesday, the brewery will release a barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout, and Thursday will be BBQ and Bingo night. The week rounds out there Sunday with Beermaste, a yoga class with beer.

At Miner Brewing Co. near Hill City, Open Vinyl Day is planned tonight, and guests can bring their favorite records. Thursday will bring a barbecue night followed by Stout Ice Cream Float Day on Friday. The week rounds out with a Pints & Paws event to which patrons are encouraged to bring their dogs, and Randall Day on Sunday in the taproom.

Sick-N-Twisted Brewing Co., also just outside Hill City, will unveil four new beers and pair them with four bologna sandwiches. The new beers are the SNT Baltic Porter, S.M.A.S.H.ed Pale Ale, Bare-Butt Bock and a ginger beer called The Mule.

If you want to try an assortment of local craft beers, head down to Independent Ale House in Rapid City. The taps will be filled with more than 30 South Dakota beers all week long.
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit that challenged voting by absentee ballot in Detroit, saying a Republican candidate for secretary of state failed to produce any evidence of violations. Wayne County Judge Tim Kenny says critics have raised a red flag of election law wrongdoing. But Kenny says his ruling takes down that flag. Kristina Karamo and others sued to try to force Detroit voters to vote in person or go to the city clerks office to get an absentee ballot. They made a variety of allegations about how Detroit reviews signatures on absentee ballots and monitors ballot drop-off boxes. The judge says they failed dramatically to back up any of it.
Google pays all fines imposed by Russian antimonopoly watchdog

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  Google Inc. has paid all administrative fines imposed by Russias Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) as part of antitrust investigation, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday.

On May 11, the Federal Antimonopoly Service announced that the corporation had paid a 438-million-ruble (about $7.7 million) fine for violation of antimonopoly legislation.

Earlier, administrative proceedings against Google over its refusal to comply with the watchdogs order were terminated after an amicable agreement had been achieved on April 17 in a dispute between FAS and the U.S. company. The settlement was approved by a federal court and a two-year-long legal battle between the watchdog and Google finally came to an end.

Google was to pay all fines imposed by FAS within two months. The payments due include 438 million rubles (about $7.7 million) fine for violating administrative legislation and 1 million rubles (about $17,750 at the current exchange rate) fine for refusal to comply with the watchdogs order.

The agreement envisaging Google to allow more competition on mobile applications market was concluded for 6 years and 9 months.

In September 2015, the watchdog held that Google Ireland Ltd. and Google Inc. abused their dominance on the Russian market of mobile applications by preinstalling applications on Android smartphones and therefore violated anti-monopoly law. Google was fined but refused to comply and challenged the FAS order in Russian courts. Later, FAS imposed additional fines against Google, amounting to nearly 1 million rubles in total.
New research has found that physical activity could be the true secret to a happily ever after.

Relationships on Female First

The survey discovered that couples who stay active together feel a positive impact on their relationship, with more than half (56%) of those that take part in physical activity with their partner saying it increases their overall affections for them. Just over a third of couples (36%) found that taking part in physical activity with their partner actually gives them more energy to do other things, while just under a fifth (19%) say it increases their sex drive. The survey also discovered that just over a quarter (26%) of Brits in a relationship who enjoy doing physical activity together argue less, while almost two thirds (65%) say it encourages them to laugh more with each other. Leading psychologist, Donna Dawson, gives us six reasons why pulse-racing activities help couples stay together:

Puts you in the mood

Exciting activities with a slight edge of fear also cause adrenaline to be released, which makes you feel focused and alert, and more attracted to the person youre sharing it with. Physical and mental stimulation soon translate into sexual desire.

Helps you to bond as a couple

Undergoing the same experience gives you common reference points to discuss and share later, which brings you both psychologically closer. Any time that you re-live this experience in the future, you will bring back the sense of closeness that you both shared.

Pulse-raising activities also release a hormone in the body called oxytocin, which encourages loyalty and fidelity, and makes heightened feelings of togetherness last, long past the event.

Tests your abilities in front of each other

Seeing how well your other half copes with a challenge makes you proud of them and increases your attraction for them. You also get an extra boost from watching others admire your partners efforts and skills.

Creates a playful sense of competition

Sharing an adventure that is physically or mentally testing encourages you to show-off in a positive way, and allows you to hone your competing skills without threatening your partner. Competing against each other in a safe way reminds us to compete in the wider world when we need to do so.

Increases a sense of trust in each other

When you need to rely on each other to get through an experience or to succeed at it, you test how far your partner is willing to go for you and how much you can rely on them in the future. Trust grows as a result.

Develops your sense of humour

Sharing and conquering a scary, but non-life-threatening experience can help you both to put smaller life problems in perspective at a later date, allowing you to laugh at them together instead of getting stressed by them.

A sense of humour provides some distance and a sense of control over problems. And laughter releases the feel-good chemical serotonin, which makes you feel happy and relaxed  an added bonus, and a necessary prelude to romance!

If youre looking for inspiration, try Donnas top bond-building UK breaks:

Rafting in Wales

Rafting is a competitive, high-octane activity, where you compete against the currents and possibly against other rafts. At the same time, your companions need to cooperate with each other, working as a team to keep the raft stable and afloat. The roar of the water, the speed, motion, and implicit sense of danger all work together to create an exhilarating atmosphere that raises your pulse rate and releases adrenaline, causing you to feel excited but focused and alert. Also released is a hormone called oxytocin, which encourages feelings of trust and social bonding - and more specifically, pair-bonding. It is the hormone that encourages fidelity, and it makes those heightened feelings of togetherness last, long after the event itself is over.

Does rafting in Wales take your fancy? Why not stay at Coniston, in Rhos-on-Sea, which is just a couple minutes walk to the coast: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/North-Wales-Snowdonia-Rhs-on-Sea/Coniston-945844.html

Hiking in the Yorkshire Dales

This is a wonderful, mellow way to get close to each other. Ambling at your own pace, you can relax and unwind in the great outdoors. Away from the stress of daily life, conversation flows more naturally. An hour of such aerobic activity releases feel-good chemicals in the brain such as Anandamide (AEA, also known as the bliss compound) that help you to feel happy and serene. Any feelings of anxiety or depression disappear. If the sun is shining, your skin will absorb UV rays that will be converted to serotonin, another happiness chemical. Laughter also boosts serotonin production, and the end result is that you will return to your cottage feeling relaxed, happy, and in the mood for more romance. For a hiking break in the Yorkshire Dales, Ewe Cottage in Ingleton offers all you could need on your doorstep: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/Lake-District-Cumbria-The-Lake-District-Ingleton/Ewe-Cottage-930950.html

Surfing in Ireland

This activity challenges you in many ways: catching the surf, staying upright on your board, and riding the wave to the end. You compete to do the best against yourself and you also compete with each other, to see who can stand up first. It provides the same kind of adrenalin rush as rafting, but its more personal, because its everyone for themselves. It requires stamina, endurance, perseverance and hard work, but there is a reward at the end of it  an experience that immerses you in nature, puts you at one with the ocean and wind, and makes you feel more alive. Succeeding in this stimulating environment makes you feel better about your own abilities and those of your partner. You have tested yourselves and won.

Surfs up in Ireland. Why not try visiting Summerfield Lodge in County Cork for a white-knuckle experience: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/County-Cork-Killeagh/Summerfield-Lodge-939280.html

Rock-Climbing in the Peak District

This is a very precise and methodical activity that requires careful planning and the utmost concentration and cooperation. You need to trust each other implicitly, because where you put your hands and feet on the next move will determine your safety. A slight feeling of fear is a great binder, and working together through that fear releases the bonding chemical, oxytocin. After a successful climb, you gain a sense of both your own achievement and that of being part of a striving, ambitious couple. Both of these feelings lead to appreciating each other more. Fancy heading to the Peak District for a rock-climbing adventure? Little Owl Barn in Longnor is the quintessential country pad to complete your trip: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/Peak-District-Peak-District-Derbyshire-Dales-Hayes/Little-Owl-Barn-940469.html

Horse-Riding in Cornwall

This is a sport that challenges you to multi-task: staying in control of your horse, keeping up with your partner or the group, and appreciating the scenery. You also have the choice of being as relaxed or as active as you want  a quiet walk, a brisk trot or an all-out gallop. Once you have conquered any anxiety, you gain a euphoric feeling of being at one with nature together. Bude, near Cornwall, is the perfect place for a spot of horse riding. Complete your getaway with a stay in Stables Barn: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/Cornwall-Marhamchurch/Stables-Barn-942616.html

Caving in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset

This activity combines the care and caution of rock-climbing with the personal achievement associated with either horse-riding or surfing. However, because it all takes place in an enclosed, dark space, it can create a frisson of fear that challenges you to conquer and control it. Fear transforms into feelings of excitement, as you work closely with your surroundings and each other. This is an experience that boosts the romance quotient, because when danger is shared, you bond more closely together. Cheddar Gorge is a caving hotspot and this barn is perfect for some rest and recuperation after a long day of pulse-racing activity: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/DorsetSomerset-Wedmore/The-Barns-29846.html

Paragliding in the Lake District

If you want the ultimate surge of adrenaline, then this is the activity for you. If one of you is proficient, then the two of you can fly strapped together (tandem). Not only will you experience flying as if you were one body, but the bonding hormone, oxytocin, as well as adrenaline, will act to heighten the whole experience. Up in the air, you both experience the world from a whole new dimension, and the rush of sights and sounds will leave an overwhelming impression. Once landed, relief, gratitude and the survival instinct kicks in, making you feel much closer to the person you shared it with.

After a day up in the skies, Secret Nook in the Lake District is the perfect chill-out hideaway  a cosy Edwardian townhouse in the centre of Windermere: www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/Lake-District-Cumbria-The-Lake-District-Windermere/Secret-Nook-926107.html

Sykes Cottages is the fastest-growing UK cottage holiday company, and has been helping Brits discover new experiences on their doorstep for over 25 years.

To book your bond-building break, please visit: www.sykescottages.co.uk
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On May 14 and May 15, Beijing hosted one of those mega events that the Chinese revel in. But the two-day meeting of the Belt & Road Forum  yielding an unfortunate acronym, BARF  will, not be the event of 2017. That will be the 19th Communist Party of China Congress slated for November which will sacralise the Xi Jinping era. And before that, there is the BRICS summit in Xiamen and the 90th anniversary parade of the Peoples Liberation Armys founding.

Significantly, this massive scheme, known as the Belt Road Initiative (BRI) or the One Belt One Road (OBOR), the signature foreign policy initiative of Xi Jinping, combines the Silk Road Economic Belt going overland to Europe across Asia, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route through the Indian Ocean to Europe, via the Suez or the Cape of Good Hope.

The problem with trying to understand what it is all about is that it is a combination of many things: an economic plan for taking the Chinese economy on to the path of sustainable growth, a scheme for market development and dominance, an effort to export of excess capacity in key infrastructure industries, all adding up to a geopolitical assertion of Chinas major power status.

India missed the party in Beijing which was attended by 28 heads of government or state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and many of our neighbors, like Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The BRI takes on a range of already existing and ongoing Chinese governmental and state owned enterprise (SOE) projects and seeks to provide them with an overall coherence and direction. The first phase of the project is connectivity, not surprisingly, from and to China, through new highways, railways, ports and pipelines. This is the hardwiring that has in some instances already taken place, or is taking place.

But most important, it is a destination called Europe. Even though all maps and schemas of BRI clearly indicate this, most people get distracted by its side-shows like the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), or its schemes to avoid Indian Ocean choke-points.

Why Europe? Because OBOR is crucially linked to what China wants to do with its economy  move its manufacturing up the value chain to enable the country to become a producer and exporter of high-value goods. For this, it needs a rich market, and what could be better than Europe, the richest region in the world ? China sees Europe as a source of technology, lifestyle goods like fashion garments, wine, cheese, olive oil for its rising middle class and a market for its high-end products.

Central Asia, South Asia, or the ports of Indian Ocean, are merely way-stations through which the China-Europe Express will run.

The BRI is a major playground for Chinas SOEs, 47 of whom are carrying out some 1,700 projects in the 65-odd countries associated with the scheme. While fantastic sums, in excess of $ 1 trillion are spoken of, for the BRI, investment currently is a bit more modest. As of now, despite the smoke and sound, the BRI is not the main destination of Chinese overseas investment. As a David Dollar, a former head of the World Bank in China and now a Brookings Institution scholar notes, China is probably the biggest financier to the world with its outward direct investment totaling $170 billion and its policy banks  China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank  another $ 100 billion. But he says, only a small proportion of this is going to the OBOR projects currently.

Even the policy banks which have lent some $675 billion, have only allocated $101.8 billion of 15% for OBOR linked lending by the end of 2016. Dollars estimates tend to ignore Europe as a factor in the project and there is, it would appear, a small cottage industry in the western press to diss the BRI.

However, the scheme is still young, having gotten underway in just 2015. Even the institutions the Chinese have created to push it are just about a year or two old. The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Silk Road Fund currently have a paid up capital of $240 billion. Their lending has so far been far short of their potential. But the wily Chinese have let it be known that they are open to funding from all sources, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to co-fund their projects.

Perhaps the most frenetic activity is in building and developing railroads  750 km long, linking Addis Ababa with Djibouti, 480 kms of the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Kenya, 414 kms linking Kunming with Vientane in Laos, with extensions to Bangkok and Singapore.

With the three gas and one oil pipeline from Central Asia to Xinjiang, a significant proportion of Central Asian oil and gas is going to China. Now, work has begun on a fourth line from Central Asia, as well as the pipelines bringing oil from Russia to northern China.

Central Asia is also a key junction for the grand Chinese vision of high-speed railway networks linking Chinese cities to Europe. These or not just plans but reality today. Freight trains have been carrying cargoes from Chinese cities since the first train traveled in 2008 from Xiangtuan in Huynan province to Hamburg. Subsequently HP demonstrated the economic value of its Chongqing-Duisberg trains running four times a week. Now a dozen Chinese cities are linked to 15 European cities. 2016 saw Chinese trains arrive in Teheran and Mazar-e-Sharif through newly developed links.

These trains travel to Kazakhstan and then taking a northern route via the Trans Siberian to the Polish border. A new container terminal at Khorgos has opened an alternate route which will be developed to link to the Russian line, or to avoid Russia altogether and go through the Caucasus or Iran to Turkey and Europe.

The maritime component is being developed through a string of ports in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), these include Kyakapu in Myanmar, Bagamayo in Tanzania, Lamu in Kenya, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan.

Countries like Japan, India and the US have not been particularly enthusiastic about the BRI, saying that this is a Chinese funded scheme, to be executed by the Chinese, to serve Chinese national goals. There has been little consultation with others whose participation the Chinese are seeking.

After facing some resistance China has begun to adopt a more accommodative approach. It now says that the scheme has no geographical limits, that it is about inclusion and global integration and far from challenging the US, China would like to play a role in rebuilding its dilapidated infrastructure.

Even so, the Chinese do realise that trust is still wanting. One reason for this is the rapidity with which the flag has followed the trade. In the Indian Ocean region, from 2014 onward Chinese submarines have shown up. And as of 2015, the first Chinese military base has been created in Djibouti.

Indian concerns have been projected as arising from the fact that the CPEC runs through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. But this is just a pretext. The POK route has been active since the 1970s and New Delhi did not make much of it. What India is concerned about is Chinese naval activities in the northern Arabian Sea, in Karachi and Gwadar and the fact that CPEC involves a closer integration of Pakistani economy with that of China.

Indeed, what India is worried about is that through its generous lending, China is creating dependencies in our South Asian backyard, which means these countries will have little alternative but to back Beijings political goals.

The choices before New Delhi are not too many. We do not have the kind of monetary resources China has, nor the kind of exprienced SOEs who excel in executing infrastructure projects. Further, unlike China, India has a huge infrastructure development agenda within the country. Some of these schemes such as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor or the Bengaluru-Chennai corridor are underway. We have a number of important new port projects such as the one in Vizhinjam, Kerala and the Enayam, Tamil Nadu.

Even so, it may be a good idea for New Delhi to see this as an opportunity to attract companies, including those of China, to fund and develop our infrastructure along with those like Japan and South Korea. India can leverage funds from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to undertake infrastructure development within the country and its neighbourhood.

New Delhi has been lackadaiscal in executing projects like the Chah Bahar Port project, or the Kaladan Multimodal Project. We need to come up with our own version of the Silk Road Economic Belt by taking up the International North South Transportation Corridor, a multimodal scheme to take goods from western Indian ports to Europe, via Iran.

More than that, we need a clearer strategic vision for India going on to the 2030s and 2050s. All we get from the Narendra Modi government are a succession of slogans. In that sense, China has total clarity. It intends to become a significant Indian Ocean power by the 2030s and by the 2050s it seeks to be a world power, if not the world power.

The OBOR will provide the sinews and muscle to fulfill that Chinese dream.

This article originally appeared in The Wire.
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May 7, 2013

Wall Street Journal pitch for the Prez to get behind the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013

There are few topics on which leading Democratic and Republican voices agree these days. But the recently introduced Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013  which would authorize federal judges to impose prison terms below statutory mandatory minimums in some cases  represents a new bipartisan effort at addressing America's overcrowded prisons and bloated budget. Passage of the act, though, will depend on President Obama and his Justice Department getting behind it.... The Justice Safety Valve Act, recently introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) and Rand Paul (R., Ky.), and to the House by Reps. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D., Va.) and Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), could help reduce the millions of taxpayer dollars wasted keeping thousands of people sentenced under mandatory minimum laws locked up. The bill would enable federal judges to consider when or whether a mandatory-minimum sentence serves legitimate law-enforcement purposes given the particular circumstances of the crime and defendant. Judges could impose prison terms below the statutory minimums only when they explain, through an on-the-record, reviewable opinion, that a shorter term is sufficient to serve the express goals of the criminal justice system set out by Congress.... [B]ipartisan support and sponsorship of the Justice Safety Valve Act highlights that prominent lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree  at this time of lean budgets, sequester cuts and overcrowded prison facilities  that the current federal sentencing scheme is neither fair nor effective, and that mandatory-minimum sentencing laws lie at the heart of the problem. President Obama's vocal support of this bill would signal a real commitment to using his bully pulpit to advocate on behalf of significant reform proposals. If he does not, the president's failure to champion sentencing reform may become his most lasting federal criminal-justice legacy.

Thanks to the suggestions, and insights and energy of Harlan Protass, a criminal-defense lawyer in New York and an adjunct professor at the Cardozo School of Law, some of the ideas first expressed in this recent post concerning the proposed Justice Safetly Valve Act of 2013 now find expression in this Wall Street Journal opinion piece we co-authored. Here is are snippets from the the piece:

Some recent and older related posts:

May 7, 2013 at 11:34 PM | Permalink

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Comments

Oh heck - about all I have to say is thanks. The safety valve will be a great start.

Posted by: beth | May 7, 2013 11:51:17 PM

Judges owe their jobs to the criminals, and to no one else. If you end crime, they lose their jobs. The conflict of interest was not disclosed, let alone addressed in this pro-criminal biased, lawyer propaganda piece. I find it a bit irresponsible in the wake of the mass urban slaughter now going on directly as a result of the Booker series. ("Urban" is code for black, about whom the white racist VFL cares little.)

Disclosure. I can't believe they accepted this piece of legal esoterica and rejected my piece proposing an easy and immediate $70 billion savings.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 8, 2013 4:44:35 AM

Doug --

Congratulations on getting in the WSJ. That's a tough nut to crack. I thought your article was well written and hit the high notes. Of course, in my view, there are some low notes in this tune as well, but that's a subject for another time.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 8, 2013 7:44:16 AM

Thanks, Bill. Maybe you can use your inside-the-beltway skills to set up some kind of event in the DC area this summer --- at Georgetown, sponsored by the Federalists, perhaps --- for a public debate concerning the pros and cons of MMs in the federal system and the merits/problems of the Justice Safety Valve Act. If you really have some juice, maybe you can get Senators Leahy and Paul to help make it happen.

Thanks for the Congrats.

Posted by: Doug B. | May 8, 2013 8:16:37 AM

Doug --

The Fed Soc only hosts events during the school year, so September would be the earliest they would do it. It's a good topic, though, and I'll recommend it to the chapter head, who is a former student of mine. As for Leahy and Rand Paul -- let's say that I'm not on either one's good list. I'm on the other list.

We could also do this at your place, but I'll only agree to come out there if the picture of you on the front of the auditorium has shrunken so that it's now less than thirty feet high.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 8, 2013 9:03:18 AM

It's sad that allowing judges to make judgment calls is considered a radical change.

Posted by: NickS | May 8, 2013 10:05:29 AM

We all must agree with what President Obama said at OSU on May 5th:

"We can always aspire to something more. That doesn't depend on who you elect to office. It depends on you, as citizens, and how big you want us to be."

"And as citizens, we understand that its not about what America can do for us, its about what can be done by us,

together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of [Douglas A. Berman]."





Posted by: Adamakis | May 8, 2013 2:35:50 PM

One point the op-ed failed to make is that there already is a safety valve in the guidelines and, if an offender does not qualify, maybe he isn't such a great guy after all (because of criminal history, violence assoicated with the offense, leadership of others, etc.).

Posted by: Tom Albus | May 9, 2013 10:31:22 AM

Tom, the existing statutory safety valve now only applies in some minor drug cases and only to first offenders, not in many other kinds of cases and for other defendants who can only get out from under an MM by making a deal behind closed doors with a prosecutor.

Posted by: Doug B. | May 13, 2013 1:37:54 PM

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 Reviewing some historical data on the federal prison population, total sentences imposed, and drug cases | Main | "The Problem with Inference for Juvenile Defendants" 

Yesterday the Brennan Center released this notable new report which feels like it was first conceived back when everyone thought Hillary Clinton was poised to be President. Nevertheless, the report, headlined "A Federal Agenda to Reduce Mass Incarceration" speaks to current political realities in its executive summary with this paragraph:

Even with broad public support, addressing the problems in our criminal justice system will not be easy. For the last eight years, the White House and Justice Department supported this important work. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears opposed to efforts to reduce unnecessarily harsh charging and sentencing. While President Donald Trumps own views remain unclear, key advisers such as Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Gov. Chris Christie all support efforts to reduce imprisonment.

Here are some other parts of the report's executive summary:

This report sets forth an affirmative agenda to end mass incarceration and reform our criminal justice system. Bipartisan momentum has been growing for years. We must keep it going. The United States has less than five percent of the worlds population, but nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration contributes significantly to the American poverty rate. Conservatives, progressives, and law enforcement leaders now agree that the country must reduce its prison population, and that it can do so without jeopardizing public safety. In the last decade, 27 states have led the way, cutting crime and imprisonment together.

Of course, because 87 percent of prisoners are housed in state facilities, changes to state and local law are necessary. But history proves that decisions made in Washington affect the whole criminal justice system, for better or worse. Federal funding drives state policy, and helped create our current crisis of mass incarceration. And the federal government sets the national tone, which is critical to increasing public support and national momentum for change. Without a strong national movement, the bold reforms needed at the state and local level cannot emerge.

In a divisive political environment, it is tempting to assume that progress toward federal reform is impossible. But even today, the need to confront problems in the way we arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate remains a rare point of trans-partisan agreement. Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders alike acknowledge that unnecessarily long federal prison sentences continue to impede rehabilitation, driving recidivism and economic inequality. And according to a new poll from the Charles Koch Institute, 81 percent of Trump voters believe criminal justice reform is a very important or somewhat important issue. More than half know someone who is in or has been to prison....

To help bridge that divide, this report offers solutions that would keep crime rates low and show support for law enforcement, while reducing mass incarceration. The strongest of these policies require congressional action. Others could be implemented by a sympathetic administration. Taken together, these policies form the core of a national agenda for federal leaders to make our country safer and fairer. They also serve as models for state and local action.

Legislation

End the Federal Subsidization of Mass Incarceration: Federal grants help shape criminal justice policy at the state and local levels. For decades, these grants have subsidized the growth of incarceration. For example, the 1994 Crime Bill offered states $9 billion in funding to build more prisons. Today, $8.4 billion in federal criminal justice grants flow from Washington annually, largely on autopilot, encouraging more arrests, prosecution, and incarceration. To bring accountability to this flow, Congress can pass a Reverse Mass Incarceration Act that would dedicate $20 billion over 10 years to states that reduce both crime and incarceration. This would spur state and local action across the country.

End Federal Incarceration for Lower-Level Crimes: Our criminal justice system relies heavily on prison, using it as the default punishment for most crimes. But research has shown that unnecessary incarceration is costly and ineffective at preventing recidivism and promoting rehabilitation. Early estimates show that approximately 49 percent of the federal prison population is likely incarcerated without an adequate public safety reason. Congress can pass legislation to eliminate prison terms for lower-level offenses and shorten prison terms for other crimes. In doing so, it can safely, significantly cut the prison population, saving around $28 billion over 10 years, enough to fund a Reverse Mass Incarceration Act.

Institute a Police Corps Program to Modernize Law Enforcement: The country faces a national crisis in policing. Some believe that overly-zealous enforcement has reached a breaking point. Others believe police are not adequately funded or supported. All can agree that something needs to change. To advance a twenty-first century police force, Congress can allocate $40 billion over five years to recruit new officers and train them in modern policing tactics focused on crime prevention, as well as techniques to reduce unnecessary arrests, uses of force, and incarceration.

Enact Sentencing Reform: While lawmakers should aspire to the bold changes to federal sentencing described above, Congress can start with a milder first step: reintroducing and passing the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. This proposal would cautiously reduce prison sentences for some nonviolent crimes. A bipartisan group of senators, led by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), have already committed to reintroducing the bill this session. The White House has expressed cautious support.

Executive Action

Redirect Federal Grants Away from Mass Incarceration: Since many of the harmful incentives in federal criminal justice grants are written into law, truly ending the federal subsidization of mass incarceration will take congressional action, as laid out above. But the Justice Department can take the first step, by changing performance measures for grants to reward states that use federal funds to reduce both crime and incarceration. Institute New Goals for Federal Prosecutors: The Justice Department should ensure that scarce federal criminal justice resources are focused on the most serious crimes, and evaluate U.S. Attorneys nationally based on their ability to decrease both crime and incarceration.

Commute Sentences to Retroactively Apply the Fair Sentencing Act: In 2010, Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass legislation to reduce the disparity between crack and powder cocaine crimes as the drugs are scientifically equivalent. But more than 4,000 federal prisoners remain incarcerated under outdated drug laws. Future presidents can bring justice to these prisoners by identifying clemency petitions meeting certain criteria, fast-tracking them for review, and granting clemency.
 Three new CCRC posts highlighting how collateral consequences have become a focal point for modern criminal justice reform | Main | New lifetime GPS tracking for old sex offenders raising concerns in Missouri 

May 16, 2017

Is it unconstitutional for a state to allow judges to increase sentences because a felony was committed by someone illegally present in the US who had been previously deported?

The question in the title of this post could be an issue before state (and federal?) judges in Tennessee shortly, because a new state sentencing provision to this effect is on the desk of the Governor of the Volunteer State. This local article, headlined "Bill gives TN judges more power in sentencing, experts say law is unconstitutional," explains:

State lawmakers are keeping an eye on the clock as time ticks down for Gov. Bill Haslam to act on a bill granting state judges new sentencing authority. The bill allows judges to add more time to a felony sentence if a defendant is in the country illegally. Right now the state of Arizona is involved in a legal battle over a similar issue. Tennessee lawmakers say this bill would be a hard deterrent against crime. Immigration advocates say it's a burden on local governments that will drive a wedge between the community and the legal system. Haslam has three options when it comes to the sentencing enhancement bill before his desk. He can sign it, veto the bill or allow it to pass into law without his signature. Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law professor Stewart Harris believes whether it's signed or not, this bill might not be around for long. "My initial reaction is that it's probably unconstitutional, said Harris. According to Harris, the U.S. Constitution governs America's immigration laws, not states. That's one reason states don't typically pass immigration laws. "Should California have one set of rules and Massachusetts another? What about all the landlocked states, should they have their own rules as well? Thats why Congress has authority over immigration, explained Harris. State Sen. Becky Duncan Massey of Knoxville believes this bill isn't an immigration issue. "The courts are going to decide if something is constitutional or not if it's challenged. I don't believe this really has to do with immigration, it has to do with crime, said Massey. Massey says residence is already a factor when considering a person's bond. She believes judges should have all the information about a defendant available to them before sentencing. "Theyre already going to jail, they have committed a crime, they've been convicted of a crime and this is just a factor along with another factor determining how long the sentence is, she said.... This bill passed the House and Senate on May 9. The governor has 10 working days to take action or allow it to pass without his signature.

Though I am not an expert on immigration law or preemption, I am inclined to believe this kind of law is constitutional. I can see a range of reasonable constitutional and policy arguments against this proposed amendment of Tennessee's sentencing laws, but the fact that the provision appear to apply to those in the country illegally AFTER a previous deportation would seem to foster an argument that the law is more like punishing someone based on a certain type of prior criminal history rather than just based on alienage. But nobody should hold me to that too-quick and relatively uniformed assessment, and everybody should use the comments to help be get better informed on the question in the title of this post.

May 16, 2017 at 04:49 PM | Permalink

Comments

The "experts" are idiots. Doug your take is 100% correct. The issue is not that there is discrimination against alienage, but rather, to coin a term, illegal alienage.

The idea that the federal government has plenary power over immigration as a whole isn't right either--states are, or should be, free to deny welfare and other services to illegals.

I would argue that there is nothing wrong with a state taking into consideration even a legal immigration status. Those who are here by the grace of society are ingrates when they commit crime--so why wouldn't that bear on character, which, last I checked, was part of sentencing.

Stewart Harris may be able to convince some 'rat judge of this, but the reality is that TN has this right.

Posted by: federalist | May 16, 2017 5:08:04 PM

It depends. If Congress has already legislated in this specific area then state laws must give way to the Supremacy Clause. What is unclear to me is whether Congress has legislated on this issue. I don't know enough about federal immigration law to say.

Posted by: Daniel | May 16, 2017 6:46:45 PM

Have there been other areas where the courts have ruled that a state sentencing power is invalid because of some action of Congress? Note I am eliminating the entire mess of constitutionalized crim law because that is on based on any action of Congress but rather federal judges' reading of the constitution.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | May 16, 2017 11:03:53 PM

Doug

Let's look at the question from the perspective of your classic article "Conceptualizing Blakely. "

In the article you write "The offense characteristic/offender characteristic distinction informs the Sixth Amendment jury trial right. ". We are clearly talking about an offender characteristic.

I don't know the Tennessee sentencing scheme but it sounds like the appropriate sentence is affected by "aggravating factors". And mitigating factors probably. That is how it is in NC. The bill makes defendants immigration status an aggravating factor.

So, i would suggest that immigration status cannot be used to increase sentence above the "Blakely maximum". But it can be used to offset mitigating factors to prevent the sentence from being lowered.

US v Alleyene makes clear a fact which increases potential sentence above the level allowed by conviction of the core crime is an element of a new greater crime. Offender characteristics cannot be elements of a crime but they can be sentencing factors.

Suppose, to make things simple, a statute says if conviction of a crime calls for an eight year sentence unless there is an aggravating factor which outweighs mitigating factors and then it carries ten years. If mitigating factors outweigh aggravating then sentence is six years.

So my off the cuff answer is "it depends upon if the status is being used as an element of crime or a sentencing factor to prevent s lower sentence.

Your article was written before Alleyene. But your premise was prescient nevertheless.

Bruce

Posted by: Bruce Cunningham | May 16, 2017 11:39:43 PM

Bruce, thanks for the cites/praise, but of course Blakely et al line of Sixth Amendment cases only concerns the procedures used to establish any particular fact/factor that impacts the range of available sentences. I think some are claiming that, regardless of the procedures used to prove up current and past immigration status/actions, a state cannot ever substantively use current and past immigration status/actions as an aggravating sentencing factor.

Posted by: Doug B. | May 17, 2017 7:16:57 AM

Doug, I don't think that Apprendi/Blakely established a "procedure" as much as they define what a crime is.

Thomas in Alleyene writes, "the core crime and the fact triggering the mandatory minimum sentence together CONSTITUTE A NEW, AGGRAVATED CRIME."

In other words, in my opinion, Apprendi/Blakely has nothing to do with sentencing factors. They deal only with defining what a crime is. there is already a procedure in place to try people for committing crimes, a jury trial.

bruce

Posted by: bruce cunningham | May 17, 2017 9:41:55 AM

I certainly read the critic's statements as being equally applicable to a state using immigration status as an offense factor (proven to a jury BRD) as to being part of the sentencing mix.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | May 17, 2017 9:52:04 AM

Soronel, with all due respect, I think "immigration status" is an Offender factor, not an Offense factor. Those are two entirely different things.

bruce

Posted by: bruce cunningham | May 17, 2017 10:08:00 AM

If I am understanding the factor, it seems to resemble the federal offense for illegal re-entry after deportation. Clearly as a general offender character characteristic, the commission of uncharged offenses has traditionally been something that judges can consider in sentencing.

To the extent that there is a specific punishment consequence (i.e. additional points for illegal re-entry that would not apply to other prior offenses), there may be an argument under the two recent Supreme Court cases out of Arizona that such additional punishment for immigration offenses enters into a field that Congress has preempted. It's been a while since I have read the two cases and -- like most criminal practitioners -- federal preemption is not something that I spend a lot of time worrying about.

Posted by: tmm | May 17, 2017 10:54:49 AM

Actually, after thinking about it some I could see a decent argument for it being preempted if a state did in fact try and make it part of an offense:

Whoever having been deported and then re-enters the country without authorization and then commits any other felony is guilty of an offense of a severity one level greater than the base felony.

I could also see such an offense running into proof problems, I could both see the feds not wanting to play along and also there might be negative proof issues (i.e. "you can't prove a negative" and you can't turn an offense element around on the defendant).

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | May 18, 2017 12:46:07 AM

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 The challenge of taking stock of impact of Holder Memos to gauge possible impact of new Sessions Memo | Main | Senator Rand Paul criticizes new Sessions Memo while promising to reintroduce Justice Safety Valve Act 

May 15, 2017

One last chance to RSVP for "Behind the Bench: The Past, Present, and Future of Federal Sentencing"

As mentioned in this prior post, I will be attending this exciting afternoon event, titled "Behind the Bench: The Past, Present, and Future of Federal Sentencing," which is taking place this Wednesday (5/17) in Washington DC. I considered the event quite timely when I posted about it last week, but the discussions generated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions new charging memo for federal prosecutors only serves to add an extra-timely dimension to the topics to be discussed.

As mentioned before, this event emerges from a thoughtful and provocative federal sentencing reform proposal put forward by current Acting US Sentencing Commission Chair Judge William Pryor (in part because that he graciously allowed this proposal to published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter). Through my work with FSR, I played a small role in getting this event off the ground, and here is the event's description from this webpage where one can register to attend:

Thirty years ago, the U.S. Sentencing Commission established the first-ever set of federal sentencing guidelines. Those initial Guidelines received a chilly reception as more than 200 federal judges found them unconstitutional. Although the Supreme Courts United States v. Booker decision in 2005 upheld the basic structure of the Guidelines, it recast them as effectively advisory to allow judges to continue applying the Guidelines consistent with new Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. The Booker ruling stated Congress was free to devise a different system moving forward. More than a dozen years and nearly a million federal sentences later, Congress has yet to act despite diverse criticisms of the Supreme Courts advisory sentencing scheme. This spotlights an enduring question: What is the proper relationship between the legislative and judicial branches in determining sentencing policy? On May 17, please join the Charles Koch Institute, the Federal Sentencing Reporter, and the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School as we explore this question and discuss how we can learn from the past to improve present and future federal sentencing policy. KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Judge William H. Pryor MODERATED DISCUSSION: Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa and Judge Patti B. Saris MODERATOR: Vikrant P. Reddy Date: May 17 Time: 12:00 pm - 2:45 pm

I have been told that there is still a little bit of the limited space available, so folks interested in attending what ought to be a very interesting afternoon of federal sentencing discussion should still be sure to register via this webpage ASAP.

May 15, 2017 at 05:24 PM | Permalink

Comments

The future of sentencing must be for robots to apply algorithms written by the legislature.

Machines are 100 times better than living beings. All those who object to robotic judges must ride a horse, commuting to work, in winter.

Posted by: David Behar | May 16, 2017 6:43:50 PM

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 One last chance to RSVP for "Behind the Bench: The Past, Present, and Future of Federal Sentencing" | Main | Reviewing some historical data on the federal prison population, total sentences imposed, and drug cases 

May 15, 2017

Senator Rand Paul criticizes new Sessions Memo while promising to reintroduce Justice Safety Valve Act

In this new CNN commentary, headlined "Rand Paul: Sessions' sentencing plan would ruin lives," Senator Rand Paul provides a lengthy criticism of the new charging and sentencing memorandum released late last week by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (basics here). Here are a few excerpts:

The attorney general on Friday made an unfortunate announcement that will impact the lives of millions of Americans: he issued new instructions for prosecutors to charge suspects with the most serious provable offenses, "those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences." Mandatory minimum sentences have unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated a generation of minorities. Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Obama, issued guidelines to U.S. Attorneys that they should refrain from seeking long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. I agreed with him then and still do. In fact, I'm the author of a bipartisan bill with Senator Leahy to change the law on this matter. Until we pass that bill, though, the discretion on enforcement -- and the lives of many young drug offenders -- lies with the current attorney general. The attorney general's new guidelines, a reversal of a policy that was working, will accentuate the injustice in our criminal justice system. We should be treating our nation's drug epidemic for what it is -- a public health crisis, not an excuse to send people to prison and turn a mistake into a tragedy. And make no mistake, the lives of many drug offenders are ruined the day they receive that long sentence the attorney general wants them to have.... I want to go the opposite way from the attorney general. That's why I've partnered with Senator Leahy and once again will be reintroducing the Justice Safety Valve Act. This isn't about legalizing drugs. It is about making the punishment more fitting and not ruining more lives. The legislation is short and simple. It amends current law to grant judges authority to impose a sentence below a statutory mandatory minimum. In other words, we are not repealing mandatory minimums on the books -- we are merely allowing a judge to issue a sentence below a mandatory minimum if certain requirements are met. We need this legislation because while there is an existing safety valve in current law, it is very limited. It has a strict five-part test, and only about 23% of all drug offenders qualified for the safety valve.... Each case should be judged on its own merits. Mandatory minimums prevent this from happening. Mandatory minimum sentencing has done little to address the very real problem of drug abuse while also doing great damage by destroying so many lives, and most Americans now realize it.... Pew Research found that 67% of Americans want drug offenders to get treatment, not prison, and over 60% want an end to mandatory minimum sentences. I urge the attorney general to reconsider his recent action. But even more importantly, I urge my colleagues to consider bipartisan legislation to fix this problem in the law where it should be handled. Congress can end this injustice, and I look forward to leading this fight for justice.

I am quite pleased to see Senator Paul astutely use the new Sessions Memo to justify reintroduction and a renewed campaign for his elegant Justice Safety Valve Act (JSVA). For a host of reasons, most notably simplicity, the JSVA has long been my favorite piece of proposed legislation to deal with the problems created by mandatory minimum sentencing statutes. Along with Harlan Protess back in 2013, as detailed here, I even took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to urge then President Obama to throw his support behind the JSVA.

Given that Prez Obama never expressed support for the JSVA and that this bill never even got a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee when under control by Democrats, I am not optimistic that the Sessions Memo will be enough to seriously enhance the JSVA's passage prospects. But I am encouraged to see Senator Paul continuing to be an active and vocal and effective pace-setter for reform of federal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions and practices.

May 15, 2017 at 06:09 PM | Permalink

Comments

The bill had bipartisan support, including from Sen. Patrick Leahy, so if it was not passed, not really sure how much President Obama's "vocal" support (which some Republicans would use to show it is a bad thing) would bring tbh. The power of his "bully" pulpit here (to quote a previous statement) is somewhat unclear to me.

Perhaps, looking at the Wikipedia page, it was a question on there being various possible approaches and he didn't want to support a specific one "vocally," providing discretion. See also: http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/20/obama-expands-mandatory-minimum-sentencing-relief/

But, guess it's appropriate for me to be agnostic.





Posted by: Joe | May 15, 2017 6:46:43 PM

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Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at received an eviction notice from his Oakland apartment on Christmas Day 2016. The residence in question is a home near Lake Merritt that was converted into three separate apartments. Alkebulan-Ma'at went to court to try to stay in his home of 22 years at 369 MacArthur Boulevard because that is generally what people do when they feel they are being unfairly evicted.

His landlords, the building's new owners, Eugene Gorelik and Jessica Sawczuk, then hung a large banner, according to the East Bay Express, on the brown shingle cottage asking that people give Donald Trump a chance. The owners at one point allegedly claimed that they wanted to move into the home themselves but eventually, plans to turn the lot into a multi-unit apartment were revealed and the lot is already a pending sale, at least according to a Redfin listing for the address. The whole time, the now 64-year-old Alkebulan-Ma'at dealt with Oakland courts to fight the eviction. And in the meantime the landlords allegedly turned off his heat, water, and electricity.

The Trump sign, which originally hung high between two trees on the property so that it could be seen from Interstate 580, drew the ire of neighbors and was eventually stolen. After that, Gorelik apparently put a new sign with the same message on the front of the home, as shown above, and "surrounded the billboard with barbed wire, and lit it up with flood lights," according to the East Bay Express.

According to his attorney, Alkebulan-Ma'at went to court on Match 15 to negotiate a resolution with Gorelik and Sawczuk. The parties were instructed to return to court five days later. But before anyone could get back to court, someone changed the locks on the house and began demolishing the property. Some of Alkebulan-Ma'at's belongings were still inside his apartment, and other items from inside his home were selected by strangers to survive the demolition inside a storage container.

In a small slice of justice, the City of Oakland is now suing Gorelik and Sawczuk for violating Oakland's Tenant Protection Ordinance and California's Bane Act for harassing, threatening and unlawfully evicting a tenant.

As of last week, Alkebulan-Ma'at still doesn't have a place to live, as the Chronicle reports, and he's still trying to get his stuff back from Gorelik and Sawczuk.

Attorney Joe Colangelo explains to the Chronicle that the landlords had tried to say that Alkebulan-Ma'at's unit was not protected under the Oakland ordinance because the unit was "either fully or partially illegal." "And that turned out not to be the case," Colangelo said. "The city never made that determination that his unit wasnt covered."

For his part, Gorelik tells the EBX, "I treat people the way I want to be treated," and insists that the building was in tear-down shape, and that Alkebulan-Ma'at was offered a relocation stipend. He also claims that Alkebulan-Ma'at was given soft notice of the new owners' intentions before they purchased the property, and that he has so far refused offers of tenant assistance.

The building, originally a single-family home, was at some point divided into three units, and it's unclear if that was done legally.

Meanwhile, a city zoning inspector is still mulling whether the Trump sign and barbed wire violate any codes. Gorelik says he's baffled by all the hate that the sign has inspired, saying to the EBX in an email, "Whats to complain about. Being patriotic?"

Related: Key Difference Between SF And Oakland Tenant Laws Keeps People In Illegal Units From Reporting Safety Issues
Former teen heart-throb and accused domestic abuser Johnny Depp is set to star in King of the Jungle, an upcoming film about tech entrepreneur turned cocaine/maybe other things addict turned international fugitive John McAfee. According the Hollywood Reporter, it's a dark comedy that will be directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa with a script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

As CNet notes, the movie is based on a 2012 Wired article called "McAfee's Last Stand" about journalist Joshua Davis's experience chronicling John McAfee's journey to becoming a fugitive and accused meth manufacturer in Belize  something we also covered on SFist at the time right after McAfee started blogging insanely about being on the lam.

McAfee, whose name you might remember from 90s-era antivirus software, disappeared from the tech world as a multi-millionaire before popping up in the investigation of the murder of his neighbor in Belize in 2012. He now does things like post videos of himself explaining how to uninstall his famous software while lighting $100 bills on fire with Hello Kitty lighters. His website lists his girlfriends and their ages (he likes 'em young). It also says he never killed his neighbor in Belize.

This is actually sounding kinda perf for Johnny Depp.

Last summer found McAfee returning to his old stomping grounds for a tech conference in SF, bringing along a couple of handguns for safety.

Heading to d10e in San Francisco.

Bitcoin techies are dangerous folks. Can't be too safe. pic.twitter.com/Rlt0hr5qtm  John McAfee (@officialmcafee) July 18, 2016

Yesterday found him him tweeting about the Depp casting, which he's obviously pleased with, and today he was posting about his "masterwork come to life," a website for a planned, unpermitted event in DC this August that is called Woodstock to Washington.

No exact date has been set, and this seems to be some sort of fever-dream creation of McAfee's about which he commissioned a website and that's about it, but the description goes like this:



Make your way to Washington D.C. and do publicly and in the streets whatever you wish, so long as no one is hurt. The results will be staggering. Our goal is for 500,000 people to participate, a number that would be impossible to shut down with arrests. 500,000 people going naked, smoking weed, playing bagpipes, operating unlicenced food carts, or whatever else suits their fancy cannot fail to make the necessary impression.

McAfee declares, "Freedom in America is dying," and the grandly stated goal of the event is to "make history and to change history, with a spectacle of real freedom for which there is no precedent."

The ultimate expression of freedom. My master work come to fruition:https://t.co/GoVoSQxeyA  John McAfee (@officialmcafee) May 16, 2017

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, this is going to end up being a lot less Woodstock '69 and a lot more Berkeley '17, with "freedom" taking on a more militant and libertarian bent that involves helmets, Trump signs, anarchists, and tear gas.

But hey, if McAfee thinks it'll be a glorious day of bagpipes and naked hippies, then let it be so! Let's just hope he doesn't bring his guns.

Previously: Arriving For Tech Conference In SF, John McAfee Tweets Photo Of Guns He's Bringing




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Every week, the Shepherd Express will serve as a clearinghouse for any and all activities in the greater Milwaukee area that peacefully push back against discriminatory, reactionary or authoritarian actions and policies of the Trump administration and other activities that seek to thwart social justice. We will publicize and promote actions, demonstrations, planning meetings, teach-ins, party-building meetings, drinking/discussion get-togethers or any other actions that are directed toward fighting back to preserve our liberal democratic system.

Saturday, May 20

Peace Action Wisconsin: Stand for Peace, noon-1 p.m. @ Corner of Capitol Drive and Oakland Avenue

Every Saturday, from noon-1 p.m., concerned citizens join with Peace Action Wisconsin to protest war. Signs will be provided for those who need them. Protesters are encouraged to stick around for conversation and coffee afterwards.

Laughing Liberally, 8 p.m. @ ComedySportz Milwaukee (420 S. First St.)

Laughing Liberally Milwaukee is a progressive political comedy show hosted by comedian, satirist and talk radio host Matthew Filipowicz. Performers include: Chastity Washington, Bob Rok, Amanda Cohen, Jihan Batuman, Kaitlin McCarthy and sketch comedy group, The Accountants Of Homeland Security. The show will also include an interview with Alan Schultz, an activist and advocate with Ex Prisoners Organizing and the Milwaukees IWW Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.

Tuesday, May 23

Close MSDF Picket, noon-1:30 p.m. @ Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. Ninth St.)

This protest, organized by the Milwaukee Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World and Ex Prisoners Organizing, aims to shut down the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility. The facility was built and is run using funds that should be used for diversionary programs to keep people out of jail, instead its being used to keep them on supervision under arbitrary and vindictive probation and parole officers, says the events Facebook page.

Wednesday, May 24

Refuel the Resistance, 5-8 p.m. @ Bounce Milwaukee (2801 S. Fifth Court)

Every Wednesday, Bounce Milwaukee offers a space to organize, as well as a free drink to anyone who brings evidence of resistance in the past week, including protest signs, an email to an elected official or a selfie at the capital.

Milwaukee Talks GreenRenewable Energy Solar Solutions, 6:30-8 p.m. @ Outpost Natural Foods Co-op, (2826 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.)

This months Milwaukee Talks Green is focused on renewable energy and solar solutions. Participants will learn how Wisconsin compares to other states in solar energy use and how they might be able to afford solar themselves. The event is free and open to the public.

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To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com. Together, we can fight to minimize the damage that this administration has planned for our great country.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is not exactly controversial. Based on a plan laid out by the George W. Bush administration, the federal program was launched in 2010 and maintained through both of Barack Obamas terms. During that time, it has funded thousands of projects countering habitat destruction, polluted runoff, invasive species and other urgent threats. And in spite of the political rancor that prevailed during those years, its enjoyed strong bipartisan support throughout.

So on March 16, when the Trump administration released its America First budget blueprint recommending the elimination of GLRI funding among other massive cuts, opposition came swiftly from both sides of the aisle.

A group of 63 Democrats and Republicans from the House of Representatives sent a letter to the House appropriations leaders, requesting that they to continue allocating the annual $300 million for GLRI funding in 2018. Tammy Baldwin, a member of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, sent a letter to Scott Walker asking how he planned to make up for a loss of federal support. For his part, Walker told the Associated Press, It makes sense for us to continue to make prudent investments in protecting and improving the Great Lakes.

Those appalled by Trumps plan got some comfort on April 30 when Congress, averting a shutdown, agreed on a spending package for fiscal year 2017 that preserved GLRI funding through September. Todd Ambs, Campaign Director for Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, says this came as very good news.

It enables us to keep the Great Lakes efforts on track, and certainly sends a strong signal that protecting drinking water for 30 million people in the region appears to still be a long-term national priority, Ambs says. But theres obviously a lot more work to be done.

With the 2017 spending bill in place, the initiatives broad base of supporters now has a few months to make sure Congress continues to recognize the value of the Great Lakes, both as a local resource and a national necessity.

Environmental and Economic Impact

Since it first went into effect, the GLRI has dedicated $2.2 billion to restoration efforts in the region. Of that, $331 million has gone to Wisconsin, funding a total of 416 projects statewide. In the Milwaukee area, that has included cleaning up the Milwaukee Estuary (a designated Area of Concern), and supporting stream restoration and water quality monitoring by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

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As celebrated as such green initiatives are, not everyone agrees they should take precedence over other pressing concerns when funds are limited. But while the economy and the environment are often pitted against one another in budgetary and policy disputes, Great Lakes restoration benefits both.

We recognize the importance of the lake both economically and aesthetically, says Steve Baas, Senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, which is a member of the Great Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition. We look at the restoration initiative as a way to enhance one of our unique amenities both economically and in terms of a sense of place.

Wisconsins commercial future is inextricably tied to the health of the lakes that border it. In addition to providing drinking water, they encourage development, draw tourists and create jobs. The GLRIs restoration strategy could generate as much as $2.3 billion in increased property values in the Milwaukee metro area alone, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Its hard to do economic development in a toxic sediment area, says Ezra Meyer, Water Resources Specialist for Clean Wisconsin. But once you clean those things up you lay the table for other positive economic activities to follow.

Milwaukees manufacturing is also largely dependent on water, motivating local companies to advocate for Great Lakes restoration. In 2013, Lakefront Brewery joined the National Resources Defense Councils Brewers for Clean Water campaign, which has engaged dozens of breweries in the long-term protection of their main ingredient.

If we dont have clean water, it affects jobs. It affects manufacturing. We really need clean water to do our work, says Chris Ranson, Director of Tourism and Environmental Programs for Lakefront. Dirty water requires more chemicals and processing to be prepared for consumption, and the quality of beer depends on the quality of the water it was brewed with. Ranson notes that brewers also depend on the water for cleaning. Furthermore, Lakefront is located right on the Milwaukee River, making it one of the citys many waterfront businesses that count on clean rivers and lakes to attract customers when the weather is nice.

A National Resource

Trumps budget blueprint states that it returns the responsibility for funding local environmental efforts and programs to State and local entities, allowing EPA to focus on its highest national priorities. This language suggests 1) that the GLRI is not a high national priority, and 2) that State and local governments are capable of funding it adequately without federal help. Many GLRI supporters would disagree on both counts.

The Great Lakes contain more than 90% of Americas fresh surface water. If the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence region were its own country, it would be the third largest economy in the world. These resources exist in a local area, but they are of national importance, Meyer says. Thats why the federal funding for doing something to fix them has always made so much common sense.

In her letter to Walker, Baldwin wrote Wisconsin has received millions in federal investments from this federal program and local governments simply do not have the resources to replace this funding.

Echoing this assertion, Ambs points to how the pace of toxic hot spot cleanup has accelerated since the GLRI went into effect. He also notes that some of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources staff positions are entirely funded by grants from the EPA.

Those staff disappear if funding is not maintained, Ambs says. Theres just no way that youre going to be able to address these things without the federal government. And why should we? What priorities are greater than the most significant surface freshwater resources on the planet?

Looking to 2018

The proposed cuts dont seem to be a judgment on the GLRI itself. Rather, Trumps so-called skinny budget paints the new administrations prioritiesslashing domestic spending, limiting federal involvement, pumping up defensein the broadest of brush strokes, leaving many popular programs in doubt. I think they wanted to make a big splash and show they were cutting all this stuff. And all kinds of babies got thrown out with all kinds of bath water. Meyer says.

Like many other initiatives slashed by the skinny budget, the GLRIs future ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline remains unclear. On this front, Baas views the proposed cuts not as a threat so much as an opportunity for the GLRI to prove its worth.

When youre spending taxpayer money on a program, its not a bad thing for the program to have to justify its value proposition, Baas says. Fortunately for those of us who are fans of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, I think its one of the programs that can make a compelling case.

A statement from the press office of Jim Sensenbrenner, who supports the GLRI, stated Due to its strong bipartisan support and the fact that it has been consistently funded since its inception in 2010, Congressman Sensenbrenner is optimistic that it will receive the funding necessary in [fiscal year] 2018.

Many advocates are not taking anything for granted, however. Instead, they are attending town halls, planning awareness campaigns and sending advocates to Capitol Hill. In doing so, they hope to present a united front that is not limited to any one region, industry or political party. As far as we can tell, the only person in the United States thats opposed to Great Lakes restoration is in the White House, Ambs says. So well continue making our case and hope to prevail in next years budget.
CHEROKEE, Iowa | As Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad sat in front of 60 people in an auditorium at the Cherokee Mental Health Institute on Tuesday, he smiled as his biography was read as part of his introduction.

Branstad put his hand over his heart as two Cherokee Washington High School girls sang "The Star Spangled Banner." He held in his lap a few papers that would constitute his speaking notes, then stood to an ovation, beginning his speech that would last eight minutes.

Holding the microphone in his right hand and sticking close to the podium, Branstad directed a lot of his looks at the front row. His only misstep was calling MHI Director Cory Turner by the wrong last name, going with Taylor instead.

In many respects, Branstad's participation in announcing Cherokee as the latest and 48th municipality to get the Home Base Iowa designation was like the thousands of public events he's had while serving as Iowa governor for 23 years. Yet there was a difference, as his days as Iowa governor appear to have apparently dwindled to less than a week.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote Monday on the confirmation of Branstad as President Donald Trump's U.S. ambassador to China. His departure will create a vacancy in the governorship that by state law will be filled by Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who will become the state's first female governor.

That expected upcoming change meant some people at the Cherokee event had heavier hearts as they pushed up to chat with Branstad, after he was done with his public remarks.

"I believe very firmly that he has done a wonderful job of serving our state of Iowa," Beverly Anderson Zieman said, moments after Branstad held both of her hands as they warmly talked.

Anderson Zieman is retired after a 24-year career as Cherokee County auditor. She said she first knew Branstad in 1982, when he won the first of six terms as governor. Anderson Zieman added that Branstad's sound experience aided Iowans.

Branstad traveled after Cherokee to Council Bluffs. The rest of his public schedule for this week includes four events on Thursday and Friday in Des Moines, so Tuesday appears to be his last time traveling to Northwest Iowa.

As has been his practice in recent Iowa events, Branstad didn't delve too deeply into his personal feelings about shifting away from the governor job. It took a third question on the topic, while walking out of the building with a reporter, for Branstad to say he is experiencing some "nostalgic" feelings about no longer being governor.

"I've loved it and I've met a lot of wonderful people and I will miss that," Branstad said.

His years as governor constitute a U.S. record nationally, a mark he reached in December 2015. Had he completed the current four-year term, he would have had 24 years as governor. Branstad has presided over six terms -- four from 1983 to 1999 and two more from 2011 to the present.

Branstad earlier in the event cautioned that full Senate approval of his ambassadorship isn't a done deal. However, he said he felt good about his April multi-hour hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"This may be the last time I will be here before I go to China," Branstad told the crowd.

Branstad then told media members his time as governor will end once his ambassadorship passes the full Senate, at which point he will resign the governor spot. U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, later on Tuesday tweeted the confirmation vote is expected about 5 p.m. Monday.

Branstad said he will undergo three weeks of ambassador orientation, so "I probably won't get to China until June."
SIOUX CITY | A Morningside gas leak forced occupants in 17 homes and a dental business to evacuate Tuesday.

The leak was caused after a third-party contractor struck a 4-inch gas line while boring beneath the intersection of South Lakeport Street and Lincoln Way around noon.

Sioux City Fire Rescue spokesman Joe Rodriguez said Tuesday evening all the evacuations were precautionary and no injuries were reported.

MidAmerican Energy communications director Tina Potthoff said eight customers in the area were without gas service. Electricity also was turned off to 26 customers as a precaution. Potthoff expected repairs to be completed and services restored Tuesday night.

Firefighters went house to house to check homes for the presence of gas when the leak was first reported. The displaced residents who had nowhere else to stay were encouraged to go to the food court at the nearby Southern Hills Mall, where officials gave them updates. The gas was contained at 5 p.m. The residents were then allowed to meet with rescue personnel to take them back if their house was secure.

Crews blocked off South Lakeport from Ravine Park Drive to Sergeant Road and the artery roads to South Lakeport for the majority of the day. MidAmerican and the fire department reopened Lincoln Way and South Lakeport Tuesday evening. All but the outer southbound lane of South Lakeport have been reopened while repairs are being made.

Nodland Elementary School and East High School were east of the affected area and were not in danger, a press release said.

Staff and customers of Lakeport Dental Care, 3434 South Lakeport St., were evacuated as a precaution.
PONCA, Neb. | An Emerson, Nebraska, man who alerted authorities to a "possible attempted murder" for an incident with his girlfriend faces several felony charges.

Dixon County Attorney Leland Miner on Friday charged Joe Saufley with first-degree assault, first-degree sexual assault, strangulation with serious bodily injury, first-degree domestic assault and disturbing the peace. Saufley's preliminary hearing was set for June 9 in Dixon County Court.

According to court documents, Saufley, 22, called authorities at 12:20 a.m. May 7 and requested police and an ambulance to come to his home in the 1100 block of Logan Street in Emerson because he had murdered his girlfriend. When police arrived at the scene, Saufley was standing in the street with blood dripping from his hand. He turned around and placed his hands behind his back and was arrested, court documents said.

The victim came out of the house, court documents said, covered in blood and had injuries over her face, head and body. She was taken to Pender Community Hospital and then transferred to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Officers observed blood throughout the house and found several knives inside, court documents said.
According to court documents, Alvarado went to a 58-year-old woman's apartment in the 800 block of Riverview Drive in South Sioux City at about 9:15 p.m. Friday and asked the woman, "How long has it been?" Court documents said Alvarado then took the woman's glasses off, lifted her hands and led her into the bedroom, where he performed sex acts on the woman before having sex with her, despite the victim telling him to quit because it hurt.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Two years ago, Britney Vongdara's dreams didn't really include crossing the border out of Nebraska.

She figured she'd go to college in Omaha or Lincoln and study social sciences, stay close to her family.

But a couple of major life experiences -- one tragic, the other eye-opening -- led the 18-year-old to re-examine those dreams and think way beyond her borders, both literally and figuratively.

After she receives her diploma Sunday as one of South Sioux City High School's 290 graduates, Vongdara will turn her focus toward attending Harvard University in the fall and the opportunities that she imagines that experience will open for her. It's a path that is so much different than the one she once envisioned.

"I feel like a lot of things happen out of luck," she said. "Things will happen, but you need to decide what to do."

As a 16-year-old sophomore, Vongdara had to decide how to move forward after her mother died unexpectedly. Mone Baccam was diagnosed with ovarian cancer during a regular checkup on Dec. 23, 2014. She died less than three weeks later at age 47 on Jan. 9, 2015, before treatments could begin.

Vongdara was thrust into an adult role. Neither her father, Phat Vongdara, who came to the United States as a refugee from Laos in the 1980s, nor her stepfather, Jaime Bolanos, who moved here from Mexico seeking better opportunities, speak English well. Her older brother, Christian, was having a hard time with their mother's death. So it was up to Britney to help with the funeral arrangements, deal with Social Security and other important legal matters after her mother's death.

"At first, I didn't really react," Vongdara said. "I didn't go through the grieving process until a couple months later. When I had to make real-life decisions, it hit me."

Not only had Vongdara lost her mother, she also had lost one of her main supporters. Vongdara had always dreamed of traveling to India, something her mother supported and encouraged her to do if she earned the money for such a trip.

As a junior, Vongdara learned about the National Geographic Student Expeditions program, which offers high school students trips throughout the world with National Geographic photographers and scientists. Vongdara applied and was accepted. She spent three weeks in India last summer researching the country's many cultures and returned home a different person.

"I think I started to feel more confident. I feel like I had something to say," she said.

In the fall, she looked beyond Nebraska colleges and applied to prestigious universities: Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Stanford and the University of Chicago. She was accepted to both Harvard and Yale. After visiting both campuses in April, she chose to attend Harvard.

There, Vongdara will decide between majoring in maybe physics or environmental science. She plans to minor in visual and environmental studies.

Vongdara speaks excitedly about the whole experience that awaits her, how she's looking forward to stretching her boundaries and adapting to circumstances outside her comfort zone.

The opportunities that await her make Vongdara think about her mother, who had to drop out of college after only two months to care for her sick mother. She never was able to return.

"I used to feel pretty guilty about it, like I didn't deserve this because of what happened to my mom," Vongdara said. "But she would be so happy about this. She was always my academic cheerleader.

"She would have been so proud. She would be so happy that I was living the dream she wanted."

The trip to India and the acceptance into Harvard have given Vongdara a chance to reflect. If her mother hadn't died, Vongdara might now be making plans to attend college just a quick drive from home rather than halfway across the country.

"I feel like losing Mom made me more mature," she said, "so I wanted to matter more and learn more and find out how I fit into the world."

It's safe to say Vongdara has found her fit. It's just somewhere much farther away than she had dreamed.
UPDATED 10:30 A.M.

LAKE PARK, Iowa | High winds damaged a steel shed and two Lake Park businesses early this morning.

Dickinson County emergency management coordinator Mike Ehret said storm damage was limited to the western quarter of the county, where winds gusted in excess of 80 mph. Ehret said that by the time the storm moved through the Spirit Lake area, winds were down to 40 mph.

Ehret reported several trees were down in Lake Park early this morning and were blocking city streets.

A steel shed two miles west of Lake Park was damaged, and two Lake Park businesses had tin sheets blown off of their roofs.

There were scattered power outages in the area, Ehret said, but nothing widespread.

Dried corn stalks were blown from fields and had drifted in some areas, Ehret said.

No injuries have been reported. Most residents were sleeping when the storm passed through the area between 4 and 5 a.m.

"The time of day it happened helped that out," Ehret said.

As of 10 a.m., MidAmerican Energy was working to restore power to 36 customers in the Ritter area north of Sheldon. High winds blew down power lines, and tree limbs had fallen on other lines.

Sheldon public works director Todd Uhl said the city had some minor power outages after the storm. He said trees and limbs were down in the city, but there was no major damage.

"It's not horrendous by any means," Uhl said.

Weather forecasts call for a chance of severe thunderstorms with hail and more wind this evening and tonight, placing emergency management personnel such as Ehret on alert for the potential for more damage.

"It's spring in Iowa," Ehret said.

UPDATED: 9:30 a.m.

HARTLEY, Iowa | Crews are working to restore power to portions of Hartley after a wind storm knocked out the city's electric substation at about 4 a.m.

City administrator Patty Anderson said that power had been restored to 75 percent of the town by 7:25 a.m., the majority of the remaining homes and businesses had power by early afternoon.

As a result, school started two hours late this morning.

Anderson said city crews are still assessing damage to the city-owned substation. Crews from Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative, of Le Mars, Iowa, were assisting with the power restoration.

Several trees were blown down in town, Anderson said, and she had reports of at least two cars being struck by falling trees and a trampoline being blown through the side of the owner's house.

PRIMGHAR, Iowa | An early morning storm packing winds reaching speeds more than 80 mph caused widespread tree damage in at least two Northwest Iowa counties.

The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls reported a wind gust of 83 mph in Lake Park, Iowa, early Tuesday that caused tree damage in that Dickinson County community.

The O'Brien County Sheriff's Office reported numerous trees down in Sheldon and in the Hartley and Sanborn areas. There were also reports of a couple gravel roads in rural areas blocked by downed trees.

The storm struck between 4 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. and was the result of a heat burst, meteorologist Alex Ferguson said. Sometimes as a thunderstorm begins to die, air sinks quickly and warms up, leading to gusty, damaging winds.

Sioux City escaped the brunt of the storm, receiving 0.11 of an inch of rain and wind gusts of 40-50 mph.

Rain continued to move through the region Tuesday morning, but Sioux City likely will clear out and see warm, humid conditions today with a high of 89 degrees.

The region could see another round of severe weather this evening, Ferguson said, when thunderstorms containing hail and damaging winds are possible.

Showers and scattered storms are forecast for Wednesday into Thursday morning, with high temperatures cooling into the 70s on Wednesday and 60s on Thursday. Friday also is expected to be cool and rainy with a high of 57 degrees.

Ferguson said Sioux City could receive up to 1.50 inches of rain from now through Thursday.
According to court documents, Morales told investigators he was talking to his wife in his car in the 2200 block of Floyd Boulevard when he became upset after she told him she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him and had been seeing another man. Morales told police that he blacked out and that the next thing he remembered was that his wife was not breathing, court documents said.
According to court documents, Moniz was at the bar drinking with a female friend at about 1:45 a.m. when she became agitated with owner Robert Perera and brandished a large knife. Moniz demanded that Perera give her money from the cash register and his wallet and drive her to 19th and Court streets.
I want to thank Linda Holub for another purposeful and informative column (May 7 Journal), this one on the danger of our Constitution becoming irrelevant. She is the epitome of what a true conservative and an American patriot is and I commend the Opinion page staff of The Journal for choosing her as one of the Sunday Regulars.

When our Constitution, our rule of law, our sovereignty and our Christian heritage are all in jeopardy, when truth and reality become difficult to decipher, writers like Mrs. Holub are a treasure.

But a question emerges. Why is truth, apparently, elusive for so many? And why in America of all places?

I discovered a quote recently that grabbed my attention, primarily because it may offer a clue to the above questions. The quote may have been made for an entirely different reason, but the words are most apropos. The author of the quote was a surprise, too. More than 50 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. made this comment in a speech: "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

So few words, but what a message. - Sid Jacobsma, Orange City, Iowa
It was very good, refreshing to read The Journal's Saturday article headlined "'God moments' carry injured Tanzanian children to Sioux City." Christians continue to carry on Christ's mission here and abroad, such as those mentioned in the article.
SIOUX CITY | With the opening date for legal fireworks sales in Iowa just over two weeks away, Sioux City is moving quickly to put an ordinance in place to govern their sale and discharge.

The City Council on Monday discussed a drafted fireworks ordinance and announced its intent to finalize it in time for public input and a vote at Monday's meeting.

The discussion comes less than a week after Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law the bill legalizing the sale of fireworks in Iowa. With the law hot off the press and state administrative rules still being drafted, fire officials acknowledge Sioux City's timetable is tight.

Mayor Bob Scott said he's frustrated the law has put cities in a crunch.

Its fine if were going to have fireworks, but then do it the right way and not allow sales until December," he said. Its stupid to put a law like this in place, with the negative effect it could possibly have, so quickly that you dont have rules in place."

According to the draft ordinance, Sioux City would, in accordance with the new law, allow fireworks sales from an approved permanent structure between June 1 and July 8 and from Dec. 10 until Jan. 3. Sales from temporary structures, which the city expects will comprise the bulk of its vendors, would be allowed between June 13 and July 8.

Sales would be limited to property that is zoned as general commercial and located in Fire Zone 3, which does not include the downtown area. Sellers must hold licenses both from the state of Iowa and from the city. The city would charge a $500 application fee.

Fireworks could be discharged from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. June 1 through July 8 and from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Dec. 10 through Jan. 3, with a few exceptions. On July 4 and on the Saturdays and Sundays immediately preceding and following the holiday, fireworks could be discharged until 11 p.m. On Jan. 1 and the Saturdays and Sundays immediately preceding and following New Year's Day, fireworks could be discharged until 12:30 a.m.

According to the ordinance, no one under 18 would be allowed to sell or discharge fireworks. People would also not be allowed to purchase or set off fireworks while intoxicated. Discharge would be banned in public parks.

Sioux City Fire Rescue Chief Tom Everett told the council his department is recommending the city not allow either the sale or discharge of fireworks. If the sale must be allowed, Everett said, he requests the city limit the number of permits so as not to stress inspections staff, who must review all fireworks selling sites.

"Its going to be very, very difficult, and its certainly going to cost us overtime to do any more than probably 25," Everett said.

But City Attorney Nicole DuBois said at this point the predominant consensus of the law's interpretation has the city's hands tied when it comes to limiting the sale of fireworks.

"Thats something that people are still talking about and were trying to figure it out, but the overwhelming opinion that Ive seen is that the direction is to not limit sales," she said.

Sioux City Council members will review the drafted ordinance this week and suggest changes. The new ordinance is scheduled to be included in the agenda released Thursday afternoon for Monday's meeting.
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.
A classy group of trotting mares were in the spotlight Monday evening at Mohawk Racetrack, and a graduate of the Ontario Sires Stakes program stepped up her game en route to an impressive score for driver Paul MacDonell.

Youre Majestic, a talented lass from the stable of trainer Tony OSullivan, sailed to an eye-catching triumph in the $24,000 Fillies & Mares Trot in a sharp clocking of 1:54.

MacDonell got away fourth with the five-year-old daughter of Majestic Son-Youre Adorable while Stormont Kate sprinted through fractions of :27 and :56. Youre Majestic made a first-over move as the field headed into the final turn, and she accelerated to the lead while racing parked at the three-quarter pole in 1:24.4.

She summoned up :29.1 closing speed, and as a result she won in going away fashion by 4-1/4 lengths over race favourite Emoticon Hanover. Renegade Magic rounded out the top three finishers.

F Bellino And Sons LLC of Bronxville, NY owns the talented trotter who was purchased for a mere $2,000 from the 2013 Blooded Horse Sale. Since then, shes racked up 12 lifetime wins and purses in excess of $426,000.

To view results for Monday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Monday Results  Mohawk Racetrack.
A racetrack employee was more than lucky to walk away unscathed last week after a field of racehorses narrowly missed him as they raced into a turn at full speed.

As an article by The Paulick Report explains, the incident occurred at Golden Gate Fields on Friday, May 12. It was reported that the employee was on the turf course working on a timing system when the field of Thoroughbreds made its way to him.

The employee, who was later identified as Nixon Dang, had thought that the race was supposed to be contested over the main course, not the turf course. Luckily, the worker was unharmed, thanks to some quick reactions from jockeys and a racehorse that jumped over Dang, to an extent.

The incident occurred in the vicinity of the quarter pole during Race 5, a five-furlong sprint for fillies and mares that had attracted a field of eight starters. Notes on the official Equibase chart indicate that three of the lasses had to either be steadied, checked, or have their courses altered. The closest call came when a fourth horse had to partially hurdle Dang to avoid hitting him. Dang would later be fined $200 by the California Horse Racing Board for violating Rule 1881, which has to do with people being on the racecourse during a race.

Regardless of the way the dash shook out, the stewards that were overseeing the contest still allowed the race result to be made official. The stewards stated that more of the horses that were in the race had to be impeded in order for a no-contest to be declared.

(With files from The Paulick Report)
Yes, we need to keep it under control

No, we need to learn to live with it
Play at the new site will be free and first come, first served through the...
Standing in an aisle at Bobs Sporting goods, a look of uncertainty in her soft, brown eyes, Daisy the dog took her first tentative steps in her new wheelchair.

The story of Daisy, the black Labrador retriever left paralyzed in her front legs after she accidentally fell out of the back of a truck and was then run over, has been making the rounds on social media since her late March/early April accident.

Shes just so patient, said Shelly Westby, Daisys new foster mom. As soon as she figures out that can move, shell just be off.

Westby, who helped co-found Rescued Paws in Longview, and her husband, Ted, brought Daisy to Bobs on Saturday to get Daisy rolling in her new chair.

She can be in this several times a day, she just cant stay in it, Shelly Westby said.

Daisy came to the Westbys when her owner couldnt afford her medical care.

The couple already has several dogs. Many are foster dogs that will go to permanent homes, others will remain with the couple. Many of the dogs they take in, like Daisy, have medical or physical ailments.

Getting a dog used to a wheelchair isnt easy. It turns out, putting the wheelchair together isnt either. So the Westbys turned to Bobs for help.

The box came in 1,000 pieces, Westby said. I came up with this idea: Ill find a bike shop thats willing to help me. So I Facebooked them (Bobs) and 10 seconds later they Facebooked me back!

Matt Schlect, Bobs vice president, said the store was glad to help

Shelly and her husband are doing all the hard work taking care of all these dogs, I thought the least we can do is put a cart together for them, he said.

Schlecht said its the employees, calling them the best group in the state, that makes it possible to take on worthy projects like Daisys.

While Shelly Westby said theyve had dogs who have lost a leg or been disabled before, this is their first time having a dog in a wheelchair. Daisy lost the use of her front left leg although she does have some limited mobility in right front leg.

Shes really determined. We have stairs and she goes down them to go outside and then goes back up, she said. Shes very determined. And happy.

Shelly Westby said she hopes someday Daisy will be able to go a permanent home with someone who can provide the time and support she will need.

Daisys new wheelchair came from Gunnars Wheels in Wisconsin, a non-profit group created by Jason Parker. Westby reached out to the group via social media.

Parkers dog, Gunnar, was following him to the mailbox when the dog was hit by a truck, breaking two of his vertebrae. Despite two surgeries and months of physical therapy, he could no longer walk.

Youre never prepared, emotionally or financially, when your pet gets hit, Parker said by phone Monday.

Gunnars vet bills totaled more than $6,000. Last August, Parker set up a GoFundMe account and formed a 5013 to take donations. To date, the nonprofit has received more than $80,000 in donations.

I always knew I wanted to pay it forward, he said.

Parker mainly provides dog wheelchairs to animal shelters and rescue groups that run on a shoestring budget, as well as for those that simply cant afford a wheelchair that typically costs $600. The nonprofit has provided wheelchairs to dogs all over the country, as well as Canada, Scotland, the Bahamas and Portugal.

My goal is to provide a wheelchair to every dog that needs one, he said.

Parker said he want to raise enough money to buy more chairs over the next two years and then have enough to loan out to any dog that needs one.
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The world's biggest ransomware attack levelled off in Europe on Monday thanks to a pushback by cyber security officials after causing havoc in 150 countries, as Microsoft urged governments to heed the "wake-up call". The cross-border police agency Europol said the situation was "stable", easing fears that attacks that struck computers in British hospital wards, European car factories and Russian banks would spread further at the start of the working week.

"The number of victims appears not to have gone up and so far the situation seems stable in Europe, which is a success," senior spokesman for Europol, Jan Op Gen Oorth, told AFP. "It seems that a lot of internet security guys over the weekend did their homework and ran the security software updates," he said.

The indiscriminate attack was unleashed Friday, striking hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide by exploiting known vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems. Like stealing missiles Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, said in a blog post Sunday that it was in fact the NSA that developed the code being used in the attack.

He warned governments against stockpiling such vulnerabilities and said instead they should report them to manufacturers -- not sell, store or exploit them, lest they fall into the wrong hands. "An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the US military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen," Smith wrote.

"The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake up call." US package delivery giant FedEx, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica and Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail network were among those hit in the attacks, which demanded money to allow users to unblock their computers.

In China, "hundreds of thousands" of computers were affected, including petrol stations, cash machines and universities, according to Qihoo 360, one of China's largest providers of antivirus software. French carmaker Renault said its Douai plant, one of its biggest sites in France employing 5,500 people, would be shut on Monday as systems were upgraded.

Europol executive director Rob Wainwright told Britain's ITV television on Sunday that the attack had been "unprecedented". "We've never seen anything like this," he said. 'Ooops' message, $300 ransom The attack blocks computers and puts up images on victims' screens demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in the virtual currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"

Payment is demanded within three days or the price is doubled, and if none is received within seven days the locked files will be deleted, according to the screen message. Bitcoin, the world's most-used virtual currency, allows anonymous transactions via heavily encrypted codes. Experts and governments alike warn against ceding to the demands and Wainwright said few victims so far had been paying up.

Security firm Digital Shadows said on Sunday that transactions totalling $32,000 had taken place through Bitcoin addresses used by the ransomware. The culprits used a digital code believed to have been developed by the US National Security Agency -- and subsequently leaked as part of a document dump, according to researchers at the Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April, claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA, Kaspersky said. The attack is unique, according to Europol, because it combines ransomware with a worm function, meaning once one machine is infected, the entire internal network is scanned and other vulnerable machines are infected.

The attack therefore spread faster than previous, smaller-scale ransomware attacks. Banks, trains and automobiles Anti-virus experts Symantec said the majority of organisations affected were in Europe. Europol said few banks in Europe had been affected, having learned through the "painful experience of being the number one target of cyber crime" the value of having the latest cyber security in place.

Russia said its banking system was among the victims of the attacks, along with the railway system, although it added that no problems were detected. French carmaker Renault was forced to stop production at sites in France, Slovenia and Romania, while FedEx said it was "implementing remediation steps as quickly as possible". Dozens of hospitals in Britain's National Health Service were affected and several still had to cancel appointments on Monday, as doctors warned of delays as they cannot access medical records.

AFP
hidden

The United Nations human rights office on Tuesday welcomed a $5 million donation from Microsoft Corp and called on the rest of the private sector, which makes up only a tiny proportion of its donors, to "step up to the plate".

Microsoft's funds will go towards helping the U.N. agency develop and make better use of technology in its human rights work as part of a five-year partnership, the parties said at a news conference in Geneva.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, who has called his agency "dramatically and chronically underfunded", said he hoped the donation would encourage others in the private sector to contribute. On top of funding from the U.N. budget, Zeid has called for voluntary donations of $253 million in 2017. Almost all such donations come from governments.

"We're receiving close to zero form the private sector," Laurent Sauveur, head of external relations at the UN human rights office, said at a separate briefing. "We feel the private sector has a tremendous role to play. We do believe that it needs to step up to the plate." Sauveur said the agency had tried to form partnerships with the private sector but lacked capacity.

The U.N. Office for Human Rights has a far smaller budget than the humanitarian arms of the U.N. such as the refugee agency UNHCR, the children's agency UNICEF and the World Food Programme, which are experienced at raising private donations. Countries that did not make voluntary donations to the human rights office last year include China, Syria, Israel, Iran and North Korea.

Peggy Hicks, the U.N. human rights office's head of thematic engagement, said $5 million would go a long way in the human rights sector, despite a $100 million funding gap. "The U.N. human rights office is going to be able to harness the potential of technology to tackle human rights abuse more effectively, and at the same time will be better placed to respond to the new human rights challenges that may be posed by technology," she said.

Microsoft will also give technological support to the agency, according to Hicks. Microsoft President Brad Smith said the partnership was an opportunity to grow the role of technology in the safeguarding and defence of human rights.

"In many ways we look at the human rights situation around the world and we see a still untapped opportunity for technology to help," Smith told reporters in Geneva via videolink. One way technology could contribute to the agency would be in the collection and analysis of large amounts of data that is now required for it to carry out its work, he said.

Technology giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook are under scrutiny for their privacy policies as governments want to raid their vast stores of data to conduct surveillance on their own populations.

Hicks said the U.N. had done extensive due diligence before accepting Microsoft's donation, and Smith said that any company making a donation should respect the mission and the needs of the organisation, and "get involved only if you're comfortable." Last year it received only $129 million in donations, ranging from $17 million from the United States to $1,816 from Mauritius.

Reuters
PTI

Central transmission utility Power Grid today said it has put sufficient firewalls to deal with the global cyber attack Ransomware and consumers need not fear sudden outages on that account.

Power Grid's top brass deliberated on the strategy to deal with the Ransomware, a malicious software that infects computers and restricts user access until ransom is paid for unlocking them.

"Since the Power Grid operations are information technology based, the issue was discussed in detail at a meeting of board members chaired by Chairman and Managing Director I S Jha this morning," a senior official said. The official said instructions have already been issued to the employees not to open certain mails or download material which can infect our system.

"There are reports that it has affected certain sectors like banks. But in our case we have put sufficient firewalls to deal with the situation to protect our system," he said. Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology had said that multiple cases of WannaCry/WannaCrypt ransomware infections in many countries around the world have been reported recently.

It said: "In India, no reports have been formally received so far regarding this Ransomware attack. However, it is understood that a few systems of the Police Department in Andhra Pradesh were impacted. The ministry has informed Andhra Pradesh Government, to follow the CERT-In advisory." Meanwhile, European and British policing and security agencies have warned that the fallout from an unprecedented global cyberattack which has hit more than 200,000 victims could worsen as people return to work.

An international manhunt was under way for the plotters behind the world's biggest-ever computer ransom assault which has affected more than 150 countries. The virus exploits a flaw in a version of Microsoft Windows first identified by US intelligence. The attacks exploited the computers because they were running outdated versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system.
Anirudh Regidi

WannaCry a.k.a. WannaCryptor a.k.a. WCry is wreaking havoc in the digital world, particularly in Europe. At last count, this malicious bit of code has affected over 200,000 computers worldwide.

WannaCry is officially known as WanaCryptor, thats what the malwares developer calls it anyway. For the sake of convenience, well refer to it as WCry from here on.

WCry is a kind of malware known as ransomware. Ransomware works by encrypting all the data on your computer and then demanding a ransom, usually in the form of iTunes cards or bitcoin, to decrypt your data for you.

Think of it this way, the malware enters your PC, locks up all your data in a vault and then asks you for money the key to unlock said vault.

Given the state of modern encryption standards, its improbable that youll ever be able to recover your data without the right key, which means that you have no option but to pay to get back access to your data.

WCry takes advantage of at least two Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities to spread rapidly through networks with little to no user intervention.

WCry demands a ransom of $300 in bitcoins (around Rs 19,000) and the price doubles if you dont pay within 3 days. After 7 days, WCry claims that your data wont be recoverable.

The source

A number of cybersecurity experts have confirmed that the US Military Intelligence agency, the NSA (National Security Agency), first discovered these exploits and deliberately refrained from disclosing them to Microsoft.

Shocking that our @NHS is under attack and being held to ransom. #nhscyberattack pic.twitter.com/1bcrqD9vEz  Myles Longfield (@myleslongfield) May 12, 2017

A hacker group calling itself The Shadow Brokers hacked into a section of the NSA last year and discovered a treasure trove of catalogued, undisclosed vulnerabilities and exploits. The Shadow Brokers initially tried to sell stolen exploits, but the lack of interest in the "outdated" exploits disillusioned them. The vulnerabilities were made public soon after.

Two of those vulnerabilities, code named Eternalblue and Doublespar, are allegedly being used to drive the spread of WCry.

The Eternalblue exploit affects every version of Windows since 2001s Windows XP and was patched in March this year. Windows 10 is apparently safe from the exploit, however.

If the NSA had disclosed the vulnerability earlier, it is likely that the patch would have come sooner. There is no official word on the state of the Doublespar exploit yet, but we assume that it's been patched. At the time the exploits were leaked, Microsoft did say that Windows wasn't vulnerable.

WCry itself first made an appearance in March, but wasnt much of a threat at the time. Ransomware, is, after all, not uncommon. WCry is such a big deal now because it was recently updated to exploit Eternalblue and Doublespar, making it incredibly virulent.

How does it spread?

The exact mechanism of how WCry spread or where it originated from is unknown. Its suspected that the malware initially spread via infected attachments sent over email.

Once a PC is infected WCry executes a program that attempts to connect to an obscure website  iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, in this case. This website acts as a kill switch. If WCry can connect to it, it ceases to function. If it cant, it unzips a password protected file and proceeds to encrypt the data on your computer.

Sample I found scans SMB after dropping WannaCrypt. Can anyone confirm it's the same thing? P2P spreading ransomware would be significant. pic.twitter.com/zs5Td4ovvL  MalwareTech (@MalwareTechBlog) May 12, 2017

The website was an unregistered domain and ideally, only the hacker would know that exact address. The hacker simply has to register the domain for the attack to cease. As it turns out, a 22-year old blogger accidentally killed the first wave of WCry by finding and registering that domain. More on that later.

Using Eternalblue, the malware then starts actively querying your network and attempts to spread and the process repeats. All of this happens with no user intervention.

All encrypted files receive a .WNCRY extension. So if you have a word document titled notes.docx, itll be renamed to notes.docx.wncry, and youll know youve been hacked.

Each encrypted folder will contain a file with instructions for paying the hackers a sum of $300 in bitcoin. A decryption tool is also bundled, but it needs the right code, which only the hacker can provide.

Microsoft already patched the holes in its OS in March, but judging by the number of infections and the rate at which it spread, a great many users and organisations didnt install those security updates and patches.

In its security blog, Microsoft explains that the Eternalblue exploit was designed to target Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and earlier versions of Windows. The exploit could never target Windows 10 and hence, that OS was safe from the attack.

Users of WIndows XP are the most vulnerable, however, because this OS no longer receives security updates from Microsoft. Considering the virulence of WCry, however, Microsoft relented and released patches for Windows XP and two other defunct OS versions.

On a side note, these OS versions are still supported by Microsoft, but only select clients receive updates, and this service is paid for by those clients.

How much damage can it cause?

Ransomware like this is almost impossible to deal with. As mentioned earlier, modern encryption standards make it almost impossible to recover encrypted data without an immense amount of computing power at your disposal, and even then, the chances of recovery are slim.

If infected, your only hope is that you had a safely stored backup of all your data. Those whore using an online storage solution like OneDrive or iCloud are not safe either. The encrypted files can get synced online, tainting all your online data as well.

Just got to Frankfurt and took a picture of this... #Sbahn, you got a #Ransomware! pic.twitter.com/w0DODySL0p  Marco Aguilar (@Avas_Marco) May 12, 2017

If not, you either pay the hacker or find a way to live with the fact that the data is lost forever.

Physical copies of your most important data are the best backup option. This can include CD/DVD backups of your essential data.

The ransomware has brought the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK to its knees, interfered with the operation of factories, destroyed hospital records, interfered with Spains essential utilities and at last count, infected over 200,000 computers.

We've also heard reports that over 600 companies in Japan were infected and that schools and government institutions in China were shut down by the attack.

While damage to personal property is a real possibility, the real damage is being done to businesses and essential services.

It doesnt help that government institutions have a reputation for running on outdated hardware and software. In India, for example, most ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) run on the unsupported, 15-year old Windows XP operating system.

What can I do about it?

If youre infected, theres nothing you can do. Either pay up or suck it up. If youre not infected, make sure you update your system right NOW. Not over the weekend, not tomorrow, or even tonight. Start the update process right now and hope for the best. If youre not on Windows or are using Windows 10, this is an exploit you neednt worry about.

Take backups of your most important data and isolate if from your network. The best option would be to use physical, uneditable media like a CD or DVD.

Microsoft has issued additional patches for every single affected OS, including Windows XP, and has also updated Windows Defender, Windows in-built security solution, to detect and clean out WCry.

Anti-virus software makers like Kaspersky and Trend-Micro have also done their part in improving protection against this malware.

The accidental hero

Popularly dubbed the accidental hero, a 22-year old researcher and blogger who works for a threat intelligence company and identifies himself only by malwaretech, accidentally stopped the spread of WCry.

Malwaretech stumbled upon the garbled URL that was the killswitch for WCry. Discovering that it was an unregistered domain, he simply registered it for less than $11 (around Rs 700).

Unwittingly, hed just killed the most virulent malware since Conficker.

The complete story can be found on the malwaretech blog here, suffice it to say that the spread of the ransomware came to a screeching halt soon after.

Sadly, ransomware like this can easily be mutated and its now up and running again, likely querying a new, obfuscated URL that nobody seems to have figured out yet.

Regardless, malwaretechs efforts may have at least provided enough of a breather for firms and businesses to marshal their resources and further bolster their defences on a global scale.

The lesson here is simple, keep your operating system updated and make sure you have backups of all important data. WCry is only one among an infinite variety of malware out there, and you never know when one of them might strike you.

At last count, the hackers behind the attack have collected a little over $50,000 in ransom. You can check the state of the WannaCry bitcoin wallets in real-time here, here and here.
Anirudh Regidi

The ransomware popularly known as WannaCry is already a global phenomenon. Within just a few short days, the malware has infected well over 200,000 computers globally, affected hundreds of companies and hampered the working of essential services.

Strangely enough, the impact of the malware in India appears to be minimal, compared to worldwide reports anyway. In fact, Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad went on record to state that the malware had nearly zero impact on India.

The only reports we've seen so far suggest that a handful of police computers in Visakhapatnam, some computers at a village panchayat in Kerala and a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu were impacted. This is a far cry from reports of educational institutions in China, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) and essential infrastructure in Spain being shut down.

The malware spreads via a leaked NSA (National Security Agency) exploit that targets earlier versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. This includes Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows XP. Windows 10 is unaffected by the exploit.

While Microsoft did issue patches for the exploit in March this year, the scale of WannaCrys impact is proof enough that PCs werent updated in time.

Data on infected computers is encrypted (locked) by the WannaCry malware and the hackers then demand a payment of $300 (around Rs 19,000) to unlock the files. While its doing this, the malware actively uses the NSA exploit to infect more computers on the network.

Given its design, the malware is particularly effective against businesses and large computer networks. This includes ATMs (automated teller machines), hospital networks, computers at essential utilities, etc.

As Burgess Cooper, Partner  Cyber Security at EY, explains, The traditional manufacturing sector relies on outdated IT systems that are run by unsupported operating systems and therefore, the risk of creating havoc to public is higher.

A report from cyber security company F-Secure suggests that Russia and China were the biggest victims of the attack. F-Secure chalks these countries vulnerability up to the fact that many computers in these countries run pirated versions of Windows, which arent upgraded frequently.

This is a problem because India is third only to Russia and China in the percentage of computers running pirated software. 70 percent of Chinese computers use unlicensed software, the Russian figure stands at 64 percent and Indias at 58 percent.

Given this data, its certainly surprising that Indias reported infection rate is so low.

Its possible that the governments push for Digital India and to secure government networks in the wake of the recent, large-scale Aadhaar data leaks has inadvertently secured many governmental agencies against infection.

Its also possible that the malware, which appears to have initially targeted Europe, took some time coming to India, giving India time to take precautionary measures.

Of course, as Sanjay Pandey, an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer who is also a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) puts it, The absence of any reports from India may not be a reason to cheer, however. Many, due to obvious reasons, may not be reporting and may be silently paying the criminals to unlock ransomed files.

EYs Cooper further adds, In my opinion, a majority of Indian hospitals are quite vulnerable to critical infrastructure attacks as they rely on industrial systems that are run by old outdated hardware. Despite investments in high-end security products, the cyber-breach prevention, detection and incident-response capabilities of most organizations are yet to mature in India.

India's CERT-in (Computer Emergency Response Team) has already issued a red alert for the malware. More recently, it appears that the Maharashtra government has also set up a cyber security helpline to handle queries related to the infection.

Despite initial reports, India is still extremely vulnerable to WannaCry. Till the threat is nullified, do ensure that your computers are fully updated at all times. A third-party antivirus solution will help, but its not necessary to prevent WannaCry.

Detailed instructions on securing your PC against WannaCry are available here.
PTI

As part of precautionary measures, banks did not operate some ATMs running on old software in view of threat from ransomware WannaCry. The RBI has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation Cert-In on ransomware, which has impacted various IT networks in over 150 countries.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) has come out with a list of dos and donts and webcast on how to protect networks from the global ransomware attack.

Most automated teller machines (ATMs) were running fine, there could be some which may not have updated Microsofts Windows operating system, sources said. Such ATMs could be prone to attack so as precautionary measure banks running such ATMs refrained from feeding cash, sources added.

However, there was no official information in this regard from the RBI in this connection till late evening. There are a total of 2.2 lakh ATMs in India, of which few may be running on old Windows XP.

In a separate malware attack last year, 3.2 lakh debit cards were compromised in the country. Data of the users who transacted from ATM machines of Hitachi were compromised during three months of May, June and July last year. The Hitachi ATMs deployed by many White Label ATM players and Yes Bank were impacted by the malware.
PTI

The government today said there was no serious impact on the country from a global ransomware cyberattack, except for a few isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and steps were being taken to deal with any future threat. Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the systems run by the National Informatics Centre were secured and running smoothly. A cyber coordination centre will start operating from next month to take precautions against such attacks, he said.

"There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. As per the information received so far, there have been isolated incidents in limited areas in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh," he told reporters here. The minister said India has started installing 'patches' since March besides sending advisories regularly to all stakeholders. A patch is a software used to correct any loophole in a programme including security vulnerabilities.

India is also coordinating with international agencies, cleaning up the malware and conducting cyber drill regularly to foil possible cyber attacks. Asked about reports of networks of a few banks being compromised, the minister said he had no such information.

India is on high alert, monitoring critical networks across sectors like banking, telecom, power and aviation to ensure that systems are protected against possible cyberattack on its vital networks by the crippling global ransomware,'WannaCry'.

'WannaCry' has disrupted networks in over 150 countries, including Russia and the UK, and is being termed as one of the most widespread cyber attacks. Reports suggest that over two lakh systems globally could have been infected by the malicious software that blocks access to data unless a ransom is paid.
N Korea link emerges in global cyberattacks

A customer walks by the notice about \"ransomware\" at CGV theater in Seoul on Monday.

Security researchers on Monday reported signs of a potential North Korea link to the massive cyberattack campaign that sparked havoc in computer systems worldwide and opened fresh political rifts between Russia and the United States.

After days of disruptions affecting networks worldwide, a top US official said the number of computers affected had reached 300,000, but that infection rates had slowed.

In the first clues of the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the "WannaCry" malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang. Other experts quickly jumped on this as a sign-although an inconclusive one-that North Korea may have been behind the outbreak.

"We believe this might hold the key to solve some of the mysteries around this attack," said researchers at the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky, adding that further research was needed.

Israeli-based security firm Intezer Labs said it agreed with the North Korea attribution.

The group's chief executive Itai Tevet said in a tweet: "@IntezerLabs confirms attribution to North Korea for #WannaCry, not only because of the function from Lazarus. More info to come."

Tom Bossert, President Donald Trump's top cyber and homeland security adviser, brushed aside suggestions that the United States was to blame for the attack, which stemmed from a flaw discovered by the US National Security Agency and later leaked.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," he said, noting that no US government systems had been hit.

"This is a global attack," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier had pointed the finger at the United States.

"A genie let out of a bottle of this kind, especially created by secret services, can then cause damage to its authors and creators," the Russian leader said on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing.

Russia has recently been accused of cyber meddling in several countries, but Putin said they had nothing to do with the attack.

Over the weekend, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said attacks highlighted the dangers from the NSA's "stockpiling" of secret hacking tools.

There had been concern that Monday's start of the working week would see an upsurge in attacks.

But the cross-border police agency Europol said the situation was "stable" after attacks that struck computers in British hospital wards, European car factories and Russian banks.

"The number of victims appears not to have gone up," a senior spokesman for Europol, Jan Op Gen Oorth, told AFP.

But according to Michel Van Den Berghe, director of telecom group Orange's cyber security arm, a "second wave" is to be expected.

US package delivery giant FedEx, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica and Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail network were among those hit. The attackers demanded money to unblock their computers.

In China, "hundreds of thousands" of computers were affected, including gas stations, cash machines and universities, according to Qihoo 360, one of the country's largest providers of antivirus software.

Russia said its banking and railway systems were targeted.

A fifth of regional hospital associations in Britain's National Health Service were affected and several still had to cancel appointments on Monday.

French carmaker Renault shut its Douai plant-one of its biggest sites, employing 5,500 people-as systems were upgraded.

The attack blocks computers and puts up images on victims' screens demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in the virtual currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"

Bossert said that paying the ransom provided no guarantee files would be unlocked.

He told a news conference that "it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery."

Bitcoin, the world's most-used virtual currency, allows anonymous transactions via heavily encrypted codes.

Experts and governments alike warn against ceding to the demands and few victims so far had been paying up.




UGC allocates supplementary fund of Tk 32.14cr

Prof Abdul Mannan, Chairman, UGC witnessing a signing ceremony of allocating supplementary fund of Tk. 32.14 crore to nineteen public universities at UGC Auditorium on Monday.

Campus Report :



University Grants Commission (UGC), Bangladesh allocated supplementary fund of Tk. 32.14 crore to nineteen public universities against forty-eight sub-projects earlier completed under Round-1, 2 and 3. In this regard, an agreement signing ceremony between UGC and the concerned universities was held at UGC Auditorium on Monday.

Prof Abdul Mannan, Chairman, UGC was present on the occasion as chief guest. Prof Dr Mohammad Yousuf Ali Mollah, Member, UGC chaired the function. Dr Gauranga Chandra Mohanta, ndc, Project Director (Additional Secretary), HEQEP was present as special guest. Dr Md. Khaled, Secretary, UGC signed the agreement on behalf of UGC. Ajit Kumar Debnath, Senior Procurement Officer (Joint-Secretary), HEQEP delivered the address of welcome on the occasion.

The chairman of UGC urged the sub-project managers (SPM) to implement the sub-project money timely by properly utilizing the fund allocated for projects.

The universities which signed agreement included Dhaka University, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Khulna University, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Jagannath University, Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, Comilla University, Sylhet Agricultural University, Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University and Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University.

Vice-Chancellors, Sub-Project Managers of the concerned universities and high officials from UGC and HEQEP, among others, were present on the occasion.


Mega tourism project in Ctg in the offing





Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon yesterday said the Government has embarked upon a mega tourism development project centering the picturesque Patenga sea beach here and the beach town of Cox's Bazar.

"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has a dream to create jobs for everyone and this dream can be materialized largely through the tourism sector", he told a press conference jointly with Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu.

The press conference was called at Chittagong Circuit House on Monday afternoon on the eve of the launching of a three-day United Nation's World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) meeting in the port city. The tourism minister said Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) has taken initiative to build a five star hotel at Parky Beach of Anowara upazila in the district.

"Besides 14 five star hotels in Bangladesh and many international chain hotels are being registered to extend their service and business to promote tourism in Bangladesh", he said adding that a tourism village would be set up in Cox's Bazar for the foreign tourists.

The 29th meeting of the UNWTO Commission for East Asia and the Pacific and the UNWTO Commission for South Asia (CAP-CSA) UNWTO Regional Forum on Crisis Management is being held at city's Hotel Radisson Blu.Menon said considering the importance of tourism sector, Bangladesh Bank has included tourism in its CSR Policy.

Terming tourism as a major wheel-power of any country's economy, the minister said the tourism industry directly influences 109 industries.

"In spite of those two hurdles, Bangladesh has progressed a lot in tourism sector as the government is determined to build up Bangladesh as a tourism friendly country", he said.

The ministers later unveiled the cover of a book on the tourism in Chittagong division jointly published by BPC and Department of Films and Publications (DFP).

Civil Aviation and Tourism Secretary SM Golam Faruk, Chief Executive Officer of Bangladesh Tourism Board Dr nasir Uddin, BPC Chairman Akhtaruzzaman Khan Kabir, Additional Secretary of Civil Aviation and Tourism Ministry Mohammad Imran, among others, were present at the press meet.
If I had chosen to sell kebabs, it'd be easier for me: Huma Qureshi

Actor Huma Qureshi doesn't mince her words when taking a stand. She was among the first few actors who openly spoke about favouritism in Bollywood. Not long ago, when the issue really caught fire, following actor Kangana Ranaut describing filmmaker Karan Johar as the "flag-bearer of nepotism", Huma had been vocal on the subject.

"Anybody who says that favoritism doesn't exist in Bollywood would be lying. I can completely understand that nobody chooses to be born into a given family. It's not a blame game where I'm trying to put down another person and say that somebody else does not deserve [to be] where they are in their career and life," says Huma, 30, adding that it takes a lot of hard work, talent and determination to become successful and admired.

The actor points out that even if a person is a 'star kid', success won't come easy and that person still has to work for it. "However, the opportunities that come to you are far easier; the projects that are offered to you are far bigger; the budget sanctioned for your films would be much bigger," says Huma.

"There are so many talented people out there who don't get the same kind of opportunities. My father runs a restaurant business in Delhi, so if I had chosen to sell kebabs, it would be far easier for me than for anybody else," adds the actor. Her father Saleem Qureshi runs a chain of restaurants.

Huma recently made her Hollywood debut with Gurinder Chadha's Viceroy's House, and in Bollywood, she has been steadily building up a notable body of work. Her breakout movie was Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), and she was also seen in Dedh Ishqiya, Badlapur and Jolly LLB 2. With all that experience, she maintains that it's not a level playing field. "Not all are starting from the same line; however, the finishing line is certainly the same. We all have to show how much money our films make, or how many awards we win, or what critical acclaim and commercial success our films have," she points out.
Swara Bhaskar bids farewell to Doordar-shan`s Rangoli!

Swara Bhaskar's association with Doordarshan's most popular and longest-running music show on television 'Rangoli' as a host has come to an end.

The versatile actress, who has previously anchored filmmaker Shyam Benegal's show Samvidhaan on Rajya Sabha TV, started hosting the revamped version of the melodious show Rangoli two years back that airs on DD National every Sunday since decades.

A source says, "While Swara has been a huge fan of Rangoli and has grown up watching the show, it was difficult for her to discontinue as she will be busy shooting for her forthcoming movie projects including Aapke Kamre Mein Koi Rehta Hai and prepping up for Veere Di Wedding."


Promoting gender equality thought budget

Christine Lagarde :

Finance ministers and central bank governors from the G7 countries met in Bari, Italy, this weekend to consider global economic issues, including steps to maintain economic stability and improving gender equality as important agenda items.

Women's economic empowerment has long been an international priority, of course. The G6 - as it was then - was first created in 1975, a year named "International Women's Year" by the United Nations to help more women worldwide realize their full potential. Mountain climber Junko Tabei masterfully demonstrated this potential when she became the first woman to conquer Mount Everest in that year. However, as the world dealt with the aftermath of the first oil shock and the end of the fixed exchange rate system, global economic stability and women's empowerment were rarely part of the same conversation.

How times have changed. Today, in discussions on the global economy, female economic empowerment is almost always on the agenda.

Women's economic empowerment matters

This is, first of all, because women matter, full stop. Second, there are large benefits for all of society, and this includes men, women, and children, to be had from raising women's participation in the economy - it can boost GDP growth, help economies diversify, and tackle income inequality. At the IMF, we are incorporating gender-related considerations in the policy advice we provide to our member countries - so far, we have completed consultations along these lines with 22 countries, with more to come. Our recent programs-including with Egypt, Jordan, and Niger - also contain specific measures to help empower women economically.

To inform the G7 discussion of gender equality, under the Italian Presidency, the IMF prepared a paper - Gender Budgeting in G7 Countries - as a contribution to the meeting this weekend.

One of the lessons of the paper is that, despite progress made by most G7 countries in improving gender equality (see chart below), there is still a large unfinished agenda. For example, in advanced industrial countries, women's labor market participation rate is about 17 percentage points lower than men's. The wage gap between women and men amounts to roughly 14 percent. The share of male managers is almost double that of women, and almost 70 percent of unpaid work is performed by women.

Budgets should promote gender equality

The point I was making to the G7 countries is that, to make further progress, national budgets can be used more actively as a tool to support gender equality. For example, in advanced economies, tax policies play an important role in addressing disincentives for secondary earners to work. Spending policies can help too, for instance by supporting childcare facilities. One example is the Canadian child benefit scheme, which helps families with the cost of childcare through a tax-free, income-tested benefit. This and other examples are listed in the table below.

Gender-responsive budgeting is about analyzing fiscal policies and budgetary decisions to understand their impact-both intended and unintended-on gender equality. Such approaches can be applied at all stages of the budget cycle.

While G7 countries have made effective use of a wide range of fiscal and nonfiscal policies to reduce gender inequality, they have generally made less progress in developing the broad-based budgetary institutions that are essential to mainstream gender policies.

For example, only Canada, France, and Japan publish a gender budget statement. And while most G7 countries undertake a gender impact assessment of new policy proposals, the approaches and methodologies vary widely.

More work to be done

What else could G7 countries do to strengthen their budgetary institutions' consideration of gender issues?

Gender budgeting needs to be mainstreamed. This includes embedding gender issues in the annual dialog between ministers on budget priorities, and in other budget routines.

Budget execution should be monitored for its impact in a transparent way. The involvement of legislatures and civil society, as well as proper auditing, are key to ensure accountability.

Long-term gender strategies should involve all aspects of the budget process. For instance, greater use should be made of budget statements and guidelines that set priorities for gender-related expenditures, ensure adequate medium-term funding, and assess the gender impact of policies.

At the IMF, we will continue to work on these issues as part of our broader efforts to promote inclusive growth. This includes, for example, providing technical assistance to over 120 countries-including recent work on Cambodia's financial information systems, the Medium-Term Budget Framework in Ukraine, and the Fiscal Transparency Evaluation in Austria, just to name a few representative cases. And we remain committed, across the full range of our activities, to helping women make the most of their economic potential.

Just as Junko Tabei went on to become the first woman to climb the "Seven Summits"-the highest mountains across seven continents-today many women are scaling heights in the workplace and the wider economy. But much remains to be done.

Therefore, I am calling on G7 policymakers to strengthen gender budgeting to contribute to women's economic empowerment and promote global economic stability at the same time.

(Christine Lagarde is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund).


Midnight storm costs five lives

Trees uprooted, vehicles flattened, trawler sinks, waterlogging blocks traffic movement in city

A car was flattened [left] while another one climbed upon a hillock [right] being driven away by the gusty wind and hit by an uprooted tree on Monday night. The photo was taken from Rajarbagh area on Tuesday morning.

Staff Reporter :

A violent storm battered capital Dhaka as elsewhere across the country with torrential showers and high winds killing five people, destroying many houses, damaging crops, uprooting trees, hindering traffic movement and inundating many low laying areas on midnight Monday.

At least five storm-related deaths were reported, with one victim crushed by a falling tree in Narail while another following collapse of a tin-shed roof of a house in Gaibandha district.

Besides, two fishermen drowned and one remained missing as a fishing boat capsized in the River Meghna during storm in Laxmipur district. Another victim, a shopkeeper was killed when a billboard collapsed on him during the storm in Bogra district.

Several hundred thatched houses were reportedly damaged and hundreds of trees uprooted in the districts during the storm.

The wind blew at a speed of between 74 and 83 kilometres per hour also snapping power lines and TV cables in many places of the country. The rain created water-logging in the low-lying areas.

More rain and storm are likely to occur across the country today (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday), an official of Met Office said.

The Met office says trough of westerly low lies over West Bengal and adjoining areas, which extends up to North Bay.

Rain or thunder showers accompanied by temporary squally wind is likely to occur at a few places over Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions and at one or two places over Rangpur, Khulna and Barisal divisions, it added. In Capital Dhaka, most areas were inundated as torrential rains also pounded during the storm. The Met Office recorded 49mm of rain in the capital.

Traffic almost came to a standstill after the storm at midnight on Monday in the busy areas like Banani, Staff Road, Khilkhet, Airport Road, Gulistan, Farmgate, Mouchak, Moghbazar, Gulshan, Zigatola, Dhanmondi and many other areas.

Though the rain stopped by 2:00 in the night, water from many inundated areas did not recede quickly. The fallen trees and submerged vehicles also added salt into the wounds.

Besides, city's most roads were jammed with long lines as idled cars waited for waist-deep water to recede. As many vehicles went out of order, commuters waded their way home through knee-deep water or waited for hours to get transport.

About 50 trees were uprooted during the storm in the city.

Two people were injured when a tree in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) fell on a pick-up van driving along the road under Tejgaon police station during the night's storm.

The rainwater submerged roads in Mirpur-10, Shenpara-Parbata and Kazipara, Rokeya Sarani, Airport Road, Bijoysharani, Moghbazar, Mouchak, Malibagh, Shantinagar, Kakrail, Sabujbagh, Khilgaon, Merul Badda, Rampura, Motijheel, Shyampur and Demra.

Moreover, the Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover construction site tormented the travelers most.

Commuters are facing unbearable miseries while travelling through roads connecting Moghbazar, Mouchak, Malibagh, Shantinagar, Eskaton, Dilu Road, Siddheshwari, Shatrasta and Rampura due to the construction work as the roads are riddled with huge potholes.

A large number of cars and motorcycles were shifted off road after receiving technical faults due to heavy rain, which affected the city badly.

In Laxmipur, two fishermen drowned and one remained missing as a fishing boat capsized in the River Meghna during storm early Tuesday morning.

The dead were identified as Awlad Hossain, 40, and Mahe Alam, 45. Both hailed from Balur Char village in Ramgati upazila.

The missing fisherman is identified as Helal Uddin of Char Daktar in the same upazila.

Police and local people said the trio went to the Meghna for fishing. Their boat was caught by strong wind early in the morning and capsized, leaving two drowned and one missing.

Ramgati thana OC M Iqbal Hossain said bodies of two dead fishermen were recovered and handed over to their families.

In Gaibandha, a man was killed as a tin-shed roof of a house collapsed on him during storm at Khukshia village in Gobindaganj upazila on Monday night.

Abdul Kader, chairman of Nakai Union Parishad, said that the tin-shed roof of the house of Mujibur Rahman, 33, son of Tofazzal Hossain, collapsed on him during storm while he was sleeping around 9:30pm, leaving him dead on the spot
Raintree for proper probe, skips journos` questions

Billal and Rahmat Ali, driver and gunman of Shafat Ahmed, Banani rape case prime accused were produced before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate\'s court on Tuesday.

Staff Reporter :

Authorities of the Raintree Hotel skipped most of the queries placed by reporters at a press conference over the rape of two university students on March 28 night.

Amid public outrage over allegations of siding with the accused rapists and trying to cover up the incident, authorities of the hotel located in city's Banani area organised the press conference in its conference room on Tuesday to clarify its stance over the issue.

They have tried again and again to conceal the genuine information to the reporters at the briefing.

The questions from newsmen were skipped by the hotel authorities, rather they advised them to go through its press release to be supplied on behalf of them.

They, however, sought justice for the accused rapists based on proper investigation.

In the day of the incident, Shafat rented two 'sweet' rooms (room no: 700 and 701) of the hotel and the hotel's General Manager Frank Fargat was present till 11:00pm, said HM Adnan Harun, Managing Director of the hotel, adding that till then no unwanted situation they have noticed.

If anything happened in the hotel rooms, authorities could not get to know as the hotel rooms were soundproofed, he also said, adding "We cannot say anything more as law enforces are investigating into the incident.

According to the culture of the hotel it offers birthday cake if its client is present here during his/her birthday, he replied when journalists asked the question-whether a complimentary birthday cake was sent to Shafat from one of the directors of the hotel.

"The case is now being investigated and it will be proved," he added.

Reza Golam Mostafa, General Manager of Raintree Hotel's financier company Humaira Group, read out a written statement. They did not entertain any question asked by reporters.

"The rape victims did not bring any allegation of harassment that night," said Golam Mostafa in the statement.

Regarding deleting the CCTV camera footage, Golam Mostafa said: "We follow an international rule deleting any footage that is over 30 days old," he said.

Meanwhile, internet users have voted down the hotel that opened in April. After the incident, the online rating of The Raintree Dhaka stood at 1.1 out of 5, which was 4.6 before, sources said.

On the night of March 28, two university students were allegedly raped in the hotel rooms by Shafat Ahmed, son of the owner of Apan Jewellers, and his cohorts. One of the rape victims filed a case with Banani Police Station on May 6 accusing five people. Of the accused, Shafat Ahmed and Nayeem Ashraf were sued for raping the two female university students while Shadman Sakif, Shafat's driver Billal, and his bodyguard Rahmat for abetting in the crime.
Apan, Raintree link to financial crime being detected

Shafat's driver, bodyguard remanded

Sagar Biswas :

The sensational Banani rape case raised eyebrows of different circles as separate agencies, apart from the police, launched probes to dig out any illegal financial activities of Apan Jewellers and Raintree Hotel, the place of occurrence.



When the law enforcement agencies have started working on unearthing the mystery behind the incident, Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate, Department of Narcotics Control, RAJUK and other authorities also stepped in to find clues to any financial crimes.



CIID on Monday claimed to have found enough evidence about the involvement of owners of Apan Jewellers in gold and diamond smuggling. The Directorate also seized a huge quantity of gold from five outlets of Apan, which has sent a wave of panic among the country's jewelry businessmen.



It is a billion dollar question why CIID had remained mum earlier when tonnes of gold bars were smuggled into the country through airports and other channels. It had said several times that major quantity of smuggled gold was consumed in the domestic jewellry industry. Why it did not take any step in this regard at that time?



As there was no gold import in the last five years for excessive duties, it was the CIID's task to see how the jewellry industry flourished in the country.



RAJUK authorities claimed that the four-star Raintree is operating illegally without having permission as a commercial entity in a residential area. For that reason, it has cut off gas, power and water supplies to the hotel, which is owned by Awami League MP Bazlul Haque Haroon's four sons including Mahir Haroon. MP Haroon is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Religious Affairs Ministry. Questions are there why RAJUK did not take any action earlier if the hotel had not taken permission?



The Department of Narcotics Control [DNC] suddenly conducted a raid at the Raintree hotel, but did not get anything. The DNC is widely blamed for giving permission of mini bars and other doping centres in the city's Banani, Gulshan and Baridhara areas in exchange for huge money.



Especially, the posting of DNC Gulshan Zone Inspector is so much lucrative that the aspirants sometimes offer crores of taka bribe to the senior authorities to get it. Was it out of DNC's knowledge that a four star hotel could not run without serving alcohol to its customers? What action DNC will take against several hundred spots where alcohol and other drugs are on open sale in these areas?



Meanwhile, the statements of Shafat and other arrestees disclosed that the victims [two private university girls] were familiar to the accused rapists for a long time and they knew the attitudes of them. They had planned to pass the night in the hotel and also took selfies with Shafat and his friends. Significantly, they filed case after a month of the incident, which also raised questions.



Police still could not nab Nayeem Ashraf alias Hasan Md Abdul Halim, an accused in the Raintree Hotel rape, who is widely blamed not only by the victims and but also other arrestees for his 'excessive arrogance' on the night.

Police using the mobile phone tracking technology had spotted Nayeem at Jalalabad area in Sylhet two days ago. But the connection was detached soon after the arrest of his colleagues. He was absconding till the time of filing of this report on Tuesday evening.



Sources in the Police Department said he [Nayeem Ashraf] might have taken a chance to flee away to India through Sylhet border as separate teams of law enforcers failed to catch him despite repeated drives in different parts of the country in the last few days.



Police have got enough evidence that Nayeem, an event management businessman, worked as a 'broker' who used to supply girls, mostly emerging models and showbiz performers, to Shafat and his friends in exchange for a fat amount of money.



Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Masudur Rahman said: "Police are conducting drives to catch Nayeem. We hope, he will be captured soon."



Earlier, all the five accused went to Sylhet after two victims filed a case under Women and Child Repression Act with the Banani Police Station on May 6.



Acting on a tip-off, a team of Police Headquarters picked up Shafat Ahmed, son of Apan Jewellers' owner Dildar Ahmed Selim, and Sadman Shafiq, son of Regman Group's Managing Director Mohammed Hossain Jony, from an expatriate's residence in Sylhet on May 11.



Besides, Shafat's driver Billal Hossain and bodyguard Rahmat Ali alias Abul Kalam Azad were arrested by RAB and DB on Monday night from Dhaka. , Sub Inspector of Court Police Abdul Mannan said: "Billal and Rahmat were remanded in police custody for four and three days respectively. Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Laskar Sohel Rana passed the order on Tuesday after police sought ten days for interrogating them." The arrested driver Billal, number 5 accused in the case, confessed to the police about capturing the video of rape incident on March 28 night taking position behind the false partition of the bathroom of the Raintree hotel suite.



Quoting the statement of driver, police sources said Safat asked him [Billal] to go to the suite and take position behind the false partition of the bathroom, from where he captured the video of victims.



At the same time, driver Billal disclosed to the police that the victims were forced to take drugs on the night by Shafat and his friends. Later, the video was also shot while they were taking Yaba and other drugs.



Police, however, did not find the video in Billal's cellular phone. Police suspected that Billal deleted the videos. The mobile phone has been sent to forensic lab for test.



ICT experts of Police Department said that it is possible to recover the data and information even if those were deleted. "It is possible to recover the footage from the server or hard disk, even if it is deleted. We've the technology and the experts," Sheikh Md Rezaul Haider, former Special Police Superintendent, Criminal investigation Department, said.


N Korea missile detected by THAAD

The long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) is launched during a test in this undated photo released by North Korea\'s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Reuters, SEOUL :

North Korea's missile program is progressing faster than expected, South Korea's defense minister said on Tuesday, after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday's test-launch.

Han Min-koo told South Korea's parliament the test-launch had been detected by the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, whose deployment in the South has infuriated China.

The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programs, even from its lone major ally, China, said the missile test was a legitimate defense against U.S. hostility.

The North has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang's provocations and has warned that the "era of strategic patience" with North Korea is over. U.S. Disarmament

Ambassador Robert Wood said on Tuesday China's leverage was key and it could do more.

Han said Sunday's test-launch was "successful in flight". "It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced caliber compared to Musudan missiles that have continually failed," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km (1,860 to 2,485 miles).

Asked if North Korea's missile program was developing faster than the South had expected, he said: "Yes."

Han said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile unit deployed by the U.S. military in the South detected the North Korean missile, marking the first time the controversial system has been put to use since its deployment last month.
The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
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HB70 is classified as a local bill, but it was authored by a North Louisiana legislator at the request of the head of the Louisiana Professional Firefighters' Association and affects fire department seniority in four geographically scattered departments.

HB70 appears innocuous enough. The bill, which has passed the House and now awaits consideration by the Senate Committee on Local and Municipal Affairs, deals with fire and police seniority rules. But, there are some oddities about the way the bill has been handled that raise questions about the local bill designation and local notification rules that apply to those bills.

Rep. Dodie Horton of Haughton is the author of HB70. Haughton is a town in Bossier Parish. Her bill applied to fire department hiring practices in four communities  Baton Rouge, Bossier City, a fire district in Calcasieu Parish and Lafayette.

In a phone interview on Friday, Horton says the bill is designed to provide a level playing field to all new hires by fire departments in the four communities named in the bill. The bill amends current law to specify the communities by name. Current law defines the communities covered by the law through the use of a population range ("not less than two-hundred thousand persons and not more than two-hundred forty thousand persons"). According to Horton and to Candice Hatton, attorney for the Lafayette Fire and Police Civil Service Board, the current law applies to Lafayette so the naming of Lafayette does not affect any change.

"My husband is a retired fire captain with the Shreveport fire department," Horton says. "I introduced the bill at the request of Chad Major to clean up some arrangements in hiring regulations relating to people going to fire academy and the start of the work-test period."

Chad Major is the president of the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Louisiana. His LinkedIn account says that he is an "Assistant to the Fire Chief" for the Baton Rouge Fire Department.

In a separate Friday telephone conversation, Major says he contacted all of the affected fire departments before approaching Horton about introducing the bill.

"What the bill does is take away an unfair advantage of someone hired by a department who already might have a firefighter one certification," Major says. "Currently, if someone has that certification and they are hired, their work-test period starts while they are in the academy for training. Those without the certification only get it after completing the training, but every new hire in those departments is required to go through the training."

Major argues that by allowing those with the earlier certification to start the work-test period sooner than those without it, it provides a seniority edge for those with the certification even though they do not have any more time inside the department than those hired at the same time without the certification.

"This bill addresses that," Major says. "It's a good government bill."

Jason Boudreaux, chairman of the Lafayette Fire and Police Civil Service Board, agrees with Major that the bill was needed, even though he was not initially aware that Lafayette was affected by the bill.

"The way the law has been, giving preferential treatment to those with firefighter one certifications meant that it did not matter how good or bad they performed in our fire academy, those people came out jumping to the head of the class in starting their work-test period," Boudreaux says. He spoke with The Independent by phone on Tuesday morning. "It also gave them an unfair advantage on seniority that could affect them throughout their careers."

Local notice for the bill appeared in The Daily Advertiser.

"What this bill will do is put everyone on a level field," Boudreaux, who represents the Lafayette Fire Department on the board. "Now, performance in the academy will determine whose work-test period starts first and that will determine seniority."

In Boudreaux's view the bill will help Lafayette and other departments recruit and retain more minority fire department hires by putting all recruits on equal seniority footing.

"What you'll find is that many minority applicants don't have prior firefighting experience," Boudreaux explains. "This change would put them on equal footing with others in their recruitment class and position them to advance as their performance enables them."

Boudreaux says that he only became aware of Lafayette being included in the bill after being contacted by The Independent through the Fire and Police Civil Service Board office last week.

"I contacted Kurt Bourg, the head of the local firefighters union, and he was all apologetic, saying that he had gotten LFD Chief Robert Benoit's approval to support the bill, but had forgotten to contact us," Boudreaux explains.

Article 3, Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution requires that local notices be published in communities that will be affected by bills that apply to local entities but not the entire state. Local notices were published in the four affected communities, but only one invoice for the notices identifies a payer. The bill information page of each local bill also includes copies of the public notices as well as the verification of publication. The bill information page for HB70 can be found here.

The Advertiser's invoice and verification notice for HB70 is the only one that identifies a payer. The payer is not identified as Chad Major or the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Louisiana. It is identified as "Baton Rouge Fire Department." The address listed is a residential address in Slaughter, which is in East Feliciana Parish.

Clerk of the House Albert "Butch" Speer tells The Independent that local bills need not be confined to a single locale and that it is permissible for third parties to pay for the required local legislation notices.

"It's a little unusual to have scattered locales like this included in a single bill, but if the notices were run in compliance with the constitutional provisions, then the bill is in proper order," Speer says.

Ironically, Boudreaux says that the current situation that HB70 seeks to remedy was created by another local bill where local notices were published but local governing bodies were not notified.
"Mouton was not so much a hero as he was a thug. He wasn't a particularly nice fellow and he was a racist. So, essentially we appear to be stuck with this symbol of racism in the middle of our city. It's embarrassing."

A Shreveport representative's bill to require local voter approve removal of any local government attempt to remove a Confederate monument inflamed members of the House of Representatives on Monday, but what other effect the bill might have is not clear.

Even though the bill was co-authored by Lafayette Rep. Stuart Bishop, the bill will likely have no impact on the status of the Gen. Alfred Mouton statue that stands in front of the old Lafayette City Hall at the intersection of Jefferson Street and Lee Avenue.

Rep. Thomas Carmody's HB71 prompted the fiercest debate on the floor of the House this year, followed by a walkout by members of the Legislative Black Caucus following the vote passing the bill. While conservative and white supremacist websites made much of the vote, the chances of Carmody's bill becoming law appear remote with three weeks remaining in the session.

The bill will have no impact on New Orleans' decision to take down statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, P.G. Beauregard, and the obelisk which hailed the white supremacists who attempted to overthrow Louisiana's elected governor in what became known as the Battle of Liberty Place. Each of those statues, like the Mouton statue in Lafayette, was erected after the United States Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision made segregation the law of the land.

According to news reports, Carmody was the only person who spoke in support of his bill. No co-authors, including Bishop, took the floor.

The bill has to lay over in the Senate for three days before being assigned to a committee. An assignment could come by Thursday, but the committee would then have to schedule a hearing on it. If it makes it out of committee, it would have to wait an additional three days before it could come up for consideration. Opponents of the measure have a number of procedural maneuvers they could employ to delay consideration at each stop.

Istvan Berkeley, a UL Lafayette professor and member of Move the Mindset, says that Carmody's bill will have no effect on the Mouton statue even if it becomes law.

"The yahoos that ran the city back in the 1980s entered into a permanent injunction with the local branch of the United Daughters of the Confederacy back then, essentially making the statue very difficult to remove," Berkeley tells The Independent. Berkeley says he researched the legal status of the statue for a report to the Move the Mindset group last year.

Lafayette attorney Lane Roy, representing those who support keeping the statue in its present location, reminded members of the City-Parish Council of that injunction when, in 2015, a grassroots movement to remove the statue sprang up. LCG attorney Paul Escott confirmed the validity of the injunction in an opinion he presented the council two weeks later.

The Independent contacted Roy and Escott for comment on HB71 but neither had responded at press time.

The Independent also tried to contact the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The number we were able to find was for the Richmond, Va., home office of the organization. The receptionist who answered the phone says the organization does not currently have an active chapter in Lafayette. She asked that questions regarding HB71 be submitted via email. The organization has not responded to the question as of press time.

"Mouton was not so much a hero as he was a thug," Berkeley says. "He wasn't a particularly nice fellow and he was a racist. So, essentially we appear to be stuck with this symbol of racism in the middle of our city. It's embarrassing."

Berkeley adds that he's apologized for the prominent display of the Mouton statue to family and friends who've visited Lafayette over the years.

Margaret Oelkers West, also a member of Move the Mindset, says does not believe HB71 would have an immediate impact on the Mouton statue in Lafayette because the public does not understand the full context of the statue's history.

"Our group's work is not done," West says. "We've launched a public education campaign consisting of presentations, documentary showings, book readings and other activities that we feel, over time, will help change people's awareness of that statue and its history."

West adds that she does not believe the Legislature should be intervening in what are essentially local decisions.

Fred Prejean, one of the founders of Move the Mindset, says Mouton's history shows that he is not worthy of being honored by a statue in such a public place.

"It is factually documented that Alfred Mouton commanded a violent vigilante committee that intimidated, harassed and inflicted physical and mental anguish upon white people," Prejean says. "He owned slaves, and fought to maintain slavery, supported forced separation of black families, breeding of slaves, rape and pedophilia."

"While Alfred Mouton is unfortunately part of Lafayette's history, he is not a man to be honored nor praised as part of one's ancestry," Prejean continues. "He has earned the right to be considered a part of Lafayette's dark history."
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The Carbondale Police Department has reported that Lee Batie, the subject of a missing person report, was located Tuesday by the Illinois State Police in central Illinois, according to a release from the department.

The release said he was found to be safe and in good health.

Carbondale police said in a Monday news release that at 8:40 p.m. this past Thursday, officers responded to the 1400 block of Old West Main Street in reference to a report of a missing person. Officers learned that Batie, 78, was last seen at 12:30 p.m. Monday, May 8, leaving his apartment.

Police said Batie was recently diagnosed with Parkinsons disease and has early onset dementia.

 The Southern
CARBONDALE  SIU System President Randy Dunn on Tuesday announced the names of two additional finalists who will be considered for the position of chancellor of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

They are Rodney Scott Hanley, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee; and Carlo Montemagno, professor of engineering, chemical and materials engineering at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and founding director of the Ingenuity Lab for the Province of Alberta.

Dunns office is in the process of scheduling one-day campus visits for Hanley and Montemagno. The visits would include an open forum and as many of the other meetings as possible that reflect the itineraries of the first-round finalists -- Interim SIUC Chancellor Brad Colwell and George Hynd, president of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

The campus visits will take place prior to SIU Board of Trustees interviews with the four finalists.

Finalist Carl Pinkert, vice president for research and economic development at the University of Alabama, withdrew from consideration.

During a special meeting May 10, the SIU Board tabled the agenda item regarding the selection of a permanent chancellor for SIUC.

After a three-hour closed session, board members decided that because of continuing differences of opinion surrounding the recommendation for chancellor, they will personally interview Colwell and Hynd, who did campus visits in April, along with the newly added finalists.
London - The world's biggest ransom ware attack levelled off in Europe on Monday thanks to a push-back by cyber security officials after causing havoc in 150 countries, as Microsoft urged governments to heed the "wake-up call". - More
WASHINGTON -- Possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign was once little more than a conspiracy theory, but not anymore. The only way to make sense of this past week's stunning events is to conclude there is something that President Donald Trump desperately wants to hide.

The party-line explanation of why Trump fired FBI Director James Comey -- that it was all about the way Comey handled the probe of Hillary Clinton's emails -- crumbled within hours. Press secretary Sean Spicer comically ducked behind shrubbery on the White House grounds, hiding from television cameras, to give reporters a confused and disjointed account of the dismissal. Efforts to blame the whole thing on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ceased after Rosenstein reportedly threatened to resign.

Well-sourced reports in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets agreed on a very different explanation: Trump had grown increasingly angry at the doggedness with which Comey's FBI was investigating how and why Russia meddled in the election. The president decided to fire Comey, then had Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein come up with a rationale.

If this were a criminal trial, prosecutors would allege that the president was displaying "consciousness of guilt" -- that he was acting in a way no innocent person would act. Indeed, the only other president to try to head off an investigation by firing the chief investigator was Richard Nixon.

Of course, Trump is not accused of anything at this point. And it may be just a coincidence that on Wednesday, a day after firing Comey, the president met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Photographers from the White House press corps were barred from the meeting, but one who works for the Russian news agency Tass was allowed in. Perhaps Trump only thinks of U.S. journalists as "the enemy."

I do believe in coincidences, up to a point. And I know that conspiracy theories usually turn out to be wrong. But I can see no explanation for Trump's bizarre attitude toward the allegations of Russian meddling other than a desire to conceal something.

For months, Trump dismissed the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was ultimately responsible for hacking into computer systems and email accounts associated with the Democratic Party, then leaking information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Trump named Michael Flynn -- a controversial figure, partly because of his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- as his national security adviser. And when Sally Yates, then serving as acting attorney general, told the White House that Flynn had lied when he denied discussing U.S. sanctions with Kislyak, and thus could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, Trump waited 18 days to fire him. The president acted only after Flynn's deception became public knowledge.

And Flynn had been a prominent Trump adviser during the campaign. Experts say he may potentially be in legal jeopardy, which makes him someone an aggressive investigator such as Comey would likely squeeze for information about others.

During the campaign, Sessions, who was then a U.S. senator, and Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page also met with Kislyak -- as did Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. It is possible that these were nothing more than courtesy calls. But given the backdrop of a Russian effort to boost Trump's prospects of winning the election, all meetings between senior campaign figures and Russian officials deserve scrutiny.

In an interview Thursday with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump said that Comey told him once over dinner and twice in phone calls that he was not personally being investigated. Trump described one of the exchanges this way: "I said, 'If it's possible, would you let me know, am I under investigation?' He said, 'You are not under investigation.'"

Trump apparently thinks this means something, but of course it does not. Typical investigative procedure is to start at the bottom of an organization and work your way up. "You are not under investigation" does not mean "You will never be under investigation."

Trump claims to have no business ties with Russia. But in the past, his sons have reportedly bragged about a flood of Russian money boosting the Trump Organization's fortunes. Trump could settle the question by fully disclosing his finances, including his tax returns. Why the secrecy?

If Trump wanted to end this scrutiny by firing Comey, he may have had the opposite effect. Ask yourself one question: Have you ever seen a cover-up with no underlying crime? Neither have I.
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By Trend





Azerbaijan is represented at the International Art Exhibition 57th Venice Biennale organized with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

The Azerbaijan national pavilion for the 57th International Art Exhibition  la Biennale di Venezia hosts the exhibition Under One Sun. The Art of Living Together.

The aim of the exhibition is to find out an own artistic contemporary interpretation of the cultural diversity of Azerbaijan.

Works by Hypnotica, a visual performance art group, and by installation artist Elvin Nabizade lay bare Azerbaijans cultural and ethnic diversity.

Under One Sun. The Art of Living Together reveals Azerbaijans amazing and kaleidoscopic culture, from its origins and traditions to its diverse manifestations today.

In Azerbaijan many people from very different backgrounds have lived alongside each other since time immemorial. Within a major region that combines European and Eastern civilizations, it is unavoidable that religion, philosophy, and political theories confront each other. The peaceful cohabitation of different cultures in Azerbaijan and the preservation of the best traditions of Eastern hospitality spark wonder in this age of globalization, ethnic conflicts, intolerance, and aggression.

The metaphorical title Under One Sun. The Art of Living Together, explains the subjects of this exhibition, focusing on the cultural and ethnical diversity in Azerbaijan. It is mostly about the tolerance that has developed among these groups over the years. Furthermore, it demonstrates Azerbaijans continuous effort towards a peaceful solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

At the entrance of the pavilion the visual performance group HYPNOTICA has set up twenty monitors showing an ethnic minority speaking its own language. Personal interviews merge into one another on the screens. The unity that is created through the text and the language, and that is especially emphasized by an anthropomorphic sculpture, reflects the different ethnic groups living together in one country.

In parallel, the artist Elvin Nabizade presents an installation named after the exhibitions title that fills an entire room on the first floor. Cultural diversity is also his main theme. He shows approximately fifty Saz, traditional instruments that resemble string instruments, in the form of a rainbow. Symbolically, it is not only the act of speaking, but also the common language of music that connects the various minorities.

The exhibition points out the ethnic diversity in Azerbaijan and the harmony between its cultures. Respect for the many different origins and traditions of these cultures have guaranteed their survival up to the present day.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) will meet on July 5-9 in Minsk for its 26th Annual Session, the OSCE PA reported on May 16.

With some 300 parliamentarians from North America, Europe and Asia expected to participate, the theme of this years Annual Session is Enhancing mutual trust and co-operation for peace and prosperity in the OSCE region.

The report of Swedish rapporteur Margareta Cederfelt that touches upon the issues of solving conflicts in the OSCE region, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, will also be read out and discussed during the Annual Session.

The report reflects the regret of the OSCE PA because of lack of progress towards the settlement of the conflict.

A return to the negotiation table by all parties is needed to avoid further military confrontation and de-escalate the situation. Participating States should refrain from using unilateral decision-making and violence that would hinder diplomatic negotiations and dialogue initiatives, the report stated.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict 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 regions. 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 Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

The message by the OSCE PA noted that the Annual Session, consisting of several days of meetings featuring high-level speeches and debates, will culminate in the adoption of the Minsk Declaration. This political document will contain recommendations to national governments, parliaments and the international community in the fields of political affairs, security, economics, environment and human rights.
By Azernews





By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population plans to implement two more twinning projects together with the European Union (EU).

Minister Salim Muslumov announced about this at a meeting dedicated to the completion of the twinning project "Development of the system of social services in Azerbaijan".



The minister said that Azerbaijan is ready to continue cooperation with the EU in the future.

"Today we have completed a twinning project on the development of social services, but I note that this is not the first and not our last joint project with the EU. In the future we plan to implement two more projects, one of which will be for the development of the pension system and other one in the sphere of employment system development," Muslimov said.

The twinning project "Development of the system of social services in Azerbaijan" was implemented jointly with the relevant structure of Austria. The aim of the project was to improve the social services system for the most vulnerable segments of the population and ensure their social integration.

Earlier in April, Head of the EU Delegation to Baku Malena Mard said that Azerbaijan and the EU will start implementation of seven more twinning projects in the near future.

This year Azerbaijan and the EU celebrated the 10th anniversary of twinning in Azerbaijan. Since 2007 to November 2016, the EU has successfully implemented 48 twinning projects in Azerbaijan.
Thermo Fisher Scientific said on Monday it would buy Dutch-based Patheon, a global leader in pharmaceutical and biopharma sectors, for $5.2 billion.



Thermo Fisher will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Patheon for $35.00 per share in cash. The transaction represents a purchase price of approximately $7.2 billion, which includes the assumption of approximately $2 billion of net debt.



Patheon provides comprehensive, integrated and highly customizable solutions as well as the expertise to help biopharmaceutical companies of all sizes satisfy complex development and manufacturing needs. It is a leader in the high-growth, $40 billion contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market, which is fuelled by growing customer demand for end-to-end solutions, flexible and scalable capacity, and regulatory expertise.



Patheon has an extensive network of state-of-the-art facilities primarily in North America and Europe, and approximately 9,000 professionals worldwide. The company generated 2016 revenue of approximately $1.9 billion and will become part of Thermo Fishers Laboratory Products and Services Segment.



Patheons development and manufacturing capabilities are an excellent complement to our industry-leading offering for the biopharma market, said Marc N Casper, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Our combined capabilities will enhance our unique value proposition for these customers, create significant value for our shareholders and further accelerate our companys growth.



James C Mullen, chief executive officer of Patheon, said: Over the past several years, we have increased our capabilities to become a leading CDMO provider in a highly fragmented market. We are confident that our combined offerings and Thermo Fishers proven track record of disciplined M&A and successful integrations will take our business to the next level.

Casper added, We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues from Patheon to Thermo Fisher. Patheons commitment to quality and service excellence is directly aligned with our focus on helping our biopharma customers accelerate innovation and drive productivity.  TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, has acquired a significant minority stake in Axtmann Aviation Holding that operates FAI Aviation Group (FAI), a leading global provider of mission-critical aviation services based in Germany.



FAI offers fixed-wing air ambulance, special missions, charter and aircraft management, as well as full MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) services.



Founded in 1986, FAI operates from its base in Albrecht Durer International airport in Nuremberg, Germany. With over 30 years of experience in business aviation, it is one of the largest general aviation operators in Europe.



Commenting on the strategic investment, Mahmood H. Alkooheji, the chief executive of Mumtalakat, said: "It has perhaps never been as important as it is today to support rapid aviation response to crisis situations. Over the last 30 years, FAI has significantly grown its capabilities and service offerings, establishing stable and lasting relationships across a diverse set of customers, helping critical aid services reach people across the world."



This investment is aligned with Mumtalakat's objective to invest in companies with strong track records of growth and experienced management teams.



With a mandate to grow the wealth of Bahrain through long-term investments based on sound financial, strategic and governance principles, Mumtalakat holds stakes in over 40 commercial enterprises with a portfolio spanning a variety of sectors, including industrial manufacturing, financial services, telecommunications, real estate, logistics, consumer products and education.



"Aviation is a key component of our portfolio and we aim to leverage our sector knowledge and expertise to add value to the company and support its potential expansion into the wider GCC region," observed Kooheji.



FAIs chairman Siegfried Axtmann said: "We are pleased that our specialised expertise in aviation services is globally recognized and delighted about the opportunity to co-operate with a powerful partner such as Mumtalakat."



"Together we will expand FAI as the leading player in the sector and increase our share in the General Aviation Market in the Middle East, adding value to the corporate and humanitarian sectors alike. Safety, efficient delivery and environmental protection are at the heart of our business," remarked Axtmann.



A market leader in intercontinental air ambulance patient transport, FAI offers continuous worldwide air ambulance services staffed with qualified medical personnel and state of the art medical technology, he stated.



Its aircraft fly more than 13,000 flight hours annually and its clientele include the worlds leading insurance- and assistance companies, NGOs and prominent health authorities in the wider GCC region, he added.



Jefferies International Limited acted as sell-side advisor on the transaction. However, it is still subject to the approval by Cypriot and German Merger Control Authorities.-TradeArabia News Service
The Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) in Saudi Arabia and Siemens have signed a collaboration agreement to implement a new vocational education concept in Saudi Arabia.



The collaboration will introduce the Siemens Mechatronics curriculum to the Saudi Arabian education system and drive leadership excellence among vocational training managers in the kingdom, said a statement from the company.



The deal was signed by Dr Ahmad Fahad Al Fahaid, governor of TVTC, and Joe Kaeser, president and CEO of Siemens AG, in the presence of Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, during an official visit to Saudi Arabia.



The agreement will pioneer the implementation of a vocational education concept, modelled around the German dual education system, and see Saudi students being trained in electrical, mechanical and business administration disciplines, it said.



Furthermore, Siemens will introduce its Mechatronics curriculum to the Saudi Arabian education system and cooperate with TVTC to drive leadership excellence among vocational training managers across the kingdom, it added.



Dr Al Fahaid said: I strongly believe that the Saudi youth are our most valuable assets and their potential must be realised on the path to Vision 2030. With this agreement we are providing a platform through which they can hone their skills and be counted among tomorrows industrial leaders and experts.



The collaboration with Siemens will contribute significantly towards developing the skill sets that are required by a diversified Saudi economy, he said.



Arja Talakar, CEO of Siemens Saudi Arabia, said: The German dual education system combines theoretical, practical and on-the-job phases in an interwoven approach that provides graduates with a certified profession.



Siemens has a proven track record in exporting and adapting this vocational education approach in several countries, and our courses are constantly being updated in a way that prepares young people for the challenges of digitalisation, he said.



The agreement outlines the focus areas that will drive the strong partnership between TVTC and Siemens. Firstly, the strategic intent to jointly roll out the first phase of a vocational training concept, starting later this year, is very much aligned with the kingdoms goal to significantly increase the number of Saudi citizens that are enrolled in vocational training programmes  from 104,000 to 950,000 by 2020.



By incorporating aspects of the German dual education system the partners aim to qualify more employable graduates together with other German and Saudi companies.



Secondly, the imperative to diversify the Saudi economy presents a splendid opportunity to pioneer the implementation of Siemens Mechatronics curriculum and prepare Saudi youth for the workplace of the future.

Today, companies are increasingly deploying more complex manufacturing, transport, water and energy technologies to secure their competitiveness, drive efficiencies and address growing demand.



Consequently, specialised knowledge is required to design and manage the integration of electrical, mechanical and information technology platforms, and Siemens is addressing that demand with its internationally accredited Mechatronics curriculum. The programme is rooted in the German dual education system and has enhanced the employability of graduates around the world.



Furthermore, the deal will advance leadership excellence among the managers of vocational training institutions in the kingdom. Siemens runs several of its own training institutions worldwide and will work with TVTC to share international best practices and train their current and potential managers of vocational training sites abroad, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Baggage management by the worlds airlines improved again in 2016 as the industry focuses on technology investments and prepares for a step-change in handling by June 2018.



According to the Sita Baggage Report 2017, released today, the rate of mishandled bags was 5.73 bags per thousand passengers in 2016, down 12.25 per cent from the previous year and the lowest ever recorded.



This is good news for the rising number of passengers, which last year hit an all-time high of 3.77 billion. Since 2007, the rate of mishandled baggage has fallen 70 per cent due to investment in technologies and process improvements by the worlds airlines and airports. Over the coming 18 months, this is expected to improve even further. Iata members, the majority of the worlds airlines, have adopted a resolution requiring every piece of checked baggage to be tracked along its journey by June 2018.



Ilya Gutlin, Sita president, Air Travel Solutions, said: It is frustrating for passengers and airlines when bags go missing but the days of not knowing where your bag is will soon to be a thing of the past. We are on the brink of a new era in airline baggage management because the worlds airlines are committing to track baggage throughout its journey. This requires data capture, management and sharing across airlines, airports and ground handlers giving a better view of where each piece of luggage is at every stage. At Sita we are providing several tracking innovations that will allow the air transport community to scale up their tracking capabilities without massive capital investments.



The Iata Resolution 753 is coming into force in June 2018 and from then every bag must be tracked and recorded at four mandatory points - at check-in; aircraft loading; at transfer between carriers; and on arrival as the bag is delivered back to the passenger. When this is in place airlines will be able to share the information with their passengers and code share partners allowing them to track their bag, just like a parcel. Having this information means passengers will stay informed and all parties involved in their journey can take action if flights are disrupted and their bags are delayed.



A critical pinch-point in the bag handling process is when passengers and their luggage need to move from one aircraft to another, or from one carrier to another. Bags have a higher risk of being mishandled at this time, particularly if connections are tight. In 2016, close to half (47 per cent) of delayed bags were in the process of being transferred. Introducing mandatory tracking at this point of the process will provide real-time data that can be used to avoid delays.



Mishandled baggage negatively affects both the passenger experience and the airlines finances and Sitas report shows that the financial costs remain high despite the 12.25 per cent drop in the mishandled rate. Sita reports that the global bill for recovering and reuniting passengers with their bags was in the order of $2.1 billion in 2016.



Gutlin added: We are using technology to transform baggage management which will improve both the passenger experience and help to reduce the cost to the airlines. To be successful we need to cooperate and collaborate across the industry and challenge ourselves to find new ways of working and sharing data to upgrade the experience for air travelers and to improve operations.



Sita provides IT and communications to the air transport industry and is the only single-source vendor covering all areas of baggage management from data capture to management and sharing using the latest technology. Sita has been the recognised leader in bag tracking and tracing for over 20 years with its systems in every major airport in the world. Sita WorldTracer is sponsored by Iata as the industry baggage tracing service of choice. Sita BagJourney is the worlds first community-based baggage tracking system that provides an end-to-end view of the baggage journey using data from multiple sources. Today Sita is leading the baggage community by providing technology and professional services to help the industry meet the Iata June 2018 deadline. - TradeArabia News Service


Big data and advances in computing power have transformed the worlds biggest industries, and travel is no exception.



Data analytics has become the strategy of choice for organisations of any size looking to secure competitive differentiation and seek out new revenue opportunities.



New deal sites, last minute offers, the rise of Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) and economic growth in emerging economies have given travellers a much larger choice of destinations when planning their next trip.



As consumers become used to a recommendation-led experience across other industries, their expectations of the travel experience increase. Chatbots and artificial intelligence are just some of the new technologies travel companies are using: Thomas Cook last year began using virtual reality in its marketing to allow travellers to try before [they] fly. There is an ever-greater need for travel companies to employ sophisticated personalisation techniques and intelligent merchandising.



Travel companies must move past getting people from A to B, but think about collecting information to build a 360-degree view of the traveller to create a tailored and memorable experience  right from the moment they are inspired to travel, to the time they return home from their trip.



As Francisco Perez-Lozao Rter, senior vice president, Strategic Growth Businesses at Amadeus said: At every moment in the travellers journey, from the time they make an air booking or search for a train timetable online, to their hotel check in, their actions create data. This data, picked up from hundreds of points across the travel ecosystem, presents a valuable opportunity for travel companies to provide better-individualised services to the traveller and improve his or her experience.



We have entered an age of experimentation where travel companies must test new ideas and take an analytics-enabled approach to innovation. It is no longer enough to continue with the products and services that have been effective so far: innovation requires travel companies to imagine ways to do things differently, or do new things altogether.



In this big data, machine-learning world, almost anything is possible. The rise of data may at first seem unnerving, but it provides the raw material for real innovation. Travel brands must encourage an openness and willingness to use the insights from this and experiment with new ideas and approaches. Disruptive ideas  though some will fail  will define the future travel experience.



Traditional destinations may now find themselves competing for visitors with locations they previously hadnt considered competitors, and Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) are often working harder than ever to encourage arrivals.



DMOs are an important part of the travel industry, helping to shape consumer interest in new and established destinations around the world and taking centre stage in driving economic growth through tourism in their markets.



In 2015, the direct contribution of travel and tourism to global GDP was $2,229.8 billion (3.0 per cent of GDP), and this is forecast to reach $3,469.1 billion (3.4 per cent of total GDP) by 2026. Against this backdrop, DMOs are taking centre stage in driving economic growth through tourism in their markets.



However, they too need to adapt to meet market changes.



Destinations are at the heart of a travel and tourism marketplace that is changing faster than ever, thanks to an increasingly connected global audience, emerging new middle classes and rapidly changing global economics, said Pascal Clement, head of Travel Intelligence at Amadeus. DMOs need the tools that highlight new opportunities as they arise and enable them to shape their strategy even as its in progress  so they can keep up with this pace of change.



The growing sophistication of data analytics and business intelligence offers DMOs an opportunity to engage with travellers in new ways. Although consumers now have seemingly endless destinations to choose from, understanding travel trends and traveller intentions can be critical for DMOs to inspire travellers and increase inbound tourism.



In such a fast-changing environment, DMOs need new approaches to identify and capitalise on opportunities. Its becoming increasingly necessary to be flexible in your strategies, said Steven Valke, Business Intelligence, Marketing at Visit Flanders, a DMO based in Brussels, Belgium. If you look at the wider landscape, factors like environmental issues and even currency changes have an impact on traveller behaviour and demand. Right now, for example, theres a lot of volatility and fluctuation in currency values. DMOs need to be able to adjust quickly to these developments.



Whilst the evolution in traveller behaviour presents challenges for DMOs, there are also significant opportunities on offer. Destinations that can understand todays travellers, predict their behaviour through data, and respond with innovative, effective marketing campaigns, will be well-placed to capitalise on the appetite of an ever-wider range of travel consumers.



As Clement explained: One of the most game-changing aspects of big data is that it enables organisations to look into the future and anticipate the needs of customers. Now, DMOs have unprecedented insight, not only into future arrivals, but also into customers wishes, thanks to analysis of billions of traveller searches. With this information, destinations can tailor their offer in line with demand.



Combining search and booking data with additional third-party data sources, such as weather data, oil price data (which affects air fares), user generated content or currency exchange rates could help further augment a DMOs ability to predict traveller demand.



Data analytics is already transforming business for DMOs. New technologies emerge every day,

helping DMOs understand trends in visitors, forecast behaviour from origin markets, and identify and benchmark their performance versus competitors. Having these insights ensure DMOs can build a comprehensive, strategic plan for growth, optimising their marketing campaigns to reach the right people at the right time. It can also help DMOs measure ROI, a requirement for publicly-funded organisations.



As Jennifer Iduh, Head of Research at the European Travel Commission, said: Some DMOs are making good use of data analytics, while others are merely touching the surface. But we are a very innovative industry. The latest trends show that DMOs are changing. They are spreading out and making use of new technologies. Where in the past they were more like tourist offices, they are adapting to the needs of the industry and using data to become centres of excellence.



This will create innovation opportunities for DMOs in the future. For example, with Big Data

technologies like Hadoop, which can process huge amounts of unstructured data from social media

such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, destinations could identify trends  as they emerge

and develop - in how people feel about the destination, whether potential visitors, current visitors or past visitors.



This kind of sentiment analysis becomes especially powerful when connected with real travel insights, giving destinations a much more effective way of knowing the real cause and effect of both external events and their marketing campaigns, rather than having to take a best guess.



Valke added: The winners will be those who can use data to become proactive, basing decisions on insight rather than external market developments. This will really disrupt the way DMOs work, for the better  today, its typical to develop action plans for the year ahead, but with sophisticated data analytics, DMOs will be much better placed to adapt strategies as-and-when needed, and will benefit from much more flexible decision-making.



The growth of data analytics can be unnerving, but it sets the framework for real innovation. The revolution unleashed by digital will only intensify. DMOs are in the inspiration business, and must prioritise meeting the travellers needs. Technology and data will become more important than ever in helping DMOs connect with and inspire travellers. - TradeArabia News Service
The debut ITB China opened in Shanghai today (May 10), with more than 600 companies, destinations, organisations and travel services taking part.



With more than 100 million Chinese travellers expected to visit global destinations this year, the Chinese market is one that interests global players.



The sell-out B2B event, being held at the sprawling Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Conference Centre, has drawn exhibitors from more than 70 countries.



Europe is ITB Chinas partner destination and sets the focus on showcasing the variety of the continents touristic products. A dedicated Europe Pavilion features a multitude of national presences paired with strong individual attendances of major European destinations.



Of the 600 exhibitors, 28 per cent are offering Mice products, 34 per cent leisure, 31 per cent Corporate and 7 per cent travel technology solutions. More than one third of the exhibitors made their way from all over Asia and China. Around 40% coming from European countries, 10 per cent from the Middle East and some 10 per cent from the Americas.



The UAE has brought a strong contingent to the show, with Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah showcasing their attractions to the Chinese market.



The expo, the Chinese off-shoot of annual ITB Berlin, the Worlds Largest Travel Trade Show, and its sister show ITB Asia in Singapore, is held in a partnership with TravelDaily China.



The 12,000 sq m area of exhibition space was sold several months ahead of the event.



Dr. Christian Goke, CEO, Messe Berlin, said: This is an opportune timing for the tourism industry to seize the prospects offered by Chinas vibrant economic growth. ITB China has come at the right time. Our new marketplace for Chinas travel industry creates an international platform with a strong focus on Chinese buyers and sellers and covers everything the industry has to offer  MICE, NTOs, business travel, tour operators, OTAs and travel tech companies.



The show was officially opened by Dr Martin Buck, senior vice president, Messe Berlin; Eduardo Santander, executive director, European Travel Commission; Rungang Zhang, secretary general and vice president of China Tourism Association and Jane Sun, CEO, Ctrip.com during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.



ITB Chinas exhibitors will engage with 600 top-quality buyers from China. They are coming from all over the country and represent more than 180 different Chinese companies eager to discover the product range of the shows exhibitors. The list of confirmed buyers companies contains some of Chinas biggest travel industry players, such as Ctrip, Caissa, Utour, Alitrip and many more. More than 10,000 buyer-seller appointments have been pre-scheduled before the event. In addition, ITB China expects some 100 international trade buyers adding the events buyers numbers up to around 700 from more than 300 companies.



Santander said: "European destinations acknowledge the need to remain competitive in China. Only through deeper cooperation with Chinese authorities and an increased commitment of the European tourism sector supporting targeted joint public-private marketing initiatives like the partnership with ITB China, Europe will succeed in fostering more travellers from China.



The European presence on the show floor is flanked by The World Bridge Tourism project (WBT), which is co-located with ITB China 2017. The WBT is a project jointly organized by the European Travel Commission (ETC) and the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) matching 150 European tourism suppliers from all over Europe with the corresponding number of Chinese travel product buyers. The Europe Pavilion and the World Bridge Tourism are projects supported by the European Union as preparatory actions towards the EU-China Tourism Year in 2018.



China Eastern Airlines, being one of Chinas top three airlines, is ITB Chinas official partner Airline.



ITB China also offers an exciting conference programme, where newest trends and innovation of Chinese and the global travel industry are presented. It runs parallel and will be jointly organised with TravelDaily China.



Meanwhile, the eTravel World China is connecting established, start-up online focussed and travel technology companies with buyers looking for the best technology solutions: Trade visitors can find out more about innovative products and apps for tour operators, the hospitality industry and destinations at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Conference Center. Globally renowned companies such as Amadeus, Expedia and Booking.com and many more are among the confirmed participants presenting their wide product range to ITB Chinas attendees.



The exhibtion segment is flanked by a dedicated Online Travel and Travel Technology Day (May 11) at ITB China Conference providing attendees with exclusive developments on this area. In addition, companies have the chance to present their newest travel solutions to the audience at destination showcase slots to be held at a separate on-floor presentation area. - TradeArabia News Service


Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara has appointed Axel Bethke to the position of general manager.



An experienced hotelier, Bethke brings 25 years of international hospitality experience to his new role at the iconic leisure retreat.



Axel has been passionate about the hospitality world from a young age, which drove him to start a traditional German apprenticeship as a hotelier before pursuing higher education in Executive MBA Studies completed with an MBA Diploma in Tourism in France.



He started building his international career when he got his first hospitality job as a chef de rang and continued enhancing his skills in service in destinations as diverse as China, Jordan, Germany, Austria and the US.



With the aim of understanding hotel operations as a whole and getting insiders knowledge on how each department contributes to the hotels success, Axel went to gain hands on experience in different departments. He worked in various Food & Beverage manager positions before training as a sales manager and later on climbed up the ladder of success to become the executive assistant manager at a five-star hotel in Germany followed by his first post as a general manager the following year. His most recent position was general manager of a 471 room luxury city hotel in Chengdu, China.



As a seasoned professional with a proven track record of performance, Bethke is well placed to drive continuous growth and success for Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara. This is an incredible opportunity said Bethke, I am thrilled to be working in one of the most renowned desert resorts in the world and I look forward to working with the team to enhance that reputation.



With his new appointment at Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort by Anantara, Bethke aims to implement creative and strategic plans to improve guest experiences and revenues to continue the success story of the resort as a benchmark for exceptional service and excellence for the region and beyond. - TradeArabia News Service
The Airport Show Dubai opened today (May 15) at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC) with over 300 companies from 50 countries participating.



The show, which was inaugurated by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA), Chairman of Dubai Airports and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group, expects to see over 7,500 aviation industry professionals attend over the next three days..



Accompanied by VIPs and senior government officials, Sheikh Ahmed toured the worlds second biggest airport B2B event spread over 15,000 square metres in Zabeel Halls 4, 5 and 6, at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC).



Sheikh Ahmed said: The aviation industry expansion in the Middle East continues to surpass average global growth rates. Future projections are equally promising and are behind the ongoing and considerable investment in aircraft, technology and infrastructure. The Airport Show brings together solution providers from around the world giving them the opportunity to explore the latest trends and bring forward innovative products and services designed to support ongoing industry growth and service enhancements.



Sheikh Ahmed met with the exhibitors, who explained about their latest technology products and services being offered for the aviation sector. Among the stalls that he visited were emaratech, which described its latest baggage handling system being showcased at the Airport Show; General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai, which is displaying the latest smart technologies being used to enhance customer experience; General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) Saudi Arabia, who explained the latest facilities and expansion of airports in Saudi Arabia; Dubai Police, who described the latest training programme and security centres; and Oman Airports Management Company (OAMC), who are showcasing their unique virtual reality applications; among many others.



Sheikh Ahmed also visited the World Travel Catering and Onboard Services Expo Middle East (WTCEME), co-located with the Airport Show, where he visited stands of Emirates Flight Catering, Pinar from Turkey, Unilever, Pearls, who launched a new beverage product at the show and other exhibitors.



He also met with the representatives of Women in Aviation Middle East, which hosted its 2nd General Assembly today at the Airport Show. In line with the vision of the UAEs leadership to empower women and enhance their participation across all sectors, Airport Show is supporting Arab Women in Aviation which aims to promote the higher participation of women in the Middle East's robust aviation sector.



Billed as the worlds most dynamic airport event, the Middle Easts iconic aviation industry show features a wide line up of innovative technology products and services from over 50 countries, including Germany, China, Switzerland, France, UK and Denmark which have set up dedicated pavilions.



Daniyal Qureshi, group exhibitions director, Reed Exhibitions Middle East - organisers of the show - said: We have experienced a much larger interest in Middle East aviation developments and the Airport Show in particular over the last year, signaling the growing confidence of international suppliers in the regions expansion programmes. We have experienced an almost 10 per cent growth in exhibitors this year, with new country pavilions and more security, ICT and passenger technology companies than ever before at the event. We also have larger delegations from Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan, highlighting the collaboration that Dubais aviation authorities and integrators have built with authorities in the region.



The exhibitors said the Airport Show is an ideal platform to showcase their products and services, strengthen their business presence as well as forge new business relationships.



International Pavilions



The 17th edition of the Airport Show has a significant international participation with eight dedicated country pavilions for global exhibitors to showcase and launch their products, services and solutions for the aviation industry.



The Germany Pavilion celebrated its 17th year of participation in the Airport Show and has the largest participation this year with 34 exhibitors showcasing at the event, in addition to seven pavilions dedicated to exhibitors from France, Switzerland, UK, China, Denmark, Benelux and North America.



The France Pavilion, which made its first appearance at the Airport Show nine years ago, is organised by Business France, providing the participants of the worlds leading B2B event for the airport industry the opportunity to gain insights into their latest portfolio of products and expertise in different domains.



The Swiss Pavilion is being organised by T-LINK, which serves export oriented Swiss companies an ideal networking platform to access the local market and extend present business relationships.



The Swiss and UK pavilions have 12 exhibitors each this year, while the North American pavilion has seven exhibitors, and China, Denmark and Benelux pavilions have 23 exhibitors.



The worlds largest annual airport event is supported by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Dubai Aviation Engineering Projects (DAEP), Dubai Airports, dnata, Supply Chain and Logistics Group (SCLG) of Middle East and UAE Contractors Association, alongwith with emaratech as the gold sponsor, FMT as the silver sponsor and Huawei as the ICT Partner.



Huawei also hosted its Global Aviation Summit today, where experts discussed the most innovative ICT constructions in the aviation industry.



Global Airport Leaders Forum (May 16-17)



Co-located with Airport Show, the fifth Global Airport Leaders Forum (Galf) will open tomorrow (May 16) with more than 36 eminent aviation industry leaders and experts discussing the global airports outlook 2026, airport capacity, how airports can most effectively respond to the requirements of airlines, onboard retail, the latest technology trends and other highly relevant aviation industry issues. - TradeArabia News Service
Seven Casper residents have applied to fill Todd Murphys vacant City Council seat following his sudden resignation in early April.

The applicants include well-known faces such as attorney Dallas Laird, businessman Tim Kugler and former Republican U.S. House candidate Paul Paad, along with political newcomers like activist Grace Niemitalo.

The city had been struggling to recruit applicants for the vacancy, and as late as last week Council members were pushing for more people to apply.

Other applicants are Ken Bates, Lauri Gobble and Monte Henrie Jr.

I just want to give back to Casper, said Gobble. She owns Roundtop Pump Supply with her husband.

Niemitalo, who helped found a local feminist group last fall, said she was interested in engaging younger Casperites and having more women on Council.

I want to be a different voice, she said. Niemitalo is a student and volunteers as a sexual assault advocate.

Henrie said he will soon begin working with the Casper Reentry Center and has previously served on the Planning and Zoning Commision and Old Yellowstone District advisory board. He is interested in continuing to support the OYD and encourage more development in west Casper.

In Ward 2 Ive seen a lot of decrease on the west side of town where I live, which Id like to see more going on with, he said.

Contact information for Bates and Kugler was not immediately available.

Laird said that his perspective as a lawyer could help City Council, just as Chris Walsh, a former police chief and current councilman, brings valuable knowledge to the body.

Its a good council, he said. Theyve been faced with a lot of historic issues... and theyre not easy issues, and Id like to see a team effort.

Laird is involved in litigation with the city of Casper over how the municipal court has been sentencing minors convicted of alcohol possession. If he is appointed to the Council, he would help oversee the City Attorneys office.

Laird suggested in an interview last month that city leadership could benefit from more expertise when it came to handling recent issues, including morale problems at the Casper Police Department and the sudden retirement of City Manager V.H. McDonald, both in early April.

Whats going on with the city right now isnt difficult, Laird said. But if they tell you go do heart surgery and you dont know how to do heart surgery, its real difficult.

Paad wants Council to be more assertive in dealing with city business, pointing to the role of the city manager and oversight of the police department.

I think the Council is moving toward being less complacent, and I think thats where we need to go, he said. I just want to see if I can help them go in that direction.

Paad lost the Republican primary for the open U.S. House seat to Liz Cheney last August. He campaigned on a platform of cutting government funding for Planned Parenthood, reducing regulations on mines in the state and halting immigration.

At GOP undercard debate, candidates offer creative ideas Tuesdays Republican undercard debate at Casper College featured an array of creative policy

He said the United States should not allow in refugees to avoid the introduction of sharia culture.

Paad said he works in safety and compliance for a local trucking company, after selling his own firm several years ago.

Kugler was a longtime Wells Fargo employee, rising to the level of regional president for Wyoming in 2012. He has served on the Casper College Foundation, the Casper Area Economic Development Alliance, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels and Natrona County United Way.

City Council will hold interviews with all applicants on Friday. That meeting will be open to the public, following which the current Council members will meet privately to select a candidate to fill Murphys seat.

Murphy cited personal reasons when he stepped down. He had previously complained that the workload was more than he initially expected.
Despite concerns expressed by City Council members, most major road construction on state roads around Casper is expected to conclude by the August eclipse.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation currently has three ongoing projects along the borders of Casper.

Work along CY Avenue between Wyoming Boulevard and Robertson Road is expected to be completed by the end of next month, spokesman Jeff Goetz said in a statement.

The CY construction involves repaving, adding new left turn lanes and improving three traffic signals.

Councilwoman Amanda Huckabay asked last week whether CY would be unobstructed by the time of the August eclipse festival.

Assistant City Manager Liz Becher said it would not.

Theyve even posted signs that its not until next year, said Councilman Chris Walsh.

While some work will continue on the street past June, Goetz said it should not interfere with traffic.

It will be out of the travel lanes, he said.

WYDOT is also planning to resurface Old Yellowstone Highway and reconstruct the 12th Street and Wyoming Boulevard intersection.

The Yellowstone work is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 21, the day of the eclipse.

The intersection reconstruction, which will require some traffic to be diverted, should be substantially completed by Aug. 21.

Wyoming Eclipse Festival Director Anna Wilcox said 35,000 people are expected to visit Casper during the weekend of Aug. 18-21  25,000 of whom will be staying overnight and 10,000 of whom will only pass through during the weekend.

But Wilcox said it is hard to predict how many more people will simply drive through Casper on their way to other destinations or arrive on the day of the eclipse, making traffic and parking major considerations.
Wyomings only Planned Parenthood clinic will close this summer because of financial reasons, the organization confirmed Tuesday.

This is a challenging decision, said Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains official Adrienne Mansanares.

Planned Parenthoods lone health center in Wyoming is in Casper. It opened in 1975 and serves around 500 patients per year, Mansanares said. It will close July 21.

Mansanares said that most Wyoming patients receiving care from Planned Parenthood do so at the organizations Fort Collins location in Colorado.

The Casper clinics closure is one of six across the Rocky Mountain region, which also includes Colorado, New Mexico and southern Nevada.

We looked at what services we provided, she said. We also looked at the financial health of the health center.

Wyoming will join North Dakota as the only two states without a Planned Parenthood health center.

Our No. 1 priority and concern is to ensure that we have coordination of care for our patients, Mansanares said. Well be working really closely with our patients to make sure we get them connected to another provider.

Spokeswoman Whitney Phillips said patients would be referred to three local providers: Cedars Health, Community Health Center of Central Wyoming and Casper-Natrona County Health department. All three take walk-ins and appointments and accept Medicaid, she said.

The fact that Casper had other places for women to receive comprehensive reproductive health care was a factor in the decision to close the Planned Parenthood clinic here, Mansanares said.

The Casper location does not provide abortions. It offers services including birth control, testing for pregnancy and other various diseases and abortion referrals.

It is staffed by a part-time manager and a traveling nurse who visits periodically from northern Colorado.

The manager has been offered work at another Planned Parenthood health center or a very generous severance package, Mansanares said.

She emphasized that Planned Parenthood would continue to have a presence in the state through the Wyoming Abortion Fund, which connects women to abortion providers, and by continuing to offer sexual education resources.

The organization will also continue to work with NARAL Pro-Choice Wyoming on advocacy issues related to womens health.

The political footprint and the education we provide will continue to remain, Mansanares said.

As an abortion provider, Planned Parenthood has long attracted criticism and calls to shut off Medicaid reimbursement for other womens health care offered at its clinics.

While Mansanares said the Casper clinics closure is unrelated to politics, she acknowledged that closing Planned Parenthoods only health center in a very conservative state carried a symbolic weight.

There is always some big hit or big attack out there to close down access to reproductive health care, so that is a constant reality we have to face while focusing internally, she said.

Mansanares expects donors in the state will continue contributing to the Wyoming Abortion Fund and other Planned Parenthood activities.

Their generosity was not in any way tied to us having a sign up on a building that was open three days a week, she said. Its the access to care that our donors care the most about  not having a symbolic building in Casper that serves 480 folks a year.
LARAMIE  University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols has appointed College of Education Dean D. Ray Reutzel to represent the college on the Wyoming State Board of Education.

A law adopted by the Legislature this past winter grants UW a nonvoting, ex-officio membership on the Education Board. The move aims to improve communication and collaboration among the state's educational institutions.

Reutzel says sometimes there's a disconnect between K-12 perceived proficiencies and what's required at the university level. He says UW's voice on the board can help clarify such issues.

State Board of Education Chair Pete Gosar was quoted in the news release as welcoming the change.

The State Board of Education sets educational policies for Wyoming's K-12 schools on standards, accreditation, accountability, assessments and other matters.
Two leaders of the Natrona County Republican Party who each believe they are chairman said they intend to oversee a Wednesday night meeting in which candidates for county commissioner will be interviewed.

Its unknown at this time who will prevail in wresting control over the event.

The meeting is necessary because there is a vacancy on the Natrona County Commission. Former Commissioner Steve Schlager resigned to take a job outside the state.

On Wednesday night, 117 precinct representatives who compose the local GOPs central committee will interview 12 people who have applied for the commissioners seat. They will advance three of those candidates to the county commission, who will make the final decision on the next commissioner.

Although the chairman will not get to vote on commission candidates, the position is key to the meeting. McGinley said the chairman gets to choose which questions candidates will be asked.

The questions could represent the difference in priorities and politics of McGinley, considered a centrist, and Pyatt, who is more conservative. The result could ultimately affect who occupies the vacant seat on the county commission.

McGinley said hes looking for someone who has time for the job, can get along with the other commissioners and can deliver services to residents at a time when revenue has decreased, due to the downturn in oil and gas.

Pyatt didnt share his thoughts on what hed like to see, noting that the final three candidates will be selected by the central committee.

Thats kind of a collective thing, he said.

The contention over who is chairman has been taken to the Natrona County clerk  who said she can do nothing to control the party  and has resulted in a police report.

County Clerk

Casper-area Republicans elected McGinley in March to lead the political party.

But a group of conservatives who were unhappy with how McGinley made some party appointments met on May 2, changed party bylaws and removed the Casper physician. The partys vice chairman, Mike Pyatt, then became chairman.

Each faction within the Natrona County GOP has taken paperwork to the Natrona County Clerks office and gotten it stamped. The stamped papers are in a folder at the clerks office.

But the stamp is meaningless, said Natrona County Clerk Renea Vitto.

I have no power, period, when it comes to the parties, she said.

Pyatt and his supporter Cathy Ide have filed and gotten stamped paperwork, including minutes from the March 2 meeting.

Ide paid the county to make the minutes an official public record, Vitto said.

McGinley has obtained the clerks stamp on a number of emails in which he calls the March 2 meeting that removed him invalid. He also got a stamp on a piece of paper that says, Bullying will NOT be tolerated!!!!

He said that he filed the bullying document as a tongue-in-cheek way to show that anyone can file a piece of paper and get a clerks stamp.

Other filed and stamped paperwork showed how the conflict transpired, from McGinleys point of view, and how he remains chairman. McGinley included an email in which a former Wyoming GOP chairman upheld his leadership role at a statewide meeting at the beginning of May so he could vote for new statewide party leaders.

Bullying?

McGinley describes his opponents behavior as intimidating, bullying and harassment, especially when someone showed up to his medical clinic to give him documents saying Pyatt was chairman.

McGinley said his clinic is not a place for politics and the document could have been mailed.

The physician then filed a police report. The Star-Tribune requested a copy of the report, but the Casper Police Department said it will take at least a day for officers to send it.

McGinley said the police report, in which he alleged that Pyatt was trying to impersonate him as chairman of the Natrona County GOP, was necessary. He was concerned that candidates for county commission would send their applications to Pyatt. He wanted a record showing he remains chairman, he said.

McGinley said its up to the police to investigate  or not, if they so choose.

Pyatt said in an email that it was a process server who was trying to deliver a letter McGinleys office.

His purported filing of a police report, or complaint, if accurate, is of no material concern to me, Pyatt wrote. Its not personal. Most with any common sense, who have a complete and accurate account of recent events, conclude that its a pattern of desperate, bellicose statements by Mr. McGinley, to marginalize the voice of those who voted to oust him on May 2nd, as Chairman.

Commission candidates

McGinley, meanwhile, is hoping there wont be conflict Wednesday, he said.

These individuals are volunteering their time to be considered for this position, he said. I really dont want to take away from their dedication.

Vitto said that her office has been asked to count the ballots, since there is distrust between the factions. She said that her employees are volunteering their time and she hopes the meeting doesnt go on for hours due to bickering.

Vitto also said that shes been asked to bring her staff to the partys June 5 meeting, in which McGinley and others hope to sort out who is chairman.

Among the responsibilities of a party chairman is to recruit people to run for office. Chairmen usually recruit like-minded candidates, which could affect the political landscape in central Wyoming.

If Wednesdays meeting lasts for hours and is unprofessional, I will decide if I go to the June 5 meeting, Vitto said.
CASA GRANDE  An Arizona man has become a neighborhood pirate with his replica of the Pirates of the Caribbean ship, the Black Pearl.

While Steven Hills three-story ship did not escape from Davy Jones locker, a giant squid can be seen attacking the ship, which stands in his backyard, The Casa Grande Dispatch reports.

He and his wifes love for the Disney franchise inspired him to construct the ship a year ago, Hill said.

He used the Ponderosa pines in his backyard to support the ships tree-house design. Although Hill has never worked on a movie set, he said the ship was not too hard to make. He found that the most difficult part of the project was ensuring safety.

A tree is a living thing, he said. They do move and change. I built the ship so it could rock forward on a hinge off the side of the guest house as the tree grows without tearing the ship apart.

The hull of the ship is about 80 square feet, and its upper deck is about 300 square feet. He thinks it can support about 20 playing children. Already, some neighbor kids have come over to act out their own pirate adventures.

Hill added rudders, anchor chains, sails, captains quarters with a bed and desk and faux cannons to make his ship appear as close the Black Pearl as possible. It also has a crows nest, from which Hill can see Eloy.

It took a lot of trips to the Salvation Army and Goodwill to get the details right, he said.
A proposed deal has been reached to keep an electricity-generating reservation coal plant open until 2020, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said Monday.

Begaye told dozens of happy coal miners that the temporary lease-extension agreement is being considered by the Salt River Project utility, The Arizona Republic reported. It operates the Navajo Generating Station and is one of its owners.

Utility board members on Thursday will consider the lease, which must also be approved by the Navajo Tribal Council.

The Salt River Project had said it would close the plant this year if a new lease could not be finalized by July 1.

The plant was threatened with closure because its owners concluded it is cheaper to buy electricity from natural-gas-fired power plants.

Losing the plant would have been an economic blow to the region, because 450 people, mostly Native Americans, have jobs at the plant.

Former Hopi Chairman Ivan Sydney, who now serves on a Hopi school board, said he was concerned the closure of the plant would negatively affect children.

What are they going to do when their parents no longer have jobs? he asked.

Begaye said he hopes to find new owners to run the plant for nine more years after the proposed agreement expires.
A pair of University of Arizona grads are getting a hard, real-world lesson in the power of the internet and viral marketing  and its not exactly what they bargained for.

Sunny Co Clothing, launched by recent UA grads Alan Alchalel and Brady Silverwood, posted a photo of one of its swimsuits on Instagram on May 2.

The company offered one of the $64.99 suits, free except for the cost of shipping and handling, to anyone who reposted the image and tagged the account by the following afternoon.

In just 25 hours, the San Diego-based companys account grew from 7,000 followers to 784,000, and eventually the account was shut down, the company said.

Sunny Co pulled down the offer and promised to make its best effort to fulfill more than 50,000 promo orders for the red, one-piece Pamela suits, saying, We truly had no idea the response was going to be so overwhelming and we are very sorry for any confusion.

But that didnt save the company from the wrath of the internet, as Sunny Co was flamed mercilessly on social media by people calling the whole thing a scam and worse.

If you say gullible really slow it kinda sounds like repost for a free swimsuit from sunny co clothing,  one tweeted, while another created a fake Sunny Co Twitter account and tweeted, We are currently looking for a sweatshop to make the 37 million red swimsuits needed thank you for your patience!

Others mocked the company by riffing on its Pamela one-piece in posts, such as one featuring a wrestling team in red tights.

In a news release last Thursday, Silverwood and Alchalel reiterated that they were completely caught off guard by the viral success of the promotion and said they were moving at light speed to fulfill orders that are planned for shipment within three to six weeks.

We are committed to fulfilling the 50,072 Pamela orders that were placed using the discount code Sunny on May 3, 2017, Silverwood said Monday in a prepared response to the Star. If customers havent received a refund from us yet, that means we are working hard to fulfill your order.

Customers who inadvertently paid full price for the Pamela swimsuit since the promotions inception can file a claim for a refund, the company said in its release, adding that the company had issued nearly $73,000 in refunds.

All sales were final for customers who paid just shipping and handling, the company said.

If the aim was publicity, the promo was a big success.

Sunny Co noted that it was picked up by major media outlets including TIME magazine, Seventeen, AdWeek, TeenVogue, The Washington Post, CNET, Perez Hilton, AOL Lifestyle, Buzzfeed, E! News, Vogue and the New York Post.

But it was a bit of an unwelcome distraction for the companys UA founders as they headed toward graduation.

Two weeks ago the only thing on my mind was graduation from the University of Arizona, Silverwood said in the news release a couple of days before UA commencement. Now, with graduation only two days away, its the last thing on my mind.

According to the companys news release, Sunny Co Clothing was founded in Arizona in November 2015 as Sunny Skirts LLC, launching sales in August 2016 with a popular line of school-colors game-day skirts, sold to students at over 28 colleges nationwide.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some May 16 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
The FBI arrested a TUSD employee on suspicion of threatening U.S. Rep. Martha McSally.

FBI agents arrested Steve Martan, 58, in connection with three messages left on the congressional office voicemail on May 2 and May 10, according to a criminal complaint filed May 12 in U.S. District Court in Tucson. Martan is a campus monitor at Miles Exploratory Learning Center in the Tucson Unified School District. He was placed on home assignment and told not to come into work as the district investigates the allegations.

The voicemails contained threats to McSally, including that she should "be careful" when she returns to Tucson and that her days "were numbered." He threatened to shoot her in one of the expletive-filled messages.

The complaint stated Martan told agents he was venting frustrations with McSally's congressional votes in support of the president of the United States.

Martan was accused of threatening to assault and murder a United States official with intent to impede the official's duties and to retaliate against an official for the performance of the official's duties, according to the complaint.

Phone company records showed Martan owned the phone used to make the threats and agents found the phone at Martan's residence. Martan told agents he used the phone to call McSally's office, according to the complaint.

Martan was released on his own recognizance, but he is restricted to his home when he is not at work or fulfilling other obligations, such as his court-ordered participation in a mental health treatment program, court records show. He must wear an electronic monitoring device and he is prohibited from contacting any alleged victims or possessing a firearm or weapon.
A nearly $7 million marijuana load was found in a tractor trailer hauling bell peppers Saturday at the Mariposa Commercial Facility at the port of Nogales, authorities said.

The driver of the tractor trailer, a 46-year-old Mexican national, was taken into custody and the marijuana was seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, according to a news release.

A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers and more than 13,700 pounds of marijuana was found mixed with the produce, said authorities. The marijuana had an estimated value of $6.85 million.

Later Saturday evening, officers inspected a Ford SUV at the Dennis DeConcini crossing at the Nogales port of entry and found more than 34 pounds of cocaine hidden in the vehicle's back seats.

The cocaine had an estimated value of nearly $386,000, officials said. The driver of the SUV, a 29-year-old Mexican national, was taken into custody and his vehicle and drugs were seized.
Buffeted by claims it was creating speech police, the University of Arizona is backing down from its plan to create social justice advocates on campus  at least for the time being.

Spokeswoman Pam Scott said Monday that applications are no longer being accepted while the university re-evaluates both the job title and the responsibilities. Those duties, according to the online ad for the positions, included reporting bias incidents or claims to the universitys residence-life staff.

But Scott said UA officials believe the idea  perhaps if reimagined and retitled  still has merit. And she said the university will flesh out the plans over the summer in time for the fall semester.

The university had sought some students to be paid $10 an hour to focus on the mosaic of diversity, multiculturalism and inclusivity, including creating and maintaining bulletin boards in residence halls.

Those students would be responsible for reporting bias, a description that led to comments that students were going to be spying on one another.

Tom Knighton, a columnist for website PJ Media, described it as the university taking money from students and taxpayers and funneling it toward a social justice Gestapo whose primary function seems to be a combination of social justice secret police and indoctrination activities.

Closer to home, state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, lashed out at what he saw as the speech police and campus.

Unfortunately, there is an undercurrent of intimidation in college life that has been rising to the surface, demanding compliance with the group think of political correctness and character assignation by way of political intolerance, Finchem said in a written statement.

We are seeing eastern-block-style socialism, and indoctrination on what to think  as opposed to how to think  emerging as acceptable university instruction, he said.

UA spokeswoman Scott countered that, The position has been mischaracterized. She said the aim is to provide support to students, especially in dormitories.

Its an opportunity for students to come to student peers, share their experience, and for that student peer to either counsel them on how to report that bias incident through the dean of students website, or that the student peer may report the bias incident directly, she said. Its really all about helping students to navigate the situations in the living quarters.

Scott said the UA is particularly sensitive to the issue at a time the student population is the most diverse in the schools history: 42 percent are not Anglo.

She said the university wants to get ahead of problems that are developing elsewhere where the white boards on the doors of dorm rooms are being removed. Theyre being used for symbols and negative words, in ways that were not intended, Scott said. Students can feel targeted by that kind of messaging from another student.

Potentially less clear is when someones remarks or writings, which would be reported by the monitors, cross the line. Scott said all incidents are run through the dean of students.

The First Amendment is First Amendment, always, she said. And the dean of students office protects First Amendment rights.

Certain acts, like physical assault, clearly are violations of university policies on student conduct as well as criminal laws.

But Scott said its hard to say whether someone making comments about a specific group would run afoul of university policy. Thats a valid question, she said. Until we know what type of incidents are being reported and whats going on in those residence halls, we cant really answer that.

That, said Scott, is why the university wants to have these social justice advocates  or whatever it eventually ends up calling them.

Theyre serving as a resource to other students who are willing to speak with a fellow student, she said, with the process designed for reporting and recording to see what is occurring on campus.

Its no different when youre investigating whether or not theres a problem, she said.

Finchem, on hearing of the universitys decision to revamp the position, said that still does not address the underlying question of having the speech and acts of students monitored.

Our universities should be the venue to teach critical thinking skills and to test ideas; from time to time that may include speech that one person finds offensive, he said. To those who find certain words offensive, I have to ask, how will you survive in the real world outside of academia?
Tucsons largest school district may have to wait a little longer to find out whether court supervision will be partially lifted in its decades-old desegregation case.

The special master who oversees Tucsons Unifieds efforts recommended that the U.S. District Court in the 9th Circuit defer action on TUSDs appeal for partial unitary status.

In March, TUSD filed a motion to the U.S. District Court in the Ninth Circuit for partial unitary status in the areas of transportation, family and community engagement, technology, facilities, evidence-based accountability system and extracurricular activities.

The district argued that there are no remaining traces of discrimination linked to violations that happened more than four decades ago.

If granted by the judge, the court would no longer provide oversight for those areas. TUSD did not seek relief in the areas of student assignment, quality of education and discipline.

After considering the plaintiffs opposition, to craft a responsible response, Special Master Willis Hawley said he would have to review virtually all of the requirements of the Unitary Status Plan.

Both the African-American and Latino plaintiffs in the case argued against partial unitary status, saying there hasnt been enough evidence of compliance to the requirements set in the Unitary Status Plan, which was approved in February 2013.

Such a review is premature, Hawley wrote in his recommendation. However, he also added that his recommendation should not imply that the district has failed to meet the criteria for partial unitary status.

TUSD spokeswoman Stefanie Boe said the district has no comment at this time, but added that it will file a response to the recommendation by May 26.

Though the decision is ultimately up to U.S. District Court Judge David Bury, the judge has often sided with the special master.

Sylvia Campoy, who represents the Latino plaintiffs, said she was pleased with the special masters recommendation, calling partial unitary status woefully premature and unsubstantiated.

The areas within the unitary status plan do not work in isolation of one another, Campoy said. For example, transportation is intimately connected to student assignment.

For TUSD to proceed and oppose the special masters recommendation will once again rack up attorney fees, which could and should be better directed to the districts efforts to actually comply with the court order, Campoy added.
The FBI has arrested a Tucson man on charges of threatening U.S. Rep. Martha McSally.

FBI agents arrested Steve Martan, 58, in connection with three messages left on the congressional office voicemail on May 2 and May 10, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

Martan is a campus monitor at Miles Exploratory Learning Center in the Tucson Unified School District. He was placed on home assignment and told not to come into work as the district investigates the allegations.

The voicemails contained threats to McSally, including that she should be careful when she returns to Tucson and that her days were numbered. The caller threatened to shoot her in one of the expletive-filled messages.

The complaint stated Martan told agents he was venting frustrations with McSallys congressional votes in support of the president of the United States.

Martan was accused of threatening to assault and murder a United States official with intent to impede the officials duties and to retaliate against an official for the performance of the officials duties, according to the complaint.

Phone company records showed Martan owned the phone used to make the threats, and agents found the phone at Martans residence.

Martan told agents he used the phone to call McSallys office, according to the complaint.

Martan was released on his own recognizance, but he is restricted to his home when he is not at work or fulfilling other obligations, such as his court-ordered participation in a mental-health treatment program, court records show. He must wear an electronic monitoring device and is prohibited from contacting any alleged victims or possessing a firearm or weapon.

McSally represents Congressional District 2, the same district served by then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot and seriously wounded in a mass shooting on Jan. 8, 2011, on the northwest side. Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the attack.

The threats to McSally are especially sickening and shocking because of what this district has already endured with what happened to Congresswoman Giffords in 2011, said C.J. Karamargin, district director for McSally.

Karamargin, a former reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, was Giffords communications director at the time of the shooting.

Its important to have a robust, vigorous discussion of important public policy issues, Karamargin said, adding the vast majority of calls to McSallys office are respectful and civil.

But threats of violence can have a chilling effect on discussions of public policy, he said.

There are parameters of civility and respectfulness that we need to pay attention to, he said.
Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is condeming threats made against U.S. Rep. Martha McSally in a statement released Tuesday morning.

The FBI arrested a Tucson man on charges in connection with expletive-filled messages left on McSally's congressional office voicemail earlier this month. The caller threatened to shoot McSally in one of the messages, said she should "be careful" when she returns to Tucson and that her days "were numbered."

McSally represents Congressional District 2, the same district served by Giffords, who was shot and seriously wounded in a mass shooting on Jan. 8, 2011, on the northwest side. Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the attack.

No matter where you live or what job you have, you have a right to feel safe in your community, at your workplace, and in your home," Giffords, the co-founder of the gun violence prevention organization Americans for Responsible Solutions, said. "The threats of violence made against Congresswoman McSally are reprehensible and deeply disturbing. Civil discourse and civic engagement are hallmarks of our democracy, but threats and intimidation should never be tolerated.

"It's up to all of us  especially those with the power to strengthen the laws that protect us  to work together and prevent violence from prevailing."

FBI agents arrested Steve Martan, 58, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

Martan is a campus monitor at Miles Exploratory Learning Center in the Tucson Unified School District. He was placed on home assignment and told not to come into work as the district investigates the allegations.

The complaint stated Martan told agents he was venting frustrations with McSallys congressional votes in support of the president of the United States.

Martan was accused of threatening to assault and murder a United States official with intent to impede the officials duties and to retaliate against an official for the performance of the officials duties, according to the complaint.

He was released on his own recognizance, but Martan is restricted to his home when he is not at work or fulfilling other obligations, such as his court-ordered participation in a mental-health treatment program, court records show. He must wear an electronic monitoring device and is prohibited from contacting any alleged victims or possessing a firearm or weapon.
Just in time for Armed Forces Day on Saturday, the Women of Quail Creek have a plan to welcome the youngest patriots: They are throwing the 2017 Baby Shower for Military Families of the 162nd Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard.

This year we are serving 30 families with 30 babies. They are a prolific bunch, said Pamela Rodgers, chairwoman of the shower staged by the organization, which includes 324 women from Green Valley.

For more than 10 years, the Women of Quail Creek have collected donations and raised funds through making and selling cookbooks and organizing bake sales, fashion shows and other events to support nonprofit organizations including Youth On Their Own, Genesis House Shelter in Green Valley and the American Cancer Society. It also supports Honor Flight of Southern Arizona and other military programs. This will be its fifth annual baby shower for military families.

These military families give us so much and put their lives on the line for us, so this is the least we can do for them, Rodgers said.

For families to qualify for the shower, at least one parent must be active military; this year, 10 of the mothers are serving.

That is huge. They do double duty, really. Many people dont realize that since Sept. 11, the National Guard deploys like the regular service, so there is a chance these moms are going to Afghanistan or wherever else they are needed. We also have three couples in which both the mom and dad are military, so when you think about it, a grandma or aunt or other family member will need to step in if both of them deploy, Rodgers said.

The shower provides each expectant mother with a gift including toiletries and other items; a diaper bag loaded with essentials; a laundry basket filled with blankets, diapers, wipes, 10 each of onesies and outfits, a traveling changing pad and other items. Each family also receives a shopping-cart cover courtesy of Q & A Financial Group and a raffle prize such as a stroller, high chair, booster seat, walker, play gym, bouncy seat, baby monitor or other large baby item.

Additionally, parents can shop for free, gently used large and small baby items provided by the White Elephant Thrift Store in Green Valley. They also get a catered lunch featuring posting of colors by the Davis-Monthan Air Force Honor Guard and other special guests.

The heartwarming thing is that you see the moms get teary-eyed and you expect that, but the dads end up crying as well. It looks just like Disneyland in there with all the gifts and balloons and decorations. It is amazing, Rodgers said.

Rodgers said the shower provides important support for the families, many of whom are stationed far from family and friends. It also helps offset baby expenses for families on tight budgets.

The average service man or woman makes $38,000 a year, and they are on the front lines. People are in the service because they want to be and they feel it is their duty, and we think it is our duty to help support them, Rodgers said.
U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, a retired Air Force colonel, spent most of her congressional recess in several former Soviet bloc countries learning how they fight a growing Russian threat.

In an unannounced tour of Poland, Estonia and Ukraine by members of the House Homeland Security Committee last week, the Republican who represents Arizonas Congressional District 2 met with military officers, government officials and computer experts who are fighting a new cold war against the influence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

They have invaded countries in Eastern Europe, she said in an interview during the weekend. Theyve done it in the past in Georgia as well; they are currently right now occupying another country against its will.

All three countries she toured are targets in what she calls hybrid warfare, using both conventional methods like propaganda to destabilize the region, but also cyberattacks to undermine the government and business community, she said.

Estonia is on the cutting edge of securing their country and their critical infrastructure against cyberattacks, she said. We can learn a lot from them.

But in Ukraine, there continues to be active pockets of warfare.

McSally says she is pressing for more details on the death of Tucsonan Joseph Stone, 36, a medic. He was killed last month while working for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Initial reports identified him as the victim of an explosion that hit an armored vehicle in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.

The overseas trip last week coincided with the firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Trump.

Despite statements from White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders that it was time to move on from the Russian investigations, McSally insists the FBI investigation into Russian meddling in last years election and any ties to the Trump campaign must not end.

We need to let them continue to move forward with that. This is not something that is going to be easy to kind of pull the thread on it and address all the different parts of it, she said. The House and the Senate intelligence committees, which are bipartisan, are also going forward with their investigations in our appropriate role  we dont do criminal investigations in Congress, and nobody would want us to do that.

This includes regular updates to Congress.

They certainly need to be continuing to inform other members of Congress regularly whats going on. Much of the investigations are happening in the classified sphere, which I understand, especially when were dealing with counterintelligence issues, but we need to be kept up to speed so that were not in the dark, she said.

McSally said the investigations into Russia should not be a partisan issue.

People need to realize that Russia is not our friend, she said. Ive said it before, Putin is a thug. Hes not our friend and we need to show strength and resolve in order to stop him from going any further.
An investigation by federal OSHA officials has found the Industrial Commission of Arizonas practice of arbitrarily reducing employers penalties for safety violations is undermining the deterrent power of those penalties and is not permitted under existing policies.

The investigation also determined the governor-appointed commission has been operating outside of its legal authority by reclassifying the severity level of safety violations recommended by inspectors at the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or ADOSH.

The big question is what the implication of this will be, in terms of the follow-up the state does to address these concerns, said Peter Dooley, a Tucson-based workplace safety consultant with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

OSHA officials said last year that the agencys investigation into the Industrial Commission was prompted by a number of complaints from the public, including one filed in December by Dooley.

Last year, a Star investigation found the Industrial Commission  which oversees ADOSH and reviews its recommended penalties over $2,500  routinely reduces those penalties and reclassifies violations, often without clear justification. The cuts sometimes occur after the employer attends the commissions public meetings and requests a penalty reduction.

Dooley said scrutiny from the Star over the course of six months in 2016, and the resulting December 2016 Star article on the commissions practices, helped drive federal OSHAs investigation.

That certainly brought attention to the issue, he said. Theres no question that played a role.

Industrial Commission chairman Dale Schultz strongly defended the commissions practices in a February letter to federal OSHA officials, calling out the federal agency for its recent adversarial approach.

Federal OSHAs actions in pursuing this (complaint) serve only to discourage state innovation by attempting to force Arizona to become a monolithic superimposed federal system, Schultz wrote in the letter, provided to the Star in response to a public records request.

The Stars 2016 analysis of Industrial Commission meeting minutes found the 139 penalty proposals the commission reviewed between January 2016 and the end of November 2016 got reduced by a total of more than $186,000. Commissioners voted to reduce ADOSHs recommended penalties in more than half of the cases they reviewed in that period, the Star analysis showed.

Schultz has said the commissioners are focused on improving workplace safety and collaborating with employers and employees  not necessarily issuing the highest penalties.

Arizona is one of 26 states with a state-level occupational safety and health enforcement program. The program must be at least as effective as federal OSHA, or it risks being taken over by the feds.

The commissions round of cuts  which happen before the penalties are formally issued to employers  is unique among OSHA programs across the country, experts said.

Under Arizonas agreement with federal OSHA, which created Arizonas state-level OSHA plan, the ICA is permitted to review recommended penalties and to ensure any penalty reductions have been correctly applied using pre-defined criteria, such as employer size and safety history. Those criteria are outlined in ADOSHs field operations manual, or FOM.

The OSHA investigation found commissioners gave additional reductions after those formula-based cuts had already been calculated and applied by ADOSH.

OSHA finds that the ICA is currently reducing penalties in a seemingly arbitrary manner, without regard for the factors in the FOM, said a May 4 letter from Zachary Barnett, area director for federal OSHA in Arizona.

The letter obtained by the Star explained OSHAs findings to complainants whose concerns prompted the investigation. This practice reduces the deterrent effect of higher penalties and fails to ensure that employers within the state are treated equally.

Industrial Commission spokesman Bob Charles said the commission is reviewing federal OSHAs findings. Declining workplace injury rates in Arizona show the commissions strategy is effective, Charles said in an email.

To paint ADOSH or the commission as being anti-safety would be inaccurate and would overlook the extensive amount of work and outreach the agency, commissioners and ADOSH are doing, he said.

ORIGINAL COMPLAINT

On Dec. 9, federal OSHA sent a formal Complaint Against State Program Administration, known as a CASPA, to Industrial Commission director James Ashley. The document cites 10 cases in which Industrial Commission members voted to reduce penalties for workplace safety violations, or to downgrade the severity level of violations.

In one example from a commission meeting in December, commissioners voted to reclassify a roofing companys serious violations as non-serious and to reduce penalties for serious and repeat violations from $18,500 to $4,750 after a discussion with the employer.

In its letter, federal OSHA asked for an explanation of the criteria used to determine those reductions.

In his February response, ICA chairman Schultz did not directly address any of those specific cases. But he gave a detailed defense of the commissions philosophy, which he said is rooted in the factors included in the states field operations manual, and he cited Arizona statute that gives broad authority to the commission to assess all civil penalties.

With all due respect, he wrote, rather than suggesting to the media that the commission should operate as a rubber stamp on ADOSH citations and penalties, Arizonas state plan would be better served if you would support the long-standing statutory role of the commission.

The Industrial Commission has 30 days from the issuance of the May 4 letter to provide a written response. Federal OSHA recommended the state propose changes to its state OSHA plan to define the role of the Industrial Commission and explain the criteria it uses to approve and adjust proposed citations. Those changes would have to be submitted to federal OSHA for approval.

The letter also directs the commission to stop reclassifying the violations cited by ADOSH.

Workplace-safety advocates say that high penalties for violations are a crucial deterrent for employers who might look to save money by cutting corners on safety practices and equipment.

Like many states, ADOSH doesnt have enough inspectors to visit workplaces regularly, meaning hefty penalties for violations is even more necessary to keep workers safe, Dooley said.

Arizonas ADOSH field workers would need 122 years to inspect each workplace in the state once, according to AFL-CIOs most recent report on workplace fatalities.

Stiff penalties for violations, such as failure to use fall-prevention equipment, sends a message to every employer in the state about how important it is to be following the regulations, Dooley said. If that company gets their fine reduced, that sends a message that compliance is a lot less important.
If you go

If You Go: The Seventh Annual 5-K Run/2-Mile Family Fun Run & Walk and Touch-A-Truck Family Festival to benefit the Erik Hite Foundation.

When: Saturday. 6:45 a.m. registration/check-in; 7:30 a.m. 5K run begins; 7:35 a.m. 2-mile family walk; 8:30 a.m. pancake breakfast; 9 a.m. kids race; 9:30 a.m. awards ceremony.

Where: Reid Park, Ramadas 20 and 22 at the northeast corner of South Country Club Drive and East 22nd Street.

Cost: $30 per person for the 5K Fun Run and Family Fun Walk for ages 16 and older in advance; $35 per person on race day. Race and walk are free for those 15 and younger.

Touch-A-Truck Festival is free. Festivities include the opportunity to view at least 25 cars, trucks, motorcycles, vintage automobiles and emergency vehicles; free child fingerprinting; face painting and other childrens activities; craft vendors; live music; raffles and other activities.

For information about registration or raffle tickets, visit erikhitefoundation.org/index.php/events or call 245-7437.
A wind-whipped fire in Bisbee destroyed several structures, including one vacant house, Monday evening, authorities said.

There were no injuries, and the fire was no longer spreading as of about 7:45 p.m., the Cochise County Sheriff's Office reported. The fire was expected to be under control by late Monday night, said Carol Capas, a sheriff's spokeswoman.

Christopher Long, interim deputy chief of Bisbee Police Department, said in a televised news conference that about 50 people were evacuated from historic Old Bisbee.

Long said at least four structures burned, including a vacant house.

Police, along with state and federal agencies, evacuated residences in the area of Moon Canyon and Locklin Avenue while multiple fire agencies, including wildland fire crews fought the blaze, Long said.

Challenges crews faced included steep hills, winds, and old structures near each other, said Long.

Mop up crews were optimistic to begin work Monday night and early Tuesday morning, Long said.

An emergency operations center was being set up at Bisbee City Hall. Anyone needing information is asked to call 520-432-6021.

Evacuees were sent to St. Patrick's Church. The Souther Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross will assist those in need.

The fire was reported shortly after 5 p.m. Monday.
The stand of Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd at an industry expo in Beijing. WU CHANGQING / FOR CHINA DAILY

Dairy producer looking at acquiring new assets to consolidate global position

China's biggest dairy producer, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd, said it plans to further move into overseas markets in the next three to five years.

Last year, Yili achieved sales of 60.6 billion yuan ($8.78 billion), and net profit of 5.67 billion yuan, the latter up 21.8 percent year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2017, its net profit reached 1.74 billion yuan.

Yili Vice-President Xu Ke said his group is now the eighth largest dairy group worldwide.

"We aim to become one of the top five global producers in the near future and reach an annual sales revenue of more than 100 billion yuan," Xu said.

Xu said China still had significant growth potential for milk consumption.

According to the China Dairy Industry Association, the current annual per capita milk consumption in China is only half the world average, and one-third of the average volumes in Asia.

Meanwhile, Yili is eyeing more overseas assets to consolidate its leading position.

The group recently announced it was bidding for full control of leading US organic yogurt brand Stonyfield, whose production line covers yogurts, smoothies, milk and cream, and it is currently owned by French dairy giant Danone.

Xu said that the dairy producer had similar such overseas acquisition plans for the next few years.

In recent years, Yili has been expanding its investments in countries and regions that are related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2014, it established the world's largest integrated dairy production center in New Zealand, named Yili Group Oceania Dairy Ltd, with an investment of 3 billion yuan. It is currently producing around 47,000 metric tons of infant formula a year.

This March, the dairy giant unveiled the second-phase expansion project at its New Zealand dairy production center. Yili said it would expand the second-stage production to ultra-high-temperature treated milk, whole milk powder and other products.

The factory is located in the small town of Waimate, where Yili created nearly 100 jobs and became one of the largest employers in the region.

In addition, the company founded a scholarship program to provide funds for local high-school graduates, particularly to those who are willing to take a career path in dairy research, as well as to foster communications between China and New Zealand.

Yili Chairman Pan Gang said the Belt and Road Initiative is a visionary project that has already grown beyond people's expectations.

"Our base is also an example of what can be achieved with Chinese vision, resources, capital, New Zealand innovation and world-leading agri-science and abundant natural resources," Pan said.

He said that by partnering with the best of New Zealand's farmers, researchers, academics and scientists, Yili would achieve significant advances in dairy and food technology.

"We have committed to New Zealand for the long term and while these benefits may take years to come to fruition, they will be worth the wait," he added.
Doctor Doctor star Shalom Brune-Franklin is joining the third season of UK drama Our Girl.

Brune-Franklin, recently nominated for Logie Best New Talent, will play Private Maisie Richards in the series about a female soldier in the British Army.

Filming is underway in Kathmandu and Cape Town with Michelle Keegan returning as Corporal Georgie Lane, who finds herself on a relief mission in Nepal following a devastating earthquake.

The 12-part series will comprise of three separate missions in far-flung, dangerous parts of the globe.

Michelle Keegan said, Im so happy to be shooting the new series of Our Girl out in Nepal and so very excited to bring more stories of Georgie Lane to life. Its an amazing experience to be working on such important stories with such an incredible group of people.

Our Girl screens in Australia on ABC.
Help India!

By Mahtab Alam

New Delhi : In rare show of solidarity, Manipuri peace activist Irom Sharmila along with a representative of North East students addressed a joint press conference organised by the Association of African Students in India (AASI) in the national capital on Monday. I am here to extend my solidarity and support to my African brothers and sisters, who want nothing but justice, said Sharmila, often referred as the Iron Lady of Manipur for her long struggle to repeal Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Referring to the racial discrimination faced by the African students and people from North-East she said, The problem is the same.

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And this, said Shamila can be only solved when we start seeing each other as human beings, she added, emphasising we human beings dont need to imitate the nature of beast. She hoped that justice will be delivered soon. The conference was organised in the wake of recent attacks on African students in different parts of India, and to build a newer solidarity of all those who are facing similar situation.

Addressing the press, Samuel Jack, president of the Association claimed that almost two months after the mob attacks on African students in Greater Noida on March 27, 2017, the passports of Said Kabir Abdullahi, Said Abubakar Abdullahi, Adamu Usman, Mohammad Amir Zakari Yau and Abdulkadir Usman still remain withheld by the Noida police. According to Jack, these students were charged with cannibalism and murder even as the victim appeared the next day.

The investigating authorities are yet to come up with a conclusive detail of what transpired as the cause of the incident. However, within the span of 12 hours after the Indian victims sad demise, National Capital Region witnessed one of the ugliest crimes committed against persons from African origin, read a statement released by the association. Terming it a false case, the association demand that the authorities should immediately return the International passports of the students.

It was also noted in the statement that, as If the mob attacks on the streets was not enough, the Government both at the Uttar Pradesh state level and Central government level went on a denial mode. From downgrading the racist crimes to a narrative focused only on degrading law and order to making racist remarks on social media, state and non-state actors have shown that no one is serious about addressing the problem of racism from the governments side.

Narrating a series of incidents of racial discrimination and violent attacks the association called for decisive actions to bring to book those involved racial attacks on Africans and people from other minorities in India. A 12-point demand charter included a special law, to keep a tab on erring locals who capitalise on the vulnerability of Africans and minorities by subjecting them to continuous racial slurs, profiling, prejudice and discrimination to serve as deterrent to others and crack down on all fake and non-accredited UGC and AICTE Universities who make fake promises to African students who eventually get trapped in India.

Welcoming the support of Irom Sharmila, the association said, The path of struggle that Irom has taken is synonymous with something that we draw our inspiration from and her solidarity will go a long way in asserting our rights. We appreciate her decision to join us in our quest to build a society void of any form of racial discrimination. We wish that in the coming days more groups will join us and we hope that a common platform can help us achieve our goals.

The joint press conference was also addressed by Seilienmang Haokip, a representative of North East students and office bearer of Kuki Students Organization, apart from several members of the ASSI from different African countries.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): A court here on Tuesday dropped charges relating to cheating against the caretaker of the L-18 Batla House flat where two suspected militants were killed in a shootout with the police in 2008.

Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kumar Tripathi discharged Abdul Rehman who is the caretaker of the building where tenants alleged to be engaged in terrorist activities were harbouring.

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Rehman, a stenographer in Ghaziabad, was accused by the flat owner, Mohsin Nissar, of forging his signature in the lease deed while giving away the flat to the two suspected terrorists on rent.

The court dropped cheating charges against Rehman observing that prosecution prima facie failed to show on record that the rent agreement was forged by Rehman.

Defence Counsel M.S. Khan said police have failed to produce the original lease deed, the crucial piece of evidence, which was allegedly forged by Rehman.

The court observed that the original rent agreement was never brought on record.

The order for framing of charge against Rehman for offence under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code is not sustainable in the eyes of law, the court said.

The court order came on a revision plea filed by Rehman challenging the magisterial court order.

The court set aside the magisterial court order dated November 8, 2016 where it had framed charges of cheating against Rehman.

There is no material on record to suggest that it was Rehman who fraudulently and dishonestly induced the complainant to hand over the premises to him, the sessions judge said.

Nissar, in his complaint, alleged that, in July 2008, he handed the key of his flat L-18 Batla House to Rehman so that he could locate some tenants.

After a month, Rehman told him that he had found some students of Jamia Millia Islamia for renting out the flat.

Later, he came to knew that a rent agreement was made, purportedly between him and Mohammad Atif, which contained his forged signature, Nissar told the police.

Rehman was arrested on September 21, 2008 and was later released on bail in November 2008.

According to the police, Rehman had let out the flat to the suspected terrorists who carried out synchronised serial blasts in the capital on September 13, 2008 in which at least 30 people were killed and over 100 injured.

The Batla House shootout took place on September 19, 2008, a week after the serial blasts.

Of the five who were residing in the flat, Atif Ameen and Mohd. Sajid were killed during the shootout, Ariz Khan alias Junaid had been declared a proclaimed offender, while Mohd. Saif was not made an accused in this case as, according to the prosecution, he had surrendered peacefully and had not played any part in the entire incident.
Always remember that the first problem with Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, is Donald Trump. His iniquities, his failings and his shortcomings, all begin and end with him. The bigger-picture does not exist, the need to serve the greater good rather than the smaller one has no bearing. The only thing the President sees is the President, unaware that his administration is unraveling because of his own impetuous actions.

So what is the Problem?

Picking a fight outside your own circle is easy, picking one inside, is bound to cause trouble.

The White House, if the rumors are true, is bending under the weight of President Trump's paranoia, riven with doubt and likely to change his mind on a whim, and at any moment, thereby destabilising further the already unstable situation. It is a moot point as to whether James Comey should have been sacked or not, but the manner in which it was done was wrong from the start. He yanked up the ante on Friday by his most stupid mistake yet. He should certainly not have turned to his trusted aid, 'twitter,' and intimated that he had taped a conversation with the sacked FBI director, obviously forgetting the Watergate debacle.

For a Man who demands unquestioning loyalty, he gives none in return, and for a decrier of 'fake news,' he is certainly not adverse to spreading it around by the bucketload himself.

At present, the corridors of power are ringing with the possibility that he is now about to sack swathes of 'Team Trump,' which will only increase his thought that the Politics of Fear, is the only way to run a country.

Russia

On the one hand, he seems hell-bent on alienating not only the media and his immediate supporters but the public at large, while on the other, constantly assuring them that he is in fact up to the job.

One moment he is guided by an unthinking, unguarded personality, one almost at war with itself. The next he drops his guard, bleating like an injured lamb that 'he thought it would be easier,' with reference to his first 100 days in office.

The problem though, really boils down once again to Russia, not only pre-Presidential but post-Presidential as well.

He called Comey a 'grandstander,' and 'showboater,' who was carrying out a 'witch hunt,' against his Russian connection. And certainly it is one thing to have the Russian foreign minister Sergi Lazarov for talks, it is quite another to pepper those discussions with matters of high security, something he once again says, did not happen.

It is the constant contradictions that will destroy Trump in the end. You may be mercurial in business, but certainly not in the business of politics. Appearing like a man digging a very large hole for himself, one that if it goes down much further, it will be increasingly difficult to dig himself out of.
In recent weeks, it's become clear that there is trouble behind the scenes at the White House. With current Chief Strategist Steve Bannon appearing to clash with Donald Trump, the president's once closest ally could soon be seeing his final days in the administration.

Trump on Bannon

Not long after Donald Trump locked up the Republican nomination for president last summer, he was in need of a new campaign manager after Paul Manafort was forced to step down when his financial ties to the Kremlin were made public. The former host of "The Apprentice" tapped veteran Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway for the job, while also adding former Breitbart News CEO Steve Bannon to the team in the newly created role of "campaign CEO." In the months that followed, Bannon would quickly become one of the most controversial names in American politics, with critics quick to point out his controversial history, which included allegations of white nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of prejudice.

Trump's decision to hire Bannon, and later promote him into the White House as chief strategist, only added to the negative stigma surrounding the billionaire real estate mogul when it comes to issues dealing with minorities, civil rights, and other social justice issues. However, the rift in the White House can no longer be kept a secret as Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as daughter Ivanka, have reportedly been pushing for Bannon's exit, which was discussed in further detail in a April 15 report in the New York Times.

Trump is still annoyed by Time cover with Bannon: report https://t.co/cqXuDlKjiY pic.twitter.com/0M4QrGYe6m  The Hill (@thehill) April 16, 2017

According to a report released by the New York Times on Saturday, Steve Bannon could soon be out at the White House as rumors of his demise increase on an almost daily basis.

The latest twist in the story comes from reporter Frank Bruni who notes that Donald Trump lashed out over his chief strategist landing on the cover of Time Magazine.

More openly than any president before him, Trump is running his West Wing like a family business https://t.co/uV6D2MqN3k  The New York Times (@nytimes) April 15, 2017

The president reportedly told an anonymous source "That doesn't just happen," showing signs of frustration over Steve Bannon continuing to hog the White House spotlight.

Donald Trump was apparently "annoyed" by the former head of Breitbart News getting as much attention as he has, which doubles down on further reports that elaborate on the souring of their relationship since the inauguration.

Dead strategist walking Bannon was doomed the moment Time magazine put him on its cover: NYT https://t.co/LOIT13uEcm pic.twitter.com/rgYq5OEwPq  Raw Story (@RawStory) April 16, 2017

End of days

Time magazine ran their cover story earlier this year with a picture of Steve Bannon, while using the caption, "Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?" The wording also irritated the president, with the New York Times noting that that Bannon "was damned the moment he was cast as a puppeteer." In addition, Bannon was given the nickname "dead strategist walking" after he "crossed the line" by putting himself in the media spotlight.

With the backlash continuing against Bannon, and the pressure mounting from Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner pushing the president to make a move, only time will tell how much longer the chief strategist will be working side by side with the commander in chief.
According to the Sheriff's office, the incident happened at Moss Bluff Elementary School on Monday. A seven-year-old boy was accidentally shot in his classroom after another student picked up a loaded handgun that fell from a students backpack. The handgun was loaded and was accidentally fired by the student, hitting the seven-year-old.

The Sheriffs office reportedly received a call from the school at 7:50 a.m. relating to the shooting incident. According to authorities, the shooting was isolated to just the one classroom.

No charges against the students due to their age

As reported by People, Sheriff Tony Mancuso of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office went on to say that no charges will be laid against the student who brought the handgun to school, or the child who accidentally fired the shot, due to their ages. However, he did add that once their investigation is complete, the district attorney will consider whether to bring charges against the parent of the student who brought the gun to school.

Update: Calcasieu Parish, La., Sheriff: 7-year-old shot in classroom was 'innocent bystander,' currently in surgery https://t.co/6JbrlNbgSw pic.twitter.com/o5sGmgs9V1  G.Alexander(BRKNEWS) (@MajorNews911) May 15, 2017

Mancuso said in a statement that the student is stable and is undergoing surgery for his injuries.

No mention was made, however, as to where on his body the boy was shot.

Gun owners must be responsible with their weapons

Sheriff Mancuso said in the statement on the Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office website that he is a pro-gun advocate and that he believes in the second amendment that allows Americans to own and carry firearms.

However, he also believes that it is the firm responsibility of gun owners to ensure their weapons are kept locked up and safely out of their childrens reach.

Mancuso further said it is important that all parents explain the dangers of guns to their children to help them understand how to react should they come across a weapon, either at school or at a friends home.

Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso discusses this morning's shooting at Moss Bluff Elementary School. pic.twitter.com/r8LnLmVeAK  American Press (@AmericanPress) May 15, 2017

Shooting among teens and children becoming relatively common

Incidents of youngsters with guns are in the news on a fairly regular basis. Blasting News reported last month on the story of a 17-year-old Florida City teenager who accidentally shot his 13-year-old sister in the back of her head, shortly after she had given him a hug to wish him a happy birthday.

In that case, the teenager had gotten the gun from a friend and was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter, while his 14-year-old friend was also taken into custody and placed in a detention facility.

CTV News reports that the sentencing hearing for a Saskatchewan teenager starts Tuesday, who was convicted in a deadly school shooting. This was no accidental shooting, however, as the teen fatally shot a teacher and her aide and wounded seven other people at the La Loche high school in January 2016.
After nine failed attempts, North Korea succeeded in launching a long-range strategic missile on Sunday. After Pyongyangs success, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promised the country would hold more nuclear and missile tests.

After he made the promise, the Korean Central News Agency identified the medium long-range strategic missile as a Hwasong-12. The missile, which flew for 30 minutes and reached an altitude of 2,000 kilometers, is possibly a new type of missile, according to Tomomi Inada, defense minister of Japan, CNN reported.

Besides Japan, the South Korean and U.S.

militaries confirmed the altitude and time the North Korean missile flew before it landed in the Sea of Japan. Based on its high altitude and longer flight time, it could indicate a missile with an extended range, said David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Sea of fire

For decades, Pyongyang had threatened to reduce South Korea to a sea of fire. The Sunday missile launch could be a big step forward to North Koreas threat to launch a nuclear warhead that could reach the U.S. mainland.

It also represents a major challenge to the leadership of Moon Jae-in, the new president of South Korea, who had said he wanted to reach out to Pyongyang, The Washington Post reported.

The Defense Ministry of South Korea said there is more analysis needed to verify North Koreas claim on the technological features of the Hwasong-12.

Moon Sang Gyun, the spokesman of the ministry, said it is unlikely that Pyongyang has a re-entry technology that could return a warhead back into the atmosphere safely.

Talks with Trump

Ironically, the missile test was done just a day after Choe Son Hui, director general for U.S. Affairs of the North Korea Foreign Ministry said that Pyongyang is open to a dialogue with the U.S. under the right conditions. She made the statement one week after U.S. President Donald Trump expressed willingness to talk to North Korea leader Kim Jong-un under the right circumstances.

Meanwhile, in response to North Koreas launch of the Hwasong-12, Russia placed on high alert its far eastern air defense, the RIA-Novosti News Agency reported. In a statement, Viktor Ozerov, head of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security of Russia, said that the country is not only an object of an attack but also a place where a missile could fall. To protect Russia from that possibility, it must keep its air defense systems in the Far East in a state of increased combat readiness.
Jennifer Blumin, 40, a New York event space designer, was traveling in a small twin-engine plane with her pilot boyfriend, Nathan Ulrich, 52, along with her four-year-old and two-year-old sons. They spent Mothers Day in Puerto Rico, left Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla at around 11 a.m. on Monday, and were on their way back to Titusville, Fla., when their plane went missing at around 2:10 p.m. that afternoon.

Plane lost contact with the control tower east of Eleuthera, Bahamas

According to officials, the twin-engine plane lost radio contact with the control tower around 37 miles east of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

The New York Post quotes US Coast Guard Petty Officer Eric Woodall as saying that they are performing a search and rescue, adding that they are searching as long as they think they can find the pilot and passengers alive and are focusing their efforts on the Eleuthera area.

Small plane carrying NYC event space designer, her two kids and pilot vanishes near Bahamas https://t.co/UTEWCTBmlc pic.twitter.com/Jj0py3cSHe  New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) May 16, 2017

The Coast Guard said that the MU-2B plane was at 24,000 ft when it went off both the radar and radio contact with Miami. According to aviation records, the plane was supposed to land at Space Coast Regional Airport at 2:44 p.m. U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt.

Cmdr. Ryan Kelly said that there was no indication of any significantly adverse weather at that time.

No sign of the plane or passengers on Monday  search continues

The Coast Guard found no sign of the plane on Monday and relaunched the air and sea search early on Tuesday with the aid of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force and the U.S.

Customs and Border Patrol. There are currently two boats and four aircraft searching an area covering around 800 square miles, just outside of the Bahamas. The New York Post reports that the Royal Bahamas Defense Force is calling various docks and airstrips on a regular basis to ask if anyone has seen any wreckage.

A small plane carrying two New Yorkers and two children vanished 37 miles east of the Bahamas https://t.co/8hVIxvHgYw pic.twitter.com/yxLkQUy86w  New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) May 16, 2017

Ulrich is known to be an excellent pilot

Blumins partner, Ulrich, is an engineer who used to be married to actress Rae Dawn Chong, 56, up until 2014. Chong told the New York Daily News that she was sure the mishap with the plane must be some kind of equipment malfunction. Chong said Ulrich is an excellent pilot and that she had flown hundreds of miles with him when they were together.

Ulrich is based in New Hampshire and is the founder and co-owner of the company Xootr, involved in the manufacture of folding bicycles and kick scooters. The mechanical engineer is also technical director of Radon Sport LLC, a company involved in race car design and manufacturing.
Chris Soules has found himself in a world of trouble. Back in April, he was involved in a fatal accident. This has consumed headlines over the last three weeks and changed his plans for the summer. Soules was reportedly drinking, though there is no evidence that supports that claim. Unfortunately, there is a huge legal mess he has to deal with and the odds are not in his favor.

Chris Soules loses first court battle

Because Chris Soules is being charged with a class D felony, his lawyers are trying to pull out all the stops. They filed a motion to dismiss the charges on May 1st, and it looks like their answer was granted today by an Iowa judge.

According to Us Weekly, Chris Soules motion to dismiss was denied. This means he will be going to trial over the accident and will likely face jail time for his role in the fatal crash. The former "Bachelor" star changed his life with the decisions he made leading up to the accident back in April. Now, he is looking at being a convicted felon and that changes everything.

The accident happened on April 24th on a rural road. It wasn't late in the evening, it happened around sundown. The reports indicated that Chris Soules ran into the tractor Kenneth Mosher was driving. The impact caused the tractor and the truck to go off the road, leaving Mosher critically injured. Unfortunately, the outcome was bad.

Mr. Mosher died shortly after being brought to the hospital.

Chris Soules knew the victim

Kenneth Mosher was someone Chris Soules and his family knew. They chose not to attend the service for Mr. Mosher because of the circumstances but they did release a statement about the horrible tragedy. Soules did try and help at the scene and was the person who called for help after the crash.

The 911 call was leaked, and it was definitely Soules who identified himself as the caller. While it was an absolutely horrible accident, it appears that Chris' attorneys are going to try hard to make sure he is acquitted.

Everything changed in the blink of an eye for Chris Soules. The "Bachelor" star had reportedly been planning to attend "Bachelor in Paradise" later this summer.

This was leaked when Soules had to surrender his passport to avoid leaving the country until the trial was handled. Fans were shocked that he was even attending the show and now, he is in Iowa wearing an ankle monitor. As Chris Soules waits to hear his fate, his entire life is on hold until the trial is over.
"General Hospital" is right in the middle of May sweeps. This is the biggest time for a soap opera, one that is supposed to keep the audience captivated and increase the ratings. The writers have done a great job with the Anna/Alex (Finola Hughes) storyline, especially because many fans were unaware that Alex was even in existence. Michael (Chad Duell) and Nelle (Chloe Lanier) have been making progress in the forgiveness area, and things have been headed toward a possible love story.

"General Hospital" confirms Alex exists with cliffhanger Friday

On Friday's episode of "General Hospital," fans saw Anna in a hospital bed being treated by a nurse. It is unclear how she got there, but it was very clear that her twin sister, Alex is in Port Charles. In fact, several fans have speculated this for quite some time. According to She Knows Soaps, Robin (Kimberly McCullough) will notice something is off with her mother this week. She is back in town because of the Nurses Ball and by mid-week, her suspicions are raised, Anna has a blood disorder and Alex is not being checked out like Anna could be. Andre (Anthony Montgomery) called her out on it, and that is really when fans began to question the existence of Alex.

The Nurses Ball will begin next Monday on the 22nd. This is a huge event that many "General Hospital" fans look forward to seeing. The actors put on performances, everyone gets dressed up, and it always hosts drama. There are rumors that indicate something big is going to happen this year, but no indication on what that could be.

Right now, there isn't any danger circulating through Port Charles, but that is going to change. It was recently confirmed Helena (Constance Towers) was back from the dead, but it appears that was in flashbacks only. Will the new big bad be Valentin (James Patrick Stuart)?

Michael finds Nelle

Michael and Nelle have been flirting with a relationship for months now.

It was revealed who she was and what she did to Carly (Laura Wright) after waiting for what seemed like an eternity. Michael wasn't happy about all that went down but Nelle has managed to soften his heart a bit. Friday's episode of "General Hospital" saw the two talking on the pier about her leaving town and when he left, she was attacked by a robber. Michael will find her on the dock this week and it is going to bring them closer than ever.

Tune into "General Hospital" all this week to find out what is happening in Port Charles.
People walk past an accident and emergency department at a hospital in London on Sunday. Neil Hall / Reuters

Washington - Cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link DPRK with the global WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a DPRK-run hacking operation.

"This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner told Reuters.

Both firms said it was too early to tell whether DPRK was involved in the attacks, based on the evidence that was published on Twitter by Google security researcher Neel Mehta. The attacks, which slowed on Monday, are among the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.

In a blog post on Sunday, Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith confirmed what researchers already widely concluded: The attack made use of a hacking tool built by the US National Security Agency (NSA) that had leaked online in April.

He poured fuel on a long-running debate over how government intelligence services should balance their desire to keep software flaws secret - in order to conduct espionage and cyber warfare - against sharing those flaws with technology companies to better secure the internet.

On Monday, Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert sought to distance the NSA from any blame.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data. This was a tool developed by culpable parties, potentially criminals or foreign nation-states, that were put together in such a way as to deliver phishing emails, put it into embedded documents, and cause infection, encryption and locking," Bossert said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting the technology's link to the US spy service, said it should be "discussed immediately on a serious political level."

"Once they're let out of the lamp, genies of this kind, especially those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their authors and creators," he said.

Regardless of the source of the attack, investors piled into cyber security stocks on Monday, betting that governments and corporations will spend more to upgrade their defenses.

The perpetrators had raised less than $70,000 from users paying to regain access to their computers, Bossert said.

"We are not aware if payments have led to any data recovery," Bossert said, adding that no US federal government systems had been affected.

WannaCry demanded ransoms starting at $300, in line with many cyber extortion campaigns, which keep pricing low so more victims will pay.

Still, some security experts said they were not sure if the motive of WannaCry was primarily to make money, noting that large cyber extortion campaigns typically generate millions of dollars of revenue.

"I believe that this was spread for the purpose of causing as much damage as possible," said Matthew Hickey, a co-founder of British cyber consulting firm Hacker House.

The economies most affected by WannaCry to date are Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and India, according to security firm Avast.

The number of infections has fallen dramatically since Friday's peak when more than 9,000 computers were being hit per hour.

Authorities in Europe and the United States turned their attention to preventing hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.

Reuters
Tengku Zafrul Aziz, CEO of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, made a speech at the opening ceremony of the Tsinghua PBCSF Belt and Road EMBA Program for Southeast Asia on May 11, 2017 in Beijing. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

CIMB Group, a Kuala Lumpur-headquartered universal bank, is well positioned to help plug the financial gap in Southeast Asian infrastructure needs and to connect companies between China and the region, said CEO Tengku Zafrul Aziz.

He said at Tsinghua University in Beijng on Thursdaythat he is tremendously excited about the Belt and Road Initiative as it is an opportunity to create vital infrastructure that connects and further empowers trade. He added that Asia alone needs about $770 billion a year until 2020 in new infrastructure citing prediction of the Asian Development Bank.

In an interview with chinadaily.com.cn on Tuesday, Aziz said that China's pledged contribution of an additional 100 billion yuan ($14.49 billion) to the Silk Road Fund reflects the seriousness of President Xi Jinping to ensure the success of the Belt and Road Initiative, boosting both the magnitude as well as the sources of funding to enable more parties to participate in the project.

"Any attempt to facilitate the connectivity via both land and sea between ASEAN, the rest of Asia and even Europe could only bode well for the future of trade and diplomatic relations between these economic blocs."

He added that the challenge of execution is in ensuring that negotiations are done on a level playing field among all countries, and financing conditions are not burdensome for countries that are less developed.

Aziz said that it is always a good idea to utilize local currency borrowing to support local huge infrastructure projects, not only to mitigate foreign exchange risk, but to also create a wider, truly localized ownership of the investment process.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the People's Bank of China governor, suggested earlier this month that local currency should be used in future Belt and Road Initiative investments as using local currency more will also gradually improve market confidence in the particular currency, in addition to lowering foreign exchange risks.

CIMB Group is the largest issuer of ASEAN local currency bonds, and the top issuer for Malaysian Ringgit bonds , said Aziz.

In addition to its pan-ASEAN presence, he also viewed its deep cooperation with Chinese finance sector over the past 10 years as an advantage.

CIMB Group has invested and divested later with multiple-times returns in Yingkou Bank in Northeast China's Liaoning province and helped banks like China Development Bank to issue billions of offshore yuan-denominated bonds.

Aziz said CIMB has 400 employees in Shanghai and Hong Kong, who identify funding needs from Chinese clients and report back.

In November 2015, CIMB's investment bank arm helped China Construction Bank (Asia) to issue and list its yuan-denominated 21st Century Maritime Silk Road bonds of 1billion yuan on Bursa Malaysia Securities, the country's securities exchange. Investors included commercial banks, asset management companies and private bank clients fromMalaysia and other countries.

In March 2015, Ministry of Finance of Malaysia appointed CIMB Group to find investors for Edra Global Energy Berhad. The power company with a portfolio of 13 power and desalination plants in five countries in Southeast Asia was sold to China General Nuclear Power Corp for $2.3 billion in 2016.

In addition to these big-ticket projects, CIMB Group has also, relying on its China-related experience accumulated these years, expanded to stock-broking business and e-commerce.

The group and China Galaxy Securities are in the final stage of forming a 50-50 joint venture, said the CEO.

Alipay mobile wallet will go live by the end of this month in Malaysia, part of the bank's efforts to help build a digital free trade zone in the country, he said.

The digital free trade zone has been launched by Alibaba's chairman Jack Ma and Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak in March this year and was the first of its kind worldwide.

President Xi also announced on Sunday at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that the country aims to build a digital silk road.

"We are here to help Chinese enterprises do business in Southeast Asia and to help Southeast Asian companies do business in China," said Aziz.

"We are the largest private bank in Malaysia and the largest foreign bank in Indonesia and we have a large customer base in Southeast Asia butonly two branches in China."

"Likewise China Construction Bank has only one branch in Malaysia," he said.

The CEO said the bank could share clients with its Chinese partners like China Construction Bank and China Galaxy to made good returns for both their clients.

Aziz warned that as countries along the Belt and Road, even in the Southeast region, are different and people think and do businesses in quite different ways, learning about these methods might be very important to guarantee investment safety.

"The customers are there and we know they are there but we still need to come to know them."
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for deepening cooperation with Laos and creating better future for bilateral ties by taking the opportunity of jointly promoting the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP).

The two countries constitute a community of shared future with strategic significance, Xi said, urging both sides to continue the positive direction of bilateral relations and ensure the long-term, healthy and stable development of their comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation.

The two parties and two countries should maintain frequent high-level communication, exchange views on major issues in bilateral ties in a timely manner and strengthen the top-level design of bilateral ties, Xi said, adding he is willing to maintain the tradition of annually meeting with Bounnhang.

Xi called for deepening party-to-party cooperation, stressing mutual learning of party and state governance, so as to enhance ruling capacity together.

He stressed the importance of advancing comprehensive cooperation, aligning development strategies, and strengthening coordination in international affairs to jointly safeguard China-ASEAN ties and regional peace and stability.

Bounnhang applauded the fruitful results of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, saying it will significantly promote Asian connectivity and economic growth and bring more development opportunities to his country.

Bounnhang said that leaders of the two parties should maintain close communication and strengthen exchanges on state governance experience, as well as personnel training.

After the meeting, the two leaders witnessed the exchange of cooperation documents concerning economy, education and technology.
Akriti Nayal from India is among an increasing number of foreign students at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Foreign students, who come from countries ranging from Azerbaijan to the Republic of Burundi, are an exciting addition to the already vibrant college culture at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Akriti Nayal, 22, from the Indian capital New Delhi, studying for her master's degree in international business, is one of the many who believe in the saying that it takes two hands to clap.

"I heard about the Belt and Road Initiative when I was in India. And it interests me because there is a heavy focus on Asia. As the world's two most populous countries, India and China should get to know each other better," she says.

Nayal is one of the 50 Indian students who were chosen last year by the China Scholarship Council for full funding of their educational programs in the country.

She says that she has seen an increasing number of Indian students coming to China recently, especially to study medicine and physiotherapy.

"My parents are now in India doing tourism. My mom had studied in Fudan University (in Shanghai) and my brother had studied in UIBE. They both can speak Chinese fluently.

"I chose to study at UIBE because it is a great institution, and now without language barriers, I get to know better how Chinese business works. For me, connectivity between different countries help to broaden my horizons," she says.

Since the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2013, she has been aware of the increasing Chinese efforts to boost cultural ties.

The 8th International Culture Festival on the campus recently, drew the biggest crowd since it started in 2010.

Nayal was a member of the art and culture department of the university's International Students Union. She plans to find a marketing job in Beijing after completing her master's program.
By LI XIANG in Beijing and PAUL WELITZKIN in New York | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-05-15 10:14

President Xi Jinping talks with his US counterpart Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago state in Palm Beach, Florida, US, April 6, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

China and the US have reached a new deal that will ease market access in agriculture, financial services and energy, marking both sides' willingness to advance the trade relationship and alleviating fears of a trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The 10-part deal is the first result of the 100-day action plan that President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump agreed to pursue at their meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in April. It will start in mid-July.

Under the deal announced by the Trump administration on May 11, China agreed to resume imports of US beef by July 16. In return, the US agreed to open its market to Chinese cooked poultry.

The agreement would also streamline the evaluation of pending US biotechnology product applications and facilitate the entrance of Chinese banks into the US banking market.

Beijing and Washington also agreed to discuss extending the initial 100-day action plan to a one-year plan.

Both sides will hold the first meeting of the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue during the summer this year.

Vice-Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said the deal was a result of cooperation based on the principle of mutual benefits, stressing that the agreement was not "a list of one side's concessions".

"The Chinese and US teams carried out nearly 30 rounds of consultation to achieve the agreement. It was a result of cooperation and reflected the expectations of the people of the two countries," Zhu told reporters at a news conference on Friday.

Vice-Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua said the agreement altered the expectation of a possible trade war between the two sides, adding that stable China-US relations will be a "positive force" for the recovery of the global economy.

In announcing the agreement on Thursday evening, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said "US-China relationships are now hitting a new high, especially in trade."

He hailed the agreement as "a herculean accomplishment" forged in record time.

"This will help us to bring down the deficit for sure," Ross said at media briefing in Washington. "You watch and you'll see."

In the energy sector, the US already is shipping some liquefied natural gas to China and said it could negotiate any type of contract, including long-term contracts, with US suppliers.

In financial services, China pledged to grant market access to US credit rating agencies and credit card companies and agreed to issue licenses to "two qualified US financial institutions" for the interbank bond underwriting and settlement business.

Ross told CNBC that the US also had agreed to treat Chinese financial institutions the same way as other foreign banks that want to open activities in the US.

"Clearly China, whose banks are among the largest in the whole world, wants access to the US banking market," he said. "As long as they can comply with the normal rules, they will get access."

In 2003, China imposed an import ban on US beef due to a case of mad cow disease in Washington state. It had conditionally lifted the ban, but few purchases have been made.

On the resumption of US beef exports to China, Ross said: "It's a very big market; it's at least a $2.5 billion market that's being opened."

The beef agreement also drew praise from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"It's impossible to overstate how beneficial this will be for America's cattle producers," Craig Uden, president of the association, said in a statement.

"We look forward to providing nearly 1.4 billion new customers in China with the same US beef that we feed our families."
Edouard Philippe, France's newly-appointed Prime Minister, poses prior to taking part in the prime time news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in their studios in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, France, May 15, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - French new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe took office on Monday, replacing the outgoing Socialist PM Bernard Cazeneuve.

The handover ceremony started at 15:55 pm (1355 GMT), with Cazeneuve greeting his successor, and the two headed into private talks.

Earlier, Philippe was named by French President Emmanuel Macron as prime minister.

The conservative lawmaker is charged to form a government which is expected to include novice and talented faces from different political parties to embody the president's pledge of political renewal.

Philippe, 46, is currently mayor of France' northwestern city of Le Havre and a conservative lawmaker since 2012.

He had been the spokesman of moderate Alain Juppe during the right-center primary in November last year before joining the campaign of Les Republicans nominee Francois Fillon.

Born in Rouen, northern France, Philippe started his political life as a Socialist member when he was a student before switching to the right.

Philippe has a diploma from ENA, a prestigious political university in France. He worked as public affairs director for the state nuclear group Areva between 2007 and 2010.

It is the first time in France's modern history that a president has named a prime minister from outside his party without being forced to by a defeat in legislative contest, a political move may help Macron to win a majority in the upcoming parliamentary election.

Furthermore, by picking a young modernizer for the prime ministerial role, the new head of state, who pledged to turn the page of the right-left ruling era, sent a strong sign of political renewal that he has bet on in order to reunite divided French citizens and make France stronger, analysts said.

In France, the prime minister leads all other government ministries, oversees domestic affairs, and is second only to the president in importance.

The list of new ministers will be announced on Wednesday, according to the Elysee.
Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius and Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (R) attend a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium May 15, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BRUSSELS - European Union (EU) foreign ministers gave their approval on Monday to scale up the bloc's political presence in Africa, in a bid to cut down migration from the continent.

According to the main results of the EU foreign affairs council that ended Monday, which placed Africa high on its agenda, the top diplomats from EU's 28 member states underlined the strategic importance of EU engagement in the horn of Africa "through a strong political presence and a continued contribution to peace and security, including through the existing CSDP (Common Security and Defense Policy) missions and operation."

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini referred to the larger picture of EU-Africa relations as "moving from a traditional aid approach to a real partnership in all fields, from climate change to security, economic development, migration and humanitarian support."

Mogherini underscored the importance of offering opportunities to young people in Africa, saying, "this is the best way to manage migration. This is also the best way of preventing radicalisation."

She added that the Africa-EU Summit, set to take place in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, in November, would focus on this issue.

In the context of the unprecedented refugee crisis, Africa has been on the EU radar after an EU-Turkey deal led to a nosedive in the number of asylum seekers coming to Europe via the eastern Mediterranean route linking Turkey to Greece.

Over 181,000 migrants and refugees, most of whom use Libya as a springboard, arrived in the EU in 2016 through the central Mediterranean route.

As the deadliest route for migrants last year, the central Mediterranean route claimed the lives of 4,576 people, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned in early March that the refugee situation in East Africa and the Horn of Africa was alarming due to grave food shortages and armed conflicts.
Isatou Touray, minister of Trade, Regional Integration, Economic Affairs and Employment of The Gambia, believes that the Belt & Road Initiative will be open and inclusive to emerging democracies like her country. [Photo by Lucy Morangi/chinadaily.com.cn]

Abuja, Nigeria - The Belt and Road Initiative can offer new trade opportunities for emerging democracies like The Gambia. The Minister of Trade, Regional Integration, Economic Affairs and Employment Isatou Touray believes that the ambitious initiative will be open and inclusive, thus offering trade practices for the small western African country to emulate which in turn will help fast track its economic ambitions. "The Gambia is an emerging democracy and we need linkages with other established economies to support our efforts in building a sustainable economy," she said.

She revealed that the country is working to strengthen its institutions. "We are in the process of ratifying many international trading treaties such as those governed by the World Trade Organization. What the initiative offers however is an opportunity to commence trading with other regions," said the minister at the sidelines of an infrastructure summit organized by Africa Finance Corporation in Abuja, Nigeria.

Touray said her country is looking forward to deepening bilateral relations with China. "Quite a number of Chinese firms are currently engaging with the new administration and we are moving in the right direction. We hope through the initiative, that The Gambia will have an opportunity to learn and gain while China identifies investment opportunities. It should be a win-win situation."

According to the minister, The Gambia is also looking forward to increasing Chinese direct investments. "We are developing policies and regulations that are attractive to foreign investors. We want to engage constructively and have already signed regional trade treaties. We have resumed discussions on international agreements such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a United States Trade Act, and we hope this will be a plus to Chinese investors."

China and The Gambia have enjoyed strong diplomatic ties for more than four decades. The minister explained that the country has benefited from Chinas assistance in health and agriculture due to its comparative advantages.

She revealed that the energy sector is a key priority on their development agenda. "If you want to attract investors, you must have reliable energy to power industries. To achieve industrialization, we have to build the right foundation and protect foreign investments. We are also developing policies that would be attractive to private investments and startups because they are the economic drivers."

The two-day summit brought together infrastructure financiers and developers to discuss innovative financing strategies as the continent pushes forward ambitions to expand its infrastructural network.
 Courtesy of Travel_Bug - Fotolia.com



The Savannah Historic District corresponds with the city limits at the time just prior to the American Civil War. Laid out in 1733 by General James E. Oglethorpe, the founder of the British Colony of Georgia, the original town was divided into wards, which were sections of land that each contained a central square, four civic buildings, and ten residences.

Millions of visitors come to admire the architecture, tour the homes, and walk the broad, live oak-lined streets with their curtains of Spanish moss. Visitors can view historic homes, churches, synagogues, cemeteries, and a railroad roundhouse, all of which have been lovingly preserved. A trolley tour is a great way to orient yourself to the historic districts layout; walking the cobblestone streets, dining in fine restaurants, and relaxing in the shade of the central squares is a wonderful way to spend a day, a week, or an entire vacation. Things to Do in Savannah





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President Tran Dai Quang and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping at the welcome ceremony for the Vietnamese leader in Beijing__Photo: VNA

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Vietnam-China friendship is a valuable asset of the two countries Parties, States and people and it needs to be preserved and promoted, said a joint statement between Vietnam and China.The joint statement was issued on the occasion of the state visit to China by President Tran Dai Quang, his spouse, and a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to China at the invitation of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping.During the visit from May 11-15, President Tran Dai Quang attended the high-level forum on the Belt and Road Initiative, in Beijing.He held talks with President Xi Jinping, and met with Premier Li Keqiang; Zhang Dejiang, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress of China; Yu Zhengsheng, Chairman of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference; and Liu Yunshan, member of the Politburo Standing Committee and Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committees Secretariat.The two sides kept each other updated on the respective Party and national situations and discussed bilateral relations and regional and international issues of mutual concern. They reached an important joint awareness of unceasingly deepening the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, the joint statement said.Apart from Beijing, President Tran Dai Quang paid a visit to Fujian province, a coastal locality in south-eastern China.In the context of rapidly changing and complicated regional and international situations, the two countries should be patient, respecting each other, maintaining strategic dialogue, reinforcing political trust, constantly ratcheting up win-win cooperation, managing and handling satisfactorily outstanding disagreements and arising matters, and stepping up the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a healthy and stable manner, so to bring substantial benefits to their people, and make positive contributions to promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the region.The two sides agreed to maintain the tradition of holding close meetings between Party and State leaders in a flexible manner, promptly exchanging viewpoints on big and important issues in bilateral ties and regional and international situations, stepping up the orientating and steering work to the development of bilateral ties, and promoting the role of the Steering Committee on Vietnam-China cooperation in coordinating and speeding up the implementation of the joint perception reached by the countries leaders.The sides also agreed to boost exchanges and cooperation in diplomacy, defence, security and law enforcement.They reached a consensus on increasing coordination and applying efficient measures to mutually support cooperation in economics-trade, production capacity, investment, infrastructure, finance and monetary issues in a stable, healthy and sustainable fashion.They were unanimous in accelerating affiliation in agriculture, water resources, environment, science-technology, and transport.The countries will be actively pushing for the operation of a hotline dealing with unexpected cases pertaining to sea fishing activities as well as related issues satisfactorily in conformity with their friendship, the joint statement said.The two sides agreed to expand cooperation in culture, sports, tourism, and education, healthcare, and boost instructions and support for the friendship exchange and win-win cooperation between localities, especially border ones.They consented to continuously promote the role of the joint committee on land border, soundly execute legal documents on land border, intensify the management over security and order in border areas, press ahead with opening and upgrading pairs of border gates, apply favorable customs clearance procedures, discuss regulations on the opening and operation of roads in border areas, prevent and combat legal infringements, like smuggling and illegal immigration, and maintain social security and order in border areas.They discussed deeply, sincerely and frankly issues at sea, agreeing to abide by the important perception reached by Party and State leaders and the Agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of issues at sea between Vietnam and China, make the best use of the governmental negotiating mechanism on boundaries and seek basic and long-lasting solution acceptable to both sides.They also agreed to soundly carry out the follow-up work of the completed joint survey at the area off the Tonkin Gulf, push the negotiation on the delineation of waters off the Tonkin Gulf, and actively step up cooperation for mutual development in the waters.The two sides agreed to continue implementing comprehensively and efficiently the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and soon build a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) on the basis of consultation and unity, well manage disputes at sea, take no action that could complicate and expand disputes, and maintain peace and stability in the East Sea.The Vietnamese side affirmed that it persistently respects the one-China policy, support the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and Chinas unification cause, and resolutely oppose to any Taiwan independence activities in any form. Vietnam does not develop any official relations with Taiwan. That stance was welcomed by the Chinese side.The two sides agreed to boost coordination and collaboration in multilateral frameworks, like the United Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, ASEAN-China, ASEAN-China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ASEAN 3), and the East Asia Summit (EAS).They agreed to work together in accelerating regional connectivity and integration, support ASEANs unity, solidarity and central role in the evolving regional architecture, and together contribute to preserving peace, stability, and prosperity in the region and the world at large.The Chinese side vowed to support Vietnam to successfully organize the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting 2017 and expressed willingness to actively participate in the event.The Vietnamese side wished that the high-level forum on the Belt and Road will succeed and bring mutual benefits for all countries.The two sides agreed that the visit was successful, helping reinforce mutual trust, and traditional friendship, deepen the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, and contribute constructively to promoting peace, stability, cooperation and sustainable development in the region and the world.-
Viet Nam is ranked 88th of 137 nations for power loss at 8.95 per cent, according to the International Energy Agency.  VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung

HCM City  The electricity industry must improve its management and technology to reduce losses in the transmission grid as well as eradicate power stealing, which are very serious in rural and remote areas, delegates heard at a seminar in Con ao Island in the southern province of Ba Ria  Vung Tau.

Viet Nam is ranked 88th of 137 nations for power loss at 8.95 per cent, according to the International Energy Agency.

Upgrading technology for the transmission grid and increasing awareness in rural and remote residents about power stealing are two urgent jobs, Nguyen Tan Nghiep from the Southern Power Association told the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.

The Viet Nam Electricity Group (EVN) has set the goal to reduce power loss from 8.95 per cent to 6.5 per cent by 2020 by applying new technical and operational solutions as well as building new electricity plants and transmission grids.

During 2016-2020, EVN has invested in 13 electricity projects with total capacity of 6,989 MW.

By ensuring electricity supply, power wont need to be transmitted far distances and it will help reduce losses.

For the transmission grid, a 500kV and 220kV grid in Ha Noi, HCM City and other big and industrial cities and provinces will be developed with modern technology to limit power loss.

Lack of supply

By 2020, hydropower, renewable and thermal power by gas will only provide 48.3 per cent of power demand and fall to 39.9 per cent by 2030, but power demand is expected to increase 9  10 per cent each year during 2016 -2030.

Furthermore, a nuclear power plant in the central province of Ninh Thuan has been stopped by the Government, therefore, coal thermal power must be considered for economic efficiency and environmental pollution.

In the context of a 50 per cent shortage of power, proper power supply must be carefully chosen, Dr Tran Trong Quyet, vice chairman of the Southern Power Association, said.

He pointed out that renewable power would ensure environmental protection, but it would require a huge initial investment.

Coal thermal power will require a lot of land, is a big problem for environmental pollution and is a large expenditure, but it still plays a very important role in ensuring national power security, he added.

To limit the impact of coal thermal power, Quyet warned that modern technology to deal with coal slag and ensure coal supply must be done carefully.  VNS
HA NOI  The Peoples Committee of Ha Nam Province signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Viet Nam-Korea Friendship Association (KOVEA) on Monday to provide a favourable business environment for South Korean firms in the province.

Both sides also committed to co-operating in developing tourism, industry, services, urban development and construction.

In addition, the association can open a Korean language centre at a Ha Nam-based school and establish a Korean cultural street in the province.

Meanwhile, on behalf of the South Korean side, KOVEA will support the provinces delegation in investment promotion activities in the country every year.

KOVEAs chairman Kim Hyeon Uk said the association "will be a bridge for socio-political organisations, businesses and residents from the two countries to promote friendly and co-operative relations in the fields of economy, culture and education."

Nguyen Xuan ong, chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee, appreciated the support from KOVEA and asked the provinces Department of Planning and Investment and other related units to co-ordinate with the association to implement the MoUs commitments.  VNS
HA NOI  Despite the accelerated economic growth of Viet Nam and of the Czech Republic, trade between the two countries has not lived up to its potential, said participants at a conference in Ha Noi on Monday.

The event, organised by the Ha Noi Centre of Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion, was designed to help Vietnamese enterprises expand their market in the Czech Republic  a large trading partner of Viet Nam in Eastern Europe.

The economies of Viet Nam and the Czech Republic are developing at a high speed, integrating deeply into the world and regional economy. The two countries have many favourable opportunities to develop bilateral co-operation in economics, trade and investment. However, the results of their economic and trade co-operation have not matched the potential.

As of the middle of 2016, only 30 Czech enterprises were investing in Viet Nam with total capital of more than US$170 million, ranking 40 among over 150 countries and territories that have invested in Viet Nam. Import and export turnover reached nearly $1 billion.

Located at the heart of Europe and possessing high quality transport infrastructure, the Czech government has always supported transparent investment and skilled labour from other countries, including Viet Nam, with fluency in a foreign language, said David Jakulisch, economic counselor of the Embassy of the Czech Republic to Viet Nam.

Viet Nam mainly exports traditional products to the Czech Republic, such as footwear, garments, seafood, industrial machinery and electrical equipment, and imports machinery, equipment, tools and iron and steel products.

Czech investors are present in 10 provinces and cities, mainly in Ha Noi, HCM City, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh, as well as Quang Nam, Hai Phong, Lam ong, Hai Duong and Ha Nam. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese business community in the Czech Republic has also been growing, gradually asserting its position and role in Czech and European markets.

Tran inh Hiep, head of general division, Europe Market Unit, Ministry of Industry and Trade, said trade of Vietnamese goods with the Czech market still faced many difficulties. For example, Viet Nams export products have to compete in terms of price, quality and design with European, Chinese, Thai and Turkish goods. The competition was getting increasingly fierce as European brands capture a major share of supermarket products in large cities and are seeking to expand to local retail chains.

The Vietnamese business community is, therefore, looking for solutions to further promote its role as a bridge to increase exports of Vietnamese goods to the Czech and European markets, as well as to continue attracting investment and transferring Czech technology into Viet Nam.

The conference is part of programmes to promote investment, trade and tourism in Ha Noi in 2017.  VNS
HA NOI  A man in HCM City has been defrauded of VN30 million (over US$1,300) overnight from his bank account at the Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank).

Nguyen Thanh Nam discovered the sum had left his account and was transferred elsewhere.

Reportedly, seven transactions were attempted on Saturday, totaling VN30 million. Five were successful while the remaining failed as the account ran out of money.

The account owner said he received text messages informing him of the change of his account balance on Saturday morning.

At the time the transfers were conducted, Nam was sleeping.

Vietcombanks representative on Tuesday told Viet Nam News that its contact centre was contacted the same day by Nam. It locked the account and helped him carry out necessary procedures.

On Monday, Vietcombanks branch in HCM City met with Nam to review the transactions.

Vietcombank asked AirAsia to work with the bank to resolve the case as some of transactions were to buy air tickets from the airline. The bank has also collaborated with banks in Singapore and Malaysia to solve the situation.

The card holder agreed with Vietcombanks scheduled time and process to handle the allegedly lost money.

Vietcombank affirmed that its customers rights would be ensured if he did not make the transactions.  VNS
HCM CITY  Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) expressed its strong commitment to supporting ASEAN companies to expand regionally and internationally at an investors meeting titled Bridging ASEAN, held on Tuesday in HCM City.

The meeting, exclusively sponsored by SCB, attracted some 120 business leaders from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Viet Nam. Experts shared insights on the latest global, regional and local developments and how having a strong partner such as SCB can help fulfill the growth aspirations of businesses across ASEAN.

Nirukt Sapru, chief executive officer of SCB Viet Nam, said In our 150 years in ASEAN, we have developed deep local insights into each market and grown our network to be the only international bank operating in all 10 ASEAN markets. With our vast experience, extensive network and in-depth knowledge, we had the privilege of supporting and growing with the region, while constantly striving to create a socio-economic impact with our footprint. 

Theng Bee Han, president of Malaysia Business Chamber, said I am seeing increasing interest from Malaysian and other ASEAN investors in expanding their trade links and investment with Viet Nam and across the region. Malaysia Business Chamber functions as a gateway for many of our fellow Malaysian investors.... We believe that financial institutions can play a huge role in facilitating trade and development in ASEAN.

SCB opened its first office in Viet Nam in 1904 and has been present in Singapore for 158 years, in Indonesia for 154 years, in Malaysia for 142 years and in Thailand for 123 years. It is currently the only international bank present in all ten ASEAN markets.  VNS
Andy Ho, Managing Director & Chief Investment Officer at VinaCapital, shares his views on the recent development of private equity investments in Viet Nam.

Viet Nams financial market has not been showing signs of stable investment over the past few months. Do you agree?

Andy Ho

I think Viet Nams stock markets have done well since the beginning of the year. The VN-Index has increased by 8.2 percent (in US dollar term). It can always be more stable, but we like a little instability so as to create more opportunities for investments and divestments.

How do you view the performance of private equity (P/E) investments in Viet Namn in 2017?

Private equity is a long-term investment activity so it is difficult to make an assessment over a four-month period. However, I can say that we have opportunities of over $200m in our pipeline and we are currently going through due diligence with three large private equity opportunities.

For which business sectors in Viet Nam do you believe P/E could be profitable in the long run?

We focus on private businesses operating in sectors that contribute to the growth of the domestic economy. Most or all of these opportunities are in profit businesses. The key is what sort of valuations and terms we have to invest with. If the valuations are lower, we have a higher chance of having a very profitable investment and vice versa.

How has VinaCapital prepared for its future P/E investments into Vietnamese firms in 2017 and coming years?

Preparing for private equity investments is a very difficult task and comes with many years of experience. The key is reviewing the business and management before we invest and having a good exit strategy.

What should authorities do to facilitate the market for P/E investments?

Private equity is private and thus, really does not involve the Government. The Government should continue to help develop rules and regulations to improve the investment environment in general.

How do you assess Viet Nams equitization process?

Vietnam has been equitizing State-owned enterprises (SOEs) over the last 15 years and has made solid progress. Included in such success is Vinamilk, Bao Viet and Vietcombank. More recent success includes the Aviation Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), in which we have been fortunate enough to be a major investor. However, there are those who think the process of equitization has been slower than planned. As a result, the Government has made a few changes to ensure that the process will speed up and become more successful.

The equitization process is one in which employees of the SOEs are enfranchised to own a small piece of their business and align their interests with new and existing shareholders, including the State (since the State normally remains a major shareholder). After equitizing, our experience indicates that SOEs tend to operate more efficiently and effectively, increasing the shareholder value of the business. in a number of cases, we also see better and more effective application of capital in various projects and investments.

In your view, how can the process be improved?

Foreign investors have made some recommendations to improve the process of equitization, including extending the time available for investors to consider the opportunities after prospectuses are provided and to increase the quality of information disclosed in the prospectuses. Such improvements should in theory attract more investors and increase the value of the stake the Government wishes to divest.

We would also like to point out that many of the management teams of these SOEs being equitized are reluctant to meet with foreign investors mostly because they are not comfortable conversing in English. At VinaCapital, we tend to have good access to these management teams because we are Vietnamese and they do provide us with a lot more relevant information to assess, but we do encourage them to become mor proficient in English to encourage international investors to participate.

What do you recommend for foreign investors interested in the SOE equitization?

We understand that it can be quite cumbersome for foreigners to register for a trading account in Vietnam (a requirement to participate in equitization). We would encourage foreign investors that want to participate in the equitization process in Vietnam to visit international investors like us and we can share with them how we navigate this process quickly and effectively. At the end of the day, the Government is encouraging foreigners to invest in Viet Nam and trying to make it as easy and least costly as possible to participate in the equitization process.
NEW YORK  A bronze sold for US$57.37 million in New York on Monday, setting a new auction record for Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi and fetching more than twice its lowest pre-sale estimate, Christies said.

The sculpture of a sleeping womans head -- La muse endormie -- by a pioneer of modernism sold after nine minutes of bidding at Christies impressionist and modern art sale, kicking off a week of high-profile art auctions expected to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 1913 sculpture, cast by an artist who spent most of his working career in Paris, was snapped up by an anonymous bidder having been valued pre-sale at $25-35 million, the auction house said.

The second top selling lot was a Picasso portrait of his mistress, Dora Maar, called Femme assise, robe bleue, painted on the Spanish masters 58th birthday, which sold for $45 million, Christies said.

The oil painting was originally owned by the artists friend and gallerist Paul Rosenberg, before being confiscated by the Nazis and being discovered and rescued by Rosenbergs son.

It was later acquired by US financier, industrialist and art collector George David Thompson. It was valued pre-sale at $35-50 million.

Christies and Sothebys -- the esteemed houses founded in 18th century London -- are chasing combined sales of at least $1.1 billion in offering for auction hundreds of contemporary, modern and impressionist works of art this week in New York.

The top estimate for the week is a 1982 Untitled by Jean-Michel Basquiat -- a skull-like head on a giant canvas in oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint -- for which Sothebys hopes to smash a new auction record for the US artist at more than $60 million.

Much of the art being offered this season is fresh to market -- 84 per cent of the works offered by Christies on Monday had never been offered at auction or have been off the market for 20 years or more.

Christies said the evening sale of impressionist and modern greats, including Monet, Chagall and Fernand Leger, fetched $289 million.

Buyers from 35 countries registered to bid, with 42 per cent American and 23 per cent Asian buying by lot, said Jessica Fertig, senior Christies specialist in impressionist and modern art.

Picasso holds the world record for the most expensive piece of art sold at auction with his The Women of Algiers (Version 0) fetching $179.4 million at Christies in New York in 2015.  AFP
Trong Kien

HA NOI  Red tape is not usually a matter of life or death, in the literal sense.

And it usually attracts the ire of those affected for the needless inconvenience and frustration it seems to cause. The Government, which creates the red tape, and is always blamed for it, is driven by the need to regulate things, to ensure order, and to prevent things like monopolistic control by cartels and such.

However, there are times the procedures it puts in place are so complicated, so rigid, that it can literally become a matter of life and death, and in such cases, public outrage is valid and perfectly warranted.

One of such recent cases involved getting drugs from a Swiss multinational firm to treat a particularly dangerous type of blood cancer. As many as 20,000 very costly tablets received in the form of non-project drug aid had expired before they could reach the critically ill patients. Lets take a look at how this travesty unfolded.

The HCM City Hospital of Haemotology and Blood Transfusion said that on July 15, 2013, it received a letter from the Switzerland-based multinational Novartis, offering to export to Viet Nam its Tasigna tablets for treating chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a rare, deadly form of leukaemia.

The hospital accepted Norvatis offer by the end of August. However, it was not until three months later that the hospital submitted necessary documents for approval to the Drug Administration under Ministry of Health, for approval.

On December 27, the Drug Administration approved distribution of the Tasigna tablets; three days later, the hospital asked the HCM City Department of Health for permission to distribute the drug to the patients who needed it.

The four months that it has taken thus far is already a lot of time, but since it was a new drug, I can give relevant agencies the benefit of doubt for taking time to check things out thoroughly before allowing its import and consumption.

What happens next is bemusing.

It takes another six, I repeat, a whole six months, for the HCM City branch of the Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) and the municipal Peoples Committee  both institutions with no medical authority whatsoever, to give the hospital the go-ahead on June 24, 2014.

All this time, did anyone think of the patients battling for their lives?

One month later, the Drug Administration gave the hospital the green light to receive the drugs. Two weeks later, HCM City Customs did not allow import of the drug, saying that the tablets expiry date was less than 12 months away, which contravened existing regulations. A few days later, the hospital explained the circumstances and asked for special consideration; then the municipal health department backed this request, and the Customs department acquiesced.

It took 13 months for the life-saving tablets to reach the hospital, with less than 10 months before they expired. And since the tablets were not used up, the municipal Health Department allowed the hospital to dispose of all 20,000 expired tablets, which the citys inspectorate estimated to be worth some VN 17 billion (nearly US$750,000), not by any means a small sum.

This is not to speak of how many CML patients could have benefited from the timely receipt and administration of the tables.

Where did the buck stop?

A former director of Drug Administration admitted there were many agencies that stood in the way of drugs coming into the country, but when an incident like this happened, no one stood up to take responsibility.

Havent we been here before, time and again?

Bach Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, offered a different take on the issue. He said he didnt think existing procedures were the problem by themselves, because, living in Viet Nam, we should be aware of what could go wrong and take precautionary steps.

He noted that at his hospital, receiving drugs from abroad was commonplace, and there was nary a hiccup in getting approvals from different agencies if the hospital prepared the required documents carefully.

Then came the clincher. If the staff in the HCM City hospital had cared enough, they would have found ways to urge the agencies to expedite the approval process, Khanh said. While the concerned agencies are always overburdened, but if we expressed some sense of urgency, that we truly need it, then theyll give the respective dossiers higher priority, instead of the first-come-first-served processing.

If only theyd cared enough. Cared enough. Thats the operative phrase here.

And when the story broke, the hospitals comment tried to damage control by saying that the inspectorates VN 17 billion figure was incorrect, that the actual figure was one fifth of the estimate, at about VN 3.8 billion ($167,300).

The hospital director, Phu Chi Dung, admitted they hadnt read carefully the draft of the inspectorates report that was sent to the hospital before being made public.

These words speak louder than actions about the attitude and sense of responsibility that has been at play.

And even before this story had cooled, another one cropped up, about the disposal of 267 cancer tablets (Nexavar) given as aid at HCM City Hospital of Oncology, also because theyd expired. Each of these tablets cost VN 1 million ($42), with the company subsidising 50 per cent of the price and the patient covering the rest. Previously, Nexavars cost was covered under health insurance, but after a policy change in 2015, the insurance plan would covered just 50 per cent of the cost, causing the number of Nexavar users to dip down to one third compared to before. More unused tablets and drugs set to expire and be destroyed, I guess.

Makes us wonder if policy-makers are aware of the ramifications of their actions. Or, is it that since the buck apparently stops nowhere, it does not matter to them?

The administrative agencies, like the Drug Administration and Department of Planning and Finance, said the procedures for reception of non-project aid was clear and in effect throughout the country, and the recent incident in HCM City was just a human error exception. Indeed.

Have those entrusted with approval process thought about the consequences of their errors? The citys authorities said disciplinary measures and strictures are in order for this tardiness, but the public is just tired of hearing those words that sound large, but ultimately fall on deaf ears.

From here, we could go to another aspect of healthcare, and see that this same bureaucratic lethargy is what makes many people hesitate to join the official health insurance scheme even as the government tries every trick in the book to get more people to enrol.

Theres no denying the financial benefit that accrues from such schemes should one contract a serious illness or suffer a serious accident, but for regular check-ups or common ailments, its not hard to find health insurance cardholders foregoing the card and opting to make out-of-pocket payments.

Why do they do this? They believe that cardholders will not receive the same treatment as those who pay the full charges on their own. Theyd rather front the full sum rather than wait for an indefinite amount of time and then have to deal with icy countenances and perfunctory services.

Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has made some caustic comments on the issue  understandable, given the number of times businesses have complained about red tape strangling their growth.

Loc said this has cast "an unfortunate pall" over the Prime Ministers meeting with 2,000 enterprises scheduled for next week aiming at "reaffirming efforts in building a constructive government, marked by integrity, assisting enterprises to become the nations driving force."

Rings a trifle hollow, if the Government cannot demonstrate clearly that it means business.

Concluding his thinly-disguised diatribe, Loc characterised the bureaucracy in this scandalous affair as peak apathy. This recalls the words of Marx Weber  the German philosopher whos considered one of the founding fathers of sociology, who wrote that the more bureaucracy develops perfectly, the more dehumanised it becomes. He meant this dehumanisation as a virtue, in that it removes all irrationalities or emotions from interfering with official businesses.

However, in this case, concerned agencies have somehow attained a combination of both incompetence and apathy.

When a basic human right, healthcare, is involved, we have to be both rational and emotional, and frankly, it is time that our bureaucracy undergo some much-needed re-humanisation.  VNS
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong delivers speech at a working session with Hoa Binh provincial officials yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Tri Dung

HOA BINH  Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong asked Hoa Binh Province to pay more attention to sustainable poverty reduction during his visit to the northern mountainous locality on Sunday and Monday.

At a working session with provincial officials yesterday, he noted that despite some achievements, Hoa Binh still faces difficulties in serving the 74 per cent ethnic minority local population, mostly made up of Muong peoples.

He told the province to fine-tune its development plan on the basis of local conditions and to pinpoint priorities for investment.

While it is necessary to step up the building of new-style rural areas, Hoa Binh should improve the quality of this work in communes already recognised as new-style rural areas.

The Party leader also told provincial authorities to strengthen the fight against drug crimes and work harder to maintain security and social order.

In 2016, Hoa Binh recorded economic growth of 7.62 per cent with the expansion of industry, construction and services. Annual per capita income is estimated at VN36.5 million (US$1,600).

The province has selected a priority for agriculture: the development of industrial trees and citrus fruits, which bring good profit and suits local conditions.

Shortly after arriving in Hoa Binh on Sunday afternoon, the Party General Secretary visited an orange farm in Cao Phong. The 9ha farm generates about VN4 billion (more than $176,300) in profits each year.

In a tour of Phong Phu Commune of Tan Lac District, he visited a homestay service model in Ai hamlet and presented gifts to some local policy beneficiary families.  VNS




The National Assemblys Standing Committee (NASC) voted yesterday to remove lawmaker Vo Kim Cu, the official involved in the Formosa environmental disaster, from the 14th NA.  VNA/VNS Photo

HA NOI  The National Assemblys Standing Committee (NASC) voted yesterday to remove lawmaker Vo Kim Cu, the official involved in the Formosa environmental disaster, from the 14th NA.

The NASC adopted a resolution on Cus dismissal by a majority vote during a closed meeting on Monday afternoon. The resolution went into effect on the same day.

The 60-year-old NA deputy represents Ha Tinh Province, where the Taiwanese steelmaker Formosa Hung Nghiep caused mass fish deaths last April by dumping polluted wastewater. Cu himself asked to resign from his deputy post following the Partys conclusions and the penalties imposed for his violations.

The law on the organisation of the National Assembly granted jurisdiction to the NASC, instead of the NA, to remove Cu from his NA office. His sacking will be reported to the NA plenary at its upcoming meeting opening on May 22.

Cu still serves as Chairman of the Viet Nam Co-operative Alliance and a member of the Presidium of the Viet Nam Fatherland Fronts Central Committee. He was stripped off all his Party titles in Ha Tinh Province by the Party Central Committees Secretariat in April, one of which was the top position as the provincial Party Secretary, for his responsibility in the Formosa incident.

Cu was found to have personally signed several illegal documents related to Formosa activities in Ha Tinh Province and was "mainly responsible for wrongdoings" from 2008-2016.

The Government already asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to consider penalties against Cu for his actions while serving as the chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee until last year.

Hundreds tonnes of dead fish were washed ashore in four central provinces last year in the largest-ever environmental disaster in Viet Nam. Formosa promised to pay US$500 million in compensation to around 260,000 local residents affected by the disaster and to restore the destroyed marine life.

On the first day of its 10th meeting, the NASC also looked into the supplemental report on implementation of the socio-economic development plan and State budget in 2016 and the first months in 2017.

During the three-day meeting, legislators debate proposed amendments and supplements to some articles of the Penal Code and the 2015 draft resolution on handling bad debts of credit organisations.

They will also discuss ratification of a treaty supplementing the Border Delimitation Treaty between Viet Nam and Laos regarding the revision of the starting point of the two countries border line, as well as the Protocol on the two nations border line and border markers.  VNS
The Asia-Pacific region has always been a focus of Viet Nams foreign policy, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said yesterday at the opening session of the 24th Pacific Economic Co-operation Council (PECC) in Ha Noi. VNA/VNS Photo Van iep

HA NOI  The Asia-Pacific region has always been a focus of Viet Nams foreign policy, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said yesterday at the opening session of the 24th Pacific Economic Co-operation Council (PECC) in Ha Noi.

Minh, who is also the Chairman of the APEC National Committee 2017, stressed that Being in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region, Viet Nam has continuously promoted comprehensive reform, deepening international integration and active policy implementation and multilateral foreign relations.

The future of the region is the future of Viet Nam, he said.

"Looking back over the past three decades, we can be proud of the transformation of Asia-Pacific for becoming a region of peace and a driver of global economic growth and linkage," Minh said.

According to Minh, the region is a testament to the commonwealth that can be achieved through greater economic co-operation and connection, as well as trade and investment liberalisation. Therefore, the 21st century forecast is that the century of Asia-Pacific is not overstated, he said.

However, Minh said that the regions prospects also depended on the handling of three major groups of challenges in the short and long term.

The first group includes productivity stagnation; increased inequality in each economy and among economies; population challenges, including aging, poverty, urbanisation and unprecedented impacts of climate change.

The second group includes the degree of readiness for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the third group are potential risks of geopolitical conflict and the lack of a viable regional governance mechanism.

Human resources development

In another APEC 2017 event yesterday, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu uc am highlighted that human resources were the centre of development, especially in the digital age.

Speaking at the opening session of the APEC High-Level Policy Dialogue on Human Resources Development in the Digital Age, am said that the development of science and technology, particularly information technology, was setting new requirements and creating new conditions for human resource development.

Technology not only helps increase labour productivity but also connects all people around the world, he said, adding that it encourages individuals to affirm their personal creativity and value.

The Deputy PM also mentioned the Industrial Revolution 4.0 with IT as its foundation, saying that the appearance of new jobs to replace the old ones requires basic changes in education and training, not only for developing countries like Viet Nam but for all nations.

He stressed the need to ensure equal access to education for all vulnerable groups in society, inspire creativity among children, align theory with practice, connect schools and businesses, and most importantly train people in the necessary skills of a global citizen.

Noting the importance of making forecasts on technological developments, Dr. Alan Bollard, APEC Secretariat Executive Director, said this dialogue would discuss a draft framework on human resources development, the labour market and social welfare for disadvantaged people which will be submitted for APEC higher-level meetings for consideration.

A press conference on the outcomes of the meeting later the day revealed that a framework on human resources development in the digital age was adopted.

The framework proposes a group of suitable policy orientations and measures to support the APEC member economies in preparing labourers for joining the employment market amid opportunities and challenges from the Industrial Revolution 4.0, said Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Doan Mau Diep.

The specific objectives of the framework are to provide high-level policy orientations to strengthen regional collaboration in human resources development in the digital age.

It also aims to identify and implement activities in priority co-operation areas where APEC can contribute supplementary value such as the future of work in the digital age and labour market policies, education and vocational training, and social security.

The representatives from the 21 APEC economies proposed implementing the framework between 2017 and 2025.  VNS
HA NOI  National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan yesterday held talks with the Speaker of Myanmars Parliament and House of Nationalities Mahn Win Khaing Than, who is on a week-long official visit to Viet Nam.

At the talks, which followed a welcome ceremony for Myanmars top legislator the same day, NA Chairwoman Ngan affirmed the significance of the traditional friendship between the two countries, which was founded by President Ho Chi Minh and General Aung San, as well as the need to further promote the 40-year ties.

Expressing delight at the growing ties between the two parliaments, Ngan noted that the two sides are successfully realizing their September 2013 agreement. She highlighted that the Myanmar visit of the Vietnamese NA delegation in 2016 to attend the 37th Assembly of the AIPA and the current visit of the Myanmar NA leader showed the close connection between parliamentarians of both sides.

For his part, Mahn Win Khaing Than showed his pleasure at the sound relationship between the two countries.

Noting that the bilateral legislative ties started far before the two countries set up their diplomatic ties in 1975, he cited Doctor Pham Ngoc Thachs visit to Myanmar in January 1948 to attend the countrys Independence Day and President Ho Chi Minhs Myanmar visit in 1958.

Regarding economic relations, NA Chairwoman Ngan expressed her hope that the Myanmar parliament will join in supervising trade-investment ties and providing optimal conditions for business activities to grow strongly.

She added that the two sides should effectively implement the outcomes of the ninth meeting of the joint sub-committee on trade co-operation in February 2017, while continuing negotiating and speeding up the signing of co-operation deals in agro-forestry-fisheries, culture, transportation, finance, justice and education.

The NA leader praised the sound partnership between the two countries at regional and international forums, especially at the ASEAN, UN and Non-Aligned Movement. Viet Nam proposed that the two sides continue forging closer co-ordination within the framework of the ASEAN as well as other regional and international forums, including Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Viet Nam Summit and the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Strategy Summit, East-West Economic Corridor, Greater Mekong Subregion and the UN.

The two sides should also work together in effectively and sustainably using Mekong River water resources, she said, adding that Viet Nam hopes that Myanmar will become a member of the Mekong River Commission.

Mahn Win Khaing Than said Viet Nam and Myanmar have provided consistent support for each other, while regularly exchanging delegations and setting up bilateral co-operation mechanisms, adding that the two sides are preparing for the seventh political consultation between the two Foreign Ministries in 2017.

Along with the stable political ties, the two sides have enjoyed fruitful people-to-people connections, with more than 30,000 Vietnamese visiting Myanmar last year alone, he said.

He cited the success of Vietnamese-invested firms, including the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), and Viettel, the fourth largest telecom service provider in Myanmar. He called for more Vietnamese investment into Myanmar to build on this success.

The top legislator said that Myanmars parliament hopes to forge stronger co-operation and connectivity links with other parliaments, including Viet Nam.

On the issue of the East Sea, he affirmed Myanmars stance that all parties should fully respect diplomatic and legal processes, settle disputes through peaceful means based on the core principles of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982.

Myanmar supports the full and effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), he said, highlighting the need for co-operation in the early signing of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea.

Myanmar will work closely with regional partners to voice a common position in the field, he stated.

At the talks, the two sides agreed on the continued implementation of the outcomes of Myanmar President Htin Kyaws visit to Viet Nam in 2016 and the visit of General Min Aung Hliang, Commander-In-Chief of Myanmars Armed Forces in March, 2017.

The two sides should promptly set up a defence policy dialogue at the defence deputy ministerial level, and a joint working group between the departments for external relations of the two Defence Ministries, they stressed.

They agreed to create legal conditions to support respective companies in investing and doing business. The Vietnamese side suggested the early signing of a co-operation agreement on customs and finance, as well as a supplement to the agreement on investment promotion and protection, and a memorandum of understanding on investment promotion, focussing on fields such as banking, aviation, telecommunications, oil and gas and agriculture.

Both sides agreed on the need to continue maintaining the exchange of senior leaders of the two parliaments and the two friendship parliamentarian groups in order to share experience in legislative and supervision activities, as well as viewpoints on international and regional issues of shared concern.

The two leaders urged the two friendship parliamentarian groups to promote their role in popularising the traditional ties between the two countries. They concurred that the two parliaments will consult and support each others viewpoints at global and regional parliamentarian unions in the common interest of the two countries and in order to build ASEAN solidarity.

Both sides should also be co-ordinating in supervising the implementation of agreements and cooperation programmes between the two parliaments. The two parliaments will also work harder to strengthen people-to-people connections and boost traditional bilateral relations, they said. The legislator from Myanmar promised to urge relevant agencies to form a Myanmar-Viet Nam Friendship Association.

Meeting with PM, Party leader

Myanmar wants Vietnamese businesses to invest more in the country, Myanmar Speaker Mahn Win Khaing Than told Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at their meeting yesterday.

Myanmars top legislator said his country is improving its investment environment to attract more foreign investors, adding that a number of Vietnamese firms have received investment licences in Myanmar.

PM Phuc noted that Vietnamese businesspeople are keen on investing in Myanmar.

He called for efforts to accelerate negotiations and the signing of co-operation deals in agro-forestry-fishery, culture, transport, finance, justice and education.

The leader also called on the two countries to beef up ties in other sectors like defence, telecommunications, banking, oil and gas and agriculture.

Meeting with Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong later the same day, Speaker Than affirmed Myanmars determination to enhance co-operation with Viet Nam in many fields.

He noted that business laws in Myanmar would be revised soon, creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese businesses in Myanmar.

Party General Secretary Trong affirmed Viet Nams policy of attaching importance to enhancing and expanding friendship and co-operation with Myanmar.

He lauded the development of the relations between the two countries in recent years and said he believed that this visit to Viet Nam by the Myanmar speaker would mark an important milestone, contributing to promoting friendship and co-operation between the two sides.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam needs some 200,000 logistics personnel from now until 2025 but its current logistics training capacity is unable to meet that demand, according to the Viet Nam Association of Logistic Service Enterprise (VLA).

Recent surveys by the HCM City Research and Development Institute show that some 53 per cent of the total enterprises in the country are lacking professionally-trained logistics staff.

Only major enterprises that have their own staff training departments are able to provide training for logistics staff, while small and medium enterprises have to send their staff to study short and long training courses organised by the VLA.

During the 12 years that Ive been in the business, every fresh graduate we recruit for the logistics department must be trained to conduct the most basic procedures, from receiving bills to responding to customers, said Vo Thi Phuong Lan, general director of the Amerasian Shipping Logistics Corporation (ASL).

"I sometimes develop the training curriculum myself so that they know exactly what theyre required to do," she added. "It often takes them two months to complete training."

It will take 100 years to train 200,000 logistics staff with the countrys current speed and quality of logistics training, said Tran Chi Dung, vice president of the Viet Nam Logistics Research and Development Institute.

Some 100 logistics staff registered for a course on international customer service opened by the VLA last month, although the class could only serve 50. Despite such a high demand for trained staff, the HCM City University of Transport is the only university in the city that offers a degree in logistics management and multimodal transportation, according to surveys by the VLA.

Other universities and colleges do provide logistic training programs but they are often incorporated into degrees of business management, transportation economics, foreign trade, commerce and tourism.

This results in students only being equipped with basic knowledge of commerce and transportation but may find themselves confused about their duties when accepted into logistics enterprises, according to the VLA.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, several enterprises have collaborated with universities to provide practical logistics training for students, and vice versa. However, such linkage has shown to be weak and ineffective.

Some universities send their students to do internships, but some only do field trips and company tours, said Nguyen Thi Hang, principal of the HCM City Vocational College of Technology II. "Some internships match their fields of study but some dont, depending on the types of enterprises.

"Some internships arent effective because enterprises dont have qualified teachers that can instruct students like in schools," she added. "Some enterprises even become less productive because of the time spent on training interns."

Most enterprises provide universities with scholarships as a means of staff recruitment, said Vu Ninh, head of the staff training department of the Gemadept Corporation, a leading enterprise in maritime shipping and logistics in Viet Nam. But it is difficult to collaborate with them via training programs since universities dont necessarily agree with every training request from enterprises, he said.

Nguyen Hong Minh, general director of the vocational training directorate under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs said enterprises and logistics associations should collaborate to develop a common set of requirements for logistics staff, based on which universities and educational units will develop training programs and standards for graduates.

Enterprises should take responsibility for recruiting interns and inform universities of their recruitment quota and mechanism, as well as quality of candidates, he said. These should be identified 3-5 years in advance to avoid universities recruiting logistics students based on their own forecast, he added.

"Universities and educational units should not sit and wait but conduct practical market surveys and research to improve their training quality," he said. "Concerned associations and sectors should join hands in strengthening the commitment to collaborate between enterprises and universities."  VNS
Maintaining law and order is necessary for Viet Nam to achieve good socio-economic development, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at an online meeting with all localities nationwide yesterday. VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

HA NOI  Maintaining law and order is necessary for Viet Nam to achieve good socio-economic development, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at an online meeting with all localities nationwide yesterday.

The main factors for success in this matter are public security, the peoples armed forces and others, Phuc said.

He said a fast changing international situation and the rapid development of science and technology meant Viet Nam has faced multi-faceted challenges.

Hostile forces have ceaselessly conducted activities against the Party and the State, he claimed.

Organised crimes with the use of weapons and explosives, drug crimes, child abuse and particularly high-tech crimes have been reported in many localities. These crimes have caused anxiety among the general public, Phuc said.

To ensure law and order, the PM urged all government officers to fulfill their responsibility to protect the peaceful life of the people.

This is the key, regular and long term task for you all, Phuc stressed.

He said ensuring law and order should be a red thread cutting through all tasks and missions.

He also asked local authorities to mobilise the strength of the political system, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, mass organisations and the public to protect national security and in the fight against all kinds of crimes while tightening collaboration between schools, families and society in educating young people.

Individual responsibility

Phuc said in the spirit of Instruction 48 of the Politburo, all heads of Party organisations and administrations bear full responsibility for law and order in their own organisations and localities.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Security has to consolidate its strengths and work with agencies and localities to settle any problems that arise.

The Ministry of Public Security must be proactive in advising local governments and party committees, Phuc said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has to co-operate with the Ministry of Public Security to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Another important task for the Ministry of Defence is to co-ordinate with local authorities to strengthen the relationship between the State and the people, Phuc stressed.

The PM also ordered the Ministry of Information and Communications to co-ordinate with the Ministry of Public Security and concerned agencies to ensure information flow and the safety of communications networks while taking measures to tackle slanderous communication campaigns against the party and governments policies.--VNS
HA NOI  Ha Noi Peoples Court yesterday opened the trial of the former director of HDBanks branch on charges of swindling and appropriating assets.

Accused Le Quy Hien, 40, residing in Nhan Chinh Ward of Ha Nois Thanh Xuan District, is the former director of Thang Long branch of HCM City Development Stock Bank (HDBank).

Standing in the court with Hien were 14 other defendants, who are directors and chief accountants of stock and limited companies that are connected to the crime.

Ten were prosecuted on charges of swindling and appropriating assets under the Criminal Code, while five others were prosecuted on the charge of lacking responsibility causing serious consequences.

According to the indictment, Hien took advantage of his position in the bank to sign and release nine guarantee letters of blank payment for five businesses to appropriate money valued at VN149 billion ( US$6.5 million).

In November 2011, o Thi Trang, who was director of Viet Thanh Company, asked Hien to sign two guarantee letters of blank payment for an amount of VN18.4 billion (US$810,900), which was considered financial proof for Trangs company to undertake transactions with HADICO company.

With the letters, Trang also asked two other private companies directors to release more papers to prove her companys real operation.

With these papers, Trang signed a contract with HADICO company to buy 1.150 tonnes of construction steel worth VN19 billion ($ 837,561) under the deferred payment method.

Upon receiving the goods, Trang sold the steel and divided the money with Hien, who took some VN 18 billion (US$793,594).

In another case, Hien used the same trick and cooperated with Nguyen To Hieu, director of Nhat Nam Construction Investment Stock Company, to appropriate an amount valued at VN15 billion (US$660,000) from Thanh o Steel Ltd., Company.

In yet another case, Hien and Nguyen Tuan Anh, director of A Au New Materials Manufacturing Ltd., Company, appropriated VN10 billion (US$480,000).

The Procuracy recommended to the court to ask Hien to compensate a total of VN45 billion (US$1.98 million) to companies that were swindled.

The court session will last for four days.  VNS
HA NOI  The Airport Corporation of Viet Nam (ACV) has submitted a plan to the Ministry of Transport to set up a centre for aviation security at airports nationwide.

The corporation has proposed two options. One is a centre under the control of the ACV, which takes responsibility for aviation security at all airports under its management.

The second option is to set up a company to take responsibility of aviation security and control cargo services at all AVC-managed airports nationwide and private airports at Van on, Lao Cai, and Phan Thiet. The Viet Nam Air Traffic Management Corporation (VATM), in connection with the matter, recently submitted to the ministry a proposal to move the current aviation security force under its management.

Under the proposal, VATM will establish a one-member aviation security limited company.

At present, the aviation security force is controlled by the ACV. However, because the ACV turned into a stock company in 2016, management of the aviation force is not so suitable anymore.

This is because aviation security is a semi-armed force but benefits from subsidies as a peoples armed force.VNS
HA NOI  Japans Arrowfield Co. Ltd. has signed an agreement with Viet Nam Farmers Association on providing support for the growth and development of agriculture and farmers in Viet Nam.

Under the agreement, the two sides will work jointly to pass on agricultural skills, techniques, and know-how based on traditional Japanese natural farming methods (organic farming/pesticide-free production) to Vietnamese farmers, to encourage the production of safe foods.

Viet Nam will promote the purchase and use of clean agricultural products and techniques, organic farming and pesticide-free production provided by the Japanese firm and permitted for sale and circulation in the country to improve agricultural yield, taste, and quality of cultivation, shipment and distribution.

With regards to the cultivation of flowers and fruit trees, the Japanese firm will make recommendations on chemical products such as fertilisers sold in Japan by specialists or companies selected by Viet Nam.

The mutual co-operation aims to contribute to the socio-economic development and development of Viet Nams agricultural sector, as well as promote cultural exchanges and mutual understanding between the two countries. At the same time, the co-operation will contribute directly and indirectly to the growth of agricultural product exports of both countries.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Lai Xuan Mon, president of Viet Nam Farmers Association, said: Viet Nam is one of the countries that has an edge in agricultural production, but productivity is still low. The mutual co-operation will contribute towards Viet Nams agricultural development and production of safe products, and help farmers increase their earnings.  VNS
WASHINGTON  The World Banks Board of Executive Directors approved today US$155 million in financing to strengthen the research, teaching, and institutional capacity of three universities and improve the management of Viet Nams higher education system.

More than 150,000 students and 3,900 members of faculty will benefit from the investments for Viet Nams National University of Agriculture, the University of Science and Technology in Ha Noi, and the Industry University of Ho Chi Minh City. Some 600,000 students and 27,000 lecturers from other higher education institutions will also gain access to a digital library at the National Economics University.

Viet Nams gains in higher education are evident in the numbers: 17 times more students enrolled since 1991, says Ousmane Dione, the World Bank Country Director for Viet Nam.

But Viet Nam needs stronger growth in labour productivity and further significant shifts of the workforce to more productive sectors. Addressing this challenge requires different skills sets and competencies and further strengthening the access to, and quality of higher education. This is at the core of what this project aims to achieve, he added.

The project will support the financing of new facilities and equipment for teaching and research, as well as the strengthening management systems.

Additional objectives of the project include support for the strengthening of the key components of higher education  such as the national accreditation system - as well as efforts to share the lessons learned by the beneficiary universities.

The International Development Association, the World Banks fund for low income countries, will provide US$155 million to the US$174 million project, with the Vietnamese Government providing the remaining funds.VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has urged the Viet Nam-Japan University to become an international standard research university, focusing on training highly-qualified human resources for society.

During a visit to the university on Monday, the PM asked the university to also develop visions and skills to students, while combining training with researching and maintain close relations with business community.

He stressed the need for the university to design flexible, creative and effective training programmes to suit Viet Nams demand and meet world quality.

The Government leader suggested that the university complete its development model, link closely with other member universities of the Ha Noi National University, and perfect its management system.

It should also create an open environment, update the trends of the fourth industrial revolution, and become a model in pervasive education, he said.

The PM held that the facility should pay great attention to develop high-quality scientists and management staff through providing them special support policies.

Meanwhile, its research activities should be made to orders of both Vietnamese and Japanese enterprises, he said.

The PM revealed that relevant ministries and agencies are promptly finalising procedures to borrow ODA from Japan for the construction of the university. He also pledged to work with the Japanese side to develop the university to a symbol of the Vietnam-Japan extensive strategic partnership.

The university was established on July 21, 2014, aiming to become a facility to regional and international standards, where students enjoy the worlds education advances as well as strengths and values of both Viet Nam and Japans education sector.

The facility has been assisted by 30 famous Japanese universities, including Tokyo, Osaka and Tsukuba Universities as well as great attention from the Ha Noi National University.

According to Prof Furuta Motoo, headmaster of the university, special features of the Viet Nam-Japan University include its focus on researches on high technology and inter-sectoral science, areas that are much needed by Viet Nam

As schedule, in 2020, the university will launch Master and PhD programmes.VNS
HA NOI  Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien has sent a document asking the Ministry of Public Security to ensure the safety of hospitals throughout the country.

The move came after a recent spate of physical attacks on patients and doctors at hospitals.

Tien urged the public security ministry to quickly investigate the incidents and punish those who carried out the attacks.

Data from the health ministry revealed that four attacks reportedly took place in hospitals between April 8th and May 7th.

The first case occurred on April 8th in Cai Nuoc General Hospital in southern Ca Mau Province. A group of youngsters holding knives and scimitars attacked a patient named Nguyen Hoang Linh, leaving him with a head injury. The group also injured the hospitals security guard.

The second case happened in Ha Nois Thach That General Hospital when Can Ngoc Giang, father of one-year-old patient Can Ngoc Thanh, threw a cup at a doctors head on April 16th because he thought that doctors had failed to properly treat his son.

The third case was recorded in Thai Nguyen General Hospital in northern Thai Nguyen Province. A patients relative repeatedly hit a medical staffer, Pham Le Tung, in the face on May 3rd. Tung was struck while he was waiting for other medical staff to take a medical stretcher to carry the patient out to the emergency room. The patients relative asked Tung to take the patient to the room without the stretcher, instead of waiting. Tung said it would be better to take the patient by the stretcher, then he was hit.

The fourth case happened on early morning May 7th. A group of 20 youngsters with knives and scimitars cut off the windpipe of a patient who was taken to the Ha Noi Medical University Hospital about 20 minutes earlier. The gangsters also used their knives and scimitars to control security guards and medical staff.

Tien asked the ministry of public security to order its unit in localities to closely work with hospitals to quickly fix the situation.

The police in localities should conduct short training courses for hospital security teams to better deal with physical attackers as well as instruct hospitals to install equipment to ensure security, she said.

Hotlines of the nearest police stations for hospitals were ordered so that the hospitals could call for immediate supports in emergency cases, she added.  VNS
WASHINGTON  Embattled US President Donald Trump faced explosive allegations that he divulged top secret intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, a charge the White House scrambled to rebut on Monday.

The Washington Post reported that Trump revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscows man in Washington Sergey Kislyak.

In a shock twist, the intelligence reportedly came from a US ally who did not authorise Washington to share it with Moscow. That development could shatter trust that is essential to intelligence and counterterrorism co-operation.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster denied the president had revealed "intelligence sources or methods," but acknowledged that Trump and Lavrov "reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation."

The Post, citing unnamed officials, said that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration recently barred the use of laptops in the passenger cabin from several countries in the Middle East and is mulling the expansion of that ban to cover jets originating in Europe.

"Theres nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false,"

McMaster said without elaborating on which elements were wrong.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didnt happen."

McMaster earlier refused to answer questions to a group of journalists gathered in the West Wing, saying "this is the last place I wanted to be" before leaving.

The revelations are the latest in a wave of crises to hit the White House, which late Monday was in a state of shock, with aides frantically trying to put out the fire and determine the source of such damaging leaks.

Since coming to office in January, Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis, lampooning the intelligence services, law enforcement and the media along the way.

Last week, Trump threw his administration into turmoil by taking the virtually unprecedented step of firing his FBI director James Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election.

The meeting came a day after that firing, and was already controversial in itself, a red carpet welcome for top aides of Vladimir Putin just months after being hit with US sanctions for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Trumps administration was left red-faced after Moscow surprised them by releasing pictures of what was meant to be a closed-door meeting.

Ryan wants full explanation

For Trumps already weary allies in Congress, the latest crisis brought more headaches and demanded yet more explanation from an administration that is struggling to leave its legislative mark.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nations secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

Senior Republican Senator John McCain told CNN that "if its true, its obviously disturbing." But he cautioned: "Lets wait and see what this was all about first."

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer accused Trump of potentially putting American lives at risk.

"If the report is true, it is very disturbing. Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country," he said.

"The president owes the intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation."  AFP
BERLIN  German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Frances new President Emmanuel Macron vowed Monday to give a new impetus to Europe, saying they were ready to even change EU treaties if necessary.

"There is a common understanding that we cant just focus on Britain leaving the EU but that, first and foremost, we have to think about how we can deepen and crisis-proof the European Union, and especially the eurozone," Merkel said at a joint press conference, after talks with Macron.

In keeping with tradition, the French president paid a visit to Merkel in his first trip abroad after taking office on Sunday.

Macron also urged a "historic reconstruction" of Europe in order to battle a surge of populism, after defeating far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Ahead of his visit, Macrons ideas on reforming the eurozone, including setting up a separate budget for the bloc, as well as giving it its own parliament and finance minister, had sparked scepticism among some in Berlin.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had warned that such deep-reaching reforms would require treaty changes, which were "not realistic" at a time when Europe was hit by a surge of anti-euro populism.

But Merkel papered over the differences, saying that "from the German point of view, its possible to change the treaty if it makes sense."

"If we can say why, what for, what the point is, then Germany will be ready" for treaty change, she said.

Germany was also ready to partner with France in seeking more cooperation in defence policy and a more coherent European foreign policy that could "make Europe more visible" and stronger, she said.

The two core European powers wanted to give "a new push" to their co-operation and "new momentum" to the Franco-German axis, added Merkel.  AFP
SYDNEY  Australia revealed details of a massive shipbuilding strategy on Tuesday, its largest peacetime naval investment, with plans to construct dozens of new submarines and frigates to shore up its defence capabilities.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Aus$89 billion (US$66 billion) package -- first flagged in 2015 to replace its ageing fleets -- would boost local industry, with up to 5,000 jobs created in shipbuilding directly and double that in the supply chain.

"We will transform our naval shipbuilding and sustainment industry here in Australia, with Australian workers, in Australian shipyards, using Australian resources," he said as he officially released the plan.

"This is a plan for jobs, a plan for security, a plan for the opportunity that investment in our defence industry brings not just today and tomorrow, but for generations to come."

The programme will produce nine frigates and 12 offshore patrol vessels, along with 19 Pacific patrol boats for neighbouring countries.

It also includes 12 new submarines at a cost of Aus$50 billion, with French naval contractor DCNS last year selected to design and build them at an Adelaide yard, beating off competition from Japan and Germany.

While no specific threat was cited, Defence Minister Marise Payne said the programme was designed to ensure "we have the most capable, agile and potent Australian Defence Force that we are able to achieve".

"The future frigates, the offshore patrol vessels, the future submarines -- these are platforms that will deliver... the capability that we need to ensure we are protecting Australia and our interests."

Under the plan, Australias current ANZAC and Adelaide class frigates will be replaced with new ships better able to "detect, track and, if required, destroy enemy submarines".

Its Armidale offshore patrol vessels, designed for border protection, will also be renewed, along with its diesel and electric-powered Collins Class submarine fleet.

Turnbull said more than Aus$1.3 billion would be injected to modernise facilities in South Australia and Western Australia states so the work could go-ahead.

A shipbuilding college would also be established to train workers.

Construction of the patrol boats is slated to start in 2018 with the frigates beginning two years later and the submarine build getting underway around 2022.  AFP
INDEPENDENCE  A man who was at the heart of the issues over caring for aging sex offenders has died.

William Russell Cubbage died Friday at the Mental Health Institute in Independence, according to Buchanan County Attorney Shawn Harden. He was 88.

Cubbages death came almost two weeks after a district court judge dropped criminal charges against him for allegedly grabbing a female MHI employee between the legs in January 2016.

In ruling issued May 2, Judge Brad Harris found Cubbage was incompetent to stand trial and there was also no probability Cubbage could be restored to competency.

Cubbage suffered from dementia and had a lengthy record of sex crimes involving children. He was removed from a nursing home after sexually assaulting a 95-year-old resident in 2011 and was accused of grabbing the MHI worker while she was assisting him in the shower in January 2016.

The MHI charge was put on hold in March after the defense questioned his competency to stand trial.

With the dismissal of the criminal charge, Cubbage was returned to MHI under a mental illness hospitalization order, Harden said.

Cubbage was convicted of sex offenses in 1987, 1997 and 1991. He was diagnosed with pedophilia and a personality disorder and committed to the Department of Human Services Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders in Cherokee in 2002.

In 2010, he was released from the Cherokee facility after he was diagnosed with Alzheimers and other ailments. He was released from the sexual predator commitment and placed under commitment for those with serious mental health illness.

He was placed at the Pomeroy Care Center in Pomeroy. In August 2011, an 8-year-old child visiting the center witnessed Cubbage sexually assaulting a 95-year-old woman, according to court records.

The state began a court action to return him to the Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders. That was dismissed in 2014, and he was eventually placed at MHI in Independence.

The family of the 95-year-old woman from the Pomeroy incident sued the care center and the state, and the center filed a cross claim against the state. A district court judge threw out the claims against the state in a ruling upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court in a split decision in April.

Arrest following Waterloo chase

WATERLOO  A Waterloo man has been arrested in connection with a brief car chase after he allegedly tried to flee to a house but found the door locked.

Police arrested Muharrum Quan Johnson, 39, for felony eluding, third-offense operating while intoxicated, driving while barred and interference. He was taken to the Black Hawk County Jail, and his bond was set at $100,000.

According to police, a patrol officer heard tires squealing and saw a red car spin out of control in the area of Barclay and Newell streets around 7 p.m. Friday. The car then took off east with the squad car behind it. Speeds reached 70 mph in a 35-mph zone before the car stopped, and the driver ran to 806 Ash St. and attempted to enter the residence but found the back door locked, court records state.

Police noticed signs of intoxication, but Johnson declined a breath test, records state.

Fire damages Charles City home

CHARLES CITY  A fire caused heavy damage to the roof and attic of a home in Charles City late Sunday.

No one was injured in the blaze at the residence at 611 Pfeiffer St. The residents, who were home at the time, safely escaped, according to a news release from the Charles City Fire Department.

Fire Chief Eric Whipple said a bystander across the street from the scene was injured, but it was not related to the blaze.

The department responded around 10:30 p.m. to a report of the homes porch and roof on fire.

Upon arrival, smoke and fire was seen coming from the homes roof and attic. Firefighters found the fire was solely above the ceiling in the attic.

Firefighters tore down ceilings to extinguish the fire.

The blaze started outside near the front door, and may possibly have been caused by improperly discarded smoking material.

The fire remains under investigation.

The people in the home were renting it, according to Whipple. He said he didnt know the names of the occupants.

The home is owned by Jerry and Roxanne Redmond, according to Floyd County Assessor online records.
INDEPENDENCE -- Reality TV star Chris Soules has filed a formal not-guilty plea in connection with a fatal crash in April.

Soules, 35, waived his right to appear at an arraignment in court and instead opted to file a written arraignment and not-guilty plea to a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. He also demanded a speedy trial.

The plea was filed Tuesday in Buchanan County District Court.

Soules, a rural Arlington resident who starred in The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars, was arrested following an April 24 crash that killed 66-year-old Kenneth Mosher north of Aurora. Prosecutors allege he left the scene before law enforcement arrived and refused to come out of his house until authorities had obtained a search warrant.

On Monday, a district court judge turned down a motion to throw out charges.

Attorneys for Soules had asked the court to dismiss the charge because Soules had called 911 to notify authorities about the collision and remained on the scene for more than five minutes.

In an order issued Monday, Judge Kellyann Lekar declared the motion moot on procedural grounds because a trial information -- a formal charging document -- had been filed in the case.

The trial information and minutes of testimony -- an outline of the evidence -- were filed May 7 and were reviewed by Lekar, who found sufficient evidence to allow the charge to proceed at that time, according to court records.

In response, the defense on Tuesday filed a motion asking the state to provide specific details about the evidence in order to prepare for trial. In the motion, defense attorney Gina Messamer argued the minutes of testimony don't provide enough information to back the charge.

Messamer also asked the state to provide the specific time and location Mosher was pronounced dead, arguing the charge is worded to apply only if a person has died before the "surviving" driver leaves the crash scene.

"The phrase 'surviving driver' is used twice in the last sentence of Iowa Code 321.263(2), again indicating the requirements of that sentence apply only if an individual has died while the surviving driver is on scene," she wrote in the motion.

"Until there is a fatality, a person involved in an accident has no obligation to remain at the scene, return to the scene or inform law enforcement of his or her location," Messamer wrote.
WATERLOO  The Waterloo City Council approved a colleagues lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., even after he offered to withdraw it.

Councilman Tom Powers had requested $350 from the citys travel budget to represent the city in a group of Waterloo and Cedar Falls city government, education and business officials on the 20th annual Cedar Valley Coalition trip in June.

Powers sought the money to cover his registration fees, while he picked up his own airfare, lodging and meal expenses.

But the request touched off a lengthy debate Monday when Councilman Steve Schmitt voiced his opposition and said council members should pay their own way if they choose to attend with the coalition, which also includes Mayor Quentin Hart and several city department heads.

The only time I ever remember a council member going on the coalition trip was my first year on the council and I paid for that out of my own pocket, Schmitt said. We already send considerably more bodies than Cedar Falls, INRCOG or anybody else.

I think we should keep that money in the budget and maybe we can cut that amount from our budget next year, he added.

Councilman Tom Lind said an unidentified constituent who attended the trips in the past told him they were nothing but photo ops and cocktail parties, while city officials could meet with Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Congressman Rod Blum when they visit Iowa.

Powers disagreed with comments about the usefulness of the trips.

It is more than just meeting with four or five legislators at the federal level, he said. There are agencies involved with this, the federal agencies.

Powers, who frequently lobbies in Washington for his VGM Group job, said he believed his experience and contacts would help the city make the right connections during the trip.

I do think theres a misperception of what really happens out there, especially now with the pure chaos thats out there, he said.

But Powers offered to withdraw his request after Schmitts objection, saying he would pay his own bill.

But council members voted 4-3 against pulling the item from the agenda. Powers, Schmitt and Lind voted to withdraw the request while Jerome Amos Jr., Ron Welper, Bruce Jacobs and Pat Morrissey rejected it.

The councilmen then voted 4-2 to approve the $350 registration fee, with Amos, Welper, Jacobs and Morrissey supporting it. Schmitt and Lind voted against it while Powers abstained.

The city and other local government, business, education and social services agencies have been sending representatives on the Cedar Valley Coalition trips since 1998. The trip is designed to put local projects and requests in front of the congressional delegations, their staffs and government agencies who might be able to help with funding sources for area needs.
CEDAR FALLS  Iowas new fireworks bill was crafted with a very short fuse, and city officials are hoping it doesnt blow up in their faces  or someones hands.

The City Council Monday night passed a resolution restricting the discharge of fireworks on city property, complying with a state law Gov. Terry Branstad signed last week. But at least a couple of council members felt like throwing up their hands in disgust and confusion.

The Cedar Falls council voted 6-1 to approve a resolution allowing the discharge of only on the users property, or on the property of a person who has consented to the use of fireworks on their property.

The resolution effectively bans using fireworks on city property unless the city grants permission, Public Safety Director Jeff Olson said. He said anyone wanting to shoot off fireworks in parks for a reunion or special event should contact him or Fire Chief John Bostwick.

Council member John Runchey cast the only no vote.

I think its really poorly thought out. I dont think anybody understands what are going to be the ramifications, Runchey said after the meeting. For example, can a college student renting a house, can he shoot off fireworks at all? I dont think anybody thought that through.

Olson suggested it is wise for renters to get landlords permission to shoot off fireworks.

Council member Susan deBuhr said she agreed with Runchey and could have easily voted with him.

I think the state really short-changed the cities, she said. They short-changed us by giving us such a short time frame. They havent had time to work with other communities or to be able to write ordinances to be able to monitor it. The state should have put more time on it or not started it until next year.

I would say lets coordinate with Waterloo on this thing, Runchey said, as Waterloo police chief Dan Trelka suggested last week. A Waterloo council vote isnt anticipated until next week at the earliest. However, the Cedar Falls councils next scheduled meeting is in June, after the law takes effect.

The bill allows sales between June 1 and July 8 as well as from Dec. 10 to Jan. 3 between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily. During the meeting, deBuhr said shed like to see more coordination with other communities at least prior to December.

Originally, Olson thought the city would have an outright ban on city property, but a closer reading of the bill showed it provided for some discharge in parks  say, at a family reunion or special event in a park  with the citys permission.

City Attorney Kevin Rogers said anyone selling fireworks in town would have to follow city zoning and mobile merchant rules under a separate resolution the council approved.
WATERLOO  Mike Hendrickson wont need a map to find the thousands of acres of woods, wetlands and natural areas now under his care.

Hendrickson, who was named executive director of the Black Hawk County Conservation Board this month, has been tending to those lands as a park ranger for the past 26 years.

The 55-year-old southwest Iowa native and avid outdoorsman started his career as a park ranger in Adams County. He was hired by Black Hawk County as an assistant park ranger in 1991 after attending the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy.

Hendrickson became the north unit ranger in 2006, responsible for conservation lands generally north of U.S. Highway 20. He had served as interim director since his predecessor, Vern Fish, retired in January.

Vern left a very functional operating conservation board, Hendrickson said. If its not broke, lets not fix it.

In the short term, Hendrickson, his volunteer board and staff will be working to complete a $3-million renovation of the east wing at the Hartman Reserve Nature Centers interpretive center and finishing damage repairs from last falls floods.

But he expects the board will shift its focus in the future away from acquiring more conservation acres to enhancing those parks and natural areas already in the system.

The county conservation board has about 8,500 acres of some really beautiful stuff, Hendrickson said. If we focus and spend some time, we can make it better. The staffs really on board with that.

I dont want people to think we wont be acquiring more land because thats not going away by any means, he said. But funding sources are drying up every day in this political climate which makes acquisition that much harder.

John Mardis, who serves as vice president of the conservation board, said it was that type of foresight, along with Hendricksons knowledge and diplomacy, which drove the hiring decision.

Nobody knows our 8,000 acres as well as he does, Mardis said. Hes got sweat equity into pretty much every part of this place.

He also works very hard, Mardis added. People that work with him respect him.
CEDAR FALLS  When John Norris returned to Iowa after serving in the previous presidential administration, it wasnt what he expected.

Its just become very clear to me that were on a path here that is not the state that I was planning on raising my kids, Norris said during a meeting with labor leaders at the University of Northern Iowa on Tuesday. How can you do that much damage in four months that really begins to erode that hope and vision you have for the state?

Norris, 58, is it touring the state talking to Iowans as he contemplates seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. He served as the U.S. representative to the United Nations in Rome in President Barack Obamas administration, but has a long history in Democratic circles, including as former Gov. Tom Vilsacks chief of staff and Iowa Democratic Party chairman.

He knows the Democrats vying for governor  about a half-dozen have announced or are considering a bid  will largely bring the same message about undoing much of what was done during the 2017 legislative session where Republicans had total control.

But he sees his experience as giving Iowans confidence he can win and get the job done.

Its not just about having a vision for Iowa; its the ability to get it done, Norris said.

Norris plans to announce whether hell run in early June.

He acknowledges goals like restoring collective bargaining rights, re-funding Planned Parenthood and improving water quality will be blocked if Democrats do not have a majority in both the House and the Senate after the 2018 election.

The campaign for this doesnt end in 2018; the campaign for our future is what the governor should lead, Norris said to about 15 people at UNI.

Norris expressed frustration during the hour-long meeting not just with the agenda Republicans enacted during the 2017 session but with the special interests he sees as calling the shots.

Thats the common theme running through everything thats happening is this is all about special interest favors, Norris said. I know Iowans did not sign up for the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) agenda they got. Even a lot of Republicans are upset.

Sarah Eastman, who is active in progressive groups in the Cedar Valley, said she was glad to hear Norris talk through how he would achieve his goals.

Im very excited to hear anybody who is willing to say not just what we need to do, but how were going to manage to get it done. Im a little sad that thats not everybodys message, Eastman said.
WATERLOO  Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett hasnt had the typical political career trajectory.

He was elected young, ousting an incumbent. He chose not to seek re-election after rising to House speaker, but returned to public service at the height of a crisis. Now, as his mayoral career winds down, Corbett once again is doing the unexpected.

Corbett is touring the state to publicize the release of his book, part-memoir, part-recounting of the Cedar Rapids flood recovery, called Beyond Promises. That is instead of launching what otherwise might be called an exploratory bid for the Republican nomination for governor.

I really thought that I could have a dual-purpose for the book, that it not only could tell the Cedar Rapids story but tell the Ron Corbett story, and it might be a fun and unique way to introduce myself to the people of Iowa, Corbett said after dropping off books at the local Waterloo Public Library last week.

Corbett is not shy about discussing his future ambitions. He expects to make the decision in the next 30 to 45 days.

That would give him a year to gear up for the primary hes likely to face against soon-to-be Gov. Kim Reynolds and perhaps other contenders.

While Reynolds  who will take over as governor once Gov. Terry Branstad is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be ambassador to China  is seen as a favorite for the nomination, Corbett makes clear hes not afraid of an uphill battle.

He said its not about ousting an incumbent but about spreading ideas.

When you dont have a competitive race for governor, you dont have the robust discussion of issues, Corbett said. I feel like theres somewhat of a void, and that concerns me, and so I would  if I do eventually decide to run  I would really want to focus on the future of Iowa.

Corbett has been traveling the state the past couple years as part of his think tank Engage Iowa to spread the word on three topics: income tax modernization, water quality improvements and revitalizing K-12 education. He adds a fourth issue in health care.

So many people feel like theyre disconnected from politics, and Ive been encouraging people not to feel disconnected, to re-engage and to have these kitchen-table discussions, Corbett said.

He acknowledges the current political climate favors partisanship, while his career has largely been built around team-building. He said it takes leaders to forge bipartisan relationships.

When you have  policy that only passes with one party and then the other party gets in control, they dont have allegiance to that policy  and then you have it swinging back, Corbett said. So, youve got to get that buy-in, that ownership, and its so valuable to do that.

He saw that buy-in in action during efforts to stave off floodwaters in Cedar Rapids in 2016. He said people came out in droves to help protect the city because the community worked together after the historic 2008 flood to make recovery a citywide project.

But that doesnt mean its been all smooth sailing during his career. Corbett admits at times hes stubbed my toe.

He adds, It doesnt mean you put your tail between your legs and go into hibernation. You just get up the next day and try to continue to make your community better.
WATERLOO  Black Hawk County will pay for its newest supervisor to attend a national conference in Ohio.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to authorize a $2,456 travel request for Supervisor Chris Schwartz to attend the National Association of Counties annual conference in Columbus in July.

Supervisors Linda Laylin, Frank Magsamen and Tom Little joined Schwartz in approving the expense, while Supervisor Craig White voted against it. Schwartz, who took office in January, said the trip will provide valuable training to help him do his job better, may provide information about potential grants and revenue streams for county projects and includes many networking chances.

Its a really good opportunity to learn about things that are working in other parts of the country, Schwartz said. White said his issue was the cost, noting training is more readily available using internet teleconferencing now.

White and Little previously voted several times to oppose travel requests for Schwartzs predecessor, John Miller, to attend National Association of Counties meetings.

Little supported Schwartzs request this time but said he will be less likely to approve future travel requests.
WATERLOO  The citys fire chief is supporting a five-day window for residents to shoot off fireworks this year.

Chief Pat Treloar made the recommendation Monday during a Waterloo City Council work session to discuss the impact of a new law signed by Gov. Terry Branstad last week that legalized the sale and use of consumer fireworks across the state.

Its our opinion ... we dont have the ability to restrict the sale of fireworks in our community, but we do have the ability to restrict the use of the fireworks, Treloar said. I think we should try to go with the (Fourth of July holiday weekend) and see how that goes.

The state law allows the sale and use of fireworks from June 1 to July 8 and from Dec. 1 to Jan 3. But cities across the state are deciding whether to follow the states dates, ban usage entirely or modify the dates.

Treloar said some cities are choosing the free for all approach without additional limitations, while many larger cities, including Davenport, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, are considering full bans.

He suggested Waterloo allow use from June 30 through July 4 before determining how to proceed during the winter fireworks period or future years. He also proposed banning fireworks from public property, including parks.

We think this is going to be a work in progress for the first go-round, Treloar said.

Council members are expected to consider that option next week at the last council meeting before the June 1 start of the fireworks sales period.

Mayor Quentin Hart and several council members indicated they supported Treloars proposal.

It give us an opportunity to see where were at before we move too far right or left, Hart said. This is new territory for all of us.

Other questions revolved around whether the city would limit where fireworks stands can set up shop. Waterloos current zoning ordinance does not directly identify eligible fireworks districts because they were previously illegal.

Treloar said various city departments were working to cover potential impacts of fireworks use, including increased police calls for service, noise complaints, upset pet owners, potential upticks in injuries and concerns about individuals with post traumatic stress disorder and similar afflictions.

The biggest rub for me personally is the time frame of it, Treloar said. It just doesnt give us a whole lot of time to think through all the problems that might occur.

Safety Services Director Dan Trelka had previously suggested he would prefer banning consumer fireworks use in city limits. Still, he noted fireworks enforcement has not been a top priority in the past.

We show a vast amount of forgiveness around the holidays, he said.
WATERLOO -- A Waterloo woman has been sentenced to prison for dousing gasoline on a vehicle containing children in March.

Traynetta Brisha Monique Ford, 29, pleaded guilty to second-degree arson, reduced from first-degree arson, on Friday as part of a plea agreement. She was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

Authorities allege Ford was carrying a plastic soda bottle with gasoline when she approached a relative, Yoshida Thomas, in the Logan Avenue Convenience Store around 9:30 a.m. March 21. Ford poured gas on Thomas and threatened to ignite her with a lighter, court records state.

She allegedly left the store and poured gas on Thomas's Dodge Durango, which held her children, before Thomas chased her away, according to court records.

Police officers who responded to the call soon learned that Ford was posting messages to Facebook, including information that she was hiding in the back of a truck not far from the store, court records state.

As a patrol officer drove by a Dodge pickup parked near an alley off of the Harrison Street, Ford's head popped up from the bed, records state. She was detained while talking on her cell phone, records state.

Officers searched the area and found two bottles that smelled of gas under a trailer in the alley.
FT. ATKINSON  Heavy storms and an EF-0 tornado that originated near Calmar caused damage to structures in Fort Atkinson and across Winneshiek County on Monday night.

The National Weather Service confirmed Tuesday afternoon Winneshiek County was briefly hit by an EF-0 tornado, which has average wind speeds of 65 to 75 mph. The tornado Monday night had wind speeds that topped out around 80 mph.

Hail damaged siding on the Schluter-Balik Funeral Home-Chektal Chapel on East Main Street in Fort Atkinson, but otherwise the damage was to private homes, said Winneshiek County Emergency Management coordinator Sean Snyder.

He said he estimated 70 to 80 percent of Fort Atkinson buildings were damaged in Mondays storms, including multiple windows broken out by the hail.

We had over 90 volunteers who worked late into the evening last night boarding up windows, he said.

Nine fire departments in four counties, plus two emergency management coordinators, the Winneshiek County Sheriffs Office, state troopers and Iowa DOT officials assisted in cleanup Monday night, according to Jay Schwamman, second assistant chief for the Fort Atkinson Fire Department.

No one was injured in the storm.

We have a lot of retired people in this community, so we went door to door, Schwamman said. When something this dramatic happens, you get excited, with heart conditions  we wanted to make sure everyone was OK. The volunteers did an absolutely great job.

Snyder was posting photos to the Winneshiek County Emergency Management page on Facebook, including hard-to-believe shots of a wood plank piercing a brick silo.

At this point, I think weve got the cleanup done  now its just a matter of insurance adjusters getting to all the damaged properties and moving forward with repair, Snyder said.

NWS issued a tornado warning for the area at 6:55 p.m., when radar indicated rotation within a severe thunderstorm. The NWS had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for a large part of Northeast Iowa a few minutes earlier.

There were reports of wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour and half-dollar-sized hail with the storm.

Schwamman advised people to buy local when getting contractors to help them clean up from the storm.

In Chickasaw County, some trees and a power line came down Monday night along with the quarter-sized hail, but no damage to property was reported, according to the Chickasaw County Sheriffs Office.

Those needing assistance related to storm damage in Fort Atkinson can call (563) 534-7333.
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Pritzker Prize-winning Chilean architect Alejandra Aravena's firm Elemental has won the Art Mill International Design Competition to design one of the worlds major cultural centre in Qatar. Ran from June 2015 to May 2017, Elemental's selected proposal saw off the prominent international design firms in the competition including Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Atelier Bow-Wow, Junya.Ishigami + Associates and EAA - Emre Arolat Architecture.

Elemental was selected by an international jury - from a 26-strong long list - based on their strategies for the site and its links to the city. Elementals concept design for the historic waterfront site in the centre of Doha took as its inspiration the rhythmic monumental grain silos that are the industrial legacy of the original Flour Mills on the site, which have produced bread for the State since the 1980s.

However, in a creative riff the team added to the strict geometry of retained silos a looser grouping of new silos that will act as cooling chimneys circulating air through the site that extends spectacularly on three sides into Doha Bay.

The international jury praised Elemental's proposal for creating "a serene artwork, where the structure is the architecture". The teams environmental strategy was also praised for its understanding of the local climate. Elemental is led by Alejandro Aravena, the 2016 Pritzker Prize Laureate and supported by climate engineers, Transsolar; structural engineers, Schlaich Bergermann; and global design consultants, Stantec.

Gifted with one of the most spectacular and historic sites in the centre of Doha, the Art Mill will be pre-eminent in Dohas waterfront ensemble of institutions dedicated to art and is expected to become one of the worlds leading cultural centres.

"Art Mill will be an international exemplar where art connects across cultures and boundaries. Elementals assured handling of space and scale in its treatment of the silos creates a memorable and original scheme that evokes a strong sense of calm. The team showed a love of simplicity in the use of humble materials, which will acquire a patina with age," said Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums, and jury chair.



"We are hugely appreciative of the interest shown by the international architectural community in the project and would like to thank the long-list and the finalist teams for their work during the competition."

"The competition reached out to some of the most extraordinary talents working in architecture today and Elemental, known for their social buildings, won in brilliant fashion, being both inventive and indefatigable. Elementals wonderful design proves once again that competitions get the best out of architectural practices," commented Professor Harry Gugger, special Adviser to Qatar Museums and competition juror.

Elemental will now work with Qatar Museums to develop the initial concept design. A gallery of all eight shortlisted designs, including the runner-up Adam Khan Architects, will be published by the competition organisers, Malcolm Reading Consultants.

The competition was hugely successful; the original open call attracted great interest from the international design community with 489 submissions received from 56 countries.

Alejandro Aravena recently won the 2017 Gothenburg Award For Sustainable Development. For this award, the jury praised the architect for designing projects in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.

All images  Malcolm Reading Consultants + Elemental.

> via The Art Mill International Design Competition
Photo taken on May 15, 2017 shows the site of a traffic accident on a national highway in Yingtan, East China's Jiangxi province. Ten people have been killed and another eight are severely injured following a traffic accident here on Monday afternoon. [Phoro/Xinhua]

NANCHANG -- The death toll from a truck-bus crash in East China's Jiangxi province Monday has risen to 12, local authorities said Tuesday.

Two people, including the bus driver, died at hospital after medical treatment failed. Another six were still being treated.

The accident happened at around 5:25 pm Monday on a national highway in Yingtan city when a truck collided head-on with a bus, according to the city's publicity department. A total of 30 people sustained minor injuries.

The bus was severely damaged.

A video recorded at the site showed passengers standing in rain and a woman screaming to her phone, shouting that "people on the bus are covered in blood" and she "can't wake them up."

More than 300 medical workers were involved in the emergency treatment. In addition, more than 120 locals have donated 40,000 ml of blood.

The truck driver has been detained, and an investigation is under way.


May 16, 2017 | By Tess

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a California-based rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer, has successfully hot-fire tested a 30,000 lbf thrust-class Bantam liquid-fueled rocket that was manufactured using 3D printing technology. The tests marked an impressive 500% increase in thrust levels from the 3D printed Baby Bantam engine that the company tested in June 2014.

The Bantam engine, which was designed, manufactured, and tested all within just seven months, is built for a thrust level of 30,000 lbf, making it suitable for the small launch vehicle and low-cost upper stage markets. According to the company, the successful test of its latest rocket is a significant step towards establishing a family of low-cost, highly reliable rocket engines for booster, upper-stage, and in-space propulsion solutions.

By using additive manufacturing to make the rocket, Aerojet Rocketdyne was not only able to speed up the production process, but was also able to radically simplify the rockets overall construction.

As the company explains, while a conventionally manufactured 30,000 lbf thrust-class engine would regularly be made up of easily over 100 parts, the Bantam liquid-fueled rocket that was tested is made up of only three segments. They are: the injector assembly, the combustion chamber, and the throat and nozzle section, all of which were welded together to make up the final rocket structure.

Additionally, by using 3D printing technologies, Aerojet Rocketdyne was able to cut back significantly on production costs for the rocket engine. Its recurring price would also be a fraction of the cost of todays products, the company adds.

The demonstration of a regeneratively cooled, high-chamber-pressure engine made completely with 3D printing is another key milestone in Aerojet Rocketdynes path to reducing the cost of rocket propulsion systems, said Dr. Jay Littles, director of Advanced Launch Propulsion Programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne. Printing the part is not the hard part, it is printing parts that can provide the performance and reliability that our customers depend on that is the key.

The testing process, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), consisted of 17 individual tests of a LOX/kerosene regeneratively cooled, liquid-rocket thrust chamber. The tests were designed to prove not only the performance of the 3D printed rocket, but also its durability and reusability. The tests reportedly addressed a number of engine operating parameters, conditions, and run durations.

This successful series is another positive step in the validation of our technical approach and provides the foundation for future engine designs that take advantage of 3D printing technology to enable us to reduce production lead times and make our products more cost-competitive, said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has used 3D printing on a number of high-profile projects. For instance, it is currently working on an AR1 rocket engine, which will replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine, and recently tested the rockets preburner.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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May 16, 2017 | By Benedict

Collider, a 3D printing startup based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is developing a multi-material 3D printer that combines 3D printing and injection molding. The Orchid 3D printer, soon to be in BETA, prints the outer shell of an object before filling it with a mix of metal powders and liquid binder.

When weighing up the pros and cons of 3D printing and injection molding, neither side ever shows a definitive advantage. Additive allows for more complex shapes, but molding offers the advantages of smoother surfaces and stronger parts.

At the end of the day, manufacturers simply have to choose the process that is best suited to the job at hand.

But what if there was a best of both worlds solution to the AM versus injection molding debate? What if there was a production system capable of making geometrically complex parts with the speed of rapid prototyping, while simultaneously offering the strength and material versatility afforded by injection molding?

According to innovative Tennessee startup Collider, there is such a solutionor at least, there will be later this year.

The company is currently organizing a BETA testing program for its Orchid 3D printer, a machine that supposedly combines additive manufacturing and injection molding in a way never before seen.

According to Collider, the new Orchid 3D printer is able to produce smooth, surface-perfect objects in materials like silver, stainless steel, silicone, and copper.

How? Because its not really a 3D printer.

Like a standard 3D printer, the Orchid takes its cues from a digital 3D model. But forget slicing, density, and all that business, because the Orchid only 3D prints the outer shell of an object. This shell, printed in a dissolvable material, acts as a mold for the real material.

And that stuff doesnt get 3D printed. Instead, the Orchid takes a cartridge, a mixture of metal powders and liquid binder, and squeezes it into the 3D printed mold immediately after printing.

These cartridges can also contain other materials, and Collider has already developed a bunch of them to work in the Orchid 3D printer. So far, the company has two rubber mixes and two polyurethane mixes, as well as stainless steel and copper variants.

When the injection molding process is complete, its time to remove that 3D printed outer shell, which simply dissolves away in a warm bath. The metal part inside is then put in a furnace, sintering the metal and burning away any binder resins inside.

The result, according to Collider, is a shiny metal object that exhibits many of the properties of an injection molded part, but with a shape made possible by 3D printing. It also takes much less time than traditional injection molding, since traditional tooling is not required.

Built with disruptive technology that drastically reduces tooling lead-time and costs, Orchid delivers production quality parts that can be made using a variety of traditional manufacturing materials, Collider says on its website.

At present, Colliders business plan is to lease its innovative Orchid 3D printers to 3D printing service providers like Shapeways, as well as small regional manufacturers and labs.

Those interested in joining the Orchid BETA program can get in touch with Collider here. BETA machines are expected to ship late 2017.

Orchid 3D printer specs:

Height: 71 in (1,788 mm)

Width: 31 in (785 mm)

Depth: 34 in (868 mm)

Build Volume: 14 in (355 mm) x 12 in (304 mm) x 8 in (203 mm)

Vertical Print Speed : 36 cm/hr

Power: Standard 110V/AC

Posted in 3D Printer

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May 16, 2017 | By Tess

Made In Space, the Silicon Valley startup that helped deploy the first 3D printer in space, has released two new videos that demonstrate how its additive manufacturing Archinaut system will work. The project, which has been in development for some time now (we wrote about its 3D printing capabilities last year), is aimed at making in-space construction and maintenance possible with the help of 3D printing.

Archinaut, which has garnered interest from NASA and other space exploration companies, is a spacecraft system that integrates a 3D printer and flexible robotic arms that are capable of not only building in space, but also of repairing existing space structures, such as satellites.

The new videos released by Made in Space show two different configurations of the Archinaut system: the Archinaut Dilo and the Archinaut Ulisses. The Dilo system is capable of transforming a satellite into a large reflector dish by using its robotic arms to place expandable reflector panels around the satellite. Using its 3D printing component, the Archinaut system can then secure the panels to the satellite before unfolding them into a dish.

The Archinaut Ulisses, for its part, is designed to 3D print and assemble structural components in zero-gravity space environments. As the video shows, the Archinaut uses its built-in 3D printer to manufacture the structural components using raw materials stored in a satellites toolbox. Once the components have been 3D printed, the systems three precision robotic arms can assemble them into structures of indefinite size.

Obviously, having the ability to remotely construct structures and satellite dishes in space without having to ship large components from Earth would be a huge benefit for space exploration agencies. Not only would the Archinaut system enable larger structures to be made, but as Made in Space CEO Andrew Rush explained to Space.com, it would also enable the construction of space-optimized structures, rather than builds that are designed to survive launch conditions.

Currently, Made In Space is focusing on developing manufacturing methods for extended structures in space. For this phase of the project, the startup is working closely with NASAs Ames Research Center, where it is testing its developments. Once this step is complete, the team will move on to integrating the Archinauts robotic arms. This first phase of the project is expected to last 18 months.

Made In Space says it is planning to launch an Archinaut demonstration mission to orbit Earth as soon as 2018. For this mission, the Archinaut will be tasked with building and assembling a small structure, probably a few meters in length. Ultimately, however, Made In Space envisions the Archinaut building structures of 100 meters in size or more.

In addition to working with NASA, Made In Space has reportedly been in talks with a number of commercial and governmental groups that are interested in using its Archinaut technology down the line, though it has not explicitly named any of them.

Posted in 3D Printing Technology

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ahmed kamel wrote at 11/2/2017 9:27:44 AM:I have good work with university and another my comp agent for 3 D Printer Italian comp but don.t this print We pleasure work us warm regards ahmed 0201111659569Col.Panik wrote at 5/16/2017 9:49:11 PM:The $20 million dollar MadeInSpace DILDO! What a great use of our tax dollars.




Ed Yong in The Atlantic:

For years, John McGann has been studying the science of smell by working with rats and mice at Rutgers University. But when he turned his attention to humans, he was in for a shock. The common wisdom is that our sense of smell stinks, compared to that of other mammals. McGann had always suspected that such claims were exaggerated, but even he wasnt prepared for just how acute his volunteers noses were. We started with an experiment that involved taking two odors that humans cant tell apartand we couldnt find any, he says. We tried odors that mice cant tell apart and humans were like: No, weve got this.

In a new paper, McGann joins a growing list of scientists who argue that human olfaction is nothing to sniff at. We can follow smell trails. We discriminate between similar odors and detect a wide range of substances, sometimes more sensitively than rodents and dogs can. We live in a rich world of scents and sensibility, where odors deeply influence our emotions and behavior. I was taught in school that human olfaction isnt a great sense, he says. Its taught in introductory psychology courses and its in the textbooks. But this whole thing is a crazy myth.

For this crime against olfaction, McGann accuses Paul Broca, a 19th-century French neuroscientist. Broca was a materialist who argued that the mind arose from the braina position that brought vigorous opposition from the Catholic Church, which believed in a separate and disembodied soul. This intellectual battle colored Brocas interpretation of the brain.

For example, he noted that the lobes at the front of the human brain, which had been linked to speech and thought, are relatively bigger than those of other animals. By contrast, he noticed that our olfactory bulbsa pair of structures that govern our sense of smellare relatively smaller, flatter, and positioned less prominently.

More here.
Get ready to cross off a bucket-list destination, on the cheap.

Starting September 12th, Wow Air will fly to Tel Aviv's Ben Guiron Airport from American cities including San Francisco for just $199 (that's one way).





Started up in 2011 (which means its aircrafts are all newer than most), Wow Air is famous for its dirt-cheap flights with layovers in Icelandin fact, with With Stopover, you can visit Iceland for an unlimited amount of time before connecting on to your final destination. If that final touch-down happens to be Tel Avivhome to one of the best city beaches in the worldyou're in for a treat.





Happy flying (and beaching)! // Wow Air begins flying SFO to TLV (starting at $199) on Sept. 12, 2017, wowair.us
Whether unemployment is a reality or a worry for you, you're not alone. A May 2020 survey by the World Economic Forum found that 40 percent of Americans are losing sleep over unemployment anxiety.

Fortunately, many experienced professionals have a buffer that can help them tame those worries: their skills and social capital. The experience you've accumulated over your career can put you in a prime position to start a business and build greater job security.

"There has literally never been a time in history where we can make so much happen, says Cathy Heller, host of the Don't Keep Your Day Job podcast and author of a book of the same name. Although the coronavirus pandemic and the recession have created challenges, Heller notes that barriers to entry for many businesses are low and that those with experience may have an edge in the marketplace.

Here are steps you should consider if you're thinking about starting your own business.

Decide on a direction

Think about what you do well, and don't let uncertainty affect your perception of your value, says business writer Elaine Pofeldt, author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business. And if your goal is to get out of your current line of work and start something new, acknowledge that, too, she suggests. The skills you've accumulated over your career can usually transfer to another line of work. Small-business owners are typically confident in their abilities. Indeed, a 2019 survey by lending platform Kabbage found that 82 percent of successful ones did not doubt they had the right qualifications and experience to run a company.

In some cases you may want to go in a completely different direction for your next act. That's what Faith McKinney, now 54, did in 2010. She was a janitor for the United States Postal Service when she decided to work on her bucket list, she says. She joined a networking organization, and after the organizer moved away, she stepped in to run it. She found a mentor who helped her improve her public speaking skills. And McKinney kept putting herself out there, ultimately meeting a cameraman for a local web magazine who needed on-air talent and gave her a shot. Because of her relentless skill building and fearlessness, she now works part-time as a television producer in Indianapolis. Kinney didn't want to give up her day job, but she has a side-hustle small business that she loves.

Look at the landscape

Once you've decided on the direction you want to go, research how your abilities can meet a need in the marketplace, Pofeldt says. So what will set your business apart? Investigate potential competitors and gather information about prices. The quickest way to figure out what to charge is to ask other people at the same professional level as you, she says.
A successful transition

Henry Suarez had a career in the pharmaceutical industry. His last job was as an executive for Upjohn (now Pfizer). In 1990, at 50, he decided to go out on his own and created Suiphar, a drug distributor. He started the business with his three sons.

That was the first step in a successful generational transition, years before it happened. The sons not only learned the details of the business, but also contributed to creating the company. "My father always got us involved in his business, ever since we were just kids," said Jaime E. Suarez, a board of directors member of Suiphar group and company shareholder along with his two brothers, Henry H. and Luis A. The three of them have equal shares.

Eight years ago, their father gave them control of Suiphar, a group of nine companies with headquarters in Sunrise, Fla., and offices in five Latin American countries, including a production plant in Bogota. The company generates annual revenue of almost $50 million.

The Suarez family's generational transition was successful for several reasons: The sons were trained to run the business; they had a clear interest in the company; and they had earned their participation through effort and not simply by being the boss' sons. They contributed their own capital and effort to the enterprise.

The following are the eight most important aspects in the generational transition of a family business, according to several experts.

1. Business plan

The transition from one generation to the next must be thoroughly planned. "The family must meet to define where the company is now and where it wants to go in the future: the technology it will need, what will be the capital requirements, and what type of human resources will be needed, among other subjects," says Wayne Rivers, president of the consulting firm Family Business Institute. "This is part of a business plan that, in 95 percent of the cases, [the companies undergoing this process] don't have."

Jaime E. Suarez adds: "When we transitioned, we did the strategic planning for the company for the 2010-2015 period. And it's a plan we revise every five years."

2. Real commitment

The new generation must never think that their place in the company is guaranteed because they are part of the family. Working for a family business must be an opportunity, and the owners must be very clear about the employment conditions of their children  from benefits to performance policies  to avoid giving the rest of the employees the wrong perception, says Paul Karofsky, a family business consultant.
Ballot stamps cause minor issue in Brown, turnout in Codington 63%

While there was a minor issue counting some ballots in Brown Co., local election officials said Tuesday night went pretty well. SD voter turnout 57.5%


Lodgement of Prospectus

Perth, May 16, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Impact Minerals Limited (Company) ( ASX:IPT ) is pleased to advise that the attached Prospectus (see the link below) has been lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.



The Prospectus is for the offer of the Share Purchase Plan and for the offer of the shortfall to the Share Purchase Plan, to raise up to $4,001,400.



Pursuant to the Share Purchase Plan, existing Shareholders resident in Australia or New Zealand who were on the Company's register of Shareholders at Wednesday, 10 May 2017 (Eligible Shareholders) are entitled to subscribe for up to $15,000 of fully paid ordinary shares in the Company at $0.018 each (New Shares), with three free attaching options exercisable at $0.04 each on or before 15 June 2020 (Free Attaching Options) for every two New Shares subscribed for.



Any New Shares and Free Attaching Options (Offer Securities) not subscribed for under the Share Purchase Plan will form the Shortfall and will be offered under the Shortfall Offer, which forms a separate offer under the Prospectus. An individual, including an Eligible Shareholder, may apply for additional Offer Securities under the Shortfall Offer provided they are eligible under all applicable securities laws to receive an offer under the Shortfall Offer.



The funds raised will be used to fund a drill programme of up to 3,000 metres of reverse circulation and diamond drilling to test targets on the Silica Hill Prospect at the Company's 100% owned Commonwealth gold-silver-base metal project, for follow up work at the high grade Broken Hill copper-nickel-PGM project and Mulga Tank and for general working capital.



To view the prospectus, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/9AMYT7X6





About Impact Minerals Limited





Impact Minerals Limited (ASX:IPT) is an exploration company listed on the ASX in November 2006. The Company manages extensive tenement holdings (>2,000 km2) within Australia featuring significant potential for high-grade mineral deposits of gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, nickel and PGM's. The Directors of the Company have extensive experience in mineral exploration and a strong history of exploration success, business development and corporate management. Impact Minerals intends to build wealth for its shareholders through a vigorous campaign of project generation and evaluation with a view towards profitable mining operations.
MOU with Zhejiang Tiandi Brings Access to a Potential Market of 100,000 MABR Modules



Announces Planned First Commercial Deployment in China

Melbourne, May 16, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Emefcy Group Limited ( ASX:EMC ) ( EMFGF:OTCMKTS ), a global leader in energy-efficient wastewater treatment solutions, today announced it entered a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") with Zhejiang Tiandi Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd ("Zhejiang Tiandi") to develop a commercial wastewater treatment plant in Zhejiang Province over the next 90 days and deploy shortly thereafter. The plant is anticipated to be the first of many in a long-term cooperation agreement between the two companies. Over the longer term, Emefcy believes the potential market demand for MABR based solutions in Zhejiang province alone is up to USD $1 billion.



The initial plant is expected to have a treatment capacity range of up to 500,000 liters per day.



Richard Irving, Chairman of Emefcy, commented: "We are excited to partner with Zhejiang Tiandi to build our first commercial deployment in China. Our breakthrough technology will enable them to achieve their growth goals, benefiting both companies. Together, we believe we can achieve great success in fulfilling the high demand in rural China for cost-effective wastewater treatment solutions. This partnership is an important step for us to capitalize on the enormous market opportunity in China."



Ilan Wilf, VP Sales noted: "Reliable operation of our Wuxi wastewater pilot plant has become an important local reference for our Chinese channel partners. Furthermore, the recent approval of our USVI commercial plant by the US Environmental Protection Agency brings further confidence to our partners that our flagship MABR product is ready for commercial deployment in China."



A spokesperson for Tiandi commented: "We are excited to have teamed up with Emefcy to deploy this innovative and highly efficient MABR-based wastewater treatment system, both in Zhejiang Province specifically and additional Provinces in the future. Zhejiang Tiandi is an innovative company which strives to be in the forefront of delivering the best technology and most cost effective system solutions to its clients. Partnering with Emefcy leverages the strengths and capabilities of both companies to address the rural wastewater market today and to bring new solutions for the upgrade of existing wastewater plants in the future. The first commercial project of the two companies is expected to be deployed before the end of the year in Zhejiang Province."



Update on Other China Deployments



Demonstration plants for each of Jinzi, CGGC ( SHA:600068 ) and Sinorichen are scheduled to be deployed between June and August this year, with two other demonstration units currently in production.



In view of the number of demonstration units currently operating and planned to be deployed in China, the Company will shift its focus from establishing demonstration units to conditional sales of commercial scale systems.



About Zhejiang Tiandi



Founded in 2002, Zhejiang Tiandi is an environmental protection company within Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group; estimated to be one of the six largest Provincial energy groups in China. Zhejiang Tiandi is diversifying its environmental operations to include wastewater treatment, especially in rural areas. The company now owns and operates several large treatment plants in the province.





About Fluence Corporation Ltd





Fluence Corporation (ASX:FLC) (OTCMKTS:EMFGF) is a leader in the decentralized water, wastewater and reuse treatment markets, with its Smart Products Solutions, including Aspiral, NIROBOX, NIROFLEX and SUBRE. Fluence offers an integrated range of services across the complete water cycle, from early stage evaluation, through design and delivery to ongoing support and optimization of water related assets, as well as Build Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) and other recurring revenue solutions. With established operations in North America, South America, the Middle East, Europe and China, Fluence has experience operating in over 70 countries worldwide and enables businesses and communities worldwide to maximize their water resources.

Further information can be found at https://www.fluencecorp.com/


Altech Appoints SMS group as EPC Contractor for Malaysian HPA Plant

Perth, May 16, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Altech Chemicals Limited ( ASX:ATC ) ( A3Y:FRA ) advises that it has appointed German engineering firm SMS group GmbH (SMS) as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for its proposed Malaysian high purity alumina (HPA) plant.



A key condition of Altech's application for German export credit project finance cover is the provision of a throughput guarantee for the HPA plant by the EPC contractor. The previously envisaged EPC contractor was unable to provide this guarantee.

SMS, as the incoming EPC contractor has proposed the following to Altech:



1. Fixed price turnkey EPC contract (existing);



2. Completion and cost guarantees (existing);



3. Process guarantee including final product quality (additional);



4. Throughput guarantee (additional);



5. Commissioning and start up responsibility (additional);



6. Initial subscription of US$100,000 of Altech shares (additional); and



7. Project equity or subordinated debt support at project financial close (additional).



SMS has proposed a clear and concise guarantee to Altech for HPA plant throughput. In addition, having prior experience with the kaolin-HPA hydrogen chloride processing technique that Altech will use, SMS has proposed process and final product guarantees and this will significantly strengthen Altech's export credit project finance cover application. The additional guarantees proposed by SMS are extremely positive outcomes that significantly de-risk the project.



SMS has also agreed to an initial US$100,000 subscription of Altech shares upon formal execution of contract documentation, and has proposed an equity investment or subordinate debt support for Altech at project financial close.



By mutual agreement, the previously envisaged EPC contractor will cease its preparatory work for the project and transfer all information to the SMS project team. SMS will continue with finalising the project capital cost estimation, which is expected in the coming months following the transition of all project information.



SMS is a large privately owned German engineering company with an annual turnover of approximately 3.3 billion Euros. SMS builds turnkey solutions based on innovative plant technology, complete with buildings, infrastructure and auxiliary equipment for processing plants such as Altech's proposed HPA plant. SMS was founded in 1871 and is based in Dusseldorf, Germany with office locations worldwide. SMS has recent EPC contract experience in Malaysia, having successfully completed the Sakura smelting project, in Sarawak.



Commenting on the appointment of SMS as EPC contractor, Altech managing director Iggy Tan said, "The appointment of SMS as EPC contractor for the proposed Malaysian HPA plant, although only recently envisaged, will be a huge positive for the project. Not only does SMS have prior experience with the Company's kaolin to HPA hydrogen chloride acid leaching process, it has demonstrated its confidence in Altech and the process with an initial US$100,000 equity investment pledge and project equity or subordinated debt support upon financial close. SMS also has extensive experience with German ECA cover and is amongst the top three users of this facility in Germany."



About Altech Chemicals Ltd





Altech Chemicals Limited (ASX:ATC) (FRA:A3Y) is aiming to become one of the world's leading suppliers of 99.99% (4N) high purity alumina (Al2O3) through the construction and operation of a 4,500tpa high purity alumina (HPA) processing plant at Johor, Malaysia. Feedstock for the plant will be sourced from the Company's 100%-owned kaolin deposit at Meckering, Western Australia and shipped to Malaysia.



HPA is a high-value, high margin and highly demanded product as it is the critical ingredient required for the production of synthetic sapphire. Synthetic sapphire is used in the manufacture of substrates for LED lights, semiconductor wafers used in the electronics industry, and scratch-resistant sapphire glass used for wristwatch faces, optical windows and smartphone components. Increasingly HPA is used by lithium-ion battery manufacturers as the coating on the battery's separator, which improves performance, longevity and safety of the battery. With global HPA demand approximately 19,000t (2018), it is estimated that this demand will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% (2018-2028); by 2028 HPA market demand will be approximately 272,000t, driven by the increasing adoption of LEDs worldwide as well as the demand for HPA by lithium-ion battery manufacturers to serve the surging electric vehicle market.
With academic year for students coming to a close and the aspirants for the medical, engineering and MBA courses are gearing up for seeking admission in the colleges of their choice and hence fall prey to the agents and the other middlemen helping out in the admission process in the metro cities.

Parents have their aim and aspirations for their wards to seek admission in the mainstream colleges and would like to get them admitted by hook or crook. Students looking for a bright career fall into the trap laid by the agents and other middlemen. Even ministers, MPs and MLAs try their hand for obtaining admission by paying lumpsum amount. In an anxiety to get the best education, the parents with the insistence of their children and prompted by the agents fall in the trap of the so called middlemen.

The incumbent government is trying to explore ways and means to expose the graft cases from the school and college levels and it is time to be rather careful dealing with such offers. The students were mesmerised to force for forgery and cheating cases in the build up to get admission in a good college. If the whip is cracked then they lose their admission as well and the reputation. In the process some of them lose heavy sum of money paid to bag these prestigious seats as donations or capitation fees or even by bribing the middle man.

From the caste certificate everything is available for a price and the aspirant missing that required number of marks in CAT or other entrance tests go for short cut to success. In the name of getting the priced admission, a Brahmin boy is ready to become an OBC and lose the way and is trapped red handed. The person is deprived of his admission after spending so much if the matter is exposed and a cheating and forgery case is lodged against him joining the party with the middle man in cheating the educational process. In the process he loses out the capitation fees or donations or the kickback he paid out of sheer frustration to get admitted in the reputed college.

Middle men are waiting for such hapless students to fall into the trap. And it is high time we keep away from the bad elements. In a rush of blood, the wards make the parents also a party to it and compel them to make huge payments as bribe and get into the well laid trap. If you cheat or forge education certificates and documents with regard to your caste or marks, then you will have to face the consequences as well.

The college in which the admission was sought is forced to file a FIR and the matter is reported to the police. Even a jail term is contemplated to such an offence. So extra money has to be spend as bribe to get bail. Even the illustrious career is cut short once such forgery is exposed.

In all educational goof ups carry lots of risks and the degree so obtained in such an illegal way is only a dream of the past and no useful purpose is served. Parents should not go blind as per the wishes of children and they should not become part of these blunders. Apart from monetary loss, the mental tension and agony so faced will make both the students and parents pay for indiscretion. Missing an admission by few marks and getting a seat in a different college will not matter much than landing behind bars in an anxiety to get into the mainstream of education.

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
By Ginger Taylor



Last week in the Boston Herald, Rachelle Cohen wrote about the presentation on vaccine information by Mark Blaxill and the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota given to the Minneapolis Somali community, errantly reporting that they had given false information to those in attendance, and expressing her opinion that they should be killed for holding the event.

These are the facts: Vaccines dont cause autism. Measles can kill. And lying to vulnerable people about the health and safety of their children ought to be a hanging offense. - Editorial: Preying on parents fear, Boston Herald editorial staff Monday, May 08, 2017

Health Choice Massachusetts, of which Boston resident Mark Blaxill is a member, formally reached out to Ms. Cohen and requested a meeting, so that the upsetting and incorrect column could be addressed properly.

Ms. Cohen declined the invitation. Her reasoning? That she had received angry and harassing messages from the public for calling for the deaths of vaccine injury parents, and that it was Health Choice MA's fault.

Because they had scheduled a protest rally.

Protesting her calling for the murder of their members.

Specifically for one of their members who was the individual addressing the Somali families at the event in question.

So it was THEIR fault that people were angry with her for calling for the lynching of people whose loved ones, or who themselves, had been harmed by vaccines.



Not her fault for openly advocating for the violent, humiliating and torturous deaths of US citizens for the crime of talking about corruption.
Oman Air Cargo has selected ECS Group subsidiary Globe Air Cargo (GAC) as its sales partner in the Benelux region of Europe.

The contract came into effect on April 1 and will provide the carrier with overnight transit cargo volume to its gateways in Paris (CDG), London (LON) and Frankfurt (FRA).

According to the contract, ECS will market Oman Airs cargo network from its hub in Muscat (MCT) with flights to destinations in the Middle East, India and Asia.

The sales agent will represent Oman Air Cargo as an offline sales partner, and co-ordinate the trucking and handling of cargo on behalf of Oman Air from Brussels (BRU) and Amsterdam (AMS).

"This will allow Oman Air Cargo to consolidate cargo volume and eventually create a strong customer base in the Benelux market," ECS said in a statement.

Among the type of cargo that will be generated will predominantly include general cargo of industrial goods.

However, under the new contract GAC will help Oman Air to develop special and premium type of cargo that includes perishable and pharma, key cargo commodities that transit through Paris, London and Frankfurt.

Mohammed Al Musafir, Senior Vice President  Commercial Cargo, Oman Air, said: "Oman Air Cargo is committed to an aggressive expansion plan, and the Benelux region is of interest to us as we look at expanding our network to better serve our clients worldwide.

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Muslim organizations and imams are not condemning the imam who preached murdering Jews.

In 2015, Omar El-Hussein listened to the imam Hajj Saeed, at the Hizb-ut-Tahrir- linked Al-Faruq-mosque in Copenhagen, decry interfaith dialogue as a "malignant" idea and explain that the right way, according to Mohammed, is to wage war on the Jews. The next day, El-Hussein went out and murdered Dan Uzan, the volunteer Jewish guard of the Jewish community, as he was standing in front of the Copenhagen synagogue. El-Hussein had also just murdered Finn Nrgaard, a film director, outside a meeting about freedom of speech.

Two years later, nothing has changed. A visiting imam from Lebanon at the Al-Faruq mosque, Mundhir Abdallah, is preaching to murder Jews:

"[Soon there will be] a Caliphate, which will instate the shari'a of Allah and revive the Sunna of His Prophet, which will wage Jihad for the sake of Allah, which will unite the Islamic nation after it disintegrated, and which will liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Zionists, so that the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled: 'Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. The Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees, but the rocks and the trees will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' ..."

The "words of the Prophet" are from a well-known hadith, number 6985.

Far from hiding this incitement, the mosque posted the sermon, delivered on March 31, on the YouTube page of Al-Faruq Mosque on May 7. The invaluable research organization, MEMRI, translated it.

A reporter from Danish TV channel TV2 news, who recently spent two hours around the Al-Faruq mosque, could not find a single Muslim willing to condemn the imam. "I don't think he meant anything bad by it," said Bayan Hasan, a female student. Another Danish Muslim, Mohammed Hussein, incorrectly replied, "According to Islam, Muslims are not allowed to kill". The Quran verse 8:12, to mention one of many examples, says otherwise: "...I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip."

Denmark's Minister of Integration, Inger Stjberg, called on the mosque and all Muslims in Denmark to condemn the sermon. "If this had happened in a Danish church, it would not have been necessary to ask people to condemn it. It would have been automatic", she said.

Muslim organizations and imams have, in fact, been completely quiet on the matter. One leading imam, Naveed Baig, from the Danish Islamic Center, simply dismissed the sermon: "Islam as a religion cannot be anti-Semitic, as Islam itself is a Semitic religion", he said.

The Quran and the hadiths are in fact brimming with anti-Semitism, not to mention exhortations to kill Jews and other "infidels", and calls for jihad (war in the cause of Islam) -- a fact of which Naveed Baig is doubtless well aware.

According to the Quran, people who refuse to acknowledge Allah as the one true god are unbelievers destined for hell: "Verily Allah has cursed the unbelievers and prepared for them a blazing fire" (Quran 33:64). Muslims therefore are superior to all others:

"Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind... believing in Allah... If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors." (Quran 3:110).

"Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers... their abode will be the fire: And evil is the home of the wrong-doers." (Quran 3:151).

As for specific passages about the Jews, the Quranic passages 5:60 and 7:166 talk of the Jews being cursed and transformed by Allah into apes and pigs: "...those who incurred the curse of Allah and his wrath, those of whom some he transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil..." This is the reason Jews today in large parts of the Muslim world are commonly called apes and pigs. Furthermore, "Jews and pagans [are] among the worst of the enemies of the believers". (Quran 5:82).

The Jews are described as hypocrites (Quran 2:14), and "slayers of His [Allah's] messengers" (Quran 2:61), who are "cunning" and "hate to see your success and rejoice if any misfortune befalls you" (Quran 3:120). These examples constitute only a part of the innumerable examples in the Quran and the hadiths, not to mention the writings of Islamic scholars.

Therefore, there is nothing unusual about imams calling for the murder of Jews in certain mosques, even in the West. In Canada, for example, in 2016, at Montreal's Dar Al-Arqam Mosque, an imam recited the same hadith about stones and trees asking Muslims to come and kill Jews hiding behind them.

In Denmark, however, among politicians, news of the sermon generated the usual "shock". Minister of Justice Sren Pape said it is "insane" that people such as the imam "exist in Denmark": "It is deeply unsympathetic," he said. "These are medieval thoughts and it makes me very sad that in Denmark in 2017 there are still people who really have not evolved further."

Other Danish politicians reacted with similar degrees of "shock" -- appearing utterly surprised by basic tenets of Islam, which have only been public for 1400 years.

Sren Pape hopes to solve the issue by prosecuting the imam. In December 2016, Denmark introduced a new provision in the penal code aimed at religious preachers. It is known in Denmark as the "imam provision," as it is, in practice, mainly aimed at imams. According to the provision, speaking approvingly of terror, murder, rape, violence, incest, pedophilia, coercion and polygamy, whether at private or public events, is prohibited and punishable by fine or prison of up to three years. The "imam provision" exists in addition to the general provision in the penal code, according to which it is prohibited and punishable by fine or prison publicly to threaten, insult or demean a group of persons because of their race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation.

Danish politicians appear to miss the critical fact that there is clearly a thirsty audience for sermons like this.

However, even if a Danish court should succeed in convicting the imam, Danish politicians appear to miss the critical fact that there is clearly a thirsty audience for sermons like this.

The Danish Jewish Community reported the imam to the police. Jewish community leader Dan Rosenberg told the newspaper Politiken: "We are concerned that weak and impressionable people may perceive this kind of preaching as a clear call to violence and terror against Jews." This sermon, however, is not a question of "perception": This sermon is a call to violence against Jews.

Danish Jews also have more reasons to feel threatened. In October 2015, a Danish girl, then 15, converted to Islam and immediately planned to bomb the Jewish school in Denmark (in addition to a plan to bomb her own school). Her mother, who was concerned about the girl's new behavior, desperately sought to alert the Danish authorities. The Danish police intelligence service (PET), told the mother not to worry, and assured her that her daughter would not "do anything", despite being told that her daughter was "desperate" to wage jihad. According to the mother:

"The only advice I got was to do with the food. They thought that if [my daughter] refused to eat pork and I insisted on making it for dinner, then I would have to make two separate dinners."

A few months after her daughter's conversion, in January 2016, the mother found a stash of chemicals in her basement and a note where her daughter had written the name of the Jewish school and its opening hours, and the words "jihad" and "Allah is great". The girl also apparently looked up to Omar El-Hussein, the terrorist who killed Dan Uzan and Finn Nrgaard, and even took his name as her own. After finding the chemicals, the mother reported the girl to the police. The girl is considered so dangerous that she spent part of her detainment in solitary confinement. Her trial recently ended; sentencing is expected mid-May.

As the Quran cannot be changed, it is crucial to make more broadly known what is in it, so at least people can see the facts confronting them, to help them determine what choices they might care to make for their own future and that of their children.

This article originally appeared on https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/
May 15, 2017

Interreligious dialogue is an idea that is constantly being reinvented, and despite the recent stagnation in Sunni-Shiite dialogue, many observers believe the situation will change with time. Pope Francis visit to Egypt on April 28 rekindled hopes that, despite the years of boycott and disputes, the Sunni-Shiite rift will one day come to an end.

Pope Francis reportedly met with Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb in what is considered a remarkable development in Al-Azhar relations with the Vatican. The boycott between the two began in 2011 following Pope Benedict XVIs calls to the leaders of the world to protect Egypts Christians after the bombing of the Coptic Church in Alexandria in January 2011. Al-Azhar considered such remarks as meddling in Egyptian affairs.

Pope Francis also met with Alexandrias Pope Tawadros II. They signed a mutual agreement April 28 to recognize baptism in both Catholic and Orthodox churches, putting an end to a dispute that has been around for 16 centuries. The agreement eliminated the requirement that a person who had already been baptized in one of the churches would have to repeat the baptism if he switched to another church.

On May 4, DotMsr.com published an article titled After resumption of dialogue with the Vatican, when will Sunnis and Shiites sit at one dialogue table?

The article added, Will Al-Azhar resume talks with Shiites, and will the two sides agree on a purposeful dialogue? When will a restorative dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites happen?

Pope Francis visit caught the interest of some Shiite leaders who might be amenable to a Sunni-Shiite dialogue under Egyptian auspices. Hassan Sharifa, the secretary of Awqaf in the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council in Lebanon, said in an official statement on April 29 that Egypt represents an oasis for communication and cultural exchange. He added, I wish some politicians would benefit from this significant and bold visit for peace.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, told the Italian Catholic news agency ZENIT April 28 that Pope Francis visit to Egypt is the key to solving extremism and terror in the region. He noted that encouraging dialogue between the two main Islamic sects, Sunnism and Shiism, would contribute to uprooting terrorism.

These calls for Sunni-Shiite dialogue have undergone several phases. In 1947, the Association for Rapprochement Between Islamic Legal Schools was established following calls from the Ministry of Awqaf to end the Muslim sectarian rift. It included 16 religious scholars  nine of whom were Al-Azhar sheikhs. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian mufti, represented the Sunni sect, while Mohammad Taqi al-Qummi, Muhammad Hussein Kashif al-Ghita, Abdul Hussein Sharaf al-Din, Ali Bin Ismail al-Muayid and Mohammad Bin Ali Allah al-Umri represented the Shiite sects, including Zaidism in Yemen. The members met several times, but they could not reach any results to end the rift.

The Association for Rapprochement Between Islamic Legal Schools led the Sunni-Shiite dialogue to its second stage when Mahmud Shaltut was grand imam of Al-Azhar. Shaltut was also a member of the association, and he and Qummi announced an agreement on several issues. Shaltut issued a fatwa that sparked wide controversy in 1959, as he recognized Shiism as a sect and allowed its practices. He decided to teach Shiism in Al-Azhar, but when Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq rose to prominence as Al-Azhar grand imam in 1982, he halted these teachings and froze all Sunni-Shiite rapprochement attempts.

When Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy became grand imam of Al-Azhar in 1996, he renewed calls for dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites and described the dispute between them as trivial rather than touching on Islams pillars. But the dialogue was restricted to some meetings with sheikhs and religious researchers from Irans Shiites. For his part, Tayeb called for Sunni-Shiite dialogue in an official statement in July 2015 and reiterated his calls in a press statement in July 2016, but in vain.

Al-Azhar preacher Ahmad al-Bahi told Al-Monitor, We are in desperate need of a Sunni-Shiite dialogue to ward off extremism in both sects. Countries against the region use extremists as pawns in political conflicts that have nothing to do with religious disputes. Just like Iran uses Shiites in Saudi Arabia, Turkey uses Sunni groups in Iraq and Syria.

A member of the Salafist Dawa Board in Beni Suef governorate told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Calls for Sunni-Shiite dialogue are traps. Iran wants to spread Shiism in the Arab nation and the Middle East through these calls to increase its base of followers, as it can use them to destabilize its opponents like Saudi Arabia. If there was an open Sunni-Shiite dialogue and Shiism spread in Egypt, the country would not be safe from Shiites schemes.

Mahmoud Faraj, the former head of Egypts Interests Section Office in Iran, told Al-Monitor, The sectarian rapprochement has nothing to do with politics. Sects must draw closer to each other to show extremists that they are tolerant and capable of dialogue.  Egypt is in no danger if Sunnis and Shiites become closer because many organizations threatening Egypt, like the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood, are affiliated with Sunnis. Extremism, whether Sunni, Shiite or non-Muslim, threatens Egypt.

I wouldnt rule out the possibility that many religious institutions in countries where there is a Sunni-Shiite conflict are facing pressure from political regimes that fuel the conflict to achieve political gains and stir strife. But the free will of some institutions, like Al-Azhar, can lead to a dialogue. However, I expect the extremist organizations that are politically run to object to such dialogue.

Al-Azhar has repeatedly called for Sunni-Shiite dialogue, and many scholars differentiate between using the sectarian dispute as a pressure card within the political conflict between the Arab states and Iran. Still, it seems impossible to reap fruits that please all sects, amid objectors to the idea like the Salafist Dawa (Sunni side) and some Shiite circles.
May 15, 2017

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Washington today to hold what promises to be a bumpy meeting with his American counterpart Donald Trump. The pair are expected to meet at the White House May 16 and much of the discussion will likely focus on a controversial US decision to arm a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

Erdogan says he will seek to persuade Trump to reverse the decision announced last week to provide heavy weapons to the YPG in preparation for an all-out assault on Raqqa, the Islamic State's so-called capital.

The move has plunged US-Turkish relations to a new low, unleashing a tidal wave of anti-American sentiment. The pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak announced that 96.4% of respondents to an informal poll said they viewed the United States as Turkeys enemy and 94.5% said that the United States ought to be denied permission to use the Incirlik Air Base in the coalitions anti-IS air campaign.

In an unsubtle attempt to give Trump a way out, Erdogan claimed that the decision to arm the YPG was made under the influence of US officials who served under the Obama administration. He was probably referring, among others, to Brett McGurk, the presidential envoy to the anti-IS coalition who was kept on by Trump and deeply resented by Turkish officials over his perceived affinity for the Syrian Kurds.

Erdogan, who apparently hopes that he can win Trump over, proclaimed, I see this trip as a new milestone in Turkey-US relations. But it's unlikely that Trump will reverse course. Beset by domestic woes that have been further aggravated by his controversial decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, Trump is desperate for success and the YPGs proven battlefield prowess points to an assured victory in Raqqa.

Turkeys main objection to the alliance is that the YPG was spawned by another Kurdish militia, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The group has been waging a bloody war for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984 and is listed by the US State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. The YPG is not, however, and the United States used this legal loophole to embark on the now flourishing partnership.

It is an open secret that many of the YPGs top commanders and political cadres are drawn from the PKK, and many administration officials privately acknowledge that the two groups are connected. To allay Turkish concerns, the Pentagon has promised tight monitoring of all the weapons given to the YPG and assurance they will not be directed at Turkey.

But can it? Not really, argues Nicholas A. Heras, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Heras told Al-Monitor that in theory, the United States could rescind arms deliveries to the YPG if it were established that they were winding up in PKK hands and used against Turkish security forces inside Turkey. But in practice, once the weapons are distributed, tracking them becomes very difficult, he said. These arms include rifles and explosive munitions. The big question is whether the YPG will also be issued the same anti-tank guided missiles that IS used to deadly effect against Turkish-backed Euphrates Shield forces and their tanks during their campaign to capture the IS-held town of al-Bab earlier this year.

Heras argued that by directly arming the YPG, the US military has effectively become the go-to address for Turkey if the Syrian Kurds violate their pledge not to deploy them against Turkey.

A continued US presence in northeastern Syria until central authority reclaims power is the best guarantee that the YPG wont turn against Turkey, he said. By the same token, US forces can fend off further Turkish attacks against the Syrian Kurds.

None of this is likely to cut much ice with Erdogan, who says Turkey and coalition allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar can help the United States fight IS better than the Syrian Kurds.

In fact, Turkey was given well over a year to assemble an alternative force of Sunni Arabs to do the job. It failed. In any case, the rebels were always more motivated to fight the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkeys Islam-rooted government was never very enthusiastic about taking on IS, either. It took over a year and a half of tortuous negotiations for Turkey to open the Incirlik Air Base for coalition air missions against IS. In the meantime, determined to see the Syrian regime overthrown, Turkey allowed rebels of all stripes, including al-Qaeda-linked jihadis and IS fighters, to move freely across its borders.

Turkey also saw the rebels as handy proxies against the Syrian Kurds. When IS fighters laid siege to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani in the fall of 2014, Turkey looked the other way. That was when the Americans rushed to the Kurds defense and their alliance was born. Its unlikely to end anytime soon.

Once Raqqa is liberated, the coalition will focus on uprooting IS from Deir ez-Zor, where many IS leaders are believed to have fled. Despite recent advances by regime forces from Palmyra toward Deir ez-Zor, said Heras, They do not have the capacity to seize the area within a timeline that fits US counterterrorism goals.
May 15, 2017

Iraq is assessing the rehabilitation needs of the ancient city of Hatra, near Mosul in the countrys north, after retaking it from the Islamic State (IS) on April 26. The jihadist group had occupied the site since 2014 and in March 2015 bulldozed some of the ruins, which date back to the second century and include ancient architecture and other priceless antiquities.

At one point, members of the group appeared in a video using sledgehammers to destroy antiquities, sparking fears that a priceless piece of human heritage, included on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1985, would be lost forever.

But the head of Nineveh provinces archaeology department, Faleh Al-Shammari, said initial surveys by Iraqi archaeologists in early May show less damage than expected, affecting about 30% of the city. Many landmarks were damaged only slightly, especially large and heavy ones, he said.

Shammari said IS fighters looted every small artifact that could be moved, including gold and silver coins and Assyrian statues. However, he said, The remains that were stolen are small compared to the great number of artifacts that were taken to Baghdad in 2000, before the fall of Saddam Husseins regime, and were never returned because of the deteriorating security situation. That minimized the losses that happened during the Daesh occupation of the site, he added, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The huge walls, temples and bridges between pillars were not damaged. The ancient halls escaped being blown up, which Daesh has done to major archaeological sites in other areas such as the mosque of Nabi Yunes, he said.

Chaos still reigns in the area and the ruins are in disarray, Shammari explained. There is rubble in the eastern part of the city, and the destruction can clearly be seen in the square at the main entrance to the city.

Mohammad Rasmi Harith, a photographer working for the Popular Mobilization Units during the battle to liberate the historic city, told Al-Monitor that IS had not blown up the ancient structures. It wanted to use them as a base and weapon storehouse, turn its temples into a prison for its captives and clandestine explosives workshops, based on what we saw at the site after it was liberated, he said. Security forces finished clearing the city of weapons and leftover munitions, and now they are surrounding it to totally secure it. It will be handed over to the authorities in the next few days.

Khoshawi Khalil, a member of the parliamentary Tourism and Antiquities Committee, told Al-Monitor the committee had instructed security forces guarding the site to allow archaeologists and technicians to conduct a detailed survey, inventory the damage and prepare an emergency plan to restore the city, which he said was already neglected before Daesh occupied it and had been extensively damaged by looters.

Khalil explained, The first step toward reviving the site will be to retrieve the artifacts that were stolen from it by using Iraqs diplomatic resources and communicating with foreign states and international organizations, especially UNESCO. Most of Hatras antiquities were recorded and documented by international museums, which will make it easier to find them and prevent them from being sold.

The rapporteur of the Tourism and Antiquities Committee, Iyad Al-Shammari, told Al-Monitor that since 2014, the committee has been working with the antiquities authorities to compile and update a list for Interpol of all the artifacts and ancient texts that were stolen and smuggled out of the country. Artifacts from Hatra came at the top of the list.

Iraq has reached agreements with countries such as Italy that will train specialized security forces and police units to protect archaeological artifacts. They will soon be ready to protect Hatra once security forces leave the area, he said. They will also cover other archaeological sites in the future.

Shammari also said Hatra had suffered years of neglect before the rise of IS. An abandoned site in the middle of the desert, it has long been vulnerable to looters. He blamed the chaos following the fall of Hussein in 2003. The administrative chaos after that date and the financial crisis that has rocked Iraq for years have blocked attempts to rebuild Hatra, he said.

Iraq will not have the capacity to rehabilitate Hatra, he added. Iraq has asked the Arab League's Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation, UNESCO, and cultural and academic institutions in the United States and Europe that specialize in protecting and restoring archaeological sites to use their expertise to train Iraqis in techniques to protect ancient sites.

Preserving the treasures of Hatra will require extensive investment and development with an eye toward tourism, which would generate the sustainable income it needs.
May 16, 2017

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on May 15 decided to end his third bid for the Iranian presidency in the past 12 years. In line with his propensity for undergoing transformations, he once again sought to portray a new image of himself this year, sparking claims that he was copying the agendas of other presidential candidates, both in and beyond Iran. Ultimately, the uncertainty among voters about who the Tehran mayor really is may have been the chief cause for the premature end of his latest bid for the presidency.

Having long dreamed of being president, Ghalibaf first ran for office in 2005. He secured 14% of the votes in the first round of polling that year, and came in fourth place. Just months before the vote, Ghalibaf had resigned from his post as the head of Irans police force and instead focused his efforts on changing his image as a military man. In an article published on June 28, 2005, US-based academic Behrooz Ghamari claimed that Ghalibaf sent his advisers to Britain to meet with those of the then British prime minister to seek guidance from Tony Blairs campaign managers on how to target the affluent middle classes of Tehran and repackage himself as a pro-reform candidate.

During his 2005 campaign, Ghalibaf was repeatedly seen wearing slick and colorful suits. In an effort to shift focus away from his military background, Ghalibaf presented himself as a pilot and posed for pictures next to Airbus jets while dressed in a pilots uniform. His campaign slogan was Iranians have a right to the good life, suggesting that his target audience was the middle class, students and the elite. However, his discourse did not gain traction as voters preferred then-candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejads talk of justice and support for the poor under a populist theme. Ahmadinejad won the 2005 election and succeeded Reformist Mohammad Khatami as president.

In September 2005, Ghalibaf was chosen to succeed Ahmadinejad as Tehrans mayor  a post he continues to hold to this day.

In 2013, Ghalibaf once again tried his hand at the presidency. However, this time, he pursued a new vision under the slogan of "jihadi management" and tried to get closer to religious circles. There no longer was any sign of Ghalibafs colorful suits. His beard grew a little longer and he often wore a kaffiyeh around his neck  both symbols of the religious movements on Irans political stage. This indicated that Ghalibaf was no longer seeking the votes of the middle or educated classes.

Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst and professor at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, told Al-Monitor, Mr. Ghalibaf is not an ideological person and his priority is to reach power. This may not be a problem. But the main issue is that to achieve this, he will imitate whatever idea or agenda he thinks is fascinating in that [particular] round [of polling] and [thus] he is never himself. This leads to society viewing him as an individual who does not have much stability in [his] strategies.

Ghalibafs new approach in 2013 was not successful either, coming in second place with some 16% of the vote.

Undeterred by his second defeat in eight years, the Tehran mayor once again decided to compete in this years presidential race. This time, his campaign had a whole different tone; it was focused on Irans lower classes, whom Ghalibaf hoped to win over with huge campaign promises.

On April 24, Ghalibaf said that if elected, he would increase monthly cash handouts, which were initiated by the government of Ahmadinejad (2005-13), expanding them to up to 2.5 million rials ($77) from the current 455,000 rials ($14).

His campaign also had a feature many have criticized and described as copying. While registering to run for the elections April 15, Ghalibaf spoke about a government of the 96%. He revisited this theme in an appearance on Iranian state television April 27, in which he said, If needed, I will offer my reputation and stand firm against the leech-like 4% who are sucking the blood out of the 96% of the population. When we want to fight this 4%, [we see that] they have power, connections, money and influence.  My government will be determined to fight against this 4% and stop unnecessary imports.

Many criticized Ghalibafs new campaign strategy. On April 29, Abbas Akhoundi, the minister of roads and urban development, said, During Ghalibafs 12-year mayorship, this 4% did not have a more loyal supporter than Ghalibaf. These 12 years have been the golden era for property speculators to openly do anything they want in Tehran.

There has also been criticism of Ghalibaf for copying the discourse of the 99% and the 1% put forward by the Occupy Wall Street movement and US Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The controversy surrounding Ghalibafs selective borrowing from other campaigns was brought up May 5 in the second televised presidential debate, when incumbent Hassan Rouhani forcefully said, Four years ago, the 99% movement was created somewhere. To clumsily copy it [now] and change it to 96% because it is the year 1396 [in the Iranian calendar].  What does it mean to say the 96% movement has been formed? Dont do such things.

Iranian social media users reacted to this by setting up #ghalicopy, which trended as the third most popular hashtag May 2 on Twitter.

A recent election survey had Ghalibaf in third place with 25% of the vote, behind Rouhani's 42% and cleric Ebrahim Raisi's 27%.

Some Iranian analysts view the political maneuvering of Ghalibaf and his inner circle as resembling the actions of US President Donald Trump rather than Sanders. Mehdi Ghadimi, a veteran Reformist journalist in Tehran, told Al-Monitor, Although Ghalibaf adopted his campaign slogans from American models, beyond it all, he seems to be very influenced by Trumps victory. But he does not know why Trumps discourse is popular in the United States and thinks the reason for Trumps victory was his obvious immorality. Therefore, he [Ghalibaf] tries to appear more vulgar every time  from copying the actions and words of popular Reformist figures to telling lies that create anxiety in others.

Tehrans mayor, who 12 years ago was hoping to come to power under the slogan of Iranians have a right to the good life, and four years ago spoke of jihadi management, has seen his third and potentially last bid for the presidency buried with the slogan of the 96% against the leech-like 4%.
May 16, 2017

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf withdrew from the presidential race May 15, leaving the conservative camp with two candidates in competition against incumbent moderate Hassan Rouhani.

Ghalibaf, who had registered to run for the third time, announced that he is withdrawing in favor of conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Ghalibaf reached this decision following a meeting with Raisi on May 15. However, some prominent conservatives, including former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, were opposed to such a move, opining that this withdrawal will not wholly turn out in favor of the conservative camp.

According to Gholam Hossein Karbaschi, a leading Reformist politician, Ghalibaf faced a steep decline in polls across Iran following the third and final presidential debate on May 12, when Rouhani threatened to reveal wrongdoings in 2005, without specifying what exactly he was referring to, in the face of Ghalibafs continued attacks. The Tehran mayor first ran for the presidency in 2005.

Karbaschi believes that even if Ghalibaf had not decided to withdraw, he would have placed third in the race, adding that not all of Ghalibafs supporters will rally behind Raisi since they would have backed the conservative cleric in the first place had he been their preference.

Moreover, Reformist activist Hamid Reza Jalaeipour believes that some of Ghalibafs votes will be transferred to Rouhani as some sections of the middle class were in favor of the Tehran mayor, while Raisi is not welcome among the middle class.

However, it seems as if Ghalibaf had decided to save himself from another failure to win a presidential election. According to reports circulating in Iranian media, Raisis team had reached an unwritten agreement with Ghalibaf before he went public with his withdrawal.

Raisis team had reportedly told Ghalibafs entourage that they would appoint him as first vice president if the conservative cleric is elected president. This decision was reportedly supposed to be announced on the evening of May 15, but nothing to that effect was made public. Rather, Raisi just declared that he would make use of Ghalibaf in his government.

According to the reports, the hard-line Endurance Front, which is behind Raisi, is seemingly opposed to Ghalibaf being appointed as first vice president and believes that Ali Nikzad, the campaign manager of Raisi and a former minister under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Saeed Jalili deserve to be given the position.

Meanwhile, along with Ghalibafs withdrawal, reports emerged of the third conservative candidate, former Culture Minister Mostafa Mirsalim, stepping aside in support of Raisi. However, Mirsalim quickly refuted the reports, saying that he will stay to the end.

On the other side of the competition, many are expecting Reformist Eshaq Jahangiri, who is the current vice president, to withdraw in favor of Rouhani. Jahangiris performance in the presidential debates was a surprise to many  including the conservatives  leading him to be labeled as the phenomenon of the debates, as he harshly disclosed the corruption scandals surrounding Ghalibaf and directly responded to the criticisms of the conservative candidates.

Since the first day of campaigning in April, Jahangiri has stated that he has come forward to defend Rouhani and his government, but he has refrained from announcing an intention to withdraw. However, many if not most Reformists and moderates strongly believe that he will not stay on until the end.
May 16, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's May 14 assessment that the next election will not be moved up was intended to stifle the buzz in Israeli political circles. According to him, the election will be held as scheduled, in November 2019.

Over the last few weeks, Netanyahu watched as a coalition crisis over Israel's Public Broadcasting Corporation  a crisis for which he was responsible  threatened to see the Knesset dissolved and set his coalition partners into campaign mode. Netanyahu threatened Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon in March with early elections unless the Kulanu chair accepted a compromise on the issue.

Netanyahu released this mollifying message at a meeting of coalition leaders on May 14. That evening, Channel 2 News reported that he even instructed the heads of the Finance Ministry to prepare a state budget for 2019, hinting that the current government is here to stay.

On the other hand, even if it now looks like the prime minister does not want the election moved up, not one of the coalition party leaders takes his statements seriously. It is obvious to all of them that Netanyahu will have no qualms about coming up with an excuse to call an election as soon as it suits him. They also have no way of knowing when that will be.

Throughout his fourth government's tenure, Netanyahu has been waging political fights on two main fronts. The first is with his finance minister, and the second is with Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Neither of them has any interest in advancing the election, either  particularly not Kahlon, who is still recovering from the way that Netanyahu played him politically during the public broadcasting crisis. For electoral reasons, they both want to keep their common front with Netanyahu on a low flame before the next election campaign, but not longer than that.

"It is obvious to everyone that Netanyahu will be the one to bring about the next election. He will decide when to squeeze the trigger," one Likud minister told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He added, "Right now, Netanyahu has no reason to advance the election."

While there has been a cease-fire of sorts on the Kahlon front over the past two weeks, fighting between Netanyahu and Bennett has intensified. The HaBayit HaYehudi leader has been pouring fuel on the fire as part of his fight with the Likud over the support of voters on the right. Once it became clear that US President Donald Trump would not fulfill his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Bennett has demanded repeatedly that Netanyahu insist the move take place. He went so far as to insinuate that Netanyahu himself is behind the US decision. In an interview with Al-Monitor's Ben Caspit published on May 8, Bennett criticized Netanyahu for his passivity, saying that it prevented the Israeli right from attaining swift achievements immediately after Trump's election, when it seemed like the incoming administration's policy was more in line with that of the Israeli government.

Netanyahu refuses to remain indifferent. The Likud released a response mocking Bennett by claiming that he "memorizes the prime minister's press releases and recites their demands as if they were his own.  That is what he did with the prime minister's persistent demand that the US Embassy be moved to Jerusalem.

At a Likud meeting on May 15, Netanyahu raised the issue of moving the embassy, referencing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's suggestion that Israel isn't too excited about moving the embassy, either. In a statement released later, his office said, "Israel's position has often been expressed to the American administration and to the world. The transfer of the American Embassy to Jerusalem not only will not harm the peace process, but the opposite. It will advance it by correcting a historic injustice and by smashing the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel."

When the prime minister's office realized that claims that Netanyahu played a role in the shift in the American position persisted, it took the unusual step of releasing the protocols of a conversation between Netanyahu and Trump on Feb. 15. According to the document, Netanyahu made it clear to the president that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would pose no security risk.

Netanyahu realizes that Bennett is already caught up in a battle over voters on the right. He is acting quickly to counter his attacks. Recent reports that Trump plans to pressure Israel into rebooting negotiations with the Palestinians when he visits the region on May 22 offer Bennett a golden opportunity to continue pummeling Netanyahu and score a few points on the right.

On the other hand, even if negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are restarted, there is still a long way to go before a coalition crisis would put the government at risk. Bennett plans to squeeze all he can out of it by depicting Netanyahu as having betrayed the right. Bennett will not quit the government during the negotiations. Obviously, Netanyahu is extremely adept at negotiating with the Palestinians without ever reaching the implementation stage.

In a Channel 2 report, a senior Likud member was quoted commenting about Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, who is in a dead heat with Netanyahu, according to recent polls. "It is time to let Lapid dry out in the opposition for another two years, with all the dozens of seats that the polls give him. It would be stupid to advance the election," said the official, who was unnamed. But the truth is that Lapid's impressive results in the polls do not pose a real risk to Netanyahu's right-wing government, since most of his votes come from the center-left Zionist Camp. While the division of votes among the parties has changed, there has been no real change to the party blocs, and Netanyahu has no competitors among the right.

The only thing that currently threatens Netanyahu's survival comes from outside the political system: the criminal investigation into the gifts he allegedly received from businessmen. A dramatic development in this investigation such as an indictment could force Netanyahu to resign. If, however, there is no progress in the investigation, his government could continue to serve until 2019.

At this stage, Netanyahu's preparations for the next election can be summed up as follows. He is sending out feelers to Yisrael Beitenu chair and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman over the possibility of running together in a single list, like the Likud Beitenu list in the 2013 election. As unviable as it seems, Netanyahu also holds onto the hope that he can convince Kahlon to run together with him. According to one senior member of the Likud who spoke on condition of anonymity, "Netanyahu wants to compete in the next election as head of a large Republican Party and ensure his victory well in advance."
May 16, 2017

While speaking with the local media, King Abdullah typically repeats national talking points on political reform. When addressing foreign audiences, he frequently adopts a different approach: bluntly assessing the countrys challenges and even violating sacred taboos. The Hashemite monarchs recent interview with The Washington Post followed the same pattern.

In a surprising remark, Abdullah noted in the April 6 interview, In 2016, for the first time, we captured and killed 40 [Islamic State] terrorists in two major incidents. Ninety-six percent of them were of Palestinian origin. He added, So if we dont move the Israeli-Palestinian process forward, that is a major recruiting [opportunity] for disenfranchised and frustrated people.

However, when the government media printed the kings remarks, they inaccurately translated the king to avoid publicizing the potentially uncomfortable sections. The 96% statistic was removed from Petra News, and the regime-censored version did not refer to Palestinians as terrorists in contrast to Abdullahs own words. Even Al-Ghad newspaper, which bills itself as Jordans most independent paper with the slogan Right to Know, deleted the embarrassing sections from the interview.

Jordanian political analyst Katrina Sammour explained that the explosive nature of the king labeling such a high percentage of IS terrorists as Palestinian forced newspapers to censor this part of the interview. She told Al-Monitor the 96% description would increase resentment between Palestinians and Jordanians even more. Palestinians will feel that they are being attacked, and Jordanians will feel that Palestinians are a threat to society. Due to political sensitivities, Amman does not publicize data about the percentage of Jordanians of Palestinian descent, but The New York Times estimates that the number is up to 60%.

A prominent Jordanian journalist, who insisted on anonymity due to the risks of directly critiquing Abdullah, told Al-Monitor that saying 96% of IS terrorists in Jordan were Palestinian was inappropriate since it keeps reminding people where they came from and stigmatizes them, linking terrorism to their origin.

Given the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict where Jordanian media consistently portrays Israel as the aggressors and the Palestinians as victims, the kings remarks were especially surprising. Kirk Sowell, an Amman-based political analyst and principal of Utica Risk Services, a Middle East-focused political risk firm, told Al-Monitor, In Arabic, you would never say this. You cant refer to Palestinians as terrorists. I am not surprised they [Petra News] edited it since its a very sensitive issue.

Widad Salah, an official with the Royal Court media, declined multiple Al-Monitor requests to explain the kings remarks.

In addition to the potentially offensive nature of Abdullahs remarks, many disputed the accuracy of his statement to The Washington Post. The statement was wrong. I dont believe Palestine is a main drive for people to join terrorist groups in the Jordanian scene. The youth are feeling disenfranchised, there is government corruption and it is an authoritarian regime, explained Sammour, who has written extensively on radicalism in the Hashemite kingdom.

With over 70% of Jordans national population under the age of 30, Sammour emphasized that the needs of the youth are not being adequately met. The government has not allowed any alternative speech to be introduced or platform for young people to feel that they are expressing themselves, actually being heard and participating in the decision-making process, she said. Approximately 2,000 Jordanian fighters have joined IS in Syria and Iraq, including the son of Jordanian member of parliament Mazen Dalaeen, who carried out a suicide attack in Anbar province.

Abdullahs Washington Post comments are noteworthy given the Hashemite kingdoms Raise your head, you are Jordanian campaign ongoing across Amman since 2015. The governments message is encouraging national pride for all of its citizens, including those of Palestinian and East Bank descent.

There is a fiction that there actually is no distinction between Palestinians and East Bankers, said Sowell. The kings comments highlighting the fact that the overwhelming majority of IS terrorists captured or killed in 2016 were of Palestinian origin contradicts the superficial unity, he added. With the vast majority of sensitive positions in the Jordanian security services awarded to East Bankers while Jordanians of Palestinian origin maintain significant influence over the private sector, there are real problems of identity, Sammour stressed.

While clarifying that the kings motive of raising awareness in the West about establishing a Palestinian state is noble, Mohammed Hussainy, the director of the Amman-based Identity Center think tank, disagreed that Jordanians join IS due to Israel. He told Al-Monitor, It is clear that IS is not mentioning the Palestinian cause in their media or as a goal. IS has mainly focused on fighting Shiites, Kurds and Yazidis, Sowell pointed out. Noting that IS combats other Muslims, former Jordanian lawmaker Hind al-Fayez told Al-Monitor, Id rather that they [Jordanian youth] join Hamas instead of joining IS because Hamas is entitled to fight the Israelis for protecting their land.

The Jordanian medias approach of censoring such sensitive information is naive with the spread of the internet and Facebook and no longer guarantees  as it did decades ago  that the public is shielded from controversial subjects, Bassam al-Badareen, the Amman bureau chief for Al-Quds al-Arabi, told Al-Monitor.

Frustrated by the kings insistence on linking national origin to radicalism, the Jordanian journalist said, We are all Jordanians regardless of where we come from. It doesnt mean if he is originally Palestinian, he is more prone to be a terrorist.

Editor's note: This article has been updated since its intial publication.
May 16, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  In a new move to clamp down on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a presidential decree April 20 exempting Gaza citizens from the fees of services rendered by the ministries, institutions and bodies affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA). The decision includes first-time service fees, which go to the treasury of the Hamas-run Ministry of Finance in Gaza.

The decree covers nine articles, exempting income tax on companies and individuals, imports of goods from abroad, purchases and sales under the clearing bills, professional licenses for companies licensed in the southern governorates (the Gaza Strip) and working in the northern governorates (the West Bank)  all of which go to the treasury in Ramallah.

A similar decree was issued by Abbas on June 26, 2007, following Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, by virtue of which Gaza citizens were exempted from service fees, with the purpose of restricting Hamas rule. However, Abbas found no way to implement the decree on the ground in light of Hamas control over the Gaza Strip. In this context, government officials in Gaza expect the same to happen with the newly issued decree.

Tariq Rishmawi, a spokesman for the government of national consensus, told Al-Monitor that high-ranking government officials  whose names remain anonymous  instructed spokespersons not to comment on the presidential decree. But he said, The de facto authority in Gaza [Hamas] prevents the government from providing its services to the citizens.

Nasser al-Jaiyan, the deputy director general of the Customs, Excise Duties and VAT division at the Ministry of Finance in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor the purpose of the presidential decree is to alleviate the hardship of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

He stressed that any tax taken from citizens in Gaza by the Hamas government institutions after the issuance of the presidential decree are funds taken illegally.

On May 10, the head of the financial department in the Administrative Committee in Gaza, Yousef al-Kayali, told al-Ray government agency that the presidential decree will not be implemented, noting that the decree targets Gazans only so as to deprive the Gaza treasury from tax funds, while citizens of the West Bank were not affected by the decree so as to keep funds flowing into the treasury in Ramallah.

Kayali ruled out the possibility of the presidential decree's having a negative impact on local revenues due to the commitment of citizens and merchants to pay these taxes, noting that the PAs talk about the illegality of tax collection in Gaza comes in the context of political rivalries.

He added that the decree will not be applied because it is not legitimate since it was not presented to the Palestinian Legislative Council for approval. In addition, he explained, it aims to increase pressure on government institutions in Gaza by targeting their local revenues.

On May 8, Louay Hanash, the director general of the Customs, Excise Duties and VAT division at the Finance Ministry in Ramallah, said in a press statement that the Ministry of Finance in Gaza collects from citizens about 70-80 million shekels ($19.3-$22.1 million) in taxes per month. Yet the Gaza ministry claims the Ramallah ministry collects $100 million a month from Gaza, most of which are taxes from goods entering the Gaza Strip.

On two separate occasions, April 12 and May 5, Abbas threatened Hamas in Gaza with harsh and unprecedented measures aimed at forcing the movement into canceling the Administrative Committee it set up to run Gaza and enabling the government of national consensus to work freely in the Gaza Strip, in addition to holding presidential and legislative elections.

Meanwhile, Hamas stressed that the Administrative Committee would be considered dissolved the minute the government of consensus assumes its functions in Gaza.

Nasr Abdel Karim, a professor of economics and finance at Birzeit University, told Al-Monitor that he does not expect the decree to have any actual impact in the absence of the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip, saying that the decree is part of a series of actions taken by Abbas to pressure Hamas in Gaza and drain the sources of local funds benefiting the institutions of the Hamas-run government.

Abdel Karim believes Abbas will carry on with additional punitive measures against Hamas, warning about such action affecting Gazans as well, since it is difficult to separate the people from the movement. For instance, deductions from the salaries of public employees in Gaza harmed the staff more than the movement itself, and so did depriving Gaza of electricity. In this context, the PA asked Israel in late April to stop deducting Gazas monthly electricity bill from the Palestinian clearing funds, which Israel refused to do. It continued to supply electricity to Gaza for fear of the security situation getting out of hand.

He said a combination of such measures could affect the Hamas governments financial resources in the Gaza Strip, and thus affect the operating expenses of ministries and salaries of their employees, in addition to damaging the struggling Gazan economy in general and depriving Gaza of cash flow.

Mouin Rajab, an economics professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, concurs with Abdel Karims view on the Palestinian governments inability to implement the decree in Gaza since it lacks authority there. He believes the only way this decree could be implemented is if the Palestinian internal division ends and the government of consensus is enabled in Gaza.

Regardless of how satisfied citizens may be  given how this decree relieves them of part of their financial burden  they will not be able to abide by it because they believe the government authorities in Gaza will not provide them with services free of charge, because the [Hamas-run government] has announced that the decree will not be applied in Gaza, Rajab told Al-Monitor.

Although economic experts are convinced of the difficulty to implement the decree in the Gaza Strip, the citizen remains the weakest link and the biggest loser in the 10-year political conflict between Fatah and Hamas.
May 16, 2017

On May 6, TV Net, one of the many pro-government news channels in Turkey, aired the weekly show Deep History. The shows usual hosts, popular history writers Mustafa Armagan and Yavuz Bahadiroglu, hosted Suleyman Yesilyurt, who has published several investigative books on Turkish history that are full of racist conspiracy theories about the plots of crypto Jews or crypto Armenians.

These three talking heads, who all fall into the conservative/Islamic side of Turkish socio-politics, probed into a sensitive topic: the private life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder and first president of Turkey. They claimed that Ataturk had a hall of lovers, and Yesilyurt even threw out speculation that Afet Inan  Ataturks famous foster child  was, in fact, his illegitimate wife. The two hosts seemed to agree, and the editor of the show wrote on the screen that Inan, a most respected female figure of the early republic, could well be the unmarried first lady of the republic.

Reactions began to pour in soon after the show aired. The three men were widely condemned on social media for insulting Ataturk, which is a serious crime in Turkey (a penal code article states that anyone who publicly insults or curses the memory of Ataturk shall be imprisoned with a heavy sentence of between one and three years"). Various opinion leaders, including Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, harshly condemned the commentators. Kilicdaroglu said, They are traitors; in fact, they are not even human. A pre-planned speech by Armagan at Istanbul University was canceled, and students there protested, We are the soldiers of Ataturk. A secularist lawyer who for many years led the Istanbul Bar Association even condemned the offense against Ataturk as a CIA project.

Soon after, an Istanbul prosecutor opened an investigation into the case and ordered the arrest of Yesilyurt, who was detained on May 12. Many people in the press and social media kept asking why the two other men on the show were not arrested as well.

Meanwhile, another incident of insulting Ataturk  a viler one  was discovered on social media. It was an online video comment by Hasan Akar, a figure in the Islamic Nur movement, in which he called the republics founder a bastard. Claiming that Ataturks mother, Zubeyde Hanim, was in fact working at a brothel, Akar was proud of his courage to say that fact out loud. His remarks added more to the public fury, and his arrest order followed soon as well.

All of these incidents pointed to a few interesting facts about Turkey.

First, the reactions in defense of Ataturk show that, despite all the post-Kemalist or even the anti-Kemalist drive of the past two decades, the persona of Ataturk is still widely respected in Turkey. It is notable that the insults against Ataturk were condemned not just by self-defined Ataturkists, such as the main opposition party, but also by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and various pro-AKP pundits. Even if some of the latter could merely be giving lip service to Ataturk, it is notable that they feel as if they have to.

On the other hand, the speculation by Yesilyurt and Akar show how much bilge has been produced among Turkeys religious conservatives about Ataturk over the past century. Their provocative remarks are actually rumors that have been silently whispered in some Islamic circles for decades. It seems that the reaction to Kemalism  the ideology and political system founded by Ataturk  has turned into enmity against the persona of Ataturk and led to the rise of nasty alternative facts about him and his family.

In my view, there is no doubt that such sheer disrespect about the nations founder must be morally condemned. It was nice to see that such condemnations came from some sane and sound Islamic figures. One of them was female Islamic writer Cihan Aktas, who defended the honor of Ataturks mother. It is shameful to attack the honor of a woman who cannot defend herself, she wrote on Twitter. It is bizarre to use such ugly gossip to criticize an era.

However, there is another question here: Should disrespectful speech about an important person constitute a crime? Is there any chance we can condemn it on the moral level but accept its legal right to exist out of respect for free speech?

These are very unusual questions for Turkey, where both the laws of the state and the culture of society eagerly penalize disrespect. That is why Ataturks honor is protected by a special law. That is why the Turkish penal code also decrees prison sentences up to four years for insulting the President of the Republic  a clause that is used very frequently by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's lawyers. Similarly, degrading the Turkish Nation, State of Turkish Republic, the Organs and Institutions of the State are all banned by Turkeys penal code.

The problem is that all major camps seem happy with these laws and are eager to use them to punish the speech that is offensive to their beloved figures, whether that may be Erdogan or Ataturk. A rare liberal voice that criticized this common illiberalism, Demokrat Yargi Dernegi (Democrat Judiciary Society), argued on Twitter that Kemalists should not call for the arrest of those who insult Ataturk, for otherwise, they cannot oppose the arrest of those who insult Erdogan. But such principled calls often fall on deaf ears in Turkey, as it did in this case.

All in all, this episode showed that Turkey is quite far from accepting a culture of free speech, both as a state and society. Progress will perhaps come when more people realize that it is not free speech that produces the abundance of vile, crude and senseless talk that they want to ban. It is rather the lack of free speech that produces such uncivilized discourse by disallowing a marketplace of ideas.
May 15, 2017

Turkey's parliament will soon consider a plethora of military agreements proposed with other countries as Ankara seeks to expand beyond its "soft-power" influence and restore its stature in areas where it used to be influential.

Turkey already has a presence in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq with humanitarian, educational, construction and peacekeeping missions. It is adding a military dimension with a proposal to expand its presence at its base in Doha, Qatar, and with a training facility set to open this year in Mogadishu, Somalia.

These moves indeed warm the hearts of Justice and Development Party (AKP) members who dream of Ottoman times. Nationalist circles may be feeling exalted, but the political opposition in Turkey is asking: Why is Turkey building a security cover for Qatar? In return for what? Is Iran our target?

On May 4, parliament's Foreign Affairs Commission approved a Military Training Cooperation Agreement with Mongolia, a Security Cooperation Agreement with Albania, a Protocol for Gendarmerie Training Cooperation with Qatar and an Accord for Deployment of Turkish troops in Qatari territory. The draft bills of all these agreements, among others, will soon be put to a vote in the full parliament. The pact providing for deploying Turkish troops to Qatar has attracted the most attention.

Brig. Gen. Ihsan Bulbul, the deputy undersecretary of the Defense Ministry, provided some details from the commission meeting. Under the pact, Qatar and Turkey agreed to form a joint tactical division headquarters with 500-600 Turkish soldiers stationed at the base. The division commander will be a Qatari major general and his deputy will be a Turkish brigadier general.

The agreement defines the objective of the mission as developing Qatars defensive ability to conduct joint training and exercises and to "carry out other missions two countries agree on." The agreement says all costs of setting up the base and its operations will be borne by Qatar. At the end of 10 years, the open-ended deal will be automatically extended for five years unless one of the parties calls it off.

According to minutes of the commission deliberations Al-Monitor obtained, officials of the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and Gendarmerie General Command had problems responding to opposition representatives' questions. Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Oguz Kaan Salici wanted to know why Turkey is placing such importance on Qatar, whose annual volume of trade with Turkey doesnt exceed $1.3 billion. Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Umit Yardim answered by saying that the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and followers of Fethullah Gulen constitute a joint threat and that Qatar had led the countries that supported Turkey after the July 15 coup attempt. Moreover, he said, Qatar is an ally of the United States and has strategic importance. But he wasn't able to satisfy his questioners by explaining what he meant by strategic importance.

Salici, noting that foreign forces using bases in Turkey are meeting their own expenses, said he didnt get proper responses to his questions. He asked again, This force will all have all the privileges on Qatari land and all its expenses will be met by Qatar. Qatar is inviting in an experienced military force. This means, Come defend us. What is Turkey going to get in return for defending Qatar? If Turkey is not building security umbrellas for Qatar and Saudi Arabia against Iran, and we are dragged in [to a confrontation with Iran] because of what is happening in Yemen, [then] what is this all about?

In Yemen's civil war, Iran backs the Houthi rebels and loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saudi Arabia and Qatar support the other side, the government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Qatar is rich in oil and natural gas. But some CHP members question Qatar's significance to Turkey for a number of reasons. With an area of some 4,400 square miles, Qatar is about the size of the island of Hawaii. Turkey, on the other hand, at 302,535 square miles, is a bit bigger than Texas. Turkey's population is about 79 million; Qatar has 2.6 million, and only about 313,000 of them are Qatari citizens. Qatar has only a modest military force; its army has 11,800 personnel. In a way, it owes its security to 10,000 US soldiers at Al Udeid base.

Qatar has spearheaded proxy wars in Libya and Syria and has participated in operations in Bahrain and Yemen when pushed by Saudi Arabia. It's perfectly natural for Qatar to feel the need to develop a joint defense concept with a strong power other than the United States. But why would Turkey enter such a military relationship with Qatar, especially given Turkey's current involvement in the Syrian civil war? CHP deputies feel that Turkey has been made part of the sectarian polarization between Iran and the Gulf countries, and that all these agreements are targeting Iran.

Another CHP member of the Foreign Affairs Commission, Mevlut Duru, told Al-Monitor there were concerns about vague areas of the accord with Qatar. It's an open-ended agreement. It's not clear what it's about. There are obscure expressions such as all kinds of assistance. Our foreign and defense ministries cannot explain what kind of assistance we are talking about. If you ask us, there is no need for Turkey to set up a base in Qatar. This can only be a move against Iran. I cant find any other explanation for this agreement. There are efforts to form a Sunni bloc led by Saudi Arabia, he said.

Qatar is meeting all the expenses of the base in Doha. Are they hiring us to work as their gendarmerie? This is a totally unwarranted venture for Turkey. This commission has approved the draft, but there will be serious debates on it when it comes to the parliament.

When then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu signed the accord for the Doha base in April 2016, diplomatic and political sources in Ankara made the following points:

Turkey will be returning to Qatar 100 years after the Ottoman Empire abandoned it during World War I.

Establishing the base in Qatar aims to balance Irans growing influence in the region.

The base will reflect security cooperation among the Sunni alliance of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Turkish soldiers at the base will be able to extend support in serious crises as requested by the international community.

At that time, state-owned TRT TV summarized the viewpoints of government circles: This agreement is also significant to find new markets for Turkeys defense industry. Turkey and Qatar have been taking nearly identical approaches to the crises in the Middle East. They share the same position in supporting the Syrian opposition, as well as regarding the crises in Iraq and Yemen. The accord has a further significance for Qatar because the Sunni government in Doha is uneasy with the melting of ice between the United States and Iran. Doha's government doesnt consider the American soldiers in Qatar as an adequate military deterrent, hence Qatars decision to overcome the deficiency by cooperating with Turkey.

Turkish government circles have a tendency to treat the Qatari base within the context of US-Turkey competition. But in its decision-making, Qatar can't operate independently of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Actually, until crises erupted in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen during the Arab Spring in 2011, Qatar was following a balanced approach toward Iran despite all the pressures exerted by Saudi Arabia. Qatar was even saying that it wouldn't allow the United States to use its bases there in an operation against Iran. Naturally, the fact that Qatar was sharing the South Persia Natural Gas Basin with Iran played a part in that approach.

But Qatar found itself in the anti-Iran camp following the militarization of the Arab uprisings. It isnt clear anymore whether its decision to avoid tension with Iran still stands. Surely, as a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Qatar could not keep its distance forever from the evolving crisis between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Now after the election of US President Donald Trump, the United States is returning to its anti-Iran policies, and Iran-Saudi tensions are escalating, signaling potential storms in the Gulf. On May 2, Saudi Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman inflamed the tensions by saying that in case of a war, the Saudis will try to fight it out in Iran before the war reaches Saudi soil.

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan responded, If the Saudis launch a thoughtless action, the Iranian army will annihilate all their kingdoms except Mecca and Medina.

Many observers are worried by the rise in Gulf tensions and Turkeys military partnership with Doha and Riyadh. Daily Hurriyet columnist Mehmet Yilmaz recently asked a pertinent question: Are we going to launch a war against our joint enemy? Will the cost to us of the comprehensive military pact with Saudi Arabia be getting entangled in a war that has nothing to do with us?

It is obvious that with the growing tensions, Saudi Arabia hopes to rely on Turkeys military capacity as Ankara tries to promote itself as the voice of the Sunni world.

Despite all of these developments, is it possible to label all Turkish steps as polarization against Iran? No doubt the military cooperation with Qatar and Saudi Arabia is progressing under the shadow of Iran-Gulf contradictions in Syria and Yemen. When Ankara is taking these steps, one inevitably remembers aspirations to form a Sunni bloc targeting Iran under the label Islamic Alliance Against Terror, or to set up an Islamic NATO with the participation of Turkey, NATO's second-largest military force, and Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

Turkeys addition of "hard" versus "soft" military dimensions to its partnerships in the Arab world has another motivation: finding new customers for its developing defense industry. Both are certainly among the dreams of the AKP government.

Selling itself as an element to counterbalance Irans growing power is a way for Turkey to form military cooperation with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but it is also a reflection of Turkeys undeclared, but undeniable, passion to become a regional power.
Welcome Oak City.JPG

A sign inside a former bank building welcomes visitors to Oak City Church.

(Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com)

Jonathan Henderson serves as lead pastor for Oak City Church in Birmingham.

A new church with a focus on healing ministry has moved into Birmingham's resurgent downtown.

Oak City Church, a non-denominational church that has ties to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, Calif., held its first downtown service on Sunday, May 14.

"It went great," said Lead Pastor Jonathan Henderson. "We feel excited."

The church held a launch service on Jan. 15 at the Carmike Theater in Vestavia Hills, then moved to Berney Points Baptist Church and St. John's Church for the Deaf in Cahaba Heights before the move downtown.

The new downtown location is the former Birmingham Trust Bank, 1921 Second Ave. North, a block away from the McWane Center and the Pizitz Food Hall. The church rents the former bank building and hopes it will be a long-term meeting place, Henderson said. "It's a beautiful piece of property," he said. "We're loving it."

Church members built a stage and stage backdrop in the former bank, he said.

Services begin at 10:15 a.m. on Sundays, with a "Healing Room" open on the first Saturday of each month, from 10 to 11 a.m.

"We pray for the sick," Henderson said. "That is open to anybody. We believe Jesus heals people. It's really a mission for us. We pray for people."

The church has been drawing about 60 to 110 worshippers at weekly Sunday services, Henderson said.

The congregation grew out of a parachurch ministry that began meeting in 2011. "More people came and were experiencing God, experiencing his presence," Henderson said.

The congregation includes about 10 graduates of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, where Henderson graduated in 2010. "It was the best two years of my life," he said.

He's from Tuscaloosa and earned a bachelor's degree in financial management from the University of Alabama in 2005.

Henderson, 35, worked for JH Ranch, a Christian camp in Northern California that has an office in Birmingham, from 2011-2016. He led a Junior High ministry and was pastor to the summer staff.

The JH Ranch is about two hours from Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bethel Church, led by Senior Pastor Bill Johnson, was affiliated with the Assemblies of God until 2006, when it became independent.

During his time at JH Ranch, Henderson visited Bethel Church.

"I saw the fruit of the ministry, how they were reaching the lost," Henderson said. "I saw the impact they were having in their community and around the world."

That led him to enroll in 2008 at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

"That was my hunger for more of God," Henderson said. "My hunger kind of led me there.Whether it's seeing people get healed, or hearing God's voice, that led me down that path of being more charismatic."

Oak City Church in Birmingham has one trustee from Bethel Atlanta, which was planted by the Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., and another trustee from Bethel Church in California.

Oak City Church Co-Leader Farrah Alford, who oversees the Healing Room ministry, also graduated from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. So did Kids' Director Jamie Smith.

The Sunday service starts with about 30 minutes of music led by a worship team with a full band, followed by a sermon, and ends with a prayer for healing led by a team of Prayer Servants.

"We've got trained prayer servants," Henderson said. "The prayer servants are there to pray for the sick, pray for healing, whether that's physical or emotional. Our heart is to serve the community."

Downtown Birmingham seems like a perfect home for the church that wants to bring healing, he said.

"We have a heart for the city," Henderson said. "We have a heart for Birmingham. We just want to serve the city. It's very strategic for us."
By Kelly Kazek

Retro neon signs are seeing a resurgence in Alabama towns. In some cases, the original signs are being refurbished or restored. In other cases, signs with a vintage feel are being erected at new businesses. The effect is downtown business areas with the bright city lights of yore.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

Below are photos of vintage neon signs adorning Alabama businesses. When you're finished, click here to see photos of vintage neon signs of businesses that no longer exist.

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(Courtesy of Wil Elrick)

Owners of U.G. White Mercantile, which was founded in Athens 100 years ago, installed a vintage-looking neon sign when it opened a downtown Huntsville location.

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Clinton Row, an area of retail spaces built in an old parking garage, features this vintage-looking sign.

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The Jefferson County Farmers Market sign.

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The iconic Pell City Steak House sign.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

Vintage neon signs were installed on buildings in downtown Abbeville. The signs, from the collection of local businessman Jimmy Rane, include Buster Brown shoes and Philco. They give the town a vintage feel.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

A close-up of the Buster Brown sign in downtown Abbeville.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

A vintage sign from a Ford dealership in downtown Abbeville.

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(Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress)

The refurbished Alabama Power sign, featuring the Reddy Kilowatt figure, in downtown Attalla.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

The Bama Theatre in downtown Tuscaloosa.

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Historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

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The Beeline Motel in Dothan.

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(Courtesy of Wil Elrick)

Belk Hudson Lofts in downtown Huntsville are marked with this new neon sign that has a retro look.

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(Al.com/Bob Carlton)

A new sign with a retro look was installed at the historic Paramount Building in Birmingham.

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(AL.com File/Eric Schultz)

Big Bob Gibson in Decatur still features it original neon sign.

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The iconic sign at Big Bull Steakhouse in Pell City.

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Bogue's Restaurant sign in Birmingham.

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The original sign at Bright Star Restaurant in Bessemer.

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Although the City Federal Building in Birmingham no longer houses a bank, the original sign was preserved. Today, parts of the building have been renovated into living spaces but the penthouse, basement and old bank area remain empty, awaiting restoration. See interior photos here.

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Close-up of the City Federal neon sign.

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Historic DeKalb Theater in Fort Payne.

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A retro neon sign at Harpers Tasty Dip in Helfin.

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The sign at Johns Diner in Birmingham was refurbished in 2005.

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(AL.com File Photo)

Kreme Delite in Athens still features it original sign.

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(AL.com File)

The original sign remains at the Moon Winx Lodge in Tuscaloosa. The owner offered the sign for sale in September 2016.

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(Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress)

The Economy Inn in Cullman.

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(Source: Wadsworth Christmas Tree Farm)

The old Rexall Drug sign in downtown Tuskegee. The store is no longer in business.

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(AL.com File Photo)

The Rexall Drugs sign in Pell City.

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The Penny the Dog sign in Birmingham was moved to Regions Field in 2013 in an effort to preserve it. It is automated; the tail wags and the eyes move.

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(AL.com File)

The Prices Drugs sign in Pinson was refurbished in 2004.

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(AL.com File/Lucy Berry)

Plamor Lanes in Huntsville is known for its neon bowling pin.

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Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com

Pitman Theatre in Gadsden.

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(AL.com File)

The Princess Theatre in Decatur has its original neon sign.

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(Carol Highsmith/Library of Congress)

The sign at the Shoals Theatre in Florence.

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(RoadArch.com)

The Simpsons Florist sign in Decatur was installed in 1957.

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(Chris Pruitt via Wikimedia Commons)

After the Wixle Rexall in downtown Anniston closed, the sign was preserved on the building.
The parents of a young Shelby County boy reportedly kept in "forced isolation" by his adoptive parents 23 hours a day for up to years have now been indicted on felony charges, and one of the suspects is again asking for his $1 million bond to be reduced.

A Shelby County grand in April indicted Cynthia and Richard Kelly on one charge of aggravated child abuse each, which is a Class B felony, according to court records recently made public. Both have been in jail on the $1 million bond since their arrests in November 2016.

According to the indictments, the parents did "torture, willfully abuse, cruelly beat or otherwise willfully maltreat" their 14-year-old adopted son who weighed only 47 pounds when he was hospitalized six months ago. The indictment says the abuse happened between Nov. 1, 2014 through Nov. 12, 2016.

"Over a period of two years, (the couple) did confine (the victim) to a closed off room in the basement with a locked door for 23 hours a day with limited to no access to social interaction; further, (the victim) was only allowed a box spring to sleep on; further, that (the victim) was only fed one meal a day and that food and nourishment was withheld to the point that (the victim) was admitted on the date of Nov. 12, 2016 to the hospital suffering from extreme malnourishment, shock, hypothermia and dehydration to the point of near death, and presented with abrasions on his knees, lips, ears and ankles."

The 14-year-old adopted son has since been released from the hospital and has been placed in a therapeutic foster home, where family says he appears to be happy and is doing well. A therapeutic foster home caters to the physical, emotional and social needs of children with emotional challenges.

Neither Richard nor Cynthia Kelly, who have lived in Helena for about 20 years, show any previous criminal record in Alabama. Richard Kelly worked in the computer technology field but had been unemployed for several weeks at the time of his arrest. Cynthia Kelly was a stay-at-home mother who home-schooled her adopted children.

The teen's biological brother, 18-year-old Eddie Carter, spoke extensively with AL.com late last year. Now living in Arizona, Carter says he suffered the same neglect, abuse and despair at the hands of Richard and Cynthia Kelly. He said he was kept in the basement for weeks and months at a time.

"You're down there and nobody knows you're down there except the people in the house,'' said Carter in extensive interviews with AL.com. "It's up to those people to make sure everything's going to be all right and it's not all right and you're kinda lost. You sit in the corner and weigh out what means the most. It was horrible. Horrific.

"It gets to that point where you're like an animal,'' Carter said. "You feel like an animal."

In the couple's first court hearing, which was held in February, it was revealed that they received $500 a month from the state through DHR to help take care of their son. Adopted children may receive an adoption subsidy if they meet the special needs criteria. This is paid by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and distributed to the family by Alabama DHR.

A month after their arrests, lawyers for the couple claimed that their $1 million bond is "excessive and illegal," and were asking the amount to be reduced. "30 times the maximum of the bond schedule is grossly excessive,'' said attorney Jared Welborn, who represents Richard Kelly. At the February hearing, however, County Judge Daniel Crowson, however, refused to lower their bond and said there was enough evidence against the couple to send the case to a grand jury which issued the indictments on April 19.

Welborn on Monday filed a renewed motion to reduce Richard Kelly's bond to "a reasonable amount." In his motion, the attorney notes that his client doesn't have any criminal history and is a longtime resident and homeowner in Shelby County.

The recommended bond guideline for a Class B felony is between $5,000 to $30,000, the motion states. Welborn questions why the judge has not given a written explanation as to the reasons why the bond for Richard Kelly exceeds to the guidelines. "Your defendant respectfully avers that the current bond of $1 million is grossly in excess of the recommended bond schedule and illegal,'' he wrote.

The judge has not responded to the latest request, and trial dates have not been set in either case.
state house mug by julie.JPG

((Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com))

The Alabama Senate has passed a bill to require many insurance plans to cover autism therapy.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 33-1. That sends it back to the House, which had passed it 100-0 earlier.

If the House accepts changes made by the Senate, it could send the bill to Gov. Kay Ivey.

Rep. Jim Patterson, R-Meridianville, the sponsor of the bill, said he will ask the House to accept the Senate changes. Patterson said he expects that to happen on Wednesday.

Key Senate changes include making the mandate apply only to companies with at least 51 employees, making the mandate apply only to services for patients up to age 18 and delaying the mandate on public insurance plans until Dec. 31, 2018.

Patterson said he was disappointed in the delay for those plans but said overall the bill was a "victory." He said the advocacy group Autism Speaks, which has lobbied for the bill, urged him to accept the Senate changes.

Parents and advocates say applied behavior analysis can be a life-changing therapy for children with autism. But it's expensive and can be out of reach for parents if not covered by insurance.

Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said the insurance mandate would mean that more families would be able to receive the therapy, which benefited his daughter, Riley.

"It's going to dramatic, particularly in early intervention services," Ward said. "These people whose kids are growing up age 3 through 7. My daughter, for example, who benefited greatly. People are going to be able to afford to do that now. And that's going to be a huge benefit for them."

Before passing the bill, the Senate approved an amendment by Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, to say that the mandate to cover therapy applied only to patients age 18 and younger.

Pittman, the Senate's General Fund budget chairman, said he was concerned about uncertainty over the cost of the mandate both for taxpayers and for employers.

Pittman later cast the only no vote against the bill. He said the state has obligations to provide services in mental health, human resources, public safety and corrections that it does not have enough money to sustain.

"And then we're passing a new mandate that's going to cost the state tens of millions of dollars," Pittman said. "To me, you're getting the cart before the horse. What we should do is go back and say, how are we going to pay for this before we do it."

Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh had said last week he expected the bill to be considered on Wednesday.

But Marsh said today an agreement was reached on revisions to the bill and said he requested that it be the first bill on today's calendar.

"We knew the interest in this bill," Marsh said. "A lot of the public's been down here, a lot of our members very emotional about it. And I just thought, if we've got an agreement, which we have, let's go ahead and take care of this."

Ward said eight or nine senators negotiated to reach a compromise.

Ward said the key change in the agreement would delay application of the autism coverage mandate for public insurance plans. Those include the plans for state employees and education employees, the Children's Health Insurance Plan (ALL Kids) and Medicaid. The coverage mandate for those plans would take effect Dec. 31, 2018.

The bill would apply to private insurance plans covering at least 51 employees.

Parents and advocates have helped drive the autism bill through the legislative process, filling rooms at the State House for committee meetings and hearings.

Ward initially said today he would ask the Senate to delay a vote until Wednesday so advocates could be on hand for the vote. He said some had made arrangements to be at the State House on Wednesday because Marsh had said the Senate would consider it then.

Ward later decided to seek a vote on the bill tonight.

The Business Council of Alabama issued a news release expressing opposition to the bill.

"The Business Council of Alabama continues to remind lawmakers that mandates are not free. It is a tax on those with health insurance," BCA President and CEO William Canary said in the release.

The BCA noted that the Legislative Fiscal Office has not provided a cost estimate for the bill.

Patterson said it was good to see lawmakers advancing the bill considering the influential opposition.

"It passed because the people wanted it," Patterson said. "And for a change we did what the people wanted rather than the special interests wanted. That's powerful. The people had a victory today."

Updated at about 6 p.m. to say bill has passed the Senate. Updated at 7:58 to add comments from Rep. Jim Patterson.


The city of Birmingham's proposed operating budget for 2018 is at $428 million, up about $6 million from the previous year.

Mayor William Bell presented highlights from next year's budget during Tuesday's regular City Council meeting.

A budget hearing is set for 4:30 p.m. on May 31 at Birmingham City Hall.

According to the mayor's office, aggressive business recruitment and retention by the Mayor's Office of Economic Development has increased city revenues since 2012. The city's operating budget has increased by $64 million in five years.

"We have a tremendous year ahead with the Ramsay McCormack Ensley Public Safety Municipal Complex underway and the $40 million funding structure advancing next month, the OnePratt superblock project underway, the Crossplex development underway, the opening of the Maxine Herring Parker bridge in Collegeville and the continued development of the Civil Rights district at the forefront of our efforts," Bell said in a statement.

"Bond projects continue throughout the city with over $9 million in paving, over $10 million in park improvements and upgrades to the historic Legion Field in time for her 90th birthday," he said.

Personnel costs make up 70 percent of the city's budget. Next year's budget includes a 5 percent employee merit raise, which will cost $2.6 million, and a 1 percent cost of living increase.

The Birmingham Police Department will have the same operational budget as last year, except $1.5 million was added for purchase of police vehicles.

Another $300,000 in funding was added for community policing efforts, according to the mayor's office.

Councilor Marcus Lundy, who chairs the council's budget and finance committee, said certain city departments are seeing increases as the city's revenues have increased since last year.

"What we don't see is a way to address increased spending for our schools," he said.

Lundy said Birmingham City Schools hired a new superintendent, and new initiatives that will need funding are likely on the way.

He said the council wants to know, though, what happened to $1 million appropriated for a reading program that ended up not being implemented by the school system.

In order to keep city dollars in Birmingham, Lundy said the city needs to make sure that supplies the city purchases, such as copy paper, toner and toilet paper, is purchased from Birmingham-based companies and minority-owned businesses, when possible.

Overall, though, Lundy said the city need to be more disciplined in its spending. He said the city ran a $6.2 million deficit in its operating budget this year and had to dip into the fund balance.

Other budget highlights presented by mayor's office:
Bhamrobberysuspect.jpg

Birmingham police are trying to identify this robbery suspect from a Saturday night holdup at the Shell on University Boulevard at 23rd Street.

(Birmingham Police)

Birmingham police are asking for the public's help identifying an armed robber.

The holdup happened at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Shell at 2320 University Boulevard. Lt. Sean Edwards said the suspect brandished a handgun and demanded money for the store's cashier. He also pointed the gun at several customers in line.

The suspect fled the scene with cash in hand. There were no shots fired or injuries.

Anyone with information on the suspect's identity is asked to call Birmingham robbery Det. Wilder at 205-254-1753 or 911.
A Jefferson County high school principal has been charged after investigators say he not only failed to report a suspected case of a teacher sexually involved with a student, but also lied to detectives when questioned about the matter.

Hueytown police and the Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney's Office on Tuesday morning charged Hueytown High School Principal Joe Garner, 47, with obstruction of a governmental operation, which is a Class A misdemeanor, and violation of the mandatory reporting law, a Class B misdemeanor. According to Garner's school bio, he is also a former police officer and school resource officer.

Garner surrendered to the Jefferson County Jail in Bessemer about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday and he was formally booked in at 5:32 p.m. According to jail records, he has an outstanding warrant on a bad check charge. His bonds total $8,500.

Jefferson County Superintendent Craig Pouncey described Garner as "an honest Christian man" who is a former police lieutenant and a former U.S. Army Reserves captain.

Joseph Garner

He said the allegations against the unnamed teacher were investigated last year and not substantiated by school officials. "Dr. Garner has been a staunch advocate for the safety and welfare of the children,'' Pouncey said. "He's a fine person...I was surprised at this turn of events without discussion with us as the employer."

School officials have not yet decided on Garner's status with the system.

Hueytown Police Chief Chuck Hagler said they launched their investigation several weeks ago when they were notified by Jefferson County Board of Education officials of a potential issue with a teacher at the high school being sexually involved with students. The teacher is female, and the students are male.

During the course of that probe, Hagler said, detectives learned there had been previous allegations against the same teacher and a previous investigation. Police subpoenaed records from the school system's Human Resources Division where the chief said there was clear evidence a prior investigation had been carried out. "They did multiple interviews with the multiple staff members, multiple students and they looked at phone records,'' he said.

Under Alabama's Mandatory Reporting laws, "all hospitals, clinics, sanitariums, doctors, physicians, surgeons, medical examiners, coroners, dentists, osteopaths, optometrists, chiropractors, podiatrists, nurses, school teachers and officials, peace officers, law enforcement officials, pharmacists, social workers, day care workers or employees, mental health professionals, members of the clergy as defined in Rule 505 of the Alabama Rules of Evidence, or any other person called upon to render aid or medical assistance to any child, when the child is known or suspected to be a victim of child abuse or neglect, shall be required to report, or cause a report to be made of the same, orally, either by telephone or direct communication immediately, followed by a written report, to a duly constituted authority."

"The reporting law says when they suspect a student is a victim of a crime, they are supposed to report it to us," Hagler said. "Their own paperwork establishes they were well beyond suspecting a crime. Also, when our detectives asked the principal about it, he was not truthful. The conduct rose to a level of a crime."

Hagler said police have not been able to file charges against the teacher, in part because evidence has been destroyed. That evidence, he said, includes cell phone records. "Because of the way they handled the previous investigation, evidence on cell phones were deleted,'' he said.

According to Garner's school bio, he is a graduate of Hewitt-Trussville High School. He served nine years in the U.S. Army Reserves, as well as a police officer for nine years, with the last four being a school resource officer.

He has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Piedmont College in Georgia, and earned a masters degree in Career Technology and Educational Leadership from the University of Georgia. He also has a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Georgia.

Garner's bio says he taught criminal justice for three years and served as an assistant principal, as well as principal for 11 years in the Atlanta area. He served as a principal in Montgomery for two years and has been in the Jefferson County school system for at least five years.

Asked why Garner would interfere or obstruct an investigation into the allegations against the teacher, Hagler said, "We have a couple of working theories. The investigation is ongoing."

"We strive to form a partnership with the administration at all schools,'' the chief said. "It's in our best interest to take care of the children in the schools, but the administration has to be held accountable when they actively interfere in what is obviously a police matter and not a school matter."

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
President Xi Jinping meets with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on May 16, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING -- China sees Belarus as an important partner in Belt and Road development, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday, urging more efforts to deepen trade and investment cooperation.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday in Beijing.

China is ready to further tap the potential of cooperation with Belarus for development, Xi said.

The two countries should strengthen policy communication and integrate their development strategies to create new sources of growth, he noted.

The Chinese president called for deepened economic and investment cooperation with Belarus and more balanced and sustainable two-way trade.

The construction of the China-Belarus Industrial Park should be accelerated and local-level cooperation should become a new driver of bilateral cooperation, Xi said.

He also urged closer people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in such areas as education, culture and tourism.

Reviewing China-Belarus relations, Xi said the two countries have firmly supported each other on issues related to their core interests and major concerns, with practical cooperation and close coordination in international and regional issues.

Lukashenko said Belarus and China are sincere partners, noting that his country is ready to expand cooperation with China in trade, investment, industrial capacity, culture, sports, tourism, and science and technology.

He said Belarus welcomes Chinese businesses to participate in major projects in his country, including the China-Belarus Industrial Park.

Lukashenko also praised the "immense success" of the Belt and Road forum.

After the meeting, the two presidents witnessed the signing of several documents on cooperation in Belt and Road development as well as economic and technological areas.


Beyond the boundaries of memory, geography and trauma, the Nakba is a focal point in Palestinians ongoing tragedy.

When I ask Tamam al-Assar about her memories of the 1967 war, she is confused.

At 76, Tamam lives in the same refugee camp to which her family fled after their exile from Palestine during the Nakba in 1948. At least 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1948, as more than 500 Palestinian villages and towns were demolished to make room for Jewish settlers.

Tamam still talks about what befell her family, reliving the dramatic and bloody events.

Only a few years of her life were peaceful. Despite her failing memory, every recollection she manages to conjure up from her childhood  before the establishment of Israel upon the ruins of villages such as her own  is repeated with joy.

She can still taste her first chocolate bar, one that her brother, Salim, had tried to confiscate, foiled only by the timely intervention of her older brother, Ismail.

Salim disappeared during the joint French-British-Israeli war on Egypt in 1956, the aim of which was to reclaim the nationalised Suez Canal, to tame Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, and to occupy parts of the Sinai desert.





During that time, Israel briefly occupied the Gaza Strip. Salim ran away with a group of teenagers, hoping to cross the Gaza border through southern Israel into the Naqab desert and eventually go into Jordan. Their calculation tragically misfired, and they all disappeared.

Tamam and Ismail spent years looking for Salim, to no avail. An elderly woman who claimed to communicate with the spirit world finally told Tamam that her brother was trapped in an earthy prison, deep underground; they assumed he was dead and buried.

Tamams grief never dissipated over the loss of Salim. Still, she noted: God was generous, as He always is with poor people. He blessed her with three boys and three girls.

READ MORE: How Israels violent birth destroyed Palestine

Tamams middle son was Kamal, a rebel with socialist ideas about the proletariat and social justice. He joined the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987 as a protest organiser, working with underground units of equally rebellious youth. They threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, burned tyres and refused to quell their uprising, despite the death and destruction wrought upon them by Israeli forces.

Kamal was eventually detained and tortured severely. A thin, pale young man who was an obsessive smoker, he was left permanently weakened and scarred, and he died a few years later. For years, Tamam has awaited her reunion with Salim and Kamal in heaven.

Dates confuse Tamam. For her, war is war, and from her home in Gazas Nuseirat refugee camp, it seems that her life has been a permanent war  not the kind aimed at simply conquering an enemy, but one that has defeated her emotionally and broken her spirit.

Although events of various wars are all muddled up in Tamams memory, she remembers what matters to her most: her fathers love, her mothers faith, Salims courage and what Kamal whispered in her ear the last time she saw him. Dont worry, mother, he said. I will be fine.

For Tamam, as for many Palestinian refugees, memory is not a mere accumulation of past events, but an ongoing experience that they live and relive daily. Neatly composed timelines and conveniently structured academic classifications of history do not define Tamam.

Indeed, Tamam has been defined and redefined numerous times over the years.

In the Zionist narrative, she did not exist, and still does not. Israel and its supporters insist that Palestinians are not people, and thus not entitled to a homeland. At best, they were roaming nomads with no connection to the desert that bloomed thanks to the miraculous efforts of the Jewish people.

Tamams father was a peasant in Joulis, owning a small patch of land, a few cows and a donkey, and a house made of bricks and hardened mud. After he was uprooted from Joulis, he died heartbroken, leaving Tamam still weeping for Palestine after all these years.

If ever her memory waned, her years of destitution and harshness in a refugee camp would bring it back  a constant reminder. In fact, sometimes unwittingly, alternative narratives of Tamams life have in some way fed into the Zionist depiction of Palestine and the Palestinians.

Per United Nations terminology, Tamam was initially seen as part of a larger refugee problem, and her peoples fate was precariously described as the question of Palestine. Her problem was supposedly humanitarian, devoid of any political meaning. Her question was meant to be resolved, even if outside international law and basic human rights.

But after nearly 70 years of talking, debating, resolving, affirming and reaffirming, Tamam is still in the same refugee camp to which her family was exiled in 1948.

Her village, Joulis, exists only in her mind and in the memories of the peasants who were brutally uprooted from their simple yet enchanting Palestinian paradise. Each family was assigned to a blue tent and given a ration of food to prevent starvation.

For Tamam, the Nakba is not a date. It is far more encompassing than a single event, however tragic. Everything that existed before that date is the life that she was unfairly denied, leaving her with lasting scars. The Nakba, in some way, has become her identity.

INTERACTIVE: Al Nakba

Now, Tamams grandchildren are embarking on a life of their own. They are getting married, having babies, adding to the familys old home and mapping out their futures. They have inherited Tamams eternal sadness, but also her legendary resolve.

When Kamal died, Tamam declared that all the children in the refugee camp were her sons and daughters. She fought soldiers on many occasions to free frightened boys from imminent arrest and was beaten in the process; her bruises have only intensified her sense of purpose.

While her grandchildren do not relate to the Nakba in the same way that Tamam does, for them  and for many among the new generation of Palestinians  the Nakba has been forever internalised. It now exists beyond the boundaries of memory, geography and trauma. It is a focal point in the genesis of their ongoing tragedy.

Not talking about the Nakba, or determining that some other date  such as the June 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem  as the start of the Palestinian story is both thoughtless and a waste of time.





The Nakba has become so ingrained into the very consciousness of Palestinians that it would be impossible to imagine a truly peaceful future without addressing that original injustice.

When I asked Tamam if she would go back to Joulis if she was given the chance, she laughed. I am too old, son, she said. I can barely walk.

She continued: But if I smell the air of Joulis once more, I will die happy. Her eyes, by then, had filled with tears. She adjusted her white headscarf, lowered her head slightly, and once again dove into a sea of memories.

Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for more than 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada, and his latest, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gazas Untold Story. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
Security forces in Kunduz province recapture Qala-e-Zal, overrun by Taliban last week as part of their spring offensive.

The Afghan military has regained control of a district in northern Kunduz province that fell to Taliban fighters earlier this month as part of their so-called spring offensive, security officials say.

Tuesdays advance came after Afghan forces launched a major operation against Taliban positions to retake the Qala-e-Zal district on Tuesday morning.

The governors building, police headquarters and several key areas are cleared of terrorists, but the operation is still ongoing in other insecure areas of the district, the interior ministry said in a statement.





According to local media, one Taliban fighter has been killed and two others wounded. There were no details about civilian casualties or deaths of security forces.

Around 2,000 families have been displaced with most relocating in Kunduz city. Some have fled to other nearby districts, Assadullah Sadat, a member of the Kunduz provincial council, told AFP news agency.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) had earlier said that some displaced families were forced to sleep in the open while others were crammed inside the homes of relatives.

A Kunduz government spokesman added that security forces were clearing out landmines planted by fighters in the recaptured areas.

The Taliban had taken full control of the district on May 6 after they launched their so-called spring offensive.

READ MORE: Nearly 90,000 Afghans displaced in 2017, says UN

The offensive normally marks the start of the fighting season, though this winter the Taliban continued to battle government forces. An attack on a military base in the nearby city of Mazar-i-Sharif last month killed at least 135 security forces.

Kunduz is among the most violence-wrecked provinces in northern Afghanistan. Although the city centre itself is in government hands, the Taliban control most of the surrounding districts.

Security forces have been struggling to open the main highway into the city after it was blocked with mines and improvised roadside bombs.

Thousands of residents are reported to have fled their homes to avoid the fighting.

According to US estimates, the Afghan government controls only about 60 percent of the country, with the rest under Taliban control or contested by armed groups.
Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro stage sit-ins and roadblocks across Venezuela on Monday to press for elections.

At least one person has died in renewed violence in Venezuela, as thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro staged sit-ins and roadblocks across the country in a seventh week of anti-government rallies.

Luis Alviarez, 18, was killed during protests in the western state of Tachira after being shot by gunfire in the thorax, prosecutors said, without giving further details. That brought the death toll since the start of the protests to at least 39 people.





Demonstrators have been on the streets daily since early April to press for elections, blaming Maduro for an economic crisis that has caused severe shortages of food and medicine.

The president accuses protesters of seeking a violent coup, and says he is the victim of an international right-wing conspiracy that has already brought down leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years.

The government and the opposition have blamed each other of sending armed groups to sow violence in the protests. Police have blocked marches with tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons, while protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails, vandalised property and started fires in a near-daily series of clashes.

Sit-ins and roadblocks

On Monday, protesters stayed on Caracas main roads for six hours, then began to disperse under a heavy rain in late afternoon. Others vowed to stay rain or shine for the full 12 hours of the sit-in.

Im here for the full 12 hours. And Ill be back every day theres a protest, for as long as is necessary, Anelin Rojas, a 30-year-old human resources worker, told the Reuters news agency.

Unfortunately, we are up against a dictatorship. Nothing is going to change unless we force them, Rojas added, surrounded by placards saying Resistance! and Maduro, Your Time Is Up!

OPINION: Why is Venezuela in crisis again?

In Tachira, some farmers were striking in solidarity with the protesters, while on Margarita island, opposition politician Yanet Fermin was detained while mediating between security forces and protesters, her party said.

In Valencia, three policemen were injured, authorities said, with one mistakenly reported by the local Socialist Party governor as having been shot dead earlier in the day.





The opposition, which commands majority support after years in the shadow of the ruling socialists, is more united than during the last wave of anti-Maduro protests in 2014.

Escalating crisis

The protests that erupted after the government-stacked Supreme Court issued a ruling March 29 nullifying the opposition-controlled National Assembly, a decision it later reversed amid a storm of domestic and international criticism.

The government is also setting up a controversial body called a constituent assembly, with authority to rewrite the constitution and shake up public powers.

Maduro says that is needed to bring peace to Venezuela, but opponents view it as a cynical tactic to buy time and create a biased body that could perpetuate the socialists rule.

Theres a real situation of crisis in the country, and the opposition says they will not give up until elections are called, Al Jazeeras John Holman, reporting from Cucuta, in Venezuelas border with Colombia, said.
Blasts kill six people in Syrian refugee camp hours after air raids kill at least 30 in town of Abu Kamal.

A pair of car bombs has killed at least six people and wounded several others in Syrias sprawling Rukban refugee camp near the border with Jordan, according to a rebel official and a resident.

The first explosion on Monday went off close to a restaurant, while the second targeted the camps market nearby.





There are at least six civilians dead and the number is expected to rise, Mohammad Adnan, a rebel official from Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair who runs the policing of the camp, told the Reuters news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

In January, a car bomb killed a number of people in the camp, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group has since launched attacks on Syrian rebels in the area.

Rukban, near the joint Syria-Iraq-Jordan border, is home to refugees and also to rebel groups, including the Jaish Ahrar al-Ashair, which fight both President Bashar al-Assad and ISIL.

It was also hit by bomb attacks last year.

The car bombs came just hours after air raids hit a Syrian border town in the eastern province of Deir Az Zor and killed at least 30 people, mostly civilians, according to a monitor, which tracks developments on Syrias conflict via a network of contacts on the ground.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that more than a dozen children were among those killed when the air raids  thought to have been carried out by the US-led coalition  hit residential areas and a mosque in the Abu Kamal town.

READ MORE: Syrias besieged communities

The ISIL-linked media outlet Amaq said coalition strikes killed 15 people and wounded 35 others in Abu Kamal.

ISIL holds most of Deir Az Zor province, apart from an enclave at the centre and a nearby air base controlled by Syrian government forces. The province links territory ISIL fighters control in Syria and Iraq.

Since it broke out in March 2011, Syrias conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions and ravaged the countrys economy and infrastructure.

Competing tracks of peace talks

A new round of Syria talks opens in Geneva on Tuesday, overshadowed by a competing process in Kazakhstans capital, Astana, and with rebels reeling from a major setback in the capital, Damascus.

Efforts to end the war are now proceeding along two rival tracks: the formal political peace process hosted at the United Nations offices in Geneva and parallel talks in Kazakhstan brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

Observers say the UN appears to be scrambling to match Astanas momentum after a landmark deal signed in Kazakhstan on May 4 to create four de-escalation zones across some of Syrias bloodiest battlegrounds.

UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters on Monday that the Geneva talks were working in tandem with the Astana process.

READ MORE: Can the de-escalation plan in Syria work?

Since the Astana deal came into effect a week ago, fighting has slowed across swathes of the country.

But in Damascus, which is not included in the deal, the government has recently secured the evacuation of three rebel-held districts, bringing it closer to exerting full control over the capital for the first time since 2012.

Numerous rounds of UN-backed talks have not produced concrete results, although during the last round in March the sides finally began discussing four separate baskets of issues: governance, a new constitution, elections and combating terrorism in the country.
Report blaming US president for leaking ISIL-related intelligence to Russian diplomats stirs up a new political storm.

Donald Trump has confirmed in a series of tweets that he shared information with Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, respectively Russias foreign minister and ambassador in Washington, DC, while hosting them in the Oval Office.

The US president defended his move on Tuesday, saying he had an absolute right to do so as commander-in-chief and that he discussed facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

A report by the Washington Post newspaper quoted two US officials saying that Trump shared highly classified information about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), supplied by a US ally in the fight against the hardline group.

Several major US media outlets identified Israel as the ally that had provided the intelligence to the Trump administration. Israeli officials declined to comment.

Trumps tweets did not say whether he revealed classified information about ISIL.

In a Tuesday press briefing, HR McMaster, Trumps national security adviser, said the premise of the article was false.

He said sharing the information was wholly appropriate and that it did not result in any way in a lapse in national security.

Al Jazeeras James Bays, reporting from Washington, DC, said its clear that he said things to the Russians in the Oval Office, adding the disclosure might burn a relationship with one of those close allies [in the Middle East].

As for McMasters statements, Al Jazeeras Kimberly Halkett, also reporting from Washington, DC, said they are a very carefully crafted set and that there is no denial that classified information was shared.

White House reaction

The disclosure put a source of intelligence on ISIL at risk, according to the Washington Post, which broke the story on Monday.

The White House reacted to the reports, but did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting between Trump and the Russian diplomats.

Trump entered the debate personally after Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, and McMaster issued statements saying that no sources, methods or military operations were discussed at the Russian meeting.





The Kremlin dismissed the reports as complete nonsense. Russias foreign ministry spokesperson took to Facebook to describe the reports as yet another fake.

The developments come close on the heels of Trumps contentious dismissal of James Comeyas FBI director amid an investigation into allegations of the presidents ties to Russia.

Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, has been a central player in that controversy, involving possible coordination between Trumps campaign and alleged Russian medding in the US presidential election.

Very, very troubling

The alleged Trump disclosure comes in advance of his first overseas trip to the Middle East and then to the NATO leaders summit in Brussels.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations very, very troubling.

Obviously, theyre in a downward spiral right now, he said on Monday, and theyve got to come to grips with all thats happening.

Malcolm Turnbull, Australias prime minister, would not comment on the disclosure. Australia is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing programme with the US, Canada, Britain and New Zealand.

Jordan said King Abdullah II was to speak by phone on Tuesday with Trump.

The Royal Court insisted the arrangements for the call were made last week. Jordan is one key US ally in the Middle East.

A senior German legislator expressed concern about the reports.

If it proves to be true that the American president passed on internal intelligence matters that would be highly worrying, Burkhard Lischka told The Associated Press news agency.
Meeting between Turkish and US leaders comes just days after Trumps decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held talks on a range of bilateral issues at the White House with US President Donald Trump.

The main two topics on Tuesdays agenda were Trumps decision to send weapons to Syrian Kurdish forces of YPG and Turkeys request for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim leader.

Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, is accused by the Turkish government of having planned the failed military coup in 2016.

The US announced on May 10 that it would supply weapons and military equipment to YPG units of the SDF alliance battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in Syria, despite strong opposition from Turkey, a NATO ally.

Talk to Al Jazeera  Erdogan: Obama deceived us over PKK

The Kurdish elements of the SDF, which is backed by the US-led coalition, are from the YPG, or the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, the main faction battling ISIL.

We will support Turkey in the fight against ISIS and the PKK and we will ensure that they have no safe quarter in the region, Trump said at Tuesdays joint news conference with Erdogan.

For his part, Erdogan said: Taking the YPG and [its political wing] PYD into consideration in the region will never be accepted and will go against a global agreement that we have reached.

We should never allow those groups to manipulate the religious and ethnic structure of the region making terrorism as a pretext or excuse.

Strategic allies

Turkey says the YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) inside Turkey, which has waged an armed campaign since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people.

To supply weapons to Kurdish units in Syria is unacceptable, Turkeys deputy prime minister said in a TV interview.

The Pentagon says the YPG is the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.

Map: The battle against ISIL

For its part, Turkey is demanding that the Raqqa offensive is carried out with the Free Syrian Army and not the SDF.

International news media quoted Erdogan as saying before boarding the flight to Washington, DC: We are either strategic allies and decide together, or we are not, and then we have to go our separate ways.

Al Jazeeras Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, DC, said Erdogan insisted that he reserves the right to fight terrorism in the region on all fronts.

This meeting will have a direct impact on the conflict in Syria and the Syrian people, she said.





Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeeras senior political analyst, said: So far, President Trump doesnt really have a clear foreign policy in the Middle East, so Erdogan wishes clarity, engagement and cooperation.

Theres a lot of discord, but there is also a chance that the two like-minded people [] will work together. They can both benefit from each other.

Erdogan would love to get Trump and Putin to work together with Turkey and thus eliminate Iran from the equation.

As for Gulen, Turkish officials have officially requested his extradition from the US to stand trial in Turkey.

Erdogan had sent two top officials to Washington, DC, before his own visit to the White House.

Hulusi Akar and Hakan Fida, respectively the Turkish military and intelligence chiefs, held talks with senior US officials.

Supporters thanked

Turkeys Anadolu news agency said more than 100 supporters welcomed Erdogan as he arrived at Trumps guest home in Washington, DC.

As he pulled into Blair House, supporters chanted Erdogans name and red and white, the colours of the Turkish flag.

Following Erdogans arrival, Turkeys ambassador to the US thanked supporters, some of whom he said travelled to Washington, DC, from as far away as California on the West Coast.

This unity and solidarity, especially in these days is very important, Serdar Kilic said.

A meeting with Turkish-American business and religious leaders at the Turkish ambassadors residence in northwest Washington, DC, was scheduled.

Gunay Ovunc, a second-generation Turkish-American who co-chairs the Turkish-American National Steering Committee, said: Here today, we are beyond party lines.

We have transcended those divisions.
Sixth round of UN-backed negotiations resumes in Swiss city but hopes for a breakthrough remain dim.

A new round of Syria peace talks has opened in Geneva as the government in Damascus fiercely denied it used a prison crematorium to hide evidence of thousands of murdered detainees.

Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations have failed to yield a solution to the six-year conflict and hopes for a mjor breakthrough remain dim.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy, met Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian government negotiar, on Tuesday, followed by the oppositions High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

Jaafari also met Gennady Gatilov, Russias deputy foreign minister, before returning to the UN in the evening for further talks, according to Syrias state news agency SANA.

The HNC was also due back to the UN offices in Geneva later on in the evening.

New Hollywood plot

Tensions  already high over recent opposition setbacks in Damscus  have been raised further by US claims of new government atrocities at the notorious Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

The US state department on Monday accused Bashar al-Assads government of using a crematorium to cover up the deaths of thousands of prisoners at Saydnaya.

Syrias foreign ministery on Tuesday categorically denied the US accusations , calling them part of a new Hollywood plot to justify US intervention in the war-torn country.

READ MORE: Syrias civil war explained from the beginning

Salem al-Muslet, HNC spokesperson, speaking to AFP news agency before his delegations first meeting, said the fresh accusations demanded a response.

The Americans know whats going on in Syria now.  To save the lives of Syrian people, it needs some action from the [United] States, from our friends, and I hope they will do it very soon, he said.

Assad recently called the Geneva process null, telling a Belarusian TV network that it had become merely a meeting for the media.

His comments, coupled with uncertainty over the US position on Syria, have made diplomats highly sceptical over the [impact of the talks] in Geneva, said Al Jazeeras Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Geneva.

In fact, it is the most amount of scepticism that I have heard from diplomats involved in this process.

Separate baskets

The negotiations are the latest effort to end a war that has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the countrys pre-war population.

They are expected to focus on four separate baskets: governance, a new constitution, elections and combating terrorism in the war-ravaged country.

But one issue  Assads fate  remains a persistent roadblock.





The HNC has insisted Assads departure must be part of any political transition, a demand unacceptable to the Syrian government.

The HNCs first session with de Mistura focused on releasing detainees and a new constitution, Muslet announced after the meeting.

But the Geneva talks have been overshadowed by a series of rebel evacuations from Damascus and rival negotiations in Kazakhstans capital, Astana.

Sponsored by Turkey, the oppositions key backer, and Russia and Iran, allies of Assad, that track produced a May 4 deal to create four  de-escalation zones  across some of Syrias bloodiest battlegrounds.

De Mistura has dismissed suggestions that the Astana negotiations were competing with the Geneva track, saying they were working in tandem.The HNC insisted that UN-backed talks are by far the most critical.

We only believe in deals that are agreed upon here in Geneva  not in Astana, Muslet said.

De Mistura, who has lasted as Syria envoy far longer than his two predecessors, has consistently tried to resist pessimism.

The alternative to talks is no discussion [and] no hope, he said on Tuesday.

Al Jazeeras Jamjoom said if de Mistura is not able to come away with something significant from this round of talks, then the whole Geneva process could collapse all together.
Hamas says suspects admitted received instructions from Israel for carrying out killing as 45 collaborators are held.

The three men accused of assassinating a senior Hamas commander in March have confessed to the crime and admitted that they received instructions from Israel for carrying out the killing, according to Gaza officials.

Mazen Faqha, of Hamass military wing, was fatally shot in the head and chest at the entrance of his Gaza City home on March 24.

The three collaborators confessed that they received instructions to surveil Faqha and his home, Major General Tawfiq Abu Naim, commander of internal security forces, said in a news conference on Tuesday.





A large security operation resulted in the arrest of a network of 45 Palestinian collaborators within the Gaza Strip, he added.

The assassination was carried out by Israeli intelligence officers who were communicating [with the collaborators] through telephones and communications equipment.

The announcement came five days after Hamas said it had arrested Faqhas killer, adding that the suspect had carried out the assassination on Israels orders. Ismail Haniya, the newly-elected leader of Hamass political wing, said on May 11 that more details would be released soon.

A video released on Tuesday showed the steps, including Faqhas surveillance, carried out to assassinate Faqha according to the confessions obtained by Hamas.

Hamas says the video proves Israels role behind the operation.

READ MORE: New Hamas chief backs hunger-striking prisoners

Israels defence ministry has denied involvement in the assassination, Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Ramallah, said.

However, this was a man [Faqha] on the top five of Israels most wanted, Fawcett added.

Israel has a history of carrying out extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian leaders, both political and military, including the killing of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in Gaza in 2004.

READ MORE: Hamas accepts Palestinian state with 1967 borders

Faqha was a senior Hamas official in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when he was jailed by Israel in 2003 for planning attacks against Israelis.

He was sentenced to nine life terms but was released into the Gaza Strip as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel let go in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit.

Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.

The small strip of land, home to nearly two million Palestinians, has been under a crippling Israeli blockade for a decade, while Egypts crossing with the enclave has remained largely closed in those years as well.
Spokesmen for soldiers rebelling over pay reject offer of $8,360 each as mutiny paralyses large parts of Ivory Coast.

Renegade soldiers in Ivory Coast have rejected a proposal to end a four-day mutiny over unpaid bonuses just minutes after the government claimed a deal had been reached.

President Alassane Ouattara has been trying to restore order after 8,400 mutineers took control of Ivory Coasts second-biggest city, Bouake, closed border posts and blockaded roads across the West African nation.

Heavy gunfire on Monday also paralysed much of Abidjan, the commercial capital, and the western port city of San Pedro.





Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi said on state television late on Monday: To end the stalemate and avoid any more bereavement of families, the army chief of staff held talks with the soldiers on Sunday and Monday The talks have resulted in an arrangement to end the crisis.

But two spokesmen for the mutineers confirmed the governments proposal had been rejected.

They proposed 5m CFA francs [$8,360] to be paid tomorrow [to each soldier]. But we want 7m to be paid in one payment and immediately, Sergeant Seydou Kone, one of the spokesmen, told Reuters news agency.

The mutineers, many of them former rebels who fought to bring Ouattara to power, revolted on Friday when a spokesman for the group dropped demands for bonus payments, promised during negotiations to end an earlier uprising in January.

READ MORE: Gunfire hits Abidjan, Bouake and San Pedro amid mutiny

The soldiers were to be paid bonuses of 12m CFA francs ($19,950) each, with an initial payment of 5m francs that month.

They were due to get the rest this month, but the government has struggled to make the payment with a budget hit by the collapse in the price of cocoa, Ivory Coasts main export.

Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abidjan, said the litmus test for the latest deal will be in the next few hours whether or not we see them [the mutineers] withdrawing from the positions they have occupied and return to the barracks.

The mutiny has everyone worried he said, noting Ivory Coast only emerged from a decade of political crisis and violence in 2011.

Now this mutiny is threatening the business climate here, and people are starting to wonder what will happen to their investment, Idris said. This is a nation that has seen some of the worst killings over the past decade, and they do not want to go back to that again.
Soldiers reach deal on pay and agree to return to barracks, ending a revolt that paralysed country for four days.

Soldiers who staged a nationwide mutiny in Ivory Coast have reached an agreement with the government on bonus payments and have agreed to return to barracks, ending a revolt that paralysed cities and towns across the country for four days.

Two spokesmen for the mutinous troops said on Tuesday that their financial demands had been met.

We accept the governments proposal  We are returning to barracks now, Sergeant Seydou Kone told Reuters new agency on Tuesday.

Soldiers in Bouake, the epicentre of the uprising and Ivory Coasts second largest city, have withdrawn into their bases, and cocoa exporters in the economic capital of Abidjan resumed business after a one-day closure.





Weve just handed back control of the entrances to the city [Bouake] to the police and gendarmes this morning, and were returning to our barracks, another spokesman for the group said.

Residents in towns across the country affected by the mutiny said that calm had largely returned on Tuesday morning and that banks and stores had reopened.

The renegade soldiers had rejected an earlier deal announced late on Monday.

However, leaders said the agreement had been amended overnight.

According to spokesmen, the proposal accepted by the soldiers means 8,400 mutineers  mostly former rebel fighters who helped President Alassane Ouattara to power  will receive an immediate bonus payment of 5m CFA francs ($8,400).

Another 2m francs will then be paid at the end of next month.

Middle-of-the-road

The payments are the remainder of a sum promised by Ouatarras government during talks to end an earlier mutiny in January.

The latest revolt began on Friday when a spokesman for the soldiers unilaterally dropped earlier demands for bonuses.

READ MORE: Ivory Coast mutineers reject deal to end crisis

Al Jazeeras Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abidjan, described the new deal as a middle-of-the-road approach.

From the look of things, the government has given in and this [deal] will be implemented  the Ivorian government realised the only way out, because it was a promise, is to keep to that promise, he said.

Ivory Coast emerged from a decade of political crisis capped by a civil war in 2011 as one of the worlds fastest-growing economies.

Last year, the government unveiled an ambitious plan to modernise the countrys 22,000-strong military, part of which would involve the departure of several thousand men, particularly ex-rebels, who would not be replaced.
India urges top UN court to order Pakistan to stay the execution of Kulbhushan Jadhav convicted to death by army court.

Lawyers and officials from India and Pakistan have faced off at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague over the impending execution of an alleged Indian spy by Islamabad.

Pakistans military sentenced Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, a retired Indian naval officer, to death last month on charges of espionage and sabotage. No date was set for the execution, and Pakistan has said his conviction and sentence remain open to appeal.

India argued in a preliminary hearing at the top UN court on Monday that Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying Jadhav access to legal assistance.

New Delhi, which denies Jadhav is a spy, has asked the ICJ to declare the verdict illegal and order Pakistan to release him.

It is clear that Mr Jadhav has been denied the right to be defended by a legal counsel of his choice. by Deepak Mittal, India representative

It is clear that Mr Jadhav has been denied the right to be defended by a legal counsel of his choice. He has not been informed of his right to seek consular access, Indias representative at the hearing, Deepak Mittal, said.

Dubbing Indias complaint as a political theatre, Mohammad Faisal, Pakistans representative, accused India of time-wasting and political grandstanding, adding that the court should decline jurisdiction in the case.

Ronny Abraham, the courts president, said the tribunal would publicly deliver its decision on whether to grant an emergency stay of execution as soon as possible.

READ MORE: Pakistan army sentences Indian spy to death

According to Islamabad, Jadhav confessed to being tasked by Indias intelligence service with planning, coordinating and organising espionage and sabotage activities in Balochistan province aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan.

Mittal, the Indian official, said the charges against Jadhav were concocted and his trial farcical.

He insisted Pakistan has failed to respond to all Indian demands for information about the case, snubbing requests for documents, including the charge sheet.

But Faisal, the Pakistani representative, argued that consular access is not an absolute right under the Vienna treaty.

Pakistani lawyer Khawar Qureshi also told the court that a 2008 bilateral agreement between Pakistan and India allows either country to decide on consular access in cases involving political or security issues.

Jadhav was arrested in Balochistan in March last year, according to Pakistan, but New Delhi insists he was kidnapped from Iran, where he was running his business.

Faisal also showed the court a picture of a passport which he said was found in Jadhavs possession bearing a completely different and Muslim name.

India has been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide an explanation for this passport which is the most obvious indication of covert and illegal activity, added Faisal.

The case has highlighted the recent sharp uptick in tensions between the neighbouring nuclear-armed rivals, with the two sides outlining starkly different accounts.

The ICJ is the United Nations court for resolving disputes between nations, and its decisions are final and binding. However, it has no means to enforce its rulings and they have occasionally been ignored.

In a similar dispute over the Vienna Convention in 1999, the ICJ ordered the United States not to execute a German national who did not get proper consular assistance  but the man was put to death regardless.
Veteran reporter, who covered drug trafficking and organised crime, was the fifth journalist killed in Mexico this year.

Javier Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialised in covering drug trafficking and organised crime, was murdered in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in one of the worlds most dangerous countries for media workers.

Valdezs killing on Monday makes him at least the fifth journalist to be murdered in Mexico in just over two months, and the second high-profile reporter to be slain in the country over the past few years, after Regina Martinez Perez was found strangled in her home in 2012.

A Sinaloa state government official said Valdez, 50, was shot dead in the early afternoon in the state capital, Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he had co-founded, Riodoce. The official was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Riodoce confirmed Valdezs killing on its website, saying he was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen.

He was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, which reported that he was pulled from his car and shot multiple times.

READ MORE: Double standards: Do all journalist lives matter?

Valdez was a nationally and internationally recognised journalist who authored several books on the drug trade, including Narcoperiodismo and Los Morros del Narco. The latter chronicled the lives of young people swept up in Mexicos underworld.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said on Twitter that he had ordered an investigation of this outrageous crime.

Valdezs brother, Rafael, said the reporter had been very happy in recent days and had not indicated that he had received threats.

He was very reserved when it came to his work. He never talked about it so as not to drag people into it, Rafael Valdez told the AFP news agency.

I asked him several times whether he was afraid. He said yes; he was a human being. So I asked him why he risked his life and he replied: It is something I like doing, and someone has to do it. You have to fight to change things.'

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Valdez had told them he was concerned for his safety just weeks before his murder.





Living in Sinaloa is a threat, and being a journalist is an additional threat, Valdez said in an interview with the CPJ, according to the groups website. We learned how to live in times when bullets are flying around us.

The Committee to Protect Journalists honoured Javier Valdez Cardenas with an International Press Freedom Award in 2011 to recognise his bravery and uncompromising journalism in the face of threats, said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country.

Valdezs murder came less than two weeks after a CPJ delegation met in Mexico City with Pena Nieto and other top government officials, and about a month after the killing of veteran reporter Maximino Rodriguez Palacios in La Paz on the Baja California peninsula.

Mexico ranks third in the world for the number of journalists killed, after Syria and Afghanistan, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

Last Wednesday, the federal Attorney Generals Office replaced the head of its division responsible for investigating journalist killings. Ricardo Sanchez Perez del Pozo, a lawyer with a background in international law and human rights, took over the post.

In a 2017 report titled No Excuse, journalist Adela Navarro Bello wrote for the CPJ that covering corruption in Mexico means living with impunity.

Between 2006 and 2016, 21 journalists were murdered with complete impunity in Mexico, putting the country sixth on CPJs annual index that measures cases where perpetrators remain unpunished, Bello wrote.

The system seems to be corrupt down to its very foundation; either that or its simply incapable of achieving justice.
Azerbaijan says it has destroyed an Armenian air defence missile system in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, drawing a sharp response from the separatists who vowed retaliation.

Azerbaijan and Armenia  part of the former Soviet Union until 1991  are locked in a protracted conflict over the disputed region, and almost went to war in April 2016 following deadly border clashes.

Azerbaijani forces destroyed on Monday an Armenian Osa air defence system and its crew in the Fisuli-Khojavend sector of Karabakhs frontline in order to avert the threat it posed to Azerbaijans aircraft, an official from the press service of Azerbaijans defence ministry told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.





The Nagorno-Karabakh separatist authorities confirmed that an Azerbaijani attack damaged its equipment, but said there were no casualties. It warned in a statement that the Azerbaijani provocation wont be left unanswered.

Azerbaijani forces provocation will not be left unanswered, it said.

The incident comes months after several Azerbaijani servicemen were killed in February in with Karabakh troops.

In April 2016, at least 110 people from both sides were killed as simmering violence flared into the worst fighting in decades.

A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the four days of fierce clashes but attempts to relaunch the stalled peace process since then have failed.

OPINION: Nagorno-Karabakh is not a localised conflict

Nagorno-Karabakh is officially part of Azerbaijan, but since a separatist war ended in 1994 it has been under the control of forces that claim to be local ethnic Armenians  Azerbaijan claims they include regular Armenian military.

That war in the early 1990s claimed some 30,000 lives, and the two sides have never signed a firm peace deal.

Russia wields influence in the region and has sponsored mediation to end past clashes. It has stationed thousands of its troops and military hardware in Armenia, a close ally.
Police spokesman says about 390 rebels and more than 120 security forces killed in fighting in central Kasai province.

More than 500 people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congos (DRC) central Kasai province in the past five months, according to police, in an area that has seen fighting between security forces and members of a local armed group.

Among the dead were 39 soldiers, 85 police officers and about 390 rebels, national police spokesman Pierrot Mwanamputu told the DPA news agency on Monday.





The region has been hit by increasing violence between the Kamwina Nsapu militia and troops since the traditional chief heading the militia, who wanted state presence removed from the area, was killed in fighting in August.

The Kamwina Nsapu claim government was exercising unjust political domination in the region.

United Nations investigators have discovered dozens of mass graves since the unrest began, including 17 sites found in April in Kasai.

Overall, the UN has documented 40 mass grave sites and killings of more than 400 people in Kasai Central and Kasai Oriental provinces since last August.

READ MORE: Ebola outbreak declared in DRC after three deaths

DRC President Joseph Kabila signed military orders declaring the region a military zone on April 6 with the aim of quelling the violence.

Almost 1.3 million people have fled the region due to the fighting, according to the UN. In early May, 8,000 people were displaced per day, the UN said.

Last month, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called the DRCs government to launch an investigation into reports of rapes and killing by soldiers, threatening that the International Criminal Court would do so if authorities failed to take action.
Bankruptcy lawyer, who is sceptical of a two-state solution, takes up post, just days before Trumps visit to Israel.

David Friedman, the controversial new US ambassador to Israel, has arrived in the country to take up his post, just days before a visit by US President Donald Trump.

Friedman, who presented his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday, has been a strong supporter of Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

After his arrival in Tel Aviv on Monday, Friedman visited the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalem, praying there and kissing the sacred site.





I prayed for the president and I wished him success, especially on his upcoming trip, Friedman said in a video posted on the US embassys Twitter feed.

I know its going to be an amazing trip.

A Jewish-American bankruptcy lawyer, Friedman has expressed scepticism over the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict  the basis of years of US diplomatic efforts.

He has also advocated breaking with decades of precedent by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the divided city of Jerusalem, a prospect deeply alarming to Palestinians who see the occupied eastern half of the city as their future capital.

Trump pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem during his campaign but has since backed away, saying the move was still being looked at.

READ MORE  US ambassador to Israel: Great advantage to Netanyahu

He will have to decide by the beginning of June whether to continue with the policy of his predecessors and again block the embassys transfer.

Trump is expected to visit Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories on May 22 and 23.

Western Wall

Israeli officials reacted angrily to recent reports in local news media that representatives of the US consulate had suggested the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalem did not belong to Israel.

The statement that the Western Wall is part of the West Bank was received with shock, an official in Netanyahus office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel is convinced that this statement contradicts President Trumps policies  Israel has reached out to the United States on this matter.





Trump is reportedly planning to visit the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalems Old City during his visit.

Israels Channel Two reported that Israeli officials offering to help plan the event were told by American counterparts it was not their remit.

One US official said the Western Wall was part of the West Bank, Channel Two reported.

The White House distanced itself from the alleged comments, saying in statements to US media that they did not reflect the views of the administration.

Worse than kapos

Speaking at a pre-election rally in October in support of Trump on Jerusalems Mount Zion, Friedman said Trump would fire US state department lifers who refused to move the embassy.

He has also clashed with American Jewish progressive groups, notably dubbing liberals worse than kapos, a reference to Jewish collaborators who worked as guards in Nazi concentration camps.

His appointment comes as Trump seeks ways to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, and questions have been raised over whether Friedman will be able to put his personal views aside.

Trump himself has sent mixed signals over how he will approach the decades-old conflict.

OPINION: Palestinians expect nothing good from Trump

He cast uncertainty over years of international efforts to foster a two-state solution when he met Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, at the White House in February.

At that meeting, he said he would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting Israeli right-wingers who want to see their country annex most of the occupied West Bank.

At the same time, he urged Israel to hold back on settlement building in the West Bank, a long-standing concern of Palestinians and much of the world.

He also held face-to-face talks in Washington, DC with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this month, confidently predicting that a peace agreement was within grasp and brushing aside the complexities of a conflict that has bedevilled successive US leaders.

Settlement support

We will get it done, Trump said, flaunting what he has described as his deal-making prowess.

It is something that I think is, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.

Friedmans support for settlements has drawn particular attention.

READ MORE  Hamas: Israel collaborators admit killing top commander

Trump, the parents of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Friedman have all reportedly contributed financially to the Beit El settlement, near the Palestinian political capital Ramallah.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Friedman has been president of a group called American Friends of Beit El Institutions.

It said the group raises about $2m a year for Beit El.





Israeli settlements are viewed as illegal under international law and major stumbling blocks to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967 in moves never recognised by the international community.

It later annexed East Jerusalem and claims the entire city as its undivided capital.

The Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, said on Sunday that Trump was still assessing whether relocating the embassy would help or harm chances for peace.

Netanyahu responded by saying on Monday that not only would moving the embassy not harm the peace process, but to the contrary.

It would advance it by fixing a historic wrong and shatter the Palestinian illusion that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.
Some code in massive WannaCry attack was earlier used in hacking operation linked to Pyongyang.

Cybersecurity researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry ransomware cyberattack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programmes used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a North Korea-run hacking operation.

This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry, Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner told Reuters news agency.

READ MORE: WannaCry: What ransomware is and how to avoid it

Both firms said it was too early to tell whether North Korea was involved in the attacks, based on the evidence that was published on Twitter by Google security researcher Neel Mehta. The attacks, which slowed on Monday, are among the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.





The research will be closely followed by law enforcement agencies around the world, including Washington, where President Donald Trumps homeland security adviser said on Monday that both foreign nations and cybercriminals were possible culprits.

The two security firms said they needed to study the code more and asked for others to help with the analysis. Hackers do reuse code from other operations, so even copied lines fall well short of proof.

US and European security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it was too early to say who might be behind the attacks, but they did not rule out North Korea as a suspect.

FireEye Inc, another large cybersecurity firm, said it was also investigating a possible link.

The similarities we see between malware linked to that group and WannaCry are not unique enough to be strongly suggestive of a common operator, FireEye researcher John Miller said.

The Lazarus hackers, acting for impoverished North Korea, have been more brazen in pursuit of financial gain than others, and have been blamed for the theft of $81m from the Bangladesh central bank, according to some cybersecurity firms.

READ MORE: Global hacking attack infects 57,000 computers

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.

Regardless of the source of the attack, investors piled into cybersecurity stocks on Monday, betting that governments and corporations will spend more to upgrade their defences.

The perpetrators had raised less than $70,000 from users paying to regain access to their computers, according to Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert.





We are not aware if payments have led to any data recovery, Bossert said, adding that no US federal government systems had been affected.

WannaCry demanded ransoms starting at $300, in line with many cyber-extortion campaigns, which keep pricing low so more victims will pay.

Still, some security experts said they were not sure if the motive of WannaCry was primarily to make money, noting that large cyber-extortion campaigns typically generate millions of dollars of revenue.

I believe that this was spread for the purpose of causing as much damage as possible, said Matthew Hickey, a co-founder of British cyber consulting firm Hacker House.

READ MORE: Global cyberattack alert as experts warn of more havoc

The countries most affected by WannaCry to date are Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and India, according to Czech security firm Avast.

The number of infections has fallen dramatically since Fridays peak, when more than 9,000 computers were being hit per hour. Earlier on Monday, Chinese traffic police and schools reported they had been targeted as the attack rolled into Asia for the new work week, but there were no major disruptions.

Authorities in Europe and the United States turned their attention to preventing hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.
Moscow, Russia  Armed police officers broke into Nigora Marupovas rented apartment in southeastern Moscow at dawn on May 5 and took away her weeping and screaming daughters aged two and four.

They told the confounded woman from Uzbekistan, who lived in Russia for 14 years without legal trouble, that they would place the children in an orphanage because Marupova had ties to terrorists that masterminded the April 3 subway bombing in St Petersburg, Russias second-largest city and President Vladimir Putins hometown.

They took the kids by force, Marupova, a 30-year-old brunette with a pale, haggard face, told Al Jazeera. They did not want to return the smaller one, wanted to keep the child as a hostage, said she was their insurance.

OPINION: Why the sudden concern for Central Asia rights abuses?

No ties whatsoever were found after interrogations, but the children were released days later only after Memorial, one of Russias oldest and most respected human rights groups, stepped in with a squall of complaints and a threat of legal action.

This was an abduction, Memorials Bakhrom Khamroev told Al Jazeera, adding that the raid on Marupovas apartment was part of a sweep on at least 25 buildings in the area where ethnic Uzbeks rented apartments. One of her girls was registered like she had been found at a junkyard.

Moscow city police and childrens protection services refused to discuss Marupovas case.

The sweep was part of a nationwide crackdown on nationals of three ex-Soviet nations of Central Asia  Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan  because the subway bombing that killed 15 and wounded dozens was the first attack carried out in Russia by a Central Asian.

Investigators and security services said Akbarjon Jalilov, a 22-year-old suicide bomber, was behind the attack. An ethnic Uzbek man born in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, he became a Russian national and worked as a sushi chef and car mechanic. The bespectacled man sported a stylish goatee, not a full beard, and never had ties to armed groups, his friends and relatives told Russian and Kyrgyz media.

Russian investigators claimed he was part of a sleeping cell of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), but the only group that claimed responsibility for the attack was ISILs sworn enemy. Only three weeks after the attack, the Imam Shamil battalion  a previously unknown, al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria  said Jalilov was its member, according to SITE Intelligence Group, a US company that tracks attacks.

Unwanted migration

Russia sees Central Asia, an arid region strategically stretched between China, Iran and Afghanistan, as its soft underbelly. Its five nations broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and now have a population of more than 60 million.

Three of them  Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan  flooded Russia with millions of labour migrants since the early 2000s. The nations also are the homelands of two dozen suspected accomplices of Jalilov who have been arrested after the bombing, investigators say. Two more were killed while resisting arrest.

Jalilov and his presumed companions are Muslims below 40 who cant boast university degrees or fluent command of Russian and have blue-collar jobs that pay several hundred dollars a month. They also are the living images of Central Asian labour migrants many Russians dont want to live with but the Russian economy cant live without, according to a survey by the Moscow-based Institute for Social Analysis published in mid-May.

We wont survive without Uzbeks, demographer Yulia Florenskaya wrote in the survey because Russia is losing about a million people of working age a year and has a barely visible growth of the general population of 143 million.

This demographic trend makes the arrival and long-term presence of millions of guest workers inevitable if Russia wants to secure the recovery of its economy hobbled by Western sanctions over Crimea, low oil prices, and cancerous corruption.

Skinheads and cops

Unlike Slavic labour migrants from Ukraine or Belarus that blend in with ethnic Russians, Central Asians have darker skin and hair, different fashion habits and cultural background  including their Muslim faith.

Unsurprisingly, they often attract negative attention  from xenophobic or racist remarks from passersby or neighbours to targeted violence by ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazis. Racially motivated attacks that targeted non-Russians peaked in 2008, when 97 people were killed  including 49 Central Asians  hate crimes monitor Sova said.

One of them was Salokhiddin Azizov, a 20-year-old Tajik labour migrant who was shot and then beheaded by a gang of skinheads who took a photo of his severed head and sent it to journalists. But his brother Jamsheed, who was shot twice by the same gang, returned to Russia after recovering from his wounds.

There are no jobs to be found in our village, his uncle Rakhmatsho Azizov told this reporter in 2008.

The Kremlins perennial crackdown on neo-Nazis diminished the number of hate crimes: seven people, including two Central Asians, were killed in 2016, Sova said.

But there is another scourge Central Asians face: the corruption and brutality of police officers who routinely detain them to extort money, rights groups and migrants say.

If they dont pay up, the police officers get offended and get them deported, Valentina Chupik, head of Tong Jahoni, a Moscow-based human rights group that works with Central Asians, told Al Jazeera. There is no oppression, there is only a conception of easy prey.

Kremlins scapegoats?

Under Putin, Russia has seen several waves of government-orchestrated hate campaigns against the nationals of countries that fall out with the Kremlin.

In 2006, after ex-Soviet Georgia declared a pro-Western course, Kremlin-controlled media responded with weeks of hysteria that triggered arbitrary arrests, dismissals, deportations and beatings of ethnic Georgians. In the following years, people from Moldova, Tajikistan, Belarus and Ukraine faced similar abuses in Russia every time their governments disagreed with Moscow.

Russian nationals from the Northern Caucasus region have for years been a magnet of police scrutiny and abuses outside their mostly Muslim region. For more than two decades, Russia has been battling fighters from the Caucasus who were first linked to Chechen separatists and are now joining ISIL.

Several thousand Central Asians have also joined ISIL and other armed groups in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, officials say, and some were labour migrants recruited in Russia. But it was the St Petersburg bombing that made their compatriots a subject of persecution and abuses.

Hundreds, if not thousands, have been deported after the attack, according to Memorial and other rights groups. Official data on 2017 deportations will not be available until early next year.

Some employers suspend or refuse to pay their wages. Some migrants face threats and are told to leave for good. A makeshift mosque was destroyed in a village in the central Tula region, the groups say.

READ MORE: Despite animosity, Moscows Muslims change the city

A Kyrgyz national ended up in a diabetic coma after two days of detention without food and water, and police deported him after he got out of a hospital. An Uzbek woman in labour was not allowed into a maternity ward in the city of Tver and had to give birth at home.

Police did not let another detained Uzbek, a single mother, get in touch with her underage children and locked her up for a night in a basement with bedbugs. A sober Tajik man who does not own a car was sentenced to 10 days in jail for drunk driving.

Some observers think that this is a tried-and-tested Kremlin strategy of diverting attention from domestic problems such as the economic crisis, corruption, opposition and labour protests that has multiplied in recent months.

This is Kremlins strategy  were always looking for enemies,' said Memorials Khamroev, an ethnic Uzbek whose apartment was searched twice recently and whose laptop was confiscated by police. Russia faces enormous problems so the public attention is being directed away from them.
Britains opposition Labour Party has launched its manifesto in the run-up to the general election, set to take place next month.

The party, led by MP Jeremy Corbyn, promised to scrap tuition fees, nationalise key services and build more social housing in its most left-wing election platform in decades.

Speaking at the University of Bradford on Tuesday, a short walk from where the party was founded more than a century ago, the Labour leader promised to fund his pledges by increasing taxes on the highest earners and closing tax avoidance schemes.

This manifesto is a draft for a better future for our country, its a blueprint of what Britain could be and a pledge of the difference a Labour government can and will make, Corbyn told the several hundred supporters who had gathered for the launch event.

People want a country run for the many not the few  for the last seven years our people have lived through the opposite; a Britain run for the rich, the elite and the vested interest by Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party

Promising hope to Britains poorest, he attacked the ruling Conservative Party for increasing inequality since it took power in 2010.

People want a country run for the many, not the few  for the last seven years our people have lived through the opposite: a Britain run for the rich, the elite and the vested interest, he said.

They [the rich] have benefited from tax cuts and bumper salaries while millions have struggled. Whatever your age or situation, people are under pressure, struggling to make ends meet  our manifesto is for you.

Titled For the Many, Not the Few, Labours manifesto promises to scrap tuition fees for students, introduce free meals in primary schools, build a million new homes, and nationalise key services such as rail and water.

Corbyn also said a government run by him would hire more police officers and firefighters, as well as reversing cuts to welfare brought in by the Conservatives.

Increase in taxes

According to the manifesto, these policies would be financed by measures that include an increase in corporations tax, and tax rises for the top five percent of earners.

On Brexit, Labour accepts freedom of movement will end, but wants to ensure that rights for EU nationals are protected and access to the European single market is preserved.

The platform is likely to be welcomed by left-wing currents in the party, including the Momentum movement, which helped bring Corbyn to power after Labours defeat in the 2015 general election.

Ollie Hill, a Labour Party member and Momentum activist, told Al Jazeera that the manifesto formed a radical break not only with Conservative policies but also the previous Labour platform.

READ MORE: The roots of Jeremy Corbyns support

I think the manifesto simultaneously represents quite a radical departure from the economic and social policies of not only the current government but also going back through the [Tony] Blair years and beyond, he said, adding there was support among grass-roots activists for such a shift.

[The manifesto] represents something that is the mainstream opinion among the Labour Party membership.

Its one of the first time in generations that the Labour Party memberships views have translated themselves so closely into a manifesto.

Conservatives reaction

Reacting to the Labour Partys launch on Twitter, the Conservatives said Corbyn would bring in chaos with higher taxes.

Its clear [Labours manifesto] means more borrowing & debt: from promises on benefits, to prison guards, to nationalising the water network, read one tweet.

Another read: It is simply not worth taking the risk of this shambles being in charge of our economy and our Brexit negotiations in three weeks time.

Labour currently trails the Conservative Party by a margin of between 16 to 20 percentage points depending on the poll.

We should also bear in mind the drip-drip effects of the Tory (Conservative) press on moulding readers reception of Labour policies. by Eric Shaw, University of Stirling

Most put the party on 30 percent, a rise of about five percent from before the election was called.

The number is just a point shy of Labours performance in the 2015 contest, but the Conservatives have made huge gains since, moving from the 36 percent they gained in that election to around 47 percent today.

The ruling party has benefited from a collapse in support for the anti-EU UK Independence Party and hardening rhetoric from the partys leaders on the EU as Brexit negotiations get under way.

Labour is the most popular party among voters aged between 18 and 24, and a large part of its campaigning effort has been invested in encouraging members of the demographic to register to vote.

Opinion is changing

At the launch, Corbyn insisted opinion is changing and is moving towards Labour but the manifesto will do little to turn the tide, according to the University of Stirlings Eric Shaw.

I dont think manifestos  policies  matter that much, he told Al Jazeera.

The judgments people make are shaped more by emotional than by rational forces, notably how they influence conceptions of leadership capability and economic competence.

Shaw, a senior lecturer in politics and a specialist on the Labour Party, also noted the effect the press would have on shaping perceptions of Corbyns policies.

We should also bear in mind the drip-drip effects of the Tory [Conservative] press on moulding readers reception of Labour policies.
On April 30, 23-year-old Morgan Montaudo walked across the stage of the OConnell Center  a proud UF graduate. At the end of the Summer, her dog Biscotti will graduate, too.

While Biscotti attended many of Montaudos health science courses, he will not be graduating with a degree from UF. However, he already has a job lined up.

Biscotti has been training to be a service dog.

Before meeting Montaudo, Biscotti was part of the Prison Pup Program, a partnership between New Horizons Service Dogs in Orange City, Florida, and the Florida Department of Corrections.

In the program, Biscotti was trained by inmates, which improved the inmates life skills and confidence. This helped them stay out of the system after release.

Montaudo volunteered in October to socialize Biscotti. Her role is to introduce him to the outside environment and provide continuous training.

He made my college experience so much better, she said. He put so much happiness in my life and a smile on my face.

She said she takes him everywhere she goes.

The students in her classes, who were studying the medical profession, were aware of how to act around a service dog, she said.

They let him do his job, Montaudo said, but they loved him. Everybody loved him.

Montaudo said she was happy that others on campus who were not aware

of how to act around service animals could learn and become aware.

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A lot of changes are happening in Montaudos life after graduation, and she said that now is a good time to give Biscotti back so he can help someone who needs him.

They hold a ceremony to hand over the leash from the trainer to his forever person, she said. Ill be there to meet the person and, hopefully, keep in touch with them.

Before the graduation, the forever owner goes through a two-week training process to learn how to work with the dog, said Ellen Grimm, a volunteer coordinator for New Horizons Service Dogs.

Grimm said anyone can be a puppy raiser if they have the time to work with the dog daily and the money to support the dog by paying for food and veterinary bills.

She said many UF students have volunteered to be puppy raisers.

Its a great socialization opportunity for the puppies to be on campus, Grimm said.

The puppies are placed with their forever owners based on the skills they learn, she said.

She said dogs are placed with people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, autism and cerebral palsy.

Grimm said the dogs learn how to retrieve things such as cell phones and keys. They turn lights on and off, open cabinets and push automatic door buttons.

Its an awesome feeling to see some people leave their home, she said. The program gives people the confidence to go out and do what they need to do.

While Montaudo is going to miss Biscotti, she said she plans to continue working with service dogs in the future as an occupational therapist.

I have this summer off to travel and work before I apply for graduate school, she said. I may even foster another dog.

Morgan Montaudo poses with Biscotti. She volunteered in October to raise him as a service dog for someone else who needs him.
Deputies have named a suspect in the April shooting that left a Hawthorne woman dead.

On May 6, the Alachua County Sheriffs Office announced in a press release that Blake Carrington Jackson, 21, is now a suspect in the murder of Christin Marie Cassels, 23, after he was arrested in Pleasantville, New Jersey.

Jackson was arrested by the U.S. Marshalls Service, a federal law enforcement agency, based on outstanding drug charges from Putnam County, Florida, according to the release.

ACSO deputies originally considered Jackson a person of interest in Cassels death, meaning they believed he had specific knowledge of her death or was nearby when the shooting happened, according to Alligator archives.

However, after ACSO was notified of Jacksons arrest May 5, deputies flew to the Atlantic County Jail in New Jersey to interview him about Cassels death, said ACSO Sgt. Chris Sims. After the interview, deputies determined that Jackson was a suspect in the murder rather than a person of interest, Sims said.

On April 21 at about 11:25 p.m., after receiving reports of a person shot, deputies found Cassels dead from an apparent gunshot wound inside a garage behind her home. She died four days before her 24th birthday. It appeared that multiple rounds had been fired into the garage structure from outside.

Its an active and ongoing investigation, Sims said.

Sims said he did not know whether deputies have identified any other suspects in the case aside from Jackson.

In a separate case, Jackson was arrested March 3 in Broward County, Florida, where he faces a charge of grand theft auto, according to county court records. He is set to appear at the county courthouse for an arraignment today.

As of press time, Jackson remains at the Atlantic County Jail in New Jersey and is being held without bond. He will be transported to the Putnam County Jail in Palatka, Florida, in the near future, Sims said.

Contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter: @hoffdavid123.

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For Devin Perez, the decision to withdraw from Floridas 2018 general election was not easy.

In February, the 19-year-old UF Online student filed to run in the 2018 general election as a Democrat for the Florida House of Representatives District 28, representing Seminole County.

On March 9, he publicly announced his bid to an eager crowd of about 150 at the countys Democratic Party branch office in Casselberry, Florida.

But less than two months later, on May 2, the Florida Division of Elections received his withdrawal letter.

It was a tough decision, the UF criminology and law senior said. The decision ultimately came down to finances, Perez said. Although he currently lives in Oviedo, Florida, and works in information services at a local hospital, Perez is planning on moving back home to Miami with his parents and six younger siblings.

It would just be cheaper to move back home with family, he said.

Because hes moving out of Oviedo, which is in Seminole County, Perez said he is no longer able to run for a seat in that district.

With Perez out of the race, the only Democrat currently running for a District 28 seat is Lee Mangold, who filed for the race April 24, according to Florida Division of Elections records. Mangold, a former adjunct professor at the University of Central Florida and former cybersecurity contractor with the U.S. military, is opposed by retired U.S. Marines Col. David Smith, the lone Republican in the race.

Norman Goda, a UF professor in the Department of History and Center for Jewish Studies, said the country would be better off with more young people involved in politics.

Part of the reason we have a completely dysfunctional system in terms of fiscal policy is because not enough young people are involved in politics, the 56-year-old said.

Goda said that historically speaking, younger people usually get involved in government when they feel disgusted with a current policy or system.

I really worry for our system, Goda said. It can use a good dose of idealism.

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Perez said, for now, hes primarily focusing on working and making ends meet with his family. Hes unsure of whether hell pursue a House seat for the upcoming elections in his hometown District 115, but he said he hopes to help the Miami-Dade Democratic Party in whatever capacity he can.

Despite knowing that he had to drop out for financial reasons, Diego Labarca felt optimism when he heard a fellow UF student had attempted to run for a seat in the Florida House.

Its a huge pride knowing that a UF student (tried) running for government in Florida, the 21-year-old said.

Perez said although some may have felt disappointed upon hearing he was withdrawing from the race, his message remains the same: Get involved, and speak out.

Theres always something that we can do, Perez said.

Contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter: @hoffdavid123.
There are few things more terrifying than the unknown of a nuclear war. The simple press of a button could wipe out entire countries  entire continents.

The uncharted territory of nuclear destruction is what caused Cold War-era Americans to live each day in fear. They lived in a constant panic. They existed on edge, knowing that a nuclear war could erupt at any moment and life as they knew it would cease to exist  they would cease to exist. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War is believed to have concluded. Unfortunately, I suspect we are on the verge of a similar scenario, with a much less level-headed man sitting behind the big red button.

North Korea has long been boasting about its ability to send nuclear missiles and bombs to the U.S. mainland and our Pacific holdings. In response, President Donald Trump has gleefully announced his Mega-Bomb capable of reaching North Korea. While these bombastic declarations may appear to be nothing more than a pissing match between power-hungry world leaders, I fear our nation and world are in great danger.

In the past few months, Trump has said many things that shake me to my very core. His position on nuclear war, however, is possibly the most petrifying. Far too many times, our commander in chief has spoken about the prospect of nuclear war with a ghastly glimmer in his eye.

As tensions between the U.S., Russia, China and North Korea intensify, America is creeping closer and closer to a second Cold War era leading up to World War III. In 2016, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and just recently conducted a ballistic missile test. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has accused the U.S. and South Korea of conspiring against his country and has warned the U.S. not to recklessly provoke the nation, implying that a full-on nuclear war could be the result.

After Trumps missile strike on a Syrian military base last month, he showed Americans, as well as the world, that he has no problem with launching attacks when he sees fit. World leaders voiced their opinions of the attack with Syria, Russia and Iran criticizing the decision, while Saudi Arabia and Israel exulted the act.

It is my hypothesis that a nuclear attack will be the start of World War III and the end of the world. Despite our general lack of knowledge about nations like North Korea and Russia, they arent the nations that Im worried about causing the world to combust in combat. What concerns me most is the uncertainty of our own nation. Trump has blustered about our militarys impressive weaponry and even claimed we should want to be unpredictable with nuclear weapons.

A world war this day in age would annihilate us all. With nuclear and chemical warfare on the table, conflict would escalate beyond what was seen in World War I and World War II.

I can certainly understand why people believe we shouldnt shy away from international attacks. We are a strong nation, and we want to be seen as such. But is it really worth it if it brings us to war? I feel our nation can remain strong and respected without bringing the world to the brink of destruction.

I hope as a nation we can begin to strive for peace, rather than escalating an already dangerous situation. With such high-risk weaponry in play, we have much more to worry about losing than our reputation.

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English News Alibabas Jack Ma: Belt and Road a more inclusive globalization

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



The greatest difference between the Belt and Road Initiative and general globalization lies in the inclusion of young people, women, smaller enterprises and developing countries. The Belt and Road Initiative aims to reach more people. This is both a responsibility and an opportunity, Ma said.

By Du Xiaofei (People's Daily Online) On May 14, Jack Ma described to the Peoples Daily what he believes makes the Belt and Road Initiative a uniquely effective and inclusive project. Ma, executive chairman and founder of Alibaba Group, granted the interview on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.



Ma spoke highly of the vision put forward by President Xi Jinping, citing it as a good opportunity for individuals and countries.



The greatest difference between the Belt and Road Initiative and general globalization lies in the inclusion of young people, women, smaller enterprises and developing countries. The Belt and Road Initiative aims to reach more people. This is both a responsibility and an opportunity, Ma said.



Ma also echoed the goals of the initiative with his proposal for an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) and eRoad in last years communique from the Hangzhou G20 summit.



Last year I spent more than 820 hours traveling all across the globe to gain insight about the world. It is important to be there, observe and think. We want to do something different. Instead of simply selling our products to Belt and Road countries or importing cheap labor and raw materials, we want to create jobs, stimulate overseas economies and improve peoples livelihoods.



In my view, once the eWTP is established, young people in any corner of the world will be able to buy and sell products globally. All they need is a smart phone, Ma explained.



Ma secured the launch of the first overseas eWTP hub in Malaysia in just 10 minutes, working in cooperation with the Malaysian prime minister.



I was convinced by the Malaysian officials that the project could be completed in three months, on a scale much bigger than those in the past three decades, the chairman said.



In response to a foreigner-curated list of four great new Chinese inventions (Alipay, Taobao, high-speed trains and shared bikes), Ma said: We are already a global leader in mobile payment, and we are ready to share our technology with developing countries. We have not only invested large sums of money in these countries, we have also dispatched our technicians there to help.



Alipay and Taobao are the business arms of Alibaba Group.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News B&R countries to be ensured with cooperation benefits: official

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



According to the official, Xi announced the establishment of the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation when attending the summits marking the 70th anniversary of the UN in Sept. 2015. The initial contribution of $2 billion he pledged aimed to support developing countries to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

By Wang Ke from Peoples Daily Efforts will be made to ensure the assistance China pledged at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and will benefit related countries and their public as early as possible, an official with the Ministry of Commerce vowed on Monday.



The statement came after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to provide assistance worth 60 billion RMB in the coming three years to developing countries and international organizations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.



The decision aims to improve people's well-being by launching more projects, Xi said in his keynote speech delivered on the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on last Sunday.



According to the ministry, the 60 billion RMBs assistance mainly consists of non-reimbursable assistance and interest-free loans.



The Belt and Road countries could, based on their core concerns, keep close contact with related Chinese embassies as well as economic and business institutions to confirm development priorities and make specific requests in terms of policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds, said the official with the Department of Foreign Assistance.



Cooperation should be launched in each chain covering feasibility studies, consultation, agreement signing and project implementation, so as to ensure that development and cooperation accomplishments would benefit en-route countries and their public, the official added.



Xi has also promised that China will provide emergency food aid worth 2 billion RMB to developing countries along the Belt and Road and make an additional contribution of $1 billion to the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation.



In addition, China will launch 100 "Happy Home" projects, 100 poverty alleviation projects and 100 health care and rehabilitation projects in countries along the Belt and Road.



China will also provide relevant international organizations with $1 billion to implement cooperation projects that will benefit the countries along the Belt and Road, the president promised.



The official explained that the 2-billion-RMB emergency food aid comes amid the current severe global challenge of food security which has left more than 70 million people in need for food aid. The challenge has already resulted in serious humanitarian crisis.



The aid will be offered through multilateral and bilateral channels based on each country's specific demands, in a bid to save lives, relieve food shortage, improve nutritional status and gradually increase agricultural production in these countries. China is ready to work together with the international community to enhance global food security.



According to the official, Xi announced the establishment of the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation when attending the summits marking the 70th anniversary of the UN in Sept. 2015. The initial contribution of $2 billion he pledged aimed to support developing countries to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.



The additional $1 billion, which will expand the total capital to $3 billion, will further promote South-South cooperation, especially in helping developing countries accelerate economic and social development and improve people's livelihood.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Bank governors vow financial support to Belt and Road projects

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



There are so far over 1,200 EIBC-financed Belt and Road projects still with cash balance, signed with 50 or so en-route countries with a total investment of over 700 billion yuan ($105 billion).

By Xu Zhifeng from Peoples Daily Chinese bank governors pledged to fund projects related to the Belt and Road Initiative, saying that special loans will be offered to finance cooperation projects among en-route countries in terms of infrastructure, capacity building and finance.



The promise came after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Sunday that two of Chinas banks, the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (EIBC) will set up special lending schemes respectively worth RMB 250 billion ($3.6 billion) equivalent and RMB 130 billion ($1.9 billion) equivalent to support Belt and Road cooperation on infrastructure, industrial capacity and financing.



Hu Huaibang, Chairman of CDB, vowed to implement the Presidents proposition, saying the bank will press ahead with the special fund in a timely order. The special loans will give full play to the advantages in development finance.



Chinas loan commitment to the Belt and Road countries will be fulfilled in the next 3 years or so, Hu predicted. CDB will adhere to the market-oriented operating principle of the fund, offering key support to infrastructure construction, production capacity and financial cooperation, he added.



The projects are funded in a self-liquidating and sustainable development basis, and each project will be put into operation once it is mature. CDB will closely follow a green and inclusive principle when its capital flows to a host country, Hu explained.



He said CDB will pay attention to risk control when mobilizing the special fund, adding that the development financing strategy will be adopted to build market, credit and policy.



A win-win and mutually-beneficial outcome will be achieved if the projects cash flow and risk control ability is beefed up, which can be achieved by developing and selecting projects independently, Hu continued.



CDB will enhance cooperation with multilateral international development financial organizations, as well as policy- and finance-based financial institutions from home and abroad, to unite various forms of capitals in order to push forward the Belt and Road construction toward more fruits, Hu explained.



Hu Xiaolian, Chairman of the EIBC said the bank always adheres to the market-oriented operating principle to fund the Belt and Road projects, stresses long-term investment and pays attention to risk control, in order to attain small but guaranteed profit as well as sustainable development.



EIBCs special fund will be allocated in infrastructure construction and cooperation in terms of international production capacity, equipment manufacturing, economy and trade, park construction as well as energy and resource sectors, Hu Xiaolian said.



There are so far over 1,200 EIBC-financed Belt and Road projects still with cash balance, signed with 50 or so en-route countries with a total investment of over 700 billion yuan ($105 billion).



The projects include infrastructure connectivity of transportation, electricity, water resource and communication sectors, as well as export of high-tech products, large and complete set of equipment, mechanical and electrical products and resource exploitation.



The projects mainly distribute in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, with economic and trade cooperation receiving the biggest sum of loan, followed by resource cooperation, infrastructure construction and industrial investment, data showed.



Statistics revealed that the connectivity of infrastructure construction embraced a faster growth in 2016, with the contracting value increasing 150 percent year on year.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Commentary: Fruitful results achieved by Belt and Road Forum

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



China also vowed to host the China International Import Expo starting from 2018, contribute an additional 100 billion yuan (about $14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund, and provide assistance worth 60 billion yuan in the coming three years to developing countries and international organizations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

By Pei Guangjiang, Zhang Mengxu, Zhao Cheng, Ji Peijuan from People's Daily Fruitful results have been achieved by the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation held in Beijing on May 14 and 15. A list of major deliverables of the BRF including 76 items comprising more than 270 concrete results has been put together, providing a strong boost to the sustainable global cooperation on Belt and Road development.



China has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents, made bilateral and multilateral cooperative plans, and confirmed cooperation projects at ministerial level with many foreign governments and international organizations.



China also vowed to host the China International Import Expo starting from 2018, contribute an additional 100 billion yuan (about $14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund, and provide assistance worth 60 billion yuan in the coming three years to developing countries and international organizations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.



Russian President Vladmir Putin said the timely initiative and forum helped boost economic cooperation and exchanges among countries.



Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev promised a firm support to the Belt and Road Initiative, saying that his country will actively align it with the nation's Bright Road strategy.



The initiative has reflected Chinese leader's courage and strong sense of historical responsibility, Czech President Milos Zeman believed.



The forum has demonstrated to the world the tangible fruits of the far-sighted Belt and Road initiative, providing a historic platform for developing and developed nations to discuss cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said.



Erik Solheim, executive director of United Nations Environment Program noted that one will lose once isolated, but will achieve common prosperity if opening to the world.



Since the Belt and Road Initiative was put forward, 68 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China to build the routes together.



The 6 major economic corridors including China-Pakistan and China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridors have played a leading role. Indonesian high speed rail between Jakarta and Bandung and the China-Laos rail are both under accelerated construction.



In addition, China has undertaken the renovation projects of the Gwadar Port and Piraeus Port.



Chinese enterprises have established 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20-plus countries, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund have started operation.



The Belt and Road Initiative has yielded many fruits since it was proposed. For instance, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has relieved electricity shortages for Pakistani families. The Qamchiq Tunnel of the AngrenPap railway has helped Uzbekistan shake off the awkward situation when its trains had to cross neighboring countries in order to reach certain destinations..



A total of 3,900 China-Europe freight trains have started service so far, opening a new passage for China-Europe trade. The opening of the China-built Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway endowed the inland Ethiopia on the ridge of East Africa with a port, greatly facilitating the trade of the country.



The initiative and the UN sustainable development agenda are both aimed to achieve sustainable development, create more opportunities, provide global public products, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation. In addition, they will also enhance policy coordination, facilities connectivity, financial integration and people-to-people bond among countries.



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the Belt and Road Initiative as a very remarkable proposal that will benefit the whole world.



At a press conference to close the 1st BRF, Xi announced that Beijing would hold the second Belt and Road summit in 2019. The announcement soon received worldwide attention.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
During the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, President Xi Jinping made a keynote speech and received nearly 30 rounds of warm applause.



He reviewed the achievements made in the past four years and proposed plans for the future, including further support from China for the Belt and Road Initiative.



Mr. Xi provided many wise solutions to major problems facing the international community, Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, hailed Xis speech, echoing the thoughts of many other attendants. The applause not only showed respect for what the initiative has achieved, it also recognized the long-term value of Belt and Road Initiative.



The rise and fall of the ancient Silk Road provides several important lessons for humanity. Be it the ancient Crusades or the war-torn Middle East and North Africa, conflicts rarely bring peace and happiness. The ocean of the global economy will always exist. It goes against the tides of time to cut off the flow of capital, technology, products, industries or personnel, diverting that ocean into isolated lakes and rivers.

So where is humanity heading and what be the experiences of future generations?



History is our best teacher, President Xi explained. By promoting the Belt and Road Initiative, China is attempting to preserve the precious legacy of human civilization from the ancient Silk Road. With peace, cooperation, openness, inclusion, mutual learning and benefits, the spirit of the Silk Road will transform the world into a peaceful, prosperous, open, innovative and civilized home for all.










English News Manila welcomes B&R initiative

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



Philippine finance secretary Carlos Dominguez also said at the "Dutertenomics" forum that the government is focused on developing the country's infrastructure, including the building of roads and ports, and hopes to get help from countries like China.

By Liu Xin and Li Qiaoyi from Peoples Daily Global Times The Philippines said it welcomes the Belt and Road initiative to not only boost the country's infrastructure but also strengthen connectivity with other Asian countries, a Philippine presidential spokesman said during a briefing on the domestic economic plan of President Rodrigo Duterte in Beijing on Monday.



Philippine finance secretary Carlos Dominguez also said at the "Dutertenomics" forum that the government is focused on developing the country's infrastructure, including the building of roads and ports, and hopes to get help from countries like China.



"Dutertenomics" is a 10-point economic program Duterte had announced shortly after he took office, the newspaper The Philippine Star reported.



This is not the first time that the Philippine delegation to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation has stressed the country's willingness to cooperate with China under the initiative in an effort to develop the Philippine economy despite disputes between the two countries.



Philippine senator Alan Peter Cayetano told a press conference in Beijing on Sunday that "we don't want disputes to stop economic development."



Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella revealed in an interview with Peoples Daily and Global Times on Monday that Duterte might meet with Poly Technologies Inc., one of China's top State-owned defense manufacturing and exporting firms.



Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the Philippine government is set to sign a letter of intent to purchase military equipment from Poly, and that the document is scheduled to be signed on Monday.



"We're in China to discuss projects like bridges and roads, and some Chinese contractors are already involved in the Philippines. We hope to work together with Chinese firms on more projects. We're looking forward to a very fruitful relationship," Philippine Public Works and Highways secretary Mark Villar said on Monday.



Villar furthered that the Chinese government has helped with feasibility studies for major projects and, eventually, many Chinese companies will participate in these projects, including major bridges and roads in the Philippines.



"Some Philippine companies have already partnered with Chinese counterparts willing to get involved in major infrastructure projects. China has been very supportive and we're very thankful for their support," Villar said.



As for preferential treatment for Chinese investments, it will be decided on a case-by-case basis, Villar said, adding that "Chinese companies who will invest in the Philippines can definitely expect the Philippines to be very welcoming and supportive."



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Xi calls for joint efforts to turn Belt and Road into path for peace, prosperity

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 16 Mai 2017



"The Silk Road spirit has become a great heritage of human civilization," he added.

In his speech, Xi announced to scale up financing support for the Belt and Road Initiative by contributing an additional 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund.

Peoples Daily President Xi Jinping called for joint efforts to build the Belt and Road into a road for peace, prosperity, openness, innovation and civilization on Sunday, May 14.



Xi made the remarks when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. More than 1,500 representatives across the world are attending the forum.



The Belt and Road Initiative is "a project of the century" that will benefit people across the world, Xi said.



"Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes embody the spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit," Xi told the audience.



"The Silk Road spirit has become a great heritage of human civilization," he added.

In his speech, Xi announced to scale up financing support for the Belt and Road Initiative by contributing an additional 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund.



"The China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China will set up special lending schemes respectively worth RMB 250 billion equivalent and RMB 130 billion equivalent to support Belt and Road cooperation on infrastructure, industrial capacity and financing," Xi said.



The Belt and Road Initiative, put forward by Xi in 2013, aims to boost interconnection and trade between Asia and the rest of the world.

A total of 29 foreign heads of state and government leaders are attending the forum, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.



Other delegates include officials, entrepreneurs, financiers and journalists from over 130 countries, and representatives of key international organizations, such as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
I'm no fan of North Korea, but the news media in America need to do better if they're to avoid becoming just as discreditable.

The May 15, 2017 Fox News article "UN Agency Helps North Korea with Patent Application for Banned Nerve Gas Chemical" is a case in point.

The World Intellectual Property Organization probably has been assisting a North Korean patent application for sodium cyanide, as the article states. And cyanide is a precursor used to manufacture the nerve agent Tabun.

After that, however, it's just down the rabbit hole.

The chemical structures, below, say it all.

The organophosophorus moiety is center of nerve agents. This is the acetyl cholinesterase inhibiting group, which disrupts nerve function.

The R3 group in Tabun is cyanide "CN."

The R3 group in Sarin, Cyclosarin and Soman is fluorine "F."

In the VX type, R3 is the larger sulfur-nitrogen group.

These R3 groups are responsible for most of the differences in volatility and lethality, although the R1 and R2 groups also contribute.

Tabun is the only nerve agent that requires cyanide, and Tabun is not a good candidate for manufacture. Sarin and VX are superior agents. They're more lethal and no more difficult to manufacture, and they fulfill the requirements for a volatile offensive agent (sarin) or a persistent defensive agent (VX). Tabun and Soman are in between. They are simply inferior analogs discovered during the research.

Sodium cyanide is produced in Western countries via treating hydrogen cyanide with sodium hydroxide.

Hydrogen cyanide is produced via the Andrussow process via combining methane(CH4) and ammonia (NH3) and oxygen at elevated temperature, requiring a platinum catalyst.

Ammonia is obtained via the Haber Process, a high-temperature, high-pressure process requiring an expensive, sophisticated plant that condenses atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia.

The North Korean sodium cyanide process apparently uses urea, , for the nitrogen source and combines it with sodium carbonate (washing soda), which is probably more readily available than the sodium hydroxide we currently use as the alkali.

If that's what they've done, it's pretty clever, especially for countries that do not have a Haber plant to produce ammonia. Urea can be obtained from urine. It would definitely be "green."

Why make sodium cyanide?

U.S. demand was 1.6 billion pounds in 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. It finds its way into welding gasses, metal cleaning, ore refining, herbicides, optical brighteners, dyestuffs, and synthetic rubber, among other products. Hydrogen cyanide is used to manufacture nylon, acrylates, sodium cyanide, and chelating agents, among other things.

Yes, hydrogen cyanide has been used in execution chambers and as a chemical weapon during World War I. As a chemical weapon, it was disappointing, because it is lighter than air. The gas rises before an effective concentration can ever be achieved on the ground. The gas chamber confines the gas, and its lower density renders it easier to evacuate than a gas that sinks to the ground. Reports of hydrogen cyanide use on battlefields surface every so often. From a technical view, they are highly suspicious.

This is the sort of hysteria poison war gas usually produces, and it's a dangerous thing. It sufficed as a casus belli for Bush's disastrous invasion of Iraq. Belligerents accuse each other of just about anything to arouse hate  a will to war, as Clausewitz put it.

Just my opinion, but if North Korea really did intend to manufacture Tabun, it's doubtful they'd have applied to the U.N. to patent the process or any part of it.

Theft of intellectual property is one of our complaints with China among other countries, but here we are, penalizing North Korea for possibly the most compliant thing it's ever done.

There are certainly reasons for nations to go to war. But there are a lot more reasons not to. Fabricating reasons is one of the most reprehensible things any nation, its leaders, and its journalists can do.

There's a cabal in Washington, D.C. that really doesn't need much of a reason to war and media that pounce on every sensation. This is what gets us into unintended consequences. Then we come up with a mystical "formula of national self-interest" as though it were some novel revelation.

Clausewitz wrote a century ago that war is politics by other means. So what is the political outcome of disarming one's enemy? North Koreans aren't going to like us because we disarmed their military.

Anti-partisan warfare is something no conventional army has ever been any good at, not without resorting to the harshest methods. The propensity for this sort of warfare is greater now than it's ever been.

If we cannot answer the question of political objectives, with a view to avoiding partisan war or other complications, then we are not ready to go to war.

Articles like this demonstrate how easy it is to lose prudence and lunge into things we wind up regretting.

They also demonstrate how inept world regulatory bodies are. Sarin: phosphorous, carbon, oxygen, fluorine. All have commercial uses. You could easily have them all in your house. If you knew what to do with them, you could make sarin. Patent a better mousetrap with the U.N., though, and you may wind up a war criminal.

The will is the larger part of it all, and the will is ours, not some regulatory agency's, the media's, or the government's.

Clausewitz: "No one starts a war  or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so  without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it."
On January 8, 1918 President Woodrow Wilson delivered his speech to the U.S. Congress outlining his 14 Points, a statement of war aims and peace terms for World War I, the only explicit statement of war aims by any country fighting the war. The speech was also in effect a blueprint for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in which Wilson emphasized the issues of open international agreements openly at arrived at, free trade, freedom of navigation, removal of economic barriers, and introduced the concept of national self-determination and the ambition of making the world safe for democracy.

Wilsons speech was also a response to a speech, "Decree on Peace," delivered by Vladimir Lenin on November 1917, that proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war, and called for a just peace. It was a great disappointment to Wilson that Russia did withdraw and that the final Versailles Peace Treaty of June 28, 1919 ending the war incorporated few of his 14 Points.

Almost a century later, President Donald Trump, also in search of a just peace, is due to leave the bitter conflict in war-torn Washington, D.C. where the swamp has not yet been drained, to visit the peaceful and restful Middle East and the Vatican. In previous years, real-estate mogul Trump was said to be interested in building a casino in Eilat in South Israel and offering to buy El Al, but President Trump has now announced more public-spirited objectives.

In his forthcoming visits to the Holy Sites and other places in Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, and Rome, Trumps ambition is to unite people of all three religions around peace and security. Politically, among other matters this means discussing with the Saudi leaders and those in the Gulf Cooperation Council (representing the six Gulf States) the common fight against Islamic extremism and terrorism, as well as the $100 billion arms contract with the Saudis.

But most immediate is Trumps worthy ambition to help broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, whose aspirations for self-determination, he has mentioned. He is aware of the prevalence of fake news and distribution of false information about Israel at present, almost as mischievous as the infamous false Soviet warning about Israeli troop movements that led to the 1967 Six-Day War.

Symbolically, Trump and his entourage, who will on arrival in Israel on May 22, 2017 occupy all the rooms in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, will go to the Western Wall in the Old City, the Holy Site connected to the Temple Mount, and probably to Yad Vashem, the official memorial to victims of the Holocaust, and perhaps speak at Masada, the ancient fortress honored for the Jewish struggle in 74 A.D. against the Romans.

So far President Trump has not given a public Wilson-like speech to Congress on his 14 points for peace, particularly regarding the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East. But a general outline of his ideas is apparent.

Though there are often incorrect allusions to borders of the State of Israel there are in fact no borders, only armistice lines, apart from those resulting from peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. No nation had a clear legal title according to international law to the areas that are disputed, areas that are now usually called the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The disputed areas were not acquired by Israel in any colonial or aggressive fashion but by defensive wars, starting in 1948 when five Arab armies without provocation invaded the newly founded State of Israel the day after it was established on May 14, 1948. Any of the disputed land obtained by Palestinians as the result of diplomatic agreement must not be seen as simply a step in a process to obtain the whole of the Palestine area. The settlements established by Israel are not the obstacle to peace. That issue must be resolved by negotiation. At the moment 430,000 Israelis live in 131 official sanctioned settlements in the West Bank, 300,000 in east Jerusalem, and 20,000 in the Golan Heights., and there are 97 unauthorized settler outposts. Any Israeli withdrawal from those settlements in the interests of peace and separation from a Palestinian entity must depend on the final status arrangement. A start was made in 2005, when Israel uprooted 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians, currently bitterly divided between Fatah and Hamas, must sincerely accept the outcome of negotiations. It is regrettable that in the past former PLO leader Yasser Arafat was never prepared to live in peace with a State of Israel and at present a weaker leader, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, rejected the offer by the State of Israel to remove all its control over 97% of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian State with borders on 1949 or 1967 lines has been outmoded by political events, and is unacceptable. The Palestinian call for the right of return of Palestinian refugees is in reality a call for the elimination of the State of Israel. The question of Palestinian refugees must be examined in a careful and objective fashion. The figures are bizarre. The organization UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) set up on December 8, 1949 for direct relief and works programs for Palestinian refugees, originally recorded 750,000 refugees. Sixty years later, with almost all of that number deceased, more than 5 million are recorded. It is time to examine the operation of UNWRA with its 30,000 employees, mostly Palestinians. Palestinians and the Arab world as a condition for any final status arrangement must accept the stated nature of the State of Israel. Both the crucial UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947 and the Israel Declaration of Independence of May 14, 1948 refer to the establishment in the territory of a Jewish State. Palestinians must cease propounding a call for the elimination of Israel and promoting a fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood. No peace can result if Fatah insists on a Palestinian state emerging from the sea of blood of the martyrs. Nor can it emerge if Hamas retains its objective of Muqawama (resistance) or destruction of Israel. Peace cannot emerge if Palestinians, children as well as adults, are instructed to honor terrorists. It is disheartening that the latest example of this is the naming by the An-Najah National University of a class of students after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi who was the leader of the Coastal Road massacre in 1978 that hijacked an Israeli bus and murdered 37, including 12 children, and wounded more than 70 others. Palestinians must end the false statements about the behavior of Jews, inside and outside Israel, such as making matzos with the blood of Christians, or selling human organ parts, or publicizing the Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A distinction must be made between any genuine criticism of policies of Israel which is welcoming and expression of anti-Zionism or actions that are really antisemitism. Finally, two things must be recognized by all interested in peace in the Middle East. One is that Israel is not the main, or even a significant problem in the area with which the U.S. should be concerned. Much more important are issues such as oil, commercial arrangements, freedom of navigation, conflicts in failed states, Iran, and above all Islamic jihadism and terrorism. The other is that the international community whose United Nations units have been incessantly biased against the State of Israel and its policies should more profitably concentrate on and deal with far much serious issues such as Somalia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Congo, Rwanda, and Darfur, Sudan.

It would be useful for all parties if President Trump would make his 14-point agenda public before he leaves the U.S. In this way, it could help lead to a change in the mindset of those individuals and groups opposed to the existence of the State of Israel.
Turns out he has his hand out, seeking $450 million to finance his FARC "peace process." That's the one he got the Nobel Peace Prize for, and we get the bill for.

I suppose it would be fine if something good were going on, but this is nothing but a reward-for-terrorism enabling program. To the tune of $450 million - which President Obama (naturally) promised to fork over from our taxes.

Here's the problem: Colombia held a referendum on this disgusting giveaway. Much to the left's and the mainstream media's surprise, Colombia's voters rejected it. Much to no one's surprise, it was such a lavish deal - with free money for FARC broadcasts unlike any other political parties, unearned congressional seats for terrorists (how'd you like one of those to represent your district, whether you liked it or not?) mountains of monthly cash stipends for terrorists who 'promise' to demobilize (but not disarm), the right to keep drug 'earnings' and stolen property including land, to name a few details - it was so lavish that other terrorist groups have jumped onboard and asked for similar deals. The only people who lose are the Colombian people who have suffered for more than 50 years from these communist cocaine terrorists. FARC has broken its word in all peace treaties up until now - and Colombians are convinced they will this time, too.

My own sense is that FARC will remodel itself on the Hugo Chavez model that tore up Venezuela - insinuating itself in the country's democratic institutions and then proceding to destroy them from within once it gets a foothold of power. They are communists. They do not believe in democracy, other than as a vehicle for achieving cocaine-lord-style power.

Now Santos wants Uncle Sam to pay for this unsustainable mess which will likely lead to more warfare as angry Colombians fight back. Voters in Colombia know that rewarding terrorism is the way to get more of it. Just as the United States (as opposed to European Union nations) does, these voters rejected rewarding terrorists. Yet if the U.S. does hand the money over, we will be complicit in an immoral act that ignores the will of Colombia's voters, as they expressed in their referendum which came on the heels of Britain's Brexit last year.

President Trump has been good about keeping bad promises in other areas made by President Obama - the Iran Deal, the Paris climate change farce, and the Australian rejected refugees - now being rewarded with prized American green cards for their lawbreaking. I really hope he doesn't fall for Santos' hideous sure-to-fail terrorist enablement program - at least not without some bitter pills of conditionality for the terrorists. Colombia is America's top ally in the hemisphere, an ally just as important to us as Australia is, so the pressure to humor Santos will be intense. But not only will it cost us, it will send a hideous message that America is a pushover in rewarding terrorists if they just hold out long enough for a gringo payoff. What kind of message will that send to ISIS? What kind of nation will that leave us?
A private investigator working for the family of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who was murdered last July in what police concluded was a "botched robbery," says he has evidence that Rich was in touch with WikiLeaks, the organization that published DNC emails.

Rich was shot and killed last July in Northwest D.C and police have suggested the killing in the District's Bloomingdale neighborhood was a botched robbery. However, online conspiracy theories have tied the murder to Rich's work at the DNC. Just two months shy of the one-year anniversary of Rich's death, FOX 5 has learned there is new information that could prove these theorists right. Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich's laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death. Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that. Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich's murder. He said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation. "The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming," said Wheeler. "They haven't been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both." When we asked Wheeler if his sources have told him there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, "Absolutely. Yeah. That's confirmed." Wheeler also told us, "I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, 'Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can't share any information with you.' Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don't think it comes from the chief's office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor's office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].

Mr. Wheeler is not saying much new  at least to anyone who has followed this story since it broke in July 2016. This account of what happened put together by Newsweek a month after Rich's slaying shows why there are still so many questions about the murder:

Rich was at a bar, alone, until 2:30 A.M., when he started home. For some reason, he decided to walk the mile from the bar to his home that he shared with friends. The route he took was not unusual, but it took him through a high-crime neighborhood plagued by muggings in recent months.

At 4:19 a.m., police patrolling nearby responded to the sound of gunfire in Bloomingdale and found Rich lying mortally wounded at a dark intersection a block and a half from a red-brick row house he shared with friends. He had multiple gunshot wounds in his back. About an hour and 40 minutes later, he died at a local hospital. Police have declined to say whether he was able to describe his assailants. The cops suspected Rich was a victim of an attempted robbery, one of many that plague the neighborhood. Strangely, however, they found his wallet, credit cards and cellphone on his body. The band of his wristwatch was torn but not broken. And that was enough to fire up the right-wing Twitterverse with yet another round of Clinton conspiracy theories, this one claiming that Rich was murdered  at dawn  as he was on his way to sing to the FBI about damning internal DNC emails. Such sinister notions might have evaporated had not Julian Assange hurled a thunderbolt into the affair a few weeks later. The WikiLeaks impresario, still penned up in Ecuador's London embassy as he dodges a rape allegation in Sweden, announced he was offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the Rich case. He hinted darkly that the slain man had been a source in his organization's recent publication of 30,000 internal DNC emails. The fallout from that embarrassment had led to the firing of several top Democratic Party officials. "What are you suggesting?" a startled interviewer from Dutch television asked him. "I am suggesting," Assange said, "that our sources, ah, take risks, and they, they become concerned to see things occurring like that." His organization later "clarified" on Twitter that "this should not be taken to imply that Seth Rich was a source for WikiLeaks or to imply that his murder is connected to our publications." But Assange had already lit the fire. No matter that the Metropolitan Police Department issued a statement saying there was "no indication that Seth Rich's death is connected to his employment at the DNC." Right-wing media outlets continued to churn up sludge from the tragedy. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, normally cautious, may have inadvertently aided their cause during a crime-scene press conference on August 5, when she said, "Right now, we have more questions than answers." No suspects have been arrested, despite the MPD's $25,000 reward for information.

If Rich left the bar at 2:30 A.M., why did police not respond to gunfire until 4:20 A.M.? How long does it take to walk a mile? What was Rich doing in the meantime?

If this was a "botched robbery," why weren't any of the young man's valuables taken?

What the heck was Assange talking about?

The police have given no satisfactory answers to those and other questions, which makes Newsweek's mocking of "right-wing" conspiracy theories laughable. Aren't they the least bit curious about any of this?

At the time of the Newsweek story, Rich's parents wanted all the speculation to stop, calling the conspiracy-mongering "hurtful," as I imagine it was. So what changed their minds? It will be interesting to hear their response to that question at the news conference scheduled for later today.

The real kicker is this: Assange never directly identified Rich as a "source." But he was certainly in a position to supply at least some of the emails to WikiLeaks. And, even more provocatively, it's never been firmly established that there was an actual hack of the DNC servers that was responsible for all the thousands of emails WikiLeaks published. In other words, Rich might have been one source for WikiLeaks, while the Russians  widely believed to have given WikiLeaks hacked emails  were responsible for others.

I don't think Wheeler has anything. He claims emails showing contact with WikiLeaks on Rich's computer, but he admits he's never seen them because either the police or the FBI is in possession of it. His "evidence" of a police and FBI cover-up is even weaker. He has a source in the department who looked him "right in the eye"  as if this is proof that the source was telling the truth.

Unless new evidence emerges or a new witness comes forward, events surrounding the death of Seth Rich are likely to remain a mystery.
The new Miss USA, Kara McCullough, is finishing off President Trump (R)'s process of turning around everything everyone thought was true and exploding liberals' heads as they go along. The stunning Ms. McCullough, who now lives in Washington, D.C., works as a physical scientist for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when she isn't winning beauty contests. Last year, she was Miss Washington D.C.; Sunday night, she was crowned Miss USA. Yeah, that's the contest formerly owned by now-president Donald Trump; he sold it in 2015.

In addition to her beauty, she has brains  which she uses.

McCullough graduated from South Carolina State University with a degree in chemistry and concentration in radiochemistry. She was a member of S.C. State's Honors College, the American Chemical Society, the Health Physics Society, the American Association of Blacks in Engineering, and the American Nuclear Society. During her time at S.C. State University, McCullough was also inducted into the Alpha Nu Sigma Honor Society, the Golden Key International Honour Society, and the National Society of Black Engineers.

Yes, she is a black female scientist. Therefore, despite their usual contempt for beauty pageants, and the people who participate in them, lefties cheered for McCullough.

For Sunday's pageant, McCullough wore her naturally curly hair curly, long, and bouffant. This pleased liberals including Bustle, a website for females that mixes beauty tips, women's health care news, dealing with men, and inspiring (to them) articles about women.

When the new Miss USA is crowned, custom dictates that Miss USA from the prior year be the one to crown the new queen. McCullough was crowned by Miss USA 2016, Deshauna Barber  and for that magic moment, both of them wore their hair in all of its natural glory. No straighteners, no relaxers  just beautiful curls.

And yes, they were beautiful. So far, we all agree. But not for long.

As is the standard for these pageants, contestants are asked questions about current events. Most respond with airy, feel-good nothings. (They want to win and not offend anyone.) Not McCullough. Asked whether "affordable" health care is a right or a privilege, she didn't go all Jimmy Kimmel (she's a scientist; he's a late-night host), but offered an interesting, unexpected answer.

I'm definitely going to say it's a privilege. As a government employee, I am granted health care. And I see firsthand that, for one, to have health care, you need to have jobs. So therefore, we need to continue to cultivate this environment that we're given the opportunity to have health care as well as jobs for all the American citizens worldwide.

Uh-oh. Bustle was not pleased, angrily scolding: "[H]er response totally missed the mark when it comes to concerns about providing healthcare for Americans." Oh. Twitter exploded, liberals denouncing her. (But...but...lefties are supposed to be tolerant and open-minded of all opinions. Oh.) Incidentally, the pageant audience applauded her answer.

Wait, there's even more! Mouth-foaming, mass-meltdown more after McCullough responded to a question about feminism. Proving that feminism and beauty contests do go together like, oh, love and marriage, she professionally replied:

So, as a woman scientist in the government, I'd like to maybe transpose the word feminism to "equalism." I don't really wanna consider myself...I try not to consider myself, like, this...like, diehard, you know, like, "aw, I don't really care about men." But one thing I'm going to say is that women, we are just as equal as men when it comes to opportunity in the workplace. And I say firsthand, I've witnessed the impact that women have in leadership and the medical sciences, as well as in just the office environment. So as Miss USA, I would hope to promote that type of leadership responsibility globally, to so many women worldwide.

Equalism. Boom! The remaining feminists cheering her on totally exploded as she demolished those so-called feminists who try to boost themselves by blaming others, wallowing in victimhood, making excuses, condemning men for all their troubles. More audience approval for Ms. McCullough.

Despite or because of her answers (the other contestants were all quite attractive and all impressive), Kara McCullough won. And now she will be touring the country, expounding her views, delighting most audiences. But beyond them, more head explosions, more liberal mouth-foaming, more lefty incoherence sure to come!

McCullough and Trump! What a pair!
Barack Obama is constructing his own heroic narrative and is testing it out with members of the family that has created the greatest mythology in the history of American politics. And he is staking his claim to courage on his utter failure to enforce his infamous "red line" on Syrian chemical weapons.

Nolan D. McCaskill reports in Politico:

Barack Obama defended his decision not to bomb Syria as president in an interview published Monday, casting his controversial decision as an act that "required the most political courage."

Obama spoke with Jack Schlossberg last week before accepting a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award. Schlossberg, Kennedy's grandson and a member of the award committee, released a transcript of their conversation in a Medium post on Monday.

Obama receives the Kennedy 'Profile in Courage" award

Sending troops into harm's way was "the hardest issue that I dealt with," Obama said, adding that seeing and knowing people younger than Schlossberg, 24, "would be in a really dangerous situation, that was tough."

"But I actually think that the issue that required the most political courage was the decision not to bomb Syria after the chemical weapons use had been publicized and rather to negotiate them removing chemical weapons from Syria," Obama said.
In "Palestinians think Trump can make a deal to restart talks" (5/3/17), the Washington Post states that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is reluctant to recognize Israel as the Jewish state "in part [emphasis added] because more than 20 percent of the Israeli population consists of Palestinian Muslims and Christians." If the Washington Post says "in part," then there must be another part. So what about the other part? And why neglect mentioning it? The main reason that Abbas won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state is that doing so would give up the Palestinians' belief that Israel is still theirs!

According to the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council, in "Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel" (4/15/17), "[t]he Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is based on the argument that such a move would mean giving up the 'right of return' for millions of 'refugees' into Israel," which would effectively defeat Israel due to demographics. The article provides another reason for the refusal in that it "is also based on the continued denial of any historic Jewish connection to the land." This denial is also used by the Palestinians in their attempt to defeat Israel by denying their right to be there in the first place.

There is no evidence based on a literature search backing up the Post's claim of why Abbas is reluctant to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and it is curious why the Post would rush to build a defense for the Palestinian position other than favoritism  or, more aptly put, bias. The main reason why Israel has such a large minority population compared to area Arab countries is because of the forcing out of non-Arabs from Arab countries, not for any other reason. Israel treats its minorities better than any country in the Middle East. What does having a larger group of minorities have to do with whether Israel is recognized as a Jewish state?

The Gatestone article clarifies that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas actually "has consistently failed to state his reasons for his total rejection of Israel as a Jewish state." In January 2014, the PA president declared: "The Palestinians won't recognize the Jewishness of the State of Israel and won't accept it. The Israelis say that if we don't recognize the Jewishness of Israel there would be no solution. And we say that we won't recognize or accept the Jewishness of Israel and we have many reasons for this rejection." Further, "[o]n another occasion that same year, Abbas stated: 'No one can force us to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. If they [Israel] want, they can go to the UN and ask to change their name to whatever they want -- even if they want to be called The Jewish Zionist State.' Again, Abbas failed to explain the vehement Palestinian opposition to this demand."

Palestinian president Abbas can't seem to tell the truth on anything. In his address to President Trump, Abbas stated, "Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace." There is an entire website dedicated to accumulating recorded videos of state-run Palestinian Authority television inflaming viewers toward Jew-hatred and Israeli-hatred. Squares and schools are named after suicide bombers. Children are taught in school to hate Jews. Maps of Israel say "Occupied Palestine."

The Palestinian denial of Israel as a Jewish state is part of their strategy to win all of Israel. What aspiring country has as a chief sticking point in negotiating for a land of its own the ability to flood its next-door neighbor with enough of its own people to topple that neighboring country? The Palestinians seem to be more interested in destroying their neighbor Israel than in having a country of their own.
On May 15, the Toronto Star ran an article on the front page by AP quoting James Clapper: "U.S. democracy 'under assault' from Trump and Russia, former intelligence director says."

"I think, in many ways, our institutions are under assault, both externally  and that's the big news here, is the Russian interference in our election system," said James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence. "I think as well our institutions are under assault internally."

When he was asked, "Internally, from the president?" Clapper said, "Exactly."

Clapper lied to Congress in 2013 when he said "no, sir" and "not wittingly" to a question about whether the National Security Agency was collecting "any type of data at all" on millions of Americans.

Clapper and others who the media know have lied should have lost all credibility, yet the Associated Press and other media outlets trot them out as sources as long as they are willing to trash Trump.

Democracy is in danger because the NSA surveilled and collected data on millions of Americans, when the Obama administration and the FBI start surveilling and investigating political opponents at least five months before the election and selectively unmasking private citizens' names and when the FBI and Justice let high-level officials skate on the nation's security laws while prosecuting others for low-level violations.

Our democracy is in danger not because the president fired FBI director Comey, who, along with A.G. Loretta Lynch, chose not to prosecute Hillary and her aides for multiple violations of the nation's security laws.

As for Russia, there is nothing at all to show that Russia influenced the results of the election or that Trump and his associates colluded with Russia. Why would Putin have wanted Trump over Hillary, who, along with her staff, had many close ties with Russia? It appears that all the investigations are searching for violations of the law instead of investigating actual violations of the law.
Ann Coulter recently said she thinks all "Trump true believers are petrified," as reported by the Daily Caller's Alex Pfeiffer. But at least one Trump supporter thinks loony liberal behavior shows that the president is on the right track.

Kurt Schlichter, writing at Town Hall:

Pity the Democrats, to the extent you can without bursting into hysterical laughter at their agony. America has thoroughly rejected them in every branch of the federal government plus out in the states, and on top of that they were utterly humiliated by the guy they all claimed was a complete moron. They still haven't realized what's going on.

Schlichter contends that liberals are "blinded to the bitter reality" of their loss and "baffled at our refusal to acknowledge their moral, intellectual, and political superiority," and further that their "insanity" will keep them from regaining electoral power.

But don't stop. No, pump it up. You're at "11," and I say take it to "12."

Predicting eighteen more months of liberal "shrieking" about Comey, Russians, and "the coming Armageddon," Schlichter contends that Democrats, not Trump supporters, should be terrified:

The Democrats, along with the media and Team Tinfoil, keep whining about Russians Russians Russians, and normal people keep tuning them out. While they're babbling about nonsense that means nothing outside of the coastal looney bins, normal people are tuning into how the stock market and the job market just keep getting better, how we're not taking guff from foreign creeps anymore, and we're not talking about how much taxes will go up but about how much they'll go down.

Trump supporters, indeed, should encourage the president to "keep messing with liberals," says Mr. Schlichter: "It pays dividends every time he provokes them to new heights of lunacy."

Not convinced by Mr. Schlichter? Aside from observing Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer's tantrum in the Senate sandbox, or Senator Elizabeth Warren's plea for "partisanship to be set aside" so we can all blame the Russians for Trump, or Trump for the Russians, or something, let's turn to a disillusioned liberal pundit:

New York Times columnist Lee Siegel, referencing previous liberal threats to flee the country, says:

This time around, though, I'm thinking of living again in Scandinavia more seriously than I ever have before. Something fundamental has changed in America, for the worse. It's not just Donald Trump's volatility, or the unfitness of his cabinet appointees, or his possible collusion with Russia, or the certain prospect that everything from health care to quality education will soon be inaccessible to great numbers of Americans. ... Mr. Trump took the lid off the Pandora's box of anti-democratic forces that had been seething for decades.

(Might that last sentence include the "unhinged" Tennessee woman who ran a Republican congressman off the road over his health care vote and wound up "screaming and striking the windows" of his car?)

After acknowledging the "blessings and opportunities" he found in the United States, Mr. Siegel longs for life in Norway, "where health care and world-class higher education are free." Finally, he channels his inner anger over "what is being lost":

I want to stay, and to stay angry  and to funnel that anger into some type of opposition[.]

Siegel looks to "whistle-blowers from the F.B.I." to "save us" and adds in apparent seriousness that "the I.R.S. will deliver Trump's tax returns to the Republic like Moses presenting the stone tablets of the Law to the Jewish people."

And in a note sure to appeal to the American electorate, Siegel concludes:

Every time we laugh at Alec Baldwin's virtuosic, consoling parodies of Mr. Trump, we make the president a little more familiar, a little more normal. Though it cuts against the American grain, we have to put the brakes on all this positive thinking. This is no time for American optimism or idealism.

Yes, liberals, please run on putting the brakes on American optimism.

Still not convinced of the electoral folly of unbalanced liberals? Consider the recent Omaha, Nebraska mayoral race. When reports surfaced that Democratic candidate Heath Mello held pro-life views, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez decreed that "all Democrats should be pro-choice."

The Nebraska state party chair blames the subsequent loss to the Republican incumbent in part on Mr. Perez's "statement excluding pro-life individuals from the Democratic Party." As Andrew Kugle at freebeacon.com observes, "[t]he loss was the latest in a series of electoral defeats for Democrats, who have been unable to channel the resistance to President Trump into success at the ballot box."

President Trump would agree, observing in a Fox News interview with Judge Jeanine Pirro that he doesn't think "obstructionist" Democrats can win any more elections unless they start changing their tune."

When Judge Jeanine asked the president what his late brother, and mentor, Fred, would think, Trump's reply, in a reflective moment, was:
Ann Coulter, one of Trump's earliest and biggest supporters, has changed her tune now that she has seen how few of his promises the president has kept.

In an interview Sunday with The Daily Caller, Coulter let it be known she still has hope in the Trump presidency, but is ready to jump ship. [Interviewer] So there's no wall, and Obama's amnesties look like they are here to stay. Do you still trust Trump? Coulter: Uhhhh. I'm not very happy with what has happened so far. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues. I hate to say it, but I agree with every line in my friend Frank Bruni's op-ed in The New York Times today. Where is the great negotiation? Where is the bull in the china shop we wanted? That budget the Republicans pushed through was like a practical joke Did we win anything? And this is the great negotiator? ... it's as if we're in Chicago and Trump tells us he's going to get us to LA in six days. But for the first three days we are driving towards New York. Yes, it is true he can still turn around and get us to LA in three days, but I'm a little nervous. ... I think all of the Trump true believers are petrified.

So here's the problem. Trump has kept a few of his promises. He nominated Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. He has nominated conservative judges for circuit courts. He has begun to cut back on environmental regulation excesses.

But on everything else, he has not kept his promises. In some cases, he even has done the opposite.

Remember when Trump promised to send Syrian refugees back? He is accepting them faster than ever, even taking ones on their way to Australia.

Trump never proposed repealing Obamacare. He never even submitted a plan. He waited and endorsed whatever Congress came up with.

Remember Trump's promise to move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? How is that working out?

Remember Trump's promise to end the "DREAM" program? That never happened.

Remember Trump's promise to scrap the Paris global warming treaty? Never happened.

Remember Trump's promise to scrap the Iran deal, which he criticized tremendously as a candidate? Not a word.

Remember Trump's promise to cut taxes? He issued a vaguely worded statement but has yet to release a plan.

Remember Trump's promise to give an E.O. for religious freedom? The E.O. he issued was so ridiculously watered down by "Javanka" as to be meaningless.

Remember Trump's promise to build a border wall? He signed a bill outlawing its construction. Chuck Schumer was laughing in his face. What a great negotiator!

Remember Trump's promise to cut the fat from government? He just signed a one-trillion-dollar appropriation giving Democrats everything they wanted.

No wonder Coulter feels as though Trump is driving in the wrong direction.

Trump supporters will say, "But it's only been four months." Everything mentioned above, everything, could have been done or at least proposed in detail by the president within the past four months.

It seems almost like the Obama years again. Same blinders, different teams.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
(ANSA) - Vatican City, May 15 - Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez told ANSA in an interview that he believes the Pope will convince US President Donald Trump to change his mind on climate change. Pope Francis dedicated his 'Laudato Si' encyclical to climate change and will be meeting with Donald Trump on May 24, who has signed an executive order dismantling Obama-era environmental legislation.

In the eyes of Sanchez Sorondo, the choices adopted on climate by Trump "are against science, even before being against what the Pope says. In the election campaign he even said it was a Chinese invention to criticize America. But this president has already changed about several things, so perhaps on this as well".

He added that "today the Chinese are actually very collaborative as concerns the commitments they took on climate with the Paris Climate Conference (the Conference of the Parties, or COP2)".

The Argentinian bishop, who spoke last week at the University of the Holy Cross at an event marking the two-year anniversary of the Pope's encyclical, said that "when he was preparing the 'Laudato Si', oil lobbies did everything in their power to prevent the Pope from saying what he did, meaning that climate change is caused by human activity that employ fossil fuels.

Perhaps the oil companies wanted a 'light' encyclical' - a romantic one on nature that wouldn't say anything at all.

Instead, the Pope followed what the scientific community says.

If the president does not follow science, then that is the president's problem." On his opinion that the Pope will manage to "convince" Donald Trump, Sorondo said that "they will come to an agreement, since the president claims to be a Christian, and so he will listen to him." Monsignor Sorondo, who for almost 20 years has been at the head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, works closely with the Pope, who has entrusted him with such key issues as global warming, the migrant emergency, human trafficking, natural resource management and participatory democracy, underscored that today "even large capitals that have thus far invested in fossil fuels are beginning to be concerned about the effects of climate change and see new investment and research opportunities to find different energy solutions that are 'clean' or renewable." Some countries are ahead of the rest, he said, citing Germany, but the trend is gaining traction elsewhere as well, "in part because energy from fossil fuels (coal and oil) costs a great deal". "In America, oil companies," he said, "in addition to being those that earn the most, receive the most advantages and are subsidized by the state. The result is that the poor pay for the rich." The Pontifical Academy of Sciences focuses on these issues and Sorondo announced that a meeting would be held in November on the effects of climate change on human health. He noted that Trump's turnaround on the COP21 commitments taken by Obama was made possible by the fact that the latter "had used a decree without going through Congress, which his successor has now been able to do". The danger is now that "the US president influences others, and scientific findings are being cast doubt on" and "truths begin to be denied". Sorondo stressed that it was during the Paris conference that climate change deniers were found to have been paid by oil sector lobbies. He added that global warming was leading to the migration crisis and new forms of slavery for "tens of millions of people".


54,000 migrants arrived in EU via sea in 2017, 1,136 died Almost 85% to Italy, ever more from Bangladesh and Morocco

(ANSAmed) - GENEVA, MAY 16 - Some 53,912 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning of 2017 until May 14, while 1,316 died trying, reported the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday.



Almost 85% of those who came were registered in Italy, with about 45,118 arrivals since January 1, compared with 32,292 in the same period last year. A growing number of migrants from Bangladesh and Morocco were seen. The highest number of deaths at sea, the IOM reported, was on the central Mediterranean route between North Africa and Italy, which 1,229 people died trying to use, compared with 966 in the same period last year. (ANSAmed).




Commission issues ultimatum on migrant relocations States get month to comply or could face infringement procedure

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, MAY 16 - The European Commission on Tuesday issued an ultimatum to member States not respecting their commitments on agreements for the relocation of a total of 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece. It called on "States that have not relocated anyone, or that have not pledged for Italy and Greece for almost a year, to start doing so immediately and within the next month". It warned the EC could open infringement procedures if no action is taken within the next month. A statement said that Hungary, Poland and Austria have not relocated a single person, breaching their legal obligations and the commitments taken towards Greece and Italy. The Czech Republic has not been active in the scheme for almost a year, it said. (ANSAmed).




BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Tuesday issued an ultimatum to member States not respecting their commitments on agreements for the relocation of a total of 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece. It called on "States that have not relocated anyone, or that have not pledged for Italy and Greece for almost a year, to start doing so immediately and within the next month". It warned the EC could open infringement procedures if no action is taken within the next month. A statement said that Hungary, Poland and Austria have not relocated a single person, breaching their legal obligations and the commitments taken towards Greece and Italy. The Czech Republic has not been active in the scheme for almost a year, it said.
Important progress in Libya, says Italian interior minister Southern border 'is EU border, control necessary'

(ANSAmed) - TURIN, MAY 16 - Italian interior minister Marco Minniti said Tuesday that ''important progress was made yesterday in Libya'', in reference to his trip to the North African country. He was speaking in Asti to present a security decree. ''A fundamental part of the issue of migration in our country is determined outside of our national borders, in Africa and Libya'', through which most of the migrant flows arriving in Italy pass. The minister added that ''the problem is strengthening the institutions in Libya. Strengthening the fight against human traffickers is a crucial issue that affects Italy directly, since the southern border of Libya is today in some sense the southern border of Europe. And securing this border is fundamental to work against human traffickers and against terrorism.'' (ANSAmed).




Italian migrant arrivals up 33% in 2017 - Frontex Down 84% for EU was a whole in same period says border agency

(ANSAmed) - ROME, MAY 16 - Frontex said Tuesday that 37,200 migrants arrived in Italy through the Central Mediterranean route in the first four months of 2017, up 33% with respect to the same period last year. The number of detections of illegal border crossings fell 84% in the January-April period compared to the same period last year for the EU as a whole, dropping to 47,000, the EU border agency said.




China and Italy will establish a regular dialogue mechanism between the prime ministers of the two countries, Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday.

Li announced the mechanism when meeting his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni, who was in Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation from Sunday to Monday.

Li said China is willing to enhance cooperation with Italy in key areas and deepen mutual trust. He said China will work hard to implement the three-year cooperation agreement starting from this year, expecting tangible advancement by 2020, which marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of ties.

During the meeting, Li also expressed Chinas willingness to advance cooperation with Italy in innovation and called for wider cooperation among small businesses, as China is pursuing innovation-driven development.

China is willing to take part in Italys infrastructure program, such as ports, to improve connectivity between China and Europe, Li said.

Gentiloni said Italy is willing to work hard to implement the three-year agreement between Italy and China, and improve cooperation with China in developing small- and medium-sized enterprises, agriculture and port construction.

He also said that Italy welcomes tourists and students from China, and is ready to facilitate related visa procedures.

Also on Tuesday, the two prime ministers witnessed the signing of deals in agriculture and the finance sector.
ROME - Production of Oscar-winning Paolo Sorrentino's new SKY-HBO series The New Pope, set in the Vatican, will commence near year. The screenplay was written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello and will be produced by Lorenzo Mieli and Mario Gianani for Wildside and co-produced by Mediapro. The international distributor is FremantleMedia International.



The casting for the role of the new pope and other characters has just begun. The series will reportedly be an entirely new project and not just a second season of 'The Young Pope'. However, like the latter, it will center on the pope and be set in the Vatican. The same atmospheres and world that caught the interest of the world and critics will be back, as will the Sky-HBO team, an idea that was initially tried out with The Young Pope. After achieving success in Italy and across Europe, The Young Pope - currently sold in over 110 countries throughout the world - found a large audience in the US on the HBO cable television station.
GENEVA - Some 53,912 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea from the beginning of 2017 until May 14, while 1,316 died trying, reported the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday.



Almost 85% of those who came were registered in Italy, with about 45,118 arrivals since January 1, compared with 32,292 in the same period last year. A growing number of migrants from Bangladesh and Morocco were seen. The highest number of deaths at sea, the IOM reported, was on the central Mediterranean route between North Africa and Italy, which 1,229 people died trying to use, compared with 966 in the same period last year.
ROME - Frontex said Tuesday that 37,200 migrants arrived in Italy through the Central Mediterranean route in the first four months of 2017, up 33% with respect to the same period last year.

The number of detections of illegal border crossings fell 84% in the January-April period compared to the same period last year for the EU as a whole, dropping to 47,000, the EU border agency said.
Syria denies mass executions and cremation in Sednaya 'Hollywood story', government sources

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MAY 16 - The Syrian government has ''categorically'' denied the US's accusations that it is conducting mass extrajudicial executions and using a crematorium to cover up the killings at the Sednaya jail. The government news agency SANA cites an unidentified ''foreign ministry source'' who said that the US accusations about a crematorium used by the Syrian government at Sednaya prison to cover up mass murders is "a new Hollywood story" that ''is dissociated from reality and fundamentally untrue'', adding that it was similar to previous ''false accusations'' about barrel bombs and chemical weapons. The Syrian government has always denied committing human rights violations. (ANSAmed).




Turkey:85 arrest warrants in 2 ministries over 'Gulen links' Many had already been suspended from their post

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, MAY 16 - The state attorney's office in Ankara has issued 85 new arrest warrants against people with suspected ties to the alleged network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen blamed by Turkey for a failed coup attempt last July, Anadolu reported on Tuesday.



Anadolu said that 60 of them were employees of the ministry for energy and natural resources while 25 others worked for the education ministry. A reported 40 were arrested during an operation carried out on Tuesday morning.



Many of the suspects have reportedly been suspended from their posts with decrees on the state of emergency.




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The MOU was signed last week by Abdul Majeed Al Khoori, acting chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Airports, and Sweidan Rashed Sweidan Al Dhaheri, chief executive officer of Musanada, at Abu Dhabi Airports headquarters.

The MOU aims at facilitating cooperation between the two companies by launching workshops with relevant expertise from both parties, in order to then design frameworks for partnerships and knowledge exchange, highlighting the key roles and responsibilities for each organisation. The MOU also details the processes for securing human resources and labor in the service, technical and management sectors, for the maintenance of the airport facilities and terminals, and how to strengthen engagement in the areas of construction, logistics, and contract management, as per international best practice.

Abdul Majeed Al Khoori commented: Abu Dhabi Airports is keen to have compatible partners to support its tremendous progress in its journey towards the ambitious infrastructure development plan. With this MOU today we have paved the way for a stronger joint front, with our partners from Musanada, to deliver what this Emirate aspires to in terms of a leading aviation sector empowered by world class facilities and services.

Sweidan Rashed Sweidan Al Dhaheri, said: There is growing interest in Abu Dhabi and the projects currently under development here which are attracting worldwide attention. This is mainly due to the great investment environment that the Emirate has to offer and the world leading projects across many sectors, that are currently under construction. The MOU signing with Abu Dhabi Airports ensures the implementation of the vision of our wise leadership towards strengthening development opportunities and the delivery of pioneering infrastructure.

Musanada is committed to carrying out all technical works for Abu Dhabi Airports as per the highest standards. Musanadas scope of work is not limited to the design, construction and delivery of key dynamic government projects, but also includes facility management services. Currently, Musanada provides 2,713 facilities and buildings within Abu Dhabi with facility management services, through specialized work forces, as well as providing 24/7 customer care call center services. Our main goal is to support development programs and strengthen Musanadas operations within the facility management and maintenance industry, to maintain assets and enhance efficiency and sustainability by adopting the highest international standards.
The Sharjah-based carrier took delivery of its latest A320 in March this year, after firming up a deal with Airbus for an additional five aircraft in November 2016.

Despite a 10% decrease in revenue in the first quarter, CEO Adel Abdullah Ali is optimistic about the airline's future, especially its Moroccan subsidiary. "As we go into the second quarter and then summer Im optimistic that things will be much brighter," Ali is reported as saying. "Weve been growing pretty fast in our hub in Morocco. Its been doing very well for us. Morocco this year will probably be our key fast-growing market."
All aircraft, from the entry level twin jet Phenom 100E all the way up to the ultra-large Lineage 1000E, will be at the Embraer static display at Palexpo in Geneva from May 22-24, 2017.

Embraers static display include the Phenom 300, the clean-sheet design Legacy 450 and Legacy 500, along with the Legacy 650E which now carries an unprecedented 10-year or 10,000-flight hour warranty, the longest in the business jet industry.
Oman Airport Management Company (OAMC) introduced the worlds first virtual reality applications, while Nuctech displayed the worlds first 3D scanner for airports.

Among the other prominent latest technology solutions being showcased are a contactless energy and data distribution, termed as the smart future of airfield lighting by Induperm A/S, airport-oriented ICT solutions including aviation cloud, visualized airport operation solution and panoramic video surveillance solution by Huawei; intelligent baggage handling by emaratech that reduces manual handling by 99 per cent; Stor-H, an ergonomical and ecological energy storage technology; and smart baggage handling system by Siemens.

Airport Show 2017 is being held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Dubai Airports and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airlines and Group.

The exhibitors said Airport Show is an ideal platform to showcase their products and services, strengthen their business presence as well as forge new business relationships.

Mohammed Al-Raisi, Technology Innovation Specialist, Oman Airport Management Company (OAMC), explained: For the first ever time, we have recently launched four applications, two for Muscat International Airport and two for Salalah Airport. The virtual walkthrough takes you inside the airport and shows you the passenger experience from the drop off area to the gate. As a user walks through the airport, he gets facts and figures about the airport and also a voice over narration describing what they look at. We are the first airport in the world to launch this kind of technology.

He said the apps will service travelers, B2B vendors and also airlines can also see the capabilities of Muscat International and Salalah Airports in terms of providing services. We are working on our new airport trials, where we are using virtual walkthroughs to guide candidates of trials throughout the new airport, he added.

Nuctech Company Limited introduced the worlds first 3D scanner for the airports at the Airport Show. The scanner works through two different systems for 3D scanning.

Anwar Zhang, marketing manager of the company for West Asia region, said the new product called X-ray CT Inspection System does not compromise on the speed of belt despite its ability to do 3D scanning. The company is 21 years old and specialising in cargo and passenger scanning. Nowadays airports look for a single solution for scanning our product is one stop solution. The new scanner can do both 2D and 3D scanning very quickly such as in 0.3 metre per second.

Induperm A/S has introduced a new concept in lighting technology at the Airport Show, which, it said is the smart future of airfield lighting. The companys top executive claimed that the new solution would provide up to 40 per cent savings on power and maintenance.

The solution, Contactless Energy & Data Distribution, eliminates around 60 per cent to 80 per cent of airfield lighting infrastructure such as cable and duct, said Malek Hussami, Regional Sales Manager for Middle East, Induperm A/S.

Hessami said there would be no need for traditional cables as its massive and expensive. The product will get regulatory approval in the first quarter of next year, he informed.

Huawei is highlighting its full suite of airport-oriented ICT capabilities for the first time under the theme "Leading New ICT, The Road to Digital Aviation" at the Airport Show.

Developed together with industry-leading partners such as T-Systems, SAP, TravelSky - Civil Aviation Cares of Qingdao, YITU, Terra Vision, HYDATA, and SenseTime, Huawei is displaying a series of airport-oriented ICT solutions such as visualized airport operation solution, panoramic video surveillance solution and aviation cloud, which, combined, can enhance passenger experience, enable smart operations and intelligent security protection, as well as improve the ICT infrastructure to power aviation cloud platforms.

To support airports in their efforts to offer a better passenger experience, Huawei and T-Systems jointly developed the Cloud Flight Information Display System and the indoor positioning Dynamic Milestone system for smart travel.

Vanderlande Industries is showcasing an advanced automated passenger checkpoint, Scannojet Automated Passenger Checkpoints (APC), for screening of passengers and their hand baggage in airports or other secured areas, to facilitate effective handling of rising passenger traffic alongwith ensuring security.

Nash Aqlan, senior service manager, said it increases security, improve passenger experience, increase throughput and also reduce cost. We are selling our solutions in the Middle East region. Security is the first priority for airport operators, but it is also important that the passengers experience is a pleasant one. Scannojet APC transforms the environment at security checkpoints, helping airports to meet these challenges.

Explaining the latest intelligent baggage handling system by emaratech, Martin Sattrup Christensen, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), BBHS Intelligent Baggage Handling, said: We are showcasing the new system for baggage handling which reduces manual handling by 99 per cent. Airport Show is an ideal platform to explore the latest technologies and showcase our latest offerings.

Come GEORGES-PICOT, President, TDA Lefebure, said: The Airport Show is a strong platform, particularly to tap into numerous opportunities in the Middle East aviation sector. We are showcasing a unique Flex Pit to connect the aircraft to electricity. During our previous participations, we received tremendous business interest and we are confident of a strong interest this year too.

Daniyal Qureshi, Group Exhibition Director, Reed Exhibitions Middle East, organisers of the Airport Show, said: Passenger experience and operational efficiency is the key for airports in the world especially in the Middle East where growth in passenger numbers has surpassed global growth. This has generated high demand for technology solutions in ICT, security, passenger handling and other areas. We see a lot of this technology on display at the Airport Show to meet the growing demands of Middle Easts aviation industry.
The order was added under Lockheed Martins existing foreign military sales indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract and includes 14 Sniper ATPs, spares, support equipment and integration. Pod deliveries will begin in 2018 to address urgent operational needs of the Kuwait Air Force.



Sniper ATP provides critical targeting and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support in challenging threat environments, said Paul Lemmo, vice president of Fire Control/Special Operations Forces Contractor Logistics Support Services at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. By integrating Sniper ATP on its Hornet aircraft, the Kuwait Air Force continues expanding operational capabilities across its fighter fleet.



Lockheed Martin announced efforts to integrate Sniper ATP on the Kuwait Air Forces Typhoon aircraft in 2016. Sniper ATP is also used on Canadas CF-18 and on multinational F-15, F-16, A-10, B-1, B-52 and F-2 aircraft. Additionally, Lockheed Martin is conducting Sniper ATP flight tests on the U.S. Navys Super Hornet.



Sniper ATP detects, identifies, automatically tracks and laser-designates small tactical targets at long ranges. It also supports employment of all laser- and GPS-guided weapons against multiple fixed and moving targets.
Nagi, Oman Air district sales manager Manchester said: I am truly delighted to be joining the growing Oman Air team in the UK and have been an admirer of the airline for quite some time. I cannot wait to put my energies towards the challenge of increasing the revenue, passenger numbers and yields on the new daily service from Manchester to Muscat and beyond.
Bin Ghalib said the campaign would involve taking top ranking across four key metrics - airports, air navigation services, safety and security services and airlines.

To achieve top ranking across all these four metrics, the GCAA has embarked on a two-pronged strategy  which we are operating simultaneously, he explained. In the first phase, we are identifying the improvement gaps in all four infrastructure areas and will work with all concerned agencies to close them. Secondly, as two thirds of the index ranking is contributed by Executive Survey Ratings, we are working hard to create awareness of our efforts, and our progress, among partner institutes.

Bin Ghalib said the GCC is currently carrying out a number of surveys and studying the latest market information. Airlines and airports are sharing their quality assessment studies, the travelling public is being asked to rate their experience of our airports and we have begun a study to discover if we really are providing adequate ANS systems to keep pace with technological and global standards.

The Deputy Director General said the GCAA is also establishing KPIs for all infrastructure elements and is measuring them. We have formed of a higher committee of stakeholders to monitor the progress of local governments. We are also working with the National Transport Authority to look into multi-modal transport connectivity for all UAE gateways. We meet monthly with stakeholders and work jointly to promote the UAE as a global aviation hub across all metrics through the international media.

Bin Ghalib said the number one slot for aviation infrastructure is a key priority under the GCAAs 2017-2021 strategy plan, which has seven key pillars. Put simply, the Deputy Director General said the campaign will see the GCAA strive to develop and enforce the best safety, security and service standards; we will elevate UAE aviation globally; boost bilateral relations; use the best management strategies to address business challenges and improve the GCAAs own services through a culture of innovation.

We will achieve all this through enhanced compliance; better awareness, risk based audit; improving services through stakeholder engagement; boosting global connectivity through continuous consultations and negotiations and, of course, infrastructure enhancements.

Bin Ghalib said the GCAAs top priority is to ensure safety within the sector, and it is committed to implementing ICAO recommendations on Risks and Civil Aviation Arising From Conflict Zones. We are also committed to supporting improvements in operational efficiencies through airspace redesign and plan to further modernise communication and navigational aids and enhance the skills of our air traffic controllers so we can better handle increasingly complex operations.

Proferring the UAE Aviation Outlook to 2025, Bin Ghalib said the forecast was challenging, yet positive. Challenges he said include overcrowded skies; the new wave of trade protectionism, safety and security to name just a few. He added that although the airline industry is currently facing challenges due to softer market conditions which would ultimately impact every other sector of aviation, the industry faced worrying but exciting times.

The excitement and challenges will come as we move to keep up with hi-tech developments including cyber security, blockchain, biometric and beacon breakthroughs, drone usage, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robotics. One thing we can say for sure  is that the aviation industry by 2025 will be a very different one to that of today  even though were only eight years away.

The Deputy Director General said that within eight years, the Midfield Terminal in Abu Dhabi will be operating with a dedicated passenger capacity of 30 million a year; Dubai will be reporting on its 2025 passenger target of 146 million with Al Maktoum International Airport being the primary airport for the emirate while Sharjah International should be receiving 25 million passengers a year. In all these major facilities, new processes and technology will have increased passenger flow rates to add capacity, he said.

Bin Ghalib said while the industry in the UAE may encounter some turbulence ahead the outlook was positive because the country was geographically well positioned. IATA tells us that by 2025 China will displace the US as the worlds largest aviation market in terms of its out and inbound passenger traffic. China is just a seven-hour flight away. Indeed, from the UAE we connect with two thirds of the worlds population in less than nine hours  and thats where well continue to score, in terms of client airlines, passengers and cargo. We will be a country at the crossroads, operating to the highest international standards, with open skies bringing the new drivers in, and on to their destinations in the west. And these new passengers will find facilities which will continue to be international benchmarks and backed up with an aviation infrastructure which will be the best in the world. In the UAE, as we head towards 2025, we remain positive despite the challenges.


YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of the Parliament of Armenia Galust Sahakyan addressed a message on the Students and Youth Day on May 16, press service of the Parliament told Armenpress.

The message reads:

Dear youth and students,

I congratulate you on Students and Youth Day.

The youth is a special indicator of political and civil activeness. And due to our youth and students that indicator is rather high among us, because the young generation shows decisive participation in terms of security and peace both on public platforms and in political processes.

The heights that the youth conquers in the educational, scientific, working and public-political spheres and, of course, during the military service and, particularly, on the front-line are very important in the life of our country. The borders of the state, justice and democracy that the youth defends with its activities, and often, also with their life are vital for the society and the state. In all these fronts and processes our youth are honoured with the clear conscience of dignity and duty.

I am sure that with such youth we expect the very future, which is our target as a citizen knowing the value of the Motherland, as a state chosen the path of the peaceful development as a steadfast and winning people.

Once again congratulating you on Students and Youth Day, I wish you, dear youth and students, optimism, welfare, confidence to your own forces and continuous victories.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Anna Zakharyan, a reporter of the Haykakan Zhamanak daily (Armenian Times), filed a report on May 12 in the Yerevan Police Department that on May 11, from 20:30 to 21:00, ballots and election bribes were distributed to citizens in the campaign district HQ of incumbent mayor Taron Margaryan in 11/3 Kurghinyan Street, and when she tried to film it, a man grabbed her mobile phone, entered the HQ and deleted the numbers and sms from the phone, and 15 minutes later another man returned her phone, undamaged.

Criminal proceedings were launched on obstruction of a reporter and vote buying.

The special investigative service is probing the case.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The central electoral commission (CEC) of Armenia released the signed voters lists of the Yerevan City Council election. The lists are available on the CEC website.

The CEC released the lists from all polling stations of the capital.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. 62 Members of Congress have sent a letter pressing U.S. President Trump to prioritize democracy and human rights during Tuesday's White House meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reports.

Citing the continuing erosion of human rights and the dramatic decline of democratic values in Turkey, a bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives is calling on President Trump to be candid and consistent in our support of democratic values and respect for human rights. The legislators specifically cited the Erdogan government's increased direct threats against political opposition groups and minority communities including ethnic Kurds.

The letter will also be sent to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian welcomed such step stating that President Trump can start putting American principles and priorities first by demanding the release of HDP leaders and rejecting Ankara's gag-rule against honest U.S. remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. As result of large scale tactical-search operations, the investigative committee was quick to uncover the May 14 robbery in Yerevan.

Police were notified on May 14, 00:25, that an unknown person, armed with a knife, had breached into an apartment in Baghramyan Avenue and threatened a citizen, who is renting the apartment, to give him money and valuable items. The attacker also took the mans golden necklace, mobile phone, laptop, cash and fled the scene.

Law enforcement agencies identified the perpetrator and launched a manhunt.

The thief was apprehended on May 15.

Upon searching the perpetrators home, police discovered a part of the belongings which he had stolen.

Investigation continues.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. Istanbul City Hall approved the changes in the development program of the Kamp Armen orphanage in the citys Tuzla district, Istanbuls Armenian Agos newspaper reports.

The changes plan to create educational and cultural centers, a cinema, theater, concert and cultural halls, a library and other venues in the territory belonging to the Tuzla municipality, while the changes mostly relate to the Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church Fund.

The building, which is ruined on a territory of more than 4 thousand 840 sq.m, will be rebuilt.

The Kamp Armen orphanage was built by Armenian orphans.

Late reporter Hrant Dink was brought up in Kamp Armen.

In 1983, the Turkish government expropriated the orphanage. In 2011, a law was passed under which church property belonging to minorities will be returned to their rightful owners, however this orphanage, located next to the Gedikpasa Armenian Orphanage, was not included in the list.

In 2015, bulldozers began to bring down the building: 1/3rd of the structure was destroyed.

Several organizations and ordinary citizens rushed to the scene to stop the orphanage from being destroyed. After 175 days of struggle, the orphanage was returned to the Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church Fund in October of 2015.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. According to Greek media, 44 Turkish gunships breached the airspace of Greece on May 15 over the Aegean Sea.

The foreign ministry of Greece made a statement after reports emerged on the airspace violation.

The ministry said the breach is a serious violation of international rights.

It seems there are several forces in Turkey which are against the friendly relations between the two countries, the statement said.
YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. More than 2600 gunmen and members of their families left al-Waer neighborhood in Homs on Tuesday in the framework of implementing the reconciliation agreement in the neighborhood and in a preparation for announcing the city of Homs clear of all armed manifestations, Armenpress reports, citing SANA agency.

SANA reporter said that the evacuation of the 10th group of militants and some of their family members who rejected the reconciliation agreement was completed on Tuesday.

He added that this is the penultimate group and it included the evacuation of 2613 persons, more than 460 of whom are militants, via 58 buses towards Idleb, noting that the process was carried out under the supervision of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), Russian Military Police and the Internal Security Forces.

In parallel to the departure of the militants, the legal status of 428 persons from al-Waer neighborhood has been settled in the framework of the implementation of the reconciliation agreement and under the Amnesty Decree No. 15 for 2016.

The reporter pointed out that by the evacuation of the 10th group of militants, the neighborhood will become almost fully cleansed of all armed manifestations, as the remaining gunmen are scheduled to be evacuated by next Saturday in preparation for the return of the state institutions to the neighborhood.

Since the start of the evacuation process last March, dozens of family members of militants have returned back to al-Waer neighborhood from camps in Jarabulus and Idleb, fleeing the bad humanitarian and health conditions there.
New Delhi: Indias export shot up by 20 per cent in April to $24.63 billion due to robust performance by sectors like petroleum, textiles, engineering goods as well as gems and jewellery.

However, imports too jumped 49 per cent to $37.88 billion in April 2016, pushing trade deficit to a 29-month high $13.2 billion.

Gold import rose three-fold to $3.85 billion in April compared to $1.23 billion in the same month last year, led by restocking, as well as festive Akshaya Tritiya demand.

The volume of gold imports is likely to taper off in the coming months. Other consumption items such as electronic goods also recorded a sharp rise. Moreover, industrial inputs including coal, chemical, and machinery, displayed a considerable expansion, which may signal an industrial upturn, said rating agency Icra.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), president, Ganesh Kr Gupta said that continuous and consecutive higher double digit growth in exports show Indian economys robustness and capability to come out from the bad and challenging times.

Mr Gupta said that petroleum exports which has a major contribution in the exports basket has once again contributed with a robust growth of over 48 per cent.

In April, petroleum, textiles, engineering goods and gems and jewellery shipments recorded a growth of 48.77 per cent, 31.72 per cent, 28.21 per cent and 15 per cent respectively. Oil imports grew by 30.12 per cent to $7.35 billion. In an another development, an export promotion body on Monday said that due to higher demand in the West Asia and South-East Asia India's gems and jewellery export grow this fiscal to about $42 billion. In 2016-17, the export totalled at around $36 billion.

According to Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council northern region chairman Anil Sankhwal, Europe poses a challenge to exporters. But in the US, Middle-East nations and South-East Asia, demand is growing. We are expecting that our exports will reach about $41-42 billion this fiscal, he said.
Mumbai: There is much interest over the new method in which the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) has been arrived at specially since it has revealed that contrary to the general belief, manufacturing output was not affected by the demonetisation exercise that had created chaos due to the cash crunch.

This may or may not be the case as balance sheets of several companies did show profits and did not seem to be affected by the cash crunch. But it does indicate that there has been more production than was generally thought.

To this extent a byproduct of the new IIP figures was that maybe the Manmohan Singh government didnt do so badly after all. His government was accused of dithering on decision making among other things and that there was hardly any growth during his regime. The new IIP indicate there was growth.

The government also introduced the seventh revision in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) with base year 2011-12 so the new WPI series is now comparable with gross domestic product, consumer price index and the new IIP that includes items of daily consumption apart from paan masala and gutka, which shows that households are eating better and a wider range of food and fruits and vegetables. like radish, carrot, cucumber, bitter gourd, mosambi, pear, pomegranate, jackfruit, etc., have been included. Natural gas has also been added and this is timely as the government has promised that every household below the poverty line will get LPG connections.

It was time for this change as society and peoples habits and possessions have transformed over the years and items like videos and CDs are passe.

Whilst all this is welcome the disturbing aspect of the new IIP is that it shows that growth in capital goods is still sluggish. Capital goods production indicate factories humming with activity which in turn reflects the presence of demand and investment. And this investment has not happened and has not been happening for the last several quarters.

Earlier, it was thought that the private sector was not investing as several companies were highly leveraged with debt and that there was a huge idle capacity. What is more disconcerting is that nothing is being done or is seen to be done about encouraging private investment which could generate jobs. There is no serious concern about this. Normally government investment is followed by private investment. The economy is dependent more on government investment in infrastructure and other sectors.

Investment creates jobs. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election speeches had promised millions of jobs and this was a big attraction for the youth who voted for him enthusiastically. But two and a half years later there are no signs of these millions of jobs. The last count indicated that about 10 lakh jobs had been created mostly by public sector enterprises like the railways.

This has also been borne out by the new IIP figures which are more pervasive and yet reveal very little on job creation. It is only the manufacturing and services sectors that can provide the jobs required for the millions of students leaving schools and colleges each year.
The raids are linked to charges that Chidambaram's son Karti's company facilitated clearances for foreign investment to a media company.

Chennai: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday swooped down on the residences and premises belonging to former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu.

The raids were in connection with an FIR registered this morning against P Chidambaram in connection with Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance given to INX Media in 2008 when he was finance minister in the UPA-1 government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

INX Media had launched NewsX in 2008 with jailed Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani Mukerjea as partners.

Raids were conducted at Chidambaram's residence in Nungambakkam and Karaikudi where he and his son are said to own numerous properties.

Reacting to the raids on the various places, Chidambaram alleged that the government wanted him to stop writing against it and is, therefore targetting him.

Government is using CBI and other agencies are targeting my son and his friends as govt wants to silence my voice, the ex-minister remarked.

Should I stop writing against the government: P Chidambaram after raids, he asked.

He further added, Every case was processed according to law and approval granted or refused accordance with FIPB recommendations consisting of 5 GOI Secretaries, iterating his stance on the issue.
RBI has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation CERT-In to prevent the attack by ransomware, WannaCry.

New Delhi: The Centre, on Monday, said that there has been no report of a major br-each in security due to ransomware Wann-aCry except for some isolated incidents, even as there were reports that WannaCry was slowing down. However, experts are on high alert fearing second round of ransomware cyber attacks.

There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. As per the information received so far, there have been isolated incidents in limited areas in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, said IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. He said the systems run by the National Informatics Centre were secured and running smoothly and a cyber coordination centre will start operating from next month to take precautions against such attacks.

On reports of networks of a few banks being compromised, the minister said he had no such information.

Separately, some reports said that ransomware had infected 10 standalone computers of West Bengal state electricity distribution company. Computers in two panchayat offices in Kerala were disabled by the ransomware, but no major damage was caused.

Ministry of electronics and information technology secretary Aruna Sundararajan told a news agency the government was constantly monitoring the situation and that a few stand-alone computers of a police department were back in action after being infected over the weekend.

Indias National Informatics Centre, which builds and manages almost all government websites, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a premier research institute that has built supercomputers, have actively installed patches to immunise their Windows systems, she said.

India is on high alert, monitoring critical networks across sectors like banking, telecom, power and aviation to ensure that systems are protected against the attack that has claimed victims in more than 150 countries over the weekend.

RBI has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation CERT-In to prevent the attack by ransomware, WannaCry. RBI also asked all banks to put in place a software update at ATMs to prevent their systems from a malware that has attacked payment systems across the world.

Central transmission utility Power Grid said it has put sufficient firewalls to deal with the attack and consumers need not fear sudden outages on that account. Power Grids top brass deliberated on the strategy to deal with the ransomware. Since the Power Grid operations are information technology based, the issue was discussed in detail at a meeting of board members chaired by Chairman and Managing Director I S Jha this morning, a senior official said. Telecom companies were also on high alert to deal with any situation.

Centre has advised all those who are working in strategic and sensitive fields to use stand-alone computers sans internet to store data and critical information. The advisory has been sent to all those who handle sensitive desks in the ministries of home, finance, defence, external affairs and security agencies as a precautionary measure.

Its more of panic situation been built-up..... We have seen customers calling us just to see if the controls are in place. There have been some cases reported, but the number is not significant. Our support lines are jammed, and the team has been working overtime through the weekend, said Sharda Tickoo, Technical Head at antivirus company Trend Micro, India. She said that there has already been another variant of the ransomware out yesterday, which does not have a kill switch, making it difficult to contain. As we speak, it has already started infecting countries in UK and Europe, and has not yet spread to India. What is needed is that organizations have a basic hygiene in place, as the modus operandi of these attacks is through phishing emails,she added.

Ransomware WannaCry has impacted 2 lakh victims in over 150 countries. After taking computers over, the virus displayed messages demanding a payment of 300 dollars in virtual currency Bitcoin to unlock files and return them to the user.

WannaCry ransomware targets and encrypts 176 file types. Some of the file types WannaCry targets are database, multimedia and archive files, as well as Office documents. In its ransom note, which supports 27 languages, it initially demands $300 worth of Bitcoins from its victimsan amount that increases incrementally after a certain time limit. The victim is also given a seven-day limit before the affected files are deleteda commonly used fear-mongering tactic.
Modi was addressing the concluding function of 'Namami Devi Narmade Sewa Yatra', to create public awareness about conserving the river.

Amarkantak (MP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday voiced concern over "exploitation" of rivers for "vested interest" which resulted in many of them drying up.

He praised the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh for coming out with a roadmap for conservation of the Narmada river, considered the 'lifeline' of the state.

Modi was addressing the concluding function of 'Namami Devi Narmade Sewa Yatra', aimed at creating public awareness about conserving the river, here in Anuppur district.

"The document (the roadmap) was sent to me in advance and I went through it. It has details of what is to be done, by whom, and when. In my opinion, it is a perfect document for future vision," he said.

He lauded the BJP government for undertaking the Narmada conservation campaign.

Highlighting the poor condition of many rivers in the country, he said, "There is a river named Bharat Puzha in Kerala. It is a matter of concern whether this river will survive or not."

"We are forced to sweat it out now because we did not fulfil our responsibilities towards rivers. We exploited them for our vested interest," he said.

Referring to 2022, when India will complete 75 years of Independence, the prime minister called upon the people to work towards taking the country to new heights by then.

"If 125 crore Indians decide to walk one step for the country, in five years from now ((by 2022) we will move forward by 125 crore steps," Modi said.

The PM called upon the people to take a pledge to work towards all-round development of the country. "We should decide that as a family, as a society, and as a nation what I should do for development of the country."

He said the government has set itself the target of doubling the income of farmers by 2022.

Praising the Madhya Pradesh government's scheme to plant saplings of fruit-bearing trees on the banks of Narmada, Modi called it a futuristic programme.

"Those who sow foodgrains think of one year, but those who think of future, plant fruit-bearing trees."

Earlier, Modi performed a puja at the origin of the river, known as 'Ma Narmada Mandir', in Amarkantak.

Modi asked Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to share the document on Narmada conservation with other states.

The PM congratulated Chouhan and the people of Madhya Pradesh for the yatra that lasted for nearly 150 days. "I, on behalf of the people of Gujarat for whom every drop of Narmada is important, and also Rajasthan and Maharashtra, congratulate Madhya Pradesh on this great initiative."

The river courses through Maharashtra and also Modi's home state Gujarat. Rajasthan is one of the beneficiaries of the Sardar Sarovar Dam built on Narmada.

Modi deplored that the importance of the campaign for Narmada conservation was not appreciated widely in the country.

He praised the state government and Chouhan for ensuring the participation of more than 25 lakh people in the yatra.

The yatra, launched on December 11, 2016 from Amarkantak, concluded today after covering a distance of 3,344 km, traversing over 1,100 villages and towns.

He also spoke about Madhya Pradesh cities-- Indore and Bhopal-- emerging as the cleanest in the country as per the recent cleanliness survey commissioned by the Union urban development ministry.

Addressing the gathering, Chouhan said as part of the conservation plan, nearly six crore saplings of fruit-bearing trees will be planted on July 2 on the either side of Narmada.

Chouhan highlighted various other steps like setting up sewage treatment plants, construction of crematoriums and promotion of organic farming which, he said, were aimed at conserving the sacred river.
The ongoing situation in Kashmir will be one of the key issues.

New Delhi: As violence in Kashmir continues unabated, the RSS, for the first time, is holding its Akhil Bhartiya Pracharak meet in Jammu and Kashmir. The meet could send a message to the Modi government to take effective measures to normalise situation in the region. Sangh parivar affiliate BJP is part of the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government, whi-ch is facing flak over its failure to bring situation under control in the Valley. RSS brass, including its chief Mohan Bhagwat, will also attend the meet from July 18 to 20. BJP president Amit Shah is also likley to attend this meeting.

The ongoing situation in Kashmir will be one of the key issues, other than coordination between the sangh parivar affiliates and the Central government, that will come up for deliberation at the two-day meet. The BJP had won 25 Assembly seats in Jammu during the last Assembly elections, its best ever performance in the state where it came to power for the first time with senior partner PDP.

Though security concerns were raised over holding this meeting in Jammu, a senior RSS functionary said the decision to hold the meeting in Jammu was taken earlier this year.

Kashmir has been on a boil ever since Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter last year. Though situation was slowly coming to normal, but violence and stone-pelting started again in the region when more than half-a-dozen people were killed during clashes between locals and security forces during the bypoll for Srinagar parliamentary constituency last month.

The meeting will also see review of many programmes undertaken by the sangh parivar affiliates. With the BJP coming to power in politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, RSS top brass, sources said, will also review the coordination and the various steps taken to enhance the coordination between its cadre and the Yogi Adityanath government over various issues.
Advocate Nedumapara also said Justice Karnan was willing to tender an unconditional apology.

New Delhi: Calcutta high court Judge Justice C.S. Karnan, evading arrest, was on Monday warned by the Supreme Court for sending his lawyer repeatedly to seek urgent hearing on his plea against the award of six month jail term, even warning that he could be thrown out of the court.

The apex court came down heavily against his lawyer Mathews J. Nedumpara, who was told that he can be asked to be thrown out of the court for making it a habit to mention the matter over and over again.

We are saying no and yet you (lawyer) continue to come again and again. You come five times or 20 times. But we are telling you that you are interfering with the process of the court. Everyday you are interfering with the process of court.

We are liberal to you. It is for you to understand, we can be liberal and harsh, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khahar, which was hearing a batch of pleas on triple talaq, said.

Advocate Nedumapara also said Justice Karnan was willing to tender an unconditional apology. Justice Karnan has been sent to jail without even giving him an opportunity and without the sanctity of Parliament which alone can remove him, the counsel said.

Meanwhile, Justice Karnan has shot off letters to the President, the Prime Minister and others against his six-month jail term awarded by the apex court.

The CJI, on May 12, had said that a conscious decision was taken by seven judges to sentence Justice Karnan to six months imprisonment by holding him guilty of contempt.

In his petition, Justice Karnan said that the entire proceeding from February 8, when contempt notice was issued at the hands of the CJI in constituting the Seven-Judge Bench finally culminating in his conviction and sentence, is without jurisdiction. He said from a mere reading of the provisions of Contempt of Courts Act, it is manifest that what could constitute a criminal contempt is any publication which scandalises, or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any Court.

Justice Karnan said the allegations contained in the said letter are against the Judges named therein and not against any Court  neither the High Court of Madras nor the Supreme Court. If the said allegations are untrue, they would at the most amount to defamation which will entail an actionable right, both civil and criminal, in the Judges named in the said letter. The May 9 order sending him to jail for six months was passed in his absence, he pointed out and sought a declaration that the contempt notice issued on February 8 is void and to recall the order and as an interim measure stay of all proceedings pursuant to the notice.
But SC wanted to know from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board as to what is the position of e- divorce given on WhatsApp in Islam.

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it would bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if the court held triple talaq invalid and unconstitutional. (Photo: Representational)

New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday resumed hearings in the triple talaq matter brought before it by a bunch of petitioners opposing the practice.

Arguing for the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), senior lawyer and Congress leader Kapil Sibal questioned how triple talaq could be unconstitutional if it had been going on for 1400 years.

Sibal claimed that 'constitutional morality and equity' cannot interfere in matters of faith.

"If the faith of Hindus about Lord Ram's birth at Ayodhya can't be questioned, then triple talaq ,a matter of faith for Muslims, shouldn't be either," Sibal added.

Kapil Sibal told the Supreme Court that it shouldn't upon decide or interfere in one's faith and belief.

Justice Rohinton Nariman asked Sibal, "You mean to say that we shouldn't hear the matter?" To which Sibal replied, "No, you shouldn't".

The apex court however asked the AIMPLB its opinion on the position of e-talaq in Islam, given through Whatsapp messages.

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it would bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if the court held triple talaq invalid and unconstitutional.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, Indias top law officer, made this submission after a five-judge constitution bench asked him about the remedies for Muslim men if triple talaq was struck down.

The multi-faith bench comprising Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Nariman, Uday Lalit and Abdul Nazeer is examining the legality of triple talaq after a clutch of petitions for a ban on the practice was filed.

The AG said triple talaq was not fundamental to Muslim personal law, and as the guardian of fundamental rights, the court should protect the rights of half of the Muslim population, which suffers discrimination.

The CJI told the AG, We (court) are guardians of fundamental rights as well as minority rights. We agree with you that if triple talaq is arbitrary, extra judicial, it must go. But we are not here to tinker with religion, tenets of religion and religious practices. Tenets of religion can never be tested by courts. What we may ultimately decide will impact a large section of the population.

The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been pushing for a ban on the contentious practice on grounds of gender equality and justice. The push also looks to win support from Muslim women and chip away at an important bloc of voters that has viewed Mr Modi with suspicion. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has promised reforms in personal law but opposed a blanket ban on the practice.

Earlier the AG insisted that polygamy and nikah halala among Muslims were also to be decided by the court as they form part of triple talaq. Nikah halala allows a woman to go back to her husband but only after she marries another man, consummates the marriage and gets a divorce. The court has said that it would only look into the triple talaq issue for now.
Modi government at the Centre has been pushing for a ban on the contentious practice on grounds of gender equality and justice.

New Delhi: The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it would bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if the court held triple talaq invalid and unconstitutional.

Attorney-general Mukul Rohatgi, Indias top law officer, made this submission after a five-judge constitution bench asked him about the remedies for Muslim men if triple talaq was struck down.

The multi-faith bench comprising Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Nariman, Uday Lalit and Abdul Nazeer is examining the legality of triple talaq after a clutch of petitions for a ban on the practice was filed.

The A-G said triple talaq was not fundamental to Muslim personal law, and as the guardian of fundamental rights, the court should protect the rights of half of the Muslim population, which suffers discrimination.

The CJI told the A-G, We (court) are guardians of fundamental rights as well as minority rights. We agree with you that if triple talaq is arbitrary, extra judicial, it must go. But we are not here to tinker with religion, tenets of religion and religious practices. Tenets of religion can never be tested by courts. What we may ultimately decide will impact a large section of the population.

The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been pushing for a ban on the contentious practice on grounds of gender equality and justice. The push also looks to win support from Muslim women and chip away at an important bloc of voters that has viewed Mr Modi with suspicion. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has promised reforms in personal law but opposed a blanket ban on the practice.

Earlier the A-G insisted that polygamy and nikah halala among Muslims were also to be decided by the court as they form part of triple talaq. Nikah halala allows a woman to go back to her husband but only after she marries another man, consummates the marriage and gets a divorce. The court has said that it would only look into the triple talaq issue for now.

Mr Rohatgi maintained that these practices were not protected under the right to religion guaranteed under Article 25(1) of the Constitution. He said the fundamental question for determination by the Court in the case was whether, in a secular democracy, religion can be a reason to deny equal status and dignity, available to Muslim women under the Constitution.

The issue has come under scrutiny with reports emerging of men divorcing their wives via letters, Skype and even WhatsApp messages. Several women divorced by triple talaq have petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the practice.

Justice Nariman told the A-G, You (the government) cannot take away the rights of Muslims guaranteed under Article 25 (1) of the Constitution (right to profess and practice religion). If you take away these rights, then you are throwing the rights to the winds. The court said it was concerned (only) with the validity of triple talaq. The court also said that polygamy and nikha halala would be taken up later for adjudication as it had very limited time.

Mr Rohatgi brought to the notice of the court that a large number of Muslim countries such as, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and Iran have undertaken significant reforms and have regulated divorce laws.

Even theocratic states have undergone reform in this area of the law and therefore in a secular republic like India there is no reason to deny women the rights available under the Constitution, he said.
The minister also said that the government is thinking of expansion of Kendriya Vidyalaya in country in coming years.

New Delhi: Union human resources development minister Prakash Javadekar, on Tuesday, said the government has decided that no new BEd college will be allowed in the country this year.

Concerned over the quality of the teacher training institutions, the minister observed that BEd colleges were opening like fly by night operators until now. You pay today and get the degree tomorrow, he said.

With the enhanced focus on the teacher training, all this need to be stopped. So it was decided no new BEd colleges will open in the country, he said, addressing reporters on the three years achievements of the HRD ministry.

As far as opening of new colleges is concerned, it will be a zero year and also existing colleges will have to undergo a quality audit. We have asked for quality affidavits and so far only 7,000 of them have submitted. We have also issued show-cause notices to nearly 4,000 BEd colleges, he added.

The government has also decided to increase the practical component in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Diploma in Education (DEd) courses. The practical component will be increased in the teacher training modules and practical sessions will be conducted in government schools which will be under observation of the teachers there and student feedback will also be given importance, Mr Javadekar said and added that the government was reforming teachers education.

The minister also said that the government is thinking of expansion of Kendriya Vidyalaya in country in coming years.
Rajnath expresses concern over proliferation of illegal arms.

New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh, on Tuesday, described religious radicalisation as a serious security threat and said if not checked in time, it could lead to terrorism.

Mr Singh, who reviewed the security situation in the Northeast with chief secretaries and DGPs of the region here, also expressed concern over the proliferation of illegal arms in the region and asked the police chiefs to launch organised campaigns against arms smugglers.

If we talk about the future security threats, radicalisation has come as a huge security challenge. Radicalisation is a trans-national phenomenon. If we cant check it, it will turn into terrorism, he said at the meeting which was also attended by NSA Ajit Doval and other top security officials.

The minister said because the Northeast was especially vulnerable to attempts of radicalisation, it was essential to identify those behind it. Some of these agents are operating in the name of religion, while some others are operating in the name of NGOs or carrying out development programmes for individuals, socio-culture uplift and education, he said. Mr Singh said it was necessary to monitor their activities and take pre-emptive action.

Some of these agents even get foreign funding. So it is necessary to closely monitor their foreign funding and utilisation, he said.

The home minister said though most of the Northeast was free from militancy, the proliferation of illegal arms was a problem that needed to be tackled. The proliferation of illegal arms in such large numbers leads to more crimes. I urge the DGPs to launch an organised campaign against illegal arm traders, he said. The home minister said arms, narcotics and fake Indian currency notes were being smuggled into India throu-gh the international border abutting the Northeast. These borders are practically un-policed. There is need to set up more police stations on the border areas as these will check cross-border crimes, he said.
Sibal, supplemented by saying this (triple talaq) is something which is not permanent or immutable. It is the community to get rid of them.

New Delhi: Triple talaq forms the part of faith under Muslim Personal Law that continued for centuries and it cant be tested by the Supreme Court on the touchstone of discrimination or violation of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution, argued Congress leader and senior advocate Kapil Sibal in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Making this submission before a five judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Nariman, Uday Lalit and Abdul Nazeer, Mr Sibal, representing the All India Muslim Personal Law Board said a tradition like triple talaq, which is centuries old, cannot be termed unconstitutional all of a sudden.

Citing the Ayodhya temple issue, Mr Sibal said if Hindus faith about Lord Rama is not arguable, Muslims faith in triple talaq should also not be questioned.

He said when Triple talaq is going on for 1,400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional? Its a matter of faith. Court cant touch this issue at all and should not be hearing this case. When Justice Kurian Joseph wanted to know what the community was doing if they feel that triple talaq was bad, senior counsel Yusuf Muchala, of AIMPLB intervened and said, We are conscious that triple talaq is an undesirable form of divorce. We are trying to educate people. We are working on it, advising men not to resort to that practice.

Referring to the Attorney Generals submission that the Centre would enact a divorce law for Muslims, Mr Sibal said, What will happen if Parliament refuses to accept the Bill. Justice Joseph intervened and wondered as to why it has not echoed in the earls of legislators all these years for enacting a law.

Mr Sibal, supplemented by saying this (triple talaq) is something which is not permanent or immutable. It is the community to get rid of them. We dont want court or somebody else to tells us it is bad. You must accept others culture. If it is bad, educate them, have a dialogue with that community. You (court) dont ride roughshod over it. That is the beauty of our culture. You enact a law if they accept it. Islam is a patriarchial society and that is the problem. Mr Sibal submitted that a practice which is a matter of faith practised for 1,400 years cant be decided in a hearing spread over six days. He told the court please dont enter into this area.

It would be hazardous to interpret them in six days as it is not the job of this court. If the community feels that time has come for change, we will accept it. Belief and faith should not be interpreted by court. We have to travel for 1,400 years to decide what is right and what is wrong. You will appreciate that it is very difficult my Lords.

Justice Kuriant Joseph conceded that all matters of faith are sacred to that community. He asked Mr Sibal, If talaq is provided in Quran, where is the need for innovation by saying triple talaq. Mr Sibal, however, said, Triple Talaq, which is Talaq-e-Biddat is not recognised by the Quran. None of these nomenclatures are referred to in the Quran. The procedure to be followed in all the different forms of talaq practiced by Muslims is not reflected in the Quran or Hadith. Hadith declares that Talaq in itself is not a good practice, but recognises the factum of Talaq. This is accepted by all believers of Islam.

Mr Sibal said the Quran represents the revelations of Allah to Prophet Mohammad. The Quran also states that what the Prophet has said from time to time is also a part of Islam and is to be obeyed and followed. Courts can take judicial notice of the fact that what the Prophet said from time to time was not recorded by the Prophet himself but is a part of oral tradition.

Justice Nariman clarified we are not deciding what is faith. We are deciding something which is non-religious but associated with religion. Citing the 1937 Shariat law, the CJI observed what was sought to be excluded under this law was custom and usage and you have accepted it.

Mr Sibal said the evolution of matters of faith relating to religious practices is to be judged in the context of recognition of those practices by the community over centuries. An individuals thought and action inconsistent with such practices cant be the basis of determining matters of faith. The Quran and Hadith represent the Islamic beliefs. Islam also relied upon interpretations by scholars of both Quran and Hadith, together they from the Sharia. The core values of Islam were perfected during the time of the Prophet. However Islamic law was enunciated taking into account these core values.

He said Talaq can be in 3 forms Ahsan, Hasan and Talaq-e-Biddat as stated earlier. None of these nomenclatures are referred to either in the Quran or in the Hadith. These forms are categorized and interpreted by Islamic scholars. What is common in all forms is the finality of Talaq. Ahsan if not revoked is final, Hasan if not revoked is final, Triple Talaq when administered is final. In all forms of Talaq, when administered three times become irrevocable. Arguments will continue on Wednesday.
The agency sleuths were tight-lipped about the examination of Mr Hooda.

New Delhi: The CBI on Monday questioned former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in connection with its investigation into the alleged irregularities in acquisition of 400 acres of land by the private firms in Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula villages near Gurgaon in 2007, in which the land-owning farmers were caused a loss of about Rs 1,500 crore.

The agency sleuths were tight-lipped about the examination of Mr Hooda. Sources said Mr Hooda was questioned for over seven hours at the CBIs zonal office in Chandigarh. He reached the CBI office at around 11 am on Monday and was grilled over various aspects of the case till 7.50 in the evening. He may be called for examination again, they added. Mr Hooda was recently quizzed by the agency in connection with an alleged irregularities in the allotment of industrial plots in Panchkula.

The agency had registered the case (acquisition of 400 acres of land by private firms) in September, 2015 on allegations that private builders in conspiracy with unknown public servants of the Haryana government had purchased land from farmers and land owners of village Manesar, Naurangpur and Gurgaon at throw away prices. There are allegations that the public servants played crucial role in the acquisition of land by the private builders during the tenure of Mr Hooda, sources said.

Sources further said investigation by the agency has already revealed that private builders in conspiracy with certain public servants of Haryana government allegedly purchased around 400 acres of land from the land owners of village Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula near Gurgaon in Haryana at throwaway prices. It has also been alleged that the acquisition was ensured by threatening the farmers that the government was trying to acquire the land.

In this process, initially, the Haryana government had issued notification 4, 6 and 9 of Land Acquisition Act for acquisition of land measuring about 912 acres for setting up an Industrial Model Township at Villages Manesar, Naurangpur and Lakhnoula in Gurgaon district, sources said. An order was also passed by the competent authority (Director of Industries) on August 24, 2007 releasing this land from the acquisition process and the land was released in violation of the government policy, in favour of the builders, their companies and agents, instead of the original land owners, sources said.
Governor Ram Naik braves SP members paper balls, ends speech saying Bharat Mata ki Jai.

SP MLAs display placards and raise slogans during the Governors address to the first sitting of the 17th UP Assembly in Lucknow. (Photo: PTI)

Lucknow: The first session of the state legislature of the Yogi Adityanath government began on a stormy note with several firsts on Monday.

Samajwadi members, whose numbers had been enhanced because of the joint session of the state legislative, threw paper balls at Governor Ram Naik, throughout his 35 minute address to the state legislature.

The marshals had to create a human wall in front of the governor to prevent the paper balls from reaching him. The SP members, donning red caps, blew whistles throughout the speech and shouted slogans against the Yogi government. Therefore, the entire speech was drowned in the uproar.

The governor even deviated from his written speech and said sara Uttar Pradesh dekh raha hai aapko (the entire UP is watching you); the proceedings were telecast for the first time on Doordarshan.

Unfazed, most of the young SP MLAs and MLCs continued to stand on benches and shouted slogans like Rajyapal aankhen kholo, apradh badha hai, kuchh to bolo.

BJP MLAs  most of them first timers  did not react to the opposition ruckus. None of the ministers protested at the noisy scene either.

The BSP and Congress MLAs did not join the sloganeering but held aloft banners decrying the Yogi government.

For the first time, the governor ended his speech with Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram. The Vidhan Parishad also witnessed stormy scenes and the Upper House was adjourned in six minutes.

Meanwhile, all eyes were on former CM Akhilesh Yadav, an MLC, who came to attend the joint session and chose to sit with his MLAs instead of the MLCs, though a House guard requested him to sit with the MLCs.

He did not greet the CM or other Opposition leaders. His estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav occupied the seat behind Mr Yadav but the two did not acknowledge each other. Outside the Assembly, there was more drama when one MLA arrived in a bullock cart while another opted for an e-rickshaw.
TMC chief is ready to back a consensus on re-election of Pranab as President; set to meet Sonia again after 10 days.

New Delhi: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee met Congress president Sonia Gandhi here Tuesday and discussed possible names for a consensus Opposition presidential candidate. She is learnt to have told the Congress president her party was fine with the re-election of President Pranab Mukherjee if there was a consensus on him.

The two leaders also discussed the need for Opposition unity amid the politics of vendetta being played out by the ruling party. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting.

Some political vendetta is going on, discussed that in detail. Will meet again within the next 10 days to decide on the consensus candidate, Ms Banerjee told reporters after the meeting.

She said she had a detailed discussion with Mrs Gandhi on the presidential polls as well as the current political situation. There is still time and we will meet again. But the government should also take the initiative for a consensus candidate, she said.

Congress sources told this newspaper that though Ms Banerjee had agreed to the name of former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi as a possible Opposition candidate, she was also agreeable to a second term for Mr Mukherjee.

Bihar chief minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar had said on Monday that he was in favour of Mr Mukherjee being a consensus candidate for President, but added that it was up to the ruling party to take the first step in this regard. The Left parties had already proposed Mr Mukherjees name for re-election.

The Congress sources said they would have no problem with Mr Mukherjee as a consensus candidate, but it should not appear the party was trying to thrust the name on others, and thus it was waiting for all parties to come on board first.

The Trinamul chiefs meeting with Mrs Gandhi was one of several that the Congress president has had with other Opposition leaders to try and reach a consensus on the name of a joint Opposition candidate for President.

Mrs Gandhi has already met Nitish Kumar, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah and the CPIs D. Raja among others.

Mrs Gandhi is also due to meet BSP supremo Mayawati soon and has spoken over the phone with the SPs Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Taking forward Opposition camaraderie, Ms Banerjee on Tuesday also supported RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has been at the receiving end of income-tax raids at his offices and residence since the morning. Lalu Yadav had tweeted: BJP says they will jail me asap so our proposed 27th Aug Maha-Rally cant take place. My name is Lalu and I pity such intimidators.

Responding to this, Ms Banerjee said: Lalu Ji we accepted your invitation to be there on Aug 27. We will be there.

After meeting Mrs Gandhi, Ms Banerjee said the raids against former finance minister P. Chidambaram were a political vendetta.

Top Trinamul leaders are also facing a probe into the Narada bribery scam and the Saradha chit fund scam. Taking a veiled dig at the government, she said: If you do not like someone, then you send in the CBI, then put him in jail.

The TMC chief said that some kind of political vendetta was going on. Whatever is happening today... sometimes with Samajwadi Party, sometimes with Naveen Patnaik, and sometimes with Laluji.
Congress young guns address media, highlight failures.

New Delhi: On the third anniversary of the NDA government, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, in a series of tweets, asked the government what was the celebration all about after its three years in power.

Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide & soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the Government celebrating? Mr Gandhi said in a tweet.

3 years of broken promises, non performance & betrayal of a mandate.

Mr Gandhi has been attacking the government over the agrarian crisis prevailing in the country and also on the lack of job creation.

The Congress also launched its young guns to take on the government on its failures. Congress communications chief Randeep Singh Surjewala, Lok Sabha MP Jyotiraditya Scindhia, Lok Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, former Union minister R.P.N. Singh, Rajasthan Congr-ess chief Sachin Pilot and former Lok Sabha MP and actress Ramya addressed the media to highlight the failures of the government.

A power point presentation, titled 3 saal 30 Tikdum, was shown highlighting the failures of the government.

It highlighted issues relating to the Pakistan and Kashmir policy, internal security, wom-en safety and rising cases of rapes, atrocities on dalits, high petrol and diesel prices, bes-ides generation of jobs.

It also attacked the government for renaming and rebranding schemes started by the UPA government as their own.
This is, however, not the first time Irani has done something like this.

On Tuesday morning, Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani created a wave of sorts, not a remotely controversial one, of course. The TV star-turned-politician got the Twitterati engaged in a game of posting pictures  one where they are wearing cotton clothes and asked them to tag their friends to continue the chain. She began it all by tweeting I celebrate Indian summers and cotton industry with my #CottonIsCool look. What is your #CottonIsCool look?! As a result, within a matter of few hours not only common people even celebs like Virender Sehwag, Vijender Singh, Amish Tripathi, Kirron Kher and Hema Malini began posting their pictures with the #CottonIsCool.

This is, however, not the first time Irani has done something like this. Last year in August, barely after a week of joining as the Textile Minister, her #IWearHandloom took the social media by storm. But do all these initiatives mean anything on the ground? The industry people answer.

Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani

Among the first few to tweet a picture with #CottonIsCool was Sunil Sethi, the president of the Fashion Design Council Of India (FDCI). Explaining the impact of such initiatives, he says, When the #IWearHandloom initiative clicked, there was a revival of handloom and it generated business for the weavers. Cotton is a natural fabric that is used to as a gamcha by the poor farmer or a towel by powerful bureaucrats and so on. It is for the classes and the masses. We are of one the largest cotton producing and cotton wearing countries in the world, and most Indians dont know that. We must take great pride in such facts. This initiative will make cotton popular. We are not only encouraging handloom but also showcasing power loom and they both need the governments support.

Designer Rahul Mishra says that such initiatives help to make people realise the importance of cotton, a fabric which gets used everywhere, from a persons birth to his last rites. Cotton is something that we use every day. Looking at the cotton industry at large, cotton contributes a lot to our GDP. The campaign might look symbolic on the face. But in reality, it is more about the realisation and awareness about of the importance of cotton in our daily lives and how cool it actually is, he says, adding that the campaign also helps make people realise that cotton can also be considered as a luxurious fabric.

Boxer Vijender Singh

Designer Anju Modi seconds Mishra and says that the campaign might help change the mindset of people that cotton cant be worn in weddings or any grandeur occasions. The hashtag is helping to make cotton fashionable, which is a mass product. People will now think of it as a fabric that they can wear in shaadis, she says and adds, Cotton is a suitable fabric in a country where there are almost 10 months of summer. Promoting the fabric will also help boost its contribution to agriculture (production) as well.

Rahul says that governments in many other countries start such initiatives but in India it has more prominence because of the (fashion) industrys contribution to the economy. In India, cotton contributes a lot, in terms of earning revenue and generating employment. So, it is only right that the government promotes it like they encourage the IT industry as well. Similarly, in a country like France where fashion is much bigger than any other industry, the fashion weeks are able to generate billions of dollars within just one week there. The Mayor comes readily forward to promote it. Even at the Eiffel Tower, Paris loves fashion is often displayed. It depends on how many people are affected by a particular industry, says Rahul.

Actress Kirron Kher

Not just the fashion designers, even the shop owners feel that the impact of such initiatives doesnt just remain limited to social media but trickle down to the day-to-day business too. Harinder Singh, owner of 1469, an apparel shop in Connaught Place, says, The business might not come immediately as there needs to be awareness first. People wear polyester cotton as it has a better finish. Only someone who really appreciates a pure cotton (clothing) will buy it. Once the awareness spreads, the business of cotton will also grow. Such initiative is a great news for people like us who deal in cotton wear.

Vineet Chhajer, director, Vineet Sarees echoes similar sentiments: Cotton and Indian summers are interlinked. When the government promotes indigenous weavers and farmers, it creates an impact towards the demand of the product and also boosts a sense of appreciation towards the fabric.
The data from the site suggested that women are more likely to search for it.

Internet porn has a worldwide viewership of millions as netizens as porn consumption has gone up with easy access. People are also searching for different porn, as it can range from surprising to outright disturbing.

After MILF being a highly sought kind of porn, latest data by PornHub suggests that a new trend is emerging among viewers. Pregnancy porn seems to be the latest variety to increasingly gain popularity among users searching for their preferred content. There has been a steady rise in key words relating to pregnancy since 2014.

The most popular among these were get me pregnant and pregnant wife, while pregnant masturbation was the least searched. It also revealed that women are 27 percent more likely to look for pregnancy related porn.

Women between ages of 25 and 34 are more likely to look for pregnancy porn, and men between age of 35 to 44 were found to search the same.
A case under Section 365 of IPC was registered in this respect and later the case was handed over to the crime branch.

New Delhi: The Delhi police filed a chargesheet against one Mohammad Samim, who had allegedly made ransom calls to the family of missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, claiming that Mr Ahmed was in his captivity. The chargesheet was filed in the court of CMM Sumit Dass. The court has so far not taken cognisance of the chargesheet. Samim, who is already in judicial custody, was produced before the court. The court extended his judicial custody to May 29.

Mr Samim had allegedly demanded Rs 20 lakh for Ahmeds release from his family. The Delhi Police had arrested him from Maharajaganj in UP after Najeebs family complained to the police about the ransom call. The police had recovered five different SIM cards from his possession which were used to make the ransom call to the family. Mr Samim was earlier involved in the murder of a class-12 student that took place in 2015.

In November last year, a guard at JNUs Mahi Mandavi Hostel, where Najeeb was staying, had received a letter that claimed that the missing student was in Aligarh, captive. The letter, however, turned out to be fake. Najeeb went missing in October 2016, reportedly after clashing with ABVP.

A case under Section 365 of IPC was registered in this respect and later the case was handed over to the crime branch.
The police has also begun an investigation against policemen who are suspected of having taken Rs 10, 000 from Tapkir.

Pune: The Pune police has registered a case against the wife of Atul Tapkir (35), a Marathi film producer who drank poison and killed himself in a Pune hotel room on Sunday, for allegedly abetting his suicide. Tapkir had posted his suicide note on social networking site, Facebook, saying that his extreme step was a result of his movie, Dhol Tashe, having bombed in 2013 and his wife having thrown him out of their house six months ago.

Basavraj Teli, DCP, Zone I said, We have lodged FIR against Priyanka, Tapkirs wife and three others under IPC 306 for abetting suicide and 34 for crime committed with common intention. After allegations by Tapkir in his suicide note, we have begun to take statements of his friends, relatives and neighbors. Based on the basic investigations, we have lodged FIR but investigations are still on.

The police has also begun an investigation against policemen who are suspected of having taken Rs 10, 000 from Tapkir. Tapkir alleged in his suicide note that he posted on social networking site that the police took Rs 10,000 from him for not arresting him after his wife had filed a complaint against him.

In suicide note, Tapkir has wrote his wife Priyanka had registered a complaint against him and his father at Sangvi police station. I explained my side to the police and I wanted to file a complaint against Priyanka. However, police said that Priyanka had registered a complaint first, hence they would act on her complaint.
Kamble (48) a three-time corporator, had gone for his routine morning walk at Race Course, Hadapsar.

Pune: Navnath Kamble  who was in March elected as the deputy mayor of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)  died of a massive heart attack Tuesday morning in Pune. He was a senior leader of the Republican Party of India (Athawale).

Kamble (48) a three-time corporator, had gone for his routine morning walk at Race Course, Hadapsar. After completing two rounds by 8 am, he started getting breathless and felt pain in the chest, so much so, he fainted. His friends, who were accompanying him, rushed him to Rubi Hall Clinic but he succumbed to a massive heart attack before reaching the hospital. Doctors declared him dead on arrival.

Kamble, who was a PMC corporator from Bhimnagar area near B.T. Kawade Road, was selected for the post of deputy mayor by BJP. RPI, in alliance with BJP, contested the PMC elections in February this year. RPI won five out of the ten seats it contested while BJP emerged victorious in 98 out of 162 wards. Kamble took charge as deputy mayor on March 15. Born in 1969 in Shirdhon village in Osmanabad district, Kambles family shifted to Pune in 1972 due to major droughts. He studied at Sant Gadagebaba Vidyalaya, Koregoan Park and Nowrosjee Wadia College, Pune.

Kambles last rites were held at Koregoan Park Crematorium Tuesday evening. Ramdas Athawale, with whom Kamble was very close, rushed to Pune to attend his funeral, cancelling all other programmes. Kamble is survived by his wife Rekha, son Ankit who recently completed standard XII, and daughter Himani who is a graduate.
Thackeray also said that his party workers would expose the water thieves who are misusing the Jalyukta Shivar scheme.

Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray started his Vidarbha Shiv Sampark Abhiyan from Akola on Monday. On the day one of his tour, Mr Thackeray slammed the BJP-led government over farmers issues.

Mr Thackeray also said that his party workers would expose the water thieves who are misusing the Jalyukta Shivar scheme.

If corruption has taken place in Jalyukta Shivar, then whats the difference between irrigation scam and this one? asked Mr Thackeray. He also announced that a big farmers rally would be held on May 19 for declaring new schemes.

Mr Thackeray has undertaken the tour to build his organisation in Vidarbha. He started his campaign from Akola. The reports of corruption in Jalyukta Shivar project are doing round for sometime in the state.

Mr Thackeray raised the issue on the first day of the tour in Vidarbha. Shiv Sena will not allow water thieves to get away. We will expose them. These reports of wrongdoing in Jalyukta Shivar are serious. If they are true then there

is no there is no difference between this and irrigation scam, said Mr Thackeray.

The irrigation scam during the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) tenure dented both the parties electoral prospects in 2014. The BJP had raked up the irrigation scam issue during the 2014 Assembly elections to attack Congress and the NCP.

The NCP leaders Ajit Pawar and Sunil Tatkare are facing anti-corruption bureau investigation in the Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam.

Jalyukta Shivar is chief minister Devendra Fadnavis pet project, and the state government is pushing it. With Mr Thackerays raising doubts over the scheme, another ugly war of words between the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena could be on the cards.
The Congress has been going through a rough patch after its defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly polls.

Tilak Bhavan at Elphinstone is said to have cut down its cost on snacks and tea.

Mumbai: After drubbing in 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly polls in the state, the Maharashtra Congress is on an austerity drive. It has cut down the cost of the programmes and expenditure of its main office Tilak Bhavan in Mumbai. The party workers did not receive enough funds for the local bodies polls held last year and in 2017. Despite the complaints of fund crunch, the Congress top leadership has remained silent on the issue.

A top Congress leader has admitted that the party has not been able to generate funds after it was voted out of power. The workers are not given enough funds for the programmes and elections. The workers are disappointed, as they cannot even hold programmes or functions for the party, the leader conceded.

The Congress has been going through a rough patch after its defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly polls.

After remaining in power for over 15 years, the party faced its worst lost ever in 2014 Assembly elections. Congress has even also lost control of local bodies in the state to the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). This has affected the partys funding, and expenditure has been reduced, the sources in the party said.

The office in Mumbai Tilak Bhavan at Elphinstone is on an austerity drive. It has cut down its cost on snacks and tea, the sources said. The office bearers have to run the office on a limited budget, the sources added. However, Congress hasnt officially reacted to the reports of an austerity drive.
Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad is a telecommunications and IT consultant. His ICT Policy and Research Group made submissions to Trai supporting differential data pricing. The above comments are an edited version of his comments posted on Facebook.

The Reserve Bank issued an advisory asking all banks to immediately update software systems using patches by Microsoft.

While information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asserted Monday that the WannaCry ransomware cyberattack, that devastated over 200,000 computers in over 150 countries, had a minimal impact in India, apart from some isolated instances, reports started trickling in Tuesday afternoon that around 45,000 Indian SMEs had fallen prey to WannaCry, and there were fears that the numbers would be under-reported as most organisations would want to avoid the stigma.

The minister said he hadnt got any reports about Indian banking networks and online payment systems being compromised, and declared all government systems and networks run by the National Informatics Centre were completely secure. India was lucky to gain some time to reinforce its defences for when the ransomware attacks started in Europe Friday afternoon, offices had closed in India. Some leading outfits like Britains National Health Service, Federal Express, Renault, Nissan, Hitachi and Telefonica were badly affected.

On Saturday night, Indias Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issued a detailed Critical Security Alert. CERT-In quickly coordinated with other agencies like the National Informatics Centre, that hosts Central and state government systems, the Reserve Bank, National Payments Corporation of India, Unique Identification Authority of India (Aadhaar) and others.

The Reserve Bank issued an advisory asking all banks to immediately update software systems using patches by Microsoft. Many ATMs across the country were briefly shut as a precaution, though the RBI denied asking banks to shut their ATMs. There are about 250,000 ATMs in India, of which around 60 per cent run on the outdated Windows XP operating system, one of those targeted by the WannaCry ransomware.

The WannaCry ransomware targets older versions of Microsoft software, like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, that are no longer supported by Microsoft. But after the earlier ransomware attacks in the US a few months back, Microsoft had in March issued an update for these obsolete systems to protect against WannaCry. But the pirated versions of these systems would not get these updates, and would be vulnerable. Legal and updated versions of later Microsoft systems, like Windows 10, would be immune to WannaCry.

In India, smaller organisations and individuals are highly vulnerable to worms and ransomware attacks due to their use of pirated software. It is estimated 60 per cent of small outfits and over 85 per cent individuals use pirated software in India. Also, it was reported Tuesday over 120 computers of the Gujarat governments Wide Area Network, GSWAN, were hit, as were some government systems in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

A report by international cybersecurity firm Symantec in April 2017 found India was among the most heavily-infected countries, with four per cent (or over 18,000) global ransomware infections in 2016.

Nor does paying the ransom demanded by WannaCry actually guarantee one could recover full access to his/her files. A survey by international cybersecurity firm Norton in India in November found 27 per cent Indians affected actually paid the ransom to regain access, but 26 per cent of those who paid the ransom still did not regain complete access.

There are several precautions institutions and individuals should take, the most important being not to use pirated software, even though its cheap or free. The other steps include:

Use firewalls, and anti-virus software from reputed vendors, and ensure these are upgraded regularly.

Perform regular backups of all critical data, that should be kept on a separate device, and backups stored offline.

Never open attachments received in emails, even if from trusted sources. Always ask the sender to confirm whats in the attachment before opening it.

Never ever click on an URL link, even if from a supposedly trusted sender. Always type in the URL in the browser directly yourself.

For financial transactions, ensure the use of Secure Socket 7. Ensure the protocol shows https://, not merely http://, together with the padlock symbol.

Use two-factor authentication in emails. Ensure the OTP comes to a different mobile device than one used for email. If one gets the SMS OTP on the same device used to access email, there is no added protection.

Big organisations should take several extra precautionary steps as individual users are often the weakest links. They should deploy web and email filters on their network. Configure these devices to scan for known bad domains, sources, and addresses; block these before receiving and downloading messages. Scan all emails, attachments, and downloads both on the host and at the mail gateway with a reputable anti-virus solution.

Disable macros in Microsoft Office products. Some Office products allow disabling of macros that originate from outside an organisation and can provide a hybrid approach when the outfit depends on the legitimate use of macros. For Windows, specific settings can block macros originating from the Internet from running.

Configure access controls, including file, directory, and network share permissions, with least privilege in mind. If a user only needs to read specific files, they should not have write access to those files, directories, or shares.

Regularly check the content of backup files of databases for any unauthorised encrypted contents of data records or external elements.

Restrict users abilities (permissions) to install and run unwanted software applications.

Enable personal firewalls on workstations.

Cybersecurity is everyones responsibility, and often individuals are the weakest link. If WannaCry infects even a single computer in a network, due to one persons negligence, it will immediately spread to each and every computer in the network.
HTC's debuts the Edge Sense frame on its 2017 flagship

HTC has launched its flagship U11 smartphone at an event in Taipei. The smartphone is packing the latest internals with some novel flagship features.

To start off with the list of additions, the U11 is built around the 10nm Snapdragon 835 chipset. It is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage, while some international markets will also get a version with 6GB/128GB.

There have been multiple leaks regarding the U11, the major one being the "Edge Sense" feature. According to the teaser, you can squeeze the phone to perform certain actions on the smartphone. The side frame of the U11 contains eight microsensors embedded under it. The sensors are always active, like active fingerprint sensors.

They are pressure sensitive as well, which explains the short and long squeeze on the frame of the U11. The squeeze gestures can let you do multiple functions like take a photo, switch the camera, change music and so on. As of now, the two gestures can be customised to gain a shortcut to any other app from the home screen.

There is a 5.5-inch QHD Super LCD 5 panel, with Gorilla Glass 5 on top. The rear camera is a 12MP UltraPixel 3 unit f/1.7 aperture, optical image stabilisation, a dual-LED flash, and 4K video recording. The camera can capture slow motion video in 1080p at 120fps. The front 16MP front camera records 1080p Full HD video and has a Selfie Panorama mode. HTC claims that U11 has the highest rated smartphone camera, with a DXOMark of 90.

The 3D audio recording on the U11 uses four microphones. The handset is Hi-Res Audio certified, and comes with HTC's BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition which makes the earpiece acts as one speaker, set up as a tweeter, while the speaker on the bottom takes care of the bass.
Donald Trump said, he might make a decision before leaving late in the week on his first major international trip, to the Middle East and Europe.

Washington: President Donald Trump stepped up the search on Monday for a new FBI director after his abrupt firing of James Comey, but Democrats are threatening to throw up roadblocks unless a special prosecutor is named to probe team Trump's ties to Russia.

Trump told reporters on Monday, he was "moving rapidly" to pick a replacement for Comey, whose shock dismissal triggered accusations that the president is trying to obstruct an FBI probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the November election his way.

A dozen different names are being mentioned in US media as candidates to replace Comey. Politico puts the number at 14. "Almost all of them are very well known. They've been vetted over their lifetime, essentially. But very well known, highly respected, really talented people," Trump said at the weekend.

He said he might make a decision before leaving late in the week on his first major international trip, to the Middle East and Europe. The possible candidates include men and women with experience in law enforcement or national security, and others more associated with politics.

Among the group are the current acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, veteran Republican Senator John Cornyn, New York judge Michael Garcia, former Justice Department official Alice Fisher, former presidential adviser Fran Townsend, Republican former congressman Mike Rogers, and Trey Gowdy, who led a congressional panel that probed the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

Trump's pick to succeed Comey will have to first appear at hearings before a Senate panel, before their nomination is put to a vote in the entire Republican-controlled Senate.

But Democratic lawmakers are making such a vote contingent on the Justice Department naming a special prosecutor to probe Russia's alleged interference in the US election and the question of possible collusion with Trump's campaign.

"To have that special prosecutor, people would breathe a sigh of relief, because then there would be a real independent person overlooking the FBI director," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday.
A tweet from Israeli-based security firm Intezer Labs agreed that North Korea could be behind the attacks.

Israeli-based security firm Intezer Labs said it agreed with the North Korea attribution. (Photo: AFP)

Washington: Security researchers on Monday reported signs of a potential North Korea link to the massive cyberattack campaign that sparked havoc in computer systems worldwide and opened fresh political rifts between Russia and the United States.

After days of disruptions affecting networks worldwide, a top US official said the number of computers affected had reached 300,000, but that infection rates had slowed.

In the first clues to the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the "WannaCry" malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang.

Other experts quickly jumped on this as a sign -- although an inconclusive one -- that North Korea may have been behind the outbreak.

"We believe this might hold the key to solve some of the mysteries around this attack," said researchers at the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky, adding that further research was needed.

Israeli-based security firm Intezer Labs said it agreed with the North Korea attribution. The group's chief executive Itai Tevet said in a tweet that Intezer Labs confirmed North Korea's attribution for WannaCry.

@IntezerLabs confirms attribution to North Korea for #WannaCry, not only because of the function from Lazarus. More info to come  Itai Tevet (@itaitevet) May 15, 2017

Tom Bossert, President Donald Trump's top cyber and homeland security adviser, brushed aside suggestions that the United States was to blame for the attack, which stemmed from a flaw discovered by the US National Security Agency and later leaked.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," he said, noting that no US government systems had been hit. "This is a global attack," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier had pointed the finger at the United States. "A genie let out of a bottle of this kind, especially created by secret services, can then cause damage to its authors and creators," the Russian leader said on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing.

Russia has recently been accused of cyber meddling in several countries, but Putin said they had nothing to do with the attack.

Over the weekend, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said attacks highlighted the dangers from the NSA's "stockpiling" of secret hacking tools.

There had been concern that Monday's start of the working week would see an upsurge in attacks.

But the cross-border police agency Europol said the situation was "stable" after attacks that struck computers in British hospital wards, European car factories and Russian banks.

"The number of victims appears not to have gone up," a senior spokesman for Europol, Jan Op Gen Oorth said.

But according to Michel Van Den Berghe, director of telecom group Orange's cyber security arm, a "second wave" is to be expected.

US package delivery giant FedEx, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica and Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail network were among those hit. The attackers demanded money to unblock their computers.

In China, "hundreds of thousands" of computers were affected, including gas stations, cash machines and universities, according to Qihoo 360, one of the country's largest providers of antivirus software.

Russia said its banking and railway systems were targeted. A fifth of regional hospital associations in Britain's National Health Service were affected and several still had to cancel appointments on Monday.

French carmaker Renault shut its Douai plant -- one of its biggest sites, employing 5,500 people -- as systems were upgraded.

The attack blocks computers and puts up images on victims' screens demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in the virtual currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"

Bossert said that paying the ransom provided no guarantee files would be unlocked. He told a news conference that "it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery."

Bitcoin, the world's most-used virtual currency, allows anonymous transactions via heavily encrypted codes.

Experts and governments alike warn against ceding to the demands and few victims so far had been paying up.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April, claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA.

The attack is unique, according to Europol, because it combines ransomware with a worm function, meaning once one machine is infected, the entire internal network is scanned and other vulnerable machines are infected.

Although the economic fallout is still unknown, the political fallout "will be significant" according to the Eurasia consultancy.

In addition to Russia, China and India have blamed the US government for developing the original code.
It said that no organisation receiving US money can promote or discuss abortion services, even if they are using foreign funds to do so.

New York: President Donald Trump's administration is reportedly planning to expand its 'Mexico City' policy that bans US funding for overseas abortions.

According to a report by the Independent, the US State Department has announced a programme, called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, which will get USD 8.8 billion to fund non-governmental organisations around the world that comply with the "global gag" rule.

It states that no organisation receiving US money can promote or discuss abortion services, even if they are using foreign funds to do so.

CBN News reported that the money will come from the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Defence Department.

The Trump administration has reinstated the rule from the George W Bush administration, which prevents any foreign organisation receiving US funds from providing abortion services.

The Bush administration excluded programmes that involved HIV/Aids prevention from the rule but Trump did not as he expanded global gag to apply to all global health assistance funds.

Organisations that do not comply with the provisions laid out by Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance programme will not receive funds. That money will now go to organisations that do agree to comply, according to the State Department.

The agency also said in its statement that "the policy will apply to all new funding agreements and to existing agreements when amended to add funding," however the total amount of existing funding for global health assistance will not be cut nor will the existing contracts be broken.

Global health experts have widely criticized this policy to include all health-related funding. Shannon Kowalski, Director of Advocacy and Policy of the International Women's Health Coalition, told the The Independent that it will be devastating.

Instead of protecting life, it will increase maternal deaths by putting essential sexual and reproductive health care out of reach for far too many women. It is cruel and unusual punishment."
In all, 6 sets of sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006.

United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday condemned North Korea over its latest ballistic missile launch and called on Pyongyang to return to denuclearization.

"This action is in violation of Security Council resolutions and a threat to peace and security in the region," Guterres said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

The UN chief called on North Korea "to ensure full compliance with its international obligations and return to the path of denuclearization." North Korea yesterday carried out its latest test of a ballistic missile, which Pyongyang said was capable of carrying a "heavy nuclear warhead."

Under UN resolutions, North Korea is barred from developing nuclear and missile technology. The UN Security Council was weighing its response to the latest launch,

with diplomats saying that the United States was pushing for a toughly-worded statement of condemnation.

A closed-door emergency Council session was set for tomorrow. The council adopted two sanctions resolutions last year to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang and deny leader Kim Jong-Un the hard currency needed to fund his military programs.

In all, six sets of sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006. Six-party talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula

have been dormant since 2009 when North Korea walked out of the process that involved China, Russia, the United States, South Korea and Japan.
Mosul is split by the Tigris River, and its western side is referred to as the right bank, while the east is known as the left bank.

Iraqi special focus advance to their next position in the Islah al-Zarai area in Mosul, Iraq. (Photo: AP)

Baghdad: Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from the Islamic State group after retaking the citys eastern side earlier this year, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

IS still controls 10.5 per cent of the right bank, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in Baghdad, referring to west Mosul.

Mosul is split by the Tigris River, and its western side is referred to as the right bank, while the east is known as the left bank.

Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul from IS nearly seven months ago, fighting their way to the jihadist-held city, retaking its eastern side and then attacking the west.

The drive to retake Mosul has been supported by US-led air strikes that have aided the Iraqi advance but which have also reportedly caused hundreds of civilian casualties in the city.

More than 300 vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (car bombs) have been destroyed by coalition strikes in Mosul, coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said.

IS now controls just a handful of neighbourhoods around the Old City, one of the countrys heritage jewels.

The areas narrow streets and closely spaced buildings make it difficult for federal forces to take on the jihadists, requiring them to fight on foot instead of from vehicles as they have previously done.

Half a million people are currently displaced as a result of the battle for Mosul, and some 250,000 civilians are estimated to be still trapped inside the citys west.

Thursday saw what the Norwegian Refugee Council said was the biggest single-day displacement since the start of the operation, with around 20,000 people fleeing west Mosul.

The presence of a large civilian population, which either chose not to leave or was prevented from doing so by IS, complicates any final assault to seal victory in Mosul.

Human shields have become a central feature of the vastly outnumbered jihadists defences, and IS has stopped at nothing to deter people from escaping the city, including killing people who seek to flee.

But that is not the only threat trapped residents reached inside IS-held areas have recently warned that hunger was starting to kill more people than the fighting.

In eastern Mosul, life returned to a semblance of normality fairly quickly after Iraqi forces drove the jihadists back neighbourhood by neighbourhood until the area was fully recaptured earlier this year.

The citys first post-IS liquor store has since been opened in east Mosul, and is doing brisk business among people who were denied easy access to alcohol for more than two years.
The investigation team will submit a progress report after every two weeks to the apex court.

Islamabad: Services of a British audit firm will be hired to investigate the Panama leaks scandal against the ruling Sharif family.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted to implement the Supreme Courts verdict in Panama Papers case has decided to seek services of a British audit firm, besides seeking record of Mr Sharifs family tax returns from Federal Board of Revenue, said an official.

The six-member JIT headed by the additional director general of Federal Investigation Agency, Wajid Zia, has assigned the task of identifying the audit firm to Bilal Rasool, a senior official who is also a member of JIT from Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. The JIT also decided that it would accept authenticated documents only. Some documents submitted by the National Accountability Bureau to the JIT were unverified, officials said.

The investigation team will submit a progress report after every two weeks to the apex court. It is also supposed to complete the probe within two months.
Order reserved after India-Pak tussle at ICJ.

Top Supreme Court advocate Harish Salve (left), who represented the Indian government, and MEA joint secretary Deepak Mittal (right), along with the rest of the Indian delegation, wait for judges to enter the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi/The Hague: In an engaging duel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday that saw both countries go hammer and tongs at each other, Pakistan raked up the alleged passport of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to argue that India had deliberately given him a passport with a Muslim name (Hussein Mubarak Patel) to facilitate covert and illegal terror operations in Balochistan, adding that the Vienna Convention provisions on consular access were not intended for a spy involved in terror activities.

New Delhi argued before the court earlier in the day that India had not even been given consular access to Jadhav by Pakistan despite repeated requests in violation of the Vienna Convention and that the Pakistani military courts verdict sentencing him to death had no credibility.

Accusing New Delhi of using the ICJ as a stage for political theatre and claiming that Islamabad will not respond in kind, Pakistan maintained India was wrong in invoking the jurisdiction of this court, arguing that Indias application was unnecessary and misconceived and must be dismissed.

But New Delhi, in a strong plea earlier in the day, demanded the immediate suspension of the death sentence given to Jadhav by the Pakistani military court. After hearing both parties, the ICJ said it would announce its order in a public hearing, the date of which will be publicly communicated.

The Indian delegation included joint secretary (dealing with Pakistan-related issues) in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) Deepak Mittal and eminent lawyer Harish Salve, both of whom addressed the court while the Pakistani representatives got their turn a few hours later. India presented its case in about 90 minutes while the Pakistanis wrapped up their arguments in less than an hour.

The graver the charges, the greater the need for continued adherence of the Vienna Convention. Jadhav has been in judicial custody without any communication with his family, Mr Salve said. Describing the situation as grave and urgent, India said it had not been given the copy of the charges filed against Jadhav. India sought relief from the ICJ including immediate suspension of the sentence of death awarded to Jadhav, and restraining Pakistan from giving effect to the sentence awarded by the military court, and directing it to take steps to annul the decision of the military court. India has accused Pakistan of egregious violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (hereinafter the Vienna Convention) in the matter of the detention and trial of Jadhav.

While New Delhi said Pakistan had attached conditionalities in return for consideration of consular access which was unacceptable, Islamabad however claimed that it had been prepared to grant consular access with reference to a bilateral agreement in 2008 between the two sides. While India had expressed fears that Pakistan could execute Jadhav even before the hearing was over, Islamabad said it was false that Pakistan would execute Jadhav immediately since he was entitled to a clemency period of 150 days (5 months) provided to him. Islamabad also advocated an expedited hearing which would dispel any suggestion for the need for provisional measures, adding that Pakistan would be content for the court to list the application of India for hearing within six weeks. India sought relief from the ICJ by way of immediate suspension of the sentence of death awarded to Jadhav.

Interestingly, ICJ denied permission to Pakistan to play the purported confessional video of the retired Navy officer at the public hearing, but Pakistani representatives at the ICJ claimed the Court was aware of the contents. Nevertheless, New Delhi is seeing this as a setback for Islamabad. India has said the so-called confession was obtained from Jadhav by Pakistan in military captivity and that it has no credibility.

Pakistans DG for South Asia and Saarc, Mohammed Faisal, said, India was provided with a copy of the passport that was in the possession of Commander Jadhav when he was apprehended. You can see a copy of the passport on the screen there. Mr President (of the ICJ), you can see the passport there with a Muslim name which is not the name of Commander Jadhav. They have been unable or more perhaps more accurately unwilling to provide an explanation for this passport which is the most obvious indication of covert and illegal activity. India could simply have denied that the passport is genuine. We submit that Indias silence is telling. Indeed India should have responded to a letter of request dated 23 January, 2017, seeking Indias assistance to investigate the criminal activity and links with people in India which Commander Jadhav has revealed.

We have no reason to stop the canary from singing. Others might wish that. We do not. An expedited hearing which would dispel any suggestion for the need for provisional measures is an approach that Pakistan would invite the Court to adopt. On this basis, Pakistan would be content for the Court to list the application of India for hearing within six weeks, he added.

Pakistans lawyer Khawar Qureshi claimed India has not proved that Jadhav is its national and that consular access cannot be given. Mr Qureshi said, The Vienna convention article 36 which adopted to set up standards of conduct particularly concerning communications and contact with nationals of the sending state which would contribute to the development of the friendly relations among nations... The observation we made immediately is this is unlikely to apply in the context of a spy, terrorist sent by a state to engage in acts of terror.

But, the MEAs joint secretary Deepak Mittal told the court in opening remarks, Jadhav has not got the right to get proper legal assistance and the right to consular access. There is an immediate threat to him to be executed even before a decision is passed.

The execution of the death sentence cannot be done while this court is hearing the appeal. Else, it will be a violation of the Vienna Convention, Harish Salve said. He said India cannot be hostage to demands by Pakistan for joining the investigation without even granting consular access.

India has said Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he was carrying on business after retiring from the Indian Navy, and was then shown to have been arrested in Balochistan on 3 March 2016.
UK police found evidence of the party where owners watched their dogs have sex with women.

When the police questioned Bowditch, she admitted to having sex with a St Bernard, a black Labrador and an Alsatian. (Photo: Representational Image)

London: A man in the United Kingdom has been jailed for a year for encouraging his girlfriend to have sex with three dogs at a bestiality party.

According to a report in Daily Mail, 65-year-old Daniel Galloway has also been found guilty of keeping more than 12,000 indecent images of children and distributing them, and possessing several extreme and prohibited images.

When the police questioned Bowditch, she admitted to having sex with a St Bernard, a black Labrador and an Alsatian. She was given a 12-month community service order in April 2017.

Galloways sentence was adjourned after the discovery of the images. Police found evidence of the party where owners watched their dogs have sex with women.

They also found a DVD and USB stick at the Lincolnshire home where Bowditch and Galloway lived along with details of the event posted on an online bestiality forum. The incident took place between November 2011 and November 2014.

Prosecutor Victoria Rose said Galloway had accepted that he urged his partner to carry out the sexual acts on the animals.

Galloway will have to register as a sex offender for ten years. He has also been made subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said he hoped other courts, including Jewish ones, would follow suit.

Jerusalem: Israel on Monday swore in its first female judge to its Muslim religious court system, the first woman to preside in any religious court in the Jewish state.

Hana Khatib, an attorney from the northern town of Tamra, became a r qadi, judge in arabic, in the Muslim court system that deals with personal law at a ceremony in the presidential residence in Jerusalem. This appointment and my success in achieving it is a success for the legal system and for women, she said.

We see that the sharia system is kind to women and with this achievement we give them their rights.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said he hoped other courts, including Jewish ones, would follow suit. This is testament to the positive changes in the status of women, he said.

Justice minister Ayelet Shaked was also in attendance, as were a number of Arab Israeli parliamentarians and senior figures.

President of the Islamic Sharia Court Sheikh Abdel al-Hakim Samara said the appointment would be the first in a series of women serving in religious courts.

In Israel, family law  divorce, marriage, endowments  falls under the jurisdiction of religious courts, and separate systems exist for the countrys different creeds.
Hoang uc Binh will be detained for 90 days. He was with Fr Nguyen inh Thuc, one of the two priests denounced by the government. Hundreds of people gathered to demand Binhs release. The Catholic Church supports local grievances and is the victim of government reprisals. Catholic activist Thai Van Dung is wanted by the authorities.

Hanoi (AsiaNews/RFA)  Vietnamese authorities on Monday detained Hoang uc Binh, a prominent human rights activist, for anti-state activities, and announced an arrest warrant against human rights defender Thai Van Dung for violating probation. This comes amid a crackdown on people protesting the governments handling of the devastating 2016 toxic waste spill.

Police in central Vietnams Nghe An province arrested Binh, 34, for opposing officers on duty and abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state, the Nghe An Public Security newspaper reported.

Binh will be detained for 90 days for defaming the ruling Communist Party on social media and using the April 2016 waste spill by Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Groups steel plant as an excuse to cause social disorder through protests in Nghe An and Ha Tinh provinces.

Binh was travelling with Fr Nguyen inh Thuc, a Catholic priest, after leaving Song Ngoc parish in Nghe Ans Quynh Luu district when plainclothes officers pulled them and arrested him. His whereabouts are at present unknown.

Fr Nguyen inh Thuc is one of two priests who, in early May, was denounced by the Vietnamese government for organising protests against Formosa Plastics. In 2016, the latters toxic waste spill killed about 115 tonnes of fish and left fishermen jobless in the four most affected coastal provinces.

The Taiwanese company voluntarily paid US 0 million to clean up and compensate coastal residents affected by the spill, but slow and uneven payout of the funds by the Vietnamese government has prompted protests that continue to be held more than a year later.

Security personnel were deployed to stop a demonstration by hundreds of people gathered in front of the Dien Chau District government office to demand Binhs release. The Catholic Church supports local grievances and is itself the victim of reprisals by the authorities.

Also on Monday, the official Nghe An newspaper announced a nationwide hunt for Catholic activist Thai Van Dung, citing an arrest warrant signed by the provincial police on 8 March 2017 for failing to comply with his sentence from an earlier prison term.

According to the paper, Dung, who has helped to organise anti-Formosa protests, violated his terms of probation and fled his residence.

Dung was arrested on 19 August 2011 and sentenced on 9 January 2013 to four years in jail and four years of probation for trying to overthrow the government' and for his alleged affiliation with banned opposition party Viet Tan.

Upon his release in August 2015, Dung said that prison authorities had offered to reduce his sentence if he signed a confession admitting to the charges against him, but said he had refused.

He also noted that he was forced to routinely fight for his limited rights and conduct hunger strikes to get his way, including a 12-day fast in early 2014 to try to win the right read religious books.
Over 10,000 schools and colleges hit. License distribution and credit card payment at service stations blocked. Suspicions settle on Lazarus group who work in China are under North Korea.

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - China is among the countries most affected by the Ransomware cyberattack, suspected of having a North Korean origin. About 30,000 IP addresses were hit by the virus that "seized" all the files on a computer and demanded a ransom of $ 300 to release them.

The attack hit at least 10,000 school institutions, especially universities. Among them, the South West University, which suffered paralysis of the internal network and payment system with student cards.

The government offices worst affected include the department for motor vehicles, housing loans, etc. Many offices have had to suspend services and update their systems, while driving licenses were suspended in many cities.

Even China National Petroleum Corp's service stations were hit the putting the credit card and online payment system out of use. The company said that at least 80% of its stations have now resumed normal activities.

China is the most affected because it is the nation with the greatest number of Internet users - about 700 million - and perhaps - as experts say - because computers are not updated and suffer from poor maintenance.

But there is another reason: China may be the most affected because it was the first to be in the hacker's sights. Security experts point out that the date marked on the original Ransomware code is UTC + 9, that is, the Beijing time zone, and the text demanding a ransom, while in English, has a part written in Chinese.

Suspects focus on a group called "Lazarus," responsible for hacking Sony in 2014 and a Bangladeshi bank in 2016. Many think that the Lazarus group is based in China but works in for North Korea.

Other security companies are doubtful: the link with North Korea is not so obvious, nor the one to Lazarus of the latter attack. It is also possible that hackers have simply copied the virus from previous Lazarus attacks.

The virus exploits some vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows program. Last March, the company issued a corrective update, but most likely not everyone updated their system. Yesterday Microsoft also accused the national security agencies of being superficial and asked governments to point out computer vulnerabilities to sellers rather than storing them, selling them, or exploiting them for possible cyber-wars.
A Syriac Catholic and two Syriac Orthodox prelates demand again a protected area for Christians in northern Iraq, with administrative autonomy and international protection. This position does not represent the view of Patriarch Sako. Chaldeans and the Iraqi Church call for upholding Iraqs territorial unity against the ghetto trap.

Baghdad (AsiaNews)  The Chaldean Church has taken a clear stand without any room for misunderstanding against a proposal made by three Syriac (Catholic and Orthodox) prelates in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain to set up an area for Iraqs Christian minority to protect itself from attacks and violence.

For Chaldean leaders, such an idea does not represent the views of the Chaldean Patriarchate and the Iraqi Church, which stand strongly behind the countrys unity and territorial integrity against the notion of a Christian enclave in northern Iraq, as the patriarch himself had told AsiaNews not long ago.

In a statement, Mgr Shlemon Warduni, auxiliary bishop of the Patriarchate of Babylon of the Chaldean Catholic Church, points out that the recent statements "do not represent our vision" and "do not reflect our position". Chaldeans, the prelate added, "are committed" to supporting the countrys unity as reiterated recently by Mar Sako "on the official patriarchal website".

A few days ago, three bishops in northern Iraq  a Syriac Catholic and two Syriac Orthodox  issued a statement calling for the creation of a protected area for Christians on the Nineveh plain. Such area should be placed under international protection, under the aegis of the United Nations, to provide security for Iraqs Christian minority from religious persecution and violence.

The prelates behind the proposal are the Syriac Catholic bishop of Mosul Boutros Moshe, Syriac Orthodox Bishop Mar Nicodemus Daud Matti Sharaf and Mar Timotheos Musa al-Shamany, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Bartellah.

For the three prelates, setting up a "protected" area is essential to protect the rights of Christians and avoid a repeat of what happened in the summer of 2014 when the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army allowed the Islamic State (IS) group to seize quickly Mosul and much of Nineveh Plain.

IS chased Christians from their homes and killed those who opposed them. Hundreds of thousands of people abandoned their property to the Caliphate" forces, finding refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan or salvation abroad. The flight further reduced the Christian presence in Iraq, already halved by the 2003 US invasion.

Nearly three years later, Iraqi and Kurdish forces, supported by US air strikes, appear to be on the eve of regaining control of the area, but the threat of jihadi groups remains.

For the three Syriac bishops The demand to turn the Nineveh Plain into a Christian enclave includes the right to administrative autonomy. However, the Iraqi Church and the Chaldean Patriarchate led by Louis Raphael Sako are decidedly against the proposal.

When he was archbishop of Kirkuk, the patriarch opposed to the "illusion" of a "Christian ghetto". Back in 2007, the Chaldean primate, like the Vatican, described the idea of a Christian enclave as a trap, calling it a risky proposition. For him, Iraqs problem was fundamentalism, not any clash of civilisations.
Doubts and uncertainties overshadow the meeting. President Assad calls the Geneva process "null", "merely a meeting for the media. Astana's talks more effective. But the UN Special Envoy denies contradictions and says diplomatic work is "in tandem". Fresh US accusations against Damascus: a prison crematorium to hide evidence of mass murders.

Geneva (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Today, a new round of peace talks on Syria opens, under in Geneva the aegis of the United Nations. The goal is to strengthen the "fragile" national truce in force since midnight December 30, in the context of a bloody conflict that in six years has caused more than 320,000 victims and millions of displaced. The previous five UN-sponsored meetings have not been able to guarantee effective results in the interests of stable and lasting peace.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has strengthened positions on the ground in recent days, chasing rebels from their strongholds in Damascus and taking over [almost] complete control of the capital. The Syrian leader recently defined the political process in Geneva "null", a kind of "meeting for the media".

For Assad, the Astana meetings sponsored by Moscow, Tehran and Ankara, give greater hopes for conflict resolution. At the beginning of May they led to an agreement to create "de-escalation" zones. The agreement includes the ceasefire, an overfly ban, the immediate supply of humanitarian aid and the return of refugees.

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has denied the news that Astana's negotiations end up casting a shadow on the diplomatic effort put in place by the United Nations. "We work in tandem," he added, as UN work is aimed at achieving four different goals: governance, new constitution, elections and the fight against terrorism.

However, the government front and the delegation representing the rebels remain divided on a crucial knot: the future - political and non - of President Assad. The leaders of the HNC, supported by the Saudis, insist on the expulsion of the Damascus leader as a prerequisite for any political transition. An "unacceptable" request for the government.

Further undermining the UN peace talks, yesterday's allegation by the US Department of State - whose position appears increasingly marginal in the Syrian cabinet, dominated by Russia, Iran, Turkey and Arab nations - against the Damascus government. The White House claims that Assad's "regime" has built a crematorium inside a military prison to disperse the remains of killed prisoners.

Confirming his thesis, Washington has released some recently-de-classified satellite images of the structure that show construction activities.

In recent months, human rights activists have denounced the torture and hanging of thousands of detainees in a jail in Damascus. The Syrian government did not want to respond to new allegations launched by the United States, whereas in the past it had always denied the rumors of abuse within the Saydnaya prison.

The charges - which will be presented in the coming days to the international community - date from August 2013 to April 2017. For the US State Department, there is evidence to certify Assad's "mass murders" and it calls on the regime for ending "these atrocities". According to rumors - which still recall the alleged evidence presented to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell against Saddam Hussein at the UN - it is the latest chapter in a propaganda war between international powers that is being consumed at the expense of the Syrian population.
Chinese conglomerate Shougang entered the bidding to buy French-based parking space company Indigo, which operates in 17 countries and 500 cities, the French newspaper Les Echos reported, without citing any sources.

Indigo and its present owners, French private equity fund ArdianandPredica investment bank, wouldn't comment.

Indigo was put up for sale in February and is expected to fetch over 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion), Les Echos said.

Beijing-based Shougang is one of China's biggest steel companies but has a number of subsidiaries, including real estate concerns.
After working its way into the Eurovision Song Contest, Australia is now joining with European efforts to explore the Universe and all its stars, planets and galaxies.

A new A$26.1 million commitment was made in last weeks federal budget for Australia to enter a ten-year strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The commitment also includes ongoing funding, averaging A$12 million per year, to be provided until 2027-28.

This has long been sought by the Australian astronomy community. It will give us access to some of the worlds best optical telescopes, at the La Silla and Paranal observatories, high in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

It is possible to combine the light of these telescopes (along with four auxillary 1.8-metre telescopes) via a series of connecting tunnels and mirrors. This brings...
Vast, ancient, nutrient-poor, with wild swings between droughts, floods and fires: this describes much of the Australian continent. Livestock grazing and farming in such a land is certainly not without its challenges.

Where weve failed to work with the local conditions, we see barren plains, dust storms, the extinction of native species, and the repossession of properties by banks, among many ills.

But such a dire picture is far from universal, and belies the fact that many who live on the land are also among our most innovative land managers. Many projects offer potential benefits for livestock production and the environment alike, but without support progress may be hindered.

Putting dingoes to work

One of the most contentious examples involves encouraging dingoes. Many pastoral areas require land managers to take all reasonable...
The global ransomware infection affected Nissans Sunderland plant which makes the Qashqai and Infiniti Q30.

Renault and Nissan have been attacked by online hackers, affecting production at Nissan's Sunderland factory. The attacks are reported to have been carried out by the same group which attacked UKs National Health Services (NHS) this week. The BBC reports Renault is the first French company to be affected by the cyber attack which steals and encrypts files and documents before demanding a fee of $300 (around Rs 19,200 approx.) to decrypt them. In total, around 75,000 systems in 99 countries are believed to have been affected.

A Renault UK spokesman said, "Groupe Renault confirms it was impacted by the global cyber attack that began late on May 12. It consists of a ransomware virus. Proactive measures were taken immediately in order to stop the spread of the virus and protect the group. A full diagnosis is in progress in order to put in place the appropriate solutions to resume operations."

Nissan's Sunderland plant, where the Qashqai and Infiniti Q30 are made, has also been affected.

"Like many organisations our plant was subject to a ransomware attack affecting some of our systems on Friday evening," said a spokesman. "We are working to resolve the issue."

Most affected organisations so far have been state owned. Renault is part-owned by the French government, while other targets include the NHS and Russian state-owned rail services. It's unknown who is behind the global attack, and Europol is investigating. Nissan is part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance partnership.
Charles Brewer (far left), global CEO, DHL eCommerce; Hugo Donoso (second from left), country manager for DHL ecommerce Chile; Lee Spratt (second from right), CEO for DHL eCommerce Americas; and Paul Tessy (far right), CEO for DHL eCommerce Latin America and Canada, at the launch of DHL ecommerce operations in Santiago de Chile. Photo courtesy of Business Wire.

DHL eCommerce has launched a business to consumer domestic delivery operation with customer-centric solutions in Chile.

DHL eCommerce, which is a division of logistics company Deutsche Post DHL Group, will offer next-day delivery in Santiago and other major cities within Chile, as well as two to three day delivery across the rest of the country, according to the company. DHL eCommerces investment in Chile includes a 17,889 square-foot central hub and depot and a growing ground fleet.

The organization will manage the end to end delivery of packages from the store to the customer, with real-time tracking also available, the company stated in a release.

Chile is one of the most advanced e-commerce markets in Latin America with 72% internet penetration and 50% smartphone penetration  the highest in the region. With e-commerce currently accounting for 2.8% of the countrys total retail sales, there is plenty of room for growth, said Hugo Donoso, Country Manager, DHL eCommerce Chile.

The Chilean e-commerce sector is set to double its size to $2.3 billion by 2020, according to the company.
News traders huddle up! On Thursday (May 18) at 1:30 am GMT, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will publish Australias labour market numbers for the month of April.

If youre planning on trading the event, then you might want to take a look at these points:

What happened during the last release?

Labour market figures for March were positive all around.

The economy added a net of 60,900 jobs, smashing analyst expectations of a 20,000 gain. This marked the sixth consecutive monthly increase AND the fastest pace of increase since September 2015. Whats more, Februarys 6,400 decline was revised to reflect a net gain of 2,800. Wowza!

Despite the improvement, the unemployment rate still remained at 5.9%, the highest since January 2016, while unemployed workers shot up by 4,000.

However, this might be due to labour force participation rate also popping up from 64.6% to 64.8%, its best reading in eight months.

A closer look at the details reveals more good news with a whopping 74,500 workers getting full-time employment, which offset the 13,600 decline in part-time jobs.

Even ABS trend terms, which the agency thinks presents a more accurate picture, shows full-time employment rising by 15,600 in March, which is its strongest increase since October 2015.

Last but not the least are total employment and total size of the labour force, which hit their highest levels on record in March.



Not surprisingly, the positive figures pushed the Aussie higher across the board. And whether its really, really good-lookin data or a lack of other catalysts during the Easter holidays, the comdoll was able to sustain its gains for the rest of the day.

AUD/USD ended the day 56 pips (+0.75%) higher to .7566, AUD/JPY jumped by 57 pips (+0.70%) to 82.54, and EUR/AUD plummeted by 163 pips (-1.15%) to 1.4032.

What can forex traders expect this time?

Market players expect the unemployment rate to remain at 5.9% for another month, while net job gains is expected to calm down to just a 4,500-net increase.

How realistic are market expectations for the upcoming release? Lets look at a few leading indicators for clues:

According to ANZ, job advertisements rose by 1.4% in April after a 0.8% gain in March while annual figures reflect a 10.1% jump against Marchs 7.1% gain. Overall, the firm believes that we may be in for a sustained period of strength following Marchs strong numbers.

Australian Industry Group (AIG)s Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI) climbed 1.7 points higher into expansion territory and marked its seventh consecutive expansion in April. All seven sub-indices showed improvement with the employment component rising by 1.8 points to 55.9.

AIGs Performance of Construction Index (PCI) grew for a third straight month in April to 51.9. The good vibes werent extended to the employment component, however, as the advances were isolated to new orders, deliveries, and selling prices.

Meanwhile, AIGs Performance of Services Index (PSI) showed a 1.3-point climb to 53.0, marking the sixth out of seven months that the industry has lifted. Much like in the construction sector, though, the employment component missed out with its 3.1-point decline to 51.9.

Last but not the least is the NABs monthly business survey, which points to an ongoing improvement in employment conditions. The employment component rose by another 2 points to +8, which the agency believes points to further pick up in official measures of employment growth.

Tips and tricks

For now, it looks like market players have reason to expect slightly lower employment growth numbers for the month of April.

This is bad news for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which still thinks that developments in the labour and housing markets warranted careful monitoring despite the recent tightening of Australias job reports.

If youre trading the release, though, then you might want to pay attention to the details of the release. Specifically, look for the strength of full-time jobs added as well as wage growth and working hours.

Remember that full-time jobs tend to support more consumer spending, as buyers are more confident about where their next moolah will be coming from.

Another jump in full-time jobs could once again boost the Aussie higher against its major counterparts. But if majority of job additions come from part-time employment, then we might see the comdoll slip lower across the board.

Based on last months price action, we know that much of the Aussies reaction is centered around the release, with the possibility of extending its intraday trend at the absence of other economic catalysts.

Make sure you stick around during the release so you dont miss any good trading opportunity!
The former law enforcement officer whose arrest of Andrew Keel resulted in two felony strikes still feels a measure of guilt every day over wh
The former Kern County sheriffs deputy looks into the eye of the camera, takes a breath and proceeds to tell the world he is contemptible, a 
A Washington Post report that President Donald Trump gave classified information to Russian officials during a visit last week has sent shock waves through Capitol Hill.

Trump shared details of ISIS terror threats to Russian foreign minister, ambassador: Washington Post

Trump administration says president did nothing wrong

Political leaders call revelations a 'serious matter'

The Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, said Trump shared details about an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.



The ambassador has been a central player in the snowballing controversy surrounding possible coordination between Trumps campaign and Russias election meddling.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement.



They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

However, the Trump administration has stated the president did nothing wrong.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation, said H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security adviser. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

The president took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to explain his actions:

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

As the White House denies the accusations, Democrats are sounding off online.

Orlando's U.S. Representative Val Demings said on Twitter:



I pray these allegations are not true.But if they are, they are inexcusable & deserve immediate action from Congress https://t.co/DGzJNicB8C  Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) May 16, 2017

And Seminole and Orange County U.S. Representative Stephanie Murphy said:

If other nations can't trust us to keep shared classified info secret, then they will stop sharing it with us - making us less safe. #FlaPol  Rep Stephanie Murphy (@RepStephMurphy) May 16, 2017

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on CNN for a Town Hall Monday night and addressed the controversy.

"From what we have heard, this is a very serious matter. This is code word source highly classified information revealed to an adversarial country. To do so in a way, they are very sophisticated on intelligence. Putin was head of the KGB, This is what they do," Pelosi said.

Minnesota U.S. Sen. Al Fraken calls it extremely troubling.

This is profoundly troubling. Why would President Trump give our highly classified information to the Russians? https://t.co/uFKr4ZOId4  Al Franken (@alfranken) May 16, 2017

New York U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer tweeted:

It puts at risk the lives of Americans & those who gather intelligence for our country.  Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 15, 2017

Online reaction from Republicans has been scarce, but Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain had this to say:
St. Petersburg Police detectives are investigating a fatal shooting Monday where the victim's body was found in the street.

Officials said the shooting occurred just after 6:30 p.m. near the intersection of 11th Avenue South and 23rd Street South.

Officials said officers arrived on scene about 90 seconds after police received the call of a shooting. When they arrived, they found the victim, Timothy Karl Davis, 34, in the roadway.

Officers administered CPR until Fire Rescue units arrived and took over. They were unable to keep Davis alive.

Investigators received information pointing to a dispute Davis had been involved in over the past few days. Anyone with information about this dispute is asked to contact the St. Petersburg Police Department.



No further information has been released.
Large Event at N. Oregon Coast's Oswald West Includes Hikes, Science, BBQ

Published 05/16/2017 at 6:23 AM PDT - Updated 05/16/2017 at 3:23 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Manzanita, Oregon)  UPDATED: to include more event info. The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Beach Bill begin to reach a fevered pitch, with a shindig on the north Oregon coast that is all about nature. The Surfrider Foundation Portland Chapter and the Friends of Cape Falcon Marine Reserve have together to present an event that focuses on citizen science and a chance to learn all about that which makes up Oswald West State Park and the Cape Falcon Reserve.

It all takes place on May 20 at Oswald West State Park near Manzanita. Called Oswald West Action Day, it boasts a variety of fun and knowledge-filled events, including a barbecue, surfing, a hands across the sand photo shoot and presentations on the monitoring and protection work that goes on at in the area.

This is, after all, the park named for the man who first set into motion the free and accessible beaches of the Oregon coast, by declaring all the beaches public property some 100 years ago.

It all starts at 10 a.m. with a meet-n-greet and an introduction to the day at the lower parking lot at Short Sands. At 10:30 a.m. there will be citizen science adventures at or around Oswald West State Park.

At half past noon it's the Hands Across the Sands (http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/) photo shoot. From 12:45 p.m. to 2 p.m. there's the free barbecue with locally-sourced at the picnic area (or possibly a later gathering at Public Coast Brewing in Cannon Beach if the weather is bad).

The citizen science portion is a choose-your-own-adventures concept. You can pick from a variety of hikes, walks by the ocean or a hunt for sea stars. These are:

Seabird Monitoring and hike on the Coastal Edge: Join Audubon Society of Portland and Friends of Cape Falcon Marine Reserve for a fun hike out to Audubons monitoring site at Devils Cauldron in Oswald West State Park. Devils Cauldron is a short (0.25 miles), easy hike open to all ages. Experience the unique story of our coastline, from natural history to ongoing land and ocean conservation activities, including the new Cape Falcon Marine Reserve and Audubon Society of Portlands efforts to monitor seabirds.

If youre up for more, continue on Elk Flats Trail for a 1.5-mile moderate to difficult hike to Short Sands Beach and the rest of the days festivities. The Elk Flats Trail, which leads hikers through a variety of forest structures, stunning old growth trees, and to vistas of the marine reserve, is steep in some sections. Hikers should prepare for slick, muddy trails and to scamper over and under sizable fallen trees. You'll want to wear sturdy shoes, dress for Oregon coast weather, and bring water.

Clean Beaches and Water: Surfrider Foundation and CoastWatch are teaming up at the beautiful Falcon Cove Beach to highlight efforts to keep our waterways and beaches clean. Explore the monitoring sites at Falcon Cove Beach and learn about the Blue Water Task Force program and marine debris monitoring efforts going on coast wide. Discover where the trash on our beaches is coming from, how you can get involved, and all the partners that are contributing from local volunteers to schools to national organizations. If you havent spent time on Falcon Cove Beach, this is a great opportunity to view this remote coastal beach along the Cape Falcon Marine Reserve. Lodging in Manzanita, Wheeler- Where to eat - Map and Virtual Tour

Short Sand Intertidal Exploration Tour: Discover the amazing creatures living along the coastal edge. Hunting for sea stars will be the main objective during this outing highlighting the impacts of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome. Haystack Rock Awareness Program and The Nature Conservancy will team up to take participants on a tour of the rocky intertidal areas at Short Sand beach. These organizations support coast wide and local efforts to monitor sea star populations. Recent surveys have shown a decrease in diseased animals and the first signs of the populations recovering.

Along the way, you never know what you will discover: from dueling anemones, a sea star's patient hunt for its next meal, to predatory snails. Its literally another world.

This event is part of the Explore Nature series of hikes, walks, paddles and outdoor adventures. Explore Nature events are hosted by a consortium of volunteer community and non-profit organizations, and are meaningful nature-based experiences highlight the unique beauty of Tillamook County and the work being done to preserve and conserve the areas natural resources and natural resource-based economy. Learn more at www.explorenaturetillamookcoast.com.

Register for the event on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oswald-west-action-day-citizen-science-extravaganza-tickets-33919489105 - - Lodging in Manzanita, Wheeler- Where to eat - Map and Virtual Tour















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On Thursday, Florida middle school teacher Pamela Stigger, 33, was arrested after she was allegedly caught having sex with a former student, 15, in the back of her car.

According to multiple reports, the 33-year-old was arrested in Tamarac, Florida. She has been charged with two counts of sexual assault on a minor between the ages of 12 and 18 along with one count of lewd and lascivious activity on a minor, WTVJ reports.
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Last month, a police search warrant revealed the slaying of 15-year-old girl who had been missing for about a month in Virginia was filmed.

Police said MS-13 gang-members interrogated, tortured and taunted Damaris A. Reyes Rivas before stabbing her to death.
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Becoming a double amputee didn't stop a Beaumont woman from "living her life to the fullest." Instead, she has embraced her disability by challenging herself.

In 2015, Myah McDonald, 21, lost both of her legs following a dare gone wrong. McDonald and her ex-boyfriend climbed on top of a train parked behind their house. While they were on top of one of the carts, the train began to move. A jolt caused McDonald to fall and the train dragged her by the legs for a few blocks.

Despite the traumatic accident, McDonald decided not to let her double amputation hinder her from living a typical life. The single mother challenged herself to do "normal things" during April for Lost Limb Awareness Month.

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"I made a list of all of the things that I wanted to do and accomplish," McDonald told Chron.com. Her first challenge was a handstand, the second was a lingerie photo shoot, then riding a motorcycle and finally driving a car on her own.

Click through the gallery above to see photos of McDonald accomplishing her April challenges.

McDonald shared her accomplishments with her followers on Instagram to raise awareness. In a black, strappy lace bodysuit and a huge smile, McDonald shared photos of her lingerie photo shoot. That challenge garnered the most attention online.

"For a time I didn't feel sexy," McDonald told Chron.com. "Before my accident - not to sound conceited or anything - I thought I was really sexy and after my accident, it really brought me down and I didn't feel nearly as sexy as before." So she put on her fishnet leggings and lace bodysuit to raise her confidence and awareness.

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While Limb Loss Awareness Month has come and gone, McDonald is thinking about continuing her list of "normal challenges" that have become physical accomplishments for the young woman.

"Dancing, mowing a yard, doing yoga, riding a bike, pushups, as many as I can do," she said. "I'd also really like to go skydiving, but I'm really afraid of heights."

While the accident was nearly two years ago, McDonald has overcome her disability without professional help. She's taught herself how to walk and maneuver on her right prosthetic, though she thinks she'll have to go to physical therapy when she gets her left prosthetic in the near future.

"Anyone with a disability, they can do anything that they put their mind to. I could have wallowed away and hated my life until I died, but I decided to live my life to the fullest," McDonald told Chon.com.

"I feel like I'm happier now than before my accident. I'm not saying it doesn't get hard - it does. You just have to fight for it."

On Monday, June 5 from 6-8 p.m., the Kendra Scott store at Baybrook Mall is hosting a giving back party where 20% of the proceeds benefit the McDonald family. For more information, call the store location at (281)954-3725.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont submitted a proposal to increase its 2018 rates by 12.7 percent, according to Burlington Free Press.

Here are five things to know:

1. The largest health insurer in the state, BCBS of Vermont, is requesting a double-digit increase because state residents are aging and the ACA federal tax mandate did not take effect last year, which caused financial losses.

2. High healthcare utilization rates and pharmacy costs also drove the payer to boost it prices.

3. A BCBS of Vermont representative said the proposal was "not welcome news."

The payer submitted the proposal to the Green Mountain Care Board that regulates the state's healthcare system.

4. The board is at a standstill as it won't make any major decisions its current three board members reach a consensus on certain proposals including the Green Mountain Surgery Center.

5. The chairman left in December and another board member left a month later, leaving the board short of two members.
Cleveland Clinic confirmed it selected Atlanta-based Morrison Healthcare to manage food services for its main campus and children's rehabilitation hospital.

Morrison, which will replace Gaithersburg, Md.-based Sodexo, will begin providing food services for patients and cafeterias at these locations July 1, Cleveland Clinic spokesperson Heather Phillips said in an emailed statement. Earlier this month, Cleveland Clinic announced its contract with Sodexo is expected to end June 30.

Sodexo said the contract termination would affect 383 employees, including 215 food service workers, 25 cooks, 31 supervisors and numerous other positions, according to The Plain Dealer, which cites a federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice filed April 28 with the Cuyahoga County Department of Job and Family Services.

Ms. Phillips said Morrison recently met with affected Sodexo employees regarding the transition. "Sodexo and Morrison are working together to provide Sodexo employees with information and guidance about employment opportunities with Morrison through the transition," she added.

If affected employees are rehired with Morrison, they will have the same rate of pay, a Morrison spokesperson said, according to the report. "There will be no decreases, and all rates of pay will be evaluated for potential increases during the transition. Transitioning employees also will be eligible for benefits with Morrison with no break in coverage," the spokesperson said.

Sodexo will still provide food services at Cleveland Clinic Akron (Ohio) General, and Philadelphia-based Aramark will continue providing food service at Cleveland Clinic's regional and Florida facilities.

Ms. Phillips said the switch to Morrison does not affect food service retail vendors on Cleveland Clinic's main campus, including Aladdin's Eatery, Subway, Moe's, Au Bon Pain, Starbucks and NOURISH by Bon Appetit.
A 35-year-old woman, posing as a nurse, allegedly treated patients at St. Louis-based St. Alexius Hospital for three months, reports St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Here are five things to know.

1. In September 2016, Samantha L. Rivera allegedly lied about her career background to apply for a nursing job with ATC Healthcare Services, which staffs healthcare professionals at hospitals and other facilities, according to a May 10 indictment. Ms. Rivera is not licensed as a registered nurse in any state and did not graduate from nursing school, according to the report.

2. The staffing company placed Ms. Rivera at St. Alexius Hospital, where she worked as a nurse in the intensive care unit and psychiatric unit for geriatric patients from November 2016 to February 2017. While posing as a nurse, she assessed patients, performed medical treatments and administered controlled substances, among other tasks, according to the indictment. St. Alexius Hospital did not respond to St. Louis Post-Dispatch's request for comment.

3. The indictment also claims Ms. Rivera in 2015 lied about her experience and credentials to secure an $80,000 teaching job at Brown Mackie College's school of nursing in Albuquerque, N.M.

4. Ms. Rivera was recently caught after applying to a nurse staffing company using a New Mexico nurse's personal information, according to court records. The staffing agency learned New Mexico's Board of Nursing took disciplinary actions against Ms. Rivera, and her case was referred to the New Mexico attorney general in April 2016, according to the report.

5. Ms. Rivera appeared in an Illinois court May 12, facing charges of healthcare fraud and identity theft. She also faces charges of fraud, forgery and identity theft, which were filed in New Mexico April 21. During the hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Bodenhausen told Ms. Rivera lawyers did not know whether New Mexico authorities wanted her held on the charges issued in April, reports St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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For one Georgia woman, a routine pharmacy visit to fill a prescription resulted in a debilitating medical condition that caused her body to "burn from the inside out," according to NBC-11 News.

Khaliah Shaw, 26, said she visited her physician in 2014 for depression and received a prescription for lamotrigine, an anticonvulsant typically used to treat seizures and certain types of mood disorders.

According to a lawsuit filed by Ms. Shaw, she received the wrong dose of the medication, and the pharmacist did not notice  instead of treating her symptoms, she experienced blisters all over her body that made her feel "like she was on fire," according to the report.

Ms. Shaw was diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome  a rare skin disorder that can result from an incorrect dosage of medication. The disease has reportedly left Ms. Shaw with burned and scarred skin, impeded her vision and caused her to lose her sweat glands and finger nails. She said she spent five weeks in a medically-induced coma while her skin peeled off her body. The disease is untreatable and she is at risk of relapsing.

Medication errors kill at least one person per day and harm roughly 1.3 million people each year in the U.S. alone, according to the World Health Organization. Medication errors were also one of the 10 most common sentinel events reported to the Joint Commission in 2016.

To curtail the number of medication errors, some medical officials suggest limiting the number of prescriptions a pharmacist can fill during a shift, allowing them to ensure the prescribed dosage for each patient is correct.

"When pharmacists get busier or pressure gets placed on the pharmacist, it makes it harder for them to do their jobs accurately," Matthew Perri, PhD, professor and associate department head of clinical and administrative pharmacy at the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy in Athens told NBC-11 News. "If you're filling three or four hundred prescriptions by yourself, that's clearly way too much for one pharmacist. The idea of setting limits is unappealing on the business perspective, but on a patient safety perspective, it would be a good thing if we had a general idea of where those limits were."

Critics of such limitations say it could hinder patients' access to medications.

Editor's note: This article was updated on May 22 to clarify that Stevens-Johnson Syndrome does not always stem from a medication error. The disorder may also occur when patients have an adverse effect to a correct dosage, or as an independent autoimmune disorder. We regret this error.
A person from Virginia who was bitten by a dog while traveling in India contracted rabies, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Typically, the U.S. only sees one to three human rabies cases annually, making this case uncommon. The last time Virginia had a rabies case was in 2009.

The state health department is working with the CDC to assess rabies risk for healthcare workers and others with direct contact with the patient. This step is out of an abundance of caution however, as the only documented cases of human-to-human rabies spread occurred through organ transplantation.

The rabies virus is typically transmitted when the saliva of a host animal is passed to an uninfected animal. In the U.S., the most common carriers of rabies are raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes and bats. The virus attacks the central nervous system.

Rabies is typically fatal once clinical signs of rabies infection, like cerebral dysfunction, confusion, delirium and insomnia, appear, according to the CDC. However, most human fatalities in the U.S. happen when people fail to seek medical assistance  postexposure treatment is nearly 100 percent effective.

The Virginia Department of Health did not release further information on the status of the individual, but said, "[O]ur thoughts and prayers are with the patient and the patient's family."
Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, on Monday delivered his first speech to agency staff members.

Here are four quotes from the speech.

On the FDA's role in lowering drug costs:

"[T]oo many consumers are priced out of the medicines they need  I know FDA doesn't play a direct role in drug pricing, but we still need to be taking meaningful steps to get more low cost alternatives to the market, to increase competition and to give consumers more options. This is especially true when it comes to complex drugs and biosimilars."

On the opioid epidemic:

"[U]nquestionably, our greatest immediate challenge is the problem of opioid abuse. This is a public health crisis of staggering human and economic proportion  we have an important role to play in reducing the rate of new abuse and in giving healthcare providers the tools to reduce exposure to opioids to only clearly appropriate patients, so we can also help reduce the new cases of addiction."

On the generic drug market:

"We also need to take steps to make sure the generic drug process isn't being inappropriately gamed to delay competition and disadvantage consumers."

On innovative new therapies:

"Congress gave us a clear mandate to be forward-leaning when it comes to how we'll evaluate safety and efficacy in view of emerging scientific insight and better analytical tools  We need to make sure we're taking steps to foster innovation and regulating areas of promising new technology in ways that don't raise the cost of development or reduce innovation."

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Physicians often look to pharmaceutical companies' websites for educational information about their products. But as pharma firms step up digital advertising efforts, only 27 percent of physicians said they still consider pharma websites credible sources for medical data.

That finding comes from Manhattan Research's "Taking the Pulse U.S. 2017" study. The report is based on responses from 2,784 U.S. physicians across more than 25 specialties, and aimed to examine physicians' use of emerging technologies as well as their communication habits.

Here are three key findings on physician-pharma marketing and communications.

1. Roughly 70 percent of physicians said it is essential pharma companies provide "education resources rooted in science" to gain physician buy-in. Yet about half of physicians surveyed said no pharma company provides quality scientific information online.

2. Physicians reported feeling overwhelmed by pharma ads. Sixty-two percent of respondents said information pharma companies offer on third-party websites for healthcare professionals are "always ads" rather than educational material.

3. About half of physicians use online video content in their decision-making process, yet 52 percent don't believe any pharma companies are doing a "good job" at providing quality physician video content.
Nuala Meenahan (left), organiser of the PANI Awards, joined its chairperson Siobhan Lavery to launch this years awards programme

The biggest awards event in the Northern Ireland advertising and publicity industry's calendar has been launched.

And three categories in the Publicity Association of Northern Ireland's (PANI) Awards - best use of social media, best digital campaign and best magazine advertisement - are sponsored by Belfast Telegraph publisher Independent News and Media.

Nuala Meenahan, PANI Awards chairperson, joined Siobhan Lavery to mark the beginning of the awards season - joined by a drawing of some of the industry's greatest figures from down the years.

Ms Meenahan said: "As we celebrate excellence, it is fitting that our awards theme features some of the greatest icons of the advertising industry.

"From Saatchi to Ogilvy these 'greats' have led the way and set standards to which we can all aspire.

"I would contend that there are already numerous local campaigns to rival those on the international stage and as chairperson of these awards I will be very proud to showcase them at our gala event in October."

Siobhan added: "Our key aim at PANI is to promote excellence across all elements of the publicity, marketing and the wider media industries.

"By doing this collectively we are continually raising the bar and improving the quality of the creative community. The PANI Awards are an excellent way of celebrating and rewarding achievements in all areas of production and creativity."

The awards ceremony will be held on October 19 in the Culloden Hotel outside Belfast.

There are five core categories including television, radio, outdoor, press and digital, with specialisms identified within each sector.

A new category of social media has been added to the digital advertising and magazines categories, while another fresh addition will also identify the best mixed-media award.

The PANI Awards website will go live to receive entries from June 5 with the closing date for submissions midnight on August 13.

The judging panel will include 11 distinguished advertising executives from around the UK and Ireland.

The panel is chaired by Billy Mawhinney, creative director of WJPM in London.
Enterprise Ireland is targeting a 50% increase in exports from its client companies to the rest of the Eurozone by 2020, as it tries to persuade firms to diversify away from the UK.

Firms backed by the agency, which helps Irish firms increase global growth, reported record export sales of 21.6bn (18bn) last year - up 6% on 2015.

But export growth to the UK slowed considerably, due primarily to the Brexit-induced weakening of the pound, with food exports hit in particular.

Julie Sinnamon, Enterprise Ireland chief executive, said that while the UK will remain Enterprise Ireland's key market for the coming years, the agency will work to continue to grow the rest of the world at a faster rate. At the same time, UK growth is forecast to be flat.

"While the UK continues to be our number one market, what these results are really saying is, Brexit has actually impacted already," Ms Sinnamon said.

"We know that over the next two years, as negotiations go on, companies need to start that journey. They need to start increasing their focus on markets outside of the UK."

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said many companies have not yet put in place the required plans to deal with Brexit. "I think it is true to say that many companies have not prepared for the situation that will arise from Brexit, because we don't know the details of what will emerge yet."

But he said businesses cannot wait for the outcome of the talks.
JP Morgan has snapped up an office building in Dublin with the capacity to house 1,000 staff as it ramps up its Brexit contingency planning.

The US banking giant - which said earlier this month it plans to move up to 1,000 London jobs to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg in a bid to secure its EU business after Brexit - has acquired the 200 Capital Dock building in the Irish capital.

Carin Bryans, senior country officer for JP Morgan in Ireland, said: "Given the momentum of our local businesses, this new building gives us room to grow and some flexibility within the European Union."

It is also understood that the expansion is down to the success of its existing operation in the city, where it currently employs 500 people.

The building, purchased from real estate firm Kennedy Wilson, measures 130,000 sq ft and is situated in Dublin's docklands area.

The chief executive of JP Morgan's corporate and investment bank Daniel Pinto said at the beginning of the month that a "substantial portion" of the lender's business in London will have to be moved to the EU.

"We will have to move hundreds of people in the short-term to be ready for day one, when negotiations finish, and then we will look at the longer-term numbers.

"We have to plan for a scenario where there is no UK-EU passport deal, and we have to move a substantial portion of our business to continue serving our European clients," he said.

JP Morgan will relocate between 500 and 1,000 front and back office staff from London, with custody business roles destined for Dublin, treasury services will settle in Luxembourg, and investment banking positions are bound for Frankfurt, according to people familiar with the matter.

It is understood that the relocation drive will take place ahead of spring 2019, when the two-year window for Brexit negotiations draws to a close, and the UK is expected to lose passporting rights for financial services.

Kennedy Wilson boss Mary Ricks said that the Dublin occupier market was "buoyant".
Construction work in Dublin is bringing millions of pounds into the Northern Ireland economy as a Co Tyrone firm builds modular homes to help the Irish capital's worsening housing crisis.

Donaghamore Construction boss Mark Currie said that the company had secured two deals for building projects in the Dublin area.

An imbalance in housing supply and demand has seen both rent and housing prices soar in Dublin.

The problem has become so acute that there have been reports of internet cafes charging people 10 (8.50) a night to sleep.

It's been claimed that the Greater Dublin area needs at least 1,200 new homes a month just to meet demand.

The faster modular homes can be completed in just three to six weeks, compared to three months using traditional methods.

The two Dublin projects being carried out by Donaghmore Construction are based in the north of the city - a 20-home development in Wellview, Mulhuddart and a 25-home development in Balbriggan.

Fingal Council, a council to the north of Dublin, has said it plans to build a total of 300 modular homes.

Industry experts say a modular housing development of around 20 homes can be worth between 3m-4m to contracting firms.

And the potential for growth is huge.

The Irish government's Rapid Delivery Framework includes plans to build up to 1,700 rapid-delivery or modular houses.

The overall value of the framework is estimated to be between 250m and 400m (212.5m and 340m).

Western Building Systems is also building modular homes in the Republic. The Dungannon firm - a specialist in modular homes - last year finished a 22-home development in Ballymun, an area to the north of the city.

The development was completed last May but the firm hopes to get involved with future projects in the city.

The firm's marketing manager, Seamus Donnelly, said the homes were partly modular and built using timber frames as part of a pilot project for the council.

"There's a housing crisis in the south at the moment so they're trying to get houses up as quickly as possible," he said.

"But between planning and other things that can be easier said than done, so the modular homes offer a good way to get construction completed as quickly as possible."

A rising population has been exacerbating the city's housing crisis and means the number of people looking for a home now vastly outnumbers supply, pushing prices up further. House prices in February soared by almost 11% when compared with last year, the Republic's latest Central Statistics Office figures show.

In response, Dublin City Council announced yesterday it would begin to offer permanent tenancies in modular homes.

Several NI firms have built a reputation for quality construction work and a select few have chosen to specialise in modular builds. But industry experts say the Irish market can be hard to crack due to varying interpretations of procurement rules.

And projects in Great Britain still account for the majority of the work done by Northern Ireland building firms.

John Armstrong, managing director of industry body the Construction Employers Federation, added: "For most of the last decade, a significant number of Northern Irish firms have thrived through winning and delivering work in a variety of new markets around the world.

"Increasingly, modular construction is a part of that success story and it is, undoubtedly, something that we will continue to see grow given the exceptional standard of the products and workmanship that Northern Irish companies produce."
A virus and spyware warning message on a laptop screen at a home in London, following a major cyber attack on NHS computer systems

Seven hospitals were still unable to accept emergency patients two days after a global cyber attack brought down dozens of NHS systems.

Around a fifth of trusts were hit in Friday's attack, which affected hundreds of organisations around the world.

Operations and procedures were cancelled over the weekend as experts battled to regain control of the networks.

Seven hospitals remained on A&E divert on Sunday afternoon, with ambulances taking emergency patients elsewhere, NHS England said.

Dr Anne Rainsberry, NHS incident director, said: "We have been working with 47 organisations providing urgent and emergency care who have been infected to varying degrees.

"Most have found ways of working around this but seven, including St Barts in London, have asked for extra support.

"If you have a hospital appointment you should still attend unless you are contacted and told not to."

It is unknown how the attack has affected GP surgeries, which are due to open as usual on Monday.

An NHS England spokesman described it is a "very complex emerging picture".

Dr Rainsberry said: "We have also been offering advice and assistance to GP surgeries, who will open as usual tomorrow.

"Again, if you have an appointment you should still attend unless contacted and told not to."

She urged people to "use the NHS wisely" and be patient with staff.

It comes amid concerns NHS networks were left vulnerable because they were still using outdated Windows XP software.

Medical staff reported seeing computers go down "one by one" as the attack took hold, locking machines and demanding money to release the data.

Experts have warned the number of victims "will continue to grow" as people return to work on Monday.

Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said: "On Monday morning at the start of the new working week it's likely that successful attacks from Friday that haven't yet become apparent will become apparent.

"And also existing known infections can spread, we can't say what scale the new cases will occur at but it's likely there will be some."

Europol director Rob Wainwright said the attack was indiscriminate across the private and public sectors.

"At the moment we are in the face of an escalating threat, the numbers are going up, I am worried about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn their machines on Monday morning," he told ITV's Peston On Sunday.

"The latest count is over 200,000 victims in at least 150 countries.

"Many of those will be businesses including large corporations."

Investigators from around the globe, including the National Crime Agency (NCA), are working non-stop to hunt down those responsible for the Wanna Decryptor ransomware, also known as WannaCry.

A British cyber whiz was hailed an "accidental hero" after he registered a domain name that unexpectedly stopped the spread of the virus.

The anonymous specialist, known only as MalwareTech, issued a warning that hackers could upgrade the virus to remove the kill switch.

Among those affected by the virus was Nissan, but the car manufacturer said there had been no major impact.

A spokesman said it was "business as usual" for the Sunday night production shift at the plant in Sunderland.

Meanwhile health authorities are racing to upgrade security software amid fears hackers could exploit the same vulnerability with a new virus.

The apparent chink in the NHS's defences led to criticism of the Government and NHS bosses, with the Liberal Democrats demanding an inquiry takes place.

Labour's shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, in a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, said concerns were repeatedly flagged about outdated computer systems.
Northern Ireland chef Niall McKenna has begun a new search for apprentices and voiced concern about a skills gap.

The apprenticeship programme is open to 16-to-24-year-olds who'll be able to learn skills from the finest chefs in Northern Ireland.

Mr McKenna's Belfast restaurant group includes James Street South and its sister restaurant Bar + Grill, Hadskis and Cast & Crew.

He said the group was "extremely proud" of its support of apprentices as it launched its fourth annual programme. "It has been empowering to see so many of our former students continue to pursue careers in the local hospitality sector, with many still working across the group," he added. "There is a severe shortage in the number of skilled professionals in Northern Ireland to fill roles in the new hotels, restaurants and venues opening or planned across the city and province.

"Our Apprentice Scheme provides a solid investment in the future of world-class hospitality here and I would urge any aspiring chefs with a determination to succeed to apply before the September deadline."
Everyone else is daydreaming, so why shouldn't I? Just what would the world have to look like for a majority in Northern Ireland to vote to leave the UK and join the Irish Republic and, automatically, the EU?

The answer must be that the Republic would be a prosperous member of a successful Federation of Europe. By contrast, the UK would be mired in deficits and poor growth; cut off from even the EU states which are members of the single market and the customs union with the Federation.

The big attraction for Northern Ireland, as it was for East Germans, would be the superior purchasing power of the euro over sterling. Perhaps, like Germany, they could even have their wages and savings converted to euro at better than the market rate.

Yet even formulating such a scenario shows immediately how implausible it is.

If Britain gets into that much trouble outside the EU, then Ireland will not be far behind. If sterling really did go into a secular decline against the euro, Ireland could well end up in more economic trouble than Britain.

It is plausible that the UK's departure will accelerate a much more integrated eurozone. Whether it would be more successful than the existing arrangements, and whether Ireland would do better - or even as well as it does now - under such a regime is an open question.

It was asked some 30 years ago by Central Bank governor Maurice Doyle, when he controversially said Ireland did not join the European Community to become "the North Dakota of a United States of Europe". It did not turn out that way, but the question remains.

Several buckets of cold water in the last few days should have wakened any daydreamers from their fantasies. There was the endorsement from the Central Bank chief economists of forecasts that a hard Brexit would knock 3% off the Irish economy and cost 40,000 jobs.

The prospect of such an outcome loomed larger following the tough EU negotiating mandate which insists that the residence rights of EU and UK citizens be settled and, crucially, that Britain agrees how much it should pay to cover outstanding liabilities to the EU, before any negotiations on the post-Brexit regime can start.

Then came the comments from commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the damaging leaks about his dinner Theresa May. Mr Juncker is willing to offer only even money on success in the negotiations.

It was a timely, if chilling, reminder that not only will the negotiations be difficult, but that there are those in the EU, as well as in the Conservative Party, who would prefer a hard Brexit to transitional, and then permanent, arrangements which would preserve as much as possible of the present economic structures.
Irish actresses have praised James Nesbitt for the impassioned speech he made about the lack of gender parity in the TV and Film industry at Sunday night's Bafta awards.

The Coleraine actor was presenting the award for Best Actress and announced his support for the Equal Representation for Actresses campaign.

"For one female role there are three male roles," he explained.

"This is an inequality that is not only about our industry, but it is an inequality that is absorbed by everyone on their screens every day. As the father of two children - two girls - this should change."

The crowd, including Olivia Colman and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, applauded Nesbitt before he went on to present Sarah Lancashire with the award for her role in Happy Valley.

Last night Irish actress and former Dancing With The Stars contestant Denise McCormack said she was glad Nesbitt used the platform to raise the issue of gender balance.

"I'm delighted he said that," she told the Irish Independent.

"I think it's absolutely appalling that there continues to be more male voices and faces on screen. And that on average male actors are still getting paid more than female actors.

"We cannot change the literary canon and the classic plays - what's written is written. So it's all about acting now and changing what we are seeing and hearing on screen. We have a need for female directors, writers and actors."

She acknowledged that things were changing and female leading roles are becoming more substantial.

"We are getting there but there is still a good way to go."

McCormack's fellow Love/Hate alumni Mary Murray also praised the actor for his speech and believes things are already improving.

"I think the more people say things like that, the more it will continue to change," she said.

The Dublin woman admitted that she does not think she has experienced any sexism while working in the acting industry and has been able to find good roles throughout her career.
Jacinta Whyte will star in Angela's Ashes - The Musical at the Grand Opera House.

Dublin actress and West End star Jacinta Whyte will take on the role of Angela in the Belfast premiere of Angela's Ashes - The Musical this summer.

The musical retelling of Frank McCourts memoirs will run at the Grand Opera House form Tuesday, August 1 to Saturday, August 5.

Jacinta has been appearing on the international stage for years performing in some of the biggest musicals of all time including, Les Miserables, Blood Brothers and Miss Saigon.

She began her career as a child in the title role of Annie in the original production in Londons West End.

Speaking about her upcoming role in Angela's Ashes Jacinta said: Im utterly delighted, so proud and feel very honoured to have been approached by the producer of the show, Pat Moylan, to play the dream role of Angela in what I know will be the most fantastic, original new musical in many a year.

"The script made me both laugh and cry. The music sent shivers up my spine. To get to work with director Thom Southerland will be amazing and to perform at home in Ireland is always so very special.

Pat Moylan Productions will be bringing the world premiere of Angelas Ashes - The Musical to the stage, telling the story of Frank and his parents' struggle to provide for him and his brothers in 1940s Ireland.

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Ian Wilson, chief executive of the Grand Opera House, said: Pat Moylan is one of Irelands leading and critically acclaimed producers, with credits including hugely successful productions of Stones in his Pockets, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Field.

"We are delighted to be working with Pat on the world premiere musical adaptation of Frank McCourts Pulitzer Prize winning book, which will no doubt prove to be an unmissable production.
The gutted house on Belfasts Clara Street following the arson attack on Sunday

A woman has been left "in agony" after suffering burns to her leg during an arson attack.

A house at Clara Street in east Belfast was extensively damaged in the petrol bombing around 11.30pm on Sunday.

It remained boarded up yesterday as police and forensic officers examined the scene.

The house is occupied by James Moffett. It was his girlfriend who was burnt. A pet dog also received injuries.

Mr Moffett said he was mystified as to why his home was targeted.

He told UTV: "I don't know who they were, they weren't people I knew.

"There were two guys running down the street with petrol bombs, smashed my window, looked in at my girlfriend and threw a petrol bomb at her, and it burnt her leg.

"She's in agony."

Mr Moffett said everything in the house was destroyed.

"It's all burnt out, I have nothing. I have lost everything," he added.

He said he now wanted to move away from the area, where he has spent all of his life, because he no longer felt safe.

DUP East Belfast general election candidate Gavin Robinson condemned the arson attack.

"We are currently engaged in giving all the help we can to rehouse those affected by this attack," he said.

"Everyone should have the right to live safely in their own homes free from fear."

Alliance East Belfast general election candidate Naomi Long also hit out at those responsible.

She said: "Whoever was behind this arson attack in Clara Street must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. There can be no excuse for this senseless violence.

"Lives could have been lost if the fire had spread to adjoining houses.

"I send my best wishes for a speedy recovery to the woman injured."

Mrs Long urged anyone with information to contact the police.

Locals said the house was targeted last year in a similar attack, which forced the former residents to leave.

The PSNI appealed to anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the area to come forward. Detectives at Musgrave can be contacted on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 1427 14/05/17.

Alternatively people with information can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are to face separate interviews in front of a live studio audience in a joint programme broadcast by Sky News and Channel 4.

The 90-minute programme on May 29 will be the first TV set-piece featuring the two leaders of the election campaign, ahead of a BBC Question Time special featuring the pair on June 2.

Sky News political editor Faisal Islam will host the audience question-and-answer sessions, while veteran interrogator Jeremy Paxman will interview the Conservative and Labour leaders separately.

Sky also announced editor-at-large Adam Boulton and presenter Sophy Ridge will co-host their Vote 2017 results programme from 9pm on the evening of election day, June 8.

Meanwhile, ITV said it was keeping open its invitation for Mrs May and Mr Corbyn to take part in a TV leaders' debate right up to the moment filming starts on Thursday.

Mrs May has said she will not take part in any head-to-head televised clashes with the Labour leader, who has himself indicated he will not appear in any debate if the PM is not present.

However, the broadcaster will not "empty chair" any leaders who do not attend, stating there will be the "right number of podiums for leaders who attend on the night".

Mr Corbyn issued a direct challenge to a live debate to the Prime Minister during a Facebook question and answer session. In his challenge, read out by ITV political editor Robert Peston, the Labour leader said: "Hello Theresa May, as Prime Minister you've served your elite friends by giving them tax cuts when wages have stagnated, house-building is at its lowest since the 1920s, there are 20,000 fewer police on our streets since 2010 and the NHS is in crisis. Do you not think the British people deserve to see me and you debate live and on television?"

Mrs May responded: "What I think is more important is actually that I and he take questions directly from the voters."

The leaders of the seven parties represented in the 2015 ITV Leaders' Debate, the Conservatives, Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Ukip, Plaid Cymru and the Greens, have been invited to attend the live televised showdown on Thursday evening in Salford. Lib Dem leader Tim Farron and Ukip's Paul Nuttall have confirmed they will take part. They will be able to make short opening and closing statements and face questions from the audience.

The public will be able to quiz Mrs May and Mr Corbyn in a BBC Question Time special hosted by veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby, while Mr Farron and Nicola Sturgeon will appear in a second programme. The BBC will also broadcast a live election debate on May 31 from Cambridge, involving senior Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green Party and Ukip politicians.
Arlene Foster has been asked to "clarify" the DUP's stance on the Irish Language act, in an open letter from advocacy group POBAL.

An Irish Language Act is one of the major hurdles between the DUP and Sinn Fein in the crisis talks aimed at restoring the power-sharing Executive.

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The former first minister last month said she wanted to engage with Gaelic speakers who lacked political baggage and since then has met with POBAL, the independent advocacy organisation for the Irish speaking community, and she also visited Irish language students at Our Lady's Grammar School in Newry - where she said 'thank you' in Irish.

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But despite Mrs Foster's engagement with those in the Irish Language speaking community - last week fellow members of the DUP said there would be no Irish Language act.

East Antrim candidate Sammy Wilson said: "We as a party have made it clear we dont support an Irish language act."

In an open letter, POBAL has called on the DUP leader for clarification and "reiterated the reasons for the community-based demand for legislation, reasons also explained by our recent delegation to meet with you and other party members at Stormont".

In the letter they acknowledge that it is a "complex area".

It said: "POBAL has sought to build and focus the debate so that the Irish speaking community can move forward with clear, strong and agreed proposals on what is needed."

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It adds: "The experience of the last ten years has only confirmed our view and that of those who have contributed to the creation of the POBAL proposals, that legislation in the form we recommend is essential, both in terms of satisfying the needs and aspirations of the Irish language community and, also crucially, the legal obligations of the UK.

"The introduction of the Irish Language Act is an enabling action that will clarify the rights of Irish speakers and the responsibilities of public and government bodies. It will make it easier for individuals to understand and protect their rights and it will enable those working in the government and public sectors to fulfil their duties.

"It will assist in harmonising indigenous language protections throughout the UK and will help unify equality and rights legislation. In conjunction with the Irish speaking community, and with the generous support of international legal experts, POBAL has presented clear, consistent and realistic proposals.

"We believe that they will contribute to the enacting, within the near future, of a comprehensive Irish Language Act."
Jack Loeffler and Meredith Davidson pay homage to the counterculture movement of the '60s through the words and photographs of a select gathering of people who lived it.

Jack Loeffler and Meredith Davidson, Voices of Counterculture in the Southwest

This book pays homage to the counterculture movement through the words and photographs of a select gathering of people who lived it. At its height in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the counterculture movement permeated every region of America as thousands of activists took on the establishment.

Although counterculture has often been trivialized as dirty hippies and sex, drugs, and rock n roll, committed activists formed powerful strands of resistance to the political/military/industrial complex. American Indians, Hispanos, Blacks, and Anglos joined in marches and protests often at their peril. Veterans of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, communards in northern New Mexico, practitioners of drug-induced mysticism, disciplined seekers of spiritual awakening, back-to-the-landers, defenders of wilderness counterculturalists all questioned, reframed, and redefined American and global perspectives that remain to this day.

The American Southwest became a haven for individuals from both coasts seeking refuge in this vast landscape. Many found an affinity with the native cultures and local inhabitants who were already here. Others joined forces to combat the Vietnam War, racial discrimination, and pillaging of the environment. Still others founded communes based on diverse cultures of practice. Movement leaders organized community events, protests, and spoke for their generation; many used their talents as writers, musicians, artists, and photographers to express their angst and promote change.

Jack Loeffler draws from his extensive archive of recorded interviews and transcribed conversations with contemporaries among them writers, artists, elders, activists, and scholars including Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Edward Abbey, Shonto Begay, Camillus Lopez, Tara Evonne Trudell, Roberta Blackgoat, Richard Grow, Alvin Josephy, David Brower, Dave Foreman, Elinor Ostrom, Fritjof Capra, and Melissa Savage. The book includes personal essays by Yvonne Bond, Peter Coyote, Lisa Law, Peter Rowan, Siddiq Hans von Briesen, Art Kopecky, Bill Steen, Sylvia Rodriguez, Enrique R. Lamadrid, Levi Romero, Rina Swentzell, Gary Paul Nabhan, Meredith Davidson, and Jack Loeffler. It includes photographs by Lisa Law, Seth Roffman, Terrence Moore, and others.

Jack Loeffler is an aural historian, radio producer, writer, and musician. He is the author of Adventures with Ed: A Portrait of Abbey (UNM Press) and Healing the West: Voices of Culture and Habitat (MNM Press). He is founder of the Black Mesa Defense Fund, which organized the Hopi Indians of Arizona against Peabody Coal.

Meredith Davidson is curator of 19th and 20th Century Southwest Collections at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Join storyteller Jack Loeffler and Meredith Davidson, Curator at the NM History Museum, for a talk and signing of their new book,Voices of Counterculture in the Southwest. The book examines the Southwest as a refuge from the Vietnam War, how this areas expansive vistas drew thousands of spiritually hungry young people during the 1960s and 70s. The book coincides with an exhibition of the same name opening at the New Mexico History Museum on May 14, 2017.
Teachers' unions have hit out at Northern Ireland's top education official over his "Trumpesque" response to the ongoing industrial action.

Gavin Boyd issued a strongly-worded letter to teachers and principals in which he criticised the dispute and accused teachers of harming children's education.

The chief executive of the Education Authority (EA) further claimed that teachers in Northern Ireland were better paid than those in England and Wales.

Teachers and unions here have been left angered by the letter, with many saying it was littered with "fake news" and "misleading" information.

Some of the main teaching unions are refusing to co-operate with school inspections after rejecting a pay offer that would see staff receive a 1% rise for 2016-17.

Avril Hall Callaghan of the Ulster Teachers' Union slammed the intervention.

She said: "The letter received by teachers, principals and boards of governors is patronising in tone and content.

"The letter contains a number of assertions which, far from reassuring teachers and their representatives, will serve only to galvanise teachers in their support of ongoing industrial action and undermine further the already difficult industrial relations climate in education.

"The current industrial action has, rather than negatively affected children and young people, given teachers more time to spend tailoring lessons to meet the individual needs of pupils. Having patronised teachers and characterised a very difficult industrial relations climate in a 'Trumpesque' fashion is unhelpful and disrespectful and will make resolving this very difficult dispute more difficult."

Niall Boyle, who has been a teacher for 19 years, said he was "extremely angered" by Mr Boyd's letter.

He insisted the accusations it made were false.

Mr Boyle, who teaches in a Belfast grammar, said: "I would love to know what his evidence is to say that the industrial action is seriously affecting the education of children.

"The kids that I teach have not been affected at all, if anything it has been improved as I have more time to give to them. He's talking nonsense. Some of it reeks of fake news and alternative facts. It's unbelievable.

"The staff in my school are livid about this letter, it's all anyone is talking about.

"The education system has been turned into a business, it's about pounds and pence, not about the kids and their education.

"I urge every teacher in Northern Ireland to write to him and complain, as this is an insult to the profession."

Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said teachers would not be "persuaded or intimidated".

"The letter from Gavin Boyd will simply infuriate teachers who are continuing to endure the painful reality of real terms cuts to pay, job insecurity and excessive workload, including a punitive inspection system," he said.

"Mr Boyd's letter to teachers and principals cannot hide the facts of the destructive impact of excessive workload on teachers' lives or that the value of teachers' pay has fallen by around 20% since 2010.

"It is a pity that employers and ministers have spent their time denying the concerns of teachers."

Mark Langhammer, ATL director in Northern Ireland, added: "The letter is misleading and disingenuous. Far from affecting the education of pupils, the industrial action that ATL is taking is improving the education of pupils."
As the shocking news emerged from the sleepy Co Fermanagh village of Maguiresbridge last night of an incident of unimaginable horror, it brought back memories of other murder-suicides which caused devastation.

Just last year in Co Cavan, Alan Hawe killed his wife and three sons.

Hawe (41), his wife Clodagh (39) and their three children Liam (13), Niall (11) and Ryan (6) were found dead in their house in Ballyjamesduff in August 2016 in an apparent murder-suicide.

It is believed the teacher killed each member of his family before taking his own life and left a note pinned to the door of the house advising that the first person to see it should call the emergency services.

Hawe's remains were exhumed from the joint grave earlier this month on the request of Clodagh's family.

The circumstances surrounding the tragedy are set to be the subject of an inquest later this year.

Meanwhile 10 years ago Arthur McElhill killed his family in a house fire in Omagh, an act which sent shockwaves across Northern Ireland.

The couple died along with their five children at their home in Lammy Crescent.

Coroner Suzanne Anderson concluded at the inquest into the family's deaths that McElhill burned the house down because his partner, Lorraine McGovern, threatened to leave him.

That inquest heard a phone call made by Lorraine's daughter, Caroline (13), in which she pleaded for help from her burning home. McElhill, Ms McGovern and their five children - Caroline, Sean (7), Bellina (4), Clodagh (19 months) and James (nine months) died in the blaze.

Arthur McElhill had been having sex with a 16-year-old girl in the weeks before the fire. The house has since been demolished.

If you are in need of help, you can contact Lifeline on 0808 808 8000, or the Samaritans on 028 9066 4422, email jo@samaritans.org, text 07725 90 90 90 or visit www.samaritans.org
More than 9,500 visitors will step ashore in Belfast this week as three cruise liners call to the busy port.

Approximately 900 passengers and 300 crew set out from Belfast on Tuesday, May 16, on the Fred Olsen line's Boudicca. They will enjoy a cruise around Scotland and the Scottish isles on the 28,388 tonnes, 205m ship before returning to Belfast at the end of their holiday.

Celebrity Eclipse, one of the biggest ships due this year, is due to arrive at 11.45am on Wednesday, May 17. This impressive liner is 317m long and weighs 121,878 tonnes. Its 2,850 passengers and 1,270 crew are on a cruise of Ireland, Iceland and the Channel Islands. Celebrity Eclipse will leave Belfast Harbour around 10.15pm.

Another impressively large ship, the 112,894 tonnes Caribbean Princess, will bring 3,175 passengers and 1,200 crew into Belfast at around 7.45am on Thursday, May 18. This 289.5m long cruise ship is due to visit Belfast twelve times in 2017, bringing a total of 52,500 people to the city this year alone.

Belfasts record cruise schedule for 2017 marks an unprecedented period of growth for city tourism and investment which has underlined the citys soaring appeal among cruise tourists from around the world but particularly the UK, Europe and North American markets.

Belfast has established itself as a destination of choice for cruise operators and visitors, becoming the second busiest port of call in Ireland and once again attracting more cruise passengers than Liverpool in 2017.

By the end of this year, almost 600 cruise ships will have visited the city since the first arrival in 1996.

Joe ONeill, Belfast Harbours Commercial Director, said: To welcome 88 ships this year is a tremendous endorsement of the great strides which Northern Ireland has made in recent years.

"When we started pitching Belfast to cruise operators in the mid-1990s there was some scepticism about what could be achieved. This year, were welcoming a record number of visitors and vessels, including the 100th visit of a Princess Cruise ship, one of the best-regarded operators in the sector.

To learn more about this year's cruise liner schedule, click here.
Willie Frazer (centre) and relatives of some of the Kingsmill victims arrive at Laganside Court

Protesters outside Belfast's Laganside Court yesterday blasted the Irish Government over its apparent reluctance to disclose information relating to the Kingsmill massacre.

Before the inquest resumed after a break of almost a year, some relatives of the Kingsmill victims held a banner with the words 'Justice delayed, justice denied, our pain is Ireland's shame'.

Speaking for the group, victims' campaigner Willie Frazer accused Dublin of suppressing information.

"They should be ashamed of themselves," he told the Belfast Telegraph.

"We want what they promised two years ago, full disclosure.

"The Taoiseach looked us straight in the eye and said he would do all he could to help us. They have only given us 60 newspaper cuttings, that's it."

A solicitor representing the families repeated the frustration to the coroner Brian Sherrard, comparing the Irish Government's contribution to a slimming biscuit "full of air with no substance".

The coroner acknowledged the inquest could not conclude until he was satisfied all relevant documents were before the court.

He repeated a call for any members of the public with helpful information on Kingsmill to come forward.

In April this year the Irish justice department strenuously denied it was not helping.

A spokesman commented: "The Irish Government has given its commitment to co-operate to the greatest extent possible, within the law, with the inquest and, in fact, has taken unprecedented legal measures to facilitate that co-operation and to deliver upon its commitment."
He denies charges of rape and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

A man accused of raping and stabbing a woman he met in Belfast has been banned from entering the city.

The prohibition was imposed on 32-year-old Barry Dullaghan as part of strict conditions under which he was granted High Court bail.

Dullaghan, of Cathedral Road in Armagh, allegedly took her back to his home to carry out the attack on March 10.

But his lawyers have challenged the reliability of the alleged victim's account, insisting any sex was consensual.

He denies charges of rape and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The woman was allegedly subjected to a sexual assault and suffered knife wounds, losing significant amounts of blood, the court heard.

She gave an initial, "dazed" account that the pair had only just met at a house party in Belfast before returning to Armagh.

Prosecution counsel revealed that the woman had been reported missing at the time.

However, defence barrister Michael Forde argued that Dullaghan and the alleged victim knew each other.

"They had been texting for three weeks previously," he said.

Mr Forde also claimed they met up at a train station in Belfast on the night of the alleged attack before going together to a Holiday Inn hotel.

From there they travelled back together in a taxi, he contended.

Madam Justice McBride held that a prima facie case has been established, but decided Dullaghan could be released from custody to live at an address in Newry.

She ordered him to keep out of the Greater Belfast area and prohibited any attempt to contact the woman.

He must also abide by a curfew, alcohol ban and report daily to police.
Police are hunting for brazen thieves who stole a stunning 2,495 diamond ring during a distraction theft from a Craigavon jewellers.

The theft of the impressive 1.2 carat diamond, which had been crafted into a princess cut baguette stone set in a white gold ring, was captured on CCTV by Faith Jewellers in Rushmere Shopping Centre.

The footage shows two men entering the store and appearing to browse through the displays at around 3.40pm on Thursday, May 11. One man calls a sales assistant to the front of the store, while the other remains beside the cash register.

Then, when the sales assistant is distracted and other customers have turned away, the thief reaches behind the counter and grabs the ring.

Director and owner of Faith Jewellers Rodney Simmons said he was "sickened" by the theft, and was offering a 200 reward for information leading to the return of the ring, one of the store's most expensive pieces.

"We count our diamonds regularly and we saw that this was missing, then we saw the CCTV," he told the Belfast Telegraph.

"It looks like they knew what they were doing - it's unbelievable. You never think this will happen to you. The footage was a learning curve and will be used to train staff in future. The thief had to lean over the counter but the cabinet wasn't locked as it normally is, so he pushed it and took the diamond."

Footage of the theft has been viewed almost 150,000 times on social media, which Rodney hopes will help apprehend those responsible.

"I built this business up from nothing with hard work, and for someone to walk in and lift a ring worth nearly 2,500 has left me sickened and disappointed," he continued. "We will be more wary in future. It was a dear lesson, but it will make us stronger."

A police spokeswoman said the man who took the ring was in his 40s with short, dark hair, and was wearing dark coloured track bottoms and a grey top.

He spoke with a southern Irish accent and is believed to have been in the company of a second male.

It is also believed that police are linking the incident to another distraction theft from a separate business premises in the Portadown area.

Anyone with information can contact officers in Lurgan on 101 quoting reference number 460 of 12/05/17 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Police searching an area of the People's Park in Portadown have recovered four suspected pipe bombs.

Police and navy bomb experts carried out searches in the People's Park in Portadown. MLA Doug Beattie said they were searching for Troubles-era munitions.

It is believed the searches involved dive operations in the Corcrain River.

Police on Tuesday afternoon said the searches had ended and that the pipe bomb devices uncovered were not viable. They also found working parts of a firearm.

Inspector Leslie Badger said: The investigation is at a an early stage and we are working to establish how old the items are and whether this find is linked to historic terrorist activity.

Upper Bann MLA Doug Beattie welcomed the searches.

"It is clear the PSNI have credible intelligence that some explosive ordnance may well have been dumped in the river or the surrounding area," he added.

"It shows the PSNI have absolute commitment to keeping all citizens of Upper Bann safe and I commend their courage and commitment and that of the military personnel taking part in this dangerous operation.
The DUP has escalated the "sexism" row with Sinn Fein after Arlene Foster described Michelle O'Neill as an attractive blonde.

After rejecting Sinn Fein's demand for an apology, the DUP slammed the complaint as "nonsense" and questioned Sinn Fein's interest in women's rights. Gregory Campbell suggested that if Sinn Fein is so interested in women's sensitivities then they should start with Disappeared victim Jean McConville and the widow of Patsy Gillespie.

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Mrs McConville, a mother of 10, was abducted from her west Belfast home in November, 1972, and shot dead by the IRA. Her body was eventually found on a beach in Co Louth in 2003.

In October, 1990, Gillespie, a civilian cook in a Londonderry Army base, was strapped into a van loaded with explosives and forced to drive to Coshquin checkpoint on the Donegal border where the bomb was detonated by remote control.

Outgoing East Londonderry MP Mr Campbell said on Twitter: "More nonsense being peddled about Arlene's ref to Michelle O'Neill being 'blonde' ?"

Sammy Wilson also hit back at Sinn Fein's criticism of Mrs Foster, and he also took a swipe at the party's Stormont leader.

He said: "Michelle O'Neill is blonde, unless she's dyed her hair since the last time I'd the misfortune to see her on TV."

He described the row as a "smokescreen" with Sinn Fein attempting to play the victim and going "out of their way to find grievance where no grievance was meant".

"If it had been me, I would have been making some far more derogatory comments about the way she's handled the job since she took over," he said.

DUP MLA Christopher Stalford also posted social media to mock Sinn Fein, describing the party as over-sensitive and referring to its members as "snow flakes".

The South Belfast Assembly man shared a photo of his blonde children on Twitter jokingly captioned: "Blondies for Arlene!".

However, Mrs O'Neill responded to the remarks last night. She said: "As political leaders we have a duty and a responsibility to lead by example.

"There is a clear need for more women in public life and there is an onus on women in political leadership to empower women to encourage greater participation in public life.

"There can be no room in our society for sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobia or any form of discrimination."

She added: "There is no right or wrong way to look and women are in positions of leadership because we belong, representing everyone equally."

There was no further comment from Mrs Foster, however, who sparked outrage from Sinn Fein in an interview with the Sunday Independent when she was pressed to give a one-word response on Mrs O'Neill.

"I don't want to be sexist and I am not going to be sexist because I can't..." Mrs Foster told the interviewer, who then said: "Ah go on, it's not sexist if it's true."

"Blonde," said Mrs Foster. Asked to expand, she went on: "Michelle is very attractive. She presents herself very well and she always is - you know - her appearance is always 'the same'. You never see her without her make-up. You never see her without her hair (looking) perfect."
A judge has described the actions of a man who carried out a campaign of online harassment of his ex-partner and mother of his toddler daughter as "foolish, wicked and vindictive"

A judge has described the actions of a man who carried out a campaign of online harassment of his ex-partner and mother of his toddler daughter as "foolish, wicked and vindictive".

His Honour Judge Neil Rafferty QC made the comments at the sentencing of Rory McLaughlin yesterday.

The 31-year-old, of Cooneen Road, Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, was convicted of harassing his ex-partner for over three years between August 2012 and December 2015 by various means, including setting up a fake Facebook account with sexually explicit photographs of another woman.

The victim had already been through the process of cross-examination at Enniskillen Magistrates Court earlier this year when McLaughlin was given a three-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

He refused to accept the finding and launched an appeal, but this was rejected and he found himself remanded in custody while pre-sentence reports were prepared.

McLaughlin, who served as a soldier in Afghanistan until he was discharged following an accident, was brought back to Dungannon Crown Court where his defence said he now accepted the finding.

At the previous hearing the victim, who lives in England, returned to go through a rerun of the hearing in which she stated McLaughlin had blackmailed and harassed her by threatening to disclose a previous part of her life that she referred to as "a dark secret". It was something she regretted and did not want anyone knowing about it.

McLaughlin accessed the victim's computer and found material which he copied and posted on a Facebook page he created specifically to upset the victim.

He admitted being aggrieved at not being able to see his daughter as often as he wanted, as she lives with her mother in England.

During the appeal hearing Judge Rafferty was heavily critical of the defence barrister's cross-examination of the victim, who after a particularly brutal round of questioning, broke down completely in the witness box, sobbing: "I can't do this any more."

Under prosecution cross-examination, McLaughlin said the relationship ended shortly after their child was born.

He admitted knowing the victim did not want the secret discussed with anyone, but confirmed disclosing information to the victim's mother, which caused a great deal of upset.

In relation to the Facebook page, which contained explicit photographs of a woman and posts, McLaughlin said: "Look, I hold my hands up. I've told the truth all the way through. I set the page up. I shouldn't have done it. I was in a bad place."

But McLaughlin denied holding the issue of the victim's "dark secret" over her head and then using it to threaten her. He repeatedly denied harassment.

With the case concluded, Judge Rafferty immediately ruled the conviction was upheld.

At sentencing yesterday, the defence handed in a letter from the secretary of McLaughlin's Royal British Legion branch, stating he had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The court heard McLaughlin was now in a new relationship and his partner was in the early stages of pregnancy.

Pressing the judge to suspend any further sentence, the defence said: "If a deterrent was sought, my client has now got the message. He is very remorseful."

Addressing McLaughlin directly, Judge Rafferty said: "You did that whenever you could not get access to the child through threat or bullying. You chose to embarrass and humiliate her.

"Be in absolutely no doubt, you hurt your ex-partner and you have hurt your chances of having a role in your child's life. Your actions were foolish, wicked and vindictive and you have to take responsibility."

Handing down a sentence of three months in prison, Judge Rafferty commented: "That is to make it clear to anyone if they seek revenge on the internet in the most humiliating manner, they can expect to go to jail."

McLaughlin was also bound by a two year restraining order, which bans him from threatening, harassing or contacting the victim.
That morning, Kate Devlin must have thought life couldn't get any better.

She was on holiday with her husband Paul, their two young girls and baby daughter. All five were enjoying themselves as they spent quality time together.

But 10 days in to their holiday in Oysterhaven, on the outskirts of Cork, her world was turned upside down just moments after she had finished feeding infant Maille.

She remembers that Poppy, then aged two, was asleep in the bed beside them when Paul suddenly started making strange, loud gasping noises, as if he was fighting for breath.

And then, just as abruptly, there was silence. Kate began shaking him, gently at first, but there was no response.

The mother-of-three was frantic by this point, but her worst nightmare was only just beginning. Paul, the love of her life, the doting father of Edie, Poppy and Maille, the best husband and friend she could ever have wished for, and the man she wanted to grow old with, was dead.

He was only 43 and, until that dreadful moment, had not shown any signs of ill health. "Paul passed away in his sleep at around 6.30am on August 12, 2015," Kate said.

"I was actually half awake because I had just finished breastfeeding Maille and I heard him taking these very loud, very desperate breaths and then, just as quickly, he stopped.

"I thought he must have sleep apnea (a common disorder characterised by pauses in breathing or periods of shallow breathing during sleep).

"I shouted for him to wake up and there was nothing, so I jumped out of bed.

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"Maille was lying there and Poppy was in the bed as well. I ran round to his side and I quickly realised I needed to get an ambulance."

In the midst of her unimaginable shock, Kate managed to move Paul from the bed onto the floor where she performed CPR until the paramedics arrived.

By this stage Edie, who had been sleeping in another bedroom, had been woken up by her mother's desperate cries.

After hearing her mum make a 999 call the then five-year-old immediately went to the cottage next door to get help.

"When I phoned the emergency services, the lady asked me if he was breathing and that's when I realised that he definitely wasn't," the 44-year-old clinical psychologist said.

"Because we were so rural I couldn't give directions. Thankfully, they were able to link up with my phone but it took half an hour to get there.

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"While we were waiting for them to come, Poppy just asked me if daddy was dead because I had to roll Paul out of the bed to perform CPR."

The couple, who were living in Londonderry, had been together for 21 years and Kate was on maternity leave when her husband, a popular drama lecturer, was so cruelly taken from her.

Although she attempted to return to work when "the dust had settled", she resigned from her position at the Southern Trust in Dungannon last July.

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The former social worker said her recollection of trying to resuscitate Paul, who taught at Magee College, while their daughters tried their best to help will never leave her.

"Poppy was fine, she wasn't distressed," Kate said.

"She ran around and got a toothbrush and a cushion for Paul's head and things for the hospital. I told her that the ambulance was coming to take him to hospital.

"It was all quite calm in a sense, apart from the terrible fear. I just felt that he was dead. There was no breathing and no spluttering. But I was desperate that maybe they could bring him back."

Kate said that when the paramedics arrived they sent her out of the bedroom while they tried to revive him. By then the girls were at a neighbour's house.

"Edie had climbed through a hole in a hedge and jumped down off an oil tank to get to the cottage next door. She knocked at the door until she woke the owner, Judy, who came and took the girls over to her house just as the ambulance was pulling up," she explained.

"They tried to resuscitate Paul for about half-an-hour but they could not get a heartbeat. He was pronounced dead in the cottage at 7.20am."

Kate said the worst part of the ordeal was the feeling of utter helplessness.

"I didn't know what to do or who to phone, but thankfully Judy was amazing, she organised a priest," Kate added.

The undertakers arrived at the same time as the priest and they took Paul's body to the hospital for a post-mortem. The gardai also came because it was a sudden and unexplained death.

With Judy looking after the girls, and Paul's body removed, Kate was completely on her own in the rural holiday residence just a few hours after the incident had occurred.

Practicalities kicked in. She contacted Paul's brother and only sibling Terry in Birmingham, who arrived that evening. She then phoned friends in Belfast, France and Liverpool. They all got to Cork and helped her pack up the cottage.

"We all drove back to Derry together and, really strangely, we ended up in convoy with the hearse," she said.

"We hadn't co-ordinated it. Terry was in a car with Edie and Poppy and the hearse was in front of him when they got to the toll booth.

"The undertaker didn't have the correct change. He got out of his vehicle and went to Terry's car and asked him for 10 cents and Terry told him it was his brother he had in the back. The undertaker was so shocked."

Paul's funeral took place on August 15, 2015, and he was buried in the graveyard beside his family home in Cookstown.

"There was no will because we had never properly discussed it," Kate said.

"Paul's family house is just next door to the graveyard. He kissed his first girlfriend in the graveyard and he walked his dogs there when he was a boy.

"He had said to me once or twice that when he died he thought he'd like it to be his final resting place because it was so beautiful."

The post-mortem revealed that Paul had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy - a condition in which a portion of the heart muscle is enlarged without any obvious cause, creating functional impairment.

"It is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes and a significant cause of sudden cardiac death in any age group. There are very few symptoms," she said.

"There was nothing to suggest that Paul was unwell. The day before he died he was sitting in the sun, reading. He told me that he would go and see the doctor because he must have asthma as he was breathless."

Kate, who is originally from Sailsbury in England, first crossed paths with Co Tyrone native Paul in 1992 when they were second year students at Queen's University in Belfast, and she never returned home.

"We were both in the drama society doing a play together and that's how we met," she recalled.

"We became friends before ending up together for the rest of our studies and we both graduated in 1995."

By that time the happy couple were living together in Belfast, where they both pursued further studies.

Paul embarked upon a Masters in creative writing at Queen's followed by a PhD at Magee in drama and, when he finished it in 2007, he got a job at Magee and the couple moved to Derry.

Kate had done a Masters in social work and by then was working full-time as a social worker for a couple of years before undertaking a doctorate in clinical psychology at Queen's, finishing in 2005. She then got a job in the CAMS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health) team in Belfast.

Kate and Paul got married on June 20, 2008, in Derry's Guildhall, followed by a meal for 50 friends and family in Brown's restaurant in the city.

"It was small. We had been together for so long by then. It was 14 years before we even tied the knot," she said.

"Paul's mum Mary was sick and that's why we decided to get married. She died in 2013, aged 71. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease after years of working in a bar, and she had smoked.

"She spent her life as a bar manager in Cookstown. It was terrible. It was an awful quality of life in the end for Mary."

They spent a week in Kinsale in Cork on their honeymoon, followed by a week in Bundoran.

Edie, who's now seven, came along the following year, on December 23, 2009.

Four-year-old Poppy was born in 2012, and two-year-old Maille, arrived in 2015 - five months before her father died.

Shortly after losing Paul, Kate joined the charity WAY (Widowed and Young), which offers a peer-to-peer support network for anyone aged 50 or under who is dealing with the loss of a partner. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of WAY she has organised a picnic at Ormeau Park in Belfast this Saturday, May 20, for young widows and widowers and their families and friends.

"They put out a call to see if anyone would do it locally and I volunteered," Kate said.

"These events happen all over England but this is the first in Northern Ireland for some time."

Next month, on June 20, Kate and Paul would have been married nine years, but instead the young widow is preparing to mark the anniversary of his tragic death.

Time hasn't healed anything, nor does she expect it to. But she has learned to deal with her grief for the sake of their three beautiful daughters.

"I feel like I'm much more able to cope with everything in the sense that I can manage life," she said.

"I've got into the routine of being a lone parent much better, although I still find some aspects really tough, like bedtime, when they all need you.

"I struggle with trying to be there for all three of them without letting anybody feel not cared about or left out."

She added: "I know my grief is long. It's maybe been elongated because I had to just keep getting up and going on and being mummy, trying to take them to the park, trying to organise a family holiday and stuff like that.

"It meant I didn't get any time to actually sit and think about what had happened. Sometimes it used to hit me when I was driving the car, that's when I would break down in tears.

"The girls would be in the back sleeping and that was the only quiet time I would have to think and process what had happened.

"I didn't get that when I was making breakfast, or taking them to school or picking the toys up.

"It's a long-drawn out process of all the losses and living memories. But worst of all will be the milestones the children reach when he's not there to see them."

WAY (Widowed and Young) supports anyone aged 50 or under who is overcoming the loss of a partner - whether they were married or not, with or without children, whatever their sexual orientation.

For further information about WAY picnic contact big.picnic@widowedandyoung.org.uk
Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn acknowledges supporters after attending a campaign rally in Beaumont Park after launching the Labour Party Election Manifesto on May 16, 2017 in Huddersfield, England. Britain will vote in a general election on June 8. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to introduce a swingeing fat cat tax on big businesses to punish them for awarding sky-high salaries.

Labour would slap a levy of 2.5 per cent on earnings above 330,000 and of five per cent on pay above 500,000, with the cash raised used to rescue public services.

Todays election manifesto also vows a dramatic expansion of childcare, which would be made available to all two-year-olds until they start school, for 30 hours a week.

As expected, the 45 per cent income tax rate would kick in at salaries above 80,000  not 150,000  and people earning above 123,000 would pay 50 per cent.

And Labour is saying it would consider the option of a more federalised country, in response to growing devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Answering questions about the strikingly different offering to past Labour manifestos, Mr Corbyn said: What we are proposing is a rebalancing of the economy.

Every other country in the world asks why does Britain invest so little and pay itself so little, while it allows such grotesque levels of inequality to get worse.

The most eye-catching policy added since last weeks leak of the draft manifesto is the proposal for a fat cat tax aimed at big businesses, city banks and Premier League clubs.

Labour says it would discourage excessive pay and is needed to reduce rising inequality which is damaging society.

The party stressed it would hit employers - rather than workers - and be calculated by adding together salary, shares, bonuses and pensions.

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Companies are expected to have to pay 4,250 extra for every worker receiving 500,000 in pay and perks. For a person earning 1m a year, that could rise to 29,250.

On childcare, Labour will pledge 5bn a year to create a universal service, extending the 30 hours-a-week - currently only promised to working parents - to every family, even if neither parent is in work.

Labour said an additional 1.3m kids across Britain will benefit from the policy if the party wins the election on June 8.

Classic Corbyn side eye here after Finn from Leeds tells him he's "my guy" pic.twitter.com/F88qhzfxQh  Arj Singh (@singharj) May 16, 2017

A further 2.7bn of capital spending will be invested into nurseries over the course of the Parliament to ensure the places exist to meet demand.

The manifesto attempts to tackle the thorny issue of immigration, proposing  when free movement of EU citizens ends  a mix of employer sponsorship, work permits, visa regulations.

It calls for water privatisation to be reversed through a system of regional public ownership  although John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, stumbled badly on the cost of the policy earlier.

Expand Close Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn attends a campaign rally in Beaumont Park after launching the Labour Party Election Manifesto on May 16, 2017 in Huddersfield, England. Britain will vote in a general election on June 8. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn attends a campaign rally in Beaumont Park after launching the Labour Party Election Manifesto on May 16, 2017 in Huddersfield, England. Britain will vote in a general election on June 8. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

One other surprise was a hint that Labour would review council tax, and consider new options, such as a land value tax.

The manifesto stated Labours commitment to renewing Trident, but a line that the party would be extremely cautious about using nuclear weapons has been dropped.

As expected, Labour would build one million new homes, end the scandal of zero hours contracts and recruit 10,000 extra police officers, as well as 3,0000 more fire officers

And the document pledges to work with the Northern Ireland Assembly to extend right to legal abortion

Labour would also consider wealth taxes and employer care tax to fund social care, the manifesto says.

Both the pledges that Labour will scrap tuition fees and put passengers first by renationalising the railways were met with huge cheers and applause.

Expand Close Crowd gathers round the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (C) as he attends a campaign rally in Beaumont Park after launching the Labour Party Election Manifesto on May 16, 2017 in Huddersfield, England. Britain will vote in a general election on June 8. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Crowd gathers round the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (C) as he attends a campaign rally in Beaumont Park after launching the Labour Party Election Manifesto on May 16, 2017 in Huddersfield, England. Britain will vote in a general election on June 8. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Mr Corbyn also attempted to set out Labours different approach to Brexit as one which puts jobs first  while arguing the EU exit was inevitable, because that is what the British people voted for.

It would be very different to the Tory approach which was in the interests of the City of London and risks making Britain a low-wage tax haven, he said.
Given a chance to go back in time and erase something she's said in the past, Arlene Foster would surely be tempted to return to the day last week when she gave an interview to Dublin's Sunday Independent newspaper and, asked to describe her Sinn Fein counterpart Michelle O'Neill in one word, plumped for "blonde".

Republicans have barely been able to contain their delight ... sorry, dismay ... as they loudly accuse the former First Minister of being so sexist that she makes Sammy Wilson look like a founder member of the Women's Coalition (remember them?).

Arlene would be better off, though, skipping back to last December when she famously described criticism of her role in the Renewable Heating Initiative as sexist, too.

To be fair, she had a point. It only takes a moment on Twitter to find some ferociously nasty comments directed at Mrs Foster in recent months. If Sinn Fein really did care about the abuse meted out to women in public life, they could start by taking a harder line against Provo trolls who gleefully dish it out. Instead, they've effectively told Arlene Foster that she should take all this on the chin.

Unfortunately, she can hardly cry foul over the current tendency of the perpetually offended to throw around words such as "sexism", "racism", "bigotry", "homophobia", or whatever this week's catchphrase happens to be, when she did the same thing herself.

But someone certainly ought to, because it's not healthy to be held hostage by a bunch of thin-skinned, hypersensitive cry babies, constantly wailing about how their delicate feelings have been hurt by certain trigger words.

Arlene Foster's remark could only be called misogynistic if we accept that making any negative comment on a person's personal appearance is irrefutable evidence of an ingrained prejudice. Sometimes, it might well be. If the only word that comes to mind when you look at another person is "black", or "gay", or "Jewish", then you surely are guilty of reducing that person to a racial, or sexual, stereotype.

But does the word "blonde" really fit into the same category? That depends who's saying it. If it's a man known to have a derogatory attitude towards women, then it's probably fair enough to conclude he's being sexist.

It's about context. The real question, then, is what Arlene Foster meant when she said "blonde".

In saying blonde, wasn't she simply showing that she doesn't rate O'Neill very highly, either intellectually, or as person strong and independent enough to step out of the shadow of Gerry Adams, who always seems to be at her side at crucial moments, speaking for her?

That tendency led to a withering article on the satirical website Ulster Fry, which reported that, as a special treat for International Women's Day, Gerry intended to let Michelle get a word in edgeways for once.

Countering that damaging impression is entirely in O'Neill's hands.

After all, had Arlene been asked to describe Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, or former culture minister Caral Ni Chuilin in one word, it's not their appearance that would first have come to mind.

If Michelle's blonde hair genuinely is all that's stuck in Arlene's mind after serving alongside her as ministers in previous administrations, it doesn't exactly suggest Sinn Fein's new chief at Stormont made much of an impression in other ways.

Can voters honestly say they know her either? Apart, that is, from O'Neill's fondness for attending IRA commemorations, and it's unlikely Sinn Fein would have been any happier if Arlene had highlighted that.

Politicians cannot afford to be indifferent to how they look. Even Jeremy Corbyn had to smarten himself up when he became Labour Party leader, because his former look of a man who slept in the back of a van en route between Marxist rallies would have been a liability, while President Trump is almost as well known for his ludicrous hair and orange skin as he is for his fondness for big walls.

Nor is there any point denying that the pressures on women are greater still. Even national leaders such as Prime Minister Theresa May, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are subjected to a level of physical scrutiny that no man in a similar position would have to endure.

At the same time, there are also certain politicians for whom appearance clearly matters more than others and it's not the slightest bit sexist to point out that Michelle O'Neill is one of them. In a busy schedule, she obviously takes considerable time and effort over her appearance.

That's what Arlene was picking up on when she said of the Tyrone woman: "Her appearance is always very 'the same'." That doesn't happen by accident. It takes work.

Whether the final result is pleasing to the eye is a matter of personal taste, but it's rather silly to go to all that effort to make an impression, only to feign outrage when the effect is noticed and commented upon.

The DUP leader should have been far more careful. She hesitated before answering the question, evidently aware that what she was about to say could be controversial, but she went ahead and said it anyway.

That speaks to a certain mischief in her, which isn't a terrible quality to have, but it does put her colleagues in an awkward position if they're frequently forced to come out and defend her.

She should have followed the wise old adage: "When in doubt, say nowt."

But Michelle O'Neill seems to expect some sort of sisterly solidarity from her DUP counterpart, just because they're both women.

It would be a cheap shot to ask where this spirit of feminist togetherness was when O'Neill went along with the plan to bring down the Executive at the very moment when Northern Ireland was being led for the first time in its history by a woman.

But it is worth wondering why, instead of criticising Arlene Foster for making a throwaway remark about their leader's hair, women in Sinn Fein aren't asking themselves why they still take their orders from bitter old men who are more than happy to bring down a functioning devolved Assembly just to build up pressure for a border poll that no one wants.

That's what's really offensive.
Northern Ireland will head to he polls once again on June 8.

This June the Northern Ireland public will be called to the polls for the fourth time in 12 months - and the Electoral Commission is urging everyone eligible to cast a vote to make sure they can.

Prime Minister Theresa May stunned the political world when she called for a General Election in April after previously stating she would not require one.

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After two Assembly elections and a European referendum, it will be the fourth time the Northern Ireland public goes to the polls in the space of a year.

There have been reports of people showing up to vote, only to be left disappointed that they were not properly registered to have their say.

The Electoral Commission - keen to make sure everyone who wants to can - is urging the public, that if they want to vote they need to be on the register before the May 22 deadline.

Anyone who is a British, Irish, Commonwealth or European Union citizen can register to vote. You can only vote if your name is on the register for electors.

For an application form visit Your Vote Matters. Completed application forms need to be with your local electoral office. It can not be submitted online.

The election takes place on June 8.

Candidates for each constituency will be all selected by Thursday, May 11.

If you wish to apply for a postal vote, or a proxy vote, the deadline for applying is Thursday, May 18.

To be able to cast your vote at a polling station you will need photo identification. Acceptable forms of ID include:

UK or Irish passport

UK, Irish or EEA driving licence

UK Translink Senior Smartpass

Translink 60+ Smartpass

Translink War Disabled Smartpass

Translink Blind Person's Smartpass

Electoral Identity Card

Identification does not need to be current, but the presiding officer at the polling station must be satisfied that the picture matches the person intending to vote.
I was asked to be on a radio interview this a.m. to talk about the fad toy, the fidget spinner. Kids love them. Some teachers want to ban them from the classroom because they are distracting.

The question is, Does the fidget spinner help kids who are fidgety? Ive heard all kinds of answerseverything from it helps children with ADHD, PTSD and anxiety. But is there science behind these claims? Or, are we hearing anecdotes from parents?

Before we get to the science, the fidget spinner has an interesting history. It was not developed by a behaviorist or neuroscientist, or even an innovative lab team. According to Time Magazine, it was created by a woman named Catherine Hettinger, who had the idea that the spinner might help children calm down in unsettled environments like the middle east. She imagined it to be an alternative to kids throwing rocks at police, maybe even a way to promote world peace. But toy companies did not catch her vision and the toy did not become a sensation until now.

Teachers will tell you that the fidget spinners make a low noise. But when you get a bunch of kids spinning them in a room, they can be distracting. More important, Duke University clinical psychologist and professor, Scott Kollins, tells us that there is no evidence to support the claim that this tiny gadget helps children focus.

One of the possible suggested application of spinners is with kids with autism. But Dr. Pilar Trelles, a psychiatrist and autism expert at Mount Sinai Health System in New York gives these cautions: 1) For children who have high arousal, this could cause them to be overstimulated and hyperactive. 2) Kids with neurodevelopment disorders could become preoccupied with the device. 3) Because these devices involve repetitive firing of the bodys visual system, there is some concern about children being triggered with seizure disorders.

Kids with ADHD also use fidgeting as a coping mechanism. The thinking is that fidgeting may help an ADHD childs working memory in that movement may stimulate under active parts of the brain (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) involved in attention, planning and impulse control. However, the fidget spinner is much less of a physical activity than a child fidgeting, so it doesnt give the same benefit as the child actually moving his or her body.

Bottom line, we dont have evidence for real benefit of this toy at this time. Like most fad toys, the fidget spinner will probably come and go and eventually be relegated to join the bin of other fad toys. Better to engage in active playdig in the sand, run, play tag and work off that extra energy!
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks to reporters shortly after arriving in Davao from a visit to China, May 16, 2017.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte dared his political foes Tuesday to take their complaint of mass murder in his war on drugs to the International Criminal Court, a day after the congress threw out an impeachment bid against him.

Speaking to reporters after arriving from a regional conference in China, Duterte said his critics were being taken for a ride a thousand times over if they believed he had ordered the systematic killings of thousands of addicts and pushers since becoming president nearly 11 months ago.

He said former justice secretary Leila de Lima, who serves as a senator, and both chambers of congress had investigated his links to death squads, but had proven nothing.

De Lima, a former human rights commissioner, has been jailed over what she described as trumped up charges that she took money from incarcerated drug traffickers to fund her electoral campaign last year.

What do they want? Duterte asked. But its true that there are those who died. What kind of a drug war is that if no one dies? But it is not in the character and kind that I was being accused of. That is a joke.

He dared House member Gary Alejano to make true his threat to take the case before the International Criminal Court in the Hague after the Congressional Justice Committee threw out the complaint on Monday.

Yeah, he can go ahead. He is free to do it. This is a democracy, Duterte said.

The 292-member House of Representatives, controlled by Dutertes allies, threw out the impeachment complaint, calling it insufficient in substance. This effectively gives the maverick 72-year-old leader enough time to consolidate support from allies because congress is allowed to tackle only one impeachment case within a year.

The dismissal earned criticism including from members of the House minority, who accused Dutertes allies of railroading the impeachment.

Dutertes top legal adviser, Salvador Panelo, on Tuesday stressed that Alejanos impeachment case was doomed from the start because the allegations there are based on hearsay.

Apart from that, the others are outright falsities. That will surely never pass scrutiny, he said. My advice to Congressman Alejano is he should plant trees in his province to protect the environment instead of creating a course of lies against the president.

Alejanos complaints were based on testimony from two former death squad members who accused Duterte of knowingly ordering the killings. Both filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court and Alejano and his legal team have said they are considering joining the case.

Requiem for due process

Duterte has owned up to some of the allegations. He told reporters last year on live television that he had personally killed about three people.

He has also vowed to protect police involved in his drug war from prosecution, saying he would pardon and release them if they were caught.

Since Duterte assumed the presidency in late June 2016, police have shot and killed nearly 2,700 people during anti-narcotics raids. In addition, about 5,700 drug related deaths were being investigated by police, including a growing number of those blamed on vigilantes who often have cardboard signs owning up to the killings.

Opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman accused his fellow House members of partisanship and of blind adherence to the dictates of the ruling party.

With Duterte allies in control of the House, he said the ascendancy of reason and arguments was not allowed in Mondays hearing.

The summary and precipitate dismissal of Rep. Gary Alejanos impeachment complaint signaled the requiem for due process, judiciousness and fairness and incanted an alleluia to inordinate partisan importuning, he said in a statement.
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For Immediate Release, May 16, 2017 Contact: Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity, (702) 483-0449, pdonnelly@biologicaldiversity.org

David von Seggern, Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, (775) 303-8461, vonseg1@sbcglobal.net

Laura Cunningham, Basin and Range Watch, (775) 513-1280, bluerockiguana@gmail.com

Tanya Henderson, Amargosa Conservancy, (760) 852-4339, tanya@amargosaconservancy.org Nevada Water-grab Legislation Would Endorse Groundwater Depletion, Environmental Destruction CARSON CITY, Nev. Environmental groups expressed grave concerns today in a hearing of the Nevada Senate Natural Resources Committee over proposed legislation that would alter state law to allow construction of a massive water pipeline, devastating ecosystems and putting already imperiled wildlife at risk of extinction. Assembly Bill 298 would pave the way for massive groundwater export projects that would harm desert water features like springs and wetlands, degrade air quality with fugitive dust and impact existing water rights holders. During the hearing numerous members of conservation groups and the public spoke to vigorously oppose the bill. The Southern Nevada Water Authority  the primary author of the proposed legislation  has long pursued a project to grab groundwater from eastern Nevada and pipe it hundreds of miles across the desert to slake Las Vegas' unending thirst. White Pine County, the Great Basin Water Network and the Center for Biological Diversity have all filed suit against the project. This appalling bill is just a blank check for a massive pipeline that will suck up Nevada's groundwater at the expense of rural communities, wildlife and future generations, said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada wildlife advocate at the Center. The Southern Nevada Water Authority's proposed pipeline, and this legislation to enable it, are destructive to Nevada's environment, and we're going to do everything we can to stop them. A.B. 298 would make significant changes to Nevada water law in order to facilitate projects like this pipeline. The bill would redefine the term environmentally sound to permit pumping projects to dry springs and water features such that native riparian plant communities would transition to dry-land communities. The extirpation of native plant communities is clearly not environmentally sound. It would also implement measures ostensibly intended to mitigate environmental impacts that in reality would simply be an early warning signal for an impending ecological disaster by initially only requiring monitoring. Mitigation, which is supposed to ensure any harm from pumping to existing water rights users and the environment is offset, would only happen once a problem is detected, but by then the damage will have already been done and whatever mitigation that is required will just be a band-aid. In truth, this bill's mitigation plans offer only a veneer of protection, said David von Seggern, chair of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter. By the time impacts are detected, it is too late to save the resources. After pumping ceases, aquifer levels may not recover for generations. What makes this proposed legislation even worse is that Nevada already has numerous over-allocated basins where the effects of groundwater overdraft have been felt. And because Nevada is the driest state in the country, its wildlife are particularly susceptible to negative impacts from groundwater pumping. Deer, elk, bighorn sheep, migratory birds, rare and endemic aquatic species  they all rely on sustainable flows from Nevada's springs and wetlands, said Basin and Range Watch executive director Laura Cunningham. Drying up those water features would be catastrophic for Nevada's wildlife. Springs have already dried up or shown reduced flows due to over-pumping in Nevada's Amargosa hydrographic region, imperiling endangered species such as the Pahrump poolfish and the Devil's Hole pupfish, said Tanya Henderson, executive director of the Amargosa Conservancy. Make no mistake  the intent of this bill is to facilitate groundwater export by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said Donnelly. Any claims of the bill protecting existing rights users or the environment are the greenwashing of a destructive proposal. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. The Toiyabe Chapter serves Sierra Club members in all of Nevada, protecting the air, water, and land resources of our state, and providing quality outdoor experiences. Basin and Range Watch is a 501(c)(3) non-profit working to conserve the deserts of Nevada and California and to educate the public about the diversity of life, culture, and history of the ecosystems and wildlands of the desert. The Amargosa Conservancy is dedicated to standing up for the wilds, waters, and communities of the scenic Amargosa Basin and Eastern Mojave.
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Is getting all you need from one health team far fetched? Actually not. It's one field where the public health system beats the private one.

Imagine walking into a primary healthcare clinic in the rural Eastern Cape where a nurse is able to diagnose complex forms of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). She uses a small, portable machine that resembles a Soda Stream cold drink maker.

Source: Bhekisisa/Marina Bazo

With this device the nurse can also measure the amount of virus in the blood of her HIV patients to establish within 90 minutes whether their antiretroviral medication is working. If theres too much HIV in their blood it means the medicine is no longer effective and that their drug combination might need to be changed.

In addition to this, the machine can test whether some of the nurses patients have dangerous forms of human papillomavirus infection, which can lead to cervical cancer.

All the nurse needs to do to perform such life-saving diagnoses is to change the cartridge in the device to the appropriate one each time she wants to do a new type of PCR (a type of DNA analysis) test. She would need to follow simple instructions on how to enter a patients sputum or blood sample in the cartridge.

Previously the nurse had to send samples to a government laboratory in a city four hours away. It would often take weeks for the results to arrive back at the clinic. Sometimes they would get lost in the system and not return at all.

World Health Organisation (WHO) data show that only seven out of every 10 of South Africas TB patients are put on treatment and 10% of people with TB are never diagnosed, often because of fragmented services and bad co-ordination. Or, patients simply dont return to clinics to collect their results.

But now, this nurse could technically even go to villagers' homes with her device to test them for the diseases this machine can detect if she had the time, of course.

Far-fetched? Actually not.

New technology could revolutionise healthcare in South Africa

According to the national health department's deputy director for HIV, TB and maternal health, Yogan Pillay, this scenario is likely to materialise as soon as July, when the American diagnostics company Cepheid launches its new version of the GeneXpert Omni machine.

"We might not be able to implement the use of the device fully until the next financial year, because of cost, and the time it would take to do geographical mapping to establish which clinics will benefit the most from the machine. But we're likely to try out a few demonstration sites this year if we can negotiate that with the company," says Pillay.

Cepheid has not confirmed the cost of the device but has previously indicated that it could be around $3 000 compared with larger $17,500 models of GeneXpert machines, which can accommodate more samples simultaneously. South Africa has several of the more expensive machines, but they're mostly based at labs and require more training to operate.

"When you have one diagnostic tool for several conditions you essentially create an on-site mini lab, that allows for point-of-care' diagnosis and immediate treatment, because patients don't have to return to the clinic on a diff erent date to collect their results," Pillay says. "It's really where we're heading in terms of integrated health services at a diagnostic level."

The most common definition of integration is "the organisation and management of health services so that people get the care they need, when they need it, in ways that are user-friendly, achieve the desired results and provide value for money," the WHO said in a 2008 technical brief.

South Africa's public health system desperately needs "connected care technology" such as the Gene-Xpert Omni to improve healthcare service delivery. In some cases, technology has already paid off: in 2014, the health department implemented a mobile app that sends weekly SMS messages to pregnant women on how to manage their pregnancy at different stages. MomConnect, which has 1.6-million registered users, also allows women to log complaints about bad service, and doesn't require the user to have cellphone data or a smartphone. "It empowers both pregnant women and the system," Pillay explains. "The good thing about the complaints, mainly about long waiting times and nurses with bad attitudes, is that they're in real time and that we can do something about it as quickly as possible."

But South Africans don't view their health system as integrated, not even in the private sector, according to a survey conducted by Philips, a health technology company, in 2016 across 13 countries. Patients and healthcare professionals who participated in the study did, however, see "clear value of future integration".

The health department is now considering introducing a campaign in which all patients visiting public health facilities are screened for the TB germ, and some even tested for TB disease (when the latent TB germ in someone's body has developed into active TB) on the spot.

But such integration is not a cure for inadequate resources; testing more people would increase the duties of health workers who are already working in an under-resourced environment. The WHO warns that such efforts are not sustainable without "expanding the overall workforce at some point".

What could the wealthy private sector learn from the public sector?

Only 30% of South Africa's doctors work in the public health sector, serving more than 84% of the population well over 40-million people, according to a 2014 special report in The New England Journal of Medicine. And that scenario is likely to worsen as many provincial health departments  the implementers of health policy  are employing austerity measures as they struggle with rising costs and mounting debt.

But in many respects, South Africa's well-resourced yet fragmented private healthcare sector can learn from the public health sector's integration efforts. About 16% of South Africans have private health insurance, which provides them with access to 70% of the country's doctors, according to The New England Journal of Medicine.

"In a well-functioning academic or public hospital the medical team [the different specialists and therapists] of a patient will meet regularly to discuss a joint treatment plan for that patient. But in the private sector doctors rarely work in a multidisciplinary team," says Jonathan Broomberg, chief executive of Discovery Health, the administrator of the country's largest medical aid scheme, Discovery Health.

"This often leads to lower quality care and higher cost of treatment partly, because of waste, such as the same investigations being performed multiple times by different doctors who aren't communicating, or medical errors, which are made because doctors don't have access to each other's information."

South African regulations make it illegal for private hospitals to employ doctors and therapists, so they all have their own individual practices with little coordination between the health professionals, hospitals and laboratories.

To circumvent this, Discovery Health created its own care coordination programme, which now has 7 275 members enrolled.

"We've essentially wrapped a coordination process and resources around the various fragmented providers treating our members. We have care coordinators monitoring what is going on with the patient and communicating this information to the different health professionals who deal with the patient," Broomberg explains.

"Polypharmacy" when different doctors have prescribed multiple medicines to a patient, drugs that may work against each other is one the most frequent outcomes of uncoordinated efforts. "We, for instance, have many elderly members, who suffer from multiple conditions, who are on five to 10 different medications of which the one may be exaggerating the effects. Dizziness, which lead to falls, is one of the most common complications," says Broomberg.

Numerous studies have shown that the frequency of hip fractures among the elderly can be reduced significantly when drug options are coordinated to prevent dizziness.

Senior doctors, working with the medical scheme administrator's care coordination team, review patients' medication to improve drug regimens and reduce the number of drugs where necessary.

An all-in-one approach to health care could reduce hospital admissions

For Discovery Health this has yielded results: there has been 60% improvement in the "physical functioning" of elderly people who are members of the senior care coordination programme, which was started in 2013. The "cognitive functioning" of members has improved by 55% and the burden on caregivers has been reduced by 65%. Moreover, there have been 57% fewer preventable hospital admissions.

Ideally, health integration in South Africa should bridge the gap between the under-resourced public and wealthy private sector. But the country's National Health Insurance scheme, which aims to do this, is moving slowly and is riddled with infrastructure and coordination problems.

The private sector has theatres and expensive diagnostic equipment, which are rarely used at night. It has well-established electronic billing and health record systems from which the public sector can benefit.

But sharing between these two sectors is rare.

Why?

"Rather than it being a technology problem, it's a problem of political will," Broomberg argues. "Does the leadership in the government and public healthcare system, and the leadership in the private healthcare industry, see enough benefit in working much more closely together? Thats the main obstacle."

The solutions are there. But are they wanted by the role players involved?
Although multitasking may make us feel like we are being more productive, we may in fact be holding back our own performance ability and lowering the quality of our work.

Employers have long been encouraging multitasking as a way of increasing employee productivity, however, research shows it may do more harm than good. A research study by workplace design firm Tower Bridge (2016), found that South African employees are interrupted or distracted at the office around 30-40 times per day. The research found that a company loses about 330 hours of productive time per 100 employees every day. At an average cost of R120 an hour per employee, this translates into approximately R8000 wasted per employee, per month.

Research suggests that individuals can improve their overall work performance, the ability to complete tasks quickly and ability to retain information when focusing on one task at a time. Molecular biologist John Medina, author of Brain Rules (2008), notes, Individuals that multitask experience a 40% drop in productivity and they take 50% longer to accomplish a single task, whilst making up to 50% more errors than workers that focus on a single task at a time.

Lyndy van den Barselaar, MD of Manpower South Africa explains, In todays evolving business landscape, many employers require their employees to adopt more than one duty within a job role, which requires juggling several high priority tasks throughout the day.

The rise of multitasking is also fuelled by the constant development of technology, which has assisted businesses in improving communication, productivity and output.

As companies strive to maximise productivity with limited resources, it has become increasingly important for professionals to handle several responsibilities simultaneously. However, multitasking individuals tend to experience a more negative effect regarding important and complicated tasks. The negative effects of multitasking not only affect the individual and the business but the economy as well, especially when employees are constantly interrupted with unnecessary distractions and businesses are unable to deliver services on time resulting in profit losses. This means that while employees are pushing hard to complete multiple tasks at once, their effort is actually counterproductive.

Distracted by unimportant information

A study by Clifford Nass, Stanford University, (2009) reveals that participants who multitask the most are distracted by unimportant information that is stored in their short-term memory. Therefore, multitasking can lead to over-stimulation of ones brain function and this could adversely increase an individuals stress levels. The constant high stress level can cause employees to become more sick, missing days of work, and decreasing their overall work productivity.

To minimise the need, and therefore the negative effects of multitasking, it is important that management work together with employees to plan strategically and implement goals in terms of productivity. Tasks should be prioritised and goals should be set out for each day, week or month  to ensure that employees have a clear view of their most important tasks and deadlines. This will allow them to prioritise and feel more comfortable about reaching their goals, says Van den Barselaar. Employers and employees are reminded to be wary of the negative effects of multitasking on productivity, and therefore, business output.

Simple tips on focusing

Here are five simple tips to help you remain focused and minimise distraction:
Marriott International has announced that Cape Town's African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa will be converted into a Marriott-branded hotel to be known as the Cape Town Marriott Hotel Crystal Towers.

We are confident that Cape Town is more than ready for a Marriott branded hotel, says Alex Kyriakidis, president, Middle East and Africa, Marriott International. South Africans love to travel, and they warm to iconic international brands like Marriott. With South Africa having become a destination of choice for travellers from across the globe, we are bringing the features of the Marriott experience to the country for all to enjoy.

South Africa has been ranked among the top 25 tourist destinations in the world, and Cape Town is regularly recognised as a city that should be on everyones bucket list, Kyriakidis says. Tourism is certainly a growth industry in the country, and the most recent statistics for tourist arrivals to the country reflect the great potential for the countrys tourist industry: 10 million international travellers visited during 2016, a 13% increase on the 2015 numbers.

Marriott brand facilities

Regular Marriott Hotel guests will for the first time in South Africa be able to enjoy the Marriott brand facilities they know so well from around the world: the familiar taste of the Marriott burger; the Greatroom where one can work, play, discuss, and enjoy a top-quality snack or drink; and try out the latest in technology available to guests. Chief among the technology tools are the Marriott App that Marriott Rewards members can use for mobile check-in  with keyless check-in to follow in the near future  and the Meetings Imagined digital tool for conference organisers.

Greatroom daybeds

A new look and style

The rollout of the conversion means new decor  a look and style that reflects Marriott Hotels appreciation of its guest identity: achievers with an appreciation of a work-life balance. The hotel interiors tap into the need for places to work that offer easy connectivity, while at the same time providing a variety of spaces for relaxation and enjoyment, says the hotels general manager, Carolyn Jones. The hotel lobby, the Greatroom, has been redecorated, as have the Orah Bar & Lounge and the Acara Pool Bar & Terrace. The spaces are ideal for networking, working and having fun.

Implementing the new brand also means that the well-known Towers Restaurant will soon have a new menu, to be designed by recently-appointed Executive Chef, Henrico Grobbelaar, a leading chef with a dynamic career in the local food industry and a following among food-lovers. The restaurants fresh approach will tie in with the Marriott standards while still offering the flavours its loyal guests have come to know.

Executive Chef Henrico Grobbelaar

Combining business and leisure

The hotel is perfectly situated for tourists to get a feel for Cape Town as a unique travel destination. The views of Table Mountain from the pool deck and many of the rooms are among the best in the city, and a wine route is close by. In addition, the business traveller will enjoy the top-notch conference facilities and business technology available.

Owned by the Rabie Property Group, the 180-room Crystal Towers Hotel has a long history, having started out in 2009 in Cape Towns Century City area as an African Pride hotel. Leon Cohen, managing director of Rabie Property Group, the developer of Century City and the owner of the Cape Town Marriott Hotel Crystal Towers, said they were delighted to welcome such a strong international brand to Cape Town and Century City, in particular.

Century City is home to a growing number of prestigious international corporates  from Porsche to BMW to Daimler Benz - to Chevron, Thomson Reuters, Absa, Liberty Life, Vodacom, Discovery, Philip Morris and Regus - to name just a few, he comments. The Marriott brand complements all that Century City has to offer and further cements our position as a leading hospitality and commercial hub in the Western Cape.

Our recently opened Century City Conference Centre is performing way ahead of our most optimistic expectations, attracting a growing number of national and international conferences. Having a Marriott branded hotel substantially increases our offering and will no doubt appeal in particular to our international delegates.
Thousands of exhibitors, travel buyers, visitors and media from all over the world is converging on the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban to experience the dynamic African travel industry in all its diverse glory at Indaba 2017. Preceded by a Business Opportunity Networking Day (BONDay) on 15 May, aimed at exhibitors only, the travel show will set the convention centre abuzz from 16 to 18 May.

Over the course of more than 35 years, Indaba has become regarded as Africas top travel show, with a strong focus on doing business aimed at growing travel on the continent. This year, 18 African countries will be rolling out the welcome mat to the world at Indaba, inviting buyers and visitors to marvel at their multifaceted basket of attractions as the continents travel industry basks in an upsurge in global interest.

Here are some of the highlights of Indaba 2017:

Conversations

During four themed Conversations over the three days of Indaba, exhibitors and journalists can take part in constructive discussions around developing the tourism economy. These talks will see local and international game changers, technology disruptors, innovators and captains of industry driving lively and informative exchanges of ideas.

In the first Conversation, on Tuesday 16 May at 12pm, South African Tourism Chief Executive Officer Sisa Ntshona will be among the panellists looking at creative ways in which the private and public sectors can steer inclusive growth in the tourism economy. Ntshona will be joined by trailblazing economic strategist Thabi Leoka and the Chief Executive Officer of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Alan Mukoki, in a discussion moderated by Andile Khumalo from MSG Afrika Holdings (which owns Power FM).

The second Conversation is at 2pm on the same day and takes the form of a thought leadership or TED talk by Paul Midy. He is the chief executive officer of Jumia Travel (previously known as Jovago), regarded as Africas leading online travel agency. Midy will share his views on how African tourism businesses can harness the power of technology to their benefit.

During the third Conversation, on Wednesday 17 May at 10.30am, acclaimed filmmaker Akin Omotoso will be joined by South Africas National Heritage Council Chief Executive Officer, Sonwabile Mancotywa, and FNB Joburg Art Fair director Mandla Sibeko. They will interrogate how Africas cultural richness  such as its visual and performing arts, as well as its design, fashion, heritage and music offerings - can be used to greater effect in promoting tourism on the continent. Durban-based Vuma FM media personality Vanessa Marawa will moderate this session.

The final Conversation for exhibitors and media, a bid party wrap-up session at 10.30am on Thursday 18 May, will highlight the achievements of this years Indaba, the feedback received and the business concluded at the event. Speakers will include Tourism KwaZulu-Natal Chief Executive Officer Ndabo Khoza, Durban Tourism head Philip Sithole, Durban ICC Chief Executive Lindiwe Rakharebe, and South African Tourisms Sisa Ntshona.

Speed marketing sessions

The speed marketing sessions, where a diverse array of South African tourism products is introduced to top buyers from across the globe in hour-long sessions, will once again feature at Indaba 2017. During the fast-paced morning sessions, South African product owners each have three to four minutes to deliver the essence of their sales pitch to an audience of global buyers. Follow-up meetings and negotiations are then at the discretion of both parties.

Three-speed marketing sessions will be held over the course of the three public trade show days, each focusing on a theme, namely: Award-winning SA Products, Lap of Luxury and Scenic Beauty. Twenty products per session will be presenting their offerings to more than 200 international buyers.

The Indaba speed marketing sessions were exceptionally well received last year, and this year promises to be no different, with all three sessions virtually fully booked. They will be facilitated by dynamic actor and media personality Ntokozo Dlamini, a resident of KwaZulu-Natal.

Hidden Gems and Luxury pavilions

These two special pavilions, located adjacent to each other, will profile vibrant SMEs operating in the travel sector and five-star offerings, respectively.

Ninety black-owned small tourism businesses, drawn from all nine South African provinces, are exhibiting on the Hidden Gems pavilion. They range from cultural tour operators to horse-riding operations, from restaurants serving township cuisine to adrenaline-fuelled adventures, from exhilarating helicopter rides to wine-tasting tours.

These SMEs, or hidden gems, are participating in Indaba through the Department of Tourisms National SME Market Access Programme, in partnership with South African Tourism and the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association.

The new Luxury Pavilion, hosted by the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa, will feature some 30 exhibitors targeting the high-end market. Initiated in response to a demand from the industry, this pavilion will sparkle with elite offerings such as boutique hotels, private game lodges, exclusive spas and breathtaking nature reserves and resorts.

This is just a taste of whats in store at Indaba 2017  where Africa is ready to take centre stage and dazzle the world with its abundance of tourism riches.

Visit Indaba,follow the show on Twitter , or join the conversation using the hashtag #Indaba2017.
The Sunday Times Top 100 Companies will hold the Directors Event 2017 on 9 June 2017 from 8am to 3pm at the Sandton Convention Centre. The keynote speaker is Pravin Gordhan, former finance minister and recipient of the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies Business Leader of the Year Award for 2016 and the Chairman's Report will be presented by Bonang Mohale (chairman of Shell SA and deputy chairman of Business Leadership South Africa).

Now in its third year, the event will have more than 200 business leaders attending the discussions while industry experts unpack three topics of national importance and discuss solutions in a public forum, moderated by media personalities.

Issues that will be debated in the panel-discussion format include the challenges being faced to protect South Africas economy, the risks of increasing geopolitical uncertainty, and youth education and unemployment.

Dan Moyane, acting group executive, brand and corporate affairs of MMI Holdings, says, We at MMI Holdings are aware of the role we must play in improving the financial wellness of South Africans. We believe that a concerted, collective effort from all spheres of society is required to address key socio-economic challenges facing our country. To enable this, we encourage constructive dialogue to harness the intellectual energy of business, government, labour and civil society who will sit around the boardroom table to develop solutions to enhance national financial wellness and social cohesion.

Economic discussions

The panel will debate the short-term solutions that could benefit South Africas economy in the long run, and restore investor confidence in the country.

Mohale Ralebitso - founder & CEO, Itataise Investments



Mpho Sedibe - MD, Mopsy (SMME advisory)



Dr Iraj Abedian - economic advisor for Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) and executive chairman & CEO, Pan-African Capital Holdings



Prof Chris Malikane - associate Professor, Wits University and economic advisor to the Minister of Finance



Lungisa Fuzile - outgoing director general, National Treasury



Sibusiso Mabuza - CEO, Aluwani Capital Partners

Geopolitical factors

The implications of Brexit, Donald Trumps presidential victory in the United States, and the current state of South African politics have been far-reaching, especially when coupled with climate crises such as the severe southern African drought. Nikiwe Bikitsha will moderate the discussion on the geopolitical risk factors that are currently adding to worldwide social, environmental and economic instability. The panel is made up of:

Dr Johan van Zyl - co-founder, African Rainbow Capital



Kingsley Makhubela - CEO, Brand South Africa



Innocent Dutiro - CEO: Africa & Asia, MMI Holdings



Karima Brown - independent political analyst

Importance of education

In a discussion that will focus on the importance of education, entrepreneurship, leadership and talent management during South Africas digital era - in light of the growing education crisis in the country - Alishia Seckham will moderate a panel comprising:

Barrie Bramley - conference speaker and curious disruptor



Debbie Goodman Bhyat - founder and md Jack Hammer Executive Headhunters



Maryana Iskander - CEO, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator



Sizwe Nxasana - Chairman NSFAS and Sifiso Learning Group



Hlomela Bucwa - former SRC President Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

Reardon Sanderson, GM Commercial at Times Media says, Creating the platform for these important debates is an imperative for a media organisation like TMG and the Sunday Times. We expect this years forum to be as engaging and relevant to business as it has been previously and we look forward to welcoming business leaders to the table once again.

The event is sponsored by Sunday Times Top 100 Companies and MMI Holdings, in association with the Institute of Directors (IOD), USB Executive Development (USB-ED), Hogan Lovells, Johnnie Walker and Aluwani Capital Partners.

For more information, go to www.thedirectorsevent.co.za
On May 5, 2017, authorities in Cote d'Ivoire introduced to the country's parliament a new media bill containing provisions that criminalise press offences. The introduction of the bill occasioned spontaneous protests and condemnation by the media and press freedom community in the country.

 weerapat kiatdumrong via 123RF

On May 3, 2017 as the world celebrated World Press Freedom Day, members of the Ivorian media fraternity and free expression advocates marched to denounce the imminent introduction of the controversial law. The development is considered a major roll back of gains that had been made in improving press freedom in the ongoing post-conflict democratic processes.

Sections of the new bill prescribe prison terms of up to three years for certain offences. The bill when passed into law will also allow for the imposition of fines of up to 3,000,000 CFA Francs (approximately US$4,988) for other offences. In a country where press freedom is already challenged by a number of legal and non-legal restrictions, the bill, when passed into law, could have a further chilling effect on the media.

A provision in the new bill deemed be very broad states that a person is liable to a prison term of one to five years and a fine of 300,000 to 3,000,000 CFA Francs, anyone who by means of press or by others means of publication: incite to theft and vandalism, murder, to set fire to and destroy, by which ever means, public or private propriety; to any forms of violence against individuals and institutions or on their properties, or justifies the same crimes or offences; who incites to xenophobia, hateful speech, racial hatred and all forms of hate speech; glorifies war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide crimes or collaboration with the enemy, incites military and security forces to insubordination and rebellion, acts against the national territorial integrity, internal and external security of the state.

While it would seem logical that anyone, including journalists, who commits any of above offences should answer for their actions, the above provision is open to a wide range of subjective interpretations and can be exploited by politicians and influential people to settle scores with critical journalists. This in turn has the potential to compel the media into self-censorship.

Again, Articles 174 and 175 of the Ivorian Criminal Code adequately take care of such infractions. A new bill specifically targeting the media is therefore alarming as it suggests a new resolve by the authorities to deal with'' the media.

The provisions of the intended new media law is particularly worrying giving that it seeks to replace the existing press law of 2004, which makes it clear that press offences shall not liable to prison sentences.

We are worried about the intended law; there are some articles which are disturbing in this new bill, said Moussa Traore, president of Cote d'Ivoire National Union of Journalists (Union Nationale des Journalistes de la Cote d'Ivoire  UNJCI).

The MFWA is worried about the intended introduction of the repressive legislation. Already, the Ivorian media have been going through many forms of repression including regular suspension of media outlets by regulatory bodies and attacks on journalists, said Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the MFWA.

The intended law is a piece of legislation that will further cripple the media in the country and that will not bode well for the ongoing post-conflict recovery and the democratic consolidation processes in Cote d'Ivoire. The MFWA urges the Ivorian authorities to remove from the bill, provisions that criminalise media and speech offences. The MFWA also urges the media community and other actors to prevail on the authorities to focus on improving media freedom in the country rather than adopting measures that will further constrict an already repressed media environment

This statement was originally published on mfwa.org on 11 May 2017.
How Death Festivals Are Celebrated Around The World Life oi-Syeda Farah

Halloween is slowly gaining its popularity across the world. The festival of celebrating death is followed in many parts of the world.

Here, we bring to you the list of the most bizarre ways in which people celebrate death in their respective places.

These festivals are celebrated with a great pomp and show like any other festival that is usually celebrated across the world.

Check them out...

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Mexico This is a colourful celebration of the dead. On this special night, families gather to clean and decorate the graves of their beloved ones. The celebrations are also known for its skeleton decorations, candies, and elaborate costumes as well. Ari Muyang, Malaysia The Mah Meri tribe in Malaysia, is a small minority of the country's population, where people celebrate the death festival by remembering their ancestors. It's a day of dancing that's steeped in tradition. Chuseok, Korea Koreans celebrate this in their three-day harvest festival, in which they honour their dead members. Each year, about 30 million people in Korea visit the hometowns of their ancestors to pay homage. During these days, people pray, clean the tombs of their immediate ancestors, and offer them food and drink. Pitru Paksha, India The Hindus honour their ancestors upto seven generations back! They start their day by bathing in sacred ponds and rivers, and offer prayers and food to their ancestors, as they believe the ancestors to return from the afterlife for the night to feast. Obon, Japan This is a 500-year-old Buddhist ritual that people follow. On this day, the family members gather to clean, decorate the graves of their loved ones. They also release lanterns to help guide their spirits. Also Read:What Happens in 'Crying Sumo' Festival In Japan? Hungry Ghost Festival, China This is a really long festival that goes on for an entire month! According to the traditional belief, the 7th month of the lunar calendar is the time when the spirits roam the Earth. People burn offerings to appease these ghosts by leaving out food. Pchum Ben, Cambodia People visit their local temples to pray and make offerings to the dead. It is also considered as one of the most important festivals in the Khmer culture. They celebrate this day with buffalo races and wrestling. Galungan, Bali The people of Bali believe that on this night their ancestors revisit their homes. They believe in welcoming and entertaining the spirits; and if they would fail, they believe the spirits to haunt the place! Gai Jatra, Nepal It is a festival that honours cows, but it also serves as a time to honour the dead and departed. The cows are paraded through the streets of Kathmandu, in which the children dress up as cows. It is believed to help guide spirits into the afterlife. Guy Fawkes Night, United Kingdom This festival does not qualify as a festival of the dead, but it is considered to be close enough in view of the celebration pattern. It is celebrated on November 5th, the anniversary of when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Parliament. He's burned in effigy while people parade around wearing masks.
Can You Believe This Is Her Real Age? Pulse oi-Syeda Farah

Guessing a person's age gets difficult as one cannot guess the right age of the person due to various reasons.

Liu Yelin is a woman who looks quite younger than her actual age and nobody, yes NOBODY, can guess her actual age.

Check out the inspiring story of this fit mum who has been driving the world crazy with her fitness secrets, even at the age of 51!

Who Is She? She is Liu Yelin, who lives in the city of Xinyang, in southeastern Henan Province, China. She has currently captivated the Chinese social media with her photos that showcase her well-toned physique and her looks defy all the ageing signs for sure! You May Also Like To Read:What's The Identity Of This Model? Male Or Female? She Seems To Be Just Perfect! Liu has a perfectly toned body and a flawless skin. She has no visible wrinkles and is an exercise enthusiast as well! People Get Confused About Her Age People assume that she is eligible to be their son's girlfriend, as she looks that young! She Needs To Show The World Her Passport! Since it is very hard to believe her actual age, people generally ask her to show her age proof and hence she keeps her passport handy all the time! She Is Quite Active On Social Sites! She has over 75K followers on a Chinese social media site and we're sure we know the reason why! Also Read:This Girl Was Declared To Be The Most Beautiful Girl! Her Beauty Secret! Though her social site gives us the hint of her actual secret for ageless beauty, we shall reveal it to you! She loves swimming, especially in the winters and follows a strict fitness regimen that involves a grueling two-hour daily workout task. It All Started At The Age Of 30 She revealed that her desire to be in a tip-top shape began when she was 30 years old. It started when she discovered her passion for swimming, after which she slowly started exercising as well to stay fit! Her Records For Swimming She has swam across the Yangtse River in China and the Han River in South Korea, and also from the shores of Penang, Malaysia, to the Strait of Malacca. All this in a span of just 4 hours (7.45 miles)! Her Motto In Life! She has even revealed her motto for life, which goes like this, "If you think you look rough, that's because you haven't sweated enough." She Also Aims At She wishes to look this beautiful even at the age of 80! Images Source Don't you think she is a true example of ageless beauty? Do share your thoughts on this in the comment section below.
Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado

Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION
The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels.



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Javier Valdez, a veteran reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in one of the world's most dangerous countries for media workers.





Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March, and the second high-profile reporter to be slain in the country this decade after Regina Martinez Perez, who was killed in 2012.





Valdez was shot dead in the early afternoon in the state capital, Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he co-founded, Riodoce. State Prosecutor Juan Jose Rios visited the scene and said authorities were investigating all possible motives, including that the killing could have been due to Valdez's work, though he gave no details.





The federal Attorney General's Office also said it was investigating.





Riodoce reported that Valdez was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen. Valdez was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, which reported that he was pulled from his car and shot multiple times.

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the killing and said he had instructed federal prosecutors to support local authorities investigating "this outrageous crime."

"

I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy," the president tweeted.





Valdez was a nationally and internationally recognized journalist who authored several books on the drug trade, including "Narcoperiodismo" and "Los Morros del Narco." The former is a look at the relationship between journalism and organized crime, and the latter chronicles the lives of young people swept up in Mexico's underworld.

J

an-Albert Hootson, Mexico correspondent for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said Valdez and Riodoce were known as a rare source of independent, investigative journalism in Sinaloa.

"

And for that same reason, he and his magazine and his co-workers were always under threat of violence," Hootson said.





According to CPJ, in 2009 unknown attackers threw a grenade into the Riodoce offices days after it had published an investigation on drug trafficking. No one was hurt.





By the group's count, some 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico for reasons confirmed as related to their work since 1992. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.





Sinaloa state has long been a drug trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. Experts say Guzman's arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the drug gang.





"Living in Sinaloa is a threat, and being a journalist is an additional threat," Valdez once said in an interview with the CPJ, according the group's website. "We learned how to live in times when bullets are flying around us."





Hootson said he last spoke to Valdez about three weeks ago and Valdez said talking about the security situation in Sinaloa remained perilous.





He described Valdez as a warm, friendly man, well-liked by other journalists who frequently sought his help to navigate and understand the complex, dangerous state.





"His door was always open. ... Everybody always deferred to his knowledge," Hootson said. "And in that sense, it's a huge loss for everybody."





In a report released this month, CPJ noted that most killings of journalists go unpunished in Mexico. It added that even when there are convictions, they are often limited to the immediate killer and do not clarify the motive.





"By not establishing a clear link to journalism or providing any motives for the killings most investigations remain opaque," the report said. "This lack of accountability perpetuates a climate of impunity that leaves journalists open to attack."





Valdez's murder came less than two weeks after a CPJ delegation met in Mexico City with President Enrique Pena Nieto and other top government officials.





Last Wednesday, the federal Attorney General's Office replaced the head of its division responsible for investigating journalist killings. Ricardo Sanchez Perez del Pozo, a lawyer with a background in international law and human rights , took over the post.




Indian Navy's INS Sahyadri in Singapore to take part in the International Maritime Review. Indian Navy photo/Twitter

SINGAPORE (PTI): Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Monday attended Singapore's first International Maritime Review (IMR) held at the country's prime Changi Naval Base.



Lanba attended the review in which Indian Navy ships INS Sahyadri and INS Kamorta are taking part.



A total of 46 warships and four aircraft from 28 countries, including Singapore, participated in an exercise that included a parade, a land review and a sea review, as part of the IMR.



"The INS Sahyadri was part of the land review while INS Kamorta was part of the sea review. Both the ships had earlier participated in the pre-IMR multinational group sail," Indian Navy Chief Capt D K Sharma said.



Speaking on the occasion, Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam said the maritime review "marks the coming of age" of Singapore's Navy, and is a "testament to the strong friendships and extensive network the country enjoys across the world".



The event was organised by the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) to celebrate its 50 years of establishment.



On Sunday, Lanba held extensive talks with his Singaporean counterpart Lai Chung Han and explored ways to further step up maritime cooperation between the two countries.



Lanba will also attend the International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (IMDEX) 2017 on Tuesday.



His visit aims to consolidate existing Maritime Cooperation initiatives as well as explore new avenues between India and Singapore.



Defence cooperation between the two countries is robust and primarily focused towards Maritime Cooperation.



India signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement with Singapore in 2003, which was renewed in 2015.



Indian Navy and Singapore Navy are partners in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), a Maritime Cooperation construct conceptualised and pioneered by Indian Navy in 2008.



The Indian and Singapore navies will conduct bilateral exercise "SIMBEX" off Singapore from 18 to 24 May.



Both countries have been conducting "SIMBEX" since 1994.



Both navies also engage in navy-to-navy Staff Talks, which commenced in 2004.



The 12th Staff Talks were conducted in March 2017 and the 13th Staff Talks are scheduled to be held in 2018.



The Singapore Navy has participated in all the MILAN-series interactions organised at Port Blair by the Indian Navy. Warships of both countries regularly visit each other's ports.






NEW DELHI (PTI): The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Monday discussed the much-awaited 'strategic partnership model' under which select private firms would manufacture fighter jets, helicopters and submarines in India in partnership with foreign companies.



Defence Ministry sources said the DAC, chaired by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, made "forward movement" towards finalising the 'strategic partnership (SP) model', covering "substantial ground".



Under the SP model, select Indian defence firms will be allowed to exclusively build various military platforms for a specified period of time in partnership with chosen foreign entities.



The sources termed the outcome of the deliberations "positive".



Last week, Jaitley had a meeting on the SP model with representatives of defence arms of leading groups, including Larsen & Toubro, Ashok Leyland, Mahindra & Mahindra, Reliance Infra, Tata Group, Punj Lloyd, Adani Group and Bharat Forge Ltd.



Opinion is divided on whether to select only one private sector company for each segment identified for defence indigenisation or look for other options.



The Defence Ministry has been maintaining that it was working towards institutionalising a transparent, objective and functional mechanism to encourage broader participation of the private sector in defence manufacturing.



The DAC may again deliberate on some of the issues relating to the proposed SP model before it is taken up by the Cabinet Committee on Security.



At last week's meeting, some industry representatives had favoured a level playing field and expanding the industry base by allowing entry of new players. Some stressed on exercising caution and ensuring that the model does not block the flow of new technology to the sector.



It was learnt that some officials also raised concern about possible "judicial intervention and federal audit" in case of award of successive orders to one 'strategic partner'.



The proposed model envisages 'sequential award' of contracts for four selected segments, and some industry representatives felt such arrangements will lead to delays in implementation of mega projects.



The SP model was proposed by the Dhirendra Singh Committee in July, 2015. It had said for the 'Make in India' initiative to become wider in the defence sector, the government should adopt a strategic partnership model, whereby a private firm is chosen for the development of a specific identified platform.



Last year, the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had announced that the policy on SP model would be unveiled soon.




An unrelated file photo.

JAIPUR (PTI): Nearly 20,000 troops of Indian Army along with tanks, artillery guns and advanced surveillance sensors participated in a month-long military exercise 'Thar Shakti' in Rajasthan.



In the exercise which culminated on Monday, Army's Chetak Corps carried out operational manoeuvres in the deserts of the state.



General Officer Commanding of the Chetak Corps Lt Gen Ashwani Kumar along with senior officers reviewed the manoeuvres during the culminating phase of the exercise.



"The officer expressed his satisfaction over the operational preparedness of the Corps and appreciated the troops for braving the high temperatures and harsh desert environment during the conduct of the exercise," defence spokesperson Lt Col Manish Ojha said.



The exercise ended on a high note, having achieved the desired aim with respect to capability development and operational challenges in the contemporary battlefield environment, he said.






NEW DELHI (PTI): The Indian Navy and Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre (SAC) on Monday inked a pact on data sharing and scientific cooperation in the field of meteorology and oceanology.



The pact provides for creation of a common platform for sharing expertise achieved by SAC with the Navy in a number of areas, including satellite data acquisition technology.



"This has further boosted the already established collaboration between the two organisations," the Navy said in a statement.



The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Vice Admiral S N Ghormade, Director General Naval Operations, and SAC Director Tapan Misra at an event in Ahmedabad.




A file photo.

SEOUL (AFP): North Korea said Monday it had successfully tested a new type of rocket in its latest missile launch, as analysts said it showed an unprecedented range that brought US bases in the Pacific within reach.



Sunday's launch was of a "new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket" named the Hwasong-12, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said.



Leader Kim Jong-Un personally oversaw the test, it said, and "hugged officials in the field of rocket research, saying that they worked hard to achieve a great thing".



The isolated North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, which have triggered global alarm.



The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, with KCNA saying it flew to an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometres and travelled 787 kilometres before coming down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).



That suggests a range of 4,500 kilometres or more if flown for maximum distance, analysts said.



Aside from space launches, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US told AFP: "This is the longest range missile North Korea has ever tested."



On the respected 38 North website, aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling said it appeared to demonstrate an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could "reliably strike the US base at Guam" in the Pacific.



"More importantly," he added, it "may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)".



The North says it needs atomic weapons to defend itself against the threat of invasion and has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year.



Its goal is to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States  something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".



Tensions between the two reached a peak in recent weeks, with Washington saying military action was an option under consideration and Pyongyang issuing threats of its own, sending fears of conflict spiralling.



Trump later appeared to hold open the door to negotiations, saying he would be "honoured" to meet Kim and called him a "smart cookie".



Last week, the South elected a new president, Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation with Pyongyang and said at his inauguration that he was willing "in the right circumstances" to visit the North to ease tensions.



But he slammed the latest missile test as a "reckless provocation" after holding an emergency meeting with national security advisers.




A Royal Singapore Navy submarine. MoD photo

SINGAPORE (BNS): The Singapore Defence Ministry has signed a contract with Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine System GmbH to acquire two more Type 218SG conventional submarines.



The announcement was made on Tuesday by Minister For Defence, Ng Eng Hen, at the opening ceremony of the International Maritime Defence Exhibition and Conference (IMDEX) Asia 2017 being hosted by Singapore.



"Today, on the RSN's 50th anniversary, it is fitting for me to announce another important step in the RSN's modernisation effort. In addition to the two previously announced (submarines), the RSN will acquire two more Type-218SG submarines to replace its older submarines, with an expected delivery from 2024 onwards," the Defence Minister said.



The new submarines are part of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN)'s approach to long-term capability development, the MoD said in a statement.



Singapore had inked a deal with Germany in December 2013 for two Type 218SG platforms.



"The first two Type 218SG submarines, which were acquired in 2013, have commenced construction following their steel-cutting in 2014. They are projected for delivery from 2021," the MoD said.



Together with the two additional Type 218SG submarines, they would be part of the RSN's submarine force renewal programme to meet operational requirements, it added.


Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Making a lasting impact on the citys health-care services, the Brandon Regional Health Centre Auxiliary carries a long history in the Wheat City.

Nearly every department at Brandons hospital has been positively impacted by the organization, whose membership celebrated their 125th anniversary during their regular meeting at the hospital on Monday.

Helen Dalling is the organizations longest-serving member, and like many of their approximately 100 volunteers, she has a personal connection to the hospital.

Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Brandon Regional Health Centre Auxiliarys longest-serving volunteer, Helen Dalling, chats with fellow community stewards during the organizations meeting at the centre on Monday. Shes been with the organization for about 50 years.

Dalling joined the organization about 50 years ago at the suggestion of her late husband, Dr. John Dalling, who worked at the hospital.

Having recently emigrated from Scotland at the time, she said that shed found spare time to help out during the days while her children were at school.

On why she volunteers, she said simply that there was a need that needed filling and that she had time to help fill it.

I cant understand why more people dont want to be involved, she said. Its a very friendly group and we raise an amazing amount of money.

Originally called the Womens Hospital Aid, the organization was formed in 1892 in reaction to typhoid fever epidemics, during which members saw a greater need for medical services than what was being offered at the time.

These early members rented a house on Lorne Avenue in which they nursed the sick.

While the modern-day organization is less hands-on with patient care, every year finds their efforts funnel big money toward the purchase of state-of-the art technology and special projects at the BRHC.

Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Members of the Brandon Regional Health Centre Auxiliary cut their 125th anniversary cake on Monday. Longest-serving member Helen Dalling holds the knife, while Nearly New head co-ordinator Sharleen Gunston is to her left.

Last year found the organization raise about $400,000 through the largely volunteer-run efforts of the hospitals gift shop, the Nearly New Shop at 601 Ninth St. and lease payments Tim Hortons makes for its space at the hospital.

Volunteer Sharleen Gunston has been volunteering with Nearly New Shop since it opened in the mid-80s, at the behest of her friends who were becoming involved.

You make great friends, and what we like about it is that we all work well together, make a lot of money for the hospital and thats what we do, she said.

The organization tends to focus on larger-ticket items that smaller donors might not have the funds for, auxiliary assistant Janice Meadows said, noting that they currently have their eyes on a $200,000 microscope for the ophthalmology department, but that final decisions regarding what this years purchases wouldnt be made until later this year.

Every year, auxiliary members are given a list of priority items from the health region, which they make decisions on, BRHC volunteer manager Barb Ross said.

With technology an ever-changing thing, staff undertake due diligence in making sure they end up with the right equipment, she said, adding that they always bring it in on a trial basis to ensure they have what they need prior to setting anything in stone.

Its truly amazing to see what this organization has accomplished over the years, she said, citing their volunteers as a driven group of people whose longevity is a testament to their dedication.

Tyler Clarke/The Brandon Sun Volunteer Geri Collister takes care on Monday of the Brandon Regional Health Centres gift shop  a space whose profits go directly to the Brandon Regional Health Centre Auxiliary, which funds the purchase of equipment and other items the province doesnt providing funding for.

While the auxiliary only meets five times per year, their dedicated base of volunteers work every day of the week, between their gift shop and Nearly New Shop.

Those interested in volunteering with the BRHC Auxiliary can contact Ross at 204-578-2066, with the volunteer manager noting that theyre always looking for more people to help out.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A perfect system.

Which means, of course, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Could it?

Premier Brian Pallisters flippant response earlier this month to questions about his methods of communicating on government business while vacationing in Costa Rica has done nothing to diminish legitimate concerns about the security and, for that matter, the volume of information being transmitted between the premier and his staff and cabinet colleagues while he is out of the province.

After a freedom-of-information request by the NDP revealed no records of phone calls or emails between Mr. Pallister and his staff via government-issued devices during his southern sojourns, the premier declared that he employs other (non-government) methods of communication but refused to elaborate, stating that specifying the nature of those accounts and/or devices might compromise the security of the information being transmitted.

Perfect system so far, he added glibly while declaring that no information leaks have occurred as a result of employing his secrecy-shrouded techniques.

As public relations strategies go, this approach has some rather obvious flaws.

In his run to become Manitobas premier, Mr. Pallister pledged an open and accountable government. This approach is most decidedly at odds with that aspiration. The use of private, rather than governmental, telephones and email servers might be a perfect way for a politician or government to shield communications from public scrutiny, but its also a strategy that inevitably produces less-than-perfect outcomes for those who favour it.

For a glimmer of where the Manitoba governments simmering information-stream imbroglio might be headed, Mr. Pallister might consider the plight last week of Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, who was found to have been using a private email service to conduct provincial government business.

Despite offering initial assurances that the private email account is administered by an IT security company whose standards and software are on par with those of government servers, Mr. Wall was forced to backtrack a day later and his office issued a statement saying he will be using a government of Saskatchewan email account for government business.

Or perhaps Manitobas premier, who has described himself as a voracious reader during his Costa Rican getaways, might spend a few hours poring through the reams of newsprint devoted to Hillary Clintons private email server woes during the U.S. presidential election.

The lessons are obvious. Mr. Pallisters obstinacy, however, seems to prevent him from heeding them.

As is the case with the newly discovered numbered company that also recently raised questions  when asked for details about Pallister Investments 22 Ltd., and whether he derives monetary benefit from it, the premiers response was Frankly, its none of your business  Mr. Pallisters handling of the government communications issue demonstrates a level of stubbornness and arrogance that will continue to undermine his governments efforts unless his closest advisers can convince him to amend his message.

To be equally frank, Mr. Premier, yes, it is our business. All elected officials need to be open and transparent regarding their business interests and holdings  just as you promised your government would be  to prevent conflicts of interest.

Theres no scandal here, as much as the NDP wishes there were. But unless Mr. Pallister comes clean about communications and adopts more transparent and provably secure methods of keeping in touch while hes tropically reclined, itd be best to insert the word yet into the previous sentence.

What hes doing now amounts to a perfect recipe for a longer-term political mess.

 Winnipeg Free Press & The Brandon Sun
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 16/05/2017 (2003 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Give me a break

The NDP is campaigning already. They have not fessed up for all the new taxes Manitobans will be faced with in the future. The NDP spouts about all the social programs it set up, which, as Manitobans, we cannot afford. My grandson and granddaughter will be hard pressed to ever drive a new car and own their own home due to the debt the NDP has racked up for this province. One more spending NDP government and I will be willing to pay my taxes in another province or south of the border! Manitobans have been used to a lifestyle a.k.a. the NDP and we cannot afford another NDP government.

Outrageous pay hikes need to end

I try to keep up with the news and The Brandon Sun provides me news almost daily! I cant believe some people are unaware that the firefighters of this city already got a sweet deal for their raise in pay. For those people who think the citizens of this city should not be concerned with the high cost of our police and fire services, you had better think again. All across Canada the talk has been the same. The pay hikes given to these two groups is not sustainable. Despite this fact, our city mayor, council and administration have not made an effort to curb the rising cost. When will the yearly, more-than-generous pay hikes end?

A moment of silence for the Liberal Party?

The Liberal Party of Manitoba showed why they will always be an also ran party and never hold power in this province. One of their most important discussions at their convention in Brandon was concerning eliminating prayer in our legislature. Is this really a burning issue for Manitobans? Nothing more important, like taxes, jobs, infrastructure (have they been on our highways lately), health care for an aging population? And to top it off  they would replace prayer with a moment of silence, a gesture used to honour someone who is dead. Well, God is not dead.

Let the RCMP do the job

With all the talk surrounding the salaries of the Brandon Police Service lately, perhaps its time the residents of this city press their elected officials to look at a cheaper alternative and bring in the RCMP to police this city.

Collect a sample before they collect a cheque

I have a job. I work and they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheque, in my case, I am required to pass a random urine test (with which I have no problem). What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who dont have to pass a urine test. So, here is my question: Shouldnt one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare cheque because I have to pass one to earn a paycheque? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their butt doing drugs while I work. Can you imaging how much money each province would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance cheque? I guess we could call the program, Urine or youre out! Something has to change in this country, and soon.
Irish exports to the UK endured a significant slowdown during the year Britain voted to leave the European Union, an industry report has found.

Export growth slipped to 2% in 2016 after expanding by 12% a year earlier, with the lion's share of the fall coming from a drop in food exports, according to figures based on Enterprise Ireland's clients.

The value of exports from Ireland into the UK stood at 7.5bn last year, the report said.

Marina Donohoe, Enterprise Ireland's director for UK and Northern Ireland, said: "Trade between the UK and Ireland stands at 1bn, supporting over 200,000 jobs in each country.

"We are determined to uphold these strong trade relations going forward, helping Irish companies deepen their collaboration with the UK."

Despite the UK decline, global exports from Ireland rose by 6% to 21.6bn last year, with sales to the US and Canada climbing 19% to 3.7bn over the period.

Enterprise Ireland said it was targeting a 50% rise in exports to the eurozone by 2020.

Irish premier Enda Kenny said his country's firms were finding new trading avenues in the face of economic uncertainty.

He said: "Following the UK's decision to leave the EU the Government immediately acted to ensure our enterprise agencies had additional resources in order to offer all available assistance to our exporters to prepare for the challenges posed by Brexit."
Update 3.10pm: The HSE is rebooting more than 1,200 servers this afternoon in order to activate additional security updates designed to address the WannaCry ransomware virus.

The planned IT outage is underway across the network.

The executive says any significant disruption to patient services is not anticipated and business continuity processes are in place to protect the delivery of patient care.

The HSE says there have been no reports today of any additional suspected cases of the ransomware attack and the executive is continuing to monitor the situation.

Update 9.10am: The Cabinet will be briefed on the fallout from the global cyber virus attack later.

The HSE's external IT networks will also remain offline today as a precaution.

The only confirmed case in Ireland so far is a HSE-funded healthcare unit in County Wexford - which was not connected to its main network.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten will speak to Ministers later.

We have been lucky in that we have been upgrading our computers and hardware, particularly in the last few years.

We have ramped up resources right across government to IT support and as a consequence have been quite lucky that we havent had a successful attack on than this one.

Two cyber security firms have suggested a North Korea-linked organisation is behind the attack that's crippled compuer systems around the world.

Lazarus Group is thought to have targeted Sony Pictures in 2014.

Earlier: Workers across the Republic of Ireland and the North have been placed on high alert over cyber security.

Family doctors in Ireland have been warned not to use their practice computers until they are certain their anti-virus security systems are up to date after a mass hack which has spread around the world since Friday.

The PSNI said some people's systems may already be infecting and waiting to activate after the weekend.

More than 200,000 computer systems in nearly 100 countries have been infected with the so-called WannaCry ransomware since Friday.

The software locks files or a whole machine until a ransom is paid.

The malware has caused severe disruption to health services, industry, transport, academia and law enforcement around the world.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) cut its network off from external communications as a precaution.

The decision means its facilities will be unable to receive emails from outside the organisation.

But HSE chief information officer Richard Corbridge said the impact on patients is unlikely to be significant because email is rarely used to communicate with patients.

Detective Chief Inspector Douglas Grant, head of PSNI Cyber Crime Centre, said: "While no incidents have been reported in Northern Ireland as yet, we do expect further infections to come to light globally over the next week and we cannot rule out the possibility that local systems may be vulnerable.

"As people return to work tomorrow after the weekend, many will have unopened, potentially infected emails in their inboxes, or their systems may already be infected and are waiting to activate.

"It is of the utmost importance that individuals and organisations act to ensure the integrity of our local cyber networks and take appropriate action to reduce the threat posed by cyber criminals."
Aoibhin Garrihys husband John Burke, has become the first Clare man to summit Everest.

The couple set off for Nepal shortly after Aiobhins appearance on Irelands Dancing with the Stars and while the actress made her way to Everests Base Camp, John continued on to reach the summit.

Today, Aiobhin popped the news on social media that John completed his mission at 9:45am, which makes him the very first Clare man to successfully summit the World's hightest peak.

The hotelier completed the feat in aid of Elevate, an organisation set up to help make wellness programmes available in youth organisations and secondary schools in the Clare area.

John is an experience climber and has previously spent time in the Alps tackling the likes of Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

During his climb, Burke sent this message home via the Ray DArcy Show.

.@DWTSIRL star @aoibhinngarrihy on her husband's Everest attempt 'it feels like a place you shouldn't be'. #RayDarcy live now! pic.twitter.com/BzgH0apOQQ  The Ray D'Arcy Show (@RTERayDarcyShow) May 6, 2017

He also took to his Instagram account to post these intense videos mid-climb.
It has been announced that Hollywood heart-throb Zac Efron is to play serial killer Ted Bundy in a new movie.

The actor is to star in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, a film about the killer told from the perspective of his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.
There was an 80% rise in the number of human rights activists killed around the world last year.

Amnesty International said 281 people were killed in 2016 while working to defend human rights.
Update 5.30pm: The auctioneer who oversaw the sale of the LE Aisling seven weeks ago has claimed he was instructed by the Department of Defence to take the deal.

Dominic Daly spoke to The Neil Prendeville Show on Corks Red FM this morning, and said that there are added costs to naval vessels after they are bought.

It comes after it was confirmed this evening that the State had to keep a skeleton crew assigned to the vessel even after it was decommissioned last year.

That cost the state 370,000 in wages, and another 10,000 in tuggage fees.

The boat was sold in March, but its new Dutch owners have already put it back on the market at six times the price.

Mr Daly said: "The underlying reason why naval vessels don't attract money is that a naval vessel is not certified, it doesn't have papers.

"So the new owner, once he buys her, has to establish a port of registry and also to get classification. And that can be quite expensive."

He said that the man in Holland who bought the LE Aisling has at least 300,000 in costs to pay for, which accounts for his 685,000 price tag.

Mr Daly said: "He has to get registration... he will have to dry-dock it, get safety certificates, all sorts of certification and that doesn't come cheaply."

Mr Daly revealed that a lot of people turned up for the auction, but most of them didn't bid because of the expensive paperwork attached to the vessel.

He said: "They would have an understanding of what it would cost them. The vessel was perfectly good, but she had to be towed to Holland, because of the regulations, which doesn't make a lot of sense."

Neil Prendeville asked Mr Daly if it would have been a good idea to have put a reserve price on the LE Aisling, so that if the bids didn't reach that reserve price, the Department of Defence could have held onto the vessel.

Mr Daly said that was a matter for the department.

He said: "That wasn't in my realm at all. I conducted the auction, I then took an intermission and I spoke to department officials and they told me to let it go."

Earlier: The Deputy Mayor of Galway has hit out at the handling of the sale of the LE Aisling saying "we sold a ship for the price of a car".

Speaking on RTE's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Fine Gael's Pearse Flannery said when it was being decommissioned as a naval vessel, he requested that the LE Aisling be gifted to the people of Galway as a floating museum.

He said the ship was twinned with the city of Galway and was berthed and docked in the city frequently.

He said they had numerous communications with the Department of Defence and they asked for a costed business plan, but Mr Flannery said the time-frame given to submit the plan was not sufficient and it became "an insurmountable task in that time-frame".

He said they had until the first week in September last year to submit the plan, otherwise it would not be considered by the Department of Defence.

Fianna Fail's spokesperson on Defence has said the Minister for Defence needs to answer questions and the department needs to provide more detail on the sale of the naval vessel on whether they explored alternative options to the sale that might have realised a better return to the State.

Lisa Chambers told Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio One the State may have "potentially" lost out on this deal and it appears the "lazy approach" was taken by selling it, getting rid of it and taking what they got.

She said: "That's not the approach we should be taking with State assets. Certainly on the face of it, it appears that we may have sold the ship far below the value."

She also said she is concerned that the auctioneer "was not told to put a reserve price on the ship"

She said: "Certainly that would indicate to me that there was a risk being taken by the Department of Defence in not placing an adequate reserve on the ship.

"If there was no valuation, why not?"

She said the Minister needs to answer questions on whether or not he believes the Government thinks it got good value for the sale of the vessel, and there more detail is needed from the Department of Defence on its explanation that it was too difficult to get a market valuation.
Update 6pm: Unions have been formally invited to take part in a new round of public sector pay talks.

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe is seeking an extension of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, and the unwinding of austerity-era pay cuts.

Earlier, unions representing healthcare workers said the talks must address the difficulties with staff recruitment and retention.

The INMO, PNA and IMO have called for incentives to stop nurses, doctors and midwives from leaving HSE jobs.

Liam Doran is the General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation: "We have 70 odd less nurses working in our health system than we did a year ago despite efforts to recruit.

"I'm not saying the health service is not trying to recruit, but while we are recruiting, we are not retaining.

"Our new graduates are walking away because they are not being offered jobs, so we have a real problem and that real problem has at its core, pay.

"I'm saying this process must address this issue."

Earlier; Unions representing doctors and nurses have told the Government to "get their heads out of the sand" on the recruitment crisis in healthcare.

The Irish Medical Organisation, the INMO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association met earlier to discuss the public sector pay commission report.

The three unions represent about half of the total health service and a sixth of the public service as a whole.

They released a joint statement earlier in which they said no Government measures to fix healthcare will work unless the healthcare system is properly staffed.

INMO General Secretary Liam Doran said it needs to be an efficient process.

He said: "The clock is ticking, the time is short and a meandering process that delivers nothing will not suffice."

Susan Clyne from the IMO said their goal is making sure consultants get the same rates as they would abroad.

She said: "We want parity with their established consultant colleagues, that is a key issue.

"For the younger doctors, we do need to look at new contract provisions, new training and education supports."

PNA General Secretary Peter Hughes had his own sector in mind.

He said: "We have seen that mental health services are in crisis over the last 10 years and more.

"We believe it is time to address it now and there is no more time to be wasted."

The three unions are agreed that pay and conditions for nurses, midwives and doctors need to improve to stem the tide of healthcare workers leaving Ireland.

They said that will be their priority in pay talks.
A man has been jailed for 14 months for stealing almost 2,000 worth of hot pants and things like that from the back of a delivery truck.

Noel Dempsey (61) of Stanaway Road, Crumlin, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to stealing four boxes of womens clothes from a lorry on Wicklow Street, Dublin on August 13 2013.

Garda Joseph Heaphy told James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that a lorry driver had collected boxes of Pull & Bear clothes from Henry Street early in the morning and driven to Wicklow Street.

The driver stepped away from the lorry for five minutes and noticed on his return that the lorrys tail lift had been interfered with.

He discovered that four boxes were missing and reported the incident to gardai. Dempsey was identified on CCTV footage as one of two men taking the boxes and driving away with them in a van.

The van was linked to Dempsey and gardai went to his home where they found the boxes in his van.

The clothes, which were never recovered, were valued at 1,988.

Gda Heaphy agreed with Keith Spencer BL, defending, that the boxes were full of women's clothing, hot pants and things like that.

Dempsey's 99 previous convictions include 27 theft related offences and 67 road traffic offences.

The company from which the clothes were collected is no longer trading but the court heard that there was no evidence which linked this incident to the clothing company shutting down.

Mr Spencer told the court that Dempsey has undergone chemotherapy treatment for prostate cancer which is currently in remission. He has also undergone five coronary bypass operations and has had 21 stents placed in his heart.

Judge Karen O'Connor said Dempseys health conditions, his guilty plea and his bereavement were all mitigating factors in her sentencing.

She said that 2013 was a difficult time for businesses to survive and the loss of 2,000 worth of stock must have had an impact on the company. It is in no way a victimless crime Judge O'Connor.

She said that without mitigating factors she would have considered a sentence of two and a half years.

Dempsey's first conviction occurred in May 1970 when Dempsey was fourteen years old. The court heard that none of his convictions were for offences of an aggressive or violent manner.

He is currently serving time in prison for theft convictions and has been in custody since January 2017. He had been scheduled for release next February.

Dempsey lives with his wife, who sells flowers on Grafton Street, with whom he has five children. The court heard that one of their sons committed suicide in 2008.

Mr Spencer said Dempsey had abused both alcohol and drugs in the past but has completely detoxified from drugs in custody and is seeing things clearly.

Counsel described him as a decent person at heart who is in the right place now to be released into the bosom of his family.

The case has been set for trial four times. The trial date was pushed back twice due to a witness being on holiday in South Africa and once due to Dempseys ill health.
A priest yesterday sounded a warning over the accidental death of Clare teen, Conor Wilmot where he said that Conor found something on the Internet that went wrong, writes Gordan Deegan.

At the funeral mass of the 13-year-old 1st year student, parish priest of Sixmilebridge, Fr Harry Bohan told mourners that it was Conors Dad, Greg who found Conors body last Thursday night.

Fr Bohan said: Greg has no doubt that Conor died as a result of a horrible misadventure. Conor found something on the Internet that went wrong.

Fr Bohan told mourners: That must come as a warning to all of us to be careful as to how we manage exploring worlds we have limited control over.

At the Church packed full of Conors 1st year class mates from St Patricks Comprehensive Secondary School in Shannon along with his rugby team mates from St Senans, Fr Bohan said that Conors family would describe him as a beautiful soul and to know and love him was a great privilege and they had that privilege for a certain length of time.

Fr Bohan said that the local community is in shock over the loss of Conor and struggling to understand this tragic loss of a bright and beloved young life.

Fr Bohan said: No one knew Conor better than his own family and they would describe Conor, as other people would, as a bright, intelligent, talented human being.

At the end of the mass, Greg Wilmot received a sustained standing ovation after singing and playing his guitar a song entitled Fly On that he penned in tribute to Conor since last Thursdays tragedy.

The two shared a love of music and had booked tickets to attend a music festival together in Paris next month.

The song included the words We will find a view where everything is one.

Fr Bohan said that Conor was well liked and had many friends and said that there were a dozen of Conors friends queuing up and ready to pay tribute to their friend in the church and they made their tributes later at the graveside after the funeral mass.

Earlier, a number of symbols of Conors life were offered up including the St Patricks Comp school rugby jersey, a woodwork creation Conor had completed at school of the family crest, a Dr Who book and a figure of wresting hero, CM Punk.

In the church, Conors white coffin had a St Senans jersey draped on top along with a rugby ball.

Fr Bohan said: In our shock and sadness, we are a community of people in need of much compassion, support and understanding for the journey ahead.

Fr Bohan said that Conor loved science and was an explorer. He recalled that when Conor was born, the nurse told his parents that she believed Conor to be an old soul.

The priest told the mourners that for Conor's family and friends, his loss leaves a void in their lives that cant be filled and it is only lessened with time and memories even at that. We as a community want to support the family in any way we can."

Fr Bohan said: We say to his family who now endure the incomprehensible loss of a son and brother, nephew and friends, our hearts are with you in compassion and unwavering support, not just today, but in the days and weeks ahead.

He added: At this time it is easy to get lost in the what onlys and what ifs. While the search for answers is an understandable part of such a tragic loss, it is necessary, I think, to put down our questions and meet one another in the presence of our grief."

This a time for genuine companionship and genuine support - not today, not when everyone is at it, but when there are fewer and fewer are around - a grief that will be unfolding in all its stages in the coming months and years.

He said: "A tragedy of a young life lost can provoke strong emotions. We can feel overwhelmed and confused by intensity of feelings we are now experiencing and I know many of you are feeling that. Grieving can be a difficult and potentially isolating experience particularly as life goes on. We dont put a timeline on grief.

Conor is survived by his parents, Greg and Irina, sister, Melanie and brother, Ross. Conor was later laid to rest at Ballysheen cemetery.
Update: 11pm: The US Secret Service says an incident near the White House has been cleared.

Earlier, the residence was placed on lockdown - after an individual jumped the bike rack along the North Fence Line of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Scientists are to examine human remains from the Tudor warship Mary Rose with the hope of creating accurate skeletons of some of the crew.

Dr Garry Scarlett, a DNA expert at the University of Portsmouth in England, will examine the bones from crew members to establish if any of them come from the same person.

Remains of about a third of the 500-strong crew of Henry VIII's flagship, which was sunk in the Solent in 1545, have been found with the rest, apart from the handful of survivors, lost at sea.

Many of the remains which were found were discovered in groups, making it difficult to identify individuals by physical observation alone - although it has been possible to partially reconstruct 92 skeletons by a physical study of the bones.

Dr Scarlett said he hoped the research could lead to identifying where some of the crew originated.

He said: "It's wonderful that science can help find new ways to engage people in the life of the ship, its fateful battle and in history.

"I hope, once we have determined for certain which bones belong with which, some whole skeletons might be able to be reassembled."

Maritime archaeologist Alex Hildred, from the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England, said: "The ability to recreate individuals from bones from DNA analysis rather than having to rely on physical matching has huge benefits; unless key parts of the skeleton of an individual are present, it is difficult to associate a skull with a body, or an upper body with a lower body.

"Only about a third of our 92 partially reconstructed skeletons have skulls, yet we have 179 skulls.

"This technique should enable us to recreate the faces of many more of our crew. Enlarging the number of re-constructed skeletons means we can tell more about them - height, age, provenance, wounds they sustained, diseases they may have had.

"Our museum is dedicated to the men of the Mary Rose, and these techniques inform us about them.

"Displayed alongside their possessions, the collection is seen within the lives of these men, within the context of the ship which was their home, workplace and sepulchre."
The Syrian government has "categorically" denied US accusations of mass killings at a prison near Damascus, including executing political opponents and burning the victims in a crematorium at the site.

The allegations are "a new Hollywood plot" to justify US intervention in Syria, a statement from the Foreign Ministry said.

It described the US State Department accusations as "lies" and "fabrications", noting what it called a US track record of making up false claims as a pretext for military aggression.

US says satellite photos show Syria prison where mass executions are carried out and bodies burned to hide evidence: https://t.co/f1phzMXCAl pic.twitter.com/9Kp9jp8279  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) May 15, 2017

The State Department said on Monday that it believes about 50 detainees are being hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus.

Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place", said Stuart Jones, the senior US diplomat for the Middle East, accusing President Bashar Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity".

The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the US launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent.

The latest accusations have cast a shadow over peace talks getting under way in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives sat down separately with a UN envoy.

The meetings are the sixth round of talks brokered by special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

"The US administration's accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in Saydnaya prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.

The allegation could test the Trump administration's willingness to respond to atrocities other than chemical weapons attacks Washington blames on Assad's government.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have evidence of mass killings in Syrian government prisons, although there have not been any substantiated allegations of the use of a crematorium.

The State Department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium.

The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

AP
Chaos has erupted in western Venezuela during another round of protests against the socialist government, with buildings set afire, tear gas swirling around protesters and at least two people killed.

Thousands hauled folding chairs, beach umbrellas and protest signs on to main roads for a 12-hour "sit-in against the dictatorship," the latest in a month and a half of street demonstrations that have resulted in dozens of deaths.

Protests in Caracas against President Nicolas Maduro remained mostly tranquil, but outside the capital demonstrators clashed with police and national guardsmen. In the western state of Tachira near Venezuela's border with Colombia, two men were reported dead in separate demonstrations: Luis Alviarez, 18, and Diego Hernandez, 33.

Elsewhere in Tachira, demonstrators threw rocks and set an armoured truck on fire. Several buildings were set ablaze and dozens injured, including one young woman standing on the street, her face covered in blood.

In the central state of Carabobo, three officers were shot, including one left in critical condition after being struck in the head, authorities said. In Lara, a vehicle ran over three protesters.

The violence added to a mounting toll of bloodshed and chaos as Venezuela's opposition vows to step up near-daily demonstrations and Mr Maduro shows no intention of conceding to opposition demands. More than three dozen people have been killed, including a national guardsman and a police officer, hundreds injured and as many as 2,000 detained in nearly seven weeks of protests.

International pressure on the troubled South American nation is continuing to increase, with the Organisation of American States (OAS) voting on Monday to hold a rare foreign ministers' meeting later this month to discuss Venezuela's political crisis. The Washington-based group only convenes such meetings to address most urgent affairs.

"We ask the world to look at what's happening right now in Venezuela," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said after Monday's violence. "A deranged regime that represses and kills its people."

Venezuela announced in late April that it would be leaving the OAS, which seeks to defend democracy throughout the hemisphere, and its representative was not present at Monday's meeting. Mr Maduro contends the OAS is meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs, infringing on its sovereignty and trying to remove him from power.

The fiery Venezuelan president is vowing to resolve his nation's crisis by convening a special assembly to rewrite the nation's constitution, while the opposition is demanding an immediate presidential election.

Polls indicate the great majority of Venezuelans want Mr Maduro gone as violent crime soars and the country falls into economic ruin, with triple-digit inflation and shortages of many basic foods and medical supplies.

The wave of protests were triggered by a government move to nullify the opposition-controlled congress in late March, but the demonstrations have morphed into a general airing of grievances against the unpopular socialist administration.

As demonstrations take over Caracas almost daily, normal life has continued, but the atmosphere is suffused with uncertainty. At fancy cafes, patrons show each other the latest videos of student protesters getting hurt or defaced statues of the late President Hugo Chavez on their phones. Working class people who have to traverse the capital for their jobs have adjusted their schedules to account for traffic shutdowns and take siestas to wait out clashes between protesters and police.

On Monday, demonstrators assembled a giant rosary with balloons hanging from a Caracas highway overpass. A group of flamenco dancers dressed in black performed for the crowds. Others simply sat and held signs declaring their resistance.

Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said the opposition would take its protests "to another stage" as Mr Maduro continues his push to rewrite the nation's constitution.

"We are against this fraudulent process," Mr Capriles said on his radio broadcast.

Tarek William Saab, the national ombudsman, whose job is to protect citizens' rights but who has been tagged the "dictator's defender" by the opposition, said on Twitter that he was pressing for an exhaustive investigation into Mr Alviarez's death on Monday to determine who was responsible and ensure they are held accountable.

Mr Maduro blames the opposition for the violence, claiming its leaders are fomenting unrest to remove him from power. The opposition maintains state security and civilian-armed pro-government groups known as "colectivos" are responsible for the bloodshed.
A woman whose American bulldog mauled to death a three-year-old boy has been spared jail.

Dexter Neal died in hospital after being bitten by Jade Dunne's dog Ruby at her home in Halstead, Essex, on the afternoon of August 18 last year.

Dunne, 29, pleaded guilty to being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control, resulting in death, at an earlier hearing.

She was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday.

Jade Dunne.

She was also disqualified from owning a dog for 10 years and ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.

Judge Karim Khalil said: "Nothing I do or say hereafter can diminish the pain that must be felt by the Neal family for the loss of little Dexter aged just three years old."

Dunne, formerly of Parker Way, Halstead, and now of St Mary's Road, Kelvedon, appeared tearful throughout the hearing, which was attended by members of Dexter's wider family but not by his parents Pamela and Andrew.

The dog was seized by officers and destroyed after the attack, and the court made a formal order for destruction for the record.

Kate Davey, prosecuting, said Dexter's family lived around the corner from the defendant in adjoining Ronald Road, and their garden backed onto hers.

Dexter would often play with the Dunne children and would be picked up over the fence to save him walking round, but on this occasion he walked around and through the lean-to where the dog was kept, beside the Dunnes' home.

The Dunne children wanted the Neale children to go round and play, Ms Davey said.

The dog did not react when Dexter's sister and one of the Dunne children walked past, but went for Dexter who was following behind them.

"Very quickly as Dexter walked in he went to walk past the dog," said Ms Davey. "The dog pushed Dexter to the floor. The dog then bit Dexter's neck more than once and there were bites to the back of Dexter's head."

She said Dexter, who was scared of dogs, bled "copiously" and once he was knocked down he could not get back up.

"Dexter did absolutely nothing to provoke the dog," she said. "There's no question of teasing or anything else."

She said Dunne came through from the kitchen when she heard screams from the girls and hit the dog repeatedly with a tea towel, which had "no effect" on the animal.

A neighbour who heard a commotion managed to grab the dog's collar, haul it away and restrain it until emergency services arrived. He said the dog had "lost its ferocity" by this point.

Dexter's sister alerted their mother Pamela, who went straight round, cuddled him, said "mummy's here" and attempted CPR.

He was airlifted to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge where he died with his mother beside him.

A post-mortem examination found he suffered cardiac arrest after blood loss caused by dog bites.

Ms Davey said Dexter was a "well-loved little toddler" with a "sunny nature" who "loved his cuddles".

Ms Davey said American bulldogs are a "controversial" breed but are not banned.

Ruby was a rescue dog who was rarely walked, had shown no aggression towards humans in the Dunnes' home before but "sometimes didn't like other dogs" and had to be muzzled when walked.

The Neal children had seen the dog before but had no real contact with it as it was usually kept indoors while children were playing in the garden.

Ms Davey said Ruby may have exhibited "prey behaviour", when a dog is not trained out of its wild instincts to attack, but suggestions the dog "barked or growled" before it attacked were inconsistent with this.

"Dexter could have been in too close proximity," she said. "Of course at the age of three Dexter could not read the negative signs and had no chance to get out of the way."

She said Dunne could not reasonably have foreseen the attack. The dog was destroyed as it exhibited "unpredictable behaviour" while in the custody of dog experts.

Steven Levy, mitigating for Dunne, said: "She's very sorry that having a family dog has brought about the sad loss of Dexter."

He said Dunne apologised, through him, to Dexter's family.

She is a single mother of three who was of previous good character, and she was remorseful, he added.

Ms Davey said the Neal family had installed a tall fence at the foot of their garden after the tragedy, and Dunne had moved away from the area.
Are the critics right to say the Greens shouldn't entertain doing a deal with the government? No, I don't think they are. Are there flaws in the latest Gonski that could jeopardise the principle of needs-based funding it purportedly advances? Yes, there are.

By Saturday, Hanson-Young had issued a clarifying statement . The Greens had not yet made a decision on Gonski 2.0, they reiterated their call for a Senate inquiry , and they would reserve their decision until after they considered the evidence presented to the inquiry.

Shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek declared that "teachers and parents will never forgive the Greens for selling out public school kids". The I Give a Gonski campaign was no less critical : "We never thought we would see the day this would happen." The Greens' position was "unbelievable" ACTU secretary Sally McManus declared. Even Hanson-Young's Greens colleague, Lee Rhiannon, joined in, enthusiastically retweeting criticisms directed at her own party.

When Sarah Hanson-Young confirmed last week that the Greens were willing to negotiate with the federal government to pass a new school-funding package, the reaction was rapid and stinging.

Greens education spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The first problem is that the journey towards needs-based funding set out by Malcolm Turnbull and Education Minister Simon Birmingham is excruciatingly slow. As the Australian Education Union's Victorian president, Meredith Peace, pointed out: "a student in year 4 today will have left school by the time this funding is delivered". Instead of the nearly $4 billion of extra funding that was originally scheduled to arrive in years five and six of the Gonski agreements (2018 and 2019), the Turnbull government has committed to $2 billion over four years. Most of the funding growth is delayed until beyond the forward estimates.

The government's obvious response is that funding will grow: in real terms, and faster than it promised at the last election. That's true. But it's also true that the government has signed up to be judged by a different standard. In accepting the Gonski review's fundamental findings, it accepted that funding should be provided according to student need  and, on that criteria, many young Australians don't receive appropriate educational resourcing. The onus on a government that accepts this reality is to act with all speed to change it.

We've been here before. The year 4 student of today wasn't even in preschool when David Gonski presented his report to the Gillard government in November 2011. We've now reached the point when the big bucks were supposed to arrive, and they've been deferred again. If recent events have confirmed that a week is a long time in the politics of school funding, circumspection about 10-year timelines is in order. Things change, including governments.

What the Greens' critics don't seem to have noticed, though, is that the minor party has clearly recognised the imperative of locking in needs-based funding increases as quickly as possible. In the same comments in which she indicated a willingness to negotiate with the government, Hanson-Young signalled that getting more money, sooner, to disadvantaged students would be a priority.
Some of Melbourne's most prestigious private schools - which charge fees of up to $30,000 a year - will see their funding soar by up to $34 million over the next decade under the Turnbull government's school funding changes, while other wealthy schools will have their funding slashed.

The Catholic school sector argues the funding increases for high-fee schools show the federal government's school funding formula is faulty and disadvantages their schools, which tend to charge relatively low fees.

While much attention has focused on the 350 private schools that will have their funding slowed over the next decade, some high-fee independent schools will receive significant funding increases because they are currently underfunded according to the Gonski formula.

For example funding for Caulfield Grammar School, which charges fees of $29,355 for senior students, will grow by $34.8 million in total over the next decade.
My father updated his will just before his death. I have absolutely no idea what he was trying to document.

I should have asked him years ago. But once he got sick, it was too late.

Sudden poor eyesight was diagnosed as an aggressive brain tumour requiring surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and handfuls of medication. It bought us six months with him.

Doctors warned Dad to get his affairs in order. I thought he'd already done that. But there he was, re-writing his will in the final two or three months of his life. He talked about his wishes and told me he'd made notes, but none of it ever saw the light of day.
Thousands of devices that monitor the vital signs of patients in Australian hospitals may be at risk of failing to sound the alarm when lifesaving care is needed, authorities have warned.

Australia's medical devices watchdog, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has suspended the sale of Philips IntelliVue MX40 wearable patient monitors, after escalating reports of speaker failure.

The TGA has suspended the sale of Philips' IntelliVue MX40 Wearable patient monitor. Credit:Philips Australia website

A TGA investigation revealed it was "possible the device would not sound an alarm in critical situations," and although the likelihood of this was low it was considered to be "unacceptable under the circumstances," a TGA spokeswoman said.

The device monitors, records and generates alarms for the patient's heart rate, oxygen saturation and other physiological parameters.
The search has resumed on Wednesday morning for a light plane missing near Murwillumbah in north-eastern NSW, after a resident in the area reported seeing an aircraft simply "drop out of the sky".

The single-engine plane took off from Murwillumbah Airport about 10am on Tuesday with only the pilot, a 72-year-old man, on board.

About 15 minutes later, a witness reported seeing a plane in difficulty near Limpinwood, about 25 kilometres west of the airport.

"Did anyone see a plane fall out of the sky about 1 hour ago around Limpinwood?," the man posted online.
A Sydney woman has been charged with child neglect after a toddler in her care was found to have consumed illicit drugs.

Police allege that when the woman took the two-year-old boy to Nepean Hospital on December 8 last year, she told hospital staff that the child had consumed paint thinner at their home on Chesterfield Road in South Penrith.

The boy's condition deteriorated and he was flown to the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, where he received specialised treatment and underwent testing.

A NSW Police spokeswoman said forensic analysis and pathology tests revealed the child had consumed illicit drugs, rather than paint thinner.

Detectives from the State Crime Command's Child Abuse Squad launched an investigation into the incident and executed a search warrant at the Chesterfield Road home, where a number of items were seized for forensic examination.
The corporate watchdog quietly dropped a case against 10 senior Queensland racing officials referred for investigation by a commission of inquiry in 2014.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found insufficient evidence to proceed against Bill Ludwig, the Labor powerbroker and a former board member of Racing Queensland, nor other board members and executives including chairman Bob Bentley.

Labor powerbroker Bill Ludwig was a board member of Racing Queensland. Credit:Glenn Hunt

The Newman LNP state government's three-month inquiry into the racing industry was chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Margaret White, who was in July appointed joint head of the probe into youth detention in the Northern Territory.

Justice White found a raft of suspected breaches of the Corporations Act by Mr Ludwig, Mr Bentley and others.
Warning: distressing content.

A coroner has been urged to this week find the death of a Brisbane chef who took his own life after killing and cooking his Indonesian partner was unavoidable.

Coroner Terry Ryan is due on Friday to hand down his findings in the 2014 murder-suicide at the couple's inner-city flat.

During closing submissions of a two-day inquest on Tuesday, counsel assisting the coroner, Emily Cooper, said the evidence was clear that Marcus Volke killed transgender escort Mayang Prasetyo before taking his own life in an industrial bin while evading police.
A motorcyclist has died and seven others have been injured after an eight-vehicle crash in Logan.

Five cars, two trucks and a motorbike crashed on the Mount Lindesay Highway at Woodhill just after 8am.

The Mount Lindesay Highway remained closed into the afternoon, following a fatal eight-vehicle crash at Woodhill just after 8am. Credit:Jocelyn Garcia - Jimboomba Times

Police said the 43-year-old male motorbike rider from Ascot died and the highway remained closed for about nine hours after the original incident.

Emergency services freed a 16-year-old boy and a woman in her 40s just after 9am from the wreckage. The pair, who were suffering from chest injuries, were taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in stable conditions with non-life threatening injuries.
Queensland workers' union United Voice is facing legal action after protests against the cuts to penalty rates for hospitality employees.

Clubs Australia, which represents licensed clubs across the country, claim staff and guests were harassed during the demonstrations and that United Voice lied to club employees.

Protesters from Burleigh Heads Rugby League Football Club fighting against penalty rate cuts in March.

In a legal letter from the industry body to the union, Clubs Australia claims the protests in November last year and March this year resulted in three legal breaches.

Under the 1992 Liquor Act, it is against the law for someone to create a disturbance on a licensed premises, with the industry body alleging protesters at Wynnum Manly Leagues Club this year refused to leave the licensed premises and continued their demonstration.
A public health warning has been issued after a plumber was found to be using a non-compliant lead solder when installing hot water systems in south-east Queensland.

Queensland Building and Construction Commission commissioner Brett Bassett said the work of plumber Brett George Hogan posed "a potential threat to public health".

Credit:Phil Carrick

Up to 800 properties in the south-east could be affected and Mr Bassett said the QBCC was working to contact all residents and property owners who may be affected.

"Yesterday I instructed my officers to contact each of the residents or owners of the 796 properties involved," he said.
Police are hunting as many as four masked intruders who shot a man and clubbed three other people with baseball bats during an early morning home invasion in Melbourne's west.

Armed crime squad detectives are yet to establish whether the intruders knew those inside the house, and would not comment about whether anything had been taken during the raid.

Police and paramedics were called to the home on Conway Street, Tarneit, at 4.15am on Tuesday after the attack.

A 31-year-old man who lived in the house was treated for an upper body gunshot wound and was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Breathe a sigh of relief, those horses on board the horse float near Glenrowan on the Hume Freeway were unloaded and are safe. They have escaped injury, Ebony Bowden reports.

And that's another commute in for Melbourne Express. Thanks to Andre for the chat about the Merinda Park and Cranbourne commute, and to Tim Houston for his lovely photograph of a garden in East Camberwell.

Expect big crowds today for Lou Richard's funeral at St Paul's Cathedral, beamed live to Federation Square. We will be back on deck tomorrow.


A man has been charged with manslaughter over a fatal assault in Melbourne's CBD earlier this month.

A 22-year-old Werribee man died in hospital last Friday, six days after he was was allegedly punched and fell to the ground on Russell Street.

The alleged assault occurred near the corner of Flinders Lane on May 6, about 11.45pm, police said.

A 26-year-old Ocean Grove man has been charged with manslaughter, intentionally cause serious injury and recklessly cause serious injury.

He was due to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday afternoon.
When Steve* and his wife purchased their new home tucked away in Melbourne's northern suburbs it felt like they were finally living the great Australian dream.

But weeks later, the Reservoir couple were fleeced of $3500 while they slept after falling victim to a highly sophisticated SMS phishing scam.

A phishing scam has seen victims lose thousands of dollars.

Now they are struggling to make their mortgage repayments.

The scam is reeling in victims by directing them to fake websites which look identical to those of real Australian banks, and then capturing their private banking log-in details.
The McGowan government is planning to crackdown on methamphetamine traffickers threatening to jail drug runners for life.

Prior to the March election, Labor promised a radical plan to tackle the meth epidemic in WA, promising to lift the maximum sentence for anyone caught with more than 28 grams from 25 years to life.

Methamphetamine traffickers will get life in prison under a new bill introduced by Labor. Credit:Kimberley District- WA Police

The WA government stuck to its word, introducing the Misuse of Drugs Amendment (Methamphetamine Offences) Bill 2017 on Tuesday, which will see the maximum sentence for meth trafficking increased from 25 years to life imprisonment.

The bill will also see the maximum fine for meth traffickers lifted from the current maximum of $10,000 to an unlimited penalty.
Ms Bool before she was bitten by a tick, and Ms Bool now "It started with my leg getting a bit sore. Then I thought it was gastrothen I lost control of my bladder." Ms Bool was hospitalised three times during her holiday, then transferred to Geraldton, then Armadale. She was eventually sent home with an "unknown virus". She said no one looked at her tick-bite or rash. Fast forward three years and Ms Bool is almost permanently hospitalised with symptoms including seizures that shake her whole body and blind her with pain, sometimes leading to temporary paralysis.

Last year one particularly severe seizure left her unable to swallow and without the use of her right hand. But referring to her condition as Lyme disease or 'lyme-like' comes with controversy. Lyme disease is caused by bacteria called borrelia burgdorferi, which is carried by some ticks. When bitten by these ticks, the infection is carried into the bloodstream. Believed to have originated in Lyme, Connecticut, it can attack multiple organs and mimic other illnesses, making it hard to diagnose. Ms Bool suffers sever seizures that sometimes result in face paralysis

At first, a red bullseye rash may appear around the bite, and symptoms may simply be flu-like, with aching muscles, headache, fever and fatigue. If left untreated, symptoms may include seizures, facial paralysis, twitching of muscles, hair loss, Alzheimers-like symptoms and acute headaches, among others. The Australian government acknowledges the disease's existence in North America and Europe, but despite increasing talk of a Lyme-like illness in Australia, the WA Health Department says the species of ticks carrying borrelia burgdorferi has not been identified anywhere in Australia. Perth-based doctor Hugh Derham diagnosed Ms Bool with Lyme disease after sending her blood tests to Australian Biologics, and Infectolab - Germany's premier Lyme disease testing centre. Ms Bool said both tests came back positive for Lyme disease, even though she had never had a tick bite outside Australia.

"All the co-infections showed up at a lab in Geelong too. They are allowed to treat those co-infections here, but they won't," she said. "They're not treating me for anything related to Lyme at all." Lyme disease continues to court controversy in Australia. Infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist Miles Beaman said 30 years of research showed no evidence of Lyme bacteria in patients who had not left the country. "Those who claim to [have tested positive] used unlicensed laboratories which are not legally endorsed to test patients," he said.

Dr Beaman said Australian Biologics was unlicensed, and Infectolab didn't operate to the standards required in Australia. He said common medical wisdom was that as Lyme disease could only be obtained outside the country, patients who had not gone overseas should not be tested for Lyme. Instead, he said they should be tested for rheumatological disease or fatigue syndromes and other infectious agents known to be transmitted by tick bites in Australia. "In the meantime, symptomatic treatment, including psychological support, should be offered," he said. But 'symptomatic treatment and psychological support' appear to be failing Ms Bool and others in her position.

Ms Bool has now been listed as a mental health patient and is watched constantly in her hospital room. "You aren't allowed to go to the toilet by yourself; you've got to have a nurse standing there in the doorwaythey don't trust me, it's humiliating," she said. "I don't feel like I'm in good hands here." Ms Bool's bull's eye rash around the tick-bite Doctors are not the only ones divided on the presence of Lyme disease in Australia - the controversy has torn Ms Bool's family apart.

Last September her husband left her, saying he didn't believe she was sick; but her nasal tube, catheter bag and huge worried eyes show that irrespective of her diagnosis, or lack there of, her journey has been a long and exhausting one. Three months after the initial tick-bite, feeling abandoned by doctors, Ms Bool tried to take her own life. In April 2015 she was put into an Armadale mental health facility, and given 12 electric shock treatments. "The antidepressants weren't working," she said. "They're not seeing me for the illness I have."

She said once at [another] hospital they left her three days with no nasal feeds, but refused to discharge her. Eventually she self-discharged and went to her current hospital, very ill. "For about a week or two when I was first here, they took my nasal tube out and they just kept leaving my meds on the bench for me to take," she said. "They thought if I was faking, I'd take my meds. I can't swallow. I can't eat anything, "I can't drink anything, and still they don't believe me." Ms Bool says she often wakes with strange bruises and sores

While the argument on the presence of Lyme disease in Australia continues, people continue falling sick with Lyme-like symptoms and making allegations of callous treatment by medical professionals. The disease has now become so taboo that people who acknowledge they were bitten overseas still cannot be diagnosed or treated for it in Australia. Susan, 72, who preferred her surname not to be published, was bitten by a tick in Nepal in 2005 and diagnosed with Lyme disease by the same German lab as Ms Bool. Susan was also turned away by Australian doctors, despite having been bitten in areas commonly accepted to contain ticks that carry the borrelia burgorferi bacteria. She was treated with antibiotics and eventually turned to alternative medicine after seeing no improvement for two years.

"The first doctor I ever went to here in Perth, and mentioned Lyme disease to, told me it was all in my head and referred me to a psychiatrist," she said. "I spent six months visiting the psychiatrist and he also told me it was all in my head." Many Australians with Lyme-like symptoms, therefore, end up seeking treatment overseas. Susan plans to go to Cyprus for treatment in August, but to do so needs to save thousands of dollars. Another Perth woman, Sharon Badger, has recently completed treatment in Cyprus herself.

Ms Badger had experienced random bouts of illness for 35 years, and was bitten by ticks as a child and in her twenties in WA. She has travelled overseas, but does not remember being bitten by ticks outside the country. Ms Badger said blood tests showed she had the co-infections of Lyme disease, and borrelia bacteria were present but again doctors turned her away. She chose to undertake five weeks of treatment at Hyperbaric Therapy Treatment Centre in Cyprus.. Systematic whole body hyperthermia treatment involves overheating the body to temperatures of over 42 degrees to kill borrelia bacteria that caused Lyme disease.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves patients spending regular 30-minute periods in an oxygen chamber regulated to the equivalence of diving 14 metres. They breathe 100 per cent oxygen, which is said to accelerate healing processes and is effective with many degenerative diseases. She was one of four Australians seeking the treatment at the centre at the time. She said before treatment she was unable to walk even a kilometre and spent most of her day sleeping, but within one week of her treatment finishing, claims she was able to walk nine kilometres. As the debate between clinicians rages on about its existence, a 2015 Senate inquiry found growing evidence of tick-borne disease that causes Lyme-like illness for many Australian patients - informed by submissions including one from Ms Bool's current GP. That GP said he knew of several doctors ridiculed and targeted for investigation for their willingness to treat people for a spectrum of "Lyme-like" illnesses.

The inquiry included a recommendation that the Australian government increase funding for research into tick-borne pathogens as a matter of urgency. It also recommended a clinical trial of treatment guidelines be established, with the aim of determining safe treatment protocol for patients with tick-borne disease. As research into the strange Lyme-like disease continues, scientists at Murdoch University said borrelia DNA had been discovered in ticks attached to echidnas, but their analysis revealed it was a new type of borrelia that was not part of the group that causes Lyme disease. Professor Peter Irwin of the university's Vector and Waterborne Pathogen Research Group said it was likely they were suffering a similar illness, from a different bacterium. "The problem is we don't know what bacteria yet," he said.

Despite evidence that such patients respond well to Lyme treatments, the taboo remains. President of the Lyme Disease Association of Australia Sharon Whiteman said no one had taken leadership. "The government focuses on 25-year-old research on ticks, and no research has been done on current patients," she said. "There were 1200 submissions to the senate inquiry, and the majority were patients. "Doctors have changed to evidence based medicine  that doesn't work with an emerging disease because there is no evidence. The patient is the evidence."

The Association claims there are 22,000 new cases of Lyme disease in Australia each year. A spokesperson for Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said while medical authorities had yet to conclude that Lyme disease existed in Australia, he believed families deserved a full medical review and analysis. But this may come too late for Rebecca Bool. Sitting in the sun in her wheelchair, watching traffic go by, Ms Bool said she wanted to ask the government and the Australian medical system to properly look into Lyme-like illness. "Stop mocking us, stop putting us down. How are you going to explain to our families why we're not here anymore?" she said.
Washington: US President Donald Trump asked the FBI director, James Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

"I hope you can let this go," the president told Mr Comey, according to the memo.

The existence of Mr Trump's request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and FBI investigation into links between Mr Trump's associates and Russia.

Mr Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo.
US President Donald Trump with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in the White House in May. Credit:Russian Foreign Ministry The CIA declined to comment and the National Security Agency did not respond to requests for comment. But other officials expressed concern with Trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into IS, they said, could hinder the US' and its allies' ability to detect future threats. US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the White House in Washington. Credit:Russian Foreign Ministry "It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior US official close to current administration officials. "Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange. Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the US only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how IS was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in IS territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat. The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardise important intelligence capabilities. "Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling," said a former senior US counter-terrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the US ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said that the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia's presence in Syria. Moscow and would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.

Russia and the United States both regard IS as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "Russia could identify our sources or techniques," the senior US official said. A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out." At a more fundamental level, the information wasn't the US' to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments - and even individual agencies - are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets. The officials declined to identify the ally, but said it is one that has previously voiced frustration with Washington's inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria. "If that partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first that is a blow to that relationship," the US official said.

Trump also described measures that the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said. The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travellers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries. Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. "Can you believe the world we live in today?" he said, according to one official. "Isn't it crazy." A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No US news organisation was allowed to attend any part of the meeting. Senior White House officials appeared to recognise quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout.

Thomas Bossert, assistant to the President for homeland security and counter-terrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner. One of Bossert's subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked. Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners. US officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those. "He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it - and that has big downsides," the second former official said. "Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."

Lavrov's reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism. Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and misleading statements about them. US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI's Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing. "I'm sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details" he gleaned from Trump, said the former US official who handled intelligence on Russia. The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.
Latest News AFG appoints three new managers Aggregator's move to boost broker recruitment, support

Tech partnership offers end-to-end lending solution Product designed to help lenders keep costs down

Modelling on the economic impacts of the bank levy, including on households and businesses

Technical analysis laying the foundations for the design of the tax, including how it would cover the banks

Assumptions of total revenue projections collected from the bank levy over the forward estimates

The Australian Bankers Assocation (ABA) has asked for further information about the Budgets bank levy proposed last week.In a letter sent to Treasurer Scott Morrison on Friday (12 May), ABA chief executive Anna Bligh said additional details were required if the banks were to comment on the draft legislation.The ABA has requested the following data from the Treasury by 5pm today (16 May):It was not acceptable to keep the banks and the community in the dark about a project which would have a major impact on the economy, Bligh said.Senior executives of the major banks in good faith attended what they expected to be a comprehensive briefing from Treasury yesterday, only to find to their dismay that Treasury was also in the dark.She continued, saying that basic questions about how the tax was calculated and how the figure of $6.2bn were reached had yet to be answered.Yet the Treasurer Mr Morrison continues to maintain that this tax will be ready for implementation by July 1, which is only around six weeks away, Bligh said.The Government seems to be putting intolerable pressure on its Treasury officials to meet a ridiculous political timetable.The banks were concerned about any major unintended consequences of the new tax and urgently required additional information to properly assess its impacts, she said.This process is already breaking all the rules and conventions about major taxation implementation, including no prior consultation, no exposure draft legislation for public comment, and an extraordinarily brief timetable before a hastily designed tax is presented to the Parliament.A written response will be provided to the ABA, a Treasury spokesperson told Australian Broker.
Latest News AFG appoints three new managers Aggregator's move to boost broker recruitment, support

Tech partnership offers end-to-end lending solution Product designed to help lenders keep costs down

A peak industry body has launched a new campaign urging consumers to change over from banks who inflate their fees and mortgage rates as a result of the incoming bank levy.The Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) said that consumers should vote with their feet if the larger lenders hike rates and charges.The new bank levy comes into force on July 1 and if the big banks pass that on, we are urging Australians who find themselves paying more fees or higher rates to make the switch, said Melina Morrison, CEO of the BCCM.With a 20 basis point rise already on the table, this will put further strain on working Australians, she added.It is cheeky for the banks to cry poor. Switching banks is the best way for consumers to make it clear that they are not walking ATMs for the big banks.Many of the smaller, customer-owned banks provided better value to everyday Australians, Morrison said, as they are bound to do the right thing by their owners.To encourage this switch, the BCCM has launched a new website and social media campaign, #switchdontbitch.We are urging consumers to switch rather than bitch. And were saying that July 1, the beginning of the new financial year is a great line in the sand date to make the switch, Morrison said.If you make the switch to a better value bank, were asking you share that on social media with the hashtag #switchdontbitch. Your actions will show others that there might be a better deal out there for them as well.We invite everyone to visit our website www.switchitup.com.au where they will find more information on switching.
Latest News AFG appoints three new managers Aggregator's move to boost broker recruitment, support

Tech partnership offers end-to-end lending solution Product designed to help lenders keep costs down

A new platform is soon to be launched that uses technology instead of a mortgage broker to help consumers find the right home loan.The fintech, Hero BroKer, aims to give back to the consumer by giving them access to the complete home loan application process.By providing the right tools and technology to the borrower, we let them control their finances so theyre not reliant on a broker. They effectively become their own broker, Clint Howen, founder of Hero BroKer told Australian Broker.The Hero BroKer model is similar to other tech players such as Airbnb, Howen said.Airbnb looked at a sea of houses. They built a platform that enabled everyone who had a house to be the hotel, instead of trying to be the hotel themselves. Theyre the biggest hotel in the world and they dont own a single property.Hero BroKer takes the borrower through a number of steps before they obtain a loan, ensuring that each loan is put through in the right manner. Onsite videos are also provided, giving the borrower a full breakdown of various topics.For instance, if they want information on a feature like an offset account, a little information icon goes to a video which explains what an offset account is, why would you use it, etc.The more details the platform receives from the borrower, the more honed the final home loan list will be, Howen said.They go through those steps and only get shown the loans that match their criteria. Instead of having hundreds of loans like on a comparison site, youll only see four or five.The idea was born after Bowen had a poor experience with a mortgage broker and felt there was a gap in the industry which needed to be filled.Instead of being a mortgage broker or a broking business, we want to be the largest financial broking platform in the world while not hiring a single broker. We want to let the consumer broker their own loans.Those using Hero BroKer will be paid a certain percentage in gift cards with the firm also taking a small amount. There is no trail or upfront paid in this case, thanks to a new agreement negotiated with the banks.Weve gone out and talked directly to the banks while building our software in the backend, Howen said. So weve got completely different agreements to what a broker would have with how we get paid.Nevertheless, this still provides an incentive for those who want to apply online with rewards ramping up the more the consumer does through the platform.That reward is not going to be a cash injection. Its something they can spend at over 60 different retailers in Australia at all the major brands. Yes, its money but its not going to be a hard cash injection into the bank account.The exact percentage around Hero BroKers customer incentives is still being discussed ahead of the product launch, Howen said. Confirmation of the date of the second launch is also in the pipeline, he added.The company previously faced backlash from the broking community at its initial launch last year. Although initially signing up with AFG , all four major aggregators eventually refused to sign deals with the fintech firm.There were discussions made. I sat with a managing director of an aggregator who told me to my face, We met up with other aggregators to discuss Hero BroKer and agreed this wasnt something we wanted to get involved with. That raises a lot of questions around why that decision was made.While the banks themselves are open to new fintech disruptors, Howen acknowledges that they are worried about upsetting the large mortgage broking groups who may be threatened by these sorts of tech firms.Although the banks are open to new ideas, its a risk to do something that will piss off the mortgage broking industry, he said. Thats understandable because it is a risk.
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Theyre making history in Brighton Beach  and theyre proud!

Marchers in the countrys first-ever Russian-speaking pride march  Brighton Beach Pride  will be making their way through Little Odessa on May 20 to show the enclave of conservative Russians that theyre here and theyre queer.

The seaside neighborhood is home to large groups of Russian-speaking immigrants who fled their communist countries in the 1980s and 90s around the fall of the Soviet Union, and many still hold onto the motherlands homophobic views. But marchers want to change that, said one of the organizers from RUSA LGBT, a U.S.-based network of Russian-speaking LGBTQ immigrants and their allies.

Some people, who live in Brighton Beach, have not adopted all American values, including tolerance towards the LGBTIQ community. Our members, who settle down there experience a lot of issues with homophobia and transphobia  LGBTIQ people experience slurs, and discrimination, said Lyosha Gorshkov, who identifies as queer and immigrated from Russia to Midwood in 2014. Thats why we have to stand up for ourselves and raise our voice.

Many in the Brighton Beach community  which voted overwhelmingly for President Trump, and where residents of Trump Village applauded that their home bears his name  still hold on to some of the conservative values from back home, said Gorshkov.

They came from a different background and different historical period of time, he said.

But many LGBTQ millennials from the former Soviet Union are still immigrating to Brighton Beach today because of the comfort of living in a neighborhood that speaks their language  and they deserve to feel safe and welcome in their local grocery store too, said Gorshkov.

We are marching on Saturday because we want Brighton Beach to be tolerant and more accepting place for all people, he said.

But the discrimination unfortunately doesnt end with the older population, said Gorshkov, because some of the younger immigrants who have settled down in the neighborhood brought with them the intolerance they grew up with back home.

Its not only about the old generation  the people who are coming recently, not LGBTQ, but coming from former Soviet countries and the very young generation who inherited homophobic intentions from the countries of their origin now, he said. But we live in New York, and we want Brighton Beach to be a part of New York.

And the neighborhoods residual prejudice feels especially unjust, said Gorshkov, because many of those living there today are Russian Jews who fled from persecution themselves.

Many people, who came here in 1970s and 80s, were predominantly Jewish people, who fled from the Soviet Union escaping from persecution, he said. But some of them exhibit intolerance to gay people, black people, Muslim people and others. With our march we try to break through the wall of intolerance towards LGBTIQ people.

And the horrifying news thats coming out of Chechnya about its government torturing and detaining gay people makes this march even more imperative, said Gorshkov.

Its a pretty tough topic right now, he said. We are trying just to acknowledge this issue being here in the United States, because we do have people from Chechnya who come here and we want to support them as well.

But Gorshkov hopes the first march of its kind will make his neighbors more accepting and open-minded so they can all live there harmoniously together, he said.

I hope it will be a sunny day with a lot of happy faces, a lot of enjoyments, a lot of encouragements, said Gorshkov. We are not invisible  we are here, we are queer  we live in the same neighborhood, go to same stores, go to same medical facilities and you have to respect our rights.

Brighton Beach Pride at the Riegelmann Boardwalk (3 Riegelmann Boardwalk near Ocean Parkway in Brighton Beach, rusal gbt.com ) May 20 at 11:30 am.

Reach reporter Julianne Cuba at (718) 2604577 or by e-mail at jcuba @cngl ocal.com . Follow her on Twitter @julcuba.
It's not over. Thousands of uncounted ballots remain in Bucks, Montco

Bucks County officials do not anticipate all ballots cast Tuesday will be counted - or not - until next week. Leaving House key races in limbo
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What Is Tarek el Moussas Ethnicity, Why Did He Divorce His Wife and Who Is He Dating? Tarek El Moussa has made himself one of the most recognizable men on reality television, especially to fans of HGTV. Thanks to his expertise in the world of real estate, Tarek has become a national star. But even to his hardcore followers, there are questions about Tarek El Moussa that remain unanswered, such as his ...

Fun Facts About Natalie Beckers Lonely Childhood and Eventual Career Success Natalie Becker is an actress of South African descent who became famous for her appearance in films like The World Unseen and The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A multitalented individual, Natalie is also a television/radio presenter. She is also a co-founder of the Thought Leader Global Media which she runs together with ...

Top 3 Female CNN News Anchors You Didnt Know Were Africans CNN is one of the leading news agencies in the world. The satellite and cable news network was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner and has been one of the best sources of news for a number of years. It also boasts of the best journalists and presenters all around in media broadcasting. The company is a ...

Channels That Aided Katie Pavlichs Growth as a Journalist and All About Her Marriage To Friedson If you have ever come across any Fast and Furious featuring Barack Obama, it is the handiwork of Katie Pavlich. The book which claims to have exposed Obamas bloodiest scandal and the shameless cover-up thereof, has been earning Pavlich much praise and fame ever since it was published in 2012. Nonetheless, Pavlich is more famed ...

Is Oprah Winfrey Married? Husband, Children, Biography, House, Facts Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire philanthropist, talk show icon, producer, actress, and writer. The media icon famously dubbed The Queen Of All Media owns and hosts the highest-rated television program in the media circle. Read more about the powerful television star below. Oprah Winfrey Biography Oprah was born as Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, to a ...

Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

Virginia Vallejo Biography And Her Love Story With Pablo Escobar Virginia Vallejo can be referred to as one of the oldest whistleblowers in history after her involvement with Pablo Escobar which made her famous. Over the years, many questions have been raised about her relationship with the drug lord and why she endangered her life to be with him despite his notorious acts. The death ...

Princess Love Bio  Ethnicity, Real Name & Parents For many people, Princess Love is simply Ray Js wife but there is so much more to this feisty lady than meets the eye. She is a star in her own right and has many feathers on her cap. Princess Love is a reality TV star, a model, video vixen, and fashion designer. She and her ...

Who is Papa Franku Also Known As Filthy Frank or Joji, Where is He Now? The social media as we all know today has given people the opportunity to be creative and innovative and at the same time, make something of themselves. YouTube is one of the known social platforms we have today that makes it possible for people to express their God-given talents and post videos they created to ...

Who Is Molly Qerim, How Did She Become a Famous Sports Anchor and Who Is Her Husband? Molly Qerim is an American sports anchor popularly known for moderating First Take, a highly rated sports talk show, on ESPN. Prior to joining ESPN, Qerim hosted Fantasy Live and NFL AM on NFL Network. It is quite obvious that the widely acclaimed television personality is in a class of her own when it comes ...

Safiya Nygaard  Height, Parents & Net Worth Safiya Nygaard is an American YouTuber, writer, content producer, and director who is popular for posting makeup, beauty and fashion videos on YouTube. Her videos regularly top at least one million views, thanks to her lively character as well as her willingness to experiment with outrageous outfits and different beauty products. Here are the things to ...

The Rigors of Sunlen Serfatys Career Journey Until CNN and Fun Facts About Her Personal Life CNN correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for covering a broad range of breaking news stories, national news, and Washington politics. She has been able to garner widespread recognition for herself which even goes beyond the sphere of her work. Her profile also increased with the extensive work she did in covering ...

Demystifying Jazz Jennings Real Name, Boyfriend & Family Of One The Youngest Transgenders Jazz Jennings is an unusual personality who became famous as a transgender activist and was recorded as the youngest documented public figure to be seen as transgender. She is also a YouTube personality and spokesmodel for brands, her fans, and other transgenders. She fought for acceptance in her high school with her super supportive family for over ...

Inside Fred Armisens Life  Ethnicity, Romantic Relationships and Gay Rumors Fred Armisen is an award-winning American comedian, he is also a writer, an actor as well as a musician. He was a cast member of the legendary comedy show, Saturday Night Live for 13 years and also one of the brains behind the successful satirical show Portlandia. Find out more about this incredibly talented guy ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Biography: Cases, Kids, and Family Life Have you ever woken up with fear you could not explain, or felt a strange presence that made the hair at your nape rise or even experienced strange occurrences around you? Well, these were some of the promptings that made the well-known paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren delve into trying to explain the ideas ...

Truth About Tony Romos Wife, Kids and Life Since His NFL Retirement Tony Romo grew from the field as a quarterback to the screens as an American Football Analyst. He was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the richest football league in the world (NFL) before retiring. As a junior, he was honored as an All-Ohio Conference Member, an Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and ...

Who is Brittany Venti, The Controversial Game Streamer and YouTuber? In recent times, many people live stream themselves playing video games. This has become a popular pastime on the internet and many highly skilled gamers have become internet celebrities through this means. However, some of them rather than becoming renowned for their gaming skills and great commentary, have become controversial and infamous. A good example ...

Rob Dyrdeks Family: His Kids And Relationship With Wife Bryiana Noelle Flores A multi-talented star and an elite pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdeks success story began at a remarkably young age. Yet another proof that schooling doesnt always correlate with success, Rob has established himself not just as a phenomenal sportsman but also as a successful entrepreneur. Besides perfecting his skill as a natural talent on the board, ...

xChocobars  Biography and Everything You Should Know About Her Having distinguished herself and recorded massive successes in an industry notably dominated by men, it is very safe to say that Xchocobars deserves all the attention and cash she makes from her career. A household name on Twitch (a smart live streaming video platform), the online-gamer is popularly known for streaming classic games such as Stardew ...

Everything To Know About Mary Padian, Her Boyfriend and Net Worth Mary Padian is a famous American television reality personality best known for her involvements on the Reality show Storage Wars. She also has her own shop called Mary finds where she displays her antique collections. Since her childhood, Padian has been a creative learner. At the time, she used to create new items out of reusable ones and ...

Betsy Woodruffs Family Life: Is She Married or Related To Bob Woodruff? An old name in the world of journalism, Betsy Woodruff has warmed her way into the hearts of many with her impressive talents. Through hard work, Woodruff has carved a niche for herself in a very competitive field. Betsy has strong family and work values and is also an advocate for equal opportunities for everyone ...

Matpat (Matthew Patrick)  Wife, Height & Net Worth As far as internet business is concerned, Matpat remains one of the most dynamic and seasoned figures. He boasts a wealth of experience that has helped him in growing his business from one level of greatness to another. Like most successful people, MatPat started out small but today, he makes millions of dollars from his ...

Facts About Ricegum  His Girlfriend, Real Name & Net Worth Ricegum is an online gamer and YouTube sensation who ditched college; took advantage of the digital era, and made a name for himself on the internet. Though he began as a gaming YouTuber, Ricegum soon gained recognition as a controversial internet star following his many diss tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the youngster ...

Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

The Gist On Elise Jordans Marriages And Her Rise To Prominence Political commentaries tend to be boring when it is handled by someone who does not have a knack for it. However, when you see the likes of Elise Jordan run the same commentary, you will have a lot of reasons to look forward to watching her again as the journalist is well-versed in the field ...

What Is Timmy Thick Best Known For and How Successful Is The Star? Thanks to the internet, many people whose talents would have ordinarily gone unnoticed have become famous. A very good example of this modern-day internet celebrity is Timmy Thick, an American social media star. He became popular on Instagram due to his penchant for posting raunchy pictures of himself. He also often posted videos of himself ...

What Does Heather Storm Do For a Living and Who Is She Dating? Reality Television is a great way to make a name for oneself as well as amass a fortune. Heather Storm can attest to this as she is one of those who have made a name and earned a lot from reality TV. She made her name appearing on shows like Car Fanatics, Awesome Autos, and, ...

Matt Carriker Biography  Net Worth, Wife & Height Unlike your regular veterinary doctor next door, Matt Carriker chose to spice up his noble profession with the unusual. Though he is known to many as a medical practitioner, Carriker is better renowned as a YouTube star and an animal lover. Having recorded huge successes on his various YouTube channels, the vet doctors name and ...

Jillian Mele of Fox News Career Achievements, Husband & Measurements There are quite a good number of presenters on radio and television who listeners and viewers may never wish to miss any of their shows because of their sensational golden voice, beauty or the special way or artistry they anchor their shows. Jillian Mele is one of such. She has been at the top of ...

Who is Gillian Turner of Fox News? Her Fiance or Husband and Net Worth Gillian Turner is well-known as a news correspondent for Fox News Channel but before she became a TV personality, she built an intimidating resume working for different institutions, including the American government. She served in different capacities at the White House National Security Council during the administration of former US Presidents  George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ...

Gloria Govan Bio  Age, Ethnicity & Height Even as Gloria Govan is famous as an American actress, author, a TV host, and reality television star, shes more popular as the wife of the former NBA player, Matt Barnes. She became known after appearing on the Florida version of the reality television series, Basketball Wives and later, Basketball Wives: LA  after Matt was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Sadly, ...

Michael Fishmans Interesting Start as an Actor and Why He Divorced His Wife of Many Years When one door closes, another one opens. As silly as that axiom may seem, it is the story of the resurgence of Michael Fishman, who plays D.J Conner on the popular show, Roseanne. Having played the character for several years as a child actor into his teenage years; when the show originally ended, Michael did ...

Who Is October Gonzalez  Tony Gonzalezs Wife? All You Need To Know October Gonzalez is a popular American TV host and media personality. Additionally, she is also a model. Gonzalez has hosted several TV shows such as Beat Shazam, Entertainment Tonight, and Rachel Ray. She has also featured in several reality TV shows. Gonzalezs fame is not just due to her profession but also because of her ...

Who Is Tony Berlin  Harris Faulkners Husband: His Children and Family Facts Tony Berlin is a popular American media guru. He has variously worked as a reporter, anchor, and producer for some of the biggest TV networks in America. They include CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC (where he hosted the popular Good Morning America). Berlin has now diversified into public relations and owns his own PR firm. ...

The Progression of Gianna Tobonis Journalism Career and Details About Her Marriage to Kyle Buckley Gianna Toboni may not be your ideal newscaster but her unusual reporting is what made her a household name. The American journalist is renowned for her hard-hitting and authentic reportage. A motivator and activist for total press freedom, Gianna loves to explore pervasive cultural issues. Not only does this unique and ambitious journalist call for all ...

Dog The Bounty Hunters Family Including Details of His Late Wife and Kids Popularly known as Dog, a name which he got from the television series, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman, an American bounty hunter, and one-time bail bondsman, went from being convicted for a felony to being a reality TV star. He was brought to the limelight following the capture of the convicted criminal, Andrew Luster in 2003 and this eventually made ...

Vicky Karayiannis, Chris Cornells Wifes Bio, Children and Family The world of showbiz is made up of different people who serve different roles, and function in a variety of capacities, and one of the most important people are those in the background. Publicists are undoubtedly one of these background people yet they are vital to the life and fame of most of our favorite ...

Joe Rogan Has A Step-Daughter and 2 Other Kids With Wife Jessica Ditzel  Meet His Family Joe Rogan is a popular American stand-up comedian and TV host. His journey to stardom began in the late 80s and has seen him host several shows, the most popular is the game show titled Fear Factor. The exciting show dares contestants to face some of their greatest fears and embark on challenging stunts. The ...

Josh Gates and Wife Hallie Gnatovich Have 2 Kids But Who Has the Higher Net Worth? Best known for his explorations and adventures, Josh Gates, is a television presenter with a voracious appetite for seeing the world and the beauties in it. Some of that beauty, however, is in his home, in the form of two children he shares with his wife, Hallie Gnatovich. Not excluded is their marriage which has lasted ...

Holly Sonders Wiki, Plastic Surgery & Why She Divorced Her Husband  Erik Kuselias After trying everything within her capacity to have a low key wedding, Holly Sonders was drawn to the public because of her husbands controversy at his workplace. Well, the two are rumored to be divorced but the article below will give more light on how true these rumors are. Meanwhile, Holly Sonders is yet to ...

Nadeska Alexis Bio  Age, Boyfriend & Net Worth Journalism is one diverse profession that allows the practitioners to choose their area of specialty, build a career on it by reporting the truth and facts which in the long run will distinguish them as deserving commendation and recognition among their peers. Some choose to specialize in political journalism, while to others it is sports ...

Media Platforms Charlamagne Tha God Has Explored and All The Controversies He Has Courted Charlamagne Tha God is an American on-air personality, radio presenter, and more recently, author. He is popularly known as a co-host on New York radios nationally syndicated show, The Breakfast Club, a program he has been hosting alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee since 2010. However, his early years had no connection to his current career ...

A Look At Jimmy Fallons Net Worth and Family Including His Wife & Kids Sometimes, a childs passion for something is a pointer to what he/she would become in the future. As a child, Jimmy Fallon was literally obsessed with watching the late-night comedy program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Then, his parents would tape the clean parts for him to watch and later, he and his sister would re-enact sketches from the ...

Kay Adams Biography  Does The Sportscaster Have A Husband or Boyfriend? When you hear the phrase sports enthusiast, women are hardly the first group that comes to mind. Well, thats changing pretty fast. Especially with the rise of female sports analysts and broadcasters like Kay Adams who is famed for knowing more about sports than most men do. And why not, shes paid handsomely for it ...

Ben Shapiros Family  Meet His Wife, Kids and Sister Who is Popular for the Wrong Reasons A multi-talented man, Ben Shapiro is a man of controversial nature, an attribute that has made him an unusual public figure. An intellectual whose career path was clearly defined even before he became a man, the Jewish conservative commentator has always had his way with words. He became popular by sharing his critical and often ...

QVC Shawn Killinger Bio  Husband, Net Worth & Facts To Know Shawn Killinger is a prominent TV personality who has worked her way to the top. Though not initially a journalist by training, she defied the odds and today has established herself as a household name, as well as, worked alongside some industry legends. More than just being a reporter, newscaster, and anchor, heres all you ...

Liv Lo  Dissecting the Ethnicity, Parents and Personal Life of Henry Goldings Wife While many are aware that Liv Lo is the better half to Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding, only a few understand why his beautiful wife appears increasingly endearing to fans. A former model turned TV personality, and fitness star, Liv has an impressive resume which when combined with that of her statuesque spouse is considered a perfect ...

Stpeach Age, Husband and Other Facts About The Twitch Streamer Lisa Vannatta, famously known by her online alias, STPeach is a Canadian video game streamer cum vlogger who has garnered fame through her appearances on different video-sharing/social networking platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter. The beautiful lady got her career to a start in August 2015 when she joined the live streaming video platform, Twitch. She rose to ...

Insights into Seth Meyers Wife, Family and What His Net Worth Is Celebrities are mostly remembered and known for the work they do. For Seth Meyers, his career as a comedian, writer, actor, TV host, and producer is his biggest identifier. He was on Saturday Night Live SNL show as a head writer and cast member for more than ten years during which he built a reputation ...

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Marty Lagina Bio  Siblings (Martina and Rick Lagina), Net Worth and Wife Marty Lagina is an American engineer and businessman who has risen to fame as a reality TV star. This is thanks to his involvement in the adventure TV series, The Curse of Oak Island. The Curse of Oak Island is a long-running TV series which airs on the history channel. The show aims to solve ...

Is Jordan Schlansky Just A Character or a Real Life Person and What Does He Do? The world of late-night television is an interesting one. Shows during that time are geared towards giving viewers comedic relief from a long day at work through interviews and comedy sketches. The often charismatic host of this show requires the balancing talent of a producer whose primary job is to deliver great episodes. It is ...

Heres How Wealthy Jimmy Kimmel Is From All The Phases of His Career, Marriages and Sons Health Jimmy Kimmel is a renowned late-night talk show host known for his charm, wit, and the A-list guests he features on his show. As the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! On ABC, Jimmy has been serving comedy to television viewers for years which played a pivotal role in launching him into mainstream fame and enabled ...

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What Happened to Shane Kilcher? His Injury Update, Net Worth and More Shane Kilcher is well-known thanks to the Discovery Channel series Alaska: The Last Frontier. It is a show that documents the daily lives of the extended Kilcher family, people who live without plumbing or modern heating. The episodes follow their routines as they rely on hunting and farming for their nutritional needs as well as ...

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5 Interesting Things You Need To Know About Kelly Nash Ever heard of the lady who gained national prominence for taking a selfie with a dangerous ball just a few inches away from hitting her? Its no other person than Kelly Nash, an American sports broadcaster currently working as host of The Rundown show which airs on MLB Network every weekday at 2 pm ET. ...

Understanding The Height of Fame John Oliver Achieved With The Daily Show and How He Met His Wife Without knowledge of who he is and his exemplary career, John Oliver cuts an unassuming figure of a regular man but he is one of the most influential personalities in America, especially on television. Since he began his career in 1998, he has been a loud and unapologetic agent of change, using his wit and ...

Why Did Big Chief Leave Street Outlaws, Where Is He Now And Why Did He Divorce His Wife? Justin Shearer, otherwise known by his professional name Big Chief is a famous street racer and television personality. He is famously known for being one of the main characters on the racing reality television series, Street Outlaws. Justin, who had been a significant part of the show since its premiere in 2013, appeared in a ...

Who is Josina Anderson of ESPN? Her Husband and Family Facts There has been a gradual paradigm shift in the world of sports which has today produced the likes of Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and other female athletes that are pulling great feats in different sporting fields. Their achievements have also been followed by the emergence of female sports journalists such as Jillian Mele, Eboni Williams, ...

Is Brittany Wagner Married, Who Is The Husband, How Old Is She? Brittany Wagner has been an inspiration to a lot of sports youngster. She has won the hearts of many athletic students with her role as a life coach and an academic counselor. She is well groomed in her career and has worked over a decade for The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and The National ...

Tati Westbrook Bio  Age, Husband & Net Worth With five videos dished out every week, alongside running her own brand, beauty guru, and YouTube superstar Tati Westbrook has proved to the world that theres utterly no impossibility or limit to whatever one is passionate about. Tati is best known for being the owner and manager of the worlds most-viewed beauty and lifestyle YouTube channel, ...

Cathy Areus Long Road to Becoming a Freelance Journalist and What to Know About Her Kids An American freelance journalist, news analyst, and author, Cathy Areu has built a lasting reputation for herself on cable television. Popular for her skillful and sassy presentation of professional views on varying topics including cultural and feminist issues, Cathy is an inspiration to many women across the globe. In addition to being a journalist, she ...

Tucker Carlsons Love Story With Wife Susan Andrews, their Children and Net Worth Today On the TV screens, Tucker Carlson is that fiery fellow who passionately dishes out his conservative and often controversial views on issues of national importance. Such brazenness has fetched him many enemies, especially on the left-wing, but it has also helped him cement a reputation as one of the foremost broadcast journalists in America. His ...

Paige Wyatts Net Worth, Boyfriend and Where She Is Now Paige Wyatt became popular after the Wyatt family began running the reality television show, American Guns. The Wyatt family comprises Rich Wyatt (father), Renee Wyatt (mother), Paige and Kurt Wyatt (children). Rich Wyatt originally ran a gun shop, the Gunsmoke Guns in Wheat Ridge, Colorado which is outside of Denver. The business which he ran together ...

The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ...

Lisa Joyners Biography  Ethnicity, Net Worth and Other Key Facts Lisa Joyner is an American Journalist, TV talk show host, and actress. Some of her well-known works are her correspondences for the Los Angeles based TV KCBS, inFANity show, Find My Family Show including her film and television appearances in Brimstone, American Sweetheart, The Bold and The Beautiful among others. Lisas passion for reconnecting people with their biological families ...

Amanda Balionis Rise Through the Ranks of Sportscasting and the Identity of Her Boyfriend Amanda Balionis is an American sportscaster currently working as a golf broadcaster for CBS Sports. Among so many of her works in the field of sports reporting, Amandas PGA Tour coverage seems to be the most popular so far. She covered the Super Bowl working with CBS Sports social media team in Atlanta, where she ...

Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ...

Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ...

What to Note About Dr Terry Dubrows Qualifications, TV Works and Marriage to Heather Kent In the realm of people that we expect to see regularly on our screens, medical doctors are closer to the bottom of the list. Aside from the fact that their work has little correlation with TV, they are presumably too busy to pursue life as TV personalities. Yet, a few of them have usurped this ...

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Is Simon Cowell Gay? Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend and Why is He Famous? Simon Cowell is a well-known talent show judge, TV producer, entrepreneur and one of the most popular TV personalities that Britain has ever produced. In conjunction with his company, Syco, Cowell is the brain behind hugely successful talent hunt shows such as The X-Factor UK, The X-Factor US, Britains Got Talent, Americas Got Talent and ...

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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...
New York state officials are sending additional resources to the village of Fair Haven as flooding and rising lake levels become more of a concern.

The state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services will deliver a new sandbagging machine, 10,000 more sandbags and a National Guard unit will be deployed to help fill the bags.

The sandbagging machine and additional sandbags will be delivered to Fair Haven Tuesday. The National Guard unit will arrive no later than Wednesday.

Fair Haven had a sandbagger until late last week when the state moved the machine to Jefferson County, which had a more immediate need. Before the sandbagger was relocated, the village built a stockpile of 10,000 sandbags.

With the machine gone and water levels rising over the weekend, the number of available sandbags quickly went from 10,000 to 2,000. Residents picked up the sandbags at the village hall for use on their own properties.

Kristin Devoe, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said the state purchased more sandbagging machines so that each of the eight counties along Lake Ontario will have one to response to flooding.

"At the direction of Governor Cuomo, New York state has launched a full scale response to the flooding along the Lake Ontario coast," Devoe said. "Right now, the primary focus must be on keeping residents safe and ensuring everyone has access to critical resources. Once the flooding subsides and our recovery operations begin, we will be able to assess the overall impacts to communities in the region."

The decision to purchase more sandbagging machines was made weeks ago when state officials recognized that the rising lake levels would pose long-term challenges. While Fair Haven is experiencing some flooding, the rising water has had a bigger impact on other communities along the lake, such as Sodus Point in Wayne County.

Fair Haven Mayor Jim Basile lauded the state for its support and being attentive to the village's needs. He said the sandbagging machine and the National Guard unit will help the village rebuild its stock of sandbags to respond to the flooding.

According to Basile's tally, water levels in the village have risen five or six inches over the last eight days. He estimated that the levels are now more than a foot above base flood elevation.

The flooding problems won't be resolved until the release of water from the Moses-Saunders Dam near Massena, which is used to regulate the lake and St. Lawrence River.

"There's no light at the end of the tunnel," Basile said.

As the weather improves, one of the village's concerns is the impact on local businesses. Basile said some of the marinas are being overwhelmed by the water and it's limiting operations.

For now, businesses are still open. A couple of streets are being monitored and could be closed if water levels continue to rise.

The village's boat launches and West Barrier Bar Park remain closed.

"The general village activity is like it would be any other day," Basile said. "Unfortunately, the bay is not the playground it normally is at this time of year."
Mercer County calls for investigation after voting machine problems

Mercer County's clerk called for an investigation into voting mishaps on Election Day. Prosecutors said they'll review the matter.
Continuing its capital expenditure plan, (IOCL) said it will invest around Rs 20,000 crore in 2017-18. The company is also looking for acquisitions and plans to expand overseas.
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Tata Steel has agreed to the key commercial terms of a deal to cut benefits and improve the funding position of its British pension scheme, it said on Tuesday.

The scheme was a major stumbling block during talks to merge Tata Steels British and European steel assets with those of Germany-based ThyssenKrupp. It was opposed to taking on Tatas 15 billion for the UKs pension liabilities. The deal, agreed with the schemes trustees, would see Tata plough 550 million into the final salary under the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS).

However, it is subject to formal approval by The Pensions Regulator, but Tata said it expected to get the approval shortly. Tata has also agreed to sponsor a new pension scheme, which would have lower benefits than those of the original scheme. It would also give the BSPS a 33 per cent equity stake in its UK business. With benefit cuts in place, the new scheme would pose less of a risk to the company, Tata said.

The BSPS is one of Britains largest final salary schemes with 130,000 members. The members who do not agree to move to the new scheme will automatically transfer to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). All the schemes members, including those in the new scheme, are guaranteed PPF compensation levels.
Fourteen satff members of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight were reportedly detained at the Heathrow Airport in London. Media reports say that Flight PK-785 that took off from Islamabad was searched for over two hours after it landed in London on Monday.
India and Pakistan on Monday clashed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the fate of alleged spy Kulbushan Jadhav with New Delhi invoking the court's jurisdiction to see that the death sentence against him was annulled immediately.

Pakistan rejected the plea on the ground that India had no right to invoke the jurisdiction of the UN's highest court because the Vienna Convention does not provide for matters relating to spies, terrorists and those who indulge in espionage.

However, Islamabad suffered a jolt when it was not allowed by the court to play the video containing a purported confession by Jadhav, a former navy official, who India says was abducted from Iran and taken to Balochistan.

At the end of the day's proceedings, ICJ President Ronny Abraham announced that the verdict in the matter would be given "as soon as possible" and the date delivered in a public sitting.

The Indian case was put up strongly by noted lawyer Harish Salve who demanded that Pakistan should annul Jadhav's death sentence and see that he was not executed as his trial was held under "farcical" circumstances in violation of the Vienna Convention.

"I urge the ICJ to ensure that Jadhav is not executed, Pakistan reports to this court that the action (of not executing him) is taken and that no action is taken that might prejudice the rights of India in the matter of Jadhav," Salve said in his over 90-minute presentation.

The ICJ had last week "stayed" the execution on a petition by India, which approached the UN court after 46 years on an issue with Pakistan.

Jadhav was awarded the death sentence by a Pakistani military court last month, a year after he was arrested on espionage charges. India says Jadhav has been kidnapped and framed. Islamabad has rejected 16 Indian requests for consular access to Jadhav, who is held at an unknown prison in Pakistan.

The brunt of Salve's argument was that the entire matter of arrest, chargesheet and trial of Jadhav were all done in violation of the UN Charter and Vienna Convention in farcical circumstances and on concocted charges as the Indian was not given legal assistance to defend himself.

Salve said the matter was "grave and urgent" as Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran on March 16, 2016, brought to Pakistan, presented as an alleged Indian spy and his alleged confession was extracted in custody before a magistrate. He was incommunicado and the trial was also held incommunicado.

The lawyer urged the ICJ President to take note of the farcical nature of the circumstances of the military court.

Salve said that the provisions of the Vienna Convention recognised that any prisoner has a right to be tried by an independent tribunal as established by law and he should be tried in his presence and defended by legal aid assigned to him. In Jadhav's case, all the basic provisions of human rights were "thrown to the wind", he said.

The facts presented by India establish the violation of all principles of the UN charter and Vienna Convention because of the nature of the trial which destroyed any credibility or sanctity of the army court's decision sentencing him to death, he said.

Salve cited three past similar cases in which the international court had intervened. These cases include Paraguay versus the US in which the court decided that the American government needed to take steps to give rights of access of a Paraguayan .

In Germany versus the US, Salve said, the court held that execution of a German was "an irreparable damage to justice". He also referred to a case between the US and Mexico, in which the lives of 54 Mexicans were at stake as they faced execution.

Pakistan mounted a strong defence of its case with Counsel Khawar Qureshi rejecting India's attempts to invoke ICJ's jurisdiction in the case, saying that the provisions of the Vienna Convention did not apply to spies, terrorists and those who indulge in espionage.

Rebutting India's case, he asserted that this forum is not a criminal court of appeal nor does it exercise criminal jurisdiction.

"India's plea for invoking provisions of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention is not relevant in this case. The Vienna Convention was adopted for better communication between friendly countries. But it cannot apply in this case of a spy set up by a state. It is clear from the Vienna Convention that the provision being sought under Article 36 by India cannot be entertained by this court," Qureshi said in his 45-minute reply to arguments put forth by Indian counsel Harish Salve earlier.

The lawyer claimed that India had on September 8, 1974, told the ICJ to exclude itself from its jurisdiction in disputes with Pakistan and from any interpretation and obligation of multi-lateral treaties.

He also noted that Pakistan had reservations over the jurisdiction of ICJ on matters it considered as impinging on its national security.

Qureshi also dismissed India's charge that Jadhav was kidnapped.

"No evidence was provided by India to back the charge that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran. We have a long border with India where millions of people reside. If we wanted, one of them could have been picked up. To say that we abducted Jadhav from Iran and brought him to Pakistan seems at best to be far fetched," Qureshi said.

He said that India had at no point made any comment on the Muslim name of Jadhav on the passport seized from him. "This requires explanation," he added.

Qureshi said that the issue of consular access to Jadhav was not considered as he was accused of spying and it was not considered to be applied on terrorists.

Overall, the relief India is seeking from this court is not available and the "provisional measures" sought by India cannot be initiated, Qureshi said.

He said that parallels drawn by Salve of the precedents of cases relating to involving the US and other countries, including Mexico and Germany, were not relevant and factually incorrect.

At the outset, Qureshi said that India was invoking the jurisdiction of the court for "political theatre" and described as "bizarre" the description of Jadhav's trial as a kangaroo court.

Dismissing India's contention that it invoked the jurisdiction of the court because of the "imminent" possibility of execution of Jadhav, Qureshi said the court was bound to settle disputes between countries peacefully and not waste time on issues sought to be raised for political purpose.

In this regard, he cited the possibility of clemency which was mentioned by Pakistan Foreign Advisor Sartaj Aziz.

Qureshi also said that India did not respond to communication from Pakistan in January this year seeking cooperation in the probe relating to Jadhav.
ONONDAGA  From health care to President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. John Katko addressed several topics  and a spirited audience  during a televised town hall meeting at Onondaga Community College Monday.

The town hall meeting, which aired on CNYCentral channels 3 and 5, kicked off with a question about Trump's proposed budget and three specific cuts he proposed to Meals on Wheels, the Environmental Protection Agenda and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Katko, R-Camillus, said none of the cuts materialized because it's Congress, not the president, that controls the budget process.

On Trump's executive order that prevents refugees from Syria and select Muslim majority nations from entering the U.S., Katko panned the way it was rolled out, even though he agreed with the goal, which was to ensure terrorists don't enter the U.S.

"I have no problem with refugees so long as they're properly vetted," he said.

Later in the town hall meeting, Katko was asked a poll question of sorts: Does he approve or disapprove of how Trump is doing as president. His answer: neither.

Katko said Trump has done some good things. He admires how the president is "running to issues instead of running away from them." But he does have some concerns. He mentioned the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia.

Aside from Trump, the GOP congressman was asked a mix of domestic and foreign policy questions. On North Korea, he said the rogue nation's recent missile test was "concerning."

"It's one of the most profound issues we face today," he said. "It is an existential threat to our existence."

The key to addressing the North Korean threat, Katko said, is China. He noted that China has been a protector of the North Korean regime in the past.

He has personal reasons for worrying about North Korea. His son, who graduated from SUNY Geneseo Saturday, will be sworn into the Army as a second lieutenant this weekend.

Health care loomed as major issue throughout the town hall meeting. Katko was one of 20 Republicans who voted against the GOP bill that would dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Katko reiterated his pledge that he would support repealing the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, as long as there was a viable replacement ready to be implemented.

When one audience member asked why he didn't support universal health care, Katko questioned its viability.

"I don't believe, in this country, that a single payer health plan will work," he said.

Katko faced criticism throughout the forum. With about 130 people in attendance, the audience shouted out follow-up questions and chastised the Republican congressman for his positions, especially on Trump.

Outside of OCC's Storer Auditorium, the site of Monday's town hall meeting, more than 100 people held a rally and urged Katko to meet with them. They called the gathering the "People's Town Hall."

Dana Balter, an activist and member of CNY Solidarity Coalition, a group that organized the rally, said the town hall meeting was a "one-hour infomercial" for Katko.

CNY Solidary Coalition has been urging Katko to hold a town hall meeting for months. But they wanted a less controlled environment. Monday's forum had rules and the audience was initially limited to 100 people. About 30 more people were added due to demand.

"That's really not fulfilling what the obligation of a town hall is," she said.

Inside the auditorium, one of the final questions of the town hall meeting was about the negativity in government and politics. Even though he was booed and heckled at times, Katko showed his appreciation to the crowd for coming and asking questions.

"People have passion, and I totally respect that," he said.

The town hall meeting was Katko's first general forum since being sworn in as central New York's congressional representative in 2015. He's held issue-specific discussions throughout his first two-plus years in Congress.

One of the moderators, CNYCentral's Michael Benny, asked Katko at the end of the event when he'll hold his next town hall meeting.

For now, he doesn't have another scheduled.
The dubbed CBI raids on premises related to Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, as political witch hunt by Modi government and said it won't be cowed down by such pressure tactics of the ruling BJP.



"Revenge has become the DNA of the BJP. Central agencies like CBI and ED have become a puppet in the hands of the centre," chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said responding to the CBI raids at 14 places in Chennai, Delhi, Gurugram and Mumbai.



The raids followed an FIR which mentions Karti as an accused in grant of foreign investment in 2007 to a company INX Media owned by former media baron Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani.



CBI claims Karti's firm received Rs 10 lakh as kickbacks from INX Media which obtained FIPB clearance for funds worth Rs 4.62 crore but got Rs 305 crore. Both Peter and Indrani had left INX Media in 2009.



The CBI further alleges that Karti received around Rs 3.5 crore through payments in companies like Chess Management Services (a company of Karti) and Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its Director Padma Vishwanathan. The FIR does not name Chidambaram, then finance minister, but alleges that he received certain favours in the deal. The FIR also alleges that officials bent norms to facilitate FIPB nod for INX Media.



The said Chidambaram and his son were being targeted as the former finance minister was very vocal in criticising the policies of the Modi government. Chidambaram too said there is no allegation against him.



"FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me."



Stating that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram said the Modi government was targeting his son to silence him. According to Chidambaram government is using the CBI and other agencies, to target Karti and his friends. "The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write."



Chidambaram had questioned demonetisation decision and has often targeted the government over its poor handling of the economy.



While Surjewala said the Congress was not afraid of such threats, union minister for power Piyush Goyal said Chidambaram is accountable for his son's actions. "The main question is why beneficiaries of FIPB approval gave money to Karti Chidambaram," he said.
In order to improve the traffic situation and prevent the vehicular accidents in the national capital, has recommended the state transport department to suspend the driving licences of more than 80,000 serious traffic violators, reported India Today.
Former Union minister said that Tuesday's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raids at his and his son, Karti Chidambaram's, residences were an attempt by the Modi government to muzzle his voice.
The Central government on Monday told the Supreme Court that if the latter invalidates the men-centric that is discriminatory to Muslim women, then it would bring a new divorce law that would be fair and equal to both men and women in the community.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was on Tuesday directed by the Delhi High Court (HC) to probe the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmad under mysterious circumstances since October last year.

However, the HC, which transferred the probe of the case from the Delhi Police to the CBI, disagreed with the allegations of the missing student's family that the investigation in the case was "politically motivated" and lacked "integrity".

It said the police has accepted all directions and suggestions given by the court from time to time and did "substantial work".

The police did not oppose the plea for giving the probe of the case to any other agency, but claimed it has worked in a "most professional manner" and to the "best of its ability" and would like to see how any other agency handles the case.

"Let any other agency show they can do a better job," its counsel Rahul Mehra said after senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Najeeb's mother Fatima Nafees, expressed reservations with the police continuing with the investigation.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli handed over the investigation to the CBI with immediate effect with a direction that it has to be monitored by an officer not less than the rank of DIG and posted matter for hearing on July 17.

The remarks of appreciation for the Delhi Police assumes significance as in the past it has faced severe criticism from the judges for failing to trace the first-year MSc Biotechnology student who went missing on October 15, 2016, after he had an altercation with some students belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The police had said that some students and Najeeb had a fight among themselves in the campus and later Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sevak (RSS)-affiliated ABVP students had denied any involvement in his disappearance.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Gonsalves said the nine students were never taken into custody despite being suspected of brutally assaulting Najeeb.

His plea for setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) comprising officers from outside Delhi was not accepted by the bench which said officers from other states would not be answerable to the Delhi HC.

Mehra said if the missing student's family was of the view that police was working under pressure of the central government, then the same could be the case with CBI.

He said if the matter had political overtones, as claimed, then bringing in officers from nearby states, also ruled by the party at the Centre, may not ensure results as expected by the family of the victim.

"They have to have faith in someone," he said and added that let CBI or any other agency show they can do a better job than the Delhi Police.

The seven-month-old case witnessed several twists and turns during which statements of nine students were recorded by the police, but they had objected to the notice sent to them for their consent to undergo the lie-detection test.

A trial court has accepted the objections of the nine students that the notice for polygraph test was "defective".

The matter came to the HC after Najeeb's mother had filed a writ of habeas corpus on November 25 last to trace her son who went missing from JNU hostel Mahi Mandavi.

The High Court had time and again come down heavily on the police for failing to trace the student even after several months of investigation and even remarked that it was looking for an "escape route" and was "beating around the bush".

It had questioned the conduct of the police saying that it was trying to sensationalise the matter as it was filing reports in sealed covers when "there was nothing confidential, damaging or crucial" in them.

The court had also lashed out at the police for sending officers across the country and setting up SITs, while not questioning the nine students suspected to be behind Najeeb's disappearance.
Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister on Tuesday reiterated that Haryana was not releasing water for the capital and added he has requested Lt Governor Anil Baijal to seek the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) intervention.

"Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Delhi's share.

I just spoke to LG and requested him to seek PMO's intervention," Sisodia said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Del's share. I just spoke to LG n requested him to seek PMO's intervention.  (@msisodia) May 16, 2017

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader on Monday night also complained of reduced water supply from Haryana and said that he had asked Delhi's Chief Secretary to immediately speak to Haryana's Chief Secretary and ensure proper water supply.

The capital faces shortage of water every summer and engages in a tussle with Haryana.
Will he, wont he? The possibility of Tamil Nadu's most popular star Rajinikanth taking the plunge into politics has been the subject of speculation for years now. The actor on Monday, left his fans even more puzzled by saying, "If it is God's will, I will enter politics."
China's ambitious Belt and Road forum ended on Monday with President Xi Jinping announcing the next summit for 2019 and hailing the project as the "road to peace." The summit in Beijing was attended by leaders of 29 countries.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today told the Supreme Court that is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years and hence the question of constitutional morality and equity did not arise.

The Muslim body also equated with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya.

" is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said.

"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar.

He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.
The government intends to provide employment to one crore people in the country in the next two years, Union minister of Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya said today.

The Union Minister of State forLabour and Employment also noted that the government's skill development initiative has contributed towards creating a skilled workforce in the country.

"Employer-employee relationship has been cordial after the Narendra Modi-led government came to power, so I am fully confident that we will provide one crore people with employment in the next two years," he said after inaugurating the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) nursing college and auditorium here.

Union Minister for Chemical and Fertilisers and Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar and MP P C Mohan were present at the event.

Speaking about the various "positive" legislations brought in by the department after the NDA government came to power, Dattatreya expressed hope that the new wage and industrial relations codes will be passed in the Parliament's next session.

"I am confident that we will bring this wage, industrial relation codes to the parliament in the next session and get it passed. It will benefit labourers and the working class," the minister said.

He said there were 44 central labour laws.

"We are going to amalgamate all these labour laws and rationalise them into four labour codes- wages, industrial relations, social security and safety, health and working conditions," the minister said.

He also announced that a 200-bed ESI hospital will be set up at Bommasandra in Bengaluru at a cost of Rs 150 crore, and 100-bed hospitals will be set up in Shivamogga, Narasapura, Harohalli and Ballari.

The 50-bed hospitals at Hubballi and Davangere will be upgraded to 100 beds, Dattatreya said.

Noting that the ministry has taken a decision to upgrade 500 of the 1,500 dispensaries in the country into six-bed hospitals in the first phase, Dattatreya said in Karnataka, 12dispensaries will be upgraded at a cost of Rs 100 crore andthe cost will be borne by the ESIC.

Union minister Ananth Kumar said the Ministry for Chemicals, Fertilisers and Pharmaceuticals would sign a MoU in 15 days with the labour ministry to have the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Kendra at hospitals that are run by it may provide affordable generic medicines.
India might have escaped the worst of WannaCry, the ransomware that affected Windows-based computer systems across the globe over the weekend, said experts on Monday. Industry, however, was on high alert to avert any attack.

The ransomware, first detected last Friday, locks down computers and demands a ransom to unlock the data stored in these systems. It had affected about 150 countries across the globe, with Russia and the UK being the worst affected. India, too, reported a number of cases of computers being locked down, including some computers of the Andhra Pradesh police.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) said few incidents of the attack had been reported in the country. So far, the impact of this ransomware has been reported in England, Russia, Spain, Germany, USA, and some academic institutions in China. Very few reports come from our country, a CERT-In official said in a webcast on Monday.

The agency has issued advisories to organisations and individuals to protect themselves. Do not pay the ransom, it will encourage the attackers Report the incident to CERT-In and the local law enforcement agencies so that we can work on it, the official said.

Not everyone is convinced, though.

If you look at the heat map, India is among the most affected, said Balaji Venkateshwar, a cyber security researcher. Most of the worlds ATM networks run on Windows XP; India, too, could be affected.

Others said companies and the government should be more open in acknowledging cyber challenges and dealing with it.

In India, we are not talking openly about cyber security. Whenever there is a scare, people say let us get on a defensive mode, said Mishi Choudhary, director at Software Freedom Law Centre.

She added, When the ATMs were hacked last year, how long did they take to come out with the truth?

On Monday, banks, airlines, large information technology (IT) organisations and manufacturing companies across sectors issued advisories to employees to not open any unknown attachments and asked them to follow safe cyber practices.

Our IT department is in the process of updating all endpoints such as laptops and desktops with latest Windows patches. ICT has also initiated safe back-up of data. Antivirus is also being updated to cover the ransomware attack, an AirAsia India spokesperson said.

Hotels, too, had padded up to protect their systems.

Our security systems and software are being updated with recommended patches released from software development companies. Suspected emails, malicious websites and advertisements have been blocked at gateway and endpoint access through which attackers usually prompt users, said Ajai Kumar, chief information officer, Lemon Tree Hotels.

For the past 72 hours, about 2,000 techies at HCL Technologies have been glued to their computers, protecting clients from any attack. It is all hands on deck for the Noida-based tech major, which has formed crack teams of cyber security experts to protect data of hundreds of clients.

We have been working round the clock. Almost 200 cyber security experts are protecting servers. This will continue till the threat of this malware passes, said a senior executive at HCL Technologies.

The banking sector is relatively well protected from cyber attacks, said Suresh Rajagopalan, president, Software Products with FSS, a payments technology leader that handles ATM operations.

According to our interaction with the banks, they are protected, he said. A majority of the banks have beefed up their cyber security, especially after introducing mobile banking. But given the large network, especially of public sector banks, and their infrastructure in some remote places, it may not be possible for them to update all the antivirus patches and others on a day-to-day basis.

Banks, both private and public, said they had not detected any attack on their networks.

State Bank of India Chief Information Officer Mrutyunjay Mahapatra said the banks core system run on software that could not be corrupted easily from outside. ATMs work on the vulnerable Windows network, and the bank was updating systems with latest patches available from Microsoft to protect their systems.

We are also making sure that physical security around the ATMs is adequate so that sensitive entrance points are not compromised, he said, adding, It is not easy to transmit malware through ATM networks, as these are usually heavier than what the bandwidth is able to transmit.

Bankers said there was no specific advisory by the Reserve Bank of India or CERT-In. However, the central bank has a standard hygiene advisory: whenever there is a software update available, it has to be implemented.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) N, set up to provide IT infrastructure for the GST roll-out, will not be impacted by the attack, as its systems do not run on Microsoft software, the networks CEO Prakash Kumar said.

The GSTN is gearing up to handle about 3 billion invoices every month under the new indirect tax regime and will complete the beta testing of its software on Tuesday. Our software is not based on Microsoft Windows operating system and hence we are immune. We operate on Linux software which is not affected by the ransomware attack, Kumar told PTI.

Some experts sounded a note of hope.

I feel Russia and western Europe were the focus of the attack, said Saket Modi, founder of Lucideus, a digital security firm, adding, We have not seen a significant impact.
On Monday, a meeting of the defence ministrys top procurement body, the Defence Acquisition Council, or DAC, failed to clear a new policy for nominating private companies as strategic partners, or SPs, for building major weapons platforms for the military. This is expected to come up before DAC again, with some changes, later this week.
When veteran diplomat Hardeep Puri retired from the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) as Indias Permanent Representative at the United Nations, he confessed candidly that domestic politics had come in the way of India claiming its place in the world. In New York, there were moments when I wished we had a stronger government in New Delhi. One of my regrets has been that we worked so hard and after 17 years we got into the Security Council (as a non-permanent member), but the government in

New Delhi was completely preoccupied with domestic issues, he said in an interview to Business Standard then. To push issues like the expansion of the Security Council or India's permanent membership in the Security Council, it would have been nice if we had had a stronger government in Delhi. But at the time, all that the government was preoccupied with was the 2G spectrum scam and how to manage alliance partners.

That changed in 2014, when came to power. In a conversation with reporters months after he was appointed PM, Modi readily agreed that with a single-party majority, it was much easier to function internationally  India was taken more seriously.

Three years later, this is the theme that has recurred, with diplomats citing instances of the ways Modis strength at home has made India more effective in putting its point across, whether in relation to Bangladesh (a country with which Indias relations have seen a 360-degree improvement, especially vis-a-vis Indias North-East); or the US (providing unambiguous comfort on liability in the civil nuclear liability law by leveraging the National Democratic Alliance majority in the Lok Sabha to amend the law). According to Harsh V Pant, distinguished fellow and head of the Observer Research Foundations Strategic Studies programme: Three factors appear to have had a significant influence (on Indo-US relations under Modi as PM): A conviction that Indias developmental priorities cannot be met without substantive cooperation with the US; the strong political authority Modi enjoys within his own party and in the Indian Parliament; and the structural changes in Indias security environment brought about by an aggressive China and its growing strategic convergence with Pakistan.

In this context, many found Modis initial wooing of the Indian diaspora puzzling. Why the diaspora, when with a parliamentary majority, Modi could effect domestic reform that would have the world look at India with envy? One of the men who led the outreach, Vijay Chauthaiwale, who heads Overseas Friends of BJP, explained: They (the Indian diaspora) can tell them (investors) about the good changes taking place in India and remove the image of India as an inefficient place to visit and invest in, he told the Washington Post. Sreeram Chaulia, professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O P Jindal Global University, who has written a book on Modis foreign policy, says: The diaspora diplomacy of the Modi Doctrine has added to Indias international influence. It is a force multiplier that makes Indias presence in far-flung parts of the world more coherent, organised and visible at the grassroots level. The benefits of people-to-people and public relations with the Indian diaspora, which has been stirred into action by Modi, are central to the Indian Prime Ministers larger strategic objective of turning India into a leading power on the world stage.

However, T P Sreenivasan, former IFS officer who has dealt with Indian communities in the US, Fiji, Kenya, and Europe, strikes a note of sober caution: The Indian diaspora is more prosperous than before and its involvement in Indias development is increasing. Indians overseas are conscious of their opportunities in India. At the same time, new fears about scaled-up return of Indians or their involvement in global terrorism are raising their heads. Firefighting is not enough. We should have a comprehensive plan involving both the Centre and states to invest remittances intelligently and to find alternative ways of livelihood for those who return.



The global economic environment is echoing that concern. Remittances from workers abroad are falling alarmingly. In 2015, according to the World Bank data, Indians working abroad sent home about $69 billion, down 1.5 per cent from $70 billion in the previous year. This is likely to come down further. A 2016 World Bank report says: This year the South Asia region would see a decline of 2.3 per cent in remittances to the region due mainly to the impact of declining oil prices and labor market nationalization policies on remittances from GCC countries. Little wonder then that at Bengaluru, which hosted the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in January this year, Modi made a direct linkage between foreign policy and diaspora investment, telling NRIs real patriotism would be to send more and more money back home: FDI has two definitions  foreign direct investment and first develop India, he said.

But a domestic political majority-driven foreign policy has had its downside. For countries which have investible sovereign wealth funds, India is a promising investment destination. But concerns have surfaced, which cannot be wished away. An Indian investment advisor attached to a prominent UAE-based sovereign fund told Business Standard that controversies like lynching because of mere suspicion of storing beef and rhetoric that seems to have Islamophobia at its heart, make it harder to persuade these countries to commit funds to India. For the ruling families in the Gulf, it is confusing. Till yesterday, India and Indians were our friends  have things really changed so much? they ask us, he said. We try and explain. It is not always easy.

Despite these problems, diplomats agree that Modi has posted impressive foreign policy successes. In the neighbourhood, despite initial missteps, relations with Nepal have reached an equilibrium under Pushpa Kamal Dahals prime ministership, senior diplomats say. When K P Oli was Prime Minister, the damage was so much that during President Pranab Mukherjees recent visit, #PranabDaSaySorry was trending on social media, notes former ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood. However, creative interventions by the Modi administration have managed to turn the situation around. The same applies to relations with Sri Lanka, which seemed to be in a deep strategic embrace with China in the not so distant past. Geethanjali Natraj, professor at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, points out in a commentary that talk of upgrading the India-Sri Lanka free trade agreement to include a new trade pact called the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), which is expected to be signed by the end of 2017, will enhance trade in services, investments, and technology cooperation with Indias five fastest-growing southern states  Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Given these states proximity to Sri Lanka, the ETCA would leverage Sri Lankas unique geo-strategic location, which is at the crossroads of major shipping routes. The ETCA would also increase regional integration and could make Sri Lanka the geo-economic centre of South Asia. With Pakistan, Modis gamble is yet to show results  and the disturbance in Kashmir is not making his task of managing relations with that country any easier. The most dramatic change has come about in relations with Bangladesh: India and Bangladesh are on a path of cooperation that will be hard to reverse, says Veena Sikri, former Indian ambassador to Dhaka, referring to recent agreements to cooperate in developing energy, sharing river waters, and building a railway line.





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In dealings with the US, the PM has shrugged off the past palaver over the denial of the visa and has used a term that defines new relations between the two countries: He has tossed away the hesitations of history. Stronger US ties are among Modis top achievements since taking office, says Lalit Mansingh, former Indian ambassador to the US. However, with internal political volatility of a kind not seen before in the US, the jury is still out on how Modi will handle the US for the remainder of his tenure.

Diplomats are divided on Indias relations with China during the three years of Modi. While protagonists of the motherhood and apple pie approach suggest stirring up sleeping dogs is not a good idea, those who are more radical feel it is Indias time: And China should know this. A peaceful, democratic and stable China is in the interest of India and the two countries should nurture their peace process as incidents like the land encroachments along the Line of Control disturb the friendly atmosphere in the region, says former Indian ambassador to Beijing Ashok Kantha. But journalist Prem Shankar Jha disagrees. For three years, Prime Minister has been indulging in acts of bravado in foreign policy that he believes, or wants the people of India to believe, are acts of bravery. The most recent is his boycott of the One Belt One Road forum meeting in Beijing, Jha writes (New Delhis official reason for not attending is that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through Gilgit, which has been illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947, and attending the meeting would have risked conceding sovereignty). This is poppycock, says Jha. He adds that the boycott is tantamount to India cutting off its nose to spite its face. Modi clearly does not agree.
Pilots in India may soon need to serve a notice of one year if they resign from their current job. Indian aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has revived a year-old proposal of reviewing its over a decade-old rule of having six months' notice period for pilots.
The introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) in July will pose a challenge for the enforcement authorities due to a provision in the law that mandates companies transferring goods to a branch outside the state to pay the interstate goods and services tax (IGST). However, if the same company sells goods to customers on approval basis outside the state, it gets six months to pay the IGST.
Imports of truck & bus radial (TBR) tyres rose by nine per cent to hit a new high of 120,000 units a month in financial year 2016-17 over the previous year. Imported tyres have come to account for 40 per cent of the replacement demand for TBR tyres in India, delivering a severe blow to the domestic industry, which has put hefty investments in TBR manufacturing, say industry representatives.
Macroeconomic debate in India is in a dismal state resulting in the lack of contrarian views to official policy, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) said on Tuesday.

"The state of macroeconomic commentary in India is disconcerting because independent experts refuse to speak the truth, and we end up getting only the one official view," Subramanian said at a seminar in New Delhi at the Teen Murti Memorial Museum.

Citing the example of economists outside of government, think-tanks and researchers, he said experts did not express their honest opinion on macroeconomic policy because "they feel they should stay on the right side of power".

Unlike the more open debates in trade and development policy areas, macroeconomics lacks high quality, critical and contrarian inputs, because these come from groups like bankers or investors "who are dependent on government", Subramanian said.

Besides, the "disinterested commentators lack confidence and are diffident to go contrary to official policy wisdom," he added.

"We need more disinterested voices, especially from the universities, researchers and think-tanks, who are distant from the power centres. We need to build up such intellectual capacity in Indian macroeconomics, which is not considered sexy enough for academic interest," the CEA said.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao on Tuesday announced that his government was ready to adjust the state's financial year (FY) to a cycle, instead of the current April-March one, in practice in India since 1867. The move would be in line with the Centre's plan.
New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF) IT Employees Wing, a union working for the IT employees in the State, has sought the State government's intervention on the job cuts in the IT industry.

The organisation alleged that the IT companies are earning large profits using subsidised land, tax exemptions, and non-stop power supply affecting the public exchequer and are now laying off employees.
China and India have surpassed the United States to become the two most attractive countries for renewable energy investment, a report by UK accountancy firm Ernst & Young showed on Tuesday.
Paradoxically, in a recent meeting called by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) to generate ideas for a successor institution to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), consultants and legal experts had to admit there are no good ones to replace it with.
Andhra Bank has reported 32.7 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 35.13 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as compared to Rs 51.6 crore in the corresponding quarter previous financial year.
2nd National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR-2017) concludes Union MoS Shri Piyush Goyal and Shri Kiren Rijiju address the valedictory session

A two-day multi-stakeholders second meeting of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction concluded here today. The valedictory function was addressed by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Power, Coal New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Shri Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kiren Rijiju. Union Home Secretary Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Members NDMA and over 1,000 delegates representing various stakeholders in the Disaster Management also attended.Speaking at the Valedictory Session, Shri Piyush Goyal made an appeal to everyone to come together to fight against the disaster. He referred to the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modis 10 point agenda for drafting the roadmap leading to the reduction of disaster impact. He said that if we cannot prevent disaster, we must work for reducing the impact of disaster. We need to make investments in preparedness and risk reduction. He also quoted Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh for mentioning that if we spend one rupee in preparedness, we save ten rupees in post-disaster losses. He also emphasised that Disaster Management should not be seen in isolation.

It has linkages with poverty and all development schemes of the Government. Poverty has direct impact on vulnerabilities, so we have to work simultaneously. He quoted Bejamin Franklin, if we fail to prepare, we are preparing to fail". Shri Kiren Rijiju, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the NPDRR, reiterated the Prime Ministers 10 point agenda for drafting targeted and time bound action plan for making India resilient by 2030. He emphasized on investment in Research and Development and building partnerships with the universities and research Institutions. On the occasion, the two Ministers gave away the prize to the winner of the national slogan contest on Disaster Risk Reduction with an appreciation certificate and cash prize of Rs. 25,000. The winning slogan was, - Aapda Prabandhan Maha Vichar : Poora Bharat Bhagidar". The Ministers also felicitated ten Start-Up companies for bringing innovation in Disaster Management. They had put up the exhibition during the NPDRR. Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, Joint Secretary, MHA presented the outcomes of all the sessions organized over the two-day event. He said that Ministry will work on the recommendations and prepare a roadmap for its execution.
Press Statement by Prime Minister during the State Visit of President of Palestine to India

Your Excellency, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, Members of the Palestinian and Indian delegations, Members of the media, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to welcome back President Mahmoud Abbas, an old friend of India, on his State visit to India. The relationship between India and Palestine is built on the foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle. India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause. And ,we hope to see the realization of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to President Abbas during our conversation today.

Friends, President Abbas and I have just concluded useful and detailed discussions that will add further strength to our partnership. We had extensive exchange of views on the situation in West Asia and the Middle East Peace Process. We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means. India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution.

At the bilateral level, India is committed to be a useful development partner of Palestine. President Abbas and I agreed that both sides, through practical cooperation, will work together to build Palestines economy and contribute to improving the lives of its people. We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine. The agreements concluded today are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction. We have also taken up for particular emphasis the areas of information technology, youth and skills development in the assistance provided by India. India is undertaking project assistance for a flagship Techno-park project in Ramallah. Once completed, it will serve as an IT hub in Palestine offering a one-stop solution for all IT-related training and services. We also look forward to enhancing our cultural exchanges by adding new elements including Yoga exchanges. We look forward to the Palestinian people participating in large numbers during the International Day of Yoga celebrations next month. In the end, I wish President Mahmoud Abbas and his delegation a pleasant and productive stay in India. I look forward to working together with President Abbas to further strengthen our bilateral relations.
For skills development of youth in coastal areas, the Ministry of Shipping signed an MoU with theMinistry of Rural Development in New Delhi today. The MoU is for convergence of the Ministry prestigious project Sagaramala and Ministry of Rural Developments flagship programme Deen Dayal Upadhyay Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU GKY) . The Minister of Shipping and Road Transport & Highways, Shri Nitin Gadkari and the Minister for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation Shri Narendra Singh Tomar were present on the occasion. DDU-GKY is expected to bring in its skilling expertise to provide skilling for the coastal communities, thereby preparing them to take advantage of the job opportunities that are expected to come up in the maritime sector follwing port led development under Sagarmala. .

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Speaking on this occasion, Shri Nitin Gadkari said that this MoU will meet the exact skill needs of industries in the port and maritime sector and provide the coastal communities right skills for better opportunities emanating from the large scale impact of Sagarmala projects. He said that with skill development there will be close involvement of the coastal communities in Sagarmala and will make them contributors in the economic development and will ensure inclusive growth of the coastal districts of the country. He said that the centre is planning to facilitate fisherman with mechanized trawlers that will allow them to fish till 30-40 Nautical Miles in international ocean. This will generate employment opportunities for youth in coastal areas, as fishing is a big industry, which involves processing, packaging and export of fish and other sea produce. He said that there is a need to develop tourism around lighthouses in coastal areas, as this will provide employment to rural youth in these areas. .

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On this occasion, the Minister for Rural Development, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said that DDUGKU is the flagship programme of the ministry and after this MoU agreement, rural youth and women of coastal areas will be able to develop skills for Maritime, Shipping and Port Management. He said that under skill development pilot project, around 7,000 persons have been already been trained and out of this 600 people have been already got employment. .

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The Coastal Communities are key stakeholders in the Sagarmala Programme and their skill development and livelihood is an important objective of the program. A budget of Rs.100 Cr. has been allocated under Sagarmala for coastal community development activities. Before execution, understanding the exact requirement is a key step and therefore, an on-ground survey for accurate understanding of skill needs of 21 coastal districts has been done so that the training programs can be aligned to the exact requirements. Along with the Skill gap studies, District Action Plans have been made in consultation with the State Governments and districts concerned and training will commence from May, 2017. Specific training needs have been identified for more than 60000 trainees in the next phase through more than 100+ skill projects. .

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The primary goal of the Skills and Livelihoods in Sagarmala is to meet the exact skill needs of industries in the port and maritime sector and provide the coastal communities right skills for better opportunities emanating from the large scale impact of Sagarmala projects. It is expected that the close involvement of the coastal communities in Sagarmala will make them contributors in the economic development and will ensure inclusive growth of the coastal districts of the country. .

.

DDU-GKY is currently being implemented in 28 states and has over 654 training centres in 522 projects, in partnership with over 261 training partners conducting training across 39 sectors, and over 329 job-roles. So far a total of 4.54 lakh candidates have been skilled and 2.31 lakh candidates provided jobs. .

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In the first phase, skill training was undertaken in 22 districts in 5 states of A.P, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha and Tamil Nadu with 23 Project Implementing. Out of a total planned target of 2130, training has commenced in respect of 1483, 935 trainees have been trained in 35 trades, 646 trainees have been placed and 548 are currently undergoing training. The next phase is expected to scale up the effort based on the learning from the past and be more refined and focussed on port and maritime sector. It will include all districts where skill gap studies and district action plans have been completed. .

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Union Home Secretary to chair Annual Conference of Relief Commissioners/Secretaries, Department of Disaster Management of States/UTs tomorrow

The Union Home Secretary Shri Rajiv Mehrishi will chair the Annual Conference of Relief Commissioners and Secretaries of the Departments of Disaster Management of States and Union Territories here tomorrow.

The meeting will review the status of preparedness of dealing with crisis situations resulting from the South-West Monsoon, 2017 and discuss other disaster management related issues. Representatives of concerned Central Ministries/Organisations rendering Emergency Support Functions, Technical & scientific organisations associated with forecasting, officers of the Armed Force and Central Armed Police Forces will participate. The Ministry of Home Affairs, India Meteorological Department, Snow & Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE), Central Water Commission, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Indian Space Research Organisation, National Disaster Response Force and Ministry of Defence will make presentations sharing their efforts towards preparedness of dealing with disaster situations.
US President insisted on Tuesday he had the right to share information with Russia related to terrorism and other issues, his first public response to the revelation that he disclosed classified information at an Oval Office meeting last week.

The President made his first statement on Twitter following a series of denials from White House officials.

"I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled White House meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he tweeted.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the President shared intelligence from a US ally in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The Post, citing unnamed officials, also reported that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration immediately rejected the claims as "false".

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," HR McMaster, Trump's National Security Adviser, said on Monday.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that weren't already publicly known," McMaster said.

However, on Tuesday Trump took to Twitter to defend his actions, appearing to contradict the denials that he had shared intelligence with the Russian officials.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the issue was not worth confirming or denying, calling it "nonsense".

"For us it is not an issue, it's more nonsense," Peskov said when asked about the Washington Post report.

Dick Durbin, a leading Democratic Senator, said Trump's conduct was "dangerous" and "reckless".

Some Republicans expressed shock at the development, with Senator Bob Corker stating that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order".

"Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Corker said.

The last week meeting between Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak had already raised alarm bells in Washington, primarily because it came one day after Trump decided to fire FBI Director James Comey while the bureau investigated the President campaign's alleged ties to Russia.

The meeting, a personal request from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was supposed to remain behind closed doors without any media coverage.

But a photographer from a Russian state-media attended the meeting and took photos of a laughing Trump with Lavrov and Kislyak.

No US media were allowed into the meeting.

Though an angry White House official told CNN they felt "tricked" by the Russians, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "proper protocol was followed" by not allowing media into the meeting.
Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Tuesday said the Centre had directed state governments to lift stockholding limits on pulses because of adequate supply and drop in prices.
(CPCL) dipped 6% to Rs 393 on BSE in intra-day trade after the company reported 31% year on year (YoY) declined in net profit at Rs 171 crore for the quarter ended March 2017 (Q4FY17). The company engaged in petroleum sector had profit of Rs 248 crore in a year ago quarter.
HIT: To the men and women whose names are on ballots today for board of education seats.

Statewide school voting day includes elections for school boards, a position that provides no pay or financial benefits, but long hours and plenty of difficult decisions in balancing the needs of students with the ability of taxpayers to support them.

Running for any public office takes considerable time and energy, not to mention no small amount of courage. We're grateful to the people who do step up to seek this vital role in our communities.

Sadly, we've been seeing fewer contested board of education races in the Cayuga County area in recent years, a trend that needs to be reversed.

If you're looking for one small but important way to thank these candidates, just take the time to go to the polls and exercise your right to vote today.

MISS: To the case of a convicted sex offender who has admitted to the same crime more than a decade later.

Sex offender pleads guilty to having sex with 13-year-old in Cayuga County AUBURN  A local sex offender has admitted to having oral sex with a 13-year-old girl in Cay

A Skaneateles man pleaded guilty in Cayuga County Court last week to second-degree criminal sex act and failing to report a change of internet identifier as a sex offender. Authorities said he sexually abused a 13-year-old and was arrested last fall; in 2003, he was convicted for having sex with another girl of the same age. He also admitted last week to second-degree assault for injuring another inmate while he was at Cayuga County Jail in March.

HIT: To Prison City Pub & Brewery, for another prominent accolade earned.

The Auburn craft brewing company has been named one of five finalists in the first Taste NY Craft Beer Challenge. Prison City will be hauling its award-winning brews to New York City on Wednesday to compete in the final round.
Its raining bonus shares for investors, with over two dozen companies announcing a bonus issue since the start of calendar year 2017 (CY17). Of these, nearly a dozen have announced the issue in the past one month. In comparison, 15 companies had made such an announcement in the corresponding period in the previous year, while 17 companies did so in the period under review in CY15.
Sugar mills have sought complete exemption from packing in jute sacking bags for 2017-18. The industry says sugar as a commodity is unsuitable for packaging in jute bags and hence, should be relieved from the compulsory Jute Packaging Materials Act (JPMA), 1987, as has been done for cement and fertilisers in the past. As of now, 20 per cent of the sugar has to be compulsorily packed in jute bags.
The Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular stocks were up 2-3 per cent as cost-control measures taken by the companies as well as expectations of stable revenues could rub off positively on them. Vodafone India too indicated in its results that it was witnessing early signs of stabilisation in data and voice usage and recharge values.
The Saket Court on Tuesday discharged the caretaker of the Batla House, where two suspected militants were killed in an encounter in 2008.

The caretaker was accused of harbouring tenants allegedly engaged in terrorist activities.

Counsel for Abdul Rehman, M.S. Khan, submitted that the police had failed to produce the original lease deed, the crucial piece of evidence, which was allegedly forged by Rehman.

The encounter, which had taken place during the former UPA regime, came into news last year amid a claim by an alleged ISIS operative that he had fled Batla House right before the police raided it.

Batla House encounter, officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorists were killed while two other suspects were arrested.

Encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action, was also killed during the incident.

According to the reports, Mohammed Sajid alias Bada Sajid is one of the six persons who features in the 22-minute video allegedly posted by the Islamic State recently, however he was one of the terrorist who was claimed killed in the encounter.

A Delhi court had in 2013 sentenced to life the lone convict and suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Shahzad Ahmad in the case for killing decorated police officer Sharma and injuring two other policemen.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At a time when Narendra Modi-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government is about to complete three years in office, the Prime Minister's flagship scheme- Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) has helped improving girl child ratio in Himachal Pradesh's Una district.

Prime Minister Modi launched the BBBP on January 22, 2015 at Panipat, Haryana- the state with an alarming decline in the girl child ratio.

The BBBP involves efforts of three ministries- Women and Child Development, Health and Family Welfare and Human Resource Development.

It envisages addressing the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and related issues of women empowerment over a life-cycle continuum.

The sex ratio is used to describe the number of females per 1,000 of males.

Himachal Pradesh first implemented the BBBP in Una district where the ratio of girl child was the poorest in the state- 875 females per 1,000 of males.

Additional director for Woman and Child Development Department of Himachal Pradesh Government, Dileep Negi said, "Now this ratio has increased to 900 females per 1000 males in Una District."

Enthused by the results, the state government has launched the BBBP scheme also in Kangra and Hamirpur districts.

The Muskan scheme is launched in other districts under the banner of 'Beti Bachao- Beti Padhao' to monitor the pregnant women.

In order to discourage the pre-birth sex determination test, the state government has launched a pilot project in Hamirpur district wherein Rs. 6,000 is being given to pregnant women after the delivery.

However, Himachal Pradesh is yet to implement the Union Government's decision to give paid maternity leave of 26 weeks to women.

In his 30th Mann ki Baat address to the nation in March, Prime Minister Modi said, "Working women will now be given maternity leave of 26 weeks instead of the earlier 12 weeks for their pregnancy and delivery. The basic aim is to ensure proper care of the newborn, the future citizen of India, from the time of birth."

At present, the Himachal Pradesh Government employees are entitled for 135 days (19.2 weeks) of paid maternity leave.

Neelam Sharma, a state government employee, said, "I feel Modi government is trying to do a lot for woman and child development but it may take more time to be implemented in entire nation. For example, the extension of maternity leave is a remarkable step in this direction but we are not benefited as the ruling Congress party in Himachal has not approved it for the state government employees. So much more is still required but there is a hope...

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Blake Lively is going to be an MMA Fighter!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 29-year-old-actress has joined 'Bruised,' a mixed marital arts action-drama directed by The Notebook's Nick Cassavetes.

The script, written by Michelle Rosenfarb, began circulating to foreign buyers over the weekend.

The story focuses on a single mother working two jobs and a former MMA fighter who must return to the cage in order to keep her son.

Sierra/Affinity will introduce the project to buyers in Cannes later this week.

Thunder Road Pictures' Basil Iwanyk is producing alongside Linda Gottlieb and Guymon Casady of Management 360.

The production is expected to begin in September.

Blake Lively is was last seen in last year's 'The Shallows,' which earned 119 million USD globally.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the residence of former union minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai on Tuesday morning.

According to reports, the raid may be followed in his native place Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai.

According to reports, the raids are part of the Aircel Maxis case. It is also being said that the raids are linked to clearances given to INX media, which was once owned by Peter Mukerjea .

Karti, who is facing money laundering charges in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal, has been raided at his offices in the past as well.

Further details are awaited.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing contentment over the raids conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti's various residences, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has said that now the nation will know that the grand old party is the most corrupt party in the history of the world.

"What do you expect Congress to do? Their president and vice-president are facing trial in the Herald case. The whole country will come to know that it is the most corrupt party in the history of the world," Swamy told ANI.

Accusing Chidambaram of giving illegal clearances in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), Swamy alleged that the former's son always benefitted by such approvals.

"It was expected because, as finance minister, he has given so many clearances in FIPB, which are all illegal and his son has always benefitted by this. The raids have to take place to get the documents and get incriminating evidence which they have kept," he said.

"Karti has got 21 illegal bank accounts abroad and he has built many houses in several countries. He has got them financial activities undeclared in 18 countries. So therefore, money laundering has to be there," he added.

Swamy said he was unhappy with the delay, but since it has finally happened he is now content with the development.

With the raiding the Chidambaram residence here today in connection with the FIPB approval in several cases, the senior Congress leader lashed out at the Centre, accusing it of using agencies to target his son.

"FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said in a statement.

Asserting that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram added that the approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," the senior Congress leader added.

Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a historical shift in foreign policy, China might support a new round of sanctions by the United Nations (UN) against North Korea after its recent missile test, according to observers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hailed the launch on Sunday as a test of the "perfect weapon system" and capable of carrying "a large-size heavy nuclear warhead."

The attack came hours before Chinese President Xi Jinping held the biggest diplomatic event of the year, the Belt and Road forum.

At the request of the United States and Japan, the United Nations Security Council will convene an urgent session today to discuss the situation.

According to the South China Morning Post, analysts said that the UN Security Council would likely discuss the new sanctions, with China possibly playing a role in their formation.

China Foreign Affairs University international relations professor Su Hao said North Korea had "to be held accountable and pay the price" for violating UN resolutions.

"This could also be an opportunity for China to show that it can initiate some plausible plans to handle the North Korea issue within the framework of the international community," Su added.

Amid growing tensions over Pyongyang's array of missile tests, Beijing in February banned imports of North Korean coal citing UN resolutions for all of its measures against North Korea

Coal is North Korea's main export and an important source of foreign currencies for its economy and China is its major importer.

Meanwhile, the United States has also urged China to use its influence over North Korea to de-escalate tensions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress on Tuesday hailed its vice-president Rahul Gandhi, saying they are very proud of him and with his leadership.

Addressing a press conference, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala termed Rahul as the first worker of the Congress

"Rahul Gandhi considers himself as the first worker of the Indian Congress. More than a commander, Rahul ji is the first worker of the Congress," said Surjewala.

"We are very proud of our leader, for under his leadership we will re-claim the idea of India from any individual or political party that seeks to diminish or demolish or denude what our forefathers and the ethos on which our forefathers founded this country," he added.

The Congress earlier in the day tore into the saffron party and accused it of betraying the people of nation on all fronts.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia in a press conference, unleashed a tirade of accusations on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre and said in the past three years of its rule, the condition of the nation has degraded as the saffron outfit has miserably failed in giving good governance and fulfilling extravagant promises it made.

Meanwhile, mocking the grand celebrations planned by the BJP marking its third anniversary, Rahul Gandhi earlier today slammed the merrymaking at a time when the condition of the country is only deteriorating.

Rahul tore into the Centre by taking to Twitter and posted screenshots of stories announcing 'Modi fest' to mark government's anniversary and questioned the government of what it was celebrating exactly.

Hitting out at the government over the deteriorating situation of the country, Rahul said, "Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide & soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the Govt celebrating?"

Planning for a grand celebration on its third anniversary, the BJP is all set for a humongous 15-day grand merrymaking starting from May 26 to June 15.

The government will also launch a new campaign under the name 'New India' on May 25.

Stretching for over a fortnight, the celebration will begin with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the nation on May 26 in Guwahati.

The Prime Minister will then visit four other cities of India. The four cities might be out of these five cities, namely - Bengaluru, Delhi, Jaipur, Kota, Kolkata and Pune.

The celebration will take place in 900 cities across India and every minister will visit four cities each. Also 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas' programme will be held in 500 cities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Centre on Tuesday expressed confidence about getting 'postive response' from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav case while saying that Pakistan will soon be exposed.

"We are confident that ICJ will take decision in favour of India and Jadhva will get justice. We will expose Pakistan after getting the counselor access. Pakistan has awarded death sentence to Jadhav without any evidence of him being involved in terror activities," Union Minister P.P. Choudhary told ANI.

Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader S. Prakash also echoed the same and said effort to save Jadhav from the hands and clutches of Pakistan will be successful.

"The Centre's effort to obtain a stay in the death sentence of Kulbhushan has successfully been achieved. Now the onus is on the Pakistan to put forth before the International Court as to how they apprehended him and what are the evidences they have against Jadhav to claim that he is a terrorist. Mere submission of plea that he was a terrorist and involved in terror activities will not be enough. We are confident our plea will get a positive response," he told ANI.

Pakistan yesterday, while presenting its case at the ICJ on Kulbhushan Jadhav issue, claimed that "India has used this court as the scene of political theatre."

"India has used this court as the scene of political theatre. We will not respond in kind," Mohammad Faisal, DG south Asia and SAARC, said.

"India has been unable to provide an explanation for Jadhav's passport which bears a Muslim name," Faisal added.

He also claimed that India's application on Kulbhushan Jadhav is unnecessary and misconceived.

There has been deafening silence and no response from India on Pakistan's accusations on Jadhav, Pakistan's lawyer Khawar Qureshi said.

Qureshi also said that Jadhav has 150 days to appeal his sentence.

Meanwhile, the ICJ declined to play the alleged confessional video of Jadhav when Pakistan's offered it as evidence during the afternoon session of the court.

Fearing that Jadhav might be executed before the hearing was over, India accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna convention and conducting a "farcical trial" without a "shred of evidence".

Pakistan had denied India its 16 requests for consular access, India's lead attorney Harish Salve said.

The urgent hearing comes after the ICJ last week stayed Jadhav's execution.

While India presented its argument over 90 minutes, Pakistan, which claims that Jadhav is an agent of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), took less than an hour.

India wants the ICJ to annul Jadhav's death sentence and for Pakistan to ensure that no action is taken that may prejudice the rights of India or of Jadhav.

Jadhav, the latest flashpoint in the tensions between Pakistan and India, was sentenced to death last month.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

On May 9, the highest court in the UN gave Jadhav a lease of life.

India, in its appeal to the ICJ, had asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the Indian Navy.

Pakistan claims to have arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eight naxals were arrested in a joint operation by the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and the District Force in Chintalnar and Chintagufa areas of Chhattisgarh's Sukma district on Tuesday.

Yesterday, in a high-level meeting held by the Jharkhand Police, senior officials analyzed security matters plaguing the state especially in regard to Naxals.

Director General of police D. K. Pandey told ANI, "We have seized properties of 17 naxals and criminals as yet. We are keeping a close look on others as well."

The police also decided to increase the number of posts in the border areas of Bihar and Chhattisgarh to combat the problems of Naxal operations.

The DGP also expressed concerns about Naxal interference in the 'beedi season' and hoped to conduct a meeting with contractors regarding it.

The meeting was attended by Additional Director General of Police R. K. Malik, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Inspector General, and several other higher police officials.

The meeting comes in the wake of the soaring incident of Naxal encounters and attack, which are taking a toll on civilians as well as security forces.

In April, two policemen were killed following an encounter with Maoists in Jharkhand.

Later that month, three CRFP personnel were also injured in a Maoist attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday said the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) must think about the Triple Talaq issue instead of discussing it in the Supreme Court or any other court.

"No doubt that Triple talaq is very difficult for women but there is a board for Islamic law. The board must think about this issue instead of deciding it in the Supreme Court or in other courts. The Board is never above of Sharia but they can look into it and can make changes if needed for betterment of women," Farooq Abdullah said.

Earlier in the day, after asserting that Triple Talaq cannot be branded as unconstitutional, AIMPLB counsel Kapil Sibal said the Supreme Court should be hearing the matter in the first place.

The argument began when Sibal said that the apex court should not decide or interfere in one's faith and belief.

To this Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, one of the five judges constituting the bench asked, if they should not hear the matter at all.

Sibal asked the apex court how a 1,400-year-old practice be branded 'unconstitutional'.

"Triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional?" Sibal asked the apex court.

Sibal further argued that just like the Hindus' faith about Rama's birth at Ayodhya cannot be questioned, similarly Triple Talaq which is also a matter of faith for Muslims should not be questioned.

Meanwhile, the bench also questioned the AIMPLB on the position of e-divorce given on WhatsApp in Islam.

The Centre yesterday assured the apex court that it will come out with a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if Triple Talaq was upheld as invalid.

"The government will come out with law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if court holds Triple Talaq as invalid," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the bench.

Rohatgi also conveyed to the apex court bench that Triple Talaq violates Muslim women's right to equality within the community, and also within the country.

Earlier in the hearing, the apex court refused to hear all the three cases of Polygamy, Nikah and Halala at once, saying it will focus on one matter at a time.

The Attorney General and top law officers representing the Central government arguing in front of the five judge Constitution bench said the apex court should hear other cases also, besides Triple Talaq.

However, the top court said that they have limited time, so all the matters could not be covered at present.

On the second day of the hearing last Friday, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, said before the apex court that the controversial Islamic divorce system cannot be justified whatsoever.

Citing examples, Khurshid told the court that the Triple Talaq practice cannot be validated constitutionally.

"There was a discussion that whether Triple Talaq is valid constitutionally.

Substantiating my view with reasons and examples, I asserted that it cannot be justified and cannot be given law's validation," Khurshid said during the hearing.

The Centre, earlier on May 11, told the apex court that it opposes the triple talaq practice and wants to fight for women equality and gender justice.

However, AIMPLB counsel Kapil Sibal told the apex court that triple talaq is a matter that comes under the Muslim board and therefore, in his opinion, the top court should not interfere in it.

"The Central Government makes rules but in my opinion the apex court should not interfere into it," Sibal said.

While hearing several pleas filed by Muslim women challenging the practice of triple talaq, the apex court observed that it would examine whether the issue is fundamental to religion or not.

A five-judge bench of the apex court further observed that it would not hear polygamy issue along with the triple talaq case.

+

Relentless debates on the validity and plausibility of this practice were instigated soon after one petitioner, Shayara Banu, challenged the Muslim personal law over instantaneous application of triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat), polygamy and nikah-halala.

Supporting the stance of ending the practice of triple talaq, the Allahabad High Court had earlier asserted that the rights of any person, including Muslim women, cannot be violated in the name of 'personal law'.

In December last year, the Allahabad High Court termed the Islamic practice of divorcing a woman by uttering the word "talaq" thrice "unconstitutional."

"Triple talaq is unconstitutional. It violates the rights of Muslim women," ruled the high court, adding that no personal law board was above the Constitution.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The friendly exes Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, who famously coined the phrase 'conscious uncoupling,' recently enjoyed a day out to mark their daughter Apple Martin's 13th birthday and Mother's Day.

The former couple headed to the Museum of Ice Cream in Downtown Los Angeles with the birthday girl and their 11-year-old son Moses.

Taking it to her Instagram page, the 44-year-old actress shared a boomerang of the experience with her family, hugging each other and smiling in front of a colourful backdrop.

"Best Apple's birthday/Mother's Day EVER at the @museumoficecream," she captioned the post. "SO FUN."

The 'Iron Man' actress also gave her look-alike daughter an Insta shout-out with a gorgeous close-up photo.

She wrote, "Happy 13th birthday, you gorgeous human. You light up every room, my heart, the world. You. Are. Everything. I love you, schnapps."

The Coldplay frontman and Paltrow, who split in 2014 after 10 years of marriage and officially divorced in March 2016, continue to maintain a united front as they co-parent Apple and Moses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donald Trump's rival in last presidential election, Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to announce a new political action group, Onward Together, which she said "came up after much reflection."

"We're launching Onward Together to encourage people to get involved, organize, and even run for office," she tweeted.

The group is aimed at encouraging others to get more involved in their communities and run for office.

"The last few months, I've been reflecting, spending time with family-and, yes, taking walks in the woods," she said in another tweet.

The last few months, I've been reflecting, spending time with family-and, yes, taking walks in the woods.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 15, 2017

"More than ever, I believe citizen engagement is vital to our democracy. I'm so inspired by everyone stepping up to organize and lead," she said.

More than ever, I believe citizen engagement is vital to our democracy. I'm so inspired by everyone stepping up to organize and lead.  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 15, 2017

"To all the little girls watching...never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world."  Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 9, 2016

Onward Together features the slogan "Resist, insist, persist, enlist".

According to the Onward Together website, the group "is dedicated to advancing the vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election.

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With the hearings in Triple Talaq entering the fourth day today, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) counsel Kapil Sibal asked the Supreme Court how a 1400-year-old practice be branded 'unconstitutional'.

"Triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional?" Sibal asked the apex court.

Sibal further argued that just like the Hindus' faith about Rama's birth at Ayodhya cannot be questioned, similarly Triple Talaq which is also a matter of faith for Muslims should not be questioned.

Meanwhile, the bench also questioned the AIMPLB on the position of e-divorce given on WhatsApp in Islam.

The Centre yesterday assured the apex court that it will come out with a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if Triple Talaq was upheld as invalid.

"The government will come out with law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if court holds Triple Talaq as invalid," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the bench.

Rohatgi also conveyed to the apex court bench that Triple Talaq violates Muslim women's right to equality within the community, and also within the country

Earlier in the hearing, the apex court refused to hear all the three cases of Polygamy, Nikah and Halala at once, saying it will focus on one matter at a time.

The Attorney General and top law officers representing the Central government arguing in front of the five judge Constitution bench said the apex court should hear other cases also, besides Triple Talaq.

However, the top court said that they have limited time, so all the matters could not be covered at present.

On the second day of the hearing last Friday, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, said before the apex court that the controversial Islamic divorce system cannot be justified whatsoever.

Citing examples, Khurshid told the court that the Triple Talaq practice cannot be validated constitutionally.

"There was a discussion that whether Triple Talaq is valid constitutionally.

Substantiating my view with reasons and examples, I asserted that it cannot be justified and cannot be given law's validation," Khurshid said during the hearing.

The Centre, earlier on May 11, told the apex court that it opposes the triple talaq practice and wants to fight for women equality and gender justice.

However, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) counsel Kapil Sibal told the apex court that triple talaq is a matter that comes under the Muslim board and therefore, in his opinion, the top court should not interfere in it.

"The Central Government makes rules but in my opinion the apex court should not interfere into it," Sibal said.

While hearing several pleas filed by Muslim women challenging the practice of triple talaq, the apex court observed that it would examine whether the issue is fundamental to religion or not.

A five-judge bench of the apex court further observed that it would not hear polygamy issue along with the triple talaq case.

Relentless debates on the validity and plausibility of this practice were instigated soon after one petitioner, Shayara Banu, challenged the Muslim personal law over instantaneous application of triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat), polygamy and nikah-halala.

Supporting the stance of ending the practice of triple talaq, the Allahabad High Court had earlier asserted that the rights of any person, including Muslim women, cannot be violated in the name of 'personal law'.

In December last year, the Allahabad High Court termed the Islamic practice of divorcing a woman by uttering the word "talaq" thrice "unconstitutional."

"Triple talaq is unconstitutional. It violates the rights of Muslim women," ruled the high court, adding that no personal law board was above the Constitution.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that India hopes for Palestine and Israel to move towards finding a comprehensive solution to their long-standing conflict.

Describing Palestine as one of India's 'old friend', Prime Minister Modi said "We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to President Abbas during our conversation today."

"Our relationship is built on a foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship; India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause," he added.

Prime Minister Modi and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas also discussed the situation in West Asia and the Middle East.

"We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means," the Prime Minister said.

Prime Minister Modi said both India and Palestine have agreed to work together through practical cooperation on building Palestine's economy and contribute to improving the lives of its people.

"We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine," he added.

The Prime Minister said the agreements signed between the two countries reaffirmed India's intent to strengthen cooperation between the two countries.

"We have also taken up for particular emphasis the areas of information technology, youth and skills development in the assistance provided by India. India is undertaking project assistance for a flagship techno-park project in Ramallah," he said.

Once completed, it would serve as an IT hub in Palestine offering a one-stop solution for all IT-related training and services, the Prime Minister said.

Prime Minister Modi said India is looking to expand its cultural exchange with Palestine by adding new elements to yoga exchanges.

"We look forward to the Palestinian people participating in large numbers during the International Day of Yoga celebrations next month," he added.

The two countries today inked five Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), including visa exemption on diplomatic and official passports, on cooperation in youth affairs and sports, on agricultural cooperation, on cooperation in health sector, and on cooperation in information-technology and electronics.

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The Chandausi police in Sambhal district in Uttar Pradesh busted an Indian Premier League (IPL) betting racket with the arrest of four persons and seized 1.17 lakh cash from them.

The men were arrested from Akroor Plaza, after cops raided the place under the leadership of Chandausi police station-in-charge Anil Samaniya, who took action after being tipped off by an informer.

According to reports, they were booked for allegedly gambling on an IPL match between Delhi and Bengaluru.

The team seized Rs 1.17 lakh cash, laptop, five mobile phones, books displaying betting rates and diaries and a LCD television.

Earlier, six more bookies were arrested with Rs 70,000 from Ghaziabad in connection with the IPL betting racket.

The police caught the six bookies red-handed along with Rs 70,000, seven Android phones, one Maruti Swift car, one Passion Pro motorcycle from the Link road area of Ghaziabad.

In another case, three bookies namely, Ramesh Shah, Vikas Chauhan and Ramesh were caught along with cash worth Rs. 4, 40,000, two mobiles and a diary from Landmark Hotel in Kanpur.

The arrested accused had come ahead of the IPL clash to be played between Delhi Daredevils and Gujarat Lions at Kanpur's Green Park Stadium .

The teams were staying at the Landmark Hotel and the bookies were betting from this hotel only.

On the same day, the Delhi Police had also busted an IPL betting racket in the Shahdara area of East Delhi and arrested six people.

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The Ministry of Finance led by Arun Jaitley has been working tirelessly to fulfill the agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of providing a cashless, corruption less clean governance to make New India.

While the finance ministry continues to bear the pressure of eradicating black money post demonetisation, it does every bit to transform Modi's vision into reality.

It seems that Modi has acknowledged a fact made public by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that "only 10 paisa out of one Rupee reaches to the actual beneficiaries of the government's welfare scheme". And, hence his main thrust is on providing direct benefit to the beneficiaries of the government schemes.

Considering the importance of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme , the finance ministry released Rs. 1,02,786.77 crore under in the form of direct transfers to beneficiaries of different government programmes, like- Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Horticulture Mission (NHM) and food subsidy, etcetera- till February 2017.

In order to take care of the pockets of the employees, the government issued the Resolution and the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 on July 25, 2016.

The finance ministry says that this will benefit about 47 lakh Central Government employees and 53 lakh pensioners.

To provide the relief to the pensioners, the government approved modifications in the 7th Central Pay Commission Recommendations on Pay and Pensionary benefits on May 3, 2017.

The modified formulation of pension revision approved by the Cabinet will entail an additional benefit to the pensioners.

It will benefit over 55 lakhs pre-2016 civil and defence pensioners and family pensioners," says a finance ministry official.

The Cabinet also approved the retention of percentage-based regime of disability pension implemented post 6th Central Pay Commission (CPC), which the 7th CPC had recommended to be replaced by a slab-based system.

"The decision which will benefit existing and future Defence pensioners would entail an additional expenditure of approximately Rs. 130 crores per annum," says a finance ministry official.

The finance ministry also provided special assistance of Rs. 10890 crore to the States during 2015-16.

"Net borrowing ceilings of the States for the year 2016-17 at Rs 429353 crore have been fixed anchoring the Fiscal Deficit target of 3 percent of respective State GSDP as recommended by Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) for its award period (2015-20).

The government also released funds for the terror-torn Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Prime Minister in 2015 announced J&K Reconstruction plan of Rs. 80,068 crore. Special Assistance of Rs. 1194.85 crore was released in 2015-16 for damaged and destroyed houses due to the floods. Till January 2017, a special assistance of Rs. 1093.34 crore towards permanent restoration of damaged infrastructure and Rs. 800 crore towards Interest Subvention on assistance for restoration of livelihood for traders/ self-employed / business establishment, etcetera was provided.

In order to better allocate existing resources and improve the efficiency of government programmes, the finance ministry brought down the number of Central Sector Schemes (CSS) to 300 from around 1500 earlier, and the number of Centrally Sponsored Schemes was brought down to 28 from 66 earlier.

To rationalize Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes, Plan and Non-Plan Expenditure distinctions were done away with and all schemes and projects have now an Outcome Framework.

Each Scheme will now have a start and a sun-set date co-terminus with the Finance Commission Cycle.

Third party Evaluation has also been formally built into the appraisal and approval framework to ensure periodic feedback, a more concerted focus on outcomes and enhanced growth performance.

The ministry also contributed to the Swachh Bharat Mission and it approved Rs 427.84 crore for renovation of 2,46,307 dysfunctional toilets in Government Schools.

On the disaster management front, during the year 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 (till 27.02.2017), financial assistance to the tune of Rs. 3460.88 crore, Rs. 12,451.96 crore and Rs. 8,390.87 crore respectively was provided to affected States from NDRF for the management of immediate relief operations for people affected by natural calamities like drought, hailstorm, flood, earthquake and cyclone etcetera.

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Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief on Tuesday directed Dr M. H. Khan to work in Lucknow for bringing Muslims into the party's kitty ahead of the municipal elections.

It is being seen as a replacement of sacked party leader Naseemuddin Siddiqui, who has levelled serious allegations against Mayawati.

Mayawati has also advised Khan not to participate in the media debates.

She has also directed BSP leaders Faizan And Ummed Singh to only air the party's views on public welfare in the media debates.

"The party high command will only put forward its views on policy related matters," said Mayawati.

Reacting on certain media reports, she asserted that the BSP is not only a political party but also a social movement in which people from all religions, societies, men, women and students are members.

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The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday announced a landmark five-year partnership with Microsoft Corporation, who will be providing a grant of USD 5 million to support the work of the UN Human Rights Office.

A particular area of focus for the partnership will be the development and use of advanced technology designed to better predict, analyze and respond to critical human rights situations, which currently appear not only to be proliferating in many parts of the world - including areas previously viewed as stable - but also growing in complexity.

The new partnership builds on a longstanding relationship between the UN Human Rights Office and Microsoft that is based on two shared ideas. The first is a commitment to ensuring technology plays a positive role in helping to promote and protect human rights. The second is recognition of the need for the private sector to play a bigger part in helping to advance the cause of human rights globally.

"As a global company that sees the problems of the world, we believe that we have a responsibility to help solve them. We have an untapped opportunity to use the power of technology to collect data, analyse that data and equip the United Nations to advance human rights around the world," said Brad Smith, President, Microsoft.

While in some cases technology may contribute to human rights challenges, it also has an important role to play in tackling abuses. The grant from Microsoft will help establish technology that has a positive impact, for example by developing and deploying new technology solutions specifically designed to advance the mission of the UN Human Rights Office and protect human rights.

One example is Rights View, an information dashboard that will allow UN human rights staff to aggregate large quantities of internal and external data on specific countries and types of rights violations in real time. It will help facilitate analysis, ensure early warning of emerging critical issues and provide data to guide responses. This tool, powered by cloud computing and big data analysis, is just one example of the potential for technology to be a force for good.

Microsoft will also work with the UN Human Rights Office to raise awareness of the role that companies can and should play in driving respect for human rights and to promote more responsible conduct across the world. Microsoft will work closely with the Office to help promote broader adoption and implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles on and Human Rights.

The UN Guiding Principles provide a global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to activity.

Microsoft will also provide support for human rights advocacy and outreach campaigns through concrete support for the work of the UN Human Rights Office in key areas like freedom of expression, data protection and privacy, and inclusion.

This includes direct support for the development and promotion of corporate principles for tackling LGBTI discrimination in the workplace in line with international human rights standards.

"We live in a rapidly evolving age, where technology can either be used to solve human rights problems or misused to erode human rights. Similarly, companies can infringe people's rights, or they can be a major progressive force," said Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"The private sector has an essential role to play in advancing human rights, and this partnership with Microsoft demonstrates how we can join forces in a constructive way. I hope this is just the beginning of something much bigger: that it helps stimulate a broad movement by the private sector to stand up for human rights. Increased support from major companies in the technology sector and other fields can clearly make a critical difference," added Zeid.

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Orson Welles fans, Rejoice! A new documentary on the life of Orson Welles is heading to Netflix.

The online streaming giant has announced a new documentary on the acclaimed filmmaker from Oscar winner Morgan Neville ('20 Feet from Stardom'), which will focus on the last fifteen years of Welles' life and his complicated relationship with Hollywood, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The news comes two months after Netflix announced the acquisition of the auteur's unfinished final feature, The Other Side of the Wind, which will be a center point of Neville's doc, which is being produced by Tremolo Productions.

Neville shared, "The Other Side of the Wind has long been a ghostly legend in cinema history, but the story behind it is equally fascinating. I'm excited to be able to tell the incredible story behind this film and to explore what made Welles such an enduring figure."

The movie follows the story of a legendary film director who is attempting to stage a Hollywood comeback by appealing to a younger audience by making a stylish art film, which turns into a disaster.

Frank Marshall, who worked with Welles as a production manager on The Other Side of the Wind and is overseeing its restoration and completion for Netflix, will serve as an executive producer on the doc, along with Filip Jan Rymzsa, the filmmaker who began the process of restoring the film by raising 400,000 USDthrough an Indiegogo campaign begun in 2015.

John Huston, Oja Kodar, Lilli Palmer and Dennis Hopper starred in 'The Other Side of the Wind,' which is considered to be Welles' semiautobiographical satire of Hollywood.

The feature began production in 1970 and continued sporadically filming through 1976 and has since sat for decades unfinished.

'The Other Side of the Wind' and Neville's doc will be released in conjunction in 2018.

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Pakistani passengers of the Cross-LoC Poonch Rawlakote bus service have condemned the cross-border firing along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri.

The passengers appealed to the Pakistan and Indian Army to stop the cross-border firing as it is claiming the lives of innocent people residing on the border belt.

"The firing which is being exchanged between both the nations is not right. Humanity is being killed. We want peace and harmony. We are so afraid that we have to leave our house and reside in a safer place. We are against this firing," said a passenger.

Another passenger also condemned the unprovoked firing and said that killing innocent people is not right.

"We will appeal to our government to stop firing and India should also do the same. Civilians are being killed in firing. This is not right," the passenger added.

Another passenger called for brotherhood while appealing to both the nations to stop the unprovoked firing.

The Pakistan Army, earlier on Sunday, initiated indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatics, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars along the Line of Control (LoC) in Chiti Bakri area of Rajouri sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian Army also retaliated to the unprovoked act strongly and effectively.

At least two civilians including a minor girl were killed and nine people, including four soldiers were injured in the unprovoked firing by Pakistan in Rajouri district.

Earlier on Saturday, two civilians were killed as Pakistan Army continued its unprovoked firing in state's Nowshera sector.

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Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, who arrived in India on a four-day visit, was given a ceremonial reception in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.

"Deepening historically close & friendly ties. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine receives ceremonial honours at @RashtrapatiBhvn," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

President Abbas will layed a wreath at Raj Ghat, the memorial of Father of Nation Mahatama Gandhi before going for bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Several agreements are expected to be signed between both sides after the talks at Hyderabad House.

This is President Abbas' fifth visit and third state visit to India.

Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will call on President Abbas during his stay in Delhi.

India and Palestine enjoy historical friendly ties.

Apart from extending the political support to the Palestinian cause, India continues to support developmental projects in Palestine by extending technical and financial assistance.

The visit will provide an opportunity for reviewing the entire gamut of bilateral relations, the Middle East Peace Process, regional and international issues.

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Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, who arrived in India on a four-day visit, met with Vice-President Hamid Ansari today.

Earlier in the day, the Palestine President was given a ceremonial reception in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Deepening historically close & friendly ties. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine receives ceremonial honours at @RashtrapatiBhvn," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

This is President Abbas' fifth visit and third state visit to India.

India and Palestine enjoy historical friendly ties.

Apart from extending the political support to the Palestinian cause, India continues to support developmental projects in Palestine by extending technical and financial assistance.

The visit will provide an opportunity for reviewing the entire gamut of bilateral relations, the Middle East Peace Process, regional and international issues.

(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 Tuesday said a process of investigation is into motion against former union minister P. Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram.

CBI Joint Director Vineet Vinayak said the investigation is still underway and some important evidences such as hard disks, mails and documents have been recovered.

Vinayak said a criminal case was registered yesterday under Sections of conspiracy, illegal gratification to influence a public servant, cheating and misuse of official position against five main individuals and entities, unnamed officials of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and others in the matters related in the grant of FIPB approval to INX media private Ltd, represented by its then directors Indrani Mukherjea and Pritam Mukherjea alias Peter Mukherjea.

Vinayak said the case was registered based on a prima facie evidence and searches were conducted at 14 locations including Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, and Gurugram.

"We have set the process of investigation into motion. All people whose involvement comes forth will be probed," he added.

He said the services of Chess Management, owned by Karti Chidambaram was sought by INX Media private Ltd. to seek approval from the AIPB to bring 46.2 percent of its issued equity which amount to Rs. 4.6 crore from three entities which were based in Mauritius.

"In the application the company had also mentioned that it would be making 26 percent downstream investment in its company INX news," he said.

"When this matter was processed at the FIPB, it was specifically mentioned that for 26 percent downstream investment the matter would require approval of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and a fresh approval and a fresh application would be required for the same," he added.

Vinayak said in 2008 a complaint was received by the Income Tax department about the FIPB approval granted for Rs 4.6 crore to the INX. He said that Rs. 1,000 crore was brought in illegally.

He said that it was in this case the services of the Chess Management was sought and accordingly a submission was filed to the FIPB.

"On account of this services rendered by the Chess Management, it was paid Rs. 10 lakh for which we have vouchers and those vouchers for this service was raised not by the Chess Management, but another company advantage Strategic Pvt. Ltd, owned by close associates of Karti Chidambaram," he said.

"In addition to these payments, there were three-four other vouchers which we have with regards to other issues which have certain common directors," he added.

Vinayak said the Economic Offences Wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the case on account of these facts.

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Fintech start-up offering quick and hassle-free personal loans Qbera has announced its expansion in New Delhi and Chennai to offer easy and convenient applications for unsecured loans, providing instant approval and disbursing loans in as little as 24 hours.

Launched in January 2017, Qbera is a product of Credit exchange, a Bangalore-based digital lending platform. Since its launch, the platform has received over 15,000 personal loan applications and funded over five crores of loans through its partner, RBL Bank.

The platform enables borrowers with monthly income of Rs. 20,000 onwards to avail personal loans ranging between Rs. 50,000 and Rs.7.5 lakh without the need of posting any collateral, for a period of 1 to 4years. EMIs from the platform start from as low as Rs. 2,733 per lakh (four years) and disbursal of the loan follows in as little as 24 hours of offer acceptance by the customer.

"With our cutting-edge technology, Qbera's digital platform ensures a short loan approval time and disbursal in as little as 24 hours. The response we have received in Bangalore so far has been extremely positive; our aim is to reach 10 cities by the end of 2017 and disburse loans worth Rs. 150 crore in FY 2017-18," said founder and CEO Qbera, Aditya Kumar.

Qbera's platform aims to address the large under-banked as well as the unbanked segment with little or no access to institutional finance, in addition to fulfilling the rising demand in the market for quick, convenient, and unsecured lending.

Unlike traditional banks and NBFCs that focus on lending to employees of a handful of target companies, the platform offers personal loans to salaried employees of more than seven lakh companies.

It further plans to expand its operations to a total of 10 cities including Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and Pune by December 2017.

In addition, it plans to expand its operations to tier II cities such as Lucknow, Jaipur, Surat, Bhopal, Patna, etc.

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged North Korea to return to the path of denuclearization, saying that its latest ballistic missile launch is a threat to regional peace and security.

"The Secretary-General condemns the launch of another ballistic missile by the DPRK," Guterres's spokesman said in a statement.

He added that the launch violates the Security Council resolution, and said that Guterres has called calls on North Korea to "ensure full compliance with its international obligations."

The United Nations Security Council ( UNSC) is expected to hold a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to discuss North Korea's latest missile test.

Citing a well-informed source, the TASS news agency reported that the meeting was requested by the United States and Japan.

North Korea fired the missile from the northwestern city of Kusong despite growing threats of increased sanctions from members of the international community.

The missile, which flew 430 miles and reached an altitude of more than 1,245 miles, went further and higher than the nation's last successful test launch.

Following the launch, a statement from the White House called North Korea a "flagrant menace" and urged "far stronger sanctions" against the reclusive nation.

"With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil - in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan - the president cannot imagine that Russia is pleased," the statement added.

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The Supreme Court will today continue the hearing on the triple talaq matter.

All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) counsel Kapil Sibal yesterday said the apex court should not decide or interfere in one's faith and belief.

To this Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, one of the five judges constituting the bench asked, if they should not hear the matter at all.

"Yes, you should not hear," replied Sibal.

Earlier, Sibal asked the top court as to how a 1400-year-old practice be branded 'unconstitutional'.

"Triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional?" Sibal asked the apex court.

Sibal further argued that just like the Hindus' faith about Rama's birth at Ayodhya cannot be questioned, similarly Triple Talaq which is also a matter of faith for Muslims should not be questioned.

Meanwhile, the bench also questioned the AIMPLB on the position of e-divorce given on WhatsApp in Islam.

The Centre, during the earlier hearing, assured the apex court that it would come out with a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if Triple Talaq is upheld as invalid.

"The government will come out with law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if court holds Triple Talaq as invalid," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the bench.

Rohatgi also conveyed to the apex court bench that Triple Talaq violates Muslim women's right to equality within the community, and also within the country

Earlier in the hearing, the apex court refused to hear all the three cases of Polygamy, Nikah and Halala at once, saying it will focus on one matter at a time.

The Attorney General and top law officers representing the Central government arguing in front of the five judge Constitution bench said the apex court should hear other cases also, besides Triple Talaq.

However, the top court said that they have limited time, so all the matters could not be covered at present.

On the second day of the hearing, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, said before the Supreme Court that the controversial Islamic divorce system cannot be justified whatsoever.

Citing examples, Khurshid told the court that the Triple Talaq practice cannot be validated constitutionally.

"There was a discussion that whether Triple Talaq is valid constitutionally.

Substantiating my view with reasons and examples, I asserted that it cannot be justified and cannot be given law's validation," Khurshid said during the hearing.

The Centre, earlier on May 11, told the apex court that it opposes the triple talaq practice and wants to fight for women equality and gender justice.

However, AIMPLB counsel Kapil Sibal told the apex court that Triple Talaq is a matter that comes under the Muslim board and therefore, in his opinion, the top court should not interfere in it.

"The Central Government makes rules but in my opinion the apex court should not interfere into it," Sibal said.

While hearing several pleas filed by Muslim women challenging the practice of triple talaq, the apex court observed that it would examine whether the issue is fundamental to religion or not.

A five-judge bench of the apex court further observed that it would not hear polygamy issue along with the triple talaq case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The race for Flagstaff City Council in 2018 has its first declared candidate.

But Paul Deasy's announcement casts uncertainty over any new initiative to amend Flagstaff's new minimum wage law.

Deasy, a research analyst at Northern Arizona University and the chairman of Bridging Flagstaff, announced Friday that he will be seeking a seat on the city council. The election, which will have three council seats and the mayors seat up for election, will be held in November 2018.

At Deasys campaign announcement, he also said he will no longer be pursuing as chair of Bridging Flagstaff the effort to place an initiative regarding the city minimum wage on the 2018 ballot, instead focusing his efforts on his own campaign.

Adam Shimoni, who was listed as treasurer of Bridging Flagstaff, said he plans to keep the organization, but have it remain dormant for now.

At the moment we are holding faith, but keeping it as an entity just in case something comes up in the future, Shimoni said. Right now, we feel like we are in a good place with the minimum wage issue.

Deasy had urged the City Council to amend Prop. 414, the new minimum wage law passed by city voters last November, so that is was not required to be $2 more than the state minimum. The council voted 6-1 in April to do just that, and so far the action has not prompted a legal challenge that Deasy said might have propelled Bridging Flagstaff to go back to the voters.

For now, Shimoni said, Bridging Flagstaff will not be making any pushes or working on any initiatives. As of the most recent financial reporting period, Bridging Flagstaff did not report any money raised.

Deasy said part of his campaign platform will include opposing the Sustainable Wages Act, which was created by a group called Elevate Flagstaff and backed by the Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce. It will be on the November ballot in 2018 and essentially guts the new Flagstaff ordinance, eventually bringing the citys minimum wage to $12.50 per hour instead of $15.50 by 2022 under current city law.

Deasy has filed his statement of organization with the city clerk, which is required for candidates anticipating they will raise or spend more than $500 over the course of the campaign.

At his campaign launch event Friday, Deasy indicated his campaign will focus on improving infrastructure, sparking economic growth and looking at innovative ways to improve sustainability, including utilizing developing technology like 3D printing and solar energy.

Candidates cannot begin circulating nominating petitions until nearly a year from now.
The Indian Congress on Tuesday came out guns blazing on the Centre over the upcoming celebrations of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government completing three years in power.

Taking the BJP to court across all fields regarding development and security, the Congress held a mega press conference led by Randeep Surjewala, along with Jyotirao Scindia, RPN Singh, Sachin Pilot and others.

Here are the top 10 quotes from the blazing press conference:

Jyotiraditya Scindia: "Our foreign policies are shifting like the weather, but what is our answer against the Pakistani aristocracies?"

Sushmita Dev: "The most disappoint in the country are its youths and that raises the question what will happen to them in the next three years?"

RPN Singh : "Dr. Manmohan Singh never visited Pakistan but Prime Minister Modi did. Why are we still being attacked by the Pakistanis?"

RPN Singh : "In the last three years, 12 major terrorist attacks have taken place and we invited the ISI to investigate."

Sushmita Dev: "If you want to push the country backwards, attack the youth. And that is all the BJP Government has done in the last three years"

Jyotiraditya Scindia: "We need to raise our financial capabilities to the world stage"

Sachin Pilot: "The most ill fated today are our farmers."

Sachin Pilot: "Instead of discussing current issues, the BJP government distracts the public by discussing controversial issues."

Divya Spandana: "There has been a 22.2% rise in Rape cases. Of 660 One-stop Centers, only 20 set up. Nirbhaya Fund not utilized."

Divya Spandana: "BJP Government has neglected South India. Karnataka Government asked for Rs 4702 crore in Drought Relief & got only Rs 1786 crore.

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The Supreme Court will today continue the hearing on the triple talaq matter.

The Centre yesterday assured the apex court that it would come out with a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if Triple Talaq is upheld as invalid.

"The government will come out with law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if court holds Triple Talaq as invalid," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the bench.

Rohatgi also conveyed to the apex court bench that Triple Talaq violates Muslim women's right to equality within the community, and also within the country

Earlier in the hearing, the apex court refused to hear all the three cases of Polygamy, Nikah and Halala at once, saying it will focus on one matter at a time.

The Attorney General and top law officers representing the Central government arguing in front of the five judge Constitution bench said the apex court should hear other cases also, besides Triple Talaq.

However, the top court said that they have limited time, so all the matters could not be covered at present.

On the second day of the hearing last Friday, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who is the amicus curiae in the matter, said before the Supreme Court that the controversial Islamic divorce system cannot be justified whatsoever.

Citing examples, Khurshid told the court that the Triple Talaq practice cannot be validated constitutionally.

"There was a discussion that whether Triple Talaq is valid constitutionally.

Substantiating my view with reasons and examples, I asserted that it cannot be justified and cannot be given law's validation," Khurshid said during the hearing.

The Centre, earlier on May 11, told the apex court that it opposes the triple talaq practice and wants to fight for women equality and gender justice.

However, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) counsel Kapil Sibal told the apex court that Triple Talaq is a matter that comes under the Muslim board and therefore, in his opinion, the top court should not interfere in it.

"The Central Government makes rules but in my opinion the apex court should not interfere into it," Sibal said.

While hearing several pleas filed by Muslim women challenging the practice of triple talaq, the apex court observed that it would examine whether the issue is fundamental to religion or not.

A five-judge bench of the apex court further observed that it would not hear polygamy issue along with the triple talaq case.

Relentless debates on the validity and plausibility of this practice were instigated soon after one petitioner, Shayara Banu, challenged the Muslim personal law over instantaneous application of triple talaq (talaq-e-bidat), polygamy and nikah-halala.

Supporting the stance of ending the practice of triple talaq, the Allahabad High Court had earlier asserted that the rights of any person, including Muslim women, cannot be violated in the name of 'personal law'.

In December last year, the Allahabad High Court termed the Islamic practice of divorcing a woman by uttering the word "talaq" thrice "unconstitutional."

"Triple talaq is unconstitutional. It violates the rights of Muslim women," ruled the high court, adding that no personal law board was above the Constitution.

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Tensions between Berlin and Ankara escalated to an extent that the Turkish Government has turned down a request by German lawmakers to visit troops stationed in the Incirlik airbase.

In response, Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that Berlin will consider removing its soldiers from Turkey after Ankara refused to grant Germany's parliament the permission to visit staff serving Turkish airbase.

Ankara's decision amounts to leading 'Mutiny' in NATO. Turkey's relations with Germany have taken a sharp downturn in recent months since Ankara has chosen to adopt an independent stance in NATO, as well as with regard to the European Union and the United States," Sputnik quoted political analyst Yuri Pochta as saying.

Turkey blocked German lawmakers from visiting the soldiers at Incirlik airbase, who are serving in a NATO mission targeting ISIS in Syria.

About 250 German soldiers are stationed at Incirbik as part of the US-led counter terrorism operation in the Middle East. Ankara's decision has prompted Berlin to review its deployment to Turkey by shifting the troops to another alternative likely Jordan.

Turkey's refusal is linked to Germany's recent decision to grant asylum to Turkish soldiers and officials stationed at NATO bases, who have been termed as disloyal officials by Ankara after a failed coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Several Turkish soldiers and their families who had previously stationed at Nato facilities in Germany have filed applications for asylum in Germany after facing prosecution charges following the failed coup.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reached Washington D.C on Monday to meet his American counterpart, Donald Trump.

According to Anadolu news agency, Erdogan will meet Trump at the White House on Tuesday for a bilateral Oval Office meeting followed by a press conference.

A meeting with Turkish-American business and religious leaders at the Turkish ambassador's residence in northwest Washington, D.C. is also scheduled.

Erdogan's visit comes after he won a historic referendum last month which gave him more executive powers as the President. Following the win, the U.S. President congratulated him on a phone call.

According to the Daily Sabah, Erdogan and Trump will discuss the issues surrounding Syria, especially the U.S.' decision to directly arm the Kurdish Workers' Party's (PKK) Syrian affiliate the People's Protection Units (YPG), and the extradition dossier of U.S.-based radical cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding last year's failed coup.

Speaking to journalists ahead of visit, the Turkish President said that he would discuss the extradition of Fetullah Gulen with Donald Trump on May 16.

"There are some documents and information we have prepared, which we will present to him. In my opinion, the United States of America should not be an incubation center for FETO," he said.

Erdogan is also expected to discuss the issue of the U.S. arming the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), considered by Turkey as an affiliate of the PKK terrorist organization.

"These are contrary developments to our relations and strategic agreement with the U.S. We do not want those issues, [...] we will discuss them," Erdogan said.

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The United States has accused the Bashar al-Assad regime of carrying out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burning their bodies in a large crematorium inside its Sednaya military prison outside Damascus, Syria.

Acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said that at least 50 prisoners a day are executed in the prison and then the crematorium is used to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings, reports the VOA News.

Jones also accused Russia and Iran of indirectly backing this atrocity.

"Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has carried out these atrocities and others seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran, his main backers," he said in a special State Department briefing on Monday.

The information, he said, came from human rights and nonovernmental sources, as well as "intelligence assessments." He also released overhead photographs of the facility.

Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as President Donald Trump has said, the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior."

Citing an Amnesty International report, Jones said that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the Saydnaya facility between 2011 and 2015.

He alleged that the Assad regime had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period.

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Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday reviewed the implementation of various initiatives of his ministry in the state here.

Naidu held the meeting with the officials of his ministries and Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das.

Informing about the event Naidu took to twitter to share snippets of the meeting.

"Reviewed implementation of various initiatives of Ministry of I&B in #Jharkhand with CM @dasraghubar," Tweeted Naidu.

He also held discussion with Das on issues concerning with Urban Development, poverty alleviation and ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The officials of all the three Ministries under him- Information and Broadcasting, Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation attended attend the meeting.

Naidu had also held similar meeting in Chennai, Guwahati and Chandigarh.

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Of Rs 1 per share

Hindusthan Urban Infrastructure announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 15 May 2017, inter alia, have recommended the final dividend of Rs 1 per equity Share (i.e. 10%) , subject to the approval of the shareholders.

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With effect from 16 May 2017

Dilip Buildcon announced that Naval Jawaharlal Totla (DIN 02408585) has submitted his resignation from the post of Non-Executive Director of the Company on 16 May 2017. Naval Jawaharlal Totla was a Nominee Director in the Board at the time of his appointment, nominated by BanyanTree Growth Capital LLC, Private Equity Investor of the company. After BanyanTree Growth Capital LLC sold its entire investment in the company, Naval Jawaharlal Totla continued in the Board as a Non-Executive Director. But due to his other commitments and the fact that BanyanTree Growth Capital LLC does not hold any stake in the company, he has tendered his resignation from the Company

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Sales rise 2.29% to Rs 194.56 crore

Net profit of Honda Siel Power Products declined 14.45% to Rs 13.14 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 15.36 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Sales rose 2.29% to Rs 194.56 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 190.20 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016.

For the full year,net profit rose 17.04% to Rs 57.15 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 48.83 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Sales rose 3.95% to Rs 687.47 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 661.35 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Sales194.56190.20 2 687.47661.35 4 OPM %11.1515.38 -13.7413.31 - PBDT25.9030.85 -16 110.3798.89 12 PBT19.8323.89 -17 87.1775.07 16 NP13.1415.36 -14 57.1548.83 17

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The National Steel Policy 2017 announced by the Ministry of Steel is betting on higher spending on infrastructure and construction sector through government initiatives to push steel demand and increase utilisation, says India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra). It is a comprehensive policy, with a focus on targets and means to achieve them. Ind-Ra believes the policy will give a boost to the struggling Indian steel industry; however the execution of provisions in the policy will remain a key challenge for the government. The policy sets guideline to address all the pain points of the industry namely, muted demand, over capacity, raw material price volatility and technology inefficiency, which if adhered to diligently will enable the industry to be better placed to absorb any external shocks.

To achieve the expected demand of 230 MT in 2030-31, steel demand will need to grow at a CAGR of around 7%-7.5% during the period against a CAGR of 3.5%-4% over the last 5 year. In order to achieve the aggressive demand growth target government's focus on building steel demand will be the key, which requires accelerated spending in infrastructure, construction, railways and the defence sector. The policy also focuses on taking steps to encourage the higher use of steel in projects by replacing other materials being used with steel wherever possible. Ind-Ra believes that the expected growth in steel demand looks ambitious and may face hurdles namely, political instability, budget constraint and timely execution of projects.

Further in order to protect the domestic industry from imports to meet the accelerated demand growth the government has announced another policy which provides preference to domestically manufactured iron & steel products for government procurement with immediate effect. The aforesaid policy excludes procurement of grades of steel not manufactured in India or where demand cannot be met through domestic sources. Ind-Ra believes the policy is likely to boost demand and realisations of domestic producers as they will not have to compete with imported material and is likely to increase capacity utilisation though it will be marginal. The steel producers with a higher proportion of value added products in their baskets will benefit the most from the preference policy.

To meet the demand growth the government plans to increase the steel capacity to 300 MT by 2030-31 (122 MT 2015-16), which would require extensive efforts toward increasing the availability of resources namely, infrastructure, raw material and finance.

Ind-Ra believes that the capacity creation which requires capital expenditure of around INR10 trillion will lead to stretched credit metrics on a sustained basis for companies, due to the continuous capex undertaken. Ind-Ra expects central public sector enterprises to be under pressure to build capacity for catering to any demand-supply gap after considering the capex by the private sector. Capex undertaken by public sector enterprises may further stretch the metrics of public undertaking, unless the government infuses funds to support capex instead of adding debt. Apart from resources, other hurdles also needs to be addressed like improvement in the approval processes for setting up plants, which generally leads to delays in the completion of projects.

The Indian steel industry imports around 85% of coking coal for producing steel, which is highly volatile and has impacted and continues to remain a concern for companies profitability. The policy has taken cognisance of the same and plans to increase the domestic availability of coking coal through acquisition of overseas assets and the auction of domestic coking coal blocks in coalition with the Ministry of Mines and by installing coal washeries. If successfully implemented and the linkages provided to domestic producers, it will provide some stability to input cost, since producers will continue to depend on imports for majority (around 65%) of their requirements.

India is self-sufficient in terms of iron ore availability to meet the estimates rise in requirements, but needs to expedite the approval process to enable timely availability of the resource. The policy also focuses on increasing the use of low grade iron ore fines in an efficient manner by bringing in regulatory changes, where required. Indian steel industry lacks technological efficiency compared to global standard, thus making us uncompetitive against countries like China, Japan and Korea as well as poses a threat from import substitution. The policy focuses on improvement in the efficiency parameters so as to reduce the cost of production and develop advanced steel products to reduce the dependence on imports. However in order to achieve efficiency levels in most plants a significant amount of capex will be required to be undertaken by steel companies, which looks tough considering their financial health, baring for few large producers.

Ind-Ra believes that policy will be positive for the steel industry, however timely implementation of various steps will be crucial. Further, for the policy to be successful immediate steps to improve the existing situation of the struggling steel industry and ways to build demand leading to improvement in capacity utilisations of existing plants is warranted.

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Sales rise 10.26% to Rs 1614.95 crore

Net profit of JK Tyre & Industries declined 32.77% to Rs 71.01 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 105.63 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Sales rose 10.26% to Rs 1614.95 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 1464.70 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016.

For the full year,net profit declined 21.76% to Rs 332.13 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 424.49 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Sales rose 2.65% to Rs 5910.52 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 5758.01 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Sales1614.951464.70 10 5910.525758.01 3 OPM %5.4216.21 -12.6217.36 - PBDT66.23184.68 -64 538.04785.88 -32 PBT22.00137.13 -84 354.46613.58 -42 NP71.01105.63 -33 332.13424.49 -22

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Sales rise 77.46% to Rs 3.07 crore

Net profit of Maharashtra Scooters declined 97.35% to Rs 1.27 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 47.95 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Sales rose 77.46% to Rs 3.07 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 1.73 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016.

For the full year,net profit declined 87.56% to Rs 12.56 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 101.00 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Sales declined 5.24% to Rs 8.50 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 8.97 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Sales3.071.73 77 8.508.97 -5 OPM %-52.44-80.35 --76.35-71.79 - PBDT1.6848.14 -97 14.25101.74 -86 PBT1.5447.95 -97 13.70101.00 -86 NP1.2747.95 -97 12.56101.00 -88

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Total Operating Income decline 7.72% to Rs 1962.46 crore

Net profit of Punjab & Sind Bank declined 91.51% to Rs 8.33 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 98.12 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016. Total Operating Income declined 7.72% to Rs 1962.46 crore in the quarter ended March 2017 as against Rs 2126.61 crore during the previous quarter ended March 2016.

For the full year,net profit declined 40.15% to Rs 201.08 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 335.97 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. Total Operating Income declined 6.54% to Rs 8172.87 crore in the year ended March 2017 as against Rs 8744.34 crore during the previous year ended March 2016. ParticularsQuarter EndedYear EndedMar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Mar. 2017Mar. 2016% Var.Total Operating Income1962.462126.61 -8 8172.878744.34 -7 OPM %60.2474.86 -69.5775.35 - PBDT-64.45170.26 PL 250.47498.40 -50 PBT-64.45170.26 PL 250.47498.40 -50 NP8.3398.12 -92 201.08335.97 -40

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Up to 32 armed insurgents were killed as government forces launched a counter offensive to foil Taliban attacks in northern Afghanistan, provincial police chief Ekramudin Sarih said on Tuesday.

The counter offensive was launched in Burka district of northern Afghanistan's Baghlan province.

"Taliban rebels began multi-pronged attacks early Tuesday to overrun Burk district but their attempts have been foiled following counter offensive and the militants, after leaving 32 bodies, fled away," Sarih was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

Several militants were injured in the firefight.

The official, however, avoided commenting on possible casualties of security forces in the fight against Taliban fighters, saying "only seven security personnel have been killed across Baghlan province in operations against Taliban" over the past seven days.

Security forces also recaptured Qala-e-Zal district in the northern Kunduz province on Tuesday, forcing Taliban insurgents to flee the area.

--IANS

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Sixty-four per cent of Americans support same-sex marriage and say it should be legalised, according to a new poll.

The results in the Gallup poll released on Monday showed a 3 per cent increase since last year and the most support for gay marriage since the US-based research organisation began tracking the issue in 1996, when just 27 per cent backed it, Politico news reported.

Democrats (74 per cent) and independents (71 per cent) have been most accepting of legalising same-sex marriages, with support among Democrats reaching a majority in 2004, followed by a majority among independents in 2007.

Forty-seven per cent of Republicans support legalising same-sex marriage, the highest ever mark from the party.

The Supreme Court in June 2015 legalised gay marriage nationwide in a landmark 5-4 ruling that said the Constitution bars states from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, reports Politico news.

While some may still have objections to same-sex unions over moral or religious grounds despite the Supreme Court ruling, Americans are more accepting of same-sex relations, with 72 per cent of respondents saying it should be legal.

The survey of 1,011 adults was conducted May 3 to 7 via landline and cellphones.

--IANS

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He rules over 65 tribes in South Africa and his mission is to unite all the tribes across Africa as a nation, reconnecting them with their identity as Africans. Meet King Bhungane III, of the Kingdom of Embo.

King Bhungane III, soft-spoken and gentle, has none of the airs one would associate with royalty.

"In modern South Africa, my role is to assist the poorest of the poor. My task now is to reunite my people and guide them spiritually, culturally, customarily and traditionally," Bhungane III told a visiting IANS correspondent recently.

Bhungane was crowned king only in 2015. Before that he was a member of the African National Congress.

The king was attending the Crans Montana Forum in Dakhla in March as a special invitee of Morocco's monarch, Mohammed VI.

Bhungane traces the ancestry of his Bantu-speaking people to a few thousand years, from the time of the Biblical King Solomon. According to him, his people migrated down from the Great Lakes region in Central Africa a few hundred years ago.

He recounted interesting traditions of the Bantu people of how they take their last child to the river, smear him or her with clay and "introduce the child to the river" -- symbolising a deep connect with nature.

"When the child is one month old, he or she is taken to the river and smeared with clay and covered with leopard skin. The child is presented to the water. We explain the name of the child (to the river), and after that wash the clay off the child into the river, so that the aroma of the child is in the river. We dry the child with leopard skin and walk away with it, and don't look back at the river. That's our tradition, and it still exists."

The tradition is over 3,000 years, he says.

When the child turns one, the ritual is repeated. Then a goat is slaughtered and presented to the ancestors. "We tell them, this child is your child."

Then "some fluid from the knee of the sacrificed goat" is taken and rubbed on the knees and ankles of the child. "So that when the child steps up, it must not be a weak child."

In another ritual, a piece of skin "from the back of the left leg" of the sacrificed goat is taken and is tied like an arm band on the right hand of the child.

"It signifies that this child belongs to God and is protected by ancestors," he says.

Recounting the process of choosing a king, Bhungane says: "When a king is chosen, it will come from the prophet, or a seer in the tribe. They will go to other tribes also to see if the seer gave them the exact story (about the chosen one) to verify. They may go to three-four different tribes."

After the verification is done, there is a ritual to be followed.

"The chosen successor must be taken to the mountain. At the peak of the mountain, the prophets call the gods and present the future king.

"They use certain herbs to enhance his powers. From there, the successor is then presented to the family to say he is now ready. Then a feast is held.

"The prophets tell us what name he should bear -- the title. Like myself, I was told that I was the reincarnation of Bhungane I and II."

According to Bhungane, almost every Bantu-speaking tribe follows the tradition. "We still hold on to the custom today.

Who are the Bantu people?

"We were the first people in (what is now) the Congo, and the first migration (southwards) was with us. We are the first custodians of the kingdom and the first custodians of the rulership of the Bantus."

The king says that British colonisation "destroyed our kingdom. It took us many years to resuscitate our kingdom".

What about the future of his people?

"My thrust is to unite them under one spirituality first. To find our identity, to rebuild our identity and encourage them to education. We need to reconnect, some of them no longer believe in our tradition, they believe in churches.

"We need to reintroduce them to what we are talking about. Some of them do not adhere to the tradition of their kingdoms, some of them think they are white. They are confused..."

Bhungane says he will appeal to his people at the spiritual level, irrespective of what religion they follow. "I don't belong to any religious denomination, I am at a spiritual level. I can connect to anybody. So my people can come back -- it's connecting with high spirituality."

Bhungane says the king becomes a spiritual guide to the nation.

"He sees things that ordinary humans do not see. He has a direct connection with God in terms of communication, and he is the guide to the nation, because he will get direct commands, direct orders from God."

And as part of the connect, in these modern times, the king has started a Facebook page to keep his people abreast of the news concerning the community.

(Ranjana Narayan was in Morocco at the invitation of the Crans Montana Forum. She can be contacted at ranjana.n@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Afghan security forces on Tuesday took control of Qala-e-Zal district in Kunduz province after clashes with Taliban militants, the district governor said.

"Afghan forces evicted militants from the district centre. As of now, no casualties have been reported on the side of security forces but several militants have been killed and injured during clashes," Xinhua news agency quoted Governor Mabubullah Sayydi as saying.

On May 6, Taliban militants overran the district after days of fighting forcing the troops to retreat from the district bordering Tajikistan.

Kunduz as well as neighbouring Baghlan and Takhar provinces have been the scene of heavy clashes over the past couple of months as Taliban have been trying to challenge the government forces in the once relatively peaceful region.

The Kunduz clashes have caused hundreds of families to flee their houses and find safer places in the province.

--IANS

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Ahead of the assembly elections, the banned militant outfit National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) is trying to regroup to create disturbances, a top state police official said here on Tuesday.

The NLFT recently appointed Subir Debbarma as its President replacing Biswamohan Debbarma, who been made advisor, a top police official said quoting an intelligence report.

The official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the NLFT, based in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh, is trying to regroup themselves to create troubles before the next year's assembly elections.

Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, addressing a public rally at Belonia in southern Tripura on Monday, also confirmed the change of leadership in the NLFT and warned of its resurgence.

"A section of political leaders belonging to opposition parties are trying to contact the new leader of NLFT to create violence ahead of the assembly elections. This clandestine plan is also to disture peace and on going development activities in the state," said Sarkar, who also holds the Home portfolio.

"The NLFT helped a tribal organisation to forcibly capture the politically important Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council in 2000 after creating terror," he said.

The police official said that NLFT's new supremo Subir Debbarma alias Yamorok, a resident of Bargachia area in Mohanpur sub-division in western Tripura, was a long-standing member of the outfit. Arrested during a counter insurgency operation in 2013, he got released on bail and went to Bangladesh before joining the terrorist group once again.

"Subir's wife Minati Tripura is a teacher by profession and engaged in a school at Khagrachari in the CHT. They have two children," the official said adding that despite change in leadership in NLFT, the banned outfit is unlikely to withdraw its demand of sovereign Tripura.

The border state has, since 2009, emerged as an island of peace in the otherwise violence-prone northeastern region of India.

In 2015 and 2016, according to official and unofficial records no incident of militancy took place in Tripura while in a decade ago in 2005, 115 terror violent incidents took place claiming 130 lives while at least 65 civilians were abducted.

In 1998, outlawed militant outfits gunned down at least 360 people and kidnapped 390 men in 340 terror incidents.

--IANS

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Ace Bollywood actress, Alia Bhatt joined popular author Amish Tripathi in launching the trailer of his upcoming book.

The trailer of Tripathi's highly-anticipated book "Sita - Warrior of Mithila" was launched on Tuesday at Granth Bookstore in Juhu here. The author along with Alia Bhatt unveiled the fearless warrior visual of Lady Sita through the unique book trailer.

In Amish's book, Lady Sita is depicted as a strong and independent woman. This unique portrayal of Lady Sita has raised anticipation for the book and the new trailer further creates excitement for the readers.

Commenting on the trailer, Tripathi said: "I am delighted to have launched this trailer, to give an audio-visual image of Lady Sita the way She is in my book. And I am equally delighted that Alia, a strong woman achiever who has balanced commercial cinema with social messages, graced this event to launch the trailer".

The actress known for creating her mark in Bollywood by consciously opting for diverse and powerful roles also added: "It was great to have met Amish for the first time for his new book Sita - Warrior of Mithila's trailer launch. And I am glad that our first meeting will be so special. I have read the Immortals of Meluha and loved it. I think Amish has a knack of expressing our mythology in a very contemporary modern way. He is bold and brave and I like that about his books! His books are not just books... They are an experience!"

The much-awaited book, the second of the Ram Chandra series, will release on May 29 in Mumbai.

--IANS

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Rome, May 16 (IANS/AKI) A total of 53,912 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 as of May 14, with nearly 85 per cent arriving in Italy, the International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.

The total arrivals this year compares with 189,075 in the same period of 2016, IOM said.

The number of people who arrived in Italy till May 14 was 45,118, against 32,292 last year, according to IOM.

There were 1,316 fatalities through 14 May, around two-thirds of the 1,905 deaths worldwide over the same period, IOM's Missing Migrants Project reports.

Over 5,000 migrants perished at sea last year, making it the deadliest year on record, as people traffickers crammed larger numbers of people into unseaworthy boats, increasingly flimsy inflatable dinghies.

--IANS/AKI

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The holy town of Mathura was on Tuesday simmering with anger at the "failure" of the police to nab the assailants who shot dead two jewellers and fled with jewellery worth Rs 4 crore the previous night.

Anger against local politicians, including Mathura MLA and state Minister Srikant Sharma, was apparent at several meetings held in the city during the day.

Meanwhile, ADG Agra zone Ajay Anand reached Mathura in the afternoon.

He told media persons that the culprits would soon be in police custody and the case would be worked out. He indicated that Uttar Pradesh Police chief Sulkhan Singh was likely to visit Mathura on Wednesday.

Mathura Kotwali or police station is barely 50 yards away from the site of the crime, a busy market street with a row of jewellers' shops. The targeted shop is right in the middle of the street.

Civil Lines resident Mayank Agarwal and his brother Vikas Agarwal were in the shop as well as a worker from Meerut, around 8 p.m. on Monday. Shopkeepers told the police that around 8.30 p.m., eight persons on four mobikes, their faces covered and some wearing helmets, entered the shop and opened fire.

Megh Agarwal, 34, a jeweller from Delhi who had come for some deal, died on the spot. Vikas Agarwal died later in hospital. The armed men were in the shop for over 15 minutes, collecting whatever they could lay their hands on.

While the armed bandits were busy firing and looting, no one came to help. "In fact, the neighbouring shop owners downed the shutters virtually shutting themselves in and only ventured out when the police came," a local said.

Police said the assailants came when the market was about to close for the day.

State Energy Minister Srikant Sharma, who is MLA from Mathura, said safety of traders and businessmen was a top priority of the government and drastic action would soon follow to instil confidence among the people.

Political activist Manoj Choudhary told IANS: "It was a gruesome murder and one in a series of recent criminal acts. The Rashtriya Lok Raj Party condemns and demands high level probe. It's a black day in Mathura's history."

The rising graph of crimes in the twin holy cities of Mathura and Vrindavan has been a major cause for concern and was a major issue in the recent assembly elections.

Industrialists on Tuesday said that if the present trend continues it would be difficult to run any kind of financial activity in the city. The failure of the local police to work out cases of murder and loot has created a scare in the Braj area visited by millions of Sri Krishna devotees round the year, they said.

--IANS

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Bharatiya Janata Party's Kerala unit President Kummanem Rajasekheran on Tuesday said he is prepared to go to jail if he has done a wrong.

On Monday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the Kerala assembly that soon after the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist in Kannur district last week, there was a Facebook post by Rajasekheran that showed the celebration of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) workers.

Vijayan went on to say that "none knows where this purported celebration took place, and the police have already begun a probe into this and will register a case if it is found to be wrong".

"When I do something, I do it with conviction and I welcome the probe by police into my post. I do not even mind going to jail. If I have done a wrong, let them arrest me. Police have to conduct the probe into it," Rajasekheran told reporters.

Last Friday, Biju, an RSS worker and also the 12th accused in a murder case involving a CPI-M worker last year at Payyanur, was first knocked down by an Innova car and then hacked to death.

Since then, the BJP and the CPI-M have been against each other. The BJP has demanded imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Kannur district, which has been strongly opposed by the CPI-M.

Kerala state CPI-M Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan on Tuesday told reporters the BJP is trying to flex its muscles and use its central government to clamp the AFSPA on Kannur.

"Using the Centre, the BJP is trying to impose AFSPA in Kannur and this is basically meant to target the CPI-M using the Army. The only reason why the RSS/BJP is trying to do this is they are a party which is standing aloof from the people," said Balakrishnan.

He added that the CPI-M will not protect whosoever is responsible for the murder of Biju.

Two activists of the CPI-M youth wing have been arrested over Biju's murder.

In a related development, Kerala Police chief T.P. Senkumar, following a complaint by Mohammed Siraj from Kannur against the video posted by Rajasekheran, has directed the Kannur district police chief to probe the case and submit his report.

Union Minister for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy is scheduled to arrive in Kannur on Wednesday and visit the victim's house.

--IANS

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Assam's Purnima Barman, known for her efforts for the conservation of the Greater Adjutant Stork and its habitat, has been nominated for the prestigious Whitley Awards 2017, also called the Green Oscar, it was announced on Tuesday.

This prestigious international prize honours exceptional individuals working in grassroots nature conservation in the world's developing countries, and who often face humanitarian, environmental and political challenges in the projects they undertake.

The Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), a Britain-registered charity, has announced the shortlist of six finalists for the Whitley Awards 2017.

There is another Indian in the list - Sanjay Gubbi who has been nominated for his efforts to reduce deforestation in Karnataka's tiger corridors.

The others contenders are Ximena Velez-Liendo, who has been enabling coexistence of Andean bears and farmers in the Bolivian mountains, Alexander Blanco for conserving Venezuela's magnificent harpy eagles as a rainforest flagship, Ian Little for contribution towards conserving South Africa's threatened grassland biodiversity, and Indira Lacerna Widmann, who has partnered with prisoners to safeguard the Critically Endangered Philippine cockatoo.

The final results will be announced at a special evening ceremony May 18 this year at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Barman, 37, a native of Assam's Kamrup district, has been engaged in conservation of the Greater Adjutant Storks, popularly known as Hargila in Assamese, and their habitats for several years now. Her success can be gauged by the name she has earned - "Hargila Baideu" (Stork sister) in Dadara village where there is a huge colony of the species living without any disturbance from the humans.

The village has over 1,000 storks now and the credit goes to Barman and the hard work and dedication she has put in all these years. She had even quit her job as a college teacher so that she could devote herself to its conservation.

"It all started in early 2009 when Aaranyak, a society for biodiversity conservation, took up an initiative for the conservation of the bird and entrusted me to create awareness among the locals," said a happy Barman.

She regularly visits the villages and organizes awareness campaigns relentlessly among the locals, through posters, banners, street plays etc. Roads in Dadara, Pacharia and Singimari are all spruced up with posters and banners with messages to save the bird. She motivates the locals saying the bird is their asset and as such, they should protect it.

--IANS

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Australian health officials on Tuesday warned of a "serious" incidence of children inhaling aviation fuel in the Northern Territory, the media reported.

Security camera footage showed children breaking into the remote Elcho Island Airport and siphoning fuel from planes, the BBC reported.

Petrol sniffing is not a new challenge to hit remote communities, but aviation fuel is even more dangerous because it contains lead, officials said.

Lead exposure can badly damage the brain and nervous system.

Health officials believe more than 100 youths - one as young as seven - have inhaled the fuel on Elcho Island and a nearby area since March 2016.

"Our kids are ending up in hospital by getting infected by chemicals, which is bad for them," an Aboriginal elder told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Nine children and one adult have been taken to Darwin for treatment.

A senior health official said the situation was "serious and of concern".

"Our local teams, as part of the community, are working tirelessly to support the families and prevent further incidents," he told the BBC.

Exposure to lead can cause profound and permanent health damage, especially to young children, according to the World Health Organisation.

As well as damaging the brain and nervous system, lead also poses an increased risk of miscarriage, high blood pressure and kidney damage.

--IANS

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The first 'Bada Mangal', a special festival which draws thousands to Hanuman temples across the state capital is being celebrated on Tuesday with much fervour and gaiety.

Devotees thronged Hanuman temples from early morning to pay obeisance to the deity.

A large crowd turned up at the Hanuman Setu and Aliganj Hanuman temples following which traffic snarls were reported from many places.

'Bhandaras' have been organised at more than a thousand places across the city with people offering food, sweets and even pizzas at some places.

For all the Tuesdays of the Hindu calendar month of 'Jeth', the Bada Mangal festival is celebrated in Lucknow and some neighbouring areas.

All Hanuman temples have been decorated and security has been stepped up at most places. Traffic has been required to be diverted at some places due to crowing of devotees.

--IANS

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The pristine Kovalam beach here will host leading writers and thinkers from across the country and beyond for the inaugural edition of "Books on the Beach", a literature festival that celebrates and contemplates both the written word and its expression, said politician and author Shashi Tharoor.

The lit-fest, which is organised by non-profit India Book Foundation under the guidance and active patronage of Tharoor, the Thiruvananthapuram MP and supported by Kerala Tourism, will be held over three days starting November 10.

The event would see writers of prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction, essayists and environmentalists, artists and academics, reporters and editors conduct readings and recitals besides participating in meaningful debates and dialogues on a multitude of topics.

"Literature has real value. It appeals to a more discerning audience. The Hay Festival here a few years ago was a huge success and led to increased awareness of Kerala thanks to word of mouth.

"It is time we established a durable institution that showcases Thiruvananthapuram and Kerala as a place of ideas and culture. But a lit-fest is not for visitors alone, it will also further energise the already vibrant reading culture in the state," said Tharoor.

Besides serving as an annual platform for the best in Indian and world literature, "Books on the Beach" will, over successive editions, tap into the city's youthful energy and distinctive charm to promote it as a leading destination for culture and tourism, said officials.

"Cultural festivals play an important role in branding and promoting destinations. Kerala Tourism is presently positioning the state as an arts and culture hub. It will provide a fillip to tourism in the state, and in particular renew interest in Kovalam. The litfest will enjoy Kerala Tourism's full support," said Kerala Tourism chief V. Venu.

--IANS

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Online messaging service WhatsApp on Tuesday sought to assure the Supreme Court that it has never shared the contents of the messages between its users with third parties even as the top court said that it could not leave 160 million users "trapped in a corridor of charity".

The five judge constitution bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra indicated that it would examine the 2016 privacy policy of the online messaging app on the reopening of the court after its summer vacations.

Besides Justice Misra, the bench includes Justice A.K. Sikri, Justice Amitava Roy, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar.

The court said that it would examine the new privacy policy, which WhatsApp had brought in 2016, after it was acquired by the social networking site Faceb ook, on the grounds whether it was contrary to public policy and whether it was required to be put to constitutional controls.

However, this would happen only if the court comes to conclusion it required judicial interference, said the bench in course of the hearing of a plea by petitioners Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi who have challenged the Delhi High Court's September 23, 2016 order allowing WhatsApp to roll out its new privacy policy but stopping it from sharing the data of its users collected up to September 25, 2016, with Facebook or any other related company.

Tuesday was the second day of the hearing and further hearing would take place after top court reopens after summer vacations. On Monday, the court had asked WhatsApp why it changed its policy of non-sharing of data of users after its acquisition by Facebook ito permit sharing of the attributes of its users.

Resuming his arguments on the maintainability of the petitions challenging the Delhi High court verdict, senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for Facebook, said: "We can file an affidavit stating that not a single piece of information has been shared with anybody. Even I cannot access the information if I want to. There is no element of human intervention in the process. Machines take care of this."

He said that any fundamental right - be it of communication or choice of communication - could only be invoked against the state and not against a private entity like WhatsApp, which was not discharging public functions. He argued that petitioners challenging its 2016 new privacy policy will have to first approach the regulatory authorities - TRAI.

He said that regulations framed under the Information Technology Act in 2009 and 2011 covered WhatsApp - a position contested by the petitioners who are contending that these regulations have been outpaced by the technological advancements.

Reiterating that it was in no position to go into the contends of the messages exchanged between its users as they were in encrypted form, senior counsel Siddharth Luthra, appearing for WhatsApp, told the bench that it was not generating meta data and all that was being shared was contact details, profile photo and status of the users of the App.

Lawyer Madhvi Divan, appearing for the petitioners, said that WhatsApp was using public resource like spectrum and was performing public functions.

Comparing it with telephone services, Divan said while one was paying for availing telephone services, WhatsApp was free but describing its operation as "economic espionage in the name of free service", urged the bench to look at their business model.

--IANS

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Oscar-winning actor Casey Affleck is set to receive the Festival Presidents Award at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The festival, which will be held from June 30 to July 8, announced it on Monday. The award is a special honour given by the Czech festival to an actor, director or producer who is considered to have contributed in a fundamental way to the development of contemporary world cinema, reports variety.com.

Affleck, who won the Academy Award this year for his leading role in "Manchester by the Sea", will introduce a screening of David Lowery's "A Ghost Story" at the festival, in which he stars.

"We regard Casey Affleck as one of the most intriguing actors in contemporary American film," said Jiri Barto?ka, president of the festival.

"We are very glad (he) is accepting the Karlovy Vary President's Award and will present 'A Ghost Story' at our 52nd edition."

--IANS

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said departments like the CBI and income tax, would not act unless there is a substantial basis or reason to suspect something.

"Unless there is a substantial basis or a reason to suspect, these departments don't act. Ultimately the actions have to bear some results," he said responding to questions by the media.

"People in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small matter. I think this is the day of reckoning that has come for many. They will all be alert," Jaitley added.

He was asked about the opposition charge that the raids on the houses of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti, and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday were done because of political vendetta.

However, he refused to comment on specific cases, saying: "We do not comment on individual cases."

--IANS

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The CBI on Tuesday raided the residences of former Union Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram here in connection with the grant of FIPB approvals when he was the Finance Minister. Chidambaram has termed it vendetta and declared the raids will not stop him from being critical of the government.

A team of 11 CBI officials entered the Haddows Road residence of Chidambaram on Tuesday morning and carried out searches.

According to sources, 17 other locations in Chennai, Karaikudi, Delhi and Noida were also searched by CBI sleuths in this connection.

The early morning raids at the former Finance and Home Minister's residence were conducted in connection with Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearances given to INX Media (now called 9X Media) when it was run by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, and Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.

Separate Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) teams conducted searches at more than 17 locations in Chennai, Karaikudi, Delhi and Noida besides Mumbai and Gurugram.

The CBI raids come close on the heels of an Enforcement Directorate probe into the affairs of Karti Chidambaram who they allege was involved in FEMA violations and money laundering.

According to the investigating agency allegations, Karti was linked to a firm, Advantage Strategic Ltd, whose name cropped up in various cases.

Chidambaram has said there are no allegations against him or his son.

"The government, using CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write."

In a statement issued on Tuesday, a little after the raids began, Chidambaram said "FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me."

Terming it vendetta politics, the former Finance Minister said, "every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India."

Karti Chidambaram has maintained that he will come out clean as there was nothing to hide. He said he had cooperated with probe agencies and has paid all his taxes.

"The case against me has been foisted purely out of political reasons and vendetta. Nothing can be proven against me and I have not done any crime. It has been done mainly to muzzle my father's voice against the government," he said.

Congress legislative leader in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Karaikudi Ramaswamy visited Chidambaram's residence and later told media persons that there was nothing in the case that was being made out.

"It is just a ploy to discredit and destroy the reputation and image of the Congress party," he said.

The agency's move comes a day after it filed an FIR against Karti Chidambaram and Indrani Mukherjea in the case.

The case -- registered under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in 2010 -- involves foreign investment by three Mauritius-based companies in INX Media.

The ED had earlier issued a show-cause notice to Karti Chidambaram and INX Media for alleged FEMA violations of over Rs 40 crore.

The ED also issued a similar notice to a Chennai-based firm, Vasan Health Care Private Limited, for alleged forex violations of over Rs 2,000 crore.

"The total amount of contravention identified on different counts and found to have been committed by Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited in the sale transaction of shares of Vasan Health Care to overseas investors is around Rs 45 crore," the ED notice said.

"Show-cause notice has been issued to Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited, its directors and also to Karti Chidambaram who appears to be the controller and ultimate beneficiary in these transactions," it added.

--IANS

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A local court date for a Colorado man accused of killing two people in Williams may be a long time coming, according to the law enforcement officials in Arizona and Colorado.

Derrick Shawn Barnett, 29, of Grand Junction, Colo., was formally charged on Saturday with two counts of murder along with vehicle theft and weapons misconduct in the deaths of Michael Dimuria, 67, and his wife Nora Dimuria, 64.

However, it may take over a year for Barnett to face charges in Arizona, due to the fact he is accused of a multitude of crimes in Colorado, making the extradition process from his home state to Arizona lengthy and difficult.

Extradition is the surrender of an accused person from one state to another.

When Barnett was arrested by Dolores County and Montezuma County sheriffs deputies during a high-speed chase on May 6, he was charged with three felony counts of eluding, reckless driving and driving with a revoked license. Barnett also had an outstanding warrant for burglary, assault by strangulation and intimidation of a witness.

Overall, Barnett is accused of 10 different crimes in two different states, all of which must go through the court system overseeing the jurisdiction where each crime was committed.

The reality is that Barnett is going to Arizona to face charges at some point, but he does have court dates to set up here, Dolores County Sheriff Jerry Martin said.

Coconino County Sheriffs Officer Commander Rex Gilliland expressed the same sentiment, stating that Barnett will face his Arizona murder charges, but Colorado law enforcement has to make the first move.

He has local charges in Dolores and Montezuma and he has outstanding warrants in Grand Junction, Gilliland said. Our arrest warrant has been served, but he is still going to have to answer to those crimes in Colorado.

Waiver or a governor

There are two ways to extradite Barnett. The simplest way would be for Barnett to waive his rights to extradition, meaning that he and the three Colorado jurisdictions charging him would agree to put his charges on hold so Barnett could go to court for his Arizona murder counts.

Gilliland said that in his experience the only time a defendant waives their extradition rights is when they are looking to be closer to their family or support system.

According to Gilliland, the fact that Barnett is being charged with more significant crimes in Arizona and does not seem to have family in the state makes it unlikely that Barnett would waive his extradition rights.

The more likely route to get Barnett to Arizona would be to get the prosecuting attorney to request a warrant from the Colorado Governors Office.

A governors warrant gives permission for one state to extradite the defendant to another state to face charges, but it is time-consuming.

The most likely process is that our local prosecutors are going to request a governors warrant and that will take a bit of time. It can be a slow process, Gilliland said.

Martin said that a governors warrant is not difficult to obtain for someone facing felony charges like Barnett, but the sheriff also said prosecutors in Dolores and Montezuma County may want him to face charges in Colorado first.

When it comes to felonies we do not have much trouble getting a warrant, Martin said. But he does have some serious charges here that are not related to his charges in Arizona.

Gilliland said Barnetts extradition will only move forward based on the next steps of Colorado prosecutors.

The big question is what is Colorado going to do with their charges? Gilliland said. They could decide to put their charges on hold and send him to Arizona or they could choose to charge him in Colorado first and who knows how long that will take.

Barnett is currently in custody in Montezuma County, Colo.
To ensure immediate and effective medication to soldiers and the public in the event of terror attacks and accidents, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed medicines such as a wound-healing gel and freeze-resistant saline water that are extremely helpful at higher altitudes in saving lives in the absence of doctors.

The Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) -- DRDO's Delhi-based bio-medical and clinical research lab -- has so far been providing the medicines to the Army and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) -- but now it is also planning to collaborate with the premier AIIMS health facility to take these to the common people.

The INMASEAL Gel, INMASEAL Gauze dressing and Sodium Chloride solution have been developed to save the lives of victims in the periphery n the absence of doctors.

According to medical science, 60 per cent of deaths from combat injuries are caused due to excessive bleeding.

INMAS Joint Director Aseem Bhatnagar explained that the INMASEAL Gel is extremely effective in stopping profuse bleeding.

"The Chitosen gel formulation can stop blood oozing within a minute even in case of venous rupture. It can be applied at multiple sites and is extremely useful in case of battlefield casualty, gunshot injuries, road accident injuries and falls," Bhatnagar told IANS.

Currently, this medication -- meant to stop profuse blood flow due to trauma injuries -- is available at a much higher cost of Rs 8,000.

Till now, at least 11,000 units of the medication have been provided to security personnel and, of this, 4,000 units were given to CAPF personnel during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

The INMASEAL Gauze dressing, a single-time medication to stop bleeding but sterilised by gamma radiations, reduces bleeding and stops oozing of blood, INMAS scientist Amit Tyagi said.

"The dressing gauze can be used in any environment, from high altitude to hot Rajasthan desert. It can stop oozing of blood in significantly short span of time with enhanced natural wound-healing process."

The dressing is even effective at a temperature of -40 degrees Celsius, where normally all other dressings and bandages do not work.

Indian security personnel suffer trauma injuries while carrying out operations against Maoists and terror groups -- the most recent one being the death of 25 CRPF troopers in Chattisgarh's Sukma district.

INMAS Director A.K. Singh told IANS that around 5,000 tubes have been supplied to the armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir and the CAPF.

The third product developed by INMAS is a Sodium Chloride formulation, also known as saline water, which does not freeze even at -17 degrees Celsius.

"Unlike normal saline which freezes at high altitudes, this formulation does not freeze at all. It has been developed for places where we cannot give blood-transfusion to the injured personnel," Singh said, adding that the medication is immensely helpful in reducing brain oedema.

He stressed that the saline water has additional uses such as reducing pulmonary oedema, reducing oedema from traumatic injuries and increasing blood pressure and blood fluid volume in case of blood loss.

According to INMAS, though the medications are currently being supplied to the security forces only, an agreement with AIIMS was on the anvil to make them available to common people.

Various meetings have been held between AIIMS Trauma Chief Rajesh Malhotra and the DRDO in the matter.

"A DRDO team came to the trauma centre a fortnight ago to look into various collaboration projects. They have developed very nice products to stop bleeding in acute injuries. There is a need for capacity building as combat-like casualties are very common in public life including gas cylinder blasts, burns and fractures," Malhotra told IANS.

(Rupesh Dutta can be contacted at Rupesh.d@ians.in)

--IANS

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A court here on Tuesday dropped charges relating to cheating against the caretaker of the L-18 Batla House flat where two suspected militants were killed in a shootout with the police in 2008.

Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kumar Tripathi discharged Abdul Rehman who is the caretaker of the building where tenants alleged to be engaged in terrorist activities were harbouring.

Rehman, a stenographer in Ghaziabad, was accused by the flat owner, Mohsin Nissar, of forging his signature in the lease deed while giving away the flat to the two suspected terrorists on rent.

The court dropped cheating charges against Rehman observing that "prosecution prima facie failed to show on record that the rent agreement was forged by Rehman".

Defence Counsel M.S. Khan said police have failed to produce the original lease deed, the crucial piece of evidence, which was allegedly forged by Rehman.

The court observed that the original rent agreement was never brought on record.

"The order for framing of charge against Rehman for offence under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code is not sustainable in the eyes of law," the court said.

The court order came on a revision plea filed by Rehman challenging the magisterial court order.

The court set aside the magisterial court order dated November 8, 2016 where it had framed charges of cheating against Rehman.

"There is no material on record to suggest that it was Rehman who fraudulently and dishonestly induced the complainant to hand over the premises to him," the sessions judge said.

Nissar, in his complaint, alleged that, in July 2008, he handed the key of his flat L-18 Batla House to Rehman so that he could locate some tenants.

After a month, Rehman told him that he had found some students of Jamia Millia Islamia for renting out the flat.

Later, he came to knew that a rent agreement was made, purportedly between him and Mohammad Atif, which contained his forged signature, Nissar told the police.

Rehman was arrested on September 21, 2008 and was later released on bail in November 2008.

According to the police, Rehman had let out the flat to the suspected terrorists who carried out synchronised serial blasts in the capital on September 13, 2008 in which at least 30 people were killed and over 100 injured.

The Batla House shootout took place on September 19, 2008, a week after the serial blasts.

Of the five who were residing in the flat, Atif Ameen and Mohd. Sajid were killed during the shootout, Ariz Khan alias Junaid had been declared a proclaimed offender, while Mohd. Saif was not made an accused in this case as, according to the prosecution, he had surrendered peacefully and had not played any part in the entire incident.

--IANS

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A court here has directed the Election Commission to preserve an EVM as well as video-footage of a municipal ward in South Delhi, officials said on Tuesday.

Additional District Judge Sandeep Yadav's order came on Monday while hearing a plea filed by Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Shakun who has alleged tampering of the EVM and the lock of the gate where the machine were kept was found broken.

Shakun's counsel Vishnu Langawat also told the court that the counting in the Pul Prahladpur ward also began late.

The court issued notice to Delhi state Election Commission, its officials and candidates asking them to file reply till May 25.

-- IANS

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The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday refused to ban media reporting related to the surrender of Maoist commander Kundan Pahan.

"The state government lawyer requested the court to ban media reporting related to the surrender (of Kundan Pahan) but the court refused to do so. The court asked the government to file their reply on Pahan's surrender," said lawyer Hemant Kumar who had raised the issue before the court on Monday.

"The next hearing will take place after vacation," said Kumar. The high court will reopen on June 7 after the summer vacation.

The Jharkhand High Court had on Monday taken cognisance of media reports regarding the Maoist commander's surrender.

Hemant Kumar had brought the media reports to the notice of the court. Taking suo moto cognisance, the issue was converted into a Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

Meanwhile, All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) legislator Vikas Munda's hunger strike demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe over the surrender of Kundan Pahan continued for the third day on Tuesday. He has also demanded that the Maoist commander should be hanged.

AJSU is the alliance partner of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Janata Dal-United's (JD-U) Jharkhand unit President Jaleshwar Mahto met him and extended support to his demand. Vikas Munda's father Ramesh Singh Munda, then JD-U legislator and former minister, was gunned down by Kundan Pahan in 2008.

The Ranchi Bar Association has announced that no lawyer will fight Pahan's case.

Pahan was carrying Rs 15 lakh reward and facing 128 cases. He surrendered before police on Sunday. He was handed over a cheque for Rs 15 lakh just as all surrendered Maoists are given.

--IANS

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The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) on Tuesday termed as "unfortunate" the Italian Supreme Court upholding a ban on the 'kirpan' (Sikh sword) and said it will approach External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the matter.

Reacting strongly to the Italian Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on kirpan, DSGMC General Secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa in a statement said: "We will take up issue with Sushma Swaraj and urge her to take up this issue with Italian government."

Terming the court's decision as "most unfortunate", Sirsa said "DSGMC understands the situation where the courts of the concerned country are bound to take up the issues as per the law of the land prevalent in the country."

"Time has now come for the Indian government to play a bigger role to safeguard the interests of the Sikhs throughout the world by taking up with different countries the issue of articles of faith."

He also said that laws in some countries where carrying of articles of faith are banned "needs to be amended for achieving this".

The DSGMC's remarks came after the Italian Supreme Court ruled against a Sikh migrant who wanted to carry a kirpan in public.

The Italian court had on Monday said migrants who choose to live in Italy must respect Italian laws prohibiting the carrying of weapons even though Sikhs regard kirpan as sacred.

The DSGMC General Secretary also pointed out that it was for the Indian government to apprise these countries of the importance of the articles of faith including five Ks like Kirpan, Kara, Kangha, Kachera and Kes.

Sirsa said a high level delegation of the DSGMC will soon meet Sushma Swaraj and apprise her on the need to take up the issue with the Italian government.

The Sikh man in the case was appealing against another court's decision ordering him to pay a 2,000 euro fine ($2,195) because he had been caught leaving his home in Goito, northern Italy, armed with a kirpan measuring nearly 20 cm, the Italian media reported.

The man had argued that his kirpan as well as his turban were symbols of his and wearing them was part of his religious duty.

--IANS

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The Delhi High Court on Tuesday transferred to the CBI the case of missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Najeeb Ahmad, who has been missing since October last year.

A division bench of Justice G.S. Sistani and Justice Rekha Palli handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with immediate effect, after the Delhi Police said it has no objection if the court transfers the case to another probe agency.

The court directed that further investigation be carried out by the CBI under the supervision of an officer not lower than the rank of DIG.

Delhi Police said it has carried out the investigation in fair manner and made a pan India search for Ahmad, but he could not be traced.

The court's direction came while hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Fatima Nafees, Najeeb Ahmad's mother, that her son be produced by police and the Delhi government before the court.

Najeeb, 27, a first year M.Sc. student, went missing from his JNU hostel on the night of October 14-15 last year, allegedly after a row with members of RSS' student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The ABVP has denied any involvement in his disappearance.

--IANS

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A major road into Birmingham, England, remained closed for the second day on Tuesday after the discovery of a Second World War bomb, the media reported.

Police said bomb disposal experts were taking part in a "major, delicate operation" to make the device safe, the BBC reported.

The A38(M) Aston Expressway has been closed since Monday morning.

At least 80 people were forced to spend the night in a rest centre, the Red Cross said.

The bomb was found at a building site in Priory Road, Aston.

London Midland rail services on the Cross City Line between Lichfield and Birmingham New Street have also been suspended.

West Midlands Police said 50 tonnes of sand was being brought on to the site to assist disposal plans.

A cordon was set up after the discovery of the German-made bomb on Monday.

Hundreds of homes and businesses were evacuated.

--IANS

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Disney Chief Bob Iger says hackers have claimed that they have stolen an upcoming movie from the company.

Walt Disney CEO Iger revealed on Monday that hackers claiming to have access to a Disney movie threatened to release it unless the studio paid a ransom.

Iger didn't disclose the name of the film, but said Disney is refusing to pay. The studio is working with federal investigators, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

Iger's comments came during a town hall meeting with ABC employees in New York, according to sources.

Disney's upcoming release slate includes "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" and "Cars 3".

The Disney chief said the hackers demanded that a huge sum be paid in Bitcoin. They said they would release five minutes of the film at first, and then in 20-minute chunks until their financial demands are met.

--IANS

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China on Tuesday said it was up to India to join the Belt and Road project, but the doors for New Delhi "will always remain open".

India skipped the just-concluded Belt and Road forum in Beijing in opposition to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that passes through Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Beijing also asked New Delhi to explain what it meant by "meaningful dialogue" on the Belt and Road project.

"The Belt and Road initiative is for regional peace and prosperity. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as part of the Belt and Road is not about conflicts with various countries and will not affect China's position on Kashmir issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

"China has welcomed the participation of India in the Belt and Road project. Our answer is clear."

"It depends on what aspect the Indian side holds."

"Doors will always remain open. We will always welcome the participation from the Indian side," she added.

Asked about India's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay's remarks that India has been urging China to engage in a meaningful dialogue on Belt and Road, Hua said: "I would like you to do me a favour. I read his statement many times. He said that he is waiting for a meaningful dialogue from China and I don't know what the spokesperson is trying to say."

"What kind of dialogue is a meaningful dialogue? What kind of positive attitude does the spokesperson want China to hold?

"If they have the answer they can give me the answer in public and private."

"Our position is clear that we have always welcomed India to participate in the Belt and Road initiative."

On the eve of the OBOR forum, Indian issued a statement saying it cannot "accept a project that ignores its core concerns on sovereignty and territorial integrity".

CPEC is the key artery of China's Belt and Road project that aims to connect Asia, Europe and Africa through a network of roads, railway lines and ports.

Besides its opposition to the CPEC, which India has raised at the highest forums during bilateral interactions, New Delhi in a statement had also cited its other concerns about OBOR.

"We are of firm belief that connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognised international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality.

"Connectivity initiatives must follow principles of financial responsibility to avoid projects that would create unsustainable debt burden for communities; balanced ecological and environmental protection and preservation standards; transparent assessment of project costs; and skill and technology transfer to help long term running and maintenance of the assets created by local communities. Connectivity projects must be pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity," it added.

--IANS

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It is better to pick a gun than face humiliation of being looked at as a "threat to the state", says an angry Kashmiri student who with his two friends was forced out of a rented house in Punjab after a police raid for "hidden weapons".

Punjab Police denied the harassment allegation, saying the search operation was a routine exercise.

Tajamul Imran, 25, belongs to south Kashmir district of Shopian, a new hotbed of Kashmiri militancy where security forces on May 4 conducted a raid hunting for militants. Imran was sobbing when he spoke to IANS over phone.

"They asked us to show weapons. I thought the policemen were joking," Imran said, recollecting the three-hour "harassment" the three Kashmiris were subjected to on Sunday morning at the rented flat in Zirakpur, near Mohali.

He said the policemen then frisked them and searched the house and "repeatedly asked where we had hidden the weapons and explosives smuggled" from Kashmir.

"We felt so harassed that my friends and I thought they will kill us and stage an encounter," said Imran.

"It was 5.40 a.m. and we were sleeping. Two policemen knocked on the door. I saw at least 15 to 16 other policemen who had cordoned off our house."

Imran, who also heads the All Jammu and Kashmir Students Union, said they were almost made to feel "like militants".

An obviously angry Imran said: "I think it is better to pick up a gun, because a Kashmiri is always seen as a threat to the state."

Imran, who completed his MBA from Punjab Technical University's Swami Vivekanand Institute of Engineering and Technology in November, was to appear for a placement session in the college.

"But I don't think I can work in any part of India after the incident. We are fearful. I have to return home. My family is not allowing me to stay back."

He said the police asked their landlord to "throw us out" of the house and the house owner did so without wasting any time.

"The police told the landlord that if any incident happened in Zirakpur area, he would be responsible for that as he had rented the house to Kashmiris," Imran said, adding he had shifted to a friend's place after vacating the house.

He said he tried to get in touch with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's Complaint Monitoring Portal but did not get any response from there.

"As a student activist, I have earlier written about many incidents of harassment of Kashmiri students at various places to the Home Ministry's monitoring cell for Kashmiri students, but they never responded," Imran said.

However, a senior officer of the Punjab Police denied that the students were harassed and said the cops were doing "routine checking in the area".

"There was no harassment at all. We did not know they were Kashmiris. We were doing a routine check in the outskirts of the city," Kuldeep Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police, Mohali, told IANS.

Singh said the police never asked the landlord to throw the students out of their flat and said the students were creating an issue out of nothing.

(Ruwa Shah can be contacted at ruwa.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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Barely two days after Marathi film-maker Atul B. Tapkir's death, his widow, her cousin and her adopted brothers were arrested on Tuesday on charges of abetment to suicide, police said here.

Priyanka Atul Tapkir, 30, her cousin Bappu Thigle, and her adopted brothers Kalyan Gavhane and Balu Gavhane were produced before a magistrate court which remanded them in a day's police custody till Wednesday.

"They have been arrested from their residences in Khed and Kondwa areas of the city and charged with Indian Penal Code Sections' 306, 34 pertaining to abetment to suicide, common intent, etc," said investigating officer R.A. Patel of the Deccan Gymkhana police station said.

The arrests followed a complaint lodged against them on Monday by Bajirao Tapkir, Atul's father, Patel said.

On May 14, Tapkir, 35, posted a 'suicide' note on Facebook before consuming a poisonous substance and ending his life in a locked room of Hotel President in the posh Deccan Gymkhana area of the city.

After the post went viral, the hotel authorities summoned the police, who broke open the room door to recover his body lying on the bed.

In his 'suicide' post, Tapkir had blamed his wife and the two Gavhane brothers for his extreme step, saying she constantly quarreled with him, threw him out of their home six months ago and prevented him from meeting their children, son Vishwajit and daughter Sakshi.

He also accused the Gavhane brothers and some others of threatening and thrashing him at his wife's instigation, which was corroborated by his father Bajirao Tapkir in his police complaint.

Taking serious note of allegations against an official who reportedly took a bribe of Rs 10,000 from Tapkir for not arresting him and his father after his wife earlier lodged a complaint against him, Police Commissioner Rashmi Shukla has ordered a probe against the official.

The co-producer of a 2015 film, "Dhol Taashe", which ran into losses, Tapkir had urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis that "police must listen to a man's side of the story too when a woman lodges a complaint".

In his last wish, he said since his wife cannot look after their children, he requested his father raise them and sought all his family members' forgiveness for "leaving them mid-way like this and going to join his mother" (who died 10 years ago).

--IANS

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Senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former Uttar Pradesh Minister Mool Chand Chauhan has been sent to judicial custody by an Uttarakhand court on charges of kidnapping and coercion, the police said on Tuesday.

The former minister and three of his aides surrendered in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Paudhi, which rejected their bail plea and sent them to judicial custody.

There was a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against the former minister.

The three-time legislator has been accused of kidnapping Bijnore District Panchayat members in Uttar Pradesh and coercing them to vote for the party candidate during the Panchayat polls in 2013, the police said.

Many of these members were staying at a hotel in Lakshman Jhula police station area on January 17, 2013, when Chauhan is said to have come with his henchmen in red-beacon fitted cars and kidnapped them.

Bijnore resident Rohit Kumar had filed a police complaint about the incident with the Lakshman Jhula police station the following day.

The police had registered a case against 10 persons but despite court summons they never came to the court, forcing issuance of a non-bailable arrest warrant against them.

On Monday, Chauhan along with Bijnore District Cooperative Bank chairman Amit Chauhan, SP leaders Rasheed and Kapil surrendered before CJM Sudhir Kumar Singh.

The CJM rejected their bail application and sent them to judicial custody.

Many other accused, including a former Samajwadi Party member of Parliament, are yet to surrender or appear before the court.

--IANS

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At a time when it's raining hat-tricks, can Michelin-starred celebrity Chef Vikas Khanna be far behind? The trailer of "Buried Seeds", a timeless story of passion, resilience, failure and rise as seen through Khanna's eyes and which follows the journey of an immigrant past overwhelming obstacles in achieving his dreams, is to make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.

Born with clubbed feet in a small town in India, Khanna is unable to walk like other children. He finds comfort and refuge in his grandmother's kitchen where he becomes fascinated with food. At the majestic kitchens of the Golden Temple he finds his true passion and purpose. At 17, he starts a small shop and sells bread and food for kitty parties.

In 2000, he moves to the United States on a journey from a shelter for the homeless to becoming one of the most influential chefs and ambassadors of culture of our times.

The full-length docu-drama, directed by award-winning Russian filmmaker Andrei Severny, is, in Khanna's words, "a celebration of a journey of an ordinary man".

"A few years ago, Andrei approached me about making a film about my life's journey from Amritsar to America. With his pure craft, visual art and compelling storytelling, he has created a masterpiece, 'Buried Seeds', inspired by a similarly titled upcoming book," Khanna told IANS in an email interview from New York as he prepared to leave for Cannes for the trailer launch.

"It's 70 years of India's independence... 70 years of freedom and coincidently its 70 years of Cannes as well. I am humbled and proud that Andrei is launching the trailer at such a historic moment," Khanna added.

"Of course the film would travel around the world and at many film festivals to showcase the rich family heritage of India. We want more people to see the beauty, bonding and sacrifices made by an Indian family for the dream of a child," he said.

How did Khanna's association with Severny come about?

"I first met Andrei at a fundraiser that I was hosting in New York in 2006. I am a huge admirer of creative cinema and Andrei is truly one of most creative directors of our time. His work 'Gravitation: Variation in Time and Space', based on one of the greatest ballet dancers of all time -- Diana Vishneva -- has inspired me a lot. His sense of abstract and moving story-telling with creative forms has really moved me.

"When he approached me about a documentary on my life, I knew that he would be the best person to relate my journey and transformation," Khanna explained.

At that time, author Karan Bellani was writing a book "Buried Seeds", to be published by Wisdom Tree and working on the research. Many of the writings have inspired the scenes in the film.

"The film has a lot of narration, interviews, kaleidoscopic visuals of India and touches the core of human spirit -- the perseverance, loss, pain and victory. It is a very personal journey that Andrei has captured," Khanna explained.

The trailer launch will be Khanna's third consecutive foray at Cannes.

"We were extremely humbled to launch my book 'Utsav -- A Culinary Epic of Indian Festivals' at Cannes 2015. It was a benchmark for the festival to celebrate such a form of art and a milestone for cookbooks. Later, it was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Queen Elizabeth II, then US President Barack Obama, Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama, among others. Launching the book at Cannes truly helped it achieve such a status.

"In 2016, we premiered 'Kitchens of Gratitude', a short documentary that showcased the power of food and how it binds us. It was truly inspiring to be in the company of such great and legendary filmmakers from around the world," Khanna said.

What of the future?

"I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to create art in a country which stood for art and culture. We are super excited to be working on a five-volume 'Indian Cookery Encyclopaedia' and a major book on 'Blossoms of Spices' and their evolution. Interestingly, I have also discovered the poet in me and I will soon be publishing my first book of poems from the heart of my kitchen, named 'POEATRY'.

"In the immediate term, I am all set for the June publication of 'My First Kitchen' by Penguin-Random House. My show 'Mega Kitchens' on National Geographic will be premiering in June," Khanna signed off.

(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday said he is not afraid and will not bow before any one and fight "fascist forces" till his last breath, after the Income Tax Department conducted raids in connection with alleged "benami" property deals involving him and his family.

In a series of tweets, Lalu sent out a strong message that he is not upset or defensive, but is as aggressive as ever.

"Main jhukne aur darnewaalaa nahi hun (I will not bow or be afraid)," he wrote. He said "Beware egoist and fascist BJP leaders. Before threatening Lalu, look at your face in the mirror. There are millions of thousands of Lalus in Bihar."

Lalu congratulated the BJP for its "new alliance partner" without naming it. "BJP ko naye alliance partner mubarak ho" -- leading to speculation whether he meant his major ally and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also Janata Dal-United president.

But RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha told newspersons here that Lalu meant the IT department as the BJP's new alliance partner.

Sensing political trouble for Bihar's ruling Grand Alliance of JD-U, RJD and Congress due to his tweet, Lalu soon made it clear in his next tweet that the Grand Alliance is unbreakable and united. "Gathbandhan atut hai, abhi to samaan vichardhara ke aur dalon ko sath jodna hai (Now the process is on to bring together parties with similar views)."

Lalu said he is never afraid of the BJP's government machinery and its agencies.

He also targeted BJP and RSS, saying they are trying to pressurise him knowing that he will expose their "lies, loot and jumlas".

Challenging the Centre to reveal the names of the 22 places raided, he said: "At least tell which 22 places were raided, you illiterates. Lalu is not scared of BJP-backed media and government puppets."

Lalu said the BJP lacks courage to suppress his voice and if they try to do so, then million more Lalus will emerge all across India.

--IANS

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Bengaluru, May 16 (IANS Global healthcare solutions provider Indegene and Microsoft on Tuesday joined hands to deliver the next generation of commercial cloud applications to life sciences .

Microsoft "Dynamics 365 for Sales" will combine with the "Indegene Omnipresence" platform to create a modern, mobile and multi-channel customer relationship management (CRM) solution, specifically for sales and medical representatives to better engage healthcare practitioners.

The solution will help simplify digital content development and management as well as provide in-line analytics and optimisation to support the representatives and improve the customer experience.

"We are excited to combine Indegene's Omnipresence solution and extensive life sciences expertise with our Dynamics 365 customer engagement platform," said Jujhar Singh, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The availability of the solution is expected by July this year, with global deployments to follow.

Indegene and Microsoft will focus on addressing the specific challenges faced by life science manufacturers.

Robust analytics, complete with machine learning, will be built directly into everyday tasks and workflows, creating seamless, data-driven recommendations with predictive and prescriptive insights.

"Together with Microsoft, we are building the new global standard for life sciences commercial clouds," said Sanjay Virmani, EVP of Indegene.

"Our joint customers will benefit from a solution built with improved business outcomes in mind," he added.

--IANS

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India on Tuesday reaffirmed its support for a political solution to the Palestine issue following bilateral talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We had extensive exchange of views on the situation in West Asia and the Middle East peace process," Modi said while jointly addressing the media with Abbas following the delegation-level talks here.

"We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means," he said.

"India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution."

Modi said India has been "unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause".

"And, we hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel," he said, ahead of his visit to Israel scheduled for July this year.

He also said that India would continue to extend cooperation in building infrastructure in Palestine and contribute to improving the lives of its people.

"We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine," he said.

The Prime Minister said the five agreements signed following Tuesday's talks "are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction".

The agreements signed include cooperation in the areas of agriculture, IT and electronics, health and youth affairs and sports.

Modi also referred to a flagship Techno-park project India was undertaking in Ramallah and said particular emphasis was being laid on the areas of information technology, youth and skills development.

He also called for enhancing cultural exchanges between the two sides and sought the participation of the Palestinian people in the International Yoga Day to be observed next month.

On his part, Abbas expressed his appreciation for India's continued support and solidarity for the Palestinian cause on international forums.

He said he updated Modi on his meeting with US President Donald Trump regarding the Middle East peace process and his talks with his German and Russian counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vladimir Putin, respectively, on the issue.

Abbas also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and voiced support for all regional and international efforts to fight this menace.

Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan here following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Making it clear that it was unwavering in its support on the Palestine issue, India on Tuesday strongly backed a political solution to the problem through sustained dialogue and expressed the hope for an early resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed India's stand after a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had on Monday sought India's help to solve the Palestine issue with Israel.

After the talks, India and Palestine signed five agreements including on cooperation in agriculture, IT and electronics, health and youth affairs and sports.

"We had extensive exchange of views on the situation in West Asia and the Middle East peace process," he said while jointly addressing the media with Abbas following delegation-level talks here.

\"We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means," he said.

"India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution."

On Monday, addressing a gathering at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here, Abbas said that he would seek the help of Modi's good offices in reaching a solution to the Palestinian issue which would help in the fight against terrorism in that part of the world.

Modi said on Tuesday that India has been "unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause".

"And, we hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel," he said, ahead of his visit to Israel scheduled for July this year.

He also said that India would continue to extend cooperation in building infrastructure in Palestine and contribute to improving the lives of its people.

"We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine," he said.

The Prime Minister said the five agreements signed following Tuesday's talks "are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction".

Modi also referred to a flagship techno-park project India was undertaking in Ramallah and said particular emphasis was being laid on the areas of information technology, youth and skills development.

He also called for enhancing cultural exchanges between the two sides and sought the participation of the Palestinian people in the International Yoga Day to be observed next month.

On his part, Abbas expressed his appreciation for India's continued support and solidarity for the Palestinian cause on international forums and said he would work to deepen the bilateral relationship.

He said he updated Modi on his meeting with US President Donald Trump regarding the Middle East peace process and his talks with his German and Russian counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vladimir Putin, respectively, on the issue.

Abbas also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and voiced support for all regional and international efforts to fight this menace.

Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan here following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Kashmiri separatist leader Nayeem Khan on Tuesday lodged a protest with India Today news channel against its expose showing separatist leaders purportedly admitting they had stoked militancy with Pakistani funding.

Khan came to the channel's office here to lodge his protest against the news item showing three separatist leaders, including him.

While a news anchor said the staff at the Srinagar office was being threatened by Khan and his supporters, a reporter of the channel here, who did not want to be identified, said: "He came to lodge his protest and asked for the story to be withdrawn as it had shown him in bad light, but he did not manhandle or threaten anyone of us."

State police chief S.P. Vaid has told the TV anchor that police would ensure safety of the channel's staff in Srinagar.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three Indian-origin persons were arrested here by police for allegedly selling seats to Indian students to study medicine and other health science courses at a university in South Africa.

Accused Varsha (44) and Hiteshkumar Bhatt (46) are the owners of Durban's "Little Gujarat" restaurant while Preshni Hiramun (55) is a former school teacher.

The trio is accused of working as agents in conspiring together with a syndicate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa to illegally enrol students in the health science faculty and school of medicine, news portal Independent online reported on Monday.

The accused chatted to interested parents, negotiated bribes and liaised with university staff who helped get the parents' children enrolled, according to the report.

This was done even though the students involved did not meet the minimum requirements for the courses. The three suspects allegedly charged R250,000 ($19,000) for admission to the health sciences faculty.

They charged R500,000 ($38,000) for a place in medicine. The reports also said that the trio was involved in the sale of examination question and answer papers for an additional R30,000 ($2,278).

The trio were charged with fraud and contravention of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act and were later granted R40,000 ($3,000) bail each in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court on Monday.

Their arrest came after a sting operation was conducted by a weekly newspaper on Sunday.

The elite Hawks Organised Crime Unit raided the homes and businesses of the three accused and arrested them last week. Their passports were confiscated and they have been asked to report to the Durban North Police station once a week.

Police seized two Mercedes-Benz cars, laptops, hard-drives and flash drives from the Bhatts. At Hiramun's home in Somerset Park, laptops were found hidden in a washing machine, the report said.

Documents pertaining to the syndicate were also seized, according to the report. The trio was also asked to refrain from contacting any witnesses or staff at UKZN.

Hawks investigator Mandla Mkhwanazi said more arrests were on the cards and that the investigation was at a sensitive stage hence too much information could not be divulged.

The accused will appear in court again in August for the state to prepare its investigation.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that Iran does not seek any "tension" with Riyadh, Tehran Times daily reported.

"We hope they (the Saudis) ... make up for their past mistakes and create an atmosphere of agreement and negotiation," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying.

"Saudi Arabia has made strategic mistakes in Yemen and we hope they will become ready to hold talks with Iran in a fair atmosphere," Qasemi said.

Commenting on the recent remarks by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman who had said that Saudi Arabia will take the "battle" inside Iran before its comes to Saudi Arabia, Qasemi said such "inconsiderate" comments originated from lack of true understanding.

Iran hopes that such remarks will not be repeated, because it will bring unfavourable consequences for them, he said.

The Iranian spokesman also said that Iran seeks to help establish peace, stability and security in the Middle East.

In January 2016, Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic ties with Iran following attacks on its mission in the country during angry protests against the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Both Muslim states are also at loggerheads over their expansion of influence in Iraq, Syria, Yeman and Bahrain.

--IANS

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A dispute erupted on Tuesday between Israel and the US over comments by US officials describing the in east Jerusalem's Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, as part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The row erupted a few days before the first official visit of US President Donald Trump to the region, Xinhua reported.

During a tour to prepare the visit, US diplomats reportedly told Israeli officials that Trump's visit to the Western Wall would be private since Israel has no jurisdiction in the area, according to a report on Israel's Channel 2 TV news.

The diplomats also told the Israelis that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not welcome to join Trump there, Channel 2 reported.

The site resides in annexed East Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan in 1967.

On Tuesday, local media reported that Israel demanded the US to provide explanations for the remarks. "The statement that the Western Wall is in an area in the West Bank was received with shock," an official told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

Israeli officials appear to be increasingly concerned over Trump visit, during which he is expected to attempt to revive the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The last round of talks reached an impasse in April 2014.

Trump voiced pro-Israeli positions during his presidential campaign. He expressed support for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and seemed inclined to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Shortly later, it annexed the territory claiming it as part of its "indivisible" capital. The move has never been internationally recognized.

--IANS

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An Israeli minister on Tuesday called for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, adding that the latter's regime was the worst since Nazi Germany.

Minister of Housing and Construction Yoav Galant, a former commander of the Israel Defence Forces and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet since 2015, said at a conference near Jerusalem that al-Assad needed to be killed, Efe news reported.

"The reality of the situation in Syria is that they are executing people, using directed chemical attacks against them, and the latest extreme...burning their corpses, something we haven't seen in 70 years," Galant said, in a reference to the systematic genocide of six million Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Galant also used the actual term "genocide" to describe Assad's actions against his own people, adding that "hundreds of thousands" were being killed by the Syrian regime in the country's ongoing civil war.

"In my view, we are crossing a red line. And in my view, the time has come to assassinate Assad. It's as simple as that," he added.

--IANS

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Amid ongoing discussion about his abdication, Japan's Emperor Akihito has cancelled his engagements due to health problems for the second time in 2017, an Imperial Palace spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Akihito, 83, has been absent from his engagements since Monday afternoon due to symptoms of fever, a cold and cough, although he is getting better, the spokesperson told Efe news.

The Emperor was on Tuesday scheduled to receive soldiers being honoured by the government, but the event was attended by his son Crown Prince Naruhito instead.

Akihito also missed a meeting with a group of volunteers in charge of cleaning the palace, and was replaced by his wife Empress Michiko.

The Emperor previously cancelled several other commitments in late January due to a fever.

In August 2016, Akihito expressed the desire to abdicate the throne, citing his age and poor health.

A government panel has proposed to devise special legislation for the abdication, without amending the 1947 law which has no provision for a ruling Emperor to abdicate.

The Japanese monarch has been in ill health for several years.

In 2003, he was treated for prostate cancer, and in 2012, he underwent coronary bypass surgery.

--IANS

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Edu-tech company ConveGenius on Tuesday launched its e-learning solution 'CG Slate Plus' for Grades K-2 in Samsung Galaxy 3V tablet for Rs 15,999.

"CG Slate Plus" functions on a unique reward-based approach called 'Learn-Play-Shop' which motivates kids to engage in a self-learning mechanism.

The innovative mobile tablet teaches concepts to children in an engaging format through videos, interactive books, stories and worksheets, the company said in a statement.

"To offer a more evolved and enhanced version of the device, we are going to roll out the new and improved CG Slate on Samsung Tablets," said Jairaj Bhattacharya, MD, ConveGenius Group, in a statement.

The device also introduces kids to "Titu" -- a genius mascot who adaptively recommends educational content to the children based on their learning requirement.

"We are pleased to offer Samsung Galaxy 3V Tab to ConveGenius to host its e-learning solution. We are confident that children will enjoy the most comfortable hand grip, complemented by its extreme light weight," added Sukesh Jain, Vice President, Enterprise Business, Samsung India.

The device will be available on Flipkart.

--IANS

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A Mexican journalist was shot dead in a bar in the state of Quintana Roo, the eight such murder case this year.

Jose Guadalupe Chan Dzib was a well-known journalist in southeastern Mexico who had worked in several newspapers and was presently working as a crime reporter for Playa News, an online newspaper based in the resort town of Playa del Carmen, reports Efe news.

Authorities said on Saturday that it had launched an investigation into the murder that took place in the town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto on Friday night to find those responsible and to determine if the murder was linked to Chan Dzib's activities as a journalist.

The Quintana Roo State Commission on Human Right issued a statement condemning the murder and sending condolences to the journalist's family members.

The Commission said that it had contacted news representatives to pass the case on to Mexico's national protection agency for journalists and human rights activists.

The Commission added that it had received four complaints against public officials regarding attacks against journalists, mainly in Cancun and Playa del Carmen.

The Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists has recorded 139 murders of journalists since 2001 in Mexico until Chan's death, most in the last decade.

Mexico is now widely considered to be one of the most dangerous countries for a journalist.

--IANS

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The Congress on Tuesday attacked the Narendra Modi government for its failures during the past three years and said that an "atmosphere of intolerance" is being created across the country.

"This government weaved a dream of bringing 'Acche Din' and doing something new when it came to power in 2014," Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said at a press conference here.

"Instead of bringing the 'Acche Din', they shattered the dreams of 125 crore people of the country," he said.

"There is an environment of intolerance in the country, and if anyone raises his/her voice or debates it, then they are branded anti-nationals," Scindia said.

Scindia also accused the government of forcing on the people to what to learn, what to read, what to eat and what to wear.

"This government is trying to push its policies based on a regimented thinking," the Congress leader said, adding that under this regimented thinking it formed anti-romeo squads and harassed people.

He said an "anti-Dalit kind of atmosphere is being created in the country", where this government calls a session to celebrate the Ambedkar Jayanti, and hold a programme in Mau, Uttar Pradesh, and in London.

"But on the other hand, their people are harassing the Dalits across the country everyday," he said.

"From my state (Madhya Pradesh) 50 people belonging to the Dalit community have expressed their desire to die," he said.

"Big programmes are organised for them, but the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) wants Dalit-Mukt and Adivasi-mukt Bharat," he alleged.

"The death of Rohith Vemula and the beating of four Dalits in the name of protecting cows in Gujarat's Una are a stigma on our society," he said.

"And their leaders and ministers define these incidents as good for the society," he added.

--IANS

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Rising Pune Supergiant rode on fine half-centuries from Manoj Tiwary and Ajinkya Rahane to post 162/4 against Mumbai Indians in the first qualifier of the Indian Premier League at the Wankhede Stadium here on Tuesday.

Tiwary showed his class when the situation demanded, smashing a 48-ball 58, but more importantly putting on two important half-century stands to help the visitors recover from a precarious 9/2 after the second over.

The Bengal right-hander first added 80 runs for the third wicket with Rahane, who scored a 43-ball 56 before stitching an undefeated 73-run fourth wicket stand with former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (40 off 26) to take the side to a healthy total.

Put in to bat, Pune were off to an unforgettable start losing the in-form Rahul Tripathi (0) and Steve Smith (1) in the opening two overs before Rahane and Manoj steadied the ship on a tricky Wankhede track.

New Zealand pacer Mitchell McClenaghan drew first blood for the hosts, cleaning up Tripathi for his first duck of the IPL, on the last ball of the opening over before a leading edge off Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga got skipper Smith walking back.

With the visitors in desperate need of a partnership, Rahane and Manoj got their act together helping the odd ball to the boundary as Mumbai maintained a perfect line and length, without allowing any freebies.

The right-handed pair went on to add 50 runs off 44 deliveries with Manoj playing the perfect second fiddle to the local boy Rahane, who got to his half-century off 39 balls.

Just when things began to fall in order for Pune, leg-spinner Karn Sharma jolted the visitors, by trapping Rahane, who by now had helped the ball to the boundary on five occasions and once over it.

The fall of Rahane brought in Dhoni who, along with Manoj, played out five overs inconsequentially before the Bengal batsman took the attack to the opposition.

Continuing his fine run with the willow, Manoj first slogged at a good length ball off McCleneghan to get to his half-century off 45 deliveries before taking the bowler to the cleaners. Dhoni too joined the party, clearing the Kiwi twice in the penultimate over.

Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma threw the ball to his death-over specialist Jasprit Bumrah for the final over, but with Dhoni at his attacking best, young Bumrah was clobbered twice out of the park as the final two overs yielded 41 runs for Pune.

Brief Scores: Rising Pune Supergiant 162/4 (Manoj Tiwary 58, Ajinkya Rahane 56, Mahendra Singh Dhoni 40 not out, Lasith Malinga 1/14) vs Mumbai Indians.

--IANS

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said he will not sign any peace agreement with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) unless the rebels stop their attacks.

Duterte's statement comes ahead of the fifth round of peace talks that will resume in the Netherlands on May 27, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the President, he as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces has to assure the safety of his soldiers.

"For me, for as long as they are killing government security forces, I will not sign anything. I cannot do anything. I have to protect my soldiers. I am the Commander-in-Chief," Duerte said.

He also reiterated his call on CPP founding chairman and peace talks panel consultant Jose Maria Sison to return to the country along with his offer to shoulder his hospital expenses.

"My offer to Sison stands. He can come here in peace. I will guarantee safety and I will even underwrite his hospitalization. I will not have him arrested. He is sick... We do not fight people who are helpless," he said.

Duterte scrapped the peace talks with the rebels in February this year after the leftist group continued its ambush attacks against military and police forces despite unilateral ceasefire declared by the government and CPP.

The CPP demanded the release of 400 rebels who it said were political prisoners. Duterte rejected the demand.

Peace negotiations between the government and the CPP will resume on May 27 to June 1 in Noordwijk, Norwegian Ambassador to the Philippines Erik Forner said.

Forner did not elaborate on the agenda of the upcoming talks but Manila said both panels will discuss more on finalising the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms, the most contentious agenda in the talks, including land reforms and national industrialisation.

The armed conflict between the Philippine government and the communist movement's armed wing, the New People's Army, has lasted for almost 50 years.

The number of leftist guerrillas dwindled from 26,000 in the mid-1980s to less than 4,000 this year, according to the military.

Nevertheless, Duterte has expressed confidence that he could make the rebels agree to a peace agreement during his term, which ends in June 2022.

--IANS

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The British authorities detained 14 crew members of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight and the aircraft was "thoroughly searched" over security threats after it landed at London's Heathrow Airport.

Flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London arrived at Heathrow Airport at 2.50 p.m. on Monday. Upon landing, as passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by the authorities, PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar.

Tne crew was released after two hours of interrogation pertaining to the security concerns, Geo News reported on Tuesday.

"We have not been informed as to why was the crew detained," said Tajwar. The crew members' passports were also taken away by the police, the report said.

According to the British Police, the crew was taken under custody over security concerns but was released later as nothing was found during the search operation.

PIA said it is seeking to protest against the British Police misconduct with the flight crew.

The flight, meanwhile, was later cleared to take off from Heathrow Airport with replaced crew members.

--IANS

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The spokesperson of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Tuesday dismissed earlier reports that the airlines' crew members were detained at London's Heathrow Airport over security threats.

The spokesperson said the crew members, including the pilot who the British authorities claimed to have detained at the airport, had finished their duty hours after flying from Islamabad to London and stayed back in the country, Geo News reported.

They were never scheduled to fly on flight PK-785 from London to Lahore in the first place, the spokesperson said.

The airline official informed that the flight landed in Lahore earlier on Tuesday with a new crew and the original crew had stayed back in London as per schedule.

He added that the passports of the crew members had been returned to them.

The PIA management in London was trying to find out the reasons for the search of the plane and reports of detention, the official added.

According to earlier reports, 14 crew members, including the pilot of the PIA flight were detained at Heathrow Airport on Monday over security concerns and were later released after a "thorough search" of the aircraft for over two hours.

A report in Dawn newspaper quoted PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar as saying that the flight from Islamabad to London arrived at Heathrow Airport at 2.50 p.m. on Monday. Upon landing, as passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by the authorities.

"Fourteen crew members were released after being detained for nearly two hours by the British authorities," he had said.

According to the British Police, the crew was taken in custody over security concerns but were released later as nothing was found during the search operation.

PIA said it plans to take up the case with the British aviation authorities.

--IANS

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The Earth-sized exoplanet Proxima b which orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, our closest neighbouring star, could support alien life, suggests new research that explored the potential climate of the planet.

The planet was only discovered in August 2016, and is thought to be of similar size to Earth, creating the possibility that it could have an 'Earth-like' atmosphere.

Using a climate model, which has been successfully used to study the Earth's climate for several decades, researchers at University of Exeter in Britain simulated the climate of Proxima b if it were to have a similar atmospheric composition to our own Earth.

The results of the simulations, published in the journal, Astronomy & Astrophyics, showed that Proxima b could have the potential to be habitable, and could exist in a remarkably stable climate regime.

"Our research team looked at a number of different scenarios for the planet's likely orbital configuration using a set of simulations," said lead author of the study Ian Boutle.

"As well as examining how the climate would behave if the planet was 'tidally-locked' (where one day is the same length as one year), we also looked at how an orbit similar to Mercury, which rotates three times on its axis for every two orbits around the Sun (a 3:2 resonance), would affect the environment," Boutle said.

The team found that both the tidally-locked and 3:2 resonance configurations result in regions of the planet able to host liquid water.

The team also explored a much simpler atmosphere, comprising of nitrogen with traces of carbon dioxide, as well as variations of the planet's orbit. This allowed them to both compare with, and extend beyond, previous studies.

"One of the main features that distinguishes this planet from Earth is that the light from its star is mostly in the near infra-red. These frequencies of light interact much more strongly with water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which affects the climate that emerges in our model," study co-author James Manners said.

--IANS

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Astronomers have discovered a "puffy planet" orbiting a star 320 light years from Earth which may hold opportunities for testing atmospheres that would be useful when assessing future planets for signs of life.

"It is highly inflated, so that while it's only a fifth as massive as Jupiter, it is nearly 40 per cent larger, making it about as dense as styrofoam, with an extraordinarily large atmosphere," said Joshua Pepper, Assistant Professor of Physics at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, US.

The planet's host star is extremely bright, allowing precise measurement of the planet's atmosphere properties and making it "an excellent testbed for measuring the atmospheres of other planets", Pepper said.

Such observations help astronomers develop tools to see the types of gases in atmospheres, which would be necessary in the future when they apply similar techniques to Earthlike exoplanets with next-generation telescopes now under construction.

The planet, called KELT-11b, is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, but is orbiting very close to its host star in an orbit that lasts less than five days.

The star, KELT-11, has started using up its nuclear fuel and is evolving into a red giant, so the planet will be engulfed by its star and not survive the next hundred million years, according to the study published online in The Astronomical Journal.

The findings were a result of collaboration with researchers at universities and observatories and amateur astronomers around the world.

"The KELT project is specifically designed to discover a few scientifically valuable planets orbiting very bright stars, and KELT-11b is a prime example of that," Pepper said.

The KELT (Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope) survey uses two small robotic telescopes, one in Arizona and the other in South Africa.

The telescopes scan the sky, measuring the brightness of about five million stars.

--IANS

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The Congress party on Tuesday said its top leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will hold discussions with opposition parties on a candidate for the Presidential elections in July.

"(About) the candidature of individuals, the Congress President and Vice President will confer with various people, that is other political parties, and try to build consensus around it," Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told the media here.

He said the names of the candidate would be announced once a consensus is reached.

"It is the role of the President of India and Vice-President to counsel the government when it loses its way. So bereft of political partisanship, you need on these posts individuals who will be able to uphold the highest principles as enshrined in the Constitution," he said.

Surjewala said the Congress was proud that current President Pranab Mukherjee came from the pedigree of thought process and an ideology that has been a centre-point of this country since its formation up till today and would be in future.

--IANS

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The first in the Arab Christian world has been refused entry to the UK to attend the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the media reported.

The Syrian Reverend Rola Sleiman, 42, was denied a visa by the Home Office, despite the Church backing her visit, the BBC reported.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases but each application was considered on its merits and evidence provided.

Sleiman is a representative of the National Evangelical (Protestant) Church of Syria and Lebanon.

She took up a new post as parish minister in Lebanon in February.

The Church of Scotland said its world mission council confirmed to the UK Visas and Immigration department last month that Sleiman's expenses would be covered during her eight-day stay.

But Sleiman received a letter from the Home Office on May 8 saying that it was not satisfied that her income was what she claimed and that the Church was going to support her financially, reports the BBC.

The letter read: "I am not satisfied that you intend to leave the UK at the end of your proposed visit. Or that you will not live in the UK for extended periods through frequent or successive visits.

"Furthermore, I am not satisfied that you are genuinely seeking entry for a purpose that is permitted by the visitor routes and you will not undertake any prohibited activities."

Church leaders have branded the decision "disturbing and mystifying".
Rome, May 16 (IANS/AKI) Italy's top court on Monday threw out an appeal by media mogul and former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, ruling that he must pay an allowance of 2 million euros a month to his ex-wife Veronica Lario.

The Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that Lario was entitled to receive the 2 million euros a month from Berlusconi for the period the couple was separated due to "the significant gap in their wealth and earnings".

"The obligation of material assistance involves a monthly maintenance cheque to the spouse who is in a weaker economic position and unable to keep up an equivalent standard of living," said the court, which in its ruling described 80-year-old Berlusconi as "among the richest men in the world".

The court also ordered the billionaire to pay 40,000 euros in costs and a further 200 euros of expenses.

In a landmark judgement last week, the top court ruled that an ex-spouse should receive alimony payments that allowed "economic self-sufficiency" rather than the same living standards they enjoyed while married.

In Tuesday's ruling, however, the court said the principle does not apply during separation, when the duty to maintain the previous standards of living remains.

Had Berlusconi won the case, he would have been entitled to some money back from Lario.

Berlusconi is also appealing the 1.4 million euro monthly alimony he was ordered to pay Lario in 2014 under their divorce settlement.

He is now living with Francesca Pascale, a woman 49 years his junior.

The flamboyant three-time Prime Minister has three children from his marriage with Lario and two from his first wife Carla Elvira Dell'Oglio who are both involved in running his media and publishing empire.

Lario, who is 60, ended her marriage with Berlusconi after an Italian media report revealed he had attended the 18th birthday party of lingerie model Noemi Letizia.

--IANS/AKI

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US President Trump welcomed Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan at the White House, for their first face-to-face meeting.

Crown Prince Al-Nahyan is a "very special person, highly respected", Trump said during a brief photo opportunity in the Oval Office on Monday.

"And loves his country, I can tell you that, loves his country. And I think loves the United States, which to us is very important," USA Today quoted the President as saying.

The two leaders spoke about "regional security matters," trade and bilateral investments, as well as about the defence cooperation agreement between the two countries, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily press briefing.

The Pentagon announced a week ago that the sale of 160 Patriot missiles to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been approved at an estimated cost of $2 billion, the aim of which is to fortify the Arab nation's defence ability.

The meeting came four days before Trump begins his first international trip, which first will take him to Saudi Arabia where the President wants to encourage Washington's Arab and Muslim partners to take new and bold steps to promote peace in the region, according to National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

Despite Trump's anti-Muslim discourse during his election campaign and his signing of two executive orders blocking US entry to refugees and citizens from several Muslim majority nations - although those orders were blocked by US courts - the White House has insisted that the measures are not designed to persecute those who profess the Muslim faith.

Trump is also slated meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

--IANS

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Two persons have been arrested here for running a sex racket, police said on Tuesday.

Police said Gaurav Anand and his associate Nina Soni operated as pimps and were in a live-in relationship. They were arrested late on Monday night from Garhi village near Iskcon temple following a tip-off.

"Anand and Soni are residents of Chander Vihar in east Delhi. They are proclaimed offenders in a gang rape case registered against them in Shahdara police station in 2014," Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Baaniya said.

"During questioning, Anand disclosed that he is also a proclaimed offender in two cases registered against him in Delhi and Panchkula. He, along with Soni, used to provide call girls to their clients in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR)," Baaniya said.

"They frequently used to change their hideouts within two-three months to evade arrest," the police officer said.

"Anand said that he used to work as a driver earlier. He left his residence after an altercation with his wife and came in contact with Soni," the officer added.

"He then started living with Soni and helped her run a call girl racket. Soni is a native of West Bengal and came to Delhi after her husband abandoned her," he added.

--IANS

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The Uttar Pradesh Assembly witnessed uproar for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with the opposition raising the matter of the killing of two bullion traders in Mathura, and alleging that law and order had collapsed in the state under the Yogi Adityanath government.

Responding to the charges, the Chief Minister said there would be rule of law in the state and that ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power crime in the state had decreased.

Congress lawmakers protested against the Saharanpur incident in which a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian had allegedly led a mob to ransack the residence of the then SSP. The Congress staged a walk out of the House.

The first day of the session on Monday was marred by pandemonium as opposition benches joined ranks against the BJP government and disrupted the address of Governor Ram Naik to the joint session of the House.

This session is special for reasons other than being the maiden session of the 17th Assembly as it is for the first time that proceedings of the House are being telecast live on Doordarshan.

While the treasury benches have time and again said that the people were witnessing the unruly and unparliamentary behaviour of the opposition lawmakers, the latter say they will continue to raise pertinent issues facing the people.

--IANS

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US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday that it was "wholly appropriate" for President Donald Trump to share classified information with Russian officials during their meeting in the Oval Office last week.

Trump decided to mention the information in the "context of the conversation" with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, McMaster told reporters in the White House, calling it "wholly appropriate to that conversation" and "consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leader with whom he's engaged".

During those conversations, Trump disclosed the city from which the intelligence was derived, McMaster confirmed.

However, McMaster did not make clear if the information was highly classified as the Washington Post reported one day earlier.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump tweeted that he has "the absolute right" to share certain information with Russia.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against the IS & terrorism," he said in a pair of tweets on Tuesday.

But the president also did not specifically say whether he spilled highly classified information to Russian officials.

Trump reportedly relayed information from a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The related information-sharing arrangement was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, according to the Post report.

In response, McMaster, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell all issued statements later on Monday, claiming such reports are wrong.

Powell said in a statement: "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly," said McMaster, who participated in the meeting.

The Post report said Trump appeared to be boasting of the "great intel" he receives when he described a looming terror threat, citing an official with knowledge of the exchange.

The information was provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. The partner did not give the US permission to share the information with Russia, the Post said.

Following the meeting, the White House contacted the CIA and National Security Agency to contain the damage, according to the Post.

As US President Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that such disclosures broke the law. However, he is facing a deepening trust crisis as a new poll released Tuesday finds nearly half of US voters (48 per cent) said they would support Trump's impeachment, while only 41 per cent would oppose such charges.

The White House is in a "downward spiral" and needs to do something to get "under control", Republican Senator Bob Corker said following the Post report.

Trump's approval ratings have been hovering in the high 30s and 40s. According to Gallup, Trump has the lowest approval of any new president since the surveys began in 1953.

--IANS

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Veteran Indian artist Ganesh Haloi is in the forefront of representing modern Indian art at the ongoing Documenta 14, one of the worlds most prestigious and keenly awaited art events.

Documenta 14 is being held both in Athens, Greece (April 8 till July 16) and Kassel, Germany (June 10 to September 17, 2017)

Represented by Akar Prakar gallery and curated by Natasha Ginwala, the showcase includes 27 new works including paintings and sculptures created by Haloi over the last three years. Inspired by a solitary, almost recluse-like experience at the Ajanta Caves while making copies of murals for Archaeological Survey of India, Haloi has continued to infuse his work with the lyricism and mysticism of those early years.

Haloi was born in Jamalpur, Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh in 1936. He moved to Calcutta in after the Partition three years earlier. The trauma of the uprooting left its mark on his work as it did on some other painters of his generation. Artists of this generation have been very significant in the shaping of Indian modern art as they have been witnesses to India's resilient culture, its freedom and struggle for its revivalism. Haloi's art stands at the helm of this revival.

His simple gouache on paper works express layers of this timeless struggle. The process of creation too is a struggle to compose the space, colour, form, narration. But for Haloi it has always been colour and its space, trying to create a dialogue for each tone that he lays on the surface, giving it its own individuality and constructing layers of different tonalities and textures over it.

"I try to paint a land that is my own. My land. With my rules. It has no resemblance to nature. It is the struggle to create this land that makes the process of painting interesting. The space tension with the object has to be maintained," says Haloi.

He graduated from the Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta in 1956. The next year he joined the Archaeological Survey of India to make copies of the Ajanta murals. After seven years' involvement in the work, Haloi returned to work in Calcutta. He taught at the Government College of Art and Craft since 1963 till his retirement. Since 1971, he has been a 'member of the Society of Contemporary Artists.

"Over the years our relationship with Ganesh Haloi has only strengthened and grown. When we had met him first in 2004, as young gallerists, we were a new entrant in the art world, but he embraced us as a magnanimous Guru does young naive learners. As our interactions with him became frequent, our understanding on art also grew with it," Reena Lath, Director, Akar Prakar informed IANS.

"In his gentle and soft spoken manner he convinced us to visit Benaras and Ajanta, the two places in India which according to him has inspired the best of Indian artists and art. This for us was a turning point in the way we not only viewed Indian art but specifically Ganesh Haloi's abstractions," Lath added.

Some of the earth shades exposed in the artist's work allude to the contours of baked clay -- in fact, his home and studio remain filled with collections of clay figurines and wood crafted objects that compose an archive of living traditions.

These cultural artifacts expose Haloi's cultivated understanding of how modernist idiom remains uniquely connected to artisanal vocabularies and vernacular knowledge from across the Indian subcontinent. Haloi lives and works in Kolkata.

--IANS

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After years of wait and regulatory scrutiny, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), Indias regulator for transgenic products, has finally recommended the genetically modified mustard seeds named Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11 (DMH-11) for commercial release. In 2010, GEAC had approved Bt Brinjal, but the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) did not permit its commercialisation. We hope that this time, the government will respect scientists recommendation and allow farmers to grow DMH-11 in their fields.

Once again, anti-GMO activists are vociferously opposing GEACs decision. They claim that GM (Genetically modified) seeds are not good for human health. Anti-GMO advocates have been stoking public fears about the safety of GM foods ever since the first GM crops reached the market in the US in 1990s. Even after 25 years, there is no evidence that GMOs are harmful for human health. India imports thousands of tons of GM edible oil (and other GM food items) every year, but we do not know of a single verified case of illness or death attributed to genetic alterations. There is strong scientific consensus that GM crops are safe to eat and no different from their conventional alternatives in their health effects. Denying this evidence is as unscientific and anti-intellectual as denying climate change.

Opponents also claim that transgenic seeds lead to increased use of chemicals without offering any yield gains. This is also an unsubstantiated claim based on selective reading of evidence. Pest resistant (Bt) GM seeds do lead to reduced use of pesticides while herbicide resistant (Ht) seeds may result in increased use of herbicides. Overall, GM seeds lead to the reduced application of active chemical ingredients to crops. GM crops are safe for the environment.

The third argument against GMO is distributional: GM technology is anti-farmer and pro-MNCs. According to this claim, farmers have nothing to gain from GM technology. They lose control over genetic material, only to pay hefty premiums on GM seeds that require higher expense on herbicides, but do not offer better yields or better protection from pathogens. However, it is difficult to believe that farmers in India and elsewhere would be so hapless. The facts point to a very different reality. In India and in many other parts of the world, millions of small and large farmers have readily and voluntarily adopted genetically modified Ht and Bt seeds of cotton, soybean and corn, even when GM seeds are expensive and they have other choices. This revealed preference of millions of farmers across the world makes it hard to believe that GM technology is anti-farmer.

The fourth and a related argument against the use of GM technology in agriculture is that it can give too much power to large companies like Bayer and Syngenta Corporation who own many of the patents. However, these concerns do not apply to DMH-11 or Bt Brinjal as they have been developed by government research institutions in India. Furthermore, even if this were a valid concern, giving up on this technology entirely is unwise. We can deal with each of these potential problems directly.



There is overwhelming scientific evidence for net benefit and minimal risks of GMOs, but Government of India continues to ignore mainstream science in following an extreme version of the precautionary principle advocated by critics of transgenic crops. This extreme precaution has raised the regulatory costs to a level that only large firms can pursue this technology. Critics of GM technology demonize large firms, but ironically, they have helped to create a regulatory environment where only the demons can survive.

GMOs can be used to increase crop yields, benefit the environment and make crops more nutritious. Indian farmers are eager to use GM technology and our scientists are ready to deploy it to more crops. It would be both pro-science and pro-farmer if the government and honorable courts allow the technology to take root.

The author is a Research Fellow at IFPRI.

(a.kishore@cgiar.org)

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided as many as 14 residential premises owned by former Union Finance Minister and his son Karti Chidambaram.

The properties raided included those in Chennai and Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu, and in Mumbai, Delhi and Gurgaon.
The AAP has promoted as its Delhi unit chief spokesperson, days after he demonstrated in the Delhi Legislative Assembly how EVMs could be "tampered" with.

The 38-year-old second-time MLA from Greater Kailash has also served as a minister in the AAP's 49-day government.

Bharadwaj is a regular face on news channels representing the party.

"He has been promoted as Delhi unit chief spokesperson keeping in view the way he presented the case of EVM tampering," AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai said.
As the Income Tax (I-T) department raided various properties linked to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Chief in Capital Region (NCR) on the charges of alleged benami deals, the former Chief Minister and his family tried to show it is business as usual.
The Congress today demanded that all accused in the Rohtak gangrape and murder case be punished "with nothing less than capital punishment", while holding the BJP government in Haryana responsible for rise in crimes against women in the state.

Taking on the Manohar Lal Khattar government, Congress spokesperson Shobha Oza said the law and order situation in the state was deteriorating with each passing day.

She said the situation in Haryana on atrocities and crime against women was a matter of concern for all and with each passing day the incidents of torture, rape, gangrape and violence against women were increasing in the state.

"As per crime records bureau, Haryana has emerged as the number one state in rapes. We demand that all accused in the Rohtak gangrape case be arrested immediately and such a case be lodged against them that do not get anything less than capital punishment," she told reporters.

Oza, who is also the Mahila Congress chief, alleged that if a women gets assaulted and makes complaint with the police, the authorities first blame the victim and engage in her character assassination.

She said Haryana's BJP government is clearly responsible for the "deteriorating" situation of violence against women and has "failed" to protect women despite tall claims of 'beti padhao, beti bachao' campaign, which has remained only on paper.

"The law and order situation in the state is bad and the BJP government needs to wake up from its slumber," she said, adding it was time the safety and security of women was accorded top priority by the Khattar government.

The Congress leader said the response of chief minister Khattar has been "very insensitive" whenever questions pertaining to rapes were posed to him.

"If the chief minister himself considers rape as a small incident, how will the state police protect the women and nab the accused," she asked.

Oza alleged that the state police has failed to provide security to the Rohtak gangrape victim who hails from Sonipat, as the victim had told the police about the threat she faced from the accused.

She claimed that after the victim's death, her family was getting threats and the government did not provided any security to them.

"Had the police been alert, such a heinous crime would not have taken place," she said.

The Mahila Congress chief also mentioned another incident in which a woman from Sikkim was gangraped in Gurugram, highlighting the law order situation in the state.

She listed out a number of other such incidents of crime against women across the state in the past few weeks.
A three-year-old girl, who had got separated from her mother on Saturday at a hospital here, was reunited with her after two days by the efforts of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

The girl had accompanied her mother to G B Pant hospital and got separated from her mother while playing on its premises, a DCW official said.

The girl was found by the staff of the hospital who tried searching for her mother in the hospital but when they couldn't trace her they contacted the DCW for assistance.

The DCW team reached the hospital and made announcements at the hospital and a nearby mosque in order to search for her mother but was unable to find her.

The team then took the girl to the I P Estate police station and got a missing report registered, the official said.

Meanwhile, the mother, while searching for her daughter, reached the same police station where the DCW team had registered a missing complaint in the evening.

The police then called the DCW team to the police station who reached the station with the girl without delay.

Although the girl recognised her mother, she was not handed over to her as she had no identity proof, the official said.

The woman explained that she had been staying at the hospital for the past one week for her sister's treatment. She said everyone in the hospital could identify that she was the little girl's mother.

The official said that the DCW team took the little girl and her mother to the hospital along with a team of the police.

The guard at the hospital and a nurse were able to identify the woman as the girl's mother.

Next day the woman brought her identity card to the Child Welfare Committee where DCW had kept the little girl. The CWC after checking the identity of the mother handed over the girl to her mother, the official added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Afghan forces today regained control of a strategic district close to the restive northern city of Kunduz that fell to the Taliban earlier this month, official said.

The Taliban seized Qala-e-Zal in an assault that triggered fierce fighting with government forces, prompting hundreds of civilians to flee their homes and reigniting fears the insurgents could overrun Kunduz city for a third time.

"The governor's building, police headquarters and several key areas are cleared of terrorists, but the operation is still ongoing in other insecure areas of the district," the interior ministry said, adding that their operation began today morning.

A Kunduz government spokesman said security forces were clearing out landmines planted by insurgents in the recaptured areas.

"Around 2,000 families have been displaced, with most relocating in Kunduz city. Some have also fled to other nearby districts," Assadullah Sadat, a member of the Kunduz provincial council, told AFP.

The Norwegian Refugee Council had earlier said that some displaced families were forced to sleep in the open while others were crammed inside the homes of relatives.

Taliban militants launched their annual "spring offensive" in late April, heralding a surge in fighting as the US tries to craft a new Afghan strategy and NATO considers sending more troops to break the stalemate against the resurgent militants.

The offensive normally marks the start of the fighting season, though this winter the Taliban continued to battle government forces. An attack on a military base in the nearby city of Mazar-i-Sharif left at least 135 security forces dead last month.

The Taliban briefly seized Kunduz city in September 2015, in their biggest victory since they were toppled from national power by a US-led invasion in 2001. They were able briefly to re-enter the city centre in October 2016 before once again being pushed back.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taliban attacks killed at least four people in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said. A rocket attack on a market in Asad Abad, the capital of Kunar province, killed two civil servants, according to Waheedullah Kalimzai, the provincial governor.

In the Laghman province, a Taliban mortar round struck a house, killing two women and wounding three children, said Sarhadi Zwak, a spokesman for the Laghman governor.

No one immediately claimed either attack, but the officials blamed both on the Taliban.

The Interior Ministry meanwhile said Afghan forces retook a district from the Taliban in the northern Kunduz province amid fierce clashes. The Qala-e-Zal district fell to the Taliban earlier this month after insurgents overran the local police headquarters.

Police officer Mohammad Faisal says fighting is still underway there.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, 12 Islamic State fighters in the eastern Nangarhar province agreed to hand over their weapons and join a government-backed peace process on Monday, according to Ataullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

An Islamic State affiliate in eastern Afghanistan has expanded its reach in recent years, battling both the US- backed government and the larger and more entrenched Taliban.

The two extremist groups are committed to establishing a harsh version of Islamic rule, but are bitterly divided over leadership and tactics.

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Former minister and senior BJD MLA Pradip Kumar Amat was today unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Odisha Assembly.

Amat, who resigned as finance and health minister on May 6, began his second term as the Assembly Speaker today.

Earlier, he was Speaker of the Assembly from May 25, 2009 till May 20, 2014.

Amat's election came a day after the ruling BJD moved a notice for the Speaker's election.

Niranjan Pujari had tendered his resignation as the Speaker on May 5 ahead of the ministry reshuffle on May 7.

Deputy Speaker of the Assembly Sanand Marandi chaired a brief session of the Assembly where Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik moved a motion and proposed Amat's name for the Speaker's post which was seconded by Parliamentary Affairs minister B K Arukha.

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of Congress and BJP legislature party leader K V Singhdeo along with Patnaik welcomed Amat as soon as Marandi announced his name as the 20th Speaker of the Odisha Assembly.

Mishra said, it would have created a better tradition had the government consulted the opposition before announcing Amat's name for the post.

The Congress leader also hoped that the new Speaker would work in a neutral manner and protect the opposition's interest in the House.

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The Hyderabad police has arrested an Army officer for allegedly raping a 19-year-old woman.

Rishi Sharma, a colonel-rank officer deputed as administrator of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at Shamirpet near here, was arrested yesterday on a complaint lodged by the victim's family, said Inspector V Umender of Rajendra Nagar police station.

Sharma, who made acquaintance of the young woman in January this year, visited her in the same month one day when she was alone at home and raped her, the complaint said.

He later warned her not to disclose the incident to anybody.

Following the complaint, a case was registered yesterday and Sharma was arrested.

A local court sent him in judicial custody.

Medical examination of the victim revealed that she is pregnant, the police said.

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Curfew was today relaxed for six and a half hours in south Rajasthan's Banswara district which had seen communal clashes last week, the police said.

Yesterday, the police had seized 47 petrol bombs and 18 sharp-edged weapons after searches were carried out in various places.

However, no clashes has been reported in the past couple of days, police officials said.

As the situation has normalised, a decision was taken to relax the curfew from 10.30 AM to 5 PM today, Banswara SP Kaluram Rawat told PTI.

He also said that 83 anti-social elements have been arrested from both the sides.

"No incidence of any clash was reported in the sensitive areas in the last couple of days. Curfew was clamped in the area on Friday. On Monday, 47 petrol bombs and 18 sharp-edged weapons were recovered during searches," Rawat said.

Clashes had broken out on Thursday during a religious procession being carried out by the minority community which then led to stone pelting that night.

On Friday, members of both the sides again pelted stones, torched houses and vehicles which prompted the district administration to clamp curfew in the Kotwali police station area, which covers almost the entire city area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Uttar Pradesh Assembly today witnessed a verbal clash after a Congress leader made certain remarks against the BJP in the context of yesterday's ruckus after which the ruling side demanded an apology from him.

The face-off took place after Pankaj Singh of the BJP raised the question of propriety while referring to yesterday's incident when the opposition members threw paper balls at Governor Ram Naik during his customary address to the joint sitting of the Legislative Assembly and the Council.

Congress legislature party leader Ajay Kumar Lallu then said there had been opposition to the governor's address in the past too when the BJP was on the other side of the fence.

He made a remark to which the BJP took strong objection and demanded its withdrawal and apology from the member.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Khanna insisted that the House will not settle for anything less than Lallu's apology to the House.

Unruly scenes marked by sharp exchanges between the treasury and opposition benches continued for some time.

Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary was heard remarking that the House will not function under anyone's pressure.

Lallu later relented, saying whatever he had said was to emphasise that protests have been held during the governor's address in the past also and he did not intend to harm anyone.

"If there is anything wrong in my remark, I withdraw it," he said.

Interestingly, Chaudhary made light of the paper balls being thrown at the governor.

He said through the paper balls, the members were trying to convey to the governor their messages which they had brought in writing as the marshals had surrounded Naik and the Opposition MLAs and MLCs were not allowed to reach him.

Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit said the matter raised through the question of propriety is a serious one.

"I reserve my ruling on the issue and will pronounce it in the House later," Dixit added.

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A Canadian warship is on a visit to Mumbai, with the objective of enhancing maritime and naval cooperation between Canada and India.

"Her Majesty's Canadian Ship (HMCS) Winnipeg is on Mumbai visit from May 13 to 17, during which it will carry out professional interaction and Passage Exercise with Indian ships," a Defence spokesperson said today.

It follows the visit of Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan to India last month, the spokesperson added.

HMCS Winnipeg is commanded by Commander Jeff Hutchinson and has a complement of 260 personnel (30 officers and 230 sailors).

Commander Hutchinson interacted with Rear Admiral S Mahindru, Flag Officer Maharashtra Naval Area, and other senior officers of the Western Naval Command, he said.

The crew of HMCS Winnipeg also visited INS Teg. HMCS Winnipeg will carry out joint exercises at sea with INS Teg.

During his visit, Sajjan had highlighted areas of congruence between India and Canada and the need to further enhance cooperation between both nations and continuing the current level of military interactions and the possibilities of increased cooperation, the spokesperson said.

"India and Canada are poised to enhance defence cooperation in fields of counter-terrorism, cold climate warfare, peace-keeping and Naval cooperation," he said.

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China said today it was willing to work with Sri Lanka to steadily push forward the construction of the Colombo Port City, the Hambantota Port, and logistics and industrial parks in accordance with market and business principles.

China's offer came as Sri Lanka is negotiating for a USD 1.1-billion debt swap with Beijing to repay the USD 1.4 billion Chinese loan for the Hambantota port, which was found to be unviable.

The offer was made by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang when his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe, who attended the ambitious Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14-15, met him here today. The B&R initiative aims to link China to markets in Europe and Africa through Asia.

Li urged Sri Lanka to create a good legal, media, policy and security environment for implementing the projects.

Earlier, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for more efforts to advance the strategic partnership between China and Sri Lanka during a meeting with Wickremesinghe.

China values relations with Sri Lanka and supports the efforts made by Colombo to safeguard national unity, peace and national reconciliation, and promote economic development, Xi said.

China is ready to work with Sri Lanka to move forward the friendship between the two countries and lift their strategic partnership of cooperation to a higher level, Xi said.

The Chinese president urged the two countries to strengthen top-level design and policy communication for the development of bilateral ties, and coordinate positions on global issues of common interests.

The two countries should also promote infrastructure construction, maritime and aviation cooperation to realise infrastructure connectivity, Xi said.

China and Sri Lanka should take the celebration of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to build people-to-people bonds in youth, think-tanks, colleges and universities, media, religion, tourism and local affairs, Xi said.

Wickremesinghe congratulated China for the successful Belt and Road Forum, which had gathered many countries and international financial institutions, and achieved fruitful results, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

Sri Lanka is committed to consolidating the traditional friendship with China and deepening bilateral cooperation in a variety of areas, Wickremesinghe said.

The Sri Lankan prime minister said his country welcomes China's increased participation in Sri Lanka's industrialisation and infrastructure construction.

Sri Lanka is ready to work with China on the Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City projects, Wickremesinghe said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress today announced it will launch a nationwide public campaign with other like- minded parties in the next 24 months to "expose the failures" of the BJP-led government, which it accused of creating an "atmosphere of intolerance".

Ahead of completion of three years of the NDA, the Congress young brigade alleged that the government has failed on various counts including on issues like dealing with Pakistan, Kashmir policy, internal security, women safety and rising cases of rapes, atrocities on Dalits, high petrol and diesel prices, besides generation of jobs.

At a press conference here, AICC in-charge of communications Randeep Surjewala said that the Congress will launch the extensive public campaign after bringing together all like-minded parties and those forces troubled by this government.

A power-point presentation was also made, criticising the government for "failing to bring back black money" and over the issues of GST, Aadhaar, renaming of UPA schemes, Digital and Skill India and not addressing the problem of farm debt.

Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev and Divya Spandana also alleged that cases of intolerance were rising in the country attempts were being made to change the narrative rather than focusing on resolving public problems.

Scindia said when this government came to power it kindled a lot of hope by selling the dream of bringing "achhe din" in the country, but in the last three years it "shattered people's dreams".

"There is an environment of intolerance prevailing in the country. If anybody discusses it, they are termed anti- nationals.

"This government decides what the people should eat, learn and wear. It tries to push its policies based on a regimented 'soch vichar' (ideological approach)," he said.

Pilot said the Congress would present a better alternative model of governance before the people of the country and will expose the BJP on its "failure to fulfil the lofty promises made before coming to power".

The Congress screened a video entitled "Teen saal barbaad, lipapoti sarkar" during the press conference.

The party leaders also alleged that senior functionaries of the government were trying to help fugitives like Vijaya Mallya and Lalit Modi escape the country.

Scindia also said an "anti-Dalit" atmosphere is being created in the country. He said while on the one hand the government celebrates Ambedkar's birthday, on the other, its people harass Dalits across the country.

"From my state (Madhya Pradesh), around 50 families of the Dalit community have expressed their desire to die," he said.

"Big programmes are organised for them, but it seems the Prime Minister wants a 'Dalit-mukt' and 'Adivasi-mukt' India," he alleged.

He termed the death of Rohith Vemula and the beating of four Dalits in the name of cow protection in Gujarat's Una "stigma on our society".

Party spokesperson RPN Singh said internal security was deteriorating and incidents of terrorist attacks were rising.

"The BJP that gave the slogan of nationalism, does not think about it any more," he said.

Sushmita Dev talked about how the Modi government has not taken care of the aspirations of the youth by not creating jobs for them despite making tall promises to that effect.

"Where is their future? Modiji has dejected the youth of the country," she said.

Another Congress leader Divya Spandana spoke on the issue of women's safety and said there has been a 22.2 per cent rise in rape cases. She said of the 660 one-stop centres, only 20 have been set up and the Nirbhaya fund has not been utilised.

She also accused the BJP government of neglecting South India by not supporting Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments for drought relief and for refusing to transfer Rs 1,500 crore that Kerala was entitled to as part of implementing MGNREGS.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a peculiar punishment, a dog was today sentenced to death in Pakistan's Punjab province for biting a child.

The dog, which bit a child, was sentenced to death by Assistant Commissioner Raja Saleem in Bhakkar's Kalor vicinity in Punjab province, Geo TV reported.

Assistant Commissioner Saleem said that the sentence was announced on humanitarian grounds.

"The dog injured the child hence it should be killed," Saleem ruled.

An official was also instructed to check the dog's registration, he said, stating that a case against the dog's owner is in progress in a civil court.

The dog's owner filed an appeal with the Additional Deputy Commissioner against the peculiar punishment.

"The affected child's family registered a case against my dog, following which it completed a one-week prison sentence. Any further punishment for it would be unfair," the channel quoted the dog's owner Jamil as saying.

Jamil added that he would knock on the doors of all courts to get justice for his pet.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BSF today claimed to have found five kg of heroin buried under a tree in the D T Mal Border Outpost area here.

The seizure was made on the basis of specific information from the Punjab STF, a BSF official said.

"A special joint search operation of the BSF and STF was launched ahead of the border security fence in the D T Mal Border Outpost area," the official said.

During the operation, five packets of the contraband, heroin, were found buried under a berry tree in a yellow polythene packet, the BSF official said.

Including this seizure, a total of 76.67 kg of heroin has been recovered in 2017, the official said.

The Punjab government has formed a special STF in order to combat the drug menace in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least four people died today when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device in a small Kenyan town near the border with Somalia, police said.

The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists.

Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks.

Today's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians.

"Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device."



Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected.

Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident.

The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers.

Notable encroachments into Kenya included the 2013 Westgate mall and 2015 Garissa University attacks, while the group also attacked the Ugandan capital Kampala in 2010.

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Taiwan-based IT major Foxconn has sought 13 acre land at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust's special economic zone (SEZ), Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

The contract manufacturer makes products for global device brands like Apple, BlackBerry, Amazon, Motorola, Xiaomi and Sony and has bulk of its factories in China.

"Foxconn has sought a land parcel of 13 acres in special economic zone in JNPT and I have spoken to Maharashtra Chief Minister about the project," Gadkari told the media here.

However, the shipping, road transport and highways minister said the details of the project are not immediately available.

Foxconn Technology Group is one of the world's largest electronic manufacturing contractors, headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan. It is the third largest information technology Company by revenue.

The Country Head and MD, Foxconn International Holding India, Josh Foulger had in March met Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to discuss support for exporting mobile phones from the country.

JNPT, Mumbai, is among to 12 major ports and handles over 40 per cent of Indian volumes.

Gadkari said investors have evinced interest in other port SEZs for a variety of activities that include leather, wood and fertiliser.

Under the Sagarmnala initiative, Gadkari said, 14 SEZs are set up across the country at an estimated investment of Rs 12 lakh crore.

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The department is undergoing a massive revamping to ensure smooth implementation from July 1.

The government is strengthening the body responsible for detecting tax evasion and will set up two new agencies, including one for business intelligence and analytics.

With the goods and service tax (GST) subsuming central levies like excise duty, service tax and state VAT, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has reorganised its existing central excise and service tax field formations to suit the requirements of the new regime.

The CBEC will itself be rechristened as the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and will supervise and Customs activities and provide the government policy inputs.

The CBIC will be headed by a chairman and will have six members for GST, IT, legal and compliance verification, investigation, tax policy, Customs and administration and vigilance.

In a letter to the zonal heads, the human resource arm of the CBEC said the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGGSTI) will be the new name of the existing Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), but with more powers.

The DGSTI will have its task cut out, keeping in view the steep increase in the GST taxpayer base, the letter said.

The organisation will be headed by a principal director general in Delhi who will be assisted by four sub-national directors general.

Also, two new directorates are being created. The Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) will have two verticals for business intelligence and analytics and risk management centre to provide perspectives for policy formulation.

The Directorate of International Customs will be created to deal with WTO related matters, including tariff, as well as the Kyoto Convention, multilateral and bi-lateral agreements with other countries.

"It will also assist the board in functions related to the National Trade Facilitation Committee for implementation of the trade facilitation agreement (TEA) and Customs procedures for international Trade. All matters of cross- border trade through Land Customs Stations shall also be handled by this directorate," the letter said.

Further, the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics (NACIN), will be the new form of the existing National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN). In the GST regime, it will be the only academy of its kind in India that will provide regular training to officers.

It is also envisaged that the NACIN will provide training to representatives of trade bodies and tax professionals. Thus, it will be catering to the training needs of around 70,000 people every year.

The role of the Directorate General of Taxpayer Services under the GST set-up will be to provide assistance to the taxpayers at their doorsteps, in addition to handling publicity and public relations, holding seminars and workshops, attending to queries of taxpayers and coordinating the resolution of taxpayers' grievances.
Hackers today made an attempt to steal money from Kolkata Municipal Corporation mayor Sovan Chatterjee's wife's bank account.

The mayor and his wife came to know about the unsuccessful attempt after Chatterjee's wife received a text message alerting her against insufficient cash balance, the mayor said today.

Chatterjee then blocked the debit card and lodged a police complaint.

The mayor said that the hackers could not withdraw money from his wife's account since the amount of money they were looking for was, in fact, not in the account.

Meanwhile, in view of the latest Ransomeware cyber attack, the KMC today issued a circular to its employees containing a set of guidelines on how to stave off the attack.

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Disney CEO Bob Iger has revealed that hackers have threatened to leak one of their upcoming films unless a ransom is paid.

Though Iger did not reveal the name of the film it is believed to be Disney's latest Pirates film "Dead Men Tell No Tales".

Iger said Disney is working with the FBI, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Iger reportedly made these comments during the town hall meeting with ABC employees in New York City, THR said citing multiple sources.

The hackers have demanded "enormous amount" of money via online currency Bitcoin.

They have threatened to release five minutes of the film at first, and then in 20-minute chunks until their financial demands are met.

Hacking of unreleased content is the latest problem that the showbiz industry, which has long struggled with online piracy, is facing.

The ransom demand for the Disney movie is not an isolated case as Netflix recently faced a similar situation when their popular show "Orange Is The New Black" was leaked online.

The hackers had demanded money and when Netflix refused to pay, they released the episodes weeks before its official launch.

The fifth installment of the highly-profitable "Pirates" franchise stars Javier Bardem as the villain opposite Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.

Other Pirates favourites set to return include Orlando Bloom as Will Turner, Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Swann and Geoffrey Rush as Captain Hector Barbossa.

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Heroin "concealed in packets" was seized on board a flight of the ailing Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) at Heathrow airport, British authorities said today.

The narcotics was seized from PK 785 passenger plane that arrived at the London airport from Islamabad. The plane was searched and its 14-member crew detained for questioning after it landed at the UK's busiest airport yesterday at 2:50pm.

UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed that drugs were found on board the flight.

"National Crime Agency officers are investigating following the seizure of a quantity of heroin found by Border Force officers on board a flight from Pakistan at Heathrow on Monday. No arrests have been made, enquiries are ongoing," an NCA spokesman told Pakistan's Geo .

Earlier today, Dawn reported that as passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by the authorities. More than a dozen crew members were released after being detained for nearly two hours by the British authorities, PIA spokesman Mashood Tajwar said.

"We have not been informed as to why was the crew detained?" said Tajwar.

The search was carried out by UK Border Security Agency on suspicion that drugs were hidden on board the aircraft.

PIA has been suffering huge losses and administration is trying to improve the situation but it frequently faces embarrassment.

In January, as many as seven passengers were forced to stand throughout the over three-hour flight from Karachi to Madina after the airline boarded excess passengers in a serious breach of air safety regulations.

A month later, a Heathrow-bound PIA aircraft was intercepted and escorted by fighter jets to Stansted Airport in northeast London because of a "vague security threat".

Later, a suspect was arrested and charged with fraud and misrepresentation by the police.

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Premium smartphone maker HTC is readying plans to launch its water- and dust-proof flagship 4G handset U11 by mid-June in India, which was unveiled here today at around 750 euros for the European market.

"HTC U11 will be launched in India by mid-June. Global launch is in the first week of June. We are still negotiating the price at which we can sell HTC U11 in India. There will be differences between India and the European market. It will be competitive on global pricing," Faisal Siddiqui, HTC President for South Asia, told reporters here.

HTC has introduced a device operation technology in U11 with HTC edge sense that will allow users to control its function by applying different pressures of their grip on the edge of the phone. The sense-based control can be customised by the users.

U11 will start selling in some regions from the next week and the rest of the market, starting June. In Europe, it will sell for around 750 euros, that is about Rs 53,000 a unit, from the first week of June, a company official said.

The pricing of the phone will vary across countries due to tax structures and operational cost, Siddiqui said.

"HTC will focus on only high-end segment because it is difficult to sell innovations at low price. In India, we are looking at the best ways to ease buying of HTC phones. For HTC U11, we plan to provide sales through easy monthly instalments in partnership with companies like Bajaj Finance, Home Credit and banks," Siddiqui added.

The company has launched variants of U11 with different storage capacity and colours that have reflection feature similar to that of liquid surface.

It plans to sell a high-end variant in India that will have 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage expandable up to 2 TB or above 2000 gigabyte with the help of an external memory card.

The phone comes with 12 megapixel main camera with HDR boost technology.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset, HTC U11 has 3000 mAh battery that the company claims can be completely charged in 90 minutes and support up to 24.5 hours for voice calls.

HTC, Siddiqui said, will focus on the mid- and premium- range segment.

"In India, we are planning to launch various models of 4G VoLTE-enabled Desire series smartphones that will be priced between Rs 10,000-30,000 a unit. We don't plan to sell smartphones below Rs 10,000," Siddiqui clarified.

HTC has a retail reach across 400 cities in India. But the company plans to focus on top 200 cities and branding in top 100.

The company makes Desire series phones in India, but is still to start manufacturing of its high-end segment.

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He is one of the most celebrated character actors in Hollywood and after spending more than four decades in films and theatre, Geoffrey Rush says it is now that he has started looking for roles that are closer to his age.

In the last few years, the 65-year-old Australian actor has played dowager Lady Bracknell, King Lear and Albert Einstein.

The Oscar-winning actor says he is choosing such roles as he can identify with their stage in life.

"I have realised in the last five years that I am older. So, I look at the roles like that. I never thought about the age of the characters before.

"In the last five years, I have played Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest', King Lear in theatre, Ra in 'Gods of Egypt' and now Albert Einstein. These are the roles that I think I am in the right age group to do. I look at their landscape and what I can bring to them," Rush told PTI in an interview here.

The actor made his film debut with the Australian film "Hoodwink" in 1981. Since then, he has starred in "Shine", for which he won the Academy Award for best actor, "Les Miserables", "Elizabeth", "Shakespeare in Love" and "Quills".

He had nine releases between 2001 to 2003 during which he starred in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", as Captain Hector Barbossa and appeared in all the sequels, including "Salazar's Revenge", the latest film in the franchise.

Rush is returning to the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced sea adventure franchise for the fifth time along with Johnny Depp and several other members of the cast and crew.

"The King's Speech" star says he loves coming back to the Pirates fold as he enjoys working in the big family set-up.

"I think that is something to do with me having spent a lot of time in the theatre where I was in companies for a very long period. With this franchise, which began from 2002 till 2017, we are still on the same thing. It has expanded."



The Australian star says the family does not only include cast members like Johnny Depp, Kevin McNally, Joshamee Gibbs and Martin Klebba but also camera operators, make-up, costumes people.

"It is a big group and it has been great. A producer like Jerry does not bring out the film every two years to smash the summer season. He waits to go. He does not make it unless there is something fresh and more developed."



In this film, Barbossa's story has a new twist and there is a big revelation in the end. Rush says he is impressed with the graph and the development of his character who began as a villain but is now much older and has a vulnerable side to him.

"In all the five chapters of the films, I have been fortunate enough to play a character that has transformed a lot. He was first a harsh psychopathic, self-serving villain , then a politician, later he worked for the King.

"Now, in this story he is older. What I love in this film is that all the elements of mythology, the piracy, is coming together. You get the back story and a deep secret in Barbossa's life and a domestic vulnerable side to him."



"Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge" has been directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg.

Also starring Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario and Orlando Bloom, the film releases on May 26.

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In a country where over 50 per cent of children are reported to have been subjected to sexual abuse, it is necessary to sensitise students to tackle the issue, a top Delhi Police official today said.

Joint Commissioner Robin Hibu said it was important for educational and training institutes to include child sexual abuse awareness in their curriculum. He said such assaults must be addressed by the basic institutions of a victim's life, including family, school, and places of worship.

"To address the issue of child sexual abuse you will have to make it part of the national curriculum at all kinds of training institutes, including police, civil, panchayati raj, engineering and medical.

"98 per cent of sexual abuse, of both children and women, happens through a family member or someone known to the victim. How do police intervene in matters if they are not reported? That is the role of institutions like family, school, places of worship and community leaders," Hibu said.

He was speaking at the launch of a new campaign -- 'It Takes Every Indian to End Child Sexual Abuse and exploitation' -- by World Vision India.

The police officer also urged research students to carry out thorough groundwork to understand the severity of child and women abuse, instead of limiting themselves to classrooms and libraries.

"The courses at universities remain restricted to the boundaries of their classrooms and libraries. I say they should be asked to go out and do groundwork, to be with these people, to stay at a place on GB Road for one week or a month.

"If anyone wants to do research on how women and kids are treated, about their counselling, about shelter homes, they need to be out there to know the ground reality," he said.

Joint director at National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), K C George, stressed on the importance of family counselling in sensitising children about abuse.

"Counselling plays the most prominent role in addressing such cases. Addressing the issue of violence against children and counselling them about the same must begin at home.

"The moment my child steps out of the house, goes to his school, and spends time among strangers, I don't know who he is coming in contact with. So I need to prepare him for any adverse situation by sitting him down and telling him about the good and bad touches," George said.

Looking to impact 5 million children in 200 districts and 7,000 communities of 25 states and one union territory, the nation-wide campaign has been joined and supported by several ministries including home affairs, external affairs, women and child development, and social justice and empowerment.

Other stakeholders in the campaign are National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and SCPCR, NGOs and INGOs, universities and colleges, corporates, along with online and print media.

Cherian Thomas, national director of World Vision India, said that the campaign aims at providing a safe environment for children over the next five years.

"Despite one in every two Indian children being sexually abused, there continues to be a huge silence. The magnitude of sexual violence against children is unknown. This campaign will draw people from all walks of life to provide a safe environment for children," he said.

The campaign launch also saw a mime performance by children on the subject of child sexual abuse and a panel discussion on 'Ending Children Sexual Abuse and Exploitation in India' attended by Sarita Jadav of UNESCO, Razia Ismail of India Alliance for Child Rights, and Shweta Tyagi of ChildLine among others.

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The US state of Indiana celebrated 'Vaisakhi' as the inaugural National Sikh Day in recognition of the contributions of the community which has become a "thread in our fabric", Governor Eric Holcomb has said.

"We are so proud of the many contributions that members of the Sikh community have made to our state," Holcomb said as he profusely praised the contribution of the Sikh community in the all-round development of the State.

The inaugural National Sikh Day on the Sikh festival of 'Vaisakhi' was celebrated yesterday. Indiana is home to nearly 10,000 Sikhs, who own more than 3,000 businesses in the State.

"The Sikh community has become a part, it's a thread in our fabric, in our State's fabric. (They) keeps us not just well-known around the world as our families become one, but it also helps get the word out and promote that Indiana is not just open for business but we're a great place, if not the best place to do business and to raise your family and to ultimately, permanently call Indiana home," Holcomb told PTI.

The Governor said he is looking to attract more members of the Sikh community to Indiana.

"We think once you come to Indiana, you'll stay," he said.

At the event organised by the Sikhs Political Action Committee, Holcomb felicitated head priests and presidents of all Gurdwara Sahibs of Indiana along with other prominent Sikhs.

The celebrations come weeks after the Indiana Senate on April 20 passed 'Sikh Resolution' acknowledging and recognising significant contributions that American-Sikhs have made across the US and to the state of Indiana.

Several lawmakers and government official praised the contributions of the Sikh Community at the event that was marked with 'kirtan' and traditional 'bhangra'.

"It is time that the Sikh community increase its contribution to the country that they live," said eminent community leader and successful businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa at the event organised by the Sikhs Political Action Committee.

"Today we need to stand to give because this country has given so much for the last 100 years," Singh said.

"We are all enjoying American dream. Now is the time to give back to this country, not for expecting something but for who we are, what we stand for," he said.

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill congratulated Sikhs on the inaugural National Sikh Day.

"It is exciting to see a group that recognises its responsibility in taking part in enhancing the business environment of the State," he said.

"These are hardworking individuals who recognise that there is value in not just working their business but also engaged in the government and understanding the political process," Hill said as he expressed his continued commitment to addressing hate crimes and assaults targeting ethnic minorities.

In her remarks, Indiana Superintendent Glenda Ritz announced to expand introduction to Sikh history in elementary school.

Last year she had announced to introduce Sikh history in middle and high schools.

K P Singh, one of the first Sikhs to have settled in Indiana for about 50 years said that May 15 marks another important day in the progress of the Sikh community in Indiana.

Recently the State of Indiana's General Assembly passed Sikh resolution on April 20, commemorating the anniversary of Creation of Khalsa as National Sikh Day.

The senate resolution stated "recognising and acknowledging the significant contributions that American- Sikhs have made across the US and in the State of Indiana on the occasion of 'Vaisakhi' as National Sikh Day."



The City of Fishers, Indiana a suburb of the Indiana's capital city, Indianapolis, also hosted an event similar to the festivities.

The Mayor of the city of Fishers was the keynote-featured speaker and also executed a Sikh proclamation for National Sikh Day in the city.

Earlier Sikh-owned DCL (Direct Connect Logistx, one of the fastest growing and third largest freight company) presented a donation of USD 12,000 to Jeff Cardwell founder for an Indiana based, nationally renowned humanitarian, non- profit organisation 'People Helping People'.

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The CBI today carried out searches at the house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea here as part of investigations into a case linked to P Chidambaram and his son Karti over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.

The search was among the raids carried out at multiple locations across the country, including at the homes of the former finance minister and his son, CBI sources said.

A team of CBI sleuths are conducting searches at Peter's bungalow in the posh Worli area in south Mumbai, agency sources said.

Both Peter and his wife Indrani Mukerjea, founders of INX Media, are accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and are lodged in jail here.

The CBI has been conducting searches at 17 locations across the country, including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai and Chidambaram's hometown of Karaikudi, as part of a probe into the alleged criminal misconduct in approval of foreign investments in India.

P Chidambaram has been named in a police complaint in the INX deal, which accuses his son Karti of receiving 'consultation charges' after the INX Media won government approval to receive foreign investments.

The agency had yesterday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media in 2007 when Chidambaram was the finance minister.

The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Peter, Indrani, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.

Indrani was arrested in August 2015 after chilling details of the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora came to light that year. Peter was arrested and made an accused later in November 2015.

According to CBI, which investigated the murder case and filed the chargesheet, that both Peter and Indrani had siphoned off money from INX Media.

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Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from the Islamic State group after retaking the city's eastern side earlier this year, a military spokesman said today.

IS still controls "10.5 per cent of... The right bank," Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, told a conference in Baghdad, referring to west Mosul.

Mosul is split by the Tigris River, and its western side is referred to as the right bank, while the east is known as the left bank.

Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul from IS nearly seven months ago, fighting their way to the jihadist-held city, retaking its eastern side and then attacking the west.

The drive to retake Mosul has been supported by US-led air strikes that have aided the Iraqi advance but which have also reportedly caused hundreds of civilian casualties in the city.

"More than 300 vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (car bombs) have been destroyed by coalition strikes in Mosul," coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian told the conference.

IS now controls just a handful of neighbourhoods around the Old City, one of the country's heritage jewels.

The area's narrow streets and closely spaced buildings make it difficult for federal forces to take on the jihadists, requiring them to fight on foot instead of from vehicles as they have previously done.

Half a million people are currently displaced as a result of the battle for Mosul, and some 250,000 civilians are estimated to be still trapped inside the city's west.

Thursday saw what the Norwegian Refugee Council said was the biggest single-day displacement since the start of the operation, with around 20,000 people fleeing west Mosul.

The presence of a large civilian population, which either chose not to leave or was prevented from doing so by IS, complicates any final assault to seal victory in Mosul.

Human shields have become a central feature of the vastly outnumbered jihadists' defences, and IS has stopped at nothing to deter people from escaping the city, including killing people who seek to flee.

But that is not the only threat: trapped residents reached by AFP inside IS-held areas have recently warned that hunger was starting to kill more people than the fighting.

In eastern Mosul, life returned to a semblance of normality fairly quickly after Iraqi forces drove the jihadists back neighbourhood by neighbourhood until the area was fully recaptured earlier this year.

The city's first post-IS liquor store has since been opened in east Mosul, and is doing brisk business among people who were denied easy access to alcohol for more than two years.

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Israel today evinced interest in providing assistance to Uttar Pradesh in its implementation of 'Namami Gange Programme' - the Narendra Modi government's ambitious programme to clean and rejuvenate the river Ganga.

Israel's Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon who met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at the latter's official residence here also expressed Israel's desire to cooperate with the state in various other sectors.

"Uttar Pradesh may be given assistance by Israel on the Namami Gange Programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that has been started for rejuvenation of Ganga," said Carmon.

"Strengthening of bilateral ties with India is one of the priorities of the Israeli government," the envoy said.

On his part, Adityanath said that the state government was interested in using Israel's expertise in development of agriculture, irrigation, horticulture, energy, science and technology, smart cities and other sectors.

The chief minister told the visiting envoy that owing to the depleting ground water, many regions have been declared dark zones in the state.

"In these areas, techniques developed by Israel to augment the ground water level can prove to be effective and a great help," he said.

Israel is already extending support to the state government in the field of water conservation in Bundelkhand.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today termed as "political vendetta" the raids on Congress leader P Chidambaram and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and said she had discussed the issue with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Banerjee, whose party leaders are facing probe in the alleged Sarada chit fund scam and the alleged Narada bribery scam, targeted the Modi government in a veiled manner, saying, "If you do not like someone, then you send CBI, then put him in jail."



She said even the media is under "tremendous pressure" from the government.

"... Some political vendetta is going on.... Whatever is happening today... Sometimes with (Samajwadi Party leader) Akhilesh (Yadav), sometimes with (Odisha Chief Minister) Naveen Patnaik, sometimes with Laluji, Chidamabaram, (Delhi Chief Minister Arvind) Kejriwal," Mamata told reporters.

She was referring to the CBI raids on multiple premises linked to Chidambaram, former Finance Minister, and his son Karti in connection with alleged favours granted in FIPB clearance to a firm.

Her reference was also to the Income Tax raids on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad and others.

"... What is on since morning, that was also discussed," Mamata said about the raids after meeting Sonia Gandhi here.

In an apparent message to the Modi government, the Trinamool Congress chief asked, "If you fight with everybody then who is left out?"



Without naming anyone, she said political fight should be fought politically.

"It does not behove anyone. Political fight, ideological fight should be fought politically," she said.

On her meeting with Gandhi, Mamata said, "We discussed political issues. When two political leaders discuss, it is natural that they would talk politics. We discussed very important matter regarding politics and presidential elections both."



The meeting lasted about the 40 minutes in which Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was also present.

Mamata said even the media is also under "tremendous pressure and I know that. Barring two or three media houses, no one is able to say anything. There is pressure on the media. But India is a democratic country. We should not do it.

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Italian fashion brand PERF is foraying into the Indian market with its sportswear collection, and targeting to clock sales of around Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years.

The company, which is present in Europe, US, UK and Canada, will source products from these markets to be sold in India, where it will be competing with the likes of Nike and Adidas, among others.

It has tied up with e-commerce platforms and independent retail chains for distribution of its products in India.

"We will work with independent retail chains and the target is to be present in 400-500 stores in the next three years depending upon the response from the customers," PERF CEO Maurizio Corallo told PTI.

The company would initially start operating in the major metros followed by Tier I and Tier II cities.

Regarding distribution, Corallo said: "We have tied up with all the e-commerce players. We are also in talks with multi branded outlets."



On sales expectations, Corallo said: "We are expecting sales of about Rs 1,000 crore in the next five years through physical retail and e-commerce distribution.

He further said the company would focus on opening its own exclusive stores.

The company said the active wears would be available in Amazon, Jabong, PayTm and Myntra from May 19. On Flipkart and Snapdeal, the products would be available for sale from the first week of June.

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The Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) today termed as "unfortunate" the the Italian Supreme Court's ban on carrying the 'kirpan', a dagger considered sacred in Sikhism.

DSGMC general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa said the organisation will urge External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to raise the issue with the Italian government.

These issues have cropped up in countries where the governments are not aware of the importance of such "articles of faith" for the Sikhs, said Sirsa who has recently been elected to the Delhi Assembly on a BJP ticket.

The Italian High Cassation Court yesterday ruled against a Sikh Indian migrant who wanted to carry a kirpan, even as it was against the Italian law, the Italian agency ANSA reported.

The court said migrants who choose to live in the Western world have an obligation to conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in, even if its values differ from their own.

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Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das today said that the priority of the people's representatives should be development of their areas.

He said that their aim should be to raise people's issues in the state Assembly and implement government schemes in their respective areas.

Releasing a book authored by BJP MLA Biranchi Narayan, the chief minister said besides questions and answers in the Assembly, transparency is necessary in democracy and lauded Narayan for the book.

The book is a collection of Assembly proceedings.

Narayan said that people should know important issues raised in the state Assembly and that was the objective behind publishing the book.

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Close on the heels of the murder of Lt. Ummer Fayaz in the Kashmir Valley, a BSF Assistant Commandant from Jammu, who had topped the recruitment exam, has written to the government alleging that militants are threatening him and his sister.

Nabeel Ahmed Wani, the topper of the All India Examination for BSF Assistant Commandant (Works) last year, said his sister, a civil engineering student in Chandigarh, had been staying in a hostel but the college authorities now want her to move elsewhere.

Wani wrote to Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday (May 14) asking her to arrange for hostel facility for Nida Rafiq.

"She was worried that she would not get a place to say as a Kashmiri, especially with my background. I didn't want to involve the BSF in a personal matter, so I wrote to the minister," Wani told PTI over phone from BSF Training Academy in Tekanpur near Gwalior.

Wani said he has spoken to his seniors in the BSF asking them to allow personnel to carry their arms when they go on leave, especially in militant-affected areas, and also to secure their travel plans home.

He said he will go home for his cousin's wedding in next two months.

"People like me and my family members are always under threat from militants. After the murder of Lt Ummer Fayaz, I am scared about my family's security. My mother lives alone in Jammu while my sister is in Chandigarh. I worry, especially now, as terrorists are targeting our families," said Wani.

He topped the exam last year around the time the Valley was on the boil following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.

He had written the mail to Gandhi on May 14 and he got a response the very next day.

"The minister immediately took it up with the college authorities, who have now allowed Mr. Nabeel's sister to stay in the hostel," a senior official of the WCD Ministry said.

Wani said, "I am now worried for all those Kashmiris who are serving in the Army or paramilitary forces. We (Kashmiris) join the forces despite a lot of opposition and now, with this trend of killing Kashmiris serving as soldiers, a sword hangs on all of us. This is very disturbing."



As for his sister, he is now comforted she will remain safe in the security of her hostel room.

"She is safe for now. Pray for her, she wants to become the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to serve the Indian Army," he said.

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The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today expressed concern and anguish over the reported decision of Italian Supreme Court to ban wearing of 'kirpan', a dagger considered sacred in Sikhism, on the pretext of public safety.

The decision of Italian Supreme Court has shaken the Sikh community all over the world, it said.

The Italian High Cassation Court yesterday ruled against the Sikh Indian migrant who wanted to carry a kirpan, even as it was against the Italian law, the Italian agency ANSA reported.

The court said migrants who choose to live in the Western world have an obligation to conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in, even if its values differ from their own.

In a statement released to the press, the party secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the court has ignored the fact that carrying of 'kirpan' is essential and mandatory part of religious code of conduct of an 'Amritdhari Sikh'.

It is a question of faith and a fundamental right of a Sikh, the SAD said.

Banning of 'Kirpan' means that no 'Amritdhari Sikh' would be able to live in Italy after this order.

Cheema said SAD as well as Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee will raise this issue at appropriate platform to ensure justice to Sikhs settled in Italy.

The party will also take up the matter with External Affairs Ministry and urge it to take up this matter with the Italian government at the earliest.

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Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said today that growing vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific region present unique challenges, as he called on the regional navies to join hands for the safety and security of the seas.

Lanba, who is here for an introductory visit from May 14 to 18, called on Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen at the International Maritime Defence and Exhibition (IMDEX 2017) at Changi Exhibition Centre (CEC).

In the meeting, both the sides reaffirmed their strong ties between the Singapore and Indian armed forces, the ministry said in a statement.

Lanba, during a conference, said there is a "necessity to base our responses on three guiding principles: Adherence to globally accepted norms regarding global commons and respecting the established arbitration mechanisms.

"Strengthening multilateral cooperative mechanisms and greater interaction between various regional groupings on issues of common interest. Resource sharing among maritime nations for optimising our efforts to keep the maritime domain safe," he said.

Expanding challenges and growing vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific region present unique challenges for the region's maritime forces, Lanba told delegates at the 5th International Maritime Security Conference.

"It is therefore incumbent upon the navies of the region to join hands to ensure safe and secure seas which remain our common maritime objective," he said in his speech on 'Pursuing Common Maritime Security Objectives'.

Lanba also called on Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant- General Perry Lim and Chief of Navy Rear-Admiral (RADM) Lai Chung Han.

Speaking to PTI, he said, "we discussed our bilateral relationship, what we have been doing along with the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN)".

Lanba said the discussions also took place on cooperation in areas of interest and bilateral exercises.

The Indian navy was represented by INS Sahyadri and INS Karmorta at the International Maritime Review held yesterday in conjunction with the Singapore navy to celebrate its 50 years of establishment.

"Our presence this fortnight in Singapore also reflects India's commitment to contribute to advancing maritime security in the region and to working with partners to build a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia," India's High Commissioner in Singapore Jawed Ashraf said.

Lanba will visit the Singapore navy's Changi Command and Control Centre at Changi Naval Base, where he will receive a brief on the Information Fusion Centre, Maritime Security and Submarine Operational Safety. He will also visit the Multinational Operations and Exercise Centre to observe the Maritime Information-Sharing Exercise.

He is also scheduled to address students from the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College at the SAFTI Military Institute tomorrow.

On May 18, Lanba will visit the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF)'s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Training School, where he will receive a brief on the RSAF's UAV training.

His introductory visit underscores the warm and long- standing bilateral defence ties, strengthened by the revised Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in 2015 as well as the Air Force and Army Bilateral Agreements concluded in 2007 and 2008 respectively, the ministry's statement added.

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The European Union's import tariff concession GSP+ would be made available to Sri Lanka with effectfrom May19 despite the country's lack of progress in meeting criteria in some areas of focus, EU Ambassador to Sri Lanka Tung-Lai Margue said today.

"The removal of duties on Sri Lankan exports to the EU will come into force this Friday after publication in the EU's official journal," Margue said.

This would mean full removal of duties on 66 per cent of tariff lines covering a range of products from textile to fisheries.

The EU denied the facility to Sri Lanka in 2010 due to the country's failure to implement 27 international conventions on human rights, labour conditions, protection of environment and good governance.

Margue said Sri Lanka still needed improvement in many areas of criteria and the EU will keep on monitoring the process for further improvement.

For example the EU awaits to see the final draft of Sri Lanka's new Counter Terrorism Act which is to replace the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act.

"Granting of good governance (GSP+) facility does not mean that situation in Sri Lanka with regard to progress is fully satisfactory. International Human Rights groups have described PTA as draconian which allows indefinite detention of people," Margue said.

Margue said torture and forced child marriages and labor rights violations are being still reported from Sri Lanka.

He said the GSP+ restoration will provide Sri Lanka with immediate benefits worth in excess of 300 million Euro annually.

In 2016, Sri Lanka exported 2.6 billion Euro worth of goods to EU countries.

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The Congress today said that none of its leaders or that of the opposition would be cowed down by the politics of "revenge and vendetta" which had "become the DNA of this BJP government".

The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people.

The remarks came after government agencies searched Congress leader P Chidambaram's premises and properties allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

The AICC incharge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said, "The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government."



"We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta," he said.

Surjewala, instead, accused the BJP and its leaders of being corrupt as he highlighted the alleged scams involving top party leaders holding ministerial positions in this government.

"May we ask the prime minister, that if the yardstick is morality, why is he shying away from ordering an inquiry into the Sahara-Birla excel sheets in which he himself has been named repeatedly about having taken bribes," he alleged.

Surjewala also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not take action on the Rs 20,000 crore loss caused to public exchequer in Gujarat State Petroleum scam when he himself was the chief minister.

The Congress leader wondered whether the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was corruption and asked why the Modi did not take action against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan whose name allegedly cropped up in the scam.

He claimed that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj allegedly helped people like Lalit Modi who escaped from the country and were wanted by investigative agencies for alleged money laundering.

Surjewala asked who were the people who helped fugitives like Vijay Mallya escape the country.

He said the Congress leaders would continue to tell the country how one autocratic ruler cannot suppress the voice of dissent and those who disagree with them.

Surjewala claimed that the truth was out there for everybody to judge and the government, blinded by revenge, was registering false cases against opposition leaders.

Chidambaram earlier today said, "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's new President Emmanuel Macron vowed today to give a new impetus to Europe, saying they were ready to even change EU treaties if necessary.

"There is a common understanding that we can't just focus on Britain leaving the EU but that, first and foremost, we have to think about how we can deepen and crisis-proof the European Union, and especially the eurozone," Merkel said at a joint press conference, after talks with Macron.

In keeping with tradition, the French president paid a visit to Merkel in his first trip abroad after taking office yesterday.

Macron also urged a "historic reconstruction" of Europe in order to battle a surge of populism, after defeating far- right leader Marine Le Pen.

Ahead of his visit, Macron's ideas on reforming the eurozone, including setting up a separate budget for the bloc, as well as giving it its own parliament and finance minister, had sparked scepticism among some in Berlin.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had warned that such deep-reaching reforms would require treaty changes, which were "not realistic" at a time when Europe was hit by a surge of anti-euro populism.

But Merkel papered over the differences, saying that "from the German point of view, it's possible to change the treaty if it makes sense."



"If we can say why, what for, what the point is, then Germany will be ready" for treaty change, she said.

Germany was also ready to partner with France in seeking more cooperation in defence policy and a more coherent European foreign policy that could "make Europe more visible" and stronger, she said.

The two core European powers wanted to give "a new push" to their cooperation and "new momentum" to the Franco-German axis, added Merkel.

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A person has been booked for allegedly posting an objectionable photo of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on a social media site, police said today.

The case was lodged on the basis of a complaint by Navneet Chahal, a resident of Lakhori Jalalpur village, Nakhasa Police Station in-charge Devendra Sharma said.

"In his complaint, Chahal alleged that on his Facebook wall one Sahil had posted an objectionable photo of chief minister Yogi Adityanath," the officer said.

Chahal claimed that the post had provocative comments and it hurt his sentiments, Sharma said.

Based on the complaint, the man was booked last night under provisions of the Information Technology Act, he said.

The police are investigating the matter and are looking for the person, he said.

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Alleging that there exists an "unholy nexus" between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Congress today said it has led to the slow down in the investigation into the multi crore rupees chitfund scam in Odisha.

The claim was made by Indian Youth Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Brar while addressing 'Juba Adhikar Samabesh' organised here by the State Youth Congress.

"Lakhs of people have lost their hard earned money to ponzi scheme firms," Youth Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Brar said here adding both the BJD and BJP were hand-in-gloves and misled people of Odisha.

The BJD and the BJP were partners in coalition government in Odisha from 2000 to 2009 and both of them are responsible for the rise in the number of unemployed youths in the state, he said and demanded that Patnaik demit office as his government had failed to fulfil the promise made to the youths of Odisha.

BJD, he said, had promised in its election manifesto that its government would provide employment to one lakh youths every year.

Similarly Modi had also promised to provide employment to one crore youths every year. "Both Modi and Patnaik have failed to keeep their promises made to the youths. Therefore, they should give unemployment allowance to the jobless youths or vacate office," Singh said.

Odisha unit Youth Congress presidnet Loknath Maharathy too criticised the BJD govenrment and announced that the organisation would continue to agitate on youth issues.

The Youth Congress activists, who were led by Singh and marched towards the state assembly after the rally, had a minor scuffle with the police. Later a dozen of leaders including OPCC chief Prasad Harichandan were picked up by the police.

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New South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House next month for a summit with President Donald Trump amid worries over North Korea's progress in building a nuclear and missile arsenal, Seoul's presidential office said today.

The agreement for the leaders to meet in late June followed a meeting in Seoul between Chung Eui-yong, Moon's foreign policy adviser, and Matt Pottinger, US National Security Council director for East Asia, said Moon's spokesman Yoon Young-chan.

The announcement came days after North Korea successfully tested a powerful new missile that analysts believe could reach Alaska when perfected.

Yoon said Chung and Pottinger in their meeting reaffirmed that Seoul and Washington shares a common goal in the "complete discarding" of North Korean nuclear weapons and will pursue "all methods, including sanctions and dialogue" to reach the goal. The allies agreed that dialogue with North Korea could happen under the "right conditions," Yoon said.

A date and other specifics of the summit are still to be decided, Yoon said. "We will prepare the summit meeting so it could serve as an opportunity for both leaders to develop their personal bond and friendship."



Liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in favors a softer approach to North Korea than his conservative predecessors and has offered to visit Pyongyang if the circumstances are right.

But Washington is Seoul's closest ally and military protector, and the North's rising nuclear and missile tests make close coordination crucial.

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Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today reacted cautiously to the income tax department's raids to probe into the alleged benami deals worth Rs 1000 crore involving RJD chief Lalu Prasad and others.

"As per the media reports we have got to know that raids have been carried out at 22 places... But we don't know where those raids are taking place and what is the purpose behind them," Kumar told reporters in a reply to a question.

"What can I say till I get to know the details," the CM said emerging from a cabinet meeting here.

The Income Tax Department has conducted raids and surveys at 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas to probe into the alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and others.

Reacting strongly to the IT raids, RJD chief Lalu Prasad put up a brave front saying he was "not scared at all" and will continue to "fight against the fascist forces."



"BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake... Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge... Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice ... If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will stand up in the country. I am not scared of empty threats)," he tweeted.

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No one will be allowed to commit crime in political patronage in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said.

"Everyone in the state knows that there is improvement in law and order," he said while replying to a question raised by SP member Nitin Agarwal during the Question Hour.

"No one will be allowed to commit crime in political patronage in the state and those committing crime will be treated as criminals. There will be no discrimination," he said.

On being asked by BSP Legislature Party leader Lalji Verma about number of incidents of murder, rape, dacoity and loot in the past two months, he said, "Give us one year. You might not accept here due to political reasons but you and your family must be feeling the change."

However, dissatisfied with the reply, the BSP members staged a walkout.

SP Legislature Party leader Ram Govind Chowdhury, however, alleged that there was spurt in the number of crimes after the BJP came to power.

"When a child has polio after birth its difficult to treat," Chowdhury said, pointing to bad law and order after the BJP formed government.

He was countered by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna, who said that in the earlier regime it was not polio but the entire body was diseased and the present government would treat it.

Chowdhury, while appreciating Yogi for his efforts, alleged that his ministers were not giving correct replies to defame him and staged a walkout with the SP members.
North Korea continues to threaten the United States and its allies, the White House has said and urged countries like China and Russia to do everything they can in terms of sanctions, to help resolve the situation.

"There is no question that North Korea continues to threaten the United States and our allies, Japan, South Korea, and its neighbours, including both China and Russia," the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily conference.

"We are calling on all of those folks in the region, particularly China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve the situation and bring stability to the Peninsula," Spicer said, responding to a question regarding the threat posed by North Korea, which has been carrying out a series of missile tests in the last few weeks, in violation of the UN Security Council resolution.

Spicer said President Donald Trump looks forward to having a conversation with the new South Korean President and discussing the way forward.

"But I'm not going to get ahead of that discussion at this point," he said.

Over the weekend, North Korea carried out yet another missile test.

The Department of Defense is still carrying out an assessment of the nature of the missile test, the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters at a Washington Foreign Press Center conference.

"It was launched from a place called Kusung, and landed in the Sea of Japan. The type of missile is still being assessed, and the flight was not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile," he said.

"We continue to call on North Korea to refrain from provocative destabilising actions, rhetoric, and to make the strategic choice to fulfil its international obligations and commitments to return to serious talks," he said.

Davis said this weapons program that they have is unlawful, and it represents a clear grave threat to US national security.

"North Korea openly states that its ballistic missiles are intended to deliver nuclear weapons, to strike cities in the United States, the Republic of Korea, and Japan," he said.

"As we've spoken about with regards to China, North Korea is a liability for China, not an asset, and China will partner with us to demonstrate to North Korea that it stands alone in its pursuit of illegal weapons of mass destruction.

"We remain steadfast and ironclad in our commitment to our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan," Davis said.

As part of its effort to ramp up the defence against North Koreans, the United States has deployed THAAD or Theater High-Altitude Air Defence System which has the ability to defeat North Korean missiles.

The US recently completed the deployment of the first battery there.

"It achieved initial operating capability. That's not the full-up, operational seamless capability that we want, but it has an initial ability to be able to defeat North Korean missiles," he said.

Acknowledging that there is concern about this in China, Davis noted it's perplexing why that is.

"This is a system that is 100-percent defensive in nature. It does not have an offensive capability. It is meant to defend against North Korean missiles. That should be considered a destabilising act by others is curious and incomprehensible, in my view," he said.

"We have to maintain the capabilities there that we need to defend the Republic of Korea. Everything that we do there, every soldier on the ground, every base that's there, every mission that we conduct, is conducted with that in mind; that the US forces are there to defend the Republic of Korea against aggression from the North, and that's true with this," he argued.

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Over six kg of heroin was today seized from Ferozepur and Amritsar in Punjab, officials said.

In the first case, BSF claimed to have found five kg of heroin buried under a tree in the D T Mal Border Outpost area in Ferozepur sector.

The seizure was made on the basis of specific information from the Punjab Special Task Force, a BSF official said.

"A special joint search operation of the BSF and STF was launched ahead of the border security fence in the D T Mal Border Outpost area," the BSF official said.

During the operation, five packets of the contraband, heroin, were found buried under a berry tree in a yellow polythene packet, the official said.

Including this seizure, a total of 76.67 kg of heroin has been recovered by BSF in 2017, the official added.

In the second case, the STF of Punjab police seized 1.45 kg of heroin in Amritsar.

An official spokesman of Punjab police said a police team comprising inspector Sukhwinder Singh, posted in STF, Border Zone, recovered heroin from the lift rod of tractor which was hidden on a land across the fence along the Indo-Pak border in Amritsar.

Another 100 gm of heroin was also recovered from the physical possession of the accused Sukhchain Singh and Jaspal Singh, police said.

STF has so far recovered 10.5 kg of heroin in the state.

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on Wednesday resorted to shelling and firing for the fourth consecutive day on forward posts and civilian areas along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district even as nearly 1,700 people have been evacuated from shelling-hit areas.

Pakistani troops continued overnight shelling along the LoC in three belts of Rajouri district.

The firing and shelling has affected over 10,000 people.

On May 13, Pakistani troops had pounded civilian areas and forward posts in Nowshera area with mortars, killing two civilians and injuring three.

has resorted to firing and shelling along LoC and International Border (IB) in Rajouri and Jammu districts for the past one week since May 10, when troops shelling Nowshera and killed a woman and injured two persons including her husband.

" army initiated indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatic weapons and 82 mm and 120 mm mortars from 1830 hours along LoC in Nowshera sector," a defence spokesman said.

"The Indian Army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively and firing is presently on," he said.

"Shelling (by Pak Army) started in Ans Bhandhaar areas of Nowshera in Rajouri at 2255 hours last night. Lam and Kalsian areas were also affected," Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary said.

Yesterday during the day, Pakistani troops resorted to fresh ceasefire violation along LoC in Nowshera sector, he said.

Choudhary said four villages in Nowshera have come under small arms fire from across the LoC.

"Interdepartmental teams deputed by District Administration for damage assessment reported small arms firing began at 4 PM yesterday in village Sarya followed by villages Khamba, Anwas and Bhandar," he added.

The DC confirmed that damage assessment teams were withdrawn at 5.30 PM after intermittent small arms firing by Pakistan.

Nearly 1,700 people have already been evacuated from LoC hamlets hit by shelling from Pakistan and shifted to relief camps, he added.

At least one incident of ceasefire violation by Pakistan took place daily along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir in 2015 and 2016 in which 23 security personnel lost their lives, the home ministry has said in an RTI reply.

As many as 1,142 terror incidents were reported in the state between 2012 and 2016 in which 236 security personnel and 90 civilians were killed, it said.

According to the reply, Pakistan breached the truce along the Line of Control 449 times in 2016 as compared to 405 violations in 2015.
Around 1700 people have been dislocated from the areas close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district because of shelling by the Pakistani Army which continued through the last night, a senior official said today.

The Pakistani Army pounded hamlets besides the Indian Army posts in Nowshera and Manjakote sectors of Rajouri last night, Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary said.

"Shelling (by the Pakistani Army) started in Ans Bhandhaar areas of Nowshera in Rajouri at 22.55 pm yesterday. Lam and Kalsian areas were also affected," he said.

The guns fell silent since this morning, they said.

Earlier during the day yesterday, the Pakistani troops resorted to firing and shelling in the Nowshera sector since 4 pm, the Deputy Commissioner said.

Choudhary said that four villages in Nowshera have borne the brunt of small arms fire from across the LOC.

Nearly 1700 people have already been evacuated from LoC hamlets hit by shelling by Pakistan and shifted to relief camps, he said.

Around 120 officers from various departments have been deployed to organise facilities at relief camps.

"Inter-departmental teams deputed by the district administration for damage assessment reported small arms firing from 4 pm yesterday in Sarya village followed by firing in Khamba, Anwas and Bhandar villages," he added.

The DC said the damage assessment teams were withdrawn at 5.30 pm in view of the intermittent firing by Pakistan.

On May 14, the Pakistani Army had fired indiscriminately using small arms, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars in Nowshera and Manjakote sectors of Rajouri.

On May 13, authorities ordered closure of fifty-one schools in Nowshera sector and also Manjakote and Doongi zones.

The district administration has provided immediate relief of Rs 1 lakh each to the next of kin of the six people who have died in the Pakistani shelling and given financial assistance to the injured, Choudhary said.

Overall, of the 64 villages along the LoC in Rajouri, 23 are located in Nowshera sub-division where 8 villages are badly affected and remaining 15 villages sustained minor losses, while five villages in Doongi and nine villages in Manjakote have been affected, he said.

"Eight villages of Nowshera have been badly affected by heavy shelling which include Khamba, Sarya, Bhawani, Kalsian, Manpur, Danaka, Khori and Ganya. Nearly 1700 people have been shifted to camps," he added.

"Fourteen buses, seven mini-buses, 14 other vehicles were pressed into service to evacuate the people from the forward areas," he said.

Cooked food, lighting, bedding, first aid, medical care, drinking water and sanitary facilities have been provided to the displaced people in the relief camps where Anganwadi centres and playways for children have also been opened, he said.

The DC said the administration is preparing to make more relief camps functional. Over 25 buildings have been earmarked for this purpose.

He added that class work of migrant students and local students will be resumed this week to ensure that education doesn't suffer.

Six teams of veterinary surgeons and para vets visited the forward areas where more than 50 injured animals were treated, Choudhary said, adding 12 animals were reported dead.

"Six ambulances have been pressed into action for shifting of the injured. One mobile medical unit was stationed at Nowshera and another deputed to forward areas," he added.

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German prosecutors have charged a 28 -year-old Pakistani man with membership in a terrorist organisation on allegations that he joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba group to fight against Indian forces in Kashmir.

The federal prosecutor's office said today that Muhammad Aafaq I, whose last name was not given in accordance with privacy regulations, joined the group in 2008 to fight in Kashmir.

Prosecutors say he trained with the group in Pakistan, learning to use weapons like assault rifles and rocket launchers before becoming a trainer of new recruits.

They say he fled the group in 2011 after reports that it was supported by Pakistani intelligence and was fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, "contradictory to his motivation." They didn't say how he got to Germany.

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Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said today he would push for the inclusion of Turkey and Mongolia in a grouping of Southeast Asian nations, dismissing concerns about their geographic location.

Duterte said leaders of Turkey and Mongolia told him about their desire to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) while they were in China over the weekend for a summit on a global trade infrastructure project.

Duterte, whose nation holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year, held separate meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mongolian Prime Minister Jargaltulga Erdenebat on the sidelines of the summit.

"They want to join ASEAN and since I am now the chair, the Philippines is, they wanted me to sponsor their entry and I said, 'Yes, why not,'" Duterte told reporters in the Philippines.

The 10-member ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

A NATO member bordering the Middle East, Turkey straddles Europe and Asia. It's application for membership of the European Union has been bogged down for years.

Mongolia is a landlocked nation wedged between China and Russia.

Geographic location is the first criterion for ASEAN membership, along with recognition by all other members.

Duterte said Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who also attended the summit in China, asked him if he had considered geography in deciding to sponsor Turkey and Mongolia's ASEAN membership.

However Duterte insisted that the two nations were part of the region.

"They are. I would say that they are," Duterte said.

"Turkey seems to be ambivalent on whether to be a bridge of Europe and Asia or being an Asian ... Sometimes they say they are part of Asia. Sometimes they say they are a bridge of Asia to Europe."



There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the ASEAN Secretariat, which is based in Indonesia.

Countries within the region like East Timor and Papua New Guinea have for years sought ASEAN membership but only hold observer status.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today held extensive talks on key bilateral, regional and international issues, including the Middle East peace process.

The focus of the talks was to further deepen bilateral cooperation between India and the Palestine.

"A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and reiterated India's support to the Palestinian cause.

In the morning, Abbas was warmly welcomed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi at Rashtrapati Bhawan. He was also given a ceremonial guard of honour there.

The visit of the Palestinian President comes ahead of Modi's visit to Israel which is likely to take place in July.

Ahead of Abbas' visit, India reiterated its "political support" to the Palestinian cause and had said that it continued to assist developmental projects there.

The Palestinian president arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit.

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Pune's newly elected Deputy Mayor and Republican Party of India (A) leader Navnath Kamble passed away here today following a heart attack, party sources said.

According to sources, Kamble suffered a massive cardiac arrest while he was out for a morning walk.

He was immediately rushed to the Ruby Hall Clinic here, where he was declared brought dead, said a party leader from RPI (A).

Kamble, a three-time corporator, was elected as Deputy Mayor of the Pune Municipal Corporation in March this year after BJP won 97 of the 162 seats in the civic body.

RPI (A) had supported BJP in the civic elections.

Kamble started his political career with the Dalit Panther Movement and rose to become the President of the RPI (A) city unit. He is survived by wife, a son and a daughter.

His last rites will be performed this evening.

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Polish prosecutors said today they have again summoned EU President Donald Tusk to testify as a witness in Warsaw regarding the 2010 presidential jet crash in Russia that killed Poland's then president and 95 others.

The former liberal Polish prime minister was summoned for July 5 to testify regarding "public officials who failed to comply with obligations" concerning crash victim autopsies, Ewa Bialik, a spokeswoman for national prosecutors, told the Polish agency PAP.

Tusk already testified for eight hours in the Polish capital last month as a witness in an investigation of two former military counter-intelligence chiefs accused of overstepping their duties.

An arch-rival of Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- the powerful leader of the conservative governing Law and Justice (PiS) party -- Tusk said at the time that "this whole affair is extremely politically motivated."



He was first summoned days after EU leaders gave him another term as president despite strong opposition from Poland.

Kaczynski's late twin brother and then president, Lech Kaczynski, died in the 2010 crash in Smolensk, Russia that also killed a number of senior Polish statesmen.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski has long insisted that the 2010 crash was no accident and even accused Tusk, who was prime minister at the time, of "moral responsibility" for the death of his brother.

Polish and Russian investigators had found that pilot error, bad weather and poor air-traffic control were to blame for the crash.

But the PiS launched a fresh probe and a commission of enquiry suggested last month that an explosion likely caused the aircraft to break up in the air.

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A committee under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has accorded environmental clearance to the proposed 4000 MW power plant to be set by the Telangana Power Generation Corporation in Nalgonda district.

According to the minutes of the meeting of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) the proposal is for establishing 5x800 MW (4000 MW) Super Critical Thermal Power Project (Yadadri Power Project) at Veerlapalem village in Damercherla mandal in Nalgonda district.

The EAC in its earlier meetings observed certain shortcomings in final Environmental Impact Assessment Report and Environmental Environment Management Plan reports prepared by then project consultant.

Later the TSGENCO appointed a new consultant and submitted revised reports.

"Committee after a detailed deliberations, recommended for grant of environment clearance subject to the following conditions in addition to the specific conditions pertaining to thermal power projects," the EAC said.

The power utility has signed MoUs with Singareni Collieries Company Ltd for supply of 7 million tonnes per annum of domestic coal and another agreement with MSTC Limited for imported coal of 7 MTPA which will be sourced from Indonesia or Australia or South Africa.

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Low prosecution and conviction rates in the Northeast may erode people's faith in criminal justice system, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said and asked police chiefs of the region to pay special attention to it.

Addressing a meeting of chief secretaries and DGPs of the region, Singh said in several states, kidnapping, abduction and extortion were rampant but in such cases, prosecution and conviction rate was less than 1 per cent, "which is unacceptable".

"Unfortunately, in some states in the Northeast, prosecution in criminal cases and conviction rate is very poor. In one state, the prosecution rate is just 5 per cent against the all India rate of 86 per cent," he said.

The home minister said poor investigation is the main reason for high acquittal rates in the Northeast.

Singh said if a criminal gets acquitted even after committing a crime, then the faith of common people in justice system gets eroded.

"If the acquittal ratio is very high, then not only the moral legitimacy of the state gets undermined, but it incentivises the crimes. There is a need for special attention by the police chief in this area," he said.

Singh said the scientific tools were not used adequately for investigation in the Northeast and the condition of forensic science laboratories was also not satisfactory in several states.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Home Minister Rajnath Singh today described religious radicalisation as a serious security threat and said if not checked in time, it could lead to terrorism.

Singh, who reviewed the security situation in the Northeast with chief secretaries and DGPs of the states of the region here, also expressed concern over proliferation of illegal arms asked the top officers to launch a sustained campaign against arms smugglers.

"If we talk about future security threats, radicalisation has come as a huge security challenge. Radicalisation is a transnational phenomenon. If we can't check it, it will turn into terrorism," he said at the meeting which was also attended by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and other top security officials.

The home minister said because the Northeast was especially vulnerable to attempts of radicalisation, it was essential to identify those behind it.

Later, briefing about the meeting, adviser in the home ministry Ashok Prasad said there have been attempts by Bangladesh-based terror outfits like Jamiat-ul-Muajhideen to radicalise youths in the bordering districts in India.

"There are spillover effects of radicalisation in Bangladesh (in India)," he said.

Asked about the possibility of Middle East terror group ISIS having links with youth in India's Northeast, Prasad said so far no such information has come to the notice of government agencies.

"There is no information of ISIS having direct links in the Northeast. But once upon a time the al Qaida had said that Assam was on their agenda," he said.

The home minister said some of those trying to radicalise youth had masked themselves as religious preachers, while some others has set up NGOs and still others had mingled with them by carrying out development programmes for individuals, socio-cultural uplift and education.

Singh said it was necessary to monitor their activities and take preemptive action.

"Some of these agents even get foreign funding. So it is necessary to closely monitor their foreign funding and utilisation," he said.

The home minister said though most of the Northeast was free from militancy, proliferation of illegal arms was a problem that needed to be tackled.

"The proliferation of illegal arms in such large numbers leads to more crimes. I urge the DGPs to launch an organised campaign against illegal arm traders," he said.

Singh said illegal firearms, narcotics and fake Indian currency notes were being smuggled into the country from across the international border abutting the Northeast.

"These borders are practically unpoliced. There is need to set up more police stations in the border areas as these will check cross-border crimes and bring a sense of security to the people who live in these remote areas," he said.

The home minister, however, noted there has been significant improvement in the security situation in the Northeast in the last few years.

"Most of the areas are now free from insurgency and militants have been losing support even in the few pockets where they had influence," he said.

Singh said this had been made possible because of effective counter-insurgency operations, and responsive, development oriented governance, besides improved relations with neighbouring countries.

"(But) In some areas, armed gangs are indulging in extortion, kidnapping and abduction in the name of militancy," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Top US lawmakers, including those from the ruling Republican party, today expressed worry over a report that US President Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials and sought an explanation from the government.

Though National Security Advisor H R McMaster described the story as false, several lawmakers termed it "dangerous" and demanded a probe into Trump's relationship with the Russian government.

"I want to know more about it. Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Republican Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of powerful Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.

"The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes - it creates a worrisome environment," Corker said after The Washington Post in an explosive report alleged that Trump shared classified information about the fight against ISIS with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when the latter met him at the White House last week.

National Security Advisor Lt Gen H R McMaster described the story as false, saying security of the American people is top priority for Trump.

"And I was in the room. It didn't happen," McMaster said as Democratic lawmakers and Trump's political opponents refused to believe in.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said if the report is true it is very disturbing.

"Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country," Schumer said.

The president owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation, he said.

Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi in a statement, said, "The information President Trump allegedly handed to Vladimir Putin's regime last week is so highly- classified that our government does not share it with our own allies. In his meeting in the Oval Office, the president reportedly exposed a key intelligence source because he felt like bragging to representatives of a hostile power."



"As a member of the Oversight Committee, I can honestly say there is no excuse left to not create an independent commission to perform a full-scale investigation of the Russian government's interference in our democracy and the potential complicity of members of both the Trump presidential campaign and President Trump's administration," he said.

Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called for an independent investigations into Trump's relationship with the Russian Government.

"This should concern us all. With each action, Donald Trump puts us all at risk -- and further strengthens the argument for his administration's possible ties to the Russians. This news, paired with the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, should be cause for deep concern," she said.

Congressman John Delaney said the report, if true, is one of the most "shocking and distressing" stories.

"If this report is true, President Trump has undermined our fight against terrorism. Revealing highly-classified information to an adversary like Russia is either pure incompetence or an attempt to place Russia above our allies and key partners - either way the implications are amazingly worrying," Delaney said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan expects full explanation about it from the Trump administration, said his spokesman.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount. The Speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration," his spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement.

"Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians," Senator Mark R Warner, Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said in a tweet.

According to Politico, the has brought in chaos in the White House.

"It never stops," one White House official said via text message last night to Politico.

"Basically chaos at all times," the official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A row erupted today over US policy toward Israel days ahead of a visit by President Donald Trump, with fresh questions raised over the White House's approach to the ultra-sensitive status of Jerusalem.

Debate over whether the United States should move its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem again flared, while a separate row over the city's Western Wall -- the holiest site where Jews can pray -- also caused waves.

Both issues provoked criticism of Trump's White House in Israel as preparations intensified for his visit to the country and the Palestinian territories on May 22 and 23.

It was the latest sign of the Israeli right's growing disenchantment with Trump after having rejoiced in his election.

Israeli right-wingers have pressed Trump to stick to his pledge to move the embassy to Jerusalem, but the president has backed away since taking office, saying it was still being looked at.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced a political backlash from his right-wing base over the issue, particularly after a report that he advised Trump against moving the embassy to the disputed city for now.

The report led Netanyahu to issue an angry rebuttal.

In an unusual move, he also released some of the minutes of a meeting he had with Trump in Washington in February, showing that he had pressed the new president to move the embassy.

Netanyahu said that "not only would moving the embassy not harm the peace process, but to the contrary.

"It would advance it by fixing a historic wrong and shatter the Palestinian illusion that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel."



Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel considers the entire city to be its undivided capital.

The rival claims to Jerusalem lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and no countries currently have their embassies there, instead basing them in Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four men today looted about Rs 15 lakh from a nationalized bank at Chakradharpur in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, police said.

The exact amount looted was yet to be ascertained but it was estimated to be around Rs 15 lakh, sub-divisional police pfficer (Chakradharpur), Aman Kumar, said.

The four motorcycle-borne men arrived at the Chakradharpur branch of Allahabad Bank and looted the cash, he said.

A police team rushed to the spot and launched a search operation to track the culprits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Czech automaker Skoda India's head Sudhir Rao has resigned after leading the operations here for more than five years.

"Rao will be leaving Skoda Auto at his own request on June 30, 2017," Skoda Auto India spokesperson said in a statement.

The company would be announcing its successor in due course, it added without sharing a timeline.

Rao (57) had joined Skoda Auto India as Chairman and Managing Director on March 1, 2012. Before joining Skoda, Rao ran an international car brand's India activities as Chief Operating Officer.

He had joined the company at a time when it was facing challenges in Indian market specially with customer complaints over sales service.

Last year, Skoda Auto India had reported sales of 13,370 units as against 15,457 units in 2015, down 13.5 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 24-year-old software engineer allegedly committed suicide by jumping off an eight-story building in Rahatani area near here today.

Wakad police officials said that Ninad Patil, who worked with Infosys, left behind a suicide note which stated that nobody should be held responsible for his act.

"He jumped from the terrace of the building where he lived, this afternoon. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead on arrival," said a police officer.

The reason for suicide was yet to be ascertained as the family was in trauma and had not been questioned so far, the officer added.

Patil, who was a bachelor, hailed from Kolhapur and was living with his family here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi today demanded that the Nitish Kumar government order a probe into the allegations of "shady land deals" against RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and his family members.

"The central agencies have acted on the alleged benami properties that were in the public domain for the past 40 days. Now, it is the turn of the Nitsih Kumar government to act against his ally, RJD leader Lalu Prasad and his two minister sons, who have made land purchases in Bihar," he told reporters here.

The BJP leader alleged that Kumar did not take any action against Prasad and his sons as he fears losing power, which he cannot afford.

"Kumar compromised with principles, ideology, good governance the day he joined hands with Lalu Prasad," he said.

On the Income Tax (I-T) raids against Prasad, a day after the chief minister said the allegations fall in the domain of the central government, Modi claimed that Kumar might have had an inkling of a possible action by the central agencies and that is why he made such a statement.

"Saanp bhi mar jaaye aur lathi bhi naa toote (two hunts with one arrow). This is what Nitish Kumar wanted," he said, criticising the chief minister for coming out in support of Prasad and his two minister sons yesterday.

The BJP leader stuck to his demand for the sacking of Prasad's sons, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav, for their alleged involvement in the purchase of benami properties through shell companies, which they had not declared in their election affidavit.

The benami properties should be seized and Prasad's family members, who are involved in acquiring them should be tried under the provisions of the Special Court Act, 2009, he demanded.

"I have written twice to the CM but he has not responded to any of my letters. I am going to write again to him. All options, including approaching the court, are open if he does not respond or act," he said as he made fresh allegations that Prasad's MP daughter Misa Bharti had bought a piece of land at Sainik Farm in Delhi through a shell company.

This is the second allegation by the BJP leader. On May 13, he had alleged that Misa had laundered money through a shell company to buy a farmhouse, whose present value is estimated to be about Rs 50 crore, at Delhi's Bijwasan area at a throwaway price.

Vivek Nagpal, a hawala operator against whom the CBI and the ED have lodged cases, handed over his firm KHK Holding Pvt Ltd to Lalu Prasad's family in 2014, the BJP leader claimed.

He said, "Misa Bharti and her husband have 9,900 and 100 shares each respectively in the firm which was established in 1998."



"The firm first bought a residential property worth Rs 42.33 lakh at Sainik Farm in 2011-12 and in 2012-13 it bought two bigha and eight vissa land worth Rs 1.78 crore in the area," he said, alleging that Misa became the full owner of KHK Holding Pvt Ltd in October 2014.

In this case, too, all properties of the company were transferred in the name of Prasad's family members, he said, adding this firm also did not have any business, employees nor any turnover.

As per the balance sheet of the company, India Bulls Housing Finance Ltd gave a loan of Rs 23 crore to KHK Holding in October 2010, but it was not clear from the balance sheet whether or not the firm again paid the loan amount, the leader claimed.

Referring to Prasad's assertion that this was a farm land, he said, "I must make it clear that this is not a farm land. Rather it is one of Delhi's posh localities where the city's who's who have properties."



Stating that Misa became the owner of Rs 50 crore, the current value of the land at Sainik Farm, with an investment of meagre amount of Rs 1 lakh in the firm, he raised questions as to why Nagpal handed over his firm to Prasad's family and why India Bulls gave a loan of Rs 23 crore to the closed KHK Holding.

The BJP leader also sought to know why Misa and her husband used Prasad's then official bungalow, 25 Tughlaq Road in New Delhi, to become the director of the company when a person cannot use the official bungalow for commercial use.

He alleged that Prasad's two minister sons have amassed benami properties worth over Rs 1,000 crore through various shell companies like Delight Marketing Pvt Ltd, A K Infosystems Pvt Ltd and A B Exports Pvt Ltd in Bihar.

Except for cases of Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd and KHK Holding Pvt Ltd, all other land deals of Prasad's family are in Bihar, the leader said.

These include a mall being built at Saguna Mor owned by Delight Marketing, land at Danapur owned by AK Infosystems and land at Aurangabad, he said.

On the I-T raids at around 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas today on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad and others, the BJP leader said, "I do not have much information about the raids. I came to know about them from TV channels... I have neither met any official of any central govenrment agency nor have submitted documents."



The raids, which are in line with the Narendra Modi government's crackown on shell companies, is on for past three months, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australia's iconic Sydney Opera House, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, will this week start work on its first major renovation project since 1973.

The 'Theatre Machinery' project, which will cost 273 million Australian dollars, will upgrade the critical equipment and systems in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, with the latest technology replacing original machinery which is over 40 years old.

Sydney Opera House, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage masterpiece, is the most visited site by Indian tourists.

It hosted the biggest cultural event 'Confluence: Festival of India' last year in its famous theatre 'The Concert Hall'.

Upgrades to the concert hall, entry foyers, arrival areas, new function and creative learning centres for children will be part of the renewal works that will start from May 20 this year.

The learning centres will be a dedicated space for children and young people to experiment and learn in a building that embodies creativity and innovation.

The Opera House was originally estimated to cost 7 million Australian dollars to build, exceeded the budget with the final cost totalling 102 million Australian dollars.

The construction was expected to take four years but it took 14 years for it to complete.

The Opera House hosts over 2,000 performances attended by over 1.5 million people every year.

The complex houses seven performance venues -- the Concert Hall, the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Playhouse, Drama Theatre, The Studio, the Utzon Room and the Forecourt.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Minister V Saroja today dismissed the allegations of graft against her, saying the official who made the claim had done so to "divert attention" from a complaint of financial irregularities against her.

The social welfare minister also denied J Raja Meenakshi's claim that the she had summoned the official to her house to discuss her transfer to this city.

On May 11, Meenakshi, the Dharmapuri District Child Welfare officer, had filed a complaint with city police alleging that the minister had demanded Rs 20 lakh for her transfer to Chennai.

She had claimed she had already paid Rs 10 lakh to the minister to allow her to "continue in her job."



Denying the allegations, Saroja said Meenakshi had made the allegations to "malign" her and at the "instigation of someone," but did not name anybody.

In a statement, the minister alleged that the Dharmapuri probation officer had on March 1, 2017 written to the district collector, accusing Meenakshi of forging bills to embezzle money from funds allotted towards child welfare activities.

A probe was launched into the matter under a revenue officer who had summoned Meenakshi and the probation officer to appear for a hearing on April 21, Saroja alleged.

While the probation officer appeared, Meenakshi did not and sought postponement of the hearing, citing health reasons and that she was scheduled to be admitted to a Chennai hospital, the minister said.

Following this, the hearing was postponed and she was asked to appear on June 8 with relevant medical certificates, Saroja said, adding, Meenakshi had on May 7 met her at Chennai and urged that she be made permanent in her existing post and also placed a request for transfer.

Meenakshi herself was aware that no rule permitted absorption of a temporary staff in that post and therefore she told her it was not possible to consider the case, Saroja said.

"Further, her meeting the minister concerned (Saroja) without making pleas to the district collector or the department commissioner or secretary makes it amply clear it was meant to malign my reputation," Saroja said.

"Therefore, with the intention of diverting attention away from the probe into embezzlement charges against her and to malign me, she has wantonly made false accusations at the instigation of somebody. All the charges are contrary to facts," she added.

The minister said Meenakshi was appointed following a "transparent" recruitment system after advertisements were given in newspapers calling for candidates.

Meenakshi was appointed as District Child Welfare Officer in September 2016, she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Equating the issue of with the belief that Lord Rama was born in Ayodhya, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board today told the Supreme Court that these were matters of faith and cannot be tested on grounds of constitutional morality.

"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality" and it cannot be interfered with by a court of law, former Law Minister and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, representing the Board, said while drawing an analogy between and the belief about Lord Rama.

" has been there since 637 AD. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practising it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there is no question of constitutional morality and equity," he told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said.

Sibal was countering the arguments put forth by the opponents of triple talaq who have been arguing for the past two days, with the government also saying a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community would be brought, if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

The AIMPLB counsel said the age-old practice was "part of my faith and you cannot determine what should be my faith. This is the question and this is the issue". He asked whether the court should decide the faith of over 16 crore people.

During the day-long hearing before a bench, which also comprised Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer, Sibal said the issue of triple talaq was a matter of personal law, protected under the Constitution.

He referred to holy 'Quran', 'hadith' and interpretations attributed to companions of Prophet Muhammad and scholars on divorce to drive home the point that the issue of triple talaq was a matter of faith and hence beyond judicial scrutiny.

The Muslim body said despite the existence of laws on dowry prohibition and guardianship, Hindu customs were being allowed to remain like dowry is prohibited but gifts are allowed.

"When it comes to Hindu law, you protect all customs but when it comes to Muslim, you start raising questions over customs. Like when it comes to Dowry prohibition Act or Guardianship Act you follow customs and protect them,"he said.

The bench asked Sibal as to what extent of Muslim Personal Law was part of the religion.

"Some part of Personal Law may be part of religion but some part may not be. There are different schools of thought for Shias and Sunnis. The foremost thing is the essence of Quran which is the principal thing," he said.

Sibal said that ceremonies related to birth, marriage, divorce, properties and death are decided by family influenced by social norms, which cannot be tested on the ground of constitutional morality.

The senior advocate also said the practice of triple talaq started in 637 AD after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD by his companions.

He said no legislation can take the place of a custom, being practised over 1400 years, and it cannot be termed un- Islamic.

"The essence of Islam is that divorce happens after the marriage. If Nikahnama is the heart of it, why can't divorce be part of it. You cannot change my 'nikahnama' by some kind of statute. It's totally unacceptable," he said.

He said personal laws cannot be tested on the touchstones of fundamental rights under Article 13, 14 (right to equality), 15 (prohibition of discrimination) and 21 (right to life) and no one can come to the court saying that this practice is discriminatory and so strike it down.

"Personal laws cannot be tested on the ground of being discriminatory. The argument that the triple talaq is discriminatory does not hold good," he said.

Sibal termed as "unacceptable" the submissions of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that if triple talaq is struck down then Centre will bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims.

To this, the bench, in a lighter vein, said, "We have been asking him (AG) to pass the law, so that we do not have to go into this. Now you should go and tell him".

"If triple talaq is struck down and Parliament refuses to pass a law, then what will happen. Will there be now law for marriage and divorce of Muslim men and women," Sibal asked.

Sibal said if Parliament wishes to bring a law it can



enact with regard to an activity which is secular and reformatory.

"Unlike the Hindu law, the marriage in Muslim law is purely a civil matter. It is a contract between two consenting adults and so is divorce. It is an essential tenet of Islam. There is no question of religion being in danger," he said.

He said the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, was brought with an intention to ensure that unlike Hindu women, their Muslim counterparts get property rights and it did not codify the Shariat law.

Sibal said Section 2 of the Act talked about custom and usage but did not deal with Shariat and hence, triple talaq is protected under Article 25 (right to religion) of Constitution.

The bench countered Sibal on this and said what was sought to be excluded in the Act was custom and usage and what was crystallised was the personal law.

The apex court said then it was meant that Shariat should be treated as personal law and the community will look into it whether it needed to be reformed.

"Why will the court decide what is my faith? We are protected under the Constitution. It is my personal law. In a Hindu majority state, muslim minority needs to be protected.

"In a Muslim majority state, Hindu minority needs to be protected. We need to protect the culture,faith and religion", Sibal said.

He said in the Indian context, personal laws needed constitutional protection to prevent social and economic repercussions.

During the day when the bench asked whether triple talaq was part of holy 'Quran', Sibal said, "Quran does not talk of it. Immediately after a few years of the death of Prophet Muhammad, the companions of Prophet Muhammad talked about triple talaq. It is my belief and I practice it. Today, the Supreme Court says that it will examine it."



Then the bench asked Sibal whether he wanted to say that "practice or belief" with regard to triple talaq was a subject matter of Article 25 (right to practice religion), he replied in affirmative.

"We cannot go into rights and wrongs because my faith does not allow this," Sibal said.

Drawing analogy with the customary ritual of 'saptapadi' among the Hindus in marriages, Sibal said nobody can say that it was wrong or right and hence the matter of faith be left as it was.

Sibal said billions of words have been written on the debate over validity of triple talaq and it would be "hazardous" to interpret them within six days by the apex court.

Referring to the different practices of Islam followed at various places, he said in Saudi Arabia, even the house of the Prophet was demolished and here 'dargahs' are protected.

He said the problem was the patriarchal system where women do not get fair treatment and it was true for every religion.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, opposing triple talaq, responded by saying "patriarchy is coming from religion only."



The bench said two other forms of divorce have some safeguards but whether triple talaq had such safeguards?



"Our understanding is that 'nikahnama' (marriage contract) can exclude the provision of triple talaq," it said and asked "can the other two forms of divorce (talaq hasan and talaq ahsan) be also excluded in nikahnama." Sibal replied that this cannot be done.

Another counsel appearing in the case said "triple talaq was the most undesirable form of granting divorce and we are trying to educate people not to resort to it".

Sibal supplemented by saying "we do not want somebody else to change it" and added that a "majority of Muslim scholars believe that triple talaq is bad".

At the fag-end of fourth day's hearing, former Union Minister and Islamic scholar Arif Mohammad Khan, representing All India Women Muslim Personal Law Board, objected to the grant of an entire day to the AIMPLB to advance its arguments in support of triple talaq while the women's group was given just half-an-hour.

Khan, who had quit Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet over differences in handling the Shah Bano case, said he wanted the opportunity to rebut arguments as "more confusion has been created".

Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

The apex court is hearing a clutch of pleas challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.
Mild tension prevailed in Nalgonda district of Telangana after members of ruling TRS and Congress clashed and pelted stones at each other when they came face-to-face during a programme.

Windowpanes of at least eight vehicles were damaged in stone pelting, while some activists also received injuries in the scuffle, said police.

Congress MLA Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and other party workers were taken into preventive custody after the incident, said police.

The trouble started after Reddy took out a rally "without permission" to the venue of an official programme in Gandhamvarigudem of the district where state Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao was scheduled to take part, police said.

On noticing Congress workers, TRS members raised slogans against them following which heated arguments broke out and the activists of both the sides indulged in stone pelting, said police.

Police immediately intervened and dispersed both the groups and brought the situation under control, Nalgonda District Superintendent of Police N Prakash Reddy, who visited the spot and reviewed the situation, told PTI over phone.

The SP said, "Congress MLA Reddy took the rally near the venue of the event without permission."



Following the scuffle, the MLA and his followers were taken into preventive custody and cases will be registered for rioting and unlawful assembly against the Congress workers, the senior police officer said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Fresh from securing his grip on Turkey with a referendum to centralize power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan met US President Donald Trump at the White House today on a mission to restore frayed ties.

Trump was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Erdogan on winning the April 16 vote to strengthen his office, despite concern in some other capitals that Turkey has taken a dangerous turn towards authoritarianism.

But Washington and Ankara are still bitterly at odds over US support for the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), a faction that the Pentagon sees as a vital ally against the Islamic State group in Syria but that Turkey brands a front for the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

And Erdogan remains angry that the United States continues to host Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, a former ally who chose exile in Pennsylvania and who has now been accused of masterminding last year's bloody attempted coup in his homeland.

Both issues poisoned ties between Erdogan and former US president Barack Obama, but there now appears to be an opening for Trump to rebuild bridges.

"We look forward to having a long and productive discussion," Trump said as he welcomed Erdogan to the Oval Office. "We've had a great relationship and we will make it even better."



Trump hopes to secure at least grudging Turkish agreement not to oppose the US-led drive by YPG-led fighters to oust the Islamic State from their Syrian stronghold of Raqa.

In return, Trump will have to give Erdogan assurances that Gulen will be closely monitored while the US courts examine a Turkish extradition request and that -- once the Islamic State has been driven out of the Iraqi city of Mosul -- Washington will endorse a Turkish offensive against PKK bases in Sinjar, northern Iraq.

"That's the main ask," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy and recent author of "The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey."



"He's going to want US support for a Turkish operation against Sinjar. In this case, the stars are a little bit aligned in Erdogan's favor," he added.

"I think what we will tell the Turks is 'Yes, we can do this, but let's focus on Mosul first'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump will urge unity between the world's major faiths on an ambitious first foreign trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Jerusalem, the White House said today.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster laid out a detailed itinerary for the "historic trip," due to start late this week, and confirmed that Trump would address a gathering of Muslim leaders on his "hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam."



Previous US leaders have generally chosen a US neighbor such as Canada or Mexico for their first presidential voyage, but Trump intends to plunge right into some of the world's most difficult spiritual and political conflicts.

In Saudi Arabia, after a day of talks with King Salman and his crown prince, Trump will attend a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world.

"The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America's commitment to our Muslim partners," McMaster said, adding that Trump will help open a center to de-radicalize extremists.

Trump campaigned for office vowing to destroy "radical Islamic terrorism" and impose "a total ban on all Muslim immigration" to the United States, raising concerns that his election would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world.

In office since January 20, he has already attempted to impose a ban on travellers from a group of mainly-Muslim countries, before his order fell foul of the US courts.

But McMaster stressed that Trump would be visiting sites associated with the world's great religions to stress "that we all have to be united and we have to be joined together with an agenda of tolerance and moderation."



After Saudi Arabia, Trump's voyage will take him to Jerusalem, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the Vad Yashem memorial to the Holocaust. The next day he will pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.

On the same day, he will meet President Mahmud Abbas of the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem on the West Bank "where he will convey his administration's eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends" the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

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Turkish opposition members and human rights defenders are urging President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Turkey's deteriorating human rights and democracy in talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today.

Erdogan is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House for discussions expected to center on the friction between the two NATO allies over a US decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters considered as terrorists by Turkey.

They will also likely focus on a Turkish request for the extradition of a US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Turkey blames for last summer's failed coup.

The Trump administration has placed priority on US security issues and advancing foreign policy goals, and there is no indication that the issues of human rights and media freedoms will figure prominently on the agenda.

The meeting comes weeks after Erdogan's narrow victory in a national referendum that will expand the powers of his office a development critics say takes Turkey closer toward autocratic rule.

"Turkey is under a state of emergency since (the failed coup), during which human rights have been trampled on," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a legislator from Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP. "The media and press freedoms have been placed under government control. Torture and ill-treatment have increased."



"Human rights and democracy are not part of Trump's agenda, but we hope that he abandons this stance," Tanrikulu said. "A Turkey that moves away from the world is to no one's interest."



About 47,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to the coup, while 100,000 people suspected of association to Gulen's movement have been fired from government jobs. Turkey also moved to cracked down on other opponents, jailing more than 100 journalists and about a dozen legislators from an opposition pro-Kurdish party.

Trump has been keen to maintain a good relationship with Erdogan. He congratulated Erdogan on his referendum win even as human rights advocates and some European leaders voiced concerns over the direction Turkey is taking.

Erdogan's ties with the former US administration were strained, among other issues, over Washington's frequent calls for Turkey to respect human rights and freedom of expression.

The fact that the Trump administration hasn't publicly outlined these issues as part of the agenda might come as a relief to Erdogan.

A senior Turkish government official said, however, that Trump not focusing on human rights in Turkey was "not an issue for us."



"I don't think it would even have crossed the president's mind. Our priority is the YPG issue," the official said.

He was making a reference to the Syrian Kurdish fighters whom the US has decided to provide with weapons ahead of a possible operation to recapture the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to reporters.

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and has designated both groups as terrorists. Turkey fears that weapons supplied to the YPG will end up in the hands of the PKK which has led a three-decade long insurgency in Turkey, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

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Ahmedabad police's crime branch has arrested two persons and seized the banned psychotropic drug 'mephedrone' worth Rs 9.27 lakh from them.

Acting on a tip-off, crime branch officers kept a watch at Vishala circle near Vejalpur here and nabbed Faizu Rehman Shaikh (33) and Rohit Vaaghe (23), both local residents, late last night.

Police seized 92.7 grams of mephedrone, commonly known as MD drug or M-Cat or 'Meow-Meow' from their possession.

The duo had procured it from one Shahid from Mahim area of Mumbai, police said.

They had been allegedly selling the drug in and around Ahmedabad for the last one and a half months.

Both were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Further investigation is underway.

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The BJP today termed as "improper" the allegations of corruption in Jalyukta Shivar scheme levelled by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and said information regarding irregularities should have been shared with the state cabinet rather than media.

"Uddhavji has made allegations of corruption in the Jalyukt Shivar scheme which is improper. The Sena is part of the government and hence if there was some information, it should have been shared with the state cabinet first rather than going to media," BJP minister Ram Shinde told reporters here.

The Minister for Water Conservation said investigation into the alleged irregularities is on and Ratnagiri district collector will submit a report by this evening.

"Whoever is found guilty will face strict action. But the Shiv Sena cannot distance itself from anything happening in the state as they too are part of the government," Shinde said.

"The Sena president should therefore adopt a responsible stance over issues," he added.

Shinde said projects under Jalyukt Shivar need to be sanctioned by Gram Sabhas and a project report has to be submitted after visiting the area.

Districts collectors, after obtaining reports from tehsildars and praant adhikaris grant the final approval. Hence this scheme is a very transparent one, he said.

"This project is Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's dream project and is under constant scrutiny. Hence, substandard work or irregularities cannot take place," Shinde said.

Thackeray had yesterday questioned if corruption were to happen in Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's pet project as well.

Thackeray's comments came in the backdrop of allegations of corruption worth Rs 10 crore in Konkan region made by senior Shiv Sena leader Ramdas Kadam.

According to Kadam, work done under the water conservation scheme in Ratnagiri's Dapoli, Khed and Mandangadh is only on paper and there is no actual work done. Yet, bills of the bogus work have been cleared by officials.

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Union minister Ram Kripal Yadav today reprimanded the West Bengal government for "failing to meet the targets in implementing central schemes" and alleged that it was "unwilling to execute" the Centre's development projects.

"I went on a field visit today to the panchayat areas in Howrah to oversee the progress of the construction of houses under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana. To my surprise, I found the progress to be very poor. The block I visited had no such house standing," he said.

The Union Rural Development Minister claimed that even the toilets constructed under the central schemes did not have doors or roofs and added that the officials were "silent" when asked to explain the non-implementation of the schemes.

"A lot of villagers, especially women, told me how they longed for their own houses. I want to ask the state government why were the houses not built? I think the state government does not want to implement the schemes and only wants to malign the Centre," he said.

Yadav described West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's scheduled meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi as an "attempt by the opposition forces to gang up due to political frustration".

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The United States has accused Syria of executing thousands of imprisoned political opponents and burning their bodies in a crematorium to hide the evidence, testing the Trump administration's willingness to respond to atrocities, other than chemical weapons attacks, that it blames on President Bashar Assad's government.

The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the US launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin- like nerve agent.

Trump yesterday kicked off a week of meetings with Middle East leaders, sitting down with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi a day before he hosts Turkey's president.

Trump flies to Saudi Arabia later this week.

All are governments that have pressed the United States over six years of civil war in Syria to intervene more forcefully. Trump had backed away from President Barack Obama's calls for regime change in the Arab country, with the new president's officials pointedly saying leadership questions should be left to Syria's citizens, until his intervention last month. His administration now says Assad cannot bring long-term stability to Syria.

In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity."



The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

Although the State Department cast its unusual conference as an effort to press Assad's key backers, Russia and Iran, it also underscored Trump's lack of a strategy for stopping Syria's violence. The war has killed as many as 400,000 people since 2011, contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II and enabled the Islamic State group to emerge as a global terrorism threat.

Trump had been highly critical of Obama for failing to respond to earlier chemical weapons attacks in 2013 after setting a "red line" against such usage. After last month's attack in northern Syria, Trump said the Syrians crossed "a lot of lines" for his administration. Beyond authorizing cruise missiles in response, however, he didn't outline a strategy to eliminate the threat.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer yesterday reiterated the administration's line that Syria's future "should be decided by Syrians in a free credibly and transparent process." But he called such a future "unimaginable" if Assad is propped up with help from the "seemingly unconditional support from Russia and Iran." He didn't outline how such a future might become imaginable.

Russia has shown no inclination to drop its support for Assad. It is now pushing the idea of "de-escalation zones" that would be designed to reduce violence, while not challenging Assad's authority over almost all of Syria's major cities.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been "firm and clear" in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week that "Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al- Assad."



A main point of that meeting "was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime," she said. "Simply put, the killing, the devastation has gone on for far too long in Syria."



Syrian human rights groups and opposition activists have long reported on mass killings inside Syrian prisons, though not on bodies being burned to cover up evidence.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated the U.S. Accounts of mass killings but said it lacked sufficient information about the crematorium.

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The US today welcomed the first local-level polls in Nepal in two decades, saying that the election appears to have been "largely peaceful and broadly supported".

The US has urged all the stakeholders to create a conducive environment for conducting second phase of local polls in Provinces 1, 2, 5 and 7, according to a US Embassy statement here.

The US government has called for continued efforts to forge a political agreement that enables broadest participation of voters in the phase two elections.

The US government has also urged the Nepal Government to allow unrestricted international election observation during the second round of polls on June 14.

"This will increase the credibility of the electoral process and strengthen democratic transition across the country," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the vote counting of the local polls, has continued, though in a slower pace, in which ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre, and main opposition CPN-UML have been leading in most of the places.

The first phase of the local elections on May 14 took place peacefully at 281 local units out of 283 in province 3, 4 and 6. The second round of polls in provinces 1, 2, 5 and 7 will be held on June 14.

Local-level elections could not be held after 1997 largely as a result of the decade-long Maoist insurgency that claimed more than 16,000 lives in Nepal.

Nepal has been witnessing political instability.

Some Madhes-centric parties have opposed the elections until the new Constitution is amended to accommodate their views: more representation in the Parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries.

The Nepal government has tabled a new Constitution amendment bill in the Parliament to address the demands of the agitating Madhesis.

Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a prolonged agitation between September 2015 and February last year against the implementation of the new Constitution which they felt marginalised the Terai community.

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A 17-year-old boy and two men died in Venezuela after being shot during anti-government protests, prosecutors said today, bringing to 42 the number of people killed in six weeks of unrest.

The latest deaths made the recent wave of clashes almost as deadly as the last such disturbances in 2014, when 43 people were killed in anti-government protests.

The current unrest erupted on April 1 when the opposition took to the streets in anger at what they saw as moves to strengthen elected socialist President Nicolas Maduro's hold on power.

The government and the opposition have accused each other of sending armed groups to sow violence in the protests.

The boy was hospitalized after being shot in the head yesterday during a demonstration in the western town of Pedraza and died early Tuesday, the public prosecution service said in a statement.

He was at the scene of a demonstration "when suddenly a group of people arrived and fired several shots, wounding the young man in the head," it said.

The department added that two other men, aged 31 and 33, had died from gunshots they suffered in demonstrations in the cities of San Antonio de los Altos and Tachira.

Yesterday saw the latest in weeks of violence as opponents mounted fresh demonstrations against Maduro.

Police have fired tear gas and protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails in a near-daily series of clashes.

The center-right opposition blames elected socialist leader Maduro for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food and medicine.

It wants early elections to remove him from office.

Maduro has vowed general elections will take place as scheduled in late 2018 but not before.

He has accused the opposition of mounting an "armed insurgency" against him with US backing.

An 18-year-old man also died from a wound to the chest during a demonstration in the western town of Palmira, the prosecution service said yesterday.

Two police and a civilian were injured by bullets in other towns, authorities and opposition leaders said.

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Legendary comedienne Victoria Wood, who passed away last year, is set to be honoured with a life-size bronze statue in her hometown of Bury in Manchester.

Graham Ibbeson, who sculpted the Morecambe monument, will design and create the statue of Victoria, reported BBC.

"I am very pleased indeed that we have been able to obtain the services of Graham Ibbeson. It was his statue of Eric Morecambe that first inspired me to try to get something similar for my multi-talented and much-loved sister," Victoria's brother, Chris Foote Wood, said.

Ibbeson said he was honoured and delighted to be chosen, saying, "Her unique humour was a product of 'Northern roots', unpretentious, accessible, and well observed.

"I will try to mirror all these qualities in my sculpture by trying to capture the warmth of her character and personality, and also reflecting the nation's affection (and indeed mine) for her unique talent."



Victoria died from cancer in April last year aged 62.

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The water crisis in Delhi, that has mainly affected the city's north and central parts including the VIP Lutyens' zone, remained unresolved today and there is no immediate solution in sight.

Staring at further deepening of the crisis, the Delhi government, which has been blaming Haryana for the shortage, sought the intervention of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and also threatened to file a contempt petition in the high court.

"Delhi water crisis still not resolved. Water being stopped despite court order. I have directed DJB (Delhi Jal Board) to file contempt petition in HC (sic)," Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted.

Two water treatment plants at Wazirabad and Chandrawal which treat around 220 MGD (million gallons per day) out of the 900 MGD treated in Delhi, are running on their 60 per cent capacity, a DJB official told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

The Lutyens' Bungalow Zone, which comes under the New Delhi Municipal Council, houses the PMO, the Rashtrapati Bhawan and residences of several Union ministers, judges, Army officers and bureaucrats among others.

Accusing the Haryana government of not giving the national capital its "legal share" of water, the Delhi government has sought the PMO's intervention.

The DJB official said out of the 900 MGD, around 550 (almost 60 per cent) comes from Haryana and the rest from Uttar Pradesh.

Almost every summer, Delhi and Haryana spar over water- sharing with each claiming that the other's demand exceeds the stipulated quantity.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told a press conference that around 80 MGD of Delhi's water supply has been stopped by the Haryana government, despite the Supreme Court's order prohibiting any such move.

"I have requested the Lt Governor to seek the PMO's intervention to deal with the water crisis. This is a political issue and the PMO should intervene at the earliest. We should go beyond politics on this issue," he said.

Sisodia, who is holding the additional charge of Water since Kapil Mishra's sacking from the Delhi cabinet last week, said chief secretary-level talks between Delhi and Haryana could not arrive at any conclusion.

"I have also told the L-G that there has been a talk on the water crisis at the level of officers, but there is still no solution. If the water shortage continues, we will have to cut down supply in the central Delhi," he said.

Delhi's water requirement is 900 MGD, but it is falling short by about 50 MGD since May 8, according to a senior DJB official.

In the evening, Sisodia held a high-level meeting with the DJB officials and directed them to take all necessary measures to ensure the city continued to get an uninterrupted water supply, so that no inconvenience was caused to the residents.

Sisodia asked the DJB to keep "all its options ready".

Yesterday, he had directed Chief Secretary M M Kutty to talk to his Haryana counterpart and ensure restoration of full water supply to Delhi.

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China today took strong exception to India's stand on its Belt and Road initiative, saying it was welcome to participate in the mega project but New Delhi should explain what kind of "meaningful dialogue" it wants Beijing to hold with it.

"Over the past four years since the project was initiated we have been holding the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits" for the Belt and Road initiative, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, reacting to Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Gopal Bagley's remarks that China should hold a meaningful dialogue on concerns over the One Belt One Road (OBOR) project.

"I do not know what the spokesperson (of MEA was) trying to say. What kind of dialogue is a meaningful dialogue. What kind of a positive attitude the spokesman wants China to hold?" Hua said when asked for her reaction to Bagley's remarks a day before the two-day Belt and Road Forum.

India boycotted the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) held from May 14-15. The meeting was attended by 29 world leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

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President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting at the White House last week, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The newspaper cited current and former U.S. officials who said Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The threat was related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

The White House denounced the report.

"This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, who attended the meeting.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who also participated in the meeting, downplayed the report as well.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," McMaster said. "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the May 10 meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

The Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, Trump jeopardized cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group.

Afterward, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment Monday evening.

It's unlikely that Trump has broken any law. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets.

Lawmakers from both parties were quick to weigh in.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Monday evening that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."

He said he would have more to say when he knows more about the news report.

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline  it's creating an environment that I think makes  it creates a worrisome environment."

The story prompted Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to tweet: "Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., tweeted: "If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."
President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser has a message to those blaming US intelligence agencies for the cyberattack encircling the globe: Don't point a finger at the National Security Agency. Blame the hackers.

Since Friday, malware has infected an estimated 300,000 computers in 150 countries. Users' files at hospitals, companies and government agencies have been held for ransom.

Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers used a hole in Microsoft software that was discovered by the National Security Agency. The hole was exposed when NSA documents were leaked online.

Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of Microsoft, laid some of the blame with the US government, criticising US intelligence agencies for "stockpiling" software code that can be used by hackers.

"We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability, stolen from the NSA, has affected customers around the world," he said.

Tom Bossert, Trump's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, defended the NSA, the lead US signals intelligence agency.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," Bossert told reporters yesterday. "This was a tool developed by culpable parties potentially criminals or foreign nation-states."



Perpetrators put the malware together in a way to deliver it with phishing e-mails, put it into embedded documents and caused infection, encryption and locking, he said.

Cyber experts are telling government officials that the malware was built with parts and codes cobbled together from different places, a US official said.

The official was not authorised to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Cyber experts say the tools were stolen from the Equation Group, a powerful squad of hackers which some have ties to the NSA. The tools materialised as part of an internet electronic auction set up by a group calling itself "Shadow Brokers," which promised to leak more data into the public.

"I haven't found an analyst who doesn't say it doesn't come from the NSA cache," said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Think of it like a master key," Lewis said. "NSA identified a vulnerability in a Microsoft software that the Shadow Brokers, then released so anybody could use it."



The Shadow Brokers "shared that vulnerability with the world and then these criminals took advantage of it," he said.

V Miller Newton, president of PKWARE, a data protection and encryption company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said leaks of purported NSA hacking tools have been coming out in dribs and drabs since August.

"Criminals or terrorists are going to try to leverage these exploits," he said. "How damaging could it be? Extremely."



"The tools are useful and they are in the hands of criminals today," Newton said. "Holy cow! The government can't protect itself from insiders?"



The Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation in the United States. American officials are working closely with their British counterparts.

Analysts at the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center worked throughout the weekend to keep American officials informed about classified aspects of the investigation.

"Attribution can be difficult here," Bossert said. But he added: "I don't want to say we have no clues."



"While it would be satisfying to hold accountable those responsible for this hack something that we are working on quite seriously the worm is in the wild, so to speak at this point, and patching is the most important message as a result," he said.

"Despite appearing to be criminal activity intended to raise money, it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery."



Neither the FBI nor NSA would comment today.

If Americans follow the patching information issued by the FBI, Microsoft and the Homeland Security Department, they will be protected from the malware and the variants, Bossert said.

Some US companies, including FedEx, were affected. No federal systems have been victimised thus far, Bossert said.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the Senate intelligence committee's top Democrat, wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney yesterday asking what steps the federal government has taken to ensure federal agencies and government contractors have installed critical security updates to defend against the attack.

A Government Accountability Office report in May 2016 said federal agencies consistently failed to apply security patches in a timely matter and sometimes didn't make them for years after a patch had been available, Warner said.

The office, he said, also identified cases where agencies were using software no longer supported by its vendors.

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A woman allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of a building at Paras Tiara society here, police said today.

The victim, Kanchan Gupta, was taken to a hospital by her husband Rahul Gupta last night, but doctors declared her brought dead, Inspector at Surajpur Police Station Manish Saxena said.

The woman, a native of Hamirpur, married Rahul, a resident of Kanpur, three years ago, he said, adding they were staying at Sector-144.

The body has been sent for postmortem and the matter is being investigated, Saxena said.

In another incident, a man allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in Khatana village last night, police said.

The villagers cremated the body without informing police, they said.

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New Zealand's iconic Yellow-eyed penguins may go extinct within the next 25 years due to rising ocean temperatures and climate change, unless urgent conservation actions are undertaken, a new study has warned.

Researchers from University of Otaga in New Zealand predict that the breeding success of the penguins will continue to decline to extinction by 2060 largely due to rising ocean temperatures.

The study highlights where conservation efforts could be most effective in building penguins' resilience against climate change, researchers said.

The predictions do not include additional adult die-off events such as the one seen in 2013 in which more than 60 penguins died.

"Any further losses of Yellow-eyed penguins will bring forward the date of their local extinction," said Thomas Mattern from the University of Otago.

If the recent poor breeding years are included in the simulation of the future penguin population, things get progressively worse, researchers said.

"When including adult survival rates from 2015 into the models the mean projection predicts Yellow-eyed penguins to be locally extinct in the next 25 years," said Stefan Meyer from the University of Otago.

Increasing sea surface temperatures in part explain the negative trend in penguin numbers, researchers said.

"The problem is that we lack data to examine the extent of human impacts, ranging from fisheries interactions, introduced predators to human disturbance, all of which contribute to the penguins' demise," Mattern said.

"However, considering that climate change explains only around a third of the variation in penguin numbers, clearly those other factors play a significant role. Unlike climate change, these factors could be managed on a regional scale," he said.

The findings were published in the journal PeerJ.

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By Huw Jones

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain's businesses may not feel the impact of Brexit for several years, but should not count on the country eventually striking a good trade deal with the rest of Europe, company treasurers were told at a conference on Tuesday.

Paul Watters, head of corporate research for S&P Global Ratings, said his "working assumption" was for an orderly transition for Britain out of the European Union in 2019 - and that a compromise on eventual trading terms would emerge.

Recent spats between UK and EU leaders over Brexit have raised fears over a "hard" or "cliff edge" Brexit, with Britain crashing out of the bloc without a deal.

"From a practical standpoint, companies have got to do their contingency planning, but in the expectation that things are going to be business as usual in reality over the next potentially five years," Watters told the Association of Corporate Treasurers' (ACT) annual conference.

Monique Ebell, associate research director at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said eastern EU countries, for example, were more worried about keeping the bloc together to bolster security than the limited economic fallout for them from Brexit.

"I wouldn't be too optimistic about getting a great deal," Ebell said. "It's very difficult to say how successful the UK will be at negotiating a maybe very good deal ... with the EU."

Such differing views leave companies trying to work out which banks they should use for day-to-day services after Brexit

Companies routinely request banks for a "proposal" to handle cash management for up to a decade, well beyond Brexit in 2019.

Bankers attending the ACT conference said it was clear from the vaguer requests they were now receiving that companies were trying to find out what services a bank could offer after Brexit - and what a bank's other clients were doing.

"These companies are trying to feel their way and getting a different view from U.S. and European banks," one banker said. "Some banks are not flexible because of Brexit."

European banks typically have operations across the EU, while U.S. lenders have tended to serve the bloc from a base in London.

Continental companies are not, however, worried about being cut off from financial services in London if there is a hard Brexit as there are alternatives in mainland Europe.

"Europe is overbanked. Companies don't really care, it's not an issue for them," a second banker said. Companies were more concerned about tariff-free access to the UK market for their goods, he added.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Potter)

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LONDON (Reuters) - China and India have surpassed the United States to become the two most attractive countries for renewable energy investment, a report by UK accountancy firm Ernst & Young showed on Tuesday.

In an annual ranking of the top 40 renewable energy markets worldwide in terms of allure, China was the top country, followed by India.

The United States, which ranked the highest last year, slumped to third place, due to a shift in U.S. energy policy under President Donald Trump.

Trump has issued orders to roll back many of the previous administration's climate change policies, revive the U.S. coal industry and review the Clean Power Plan, which requires states to cut carbon emissions from power plants.

Meanwhile, China announced this year that it would spend $363 billion on developing renewable power capacity by 2020. India's government has unveiled plans to build 175 gigawatts of renewable energy generation by 2022.

Among European countries, Germany ranked fourth, France eighth and Britain moved to 10th place, from 14th last year.

While Britain's renewable investment environment is more settled than in recent years, which were beset by subsidy cuts, future energy policy after it leaves the European Union is uncertain, the report said.

"The UK's reappearance in the top 10 is the result of other countries falling away - notably Brazil, which cancelled a wind and solar auction in December - rather than any particularly encouraging resurgence," said Ben Warren, EY's head of energy corporate finance.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Dale Hudson)

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By Douglas Busvine and Rupam Jain

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday, in a probe into suspected criminal misconduct related to approvals of investment deals.

The dawn raids marked an escalation in pressure by central investigators against Chidambaram, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party who has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The CBI, India's main central crime-fighting agency, carried out searches at locations in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram and Chennai, including the residence of Chidambaram's son Karti there.

The raids were "in connection with criminal misconduct" in granting approval for foreign investment deals, a CBI spokesman said without giving further details.

A police report obtained by that lays out the case named Karti Chidambaram as one of those accused of criminal conspiracy, cheating, seeking to influence a public servant and criminal misconduct.

Chidambaram denied wrongdoing. He said all investment approvals granted during his tenure were above board.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends," he said in a statement.

"The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing," said Chidambaram, who writes a weekly column for The Indian Express. "All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write."

Chidambaram, 71, served twice as finance minister in the Congress-led coalition that ran India for a decade - from 2004-08 and then from 2012 until the party's election defeat at the hands of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in May 2014.

MEDIA DEAL

The case against Karti Chidambaram spells out alleged violations of India's foreign investment law in the approval in 2007 of the sale of stakes in a company called INX Media Private Ltd to offshore entities.

Also named in the case are Peter Mukerjea, at the time head of strategy at INX, and his wife Indrani. The couple, once a fixture on the Mumbai party circuit, are now on trial charged with murdering Indrani Mukerjea's daughter from a previous relationship.

Karti Chidambaram, addressing a media scrum outside his home in Chennai, said there was no evidence to back the claims against him, adding they were politically motivated.

The case marks a new twist in a legal onslaught against P. Chidambaram, who has been the target of litigation brought by senior BJP lawmaker Subramanian Swamy, who alleged that the approval of a separate telecoms deal in 2006 was corrupt.

"The raids have to take place to get documents and incriminating evidence which they have kept," Swamy told television agency ANI, an affiliate of .

"The whole country will come to know that this is the most corrupt party in the world," he said.

Swamy recently filed a petition to the Supreme Court seeking a probe into the 2006 sale of telecom firm Aircel to Malaysia's Maxis. He alleges the deal was corrupt.

Chidambaram said that neither he nor Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) officials were suspected of wrongdoing in the hundreds of cases it had reviewed while he was in office.

"There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said.

"Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB," he said.

INX Media, since renamed 9X Media Private Ltd, is not named as a suspect in the CBI case. Nor is Aircel-Maxis accused of wrongdoing in the Supreme Court case filed by Swamy.

(Additional reporting by Aditya Kalra and Rajesh Kumar Singh; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Nick Macfie)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Rupam Jain and Douglas Busvine

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday, in a probe into suspected criminal misconduct related to approvals of investment deals.

The dawn raids marked an escalation in pressure by federal investigators against Chidambaram, a senior leader of the opposition Congress party who has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The CBI, India's main federal crime-fighting agency, conducted searches at locations in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram and Chennai, including the residence of Chidambaram's son Karti there.

The raids were "in connection with criminal misconduct" in granting approval for foreign investment deals, a CBI spokesman said without giving further details.

Chidambaram denied wrongdoing. He said all investment approvals granted during his tenure were above board.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends," he said in a statement.

"The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing," said Chidambaram, who writes a weekly column for the Indian Express. "All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write."

A veteran lawmaker of Modi's right-wing ruling party, which defeated the Congress by a landslide in 2014, said the raids were linked to litigation he has brought over the approval of a 2006 telecoms deal he alleges was corrupt.

"The raids have to take place to get documents and incriminating evidence which they have kept," Subramanian Swamy told television agency ANI, an affiliate of .

"The whole country will come to know that this is the most corrupt party in the world," he said.

REPEATED ATTACKS

Chidambaram, 71, served twice as finance minister in the Congress-led coalition that ran India for a decade - from 2004-08 and then from 2012 until the party's election defeat at the hands of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in May 2014.

He has been the target of repeated attacks by Swamy, who has also brought a case against Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, accusing them of criminal misappropriation of funds from a party newspaper.

Both deny any wrongdoing.

In 2006, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approved the acquisition of 100 percent of Indian telecom firm Aircel by Malaysia's Maxis, a deal that has spawned a series of legal battles.

BJP spokesman GVL Narasimha Rao alleged that approval for the Aircel-Maxi transaction was awarded by the FIPB - a government panel - in return for favours.

"This is not a political case," Rao told Republic TV. "From whatever facts that have emerged so far this is a case of money laundering."

Chidambaram said in his statement that neither he nor FIPB officials were suspected of wrongdoing.

"There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said.

"Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB," he said.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Rajesh Kumar Singh; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Paul Tait)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - London is good at clearing euro-denominated derivatives deals and there is no case to shift the business to the continent after Brexit, the policy chief for Britain's financial sector said on Tuesday.

The combative stance of Catherine McGuinness, newly appointed head of policy for the City of London financial district, contrasted with the more nuanced position of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who has spoken of an "appropriate" amount of euro clearing remaining in London post-Brexit.

Her comments came as the EU's executive Commission prepares to publish a draft law next month on euro clearing. France is in the vanguard of countries pushing for the lucrative business to relocate to the euro zone after Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.

McGuinness said clearing was a $1 trillion a day business and it was natural that people wanted a slice of the cake.

"And in this case, all the evidence points one way: that the mass uprooting and offshoring of part of the industry - of clearing of transactions in one currency - would not only be vastly complicated, but also vastly damaging and potentially destabilising," McGuinness told a conference of the Futures Industry Association in London.

The Commission has considered several options, including forced migration of business and tighter supervision of foreign clearing houses that handle large amounts of euro-denominated transactions.

France argues shifting clearing to Europe would make it easier for the European Central Bank to directly monitor risks arising from the derivatives market.

But McGuinness said markets had chosen London because it's systemically safer to centralise clearing so that exposures can be netted.

"It's because it makes the posting of collateral more cost-effective. And, frankly, it's because we're good at it."

London has the scale, infrastructure and expert clearing professionals, she said.

"And if we split off one currency, with euro clearing moving to, say, Paris, all we'll see is systemic risk going up, liquidity going down, costs hitting the roof," she added.

"In sum, it'd be a completely avoidable outcome."

Euro-denominated clearing in Europe is dominated by the London Stock Exchange's LCH clearing house in London. Deutsche Boerse's Eurex Clearing in Frankfurt is, however, ready to handle any sharp increase in swaps clearing.

McGuinness said forced migration of clearing would not be in the interest of the global financial system, and that U.S. regulators were also watching developments in Brussels closely.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. homebuilding unexpectedly fell in April amid a persistent decline in the construction of multi-family housing units and a modest rebound in single-family projects, pointing to a slowdown in the housing market recovery.

Housing starts dropped 2.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted

annual rate of 1.17 million units, the Commerce Department said

on Tuesday. That was the lowest level since last November and

followed a downwardly revised rate of 1.20 million units in

March.

Economists polled by had forecast groundbreaking

activity rising to a rate of 1.26 million units last month from

a previously reported rate of 1.22 million units in March.

Homebuilding increased 0.7 percent on a year-on-year basis.

Single-family homebuilding, which accounts for the largest

share of the residential housing market, rebounded 0.4 percent

to a pace of 835,000 units last month. That left the bulk of the

5.1 percent decline in March intact.

Single-family starts surged 19.4 percent in the Midwest and

advanced 9.1 percent in the West. They fell 3.4 percent in the

South and tumbled 29.2 percent in the Northeast.

Some of the drop in starts, especially in the Northeast, could be weather-related after a snowstorm lashed the region in

March. Demand for housing remains underpinned by a tightening

labor market, characterized by an unemployment rate at a 10-year

low of 4.4 percent.

A survey on Monday showed homebuilders' confidence rose in

May, with bullishness about current sales and over the next six

months.

Last month, starts for the volatile multi-family housing

segment dropped 9.2 percent to a pace of 337,000 units. Multi-

family starts have declined for four straight months.

Building permits fell 2.5 percent, driven by a 4.5 percent

drop percent in the single-family segment. Multi-family permits

rose 1.4 percent.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Britain's forecast a jump in cash generation this year, allowing it to reward shareholders with a higher dividend as it eases back on network investment and moves to solve problems in India where a new price war has broken out.

The company's upbeat outlook sent its shares more than 4 percent higher, relieving investors after a tough year that saw the group report a 6.1 billion-euro ($6.7 billion) loss, dragged down by last year's $5 billion write-downs on India.

Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said that excluding the Indian business, adjusted core earnings rose 5.8 per cent to 14.1 billion euros, beating market expectations, and growing faster than revenues as the company improved efficiency.

He said earnings would grow by between 4 and 8 per cent this year to 14-14.5 billion euros - analysts had pencilled in 13.8 billion euros - and it would generate about 5 billion euros of cash, up from 4.1 billion euros last year.

The company said the level of cash generation, combined with growth and a robust balance sheet enabled it to "confirm a progressive dividend policy".

The final dividend was increased by 2 percent to 10.03 euro cents.

"We are getting into space where we see a balance between our investment needs, rewarding our shareholders and having good enough cash flow to pay for spectrum," Colao told reporters.

Analysts at Jefferies, who have a "buy" rating on the stock, said progress in reducing costs supported Vodafone's confident dividend growth guidance.

" reasserts its intention to grow its dividend per share annually - consensus has dividend flat - a message that might be seen as contrasting against BT's more hesitant outlook last week," they said.

Struggling with a different set of problems, rival BT said last week in raising its dividend by 10 per cent that the growth rate would not be the same next year.

For Vodafone the growth in free cash flow, which will come as the company reduces investment following completion of its Project Spring programme to improve its networks in Europe and other markets, is ahead of analysts' predictions of 4.66 billion euros.

Regulatory headwinds in Europe, however, mean Vodafone's progress has been bumpy in the last year and will not be completely smooth in the year ahead.

Organic service revenue growth slowed to 1.5 per cent in the final quarter from 2.1 per cent in the third, due in part to reductions in roaming charges in Europe.

Chief Financial Officer Nick Read said regulation would continue to weigh this year, with a drag of about 1 percentage point.

The weak point in Europe for Vodafone was its home market, where revenue fell 4.8 per cent in the final quarter as it still battled to recover from the implementation of a new billing system more than a year ago.

Colao said the revenue decline was "flattening", although the market remained highly competitive.

Organic service revenue in Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific grew 6.8 per cent in the final quarter, it said.

The impact of new cut-throat competition in India with the switching on of new market entrant Reliance Jio's $20 billion networks was laid bare by an 11.5 per cent drop in service revenue in the final quarter.

Vodafone agreed in March to combine its operations with Idea Cellular in a $23 billion deal aimed at creating the country's biggest telecoms business.
Ignoring the government's directive and legal consequences, some Indian companies hit by the ransomware virus WannaCry are believed to have gone ahead and paid the ransom to get their systems unlocked, according to a report published by The Economic Times
Bitcoin , the peer-to-peer transaction service, made headlines for the wrong reasons a few days ago. Hackers behind the WannaCry cyber attack demanded 'ransom' in the cryptocurrency for releasing 'hostage' computers under their control.



What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a digital token that is computer generated and not printed or minted physically like a country's currency. It is created and held electronically in a single

person, bank, authority has control over it. It works like conventional currency and is traded globally.

Developed by anonymous programmer Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin has been popular among the masses for being cheaper and faster means of transaction without intervention from any third party. The USP of bitcoin, however, remains in the fact that it cannot be traced back to those availing it. The demand of the largest and oldest among cryptocurrencies is high as it is untraceable by security agencies and does not require physical storage spaces that can be raided by authorities.



Why do hackers love it?

By virtue of this anonymity, potential for use criminal or malicious usage has been associated with bitcoin since its inception. Even earlier this year, experts believed there was a rush following the demonetisation announcement as many traders exchanged their black money against bitcoins.

The only record of transactions is an online ledger created through blockchain technology , which is anonymous and can be manipulated in a secure way without help from any third party, unlike a bank's ledger is connected to a centralised network.

The hackers may very well take your money and leave without releasing the encrypted files. It will be difficult to bring them to justice as there is no mechanism to track them down through their bitcoin transactions.
As notorious WannaCrypt ransomware hits businesses worldwide, technology giant Microsoft said it has been working round the clock since Friday to help all its customers who have been affected by this incident.

With more than 3,500 security engineers at the company, Microsoft said, it is fighting cybersecurity threats with constant updates to its Advanced Threat Protection service.

Microsoft had released a patch in March to counter WannaCrypt ransomware, the company also issued a prompt update on Friday to Windows Defender to detect the WannaCrypt attack.

"Working through our Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) and Digital Crimes Unit, we'll also share what we learn with law enforcement agencies, governments, and other customers around the world," the software firm said.

Terming such cyber-attacks as a shared responsibility between tech companies and customers, the tech giant said, so many computers remained vulnerable even two months after the release of a patch.

"There is simply no way for customers to protect themselves against threats unless they update their systems. Otherwise they're literally fighting the problems of the present with tools from the past," it said.

Blaming the ransomware attack on stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments, Microsoft said, "vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage."

"The attack represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today - nation-state action and organized criminal action," Microsoft said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday raided the house of former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai.

The raids were linked to clearances given to INX media, which was once owned by Peter Mukerjea, media reports said.

A total of at least 14 locations in Chidambaram's home city of Chennai were searched by the CBI, India's main federal crime-fighting agency, reports said.

Karti Chidambaram is facing money laundering probe in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal of the 2G scam.



Shortly after media reports of CBI raids at Chidambaram's house in Chennai came out, the Congress came out to defend the former finance minister.

"What have you been doing for three years? If there were serious charges, go ahead. If you have evidence, establish it. You are destroying reputations. The people of India are watching this. You are still trying to fish and find out," Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said.




In a major relief to companies found violating anti-trust laws, the Supreme Court has said that penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India, the anti-trust regulator, on companies should be based on turnover of relevant product or services under enquiry and not on the total turnover.

At present, the CCI imposes a penalty of 10 per cent of the average three years turnover of a company.

In a judgement passed in the Excel Crop Care Limited v Competition Commission of India, the apex court clarified that the term 'turnover' under Section 27(b) must be interpreted as 'relevant turnover', that is, only the turnover from the relevant product/service in respect of which the violation has been committed.

The Supreme Court emphasized the doctrine of proportionality in the imposition of penalties, to hold that penalties imposed on total turnover would have inequitable and disproportionate results. The Court also applied the principle of strict construction of penal provisions to hold that there would be no justification for including other products/services of an enterprise when imposing penalties for contraventions committed in respect of only one product/service.

In the Excel Corp Vs CCI, the anti-trust regulator has found three Aluminium Phosphide Tablet manufacturers guilty of rigging tenders issued by Food Corporation of India (FCI) and imposed a penalty to Rs 318 crore.

When the manufacturers appealed at the Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat), the appellate tribunal reduced the penalty to Rs 10 crore arguing that the penalties imposed on the companies having multiple products should be based on the turnover derived from the product/service under inquiry and not on the total turnover.

The Supreme court upheld the Compat decision on the quantum of the penalty.
President Trump's latest executive order on immigration reforms is actually good news for Indians studying in the United States: This is the clear message delivered to Indian students planning to go to America by University of South Florida (USF) Vice President Roger Brindley.

Brindley told Indian students as well as education counselors that "the emphasis on the most highly skilled workers could actually have the potential to benefit foreign graduates of American colleges." Brindley highlighted the fact that the United States needs international students to address the skill gaps.

"The fact is," he explained, "that not enough Americans are graduating from technical masters courses such as Business Analytics and Information Systems (BAIS) and Computer Science."

The possible reasons for this range from a general lack of interest in math and science to the high burden of debt that most American students carry with them after four years of a Bachelor's programme, making employment more appealing than starting on a master's degree.

Speaking to students in Delhi, the USF faculty members pointed out that the median annual salary for students graduating with a masters' degree from USF's College of Engineering or the College of Business has been $70,000 (Rs 44.7 lakh) and $65,000 (Rs 41.6 lakh), a year, respectively - which is above the salary range stipulated by the new guideline.

These, in fact, are the skilled applicants, which the US intends to attract. Almost 10 percent of USF's 50,000 students are international students from 140 countries, with India heading the list.

The vast majority of Indian students choose programmes at the College of Engineering and the College of Management, with Computer Science and BAIS being the most popular choices.


The ongoing constitutional reform process clearly indicates that Georgias further democratic progress rests on shaky footing. The proposed constitutional amendments would weaken the power and popular mandate of the president and likely give the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party an undue advantage in parliamentary elections. The proposed amendments justifiably raise fears that GD is just the latest political force with ambitions for single-party rule. Rather than locking in the countrys democratic gains, the draft constitution looks likely to consolidate GDs legislative and executive power.

BACKGROUND: Georgia has been a regional frontrunner in democratization for the past two decades. However, that progress is not irreversible. Constitutional reform is one arena in which Georgias political forces compete in a zero-sum game with little regard for democratic norms. The ruling GD party has actively sought to reform the countrys constitution since coming to power in 2012. More specifically, its priority has been to transform Georgia into a full-fledged parliamentary republic with a figurehead president. Since 1990, the country has elected its president by popular vote, and until 2013 (following constitutional amendments passed in 2010) the presidency was the unquestioned locus of executive power.

GD has sought both to reduce presidential powers and change procedures for electing the president, first establishing a 58-member Constitutional Reform Commission in 2013. That commissions work came to naught because the party lacked sufficient legislative support to enact a new constitution. However, constitutional reform remained a priority. The political landscape is currently more amenable to reform, with the lopsided outcome of last Octobers parliamentary elections giving new impetus to the project. GD won 115 seats in the 150-seat parliament, enough for a supermajority allowing it to amend the constitution without the consent of other parties in parliament.

Last December, GDs majority faction in parliament established a new, 73-member Constitutional Reform Commission tasked with proposing a new constitution. The Commission is a diverse body made up of parliamentarians from various parties, civil servants, and civil society representatives. However, it is led by Irakli Kobakhidze, who is both parliament speaker and GD party chairman. Thus, the Commission is understandably viewed as a vehicle for the ruling party. After four months of deliberation, the Commission approved a draft constitution on April 22. The parliament will likely vote on the draft on the first reading in June, on the second reading in July, and on the third  and final  reading in September. If approved on the third reading, the new constitution will become law.

IMPLICATIONS: The draft constitution features two key amendments worth analyzing here. First, it involves changing presidential election procedures. According to the reforms, the office of the president would be elected not by popular ballot but by a college of government officials: 300 delegates would cast votes; half of them would come from the parliament; the other half would come from local municipal councils and the supreme councils of the Autonomous Republics of Adjara and Abkhazia (the latter in exile). That change would come into effect in 2023, meaning the next presidential election  scheduled for 2018  will be by direct ballot regardless of whether the draft constitution is approved.

The new constitution would also amend procedures for electing parliamentarians. Civil society activists and academics have long called for reform, as the current mixed majoritarian-proportional system heavily favors incumbent parties. The draft constitution addresses those concerns, but not in the manner that many hoped. The Commissions specific proposal would abolish majoritarian mandates but also ban parties from forming electoral blocs. That would make it more difficult for smaller parties to pass the five percent threshold for entering parliament, dashing hopes for more pluralistic parliaments in the future. Most controversial, unallocated seats  the proportional mandates not allocated because some parties receive votes but fail to pass the threshold  would automatically go to the party winning the most total votes.

Both of the above amendments have negative implications for Georgias further democratic development. The most obvious outcome would be a completion of the countrys transition from a presidential to a parliamentary system. Since his election in November 2013, current President Giorgi Margvelashvili has shared executive powers with a succession of prime ministers, and overlapping jurisdiction has been a problem. While settling questions about the separation of powers is a welcome change (in theory), the specifics do not inspire confidence.

GD aims to reduce the role of the president and transform the country into a full-fledged parliamentary system where executive power rests almost exclusively with the prime minister. President Margvelashvili is a frequent critic of GD, especially since its lopsided electoral victory last October. The president and many of his supporters believe the new constitution is aimed against him personally and intended to sideline him by transferring powers to Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili.

The presidents public spat with the ruling party has dominated media headlines. However, changes to the parliamentary election system have bigger implications for Georgias democratic future. Replacing the current electoral system with a proportional system that bans electoral blocs and distributes unallocated mandates to the party receiving the most votes would be a step backward. Keeping the five percent threshold in place while banning blocs would result in a large number of unallocated mandates. If implemented, the system would most likely heavily favor GD in the next parliamentary elections scheduled for 2020.

Dustin Gilbreath and David Sichinava, two researchers at the Tbilisi-based Caucasus Research Resource Centers, performed a statistical analysis on how the proposed reforms would affect the outcomes of future parliamentary elections. They constructed data models based on three distinct scenarios: the current mixed system; the proportional system as proposed by the Constitutional Reform Commission; and a theoretical scenario where seats are allocated on a proportional basis and undistributed seats are not re-allocated to the leading party.

What do they find? In the current landscape, the proposed reform would tip the scales strongly in favor of the leading party: At best, the proposed changes are two steps forward and one step back. At worst, they could squash political competition in Georgia. The best outcome, in their analysis, would be to make the system fully proportional, continue to allow blocs, and refrain from distributing un-allocated seats to the leading party.

Georgia analyst Lincoln Mitchell was even less equivocal in his condemnation of the proposed amendment: The idea of giving votes of parties that do not cross the threshold to the winner has no political or legal justification, is patently undemocratic and is a terrible idea.

The Constitutional Reform Commission, which was dominated by the ruling party from the beginning, did nothing to inspire confidence in GDs commitment to multiparty democracy. Seven opposition political parties boycotted the Commission following publication of the draft constitution. The president ripped the amendments, saying that provisions to do away with direct election of the president and change the system for electing parliament are at odds with the logic of democracy. If nothing else, the process has deepened political polarization. Georgia already had that in ample supply.

CONCLUSIONS: Georgia has made impressive democratic progress and is viewed as a regional leader in political reform. However, its democratic institutions are yet to reach maturity, of which the constitutional reform process is a reminder. Without adequate input from the political opposition and president  and without a strong civil society to involve the public in the process  the Constitutional Reform Commission has produced a document that dissatisfies everyone except the ruling party. Rather than consolidating Georgias democratic system, the draft constitution looks likely to consolidate the power of GD.

A democratic rollback in Georgia would be a major disappointment for the wider region. Given recent dubious constitutional reforms in Armenia and Turkey, the international community must pay closer attention to developments in Georgia. The Council of Europes Venice Commission, which will review and comment on the draft constitution during May, should be unsparing in its criticism. Additionally, the countrys key allies, the U.S. and the EU, should apply pressure where necessary. Georgia and the region cannot afford democratic backsliding.

AUTHORS BIO: Joseph Larsen is an Analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics.

Image source: flickr.com, accessed on May 16, 2017
BUTTE  Organisms found in the Berkeley Pit's toxic water are leading to a scientific breakthrough, according to two University of Montana professors who are former Butte residents.

Andrea and Don Stierle paired together two fungi taken from pit water in Butte. That pair produced a compound that has the ability to fight drug-resistant bacteria in a laboratory setting.

The Stierles' new findings are published in a paper that appeared in The Journal of Natural Products last month.

The next step is to begin research to show if the new compound the Stierles created can be turned into a drug.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director at the Washington D.C.-based American Public Health Association, said by phone Monday that it could potentially take 10 years before the Stierles' discovery could make its way to the market. The compound would have to be tested on animals then tested on humans and also go through U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. Issues such as how does the compound fight drug-resistant bacteria, is it safe for human consumption, and what are the potential side effects are all questions the Stierles will have to answer before it becomes an actual drug.

Despite that long road, Benjamin called the discovery "pretty exciting stuff."

State Medical Officer Dr. Greg Holzman echoed that sentiment, saying that the increase of "superbugs," bacteria resistant to antibiotics, is "a major public health issue," leaving health care professionals with "fewer treatment options."

The Centers for Disease Control's website reports over two million illnesses occur each year from superbugs. At least 23,000 people die annually of infections that cannot be treated due to drug-resistant bacteria.

Many of those deaths occur where sick people hope to get better  hospitals.

"Surprise, surprise, hospitals are a reservoir of sick people and antibiotic drugs, which makes them ripe for antibiotic resistance to develop," said Benjamin.

There are multiple reasons why superbugs develop, Benjamin said.

The reasons range from overuse of antibiotics to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed. Throwing away antibiotics, which causes the prescription drugs to wind up in landfills and, ultimately, in the water supply, also results in organisms becoming exposed to drugs designed to kill them. The organisms then mutate and get stronger.

"The ones that survive are resistant to antibiotics," said Benjamin. "We need to address this."

The Stierles' attention has been on the possibilities of Berkeley Pit organisms becoming anti-inflammatory and cancer-fighting agents for the last 21 years. Andrea said that work is ongoing. The Stierles got water samples from the Berkeley Pit in 1996. Andrea said she and her husband "could lock ourselves in our lab for the next 100 years and keep finding things" from those cups of water.

If the Stierles' discovery leads to an actual drug to fight superbugs, its origins will be pretty unique.

Andrea said the fungi from the Berkeley Pit are similar to fungi found in moldy bread, but the chemistry from the pit's fungi is different. Andrea believes the toxic environment in which the fungi grew may have caused them to evolve.

"For all of its awfulness, the pit and its fungi have continued to provide some amazing discoveries, including compounds that block inflammation and the spread of cancer cells," said Andrea. "We have to find silver linings where we can."

The next step for the Stierles is a bit more prosaic  fundraising. Though the university provides lab and office space, the Stierles have to find additional money to pay their salaries and health care and support their research.

"The road from  discovery  to the development of a new drug requires an alignment of the stars," Andrea said.
Computer Science Students W. Musa

Several absences were recorded in some key centers on Day one of the 2017 General Certificate of Education, GCE Monday May 15, 2017 across Cameroon.

Few students answered present in almost all centers despite measures put in place by Minister of Secondary Education Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe.

Equinoxe radio, a Popular Douala based radio reports that only 10 out of 31 students showed up for Computer Sciences in Government Bilingual High School, GBHS Tombel in the South West region, in GBHS Bayele in the North West region, only over 200 answered present out of over 1000 expected.

The GCE Board has said it is too early to advance figures but report on the ground indicates that there have been massive absences of students.

As a result of these absences, the GCE Board was even forced to combine the centers: for instance Equinoxe radio reports that students from Our Lady of Mount Camel in Muea,Buea were stranded when they only discovered on campus that their center had been moved to GBHS Muea.

In the South West region,7 centers hosted 41 schools in Computer Sciences while 8 centers are hosting 48 schools in Food Sciences.

In Limbe only two schools, GBHS and GHS Limbe hosted several others.

No boarding school was used for the exams.
| BY Kim Shaw |

AANA CEO Sunita Gloster has informed the Board that she has accepted a role as Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Network Ten and will be leaving the AANA in August.

Says Matt Tapper, Chairman of the AANA: I was part of the team that recruited Sunita in 2013 and we gave her a challenging brief; to renew and refresh our Association, to engage us as a community, to raise the profile of what we contribute as marketers and most importantly to deliver on our commitment to evolve and maintain our system of self-regulation and to ensure all key stakeholders retained confidence in our management and leadership in this area.

Sunita has well and truly delivered on that brief and significantly set us on the path of transforming the AANA.

The Code of Ethics has evolved so that it can apply to any media and the addition of the clearly distinguishable advertising provisions is particularly timely, given the rapid expansion of marketing communication in social media and the growing use of paid influencers in this space. Sunita also successfully worked with the wagering sector to develop a new Wagering Advertising Code, Mr Tapper said.

Under Ms Glosters leadership the AANA has been acknowledged globally, garnering two consecutive Presidents Awards from the World Federation of Advertising (WFA), the more recent one for delivering a comprehensive set of Contract Guidance Notes to help achieve greater transparency in media buying.

Adds Tapper (left, with Ms Gloster): And the AANAs reputation for providing the marketing community with regular thought provoking events and speakers is higher now than it has ever been, Sunita has lured many thought leaders from around the globe to events like our annual RESET conference, which is now established as a premier event on the Australian marketing calendar. Given Sunitas considerable achievements in enhancing member value it should come as no surprise that our base has increased by more than 50 members in the last four years. Sunitas successor will inherit a very strong, vibrant organisation on which to build.

In March this year Ms Gloster was appointed to an advisory board for PwCs CMO advisory practice, which no doubt raised a few eyebrows amongst agency CEOs.
| BY Ricki Green |

Applications are now open for AWARD School Pop-up at Semi Permanent, taking place on Saturday, 27 May in Sydney. Applications will close on Monday, 22 May, midday sharp.

This years AWARD School Pop Up has been created to encourage the next generation of creatives to think about how Australias biggest brands can make the biggest difference.

For more information, click here.

The Challenge:

This years AWARD School Pop Up has been created to encourage the next generation of creatives to think about how Australias biggest brands can make the biggest difference.

Three clients, yet to be announced, together with their partner agencies have developed three live briefs that focus on making a difference for their nominated charity. Your ideas will need to be submitted online and will be judged by the client and agency.

The Opportunity:

Your idea could win you a scholarship to AWARD School 2018 (in your state)  the leading school for budding creatives, preparing you for life in advertising.

Eighteen applicants are shortlisted and invited to attend a one-day intensive workshop at Semi Permanent on Saturday 27 May 2017 in Sydney.* The finalists have the chance to work with some of this countrys most awarded creative professionals, and leading brands. From the eighteen finalists, there are three winners (one per brief) who will each win a scholarship to AWARD School 2018 in your state. The winners may also have the opportunity to work up the idea with the agency and client.

Whos Eligible?

If youve never worked in a creative department and would like to attend AWARD School 2018, then this brief is for you.

International Students must provide proof of either a work visa or a tourism visa. We will not accept applicants on student visas.
| BY Ricki Green |

Leo Burnett Sydney has announced that it is creative partner to TEDxSydney 2017, the leading platform for sharing and growing Australian ideas, innovation and creativity with the power to change attitudes, lives, and, ultimately, the world.

The partnership sees Leo Burnett providing strategic communications expertise to TEDxSydneys brand and the development and execution of the creative campaign for the change-making event under this years Unconventional theme.

Now more than ever, with the world at an unprecedented crossroad of identity, the need for action is vitally important. Together with TEDxSydney, Leo Burnett is committed to providing change-makers with a stage to assist in their success and growth into the future, while giving people an opportunity to engage with this positive change in action.

Says Pete Bosilkovski, CEO, Leo Burnett, Sydney: We are excited to be partnering with such a like-minded, progressive and empowering organisation as TEDxSydney. Our shared values and philosophies around bringing people together and driving positive change through embracing connected thinking, creativity and innovation makes this a very synergistic and powerful partnership.

Says Stuart Buchanan, head of marketing, TEDxSydney: Were thrilled to be able to partner with Leo Burnett, Sydney for this years TEDxSydney. This years event is the biggest yet, and we wanted to make sure we had the best thinkers and creatives on our side as we moved through this exciting phase of growth. The team at Leo Burnett have been terrific to work with. Their strategic insights have already revitalised our thinking and helped shape our overall approach to the 2017 event. Their enthusiasm for the mission of TEDxSydney is refreshing and very infectious.

TEDxSydney 2017 will be held at ICC Sydney, Darling Harbour, on Friday 16 June.
| BY Kim Shaw |

Facebook today announced that Will Easton will be returning to the role of Managing Director of its ANZ business, effective September. Easton was previously Facebooks Head of Emerging Markets for Asia Pacific, based in Singapore, for two years. In that role, he oversaw some of the biggest markets in Asia Pacific.

Prior to that, he was based in Sydney as MD of Australia and New Zealand for two years. Before joining Facebook, he was MD of Mobile (Asia Pacific) for Google.

Says Dan Neary, VP (APAC) for Facebook: Will is a highly respected leader within Facebook, having previously led our AUNZ business and more recently, successfully scaling our operations in some of our biggest markets across South East Asia and India. I couldnt be more excited with the announcement that Will Easton will be taking on the role of Managing Director for ANZ. Australia and New Zealand continue to be very important priorities for Facebook and I am very confident through Wills leadership and the partnership and support of the local team, that we will continue to add significant incremental value to our users, community and partners.
| BY Lynchy |

Marthinus Strydom (pictured) is Global Creative Leader for Team GSK at Grey Group Singapore, here he looks at Micro-Philosophy: An article on creative insights.

Micro-philosophy is what creatives and planners spend their time doing, in my opinion. We hunt for small truths. The big ones are covered by much, much smarter people that dont work in advertising: Aristotle, Adam Smith, Chomsky etc. These people deal with the insights that shape society. We advertising folk work with the much smaller ones, the truth crumbs.

The thing about truth is that even in small quantities it can be very unifying. Millions of people will respond with a nod if you present them with a small truth in the shape of a Snickers commercial for example. Youre not you when youre hungry. A global campaign that works in any market based on 6 words that capture a universal truth. Local market versions (all original executions, not adaptations) exist from the U.S. to Thailand. Millions of production and media dollars, signed off thanks to a tiny truth.

Under Armours Michael Phelps commercial that ended with the line Its what you do in the dark that puts you in the light. is another recent example. I have no knowledge regarding the birth of these lines, but I like to imagine that it started with a copywriter and an art director stroking their chins over flat whites and moleskin notepads, micro-philosophising the afternoon away.

In the Snickers example, they found a universal insight regarding hunger. Hunger makes us weak/tired/frustrated/grumpy/diva-ish/etc. In the Under Armour example, they looked at the un-pretty side of being a champion athlete. At what you have to do between the lime lights. Its true for anyone who achieves something. The prelude to achievement is gritty, not pretty, but necessary.

Incidentally, theres a video on YouTube of Phelps and his girlfriend being shown the commercial for the first time in the editing suite. His girlfriend spontaneously starts crying. When prompted, she clarifies her tears by saying that she could see his sacrifice, there, on the screen. Even Phelps was choked up. A bunch of advertising creatives had shone a light inside him and captured something personal.

In this way, in my opinion, advertising validates itself, elevating from salesmens clamour to pop-culture contributor. The salesmens clamour by the way, the commercials that really annoy us, the stuff that feels like, and is, an intrusion, is largely devoid of even the smallest granule of truth.

Think of a haircare commercial, you know the type, where a perfect human with perfect hair talks about the 7 signs of luscious hair. No truth, just wall-to-wall superlatives. There is nothing to believe because it is totally unbelievable, from the unachievable lustre to the miracle ingredients twirling in 3D before our eyes. It tries so hard to be heard but it comes across as, well lies. Or over promise.

Now look at what Pantene is doing in some of their best work. Strong is beautiful. Female empowerment. The Superbowl commercial, Dad dos, was born from the planning insight that girls who spend quality time with their dads grow up to be stronger women. A small, powerful truth that you can again spread around the world.

You do not really need to research this stuff. These truths already exist in all of us. It just takes a micro-philosopher and his/her tiny torch to shine a light on it. You can hear it for the first time and get it, because its true. You dont need to go straight to research to validate it. You need to go straight to your check book and spend. They really are worth their weight, these tiny truth bombs.

Amazing, the amount of money spent validating whether or not communications connect with audiences when we all respond exactly the same way to something that is true. If you cant feel it in your gut in the boardroom, why should the group respond any differently?

A good place to search for these truths is in the popular philosophy section at your local bookstore. I would seriously add Alain De Botton and A.C Grayling to creative marketing sources. La Rochefoucaulds 16th century maxims are a treasure trove of insights into human nature, some more deeply-cynical than the most jaded copywriter, but oh so very true.

Two examples:

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice

A bit dark he was, but very insightful. A constant pursuit of small truths I find to be a shortcut to great communication. It makes a brief suddenly mean something, it makes heads nod and people grin in creative presentations. To consumers, truth will connect more instantly, more genuinely, and be more widely-applicable cross-culturally than all these constantly repeated, equity-building, templates, logos, and marketing buzzwords combined.

Hence, it is essential for each brand to find its small truth, and explore it. Mine it. Restate it, over and over. Ultimately own it. The old Nike example. Just do it. The mind-set required for victory, broadly applicable to any sporting or training context. Broadly applicable, to life mind you. Said another way by Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.
"If the train journey were able to be reduced in time to anything three hours or less it would be competitive with current transport alternatives so I think with a relatively modest investment in the rolling stock, some signalling improvements and some work that can be undertaken on the line itself you could achieve that reduced travel time."
"Charlie's nan in Sydney found out about a spot on Love Child and said we should put forward for it, which we did, and got it!" Christy said.
"We are trying to look at all opportunities and technologies to make sure our country can remain viable for our people to continue to live there," she said. "Our country's survival is based on people living in the Marshall Islands, not elsewhere."
"It is a real problem that in so many parts of our city here in Sydney and Melbourne, as well, that the people who teach our kids, look after us in the hospital and keep our streets safe actually often find it hard to live in the same community."
But it was not all bad news, according to the Deputy Commissioner's message to his troops; more than 65 per cent of survey participants spoke highly of the support they got from the colleagues and the "cohesion" of the workplace.
The lack of in-house capacity can affect not only the initial process of drawing up contracts but also the oversight of how contracts are implemented. Contracts require payments to be made in return for agreed outputs and outcomes, which the contracting agency must verify. Some contracts are easily administered; for instance, procurement contracts for identifiable pieces of equipment or service contracts for straightforward services, such as cleaning and transport. But others, particularly contracts for providing social services, require the achievement of more subtle outcomes that are qualitative and contestable in nature. For these services, governments have turned to "relational" contracts, which aim to create partnerships based on shared values and trust. In this way, contractors are relied on to exercise their professional judgment and pursue the public interest out of their own sense of commitment to the joint enterprise. Classic examples have been the contracting of church and community-based organisations to provide valuable social services at reasonable cost.
Mr Joyce's office did not describe the framework used to guide its decision when asked, but said priority was given to locations that could facilitate growth of "centres of excellence in a given field".
France-IX, a premier internet peering service provider in France, today announced that it delivered its tenth 100Gbps port last month.

"We are very pleased and proud to have reached the important milestone of ten 100Gbps ports so rapidly after their launch. This milestone highlights not only the dynamism of the interconnection market in France, but also France-IXs maturity level, allowing an effective community aggregation and the development of new services," said Franck Simon, President at France-IX.

From major carriers to content networks, we are helping our members to meet ever growing demand from an online content-hungry public and to expand their capacity in line with future traffic needs without being afraid of reaching saturation point.

The first members to sign up for the 100Gbps service were OVH for France-IX Paris and Reliance Jio for France-IX Marseille. Today, a variety of leading Internet networks have chosen to increase their France-IX peering capacity via 100Gbps ports including French carriers (Bouygues Telecom), high growth international carriers (Reliance Jio), public cloud providers (Amazon, Microsoft), content delivery networks (Limelight), content and hosting service providers (OVH, Online, Yahoo), as well as video game developer and digital distribution companies (Valve).

At France-IX, we focus on how to provide our members with what they need to meet the demands of their customers, from capacity to optimal connectivity and market-based prices, added Simon. Our strategy for 2017 is to anticipate the Internet traffic growth and always meet our members expectations looking for reliable and affordable options. As a consequence, we are focusing on finding new and innovative ways to increase the density of our infrastructure while optimising our costs for the benefits of our members.

France-IX currently has 345 members in Paris and Marseille. In March 2017, Internet traffic hit a new peak record of 800Gbps, representing a 45% annual growth. The France-IX 100Gbps ports are available in all France-IX points of presence in Paris and Marseille: Equinix-Telecity PA6 and PA7, Iliad DC2 and DC3, Interxion PAR1, PAR2 et PAR5, Telehouse 2 and 3, Interxion MRS1 and Jaguar Network MRS01. Provisioning takes on average three business days. The 100Gbps ports pricing strategy aims to satisfy the cost-consciousness of France-IX members offering a ratio of an equivalent five 10Gbps ports.
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Retelit, the Italian partner on the AAE-1 submarine cable, has been gearing itself up for the launch of the 25,000km network between Europe and the Far East in the coming days. And it has certainly been busy  not only has Retelit just unveiled an innovative connectivity partnership with Belgium-based global carrier BICS, but it has also invested in Sicily-based consortium Open Hub Med. Federico Protto, Retelits CEO, explains how these moves will ensure that it maximises its AAE-1 offering to customers.

Q. How are things going at Retelit at the moment?

Quite well. Retelit started a fresh strategy after appointing a new board a couple of years ago, and 2016 was the first time ever that the company displayed operational profitability. We increased volumes by boosting our commercial presence and effectiveness, and at the same time kept at more or less the same opex by being very cost-conscious as we grew. We also saw a bigger demand from the Italian market for ultra-broadband and fibre-optic connections in general.

Q. What effect do you think the imminent launch of the AAE-1 cable will have on the company?

We believe this will be a very good investment for Retelit, bringing a good boost to our volumes. It also gives us the possibility to get in touch with all the other consortium members and players from the Far East and Middle East, which will open up opportunities in these parts of the world. From our side, we can offer partners a footprint with big European players.

Q. How will Retelits recent move to collaborate with BICS boost its appeal once AAE-1 opens for business?

Our aim in working with BICS is to provide a seamless product from all the cables landing locations, like Singapore, Vietnam and India, not just to our landing station in Bari on the south-east coast of Italy, but to the main European locations, such as Milan, Frankfurt, London and Amsterdam. At first, we thought about building our own backbone in Europe, but we decided that would be very capex-intensive. BICS is a leading player with an excellent network and presence, so we felt our best answer was to partner with them. Its a very strong partnership, in that its really a joint end-to-end backhaul product between us and BICS.

Q.Why did Retelit join the Open Hub Med consortium?

This gives us the possibility to cross-connect between AAE-1 and other submarine cables landing in Sicily, where this consortium of industry players is located. It allows us to offer a diverse submarine and terrestrial path of cables in southern Italy: one landing in Bari and travelling north via our own network and the agreement with BICS to reach the digital hubs in Europe, the other landing in Sicily and the possibility of using our or someone elses network. We believe that southern Italy can be a competitive and secure alternative to the route via Marseille. At the moment, a lot of Mediterranean traffic is landing in Marseille because of its openness and good infrastructure. However, it is now a little crowded and traffic coming from the east also needs to go 1,000 submarine kilometres more to reach that location than Italy, so its time to offer the market a good alternative.

Q. With these new initiatives, how well-prepared do you expect to be for the launch of AAE-1, and what are the prospects for the cable?

Our strategy with these moves is about leveraging and exploring the maximum we can get from the AAE-1 cable. And just to give you an idea, we are expecting something like 5-10 million more in terms of revenues from the cable business this year. Of course, there will be some price pressure and competition from alternatives and terrestrial links. However, we are convinced that this is a very good investment for us and that traffic demand will increase more and more in many of the areas of the world that the network addresses.
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 ...
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 seas and oceans are the origin of all life and vital to the future of humanity. How can ocean resources be used in a sustainable manner? What are the effects of rising sea temperatures and acidification? What can we do to tackle the pollution of the seas? These are only some of the questions that researchers of today are seeking to answer.

An official invite has been extended by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) calling out for international science journalists to register for a press tour to Germany for marine research from 22 to 27 October 2017.

What is the press tour about?

The press tour picks up the topic of the German Science Year 2016*17 of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and sets out to show what marine researchers in Germany are working on.

Dates to remember

Application Deadline: Wednesday, 31 May 2017, 23.59 pm (CET).

Successful applicants selected for the 15 member delegation will be notified by the end of June 2017.

How to apply for the press tour to Germany for marine research?

In order to apply for the press tour to Germany for marine research, candidates can check out the application form at http://www.daaddelhi.org/imperia/md/content/newdelhi/press_tour_seas_and_oceans_2017.pdf

Also Read:Study in Canada With Hawirko Roma Zenovea Graduate Scholarship
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem described the U.S. border with Mexico as a war zone last year when she sent dozens of state National Guard troops there. Noem said theyd be on the front lines of stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers. But newly released records from the National Guard show that in their two-month deployment, the South Dakota troops didnt seize any drugs and sometimes went days without encountering any migrants at all. Noem justified the deployment and a widely criticized private donation to fund as a state emergency because of drugs making their way across the southern border to South Dakota. But the records cast doubt on whether the deployment was effective in addressing that.
If you cant wait to get your hands on the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, youve probably already thought about securing your place in line for one of the 3,000 units that will be offered in the United States.



Fans might want to hold off though as Roadshow is reporting a handful of dealers are accepting deposits even though they shouldnt be. As FCAs Head of Passenger Car Brands in North America, Tim Kuniskis, explained Technically, no one should be taking any deposits. They cant physically take an order, and they shouldnt be taking any deposits.

Kuniskis went on to say order books havent opened yet and dealers dont know how the company is planning to allocate cars. This could leave some customers thinking theyve secured a spot when, in relatively, theyve handed over their money for nothing.

Of course, this hasnt stopped dealers and Kuniskis admitted hes heard stories about dealerships taking deposits. This is particularly concerning as the company faced a similar problem with the Challenger Hellcat and a number of customers were upset when they were told their deposit wasnt any good.

The news isnt all bad as pricing and ordering information is expected to be released next month. In the meantime, potential buyers should probably just wait a little longer.

Photo Gallery
A silver Ford Mustang has split in half and been absolutely destroyed following a crash in Palmdale, California.



Witnesses of the crash claims that the muscle car was street racing a white Mustang when the duo were forced to slam on their brakes as they approached a red light.

Fox 11 Los Angeles reported that the white Mustang involved in the street race managed to fishtail through traffic and drove away. However, the silver pony car was T-boned by a Mercedes-Benz and pushed into a wooden pole where it split in half.

Those involved in the crash were taken to hospital shortly after the passenger of the Mustang left in a critical condition.

VIDEO
The modern day Fiat 500 has its roots deeply buried into the 600, but few remember that Seat used to produce its own version of the vehicle, under license by the Italian automaker.



Dubbed the Seat 600, it was made in nearly 800,000 units, and it was so popular in its second year of assembly that the company had to multiply its production sixfold.

With the city car blowing 60 candles off its birthday cake, the Spanish manufacturer decided to celebrate its anniversary by restoring a Convertible that had been sitting for the past 25 years. 1,500 man-hours later, a team of 30 people completed a full restoration.

One of the greatest challenges included tracking down more than 1,000 original parts that were changed, but the result is worth it, as the 600 is almost better than when it originally left the factory, according to the brands engineer at the Technical Center, Angel Lahoz, who was responsible for the project.

Some of the features that stand out are the light blue exterior, which required 15 liters of paint, the exclusive fabric that was made from 50 meters of material, the manually operated roof, and original steering wheel.

And since its uncommon to bring a Seat 600 Convertible back to life, the carmaker has it on display at Automobile Barcelona, where it will remain until May 21.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO
An Ireland-Canada-Luxembourg co-production, Breadwinner also has involvement from Canadas Aircraft Pictures and Luxembourgs Melusine Productions, and is being produced in association with Angelina Jolies Jolie Pas Productions. The film also marks the first time that GKIDS is serving in a producing and financing capacity on a feature film, in addition to its previous role as distributor.

Breadwinner is produced by Aircraft Pictures Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen, Cartoon Saloons Tomm Moore and Paul Young, and Melusine Productions Stephan Roelants. It is executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer, Mimi Polk Gitlin, Jon Levin, Regina K. Scully, Frank Falcone, Mary Bredin, Cartoon Saloons Gerry Shirren, and GKIDS Eric Beckman and David Jesteadt.

I am proud to be a part of this beautiful film with this timely and very important subject matter, says Angelina Jolie of her involvement with the project. Millions of girls around the world have to grow up before their time, working to provide for their families at a very young age and in difficult circumstances. They have the strength to do what no one should ask little girls to do. I hope this film is able to bring this discussion to a broader audience. As much as it is an important and very meaningful film, it also stands on its own as a great piece of art. Director Nora Twomey and her team have done something very special. They have breathed life into the characters and paid respect to the subject matter and to a country where women often struggle.

Westend Films is handling international sales.
Photo: File photo The City of Vernon will be installing a rainbow crosswalk on Wednesday.

UPDATED 2:49 P.M.

Due to poor weather the installation of Vernon's first Rainbow Crosswalk has been re-scheduled - weather permitting - for Thursday, May 18, from 4 to 9 p.m.

Vernon will soon have its first rainbow crosswalk.

The colourful walkway is being installed midblock on 30 Avenue, between 33rd and 34th streets Wednesday, May 17, from 4-9 p.m.

Preparation work, including removal of the existing crosswalk and pressure washing, will occur Tuesday May 16 from 5-8 p.m.

Until 6 p.m., 30 Avenue will remain open with single-lane alternating traffic and on-street parking will remain available for businesses. After 6 p.m., 30 Avenue will be closed midblock.

In October, 2016, Vernon city council supported having the crosswalk installed, a move that was welcomed by the Okanagan Pride Society.

Rainbow crosswalks have become a simple, economical, physical way for Canadian cities to express support for diverse, inclusive communities, said Dustyn Baulkham, president of the Okanagan Pride Society. We were delighted when the City of Kelowna created the rainbow crosswalks here and transformed a city intersection in summer 2015.

Its great to see another community within the Okanagan taking the same steps and showing support and solidarity for the LGBTQ+ community.
Photo: Jerry Mason

Officials in Lumby believe the worst is over.

While a local state of emergency remains in effect, Ryan Benson with the Lumby emergency operations centre says things are looking good in the community that just a week ago was scrambling to hold back rising creeks and waterways.

Benson said as of Monday morning, water levels were down 20 centimetres, and with no heavy rain in the forecast, officials are optimistic the community has weathered the storm.

But that's not to say they are letting their guard down.

Benson said a tremendous amount of a work has gone into building berms, sandbagging and other methods of holding back the water, and that work will continue.

Initially, the goal was to get as much in place as fast as possible to hold the water back, but now crews are enhancing those fortifications and in some areas the water would have to rise a metre over flood level before there are problems.

We are certainly optimistic, said Benson.

Officials also did a fly over around area hills and while there is still a lot of snow on the mountains, Benson said they did not see any blockages that could build up water and can cause flash flooding if they burst.

People are being asked to stay away from area creeks as they are still running deep and fast.

Officials are also worried about contamination as some of the flood water is running through agricultural areas.

Benson said 24 homes remain evacuated.
Photo: DVA/Camilla Courts Photography

Vernon residents are being encouraged to come downtown and indulge in some culture.

The Downtown Vernon Association's inaugural Downtown Vernon Culture Crawl will provide an opportunity to celebrate everything about local culture in the heart of downtown, through an array of cultural experiences and activities.

The Culture Crawl is a collection of events, venues and suggested activities. With 14 venues and 27 events, there will be plenty to choose from.

The Crawl runs over five days, with each offering something new. Beginning on May 23, kick the week off with the creation of your own origami masterpiece over a cup of blended tea.

Live music starts on Wednesday and carries on throughout the week at multiple venues.

People can also get an introduction to henna or learn the art of soap making.

From wine and appies to Lego parties and ice cream sundaes, the cultural extravaganza will have a lot to offer.

The Culture Crawl will run from May 23 to 27.

Cost will vary upon event and venue, but there will be plenty of free activities as well.

For more event information, go to the DVA website, call 250-542-5851 or email [email protected].

Culture Crawl guides are available at participating businesses.
Photo: Contributed

UPDATE 11:35 A.M.

RCMP have said David Riehl has been found safe and sound.

RCMP are requesting the public's assistance in locating a missing Cherryville man.

David Riehl was last seen in Cherryville May 4. He was seen in Ponoka, Alta., on May 9, prior to being reported missing May13.

Riehl left in his purple 1998 GMC Sierra pickup with Alberta licence plate GA884.

Police are concerned for his health and well-being, and friends and family report it is out of character for him to be out of contact for this long.

Riehl is described as:

Caucasian male

62 years old

Five feet nine inches tall

184 pounds

grey hair

blue eyes

He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact their local police, or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
Photo: Contributed

A Victoria middle school wants to ban cellphones.

A letter sent to parents at Central Middle School states that next school year, students will no longer be allowed to bring cellphones or internet-connected devices to school.

As educators, we are confident it will bring improvement to our students school experience," the letter reads.

Principal Christopher Macintosh says students can currently bring devices to school, but must leave them in lockers.

What we found ... is that many of the students were not able to manage their access to the phones, and it was just becoming too tempting for them to use it at other times while theyre in the building, he told CTV.

Under the new policy, kids would have to leave phones at home, unless they are on an exempt list for special communication needs.

I think its good, it keeps the kids focused on their work, and its hard enough at home to get them off their devices and doing their work and helping out, just being engaged, said one mother.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
Photo: The Canadian Press Vancouver's parks board has approved a ban on keeping cetaceans at Vancouver Aquarium.

A bylaw banning whales, dolphins and porpoises in captivity has been approved by Vancouver's park board.

The board voted 6 to 1 in favour of approving the bylaw at a meeting Monday night, while hundreds of protesters gathered outside to loudly voice their opposition to the ban.

The bylaw goes into effect immediately, preventing the Vancouver Aquarium from bringing new cetaceans to its facility in Stanley Park.

Park board commissioner Catherine Evans said the bylaw allows Vancouver to "catch up" in terms of the ethical treatment of animals.

"It's not only can you do this, but should you do this," she said. "And so, I think, yes we can keep cetaceans in captivity ... but I think we have reached the point now where we know that we shouldn't where there are other options."

But John Nightingale, the aquarium's president and CEO, said in a statement Monday night that the move will force rescuers to euthanize animals that can't be released back into the wild.

"There are no other long-term homes or options in Canada for rescued, non-releasable cetaceans," he said.

Debate over the future of whales, dolphins and porpoises at the facility has been simmering for several years, but heated up last fall when two belugas died at the aquarium after being exposed to an unidentified toxin.
Photo: The Canadian Press Marion Buller is leading the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.

More than 30 advocates, indigenous leaders and family members issued an open letter Monday to the chief commissioner of the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, suggesting the process is in "serious trouble."

The group writes that while it is aware the commission has a difficult challenge, immediate action must be taken to prevent damage and shift the current approach of the inquiry.

The letter, posted on the website of Metis artist Christi Belcourt, says people are "deeply concerned" by a continued lack of communication that's been fostering anxiety, frustration, confusion and disappointment.

The inquiry, designed to cost $53.8 million and take two years, is led by Marion Buller, the first female First Nations judge in British Columbia, with four other commissioners.

The team's mandate requires an interim report on its work in November, but a growing number of family members and other stakeholders say it's still not clear when they will get a chance to share their testimony.

The commission is set to hold its first public hearing May 29 in Whitehorse, but other community meetings won't take place until later this fall at the earliest.

No other dates have been confirmed for additional hearings, an inquiry spokesperson said in a statement last week, and the commission has yet to develop a database comprising the names of the victims.

"There are now about 294 families who have reached out to the national inquiry and identified as wishing to participate," said communications director Bernee Bolton.

Signatories of the letter published Monday say the time frame for the inquiry is "clearly too short," adding the commissioners should formally request an extension from the federal government.
Photo: The Canadian Press Edward Snowden

The families who sheltered U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden in Hong Kong need to be brought to Canada immediately while the country processes their asylum claims, their lawyers said Monday.

Hong Kong-based attorney Robert Tibbo said Canada needs to take this "exceptional" step and allow the seven people to enter the country after the Hong Kong government rejected their asylum applications.

The seven people  four adults and their three children  allegedly helped hide Snowden when the fugitive was in the region in 2013 after he leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance.

They were put in contact with Snowden because they share Tibbo as a lawyer.

Speaking from Hong Kong through a video conference, surrounded by the seven refugee applicants, Tibbo told reporters they have two weeks to appeal the decision or risk deportation to their countries of origin, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, where they fear for their safety.

A non-profit group is attempting to raise the estimated $15,000 to cover the appeals.

Michael Simkin, part of the families' legal team, said in Montreal his clients' file could be handled "within days" in Canada if the government wanted to.

Snowden remains in exile in Russia. He has been charged with espionage in the United States and could face up to 30 years in prison.
Photo: The Canadian Press Syrian President Bashar Assad

Syria's government says it "categorically" denies U.S. accusations of mass killings at a prison, including executions of political opponents, and burning the victims in a crematorium to hide the evidence.

The Foreign Ministry in Damascus describes the U.S. State Department accusations as "a new Hollywood plot" and "lies" that are being used to justify U.S. "aggression and intervention."

The statement was released on Tuesday.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have accumulated evidence of mass killings in Syrian government prisons. However, there hasn't been any substantiated allegation so far of the use of a crematorium

On Monday, the State Department said it believes about 50 detainees are being hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, which is located about a 45 minutes' drive north of the capital, Damascus.
Photo: The Canadian Press Provinces debating how much legalized marijuana should cost.

Governments from across the country will meet next month to debate a key question about Canada's eventual recreational-marijuana market  how much should users pay for their pot?

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Monday that cannabis taxation will be on the agenda when he meets with his provincial and territorial counterparts.

Morneau said the Trudeau government has begun designing a taxation regime  but he insisted the top concerns for Ottawa remain getting weed out of the hands of young Canadians and dealers on the street.

"Taxation will follow those principles, so we will be thinking about how we can ensure that the taxation doesn't generate a black market," Morneau said.

"We will constantly be looking at how we can ensure that we get criminals out of the market and protect youth in the market. That's our goal."

He's been adamant that maximizing federal revenues will not be the priority when it comes to pot and he's suggested the feds favour keeping prices competitive in order to wipe out illegal activity.

A recent C.D. Howe Institute report found 90 per cent of the black market would disappear if pot cost $9 per gram, projecting $675 million a year in federal and provincial revenues if governments only applied existing sales taxes.
Photo: Contributed

The 10th annual West Kelowna citizens survey is in the mail.

The survey is being sent to 1,000 randomly selected residents, who have until May 31 to respond.

The survey is one of the tools council uses in setting budget priorities for the municipality. Its findings provide statistically accurate information about how taxpayers evaluate municipal services.

Residents are asked to comment on quality and importance on a variety of services. The data is then broken down into a graph indicating where discrepancies exist between service levels and expectations.

With nine years of results, trends can be observed.

The survey was created using city staff and supplies, with just printing and mailing costs incurred.

If you didn't receive a survey in the mail and would like to participate, visit the citys website or pick one up at Municipal Hall on Cameron Road.
Photo: The Canadian Press Penelope Daversa, 4, plays with a fidget spinner at the Funky Monkey Toys store, in Oxford, Mich.

Stores can't keep them in stock. Parents are scrambling to find them. And some schools have banned them.

The mania for fidget spinners  the 3-inch twirling gadgets taking over classrooms and cubicles  is unlike many other toy crazes. They're not made by a major company, timed for the holiday season, or promoted in TV commercials. They're more easily found at gas stations or 7-Eleven than at big toy chains.

"It just took off," says Richard Gottlieb, a consultant at Global Toy Experts in New York.

Fidget spinners have been around for years, mostly used by kids with autism or attention disorders to help them concentrate. But they exploded in popularity this spring.

Shannan Rowell, a sixth-grade special education teacher, says that after a weeklong break in late April more than half of her 25 students suddenly had one.

"They seem to be taking over classrooms," says Rowell, who lives in North Grafton, Massachusetts.

Gottlieb thinks it's likely a kid brought one to a playground and the craze spread from there. Recent YouTube videos of people spinning them on their noses, foreheads and shoes also helped.

Helen Holden heard about fidget spinners last month when her 7-year-old twins demanded she stop at a 7-Eleven to buy them. "I thought it was a drink," says the bank vice-president and blogger from Los Angeles.

That store was sold out, and so were several other 7-Eleven locations that she called. The chain says spinners have "been flying off the shelves" since they went on sale in March.

Holden's kids said they needed them before school on Monday so they could practice spinning them. So she signed up for Amazon Prime, paid $5.99 for one-day shipping and had two $15 fidget spinners delivered on a Sunday.

"I totally got suckered by my kids," she says.
Photo: Darren Handschuh

Vernon Fire Rescue crews were called to the Bella Vista area just after midnight Tuesday to douse a car fire.

Cpt. Colin Clarke said crews were called to the 6500 block of Southwind Road.

The car was completely destroyed, said Clarke, adding the vehicle was parked next to a cement wall and no structures were threatened, although soffits on a neighbouring garage were damaged.

It took crews around 90 seconds to extinguish the blaze.

Clarke said they are not sure how it started and the file has been given to the RCMP.
Photo: City of West Kelowna

The City of West Kelowna has provided an interactive map for users of water systems that are currently under water quality advisories.

Currently, about 2,150 water customers in West Kelowna are under advisories. The West Kelowna Estates (1,000 connections), Sunnyside (1,000 connections) and Pritchard (150 connections) water systems, which pull from Okanagan Lake, are experiencing increased turbidity due to spring runoff and flooding activity.

These unfiltered systems are treated with chlorination only. The city will continue to monitor these systems and will advise customers when the advisory is lifted.

Increased turbidity can mean bacteria, viruses and micro-organisms can attach themselves to suspended particles in the water.

It is recommended that children, the elderly, people with weakened immune system and anyone wishing to seek additional protection bring water to a rolling boil for at least one minute or use an alternative source.

Free water is available for West Kelowna, Westbank First Nation and Peachland residents at the City of West Kelownas bulk water station at Shannon Lake and Asquith Roads.
Photo: The Canadian Press Kendra the Siberian tiger

Age-related arthritis has led to a long-standing resident of Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo being euthanized.

Zoo officials confirmed Monday in a Facebook posting that Kendra, a matriarch Siberian tiger, has been put down. They say in a release that the big cat's health troubles had been mounting over the past two years.

The zoo managed to help make Kendra comfortable through veterinary care and some assistance, but her condition began to get worse two weeks ago.

Kendra was born at the St. Louis Zoo in March 1999. She arrived in Winnipeg in May 2007.

Losing Kendra is like losing a member of the Assiniboine Park Zoo family and we are all in mourning," said the social media posting.

"In particular, we would like to express our most heartfelt condolences to the zookeepers who worked with her and cared for her every day. She was loved."

Kendra had two litters during her 18-year life, one of which was in Winnipeg.
Photo: Twitter

Some situations leave even the most seasoned diplomats unprepared. Take a British ambassador's encounter with a wild boar.

Leigh Turner, Britain's ambassador to Austria, says he was left shaken and lightly injured after being chased recently by a hostile boar in Vienna's Lainzer Tiergarten nature park.

He wrote that a "massive" boar charged at him after he chanced upon a group of the animals  several adults and some piglets  in the woods. He said the boar "never made contact," but he sustained minor injuries caused by slipping while trying to climb a tree.

Although Turner says he escaped with only scratches and bruises, his blog shows a photo of what he calls a "pity-inducing splint" on his hand, meant to stabilize it until the swelling goes down.
Photo: The Canadian Press Transport Minister Marc Garneau

Airlines won't be allowed to bump passengers from a flight against their will under a new passenger bill of rights introduced today by Transportation Minister Marc Garneau.

That change is part of a package of amendments to the Canada Transportation Act which also introduces new foreign ownership limits for airlines, requires railways to install voice and video recorders in locomotives and improves transparency and efficiency in the freight rail industry.

Garneau promised the bill of rights last month in the wake of widespread alarm after a United Airlines passenger was seriously injured when he was dragged from a plane in Chicago.

He says his goal with the new legislation is to spell out clearly that a passenger who has purchased a ticket cannot be barred from a plane just because the airline sold too many seats.

"We have all heard recent news reports of shoddy treatment of air passengers," Garneau said at a news conference. "Such incidents will not be tolerated in Canada. When Canadians buy an airline ticket, they expect the airline to keep its part of the deal."

He said there will be minimum levels of compensation for people who voluntarily agree to be bumped from a flight and if airlines can't get a volunteer, they will have to decide if they want to up the ante to persuade someone to get off. The bill will apply to airlines flying within, into or out of Canada.

Garneau said the existing rules for compensating passengers who agree to give up a seat or whose luggage gets lost or damaged are "opaque" to the average flyer and the new rules will make things more clear and let passengers know where to go to seek compensation.

The bill will enable the government to force airlines to create clear standards of treatment and compensation for circumstances such as voluntarily giving up a seat, lost or damaged luggage, delays while sitting on the tarmac and other non-weather related issues. Parents will not be forced to pay a fee in order to sit next to their children and even musical instruments will get better treatment under new standards for transporting them by air.
Madison Erhardt

It's the middle of May, but it's still snowing on mountain highways in B.C.

A number of alerts have been issued since snow fell Monday night. And it's expected to continue falling through Tuesday on the Okanagan Connector and Highway 3.

Environment Canada is predicting anywhere from 5 to 15 centimetres by late afternoon.

A special weather statement said: Snowfall accumulation remains uncertain as warmer road surfaces will allow some of the snow to melt and snow levels will rise to near 1,500 metres by Tuesday afternoon. However, additional snowfall amounts of 5 to 10 cm are possible near Pennask Summit on the Okanagan Connector and near the summits of Highway 3  Paulson Summit to Kootenay Pass.

Over the Coquihalla, the snow will change into rain by this afternoon, causing possible icy conditions.

DriveBC urges motorists to drive with caution, use suitable tires and check conditions before leaving.

Big White saw 4 cm fall Monday night, so expect snowy conditions on Highway 33 as well.

A full list of road conditions is available at www.drivebc.ca.
Photo: River Johnson

UPDATED 1:31 P.M.

Tap water in the North Okanagan city of Enderby, B.C., has been switched to a ground water system as officials take no chances following a fuel spill about 15 kilometres to the east.

A tanker truck spilled just over 4,000 litres of gasoline and 12,500 litres of diesel on Tuesday in a crash near Ashton Creek, beside the Shuswap River.

Interior Health issued a water advisory for those downstream, all the way to the mouth of Mara Lake, including Enderby, the small community of Grinrod and many private users who draw water from the river or its feeder creeks and streams.

A spokesman for the health authority says the truck crashed into a flooded field beside the Shuswap River and it's not yet certain if any contaminants made it into the water, but officials continue to check.

Enderby switched its water intake from the river to the ground water system after Interior Health issued the advisory.

Diesel and gasoline can pose health risks through inhalation, ingestion or skin absorption and health officials say anyone downstream of the crash who sees a sheen or notices an unpleasant smell or taste is advised to immediately stop using their water.

- The Canadian Press

UPDATE 3:54 p.m.

Interior Health is advising residents along the Shuswap River from about six kilometres east of Ashton Creek to Mara Lake to be cautious and check their water for any signs of diesel fuel.

Interior Health said up to 4,000 litres of gasoline and 12,500 litres of diesel spilled into a flooded field adjacent to the river when a tractor trailer hauling fuel left the road.

River Johnson told Castanet shortly after the accident that the trailer was upside down at the bottom of an embankment and she could smell diesel fumes.

The accident happened in the 1400 block of Enderby Mabel Lake Road this morning.

Officials said it is unclear at this time if fuel has entered the river.

Any residents along the river in the impacted area should not use water if it smells or tastes like fuel or if there is fuel visible in the water.

This includes no drinking, showering/bathing or brushing teeth if a fuel odour is detected. Diesel fuel and gasoline can pose a health risk following ingestion, inhalation or skin absorption.

Interior Health has contacted community water system operators in Enderby and Grinrod.

Both systems draw water from the river and the operators are taking steps to ensure their water users are protected.

Ministry of Environment and environmental consultants are responding to contain the spill. Interior Health will be monitoring this situation and provide updates as new information is available.

ORIGINAL

Enderby RCMP are at the scene of a tractor trailer accident on Mabel Lake Road which has the possibility of becoming an environmental hazard.

River Johnson tells Castanet the rig was hauling a fuel trailer which became disconnected during the accident.

It was full of fuel and it's upside down, down the embankment, said Johnson. You can smell fuel, but I don't know if that's from the truck itself or the trailer.

The accident happened four kilometres past the Ashton Creek Store at around 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Johnson said the rig went down a 15-metre embankment, but the driver managed to climb to the road where he was assisted by passersby.

The extent of the driver's injuries is not known, but Johnson said he was moving and talking.

Johnson said the Shuswap River is less than 80 metres downhill from the accident site and she is concerned about fuel getting into the waterway.

Castanet will have more information as soon as it becomes available.
Photo: BCSPCA

A resident of Chase could be facing animal cruelty charges after 59 cats were seized by the SPCA.

The 47 adult cats and 12 kittens were being kept in an outdoor camper and a travel trailer and were suffering from a wide variety of medical issues.

The cats were being kept in a filthy environment, with feces everywhere and high levels of ammonia from the urine, said Kathy Woodward, senior animal protection officer for the BC SPCA.

There was dense mould in the trailer and camper and the animals did not have access to food or water.

Woodward said the cats were thin and dehydrated and were suffering from eye infections, trauma and other issues.

The adult cats are currently being assessed and treated at BC SPCA branches in the Okanagan and Kootenays and the emaciated kittens are currently under veterinary care.

The SPCA will be recommending charges of animal cruelty in the case.
Photo: The Canadian Press Snuggles the mouse recovers after suffering a heroin overdose.

An overdose prevention group on the front line of Vancouver's drug crisis can now include a small, furry mouse on the list of lives it has saved.

Melissa Patton, a volunteer with the Overdose Prevention Society, says she administered the overdose-reversing drug naloxone to the nose of a pet mouse named Snuggles, after her owner brought in the comatose creature on Sunday.

Patton says the mouse had eaten some of her owner's heroin.

She says by the following morning the animal had made a full recovery and was happily chomping away on Cheerios and bananas.

She says the mouse's owner was going in for detox treatment the following day so asked Patton to care for Snuggles.

The society's Sarah Blyth says the incident highlights how the organization's volunteers go above and beyond to look after the approximate 600 clients they see every day.
Photo: Skylar Noe-Vack

Canada's famed Snowbirds acrobatic flying team is cancelling appearances at a number of airshows in Ontario and the United States so some of its pilots can get more practice.

Officials are blaming bad weather earlier in the year for having shortened the team's training time.

The nine-plane team has flown a number of shows this year, including a joint flight with a French team over Parliament Hill at the beginning of May.

But Maj. Patrick Gobeil says it was determined that more practice was necessary after some of the planes were seen deviating from their positions mid-flight.

As a result, the Snowbirds are pulling out from two airshows later this month in Ontario, and four other airshows in the U.S.

The Snowbirds, in their iconic white, red and blue Tutor jets, have been entertaining airshow visitors in Canada and across the U.S. since 1971.
Photo: Contributed Jonathan Bacon was shot and killed in Kelowna in August 2011.

Defence for three men accused in the 2011 midday slaying of Jonathan Bacon spent the second day of trial arguing the proceedings have taken too long.

Michael Jones and Jason McBride sat in Kelowna Supreme Court Tuesday, while Jujhar Khun-Khun watched by video feed from prison as the defence argued their first-degree murder charges should be thrown out, due to the length of time it has taken to get to trial.

Bacon, the leader of the Red Scorpions gang at the time, was gunned down outside The Grand hotel in Kelowna while driving in a white Porsche Cayenne SUV.

Others in the SUV, Hells Angel Larry Amero, Independent Soldier James Riach, the niece of Haney Hells Angel president Leah Hadden-Watts, and another woman, were all injured in the shooting.

Jones, McBride and Khun-Khun were arrested in February 2013, a year and a half after the shooting took place. They have remained in custody for over four years.

Defence is spending the first week of trial attempting to have the charges dismissed based on a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last summer. The R. v. Jordan case determined that a Supreme Court case should take no longer than 30 months from when charges are laid, barring delays caused by defence and other exceptional circumstances.

On Tuesday, defence highlighted that evidence police found on dozens of electronic devices, some belonging to the accused, took up to 23 months to access, following their seizure.

I know it may be tough to appreciate because of the length of the time period, but there absolutely is a sense of urgency, Cpl. Tyler Bell of the RCMP told the court, when pressed about the lengthy process.

The voir dire, a trial within a trial, is expected to wrap up this week, but it's unknown when a decision will be made on the matter.

Submission of evidence is expected to begin next Wednesday.
Photo: The Canadian Press Native groups and their supporters march toward the White House in Washington, in March.

Tribes representing tens of thousands of indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada will be signing a declaration against the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Leaders of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Canada and the Great Sioux Nation and Ponca tribe in the U.S. plan to sign their declaration at a ceremony Wednesday at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the city where pipeline developer TransCanada Corp. is based.

"There is a historic union between first Americans in Canada and Native Americans in the United States," said Casey Camp-Horinek, a councilwoman with the Ponca tribe in Oklahoma. "Long before a border ever existed on a map, a fictitious line on a map, we were a united peoples in our approach to care of Mother Earth."

The 16-page declaration highlights the tribes' treaty rights and their opposition to the proposed US$8-billion pipeline, which would move Canadian crude south to Nebraska, where the pipeline would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would take the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

"Greed knows no limits, and those in the way are simply collateral damage to corporate profits," said Brandon Sazue, chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux in South Dakota and one of the leaders of the event.

TransCanada, which has both a Native American Relations Policy and an Aboriginal Relations Policy, maintains the pipeline will be environmentally safe and will create jobs and boost the economy.

"We understand and respect that there are some who might have different views about this project," spokeswoman Jacquelynn Benson said. "TransCanada is always interested in the views of our stakeholders along the right of way."

A coalition of environmental groups has challenged the federal permit in court, saying more environmental study is needed. Nebraska regulators also haven't decided whether to approve the proposed route through that state.

Tribes plan to use Wednesday's document to draw attention to their cause  possibly sending it to the United Nations  while they also consider other opposition, including protest camps along the pipeline route.
Photo: Instagram Davis Cripe

A coroner says a healthy 16-year-old South Carolina high school student died from heart problems after drinking too much caffeine.

Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said Monday that Davis Cripe had no pre-existing heart condition that might have caused him to collapse and die in a classroom last month.

Watts says Cripe drank a large Mountain Dew, a latte from McDonald's and an energy drink in the two hours before his heart fell out of rhythm at Spring Hill High School near Chapin on April 26.

Watts says parents need to know that while a soda or a cup of coffee is OK for teens, large amounts of caffeine can be deadly.
Photo: The Canadian Press Libby Chamberlain, author of "Pantsuit Nation."

The pro-Hillary Clinton Facebook group "Pantsuit Nation" has nearly four million members  and now there's a book, too.

"Pantsuit Nation" seeks to tap into the energy of the days surrounding the election. The book's editor, Libby Chamberlain, culled through months of posts and stories to find the ones that resonated the most. Chamberlain says an initial backlash over the book deal stemmed from a misunderstanding; all contributors have given permission and were offered payment.

The book was released earlier this month and features some 250 posts from the site, including emotional personal anecdotes. Chamberlain launched the Facebook group after the last presidential debate in October, suggesting that women wear pantsuits to the polls to support Clinton.
Photo: The Canadian Press Alberta Premier Rachel Notley

Opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion have no power to stop it, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Tuesday in her strongest rebuke yet since the outcome of the British Columbia election cast doubt over the project.

"We understand that some oppose the twinning of the pipeline and I respect their opinions," Notley told a news conference in Edmonton.

"But I fundamentally disagree with the view that one province or even one region can hold hostage the economy of another province, or in this case, the economy of our entire country."

A week ago, Christy Clark's Liberals came out of the B.C. election one seat shy of a majority government, though recounts and absentee ballots could change the outcome.

B.C.'s NDP, which promised to use "every tool in the tool box" to stop the Kinder Morgan project, won 41 seats. That leaves the Greens, which also oppose the development, holding the balance of power with three seats.

"It's our view that there are no tools available for a province to overturn or otherwise block a federal government decision to approve a project that is in the larger national interest," Notley said.

"If there were such tools, Canada would be less a country and more a combination of individual fiefdoms, fighting with each other for advantage."

The NDP premier's comments came a day after the Federal Court of Appeal granted Alberta intervener status in a lawsuit filed by municipalities and First Nations against the Trans Mountain project.

Notley said her government will make the case that it has taken measures to reduce the environmental effects of the oil and gas industry and that it's important for the country that the project go forward.

Both the City of Vancouver and the City of Burnaby, along with numerous First Nations and two advocacy groups, have filed what is now a combined lawsuit expected to be heard in October.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
China Resources Cement expects significant increase in 1H attributable profit

16 May 2017

China Resources Cement said it expects he Group's profit attributable to the owners for the six months ended 30 June 2017 to significantly increase as compared with that of the corresponding period in 2016.



The expected growth was primarily attributable to the higher selling prices of cement products during the period, ET Net News Agency reports.

The average selling price of the group's cement products was HKD291.40 (US$37.40) from January to April 2017, as compared with HKD229.70 for the same period in 2016, representing an increase of 26.9 per cent.

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Cementarnica Usje quarterly profit down 35%

16 May 2017

Macedonia's sole cement producer, Cementarnica Usje, said its net profit fell 35 per cent YoY to MKD110.8m (US$1.97m) in the first quarter of 2017.



The company's operating revenue declined six per cent to MKD747.5m, whereas operating costs decreased four per cent to MKD562.9m.



Cementarnica Usje AD Skopje, owned by Greece-based Titan Cement Co SA via its subsidiary Titan Cement Netherlands BV, operates a single 1.4Mta integrated cement works in Usje, some 20km northeast of the capital, Skopje.

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Raysut receives offer for its share in Oman Portuguese Cement Products

16 May 2017

Raysut Cement has received an offer for its share in Oman Portuguese Cement Products from a local company, the producer disclosed in a filing to the Muscat Securities Market on Monday.

As part of a diversification strategy, in 2001 Raysut moved into ready-mix concrete and other cement products through its 50 per cent ownership in Oman Portuguese Cement.



"We would like to inform our shareholders that Raysut Cement Co SAOG has received an offer from one of the local companies to buy the share of Raysut Cement Co SAOG in Oman Portuguese Cement products LLC," Mohammed Ahmed Omar Aideed, acting CEO of Raysut said. No further details of the offer were disclosed.



Raysut Cement has also recently entered into a joint venture with Oman Cement and under the name Al Wusta Cement Company. The new firm is studying proposals to establish a new plant in the Duqm Special Economic Zone.

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Semen Indonesia plans to raise IDR3tn from bond sale

16 May 2017

Semen Indonesia has announced a plan to raise IDR3trn (US$225.6m) from a bond sale to refinance debt of its subsidiary PT Semen Tonasa and increase working capital, according to local press reports.

The bond, with a five-year tenure and eight per cent to 8.8 per cent annual coupon rate, is the first tranche of its planned bond issuance under the shelf registered scheme totalling IDR8trn in the next few years.



"With the optimism that the economy will be better in 2018, we have decided to issue the bond now to improve the firm's performance," finance director, Darmawan Junaidi, told the Jakarta Post.

The company also aims to double the contribution of its non-cement businesses plans to sustain profitability. Company president director, Rizkan Chandra, said the state-owned firm would enlarge its non-core businesses, such as its cement packaging unit, ready-mixed concrete business, GGBS and logistics business. They are expected to contribute a cumulative 20 per cent of the total firm's revenue, from 10 per cent currently. "We are not a cement company anymore, but rather a building material company. That's why we are looking to expand our non-cement business," the Jakarta Post quoted him as saying.

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Marine specimens, such as a sponge shown here, are collected and brought back to the laboratory of University of Guam Professor Dr. Jason Biggs for preservation, cataloging, and further study.

A Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego-led research team discovered for the first time that a common marine sponge hosts bacteria that specialize in the production of toxic compounds nearly identical to man-made fire retardants.

The new findings put the research team one step closer to unraveling the mystery of this powerful group of chemical compounds, known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), in the marine environment. PBDEs are a subgroup of brominated flame retardants that are combined into foam, textiles, and electronics to raise the temperature at which the products will burn. These man-made industrial chemicals are powerful endocrine disruptors that mimic the activity of the human body's most active thyroid hormone.

Vinayak Agarwal, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps, picked up a cold case first started nearly 50 years ago by Scripps chemist John Faulkner, an early pioneer in the study of natural products from the sea, to continue the investigation into the source of these toxic compounds that are found in large quantities in the world's oceans.

"For the first time we were able to conclusively show that genes and enzymes produced in bacteria from sponges are responsible for the production of these compounds toxic to humans," said Agarwal, co-first author of the paper along with Scripps PhD student Jessica Blanton.

The study was part of the National Science Foundation (NSF)/ National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-funded Center for Oceans and Human Health research being conducted at Scripps.

In 2014, Agarwal and colleagues at Scripps Oceanography were the first to discover that unrelated free-living marine bacteria produce these fire retardant compounds naturally, albeit in very small quantities.

In this new study, the researchers employed two modern-day techniques--genome "mining" pioneered by Scripps marine chemist Brad Moore and an environmental DNA sequencing approach pioneered by Scripps biologist Eric Allen--to take the investigation a step further and identify the specific genes and enzymes involved in the overproduction of the toxic molecules in sponges.

Marine sponges obtain food and oxygen by filtering seawater through the pores and channels in their bodies. This constant water flow means that these immobile animals host many bacteria, viruses, and fungi in their complex microbiomes.

The research team collected 18 sponge samples for the study during two research expeditions to Guam. They then isolated the various components of this complex mixture of organisms from the sponge's tissues to identify the specific genes and enzymes that code for the production of PBDEs.

"For many years scientists were finding clues that suggested nature was making these compounds," said Bradley Moore, a professor at the Scripps Center of Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego, and a senior author of the study. "Now that we understand how they are produced in the marine environment, we are exploring why they exist, and the human health concerns associated with them."

Moore's genome "mining" approach along with Allen's metagenomic sequencing gives scientists a way to connect the natural chemicals produced by organisms back to the enzymes that construct them.

The study was a unique collaboration among chemists and biologists at UC San Diego and elsewhere.

"This study is a powerful combination of chemical, biological and environmental research," said Henrietta Edmonds of the NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, which supported the research. "It has the potential to help us understand the production, fate and health consequences of natural and pollutant compounds in the marine environment."

"We care about naturally produced PBDEs because they end up in the food chain," said Frederick Tyson, Ph.D., of the NIEHS, which helped to fund the research. "Preliminary data from this research team suggest that some naturally occurring PDBEs may be even more toxic than those that are man-made, so we need to develop a better understanding of these compounds."

These ocean-dwelling microbes have been found in habitats as diverse as sea grasses, corals and whales.

The next step of the investigation for the researchers is to mine the genes and enzymes in other marine hosts to find out what other organisms are making similar toxic compounds and why.
Fragments of extremely hot matter, produced in the collision of heavy atomic nuclei at the SPS accelerator at the European CERN centre, move away from each other at high velocities, forming streaks along the direction of the collision.

At very high energies, the collision of massive atomic nuclei in an accelerator generates hundreds or even thousands of particles that undergo numerous interactions. At the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, Poland it has been shown that the course of this complex process can be represented by a surprisingly simple model: extremely hot matter moves away from the impact point, stretching along the original flight path in streaks, and the further the streak is from the plane of the collision, the greater its velocity.

When two massive atomic nuclei collide at high energies, the most exotic form of matter is formed: the quark-gluon plasma behaving like a perfect fluid. The theoretical considerations of physicists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow, Poland show that after impact the plasma forms into streaks along the direction of impact, moving faster the further away it moves from the collision axis.

Collisions of atomic nuclei occur extremely rapidly and at distances of merely hundreds of femtometres (i.e. hundreds of millionths of one billionth of a metre). The physical conditions are exceptionally sophisticated and direct observation of the phenomenon is not currently possible. In such situations, science copes by constructing theoretical models and confronting their predictions with the data collected in experiments. In the case of these collisions, however, a huge disadvantage is that the resulting conglomerate of particles is the quark-gluon plasma. Interactions between quarks and gluons are dominated by forces that are so strong and complex that modern physics is not capable of describing them precisely.

"Our group decided to focus on the electromagnetic phenomena occurring during the collision because they are much easier to express in the language of mathematics. As a result, our model proved to be simple enough for us to employ the principles of energy and momentum conservation without too much trouble. Later on, we found that despite the adopted simplifications the model predictions remain at least 90% consistent with experimental data", says Dr. Andrzej Rybicki (IFJ PAN).

Massive atomic nuclei accelerated to high velocities, observed in the laboratory, are flattened in the direction of motion as a result of the effects of the theory of relativity. When two such proton-neutron 'pancakes' fly towards each other, the collision is generally not central: only some of the protons and neutrons of one nucleus reach the other, entering into violent interactions and forming the quark-gluon plasma. At the same time, some of the external fragments of the nuclear pancakes do not encounter any obstacles on their way and continue their uninterrupted flight; in the jargon of physicists they are called spectators.

"Our work was inspired by data collected in earlier experiments with nuclear collisions, including these made at the SPS accelerator. The electromagnetic effects occurring in these collisions that we examined showed that the quark-gluon plasma moves at a higher velocity the closer it is to the spectators", says Dr. Rybicki.

In order to reproduce this course of the phenomenon, the physicists from IFJ PAN decided to divide the nuclei along the direction of movement into a series of strips - 'bricks'. Each nucleus in cross section thus looked like a pile of stacked bricks (in the model their height was one femtometre). Instead of considering the complex strong interactions and flows of momentum and energy between hundreds and thousands of particles, the model reduced the problem to several dozen parallel collisions, each occurring between two proton-neutron bricks.

The IFJ PAN scientists confronted the predictions of the model with data collected from collisions of massive nuclei measured by the NA49 experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). This accelerator is located at the CERN European Nuclear Research Organization near Geneva, where one of its most important tasks now is to accelerate particles shot into the LHC accelerator.

"Due to the scale of technical difficulties, the NA49 experiment's results are subject to specific measurement uncertainties that are difficult to completely reduce or eliminate. In reality, the accuracy of our model can even be greater than the already mentioned 90%. This entitles us to say that even if there were any additional, still not included, physical mechanisms in the collisions they should no longer significantly affect the theoretical framework of the model", comments doctoral student Miroslaw Kielbowicz (IFJ PAN).

After developing the model of collisions of 'brick stacks', the IFJ PAN researchers discovered that a very similar theoretical structure, called the fire streak model, had been proposed by a group of physicists from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (USA) and the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre in France - already in 1978.

"The previous model of fire streaks which, in fact, we mention in our publication, was built to describe other collisions occurring at lower energies. We have created our structure independently and for a different energy range", says Prof. Antoni Szczurek (IFJ PAN, University of Rzeszow) and emphasizes: "The existence of two independent models based on a similar physical idea and corresponding to measurements in different energy ranges of collisions increases the probability that the physical basis on which these models are built is correct".

The Cracow fire streak model provides new information on the expansion of quark-gluon plasma in high energy collisions of massive atomic nuclei. The study of these phenomena is being further extended in the framework of another international experiment, NA61/SHINE at the SPS accelerator.
Drivers can now use WageWorks pre-tax commuting benefits for on-demand parking through SpotHero, the Chicago-based parking spot reservation app.

The company on Tuesday announced a partnership with commuter benefits administrator WageWorks, which administers pretax benefits to 6.5 million employees at more than 100,000 companies.

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The partnership lets users reserve daily parking near their jobs using SpotHero's mobile app, which monitors parking locations and automatically pays with a user's WageWorks account if they're parking near their job.

More employees are switching between different modes of transportation such as public transit, ride-hailing or driving  negating the need to prepay for monthly access to a garage or parking lot, said Elan Mosbacher, vice president of strategy and partnerships for SpotHero.

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"This will enable us to serve more people driving to work, looking to figure out how to save on their commute," Mosbacher said.

SpotHero's app lets users find parking garages, compare rates and book spots in advance at more than 5,000 garages and lots in more than 47 cities.

Users can designate up to $255 each month pretax to pay for parking near their workplaces, or near transit systems that connect to their workplaces.

SpotHero charges a user's pretax debit card whenever they reserve a qualifying spot. If the spot is outside that area, the company automatically uses a different payment source, Mosbacher said.

Competitor ParkWhiz said its customers have been using pretax funds to pay for parking since 2015, and touted the option on its website in February. It has not announced any formal integrations with benefits managers.

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

Twitter @cherylvjackson

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Aldi, one of the fastest growing grocery chains in the U.S., plans to spend about $180 million remodeling 130 of its 150 Chicago-area stores by 2020  part of a broader effort to move its no-frills model into modern times.

The stores will be brighter, more contemporary in design, and in some cases, slightly larger, up to about 13,000 square feet, to allow for an expansion of store-branded products marketed as natural and organic. Nationally, Aldi also intends to grow from 1,600 to 2,000 stores in the next three years. Traditionally known as a discounter, Aldi hopes its fresh look appeals to new and old customers alike.

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"I've worked for Aldi for 22 years and it's amazing how the company's changed, certainly our offering for the customers. ... The customers definitely want more fresh, healthier alternatives and this expansion is going to help us with that," said Heather Moore, Aldi division vice president, during a recent tour of the Horner Park store near the intersection of Montrose and Western avenues, a new store that illustrates some of the changes coming to other locations.

As she walked the store, Moore pointed out Aldi's Simply Nature product line, which includes about 200 items made without artificial ingredients. The produce section  like the beer and wine selection  was also notably larger than in older Aldi stores, while still relatively modest compared with a Jewel-Osco or a Mariano's.

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And the prices were indeed low: $1.18 for a 2-pound bunch of organic bananas, for example, or $5.49 for a 3-pound bag of organic Fuji apples. This is where Aldi believes it can win: organic food and premium-branded private label products sold cheap.

"All customers want to eat healthy, eat well and save a lot of money," Moore said.

In recent years, traditional grocery stores have lost customers to upscale stores, like Whole Foods Market, and discounters, like Aldi and Trader Joe's. Nationally, Aldi's retail sales grew at a compound annual growth rate of 7.2 percent from 2011 to 2016, according to sales data from Euromonitor International.

Aldi, a German company with U.S. headquarters in Batavia, had a market share in the Chicago area of about 4.4 percent last year, a slight decline from 4.7 percent the previous year, according to market share data from Chain Store Guide.

Moore declined to provide revenue or profit figures for the privately held company, but said same-store sales  a common measure of a retail chain's financial health  are growing in the Chicago market.

Tim Barrett, senior analyst of retailing for Euromonitor, said Aldi is shifting from being a "hard discounter" to a "soft discounter," by revamping stores, adding premium products and increasing marketing in some areas.

"They've been doing this so long, they probably have a good idea how much they can sacrifice in terms of profit margins," Barrett said.

Though Walmart is Aldi's most direct competitor on price, traditional grocery stores likely will end up losing the most market share as Aldi continues to grow, Barrett said.

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Even as Aldi changes, shoppers won't find much in the way of the prepared food experience valued by retailers like Whole Foods, Mariano's and even Jewel-Osco.

The Aldi model still depends on low labor costs. Products still are sold directly out of shipping boxes on the shelves. Much of the produce, apples for example, still is sold by the bag. Customers still pay a quarter to liberate a shopping cart and get their quarter back upon returning the cart.

"This is a really simple format and this is how we keep the prices low," Moore said.

The brighter stores and larger selection could help the chain continue to succeed in the fiercely competitive grocery industry, particularly as Lidl, one of Aldi's chief rivals in Europe, open its first U.S. stores on the East Coast this summer, said Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a Chicago-based retail consulting firm.

"Aldi is one of the few good stories in retail right now, frankly," Stern said.

gtrotter@chicagotribune.com

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Reyes Holdings, the parent company of Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution, has signed a letter of intent with the Coca-Cola Co. to distribute its bottled products, including Fanta, Dasani and other brands, in California and Nevada. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

The Rosemont company that distributes Coca-Cola products throughout the Midwest is expanding its Coke bottling territory.

Reyes Holdings, the parent company of Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution, has signed a letter of intent with the Coca-Cola Co. to distribute its bottled products, including Fanta, Dasani and other brands, in California and Nevada. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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The negotiations are still in their early stages, said Scott Leith, spokesman for Coca-Cola North America. The companies must next reach a definitive agreement before closing.

Reyes, which has holding companies that supply beer and distribute to McDonald's, first signed a letter of intent with Coca-Cola in early 2014 to become the company's bottling and distribution partner in the Midwest. That deal closed in mid-2015.

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Reyes said in an emailed statement that it would work with Coca-Cola to "close this transaction as expeditiously as possible."

The new deal would expand Reyes' Coca-Cola distribution territory to parts of eight states and includes Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.

The agreement is part of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola's plan to refranchise all of its U.S. bottling territories by the end of 2017. So far, about 80 percent of that plan is complete, Leith said.

Reyes was the 12th-largest privately held company in the U.S. last year, according to Forbes magazine. The company, with operations around the world, delivers more than 950 million cases of beverage and food products each year.

amarotti@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @AllyMarotti
More than 200,000 Illinois Medicaid beneficiaries are about to see a major shake-up of the program, with several insurers now out of the running to be part of Gov. Bruce Rauner's overhaul plan.

On Monday, the state released a list of insurers that responded to a request for proposals to participate in the state's re-imagined Medicaid managed care program. In Medicaid managed care, private insurers administer Medicaid benefits, whereas the state administers benefits in traditional Medicaid.

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Four of the current 12 insurers that are part of Medicaid managed care in Illinois  Family Health Network, Humana, Cigna-HealthSpring and Community Care Alliance of Illinois  did not submit proposals by the state's deadline. The state received one application from a company not in the program, Trusted Health Plan.

In all, nine insurers, including eight returning ones, submitted proposals. Rauner has said he plans to narrow the program to no more than seven insurers.

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He also plans to expand Medicaid managed care programs to cover 80 percent of those on Medicaid, in every county, as well as to children under the care of the Department of Children and Family Services. Now, about two-thirds of all Illinois residents on Medicaid  about 2 million people  are in Medicaid managed care programs.

Rauner announced the overhaul in February, saying the changes would streamline the program's administration and improve health care for many of the state's poorest residents. He said the reorganized program would focus more on coordinating care for patients and paying doctors and hospitals for results rather than just for services.

Felicia Norwood, director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, has said that narrowing the number of companies would eliminate some of the administrative headaches the program has created for providers and be less confusing for patients.

Before Rauner announced the overhaul in February, some central Illinois hospitals had already dropped out of Medicaid managed care plans, leaving Medicaid beneficiaries in some counties without options.

Some state officials and lawmakers have criticized the revamp.

State Comptroller Susana Mendoza wrote a letter to Rauner earlier this month expressing concern, writing that the proposal would cost the state as much as $9 billion a year  likely the largest procurement in the state's history.

"Illinois is in the midst of the greatest fiscal crisis in its history," Mendoza wrote, noting the state hasn't had a budget for quite some time. "We are effectively seeking to restructure the State's largest budget item without a budget. Why are we making this monumental change during this period of unprecedented upheaval?"

Mendoza's office said in a report earlier this month that the shift has the potential to lead to confusion among patients and providers.

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Mendoza called it "troubling" that the General Assembly would have no oversight of the spending.

She also worried that at least one large Medicaid managed care organization, now providing Medicaid coverage to more than 225,000 residents, might have to close, taking with it at least 500 jobs. A spokesman for Mendoza's office confirmed she was referring to Family Health Network, which operates in Cook County, among other places.

Sen. Omar Aquino, D-Chicago, and others conducted a news conference earlier this month in which they alleged the request for proposals was written to exclude insurers that can't operate statewide, like nonprofit Family Health Network.

Aquino also worries Family Health Network's exit from the program could hurt the five Chicago safety net hospitals and systems that he said support the nonprofit: Sinai Health System, Norweigan American Hospital, Presence Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center, Saint Anthony Hospital and St. Bernard Hospital.

"These safety net hospitals are losing out tremendously," Aquino said Tuesday. "The effects that may have on them could be huge. That could be loss of services, loss of employees. They might have to take drastic measures."

But Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, who's supportive of the overhaul, said the Department of Healthcare and Family Services "tried to put this plan together with a good balance between Cook County-only plans and plans that were going to provide throughout the entire state."

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In all, the four insurers that didn't submit proposals now handle benefits for about 250,000 Illinois residents, according to Mendoza's office.

Healthcare and Family Services did not respond to questions Tuesday about exactly how Medicaid beneficiaries may switch plans once new Medicaid managed care insurers are selected.

Attempts to reach Family Health Network and the Illinois Association of Medicaid Health Plans for comment were unsuccessful.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
Although the scheduled nature walks at the recent Earth Day-Green Gary Celebration at Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education didn't materialize, visitors to the annual affair still found much to do.

Youngsters received their paper "passports," which were stamped at the various stations with unique activities around the nature center.

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"We're working with a project for a clean Earth," said Elizabeth Edmond, who brought four children from the Gary Youth Services Bureau. "This event fits right in, and the kids are excited to be here."

Dunes Learning Center naturalist Alana Murray was all set to take a group on the day's first nature hike.

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As soon as the youngsters stepped outside and she began to explain items of interest, a light rain began.

The walk was canceled as the rain began to come down harder. No worries, there was enough to do inside the building.

Art teacher Rhondalyn Cox, owner of Artopia, a local arts and crafts cultural academy, was one of the vendors who offered free instruction to those wanting to learn a new craft.

Knitting needles, crochet hooks and colorful yarn were spread out on a horseshoe-shaped table.

"This is a lot of fun," said Sydney Muhamhad, 9, as she intently listened to Cox and wrapped yarn around a needle. "It really isn't hard at all."

Kentyata Scott brought his daughter Kelis, 7, to the event.

"It's great that they're showing the importance of nature to the kids," he said. "And this also lets us know what's available in this area."

Vendors offering various information about local organizations and events also were present during the event, and six break-out sessions were offered as well.

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Topics covered included beekeepers, biking and bike safety, plants and wildflowers, invasive species, the Tuskegee Airmen, and a water safety class.

David Benjamin, of The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, discussed the latter. The GLSRP's mission is to eradicate drowning by providing public information on Great Lakes water safety.

"If you're in trouble in the water, remember the three Fs  flip, float and follow (your way to a safe path)," he told the audience. "If you're caught in a rip current, you'll waste energy fighting it. Floating takes less energy."

The Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education offers many ongoing, annual and special event activities for the public. Many school classes and organizations visit for field trips on a regular basis.

Nature Hikes in the adjoining Miller Woods trail system is a favorite for many returning visitors. Interactive exhibits inside the nature center and a nature play zone are always at the ready.

The building is named after Paul H. Douglas, an Illinois senator who was instrumental in creating the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

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For more information, call (219) 395-1821.

Sue Ellen Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Executive chef Ross Mendoza, previously of Pump Room and ABC Kitchen in New York, will serve modern takes on luxe classics at the West Loop's BLVD, opening in June. (Photo by Kailley Lindman)

While the "L" tracks overhead don't exactly scream "glam," BLVD will ooze it, if the team behind the project has any say.

Channeling '50s-era Sunset Strip and Hollywood decadence, BLVD is aiming for a mid-June opening, according to partner Kara Callero, who runs the spot with her husband, real estate attorney Frank Callero; and his cousin, Steven Zaleski, a real-estate investor and developer.

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Back in February, the team lured executive chef Ross Mendoza from his post at Pump Room, and he's now teasing out menu details as the final touches on the restaurant get under way.

"This is not tweezer food," says Mendoza, an alum of James Beard Award-winning ABC Kitchen in New York, referring to a particular fine-dining trend of precious preparation and plating. "We want to transport guests to a different time and place with our food."

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Taking more than design cues from Hollywood's Golden Age, Mendoza and the partners consulted numerous restaurant menus, cookbooks and history of the time period for ideas. Some points of reference include Taix French Restaurant, Ciro's, Scandia, the original Hamburger Hamlet, Brown Derby and Mocambo.

Additionally, "American cuisine in this post war period was a time influenced by troops returning from war, who brought with them new flavors and expanded palates," said Callero. Think Pacific islands and Southeast-Asian flavors, but also French and Italian cuisine -- all from countries to which American troops were deployed.

The goal is to refresh, not recreate, American cuisine from the time period, says Callero. "We decided early on we didn't want to just recreate classics from the '50s, things like lobster thermidor," says Callero. "We want to be inspired by those things, but contemporize the menu for our current times."

"Our food will be glamorous and decadent," says Mendoza, "but refined to modern palates, a little brighter. We're going for refreshed classics and experimenting with those global flavors."

The menu is largely developed -- the dessert and beverage programs are still in progress -- and dishes seem a grab bag, but with a method to the madness. "What drew us to the '50s and the concept was that back then, people went out for the design, the music, the drama of a space -- it was more than just dinner. It was an all-encompassing experience," says Callero.

So what does all this mean? Think seafood towers, traditional caviar service, whole loups de mer and suckling pigs, and much more, including dramatic sweets. "I know I'm going to offer a bananas foster and baked Alaska," says Mendoza.

Mendoza has organized the menu into three loose categories, based on size and shareability: Smaller, medium and larger plates, though the latter can act as traditional entrees. "People can come get a snack and a drink, or they can come with friends and party," he says.

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Show-stopping dishes -- the seafood towers, whole animal service -- is a nod to the heaving, jaw-dropping platters of yesteryear, without indulging some of the more novel dishes (savory jello molds, anyone?).

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Other dishes on the menu will speak to the global flavors introduced to Americans at that time, like tempura prawn with decidedly Southeast Asian flavors of tamarind, lime and chiles, or a house pappardelle with oxtail ragout. That suckling pig? Doused in a Cuban mojo sauce and served with sweet peas and fava beans. Representing France is a tournedo Rossini, a throwback haute cuisine dish of filet mignon rested on brioche. In BLVD's case, it will be topped with foie gras and bathed in a truffle sauce. "It's luxurious but not fussy or stuffy," says Mendoza.

It won't all be show (and heart) stoppers  American comfort classics will also be served. "It's a way of showing off dining from that era, but with twists," says Callero. Expect takes on minute steak and potatoes, patty melts, pot pies and even a chef-y update on the Ritz Cracker.

Both Mendoza and Callero insist that the restaurant is a modern look at Hollywood dining, but is not driven by theme and theatrics. As the team gears up for opening, it's just a matter of tweaking their existing plan rather than overthinking things.

"If we had a choice, we'd have a 100 item menu," says Mendoza.

817 W. Lake St.

jbhernandez@chicagotribune.com

Twitter: @joeybear85






Despite a tryout trek out West, a book and direction by no less than James Lapine and a mid-process rebooting that replaced much of the cast and most of William Finn's initial score, the musical "Little Miss Sunshine" never made it to Broadway.

Michael Arndt's justly beloved 2006 movie, with its little clutch of quirky but bighearted middle-class characters trying to help wacky young Olive Hoover realize her beauty pageant dream, surely was a temptation for musical adaptation and anticipatory pre-awareness sold a lot of tickets off-Broadway. But plot-heavy caper movies are tricky to musicalize, especially when they mostly take place on a bus. And memorably quirky characters from film are hard to re-create. Just look at what happened this season with "Amelie,"which closes Sunday on Broadway.

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So the Chicago Theatre Workshop's wildly uneven production is the first time Chicago audiences have been able to see a professional production of this cautionary tale. And since I'm surely not the only rabid Finn fan in town, there will be those who want to head to the Edge Theatre to hear ditties like "The Way of the World," a really lovely song that, like the rest of this Finn score, is not well known at all and (I think) better than reputed.

What will you find? Well, you get a low-budget production from director Maggie Portman that has its heart very much in the right place  and I don't mean that as condescension, since I found myself moved at times. You get a truly terrific leading kid in Sophie Kaegi, who is funny, charming, a fine young vocalist and spectacularly unafraid. Good on her.

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But I'm tellin' ya, some of this 100-minute show is mighty rough going.

To put it bluntly, Portman just didn't find a full cast who could really perform this material; she only found part of a cast. Too many folks don't really sing and, well, we're talking Finn here, which is far from easy. A couple of them can't really get a line out without a lot of grumbly fuss and bother. And it looks a lot to me like Portman was so busy getting some of her less-experienced cast members through Sunday's opening night, vocally and choreographically speaking, that she didn't have much time left to shape the whole into the kind of intimate, ennobling and truthful experience for which one might hope.

George Keating, far and away the most experienced member of Portman's cast, tries his best to help in the role of Frank, the sad-eyed Proust scholar. Kyle Klein II, who plays the disaffected teen Dwayne, feels authentic and sings well. And if you are really there for the songs, Greg Foster, who plays Richard, the struggling dad of this crew, offers some very solid interpretations: his version of "What You Left Behind" is quite lovely.

Elsewhere, though, nuance rarely combines with correct pitch. One can only hope another Chicago company takes its time and looks for the sunshine again.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib

"Little Miss Sunshine" - 2 Stars

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When: Through June 4

Where: The Edge Theatre, 5451 N. Broadway

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Tickets: $32.50-$42.50 at 773-999-9541 or www.chicagotheatreworkshop.org

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Huntley Historic Preservation Commission board member Geri Rizzo recently made an appeal to the village board to save the old school house building from a planned demolition later this year.

Rizzo said the architect who designed the building on Main Street, Joseph Mulvey, is recognized for his work in designing the Grand Army of the Republic Hall in Aurora which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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The school building is currently owned by the First Congregational Church who, according to Rizzo, have slated the area for a parking lot. Rizzo said she spoke with the parish trustees and discovered they are willing to sell the building but have had no offers. They applied for the demolition permit earlier this year.

Rizzo then read a letter from architect Brice Alt who has 17 years of experience working with historic homes and who inspected the exterior of the home on behalf of the commission. Alt's letter stated that the 142 year old building was "tarnished by neglect and hard use" but has suffered no signs of structural failure and was built to last.

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Alt's letter went on to say that the interior of the building was in need of significant renovation, but could be restored to residential use.

Rizzo appealed to the village to consider purchasing the building from the parish.

"If the village would purchase the building, I would be willing to start up a foundation and raise money to reimburse the village," Rizzo said.

Village President Charles Sass thanked Rizzo for her work on the Huntley Historic Preservation Commission and for her interest in the building. No board action was taken regarding the building at the meeting.

Village Manager David Johnson said Friday that he had not been instructed by the board of trustees to take any action regarding the building at this time.

As part of National Historic Preservation Month, the Preservation Commission recognized three households in the village for their efforts in preservation and restoration of their historic homes. Each resident was given a Pride in Preservation award certificate for their efforts.

The first home recognized is owned by Jim and Nancy Grimes at 11105 Church Street. It was built in 1915 and was noted for the attention paid to the exterior front porch and windows.

The second property recognized was the residence of Kim and Matthew Watson at 11498 Grove. The home was built in 1925 and has been restored by the Watsons since their purchase of it in 2015.

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The third award went to the Conley family for their home at 11120 Church Street. Originally known as the Butler House, this circa 1893 Victorian is remarkable for its bay windows and a unique casket door that opens to the living room.

Jeanie Mayer is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
The Village of Pleasant Prairie in nearby Kenosha County was preparing to close Monday on its $37.5 million purchase of nearly 460 acres of land from Lake County-based Abbott Laboratories, setting the stage for the creation of a new corporate park in a community that has already lured dozens of businesses across the Wisconsin state line.

Pleasant Prairie won final approval last week from a panel consisting of area taxing districts to launch a tax-increment financing plan to build roads and hookups to water and sewer services, making the Abbott land shovel-ready for businesses looking to relocate or expand.

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The anchor tenant will be the German confectioner Haribo, which will use about 137 acres and build its first North American manufacturing facility, as announced in March by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The plan marks another example of the business-friendly approach adopted in Wisconsin, where officials have used low taxes and incentive deals to attract investment. Walker, who will reportedly seek a third term as governor next year, has slashed income and property taxes and led the state to a low unemployment rate while working to curtail workers' collective bargaining rights and reduce education spending.

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"Our deal is to present a good package where the costs are less than they are in Illinois," said Michael Pollocoff, the Pleasant Prairie village administrator who will retire May 31 after 32 years on the job during which the village nearly doubled its population. "Our business environment is very stable."

The TIF district, along with additions to an already-existing district, is projected to allow Pleasant Prairie to make more than $54 million worth of infrastructure improvements, village documents show.

"Pleasant Prairie and Kenosha have been pretty focused on economic development," said Todd Battle, president of the Kenosha Area Business Alliance, an economic development group comparable to Lake County Partners. "A lot of work is put into planning and building infrastructure, setting up industrial parks, properly zoning, having all the requisite infrastructure and utilities. And there's a pretty good inventory of development sites and buildings."

Tax-increment financing is a mechanism by which a municipality freezes the property tax base in a given area. As the value of the land in the area increases, the tax revenue from the increased value is used to pay off bonds sold to finance infrastructure rather than going to the municipality's general fund. Typically, once the bonds are paid off, the TIF district is retired, and the taxes from the increased property value return to the general fund, which pays for services such as parks, fire and police.

But if the value of the land were to plummet in a recession, village taxpayers would still be on the hook for repaying the infrastructure bonds. Pollocoff said that's never happened in Pleasant Prairie.

"The residents have never paid a dollar on a TIF bond," he said.

The land the village recently acquired from Abbott is part of the new TIF district, which is west of Interstate 94 and between Kenosha County highways C and Q, according to a village press release. Officials have dubbed the facility they are planning Prairie Highlands Corporate Park.

Abbott had owned the land since the mid-2000s and was holding it for a potential expansion. Last year, Pleasant Prairie asked Abbott if they wanted to sell it.

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"In 2005 and 2006, Abbott purchased land in Pleasant Prairie in anticipation of potential future growth," said company spokesman Scott Stoffel in an email. "In recent years, a great deal has changed at our company, most notably with the separation of AbbVie and our purchase of St. Jude Medical.

"The Village of Pleasant Prairie approached us about purchasing the property. Since we have no near-term plans to develop the property, we're selling it, allowing the village to develop the shovel-ready site as a corporate business park."

Pleasant Prairie officials are hoping to build on their efforts at LakeView Corporate Park, which since the late 1980s has brought more than 8,300 jobs and nearly 11 million square feet of manufacturing, warehouse, office and retail space to the area. That development lies on the opposite side of Interstate 94 from the planned Prairie Highlands Corporate Park.

Wisconsin grants manufacturers generous incentives on property and corporate income taxes, and the Kenosha Area Business Alliance offers forgivable loans to businesses that meet certain requirements, according to Battle.

Many of the businesses that relocated to the LakeView development came from Lake County  including manufacturers Wickeder Steel Co., which came from Vernon Hills in 1995; Rehrig Penn Logistics, which came from Gurnee in 1996; and ZF Electronics Corp. and Norstan Inc., which came from Waukegan in 1998 and 2002, respectively, according to a document at LakeView's website.

Hundreds of warehouse and distribution jobs traveled north, as well  EMCO Chemical Distributors, Hospira Midwest Distribution Center and Jelly Belly Candy Co. came from North Chicago, and Volkswagen from Lincolnshire, the document shows.

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And Pleasant Prairie landed more than 800 jobs alone from distributor Uline, which has been transitioning from Waukegan over the years.

"They're moving lock, stock and barrel out of Illinois," Pollocoff said of Uline.

Pleasant Prairie isn't the only Kenosha County community attracting business from Lake County. In October, two Lake County packaging companies announced they would leave for Wisconsin. Lake Villa-based Vonco Products said it would move its 86-person headquarters and operations to Salem Lakes, and Colbert Packaging said it would move 65 jobs to Kenosha. Both companies cited Wisconsin's "favorable climate" for businesses.

A Vonco press release from late last month said the company's new 80,500-square-foot production facility and company headquarters is nearing completion. A hiring event for entry-level positions will be held Wednesday from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. at the Salem Lakes fire station at 11252 254th Court.

Vonco could win up to $500,000 in Wisconsin state tax credits over three years depending on how many jobs it creates, according to a previous Chicago Tribune story. Salem Lakes was also offering local subsidies to support the business park where Vonco planned to relocate.

Kevin Considine, president at Lake County Partners, said in an interview earlier this year that Wisconsin has been "aggressive with the incentives" to attract businesses.

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"You can always go farther out and find cheaper land and lower taxes," Considine said. "We can have sort of a healthy debate."

Considine said he viewed the sale of the Abbott land as the company saying, "We're not going to move there; we're going to stay here."

He added that Lake County's strengths lie in its "deeper talent pool"  it is far more populous than Kenosha County  and its cluster of companies in the biopharmaceutical, precision manufacturing and health care sectors. He said businesses have told him their main challenge has been finding qualified workers and retaining them.

And Lake County has attracted businesses, as well, recently landing Caterpillar in Deerfield when the company decided to move from Peoria. Earlier this year, the state of Illinois announced it had ranked No. 3, behind only Texas and Ohio, on a list compiled by Site Selection magazine recognizing states with the most qualifying new and expanded business facilities per capita.

"Rather than get into the check-writing game, we're focused on building a workforce," Considine said.

lhammill@tribpub.com

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Moran, Dobson collage.jpg

Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran (left) has been accused by her opponent, Republican Shea Dobson, of lying about a police investigation into the theft of campaign signs.

(File photos/Gulflive.com)

OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Ocean Springs Republican mayoral candidate Shea Dobson on Monday accused incumbent Democrat Connie Moran of "lying" and engaging in "political intimdation" and demanded her immediate resignation.

Dobson, speaking during a press conference in front of Ocean Springs City Hall, said Moran had lied about a police investigation into the theft of approximately 50 of her campaign signs, including some from her Washington Avenue home.

"I have evidence of lies, fraud and political intimidation by Connie Moran," Dobson said.

Dobson explained that in an April 23 post to her Facebook page, Moran claimed the signs had been stolen and, in an April 24 post, that a police investigation had been launched.

Dobson filed a public records request to see the police report on the incident on April 26. (Note: all city public records requests are sent to Moran for approval). The report Dobson ultimately received wasn't filed by Moran until the following day, April 27.

Moran's Facebook post in response to Dobson's press conference.

In a response to Dobon's press conference, Moran claimed in a Facebook post she had contacted Ocean Springs Police Chief Mark Dunston to report the missing signs on the morning of April 23.

Dunston told The Mississippi Press Tuesday he did receive a text message from Moran about the signs that morning, but when asked if an investigation was launched at that time, Dunston responded "No."

"The fact is, without a police report, an official investigation cannot take place," Dobson said Monday. "Therefore, when Connie Moran made her (April 23) claim about a police investigation, it was a blatant lie and nothing more than political intimidation by a desperate, out of touch, career politician."

Dobson went on to call for Moran's withdrawal from the race and her resignation.

"Ocean Springs is more important than any one individual," he said, "so, for our city to move forward with a new mayor with ethics and integrity, I hereby demand Connie Moran withdraw from the race and resign her position immediately."

In her Facebook post in response to Dobson's press conference, Moran made it clear she had little regard for Dobson's accusations, going so far as to belittle Dobson's mother's videography skills (the press conference was broadcast live on Facebook) and referring to Dobson' as "Junior."

"Blah, Blah," she wrote. "My opponent has no real strategy except to launch negative attacks. On April 23, I discovered about fifty of my signs had been stolen overnight -- even in my own yard. That is petty theft. My opponent's signs were still nearby. I contacted the police chief to report it at 11:21 am. Over the next few days, more reports came in and I filed a formal police report on April 27. I never lied. Information still coming in.

"Can someone please explain to me why I should heed his demand to resign over the theft of my signs?" Moran continued. "He holds a 'press conference' over this 'fraud', while his mom videos it to livestream? Hi-tech! Remind her to switch off her phone ringer next time! Grow up, Junior."

A message left for Moran by The Mississippi Press seeking additional comment was not immediately returned.

During the press conference, Dobson also referenced Moran's "decade-long record of irresponsibility and truancy" -- an obvious reference to claims Moran is rarely in her office.

"We must always remember that those who engage in unprincipled conduct to gain office will also engage in such activity while in office," Dobson said, adding that if he learned any of his supporters engaged in such activity, he would immediately "disavow" them and terminate any friendship or connection.

Neither Dobson nor Moran faced opposition in the party primaries May 2 and will meet in the June 6 general election. Moran is seeking an unprecedented fourth term as mayor.

The full broadcast of Dobson's press conference can be found on his Facebook campaign page.
After nearly two years of mulling the merger of two economically and racially dissimilar elementary schools on the North Side, Chicago Public Schools announced Monday it will recommend the consolidation of Ogden International and Jenner Academy of the Arts in an effort to "expand academic opportunities for all students."

In a letter to parents and staff, CPS officials said they are supporting a merger of the two schools by the 2018-19 academic year. The move would bring together students from predominantly black and poor Jenner in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood with the more white and affluent student body at Ogden, which has campuses in West Town and the Near North Side.

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Though a finalized merger transition plan isn't expected to be completed until the fall, the district intends to determine how to unify the schools' combined three buildings, which are spread over four miles, according to a district news release. CPS officials say they also hope to address issues including academic programming and staffing levels.

The district plan could be voted on by the Chicago Board of Education as early as February 2018, CPS officials said.

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"Our mission is to provide all children from all backgrounds the best possible education, and I believe that integrating these school communities will strengthen their future and our city's future," Janice Jackson, CPS chief education officer, said in a statement. "Giving all our students access to critical programs like International Baccalaureate will expose them to even more academic rigor, and I know all our students can rise to the challenge."

The district's recommendation to combine the schools follows months of public meetings in which some parents raised concerns over student safety and overcrowding, while others hailed the decision as a first step to solve Chicago's longstanding issue of segregated communities.

The Jenner Ogden Community Steering Committee, a group of parents and religious leaders, has argued in favor of the merger, noting overcrowded classrooms at Ogden and under-utilization at Jenner. To bolster its case, the group found an advisory firm to explore the feasibility of a merger.

The study, however, was criticized by an anti-merger group, Jenner and Ogden Concerned Communities, which has said the findings raise "serious concerns and shows no clear benefit for Ogden families in a merger with Jenner Academy."

Parents and community members will have an opportunity to weigh in on the merger after the district's transition plan is unveiled in the fall.

tbriscoe@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_tonybriscoe
Northwest Indiana's casinos saw their revenues sink in April compared with the same month last year.

The five casinos together took in $80.79 million in April, a 6.9 percent drop from the $86.3 million they raked in during April 2016.

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Dan Nita, senior vice president and general manager at Horseshoe Hammond, blamed competition from video gaming machines in bars and other businesses in Illinois for the slide.

"There are two divergent stories. Table games have been quite stable and grown ever so slightly, but that can't offset the decline in slot machines due to the (video gaming machines)," Nita said. Wednesday.

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Table games at Horseshoe were up 0.5 percent, while the slot side was down 4.5 percent last month, he said.

Matt Schuffert, senior vice president and general manager at Ameristar in East Chicago, said Easter was another factor. The religious holiday fell in April this year and March in 2016.

"Easter is always a slower weekend for us. Without that, we would have been about the same as last year," Schuffert said.

April marked the 20th anniversary for the East Chicago casino, and it celebrated with Saturday blackjack tournaments and other smaller promotions, Schuffert said.

According to the monthly revenues released May 10 by the Indiana Gaming Commission, only Majestic Star I in Gary had an increase in revenue. The casino had revenues of $8.65 million compared with $8.55 million in April 2016.

Ameristar took in $18.16 million last month compared with $21.16 million in April 2016, Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City brought in $13.49 million compared with $14.02 million, Horseshoe Hammond raked in $35.11 million compared with $36.62 million and Majestic Star II took in $5.38 million compared with $5.95 million.

Nita said the casinos in Illinois fared better, down only 1 percent collectively year over year.

"There were some winners and some losers. We've seen in the last couple months that Illinois has fared better," Nita said.

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Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Gary Community School Corporation officials, city officials, and artist Stephan Wanger, third from left, hold up a certificate certifying a broken world record for the Bead Town bead mosaic during a celebration on Monday, May 15, 2017. ( Kyle Telechan/Post-Tribune )

It's official. Gary's Bead Town mosaic is a world record.

While students from Gary New Tech sat eagerly in the audience Monday at the Gary Area Career Center, Mike Janela, of the Guinness World Records, headed to the microphone.

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"This is so much of what Guinness World Records holds dear. Kids, young, old, friends, strangers  bringing people together," he said.

Then he gave the big news. "It's 766 square feet, a new record."

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An estimated 5 million colorful, discarded beads recycled from parades and celebrations in New Orleans went into the mosaic, composed of panels that covered an entire wall in the career center's multipurpose room. It took two years to create.

Designed by Bead Town founder Stephan Wanger, it's called "Life in the French Quarter," in tribute to the 300th birthday of New Orleans.

"Every city needs to do this," Wanger said. "It brings people together."

Gary grabbed the record from the Varingaskolan School in Sigtuna, Sweden. That school created a mosaic of nearly 432 square feet that knocked off Gary's previous Bead Town effort of 384 square feet, set in 2013.

The Legacy Foundation supported Bead Town with grants totaling $42,500, along with $8,000 from the Gary Community School Corp. Based at the career center, Wanger taught students how to clip and glue the beads into the giant mural panels.

"It's exciting. We were dedicated since the beginning of the school years," said BreAnna King, a New Tech sophomore. "He (Wanger) explained the project and inspired us to do it."

New Tech junior Sidney Augustus said he probably clipped a couple of thousand beads during the project and helped set up the room over the weekend.

"I'm glad right now that we finally got this record. It's fun. It didn't really seem like work," Ausugtus said.

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Superintendent Cheryl Pruitt brought Wanger to Gary after meeting him in New Orleans.

"When the curtain is pulled back, you have to think of all the obstacles we had to overcome," she said.

Pruitt said the record-holding mosaic would go on tour, but would come back to Gary.

The world record comes at a time the school district needed a boost. It's teetering on bankruptcy and a state-appointed emergency manager soon will oversee the financial and academic aspects of the struggling district.

Wanger's future holds another stab at a bead mosaic world record, although this time it likely won't be in Gary.

"I feel relief, because I made a promise to this community and I wanted to keep it," Wanger said.

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Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A 64-year-old Chesterton man who pleaded guilty to coercing a 12-year-old girl to perform sex acts with him was sentenced Thursday to more than 24 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen sentenced Willard Abatie on one count of coercion and enticement of a minor. The 292-month sentence includes five years of supervised release, stated a news release from the U.S. Aattorney's office.

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The girl's mother told East Chicago police investigators that she first met Abatie through Facebook in December 2010. At some point after their relationship became physical, Abatie asked her to take nude photos of her daughter, who was then 10 or 11, court documents said.

The woman reportedly told law enforcement that she did take two photos of her daughter as she left the shower, documents said. The woman said she then deleted the photos, although it wasn't clear if she first sent them to Abatie.

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She told investigators that another man from her past came into play at some point, who she met through an online dating site before she met Abatie. She said he professed his love for her, but that she would also pick up money from other people and then send it to him, court documents said.

She would take money on a monthly basis from about 30 people and then send it to someone in Nigeria, documents said. The money flow stopped in January 2014, and the woman told police that the man told her she had to pay $600 a month or he would kill her, court documents said.

That's when she turned to Abatie to help her transfer the money. As payment for his help, Abatie demanded he be allowed to sexually touch her daughter, documents said.

Investigators reported finding six pictures of the woman's daughter on Abatie's phone. He admitted during an interview at the Hammond Police Department he had made the agreement to help her in exchange for access to her daughter, although and he said he touched her "a couple of times," according to court documents.

Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Lake County Sheriff's Department teamed up with other Indiana and Illinois law enforcement agencies May 4 to target violent, narcotics and weapons offenders, resulting in 39 arrests, 10 of those in Lake County, according to a release.

The annual operation, called the Bi-State Blitz, included people wanted for misdemeanor and felony offenses for fleeing law enforcement, driving while suspended, possession of controlled substances, armed robbery, battery, possession of heroin and failure to appear, the release states.

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The sheriff's department was joined by police from Hammond, East Chicago, Whiting, Gary, Griffith, Highland, Munster and Chicago, state police from Indiana and Illinois, Transit Police, the U.S. Marshal Service and Cook County Sheriff's Department, according to the release.

Lake County Sheriff John Buncich thanked all the agencies who participated "to make our communities safer," the release states.

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The sheriff's department reminds the public to report any suspicious activity in the area by anonymously calling the department's hotline at 1-800-750-2746.

rejacobs@post-trib.com

Twitter @ruthyjacobs
Rachel Stevenson and Nicolle Hope, both of Sussex, England, dipped their toes into Lake Michigan's chilly water Monday while sunbathers dotted the sand for some early season rays.

Neither had heard of Indiana Dunes State Park  much less Porter County  before they got the chance to visit the area with 15 other travel agents from the United Kingdom and Ireland on their way to Chicago, where they will share their experiences at a convention with other travel agents who fanned out to other spots across the country.

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"When you think of lakes, you don't really think of beaches like this," Stevenson said.

The dunes are within driving distance of Chicago, the skyline of which was just barely visible from the beach, and can satisfy people who want something different, Stevenson said.

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Hope said her clients would be interested in exploring beyond the city's limits.

"For holidays, we book people who ring you up and say, 'I want to go to Chicago but I also want a beach,'" Hope said.

While only 2 percent of the visitors to the Dunes Visitors Center are from outside the United States, their impact can be huge, especially if travel agents are in the mix, said Lorelei Weimer, executive director of Indiana Dunes Tourism, which hosted the travel agents and planned their itinerary.

"Once you've experienced a destination you have a better ability to sell it," she said, adding people from 52 countries stopped by the center last year, with the greatest number of international travelers arriving from Germany.

The travel agents came to Porter County Monday morning after arriving in Detroit and will be in the county until Tuesday afternoon, when they go to Chicago.

Their trip to the state park included hiking the 3 Dune Challenge, and other activities on their agenda during their visit were a hike at Pinhook Bog in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore; dining at local restaurants; shopping in downtown Valparaiso and a visit to the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University; and trips to Broken Wagon Bison Farm and Valpo Velvet.

"The fact that we have a chance to showcase the area is cool," Weimer said, adding lots of international travelers go to Chicago but don't know that 45 minutes away by train, there's a different world. "It really is a nice blend of both worlds."

Ceri Jacks, a travel agent from Northop Hall, Wales, said she'd never been to this part of the country or the Great Lakes, though 75 percent of her clients travel to the United States.

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If they go to New York, she said, they might also travel to Boston and Philadelphia.

"I try to extend their knowledge and give them more choice," Jacks said, adding if she has a client going to Chicago now, "I might say, 'Hire a car and head out around the lake and see the area.' It's so much easier to do when you've been (there)."

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
The color guard stands watch Thursday as the names of 46 fallen Indiana State Police officers are read during the annual ISP memorial service in Lowell. (Carrie Napoleon / Post-Tribune)

Troopers with the Indiana State Police Lowell post paid tribute Thursday to the 46 officers who lost their lives in the line of duty since the department's inception in 1933.

The sound of bagpipes from Lake County Pipes and Drums Corps filled the background as more than 60 troopers marched to a spot in front of the podium for the annual memorial service conducted at the ISP Lowell post.

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Officers stood at attention and bowed their heads as the names, posts and circumstances behind each death wase read by Capt. David Kirkham, Area 1 Commander, and Lt. Terry Gose, Lowell district commander.

For new troopers Alissa Partyka, of Crown Point, and Regen Smith, of Cedar Lake, participating in the ceremony in uniform for the first time had meaning. Both women, recent police academy graduates, said they attended past memorial services, but this was the first one they attended as a trooper.

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Each night at the police academy, the women said, they would talk about the story of an officer who lost his or her life in the line of duty as a way to remember the fallen and learn. Standing in front of the Lowell post, where they are stationed, with more than 50 fellow officers paying tribute was significant.

"It's different to be part of it in uniform," Smith said.

Partyka said hearing the names and circumstances of the deaths of other troopers was sobering, especially when streets and places she is patrolling came up. She said the tribute helps put things in perspective.

"It just makes it so much more meaningful. We are wearing the same uniforms," Partyka said.

Sgt. Brian Schnick, of Valparaiso, closed the annual memorial ceremony by playing taps. Schnick said he has performed at the service for years.

Playing the trumpet for the post, where he first was stationed as a trooper, helps him unite his two passions, music and police work. Schnick was studying to be a band director when he changed his major to law enforcement, he said.

His first job as a police officer was with the Indiana State Police at the Lowell post.

"It's neat to be a part of the service here," Schnick said.

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Carrie Napoleon is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
The Harvey Park District has been shuttered since early May 2017 following a dispute over who is entitled to sit on the board. The case is currently in court. (Zak Koeske/Daily Southtown )

A recently elected Harvey Park District commissioner with two felony convictions can't take his seat for now, a judge ordered.

Cook County Circuit Judge Sanjay Tailor on Friday granted a group claiming to represent the Harvey Park District its request for a temporary restraining order barring Kenneth Henderson from taking any action on behalf of the district. The restraining order will remain in effect until a scheduled status hearing on May 22.

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During the dispute, the district was closed for several days.

Henderson, 34, finished second out of three residents running for two open commissioner seats in last month's election but his opponents claim that his past felony convictions bar him from taking office. They seek an injunction to prevent Henderson from being sworn in and taking his seat.

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"The District will suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction," attorney K. Austin Zimmer of Del Galdo Law Group argued in a complaint for injunctive relief filed on behalf of the entity identifying itself as the "Harvey Park District" on April 24. "The seating of a convicted felon will endanger the integrity of District financial records and jeopardize its ability to transact business as a public entity."

Henderson was found guilty of felony possession of a controlled substance in 2009, and felony aggravated use of a weapon in 2015, court records show.

Lawyers opposing seating Henderson argue that a temporary restraining order is necessary because Henderson has refused to heed the board's attempts to prevent him from taking office and that he "continues to hold himself out as an incoming Board member and Commissioner."

Its lawyers alleged in an emergency motion filed last week that Henderson and approximately 30 others entered the Park District's administration building without authorization on May 4 with the intention of conducting a special meeting.

Their unauthorized entry into the building triggered a burglar alarm and police were dispatched, the motion claims.

"Trespassing individuals entered and were throughout the building, including conference rooms and offices," the emergency motion states. "District staff are understandably intimidated by such actions encouraged by a convicted felon which, again, undermine the security of both District employees and District records.

"Such blatant misconduct requires the entry of an injunction to maintain the status quo."

The Park District's administration building remained shuttered from May 4  the day Henderson allegedly broke in to conduct a special meeting  through Friday, May 12. It reopened Monday, the first business day after Tailor granted the temporary restraining order that prevented Henderson from conducting Park District business.

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In court Friday, attorneys for Henderson did not dispute that he had been convicted of felony crimes, but instead argued that the entity representing itself as the Harvey Park District and challenging Henderson's claim to a board seat did not have the legal right to do so.

A group identifying itself as "the Board of Commissioners of the Harvey Park District," and composed of Henderson, Barbara Moore and Stafford Owens filed a petition to intervene in the case arguing that they are the true representatives of the Harvey Park District.

Anthony McCaskill, one of the individuals challenging Henderson's right to hold office and representing himself as a commissioner of the Harvey Park District, is not legally authorized to do so, their petition claims.

McCaskill, the former Park District president who lost to Henderson in last month's election, was improperly reappointed to the board in a clandestine two-person board meeting held just days after the April 4 election, their petition argues.

Park District commissioners Eric Patterson and Floyd Coleman, who are allies of McCaskill, held the secret meeting to re-appoint McCaskill without notifying other board members, the court filing claims.

"McCaskill, Patterson and Coleman have used political influence and family connections to manipulate the composition of the five-member Board and control the Park district in direct contravention to the wishes of the Park District's registered voters," their petition states.

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The petitioners argue that because McCaskill was improperly appointed to the board, he is not authorized to conduct official district business and that the complaint filed against Henderson misrepresents the constitution of the park district board and does not reflect its true will.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

None of the individuals who identify themselves as Harvey Park District commissioners could be reached for comment.

Regardless of who truly represents the board, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office has taken the position that Henderson is not eligible to serve on it.

Last week, the state's attorney filed a quo warranto action challenging Henderson's right to hold public office due to his past felony convictions.

In its motion, the state's attorney cites Illinois Park District Code, which states that, "[a] person is not eligible to serve as park commissioner if convicted in any court located in the United States of any infamous crime, bribery, perjury or other felony []."

In Illinois case law, an "infamous crime" has been broadly defined as anything "inconsistent with commonly accepted principles of honesty and decency."

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Thus, the state's attorney argued that Henderson, as someone who had been convicted of an "infamous crime," was not eligible to serve as a Harvey Park District commissioner, and sought an injunction to prevent him from taking the oath of office.

zkoeske@tribpub.com
In addition to Michelle Obama's line, "Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap," we should also think about a few other things the current administration is OK with. They are OK with more pollutants being released into the air we breathe and the water we drink. They are OK with relaxing energy efficiency standards for appliances and mileage standards for vehicles so the consumer will use more energy. They are OK with health insurance companies being able to decide just who to insure and what benefits will be unavailable (prescription drugs, maternity, mental health). They are OK with destroying National Parks & Monuments so corporations can spoil these lands with drilling and mining. Why are they OK with all of this?

El

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Michelle Obama and the Democrats are upset the new administration has pretty much scaled back her school lunch program "Let's Move." For a variety of reasons the program was not cost effective, the kids were not eating it, leading to waste and many were just dropping out. This being true then it needed to be revamped in order to get some results. This country spends so much tax money on programs that have good intentions but fall flat in reality.

Joe

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All I hear is Democratic congressmen claiming President Donald Trump's proposed tax cuts will only benefit the rich. Can anyone name a poor congressman from either side of the alley that is poor. Oops, I did mean to say aisle.

J.K.

President Donald Trump continues to make the mistake of thinking that he is smart enough to lie and get away with it. Trump lies, evidence of the lie arises, and Trump replaces the lie with a new one. When that lie is exposed, the story changes again. When will the Trump voters realize that Trump is not the victim of any so-called liberal media. Trump is not the victim of the Democrats.

William, Oak Lawn

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Gasper, Barial collage.jpg

Trevon Gasper (left) and Kewesi Barial are accused in a shooting and robbery in Gautier Sunday.

(Gautier Police Department)

GAUTIER, Mississippi -- Two teens are in custody, accused of shooting and robbing another teenager in Gautier Sunday.

Gautier Police Chief Dante Elbin the shooting occurred during a drug deal gone bad at the Isle of Pines trailer park on U.S. 90. The 17-year-old victim was shot once in the abdomen and transported by a third party to Singing River Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Narcotics were recovered at the scene and additional drugs were recovered after being thrown from the vehicle which was transporting the victim. At the time, investigators said they had a known suspect and an arrest was "imminent."

On Monday, Elbin announced the arrest of two suspects -- 17-year-old Trevon Grasper and 16-year-old Kewesi Barial, both of Gautier. Each has been charged with aggravated assault and robbery.

The two suspects are being charged as adults and being held at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center under bonds of $50,000 each -- $25,000 for each charge.
Tatyanna Lewis' friends tried to talk her out of the fistfight.

So did her boyfriend, Tyshaun Page, whom 18-year-old Lewis had been dating off and on for about four years. During one of the off times when the couple spent two months apart, Page fathered a child with Chynna Stapleton, 24.

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But the fight, which started as a Facebook feud over Page, turned deadly late Friday night when Stapleton rammed her Jeep into Lewis, pinned her against a tree and then backed up to run her over again, according to prosecutors in court Monday where Stapleton, charged with murder, was ordered held without bail.

Lewis' best friend Jazz Clarke, 17, explained that Tatyanna and Ty eventually got back together and Ty told her he had a baby on the way. It wasn't necessarily easy, but Tatyanna accepted the child because it was Tyshaun's.

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"She always told me she dont want to be part of that, the baby mama drama. She dont want nothing to do with that," she said.

Last week, friends say, Lewis grew increasingly tired of the social media taunts and disrespect from Stapleton. Clarke said she and other friends kept telling her to stop wasting energy on it.

Lewis, the daughter of a Chicago police officer, was in a nursing program at North Shore Hospital in Evanston, was acting as a caretaker for both her aunt and grandma and making plans to travel to her native Jamaica this summer.

And, she got the guy. Page, 20, was talking about marriage  last year he bought her a ring.

But all Lewis seemed to focus in the days before her death was the feud playing out on social media, the way Stapleton pushed her buttons, spread rumors and made threats.

Lewis sent Clarke screenshots of what she wanted to write to Stapleton. By Friday night, Lewis had enough of words and wanted to fight.

She and Stapleton agreed to link, or meet up and fight. They kept posting messages on social media about where they'd meet, which ended up being in front of Page's house near 114th Place and South May Street in the Morgan Park neighborhood, officials said.

Clarke last spoke to her best friend on FaceTime at 11:06 p.m. Friday. A friend with Lewis paused the FaceTime call. Then Lewis began a Facebook Live stream that showed her punching Stapleton repeatedly, according to Clarke, who saw the streaming video and said Lewis chose not to post the footage to her Facebook page.

When the livestream cut out, it seemed like Lewis was fine.

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Right after that, the friend with Lewis called Clarke, screaming, crying and begging Clarke to come help. It was 11:17 p.m. and Clarke said she could never have imagined what happened in those 11 minutes.

After the fight broke up, a bloodied Stapleton had gotten into her 2002 Jeep Liberty with a 13-year-old in the back seat, Cook County prosecutors said during the bond hearing Monday.

Lewis kicked a passenger-side door as Stapleton was trying to pull away, and witnesses then heard Stapleton yell, "I've got something for you," Assistant State's Attorney Jamie Santini said.

Stapleton made a sharp turn, drove the Jeep over the curb and onto lawns on May Street, where witnesses saw her "barreling down on them," Santini said.

Lewis tripped and fell as she tried to run from the Jeep, prosecutors said. Stapleton hit her with the Jeep and pinned her against a nearby tree, then put the car into reverse, Santini said.

Lewis was stuck to the front end of the Jeep, and as Stapleton reversed the car, she dragged Lewis along until Lewis was pulled under, according to prosecutors. Stapleton then stopped, shifted into drive and ran Lewis over with both the front and rear wheels of the Jeep.

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At 11:27 p.m., Lewis was pronounced dead.

A Saturday autopsy found that Lewis died of multiple blunt force injuries, according to the medical examiner's office, which ruled her death a homicide.

Stapleton fled after hitting Lewis, leaving leaked fluids and car parts in her wake, prosecutors said.

Chicago police pulled her over about a mile and a half away, officials said. Officers noticed extensive damage to the Jeep and that Stapleton's face was bleeding. They also saw tree bark on the front end of the car, Santini said.

The 13-year-old in the back seat was physically unharmed, prosecutors said. The teen's relationship with Stapleton or Lewis was not immediately known.

Stapleton has no criminal history, her lawyer, Christopher Anderson, an assistant public defender, said in court. He said that Stapleton was provoked by Lewis' "provocative language" online and in person. Anderson also said witnesses saw Stapleton was beaten up at the scene.

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Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil noted, however, that the fistfight was over by the time Stapleton had gotten in the car.

"Not only did you hit her, you dragged her," the judge said to Stapleton. "All the while you've got a 13-year-old in the back seat. ... You are a danger to yourself and society."

Onlookers in the gallery pounded on the glass separating them from the courtroom as Stapleton was led away after the hearing, drawing rebukes from sheriff's deputies.

Stapleton's father, 46-year-old Jesse Stapleton, declined to comment.

"She's not a monster," he said of his daughter. "That's all I've got to say."

Kuriakos Ciesil made her opinions known from the bench. "It's really sad that it's always women fighting over men. Ridiculous," she said.

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But Page insists the women weren't fighting over him. He said it happened because "Taty was tired of being picked on."

Neither of the women were friends on Facebook, but they could see what the other one was saying, according to Clarke. Some comments were sexually graphic and others were just cruel.

A post on Lewis' Facebook page  her last  at 8:12 p.m. Friday said: "His (baby mama) say she pulling up I'm on the block right now please don't send me off." The post has been shared more than 850 times.

Page said once he realized what Stapleton was doing on the night of the fight, it was too late for him to intervene. He said if he had just insisted that Lewis go inside or get out of there, she would've listened. But it was too late.

"I couldn't even say 'watch out,' I couldn't say nothing," Page said. "I turned back around and she was already to ... you know."

Clarke said Lewis wanted to be a nurse and the pair talked about joining the Army later this year. The two teenagers both came from Jamaican families so Clarke said Lewis called themselves "Jamericans."

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They were both proud to have jobs after school, to have worked to buy cars. When she wasn't trying to pursue modeling, Lewis was the kind of friend who would text "I love you," or "You're beautiful" out of the blue, Clarke said.

Lewis was the baby of her family and the only girl, with three big brothers, Clarke said.

Clarke was grounded over the weekend and after a recent move to the North Side of the city, she couldn't get out to meet Lewis on Friday.

"I feel as if I was there we would never even have went over there because I would've told her, like, it's not worth it, we should do something else," Clarke said. "Because I got a bad feeling about that."

Chicago Tribune's Alyssa Pointer, Elvia Malagon and Elyssa Cherney contributed.

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com

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kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
Former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds fired back Tuesday at federal prosecutors who cried foul about his use of Twitter, accusing the government of crossing lines of its own by needlessly bringing up in a motion months ago that sex tapes had been found on his laptop.

Prosecutors wanted U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman to warn Reynolds about a series of tweets bad-mouthing politically connected real estate developer Elzie Higginbottom  a key witness in Reynolds' trial on misdemeanor tax charges  saying the public statements violated general rules of decorum.

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Gettleman, who acknowledged to not being a "Twitter person," decided against admonishing Reynolds, instead just reminding both sides that they're bound by the rules of professional standards.

"We should be careful, particularly in a case that has generated some public attention, what we say," Gettleman said.

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A check of Reynolds' Twitter page showed he has more than 4,700 followers and has sent nearly two dozen tweets over the past year alleging the government was turning a blind eye to Higginbottom's business dealings and instead filed charges against Reynolds to silence him.

In court Tuesday, Reynolds, who is representing himself, said prosecutors were being hypocritical in asking he be warned about his Twitter attacks. He noted that prosecutors had revealed in a motion in October that "certain sexually explicit videos involving the defendant" had been found on Reynolds' laptop after his arrest in Atlanta in 2015.

To bolster his point, Reynolds read from a Chicago Tribune story based on the revelation that ran under the headline, "Another Reynolds sex tape? Feds say yes."

Reynolds said prosecutors went out of their way to make public salacious details that had "nothing to do" with his case.

"What was the purpose of that?" Reynolds said. "They want me to be held to such strict rules and decorum, but they can say or do anything as lawyers."

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Reynolds was convicted in 1995 on charges of criminal sexual abuse, child pornography and obstruction of justice for having sex with a 16-year-old former campaign intern.

Two decades later, he was arrested in 2014 in Zimbabwe, where pornography is illegal, and accused of making sex tapes, but those charges were later dropped.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barry Jonas and Georgia Alexakis said Tuesday they were simply responding in writing to Reynolds' accusations of prosecutorial misconduct in seizing his laptop.

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They also said Reynolds' tweets were a different issue because they directly involved a witness who will testify in the trial scheduled for September.

Reynolds was indicted in 2015 on four counts of failing to file a federal income tax return. After his indictment, Reynolds alleged at a news conference that the vast majority of the income the government claimed he didn't pay taxes on was expense money given to him by Higginbottom to travel to Africa to set up business opportunities in real estate and the diamond industry.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jmetr22b
Sarah Brazzle thought it was all a joke when three men in masks approached her and a friend as they walked to their cars in the South Loop early Tuesday.



Then she saw one of them had a gun. "If you run, we're going to shoot you," the man said.



She turned and ran anyway. Down an alley in the 2200 block of South Wabash Avenue and around the corner, circling back to check on her friend.



She found him on the ground. He had been shot in the back while trying to run away too.



The friend, 27 years old, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where police said his condition was stabilized.



Police said Brazzle, 24, and her friend had walked into an armed carjacking just before 1:40 a.m. After stealing a gray 2006 BMW, the carjackers decided to rob them too, according to police.



Brazzle said she and friends were headed back to their cars after a night out in the area of Wabash and Cermak Road when they encountered the carjackers.



"I was scared they were going to shoot me," she said.



As an ambulance left with the 27-year-old man, a man on Wabash kept screaming. Around the corner, Brazzle and other people stood outside a lounge.



A man walked past and soulfully sang, "Tell me what's going on."



The 27-year-old man was among 17 people shot across the city over 15 hours Monday through Tuesday  11 of them wounded in just five hours.



 On the Southwest Side's Marquette Park neighborhood, a 28-year-old woman was seriously wounded about 1:30 a.m. in the 2500 block of West 73rd Street. She was sitting in a car with her boyfriend when three people approached and opened fire, striking her in the back and twice in the abdomen, police said. The car crashed into a parked car. The woman was taken in serious condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.



 About 1:05 a.m. on the West Side, a 25-year-old man was shot in the head in the South Austin neighborhood, police said. Officers on patrol in the 5100 block of West Madison Street came across a crowd gathered around the man, who had been shot in the head and was unresponsive. He was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital.



 On the Northwest Side about 11:35 p.m. Monday, a 24-year-old man was shot in the left thigh and was grazed in the neck while standing in the 7500 block of North Kedzie Avenue, police said. The shooter was in a black sedan. The victim was taken to Presence St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where his condition was stabilized.



 About 11:10 p.m. on the South Side, a 22-year-old man was shot in the right leg while in the 6900 block of South Maplewood Avenue in the Lithuanian Plaza neighborhood. Officers responding to a call of gunfire found the man on the sidewalk. His condition was stabilized at Advocate Christ Medical Center.



 In the West Side's South Austin neighborhood about 10:50 p.m., a 21-year-old woman was shot in the right ankle in the 800 block of North Lockwood Avenue, police said. She was sitting in a vehicle when people fired shots at the car. She went to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where her condition was stabilized.



 About 9:40 p.m. on the West Side, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the left foot and leg in the 3300 block of West 24th Street in the Little Village neighborhood, police said. She was walking with two men when a man walked out of an alley and opened fire, striking the girl twice. The teen's condition was stabilized at Mount Sinai Hospital.



 About 9:30 p.m. on the South Side, a 25-year-old man was critically injured in a shooting while walking in the 4800 block of South Paulina Street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. A man, who was on the sidewalk, shot the man on the left side of the abdomen and chest. He was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital.



Residents of the block watched as detectives bent down and searched an overgrown front lawn. An officer placed markers on the grass near the sidewalk stained with what appeared to be blood. Officers also examined a pair of shoes left behind in the grass.



 Minutes earlier in the South Side's Englewood neighborhood, two people were shot about 9:25 p.m. while standing in the 5500 block of South Shields Avenue, police said. The two shooters emerged from a gangway and shot a 20-year-old man in the right calf, and they shot a 20-year-old woman in the left arm. The man's condition was stabilized at Stroger Hospital. The woman took herself to the University of Chicago Medicine, and she was expected to be transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital.



 About 8:35 p.m. on the West Side, a 38-year-old man was shot in the right buttocks and left shoulder in an alley in the 3100 block of West Madison Street in the East Garfield Park neighborhood. He went to Stroger Hospital, but police did not immediately release information about his condition.



 About 7:50 p.m. on the West Side, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the 3700 block of West Arthington Street in the Homan Square neighborhood, police said. The boy suffered a gunshot wound to the left thigh and took a private vehicle to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was in good condition, police said.



 About 5:20 p.m. on the West Side, a 25-year-old man was shot in the upper shoulder in the 4900 block of West Potomac Avenue, in the Austin neighborhood. The 25-year-old got himself to a West Suburban Medical Center and a gun was found at the scene, police said.



 About 4:30 p.m. on the South Side, a 23-year-old man was shot in the thigh in the 5300 block of South Morgan Street in the Back of the Yards, police said. The 23-year-old told police he saw a dark-colored vehicle headed south on Morgan and heard shots fired from it, police said. Hospital information was not known.



 About 3:20 p.m. in the 1100 block of West 51st Street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, a 19-year-old man was shot in his left knee. He was walking south on May toward 51st Street when a dark-colored Toyota Camry approached with four men in of it, at least one of whom began shooting, police said. The Camry fled south on May, and no one was arrested.



 About 1:45 p.m. in the 1100 block of North Monticello Avenue, in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, an 18-year-old man was shot in the upper shoulder, police said. He was taken in serious condition to Mount Sinai Hospital.



 About 10:50 a.m. on the West Side, a 26-year-old man was shot in a drive-by shooting in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. He was shot twice in the back while he was in the 1400 block of North St. Louis Avenue. The shooter was in a passing green car. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.
Two weeks after saying he wanted to represent himself at his upcoming sentencing, an Aurora man facing up to 15 years in prison for plotting to join an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group has decided he wants to proceed with his lawyers after all.

Abdella Ahmad Tounisi had sent a letter last month telling U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan that he wanted to fire his longtime attorneys, citing a "breakdown of trust, conflict of interest and breakdown of communication."

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But when asked by Der-Yeghiayan about the letter at a hearing Tuesday, Tounisi said he's since talked to attorneys Molly Armour and Patrick Blegen and decided he wants them to represent him. No reason for the change of heart was given in court.

When the judge asked him if he had any reservations about the decision, Tounisi, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, said, "No doubt," in a quiet voice.

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Der-Yeghiayan reset the sentencing for July 18.

Tounisi, now 22, pleaded guilty in August 2015 to one count of attempting to provide material support to Jabhat al-Nusra, a designated terrorist group that at one time had claimed responsibility for nearly 600 suicide bombings and other attacks.

Authorities said he had pledged his support for the Syrian rebel fight on a fake recruitment website that was secretly operated by the FBI, expressing a "willingness to die for the cause."

He was arrested at O'Hare International Airport as he was about to board a flight to Turkey, where he planned to meet a handler to transport him to a training camp in Syria, prosecutors said.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @jmetr22b
Emails about gun deals played a key role in a city inspector general's investigation that led to last week's shake-up at the Water Department, sources familiar with the probe said Monday.

One source with knowledge of the investigation said the City Hall watchdog initially began looking into emails regarding the gun deals and uncovered several that were sexist and racist, including messages about former President Barack Obama that dated back a year or two.

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The disclosure that racist emails were sent about the nation's first African-American president added another layer to the scandal, given that Obama called Chicago home and his first White House chief of staff was Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, who last week was appointed to a third term by Emanuel, is continuing his investigation of the Department of Water Management, City Hall sources said. One source said more agency employees were summoned for interviews and that workers were "lawyering up."

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The gun deal emails were found on the computer of Paul Hansen, a City Hall source said. Another source said the inspector general seized Hansen's computer as part of the investigation, which began about eight months ago. Hansen, the son of former 44th Ward Ald. Bernard Hansen, resigned Thursday as a district superintendent of water distribution, officials said.

Barrett Murphy, who was water commissioner since April 2016, resigned Friday amid the probe at the agency he led. He's a city government veteran married to Lynn Lockwood, who is the former chairman and treasurer of one of Emanuel's political funds, as well as a friend of Chicago first lady Amy Rule.

In addition, officials confirmed Friday that a top deputy, William Bresnahan, also resigned.

The Water Department is an agency long rattled by negative headlines under Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which was rocked by the Hired Truck scandal and an illegal jobs scam operated under former top water official Donald Tomczak, who served time in prison.

Under Tomczak, jobs and promotions were handed out in exchange for political work that created an army of ground troops for multiple politicians, including Emanuel in his successful 2002 bid for Congress.

Now Emanuel faces his own crisis. On Monday, the City Council Black Caucus called for an audit of the department "to get to the root of the culture of racism" and requested "additional diversity in promotion."

"While we are deeply disturbed by reports of blatant racist language and behavior by these high-level city employees, we only wish we could say we are surprised," said 6th Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer, the caucus chairman. "The pervasive culture of racism at the Water Department has been an open secret for years. We hope that this moment can serve as a wake-up call for all those in the department and in other departments where this behavior is still tolerated or even encouraged."

At an unrelated event Monday, Emanuel said he was made aware by Ferguson's office of a problem with "one particular employee" and "in that process, it exposed a culture in the Water Department workplace" that doesn't represent city values.

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Emanuel said Murphy, the water commissioner, agreed there should be a reset in the culture at the agency, which is now headed by Randy Conner, who moved over from the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Hansen could not be reached for comment Monday. In April 2010 he was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in northwest Illinois, according to public records from Jo Daviess County. He later pleaded guilty to reckless driving. City payroll records show that he was promoted to his most recent position in December 2010, which is after the court case was resolved.

Chicago Tribune's John Byrne contributed.

rlong@chicagotribune.com

hdardick@chicagotribune.com
Gubernatorial candidate Chris Kennedy attends street naming ceremony for Blair Holt in front of Percy L. Julian High School at103rd and Elizabeth streets in Chicago on May 10, 2017. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

SPRINGFIELD  Businessman Chris Kennedy pushed back Monday against unnamed Democratic Party "political insiders" who he said are trying to silence his bid for the governor's office, saying he won't be intimidated by those defending the status quo.

Kennedy made the declaration in a fundraising email before traveling to Springfield for a reception hosted by the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen's Association at a bar near the Capitol. Also in attendance was J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune whom some Democrats view as the best candidate to challenge Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

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Kennedy began his pitch saying that in 1960, party insiders unsuccessfully tried to push his uncle John F. Kennedy out of the race for president. He then noted the national Democratic divide between establishment contenders and populist progressives.

"The thing about history is, if you don't learn from it, you are doomed to repeat it. If a group of political insiders think that they can bypass the voters and select a nominee, they have learned the wrong lessons from 1960 and from last year's presidential primary too," Kennedy wrote.

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"Insiders don't want to hear the truth and they don't like me because I'm the one telling it. They want to silence us because we threaten the status quo," he continued.

Asked Monday if he believed Democratic leadership was working against him and aligning behind Pritzker, Kennedy warned against creating a political party that won't allow dissent.

"I think there are elements within the Democratic Party that would like to have someone fight their battle for them. I'm not among them. I believe you look back at the great history of the United States and the progress that's been made, it always occurred when people fought for themselves," Kennedy told reporters. "I think we're at an impasse like that now in our state. And if people think that they can get somebody else to fight their battle for them and have a good outcome, they're wrong."

Kennedy pointed to Rauner's influence on the Republican Party, which the governor heavily funds, and the reluctance of GOP lawmakers and officeholders to break ranks.

"One of the worst things that Gov. Rauner has done is to silence his own party. None of the state reps, none of the state senators, none of the constitutional officers have spoken up against him. None have spoken out. And we don't want to replicate that system in the Democratic Party as well."

Despite his own wealth and that of his family, Kennedy has been vocal in attacking Pritzker, likening his Democratic competitor to Rauner. Kennedy's team has expressed concerns that powerful Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, who wants to keep control of his chamber above all else in next year's elections, is working to help Pritzker and clear the field of other candidates early.

Kennedy has been counting on labor support for his bid while disdaining endorsements by Democratic organizations such as the Cook County Democratic Party. Pritzker recently gained the backing of a major Downstate organization, the St. Clair County Democrats.

But without organizational support from within the party and facing difficulty securing union backing, Kennedy may find himself mirroring efforts by state Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston, Chicago Ald. Ameya Pawar and Madison County regional schools Superintendent Bob Daiber in trying to establish a more grass-roots challenge to Pritzker.

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Kennedy's comments came on a day Pritzker found himself answering questions about a property tax break he got after purchasing a home next to his Gold Coast mansion and contending it was "uninhabitable," as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Pritzker shrugged off the attack as an effort by Rauner and the Republican Party to distract from their records "because they really have nothing else to talk about, no accomplishments to tout."

"And obviously they are taking a shot at me because they think I am a threat to them," Pritzker said.

He defended seeking to have his property taxes lowered after purchasing the adjoining property, saying thousands of people seek to have their taxes reassessed each year.

"It was in terrible disrepair. Actually, the stairs were coming off the wall, the basement is unfinished and has a dirt floor, and so there was nothing in good shape in that house at all, and there was nothing that we did other than we asked that our taxes be reassessed because it wasn't worth what we paid for it," Pritzker said. "The truth is we probably over paid for the house, and lots of people have done that, especially in the environment of falling home prices."

Pritzker said he bought the home due to "security concerns" for his family and is planning to renovate the property.

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mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @MoniqueGarcia
House Speaker Michael Madigan, shown in January 2017 in Springfield, explained his perspective on his differences with Gov. Bruce Rauner during a WGN Radio interview. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.

Topspin

Illinois House Democrats led by Speaker Michael Madigan say they plan to unveil an economic agenda Tuesday, saying they are hoping to work with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner to find "common ground" on efforts to jump-start job growth in Illinois.

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The move could amount to a counter of sorts to the various businesses-friendly policy changes Rauner has pushed as a prerequisite to reaching a budget deal. Democrats have remained largely opposed to those ideas, and that feud has left Illinois without a budget for nearly two years.

"House Democrats believe the budget crisis demands immediate action, and it is our hope to show Gov. Rauner that we stand ready to work with him," Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said in a statement.

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"We plan to seek common ground with the governor on his proposals, and present him with items we believe should be part of the bargaining in order to encourage economic growth while lifting up the middle class," said Currie, who serves as Madigan's top deputy in the House.

The move comes several months after Madigan first unveiled a series of proposals aimed at jump starting job growth in Illinois after he was re-elected speaker for the 17th time. Those proposals haven't advanced since then. Neither have Rauner's. And so the budget war continues.

Democrats declined to provide details of their plans in advance of a Tuesday morning news conference, but Madigan's previous proposals included cutting the corporate income tax rate by at least 50 percent but applying that rate across the board so that a vast majority of businesses that currently don't pay any income taxes will have to pony up.

He also called for keeping in place a sometimes controversial tax credit for businesses that create new jobs, and banning "any future tax incentives for corporations that ship American jobs out of our country." The speaker has also pushed for expanding the earned income tax credit for low-income families, raising the minimum wage and taxing those who earn over $1 million.

With only a few weeks to go before the end of the spring legislative session, Rauner's office said it was "skeptical" about Madigan's intentions.

"After two years of playing games and refusing to negotiate, call us skeptical that all we will see from Madigan Democrats is another set of phony reforms to disguise a massive tax hike and bailout for Chicago," spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said.

House Democrats met in private last week to talk about possible plans for a budget proposal, but they have yet to go public with those ideas. Last year, they approved a plan that was billions of dollars out of balance, but the Senate did not take up the proposal.

Eventually, Rauner and Democrats agreed to a six-month temporary spending plan, which expired in January. (Monique Garcia)

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What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will recognize graduating CPS students who already have earned a semester's worth of City Colleges credits.

*Gov. Rauner has three Springfield events, including one where he's scheduled to take reporters' questions. First lady Diana Rauner will speak at a Rotary Club woman of the year lunch in Chicago.

*The Illinois House and Senate are in session all week.

*Chicago City Council committees get going again.

What we're writing

*Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino fined $5,000.

*Obama Foundation ramped up fundraising in 2016.

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*Gun deal emails spurred city probe into racist, sexist Water Department messages.

*Chris Kennedy: "Political insiders: shouldn't pick Democrats' nominee for governor.

*Emanuel looks to Springfield session for CPS money.

*4 insurers out of running for Rauner's Medicaid overhaul.

*Boxed in by father, Lisa Madigan seeks fifth term as Illinois attorney general.

*Gun demand rises in Chicago despite national drop-off under Trump.

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What we're reading

*Chicago Tribune owner seeks to buy Sun-Times.

*Ravenswood Avenue to rebrand as Malt Row, home to 7 craft beer and spirits producers.

*Retired Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood sells Lincoln Park mansion for $3 million.

Follow the money

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

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Beyond Chicago

*Trump revealed classified information to Russian diplomats.

*Some Republican senators begin edging away from the president.

*SCOTUS won't hear case over North Carolina's voter ID law.

*U.S. says Syria is burning bodies to hide proof of mass killings.
SPRINGFIELD  With just two weeks left in the spring session, House Democrats led by Speaker Michael Madigan and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner are back in their default positions for this time of year.

The governor declared he's ready to work "around the clock to help all sides come together" on a budget. Top Madigan deputies publicly pledged to "seek common ground with the governor on his proposals."

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A sudden outpouring of the spirit of compromise at the gridlocked Capitol on Tuesday? Hardly. Both sides are making an effort to broadcast that they're at least willing to talk, trying to get ahead of the blame game that will ensue should another deadline pass with little to show and either political party failed to even go through the motions of negotiation.

Beyond the surface-level political optics, however, Madigan and Rauner sent strong signals that not much has changed heading into the latest attempt at striking a deal.

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The first-term Republican governor began the day with an opinion piece in the Springfield State Journal-Register in which he returned to his regional political message by claiming "the career Chicago politicians who run the General Assembly" are focused on one thing: "Raising your taxes without any fundamental changes to their broken system."

"But for two years we've been your voice in the state Capitol  standing up for you to say enough is enough," Rauner wrote.

That jibes with the early re-election message the governor's campaign has been pushing: There may not be a budget, but Rauner is the one who blocked Democratic tax hikes.

In a fundraising letter sent to Republican supporters last month, Rauner said: "Speaker Mike Madigan and the Springfield Democrats REFUSE TO FIX our state. Illinois taxpayers deserve a balanced budget WITHOUT any tax increases."

Rauner, however, has long said he would sign off a tax increase in return for structural changes he once called his "turnaround agenda." In Tuesday's letter, that took the form of saying taxpayers need to "get something out of the deal."

The governor is pushing for a property tax freeze and ideas he says would provide "access to more high-quality, high-paying jobs." That's a reference to his economic plan, which among other items calls for an overhaul of the workers compensation system for employees hurt on the job. By lowering costs for businesses, Rauner argues, companies will be able to use what they save to hire more workers.

Madigan did not pen a letter to the editor. Instead, he appointed several of his top deputies to resume talks with Rauner. Democrats said while they would prefer to do a budget without any other items attached, they are willing to work on economic changes to help spur job growth.

To that end, the leading House Democrats held a news conference Tuesday to offer their own ideas.

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They pointed to legislation they passed the last few years that included property tax relief for middle-class homeowners and the establishment of a state-operated workers compensation insurance company, though Rauner has panned those proposals as not going far enough. Democrats also resurrected ideas to end corporate tax breaks and require businesses that don't currently pay corporate income taxes to pony up more.

The concepts aren't new, but they allow Democrats to say they are trying to find common ground with Rauner even though the sides remain far apart on the major issues.

"I myself am feeling a bit at the end of my rope," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat and the House majority leader. "It is critical that we get this done and we are trying every avenue that we know to jump-start the process."

Currie said House Democrats are hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous two years, when they pushed through their own budget plans with no input from Republicans.

"We hope that we don't have to resort to action just that is one party," Currie said. "That is why we have extended olive branches."

Currie complained that Democrats have yet to hear back from the governor's office, saying she was "appalled by the rhetoric" Rauner put in his letter. She contended that "any competent observer" would recognize a tax hike is needed to help balance the books.

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Since January, the Senate has tried to craft a so-called grand bargain but thus far it has proved elusive. Madigan hasn't been part of negotiations, and Rauner aides entered the fray a few weeks ago.

On Tuesday, Rauner said he believed Madigan was trying "to create a distraction" in an attempt to derail Senate talks.

"House Democrats under Speaker Madigan have shown really no good-faith willingness to engage in negotiations when it's true change, true reforms to our system. Speaker Madigan in our four-leader meetings has always been obstinate, just not wanting to really have good-faith negotiations and come to an agreement," Rauner said during a stop at a job training center in Springfield. "So I think we need to focus in the Senate and try to get that done."

Despite Rauner's portrayal, Senate Democrats have repeatedly and loudly blamed the governor for pulling off Republican votes. They contend his push for a permanent property tax freeze would be detrimental to schools that rely on the money, even if it sounds good in a campaign commercial.

Senate President John Cullerton warned in his own letter to the Springfield paper Monday that if Rauner continues to hold firm, there may be no room for a deal at all. Cullerton even offered up a hint of the strategy Democrats are prepared to unleash on the campaign trail.

"If something doesn't change, Gov. Bruce Rauner will approach the third year of his term without a budget, an unprecedented failure to deliver even the base responsibilities of the office of governor," Cullerton said.

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As the end-of-session jockeying to avoid blame and assign it elsewhere begins, there may be another round of voting on portions of the plan as soon as Wednesday.

Democrats took procedural holds off several bills in the "grand bargain" package that already have passed, with the plan to remove provisions that linked the bills so that if one failed, they all failed. Democrats now say time is running out and they are eager to try to get Republicans to weigh in one way or the other.

"There are some people who've indicated that they don't want to vote for bills that are all tied together, some people who would be willing to vote for a revenue package and then some people who aren't willing to, under any circumstances, vote for a revenue package but may like some of the other reform ideas that have been negotiated in the bipartisan fashion," said Democratic Sen. Toi Hutchinson of Olympia Fields, a key budget negotiator. "Maybe that might help to get to passage of the individual pieces."

Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, said it would be "a huge mistake" for Democrats to press ahead while details continue to be worked out.

"I think we will get there given time, and I would hate to see anything done prematurely that would put us in a position where we couldn't reach an agreement," said Brady, who is involved in talks for the GOP.

mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com

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hbemiller@chicagotribune.com
CARLSTADT, N.J.  A jet trying to land at a small airport near New York City crashed less than a mile from the runway among small warehouses and industrial buildings Monday, killing two crew members and sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air.

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. A man can be seen running across a parking lot toward the crash site as smoke filled the sky.

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Amazingly, no one on the ground was reported injured, police said. Employees at a public works building had left minutes earlier, according to one person who had been on the scene before the crash. Two of the three buildings involved in the crash sustained fire damage.

Police said no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the runway at Teterboro Airport, a small but busy airport that is a favorite landing spot for the rich and famous.

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Emergency responders worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, which left a smoldering wreckage of cars in a parking lot. Police said 13 cars were damaged.

The plane was registered in Billings, Montana, to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address. The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There was no answer at their residence Monday night.

The airport was closed after the crash. Departing flights resumed in the evening, but no arriving flights were allowed.

Mayor Craig Lahullier said all town employees already had left for the day before the plane crashed next to its Department of Public Works building.

"I tell ya, it's a miracle," he said. "Thank God the guys were out of there, that's all I can say."

Town spokesman Joe Orlando said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage. Witnesses said they heard loud popping noises, apparently from car tires exploding in the heat and flames.

Orlando had left the public works building about 15 minutes before the plane hit. When he returned, he saw the plane's engines on the ground.

"If this had happened 20 minutes earlier, people would have been at their cars," he said. "That was the first thing I thought of: 'I was just right there.' You could see the fan blades, the landing gear. Car tires were blown off."

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Mark Dykstra, who lives across the street from the crash site, told NJ.com he felt the impact of the crash.

"We were sitting in our building, and we felt the whole building shake," he said. "We went outside, and there was black smoke. Thick black smoke."

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL who was aboard another plane at the airport waiting to take off, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn.

A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing before it crashed.

The National Weather Service warned of strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph (72 kph) just before the plane went down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

The jet had flown from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, early Monday morning. It then flew to Philadelphia later Monday morning before leaving for Teterboro around 3 p.m.

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Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area. It sits in a densely populated residential and industrial area just north of MetLife Stadium, where the NFL's New York Jets and New York Giants play.

The airport was the scene of a 2005 crash: A corporate jet failed to take off, crossed a busy highway and slammed into a warehouse. There were no fatalities, but more than 20 people suffered injuries. The owners of the charter company  whose clientele over the years included opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and rap mogul Jay-Z  later were convicted in federal court of skirting safety regulations.

In 2009, a plane taking off from Teterboro crashed into a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River, killing all nine people in the two aircrafts. A federal investigation later determined errors by an airport air traffic controller distracted by a personal phone call set the stage for the crash.

Associated Press writers Bruce Shipkowski and Josh Cornfield in Trenton contributed to this report.
A man killed his mother on Mother's Day at a rural Oregon home, then showed up at a grocery store in a nearby town carrying a decapitated human head and began stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued, authorities said Monday.

Officers determined the head the man was carrying belonged to his mother, the Sandy Police Department said.

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An autopsy was underway Monday on the body of Tina Marie Webb, 59, the same day that her son, 36-year-old Joshua Lee Webb, was booked on charges of murder and attempted murder in the case. He has not yet made a court appearance.

The gruesome chain of events unfolded in two tiny, rural towns once known for logging about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Portland and sent shock waves through Estacada, where most people knew the white-haired checkout clerk identified as 66-year-old Michael Wagner for his warmth and quick sense of humor.

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David Webb, the father of Joshua Lee Webb, sobbed as he struggled to process his wife's death and his son's arrest in one horrible day.

Joshua Webb had vision problems and received Social Security payments, his father said. He lived at home so his parents could care for him, his father said, adding that they had recently bought him a dog because he wanted one.

His mother had said she believed her son was depressed, but David Webb said he never saw any indication of that when he spoke with his son.

"I never foresaw a problem. If I had I would have stopped it," David Webb said, before bursting into loud sobs during a phone interview with The Associated Press. "I just can't believe I lost my wife and son in one day. ... I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I had some answers, but I don't. I waited all my life to retire with my wife, and now I can't. That's all I know."

The bizarre sequence began Sunday afternoon  Mother's Day  in Colton, a once-significant logging town about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Portland.

The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said Webb killed his mother at their rural home, but it did not provide more details.

Joshua Webb then showed up at a Thriftway in downtown Estacada, about 12 miles to the north. When he entered the small grocery store, he was covered in blood, had a large "kitchen-type" knife and was carrying a severed human head, authorities said.

He began stabbing a store employee, but he was quickly overwhelmed by other employees, who held him until police arrived, authorities said.

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"He didn't say anything after he was subdued," said Ernie Roberts, interim police chief in nearby Sandy, Oregon, said Monday.

"He was in like a catatonic state, wasn't speaking to anybody," Roberts said, adding that the only thing he said during the encounter before his arrest was that he was thirsty. Sandy provides police services for Estacada, which also has around 2,500 residents.

Wagner, the grocery store checkout clerk, was hospitalized and was expected to survive.

Residents who gathered outside the police tape Monday said Wagner had worked for years at the store, first at the produce department and then at the checkout counter.

Customers stopped by in a steady stream to drop off balloons as a tribute in front of the store and to sign a giant get-well poster. A small collection of candles also grew on the other side of the parking lot, just in front of yellow police tape that covered nearly an entire block.

Inside Lew's Drive-In, next door to the grocery store, customers talked of nothing but the stabbing and of Wagner, whom everyone seemed to know. Customers who had been in the grocery store during the stabbing took refuge in the diner Sunday, but nobody had seen much, said Marvin Flora, the diner's owner.

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"It was traumatic, but it happened so fast that nobody really saw what was going on," he said. "One lady came in this morning and said she actually saw somebody come in with something that was bloody and was carrying something with his arm."

As residents swapped stories, Flora stood by a growing cluster of balloons and shouted out details of Wagner's condition to drivers who slowed along the main street to check in.

"He's super nice and outgoing. He's the epitome of what this place stands for," he said. "He always has jokes for you in the line, and he goes out of the way to know your name."
In some states, lawmakers have made catcalls and mocked the idea of addressing the sexual abuse of animals. In other states, bills have been delayed for years because legislators simply refuse to talk about it. Photo by iStockphoto

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Last week, West Virginia law enforcement officials, with an assist from The HSUS, arrested Victor Zandlo and charged him with suspected abuse of dogs. It was a particularly vicious case of bestiality.

Local rescue groups did their best to help all eight dogs in the house, but they were too late for one member of the pack. Grace had suffered particularly severe and unsettling injuries, and shes now passed.

We commend the lieutenant of the Wyoming County Sheriffs Office in West Virginia who charged Zandlo with felony-level cruelty. This is an especially significant charge because prosecution for bestiality is rare in West Virginia, one of just eight remaining states in the nation, along with the District of Columbia, that have no specific laws against the sexual abuse of animals.

Ironically, lawmakers in West Virginia introduced an anti-bestiality bill this year, but both chambers failed to act on it. Maybe now theyll better understand the importance of a legal prohibition against such assault on these non-consenting creatures. Nevada and Vermont did pass anti-bestiality measures, and both await final approval from their governors. In Texas, the state Senate approved an anti-bestiality bill, and House action is pending.

Animal sexual abuse is a felony in 19 states, a second offense felony in four states, and a misdemeanor in 23 states. Other states without any bestiality laws include Hawaii, Kentucky, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Just a few years ago, 11 states still considered bestiality legal. As with animal fighting and other abuses of animals, The HSUS has been methodically going state by state to close the gaps in the legal framework, and if the chief executives of Nevada and Vermont sign the measures into law, only a half-dozen states will be legally silent on the issue.

Astoundingly, in some states, lawmakers have made catcalls and mocked the idea of addressing this form of animal abuse. In other states, bills have been delayed for years because legislators simply refuse to talk about it. The Kentucky Farm Bureau and the Kentucky Houndsmen Association opposed a bestiality bill in that state, calling it a slippery slope. How sad that they neither understand the severity nor the scale of this crime.

Even in states with bestiality laws, enforcement can be lax, and other barriers to a crackdown on the practice exist. Many states that outlaw sexual abuse have archaic language in their statutes that needs to be updated. Abusers try to skirt the law, also, and have done so effectively on occasion. A prime example of this is Sterling Rachwal, a man with a history of abusing horses in Wisconsin, who has been able to successfully use loopholes in the law to appeal and overturn his conviction.

Animal sexual abuse is not the extraordinarily rare occurrence. Its more common than wed like to acknowledge in society, and it is often a violent act that frequently precedes child sexual abuse, sexual homicide, and other extreme antisocial behavior.

In a study of over 44,000 adult male sex offenders, researchers concluded that animal sexual abuse is the number one risk factor and the strongest predictor of increased risk for sexual abuse of a child. Some studies have found high rates of sexual assault of animals in the backgrounds of serial sexual homicide perpetrators. This is one reason why bestiality and other forms of animal cruelty are now tracked by the FBI as a Group A offense in the National Incident Based Reporting System, in the same category as rape and murder.

Increasingly, perpetrators use various websites to seek out one another where they often trade, rent, and sell animals for sex. A popular website that appears to be a hub for bestiality enthusiasts boasts over 1.5 million registered users.

The HSUS will continue to work in the states without laws to strengthen and pass laws against bestiality. One dog like Grace, suffering such unspeakable abuse, is one too many. And shes now just one high-profile victim of a vast underworld of sexual abuse that too many people want to deny or fail to confront in a substantive and serious-minded way.
Hubris and rank amateurism are killing President Donald Trump when it comes to his Russia problem. And that's the most charitable explanation.

First, Trump made the very questionable decision to meet with top Russian officials a day after making the very questionable decision to fire the man leading the FBI's Russia investigation, James Comey. And now The Washington Post is reporting that, in that same meeting, Trump shared highly classified information about the Islamic State with the Russians.

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This is information that current and former U.S. officials say could jeopardize a valuable source of intelligence in the fight against ISIS and give an adversarial Russia a strategic advantage in Syria, where its goals are different from ours. If there is something worse Trump could have done in that meeting, I'm not sure what it would be.

The details of what exactly Trump discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Wednesday are sketchy, and The Washington Post is withholding some of them for national security reasons. But according to the officials, Trump relayed information from an intelligence-sharing arrangement that is so sensitive that some details aren't even shared with U.S. allies or broadly within the U.S. government. Trump cited the specifics of an ISIS plot and, most problematically, named the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S.' partner detected the threat.

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Needless to say, sharing information with the Russian government that isn't even being shared with allies is a big blunder. Trump has broad authority to declassify information, so he was probably within his rights to talk about it. But this is something that can credibly be described as Trump doing damage to the fight against the Islamic State with his loose lips.

The officials The Post spoke with are clearly exasperated. Here's a sampling of their reactions:

"Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security."  a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials

"Russia could identify our sources or techniques."  a senior U.S. official

"I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."  a former intelligence official who worked on Russia-related issues

"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it  and that has big downsides. Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."  a former U.S. official

Given how unusual a politician Trump is and how shocked most of us were that he was elected president, we're always in a constant search for alternate explanations for the off-kilter things he does. Maybe the tweets work! Maybe his offensive comments were calculated! Maybe he's just trying to distract us! Maybe he's really a secret political genius, despite his 36 percent approval rating!

But the Comey firing last week, its badly bungled aftermath and now Trump's disclosure of highly classified information to Russia in the Oval Office paint a pretty clear picture. This is a president who shoots from the hip. Sometimes he shoots from the hip and hits the target, but it's also causing him major, major problems now that he's President Trump and not Candidate Trump. It's one thing to say something offensive during the New Hampshire primary; it's quite another to jeopardize tools for fighting terrorism because you speak before you think.

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Conspiracy theorists who are fond of the claims in that dossier will believe that this is Trump deliberately feeding valuable information to his buddies in Russia as payback for their help in the 2016 election. But sharing it out in the open during a meeting with other national security officials in the room would seem to be a very curious move. As The Post report notes, Trump's flub was quickly recognized and the damage control began almost immediately.

This photo released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows President Donald Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on May 10, 2017. The Washington Post is reporting that Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting at the White House last week. (AP)

On a much more basic level, this appears to be Trump being careless and completely unaware of how the things he's saying may create problems  both perception problems for himself, and real-world problems for the fight against terrorism. He lets his hubris get the better of him and starts bragging about the power and information at his fingertips  just like he did at Mar-a-Lago back in February. "I get great intel," Trump reportedly told the Russians on Wednesday. "I have people brief me on great intel every day."

Trump badly miscalculated the public reaction to his firing of Comey and bungled the explanations; then he went ahead with the Russia meeting anyway; then he did something in that Russia meeting that is only going to feed the narratives that he's (a) in the tank for Moscow and/or (b) totally in over his head as president in ways that are dangerous.

It's a series of tightly packed-together errors that can only be accomplished with an extraordinary amount of ego and a lack of a better angel.
The White House offered shifting explanations for President Donald Trump's disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian diplomats last week, a scattered defense that began with an early-morning Trump tweet that he had the "absolute right" to share "facts."

Administration officials went from denouncing The Washington Post article as "false" to either confirming or declining to challenge nearly every key aspect of the account, which described how Trump's sharing of sensitive details about a terrorist plot jeopardized access to a stream of intelligence from a critical U.S. ally.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia ... which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety," Trump said in two postings to his Twitter account, the first at 7 a.m. He then shifted the focus from his conduct to prod the FBI "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community."

Trump also enlisted his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, to help contain the fallout from the latest set of damaging revelations about the administration's relationship with Russia. Trump revealed the classified intelligence in a White House meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador one day after firing FBI Director James Comey over frustration with the bureau's investigation of any ties between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, McMaster refused to say whether Trump had shared classified information with the representatives from Moscow, falling back on a refrain that Trump's disclosures were "wholly appropriate."

"What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged," McMaster said. "It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. That's what he did."

McMaster did not explain how sharing classified information with Russian officials advanced U.S. interests. The long-standing adversaries sometimes alert one another to security threats, but otherwise engage in little if any intelligence cooperation. Indeed, U.S. spy agencies earlier this year concluded that their Russian counterparts engaged in an unprecedented covert influence campaign to upend the 2016 presidential election.

Current and former U.S. officials said Trump went well beyond outlining basic threat information in his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump described steps the Islamic State was taking to pursue a plot involving the use of laptop computers on civilian aircraft, officials said. He discussed measures the United States has taken to suppress the threat, including military operations in Syria. Trump also identified the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. ally had been monitoring the plot through a valuable and ongoing stream of intelligence.

Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," according to one current U.S. official.

Trump did not identify the particular method of intelligence gathering employed in the operation or the partner nation. But officials cited concern that Moscow emerged from the meeting with clues that Russian spy agencies could use to zero in on the U.S. ally's sources and methods.

The Washington Post withheld details about the intelligence-sharing arrangement and plot at the request of White House officials, citing concern over national security. By Tuesday, however, the New York Times and other news organizations identified the partner country as Israel.

Israel has in the past complained about the United States' inability to safeguard secrets. In a statement, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said that despite the disclosures, "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump."

The disclosures about the Oval Office meeting came as Trump prepares for his first foreign trip  a multi-stop itinerary that will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bethlehem in the West Bank, and the Vatican, as well as Brussels for European Union and NATO meetings and back to Italy for a gathering of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies. White House officials had hoped the trip would distract from some of the political turmoil in Washington, but it is now likely to be dogged by close scrutiny of Trump's performance in multiple foreign settings and how allies react to him.

On Capitol Hill, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressed concern and alarm about the president's sensitive disclosures to the Russians.

"As an intelligence officer by training, I know firsthand the life and death implications of safeguarding classified information," Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., a freshman lawmaker and former Marine intelligence officer, tweeted Tuesday. "Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed," he wrote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., pleaded for "less drama" from the White House.

Democrats, who had been demanding that Trump turn over any tapes of his conversations with Comey, broadened their requests to include transcripts of his meeting with the Russians.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump should release the alleged transcript "if [he] has nothing to hide."

"Until the administration fully explains the facts of this case, the American people will rightly doubt if their president can handle our nation's most closely kept secrets," Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

McMaster sought to play down the significance of Trump's disclosures during a briefing at the White House. But when pressed on specifics, McMaster confirmed certain essential aspects of the story and refused to address others.

He retreated from his initial assertion Monday evening that the Post article was "false," saying that his remark applied only to its "premise."

He would not answer whether Trump had revealed classified information, saying "we don't say what's classified," acknowledged that Trump had wandered off script during the meeting, and confirmed that Trump had mentioned the city where the U.S. intelligence partner saw the threat emerging.

At one point, McMaster said that the information Trump revealed "was nothing that you would not know from open source reporting." But that raised the question of why his own aides had felt it necessary to place calls to the leaders of the CIA and National Security Agency to alert them to what Trump had disclosed.

At first McMaster said that his subordinates may have done so "from an overabundance of precaution," but he then said he couldn't be sure because he had not spoken with the subordinate who had made the calls, Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Finally, McMaster said that Trump "wasn't even aware of where this information came from," a comment intended to reinforce that the president couldn't have revealed the source but left open the question of why Trump had been kept in the dark on that detail.

Later in the day, following a meeting with the Turkish president, Trump responded to a shouted question about his interaction with the Russians last week, casting a rosier picture of the potential partnership between the two nations than even many of his own advisers think is realistic.

"We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia  our fight is against ISIS," the president said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. "So we're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible and that's one of the beautiful things that's happening with Turkey. The relationship that we have together, we'll be unbeatable."

The Washington Post's William Booth, David Nakamura and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  For months, U.S. allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets.

Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry, and potentially putting crucial intelligence-sharing agreements at risk.

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Revelations that Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week prompted one European official to tell The Associated Press that his country might stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. as a result.

A second official, senior German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka, called Trump's disclosures "highly worrying."

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The information Trump revealed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak centered on an Islamic State plot and was based on intelligence provided by an American partner, according to a U.S. official.

The disclosure  which Trump appeared to verify in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning  is certain to shadow the president as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, he'll meet with important Arab allies working with the U.S. on the fight against the Islamic State. He'll also huddle with some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily.

Some of the leaders Trump will meet come from countries the U.S. has intelligence-sharing agreements with.

At least one Republican says the president is putting those agreements at risk by divulging classified information to Russia, a country many in the U.S. and in the West view as an adversary. Arizona Sen. John McCain said Trump's actions send "a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future."

Trump declared on Twitter Tuesday that it was his "absolute right" to share information with other countries. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said it was "wholly appropriate" and argued that it was based on publicly available information. And indeed, presidents are legally authorized to disclose classified information.

Yet Trump's decision is all the more confounding given his tense relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates.

The leaks have only continued to flow, undermining Trump and exposing details of the investigations into whether his campaign played a role in Russia's election meddling.

According to the U.S. official, Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Washington Post first reported the disclosure.

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White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting. Trump later said he did share information about "terrorism and airline flight safety" with Russia."

The U.S. and Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.

The White House has looked to Trump's trip abroad as a moment to draw the president out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favorable to his interests than former President Barack Obama.

But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by U.S. courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine.

The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the U.S. leader's standing.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's "actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party."

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"Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas," Cordesman said.
Gradates of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine cheer and wave inflated examination gloves during the confirming of their degrees during the Virginia Tech 2017 graduation commencement ceremony on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va., Friday, May 12 2017. (Matt Gentry / AP)

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres was at the University of South Carolina. Vice President Mike Pence is off to the University of Notre Dame. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will be at MIT, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was at Virginia Tech, the Dalai Lama was at the University of California-San Diego and Oprah Winfrey is at Skidmore and Smith. Hundreds of other top business and political executives will deliver commencement speeches at colleges nationwide over the next few weeks. You may be one of them.

So what are universities looking for when they offer big bucks to speak at graduation ceremonies?

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"The best speakers remember the day is about the people they're speaking to, so they manage to combine their hard-won wisdom with a message of hope and optimism to the people who are graduating," said Melissa Connolly, vice president of university relations at Hofstra University.

Killer commencement speeches tend to follow a classic formula, said Daniel Benaim, a visiting professor at New York University who was a speechwriter for former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Typically, speakers congratulate the class, share their own stories, say something insightful about the world they'll graduate into, and end with a call to action challenging students to do something.

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Start by acknowledging notable people present, such as top university officials, local politicians and maybe even the student class president. But Benaim said reading a list of names can be a missed opportunity.

"Find a way to make it personal," he said. "If you know people, don't give them a compliment anyone could find on a Hallmark card. If you can, say something specific and uniquely true about them. If you're not sure, start Googling."

Conan O'Brien, for example, recognized President George H.W. Bush in the opening of his 2011 commencement speech at Dartmouth by saying: "Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired president of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, have been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today."

Next, congratulate the students on their achievements. "The people in front of you have worked extraordinarily hard and they deserve specific recounting of what they've accomplished and the community they've built to make sure they feel recognized," Benaim said. But while it's important to tell the students they're special, it's also important, he said, to "let them know they're not that special that an awful lot of hard work is ahead to become successful professionals and good citizens and lead meaningful lives."

If you don't have a personal connection to the school, don't worry. "Researching (students') experience is a sign of respect, and when someone outside their community knows their favorite bars and inside jokes, that can be an easy source of humor and a way to connect," Benaim said.

As Arianna Huffington introduced herself to Vassar grads in 2015, "I've spent a lot of time in recent weeks getting to know you  following you and your activities on social media, on Vassar's web site, in The Miscellany News, and in other ways I'm not prepared to disclose that will remain between me and the folks at the NSA. It feels a little like I've been checking out your online dating profile, and now we're finally meeting."

Next, share some wisdom. It's best told through personal stories of both your successes and failures. "The best stories of all are the ones you've lived through, where you've dealt with adversity like the students will face and found a way to make something remarkable out of it," Benaim said.

In 2010, actress Lisa Kudrow told fellow Vassar College grads that when she decided to go into acting after earning a degree in biology, she was nervous about her choice because she "didn't really care for actors" and was afraid of becoming shallow. But she soon realized that her thinking was holding her back. "You can't pursue something and be committed to it if you're apologizing for it at every party," she said.

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What makes a commencement speech different from the kinds of talks senior executives typically deliver is that it isn't meant to be a lecture on your area of professional expertise, Connolly said. "What's important is that you're sharing a little of yourself."

The moral of the stories is often how to be a good human being. "It gets existential pretty fast," Benaim said.

But the speech should also be funny. Benaim said self-deprecating humor is an easy place to start. Stephen Colbert, for example, told University of Virginia graduates in 2013, "Out of courtesy, if anyone has a cell phone, please take a moment to make sure that it is turned on. I wouldn't want any of you to miss a text or a tweet while I'm giving my speech."

Benaim also suggests looking at books of jokes and past commencement speeches delivered by comedians. You can't steal good lines, of course, but you can quote, paraphrase and draw inspiration from them. Then, test out jokes on friends. "The bar for funny is sometimes surprisingly low," he said. "People give you points just for trying, especially if you're important."

Finally, you should leave students with a challenge to do something specific. This might be something you wish you'd known or done when you were in their shoes. As Sheryl Sandberg told Barnard grads in 2011, "Don't let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face  and there will be barriers  be external, not internal."

And as the late David Foster Wallace concluded his famed 2005 address at Kenyon College, I wish you way more than luck.

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Kara Alaimo is an assistant professor of public relations at Hofstra University and author of "Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication." She previously served in the Obama administration.
A Mexican flag waves in the wind during the 26th Street Mexican Independence Parade, Sunday, September 11, 2016, in the Little Village Neighborhood. (Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune)

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. ... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

With these words Donald J. Trump began his improbable, yet winning, presidential campaign. This statement, along with his ongoing shock talk and executive orders, has been taken as an all-out assault on Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

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Unfortunately, the reaction from activists who oppose Trump's harsh assessment isn't any more sober. Many have fallen back on the reliable "victim" rhetoric to defend those they perceive to be America's latest aggrieved minority in need of special rights.

Neither Trump's verbosity nor the gloomy protestations have been good for Mexican-Americans or the U.S.

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The Mexican-American community would be better served by a different argument, one that harkens back to another president's more eloquent flair  John F. Kennedy's "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." It's a perspective that calls for the full assimilation of immigrants into the broader American family in a manner that is positive, patriotic and productive for immigrant families, and also for our nation. Such a position promotes immigrants as civically engaged, not as victims of American society in need of restitution, rather as proactive stakeholders in America's continued development and prosperity. This is a centrist view that may even encourage unexpected political alliances.

In the hot immigration debate, assimilation is rarely discussed or encouraged. Right-wing nativists believe Mexicans won't assimilate, and the far-left multiculturalists think they shouldn't. What a way to wall off Mexican immigrants by both sides of the political extremes.

It's no surprise then that overall assimilation rates for Mexican-Americans do not match those of other immigrant groups, as the Manhattan Institute concluded in its 2013 report "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in Post-Recession America."

Assimilation is certainly not an easy nor a politically correct process. Mexican immigrants are one of many protagonists in the challenging American story or as author Norman Podhoretz put it, the "brutal bargain."

In his 1967 book, "Making It," Podhoretz narrates the tough assimilation journey for those who come to the United States to work hard and get ahead, and in the process are challenged in their own cultural and social identity to fit in and succeed in the land of opportunity. This necessary give and take hasn't always been pretty, but it has worked for past immigrants and their families and has always worked for the United States.

The Mexican community should not be underestimated in its own ability to assimilate as our Irish, Polish, Italian and other forebears once did. But assimilation shouldn't happen by default; it needs to be encouraged, guided and nurtured.

Mexican-Americans would be better positioned by claiming its own "up-by-the-bootstraps" story and own it, not out of political expediency, but as a strategy to establish long-term roots as Americans who have a stake in their own success as well as that of the U.S.

However, assimilation calls for more than a quid pro quo. It requires one to embrace and adopt our nation's democratic values, principles and a unifying English language. It is the process by which immigrants become investors in the success of their new home nation.

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Contrary to the right and left elite, assimilation does not imply the abandonment of one's native history, culture or language. These elements put a context to the immigrant experience. They are an intentional recognition of our national motto  e pluribus unum  out of many, one.

No doubt, there are social problems that our community needs to own up to and address, including a high school dropout rate that remains too high; a violent gang culture that ensnares, if not kills off, our youth; and drug trafficking in our midst that can be traced back to Mexico's cartels.

Overall, Mexican immigrants have the right ingredients for American success: family-oriented, a tremendous work ethic and an entrepreneurial sense to get ahead. They are driven by opportunity, not social justice.

And despite the immigration hyperbole, American assimilation remains the global model in how our nation weaves its newest immigrants into the American fabric.

Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are living out that uniquely American story of immigrants seeking opportunity, enduring their own diasporic hardship, paying their dues and in many cases serving and defending our country, all in order to achieve that sometimes elusive American dream  not as victims of our nation, but as our nation's builders.

That's what has always made America great.

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Juan Rangel is president of Mastery Consulting LLC and director of the Mexican American Leadership, Policy and Action Committee. He is the former CEO of United Neighborhood Organization and founder of the UNO Charter School Network.
A wave of attacks hit computer systems in in nearly 100 countries on May 12, 2017, in a global onslaught that impacted Britain's health service, Russia's interior ministry and French carmaker Renault, along with many other organizations around the world. (Damien Meyer / AFP/Getty Images)

Authorities worldwide are mopping up after an international ransomware attack disrupted hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and businesses in 150 countries over the past few days. The latest clues point to hackers possibly linked to North Korea.

In what looks to be an unrelated cyber attack, hackers reportedly shanghaied the Disney film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales." The crooks threatened to splash it onto the internet before the film's scheduled May 26 release if Disney didn't fork over a ransom in bitcoin, according to deadline.com.

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Experts warn that worldwide ransomware attacks could bloom again in the coming weeks. They warn that many computers running outdated (or stolen) software could be vulnerable to hackers who pilfer data, or hold it hostage for ransom.

Hmm. When have we read about similar breaches and often heard similar warnings about computer vulnerabilities?

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Oh, right. In 2016 when the Russians were roaming through the Democratic National Committee's email system.

Or in 2015, when the U.S. government revealed that hackers stole a massive trove of data from the federal Office of Personnel Management, exposing sensitive information about millions of people, including federal employees, contractors and their families and friends.

Or when hackers spread Sony's secrets across the internet in 2014.

Or when Russian cybercriminals stole data on more than 500 million Yahoo accounts the same year.

Or earlier this year after WikiLeaks revealed CIA computer hacking secrets for criminals, spies and other foreign malefactors to exploit. (We haven't heard much about the fallout from that, but stay tuned.)

Before the latest series of attacks, officials at Britain's public health system ignored several warnings that many of its computer systems were unprotected and ripe for exploitation, The New York Times reports.

Apparently, the official attitude there is the same as it is around the world as people are bombarded by cyber warnings (and invitations to reap riches from people they don't know): What, us worry?

The big questions: Will this latest spate of attacks be a wake-up call to upgrade protections around the world? Or will many people hit the snooze button again?

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Microsoft blamed the U.S. government for "stockpiling" software code wielded by the hackers in ransomware attacks. The company's top lawyer argued that the government should report the weaknesses it discovers rather than hold them as weapons to use later. Microsoft attorney Brad Smith wrote that "an equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen."

Not quite. Tomahawks hit targets and the blast damage is contained. But cyber attacks can damage computers, and disrupt lives, around the world. Ask all those British patients who couldn't be treated.

Nor is the U.S. immune. Hackers have targeted hospital systems in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston and Kentucky, The Washington Post reports.

The criminals who unleashed this latest ransomware virus didn't have to be computer geniuses. New tools make this kind of cyber extortion much easier. Mad skills aren't needed.

What is needed, however, is for computer users  all of us  to neglect to upgrade security or change passwords. To click on attachments willy nilly. To assume that because our devices haven't yet been captured, they won't be.

The crooks and spies are counting on us. And so far, they haven't been disappointed.

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Lopez is under the impression that if only the community stops fearing gangs and starts collaborating with the police, our problem with gangs would be solved. This is an overly simplistic view of the problem of gang violence. Gang violence exists primarily because there is a severe systematic disinvestment in our communities and leaders like Lopez refuse to address the real systems of oppression that cause youth to join gangs.

That the media have lifted his remarks as an act of courage and labeled them speaking the truth about gangs is irresponsible reporting, to say the least. What is courageous about dismissing peoples lives and perpetuating a narrative that the community is at fault for living in the wrath of violence? Why are the media not focusing on the fact that for years Back of the Yards was a community represented by five different aldermen, which meant all of them could easily ignore the community? Or focus on the fact that for years, Brighton Park residents have asked for a proper field house at Kelly Park, the most park-poor community in the city of Chicago? Why dont the media question Lopez on his approach to violence?

Last year, there were more than 400 shootings in West Englewood, Back of the Yards and Brighton Park combined  three main communities in the 15th Ward. Lopezs proposed solutions have been ineffective and reactive. Last summer he proposed spending $400,000 on 60 speed bumps and eight traffic circles, which he identified as a definite deterrent to gang violence. Few of his proposed solutions have included investing in opportunities for youth and families. Even when he fought the mayor on funding for violence prevention, he shortly backed down.

Lopez needs to apologize to the communities he serves for his remarks and so should the media, for failing to do their jobs as journalists to seek truth and report it. The community needs an alderman who rolls up his or her sleeves and works with all of the community  not someone who offends them, divides them, and selectively deems some lives worthy while casting others aside.

 Claudia Alvidrez, Jannett Betacourt, Sabrina Lopez, Linda Coronado, Chicago
President Donald Trump isn't the only American leader with a puzzling fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime.

Consider, for example, the chant that was caught on local television footage as it was shouted by several dozen torch-carrying protesters who rallied against removal of a Confederate monument in a Charlottesville, Va., park last Saturday.

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"Russia is our friend!" they shouted. "Russia is our friend!"

What, many observers must have wondered, did Russia have to do with the Confederacy?

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Not much, except in the minds of such key leaders of the alt-right as Richard Spencer, who spoke and carried a torch in Charlottesville, where he once attended the University of Virginia.

Spencer is widely credited with coining the term "alt-right" to describe his Americanized version of Euro-nationalism that seeks a whites-only state. He also is famous for being punched in the face in a video-recorded street attack that went viral on YouTube and for being thrown out of the Conservative Political Action Conference convention this spring. You know you're out in the far-right field of the Twilight Zone to be thrown out of CPAC.

Beneath his digital-age jargon and elegantly soft-spoken manner, Spencer offers a rehashed version of traditional doomsday visions of "white culture" under assault by a rising tide of feminists, nonwhites and other scapegoats for all-white miseries.

"What brings us together," he told the crowd at an earlier rally Saturday, "is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced."

Torch-bearing protesters gather May 13, 2017, at Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., to oppose plans remove a statue there of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. (Allison Wrabel/Daily Progress )

Yet Spencer also shows a clear admiration for Russia, which he has called "the sole white power in the world." His former wife is the Russian writer and self-described "Kremlin troll leader" Nina Kouprianova. Writing and blogging under the pen name Nina Byzantina, she regularly follows Kremlin talking points. Like Spencer, she had defended Syria's butcher president  and Putin ally  Bashar Assad, describing reports of civilian deaths in Aleppo as "fake news."

Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who has eagerly embraced the alt-right movement, has traveled to Russia several times to promote his book "The Ultimate Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question," according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Rising self-described white nationalist Matthew Heimbach also has praised Putin's Russia as "the axis for nationalists," according to an interview by Business Insider. "I really believe that Russia is the leader of the free world right now," he told the news website. "Putin is supporting nationalists around the world and building an anti-globalist alliance, while promoting traditional values and self-determination."

Heimbach leads the Traditionalist Workers Party, which, like Spencer's American Policy Institute, is listed as a "white identity" hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Leading American alt-right figures like "race realist" Jared Taylor also attended a right-wing conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, two years ago, organized by a fringe nationalist Russia group. Taylor, according to Business Insider, called the United States "the greatest enemy of tradition everywhere."

It may be only coincidental that white nationalists cheered Russia as "our friend" two days before President Donald Trump was reported to have revealed "highly classified" secrets to two high-ranking Russians in the Oval Office. But both episodes raise questions about how much Putin is actively engaged in sowing divisions in the United States, versus how much he is passively sitting back and watching us divide ourselves.

But we know from past behavior that Putin cares much less about what we Americans think of him than what his own people think of him. With his tightening despotic control over speech and Russian media, he promotes a return to the dominant "Mother Russia" of the czars and the Soviet Union.

The computer hackers who serve as an underground propaganda army in his behalf aim to undermine the West's faith in democracy and its institutions to promote the line that, when it comes to corruption, human rights and empire-building, Western democracies are no better than Putin's Russia.

Trump curiously embraced that line in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, then a Fox News host, in which the president openly suggested we were no better than Putin when it comes to being "a killer." Astonishing.

If nothing else, we know that Putin is delighted to see us Americans divide ourselves against one another. That's how he gained almost unquestioned control in Russia.

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Dividing Americans is one thing that the alt-right is delighted to do. We need to show them, in the words of the late Rodney King, how we can all get along.

Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

cpage@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @cptime
State Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, is among a group of llinois lawmakers demanding answers from the Department of Children and Family Services about recent child abuse deaths. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

Some Illinois lawmakers are demanding answers from the Department of Children and Family Services about recent child abuse deaths and new policies that push investigators to speed up abuse and neglect investigations.

"What happened in these cases?" asked state Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Deerfield, who will be participating in a joint House-Senate hearing on DCFS scheduled for May 26 in Springfield. "I'm going to focus on any cases that were closed early, any and all."

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Morrison and state Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, said they plan to question DCFS officials following a May 11 Tribune report on three Cook County cases in which children died of beatings or starvation shortly after the agency closed investigations into mistreatment in their homes.

"You are leaving children in harm's way," Flowers said in an interview.

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DCFS and Director George Sheldon did not immediately respond to requests by the Tribune for comment. Sheldon is considering a job offer from a Miami nonprofit as he faces Illinois ethics probes into DCFS contracts that benefited his friends and political associates. Sheldon said he will make his decision about whether to stay with the agency this week.

Flowers said she also was troubled by the Tribune's account of a new DCFS program called Blue Star that offers overtime pay to Cook County investigators who significantly boost the percentage of cases they close within 14 days.

"There is an incentive to do harm, and that is unacceptable," Flowers said. ""I need to know what happened to those Blue Star kids. What else is out there that we can prevent from happening?"

DCFS denied offering financial rewards to investigators who quickly closed investigations, but agency officials said they now are reviewing how Blue Star was communicated to workers and whether the case-closing goals are appropriate.

Sheldon has told the Tribune the goal of Blue Star was to help investigators focus on the most serious allegations of harm.

The acceleration of case closings  and a drop in the percentage of investigations where abuse was found  started in Cook County last year after three child fatalities. The newspaper found shortcuts and failures in those investigations, including times when DCFS did not interview key witnesses or gather medical information and other evidence.

In one case, a DCFS investigator reported that he saw 6-month-old Jazmine Walker in May 2016 and found her "free of any salient signs of abuse or neglect."

Eight days later the infant was dead of starvation, weighing less than 5 pounds with bones protruding visibly beneath her skin. In response to Tribune questions, DCFS has asked agency Inspector General Denise Kane to probe whether the agency investigator actually saw the girl or fabricated his account.

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In the second case, 4-year-old Manuel Aguilar was pronounced dead in August 2016 after DCFS closed three separate investigations into mistreatment in his Southwest Side home. DCFS did not interview or even acknowledge the presence of a violent, gang-involved man who lived there, and failed to follow up when Manny's siblings told a caseworker about beatings and lack of food, among other shortcomings, the Tribune found.

The third case fell through the cracks because of poor communication between the agency investigator and a private contractor, a subsequent DCFS Quality Assurance Review found. Two-year-old Elliana Claiborne died in Nov. 2015 when her mother allegedly punched her in the stomach; DCFS had closed a prior abuse investigation without proper follow-up, government records show.

In Tribune interviews, DCFS officials acknowledged mistakes in the handling of all three cases.

dyjackson@chicagotribune.com

gmarx@chicagotribune.com

deldeib@chicagotribune.com

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State child welfare Director George Sheldon said Tuesday he is considering a major change in the way the agency conducts abuse and neglect investigations, saying investigators could benefit from access to records of past unproven allegations.

Sheldon said his review was prompted by Tribune reporting on a series of recent child deaths, as well as the case of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby, who died last month in her Joliet Township home shortly after the Department of Children and Family Services closed four neglect probes, and was in the midst of two more.

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DCFS currently expunges and shreds most investigators' files if the agency determines there is no credible evidence of abuse or neglect. But that often handicaps investigators because patterns of mistreatment may only emerge by analyzing the information in those "unfounded" cases, Sheldon acknowledged.

"You need to be tying all those reports together," Sheldon said. "Collectively, they paint a picture."

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Among the three recent cases examined by the Tribune was that of 4-year-old Manuel Aguilar, who was killed last year after DCFS closed two unfounded investigations into mistreatment. Agency officials said they had no records of those two unfounded cases, while the Tribune revealed that the expunged files contained important information about abuse in Manny's home.

Some veterans of Illinois' child welfare system cautioned that laws about retaining unfounded DCFS investigations are complex and must balance the due process rights of parents and caregivers who come under investigation.

Sheldon's comments came as he continues to weigh whether or not to leave the agency. On Tuesday afternoon, a Florida nonprofit offered Sheldon its top job with a $210,000 annual compensation, but said Sheldon needs until the end of the month to make up his mind.

"Gov. (Bruce) Rauner put on a full-court press. They do not want him to leave, and he is torn," said Keith Ward, chairman of the Miami nonprofit Our Kids. "He's catching a lot of flak for being a reformer.  He doesn't want to leave them in the lurch."

Rauner's office did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation or comment.

If he accepts, Sheldon will take the helm of Our Kids by July 1, Ward said. Sheldon told the Tribune that his two years in Illinois have been difficult.

"This is the toughest system I've ever dealt with," he said.

Under current law, DCFS retains some records of unfounded cases for up to three years depending on the seriousness of harm alleged and whether the complaint came from medical personnel or other mandated reporters. Keeping records on all unfounded cases would "cause a lot of spillover to people who are innocent," said attorney Diane Redleaf, of the Family Defense Center, which represents caregivers who feel unjustly accused of abuse or neglect.

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"That will hurt the person who DCFS cleared, without any process for them to challenge the retention," she said. "Government would have access to a huge amount of private information it could use about virtually anyone."

Former DCFS Director Jess McDonald added that instead of changing the law, DCFS should strengthen its supervision of abuse and neglect investigations.

"The most important thing is to ensure it has been a complete investigation and the supervisor has looked at and signed off on all the evidence," McDonald said. "Do the job right up front. If it had merit, then why didn't you act on it?"

Neil Skene, a DCFS senior deputy director, said that Sheldon's review of department expungement policies is "in the early stages." Skene said the due process concerns are profound and at the forefront of Sheldon's consideration.

"It needs to be done deftly and sensitively," he said.

Sheldon told the Tribune he recently met with law enforcement officials and his staff in Joliet as the agency finalizes its review in Semaj's death.

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"Too many times in these kinds of cases, systems circle the wagons or fire the lowest person on the totem pole and call that reform," he said. "We have to improve the way we do business."

Sheldon said he also wants to reach out to frontline child protection investigators who think a new DCFS initiative pressures them to close cases too quickly and leave children in harm's way. Sheldon last year rolled out a Cook County program called Blue Star that gave overtime pay to those investigators who closed out the most cases in 14 days, to help investigators focus on the most serious allegations of harm.

"I am trying to shore that morale up by recognizing the difficulty of their assignments and the Solomon-like decisions they have to make," Sheldon said.

dyjackson@chicagotribune.com

gmarx@chicagotribune.com

deldeib@chicagotribune.com

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Real missed connections, a benefit for Planned Parenthood and a spin on performance art make up this week's Chicago comedy scene.

Thursday, May 18

Satisfy Yourself

Second City

230 W. North Ave. 312-337-3992

Guilty and not-so-guilty pleasures in all forms are celebrated in this sketch revue featuring Tony Orlando, Casey Hall, Miles Kopcke, Erin Martin, Scott Becker, and Louie Cordon. 8:30 p.m. $13. $11 for students. Tickets: secondcity.com

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Listen & Ask Questions: A Protest Show

The iO Theater

1501 N. Kingsbury St. 312-929-2401

Chicago comedian Dave Maher made headlines three years ago when he awoke from a month-long coma and used the experience as stand-up material. Now it's his audience that fuels his comedy as he spends the entirety of this performance art-ish show only asking questions and listening. 10 p.m. $5. Tickets: ioimprov.com

Friday, May 19

Laugh Near Minimalist Furniture: A Comedy Variety Show

Joffrey Tower

8 E. Randolph St. 9th Floor

Calvin Evans headlines this monthly variety showcase which also features stand-up courtesy of Meghana Indurti and Asia Martin, improv by I'm a Turtle?, and sketch from 3 Day Weekend. Vik Pandya hosts. 7:30 p.m. $8 online in advance. $10 at the door. Tickets: eventbrite.com

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Saturday, May 20

Prairie Academy's Night of Comedy

American Islamic College Auditorium

640 W. Irving Park Road 773-281-4700

Azhar Usman, a stand-up comic CNN once called "America's Funniest Muslim," and former Dave Chappelle opening act Mo Amer headline this fundraiser for Buena Park's Prairie Academy. 8 p.m. $35. Tickets: eventbrite.com

Monday, May 22

Period Piece

MCL Chicago

3110 N. Sheffield Ave. 773-610-5930

Former "SNL" writer Katie Rich teams up with fellow Chicago funny ladies for a bloody good time: a staged reading of a musical comedy about periods throughout history. The one-night-only show will benefit Planned Parenthood of Illinois. 8:30 p.m. $15. Tickets: mclchicago.com

Wednesday, May 24

I Saw You

Town Hall Pub

3340 N. Halsted St. 773-472-4405

Real Chicago personal ads from Missed Connections and other salacious sources get a cabaret-style spin in this weekly comedy show from Bruised Orange Theater Company. 8 p.m. $5 (cash only) at the door. More information: facebook.com/thebotc

Gwendolyn Purdom is a RedEye freelancer.
Walking into the first-ever, brand new Nutella Cafe on Michigan Avenue is like walking into a jar of Nutella itself. The warm, creamy white color of the walls is complemented by the dripping Nutella-colored embellishments on the ceiling, accented by hanging lights in the shape of flowers of the hazelnut plant.

Everything in the cafe is inspired by a jar of the chocolate and hazelnut goodness. Red accents evoke the feeling of dipping a spoon into a freshly opened jar, the bright red "Nutella" logo staring at you in the face.

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"It's designed to make you feel like you're actually walking into a jar of Nutella," said Angela Baird, the director of operations at BIG Retail, who consulted with Ferrero USA, Nutella's parent company on creating the space. "Everything screams 'Nutella.'"

The ground floor of the restaurant has an open floor plan with communal tables and smaller cafe-style seating for pairs of people to sit and talk over the many options, ranging from sweet to savory.

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Not every item on the menu includes Nutella, but everything is inspired by the origins of it, according to Noah Szporn, vice president of marketing for Ferrero.

An example of this is the speck ham and gruyere panini. Spec ham is similar to proscuitto, but prepared in the same region in Northern Italy as Nutella.

There is no shortage of items including Nutella that will satisfy even the most stubborn sweet tooth. The Nutella croissant is a perfect starting point for anyone new to the Nutella craze. More experienced Nutella fans will relish in the liege waffle topped with warm apple compote and hazelnuts then doused in Nutella.

Also on offer will be various gelato flavors that can be added to any sweet Nutella dish on the menu or eaten alonewith the option to top each scoop with its own Nutella drizzle.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

The restaurant is located at the high-traffic corner of Michigan Avenue and Lake Street near Millennium Park, accessible to tourists and locals on their way to work alike.

"You can stop in for a coffee on your way to work or come in and relax and also have breakfastor something savoryat 9 p.m.," Szporn said.

On the second level of the cafe are roundabout red couches surrounding a fireplace for a "warm and inviting" dining experience something the minds behind the restaurant believe will resonate with the people of Chicago.

"The food culture here is amazing ... Chicago is different than other major cities," Szporn said. "We wanted to be a part of that, with our food bringing people together."

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A Nutella-based cafe already exists in Toronto, but the Michigan Avenue location is the world's first Nutella Cafe owned and operated by Ferrero, the makers of Nutella.

The cafe will open at 151 N. Michigan Ave. May 31.

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Arlington Heights Police detective Brian Clarke leads the riders at the start of the Bike Arlington Heights event in the village. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)

From toddlers buckled into safety seats to intrepid senior citizens, biking enthusiasts of all ages took to the streets Saturday for the fourth annual Bike Arlington Heights, a scenic, 14-mile spin through the village.

The free event, which kicked off at 9 a.m. at North School Park, attracted 100 bicyclists, who had the option of completing either a four-mile or 14-mile loop, officials said.

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While all bicycle riders were urged to wear a helmet and be familiar with the rules of the road, Bike Arlington Heights neither was a race nor a fundraiser but rather, an opportunity to highlight the village as a bike friendly community, said David Easley, a member of the Arlington Heights Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, which organized this year's event.

"The weather was great, we had a nice turnout, and most important, we didn't have any falls or incidents," Easley said.

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Briget Schwab, a village engineer and staff liaison for the commission, said the Bike Arlington Heights event both encouraged residents to improve their health with outdoor exercise and also raised awareness that while in Arlington Heights, "a lot of places are much closer than they seem."

"We're trying to change the mindset of residents, showing them that they can take their bikes to a lot of places in the village, instead of choosing to drive their cars," Schwab said.

Local bicyclists also are encouraged to attend a June 1 open house at the Arlington Heights Village Hall, where officials plan to unveil a proposed bike and pedestrian plan that was created with the assistance of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Easley said.

"I really feel passionate about this beautiful community, and making Arlington Heights a safer and better place to ride bikes," he said.

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
Five days after Tywon M. Salters was hospitalized for eating plastic off a sandal from his jail uniform, the 21-year-old inmate stole a handgun from a corrections officer assigned to guard him, according to information released Monday following the weekend Delnor Hospital hostage standoff that ended with a SWAT officer shooting the Chicago man in the head.

Salters' preliminary cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the head, which caused intercranial injuries, said Kane County Coroner Rob Russell, whose office performed the autopsy Monday.

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At this point, only two people could know how Salters, of the 100 block of West 103rd Place, got the officer's 9mm handgun inside his third-floor room at the Geneva hospital, said Kane County Lt. Patrick Gengler, the spokesman for the sheriff's office. One was Salters. The other is the officer, who had not been interviewed by investigators as of Monday afternoon, Gengler said.

"We really don't know what happened in the room," Gengler said.

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Salters initially took one nurse hostage, then took a different nurse and released the first, officials said in a news release Monday. He brought the second hostage to the first floor of the hospital, where he barricaded them in a room near the emergency treatment area.

Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital went on lockdown early Saturday afternoon and evacuated patients from the emergency area. Ambulances took those who couldn't leave on their own to other hospitals. A SWAT team of specially trained officers from the county's law-enforcement agencies was called in.

Negotiators tried, unsuccessfully, to reason with Salters by phone. The SWAT team went into the area where he was holding the hostage shortly before 4 p.m.

A shot fired from the gun Salters had taken lodged in a SWAT officer's bulletproof vest, Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon said in a news conference late Saturday.

A North Aurora Police Officer on the team fired at least one shot at Salters, striking him.

Russell did not say whether Salters had any other injuries.

Both Salters and the hostage, who was not physically injured, were taken out of the area and given immediate medical attention, officials said. The officer whose vest was shot also was treated and released from the hospital.

Within minutes, medical personnel pronounced Salters dead.

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Officials waited about two hours to tell the public he'd been shot, which Gengler said was to make sure Salter's family had been notified.

The hospital lifted its lockdown, and the ER resumed accepting patients at 6 p.m., hospital spokeswoman Kimberly Waterman said.

Hospital employees train for similar situations and work closely with law enforcement partners, Waterman said.

Arrested in March on new charges, Salters had been on parole since October 2016, when he was released from the Hill Correctional Center and was projected to be discharged two years later, records show. He was sentenced in May 2013 to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for stolen vehicle charges out of downstate Vermilion County and a 48-month sentence for a robbery in Elgin, both committed in 2012 when he was 17 years old, at a time when state law meant he was automatically tried as an adult.

On March 11, a criminal complaint filed in Kane County Circuit Court accused Salters of receiving, possessing or selling a stolen motor vehicle in Elgin on March 2. He was charged with two counts of the class 2 felony and booked in the Kane County jail, where his bail was set at $75,000, with 10 percent to apply for bond.

Salters asked a judge to lower that amount, but his bond reduction motion was denied on March 27, according to court records. In April, he was allowed unblocked phone calls. He was assigned to the public defender's office and scheduled to have a status hearing this Wednesday with Judge Linda S. Abrahamson. Salters' family members could not be reached for comment.

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Medical personnel took Salters to the hospital by ambulance about 5:40 p.m. May 8, officials said. Doctors surgically removed the plastic from Salters' stomach. Authorities weren't sure how long he was expected to stay at the hospital, where he was recovering from the procedure, according to a news release from the state's attorney's office.

The officer whose gun was taken was in a rotation of corrections officers assigned to monitor Salters around the clock, Gengler said.

Gengler said he didn't know how long the officer had been with the department but that both he and the North Aurora officer who shot Salters have been placed on paid administrative leave pending further investigation.

The leave is more a formality than an indication of any findings or speculation about the officer, Gengler said.

"The officer had his weapon taken and that weapon was used (to hold someone) hostage," Gengler said. "To expect that person to come back to work is completely unrealistic."

North Aurora police officials were not available for comment Monday.

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Illinois State Police over the weekend announced their Public Integrity Task Force would investigate the officer-involved shooting after the sheriff's office asked them to step in.

The sheriff's office is focusing on how Salters got the officer's gun and how the situation escalated, while state police are independently looking into the use of force, Gengler said.

"Our investigation is, 'How did that happen ... how did it get to the point where it became a hostage situation?'" Gengler said.

In accordance with Illinois law, once state police finish their end of the investigation, they'll turn over findings to the state's attorney's office, which will determine whether deadly force was appropriate, Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Jason Bradley said.

Gengler and Bradley said neither agency has interviewed the corrections officer yet.

The sheriff's office is planning to talk to anyone who had been assigned to Salters at the hospital during his stay.

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In the sheriff's office, which is small enough that everybody knows everybody and is typically relaxed, the mood has been especially quiet, Gengler said.

"Today people are just focused on what's in front of them, to keep moving on," Gengler said.

At some point, he said, they plan to debrief everyone affected by Saturday's events, including dispatchers, officers and hospital staff.

The sheriff's office is also internally reviewing policies, procedures and protocol for transporting jail detainees and how they are kept under guard while outside the jail.

"There are many questions to be answered about this incident," McMahon said in a news release late Monday afternoon. "I expect that these reviews will be thorough and will provide as complete a picture as possible of what occurred inside Delnor Hospital on May 13. When we get those answers, and after we are able to fully examine the investigation, we will share as much as we lawfully can with the public. In the meantime, please understand that it will not be beneficial to the pursuit of justice for us to reveal information piecemeal. Doing so could potentially compromise the integrity of the important work that lies ahead."

Beacon News reporter Steve Lord contributed.

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Twitter @hannahmleone
The annual Puerto Rican festival has been a staple in Aurora for decades. (Linda Girardi/ Beacon-News )

The Aurora Puerto Rican Cultural Council, Inc. has canceled the Puerto Rican festival and parade scheduled for the last Sunday in July.

In an email sent to members, the council said it would not hold the event, which has been going on for 45 years, because of an event scheduled on the same day, and because of budgetary concerns.

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The email said postponing this year's festivities would give the council a chance to whittle down the deficit from the 2016 event and "utilize this year to focus on fundraising and re-establishing their economic status."

Council President Jalitza Colon Martinez said, "this was an extremely difficult decision that our new leadership did not want to make, however, the amount of deficit we are working against has to be addressed and we have to make fiscally responsible decisions so that the (council) is maintainable in the long run."

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The council extended its appreciation to RiverEdge Park, where the event has been held in recent years, and the Special Events Office at Aurora City Hall "for working collaboratively to problem solve."

The Aurora Puerto Rican Cultural Council's mission is to encourage and promote Puerto Rican heritage through cultural, ethnic and civic activities designed to educate the Puerto Rican community, "and nothing about upholding this mission has been changed," the email said.

The council plans on hosting its Heritage Parade and Festival again on July 28-29, 2018, at RiverEdge Park in downtown Aurora. The festival will feature performances from a variety of musicians with other main stage acts.

Festival goers also go to experience authentic Puerto Rican cuisine and there will be games, arts and crafts, and activities for the entire family.

"We will continue working expeditiously to deliver an amazing festival and parade in 2018 that our community deserves and that our predecessors would be proud of," Colon Martinez said.

For more information about the Aurora Puerto Rican Cultural Council the website is www.auroraprcc.org.

slord@tribpub.com
Stevenson High School senior Kathy Xiang recently was named one of the 161 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the country. (Kathy Xiang )

Recently named one of the 161 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the country, Kathy Xiang, a senior at Stevenson High School, plans to work in the world of numbers, whether it be machinery, hard sciences or finance.

But the Vernon Hills resident, who was one of eight high school students from Illinois selected by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars to receive its highest honor, credited her AP English class as having a major influence on her life as a student, although she plans to pursue science or economics for a career.

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"Because it's not my particular skill, that made the impact of the class ever bigger," Xiang said. "It broadened my perspective in many ways, seeing how to empathize with people and humanity."

Since it started in 1964, the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program recognizes the nation's most distinguished graduating high school seniors, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Aside from Xiang, the other seven winners from Illinois this year came from Chicago, Plainfield and Naperville, according to the department.

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Xiang, who plans to attend Harvard University in the fall, is the fourth student from Stevenson to be named a U.S. Presidential Scholar since 2006, school officials said.

The education department called the recognition one of the highest honors for high school students in the country, although recipients don't receive any scholarship money or financial compensation for the honor.

Xiang said she nearly decided against applying for it since she didn't think she would win. Once she decided to follow up on it, she had to turn over test results, transcripts, teacher recommendations and essays, Xiang said.

"When I applied, I really expected nothing out of it because I knew how selective and prestigious it was," she said. "I hit the 'send' button, thinking that was the last I'd ever hear from them."

As part of the process, Xiang had to name the teacher who influenced her the most.

She listed Dean Bradshaw, who taught her AP English class, where she learned how to reconcile her own background by reading about some of literature's greatest characters.

Born in Canada to Chinese parents, Xiang said, she always struggled with her own identity growing up.

"I am a cross-cultural product," Xiang said. "I've struggled with identity. I really do try to stay connected to my roots."

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Bradshaw said he felt fortunate to watch Xiang grow personally and as a student.

"I am in awe with how she handles all the different aspects of her life," Bradshaw wrote in an email. "And she does an amazing job in all of them. She is a leader among her peers and empathetic to all."

To that end, Xiang already has started working in education.

On Sundays, she teaches the English language to adults, who have come from China, at Fenghua Academy in Lake Zurich, she said.

"It's definitely a challenge," Xiang said. "I learn from them in surprising ways. They often correct my Chinese."

For being a major influence of a U.S. Presidential Scholar, Bradshaw will receive a letter from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Xiang and this year's other 160 honorees also are set to travel to the nation's capital in June to be recognized.

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After that, Harvard awaits Xiang, who plans to use her empathy and lessons learned in AP English in her career working with numbers.

"I figured I would miss the shot if I didn't take it," she said.

rwachter@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer
Dolton Mayor Riley H. Rogers speaks at a press conference Monday, May 15, 2017 to provide an update on a shooting at a local nightclub on May 14, 2017 that seriously injured five people. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Authorities have yet to charge anyone in the shootings of five people at a Dolton nightclub early Sunday morning, but multiple arrests are imminent, the city's police chief said.

"We're very confident that we have all the puzzle pieces," Dolton Police Chief Robert Collins Jr. said Monday at a joint news conference with Mayor Riley H. Rogers. "We're about to put them together, and just due to the sensitive nature of this current information that we have in hand, I cannot release that information."

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Collins said he expects to close the investigation into the shooting, which left five people seriously injured, within the next two days. He plans to announce multiple arrests at that time, he said.

The shooting started on the second floor of the Club One nightclub, 14112 Chicago Road in Dolton, just before 3 a.m. Sunday, police said.

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"One person inside the club had a pistol and shot four people inside the club," Collins said. "And that person was shot by someone else outside of the club."

Police are still investigating what sparked the incident, but Collins said a fight involving multiple people preceded the shooting.

All five of the shooting victims  one of whom was also a gunman  remain hospitalized, he said. Three are in critical but stable condition, and the other two are in serious but stable condition.

Club One will remain closed for seven days as police continue their investigation, Rogers said. At the conclusion of the seven-day period, the village could formally seek to revoke the club's license through a formal hearing process, but it is unclear if it would do so.

Rogers would not commit to seeking license revocation, but did say he hoped to implement a plan by which police would perform regular checks at the club and the fire department would visit the club to ensure it abided by occupancy requirements.

"I'm not here to put anyone out of business," he said, "but we'd like to have our guidelines followed so we can make sure that this community is safe and we keep our residents safe."

Rogers said a company called Mucho Gusto LLC owned the club and that its business and liquor licenses  both of which are current  were held by Bob Terzich. Terzich could not immediately be reached for comment.

The mayor acknowledged that Terzich was "a supporter" of his  a Robert Terzich provided Rogers' campaign committee a $1,000 donation in 2014, according to Board of Elections filings  but said he doesn't offer special treatment to any village businesses.

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Rogers said there had been multiple shootings at the club over the years, but that Sunday's shooting  which he called "an isolated incident"  was the first shooting since a new management team had taken over its operations earlier this year.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

He said he didn't know the names of the individuals involved with either management team, but that Terzich's ownership of the club spanned both of them.

The prior tenants, Rogers said, had been evicted in January, and the new tenants had since taken over and remodeled the space.

Collins said police had only responded to "minor skirmishes, calls for disturbances, fights" at the club since the new management team took over operations.

"It's pretty typical for a nightclub," the chief said of the calls his department has responded to at the club in recent months. "When you have multiple people and you have alcohol involved. Things tend to happen. But nothing of this magnitude has happened since the new ownership has taken place."

Rogers said between 10 and 15 private security guards were present at Club One when the shooting erupted, a number he said he felt was "appropriate." Collins said that Dolton police do not provide security and Club One and that he did not know the security company that did.

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Twitter @ZakKoeske
Participants in the March to Springfield for a People and Planet First Budget begin Day 2 of the 15-day trek on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, outside Curie High School at Archer Avenue and Pulaski Road in Chicago. (Ted Slowik / Daily Southtown) (Chicago Tribune)

I admire the people walking 200 miles from Chicago to Springfield to urge lawmakers and the governor to pass a fair state budget.

They're expending a tremendous amount of energy for their personal convictions. They're raising awareness about their desire for Illinois to tax the rich more to fund state services.

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When I first heard about the marchers beginning their trek at noon Monday from outside the Thompson Center in Chicago, I thought they were walking to the state Capitol to urge passage of a budget  any budget.

Illinois, after all, hasn't had a budget in nearly two years  an unprecedented stalemate that has disrupted services and damaged the state's economy.

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The Associated Press, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures, says no other state in post-World War II history has gone an entire fiscal year without a budget  let alone two fiscal years.

But as it turns out, the marchers are members of a coalition called Fair Economy Illinois. They call their event the March to Springfield for a People and Planet First Budget.

Their proposal claims the state could raise $23 billion in additional revenue annually by closing corporate tax loopholes, enacting a graduated income tax and by taxing transactions through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

State Sen. Omar Aquino, a Chicago Democrat, proposed the so-called "LaSalle Street Tax" in SB1970.

"The governor and our legislators say the best we can hope for is some grand bargain where they'll cut spending on schools, higher education, and social services, expand the sales tax, and raise the flat rate for the income tax," the group says on its website.

"That grand bargain is a raw deal for working families, the elderly, and people with disabilities."

If the state is looking to raise new revenue by taxing such services as home repairs, taxing financial transactions sounds like a better alternative to me.

I met up with the marchers Tuesday morning outside Marie Sklodowska Curie Metropolitan High School at Archer Avenue and Pulaski Road in the Archer Heights neighborhood.

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They planned to walk 12 miles Tuesday to Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills. Temperatures were expected to reach the upper 80s. Organizers said marchers range in age from 23 to 90.

When I saw him Tuesday morning, the 90-year-old was using a scooter as the group marched south along Archer Avenue.

Organizers said while many others may join the marchers for parts of the journey, about 10 participants are expected to walk the entire 200 miles from Chicago to Springfield.

I spoke with two women from the south suburbs and asked why they were marching to Springfield. Egle Malinauskaite said she lived in Orland Park and that Tuesday was her 23rd birthday.

She described herself as an undocumented immigrant from Lithuania who was studying biomedical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She said she was marching to protest the lack of state funding for public universities and grants for college students.

"I know what lack of access to higher education means," Malinauskaite told me. She urged support for HB2394, which would expand eligibility for college scholarships and other financial aid to undocumented residents and students with drug convictions.

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Alex Muhammad, 27, of Park Forest, said she was marching to urge state funding for Medicaid. She said her younger sister, 6, was born three months premature and needed ongoing medical care.

"My mom depends on Medicaid," Muhammad said. The state budget, or lack thereof, has "huge potential to impact" the care of her younger sister.

Muhammad said she's moved around a lot with her family and attended schools in Chicago and Dolton. She's seen disparity in funding for public schools, she said.

"There was a huge difference in resources and opportunities," between schools in Chicago and Dolton, she said.

Marchers carried signs with talking points about the People and Planet First Budget. One showed an image of a wind turbine and called for "100 percent renewable energy."

Another sign called on Springfield to "fully fund human services." Others sought to "repair our infrastructure," "fully fund PK-12 education" and "universal health care."

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The group says on its website it also wants Illinois to provide free college tuition at community colleges and state universities, and to increase investments in pensions for state workers.

At the kick-off rally in Chicago on Monday, speakers also called for the state to fully fund mental health services, to establish a $15 minimum wage statewide and to provide more resources for affordable housing.

The March to Springfield reminded me of the Occupy Wall Street protests a few years ago that raised awareness about income inequality, and disparity between the wealthiest "1 percent" and the rest of Americans.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

The Fair Economy Illinois call for free college education reminded me of the 2016 presidential campaign of Democrat Bernie Sanders. On the political spectrum the group's advocacy for progressive policies could be considered far left. I thought its members displayed the passion and activism that far-right "tea party" supporters demonstrated in 2009.

I left thinking the group's efforts may not end up influencing the state budget or tax structure this year, but that grassroots political activism has shifted 180 degrees in eight years.

The route of the 15-day march generally follows the path of Interstate 55 and historic Route 66. Marchers hope to arrive in Springfield on May 30, the day before the legislature is scheduled to end its spring session.

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Charitable organizations and others are providing overnight accommodations along the way, and the group is holding a series of evening "listening sessions." Marchers will meet from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Senior Services of Will County, 251 N. Center St., Joliet.

Details about the group's budget proposal and its 200-mile walk may be found at marchtospringfield.org.

email:tslowik@tronc.com

Twitter @tedslowik
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has been investing heavily in personalized learning , has formed a partnership with the College Board to expand access for low-income and rural students to college preparation and planning tools such as Advanced Placement courses in STEM fields, and free online study for the SAT.

The two-year partnership, announced Tuesday, will channel an undisclosed sum from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative led by Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chanto the College Board to use to support a suite of related projects aimed at building college readiness in underserved communities.

Some of the money will support expanded work by the College Advising Corps, which uses recent college graduates to support and guide high school students as they make their transitions to college. The partnership will enable the College Advising Corps to reach more students in California, Michigan, Illinois and Texas, according to College Board spokesman Zach Goldberg.

Three other organizations will be part of the partnership, too: the National Rural Education Association, the Council of the Great City Schools, and The New Teacher Project. Theyll work to expand schools use of the PSAT, which can give students feedback about their potential to succeed to AP courses; to get the College Boards AP Computer Science Principles and other AP courses in STEM fields offered in more schools, and to expand students use of SAT preparation through the Khan Academy, Goldberg said.

A related slice of the partnership will focus on research into academic motivation. Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania professor who founded the Character Lab, and Greg Walton, of Stanford University, will conduct studies designed to better tailor those college-readiness supports, Goldberg said.

A spokeswoman from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative declined to specify how much money the organization will provide to the College Board for the partnership.
Three adults and two minors have been arrested in connection with an armed robbery Monday at an East Dundee gas station, according to East Dundee police.

East Dundee Police Chief Terry Mee said in a news release officers were dispatched at about 1:30 a.m. May 15 to Thornton's gas station at 100 Dundee Ave., for the report of an armed robbery.

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The offenders were described as four African-American males, one who was wearing a ski mask over his face and displaying a handgun, police said. Reports state he went around the counter and took currency from the register, as well as scratch-off lottery tickets, and the clerk's cell phone from a charger on the counter.

The four then left the scene in a vehicle driven by a fifth African-American male offender, Mee said.

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Prior to the East Dundee incident, offenders with similar descriptions had committed similar armed robberies at Speedway gas stations in Hampshire and Belvidere, according to the release.

The Thornton's clerk activated the hold-up alarm at QuadCom, the dispatch operation for 911 calls, and reported the incident, officials said.

While East Dundee officers were still conducting their investigation, it was learned via radio that an Illinois State Trooper Trooper had just made a traffic stop on a motorist for speeding in the area of the River Road Toll Plaza on I-90, according to the release. The trooper had reportedly been made aware of the multiple armed robberies and noted the stopped vehicle, a 2007 Chevy Impala, had five occupants fitting the general description of the offenders, as well as items that had been reported as stolen property.

A semi-automatic 9mm firearm was also found in the vehicle, reports state.

The three adults are being held at the Kane County Jail, police said.

Santrell D. Tamir, 18, Chicago, and Brian D. Ormand, 18, Chicago, have each been charged with one count of class X armed robbery with a firearm and class 3 felony theft. Their bond has been set at $100,000.

Damarcus D. Gilmore, 18, Chicago, was charged with one count of class X armed robbery with a firearm, class 3 felony theft, and obstructing identification. His bond is set at $150,000.

The two juveniles, 17, of Chicago, were also charged with one count of class X armed robbery with a firearm and class 3 felony theft. They were transported to the Kane County Juvenile Justice Center.

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No one was injured as a result of the East Dundee incident, Mee said, and further investigations of the East Dundee incident and similar offenses in other jurisdictions are ongoing.

Erin Sauder is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
District 205's new curriculum directors both see a world of opportunities with the district's new middle school block scheduling.

Dave Beedy, the district's new director of science, technology, engineering and math education, and Nikki Tammaru, the district's soon-to-be director of literacy, both cite a host of advantages for going to bigger blocks of time for most subjects during the middle school day beginning in August.

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"We will be better able to address the needs of kids," Beedy said. "We will have 30 minutes during the day for acceleration, whether it is a student working ahead or getting support in a certain area."

They said the block scheduling will also allow for "deeper thinking" in classrooms, allowing teachers to go into a subject in more detail. They said it also will allow more collaboration between teachers in different subject areas.

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"Anything is possible when you work together," Tammaru said.

The scheduling switch has been met with opposition from some teachers and parents because while providing more subject time for many subjects, science and language arts will be given less. Both subjects will lose five to six weeks of instruction time over the course of a school year.

"There are ways to make it work," said Tammaru, who is currently Hawthorne School's principal. "You need to collaborate. You can get a lot out of this (new) schedule as well. There will be give and take. We are doing it for a reason."

Beedy, was STEM coordinator for the district before being elevated to a director, said middle school science teachers can go more in depth with 75-minute sessions every other day than they can with the 42 minutes they now get with students every day.

"A lot of times teachers would do a lab over two days and they would have to review what they did," Beedy said. "They would spend the first five or 10 minutes on the second day having to reintroduce things in front of the kids. It was flawed."

Beedy said consolidated learning may need to take place in some cases.

"The minutes may be less, but you are not looking at the time being saved," he said. "People see they are losing six weeks and their interest is in recovering that time. Teachers initially saw the block scheduling and asked 'Do I make tests 75 minutes?' It is all about using instructional time creatively."

Concerns have also been expressed by teachers and parents that the scheduling change is being made too quickly, that the change should be reviewed and discussed further and instituted for the 2018-19 school year.

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"There are all sorts of benefits with this. Why wait?" Beedy asked.

Tammaru echoed that sentiment.

"Kids are going to show up in the fall," Tammaru said. "Why are we going to wait a year to do something that is right for the kids?"

Mary Henderson-Baum, assistant superintendent of learning and teaching for the district, said that Tammaru has a strong background in both literacy and leadership.

"Her passion is evident in her daily work," Henderson-Baum said. "Her ability to plan and lead professional learning will allow us to fully support our teachers at all levels in our continued work to improve instruction."

Prior to joining District 205 in 2011, Tammaru served as assistant principal of the Americana Intermediate School in Glendale Heights' Queen Bee District 16 for three years.

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Superintendent David Moyer said Beedy has shown outstanding leadership and initiative with the Elmhurst school system.

"Mr. Beedy is an accomplished leader who, most recently, has led the curriculum development team for our revised math curriculum," Moyer said. "He is highly collaborative, seeks to build consensus and has worked to open access to challenging curriculum for all learners. He is consistently recognized by teachers in our district for his support, communication and responsiveness to teacher questions and concerns."

Beedy previously served as assistant principal, and science and technology leader at Perspectives Charter School in Chicago.

Both Beedy and Tammaru see their new positions as an opportunity to shape the education of students in the district.

"The STEM curriculum continues to be important in the district," Beedy said. "I can help grow this work and impact science, technology, engineering and math in our schools."

"It is an opportunity to stay in Elmhurst and have a real role in directing what is happening," Tammaru said.

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Tammaru's salary as director of literacy will be $129,522. Beedy's compensation as director of STEM education is part of the proposed administrative salaries for 2017-18 that are slated to go before the District 205 School Board next week so that contracts can be drawn up and signed in June, according to a district spokeswoman.

In other administrative moves, Hawthorne assistant principal Tim Riordan will replace Tammaru at the helm of the school, and Heidi Thomas has been named principal at Field School.

Both Riordan and Thomas will take over at their respective schools Aug. 1, each with a salary of $111,274.

Kevin Beese is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press
Eugene Piltaver of Franklin Park had a piece of advice for East Leyden High School students.

"Never give up," he said.

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Piltaver, a Korean War veteran, and several other veterans participated in East Leyden's service project entitled Project Vet.

East Leyden English teacher Jeanette Gagliardi explained that sophomores have a unit in the curriculum dedicated to persuasion. Gagliardi challenged her students to come up with several service project ideas and present them to their class.

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"We had to vote as to which service project we liked the best," sophomore Kailey Kirkwood said. "We had to think of a service project that would help people."

Project Vet took place at the East Leyden Annex on May 12 at 6:30 p.m. The event's purpose was for East Leyden students to talk with veterans while having fun.

Gagliardi said they were also collecting donations for Amvets or American Legion Post 974, Franklin Park.

"We want to talk to veterans and to hear their stories," Kirkwood said. "We want our veterans to know that the people in town care about them."

Gagliardi explained that the evening consisted of games geared toward veterans and their families, face painting, a DJ and food. She said that the students found most of the veterans through American Legion Post 974, Franklin Park.

Kirkwood, along with sophomore Izabela Krzysztofek, said planning Project Vet took on a new meaning for them since they have military ties in their families.

"I have a lot of family members that are veterans," Kirkwood said. "My grandpa and uncle were Marines."

"My grandfather was a Marine, and all I could do was think about him while planning this," Krzysztofek said. "I hope it's an event that we can continue each year."

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As for Piltaver, he said he was drafted when he was 22 years old.

"In those days, [everyone] was patriotic," he said. "Our generation had no problem serving in the military."

As a member of the American Legion Post 974, Franklin Park, he said he wanted to talk to the students about his experiences. Piltaver's friend, Gene Korus, also a Franklin Park resident, was in attendance to share his story. Korus said he was in the Navy and served in the Vietnam War. He said he joined when he was 18 years old.

"I came from a neighborhood of patriotism," Korus said.

Gagliardi hoped the service project would open the minds of her students. She wants them to have compassion for those in need.

"There are people in the world that are suffering," she explained. "If my students can help those people, that's going to make them [better people.]"

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Maryann Pisano is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Jessica Wittenstein, 17, left, a Glenview Clovers 4-H Club member, raised Rose, a 17-month old red and white Holstein breed calf. Lucille Christian, 2, of Chicago, brushes Rose. Meanwhile, the toddlers mother, Ariel Christian of Chicago, snaps a photo at the May 13, 2017, Vet for a Day event in Glenview at Historic Wagner Farm. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

Families could take horse-drawn wagon rides and children could listen to the heartbeat of a pup through a stethoscope at Vet for a Day, held Saturday at Historic Wagner Farm.

The three-hour event, in its second year, drew approximately 250 people and gave participants an opportunity to learn about animals. Veterinarians from the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association offered hands-on demonstrations in animal handling, anatomy, medical care and other applications.

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"I think it's just an exposure for people," said Sarah Schoeneberg, Wagner Farm program manager. "You go to a vet's office and you don't really get to see the behind-the-scenes stuff."

"This is a chance to explore and just kind of get educated," she said.

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Children could pet certain animals, and attendees could visit experts at table stations.

"I also think they (children) learn how to approach a dog, how to act around a dog, and how a dog acts around them," said David Cohen of Wilmette, a Glenview veterinarian.

Kids could brush Rose, a 17-month old red and white Holstein breed calf raised by Jessica Wittenstein, 17, a Glenbrook South High School junior and a Glenview Clovers 4-H Club member.

"I ask kids, 'Where do you think your food comes from?'" Wittenstein said. "And they always say, 'Jewel-Osco.'

"It's really nice for them to learn where their food comes from, the primary source," Wittenstein said.

Kathy Smith of Glenview leads a horse-drawn wagon while, on left, Jack Ross, 4, in yellow, of Highland Park and Natalie Krueger, 6, of Glenview, partake in the ride. They're at Historic Wagner Farm in Glenview on May 13, 2017, for Vet for a Day. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press)

Heidi Pulito, a veterinarian from Sandwich, explained medical stitching methods to children, including Josie Jordanof, 4.

"She (Josie) wants to be a veterinarian," said their mother, Kendra Jordanof.

Showing that stitching is like sewing makes the practice approachable to people who might be afraid, Pulito said.

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"It's sewing!" Pulito said. "One kid told me it was like sewing up his teddy bear. And I was like, 'Yeah, that's true!'"

Carolina Kaufman of Norwood Park said her daughter, Ariah Kaufman, 3, has a toy doctor's kit at home.

"There are so many different things you can do," Ariah's mother said of the event."It's fantastic!"

Karie Angell Luc is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
The Moraine Township office was hit Saturday with an unexpected deluge of the best imaginable kind.

It started early afternoon when Highland Park mail carriers began dropping off the bags of food donations collected from customers along their routes.

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By late afternoon, carriers had delivered nearly 2,000 bags of non-perishable food  all collected from Highland Park mail customers during this year's Stamp Out Hunger food drive. The one-day drive is held each year on the second Saturday in May to stock food pantry shelves heading into summer when donations are down.

"Best postal food drive ever," exclaimed Moraine Township Supervisor Anne Bassi, using five exclamation points to underscore the unprecedented response in an e-mail sent Saturday evening.

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"We blew them away," said Joe Cholewa, a Highland Park mail carrier who coordinated the drive locally. "They never expected this much. They never got this much."

Cholewa, a mail carrier for the past 40 years, attributed the surge to the brown paper bags that carriers supplied many customers along their routes the Wednesday before the collection. The AARP Foundation provided the funding for the bag distribution. Mail customers were first alerted to the upcoming food drive through a small postcard left in the mailbox.

"This is the first year we have ever had paper bags to give to the customers," said Cholewa, noting more people are using reusable shopping bags and don't have disposable bags or containers. "Every one of the carriers commented to me that they have never seen it this good, and they all attributed it to the bags."

"The postcard is small and I think often people don't see it," said Township Trustee Amy Zisook. "You could not miss the bag. It made it easy for people not to forget."

About 44 Highland Park postal carriers and a dozen auxiliary employees collected food donations. Some carriers stayed to carry the food donations downstairs to the basement, where the pantry is located, and sort the donations into bins.

Bassi said about 40 volunteers, including Boy Scouts from Troop 324, helped unload the donations.

Cholewa said when the basement was covered with food, volunteers began using conference tables, chairs and portable tables set up to handle the overflow.

The Moraine Township Food Pantry serves income-qualified residents who are invited to visit the pantry twice a month to receive shelf-stable food items, plus produce, dairy and frozen meat. The pantry is located in the township office at 777 Central Avenue in Highland Park, and open Tuesday and Thursday from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Visits also may be arranged by appointment to accommodate work schedules.

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"We are fortunate to live in a community of workers and residents who care about residents going through difficult times, and this drive demonstrates the care and compassion of our residents who both contributed food and pitched in to volunteer," said Township Trustee Dwayne Douglas, in a statement announcing the results of the postal food drive.

This year marked the 25th Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers. In 2016, 80 million pounds of food were collected, according to the association.

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @KarenABerkowitz
A Countryside man is accused of robbing a U.S. Bank in the 4000 block of South Harlem Avenue, according to the FBI. ( Credit: FBI photos via BanditTrackerChicago.com)

A 21-year-old Countryside man didn't get too far after he allegedly robbed a bank in Stickney of about $7,500 last week, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Isa Allan was arrested on May 9 near the U.S. Bank in the 4000 block of South Harlem Avenue, according to the FBI. Police had arrived after being called by bank employees and found Allan standing in the bank's parking lot outside of a car that reportedly had been stolen in downtown Chicago earlier in the day, according to the complaint.

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After seeing the officers approach, Allan tried to flee on foot but was captured after a brief chase. A hammer and drill were recovered from his waistband, authorities said.

Allan allegedly had entered the bank and handed a note to a teller demanding money, according to the complaint. He told the teller, "I'm watching you, stay quiet," and kept demanding "more" money until the teller's drawer was depleted and he left the bank, according to the complaint.

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Employees provided police with a description of the robber, and it matched Allan, who was in the parking lot.

After Allan was arrested, officers found $7,460 in the vehicle. They also found a note on the driver's side floor that said: "Give it all, don't scream, don't make a scene, no dye packs, no GPS, big bills. I will kill you."

Allan initially refused to give his name. His true identity was learned when he was taken to FBI offices in Chicago. A federal judge ordered that he be detained, according to the FBI.
More than 250 dads, moms, kids, grandparents and others come to the annual fishing derby to catch some carp in Bevier Parkas pond in Waukegan. - Original Credit: File (News-Sun / HANDOUT)

It doesn't matter how young a fisherman is or how small the catch, everyone's got a chance to win a prize at Waukegan Park District's 26th Annual Fishing Derby, to be held June 3 in Bevier Park.

"In the past winners have gotten their own fishing poles or a bicycle," said Shelby McDonald, recreation supervisor for the park district.

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Fishermen come for the prizes, for sure, she said, but what's also exciting, according to McDonald. is that the low-cost event gives families with children of all ages the chance to enjoy the outdoors together.

"Kids have a really fun time," said McDonald, who grew up fishing on family vacations in Wisconsin. "It's not something they get to do every day  hanging out with their parents and doing the same activity. There's always a very long line in the morning. People get super excited about it."

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Plus, participants don't need a fishing license that day; thanks to a permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. They're also getting a pond fully stocked with catfish, affording them a darned good chance at a catch  and they can take their catch home to cook and eat.

"That's something that's unique in a fishing derby," McDonald said of keeping the catch. Many Lake County fishing derbies are catch and release, she said.

The event draws several hundred participants, so McDonald recommends fishermen register ahead of time. Otherwise they might have to stand in line to register on the day of the event.

Each person is allowed one pole in the fishing area. Most bring their own poles and bait, but the park district will sell worms, which McDonald said catfish particularly enjoy. A few poles will be available for rent, she said.

Prizes are given for the largest fish caught in various age groups  and new this year, McDonald is offering a prize to the smallest fish caught.

The pond is stocked just before the event.

"We get catfish from Minnesota," she said. "We've worked with the same company for years. They're awesome. They come in a truck with cabinets on the side that they dump into the pond.

"We drop the fish in the cold water. They'll move everywhere around the pond so everyone gets a chance to catch one," she said. "We get all different sizes  anywhere from just a few inches long to about 30 inches."

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In years past, some of the prizes have included a fryer for cooking the catfish. "I'm not a big fish eater. But I do like fried catfish," she said.

Award winners receive certificates and other prizes. The pond area opens at 7 a.m. for people to pick their favorite spot; on-site registration begins at 7:30 a.m., and the contest begins at 8 a.m.

"It starts out calm and gets a little crazy because everyone's excited. Everyone's in a really good mood."

Six stations with two helpers are positioned around the pond where kids can get help taking their fish off their hooks.

"We also explain at the beginning on how to handle a catfish if you're to catch one. It's pretty easy. You grab it from its back and take it off the hook."

Sheryl DeVore is a freelance writer for the News-Sun.

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Waukegan's Annual Fishing Derby

When: 8-10:30 a.m. June 3; pond area opens at 7 a.m.

Where: Bevier Park, 2255 Yorkhouse Road, Waukegan

Tickets: Age 12 and under: $3/$5 for pre-registration or $5 on-site registration; Age 13+: $5/$7 for pre-registration or $7 for on-site registration
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has signed new legislation that promises to make sweeping changes to the states teaching corps, allowing districts to hire educators without any formal teaching training or experience.

Senate Bill 1042 , similar to laws recently passed in Oklahoma and Utah , allows for prospective educators to enter the classroom if they have five years of experience in fields relevant to the subject area they plan to teach. The bill leaves it up to each district to decide whether a candidates work experience is sufficient. Like in Utah and Oklahoma, Arizona officials cite teacher shortages as the impetus for the move.

No longer will an outdated process keep qualified, dedicated individuals out of the classroom, Gov. Ducey, a Republican, says in a written statement . Instead, principals will now be empowered to make hiring decisions and attract the best individuals to serve our students.

But the Arizona Education Association, the state affiliate of the National Education Association, doesnt see the bill as a victory for students, but instead as a lowering of the bar that will ultimately damage the quality of the education that Arizona students receive.

The governors plan invites people without any preparation and without any classroom experience to educate our children, AEA President Joe Thomas says in a written statement . By signing this bill, the governor is further burdening our teachers with the additional responsibility of training new, unprepared colleagues how to teach. All this does is set up a churn-and-burn model of low-wage teachers who will continue to leave after a few years, and our children will continue to suffer for the profit of adults.

The AEA argues that a better strategy for addressing the states teacher shortage is to increase teacher pay.

But its not just the usual suspects, namely Democrats and teachers unions, who came out against the bill. Republican Diane Douglas, the states elected superintendent, also called on the governor to veto the bill, reports the Tucson Citizen .

Lowering the standards for new teachers is not the way to correct the [teacher shortage], she says in a prepared statement.
Michael Rodrigues was one of the advocates who addressed the Waukegan City Council in support of ending coal-fired power in the city. (Luke Hammill\News-Sun) (Chicago Tribune)

Dozens of environmental advocates packed the Waukegan City Council chamber Monday night for Sam Cunningham's first full meeting as mayor, demanding that the new administration champion a plan to transition away from coal-fired energy at the Lake Michigan waterfront.

The grassroots group Clean Power Lake County estimated that more than 70 people were in attendance, many wearing T-shirts and holding signs urging the closure of the Greenwood Avenue power plant owned by New Jersey-based power giant NRG Energy.

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Among them was Waukegan resident Brandon Ewing, who won a position on the Waukegan School District 60 board in April's elections. He said he has two young children and public officials "have the power to determine whether they'll grow up in a town still filled with pollution, or a town that thrives on sustainability and the environment.

"It's time for the city of Waukegan to take action to move our community beyond coal and toward clean energy," Ewing said, sparking applause from the crowd.

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Cunningham, who took over as mayor May 1 after defeating incumbent Mayor Wayne Motley in the Feb. 28 Democratic primary and independent candidate Lisa May in the April 4 consolidated election, said after the meeting he was putting together an environmental committee led by city planner Mike Purtell that would consider the future of the power plant. He said NRG would be a part of the committee, if it wants, along with environmental groups.

"I always encourage anyone to come and speak," said Cunningham, the former 1st Ward alderman, of the handful of environmental advocates who addressed the council Monday, supported by dozens more in the audience.

It is unclear what power the city has or would be willing to exercise to actually control or influence what happens at the plant. A document at NRG's website says the plant complies with all state and federal environmental regulations.

Environmental advocates have focused on urging Waukegan leaders to bring NRG into a discussion about a transition away from coal as the nation and world move toward greener energy, and the company itself shutters other coal plants in its portfolio or converts them to natural gas.

During the mayoral campaign, May was more critical of the power plant than Cunningham. May, the 7th Ward alderman, received the support of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, an influential environmental group. And a political mailer attacking May sent by the Waukegan Democratic Organization, which supported Cunningham, said May's "only plan to revitalize our economy is to close the power plant."

"The closing of the plant means the elimination of the property taxes the plant pays to the city, parks and schools," the mailer read. "Closing the plant will increase the property taxes for every homeowner in Waukegan."

At Monday's meeting, May expressed support for the Clean Power Lake County members who addressed the council during public comment time.

"I'm with you 100 percent," May said during the aldermen's comment time, prompting big cheers from the audience. "Waukegan has received the short stick for too many years  five Superfund sites, and we still have this coal-burning power plant."

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May said the federal and state governments are "not coming to help us," adding "it's time for Waukegan to take control of its own future." Ald. David Villalobos, 4th, a volunteer with Clean Power Lake County, also called for Cunningham to begin advocating for a transition plan.

"The transition plan is so very important, because we are concerned about the workers," May said. "We are concerned about the people who are going to be unemployed when we quit burning coal."

According to information provided at NRG's website and by company spokesman David Gaier, the company has spent $100 million on emissions controls at the plant, supports about 100 jobs and creates enough electricity to support about 668,000 households..

Factoring into the discussion is the new administration in the White House, with President Donald Trump campaigning in coal country and pledging to roll back environmental regulations imposed under former President Barack Obama.

In an email Tuesday, Gaier said the company looks forward to working with Cunningham.

"We'll continue to stay engaged with all stakeholders in the community, many of whom have told us they support us, and we'll continue to explore ways to provide affordable energy to the region," Gaier said.

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But Waukegan resident Tarah Hoffman said she thinks the coal plant needs to go. She told the council she's organized her neighbors in an effort to support a transition plan.

"A 'City of Progress' should not have an aging coal plant on its shoreline," Hoffman told the council, making a reference to the city's motto.

lhammill@tribpub.com

Twitter @lucashammill
The fine folks in Libertyville are at it again.

A few months ago, residents stopped development of a single-family subdivision on property owned by the Chicago Archdiocese at Butterfield and Winchester roads. Homeowners in the affected area cited traffic congestion and adding more kids to the schools to persuade village officials to deny the plans.

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Such opposition to development is what's considered "not in my back yard" but is really "I've got mine, leave me alone."

Last week, a Libertyville Village Board committee heard residents argue against naming the town a "sanctuary city." That is if the resolution goes further, which is quite doubtful. Actually, it would be a "sanctuary village" because the onetime county seat is an incorporated village of about 20,000 souls.

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Elected officials in Lake County communities seem like deer caught in headlights when residents come forward seeking to turn their towns into sanctuary municipalities. They don't know which way to run  into or away from the lights. Or just stand there waiting.

Sanctuary cities, of course, are where immigrants in the country without legal permission can live without fear of being turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by local police. Throughout the U.S., calls for sanctuary status are growing as President Trump continues his drive to deport the estimated 11 million people living in America without legal status.

Despite tough talk throughout Illinois about resisting the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, few sanctuary communities exist in the Land of Lincoln. As of April, those were Carbondale, Champaign County, Chicago, Cicero, Cook County, Urbana, Oak Park and Evanston.

The two counties and six cities could face the loss of federal funding as presidential henchmen in the Justice Department act on warnings to withhold Uncle Sam's money if local law enforcement fails to cooperate with their federal counterparts when discovering immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission.

The sanctuary list won't include Libertyville any time soon, although a group of residents approached officials more than a month ago to declare the village a safe haven community.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

That action, in turn, brought out townspeople who stormed the Village Board's Special Projects Committee to tell the panel's members in no uncertain terms they don't want to side with immigrants who are in danger of being deported to their native lands. These same residents aren't even sure they want officials to adhere to the "welcoming and inclusive pledge"  also dubbed the "snowflake clause" in certain circles  adopted in February at the Lake County Inclusiveness Summit.

The "inclusive pledge" lays out a mandate to Lake County towns to "promote core" American values, rejecting the notion, once again in some circles, that people should be targeted on "racial, ethnic, color, immigration or refugee status, religion or creed, gender or sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability, veteran status or other social identities." That pledge just about covers the gamut of constitutional amendments, excepting the 21st, which repealed the 18th  Prohibition.

Opposition to the "inclusive pledge" is an odd stance in a community named Libertyville, which began its life as Independence Grove. Indeed, some present at last week's committee meeting urged village officials to identify immigrants here without legal permission.

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So, it will be interesting May 23 when the full Village Board takes up a watered-down draft statement recommended by the Special Projects Committee and what type of crowd will be on hand trying to persuade Libertyville trustees to resist Trump edicts, avoid the immigration fight altogether or stay in their neutral corner.

Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.

sellenews@gmail.com

Twitter @sellenews
A fire coming from an attached garage of a two-story residence in Lake Zurich produced heavy smoke Monday afternoon, but no one was injured in the incident, firefighters said.

The Lake Zurich Fire Department first responded around 1:30 p.m. to a report of heavy smoke and fire coming from a residence in the 25000 block of North Somerset Court in unincorporated Lake County, the department said in a news release.

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Firefighters saw flames and smoke coming from the attached garage of a two-story residence, according to the release. By 2:15 p.m., firefighters had controlled the fire, which was contained to the garage, the department said.

The Lake County Building and Zoning Authority also was called to the scene to determine if the house was habitable, firefighters said. Information on the estimated property damage was not immediately available Monday.

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The fire remains under investigation, authorities said.

Fire departments from Barrington, Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District, Cary, Countryside, Buffalo Grove, Fox River Grove, Lincolnshire, Libertyville, Long Grove, Nunda, Palatine, Palatine Rural, Wheeling and Wauconda all assisted the Lake Zurich Fire Department.

tshields@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @tshields19
The new Panera Bread at Route 45 and Townline Road in Mundelein opened to the public onMay 9 and replaced a long vacant Pizza Hut. (Rick Kambic / Pioneer Press)

For more than a decade Mundelein residents have been asking for a Panera Bread restaurant, and on May 9 one finally opened.

Located at Route 45 and Townline Road, the 4,156-square-foot restaurant, patio area and drive-thru replaces the building Pizza Hut vacated when it downsized in 2012.

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"You can feel the excitement from the community," said Fred Duffy, the Panera Bread district manager. "The cafe on Milwaukee Avenue in Libertyville is one of my stores, and for my whole 12 years we'd have customers from Mundelein asking us to open something over here."

Rohn Thackston was one of those customers. Panera Bread already has a restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue south of Townline Road in Vernon Hills, but Thackston said he works nearby and would trek to the Libertyville restaurant to avoid some of the traffic on Townline Road.

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"We've been waiting for this," Thackston said, referencing his coworkers. "It's the nicest Panera I've seen in a while. Plus, that Pizza Hut was an eyesore. It was at the corner of a major intersection, I'm surprised no one took the building sooner."

Susie Ross, who also works nearby, said she will sometimes stop at the Panera Bread in Skokie on her way home, but will now avoid traffic by occasionally stopping at the Mundelein restaurant after work.

"It's my new favorite Panera," Ross said. "I like having healthy options."

Christine Valach was visiting the restaurant on May 11 while taking her daughter for a birthday shopping spree in Vernon Hills. Valach said she lives in Volo and the Mundelein Panera is on the way to the mall.

"There's nothing like this around us, so we like to package a couple of stops when we come out this way," Valach said. "This one has a very functional layout. I'm impressed."

Duffy said he's pleased with how the first week has gone.

"Sales have been growing every day," Duffy said. "I anticipate this being in the same group as our high performing cafes. I couldn't ask for a more ideal location."

About 28,000 cars travel north on Route 45 into the Townline Road intersection per day, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation, while about 29,000 cars travel west on Townline Road into Route 45.

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Duffy said he's familiar with the long-standing plans to build a Wal-Mart across the street where the mostly vacant Oak Creek Plaza sits. Then-Mayor Kenneth Kessler first announced the addition in a summer 2012 newsletter, but the property went through a long foreclosure process and is currently in bankruptcy court.

Mayor Steve Lentz during a March election forum at Mundelein High School said he anticipates the bankruptcy case to wrap up in the next few months.

"We didn't base our decision or our anticipated future successes on anything but our own quality product and services," Duffy said. "If Wal-Mart becomes a done deal then it'll definitely elevate us to one of the top stores, but we'll do just fine regardless."

Also of note was the multimillion dollar renovation to the Jewel-Osco located further back in the shopping center, the addition of O'Reilly Auto Parts and the opening of an indoor swimming school and a fitness center in 2015.

"I'm excited about being part of the revitalization of Mundelein," Duffy said.

The Mundelein Panera Bread is owned by Hamra Enterprises, a family-owned company that buys franchise licenses. He said the Mundelein location is their 39th Panera Bread in the Chicago area. The company also owns franchises of Wendy's and Noodles and Company, according to its website.

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rkambic@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @Rick_Kambic
Author Stuart Dybek has been invited to read a selection of one of his works and answer questions as part the Eisenhower Public Library's speaker series on May 20.

"When you have a story set in Chicago at a certain time ... it kind of probes people in the audience to realize that their own experience in a place can also become the stuff of stories," Dybek said in an a phone interview.

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Dybek was born and raised by Polish immigrants in the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago.

"And when you grow up in a neighborhood like that, you can't  even if you tried not to  you couldn't help but write about class, race, ethnicity, religion, the American dream," he said. "You know it's all just right there in everybody's daily lives. So I think that is one of the reasons that I've continued to write about that particular area."

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Dybek's upbringing and heritage are reflected in his work of five published short story collections, two books of poetry and multiple literary awards. Dybek has taught for 35 years and currently teaches creative writing at Northwestern University at present.

"This will be our third visiting author in the last two years," Eisenhower Public Library marketing coordinator Christopher Clark said. "Having someone who is so close by and so well regarded, it's sort of a no-brainer to invite to come here."

"I love going to libraries," Dybek said as he laughed at himself. "It's a real kind of, one of the key democratic institutions we have. ... I'm always happy to go to a library."

The author explained that he likes the mixed population and diversity of ages and ethnic groups found in libraries.

"It's just that diversity that makes me especially love them. ... If you live in a democracy, one thing you've got to have is pretty good libraries so people can be informed and educated because we're all dependent on each other," he said.

Dybek said he has not been to Eisenhower Public Library before, nevertheless library staff have been awaiting and preparing for May 20.

"For this event, we've had a series of programs leading up to his visit," Clark said.

Out of the more than 50 programs Clark said the library conducts monthly, the Polish Heritage Book Club affiliated with the library has already completed, "I Sailed with Magellan," and "The Coast of Chicago," two of Dybek's books.

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In anticipation of Dybek's visit, over the past few months, the library has incorporated several other programs.

"Right now, we're currently in a middle of a short film festival. Since Mr. Dybek mostly writes short stories, we thought it made sense to have short films as well," Clark said.

In addition to the book club and short film festival, the library has also incorporated a poetry program and short story activities like their "50 words in 50 minutes" program.

Dybek's visit is a special attraction not only for his work, but also his heritage. The library is located near one of Chicago's most Polish populated areas.

"It's exciting to get someone who our Polish residents would really appreciate," Clark said.

Clark said that the Eisenhower library attracts primarily readers but anticipates writers to come to the event as well.

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"Many high schools now have courses called Chicago literature, and one of those things those courses do is make those kids who come in realize, that you don't have to have far off adventures to have lived a purposeful life, or an interesting life," Dybek said. "And the same kind of thing happens when you bring a Chicago writer into a Chicago neighborhood. The writer starts reading all of these stories about things that happen, and frequently what happens in the audience is that the audience realizes that their experience has currency too."

Dybek said he is not sure what selection of his work he will be reading at the library, but he is looking forward to the, "give and take," and answering questions and discussion.

"I'm not there to lecture. ... It's just the opportunity to talk with people and trade stories," he said. "Some of the most enjoyable times I've had when I do these readings are especially in libraries."

Dybek is scheduled to be at the Eisenhower Public library from 2 to 3 p.m. May 20. Register in advance by calling 708 867 2299 or visiting http://eisenhowerlibrary.org/events/conversation-stuart-dybek.

Taryn Galbreath is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Pennoyer Education Association members Sarah Adkins, the group's president, and Julia Peters sign a new three-year contract at the Pennoyer School District 79 Board of Education meeting May 10. (Pioneer Press / Pioneer Press)

Teachers in Pennoyer School District 79 in Norridge have inked a three-year contract that calls for a 10.5 percent increase over the life of the agreement, the district announced last week.

Members of the Pennoyer Education Association and the Pennoyer Board of Education signed the contract at the May 10 school board meeting. The contract takes effect with the next school year.

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Both the teacher union and school board conducted a salary and benefits study of the surrounding school districts "to ensure the new contract is fair and competitive with neighboring districts while also maintaining fiscal responsibility," the district said in its release.

"The district is currently in financial recognition with the Illinois State Board of Education, and we are preparing for five teachers' retirement over the next four years," said Pennoyer School Board President Michael Malusa. "Everyone involved wanted a contract which would retain our valued teachers as well as attract new hires to teach our Pennoyer students for years to come. In addition to an increase in salary over three years, teachers also received an increase in their health care benefits in anticipation of an overall insurance rate hike over the next few years."

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The board and the Pennoyer Education Association were able to negotiate the contract in four negotiation sessions, said Superintendent Kristin Kopta.

"The negotiation process was very positive for all involved," Kopta said.

Addressing the board at the May 10 meeting, PEA president Sarah Adkins said, "our members have shown their support of our collaboration through a unanimous vote to ratify this contract. The ultimate result, of course, is the most important goal for all concerned  creation of a better school district to serve the children, their parents, and the community at large."

The school district, located at 5200 N. Cumberland Ave., in Norridge, serves children from parts of Norridge, Harwood Heights and unincorporated Norwood Park Township.
Red light cameras have been installed at Route 83 and 22nd Street, but remain not activated, pending a lawsuit. (Chuck Fieldman / Pioneer Press)

The red light cameras that have been installed, but not yet activated, at Route 83 and 22nd Street will remain that way for a while.

Guy Tridgell, director of communications for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said Monday that any further action regarding the red light cameras is pending the outcome of the jurisdictional issue before the courts.

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The jurisdictional issue is a major issue in a lawsuit Oak Brook filed in January, challenging the installation and operation of the red light cameras.

Oak Brook contends that Oakbrook Terrace should not have been issued the permit because the entire intersection is in Oak Brook.

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"The annexation of land adjacent to this intersection took place in 1958 and no one has paid much attention to this issue for over 50 years," Oak Brook Village President Gopal Lalmalani said. "Our research has shown that Oak Brook, at its very first meetings, annexed the land adjacent to the intersection."

Village attorney Stewart Diamond and Lalmalani maintain that the annexation means Oak Brook should have the entire intersection.

Lalmalani said Monday it is good IDOT is delaying activation of the cameras.

"I think they realize there may be something to this and that the red light cameras don't belong there," he said. "We will have to see how the court rules on this."

Oak Brook hasn't yet responded to Oakbrook Terrace's motion to dismiss the case. However, Oak Brook village manager Rick Ginex said the village would do so prior to the next scheduled court date on May 30.

Frank Avila, the attorney hired by Oak Brook to work on the case with Diamond, said Tuesday he believes the complaint should be amended to include charges of fraud and conspiracy in the process by which IDOT issued the permit.

Michael Manzo, the only remaining Village Board member who supported reaffirming the lawsuit May 9, said Tuesday that he believes Oak Brook is sabotaging its own efforts in the lawsuit. Don Adler also supported reaffirming the case, but did not seek re-election in the April election.

"I wouldn't mine losing a fight, but throwing a fight is a different story," Manzo said. "It seems we are not putting our best effort forward."

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Manzo said the suggested strategy early on by Avila was to put pressure on IDOT and other defendants in the case.

"The idea was to do that by doing discovery, by deposing people at IDOT and the red light camera company," he said. "None of that has happened."

Avila said he has not pursued such action because village officials told him this was not the right time to do so.

"They are my client, and I serve at their direction," he said.

Manzo also said he was troubled by the board's decision to not seek a ruling from the Illinois Attorney General's Office on having a Freedom of Information Act response from IDOT about the permit procedure unredacted.

"I don't believe the information in there is privileged, and it wouldn't cost us anything to ask the attorney general to make a decision," Manzo said.

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As for the process that led up to Oakbrook Terrace being issued the permit, Oak Brook officials have expressed issue with the fact that IDOT went, in about two months, from telling Oakbrook Terrace that red light camera enforcement is not supported to approving red light camera enforcement.

"I think they are nervous because they don't want this to get to a point where they have to answer questions about the process used in them issuing the permit to Oakbrook Terrace," Manzo said.

A March 3, 2016 IDOT justification report review denied the camera request and noted that data for 2015-2017 could be submitted for another review. Then, a May 20, 2016 letter from IDOT stated approval, based on video files dated November 2015, which "demonstrated a pattern of violations at the intersection."

cfieldman@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @chuckwriting
Nationwide ICE Gang Operation 'Project New Dawn' Leads to 1,378 Arrests

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the end of a six week long, nationwide, transnational gang enforcement surge. The focus of the operation, eerily named "Project New Dawn," was to target gang members involved in drug, weapon, or human trafficking, as well as those implicated in murder and racketeering investigations.

The operation is being hailed as a success: 1,095 confirmed gang members were arrested in the sweep. Of the 1,378 people taken into custody, 933 were U.S. citizens, and 445 were foreign nationals from 21 different countries. Nearly 1,100 arrests were related to federal or state criminal charges, while just 280 were the result of violations of administrative immigration laws.

Nationwide Operation to Stop Nationwide Gangs

Though arrests were made elsewhere as well, "Project New Dawn" focused on four primary locations: Newark, New Jersey, Washington D.C., San Diego, California, and San Antonio, Texas. The operation began at the end of March, and was designed to target criminal street gangs. It was led by the Homeland Security Investigations unit of ICE, and worked in conjunction with several other law enforcement agencies.

Of the criminal arrests, 21 involved murder charges and seven involved rape/sexual assault charges. Additionally, there were nine unaccompanied minors that were arrested due to their gang affiliation, as well as three individuals who had previously been granted relief from deportation as minors.

What is the Extent of ICE's Authority?

The ICE anti-gang operation might leave some individuals wondering why Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is focusing on arresting U.S. citizen gang members. Under ICE's purview is the enforcement of laws prohibiting drug trafficking into or out of the U.S.. When U.S. gangs enterprise and cooperate with international gangs to import or export drugs, weapons, and even humans, ICE has authority to investigate, and arrest those involved within American borders. Additionally, many gangs are transnational, meaning that they operate in more than one country.

Beyond immigration, illegal imports and exports, and transnational gangs, ICE also has the authority to investigate a wide range of illegal activity surrounding the smuggling of nearly anything, as well as international corruption, espionage and fraud, border security, and terrorism.

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Thrive Counseling Center in Oak Park held its 2017 Spring Benefit on May 6 at the Oak Park Country Club. The event raised funds to support quality mental health services, and awareness of the need for those services.

"There still is a stigma attached to people who have mental health issues and need services," said Susanna Decker, director of development. "We want to spread the word that we're here in our community."

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Decker said 286 guests attended the event, which raised $215,000. That money, she explained, will go towards bridging the gap between funding and the costs of the programs.

The evening a raffle and silent and live auctions that also helped raise funds for Thrive.

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Dr. Marian Sassetti, who was honored with the 2017 Spirit of Thrive Award at the party, Sassetti is leaving Thrive's board after seven years. "Marian has been a champion for people with mental health issues," Decker said. "She has a passion to help the impoverished and people who need things most. Her personal story ties into the mission of Thrive."

State Senator Don Harmon attended and is working to prepare a proclamation from the Illinois Senate that will recognize Sassetti's work in mental health.

Decker said that Thrive Counseling Center has served more than 1,400 individuals and families in the Oak Park area. Thrive provides counseling, psychiatric and advocacy services for clients.

Thrive also fields a 24/7 Crisis Team that responds to calls from the community, and works in tandem with the Oak Park Police Department in cases of behavioral, emotional, or psychiatric need.

"Thrive is there to help people flourish," Decker said. "We have skilled and licensed professionals to help people become stronger and healthier and live full, productive lives." More at thrivecc.org
Students and school officials process into Fenwick High School on May 16 as part of a dedication ceremony for a statue of the Virgin Mary, which was found in Hillside in December 2016. (Thomas Vogel / Pioneer Press)

A long-lost statue of the Virgin Mary officially returned to Fenwick High School on May 16 after an absence of several decades that is still unexplained.

The roughly three-and-a-half-foot-tall statue was found in the parking lot of Hillside's Queen of Heaven Cemetery by a worker in December 2016, with only a note saying "Return to Fenwick," according to a May 10 school press release.

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Fenwick employees eventually found a signature on the bottom of the statue by its creator, a Chicago-based studio whose multi-generational ownership includes several Fenwick alumni. The May 16 dedication ceremony, which included a Catholic Mass in the school's chapel, officially welcomed the statue back to campus.

"It feels like a homecoming," Fenwick's president, the Rev. Richard Peddicord, said May 15. "Certainly high schools are known for having homecomings. I think of this as a very significant homecoming. She's been gone for a long time."

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Neither Daprato Rigali Studios, the statue's creator, nor Fenwick High School have financial records of the statue's order, Peddicord and Lisa Rigali, one of the studio's owners, said May 15.

Peddicord, whose job includes alumni relations, said he had seen the statue while looking through old yearbook photos from the 1950s through the 1980s.

"It was always on my mind," Peddicord said. "I had always wondered what had happened."

Where the statue had been located in the last several decades remains a mystery, Peddicord said.

Daprato Rigali Studios cleaned and restored the statue free of charge, touching up some chipped paint and varnish.

"It was kind of a piece of our family, knowing it was from our studios," Rigali said May 15. "The Daprato statues are something we take great pride in. We donated our services for the statue because we appreciate the story and have a history with Fenwick."

Rigali speculated her grandfather, Joseph, may have given the statue to Fenwick when his children were attending the school and he was running the family business in the 1950s. Peddicord offered another theory: In 1954 Pope Pious XII declared a Marian Year, and the school may have purchased the statue as part of those celebrations.

For now, an explanation of the statue's absence remains unknown. But Peddicord did say he's grateful for its return and that he'd grant a "full pardon" to anyone with information.

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"We'd like to know," Peddicord said.

Thomas Vogel is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Members of a community-led search effort light candles as part of a vigil held in honor of Cameron Sanders, a 16-year-old Villa Park boy who went missing after he jumped from a railroad bridge known as Rainbow Bridge in Melrose Park into the Des Plaines River on Saturday. (Lee V. Gaines / Pioneer Press)

Dozens of people from multiple Chicago suburbs gathered late Monday afternoon to search the banks of the Des Plaines River for any signs of a 16-year-old Villa Park boy who was reported missing after he jumped from a railroad bridge located behind the Lincoln College of Technology in Melrose Park.

The community-led search effort for Cameron Sanders was organized by community activist and Oak Park River Forest High School teacher Anthony Clark. Clark said he contacted Cameron's family after he learned about the missing boy on social media.

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"We just want to help show the family support," he said. "By lending them more ears and more voices, oftentimes that increases the importance of an issue."

Cameron's mother, Liza, and his 18-year-old sister, Jerika, attended the search effort and participated in a vigil held beforehand at the edge of the bridge. Family members, friends, and several who did not know the family at all, placed lighted candles on the multi-colored wooden railroad slats.

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The group held hands while a friend of Cameron's mother, Bolingbrook resident Regina Thomas, offered a prayer and asked God to help them learn the truth about what had happened to Cameron.

Also on Monday afternoon, about a half-hour before Clark's group was gathering, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart conducted a 10-minute briefing a few feet from the Des Plaines River in Maywood. He said his office took over coordination of the investigation about 1 p.m. on Monday.

"There's been a lot of resources put into this so far," Dart said, "and we're going to have a lot more coming in the days to come until we find the young man."

The Des Plaines River's many bends, small islands and currents make it particularly challenging to search, Dart said. Heavy rains have yielded thick mud along the banks and higher water levels that cover tree roots, the sheriff said.

Searching was expected to continue through the night, Dart said. Boats from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and equipped with sonar were going to be added about 7 a.m. Tuesday, Dart said.

He viewed a "spotty" cellphone video of part of the jumping incident, and saw no indication of foul play, he said.

"It appears as if it was just kids that were out acting like kids," Dart said.

The community search effort was being led by Robert Larson, who operates a K-9 search and rescue training center in Westchester. Larson said he spent hours on Monday searching for Cameron by boat. Almost exactly four years ago, Larson found the body of 1-year-old Bryeon Hunter in the Des Plaines River. Larson said he searched for the boy for weeks, and he said he planned to do the same to find Cameron. He brought his dog, Captain Dexter, a trained search-and-rescue canine, to assist in the effort.

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"I don't play by the rules the police have to play by. I do what needs to be done, whatever it takes I do it," he said.

Larson said law enforcement doesn't have manpower to conduct the kind of exhaustive search process that's necessary to find someone.

"I have the time," he said. "I'm going to be out there every day, all day, until we find him. I don't care how long it takes."

Cameron's mother and Clark both said they want the bridge to be demolished or at least blocked off to foot traffic.

Clark said he and the community group he founded, Suburban Unity Alliance, plan to "apply pressure to the appropriate individuals and raise awareness to try to get this bridge destroyed, demolished or somehow cordoned off."

"We don't want this to happen to anybody else," he said.

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Cameron's mother declined to speak any further about it, adding that she planned to contact a lawyer to help her in the effort.

The community-led search effort came after multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Cook County Forest Preserve, Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in addition to the Melrose Park police and fire departments, searched for a collective 400 hours over the weekend, according to Cook County Forest Preserve communications director Lambrini Kukidis. She said authorities searched via helicopter, water craft, sonar, scuba and cadaver dogs.

"We conducted a search not only at the scene, but it extended south all the way down near Joliet Road," Kukidis said.

Thomas said the boy's mother had trouble getting answers or information from authorities after they suspended their search on Sunday.

"(Liza) was wanting answers, and they weren't getting any answers," she said.

Clark said he got involved in the search for Cameron because "the family felt they were being marginalized in a sense because the search effort was being called off."

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He said authorities and the community need to make the same effort to find Cameron that was made to find Madeline Connelly, a 23-year-old River Forest resident, who was rescued last week after she went missing in a national park in Montana.

"I don't have to know Cameron to know I love him and that he was special," Clark told the search team. "That's important to communicate  that nobody should be left without help."

Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Ted Gregory and Erin Gallagher also contributed.
The New Trier High School board agreed May 15, 2017, to rename one building in the Northfield campus after the late Jan Borja, shown in this 2003 picture with then-freshmen (from left to right) Tom Ryan, Courtney Daley and Sara Mostofi. Borja was the first principal to lead the building when it reopened in 2001. (JOHN DZIEKAN / CHICAGO TRIBUNE)

The New Trier High School board unanimously agreed this week to rename one building in the Northfield freshman campus for the first principal to lead the building after it reopened in 2001.

School board members on Monday approved the recommendation from their naming committee to rename Northfield's B building after the late Jan Borja.

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Borja died in February 2012 following a lengthy battle with cancer, according to a previous Pioneer Press story.

"Jan had many gifts that she contributed to New Trier," Superintendent Linda Yonke said when she announced the recommendation. "Her greatest gift was creating this freshman campus."

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Reopening Northfield as a freshman-only operation was controversial at the time, and one of the last options people were willing to consider as they decided how to deal with student population needs, Yonke said. Despite that, Borja and her team spent a year preparing the campus with ninth grade students and their development in mind, she said.

The resulting welcoming atmosphere benefited Borja's staff as well as students, Yonke said.

She told the audience that a teacher who had briefly worked at the Northfield campus said to her after being there, "There really is a hug line" outside Borja's office, because Borja was so apt to hug staff members and others while interacting with them.

"She loved freshmen, she loved thinking about a good freshman year should look like, and she loved community," current Northfield campus principal Paul Waechtler said.

Yonke said naming Northfield's B building after Borja made sense because it houses the principal's office and the advisers' office, both titles Borja carried during her New Trier career. It also houses the district's employee daycare operation, a program for which Borja had repeatedly advocated, Yonke said.

According to Pioneer Press, Borja retired in 2011 after spending more than 40 years at New Trier as a teacher and leader, including a final decade as the Northfield principal.

Before that, she served as advisory chair for freshman and sophomore girls, and was also chair of the modern and classical languages department, a Pioneer Press story said at the time she announced her retirement. She was initially hired as a German and Spanish teacher in 1970, a New Trier official said at the time.

Board member Carol Ducommun said she worked with Borja both before and during Ducommun's previous terms on the school board: "She really was all about the needs of students, not just their academic needs."

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Board member Lori Goldstein said naming the B Building after Borja was "a slam-dunk."

New Trier will hold a naming ceremony in September, Yonke said.

kroutliffe@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @pioneer_kathy
Lauren Boebert vs. Adam Frisch: Is the race headed for a recount?

Either candidate in the Colorado 3rd Congressional District race could request a recount, but the race will have to tighten for a mandatory recount.
Governor Likes Budget the Way It Is, Chief Justice Not so Much

Gov. Jerry Brown has released a revised California budget, and it does not include new money for the courts. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is not impressed.

"Under this proposed budget, trial courts receive a little more than a penny for every general-fund tax dollar, less than what the courts were receiving before the Great Recession," she said in a statement. "This is neither fair nor just."

In his initial budget, the governor added $35.4 million to support the state trial courts. The judiciary's proposed budget was about $3.6 billion, and the revised budget keeps it the same.

Same Budget

State Department of Finance Director Jay Cohen said the governor wants to keep the judiciary's budget at its current level.

"It's basically the same budget we saw in January," he said. "We've maintained the status quo for the May revision. There are no cuts proposed for the court system as there are in other areas."

Cantil-Sakauye, however, said the courts cannot fulfill their mandate of providing justice without money. She said as much in her State of the Judiciary speech in March.

"We cannot provide the justice that Californians deserve without adequate and stable funding. Inadequate funding and chronic under-funding of the courts is just one way a justice system can become unjust," she said. "To be sure, a justice system and our checks and balances can fail in the face of fear and prejudice. But they can also fail with lack of funding."

Trial Courts' Contempt

After Brown released his initial budget in January, superior court officers from 49 of the state's 58 counties sent a letter to the governor about their concerns. According to reports, they said the courts need a 6 percent increase to stay in business.

"First the state slashed trial court budgets; now our local revenues are falling" because of the fine collection-related changes brought about by AB 2839, said Stephen Nash, court executive officer of the Superior Court of Contra Costa County. "And once again the governor proposes no funding for local court employee cost increases."

Chad Finke, executive officer for the Alameda County Superior Court, said his court lost about 30 percent of its workers in recent years. As a result, he said, people are not receiving satisfactory service.

"I get complaints every day about how long people have to stand in line, or how long they have to wait on the phone," Finke told the East Bay Times. "Without that additional money, that's only going to get worse."

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When Should Veterans Sue the VA for Malpractice?

The hospitals in VA health system are just as susceptible to the same type of medical malpractice claims as any other hospital. However, due to the fact that the VA system is both overburdened and underfunded, those hospitals may also face claims for injuries related to delays in treatment.

Regardless of whether the injury is the result of hospital negligence, medical malpractice, or just ordinary negligence, veterans can sue the VA in court. A recent medical malpractice settlement against a VA hospital neared seven figures. In that case, a veteran underwent an unneeded surgery that caused him further, and life changing, injuries.

First Steps in Suing a VA Hospital

While most states have strict requirements when it comes to suing doctors and hospitals, pursuing a claim against a VA hospital requires an additional step. Because VA hospitals are run by the federal government, in order to file a lawsuit against one of the hospitals, an individual must first file a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

A federal tort claim is usually filed directly with the federal agency or entity that oversees the location of your injury. If the claim is rejected, or no response is provided within six months, then you can file a civil lawsuit.

Medical Malpractice Requirements

Generally, medical malpractice claims are governed by state law. Most states require that a claimant notify the involved doctors and hospitals before filing a lawsuit. Claims against VA hospitals and other federally run hospitals can often be complex due to the fact that some doctors and employees, as independent contractors, may be individually liable under state laws, while the hospital and other employees are liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act. This requires a plaintiff to provide notice pursuant to state laws, as well as submit a FTCA complaint form.

When Should You Sue for Medical Malpractice?

Deciding to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice is a difficult decision. Medical injury cases can be rather complex and require a significant amount of money just to get started, let alone to take a case through trial. If you believe you have a medical malpractice case, seeking a consultation with an experienced injury or medical malpractice attorney can prove helpful.

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By Dezan Shira & Associates

Editor: Weining Hu

In an effort to streamline the visa application process for foreigners, the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) has quickened reforms for foreigners to apply for Chinas work visa.

Effective on April 1, 2017, the SAFEA rolled out a unified work permit system nationwide that began to process applications both foreign experts and ordinary foreign nationals, referred to as R visas and Z visas respectively.

The new system uses a points-based, three-tiered classification system to evaluate which candidates qualify for the work permit.

Compared with the old system, the new one requires fewer supporting application materials, provides a more transparent evaluation process, and shortens turnaround time.

On paper, foreign applicants will benefit from this restructure of the foreign work permit system due to its simpler, clearer, and less time-consuming application process.

Two-in-one reform versus old system

A standard procedure for obtaining a foreigners work visa normally involves three critical steps: an application for an employment license, a work visa application at a Chinese embassy, and obtainment of an employment permit.

Under the old system, there were two government entities, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau (HRSS) and the SAFEA, governing the foreign work visa application process.

The HRSS issued the Employment License and Alien Employment Permit to Z-visa applicants, while the SAFEA issued the Foreign Expert License and Foreign Expert Certificate to R-visa applicants.

However, starting from April 1, the SAFEA became solely responsible for processing all foreign work visa applications. In other words, both Z-visa and R-visa applicants need to submit their applications to only the SAFEA without confusion over where to apply.

In addition, the Employment License and Foreign Expert License have been integrated into a single Notification Letter of Foreigners Work Permit, and the Alien Employment Permit and the Foreign Expert Certificate unified into the Foreigners Work Permit ID card. Each Foreigners Work Permit card will have a unique ID number that does not change regardless of permit renewal or change of employer.

Online application

Under the new system, the employer and foreign applicant can complete the application and submit necessary supporting documents electronically.

An online management service system for foreign workers in China (Management Service System) established by the SAFEA will manage the online registration process. Application materials required for submission are reduced by almost half, with submissions like personal CVs and application letters no longer necessary. The following documents are required:

Application form for Foreigners Work Permit;

Verification of past employment;

Verification of education or a verification of professional qualification;

Criminal record certificate;

Physical examination record for foreigner or overseas Chinese;

Copy of the job contract or appointment letter;

Passport;

ID photo; and

Information of accompanying members.

Documents required by applicants employer:

Registration form;

Business license and organization code certificate;

ID information of the employer/agent who is responsible for the registration;

Industry license documents.

Tiered classification

The SAFEA has adopted a point based three-tiered classification system as a primary method to evaluate which candidates qualify for the new work permit.

The classification system divides candidates into three categories: A (above 85 points) for high level talent, B (85  60) for professional personnel, and C (less than 60) for non-technical or service workers hired on a temporary or seasonal basis.

The SAFEA assigns scores to each candidate based on his or her education background, salary level, age, time spent working in China, Chinese language proficiency, employment location, etc.

In addition to the points-based classification system, the SAFEA defines a set of special conditions when a candidate qualifies for A, B, or C level.

The SAFEA explicitly listed all special conditions for each status level in the Classification Standard for Foreign Workers in China (Pilot). If a candidate meets any of those special conditions, the SAFEA will flag a corresponding level to this person without calculating the total score.

For example, A level can automatically be granted to international award recipients, Fortune Global 500 company senior managers or technicians, intellectual property holders of high profile companies, and post-doctoral degree holders under 40 years old. All A level candidates are eligible for service through a green channel, which offers a pre-entry visa, paperless verification, expedited approval, and other facilitation treatment.

RELATED: Payroll and Human Resource Services

Validity of an Employment Permit

While the maximum validity of a Foreigners Employment Permit is five years, in practice five-year permits are rarely granted. First-time applicants are more likely to receive a one-year permit and then renewals for a multi-year work permit.

Although the Beijing Labor Bureau has started to grant more multi-year Employment Permits to first-time applicants, other first-tier cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, grant them far less frequently.

Consider regional variations

As the Management Service System and relative regulating measures are still under testing, regulatory changes could occur in the near future to optimize the new system.

Additionally, new incentives may be implemented first in Chinas Free Trade Zones (FTZs) and later integrated into the national model.

In January this year, a new policy which lowers the application thresholds for foreign masters graduates from Chinese and well known overseas universities is an extension of a scheme piloted in the Shanghai FTZ.

It is therefore recommended that work visa applicants stay up-to-date with both the national scheme and regional policies, as local bureaus have administrative leverage when implementing the national model.

A first hand source who classified themselves as a B level candidate and made an application under the new system has indicated that preparation of necessary documents for application can be an extremely taxing and time consuming task if education and work experience was gathered internationally.

Thus, sufficient preparation and company support is essential to the application process. Companies looking to hire foreign staff should not hesitate to reach out for professional HR guidance to ensure their employees successfully receive China work visas.



About Us China Briefing is published by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, including ASEAN, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road, and Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here, and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here. Dezan Shira & Associates is a full service practice in China, providing business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax, IT, HR, payroll, and advisory services throughout the China and Asian region. For assistance with China business issues or investments into China, please contact us at china@dezshira.com or visit us at 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

This Dezan Shira & Associates 2017 China guide provides a comprehensive background and details of all aspects of setting up and operating an American business in China, including due diligence and compliance issues, IP protection, corporate establishment options, calculating tax liabilities, as well as discussing on-going operational issues such as managing bookkeeping, accounts, banking, HR, Payroll, annual license renewals, audit, FCPA compliance and consolidation with US standards and Head Office reporting.

Payroll Processing in China: Challenges and Solutions

In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we lay out the challenges presented by Chinas payroll landscape, including its peculiar Dang An and Hu Kou systems. We then explore how companies of all sizes are leveraging IT-enabled solutions to meet their HR and payroll needs, and why outsourcing payroll is the answer for certain company structures. Finally, we consider the potential for China to emerge as Asias premier payroll processing center.

Dezan Shira & Associates
The 225-megawatt Myingyan gas-fired power plant in Mandalay is scheduled for completion in May 2018. Singapores Sembcorp Industries signed a 22-year, built-operate-transfer contract for the project in January.

According to a statement from Sembcorp, under the power purchase agreement signed in March 2016, the plants entire power output will be sold to the Electric Power Generation Enterprise.

The plant joins two others in Thaungtha township: 90-megawatt gas-fired plant built by Agrico Company and a 133-megawatt gas-fired plant built by V-power Company.

Sembcorps US$300 million Myingyan plant will be powered by Shwe natural gas from Rakhine State.

U Chan Myae Aung, an electrical engineer from Kyaukphyu township, said on a daily basis 100 million cubic feet from Shwe Natural Gas will be split between an 80-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Kyaukse township, the three power plants in Thaungtha township and a gas-fired power plant in Kyaukphyu township.

Power is currently distributed to ten wards in Kyaukphyu ... Two more villages were recently added so it is now being distributed to 47 villages, he told Narinjara News.



Translated by Thida Linn

Edited Laignee Barron
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China increased its holding of U.S. Treasury securities in March for the second consecutive month, the latest data from the U.S. Treasury Department showed on Monday.

China added its treasuries holding by 27.9 billion U.S. dollars in March, with the total holding up to 1.0876 trillion U.S. dollars.

China's forex reserves rose for the third month in a row in April, as the cross-border capital flow became stable and the Chinese currency, Renminbi, stabilizes against the U.S. dollar.

Japan, which overtakes China as the largest holder of U.S. treasuries in last October, increased its holding by 3.4 billion dollars to 1.1185 trillion dollars in March.

By the end of March, overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose to 6.0793 trillion U.S. dollars from February's 6.012 trillion dollars.
China's top insurance watchdog will conduct inspections to rectify market irregularities and protect consumer interests, according to an official statement released Monday.

From June to mid-October, local insurance authorities will conduct on-site investigations on 46 branches of 16 insurance entities, as well as seven part-time insurance agents, which had been ranked poorly in terms of customer complaints in the past two years, China Insurance Regulatory Commission said in the statement.

The inspections will focus on violations including fraudulent sales practices, fake or absent customer information, and failure to pay small insurance claims efficiently.

In addition, the insurance regulator will conduct case-by-case investigations into violations reported by the public, and punish typical behavior that hurts customer interests.

"We will never compromise on matters of principle, and we will not disregard violations for any reason," the regulator said in a statement.

The statement also called for toughened supervision on innovative insurance businesses, and said authorities will work to standardize sales behavior not only by insurance firms, but by agents and intermediaries.
A worker inspects a truck assembly line of the Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group in Fuyang, Anhui province. LU QIJIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY

China's economy continued to fare well in April, bolstered by deepening supply-side structural reform that is fueling innovation and the new economy, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

High-tech industry held up well, online retail sales increased at a fast pace, and job growth remained strong, Xing Zhihong, spokesman for the NBS, said at a news conference.

"The fundamentals of China's economy remain sound and sustainable despite slowing growth of some economic indicators," he said, referring to the weakening investment and consumption growth.

Official data showed the country's industrial output expanded by 6.5 percent year-on-year in April, 0.5 of a percentage point higher than a year earlier, but 1.1 percentage points lower than in March.

"The industrial structure continued to improve," Xing said, citing fixed-asset investment in high-tech industry that increased by 22.6 percent year-on-year, 13.7 percentage points higher than overall fixed-asset investment growth.

Retail sales, meanwhile, grew by 10.7 percent year-on-year in April, 0.6 percentage point higher than a year earlier but 0.2 percentage point lower than in March.

Online retail sales amounted to 1.92 trillion yuan ($278 billion) in the first four months of this year, up by 32 percent over the same period last year.

The job market remains stable. The unemployment rate in 31 major cities dropped below the March level and has remained below 5 percent since September, the NBS said, adding that China created 4.65 million jobs in the first four months of this year, approximately 220,000 more than the same period last year. Steady job growth indicated an uptrend in the national economy, Xing said.

The expanding investment in real estate remains an engine for the country's economic growth, said Liu Liangdong, an analyst at China Merchants Securities Co.

Analysts, however, said China's full-year economic growth might decrease moderately.

Liu said: "From a long-term perspective, the country's monetary policy will not likely change significantly, and key tasks remain liquidity tightening and deleveraging."

Zhu Yiping, an analyst at Western Securities Co, said: "Several downside risks might come from infrastructure and real estate sectors (this year)."

Highlighting challenges facing the economy, Xing of the NBS said that both domestic and foreign environments were complicated and appear set for change, and "structural imbalance" remains a deep-rooted problem.
The stand of Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd at an industry expo in Beijing. WU CHANGQING / FOR CHINA DAILY

China's biggest dairy producer, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd, said it plans to further move into overseas markets in the next three to five years.

Last year, Yili achieved sales of 60.6 billion yuan ($8.78 billion), and net profit of 5.67 billion yuan, the latter up 21.8 percent year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2017, its net profit reached 1.74 billion yuan.

Yili Vice-President Xu Ke said his group is now the eighth largest dairy group worldwide.

"We aim to become one of the top five global producers in the near future and reach an annual sales revenue of more than 100 billion yuan," Xu said.

Xu said China still had significant growth potential for milk consumption.

According to the China Dairy Industry Association, the current annual per capita milk consumption in China is only half the world average, and one-third of the average volumes in Asia.

Meanwhile, Yili is eyeing more overseas assets to consolidate its leading position.

The group recently announced it was bidding for full control of leading US organic yogurt brand Stonyfield, whose production line covers yogurts, smoothies, milk and cream, and it is currently owned by French dairy giant Danone.

Xu said that the dairy producer had similar such overseas acquisition plans for the next few years.

In recent years, Yili has been expanding its investments in countries and regions that are related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2014, it established the world's largest integrated dairy production center in New Zealand, named Yili Group Oceania Dairy Ltd, with an investment of 3 billion yuan. It is currently producing around 47,000 metric tons of infant formula a year.

This March, the dairy giant unveiled the second-phase expansion project at its New Zealand dairy production center. Yili said it would expand the second-stage production to ultra-high-temperature treated milk, whole milk powder and other products.

The factory is located in the small town of Waimate, where Yili created nearly 100 jobs and became one of the largest employers in the region.

In addition, the company founded a scholarship program to provide funds for local high-school graduates, particularly to those who are willing to take a career path in dairy research, as well as to foster communications between China and New Zealand.

Yili Chairman Pan Gang said the Belt and Road Initiative is a visionary project that has already grown beyond people's expectations.

"Our base is also an example of what can be achieved with Chinese vision, resources, capital, New Zealand innovation and world-leading agri-science and abundant natural resources," Pan said.

He said that by partnering with the best of New Zealand's farmers, researchers, academics and scientists, Yili would achieve significant advances in dairy and food technology.

"We have committed to New Zealand for the long term and while these benefits may take years to come to fruition, they will be worth the wait," he added.
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Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao on Tuesday called on China and the Gulf Cooperation Council to speed up free trade agreement (FTA) negotiation.

Li made the remarks when he met with Kuwaiti Minister of the Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who led a delegation to the just-concluded Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

Li said China and Kuwait should take advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative to promote cooperation in energy, finance, and industrial parks.

The Kuwaiti minister congratulated China on the success of the forum, saying Kuwait is willing to deepen cooperation with China in various fields.

The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. China and the bloc first started FTA talks in 2004 but efforts stalled after five years. Negotiation reopened in 2016.
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China will require civilian drones weighing more than 250 grams to be registered under real names starting from June 1 to improve civil aviation safety, the country's civil aviation regulator announced Tuesday.

Registration of civilian drones is a common international practice and the foundation for better management, and China will launch the registration system on Thursday, according to Zhang Ruiqing, a senior official with Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The government is also working on systems to share and check civilian drone registration data.

Recent cases have indicated that unregulated civilian drones could pose a threat to the safety of civil aviation.

The CAAC will release information of areas surrounding airports that ban the flying of civilian drones and work with local governments and public security authorities to monitor and crack down on unregulated civilian drones.
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the important cooperation initiative of building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. To date, steady progress and fruitful results have been achieved in the implementation of the Initiative. The international community has welcomed the Initiative and its positive impact. China hosted the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing on 14-15 May 2017. The BRF is a major international event for countries and parties concerned to engage in consultation on building the Belt and Road and sharing the benefits. It is also an important platform for the participating parties to strengthen cooperation and synergize their development strategies. Before and during the BRF, national governments, local authorities and enterprises reached a number of cooperation agreements, policy measures and practical results. The Chinese side has put together a list of major deliverables of the BRF, which includes 76 items comprising more than 270 concrete results in five key areas, namely policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity.

I. Synergize Connectivity of Development Policies and Strategies

1. The Chinese government signed memoranda of understanding on Belt and Road cooperation with the governments of Mongolia, Pakistan, Nepal, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Timor-Leste, Singapore, Myanmar and Malaysia.

2. The Chinese government signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the United Nations International Children's Fund, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Criminal Police Organization.

3. The Chinese government signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Formulating China-Hungary Cooperation Plan with the government of Hungary, and signed bilateral cooperation plans to jointly build the Belt and Road with the governments of the Lao PDR and Cambodia.

4. The relevant departments of the Chinese government signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the World Economic Forum, the International Road Transport Union, the International Trade Center, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, the International Development Law Organization, the World Meteorological Organization and the International Maritime Organization.

5. The National Development and Reform Commission of China signed the 2017-2019 Plan on Key Areas of Cooperation Between China and Greece with the Ministry of Economic Development of Greece.

6. The National Development and Reform Commission of China signed the Memorandum of Understanding to Jointly Coordinate and Promote Cooperation and Project Implementation with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic.

7. The Ministry of Finance of China endorsed the Guiding Principles on Financing the Development of the Belt and Road with the ministries of finance of relevant countries.

8. The relevant departments of the Chinese government issued the following documents: Building the Belt and Road: Concept, Practice and China's Contribution, Vision and Actions on Promoting Energy Cooperation on the Belt and Road, Vision and Actions on Jointly Promoting Agricultural Cooperation on the Belt and Road, Guidance on Promoting Green Belt and Road and Vision for Maritime Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative.

9. The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held regularly, and an Advisory Council and a Liaison Office will be set up.

10. The National Development and Reform Commission of China will establish the Facilitating Center for Building the Belt and Road. The National Development and Reform Commission of China has launched the official Belt and Road portal on the Internet and the Marine Silk Road Trade Index.

II. Deepen Project Cooperation for Infrastructure Connectivity

1. The Chinese government signed the agreements on international transportation and strategy coordination with the governments of Uzbekistan, Turkey and Belarus.

2. The Chinese government signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy with the government of Thailand.

3. The Chinese government signed the Memorandum of Understanding in the Field of Water Resources with the government of Malaysia.

4. The National Development and Reform Commission of China signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Implementation of Up-Gradation of ML-1 and Establishment of Havelian Dry Port under CPEC with the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform of Pakistan. The National Railway Administration of China signed the Framework Agreement on Implementation of Up-Gradation of ML-1 and Establishment of Havelian Dry Port in Pakistan with the Ministry of Railways of Pakistan.

5. The Ministry of Commerce of China signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Strengthening Cooperation in the Field of Infrastructure with the Ministry of Public Works and Transport of Cambodia.

6. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Information Technology with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Afghanistan.

7. The Ministry of Transport of China signed the memoranda of understanding on transport cooperation with the relevant government departments of Cambodia, Pakistan and Myanmar.

8. The Ministry of Water Resources of China signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Field of Water with the Ministry of the Environment of Poland.

9. The National Energy Administration of China signed the Energy Cooperation Roadmap with the Swiss Federal Office of Energy of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication of Switzerland, the Memorandum of Understanding on Roadmap for Studies of Diamer Basha Dam Project and the Hydropower Planning in North Pakistan and Agreement on the Adjustment of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Energy Project List with the Ministry of Water and Power of Pakistan.

10. The State Oceanic Administration of China signed the Protocol on Establishment of Joint Ocean Observation Station with the Ministry of Environment of Cambodia.

11. CHINA RAILWAY signed the Agreement for Further Cooperation on China-Europe Container Block Trains among Railways of China, Belarus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Poland and Russia with railway companies of relevant countries.

12. The China Development Bank signed the Key Financing Documents on Indonesian Jakarta to Bandung High-Speed Railway Project with PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia, and financing cooperation agreements on port, electricity and industrial park with relevant institutions of Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Lao PDR and Egypt.

13. The Export-Import Bank of China signed the loan agreements on the modernization and reconstruction of Hungarian-Serbian Railway Line for Belgrade Center-Stara Pazova Section with the Ministry of Finance of Serbia, on road projects with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Cambodia, the Ministry of Finance of Ethiopia and JSC "KazAutoZhol" of Kazakhstan, on urban railway line project with the Ministry of Finance of Viet Nam, on telecommunication project with Telekom Srbija of Serbia, on bridge project with the Ministry of Finance of Mongolia, on airport development project with Yangon Aerodrome Company of Myanmar, and on inland container depot project with the National Treasury of Kenya.

14. The Global Energy Internet Development Cooperation Organization signed the memoranda of understanding on energy cooperation with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations, the League of Arab States, AU and the Interconnection Power Grid Authority of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The 24-bed, Taw Naw Teaching Hospital will train local healthcare practitioners and help boost local public health services, according to Global Neighbors Canada Inc.

Padoh Saw Eh Klu Shwe Oo, head of Karen States Department of Health and Welfare, said the Taw Naw Teaching Hospital in Kawkareik township is the first hospital to open since the KNU and the government signed a ceasefire in 2015.

There are over 60 clinics in our Karen area. This hospital was opened to provide medical training to health staff from these clinics, he said at the May 13 opening ceremony.

The launch was attended by Saw Thamain Htun, a central executive committee member from the KNU, as well as U Aung Lwin, State Minister of Security and Border Affairs. State government representatives, Karen State police officers and members of local civil society organizations were also present.

[The hospital] will help ensure the health of local residents. We are very happy, said local Saw Mya Aye.

At the launch event, the Karen State Police set up a crime education booth displaying information about murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape and theft cases from the states seven townships. The police also provided information about vehicle licensing and road safety.

Another training hospital is under construction in Nyaunglebin District, where the state health department is planning to train both nurses and health assistants.



Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
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Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the press conference of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 15, 2017. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

China will host the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on Monday afternoon at a press conference at the end of the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative is in full swing, said Xi, adding that 68 countries and international organizations have signed multilateral agreements with China.

He added that the next step is to seek deeper and broader cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative framework, and that China hopes the initiative will boost economic growth for participating countries and intensify people-to-people bonds.

Xi also expressed confidence in the future of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The two-day event is the highest-level forum on the Belt and Road Initiative since the Chinese president first raised the concept in 2013.
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A small private jet crashed Monday afternoon in a residential area in Carlstadt, New Jersey, leaving two pilots dead and three buildings on fire, including a warehouse, police said.

The two-engine plane was a Learjet 35 that crashed on approach to a runway at the Teterboro Airport around 3:30 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

"The aircraft went down about 1/4 mile from the airport in a residential area," said the FAA statement, adding that the jet departed from Philadelphia International Airport and was headed to Teterboro.

Carlstadt police said it is believed that two people killed in the crash were crewmembers and no passengers were onboard.

Airport officials said Teterboro Airport has been closed and flight operations ceased until further notice.

The plane's registered owner is A&C Big Sky Aviation LLC in Billings, Montana.
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White House denies Trump's info leakage to Russia [File photo / Xinhua]

The White House on Monday strongly denied media reports accusing President Donald Trump of revealing highly classified intelligence information to Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell all issued statements saying such reports were wrong.

Trump reportedly relayed information from a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak in White House last week.

The Washington Post first reported the disclosure earlier on Monday, followed by the New York Times and other nationwide news outlets.

"During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism," Tillerson said. "During that exchange the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations."

Powell said in a statement that the story was false. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said McMaster who participated in the meeting.

"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly," he said in a statement.

Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, an information-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, according to the Washington Post report.

The Washington Post said the information was provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, but the partner did not give the U.S. permission to share the information with Russia.

Following the meeting, the White House contacted the CIA and National Security Agency to contain the damage, according to the Post.

However, the U.S. president has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that such disclosures broke the law, said the media reports.
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Law enforcers will go after the people responsible for the cyber attack which hit Britain's National Health Service (NHS), Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Monday.

Rudd was speaking after chairing a meeting in Whitehall, London, of the government's main emergency committee, known as Cobra.

Rudd praised the way the NHS had handled what was an unprecedented emergency, saying a million hospital appointments were successfully completed Monday by doctors and nurses across the country.

She said Britain was working with international partners in the global manhunt to find the creators of the cyber attack.

"The National Cyber Security Centre and the NCA (National Crime Agency) are working with Europol and other international partners," said Rudd.

Although virtually all of the NHS is back to normal, a handful of hospitals and health service providers are still working to resolve issues caused by the cyber attack.

Britain's biggest health trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, which runs five hospitals in London, said Monday it was continuing to experience some delays and disruption to services.

Digital managers in Britain had been bracing themselves Monday for a possible second cyber attack, but in the event there was no new attack.
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Turkey again denied German members of parliament access to the German Bundeswehr soldiers stationed at Turkey's Incirlik air base on Monday.

The Turkish government has not granted the necessary diplomatic clearance to the politicians for their visit, despite multiple requests by the Federal Foreign Office.

The Office called the decision "absolutely unacceptable," and is considering withdrawing its operations from Turkey.

"We have to think about how to continue in light of the current situation," Federal Foreign Office representative Martin Schaefer said in Berlin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed that while the dialogue with Turkey is continuing, the German government "searches for alternatives to Incirlik."

Since the German Bundeswehr is a parliamentary army, "it is absolutely necessary for members of parliament to have access to their soldiers," Merkel said. The decision on where to deploy the Tornado units is expected within two weeks.

Turkey has not provided a reason for their official refusal. But a response to asylum granted by German government to Turkish soldiers is a suspected reason. The soldiers feared persecution after the failed military coup against Turkish president Recep Erdogan last year.

Around 260 members of the Bundeswehr and several Tornado surveillance aircraft are currently stationed in Incirlik. It is the base of operations for support missions by the international coalition against the terror organization Islamic State (IS).

It is the second time that Turkey refused access to the German troops stationed there following a similar refusal last year.
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Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti (C) visits a naval base in Tripoli, capital of Libya, on May 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)

Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Serraj met with Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti on Monday in the Libyan capital Tripoli in bid to step up bilateral cooperation.

According to the prime minister's media department, both officials discussed issues of mutual concern, particularly matters of security cooperation between the two countries.

The discussion included battling illegal immigration, as well as training Libyan border security troops and coast guards.

The Italian embassy tweeted: "PM Serraj to Minniti: For effective fight against illegal migration, critical to concentrate on the South. Italy and Libya firmly on the same side in the fight against migrant smuggling."

Due to regional insecurity, thousands of migrants left Libya and headed towards Italy, with several drowning in the Mediterranean before reaching Italian shores.

Earlier last week, Serraj also met the Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano and discussed their joint efforts in fighting illegal immigration, human trafficking, and development projects in Libya.

The Libyan-Italian joint committee held a meeting in Tripoli to discuss illegal immigration and Libya's southern border security.
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Brazilian Federal judge Sergio Moro on Monday refused to allow former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to call new defense witnesses in a case that accused him of receiving bribes.

In a statement, Moro denied the request by Lula's defense team to add new witnesses ahead of final statements. Lula denies being the owner of a luxury three-floor apartment in Guaruja, near Sao Paulo, which was allegedly given to him as a gift by the construction company OAS.

Moro oversees the investigation into the Petrobras corruption ring. The charges against Lula state that he is guilty of passive corruption and money laundering for having received assets from OAS worth a total of 3.7 million reais (1.15 million U.S. dollars), in exchange for favoring the company with public contracts.

In total, the former president is facing five separate legal cases, which could stop him from running in the 2018 presidential elections. But the former president denied all the charges against him.

Repeated polls show him clearly in the lead as the favored candidate of the Brazilian electorate.
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China hopes that its relations with the Republic of Korea (ROK) will be improved and developed, State Councilor Yang Jiechi said Monday in Beijing.

"China puts emphasis on its ties with the ROK and hopes that the bilateral relations will be improved and developed from a new starting point," Yang said when meeting with Park Byeong-suk, former deputy speaker of the ROK's National Assembly.

Park led a ROK delegation to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing on Sunday and Monday.

China is willing to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with the ROK under the Belt and Road Initiative, Yang said.

Park congratulated China on the success of the forum. He said the new government of the ROK values relations with China, and is willing to strengthen communication and contribute to the improvement and development of bilateral ties.
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A group of Turks on Monday attempted to lynch an Afghan man in Istanbul over the killing of a Turkish young man, local media reported.

The incident erupted at the funeral of 24-year-old Ramazan Sahin, who was stabbed to death on Sunday night during a brawl between Turkish residents and a group of Afghans and Syrians in Istanbul's Sultangazi district, the Hurriyet daily said.

Some youngsters in the neighborhood started to beat the Afghan with sticks, as hundreds of others were waiting for the funeral, the report said.

The riot police dispersed the crowd later by firing painted capsules to identify the perpetrators, Hurriyet said.

The brawl broke out reportedly after the group of foreigners heckled women in the neighborhood.

About 60 people from both sides were involved in the fight, Sahin's uncle Salih Arslan was quoted as saying.

"We condemn those who have filled their houses with Afghans and Syrians just to gain 10 or 20 Turkish liras more," said Arslan.

According to the residents, similar incidents were happening frequently but "nobody intervened in them."

Turkey is hosting millions of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.
The township administrator sued area farmers in January for trespassing on the disputed 77 acres, while the farmers claim to have long tilled the plot, unaware of any plan to put up government offices.

Loikaw Township Administrator U Kyaw Moe told the Kantarawaddy Times that the process of measuring the land and preparing to build will continue to move forward despite the opposition, as he is confidant the land was already allocated for the project years ago.

The town plan was written in 2013. This land has been allocated for 34 government buildings, he said.

Kayah (Karenni) State Farmer Tar Moi said that the farmers working the land were never informed about the office arrangements.

Some of the local residents said the government incorrectly identified plot 154 as field 166, which they claim has caused the confusion.

Another local resident, Saw Lu Ku, said a portion of the disputed acreage is owned by the Peoples Militia (Hoya area), formerly known as the Karenni National People's Liberation Front (KNPLF), and their family members.

He said the military government had previously confiscated the land for alleged security reasons.

But U Aung Phyo Thaw, head of the Loikaw Township Farmland and Land Records Department, refuted the farmers accounts. He said the 77 acres were registered as field number 166 in the official records.

The Loikaw District Administrator claims to have invited the farmers to negotiate an agreeable resolution to the land issue in December 2015. But the in July 2016, the Loikaw Township General Administration Department posted a notice warning against trespassing on the land, which it said was allocated for the slated government offices. The department announced that action would be taken against any violators under Section 188 of the Penal Code.

On May 9, the farmers reported the land dispute to the State Counsellors Office.



Translated by Thida Linn

Edited Laignee Barron
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The Swiss government on Monday announced it obtained an observer status in the Arctic Council in the organization's latest ministerial meeting.

As an observer, Switzerland can contribute expert knowledge to the Council at the level of working groups, particularly in the interdisciplinary area of climate change research.

Usually, observer status enables non-Arctic states that have demonstrated sufficient interest in the Arctic to participate in the Council's meetings and working groups.

"Polar research is very similar to high-altitude research in the Alps. A number of Swiss institutes are internationally renowned for their high-caliber research on snow, the atmosphere, natural hazards, permafrost and mountain ecosystems," the statement from the Swiss government said.

"Swiss scientists have conducted research on glaciology in the Arctic for over a hundred years, making a substantial contribution to global climate research. Switzerland is known in this research community as the 'vertical Arctic nation,'", the statement added.

Founded in 1996, the Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum promoting the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainable development in the Arctic.

The Council comprises eight Arctic states and organizations representing Arctic indigenous peoples. Observer states also include China, France, Germany and Japan.
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The visit to China by Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang is a great success with important results, the country's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Hoai Trung said here on Tuesday.

The deputy minister told media that the president's variety of activities during the visit and at the Belt and Road Forum on International Cooperation have made positive and practical contributions to the China-Vietnam cooperation.

"It helps to promote the comprehensive strategic co-operative partnership between the two countries in a stable and healthy manner in the coming time," Trung said.

The deputy minister also highlighted other important results of the visit in the fields of trade, economic and people-to-people exchanges.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday suggested docking the Belt and Road Initiative with the European Investment Plan in order to inject new momentum into China-EU ties.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation ended on Monday in Beijing.

Noting that both China and Italy boast ancient civilizations, Xi said the two countries have been connected by the historic Silk Road.

He commended the frequent visits by leaders from both sides and close exchanges between officials at all levels, saying China is willing to work with Italy to further advance bilateral ties.

Both China and Italy are key members of the international community, Xi said. He urged the two countries to maintain the current momentum in high-level exchanges, as well as close contact between governments, legislative bodies, political parties and regional authorities.

The Chinese president highlighted two-way investment, construction of industrial parks, e-commerce and innovation as areas for further cooperation.

China welcomes Italy's participation in the construction of the Belt and Road, and supports cooperation between the two countries in port management, shipping as well as ship building, he said.

Beijing is willing to maintain communication with Rome on major international issues, and hopes Italy can play a positive role within the European Union in order to safeguard the development of China-EU ties, he said.

For his part, Gentiloni said the just-concluded Belt and Road Forum had sent a positive signal to the world economy and international trade.

Italy is willing to participate in cooperation under the Belt and Road framework, particularly in the field of infrastructure, and to strengthen collaboration with China in areas linked to agriculture, culture, economy, education, public health, technology and tourism as well as small- and medium-sized enterprises, he said.

Italy sticks to the one-China policy and will play its role in promoting EU-China ties, Gentiloni said.

In a separate meeting with Gentiloni, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also hailed the traditional friendship between China and Italy, while expressing the hope that both sides make full use of regular meetings between the Chinese premier and Italian prime minister to bolster political mutual trust and step up cooperation in key fields.

Both sides should work to help bilateral ties reach a new level by 2020 when Italy and China celebrate their 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties, he said.

Noting that China is implementing an innovation-driven development strategy, Li said China is willing to work with Italy to enhance collaboration in innovation-related fields and step up cooperation between small- and medium-sized enterprises.

China is willing to take part in port infrastructure building in Italy to improve connectivity between China and Europe, he said.

Gentiloni said Italy welcomes Chinese citizens to visit and study in the country and pledged to make visa applications easier.

A series of cooperation documents covering agriculture and finance were signed after the meeting.
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On April 11, more than 4,000 Mong Kungs residents staged a protest against the coalmine operations. Two days later, company representatives met with local community leaders and pledged to cease all mining activities.

They didnt keep to the agreement. They are still there, said Sao Ekka Sina, a Buddhist monk who was one of the demonstration organizers. They now have RCSS soldiers guarding the site.

Speaking to Shan Herald today by telephone, he said, So, yesterday we went to meet their manager, Okka Kyaw Thu, to discuss this issue. He simply told us that they will not move out.

Now they have erected fences, which have warnings written in both Shan and Burmese languages, saying: Outsiders may not enter.

General Yawd Serk, the chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA), spoke out on the matter during a Shan National Day speech on February 7, saying that for any such operation to proceed, it needs the support of the local people.



Coal-mining site in Mong Kung Township, southern Shan State

Monk and protest organizer Sao Ekka Sina said that if the two mining firms insist on continuing their operations, the residents of Mong Kung will continue protesting and holding demonstrations.

He said that the next rally will be huge, with youth groups from across Shan State invited to attend.

We will continue to protest, he said. If we dont, all our paddy fields near the mining site will be destroyed.

Sai Long, an MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) representing Mong Kung Township Constituency No. 2, said he is following the situation closely.

The monks are investigating the case, and if the order [to continue mining operations] came from local authorities, the protesters will talk with them, he said. If the order is from [RCSS headquarters] Loi Tai Leng, they will go and talk to the leader there.

The Pyae Aung Hein and Hein Mitter companies were granted permission by the central government in Naypyidaw in 2014 to launch coal-mining projects in Mong Kung Township, which is in Loilem district, southern Shan State. But the mines were soon suspended after growing opposition from local residents. They restarted operations again in January this year.

The coal-mining operations would cause irreparable damage to 2,000 acres of land, including conifer forests, mountains and farmland, said local sources.

By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN)
The Belt and Road Initiative has been welcomed and supported by the world's major emerging and industrial economies, as well as by international organizations, which sent high-profile representatives to the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

The forum, which concluded on Monday, hosted representatives from more than 130 countries, which together account for more than two-thirds of the world's population and 90 percent of global GDP.

Expected to help promote the common prosperity of the international community, the forum was supported by both developing and emerging countries, as well as the leading industrial developed economies, or G7.

Representatives from Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa - the BRICS organization - as well as other emerging economies, such as Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey, attended the forum.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the China-led Belt and Road Initiative was timely, as it promises to boost economic cooperation and exchanges.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the initiative was perhaps the most important modern infrastructure project underway in the world today.

"Bringing the Chinese economy closer through this gigantic infrastructure operation is enormously interesting to Italy," Gentiloni said.

The United States sent a delegation led by Matt Pottinger, special assistant to the president and senior director for Asia at the US National Security Council. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Friday that the Belt and Road "is a major trade initiative" and "we're going to continue to work with them".

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, led the Japanese delegation.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, the special envoy of Prime Minister Theresa May, and German Minister for Economics and Energy Brigitte Zypries, the special envoy of Chancellor Angela Merkel, attended the forum.

"Britain stands ready to work with all participating countries to make the Belt and Road a success," Hammond said.

Former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the special envoy of the president, said during the forum that President Emmanuel Macron supports the initiative as an effective way to solve the world's myriad problems.

"Macron wants to send the message to China that he supports the initiative. France is very interested in the initiative, which will develop Eurasia," Raffarin said.

Heads of major international organizations, such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, were also present at the event.

Peter Thomson, president of the UN General Assembly, said the Belt and Road Initiative brings enormous benefits to all countries involved and serves as a major driver of the global transformation emerging with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the initiative is a "most remarkable" drive to fulfill the aspirations of people in less-developed regions that are in dire need of investment.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the initiative adds new economic flavors by creating infrastructure projects based on 21st century expertise and governance standards.

Roberto Azevedo, director-general of the World Trade Organization, said the initiative will help build an infrastructure network that facilitates trade.

"Infrastructure is essential. Lack of a proper transportation network is at the top of the trade cost list, and the Belt and Road is hugely important in responding to this need."
China's vision of an interconnected world with enhanced trade supports the African desire for shared prosperity, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.

The president, who spoke during a roundtable summit of Heads of State and Government held at the Yanqi Lake Conference Centre, said Africa stands a chance to regain some of the missed opportunities of globalization, by playing an active role in the Chinese plan for an interconnected world.

The president, who has been in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, said the Initiative by China fits well into the African Union agenda to create more infrastructure links within the continent.

"The Belt and Road Initiative gives our continent the opportunity to make a paradigm shift. Post-colonial Africa has been stuck in a rut," said the president.

He said the continent must move from being a mere consumer of imports of finished goods to become an exporter itself.

"Being part of One Belt allows the continent to move to a new platform, through which global collaboration will allow for value-addition, innovation, and increased prosperity," said President Kenyatta.

The president said China has been a true friend of Kenya and has supported the efforts to transform the country.

He said the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway shows the tremendous potential for mutually beneficial strategic cooperation between Kenya and China.

The president said joining the Belt and Road Initiative will open up trade and investment opportunities while also reigniting Africa own plan for regional and continental integration.

"It will be a win-win situation when our people have the skills, assets and financing necessary to participate in the development of the infrastructure corridors that will enhance connectivity, support trade and reduce the cost of doing business between our countries," said the president.

He said this will secure good jobs and protect Kenyans from the burden of imprudent debt.

He said everyone wins when people have the technology to add value to Africa's wealth of resources as it is key to the fair and unimpeded trade that benefits all.

"We will all win when the economic corridors we develop hasten industrialization; and when they hasten the development of domestic private-sector capabilities," said President Kenyatta.

The president said infrastructure brings prosperity and African governments are working hard to strengthen connectivity on the continent.

"Roads, electricity, telecommunication and water empower our people, and bring prosperity and freedom. China has learned this lesson well and so has Africa," said the president.

He cited the Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor project projects as one of the ambitious ventures which have been designed to link Africa from the East coast to the west coast.

The project - where Kenya is seeking partnership with the private sector to build a highway, an oil pipeline, a railway line and a sea port at Lamu connecting South Sudan and Ethiopia, - is designed to link up with another corridor from West Africa.

President Kenyatta thanked China for the role it is playing in improving the infrastructure connectivity in East Africa.

He also urged China to continue transferring technology to Kenya and the rest of Africa. President Kenyatta also urged China to recognise that Africa is looking for the promotion of free trade.

This article was originally produced and published by www.president.go.ke.
Czech President visits Nanjing Massacre memorial hall

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-05-16 18:52

NANJING - Czech President Milos Zeman Tuesday visited the Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre in east China's Jiangsu Province.



Zeman became the first incumbent foreign president, and second foreign head of state following Queen of Denmark Margrethe II in 2014, to visit the hall, which commemorates the more than 300,000 Chinese lives taken by Japanese invaders when they occupied the city from Dec. 13, 1937.



Zeman was invited by Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.
The Habib Bank Limited (HBL) logo is seen on the head office building in Karachi, Pakistan, April 18, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Banks from emerging economies are boosting their presence in infrastructure activities under the Belt and Road Initiative, with bankers vowing on Monday to seek closer partnerships for project financing.

Halil Aydogan, general manager of Turkey's Vakifbank, said there is demand for more than $40 billion of investment in transportation infrastructure in Turkey, and the bank is seeking to expand partnerships with Chinese lenders to fund major projects.

"For many years, European banks were very active in Turkey. Now we see banks from China joining in as they see big value and potential for banking in Turkey," Aydogan said on the sidelines of a roundtable meeting of bankers at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing

The Turkish bank has obtained $250 million in loans from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's biggest bank by assets, Aydogan said, adding that a memorandum of understanding has been signed with ICBC to further develop cooperation in other banking areas, ranging from treasury transactions to renminbi payments.

The Turkish banker acknowledged the positive role of the Belt and Road Initiative, originally proposed by President Xi Jinping, in improving global trade and promoting shared benefits.

"The initiative has a mission that aims to increase the level of global trade. It supports a win-win outcome for countries and regions, as opposed to the zero-sum game of protectionist policies," he said.

Similarly, Pakistan's largest bank, Habib Bank, has been working with multiple Chinese lendersincluding China Development Bank, ICBC and Bank of Chinaon four electrical power-related projects in Pakistan with a total investment value of $5 billion, said Nauman K. Dar, the bank's president.

"We should make an effort to utilize local currency and develop the local capital market because there are huge untapped resources in Pakistan," Dar said.

The bank opened a branch in March in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region's capital, Urumqi, to provide financial services for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects, which are part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Monday's roundtable of bankers was hosted by ICBC, which is taking the lead in forming a long-term interbank cooperation mechanism to ensure sustainable financing and proper risk management for projects under the initiative.
Yi Gang, vice-governor of the People's Bank of China [Photo/Xinhua]

Central bank official says lenders can expect returns

China's Silk Road Fund has an important role to play while at an early stage of the Belt and Road Initiative's implementation because it helps leverage additional funding from various sources, according to a vice-governor of China's central bank.

"There is a huge funding gap to be filled in key projects, such as infrastructure construction, in countries and regions involved in the Belt and Road Initiative," said Yi Gang, vice-governor of the People's Bank of China. "It is necessary and timely to inject more money into the Silk Road Fund to leverage more funding sources to close the gap."

Although there is no exact estimate for the total demand of infrastructure construction in economies participating in the initiative, the demand in Asia alone is estimated at $26 trillion by 2030, according to the Asian Development Bank.

The capital boost will not alter the market-based principles; it still will seek fair returns on its investment, Yi told Xinhua on Sunday regarding the government's latest step to provide additional financial support to the Silk Road Fund.

President Xi Jinping said on Sunday that a total of 100 billion yuan ($14.49 billion) will be added to the fund as part of efforts to increase financial support for the initiative.

By the end of the first quarter this year, the fund has signed 15 projects, with a commitment to invest a total of $6 billion, according to data from the fund.

Leslie Maasdorp, vice-president of the New Development Bank, said compared with private investors, State-owned banks and multilateral banks have advantages to ensure financial sustainability of infrastructure projects.

He said private investors might not be interested in long-term infrastructure projects with a long return period, but those projects will attract private investors' attention.

To better appeal to private investors, financial institutions can issue bonds in local currencies, because it improves efficiency and fends off risks of currency fluctuation, according to Maasdorp.

"We became interested in issuing bonds in local currencies not very long ago," he said. "We are interested in exploring more possibilities in this field and to support the initiative."

Feng Xiaohua, vice-president of Jin Lianan International Investment Group, said steps taken by large financial institutions are expected to attract more private investors in the future just like his company.

"They help inject some confidence to countries we know little about," he said. "But before we make decisions, we need to wait after more detailed plans and preferential policies come out."

The fund was set up in 2014 by policy banks and investment companies.
A worker inspects a truck assembly line of the Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group in Fuyang, Anhui province. LU QIJIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY

Data on factory output, retail sales, job market offset investment fears

China's economy continued to fare well in April, bolstered by deepening supply-side structural reform that is fueling innovation and the new economy, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

High-tech industry held up well, online retail sales increased at a fast pace, and job growth remained strong, Xing Zhihong, spokesman for the NBS, said at a news conference.

"The fundamentals of China's economy remain sound and sustainable despite slowing growth of some economic indicators," he said, referring to the weakening investment and consumption growth.

Official data showed the country's industrial output expanded by 6.5 percent year-on-year in April, 0.5 of a percentage point higher than a year earlier, but 1.1 percentage points lower than in March.

"The industrial structure continued to improve," Xing said, citing fixed-asset investment in high-tech industry that increased by 22.6 percent year-on-year, 13.7 percentage points higher than overall fixed-asset investment growth.

Retail sales, meanwhile, grew by 10.7 percent year-on-year in April, 0.6 percentage point higher than a year earlier but 0.2 percentage point lower than in March.

Online retail sales amounted to 1.92 trillion yuan ($278 billion) in the first four months of this year, up by 32 percent over the same period last year.

The job market remains stable. The unemployment rate in 31 major cities dropped below the March level and has remained below 5 percent since September, the NBS said, adding that China created 4.65 million jobs in the first four months of this year, approximately 220,000 more than the same period last year. Steady job growth indicated an uptrend in the national economy, Xing said.

The expanding investment in real estate remains an engine for the country's economic growth, said Liu Liangdong, an analyst at China Merchants Securities Co.

Analysts, however, said China's full-year economic growth might decrease moderately.

Liu said: "From a long-term perspective, the country's monetary policy will not likely change significantly, and key tasks remain liquidity tightening and deleveraging."

Zhu Yiping, an analyst at Western Securities Co, said: "Several downside risks might come from infrastructure and real estate sectors (this year)."

Highlighting challenges facing the economy, Xing of the NBS said that both domestic and foreign environments were complicated and appear set for change, and "structural imbalance" remains a deep-rooted problem.
Hungary will deepen cooperation with China in the financial sector by jointly establishing more investment funds, said its minister of foreign affairs and trade.

Peter Szijjarto said Hungary's Export-Import Bank will invest 70 million euros ($76.5 million) in the second phase of the China-Central and Eastern Europe Investment Cooperation Fund, which was initiated by the China Export-Import Bank and established in 2013.

The fund's first phase drew investments of $435 million and went into operation in 2014. The Hungarian Export-Import Bank was one of the investors with an input of $30 million, according to the Budapest Business Journal.

The fund's second phase, to be launched this year, will be worth $1 billion, according to Xinhua.

The China-CEE Investment Cooperation Fund targets telecommunications, energy, infrastructure and manufacturing projects in the 16 central and eastern European countries. For example, the fund's first investment was for a stake in a wind power generator in Poland in 2014.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest lender, also invested 1 billion euros to establish the Sino-CEE Finance Holding Co Ltd in November last year. The company has initiated an investment fund with an expected size of 10 billion euros, aiming to provide financial support for industrial cooperation between China and CEE countries. Financial institutions and businesses in CEE countries are invited to contribute voluntarily to the investment fund. Hungary is ready to contribute around 200 million euros, according to Szijjarto.

"The Chinese investments in Hungary have exceeded $4 billion, which means that we are the No 1 investment target in Central Europe for China," Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary is also the largest Central European exporter to China.

"And since the Bank of China has its regional headquarters in Budapest where there is a renminbi clearing center, we have the tightest financial cooperation as well," he said on Sunday while attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

To further boost Chinese investments in Hungary, Szijjarto met five Chinese companies that have made investments in the Central European country. Executives from technology major Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and electric vehicle maker BYD Co Ltd are among those he met during the forum.

"Europe and the European Union have been struggling with some difficulties, mainly economic and security-related. To overcome the economic difficulties, we need to build more strategic and comprehensive relationships with the most rapidly emerging part of the world, which is definitely China and the surrounding region," Szijjarto said.

The region of Central and Eastern Europe is an underestimated investment destination, according to Jiang Jianqing, head of the Sino-CEE Finance Holding Co Ltd and ICBC's former chairman.

"It's an important emerging market and manages to maintain a good momentum for development while the global economy is recovering slowly," Jiang told China Business News.

The CEE region enjoys low labor costs, diverse industrial structure and great market potential, but lacks financial support to realize the potential for rapid growth, according to Jiang.
WASHINGTON - China increased its holding of US Treasury securities in March for the second consecutive month, the latest data from the US Treasury Department showed on Monday.

China added its treasuries holding by $27.9 billion in March, with the total holding up to $1.0876 trillion.

China's forex reserves rose for the third month in a row in April, as the cross-border capital flow became stable and the Chinese currency, renminbi, stabilizes against the US dollar.

Japan, which overtakes China as the largest holder of US treasuries in last October, increased its holding by $3.4 billion to $1.1185 trillion in March.

By the end of March, overall foreign holdings of US Treasury securities rose to $6.0793 trillion from February's $6.012 trillion.
BEIJING - China's top insurance watchdog will conduct inspections to rectify market irregularities and protect consumer interests, according to an official statement released Monday.

From June to mid-October, local insurance authorities will conduct on-site investigations on 46 branches of 16 insurance entities, as well as seven part-time insurance agents, which had been ranked poorly in terms of customer complaints in the past two years, China Insurance Regulatory Commission said in the statement.

The inspections will focus on violations including fraudulent sales practices, fake or absent customer information, and failure to pay small insurance claims efficiently.

In addition, the insurance regulator will conduct case-by-case investigations into violations reported by the public, and punish typical behavior that hurts customer interests.

"We will never compromise on matters of principle, and we will not disregard violations for any reason," the regulator said in a statement.

The statement also called for toughened supervision on innovative insurance businesses, and said authorities will work to standardize sales behavior not only by insurance firms, but by agents and intermediaries.
Our people had to abandon their homes because of the fighting, said Nang Jarm Hom, an MP from the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) representing Namtu Township Constituency No. 2. Around 300 fled to Namtu town on May 11 from Zaikhao tract.

They are now staying at Shwe Minta Temple, she added.

The only thing we can do now is use the food that was previously donated to take care of them, Nang Jarm Hom told Shan Herald. But we need humanitarian support because the villagers who fled fighting in Mantong Township last year are still here. Now more refugees are pouring in. They need help. They need supplies.

The TNLA recently posted on its News and Information Department website that fighting broke out in Namtu, Mongmit, Kutkai and Mantong Township between its troops, the Burmese army and the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA).

The TNLA, also known as the Palaung Army, was among six armed groups  alongside the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA); Arakan Army (AA); Lahu Democratic Union (LDU); Arakan National Congress (ANC); and Wa National Organization (WNO)  that was excluded from signing the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in 2015 with the then ruling government led by President Thein Sein.

According to Myanmar Peace Monitor, in 2016 a total of 309 clashes broke out between the Burmese armed forces and TNLA troops in northern Shan State.

On April 10, Shan Herald reported that three villagers were reportedly killed amid fighting between the TNLA and government forces in Kyaukme Township. And earlier this month, an old woman was shot dead and three others injured in Namkham Township. Both incidents occurred in northern Shan State.

We cant do anything with this fighting going on, said Shan lawmaker Nang Jarm Hom. We are helping the villagers as much as we can. But what we really need is an end to these hostilities.

By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN)
The total trade volume of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with China is projected to increase to $1 trillion by 2020, said AKP Mochtan, deputy secretary-general of ASEAN for Community and Corporate Affairs, at a seminar Monday.

The seminar on ASEAN Community Building and China-ASEAN Relations, aimed at boosting Sino-ASEAN relations, took place during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of ASEAN. The forum, hosted by the Mission of the People's Republic of China to ASEAN, Beijing Review and the Pangoal Institution, is to strengthen collaboration and cooperation between China and ASEAN through the media, promote the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, and deepen China-ASEAN relations.

"The cooperation agreements and mechanisms formed between China and ASEAN in various areas in recent years have brought new opportunities for Sino-ASEAN relations. The visions of ASEAN correspond to China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, leading to common prosperity," said Mochtan.

As the sixth-largest economy in the world, ASEAN is now finalizing regional comprehensive economy partnerships with six free trade area counterparts, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. This would add up to over half of the world's population, and in turn bring huge opportunities, he added.

Zhao Xiyuan, secretary-general of China Public Diplomacy Association, said that under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, there are boundless opportunities for China and ASEAN to tap into. "One of the flagship projects is the high-speed railway between Jakarta and Bandung, which is set to be built by Indonesian and Chinese companies."

"ASEAN's advantageous location and long trade ties with China have made it important for the Belt and Road Initiative. China will share opportunities and tackle challenges together with ASEAN to achieve common development and prosperity and become a community with a common destiny, sharing benefits and troubles alike," said Li Yafang, president of Beijing Review.
HARARE - Zimbabwe is on course to complete the Kariba South Expansion Project by December, which is being built by China's Sinohydro, an official said Monday.

Fullard Gwasira, spokesperson for the power utility ZESA Holdings, told Xinhua that the three-year project was now 85-percent complete.

"The project is moving beyond our expectations. We expected this project to be completed by December but indications on the ground are that we may do it earlier than December," Gwasira said.

Sinohydro is carrying out the $533 million expansion project that will add 300 megawatts to Zimbabwe's electricity grid and help ameliorate power shortages in the country.

Gwasira said the first 150 megawatt unit was expected to come on stream in December and the second by the first quarter of 2018.

"We are very happy about this project because on completion, we would have made a huge milestone in terms of meeting national demand," Gwasira said.

Zimbabwe's power demand stands at 1,400 Mw but is only able to generate 1,000 Mw due to ageing power plants. It plugs the shortfall through imports from neighboring South Africa and Mozambique.

Meanwhile, Gwasira said the power utility had also made headway towards expansion of another power plant Hwange Thermal Power Station by Sinohydro.

Hwange Power Station is Zimbabwe's largest power plant with an installed capacity of 920 Mw. The expansion project, at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion, will add 600 Mw to the national grid.

It is expected that Zimbabwe would be energy self-sufficient once the Kariba and Hwange power expansion projects are completed.
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Pakistan has signed a deal with China's e-commerce giant Alibaba in a bid to boost the country's small and medium-sized enterprises.

On Tuesdaa, Alibaba, together with its financial affiliate Ant Financial Services Group, announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, the first agreement of its kind to explore business opportunities with the South Asian nation.

Under the agreement, the three parties will work on fostering growth of worldwide exports from Pakistani SMEs through e-commerce.

Alibaba will provide online and offline training programs to help the country's SMEs better navigate the e-commerce landscape and make use of Alibaba's platforms. The trio will also work together to grow online payments and cloud-computing services in Pakistan.

The signing ceremony in Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou was witnessed by its founder and chairman Jack Ma and Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing that ended on Monday.

The MOU follows a series of initiatives by Alibaba to empower SMEs globally via digital commerce and online transactions. Ma's vision to build an electronic world trade platform could lower trade barriers and provide easier financing to micro and smaller merchants, who struggle to navigate sophisticated trade rules and accessing loans.
An exhibitor sits in a booth and demonstrates a Virtual Reality device in the SAP SE pavilion at the CeBIT 2017 tech fair in Hannover in March. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

German software company SAP SE will step up efforts to tap into opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative, which it believes will motivate groups to adopt new technologies and business models.

Mark Gibbs, president of SAP in China, said in an interview with China Daily that the Belt and Road initiative enabled a "beautiful marriage" between innovative technology and a well-thought drive to increase business in many economies.

"It will allow companies to re-imagine their business models and accelerate steps toward a digital transformation," he said.

SAP supplies software for most of the world's top 500 companies to run factories, supply chains and financial accounts. It is planning to work with key Chinese central government bodies related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

The president said SAP is looking to work with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce and China's top universities to create think tanks, and host sessions for idea exchanges and best practice sharing, with the goal of helping Chinese businesses.

The company's products and services are available in more than 180 countries and regions, most of which are related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

"SAP is the largest benchmarking company in the world," Gibbs said.

"We can see which are the most efficient or inefficient industries and why. We want to share the experience and digital solutions with Chinese companies. "

The president said SAP is in a good position to help promote infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade and financial integration, which are among the top priorities of the Belt and Road Initiative.

"We are talking with a number of ports in China. Without increasing capital expenditure, we can help drive their efficiency up by 30 percent by leveraging SAP's digital products," Gibbs said.

As of December, SAP has around 12,000 business customers in China. About 75 percent of them are small and medium-sized groups, while more than 50 percent of China's leading State-owned firms also use its services.

The customer list includes ChemChina, China's biggest chemical group, Shenhua Group, a leading State-owned energy company and COFCO, the leading supplier of agriculture-productsall of which are playing an active part in the Belt and Road Initiative.

It partnered China Telecom, the country's third largest telecoms operator by subscribers, and Alibaba Cloud, to offer localized cloud services and solutions.

"We also aim to help small and medium-sized companies become integrated into the global value chain, by offering them an affordable access to cutting-edge cloud technology," he said.
The CEO of fintech services company NCF Groupwhich is among the country's first batch of groups to obtain full-fledged internet finance licensessaid that the strategic goal of his firm is to generate half its business from overseas markets in the next three to five years thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative.

CEO Sheng Jia told China Daily during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which ended on Monday, that his company already operated in services like third-party payments, wealth management and peer-to-peer lendingbut is gearing up for expansion in Southeast Asia and Europe through equity investments and technology sharing.

"President Xi Jinping's emphasis on the digital economy and financial technology suggests huge potential can be unleashed under the Belt and Road Initiative, and is a guideline to fintech firms to expand overseas," he said.

In a keynote speech addressed to the forum, Xi pledged to build a digital silk road and encouraged the integration of science and technology into industries and finance, which he said will be a boon for China's fintech firms.

NCF's Hong Kong-listed subsidiary, China Credit Fintech, led a 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) investment fund in December, seeking to nurture leading fintech firms in Asia and targeting mergers and acquisitions in fields like big data, artificial intelligence and blockchain.

Sheng identified blockchaina digital and traceable ledger of transactionsas a device to ride the next wave of growth under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Early this year, NCF also established a regional office in Singapore and announced plans to acquire a majority stake in Vietnam-based Amigo Technologies, marking the first steps toward expansion beyond its home turf.

"While NCF might not be a first-tier player like Ant Financial and Tencent Pay, its varied portfolio means it has enormous business opportunities in Asia," said Li Chao, a senior analyst at consultancy iResearch.

To build up its own strategic position, NCF also entered into agreement this year with leading UK universities to conduct joint studies on big data, after it made initial attempts in high-end international wealth management.

Emerging as some of the world's fintech leaders, Chinese companies commanded the largest share of fintech investment in 2016, according to a study published by Ernst & Young and DBS.

NCF's Sheng said Chinese fintech players have created platforms with the aim of embedding their financial solutions into customers' lives, which is something that can be of help to neighboring countries that lacked the necessary technical infrastructure.

"Mobile payments and online financial services are important elements of inclusive development," said Li Yang, head of the National Finance and Development Laboratory.

"Under the Belt and Road Initiative, China can share its experience with related countries and regions and bolster their development."
Workers at a production line of Mobike in Hengyang, Hunan province, inspect bicycles one last time before releasing them for shared use in cities. Peng Bin / For China Daily

Bike share scheme Mobike is teaming up with tech companies Ericsson and China Mobile, to build a global Internet of Things platform.

The three companies signed the memorandum of cooperation on Monday, saying they will step up efforts to research a one-stop solution for the application of IoT globally, and will explore innovative business models, such as offering co-branded cards.

They also plan to conduct an IoT trial in Shenzhen and Sichuan provinces, to help users more accurately locate Mobikes and provide a better user experience.

Mobike chief executive Wang Xiaofeng said: "We will employ cutting-edge IoT technologies to grow our technological advantages, aiming to gear up in the expansion of our global business."

"We want to drive the application of IoT technologies to more industries and fields," Ericsson China president Zhao Juntao said. "We believe the cooperation will be a big push to the mass commercialization of IoT in China."

Mobike has deployed more than 4 million bikes in over 60 cities across the globe. More than 20 million short journeys are made on its bicycles every day, according to company figures.

At the end of last year, Mobike, Ericsson and China Mobile Shanghai conducted a trail of cellular IoT technologies on a live network in Shanghai which provided a more convenient and enhanced experience for Mobike riders.
Two men chat beside a logo of Alibaba at its headquarters on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/Agencies]

SYDNEY - A host of Victorian businesses have begun an official trade mission to China on Tuesday.

Phillip Dalidakis, Victoria's minister for Small Business Innovation and Trade, toured the headquarters of e-commerce giant Alibaba on Tuesday with representatives from 12 Victorian agribusinesses and 16 food and beverage companies.

The tour offered the companies an opportunity to speak with Alibaba executives in person as they attempt to promote Victorian products on both Taobao and Tmall.

Dalidakis also made a presentation to the Zhejiang Fintech Association on Victoria's strengths in financial technology and blockchain.

Many of the businesses invited on the trip are headquartered in the Latrobe Valley, a region 157 km east of Melbourne which has a below-average rate of employment as the government tries to boost the region's economy.

"We're working closely with Victoria's businesses to make sure they have all the tools and connections they need to trade with the world's largest market," Dalidakis said in a media release on Tuesday.

"China is our most important economic relationship and biggest trading partner, strengthening that relationship will contribute to Victoria's growing economy and create jobs."

He announced that the Zhejiang Fintech Association would lead a delegation to Melbourne later in 2017 to further explore collaboration with Victorian companies in the blockchan sector.

The trade mission comes after the Victorian government committed $750,000 to hiring mew staff at the state's five trade and investment offices in China in the state budget.

The government said the offices are extremely important due to China's status as the state's largest two-way trade partner.

Trade between China and Victoria was worth $17.74 billion in Financial Year 2016, with China having notable investments in all Victoria's key industry sectors.
The ransomware virus, dubbed WannaCry, can encrypt all the files on a Windows PC and demands $300 worth of bitcoin, an untraceable digital currency widely used online, to unlock a user's data. [Photo/VCG]

Cyber security emergency response appears to have prevented a fresh round of attack from a ransomware virus that has hit more than 300,000 computers across the world.

The cyber security industry were fearful of a 'black Monday', as many workers switched on their computers after the weekend.

"A large-scale infection has been avoided, thanks to a 72-hour national mobilization and emergency response led by the authorities and supported by the industry," leading domestic cyber security company 360 Business Security Group said.

The ransomware virus, dubbed WannaCry, can encrypt all the files on a Windows PC and demands $300 worth of bitcoin, an untraceable digital currency widely used online, to unlock a user's data.

A Cybercpace Administration of China official said on Monday, that although the virus is still spreading, it has slowed.

"After the virus breakout, the authorities immediately made arrangements for cyber security guards and domestic cyber security companies to proactively provide security services and preventive tools," the official said.

Wu Yunkun, president of 360 Business Security Group, told chinadaily.com.cn to curb the virus's spread, the company had provided eight versions of warning notices, seven repair guides and six repair tools to their government and enterprises customers as of Monday morning.

The ransomware cyber attack, which is believed to be the largest global cyber attack in history, has hit 300,000 victims in at least 150 countries since Friday, making $70,000 worth of bitcoin, White House official Tom Bossert said, China News Service reported.

The report said that in China, more than 29,000 IPs were infected by the virus from Friday to Saturday, most of which were universities, hospitals, transport systems and companies.

The National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC) had found 2.42 million IPs were suffering the attack and the number of infected IPs reached 35,000 as of 10:30 am on Sunday, Xinhua reported.

Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Jiangxi province were most affected, a report released by 360 Threat Intelligence Center on Saturday said.

"What is new about the WannaCry ransomware virus, which can worm its way into Windows PCs and propagate automatically through systems, is its attack on intranets," Wu said.

"The Transmission Control Protocol port 445 of Windows system, which is widely acknowledged unsafe, is closed on many computers. However, it is usually open on intranets used in many industries and enterprises because they think their intranets can be isolated with the extranet."

Wu said that is why universities, organizations and enterprises were especially vulnerable to the ransomware.

"Code for exploiting that bug, which is known as "Eternal Blue" in Microsoft's Windows operating system, was released on the internet in March and Microsoft released patches last month," Wu noted.

He said domestic cyber security companies like 360 Business Security Group reminded users to install patches via security software in March, but many users ignored the fix.

"The case is a test of the cyber security defending system in China. Although cyber security is considered to be at a national strategy level, domestic institutions and enterprises' overall security awareness is still not strong."

Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of Microsoft, also said the cyber attack is "a wake-up call for all of us, whether we're in the tech sector, as customers or as government", according to a PBS report.

At present, the so-called "kill switch" for the attack, discovered by a young British cybersecurity researcher, is no longer effective.

As new versions of the virus such as WannaCry 2.0 have already begun emerging, any respite might be brief.
President Xi Jinping announces the start of the roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum on Monday in Beijing. MA ZHANCHENG / XINHUA

Belt and Road Initiative bringing people together in 'pursuit of a better life', Xi says; 2nd summit set for 2019

China will host the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019, President Xi Jinping announced on Monday at a news briefing in Beijing while describing the outcomes of the forum and the Leaders Roundtable.

At the forum this year, held on Sunday and Monday, 29 foreign heads of state and government as well as chiefs of international organizations, corporate leaders, senior officials and scholars gathered to chart the blueprint for the Belt and Road Initiative, which has won positive feedback from more than 100 countries.

Xi confirmed that China has so far signed cooperative agreements with 68 countries and international organizations concerning the initiative, including those signed during the forum.

A list of major outcomes of the forum was approved at the closing ceremony of the forum, with 76 items including more than 270 concrete results in the key areas of policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people-to-people exchanges.

Leaders attending the roundtable on Monday also issued a joint communique, in which they stated a "shared commitment to building an open economy, ensuring free and inclusive trade (and) opposing all forms of protectionism in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative".

The summit has seen leaders agreeing to prioritize policy consultation, work on perfecting the infrastructure connectivity network and better serve public well-being and sustained development, according to an official release of the Foreign Ministry.

While chairing the summit, Xi said the Belt and Road Initiative is an open and inclusive platform and a public service jointly built by parties around the world.

China welcomes all friends cherishing the same ideals to join the Belt and Road, which will neither exclude nor target any side, he said.

"The Belt and Road development does not shut out, nor is it directed against, any party," Xi said.

When addressing the closing ceremony of the forum, Xi said, "People's pursuit of a better life has helped move history forward", and the Belt and Road development is bringing together people of all countries along the routes in a joint endeavor for common development and shared benefits through win-win cooperation.

Xu Haoliang, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and director of the United Nations Development Programme's regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said the Belt and Road Initiative promotes the opposite of an inward-looking mentality and "could indeed shape the 21st century international cooperation model".

The effects of the initiative "could be transformational, particularly if it promotes economic, social and environmental sustainability", Xu said.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said China's latest proposals and the outcomes achieved at the forum show that China's development "brings national interests to itself and brings benefits to other countries as well", and China's proposed solution is having a growing say on the world stage.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations studies at Renmin University of China, said the latest outcomes are being achieved at a time when many of the countries participating in the initiative are introducing industrialization, modernization and infrastructure buildup.

"Since the world economy is still sluggish, the huge production capacity and construction capabilities to be introduced will meet such urgent demands ... and make their people feel more tangible benefits," Wang said.

China's negotiating with participating countries for more bilateral free-trade agreements will help address the current downturn of the globalization process, the professor added.
Donald Trump's white supremacist peanut gallery is scrambling to deny the reality of today's bombshell revelation the President shared highly classified information with Russian officials during a bizarrely timed White House visit the day after Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

Shown above, Breitbart.com's response to the revelations about last week's weird Trump-Russia huddle.

I have run out of evens to can't pic.twitter.com/Y25PHXWFHi  Adrianna McIntyre (@onceuponA) May 16, 2017

The Washington Post's initial report on the White House security breach has since been confirmed by CNN, Buzzfeed, NPR, The Failing New York Times, and other liberal shitrags controlled by The Jews, no doubt.

Looks like more "Fake news". New installment of "Fake News Roundup" on Hannity 10 est FNC. Please watch opening and Mini monologues tonight! https://t.co/R8Ct9oYJdf  Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 15, 2017

"Looks like more 'fake news,'" tweeted the ever-loathesome Trump apologist Sean Hannity of Fox News.

In case you were wondering where the story about Trump revealing classified info to Russians is on the Fox News website pic.twitter.com/j0oaBf7vZD  Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 15, 2017

From CNN:

Other hosts on Fox News, the cable news network which provides the most favorable coverage to Trump, also appeared to downplay the story. During the shows hosted by Martha MacCallum and Tucker Carlson , several segments strayed from the bombshell news and were instead devoted to controversies on college campuses, an unusual editorial decision given the magnitude of the Post's story. On the Fox News website, the news was buried low on the homepage. After seeing the outlet's online coverage, a longtime Fox News employee even reacted in shock, with a single word: "Wowza."

Take a stroll through stories Fox News decided to focus on tonight instead of Trump revealing classified information https://t.co/xWaGZOBF91 pic.twitter.com/FTLBPTNk2A  Media Matters (@mmfa) May 16, 2017

This screen grab will not age well. pic.twitter.com/GKlIrEOt4t  Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 16, 2017

Pretty depressing. But don't lose hope, here's the Huffington Post's tabloid take.
President Xi Jinping announces the start of the roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum on Monday in Beijing.[Photo by Ma Zhancheng/Xinhua]

Belt and Road Initiative bringing people together in 'pursuit of a better life', Xi says; 2nd summit set for 2019

"The Belt and Road development does not shut out, nor is it directed against, any party."

"Though originating in China, the Belt and Road Initiative BELONGS TO THE WHOLE WORLD. Its development goes beyond regions, stages of development and civilizations."

"Geese can fly through wind and rain for a long time because they fly in flocks."

China will host the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019, President Xi Jinping announced on Monday at a news briefing in Beijing while describing the outcomes of the forum and the Leaders Roundtable.

At the forum this year, held on Sunday and Monday, 29 foreign heads of state and government as well as chiefs of international organizations, corporate leaders, senior officials and scholars gathered to chart the blueprint for the Belt and Road Initiative, which has won positive feedback from more than 100 countries.

Xi confirmed that China has so far signed cooperative agreements with 68 countries and international organizations concerning the initiative, including those signed during the forum.

A list of major outcomes of the forum was approved at the closing ceremony of the forum, with 76 items including more than 270 concrete results in the key areas of policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people-to-people exchanges.

Leaders attending the roundtable on Monday also issued a joint communique, in which they stated a "shared commitment to building an open economy, ensuring free and inclusive trade (and) opposing all forms of protectionism in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative".

The summit has seen leaders agreeing to prioritize policy consultation, work on perfecting the infrastructure connectivity network and better serve public well-being and sustained development, according to an official release of the Foreign Ministry.

While chairing the summit, Xi said the Belt and Road Initiative is an open and inclusive platform and a public service jointly built by parties around the world.
Passengers enjoy a light moment in a compartment prepared especially for singles on Line 1 of the Shenzhen Subway in Guangdong province on May 8.[Mao Siqian/Xinhua]

Commuters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, can get a feeling of love during their daily journey on a special train covered with sweet words and wishes.

The decorated train, on Line 1 of the city's subway, began operating on May 8 and will run for a month.

Compartments are painted pink, with hundreds of riders' posts on the walls and floor. Some express love for a girlfriend or boyfriend, some for parents, and others for the city.

"Dear Mom and Dad, it has been a long time since I last came home," reads one message. "I miss you so much. Hope you are healthy and happy. I will continue to work hard and bring you to Shenzhen. Love you and miss you."

The train also has a compartment prepared especially for singles. One side of the compartment is painted blue and the other pink, and it is filled with sweet words from singles to future partners.

The event, organized by Shenzhen Metro Group and Shenzhen Press Group Metro Media, is held to coincide with the time around May 20known as 520 in China. Since the pronunciation of "520" is close to "I love you" in Chinese, many consider it a day of love.

"The aim of the move is to spread positive energy and love across the city," said Zhou Xinhua, head of the cultural promotion department at Shenzhen Metro Group's resources development unit, which is responsible for organizing the event.

"Every day, 4 million to 5 million people travel on the Shenzhen Metro. It is a window and carrier for promoting spiritual culture. In addition to this event, we will organize other cultural activities in the metro in the future to contribute to the construction of a spiritual civilization."

People interviewed in Shenzhen hailed the move, calling it meaningful.

"The event is warm and encouraging. It shows that Shenzhen is not only a city with high economic growth, but also a city full of love," said Pan Qiyun, a 28-year-old working at a local startup.

Liu Yuanyuan, who works as an accountant, said the event is particularly meaningful in a first-tier city where most people are busy with work and often neglect to show and express their love.

"I hope similar events will be held to strengthen the sense of belonging among people working and living in the city," Liu said.
Jamyang Tso, a resident of Lhasa, rides an Ofo bike on Monday near the Potala Palace. [Photo by Palden Nyima/China Daily]

Bike-sharing has come to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, and one local owner of a small business called it a more efficient and pleasant way to travel between home and work.

China's biggest bicycle-sharing startup, Ofo, began operating in the capital on Sunday and announced plans to make 2,000 shared bikes available there this month and well as to expand the service across the region.

Jamyang Tso, 35, who has a shop selling yak dairy products near the city's historic Potala Palace, said there are drawbacks to taking buses or walking.

"It's not far from my home to the shop, though walking is not easy for me. I have been taking the bus every day, but I hate crowds and waiting. It is always very crowded and time consuming," she said.

She said she signed up with Ofo on Sunday, and likes it.

"With my friend's help, I learned to become a user of Ofo, and it only takes around 20 minutes from my home to the shop by bike. I found it's time efficient and cheap," she said. "It is convenient and cool, without a feeling of being crowded or impatient. There's fresh air along the way. I prefer Ofo to get to work."

Ofo first entered Tibet in April, when it brought its bikes to Xigaze, the region's second-biggest city. The company's officials said residents welcomed the new way to get around.

Zhang Yiding, one of Ofo's founders, said they hope to put 10,000 shared bikes in the next few months in Lhasa, which is the company's 100th city.

"We want to bring convenience to the more than 560,000 residents of Lhasa. We hope Ofo will help to optimize Lhasa's traffic system, and bring convenience to residents and tourists," Zhang said.

The number of motor vehicles in Lhasa is growing by 20,000 to 25,000 a year - rising from 157,840 in 2014 to 180,053 in 2015, then reaching 197,759 as of July 2016, government figures show.

"With the support of the Lhasa Traffic and Transportation Bureau, Ofo's operations will bolster the city's 'green, slow traffic' system," Zhang said. The "green, slow traffic" initiative includes more bicycle routes and pedestrian space to alleviate traffic pressure and promote low-carbon travel.

Xu Wenqiang, deputy director of the region's traffic and transportation department, said the launch of Ofo in Lhasa will help expand public transportation coverage, and it will help improve the city's transportation system.

He said his department is willing to improve traffic policies to support Ofo's operation in Tibet, and he hoped Ofo would enhance the management of its operation to bring safe, convenient and comfortable travel to residents.

Ofo users are required to pay a 99 yuan ($14.35) deposit to open an account, but riding for 1 hour costs only 1 yuan. No other shared bike service has entered Tibet yet.

Tibet, a world tourism destination, welcomed more than 23 million visitors last year, while more than 13 million tourists visited Lhasa.

Since its launch in June 2015, Ofo has become the world's biggest shared bicycle service in terms of users and coverage, company officials said.

Its bikes have been used more than 1 billion times in 100 cities in four countries, they said.




When Taleb Rifai of Jordan boarded a plane at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to fly to Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, he could not help but notice that everything was in three languages: French, English and Chinese.

"That would be unthinkable just a decade ago," said Rifai, 68, secretary-general of the United Nations' World Tourism Organization since 2010. He spoke to a small number of journalists on Monday afternoon at the China National Tourism Administration's headquarters.

"The world is open to you, respecting you and expecting your leadership," said Rifai. "My children and grandchildren want to speak Chinese, because they know that's where the future is."

When President Xi Jinping proposed that the Belt and Road Initiative promote better connections among people through tourism, Rifai listened carefully.

"Never in my life have I seen a world leader laying out a vision like President Xi did," he said. Rifai said what Xi proposed is exactly what the United Nations has had in mind and sought during the past two decades.

"The belt is what binds us all, and the road is where we must walk," Rifai said. "In 10 years, maybe we will all be part of the initiative."

Rifai recalled that the first time he took a plane, he was 17. "Things have changed greatly. More people, young and old, are breaking barriers to see the world. They are treating travel as a basic human right."

Only 22 million people were traveling internationally in 1950, but the number has skyrocketed to more than 1.2 billion a year, and projections have it rising to 1.8 billion by 2030, Rifai said, illustrating the growth potential of the industry. His organization estimates that tourism contributes more than 10 percent of the world's GDP.

"It is particularly important for President Xi to raise this proposal in today's world," Rifai added. "There are many people who want to divide us. They want walls, not bridges."

Rifai noted that Xi's proposal coincides with a trend he has observed, that the center of world tourism is shifting from the West to the East. Europe, which has been the de facto tourism center for a long time, received about half the world's international travelers last year. That proportion is down from 60 percent in the past decade.

Rifai predicted that 60 percent of international travelers will go to developing countries instead of Europe and other developed regions in the coming years.

"Europe is still the center, but Asia is the future," Rifai said. "But of course, you want to travel to a place where you feel good about yourself and your trip."
Judges at the Supreme People's Court's Sixth Circuit Court in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, swear an oath of allegiance. [Photo/Xinhua]

Regional branches of the Supreme People's Court are providing greater flexibility and changing the way litigants and legal professionals approach cases, as Cao Yin reports.

For many years, Huang Sizhou, a lawyer in Shenzhen, in the southern province of Guangdong, frequently traveled to Beijing in the north of the country to attend appeal hearings at the Supreme People's Court (the country's top legal chamber). Sometimes, he spent days away from his family.

Now, Huang's traveling days are over. "The Supreme People's Court has established a circuit court in Guangdong, which means I can help clients resolve disputes and have face-to-face talks with judges from the top court without leaving my hometown," said Huang, who specializes in civil and commercial cases.

The first two circuit courts were opened in 2015 to enforce judicial reforms, improve efficiency and provide litigants with better legal services.

The First Circuit Court, in Shenzhen, is responsible for cases from the provinces of Guangdong and Hainan, and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, while the Second Circuit Court, in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, oversees disputes in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

As branches of the country's top legal tribunal, the two courts are further reinforcing the rule of law, which has been promoted by the central leadership since 2014.

Statistics published in March show that in the past two years, the two branches shared 4,721 cases, 4,573 of which had been concluded. Before the circuit courts were established, those cases would have been added to the work of the Supreme People's Court in Beijing.

The success of the move resulted in four more circuit courts being established at the end of last year: in Zhengzhou, Henan province; Nanjing, Jiangsu province; Chongqing municipality; and Xi'an, Shaanxi province.

"It means the top court's arms have extended across the country," said Xu Jiaxin, director of the Supreme People's Court's political department.

He added that the new courts aim to further narrow the gap between the top court and the public by helping to resolve disputes without people having to travel to Beijing: "They are also the key to unifying standards for case hearings to ensure litigants receive considered, high-quality verdicts, and improving court efficiency."




In addition to narrowing the gap between litigants and the Supreme People's Court, China's six circuit courts are also providing better legal services via e-platforms.

Similar to the systems in banks, litigants obtain a number by swiping their identify card in legal centers responsible for filing cases with the circuit courts. They can then search for information related to the law or the courts with electronic devices, according to a statement issued by the nation's top court.

For example, at the center in the Fifth Circuit Court in Chongqing, litigants can use touch screens to find out how to lodge an appeal or discover related information, such as which judges are in court, how to negotiate with other litigants in the hope of settling a dispute out of court, and also learn about verdicts handed down in similar cases.

"Our center provides litigants with pens, paper, water and glasses," Li Dong, director of the court's center, told Legal Daily. "Our system is being upgraded, and when it is finished, litigants will be able to search for information about lawsuits simply by swiping their ID cards."

In addition to providing greater convenience through technology, the circuit courts can also take advantage of an internal network to interact with the headquarters in Beijing, according to the Supreme People's Court's statement.

That means judges in circuit courts do not have to visit the capital for meetings with officials or to report to their superiors, which saves time and money, the statement said.

In February, Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court, called on tribunals at every level to accelerate the building of "intelligent courts" to ensure the network will allow legal professionals to study judicial data and provide effective services for litigants.

So far, 3,520 courts nationwide are able to use the network to hear cases, provide legal services and supervise proceedings.

The top court has also established academies to study cases, research data and search for information.

"As well as improving the system by using cloud computing, big data and the Internet Plus strategy, we're also considering using artificial intelligence to promote the establishment of the information platform," Zhou said.
Premier's vision on speed and cutting costs starting to take shape

When Premier Li Keqiang delivered his Government Work Report for on March 5, increasing broadband speed and lowering costs for internet services nationwide was one of the messages that attracted the widest attention, and applause, that day.

It did not take long to see the first concrete steps of implementation.

The State Council's executive meeting on May 10 announced further efforts in upgrading information consumption and ensuring greater security for personal information.

The government will increase internet speeds, while connection costs, telecommunication, logistics, after-sales services as well as other expenditures, will be lowered for enterprises, a statement following the meeting said. Also, information services costs will be reduced, while information security will be boosted.

Li said in his work report that a faster, safer and more cost effective internet is crucial for cross-sector development.

Zhang Aihua, a professor at Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, believes measures following the May 10 meeting will boost new economic growth engines.

Zhang said areas such as public infrastructure, digital home appliances, intelligent wearables, online education as well as medical services are where China's new economic growth engines are burgeoning, and they also need more policy support to overcome development burdens.

He added that reducing internet costs and telecommunication fees, in general, helps all businesses. As connection costs are reduced, as well as those for telecommunications, logistics and after-sales services, companies will see the benefits, Zhang said.

"The telecommunications industry is a key sector for the economy, and its development will provide a host of advantages. Measures, like increasing broadband speed and cutting telecommunication costs drive the development of many industries, because it boosts consumption, and helps companies to boost profits," he said.

At present, mobile phone users can face large bills when making long-distances calls, including calls across different cities and provinces in China. The work report delivered in March promised to reduce these fees by the end of 2017.

Xiang Ligang, a telecoms expert and CEO of the telecom industry website cctime.com, said the government's policy will motivate tech companies to step up research and development of smart home products.

"It will, in particular, boost startups' willingness to experiment with new technology, and roll out more affordable digital products such as virtual reality goggles," Xiang said.

Zhang also points out that information consumption in China is developing rapidly, even compared with many developed countries, making faster internet access at lower cost a pressing demand. "China is growing fast in areas such as mobile internet, mobile payment, social networking, mobile e-businesses - no less than many developed countries. These industries are nurturing innovation with more applications that demand a faster and cheaper internet, and the new policy will pave the way for these new economic drivers."

Comparing China's charging system in telecommunications with the United States, Zhang said that China still needs to make improvement to implement a more cost-effective charging system.

For example, he said the US widely applies flat-rate cellphone charges on a monthly basis, with no limits on phone calls nor internet flow. This method is rare in China, he added.

"Also, major operators in China always prefer to attract new customers with lower fees, yet leave limited room for discounts for their existing clients," Zhang added.


URUMQI/KUNMING -- China and other countries are working on cross-border environmental protection along the Belt and Road region.

In the Gaoligong Mountains on the China-Myanmar border, a variety of rare species thrive. China has built national and provincial nature reserves there, while Myanmar has two of its own.

The area is prone to forest fires, logging and poaching, particularly in the Nujiang, Baoshan and Dehong areas in Yunnan Province. Such incidents pose threats to both countries, making cross-border environmental protection vital.

In 2015, China and Myanmar established a research lab on biodiversity, to conduct a variety of projects such as field surveys and training. Both sides work together against illegal activities in the region.

"We often meet colleagues from Myanmar," said Li Zhengbo, deputy head of the Baoshan management bureau of the Gaoligong Mountains National Nature Reserve. Foresters on both sides have reached agreements on putting out forest fires, investigating criminal cases, and building environmental protection awareness.

From 2010 to 2015, Yunnan apprehended 130,000 suspects in regard to forest and wildlife crime in the region, many with the assistance of Myanmar.

As the Belt and Road increases pace, more joint eco-efforts are underway. Research projects on environmental protection have begun between China and Pakistan on the riverflow, landscape and geological disasters.

"We will try to find mechanisms to decrease risks and improve regional cooperation," said an expert with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and research on environmental protection will definitely play an important part in the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the corridor," said Lei Jiaqiang, director of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for deepening cooperation with Laos and creating better future for bilateral ties by taking the opportunity of jointly promoting the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP).
File photo taken on July 2013 shows students, some with their parents, wait to enroll for the new semester at Tsinghua University.[Photo/China Daily]

Unlike universities in Europe and the US that are open to the public and an integral part of local communities, most Chinese universities are fenced off and some do not welcome outsiders.

Last month, Sun Yat-sen University in South China's Guangdong province barred visitors from entering the campus, with the aim of maintaining order and guaranteeing students' and teachers' security.

The move has sparked a nationwide debate on whether university campuses should be accessible to non-students. According to a report by China Youth Daily, 7.6 percent of university students have encountered harassment on campus from people outside the university, while 65.2 percent say their friends have had such an experience.

"When my roommates and I were on the way to cafeteria for lunch at the end of March, three drunk men pointed and laughed at us, with one saying 'shall we drink together?' They were definitely not students based on their looks," said university student Xu Yang in Beijing.

Shanghai student Zhou Peng said he understood that the public wanted to visit universities, but there should be limits. "Many visitors come to my university to look at flowers every spring. The road is packed with students, visitors and vendors. It is hard to tell whether there are dangerous people among them. Plus the crowdedness also poses a safety threat. University is not a scenic spot," Zhou said.

But Xu Jing, a student in Tianjin, holds a different view, saying, "Universities are relatively open and have many exchanges with the society. Is it totally safe to close to the public? I don't think overprotection works."

Universities are mainly for academic research, but they do have a role to play in culture and social influence, according to Han Heng at Zhengzhou University's School of Public Administration. For example, many parents take their children to visit campuses to experience the academic atmosphere.

It is only necessary to regulate visitors if they have a negative impact on teaching, studying, school safety and environment, Han said.

Chinese universities have adopted different measures to improve campus security, such as swipe cards to enter school, putting up warning posters about people who have harassed students before, and educating students to raise awareness of self-defense.




But Her Emails.

During that weird Russia visit to the White House last week right after Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the President revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The unnamed current and former U.S. officials who spoke to reporters said Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

From the Washington Post:

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said. The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency. "This is code-word information," said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies."

McMaster did not take questions https://t.co/sqPeDb27S4  Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 15, 2017

The first pushback > https://t.co/4gRYSjwYHn  Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) May 15, 2017

Sean Spicer right now pic.twitter.com/9l8h1guEe1  Colin Jones (@colinjones) May 15, 2017

@SenJackReed Sen Reed (Top D on Armed Services Cmte): "Pres Trump's recklessness with sensitive information is deeply disturbing and clearly problematic" pic.twitter.com/idHm9SpbqA  Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 15, 2017

First comment on Washington Post report from Secretary of State Tillerson. pic.twitter.com/cV70WchOXr  Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) May 15, 2017

WH now providing on-the-record statements from Tillerson, McMaster and Dina Powell pushing back on Post scoop. Powell flat out calls "false"  Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 15, 2017

3 levels to Trump story: 1- Release of classified info. 2- To Russians who are prime adversaries. 3- Intel from sensitive partner.  Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) May 15, 2017

candidate invites hacking

candidate lauds hacking

candidate>POTUS

POTUS fires hacking investigator

POTUS gives hackers crown-jewel intel  Tim ?? Dickinson (@7im) May 15, 2017

Calling it fake news .. of course. https://t.co/GPKYKgmZVC  Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) May 15, 2017

WAPO never said he did https://t.co/EDdNmSnm0h  Bradley P. Moss, Esq (@BradMossEsq) May 15, 2017

Just imagine if Hillary or Obama were accused of leaking classified information to Russians. Same reaction should apply regardless of party.  John Avlon (@JohnAvlon) May 15, 2017

WH sends three statements denying WaPo story as two additional news orgs (NYTimes/BuzzFeed) confirm the details pic.twitter.com/7ObXztfn3y  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) May 15, 2017

President Trump's disclosure could jeopardize a crucial intelligence-sharing relationship https://t.co/lRkPWXojEF  The New York Times (@nytimes) May 15, 2017

Traffic alert: the streets of Manhattan are flooded with Counterterrorism Analysts flocking to cable news studios.  Andrew Bard Epstein (@andEps) May 15, 2017

Press waiting outside Spicer's office to ask him about WashPo story that Trump divulged classified intel to Russian officials. pic.twitter.com/sRHAisuK3a  Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) May 15, 2017





Top House Oversight & Judiciary Democrats: "President Trump  may have sunk to a dangerous new low." pic.twitter.com/SoI68ZcoY9  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 15, 2017

White House reporters gather for NSA McMaster statement on @washingtonpost story on @POTUS sharing intel w #russians pic.twitter.com/qNwnkWeN7v  Major Garrett (@MajorCBS) May 15, 2017

A stunning four-day period: Tues: Fires Comey

Wed: Reportedly shares classified info w Russians

Thur: Lester Holt intvw

Fri: "Tapes"  Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) May 15, 2017

(_)

<) ) NO PUPPET

/ \ \(_)

( (> NO PUPPET

/ \ (_)

<) )> YOU'RE THE PUPPET

/ \  Jason Stanford (@JasStanford) May 15, 2017

it's true Congressional Rs have been remarkably solid behind President Trump. but ground that's been softening can give way unexpectedly  John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 15, 2017

Dina Powell, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, called the story "false."  NPR (@NPR) May 15, 2017

Ex-CIA officer to me on WaPo bombshell: "Whoever gave us the intel won't next time."  Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) May 15, 2017

Reminder, this would have happened the day after Trump fired Comey https://t.co/fu6wj03Hs5  Dafna Linzer (@DafnaLinzer) May 15, 2017
BEIJING -- A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said Tuesday the CPC is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the Republican Proposal party of Argentina to push forward the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.

Du Qinglin, a member of the secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks when meeting with Francisco Javier Quintana, secretary-general of the national council of the Argentine party.

Quintana spoke highly of the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which concluded Monday in Beijing, expressing the hope that the two parties will increase exchanges, share governance experience, and help bilateral ties develop more comprehensively.
BEIJING -- Cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region saw more days with "good" air quality in April, official data showed Tuesday.

An average daily Air Quality Index (AQI) of under 100 is defined as good under Chinese air quality standards.

The 13 cities in the region reported good air quality 23 days on average, up 16.5 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

Beijing saw 22 days with good air quality in April, up from 18 days in the same month last year, a year-on-year increase of 20 percent. The average density of PM 2.5, one major air pollutant, fell by 22.1 percent year on year.

Air quality improved in China's 338 prefecture-level-and-above cities in April, with the average density of PM 2.5 dropping by 4.8 percent year on year.

Hebei's Handan, Shanxi's Taiyuan and Hebei's Tangshan recorded the worst air quality in April among the 74 cities nationwide monitored by the MEP.

Cities in the Yangtze River and the Pearl River deltas reported worsening air quality in April.
President Xi Jinping meets with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in Beijing on May 16, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday suggested aligning the Belt and Road Initiative with the European Investment Plan in order to inject new momentum into China-EU ties.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni after the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation ended on Monday in Beijing.

Noting that China and Italy both boast ancient civilizations, Xi said the two countries have been connected by the historic Silk Road.

He commended the frequent visits by leaders from both sides and close exchanges between officials at all levels, saying China is willing to work with Italy to further advance bilateral ties.

Both China and Italy are key members of the international community, Xi said. He urged the two countries to maintain the current momentum in high-level exchanges, as well as close contact between governments, legislative bodies, political parties and between regional authorities.

The Chinese president highlighted two-way investment, construction of industrial parks, e-commerce and innovation as areas for further cooperation.

China welcomes Italy to participate in the construction of the Belt and Road, and supports cooperation between the two countries in port management, shipping as well as ship building, he said.

Beijing is willing to maintain communication with Rome on major international issues, and hopes Italy can play a positive role within the European Union in order to safeguard development of China-EU ties, he said.

For his part, Gentiloni said the just-concluded Belt and Road forum had sent a positive signal to the world economy and international trade.

Italy is willing to participate in cooperation under the Belt and Road framework, particularly in the field of infrastructure, and to strengthen collaboration with China in areas linked to economy, technology, agriculture, public health, education, culture, tourism as well as small- and medium-sized enterprises, he said.

Italy sticks to the one-China policy and will play its role in promoting EU-China ties, Gentiloni said.


China would like to cooperate with Cambodia on key production capacity projects, as well as investment and agriculture, to help the Southeast Asian country develop more and improve livelihoods, Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday.

Li spoke about further cooperation while meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is paying an official visit to China. Hun Sen attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Sunday and Monday.

Witnessed by the two leaders, the two countries signed cooperation documents in areas including infrastructure, finance, maritime research and tourism.

During the talks, Li highlighted the China-Cambodia friendship cultivated by generations of leaders of both nations. President Xi Jinping's state visit to Cambodia last year has developed the China-Cambodia friendship under the situation of the new global economy and politics, Li said.

Noting that China is dedicated to upgrading cooperation with Cambodia, Li expressed the willingness of connecting development strategies with Cambodia and improving the quality and quantity of bilateral trade.

The premier also proposed enhancing defense and law-enforcement cooperation and strengthening exchanges in areas including education, tourism, protection of historic relics, medicine and health.

China supports Cambodia in playing a positive role through regional and sub-regional platforms to establish a stable, peaceful and prosperous community of shared destiny, Li said.

Next year marks the 15th anniversary of the China-ASEAN strategic partnership, and Cambodia will host the second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation meeting next year.

Calling Hun Sen "an old friend of the Chinese people", Li said that the Cambodian prime minister's official visit to China is expected to inject new impetus into China-Cambodia relations.

Cambodia cherishes its traditional friendship with China, Hun Sen said, adding that Cambodia would like to implement the consensuses reached by the leaders of both sides.

The two countries should keep high-level exchanges and enhance cooperation in areas including trade, investment, infrastructure, agriculture, water projects, science and technology, tourism, law enforcement and security, Hun Sen said.

The Cambodian prime minister congratulated Li on the success of the Belt and Road Forum of International Cooperation.

Cambodia is willing to push forward the development of China-ASEAN relations and enhance the Lancang-Mekong cooperation, Hun Sen said.
President Xi Jinping meets with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Beijing, May 16, 2017. Wickremesinghe attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on May 14-15 in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

It's a long-term and strategic choice for China to maintain its friendly policies toward Sri Lanka, President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, while calling for efforts to push forward major projects.

Xi highlighted the close ties during a meeting with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing from Sunday to Monday.

Noting that this year marks the 60th anniversary of China-Sri Lanka diplomatic relations, Xi said China attaches great importance to the development of ties with Sri Lanka. China supports Sri Lanka's efforts to safeguard national unity, peace, and ethnic reconciliation, Xi said.

The two countries should push forward cooperation on various sectors including infrastructure, maritime and aviation to boost interconnectivity, Xi said, adding that the two sides should seize the opportunity of building the China-Sri Lanka Free Trade Zone to boost trade and facilitate investment.

China would like to enhance exchanges with Sri Lanka in areas including youth, think tanks, colleges, media, religion, tourism and local-level governments, Xi said.

The Sri Lankan prime minister congratulated Xi on the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, saying that the forum was successful with participants from numerous countries and international organizations.

Sri Lanka welcomes China to join its process of industrialization, especially in infrastructure, he said.

Sri Lanka is willing to make joint efforts with China to push forward the Hambantota harbor project and the Colombo Port City project smoothly, he said, adding that Sri Lanka wishes to make full use of its geographic advantage to contribute to building the Belt and Road.
French students practice drumming in Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province. [Photo by Niu Shuai/China Daily]

Youths from Saint-Denis of France traveled a long distance to Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province, to learn the art of drumming. The 13 students practiced authentic techniques on traditional Taiyuan Weifeng drums under a master from a local drumming troupe. These young French students can play out the power and essence of the Taiyuan folk art after just a week's time.

Taiyuan and Saint-Denis developed a sister city relationship in 2012. Traditional Chinese culture has influenced Saint-Denis and the city now hosts Chinese cultural festivals.
The world premiere takes place at Shanghai Oriental Art Center on May 13. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

Chinese composer Tan Dun led Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in the world premiere of "Ancient Music from Dunhuang" at Shanghai Oriental Art Center.

The three movements in Tan's composition explores the essence of Shanghai culture, the future of human and nature, as well as the folk music of different Chinese ethnic groups.

Drawing attention from around the world, the Dunhuang music world premiere travels more than one thousand years and rediscovers the instruments and music derived from Dunhuang murals and manuscripts.

The world premiere takes place at Shanghai Oriental Art Center on May 13. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

According to Tan, he managed to find the legacy of ancient Dunhuang after a long research, during which he looked for the shapes of Dunhuang musical instruments in murals and dance notations among Dunhuang manuscripts scattered around the globe.

He once traveled all over London and Paris to locate the manuscripts and translate them. "Without notes and rhythms, I must return to existing traditional songs like Parting at Yang Guan and A Moonlit Night on the Spring River for reference," he said. "My goal is to touch people's souls through music."

Tan plans to organize a philharmonic of Dunhuang music in the future after 12 pieces of ancient instruments are restored from Mogao caves. The composer has devoted himself to the revival of Dunhuang music in the modern world.
Spanish painter Borja Gonzalez will work with his band to perform Dreams of Sand, a show that combines sand art, live music, big-sized puppets and "speed painting" in Beijing.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Spanish painter Borja Gonzalez will make his debut in China at the ongoing 17th Meet in Beijing Arts Festival with a rare show. Chen Nan reports.

One day about 12 years ago, Spanish painter Borja Gonzalez found a video of an artist doing drawings with sand. It was love at first sight.

"I discovered that drawing with sand is magical. Seeing how drawings are created, then transformed into stories hypnotizes you," says Gonzalez, 39.

It took him a while to learn the art since nobody in Spain knew the technique back then.

About 10 years ago, he had his first show combining sand art, live music, big-sized puppets and "speed painting". Since then, he has been dedicated to sand art.

One of his shows, Dreams of Sand, will make its debut in China on Saturday at the ongoing 17th Meet in Beijing Arts Festival, a major annual cultural event, which brings together artists from 22 countries.

"I have not been to China before. I am very excited because it is a dream come true for me," says Gonzalez.
The dates are from present-day Pakistan, the roasted cumin from Xinjiang.

"It's a drink that captures the essence of the Silk Road," says Beijing's amiable barman Badr Benjelloun of one of his favorite cocktails, From Kashgar with Love. Kashgar, an oasis city in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is the westernmost Chinese city and it has become virtually synonymous with the ancient trade route.

The routes are much more than a chapter for history books - they represent a cultural legacy that lives on today, even in food and drink.

Moroccan native Benjelloun is well-versed in the lore of the Silk Road - his countryman Ibn Battuta arrived in the year 1345 at Quanzhou in China's Fujian province, and journals recording his journeys in the Middle East and Asia are among the most colorful lore of the old traders' era.

People would travel for a long time, sometimes years to move spices, tea and other goods from one end of the known world to the other.

"Of course, they needed to eat," says Benjelloun, and his Kashgar-themed cocktail reflects foods that came to be found from one end of the Silk Road to the other.

The result is blend of Spanish gin, fresh-squeeze apple juice, crushed date, grapefruit bitters and freshly roasted cumin - that final touch sprinkled on top "to put the desert on your palate", he says with a smile.

He debated which liquor to use for the base and settled on gin, which he calls "the traveler's liquor".

"There is actually a cocktail called Silk Road - it's gin and grapefruit basically," he muses. "Citrus appears a lot in Silk Road recipes, old and new, which is a little odd considering that not much citrus grows along the route."

Perhaps that's while it was coveted.

Apples originally came to China from what is modern-day Kazakhstan, but by the peak of the ancient traders' era, Benjelloun notes, the fruit was known from Italy to China.

"From color to flavor," he says, "the whole package captures the aura of the Silk Road. It's mellow and easy to drink, with flavors that would keep me in Kashgar."

Inspired by Benjelloun, China Daily checked in at some other hip bars around China to see how Silk Road flavors have inspired today's cocktail shakers.

1 Gluhwein Flip

Creator: Sunny Sun, Mercedes Me, Beijing

Poached fig adds richness to a blend of red wine, five-spice powder, cacao amaro, egg white. 75 yuan

Silk Road fun fact: "Figs probably first traveled east to China along the Silk Road after the Islamic conquests," K.E. Carr writes in her History of Figs, "as the first time we hear about figs in China is about 700 AD ..., and then people in China called figs by their Arabic name, tin.
Workers are seen on a Chinese COSCO container vessel, as it arrives to Cocoli locks after crossing the Panama Canal to the Pacific side, during its first ceremonial transit of the new Panama Canal expansion project in Cocoli on the outskirts of Panama City, Panama June 26, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Westerners may better remember the ancient terrestrial Silk Road, but a magnificent Chinese fleet, led by legendary explorer Zheng He reached East Africa as early as the 15th century. Six centuries later China and its companies are building up the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (as part of the Belt and Road Initiative). With ports, railroads and related economic activities, the maritime route will complement the land infrastructure along the Silk Road Economic Belt, which will connect Asia with Europe and Africa. What are the maritime route's main advantages and characteristics?

First, it can boost trade and economic activity in one of the world's most dynamic and at the same time most problematic regions. Chinese companies are engaged in a string of ports from Southeast Asia to Venice, including Colombo in Sri Lanka, Karachi and Gwadar in Pakistan, Port Said in Egypt, Kumport in Turkey, and Piraeus in Greece.

Ports bolster trade, industries and businesses in general. Colombo's City Port is a major project at India's gates, with developments both in trade and finance (including an International Financial Center). Port Said and Kumport have crucial strategic importance. Piraeus in Athens, on the other hand, had a throughput of about 1.5 million 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU) before China Ocean Shipping Company gradually took it over in the 2010s. Now its throughput is about 3.5 million TEU, which is in sharp contrast to Greece's financial figures.

East Africa and South Asia are other world regions with terrific growth potential. Chinese companies have recently invested in the Port of Djibouti, a gateway to East Africa and the Middle East, and in a major railroad linking it to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, which is rising from poverty also thanks to massive Chinese investments in infrastructure and hydropower. Though better off, Kenya and Tanzania as sources of minerals will also benefit from China-built infrastructure.

Pakistan's case is even more interesting. Pakistan can benefit from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a reportedly $46 billion giant project. Pakistan is geographically crucial because it links the terrestrial Belt with the maritime Road, China and Central Asia with the Middle East.

Pakistan's physical infrastructure is largely outdated, and recurrent power outages rip off an estimated 2 to 2.5 percent of its GDP every year. China's engagement with ports, motorways, railroads and energy facilities is therefore more than welcome in Pakistan; in many ways it will be a game changer for the whole of South Asia.

Energy is then a crucial issue, not only for Islamabad. By investing in the CPEC, Beijing can cut the time and costs of shipping resources via the Malacca Strait.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is relevant to financial issues, too. China will have to develop a large stock exchange to support State activity with funds raised in capital markets. Shenzhen, Shanghai, and the latter's link to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region already provide an excellent starting point. Something akin to an East Asian "Wall Street" would permit China to compete with the US financially as well. In this sense, China's stock exchanges may have to invest in other stock markets along the maritime Silk Road: maybe global and cosmopolitan Singapore? Or Kuala Lumpur? Jakarta? Or Sydney, where some large Chinese companies are already listed?

A Chinese consortium of exchanges recently acquired a 40 percent share in the Pakistan Stock Exchange, (which itself is a merger of three boursesKarachi, Lahore and Islamabad), a move which may greatly boost Pakistan's economic growth and China's infrastructure investment in South Asia. This can be compared with the recent agreement between the Bank of China and the Budapest Stock Exchangea bit further away from the Mediterranean but still linked to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Hungary's shift away (and against) the European Union also exposes the old continent's divisions and difficulties. The combination of a maritime and a land-based project could bring benefits to both Northern and Southern Europe, apart from bridging the gap between the West and East.

Ernesto Gallo is a tutor of business, law and social sciences at Kaplan International College, London, and Giovanni Biava is an energy and gas consultant at Exelen group.
President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in the National Convention Center in Beijing on May 14, 2017. [Wu Zhiyi/China Daily]

Two thousand years ago the ancient network of trade routes known as the Silk Road stretched from China, through Asia, to as far as the United Kingdom. These routes heralded a new era of trade, opening up access to the East and West of the globe and resulting in booming trade and vibrant cultural exchanges.

Today, at a time of anemic global economic growth, trade protectionism and a backlash against globalization, a new trade initiative could bring much needed impetus to revitalize the global economy and help the world's poorest nations achieve sustainable development.

Announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative aims to build a trans Euro-Asia economic belt stretching from China to the Horn of Africa. Since the trade network was announced significant strides have been made to connect trade opportunities including a freight train from London to Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang province, and an electric railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti. More is planned, not only boosting trade, but bringing much-needed ICT and sustainable technologies, which could contribute to capacity building in the most vulnerable countries.

The Belt and Road Initiative seeks to promote infrastructure connectivity, with trade routes covering around 60 countries across Asia, Europe and Africa. Importantly it also stands to contribute to addressing the infrastructure investment gap of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and Small Island Development States (SIDS), which face unique development challenges due to structural and geographical disadvantages. Underdeveloped infrastructure has greatly undermined the ability of these countries to improve productive capacity, expand trade, attract foreign investment and improve livelihoods. Protracted infrastructure gaps have jeopardized the efforts of vulnerable countries to achieve long-term sustainable development leaving them unable to reap the benefits of globalization.

Improving connectivity is therefore central to global efforts in achieving development aspirations set in the Programmes of Action for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Establishing a modern and well-maintained infrastructure network, connecting sub-regions in Asia and between Asia, Europe and Africa could be a potential "game changer" for these most vulnerable countries in terms of boosting trade, facilitating integration into regional and global value chains, encouraging investment, accelerating structural transformation and ultimately contributing to poverty eradication. Countries disproportionally affected by climate change, in particular SIDS, investment in climate-resilient infrastructure and sustainable technologies, including in renewable energy, could enable a transition towards a blue economy.

At present, one third of participating countries of the Belt and Road Initiative are LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, illustrating the importance these countries attach to the initiative. For a landlocked country such as Ethiopia the Belt and Road Initiative has already brought considerable benefits, the new electric railway connecting Ethiopia with Djibouti covers over 750 kilometers opening up the African continent to import and export services with plans to expand across Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.

The economic corridors and trans-regional infrastructure projects of the Belt and Road Initiative also point to the potential for increased market access and effective regional and global value chains and transport networks both on land and at sea, facilitating safer routes for migration. New funding vehicles such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund, could open up alternative sources of funding that leverage foreign direct investment and spur growth and decent employment.

Aside from their huge demand for improved infrastructure, vulnerable countries also urgently require access to information, science and technology and a favorable policy environment to effectively support sustainable development. The greater connectivity and individual interaction envisioned by the Belt and Road Initiative could also bring much-needed ICT and sustainable technologies and contribute to capacity building in the most vulnerable countries. Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, make up the world's 92 most vulnerable countries, stretching across islands in the Pacific to landlocked countries in Central Asia, and least developed countries in Africa and Asia.

Over the past 15 years my office has established itself as the leading UN entity delivering global advocacy, providing substantive support to these vulnerable countries in global negotiations, monitoring and following-up progress in the implementation of the programs of actions for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS, coordinating the UN system support and forging strong global partnerships. In 2015, UN-OHRLLS and China co-hosted a roundtable on South-South Cooperation, chaired by President Xi Jinping and the UN Secretary-General. A Memorandum of Understanding, signed between the Ministry of Commerce of China and UN-OHRLLS in 2015, marks a step forward in our substantive collaboration with China.

UN-OHRLLS is committed to building a solid partnership with China and the rest of the global community as we work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and "leaving no one behind". Through partnerships such as this we aim to transform economies sustainably, turning landlocked countries into land-linked nations, small islands into well connected states and least developed countries into prosperous nations who have successfully graduated from their status as the world's poorest.

It is my hope that the outcomes from the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing constitute an important step towards this direction.

The author is UN under-secretary-general and high-representative for least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states.
Premier Li Keqiang meets with Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday. LIU ZHEN / CHINA NEWS SERVICE

When I first heard about the Belt and Road Initiative, I thought about something simple and straightforwardlike a fragrant cup of tea.

For centuries, tea has brought cultures, communities, and people closer together. For centuries, tea has connected economies through trade and investment. And only recently, Chinese scientists have unlocked the genetic secrets of the tea plantraising the prospect that we may soon enjoy a range of new flavors.

The Belt and Road Initiative holds a similar promise. This is about connecting cultures, communities, economies, and people. It is about rejuvenating ancient trade routes and building new ones. It is also about adding new economic flavors by creating infrastructure projects that are based on 21st-century expertise and governance standards.

Delivering on this promise is not an easy taskbut doing so could bring enormous benefits, especially in three areas:

First, high-quality infrastructure could help close the developing-country infrastructure gap of about $1.5 trillion per year, lift potential global growth, and raise the incomes of millions of people. As the Chinese proverb goes: "To become rich, one must first build roads."

A second benefit is greater inclusiveness. Think of new ports, roads, and power grids that allow developing countries to better connect with global supply chains. And think of improved roads in rural areas that can boost productivity, school enrolment, and access to health services. By sharing the benefits of investment and knowledge more broadly, growth will be stronger, more durable, and more inclusive.

A third benefit is stronger economic cooperationincluding on the business and regulatory environment. This would help boost global trade, investment, and financial cooperation, and make it easier to share the benefits of growth more widely. All this is good for consumers, good for productivity, and good for poverty reduction.

The IMF has shown over many decades that it can help in this effortby providing policy advice, financial support when needed, and hands-on training and capacity buildingso that economies can reap the benefits of trade and investment.

Many countriesfrom Cambodia, to the Kyrgyz Republic, to Togohave used new IMF tools to help design and implement infrastructure investment, while seeking to maintain macroeconomic stability and enhance governance. We also support more than 100 countries per year in their efforts to generate higher government revenue that can be used for fresh investment.

We are proud to serve our 189 member countries every dayand we are deeply committed to helping them maximize the benefits of more investment, trade, financial connectivity, and people-to-people bonds under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Together, we can create something newby combining proven policy ingredients with new economic flavors.

The author is IMF managing director. The article is her opening remarks at the Belt and Road Forum on May 14.
President Xi Jinping chairs the Leaders' Roundtable Summit at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, on May 15, 2017. [Photo by Xu Jingxing/chinadaily.com.cn]

Of all the hundreds of foreign participants at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Sunday and Monday, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Germany's Minister for Economics and Energy Brigitte Zypries could be the key messengers spreading the forum's consensus that tearing the walls apart can achieve common peace and prosperity.

This is simply because Gentiloni, who joined state leaders from across the world in Beijing, will host the G7 summit in the Sicilian town of Taormina on May 26-27 and Germany will be chairing G20 Leaders Meeting in Hamburg on July 7-8.

Zypries attended the forum on behalf of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who could not attend due to a scheduling conflict.

The two countries are certainly busy with agenda-setting for the upcoming summits, and Gentiloni and Zypries will have noted the proposals, solutions and suggestions that are emerging from the two-day gathering in Beijing.

What China is basically proposing with the Belt and Road Initiative is the world should engage in joint consultation and cooperation in pursuit of peace and prosperity, rather than engage in confrontation which only leads to conflict.

This revival of the Silk Road spirit is something the upcoming G7 and G20 summits urgently need to embrace. When their meeting wrapped up on Saturday, the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors failed to adopt a firm stance against protectionism mainly because of the opposition of the United States' representative.

The G20 finance ministers were also not on the same page at their meeting in March as they dropped their commitment to take "no single protection measure", a practice adopted in the depth of the global economic recession.

However, it is not just the United States that is taking a protectionist stance. The European Union announced anti-dumping measures against China's exports of pipes and tubes made from steel and iron last week.

The leaders who have gathered in Beijing issued a communique highlighting their consensus to deepen cooperation and build more opportunities by connecting different countries, regions and cultures through better infrastructure, innovative financial tools and encouraging the flow of other productivity elements.

The task of spreading this message falls on Italy and Germany's shoulders when they host the forthcoming summits.

It is true that they are being held at a difficult time, as French President Emmanuel Macron only began his five-year term on Sunday, Donald Trump took office in January and Gentiloni started to lead Italian government last December. British Prime Minister Theresa May is also a new face.

But the leaders should not only spend their time on laying the "foundations for trust," which always appears to be a core task of their gatherings. They now need to be decisive in delivering concrete outcomes.

They must fight against protectionism, collectively learning from the Silk Road spirit that has been evident in Beijing during the Belt and Road Forum. And they must secure the harvest of global efforts to fight against climate change. If so, that will pave the way for the G20 summit in Hamburg, for which, the theme is connectivity.

In many ways, this theme already reflects some of the outcomes of Belt and Road Initiative, and the participants should be encouraged to debate and find ways to achieve not only greater infrastructure connectivity via roads, highways, railways, and ports, but also through financial openness and digital transformation.

On Sunday, the World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab called the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China a model for fostering economic development and international cooperation. He plans to deepen the scope of the WEF's debates and discussions by linking the initiative with its research and agenda-setting process on various occasions.

In acting as timely messengers and transforming the world into a better place, Italy and Germany can follow the example set by Schwab and use the Silk Road spirit of peaceful exchanges to guide the G7 and G20 summits.

The author is deputy chief of China Daily European Bureau. fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
President Xi Jinping announces the start of the roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum on Monday in Beijing.[Photo by Ma Zhancheng/Xinhua]

It certainly is too early to tell how well the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative will work off the drawing board. For any undertaking of such magnitude, there are always more variables than certainties.

Yet the joint communique and list of deliverables the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation produced will surely inspire greater optimism about its prospects.

In the communique, the leaders of China and 29 other participating countries expressed a shared commitment to cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, expounding its objectives, principles and measures of cooperation. The 76-item checklist encompasses both memorandums of intent to collaborate and agreements on specific connectivity projects.

If the former testifies to a shared political will to pursue common prosperity amid the severe global economic headwinds, the latter showcases how much China as a country has committed to realizing the blueprint, financially in particular.

President Xi Jinping talked about synergy while addressing the Leaders Roundtable on Monday, once again driving home the message that, although China proposed the initiative, it is not China's solo show.

Many of the current misgivings about China's role in the Belt and Road narrative have to do with the perception that the initiative, featuring China as the advocator and architect, and also its main investor thus far, will end up being China's vehicle for projecting its own influence.

Yet, as Xi reiterated, the initiative was conceived as an open platform by all, of all, for all. Although it has made tremendous financial commitments to a number of infrastructure projects under the initiative, Beijing is more preoccupied with kick-starting the process by doing so. Even with the financial resources at its disposal, the Chinese government cannot afford to buy influence on such a scale, even if it wished to.

Since the initiative is not an aid program, of course China will keep an eye on the economic returns. Only economically viable projects can be sustainable, and they should bring lasting benefits to local residents in the host countries.

Also because of the initiative's nature as a joint development program, the partnerships fostered thereby will have to engage deeper, broader participation from the host countries, so as to make the partnerships more equitable.

The just concluded forum was no doubt a success for what has been accomplished. But it will take strenuous, persistent follow-up efforts to translate the long list of agreements and pledges of intent into real world outcomes.

That will involve communicating and coordinating.
A pianist performs during the Millennial Road, a performance for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, May 14, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING -- A steadfast champion of globalization, Chinese President Xi Jinping has chartered a new course toward peace and common prosperity amid global challenges by reviving the Silk Road spirit.

The first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation closed Monday in Beijing with much success, including the signing of a series of cooperation agreements, a concrete move to revive the Silk Road.

Xi described the Silk Road spirit as "a great heritage of human civilization," with peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit at its core -- truly a new model.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi proposed in 2013, represents the spirit of harmony that takes root in ancient Chinese culture. China was the beating heart in the system of ancient Silk Road. The revival shows the new vitality of ancient Chinese civilization.

Though reflecting Eastern philosophy, the initiative is international in its applications, just like paper, gunpowder and silk.

While the Western world tinkers with upgrades and recalibrations to a doddering economic model that has brought untold riches to a few, Xi is meeting global challenges head-on with a new model, one which may bring prosperity to all.

The world today has every reason to carry forward this great heritage, given poverty, skewed development, terror and turbulence are afflicting mankind.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road are a fresh solution to the great quandary of the contemporary world, promoting connectivity in policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people.

Harmony is intrinsic to the open and inclusive initiative. And zero-sum mentality is losing ground along with outdated geopolitical maneuvering. The initiative hopes to create a big family of harmonious co-existence with win-win cooperation and exchange.

"Harmony without uniformity" is the traditional Chinese saying. It is natural for countries with different cultures to have differences, but they still can have mutually beneficial cooperation. After all, a piano does not bang out one note again and again.

With broad support already, China is inviting more countries to set off on the Belt and Road and move toward peace and common prosperity.

The future of mankind is shared. It is the only future for all.
From left: Wenqin Wang, Chinese director of the Confucius Institute at Pace University (Pace CI); Nira Herrmann, dean of Dyson College of Arts and Sciences; Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, director of Pace CI, cut the cake for the 8th anniversary celebration of Pace CI at One Pace Plaza in New York on May 12. Xiao Jiaqiao / For China Daily

NEW YORK  For eight years now, the Confucius Institute at Pace University has been providing students with a window on China.

The CI celebrated the anniversary last Friday with a lecture on US and China relations, a panel discussion on global violence against women and girls, and a student award ceremony and cake-cutting.

Pace CI is the first university-based institute of its kind in New York, founded in partnership with Nanjing Normal University and Chinas Phoenix Publishing and Media Group.

Felix Roytman, a student at Pace CI, told China Daily that he started to learn Chinese in 2011.

"Every Friday, I come to the Chinese corner, and they have presentations about different topics of China, like Chinese food, Chinese wedding habits, Chinese music and so on," he said. "The more you know about the culture, the better you understand people."

CI is emphasizing those cultural aspects.

"I would say the Confucius Institute is a very important cultural platform that exists between the United States and China. And now the CI is trying to bring in more humanistic elements, liberal arts elements, to the whole cultural dialogue and people-to-people dialogue between these two wonderful countries," said Joseph Tse-Hei Lee, director of Pace CI.

"We create a Chinese cultural study scholarship to honor the best research paper done by our undergraduate students," Lee said, adding that Pace CI organizes public performances of Beijing Opera and lectures.

"We try to combine the cultural and academic elements together to help our students and the local community to better understand China," Lee said.

He said that Pace CI will try to organize more academic and cultural activities and is encouraging more Pace students to apply for scholarships to study in China.

CHINA DAILY
A combination of file photos showing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attending a news conference in Moscow, Russia, November 18, 2015, and US President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, US, May 17, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - The White House on Monday strongly denied media reports accusing President Donald Trump of revealing highly classified intelligence information to Russia.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser HR McMaster and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell all issued statements saying such reports were wrong.

Trump reportedly relayed information from a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in White House last week.

The Washington Post first reported the disclosure earlier on Monday, followed by the New York Times and other nationwide news outlets.

"During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism," Tillerson said. "During that exchange the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations."

Powell said in a statement that the story was false. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said McMaster who participated in the meeting.

"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly." he said in a statement.

Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, an information-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government, according to the Washington Post report.

The Washington Post said the information was provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, but the partner did not give the US permission to share the information with Russia.

Following the meeting, the White House contacted the CIA and National Security Agency to contain the damage, according to the Post.

However, the US president has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that such disclosures broke the law, said the media reports.
People protest US President Donald Trump's travel ban outside of the US Court of Appeals in Seattle, Washington, US May 15, 2017.

SAN FRANCISCO - A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court heard case Monday against US President Donald Trump's travel ban without giving an immediate ruling.

Streamed live through the website of the US Courts for the 9th Circuit from a court room in Seattle, Washington state, the three judges grilled Acting US Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall for his defense on behalf of the Trump administration.

In his 30-minute oral argument, Wall said the president's executive order signed on March 6, which bars nationals of Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days, has nothing to do with his statements about Muslims on campaign trails last year.

Neal Katyal, an attorney representing the state of Hawaii, told the judges that the president had not disavowed the rhetorics until last week, by taking the statements off his campaign website.

The travel ban, the second of the kind, was blocked on March 15 by a federal judge in Hawaii.

Wall tried at the appeals court to repeal the nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) imposed by US District Judge Derrick Watson.

However, after more than an hour of hearing, including Katyal's 30-minute argument, the three judges neither gave an immediate ruling, nor hinted when to make a decision.

It was the second time the 9th Circuit Court heard case against travel ban.

On Feb 9, another panel of judges ruled in San Francisco, Northern California, against reinstating the travel ban signed on Jan 27 by Trump as part of an executive order.

The president subsequently issued the revised order in early March 6, taking Iraq off the list of seven Muslim-majority countries.

In initiating the legal challenge against the second travel ban on March 9, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin noted that the new order, compared with the initial ban, "nothing of substance has changed: there is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries."
SEOUL - ROK President Moon Jae-in has picked special envoys to be dispatched to China, the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Union, senior presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan said on Monday.

Yoon said in a statement that Moon picked figures who can best understand his diplomatic vision and foreign policy. They are set to leave as soon as schedules are tuned up with counterparts.

Moon won a landslide victory in the May 9 presidential by-election. Since his inauguration soon after the victory, the new leader had a series of phone conversations with several world leaders and promised to send special envoys for discussions on current situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Moon decided to send Lee Hae-chan, who served as prime minister under the Roh Moo-hyun government, to China as special envoy on the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Lee is an influential figure in Moon's ruling Democratic Party as he is a lawmaker and one of co-chiefs who led the party's presidential campaign.

He was dispatched to China as a special envoy when late president Roh, for whom Moon served as chief of staff, was inaugurated in February 2003.

The Blue House said Lee has a deep experience on China and maintains close relations with Chinese figures.

A senior presidential official, who declined to be identified, confirmed that the special envoy will discuss a broad range of issues, including the THAAD and the DPRK.

As the two issues are interconnected, the official said, they would be handled together.

Moon's special envoys to the world powers will deliver his handwritten letters to his counterparts to express his willingness for a cooperative diplomacy, while meeting with a wide range of senior government officials to explain the new government's policy and vision and exchange in-depth opinions on the development of bilateral relations, the Blue House said.

Other messengers

Meanwhile, Moon selected Hong Seok-hyun, former chairman of the Joongang Media Network, as a special envoy to the United States.

Hong worked for the Roh administration in 2005 as the country's ambassador to Washington and has since built a broad range of personal connections in the US.

Moon Hee-sang, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party, will be sent to Japan as special envoy. He is a former National Assembly vice-speaker and a sitting senior adviser of the ruling party.

He built a broad personal network in Japan when he was the chief of the South Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union in 2004-08.

Song Young-gil of the Democratic Party will be dispatched to Russia as the lawmaker serves now as vice chief of the South Korea-Russia diplomatic committee comprising lawmakers of the two nations.

Song built connections with Russian figures when he served as a mayor of the country's west port city of Incheon in 2010-14. In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Peace and Amity.

Cho Yoon-je, a professor at Sogang University in Seoul, was picked as a special envoy to the EU and Germany. He served as an economic aide to former president Roh and was former ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2005-08.

Xinhua


Thanks to everyone (especially Neal Stephenson) who came out to last night's Walkaway event in Seattle: if you're in the area and couldn't make it, you get another chance tonight when I'll be at Bellingham's Village Books at 7PM.



After the event, I'm driving to Vancouver for an appearance tomorrow at the Vancouver Writers' Festival, and then on Saturday I'm doing an afternoon event at my local bookstore in Burbank, the excellent Dark Delicacies, just before I hop in a cab to LAX to fly to the UK.

In the UK, I'm stopping first in Oxford (with Tim Harford), then London (with Laurie Penny), then Liverpool (with Chris Pak), then Birmingham, before finishing in Hay-on-Wye (with Adam Rutherford).

After that, the US touring resumes anew, with stops at Denver Comic-Con, San Diego Comic-Con, Book Con NYC, Printer's Row Chicago, and Defcon in Las Vegas.

Can't wait to see you!
Free IVF among measures to slow Cuba's aging population trend

HAVANA - On the second Sunday in May, Cuba celebrates Mother's Day with unique fervor: phone lines collapse from overload, people scramble to buy flowers before they sell out, and restaurants are packed to the rafters with extended families.

For more than a decade, Kenia Coba, a resident of the central province of Cienfuegos, about 220 kilometers southeast of Havana, dreamed of one day being the center of that attention.

But motherhood was elusive. After several years of trying to get pregnant, Coba and her husband decided to get help from their local fertility clinic.

Doctors said she suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome, an endocrine disorder that leads to the formation of ovarian cysts.

"I underwent surgery and then had several (fertility) treatments, including six artificial inseminations last year that didn't work," Coba said.

"Afterward I was put into a program for in vitro fertilization, in which I finally got an embryo to hatch and it's the baby that fills my life with joy today," Coba said as she held her baby, Marco Antonio, in her arms.

Not only did Cuba's state-run health service help Coba realize her dream of becoming a mother, but it did so free of charge.

Fertility treatments in other countries are often prohibitively expensive, with IVF ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. That may not sound like much, until you consider that most couples don't get pregnant on the first or even second try.

Last year, the population of Cubans aged 60 and over reached 19.6 percent, while the fertility rate registered 1.6 children per woman.

At the same time, official figures showed that in 2016 the Cuban government spent 5.8 billion Cuban pesos ($242 million) in social security payments.

If this trend continues, by 2030, 30 percent of the Cuban population will be 60 and over and the government will have to allocate around 10 billion pesos ($417 million) to social security.

To reverse the trend, Cuban lawmakers approved a set of laws in December to promote childbirth by strengthening maternity rights for women in the public and private sectors.

Haydee Franco, director of policies and projections at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, said the new legislation expands existing maternity benefits, such as financial incentives received monthly by the parents, and also encourages greater family integration in the area of child care.

If the grandparents are employed state workers who assume the care of the baby, they have the right to be compensated with 60 percent of their average monthly salary.

"This also encourages the mother to go back to work earlier with the simultaneous social benefit of maternity leave and her normal monthly salary. Therefore, this will lead to a greater income for Cuban families," Franco said.

Xinhua
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron shake hands after a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Monday to draw up a roadmap to deeper European Union integration and opened the door to changing the bloc's treaties to facilitate ambitious reform.

A day after Macron's inauguration, the two leaders struck a consensual tone in Berlin after talks in which they sought to reinvigorate the Franco-German relationship and the European project that has been shaken by Britain's planned exit.

The run-up to the meeting had been marked by a row among senior German politicians over how to respond to Macron's calls for closer EU integration, with some concerned that Berlin would be asked to pay for struggling states that resist reforms.

Merkel said that Germany needs France to succeed, emphasising that "Europe will only do well if there is a strong France".

"We agreed that we want to develop a road map for the European Union's medium-term perspectives," she said in a joint news conference with Macron.

"There is a common conviction that we cannot only deal with Britain's exit (from the EU), but instead that we must above all think about how we can deepen the existing European Union and especially the euro zone."

With Germany's economy -- Europe's largest -- outperforming that of France, the traditional Franco-German motor at the heart of the EU that has often misfired in recent years. Monday's meeting was an effort to inject some dynamism into the partnership.

Crucially, both leaders said they were open to the idea of changing the EU's treaties.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, an arch conservative who has come to personify Berlin's focus on fiscal rectitude, had suggested that Macron's idea of creating a budget and finance minister for the euro zone was unrealistic because it would require politically thorny changes to the EU treaty.

But both leaders said they could tackle treaty change.

"In the past, the subject of treaty change was a French taboo. It will no longer be the case," said the French president, who earlier arrived at the chancellery to cheers from a crowd chanting "Macron! Macron!" and waving European flags.

Merkel said that, from Germany's viewpoint, treaty change would be possible, adding: "I would be ready to do this, but first we will work on what we want to reform."

Reuters
Government, groups agree on regional constitution

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's peace process is gaining momentum as it heads for the second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference slated for May 24, open to all ethnic armed groups.

A latest meeting of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, chaired by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and held late last week, has unprecedentedly agreed on self-legislation of regional or state governments, achieving a breakthrough in the political dialogue between the government and armed groups.

The deal, made up of 21 agreements, will be submitted to the upcoming second meeting of the peace conference in Nay Pyi Taw for approval.

The agreement covers sovereignty, equality, self-legislation, federal union principle or structure and delegation of authority and the democratic system.

The granting of rights for the self-drawing of constitutions for individual states will be the first ever in Myanmar's history.

However, the regional constitution will not supersede the country's overall constitution and the agreement will be applied within the regions, some ethnic leaders clarified.

The other points of the agreements reached at the meeting were related to sectors of economy, social affairs, farmland and natural resources and environment.

Important lesson

Suu Kyi, at the UPDJC meeting, called for efforts to make the conference a success, describing Myanmar's peace process as part of the world's and saying that the process can be taken as an important lesson and example for other countries in conflicts.

The UPDJC meeting discussed a range of matters dealing with probable signing agreements in the Panglong peace conference and adopted decisions on some sectors in the agenda related with politics, economy, social affairs, farmland, environment and security.

Myanmar's peace commission also negotiated deals with non-ceasefire signatory armed groups to the Nationwide Cease-fire Accord last week to enable them to attend the conference.

The negotiations, which took place in Chiang Mai, Thailand, covered areas proposed by the armed groups' Delegation for Political Negotiation, for them to sign the cease-fire pact.

The DPN consists of seven non-ceasefire signatories, mainly the Kachin Independence Organization, Kayinni National Progressive Party and New Mon State Party.

The agreement comes after Suu Kyi this month snubbed a United Nations resolution backed by the European Union recommending an international investigation into the situation of Myanmar's northern Rakhine state. She said that the resolution was not "in keeping with what is actually happening on the ground."

"If we think that the recommendations are in keeping with the real needs of the region, we would be happy to accept them," she said after a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in Brussels.

Suu Kyi reaffirmed that her country will not accept "those recommendations which will divide further the two communities in Rakhine," referring to the tension between the state's Buddhist majority and Muslim minority.

Xinhua
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - Uruguay is celebrating the 10th anniversary of a program that has made internet available to the masses by providing all elementary school students with a laptop.

The national program, called Plan Ceibal, launched in collaboration with a global nonprofit called One Laptop Per Child, made Uruguay "the first country in the world to provide one laptop to every primary school student," according to OLPC's website.

"I must admit that, at the beginning, I never imagined a plan so complete and well executed," OLPC's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, said during a visit to Montevideo this week.

Negroponte, who was born in the United States and is also the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, said one of the factors that helped to make the plan such a success was President Tabare Vazquez, who was serving his first term when the plan was adopted.

Vazquez, who announced the plan in December 2006, was adamant about the scope of the program, insisting it should cover every child, according to the state Uruguayan News Agency.

"Nobody else did that. That is extraordinary," said Negroponte.

The first green-and-white laptops, which cost $100 to make, were distributed in May 2007 at a school in the town of Villa Cardal, in the southern department of Florida, home to just 500 inhabitants. But soon schoolchildren throughout the country had a "ceibalita", as the laptops were called.

Miguel Brechner, the president of the laptop scheme, said before the initiative that "only 9 percent of children from the poorest households had access to a computer. Today, more than 90 percent of that population does."

Thanks to its effectiveness, Plan Ceibal was expanded to secondary school students and since 2016 has been used to teach the elderly.

According to Negroponte, two other factors helped make the program a success, including developing infrastructure, which state telecom Antel was tasked with carrying out.

The third factor was the country's belief in the advantages of promoting equality, he said.

Uruguay "has become the byword" for progressive educational programs, he said, predicting that "in 20 years, Uruguay will be producing the world's most creative people."

Xinhua
In China, 18,000 IP addresses attacked, and universities among the hardest hit

TOKYO - Global cyber chaos was spreading on Monday as companies booted up computers at work following the weekend's worldwide ransomware cyberattack.

The extortion scheme created chaos in 150 countries and could wreak even greater havoc as more malicious variations appear. The initial attack, known as "WannaCry", paralyzed computers running the United Kingdom's hospital network, Germany's national railway and scores of other companies and government agencies around the world.

As a loose global network of cybersecurity experts fought the ransomware hackers, Chinese media said 29,372 institutions had been infected along with hundreds of thousands of devices.

The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, a nonprofit providing support for computer attacks, said 2,000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were reported affected so far.

Government agencies said they were unaffected. Companies such as Hitachi and Nissan Motor reported problems they said had not seriously affected their business operations.

In China, about 18,000 IP addresses in China have been confirmed as infected with the "WannaCry" ransomware. Universities and other educational institutions were among the hardest hit, Xinhua reported.

That may be because schools tend to have old computers and be slow about updates of operating systems and security, said Fang Xingdong, founder of ChinaLabs, an internet strategy think tank.

Railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services also were affected, Xinhua said, citing Qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security services company.

But the spread of the ransomware is ongoing, but is slowing down, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement.

Elsewhere in Asia, officials in Japan and the Republic of Korea said they believed security updates had helped ward off the worst of the impact.

The most public damage in the ROK was to cinema chain CJ CGV Co. It was restoring its advertising servers at dozens of theaters after the attack left the company unable to display trailers of upcoming movies.

The attack was disrupting computers that run factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems in scores of countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain, India and Japan, among others. Russia's Interior Ministry and companies including Spain's Telefonica, FedEx in the United States and French carmaker Renault all reported troubles.

Experts were urging organizations and companies to immediately update older Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows XP, with a patch released by Microsoft to limit vulnerability to a more powerful version of the malware or to future versions that can't be stopped.

Paying the ransom will not ensure any fix, said Eiichi Moriya, a cybersecurity expert and professor at Meiji University.

"You are dealing with a criminal," he said. "It's like after a robber enters your home. You can change the locks but what has happened cannot be undone. If someone kidnaps your child, you may pay your ransom but there is no guarantee your child will return."

Xinhua-AP-AFP-Reuters
A horse rears as new French President Emmanuel Macron parades on the Champs Elysees avenue on Sunday in Paris. Michel Euler / Agence France - Presse

PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron is set to name a prime minister and visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a busy first full day in office on Monday.

The 39-year-old centrist leader laid out his ambitious plans as he took power on Sunday, promising to restore France's shattered self-confidence and help rebuild the flagging European Union.

The former investment banker said he wanted to convince people that France was "at the dawn of an extraordinary renaissance".

His choice of prime minister will be crucial in building confidence, with the 46-year-old center-right Edouard Philippe from the Republicans party seen as the favorite for the job.

Picking him would send a clear signal that Macron hopes to attract other young modernizers from the Republicans to his new centrist party, La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM), which will contest parliamentary elections in June.

Macron, who was economy minister in the outgoing government of Francois Hollande, has already attracted dozens of center-left MPs to his movement as he reshapes French political life.

An uphill battle

But he faces an uphill battle to win an outright majority in parliament, without which he could struggle to push through his planned labor, pensions, unemployment and education reforms.

Philippe is mayor of the gritty northern port of Le Havre and an MP for the region since 2012 who studied at the same universities as Macron and shares many of his views on the economy and social issues.

Later on Monday afternoon, Macron was scheduled to travel to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Merkel, maintaining a French presidential tradition of making the first European trip to the other half of the EU's power couple.

This month, Macron will also hold talks with Donald Trump, when the US president visits Brussels for a NATO summit.

Senior US officials that the internationalist Macron and protectionist Trump would have a "lengthy lunch" on May 25 to "compare perspectives".

Deeper ties

In Berlin on Monday, the fervently pro-Europe Macron will push for deeper ties in the 28-member EU to help the bloc overcome the imminent departure of Britain.

France's place is in the European Union "which protects us and enables us to project our values in the world", Macron said on Sunday, but the club needed to be "reformed and relaunched".

German media, including the influential tabloid Bild and news magazine Der Spiegel, have recently drawn attention to the danger of Macron's presidency costing Germany more money.

Olivier Ihl, an academic from the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies, said the visit was "an important moment because he wants to relaunch Franco-German cooperation in a Europe that is on its knees".

Merkel welcomed Macron's election victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen, saying he carried "the hopes of millions of French people and also many in Germany and across Europe".

AFP-AP
WASHINGTON - US lawmakers on Sunday called on President Donald Trump to turn over any tapes of conversations with fired FBI chief James Comey, potentially setting up a showdown with the White House as Democrats considered a boycott of the vote on Comey's replacement.

In a highly unusual move, Trump last week appeared to suggest that he might have tapes of conversations with Comey and warned the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation against talking to the media. Trump and a White House spokesman declined to confirm or deny whether such tapes exist.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the White House must "clear the air" about whether there are any taped conversations.

"You can't be cute about tapes. If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over," Graham said.

Trump sparked a political firestorm when he abruptly fired Comey last week. The FBI has been investigating alleged Russian meddling in the US election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Democrats have accused Trump of attempting to thwart the FBI's probe and have called for some type of independent inquiry into the matter.

Trump has said he removed Comey because he was not doing a good job and that Comey had lost the support of FBI employees.

Trump tweeted on Friday that "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

If there are recordings, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah said it was "inevitable" that they would be subpoenaed and the White House would have to release them.

Reuters-Xinhua
Mother's Day, the widely celebrated American holiday, in recent years has become so popular in China that it's almost a household term. An increasing number of Chinese families now observe the Western holiday, and, of course, in a Chinese way.

The theme of a Mother's Day celebration among the Chinese doesn't differ much from that in the West: we honor the beauty, sacrifice, courage and unconditional love of motherhood. Children express gratitude to mothers for their companionship, protection and guidance, especially when they are vulnerable and weak. On a Mother's Day gathering of more than 100 guests in San Francisco on May 13, Qiao Li, wife of China's Consul General in San Francisco Luo Linquan, greeted her guests from all walks of life by calling them "outstanding representatives of mothers and women in America."

Chinese-American women have been playing key roles in immigrant families in supporting their spouses and children, all the while assimilating to a foreign environment themselves, said Qiao. "No matter how many hardships you have encountered, you conquer them with grace, perseverance and resilience, as the wife, and as the mother," she said.

There are several reasons why this holiday has caught on in China.

On the one hand, the essence of Mother's Day coincides with traditional values of Chinese culture, especially the deep-rooted virtue of filial piety. About 2,500 years ago, Confucius, China's most well-known philosopher and educator, proposed that filial piety was the one virtue to be held above all others. He emphasized the responsibility of offspring to care for, respect and obey their parents.

Confucius said there were three degrees of filial piety: "The highest is being an honor to our parents, the second is not disgracing them and the most basic is being able to simply support them."

From a more current point of view, observance of a holiday like Mother's Day is in sync with China's national effort to tackle the problems associated with an aging population. According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs in China, at the end of 2015, more than 222 million people in China  about 16 percent of the population  were age 60 or older, this as the average life expectancy has risen to 76 years.

The China National Working Commission on Aging predicts that by 2033, the country will be home to 400 million people age 60 or older, and the number will grow at a rate of 10 million a year. In other words, senior citizens are likely to account for more than one-third of the population by 2050. In 2013, China passed a law to protect the rights and interests of parents aged 60 and above, and to promote the virtue of filial piety. The law said that younger family members should listen to and satisfy the psychological needs of their parents.

For those who don't live with their parents, they should visit, and check on the well-being of their elderly on a regular basis  if not, they risk of facing fines or detention.

Indoctrination in filial piety among Chinese children starts at an early age. China's National Association for Ethical Studies announced in 2016 that they would train a million children between the ages of 4 and 6 in the basics of filial piety and apply their learning to get along with parents. "The programs were originally well-intentioned, but I doubt how much influence they will have on children," said He Konghua, chairwomen of Greater China Women's Association in San Francisco. "I'm still often saddened to see how fiercely mothers confront their children as so-called tiger moms' and how spoiled children take for granted everything their mothers have done for them." Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com.
Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenyan president

China and Kenya should push forward the creation of industrial and economic corridors, with a focus on railways, seaports and special economic zones, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Xi made the remark in a meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday.

Xi called on the two countries to work together to build the Mombasa-Nairobi railway, Mombasa seaport, and Mombasa special economic zone.

The two countries should continue to respect each other's core interests and major concerns, Xi said.

China and Kenya have reached consensus in a number of key areas, and many of those have begun to be implemented, Xi said, adding that the Kenya relationship is playing a leading role in China's cooperation with Africa.

Xi said that Kenyatta's participation in the forum has great significance, as Kenya is not only an influential country in Africa but happens to be located on the ancient maritime Silk Road trade route.

During the talks, Xi proposed to upgrade the Chin-Kenya bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Saying that the forum marks "a historic moment", Kenyatta congratulated Xi on his vision in proposing the Belt and Road Initiative.

"It's truly the first time, I believe, that we have had leaders from South-South and North-South," he said, referring to cooperation between developing countries (which are located largely in the Southern Hemisphere) and developed countries (mainly located in the north).

"And all of us are talking the same language - the language of prosperity and mutual success," he said.

"Indeed, the initiative, Mr President, is not limited by geography. We see it as an opportunity to finally change Africa's position and become the new frontier for growth of the global economy," Kenyatta told Xi. "It reflects China's quest for shared prosperity."

Kenya is engaging with the ancient maritime Silk Road as China establishes trade links with the East African coast, Kenyatta said, adding that building economic blocs in Africa fits well with the development strategies of local communities.

"Hopefully, as we go forward, we will be able to continue with this initiative and actually see the fruits of the work that you have started today," Kenyatta said.
China is willing to enhance high-level exchanges with Germany and widen communication on issues of mutual concern - which is especially appropriate this year, as 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries - Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday.

Li made the remarks in a meeting with Brigitte Zypries, Germany's minister for economics and energy, who was in Beijing as a special representative of Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Calling Germany a vital partner, Li said China believes the country will continue to play a constructive role in cementing healthy, stable relations-not only with Germany but also with the European Union.

He also said that China will support Germany in hosting the G20 Summit, scheduled for Hamburg later this year.

Zypries extended Merkel's greetings to Li. She said that China and Germany currently enjoy a healthy and solid relationship, and her country is willing to take steps to strengthen it even more.

Also on Monday, Li met with UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who came to the Beijing forum as the special envoy of British Prime Minister Teresa May.

Hammond passed along greetings and a letter to Li from the prime minister, saying she was "very disappointed as she could not come".

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said earlier that the leaders of the United Kingdom and Germany were positive about the forum, but unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts.

Li said the continued development of Sino-British ties, as well as closer communication on global issues, is of critical significance for both countries. He called on the two countries to send positive signals about free trade and investment.

A highlight of cooperation between China and the UK is the implementation of agreements in key areas, such as nuclear power and finance, Li said.

The UK, Hammond said, is willing to further enhance bilateral trade and investment cooperation with China, while deepening the exchange of ideas on global affairs.

Speaking at the forum on Saturday, Hammond said Britain - which lies at the western end of the Belt and Road-is a natural partner in the endeavor.

zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn
The Cordon-Kuebler Corridor study just opened a second online open house . There's a lot of detail, but if we take our Climate Action Pl...
President Xi Jinping shakes hands with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines before their meeting at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday. Pang Xinglei / Xinhua News Agency

Ongoing high-level communication is key to stable relations, he tells Duterte

China and the Philippines should enhance high-level communications on key issues to guide the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.

Xi made the remark in a meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Sunday and Monday.

The bilateral relationship has improved comprehensively since Duterte's state visit to China in October, Xi said, adding that the two leaders have maintained close contacts on issues of common concern.

Xi welcomed Duterte's participation in the forum, saying that the Philippines is not only a friendly neighbor of China but an important partner in building the Belt and Road.

The two countries should enhance practical cooperation and make joint efforts in infrastructure construction, fighting maritime cross-border criminals and drugs, poverty alleviation, rescue and people's livelihoods, Xi said.

China will enhance communication and cooperation with ASEAN members to find more common ground in politics, security and the economy, he added.

Witnessed by the two leaders, the countries signed four cooperation documents - in infrastructure, human resources, energy and media.

China attaches great importance to relations with the Philippines, and the two countries should make continuous efforts to push forward and connect development strategies to benefit people on both sides, Xi said.

"I am pleased to be back in China to renew our ancient ties of friendship," Duterte said, adding that he was "eager to discuss ways of further expanding and deepening bilateral cooperation".

Noting that the two countries have resumed regular dialogues since his visit last year, Duterte said "it is important to keep our communications lines open".

Jose Santiago Santa Romana, the Philippines' ambassador to China, said on Saturday that the two countries will begin bilateral consultations on the South China Sea in Beijing this week, Reuters reported.

Xu Liping, a Southeast Asian Studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that as an important country for building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road the Philippines will find consensus with China on the Belt and Road Initiative.

Through its participation in the initiative, the Philippines will be able to upgrade its infrastructure, he said.

It will be a good sign when China and the Philippines talk about the South China Sea, Xu said, because that will indicate that the relationship has been restored to a healthy track.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
SEOUL - South Korea and the United States have agreed to hold a summit meeting in Washington in late June, the presidential Blue House said Tuesday.

Senior presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan told a press briefing that the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump will be held in late June in the US capital.

Detailed schedule and agenda for the summit will be discussed later through diplomatic channels, Yoon said.

The agreement on the summit was reached at a meeting between Matt Pottinger, a senior director for East Asia at the National Security Council of the White House and Chung Eui-yong, a former South Korean ambassador to Geneva who now leads Moon's security and diplomatic task force.

Pottinger who was leading a US delegation arrived here Monday evening. He paid a courtesy call to President Moon and delivered Trump's congratulations to Moon, according to the Blue House.

He is the first senior White House official visiting South Korea since President Moon was inaugurated last week.

The Blue House said South Korea and the United States agreed to seek a "bold and practical" measure for a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
Amos Phiri, a transport infrastructure expert at the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African Union technical body, says China is supporting Africa's infrastructure projects. [Photo by Lucie Morangi/chinadaily.com.cn]

Abuja, Nigeria - China's Belt and Road Initiative is pushing forward Africa's ambition to achieve connectivity through infrastructure expansion, a transport expert says.

Amos Phiri, from the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African Union technical body, said China's initiative aligns well with the continent's objectives of sustainable economic growth and regional integration. He was speaking on the sidelines of an infrastructure summit in Abuja, Nigeria.

The two-day summit, jointly hosted by Africa Finance Corporation and NEPAD, has brought together public and private sector players to increase visibility of mega-infrastructure projects that are ready for financing.

Phiri highlighted several transport and energy projects under the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) that have received overwhelming support from China. He added that despite showcasing projects that are still relatively new, previous partnerships with Chinese firms buoys confidence of a quick uptake and implementation by foreign investors.

He observed that several PIDA projects have also been articulated under the Belt and Road Initiative, complementing Africa's infrastructure ambitions. "A good example is the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Kenya that has been partly financed and fully developed by the Chinese," he said.

He revealed that the continent is pursuing innovative strategies to increase the uptake of selected projects while shortening project delivery cycles. This means strengthening capacity of institutions, promoting transparency in the procurement process and building strong mechanisms for engaging private players to ensure that interests are mutually aligned.

"I believe that Africa needs to pursue new models for risk mitigation to fast-track project implementation. We are aware that some governments are considering unsolicited bids and thus we are launching a deliberate effort to actually support them manage this strategy. We are targeting both the project sponsors and regional economic communities to enable their abilities in making informed decisions."

The strategy will not only accelerate the delivery of critical infrastructure but also increases public buy-in by eliminating suspicion dogging projects undertaken under this model.

If successful, the strategy promises to unlock Chinese investment in Africa's booming infrastructure sector as this strategy has been used before to clinch major deals.

"Currently governments are poorly equipped to manage agreements under public-private partnerships or unsolicited bids. We plan to train personnel working under relevant agencies who will then create public awareness and increase buy-in and participation from the public," Phiri said.

The infrastructure summit enters its final stage today when high-level government officials and industry captains articulate how Africa plans to tackle its budget deficit while pushing forward infrastructure expansion.
A Kenyan senior government official (left) and a Huawei senior staff witness the signing of a collaboration agreement between Kenya and Huawei in Beijing, May 14, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, accompanied by several Kenyan senior government officials, visited the Huawei's Beijing Executive Briefing Center on Monday and held a discussion with Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating CEO.

The discussion involved the ways in which the two parties can work together to improve Kenya's internet cloud technologyinfrastructure, government cloud platform, public safety and smart cities.

Following the discussions, the Republic of Kenya and Huawei signed an agreement build a government cloud infrastructure.

The collaboration agreement covers how Huawei will help Kenya build the infrastructure necessary for government cloud services, migrate government data and applications to the government cloud, and create a platform for government departments to share data and better communicate.

This will help provide a "One-window style solution" for government services and improve government efficiency.

Huawei donated a set of safe city equipment to three major towns in Kenya to help strengthen policing capabilities and protect people's lives and property, which the president said is very useful and important for the country.

The equipment includes 6eNodeB Stations, 150 radio trunking terminals, and a radio trunking system core network and dispatch system. In addition, Huawei committed to extend its flagship ICT talent program, Seeds for the Future, for a further three years, from 2018-2020.

Seeds for the Future will provide training for 30 outstanding university students in the ICT field, giving them advanced training in China.

This equips local students with important skills to drive forward Kenya's ICT industry and the ICT ecosystem.

During the ceremony, Kenyatta expressed his appreciation to Huawei for providing ICT technologies to connect Kenya and help establish the country as East Africa's leading ICT hub.

He also thanked Huawei for contributing to building the country's ICT talent, enabling the country's digital transformation and speeding up its modernization and development with the government.

"I am extremely grateful to Huawei for the warm welcome today. The development of ICT and a country's future are closely intertwined. I appreciate the role played by Huawei in Kenya's development and progress and hope that Huawei can utilize Kenya's resources to expand regional and international markets," he said.

Kenyatta said Kenya looks forward to continuing its partnership with Huawei and that the partnership will accelerate the science and technology industry in the country, providing more job opportunities for youth.

"I believe that Huawei and Kenya can further deepen our cooperation on ICT, continue to drive forward Kenya's ICT industry and cement Kenya's role as an ICT leader in this region. Let us work together and we count on your support as we work on developing our technologies," the president said.

Huawei's Guo said ICT enables the development of a digital society.

"Across the world governments are making it one of their top priorities to utilize ICT to drive their digital transformation. Huawei recognizes that Kenya has made the development of its ICT industry one of its major priorities and invested accordingly," he said.

Guo said Kenya's Vision 2030 is highly strategic and forward-looking and will help guide the ICT industry forward and accelerate socio-economic growth.

With a clear focus on building Kenya's ICT infrastructure, he said Huawei will continue to work closely with Kenya to share its leading technologies and solutions, along with its global experiences to push forward Kenya's digital economic development.

In his speech, the Chinese ambassador to Kenya, Liu Xianfa, stated that by investing in ICT, emerging markets can leapfrog the investments made by mature markets.

He invited the delegation from Kenya in the One Belt, One Road forum to study the experiences of industrial development in China's central and western regions.

In the meeting, Huawei Kenya's CEO Dean Yu shared updates on Huawei's local activities and partnerships in Kenya. They include ICT projects, such as a mobile phone money transfer service and the national optic fibre backbone  a project aimed at ensuring connectivity in all the 47 counties in Kenya, as well as Huawei's Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, including significant contributions to community development, wildlife protection, women's and children's welfare and supporting those affected by natural disasters.

Huawei has operated in Kenya for more than 19 years. Currently Huawei's ICT products and solutions cover services for Kenya's citizens and government.

Contact the writer at edithmutethya@chinadaily.com.cn
(Photo : TASS) Trump and friend Sergei Kislyak, a top Russian spy and Russia's ambassador to the United States.

(Photo : TASS) Trump and his Russian friends.

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U.S. president Donald Trump might have committed treason when he revealed highly-classified "code-word information" to top Russian government officials that held a private meeting with him on May 10, including Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergei Kislyak, whom the U.S. Intelligence Community asserts is Russia's top spy in the United States.



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Stunning stories in both the Washington Post (which broke the story) and the New York Times tell the same tale about the dense U.S. president (who's credited with having a Grade 5 comprehension and vocabulary) bragging to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov about the great top secret information he has about a specific plot being hatched by ISIS or the Islamic State, and how ISIS plans to carry out this attack.



"I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," said the president, according to an official with knowledge of the conversation as quoted by the Post.



At one point in this conversation, Trump (wittingly or unwittingly) also revealed to Lavrov a city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner's spy detected the threat.



This seemingly innocuous bit of banter would have been enough for the Russians, who are the major backers of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, to focus their counter espionage operations on this city to unmask this spy apparently working for a U.S. ally, probably one in the Middle East.



The capture of this spy will likely lead to the destruction of the spy network he or she works for, and jeopardize other intelligence operations by the U.S. and its allies in the war against terror.



Current and former U.S. officials claim Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence about ISIS.



The information revealed by Trump was provided by a U.S. ally through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. Sources told media the information Trump revealed was considered so sensitive details were withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.



The U.S. ally hadn't given the United States permission to share the material with Russia. Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of ISIS.



"This is code-word information," said a U.S. official familiar with the matter.



Code-word information is intelligence community-speak for one of the highest classification levels used by the U.S. Intelligence Community. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," said one source.



"It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials.



"Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."



The White House, however, denies Trump told the Russians top secret information, which, if proven, might lead to charges of treason against Trump.



"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, was the meeting with the Russians.



"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."



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Tagsdonald trump, code-word information, Russia, treason, Sergei Kislyak, Washington Post, New York Times, Sergei Lavrov, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, Bashar al-Assad
Business / Companies

by Staff reporter

HARARE'S Road Port has become the unofficial bank of last resort, never short of cash, no queues and a multicurrency platform.The money market at this busy bus terminus now plays the role that the formal banking sector has failed. It is effectively making a mockery of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).Bundles of bond notes, hard United States dollars and the South African rand openly exchange hands here without any fear of the police that mill around everywhere.Most of the dealers are poor and do not own the huge heaps of money that they carry around. The money belongs to some big shots in the corridors of the financial institutions, government and business owners  mostly Chinese nationals who pour hard cash on the market every day.John Chitera said top government officials, supermarket owners and service stations were behind the thriving black market, which is never short of cash."We get cash from government ministers and big bosses from banks. Most of it comes in bond notes and our job is to convert the money into US dollars and other currencies like the rand and the pula," he said.Chitera said they also get close to $8 in bond notes if they manage to get their hands on US$100 and US$50 notes."A US$100 or US$50 note is sold for $108 or $54 respectively in bond notes. It's mostly our Chinese clients who want the solid US dollar notes because they are easy to carry or store as opposed to the smaller denominations," he said.The black market is awash with dollars and rands which exchange hands on a daily basis, supplying cross-border traders and dealers who continue to smuggle cash across Zimbabwe's porous borders.Top government ministers also reportedly get cash from the black market and import expensive cars and electronic gadgets.Tonderai Mutambudzi said car dealers, fuel importers and other business people were being kept in business by the Road Port runners who now reliably supply hard currency needed by businesses to stay afloat."You know that it takes nearly a month or more for a telegraphic transfer to clear at the bank, sometimes it's even denied but here we offer quick solutions. We convert the bond notes and provide hard currency which is tradable outside Zimbabwe," Mutambudzi said.He said some ministers collect cash to pay fees for their children abroad and also for their upkeep.In the absence of industry and with failing production, Zimbabweans have taken to selling cash and not goods, as if to spite RBZ governor John Mangudya who appears to have run out of steam in attempting to solve the bleeding cash crisis.In Harare's central business district, especially after 5pm, fuel stations refuse to accept plastic money, forcing motorists to buy in cash, which they in turn allegedly pour on the black market.In Banket and Chinhoyi service stations visited by this reporter were refusing to accept plastic money, saying management was insisting on cash payments only."We have not been using swipe for over two months now; the bosses have given us an instruction just to receive cash," said a fuel attendant at the Zuva Petroleum service station in Banket.Mangudya said such practices were acts of indiscipline in the economy."That practice reflects the high level of indiscipline that has crept into our beloved economy which needs a national Zimbabwean approach to exorcise it. Fuel dealers do not export, but yet they are the largest users of foreign exchange that is generated mainly by tobacco and gold producers. Not accepting plastic money, especially after hours, by these traders is not only irresponsible and absurd but also a clear sign of a high appetite to externalise funds," he said.Mangudya warned that the central bank would deal with indiscipline, although he said all Zimbabweans needed to join hands to fight this indiscipline."Traders need to adhere to normal business practice which is beyond reproach. We have put teams comprised of the bank, Zimra and the police to deal with such malpractice. We have also established a whistle-blower or hotline facility to enhance peer policing through reporting illicit dealings," he said.Bond notes which had been prescribed as a panacea to the flight of hard currency from Zimbabwe have failed to stamp out the cash crisis.The Zimbabwean economy has an estimated $400 million cash in circulation, half of it in bond notes which are not supposed to leave the country because they are not tradable.A reputable economist who refused to be named said with the majority of Zimbabweans living on less than a dollar a day and those employed earning below the poverty datum line salaries, only a few elites controlled the cash flow."The majority just need money to get by and as long as they buy groceries, pay fees and have transport money, they are okay. They don't even have savings to talk about, so it's out of the question that they can be hoarding cash, but they are the worst affected," he said.Former Finance minister Tendai Biti said the cash crisis was a creation of the government, which was funding the black market by mopping out the US dollar in the country."The system is creating shortages, these guys have failed so they have created a cash crisis but they are desperate for foreign currency now so government itself is the dealer in the money black market. Those people you see holding thousands of US dollars in cash and bond notes at Road Port, they are actually acting for and on behalf of the government. They are not taking that money from bank queues," he said.Biti said Zimbabwe had a total of $5 billion in deposits but only 5% cash was in circulation instead of 35%, creating the shortages that have hit the economy.He accused government of taking the bond notes out of the banking system and using it as bait to fish out US dollars from the pockets of people to feed their own greed."Zanu-PF is like a cat fish. They can't hunt in clear water. They have muddied the waters so that they can make a catch; bond notes have no value, they are like leaves but they are now being used as bait, the rubber worms to catch the fish called the US dollar," Biti said.Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa defended the introduction of $200 million worth of bond notes last year saying they would deal with the cash crisis but this has not happened as things have actually got worse.
Two Christians, including one pastor, who were imprisoned in Sudan since 2015 have been released by a presidential pardon on Thursday.

Rev. Hassan Abdelrahim Tawor of the Sudanese Church of Christ, and Abdulmonem Abdumawla from Darfur were both serving a 12-year sentence for inciting hatred among religious groups, espionage, disseminating false information about the government, and helping a Czech missionary named Petr Jasek, who was imprisoned and sentenced to life in prison prior. Jasek was released from prison on presidential pardon in February.

They were also suspected of having ties to rebel groups in Sudan, as many members of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) have ties in an area where there is currently an insurgency. Abdumawla also had been raising funds to help provide medical treatments for a friend who had suffered wounds during a protest, Morning Star News reports.

Pastor Tawors wife expressed gratitude for her husbands release.

We thank God for his release, that is all I can really say for now, she told Morning Star News.

Advocates from human rights groups also celebrated the two Christians release, but also noted the need for a complete end to the human rights violations in the country.

We celebrate Sudans decision to pardon Reverend Hassan Abduraheem Tawor and Abdulmonem Abdumawla from their wrongful prison sentences; however, we cannot overlook the eroding state of religious rights in Sudan as their government overtly oppresses Christianity by demolishing church properties and imprisoning Christians, said Daniel Harris, International Christian Concerns regional manager.

We strongly encourage Sudan to recognize the right to religious freedom that Christians have and to work to protect rather than suppress those freedoms, Harris added.

Mervyn Thomas, the chief executive for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said that the two Christians incident highlights the groups profound concerns regarding the rule of law in Sudan and the politicization of the criminal justice system by the National Intelligence and Security Services, which pursued the case against them.

Just days before their release, the Sudanese government destroyed the very church at which Tawor had been serving, called the Sudanese Church of Christ in Soba al Arabi. The church was also the last church standing in the region, according to the ICC. The Sudanese government expressed it plans to continue closing the doors of more churches.

Other well-known cases of Christians being imprisoned in Sudan include those of Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian mother who refused to convert to Islam, and Pastors Michael Yat and Peter Yen, who were released after more than seven months in prison.

"It's very good news, and I am sure people rejoicing this moment as they did when they heard about my released [sic], I am so thankful for the gift of love and prayers, Ibrahim told ICC.
home World Abducted Indian priest makes new plea for help as his health deteriorates

Father Tom Uzhunnalil, an Indian priest who was kidnapped by suspected Islamic State militants in Yemen last year, has made a plea for help in a new video, saying his health condition is "deteriorating quickly."

Uzhunnalil, who hails from Ramapuram in Kottayam District, was abducted in March last year when suspected ISIS militants raided an old-age home run by Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in the city of Aden. Sixteen people, including four nuns, were killed during the raid.

In a video posted on a Yemeni news portal, Uzhunnalil said that his captors are treating him well "to the extent they are able."

"My health condition is deteriorating quickly and I require hospitalisation as early as possible," the frail-looking priest said in the video, as reported by The News Minute.

Uzhunnalil said that the kidnappers have contacted the Indian government and the Catholic bishop in Abu Dhabi, but the response, he said, was "not encouraging."

"My dear family people, do what you can to help me be released. Please, please do what you can to help to get me released. May God bless you for that," he said.

According to Catholic Herald, the video was posted on YouTube by the news site Aden Time on May 8. Uzhunnalil appears in the video with a cardboard sign with the date April 15, 2017.

An official at the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia, which includes Yemen, confirmed that the man in the video was the kidnapped priest, but he would not comment further. Bishop Paul Hinder, the apostolic vicar, was reportedly away from the vicariate headquarters in Abu Dhabi on a pastoral visit.

In a video released in December, the priest appealed to the Indian government and Pope Francis to help secure his release.

"If I were a European priest, I would have been taken more seriously," Uzhunnalil said in the earlier video. "I am from India. I am perhaps not considered as of much value," he added.

He noted that there have been reports that everything was being done to secure his freedom "but in reality nothing seems to have happened."

The pope had appealed for the release of Uzhunnalil on April 10, 2016, after his Sunday Regina Coeli address in St. Peter's Square.

"I renew my appeal for the freeing of all kidnapped persons in armed conflict zones. In particular, I wish to remember Salesian priest Tom Uzhunnalil, who was abducted in Aden, Yemen last March 4," said the pope.

Since the abduction, Salesians in Bangalore have made several efforts to raise awareness about Uzhunnalil's plight, including a prayer vigil on Jan. 4 and a worldwide novena on Jan. 15-23.
home World Americans more tolerant of immorality than ever before, says new poll

A new Gallup poll has found that Americans today are more tolerant of behaviors that were previously deemed unacceptable in society.

In its annual Values and Beliefs poll, Gallup has found that Americans today have the "most left-leaning" views regarding various social issues like same-sex relationships, sex between unmarried people and divorce.

"Americans continue to express an increasingly liberal outlook on what is morally acceptable, as their views on 10 of 19 moral issues that Gallup measures are the most left-leaning or permissive they have been to date," the researchers noted in the report, according to The Christian Post.

"No issues show meaningful change toward more traditionally conservative positions compared with when Gallup first measured them [in 2001]," the researchers continued.

The findings, which were released on Thursday, indicated that there is a record high in the support for birth control (91 percent), divorce (73 percent), same-sex relationships (63 percent), and pornography (36 percent). At the same time, there has been a record low in the support for the death penalty (58 percent) and medical testing on animals (51 percent).

The public is still divided on the issue of abortion, with 43 percent of Americans saying it is morally acceptable and 49 percent saying it is morally wrong.

There has been virtually no change in the public's perception of birth control. Between 89 and 91 percent have found it morally acceptable since Gallup first asked about it in 2012. Other issues that showed no change since it was first measured by Gallup are abortion, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur, extramarital affairs, cloning animals and gambling.

The researchers also noted that Americans are also the least likely to believe that suicide, polygamy, human cloning, extramarital affairs are permissible. Fewer than one in five have stated that the said practices were morally acceptable.

Gallup further explained that the leftward shift in perceptions of what is morally acceptable has been an ongoing trend, with shifts occurring in 2014 and 2015.

The survey findings were based on telephone interviews conducted on May 3a7, 2017 with a random sample of 1,011 adults living in the U.S. Gallup first conducted the Values and Beliefs poll in 2001 with questions regarding 13 issues, with additional items added in subsequent years.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by Lifeway Research has indicated that 81 percent of Americans are concerned about the decline or moral behavior in their country.

"We are shifting very fast from a world where right and wrong didn't change to a world where right and wrong are relative," Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell said.

"We are not all on the same page when it comes to morality. And we haven't reckoned with what that means," he added.
home World Ashers Baking Company brings gay cake case to UK Supreme Court

The Christian owners of Ashers Baking Company, who were found guilty of breaching U.K's equality laws for refusing to bake a cake supporting gay marriage, has been allowed to take their case to U.K.'s highest court.

The U.K. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the legal arguments of a possible appeal by the Belfast-based bakers at a two-day hearing scheduled for October this year.

"The fact that the Supreme Court is willing to hear arguments is very encouraging and reflects the importance of the issues and the high-profile nature of the case," Ashers Baking Company Manager Daniel McArthur said in a statement, as reported by Premier.

The bakery has incurred an estimated $258,000 (200,000) in legal bills and was forced to pay $657 (500) in damages to gay rights activist Gareth Lee after the owners refused to bake a customized wedding cake with a pro-marriage slogan. The bakery owners argued that it was inconsistent with their religious beliefs, but they maintained that they are not "homophobic."

Ashers launched an appeal in October last year, but the Court of Appeal in Belfast upheld the original County Court judgment in December.

McArthur and his wife, Amy, are being supported by The Christian Institute in their legal battle.

Simon Calvert, Deputy Director for Public Affairs at the Institute, said that the Supreme Court's willingness to hear the case is a "very important development."

"The Supreme Court does not consider every case which is brought to its attention and our legal team has already started to prepare for the crucial hearings which lie ahead," Calvert said.

"We understand the Supreme Court will hear initial arguments from which they will then determine if they are to grant a full appeal hearing," he added.

Calvert noted that the full hearing will take place immediately if the judges agree to the appeal. He contended that the original ruling handed down by the Belfast court undermines both religious freedom and free speech.

It has been reported that Ashers has seen its profits soar in 2016 despite the controversy. The company has posted accumulated profits of 1.5 million ($1.63 million) for 2016, up from 1.3 million ($1.63 million) in the previous year.

The company has seven outlets across Northern Ireland and delivers throughout the U.K. and the Republic.
home US Christian geologist sues Grand Canyon National Park for denying permit to test rock samples

A Christian geologist affiliated with the Creationist organization Answers in Genesis (AIG) has sued the Grand Canyon National Park after it refused to give him permission to collect and test rock samples.

Andrew Snelling, the research director for AIG, filed a civil rights and religious discrimination complaint in the U.S. District Court of Arizona on Tuesday, accusing federal officials of denying him a research permit because of his religious beliefs.

In the complaint, Snelling stated that he requested permission in 2013 to study the "folding Paleozoic sedimentary structures at four locations within the Grand Canyon ... seeking to collect a maximum of 60 one-half-pound samples of rock from these unique folds."

Lexington Herald Leader reported that the park officials sent his proposal to reviewers, who reportedly advised the officials to turn down the geologist's request.

One of the reviewers consulted by the park officials was Dr. Karl Karlstrom of the University of New Mexico, who hypothesized that the Grand Canyon was younger than previously thought. He believed that the Canyon was only six million years old, rather than 60 million.

"Dr. Karlstrom's responses briefly addressed a few scientific issues while demonstrating antipathy for Dr. Snelling's religious faith and the religious views of the scientists who provided peer reviews on behalf of Dr. Snelling," the complaint stated.

In 2016, Snelling, who believes that the rocks at the Canyon are less than 10,000 years old, received a permit to take pictures of the proposed sampling sites from the river, but not to collect rock samples.

The complaint noted that Snelling had been previously allowed to conduct research in the Grand Canyon, but he faced some unusual administrative roadblocks in his research applications beginning in 2013.

Snelling noted that he has also worked for Canyon ministries, which conducts rafting tours at the Canyon with a Biblical perspective.

"Defendants' activities are motivated by hostility towards Dr. Snelling's viewpoints and sincerely held religious beliefs," the complaint stated.

"Defendants' policies and practices have burdened Dr. Snelling's free exercise of his religion absent any compelling state interest," it continued.

Snelling, a native of Australia, has a doctorate from the University of Sydney. He has been with AIG since 2007, and he speaks on various topics such as Noah's Flood, fossils and the Grand Canyon, which he says "defies the explanations offered by evolutionary geologists."

He had questioned the practice of radioactive dating of rocks, and he had helped in formulating exhibits at AIG's Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, which features humans coexisting with relatively small and friendly dinosaurs.
Business / Companies

by Agencies

ZB Financial Holdings has regained use of most of its foreign correspondent banking accounts since its removal from the US sanctions list in October last year, a senior bank official said.The US Treasury, through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had imposed restrictions on the bank as part of a wider sanctions campaign against Zimbabwe. Under the sanctions ZB experienced serious problems in obtaining offshore financing or credit guarantees.ZB chief executive officer Ron Mutandagayi told the group's shareholders at an annual general meeting that re-engagement with foreign partners had been pursued since October."To date, the group has been able to resuscitate its euro, British pound, South African rand and US dollar correspondent banking accounts. A number of payments have already been effected using all accounts in question," he said."A diaspora business strategy has been prepared and will be rolled out in the near future targeting markets in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States."Meanwhile, ZB recorded a profit before tax of $6,88 million in the period up to April 30, 2017. The group's total assets amounted to $406 million, a seven percent reduction from $439 million reported as at December, 31, 2016."This is attributed to the 15 percent reduction in deposits from $275.3 million as at December 31, 2016 to $234.3 million as at 30 April, 2017, largely as a result of the reduction in wholesale funding," he said.Consequently Mr Mutandagayi said cash resources diminished by 31 percent from $82,2 million to $56,9 million.Loans and advances stood at $92.9 million while those recovered through the Zimbabwe Asset Management Company totaled $2.3 million for the period up to April 30."This brings the group's recoveries from ZAMCO since its inception to a total of $22.7 million," he said.
home World Christian governor's blasphemy conviction sparks protests in Jakarta

Supporters of Jakarta's Christian governor gathered outside the city hall on Wednesday to protest his blasphemy conviction, in a case that has raised concerns about human rights and religious tolerance in Indonesia.

Outgoing Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for blasphemy against Islam for accusing his political opponents of using Quranic verses to discourage Muslims from voting for him in the election.

The verdict has been seen as a shock decision as the prosecutors only recommended probation for Purnama after he lost the election to his Muslim contender, Anies Rasiyd Baswedan.

On Wednesday morning, an estimated 1,000 people wearing red and white, Indonesia's national colors, gathered outside the city hall to express their support for Purnama.

According to The Guardian, the crowd sang the country's national anthem, Indonesia Raya, and Pancasila Garuda, a song about Indonesia's founding principles of unity and diversity.

Acting governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who was Purnama's deputy, was seen at the rally encouraging the crowd, saying "Let's fight for justice."

"Last night I met with Ahok and he wants me to convey this message, 'We have to respect whatever the judges have decided, but the fight is not over yet,'" Hidayat said, as reported by The Straits Times.

Local and international rights groups have also raised concerns about the verdict against Purnama.

The Jakarta-based rights group the Setara Institute described it as a "trial by mob," while ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) saw it as "a triumph for intolerance and an ominous sign for minority rights."

"This case demonstrates the need for Indonesia to take steps to address rising religious intolerance and revise its legislation to ensure compliance with international human rights standards, including freedom of thought, expression, and belief," said APHR chairman Charles Santiago.

Champa Patel, Amnesty International's Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, called on Indonesian authorities to repeal the country's blasphemy law.

"This verdict demonstrates the inherent injustice of Indonesia's blasphemy law, which should be repealed immediately," he said in a statement. "The verdict will tarnish Indonesia's reputation for tolerance," he added.

Islamic hardliners, who led the mass protests against the Christian governor last year, celebrated the verdict, but some were angry that Purnama did not receive the maximum jail term of five years.

Purnama was transferred to a high-security detention facility outside the capital on Wednesday after his supporters amassed at the jail where he was initially sent.
home World Christian human rights lawyer released from Chinese prison after two years in detention

A prominent Christian human rights lawyer in China was finally released from prison on Tuesday after being detained for nearly two years, but his time in detention has apparently taken a physical toll on him.

Li Heping, a lawyer known for defending the rights of religious minorities and victims of human rights violations, was reunited with his family and friends on Tuesday after a Chinese court gave him a suspended sentence in a secret trial on April 28.

During his time in prison, the authorities allegedly tortured him using various methods, including electric batons.

Li's wife, Wang Qiaoling, has noted that he has lost some weight and his black hair has turned gray, but she said he is in "fine spirits."

Terry Halliday, the author of a book on China's human rights lawyers, said that he almost did not recognize Li in the photographs that were posted online.

"[He looked] very thin. He's aged about 20 years. His hair has gone grey. He's gone through a torturous time, I would say," he said, according to The Guardian.

"I would defy anybody ... to imagine that so much transformation could have occurred over two years," he added.

The last time he saw Li was a few days before he was detained by the police in the summer of 2015, during the crackdown on human rights lawyers who defended people targeted by the government. The author noted that Li, at the time, was slim "but not emaciated."

"The only thing that I recognised was his smile: that wonderful smile of his that has always been a reflection of his warmth and his kindness," Halliday went on to say.

Li was found guilty of "subversion of state power" and was sentenced to three years in prison with a four-year suspension.

The suspended sentence means that he can be released, but he could be arrested again if he breaks the law during the probation period.

The authorities claim that Li pleaded guilty to using social media and interviews with foreign media to criticize China's political and legal system.

Halliday cautioned against interpreting Li's release as a sign of China's leniency or mercy towards the lawyer who has been held for nearly two years without charge.

Wang, who had fearlessly campaigned for Li's release, said that her husband was "absolutely not free" and could not be interviewed at this time.

"We are now being followed by six or seven tall, burly men. They simply follow us wherever we go," she said.
home World Christian missionaries join North Korean University despite risk of imprisonment

Dozens of Christian missionaries from the U.S. are coming to North Korea to join a university, where two professors were recently arrested, despite the risk of imprisonment.

Kim Hak Song was the latest American Christian arrested by North Korean authorities while teaching at the foreign-funded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). He had been running the university's experimental farm when he was detained last week, according to Reuters.

Kim, who raised money from a church to come to North Korea, said that he was ready to give everything necessary to help the North Korean people with their needs. "I've committed to devoting my last drop of blood to this work," he said in an online post.

PUST, which was founded by Korean-American evangelical Christian James Kim, is open about its Christian affiliation, but former teachers say that the faculty is careful to avoid anything that appears to be missionary work.

Devout Christians have flocked to the university despite the Communist regime's history of sentencing missionaries to hard labor for various transgressions. Detainees have been used by the regime to extract concessions, including high-profile visits from the U.S., which has no formal diplomatic ties with North Korea.

Chancellor and co-founder Chan-mo Park said that about 60 U.S. citizens come to the university each semester, but now, "there's less than that."

According to North Korea's official news agency KCNA, Kim was arrested for "hostile acts," and another professor at the university was arrested two weeks ago for a similar reason. However, PUST maintained that the arrests had nothing to do with the work of the university.

The detention of the two professors came amid rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea over the Communist regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The White House stated on Monday that the detentions were "concerning," and it announced that the State Department was working with the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang to seek their release.

PUST, which has 500 undergraduate students and 60 graduates students, stated that its sole mission is to "pursue excellence in education, with an international outlook, so that its students are diligent in studies, innovative in research and upright in character, bringing illumination to the Korean people and the world."

The university spends about $2 million each year in operating expenses, most of which comes from private foundations, philanthropists, churches in South Korea and the Korean diaspora in the U.S.

Abraham Kim, the executive director of the Chicago University Bible Fellowship, donated $30,000 in 2013 to the university to build a new medical school. He said that the volunteers at the school cannot directly preach the Gospel, but they can "indirectly influence the people there by being good Christians."
home World Christians from 136 countries attend the first-ever World Summit for persecuted believers

More than 600 Christian delegates from 136 countries gathered in Washington D.C. on Thursday for the first-ever World Summit in Defence of Persecuted Christians.

Participants of the summit included Christians from Egypt, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, where believers have suffered specifically for their faith over the past few years.

U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was there to reassure religious liberty advocates that President Donald Trump's administration will fulfill its promises to help persecuted Christians and other religious minorities around the world.

"The Bible tells us all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted," he said in his keynote address, according to World. "The reality is across the wider world the Christian faith is under siege. Throughout the world, no people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred than followers of Christ," he added.

Pence noted that both he and Trump pray for persecuted Christians and assured the audience that the president is confronting radical Islamic terrorists who are targeting believers abroad.

"He calls them by name, radical Islamic terrorists," the vice-president said. "Practitioners of terror harbor a special hatred for followers of Christ, and none more so than the barbarians known as ISIS," he continued.

The vice-president contended that the terror group is "guilty of nothing short of genocide against people of the Christian faith and it is time the world called it by name."

Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), which hosted the summit, gave the keynote address at the opening session of the event on Wednesday night at the Mayflower Hotel, The Christian Post reported.

He noted that the summit included Christians from different denominations and traditions, but he maintained that it was not an ecumenical effort to unite Christians by theology. "As it has been said, the persecution of one Christian, affects us all," he remarked.

During his speech, he paid tribute to the families of some of the 20 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by ISIS on a beach in Libya in February 2015. The publicized footage of the beheadings highlighted the horrors that the Coptic Christians faced around the world at the hands of anti-Christian extremists.

Graham noted that the beheadings in 2015 were not an isolated incident and asserted that Christians today are facing more hostility and persecution than any other time in history.

The evangelist also pointed out that religious extremists are not the only ones responsible for persecuting Christians. He warned that secularists are also becoming hostile to Christians who uphold the "unchanging, moral and spiritual standards of God and His Holy Word."

Graham expressed his belief that the reason Christians are being persecuted is to "suppress their faith, quieten their voice, marginalize the very word of God." He contended that God is not the author of persecution and said that evil people, and ultimately, Satan are responsible for the oppression of believers.
home US Donald Trump to Liberty University students: 'In America, We Don't Worship Gov't, We Worship God'

In his first commencement address as president, Donald Trump promised Liberty University students that he will protect their religious freedom, and he encouraged them to embrace being an outsider to change the world.

"As long as I am your president, no one is ever going to stop you from practicing your faith," Trump told the students at the evangelical Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia on Saturday.

"When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, they prayed. When the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they invoked our Creator four times. Because in America, we don't worship government, we worship God," he continued.

The president received a warm welcome from the crowd of about 50,000 people who attended the commencement ceremony on Saturday. He was the second sitting president to deliver a commencement address at Liberty after George H.W. Bush, who gave a speech at the university in 1990, according to The Washington Post.

Trump, who received an honorary doctor of laws degree at the ceremony, encouraged the students to embrace being an outsider.

"Being an outsider is fine. Embrace the label, because it's the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference. The more that a broken system tells you that you're wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead," he said.

Liberty University President Jerry Fallwell Jr., who endorsed Trump in the 2016 campaign, said that he was honored that the president chose the university for his first commencement speech. Several newly elected presidents, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, have picked the University of Notre Dame to deliver their first in-office commencement speeches. Vice President Mike Pence has been dispatched to speak at Notre Dame's graduation ceremony next Saturday.

Trump has had a rough relationship with Liberty's student body prior to the 2016 election. When he gave a speech at the university a week before Falwell endorsed him, the students laughed when he referred to one of the books in the New Testament as "Two Corinthians."

In the weeks before the election, a group of students called Liberty United Against Trump launched a petition calling on other students to oppose Trump. The petition came after The Washington Post leaked a 2005 video recording of Trump boasting about being able to "do anything" to women and get away with it.

After the 2017 inauguration, Falwell said that the president offered him the position of secretary of education, but he declined to accept it. In February, he was asked to head a White House task force on reforming the U.S. higher education system.
home US Duke Divinity Professor allegedly quits after being disciplined for refusing to attend diversity training

A divinity professor at Duke University has allegedly resigned from his post after he received disciplinary action for refusing to attend an anti-racism workshop for members of the faculty.

Paul Griffiths, a professor of Catholic theology, has reportedly refused to attend a two-day workshop titled "Racial Equity Institute Training Phase 1" for Duke Divinity School faculty on March 4a5. He reportedly questioned the validity of the diversity training and urged his colleagues not to attend the seminar.

In February, Anathea Portier-Young, associate professor of Old Testament, sent a mass invitation for the workshop, saying those who previously participated in the training described it as "transformative, powerful, and life-changing."

In response, Griffiths copied all the faculty on the email and discouraged them from attending the workshop.

"I exhort you not to attend this training," the professor wrote, according to the email published on The American Conservative website.

"Don't lay waste your time by doing so. It'll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there'll be bromides, clichAs, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual," he continued.

Duke Divinity School's dean, Elaine A. Heath, responded to the email chain saying she was looking forward to the training. She also condemned the "use of mass emails to express racism sexism, and other forms of bigotry" without specifically mentioning Griffiths.

The emails indicated that Heath had tried to set up a meeting with Griffiths, but it never happened because they could not agree on the conditions of the meeting.

Griffiths said that Portier-Young filed a harassment complaint against him to the Duke's Office for Institutional Equity. Heath also banned him from faculty meetings and threatened to withhold travel and research funds if he continued to refuse to attend the workshop.

The professor contended that the actions against him were "reprisals" designed not to challenge his views but to discipline him for having expressed them.

Thomas Pfau, a professor of English and German who also teaches in the divinity school, came to Griffiths' defense, saying in an email that the professor was only questioning the fact that the faculty members were being asked to give up their own time for the seminar.

"Having reviewed Paul Griffiths' note several times, I find nothing in it that could even remotely be said to 'express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry,'" Pfau wrote.

"To suggest anything of the sort strikes me as either gravely imperceptive or as intellectually dishonest," he added.

Pfau said that, as far as he knew, Griffiths' decision to resign was not pressured by the university.
home World Egyptian forces managed to kill Muslim Brotherhood members who are being trained to attack Christians

Egypt's Interior Ministry has announced that security forces have killed eight members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group who were being trained to attack government and Christian targets.

One of the militants killed in a shootout that took place in Egypt's southern desert was Helmi Masri Mohareb, a leader who transported militants across Egypt's southern border to join training camps, according to a statement released by the Interior Ministry on Monday.

Mohareb was wanted for other cases and has been sentenced to death in absentia on terrorism charges.

Agence France-Presse noted that the statement did not mention the exact location and time of the shootout, nor the country in which the militants were alleged to have received training.

The ministry stated that members of the Brotherhood opened fire on the security forces when they were approached in the desert, prompting the Egyptian forces to return fire.

According to the ministry's statement, the militants were formed based on assignments issued by Muslim Brotherhood's leadership abroad to the group's leaders in Egypt.

The banned organization planned "to form groups to carry out a series of hostile operations in the coming period by sending elements from these groups to join training camps abroad." Then they were to "return to target state institutions, and government and Christian buildings, and a number of public figures and policemen, with the aim to create a state of chaos, instability, and to foment internal strife."

The news of the shootout came after the Egyptian air force destroyed a group of vehicles that crossed into Egypt from Libya carrying smuggled weapons.

The military stated on its Facebook page that 15 four-wheel-drive vehicles loaded with weapons and other contraband have been destroyed in the airstrikes. It released a video showing jets and helicopter gunships attacking targets in the desert, but it did not mention who was driving the vehicles.

Egypt has designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, but the organization maintains that its activities are peaceful.

The Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi became Egypt's first civilian president in 2012, but he was overthrown by the army, following a mass protest against the divisive Islamist's rule.

The ensuing crackdown on the organization has left it in disarray, with competing wings that have disagreed on whether to use violence, after the authorities stamped out their protests. Analysts have said that a section of the organization has encouraged armed attacks against the country's policemen.
home World Former Obama official on Islamic State's attacks on Christians: 'What goes around comes around'

Days after the Islamic State terror group issued a threat against Christians in Egypt, a former Homeland Security Advisory Council member under the Obama administration has suggested that Coptic Christians only got what was coming to them.

Since December last year, Coptic Christians have been increasingly targeted by extremists in Egypt. In the most recent attack, 45 people were killed in church bombings in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday. ISIS took responsibility for both incidents, and it recently warned that there will be more attacks against Christian gatherings in Egypt.

In the latest issue of the terror group's English-language magazine, Rumiyah, Muslims were advised to avoid Christian gatherings, as well as gatherings for the army and police.

Mohamed Elibiary, a former member of DHS' Homeland Security Advisory Council, suggested that Coptic Christians have it coming because they supported the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood's leader in 2013.

"Reading ISIS's latest mag 'otherizing' Egypt's Copts. Subhanallah [Arabic for 'glory to Allah'] how what goes around comes around. Coptic ldrs did same to MB Egyptians,'" Elibiary tweeted on Sunday.

Daily Caller national security reporter Jonah Bennett noted that Elibiary seems to be praising Allah for the killing of Egyptian Christians for including the Arabic word "Subnallah" in his tweet.

When Elibiary was asked by Bennet to clarify his tweet, he replied: "It's a shame Egypt & the Egyptian social fabric was destroyed to this degree by the entry of the military into politics & economics."

Elibiary was appointed by Obama to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2010, but he was removed from his position in September 2014 due to his questionable remarks and "even extremist statements" on Twitter.

Patrick Poole, a national security and terrorism expert for PJMedia, noted that Elibiary added a Muslim Brotherhood logo to his Twitter avatar when Egyptians took to the streets to remove President Mohamed Morsi from power.

Poole also noted that Elibiary had admitted that his mentor was Hamas leader Shukri Abu Baker, who is currently serving a 65-year prison sentence.

When ISIS took over swaths of territory in Iraq in the summer of 2014, Elibiary stated that he believes the return of the Islamic "caliphate" is "inevitable."

"As I've said b4 inevitable that 'Caliphate' returns. Choice only whether we support #EU like Muslim Union vision or not," he tweeted.
home World Islamic ideology thrives because Christians deny truth of Bible, says Egyptian pastor

Dr. Michael Youssef, founder and president of Leading the Way Ministries, has said that one of the reasons why Islamic ideology succeeds in spreading all over the world is because Christians are denying Biblical truths.

In an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday, Youssef noted that he has written numerous books that warn about the dangers of radical Islam, but he said he waited over 20 years to write his new book, "The Barbarians Are Here: Preventing the Collapse of Western Civilization in Times of Terrorism."

The pastor said that he hoped that Christians would be more aware so that he would not need to write the book, but he felt that it was necessary because he saw that more and more Christians are being killed and persecuted.

Youssef, who attended the first-ever Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association this week in Washington, D.C., said that his new book is different from the other books he has written in the past because it really serves as a "challenge to Christians."

"Islamic ideology flourishes whenever there is a vacuum. If there is a Christian vacuum, Islam fills it," the evangelist said.

"Historically, from the first century ... that is the Islamic first century, the seventh century for us, all the way to this day, if you study history a whether it be the Church in North Africa or the Church in the Byzantine empire that has become Turkey now a it is the same story," he added.

He warned that Christians start to believe that there are other ways to God other than Jesus Christ when they deny biblical orthodoxy and the truth of the Gospel.

Youssef noted that there was a time in history when most of the people in North Africa were Christians, but they started to embrace a heresy called the Montanus, which taught that the biblical canon has not been closed.

"The Arabs came in and they faced resistance in Egypt because they would not buy into these heresies, so they came to Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Algiers. It literally was a walk in the park. Within 35 years, so many of these churches turned into mosques," he warned.

The evangelist warned that Islamists have "succeeded" in intimidating secularist institutions in the West.

He noted that the American Civil Liberties Union have sued Christians who tried to meet in school, but they have ignored Muslim students when they demanded their own prayer room in school and requested that they be allowed to leave the classroom at 12 o'clock to do their prayers.

Youssef said that Islamists are also intimidating the media and Western government officials. He asserted that Islamic radicals will keep killing and subjugating Christians unless Jesus Christ returns to Earth. But he said that he is still hopeful because there are more Muslims that are converting to Christianity today than in the last 1,400 years of Christian missions to Muslims.

Leading The Way is now in its 28th year of ministry, and its television and radio programs are broadcast in 25 languages across six continents. It has partnered with in-country follow-up teams to evangelize, disciple new believers and help persecuted people in places where it is dangerous to follow Christ.
home US Kentucky court upholds Christian print shop owner's right to decline order for 'gay pride' shirts

The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld a Christian print shop owner's right to decline an order for t-shirts that was intended to promote a gay pride event because it conflicts with his religious beliefs.

In a 2a1 decision on Friday, the appellate court ruled that Hands On Originals (HOO), a printing shop in Lexington, Kentucky, could not be forced to print T-shirts for a gay pride event because it would violate his free speech rights.

"Nothing in the [Lexington-Fayette Urban County] fairness ordinance prohibits HOO (Hands on Originals), a private business, from engaging in viewpoint or message censorship," wrote Chief Judge Joy Kramer, according to Christian News Network.

"Thus, although the menu of services HOO provides to the public is accordingly limited, and censors certain points of view, it is the same limited menu HOO offers to every customer and is not, therefore, prohibited by the fairness ordinance," she added.

Judge Jeff Taylor dissented, saying he believed the print shop had violated the fairness ordinance and engaged in unlawful discrimination against homosexuals by declining the order. He argued that there was nothing obscene or defamatory about the speech in the t-shirt design to justify censoring it.

The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization of Lexington (GLSO) placed the order for the t-shirts in 2012. When HOO owner Blaine Adamson declined the order due to his religious beliefs, the group filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Human Rights Commission (HRC). The commission ruled in October 2014 that HOO violated the law by refusing to print the shirts and ordered the company to undergo diversity training.

HOO filed an appeal to the Fayette Circuit Court, which ruled in Adamson's favor in 2015, but the commission appealed the decision.

Adamson has maintained that his print shop does not discriminate against anybody, but he said he will not promote messages that conflict with his religious convictions. He noted that HOO has declined at least 13 other printing jobs because of his faith. He has refused to print t-shirts that contained violent messages, as well as a shirt that promoted a strip club.

Jim Campbell, Adamson's attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, said that Adamson was relieved when the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the 2015 decision on Friday.

"He is very glad that a court, now the second court, has said he didn't discriminate. He didn't discriminate against anyone," Campbell stated, as reported by The Stream. He said they are now waiting to see if the commission would appeal the case to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Business / Companies

by Alice Dube

What is The EU Safety List

ZIMBABWE'S national carrier Air Zimbabwe has been banned from European airspace.This is due to "unaddressed safety deficiencies that were detected by the European Aviation Safety Agency during the assessment for a third country operator authorisation" European Commission said in a statement."Today the European Commission updated the EU Air Safety List, the list of non-European airlines that do not meet international safety standards, and are therefore subject to an operating ban or operational restrictions within the European Union' reads part of the statement."The EU Air Safety List seeks to ensure the highest level of air safety for European citizens, which is a top priority of the Aviation Strategy adopted by the Commission in December 2015."... On the other hand, the airlines Med-View (Nigeria), Mustique Airways (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Aviation Company Urga (Ukraine) and Air Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe) were added to the list due to unaddressed safety deficiencies that were detected by the European Aviation Safety Agency during the assessment for a third country operator authorisation".Following the issued this Tuesday , a total of 181 airlines are banned from EU skies.The ban comes at a time when the struggling airliner was seeking to to re-establish the lucrative London route.According to the statement, the EU Air Safety List not only helps to maintain high levels of safety in the EU, but it also helps affected countries to improve their levels of safety, in order to eventually allow them to operate flights to and from airports in the European Union.In addition, the EU Air Safety List has become a major preventive tool, as it motivates countries with safety problems to act upon them before a ban under the EU Air Safety List would become necessary.The EU Safety List (i.e. "Community list of air carriers which are subject to an operating ban within the Community") is a list of airlines which the European Commission, pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2111/2005 of the European Parliament and the Council of 14 December 2005 on the establishment of a Community list of air carriers subject to an operating ban within the Community and on informing air transport passengers of the identity of the operating air carrier and on the basis of the advice of the EU Air Safety Committee, decided to subject to either a complete or a partial operating ban within the European Union, for failure to adhere to the applicable international safety standards.
home US Lena Dunham praises abortionist who professes to be Christian

Actress Lena Dunham has praised an abortionist who believes that it is part of his Christian calling to perform abortions on the poor.

Dr. Willie Parker, who initially refused to perform abortions in the first half of his career as an OB-GYN, recently wrote a book titled "Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice," in which he detailed how he changed his stance from being pro-life to pro-choice.

Dunham, who recently caught backlash for saying she wished she had an abortion, wrote a review of Parker's book in the weekly online feminist newsletter, Lenny. In the review, she hailed Parker as "the pro-choice hero we need."

"I have been amazed by Dr. Parker's work: his heroism in comforting women who are, like him, religious and, unlike him, deeply afraid," Dunham wrote, while noting that the African-American abortionist travels throughout the South to perform abortions for "women who would not otherwise have access due to changing laws and terrified doctors."

According to Breitbart News, the actress went on to say that she was honored to "donate to [Parker's] abortion fund for the South" and urged her readers to consider one of the "wealth of ways to support women with dwindling access to abortion."

In the book, Parker detailed how he initially refused to perform abortions, but he changed his views after working at an outpatient clinic for indigent people in Hawaii and saw what happened when abortions stopped being provided.

He said that he was inspired to perform abortions by Martin Luther King's final sermon, "I've Been to the Mountaintop."

The abortion doctor accepts that the fetus is alive, but he contended that life does not begin at conception. "Life is a process. It is not a switch that turns on in an instant, like an electric light," he wrote.

Conservative Christian leaders have denounced Parker's claim that abortion is part of his calling as a Christian.

Evangelical theologian Russell Moore expressed his concern over Parker's "nonchalance" to abortion, which he also tries to impart on his patients by praising those who are unmoved by the ultrasound of their unborn baby.

Moore argued that the abortion doctor's attempts to dehumanize the unborn child is much like trying to "dehumanize Jesus," noting that The Gospel of Luke introduced Jesus, as well as John the Baptist, as an unborn child.

Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham has also spoken out against Parker's argument that he is helping women like a "good Samaritan." He contended that the parable of Good Samaritan teaches people to love their neighbors and that nothing in the story can be used to "justify murder."

"What Parker's doing is ignoring that abortion is murder and saying that he's just helping women, like a 'good Samaritan.' But is helping women commit a sinful act that goes completely against God's Word really helping them? No," Ham stated.
home US Minnesota officials seek public's help in solving church fire cases

Minnesota officials are asking the public to help solve the series of arson fires that have damaged 13 church buildings in eight Minnesota communities in the past five years.

According to The Minnesota State Fire Marshal, 13 churches have been intentionally set on fire since 2012, including the fire that caused millions of dollars in damage to the 118-year-old St. Mary's Catholic Church in Melrose last year.

The authorities do not believe that the church fires are related, but the Department of Public Safety has renewed its call for tips that could help in solving the cases.

"Churches may be targeted because they are unoccupied for long periods of time and many are located in rural, less populated areas," said Jim Iammatteo, the State Fire Marshal's chief investigator, according to City Pages.

"It may not matter to someone that the building is a church, rather that it is an easy target. Someone may also target a church for religious reasons, of course," he added.

Iammatteo said that the nine cases that remain open do not seem to be connected because the investigators have not found any patterns. He noted that thrill-seeking, revenge and bored kids topped the list of common motives in cases where a perpetrator has been caught.

In 2014, a teenager was caught on camera lighting church pews on fire, causing $10,000 worth of damage. "He was just bored. He had nothing else to do," said Coon Rapids Fire Inspector Todd Williams.

The suspect was ordered to attend a program for kids caught playing with fire, and he has not been implicated in another arson since.

That same year, a St. Paul man admitted to setting the pastor's office in St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church on fire after he was banned from the church. The man, who was not a member of the congregation, had been suspected of stealing valuables from the church. Neighbors helped solve the case when they witnessed the man heading toward the church shortly before the fire.

"People describing a vehicle that drove by at a certain time, information about a fire in someone's home, a conversation someone had with a neighbor 10 years ago," said Iammatteo, who noted that these were the kind of tips that helped solve cases in the past. "One tip could make all the difference," he added.

Other arson cases that remain unsolved include the Darling Historic Church in Little Falls on March 24, 2017; the Church, Inc., building in St. Paul on Feb. 15, 2016; Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis on June 13, 2014; and St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Isanti on May 28, 2012.

The authorities are offering rewards up to $5,000 for tips leading to a conviction for the arson cases.
home US Oklahoma House approves resolution that considers abortion as murder

The Oklahoma House of Representatives has approved a resolution that declares abortions as murder and calls on state officials to prevent the procedure from being carried out.

State House Resolution 1004, authored by state Rep. Chuck Strohm, was passed in a voice vote on Monday without debate or discussion. The measure only serves as a statement and holds no force of law, but Strohm considered it as a "landmark resolution."

"It calls upon our Attorney General, governor, judiciary, elected officials, to enforce Oklahoma law," the Republican lawmaker said, as reported by The Stream.

The resolution also claims that the U.S. Supreme Court violated the Constitution in cases like Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which legalized abortion nationwide.

"Does the Supreme Court have the right to violate every act of decency and law by imposing a no, not by imposing, but by forcing a the murder of unborn children on our society?" Strohm asked before the House on Monday.

"I will uphold this truth that the answer is no. No one a not a doctor, father, judge, or mother a has rights that allow them to murder an unborn child," he added.

The measure states that "all human life is protected by God's law," while noting that the Constitution mandates that "no state shall deprive any human being of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness without due process of law."

It also directs Oklahoma judges and Oklahoma Supreme Court justices not to interfere with the legislature's "right to clarify Oklahoma criminal law regarding abortion," according to Fox 25.

The Hill noted that Oklahoma has already implemented strict laws limiting abortions. The state bans abortions after 20 weeks unless the woman's life is at risk. Parents of minors who are seeking abortions must be notified before the procedure is carried out.

Abortions are only covered by health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act only if the mother's life is in danger. The state also requires women seeking an abortion to undergo counseling and wait 72 hours before the procedure.

Oklahoma has been placed on the top of the Americans United for Life's (AUL) 2017 Life List. It was the state's second year in a row to land on the pro-life list.
home World Pakistani pastor who was convicted of blasphemy faces daily torture in prison, says wife

The wife of a Christian pastor who was recently sentenced to life imprisonment in Pakistan for blasphemy claimed that her husband is being tortured every day in prison.

Zafar Bhatti, 51, was sentenced to life imprisonment last week for allegedly sending "blasphemous" text messages from his mobile phone. He has been incarcerated in Adiala Central Jail in Rawalpindi since the accusation was made against him in 2012, and his wife, Nawab Bibi, has expressed concerns about his safety in the prison facility.

"There have been numerous attempts to kill my husband a he is bullied everyday and he is not safe from inmates and prison staff alike. Every day I worry that I will receive word that he is dead, this worry is making me age very quickly," she told British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA).

"I pray for him every day and when we meet we cry together and pray, seeking God's intervention. I know God will free him one day but ask for Christians across the world to pray for him and to challenge their governments to help him," she added.

Bibi explained that her husband is a good man and a committed Christian, but there were Muslims who saw his church grow and took action to undermine his work.

"I wish our persecutors would see that Christians are not evil creatures. We are human beings created by God the same God that created them although they do not know this yet," Bibi went on to say.

BPCA is now raising money for Bibi because she had been struggling to make ends meet since the arrest of her husband who was the main breadwinner of the family. Her children were sent to her grandparents because she can no longer afford to keep them.

Her eldest daughters have been placed into arranged marriages at "very young ages" to help the family with the expenses, according to BPCA.

The group said that Bibi has to remain home near her husband so that she could continue to visit him and help him in his legal battle.

CLAAS, a U.K.-based advocacy group that has been providing legal aid to Bhatti, has claimed that the court overlooked the lack of evidence against the pastor.

The advocacy group has vowed to challenge the ruling, and it is trying to transfer the case to Lahore due to the threats against Bhatti as well as his defense attorney.
home World Sudanese authorities arrest two Christians during demolition of church

Sudanese authorities arrested two Christians on Sunday as bulldozers tore apart their church in Khartoum's Soba al-Aradi suburb on Sunday.

Christians were reportedly preparing for the worship service when a bulldozer sent by Jebel Aulia locality and the Ministry of Planning and Urban Development arrived to demolish the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) building at about 2:30 p.m., Morning Star News reported.

Two church members, Bulis Salah and Naji Abdalla, were arrested for refusing to open the church gate. They were taken to the National Intelligence and Security Services office and interrogated before the authorities released them later that day.

The church building, established in 1989, was used by three congregations because it was the only one left in the area following the demolition of 12 other church buildings in 2011.

Reverend Elias Abdelrahim, a priest of the SCOC, said that the officials cited the lack of construction permit as the reason for the demolition, but the church leaders did not receive any official notification.

"The only warning was an unofficial verbal warning from a police sergeant without specifying the date of the removal," he said.

Sudanese authorities announced expressed their intentions to demolish 27 churches in February, but the plans were delayed after a court appeal was made.

Government officials have claimed that the churches were built on either government land or on designated residential areas, but church leaders asserted that it is part of a wider crackdown on Christianity.

Abdelrahim said the church leaders are now trying to find a temporary place to pray. He said that they will make the effort to complete all administrative procedures before attempting to rebuild the church.

A team of lawyers is also negotiating with the land authorities and the Ministry of Urban Planning to plan the reconstruction of parts of the church.

Dimas James Marjan, one of the lawyers that follows-up the case for SCOC, said the material loss resulting from the demolition was huge.

"The removal process was not done by legal means and confirms that we will resort to the judiciary in order to get compensation for the losses," he told Radio Dabanga.

Marjan argued that the authorities should have issued a written legal warning that can be "affixed to the door in event of the absence of a person in the building, and a known time limit, before launching the removal."
home World Sudanese president grants pardon to pastor and Christian activist who were convicted of espionage

A Sudanese pastor and a Christian activist, who were sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment in January, were released from prison in Khartoum on Thursday after they were granted a presidential pardon.

Abdumonem Abdumawla and Rev. Hassan Abduraheem Taour were arrested in December 2015 for "aiding and abetting" Czech aid worker Petr Jasek, who was accused of "spying." In January 2016, the two men were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for espionage-related charges and two years' imprisonment for "inciting hatred between sects" and "propagation of false news."

Jasek, who was found guilty of espionage, causing hatred among communities and spreading false information, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, but he received a presidential pardon in February. Following his release, supporters argued that there are no longer reasons to keep the other two men in prison.

In March, Jan Figel, the EU Special Envoy for the Promotion of Freedom of Religion or Belief outside the EU, called for a presidential pardon for Abdumawla and Taour, World Watch Monitor reported.

On the day of their release, Christians gathered at Taour's home to thank God for answering their prayers.

"We thank God for his release, that is all I can really say for now," Taour's wife told Morning Star News.

"Thank God for all who really carried a campaign for the release of our two brothers," another relative said.

The case against the three men stemmed from their attempts to help Ali Omer, a Sudanese student who sustained injuries during a protest in 2013. When Jasek attempted to leave Sudan, the authorities found in his possession a receipt for $5,000.

The aid worker explained that the amount was for the student's medical costs, but the prosecution alleged that it was a donation to rebel groups in the southern regions of South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur.

Taour was arrested at his home in December 2015 for facilitating the meeting between Jasek and Omer. Abdumawla was apprehended that same month after he collected money to help the student.

Advocacy group Middle East Concern issued a statement calling on Christians in Sudan to celebrate the release of the two men. The group also asked Christians to pray for "an end to the increasing pressure against churches and other religious minorities in Sudan, and that they will know the peace of the Lord," and "that all officials involved will be touched by God's love and will change their ways."
home US Target launches gay pride promotional campaign amid boycott over its transgender bathroom policy

Target Corporation has launched the "#TakePride" campaign to express its support for the LGBT community and promote its rainbow-themed online merchandise.

For the second year in a row, the retail giant is using the "#TakePride" hashtag on social media to promote an array of rainbow-colored merchandise such as t-shirts, swim trunks, flip-flops, headphones, iPhone cases and an assortment of other products emblazoned with LBGT logos, World Net Daily reported.

The rainbow-themed products were initially launched by Target in 2015 to show support for the LGBT community.

"We're making our message loud and clear: Target proudly stands with the LGBT community, both as a team member and team player through all that we do," said Laysha Ward, Target's executive vice president and chief corporate social responsibility officer, according to Pink News.

Target is facing a massive boycott due to its controversial bathroom policy that allows men to use women's bathrooms. An estimated 1.2 million people have pledged to participate in the boycott organized by the American Family Association.

Critics have argued that Target's bathroom policy would only entice predators, pedophiles and sex offenders into restrooms and fitting rooms that were intended for women. Months after the company announced its policy, there were reports of teenage girls and women across America catching men secretly filming them as they changed their clothes.

In response to the controversy, Target announced that it would spend $20 million to add private single-stall lockable bathrooms in its stores, apart from the male and female bathrooms.

Since the announcement of the bathroom policy, the retail giant has reportedly lost "millions" in sales and added expenses. Sales fell nearly six percent in the three quarters that followed the public announcement of the policy change, compared with the same period the previous year.

However, Target CEO Brian Cornell has repeatedly denied that the company's financial woes have anything to do with the boycott.

Cornell has reportedly admitted that the company made a mistake in publicizing the bathroom policy and said that the announcement was made without his approval.

While the CEO believes that the situation was mishandled and that it caused a backlash against the company, he ultimately supported the policy but felt "stuck" with it.

"We took a stance, and were going to continue to embrace our belief of diversity and inclusion and just how important that is to our company," the CEO stated in May last year.

"We had a lot of tough feedback. But sitting here today, I know we made the right decision," he added.
home US Texas House advances measure that would allow adoption agencies to deny same-sex couples

The Texas House of Representatives approved a measure that would allow foster care and adoption agencies to refuse placing children with same-sex couples based on religious objections.

The "Freedom to Serve Children Act," was approved by the GOP-controlled chamber by a vote of 94a51 on Tuesday. The House gave final approval of the measure on Wednesday, according to Fox 4.

The legislation would apply to both private and state-funded adoption agencies. Republican sponsors of the bill said that it is designed to shield the agencies from possible court fights.

Rep. James Frank of Wichita Falls said that his measure directs child services to ensure that other outside adoption providers without religious objections will be available to potential adoptive parents who were turned away by those who raise objections.

"We want to make reasonable accommodations so everyone can participate in the system," Frank said, according to The Associated Press. "Everyone is welcome. But you don't have to think alike to participate," he continued.

Rebecca Robertson, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas' legislative and policy director, pointed out that the state lacks other options because its only faith providers are Christian. She also asserted that the proposal violates the Constitution as it involves taxpayer money.

Gay rights groups and some foster families have expressed concern that they are unfairly targeted by the bill.

"Child welfare associations, psychological association, have shown that there is no harm done to children in same sex households, so what is the point of doing this? It's just blatant discrimination masked as something so precious and fundamental and precious as religious liberties and beliefs," said attorney Lorie Burch.

Proponents of the bill have contended that it would increase the pool of prospective adoptive and desperately-needed foster care families by allowing faith-based organizations to stay open and continue providing their services while upholding their religious principles.

Megan Lestino, vice-president of public policy for the National Adoption Council, said she knows about faith-based adoption agencies across the U.S. that have denied LGBT and other prospective parents. She noted that it upsets families, but she maintained that it does not violate the law unless the state does not present other options.

"Equal protection requires that there's another option for every family. And there typically is some option for every family," she said.
home US Working-class voters' support for Trump was motivated by fear of societal change, says PRRI report

A new study has suggested that the support white working-class voters gave Donald Trump in the previous election was not motivated by their economic troubles but by their fear of societal change in the U.S.

An analysis of post-election survey data conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and The Atlantic revealed that many financially troubled voters in the white working class were more likely to support Hillary Clinton over Trump by a ratio of two to one.

White working-class voters who reported feeling like a stranger in the U.S. and believed protections were needed against foreign influence were 3.5 times more likely to support Trump. Those who favored deporting immigrants living in the country illegally were 3.3. times more likely to prefer Trump than those who did not.

The analysis also indicated that white working-class voters who reported being in fair or poor financial shape were 1.7 times more likely to support Clinton than those who were in better financial shape.

While opposition to cultural change was a major factor, the authors noted that gender roles and attitudes about race were not significant demographic factors in the model of the new analysis.

In September and October 2016, PRRI and The Atlantic surveyed white, working-class voters without college degrees or salaried jobs. This demographic makes up more than one-third of American adults. When the researchers returned to the group in November to see how its members voted, they discovered that 64 percent of white working-class voters chose Trump, while only 32 percent supported Clinton.

Non-college-educated voters tend to support Republicans, but Trump won them over by a larger margin than any presidential candidate since 1980, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center.

The report also showed that 68 percent of white working-class voters say that the U.S. is in danger of losing its identity, and 62 percent believe that the growing number of immigrants pose a threat to the country's culture. More than half say discrimination against whites was as much of a problem as discrimination against minorities.

The researchers also found that white working-class voters who believe that investing in college education is a risky gamble were almost twice as likely to support Trump compared to their peers.

"The enduring narrative of the American dream is that if you study and get a college education and work hard, you can get ahead," said Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI.

"The survey shows that many white working-class Americans, especially men, no longer see that path available to them. ... It is this sense of economic fatalism, more than just economic hardship, that was the decisive factor in support for Trump among white working-class voters," he added.
Entertainment / Celebrity

by Staff reporter

Hollywood-based Zimbabwean actress Sibongile "Sibo" Mlambo starred in the movie, Message From the King that was released last week.Sibo, who hogged the limelight last year when she was picked as the lead actress in Universal Pictures' third sequel of Honey, played the role of Bianca who "disappears" after she moves to Los Angeles.Her brother, South African Jacob King, played by Chadwick Boseman, who will feature in Black Panther alongside Zimbabwean star Danai Gurira, moves to Los Angeles desperate to find Bianca and establish what happened to her.Message from the King, which is Belgian Fabrice Du Welz's first English-language feature, also featured top actors like Luke Evans, Teresa Palmer and Alfred MolinaSibo, who is currently in Canada on a Netflix assignment, is hopeful her role in Message From the King will take her acting career a notch up."Message From the King was the first movie I worked on in Los Angeles and that was two years ago in 2015."I was in a new environment and I was nervous but excited. I hope it does take my career to the next level," she told the Daily News.Interestingly, when she joined the Message From the King set in 2015, Sibo didn't realise that Boseman  her brother in the movie  was an actor on the rise."I hadn't worked with Boseman before and I didn't know who he was. He had just been announced as Black Panther and I didn't know how big a deal that was either. To me he was a polite, talented actor," she said.Though she enjoyed being Bianca in Message From the King, Sibo is not convinced that it is her best role to date."I think it would be my role on Teen Wolf (a forthcoming MTV series) which completely surprised me and became my dream role. It just hasn't come out yet so I can't say if it was my best role to date but I did thoroughly enjoy it," the rising Hollywood actress explained.Apart from Teen Wolf, Sibo will also be part of an upcoming crime thriller called Under the Silver Lake and forthcoming anthology thriller titled Dark/Web.Sibo, who has featured in movies such as Black Sails and Last Face, harbours big dreams."In the next five years I will be producing shows for television and have a leading role on a show which means I will be loaded and travelling around the world," she boldly predicted.The success that is coming thick and fast to her in Hollywood appears not to have made her forget her roots."I am Ndau and come from Mt. Selinda in Chipinge. I am from a family which is very rooted in the arts."I have a twin brother called Bongani who is an extremely talented cinematographer and one of my older sisters, Nomsa, was Tamari in the 1995 Zimbabwean movie Everyone's Child and my other sister, Busi, was Miss Zim-USA," Sibo said.
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The next technological evolution of plastics into lighter, stronger materials will soon call Houston home, thanks to expansions from petrochemical giants such as LyondellBasell and other companies.

LyondellBasell, headquartered in Houston, is starting construction Monday on its $700 million plant in La Porte to churn out thinner, more durable and less environmentally harmful versions of the world's most common plastic, polyethylene. The facility should come online in 2019.

Similarly, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Phillips Chemical and Dow Chemical are building modern plastics expansions near Houston in Mont Belvieu, Old Ocean and Freeport, respectively, although their technologies and types of polyethylene vary.

They're all capitalizing on Texas' cheap and abundant shale natural gas, which contains ethane, the natural gas liquid that provides the feedstock for the chemical ethylene. Ethylene, the primary building block of most plastics, is converted into pellet form and either consumed domestically or exported to demand in Asia and Europe.

LyondellBasell's chief executive, Bob Patel, said its upcoming "Hyperzone" polyethylene is intended to stand out from the pack of commodity plastics, which are all essentially the same and compete on price alone. LyondellBasell is betting that customers will pay a little more and save money in the long run by buying and using less of it because it's lighter and stronger.

The added bonus is that using less plastic is better for the environment, he noted.

"It's unique because it's new technology," Patel said. "It'll really change the landscape in polyethylene."

But competitors such as Exxon Mobil are making similar promises for their versions of lighter, stronger plastics. So it's yet to be determined who will win in the marketplace.

LyondellBasell developed its latest plastics technology over seven or eight years in Italy and then pilot-tested it in Germany. Additional product testing was conducted in Cincinnati before the company started construction on the La Porte manufacturing plant. La Porte offers easy access to LyondellBasell's recent ethylene expansions in La Porte, Channelview and Corpus Christi as well as proximity to the Houston Ship Channel, railroads and highways.

LyondellBasell will churn out a type of high-density polyethylene for products that can't crack easily. The include piping, industrial bulk containers, fuel tanks, and packaging for household cleaning agents such as bleach and detergents. The plastic is also used to package agricultural fertilizers, as well as food and drink packaging such as milk jugs.

The company's strategy is to offer better materials that its customers can use with their existing manufacturing technology. Patel calls it the "best of both worlds" - the customers get a very durable product without having to upgrade their facilities.

The La Porte plastics plant will employ 75 people once completed - not counting 1,000 temporary construction jobs - and churn out 1.1 billion pounds of polyethylene a year.

This project comes as part of LyondellBasell's estimated $4 billion investment in the Texas Gulf Coast in the last few years.

The next big step will come by the end of September, Patel said, when LyondellBasell makes a final decision on building its biggest project ever - a proposed plant in Channelview that would produce 900 million pounds of propylene oxide, as well as 2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol and its derivatives annually.

Propylene oxide is a chemical used to make everything from antifreeze to cosmetics.

Tertiary butyl alcohol is a byproduct used as a solvent to make chemicals and gasoline additives.
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State Sen. Carlos Uresti, a San Antonio Democrat, was indicted Tuesday along with three other individuals in two separate cases for bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and other charges in connection with his involvement in bankrupt frac-sand company FourWinds Logistics and public corruption in Reeves County.

Uresti, who was indicted on 13 different charges that carry more than 200 years in prison if found guilty on all counts, denied any wrongdoing.

The charges against me are groundless and I look forward to proving my innocence in a court of law at the appropriate time. I will enter a plea of not guilty and immediately return to work representing District 19, Uresti said in a statement.

Uresti, former FourWinds CEO Stanley Bates, 45, and consultant Gary L. Cain, 60, each face conspiracy and numerous other charges related to their work at FourWinds, a now-defunct oil-field services company accused of defrauding investors, according to the indictment that was unsealed Tuesday afternoon.

Three other FourWinds officials already have pleaded guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.

The indictment accuses Uresti, Bates and Cain of developing an investment Ponzi scheme to market hydraulic fracturing (fracking) sand for oil production, according to statement issued by the Justice Department.

The San Antonio Express-News published an in-depth investigation into FourWinds and accusations of fraud against Uresti and Bates in August.

Cain didnt return a call for comment after normal business hours, Bates couldnt be located for comment and Bates defense attorney didnt return a call for comment after normal business hours.

Uresti, 53, and Lubbock businessman Vernon C. Farthing III, 44, are accused in a separate indictment of conspiring with others from January 2006 through September 2016 to pay and accept bribes to secure a Reeves County Correctional Center medical services contract for Farthings company.

Farthing couldnt immediately be reached for comment after normal business hours.

That indictment accuses Farthing of paying Uresti $10,000 a month as a consultant. Half of that amount allegedly went to a Reeves County Judge Jimmy Galindo for his support and vote to award the contract to Farthings company, the indictment says. Galindo, who served as county judge from 1995 to 2006, only is identified as a co-conspirator.

The case is being prosecuted by the Justice Departments public corruption task force. Federal prosecutors, led by U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr., and FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs have given Uresti a chance to turn himself in.

Uresti, Bates and Cain are scheduled to make an initial appearance this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad in San Antonio.

Sen. Urestis indictment comes as no surprise, said Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group in Austin. He gave an unsophisticated investor insane advice.

Uresti advised a legal client of his to take $900,000 she received from a wrongful death case and invest it in a risky startup he worked for, the Express-News has previously reported.

Why did he do that, if not to line his own pockets? Wheat asked.

That investor, described as Victim 1 in the indictment, was Denise Cantu of Harlingen.

She was a legal client he helped in a personal-injury case following the 2010 death of two of her children, the Express-News previously reported. He suggested she go see Bates; Uresti later received a $27,000 commission on her $900,000 investment with FourWinds.

Uresti previously told the Express-News that he disclosed the commission to Cantu and used Turning Point to collect it from FourWinds.

According to the indictment, Uresti told Victim 1 that her investment would obtain a better return with Four Winds than with her current investments.

Cantu lost most of the money.

Uresti, who isnt a registered securities broker, said he consulted with legal counsel who told him he didnt need to register with the Texas State Securities Board. He also wasnt registered as a broker with the Securities and Exchange Commission

Uresti is the second Democratic state lawmaker to be indicted during this legislative session.

In January, a state grand jury indicted state Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin on 13 felony counts of tampering with a government record and two misdemeanor counts of abuse and official capacity. She has said she is innocent.

Urestis indictment comes more than three months after agents from the FBI and IRS raided his San Antonio offices.

At the time, Uresti said the search was part of a broad investigation of FourWinds. But law enforcement sources told the Express-News that another target of the raid was his consulting firm, Turning Point Strategies.

We have a responsibility to the families we represent to be effective and anytime there are news stories about corruption and wiretaps floating around, it hurts your effectiveness, said state Rep. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat. It is unfortunate that Uresti has found himself in this position.

Uresti has been the cornerstone of a mini-political dynasty on the South Side. He was re-elected to the Senate for a third time in November.

Prior to his election to the Senate in 2006, Uresti was the state representative for House District 118 for nine years. That seat now is occupied by his brother Tomas Uresti. The Express-News last month reported that the FBI tapped Tomas Urestis cellphone, according to a letter notifying the recipient that a wiretap was used to eavesdrop on his conversations.

At the time of the wiretap, Tomas Uresti was a Harlandale ISD board trustee running for the House seat.

Another brother, Albert Uresti, is the Bexar County tax assessor-collector.

FourWinds went bankrupt in 2015 with more than $14 million in debt. Some investors accused Bates of wasting their money on personal expenses, expensive gifts, exotic car rentals and a wild lifestyle. Those investors claim Bates lured them, in part, by presenting allegedly forged bank documents and financial statements that vastly inflated the companys cash holdings and receivables. Bates has disputed the allegations.

Uresti had multiple roles with FourWinds. He provided legal services and served as outside counsel for the company for four or five months at the end of 2014. He said that ended prior to the 2015 legislative session.

He had a 1 percent ownership interest in FourWinds and was promised a 10 percent cut of the profits from any investments he brought in, the indictment states. His share of the profits would increase to 20 percent for any subsequent investments from those initial investors.

The indictment accuses Uresti and Bates of using the senators position in sales pitches to investors. The indictment says Uresti brought in four investors and charges him with illegally selling securities. None of the investors was named.

I was not selling a security, Uresti said in an August interview.

He faces one count of being an unregistered securities broker and two counts of securities fraud. He also has been charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of engaging in monetary transactions with property derived from specified unlawful activity, among other charges.

The indictment says Uresti, Bates and Cain never invested any of their own money in FourWinds.

But Uresti allegedly transferred a portion of three victims money from his law firms trust account to FourWinds bank account. That money then was mixed with other funds that were used to pay a different investor, which is why prosecutors describe it as a Ponzi scheme.

Cain was brought on to help find funding for FourWinds' operations in September 2014, just two months after being cleared in an unrelated criminal trial.

In that case, he was accused of defrauding managed-cloud company Rackspace Hosting Inc. out of millions of dollars in a land scheme he orchestrated. He was represented by Nico LaHood, who was elected Bexar County district attorney in November 2014.

Testifying at a 2015 hearing in his personal bankruptcy case, Bates said he was introduced to Cain by Uresti but that LaHood recommended that FourWinds hire Cain as a consultant. Uresti also has represented Cain in a divorce case.

In the other indictment, Farthing is identified as the president of a company that provided medical services to prison inmates. In 2006, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Reeves County a contract to house federal inmates at the countys detention facility. The Reeves County Commissioners Court awarded Farthings company a contract to provide services at the facility. Galindo presided over the vote.

Galindo helped Farthings company negotiate, price and secure the contract from Reeves County, the indictment charges. In exchange, Farthing agreed to hire Uresti as a consultant and pay him $10,000 a month, the document says.

Uresti acted as a conduit for the payments from Farthings Company and Farthing to Galindo, the indictment states. Uresti kept half the money and other half he sent to Galindo over about a 10-year period ending last September. From some of the payments to Galindo, Uresti deducted about $250 to $500 for office rent, even though Galindo never rented office space from Uresti, the filing adds.

The indictment says Uresti used Turning Point Strategies, his consulting firm, and his law firms trust and operating accounts to pay Galindo and his companies and to hide and cover-up this conspiracy.

Elena Mejia-Lutz contributed to this article.
If you're going to do illegal drugs, it's probably best to avoid suspected drug houses staked out by the police.

A Florida woman learned that lesson the hard way after she was arrested for possessing methamphetamine.
A man in custody for his alleged role in a 2015 fatal robbery linked to narcotics trafficking now is also accused of being involved with another, apparently unrelated killing.

On Friday, Angel Lagos-Martinez, 20, was charged with murder for the Jan. 14, 2017 fatal shooting of Leonidas Ayesta-Carias, 29.

On that day, Ayesta-Carias was with his wife and two sons, ages 7 and 10, when he pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 700 block of Richcrest Drive in north Harris County.

Harris County sheriff's deputies said Lagos-Martinez ran up to the car and fired a single shot from a pistol before fleeing the scene. Ayesta-Carias was struck in the head and later died at Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Sheriff's deputies said physical evidence and accounts from eyewitnesses tied him to the scene. They did not release information about a possible motive.

In early March 2017, Lagos-Martinez was questioned by sheriff's detectives because he was a known associate of a man wounded during an Aug. 14, 2015 gun battle at a home in the 7200 block of Dew Mist Lane in northwest Harris County.

The resident, Osorio Gonzalez, died from multiple gunshot wounds, according to Harris County criminal records. One of the accused gunmen, Pedro Mejia, 32, was wounded in the shootout, officials said.

During his March 9, 2017 questioning, Lagos-Martinez admitted being at the scene of the slaying on Dew Mist Lane. He told detectives they were looking for a cache of narcotics that Gonzalez reportedly had at his home. After the robbery and fatal shooting, Lagos-Martinez drove the wounded Pedro Mejia to the hospital.

He was arrested on April 7, 2017 and charged with capital murder for the 2015 robbery. He is being held without bond.
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When Seth Haynes was in the hospital after a car hit him as he rode his bicycle on W. Lake Houston Parkway in Kingwood on Feb. 5, people asked him what he was most looking forward to about returning home.

"The first thing he would say was, 'To see my brothers,'" said Tracy Melim, Haynes' mother. "And the second thing was, 'To see my friends.'"

The Creekwood Middle School student sustained severe injuries from the accident, including a traumatic spinal injury. Among the treatments Haynes has undergone for his injuries was rehabilitation at the Shriner's Hospital in Chicago.

After spending months away from his life in Kingwood, Haynes has returned home. He arrived in Kingwood Friday night, May 12, to a community of friends.

"They got a crew together and a bunch of kids decorated our whole yard," Melim said. "They put glow everything, so when we pulled up last night, it was just amazing. This is what he's been waiting for."

The very next day, community members, students and staff convened at Creekwood Middle School on a Saturday for a Welcome Home celebration in honor of Haynes' return to Kingwood.

In a room of loved ones and hand-made notes of encouragement lining the windows, Haynes was encircled by a crowd of the friends he had been looking forward to seeing again.

"Our welcome home theme is 'Helping Hands Heal Hearts,'" said Ken Webster, Creekwood Middle School seventh-grade assistant principal. "We have decorated the main office and commons - not just party decorations but deeply rooted words of encouragement."

Creekwood staff traced their hands and wrote inspirational messages to Haynes. The hands served as leaves on a paper tree in the main office.

Seventh-grade students did a similar project, writing messages of encouragement on paper cutouts of outstretched arms used to decorate the commons.

The hands will be put in a scrapbook and given to Haynes as a reminder of how much he is loved at Creekwood Middle School.

"This is wonderful," Melim said. "He's been gone from his friends for about three months, far away, and at this age they're everything. So, this is a big deal. I really honestly don't have the words for what they've done. This is just kind of the tip of the iceberg of what they've done throughout this whole experience."

Support from the community continues pouring in as Chick-Fil-A at 4594 Kingwood Drive agreed to host a Welcome Home Fundraiser for Haynes on Friday, May 19, from 4 to 7 p.m. A quarter of sales from Seth's supporters will be donated to his family to help with medical expenses.
News / Local

by Ndou Paul

Still bitter





I can't dance with the devil



Who made my grandpa to bury grandma alive



They have buried our fortunes with the grand plan



And made us to dance on top of the grave



From sunset up until five



I hate the number five



It brought to existence the fifth brigade



Which brought filth to people without a single grenade?



I can't entrust my life with the very people who roasted my father and mother alive



Under my watch



Gukurahundi is not worth my silenceI can't dance with the devilWho made my grandpa to bury grandma aliveThey have buried our fortunes with the grand planAnd made us to dance on top of the graveFrom sunset up until fiveI hate the number fiveIt brought to existence the fifth brigadeWhich brought filth to people without a single grenade?I can't entrust my life with the very people who roasted my father and mother aliveUnder my watch I was on guard when my cousin and friends



Were consumed by fire in a hut



Were we sat around the fire while granny shared stories from the heart



Lo, memories are engraved in my heart



Of black jesus raping my twin sister



While my father watched helplessly



I have no respect for man without knee breeches



And those from the East



Thus when I speak out



They term it profanity



But when they killed my people



They said it was a time of insanity



As long as my cries are formidable



Their sins are unforgivable. I was on guard when my cousin and friendsWere consumed by fire in a hutWere we sat around the fire while granny shared stories from the heartLo, memories are engraved in my heartOf black jesus raping my twin sisterWhile my father watched helplesslyI have no respect for man without knee breechesAnd those from the EastThus when I speak outThey term it profanityBut when they killed my peopleThey said it was a time of insanityAs long as my cries are formidableTheir sins are unforgivable.

Description:

A 19-year-old Bulawayo poet, Benedict A Ncube, who claims to be an indirect victim of Gukurahundi genocide has penned poems on President Mugabe's moment of madness.Ncube, a university student, hails from emaguswini aseMzola eLupane but grew up in the City of Kings, koBulawayo.In one of his poems the writer says "...as long as my cries are formidable, their sins are unforgivable."He told Bulawayo24.com that he has found it difficult to get his work published since he writes about the Gukurahundi genocide.Ncube said: "I write about Gukurahundi so publishers are not interested in working with me."Below is one of Ncube's poems 'Still bitter'.Still bitter is a poem of protest that calls for the justification and proper treatment of gukurahundi.My father lost his job in the army and my mother also lost her job as a teacher as she was accused of hosting dissidents. My family was displaced and it still remains."The above poem will be featured on my book titled 'Two decades in prison' although the title is still subject to change," said.
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Many of Americans planning their summer travel are counting on taking more long-weekend trips than they did last year.

The Travelzoo Summer 2017 Travel Trends Survey reveals that Americans are opting for more frequent shorter trips and less week-long vacations.

>>Taking a long weekend away? Find some unique Texas road trip inspiration in the gallery above.

The study also showed that travelers from the U.S. are even willing to plan a long-weekend trip to go as far away as Europe. Although we're guessing the majority of those respondents might be from the northeast, where a flight to Italy is closer than it is from Texas.

"More than 65 percent of respondents would travel to Europe for a weekend if the airfare was $500 or less," the study showed.

WHERE TO STOP ALONG THE WAY: Best places to eat on a Texas road trip (updated)

"Long weekend trips are in, and the good news is that there are more options now with lower fares to Europe and the increasing availability of last-minute deals," Mike Stitt, Travelzoo's President of North America said. "Even with the ongoing headlines about safety and security, Americans are still eager to get out of town this summer."

SWEET GETAWAYS: Romantic travel destinations in Texas

Other interesting notes from the survey:

- Roughly 40 percent of people traveling more than five hours away swap the car for a plane ride.

- Nearly 60 percent of Americans "will travel domestically for their primary vacation this year."

- About 85 percent of long-weekend travelers say they hit the road to visit friends and family.

- Most travelers don't take advantage of national holidays when planning their shorter trips.

- Most Americans who travel for work are adding time before or after their trips for "bleisure" time.

"It's a known fact that Americans don't use all of their vacation time. But it's encouraging to see Americans' increasing interest in long weekend trips, whether that means combining business and leisure or a quick jaunt to Europe, Stitt said. "This trend could ultimately mean more trips and more travel experiences overall for American travelers."
Memorial Villages Police Department

The Memorial Villages Police Department is seeking the public's help in locating a pair of suspected car burglars.

About 2 a.m. Friday, May 12, two suspects were captured on surveillance video attempting to and entering unlocked vehicles on Fidela and Mayerling. The male suspects were carrying umbrellas and one apparently has on a backpack.
Nineteen Katy Independent School District campuses were named as an Honor Roll school by the Educational Results Partnership and the Institute for Productivity in Education.

Elementary schools are: Bonnie Holland, Fred & Patti Shafer, Hazel S. Pattison, James E. Randolph, Keiko Davidson, Michael L. Griffin, Odessa Kilpatrick, Roosevelt Alexander, Stan C. & Patsy Stanley, Tom Wilson and WoodCreek.

Junior highs recognized are: Beckendorff, Cinco Ranch, Garland McMeans, Rodger & Ellen Beck, Seven Lakes and WoodCreek.

High schools on the list are Seven Lakes and Tompkins.

The 2016 Honor Roll recognizes public elementary, middle and high schools that demonstrate consistently high levels of student academic achievement, improvement in student outcomes over time and a closing of the achievement gaps. For high schools, Honor Roll recognition includes college readiness. This year, the Texas Honor Roll recognized 727 high performing, higher poverty schools that are distinguished for their academic achievement and for closing achievement gaps.

Comptroller recognizes district for transparency

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has recognized the Katy ISD Financial Services Department for its efforts to achieve specific transparency goals through the Transparency Stars program. Katy ISD received a star in the area of Traditional Finances which recognizes entities for their outstanding efforts in making their spending and revenue transparent and easily accessible to the public.

"By providing meaningful financial data in addition to visual tools and analysis of its revenues and expenditures, Katy ISD's Financial Services Department has shown a true commitment to Texas taxpayers. This effort achieves the goals set by my office's Transparency Stars program," Hegar said.
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump's decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

"This is code-word information," said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies."

The revelation comes as the president faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump's subsequent admission that his decision was driven by "this Russia thing" was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.

One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak - a key figure in earlier Russia controversies - into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

For almost anyone in government, discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

White House officials involved in the meeting said Trump discussed only shared concerns about terrorism.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."

McMaster reiterated his statement in a subsequent appearance at the White House on Monday and described the Washington Post story as "false," but did not take any questions.

In their statements, White House officials emphasized that Trump had not discussed specific intelligence sources and methods, rather than addressing whether he had disclosed information drawn from sensitive sources.

The CIA declined to comment, and the NSA did not respond to requests for comment.

But officials expressed concern about Trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States' and its allies' ability to detect future threats.

"It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials. "Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

The Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

"Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling," said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia's presence in Syria. Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and perhaps disrupting it.

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad.

"Russia could identify our sources or techniques," the senior U.S. official said.

A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."

At a more fundamental level, the information wasn't the United States' to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments - and even individual agencies - are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated, even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington's inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

"If that partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship," the U.S. official said.

Trump also described measures the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria, as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.

The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.

Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. "Can you believe the world we live in today?" he said, according to one official. "Isn't it crazy?"

Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.

A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.

Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout. Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, the services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.

One of Bossert's subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

White House officials defended Trump. "This story is false," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

But officials could not explain why staff members nevertheless felt it necessary to alert the CIA and the NSA.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he would rather comment on the revelations in the Post story after "I know a little bit more about it," but added: "Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening. And the shame of it is, there's a really good national security team in place."

Corker also said, "The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes - it's creates a worrisome environment."

Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian prime minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for seemingly lax attention to security at his Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders, but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points - and often ignores those.

"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it, and that has big downsides," the second former official said. "Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."

Lavrov's reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.

Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and his misleading statements about them. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI's Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak, despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

"I'm sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details" he gleaned from Trump, said the former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.

The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.

"Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria," the summary said. The president also "raised Ukraine" and "emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia."

- - -

The Washington Post's Julie Tate and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
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The ravages of crystal methamphetamine go beyond headlines of arrests this month in the Houston area and around the nation.

 A New Caney man is in jail after Montgomery County deputies say he drove around with meth and a small child in his vehicle on Sunday, May 14, in Porter.

 On May 12, Bryan police arrested a Texas man asleep in his car outside a motel. As officers hauled him to the patrol car, the man reportedly spit out a small glass vial containing 2.6 grams of meth.

 In another child-related case, Indiana authorities arrested a grandmother, mother and a man on May 10 after a 2-year-old girl tested positive for meth. Child Protective Services also removed a 4-year-old from the home.

 On the same day, May 10, police caught a San Antonio woman allegedly trying to smuggle 18 pounds of meth into the U.S. from Mexico.

Beyond legal problems, meth and other stimulants take a toll on a person's body, consuming muscle tone and facial fat and creating a "hollowed-out appearance," according to top sources like the group Rehabs.com.

(Story continues below ...)

The group notes that "Meth Mouth" is the result of dissolving tooth enamel, shrinking blood vessels in the gums and teeth, and typically neglected oral hygiene.

Obsessive skin-picking often causes faces to be covered in sores, "the result of a common sensory hallucination of bugs crawling beneath the skin," the group notes. Amid long periods without eating, the body begins consuming muscle tissue and facial fat.

Another group, the nonprofit Foundation for a Drug-Free World, notes that meth and crystal meth create a false sense of well-being and energy, followed by a severe "crash" or physical and mental breakdown after the effects wear off.

The group stresses that other serious effects can include insomnia, hallucinations and sometimes convulsions that can be fatal. Meth can cause irreversible long-term harm, including increased blood pressure, damaged blood vessels in the brain, and liver, kidney and lung damage.

"The combination of skin issues, facial fat and muscle loss, hygiene neglect and increased oral decay lead to the appearance of exaggerated aging," Rehab.com says. "Sometimes shockingly so."

Scroll through the slides above to see before-and-after effects of drug abuse.
Investigators are concerned that more women in Washington could be victims of the "Sleeper Creeper" case where a man allegedly broke into homes in the middle of the night and took pictures of women's feet.

Mason County Police arrested 22-year-old Chase Garner for allegedly sneaking into the bedrooms of at least six women and taking pictures while they were sleeping, KIRO-TV reported.
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A 25-year-old Figtree man who tracked and raped his mother's 67 year-old drunken friend while she was coming from a beer drink, was on Friday sentenced to 14 years in jail.Smile Zikhali of Ezihwabeni village was convicted on his own plea of guilty to rape by Bulawayo regional magistrate Mr Crispen Mberewere. He will serve an effective 10 years in jail after four years were suspended for five years on condition that he does not within that period commit a similar crime.In passing the sentence, Mr Mberewere, took into account the fact that Zikhali was a youthful first offender who did not waste the court's time by pleading guilty."Rape is a serious offence which is prevalent these days. You humiliated a 67 year-old woman by undressing and raping her and it is clearly unacceptable.Drinking beer should not be used as an excuse to commit crime," said the magistrate.He said Zikhali's conduct was deplorable and unacceptable."I am sending you to jail so that you have time to reflect on your conduct and come out a reformed and better person," ruled the magistrate.Prosecuting, Mr Simbarashe Manyiwa said on May 9 this year, Zikhali and the complainant were drinking beer together at Ntenjani Business Centre in Figtree. The court heard that at around 7PM, the complainant left the pub and proceeded to her home leaving Zikhali behind."Zikhali later left the business centre and followed the complainant. He stalked her as she walked along footpaths and caught up with her as she was about to reach her home," said Mr Manyiwa.Zikhali grabbed the old woman by her neck and dragged her to a nearby bush where the two wrestled. The court heard that Zikhali overpowered the victim and forced her to lie on the ground."He removed her panties and raped her once. The complainant reported the matter to the police leading to Zikhali's arrest. On being asked why he committed the offence, Zikhali, a single father of two, said he was drunk and did not know what transpired.
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A generation-wide obsession with avocados is apparently what stands between millennials and home ownership, according to one property mogul.

Australian developer Tim Gurner, who is 35 and worth half a billion dollars, chastised the youths of the world on a recent episode of Australia's "60 Minutes."

"When I was buying my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for 19 bucks and four coffees at $4 each," he said.

"I think until this generation realizes that the people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property ladder [they won't get ahead]," Gurner added.

"You might have to buy an investment property first, you might have to share with mum and dad, you might have to buy with a friend, but you've got to get your foot in the door and you've got to slowly get up the ladder."

Gurner began his career in property development when he was given $34,000 by his grandfather at age 19.

"[Millennials] want to eat out every day, they want to travel to Europe every year," Gurner told "60 Minutes." "This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that's normal. Thinking that owning a Bentley is normal, that owning a BMW is normal."

A study by HSBC found that the United States has a millennial home ownership rate of 35 percent. Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia all have lower rates, putting the U.S. about in the middle of the pack.

Sixty-nine percent of the 9,000 millennials in nine countries surveyed said they did not have enough money for a deposit.

HSBC did not follow up with questions about whether their average avocado consumption was to blame.
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Thursday marks the 64-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Brown vs Board of Education.

On May 17, 1954, the justices' 9-0 ruling argued that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and ended the long-standing practice of barring blacks from attending white schools.

Texas was not quick to adapt. In 1956, several Texas lawmakers signed the "Southern Manifesto," a document signed by roughly 100 politicians condemning the Supreme Court's ruling.

In 1957, the Texas Legislature passed laws encouraging school districts to resist orders of desegregation.

TED CRUZ: U.S. should 'undoubtedly' look to Israel as border security example

Most notably, Mansfield, a small town close to Dallas, made national headlines when an angry mob of 300 to 400 whites prevented the enrollment of three black high school students.

Protesters attacked onlookers, threatened the town's sheriff and hanged three black effigies, presumably representing the three black students who were denied enrollment.

Incredibly, Texas Gov. Robert Allan Shivers supported the violent demonstrations and called them an "orderly protest" and even sent the Texas Rangers to prevent desegregation.

Shivers blamed the turmoil on "paid agitators" brought on by the "premature and unwise efforts" (a lawsuit) by the NAACP.

DISTURBING: Texas police receive training from anti-Islam ex-FBI agent

Like many other Texas school districts, the Mansfield school district eventually desegregated in 1965 when the federal government threatened to withdraw funding for segregated schools.

Click through to view historical photos of segregation, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement in Texas.
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It seems like treasure hunts only get better with age.

ABC 13 recently reported a surge of interest in the hunt for a 35-year-old treasure buried in Houston.

The quest for the buried treasure began in 1981 when author Byron Preiss published a fantasy novel titled "The Secret." To help promote the book's marketing, he buried 12 casques of treasure throughout the United States and created cryptic drawings and poems to help readers find the loot.

The "treasures" are ceramic artifacts encased in Plexiglas. If found, Preiss would reward the treasure hunter with one of the twelve jewels set aside for the treasure hunt. The Chicago Tribune reported that all twelve gems had a value of $13,000.

YIKES: Diver thought he found treasure, but the box sent his swim south

So far, only two of the ceramic treasures have been found in the cities of Cleveland and Chicago. Unfortunately, Preiss died in a car accident in 2005.

Two weeks before Preiss' death, a treasure hunter emailed the fantasy author a panoramic photo of a specific area of Hermann Park asking him if he was close to the buried treasure. Preiss responded, "It would not be a waste of time to dig there."

GALVESTON LOOT: Texas man uses metal detector, makes stunning discovery

A website focused on discovering the treasures throughout the U.S. claims that Houston's casque "was almost certainly buried on the northwest edge of McGovern Lake in Hermann Park" and despite major renovations, "there is still a chance that the casque may be intact although the hiding spot has now been covered by a path."

Click through above to see a collection of Houston urban myths and legends.
A Killeen kindergarten teacher has been charged with rape after allegations of sexual assault involving a student were uncovered this week.

Thomas Lloyd Cannon, 41, was arrested and charged on Friday afternoon with the aggravated sexual assault of a child. He is a teacher at Iduma Elementary School.

PREVIOUS: Ex-Texas kindergarten teacher had sex with 4 high school students, 2 at the same time

KDH News in Killeen reported on Monday that a Killeen Police Department affidavit states the victim is a six-year-old girl. She told her grandmother on May 10 that the teacher had done "nasty things to me and my friend" at the school, according to the affidavit.

According to reports Killeen ISD issued a statement late Friday saying Cannon had been removed from the classroom, pending a full investigation. Parents of students in Cannon's classroom were called personally and made aware of the news. All parents at the school were later notified via phone call.

RELATED: Houston-area teachers that lost their license due to sex scandals

"The safety of our students is always our highest priority at Iduma Elementary and across KISD and we take their safety very seriously," the KISD release said. "We strongly condemn the alleged misconduct and will never allow any teacher or other KISD employee to behave inappropriately with students. If the allegations of misconduct in this case are true, we will support the strongest possible action against the teacher."

Cannon is currently being held on $500,000 bond in Bell County. He could face up to 99 years in a Texas prison if he is convicted.
North Texas law enforcement officials arrested 15 men accused of seeking out sex with minors online.

The Collin County Sheriff's Office collaborated with a several other law enforcement agencies in "Operation Medusa," a week-long program that wrapped up this week.

The operation targeted suspects using the internet to sexually exploit children, officials said in a news release.

RELATED: 5 arrested in Central Texas online child sex sting operation during March

A total of 15 men were arrested and charged with crimes such as the promotion of child pornography and online solicitation of a minor.

Officials also seized hard drives, which they believe could lead to more arrests in the case.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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Months after being convicted on prostitution charges a pimp from Houston has been sentenced in a St. Louis court.

Thomas Thadeus "Enzo" Szczerba, 33, was found guilty in February in U.S. District Court in St. Louis on one conspiracy charge and three other charges of aiding prostitution. He will now serve nearly 12 years in prison on those four charges, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He was sentenced on Monday.
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On Monday night, onlookers near the entrance of Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. witnessed a large projected message reading "Pay Trump bribes here."

Artist and filmmaker Robin Bell took credit for the projection as well as others displayed on the building's facade, including "Emoluments Welcome  Open 24 Hours" and "Experts Agree: Trump Is a Pig."

Some of the projections featured flags from China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. One projection included the entire text of the Emoluments Clause, a constitutional clause that prohibits government employees from receiving gifts or emoluments.

HOUSTON POLITICIAN: U.S. Rep. Green calls for Trump's impeachment

Since the hotel opened last year, critics point to the building as a conflict of interest for Donald Trump, whose brand could benefit from the hotel's 15-minute drive to the White House.

"It's a pretty clear cut example of impropriety," Bell told CNN in a phone interview. "This is not like politics as usual. The rules and the lines are being pushed so far and this seemed to be so clear to me."

In January, nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or CREW filed a lawsuit alleging Trump violated the Constitution by failing to divest his interests from the Trump Organization. Trump International Hotel was mentioned in the suit.

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"We see a continuing pattern of abuses related to the Trump International Hotel, and it's important to keep a spotlight on the potential for abuse and corruption there," CREW executive director Noah Bookbinder told CNN, referencing reports of Trump cabinet members dining and staying at the hotel.

Click through above to see anti-Trump art created by Texas schoolchildren.
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by Staff reporter

Zanu-PF insiders say President Robert Mugabe is in a catch 22 as the warring ruling party's bigwigs gather in Harare tomorrow for an eagerly-awaited politburo meeting - which is set to deliberate on the political future of embattled national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere.This comes as the Daily News reported at the weekend that a probe team which was appointed by the wily nonagenarian - to investigate grave allegations against the under-fire Local Government minister - had completed its work.Ahead of tomorrow's crunch meeting - where Mugabe will require the biblical wisdom of Solomon to stem Zanu-PF's worsening, mindless bloodletting - Kasukuwere's backers have claimed that the Jacob Mudenda-led party probe has exonerated him on most of the allegations he faces, including charges that he was working to topple Mugabe from power.But, and as expected, Kasukuwere's enemies are insistent that the combative commissar is "a dead man walking", and that it is now "a matter of time" before he is relieved of his duties in the former liberation movement which is consumed by its ugly tribal, factional and succession wars.This is the unpleasant climate in which Mugabe will be called upon to make a decisive ruling, as Kasukuwere also comes face to face for the first time with many of the senior party officials - drawn from the party's 10 provinces - who supported calls for him to be relieved of his duties at both party and government levels.Well-placed sources confirmed to the Daily News yesterday that after Mudenda recently submitted his report to both Mugabe and Zanu-PF secretary for administration Ignatius Chombo, the Kasukuwere matter was now "ready for dissection" at tomorrow's politburo.The usually reliable insiders also claimed that Mudenda's report "cleared" Kasukuwere of the most serious charge that he has been facing - that of plotting to oust Mugabe from power."While there are other issues being raised in the petition from Mashonaland Central, the key issue was probably that of the setting up of parallel structures which the PCC (provincial coordinating committee) failed to identify, and which could prove to be his (Kasukuwere's) way out of trouble."Nevertheless, there are other issues regarding the Kitsiyatota Mine that might not please the president . . . It is now up to him (Mugabe) to decide," one of the insiders said.However, one of Kasukuwere's party rivals told the Daily News that there was "no way back" for him, as all the former liberation movement's provinces had sent a "clear message that he is no longer wanted"."Remember there are other provinces that have passed votes of no confidence against the PC. So, those cases ought to be heard again . . . it's game on."Masvingo, for example, has written a petition to say it no longer has confidence in his (Kasukuwere's) leadership, and we expect that to be considered."How can he therefore be exonerated on the basis of one province, when the calls for his dismissal are nationwide?" the senior party official said.University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Eldred Masunungure said while Mugabe would try to appease the Zanu-PF heavyweights pushing for Kasukuwere's sacking, the nonagenarian was unlikely to jettison him.Masunungure said Mugabe would, in the worst case scenario, re-deploy the Mount Darwin South legislator to another senior party portfolio."I doubt he (Kasukuwere) will be chopped . . . but the party may redeploy him to another portfolio and this will be a way of dealing with people's anger."It won't be another (former vice president Joice) Mujuru case . . . He will survive as a politburo member . . . because as you know, this issue is about factional fights. Mugabe regards Kasukuwere as an asset. He may have messed up, but he will survive the chop," Masunungure told the Daily News.Kasukuwere has been fighting to save his political career over the past few weeks, with angry Zanu-PF supporters pushing for his ouster from both his party and government positions, over a raft of charges which include allegedly plotting to topple Mugabe from power.Also under fire has been his brother Dickson Mafios, who is the acting Zanu-PF chairperson for Mashonaland Central.Apart from having to deal with Kasukuwere's saga, sources say Mugabe and his colleagues are also expected to deal with the contested results of the Masvingo provincial chairmanship election, which was comprehensively won by an alleged Team Lacoste candidate, Ezra Chadzamira - who walloped Mutero Masanganise who had pulled out from the mini internal poll days before polling, citing a number of irregularities.Masanganise told the Daily News yesterday that he was hopeful the politburo would "deal with" the burning Masvingo issue decisively."I am waiting for the politburo to deliberate on the issue. For me, there was no election done to choose the Masvingo chairperson," he said.Masanganise - who is linked to the embattled Generation 40 (G40) faction, which in turn is opposed to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa succeeding Mugabe - pulled out of the Masvingo poll re-run arguing that it was illegal.Mugabe and the politburo had nullified the results from the initial regional poll, which was won by Chadzamira - amid claims of irregularities, including people not voting in some districts.Chadzamira, who is the former regional chairman and an alleged Mnangagwa backer, crushed Masanganise then - polling 12 393 votes against his opponent's 4 888, amid the allegations of rigging and failure by people in Mwenezi and some parts of Chiredzi to vote.Sources have previously told the Daily News that Zanu-PF's ever-fluid factional and succession politics were changing gear again, as there was now an apparent realignment of alliances within the warring former liberation movement - as Mnangagwa's allies cranked up their assault on the G40.Observers have also consistently said Mugabe's failure to resolve Zanu-PF's thorny succession riddle is fuelling the ruling party's deadly infighting, which is worsening by the day.The 93-year-old has studiously refused to name a successor, insisting that the party's congress has that mandate: to choose a person of their own choice.Meanwhile, the Zanu-PF in Masvingo has suspended under-fire former provincial secretary for the commissariat Jappy Jaboon for five years after he was found guilty of causing divisions in the party among other charges.Jaboon was suspended from holding any party position for the next five years by the provincial disciplinary committee, which tried him in absentia after he failed to turn up for his hearing.The decision to suspend Jaboon now awaits final approval from the Politburo.Jaboon was last month suspended from his post as provincial secretary for the commissariat by the provincial co-ordinating committee after he was accused of creating parallel structures.The Bikita South legislator was also accused of fomenting divisions in the party and abusing his position together with failure to execute his duties among other charges.
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AUSTIN -- Supporters of a "second chances" bill allowing certain first-time, nonviolent offenders to seal their criminal records touted the measure's bipartisan appeal ahead of a key committee hearing Tuesday.

House Bill 3016 would allow people convicted of one low-level offense, which may include a DWI with a blood alcohol level under 0.14 or non-violent Class C misdemeanors, to request an order of nondisclosure from a court after certain waiting periods. Generally, such an order would seal their criminal records from public view, but the bill allows police to view the records when necessary.

The request for a nondisclosure order would have to be approved by a judge and the prosecutor on the case must be notified about it, according to the bill. The proposal also would give legal cover to the offender if they do not want to disclose their conviction on a job application.

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"Every level of the criminal justice system is involved to make sure the right people get them," said Greg Glod, a senior policy analyst at the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, the Republican from Mineola who wrote the Senate version, said he hoped the Senate Criminal Justice Committee will approve the bill Tuesday.

"When someone has proven to his neighbor that he has learned from the mistake he made, we should give them a chance to prove to us that they're ready to contribute again," he said. "This is a good example of how, in Texas especially, left and right can come together for good policy."

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The legislation expands on the so-called "second chances" measure lawmakers approved last session, which included Class A and Class B misdemeanors. HB 3016 has won unanimous approval from a bipartisan group of legislators and stakeholders, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

HB 3016, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston, overwhelmingly passed the House this month.

Scroll through the gallery above to see the key players and issues in the ongoing legislative session in Texas
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.
Opinion / Columnist

Moses Chamboko is a pro-democracy activist and interim Secretary General of Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE)  www.zunde.org ; info@zunde.org ; contact@zunde.org ; @zundezim

For the 2018 elections which are not very far, Zimbabwe needs nothing but an effective and genuine coalition guided by a shared vision, driven by common values, inspired by national aspirations and anchored on our proud and courageous history. There is nothing in between unless if we are preparing for another long season of shock, paralysis and despondency as happened in 2013. This must not be repeated.July 31st 2013 election came and went. Three months passed with dead silence from the main opposition. There was not even celebratory mood in the ZANU PF camp. It was like a village in mourning. Somebody had to come in and fill that vacuum. That's when and how a team of proactive Zimbabweans around the world came together to form Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE). Precisely, this was on 24 October 2013.At the centre of our vision was the coming together of genuine and progressive opposition movements into some kind of a united movement and confront ZANU PF as one. It is for this reason that we are signatories to both NERA and CODE, being among the very first movements to sign both agreements. We have come into opposition politics as a catalyst for genuine change, an impartial player that will never give up. In the last three years, we have been championing the idea of a grand coalition to the extent that we got ZANU PF worried, not that we care!Of late, there has been some notable effort towards the formation of an alliance or coalition of some sort. For political correctness, we prefer to call it a united movement. In the strongest of terms, ZUNDE condemns anybody who is working directly or indirectly towards derailing or frustrating the formation of an effective coalition in Zimbabwe.We are not asking anybody to abandon their identity, structures or members. We are like villagers at a funeral; let us put our differences aside, come together as one and give a decent send off to the deceased. Even family members with personal differences, when there is a death in the extended family, in African tradition, they come together and do whatever they can to make sure one of their own is afforded a decent burial. 2018 is that season where the entire opposition family needs to come together irrespective of our little differences. There is more that unites than divides us.However, some of us are deeply concerned to read and learn about some parallel or competing coalition deals that are now happening clandestinely in exclusionary and at times elitist manner. Some are done in top secrecy in the private offices of Harare, others are done on the beaches of Cape Town with others signed in private homes. All this would be plausible if the effort was synchronised and complementary, with the same national objective.We are gutted when we see what seems to be tussling for positions across the parties. We respect everybody in the opposition family but we reserve the right to disagree with some of the things happening now. Some of our key strengths are that we are consistent, we are genuine and we are not afraid to say the truth. We will speak up against self-serving interests and manoeuvres. This is not a power game of some sort. It is a rescue mission meant to extricate our nation from the current quagmire. Games are games and this certainly is not one of them!In November 2015, we distributed our coalition proposal to all opposition parties that were in existence by then. The simple but pragmatic proposal had a clear road map of the processes to be followed and the structures and systems to be put in place. At the core of our proposal was creation of what we called a Stakeholder Council, a broad, impartial, inclusive and advisory council composed of non-political and non-partisan actors. To us, this is the centre of the coalition universe.We did not see coalition as solely a product of political parties but other players including civil society in general, business leaders, war veterans, traditional leaders, farmers, students, unions, churches, vendors, workers etc. At the same time, we welcomed the entry into opposition politics by some "new" protagonists that had been persecuted and expelled from ZANU PF, cautiously though. We raised some red flags some of which seem to have been reasonably attended to.ZUNDE has significant Diaspora and global influence owing to its origin. We have experienced true and fake democracy around the world. We know the real difference between the two.Today, we raise our unwavering voice to the opposition again and say without fear or favour that the current path some of them have taken towards building a coalition has hallmarks of failure. Let us go back to the drawing board, reflect seriously on experiences of the past and dreams for the future. Let us try hard to do the right thing. Two opposing or competing blocs seem to be emerging, one on the left and another on the right. Some are simply oscillating between the two. The latest formation is Mass Opposition Movement (MOM), itself a metamorphosis or extension of Coalition of Democrats (CODE). On the other end of the spectrum, MDC-T has signed MoUs with NPP and MDC. We don't think ordinary Zimbabweans really know what that means or entails and yet they are the primary stakeholder in all this.Let us avoid and condemn opposing initiatives that are not only disastrous but self-defeating. We have started shouting at each other, fighting for imaginary positions and saying that if this or that person won't lead the coalition, we are not in. That is premature, childish and self-serving. Where are interests and aspirations of our real master in all this, the people?Before anybody talks about potions, let us have a collective agreement on what a united movement must achieve, what processes to follow, what systems and structures to put in place. Let us clearly define our objectives, deliverables and timeframes and take the same back to the people for endorsement. Signing secret pacts in Harare or Cape Town that exclude key stakeholders outside traditional political structures and leadership will not fly, it's doomed to fail. This is a national project that must be owned by the people and must be taken seriously at every level.Let us talk more about tasks and roles, not positions. Let us have and respect the basic understanding that not everyone can lead the coalition. The best and most suitable candidate must be given the task. Why is that so difficult to understand?If anybody is serious about the united opposition but does not know how to go about it, ZUNDE stands ready to provide the required guidance as we have done on many other issues before. Let us unlock the coalition conundrum now, for the better of our potentially great nation. And remember, we don't have time.
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Copiii cu nevoi speciale din Stefan Voda au conditii de reabilitare mai bune, datorita UE si Fundatiei Soros Moldova
Enservio Select was recently called in to determine the retail replacement value of a claimed Remington conversion rifle. The insured stated the claimed musket was built in 1812 by Remington Arms Co. and used in the Civil War (1861-1865) by a Union soldier who had made carvings in the wooden stock.

What is a conversion rifle, or rifled musket?

Early standard muskets were designed with a smoothbore barrel; meaning they lacked rifling grooves in the barrel that causes the bullet to spin. Far from todays standards, muskets are not accurate due to their lack of rifling. Due to this lack of precision, soldiers were not expected to shoot straight but rather to blindly deliver a mass of musket balls into enemy territory.

The musket was shipped back to Remington to be modified with the Maynard tape primer conversion, which enabled faster reloading. Early flintlock rifles misfired often and did not function well in poor weather. While percussion cap systems were more reliable, they were still slow to reload. The Maynard conversion proved successful in ideal conditions; however, in realistic field conditions with poor weather and moisture, it was ultimately unreliable, leading the converted rifles to be phased out by the Union army during the Civil War. Modifications may typically affect the value of an item, but not in this case.

Allegedly in pristine condition, the policyholder stated he spoke to a professional arms dealer prior to the loss who told him, sight unseen, the 1812 muzzle-loaded conversion rifle would be worth approximately $40,000 to $50,000.

The policyholder claimed the musket was purchased from an estate sale about 20 years prior. The claimant was unable to verify the sellers name or cite the price he had paid for the rifle. There were no images, invoice or supporting documentation presented.

The Enservio Select team did not have the benefit of personally examining the claimed item and relied on the information submitted at claim intake, as well as subsequent correspondence with the insured. The Select team dug through all of the insureds submitted images pertaining to the claim and located a photograph of the claimed rifle hanging on a fireplace mantel.

Based on the information provided, Enservio valued the claimed item as a Civil War Remington Maynard Tape Primer Conversion Musket with provenance to a Union solider.

Throughout the course of research conducted on vintage comparable firearms of like, kind and quality (LKQ) in the retail marketplace as well as in review of recent realized auction sales, the amount of $5,300 was determined to be a reasonable vintage retail replacement value as supported by a Heritage Auctions lot for a Model 1816 .69 Caliber percussion rifled musket with Remington Maynard Tape Conversion identified to Pvt. John W. Plummer, of the 114th Illinois Infantry, which sold in June 2013.

Paveza is an Antiques & Collectibles specialist at Enservio Select (www.enservio.com). He received his Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Science degrees and worked at the Art Institute of Chicago as a collection manager and research assistant for seven years. Paveza is a member of the Appraisers Society of America and has taken and passed the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. For more information visit http://www.enservio.com/products-services/select-for-specialty-valuation.
Historical records reveal the late Gov. Pat Brown misled voters about the cost of building the nations tallest dam, ignored recommendations to delay construction and dismissed allegations that substandard materials were used to build the ambitious project.

Sixty years before a damaged spillway at the Oroville Dam forced thousands of people to evacuate, Browns administration overcame labor strikes, worker deaths and other scandals to get Oroville built on time, The Sacramento Bee reports.

Oroville Dam is one of the anchors of the states water supply system. In February, two spillways at the 770-foot-tall dam began ripping away under unusually heavy rain and snowmelt, threatening to flood towns downstream. Nearly 200,000 people were given only an hours notice to escape.

The state got a handle on the crisis, and it is rushing to carry out hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs before the next rainy season.

The Bee said it didnt find anything in the historical records that directly foreshadowed the spillway troubles. But experts believe the mess was caused at least in part by design and construction problems decades ago.

It may come back to engineering hubris, and engineering hubris inevitably comes back to bite us in the butt in California, said Jeffrey Mount, a geologist and water expert at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Brown was bent on building a dam and the accompanying State Water Project to expand water deliveries to the parched southern half of California, state archives, oral history interviews and other documents reveal. He campaigned relentlessly and convinced the Legislature and then the voters to approve a $1.75 billion bond measure when the federal government couldnt help with funding.

He later acknowledged in an interview for an oral history project at the University of California, Berkeley that he and his advisers realized the projects true cost was probably around $2.5 billion, but they werent sure voters could handle such a number.

He believed cost didnt really matter given what was at stake. When advisers urged him to postpone construction because of cost issues, he reasoned that delay would only lead to higher costs.

You need water. Whatever it costs, you have to have it, he told the Berkeley interviewers.

The dams construction took five years and was rife with problems. Local historians say 34 men died building the dam and the surrounding infrastructure, workers went on numerous strikes, and in 1964 at least three state workers were fired for buying land near the dam site knowing theyd profit when the state bought it.

The biggest controversy came in 1964 when an Oroville newspaper published allegations that substandard materials were being used at the construction site. Brown called the story irresponsible and erroneous. State officials later wrote a report that said there was no evidence that the dam was designed or is being built in an unsafe manner.

J. David Rogers, an engineering expert and dam historian at the Missouri University of Science & Technology, said the main spillway apparently didnt get the same level of attention as the main dam. Top engineers and consultants were brought in from all over the world to ensure the bedrock was strong enough to support the dam. The spillways, however, were built on much more weathered rock that easily crumbled this winter, Rogers said.

After construction was completed in 1968, the dam and Lake Oroville played a critical role in Californias booming economic and population growth.

No other state ever attempted anything like this, Rogers said.

It was larger than any federal dam when it was built. It was the largest nonfederal public works project in world history. Nothing else out there was as big and as ambitious as the California Water Project.

For his part, Brown saw the Oroville Dam and the water project as chances to leave his personal legacy. I think its a monument to me, and Im very proud of it, he said.
Why Do Beautiful, Smart Women Date Stupid Guys?

Why Do Smart, Beautiful Women Settle For Dumber Guys?

The Dating Nerd is a shadowy figure whose whereabouts and identifying details remain unknown. What we do know is that he is really, really good at dating. Hes been on more dates than you can shake a lengthy bar tab at, and hes here to help the average guy step his dating game up a notch  or several.

The Question

Hi Dating Nerd,

I have been noticing a recent trend in the dating world. Why are women attracted to such unintelligent men? Do they get a sense of power out of it or is it a lark? I have a few friends who are not the sharpest tool in the shed but yet manage to get laid every night. The women, however are intelligent. I have spoken to many different women about this issue, and they think dating dumb men is really a turn-on. The women I have asked have such careers as doctors, lawyers, stock brokers, etc. My point is these women are not stupid. So what the hell is going on with this current dating trend? Please shine some light on it for me, because I refuse to dumb myself down for any person.

- Unappreciated Genius

The Answer

Hi Unappreciated Genius,

I get why youre confused. After all, intelligent men are inherently superior, right? Why would a woman want to date some dumb jock when she could date a guy who quotes Proust and understands the motion of molecules? Wouldnt she miss the scintillating debates? Wouldnt she get frustrated that she couldnt talk about her dissertation?

Well, not necessarily. See, theres a shaky assumption at the heart of your question, which is that smart men are inherently superior. And this is incorrect, for two reasons.

First reason: Women dont need men to provide intellectual stimulation. They can get that on their own. Look around you. If you hadnt noticed, women are now lawyers, doctors, marketing sharks, insurance executives, and captains, so to speak, of industry. Many, many smart women are occupying demanding roles in the information economy. Increasingly, women spend long workdays absorbing avalanches of data and issuing complicated recommendations.

And nobody  well, almost nobody  wants to keep their brain turned on all the time. If youre a smart woman with a high-powered job, its perfectly reasonable that youd want to hook up with an intellectually relaxing dude-bro, rather than an intellectually demanding guy like you.

RELATED: The Best Hookup Sites If You're Looking To Get Lucky

If this seems implausible, thats only because it runs counter to some of the most hoary old relationship stereotypes. Yknow, like the one about the 1950s husband figure who does a complicated job and comes home to a simple, loving wife. Or the one about the private equity fund genius who dates a slew of European models. Dating someone whos felicitous but a bit dim is not a new trend. It just seems more novel when the gender roles are switched up.

And if this doesnt seem fair, well  reader, look inside yourself for a second. Arent you attracted to the girl you met at the gym who isnt necessarily exceptional at trigonometry, but probably looks great on a dance floor, or, more to the point, a bedroom floor? Dont you find a certain kind of giggly, un-snobby femininity attractive? Dont lie to me, now. All nerds nurse crushes on cheerleaders. It doesnt seem right to judge women for having similar attractions.

The second, more important reason is this: A lot of smart guys really suck with women. As we all know, intelligence doesnt necessarily translate to emotional skills. Especially because a lot of intellectual dudes didnt necessarily get a positive social experience growing up. Many dorky, sweet men are just unpracticed in terms of how to flirt, or date. And then there are straight-up terrible smart dudes: condescending pseudo-intellectuals and bitter PhDs.

Surely, youve heard of the term mansplaining. Yknow, the thing where men pepper their co-ed conversations with explanations of extremely basic phenomena, as if the women they were talking to had never left their houses. Whatever you think of the word itself  whether or not you think it unfairly categorizes the male gender  it is a very real phenomenon. Lots of women are tired of having men lecture at them about whatever.

And usually I dont think it comes from a bad place. Men want to impress women. Were under the impression that knowledge itself is impressive. And it is often said to be a quality women want in men. So we get the unhelpful impulse to brandish it at random. Also, a main genre of dude conversation is the hours-long exchange of minutiae and trivia. Its not like mansplainers think, Well, its time to be sexist now... and then launch into their thing.

But those good (or at least benign) intentions dont change a thing. Mansplaining is still, at best, tiring. Every woman I know well is fed up with being on the receiving end of male rambling. Theyve all practiced the pained but polite facial expression required when some software engineer goes on a monologue about how Radioheads last few albums were unappreciated. And maybe youve never done such a thing, ever. Maybe it isnt you. But you cant blame women for being wary of self-styled intellectuals.

After all, compare that to your friendly gym-rat type of guy. Hes chill, easygoing, and doesnt feel the need to speak in paragraphs about his existential crises. If he has a philosophy, its probably along the lines of stay hungry, or be nice to people. Also, he was probably popular in high school, and is thus comfortable in conversation, self-assured, fond of making compliments, and pretty good in bed. His reflex isnt to tell women all about seismology. He just says dumb sh*t to get a laugh. And it works.

Everything Ive said so far has been a condemnation of smart dudes. Even if you agree with me, I still havent given you any usable advice. But now I will do that. You might not like it, though. My advice is this: Learn from the dumb dudes.

By that I dont mean suppress your intellect, or act stupid. What I mean is, change up your game a little. Upon meeting a lovely woman, is your first instinct to say something profound about a giant novel you just read? Well, maybe dont do that. Instead, ask her some questions about herself. Say something silly. Keep it light. Dont make the interaction laborious.

Rather than being worried about displaying your intelligence, try hard to find a common connection with the woman youre talking to. Look for shared interests, or opinions, or just something you can both laugh about. Be warm and genuine first, and verbose later. And, crucially, on your online dating profile, dont write six paragraphs about all the smart stuff you think because youre so smart. Thats just tedious. (I have done the same thing in the past, for what it's worth.)

Also? Those dudes of mediocre brainpower who are landing all those chicks probably have good style, and theyre probably in good shape. All the grey matter in the world wont make up for a horrific outfit, a ridiculous haircut, or being in hideous physical shape. Get that stuff locked down. Its as important as anything intellectual. Maybe much more.

Theres a larger lesson here. When you see women being interested in men who arent like you, dont just scratch your head, and assume that they should want what youve got instead. Instead of judging, observe. Youre being given important information about womens needs. A man of your intellect should know how valuable that is.

Think you could use some dating help, too? Email the Dating Nerd at [email protected].
Goodyear STEM.jpg

Nearly 1,800 middle and high school students attended Goodyear's 19th annual STEM Career Day events, which offered hands on activities designed to boost students' understanding of topics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

(Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.)

AKRON, Ohio - The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. awarded $32,000 in grants and scholarships to area high school students and schools at the 19th annual STEM Career Day events.

Goodyear awarded 20 high school students scholarships, while another 45 students shared in grants for their schools.

Nearly 1,800 middle and high school students attended the events, which offered hands on activities designed to boost students' understanding of topics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Nearly 40 Northeast Ohio-based organizations participated in the events.

Students in grades 6-12 were tasked with over-engineering tire monitoring devices at the event's Rube Goldberg competitions. Middle school students were tasked with creating a device to monitor tire tread depth, while high school participants created devices to monitor air pressure.

The following high schools won grants via the challenge:

First place and Goodyear Associate Favorite, Virtus Academy, Valley View: $2,500

Second place, Lake High School, Uniontown: $2,000

Third place, Westlake High School, Westlake: $1,000

The following middle schools won grants via the challenge:

First place and Goodyear Associate Favorite, Catalyst Academy, Macedonia: $2,500

Second place, NIHF STEM Middle School, Akron: $2,000

Third place, Buckeye Intermediate School (Team 2), Medina: $1,000

Receiving $2,500 scholarships are:

Greta Noeth of St. Joseph Academy, Cleveland, who will be attending the Ohio State University

Kevin Du of Copley High School, Copley, who will be attending Brown University

Kyler Fertig of Akron STEM High School, Akron, who will be attending the University of Akron

Receiving $1,000 scholarships are:

Steven Prexta of Green High School, Green, who will be attending the Ohio State University

Amanda Kimble of Stow-Munroe Falls High School, Stow, who will be attending the Ohio State University

Drew DeLap of Lake High School, Uniontown, who will be attending the Ohio State University

James Bradcovich of Lake High School, Uniontown, who will be attending the Ohio State University

Lance Anenson of Green High School, Uniontown, who will be attending the Ohio State University

Julia Zalewski of Roosevelt High School, Kent, who will be attending Case Western Reserve University

Zeynep Ozgur of Hudson High School, Hudson, who will be attending Kent State University

Mary Pat Nicodemus of National Inventors Hall of Fame S.T.E.M. High School, Akron, who will be attending the University of Akron

Portia Snipes of National Inventors Hall of Fame S.T.E.M. High School, Akron, who will be attending Ohio University

Camden Fisher of National Inventors Hall of Fame S.T.E.M. High School, Akron, who will be attending Purdue University

Amariana Dortch of Firestone High School, Akron, who will be attending the University of Akron

Receiving $500 scholarships are:

Nicholas Luther of West Geauga High School, Chesterland, who will be attending the University of Akron

Jared Ruehr of Aurora High School, Aurora, who will be attending Northeastern University

Nicholas Koch of Holy Name High School, Brunswick, who will be attending the University of Dayton

Matthew Lundell of Copley High School, Copley, who will be attending North Carolina State University

To learn more about Goodyear's STEM Career Day, visit www.goodyear.com/careerday.
RAVENNA, Ohio - A person of interest was taken into custody as part of the investigation into an Akron house fire that killed two adults and five children, according to a report.

The 47-year-old man is being held on a parole violation in the Portage County Jail, the Portage County Sheriff's Office confirmed. The man has not been charged in connection with the fire.

The man is in jail as part of the investigation into a Monday fire at a house on Fultz Street near East Avenue, according to WKYC-Channel 3.

Officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire. The Akron Fire Department, Ohio Fire Marshal's Office and Akron Police Department are investigating the blaze, which equaled the deadliest fire in the city's history.

Angela Boggs, 38, and her longtime boyfriend Dennis Huggins, 35, were killed along with their children Jered Boggs, 14; Daisia Huggins, 6; Kylle Huggins, 5; Alivia Huggins, 3; and Cameron Huggins, 1. The family's dog also died in the fire, investigators said.

The person of interest who was arrested Monday has previous convictions for aggravated arson, arson and domestic violence, Portage County Common Pleas Court records show.

Angela Boggs obtained a protection order against the man after those charges were filed in 2001, court records show.

The man served 12 years in prison and was released in 2013, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records show.

The fire broke out early Monday and quickly spread through the house. Two neighbors called 911 shortly before 3 a.m. to report flames shooting from the house. One neighbor described it as being "almost burnt up" several minutes later.

Investigators would not discuss evidence collected at the house. The evidence will be tested in order to determine the fire's cause, Akron Fire Chief Clarence Tucker said.

"A fire that is this severe, you can never rule out the possibility of arson," Tucker said. "But we have investigators here trying to determine the cause."

Seven people also died at an Akron house fire in 1994, officials said.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Brecksville-BH School Board 1.JPG

The Brecksville-Broadview Heights school board has hired ThenDesign Architecture, a Willoughby firm, to help create a master plan for the district's school buildings.

(Bob Sandrick, special to cleveland.com)

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - The Brecksville-Broadview Heights school district, as pupil enrollment declines, is drafting a master plan for the future of its school buildings.

The school board has hired ThenDesign Architecture,a Willoughby firm, to help decide whether the district should renovate existing schools, build new ones or consolidate buildings. The district will pay ThenDesign $9,500.

To pay for new construction and-or building repairs, the district may place a new tax on the November 2018 ballot, according to the resolution approving ThenDesign's hiring. It was just earlier this month that voters passed a new tax for operating expenses, which include teacher salaries.

"Everything is on the table, and nothing has been decided," school board President Mark Jantzen told cleveland.com. "There will be a lot of public involvement before anything is done. We have to take into account all of the options, from refurbishment of the buildings to consolidation."

Chris Coad, the district's director of business services, said the schools will seek public input on the buildings master plan starting this summer. He hopes work on the master plan will finish in January.

Other districts have reconfigured aging school buildings, or are in the process of doing so, as their enrollment numbers drop. For example, the Strongsville schools recently closed two of seven elementary schools and consolidated two middle schools into one new building.

Voters in the North Royalton district earlier this month approved a bond issue that will pay for consolidation of three elementary schools into one new building, the renovation of the district's middle school and an addition on the high school.

In Brecksville-Broadview Heights, master building planning has already begun. The district has asked the Ohio School Facilities Commission to evaluate the condition of its schools through the Expedited Local Partnership Program. In turn, the commission has hired Hammond Construction in Canton to inspect the buildings at no cost to the district.

Most of the district's buildings are aging. According to Coad, Central Elementary School was built in 1915, Highland Elementary School in 1953, Brecksville-Broadview Heights Middle School in 1960, Chippewa Elementary School in 1962 and Hilton Elementary School in 1967. Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School, built in 1997, is relatively new.

"The condition and needed repairs for each building differ significantly," Coad said.

Meanwhile, enrollment has slipped over the past 10 years, Coad said. The state facilities commission will perform an updated enrollment study as part of its work.

Coad said the commission and Hammond have submitted a draft of their buildings evaluation. Now, district officials and ThenDesign are reviewing that draft.

Also involved is the district's Business Advisory Committee, consisting of Coad, schools Superintendent Joelle Magyar, Treasurer Richard Berdine, board members Mark Dosen and Michael Ziegler, Brecksville Councilman Lou Carouse Jr. and members of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights business community.

"The (business advisory council) has historically been involved in discussions regarding the condition and possible improvement of facilities," Coad said.

Coad said the commission is scheduled to release its final buildings evaluation in June, when it will present its findings to the school board and public. ThenDesign with then work with the state commission and the district's business advisory committee to develop the master plan, based partly on the buildings evaluation.

If the district decides to build new schools or renovate existing ones, it might be eligible for state financial help because it is working with the state commission.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Brecksville Chase Bank 3.JPG

A Chase Bank branch may replace Lastoria's Auto Service and BP station at Brecksville and Chippewa roads in Brecksville.

(Bob Sandrick, special to cleveland.com)

BRECKSVILLE, Ohio - A prominent corner in Brecksville may undergo a retail makeover.

Chase Bank wants to build a 3,000-square-foot branch and drive-through ATM at the northeast corner of Brecksville and Chippewas roads. The bank would replace Lastoria's Auto Service and BP station.

Mayor Jerry Hruby said Chase has an option to buy the site - which measures about a half-acre, according to the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Office website - from the Lastoria family.

"This issue is before the Planning Commission and the commission continues its review and consultation with the Chase Bank officials," Hruby said in an email to cleveland.com.

However, Hruby was lukewarm toward the Chase project when it was introduced to the planning commission in January, according to meeting minutes. He called Lastoria's an "iconic landmark" and an "integral part of the city."

Also, Hruby said Lastoria's is the only vehicle-repair business in Brecksville and called the parcel "one of the most important pieces of property in the city." Nevertheless, he said the Lastoria family has the right to sell its property to Chase.

Hruby said the Lastorias had hoped to buy Brecksville Doughnuts and Coffee Shoppe, which is next door to the service station, and relocate their business there, but "that didn't appear to be a realistic possibility."

At that January meeting, other commission members expressed concerns about the amount of traffic Chase would generate, and how that traffic would flow, according to meeting minutes.

The latest Chase Bank layout shows the building closer to Brecksville and Chippewa roads. This plan was submitted by The Architects Partnership Ltd. in Chicago.

The Chase project went before the commission again in March. By that time, revised plans showed the building closer to the street, and parking spaces behind the building, at the commission's request. The idea was to match existing close-to-the-street building layouts in the downtown area.

The problem was that, with the moved building and other plan changes, Chase would need 10 zoning variances, including those for building-setback-from-the-street requirements.

Meanwhile, city Engineer Gerald Wise said Chase had failed to submit all required information and documents. He raised several concerns about the proposal. For example, plans seemed to show that Chase's ATM would sit only "a few feet" away from the doughnut -shop building and would block driver access around the doughnut shop.

Tim Meseck - an architect with The Architects Partnership Ltd. in Chicago, which is working with Chase on the Brecksville project - said a recent property survey indicated that the doughnut shop driveway was on the Lasturia lot line. Nevertheless, he insisted the ATM would sit more than 12 feet from the doughnut shop building and that the shop would be able to continue to operate as it is.

Commission members liked the revised plan but wondered if the Chase layout was too big for the half-acre lot. Commissioner Dominic Sciria said it was "too bad" Chase was unable to add the doughnut-shop property to the site.

The commission discussed the Chase project again May 4 but meeting minutes were not available. Hruby and Meseck could not be reached for comment earlier this week. Chase is not scheduled to appear at the commission's May 25 meeting.

Now, Chase has no branch in Brecksville, according to Chase's website. The closest branches are in Independence and Seven Hills.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Davis-Besse reactor containment building

FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Toledo, along with the company's Perry nuclear power plant near Cleveland and its Beaver Valley reactors near Pittsburgh cannot compete well against new gas turbine plants and may be sold in bankruptcy proceedings if the state does not authorize additional customer charges. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has required major upgrades in recent years to defend against terrorists and to withstand natural disasters such as earthquakes.

(Plain Dealer file )

AKRON, Ohio -- FirstEnergy's top executive said today he does not expect Ohio lawmakers to vote until fall on legislation authorizing zero emission credits.

"If it is going to happen, it will be later this year. If it is not going to happen, we'll know sooner," said Chuck Jones, CEO, in an interview following the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Jones is scheduled to testify before the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee on Thursday about why the company needs the extra funding.

Introduced last month, the legislation would allow state regulators to create "zero emission credits," or ZECs, reflecting the value inherent in nuclear energy because reactors do not emit carbon dioxide.

FirstEnergy owns four nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse near Toledo, Perry east of Cleveland, and the twin-reactor Beaver Valley near Pittsburgh.

The ZECs would raise all customer bills by 5 percent a month and give the company an extra $300 million a year -- in perpetuity. Beaver Valley could also apply for ZEC funding, even though it is located in Pennsylvania. But the total in new charges would not exceed $300 million.

Jones was candid about the future of FirstEnergy Solutions, its unregulated subsidiary that owns the company's power plants. Without the extra subsidy, FirstEnergy Solutions could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection because the reactors cost more to operate than new gas turbine power plants.

"Is the fall soon enough for FirstEnergy [for passage of the legislation]? I don't know. We are working through a lot of issues right now that are going to determine the future of our company and the future of our ownership of competitive generation," he said.

Anthony Alexander, former CEO, began focusing on the company's regulated business as profit centers in 2014. Jones has made it clear since last year that the company wants to move to an old-fashioned fully regulated business model, selling off unregulated power plants or moving them under regulation. Allegheny Energy Supply, the company's unregulated Pennsylvania power plant company, has closed or sold most of its plants and is now trying to sell its remaining generation to FirstEnergy's regulated West Virginia power company. Competitors are opposing the move.

Jones said he would prefer that federal authorities or grid manager PJM Interconnection create a ZEC program instead of individual states crafting such legislation.

Andrew Ott, president of PJM,

in February that creating a ZEC program in a regional market would be more effective. In a

with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year he suggested that the five states with reactors within PJM's 13-state footprint could work together to create a subsidy for the the nuclear plants.

New York and Illinois have already created ZEC programs to subsidize reactors located in those states. But power flows do not recognize state boundary lines.

Jones said he is looking forward to the U.S. Department of Energy's 60-day study now under way on the role that large coal-burning and nuclear power plants play to keep interstate power grids stable.

FirstEnergy has argued that the fleets of new gas turbine plants now being built will be vulnerable to fuel disruptions caused by storms and terrorists.

Earlier in the day in an address to shareholders, Jones recapped the company's efforts to move away from competition while rebuilding its high-voltage transmission and local power delivery systems where the rate of return on investments is guaranteed.

"Your company made significant progress in 2016 and the first part of this year in transitioning to a more fully regulated, customer-focused business - and away from commodity-exposed generation," he told the small crowd of shareholders.

Shareholders voted down a suggestion from activists shareholder groups requiring the company to annually report the amount of money it spends lobbying state and federal governments and a provision requiring the company to annually report the its progress on combating climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

The proposal requiring disclosure of lobbying expenditures received 41 percent of the shareholder vote. The proposal requiring an annual climate change report received 42 percent of the vote.

The two proposals have been introduced on shareholder ballots for the past three years and have slowly been gaining higher votes.

The lobbying disclosure garnered 19.36 percent of the shareholder vote in 2015 and 28 percent last year. A climate-change related proposal received 19.36 percent of the vote in 2015 and 32 percent last year.
AKRON, Ohio -- An Akron man pleaded guilty Monday to shooting a woman in the head in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park over Fourth of July weekend in 2016 and leaving her in a field.

Dezay Ely, 28, pleaded to charges of attempted murder, discharging a firearm during a crime of violence and being a felon in possession of ammunition.

The FBI said Ely tried to kill a woman July 3 after a dispute from the night before. He left the woman in a field off Akron-Peninsula Road after shooting her three times in the head.

U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson will sentence Ely on Aug. 24. A federal attempted murder charge carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence, while the discharging a firearm charge mandates that a judge sentence him to at least an additional 10 years.

Ely has previous convictions in Summit County for involuntary manslaughter, aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon. He served eight years in state prison, records show.

The victim told investigators that Ely and Raymond Moore, another suspect, drove her into the national park, about 13 miles from where she was staying. She said she thought she was tagging along while Ely tested a gun he recently obtained, authorities said.

The woman had no identification when the hikers found her. She was identified through phone records after one of Bush's family members called park rangers on July 4 and said she had been missing for several days.

Moore also faces federal charges. His case remains pending.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments section.

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The blockbuster listing of Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba , has been put on ice until the end of next year at the earliest, according to bankers.

A customer uses the Alipay payments app on a smartphone. Zhang Peng | LightRocket | Getty Images

Market players have been counting on Ant, which runs China's popular Alipay mobile payments service, to be the star in this year's initial public offerings calendar. It was valued at $60bn in its last financing round in April 2016, more than twice that ascribed to Snap , the vanishing photo app, after its IPO in March. More from the Financial Times:

US lawmakers sharpen criticism of MoneyGram deal

Chinese money market fund becomes world's biggest

Singapore's GIC offloads nearly half of its UBS stake According to one banker, Ant's IPO has been pushed back to late 2018 or the first half of the following year because of the need to secure regulatory approval and to focus on building the business. Ant has been buying up assets overseas, including in India, South Korea and the US, where it is seeking to acquire MoneyGram. "Ant would like to convert into an [overseas] shareholding, and it needs the blessing of government to do that," the banker said. "And in a year of political uncertainty and manoeuvring, no one is making decisions."

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China's Communist party will meet later this year to choose a new slate of top leaders for a once-in-five-years political transition. In order to list overseas Ant would require a waiver from Beijing, said one mainland-based lawyer. Ant owes its current structure as a Chinese company to a controversial spin-off of Alipay by founder Jack Ma in 2011. The move, which triggered a public spat with Yahoo , a big Alibaba shareholder, was necessitated by new Chinese government regulations on third-party payment services that meant Alipay had to change its ownership structure, Mr Ma said at the time. While Ant would likely require a payments licence, or a waiver, if it is to be foreign held, that is a regulatory grey area and a few  much smaller  Chinese payments companies have been able to list overseas regardless. Lawyers and bankers expect Beijing would grant a waiver, but caution that it could take time. "Once you get over that issue, it doesn't need to be listed domestically and it is a question of which is the right market [Hong Kong or the US]," added another banker, who is looking for a listing in 18 to 24 months. Ant Financial said it has no IPO timetable or location decision as of now.

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A top fund manager who shorted banks going into the financial crisis now likes two of the hottest internet stocks.

Steve Eisman, fund manager for Neuberger Berman, said on CNBC's "Fast Money" Monday that he likes two stocks in the group of high-flying tech-related stocks nicknamed "FANG:" Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

"We own Facebook ," he said. "I just think it's one of the powerful long-term stories in the market."

Eisman is also "long Amazon ." That view is based on one of the money manager's latest short positions: mall operator Simon Property .

"I think the trends in retail are just overwhelmingly powerfully negative," Eisman said. "I don't think anyone is immune."

Eisman dislikes the real estate sector overall, given his view that rents are "rolling over" in New York City and San Francisco.

The fund manager successfully bet against the bank stocks prior to the 2008 financial crisis, when Wall Street's big banks held bad housing loans.

The stock market has only climbed in the eight years since, and Eisman says overall he sees more longs than shorts. He likes bank stocks now given the likelihood of some regulatory relief under the Trump administration.

Amazon.com and Facebook are the fourth and fifth-largest companies, respectively, in the S&P 500 by market capitalization. Amazon hit a record high Monday, while Facebook touched an all-time high on May 3.
Take Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. In March, a forestry lobby sued the Interior Department for unlawful of expansion of the park, calling the restriction of federal timberlands "disastrous" for the Northwest economy and citing the loss of "thousands of family-wage forestry jobs." On the flip side, small businesses cite the Main Street impact of the monument; a hotel operator says the Cascade-Siskiyou has been "of great value" to its guests, and a couple running an area kid's clothing store says the monument "has only helped our local economy."

Since the window for public comments period opened Friday, more than 10,000 letters have been posted on the Interior Department's landing page. Some support the review; others support keeping the monuments as they are.

"We'll look at what sectors were affected, plus or minus, and that will be part of the recommendation," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in April when the executive order was announced , saying he recognizes both sides of the issue.

But the review has created a tug-of-war between industries like fishing, ranching and logging, arguing the creation of monuments comes at the cost of jobs, and the Main Street businesses that get foot traffic from visitors to the monuments.

President Donald Trump has pursued a business-focused agenda by vowing to cut regulatory red tape, a move that resulted in an Interior Department review that could change the designation of more than two dozen national monuments.

In Utah, the cattle industry continues to fight back against the designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument; it's the oldest and largest land monument Interior is currently reviewing. Because a president can singularly designate an area as a monument, the industry says the economic impact wasn't considered before the land designated for government use.

"There is no evaluation required for the president to do this, no economic or environmental study, just simply a stroke of pen," said Ethan Lane, the Executive Director of the Public Lands Council and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

But the group said it's seen the allocation of land for federal use cut the land available for grazing by two-thirds, forcing businesses to close, families leave the area due to lack of work and more than one school in the monument boundaries closed.

Yet the recreation industry, again, cites a boon.

"My company currently employs 15 full-time people in Kane County, Utah," wrote the unidentified owner of a company leading excursions into Grand Staircase-Escalante. "Outdoor recreation and tourism provides millions of dollars of sales and lodging taxes to the county."

Zinke visited Utah on a four-day listening tour in early May. "I'm an optimist," Zinke said during the visit. "After being on the ground for a few days and talking to people on all sides I think everyone has a lot more in common than previously thought."

A review of Utah's Bears Ears National Monument, which received a somewhat controversial designation without public input in 2016, is expected to conclude in early June. The comment window for feedback on the rest of the 26 monuments ends on July 10, with Interior taking up to four months to conclude its review.

The Katahadin Woods and Waters National Monument, spanning 87,563 acres, is the smallest of the 27 monuments on the Interior Department's list and opened just last year. Yet more than 50 public comments reference nearby Millinocket, Maine, a town with about 4,000 residents about 45 minutes from the monument that had been hit hard by the decline of the paper industry.

Marsha Donahue owns a Millinocket gallery that showcases local artists and has arranged expeditions in the monument to paint its landscapes. An artist who exhibits at the North Light Gallery told the Interior Department that the monument's opening has increased his sales at the gallery. Donahue, an activist supporting the area's 2016 designation, says economic optimism has taken root.

"People are sprucing up the front and the inside of their businesses, and there is much more of a feeling of hope," Donahue told CNBC in an e-mail. "We are all advertising like crazy."

Zinke told reporters at an April briefing at the White House that, in addition to receiving public input, he'd be consulting with state and local officials and congressional delegations before making any final decisions.

"I think the concern that I have and the president has that when you designate a monument, the local community that's affected should have a voice," Zinke said in April. "The little community, the loggers, the fishermen, those areas that are affected should have a say and a voice."

CNBC's Stephanie Dhue contributed to this report.

By CNBC's Kayla Tausche. Follow her on Twitter:
Though cybersecurity firm Cylance has been working with high-profile clients such as Panasonic, The Gap and Toyota since its founding in 2012, it was a government agency that gave the Irvine, California-based company its biggest boost in 2016. That's when a congressional report concluded that Cylance played a pivotal role in discovering and stopping malware that caused the massive data breach at the Office of Personnel Management that stole the personal information of more than 20 million current and former government employees.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

Cylance was able to do that because it approaches cybersecurity in a different way. Unlike reactionary methods and behavior monitoring that most cybersecurity firms employ, Cylance says it uses a mix of artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze a file's characteristics and predict whether that file is safe or a threat to the host.

Stuart McClure, the former chief technology officer at antivirus software firm McAfee; and Ryan Permeh, the former chief scientist at McAfee, started the company because they realized from their years in network and computer security that businesses needed a more effective and proactive way of responding to cyberthreats and malware.

The company is already working with hundreds of companies and government agencies. It says its billings have grown over 1,000 percent since it was launched in 2012, making it one of the fastest security start-ups.

Cylance raised $100 million last June in a Series D round that's allowing Cylance to continue its global expansion with new offices in Ireland, Japan and Australia. In total, the company has raised $177 million from investors, including Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, Insight Venture Partners and DFJ Growth.
Japan was expecting the U.S. to return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fold and was only "pretending" to negotiate a bilateral deal, Kotaro Tamura, a Milken Institute Asia Fellow, told CNBC on Tuesday.

"Japan's prime minister and government paid a tremendous amount of political capital to make [the TPP] happen. They won't waste it," said Tamura, who was a Japanese senator from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from 2002-2010.

"Of course they were pretending to talk about a free trade agreement (FTA), but bottom in the heart, they will be welcoming the U.S. back," he told CNBC's "The Rundown" on Tuesday. "It's not about FTA. It's buying time, but in reality, they are looking for the U.S. coming back to the pact."

Abe reiterated in an interview with CNBC on Monday that Japan would continue to push for an ex-U.S. TPP deal.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the TPP, a broad 12-nation trade deal, which he claimed was a "disaster" that would hurt U.S. manufacturing.

Japan's prime minister had initially said that the TPP would be "meaningless" without the U.S., but more recently, Japanese officials have seconded Australia's calls for the other 11 members of the pact to proceed without the U.S.

Trump has expressed a preference for bilateral trade agreements, over multi-lateral ones, claiming he can negotiate better deals that way.
Airbnb's new Trips service offers unique, local tour experiences; it is growing faster than the core Airbnb Homes business did in its first year.

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Airbnb is unusual among privately held start-ups in that it's already profitable. The No. 1 company on the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50 list has reportedly said it can reach $3 billion in profit by 2020. It was valued at $31 billion last year, meaning that only Marriott 's $39 billion valuation is greater in the lodging industry. But after forcing the biggest changes in travel since Priceline and Expedia, it's running out of easy room to grow against the lodging companies. To keep up its rapid growth, Airbnb needs to upend the entire travel experience. Airbnb's recent $1 billion round of financing was huge, but also showed its lowest valuation step-up  a measure of valuation increase from financing round to round  in the history of the company. In its 2014 Series D, Airbnb's valuation increased at almost three times the rate of the median start-up at that stage. In its first quarter 2017 Series F, Airbnb's valuation increase was barely above the median rate, according to data from venture capital research firm PitchBook. Dan Cook, a PitchBook senior analyst, said when growth stops accelerating and begins to level off, it's harder to maintain huge valuation step-ups. "Airbnb supply is still growing aggressively, and there is a lot more demand today, but [hotel investors] were more freaked out in 2014 and 2015," said Jared Shojaian, leisure, gaming and lodging analyst at Wolfe Research.

Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb Rex Features | AP Images

"They are not Amazon to retail," Shojaian said. "It won't destroy the hotel industry. Maybe hotels can't drive the same type of rate growth that they have had historically because of this new competitor, but who knows how big it will continue to get," he said. That's why Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky recently told Fortune magazine that its core Homes business will account for less than half of Airbnb's revenue someday. He also said that by 2021 the majority of Airbnb's offerings "will be the new things that we are doing as of 2017 on."

Flight booking is a tough market

Airbnb has hinted since last November about taking its travel touch to the online flight-booking space. That would put Airbnb in direct competition with Expedia and Priceline Group , the two largest players in the traditional online travel agency industry, where overall bookings grew 10 percent last year, to $62.5 billion, according to research firm Phocuswright.

In a March appearance at Oxford Union , Chesky said he wants Airbnb "to one day redefine how we fly." Then he added, "The funny thing about flying is, no matter how successful you are in life, you are reminded how much of a mere mortal you are, [so] that's another area we really want to invest in." The flight-booking space is tough, with lower margins than hotel and car rentals, and airlines tightly controlling inventory. But it could be a natural stepping stone to the greater online travel agency market, where Airbnb can try to preserve its incredibly fast growth story as it pursues an eventual IPO. "In the flight-booking area in general, the obvious [thing missing] is also one that plagues hotels, which is, everything is the same; there is no differentiator," said Douglas Quinby, senior vice president of research at Phocuswright. "The airlines have tried hard to differentiate by adding different types of fare bundles or services, but right now the shopping experience across airlines is commoditized and price-driven." Big online travel agencies are moving in on Airbnb's turf as well. In the most recent quarter, Priceline's Booking.com offered roughly 650,000 "alternative lodging" properties  many which include multiple listings  an increase of more than 50 percent from a year before. Priceline's valuation of $89 billion is bigger than both Marriott and Airbnb combined. Expedia said its alternative lodging subsidiary, HomeAway, experienced 30 percent growth in the most recent quarter. It has 1.4 million listings. More from CNBC Disruptor 50:

How Lyft is outmaneuvering Uber in the heated ridesharing space

Why Warren Buffett is betting on this software start-up

Snap out of it! This is 'the best of all IPO markets' Airbnb is considering different options for breaking into the market, including acquiring an online travel agency. "They bring their massive base of users to the arena  that's big," said Dennis Schaal, executive editor of Skift, an online hub for travel news and research. "They could bring a local flavor to flights, combining them with a stay at an Airbnb, but the flight business is hard. You have to build a customer service department, deal with canceled flights and rebooking passengers. Does Airbnb really want to get into that? It'll take their focus off their core business as well."

Experiences could be hard to scale

Airbnb is also tapping into the idea that travelers want a more unique experience than hopping a tour bus to the Eiffel Tower. Under its new Trips platform, Airbnb launched its Experiences initiative last year in 12 cities, allowing guests to take part in unusual events. For instance, visitors to Miami can spend $120 to spend four hours learning about leatherworking, which includes lunch, wine and a hands-on workshop on stitching and soldering. Airbnb takes a 20 percent commission on each Experience. While Experiences marks an easy extension of Airbnb's travel-like-a-local brand, analysts are unsure of how it can scale to ever become more than a single-digit share of the company's business.

Early indicators are that this could even surpass our Homes business. We're growing much faster than we did at a comparable point in the early days of Homes. Andrea La Mesa Airbnb's director of Trips

"There is definitely a market for this authentic, local experience, but a fundamental problem is scaling this thing," said Phocuswright's Quinby. "If I have a home, it's always there and I can rent it out, but if I'm a professional photographer and I want to make some extra money doing a photography tour of L.A., I have to take time out to do it; I can only scale so much unless I build a business or hire other photographers," Quinby said. He added, "Once I start doing that, I'm no longer a peer-to-peer experience. I've become a tour company."

Diners in front of a shark tank at the Aquarium de Paris, booked through Airbnb in April 2016 in Paris. Chesnot | Getty Images

"Eight in 10 millennials say the best way to learn about a place is to live like the locals do, so we know there's a healthy market for these types of local-led immersions," said Andrea La Mesa, Airbnb's director of Trips. "Early indicators are that this could even surpass our Homes business. We're growing much faster than we did at a comparable point in the early days of Homes," La Mesa said. Airbnb says 6,000 people have completed Experience submissions (40,000 have started the process). More than 800 hosts have met Airbnb requirements for the service, and the platform now has over 1,100 active Experiences available to book in 24 cities. More than half of the Experiences are under $200; the typical price paid for an Experience so far has been $91 per person.

Hotels are catching up

The hotel industry, with its millions of physical properties around the world, hasn't been as nimble as Airbnb to adapting to the millennial crowd. But it has played a good game of catch-up. As an example, John Hach, senior industry analyst at TravelClick, pointed to Marriott placing timeshare units  a better match for Airbnb listings than hotel rooms  into its general inventory in markets like Orlando. "Hotels have done creative things," he said. Morgan Housel, a partner at Collaborative Fund, which has invested in sharing-economy start-ups like Kickstarter and Lyft (but not Airbnb), said that "2016 was a great year for traditional hotels in terms of revenue per room, so much of their response is likely looking at what can happen in five to 10 years." He added, "When you have something like Airbnb that has grown as quickly as it has, if you're a senior manager of a global hotel brand, you have to be looking at it, saying, 'What can I copy from these models and trends before [an Airbnb] catches up to us one way or another?'"

A Moxy brand sample hotel room is housed in a shipping container as part of the Innovation Lab at the Marriott International headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. T.J. Kirkpatrick | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Marriott's Moxy Hotels, launched in 2014, is a line of seven mid-priced urban hotels in Europe and the United States, with open-plan communal spaces (think game rooms and a bar that doubles as the check-in counter), internet TV and mobile device to TV in-room streaming. The brand will open 13 more locations this year. Hilton is debuting its new midscale-priced brand (Tru by Hilton) this year  a modernly-designed chain with more than 300 locations in the works aimed at budget-conscious millennials. Tru follows the recent launch of Curio Collection, a Hilton concept aimed at the other end  boutique hotels around the world targeting upscale travelers that provide ties to local hot spots. The Darcy Washington, D.C., offers a pop-up version of a well-known D.C. flower purveyor, a cocktail cart and mixologist that guests can order to their room, and a service that provides ties, cuff links and other accessories for guests to borrow. French multinational AccorHotels became one of the first big hotel firms to buy into a home-sharing start-up last year when it took a minority stake in Oasis, which facilitates the renting of fully-vetted upscale homes, along with an in-person concierge. Parker Stanberry started the firm in 2009 as a New York expat in Buenos Aires because he wanted better access to local amenities  like a good Spanish tutor. Hotels have also proved resilient at keeping market share and sales, even in the face of competition from Airbnb, although they're probably facing price pressure. "If you're able to charge two times the prevailing ADR [average daily rate] during a high-compression period, who's to say you couldn't charge 3 times were it not for Airbnb?" said Richard Hightower, head of real estate research at Evercore ISI.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that his country would continue pushing for a trans-Pacific trade deal, but he hoped the U.S. would rejoin the pact.

Following Washington's exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 11 remaining members have kick-started discussions on how to proceed without the U.S. and recently wrapped up talks in Toronto. In an exclusive joint interview with CNBC and Broadcast Satellite Japan, Abe said Japan would like to exercise leadership in promoting the TPP among member countries.

"We have finally come to an agreement on the rules of free and fair trade. We hope to utilize that agreed framework. Unfortunately, the U.S. has declared withdrawal from the TPP. Since we have come thus far, we would like to capitalize upon the result of our long years of efforts," Abe said in Japanese.

"Japan must now take on a leadership role and move the discussions forward."

The prime minister added that "momentum" should not be lost, but he left the door open for a U.S. return to the deal.

The 11 countries made a judgement on the assumption that the U.S. will be in TPP and it is important that these 11 nations are united, he said. "Since the U.S. understands the importance of having free and fair trade rules, it is our wish, by all means our strong wish is that the U.S. will return to TPP."
Billionaire George Soros, 86, joined the handful of big hedge funds that bought Snap in the first quarter, an SEC filing Monday showed.

The filing showed Soros bought 1.6 million shares of the Snapchat parent, which went public in early March.

The stock plunged more than 20 percent after a disappointing earnings report last week but rebounded Monday after first-quarter filings showed hedge funds bought the stock.
Democratic senators did not hold their tongues after The Washington Post first reported that President Donald Trump unveiled highly classified information in a meeting with Russian officials last week.

White House officials vehemently pushed back on the reports. Dina Powell, deputy national security advisor for strategy, called the story false. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security advisor H.R. McMaster both said that intelligence sources and collection methods were not disclosed in the meeting.

Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence community, said such a disclosure would be a "slap in the face to the intel community." The Virginia Democrat said "risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."

@MarkWarner: If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said the move is "dangerous and reckless."

@SenatorDurbin: This is dangerous and reckless. GOP must put country before party and demand an independent investigation and special prosecutor now.

Durbin also called on Republicans to "put country before party" and support an independent investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed Durbin's statement, saying that a special prosecutor should be appointed. He added, "protecting our national security is one of the most important tasks a president has, and Trump is failing at it."

Sen. Tim Kaine said that while these are "shocking actions" they are "sadly unsurprising coming from President Trump."

@timkaine: Shocking actions for any American President but sadly unsurprising coming from President Trump.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois was quick to draw a parallel between this disclosure the Trump's repeated complaints about the leaking of classified information.

@SenDuckworth: For a President who complains so much about leaks, this is stunning

Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration about "illegal leaks" on Twitter:

@realDonaldTrump: The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?

@realDonaldTrump: Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

The president has broad authority to declassify information. A former national security lawyer told NBC News that this is true even if it is revealed outside a deliberate declassification process.

Watch: McMaster says Washington Post report is false
2 Officers Wounded After Being Hit By Ricocheting Bullet Shrapnel

By Rachel Cromidas in News on May 16, 2017 2:28PM



3600 block of South Wolcott, via Google Street View

Two Chicago police officers were wounded Monday night after a third officer shot at a charging dog and bullet fragments from the shot ricocheted, hitting them.

One officer was shot in the leg and the other was shot in the foot in the aftermath of the shooting, which took place in the 3600 block of South Wolcott Avenue in McKinley Park around 6:50 p.m. Police said the dog was "vicious" and charged at the officers, and died after it was shot. Both officers are in good condition, but were taken to local hospitals to be checked out.

The Chicago Police Department is describing what happened as an accident.

[H/T ABC7]
After firing the FBI director investigating his campaign last week, President Donald Trump added a warning: James Comey had better hope there are no tapes of their conversations.

Now, in an explosive Washington Post story, the U.S. intelligence community has hit back  hard. Current and former intelligence officials told The Post that the president, perhaps inadvertently, had revealed highly classified information about Islamic State to the Russian government.

That report increases the chance that Trump's support from Republicans will keep eroding. And it increases the impossible-to-quantify threat to the president's ability to complete a full four-year term. One indication: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said the Trump White House was in a "downward spiral."



The news will "add fuel to fire" both about Trump's ties to Russia and "to those harboring doubts as to Trump's fitness to be president," said Richard Haass, who heads the Council on Foreign Relations and previously served as a national security aide to both presidents Bush. Haass said Trump's actions "could jeopardize security by alerting enemies, burning sources and making allies less willing to share sensitive intel."

Nor can Trump, who has likened U.S. intelligence officials to Nazis for their handling of information about his associates and Russian interference in the 2016 election, assume that today's disclosures will end attempts by those officials to hold him accountable.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pvt. Ltd., which invested in UBS to support it during the 2008-09 global financial crisis, said it has cut its stake in the Swiss bank at a loss, partly because of changes in the lender's strategy and business.

GIC, which manages more than $100 billion globally, said it has reduced its stake to 2.7 percent from 5.1 percent.

"GIC made the UBS sale despite the loss because conditions have changed fundamentally since GIC invested in UBS in February 2008, as have UBS' strategy and business," Lim Chow Kiat, chief executive of GIC, said in a statement issued on Monday.

"It makes sense now for GIC to reduce its ownership of UBS and to redeploy these resources elsewhere," he said.

The fund said, however, that its investment in U.S. bank Citigroup Inc., also made at the height of the global financial crisis, was in the black and that combined returns for UBS and Citi were positive in "mark-to-market terms."

GIC measures its performance on an overall portfolio basis, based on long term rather than annual returns.

GIC is keeping its profitable investment in Citi.
SpaceX has taken another step closer to its goal of sending people to Mars. The company, started by Elon Musk (founder of electric-car company Tesla), designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. In March it sent a commercial satellite into space with the boost of a partly used rocket, signaling that cheaper space travel  and the mission to Mars  may happen sooner than anticipated. Musk has said his goal is to be able to refurbish and reuse a rocket within 24 hours of its last launch.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

The Hawthorne, California-based company is also readying its first privately crewed spacecraft to fly around the moon next year. Two private citizens (the company will not name them until they clear health and fitness testing) have paid the company to do a moon mission.

So far this year, the company has successfully completed four launches, including a resupply mission to the International Space Station in February, as well as placing satellites into orbit on behalf of two commercial customers. Earlier in May the company launched its first-ever Spysat for the U.S. Department of Defense.

SpaceX has been flying cargo resupply missions to the ISS under contract with NASA since 2012. Last year NASA awarded the company a second version of that contract, which will cover at least six additional flights from 2019 onward. In total, SpaceX has 70 missions booked for commercial customers, as well as NASA, representing $10 billion in contracts. Google and Fidelity Investments are just two of the venture funds that have poured more than $1 billion into SpaceX since its founding.
SparkCognition is in the white-hot cybersecurity arena, a sector that is projected to grow to $170 billion by 2020. This Austin, Texas-based start-up uses artificial intelligence technology to deploy software for the oil and gas industry as well as utilities, and the manufacturing, defense and financial sectors. It claims its software helps customers  including Duke Energy, BP, Honeywell, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the London Stock Exchange Group  increase the safety, security and reliability of their operations.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

Founder and CEO Amir Husain, who's started and sold a series of tech companies over the years, says SparkCognition's technology is capable of harnessing real-time sensor data from machines in order to intervene and avert potential problems and failures before they happen. To do this, its A.I. platform (named DeepArmor) basically uses complex algorithms based on how the human brain works.

The company has managed to attract $16 million in funding from the Entrepreneurs' Fund, Verizon Ventures and CME Ventures since it started in 2013. It recently bolstered its executive bench with the addition of Bruce Porter as chief science officer. Porter is the chairman of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
"I'm not going to pretend that things like that [floppy disks] don't exist," said Kim. "For the most part, they don't. The Air Force has done a great job in the last two years to modernize that stuff and get off floppies."

The U.S. military has come under criticism over the years because of reports it was still using 1970s-era floppy disks on important weapons command or control systems. Also, many computers used by the Pentagon still run on outdated Windows XP operating systems, and those without public Internet access might have the even older Windows 95 or 98.

According to Kim, the cyber-threats today are not just from individuals but from nation-states bent on causing havoc to networks and systems, stealing identities and information, or finding out operational plans.

Kim is responsible for the Air Force's cybersecurity program and information systems strategies for a service that has about 660,000 personnel and millions of computers.

"The kind of paradigm shift these days is, it's good to have outside people kind of look in at you," Peter E. Kim, Air Force chief information security officer, told CNBC. "It's a learning experience for us in how we can better secure and defend our systems."

Online registration began this week for the service's first civilian bug bounty program, designed to find website and network security vulnerabilities. The Air Force said the event is still going ahead despite a weekend of hacking that caused cyber chaos in at least 150 countries.

Hackers may be a menace and in some cases responsible for unleashing global chaos, but the U.S. Air Force is embracing some of them with open arms.

Kim said the military isn't the only one with outdated computer tech. "Companies all over the world, including bigger companies, are still on obsolete, outdated software. Sometimes it's not easy, because I know some of these are pretty sensitive systems."

The "Hack the Air Force" program is coordinated through HackerOne, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity bug platform that last year handled similar initiatives by the U.S. Army and Pentagon. HackerOne's website describes the Air Force's program as "the largest Department of Defense bug bounty challenge yet."

The bounty amounts will vary depending on the severity of the find, although Kim said a really significant vulnerability could potentially result in a payout in the "tens of thousands" of dollars.

Registration for the Air Force's program started Monday and runs through May 29, and the invited hacking is scheduled to begin May 30 and runs through June 23.

The event is open to U.S. citizens as well as hackers from other so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.

Kim describes the hackers as "typical young millennial digital expert[s]."

After the hacking ends, the focus will turn to "fixing all the vulnerabilities and maybe instituting potential mitigations and fixes to our public-facing assets," said Kim.

The Air Force has thousands of websites and webpages that can be viewed by the general public. Cybersecurity teams in the U.S. government regularly conduct security scans on the perimeter sites but even that may not be enough to prevent a determined hacker who wants to infiltrate and cause harm to one of the service's websites.

"It would be good for us to really know what our vulnerabilities are," he said.

Kim said the bug bounty program is specifically focused on the service's public-facing websites "because that's probably the easiest and lowest-hanging fruit for anyone who wishes to do us harm  to come at us through the web servers."

The military's approach to finding cyber-risk borrows from the playbook of private industry.

"Facebook has been doing this for years  attacking their own environment, seeing what's vulnerable and fixing the vulnerabilities," Kim said. He added that Alphabet's Google, Amazon , Netflix and other tech firms also have similar programs.

Indeed, tech firms have handed out millions of dollars in bounties over the years as a way to stay ahead of bad actors and close vulnerabilities.

The military's bug bounty programs may not run into the millions of dollars like some tech firms' do, but they still are seen as a success compared with the alternatives.

"Before this, we just used our own internal assets, like any company does," said Kim. "We have Air Force people that look at the perimeter and look for vulnerabilities and fix them."

He said the military has sometimes outsourced finding vulnerabilities to government contractors. "That, quite frankly, has some mixed results," he said.

Kim recalls hearing a story that the Defense Digital Service  a U.S. government agency  tells about a particular government services firm that was paid about $1 million to find cyber-risks but "only came up with 10 low-level vulnerabilities over the course of 12 months." However, once the agency invited hackers to do the bug bounty program for the Pentagon, "within minutes they got some serious high vulnerabilities."

In fact, within the first six hours of the "Hack the Pentagon" program's launch in April 2016, there were about 200 reports initiated and about $75,000 in total bounties paid off.

Similarly, the "Hack the Army" program, which ran Nov. 30 to Dec. 21, had just over 370 registered participants, and the first vulnerability was reported within just 5 minutes of the program launch. Total bounties paid in the Army program approached around $100,000.

"So the payoff is huge," said Kim. "There's never a better opportunity than having real live hackers going at you to see what's vulnerable and giving you  that information so you can actually fix [it] yourselves."

At the same time, the military sees an opportunity for the U.S. government to harness the talent of some participants of the bug bounty program.

"These folks are potential future recruits for defending our nation or defending our Department of Defense, defending the U.S. government from cyberattack," said Kim. "I always say the best defender is usually someone who knows the offense and the attack side and so knows their tactics and techniques and procedures."

Kim said he's had the chance to meet a few hackers participating in the defense-related bug bounty programs and describes them as people who enjoy the thrill of hacking but also "have a sense of duty and patriotism, surprisingly enough, to help us shore up our network defenses."

Watch: Hacker says Trump needs cybersecurity comm. of experts
The Trump administration, already in near-perpetual crisis management mode, scrambled again Monday night to respond to yet another explosive allegation.

This time it was reports that President Donald Trump had disclosed highly sensitive classified information to top Russian officials.

The face of the response was National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, well-regarded as a steadying influence but facing his most visible  and most fraught  moment in this administration so far.

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Minutes after The Washington Post broke the story, McMaster found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time: emerging from a West Wing doorway to stare down a hallway of restless reporters, stunned to see him at first and then expectant. He had come to brief them, they assumed.

Instead, McMaster backed away, smiling.

"This is the last place in the world I wanted to be," he said before retreating into the West Wing, ignoring questions.

McMaster had inadvertently stepped into the center of the action, becoming the only senior staffer visible in the whirlwind hour after the story made headlines.

A senior communications aide had been seen not long before the story broke, looking rattled. When the story went live , White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Communications Director Mike Dubke were in the West Wing  not their offices  as other members of the communications shop gathered for what could have been an unrelated meeting.

Outside Spicer's office, the gaggle of reporters had grown from a few to 22.

A junior staffer asked reporters to clear out and head back to the briefing room, but nobody budged. One reporter was overheard on the phone saying: "I'm here at the White House. I was going to leave an hour ago."

At 6:24, an email announced the administration's new ambassador to the Bahamas.

Ten minutes later, another email arrived. This one included statements attributed to McMaster, his deputy for strategy, Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, declaring the Post's story to be "false" and denying that the president ever revealed intelligence sources or methods.

Six minutes later, Spicer made a hallway appearance, sending reporters scurrying back outside when he said McMaster would brief them on camera.

But McMaster's carefully crafted statement, a half-hour later, didn't deny what was being reported. The Post, after all, never said the president had revealed sources and methods  only classified information that could lead foreign intelligence agencies to zero in on those assets.

A smaller group of reporters began trickling back toward Spicer's office about 7:30 p.m. A reporter said he'd just seen Spicer, Dubke , Sanders and Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, walking near the Cabinet Room. Another person heard yelling.

The handful of people lingering near the West Wing door quieted immediately, trying to listen in. Soon, the volume on the television in the press office was cranked up abnormally loud.

An aide who was walking by deflected an inquiry about the Post piece, saying: "I'm dealing with other dumpster fires."

Sanders then emerged from the West Wing, saying: "We're not answering any other questions right now, so you guys can clear this hallway."

Asked whether McMaster or anyone else would clarify matters, she repeated: "Tonight, we are not doing any other questions. At this moment."

What about Tuesday, the reporters asked  would McMaster still brief the media about the president's foreign trip, as previously planned?

Raising her voice to be heard over the din, Sanders replied: "Guys. I've said all we're going to say."
The augmented and virtual reality market is projected to grow to $120 billion worldwide by 2020, with the augmented sector accounting for the lion's share, according to a report by Digi-Capital. That's good news for Blippar. The London-based company is an augmented reality firm that enables users to download the Blippar app and then point their phone at an object to unlock additional information, photos and interactive content. So, for instance, during a campaign that ran in the U.K., Coca-Cola teamed up with Spotify. When consumers pointed their phones at the dotted lines on a Coca-Cola can, the cans became Spotify jukeboxes, playing that day's top U.K. song at that moment on Spotify.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

The company claims more than 65 million downloads of its own branded apps and white label solutions. It has worked with more than 1,000 brands, including Coty, Nestle, Conde Nast and Procter & Gamble. In December, Blippar began rolling out real-time facial recognition technology to its mobile app, which will one day allow users to create "Augmented Reality Face Profiles." The feature will unlock a profile if the face being scanned belongs to a person with an existing AR profile. In October, Blippar introduced Blippbuilder, a suite of AR self-service tools that enable brands, agencies and developers with no coding skills to create and design their own AR experiences.

Investors love the potential of AR and Blippar's leading spot in this growing sector. The company has raised $101 million in funding from venture firms Qualcomm and Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's leading investment fund.
Person Of Interest In Custody In Punching Of Female Security Guard In River North

By Stephen Gossett in News on May 16, 2017 5:45PM

Chicago police are questioning a person of interest in the punching of a female security guard that happened early on Sunday morning in River North.

No charges had been filed as of early Tuesday afternoon, police spokesman Officer Jose Estrada told Chicagoist.

Surveillance video captured the nasty sucker punch, which happened at around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, Mother's Day. The guard, Stigler, is seen approaching a man sprawled out on the sidewalk against the condo complex where Stigler works. Stigler told NBC 5 that she first offered to help the man, who was apparently drunk; then she asked him to leave after he puked on the ground. She's seen bringing a mop bucket outside to clean up the mess. A few moments later, the man is seen throwing water from his water bottle at Stigler then clocking her once in the face. He and three acquaintances then walk out of view.

A GoFundMe account to help with Stigler's recovery has raised more than $10,000. Stigler will undergo surgery on Wednesday, according to an update on the campaign. She told NBC 5 that she suffered a fractured bone below her eye and a broken nose.

This post will be updated as necessary.
Sen. Bob Corker's comment about a White House "in a downward spiral" Monday may represent an urgent call from fellow Republicans to the Trump administration please, less drama and more clarity.

The comment from the Tennessean, who was an early supporter of Trump during the election and was floated as a potential running mate during the campaign, came after The Washington Post reported on Monday that President Donald Trump divulged highly classified information about the Islamic State during a closed meeting with Russian officials last week.

"Obviously, they're in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Corker told reporters this week. "You know, the shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good productive things that are under way through them and through others, but the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment  it creates a worrisome environment."

Corker's comment stood in contrast with Republicans like Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who were somewhat more quiet on the matter  though they are both regular Trump critics.
Josh James started Domo, his software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, in 2010 after selling his web analytics company, Omniture, to Adobe Systems for $1.8 billion. Domo develops software so that businesses can pull together data on sales, cash flow and other measures from different sources and view them all on one dashboard on their phone, laptop or any other device. The company, based in American Fork, Utah, has been a darling of venture firms, having attracted nearly $700 million in funding from Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz and TPG Growth.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

Domo's solutions can be parsed by role (CEO, CFO or sales, for instance) or by industry. Domo for CEOs, for example, gives business leaders all the metrics they need together in one place, highlighting risks and opportunities at a glance. The company, which has a valuation of about $2.3 billion at this point, according to PitchBook, says it has more than 1,000 customers, including DHL, Univision, MasterCard, eBay, and National Geographic. Domo's most recent round of funding in April put to rest any plans for James to take the company public. He's told various media outlets that an IPO is still the goal, but doesn't have a date in mind.
"If the DOJ (Department of Justice) is able to convict a publisher for its journalistic work, all free journalism can be criminalized," the letter read.

In an open letter published Monday, Snowden and several hundred activists, government workers, and lawyers said prosecuting Wikileaks and any members is a "threat to all free journalism".

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and over 600 other people urged President Donald Trump on Monday to drop an investigation and any planned charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Despite Trump declaring on his campaign trail last year that he was a fan of WikiLeaks  the organization that leaked Hillary Clinton's emails  other members of his administration have targeted Assange.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last months that . The WikiLeaks founder is currently at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

"We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. This is a matter that's gone beyond anything I'm aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious," Sessions said.

Among the other notable names on the open letter are Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, and filmmaker Oliver Stone.

"We call on you as President of the United States to close the Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks and drop any charges planned against any member of WikiLeaks," the letter said.

"It was a free and robust press that provided you with a platform on which to run for president. Defending a truly free press requires freedom from fear and favor and the support of journalists and citizens everywhere; for the kind of threat now facing WikiLeaks  and all publishers and journalists  is a step into the darkness."

Assange has also faced sexual assault allegations from the Swedish government that dates back to 2010. He has denied them and said they were politically motivated allegations. On Sunday, Ecuador said there has been a "serious lack of progress" over the investigation into Assange.

Leaking of classified data is back in the spotlight following two incidents this week. Firstly, the massive that hit 200,000 computers across 150 countries, was said to be made possible because of a security flaw discovered in Microsoft's Windows operating system and stolen by the cybercriminals .

And the Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump had revealed .
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Steve Eisman, whose bet against the highly leveraged banking system was chronicled in "The Big Short" book and movie, doesn't see any risks of that magnitude to any part of the U.S. economy on the horizon. In fact, Wall Street is so healthy now, Eisman is buying bank stocks. "There's no big short in my view. There are sector shorts; there are stock shorts. This is back to a stock picker's market," Eisman said late Monday on CNBC's "Fast Money." "I think there are plenty of shorts in this market. It's just not a systemic problem." Ahead of the financial crisis of 2008, Eisman was one of a handful who bet against big Wall Street banks for their holdings of bad mortgages. From the beginning of his career in the early '90s, the analyst had "a special talent for making noise and breaking with consensus opinion," Michael Lewis wrote in his book "The Big Short." Now a fund manager at Neuberger Berman, Eisman is standing out these days for his lack of concern. He's seeing better fundamentals in the financial system than those currently worried about investor complacency and high levels of debt.

Steven Eisman, senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman Katie Rooney | CNBC

Eisman pointed out that it took 10 years from 1997 to 2007 for leverage in the financial system to quadruple to unsustainable levels. One decade later, "we're just at the end of the deleveraging process," he said on CNBC. "I do believe this administration is going to allow for more leverage to come back into the system. But we have so far to go for that to be a systemic problem that it's not something I'm particularly worried about," Eisman said. Some on Wall Street increasingly worry that too low volatility amid stocks at record highs  led by high-flying technology names with questionable valuations  sets the stage for the aging bull market to finally end.

'Mercury to Pluto'
Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:

Home Depot  The home improvement retailer beat estimates by five cents a share, with first-quarter earnings of $1.67 per share. Revenue beat forecasts, as did both global and U.S. comparable-store sales. Home Depot also raised its full-year earnings outlook to $7.15 per share from $7.13 a share, although that is still below the consensus estimate of $7.20 a share.

Pfizer  Citi cut the drugmaker to "sell" from "neutral," and lowered earnings estimates. Citi said coverage of some of Pfizer's more expensive oncology drugs under Medicare Part D are at risk.

Alibaba  The Wall Street Journal reported the initial public offering of Alibaba's finance arm, Ant Financial, has been delayed at least until the end of 2018. The delay comes as Ant Financial moves to win regulatory approvals and seeks to build its business in the meantime.

Dick's Sporting Goods  Dick's earnings matched estimates, with adjusted quarterly profit of 54 cents per share. Revenue missed forecasts, however, sending its shares lower. Same-store sales were up 2.4 percent, smaller than the consensus estimate of up 3.5 percent, but Dick's did predict current-quarter profit above Street estimates.

Tronc  The Chicago Tribune publisher signed a non-binding financial agreement to buy Wrapports Holdings, the parent of the rival Chicago Sun Times . Tronc would maintain the Sun Times newsroom as an independent operation.

Staples  The office supplies retailer matched forecasts with adjusted quarterly profit of 17 cents per share, while revenue fell below forecasts. Comparable-store sales fell 2.6 percent, smaller than the 3.8 percent drop that analysts were anticipating.

Yahoo  Yahoo commenced a Dutch auction tender offer to purchase up to $3 billion in common stock, in a move to provide liquidity to shareholders who will be forced to sell as part of Yahoo's deal to sell its internet assets to Verizon .

Apple - New Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett has a 2.4 percent stake in Apple, making it the third-largest holding in his portfolio. Buffett had told CNBC last week that he'd tripled his Apple stake, with the filing now giving more precise figures. Buffett's latest filing also showed purchases of Bank of New York Mellon , Southwest Airlines , and American Airlines Group , and an exit of his holdings in 21 .

Ford  The automaker is planning to cut 10 percent of its global workforce, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Ford told CNBC it did not comment on speculation and that it has not announced any new efficiency actions regarding its workers.

BHP Billiton  BHP is under increasing pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which is now calling for an independent review of the mining company's petroleum business. Elliott currently holds a 4.1 percent stake in BHP.

Vodafone  Vodafone reported a $6.7 billion loss for the fiscal year ending in March, pressured by results at its India unit. The world's second-biggest mobile operator, however, is forecasting earnings growth for the current year.

Facebook  Facebook is still accessible in Thailand, despite government threats to shut it down if it did not remove certain content that officials deemed a threat to national security.

Johnson & Johnson  J&J is among the drugmakers being sued by New York State's Orange County, which said the companies are engaging in fraudulent marketing that downplays the dangers of prescription opioid painkillers. Teva Pharmaceutical and Endo International are also among those named in the suit.

Etsy  Etsy now has investment firms TPG and Dragoneer Investment Group as joint eight percent stakeholders, according to SEC filings. TPG has contacted management offering to engage in talks about strategic alternatives for the online seller of handmade goods. Etsy had already been urged to consider a sale by shareholder and activist hedge fund Black and White Capital.

Tesla  Tesla executive Lyndon Rive has left the automaker, saying he wanted to start a new company and spend more time with his family. Rive  a cousin of Tesla CEO Elon Musk  was the CEO and co-founder of SolarCIty , which was acquired by Tesla last year.

Hostess Brands  Hostess was rated "overweight" in new coverage at Stephens, which set a $20 price target compared to Monday's close of $16. The firm said the snack maker is in the early stages of a recovery under a very strong leadership team.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended 0.12 percent higher with many sectors in negative territory. However, the FTSE 100 closed at another record high on Tuesday, passing the 7,500 for the first time ever. The German DAX pared gains after hitting a new all-time high on Tuesday. The index closed around the flat line.

Bank stocks were down as several lenders dipped towards the bottom of the benchmark. Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which had invested in UBS during the financial crisis to support the lender in 2008, said it had cut its stake in the bank at a loss, Reuters reported. Shares of the Swiss lender slid 2.1 percent on the news.



British budget airline easyJet reported a worse-than-expected earnings miss for the first half of the year as the weak pound and fierce competition from European rivals took its toll on the company. The U.K.-based airline said strong cost control measures meant it remained on track to meet full-year targets. However, its shares plunged more than 7 percent.



The world's second-largest mobile operator, Vodafone , posted a 6.1 billion euro ($6.71 billion) loss for the 12 months ending in March. The U.K.-based firm was weighed down by its embattled Indian unit though sought to reassure investors with a rosy earnings outlook and a jump in free cash flow for the current year. As a result, its shares hit the top of the benchmark, trading more than 3.5 percent higher.



Meanwhile, the dollar slumped to its lowest level since the U.S. presidential election in November on Tuesday. The U.S. currency was down 0.4 percent against a basket of currencies, at 98.527, during mid-morning deals. The drop in dollar has sent the euro higher, as political concerns in Europe dissipate.

On Wall Street, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 climbed to fresh record highs. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.11 percent as Home Depot reported better-than-expected earnings.

Franco-German relationship

U.K. inflation data rose to 2.7 percent in April, hitting its highest level since September 2013. Sterling edged to a fresh one-week high on the news though has since pared all of its gains to turn negative.



Euro zone gross domestic product (GDP) was confirmed at 0.5 percent for the first three months of the year, according to the European Union's statistics office Eurostat. Elsewhere, the mood among German investors improved yet again in May to hit its highest level since July 2015. The ZEW survey showed economic sentiment had increased to 20.6 from 19.5 in the month previous.



German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed a new openness to far-reaching changes to secure the future of the European Union as she met with newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday evening. The two leaders said Macron's election victory could revitalize the Franco-German relationship, which has long been the engine for binding EU member states.

The outcome of the French presidential election has sparked investors' appetite for the second largest euro economy. The country has attracted 30 billion euros of orders for a new 31-year bond, the Financial Times reported.

Elsewhere, Britain's International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, said Monday the U.K. would be a leading supporter of free trade, despite its plans to depart from the European Union. Fox stressed Britain would not pursue isolationist policies throughout the Brexit process and criticized other nations for a slowdown in international trade.

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New York City-based Foursquare may have started out in 2009 as an app to check in with friends, but the company has focused on using its location intelligence for bigger purposes ever since. Last year it launched a new service, called Attribution, that allows advertisers, brands and publishers to measure how their media spending translates into actual visits to retail locations. The companies using the service include TGI Fridays, Peet's Coffee and Anheuser-Busch.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

Foursquare's numbers are impressive. Every month, 50 million people use the company's two mobile apps and websites: Foursquare and Swarm. The former lets users check in with friends with real-time location; the latter turns check-ins with friends into a game, allowing users to earn coins, collect stickers and compete with others.
Goldman Sachs told investors to buy Intuitive Surgical shares because robot-assisted procedures will double in the next two years. The firm initiated coverage on the surgical robot maker with a buy rating.



Intuitive Surgical is one of the best-performing stocks in the market this year. The company's shares are up 34 percent year to date compared with the 7 percent return.



"With less than 4 percent of U.S. surgeries employing robotics today, we think investors should own this structural winner as the market doubles in the next few years," analyst Isaac Ro wrote in a note to clients Tuesday. "We think emerging markets are underappreciated and near-term concerns on competition are overblown given ISRG's proven outcomes/ease."

His Intuitive Surgical 12-month price target is $1,000, representing 18 percent upside from Monday's close of $850.67.



Ro predicts robot-assisted procedures will rise by 100 percent in the next two years due to increasing usage during hernia and gall bladder surgeries. He also noted that less than 3 percent of tier-three (facilities with more than 500 beds) hospitals in China have an Intuitive Surgical robot system.



"As the Tier 3 hospital market in China is the same size as the entire U.S. hospital market, we think the long-term opportunity to expand the installed base in China is significant and underappreciated," he wrote.



As a result, Ro estimates Intuitive Surgical will generate earnings per share of $23.87 in 2017 and $27.30 in 2018 compared with the Wall Street consensus of $23.60 and $27.08, respectively.



"We see new product cycles, an expanding platform, high hurdles for physician training, and significant financial resources as tail winds to ISRG's competitive position," the analyst wrote.



 CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.
It's hard now to remember, but all the way back in January, Tom Price's nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services was very nearly derailed by revelations that the Georgia congressman had bought between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock in a medical device company Zimmer Biomet while he was working on legislation that would affect its profits.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Chris Murphy asked Price, "Tell me how it can possibly be O.K. that you were championing positions on health-care issues that have the effect of increasing your personal wealth?," while Senator Ron Wyden wanted him to admit he showed obvious bad judgment.

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For most people watching, the idea running through their heads was likely along the lines of, "Man, I would not want to be that guy." But for four of Price's colleagues in Congress, it was, "Get my broker on the phone!" Per Politico:

On the very day that Wyden was decrying Price's bad judgment, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, bought shares of the same tiny Australian company, Innate Immunotherapeutics. Within two days three more members also bought inRepublicans Billy Long of Missouri, Mike Conaway of Texas and John Culberson of Texas. Conaway added more shares the following week.

According to an investigation by Politico, some 28 members of the House and six senators each traded over 100 stocks in the past two years, "placing them in the potential cross hairs of a conflict of interest on a regular basis," given the breadth of issues Congress has its hands in. Furthermore, "a handful of lawmakers, some of them frequent traders and some not, disproportionately trade in companies that also have an interest in their work on Capitol Hill."

If you're wondering, "Wait, can they really get away with that?" the answer is, yes, they can, because lawmakers, by their own design, are not subject to the same conflict of interest rules as even the people in the White House (though this administration is clearly trying to change that). Five years ago, the hilariously named Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was passed, which, for the first time, required disclosures about stock trades and barred lawmakers from insider trading. But it hasn't really been the deterrent its sponsors had hoped:

. . . the bill's enforcement mechanisms have been hard to implement. So far, no one has been convicted of insider trading under the Stock Act. And when the Securities and Exchange Commission sought to enforce the act in recent years, it ran up against sweeping opposition in Congress.

When it comes to the congressmen who've made trades that look suspicious, many invariably have the same answer: their broker did it. "I don't decide on, neither am I even informed of, trades that are made in my account," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told Politico of his purchase of Gilead Sciences, Abbott Laboratories, and McKesson, while he was working on a $6.3 billion medical research funding bill.

Representative Chuck Fleischmann, who sits on the health-care appropriations panel and bought shares in companies developing cancer drugs around the time Joe Biden was leaning on congress to fund his "Cancer Moonshot" proposal, said, "In regard to my stocks, I treat my investments like a blind trust and was unaware of the transaction since my financial adviser makes the transactions."

But those claims ring a tad bit hollow, given the fact lawmakers like Fleischmann could actually put their money in a blind trustas many of their colleagues have donebut have chosen not to do so. "If you're really not going to be involved, then put it in a blind trust and let a truly independent advisernot a family relativemake those decisions for you," Campaign Legal Center counsel Larry Noble told Politico.

"When they say, 'Well I didn't know my broker was going to buy it,' you have to start parsing words. You didn't know he was going to buy it that day? Or, you've never had a conversation with your broker about buying that kind of stock?" Or they could just throw everything in a mutual fund, which according to Robert Walker, a former counsel for the House and Senate Ethic committee, "might lead to a boring investment life" but is "the more prudent ethical and political course."

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About 73.5 percent of surveyed people said that they received paid annual leave, while 21.9 percent people said they did not have paid days off.

The survey, conducted among 1,997 employers, was published in Tuesday's edition of the China Youth Daily.

According to a regulation on paid annual leave, which was made effective in 2008, employees who work consecutively more than one year should receive paid days off.

In the survey, 64.9 percent of correspondents said that their employers asked them to use their paid annual leave within a year, and if they did not, their paid vacation would expire.

Wen Chenjing, a member of the labor relations research committee of the Shanghai Bar Association, said that there is no legal basis for employers to reset paid annual leave after a year.

National legal annual leave can be spent after a year, while extra vacation allowed by employers could expire in accordance with company regulations, said Wen.

In response to a question about how to implement the regulation on paid annual leave, 42.2 percent of surveyed people hoped to increase supervision and punish violators, and 20.7 percent of people hoped to improve laws and regulations.
Shares of Jack in the Box surged after the company said it had retained Morgan Stanley to evaluate potential alternatives for Mexican chain Qdoba.

The company said that its overall valuation has been "impacted by having two different business models."

The stock surged more than 10 percent in after-hours trade.

Jack in the Box also said comparable-store sales at company-owned stores declined 2.4 percent, more than the 1.7 percent decrease analysts had projected, according to a StreetAccount consensus estimate.

The San Diego, Calif.-based company also reported earnings of 98 cents per share on $369 million in revenue. Wall Street had expected earnings of 91 cents a share on $369 million in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates.

In the comparable year-ago period, Jack in the Box had reported earnings of 85 cents a share on $361 million in revenue.
JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon highlighted several critical issues confronting the United States during the bank's annual shareholder meeting Tuesday and urged the business community and the Trump administration to come together to find meaningful solutions to these problems.

During Q&A with shareholders, Dimon was asked multiple questions related to his willingness to support President Trump. The CEO is on Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.

In the answer to a question related to Trump's tighter immigration policy, Dimon took a moment to address the elephant in the room that kept coming up.

"He is the President of the United States. I believe he is the pilot flying our airplane," Dimon said, "I would try to help any President of the United States because I'm a patriot."

Dimon emphasized the areas he believes are in serious need of fixing, including education, infrastructure, and tax reform.

"Our corporate tax system is driving capital and brains overseas and excessive regulation is reducing growth and business formation particularly for small businesses."

Dimon also added that it doesn't mean he supports all of the policies that the administration comes up with.

Dimon, who became JPMorgan Chase's chairman on Dec. 31, 2006 and has been CEO and president since Dec. 31, 2005 also reiterated his position on the need to roll back some of the regulation of the big banks.

"We are not looking to throw out the entirety of Dodd-Frank or other rules, it is however appropriate to open up the rulebook in the light of day and rework the rules and regulations that don't work well or are unnecessary," Dimon said. "We believe that changes can and should be made to preserve the safety and soundness of the financial system".

Dimon also highlighted JPMorgan Chase's "breakout year" despite operating in a period of "profound political and economic change" around the world. JPM has delivered record results in six of the last seven years, with 2016 being no exception, earning $24.7 billion in net income on revenue of $99.1 billion.



The CEO was optimistic on the growth continuing with the "underlying growth of the U.S. and the global economy" providing the necessary fuel to drive the future growth of JPMorgan.

The bank's shareholder meeting was held in Delaware, where JPM is the largest private employer in the state and is also home to the company's credit card business.

Shareholders voted to reelect all twelve of the directors, with no director receiving less than 96% of the votes cast.
LevelUp, a U.S. mobile app financial technology (fintech) firm, has raised $50 million in finance from long-term investors JP Morgan Chase and U.S. Boston Capital and from newcomer CentroCredit Bank. Its latest fundraising round brings the total raised by the start-up so far to just over $85m.

The corporate offers its one million app users a month a range of loyalty rewards, analytics and payment options from partner restaurants, merchants and banks, including brands like sweetgreen, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and nearly 200 other restaurants across the U.S.

Its technology is used to power aspects of the Chase Pay mobile payments app, particularly the in-store loyalty and rewards programs and the order-ahead payment options offered by merchants that have signed up with LevelUp.

Partners can use its technology on a white-labeled basis to offer new loyalty, customer engagement, transaction and other functionality to their end users.

The new money raised will be spent on hiring new staff, product development and further expansion across the U.S.

Existing investors include Google Ventures, Highland Capital, Balderton Capital and Continental Advisors which is led by Phil Purcell, the founder of Discover Card. The first money used to establish the business came from the Princeton Business Plan Competition, which LevelUp founder Seth Priebatsch won during his freshman year.

LevelUp then entered an incubator, Dreamit Ventures, to develop the business further with the help of mentors and seed investors, and is now entering the latter stages of venture fundraising as it attempts to scale up.

"LevelUp has grown rapidly over the last several years and this funding sets us up to accelerate our growth this year and next," said Priebatsch. "We're thrilled to have the continued support of our existing investors including Chase and U.S. Boston, and great new partners like CentroCredit Bank."

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The millionaire began his career as a property investor after purchasing a gym in Melbourne's south in 2001 with the help of $34,000 borrowed from his grandfather.

"When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 ($15) and four coffees at $4 each," said Tim Gurner, 35, an Australian property tycoon who reportedly has almost half a billion dollars in the bank.

A multimillionaire property magnate in Australia has told young people that if they want to get on the property ladder, they should stop spending so much money on avocado toast and coffee.

He then went on to found his real estate company Gurner in 2015 and, according to 9news, currently has $3.8 billion worth of development projects.

In the interview, the 35-year-old stressed how hard he worked when he was young.

"When I had my first business when I was 19, I was in the gym at 6 a.m. in the morning, and I finished at 10.30 at night, and I did it seven days a week and I did it until I could afford my first home."

Tweet

Gurner told the Australian television version of 60 minutes that the problem lay with reality TV stars who give millennials unrealistic expectations.

"This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that's normal  thinking owning a Bentley is normal. They want to eat out every day; they want travel to Europe every year.

"The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it [and] saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder."

Gurner said one ray of light for young people would be the huge transfer of wealth as baby boomers retired and grew old but added that this could take as long as 20 years to materialize.

The comments echo an editorial piece in The Australian newspaper last year in which Demographer Bernard Salt young people could better afford a home if they stopped spending all their money in expensive cafes.

"I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family.

"But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn't they be economizing by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house," he wrote.

U.S. congressman Jason Chaffetz also raised debate about where to prioritize income when he said Americans who couldn't afford health insurance should stop buying smartphones.
A mother holds her infant son Luke during a visit with him at Lily's Place, a treatment center for opioid-dependent newborns in Huntington, West Virginia, October 19, 2015.

Samantha Bailey spends her days in a Phoenix hospital room with her 19-month-old son, Henry, waiting for a heart transplant and fretting about his health care once he gets it.

Fears about health care for low income or special needs children in Arizona aren't theoretical or simply the product of an anxious mother's mind. Until last year, Arizona was the only state in the nation that wasn't enrolling children just above the poverty line into the free or low-cost Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). A recession-induced budget crunch there led to a health coverage wait list for families earning between $27,000 to $40,000 a year for a family of three.

Now, parents across the country who have special needs children or low incomes are bracing for similar threats to their families' health care.

More from USA Today:

Trump says he has 'absolute right' to release terrorism info to Russians

Trump's tweets on mishandled classified info come back to haunt him

McDonald's apologizes for 'insensitive' UK ad about child coping with father's death

The nearly $1 trillion in federal cuts to the Medicaid program approved by House Republicans threaten the record success getting these children covered by insurance and on a path to healthier lives, health experts warn. Their angst is magnified by the Sept. 30 deadline for CHIP reauthorization, which some worry will be used as a bargaining tool to get the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA) through the Senate.

With cuts anywhere near that size, "there's absolutely no way kids can stay out of harm's way," says Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center on Children and Families.

Medicaid and CHIP together cover nearly half of all children six and under, with Medicaid covering the vast majority.

Children's health advocates fear their cause has been overshadowed in the uproar over whether or not people with pre-existing conditions would be covered under House Republicans' plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Medicaid covers health care for the disabled and nearly all people under 138% of the federal poverty limit in the 32 states (including D.C.) that expanded Medicaid under the ACA. In states that didn't expand Medicaid, pregnant women and new mothers are covered for varying amounts of time.

Along with leaving it up to states how much of the ACA should be overturned, the AHCA would cut $880 billion from Medicaid over a 10-year period. It would largely do so by turning the program into a block grant to states that would remain constant through recessions, like the one that forced Arizona's version of CHIP to stop accepting new members.

Henry Bailey is enrolled in a state Medicaid program that provides coverage for children with certain qualifying, often high-cost medical conditions. It's unknown what changes Arizona would make to the state's Medicaid program if the federal funding formula shifted.

Samantha Bailey worries what that will mean for Henry, who will need regular checkups and a lifetime of anti-rejection medications after his heart transplant.

"Our immediate concerns are whether the state will still cover him," said Bailey, a registered Republican. "After transplant, the medications that he requires are lifelong. If he skips a dose or we are unable to afford it, he goes back into rejection."

Arizona's law that reopened CHIP to new children last year, also directs the state's Medicaid director to halt new enrollment and provide a 30-day termination notice to enrollees and contractors if the federal government halts funding.

"We are asking Congress to focus on this and make sure that kids don't get lost in the shuffle of all the fighting that is going on." said Dana Wolfe Naimark, CEO of Children's Action Alliance in Phoenix. "We are extremely concerned on the impact on kids. Everything is at risk."
People work at the Halfaya oilfield in Amara, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq. Essam Al-Sudani | Reuters

OPEC's effort to shrink huge global crude stockpiles may fail even if the cartel agrees to extend its agreement to pump less oil, the International Energy Agency warned on Tuesday.



Members of OPEC meet next week to discuss rolling over output cuts into the second half of 2017. Top producers Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC member Russia have already backed an extension through March 2018. OPEC and 11 other exporting nations agreed last year to take 1.8 million barrels a day off the market in the first six months of this year. The goal is to reduce the amount of oil sitting in storage to the five-year average. Thus far, the deal has not succeeded. Crude stockpiles in the 35-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reached a new all-time high in March, largely due to robust U.S. imports and maintenance at Northern Hemisphere refineries that dampened crude demand, IEA reported on Tuesday.

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Those stockpiles will fall by about 700,000 barrels a day in the second quarter if OPEC keeps April's production level, the IEA forecast in its latest monthly report. The energy adviser said the drawdown will be even greater if OPEC maintains its policy during the next six months, when refineries will consume more crude oil to meet peak demand for fuel in the summer. But OPEC still may not hit its target this year. "Even if this turns out to be the case, stocks at the end of 2017 might not have fallen to the five-year average, suggesting that much work remains to be done in the second half of 2017 to drain them further." Some market watchers now believe exporters must agree to deeper cuts, but a number of analysts say that is not likely. To be sure, EIA believes supply and demand have basically balanced following a protracted period of global oversupply that sent oil prices to 12-year lows below $30 a barrel last year. Exporters' supply cuts have boosted prices back above $50 a barrel for much of the last 5 months. But the rebound has emboldened producers beyond the two dozen nations that have curtailed output, particularly U.S. shale drillers that rely on expensive production methods to unlock oil and gas from rock formations.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has rebuked claims that U.S. President Donald Trump divulged highly classified information to Russian officials during a visit to the Oval Office, calling them "harmful" and "dangerous."

Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, dismissed the claims in a Facebook post Tuesday, the day after reports emerged that Trump had revealed intelligence about a planned Islamic State operation to Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

"Guys, have you been reading American newspapers again? Don't read them," wrote Zakharova.

"You can use them in all sorts of ways, but don't read them  it's not just bad for you, lately it's been dangerous."

The information the Trump relayed was "so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials told The Wall Street Journal.

The White House has since denied the claims.

Such a disclosure of intelligence to an adversary would typically be illegal. However, the president has authority to declassify confidential government information, meaning that  if true  the claims are unlikely to be considered a breach of the law.

Russia's Interfax news agency, citing the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the reports are "fake."

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Correction: Maria Zakharova is spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry. An earlier version misstated her title.
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President Donald Trump's alleged sharing of highly-classified information with Russian officials in the Oval Office is not going to be the story that finally breaks his support from conservative media, Congressional Republicans or his most ardent supporters



But it will add fresh roadblocks to the president's ability to get anything significant done on Capitol Hill this year, including sweeping tax reform and a major roll-back of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.



The latest explosion from the White House has already fallen into a familiar narrative. Administration officials late Monday released a flurry of statements denying the blockbuster Washington Post report that Trump disclosed highly-classified intelligence details to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister that could compromise a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.



For the most part the denials, especially from National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, were finely parsed. McMaster denied that Trump disclosed specific sources and methods to the Russians. But the Post story never alleged that he did that. It said only that he gave enough information for the Russians to potentially identify the source. The information came from another country that had not given the U.S. permission to share it.



After the denials, Trump issued a series of tweets on Tuesday morning essentially acknowledging he shared the information but claiming, correctly, that it was not illegal for him to do so.

Echoes of Comey termination

The same chaotic story played out with the firing of James Comey as FBI director. White House officials initially said Trump fired Comey on the advice of senior Justice Department officials and not because he was frustrated with the bureau's investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.



Trump then went on national television with NBC's Lester Holt and blew out all those explanations, saying he had decided to fire Comey regardless of the Justice Department recommendations and did so with the Russia probe in mind.

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Now Trump has basically said that yes, he did give sensitive information to the Russians, who are allied with the U.S. against the Islamic State, but very opposed to the United States in Syria and other areas.



Trump then went on to attack the "leakers" who spoke to the Post and other news organizations. And conservative media outlets including Breitbart and Fox News also turned the story into one about leaks rather than the potentially destabilizing and dangerous actions of a president with apparently little regard for the implications of casually sharing closely guarded intelligence secrets.

Where the real fallout lies

Polling is not yet available on how Trump's core supporters will react to the latest Russia news but it is a safe assumption that it will do little to shake their faith in the president and their tendency to dismiss any negative stories as "fake news."



On Capitol Hill there has already been the usual expressions of concern from top lawmakers including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But barring further revelations, there isn't likely to be anything more than that.



But the latest in a seemingly endless parade of Trump scandals will further erode the president's ability to make progress on major legislative goals. The Comey firing already further emboldened Democrats to try and block Trump at every move. Republicans, already facing a dwindling legislative calendar before the summer recess, can move tax reform only on a partisan basis through the "reconciliation process."



To do that, they need to pass a 2018 budget. One possible way to get that done is to pass a budget as part of legislation to raise the debt limit when they return from vacation in September. But Democrats will now have further ammunition to block any debt limit increase, especially one containing other provisions, that does not create an independent inquiry into allegations of collusion with Russia.

Bank regulations
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies during the Senate Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing on Russian Interference in the 2016 United States Election on Monday, May 8, 2017.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates has suggested that former national security advisor Michael Flynn may have run afoul of criminal law before he got fired.

In an excerpt of a CNN interview that will air Tuesday, Yates said "there is certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by [Flynn's] conduct." She did not specify what that law may have been.

A person close to Flynn said that Yates seemed to hint that Flynn could have violated the Logan Act, an obscure law essentially saying private citizens cannot conduct foreign policy discussions without the government's permission. It would be a stretch to argue that Flynn broke that law as he prepared to become national security advisor, the person said.

Yates says she warned the White House in late January that Flynn  a retired Army lieutenant general  "essentially could be blackmailed" by Russia after he misled top officials about the nature of December conversations he had with that country's ambassador to the United States. Yates previously said it created a "compromise situation," but Donald Trump did not fire Flynn until 18 days after the White House was first warned.
SoFi (short for Social Finance), the San Francisco-based finance company, started out with student-loan refinancing but has been gradually adding services in its bid to become a full-fledged financial services company. It's expanded into mortgages, mortgage refinancing, personal loans and wealth management services. And earlier this year, SoFi acquired banking start-up Zenbanx, allowing it to now offer debit, payments and money-transfer services as well.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

SoFi has pulled in $1.9 billion in funding since its start, including a recent $500 million round of equity financing led by Silver Lake. The company was started by former big bank executives who believed there had to be a better way to lend money to hardworking men and women with good earnings potential.
Another retailer is struggling to stay afloat.

This time, it's teen clothing company Rue21, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday in a Pennsylvania court.

"These actions are being undertaken with the goal of strengthening the Company's balance sheet, achieving a more efficient cost structure, and concentrating resources on a tighter retail footprint in order to pave the best path forward for rue21," CEO Melanie Cox wrote in a statement.

Rue21 said it has entered into agreements with some of its lenders to reduce its debt and to provide additional capital in support of its restructuring, according to a release, but the company expects to continue normal business operations throughout the process.

The retail chain, which operates more than 1,100 stores, has listed its assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion and $10 billion, according to Monday's court filing.



"The restructuring is an important step forward in rue21's ongoing business transformation into a more focused and highly performing retailer," the company added in a statement.

Rue21 also warned that it could evaluate additional store closures now, in addition to the already-planned 400 closures that began in April.

The retailer said it has reached agreements to obtain up to $125 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from its existing lenders, and up to $50 million in new money term loan DIP financing from a group of its existing term loan lenders.

The new financing will support day-to-day operations during the reorganization, Rue21 explained, such as paying employee wages, fulfilling agreements with vendors and honoring existing customer programs like gift cards.

"Looking ahead, I am confident that the outcome of this process will be a stronger and more sustainable rue21 for our customers, vendors and business partners," CEO Cox remarked.

Rue21 adds to a long list of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy of late, as it becomes more difficult for brick-and-mortar locations to draw customers in, with more shoppers opting to spend money online.

In April, for example, discount shoe retailer Payless ShoeSource filed for bankruptcy.

Kirkland & Ellis will serve as Rue21's legal advisor. Rothschild will be its investment banker and financial advisor. Berkeley Research Group is Rue21's restructuring advisor during this process, the company said.
As first-quarter earnings wrap up and with some key economic data releases on tap, Eddy Elfenbein, editor of the Crossing Wall Street blog, is watching for three key new items on Tuesday morning.

1. Housing starts data

Monthly U.S. homebuilding data is due out before the bell Tuesday. After a weak number published last month, in which new construction starts posted a month-over-month decline of 6.8 percent, the consensus is a bit brighter this month.

"During the last recession, housing starts completely collapsed, especially for new home sales. It's been improving recently, but we need to see more improvement. It's a general rule that the greater the housing starts, the further away the recession," Elfenbein said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

Economists polled by Reuters expect 1.26 million new units in April, or an increase of 3.7 percent month over month.

2. Home Depot quarterly earnings

Home Depot reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings Tuesday before the opening bell.

The retailer's earnings and revenue for the period beat analysts' expectations, and the company also raised its fiscal 2017 profit outlook.

Elfenbein was watching the report closely, as its business is so closely tied to other areas "like builders, contractors and do-it-yourself types," that its performance may be indicative of larger economic trends.

Home Depot shares have gained 17 percent year to date.

3. Retail earnings

It's no secret that retail stocks have struggled of late. Elfenbein is watching two retail earnings reports due out Tuesday before the opening bell: TJX and Staples .

"Staples has been struggling lately," Elfenbein said, pointing to the company's announcement in March that it planned to close approximately 70 stores in North America this year.

The office products and services retailer reported fiscal first-quarter earnings per share that were in line with estimates while revenue missed.

Meanwhile, TJX has been doing pretty well, Elfenbein said, and "I think it represents who can stand up to Amazon and who can't."

Analysts forecast earnings of 79 cents per share for TJX, per FactSet data.

 CNBC's Lauren Thomas and Reuters contributed to this story.

Disclaimer
After the report, many Republican lawmakers  and even some of Trump's Democratic critics  acknowledged that the president can share sensitive data without facing criminal punishment. The commander in chief holds special protections in that regard.

Trump reportedly shared highly classified information with key Russian diplomats during a closed-door meeting last week, according to The Washington Post and others. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he did give the Russians information for counterterrorism purposes , noting that he has the "absolute right" to do so. The president neither confirmed nor denied whether the information he revealed was classified.

But even a legal reveal of sensitive information can have consequences for the United States.

As president, Donald Trump can legally share classified information when he wants.

If Trump legally shared classified information with top Russians, however, it could still threaten intelligence gathering and the ability to stop potential threats, experts said Tuesday.

"He cannot just go ahead and reveal classified information without creating some huge problems within the intelligence community in terms of gathering that kind of information," former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CNN on Tuesday morning. "He cannot just say whatever the hell he wants and expect it doesn't carry consequences."

In responding to The Washington Post report Monday, the White House repeatedly noted that Trump did not reveal intelligence sources and methods. The Post did not report that Trump shared sources or methods, and withheld some details of the meeting because it could potentially put intelligence sources at risk.

Trump insists that he shared information partly because he wants "Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism." Still, revealing sensitive information to Russia  a power widely believed to have meddled in Western elections  could alienate U.S. allies, Panetta and retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis both said Tuesday.

"Our allies will react very badly to this. ... It's just going to continue to affect us going forward," Stavridis told MSNBC on Tuesday.

A classified disclosure to top Russian officials would violate "all norms as far as dealing with intelligence partners," Carrie Cordero, a former national security lawyer at the Justice Department, told MSNBC.

Stavridis noted that allies may now think about whether Trump will tweet sensitive information or pass it to Russia before they share the data with the United States.

It may not take long for those effects to start. On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported that a senior European official said his country may stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. if Trump gave classified information to Russian diplomats.

National security advisor H.R. McMaster said Tuesday that he does not think Trump's conversation will disrupt intelligence sharing or relationships with allies.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to defend his sharing of what is reportedly highly classified information with Russian officials  a story that has exploded overnight.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump divulged the information during a meeting with last week with Russian officials including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Current and former intelligence officials told the Post that the president disclosed highly classified information pertaining to the Islamic State.

BuzzFeed, The New York Times and Reuters later confirmed the Post's report, while White House officials denied it, saying Trump didn't discuss intelligence sources or methods of collection.

H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security advisor, told reporters Monday that "The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false."

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed," said McMaster, who didn't take questions. "I was in the room, and it didn't happen."

Trump tweeted that he shared the intelligence with the Russians because of "humanitarian reasons" and said he wants Russia to "greatly step up" its fight against ISIS.

@realDonaldTrump: As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

@realDonaldTrump: ...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

@realDonaldTrump: I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....

Russia's Foreign Ministry has rebuked claims that Trump divulged highly classified information to Russian officials during a visit to the Oval Office, calling them "harmful" and "dangerous."

 CNBC's Karen Gilchrist and NBC News contributed to this report.
It is not irrational for President Donald Trump to be seeking a strategic alliance with the Russian government against ISIS, a former CIA official told CNBC on Tuesday.

In an interview on "Squawk Box," Chad Sweet, who served in the intelligence agency's National Clandestine Service and was a Department of Homeland Security c hief of staff under the George W. Bush administration, said the Trump administration could work with Russia the same way it aligned with China to counter the threat from North Korea.

"It is absolutely in our interest to have the Russians align with us," said Sweet, co-founder and CEO of global advisory firm and investment bank The Chertoff Group. "It is entirely appropriate for the president to be discussing this common threat against both of our countries."

Sweet's comment came a day after The Washington Post reported that Trump divulged highly classified information about the Islamic State during his meeting with Russian officials last week. Officials told the Post that the information was incredibly sensitive and that its exposure endangers the relationship with an ally, which had not approved sharing the information with Russia.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disputed the report and said that during Trump's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov "the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations."

Republicans and Democrats expressed concern about the report, however. Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said he was worried about a White House "on a downward spiral." Democratic Rep. Al Green called for Trump's impeachment.

Trump responded to the report on Tuesday, saying "As President I wanted to share with Russia."

Tweet 1

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

Sweet also said he found the recent White House leaks about Trump's meeting "disturbing."

"As a CIA official as well as Homeland, I think it is inappropriate that leaks are coming out clearly from someone in the White House," he said.

 CNBC's Christine Wang and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sen. Bob Corker said Monday the White House was "in a downward spiral" following a report that Trump gave away highly classified intelligence to the Russians 5:14 PM ET Tue, 16 May 2017 | 00:42

For the second time in a week, President Donald Trump has undercut a senior administration official seeking to quell furor over a controversy emanating from the Oval Office, and it may be costing him some support now.

The latest seeming contradiction from Trump followed reports Monday that the president had shared classified information with Russian officials, a report that was categorically denied by national security advisor H.R. McMaster.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," he told reporters, without getting specific about what in the report was incorrect. "I was in the room. It didn't happen."

But on Tuesday morning, Trump contradicted the denial on Twitter, saying he shared information with Russia.

"As President, I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump tweeted. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up the fight against ISIS and terrorism."
In the early 2000s, banks successfully sued to stop Iowa from limiting their ability to charge ATM fees to non-customers. They also fought off states' attempts to stop them from charging non-customers to cash checks drawn on the banks' accounts. In another case, they stopped California from forcing two banks to conduct audits of their own residential mortgages.

What do all these cases have in common? The winning argument in each was that states had no right to impose their laws on federally regulated national banks. And the man who helped make that powerful argument was Keith Noreika  President Trump's pick to head the federal agency that oversees national banks.

Noreika, a prominent Washington attorney who specializes in financial regulatory law, has made a career out of representing banks as they sought to fight back consumer-friendly state regulations and class-action lawsuits accusing banks of deceptive practices.

He is now the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a position he can serve for 130 days without Senate approval and during which he does not have to abide by stricter ethics rules governing permanent appointees.

As head of the OCC, Noreika will be well-positioned to lighten regulations on banks  without the need for Congress to pass legislation.

Among the targets may be the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street overhaul, which made it easier for states to hold national banks accountable. Noreika has criticized the law's burdens, while Trump has called it "horrendous."

Under Dodd-Frank, the head of the OCC has broad power to review and preempt states' consumer finance laws.

"The first way to change the regulations is to put in regulators who will propose to stop enforcing them," said Andy Green, a former Democratic Senate staffer who helped craft the 2010 law and now works at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Noreika's ascension fits into a broader pattern of Trump administration appointees. Many of them have worked to influence the same agencies they've now been assigned to lead. And while Trump has been slow to name people to positions that require Senate confirmation, he has been quick to install officials out of public view.

Through an OCC spokesman, Noreika declined to be interviewed. But he said in a statement:

"I am proud to have had an effective law practice where I represented clients of all types  banks, institutions, individuals, and a large labor union."

He added:

"I do think that ten years after the crisis and seven years after the passing of Dodd-Frank, now is a good time to take stock of the rules implemented and actions taken to ensure the nation has the right sense of balance and coherence in regulating financial institutions."

(Read his full statement here.)

Noreika's appointment has raised the ire of Democratic lawmakers.

"You have chosen to replace the current head with an acting head who is unvetted, has obvious conflicts of interest, and lacks the experience to run an agency that employs almost 4,000 individuals," seven Democratic Senators wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday.

Noreika is following in the footsteps of his mentor, John Dugan, who worked with Noreika at the corporate law firm Covington & Burling  before himself leaving to head the OCC from 2005 to 2010.

Under Dugan, the OCC was criticized as being too friendly to banks in the face of widespread lending abuses that fueled the financial crisis. While Noreika now heads up the OCC, Dugan is back at Covington, where his bio says he "advises clients on a range of legal matters affected by significantly increased regulatory requirements resulting from the financial crisis."

Some say it's too early to draw any conclusions on how Dugan's protege will run the agency.

"I don't think you should assume that what a lawyer argues for a client is indicative of how he or she would react when you're administering the law," said H. Rodgin Cohen, senior chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent corporate law firm.

Consumer advocates are particularly concerned about Noreika's frequent reliance on the argument that federal banking laws and OCC regulations trump state laws  a concept known as preemption .

In 2005, when Noreika became a partner at Covington, the firm noted that "many of Mr. Noreika's cases have challenged the validity of state and local laws as preempted by the federal banking laws" and listed Wells Fargo and Bank of America as prominent clients.

ProPublica identified more than a dozen such cases filed in federal court from 2000 through 2005. Most were dismissed or settled in banks' favor.

"That's a real problem," said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center in Washington, D.C. "States often have laws that protect consumers in areas where there are no national laws."

Banking lawyers say it only makes sense to give precedence to federal banking laws. Otherwise, national banks would end up dealing with 50 different regulators rather than one  the OCC. That was the whole point behind Congress' creation of the agency during the Civil War, when states ' conflicting regulations made banking and commerce more difficult.

But in the years before the financial crisis, as abuses in the mortgage-lending markets began to surface, the OCC was slow to act. States did act. Between 1999 and 2007, North Carolina and about 30 other states passed laws targeting predatory lending practices.

The OCC, meanwhile, adopted sweeping regulations that prevented those laws from applying to national banks and extended that protection to the banks' state-chartered subsidiaries. In 2008, then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer accused the agency of embarking "on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents."

At the time, Dugan brushed off the criticism. "Almost everyone who has paid attention to the subprime lending crisis has concluded that OCC-regulated national banks were not the problem," he said in a statement responding to Spitzer.

But two separate inquiries  the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and a report by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee  disagreed. The commission concluded that the OCC's preemption of state laws ended up "preventing adequate protection for borrowers and weakening constraints" on risky mortgages.

The banks used the OCC to engage in "regulatory arbitrage," said Arthur Wilmarth, a professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Dugan did not return phone calls but said in an email, "I disagree categorically with Wilmarth." He referred his testimony to the crisis investigators, in which he said the financial crisis was "not caused by federal preemption of state mortgage lending laws." Instead, Dugan said, "the root cause of the mortgage crisis was exceptionally weak underwriting standards."

In 2007, as Dugan presided over the OCC, Noreika and his Covington colleagues won the biggest preemption victory of all, Watters vs. Wachovia Bank. The case evolved from separate federal lawsuits involving banks that had sought to shield their subsidiaries from state laws and subsequently faced collapse or fell into legal trouble for their business practices  Wachovia, National City Bank of Cleveland and Wells Fargo. Wilmarth advised state banking regulators on the cases.

The cases were merged and went all the way up to the Supreme Court, where Noreika argued that state laws didn't apply to subsidiaries of national banks like Wachovia. In a 5-3 vote, the high court agreed.

Preemption became an even bigger issue after the 2008 collapse of several big banks, including Wachovia. Local governments tried to sue banks for alleged misdeeds, but again were blocked by preemption.

By then, Congress was working on Dodd-Frank, and preemption was a hotly debated area of reform. One of the changes Congress enacted as part of the law was to negate the effect of the Supreme Court decision that Noreika had litigated. Dodd-Frank also gave local law enforcement authorities more power to bring lawsuits against national banks under state laws. And it created a revised set of rules under which the OCC can review state banking laws to determine if they should be preempted.

The responsibility for those reviews falls to the head of the OCC  now Noreika. He has the power to determine if a state consumer finance law is preempted by federal law.
Responding to the Washington Post report on information sharing with the Russians, President Trump defended his actions in tweets this morning, saying he had "the absolute right" to do it. (CNBC)

The president plans to meet at the White House today with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump hopes to forge friendlier ties between the two NATO allies after the tense Obama years. (LA Times)

Intelligence officials and private security experts said new digital clues point to North Korean-linked hackers as likely suspects in the sweeping global WannaCry ransomware attacks. (NY Times)

Walt Disney (DIS) chief Bob Iger reportedly told employees that hackers claim to have stolen a Disney movie. The name of the movie was not disclosed. The hackers threatened to release parts of it if Disney doesn't pay a ransom via bitcoin. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Facebook (FB) is still accessible in Thailand, despite government threats to shut it down if the social network did not remove certain content that officials deemed a threat to national security. Images and video appear to show the king there in an embarrassing light. (CNBC)

McDonald's (MCD) has apologized after its latest ad campaign attracted widespread criticism for exploiting childhood bereavement. The ad implies a boy had little in common with his deceased father other than their shared enjoyment of the fast food giant. (CNBC)

Ford (F) is planning to cut 10 percent of its global workforce, according to the Wall Street Journal. Ford told CNBC it does not comment on speculation and that it's not announced any new efficiency actions regarding its workers.

Lyndon Rive, who founded SolarCity with financial backing from his cousin Elon Musk, is leaving Tesla, saying he wants to start a new company. Musk's electric automaker bought SolarCity last year. (CNBC)

After a series of major service disruptions over the past month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has unveiled a plan to improve the service and clean up New York City's subway system. (CNBC)
This Silicon Valley start-up  whose founders include two of the people that helped to start Zipcar  aims to build city-scale networks of connected vehicles that can expand wireless coverage. That means cars and buses, for instance, can become live networks that allow people to be online without being dependent on a cellular network. Veniam co-founder and CEO Joao Barros says the company can also take the data it collects to keep track of buses and other municipal vehicles and better manage traffic flows and alternate routes.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

The company's technology can best be seen in Porto, Portugal, right now, where its hardware has been installed onto the public bus system. The company claims that 200,000 bus riders have access to Veniam's free mobile Wi-Fi there every day. In November it signed an agreement with StarHub, a communications provider in Singapore, to turn thousands of vehicles into mobile Wi-Fi hot spots, and in January it signed a similar agreement with a company in Mexico.

So far, the company, which recently opened offices in New York City as well, has raised close to $30 million from True Ventures, Cisco Investments, Union Square Ventures and Cane Investments, and from the investment arms of Verizon, Cisco, Orange, Yamaha Motors and Liberty Global.
Investors should buy Microsoft shares because the recent cyberattacks will spur companies to upgrade to the technology giant's latest operating system, according to Credit Suisse, which reiterated its outperform rating on the software firm.



The WannaCry ransomware malware hit 200,000 victims in 150 countries due to security holes in older Microsoft Windows operating systems.



"The recent global ransomware attack exploiting a flaw in Windows, while serious, not only demonstrates the continued ubiquity of Microsoft, but also highlights that many of the affected enterprises or entities that are still using older, and now unsupported, versions of Windows need to accelerate their plans to upgrade to Windows 10," analyst Michael Nemeroff wrote in a note to clients Monday entitled "If you're not current, you're toast."
President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his conduct in last week's meeting with top Russian officials, calling it "very successful."

Speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a White House visit, Trump said the United States wants to get as many partners as possible involved in the fight against the terror group ISIS.

Trump reportedly shared highly classified information with top Russian officials during a closed-door meeting last week, according to The Washington Post and others. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he did give the Russians information for counterterrorism purposes, noting that he has the "absolute right" to do so. The president neither confirmed nor denied whether the information he revealed was classified.

National security advisor H.R. McMaster said Tuesday that Trump's talks with Russian diplomats were "wholly appropriate." Like Trump, McMaster did not confirm or deny whether the information he shared was classified.

McMaster contended that Trump did nothing to compromise national security. He added that Trump was not briefed on the source of the information and reiterated that the president did not reveal any sources or methods for gathering it. The Washington Post did not report that Trump revealed sources.
watch now

Brad Keywell is enjoying a repeat act. In the short period of time since he co-founded Chicago-based Uptake Technologies in July 2014, Keywell has seen his start-up reach a $2 billion valuation on the back of $146 million in funding, including $40 million from Revolution Growth, the venture firm of AOL co-founder Steve Case. It makes Uptake one of the fastest start-ups to ever reach $2 billion in value, along with Groupon , the daily deals company also based in Chicago, which Keywell co-founded in 2008.

Warren Buffett David A. Grogan | CNBC

But Uptake is nothing like Keywell's previous performance. Keywell's new start-up is in the business of predictive analytics, creating platform software that crunches data compiled by companies in a variety of industries  construction, energy and retail, to name a few  and mines that data for patterns and insights to help companies improve. "The goal of insight platforms in industry is to increase uptime and increase safety. You're trying to increase productivity and reliability," CEO Keywell said. "So you subscribe to the Uptake platform, and what you get ... presents to you analytic insights specific to the issues in your industry." More from CNBC Disruptor 50:

Why Airbnb tops the 2017 Disruptor 50

How Lyft is outmaneuvering Uber in the heated ridesharing race

Snap out of it! This is 'the best of all IPO markets' Caterpillar uses the platform  the construction equipment manufacturer was Uptake's launch partner  to detect when machinery is on the verge of breaking down. Now Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy  a portfolio worth $85 billion that includes renewable-energy companies  is getting in on the action. In March, Berkshire Hathaway Energy announced that two of its subsidiary companies (though not parent-company BHE itself) would use the Uptake platform to track their wind turbines, keeping tabs on when turbines are malfunctioning or in need of maintenance in an effort to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. For BHE's subsidiaries, it's a savvy move. Wind turbines today are outfitted with hundreds of sensors, each one tracking different pieces of data: wind speed, oil pressure, torque, vibrations in the wind blades and more. In the aggregate, it's a mesmerizing, intimidating set of information to parse. Uptake's analytics platform does this automatically and in real time, sensing potential problems before they become real ones. On Uptake's 730-person staff, about 70 data scientists and 80 technologists are the minds behind this analytics platform. "Wind turbines have all been fitted with numerous sensors so you can get more visibility into what's going on in your wind farm operations," said Stuart Ravens, an energy research analyst with the worldwide consulting firm Navigant. "You can become a far more profitable business just by using predictive analytics."

The next wave of competition

Predictive analytics is just the next iteration of the Internet of Things (IoT), the networked amalgamation of machinery, tools and appliances that work smarter and detect problems more quickly, thanks to the reams of data they collect for processing and analysis. Whereas big data was a mere buzzword only a few short years ago, advances and price reductions in sensor quality, cloud computing and data science allow start-ups like Uptake to come in and parse data for big companies, in turn enabling those companies to make their workplaces safer and cut expenses. "Many enterprises have been capturing information for years, but they don't necessarily have the expertise and the skills internally to bring together this real-time, connected information," said Michele Pelino, an IoT analysts with Forrester. It's a lucrative, growing field. By 2020 the market for predictive analytics is expected to reach $3.6 billion. But Uptake is competing in a crowded market with a number of big players, some of which have their own big deals with the energy industry. Pelino said that one direct competitor to Uptake is C3 IoT, a company that's been developing enterprise analytics software since 2009 and counts Con Edison and Pella as customers. General Electric signed a deal with Exelon last fall for the energy utility to use its analytics software in 48 states. What's more, because GE has its own predictive analytics division, it enables the company to not only sell products but also subsequent services. So GE's aviation division, for example, not only sells jet engines, it also sells maintenance on that engine, and based on tracking data that GE collects and analyzes, it knows when to contact customers regarding maintenance. "Instead of selling you just an airplane engine, you're being sold uptime for an engine," Pelino said. "They're not even selling a product anymore; they're selling a service that the product is enabling."

Brad Keywell, co-founder and CEO of Uptake. Source: Uptake

Uptake's not in that game, although Keywell claims the start-up is driving disruption of predictive analytics in other ways. Because Uptake's platform works across industries, knowledge gained in one industry can be applied to others. Tire pressure, and when it's running low, is an insight useful to both the construction and aerospace industries, for instance. In addition, Keywell argues that because Uptake is still a start-up, it has the flexibility to tailor its analytics platform for specific customers without wrangling legacy code or applications: It's building platforms with customers, as opposed to for customers.

A social mission

And Uptake's platform's capabilities aren't just limited to industry. Through the start-up's civic innovation arm, Beyond. Uptake, the analytics platform it has created will soon be used by non-profit organizations in Nepal focused on identifying people lost to human trafficking. The illegal underworld of trafficking generates roughly $150 billion in profits each year, principally from the roughly 4.5 million people trafficked for sexual exploitation, according to the International Labor Organization. "One challenge the human trafficking field has had for the past 15 to 20 years is a real lack of information on where or how trafficking happens. As a result, it's hard to structure policies and prevention to disrupt trafficking networks," said Jennifer Penrose, director of data analysis for Polaris, the Washington, D.C., nonprofit that uses data to try to interrupt human trafficking practices. Data analytics allows organizations the ability to recognize trafficking patterns. By getting a better sense of where trafficking is prevalent and who's doing the trafficking, anti-trafficking groups can develop strategies to shut down larger networks  the hubs of human trafficking  as opposed to smaller businesses like massage parlors where some trafficking victims end up.
Freshly confirmed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross are traveling to Capitol Hill on Tuesday afternoon to start talks with key lawmakers about the Trump administration's intentions to sit down with Canada and Mexico and reopen NAFTA.

Those talks are the official first steps for the administration to meet the requirements under the trade promotion authority for Lighthizer to send the letter to Congress notifying it of the administration's intention to renegotiate NAFTA.

First stop in their official Capitol discussions is a closed-door meeting with the Senate Finance Committee. Orrin Hatch, the committee's chairman, will also convene Senate Advisory Group on Negotiations, or SAGON, talks as well.



"The meetings will give members the opportunity to meet directly with Ambassador Lighthizer and discuss how Congress can work with the administration to advance a strong pro-growth trade agenda, including ideas to modernize NAFTA," said Julia Lawless, communications director of the Senate Finance Committee.

On Wednesday, Lighthizer and Ross will be meeting with members of the House in a closed-door morning session with the Ways and Means Committee. "Chairman Brady is looking forward to meeting with Ambassador Lighthizer this week with our committee members and HAGON members. These conversations will be an important opportunity to discuss the NAFTA process and other objectives," said Emily Schillinger, communications director of Ways and Means Committee. Both Lighthizer and Ross will also be meeting with House Advisory Group on Negotiations, or HAGON.



Once the letter of intent is delivered to Congress, a countdown clock of a 90-day period of consultation with Congress on NAFTA begins. These congressional discussions are completed before officially starting talks with NAFTA partners.



Ross, Lighthizer and White House trade and industrial policy advisor Peter Navarro are the three key leaders on trade policy. During this time frame, the USTR is required by law to publish objectives for the negotiations at least 30 days before formal trade negotiations begin.

President Donald Trump has said if negotiations do not go his way he'll pull out of the pact. Trump has called NAFTA one of the "worst" trade deals in history and said it has killed millions of jobs.

If the letter was delivered to Congress this week, according to the required 90-day period of consultation, the earliest talks could begin between the U.S., Canada and Mexico would be late August.
For anyone who's ever been frustrated by how long the wait is to see a doctor, there's Zocdoc. This health tech company is akin to OpenTable for doctors. It allows patients to find and book doctors appointments via its mobile app or online. The company says the average wait time to see a doctor is 19 days; Zocdoc's goal is for patients to be able to get in within 24 hours.

Read More FULL LIST: 2017 DISRUPTOR 50

Co-founder and CEO Oliver Kharraz says this is possible because most doctors typically have inefficient scheduling practices. Their office staff books appointments well into the future, but there are usually a high percentage of cancellations and reschedules. Doctors pay a flat subscription fee of $3,000 per year to be part of the Zocdoc platform that enables patients to book those available appointments. The service is free for patients and available across the United States via Zocdoc.com or the app for iPhones and Android devices.

Patients on Zocdoc can search by a doctor's name, specialty, location or insurance plan. More than 6 million patients use the service each month. Last June the New York City-based company partnered with Mayor Bill de Blasio's initiative, WorkWellNYC, that helps the city's employees, retirees and dependents find in-network primary- and preventive-care physicians in all five boroughs.

Investors seem to like Zocdoc's approach to access and efficiency. Goldman Sachs, Founders Fund and Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff have invested $230 million in the company over the past 10 years.
Gold nuggets, featuring the 250.77-ounce Twilight nugget, plus leaf gold and gold embedded in quartz are featured lots in Bonhams May 23 sale in Los Angeles.

The Twilight nugget carries an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000.

The nugget was discovered circa 1990 using a metal detector, in Dunolly, in the central Victoria goldfields of Australia.

It took two men using pickaxes and crowbars several hours to extricate the mammoth nugget that was two feet below the surface of the ground, underneath a layer of loose sand, gravel and rock.

We have plenty on the off-metal 1943 Lincoln Cents and on the origin of Q. David Bowers column: A reader wonders how much his 1943 cent struck on a dime planchet is worth, while a long-time numismatist wonders why the origins of two new bronze 1943 cents were revealed.

According to the auction lot description, Dunolly has been the site of of more nugget discoveries than any other location in the world.

In 1856, the discovery of gold in Dunolly drew nearly 60,000 people seeking fortune, in one of the worlds largest gold rushes.

Many of the worlds largest gold nuggets discovered have been found in the Dunolly region, including the 1869 discovery a short distance away, near Moliagul, of a 69-kilo nugget. In comparison, the Twilight nugget weighs only 7.8 kilos.

The auction lot description notes that many of the largest nuggets discovered were melted for their precious metal content.

Other gold nuggets

Among the other nugget lots offered is one containing 20 nuggets discovered near Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory of Canada.

The total weight of the nuggets is 3.6 ounces, or 114 grams, with the largest nugget weighing 12.18 grams and measuring 21.32 by 16.8 by 6 millimeters.

The lot has an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.

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Offered with an estimate of $20,000 to $25,000 is a palm-size nugget, with various pierced holes and crevices, some of which may indicate the presence of quartz once lodged there but now extruded and washed away.

The nugget weighs approximately 9.02 ounces and measures 3 inches by 2.125 inches by 2.875 inches.

Leaf gold

Resembling a seahorse is a 2.25-inch piece of leaf gold discovered sometime in the 1960s in the Edie Creek region of Wau Province in Papua New Guinea.

The Edie Creek area has been a historic gold and silver mining area since 1926. Situated about 3.1 miles southwest of Wau, it was the center of one of the first major gold rushes in Papua New Guinea before World War II.

The leaf gold, which weighs 3.1 grams, has been housed in a private Tasmanian collection since its discovery.

The leaf gold has an estimate of $3,500 to $5,500.

Gold with quartz

Among the lots in which gold and quartz are intertwined is a crystallized gold specimen from the Serra do Caldeirao, Pontes e lacerda, Mato Grosso, area of Brazil.

The piece, according to the lot description, features herringbone crystallization and hoppered crystals, with minute traces of crystallized quartz in some crevices.

Measuring 1.75 inches by 1 inch by 0.5 inch, the crystallized gold weighs 1.67 ounces.

It has an estimate if $40,000 to $50,000.

The buyers fee is 25 percent added on the first $150,000 of the closing hammer price; 20 percent from $150,001 to $3 million; and 12 percent on the excess if the hammer price above $3,000,001.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st L) pose for a photo with U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd R) and First Lady Melania Trump in the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the United States, April 6, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

During the two-day Xi-Trump summit in Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last April, the Chinese President Xi Jinping and United States President Donald Trump agreed to a 100-day plan to improve their strained trade ties and boost cooperation between the world's two biggest economies.

Following the 100-day action plan, China and U.S. reached a new 10-point trade agreement over beef, poultry, natural gas imports and exports on May 12, 2017, highlighting the warm ties nurtured by the two very different world leaders. In the words of Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, "The deal was a result of cooperation and reflected the expectation of the people of the two countries."

Clearly, the 10-point trade deal is mutually beneficial for many reasons. With the ambit of new trade deal, China will lift its ban on U.S. beef imports no later than July 16 and in exchange, Chinese cooked poultry will be allowed into U.S. supermarkets. So to speak, the U.S. will help satisfy the growing Chinese appetite for U.S. beef and vice versa, cooked Chinese chicken products will head to America to satisfy American consumers' culinary needs.

American beef was banned in China in 2003 after mad cow disease concerns. The new deal certainly benefits the U.S. by giving American beef exporters more access to China's increasingly prosperous middle classes. The Chinese market is estimated to be worth $2.6 billion for the U.S. beef industry. Naturally, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross hailed the agreement as "a herculean accomplishment" forged in record time. Visibly elated Trump tweeted, "China just agreed that the U.S. will be allowed to sell beef, and other major products, into China once again. This is REAL news!"

Surely, under the new plan, the Chinese poultry industry is an obvious winner as the new plan theoretically allows Chinese companies to export China-made chicken back to the U.S. On July 16, the 100th-day after the two presidents' first encounter, the U.S. will issue a proposed rule to allow Chinese cooked poultry to enter U.S. markets. So, this agreement is a positive development and a testament to the Chinese administration's work to break down some of the existing obstacles that have been preventing Chinese cooked poultry products from regaining access to the U.S. market.

Another significant outcome of the 100-day economic action plan is the deal which will allow China getting a greater access to U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. China is the world's third largest LNG importer, behind Japan and South Korea.

China is turning more to natural gas as a way to reduce its dependence on coal for generating electricity and combat the country's extensive air pollution. Certainly, the new deal will allow China to diversify its sources of supply and at the same time, it will provide a huge export market for American LNG producers. It could also support direct Chinese investment into liquefaction and upstream developments on U.S. soil.

Under the new plan, China has agreed to give full market access to American electronic payment services providers such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express and is expected to issue implementation guidelines by mid-July. In addition, China will issue both bond underwriting and settlement licenses to two qualified U.S. financial institutions, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank by July 16. The U.S. remains committed to treating Chinese banks the same as other foreign banks.

It is worth mentioning that Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul before he ran for the Oval Office, regularly lambasted China, mainly for economic reasons. Quite clearly, few countries invited the kind of wrath that China did during Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. He said China had "raped the U.S. economy," stealing its jobs. He had threatened to impose massive tariffs on the import of goods from China and label Beijing a currency manipulator, neither of which he has done. However, his tone changed since his inauguration and meeting with Xi in April, calling the Chinese President Xi a "good friend."

Trade protectionism is just a bad idea. A trade war would hurt both countries' economies. Hopefully, President Trump has realized the consequences of a potential trade war with China because the other side would retaliate damaging the American economy. During the superpower summit, as a dealmaker, Trump has made no secret of his desire for a "better" trading relationship with China. Trump's aim to rebuild U.S. infrastructure is an area where China could help. In present times, China has become the fastest-growing export market outside North America for the United States.

It is really an encouraging fact that in 2016, bilateral trade between China and the U.S. reached $519.6 billion, 207 times higher than in 1979 when bilateral diplomatic relations were established. Bilateral trade in services exceeded $110 billion in 2016 with two-way investment surpassing $170 billion. The most authoritative data about Sino-U.S. trade is indicating the unprecedented interdependence and complementarities between the two countries in economic and trade areas.

Hopefully, the two competing nations have made "positive progress" on key issues in their economic dialogue since the Xi-Trump summit in early April this year. It is expected that sound and healthy China-U.S. economic and trade relations will consolidate mutual trust, sweep away obstacles and accomplish something that is great for the sake of the people of China and the U.S., and the world at large.

Rabi Sankar Bosu, Secretary of New Horizon Radio Listeners' Club, West Bengal, India

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
 Flash

Chinese tourists should come to Australia even more, the head of Australia's tourism body said on Monday.

John O'Sullivan, managing director of Tourism Australia, spoke to Xinhua at a tourism event in Sydney on Monday, and said Australians are some of the most welcoming people in the world.

"We are saying to the Chinese from wherever you are, wherever you are from, come to Australia, because we see international visitation and international tourism as a great thing," O'Sullivan said.

"There have been some markets around the world that have not reacted as well to different nationalities coming into their cities, that is absolutely not the case here in Australia, we are welcoming, we are friendly, come once, come often."

The Australian Tourism Exchange is an annual event that puts tourism operators in contact with overseas buyers across the world, and O'Sullivan said China is by far the most heavily represented nation at the event.

"The leading source of buyers for the tourism market, no surprise, is China with over 129 buyers attending this year's show," O'Sullivan said.

"So, it's incredibly important as it gives the opportunity for some of the smaller operators in Australia to connect with buyers from markets like China."

One of the buyers from China, Wang Yonghong from Shenzhen CEPT, told Xinhua that the emergence of the burgeoning middle class, and the increase in prosperity that it has brought, has seen the nature of outbound traveller from China shift dramatically in recent times.

"About 10 years ago, since the middle class emerged in China, now these people are travelling, and they have more experience in travelling, they begin to change their travel mode," Wang said.

"So, nowadays, in the past three years, we have more of the tailor made packages for this emerging middle class," he added.

"And in the past three years, we have seen more FIT (Fully Independent Traveller) travelling modes, which have been emerging in China's market."

Along with the buyers and smaller companies, the larger operators were looking to further their relationships with China, and Simon McGrath, Chief Operating Officer for AccorHotels Pacific, told Xinhua that it is incredibly important to continually enhance the strong ties between the two nations.

"It's crucial, it's certainly a developing market in our region. And consumers from China are travelling throughout the world, and certainly they are choosing Australia as a preferred destination which is great," McGrath said.

"So, I think we must make sure that wave of (Chinese) tourism is suitably satisfied."

The cultural exchange between China and Australia is crucial, according to McGrath, who said there is "no doubt" that this is one of the keys to a long term and successful tourism relationship.

"There's a real understanding, and learning, and respect from both sides. It's a long game, and it's important to stay in that process for a long time," McGrath said.

"We develop that, and improve that every year, with consultants and support from Chinese markets."

McGrath maintained that there are ways in which Australian businesses should adapt to take advantage of the mutually beneficial opportunities created by not only the China Australia Year of Tourism, but via the development of the already strong ties that exist.

"I think all businesses need to make sure they have been to China, they have spent the time, paying the respect of really understanding the Chinese market. Anything that is done in this market needs to be genuine, it needs to have a long term view," McGrath said.
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At Creating Revolutions, an employee affectionately nicknamed "Manuel Noriega" assembles the tiny components of a customer service paging device. Unlike other employees of the startup, Manuel works for hours, day in and day out, without bathroom breaks or healthcare benefits.

Meet today's robot workforce. Manuel is a collaborative robot (or cobot) that's helping Creating Revolutions build electronic tabletop devices for the restaurant industry. The startup didn't always rely on a gunmetal grey robot arm to assemble its devices, which allow restaurant customers to text requests to busy wait staff. But faulty assembly was causing double-digit failure rates.

"The problem is you can't efficiently repeat a specific process the exact same over and over again as a human being," says Einar Rosenberg, CIO of Creating Revolutions.

With Manuel on the payroll, Creating Revolutions has reduced its product rejection rate to nearly zero. Changes to manufacturing processes can be made in real time for greater flexibility. And by cost-effectively increasing production rates, Creating Revolutions has managed to reduce its overhead by double digits. Employees initially bristled at the notion of sharing factory space with a cobot. But after assuring workers their jobs weren't in jeopardy, Rosenberg says everyone now views Manuel as "part of the team." In fact, the only thing separating Manuel from his human counterparts is a glass window pane.

Robot revolution

Long gone are the days of bulky industrial machines in steel-metal cages. Nowadays, robots work side-by-side with human employees, often outpacing them in productivity for a fraction of their salary. Cloud giant Amazon relies on 45,000 robots to pick and pack orders across its fulfilment centers. Calls to Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are fielded by Nadine, a human-like robot programmed to display emotion. And the San Francisco robotics company Momentum Machines has developed a robot that cooks 400 burgers per hour.

In fact, according to Robotic Industries Association (RIA), in 2016, the North American robotics market broke all-time records for orders and shipments. During that year, 34,606 robots valued at approximately $1.9 billion were ordered in North America  a 10% uptick over 2015.

But as robots increasingly take on physical and cognitive tasks in the workplace, they promise to forever change the role of IT. Provisioning secure access, safeguarding data, programming complex robotic systems  they are all challenges facing IT leaders as robots usher in the next industrial revolution.

"The learning curve for introducing robots is pretty big," warns Bob Doyle, director of communications at the Association for Advancing Automation. "There's certainly training and education required to make sure that everything's being done properly."

It's for this reason that Creating Revolutions turned to Hirebotics. Essentially a staffing agency for cobots, Hirebotics lets startups like Creating Revolutions rent cobots by the hour without any upfront capital expenditures. Hirebotics handles all programming, deployment and maintenance of the machine, while Creating Revolutions pays for only the hours it's operable, nearly $5,000 per month.

"We're a startup so we couldn't afford a very expensive robot," says Rosenberg. "And we didn't have the expertise or the time to learn the software required to make the robot work for our needs. Economically, Hirebotics made sense."

Although it took a few weeks for Hirebotics to program Manuel, Rosenberg says it would have taken Creating Revolutions' IT team 10 times longer to withstand the "torture" of training the cobot to perform precision tasks. And because Manuel is connected to the cloud, Hirebotics can continuously monitor Manuel's performance in real time for fast detection of glitches.

Reduced overhead, increased workloads

Complex programming isn't the only obstacle IT leaders must overcome to reap the benefits of robotics. Consider, for example, Praxis Packaging Solutions. The contract packaging company owns 14 robots, including 13 Baxters  300-pound, tomato-red, two-armed cobots; and one Sawyer, Baxter's single-armed, nimbler sibling, both from Rethink Robotics.

With unemployment rates hovering around the 2% mark near Praxis' western Michigan headquarters, Praxis CEO and president Richard King says, "We knew right away we'd be able to use Baxter to help fuel our growth."

Today, Praxis's band of Baxters perform a wide variety of repetitive tasks, from moving cardboard pieces to unpacking boxes. Programming Baxter is as simple and intuitive as "using an iPad," according to Chris Hager, former director of IT at Praxis, who continues to advise the company as an IT consultant with Ferox Consulting. That's because Baxter learns by demonstration  employees need only grab Baxter's arms and move them, simulating the tasks it will be doing.

Despite its simplicity, enlisting Baxter for a series of tasks required some heavy lifting from IT. Praxis often runs multiple packaging orders in a single shift. As a result, the company needed to equip Baxter with a variety of attachments to allow for different uses. A 3D printer proved to be the answer. Today, Praxis can create a number of end effectors  devices that attach to the end of Baxter's robotic arm to perform specific tasks.

But while a 3D printer has enabled Praxis to customize accessories for Baxter in real time and keep pace with new packaging requirements, King says, the IT team "still gets frustrated with" designing new 3D parts for its robots  a process that took months to master.

Making room for robotics

Praxis also had to make physical changes to its workspace to accommodate its cadre of cobots. Because its cobots are cage-free and seated next to co-workers, Praxis had to take some additional security precautions.

"We deployed some very small diagnostic cameras to certain areas [of the plant] that weren't covered as a deterrent to prevent people from interfering with Baxter's operation," says Hager. These cameras also help the IT team diagnose performance issues. And a USB key with an embedded password is the only way workers can gain access to a machine.

Unlike Praxis, whose robots work side-by-side employees, Creating Revolutions' Manuel "is kept in a separate and secure room," says Rosenberg. "To access the robot, you need one of two keys, which only I and a manager have." Only by physically swiping this key against a barcode located on Manuel can the machine be activated. Cameras also surround the area for constant and recorded monitoring.

Safety first

But while cameras, passwords and barcodes protect robots from ill-intentioned employees, the question remains: What's protecting workers from their 6-foot, heavyweight colleagues?

Before installing a robot in a common workspace, Doyle says, "A risk assessment needs to be done to determine exactly what a robot will be doing." Within what proximity will a robot be working with humans? What safety features, such as sensors, will enable the robot to avoid physical contact with people? How can a robot be programmed to limit the force it uses to perform tasks?

By answering these questions, IT leaders can take steps to avoid personal injury. In fact, according to Universal Robots, whose machines are used by companies including Creating Revolutions, 80% of its cobots perform alongside human workers without safety caging, after an initial risk assessment is conducted.

Nevertheless, industry leaders are taking matters into their own hands. In February 2016, robotics experts published ISO/TS 15066, a set of safety standards for collaborative industrial robot systems in the workplace. Guidelines establish everything from minimum safety distances between man and machine to suggested maximum allowed speeds of operation. Interestingly, many of the standards are predicated on data regarding human pain thresholds.

"The fact is," explained Carole Franklin, secretary of ISO/TC 299/WG 3, in a statement, "when robots work alongside humans, we have to be very careful that the application does not put a human in danger. Up until now, robot system suppliers and integrators only had general information about requirements for collaborative systems. ISO/TS 15066 is therefore a game changer for the industry. It gives specific, data-driven safety guidance needed to evaluate and control risks."

The data deluge

Less easy to regulate is the sheer amount of data likely to be generated by cobots in the years to come. In the case of Creating Revolutions, Manuel provides a steady stream of performance and production data on components  bits and bytes that are automatically recorded every hour.

By gathering details on the number of units that Manuel produces in a given period of time, Rosenberg says, "We can combine all of that data and create realistic, very accurate forecasts of our production needs, such as how many humans are needed and what we need to focus on to produce at optimal levels." From there, he says, Creating Revolutions can either "slow down certain processes" or "change what components the robot is making" to accommodate fluctuating demands.

As part of its machine-as-a-service model, Hirebotics also offers a software package that provides Creating Revolutions with reports, such as real-time charts for quick insight into exact production numbers.

Praxis, on the other hand, takes a more traditional approach to gathering the information generated by its cobots. "A lot of our data collection and analysis is done manually," says Hager. That's because most of the company's robotic tasks run for just short periods of time, or are performed only once.

Integration goals

However, these are early days for cobots. At the moment, much of today's proprietary hardware, such as sensors and conveyor belts, speak different languages, making it difficult for them to interact.

That's changing as more and more companies discover how to connect cobots to other computer systems and applications. "At one time [security and privacy] weren't really a concern," recalls Dan Kara, a research director at ABI Research. "[Robots] were isolated devices that had little connectivity with anything else around them and didn't collect a whole lot of information. That's changed dramatically over time. Now what you have are robotics systems that capture huge amounts of data and interconnect with other devices in a working environment."

All of which is giving rise to serious IT concerns. Says Kara: "Think of the amount of data that's coming through a manufacturing environment or a warehousing environment - billions of pieces of data are created every day. For a CIO or a CTO, how do you manage all that data? How do you store that data? How do you make sure it's secure? How do you derive value from that data?"

Preparing for smart factories

Helping to drive greater connectivity among cobots is innovative software such as Rethink Robotics' Intera 5. The platform aims to help manufacturers integrate robots into factories in just a few hours. In addition to easier deployment, Intera 5-powered cobots can pick parts from a conveyor belt and then communicate with other computer-driven tools to guide the precise placement of these parts.

[ Further reading: Get ready for the bot revolution ]

While it may not sound revolutionary, these interconnected devices are laying the groundwork for a smart factory  a manufacturing environment in which robots and computer-driven devices communicate and cooperate autonomously with one another via cloud computing and the internet of things.

Says Kara: "Now we're starting to get these huge workflows within work cells where all of the devices are interconnected and talking to each other."

Doyle points to cobot manufacturer FANUC and its Intelligent Edge Link and Drive (FIELD) system as another gateway to Industry 4.0  tech parlance for a combination of digital transformations, including advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, sensors, IoT and data capture, that will revolutionize global manufacturing operations.

As more and more companies make use of tools such as FANUC, Kara says, "devices will not only generate data, but they'll actually interact with other devices. It's a really cool time; we're moving towards the goal of Industry 4.0."

Present matters

For now, though, IT leaders are facing more immediate issues, namely security risks. Consider, for example, surgical robots. Surgical robots are increasingly being used to perform complex medical procedures, from removing gall bladders to stitching internal tissue. But in 2015, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle managed to hijack a telesurgery robot, deleting and changing the order of commands it was receiving. The controlled experiment, conducted over a public network, highlights the increasing risks of hacking and other types of malicious attacks as bots achieve greater connectivity.

And then there's the overall impact of robots on an IT environment. "When a company wants to bring in mobile robots, one of the biggest challenges IT leaders face is with IT infrastructure," says Doyle. "That's because the robot might be on a totally separate system." For this reason, Doyle says, "it's really important to ensure that the IT department and CIO are directly engaged in discussions from the beginning." By predetermining a cobot's connectivity to other devices, and the amount of data it will produce, companies can significantly reduce integration headaches.

Standardization is also a top priority for IT leaders with an interest in cobots. Take, for example, the OPC Foundation, whose mandate is to help enterprises maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets. Currently, the OPC Foundation is working on developing an industrial standard that will support interoperability among a wide range of manufacturing processes and equipment. By doing so, the organization hopes to ease data integration between machines and robots.

"It's very important for organizations like the OPC Foundation to ensure that standards exist," says Doyle. "If not, the biggest vendors are going to establish their own standards."

From server rooms to factory floors

As industry consortiums and vendors hammer out new standards, IT leaders are rewriting their own playbooks. For instance, Hager recalls how his role at Praxis changed dramatically when the company purchased its first Baxter cobot. "[As IT leaders], we handle data collection and reporting and traditional IT jobs but we don't necessarily get out there on the factory floor," he says. "So [when we introduced Baxter], it was a transition from being in the backroom and managing IT operations to getting out on the floor and helping with production."

To accommodate rising demands on IT, Hager says Praxis nearly doubled its IT team  a move that included hiring a senior network engineer and a helpdesk person. It's a decision, he says, that allowed him to spend more time on the factory floor overseeing cobot operations.

In fact, the cobot revolution is even altering IT's relationship with other departments. "In traditional automation environments, educated engineers only ask IT for help when things get tricky," says Hager. "But with Baxter, training employees to work with cobots required more IT support."

As global competition mounts, robots will continue to multiple across factory floors. In fact, the European Union is currently considering a proposal that would grant robots legal status as "electronic persons." But before IT leaders can truly embrace cobots as co-workers, they'll need to get a firm grip on security standards, data challenges and redefined roles.
Your next car could be a giant Android device on wheels.

Normally, when you're driving you aren't looking at your phone (and if you are -- stop!). But all that is about to change, since Android will be powering the infotainment systems in some cars. So how will it work?

In IT Blogwatch, we go for a ride.

So what is going on? Mark Gurman and Mark Bergen have some background:

Android already powers most smartphones on earth. Now Google is placing its mobile operating system right inside cars...ahead of its I/O mobile developers conference...Google is showing off its next step in automotive software: an Android version of touchscreen car consoles and infotainment systems. It will host...applications, like Google Maps and Spotify, but also control car features like seat positioning and temperature. The...system also embeds...Google Assistant -- the company's voice control service, for searching on the go, asking for directions, and making phone calls -- in cars for the first time.

But don't we already have Android Auto? How is this different? Ron Amadeo explains:

Today Google's only spot in the automotive market is Android Auto, which is not an operating system. Android Auto is a "casted" interface that runs on a smartphone and uses the in-dash car display as an external touchscreen monitor. This new initiative (called "Android Automotive")...is a full operating system that runs directly on the car's onboard computers.

And what cars will it be showing up in first? Daniel Cooper has that info:

Audi and Volvo are making a very public commitment to Google after pledging to build Android into their next generation of cars...Google was demoing a [prototype] Maserati that was running Android at last year's I/O. Its utility was already obvious, even back then, since Google's interface is worlds away from the terrible automotive displays we normally use.

Do we know anything specifically about how Audi and Volvo are implementing Android? Not entirely, but Ryne Hager is doing some informed speculation:

Both Volvo and Audi appear to have been given a lot of leeway with the UI in the screenshots on Google's blog, things look to be skinned pretty heavily. If Google is allowing car makers that degree of flexibility, I wouldn't expect...much...material design love when it lands in more cars. Even so, more tools and features from Android making their way into your car could come in handy...Not to mention the utility of having some of the same features you did before via Auto without needing your phone around.

Want to know more? Google worked a handy plug for I/O into its blog post about the announcement:

A preview of [Volvo's and Audi's] systems will be on display at Google I/O this week...If you are attending in person, see you there! If not, tune into the livestream of our session on May 17 at 2pm PT to learn more.

So how are people reacting to the news? Many are excited, but Cristian Constantin has some doubts:

Can't wait for my car to lag and force close some important apps when I just need to open a window.
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President Xi Jinping on Monday called on China and the Philippines to step up communication on major issues concerning bilateral ties, in order to lead their relations toward healthy and stable development.

In his meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Xi said the Philippines is a friendly neighbor of China and an important partner in Belt and Road cooperation.

Friendly cooperation for win-win results is the right track for China-Philippines ties, Xi said, noting that China is willing to work with the Philippines to align their development strategies to benefit people of both countries.

The Chinese president said the two countries need to strengthen cooperation in infrastructure construction, combating cross-border maritime crime, joint rescue operations, poverty alleviation, drug control and improving people's well-being.

They should seek substantial progress in key cooperation areas as soon as possible, and establish close exchanges and cooperation between legislative bodies and local governments, as well as in such fields as culture, youth, tourism and personnel exchanges.

China will enhance communication and cooperation with ASEAN countries to lift China-ASEAN ties to a new height, Xi said.

For his part, Duterte said the Belt and Road Initiative is conducive to Asian connectivity and economic growth, as well as to the Philippine's own employment prospects and prosperity.

Noting that the two countries have resumed dialogue and consultation, Duterte said the Philippines and China are important trade partners.

He said the Philippines is willing to maintain close contact, expand cooperation and promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges with China, and will work to strengthen cooperation between ASEAN and China.

The two presidents witnessed the signing of a series of cooperation documents in the fields of economy, technology, infrastructure, human resources, energy and press and publications after their meeting.

In a separate meeting with Duterte, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said friendly ties between China and the Philippines are in the interest of people from both countries.

Li urged the two sides to push forward cooperation in industrial capacity, infrastructure, finance, agriculture and fishery, as well as in people-to-people exchanges and poverty alleviation, so that the progress in China-Philippines ties will not only benefit their own peoples, but also promote regional stability and prosperity.

Li said that the Philippines holds ASEAN's rotating chair this year, and China will intensify coordination with the Philippines to forge a closer community of shared future with ASEAN countries.

Duterte said that ties between the Philippines and China are currently on the right track. He said the Philippines supports the "Made in China 2025" plan, and welcomes Chinese investment in the country.
Christopher Howarth is a senior researcher working in the House of Commons. Prior to this he worked for Open Europe, as a Conservative Foreign Affairs Adviser and senior researcher to a Shadow Europe Minister.

Tidying my flat last week, I came across my copy of the Conservatives 2010 manifesto: Invitation to join the Government of Britain. At the time of that election, I was working for a shadow Cabinet Minister who was running around marginal seats when he received a text message summoning him the next day to Battersea Power Station for the manifestos unveiling. Whether it bore any resemblance to the previous drafts I had seen, I have no idea. I never read it, or the huge ring binder of explanatory notes that accompanied him back. This was ditched shortly afterwards.

It was not just that the invitation from David Cameron seemed unlikely to apply to anyone (Lib Dems aside), let alone a Eurosceptic Shadow Minister for Europe (or indeed his staff), but that it was obvious it was unlikely to play any part in the campaign or subsequent government. And so it turned out. So why should we be interested in the 2017 manifesto? The reason is Brexit.

For Brexit, the Conservative Party manifesto will play two very important roles. Firstly, to appeal to voters that have not traditionally supported the Conservatives, but voted Leave and want to be sure that the Prime Minister will deliver for them.

Secondly, it has a very important quasi-constitutional role vis a vis the House of Lords under the Addison-Salisbury Convention. If a proposal for legislation is in the manifesto, then the convention is that it has to be accepted by the Lords. We have less than two years to leave the EU, and getting the right legislation on the books before then will require at least an acquiescent House of Lords.

Winning the election

There is little correlation between those who voted Leave and those who voted Conservative. For the only major party fully committed to making a success of Brexit, this leaves a huge opportunity to connect with new communities. This requires policies that respect the vote and secondly deliver the benefits of Brexit for these communities and potentially make the electoral realignment permanent.

Respect the vote: Leaving the European Union

The Prime Minister has already committed herself to all of these key elements in her Lancaster House speech and subsequent White Paper. Leaving the European Court of Justice, the internal market, the Customs Union and taking back control of our borders, trade policy and money are already Government policy and will no doubt be in the manifesto.

Using our new powers to deliver the benefits of Brexit

Simply committing to Brexit is, however, not enough on its own. The Conservatives need to explain what to do with our new powers. Policies are needed to reassure and deliver tangible gains. Here are some:

A new UK immigration policy: Leaving the EU will allow the UK to limit immigration from the EU. This was a key driver for the Leave vote in in a country that has seen two decades of mass immigration and the resultant cultural, housing, wage, job and public services pressures. A new, popular policy should aim to reduce numbers in conjunction with a new drive to up-skill domestic workers to take advantage of new opportunities and provide new housing to alleviate the pressure already in the system. In this way, a new immigration policy linked to skills and housing could demonstrate tangible benefits to communities and sectors that have lost out over the decades.

A UK regional policy: The EU did provide some funding for the UK regions. This will end. This presents an opportunity for the UK Government to fund new and more effective infrastructure or business-friendly policies in the regions that create a closer relationship with the UK Government than the distant one they had with the EU.

A UK fishing and agricultural framework: The UK will need to devise its own agricultural support programme to replace the EUs CAP, support farmers, maintain fair competition and deliver public goods such as landscape stewardship. This will need to be set at a UK level, but with greater input from the devolved administrations than that currently set in Brussels. The UK will also require a new fishing policy, taking back control of our waters out to 200 miles.

A new UK trade policy: The manifesto will no doubt commit the UK to an optimistic policy of trade agreements with the EU and other states. This can also show the benefits that a UK policy can have for development. In contrast to the EU, the UKs policy could work in conjunction with international aid to deliver real benefits for poorer Commonwealth and other states.

The Addison-Salisbury convention

While setting out policies that respect the Brexit vote might help win votes, it also has a quasi-legal importance with regards to the House of Lords.

The Conservatives are in a minority in a House of Lords dominated by Liberal Democrat, Labour and Crossbench opponents of Brexit. While the Lords are too sensible to oppose Brexit head-on, they have the power and potential to delay and disrupt vital legislation. However, under the post-war convention if a proposal for legislation was in a governing partys election manifesto then it should be passed.

In addition to the primary legislation to implement the policies above, the Government is committed to one more vital piece of legislation  the Great Repeal Bill. The manifesto will have to set out enough of the workings of the Bill so as to be able to use the Addison-Salisbury convention if necessary.

The Bill will provide legislative continuity by transposing EU laws in the relevant areas into UK law. It will also, for completeness, repeal the 1972 European Communities Act. This is a huge legislative task that would be made even more complex if the Lords were able to object at every stage. While framing the wording, due regard will also have to be given to the fact that the convention does not cover secondary legislation.

Lastly, the manifesto may wish to set out that a vote against any of the component parts of the Brexit legislative programme will not stop or delay our departure. While the Lords will get a vote on any new trade deal we are able to agree with the EU, it must be clear that a vote against cannot and will not be interpreted as a vote to stay inside.

Sealing the deal

Securing a large majority on an optimistic Conservative manifesto that delivers for the majority that voted Leave and the larger majority that wish to make a success of our new relationship will ensure that the House of Lords will allow the programme to pass into law without hindrance. It will also help in the UKs negotiations with the EU.

While, in the UK, those that think Brexit will be obstructed, reversed or watered down in Parliament are a dwindling band, in EU policy circles there are many who still cling to this belief. Those who believe that obstructing talks or legislation will lead to a UK change of mind are pursuing a perilous policy. A new mandate will bring them to their senses and show to the world that in the Prime Minister they have a leader with a clear programme for Brexit and a new relationship of equals with the EU. Importantly, she will have a Conservative Parliamentary majority, elected on a manifesto to deliver.
Instead of trying to work out what the general election result will be, it might be useful to try to work out what the Conservatives think it will be.

And the best guide to what they believe it will be (rather than what they say it will be) is surely the seats that the Party is targeting.

Which are they? We are not giving Lynton Crosbys secrets away by suggesting that one might look at seats that opposition parties hold in which there has been a contested Conservative selection; or else keep a tally of which local papers the Party is advertising in. Mark Wallace is among those who have had a go.

But the most reliable means of all is surely to keep a tally of the seats that Theresa May is visiting herself. An intriguing assessment of her travels to date was put online yesterday by Chris Cook of Newsnight. Alas, it doesnt list the individual constituencies in which she has campaigned. However, it does show that she has concentrated most of her out-and-about campaigning effort to date in a belt of roughly 70 Labour seats.

Cook does record the number of times in which the Prime Minister has visited each region or sub-region  as defined by ITV channels, for reasons he explains. So it is, for example, that she has made only one visit to the area covered by ITV Anglia, but five to that served by ITV Central, which covers the West Midlands.

Cooks figures to date show a concentration on that region, on London and to some extent on Yorkshire. That emphasis on the West Midlands and Yorkshire is telling, Cook writes, adding that 28 of the 70 seats or so that Chris Hanretty of East Anglia University currently expects the Conservatives to take from Labour are in either one or the other of those two regions.

The Prime Minister is clearly in pursuit of what Nick Timothy, when writing for this site, almost referred to as Erdington Man (and woman). Andrew Gimson visited that Birmingham seat recently and wrote his account up for ConHome recently.

It may of course be that CCHQs estimate of which seats the Party can win is over-hopeful, and that its targeting is therefore awryor indeed that a swing to it will yield more than Hanrettys present estimate of 70 gains.

But if May pops up in, say, Tynemouth, as she did earlier this week, in pursuit of what she now calls ordinary working class families, her choice of campaigning location is telling us something worth knowing.
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The UN Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday both slammed the most recent ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Security Council "strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launches" conducted by the DPRK on April 28 and May 13, the 15-nation UN body said in a press statement.

The Security Council members expressed their "utmost concern" over the DPRK's "highly destabilising behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council by conducting these ballistic missile launches in violation of its international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council vowed to fully implement all measures imposed on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea by the Security Council and strongly urge all other member states to do so in an expeditious and serious manner," said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council agreed that the Security Council would continue to closely monitor the situation and take further significant measures including sanctions, in line with the Council's previously expressed determination," the statement said.

On Sunday, the DPRK test fired a medium long-range ballistic missile. The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the test firing of the new ground-to-ground strategic ballistic missile "Hwasong-12" was successful.

The members of the Security Council stressed that the DPRK's "illegal ballistic missile activities are contributing to its development of nuclear weapons delivery systems and are greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond," the statement said.

The members of the Security Council emphasised "the vital importance" of the DPRK "immediately showing sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean Peninsula and beyond," the statement said.

The Security Council demanded the DPRK "conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in North-East Asia at large, expressed their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation, and welcomed efforts by Council members, as well as other States, to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue," added the statement.

Earlier on Monday at a daily news briefing, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the latest missile launch by the DPRK a "violation of Security Council resolutions and a threat to peace and security in the region."

"The secretary-general calls on the DPRK to ensure full compliance with its international obligations and return to the path of denuclearization," he said.

The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the Korean Peninsula's nuclear issue on Tuesday behind closed doors, UN officials and diplomats said here.

According to previous Security Council resolutions, the DPRK is banned from conducting any launches that use ballistic missile technology, nuclear tests or any other provocation.

The council has imposed tough sanction measures on the DPRK, which includes banning the sale and transfer of coal, iron and iron ore from the country's territory.
ALEXANDRIA, Ontario  On May 15, 2017 at approximately 6:14pm, Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry (SD&G) Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers responded to a report of a suspicious male at a property on Derby Street in the Town of Alexandria, North Glengarry Township.

Investigation indicated that the adult male had attempted to lure two (2) female youths. No contact or injuries resulted.

Robert LEROUX (64) of North Glengarry Township was arrested and is charged with;

 Invitation to Sexual Touching Under 16 Years

He was released and is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Alexandria on June 7, 2017.
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The United Nations Security Council on Monday "condemned in the strongest terms" a deadly attack over the weekend on UN peacekeepers, civilians and humanitarian workers in the Central African Republic (CAR), which killed one Moroccan peacekeeper.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the violence by anti-Balaka elements in Bangassou (Mbomou) which intensified on May 13 and May 14, 2017, and targeted a Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) field office, civilian populations from particular communities, as well as humanitarian personnel," said a press statement issued by the 15-nation UN body.

"These attacks resulted in one Moroccan peacekeeper killed and one Moroccan peacekeeper injured, as well as civilian casualties and significant population displacement," the statement said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday strongly condemned attacks against the civilian population and UN peacekeepers in the CAR, urging authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

The council members expressed their deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims, as well as to the Kingdom of Morocco and MINUSCA, the statement said. "They wished the injured a speedy recovery."

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms all attacks and provocations against civilian populations, MINUSCA and humanitarian personnel by armed groups," the statement said.

"They reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes and reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law," the statement said.

"The members of the Security Council called on the government of the Central African Republic to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice," it said.

Last week, a Christian rebel group in the CAR ambushed a UN convoy, sparking a firefight and kidnappings that left four peacekeepers killed, eight injured and one missing, the United Nations said.

Despite significant progress and successful elections, the CAR still suffers instability and sporadic unrest.

Clashes between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, mostly Christian, plunged the country of 4.5 million people into civil conflict in 2013.
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President Xi Jinping met with his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev in Beijing on Tuesday, vowing to push forward the two countries' strategic partnership.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Kyrgyzstan 25 years ago, both sides have advanced bilateral ties while upholding the principle of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, said Xi.

The two countries have built a comprehensive cooperation pattern featuring strong mutual political trust, close economic cooperation, mutual reliance in security, mutual exchange and learning in culture, and mutual support in international affairs, said Xi.

China is willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to promote the spirit of good-neighborliness and friendliness, enhance strategic coordination, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward the China- Kyrgyzstan strategic partnership, he added.

China supports Kyrgyzstan's efforts to safeguard independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supports its development path and domestic and foreign policies in accordance with its own national conditions, said Xi.

As important forces in maintaining regional security and stability, China and Kyrgyzstan should enhance anti-terror and law enforcement cooperation, said Xi.

Remarkable progress has been achieved since China and Kyrgyzstan carried out cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative more than three years ago, said Xi, expressing the hope that the people of the two nations will benefit more from the initiative.

Atambayev, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held Sunday and Monday in the Chinese capital, congratulated China on the success of the event.

The great Belt and Road Initiative will help strengthen international cooperation and mutual understanding and trust for all parties, said Atambayev.

China is a good neighbor, a good partner and a good friend of Kyrgyzstan. The strategic partnership is developing on a high level, he said.

Kyrgyzstan thanks China for its long-time support and help and will firmly back China's stance on issues regarding core interests and major concerns, said Atambayev.

Kyrgyzstan is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in various fields such as the economy, trade and security, and actively advance the construction of key infrastructure projects, he added.
 Flash

The signing ceremony witnessed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte was hosted at the Great Hall of the People on May 15, 2017. The memorandum was signed by Zhang Fuhai, president of CIPG, and Martin Andanar, secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office. [Photo/China.org.cn]

China International Publishing Group (CIPG), a multi-lingual publishing platform dedicated to presenting China to the world, has embarked on cooperation with the Philippines Presidential Communications Operations Office for exchanges of news, publications and other cultural products and events, after a memorandum was signed between the two parties on May 15 in Beijing.

As one of the significant events among the achievements of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that closed on the same day, the signing ceremony, held in the Great Hall of the People, was witnessed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Philippines counterpart Rodrigo Roa Duterte.

According to the memorandum, it is envisaged that in following years, there will be an increasing exchange of news stories, publications and translations relevant to the political, economic, social and cultural sectors in the media industry, including newspapers, magazines and news websites, with a guarantee of accuracy and precision.

Signing the memorandum were Zhang Fuhai, president of CIPG, and Martin Andanar, secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, leading a delegation to visit China at the invitation of the State Council Information Office.
Pop culture quotes give us the means to express ourselves when we're too dumb or lazy to come up with our own mouth-sounds. But there's a good chance you're misusing some of your favorite references. Furthermore, it's possible -- nay, probable -- that your Borat impression could use some work. But don't worry; we're here to set the record straight.

5 "I'll Be Back." (The Terminator)

"I'll be back" is the trademark line of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He frequently used it on the campaign trail, as governor of California, and it even appears as the last line of a lighthearted "Visit California" tourism commercial. Schwarzenegger informs prospective state visitors "You'll be back," with such an extreme wink that it's a wonder he didn't sprain an eye.

The Real Meaning:

"I'll be back" is what the Terminator says to a policeman before leaving the station to fetch a car and then driving it straight back through the door, crushing the dude to death. He then butchers 17 other hapless police officers before attempting to murder a defenseless woman. It's just ... it's a bizarre choice to go cutesy with, is what we're saying.

Orion Pictures "Mass murder, tee-hee!"

The whole point of the line is that it's a psychopathically polite thing to say right before you murder the holy crap out of a cop-fort. It left the audience thinking "Oh man, if this cop only knew how screwed he is!"

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Using it to promote Californian tourism is a weird call. Is Arnold saying he's going to murder you if you come to his state? Wait, no, the line in the commercial is "You'll be back." He's saying that you are welcome to crash your car through the border and go on an unstoppable killing spree the next time you visit California. That seems like an unwise precedent to set, though it will probably draw in the crowds.
Channel programs News

Park Place Scoops Up U.K. Solution Provider In Latest Of String Of Acquisitions

Rick Saia

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Park Place Technologies - No. 237 on the 2016 CRN SP500- has reached across the Atlantic again to acquire an infrastructure solutions provider, its third acquisition in less than nine months.

Park Place, based in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, said the acquisition of Prestige Data Centre Solutions, based just outside Birmingham, England, will enable it to serve data centers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the company said in a statement.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[RELATED: Park Place Buys Ardent For More Data Center Expertise]

The acquisition of Prestige, founded in 1989, comes just six months after Park Place bought Ardent Technologies, a Dover, N.H.-based provider of third-party maintenance for data center hardware. Last September, Park Place purchased a European enterprise storage support provider, Com-Com. At the time that deal was announced, Park Place CEO Ed Kenty said the acquisition would make it easier for his company to provide around-the-clock engineering support to U.S.-based multinational firms doing business in Europe.

In today's statement on the Prestige deal, Kenty said, Prestiges nearly three decades of exemplary IT data center service will complement Park Places world-class support model as we expand and grow our client base throughout the UK, Europe, and beyond.

Prestiges co-founders, John and Elaine Dawson, James Coyle, and Mark Jones will leave the company and pursue other ventures within the U.K., the statement added. Elaine, James, Mark, and I have full confidence in leaving Prestige in the capable hands of Park Place John Dawson said in the Park Place statement.

Park Place was acquired in 2015 by private equity firm GTCR, in part to help Park Place expand outside the United States and grow its offerings through organic growth and acquisitions.

In its statement today on the Prestige deal, Park Place said Prestige holds the highest levels of accreditation with HP, Dell, EMC, Oracle, VMware, and Cisco, with support and break-fix capabilities spanning an array of vendor technologies and products.




Channel programs News

CRN Exclusive: 'Task Force' Considering Full VMware, SecureWorks Membership In Dell EMC Partner Program

Matt Brown

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In an effort to simplify Dell EMC's go-to-market strategy, an executive task force is considering rolling VMware and SecureWorks into the company's unified channel partner program.

Dell EMC Senior Vice President of Channel Marketing Cheryl Cook told CRN a "go-to-market task force" is looking at bringing VMware and SecureWorks into the larger Dell EMC program, but hasn't reached any decisions. "It's too soon to announce anything," Cook said. In addition, "we're sitting in each other's advisory councils, and leadership sessions and we're trying to be thoughtful," Cook said.

Indeed, careful thought is required. VMware is an independent firm, and essentially neutral in the market, working with Dell EMC as well as all of its competitors. If Dell EMC can fold VMware into its partner program while maintaining that independence and simplifying its sales operation, it could be a big win for solution providers, said Michael Tanenhaus, CEO of Mavenspire, an Annapolis, Md., solution provider that works with Dell EMC.

[Related: 14 Rocking, Plaid-Clad Scenes That Show Dell EMC World Was The Biggest Party In Vegas]

"There's a desire to monetize the combined power of the strategically aligned companies under the larger program, and that is awesome," Tanenhaus said. He said making VMware part of the Dell EMC channel program would make it easier for Mavenspire to do more business across the Dell EMC portfolio.

VMware, which was 80-percent owned by EMC when Dell acquired the data storage giant for $58 billion last September, seems to be embracing its membership in the Dell Technologies family of companies, Tanenhaus said. "They're at every Dell event, and they're definitely keeping a close conversation going. For us, it reduces friction and it makes it easier to do more business."

Still, fully becoming part of the Dell EMC partner program may not be simple for VMware, Tanenhaus said. "You have to get the sales force at VMware interested and compensated for it. If you can do that, and have everything under one global partner compensation scheme, you can maximize rebates and it wouldn't be a political nightmare," he said.

Dell EMC's channel team is aggressively pushing solution providers to sell more broadly across the company's extensive portfolio, and the program encourages that explicitly. Bringing the two additional business units, especially VMware, into the fold could push partners to double down on the portfolio, said Ryan Heiden, principal systems engineer at RoundTower Technologies, a Cincinnati-based solution provider.

"I think it would be a big win," Heiden said. "As much as you can simplify it, the better. The portfolio is so diverse. If each one of them has a separate process, it's just going to get out of control quickly. The portfolio they have is best of breed in a lot of cases. The name, the trust, the quality, it really resonates with customers in a lot of cases."

Executives, Cook said, are looking at how the company's go-to-market strategy can be simplified, but they're also cognizant of the fact that Dell EMC and VMware have many common partners that successfully use both programs. "There's a natural affinity, and we will only enhance the 'better together' story," Cook said. "If we can simplify by integrating programs in some fashion, or even if it's loosely coupled, there's more cross incentives that align. Right now, let's not bite off more than we can chew."

While Cook takes a wait-and-see approach, President and Chief Commercial Officer Marius Haas sees no reason why VMware and SecureWorks shouldn't become full-fledged members of the Dell EMC Partner Program.

"RSA is in there, Virtustream is in; why can't we make it as easy and simple for VMware?" Haas said during the Global Partner Summit at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas. "Why can't we make it as easy and simple for SecureWorks? Why can't we make it easy and simple for all parts of the portfolio? It makes it easier for [partners] to address the customer with a holistic set of capabilities, and that conversation absolutely resonates. Every single customer, no matter what size, is going through some kind of transformation, and it's our job to make that as simple as possible."

The deliberations follow closely behind Dell EMC's recent decision to bring Virtustream fully into the company's partner program. The company rolled RSA into the program previously. VMware and SecureWorks are the only two units in the Dell Technologies family  Dell, Dell EMC, VMware, Pivotal, RSA, Virtustream, SecureWorks and VMware  that retain their own separate channel programs.
Components & Peripherals News

Xerox Buys Midwest MSP, Deal Is First In $100M Plan To Make Multi-Brand Resellers Xerox-Exclusive

Rick Saia

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Xerox's Global Imaging Systems (GIS) division has acquired an Ohio-based dealer of multivendor office equipment and managed print services in the first shot in its $100 million effort to convert multibrand solution providers into Xerox-exclusive partners.

The acquisition effectively kicks Xerox competitors Ricoh and HP off MT Technologies' line card in the midst of an A3 copier printer market share war.

The announcement of the deal for MT Business Technologies, of Mansfield, Ohio, comes less than four months after Xerox said it had set aside $100 million for mergers and acquisitions this year to convert more multi-brand dealers into Xerox-exclusive agents. Xerox, based in Norwalk, Conn., said GIS would spearhead that effort. Xerox values the multi-brand reseller space at $20 billion.

[RELATED: Xerox To Spend $100M In 2017 To Acquire More Multi-Branded Resellers, Get Into Emerging Markets]

MT was the largest independent seller of Ricoh products, and is also a partner of HP. Last month, Xerox's president of the company's U.S. channel unit told CRN that the office products vendor wants to grow its U.S. print-focused partners by 25 percent as it aims to penetrate the small to midsized business (SMB) market. The strategy? Convince partners that represent multiple brands to consider Xerox's broad portfolio and new open platform.

"Our coverage for our brand isn't enough," Darren Cassidy, president of Xerox's U.S. channel unit, told CRN. "We are spending a lot more money driving demand into the channel."

The Xerox all exclusive bid comes just one month after HP began shipping its highly anticipated A3 product. It marks the first time that HP has competed head-to-head with Xerox and Ricoh in what amounts to a $54 billion market opportunity.

HP said its A3 lineup delivers 20 to 30 percent lower cost than copier makers like Xerox and Ricoh with a smart predictive delivery software breakthrough that is head and shoulders above the Xerox and Ricoh partner model.

In a statement Monday announcing the deal, Xerox said the acquisition of MT opens new market opportunities in Ohio, including large metropolitan areas such as Cleveland and Columbus, offering Xerox growth potential.

Were joining forces with one of Ohios most respected office solutions companies, said Michael Pietrunti, senior vice president of acquisitions, corporate services and marketing for GIS, in the statement. This gives us the opportunity to expand our local network and generate increased revenue, while also providing more customers with industry-leading technology and innovative services to meet todays business needs.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. MT's president, Chuck Rounds, who has been with the organization since 2000, will remain in that role after the acquisition is completed.

Xerox CFO Bill Osbourn earlier this year said the company plans to continue to buy independent, multi-branded resellers and convert them to resellers focused exclusively on Xerox. Those resellers typically only cost 1x their annual revenue and historically have provided a good return, he said.
Internet of things News

Samsung Adds New 'Enterprise Grade' Security Features To Artik, Its End-To-End IoT Platform

Lindsey O'Donnell

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Samsung on Tuesday broadened its Internet of Things Artik platform with new features to make connected device deployments more secure and easier for channel partners.

The platform, announced at IoT World in Santa Clara, Calif., now enables secure services for device onboarding, so that customers can automatically onboard into the network; new device and user management services; and edge node management services.

"Artik has been evolving since its inception," James Stansberry, senior vice president and head of Artik U.S, at Samsung, told CRN. "It's now an enterprise-grade program that helps reduce time to market, increase growth opportunities without limits to interoperability, and make it easier for companies to secure IoT."

[Related: Partners: Microsoft's New Azure IoT Edge Service Pushes It Head To Head With GE In The Industrial Market]

In addition to new management features, Artik also now enables customers to carry out secure OTA (over the air) updates, so users can manage their fleets once they are deployed in a secure way.

"Security is a strong value proposition for channel partners  when they go meet with the CIO or chief security officers, that's what they want to talk about," said Stansberry. "With these new updates to Artik, we're enabling our channel partners to have that conversation."

On the channel side, Samsung continues to strengthen its partner ecosystem around the Internet of Things. The company announced a distribution partnership with Mouser Electronics for its family of modules, development kits and accessories, which Stansberry said would help the company "reach a wider audience and help speed up IoT development and time to market."

As part of this partner ecosystem, Samsung said it had secured a vendor partnership with VMware, allowing the company to integrate Little IoT Agent support for Samsung Artik modules.

On the hardware side, Samsung unveiled a new module, the Artik 053, for connected home devices, building automation products, health care devices, and industrial applications.

This module, which packs an ARM Cortex processor and runs on Wi-Fi, is targeted for these IoT applications through its high-performance and security capabilities. The Artik 053 is available through distribution partners, including Arrow Electronics, Digi-Key, Mouser Electronics and Mujin.

Partners can also benefit from Samsung's new QuickStart program, which supports businesses through helping them connect their products to Artik cloud.

This program offers partners on-site workshops and training to help them build IoT solutions quickly. The program also offers an array of services like software, firmware, cloud, mobile apps and development to help support IoT deployments.

Samsung first launched its Artik platform in 2015 as an open platform that includes processor chips and circuit boards, along with memory, software and other services "designed to help accelerate development of a new generation of better, smarter IoT devices."

"I think in general IoT is just getting started so all the major players are putting forward their solutions," said Lee Drake, CEO of Rochester, N.Y.-based solution provider OS-Cubed Inc.

Looking forward, Stansberry said Samsung will continue building out its Artik IoT platform to support partners.

"Samsung continues to help our customers by expanding our Artik platform with technologies essential to the next generation of IoT and adding to our growing list of technology and distribution partners," he said.
Internet of things News

Hitachi Data Systems Lays Off Over 100 While Increasing Hiring For IoT, Cloud Initiatives

Joseph F. Kovar

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Hitachi Data Systems has laid off over 100 employees in California while hiring over 1,000 more as the company shifts from a focus on traditional enterprise data center infrastructure to one on new IT initiatives that include IoT and the cloud.

The layoffs of 118 people at Santa Clara, Calif.-based HDS was unveiled in the latest bi-monthly WARN, or Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, report as mandated by the California Employment Development Department. The California WARN act requires employers to provide 60 days advance notice of plant closings or mass layoffs.

The most recent California WARN did not provide additional information on the layoffs, other than to say they were permanent.

[Related: Hitachi Data Systems To Buy Big Data, IoT Developer Pentaho]

Greg Knieriemen, chief technology strategist at HDS, said his company has had some changes that were less a reflection of a move away from the company's storage business and more about the company looking at future opportunities.

The layoffs are not that unusual in the context of changes in the storage industry, Knieriemen told CRN.

"We're shifting aggressively to IoT, the cloud, and services," he said. "So there's a fair amount of right-sizing."

While Knieriemen declined to specify which parts of HDS received the brunt of the layoffs, he did say the company is actually expanding its headcount because of new initiatives.

"In the last year, we've hired over 1,200 people, and we currently have 300 openings," he said. "These openings are focused on IoT, the cloud, content management, services, and analytics."

This is a change that has been happening for several years. HDS, which is the global storage arm of parent company Hitachi, teamed with its parent company in 2013 to form the Global Office of Technology and Planning, or Global OTP. The Global OTP brought together a wide range of initiatives including storage and Hitachi's Smart City program to focus on such verticals as finance and oil and gas.

HDS expanded that initiative in 2015 with its acquisition of Pentaho, a developer of big data analytics and IoT technology.

In 2016, the company formed the Hitachi Insight Group, which leverages its big data and IoT technology to help public- and private-sector customers with what it calls Smart City, Smart Energy, Smart Healthcare, and Smart Industry initiatives.

While the layoffs have had little, if any, impact on channel partners, HDS's shift in business focus has, said Dave Cerniglia, president of Consiliant Technologies, an Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider and long-time HDS channel partner.

HDS has been clearly shifting people around to focus on its Insight Group with its Smart City and IoT initiatives, but the changes have been pretty seamless when it comes to storage, Cerniglia told CRN.

"We're seeing more territorial sales reps from HDS move to focus on a limited number of high-end accounts," he said. "We can go into HDS customers and sell not only storage, but also Pentaho, Smart City, and more. The channel is picking up business outside the largest enterprises. But support on the storage side hasn't changed much."

Hitachi's new initiatives are already available to the channel, and should be more easily accessible going forward, Cerniglia said.

"We're a tier-two partner that goes through distribution," he said. "The Insight Group is not really set up to work through the channel. So it's coming to us through HDS. We're getting our initial quotes via HDS."

Consiliant is already working with Hitachi's Insight Group on Smart City initiatives with state and local governments, as well as private entities like hospitals, Cerniglia said.

"We have proofs-of-concept on software to manage Smart City initiatives like surveillance with Hitachi and non-Hitachi cameras, as well as social media initiatives with Hitachi software," he said.
Managed services News

Computex Taps Security MSP President To Lead Sales Charge, Aims To Signficantly Grow Its Security Footprint

Steven Burke

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Computex Technology Solutions has tapped Matthew Brennan, the president of VirtualArmour, one of the country's top managed security providers, to lead the sales charge at the solution provider.

The appointment of Brennan as senior vice president of sales signals Computex's intent to significantly expand its security vendor partnerships and services offerings, CEO Frank Vitagliano told CRN in an interview.

"Matt is a strong leader that understands managed services and the services security market," said Vitagliano. "He is a perfect fit for us as we expand our security partnerships and services offerings."

[RELATED: Channel Icon Vitagliano Set To Take Helm At SP 500 Powerhouse Computex Technology Solutions]

Security is one of the top concerns of every business in an age when cyberattacks are growing at an alarming rate, said Vitagliano.

Houston-based Computex, in fact, had reached out to its customers Monday to offer assistance in the wake of the WannaCry ransomware attack, which impacted more than 200,000 organizations in 150 countries. So far, the attack does not appear to have seriously impacted U.S. hospitals and businesses.

Vitagliano said none of Computex's customers appeared to have been hit by WannaCry.

"We sent a note to our managed services customers yesterday telling our customers we have their back," said Vitagliano. "Every customer we talk to has clearly expressed a need and desire for us to provide them with expanded security offerings."

Brennan started as an account executive at VirtualArmour six years ago, was named vice president of sales in 2015, and president just 10 months ago. Under his sales leadership, VirtualArmour grew its managed services business 70 percent over three years.

VirtualAmour said that in the wake of Brennan's departure, his responsibilities will be assumed by VirtualArmour founder Christopher Blisard and CEO Todd Kannegieter.

VirtualArmour's sales increased 21 percent to $8.89 million in 2016, up from $7.36 million in 2015. Managed services and professional services sales for 2016 rose 30 percent.

Brennan's hire is the first major appointment by Vitagliano since he took the helm at Computex -- No. 124 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 -- in January.

The appointment of Brennan is Vitagliano's first major hire as he moves to drive sales growth at Computex with a growing portfolio of managed services aimed at helping customers digitally transform their businesses for the cloud era.
Security News

CRN Exclusive: CSPi Seeks New Channel Partners After Launching Security Product Line

Mark Haranas

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Security vendor and solution provider CSPi is taking a deeper dive into the channel hoping to attract new partners with the launch of a new threat visibility and data capture product line.

"We've created a whole new product line to go into providing automated, rapid incidence response for cybersecurity that we're opening up to the channel," said Gary Southwell, general manager of CSPi's products division. "Were one of the most generous providers as far as discounts in the industry, and back it up by having a complete program."

Lowell, Mass.-based CSPi is split into two divisions: High Performance Products, and Technology Solutions. CSPi Technology Solutions was named in CRN's 2017 Tech Elite 250 and ranks No. 233 on CRN's 2016 Solution Provider 500 list.

[Related: Palo Alto Networks Hires Channel Veteran To Lead Americas Channel, Revamp Partner Program]

The company's High Performance Products division is launching its new Myricom nVoy Series 10-Gbit Packet Recorder and Myricom nVoy Series 1-to-100-Gbit Packet Broker for channel partners to sell. The products give security teams the ability to isolate and closely monitor access to important data such as personally identification information or intellectual property.

With the launch of the nVoy series, CSPi is seeking to onboard new solution providers to its Myricom Global Channel Partner Program, which it formed three years ago.

Specifically, the company is looking for security system integrators as well as large consultancy firms to join the program.

The partner program includes incentives, training, a newly revamped partner portal, technical support and a partner loaner program. "So for the loaner program, we'll actually give you loaner gear that a partner can put out initially into environments to get your fist customers going," said Southwell.

Brian Cooleen, vice president of sales for Trenton, N.J.-based solution provider Meadowgate Technologies, said CSPi has been critical for its federal customers.

"They're coming out with the right products  they're proven and reliable," said Cooleen. "What we like about [CSPi] is if we ask them to make changes, they do it for us. They're flexible and the margins are great."

CSPi has approximately 150 currently channel partners, but is looking to expand significantly in the US as well as globally, with offices in Germany and the U.K., with the new nVoy product line.

The nVoy Packet Broker makes it easy to aggregate, replicate, tag, strip, filter and load balance network traffic coming to or from any of its ports, said Southwell, while the nVoy Packet Recorder provides packet capture data recording and on-the-fly indexing when running any IDS applications or forensic tools.

"Our vision is to help these enterprises deal with security challenges and provide an easy path to market for our channel partners to actually get to those customers," said Southwell.

CSPi has been a publicly traded since 1982. It had more than $103.3 million in sales in 2016 and its market capitalization now sits at just over $42 million.
Security News

Trump's National Security Advisor: WannaCry Attack 'Under Control'

Mark Haranas

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President Donald Trump's homeland security advisor Tom Bossert said the global ransomware attack WannaCry - which has has hit more than 200,000 organizations including hospitals and government agencies in 150 countries- is "under control" in the United States.

"[People] should be thinking about this as an attack that for right now we (have) got under control," said Bossert, in an interview with ABC News on Monday. "But also as an attack that represents an extremely serious threat  this criminal threat has turned into something that has affected hospitals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, [and] something that might morph into a more difficult threatening matter."

The massive ransomware campaign specifically targeted the healthcare industry. Those infected were told to pay $300 in order to restore access, with the cost doubling after three days.

[Related: Solution Providers On The Front Line In Fight Against WannaCry Ransomware Attack]

Bossert said the US government doesn't make a recommendation on paying ransom.

"I would provide a strong caution in dealing with people who are obviously not scrupulous. So making a payment does not mean you're going to get your data back," said Bossert.

In a White House press briefing today, Bossert said less than $70,000 has been paid in response to the cyberattacks. He also gave kudos to Microsoft for having released a patch for the ransomware in March.

However, Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post Sunday that the "stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments" is a huge issue.

"We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage," said Smith.

Bossert said the ransomware was "not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data" but was "developed by culpable parties, potentially criminals of foreign nation state".

"This [attack] is an urgent call for collective action," said Bossert. "We need people at every level to engage in their network hygiene, which is not necessarily the nicest thing to talk about. We also need government action. Collective action aboard and with the United States to address this type of attack."

One executive who leads the security business for a solution provider ranked on CRN's 2016 Solution Provider 500 list, said the threat isn't completely under control in the US.

"The attack itself is no worse than other malware attacks as far as the severity of it, but it still isn't under control even though the US wasn't hit as hard as some other countries," said the executive, who did not wish to be named. "The malware itself is actually relatively easy to remove from the machine. For example, if you detect it before attacks have been triggered and encrypted the drive, it's one of the easier pieces of malware to get rid of  But there is still a security issue out there."
Cisco's Internet of Things Push

Over the past year, Cisco has been polishing its Internet of Things offerings in an array of vertical markets  including the manufacturing, transportation and energy sectors.

Moving forward, the company will continue to focus on these segments by building out its channel strategy, both through its traditional IT solution providers, but also with a new channel specializing in operational technology.

Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's IoT and applications businesses, told CRN that "things are changing very quickly" around the San Jose, Calif.-based company's Internet of Things strategy. Following are excerpts from CRN's conversation with Trollope about Cisco's channel strategy as it relates to the Internet of Things.
Who's Next?

Cisco Systems spent billions acquiring seven companies in 2016, right after it made 11 acquisitions in 2015. This month, Cisco unveiled its plan to buy artificial intelligence and machine learning specialist MindMeld for $125 million, as well as software-defined WAN vendor Viptela for $610 million.

The networking giant is on pace to acquire several more firms before the end of 2017, according to analysts, even after spending $3.7 billion on AppDynamics earlier this year. CRN breaks down the 10 company's that analysts are predicting that Cisco might acquire next and why it makes sense in the various markets the vendor plays in.
As more groups get into the denial-of-service attack business they're starting to get in each other's way, according to a report released this morning.

That translates into a smaller average attack size, said Martin McKeay, senior security advocate at Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai Technologies Inc.

There are only so many devices around that have the kind of vulnerabilities that make them potential targets for a botnet.

"And other people can come in and take over the device, and take those resources to feed their own botnet," he said. "I'm seeing that over and over."

He said that Akamai is seeing evidence of the contention in the threat intelligence it gathers, as well as in the size of the attacks.

The median attack size has been decreasing over the last year and a half, he said.

At the start of 2015, the median DDoS attack size was 4 gigabits per second, and it went down to just over 500 megabits per second during the first quarter of this year.

The number of very large attacks has also gone down over the past year, from 19 attacks greater than 100 gigabits per second over the course of the first quarter of 2016, to just two attacks of that size during the first quarter of this year.

That could be due to the fact that several large DDoS crews were arrested at the end of last year.

"Because of the high publicity of some of these attacks, we have Interpol and U.S. government agencies going after the owners and authors of those botnets," McKeay said. "Those people are getting jailed, and that portion of the attack traffic goes away."

But that doesn't mean that companies can get complacent about their defenses, since other groups may step in to take their place.

"DDoS in general is a cyclic phenomenon," he said. "About three years ago, it really took off and we saw a big increase. It's been trending down for about a year but we suspect that that's just a temporary change, and it's going to start back up again."

Meanwhile, even smaller-sized attacks can still do a great deal of damage. According to the Akamai report, many businesses lease Internet uplinks of between 1 and 10 gigabits per second, so any attack bigger than 10 gigabits per second could take an unprotected business offline.

And the capabilities of attackers keep expanding, he added.

"Within two to three years, we might see a five to ten terabit attack," he said.

With more criminal groups competing for access to vulnerable devices for their botnets, does that mean that we might see less ransomware such as the WannaCry attack?

No such luck.

"It's a different group of resources that are being used," said McKeay. "When we're talking about the ransomware like that which we've been seeing since Friday, that's a completely different breed than DDoS."

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In the last installment of this column, we talked about cyber hygiene as a way to reduce security vulnerability. Now lets turn our focus to cybersecurity, particularly as government gears up for the coming rush of the internet of things (IoT).

The threat recently became more real for state and local leaders. This past April, the emergency alert system in Dallas was hacked, with hurricane warnings starting just before midnight, activating 156 emergency sirens at once  15 times over nearly two hours.

For that and other reasons, the state and local governments are becoming more proactive in their approach to IT and cybersecurity, together spending more than the federal government. According to the research company e.Republic, state and local governments will spend some $101.3 billion on IT, with both counties and states each increasing their budget by about 1.5 percent. (By comparison, the federal government has budgeted about $90 billion.)

So cybersecurity is a top IT priority among CIOs at the state, county and city level. In general we can say that the priority has been triggered by a push toward IoT in the so-called smart cities development vision to integrate IoT with communications technology to better manage municipal assets.

To that extent, IoT is at a much more mature place at the state and local level than it is in the federal government or even private industry. State IT executives are more aware of IoT cybersecurity implications, because theyre dealing with industrial systems, facilities HVAC, appliances and the power grid, all of which are managed at the municipal level. To complicate matters, many connected municipal services, from public transportation to water purification are both used and in some cases managed by private companies, so potential cybersecurity threats can come from many different intrusion points at once.

The risk and expense is high. At a recent seminar by the Center for Digital Government, Oakland County CIO Phil Berolini noted that the cost of a breach can be as much as $240 per record. Multiply that by the number of breaches in a typical attack, and the costs mount rapidly. LA County recently dealt with a 750,000 records breached, Berolini noted.

James Collins, Delawares CIO, explained that these actual and potential threats have put cybersecurity on legislative and executive radars. Because cyber is no longer relegated to being an IT thing, it actually opens the door for more practical solutions, Collins said.

Across the board, the real door opener for these and other CIOs is any discussion with the IT community on baking in cybersecurity into technology solutions. When cybersecurity maintenance costs are rolled into the tools that are actually included in IT budgeting, theres more bang for the buck on infrastructure spending, with a higher level of security resilience. Because state and local IT leaders are still getting their arms around on-premise and off-premise cybersecurity, baked in defensive tools are especially valuable in IT purchases.

Some advice for the IT vendor community: slow down



The accelerated interest in IoT in state and local government has led to something of a gold rush among technology companies, who are often guilty of prospecting in that market in all the wrong ways. Many times overzealous technology salespeople make calls without enough research, or promise things that are of no importance.

Wanda Gibson, CTO for Fairfax County, urged the vendor community to pay better attention to published information regarding government IT priorities and budget. Do your research, she said, and talk to the other county departments to know what matters most.

The all-too-common sales strategy of blanket emails requesting a first meeting out of the blue are just plain creepy for Travis County CIO Tanya Acevedo. Calls like that do nothing to help Acevedo sell technology up the ladder in the county. A softer approach is better, with roundtables or symposiums providing good information without feeling like salespeople are trying to shoot ducks in a barrel.

The slow, measured approach seems to be the right way to get traction in the state and local technology community. As Oaklands Berolini explains, leading with the gold-plated solution is a turn-off for any future discussions. Berolini, like most IT leaders, advocates a consultative approach where vendors work to understand problems, rather than trying to force fit a solution blindly.

Its a balancing act, clearly, between government leaders working to implement IoT technology to better serve citizens quickly while ensuring that this rapid pace doesnt introduce more security problems than its worth. While the vendor community is a valuable resource to address potential problems, theyre doing no one any favors by pushing their way into the process. CIOs have enough on their hands without having to fend off the advances of an under-informed partner.

With enough shared background and experience, the IoT phenomenon will take off for state and local government  and will provide valuable insight all the way up to the federal level.
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BRIDGEPORT  After three months of wrangling over intent and language, the City Council Monday passed a resolution declaring Bridgeport a welcoming place for immigrants  legal and undocumented  in the face of more aggressive federal deportation efforts.

Tomorrow a lot will see (in the newspaper) Bridgeport is a sanctuary city and feel good about that, activist Julio Lopez Varona said afterward.

But Bridgeport, technically, is not a so-called sanctuary. That more politically controversial term was dropped to win over council votes and Mayor Joe Ganim.

The city can call it whatever it wants, Varona, of Make the Road Connecticut, said. Well know what it is.

Varona, however, acknowledged the resolution  a fancy way of saying Bridgeport police are not, nor have they ever been, immigration enforcers  lacks the teeth he would have preferred.

Its a resolution, Varona said. It doesnt have force of law. It has some of the basic things we need.

Still, proponents on the council felt good about the accomplishment. The nearly unanimous vote came with no debate.

We can be very proud that we have stood up today, Councilman John Olson said.

Since winter, Make the Road Connecticut and others have pressured local Democratic municipal leaders to oppose Republican President Donald Trumps aggressive  and controversial  immigration orders. That resistance has come in the form of some cities around the country adopting the sanctuary designation and relatednon-cooperation policies.

Ganim initially tried to kill the sanctuary resolution. Though he never publicly outlined his reasons, sources have said the mayor feared Trump would make good on threats to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities. Some council members shared that concern, and the resolution was tied up in committee for the last three months in an effort to find compromise.

Eliminated from the document were earlier demands to specifically protect day laborers, create a legal fund for residents facing deportation and issue municipal identification cards that are particularly helpful for undocumented residents but available to all.

Then sanctuary was replaced with compassionate which was dropped for welcoming.

The final resolution passed Monday emphasizes the significant level of trust between local police and the undocumented immigrant population which has made the city safer through prevention and solving of crimes.

It also states the police department does not inquire of its residents their immigration status (and) strives to avoid racial profiling and to protect the privacy of its residents ... and recognizes it does not , and will not, act as an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal immigration law enforcement, nor stop, detain, arrest or transfer individuals based solely on real or perceived immigration status or warrantless immigration detainers.

It reassures our undocumented immigrant population that the police will continue doing what theyve been doing all along, Councilwoman Kathryn Bukovsky, who helped broker the compromise language, said. They can rest easier.

Today our immigrant community, our undocumented community, are welcome, said Councilman Jose Casco, who had spearheaded the original sanctuary resolution. Were here to stay.

Not necessarily. The passed resolution also emphasizes the city cannot and will not interfere with federal immigration enforcers acting independently. And the document specifically states it does not apply to individuals who have committed a serious felony offense, are gang members and/or pose a serious safety threat to the community.

Four council members voted no: Michelle Lyons, the Rev. Mary McBride-Lee, Anthony Paoletto and AmyMarie Vizzo-Paniccia.

I believe charity begins at home, McBride-Lee said afterward, arguing Bridgeport should focus on aiding its legal residents.

We have seniors that need help, schoolchildren that need help, she said.
U.S. District Judge Janet Hall sentenced North Kingstown, R.I., resident John OBrien to three years in jail after he admitted to defrauding four clients of more than $950,000 as an attorney in Fairfield, including the owners of a New Canaan lawn equipment business.

According to the office of U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly, while running CT Trust Counsel between 2011 and 2014, OBrien used funds to pay off debts owed others, while also diverting some of the money to pay for personal expenses, including payments to his ex-wife and private school tuition.
Health Minister from Seychelles Speaks to Cuban Doctors

The Health Minister of Seychelles, Jean Paul Adam met on Monday with members of the Cuban Medical Brigade on the occasion of Mothers Day, informed Prensa Latina News Agency.

During the activity, the Health Minister spoke to each one present especially Cuban mothers members of the medical brigade that are offering their services in that country.

Cuban medical personnel, residents, representatives of the Seychelles-Cuba Friendship Association and others were present in the activity held in the Cuban embassy in the city of Victoria.

Jean Paul Adam paid tribute to Mariana Grajales, example of patriotism and mother, whose sons were outstanding fighters in favor of Cubas independence from Spain.

Cubas ambassador Juan Humberto Macias, highlighted the role of the Cuban women far from their country and dedicated to long hours in the prevention and care of their patients, work that has background in the human and internationalist legacy of the Cuban people, inspired in the example of the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro.

The President of the Republic of Seychelles, Danny Faure was on an official visit to Cuba last April 27th with the objective of exchanging on bilateral relations and ratified his countrys commitment to strengthen cooperation ties. (PL)
Opening dates, hours and new policies set for 2022 ski season

A price increase on all day and season passes at Seven Springs, Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain ski areas goes into effect on Nov. 20.
With Saturday afternoons graduation ceremony, Lake Holcombe High School seniors will grab their diplomas and start the long process of finding where in the workplace they can get a job. Graduating seniors at other Chippewa County schools will soon follow their own paths.

With the increase in automation in the workplace, they will need to be resourceful to land jobs and then to keep working.

Try your darndest to prepare, said David L. Schaffer, an associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. You want to stay flexible.

Volunteer and be the first to try something new, he said. That way if that technology is adopted, you will be the first in line.

Every time we change, theres always a question of whether this is better, said Tim Tewalt, program director for Chippewa Valley Technical College in industrial mechanics.

I think were better in many ways.

Farmers continue to turn to automation, and the industry is exploring using more robots as labor issues surface, Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture Ben Brancel said.

Automation is going to become more prevalent, he said during a May 10 stop in Bloomer.

For example, cherry orchards use machines to shake and harvest cherries from trees. They are looking for anything that can reduce the need for individuals to do hard work in ag, Brancel said.

Times, jobs change

Schaffer said in the late 1800s more than 80 percent of U.S. residents worked on farms. Many had jobs raising or taking care of horses.

Schaffer said you could not have imagined then the dramatic shift of jobs away from farming.

Almost 100 years ago almost no one went to college to get jobs, Tewalt said.

Today, automation has made it possible to produce products that could not have been made before. He said you see it in medical devices, GPS units and tractors.

Tewalt said automation has led to new jobs, including those in information technology.

The demand for technical education is just huge, Tewalt said.

In the past, Tewalt said, people went to a university and studied without looking at a placement report to see how many jobs are in that field.

As a country, Tewalt said, we gave up a critical eye and asked: How will I make a living at this?

Generally speaking, he said there are a lot of good degrees available to pursue. You just have to make sure the market in that area needs that degree, he said.

Tewalt said many older people are going back to school. He said his father-in law, at age 65, decided to become a real estate agent, which he successfully did.

Change in tactics

Brancel said he was told by people working for Silver Spring Foods in Eau Claire that they used to be able to hold a job fair and attract workers that way. Now, those job fairs dont generate as many workers.

He said he hears from many businesses in Wisconsin that they would hire more people if they could find candidates qualified for the work.

Brancel rejected the notion that automation has led to the overproduction of milk because it encourages larger herds. He said there are other factors having an effect, including better cow care with balanced food rations and with better barn ventilation.

Its almost a scientific marvel, Brancel said of whats being done by farmers.

While automation has been developed in the research level, Schaffer said it actually has been creeping into actual work places fairly slowly.

Schaffer contends that automation, in many cases, opens up new doors to jobs. For example, no one in past years ever had a dream of becoming a video game designer.

But Schaffer said while automation can benefit society, it does cause uncertainty among individuals.

My daughter is searching for a career, and shes filled with uncertainty, he said.

He said people holding jobs will have to constantly learn and switch when the technology does.

Jobs have changed fast in a lot of previous eras, he said.

All things will eventually change, he said.
President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday he had the right to share information with Russia related to terrorism and other issues, his first public response to the revelation he disclosed classified information at an Oval Office meeting last week.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he tweeted.

T

rump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador to the US in a White House meeting last week, The Washington Post first reported Monday.

Trump's tweets Tuesday notably lack any mention of whether the information he shared was classified.

But two former officials knowledgeable of the situation confirmed to CNN that the main points of the Post story are accurate: The President shared classified information with the Russian foreign minister.

Trump did not directly reveal the source of the information, but intelligence officials told CNN that there is concern that Russia will be able to figure out the highly sensitive source.

The White House dismissed the report Monday night, issuing several statements before sending H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser who was a part of the meeting, before White House reporters.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that weren't already publicly known," McMaster said. "I was in the room. It didn't happen."

Early responses to the bombshell report indicate that, if true, handling sensitive details in this manner would have broad implications on US partnerships around the world and could place the lives of agents in the field at risk.

"Never before have I witnessed a senior government official so carelessly threaten an intelligence-sharing relationship," a former senior intelligence official told CNN.

Mark Hertling, a national security, intelligence and terrorism analyst for CNN, said giving Russia information has not historically led to them being forthcoming with the United States.

"I'm concerned about the fact that the President feels like he has to give something to Russia first when there have been repeated instances of Russia being sanctioned in Ukraine, committing war crimes in Syria and conducting operations that are contrary to what we'd like to believe are freedom of operations and sovereignties of different nations," he said Tuesday on CNN's "New Day." "This confuses me to no end."

Putin requested meeting

The Wednesday meeting between Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak had already raised alarm bells in Washington, primarily because it came one day after Trump decided to fire FBI Director James Comey while the bureau investigated his campaign's alleged ties to Russia.

The meeting, a personal request from Russian President Vladimir Putin -- who asked that they meet when he spoke with Trump earlier this month -- was supposed to remain behind closed doors without any media coverage. But a photographer from Russian state-media Tass attended the meeting and took photos of a laughing Trump with Lavrov and Kislyak.

No US media were allowed into the meeting.

Though an angry White House official told CNN they felt "tricked" by the Russians, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "proper protocol was followed" by not allowing media into the meeting.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump slammed Hillary Clinton for storing classified information on her private email server.

"Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,' Trump tweeted in July. "Not fit!"
A red-letter day for the boys and girls in blue. At Buckingham Palace, there was an audience with the Queen for Cressida Dick, the new Commissioner of the Met (or Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis as the Court Circular billed her).

Meanwhile, in Birmingham, the annual conference of the Police Federation  the coppers trade union  was granted an audience with the equally regal figure of Diane Abbott. The Shadow Home Secretary had a fairly royal string of pearls round her neck, too.

She had come to show that, for all her floundering fluster when quizzed about her numbers on that famously disastrous radio interview the other week, here was a statesperson on top of her brief.

Diane Abbott a 40-minute session during which Ms Abbott rattled off her prepared text with all the rhetorical flourish of a bored cattle auctioneer, according to Robert Hardman

Unfortunately, many in the stalls had come expecting some sort of comedy turn. They were not to be disappointed.

By the end of a 40-minute session during which Ms Abbott rattled off her prepared text with all the rhetorical flourish of a bored cattle auctioneer, told police officers that they couldnt catch nasty diseases from people who spit in their faces, and then walked the wrong way off the stage, she departed to that most corrosive of audience reactions: ridicule.

The Police Federation is always a tough audience. This may be the safest conference at which to mislay a wallet but they wont put up with platitudes, let alone being patronised.

Over the years, Home Secretaries from Left and Right have been heckled and jeered before sitting down to thunderous silences. Better to be booed on your way, though, than mocked.

Things had got off to a promising start when Ms Abbott came on stage and walked straight past the lectern before she was steered back to it.

Things had got off to a promising start when Ms Abbott came on stage and walked straight past the lectern before she was steered back to it

It may be helpful to introduce myself, she began, explaining that she knew all about policing not because Ive read it in a book but because she had grown up in a rough part of London.

There could be no ducking that atrocious performance on LBCs Nick Ferrari show earlier this month, so she addressed it head-on.

Now, some of you are saying, if she knows so much how come she fumbled the Nick Ferrari interview? she joked mirthlessly. See? I can read minds!

To describe her pitiful attempts to put a price on 10,000 new police officers as a fumble was rather like calling the Great Train Robbery a burglary.

And, of course, it hadnt even been her fault. It had been a stitch-up by the scheming interviewer.

Whats more newsworthy? Me fluffing a line  or the rising rate of homicide? Whats more newsworthy?

Diane Abbott had become lost on the stage. She is pictured right trying to find her way to the podium

'An interviewer tripping up a Labour spokesperson, or the fact that over 20,000 police officers and staff have been cut?

Later on in her speech, she claimed that the whole hoo-ha had been a calculated distraction by billionaire media moguls trying to eclipse any public focus on the iniquities of the tax system.

The audience  mainly white, male, middle-aged, hair well above the collar  listened with about as much enthusiasm as Ms Abbott was evincing herself.

Barely looking up from her text, printed on white cards, she read it out like the mandatory smallprint voiceover bolted on to the end of a life insurance ad.

Reeling off various knife crime stats, she attributed one to the Inspector of shtabulrees.

She made a little circle in the air with her right hand as she recited each figure, ticking them off like a shopping list.

Come the end, unfortunately, there were questions. Where had the figure of 10,000 officers come from?

It just seemed to us a do-able number given the resources, she said nonchalantly.

This lot were neither bothered nor surprised by another politician fabricating numbers out of thin air. Old hat.

What really irked them was her historic opposition to spit guards, the protective hoods placed over a suspect who persist in spitting at officers  particularly as the police are not allowed to test suspects for diseases transmitted by blood and saliva.

Ms Abbott assured them that she had spoken to some very nice people with HIV and hepatitis.

They are concerned by the assumption that you can catch Hep C by someone spitting at you, she said. You can! yelled the man behind me. Would you take the risk? shouted another.

I dont know where youre getting your facts and figures, said Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation.

Afterwards, he told me that he knew of at least 100 officers  including his own wife, a sergeant in Jeremy Corbyns North London manor  who had been required to undergo anti-viral treatment because of the risk of infection.

Its horrific and leaves you feeling rotten for a month, he said.

Later in the day, a young PC spoke of the horror of a hepatitis diagnosis (false, as it turned out) for his whole family. Even his baby had to have tests.

Ms Abbott left saying that she would take a view after studying ongoing research.

On her way out, she walked off the stage, strode into a wall and had to go back on in order to leave.

The audience hooted. You couldnt script that. What a joke! said the chap behind me. What a car crash, said his neighbour. Its not a term this crowd use lightly.
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Australian Fashion Week kicked off with a colourful display of some of the most prestigious Australian designers and models on Monday.

But among the plethora of catwalk stars was one designer choosing to showcase the beauty of age.

Thomas Puttick debuted models like 50-year-old politician Anne Aly, musician Sarsha Simone and Sierra Leone refugee Aminata Conteh-Biger who stormed the runway dressed head to toe in pieces from the designer's chic new collection.

Strutting their stuff: Thomas Puttick's debut show at Australian Fashion Week featured a host of older models many of whom have never walked a catwalk in their life but Yvonne Tozzi (centre) was all smiles representing Silverfox Management

Before the show began Puttick explained the idea came from a need to celebrate diversity. In some way each woman who walked, whether she be older, shorter, or more distinct than the usual catwalk model, had inspired Puttick.

'The new series is a way for us to present empowered women who have a strong message, and who carry themselves,' he said.

Puttick has trained with the likes of Alexander McQueen, Alexander Wang, Helmut Lang and Christopher Esber but this was his first time presenting alone at fashion week.

Before the show began Puttick explained the idea came from a need to celebrate diversity. In some way each woman who walked, whether she be older, shorter, or more distinct than the usual catwalk model, had inspired Puttick

Each woman who modeled for the brand, many in their 50s and 60s, came from a diverse range of backgrounds.

There were stylists, blogger and ex-supermodel Yvonne Tozzi, Lynn Staton, Isobel Blomfield, a graphic designer, community acitivists, a paralegal and documentary film maker.

'It's great to wear clothes for women over 50 and remind people we're not dead yet,' 60-year-old Yvonne Tozzi, who's daughter Cheyenne is also a model, said ahead of the show.

The ladies have it! Politician Anne Aly (centre) featured in the fashion show alongside models with flower adorned garb and painted body parts

The fashion show, which was titled Variations on a Floral Theme, also raised money for anti-domestic violence charity White Ribbon, Buzzfeed News reports.

An ongoing flower theme was used throughout the show with many of the models themselves painted in a white hydrangea type pattern.

Many of the models are represented by Silverfox Management Group, an agency which believes 'you can't define people by age anymore as consumers'.

Many of the models are represented by Silverfox Management Group, an agency which believes 'you can't define people by age anymore as consumers'

The clothes themselves shone in their own light with luxurious silks in a mixture of neutral tones and ribbed cotton used to highlight the natural sway of each models body

'It's about mindset and common values. It's become tribal. Brands that succeed will adopt a generation-less approach,' the agency website reads.

The clothes themselves shone in their own light with luxurious silks in a mixture of neutral tones and ribbed cotton used to highlight the natural sway of each models body.

But Puttick wasn't the only designer incorporating diversity into fashion week with esteemed womenswear label Sass and Bide also following suit.

But Puttick wasn't the only designer incorporating diversity into fashion week with esteemed womenswear label Sass and Bide also following suit

The brand has been on a 14-year hiatus from Australian fashion week but made a glowing debut on Monday night to a full front row.

Tassles and varied skirt lengths were a well-seasoned trend presented by the label as well as fringed heels.

'It just felt right to have women of different ages who would wear Sass & Bide and who themselves love clothes,' Sass & Bide head designer Sophia Berman said after the show.
Crown Princess Mary gave some of Europe's top fashionistas a run for their money when she attended the Fashion Summit 2017 in Copenhagen as the event's patron last week.

The 45-year-old princess was resplendent in a maroon floral printed skirt and co-coordinating blouse at the event, where she delivered a powerful speech on sustainability within the fashion industry.

The printed skirt was fittingly chosen because it came from high street label H&M's ethically-made Conscious collection from 2011.

Crown Princess Mary attended the Fashion Summit 2017 in Copenhagen where she delivered a speech on sustainability in fashion - she wore a floral skirt by H&M's eco collection (pictured)

'We hold a responsibility to rethink the fashion industry  some in respect to social aspects, others the environmental and others the economical aspects, but we must do it together,' the Crown Princess said in her speech (pictured)

The Danish royal paired the skirt with a matching maroon blouse, jewellery by Cartier and Ole Lynggaard Copenhagen and Valentino stilettos.

At the event, Princess Mary was joined by the eco-fashion activist, Livia Firth, the Russian digital personality, Miroslava Duma, and the CEO of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Eva Kruse among others.

She delivered a speech about sustainable solutions in the fashion industry and later attended the panel debates at the conference:

'We hold a responsibility to rethink the fashion industry  some in respect to social aspects, others the environmental and others the economical aspects, but we must do it together,' the Crown Princess said during her speech.

For many years now, Princess Mary has been a passionate advocate for health, gender equality, women and sustainability in fashion.

The Danish royal paired the skirt with a matching maroon blouse, jewellery by Cartier and Ole Lynggaard Copenhagen (pictured) and Valentino stilettos

The event was also attended by other fashion activists, including Livia Firth and Miroslava Duma (pictured: Crown Princess Mary)

Later on in the evening, HRH Princess Mary attended a Fashion Summit dinner party at Langelinie Pavillons in Copenhagen with the Fashion Summit CEO, Ms Kruse (both pictured)

Later on in the evening, HRH Princess Mary attended a Fashion Summit dinner party at Langelinie Pavillons in Copenhagen with the Fashion Summit CEO, Ms Kruse.

For this event, the stylish Princess changed into a patterned Burberry Prorsum dress she wore previously at the 100th anniversary of the Constitution.

This time around, Princess Mary paired it with her Cartier Love bracelet, a Bottega Veneta clutch bag and Gianvito Rossi heels.

Meanwhile, Ms Kruse sported a black satin dress to attend the event with Mary.

For this event, the stylish Princess changed into a patterned Burberry Prorsum dress she wore previously at the 100th anniversary of the Constitution (pictured)

It's been a busy few weeks for the mother-of-four, who has recently enjoyed the 80th birthday celebrations of King Harald and Queen Sonja in Oslo.

Princess Mary also celebrated the 13th anniversary of her wedding on May 14.

Woman's Day reported earlier this week that Princess Mary has been 'banned' from seeing her 'best friend', the former Ladies of London star, Caroline Fleming.

The publication reported that a source said if she continued her friendship, it would be 'a bad look for a future queen'.
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Many attendees at Australian Fashion Week have pulled out all of the stops to ensure their looks are both memorable and on-trend.

But whether they have all got it right is another story.

Thigh-high boots, furs, corsets and little else are filling the streets of Sydney, no doubt leading some Australians to wonder if it's an S&M convention they're attending rather than the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Imogen Anthony is unsurprisingly leading the charge of the trend, rocking up to Carriageworks on Monday in a men's shirt that was cinched at the waist with a red leather corset.

The shade matched the shiny fire-engine red patent leather boots that took the place of trousers for the model's outfit, which she accessorised with a fedora hat done in a crocodile skin pattern.

Imogen Anthony has made sure to keep the street style interesting at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, rocking up to day three (left) in an outfit that would be sure to nab the envy of Lady Gaga

Imogen's daring looks are clearly rubbing off on those around her. One blogger (left), who was working some gorgeous natural hair and smoky eyeshadow, arrived in an outfit that would've been right at home on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean while Mimi Elashiry rocked a gorgeous lavender-hued fur that was unfortunately overshadowed by her thigh -high boots

Also in our cast of swashbuckling fashionistas is Margaret Zhang (centre), who paired an oversized shirt with a leather bodice covered in belts while Zoe Cross opted for a sheer dress that put everything underneath on display and Lisa Clark (right) channelled the pirate look, with a leather skirt that was overshadowed by the strange cut-outs on her men's shirt

Suited and sassy: Both Steph Claire Smith and Erin Holland opted for suits - but the over-sized cuts overwhelmed their slight frames

Topping off the look was a Gucci purse with an attached fur bauble, hinting at another one of the week's earliest street trends.

Imogen, 26, has been grabbing headlines ever since fashion week kicked off with Dion Lee's show at the Opera House on Sunday.

The longtime girlfriend of radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands staged a guerrilla catwalk of her own in front of the show as a way to promote her new brand PSEUDO.

April Rose Pengilly was giving off mermaid vibes at the Sass & Bide show on Monday with her head-to-toe turquoise outfit. It was the exact same shade blogger Margarita Nazarenko wore on the second day with her floor-length gown

The drama of Zoe Cross' gorgeous black fur was hurt by her voluminous slacks, which dragged on the floor, while former Miss Universe Tegan Martin covered up her power suit - and enviable figure - with an unnecessary peacoat

Model Jasmin Howell drew inspiration from bubblegum, but drowned in a top that was just as voluminous as the bottom

She wore a sheer long-sleeved black shirt that fell to her thighs and a faux fur scarf with 'PSEUDO' emblazoned across.

But neither look could compete with what Imogen had up her sleeve on Tuesday, when she wore what resembled a bedazzled swim that that completely covered everything but her lips and nose.

Imogen may not have been able to see the heads she turned as she took her front row spot at the St George NextGen show, but she made sure they all knew she wasn't wearing a bra.

The model wore a full-length sheer striped dress that showed off everything underneath, and rocked another faux fur on her shoulder.

Stylist Chloe Hill (left) and model Cartia Mallan (right) both suffered from a bit of pattern overload as they paired their bold looks with loud accessories and shoes

Stylist Nicci Dimblon (left) drew inspiration from the ancient Greeks while Tara Chandra (right) overshadowed her outfit, emblazoned with a Chinese dragon, with an odd necklace

Imogen's daring looks are clearly rubbing off on those around her.

One blogger, who was working some gorgeous natural hair and smoky eyeshadow, arrived at Carriageworks in lace-up thigh high boots that peeked out of the slit of her long dress.

With her flowing black skirt, leather bodice and metal-studded jacket, it was a look that would have been right at home on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Model Zoe Cross also took a page from Imogen's book, opting for a sheer long-sleeved dress that put everything underneath on full display.

Fashion Blogger Nadia Fairfax could have also benefited from minimising her look, cutting off her unique Stella McCartney sweater with an out-of-place belt, and distracting her gorgeous red dress with an ill-fitting checkered men's shirt

Style blogger Millie Sykes' bold plaid pants had to compete with her emblazoned clutch and cotton candy pink blazer and top

Golden lines went down the length of the see-through frock, which was outfitted with a number of ruffles that also made her look positively pirate, albeit a gorgeous one.

Also in our cast of swashbuckling fashionistas is photographer Margaret Zhang, who paired an oversized men shirt with a leather bodice covered in belts.

Large white sleeves poked out of her leather jacket, making the look fit for the likes of Captain Hook.

Peter Pan would have been nothing without the mermaids, which is exactly the vibe April Rose Pengilly was giving off at the Sass & Bide show on Monday.

Fashion stylist Monica Morlaes (left) and Instagram style icon Sarah Jane Adams (right) both chose this bright fuchsia hue to try and stand out from the pack

This woman's look no doubt kept her warm in the chill, but it reminded one FEMAIL writer of a famous scene in Mean Girls

Daniel Lee also suffered from some oddly placed cut-outs that took attention away from his unique letterman-style jacket

Model Alys Hale channeled Kate Moss with this London-inspired look, but her driver's cap and bandeau missed the mark

Not every risk during fashion week pays off, but these two attendees didn't even seem to try as they showed up in ill-fitting gym shorts and trackies that stood out for all the wrong reasons among the stylish crowd

April, who is the daughter of Karen Hutchinson and INXS member Kirk Pengilly, shimmered from head to toe in turquoise that shimmered from her flowing spaghetti strap top and matching fitted trousers.

It was the exact same shade blogger Margarita Nazarenko wore on the second day, choosing to work the bold cover via a floor-length gown that showed off plenty of skin with a plunging neckline and a thigh-high split.

Caged pumps snaked up the legs of the former Maxim mode, who topped off her look with '80s-inspired shoulder pads and neon green tassel earrings.

With pirates and mermaids there was only one thing left missing from this impromptu Neverland, and the Lost Boys were plenty channeled thanks to fur that covered up these girls on the chilly streets of Sydney.

Zoe Cross sported a gorgeous black shag that she paired with an electric blue bra, but topped off the look with some drowning bell bottom slacks that dragged on the ground and took away from the drama of her jacket.

Model Mimi Elashiry also took away from a gorgeous lavender fur jacket.

Instead of keeping the focus on her outerwear's unique hue, Mimi left it fighting for attention against a pair of electric purple thigh-high boots and a pair of overalls that just didn't fit the rest of her look.
Monogrammed clutch bags, purses and key rings are a mainstay of every It girl's wardrobe right now, and there's one Sydney-based fashion designer to thank for much of it.

Lana Hopkins, 33, recently opened up about how her accessories label, Mon Purse, turned over AUD $1 million in just three months.

And while she admitted that 'five years ago, this wouldn't have happened' for a start-up, the CEO also had many fascinating take home business tips.

The CEO of Mon Purse, Lana Hopkins (pictured), recently revealed how she grew Mon Purse and made $1 million in just three months

The 33-year-old CEO (pictured) explained that 'five years ago, this wouldn't have happened' - she also shared her tips for growing a business

According to Ms Hopkins, one of the core pillars of the Mon Purse philosophy is that what you see is what you get (pictured: Mon Purse accessories)

According to Ms Hopkins - whose idea for Mon Purse famously came about when she was in a build-a-bear workshop - one of the core pillars of the Mon Purse philosophy is that what you see is what you get:

MON PURSE TIPS FOR GROWING A BUSINESS * Focus on the data - understand what it is the customer wants. * Think about both quality and quantity. * Think about the X factor and giving your product something which no one else has. Advertisement

'You know sometimes when you buy a bag online and the colour is red and then it arrives and you go, hang on a minute, that's not the red I thought I was getting Those days are over. Nobody else is doing this,' the 33-year-old told whimn.com.au.

Ms Hopkins also explained that one of the reasons for Mon Purse's success is that they focus on the data, as an absolute paramount:

'We are a data driven business,' Ms Hopkins said.

'We don't have fashion buyers, we have data scientists who work very, very hard at understanding what it is that the customer wants.'

'You know sometimes when you buy a bag online and the colour is red and then it arrives and you go, hang on a minute, that's not the red I thought I was getting Those days are over. Nobody else is doing this,' Ms Hopkins (pictured) said

Ms Hopkins also explained that one of their reasons for Mon Purse's success is that they focus on the data - she said they have 'data scientists' who focus on what the customer wants

Elsewhere, Ms Hopkins recommended focusing on both the quality and the quantity of the product you are trying to put out to market (pictured: Mon Purse accessories)

Elsewhere, Ms Hopkins recommended focusing on both the quality and the quantity of the product you are trying to put out to market.

She also advocated giving your item a little bit of the X factor - or something no one else will have.

This comes in the form of the monogramming in Mon Purse items, as well as bespoke packaging with every product:

'There's something powerful about using technology to disrupt a traditional industry and put something beautiful in people's hands,' Ms Hopkins explained.

She also advocated giving your item a little bit of the X factor - or something no one else will have - this comes in the form of beautiful packaging (pictured)

'There's something powerful about using technology to disrupt a traditional industry and put something beautiful in people's hands,' Ms Hopkins said

At the end of last year, Mon Purse signed deals with several major foreign department stores, including Bloomingdale's and Selfridges (pictured: in-store interiors)

At the end of last year, Mon Purse signed deals with several major foreign department stores, including Bloomingdale's and Selfridges.

It was also reported at the time that the label expects to turn over AUD $20 million in total this financial year.

'In all honesty, this is a true "pinch-me" moment, as we launched in beta [online] two years ago and have only been truly trading for less than one and a half years,' Ms Hopkins previously told The Age.

'I cannot underestimate the number of appointments we set up on both continents and the personal follow-ups by both of us which was relentless,' she continued.

For more information about Mon Purse, click here.
A 26-year-old woman has become the youngest Brit to scale both the north and south faces of Mount Everest after reaching the 8,848-metre north summit - thanks to Britney Spears and a Rubik's Cube.

Intrepid Mollie Hughes and guide Jon Gupta successfully scaled the peak of the world's highest mountain in the early hours on Tuesday morning.

Mollie, who lives in Edinburgh, battled temperatures as low as minus 40C to set a record as the youngest European woman to achieve the feat.

Mollie Hughes, pictured at base camp, became the youngest Briton to reach the 8,848-metre north summit of Mount Everest

She said: 'I am elated, exhausted and know I still have the hardest part to do - the long and difficult descent to base camp.

'Jon (Gupta) and I have already spent more than four weeks acclimatising on the mountain.

'Thanks to a weather window, yesterday evening we left Camp 3 (8,300m) and we've finally reached the top.

'The climbing has been really, really hard but our mental and physical strength got us up here. I can confirm that the north side is definitely more difficult than the south side.'

Mollie - at 6835m - battled temperatures as low as minus 40C to set a record as the youngest European woman to achieve the feat

Speaking after the challenge, she said she felt elated, exhausted and still has to descend the mountain

Mollie credits Britney Spears songs for helping her get there. The pair also carried a Rubik's cube to test their mental alertness at altitude and to keep occupied during rest

Mollie, who listened to upbeat tracks from Britney Spears like 'Hit me Baby One More Time', hopes to raise more than 8,000 for Cancer Research UK by earning 1 for every metre climbed.

She periodically posted video clips and stills during her record-breaking ascent.

One clip shows guide, Jon Gupta, talking to camera as they camp at 7,069m on the north-west shoulder of Everest as part of their essential acclimatisation process.

A soundtrack by Britney Spears plays in the tent as Gupta reveals they carry a Rubik's cube to test their mental alertness at altitude and to keep occupied during rest.

Mollie was supported throughout the expedition by Tiso, the outdoor adventure specialist, where she is an employee in Edinburgh.

In 2012, at the age of 21, the brave mountaineer, originally from Torbay, Devon, summited Mount Everest from its south side.

Mollie, in Kathmandu, was supported throughout the expedition by Tiso, the outdoor adventure specialist, where she is an employee in Edinburgh

The north route from base camp in Tibet, China, is considered to expose the mountaineers to colder and windier conditions

She is 28 years younger than Lynne Hannah, from Northern Ireland, who in 2016 - and at the age of 54 - became the first British woman to achieve ascents from both the north and south.

While many climbers choose to ascend from the south, the north route from base camp in Tibet, China, is considered to expose the mountaineers to colder and windier conditions.

The route includes an arduous and psychologically testing final day ascent over three prominent rocky steps on the northeast ridge.

All are negotiated at an altitude of over 8,500 metres (28,000ft) in the so-called 'death zone.'

Mollie, at base camp, hopes to raise more than 8,000 for Cancer Research UK by earning 1 for every metre climbed

Mollie Hughes and Jon Gupta at 6835m have spent more than four weeks acclimatising on the mountain

Mollie added: 'Huge thanks to Jon, the sherpas, pictured, family, friends and to Tiso as my principle sponsor on this expedition'

The pair are now focussing on achieving a safe descent from the top of the world

Mollie added: 'Huge thanks to Jon, the sherpas, family, friends and to Tiso as my principle sponsor on this expedition.

'I am really proud to be the youngest Briton to have scaled Everest from both sides - and to have raised funds to support the work of Cancer Research UK.

'Now, we'll focus on achieving a safe descent from the top of the world.'

Chris Tiso, CEO of Tiso Group, added: 'Mollie Hughes is an inspirational young woman.

Mollie Hughes, at 7350m, was applauded by her sponsors, who said it was a 'phenomenal achievement'

The route includes an arduous and psychologically testing final day ascent over three prominent rocky steps on the northeast ridge

'All at Tiso Group are very proud that she has reached the summit after a long and difficult climb and entered her name in the Everest record books. It is a phenomenal achievement.

'Of course, Mollie and Jon (Gupta) now face an equally daunting descent.

'All involved with the Tiso Return to Mount Everest 2017 Expedition wish them a safe return to base camp and look forward to welcoming Mollie home in early June.'

In 1975, Junko Tabei, from Japan, became the first female climber to summit the mountain that was first officially climbed in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.

The Torbay, Devon-born climber, who lives in Edinburgh, battled temperatures as low as minus 40C
An eczema sufferer has clear skin for the first time after quitting the steroid creams she was prescribed for over 35 years.

Rachel Fee, 42, from Yardley, West Midlands, was six-months-old when she was first given the anti-inflammatory cream to treat her dry skin.

Over time, her usage went from once a week on small areas of skin to a daily high dose ritual where she would cover most of her body.

After noticing her symptoms were worsening, she discovered that her body was addicted to topical steroid creams.

The mother-of-three quit the medication and suffered debilitating reactions brought on by the withdrawal process in November 2013 and went through agonising cycles where her skin turned bright red from a burning itching, then ooze before drying and peeling off.

In agonising pain, she had to rely on loved ones to do everything for her and was housebound as she spent hours in the bath every day trying to soothe her skin.

But now, close to four years since quitting steroid creams, her skin is finally healing and she's been able to return to normal life.

Rachel Fee, 42, from the West Midlands skin burned bright red before oozing, then drying and flaking off after stopping her use of topical steroid creams that she had used for over 35 years

Now Rachel finally has clear skin after years battling the withdrawal symptoms of topical steroid withdrawal, she feels like she can be a proper mother to her three children

Rachel, full-time mum, said: 'I was first prescribed steroid creams at six months old for my eczema, from there I was on and off them for the next 35 plus years.

'Whenever I had a flare-up, I would go back to a doctor who would prescribe more steroids, they would work for a little while then when I came off it would worsen again.

'I used them throughout my childhood, my teenage years, then university, the only time it cleared up was while I was working abroad, but then back in the UK it came back.

'When I got towards my 30s it seemed to stop working, then I was prescribed stronger and stronger medications, but worryingly it spread to other parts of my body where I never had eczema before.

After noticing her symptoms were worsening, Rachel discovered that her body was addicted to topical steroid creams

Some of the topical steroid creams Rachel was taking that worsened her skin and left her skin addicted

'I watched a video online about topical steroid addiction, that's when I knew my body was addicted to the creams, I had all of the symptoms and knew I had to stop using the medication.

'Once I started the withdrawal process, I had flu-like symptoms, the shakes, insomnia, a burning itch like I've never experienced and was shedding skin like a snake, it was horrendous.

'After six months my legs healed, which gave me the hope that I was doing the right thing, then slowly my back started, my stomach and now the rest of me is so much better.

Now Rachel finally has clear skin after years battling the withdrawal symptoms of topical steroid withdrawal, she can be a proper mum to her three children and a great wife to husband Andrew, 35

Last year, Rachel's skin drastically started to improve and now she's close to being fully healed

'I turned the corner at three years battling with topical steroid withdrawal and now I'm nearly full healed.'

Rachel started suffering with the side-effects of topical steroid addiction also known as red skin syndrome (RSS) in her early teens.

She added: 'I was using a lower dosage steroid cream, then at 13-years-old my face would start to become puffy and would swell.

'I didn't have a clue what it was, I just thought I had an allergic reaction to something, but in hindsight it was actually the cream - I didn't think in a million years that it would be my medication.'

The mother-of-three was left with oozing sores on her body as she went through the withdrawal process

Two decades later she stopped using the creams after finding a video online about her condition on the International Topical Steroid Addiction Network (ITSAN) website.

Rachel's NHS dermatologist advised stronger steroid creams followed by steroid tablets.

She added: 'I was told if they didn't work to go on immunosuppressant tablets for the rest of my life.

'Alternatively, she said I could go my own route and this was literally the hardest decision of my life, it wasn't a decision I made lightly.'

Red raw skin on Rachel's wrist and arm: She had to spend hours in the bath each day to get any relief from the pain

Rachel chose to quit all steroid-based treatment and from there, she suffered extremely painful withdrawal symptoms.

She compared it to what she imagined 'a drug addict feels going cold turkey'.

Rachel said: 'At times, I felt like I was on fire and at some points wasn't sure whether my body was going to cope with it.

'My skin burned, was bright red and left me looking like a burns victim, because my skin was so sensitive I could not put clothes on.

'The pain was the worst symptom, it was a burning pain and itch, then when you scratch your skin ooze flows out like water.'

The reactions were so extreme she was unable to work, struggled to move and was only able to find comfort in long baths for many hours.

Rachel added: 'At its worst, the pain was unbearable - I was housebound, couldn't function as a mother, a wife or anything.

'I relied on friends, family and my husband Andrew very heavily to make sure I could get through each and every day.

'I was in the bath for hours, sometimes twice a day, it was the only way my skin felt soothed and that I could find comfort.'

The pain of Rachel's skin was so agonising that she had to rely on friends and relatives for help to get through the day and was virtually housebound

But last year, her skin drastically started to improve and now she's close to being fully healed.

Rachel added: 'It's amazing, the skin on the healed parts of my body are normal.

'I can see the finishing line now, I was on steroid creams for a long time, over 35 years, so the recovery has taken longer than for some people.

'Now I see life very differently now, I cherish every day and don't take things for granted, having been debilitated for years due to steroid creams.'

Rachel pictured as a child: She's been using topical steroid creams since the age of six months

She warns others about the dangers of prolonged steroid cream usage.

Rachel said: 'I tell everyone I know now not to use the creams for long periods of time, especially not to use it on your children or babies.

'This isn't an isolated incident, there's a lot of people who have battled with the same things as me and worse.

'The medication I took induced this damage to my skin and there are hundreds of people all over the UK and the world recovering from this too.'
A three-year-old fashionista is one of Instagram's youngest stars  posing each day for hours in a 1,000 wardrobe of designer-inspired outfits.

Chelsea Mace, 25, from Silvertown, east London, kits her daughter Kiera out in everything from Chanel-inspired dresses to funky leather jackets, which would make most A-listers envious.

Now she has built-up an army of almost 1,000 online fans thanks to the snaps her mother shares of her every day.

Chelsea Mace, 25, from Silvertown, east London, has her daughter, three, pose for hours each day in a wardrobe of Chanel-inspired clothes worth 1,000

She kits Kiera out in everything from Chanel-inspired dresses to funky leather jackets, which would make most A-listers envious

'I never expected Kiera's page to get so popular,' said retail worker Chelsea, who says Kiera is so used to being photographed that, whenever she sees a wall, she automatically poses next to it and asks her to take a snap.

'At first, when I started posting her pictures on Instagram, I'd get a maximum of around eight likes.

'But when we started twinning  dressing the same  it really took off.

'Now, she's got about two wardrobes full of clothes. She absolutely loves them. It's a way better wardrobe than mine. A lot of the time, I won't buy myself anything and my money will go on Kiera.'

Chelsea, a single mum, first took to the internet to share photos of Kiera as a newborn with family and friends.

Keira has built-up an army of almost 1,000 online fans thanks to the snaps her mother shares

Her mother says Kiera is so used to being photographed that, whenever she sees a wall, she automatically poses next to it

'I never expected Kiera's page to get so popular,' said retail worker Chelsea, who dresses her daughter in similar outfits to her own

Chelsea says that when she first started her Instagram account, she would get around 8 likes but now she gets hundreds

But then, a pal started an online clothing company and asked if Kiera would model some of her pieces.

After posting the cute snaps online, Chelsea's Instagram page gained a flurry of fans.

From there, she began entering competitions to be an online brand representative for various children's clothing companies.

This involves children with big followings posting pictures showing off merchandise, to help promote a business.

'We've only got a few freebies. I buy most of Kiera's clothes myself from Instagram stores or high street shops,' said Chelsea.

'I'm not sure how much I've spent on her wardrobe, I'd say it's close to 1,000.'

Around a year ago, Chelsea's page really took off when she began to match her outfits with Kiera's.

Now, they'll wear the same clothes more or less every day, resulting in them frequently being stopped in the street when they go out.

Chelsea's daughter has even been asked to model for friend's clothing companies

Kiera has two wardrobes full of clothes and her mother says she absolutely loves them. 'It's a way better wardrobe than mine. A lot of the time, I won't buy myself anything and my money will go on Kiera,' she said

It'll take the pair around an hour or two to get ready, depending on what they're wearing.

If Chelsea gets dressed before Kiera, the toddler will ask if she can wear the same thing as her mum.

'If Kiera is off to nursery, we won't match our outfits, but most other times we will,' she said.

'I'm not with her dad anymore, but he sees her all the time, and will laugh at our matching outfits.

'I don't always buy our clothes at the same time. Sometimes, I accidentally stumble upon something that happens to match what one of us already owns, but I'll plan our looks in advance.'

A pal started an online clothing company and asked if Kiera would model some of her pieces

It takes the pair around an hour or two to get ready, depending on what they're wearing

Her mother explained how if Kiera is off to nursery, they won't match outfits, but most other times they will

Kiera, in a Moschino inspired tee, pictured posing by a wall in March this year

Kiera began entering competitions to be an online brand representative for various children's clothing companies

The pair say they have only got a few freebies and she buys most of Kiera's clothes herself from Instagram stores or high street shops

She explains how she's not with Kiera's dad anymore, but he sees her all the time, and will laugh at the pair's matching outfits

Uploading her pictures to Instagram, Kiera's following will flock to like and comment on them

Chelsea explains: 'Thankfully, nobody is ever negative. Everyone is really encouraging and we get some lovely comments'

Photographing her every day, Kiera's shoots can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours.

However, Chelsea won't make her stand still for that entire time, instead snapping her daughter as the pair explore London together.

Uploading her pictures to Instagram, Kiera's following will flock to like and comment on them.

'If Kiera isn't in the mood, we won't take photos. If we're out and about, she enjoys it anyway because we're on the move,' said Chelsea.

'Thankfully, nobody is ever negative. Everyone is really encouraging and we get some lovely comments.

'Kiera absolutely loves having her picture taken, too. It's a great way for us to get out and explore different parts of the city together.'

Photographing her every day, Kiera's shoots can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. Chelsea won't make her stand still for that entire time, instead snapping her daughter as the pair explore London together

The little girl poses with a faux fur coat and sweet denim dress inside a tube station
First came the man bun and then the glitter beard - but the latest fashion accessory to hit the menswear world has been met with widespread ridicule.

A group of business students have created the RompHim - touted as the male version of the romper - in the hope that it will spark a 'fashion revolution'.

The garment even has its own crowdfunding page on Kickstarter where its creators, ACED Design, have already smashed the $10,000 (7,800) target needed to bring it to fruition in just a day.

Donations gave now exceeded $40,000 (31,000) for the all-in-one which is described as 'pretty damn comfortable' but has been blasted by fashion followers on social media as 'just wrong'.

Would you? Should you? A group of designers have created the RompHim - touted as the male version of the romper - in the hope that it will spark a 'fashion revolution'

Summer ready: The design is supposed to be perfect for pool parties and days at the beach

All dressed up: Two men paired the pastel-colored rompers with flashy coats to watch the Kentucky Derby

But members of the so-called #rompsquad say they can't wait to snap up the statement piece, which comes in four designs - Blue Chambray, Red Chambray, Splatter print Cotton and Special edition 4th of July seersucker - and is touted as perfect for pool parties and 'beach days'.

Writing on their website, the designers, who met at Northwestern University, explained: 'Though the idea came to us last year, our design journey started in earnest in early 2017.

Perfect to party in: One guy happily donned the onesie while attending Coachella

Stretch it out: These guys had no problem popping a squat in their pink rompers

'We began working with a leading Chicago fashion design consultancy to turn our vision into a reality, and then partnered with local Chicago cut and sew shops to manufacture our sample run.

'We launched our Kickstarter on May 15, 2017 to secure the capital needed to make our first large-scale run at our production facilities here in Chicago.'

But the striking garments have caused a stir online with one Twitter user calling them 'just wrong' with another saying she was 'offended' by them.

Party pre-game: RompHim's Instagram page features plenty of photos of guys modeling the revolutionary design

Perks: The budding company points out that its design comes with a front shirt pocket, an adjustable waist, and a zipper fly

Controversial: The striking garments have caused a stir online with one Twitter user calling them 'just wrong' with another saying she was 'offended' by them

The feedback wasn't all negative with one social media user branding the RompHim 'cute' while Ken Casparis said he 'would probably wear one'

Will you get on board with the latest trend? A promotional video for the RompHim shows a man, right, modelling the Splatter print Cotton design, one of four options

The bizarre garment even has its own crowdfunding page where its creators, ACED Design, have already smashed the $10,000 (7,800) target needed to bring it to fruition in just a day

One wrote: 'My hubby would never wear a #romphim'. However it wasn't all negative with one man branding them 'cute' while Ken Casparis said he 'would probably wear one'.

A spokesperson for ACED Design told Femail: 'It was very cool to see so many people supporting the Kickstarter [campaign].

'We knew the product was something we would wear, and we had gotten positive initial feedback from a wide range of people who tested it out, but we really didn't foresee it being so popular on day one.'

Something for everyone! The rompers also come with colorful polka dots or seersucker patterns

For everyone? The guys behind the budding brand tried the design out on men of all shapes and sizes

Cottoning on: members of the so-called #rompsquad say they can't wait to snap up the statement piece, which come in four designs including Blue Chambray and Red Chambray

Writing on their website, the designers, who met at Northwestern University, explained: 'Though the idea came to us last year, our design journey started in earnest in early 2017'

Reasons to donate: RompHim is offering backers a variety of gifts for monetary donations

Worth it? For $190 (147) donation, you can get a limited-edition Fourth of July romper

Speaking about the social media backlash, they added: 'With any new fashion, there will be supporters and critics, but we look forward to using the feedback to continue to make standout clothing.

'All that really matters to us is that those wearing the RompHims are confident and comfortable with their own styles. That's part of the fun of fashion'
Prince William today evoked memories of his late mother Diana as he bonded with a young cancer patient on a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton.

The Duke of Cambridge showed his caring bedside manner when he helped take the blood pressure of leukaemia patient Daisy Wood, six, who was happy to let the future king strap a cuff to her arm in preparation for the reading.

In the Oak Centre for Children and Young People the Duke sat beside Daisy, with parents Katie and Alistair Wood from Kingston upon Thames nearby, who moments before was watching a DVD about a princess.

Her father later joked: 'She did say William was a little old for her to marry.'

The six-year-old was left a little tongue tied after her meeting with the Duke but Mr Wood, 45, added: 'It's particularly nice he's come around, it shows he's interested in the Royal Marsden and the patients - it gives a boost to everyone.

'And being a dad with two young children you can see how he relates very well to the children.'

Prince William, 34, bonds with six-year-old cancer patient Daisy during a visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital in West London

Princess Diana receives her bouquet from Philip Loft at the Royal Marsden in 1993

Prince William meets four-year-old patient George Woodall, and admires his art work

At the Oak Centre for Children and Young People he joined two play specialists and patients in the play room for arts and crafts activities.

He was reunited with radiotherapy aid Fiona Bragg, 55, who took William under her wing when he spent a day shadowing staff at the south London hospital in 2005, two years before he became president of the Royal Marsden.

She recalled how she spent more than an hour showing the Duke how to check patients in, once they had arrived at reception.

She said: 'We just introduced him as William, he was really relaxed and friendly and spent a lot of time talking to the patients, not many people spotted him - one lady said he was a lookalike.'

Father-of-two William seemed to be getting on famously with cancer patient Daisy who clutched her toy penguin as they chatted

The youngster was sitting in a chair with her cuddly penguin having chemotherapy when William stopped by to visit

Down-to-earth William sharing a joke with Daisy Wood and her mother Katie

William rolled up his sleeves to get involved in a painting session with Charlie Miller, three, and parents Daryl and Sally at the Oak Centre For Children and Young People

William was also shown a 10 million MR Linac scanner, the first of its kind in the country, that combines radiotherapy treatment with traditional imaging and has the potential to allow tumours to be targeted precisely in real time.

The equipment will be trialled at the end of the year but only the MR (magnetic resonance) imaging facility will be used, with the radiotherapy to follow.

After peering into the small slot that a patient lies in as their body is scanned, the Duke joked: 'I wouldn't like to lie in there for too much, I'm not sure it's as roomy as they say.'

William smiles for a picture as staff crowd around him during a visit to the Royal Marsden hospital

Today William followed in his mother Princess Diana's footsteps as he visited young cancer patients on the wards of the Royal Marsden hospital

The father-of-two was delighted to join in with an art session, part of the hospital's play therapy offerings

The hospital has a poignant significance for William as it was the place Princess Diana visited on her first solo engagement in 1982.

William became President of the Royal Marsden in 2007, taking over the Presidency from his mother who held the role from 1989 until her death in 1997.

The Royal Marsden is the largest cancer centre in Europe, treating over 50,000 NHS and private patients every year.

It's a busy week for William who is gearing up for the much-anticipated wedding of his sister-in-law Pippa this Saturday.

The proud father's two children George and Charlotte will have starring roles as page boy and bridesmaid.

William is welcomed by Nicholas van As, the medical director of the Royal Marsden

William catches up with Fiona, a radiotherapy aid he remembered from his work experience in 2005

His brother Prince Harry is also attending and is expected to be joined by his girlfriend Meghan Markle.

The royals will be among the guests of honour at the wedding ceremony at St Mark's Church in Englefield, Berkshire and at the reception at the Middleton family home in Bucklebury.

A bespoke glass orangery, costing an estimated 100,000, has been shipped from Belgium and erected in the grounds of the family home for the party.

William arrives at the centre's Sutton facility on a visit to mark 10 years of his presidency of the hospital

William takes on the role of Radiotherapy Aid, to join Beka to treat patient Simon

The Duke of Cambridge finds out more about the MR Linac Suite at the Royal Marsden, which boasts new machines that make radiotherapy more effective

William is shown the workings of an MR Linac machine by Professor Uwe Oelfke. The new technology is designed to reduce the side effect of radiotherapy
Bristol Palin has celebrated her newborn daughter turning one week old by penning a candid blog post about Atlee Bay's birth and her family's move to Texas.

The 26-year-old mother-of-three confirmed in a post on her Patheos blog that she and her husband Dakota Meyer welcomed their youngest daughter on May 8, while revealing the family has permanently moved to a suburb outside of Austin, Texas.

'My littlest baby is a week old today!' she wrote on Monday. 'I feel like its flown by  but also feel like shes been here all along. She was born May 8th, weighing 7 lbs and 4 oz, measuring 20 [inches] long with a lot of dark hair!'

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'My girls!' Bristol Palin took to Instagram on Monday to share a photo of her newborn daughter Atlee Bay with her one-year-old sister Sailor Grace

Special day: The 26-year-old mom revealed on Instagram Stories that she was taking Atlee on her first shopping trip on Monday, while posting a new blog post about her family life

Happy family: Bristol spent Mother's Day with her husband Dakota Meyer, their daughters Sailor and Atlee, and her son Tripp, her only child with her former fiance Levi Johnston

Bristol is also mom to one-year-old Sailor Grace, her eldest daughter with Dakota, and eight-year-old Tripp, her only child with her high school boyfriend and former fiance Levi Johnston.

And she insisted that delivering her third child was actually very easy on her thanks to how much support she got from her husband and the hospital staff.

'Her birth was a breeze, we had the best doctor/nurses imaginable, and Dakota did amazing!' she explained. 'He held my hand, took care  and encouraged me the entire time, I could not have a more supportive husband.

'This pregnancy has strengthen our bond and made our relationship stand even firmer on the foundation that we have proudly built up for our little family.

Bristol went on to admit that she had been wanting to write an update about her life for months before explaining that she and her family had moved from her home in Wasilla, Alaska, where her parents, Sarah and Todd Palin, and her four siblings still live.

Sweet siblings: Bristol happily shared photos of the gifts her 22-year-old sister Willow sent her from Alaska, revealing on her blog that she and her family have moved to Texas

Having a blast: Bristol and her family have been living in a suburb outside of Austin, Texas, since March, and she recently confirmed that they are staying there permanently

'When Dakota and I got married, we both agreed that we would meet in the middle and move somewhere to dig our roots in a mutual, new, place,' she explained. 'We decided on Texas, and I couldnt be happier!

'The kids love it too. The new house is just in time for Dakota and me to celebrate our wedding anniversary,' she added.

Bristol and Dakota said 'I do' in a secret ceremony before they announced their marriage last June, and according to the mom, life has never been better.

'I feel like my life has never been this normal. Its been so wonderful and I give all the thanks to my husband,' she wrote. 'He has shown me really what the definition of love truly is.

'He really is the most selfless man  and has been my rock through everything this past year.'

Cooling off: Both Bristol and Dakota have been sharing plenty of photos and videos of their children enjoying the warm Texas weather

Great time: Bristol celebrated Mother's Day poolside with her children, her husband, and her 17-year-old sister Piper

At the end of her post, Bristol detailed how welcoming her third child has changed the 'whole dynamic' of their family,

'Our baby girl (Sailor) is not a baby anymore!' she noted. 'I feel like it was just overnight  she went from our baby girl  to a toddler!

'It is so sad how fast life goes by, but so fun to see her growing up at the same time. She loves her little sister and just wants to help us with everything

And while she admitted that Sailor is 'still a little rough' with her baby sister, she insisted 'it is all out of love'. However, she gushed that Tripp is fantastic with his half-sister.

'Tripp has always been the best big brother, he has a heart of gold. He has become a pro at this point, this is his 4th little sister,' Bristol wrote, explaining that his father Levi has two daughter, Breeze Beretta and Indy Rae, with his wife Sunny Oglesby.

Doting aunt: Piper, who was visiting from Alaska, spent time in the pool with Sailor Grace

She added: 'He loves our new addition just like I knew he would! I am so thankful for the babies God chose me to mother. It has been the best title I couldve ever been given.'

On Monday, Bristol also took to Instagram to sharing darling photos of her daughters, including one of Atlee sleeping in her stroller.

'First shopping trip with mom and @piper.p,' Bristol captioned the image, which sees the little girl fast asleep.

Another image sees someone holding a sleeping Atlee in front of Sailor, who is sticking her tongue out while sitting in her high chair.

Bristol wrote, 'lol I love this pic - my girls,' before prompting her followers to check out her latest blog post.

Boom! Tripp, eight, was filmed jumping into the family pool as the Meyers enjoyed the 75 degree heat

Auntie! Piper met baby Atlee Bay for the first time during her visit

It has been a whirlwind week for the mother-of-three, who celebrated Mother's Day with her husband, her children, and her 16-year-old sister Piper Palin on Sunday.

Bristol's 22-year-old sister Willow was unable to visit her in Texas for the holiday, but she did send her a box full of gifts, including a framed photo of her family in the hospital after Atlee's birth and a coffee mug that says 'Milf'.

'My sisters just spoiling the sheeeet out of me,' Bristol captioned an image of the goodies.

Bristol went on to share a photo of herself with Dakota and their three kids, writing: 'My [heart] is so full.'

Dakota, meanwhile, shared the same photo, adding the caption: 'Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers from my family to yours.'

Growing girl: Dakota recently uploaded video of Sailor potty-training, and Bristol admitted her eldest daughter is a bit 'rough' with her little sister

Look of love: Bristol gushed that 'Tripp has always been the best big brother'

Inspiration: Bristol posted a throwback photo of her parents as she shared a tribute to her mom, Sarah on Mother's Day

In another image of just himself and Bristol, posted earlier, he wrote a more personal message.

'Happy Mother's Day to the most beautiful, loving, hottest, hardworking, dedicated, person I've ever met. I appreciate you more than you could ever imagine. Thank you @bsmp2 for choosing me and for being my best friend.

The family spent part of the day outside enjoying the 75 degree heat  according to the screen on their refrigerator  and playing in the pool at their new home.

Bristol also posted a loving Mother's Day tribute to her mom Sarah on Instagram over the weekend as she celebrated at home with her growing family, sharing a heartfelt message about the former Alaska Governor.

'Happy Mother's Day to my momma!!' she wrote, captioning a picture of Sarah and her husband taken several years ago.

'There's no one stronger, smarter, and more determined than this woman right here. Thank you for being the greatest mom & grandma in the world! We love you.'
Ivanka Trump kept her megawatt smile hidden as she stepped out of her Washington D.C. home on Tuesday morning, amid the controversy surrounding her father sharing intelligence with Russian officials.

The 35-year-old had her lips pursed as she walked out of the side gate of her residence and made her way to the SUV waiting at the curb for her.

Although Ivanka looked deep in thought, her 36-year-old husband Jared Kushner had no problem flashing a smile towards the cameras that were outside their door before he headed to work.

Ivanka Trump failed to raise a smile when she stepped out of her Washington, D.C. home on Tuesday morning

The First Daughter looked chic in a blue and white floral frock featuring black piping and belt

The mother-of-three looked elegant in a blue and white floral dress featuring shoulder cutouts and black piping, pairing her spring-inspired ensemble with her $688 Dior sunglasses.

Ivanka wore her hair parted in the middle and pulled up in a chic knot at the nape of her neck for her day at the office.

Meanwhile, Jared, who is his father-in-law's senior adviser, looked chipper as he stepped out in a navy suit and gray tie.

Early Tuesday morning, President Trump took to Twitter and fired off three tweets defending himself against an onslaught of criticism on the heels of a report that said he shared 'highly classified' information with the Russians.

Ivanka had her blonde hair pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck, and she paired her elegant dress with a pair of Dior sunglasses

Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner, 36, seemed to be in better spirits when he left the house

President Donald Trump's senior adviser flashed a grin at the photographers waiting outside their door on Tuesday

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' he wrote.

Trump then blasted his fired former FBI Director James Comey for not sniffing out leakers in the intelligence community.

Trump's tweets seemingly confirm what the Washington Post first reported Monday afternoon, which led to a number of White House and Trump administration officials releasing statements questioning the validity of the story.

Leading the pack was Trump's National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who told a pack of reporters Monday night, 'The story that came out tonight is false.'

On Tuesday, Trump admitted to sharing intelligence with Russian officials, defending his actions on Twitter. Jared and Ivanka are pictured visiting a school with Trump in March

Although it is shaping up to be a stressful week in the White House, the First Daughter spent the weekend celebrating Mother's Day with her husband and three children.

Ivanka and Jared were spotted coming out of their home on Sunday with their three young children before piling into a car surrounded by Secret Service agents.

The mom took advantage of the weather in an off-the-shoulder white dress and flat gold sandals while carrying a denim jacket in her hand in case she got cold.

Jared, who was dressed casually in jeans, a sweater, and a ball cap, hoisted a car seat carrying the couple's youngest child, Theodore, as they prepared to head out.

Ivanka was photographed leaving her home with Jared and their three children on Mother's Day Sunday

Jared was photographed toting the couple's youngest son Theodore in a car seat

Although it was unclear where they were heading, it was later reported that they enjoyed brunch together at a restaurant in Georgetown

The Washington Post reported that the family enjoyed a leisurely Mother's Day brunch at Clyde's in Georgetown, and the couple ordered omelets.

Ivanka also paid tribute to her own mom Ivana Trump, sharing a throwback photo of her and her mother from when she was a child.

'Happy Mother's Day to my incredible mom, Ivana,' Ivanka wrote in the post. 'And to my children, thank you for giving me the gift of motherhood. You are my inspiration!'

Her father joined in on the Mother's Day well-wishes, paying tribute to Ivanka's stepmom Melania in a tweet, but he failed to mention his ex-wives Ivana and Marla Maples.

'Wishing @FLOTUS Melania and all of the great mothers out there a wonderful day ahead with family and friends!' he wrote.
Having a head of bleach blonde hair isn't the only thing President Trump has in common with Reese Witherspoon's character in Legally Blonde.

The two have a similar way with words as well.

As pointed out by Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show, Trump's commencement address at Liberty University this weekend drew parallels to the graduation speech that Elle Woods gives at the end of the hit 2001 film.

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Jimmy Fallon has pointed out some similarities between Donald Trump's commencement address at Liberty University (left) and Elle Woods' speech at the end of Legally Blonde (right)

They're both Gemini vegetarians! Trump delivered the keynote address at Liberty University commencement this weekend

Both talk about graduates going out 'into the world' with 'passion' and 'courage of conviction'.

'Most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself,' Woods says, while Trump also stresses the need to 'be true to yourself'.

Woods ends her speech by saying 'We did it!', not unlike the self-congratulatory 'I did it!' that Trump says mid-way through his speech.

The video quickly went viral after it aired in Fallon's monologue Monday night. As of Monday afternoon it had been viewed nearly three million times on Facebook.

One Twitter user remarked that the 'great irony of Trump accidentally plagiarizing Legally Blonde is that the sequel is "Red, White and Blonde" and so is his cabinet'

The lines in Trump's speech were taken out of context for the joke

The clip  which had The Roots cracking up  is going viral on social media

One Twitter user remarked that the 'great irony of Trump accidentally plagiarizing Legally Blonde is that the sequel is "Red, White and Blonde" and so is his cabinet.'

This isn't the first time that Trump's team has been accused of ripping off a speech.

At the Republican National Convention this past summer, Melania Trump's speech appeared to borrow directly from a former speech by then-first lady Michelle Obama.
Before social media, it used to be that trends had a seasonal, or at least monthly, shelf-life.

The advent of Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, however, has made flash-in-the-pan viral sensations a daily occurrence - especially in the beauty space.

Here, we chart the latest hair and make-up fads (as in the ones we've seen in the past few weeks alone), so you'll know which ones are in and which ones are out - at least for now.

IN: CONFETTI HAIR

Party time! Confetti has inspired the latest Instagram-worthy rainbow hair trend

Rainbow hair is still having a major moment thanks to creative colorists who keep dreaming up new ways to play with unconventional-hued dyes. The latest Instagram-worthy iteration to know is confetti hair.

The fun look, which is created by alternating dabs of pastel hues, was coined by Australia salon Blondies of Melbourne.

Salon owner Karen Lewis told cosmopolitan.com of the look, 'it's soft, pretty, happy, and it imparts little spots of pure joy on the hair like confetti!'

OUT: PIZZA HAIR

A tasty surprise: A colorist from Canada racked up the likes on Instagram after she created a pizza-shaped undercut for a client

You might love pizza, but probably not as much as a recent client of Canada-based colorist Kelly Woodford who got part of her hair shaved in the shape of a pizza slice.

After creating the triangular undercut, Kelly used hair dye to illustrate crust, pepperoni and peppers. 'Be inspired by what you eat,' the pro captioned a post of the finished look on Instagram.

While it's just now getting attention, the look was originally created in January and so far we haven't spotted any copycat styles.

IN: POM POM MAKE-UP

Arts and crafts: Make-up artists are looking to the art supply aisle for creative ways to up their beauty game

Furry is the new matte? One beauty lover adhered colorful pom poms around her lips instead of wearing lipstick

Instagram make-up artists are getting crafty - specifically with colorful pom poms - in order to churn out fresh content for their growing number of followers.

They've adhered the art supply to their eyebrows, around their eyes and around their lips, sometimes in addition to make-up and other times in lieu of.

'I saw these tiny pom-poms in Clarke's (tip top craft shop in Brighton) and just knew they had to be on my face. My eyes have never felt so cozy,' wrote beauty lover Heather Moorhouse on the photo sharing app.

OUT: STICKER HAIR

Not just for kids: A hairstylist at New York City's Bumble and Bumble salon used tiny stickers to create a fun and totally unique look

New York City-based hairstylist Allen Thomas Wood has also been mining craft stores for beauty accessories.

Last week, a style he created using colorful animal and food-themed stickers quickly racked up 1,000 more likes than his photos typically get on Instagram.

While the inner kid in us loves the playful look, it's not something Allen recommends wearing in real life. He told Femail that the stickers flaked off easily and that he had to press them onto the hair with a tail of a comb to get them to adhere for the picture.

IN: EYEBROW WIGS

The full picture: Eyebrow wigs are a known solution for those who suffer from hair loss, but now those with over-plucked brows are interested in using them for a fuller look

Celebrity make-up artist Hung Vanngo piqued the curiosity of his half million followers on Instagram yesterday when he posted a video of a woman getting fitted for a brow wig.

While stick-on brows are making headlines this week thanks to the post, the product has long been used by those with cancer and alopecia, or those who have experienced hair loss.

A number of YouTube vloggers hoping to beef up their brows have reviewed the arched wigs, and we expect to see more giving the product a try in the coming weeks.

OUT: BROW CARVING

Looking sharp: Make-up artists are showcasing their statement brows by tracing them with eyeshadow

After having exhausted all the ways to manipulate brow hairs in the various shapes (dragon brows, feather brows and barbed wire brows have all been a thing), beauty lovers have begun drawing sharp lines around their brows with make-up.

The trend, dubbed brow carving, was started by Austin, Texas-based make-up artist Alexa Link as part of a #1000daysofmakeup challenge on Instagram.

While Alexa's viral brow carving look received over 10,000 likes on the app, not everyone is feeling it. 'I think she forgot how eyeshadow works,' wrote one commenter, while another likened the look to a burn mark from a curling iron.

IN: COLORED CONTOURING

No blending required: Inspired by Kabuki, legendary make-up artist Pat McGrath painted the hollows of models cheeks at the Louis Vuitton resort show last week with colorful pigments

As if exaggerated brows and winged eyeliner weren't enough, make-up artist Pat McGrath contoured some of the models' cheeks with bright pigments at the most recent Louis Vuitton 2018 resort show.

According to vogue.com, Kabuki make-up and the 1970s Japanese film series Stray Cat Rock inspired the vibrant look, which was fitting considering the show was held outside of Kyoto, Japan.

Though the make-up might not be suited for everyday wear, we can totally see someone like Rihanna rocking the look at a red carpet event.

OUT: YELLOW BLUSH

Keep it classic: Though yellow blush had a moment on social media recently, the unconventional look has yet to take off in real life

The non-traditional make-up hue made our 'In' list less than two weeks ago after the trend initially took off on Instagram.

However, since then the buzz has faded and we've yet to see anyone walking down the street wearing yellow blush.

The only golden tone we'll be wearing on our faces this summer is bronzer.

IN: SKIN GRITTING

Yuck! Members of the Reddit community SkincareAddiction are sharing the results of a three-step process called skin gritting that removes blackheads

Removing blackheads is one of the most satisfying beauty treatments there is, so it's no wonder that skincare junkies on Reddit are going crazy over a fresh way to extract the gunk called skin gritting.

The process consists of three steps: Cleansing with an oil cleanser, applying a clay mask and washing it off and then cleansing again, this time vigorously.

Redditers have been sharing the impressive results on the site, though dermatologists warn that the method is not for those with sensitive skin.

OUT: PAINFUL PEEL-OFF MASKS

Surpise, surprise: The painful peel off masks taking YouTube by storm are not kind to your skin, according to experts

Watching beauty vloggers and Instagram stars tear purifying peel off masks from their noses, T-zones and, in some cases, their entire bodies, may be entertaining in a sadistic kind of way, but you'll want to think twice before trying one of the products at home.

Experts have warned that while the masks remove blackheads and debris from pores, they also rip off the surface layer of skin cells and strip it of natural, essential oils, both of which keep the complexion balanced and healthy.
She's one of fashion's most famous faces having lent her good looks to the likes of Mulberry and M&S.

But it seems that Longchamp is set to drop style doyenne Alexa Chung as its face - for this very reason.

A source told The Evening Standard: 'Up and down the high street you can see that Alexa has lent her name to countless brands.

'Weve swapped. Were going back to a real model. Authenticity is key and we think it adds more. Having a model seemed to make more sense.'

The Evening Standard reports that Alexa Chung is being dropped as the face of Longchamp after working with the brand for three years

The paper reports that the 33-year-old, who is close to the Cassegrain family who own the brand, will work for the French brand for two more seasons due to contractual agreements and then part ways with them in autumn.

A spokesperson for Alexa told the paper: 'Alexa and Longchamp have enjoyed seven successful seasons together and mutually agree to move on for AW17. Alexa is focused on the much anticipated launch of her own brand ALEXACHUNG which launches on May 30.'

MailOnline has contacted a spokersperson for Alexa Chung and Longchamp and is awaiting a response.

Model Alexa quickly rose to status of 'it girl' following her role as a presenter on T4.

Mulberry named its Alexa bag after her, and she collaborated with Nails Inc, alongside fronting campaigns for everyone from Pepe Jeans to L'Oreal. Among other collaborations she has penned a book, It, and created a range for AG Jeans.

A spokesperson for Alexa, pictured at a Longchamp event, said she is now focused on the much anticipated launch of her own brand ALEXACHUNG

A spokesperson for the brand told the paper that they are going back to a 'real model' (Alexa is pictured modelling her garments for M&S). Right: Alexa pictured at the grand opening party of Longchamp Regent Street in 2013

Alexa is also getting set to launch her debut line, ALEXACHUNG, and has been teasing fans with a promotional film as well as images from the line - with Alexa modelling the collection herself.

The news comes after it was revealed that Alexa has finally gone solo after announcing her first eponymous fashion line which garnered more than 10,000 Instagram followers in a matter of hours.

Her line, ALEXACHUNG, officially launches on May 30 but the star has been teasing fans with a promotional film as well as images from the line - with Alexa modelling the collection herself.

And fans were beside themselves after she shared a sneak peak on social media, with one gushing: 'You can take all my money.'

Alexa, 33, has announced her first eponymous fashion line which garnered more than 10,000 Instagram followers in a matter of hours, sending fans into meltdown

Others hailed her as an 'absolute hero' while one wrote: 'My life is now complete.'

The behind-the-scenes images show Alexa, 33, modelling a pair of high-waisted white trousers and a pale yellow cotton shirt believed to be from the collection.

The former Popworld presenter and model has previously designed sold-out collections for AG Jeans and Madewell, and collaborated as a creative consultant on brands including Superga, Marks & Spencer, and Eyeko.

The promo film, posted on Instagram on Monday, was shot by acclaimed Australian filmmakers Daniel and Lorin Askill, whose work include music videos for artists including Paul McCartney as well as fashion films for brands including Apple, Dior and Alexander McQueen.

The new line officially launches on May 30 but the star has been teasing fans with a promotional film as well as images from the line - with Alexa modelling the collection herself

A sign of things to come? The behind-the-scenes images show Alexa, 33, modelling a pair of high-waisted white trousers and a pale yellow cotton shirt believed to be from the collection

According to Alexa, who is currently dating Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard, the film is a 'tongue in cheek celebration of the dedication, precision, skill and determination needed to develop and create something aesthetically pleasing, coupled with the feeling that you could spend endless amounts of time trying to create something that means a lot to you, hoping that some might appreciate it.'

She added: 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess its supposed to be funny. Nevertheless it was a joy to make and a dream to work with Lorin and Daniel.'

The fashion muse, who has been named Style Icon at the British Fashion Awards for three years running, has also been Contributing Editor to British Vogue interviewing stars including Christopher Kane and Emma Stone, as well as providing her own original features.

Alexa has been Contributing Editor to British Vogue interviewing stars including Christopher Kane and Emma Stone, as well as providing her own original features

In 2013 she released her first book, IT, offering readers an insight into her fashion influences and became the fastest selling fashion book of 2013, and 2014.

She recently worked as executive producer and host of the widelyacclaimed British Vogue fashion documentary series, The Future of Fashion with Alexa Chung, which has so far earned two Webby Awards.

Named Harper Bazaar UKs Best Dressed of Britain, American Vogues Most Stylish Women of the Year and Footwear News Style Influencer of the Year in 2015, Chung has long been a fashion icon and style muse.

Mulberry's Alexa bag was named and styled after her, and attracted a waiting list of 9,000 as well as helping the company achieve record profits.
Donald Trump's repeated weekend trips to Florida have ruffled many feathers - including those of a teenager whose birthday party was almost ruined by the commander-in-chief's travels.

Dy'mond, a teen based in Boca Raton, stars in the first episode of MTV's reboot of its classic program, My Super Sweet Sixteen.

As part of her over-the-top, diamond-themed birthday bash, the YouTube star was intent on arriving to the venue in a helicopter. But her plans seemed compromised when her dad informed her that, due to the president's presence, she might not be able to fly the sunny skies of Florida to join her guests.

Crushed: Dy'mond, a teen based in Boca Raton, was determined to arrive to her sixteenth birthday party in a helicopter, but President Trump's travels almost ruined her plans

Dy'mond's father was determined to try and secure the aircraft for his daughter, despite the teen's mom's reluctance to make such an extravagant request come true.

Trump's weekend getaways almost settled the family disagreement by canceling the plans for good.

'There might be some issues with the helicopter. The president's in town. It's a no-fly zone. It's for security. So we may not be able to get that,' Dy'mond's father told his daughter in front of MTV's cameras.

But the teen was undeterred. 'We have to get this,' she said.

Her dad tried to explain the problem further, adding: 'Dy'mond, he's been coming in every weekend since he became president.'

Incompatible: The 16-year-old's father explained that the teen wouldn't be able to fly in a helicopter if the president was in town due to security reasons

This didn't discourage Dy'mond from pursuing her grandiose entrance. 'I need the helicopter,' she said. 'Because that is going to set my party.'

At this point, it seemed like her dreams were toast. 'OK, but talking to the pilot, they can't fly. It's out of their hands,' her father added.

Face-to-face with the camera, Dy'mond let out some of her frustration. 'In my head, there's no other entrance better than a helicopter,' she said. 'The president can't come to town. He'll ruin my party.'

It is unclear at what time of the year the episode was taped, but President Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago seven times since January, at one point inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping for a visit.

All is well that ends well: Dy'mond was able to make her desired helicopter entrance after all, stepping out of the aircraft in front of a crowd of cheering guests

Happy: The teen was elated with the effect her grand arrival had on her guests, telling MTV: 'The helicopter entrance worked just the way I wanted it to'

The cost of his trips, estimated at $1 million to $3 million a pop, have prompted Palm Beach officials to warn that residents might have to pay higher taxes to cover the expenses.

As for Dy'mond, the calendar apparently worked in her favor. The teen was able to make her desired helicopter entrance after all, stepping out of the aircraft in front of a crowd of cheering guests.

The teen was elated with the effect her arrival had on her guests. 'The helicopter entrance worked just the way I wanted it to,' she told MTV.

The teen didn't hide her delight after her bash concluded, adding: 'If I could rate my party on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate it a 12.'
She may already have four adorable children of her own but Crown Princess Mary couldn't help but dote on another sweet tot during her engagement.

However, it seems that the shy little girl was not quite as keen on the royal bursting into tears at their meeting in Aarhus on Tuesday.

The Danish royal, 45, was introduced to the nervous child at the opening of the Arla Foods Global Innovation Centre at the Agro Food Park.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark left a shy young girl in tears today after she paid a visit to the opening of the Arla Foods Global Innovation Centre at the Agro Food Park

The little girl, who was the daughter of one of the organisers, could be seen seeking comfort in the arms of her father after becoming overwhelmed with the task of presenting Mary with a bouquet of flowers.

Naturally the royal did not take offense and tried her best to comfort the youngster before proceeding with her engagement.

The mother-of-four looked chic in a monochrome ensemble including a pleated maxi skirt in black and white.

The little girl, who was the daughter of one of the organisers, could be seen seeking comfort in the arms of her father

The mother-of-four naturally took no offense doing her best to comfort the youngster

Famed for her glossy brunette locks that are often compared to those of the Duchess of Cambridge, it was no surprise to see Mary letting her hair flow loose today

Always fashion forward, Mary paired her skirt with a fitted black blazer and a pair of cream and black Gianvito Rossi pumps for her visit on Tuesday.

Famed for her glossy brunette locks that are often compared to those of the Duchess of Cambridge, it was no surprise to see Mary letting her hair flow loose.

Upon arriving at the centre Her Royal Highness was greeted by staff members who waited on site to provide the princess with a warm welcome.

The mother-of-four looked chic in a monochrome ensemble including a pleated maxi skirt in black and white

Always fashion forward, Mary paired her skirt with a fitted black blazer and a pair of cream and black Gianvito Rossi pumps for her visit on Tuesday

She was then given a short tour of the facilities including a computer suite where the royal wore a rather puzzled look on her face.

Mary was then given the honour of snipping a floral garland marking the opening of the centre.

Arla Foods is an international cooperative based in Viby, Denmark, and the largest producer of dairy products in Scandinavia.

She was then given a short tour of the facilities including a computer suite where the royal wore a rather puzzled look on her face

Mary seemed to be in especially high spirits sharing a giggle with staff members on site
McDonald's has announced that they will withdraw its controversial advert following the story of a grieving boy after receiving thousands of complaints.

The fast food chain sparked outrage after releasing the campaign featuring the child mourning his late father who then cheers up when he tucks into a burger.

Angry mothers of children who have lost a father, as well as a children's bereavement charity, have spoken out in protest at the advert - accusing McDonald's of 'exploitation'.

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McDonald's has announced that it will pull a controversial advert seeing a boy finding comfort in a Filet-O-Fish while mourning the loss of his father

In addition the UK's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received a number of complaints about the latest campaign.

Following backlash from its campaign the company has announced that the advert will be removed with immediate effect.

Speaking to the MailOnline a spokesperson for the company said: 'We can confirm today that we have taken the decision to withdraw our 'Dad' TV advert.

'The advert will be removed from all media, including TV and cinema, completely and permanently this week.

In the advert, the boy goes on a walk with his mother as she reminisces about his dad. She then tells him that he loved a Filet-O-Fish 'with tartare sauce dripping down his chin' - just as the boy does the same thing

'It was never our intention to cause any upset. We are particularly sorry that the advert may have disappointed those people who are most important to us  our customers.

'Due to the lead-times required by some broadcasters, the last advert will air tomorrow, Wednesday 17 May. We will also review our creative process to ensure this situation never occurs again.'

The advert, made by London agency Leo Burnett, follows a teenage boy on a walk with his mother as she fondly reminisces about his father, with the boy negatively comparing himself to the man he hardly knew.

It's only at the end that he finds a connection to his late dad when he tucks into a Filet-O-Fish at a branch of McDonald's as it's revealed that the fish burger was his father's favourite too.

But after it was aired on UK networks dozens of people expressed outrage on social media at McDonald's using a bereavement storyline for its latest campaign, calling it 'bad taste'.

Many mothers of children who lost a father said the new McDonald's advert made their youngsters upset, confused and offended.

The commercial was met with plenty of complaints with many viewers sharing their views on Twitter

Leah Miller, from London, said: 'What are children supposed to think after watching it? That a simple meal can solve their emotional pain?

'It's irresponsible not to include any support advice or information for families affected by this issue.'

Tania Richman, from Brighton, added: 'My two teenage children lost their father last year. They were offended and upset by the advert, and with [no] support information provided, I didn't know how to handle them afterwards.'

Dozens on Twitter have expressed their outrage at the advert, which they have called 'bad taste' and 'mawkish'. Many called for it to be taken off air

Sarah Fox, from London, was also personally affected by the advert.

She said: 'My husband died two years ago, and my seven-year-old son, who saw the advert yesterday, has only really just started to understand the implications of his loss, plus his own feelings.

'The advert was confusing for him and really upset him.

'He asked me why the boy on TV wasn't 'sad' and how he could feel happy again. It's an unnecessary subject to exploit for the gain of a brand.'

The Advertising Standards Authority has received a number of complaints about the latest McDonald's advert since it first aired on Friday, and people have not reacted well to it online

On social media, many people called for the controversial advert, directed by Vince Squibb and produced by Gorgeous Enterprises, to be banned.

Dr Shelley Gilbert MBE, founder and president of children's bereavement charity Grief Encounter, said the charity received numerous complaints from parents about the advert.

Speaking on Monday she said: 'What they have done is exploited childhood bereavement as a way to connect with young people and surviving parents alike - unsuccessfully.

'One in 29 children are bereaved of a parent or sibling by the time they are 16 years of age, so a huge number of children and surviving parents that will resonate with this storyline.

'We have already received countless phone calls this morning, with parents telling us their bereaved children have been upset by the advert, and alienated by McDonalds as a brand that wants to emotionally manipulate its customers.

'Bereavement is a hugely sensitive subject to tackle in the media, and should be done with upmost sensitivity and respect.'

This is the latest commercial to cause controversy among viewers.

It follows the uproar surrounding Pepsi's cancelled controversial campaign starring Kendall Jenner, in which the model joins a protest similar to the many held to support the Black Lives Matter movement before giving a police officer a can of the fizzy drink as a peace offering.
Nurses with dementia should be allowed to continue treating patients, their union says.

The Royal College of Nursing claims the move would set an example to society that dementia sufferers should not be discriminated against.

But critics say there is a clear risk to patient safety if nurses with the illness administer the wrong drugs or become confused and aggressive.

At its congress in Liverpool yesterday the union voted to develop a strategy to 'support' nurses with dementia to continue nursing.

Nurses with dementia should be allowed to continue treating patients, their union says (file pic)

They could be moved into roles involving less technical tasks such as helping train colleagues to provide better dementia care.

Joanna James, of the RCN's Older People's Forum, who proposed the motion, said: 'In nursing, dementia is likely to signal the end of someone's professional life. I believe we should see dementia as a special case.

'Few employers would consider that a person with dementia could be a productive member of their team. We should be embracing nurses with dementia and making it possible for them to continue delivering excellent patient care in spite of their disability.'

Celia Manson, of the RCN's West Kent and Medway branch, said: 'This is an area where we could and should take the lead so let's grab it now.'

But Mary Codling, from the union's South East branch said: 'You cannot generalise with dementia. What affects one person at one point at their life will be very different from someone else.'

Referring to her father, who had dementia, she said: 'To the outside world he carried on with his day to day life, but he was actually driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

'If you are thinking about patient safety, how do you ensure that is fit and safe to practise?' Shirley Ali, from the Inner South East London branch, said: 'It's a good idea but I wouldn't support it.

'I'm a senior anaesthetic practitioner, we administer drugs to the minuscule microgram. If I have dementia, how am I ensuring patient safety?'

Joyce Robins, of campaign group Patient Concern, said: 'This motion is frightening and quite extraordinary. I would not want someone with dementia treating me.

'I would be worried they may give me the wrong medication or forget to perform a lifesaving procedure. They could kill someone.'

There are currently no guidelines on whether nurses should be allowed to work if they have dementia. But nurses say they would be put under pressure to leave if they told their employers they had the condition.

HEALTH VISITOR CUTS 'FUEL PUPIL OBESITY' Childhood obesity will soar as a result of cuts to school nurses and health visitors, the Royal College of Nursing warns. The number of such staff has been reduced by 10 per cent in the last year despite the growing number of pupils. The RCN says the shortfall is 'jeopardising' the health of children. School nurses and health visitors promote public health and help reduce rates of obesity, smoking and mental health conditions. But the number of nurses fell from 3,100 to 2,600 in January, while health visitors dropped from 10,100 to 9,100. RCN chief executive Janet Davies said: 'There's an obesity epidemic in this country. If school nurses aren't there to help our children learn about diet and exercise, it will deteriorate even further. 'There's a wealth of evidence that ill health in childhood can have a detrimental impact in adulthood. If these cuts continue, we're heading for more health problems and even more pressure on services down the line.' Advertisement

The Nursing and Midwifery Council states that nurses must be able to deliver 'safe and effective practise'.

But the regulator is clear that this should not prevent nurses from working if they have a disability or long-term health condition.

This means managers are left to decide if nurses should carry on working  and many may decide they are too high risk.

There are 850,000 people in the UK with dementia, but this is expected to rise to one million by 2021 as the population ages.

An estimated 42,000  almost 5 per cent of cases  have been diagnosed with early onset dementia, which occurs before the age of 65. Allowing nurses with the condition to work on would help those who develop it early.

Dementia will also affect rising numbers of the working population as the state pension age rises, and more leave it later to retire.

Janet Davies, chief executive of the RCN, said she was 'very pleased' at the outcome of yesterday's vote but added that patient safety must be ensured.

'Just because people have dementia doesn't mean they can't have a really useful role supporting patients,' she added.

Rob Burley, director of policy at Alzheimer's Society, said: 'We commend this progressive step by the RCN.

'People with dementia can still make a meaningful contribution with the right support.'
When his 20-month-old son Tahmeed died in the Royal London Hospital after a series of catastrophic errors, the last thing his devastated father wanted from the NHS was money.

I had buried Tahmeed and I would have given anything to have him back, says Taufiqul Karim Suhrid, a cab dispatcher.

But he was shocked when, instead of explaining what had happened and apologising, Barts Health NHS Trust flatly denied the toddlers death was a result of substandard treatment.

When his 20-month-old son Tahmeed died in the Royal London Hospital after a series of catastrophic errors, the last thing his devastated father wanted from the NHS was money (stock picture)

Like thousands of other victims of negligence fobbed off by an NHS frequently unwilling to admit it has made life-changing errors, Taufiqul had no choice but to instruct lawyers to force the trust to hand over his childs records.

I would not have taken legal action, but it was the only way I could find out the truth, says Taufiqul, who lives with wife Nargis and their two other children, son Tamjeed, 13, and daughter Tazmeen, two, in Ilford, East London.

The scenario is all too common, says the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers. And as a result, tens of millions of pounds are being wasted by the NHS on legal fees because, say the lawyers, trusts refuse to put up their hands and admit to clinical mistakes and say sorry.

There are two ways to reduce the legal bill to the NHS, says Steve Webber, chair of the Society of Clinical Injury Lawyers. The first is to improve safety. But the second is to say: Sorry when appropriate.

He points out that 76 per cent of cases are settled only after court proceedings have been issued, which incurs additional legal fees  on average, claimant costs in cases settled before court proceedings are started are about 20,000.

Average costs after proceedings begin are about 85,000. Thats 65,000 per case it could be saving on average, says Mr Webber.

Last year, the NHS Litigation Authority paid 950 million in damages to patients, up 23 per cent from the year before.

It paid almost half that again  418 million  in covering the claimants legal costs.

But the Society of Clinical Injury lawyers says the NHS conceded 2,500 cases after proceedings had been issued  so wasting 100 million in legal costs.

Behind these big numbers are the heartbreaking human stories of misery inflicted by the NHS  insult added to injury as families have to fight to uncover what happened, as in Tahmeeds case.

He was born prematurely on March 12, 2012, weighing just 3.3 lb. Battling various problems, including under-developed lungs, in January 11 the following year he was fitted with a feeding tube through his abdomen and into his stomach.

But after enduring ten months of pain, vomiting and almost constant diarrhoea, Tahmeed died on December 10, 2013, because until two days before his death, no one realised that part of the tube had blocked and perforated his bowel.

It wasnt until May 2016 that the trust admitted the treatment of Tahmeed, in this instance, fell below the standards to be expected which contributed materially to the death. Having fought the case until the eve of court action, it settled out of court for a five-figure sum.

I wasnt looking for a cheque, but for an explanation and maybe an apology, says his father Taufiqul. To this day they havent said sorry.

In January, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt launched an attack on unscrupulous law firms [that] cream off excessive legal costs, and announced plans to cap legal fees on all cases in which the compensation paid is less than 25,000. It is claimed the cap will save the NHS up to 45 million a year.

But if the NHS Litigation Authority really wants to save legal fees, says Steve Webber, the best thing it could do would be to settle more clear-cut cases earlier.

Peter Walsh, chief executive of the charity Action Against Medical Accidents, adds: The Department of Health is being very disingenuous in painting this picture of greedy lawyers and claimants when theres only a cost to the taxpayer because the NHS has been negligent and harmed people.

That cost is added to when they delay and deny.

Lauren Hurney, a medical negligence lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, who represented Tahmeeds family, says: Much of his short life was spent in hospital, needlessly in pain. Then his family had to endure three agonising years of denials from Barts Health NHS Trust, which only added to the familys already unbearable grief.

Barts Health did not comment on why it had insisted for so long nothing had gone wrong. But the trust said: We would like to extend our sincere sympathies to Mr Suhrid and his family, and we have apologised to them for our failings.

We firmly believe an open and honest culture is vital if we are to learn from our mistakes and improve services for patients.

In fact there is good evidence that coming clean could save the NHS millions wasted on legal costs every year.

In the U.S., the so-called Michigan model, introduced by the University of Michigan Medical Centre in 2004, has saved millions and is now being adopted by other hospitals.

The hospital pays compensation quickly when it is in the wrong, and the result has been fewer lawsuits and dramatically reduced legal costs.

Such a system might go some way to address the rising compensation costs which last week prompted dying cancer patient Susanne Cameron-Blackie to announce she was standing against Jeremy Corbyn in his Islington North seat.

Despite experiencing two cases of medical negligence (she didnt sue), Ms Cameron-Blackie, 68, campaigns to curb the NHS compensation culture.

Having worked at the Court of Protection (which decides cases for people who cant run their affairs through physical or mental incapacity), she has seen the excess at its worst, and says the current system means a doctor or a hospital can never say sorry, which is all many patients want.
Eating roast beef and lamb increases your chances of dying from nine major diseases, according to new research.

Red meat raises the risk of death from cancer, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and diabetes, scientists have found.

Beef, lamb and pork also increase your susceptibility of stroke, infections and kidney, liver and lung disease.

Yet, regularly eating white meat may reverse the damage, the researchers added.

Those who frequently consume chicken and fish are 25 per cent less likely to die from various diseases than those who rarely eat white meat.

Roast beef and other red meat increases your chances of dying from nine major diseases

WESTERN DIET RAISES GOUT RISK Consuming a Western diet increases the risk of developing gout, a new study from Harvard Medical School reveals. Gout is a form of arthritis that affects around half a million adults in the UK. Researchers have discovered that people are more likely to have the painful condition if they indulge in red and processed meats, soft drinks and sugary treats. Yet, a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, nuts and whole grains may protect against gout, they found. The scientists believe healthy food helps to lower levels of a chemical called uric acid, which causes gout. They hope the findings will lead to new gout treatments based on a diet of fruit, nuts and whole grains. Advertisement

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland tracked the eating habits of 536,000 men and women between the ages of 50 to 71 for 16 years.

They recorded how much meat the participants consumed, including processed and unprocessed red and white meat, as well as their fish intake.

Results, published in the British Medical Journal, revealed that people who ate the most red meat were 26 per cent more likely to die of various diseases than those who consume the least.

The scientists added that heme iron, a type only present in animal meat, may contribute to the risk of dying from cancer or heart disease.

The researchers said: 'The results show increased risks of all cause mortality and death due to nine different causes associated with both processed and unprocessed red meat.

'They also show reduced risks associated with substituting white meat, particularly unprocessed white meat.

'The effects of meat on human health may be due to ingredients such as heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites

They said: 'High intakes of heme iron have been shown to be associated with cancer and cardiovascular disease.

'Nitrates and nitrites are added to meat during the curing process.

'Some investigators believe that nitrates from vegetable sources may have potential benefits, particularly for cardiovascular health, but nitrate/nitrite from drinking water and processed meat has been associated with increased risks of different cancers.'
An Indian family has 140 members with webbed fingers that they believe is a curse from God.

From the 85-year-old head of the family to the youngsters, the members of the Kannathu clan from a small village in Alappuzha, southern India, have been born with webbed fingers for generations.

Although the condition, known as Syndactyly, can be treated, the family believes having surgery on their fingers will bring them a bad omen.

Sarasu Kannathu, 70, the oldest woman in the family says: 'We do not even see surgery as an option. Despite our fingers [being] fused together, we live a normal life and do not face any difficulty in day-to-day chores.

'While many have suggested us to get them corrected, we have a strong feeling that if we undergo surgery something bad will happen to us.'

An Indian family has 140 members with webbed fingers that they believe is a curse from God

WHAT IS SYNDACTYLY? Syndactyly means 'joined digits' and may involve webbing of the skin or fusion of the underlying bones. It affects around one in 1,000 births in the UK. The condition develops in the early stages of pregnancy when the fingers or toes fail to separate. It can be inherited or occur spontaneously. Surgery is the only treatment option and aims to improve the function and appearance of the fused digits. Risks including blood loss, infection and scarring following surgery are rare. Source: Great Ormond Street Hospital Advertisement

Lakshmi, another family member, added: 'I can cook, chop vegetables, wash clothes and utensils, and even stitch with my fingers, I have never faced any trouble.

'It is because I was born this way and I have learnt how to use them correctly, however, I miss wearing rings.'

The condition first arose in the family around 90 years ago and has been passed on for generations, with one of the women recently giving birth to a baby with similar fingers.

Although Ms Kannathu believes future generations will continue to be affected, she insists that her family has accepted their condition and are proud to show their webbed hands to people who have traveled far just to have a glimpse of them.

She said: 'It will pass on to coming generations. It has been part of the family and we believe it will always be.

Although the condition can be treated, the family believes surgery will bring them a bad omen

The condition first appeared around 90 years ago and has been passed between generations

They are proud of their condition and show it off to travellers who come to see their disorder

The family believe the disorder began when a relative cut down a tree from a sacred grove

One relative lost his hearing due to having surgery to correct the condition, the family believe

'While people do not understand the condition [at] first, they see it as divine when we explain why we have this.

'Our grandfather used to tell it started after a neighbour cut off a tree at the sacred grove. Ever since, the children of our family are born with webbed hands.

'One relative had lost his hearing sense after he had a surgery to correct his fingers. We do not want to meet with the same fate by hurting or angering the Gods.'

To appease the Snake God, the family organise a big prayer ceremony every year at their home where they believe the Gods reside.

Girishkumar, 48, who works as a JCB driver, said: 'It is only because of the worship, we have never faced any troubles despite the deformed fingers.

'I haven't faced any physical issues and I can work as any other normal person.'

They have learnt to adapt to their disability and continue to cook and work as normal
Getting women to attend breast cancer screenings may be as simple as setting a time and a place, according to a new study.

Researchers found that women who have missed a breast screening appointment are more likely to attend the second one if they are offered a fixed time and date.

Currently, women that are invited to attend a screening but do not attend are sent an open invitation or are asked to call to make an appointment.

Results show that offering women a specific time and place can improve screening attendance by more than 22 per cent.

The simple change is effective because it takes away the hassle of having to book another appointment yourself, according to the researchers.

Having women attend breast cancer screenings may be as simple as setting a fixed time

BREAST CANCER FACTS Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the US and UK. One in eight women and one in 870 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. There are 55,200 new cases of breast cancer in the UK every year - thats 150 diagnoses every day. Breast cancer rates are projected to rise by 2 per cent in the UK to 210 cases per 100,000 females by 2035. The reason that breast cancer rates are increasing is unclear, but experts suspect that an increase in breast screening services in the UK has led to more diagnoses. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement

Researchers from Queen Mary University London studied the behaviour of 26,000 women who had not attended their first breast cancer screening appointment.

The usual practice for those who don't attend their first appointment is to issue them with a second invitation letter.

Most centres supply open invitations, asking women to telephone to make an appointment.

Yet others send an invitation with a fixed date and time, requiring no effort from the invitee to book an appointment.

The results showed that attendance within 90 days of the first offered appointment was significantly higher for those receiving a timed appointment (22.3 per cent) than those receiving an open invitation (12.3 per cent).

The increase was higher for women from poorer backgrounds.

Offering a second timed appointment caused a 10.4 per cent increase in attendance.

Lead researcher Professor Stephen Duffy, said: 'We often feel that it is too difficult to change people's behaviour, and we should just let people do what they do.

'But this study seems to indicate that fairly simple changes do substantially change behaviour, and can increase the rate of participation of screening.

The researchers said: 'Although some women might not attend their screening appointment because they have made an informed choice not to do so, some of them will not attend for other reasons.'

'These women might find a second timed appointment more beneficial than an open invitation because it does not require any effort to book a new appointment with the screening centre.'

The research was published in Lancet Oncology.

In England, participation in breast cancer screening has been falling in the last ten years, getting close to the national minimum standard of 70 per cent, with screening particularly low in poorer areas.

The NHS Breast Screening Programme (NHSBSP) invites women aged 50 to 70 to a mammographic screening every three years.
Shift work is known to affect the health of employees, impacting their sleep pattern, meal times and ability to exercise.

Yet, a new review of three studies has warned irregular working hours could dampen men's sex drives and reduce their chances of fathering children.

The findings also linked lack of sleep with urinary problems and erectile dysfunction.

Shift work was found to lower testosterone, which fuels a man's sex drive and causes the production of poor-quality semen, making it harder for men to father children.

It is alarming news given that around 15 million people in the US and three million in the UK work nights.

Night shits dampen men's sex drives and reduce their chances of fathering children

TIPS FOR BETTER SLEEP FOR SHIFT WORKERS Try to avoid working several night shifts in a row.

Avoid frequently rotating shifts.

Keep your workplace brightly lit to promote alertness.

Avoid bright lights on the way home from work if possible. This will make it easier for you to fall asleep once you hit the pillow.

Ask your family to limit phone calls and visitors during your sleep hours.

Use blackout blinds or heavy curtains to block out sunlight when you have to sleep during the day.

Try to avoid long commutes that take time away from sleeping.

Limit caffeine - you may have trouble falling asleep when you get home.

Stick to a regular sleep-wake schedule as much as you can. Advertisement

Source: Web MD

In one of the three studies, the researchers examined 75 infertile men who were shift workers, 96 other infertile men and 27 fertile men who had recently fathered children.

The other two studies analysed almost 2,500 men who answered questionnaires about urinary problems.

These included problems such as frequent, urgent, nighttime or hesitant urination.

The men were also questioned about their exercise habits, tobacco and alcohol use, and any medical conditions they had, including depression.

Study author Dr Alex Pastuszak, from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said: 'We found that in men who are seen for infertility, those who work night shifts have significantly lower sperm counts than those who do not.

'We think that too much or too little sleep changes hormone levels and the expression of genes that are important for producing sperm.

'Shift work can also put people at risk for shift-work sleep disorder, which causes insomnia or excessive sleepiness and a reduction of total sleep time due to a work schedule,' Web MD reported.
A new map reveals which states have the highest rates of strokes and heart attacks - laying bare the staggering disparity in healthcare between the wealthy coasts and the impoverished South.

Although rates of cardiovascular disease have substantially decreased over the past 50 years, it is still the leading cause of death in the United States.

Now researchers have pinpointed which parts of the country have the highest rates.

A map shows that those living along the Mississippi River and nearby areas in the South are more likely to die from a stroke or other cardiovascular diseases.

These are the same regions that are plagued with high obesity and diabetes rates, significant levels of poverty and are lacking access to quality healthcare.

Areas along the Mississippi River and nearby counties in the South have higher mortality rates from heart disease, a new map reveals (pictured)

WHAT IS AN ISCHEMIC STROKE? An ischemic stroke occurs in more than 80 percent of stroke incidences. It occurs when the blood supply to the brain is blocked. The most common cause is narrowing of the arteries in the neck or head, which occurs when fatty deposits accumulate. High blood pressure, heart disease, smoking and diabetes raise the risk. Symptoms include numbness or weakness in the face, legs or arms, usually on one side of the body. Other signs are confusion, severe headache, loss of balance and difficulty speaking or seeing. Treatment focuses on dissolving the clot and improving blood flow. Medication success depends on getting the patient to the hospital in time. Advertisement

There has been a 70 percent decrease from 1965 in the number of people dying annually from heart disease, claim medical experts led by Dr Gregory Roth of the University of Washington's cardiology department.

Despite the improvement, cardiovascular disease mortality rates are significantly higher in counties extending from southeastern Oklahoma, into the Mississippi River valley and to eastern Kentucky.

Areas least likely to suffer from heart disease are the San Francisco Bay area, central Colorado, northern Nebraska, central Minnesota, northeastern Virginia, and south Florida.

A study by the Commonwealth Fund in 2014 found that several of southern states have the worst-performing healthcare systems in the nation, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

These are the same areas that are most likely to have diabetes and be obese, both which increase the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.

At the top of the list for the best systems were Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

According to the report, mortality rates for CVD, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and aortic aneurysm have all decreased substantially.

Plus the differences between counties have narrowed for CVD, ischemic heart disease, stroke, rheumatic heart disease, and aortic aneurysm.

However, researchers insist challenges remain and there is much to be done to lessen the differences across counties where certain conditions are worsened.

The experts contributed the disparity to outside health factors, including access to quality healthcare, income and the presence of unhealthy behaviors.

For ischemic heart disease, the mortality rates for counties at the 90th and 10th percentiles were 235.7 and 119.1 deaths per 100,000 persons, and for cerebrovascular disease, 68.1 and 40.3 deaths per 100,000 persons, respectively.

Pockets of high numbers of mortality from cerebrovascular disease were mainly found in the South and some in the Midwest. Low rates were in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and areas of the North East

Large clusters of mortality rates from rheumatic heart disease were located in Mississippi, Alabama and Alaska. The map also showed low numbers in Florida, Arizona and California

The medical experts also noted an increase of risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood cholesterol, which contributed to the high mortality for both coronary heart disease and strokes in the South and Midwest.

These findings coincide with an earlier May study that found some Americans are expected to live 20 years longer than others, due to disparities in healthcare.

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle, found lifespans across the nation differed due to massive inequalities in socioeconomic factors.

Authors of the study examined factors that contributed to the inequality in life expectancy, including obesity, lack of exercise, smoking, hypertension and diabetes.

These risk factors explained 74 percent of the difference while socioeconomic factors of poverty, income, education, unemployment and race, were independently related to 60 percent of the inequality.

Along the Mississippi River, a majority of people weren't expected to live past 75. Mostly, the areas that had lowest life expectancy and highest life expectancy were separated by counties with average lifespans.

Typically, the communities that are expected to live longer have higher incomes than the communities that are expected to die sooner.

These areas have long been neglected by the healthcare system and some pockets of towns along the Mississippi River have the highest levels of poverty in the nation.
As she was preparing to compete for the title of Miss Indiana, Brittany Winchester learned that her years spent in a tanning bed gave her skin cancer.

Winchester, 27, described her habit of tanning as an obsession, spending almost everyday in a bed as a teenager.

The architectural interior designer said she never applied sunscreen and would even fall asleep in the chamber of UV rays.

When getting her annual skin check by her dermatologist in 2015, Winchester's biopsy showed three basal cell carcinoma skin cancers on her stomach and back.

Now cancer-free, she competed in the Miss USA pageant on Sunday, by spray tanning instead of sunbathing - and the beauty queen is warning others of the dangers of fake baking.

Brittany Winchester, 27, (left and right) learned that she had skin cancer at age 25 while she was competing for the Miss Indiana crown. Now, the Miss USA pageant contestant is warning others of the dangers of using a tanning bed

When getting her annual skin check by her dermatologist in 2015, Winchester's biopsy showed three basal cell carcinoma skin cancers on her stomach and back. Pictured: Winchester after her excision to remove the chunk of skin

THE DEADLIEST SKIN CANCER: MELANOMA Melanoma can appear anywhere on the body, but they most commonly appear on the back, legs, arms and face and even underneath a nail. Though less common, they often spread to other organs in the body, making them more deadly. The most common sign is the appearance of a new mole or a change in an existing mole. A helpful way to tell the difference between a normal mole and a melanoma is the ABCDE checklist: Asymmetrical  melanomas have two very different halves and are an irregular shape

Border  melanomas have a notched or ragged border

Colors  melanomas will be a mix of two or more colors

Diameter  melanomas are often larger than 6mm (1/4 inch) in diameter

Enlargement or elevation  a mole that changes size over time is more likely to be a melanoma Advertisement

The Purdue graduate wrote about her experience for Cosmopolitan.com and said because she was proactive of her yearly checkups, she was able to catch the spots at an early stage.

However, she still had to go through an excision, a procedure where surgeons cut down to the muscle and remove all skin layers above it.

Winchester wrote: 'They take a big chunk of your skin out! It's literally a chunk. I did not watch it happen.

'I would say each area was about a 1/2 an inch to an inch long and round, with stitches.'

She has since sworn off all tanning beds and admitted she will only get a bronzed glow from a spray tan or self-tanner.

Winchester was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) skin cancer, which is the most frequently occurring form of skin cancer.

A new report by the Mayo Clinic found that rates of basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma have skyrocketed in a 10-year span.

Diagnoses for squamous cell carcinoma increased 263 percent and basal cell carcinomas increased 145 percent.

BCC most frequently appear on areas of the skin that have been repeatedly exposed to the sun and look like open sores, red patches or pink growths.

Although it is common, with more than four million Americans diagnosed with it each year, if left untreated BCC can turn into a more significant problem.

Winchester was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) skin cancer, which is the most frequently occurring form of skin cancer. A new report found a diagnosis increase of 145 percent in a 10-year span for this form of cancer

Tanning beds have long been known to pose dangers to frequent users, due to the use of ultraviolet light.

A recent study by the University of North Carolina found there were 263,600 cases of skin cancer in 2015 that could be attributed to indoor tanning.

According to the Melanoma Research Foundation, using tanning beds before the age of 30 increases the risk of developing melanoma cancer by 75 percent.

And the rates skyrocket depending on the frequency of trips to the tanning salon.

An estimated 90 percent of melanoma cancer is caused by exposure to UV light, which includes exposure from the sun and artificial sources, such as tanning beds.

Melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults and is the leading cause of cancer death in women 25-30 years old.

While skin cancer organizations warn people of the dangers of spending any time in the sun without protection, others argue the necessity of getting Vitamin D.

Vitamin D is produced by the skin when it soaks up the sun's rays. It is vital for healthy bones, teeth and muscles.

Study also reveal it can ward off respiratory infections such as flu, coughs and colds.

Trying to find a healthy balance of exposure, scientists from the University of Valencia in Spain claim the average person should not spend more than 29 daily minutes in the sun during peak warm seasons.

However, in cooler months, the same individual can remain exposed for 150 minutes to get enough of the nutrient.
For the Jay family, they had no idea their new bundle of joy had the possibility of leading them to financial ruin.

Amy and Mac Jay welcomed Evelyn into the world prematurely on January 16 after the couple endured several miscarriages and infertility problems.

They spent two weeks at their newborn's side as her tiny lungs struggled to work and watched as countless experts at the Alabama hospital worked to save her life.

Finally, the family was able to take the little girl home but the relief was short-lived when Amy opened up a nearly $200,000 hospital bill in March.

Amy gave birth at an out-of-network hospital and although their insurance would cover some of the delivery costs, she was late in adding Evelyn to the plan, resulting in the astronomical charge.

Now the Jay family is facing bankruptcy and are desperately searching for a way to come up with the enormous sum.

Amy Jay (right) and her husband were hit with a nearly $200,000 hospital bill after their daughter Evelyn (left and right) was born prematurely in January. Amy said although they had insurance they didn't add the newborn in time to cover the expenses

The total cost of the bill amounted to $178,389.47, and Amy said if Evelyn was covered it would have cost a fraction of the current amount

HEALTH RISKS OF PREMATURE BIRTHS Babies born before the 37th week of pregnancy may need special medical attention. This is due to some of their vital organs not being developed fully, including the lungs, brain and liver. Around 10 percent of infants born annually are premature. In addition to the immediate health concerns, these babies may face other risk factors as they grow up. Premature babies have a higher risk of being depressed as they grow older, recent research suggests. They are more prone to have ADHD in childhood, anxiety and even being shy as an adult, experts claim. Preterm birth can also cause childhood neurologic disability, as well as long-term medical consequences including respiratory, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases and decreased immunity. Advertisement

Friends of the family have launched a GoFundMe in order to raise a portion of the bill before it's due at the end of the month.

Amy, 27, said that if Evelyn would have been covered by the insurance, even with the complications, the bill total would be a tenth of what is on the current statement.

Amy described her current situation as a 'pretty horrific tale' and wants to spread awareness of what she calls the new 'American story of healthcare'.

The mother-of-two said she was expecting to pay up to $15,000 in hospital bills through insurance.

Instead, she was hit with a $178,389.47 bill that her insurance refused to cover.

She said her husband went through tremendous efforts to get the best healthcare with his job, even quitting a position he loved to start a new one which had better coverage.

Meaning that Mac quit his job with 'catastrophic issuance' to move his family to another state with a position with a better care package.

They moved from North Carolina to Huntsville, Alabama, when Amy was seven months pregnant (around 34 weeks pregnant) in order to take advantage of the new benefits.

However, since Mac started his new job in January, his benefits wouldn't kick in until the next month - just a week before Amy was due to give birth on February 9.

Not wanting to be uninsured, they decided to take out Cobra insurance for the one month they weren't covered by the new plan.

Amy said: 'Growing up in America, I've always been told to be insured; not to even let a minute go by without being covered because in that moment something will go wrong.

'My due date wasn't until February and we were crossing everything hoping that she wouldn't come before then.'

Now the Jay family (pictured with Evelyn and their two-year-old daughter) is facing bankruptcy and are desperately searching for a way to come up with the enormous sum

Evelyn was placed in an incubator (pictured) and had a ventilator for the first weeks of her life. She was born premature at 36 weeks old

The stay-at-home mother said before she went into labor, she double-checked with the hospital to make sure they were covered.

Then at 36 weeks pregnant in mid-January, Amy went into labor - half a month before their new coverage became effective.

She had to have an C-section and although Evelyn wasn't severely premature, her lungs were.

Amy added: 'Her lungs were totally premature. Just crying was collapsing her lungs. Her chest was moving as fast as butterfly wings and she was purple and blue.

'It was very traumatizing. I have no doubt that the doctors and nurses, who were incredible, saved my daughter's life. They deserved to be paid but I don't think parents should be stuck with that entire bill.'

The main issue hinges not on the out-of-network hospital, which added to the total cost, but that Evelyn wasn't added to the insurance plan before she was born.

Amy said her husband had sent an email to an insurance representative asking what needed to be done to make sure Evelyn was covered when she was born, the Friday before she came.

Amy said: 'I have no doubt that the doctors and nurses, who were incredible, saved my daughter's life. They deserved to be paid but I don't think parents should be stuck with that entire bill'

THE COST OF GIVING BIRTH IN THE UNITED STATES The cost of giving birth differs wildly across the United States. It can depend on the delivery method, vaginal and cesarean section. C-section births are routinely the more expensive option and only make up 32 percent of births in the US. The most expensive place to deliver a child is in Sacramento, costing an average of $15,420 via vaginal delivery and $27,067 for cesarean section. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research, hospital deliveries on average cost $3,500 per stay. Adding in other costs, including prenatal and post-partum healthcare, the tab was bumped up to $8,802. Advertisement

Amy went into labor that following Monday, and lost in the chaos was an out of office response from the representative that same day.

The family said they never heard anything back from the insurance company again, and assumed the issue was handled.

But when Amy opened up a bill on March 13, which also happened to be her birthday, they realized Evelyn was never covered.

Amy said: 'Apparently, you normally have 30 days to add a child to the insurance plan. We just didn't realize. No one tried to contact us about the notice.

'We found that out when we received the bill. We barely missed the deadline.'

Amy added: 'I don't know anyone who has $20,000 lying around, much less $200,000. It's unfair that this is what happens when your baby is born sick.

'We have an unjust and broken system that harms the in-between folks, which is a huge chunk of Americans.

'We didn't qualify for Medicaid, we were disqualified by $120 a month in Alabama. In North Carolina we were $70 over the requirement.'

In the United States around 10 percent of babies are born before the 37th week of pregnancy, according to data from 2015.

The cost of giving birth differs wildly across the United States. The most expensive place to deliver a child is in Sacramento, costing an average of $15,420 via vaginal delivery and $27,067 for cesarean section. Pictured: Map revealing most expensive cities to give birth vaginally

Infants born before term often need special medical assistance because the final weeks of pregnancy are needed to finish fully developing the lungs, brain and liver.

Amy said she expected to pay around $15,000 in total for the cost of delivery and care prior to giving birth.

The total sum draws attention to the increasing costs of delivery in the United States.

The cost of having a baby varies wildly within 30 of the nation's major cities, research from 2016 revealed.

The average price to give birth via vaginal delivery was the most expensive in Sacramento $15,420, the cheapest was in Kansas City, Missouri, just around $6,000.

The average price to give birth via cesarean section was also in Sacramento at $27,067, the cheapest was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at around $6,800.
Faced with a two-front war scenario against Pakistan and China, the Indian Air Force is set to deploy its latest Rafale combat aircraft at Ambala in Haryana and Hasimara in West Bengal.

In September 2016, India signed a deal with French Dassault Aviation to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets for close to Rs 60,000 crore to meet the urgent requirements on the eastern and western fronts.

'One squadron (comprising 18 aircraft) would be based in Ambala, while the other would be deployed at Hashimara.

The Rafale fighter jet made by French firm Dassault Aviation

'These would cater to requirements on both the fronts,' a government official told Mail Today.

After aggressive patrolling by the Chinese on the eastern and northern borders and its increasing defence ties with Pakistan, the Indian military has been preparing itself for a two-front war and developing infrastructure on both sides.

The earlier plan was to deploy one squadron at Sarsawa air base in Uttar Pradesh, but that did not work out due to land acquisition issues, after which Ambala was chosen.

The Ambala base has some jaguar aircraft squadrons catering to the western front.

On the eastern front, the Hasimara air base close to the China border would see Rafale planes replacing the existing MiG 27 squadrons, which are on their way out of the air force.

In presentations given to the Prime Minister's Office before the acquisition was finalised, the service had stressed that on the China front, it would require a plane like Rafale due to its long range capabilities.

The Air Force has rated Rafale planes higher than Su-30 MKIs, 272 0f which have been ordered by India from Russia.

Indian army soldiers cover the coffin of their colleague Umar Fayaz with Indian flag during his funeral at Sursoona village (file pic)

On the Chinese front, the PLA Air Force bases are deep inside the Tibetan plateau with the nearest base being over 150 km away from the Indian border.

Sources said the French aircraft manufacturer has already started the process of building the aircraft, and they are supposed to be delivered from September 2019 onwards.

'We are requesting the French to advance the deliveries to meet our requirements and hope to get a positive reply,' the official added.

The process of developing the infrastructure at air force bases has also started and they would be ready by the time the aircraft fly in for operational service.

The Air Force has already started the process of replacing its ageing fleet of MiG series planes on the eastern and western fronts, as it has been replacing the old MiG- 21 variants with Sukhoi-30s acquired from Russia.

On the eastern front, where aircraft with long range capability are required, the IAF has already based Su-30MKIs at Tezpur and Chhabua air fields, while it has deployed them close to the Pakistan front in Sirsa (Haryana), Halwara (Punjab) and Jodhpur (Rajasthan).

The planes also operate from Leh, bordering both Pakistan and China and are capable of swift deployment in no time.
Pakistan is in violation of the Vienna Convention by not giving Consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav, Gunter Mulack, former German ambassador to Pakistan told Mail Today.

In an exclusive interview from Berlin, Dr Mulack insisted Pakistan will be pouring oil in fire if it hanged Kulbhushan Jadhav while the matter is still being deliberated upon by the international court of Justice.

'I had said during the course of a seminar in Karachi that it was heard Jadhav was abducted by the Taliban in Iran and then sold to Pakistan's ISI.

Pakistan is in violation of the Vienna Convention by not giving Consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav, Gunter Mulack (pictured) former German ambassador to Pakistan

'It is not uncommon for this to happen in the border areas. But this was what locals told me. It was not what German intelligence had picked up' he added.

Both India and Pakistan are signatories of the Vienna Convention. And as per laid-down norms, Pakistan should have informed India and given consular access to Jadhav.

The matter is still being deliberated upon by the international court of Justice

'Even now it is not too late. If there is a high-level interaction between the Prime Minister of India and of Pakistan, a step can be taken to open dialogue and not hang Jadhav and reduce tensions between the two countries,' he insisted.

Mulack had stirred a hornet's nest in Pakistan last year when he spoke at a seminar and said he had heard Jadhav was working in Chabahar in Iran and had been abducted by the Taliban from along the Iran-Pakistan border and then sold to Pakistan's ISI.

India has all along maintained Jadhav was abducted from Iran. Pakistan on the other hand claimed at the ICJ that Jadhav was arrested from the restive Balochistan province on charges of terror and espionage.

Kulbushan Sudhir Jadhav found guilty of espionage by Pakistan military court

Meanwhile at the ICJ, the eleven Judges have been burning the midnight oil to deliberate on India's plea for urgent intervention to save an innocent man from the gallows in Pakistan.

The president of the ICJ at the conclusion of the hearing said a verdict will be delivered as soon as possible.

Though India is relieved by the ICJ's interim order asking Pakistan to maintain status quo till India's plea is decided by the ICJ, New Delhi is hopeful of a quick verdict to stop Pakistan from hanging an innocent businessman.
India Today TV has found clinching evidence of Pakistan's state and non-state actors - including 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed - choreographing anarchy through their agents in the Kashmir Valley.

Several top Kashmiri separatists have been caught on camera 'admitting' to receiving funds from across the border - two months after India Today TV aired stunning confessions of Kashmir's stone-pelters.

Zakir Ahmed Bhat, one of the activists who also allegedly doubled up as a bomb-maker, appears to boast that he hurled Molotov cocktails at cars, setting fire to both occupants. He also is seen to admit that he receives funds from handlers.

India Today TV went undercover and found top Kashmiri separatists admitting that Pakistan has financed mob violence, stone pelting and school burning

Their mandate: to hold the Valley to ransom.

Now India Today TV's special investigation team blows the lid off these nefarious financiers with clinching proof of Pakistan manipulating this rage.

Naeem Khan is the provincial president of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction. He travelled to Delhi to meet the SIT reporters who were posing as moneybags willing to fund Kashmir separatists. The revelations he made are compelling.

'For the past six years, Pakistan has been trying to stoke a powerful agitation in Kashmir,' Khan is heard saying. 'The amount sent by Pakistan is much more than hundreds of crores. But we expected more.'

Naeem Khan, who denied the allegattions, is the provincial president of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction

That was just the tip of the iceberg in what turned out to be one disquieting revelation after another.

The Hurriyat leader also explained how 'Islamabad laundered its dirty money', the first ever apparent disclosure by any Kashmiri separatist leader on record.

'The funds come in every three or six months. Sometimes the payment is made via Saudi Arabia; sometimes the installments are routed via Qatar,' Khan revealed.

India Today TV learnt that it is in the heart of the national Capital, in the narrow streets of Ballimaran and Chandni Chowk, that those sympathetic to the separatists make this hawala trade possible.

Gazi Javed Baba is the leader of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and is heard saying that the situation in Kashmir will remain 'bad'

'All money is routed through Delhi. Well-wishers deliver the funds after taking their cut,' Khan is heard saying.

There also seems to be a spike in funds involved, which makes delivery through Delhi safer than cross-border smuggling.

The Hurriyat insider also explains his group's 'role' in torching schools.

As many as 31 schools were set on fire in four winter months in Kashmir. Some 110 government buildings were also damaged.

Khan appears to boast about supporting those attacks.

'You need chaos for disorder. It doesn't matter if that means burning down railway stations, police stations, schools, panchayat buildings. May Allah save us, hospitals should be left out. We have to do certain things to create chaos,' he said.

Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who has been allegedly linked to Pakistan

Gazi Javed Baba is the leader of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat. 'It's compensated financially; the situation will remain bad. Forget bad, strikes will continue. There will be protest marches. No shop will be allowed to open, no transport,' he tells India Today TV.

Naeem Khan adds: 'If Rs 300-400 crore are pumped in, the unrest could be carried on for another three months. To avoid fatigue from setting in, we will have to burn more flags.'

Now the real clincher. Syed Ali Shah Geelani's man links his master directly to Pakistan.

'Geelani's Jamat-e-Islami is in Pakistan. We have our people there, whether it's with Nawaz Sharif or with others,' admitted Naeem Khan.

Alleged links were found between Geelani Sahab and suspected 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed

He added: 'Geelani Sahab is somewhat in touch with Hafiz Saeed. Saeed has also funded Geelani in Kashmir. I don't ask everything but from whatever came to my knowledge, it was more than Rs 10-20 crore.'

These are the first specific links established between one of India's most-wanted, Hafiz Saeed, and one of the leading separatists in Kashmir, Geelani.

'When such a big system is being run, it goes to different places. Geelani is the chairman. Money first goes to him. Then it goes to the Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik,' said Khan.

The investigation found that some separatists could also be raising money within the country to provoke violence in Kashmir.

As many as 31 schools were set on fire in four winter months in Kashmir. Some 110 government buildings were also damaged

Farooq Ahmed Dar, nicknamed Bitta Karate, is a leading light of the JKLF.

India Today TV reporters met him, posing as corporate lobbyists out to destabilise the state government through paid protests.

'We can do it on the pattern of 2016. We have many young people with us. People will come out on the streets. Everything, every business will come to a standstill,' Dar apparently bragged.

But the cost would be huge.

'Seventy percent people work all day for a meal in the evening. If you want to prolong it, they have to be mobilised. It's Rs 70 crore for my intervention. We can carry it on for more than six months,' he said.

Given the chance to respond, Naeem Khan, has rubbished India Today TV's revelations.

He said: 'What you are showing is rubbish and against journalistic ethics. You are targeting me unnecessarily. Who is funding you?'

'This is a known fact and all agencies are aware of it,' said J&K police chief SP Vaid. 'It's true that Geelani is in touch with Hafiz Saeed.'

The Centre said separatists are working from a position of hate.

'From the time of Independence, Pakistan is involved in creating issues in J&K,' said state deputy CM Nirmal Singh.

'Their strategy is to involve our people and fund them to create problems.'
Holocaust Survivor Arrested at Kentucky's Last Remaining Abortion Mill



LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 16, 2017 /



Eva Edl, 82 years old, was interred as a child in a Russian concentration camp following World War II. She barely made it out alive. It was there the Lord Jesus Christ intervened to save her life and her soul. She has explained publicly that her time in a camp was the reason she could not in good conscience leave the abortion mill when asked by the police to do so. "I just wish the good Christian people of my country would have gathered in front of my death camp when we were shipped in," she said.



Edl was in Louisville with an organization known as Operation Save America. Police were summoned when the rescuers blocked the front entrance of the EMW Women's Surgical Center in downtown Louisville. All ten people, including 82 year old Edl, were arrested and transported to Metro Corrections in a police van.



All 11 have been charged with Criminal Trespass, 3rd degree. One rescuer, James Soderna was charged with resisting arrest. Arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday.

Share Tweet Contact: Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas, Operation Save America , 254-715-3134LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 16, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- With mounting troubles recently, the last thing Kentucky's only remaining abortion provider needed was an unusual act of interposition this past Saturday morning. World War II survivor, Eva Edl, along with ten other individuals, mostly from outside Kentucky, positioned themselves on the sidewalk in front of the clinic, which effectively blocked access through the front doors of the death clinic.Eva Edl, 82 years old, was interred as a child in a Russian concentration camp following World War II. She barely made it out alive. It was there the Lord Jesus Christ intervened to save her life and her soul. She has explained publicly that her time in a camp was the reason she could not in good conscience leave the abortion mill when asked by the police to do so. "I just wish the good Christian people of my country would have gathered in front of my death camp when we were shipped in," she said.Edl was in Louisville with an organization known as Operation Save America. Police were summoned when the rescuers blocked the front entrance of the EMW Women's Surgical Center in downtown Louisville. All ten people, including 82 year old Edl, were arrested and transported to Metro Corrections in a police van.All 11 have been charged with Criminal Trespass, 3rd degree. One rescuer, James Soderna was charged with resisting arrest. Arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday.
Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal, who represents the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the practice was a matter of faith for Muslims, just like Hindus believed Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya.

Urging the Supreme Court constitution bench not to question the practice of triple talaq, Sibal submitted, 'If Hindus believe Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya, this faith cannot be questioned on the ground of Constitutional validity.

'If faith of Hindus about Ram's birth at Ayodhya cannot be questioned, triple talaq is also a matter of faith of Muslims and it cannot be questioned.'

Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal, who represents the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the practice was a matter of faith for Muslims

TALAQ UNDER SHARIA Men can declare talaq - or divorce - at any point in a marriage and do not need approval form the court. Usually, once it is declared, a period lasting three menstrual cycles follows before the divorce is final. This aims to offer the chance for reconciliation and means the couple will find out if the wife is pregnant before it is finalised. If the couple have sex, the initial talaq declaration is automatically revoked. The man can also revoke it at any point. But even when it expires, making the divorce official, the couple can remarry, unless he declares it again, known as 'triple talaq'. The Sharia principle dictates that the husband must support the woman until the end of the notice period, or until she has their child. However, some men have previously skipped the notice period by performing what is known as 'triple talaq' in one sitting, which makes the split instantaneous. Advertisement

'Family and social norms could never be tested with the touchstone of Constitutional morality,' Sibal argued vociferously, rejecting the Centre's plea in this regard and asked 'if both marriage and divorce are contracts in Islam, why should others have a problem with it, especially when it is practiced for 1,400 years?'

'Muslim marriage is a contract through nikahnama between consenting adults, so is divorce,' he argued. Slamming the Centre for calling triple talaq 'un-Islamic' and not ordained by the Quran or Constitution, he said ceremonies concerning birth, marriage, divorce, property and death are decided by families, influenced by social norms.

Sibal also reacted to the Centre's stand that the government will enact a law on Muslim divorce if SC quashed talaq in all forms.

'What will happen if the SC quashed talaq in all forms and then Parliament refused to enact a law?' he said.

Taking a more aggressive stand, the Centre on Monday had said it was not just opposed to Talaq-ul-Biddat (instantaneous triple talaq), but also the two other forms Talaq-Ahsan and Talaq Hasan (in which there is provision for revocation), and all three will have to be declared illegal and unconstitutional.

Congress leader and lawyer Kapil Sibal representing the All India Muslim Personal Law Board

This is a change of stance as till now, the Centre had said it was only opposed to triple talaq where a husband instantly gets to divorce his wife by uttering 'talaq, talaq, talaq'.

India's Supreme Court

But when the apex court wondered whether there was any alternate remedy open to Muslim men to seek divorce in case all three types of talaq were done away with, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi representing the Centre had said it will bring a law in this regard.

Opposing the plea of seven aggrieved Muslim women who wanted the SC to scrap the practice, AIMPLB had said Constitution does not touch upon personal laws and therefore the apex court too cannot adjudicate on issues such as marriage, divorce and maintenance.

The Board had even taken a bizarre ground that if triple talaq was discontinued, a Muslim husband may even murder his wife to get rid of her.
The persistent tussle within the Delhi BJP has resurfaced soon after party's massive victory in the MCD polls.

Seeking to woo the leaders of wary factions, Union minister Vijay Goel organised a felicitation (praise) ceremony for newly elected councillors at his residence.

It apparently did not go down well with Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari - he not only skipped the function, but well-placed sources claimed his camp also advised BJP councillors against attending the function.

The Adopt a Slum initiative at Goels residence was attended by MPs Ramesh Bidhuri and Pravesh Verma; MLAs Jagdish Pradhan and Manjinder Singh Sirsa; and 50 councillors

A BJP councillor present at the felicitation ceremony on Tuesday evening said a general secretary of Delhi BJP had conveyed to the councillors not to attend the function against the wish of the state unit president.

However, a sizeable number of councillors were present at Goel's residence.

The gathering also saw the attendance of South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri and West Delhi MP Pravesh Verma, who are not believed to have cordial relations with Tiwari.

Verma and Tiwari were even engaged in a verbal spat during campaigning for the MCD elections.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari was noticeably absent from the event, which Goel said was to promote the 'Adopt a Slum' campaign

BJP vice-president Shyam Jaju and BJP MLAs in Delhi Assembly, Jagdish Pradhan and Manjinder Singh Sirsa, also attended the function.

BJP has 181 councillors in the three MCDs, out of which nearly 50 councillors participated in the event.

Top sources said the newly elected councillors were not felicitated since the MCD poll results. This prompted Goel to cash in on the opportunity.

But as soon as the party leadership learnt about the function, the state leadership hurriedly called a meeting of all councillors at the Delhi BJP headquarters on Monday evening and greeted them with sweets.

A meeting was also hurriedly called by the BJP leadership on Monday evening, ahead of Goel's function, and the delegates were greeted with sweets

The state leadership tried to score some points by calling a meeting of the newly elected party councillors ahead of Goel's function, a source said.

'The programme was organised to initiate the 'Adopt a Slum' campaign in Delhi.

'At the same time, it was decided to felicitate the newly elected councillors to encourage them for the overall development of Delhi. We have urged every councillor to adopt a slum and resolve the issues of slum dwellers,' Goel said.

'We have urged BJP councillors to work under the mantra of 'Good Governance' and respect public mandate. We must value the mandate of the masses and work for their overall development with new zeal and vigour,' the Union minister said.

This is not the first time Goel has shown keen interest in Delhi's politics despite his elevation to the Union cabinet.

Goel had also extended his support to sitting BJP councillors who were denied tickets by the party high command before the polls.

While leaders like Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari had advised BJP leaders to accept the party's decision, Goel had promised them support and even said he would take up their grievance to the top leadership
Congress MP P Chidambaram

A united Opposition cried 'witch-hunt' and 'political vendetta' on Tuesday as law enforcement agencies conducted multi-city raids on properties allegedly linked to kin of Congress leader P Chidambaram and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad.

However, the NDA government termed the searches carried out by the Central Bureau of Investigation and income tax sleuths - a day of accountability for the corrupt.

The CBI swooped on the homes and offices of Karti Chidambaram, whose father is a former finance minister, across four cities for allegedly receiving money from a media firm to manipulate a tax probe.

Officials said they were investigating the charge that Karti's company received Rs 10 lakh from INX Media, which got a Foreign Exchange Promotion Board clearance for Rs 4 crore, but had actually received Rs 305 crore.

INX Media was then owned by Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani.

Both are behind bars awaiting trial in connection with the murder of Indrani's daughter, Sheena Bora.

Security personnel at former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's Nungambakkam bungalow where CBI conducted a raid over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm

Separately, the income tax department conducted raids and surveys on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas over alleged benami deals stated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad and some of his family members.

RJD is part of the ruling alliance in Bihar that also comprises the JD (U) and Congress.

The raids were carried out in offices and houses of prominent businessmen and real estate agents across the Capital and its surrounding areas.

The IT searches connected to Lalu came just days after the BJP accused him and his children of being involved in corrupt land deals.

On May 12, union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had demanded an inquiry into such transactions related to the RJD chief's daughter Misa Bharti.

A Rajya Sabha MP, Bharti had failed to disclose these assets in her election affidavit.

Both Chidambaram and Lalu cried foul and accused the BJP-led central government of trying to settle scores.

The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends,' said Chidambaram.

'The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organization.'

The Congress, too, reacted sharply and said registration of false cases against senior opposition leaders had become part of the BJP's DNA.

New Friends Colony in New Delhi, Income Tax department on Tuesday carried out raids at 22 locations in Delhi-NCR on companies and people associated with RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav in connection to benami land deals worth Rs 1,000 crore

Karti said he has not done anything wrong.

'They have not seized any documents and cannot prove any charges against me,' he told reporters in Chennai.

West Bengal chief minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee also accused the Centre of unleashing political vendetta.

Lalu Prasad, however, sought to put up a brave face, saying he was 'not scared at all' and will continue to fight against the 'fascist forces'.

Lalu Prasad Yadav (left) and Nitish Kumr

'BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice... If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats,' he said in a series of tweets.

The BJP, meanwhile, dismissed Chidambaram's charges of political vendetta and described Tuesday as a day that sought 'accountability from the corrupt'.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the 'day of reckoning' had come for many, and insisted that the CBI did not take such action without 'substantial basis and a reason to suspect'.

'Now people in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small matter and I think the day of reckoning has come for many, they will all be held accountable.'

Even as the NDA completed three years in power, union minister Piyush Goyal said Chidambaram 'would be accountable for his son stroke'.

He also dismissed the charge that he was being punished for criticising BJP government.
Labours half-baked proposals to impose huge income tax increases on those it considers to be Britains highest earners pose an enormous threat to the nations prosperity.

A throwback to the dark days of the Seventies, they would halt Britains healthy growth in its tracks, destroy the prospects for a smooth Brexit and drive out many of the countrys most skilled professionals and managers.

Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are under the horribly mistaken impression that if they pile extra income taxes on people earning more than 80,000 a year, and squeeze the pips of those earning above 100,000, they will generate a treasure chest to spend on public services.

Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are under the mistaken impression that increasing the tax burden on those earning more than 80,000 will increase revenue

In Britain, the highest rate of tax does not currently kick in until people earn 150,000 a year

Such a policy would be the economics of the madhouse and drag Britain back to the pre-Thatcher era when income taxes were so high that well-paid people left the country, enterprise was stifled and investment and jobs destroyed.

We dont have to look far to see how high-tax regimes stifle wealth creation  and lead to an exodus of talent and economic stagnation.

In France, former president Francois Hollande created the very conditions that led to his downfall  and that of the political establishment  with his socialist high-tax regime.

When he pledged to raise Frances highest rate of income tax to 75 per cent  a figure not very much different from that implied by Labour proposals  the impact was devastating.

Tens of thousands of Frances brightest professionals rapidly migrated to Britain, turning London into the fifth biggest French city in the world.

Wealthy French business people moved their operations to Brussels and other lower tax European centres while the French economy slumped and the unemployment rate soared to above 10 per cent of the workforce  twice the level in Britain.

Francois Hollande, pictured with new French president Emmanuel Macron, saw wealthy business people move the Brussels after the former socialist president increased taxes

In Britain the highest 45 per cent income tax band does not currently kick in until people earn 150,000 a year.

But under Labours punish-the-rich proposals, it is thought anyone earning more than 80,000 would find themselves hit by the 45 per cent tax band.

Meanwhile, those earning over 100,000 could find themselves paying a still higher income tax rate of 50 per cent. But thats not all. Because the government has already stopped people who earn more than 100,000 a year from receiving tax-free allowances granted to lower-band taxpayers, and this same group also has to fork out a further 2 per cent in national insurance contributions.

Add these existing penalties to Labours higher income tax proposals and you find a slice of Britain would find themselves enduring 65 per cent to 70 per cent tax rates under Corbyn.

In other words, around two-thirds of their pay cheque would be going straight to the Exchequer.

The truth is Labours proposals have nothing to do with economic practicalities and are all about socialist ideology and the politics of envy.

History tells us that they will fail to raise new income while at the same time destroying Britains competitiveness just when we need to attract investors as we embark on a bold new future outside the EU.

All the evidence is that adding to the tax burden of a relatively small group of people high up the income tree will simply provide a bonanza for the accountants who are expert at creating schemes which allow people to avoid paying taxes.

Under Labours high taxes in the Seventies, some businesses started paying a number of their workers in gold bars so as to keep HMRC at bay.

High taxes will inevitably create a brain drain of the best and brightest.

Even with its current tax system, Britain has difficulty hanging on to its cleverest engineers, scientists and technicians because of the lure of Silicon Valley and other centres of excellence abroad.

When Labour in its dying moments of government in 2010 raised the highest band of income tax to 50 per cent (subsequently lowered to 45 per cent by George Osborne), it had an immediate impact on some of our most important companies.

The head of one global giant based in the UK, which does 80 per cent of its business overseas, told me that as soon as the increase to 50 per cent was announced, he had a queue of his most valued managers knocking on his door demanding transfers to lower tax regimes in Asia and the U.S.

Furthermore, as studies by HM Treasury established, the 50 per cent band raised virtually no new income and Osborne was able to lower the top rate to 45 per cent without any damage to tax revenues.

But income tax is only part of the story.

Labours assault on high earners comes in the wake of its earlier decision to declare war on Britains companies by increasing corporation tax.

One of the great achievements of Tory-led rule over the past seven years has been to bring down levels of corporation tax, making Britain one of the most attractive places to invest in the free world.

Indeed, so impressed has Donald Trump been by the UKs initiatives in this area, which has encouraged American and Japanese investment to come to Britain, that the U.S. President wants to do the same.

When George Osborne arrived at the Treasury in 2010, company taxation stood at 28 per cent. Over the years he has slashed the rate to 19 per cent and its due to fall to 17 per cent over the next two years.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, however, wants to lift the rate back to 26 per cent and plough the money raised into education.

On the surface this looks like an attractive policy. But the timing as we go into Brexit, with several big enterprises threatening to leave these shores, is terrible.

Only a personal intervention by Theresa May  with pledges to preserve the UKs low-tax regime  persuaded Nissan in Sunderland and Volkswagen-owned Bentley in Crewe from considering moving some plants to the Continent because of Brexit.

As much as we would all like to spend more on education, raising business taxes here is precisely the wrong direction to take.

The influential Institute For Fiscal Studies think-tank notes that high corporation tax rates discourage investment.

This is especially true in the UK where companies do not get generous allowances for making new investments.

Labours proposals on corporation tax would be calamitous for investment by overseas firms in this country  something that has been one of the great triumphs of the post-Thatcher era  and would also discourage domestic firms from investing in the future.

Adopting the McDonnell blueprint would be a direct assault on the free-market capitalism on which hopes of rising living standards are based.

Time and again it has been shown that the greater the taxes levied in any country, the less effective they are in raising revenues.

This was the central principle of Reaganomics and Thatcherite policies based on the work of the veteran economist Arthur Laffer at the University of Southern California.

He famously inspired Reagan with this wisdom by drawing the Laffer Curve, a graph showing how lower taxes can boost revenues, on a paper napkin after a good lunch at a Los Angeles restaurant.

Together, Labours promises to increase income tax for higher earning individuals and corporation tax for companies will destroy everything that has helped Britain to become one of the fastest growing Western economies in the post-financial crisis world.

The partys plan is a throwback to a past which we all thought had been safely consigned to the dustbin of history.
Vodafone has slumped to annual losses of 5.2 billion, in large part due to a big fall in the value of its India business.

The telecoms group said it has been forced to write 3.2 billion off the value of the under-pressure India business after striking a deal in March to merge the operation with peer Idea Cellular.

The market clearly expected worse, however, as shares in Vodafone are trading up 3.95 per cent at 219.4p early on.

Vodafone reported it has seen a 15.8 per cent drop to 1 billion in its UK earnings.

There is currently a price war underway in India between mobile operators, making the business less profitable.

Underlying earnings rose 5.8 per cent to 12 billion, however, excluding the Indian division.

The company forecast better times ahead with profit growth of up to 8 per cent over the current financial year.

Vodafone also reported it has seen a 15.8 per cent drop to 1 billion in underlying earnings in the UK as it has been hit by falling sales and the pound's plunge in value since the Brexit vote has taken a toll.

Service revenues fell 17 per cent, or 3.3 per cent with the impact of the weaker pound stripped out.

Group chief executive Vittorio Colao said: 'We expect to sustain our momentum in the coming financial year, generating free cash flow of around 5 billion euros. Our confidence in the outlook is demonstrated by another 2 per cent increase in our dividend.'

'Our focus on excellence in customer experience has enabled further improvements in our overall commercial and financial performance during the year.

'Sustained investment in network quality has provided the platform to offer more generous plans to our mobile customers in Europe, stabilising contract ARPU, and has allowed us to capture strong data growth in our emerging markets operations.'
Mark Zuckerberg, 38, apologised for 'getting it wrong' after employees were informed about the cuts in a company-wide email at 11am on Wednesday. In a message to Meta employees, Zuckerberg said that he had decided to reduce the size of the team by about 13 per cent, which could mean there will be 650 job losses in the UK. Facebook's UK employee headcount swelled from 3,745 in 2020 to 5,148 in 2021, with the vast majority based in London. Meta said it would pay 16 weeks of base pay to those affected in the US plus two additional weeks for every year of service as a part of the severance package and all remaining paid time off. The company said that the arrangements would be similar elsewhere, though it was unclear how many UK jobs would be affected. In Ireland, where Meta has its European HQ, the company has already begun restructuring its content moderation team. The Irish Times reported that the company could be seeking to shed up to 1,000 roles from its Irish operations. It employs more than 3,000 people directly in Ireland, with an additional 6,000 people employed at operations across multiple sites including Meta's international headquarters in Dublin, Clonee data centre in Co Meath and Reality Labs in Cork.
A disturbing video appearing to show a bridesmaid being groped by a group of guests has again raised concern over the Chinese wedding pranks.

Ms Zhang said she was forced onto floor and fondled by at least five male guests, including the best man, at her best friend's wedding in southern China.

She had reported the assault to the police and insisted that the guests should be held responsible for their 'hurtful behaviour'.

A video shows the bridesmaid, surnamed Zhang, being forced onto floor and fondled by at least five male guests at a wedding banquet in southern China

The beginning of the clip, posted by Pear Video, shows Ms Zhang, with her top ripped off, had been forced onto the floor of a car park by several men.

She claimed that there were seven to eight guests groping her body while others were cheering.

'I was pulled aside and several male guests suddenly came to press me onto the floor and touched me,' Ms Zhang told a reporter from Pear Video.

Ms Zhang said there were seven to eight guests assaulting her while others were cheering

Ms Zhang said she was a bridesmaid for her best friend at a recent wedding banquet in Guangzhou city when the assault happened.

'I was very excited and I didn't know what I was doing.' Mr Tang, the best man, confessed.

He said he had committed 'very indecent behaviour' with his friends and they had all apologised to Ms Zhang.

He had apologised to Ms Zhang via Wechat, an instant messaging app in China.

However, Ms Zhang refused to accept the apologies.

The woman has reported the case to police.

She said the male guests should be responsible for the hurtful behaviour.

The victim said in an interview that the guests should be responsible for the 'hurtful behaviour'

The video had attracted thousands of comments on Weibo, China's micro-blogging site. Many online users expressed their support towards her decision.

'She must report it to police. It could not be settled amicably,' one user said.

'I was so grateful to know that the bridesmaid had reported it to police,' another user commented.

'They should pay the price for their actions,' a third noted.

A number of videos on wedding antics in China have emerged to show the rude behaviour of wedding goers as well as the sexually suggestive wedding games played in China.

A video went viral in late November last year shows a couple being forced to have sex as their guests gleefully cheered.

Another clip on the bridesmaid being groped by a big group of male guests in bed also emerged in December.
A jaguar has escaped its enclosure and attacked a spider monkey so severely it had to be put down - but staff are still mystified as to how the big cat got loose.

Estrella, two, was reported missing by horrified staff at Abilene Zoo in Texas on Monday, and was soon found lying on top of the adjacent spider monkey exhibit.

Zoo workers believe she managed to reach inside and attack Ba, a 19-year-old monkey, who had to be euthanized because her injuries were so severe.

Estrella, two, escaped its enclosure and attacked a spider monkey so severely it had to be put down at Abilene zoo in Texas - but staff remain mystified as to how the big cat got loose

Zoo workers immediately called an animal escape code over the zoo radios and veterinary staff and members of the zoo firearms team rushed to the exhibit.

Estrella was shot with a tranquilizer dart within ten minutes and was secured in her enclosure 30 minutes later.

Her sister Luna was also secured in a holding pen during the escape.

Officials insist there was no risk to the public when the jaguar escaped its enclosure.

Abilene Zoo Executive Director Bill Gersonde said at a news conference that the doors to the jaguar enclosure are secure.

The zoo is said to be investigating how she escaped.

Estrella, two, was reported missing and was soon found lying on top of the adjacent spider monkey exhibit (spider monkeys at the zoo)

Staff believe she managed to reach inside and attack Ba, a 19-year-old monkey, who had to be euthanized because her injuries were so severe (pictured, the entrance of Abilene Zoo)

Ba, the deceased monkey, was rescued from illegal wildlife traffickers years ago.

'He came to Abilene many years ago after federal officials confiscated his troop from illegal wildlife traffickers trying to smuggle the animals over the border,' a zoo spokesman told WDEF.

Estrella and Luna, who turned two last week, were born at the Fort Worth Zoo and moved to Abilene in February 2016.

Zoo officials said the loss of Ba is a tragedy, but staff were said to be grateful that more animals were not injured during Estrella's escape.

'The zoo staff is to be commended on their response to this emergency,' Gersonde said.

'Staff routinely drills for a variety of emergencies and that practice contributed to the smooth and professional recapture of the jaguar.'
A seven-year-old boy is in critical condition after his fellow student accidentally shot him in the stomach with a loaded gun which fell out of a backpack.

The handgun went off unexpectedly when a first grader from Moss Bluff Elementary School in Louisiana picked it up.

The injured student was rushed to surgery at Lafayette General Hospital, then moved to a pediatric ICU, where his condition is being monitored.

A seven-year-old boy is in critical condition after his fellow student accidentally shot him in the stomach at Moss Bluff Elementary School in Louisiana

Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso told 7News the victim was not the boy who brought the gun to school and no one else was injured.

He went on to say that both children were too young to be held responsible but the district attorney's office may to charge the gun owner.

'I believe in the 2nd amendment that allows us to possess and carry firearms however, I also believe that it is our responsibility as gun owners to keep our guns locked and out of the reach of children,' said pro-gun advocate Mancuso.

He went on: 'In addition, talking to our children about the dangers of guns can help them know how to react if they encounter a gun at school or even at a friend's house.'

School superintendent Karl Bruchhaus says Moss Bluff Elementary School was holding a field day, and few students were aware of the shooting.

Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Tony Mancuso said both children were too young to be held responsible but the district attorney's office may to charge the gun owner (file photo of a handgun)

The Calcasieu Parish School Board immediately assured other parents there was no danger to their children.

Calcasieu Parish Superintendent Karl Bruchhaus said a scheduled field day would continue as planned. 'because those children need to get back to a regular school environment'.

Many of the young students were not aware of what had happened when parents lined up to pick them up early at 10.30am.
A man has died after he was found lying in a driveway with stab wounds in the early hours of the morning.

Police investigating the 37-year-old's death have arrested a 28-year-old man, who is assisting detectives with their inquiries.

Emergency services had raced to the scene in the New South Wales Riverina about 3.45am on Tuesday.

Scroll down for video

A 37-year-old man died after he was found lying in a driveway of a home near Wagga Wagga early Tuesday morning

Police investigating are treating the man's death have arrested a 28-year-old man, who is assisting detectives with their inquiries

They discovered the man lying in a driveway of a home in French Place, Tolland, near Wagga Wagga, with the stab wound to his left thigh.

Paramedics desperately tried to save the man, believed to be from the nearby town of Junee, but he died at the scene.

Police cornered off the area and spent the morning on scene as they pieced together the events leading up to the man's death.

Police are urging anyone with information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Bathroom Policy Back in Court

Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit



RICHMOND, Va., May 16, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Yesterday, Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a Virginia school board on the so-called bathroom transgender decision in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board. The brief was filed on behalf of Dr. Judith Reisman and the Center for Child Protection Institute.

The Supreme Court previously blocked the decision by the appeals court which ruled that the federal law known as Title IX should be interpreted to include "gender identity" and that a girl who "identifies" as a boy can use the boy's restroom. The case was sent back to the court of appeals after President Trump rescinded Obama's transgender guidance that schools had to adopt a policy allowing students to use the restroom of their "self-identity."

The student bringing the lawsuit, Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old high school senior, is a biological girl who now says she subjectively "identifies" as a "boy." When Grimm began using the boys' restroom, parents complained. Then the school board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom.

Liberty Counsel states in the brief: "Interpreting Title IX to include 'gender identity,' and particularly, to compel districts to permit access to sex-separate facilities based solely on 'perceived' gender, conflicts the statute's purpose to 'provide a safe and nondiscriminatory environment for all students.' Moreover, advocacy for recognition of 'transgender' children fosters experimental, life-changing medical protocols that do not comply with the dictates of medical ethics. Most importantly, such advocacy sanctions an agenda-driven ideology that threatens the physical, mental and emotional well-being of children."

"The federal law does not allow persons to subjectively think, and therefore legally become, the opposite of their biological sex," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "Giving legal credence to a biological impossibility would undermine the law and cause chaos and significant harm," said Staver.

Liberty Counsel is a 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.
A Sydney mother, 36, has been charged with child neglect after her two-year-old son consumed illicit drugs.

The Penrith boy was taken to Nepean Hospital on December 8 last year and doctors were told he drank paint thinner.

However his condition deteriorated and it was later discovered he had illicit drugs in his system, police allege.

The boy, two, was taken to hospital in December, when his mother said he drunk paint thinner

The boy was airlifted to Sydney Childrens Hospital at Randwick, where he tested positive for the drugs.

Forensic analysis and pathology testing revealed the child had consumed illicit drugs.

Police then raided the woman's home and seized a number of items.

The woman has been charged with two counts of child neglect and failure to provide for a child in danger of death.

She will appear in Penrith Local Court on Tuesday.

Police said the Department of Family and Community Services was also alerted to the incident.
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Heartbreaking and never-before-seen footage has emerged showing Keith Bennett's devastated mother begging Ian Brady to reveal where he buried her son - a week before she died.

Winnie Johnson passed away aged 78 in 2012 after battling cancer and spent decades tirelessly fighting to find her son to provide a Christian burial.

Her son disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house in Manchester on June 16, 1964, and was killed after Brady's partner Myra Hindley lured him into her car and drove him to the Moors.

But his mother never did find out where Brady - who died on Monday aged 79 - left her son's body and a clip shows her last-ditch appeal to the murderer.

Winnie Johnson (pictured) was the mother of 12-year-old Keith Bennett and recorded a heartbreaking appeal to Ian Brady

She made the clip in a desperate bid to ask Brady to reveal where he buried her son - a week before she died of cancer aged 78

She was almost reduced to tears when she turned to the camera and said she has cancer and is not sure when she is going to die.

Mrs Johnson revealed that her last dying wish was to find out where the Moors Murderer buried her son and asked him to 'tell me where Keith is'.

She said: 'I want him (Keith) found before anything happens to me because I've got cancer and I don't know when I'm going to die.

'I want Brady to know that I've got cancer and if he has any decency or respect for himself and me, he will tell me where Keith is before anything happens to me.

'Brady, I'm wanting you to tell me where Keith is before anything happens to me.

'I've got cancer and if you've got any decency and respect for yourself and me you will tell me where Keith is because that's the last thing I want to happen before I die.'

Ian Brady (left) and his partner Myra Hindley (right) killed five children - aged between 10 and 17 - near Manchester during the 1960s

Brady and his co-accused Myra Hindley (left) murdered five children including Keith Bennett (right) whose body has never been recovered despite several extensive searches

But Keith's family members still do not know where he was buried and it seems Brady took his final secret to his grave when he died at Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside on Monday.

He had been diagnosed with lung cancer and the hospital confirmed that he had died just after 6pm.

Brady killed five children with his lover Myra Hindley in the 1960s and was jailed for three murders in 1966 and has been at Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside since 1985.

The killer, from Glasgow, and Hindley later confessed to another two killings.

Terry West, whose sister Lesley Ann Downey was murdered, said he poured himself a glass of wine after hearing the news but also felt sorry for Keith's brother.

He said: 'I poured myself a glass of wine when I found out  we've been waiting for this day for such a long time. It's closure for our family.

'But I really feel for Keith Bennett's brother Alan and the rest of his family  this probably means they'll never know where his body was buried.'

Moors Murderer Ian Brady dies aged 79 as victim's family say 'he is taunting them from beyond the grave'

By James Tozer and Ian Drury for the Daily Mail and Abe Hawken and Thomas Burrows for MailOnline

Ian Brady died last night taking his murderous secrets to the grave.

The 79-year-old, who killed five children with lover Myra Hindley in the 1960s, had been receiving palliative care at a secure mental health hospital.

He was suffering from untreatable cancer and emphysema. The death of the Moors Murderer leaves unresolved the issue of where he dumped the body of 12-year-old Keith Bennett.

Keith's mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2012 after battling cancer and fought tirelessly for decades to find her son and provide a Christian burial.

Brady (pictured with Myra Hindley and her younger sister Maureen) had been at Ashworth Hospital since 1985 and the hospital confirmed he died just after 6pm on Monday

Brady was being held in Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside (pictured) in a secure unit and staff there revealed he died on Monday evening

Brady, and his co-accused Myra Hindley (pictured together) murdered five children in the 1960s and the bodies of four of his victims have been found

Her son disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house on June 16, 1964, and Hindley lured him into her car and drove him to the Moors.

But Brady would not reveal where he buried Keith and Mrs Johnson died five years still not knowing where he left her son's body.

Brady, from Glasgow, Scotland, died just after 6pm on Monday and police informed relatives of the children who were killed.

They included Terry West, whose sister Lesley Ann Downey was murdered aged ten in 1964.

He said: 'I poured myself a glass of wine when I found out  we've been waiting for this day for such a long time. It's closure for our family.

'But I really feel for Keith Bennett's brother Alan and the rest of his family  this probably means they'll never know where his body was buried.

'He's taken it to the grave. There's still one poor kiddie up there on the Moors. My heart goes out to Alan  at least I've got somewhere that I can visit our Les, he hasn't even got that.'

Mr West, 66, added: 'What Brady did will never be forgotten  it's had such an effect on all our lives.

'I had to protect my children when they were growing up, I wouldn't let them play out in the street.'

John Kilbride, 12, (left) and 16-year-old Pauline Reade (right) were also killed by the pair and their bodies were later located in the North West

Search teams scoured Saddleworth Moor in 1965 searching for the first three victims and were using police dogs to help find them

Lesley Ann Downey (right) was killed when she was just ten, while Edward Evans (left) was 17 years old when he was murdered by the pair

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Moors Murderer Ian Brady who appeared via video link at Manchester Civil Justice Centre

BRADY'S FIVE VICTIMS Pauline Reade, 16, was the couple's first victim. She was on her way to a local dance when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped Pauline, beaten and stabbed. John Kilbride, 12, was snatched from Ashton market on Saturday November 23, 1963. He was strangled and buried in a shallow grave. He was the second of Brady and Hindley's five victims. Keith Bennett, 12, disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house. Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors where he was murdered. The method of killing has never been made clear. The pair buried his body which has never been found. Lesley Ann Downey, 10, disappeared on Boxing Day. She had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley's house. She was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Edward Evans, 17, was the sick duo's final victim. He had just been to see Manchester United play when Brady lured in Edward. Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe Advertisement

Terry Kilbride, 63, the brother of John Kilbride, told The Sun: 'It's a lot to take in. It's been years and years of anguish and pain for us and the families of the victims.

'He's ruined our lives all these years and he'll still ruin it even though he's gone. I feel numb. 'He was a murderous psychopath.

'What a bastard. We're going to be taunted by a dead man from beyond the grave.'

A family member of Lesley Ann Downey reportedly posted online: 'We as a family have had the best news ever! Brady the devil's disciple is DEAD!!! May you rot in F****** HELL!!!!!!!!!!'

At a court hearing in February lawyers said Brady had been bedridden for two years and was terminally ill, with emphysema and cancer among his illnesses.

Speaking yesterday before Brady's death, Terry Kilbride, whose 12-year-old brother John was murdered, begged Brady to reveal where his final victim's body was.

'I would beg him to do the right thing on his deathbed and tell us where Keith is,' he said. 'Now is the time for him to stop playing tricks and come clean. If he takes it to the grave, I will feel so sorry for Keith's family.

'There will only ever be another search if there's fresh evidence. That has to come from him. When Brady dies I truly hope he rots in hell. That's the only place he's going.'

Brady and Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, tortured and murdered five children.

Their two other victims were Pauline Reade, 16, and Edward Evans, 17. Four of the victims were buried on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester.

Brady (left), who killed five children with lover Myra Hindley (right) in the 1960s, had been receiving palliative care at a secure mental health hospital

Chief Arthur Benfield (pictured) addresses his staff in the hunt for the bodies of the murdered children who were attacked on Saddleworth Moor

Saddleworth Moor (left and right) was full of people desperately trying to search for the children who were killed by Hindley and Brady

In December 1965, police searched the Manchester home of Moors Murderers Brady and Hindley after Edward Evans was killed

Brady (pictured left in 1963 and artist's impression, right) , from Glasgow, Scotland, died just after 6pm on Monday and police informed relatives of the children who were killed

Brady was jailed for three murders in 1966 and has been at Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside since 1985. He and Hindley later confessed to another two killings.

He campaigned for several years to be moved from the secure unit to a Scottish prison so he could not be force-fed  as at Ashworth  and where he would have been allowed to die had he wished.

His request was rejected after Ashworth medical experts said he had chronic mental illness and needed continued care in hospital.

A further review was due in September last year, but Brady refused to take part after it was ruled that his solicitor Robin Makin could not be involved.

His legal challenge to that ban was rejected in February. At that point, his legal team said he was terminally ill. In December, Brady wrote to Channel 5 journalist Julian Drucker to reveal his fatal condition.

He wrote: 'I'm still bedridden and have been for over two years.

'The lung and chest condition is terminal.'

A Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: 'We can confirm a 79-year-old patient in long term care at Ashworth High Secure Hospital has died after becoming physically unwell.'

The spokesman added that Brady died at 6.03pm on Monday and they were unable to say what Brady died of, but said he had been on oxygen for a while.

Brady was not found dead in his room, the spokesman said, but he was unable to confirm if anyone was with him when he died, adding: 'Quite possibly. I don't know.'

The policeman who heard tape of Brady's little victim's screams said he'd gladly kill him with his bare hands, by author Colin Wilson, who Brady wrote to for 10 years

By Colin Wilson for the Daily Mail

Now that Ian Brady is dead, most people will shrug and say: 'About time too!' But if Brady's spirit is hanging around somewhere in the psychic ether, he will be saying exactly the same thing.

He told me many times that he wished he had been executed in 1966  as he would have been if capital punishment had not been abolished the year before.

It was on April 19, 1966, that Brady and Myra Hindley went on trial at Chester Assizes, charged with three murders: Lesley Ann Downey, aged ten, John Kilbride, 12, and Edward Evans, a 17-year-old homosexual who was the last of the victims. The police were also fairly certain that the couple had been responsible for at least two more murders: a 16-year-old girl named Pauline Reade, and 12-year-old Keith Bennett.

The evidence against them was overwhelming.

On Boxing Day 1964, they had driven to a fair in Hulme Hall Lane, Manchester, and had picked up Lesley Ann Downey, offering her a lift home.

The sadistic crimes of Ian Brady (pictured) and Myra Hindley shocked the nation to its core and he has now died aged 79

Police were seen blocking the A635 near Manchester as Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were taken back to Saddleworth Moor to find the remaining bodies

The child had been warned not to speak to strange men, but had no reason to suspect a young couple.

They drove her back to the home of Hindley's grandmother in Wardle Brook Avenue  they had already taken the precaution of making sure the old lady was away, staying with an uncle at Dukinfeld.

There, Lesley was ordered to undress, and Brady and Hindley did the same. A tape recorder was switched on, as well as the radio. Lesley, with a gag in her mouth, was then made to pose naked in a number of semi-pornographic positions. As she cried and tried to scream, Hindley is heard snarling: 'Shut up or I'll hit you one.'

After that, the recorder was switched off, and Lesley was raped and strangled.

The next day, the couple buried her on Saddleworth Moor.

Brady later told me that it was Hindley herself who strangled her with a cord, and that afterwards she enjoyed toying with the cord when other people were present.

When the tape was played in court, it destroyed any chance that the jury might find extenuating circumstances. A policeman who had heard it told me it was one of the most harrowing experiences of his life, and that he would gladly have killed them both with his bare hands.

One week after the jury had heard the tape, the Moors Murderers were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Hindley died in prison 36 years later in 2002. Now Brady  who said repeatedly he wanted to commit suicide  has followed her to the grave.

As a writer with an interest in criminology, I had always found the case fascinating but incomprehensible.

Ian Brady (right) was escorted as he arrived at the courthouse in Hyde, Cheshire, to be convicted of murdering children

Moors Murderer Ian Brady (pictured) died at the age of 79 on Monday night and was photographed holding a gun and a dog

Before she met Brady at the age of 18, Hindley had been a perfectly normal teenager. She loved animals and children, and had a strong religious streak.

What had driven her to kill? What kind of mesmeric hold did Brady have over her?

I began to understand more when, in November 1991, Brady wrote to me out of the blue. He wanted to know whether I was collaborating on a book about him with a girl who had been to visit him in prison. I answered that I was not.

But we began to correspond, with an average of one or two letters a month, and this went on for more than a decade. In time, he came to trust me, and told me many things.

For my part, there was intense hostility in my side of the correspondence. As a father, I obviously found his crimes unforgiveable. I felt that a man who murdered children deserved everything he got.

What was really striking was his obvious feeling that society was somehow to blame for his predicament. He particularly loathed the upper classes which, he felt, were full of liars and hypocrites.

Cases such as the Guinness scandal in the 1980s, where four City big-wigs manipulated share prices, and the 1990s downfall of former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken who was jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice, excited a stream of bitterly satirical  and, incidentally, funny  invective from him.

To the end, he refused to acknowledge the slightest touch of guilt. Yet I do believe that he came to feel remorse.

I once asked if he ever thought about the feelings of the victims, and he replied: 'That would be a psychological suicide pill.' In other words, he dared not do so.

For some reason I could not at first explain, Brady was full of rage. I asked him if it was because he had been born illegitimate (in 1938), and fostered when he was still a baby. He denied this, saying he continued to see a great deal of his mother, and had a pleasant childhood on a Glasgow estate.

Brady (pictured) was jailed for three murders in 1966 and had been at Ashworth Hospital since 1985 - where he died just after 6pm on Monday

Men and women were seen digging on Saddleworth Moor, near Greenfield, in the search for Brady's victims in 1965

But as a child, he won a scholarship to a 'posh' school, where most of his classmates had far more money than he had. Yet he was intelligent, and a natural leader. It may have been because he felt fate had treated him unfairly in comparison to his richer peers that he started on a career of burglary in his teens that led to probation, then to an enforced move to Manchester to join his mother.

The real turning point came when he was 17, and working in the fruit market. A lorry driver asked him to help load some stolen goods, and Brady did it for nothing, simply to oblige. But the driver was caught, and Brady was sentenced to Borstal.

I came to realise that this two-year sentence was the key to Brady. Mad with rage at the injustice, he vowed he would make society pay. And from then on, he never lost his power to hate.

By the time he came out of prison, he had decided to become a career criminal. He vowed to become rich, then retire to some pleasant tropical climate such as in Bermuda.

Although he never told me fully about this period, I gather that he joined a gang that specialised in car theft, and that he occasionally broke his parole and went abroad to deliver stolen vehicles: he even went  on 'business'  to America.

He loved travel and wandering in lonely places  which helps explains why he later came to select Saddleworth Moor to bury his victims. Meanwhile, he had taken a job as an office clerk, and spent his evenings reading Hitler's Mein Kampf, and books by the amoral and brutally libidinous Marquis de Sade. One of his favourite novels was Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment. Brady claimed he could identify with the novel's intelligent hero who considers himself above the law and chooses to murder someone rather than remain a nonentity.

It was at this point, when he was a clerk in 1961, that an 18-year-old Myra Hindley arrived to work in the same firm. She was four and a half years his junior, and with her Lancashire accent, her dyed blonde hair and bright lipstick, she was not his type  too ordinary.

Yet she was fascinated by his sulky good looks, reminiscent of Elvis Presley, and by his air of sardonic self-sufficiency. And as it became obvious to Brady, who was something of a control freak, that she was totally infatuated, he began to eye her with predatory interest. Finally, when she had been in the office for a year, he invited her out, and lost no time in taking her virginity on her grandmother's divan bed in the front room of her home.

The next day, he seemed as bored and indifferent as ever. But Hindley was totally hooked. She once said: 'If he had told me the moon was made of green cheese, I would have believed him'.

To him, her total adoration was more intoxicating than the German wine he loved to drink on the moor. Suddenly, he felt he was capable of achieving anything.

Hindley's infatuation meant she was untroubled when she discovered his criminal past. They bought a home together in Hattersley, east of Manchester, and he would take her for rides on the back of his motorcycle to Saddleworth Moor where they would get drunk.

She bought a revolver and joined a gun club and they would daydream about getting rich by robbing building societies. Her family disapproved but it was too late: Hindley was his slave and Brady enjoyed seeing how far he could make her do his will, getting her to pose for pornographic pictures with him.

When that day came in July 1963 when Brady told her he wanted her to help him kidnap and rape Pauline Reade, she agreed without hesitation. For weeks afterwards she carried on saying hello to Pauline's mother.

In October 1963 they drove to the market at Ashton-under-Lyne, where 12-year-old John Kilbride was earning pocket money by doing odd jobs for stall-holders. As it became dark and foggy, a 'kind lady' asked if he wanted a lift. When his body was found two years later, strangled with a piece of string, his trousers were round his knees.

Police search Saddleworth Moor for the bodies of the victims killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the 1960s

This map showed the places around Manchestesr where four children, including John Kilbridge and Keith Bennett, disapperead

In June 1964, Keith Bennett vanished on the way to visit his grandmother in Manchester. His body was never found, and his broken mother Winnie Johnson died some 50 years later aged 78 still begging Brady to tell her where he had been buried. The couple picked up Lesley Ann Downey at a fairground on Boxing Day 1964. No one at the pair's subsequent trial who heard that 16-minute tape recording of Lesley's last moments will ever forget how, at one point, she pleaded: 'Please, God, help me...I want to see my mummy'.

Yet, after four rape-murders, a mawkish thing happened to Brady. Although the Marquis de Sade's writings had convinced him that it was no crime to kill for pleasure, he suddenly felt empty and drained. 'I felt old at 26. Everything was ashes.' He felt he had done everything, and there was nothing more to strive for.

This, I suspect, is why, although he had killed as regularly as clockwork every six months, he let the next 'killing time' go by without a murder.

And when he killed again, it was simply to try to involve Hindley's brother in law, David Smith, in his plans to rob a bank. He wanted to gain a hold over Smith, who, like Hindley, admired him to the point of idolatry, by making him an accomplice.

In October 1965, the couple lured a 17-year-old, Edward Evans, to the house and attacked him with a hatchet in front of Smith, who pretended he would help them dispose of the body.

But he miscalculated. Smith was horrified. He and his wife went to the police. Brady and Hindley were arrested the next morning. Brady told me he had always intended to kill any police who came to arrest him, then shoot himself. But when he reached cautiously under the bed for the concealed revolver, he remembered he had left it upstairs with the corpse of Edward Evans. That was the end of his freedom.

He was never an easy prisoner. Although he never physically attacked anyone, his rage and contempt for the guards and authorities made him hated by them. At one point he was reduced to a seven stone skeleton, and had a nervous breakdown. He was declared insane in 1985 and put into Ashworth high security psychiatric hospital near Liverpool. Still he continued to denounce the prison authorities.

In September 1999, guards burst into his cell, twisted his arms behind his back, and accused him of taping a knife under a sink out on the ward. Brady insists it was a set-up  a deliberate effort to get him off the ward so he would become someone else's problem.

Removed to a general ward where he was put under 24-hour watch, with two warders by his bed and four more outside the door, he went on hunger strike, and had to be force fed. I knew then that he was determined to cheat his captors by dying.

Had he not been in a hospital, he would long ago have starved himself to death, for the prison service has no right to force feed inmates. But at Ashworth the rules dictated that, as a patient, he had to be kept alive.

Which is why, with obsessive determination, he spent his last years fighting to prove his sanity so that he could be transferred back to prison and die. It never happened.

Although Ian Brady was a 'monster', I felt he should have been allowed to end the misery and futility of his totally wasted life. Even my wife, who at first could not bear to touch his letters because she felt they might contaminate her, admitted to feeling sorry for the way he was kept alive.

A truly moral society would recognise that very little purpose is served by keeping such a man inside. By doing so leaves them as the object of target-practice for other bloodthirsty prisoners and a psychotic maelstrom of their own suicidal fantasies. I am convinced that hanging Ian Brady would have been more humane.

(Colin Wilson, author of Serial Killers: A Study In The Psychology Of Violence, died in 2013 and we updated this article yesterday.)
South Australian man Bo Olsson, 53, has been charged with the alleged murders of his 63-year-old wife and 84-year-old mother-in-law. Police have asked his identity be concealed

A man accused of murdering his wife and mother-in-law is believed to have waited four days before handing himself into a police station 440 kilometres away from the place their bodies were found.

Bo Olsson, 53, was arrested on Monday after reportedly turning himself into Berri Police station, in South Australia, at 10am to report the deaths of his wife, 63, and her mother, 84.

Acting on information he gave them, officers found two rotting bodies inside a quaint cottage in the quiet country town of Millicent, south of Adelaide near the Victorian border.

Olsson was charged with the murders of both women later that night after hours of questioning. Police believe the women could have died as early as Thursday.

Olsson reportedly turned himself into Berri Police Station on Monday to report the deaths of the women. Officers found their bodies in a home in Millicent (pictured) 440 kms away

Police believe the women could have died as early as Thursday. Forensic investigators are seen observing the country home

Olsson's lawyer did not make a request for bail and he was remanded in custody until July

Olsson appeared at Berri Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning for a brief hearing wearing a white prison jumpsuit.

His lawyer did not make a formal request for bail and he was remanded in custody until July.

Olsson's Facebook page is littered with content every day up until his last post - a meme about life being tough uploaded at 4.37am on Thursday.

'Our suspicion at this stage (is) it's occurred on Thursday, but we're open-minded to a day or so after as well - at least a couple of days,' Detective Senior Sergeant Mark McEachern said on Monday.

'All we'll say at the moment is that it's a domestic-type relationship - it's very early in the investigation - so we don't know a lot at the moment.'

Officers were tight-lipped about the murder charge but said they believed the women died on Thursday

Police are asking for anyone who may have seen Olsonn driving his Subaru car (Pictured above) through the Limestone Coast area and Riverland region in the last four days

Detective McEachern said police were not in a position to reveal the identities of the murdered women.

'The cause of death will be determined from a post-mortem in the next couple of days,' he said.

The double tragedy has reportedly rocked the quiet country town of Millicent, which has a population just over 5000 people.

Police are seen wheeling out one of the women's bodies on Monday
Children pay the price when divorce is made easier, according to a major study published yesterday.

The inquiry, which examined families in 13 countries, found that the children were less likely to succeed in life.

Those reaching adulthood in the 1970s were far less likely to go into higher education than their counterparts in the 1940s and 50s, when divorce laws were much more restrictive.

Divorce without conflict causes deep shock and lifelong damage to children, a study has found

The easy divorce effect was so strong that children whose parents broke up in the liberal 1970s were nearly five times less likely to go to university than those whose parents parted in earlier decades.

Researchers suspect children of the earlier age group found it a relief when their parents parted after conflict and recrimination.

But they said many couples in the other age group who broke up in the 1970s were in relatively harmonious marriages that ended thanks to the growing ease of divorce.

Divorce without conflict causes deep shock and lifelong damage to children who had no reason to suspect their home was about to break up, the researchers concluded.

The findings are a major blow to the assumptions held by advocates of no-fault divorces. Campaigners for divorce reforms routinely maintain that making divorce easier, simpler and cheaper would be good for children whose parents want to leave their marriage. The study was carried out by a team led by Professor Martin Kreidl of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic.

Researchers suspect children of the earlier age group found it a relief when their parents parted after conflict and recrimination

It covered the history of more than 93,000 people recorded by UN-based surveys since the 1940s, and followed family break-ups in Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Romania.

It said: 'The burden of parental break-up became much stronger between 1940 and 1979.

'The burden associated with parental separation clearly becomes more negative when divorce is more common. The growth of the negative effect is rather strong.'

Researchers said a child whose parents divorced in the 1940s or 1950s was 2 per cent less likely to graduate from a university than other children. By the late 1970s children of broken homes were nearly 10 per cent less likely to go through university.

The study, which took into account the importance of factors such as the educational level of the divorcing couples, said the impact of divorce was most severe for the children of the least well-off.

It added: 'The dissolution of a high-conflict family may be a relief for the child, as well as for the parents. The break-up of a low-conflict family, on the other hand, is more likely to harm the child.

'The negative effect of parental separation on children's odds of graduating from university increases over birth cohorts and is stronger when separation is more common.

'This finding can be attributed to the declining levels of conflict accompanying separation and to the changing composition of the population of dissolving families.'

Laura Perrins, co-editor of the Conservative Woman website, said: 'This research shows yet again that divorce damages children, especially those from low conflict marriage.

'It would be very wrong to make divorce easier.'

Divorces in England and Wales doubled when rules introduced in 1972 allowed some separations after just six months.
Do the right thing and give Nigel Farage a knighthood, Theresa May was told yesterday.

Ha! She laughed like a blocked drain. Like an unamused horse. About ten husky chuckles, followed by a sniff as she inhaled. Then, after reflection, another few mirthless laughs with some shoulder movement. Once the topic had been abandoned, Mrs May did an instantaneous face-wipe and she was back to utter seriousness.

This was the most eye-catching moment in a long, not-so-action-packed session the Conservative leader did on Facebook yesterday afternoon when she took questions from social media users.

Theresa May held out little hope for a knighthood for Nigel Farage during a Facebook live interview conducted by Robert Peston, the ITV News political editor which was streamed live

40,000 people had submitted questions for the PM to answer during the 45-minute event

One correspondent thought former Ukip leader Nigel Farage should be given a knighthood

The 45-minute session  it felt longer, a great deal so  was chaired by ITV Newss Robert Peston. He worked his way through a long list of questions, though they were but a tiny fraction of the 40,000 he said the organisers had received.

The Sir Nigel question came from one Caroline Redwood. Mrs Mays jocular response was interpreted by Peston as diplomatic stonewalling  youre not going to say  and they quickly moved to the next question.

It would clearly have been tricky for Mrs May to say yes, Nigel deserves a knighthood, because a Prime Minister can not officially pre-empt such things. But would it really have been so hard for her to say something along the lines of though its not for me to say so, I think Nigel Farage has done more for democracy than masses of stodgy parliamentary backbenchers who have been dubbed?

The Facebook event certainly covered a lot of ground but that was because Peston chose not to do many follow-ups. He lobbed the basic questions to Mrs May (whose busily-checked jacket was strobing in the picture). She coughed up an answer. They moved immediately to the next item. Penetrating, this was not. All we saw was the wide range of topics and controversies to which a modern Prime Minister must have polished answers.

Foreign aid, the rights of EU citizens living here after Brexit, knife killings in London, benefit cuts for the vulnerable, tax relief for the rich, the price of railway tickets, her fashion sense, banning the burka: these were just some of the issues that came zooming past in the opening minutes.

Foreign aid, knife killings in London and the price of railway tickets were all raised by the public

It being Facebook, there was a chance for watchers (or at least those whose computers did not freeze, as mine kept doing) to press an icon saying if they liked, loved or were driven mad by the programme. By the time I looked, only 1,200 had loved it and 4,500 had liked it, but 10,300 viewers were screaming. Make that 10,301. As I say, my computer was buffering.

Tories threaten to free bus passes for OAPs Pensioners could lose their free bus passes under money-saving changes set out in the Tory manifesto, Theresa May hinted yesterday. She refused to reassure a voter who was concerned the travel entitlements for the retired and disabled could be taken away. During a question-and-answer session on Facebook, Mrs May said she would reveal her plans when we publish our manifesto later this week. Critics say the 1billion annual cost of free bus passes is too expensive and the entitlement should be taken away from wealthy pensioners. Advertisement

A viewer called John wanted to know about Mrs Mays diabetes. How did she control it? She said she injected herself four or five times a day and it was something one worked into ones routine. It doesnt stop you from doing anything, she added. A certain Jeremy Corbyn of Islington pinged in a question, all about the Tories failure to build houses and the lack of police on the streets and Mrs Mays reluctance to do TV debates. Mrs May dealt with this question in a prosaic manner. Thank you, caller. Goodness, shes a flinty old misery sometimes.

After a grumble about police budgets, Mrs May said the police did their part in helping to strengthen the economy after the mess it was left in by the Labour Party. Here is a splendid response to any public-sector worker complaining about low pay: to congratulate them on their patriotism in working for less. Onwards and downwards, people!

As the questions continued, and the programmes pace flagged, Peston flicked through his computer in search of unasked subjects. Editorial dispassion may be admirable but the formats weakness was that there was so little challenge to Mrs Mays replies. She confirmed her reputation as a formidably composed, grown-up, serious bod, but even she was clearly pretty relieved when it was all over.

Similar sessions with other party leaders will follow. You lucky devils.
A woman filmed after allegedly stealing bouquets of flowers from a cemetery on Mother's Day was photographed sitting on the train empty handed that same day.

The woman was confronted on video by a passerby who claims to have seen her remove the flowers from the Salisbury grave site, and she claims she purchased the bouquets.

Initially, the woman claimed to have bought them from the train station, before claiming to have purchased them from the city.

A woman accused of stealing flowers from a cemetery on Mother's Day was spotted riding a train empty handed on the same day

It is not known when the photograph, shared with 7 News, was taken but there is no florist between the train station and the cemetery, deepening the mystery of where the flowers came from - or where they went afterwards.

Gillian Aldridge, the Mayor of Salisbury, suggested to the broadcaster the woman may have sold the flowers on the street.

'What's even worse, maybe they wanted to sell them on the side of the street, and that would be very sad,' she said.

In the video, which has more than 200,000 views on Facebook, a man is heard telling off the woman for her alleged actions.

A woman has been sprung allegedly stealing bouquets of flowers from a grave on Mother's Day

'You're stealing flowers that people have taken from their mums,' the man said.

'People have sat them there for their mothers that have passed away, and you steal them.

'I can't believe that, that's sickening. I actually almost vomitted when I saw.

'You should be shot.'

The woman denied she stole the flowers and said she'd walked from the nearby train station with the flowers, not picked them up at the cemetery.

'You're stealing flowers that people have taken from their mums,' the man said as he followed her down the street

The footage does not capture the woman allegedly steal the flowers, just of her walking down the street.

A South Australian Police spokesperson said no report or complaint had been made.

Video posted to Facebook has been viewed more than 500,000 times, with 12,000 shares and thousands of likes.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the woman in the video but she declined to comment.
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A US Army Major who filmed Josef Stalin's funeral procession in 1953 left behind an incredible trove of color photographs showing life behind the Iron Curtain.

Major Martin Manhoff photographed everything from the construction of Stalinist skyscrapers to an elephant at the zoo while he served as an assistant army attache at the US Embassy in Moscow for two years.

Manhoff was deported for espionage in 1954, and the images he took were stored in a former auto body shop next to his home in Washington until both he and his wife Jan died.

When relative enlisted Seattle-based historian Douglas Smith to go through their belongings, he was amazed to find reels of 16 millimeter film, along with color slides and negatives, which were published onRadio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The collection will now be donated to the University of Washington.

Major Martin Manhoff, who filmed Josef Stalin's funeral procession in 1953 left behind an incredible trove of color photographs showing life behind the Iron Curtain. Pictured, Manezhnaya Square

Manhoff was a prolific photographer while he was serving as an assistant army attache at the US Embassy in Moscow from 1952 to 1954. Pictured, street cleaners in front of the GUM department store in the Red Square

Manhoff was deported for espionage in 1954, and the reels of 16 millimeter film, along with color slides and negatives, were stored in a former auto body shop next to his home in Washington for more than 60 years. Pictured, Manezhnaya Square

While he captured the only known independent footage of Stalin's funeral procession, most of Manhoff's photographs show people seemingly unaware that their lives were being documented. Pictured, Pushkinskaya Square

Manhoff 'captured this everyday quality, both in his photographs and his movies,' Smith says. 'It gives it a human quality that is missing from any other depiction.' Pictured, Park Kultury Metro Station

During his two years in the Soviet Union, Manhoff traveled widely in Moscow, Leningrad, Murmansk, and Yalta.

And while he captured the only known independent footage of Stalin's funeral procession, most of Manhoff's photographs show people seemingly unaware that their trip to the bank or the grocery store was being documented.

Manhoff 'captured this everyday quality, both in his photographs and his movies,' Smith says. 'It gives it a human quality that is missing from any other depiction.'

Smith, who spent months organizing the material and digitizing them, said: 'After his wife's death, I was asked to visit the Manhoff home this past summer and see whether Martin had left behind anything of value. I was amazed at what I discovered.

Manhoff died in 2005. After his wife passsed away, relatives enlisted Smith to help sort through the couple's vast belongings. Pictured, swimmers, unknown location

Smith was amazed at the discovery and spent months digitizing the images. He will now donate the collection to the University of Washington. Pictured, a market in Yalta, Crimea

While Mahoff did not leave a written record of his time in the Soviet Union, his wife Jan offered a glimpse into her experiences through letters she wrote to her friends in the US. Pictured, unknown location

While Mahoff did not leave a written record of his time in the Soviet Union, his wife Jan offered a glimpse into her experiences through letters she wrote to her friends in the US.

In one, she wrote: 'It is needless to state that one quickly realizes how well policed this city is.'

Another letter, dated Septemer 1952, states: 'The whole culture and physical picture is so foreign to anything upon which we can build comparison that it becomes almost impossible. It is like an initiation into a life that is too unique to make sense anywhere else.'

And when Manhoff and his wife Jan journeyed eastward along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the New York Times ran an article with the headline: '3 Americans Traveling into Heart of Siberia.'

Manhoff and his wife Jan journeyed eastward along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the New York Times ran an article with the headline: '3 Americans Traveling into Heart of Siberia' Pictured, two women outside train window, unknown location

Manhoff was accused of espionage in 1954, and he was deported from the Soviet Union. To this day, US intelligence agencies refuse to comment on his status. Pictured, Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, about 45 miles northeast of Moscow

In the Chicago Tribune on March 26, 1954, the paper covered the story of Manhoff being sent home.

The story said he and three other American diplomats had been sent packing for abusing the hospitality shown to them by Russia.

It said a local state-run paper carried news that the men had left espionage documents under a paper napkin while on a Trans-Siberian train the previous year.

The Russian newspaper said: 'If the above mentioned persons would like to get back their documents, which were evidently forgotten in a rush, they can do so by calling the porter's office.'

To this day, US intelligence agencies refused to comment on whether the accusations of espionage were warranted.
A live news broadcast of a police chase has inadvertently broadcast the fatal shooting of a suspect after he appeared to point a weapon at officers.

Los Angeles station KTLA broadcast the shooting on Monday afternoon during a foot chase in Long Beach, California, where officers with the South Gate Police Department were chasing a male and a female suspect.

News choppers were following a police pursuit of a white van with red rims, which was believed to be stolen.

The van screeched to a stop in the rear of a Target shopping center, and a male and female hopped out and began to run.

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The van screeched to a stop in the rear of a Target shopping center, and a male and female hopped out and began to run

The male suspect can be seen digging around inside a bag and pulling out a black glove, which he puts on his right hand

Then he reaches back inside the bag and pulls out what appears to be a handgun, pointing it at police

The female threw several bags down into the dirt and the two began to flee through a wooded area.

Some minutes later the pair were spotted fleeing down a railroad track near East Artesia Boulevard and Cherry Avenue.

The male suspect can be seen digging around inside a bag and pulling out a black glove, which he puts on his right hand.

Then he reaches back inside the bag and pulls out what appears to be a handgun, pointing it at police.

The male suspect points an object (circled) at the cops that are pursuing him

The male suspect collapses on his hands and knees, and then gets back up and runs several feet away from the officers before collapsing again

The male suspect collapses on his hands and knees, and then gets back up and runs several feet away from the officers before collapsing again.

The suspect was struck by gunfire and died at the scene, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which was called in to assist following the shooting.

The KTLA aerial news crew zoomed out after it became apparent gunshots had been fired, and quickly cut away from the live scene.

Police said no officers were injured in the incident.

The suspect was struck by gunfire and died at the scene, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

The female suspect continued fleeing on foot and barricaded herself inside this nearby building. She eventually surrendered peacefully

The male suspect, whose identity has yet to be announced by police, was declared dead at the scene.

A news chopper with ABC7 was also following the chase, but the channel is not believed to have been broadcasting the footage live at the time of the shooting.

The female suspect continued fleeing on foot and barricaded herself inside a nearby building.

A standoff with the female suspect lasted several hours, until she eventually surrendered peacefully.
Qantas passengers could soon be flying overseas on a plane called Vegemite.

The airline's new fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner planes are set to be named after Australian icons, with the popular yeast extract emerging as the early favourite.

The public has been handed the task of naming the airline's eight Dreamliner aircraft and other names already proving popular include lamington and Bondi Beach.

Hills Hoist, Don Bradman, the Great Barrier Reef and badagarang, a word for kangaroo in the Dharug language of the Eora nation, are also in contention.

Qantas has asked the public to help name the airline's new fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner planes (stock image)

Qantas passengers could soon be flying on an aircraft called Vegemite, if members of the public have their way (stock image)

Another aircraft name in contention is lamington (stock image)

'They can be people, places or things, so long as they reflect the true Spirit of Australia,' Qantas boss Alan Joyce said.

The Qantas Dreamliner aircraft will begin flying in October, first domestically and then between Melbourne and Los Angeles from December.

The aircraft will also be used on the historic Perth to London non-stop route from March next year, which will take about 17 hours.

The public has until May 26 to submit their eight preferred names online, one for every Qantas Dreamliner.

Bondi Beach (pictured) has also emerged as a popular choice among flyers for the new Qantas Dreamliner planes

One of the new Qantas Dreamliner aircraft could soon sport the name of famous Australian cricketer Don Bradman (pictured)

'Reflecting the importance of the Dreamliner to the national carrier, we're naming these eight aircraft after Australian icons,' Mr Joyce said.

'Whether it's a notable person, a ground breaking invention, a saying, or a landmark  we want eight icons that, together, reflect the depth and breadth of this place we all call home.'

The names will then be whittled down to 24 finalists, with the public then asked to choose their favourite to reveal the final eight.

The Great Barrier Reef (pictured) is in the mix to be named on a new Qantas Dreamliner
A man drenched in blood and carrying his mother's severed head walked into a grocery store and stabbed an employee, police said.

Joshua Lee Webb, 36, was arrested at the Estacada Thriftway Harvest Market in Oregon on Sunday afternoon.

After walking inside, Webb allegedly stabbed the worker - who was known as 'Mike' to locals.

Co-workers raced to Mike's aid after he was attacked, tackling Webb and pinning him to the ground until police arrived.

Joshua Lee Webb (left) reportedly was drenched in blood and carrying his mother's (right) severed head when he walked into a grocery store and stabbed an employee

Webb, 36, allegedly walked into the Estacada Thriftway Harvest Market (pictured) in Oregon on Sunday afternoon

Authorities then discovered the body of Webb's 59-year-old mother, Tina, in her home about 10 miles away in Colton, a short drive south of Estacada after someone called 911.

Police said they believe the two gruesome incidents are connected but did not say if the woman's body was decapitated.

Ernie Roberts, interim police chief in nearby Sandy, Oregon, spoke to reporters Monday about what happened inside the grocery store.

Roberts said the 36-year-old attacker did not say anything after he was 'subdued' - except for the bizarre moment when he told someone he was thirsty.

'He was in like a catatonic state, wasn't speaking to anybody,' the cop said.

'That's why he was transported to the hospital.'

Authorities then discovered the body of Webb's 59-year-old mother, Tina, in her home (pictured) about 10 miles away in Colton

Locals have began to leave candles and signs for the victim of the stabbing attack inside the grocery store

Mike remains in hospital for treatment on the wounds he suffered in the attack, but he is expected to survive.

Locals said Mike had worked at the store for years and was beloved by customers for his warm greetings and sense of humor.

The attack sent shock waves through the community, and customers were seen stopping off in a steady stream to drop off balloons at a tribute for Mike in front of the store. Many also signed a giant get-well poster.

Webb was found in possession of a large kitchen knife when he was arrested and he remains in hospital.
Higher earners face an average 3,000 income tax hike to fund a Labour spending spree.

Launching his partys election manifesto today, Jeremy Corbyn will vow to target the tight-fisted rich.

He will say they have pocketed tax cuts and bumper salaries while millions have struggled and been held back.

His plans include restoring the 50p top rate of tax and slashing the threshold for 45p tax from 150,000 to just 80,000.

Launching his partys election manifesto today, Jeremy Corbyn will vow to target the tight-fisted rich

The 1.5million middle-class workers in his sights would have to pay an extra 4.5billion in income tax  3,000 each.

Confirmation of the tax raid came as:

A poll revealed massive swings to the Tories in Labours former heartlands;

Mr Corbyn recruited communist stalwart Andrew Murray to help run his general election campaign;

The Labour leader insisted he was not wealthy despite earning 138,000;

His party prepared to unveil the most left-wing manifesto for decades, with plans for nationalisation of the energy industry and railways, the introduction of rent caps and the rolling back of anti-strike laws.

Labour last night refused to confirm the precise details of its tax plans, saying they would be detailed in the manifesto.

But Jonathan Ashworth, who is the partys health spokesman, confirmed the 50p top tax rate would be brought back to help fund the NHS.

Labour has admitted it wants to raise an extra 4.5billion from workers earning 80,000 to fund a spending spree by Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Liverpool)

Thousands of Corbyn supporters later descended on Leeds to hear the Labour leader at a campaign rally. Some climbed into trees to catch a glimpse of him

Those affected by changes to the 45p threshold would include senior teachers, police officers and doctors.

An individual on 100,000 a year would pay 1,000 more in income tax.

The complexities of the tax system mean some would face marginal rates of 65 per cent  losing almost two thirds of every extra pound they earnt.

Julian Jessop, chief economist at the free market Institute of Economic Affairs, said: This threshold change will penalise around 1.5million people who are likely to earn over 80,000 at some point in the next parliament.

The bigger the increases in marginal tax rates, the greater the disincentives to work hard or take risks.

The temptation to game the system to avoid tax will also be higher. Along with several other Labour Party proposals that will add to the burden on the economy, large increases in income tax may be the final straw.

Prime Minster Theresa May (pictured campaigning in Oxfordshire yesterday) said Labour would 'wreck the economy', which would mean less money for the NHS

The Labour leader posed for selfies with nurses at the Royal College of Nursing conference in Liverpool (pictured) as he vowed to give them a pay rise

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research has also questioned the move, pointing out that the 2012 decision to reduce the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p is thought to have cost the Exchequer only 100million.

The think-tank forecast that the tax raid would lead to income shifting by the better off which would almost certainly result in less revenue being raised than the full potential.

Tory former cabinet minister John Redwood said: It is well understood that you get more money out of the rich if you charge internationally competitive tax rates. If you try to penalise the rich they dont stay and pay  they find ways round it or go elsewhere.

138K CORBYN: I'M NOT WEALTHY Jeremy Corbyn has denied being wealthy  despite having been on 138,000 a year. The Labour leader sparked mystery over what he did with his pay packet by saying he did not feel rich because of where I put the money. His office refused to elaborate, leading to speculation that he might give much of his money to charity. His shadow chancellor John McDonnell wants to target tax rises at those earning more than 80,000, who he has described as well off. But in an interview for ITVs Tonight programme, Mr Corbyn, who was entitled to a salary of more than 138,000 as an MP and Leader of the Opposition, said: I consider myself well paid for what I do ... Im not wealthy because of where I put the money but Im not going into that. Advertisement

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies last year found that the top 1 per cent of earners were already paying 27.5 per cent of all income tax  up from 24.4 per cent in 2010. Over the same period, the proportion of working-age adults who did not pay income tax at all had risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 23million people.

Labour has also announced a massive tax raid on business, with corporation tax set to rise from 19 per cent to 26 per cent. Capital gains tax is also set to be hiked. But the manifesto leak suggests even these tax increases will not be enough, forcing the party to look at other tax rises or further borrowing.

The policy document was dubbed the most expensive suicide note in history last week when a draft was leaked.

The hard Left manifesto, which proposes renationalising the railways, the energy industry and the Royal Mail, is widely seen as a desperate attempt to shore up Labours core vote.

New polling yesterday revealed the party was haemorrhaging votes to the Tories in former heartland areas.

The YouGov survey pointed to dramatic swings in parts of the country where the Tories have been out of the picture for decades. In the North East, YouGov identified a 10 per cent swing from Labour. The swing to the Tories in the Midlands was 7 per cent, and more than 6 per cent in both the North West and Yorkshire.

Jeremy Corbyn should stay on as leader even if his party suffers a crushing general election defeat, Clive Lewis said last night.

The former business spokesman suggested Mr Corbyn should stay on to give the party stability.
Ian Brady, pictured from Glasgow, Scotland, died just after 6pm on Monday

The devastated brother of one of Ian Brady's victims has revealed his family's years of 'anguish and pain' at the hands of the killer after the evil murderer died at the age of 79.

Terry Kilbride - whose brother John was killed by Brady at the age of 12 - had begged the criminal to reveal the final resting place of Keith Bennett, another of the five victims.

But instead of ending the suffering of the boy's family, Brady never revealed where he buried Keith - who disappeared at the age of 12 in 1964.

His mother Winnie Johnson died in 2012 without knowing the truth about the location of her son's body.

Her son disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house on June 16, 1964, and Hindley lured him into her car and drove him to the Moors.

After Brady's death, Terry, 63, told The Sun: 'Nothing will change. He's dead but we will have to still live with the nightmare that he left behind.

'He was a murderous psychopath. There are no other words to describe what he was. A complete lunatic.'

He added: 'What a bastard. We're going to be taunted by a dead man from beyond the grave.'

Brady, who killed five children with lover Myra Hindley in the 1960s, had been receiving palliative care at a secure mental health hospital.

The murderer, who was being held in Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside, was suffering from untreatable cancer and emphysema.

John Kilbride, pictured left, was killed by Brady at the age of 12. His brother Terry had begged the evil murderer to reveal the final resting place of Keith Bennett, pictured right, another of the five victims

Terry Kilbride, pictured - whose brother John was killed by Brady at the age of 12 - had begged the criminal to reveal the final resting place of Keith Bennett, another of the five victims

Thousands of Twitter users posted messages about the death of the evil murderer. One said: 'I'm truly saddened by the death of Ian Brady. I was hoping he could fester in his miserable existence for at least another twenty years.'

Brady, from Glasgow, Scotland, died just after 6pm on Monday and police informed relatives of the children who were killed.

Among them was Terry West, whose ten-year-old sister Lesley Ann Downey was abducted and murdered in 1964.

'We've been waiting for this day for such a long time,' the 66-year-old said last night. 'I poured myself a glass of wine when I found out. It's closure for our family.

'But I really feel for Keith Bennett's brother Alan and the rest of his family  this probably means they'll never know where his body was buried.

'He's taken it to the grave. There's still one poor kiddie up there on the Moors.

Brady (pictured with Myra Hindley and her younger sister Maureen) had been at Ashworth Hospital since 1985 and the hospital confirmed he died just after 6pm on Monday

Brady was being held in Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside (pictured) in a secure unit and the institution revealed on Monday he has died

PC Norman Brennan, right, a policeman who worked with the victims' families, spoke of their 'grief and torment'. He is pictured in 2004 with an emotional Jayne Walmsley - the mother of 14-year-old Luke

'My heart goes out to Alan  at least I've got somewhere that I can visit our Les, he hasn't even got that.'

Mr West added: 'What Brady did will never be forgotten  it's had such an effect on all our lives.

'I had to protect my children when they were growing up, I wouldn't let them play out in the street.'

Lesley Ann Downey, a family member of one of his victim's, also posted a tweet online saying: 'We as a family have had the best news ever! Brady the devil's disciple is DEAD!!! May you rot in F****** HELL!!!!!!!!!!'

BRADY'S FIVE VICTIMS Pauline Reade, 16, was the couple's first victim. She was on her way to a local dance when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped Pauline, beaten and stabbed. John Kilbride, 12, was snatched from Ashton market on Saturday November 23, 1963. He was strangled and buried in a shallow grave. He was the second of Brady and Hindley's five victims. Keith Bennett, 12, disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house. Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors where he was murdered. The method of killing has never been made clear. The pair buried his body which has never been found. Lesley Ann Downey, 10, disappeared on Boxing Day. She had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley's house. She was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Edward Evans, 17, was the sick duo's final victim. He had just been to see Manchester United play when Brady lured in Edward. Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe Advertisement

Former police officer Norman Brennan, who represented the family of Lesley Ann Downey, told Newsnight about the 'grief and torment' he saw on the faces of her mother and father.

He told the programme: 'To know that your daughter was lost, alone and murdered and then actually her death was recorded, the grief can never ever be etched from your mind.

'Those two individuals, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, they didn't just destroy five young children's lives.

'For their relentless appeals and false hopes that they gave the families for over 50 years destroyed all of the families as well, even to this day.'

Thousands of Twitter users posted messages about the death of the evil murderer.

One said: 'I'm truly saddened by the death of Ian Brady. I was hoping he could fester in his miserable existence for at least another twenty years.'

Another poignantly added: 'Tonight we remember Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans.'
Tory plans for a dramatic expansion of workers rights faced a backlash last night.

Small businesses warned the proposals could hit the middle-aged while experts said it posed a threat to jobs that risked turning the UK into Italy.

Theresa May has outlined 11 radical pledges aimed at rebranding the Conservatives as the party of workers  including the right to take up to a year off work to care for sick relatives.

Theresa May has been accused of attempting to turn Britain into Italy by business groups after proposing new worker entitlements such as the right take a year off to care for elderly relatives

This has led to fears that middle aged people could be discriminated against if they have elderly parents who might be in need of additional care

The measures also include child bereavement leave, further increases in the minimum wage and more opportunities for training. But critics said the proposals  which Mrs May hopes will woo Labour voters  would impose extra costs on businesses and tie them up in yet more red tape.

It is also feared that middle-aged workers could be discriminated against by employers worried they will take up their legal right to time off to care for elderly parents.

The Federation of Small Businesses said recruits should not be asked in interviews if they have relatives who need looking after.

Small firms with only two or three employees could be hit hardest by the proposals, said the FSB  which also called for new regulations to be backed up with support for small businesses.The Adam Smith Institute, a free market think-tank, said the policies could damage the flexibility of Britains labour market which has allowed unemployment to fall to 4.7 per cent.

The higher cost of regulation would also be passed on by firms in the form of lower wages and higher prices.

Ben Southwood, of the think-tank, accused the Prime Minister of trying to turn us into Italy where unemployment is 11.7 per cent.

He said: Theresa Mays decision to copy Ed Milibands continental-style labour laws risks continental-style unemployment and stagnation.

One of the British economys greatest strengths is its flexible labour market: it is easy to hire and fire workers, and when you do, the terms are simple and lightweight. Leading business groups also sounded a note of caution as small companies grapple with a range of costly new measures  including the apprenticeship levy.

Stephen Martin, of the Institute of Directors, said: The key thing for us is that the next Government balances extra regulations with help to manage costs, for smaller firms in particular.

Adam Marshall, of the British Chambers of Commerce, said that businesses feared the prospect of costly or bureaucratic new obligations, no matter how well-intentioned.

Len Shackleton, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: Intervention of this kind will lead to increased costs and threaten to undermine the UKs comparatively high employment rate  largely a result of our flexible labour market. Brexit should be used as an opportunity to reduce the burden of regulation in this sector, not to increase it. Labour campaign chairman Andrew Gwynne said the Tories have failed to stand up for workers.

Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem former business secretary, said: The Conservatives tried to ban workers from striking and were blocked by the Liberal Democrats in government. Its clear they arent the party of workers rights and that you cant trust them to care about you and your family.
The names Mendes . . . Baby Mendes. 007 director Sam Mendes is to become a father again with his new wife, the classical musician Alison Balsom.

I can confirm they are expecting, the film-makers spokesman tells me.

The baby will be a half-brother or sister for Oscar-winner Kate Winslets 13-year-old son, Joe.

Mendes and Balsom decline to say when their first child is due, but the blonde trumpeter has been forced to cancel a concert she was scheduled to perform this Thursday at Londons Wigmore Hall.

We are delighted to hear the news that Alison Balsom is pregnant and fully understand that she is unable to proceed with some of her concerts during this time, says a spokesman for the venue.

007 director Sam Mendes is to become a father again with his new wife, the classical musician Alison Balsom. The pair, pictured above, tied the knot with the utmost discretion in January

In January, I disclosed that the couple had tied the knot with the utmost discretion in Oxfordshire.

Their plans were so secret some friends did not even know that Mendes, 51, was engaged to the glamorous 38-year-old.

The couple had a blessing, confirmed the Reverend Ginny Thomas, who conducted the church service at St Michael and All Angels, in the village of Great Tew.

The wedding had been held previously at a register office.

Builders daughter Balsom has a six-year-old son, Charlie, with her ex-boyfriend Edward Gardner, 42, from whom she separated in 2011. Hes a top conductor and former music director of the English National Opera.

Mendes and Balsom decline to say when their first child is due, but the blonde trumpeter has been forced to cancel a concert she was scheduled to perform this Thursday in London

Mendes, who directed the most recent James Bond films Skyfall and Spectre and won an Oscar in 1999 for American Beauty, was married to Winslet, 41, from 2003 to 2010.

Last October I revealed that Mendes was enjoying a romance with Balsom. The couple moved into a 300-year-old former rectory she had bought for 1.9 million by the seaside in Dorset.

The director has never had any trouble attracting beauties. He split up with Hollywood actress Rebecca Hall in 2015 and, before his marriage to Winslet, courted fellow Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz and Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart.

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Kirstie strop at Bafta snub

It isnt just the 100 million Netflix series The Crown that was snubbed by the Bafta awards on Sunday. Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp complained the same evening that she had also been overlooked for a trophy.

This is the night I get in a grump, 18 years at the top of our game, created an entire TV genre yet never even nominated, she says.

Allsopp, 45, has co-presented Location, Location, Location on Channel 4 since 2000 with Phil Spencer and its spin-off Relocation, Relocation between 2004 and 2011.

Theres just no point pretending I dont mind, because I do, she adds. Phil and I once even handed out a Bafta award.

Not all her social media followers agreed and one even commended Bafta. Cos LLLs quite boring and you are quite annoying, says one.

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Why Dahl's not a tall order for Downton Hugh

Hugh Bonneville will star as Roald Dahl in a forthcoming film about the author's troubled marriage to Patricia Neal

Playing Roald Dahl shouldnt be too much of a stretch for Hugh Bonneville, who will star as the childrens author in a forthcoming film about his troubled marriage to Patricia Neal.

This is about what happens in a particular moment in their marriage and in their life, so its really about a one-year period when things werent so great, Hugh tells me.

Fortunately, the 53-year-old Downton Abbey star, who has been married to Lulu Williams for 19 years, already has something in common with the 6ft 6in author.

The only similarity I see between myself and Roald Dahl is that Im tall.

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Soames is half the man he used to be

Winston Churchills grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, is going to great lengths to stand out while campaigning for re-election in his Mid-Sussex constituency.

The 69-year-old Tory reposted the below picture on social media of himself riding while trying to secure votes ahead of the General Election.

He also shows off his dramatic weight loss from 20st, which no doubt makes life easier for the horse.

An old girlfriend once joked that making love with him was like having a wardrobe fall on you with the key sticking out.

Winston Churchills grandson, 69-year-old Sir Nicholas Soames, reposted this picture, left, on social media of himself riding while trying to secure Tory votes ahead of the General Election

Proud Kate Beckinsales dead-ringer daughter

Kate Beckinsale shared this picture of her daughter and said she took her breath away

Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale played the role of gushing mother when she shared this photo of her 18-year-old daughter reaching a teenage milestone at the weekend.

Lily, whose father is Kates ex-partner, actor Michael Sheen, posed for a photo at her school prom.

Wearing a strapless red dress similar to her mothers, Lily has grown into a mini-me of the Pearl Harbor star as she shares her long dark hair and peaches and cream complexion.

You take my breath away, Kate, 43, captioned it.

Youre funny and clever and gorgeous and just enough crazy to be my favourite person in world.

Despite her movie star looks, LA resident Lily has no plans to follow either of her parents into acting just yet and will enter higher education later this year.

Meet Gags really quite sensible mum!

Sartorial prowess runs in the family with pop star Lady Gaga, 31, and her mother Cynthia Cindy Germanotta, 63, turning heads when they met for lunch at the weekend.

Germanotta dressed like a woman much younger than her years with striking red glasses, tracksuit trousers, white Nike trainers and an over-sized white blazer.

Lady Gaga, left, went for lunch with her mother, right, over the weekend, and the pair looked like the shared the same kooky styling

Meanwhile the avant-garde pop star sported a kooky cowboy-style look combining a yellow top with pleated bell sleeves, brown and yellow bell-bottom trousers tied with straps, shades and a broad-brimmed hat.

Gaga, who in 2010 famously wore a dress made of raw beef, says: Im so fascinated by my mother as a style icon. She carries whatever she wears like a queen.

The force is strong with this bond

Star Wars actor John Boyega, a favourite to play 007, has hired James Bonds trainer to get into shape. Asked what he wished hed been told when he was starting out, John says: Lose some weight! To an extent, I enjoy being chubby. But in terms of the roles Im taking on now, fitness is required. I have a trainer who also trains Daniel Craig.

Hell reveal his new six-pack when he plays the eponymous role of soldier Woyzeck at the Old Vic.

Who would play Ray? Brad of course

Tough guy actor Ray Winstone appears to be suffering from a delusion. When asked who would play him in a film about his life, he replies without hesitation: Brad Pitt. He looks a bit like me.
Patients who had operations cancelled during the NHS cyber- attack may have to wait up to six weeks until they finally see a doctor, it emerged last night.

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, yesterday claimed the 'vast majority of patients will have noticed no difference' following the attack, which crippled dozens of health trusts.

But the biggest impact is yet to be felt  as countless cancelled procedures are having to be rescheduled at hospitals already running close to capacity.

British computer security expert Marcus Hutchins, 22, discovered the WannaCry super-virus had a 'kill switch' and stopped it infecting 100,000 more PCs worldwide over the weekend

The ransomware hit computers around the globe including in Germany where the rail network was infected

Insiders insisted that the most serious operations would be re-arranged for later this week but some patients were told yesterday that they will not be seen for another six weeks. More operations will be postponed today.

At the peak of the crisis 47 NHS trusts were affected, meaning thousands of patients are facing lengthy waits. Last night, Miss Rudd said the Government was 'going after' the criminals behind the attack as part of an 'international manhunt'.

Officials insisted the health service remained 'open for business' but across the country hospitals and GP surgeries struggled to get back on track.

Two hospitals  in Hertfordshire and Essex  were still diverting heart attack and trauma patients away from A&E. And 11 NHS trusts continued to postpone non-essential operations.

Breast cancer screening services in North Yorkshire were suspended yesterday, all routine MRI and CT scans were cancelled in Southport and patients in Cumbria and the North-East were asked 'to consider carefully' before trying to see a GP.

Hospitals in parts of London, Hertfordshire, Merseyside and Lincolnshire admitted procedures and appointments would be cancelled for at least another day as they focus on urgent care.

Though Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said a feared second attack on the NHS did not materialise, the National Crime Agency said the danger had not yet passed  with other experts warning a new variant of the virus had been developed.

The hackers who brought chaos to the NHS struck all over the world on Friday and an international manhunt for them has begun. Cyber investigators are visiting NHS hospitals as part of the efforts to find them.

Hospitals and other organisations are braced for mayhem as the NHS tries to get back on its feet following Friday's crippling cyber attack (pictured)

KEEN SURFER HALTED VIRUS The 22-year-old IT expert hailed an 'accidental hero' for slowing the spread of the cyber-attack yesterday revealed he is working with the Government to thwart another potential virus. Marcus Hutchins protected more than 100,000 computers globally from being infected  by registering a website domain name that unexpectedly halted the virus. The keen surfer from Devon, also known as Malware Tech, is now working with the Government's National Cyber Security Centre to prevent a new strain of the malicious software from emerging. He said: 'I've been in touch with NCSC, passing any useful intelligence to them.' Advertisement

Dr Anne Rainsberry, national incident director at NHS England, said last night: 'There are encouraging signs that the situation is improving, with fewer hospitals having to divert patients from their A&E units. The message to patients is clear: the NHS is open for business. Staff are working hard to ensure that the small number of organisations still affected return to normal shortly. If people have hospital or GP appointments they should attend unless told otherwise.'

One of the most seriously affected hospitals was Lister Hospital in Stevenage, where ambulances carrying trauma, stroke and heart patients were diverted to other hospitals.

At Broomfield Hospital in Essex all trauma patients were sent instead to Southend.

Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust said all outpatients and endoscopy appointments for yesterday and today had been cancelled. Patients scheduled for surgery on either day 'should not attend unless contacted directly', it said.

Mr Hunt, making his first public comments since the attack on Friday, said: 'According to our latest intelligence, we have not seen a second wave of attacks.'

Crossbench peer and former civil service chief Sir Bob Kerslake warned: 'I suspect the defence and security systems are pretty well protected but beyond that I think pretty much every government department is at risk here,' he told the BBC's Westminster Hour.'

National Crime Agency boss Lynne Owens said: 'We're trawling through huge amounts of data associated with the attack and identifying patterns.

'More than 150 countries have been affected, and we're in constant communication with international partners, including Europol, Interpol and the FBI.'

Amber Rudd said: 'The NCA and the security department are working very hard to make sure we find out exactly who it was. We have an international manhunt taking place.'

Bosses left hospitals vulnerable

Ministers yesterday pointed the finger at NHS bosses for failing to protect their computers from the cyber-attack as the blame game escalated.

The newly opened National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), an arm of intelligence agency GCHQ, sought to move responsibility to organisations that had been hit.

Ciaran Martin, the NCSC chief executive, said 'lessons' should be learned by those who had failed to install 'basic protections' on their networks. Meanwhile, Microsoft was slammed after it attempted to shift the blame for the 'WannaCrypt' virus, which only attacks devices running its Windows operating system, onto the Government.

The 22-year-old computer security expert Marcus Hutchins, (known online as Malware Tech, pictured with a friend)

Brad Smith, chief legal officer at Microsoft, said victims of the hack left their computers exposed by failing to update their systems. In an astonishing attack, he warned Governments to treat the hack as a 'wake-up call', and said: 'We need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits.'

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and ambulance trusts, accused ministers of 'NHS bashing' after the service was brought to its knees. He said: 'It's worth pointing out that 80 per cent of NHS trusts were not affected. The quick rush by some to lay the blame on 'incompetent NHS managers' is disappointing.'

But NHS officials admitted trusts had been sent a 'patch' that defends against the virus just two weeks ago  but not all hospitals had updated their systems.

NCSC chief Mr Martin dismissed accusations that his organisation had failed its first major test, and warned it was impossible to stop every attack.

Meanwhile Vladimir Putin denied Russia's involvement in the hack, blaming the US for the breach.

The WannaCrypt virus exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft computer systems that was first discovered by the US National Security Agency and later leaked by a hacker group known as Shadow Brokers.

The cyber-attack has affected 200,000 computer systems in 150 countries. The malicious software locks a device and then demands a ransom to unfreeze it.
A Republican who has praised strong border controls and admires Winston Churchill was yesterday named France's Prime Minister.

Centre-Right politician Edouard Philippe, 46, will serve Emmanuel Macron, 39, as his deputy after Mr Macron was elected President earlier this month.

The appointment has been regarded as a bid to broaden the appeal of the President's political movement, En Marche (on the move), ahead of the country's parliamentary elections next month.

The choice by Mr Macron  a former socialist minister  illustrated his commitment to break down the left-right divide which has dominated French politics for decades.

Centre-Right politician Edouard Philippe, 46, will serve Emmanuel Macron, 39, as his deputy after Mr Macron was elected President earlier this month

It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his camp without being forced to by a defeat in parliamentary elections.

Mr Philippe, who is mayor of Le Havre, a gateway to Britain near the channel, has previously told of the importance of a strong border between Britain and France.

In an interview last year, he said: 'We have to keep a right to asylum, that's what we are about, but we also have to ensure that migratory movements are controlled, that illegal channels are barred.'

Speaking about clashes between police and migrants in the squalid 'Jungle' camp in Calais, Mr Philippe said: 'These images of tension do shock the French people  They certainly don't fill me with joy.'

And in response to the Brexit vote, he said: 'We have this very strong link with England and it is good that way. After the British vote we have entered a zone of total unknown ... Nothing is written, everything still needs to be talked about.'

Observers have compared Mr Philippe and Mr Macron previously because of their young ages relative to other politicians as well as their private sector backgrounds.
Barely one in five voters still wants Britain to stay in the European Union, a poll said yesterday.

Almost a year on from the historic referendum on Britains membership of the EU, the survey suggests that around half of those who voted Remain now accept the result.

Just 22 per cent of voters now say they cannot support Britain leaving the EU and believe the Government should ignore the result of the referendum or seek to overturn it.

The figure is far below the 48 per cent polled by Remain in the referendum.

Barely one in five voters still wants Britain to stay in the European Union, a poll said yesterday (the European Parliament in Brussels is pictured)

By contrast, some 68 per cent of voters now want the Government to deliver Brexit. This figure includes a solid 45 per cent of voters who backed Brexit.

But it also includes 23 per cent of voters who said that although they did not support the decision to leave the EU, they now accept the Government has a duty to carry out the referendum result.

The findings, which came in a YouGov survey for the Financial Times, suggest Theresa Mays strategy of emphasising the need to get on with Brexit could pay dividends at the election.

Marcus Roberts of YouGov said the findings revealed the emergence of a new group of Re-Leavers  former Remain supporters who now want the Government to get on with delivering Brexit.

Mr Roberts said: Theresa May is fishing in a massive lake of voters with very little competition. Meanwhile, the other parties are splitting the hard Remain vote among themselves, something that in the first-past-the-post system only serves to make the Conservatives an even more formidable electoral machine.

In the 11 months since the EU referendum, it has become a common theme that we are now a nation divided  52/48.

The findings, which came in a YouGov survey for the Financial Times, suggest Theresa Mays strategy of emphasising the need to get on with Brexit could pay dividends at the election

However, while it is true that most people still think they voted the right way last June, when it comes to the composition of the Brexit tribes in the general election, it is not a simple as Leave and Remain.

There is a third group who change the dynamics of EU-related arguments  the Re-Leavers. The YouGov poll of more than 5,000 voters also suggests that Brexit supporters are overwhelmingly swinging behind the Conservatives, regardless of their previous political affiliation.

The study found that around six in ten of those now backing Brexit plan to vote Conservative  a development that Mr Roberts said put the Tories in landslide territory.

Tory Eurosceptic Peter Bone said: We are seeing Labour voters who backed Brexit coming across to us in their droves  I have never experienced anything like it. Labour have misjudged the public mood on Brexit badly  everyone knows that they are half-hearted about it, and the result is that many of their supporters are turning to a Conservative PM to deliver what they voted for. The Remainers are out of touch  most people just want to get on with it now.

Mrs May has made the delivery of Brexit the centrepiece of the Tory campaign. She said the wrecking tactics of diehard Remainers at Westminster were a key factor in her decision to call a snap election.

The Tory manifesto is expected to ask voters for a clear mandate to take Britain out of the single market, end free movement and stop intervention by EU judges.
A former private school teacher jailed twice over a relationship with a 15-year-old has become the subject of a petition with university students furious he is allowed to live in campus accommodation.

Nicolaas Bester, 63, was jailed for two years in 2011 for having a sexual relationship with a former student while he was the head of science at the all-girls school St Michael's Collegiate in Hobart.

He was then sent back to jail for four months in 2016 after he bragged about the relationship with the teenager as 'awesome' and 'enviable' on Facebook.

During his parole period, he enrolled in a PhD course in chemistry at the University of Tasmania and students claim they are being put at risk by having Bester live in campus housing.

Nicolaas Bester, 63, (pictured) was jailed for two years in 2011 for having a sexual relationship with a former student while he was a teacher at the all-girls school St Michael's Collegiate

During his parole period, he enrolled in a PhD course in chemistry at the University of Tasmania (pictured) and students claim the campus is putting them at risk by having Bester live on-site

UTas deputy vice-chancellor Brigid Heywood said she was aware of the petition and said Bester's enrollment had been 'considered with great care'.

'Out of respect to concerns raised previously we have asked, and the student has agreed, to focus their time on campus only in the facilities where their research project is based,' she said.

'Staff and students in these facilities are aware of the students background and supportive of the students research work continuing.

'There is nothing in the rules of either the University or Government relating to research-students which precludes this student from continuing with their research'.

'There is nothing in the university or government rules governing PhDs which precludes this student from continuing with their research'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the University of Tasmania for further comment.

Bester enrolled in the course as a mature-aged student after he was released from jail on the first charge, according to The ABC.

UTas Women's Collective member Heidi La Paglia started a petition (pictured) to have Bester removed from the campus and has since amassed over 1,400 signatures

After he went back to prison in 2016, the university declined to comment on whether Bester would still be allowed to continue his studies once he was released.

UTas Women's Collective member Heidi La Paglia started a petition to have Bester removed from the campus and has since amassed over 1,400 signatures.

She said Bester is living in the student accommodation complex and is in 'close proximity with many students'.

Ms La Paglia said the university is 'ignoring' its own behaviour policy.

'[It] states that all staff and students have a right to work and / or study in an environment that is free from inappropriate behaviour, including the sexually harassing and abusive behaviours which Bester has engaged in,' she said.
A male escort told friends he was actually a chef before he murdered, dismembered and cooked the remains of his Indonesian transgender sex worker wife.

Marcus Volke, 27, fled the Brisbane apartment he shared with his wife Mayang Prasetyo and slit his own throat in an industrial bin while hiding from police in a shocking murder-suicide in October 2014.

Shortly after their gruesome deaths, Pleasure Dome owner Ivan Gneil told Daily Mail Australia the female staff were scared of Volke after he brought a gun into work.

Mr Gneil also revealed the male sex worker was using methamphetamines.

'Other girls here said he had started to become violent. He was asked to leave here and the reason, I believe, was because he brought a gun in,' Mr Gneil told Daily Mail Australia in 2014.

'Marcus was also definitely a drug user. He was on ice, we just don't tolerate it here.'

Scroll down for video

WARNING: Disturbing details

Indonesian transgender sex worker Mayang Prasetyo (pictured) was murdered and dismembered by her male escort husband Marcus Volke

Volke (pictured doing karate) fled the Brisbane apartment they shared and slit his own throat in an industrial bin while hiding from police

Volke and Ms Prasetyo left the brothel in 2012. Mr Gneil last spoke to Ms Prasetyo on Facebook two months before her murder.

In an online advertisement under the name Heath XL, Volke described himself as a 'young sexy Australian boy, very friendly and easy going'.

The ad went onto to say: 'I can be your companion for an hour or as long as u want, for a dinner, a hot session, holidays or more.'

A friend who knew the couple well at the time told Daily Mail Australia the couple led a double life and Volke told loved ones he was a chef to hide the way he'd been making a living.

More gruesome details of their deaths are expected to emerge as an inquest continues on Tuesday.

On the first day of an inquest on Monday, State Coroner Terry Ryan was shown graphic police footage of a ghastly crime scene that took authorities four days to clean up in October 2014.

In an online advertisement under the name Heath XL, Volke described himself as a 'young sexy Australian boy, very friendly and easy going'

In October 2014 Marcus Volke, 27, murdered, disfigured and began cooking the body parts of Indonesian woman Mayang Prasetyo (pictured) at their Brisbane apartment

A policeman who first attended the scene of a ghastly Brisbane murder thought it was a sick 'Halloween' prank before realising it was the woman's feet cooking in a pot

The court heard evidence from officers who were first to arrive at the couple's Teneriffe apartment, where they described being confronted by a foul smell like off dog food.

Officers described finding some of Ms Prasetyo's remains in a black garbage bag in the couple's washing machine, while her feet were protruding from a stock pot on the kitchen floor, next to a pool of blood.

A policeman who first attended the scene of a ghastly Brisbane murder thought it was a sick 'Halloween' prank before realising it was the woman's feet cooking in a pot, the inquest heard.

Two police officers conducted a welfare check at the Teneriffe unit after the building manager reported a foul smell and neighbours noticed the 27-year-old high-class escort missing.

Initially locked out by Volke, who said he needed to tie up his dogs, the policemen then discovered Ms Prasetyo's feet in a stockpot on the floor beside a pool of blood before finding him dead in a nearby industrial bin.

Shortly after their gruesome deaths, Pleasure Dome (pictured) owner Ivan Gneil told Daily Mail Australia the female staff were scared of Volke after he brought a gun into work

Volke attempted to dispose of the 27-year-old victim's remains by boiling them on the stove in their upmarket Teneriffe unit, police said at the time

Ms Prasetyo's feet were protruding from a stock pot on the kitchen floor, next to a pool of blood, in the apartment she shared with her murderer and husband Marcus Volke

'Originally I thought it was some kind of sick prank, like a Halloween kind of (thing),' Constable Liam McWhinney told the Brisbane Coroners Court on Monday.

THE PHONE CALL MARCUS VOLKE MADE TO AN ELECTRICIAN Volke: 'G'day, is this a 24-hour electrician?' Electrician: 'It is.' Volke: 'Yeah, I've got a bit of a problem. I was cooking on my stove, it's an electric stove, and the stock pot boiled over, dripped down and got into the oven and basically made this big bang and then all my power turned off. Does it sound like something you'd be able to fix today?' Electrician: 'Yeah it should be yeah.' Volke: 'Do you rekcon it just blew a fuse or something?' Electrician: 'Yeah, by the sounds of it.' When the contractor arrived, Volke told him: 'You'll have to mind the smell, I'm cooking pig's broth.' Advertisement

'But there was a substantial blood pool at the base of the fridge, so putting two and two together it didn't seem like a harmless prank.'

Coroner Terry Ryan was shown graphic and harrowing footage from the body cameras of Const McWhinney and Sen Const Bryan Reid who were first to arrive at the grisly scene.

They told the inquest Volke became defensive when they told him of their intentions to enter the unit on the night of October 4.

Volke was questioned about a severe laceration to his wrist, which he blamed on his girlfriend, and the whereabouts of Ms Prasetyo before allowing him to go back inside the unit to tether his dogs.

But once inside, the court heard, Volke locked the door, self-harmed and exited the building from a rear entrance, evading police when he ran down a dark alleyway and hid in an industrial rubbish bin.

He was surrounded by 15 officers with no escape, according to News.com.au. When police opened the bin they found he had slit his own throat with the knife he grabbed on his way out of the flat.

Volke's heinous crime was only uncovered when the huge pot he used to dispose of the remains boiled over and short-circuited his apartment's power

The death of Ms Prasetyo, who was a sex worker to support her family in Indonesia and put her two sisters through school, sent shockwaves across Australia

The welfare check had been sparked when Volke phoned an electrician.

The huge pot he used to dispose of Ms Prasetyo's remains boiled over and short-circuited his apartment's power.

A contractor was later confronted by a putrid smell, which the killer tried to explain away.

'You'll have to mind the smell, I'm cooking pig's broth,' Volke said, according to 9News.

The electrician raised the alarm to the building managers, who phoned the police.

The inquest heard Volke was working as an escort in Melbourne's club scene to pay off his credit card when he met and struck a deal with the Indonesian woman, who wanted to stay in Australia.

The Indonesian woman was murdered and dismembered by her husband in October 2014

Volke had worked as a chef part-time, but was unable to continue because he was mentally unwell

The pair married in Denmark before their gruesome deaths.

During questioning by counsel assisting the coroner, Emily Cooper, Detective Sergeant Joshua Walsh told the court the couple had met earlier while working as escorts, according to police interviews with Volke's former partner.

'She provided the information that they were residing together for an extended period of time,' Det Sgt Walsh said.

'During that time Marcus had accrued a debt of approximately $9,000 in credit cards, with no means of repaying it.'

Det Sgt Walsh said Volke had worked as a chef part-time, but was unable to continue because he was mentally unwell.

He decided to become a male escort in Melbourne clubs as a way of repaying the debt.

Volke and Ms Prasetyo moved into a ground floor apartment with their three dogs at the Teneriffe complex in Brisbane

Detective Sergeant Joshua Walsh (pictured) told the court the couple had met earlier while working as escorts

Senior Constable Bryan Reid (pictured) was one of the first police officers on the scene

'That was where he came into contact with Febri Andriansyah,' Det Sgt Walsh said.

'They came up with an agreement between the two parties that he would assist with her getting a permanent partner visa for Australia and she would assist him within transgender clubs within Melbourne and overseas, in Europe and Asia.'

The pair had travelled through Asia and Europe together, working as escorts in transgender clubs, the court heard.

Det Sgt Walsh said Volke and his former partner had kept in regular contact through emails and Facebook.

'She was able to ascertain that he was struggling, with both his identity and his employment, and wanted to break free from that and start as a dog breeder in Brisbane upon his return,' he said.

'On one occasion she stated that he was considering self-harm.'

Eerie images have emerged of the Brisbane flat where the woman was murdered and cooked on the stove. The stove can be seen here

The apartment complex in the riverside enclave was virtually brand new at the time of the murder, and the pair were among the first to move in

An image of the sun-drenched living room in the apartment where Ms Prasetyo was murdered

Detective Sergeant Joshua Walsh earlier told the inquest Volke had visited a Newstead-based doctor for anxiety, depression and sleep disorder two weeks before the couple's deaths, and had been treated at Victoria's Ballarat Hospital in his teens.

The death of Ms Prasetyo, who sent money home to her family, shocked the world.

Eerie images on Monday emerged of the flat. Pictures show the stove where Ms Prasetyo's lifeless body was cooked on the electric stove.

Mr Ryan has been tasked with delivering findings on when, where and how she died, what caused the couple's deaths and whether officers who attempted to detain Volke complied with police policy and procedure.

The hearing continues on Tuesday.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

National domestic violence helpline: 1800 737 732. In an emergency call triple-0.
Sir Michael Fallon upset EU officials yesterday over the naming of a new EU military command centre.

They accused the defence secretary of 'chest-banging' over Brexit after he blocked defence plans drawn up by Brussels chiefs.

The row erupted as the foreign secretary Boris Johnson arrived for talks in Brussels on plans for the new military centre in the Belgian capital.

Germany, Finland, and other member states were outraged after the UK said it would not support proposals to call the centre an 'operational headquarters'.

Sir Michael Fallon upset EU officials yesterday over the naming of a new EU military command centre

The UK was also defiant over the wording of the new head of the centre and refused to sign off the word 'commander', instead replacing it with the civilian term 'director'

Instead, EU ministers were yesterday forced to settle with the term 'Military Planning and Conduct Capabilities (MPCC) unit' to avoid it sounding like an EU army.

The UK was also defiant over the wording of the new head of the centre and refused to sign off the word 'commander', instead replacing it with the civilian term 'director'.

Britain's resistance over the plans comes amid fears the UK could be dragged into further EU integration  and ultimately an EU army - at the expense of Nato.

Mr Johnson admitted that the UK had reservations about the wording of the agreement, including the naming of the centre.

The centre will be used for EU military training missions overseas. But he said Britain would not stand in the way of moves towards an EU army.

He said: 'If they want to come together as you suggest with other arrangements then you know we are not going to stand in their way.

'We are just working on some of the language to make sure that we get it totally right.'

It is understood Sir Michael has been 'resisting' certain measures drawn up by Brussels chiefs that risk the UK being dragged into further EU co-operation.

Reinforcing the EUs military capabilities in the aftermath of the UKs departure from the EU is a key concern of countries such as Germany and France

EU officials said: 'The UK refused the word 'operational headquarters' so the EU accepted a lengthy paraphrase.'

The phrase in the wording of the new draft agreement states the 'MPCC shall support the Director of the MPCC in exercising his or her functions'.

The director will oversee control of the 'operational planning and conduct of non-executive military missions, including the building up, launching, sustaining and recovery of a Union force', it says.

But an EU source added: 'The UK still objects to this paraphrase without explaining why.

'It looks like a political blockage, does minister Michael Fallon need a bit of chest-banging to make a point for domestic reasons?

'There is a high level of frustration.' No agreement was made yesterday, and as a result, the legal decision to set up the centre was postponed.

EU sources said member states, particularly Germany and Finland, were 'really mad' at the UK's lack of co-operation.

The agenda for the Brussels meeting focused on the problem of illicit migration from Africa.

Mr Johnson said it was 'vital' for countries to work together to resolve the crisis and stabilise countries such as Libya and Somalia.

He added that Britain would keep stressing the need for EU members of NATO to pull their weight in the alliance, by meeting the 2 per cent target.

The summit came as the new French president Emmanuel Macron held his first meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

France and Germany are backing European Commission proposals for a European Defence Fund, which has sparked concerns in the UK over the possible creation of an EU army.
A University of Miami musical theater student died in an airboat crash, just one day after graduating at the top of her class.

Elizabeth 'Ellie' Goldenberg, 22, of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in fine arts on Friday.

To celebrate her academic accomplishment, Ellie and her family went on an airboat tour of the Florida Everglades the next morning, reports the Miami Herald.

Musical theater student Elizabeth 'Ellie' Goldenberg, 22, graduated summa cum laude from University of Miami, just one day before she died in a boating accident in the Everglades. She's seen here in a photo by http://washingtondcheadshots.com/

Ellie Goldenberg, who received a bachelor's of fine arts, starred in several campus productions and was vice president of the University of Miami's Theatre Action Group

Ellie (left) posted this photo of herself and friends on May 11, the day before she graduated

Authorities are seen above in an airboat in the area of the Everglades where the Goldenberg's crash occured

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, their airboat crashed at about 11.45am on Saturday, 12 miles west of Krome Avenue in Miami, Florida's Everglades Wildlife Management Area.

Ellie, who was tossed from the boat during the crash, died from the injuries she sustained, FWCC spokesperson Robert Klepper told the Miami Herald.

Ellie's parents, Renee Flaxx-Goldenberg and David Goldenberg, both 54, her sister, Dana Goldenberg, 20, and airboat driver Steven George Gagne, 52, were also ejected from the boat during the crash.

Ellie's parents and Gagne were reportedly uninjured, but Dana sustained minor injuries and was taken to Kendall Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Ellie Goldenberg received this year's Friends of Theater Award from the University of Miami's Department of Theater Arts. The award recognizes 'unlimited potential in acting'

Ellie Goldenberg (right), was 'absolutely beloved by her faculty, fellow students'

Ellie, who was tossed from the boat during the crash, died from the injuries she sustained. Authorities are seen at the scene above

Although the FWCC did not name Gagne as being the boat's driver, he was the only person listed as having been on the boat, who was not a member of the Goldenberg family.

The FWCC did not state why the accident happened or the name of the company that operated the airboat that crashed.

'At this time, I am unable to state whether or not this boating incident investigation will result in any charges,' Klepper told the Sun Sentinel.

Ellie's mother, Renee, told the Sun Sentinel that, 'I'm a mourning mother  and it's a criminal investigation, so it wouldn't be appropriate for us to speak about the circumstances in which she died.'

Renee also said, 'We loved her, we miss her. It's a tremendous loss to the world that she was taken so young.'

Ellie (right) was born in Israel and spent a year living there after graduating from high school

Ellie recently received a Friends of Theater Award from the University of Miami's Department of Theater Arts, which recognizes talent and 'unlimited potential in acting,' CBS Miami said. It's one of the highest honors given out by the school's theater department.

She starred in several campus productions, including 'Spring Awakening,' 'Of Thee I Sing,' 'The Adding Machine' and 'As You Like It.' Ellie was also vice president of the university's Theater Action Group.

She 'was absolutely beloved by her faculty, fellow students and her many UM friends,' Patricia Whitely, vice president for student affairs at University of Miami, said in a statement obtained by the Miami Herald.

Ellie was born in Israel and spent a year living there after graduating from high school.
A Bangladeshi-born psychiatrist has slammed Muslims and the left for denying the link between female genital mutilation and Islam.

Tanveer Ahmed, a Muslim who runs a practice in Sydney's northwest, has castigated people from the progressive side of politics who downplay a barbaric and life-threatening practice performed on girls in Muslim-majority nations from Africa to Asia.

He took aim at controversial Australian feminist author Germaine Greer, who last month likened depriving girls of future sexual pleasure with vaginal cosmetic surgery procedures.

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Sydney psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed has criticised the political left for sanitising Islam

Feminist Germaine Greer likened female circumcision with vaginal plastic surgery procedures

'Muslims and progressives keep pushing the line that female circumcision is only about culture,' Dr Ahmed told Rebel Media this week.

'Iconic feminist and Australian Germaine Greer even equated modern labioplastic procedures as a moral equivalent.

'Its commonly referred to as an African practice. For example, in countries like Somalia the prevalence is 90 per cent.

Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali campaigns against this practice as a Somali-born writer who speaks from personal experience.

During her controversial appearance on the ABC's Q&A program in April, Ms Greer downplayed the practice of child brides and bizarrely likened removing the clitoris of girls with vaginal cosmetic surgery.

'Its the sort of caricature of Islam that we keep promulgating. All of this is weird,' she said.

'I mean, one of the commonest operations in the United States is reduction of the labia minora.'

Ms Greer also compared the barbaric practice, commonly performed on girls in Muslim-majority, with male circumcision, which is common in the United States.

'Well, I class circumcision as genital mutilation. Sorry, guys. If youre going to really deal with this question of genital mutilation, start paying attention,' she said.

During that appearance, left-wing Guardian Australia columnist Van Badham denied that female genital mutilation was 'endemic to Islam', even though the World Health Organisation lists 30 mainly Muslim-majority nations in African, the Middle East and Asia, including Indonesia, where the atrocity is concentrated.

'Again, FGM is not endemic to Islam but specific to national/community cultures like in Eritrea, which is a majority Christian nation,' she tweeted.

Ms Badham failed to mention how Eritrea, a Christian majority nation in Africa, outlawed female genital mutilation in 2007.

Left-wing Guardian Australia columnist downplayed link between Islam and female genital mutilation and singled out Eritrea, which actually banned the practice in 2007

Dr Ahmed said that while female genital mutilation wasn't mentioned in the holy Koran, it was specified in the Hadith, texts linked to the Prophet Mohammad, which meant the practice was related to Islam.

Islam has a way of freezing outdated cultural practices as divine truth,' he said.

The father of two daughters also criticised so-called moderate Muslims for sanitising Islamic practices but accusing terrorist extremists of hijacking their faith.

'It's outright denial. Muslims attach their identity too close to Islam and then debating the ideas is taken too personally. It leads to defensiveness,' Dr Ahmed said.

'The public has a right to be confused and even more so, suspicious.'
Australian shoppers are bracing themselves for the online retail event of the year; a 24-hour flash sale on some of Australia's biggest brands including David Jones, Microsoft, The Iconic, and Chemist Warehouse.

The 24-hour Click Frenzy sale will give Australian shoppers the chance to score serious discounts on some of Australia's top brands.

The online sale will kick off at 7pm AEST Tuesday, May 16 and will operate on a first-come first-served basis - which means deals will likely be snapped up quickly.

Australian shoppers are bracing themselves for the online retail event of the year

The sale includes products from Boohoo, Dell, Portmans, Sportscraft, Nude By Nature, Lee and dozens more.

Some retailers dropped discounts from as early as midday on Tuesday including 30 per cent off The Iconic and Lacost, 25 per cent off Portmans and 50 per cent off Missguided.

'Many brands start their sales before the event, so you can plan and shop before the clock strikes seven,' money expert Bessie Hassan from finder.com.au said.

The flash sale will offer a huge product range, from clothing, footwear and beauty products, to technology and wine.

Click Frenzy warned shoppers to be set up and ready for the sale to kick off at 7pm

The sale includes products from Boohoo, Dell, Portmans, Sportscraft, Nude By Nature, Lee and dozens more

The flash sale will offer a huge product range, from clothing, footwear and beauty products, to technology and wine

The flash sale will offer a huge product range, from clothing, footwear, beauty products and homewares to technology and wine

Real Smart, an online department store, will offer discounts up to 70 per cent when the sale kicks off at 7pm.

Click Frenzy warned consumers to get in quick if they hoped to bag themselves a good deal.

Bessie Hassan said she estimated Australians would spend about $110 million during the 24-hour online sale.

For a comprehensive list of participating stores, click here.

Real Smart, an online department store, will offer discounts up to 70 per cent when the sale kicks off at 7pm

Click Frenzy warned consumers to get in quick if they hoped to bag themselves a good deal
Australian soldiers have joined the fight against the sinister Boko Haram terror group who infamously abducted 200 schoolgirls in Africa.

The US Military has confirmed Australian troops joined a three-week training exercise in Niger - a region besieged by the Islamic militant group.

The drill was staged to help African soldiers fight the bloodthirsty insurgency, which is behind a wave of terror including the slaying of six farmers over the weekend.

Boko Haram infamously abducted 200 schoolgirls in 2014 (pictured). This month 82 of the girls were released

Australian troops (pictured: RAR diggers in Iraq) joined a three-week training exercise in Niger

The US and Canada also took part in the February training exercises, dubbed Flintlock, in Diffa, on the border of Niger and Nigeria.

A Defence Department spokesman told Daily Mail Australia the latest exercise was the second time Australian troops had taken part in the Flintlock exercises.

'The exercise is conducted over approximately two months, and involves African and Western forces...The presence of ADF personnel in exercises such as this is part of our regular international training engagements.'

'Such engagements allow the participants to broaden their professional experience and knowledge.'

A statement from the US embassy in Niger described the aim of the exercises as strengthening the ability of African troops to defend their borders.

'Flintlock is a Special Operations Forces exercise geared toward building interoperability between African and western partner nations designed to strengthen the ability of key partner nations in the region to protect their borders and provide security for their people.'

The Islamic militant group is behind a wave of terror including the slaying of six farmers over the weekend.

A Nigerian soldier armed with a rocket propelled grenade patrols on the outskirt of the town of Damasak

Boko Haram shot to infamy in 2014 with the kidnapping of 276 girls from Nigeria's northeast, sparking a global campaign #bringbackourgirls.

This month the group, which is openly affiliated with ISIS, released 82 of the kidnapped girls.

They have been responsible for a reign of terror marked by sporadic attacks and suicide bombings.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the start of Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency in 2009.

Boko Haram militants (in camouflage) embrace and shake hands with Boko Haram prisoners, released this month in exchange for a group of 82 Chibok girls

Longtime Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who is believed to be at large despite previous claims he was killed

The region is in the grip of severe food shortages, heightening the need of international intervention to thwart the threat of the jihadis.

On Saturday, gunmen on motorcycles killed six farmers preparing fields for the wet season outside the village of Amrawa.

Last month, a village about 30km from Diffa - where the exercises are being carried out - was attacked by Boko Haram fighters wielding rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.

Niger troops killed 57 of the militants but 15 soldiers and two civilians were wounded.
Michael Stack resigned amid backlash over his controversial anti-gay letter

A special education teacher has resigned amid backlash over an anti-gay letter he wrote to a school newspaper in which he quoted a Bible verse which implied homosexuals 'deserved to die'.

Michael Stack wrote the letter in the student newspaper, Expressions, at a high school in San Luis Obispo, California, after the paper published a series of articles about gay relationships in the school in its May issue.

In the 659-word letter, he insinuated that he wanted to put gay people 'on the right path'. He backed up his claims by quoting Roman 1: 16-32, which described homosexual acts as 'shameful'.

Students and parents alike voiced their disapproval both at Stack for his anti-gay views and at the school for allowing the letter to be published.

But the San Luis Obispo High School has defended the school paper, saying it was allowing Stack to use his First Amendment right even if it did not reflect the views of the school.

'A bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable,' said superintendent Eric Prater and SLO High principal Leslie OConnor in a statement.

His letter was in response to the newspaper's May issue that focused on relationships in the LGBT community, which featured a picture of two girls kissing ( pictured)

Prater and O' Connor also debunked claims that Stack's letter was a 'threat' to the LGBT community.

'Some people have said that Mr Stack's letter constitutes a "true threat" and thus is not protected under the First Amendment,' the statement read.

'However, to be a "true threat", the speech must be reasonably foreseeable as a serious expression of intent to harm or assault. There is no evidence for this claim.'

Stack's letter was published on May 9. Earlier that month Expressions had focused its paper on LGBT rights and even showed a picture of two girls at the school kissing.

His letter ignited backlash and on Thursday morning - two days after the article was published - someone called in threatening Stack's life. That same afternoon, Stack resigned via email, according to a report from the Tribune.

'I quoted, verbatim, Romans 1:16-32,' Stack wrote in his two-page resignation letter. 'Now people are exercising their First Amendment rights by responding to that letter, this is how America is designed to function.'

He added: 'God knows my heart and my students know my actions, but the community apparently wants me out, so thereby I grant them their desires and immediately resign my position as teacher at SLCUSD.'

In his letter, he quoted a Bible verse which implied homosexuals 'deserved to die' and said he felt the need to pen the letter to put gay people on the 'right path'

Students and parents alike have voiced their disapproval both at Stack for his anti-gay views and at the school for allowing the letter to be published

The school claims that Stack was set to leave the school before the backlash. He had been hired on a probationary basis and was told in February that this would be his last year working at the high school.

But his resignation was not enough to calm the concerned parents, students and community members.

On Thursday, those opposing Stack's letter protested at the front gate of the school holding rainbow flags and waving sign boards, one of which read: 'Bigotry designed as Religious Liberty is still bigotry!'

Co-president of an LGBTQ advocacy group at the school, Amber Ernst, 16, called Stack's letter 'heartbreaking'.

'Im very strong in what I believe and in who I am, but for others still trying to find themselves, I feel like something like this will be really damaging,' Ernst said.

'Its heartbreaking for them to see a teacher essentially say theyre going to hell.'

The newspaper says it published the letter because it was enforcing to their policy to publish all letters regardless of content, unless it included profane words

'We generally publish all letters to the editor, regardless of the opinion,' the newspaper's opinion editor, Luca MacDougall, said.

San Luis Obispo High School defended the school paper, saying that Stack had a right to use his First Amendment right

On Thursday, Stack even received a death threat. That same afternoon he resigned but the school says he was set to leave at the end of this year because he was on a probationary contract
A dishevelled-looking Clive Palmer has compared the investigation into the collapse of Queensland Nickel to Nazi Germany as he arrived at a Brisbane court to face another round of questions.

The former MP, who was once touted as a potential future prime minister, arrived at the Federal Court on Tuesday clutching a sick bag and complaining of pain.

An unnamed minder read out a statement on Mr Palmer's behalf, claiming the businessman was being forced to testify despite his condition as payback for instituting a Senate inquiry into the Newman government while he was an MP.

Clive Palmer has likened questions into his collapsed business to Nazi Germany

The former MP arrived at the Federal Court on Tuesday holding a sick bag and aunnamed minder read out a statement on behalf of the businessman

'Surgery and intensive care, pain and duress, and currently on morphine, all confirmed by the court, regardless I'm dragged into the court today,' he said.

'This would only happen in Nazi Germany.'

Mr Palmer is due to face questions over the collapse of Queensland Nickel.

The company folded in early 2016 with around $300 million in debts, resulting in the loss of almost 800 jobs at its Yabulu nickel refinery near Townsville.

The businessman was last week grilled in court over the whereabouts of his jet-setting nephew Clive Mensink, despite claiming he was too unwell and suffering from memory loss after taking the pain drug, Targin.
Paul Ryan has become the latest leading Republican to speak out as backlash grows following reports the president shared 'highly classified' information with top Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week.

Ryan, the House Speaker, released a statement on Monday night calling for Donald Trump and his office to provide a full account of the meeting in which he is being accused of sharing secrets with Russia.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has denied reports that Trump revealed classified information to senior officials, calling the report 'yet another fake'.

'We have no way of knowing what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount,' the statement from Ryan's spokesman, Doug Andres, said on Mnday evening.

'The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.'

Ryan's statement came after Bob Corker, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was one of the first Republicans to speak out against the White House after reports emerged in the Washington Post.

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said.

'It's got to happen. Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips [with] all that's happening.'

Paul Ryan (pictured outside the Oval Office on May 4) called on Trump to provide a full account of what was said during his recent meeting with Russian officials

Bob Corker, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was one of the first Republicans to speak out about reports Trump shared classified information with Russia

The Washington Post report claimed Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants last week.

Three White House officials who were in the May 10 meeting strongly denounced the story, claiming no intelligence sources and methods were discussed - but they didn't deny that classified information was disclosed.

But the Post's report, citing current and former US officials, shared details about an ISIS terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement.

They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

Meanwhile, Jordan has said that King Abdullah II will speak with Trump via a phone call on Tuesday. The Royal Court said arrangements for the call were made last week.

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said

After the reports emerged on Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins (pictured) also lashed out at Trump's office

Jordan is a key ally in the US-led international military coalition against Islamic State, which controls territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

After the reports emerged on Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins also lashed out at Trump's office.

'Can we have a crisis-free day? That's all I'm asking,' she told reporters, according to HLN's Carol Costello.

John McCain also offered a timid criticism of Trump, saying: 'We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that.'

Democratic leaders were understandably much more stringent in their response to the reports.

Nancy Pelosi, speaking at a CNN town hall on Monday night, said if the reports are true it would be 'very, very damaging.'

'It undermines the trust that we would have with our allies,' she told the network.

Adam Schiff of California called the story 'deeply disturbing' and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies.

John McCain also offered a timid criticism of Trump, saying: 'We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that'

Democrat Adam Schiff called the reports 'deeply disturbing' and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies

'That the Russians would be the potential recipients of this intelligence and may be able to determine its source is all the more problematic, since the Russian interest in Syria and elsewhere is, in many respects, deeply antithetical to our own,' Schiff said.

He added that he wants the House intelligence committee fully briefed on what, if anything, was shared with the Russian officials.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner tweeted: 'If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.'

Senator Martin Heinrich chimed in with some sarcastic, helpful advice for the president: 'Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101.'

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell also said he was concerned by the latest round of reports.

'This is highly damaging for two reasons,' Morell told CBS News.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster called the Washington Post story 'false', which claimed Trump leaked 'highly classified' information to the Russians during an Oval Office meeting last week

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House

The Russian embassy in Washington released this photo of President Trump warmly shaking hands with ambassador Sergey Kislyak

'First, the Russians will undoubtedly try to figure out the source or the method of this information to make sure that it is not also collecting on their activities in Syria - and in trying to do that they could well disrupt the source.

'The second damage is that third countries who provide the United States with intelligence information will now have pause to do so if the United States is sharing such information with the Russians without their permission.'

The comments come after Trump's national security adviser, HR McMaster, told reporters it 'didn't happen'.

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation,' McMaster said.

'At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.'

He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way.

'Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources' in the news report, he said.
The family of a mentally ill patient who died after she was drugged and thrown naked into a seclusion ward have spoken of the agony they felt as they watched harrowing footage of her last undignified moments alive.

Mother-of-two Miriam Merten was left abandoned, naked, without water and became covered in her own faeces while in seclusion at Lismore Base Hospital, NSW, in 2014.

In a statement released on Tuesday, her family said the mental health system had failed Ms Merten and left her 'to die in the most disgraceful and horrific way.'

'Miriam was a mother, a sister, a daughter and a cousin. She came from a family who loved her. Had Miriam been provided adequate care... she would have lived.'

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Miriam Merten died following a brain injury sustained falling up to 20 times while in and out of seclusion in 2014 at Lismore Base Hospital

CCTV footage shows Ms Merten was naked and walking the corridor. Her family have released a statement revealing the agony they felt as they watched the horrific footage

Ms Merten's family said the mentally ill mother died in 'the most disgraceful and horrific way' (Miriam Merten, right, pictured with daughter Corina Merten, left)

The family said they had 'serious concerns' Ms Merten's death was not an isolated incident and that there may be other vulnerable patients being treated the same.

'Ultimately, the CCTV footage has required us, as a family, to endure our grief all over again in the public domain,' the statement read.

'However, the lessons and questions that arise as a result of this footage are not lessons and questions for our family alone, they are lessons and questions that our society and our institutions must confront and address.'

Ms Merten, who was well-known in the ward, was drugged and thrown naked into a locked seclusion room. The room had no toilet, running water or furniture.

It was the second time Ms Merten had been placed in seclusion that day and the fifth time during her eight-day admission.

During her time in the seclusion room, Ms Merten fell about 20 times, often on her head. Neither Ms Borthistle nor another junior nurse on duty ever entered the room.

Miriam Merten died of brain injuries after falling more than 20 times in Lismore Base Hospital

Nurse Christine Borthistle (pictured left) was captured on CCTV mopping the floor while Miriam Merten walked naked along a corridor

CCTV footage captured Miriam Merten locked in a seclusion room at Lismore Base Hospital

Once released from the seclusion room after more than five hours, she was seen wandering a corridor naked and covered in her own faeces while a nurse mopped the floor.

In seven hours before being transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit on June 2, Ms Merten fell about 24 times.

A coroner found Ms Merten died the following day from 'traumatic and hypoxic brain injury caused by numerous falls and the self-beatings of her head not done with the intention of taking her own life'.

The coroner said in a judgement in September 2016: 'To see a mentally ill person in 2014 at a public hospital in NSW treated in such an appalling manner is really beyond comprehension'.

Miriam Merten was locked in a seclusion room, naked and without running water or a toilet, for more than five hours

A mattress left on the floor was the only comfort for Miriam Merten when locked inside a seclusion room

'The sight of the deceased wandering the corridor naked and covered in excrement while the senior nurse is seen to mop the floor apparently oblivious to her is horrific.

'While this appears not to be a system failure it is clearly a serious human failure.'

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian called the CCTV footage of Ms Merten 'disgusting and deeply distressing', while health Minister Brad Hazzard said the woman's last hours were 'beyond disturbing'.

Mr Hazzard and Mental Health Minister Tanya Davies launched a parliamentary inquiry and an independent investigation by chief pyschiatrist Murray Wright into the use of seclusion and restraint of mental health patients across NSW.

Miriam Merten, who died of brain injuries at Lismore Base Hospital, pictured with her daughter Corina
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President Donald Trump has lit the White House with blue lights in honor of slain law enforcement officials.

Trump did this as part of a celebration of Peace Officers Memorial Day, a 55-year-old tradition started by John J. Kennedy.

This comes after he gave a full-throated support to the men and women in blue on Monday afternoon at a ceremony where he defended police officers from 'unfair defamation and vilification.'

Trump came down on the side of cops in the politically tricky topic that he accused other politicians of shying away from for fear they would upset the electorate.

'You are the thin blue line between civilization and chaos,' he told law enforcement officers gathered outside the US Capitol for a memorial service.

Thanking them, Trump, who noted in his remarks that he was in New York on 9/11, said: 'I will make it the personal priority of my administration to ensure that our police are finally treated fairly, with honor and the respect that they deserve.'

'Every drop of blood spilled by our heroes in blue is a wound inflicted upon the whole country. And every hear ache known by your families in law enforcement is a sorrow shared by the entire family of the American nation.'

President Donald Trump turned the White House blue in honor of slain law enforcement officials

He did this as part of a celebration of Peace Officers Memorial Day, a tradition which dates back to 1962

Trump signed a document today, establishing May 15 as a day honoring fallen officers and dedicates the entire week to law enforcement officials

Trump saluted cops at the 36th annual National Peace Officers's Memorial Service on the West Front of the US Capitol building.

'Please know that you do not grieve alone,' he told the survivors of fallen officers.

The New York born and bred president said the people of his native city 'would be gone' had it not been for police officers' heroism on Sept. 11, 2001.

'Now, as president, my highest duty is to keep America safe,' he said. 'We will keep America safe,' he promised.

Trump asked Americans around the country to tell a police officer 'thank you' next time they come across one and promised to declare his support proudly for law enforcement throughout his administration.

He tossed a '45' hat midway through his remarks to a young boy he identified as 'Micah,' whose father had died in the line of duty.

'And just to show you, by the way, how much I love our police, I said, "Oh, I'm going to need a hat because it's so windy today,' Trump said at the outdoor event. 'I said, "When I got out of here, there's no way I'm going to put on this hat." So we'll leave off the hat. And this is for you, Micah. That's for our beautiful Micah down there.'

Trump gave his full-throated support to the men and women in blue on Monday afternoon at a ceremony where he defended police officers from 'unfair defamation and vilification'

He asked Americans around the country to tell a police officer 'thank you' next time they come across one and promised to declare his support proudly for law enforcement throughout his administration

President Donald Trump waves as he leaves after speaking at the 36th Annual National Peace Officers' memorial service

The New York born and bred president said the people of his native city 'would be gone' had it not been for police officers' heroism on Sept. 11, 2001

Decrying violent attacks on law enforcement, Trump said, 'We will protect you, that I can tell you, and we will say enough is a enough...the attacks on our police must end, and they must end right now.'

He did not directly bring up the police brutality allegations that swept the nation when Barack Obama was president, most visibly in places like Ferguson, Missouri.

Trump broached the topic by arguing instead that Americans 'truly support and love' the nation's officers - even though they don't always show it.

'And a very sad thing is that many of today's politicians don't want to say that, don't want to talk about that, because it's not politically correct, or they think it might hurt them with the voters,' Trump said.

'I will say it, and I will talk about it proudly,' he said to applause.

Trump denounced 'reckless words of incitement' that he said are leading to more assaults on police officers.

'It is time to work with our cops, not against them,' he said.

Police supported him 'big league' in his election, Trump said, and he intends to repay them.

Trump came down on the side of cops in the politically tricky topic that he accused other politicians of shying away from for fear they would lose votes

He is seen arriving at the ceremony Monday at the US Capitol

Police officers salute during 36th annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service at the U.S. Capitol on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. The service is part of National Police Week and honors police officers across the country

'President Trump's highest priority is the safety and security of the American people,' Vice President Mike Pence said in remarks before the president.

'This president knows in his heart that to make America safe again, we must also restore the tradition of respect and honor that is owed to every member of the law enforcement community in America,' the VP said.

Trump is lighting the White House blue tonight in honor of officers who have fallen.

He signed a proclamation this morning honoring 118 officers who died in the line of duty last year - 66 of whom the president says were 'victims of malicious attacks.'

'They've had it with what's going on, and we're going to get it taken care of. We're going to get it taken care of quickly,' Trump said Monday.

Trump directed his Department of Justice earlier this this year to develop a strategy to better prevent violence against law enforcement officers.

The document he signed today further directs DOJ to establish an initiative to 'improve the lives of law enforcement officers and their families.'

It establishes May 15 as a day honoring fallen officers and dedicates the entire week to police officers.

Trump signed a proclamation this morning honoring 118 officers who died in the line of duty last year - 66 of whom the president says were 'victims of malicious attacks'

President Donald Trump claps in the Oval Office after signing a law enforcement executive order this morning
Ben McCormack, 42, was arrested in April and faces up to 15 years behind bars if found guilty of the two offences

Ben McCormack's defence lawyer says the A Current Affair reporter appears to have 'had discussions' with a suspected child rapist in Western Australia.

But Sam Macedone has slammed suggestions McCormack was a member of a 'nationwide paedophile ring' as 'grossly inaccurate'.

'The person Ben was having discussions with was, it seems, this guy in WA,' Mr Macedone told Daily Mail Australia.

'But Ben was not in any 'ring' nor did he participate in any group discussions.'

Mr Macedone said the Nine Network reporter had 'no knowledge' of what the West Australian man was allegedly 'into'.

He said he had 'especially no knowledge (about the Western Australian man)... being a alleged rapist'.

A nationwide paedophile ring with high-profile members including Catholic primary school teachers allegedly led police to arrest McCormack

On Tuesday, The West Australian reported that arrest of a man from the state's south helped police 'expose a nationwide paedophile ring'.

The unnamed man faces 35 charges, including child pornography and child rape offences, according to the paper.

The report said alleged 'members' of the 'ring' included school teachers, including one from Queensland.

McCormack is yet to enter a plea and is expected to face court on June 20.

Bags of evidence and electrical storage devices were seen in NSW Police video after they executed a search warrant on McCormack's home

As many as eight police entered the A Current Affair offices in Willoughby, Sydney's north, last month

A Sydney court heard last week that he was still receiving treatment at a mental health facility.

Police also added a second child pornography material charge.

Outside the court complex, Mr Macedone said of his client: 'He's not in a good way.'

He said none of the allegations against his client involved anything more than a conversation.

The development was reported on Nine's A Current Affair program that night.
Australia is considering banning laptops on inbound international flights amid global concerns about a fresh terror threat involving bombs in computers.

The UK and US have already banned large electronic devices in cabins on flights arriving from certain Middle East and African countries.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has this week indicated Australia may now follow in the footsteps of the two nations by imposing similar bans.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured boarding a plane in Canberra) has this week indicated Australia could ban laptops on some inbound international flights

'The government is aware of the changes that have been made and, you know, we are looking at it very closely,' Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in Adelaide on Tuesday.

'In due course, any announcements will be made formally though the Transport Minister.'

The federal government is considering information and advice 'we are receiving internationally and working very closely with our partners,' he said.

It follows fresh intelligence militant groups like ISIS could be gearing up for a terrorist attack involving bombs in laptops.

The UK and US have already banned laptops in cabins on flights arriving from certain Middle East and African countries (pictured: a laptop on the screen of an airport X-ray security scanner)

President Donald Trump (pictured meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office) is facing allegations that he revealed information about the laptop terror threat to Russian diplomats

US agencies is now looking at plans plans to expand the laptop ban to other countries with conflict zones (stock image)

The US and Britain banned laptops in cabins on flights from a number of Muslim-majority countries in response to unidentified security threats in March.

US agencies are now looking at plans plans to expand the ban to other countries with conflict zones.

It comes as President Donald Trump faces explosive allegations that he revealed top secret intelligence about the laptop threat to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.

The White House has vehemently denied the reports and said Mr Trump only discussed 'common threats' facing the US and Russia.
A man was horrified to inadvertently find out a recruitment company thought he was 'bull s***ing' on his CV.

Australian-born Pedro Da Silva, who now lives in the UK, had applied for the role of a supply chain manager in Birmingham.

He later received an email in response to his application but soon realised he had been copied in on what was meant to be an internal email, The Sun reported.

Pedro Da Silva (pictured) was shocked to find out a recruitment firm thought he was 'bull s***ing' on his CV

The email which was sent back to Mr Da Silva after he had applied for the role of a supply chain manager

'No buying experience and I think he is bull s***ing with his previous work experience,' the email read.

Mr Da Silva, 38, said he was shocked to read the email, which came from a staff member at Russell James Recruitment, and described it as 'unprofessional'.

'It was really upsetting to be honest, it's not a lie, everything on my resume is true,' he said.

'When I read that criticism, it really hurts - these are the people supposed to be trying to help you.'

Mr Da Silva said it was 'really upsetting' to read the comments from a staff member at the recruitment firm

Russell James Recruitment engineering recruitment director James Penfold later said he spoke to Mr Da Silva and apologised.

He added the staff member involved in sending the email received a verbal warning.

Mr Penfold also said the information Mr Da Silva provided did not match with what was on his LinkedIn profile.
Javier Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in Mexico.

Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the world's deadliest countries for media professionals. In a separate attack on Monday, a magazine executive was wounded and a reporter killed in the state of Jalisco.

Valdez was shot to death in the early afternoon in the state capital of Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he co-founded, Riodoce, which reported that Valdez was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen.

State Prosecutor Juan Jose Rios visited the scene and said authorities were investigating all possible motives, including that the killing could have been due to Valdez's work, though he gave no details.

Journalist Javier Valdez poses for a photo with his book Narco Journalism, an expose of how drug traffickers infiltrate and coerce journalists. Valdez was murdered on Monday

Valdez was gunned down just blocks from the office of Riodoce, the newspaper he founded

Forensic technicians work at a crime scene where journalist Javier Valdez was gunned down by unknown assailants in Culiacan, in Sinaloa state, Mexico

Valdez was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, which reported that he was pulled from his car and shot multiple times.

Images in Mexican media showed a body lying in a street covered by a blue blanket and surrounded by 12 yellow markers of the kind typically used to flag evidence such as bullet casings.

Also on Monday, in the neighboring state of Jalisco that is the territory of the ascendant Jalisco New Generation Cartel, gunmen opened fire on Sonia Cordova, an executive at the Semanario Costeno weekly magazine.

Cordova was wounded and taken to hospital and her adult son was killed in the attack, the state prosecutor's office said.

A state police source said her son, Jonathan Rodriguez Cordova, worked as a reporter at the family-run magazine, which publishes local news that includes some crime reporting.

The recent spate of journalist slayings in Mexico includes Miroslava Breach, correspondent for La Jornada in the northern state of Chihuahua, who was gunned down in March.

Valdez reacted defiantly to the slaying on Twitter, writing in Spanish: 'Kill us all, if that's the sentence for reporting this hell. No to silence.'

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned what he called an 'outrageous crime.'

'I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy,' he tweeted.

After the recent murder of a fellow journalist, Valdez (pictured) spoke out defiantly: 'Kill us all, if that's the sentence for reporting this hell. No to silence.'

Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the world's deadliest countries for media professionals

The federal Attorney General's Office said it was investigating.

Valdez was a nationally and internationally recognized journalist who authored several books on the drug trade, including 'Narcoperiodismo' and 'Los Morros del Narco.'

The former is a look at the relationship between journalism and organized crime, and the latter chronicles the lives of young people swept up in Mexico's criminal underworld.

In 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists recognized Valdez with its International Press Freedom Award for his 'bravery and uncompromising journalism in the face of threats,' the group said in a statement.

'His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country.'

Jan-Albert Hootson, Mexico representative for the New York-based CPJ, said Valdez and his Riodoce newspaper were known as a rare source of independent, investigative journalism in Sinaloa.

'And for that same reason, he and his magazine and his co-workers were always under threat of violence,' Hootson said.

Valdez (center) speaks at an event in March for his most recent book. In 2011, CPJ recognized Valdez with its International Press Freedom Award

Sinaloa has long been a drug trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial

According to CPJ, in 2009 unknown attackers threw a grenade into the Riodoce offices days after it published an investigation on drug trafficking. No one was hurt.

By the group's count, some 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico for reasons confirmed as related to their work since 1992. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.

Journalists targeted in Mexico are most often local reporters in places where the rule of law is tenuous, but there have also been killings of journalists with national profiles such as Valdez and Regina Martinez Perez, who was slain in 2012.

On Saturday, seven journalists were assaulted and robbed by a mob of about 100 armed men on a highway in the troubled southern state of Guerrero.

Sinaloa has long been a drug trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges.

Experts say Guzman's arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the gang.

In a report this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that most killings of journalists go unpunished in Mexico

Valdez's slaying came less than two weeks after a CPJ delegation met in Mexico City with Mexican President Pena Nieto and other top government officials

'His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country,' the CPJ said in a statement

'Drug trafficking there is a way of life,' Valdez said in an October interview with Rompeviento TV.

'You have to assume the task that falls to you as a journalist - either that or you play dumb. I don't want to be asked, 'What were you doing in the face of so much death ... why didn't you say what was going on?''

Hootson described Valdez as a warm, friendly man, well-liked by other journalists who frequently sought his help to navigate and understand the complex, dangerous state.

'His door was always open. ... Everybody always deferred to his knowledge,' Hootson said. 'And in that sense, it's a huge loss for everybody.'

In a report this month, CPJ noted that most killings of journalists go unpunished in Mexico. It added that even when there are convictions, they are often limited to the immediate killer and do not clarify the motive.

'By not establishing a clear link to journalism or providing any motives for the killings most investigations remain opaque,' the report said. 'This lack of accountability perpetuates a climate of impunity that leaves journalists open to attack.'

Valdez's slaying came less than two weeks after a CPJ delegation met in Mexico City with Pena Nieto and other top government officials.

A special federal prosecutor's office tasked with crimes against freedom of expression said it had started the procedure for opening an inquiry and was sending a team to collect evidence.

The CPJ says that the special prosecutor rarely opens probes into the killing of journalists, typically leaving it up to local authorities.

'The state must respond to these circumstances,' said Sinaloa prosecutor Juan Jose Rios at a rowdy news conference Monday.

Journalists at the press conference shouted at Rios, asking what would prevent them from being murdered next.
A chef who brutally murdered his Indonesian transsexual prostitute wife was worried she would expose his double life as a gigolo, an inquest heard.

Marcus Volke is believed to have killed Mayang Prasetyo, 27, in their upmarket Brisbane flat in October 2014 in a domestic violence incident.

The 27-year-old then chopped her into pieces before boiling them on his electric stove to get rid of the evidence.

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A coronial inquest is investigating the gruesome death of Indonesian transgender sex worker Mayang Prasetyo who was killed and dismembered

It will seek to determine when, where, and how Mayang Prasetyo was brutally killed, allegedly by her partner Marcus Volke (L), 27, who then committed suicide

The inquest in Brisbane heard their relationship was volatile and in one of their frequent fights Ms Prasetyo threatened to expose him as a sex worker to his family if he left her, according to the Courier Mail.

They married so the pre-op transsexual could get an Australian visa and in return she helped pay off his $9,000 credit card debt with her escort earnings.

Counsel assisting the coroner Emily Cooper said the couple had a series of fights on the night of October 2, two days before her body was found and Volke killed himself while hiding from police in a skip.

Neighbours woke up to the sound of Ms Prasetyo screaming and the fight lasted about 30 to 40 minutes.

Volke attempted to dispose of the 27-year-old victim's remains by boiling them on the stove in their upmarket Teneriffe unit, police said at the time

Volke is believed to have killed Mayang Prasetyo, 27, in their upmarket Brisbane flat in October 2014 in a domestic violence incident

'Mr Volke, was seen to be sitting on the couch inside the unit just staring straight ahead, not reacting at all to the screaming,' she told the court.

'Ms Prasetyo was heard to say things like "f**k you", and was calling Volke stupid. Ms Prasetyo was also saying things like "I cant believe you".'

The fight kicked off again at about 1.30am on October 3, and was the last time the victim was known to be alive.

Police believed Ms Prasetyo was killed at some point that morning, likely during the fight, and the smell of her decomposing body began hours later.

Volke drove to the Newstead Woolworths at 6pm where he bought gloves, bleach, a scrubbing brush, garbage bags, wipes, and a laundry soak tub.

The murder-suicide was treated as a domestic violence situation that escalated, with police saying they had recovered a murder weapon from Volke

The remains of Ms Prasetyo's body being taken out of their flat in Brisbane

Then he got a taxi to Royal Brisbane Hospital to treat a cut on his hand he told the driver was from cutting onions.

However, he told hospital staff the injury was from him taking a knife out of his girlfriend's hands during a fight.

At 12.15pm on October 4 he bought a cleaver from Big W, which he used to dismember Ms Prasetyo's body and stuff it the garbage bags.

Later that day while trying to cook her body to get rid of the evidence the huge pot boiled over and short-circuited his apartment's power.

The apartment complex where the victim was allegedly murdered and dismembered

Volke attempted to dispose of the 27-year-old victim's remains by boiling them on the stove in their upmarket Teneriffe unit, police said at the time

'G'day, is this a 24 hour electrician?' he casually asked Brad Coyne, forced to call for help getting the power back on to complete his sick plot.

'Yeah I got a bit of a problem. Um, I was cooking on my stove, it's an electric stove and the stock pot boiled over, dripped down and got into the oven and basically made this big bang and then all the power turned off.

'Does it sound like something you'd be able to fix today?'

A few hours later Mr Coyne arrived at the Teneriffe flat and was confronted by a putrid smell, which the killer tried to explain away.

'You'll have to mind the smell, I'm cooking pig's broth,' Volke said.

The electrician was led around the house, where he saw garbage bags, bottles of chemicals and rubber gloves.

'We went into the bathroom which had laundry in it and there was a cupboard that had the washing machine in it - which I didn't know at the time had bits of his wife's body in it, like her head and arms,' he told the Scottish Daily Record at the time.

Police found the pot with Ms Prasetyo's feet simmering, and in disbelief thought it was a joke

Counsel assisting the coroner Emily Cooper said evidence was clear Volke killed her before slashing his own throat in an industrial bin while evading police

Mr Coyne got the power back on and tested the stove - not knowing Ms Prasetyo's feet were sitting half-cooked in the massive pot.

Still feeling something was off, he talked to the building manager on the way out - who immediately called police for a welfare check.

Constable Liam McWhinney and his partner Senior Constable Bryan Reid arrived at the flat and initially found Volke cooperative and were not suspicious.

But when they asked if they could search the apartment, Volke told them he needed to secure his dogs, locked the door and fled.

Constable McWhinney told the inquest in Brisbane on Monday the pair gave chase but their quarry eluded them and they returned to the unit to search it.

Volke was trying to cook his girlfriend's body to get rid of the evidence but the huge pot boiled over and short-circuited his apartment's power.

Constable Liam McWhinney and his partner Senior Constable Bryan Reid (pictured leaving the inquest) visited at the flat to check on Ms Prasetyo

That was when they found the pot with Ms Prasetyo's feet simmering, and in disbelief thought it was a joke.

'Originally I thought it was some sort of sick prank Halloween or something  when I put two and two together, I realised it wasn't a prank,' Constable McWhinney told the inquest on Monday.

'There was a pool of blood at the base of the fridge.'

They then found some of Ms Prasetyo's remains in a black garbage bag left in the couple's washing machine.

Meanwhile, Volke jumped over his balcony fence into a laneway behind his building, then over another fence.

Police and the dog squad searched the surrounding streets and found Volke in an industrial bin a short time later.

Ms Cooper said the coroner would be satisfied Volke's death was unavoidable and the actions of attending police were 'authorised, justified and supported' by law

The court heard at least one of the officers drew his firearm, and Volke took his own life.

Senior Sergeant Sean McKay told the court on Tuesday he arrived as police were tipping the bin over to retrieve Volke, who had a fatal injury to his neck and injuries to his wrists.

He said officers carried out CPR but 'it was pretty apparent that he was deceased and it wasn't going to help'.

The crime scene took four days to clean up, and included disturbing items like rubber gloves, bleach, and 'squelching' carpet, along with a vomit-inducing smell.

The inquest was, in part, to determine what role police had in Volke's death, and whether they complied with Queensland Police policy and procedure.

The crime scene, which took authorities four days to clean up, was particularly disturbing, according to police

On the last day of the inquest, Ms Cooper said evidence was clear Volke killed her before slashing his own throat in an industrial bin while evading police.

She said the coroner would be satisfied Volke's death was unavoidable and the actions of attending police were 'authorised, justified and supported' by law.

'It's clear that there was no misconduct displayed by any of the officers involved,' she said.

'There was nothing further that they could have done at the time.'

On Monday the inquest also heard from Detective Sergeant Joshua Walsh that Volke saw a doctor for anxiety, depression and a sleep disorder two weeks before the murder-suicide.

Police also obtained medical records showing that he had sought treatment at Victoria's Ballarat Hospital when he was 16 years old.

Coroner Terry Ryan will hand down his findings on Friday.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
An artist projected the words 'Pay Trump Bribes Here' on the facade of Trump's hotel in Washington DC on Monday night.

Robin Bell beamed the scathing message, along with entirety of the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution over the western entrance of 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue around 9.15pm.

Bell, who pulled off similar stunts protesting the Trump administration in recent months, joked: 'We're the unofficial resident artists of the Trump Hotel. They keep on giving us material to work with.'

He also told Dailymail.com: 'Something like the emoluments can be a tough concept, so whatever I can do to make it more accessible - it's even better if it's funny.

'I would hope that five or 10 years from now, people outside the country can look at this and have it serve as a visual cue that not all of America is on board with what's going on.'

The words 'Pay Trump Bribes Here' were projected on the facade of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC on Monday night by multimedia artist Robin Bell

Robin Bell, who pulled off similar stunts protesting Trump and his cabinet members since November, joked: We're the unofficial resident artists of the Trump Hotel'

Pictured, The Emoluments Clause, in Article I of the Constitution, which scholars believe was an attempt to prevent federal officials from being swayed by foreign states

The projection also branded 'Emoluments Welcome' over the entrance of the hotel.

The Emoluments Clause, in Article I of the Constitution, was an attempt to prevent federal officials from being swayed by foreign states.

It reads: 'No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.'

A double-decker tour bus drove past the building during Bell's 10-minute projection, and tourists cheered and clapped in response to his work, he said.

Bell was encouraged by the positive response both from passerby and Twitter users, saying he wanted to give people a reprieve, whether it was in the form of a laugh, or a restored sense of optimism.

He told Dailymail.com: 'I'm really happy about what happened tonight, because it's kinda depressing right now. We need as much visual, positive reinforcement, as we can.'

A double-decker tour bus drove past the building during Bell's 10-minute projection, and tourists cheered and clapped in response to his work

Bell, who has created live video projections for venues across the country, started utilizing the medium in a political context during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

'The reaction on the street was just special. Someone who's walking down the street isn't expecting it. They're not paying for it, so it's an honest moment.

'They can stop what they're doing and take it in. If it's funny or timely, it does create a connection,' he said.

In November, Bell projected the words 'Experts Agree: Trump is a Pig' on the Trump International Hotel.

The phrase was a reference to the activist group Positive Force, which used the same words to blast Edwin Meese, the US Attorney General under Ronald Reagan.

Bell has also created live video projections to protest Trump's appointees, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Scott Pruitt, who heads the Environmental Protection Agency.

On Friday, Trump produced a letter from his business's lawyers 'certifying' that he has no investments in Russia and receives no income 'of any type from Russian sources' - with a few exceptions

Bell's protest came just hours after the Washington Post reported Trump passed on highly restricted 'code word' information during an Oval Office meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

Trump 'revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies,' according to a US official who spoke to the Post.

On Friday, Trump produced a letter from his business's lawyers 'certifying' that he has no investments in Russia and receives no income 'of any type from Russian sources' - all based on his tax returns.

But the letter also listed a number of 'exceptions', which included the profit on a house sale to a Russia billionaire, which amounted to $54 million, the proceeds of 2012 Miss Universe, which was a 'substantial portion of $12.2 million', and 'ordinary course sale of good or services to Russians and Russian entities'.

The Trump International Hotel in DC has also raised numerous ethical concerns, despite the president's claims that he has removed himself from Trump Organization.

The 36th Annual Conference on U.S.-Turkey Relations, which was previously held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, is scheduled at the Trump-branded property in DC next week.
A woman in Ontario, Canada tried to make off with a shopping cart full of items from a retail store on April 26.

But security footage of the incident, posted on Live Leak, recorded the woman make a mad dash with the $651 worth of goods from a Walmart store and fall to the ground after running only a few feet.

The cart rolls on without her and slams into a curb, where all the items spill onto the ground.

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A video posted on Live Leak shows a woman attempting to shoplift from a store in Ontario

But before she gets away with her cart full of stolen goods, she trips and falls over herself

And she's down: As the women lies on the ground for a moment, a store employee can be seen finally catching up to her

Meanwhile, an employee from the store runs out, and is able to catch up to the fallen shoplifter.

But not knowing exactly what to do or how to confront the situation, the employee is seen standing in disbelief as the woman jogs away.

The attempted theft happened at approximately 8pm at a retail store off Highway 6, Fergus.

Wellington County Ontario Provincial Police are asking anyone who can help identify the woman in the video to contact them.
A farmer who campaigns against halal certification has made a video pointing out that Jewish synagogues aren't harbouring terror plots.

Kirralie Smith argues that consumers should be wary of the halal certification of common supermarket foods, which funds Islamic religious activity.

'The money raised by halal certification is funding mosques and Islamic preachers, in some cases who do promote messages of violence and death towards unbelievers,' she said in a Facebook video on Monday.

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Farmer Kirralie Smith says halal certification is funding mosques that host radical preachers

Common food items like Cadbury chocolates are halal-certified and sold at supermarkets

The farmer from the New South Wales Mid-North Coast wants consumers to be aware that kosher products are primarily sold in Jewish stores while halal-certified foods are widely sold in major Australian supermarkets.

Major corporations like Cadbury chocolates, Kellogg's breakfast cereals and Sara Lee desserts pay third-party halal companies a fee to certify that they contain no traces of pork or alcohol, making them permissible in Islam.

Secular Muslims and liberally-minded Islamic scholars, including Adelaide Shia Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi, argue that halal-certified goods shouldn't be imposed on non-Muslims.

Ms Smith, who ran as a Senate candidate last year with the right-wing Australian Liberty Alliance, is concerned that consumers are unwittingly funding mosques that harbour extremist preachers.

Kirralie Smith says halal certification of popular foods is funding mosques (stock image)

'I've never heard a rabbi preach 'death to democracy or kill the infidel'. However, there are many imams in Australia and around the world who have preached these very things,' she said.

'Synagogues in Australia are not preaching sermons of hate towards Westerners or unbelievers.

'They are not radicalising their youth with messages of violence and death.'

Ms Smith has recently joined Liberal defector Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives party.

In April, The Project's Waleed Aly ate a non-halal Lindt Easter bunny live on air to mock One Nation leader Pauline Hanson's call for Australians to boycott halal foods at the supermarket.
The heartbroken family of a mother-of-two who died in a fiery crash have called the teenage driver of the other vehicle 'nothing but scum'.

Nicole Tucker, 48, was waiting at a red light on a major expressway in Adelaide, on October 6, when a stolen Holden utility truck driven by a 15-year-old boy and his 17-year-old passenger crashed into her car and caused it to burst into flames.

The 15-year-old fronted the District Court on Tuesday and heard emotional statements from Ms Tucker's husband, brother and a woman injured in the crash.

'You are still here and my beautiful wife is gone ... it's wrong, it should be the other way around ... you are nothing but scum,' Ms Tucker's husband Brett told the teenager, The Advertiser reported.

Nicole Tucker, 48, was waiting at a red light in Adelaide, on October 6, when a stolen Holden ute driven by a 15-year-old boy and his 17-year-old passenger crashed into her car

Ms Tucker's brother, Kent Thiele, also said he wished the 15-year-old could trade places with his sister, saying that would be 'real justice'.

The court also heard from Kathryn Howard, who suffered neck injuries in the crash.

Ms Howard asked the teenager to look at her while she addressed the court, but said he was 'emotionally inept' after he kept his head bowed, according to the Advertiser.

The teenager pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and admitted to driving the stolen car.

Ms Howard said the teenager had not only affected Ms Tucker's two children, both aged 18, who will now grow up without a mother, but also her own son.

'He has asked me not to have any more accidents because he missed the way mummy was before her back got sick,' she told the court.

The 15-year-old fronted the District Court on Tuesday and heard emotional statements from Ms Tucker's (pictured) husband, brother and a woman injured in the crash

The car burst into flames after it was struck by the stolen Holden ute in October

After her death, Ms Tucker's family released a statement describing her death as 'senseless' and saying she was a 'very loving mother'

The teenager has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced in June.

The 17-year-old passenger is serving a youth detention sentence.

After the crash in October, Ms Tucker's family released a statement describing her death as 'senseless'.

'Our family is devastated by this senseless death of our beloved wife and mother Nicole,' the statement read.

'We are grieving and would appreciate our privacy as we come to terms with our loss.

'Nicole was a very loving mother and wife. Her life cut short too early.'

Shocking video taken by witnesses shortly after the crash showed the intensity of the fire that engulfed her car at Bedford Park, in the southern suburbs of Adelaide.

Debris was reportedly thrown hundreds of metres as a result of the crash which occurred in a road works zone where the speed limit was 40km/h.

The teenage driver has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced in June
A Monash University student, 22, has been charged over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a fellow student during an off-campus weekend away.

The incident allegedly happened during a student clubs event in Gippsland, in Victorias south-east in March 2016.

The student club involved interviewed the alleged offender after the event, but failed to report the it to the university.

The club has come under fire for its handling of the alleged rape,The Age reports.

A Monash University (pictured) student, 22, has been charged over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a fellow student during an off-campus weekend away

Victorian police confirmed to Daily Mail Australia a 22-year-old man was bailed to appear in Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court on July 13 charged with four counts of rape and one count of sexual assault all relating to the one alleged incident.

A Monash University spokesman said it was shocked to learn of the alleged assault.

Once contacted by the victim, we immediately provided as much support as possible and at all times we act in the interest of and at the request of the victim, he told The Age.

The university said it suspended its investigation into the incident when police took over.

Monash University has adopted training for how to handle and report alleged sexual assault incidents.

The university said 13,000 students from various off-campus and co-curricular groups took part in the training.

Once contacted by the victim, we immediately provided as much support as possible and at all times we act in the interest of and at the request of the victim, a Monash University spokesman said (stock)

Monash University (pictured) has adopted training for how to handle and report alleged sexual assault incidents

There have been just six expulsions relating to sexual assault in the past five years, despite more than 500 complains submitted.

The information was detailed in a report to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

One submission claimed students from an unidentified Australian university colloquially referred to cask wine as sl** juice, residential housing as sl** alley and a university oval as rape oval.

The submission claimed students at the unidentified university also allegedly practised rockspidering, in which an open door to a room signified consent to have sex.

A Human Rights Commission survey releasing data about sexual assault at universities is due to be released in June.
A Sydney cocaine courier has been caught complaining about a scruffy fellow dealer who 'looks like a junkie', suggesting he get a haircut, have a shave and buy a nice collared shirt.

Bondi businessman George Gerges was recorded warning his handler, 'AH', that a new cocaine delivery driver working for their syndicate was scaring young female buyers because of his disheveled appearance.

'Little things,' Gerges tells AH. 'Just tell him little things bro, like get a haircut, dress nicely and make sure your face is shaven. Keep your car clean, that's really important too bro.'

Cocaine dealer George Gerges with his former girlfriend Emma Rose, who had no knowledge of her boyfriend's double life

Convicted cocaine dealer George Gerges liked to keep himself in good shape and for his fellow couriers to care about their appearance

Police launched a major operation against a syndicate supplying cocaine (seized drugs pictured) throughout metropolitan Sydney in April 2015

The conversation between Gerges and AH was revealed as Gerges pleaded guilty in Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday to the ongoing supply of cocaine between May and September 2015.

The 32-year-old would arrange by text message to meet customers, mostly in the city, then deliver them cocaine from his black Lexus.

Each deal weighed an average .47 gram and cost $200. During the time he was under investigation, Gerges delivered cocaine to more than 1000 drug users.

At the time of his arrest, in September 2015, Gerges was dating self-described 'international cover girl and glamour model' Emma Rose, who appeared in the first season of The Bachelor with Tim Robards.

He was the managing director of Buy My Clothes, an online shopping site for second hand clothing, and a co-owner of online fashion label Studio Niche.

There is no suggestion Ms Rose had any knowledge of her then boyfriend's crimes.

Police began investigating a sophisticated syndicate supplying cocaine throughout metropolitan Sydney in April 2015 and formed Strike Force Morti.

According to a statement of facts tendered to court, customers would send a text message to one of four mobile telephones and ask for 'rock show tickets', 'tickets' or 'beers'.

AH or another man would ask for an address, then send a text to one of six drivers, including Gerges, to deliver the drugs.

When the driver was close to the designated address, he or she would ring one of the two handlers and they would call the customer. The customer and driver would then take part in a conference call to arrange the exact meeting place.

Undercover officers bought cocaine from Gerges using this method on several occasions.

George Gerges with his former model girlfriend Emma Rose, who knew nothing about his criminal exploits

Sydney business George Gerges regularly posted shirtless pictures to his social media accounts

Cocaine courier George Gerges (pictured) was arrested in September 2015 carrying 110 bags of drugs

Shortly after midday on May 6, an officer calling himself James sent a text message to AH. 'Hey bro. Could I pick up 1 ticket for the show tonight. I'll be around Mascot Train Station between 2-3pm'.

AH replied: 'Sweet bro'.

When 'James' met Gerges in his black Lexus about three hours later he paid $200 for a bag of cocaine.

But Gerges wasn't happy, telling 'James' that in future he should pick a meeting place where there would be less traffic.

'I can't keep coming out here...,' Gerges said. 'Anywhere around the city, Surry Hills, Waterloo, something like that bro... even Central... I just can't come here bro; like I've missed five people now... the traffic is so bad coming to Mascot bro.'

On May 5, Gerges was unhappy again, this time complaining to AH about he quality of the cocaine he was selling. Court documents show the drugs had an average purity below 50 per cent.

Police investigating a drug supply syndicate which included George Gerges seized cash from the address of another member

A sawn-off rifle was allegedly seized from the address of another member of a drug syndicate which included George Gerges

Gerges: 'You need to have a chat with the big man, bro.'

AH: 'What about?'

Gerges: 'A guy just got in my car and I swear to God he goes, he goes to me - I wouldn't lie to you - he goes, "I had three lines and there was no effect. It was just like I was having sugar".'

AH: 'Yeah, nah, I tried to tell him. We told him... give out the s*** ones on the weekend. Let them go out on the weekend and use the good stuff during the week. The regulars, they know... Just tell them next week it's going to change. Tell them it's going to get better, so it's all good.'

But Gerges's most passionate speech was reserved for his feelings about a new driver with a ponytail.

'The guy looks like a junkie,' Gerges tells AH. 'Some of the girls, they're like "we were a bit scared to get into the car"... and he looks really suss too.'

AH: 'He does. He is a suspect looking guy, man.'

George Gerges has pleaded guilty to the ongoing supply of cocaine to customers he picked up in his black Lexus

Some of the cocaine seized by police in an operation that targeted George Gerges and eight others

Gerges: 'Yeah, f***ing oath. Tell him, listen bro... if he wants to keep working for us you've gotta cut your hair and you gotta wear a f***in nice collared shirt when you work. Like he's making decent money, he can buy a collared shirt.'

AH: 'It won't cost him nothing. I'll f***ing buy him a shirt.'

Gerges: 'I'm not telling you, I'm not telling you to get rid of him, like we need the drivers bro, but you need to tell him to fix up his appearance a little bit.'

AH: 'Yeah, yeah. I'm going to actually say that to him because you're right, all right.'

In the same conversation Gerges also suggests the new driver change the address on his driver's licence to somewhere in the eastern suburbs, which would attract less suspicion from police if he was pulled over.

WHAT DID GEORGE GERGES THINK OF HIS FELLOW DRUG DEALER? 'A lot of people have said something about his as well. Like what's with your f***ing drivers? The guy looks like a junkie... some of the girls, they're like "we were a bit scared to get into the car..." and he looks really suss too.' 'Tell him, listen bro, if he wants to keep working for us, you've gotta cut your hair and you gotta wear a f***in' nice collared shirt when you work. Bro, he would do it, like he's making decent money, he can buy a collared shirt. 'I'm not telling you, I'm not telling you to get rid of him, like we need the drivers bro, but you need to tell him to fix up his appearance a little bit. 'Little things, just tell him little things bro, like get a haircut, dress nicely and make sure your face is shaven. Keep your car clean, that's really important too bro. Advertisement

AH agrees, saying that from afar the new driver 'looks clean, he'd pass as a normal person, but if they pull him over and talk to him, he's pretty much fried that guy, bro, to be honest.'

AH then discusses another driver who was arrested with his 'batch money' in his back pocket. 'He is a good bloke... he has a good heart but he's just not all there up there man.'

Gerges: 'Look cuz, let's be honest, most people with a good head on their shoulders wouldn't be doing this... I do my absolute best to minimize my risk.'

Police pulled Gerges over a short time later that day and found 40 bags of cocaine in his underwear. A further 32 bags were found in a first aid kit and 110 more in a gym bag on the back seat of his car.

Gerges pleaded guilty on Thursday to four counts of the ongoing supply of cocaine, two counts of supplying a prohibited drug, participating in a criminal group and possessing steroids.

He will appear for sentence in the District Court on May 26.
Seventeen-year-old Patricia Smith spent Mother's Day at Guantanamo Bay confronting one of the terrorists who allegedly helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks which killed her mother.

NYPD officer Moira Smith was the department's only female cop to die on September 11, 2001.

Now, al-Qaeda operative Yemeni Walid bin Attash, who has been locked in the controversial prison for over a decade, has begun pretrial hearings for his role in the terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people, including Moira.

Patricia's father Jim Smith told Newsweek that he's glad his daughter could see the men in person on Sunday and look Bin Attash in the eye.

'I am glad Patricia was able to accompany me here to see for herself the monsters responsible for the murder of her mother,' he said.

On Mother's Day, Patricia Smith, 17, visited Guantanamo Bay with her father (pictured, Patricia in 2016)

Prosecutors have said Bin Attash participated in the plot by 'collecting information about matters relating to airport and airplane security measures'.

She got the chance to lock eyes with al-Qaeda operative Yemeni Walid bin Attash, who is on trial for allegedly helping plan 9/11

Four others, including al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Muhammad, are being tried and could receive the death penalty.

Mr Smith said he believes Patricia will attend almost all of Bin Attashs future court hearings.

'It will be her job to carry on the search for justice in the event I am unable to in the coming years,' Smith said.

Moira Smith was one of the first to respond to the September 11 attack and was able to rush dozens of people to safety.

She was returning to the South Tower to continue her rescue effort when the building collapsed and killed her.

Her daughter Patricia became a national symbol after Smith was posthumously awarded the NYPD's Medal of Honor, the department's highest honor.

Patricia's mother, Moira Smith, was the NYPD's only female officer to die on September 11, 2001

Patricia was pictured accepting the honor with her father at Carnegie Hall on December 4, 2001, wearing a red velvet dress. She was only two years old.

Smith was listed among Glamour and Ms. magazines' Women of the Year for 2001 alongside Tahmeena Faryal, of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, and Diane Sawyer.

She was also named Woman of the Year by the NYPD's Policewomen's Endowment Association.

Smith was posthumously awarded the NYPD's Medal of Honor, the department's highest honor, in December 2001. Patricia was pictured accepting the honor with her father at Carnegie Hall on December 4, 2001. She was only two years old

'It will be her job to carry on the search for justice in the event I am unable to in the coming years,' her father, Jim Smith, said. Pictured, father and daughter together in 2002

Born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Smith began her police career in 1988 when she joined the New York City Transit Police Department before being assigned to Manhattan's 13th Precinct in 1997.

She was noted for her bravery throughout her career and was awarded the department's Distinguished Duty Medal for saving dozens of lives after a subway crash a decade before 9/11.
Parts of Australian-run Manus Island detention centre will be shut down within weeks ahead of its final closure, prompting refugees to fear riots will break out.

Papua New Guinea officials on Monday reportedly told refugees that an area of the camp would close on Sunday, with the rest of the compound to be shut on June 30.

But Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Manus Island was still on track for closure at the end of October.

Asylum seekers stare at media from behind a fence at the Manus Island compound

Last month, PNG soldiers fired guns into the compound (damage pictured)

'The centre won't close drop dead on the 31st of October, they will start to decommission parts of the centre in the run up,' Mr Dutton told 3AW on Tuesday.

An unspecified number of asylum-seekers will be relocated to a transit centre, according to Reuters.

Detainees awaiting acceptance for resettlement by the United States have been told that some of them will be held at the East Lorengau camp, near the island's major town.

Mr Dutton previously said refugees who aren't taken under the US resettlement deal will settle in PNG, while non-refugees will be sent back to their home country.

'We've been consistent in the message that people will not settle here,' he told 3AW on Tuesday.

As at 31 October last year, 82 per cent of the men had been found to be legitimate refugees by the PNG government, according to Australian government figures.

The Australian offshore processing centre in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, in 2012

Picture shows an asylum seeker on Manus Island with gauze over what is reported to be a head wound sustained from an attack on the detention centre on Good Friday

Greens senator Nick McKim has slammed the Turnbull government plan, over fears it will be put refugee lives at risk.

'The potential here is that some detainees may die as a result of the announcement ... Papua New Guinea is not a safe place for these detainees,' Senator McKim told reporters in Hobart on Tuesday.

Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani said Australia was continuing to violate human rights.

'The Australian government wants to implement this policy in spite of the serious resistance from local [PNG] people who are strongly against the decision to take more people into their community,' Mr Boochani said.

'In addition, the refugees are asking for freedom in a safe place.

'It is unavoidable that the refugees will resist and the government knows that well... But it appears again that there is not any law for protecting the refugees and there is not any justice.'

Mr Boochani said Manus Island was 'full of tension' and refugees were 'very angry' with the plan.

Mr Boochani (pictured) said Manus Island was 'full of tension' and refugees were 'very angry' with the plan

An asylum seeker inspects damage to the compound where bullets were fired

He told the ABC he expected there to be riots.

'We want to say to people and to the government, we don't want to live in PNG,' he told ABC.

'Don't use force and don't make trouble in this island. It is enough.'

The Manus Island complex was slated for closure on October 31, after PNG's Supreme Court ruled it illegal last year.

Human rights groups and the United Nations have criticised the camp's cramped conditions, inadequate medical facilities, and violence, with activists renewing calls for the centre to be immediately shut down in recent months.

News of the planned closure came after Amnesty International released its report into the Good Friday shooting at the centre.

The human rights group said verified footage and images confirmed bullets were fired directly into the camps during the rampage, contradicting initial claims made by Australian immigration officials and PNG police suggesting soldiers only fired bullets into the air.

A photograph of damage to the Manus Island compound is pictured as Amnesty International investigated

Bullet holes are pictured following the Good Friday attack at the compound

Mr Dutton has repeatedly said PNG soldiers opened fire on the centre because they were concerned about the welfare of a young boy who was allegedly led into the compound.

But Amnesty says the Australian government has failed to take responsibility for people's lives, arguing Mr Dutton sought to diminish the seriousness of the shooting.

'Instead of waiting for the results of an investigation, (Mr) Dutton has inflamed matters by making an irresponsible and unfounded claim about the shooting incident,' Amnesty's Kate Schuetze said.

'For him then to try and connect (the incident involving the boy), weeks later, to drunken soldiers shooting at a refugee centre is reckless in the extreme and will put the lives of people there at even greater risk.'

Refugees have lodged a complaint with Australian authorities about Mr Dutton's comments and are urging the release of CCTV footage they say will exonerate them.

They say the boy came to the compound weeks prior hungry, and refugees gave him food.
Three men are dead after their car flipped upside down, into a pond, while trying to flee from police during a high-speed chase after allegedly burglarizing a cellphone store in Georgia.

A fourth man  believed to have been the getaway driver  managed to escape from the wreckage and run away.

At about 4.20am Monday morning, a security guard saw men robbing a Sprint store in Fayette County, Georgia. He confronted the men and told them to stop, but they ignored him and continued burglarizing the store, according to 11 Alive.

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Three men died when their car flipped over and landed upside down in a pond while they were trying to flee from police during a high-speed car chase in Georgia on Monday

Devongelo Hunter (left), Eddie Alford and Mark Mathias died when their car landed in the pond

Investigators say that three men were in the store for a very short amount of time, while a fourth man was outside, acting as the getaway driver.

'They knew where they were going; they got what they wanted and fled the store,' Fayetteville police Capt. Mike Whitlow told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Police dashboard camera footage obtained by WSB-TV 2 shows cops pursuing the suspects' car in a high-speed chase that lasted for five miles.

During the chase, the suspects' car crashed into another car at an intersection, at which point police thought they'd lost track of the suspects in the dark, as they chased the car from Fayette County to neighboring Clayton County.

The car chase began just after 4.20am on Monday, when the men were allegedly spotted burglarizing a Sprint store in Georgia. Police chased the suspects' getaway car for five miles

The suspects' car hit another car on the road before it flipped upside down, landing in a pond

A fourth man, believed to be the getaway driver, was able to escape from the wreckage

Fourteen minutes later, police backtracked to the scene of the crash and discovered that the suspects' car had actually sunk into the pond after the crash.

'The vehicle was upside down and submerged down to its under carriage,' Clayton County Deputy Police Chief Joseph Woodall told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Despite attempts to revive the three men pulled from the car, they died at the scene.

Police identified the three men who died as Eddie Alford, 21, of Jonesboro, Georgia; Devongelo Hunter, 19, of College Park, Georgia; and Mark Mathias, 19, of Jonesboro.

Police did not name the fourth man who had escaped from the vehicle on foot, but said that they knew who he was and were searching for him.

Two of the men who died had active criminal warrants, according to authorities. All four of the men have criminal records in Clayton County, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

Hunter's sister, Shateria, told WSB-TV 2 that, 'I've been telling him for a long time, fast money, (is) not good money.'

The driver of the car that was hit by the fleeing suspects was taken to the hospital for treatment of non-threatening injuries and is expected to recover.
Bill Cosby says racism could be to blame for his sexual assault lawsuit during his first interview on the allegations in two years.

Cosby, 79, sat down with Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish, 55, during an interview that will air on Tuesday, and answered 'could be' when the presenter asked about his daughter's claim that 'racism has played a big role in all aspects of this scandal'.

'Could be, could be,' Cosby told Smerconish. 'I cant say anything, but there are certain things that I look at, and I apply to the situation, and there are so many tentacles.

'So many different  nefarious is a great word. And I just truly believe that some of it may very well be that.'

Bill Cosby (left) says racism could be to blame for his sexual assault lawsuit during his first interview on the allegations in two years. He said this even as the interviewer noted that both white and black women - including Lili Bernard ( right) have come forward

But Smerconish also noted that both Black and White women had accused him.

To which the fallen comedian answered: 'Let me put it to you this way: When you look at the power structure, and when you look at individuals, there are some people who can very well be motivated by whether or not theyre going to work.

Cosby sat down with Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish (pictured) during an interview that will air on Tuesday

'Or whether or not they might be able to get back at someone. So if its in terms of whatever the choice is, I think that you can also examine individuals and situations and they will come out differently.

'So its not all, not every, but I do think that theres some.'

But Lili Bernand, a Cosby accuser who was born in Cuba but identifies as Black, has reiterated that racial discrimination has 'nothing to do with it'.

'What about us black women whom he sexually violated?' Bernard told NBC in November 2016.

'We're talking about a man who serially raped at least 60 women and that's where the focus must be, race has nothing to do with it.'

This isn't the first time Cosby and his legal team have cited racial discrimination as the basis for the allegations. Last October, his attorneys filed a motion to a Pennsylvania criminal court and called the 'racial bias' against their client 'unfortunate'.

'We cannot ignore the unfortunate role that racial bias still plays in our criminal justice system,' the attorneys wrote in their motion to dismiss.

Last May, a Pennsylvania judge said there was enough evidence to try Cosby, who is facing three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault, each charge carrying a ten-year maximum sentence.
A wife is accused in a sordid scheme to kill her husband by asking her lover to hire a hitman after she allegedly tried to poison him but failed.

Alicia Noel-Murray, 28, faces life in prison for the murder of her husband Omar Murray, 37, in a Brooklyn trial that began on Monday. Alleged hitman Kirk Portious is also on trial, with a separate jury.

Prosecutors said in opening arguments that Noel-Murray, who had a 10-month-old son with Murray when he was killed in February 2013, had grown tired of her husband and was having financial difficulties, the New York Daily News reported.

She decided that murder was the solution to both problems, according to prosecutor Emily Dean.

Omar Murray, 37, was shot to death on February 24, 2013. His wife Alicia Noel-Murray, 28, is on trial for his murder and faces life in prison if convicted.

First, Noel-Murray tried to poison her iron-worker husband in October of 2012, but he recovered after a trip to the hospital, according to Dean.

Then the woman turned to her lover, Dameon Lovell, 32, urging him on to find a hitman for hire to kill her husband, the prosecutor said.

After one attempted hit fell through when the gunman missed Murray, said Dean, the wife and her lover hired Kirk Portious to carry out the murder for $3,500.

The boyfriend Lovell turned state's witness and is serving 15 years as part of a plea deal.

Murray had gone out to the store and was returning home when he was shot with his own gun, police said. His wife, who works for a home health care company, allegedly told 911 operators that there was an active shooter, keeping paramedics from entering the house.

Murray had gone out to the store and was returning the home (pictured) he shared with his wife when he was shot with his own gun, police said

Noel-Murray had taken out nearly $900,000 in live insurance on her husband before the murder, and tried to cash out the bulk of the policies withing two days of the slay, Dean said.

If convicted, Noel-Murray faces life in prison without parole, and Portious faces up to 25 years.

Attorneys for both Noel-Murray and Portious claim that their clients were set up by the boyfriend Lovell, who masterminded the murder himself to eliminate a romantic rival.

'He's lied to everyone from the beginning. He wanted this new lifestyle and Omar was the one in the way,' Noel-Murray's attorney Wynton Sharpe said of Lovell.

'The only crime my client did was being unfaithful.'
A female police officer has been injured she was hit by a car during a high-speed chase.

The pursuit in Perth's north ended with multiple crashes, including one where the officer was being pinned between two vehicles, police said.

WA Police confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that the incident occurred on Morley Drive, near Flinders Street, in Yokine at around 12.50pm on Tuesday.

A male driver allegedly reversed his car and trapped the officer before driving off and crashing into another driver - who was not injured, police said.

A police officer has been injured after being hit by a car during a high-speed chase in Perth

The 35-year-old man was arrested by police and is being questioned by officers.

Two other people inside the car were also arrested.

The police officer's injuries are no longer serious but she is undergoing ongoing treatment, police said.
North Korea's latest missile test marks a significant step forward towards Kim Jong-un's regime producing an ICBM capable of hitting the US mainland, experts have warned.

The dictator's defence ministry fired a missile named Hwasong-12 on Sunday night which soared 489 miles (787 km) reaching a height of 1,312 miles (2,111 km).

The test 'represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile', John Schilling, an aerospace expert, said in an analysis on the US-based 38 North website.

'It appears to have not only demonstrated an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that might enable them to reliably strike the US base at Guam, but more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).'

Sunday's missile was deliberately fired at the highest angle to avoid affecting neighbouring countries' security, but had it been launched at a standard trajectory, it would have reached at least 2,500 miles (4,000km) - almost half the 5,500 miles (8,851 km) required to reach the US mainland.

This graphic shows how an ICBM works and how far off the missile North Korea launched on Sunday was from reaching the US mainland. If it had been fired at a standard trajectory (marked in red) it would have reached almost halfway across the Pacific. Instead, it was tested at a steep angle (in yellow) to avoid affecting neighbouring countries' security

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 ahead of the launch

Kim Jong-Un, North Korea's leader, stands underneath a huge missile which was said to have been launched on Sunday

The long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) is launched during a test in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2017

South Korea's defence minister said on Tuesday that the launch shows Kim's missile programme is progressing faster than expected.

The details of Sunday's launch reported by KCNA were largely consistent with South Korean and Japanese assessments in that it flew further and higher than an intermediate-range missile (IRBM) tested in February from the same region, northwest of Pyongyang.

How far would missile have to travel from Pyongyang to reach the rest of the world? US Naval Base in Guam: 2,114 miles (3,402 km) Hawaii: 4,727 miles (7,670 km) London (over mainland Europe): 5,379 miles (8,657 km) San Francisco: 5,588 miles (8,993 km) Los Angeles: 5,935 miles (9,551 km) Washington, DC: 6,857 miles (11,035 km) Advertisement

KCNA said the test launch verified the homing feature of the warhead that allowed it to survive 'under the worst re-entry situation' and accurately detonate.

The claim, if true, could mark an advancement in the North's ICBM program exceeding most expectations, said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programmes, even from its lone major ally, China, has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the US mainland.

US President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang's provocations and has warned that the 'era of strategic patience' with North Korea is over.

US Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Tuesday China's leverage was key and that it could do more.

South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo told parliament Sunday's test-launch was 'successful in flight'.

Asked if North Korea's missile programme was developing faster than the South had expected, he said: 'Yes.'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un laughing during the long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) test launch in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)

The latest missile launch represents a significant step forward in its weapons capabilities, analysts say, but Pyongyang could be looking to secure a position of strength before a return to the negotiating table.

The intermediate-range missile fired by the North at the weekend was its longest-range rocket yet, according to experts.

It was its 10th launch this year, after dozens in 2016, as it accelerates efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States - something President Donald Trump has vowed 'won't happen'.

Melissa Hanham of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California said: 'Kim Jong-Un has stepped up testing compared to his father and grandfather, and it is starting to pay off. This is a clear indication of progress.'

A still image taken from the video said to show the launch of the missile on Sunday

Pyongyang has long had missiles that can reach targets across the South - the 311-mile (500 km) Scud - and Japan, the 621-808 mile (1,000-1,300 km) Rodong.

But with a supposed range of 2,796 miles (4,500 km), the Hwasong-12 puts US bases on the Pacific island of Guam within reach.

It is still some way off the 4,727 miles (7,670 km) needed to reach Hawaii, the 5,935 miles (9,551 km) to Los Angeles or the 6,857 miles (11,035 km) to Washington, DC, but the new missile could be a stepping stone to a properly working ICBM - which would fundamentally change assessments of the threat posed by Pyongyang.

Expert John Schilling added: 'This is not that missile but it might be a testbed, demonstrating technologies and systems to be used in future ICBMs.'

Pyongyang 'may be closer to an operational ICBM than had been previously estimated', he said on the respected 38 North website.

A functional ICBM would need a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on to a missile.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency claimed the latest test had proved its guidance and re-entry technologies, and said the rocket was 'capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead'.

It was 'plausible that they have made a compact warhead after five nuclear tests', Hanham said, but KCNA's phrasing was 'interesting but vague'.

'It's really hard to take their claims seriously without verification from other governments,' she added.

The North's leader, has said it was in final stages of developing an ICBM.

It was difficult to say when the North will have a reliably tested ICBM ready to deploy, said Lee Choon-geun, a senior research fellow at South Korea's state-run Science and Technology Policy Institute.

'When it comes to actual deployment, developed countries have tested at least 20 ICBMs and their success rate should be around 90 percent. It is not there yet,' he said.

But the new engine used for Sunday's test signaled a major step forward in the intermediate-range missile development, one that can be modified for an ICBM flight, Lee added.

Missile launch poses challenge to South Korea's new left President The launch came just four days after the inauguration of South Korea's new left-leaning President Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation and dialogue with Pyongyang to curb its nuclear ambitions. Moon was part of the South's last liberal government nearly a decade ago, which pursued a 'Sunshine policy' of engagement with the North, and declared at his swearing-in that he would go to Pyongyang 'in the right circumstances'. Instead, said Koo Kab-Woo of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, he had been posed 'an extremely difficult question' by the launch. 'Under the current circumstances, it's very hard' to hold any talks with the North, Koo said. But the timing of the launch so close to Moon's installation was largely coincidental, he said. 'They are just going their way consistently towards the goal of attaining nuclear deterrence capability.' Moon slammed the launch as a 'reckless provocation' saying that dialogue would be possible 'only if Pyongyang changes its behaviour'. The North 'strongly wants to talk with Washington', Koo said, as expressed by a senior North Korean official following a meeting with former US officials in Oslo, Norway. That remark came just two weeks after President Donald Trump said he would be 'honoured' to meet Kim, after their tit-for-tat sabre-rattling raised tensions in the region. Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to defend against the threat of invasion by the US, and shows no indication of any willingness to give them up, whatever concessions are offered. The North's young leader is more focused on presenting Pyongyang to Washington and Beijing as their equals, equipped with weapons as devastating as their own, said Choi Kang of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. 'The bigger you are, the bigger the advantage you will have over negotiations. Otherwise, you will be looked down on,' he said. 'In the Kim Jong-Il era, North Korea launched missiles to get Washington's attention,' he said. 'But now it's different.' Advertisement

North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper devoted half of its six-page Monday edition to coverage of the missile test, with vivid color photographs of the launch and jubilant leader Kim celebrating with military officers.

The pictures featured a long nose-coned projectile that appeared to be similar to missiles displayed during an April 15 military parade for the birth anniversary of state founder Kim Il-Sung, the current leader's grandfather.

The nose cone resembles that of the KN-08 ICBM the North is believed to be developing, and the lofted trajectory tests re-entry by putting the missile through extra stress, said Joshua Pollack of the US-based Nonproliferation Review.

'This is an advanced missile, if their claims are true,' he said.
A man was brutally bludgeoned to death in his own home after a schizophrenic friend thought he had made a homosexual advance when he pinched him on the bottom, a court has heard.

Basam Salameh's battered body was discovered stuffed under a pile of laundry in his Granville flat in August 2013, after he was fatally bashed by two friends.

Ahmed Kaddour, 23, who was last year found guilty of murdering Mr Salameh, was jailed for at least 15 years on Tuesday in the NSW Supreme Court.

His friend, Daniel Azar, 22, who was pinched on the bottom by Mr Salameh in what the judge described as possibly a 'gesture of friendship', had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was jailed for at least four years.

Mr Salameh suffered several lacerations and fractures to his head and body and his right eye had been completely ruptured.

A number of Basam Salameh ribs were broken, consistent with stomping, and an unspent bullet was found at the back of his throat (stock image)

A number of his ribs were broken, consistent with stomping, and an unspent bullet was found at the back of his throat.

'It is impossible to imagine the horrific trauma that Mr Salameh must have endured in the last minutes of his life, both physically and mentally,' said Acting Justice Jane Mathews while sentencing his killers.

Azar, who suffered from a schizophrenia illness at the time of the attack took the pinch as a homosexual advance, Justice Mathews said.

'His over-reaction to Mr Salameh's action was almost certainly, at least in part, attributable to that illness.'

Azar's charge was downgraded to manslaughter due to his mental condition.

Azar and Kaddour were asleep in Mr Salameh's unit on the evening of August 13 when the victim playfully pinched Azar on the buttocks.

'It was not a hard or painful pinch, and one must assume that it was done merely as a gesture of friendship, or possibly to wake him up,' the judge said.

The men left the apartment after an argument over the pinch but returned some hours later and bashed Mr Salameh to death.

Ahmed Kaddour and Daniel Azar were sentenced to jail in the NSW Supreme Court (pictured) on Tuesday over the 2013 death of Basam Salameh

After the attack, Kaddour told a friend he had smashed a table on Mr Salameh's head and talked about stabbing him with a screwdriver.

The judge said it was not possible to determine who played the dominant role in the attack and concluded it was the pair's combined actions that led to Mr Salameh's death.

'He was helpless and in his own home when he was subjected to brutal attacks from two people whom he had always considered to be his friends,' Justice Mathews said.
Thailand has backed down on its threat to ban Facebook after embarrassing footage of the country's king wearing a crop top emerged on the social networking giant.

Authorities threatened action against Facebook over the footage of King Maha Vajiralongkorn sporting 'fake' tattoos and strolling around a shopping centre with a woman in Munich, Germany.

But Thailand's deadline for posts deemed critical of the royal family to be removed has passed this morning and the kingdom has not followed through with its threat to ban the website.

Under strict lese-majeste laws in Thailand, people can be jailed for up to 15 years for sharing material which is insulting to the monarchy

The video shows the 64-year-old monarch walking through a shopping centre with a woman

Footage shows the monarch, who came to power last year following the death of his father, with a number of tattoos on his arms, stomach, and back.

However, the tattoos may actually be transfers as they are not the same as those seen in photographs taken at Munich airport earlier in 2016, one observer noticed.

The sleeve tattoo is shorter than in the airport photos and he has a tattooed belly in this video, which he did not have at the airport.

Under strict lese-majeste laws in Thailand, people can be jailed for up to 15 years for sharing material which is insulting to the monarchy.

The video has been geo-blocked by the social network, but Thai authorities say 131 pages containing the 'illicit' video are still available.

The king was wearing a crop top showing off his tattoos in the video footage, which has been banned in Thailand

The monarch was seen walking around the shopping centre while wearing a crop top in video which has angered Thai authorities

The king has heavy tattoos on his arms, back and stomach in the footage, which shows him wearing a yellow crop top. However, the tattoos may actually be transfers as they are not the same as those seen in photographs taken at Munich airport earlier in 2016

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission had warned: 'If even a single illicit page remains, we will immediately discuss what legal steps to take against Facebook Thailand.'

Last week the Thai Internet Service Provider Association emailed Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg calling for the posts to be blocked, the Bangkok Post reports.

The Worldwide Movement for Human Rights has said 105 people have been arrested under the strict laws since May 2014.

President Dimitris Christopoulos said: 'In less than three years, the military junta has generated a surge in the number of political prisoners detained under lese-majeste by abusing a draconian law that is inconsistent with Thailand's international obligations.'

The monarch is the only son of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last year at the age of 88.

After spending much of his life outside the public eye, Maha Vajiralongkorn was catapulted into the limelight as future king of a politically fractured nation.

Who is the playboy prince that became king? Thai monarch has spent most of his life overseas and been married three times King Maha was born on July 24, 1952 in Bangkok's Royal Dusit Palace, the 64-year-old is the only son and male heir of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit. As an adolescent he studied at two public schools in Britain, including King's Mead School, Seaford, Sussex, and then at Millfield School, Somerset. After, he embarked on a military career, training in Australia. In 1976, he graduated as a newly commissioned lieutenant with a liberal arts bachelors degree from the University of New South Wales. Pictured: Queen Sirikit of Thailand with Prince Maha (left) and Princess Rajakanya in 1953 King Maha was born on July 24, 1952 in Bangkok's Royal Dusit Palace. As an adolescent he studied at two public schools in Britain After graduating he started a career in the military training with US, British and Australian armed forces. He also qualified as a a fixed wing helicopter pilot in the late 1970s in the Royal Thai Army. His military career was interrupted in 1978 so he could be ordained for a season as a Buddhist monk, as is customary for all Thai Buddhist men. He married his first wife in 1977, a cousin, Princess Soamsavali Kitiyakara, with whom he has a daughter, Princess Bajrakitiyabha in 1978. They divorced in 1993. He wed his first cousin Soamsawali Kitiyakara (left) in January 1977 but nine months after she gave birth to his daughter the prince had a son with actress Yuvadhida Polpraserth The King, a licensed pilot, in the cockpit of a fighter jet with one of his five children Nine months after his daughter was born, the prince had a son with actress Yuvadhida Polpraserth, with whom he went on to have a total of five children and a tumultuous relationship. Three years later his relationship broke down with Ms Polpraserth as she fled to the UK in 1996, after a spectacular bust up. In 2001 he wed his third wife Srirasmi Suwadee, describing her as a 'modest and patient' woman who 'never says bad things towards anyone' and like his previous relationships there were to be a number of controversies in their time together. In 2007, footage published online showed the couple throwing a party for his pet poodle - who held the rank of Air Chief Marshall - at the Royal Palace in Bangkok. Princess Srirasmi, a former waitress, who sang happy birthday to the dog topless, also got on her knees and ate from a dog bowl in the same video. Footage from 2007 shows Prince Maha throwing a birthday party for his pet poodle Fufu - who held the rank of Air Chief Marshall - at the Royal Palace in Bangkok. Pictured: His third wife dressed in nothing more than a G-string to celebrate Fufu's birthday In 2001 he wed his third wife Srirasmi Suwadee (pictured with their son Dipangkom Rasmijoti), describing her as a 'modest and patient' woman who 'never says bad things towards anyone' In late 2014, Srirasmi suffered a very public fall from grace when several members of her family were arrested as part of a police corruption probe and charged with lese majeste (treason). Vajiralongkorn later divorced her and she lost her royal titles . The crown prince has spent much of his time away from the public eye, but in recent years he has stepped in at some official ceremonies as his father's health declined. Despite holding a number of military titles, including Knight of the Ancient and Auspicious Order of the Nine Gems, the prince admitted to an interviewer he was unable to tie his own shoe laces aged 12 because courtiers had always done it for him. The appointment of Prince Maha - who has asked for a delay of four days before he assumes the throne - has raised eyebrows both at home and abroad. Pictured: Undated pictured of the new king at Disneyland The crown prince has spent much of his time away from the public eye, living overseas in Germany, but in recent years he has stepped in at some official ceremonies as his father's health declined. In August 2015 he led key figures of the current junta and thousands of others in a mass bike ride through Bangkok, a rare high-profile appearance. He was drafted in as King in October 2016, 50 days after the death of his father, the highly revered Bhumibol Adulyadej. He had to fly back from Germany after learning of his father's deteriorating health in the days before. Thai junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha announced that the Crown Prince would ascend the throne with tthe statement: 'The government will inform the National Legislative Assembly that His Majesty the King appointed his heir on Dec. 28, 1972.' However, in a shock move he requested to delay his coronation and ascension to the throne for a year to mourn the passing of his father. 'He [King Bhumibol] thought his son would be a poor king but he was a conservative man and thought a man should succeed him. There was no alternative,' biographer Andrew MacGregor Marshall told MailOnline. Pictured: Father and son in full Guards' uniform in Bangkok Advertisement

The 64-year-old inherits one of the world's richest monarchies, yet the untested heir has enormous shoes to fill following the October 13 death of his father, who charmed a nation that came to see him as a compassionate and unflashy monarch.

Bhumibol's popularity and moral authority helped him wield vast influence during his seven-decade reign, despite the few legal powers granted to the constitutional monarch.

But he has left behind a deeply polarised country, trapped in a cycle of political protests, coups by an arch-royalist military and entrenched inequality.

Vajiralongkorn does not enjoy his father's level of popularity and has spent much of his life overseas, particularly in Germany.

Rumours over his private life have also trailed him, gilded by three-high profile divorces and a recent police corruption scandal linked to the family of his previous wife.

After his father's passing, he shocked many by requesting to delay his ascension to the throne.

That announcement was delivered on his behalf by junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who said the prince wanted more time to grieve with the nation.

In the past, heirs have typically been proclaimed king shortly after the throne is vacated.
A teenage pupil defied a 'drag ban' at his school to stun his friends and teachers with a performance of 'I Will Survive' while wearing a floor-length red dress and towering heels.

Philipp Penning and his Year 11 classmates were planning their leavers' assembly when a teacher suggested he could be inspired by his role of Edna in Hairspray for his part.

But the 16-year-old said he was told not to wear full drag for his last day at Telford's Charlton School when he would be taking to stage for the assembly.

Philipp Penning, above left in drag for the performance, and right in his usual school attire, defied the ban with the help of his friends and a petition

His furious friends started a petition on Facebook and with more than 250 supporters, the school ended up reversing their decision banning him from wearing drag.

But the school's headteacher has said he was always happy for the teen to wear a dress, as long as it fit the overall code for the day.

Philipp told the Birmingham Mail: 'The teacher who was helping us [with the assembly] was very impressed by the performance [as Edna] and suggested I did something related to that. I thought this was a brilliant idea.

'However, when I spoke to the other teachers about wearing a dress for the Leavers' Assembly and possibly even wearing drag, they said they needed to think about it.'

Philipp struts into the leavers' assembly to cheering crowds as he prepares to perform to 'I Will Survive' by Gloria Gaynor

He added: 'That same day I was stopped before I left the building and was told I couldn't.'

Philipp had also had huge support from friends after launching a petition to overturn his ban.

Philipp was met by cheering crowds as he stunned friends and teachers. The 16-year-old had been told he could wear a dress but that his outfit needed to fit the day's code

However he and his friends fought back and battled for him to be allowed to wear full drag to perform on his last day

A Facebook group and website, 'Justice for Philipp', was also set up.

Less than 24 hours later he presented staff with 283 signatures of support - and they were forced to overturn the ban.

A post on the website read: 'Philipp was told he was not allowed to wear a dress to school because it was "informal" and "unrespectable".

'The student body set up a petition that received over 250 signatures from the other students.

'They took this to the principal who changed his mind.

'On Friday, May 12, Philipp wore the dress and looked fabulous doing it.'

Philipp added: 'I was very nervous before the show. My friends calmed me down and helped me come up with the start of the routine, everything else was improvised.

'Everyone was really positive afterwards. They were all so proud of me and I can't be more thankful.

'My fellow pupils were beyond supportive - every single one of them stood behind me and even set up a Facebook page.

'A few even came with me to argue my case to the teacher.

'I owe everything to the students of Charlton School.'

His mother Michelle said she was 'very proud' of her young man and pleased he was confident to express himself

Although he is planning to pursue a career in geography, the creative teen has not ruled out a sideline in drag

The teenager continued: 'The most supportive person of all was my mother. She has always had my back and even helped me with my make up in the morning.'

Mum Michelle spoke of her 'amazement' that so many young people had supported Philipp.

'I am so very proud of my child and support him every step of the way,' she said.

'I am completely amazed that so many young people have come together to support a fellow student.

'Slowly but surely we are becoming more accepting, tolerant and free to be who we want to be.

'I am very proud of my young man and happy that he has the confidence to express himself.'

Philipp is now hoping to study for a career in geography.

'I might try a bit of drag on the side, though,' he said.

Andy McNaughton, principal of Charlton School, said: 'The dress code for Leavers' Day on Friday was that pupils should wear smart clothes but non-uniform.

'The pupil in question approached staff earlier in the week asking if he could wear drag. He was told it was fine to come into school wearing a dress but that we did not want him to wear full drag, as that wouldn't have been consistent with the aims of the day.

'It appears that advice has been misinterpreted resulting in the petition. However there was no need for this as we had already told him a dress was acceptable.

'In the event, what the pupil wore was in keeping with the aims of the day, which was a huge success. All our pupils looked very smart.'
This is the brilliant moment a mother calmly reduced her snarling and growling Rottweilers to silence following a standoff over a tasty treat.

The pair of dogs - named Stan and JJ - were sitting opposite one another, loudly competing for the tempting bone that lie between them.

But instead of pouncing for the snack, they wouldn't move an inch without the say so from their owner.

Two Rottweilers, called Stan and JJ< are filmed growling and locked in standoff over a bone

But their owner shows she has full control as she calmly tells them to 'stay' - and neither of the pets move

In the video posted to Instagram, the unnamed owner calmly tells them to 'stay'.

And it worked a treat. While their fangs are bared and saliva drips from their mouths, they do not move.

After she speaks the pair stop making any noise altogether.

The woman tells them: 'Enough now, that is enough. It is my bone now.' In an even-measured tone.

She reaches forward and takes the bone and neither dog moves, except to bow their head as if to say, 'Sorry mum!'.

The video shared on social media, winning her praise for her technique.

Some said she should have offered two bones while others disagreed.

One wrote to RottweilerLife.com and said: 'Everyone is on about two bones but if you have a Rottweiler, you know they probably had one each to start off with but like kids they always want what other one has.

'I think she handled it brilliant those dogs regarded her as the boss, well done I say.'

Sorry mum! The owner reaches forward and takes the bone and neither dog moves, except to bow their head as if to say, 'Sorry mum!'
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The biggest single owner of Great Danes in the UK has revealed how her enormous dogs have taken over her life - from destroying her furniture to 'turning her whole house upside down'.

Angela Atkins says her life is completely dominated by her five beloved pets, which she describes as 'destruction on four legs'.

The 68-year-old spends nearly 250-a-month on food for the dogs - which together weigh more than 55 stone - and she had to buy a van and maintain a private field to accommodate them.

Mrs Atkins, from Cardiff, said her dogs also take up much of her bed and once ate her entire lounge - including the sofa and the floor.

Angela Atkins is the biggest single owner of Great Danes in the UK, with five of the huge dogs in her Cardiff home

The 68-year-old dedicates her life to her beloved pets, despite describing them as 'destruction on four legs'

The five Great Danes have to be exercised in their own private field because of their territorial, pack nature

he 68-year-old spends nearly 250-a-month on food for the dogs - which together weigh more than 55 stone - and they can get through a freezer of meat in a week

Mrs Atkins also had to replace her lounge suite after it was eaten. The ambulance driver from Cardiff said: 'It's certainly not for the faint-hearted, as they are very big dogs.

'But I love them to pieces and I can't imagine life without them. Apart from breeders I am the biggest single owner.

'I own five Great Danes, and they are all about three foot tall at the shoulders. My biggest one weighs over 12 stone. If he wants to go you cannot hold him back.

'I have got land but you cannot take them out in public areas. They are very pleasant dogs but if one of them were to get attacked they would all go. They are a close pack.

'I have a freezer full of meat for the dogs. It's an easy place to put it but they can eat their way through it in a week.

'Every week I spend about 50 in meat and kibble for the dogs. I do not bother with insurance for them. It's just not feasible, especially for the older ones. Any vet bills just go on the credit card.

'It's a worry but that's the best way I can do it. I feed and exercise them well so they don't really get sick.'

But Mrs Atkins admits there are other difficulties in owning a pack of Great Danes.

As well as the cost of keeping them fed, she also finds it difficult to sit on her own sofa and has to sacrifice a large chunk of her bed at night.

Mrs Atkins said: 'I do not bother with insurance for them. It's just not feasible, especially for the older ones. Any vet bills just go on the credit card'

As well as the cost of keeping them fed, she also finds it difficult to sit on her own sofa and has to sacrifice a large chunk of her bed at night

She added: 'They can be just destruction on four legs. They ate my entire lounge. They even chewed the floor.

'You cannot get precious as the whole house will be turned upside down. You just have to accept it. It goes with the territory.

'They dribble a lot. You get slime on everything and you're forever wiping things off.

'They take up a lot of room and they like lying on furniture. They're dogs of luxury. It means sometimes you can't get a seat in your own house.

'You cannot be too fussy. You have to use throws on sofas and you get through a lot of bedding for them.

'Two of them even sleep in bed with me at night, and obviously they take up an awful lot of room. It's a good job my husband is very patient.'

The dogs take up a significant amount of room and =like lying on furniture - including Mrs Atkins' bed and sofa

The five dog 'dribble a lot', and Mrs Atkins said: 'You get slime on everything and you're forever wiping things off'

She has even been on holidays with other Great Dane owners, and once travelled six-and-a-half hours with her pack to join 48 other dogs on a mass beach walk.

Her granddaughter Shannon, 14, also loves the dogs and regularly comes to visit them.

Mrs Atkins said: 'There is a Great Dane fraternity. I have been on holiday to Mablethorpe with as many as 48 other Great Danes. We have had some fantastic meets, and it's always lovely to meet other Great Dane owners.

'They're the ones who really know what it's like - although even they find five to be a lot.'

Mrs Atkins has owned more Great Danes since she started 10 years ago. Most of her dogs are rescues that other people have been unable to handle.

According to Angela, people rush into buying the puppies without thinking of the giants the dogs grow into.

She said: 'I have had Great Danes for nearly 10 years now, and I wish I had started sooner. I mostly rescue the dogs because people cannot handle them.

'Sadly people take them on without realising what they are like when they are full size.

'They are such lovely dogs but they need training. They are big dogs at the end of the day.'
A noose was found hanging from a tree at a high school in North Carolina over the weekend, authorities say.

Officials at Union Pines High School in Cameron said that the creation of the noose was not racially motivated, but rather came after a conversation about suicide and the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why.

A photo of the noose at Union Pines High School was posted on social media on Friday, and when police became aware of the picture the next day, they went to the school to remove it.

A student has admitted to making the noose, which was made out of packing twine, and hanging it on a tree about eight feet off the ground near a bus parking lot.

A photo of the noose at Union Pines High School was posted on social media on Friday, and when police became aware of the picture the next day, they went to the school to remove it

District officials said that the noose was connected to a recent conversation about teen suicide.

'Recently, there has been some increased awareness around teen suicide, some around the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why,' Seth Powers, director for Student Support Services, told WNCN.

He added: 'We certainly have trained professionals on staff in form of counselors, social workers, psychologists that are there to support students and their needs in terms of mental health which may be a problem and concern with this particular student.'

Many students at Union Pines said they didn't know about the noose until they saw it on the news on Monday.

Officials said that the student will not be charged with any crime but will be disciplined.

The student could face up to ten days of suspension from school for the incident.

Posers said in a statement that parents should be aware of the public discussions going on about teen suicide.

Officials at Union Pines High School in Cameron, North Carolina, say the incident was not racially motivated, but rather came after a conversation about suicide and the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why

Parents are being warned about leaving children unsupervised to watch hit Netflix show '13 Reasons Why' (pictured), with mental health experts dubbing it 'graphic and confronting'

'Parents should be aware that with recent increased public awareness and discussions about teen suicide, conversations may occur that require attention and appropriate intervention,' Powers said. 'We encourage all parents as well as school staff to be diligent in addressing this important topic.'

School officials said that it's important to have serious discussions about mental health , especially after the release of the show 13 Reason Why.

In addition to suicide, 13 Reasons Why also portrays issues such as sexual assault, slut-shaming, bullying and stalking.

Educators and experts have expressed concern that young people could be disturbed by the show, especially when it comes to viewers with mental health issues.

Trigger warnings have also been added before several episodes, so that vulnerable viewers can opt out of watching content that might be harmful to them.

Last month, the National Association of School Psychologists took a clear stance against the show, insisting it is dangerous for young people.

'We do not recommend that vulnerable youth, especially those who have any degree of suicidal ideation, watch this series,' the board said in a statement.

The creators of the show, however, have defended it as honest and well researched.

Netflix and the show creators point out that several mental health professionals were consulted and they offer a 30-minute spin off called 'Beyond the Reasons' that delves deeper into the tougher topics portrayed, as well as links to a site with resources.
Sir David Omand (pictured), the former head of GCHQ, said Microsoft knew public bodies worldwide still heavily reliant on Windows XP when it withdrew technical support for it

Britain's former top spy chief has criticised Microsoft for not maintaining its support service for its Windows XP system to protect public services from cyberattacks.

Sir David Omand, the former head of GCHQ, said the tech giant knew public bodies around the world were still heavily reliant on the system when it withdrew technical support for it in 2014.

Large swathes of the NHS were paralysed by last week's cyber attack, which hit 200,000 victims in 150 countries around the world.

In a letter to The Times, Sir David - who was once homeland security adviser to Number 10 - wrote: 'Should Microsoft have stopped supporting Windows XP so soon, knowing that institutions had invested heavily in it (at the urging of the company at the time)?'

It came as Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the NHS was 'open for business', with only a handful of hospitals still suffering disruption caused by Friday's hack.

Following a meeting of the Government's Cobra contingencies committee, Ms Rudd said more than a million patients had been treated in the course of Monday.

'All GPs surgeries did open, though some of them had to use pen and paper,' she said.

'The vast majority of patients have noticed no difference. It has been a very strong response.'

Earlier on Monday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed there had not been a second wave of attacks on NHS trusts and said it was 'encouraging' that the level of criminal activity was at 'the lower end of the range' anticipated.

Mr Hunt has come under fire for failing to appear in public since the attack, which hit 47 trusts in England and 13 Scottish health boards.

In his first public comments since the attack, Mr Hunt told Sky News: 'Although we have never seen anything on this scale when it comes to ransomware attacks, they are relatively common and there are things that you can do, that everyone can do, all of us can do, to protect ourselves against them.

It came as Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the NHS was 'open for business', with only a handful of hospitals still suffering disruption caused by Friday's hack

'In particular, making sure that our data is properly backed up and making sure that we are using the software patches, the anti-virus patches, that are sent out regularly by manufacturers.'

NHS Digital said health trusts across England were sent details of an IT security patch that would have protected them from the attack.

The health service has been criticised for using the outdated Windows XP operating system to store digital information, despite security updates for the software having been discontinued by Microsoft.

NHS Digital said it had made health trusts aware last month of IT protection that could have prevented the damage.
A Melbourne woman has been tied up and violently assaulted during a shocking home invasion in broad daylight.

Two men broke into the 55-year-old's Hillside home at around midday on Tuesday and left with the woman's car after attacking her.

Paramedics weren't called to her home until after 1pm, where the woman was treated at the scene.

She was rushed to Royal Melbourne Hospital with significant upper body injuries and is in a serious but stable condition.

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A Melbourne woman is the victim of a shocking home invasion by two men in broad daylight

The 55-year-old was tied up and violently assaulted during the break-in

Police have cordoned off Speargrass Drive in the city's north-west and said in a statement they 'believe she may have been restrained by the men, but are still to talk to her in hospital.'

As well as stealing her car, a champagne-coloured Volkswagen Passat with license plate registration VAK158, the men also took her mobile phone.

Forensic units are currently at her home and investigations into the brazen attack are continuing as police wait to speak with the victim.

Anyone with information on the break-in or have seen the stolen car are being urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Billionaire Bill Gates has prompted furious backlash after telling young people to do more to fight 'inequity' and claiming that now is 'an amazing time to be alive'.

The philanthropist, who is worth $85billion, sent a tweetstorm on Monday revealing his career advice to new college graduates.

Fans told Mr Gates to 'pull the other one' and accused him of ignoring the plight of people 'perishing in poverty and war' after he insisted that now is the 'most peaceful time in human history'.

Billionaire Bill Gates has prompted furious backlash after telling young people to do more to fight 'inequity' and claiming that now is 'an amazing time to be alive'

The philanthropist, who is worth $85billion, sent a tweetstorm on Monday revealing his career advice to new college graduates

The Microsoft founder, 61, began his series of tweets by writing: 'New college grads often ask me for career advice.'

Mr Gates, who dropped out of Harvard after two years to create Microsoft with fellow student Paul Allen, told graduates what he wished he had known then.

'AI, energy, and biosciences are promising fields where you can make a huge impact. It's what I would do if starting out today,' he began.

'Looking back on when I left college, there are some things I wish I had known.

'E.g. Intelligence takes many different forms. It is not one-dimensional. And not as important as I used to think.

'I also have one big regret: When I left school, I knew little about the worlds worst inequities. Took me decades to learn.'

He called for young people to fight injustice together, writing: 'You know more than I did when I was your age.

'You can start fighting inequity, whether down the street or around the world, sooner.'

Mr Gates also paid tribute to his wife of 23 years Melinda Gates, who he set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (pictured being awarded the French Legion of Honor medal for their charity efforts in April)

Fans told Mr Gates to 'pull the other one' after he insisted this is the 'most peaceful time in human history'

Mr Gates also paid tribute to his wife of 23 years Melinda Gates, who he set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with.

The charity aims to enhance healthcare globally and reduce extreme poverty.

'Surround yourself with people who challenge you, teach you, and push you to be your best self. As @MelindaGates does for me,' he wrote.

'Like @WarrenBuffett [long-time friend and investor] I measure my happiness by whether people close to me are happy and love me, & by the difference I make for others.

He then said that Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels Of Our Nature was the 'most inspiring book' he had ever read as it shows 'how the world is getting better'.

Mr Gates, who dropped out of Harvard after two years to create Microsoft with fellow student Paul Allen, told graduates what he wished he had known then

Fans also accused him of ignoring the plight of people 'perishing in poverty and war'

The novel explores the concept that we are actually living in an era of peace in comparison to the atrocities of the past.

'It shows how the world is getting better. Sounds crazy, but its true. This is the most peaceful time in human history,' he explained.

'That matters because if you think the world is getting better, you want to spread the progress to more people and places.

'It doesnt mean you ignore the serious problems we face. It just means you believe they can be solved.

'This is the core of my worldview. It sustains me in tough times and is the reason I love my work. I think it can do same for you.

'This is an amazing time to be alive. I hope you make the most of it.

However many other followers flocked to the billionaire's defense, claiming the tweets were 'inspirational'

Fans took offence to the last quarter of his words of wisdom, with one writing: 'Amazing time to be alive. Pull the other one!'

Another added: 'This is an amazing time to be alive, for the 1 per cent elites in US. Say that to the people who live & perish in poverty, or in our never ending wars.'

A third wrote: 'Threaded tweets might be the worst thing to happen in 2017.'

However many other followers flocked to the billionaire's defense, claiming the tweets were 'inspirational'.

'Excellent series of tweets. Keep doing what you're doing with @melindagates. Very moving stuff!' one wrote.

'I am sure we will, with great inspirational leaders like you and @garyvee reminding us of the amazing opportunities of this era every day,' another added.

'A quite brilliant, inspirational series of tweets, thanks,' yet another grateful user said.

The Microsoft founder gives $5billion a year to development aid through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

It comes as Bill and Melinda were awarded the French Legion of Honor medal for their charity efforts in April.

They posed in front of the Elysee Palace with their medals - which recognise their philanthropic activities with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Microsoft founder gives $5billion a year to development aid through the foundation.

He has worked tirelessly to improve public health and encourage development in poor countries.

Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000 and started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect for himself.

But in June 2006 he announced that he would be working part-time at Microsoft to focus on the charity and stepped down as chairman in 2014.

Since 1987, Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest from 1995 to 2007 and again in 2009.

He is currently the richest person in the world.

In 2009, he and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge - which encourages other billionaires to pledge to give at least half of their wealth to charity.
This is the shocking moment a nanny slaps a toddler across the face after the child had been left in her care.

Parents named only as SE and MTE hired nanny Nadia Shapoval, 54, to look after their son, but became concerned when they spotted bruises on his body.

The parents hid cameras in their Istanbul home six months ago, and watched back footage showing Shapoval stuffing the child into his high chair before slapping him across the face.

When two parents spotted bruises on their toddler son, they set up a hidden camera to see if their nanny was to blame

Shocking footage exposed the abuse she was subjecting their child to, including slapping him across the face

Before the family saw the footage, they had fired MTE, over issues with her behaviour.

When they saw she had also assaulted their child, the parents filed a police complaint against her, though they did not know where she was.

The video shows her handling the little boy roughly as she squashes him into his high chair and hits him across the face

She was tracked down to another part of Turkey where she was arrested but refused to talk to police

SE tracked her down to Marmaris, in south-western Turkey, driving nearly 450 miles where he found her waking the streets alone.

Shapoval is said to have broken down into tears before being taken to Sehit Nedip Eker Police Station, where she refused to talk to officers.

Police did not report what she had been charged with but said she would come before a court in due course.

She is not thought to have been remanded in custody.
The Foreign Office has ruled Antarctica is at risk of a terror attack from ISIS because of a global threat to 'UK interests'.

Travel guidance on its website warned attacks 'can't be ruled out' in the barren 660,000 sq mile British Antarctic Territory.

Anyone visiting the icy wilderness is urged to be 'vigilant' amid a heightened global threat brought about by 'the conflict in Iraq and Syria'.

The warning has been labelled 'ridiculous' by one security expert.

The Foreign Office has ruled Antarctica is at risk of a terror attack from ISIS because of a global threat to 'UK interests' (file picture)

Travel guidance on its website warned attacks 'can't be ruled out' in the barren 660,000 sq mile British Antarctic Territory

Foreign Office travel advice for the region says: 'Although there's no recent history of terrorism in the British Antarctic Territory, attacks cant be ruled out.

'There's a heightened threat of terrorist attack globally against UK interests and British nationals, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. You should be vigilant at this time.'

Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British troops in Afghanistan, told The Sun: 'We expect guidance based on intelligence, not a pointless exercise in back-covering - unless Ive missed the Islamic State Polar Brigade.'

Anyone visiting the icy wilderness is urged to be 'vigilant' amid a heightened global threat brought about by 'the conflict in Iraq and Syria' (file picture shows ISIS extremists)

Security expert and former Scotland Yard detective Ian Horrocks said the idea of terror attacks taking place at the South Pole was 'ridiculous'.

The region is by far the largest of the UK's 14 overseas territories and the summer population averages about 250 - mostly made up of scientists and technicians manning research outposts.

Similar advice on terror threat levels is given for Iceland and the Falkland Islands as well as holiday destinations including Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and The Bahamas.
The revelation that President Trump shared top secret information with high-ranking Russian officials has thrown the White House Staff in chaos.

According to a New York Times reporters, the president has become 'sour and dark' and has turned against his staff, including son-in-law Jared Kushner

'His own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark,' the report claims, 'turning against most of his aides  even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner  and describing them in a fury as 'incompetent,' according to one of those advisers.'

White House aides were sent into a wild frenzy on Monday night after reports emerged that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials last week during a meeting in the West Wing.

As news of the story broke, Sean Spicer's communications team attempted to drown out shouting with a blaring television and reporters had a surprise encounter with Trump's top national security adviser, HR McMaster.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has denied reports that Trump revealed classified information to senior officials, calling the report 'yet another fake'.

Trump, however, defended himself against an onslaught of criticism following the report on Tuesday morning.

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According to the New York Times , who have spoken to two unnamed advisers, the president has become 'sour and dark' and has turned against his staff, son-in-law Jared Kushner

As reports of Trump released classified information to Russia broke, White House aides were 'hiding in offices' and Sean Spicer's communications team was turning up the volume of televisions to mask the sound of shouting

Reporters at the White House claim to have heard shouting coming from a room that Spicer, Steve Bannon and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in during the chaotic night. Shortly after reporting about the noise on Twitter, White House staffers turned up the volume on a TV to drown out the noise

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' Trump wrote.

Reporters at the White House on Monday night claim to have heard shouting coming from a room that Spicer, Steve Bannon and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders were in during the chaotic evening.

Shortly after reporting about the noise on Twitter, White House staffers turned up the volume on a TV to drown out the noise.

Other White House aides were 'hiding in offices' to avoid speaking to the press, a senior aide told The Daily Beast.

'Do not ask me about how this looks; we all know how this looks,' the senior aide, who described the scene as tense and 'a morgue', added.

White House officials denied the Washington Post report about Trump releasing classified information in several statements, including a 45-second on-camera statement delivered by McMaster, during which he said little more than 'I was in the room, it didn't happen'.

Officials refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the report had gotten wrong, ensuring it would dominate a week that White House officials hoped would be quiet in advance of the president's first foreign trip.

Reporters started gathering in the hallway outside Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office right after the Post story broke.

As the group grew to more than 20 people, press aides walked silently by as journalists asked for more information. Soon, three of the four TV channels being played in the press area were reporting the Post story.

Reporters had a surprise encounter with Trump's top national security adviser, HR McMaster, who told them it was the 'last place' he wanted to be

White House officials denied the Washington Post report about Trump releasing classified information in several statements. Trump is pictured above speaking with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) and Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak (right), during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday

At one point McMaster, who hadn't yet delivered his televised denial, stumbled into the crowd of journalists as he walked through the West Wing.

'This is the last place in the world I wanted to be,' he said, nervously, as he was pushed for information. 'I'm leaving. I'm leaving.'

Not long after, the press office sent a trio of short, written statements. Then Spicer briefly appeared to say McMaster would speak outside soon, prompting a mass exodus to a bank of microphones set up in the West Wing driveway.

'I was in the room, it didn't happen,' McMaster told reporters after emerging.

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation,' McMaster said. 'At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.'

Reporters immediately returned to Spicer's office, hungry for answers.

As they huddled in a hallway, one reporter for the conservative One America News Network spotted a handful of staffers, including Spicer and spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, walking not far from Spicer's office.

Soon after, faint, muffled sounds were heard coming from that direction.

In a a 45-second on-camera statement delivered by McMaster, the National Security Adviser said said little more than 'I was in the room, it didn't happen'

A television plays a news report on Trump's recent Oval Office meeting with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as night falls on offices and the entrance of the West Wing on Monday

Reporters and photographers (pictured above) were at the White House well into the evening on Monday night following the Washington Post report

It was unclear precisely where they were coming from or what they were - but after a reporter tweeted about the noise, White House staffers quickly turned up the volume on the office television, blaring a newscast loudly enough to drown out any other potential noise.

'WH comms staffers just put the TVs on super loud after we could hear yelling coming from room w/ Bannon, Spicer, Sanders,' Buzzfeed's Adrian Carrasquillo reported.

Sanders, however, told reporters that she didn't know anything about any yelling, CNN's Jim Acosta reported.

The Post cited current and former US officials who said Trump had shared classified details with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during a meeting last week.

They said the information, which had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

The Post story did not claim that Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered, as McMaster's denial suggested.

Around 7.30pm on Monday, Sanders emerged to announce that White House officials would not be answering any more questions for the evening.

'We've said all we're going to say,' she said, asking reporters to clear the hallway. They obliged.
A man has been arrested over the human remains found encased in concrete near Lake Mead earlier this month.

Edward Bedrosian, 54, was brought into Clark County Detention Center on one count of first degree murder with a deadly weapon, it has been reported.

The lake's spokesperson Christie Vanover said the remains, found on May 2, were covered with tarp and dirt near a popular cliff-jumping site Nelson's Landing.

Employees at the Aztec Wash near Las Vegas, Nevada, reported the gruesome find after noticing a foul smell from the area.

Edward Bedrosian (pictured), 54, was brought into Clark County Detention Center on one count of first degree murder with a deadly weapon

Clark County coroners office has yet to identify the remains or disclosed the manner of death.

Court records also identified Bedrosian as Edward Bedrusian and Edward Coleman, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

The Metropolitan Police Department's homicide unit was called in to investigate the remains.

Because they were encased in concrete, the authorities first had to determine whether the remains were human.

'We do not know what we have at this point,' an on duty officer said at the time.

Police initially blocked the entrance to Eagle Wash Road, which leads to Nelson's Landing, while police inspected the scene.

Employees at the Aztec Wash near Las Vegas, Nevada, reported the gruesome find after noticing a foul smell from the area. Pictured: Lake Mead, which the body was found close to

Local man Curtis Gaul said he came out to the area at around 1pm to kayak to notice police cars blocking the route.

As on his way back to Las Vegas, the same scene was flooded with more vehicles, more crime scene investigators and several more park rangers.

'It's unfortunate that something like that happened,' Gaul told the Review Journal.

'It is a very remote place out here. That's part of the reason why I came out here -because it is very remote and far away from a lot of things. It's kind of shocking and unnerving.'
This is the distressing moment a black bear was cruelly kicked after it made mistakes while performing at an animal circus in southeastern China.

The animal trainer continued the stunt as the enraged audience yelled at him to stop, according to a video taken by a spectator.

The footage was shared online on May 14 sparking a discussion on social media over the lack of animal protection in local Chinese zoos.

A black bear was seen performing hurdle jump in front of the audiences at Fuzhou Zoo, China

The 38-second video was uploaded by a web user known as 'Norton' on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

It was uploaded on May 14 after 'Norton' visited Fuzhou Zoo in China's Fujian province.

'Norton' told MailOnline that there were about 100 to 200 people watching the black bear stunt show at the time.

Footage shows the black bear kicked down a few hurdles rather than jumping over as the trainer, in a black top, dragged it by a chain.

He said that he never really encountered other audiences telling him to stop.

Soon the man kicked the bear's stomach and forced it to continue on to the next stunt.

He then hit the bear's head and kicked its leg, dragging it to the gymnastic rings.

'He kicked the bear at least three, four times. Though I cannot see if it's serious, the hit to the head is bit heart-breaking,' said 'Norton'.

Black bears are listed as the Grade-II endangered and protected animal species in China.

The bear failed to jump over few of the hurdles and the trainer can be seen kicking the bear

Audiences were shocked and yelled at the trainer to stop him kicking (left), but he continued and hit the bear's head (right)

Spokesperson from Fuzhou Zoo told MailOnline that the show was performed by Anhui Suzhou Circus from eastern China.

The black bear has been performing roughly one show a day, for around three to four years in Fuzhou Zoo.

'We have put a halt to the show and that particular animal trainer was suspended,' said the spokeswoman.

She added that the trainer kicked the bear lightly and confirmed that the bear was unhurt.

The zoo replied to MailOnline that they had suspended the trainer and stopped all circus shows

Web users were furious at the trainer's abusive act and urged the circus to stop the show.

'Stop putting animals on show and people should not buy tickets to watch such abusive shows!' commented 'FuJieXin'.

Others encouraged people not to pay and watch circus shows.

'It's a principle of demand and supply. Buying tickets show a demand of the shows and those cruel circuses continue to treat animals badly to perform,' said 'Singleboymin'.

Fuzhou zoo stated that they had already started to investigate the incident and stopped all the animal shows at the moment.
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A set of rare and candid photos have captured a youthful looking John F Kennedy's first foray into politics.

The 100 black and white snaps from 1946, when he would have been just 29, show him campaigning to become a US congressman for the very first time.

The album, which are expected to fetch $39,000 at auction, also includes the tragic president on his wedding day to Jackie, on the phone in his Boston apartment and getting a lesson in public speaking.

The 100 black and white snaps from 1946, when he would have been just 29, show John F Kennedy campaigning to become a US congressman for the very first time

The private album, being put up for auction to mark what would have been the president's 100th birthday later this month, also show him relaxing on the lawn with wife Jackie

The rarely seen photos, including this one of JFK with siblings (from left to right) John, Bobby, Jean, Pat, and Eunice, are being sold by US businessman Ronnie Paloger who owns all the negatives for them

Many of the photos were taken ten years before JFK was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, by lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald

The 29-year-old is also depicted mingling with the public at an annual parade and as well as celebrating his first political victory - a congressional primary vote - in June 1946.

Others show him visiting factories, meeting with youth groups and giving speeches.

Two of the images show JFK sat on the edge of a table wearing a pin-striped suit and him speaking on the telephone ahead of his 1952 campaign to become a US senator.

And there is also a snap of him on his wedding day in 1953 with his new bride Jackie Bouvier.

It was taken ten years before JFK was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, by lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald as he travelled alongside his wife in a cavalcade.

Most of the pictures in the collection have rarely been seen before and are being sold by US businessman Ronnie Paloger who owns all the negatives for them.

Photos including JFK on his wedding day to Jackie are being sold by US auctioneers RR Auction for a pre-sale estimate of $39,000 (30,000)

Here JFK is seen speaking on the phone, and showing off a handful of telegrams, in his Beacon Hill apartment in Boston

Most of the pictures in the collection have rarely been seen before. Pictured: Kennedy being sworn in as commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1946

Some of the most fascinating pictures in the album show JFK, who was assassinated in 1963, receiving a lesson in public speaking

A stunning group shot shows JFK campaigning in front of a market in an Italian neighborhood in East Boston during the 1952 race for the Senate

Another shows JFK proudly standing in front of a Boston voting booth in 1952, ready to cast a vote for himself at the conclusion of the senatorial campaign which he would win

Here, JFK's parents Joe Sr and Rose (pictured either side of him) celebrate his primary victory on the Congressional Campaign in 1946

He has decided to sell 100 prints of them to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of JFK. There are being sold by US auctioneers RR Auction for a pre-sale estimate of $39,000 (30,000).

Alongside them is a unique US Senate personal identification card issued to John F. Kennedy.

Trician Eaton, of RR Auction, said: 'The 100 lots of photographs depict a fascinating and crucial period in JFK's life from 1946 to 1953: chronicling his first political congressional campaign of 1946, his run for US senator in 1952, and his marriage to Jackie in 1953.

'They highlight the evolution of his early political career.

'Each image that was selected depicts a fascinating and crucial period in JFK's life, and that includes both his political and personal life.

'He can be seen sharing both of his political victories with his loyal and dedicated staff of volunteers who played such a major role in both campaigns. There are also fantastic images from JFK's marriage to Jackie in 1953.

Here Kennedy celebrates his primary campaign victory over dinner with family and friends at the Bellevue Hotel in Boston

A young John F Kennedy marches in the Charlestown Bunker Hill Day parade on June 17, 1946, a day before he was declared the overwhelming winner of the Democratic primary in Massachusetts's 11th congressional district

JFK poses with two campaign workers, a banner below them reading: 'The New Generation Offers a Leader'

The rare photos are being sold alongside a unique US Senate personal identification card issued to JFK, who went on to become the 35th President of the United States

Trician Eaton, of RR Auction which is selling the pictures, said: they depict a 'fascinating and crucial period in JFK's life from 1946 to 1953'. Pictured: JFK at a 'Youth for Kennedy' rally

They chronicle his first political congressional campaign of 1946, his run for US senator in 1952, and his marriage to Jackie in 1953

'The idea of "Camelot" and the Kennedy family is the closest America has to a Royal Family.

'As the 100th Anniversary of JFK's birthday, we thought the timing was perfect and that the images collectively could be used help to tell an untold story of John F. Kennedy or help remind us some of his many accomplishments.

'Overall these photographs are the best quality and assortment of rare images of JFK that we have ever offered.'
An actor got epic revenge on an IRS scam-caller by pretending to go to a Walmart to pay him, giving fake card details and even asking the scammer to go to lunch.

902010 star Ashton Bingham, of Studio City, Los Angeles, was ordered to pay $5,680 in unpaid tax - and decided to go along with it.

A clip shows the actor pretending that he feels suicidal halfway through the call, which prompts the scammer to say: 'I love you. Stay on.'

Mr Bingham finally unleashes hell in a scathing rant at the end of the video, telling the scammer he is an 'inebriated dog s***' who will 'burn in hell'.

Actor Ashton Bingham got epic revenge on an IRS scam-caller by pretending to go to a Walmart, giving false card details and even asking the scammer to go to lunch with him

902010 star Ashton Bingham, of Studio City, Los Angeles, was ordered to pay $5,680 in unpaid tax - and decided to go along with it

The video begins with Mr Bingham, from northern Nevada, holding out his mobile, which is on speakerphone.

'We have called to inform you about a lawsuit filed in your name, sir. Do you file your taxes by own or do you have anyone else filing your taxes?' the scammer asks.

'Oh, I've never been to Texas?' He replies sardonically.

'I will go ahead and read all the charges against your name, but before I do that do not interrupt me as I will give you a fair time to speak, alright?

Grinning with mischief, the Parks And Recreation star interrupts to say: 'Okay.'

The scammer claims that the actor needs to pay around $4,800 in unpaid tax and threatens that the IRS has issued an arrest warrant.

'Oh noooo,' Mr Bingham replies in mock-horror.

The scammer then transfers him to a 'senior investigating officer'.

The next man seems to be feeling optimistic about his chances, and bumps up the amount of unpaid tax to $5,680.

'I'm a little strapped on funds at the moment because I have a lot of medical bills and I went to the doctor six months ago and I was diagnosed with Plumber's crack,' Mr Bingham claims.

The scammer threatens that the IRS has issued an arrest warrant for Mr Bingham, to which he replies in mock-horror 'Oh nooooo'

A clip shows the actor pretending that he feels suicidal and wants to kill himself halfway through the call, prompting the scammer to urge: 'I love you. Stay like this forever'

The scammer persists: 'Do you have the $5,680 or not?'

'Yeah I do, I was gonna go to Knott's Berry Farm [theme park in California] but I guess I can just cancel that. So yeah I have it,' Mr Bingham trails off sadly.

He is then transferred to a third 'senior investigating officer', who demands that Mr Bingham transfer the money 'by himself'.

'By myself? Can I bring my dog?' he asks.

'Why would you want to bring your dog?' the scammer shoots back furiously, to which he replies: 'Well, I'm just a little scared and he's a service animal.'

'Sir, this is a recorded line, what are you talking about sir?' the scammer blusters.

The scammer then orders him to go to a Walmart store to drop off the money.

Mr Bingham blags: 'Yeah, I'm almost there. I'm walking up to the parking lot. This really sucks you know, all these horrible things happening.

'I don't know man, I'm just - I'm just starting to lose my will to be alive, you know. Like sometimes I feel like I need to like, end it, you know?'

There is a pause on the end of the line, before the scammer tentatively responds: 'You're just a smart guy, man.'

Mr Bingham then pretends to go to a Walmart, at which point the scammer seems to realise he is being played and tries desperately to get the actor to take out $500

Getting increasingly desperate, he adds: 'I love you. I love the way you are. Stay like this forever okay? Stay on.'

Mr Bingham then asks in a quivering voice: 'Really? You don't think I should kill myself?'

When the scammer replies that he shouldn't, the actor ventures: 'Oh. Can we hang out after I get this settled? Do you like lunch? Do you eat lunch?'

'I don't know,' the baffled scammer replies, to which Mr Bingham says dejectedly, 'Oh, you don't eat lunch.'

When the actor claims he is in Walmart, the scammer finally seems to catch on and starts laughing bitterly.

'You're a smart guy, man. Do you have money or not? Get a card of $500,' he says.

He then changes his mind, saying: 'Why don't you get me $100 then.'

Mr Bingham wastes even more time by asking if he should also buy a Walmart gift card.

The scammer seems on the verge of hanging up, when the actor says: 'OK, I'm ready, I have the card.'

As he reads out the fake numbers, the scammer yells: 'Sir, do you think I am a fool?'

'No, I think you're a c*** sucking, lint-licking piece of inebriated c*** sucking dog s***. That's what I think,' Mr Bingham finally vents.

As he reads out the fake numbers, the scammer yells: 'Sir, do you think I am a fool?' 'No, I think you're a c*** sucking, lint-licking piece of inebriated c*** sucking dog s***. That's what I think,' Mr Bingham finally vents

'You're gonna burn in hell, because you're a stupid motherf****** scamming motherf***.'

The other end of the line then bursts into static as the scammers start furiously shouting in a different language.

'Hello? F***face?' asks Mr Bingham, before shrugging and hanging up.

Amused viewers praised the video in their droves, with one writing: 'You are a great man sir!

'Wasting the scammers' time so they will not scam other people. You maybe just save 3-5 people from being scammed. May God bless you.'

Another added: 'Diagnosed with plumber crack. DEAD!'

The actor, who was previously a magician, explains on his Twitter bio: 'I make movies and mess with scammers for a living. Life is awesome. #blessed.'

Last year he made a similar pranking video of an IRS caller who he kept on the phone for 40 minutes before shouting: 'Stop f***ing scamming people, you stupid dumb son of a b****'.


A father-of-eight claims a Tesco checkout worker called him a 'poof' as he bought a pink Cancer Research Bag for Life.

Kelton Finney, 39, was with his seven-year-old daughter, Katie, to pick up milk at the Tesco Extra in Yeovil, Somerset, when the female cashier allegedly made the homophobic comment.

Mr Finney bought the bag in support of the cancer charity - a cause close to his heart after his mother died two years ago.

But he was left furious when checkout operator allegedly made a sick joke about him with her colleague.

Kelton Finney, 39, was with his seven-year-old daughter, Katie, to pick up milk at the Tesco Extra in Yeovil, Somerset, when the female cashier allegedly made the homophobic comment

He said: 'When this happened, I was just shocked and to be honest, very angry about it.

'My mum passed away from cancer two years ago next week so that was on my mind.

'When I saw the pink Bags for Life behind the other carrier bags, I asked for one because it was in support of cancer research and I like to donate to that charity.

'She turned around and said "what do you want a pink one for? Are you a poof?" then laughed.

'To make it worse, she then turned to her colleague on the next till, in view of other customers, and said "he wants a pink one. He must be a poof".

'I was so shocked I just completed my purchase in silence and left. 'It was humiliating to tell you the truth. You just don't expect people to use that kind of language in this day and age.

'I support all the cancer charities going and then I get that kind of abuse.

'I've got several homosexual friends and some of them claim to have experienced something similar at that Tesco before.

'I don't know what kind of training Tesco give their staff if they just open their mouth like that.'

A Tesco spokesman said: 'We'd like to apologise to Mr Finney for this incident'

Mr Finney bought they bag in support of the cancer charity - a cause close to his heart after his mother died two years ago

While Mr Finney was waiting at the checkout, his daughter went to find the bathroom and he stated he was relieved she hadn't heard what the woman said.

He said: 'Luckily, Katie didn't hear it because she'd gone to the toilet when she said it.

'I'd have been even more angry if she had. She had arrived at the till with me though, so the woman would have seen her. This incident was completely disrespectful.

'I was trying to do a good thing for a cancer charity. It's offensive to both myself and the charity.'

A Tesco spokesman said: 'We'd like to apologise to Mr Finney for this incident.

'Everyone is welcome at Tesco and it is never our intention to cause any offence.

'We'll be speaking to the colleague involved to ensure this doesn't happen again.'
Jess Laughton raised money to have her leg amputated but her operation was cancelled

An former star gymnast who raised 10,000 to have her own leg amputated was left in tears when the NHS cyber attack forced the life-changing operation to be cancelled.

Jess Laughton, 23, has been in agony for ten years after developing Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) following a leg break.

After being bed-ridden for a decade Jess made the brave decision to have her limb amputated privately and raised the money after being told her operation was unavailable on the NHS.

However, after travelling for eight hours from Hull, East Yorkshire, to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Lancashire, in an ambulance on Friday (12 May) Miss Laughton was told the planned amputation had been cancelled - because of the NHS hackers.

Describing the moment she was told her op had been cancelled, Miss Laughton said she 'cried and cried'.

She said: 'It was about 5pm that night and an anaesthetist came in and said 'have you been watching the news?' He said there had been a cyber attack and we have had to cancel all the operations.

'My mum and stepdad were there with me too and we all just fell silent. We didn't know what to say - it was the last thing we were all expecting after counting down the days and the hours.

'I was gutted - I just cried and cried. I've not cried as much as that in a long time.'

Miss Laughton, who used to be a star gymnast at school prior to developing the condition, has not been given another date for when the operation can be carried out.

The 23-year-old has been in agony for ten years after developing Complex Regional Pain Syndrome following a leg break

She developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) after breaking the limb as a teenager.

CRPS is a chronic pain condition that often affects only one limb and is believed to be caused by damage to the central nervous systems.

Miss Laughton has rued the perpetrators behind the massive cyber attack and wants them to be held accountable for the pain they've caused her and other patients.

She said: 'It's crazy. They have no idea about the damage they have caused to everyone.

'They're the ones sat behind the computer screen and they are not understanding the impact that this has caused.

'We've all called them a few names under the sun but hopefully they get caught and get shown what damage they've caused and they pay for that damage.'

Miss Laughton, from Driffield, East Yorkshire, said that the operation would allow her to use a wheelchair and in turn regain her independence.

However, her enthusiasm has now been drained after the operation was scrapped and she is dreading the prospect of remaining bed-ridden for the foreseeable future.

She said: 'If I'd had the operation, I would have been able to get in a wheelchair because at the moment the vibration of it is too painful.

'It would be so much better than being bedbound and it would have given me a bit of independence. I am struggling being in four walls and not seeing an end to all of this.

'It's been hard seeing the impact that it is having on my mum and my stepdad too because they're the ones who took care of me. It's taking it out on them and it's not fair because they need to have lives too.

'This was my chance to finally get some normality and independence back.'

She travelled to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Lancashire, which was among those affected by the NHS cyber hack

Hospitals cross the country were affected by Friday's cyber attack.

The attack, known as 'WannaCry' or 'Wanna Decryptor', saw 200,000 computers in over 150 countries infected by ransomware.

The virus originated in the UK and Spain before spreading globally.

The attack involved all incoming emails and web mail blocked by the hackers, who warned NHS staff in Ransomware notes that all files would be deleted unless $300 was paid.

The effects for many of the hospitals affected are still ongoing and machines have been switched off to prevent the spread of the virus.

A spokesman from Blackpool Victoria said: 'Blackpool Victoria Hospital is coping and staff continue to treat patients in a genuine emergency, but we ask patients to help ensure the best possible service by using A&E only in life-threatening and urgent circumstances.'

Those with planned appointments should attend unless told otherwise.
A student has revealed how he quit his degree and job and moved to the UK so he could visit Starbucks every day.

Oliver Ruiz was in the second year of his marketing and communications degree at IULM University of Milan when he decided to drop out and move to the UK so he could visit the chain daily.

Despite landing a job in London as a restaurant manager, the 24-year-old quit last week so that he could visit Starbucks whenever he got the urge and spend all day there.

Oliver Ruiz is so addicted to Starbucks, he quit his degree and job so he could visit everyday

Oliver even moved away from Italy - the birthplace of the espresso and latte - because the American coffee chain had not opened a store there

Oliver moved away from Italy - the birthplace of the espresso and latte - because the American coffee chain had not opened a store there.

He says he has a 'special and unusual' relationship with Starbucks and will spend around 7 a time - sometimes visiting twice in one day.

But shortly after Oliver moved, Starbucks announced it was to open stores in Italy - with the first in his hometown, Milan.

Friends say he was almost 'reduced to tears' when he heard the news - but he plans to be back home for the launch of the new Starbucks and is already planning the day so that it is 'perfect'.

Oliver, who is now unemployed, said: 'The thing is, the relationship I have with Starbucks is quite special and unusual.

'I was born in Milan and Italy is believed to be the coffee capital of the world but actually, they don't have as many choices as Starbucks. It's just espresso, americano or latte most of the time.

'In 2008, I visited Paris on a family trip and that's when I first tasted Starbucks.

'Now I visit every day and will get something different each time depending on my mood, although green tea lattes are my favourite.

'I might spend 7 each visit and I'll get a hot or iced drink depending on my mood and a pain au chocolat or triple cheese toastie. I don't like to think about how much I spend.'

He says he has a 'special and unusual' relationship with Starbucks and will spend around 7 a time

Oliver is now unemployed - but delighted because it means he can go for a coffee whenever he wants

He added: 'If I have time, I'll stay at Starbucks all day and try different drinks. For example today I wanted to try the freddo so I got that and a cappuccino.

'Sometimes if I'm busy I might visit in the morning then later in the day go back for a takeaway drink.

'The stores are so comfortable with nice music. They serve food all day long so I can stay all day if I want to.

'No matter where I am in the world, as soon as I see that green sign, or even just the font, I feel at home. Even though Milan is my home, I feel like Starbucks is home too.'

After dropping out of university and flying 600 miles so that he can visit his favourite chain, Oliver still felt that having a job restricted his time at the cafe.

Oliver said: 'The only way I could have got a coffee] was to quit my job, so that's what I did'

He added: 'I was at work on Tuesday and it was so sunny outside. I just thought 'I want a Starbucks'.

'So I said 'what am I doing here' and told my boss that I quit my job there and then.

'The only way I could have got it was to quit my job, so that's what I did.

'I didn't really care if [the job is] what I had to do - I really wanted a green tea latte.

'My mum actually expected this from me because she knows how much I love the stores.

'She said I'm crazy but she wasn't too surprised. I don't care how I get it, if I have the craving I just have to go and buy one.

'I really wanted a cold latte and to feel the sun on my face. When I have the cup in my hand I feel settled and happy.

'I feel safe and relaxed as soon as I see the sign. Even if I'm lost in another country I'll go there and feel at home.

'When I enjoy my favourite drink, I'll just sit down in a comfortable chair and feel a release.

'I'll fund my habit by using my savings and then when they run out, I'll work for a while again if I have to. I plan to fund it mostly with my savings from work.'

Oliver said he has no plans to get a job while he is living in London for fear of that restricting his Starbucks time.

After it was announced the American coffee chain would open stores in Italy, Oliver was almost reduced to tears

Oliver, who also adores American chains including Dominos and Coca-Cola, said: 'Milan will welcome Starbucks in 2018 and I'll be there for the opening.

'I'll take my friends with me because I've passed on my excitement to them as well.

He uses his savings to fund his coffee habit

'When I heard Starbucks was opening there, I nearly cried because I was so happy.

'I just couldn't believe it. My colleagues said 'are you crazy?'

'Right now, I'm kind of taking a year out and just following my dreams.

'I plan to stay in London as I have friends here. I'm just having a rest and then I don't plan to do much.

'I will plan how I can be in Milan for the opening of the Starbucks store in 2018. I want to plan that day perfectly.

'Keeping that day free is the most important thing for me right now.

'I don't have a boyfriend at the moment because I just moved here, but as you can imagine, when I go on a date we go to Starbucks.

'I just want to be by myself at the moment. All I need is myself and Starbucks.'

A Starbucks spokesperson said: 'We love hearing the lengths our customers go to to get their favourite coffee and we can't wait to welcome Oliver to our first store in Milan next year!'
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Jeremy Corbyn unveiled Labour's most left-wing manifesto in decades today vowing to hammer the 'rich' and empower unions.

Deploying the language of class warfare, the party leader promised to soak nearly 50billion from the better off and business, while renationalising key industries such as rail, mail, water and energy.

A 50p top rate of tax will be imposed on those earning more than 123,000, and anyone on over 80,000 faces paying 45p in the pound.

The money is meant to fuel a massive spending splurge on the NHS, schools and scrapping student tuition fees. Overall, government budgets would increase by an eye-watering 10 per cent.

But experts immediately warned that the Labour plan - which would take the tax burden to its highest level for 70 years - is extremely unlikely to raise the sums hoped as companies and entrepreneurs will be driven abroad.

A seemingly off-the-cuff promise from Mr Corbyn to end the government's freeze on benefits rises also descended into chaos, as the 4billion-a-year promise didn't feature in the manifesto and he was forced to ditch it within hours.

Meanwhile, shadow chancellor John McDonnell has admitted Labour does not know how much it would cost to bring the water industry - which is worth tens of billions of pounds - back into public ownership.

Jeremy Corbyn deployed the language of class warfare at the Labour manifesto launch in Bradford today, vowing to target the the 'tight-fisted' rich

Mr Corbyn was speaking at Bradford University today, where he was cheered for saying tuition fees would be scrapped

Enthusiastic supporters gathered at the venue in Bradford today, many of them sporting Jeremy Corbyn merchandise

Mr Corbyn told activists at the launch at Bradford University today: 'For the last seven years our people have lived through a Britain run for the rich, the elite and the vested interest.

'They have benefited from tax cuts and bumper salaries while millions have struggled.

'Whatever your age or situation, people are under pressure, struggling to make ends meet, our manifesto is for you.'

A draft of the manifesto was humiliatingly leaked last week, throwing the Labour campaign into chaos.

But the scale of the tax and spending commitments are even greater in the final version, threatening to take Britain back to the misery of the 1970s.

Among the plans are:

Imposing a 50p top rate of tax on earnings above 123,000 and slashing the threshold for 45p tax from 150,000 to 80,000. Some 1.5million workers would have to pay an extra 6.4billion in income tax.

A fat-cat tax on businesses with high-paid staff. Employers will be charged 2.5 per cent on earnings above 330,000 and 5 per cent above 500,000.

A swingeing hike to corporation tax, creating a Ministry of Labour to empower unions and scrapping restrictions on strikes.

Increasing inheritance tax and capital gains tax, and abolishing the marriage allowance.

In total Labour says it will raise an extra 48.6billion in tax per year, but experts have voiced doubts about whether the sums will materialise.

The money would be used to pump 37billion extra into the NHS over the next five years, fund a spending splurge on schools, and scrap tuition fees.

All children to receive 30 hours a week of free nursery care from age two until they start school. Currently the full provision is available if both parent work.

Water industry to be renationalised along with rail, energy and the Royal Mail.

The manifesto does not promise to cut immigration and suggests Brexit might not happen if the EU does not offer a good deal. Mr Corbyn refused to say that immigration - currently running at a net 273,000 a year - is too high.

Labour will be hoping the manifesto can get its campaign back on track, with polls suggesting they are on track for catastrophe on June 8.

Mr Corbyn hailed 'great' 1970s Labour PM Harold Wilson as he set out a programme for government that is red in tooth and claw.

He told the launch event the wealthy have pocketed 'tax cuts and bumper salaries while millions have struggled and been held back'.

Those affected by changes to the 45p threshold would include senior teachers, police officers and doctors.

Mr Corbyn was flanked by his closest allies, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott and shadow chancellor John McDonnell, before he spoke today

Mr Corbyn was greeted with rousing cheers by activists as he arrived for the speech in Bradford today

Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn's most senior aide, looked on anxiously as the Labour leader delivered his speech today

Labour will be hoping the manifesto launch can turn around its disastrous poll ratings, which suggest it faces being routed by the Tories on June 8

An individual on 100,000 a year would pay 1,000 more in income tax.

The complexities of the tax system mean some would face marginal rates of 65 per cent  losing almost two thirds of every extra pound they earnt.

Journalists were repeatedly booed by the audience as they asked questions of Mr Corbyn today. One Morning Star reporter asked the Labour leader what he would do about the 'biased media'.

Challenged on why he thought polls showed he was so unpopular with ordinary voters, Mr Corbyn merely said he was 'proud' to lead Labour.

The leader also made a seemingly off the cuff commitment to end the freeze on benefits - a policy that does not feature in the manifesto or the costings document published by the party today and would cost billions of pounds.

Mr Corbyn gave his address in front of a board featuring the Labour manifesto slogan: 'For the many, not the few'

The Labour leader hailed 1970s Labour PM Harold Wilson as he set out plans that suggested he wanted to take the country back to that period

Journalists scrambled to get copies of the manifesto after it was officially unveiled at the event in Bradford today

'Yes, increasing benefits is important and clearly we are not going to freeze benefits, that is very clear,' he said.

The remarks wrongfooted Labour frontbenchers, who appeared to have no idea whether it was now policy.

LABOUR'S MANIFESTO AT A GLANCE SPENDING: Education - 25.3bn a year Labour promised to abolish university tuition fees, reintroduce maintenance grants and pour cash into schools. Nationalisation  Tens of billions of pounds Railways, water, energy companies, and the Royal Mail would all be re-nationalised. Infrastructure - 250bn Labour would borrow to invest in energy, transport and infrastructure. Law and order - over 300m Recruit an extra 10,000 police officers and 3,000 firefighters, and review the counter-terror Prevent programme. Work, Welfare and Pensions - 4.6bn Scrap the 'bedroom tax' and reinstate housing benefit for under-21s, review cuts to Universal Credit. Protect pensions triple lock. Public pay increases - 4bn Labour will abolish the 1 per cent cap on public pay increases at an estimated cost of 4billion. Health and Social Care: 7.7bn Some 5billion a year will be spent on healthcare, including the abolition of hospital car parking charges. Annually 2.1billion a year will go into social care and 600million will be spent on restoring nurses' bursaries. TAX HIKES / SAVINGS - 48.6bn Corporation tax to rise to 26 per cent by 2020/21 to bring in 19.4billion. A 45p income tax rate on earnings over 80,000 and 50p above 123,000, bringing in 6.4billion. A 'fat cat' tax on firms paying workers over 333,000 to raise 1.3billion. A 'Robin Hood tax' on financial transactions will bring in 5.6billion. Advertisement

But Mr Corbyn then humiliatingly rowed back from the promise in interviews. 'We have not made a commitment on that,' he told Sky News.

The party would scrap the so-called 'Bedroom Tax' - which means people do not receive housing benefit for spare rooms in publicly-funded homes - but would not get rid of the benefit cap.

The costings released alongside the manifesto show that Labour aims to raise 48.6 billion in additional tax each year to pay for priorities including enhanced public services.

The manifesto commits the party to a Fiscal Credibility Rule requiring a Labour government to eliminate the deficit on day-to-day spending within five years and ensure that debt is lower at the end of the next Parliament than today, but providing flexibility to borrow for investment.

Some 1.3billion will be raised through an 'excessive pay levy' on firms with high-earning employees and 5.6billion from a 'Robin Hood tax' extension of stamp duty onto derivatives. VAT on school fees will raise 1.6billion.

Expensive pledges include 11.2billion to scrap university tuition fees, 6.3billion extra funding for schools, 5billion for health and 2.1billion for social care, and 4billion to lift the Conservatives' 1 per cent cap on public sector pay increases.

Labour also said it was looking at introducing a 'Land Value Tax' to replace council tax. The idea would see charges based on the value of land rather than property, and could hit residents in the South East harder than other areas.

The document - entitled 'For the Many, Not the Few' - states: 'We will measure our economic success not by the number of billionaires , but by the ability of our people to live richer lives.'

Mr Corbyn admitted after the speech that the costings did not cover proposed nationalisations 'because we don't know what the share price would be at the time that we do it'.

The National Grid is valued at 40billion.

The respected IFS think tank said the manifesto plan would take taxes back to the highest level in 70 years.

But director Paul Johnson said he was dubious that it could bring in the revenue Labour claimed, suggesting the actual figure would be more like 20billion.

'They are suggesting a 50billion increase in tax, which if it were to be implemented would take the tax burden in this country to the highest level it's been in about 70 years,' he told the BBC.

'But, actually I think there's an awful lot of uncertainty about whether you could actually raise that amount of tax, they're talking about very, very large increases in taxes on companies which would likely reduce the amount of investment that they do.

'So I think the actual amount you could get from these policies  it certainly runs into the tens of billions  but probably doesn't reach the 50billion that Labour are claiming.'

Tim Knox, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said: 'High earners are the geese that lay the golden eggs: the top 1 per cent of taxpayers already pay about 30 per cent of all income tax.

'Forcing them to pay more might be politically tempting but is economically crazy. Many of 'the geese' will either fly off to more attractive countries or just stop laying the golden eggs.'

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research has also questioned the move, pointing out that the 2012 decision to reduce the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p is thought to have cost the Exchequer only 100million.

The shadow cabinet looked on as Mr Corbyn told activists that Labour would target 'elites' with huge tax hikes

The Labour leader had a copy of the manifesto in front of him as he delivered his address to the adoring crowd

The leader arrived in Bradford today clutching a copy of the party's manifesto - a draft of which was embarrassingly leaked last week

The think-tank forecast that the tax raid would lead to 'income shifting' by the better off which would 'almost certainly result in less revenue being raised than the full potential'.

Malcolm Mclean, a consultant at Barnett Waddingham, raised concerns about the proposal to reverse plans to increase the state pension age to 68. He also cautioned that maintaining the 'triple lock' - which sees state pension go up by the highest of average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent - was unsustanable.

JOHN MCDONNELL'S DEFICIT MUDDLE John McDonnell struggled when he was asked for the size of the government deficit on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Nick Robinson: What is Britain's deficit at the moment? Mr McDonnell: If I can say to you, if I can say to you, that what's happening as well in terms of day to day expenditure we need the investment, we need the investment, we need the investment. (Noisy rustling in the background) NR: Is somebody passing you a piece of paper? What is our deficit at the moment. JM: Not at all. NR: It just sounds like someone is passing you a piece of paper handed across there. What is our deficit at the moment? JM: Our deficit is around 68  70 billion. NR: I think you are being a bit kind actually, I think it is 52billion is the latest figure. JM: Oh well the government estimate is that it was 68-70billion. Advertisement

'The cost implications of Labours plans are enormous and as such are almost certainly unrealistic,' Mr Mclean said.

Independent estimates have suggested that effectively capping the state pension age at 66 might cost as much as 300billion, whilst the plan for a flexible retirement age, initially considered in the recent Cridland review, was rejected as being horrendously complicated to implement.'

He added: 'There are serious question marks about the cost and long term sustainability of the triple lock in particular with both the final Cridland Report and the Work and Pensions Select Committee having recently recommended its abolition.'

Challenged by Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the cost of nationalising the water industry would be in the 'tens of billions', Mr McDonnell said: 'A determination would be made by Parliament itself it has the right to do that.

'But also we could offer bonds for shares and exchange scheme there are different mechanism that can be used.'

He added: 'We wouldn't want to discuss any form of price at this point in time.

'As I say Parliament as we have seen as a result of past legal actions and legislation, parliament has the ability to set the price at which any public ownership method like this will be designated.'

Mr McDonnell admitted the costing will not be in the manifesto.'We will consult on the mechanism for going forward on this,' he said.

He also did not deny estimates from the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies that the spending commitments amounted to 75billion a year, insisting Labour would give details later.

As Mr McDonnell was asked on the Today programme to give a figure for the deficit, it sounded like someone handed him a sheet of paper.

But when presenter Robinson suggested that had happened Mr McDonnell - who was speaking down the line from Bradford - denied it.

The left-winger then said that the 'deficit at the moment is 68-70billion'.

But Robinson told him he was being 'a bit kind' and the figure was actually 52billion.

The income tax changes would hit wealthier workers, while many of the changes would be expected to hit the less well off indirectly by harming the economy

Shadow chancellor (pictured giving interviews this morning) was unable to say how much nationalising the water industry would cost

While Labour set out its plans, Theresa May was visiting a primary school in the Birmingham Ladywood constituency

Aides to Mr McDonnell insisted he had been using the 'full final' figure from 2015-16, even though a 2016-17 number has been published.

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies last year found that the top 1 per cent of earners were already paying 27.5 per cent of all income tax  up from 24.4 per cent in 2010.

LABOUR STATE PENSION PLEDGE 'COULD COST 300bn' Labour's plan to stop the state pension age rising from 66 to 68 could cost 300billion, experts have warned. Malcolm Mclean, a consultant at Barnett Waddingham, also cautioned that maintaining the 'triple lock' - which sees state pension go up by the highest of average earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent - was unsustainable. 'The cost implications of Labours plans are enormous and as such are almost certainly unrealistic,' Mr Mclean said. 'Independent estimates have suggested that effectively capping the state pension age at 66 might cost as much as 300billion, whilst the plan for a flexible retirement age, initially considered in the recent Cridland review, was rejected as being horrendously complicated to implement.' Advertisement

Over the same period, the proportion of working-age adults who did not pay income tax at all had risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 23million people.

Labour has also announced a massive tax raid on business, with corporation tax set to rise from 19 per cent to 26 per cent. Capital gains tax is also set to be hiked. But the manifesto leak suggests even these tax increases will not be enough, forcing the party to look at other tax rises or further borrowing.

The policy document was dubbed 'the most expensive suicide note in history' last week when a draft was leaked.

The hard Left manifesto, which proposes renationalising the railways, the energy industry and the Royal Mail, is widely seen as a desperate attempt to shore up Labour's core vote.

New polling yesterday revealed the party was haemorrhaging votes to the Tories in former heartland areas.

The YouGov survey pointed to dramatic swings in parts of the country where the Tories have been out of the picture for decades. In the North East, YouGov identified a 10 per cent swing from Labour. The swing to the Tories in the Midlands was 7 per cent, and more than 6 per cent in both the North West and Yorkshire.

Jeremy Corbyn should stay on as leader even if his party suffers a crushing general election defeat, Clive Lewis said last night.

The former business spokesman suggested Mr Corbyn should stay on to give the party stability.

Here are the main elements in the manifesto published by Labour today:

'We MUST have a Brexit deal': Labour rules out walking away from Brexit talks despite fears of blackmail

In line with a speech by Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer, the plan would scrap Theresa May's Great Repeal Bill and Brexit White Paper

Labour has ruled out leaving the EU without a deal and promised instead to negotiate transitional deals to come into force from March 2019.

After Jeremy Corbyn refused to say Brexit would happen 'come hell or high water' last week, the manifesto will fuel fears a Labour government could reverse it.

Labour's manifesto does say the party accepts the result of the referendum.

They will immediately and unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK - even if Britons living abroad on the bloc do not have their rights protected.

They will prioritise trying to keep the 'benefits' of staying in the single market and customs union.

In line with a speech by Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer, the plan would scrap Theresa May's Great Repeal Bill and Brexit White Paper and replace them with Labour versions.

Labour makes NO promise to cut immigration in its manifesto as Corbyn praises foreign NHS workers

Labour's manifesto contains no commitment to cut immigration if Jeremy Corbyn is installed at No 10 despite Brexit meaning the end of free movement of people from Europe.

Mr Corbyn insisted migration was essential to Britain and challenged on whether immigration would ever come down under Labour he refused to say yes.

He said a Home Office run by Diane Abbott would offer a 'fair, decent and reasonable' set of immigration rules that looked to economic need and would avoid undercutting of wages by migrant workers.

Net migration has dropped from its peak last year of more than 330,000 but it is still far above the Government target of the tens of thousands

Mr Corbyn's plans, confirmed today after a sensational leak last week, will infuriate the millions of Labour voters who backed Brexit because of runaway immigration.

Labour instead promised to put growth and jobs ahead of 'bogus immigration targets' and said the party would 'develop and implement fair immigration rules'.

Asked if immigration would fall, Mr Corbyn said: 'Free movement that currently exists within the European Union, obviously at the time we leave the European Union that free movement doesn't continue.

'We will negotiate a trade agreement with the European Union that will ensure tariff-free access to the European Union and future migration will be based on a fair migration policy - a fairness towards our economy and needs of our people, and an end to the undercutting and exploitation that goes with it.

He added: 'But bear in mind, if there hadn't been people coming here to work in our NHS, all of us would be in far worse health than we are in the present time - just remember that.'

Labour's tax bombshell revealed to be 48BILLION fuelled by higher taxes on the rich and business

Labour's manifesto has unveiled a vast tax bombshell of more than 48billion at the heart of his hard-left manifesto for power.

Jeremy Corbyn would impose 45p income tax on all earnings over 80,000 and 50p tax on earnings over 123,000.

Firms with staff earning more than 330,000 would also have to pay even more as a 'fat cat' tax.

Labour's manifesto has unveiled a vast tax bombshell of more than 48billion at the heart of his hard-left manifesto for power

The plans reveal corporation tax will be raised to 26 per cent by 2020/21, to bring in 19.4bn and an offshore company property levy on homes brought by offshore trusts located in tax havens will bring in 1.6bn.

Labour will bash the city with a 'Robin Hood tax' on financial transactions will bring in 5.6bn. They also want an efficiency review of corporate tax reliefs will bring in 3.8bn.

Other changes outlined include a reversal of cuts to capital gains tax, the inheritance tax, the bank levy, and scrapping the married persons' tax allowance will raise 3.7bn.

Imposing VAT on private school fees will raise another 1.6bn - earmarked by Labour to pay for free school means.

A 20:1 limit on gap between the lowest and highest paid workers in companies given Government contracts.

'We'll buy back mail, rail, power and water': Vast re-nationalisation programme costing billions

Labour say railway franchises could be brought under public control as the existing contracts run out - but this does not account for all the trains

Railways, water providers, energy companies, and the Royal Mail would all be re-nationalised under a Labour government.

Labour's manifesto revealed extraordinary plans for the Government to sweep back into owning and providing services that have been private for decades.

And the party has failed to say how it would pay for the project, which would be an historic reversal of political reforms.

Labour say railway franchises could be brought under public control as the existing contracts run out - but this does not account for all the trains, many of which are owned by the private firms.

Thames Water alone is valued at 12 billion, so the cost of bringing all the utilities and services back into public hands is likely to be hugely expensive.

At least one publicly owned energy company will be created in every region of the UK, while fracking will be banned  putting an early end to this potentially lucrative fresh energy source.

Buying back Royal Mail would cost another 4billion just four years after it was first floated on the stock market and two years after the last Government shares were sold.

Jeremy Corbyn U-TURNS on a 4billion promise to axe the benefits freeze just minutes after making it

Labour's manifesto launch descended into chaos this afternoon as Jeremy Corbyn U-turned on a pledge to axe the benefits freeze an hour after making it.

The Labour leader made the surprise promise while answering questions after his speech unveiling his election promises.

Axing the benefit freeze - imposed by the Tories as an austerity measure - would cost 4billion and is not detailed in Labour's red book today.

And Mr Corbyn walked back his promise just an hour later - prompting claims from the Tories Labour was in chaos.

Answering questions after his speech (pictured) Mr Corbyn said Labour would not freeze benefits but told reporters later he had made no commitment to meet the 4bn claim

The promises Labour have made included scrapping the bedroom tax and reinstating housing benefit for under-21s.

A Corbyn government will review cuts to Universal Credit and limits on payments to first two children of families.

Paternity leave will be doubled to four weeks, paternity pay increased, maternity leave rights strengthened, and four new public holidays to mark patron saints' days.

They will also keep the pensions 'triple lock' which ensures that the state pension goes up every year by inflation, average earnings to a minimum of 2.5 per cent  whichever is higher.

Labour opposes the planned increase in the pension age to 67, which is due to come into force in April 2028.

This was anticipated to save the government 60bn over ten years.

How many police officers? After Diane Abbott's disastrous interview Labour promise 10,000 cops at a cost of 300million

Labour has confirmed its plans to hire 10,000 police officers at a cost of 300million.

The detail will come as a relief to shadow home secretary Diane Abbott who was humiliated earlier in the campaign by failing to understand the numbers.

The manifesto also promises to conduct a major review of counter-terror Prevent programme.

The detail will come as a relief to shadow home secretary Diane Abbott who was humiliated earlier in the campaign by failing to understand the numbers

The party's election manifesto says it will take the step with a view to assessing the effectiveness of the scheme and its 'potential to alienate minority communities'.

It adds: 'In doing so, we will address the Government's failure to take any effective new measures against a growing problem of extreme or violent radicalisation.'

Prevent aims to intervene early and provide support for those deemed to be at risk of being drawn into violent extremism.

There were around 7,500 referrals to the initiative in 2015/16.

It has repeatedly attracted controversy, with critics labelling it 'toxic' and calling for it to be scrapped.
Three men who stole over a kilogram of gold from a mine in Western Australia have devalued it by more than $170,000 after allegedly smashing it into three-equal parts, according to The Telegraph.

The men have pleaded guilty to fraudulently dealing with minerals and mines after stealing the nugget, now valued at $62,392, from a mine in Western Australia.

Magistrate John O'Sullivan said had the men not have attempted to sell the gold on Facebook it 'would likely not have seen the light at all.'

Michael Foward (right), Andrew Warren and Stephen Rowe have been fined $5,000 for stealing gold from an operating mine in Western Australia

The men were on a family picnic before 'stumbling upon' a mine in Kunanalling (pictured in 2013), west of Perth

'Clearly if you were planning to steal this gold, you wouldn't post it on Facebook,' he said.

People can't just wander where they like and take what they find.'

Michael Forward, Andrew Warren and Stephen Rowe were each given fines of $5,000 for taking the gold.

Magistrate O'Sullivan said mining is a 'livelihood for many people in this region' before handing down the penalties.

Mr Forward's lawyer, Carmel McKenzie, says the men were at a picnic with family members and merely 'stumbled upon' the mine which they believed was abandoned.

'Obviously everyone got excited when they found it.'

The men attempted to sell the stolen gold taken from a mine in Kunanalling (pictured in 2013), worth $62,000, on Facebook before being arrested by police. The gold has been forfeited to the state of Western Australia

Gold mining is the sixth biggest export for Australia, and the majority of operational mines are in Western Australia

Ms McKenzie says they had no intention of breaking the law, but Magistrate O'Sullivan disagreed, saying they 'should have taken more care' and it was 'obvious' the mine was still in operation.

Police prosecutors say the men used a metal detector to search for the gold on June 4 in 2016, at a mine near Kunanalling, west of Perth.

The men were described as 'reckless' and 'opportunistic' and forfeited the gold to the state of Western Australia.
A short film which shows a 'fairy godmother' bringing refugees to western Europe has been criticised as 'propaganda'.

The 90 second animation, called Eurodame, Help!, features a family fleeing war in the Middle East and a fairy representing the EU who guides them to safety.

The cartoon was produced by non-profit organisation Europeens Sans Frontieres but backed by the European Commission, among others.

An EU-backed cartoon which shows a Middle Eastern family fleeing war to Europe has been blasted as 'propaganda' online

The cartoon starts with the family approaching a European border agency where an economic migrant is being turned away (pictured)

It starts with a husband, wife and their children trapped in a warzone before they decide to flee and approach a fence with the word Frontext - the European border agency - emblazoned over it.

As they approach, a border guard is seen turning away a man asking for work - presumably representing an economic migrant.

A people smuggler offers the man passage to Europe, before they are both chased away by the guard.

When the family reveal they are fleeing conflict, they are welcomed inside the refugee camp and met by Eurodame, a bespectacled fairy representing the EU.

She guides them to a man on a magic carpet who flies the family to eastern Europe, represented by a large compass in the sky in the shape of the EU ring of stars.

As refugees the family are allowed through before a fairy representing the EU appears and puts them on a magic carpet which flies them to Europe

At first they are blocked by angry eastern European migrants despite the fairy saying that it is 'their right' to be allowed in

There the refugees are met by a gang of angry white protesters who turn them away, despite the fairy saying it is 'their right' to be let in.

Having failed in the east, the fairy takes the family west where they are welcomed.

The father is then seen being given a job at a local business, with the new employer saying: 'Welcome, I needed you!'

'Thanks, and long live Europe,' the man replies.

The parting shot shows the Middle Eastern family sitting down for a meal with their western neighbours.

Off camera, the 'fairy godmother' is heard saying: 'Europe protects its borders and Europeans welcome refugees. What are you waiting for?'

Then the fairy takes the family to western Europe where they are welcomed and the father given a job by an employer who says: 'Welcome, I needed you'

The final shots shows the family eating with neighbours as the EU fairy is heard saying: 'Europe protects its borders and Europeans welcome refugees. What are you waiting for?'

The film was created as part of a competition involving animation students from Eurozone countries. While the drawings were done by students, the script was dictated by ESF and is available on their website.

Since being posted on YouTube last month, it has been viewed more than 20,000 times and attracted 300 comments, the vast majority of which are negative.

Dozens of viewers have accused the filmmakers of producing propaganda, while some were upset at the portrayal of eastern Europeans.

Many more were upset that the European Commission was associated with the project and accused it of spending taxpayer's money on the cartoon - though it is not clear if this was the case.

When contacted by Mail Online, ESP spokesman Philippe Cayla refused to comment on allegations that his organisation was involved in producing propaganda, though took a swipe at Leave voters by saying: 'Bye bye, you Brexiters!'

A request from Mail Online to the European Commission went unanswered.
A young property tycoon who was slammed by millennials for his comments about their spending habits and unrealistic expectations has hit back at his critics.

Tim Gurner, 35, from Melbourne, made the highly controversial comments on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes program on Sunday.

'When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,' he said.

'The expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day, they want travel to Europe every year.

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Mr Gurner (pictured), from Melbourne, who was slammed by millennials for his comments about their spending habits and unrealistic expectations, has hit back at his critics

Tim Gurner (pictured with his wife Aimee), 35, claimed Generation Y need to stop travelling and spending money on overpriced food to save for their first home

'This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that's normal - thinking owning a Bentley is normal.'

His comments caused outrage among Generation Y, with many claiming Mr Gurner got lucky because his grandfather lent him $34,000 for his first investment.

The multi-millionaire has now responded, claiming it is 'incorrect' he had help getting on the property market.

His first investment property was a flat purchased by his boss for $180,000 in Melbourne's St Kilda, he told news.com.au.

He said he was offered to carry out renovations while his boss forked out the money.

Mr Gurner's (pictured with wife) comments caused outrage among Generation Y, with many claiming he got lucky because his grandfather lent him $34,000 for his first investment

Mr Gurner made more than $10million in an hour in 2015 when buyers snapped up penthouses in his luxury development in Melbourne. Pictured, his Brisbane complex, The Flatiron

'I sacrificed a huge amount through those years, working multiple jobs, seven days a week and I saved absolutely every penny that I could,' said Mr Guner, pictured centre

'I spent every night on my hands and knees sanding back the floors, painting, renovating and working on the house. When we sold it, I used the small profits of $12,000 to purchase my next property and it all grew from there,' he said.

'I sacrificed a huge amount through those years, working multiple jobs, seven days a week and I saved absolutely every penny that I could.'

He said he used the $12,000 - plus a $34,000 loan from his grandfather - to borrow $150,000 to buy a gym, which he renovated and turned into a thriving business.

'They were also the darkest and hardest days of my life - I was only 18 and had just taken on a huge personal loan and needed to stop at nothing to ensure I didn't go under,' he told the publication.

He ran the gym for 12 months before selling it to a competitor and starting his career as a property developer.

After founding his company, Gurner, in 2013, he now has billions of dollars worth of projects across Australia.

He said he used the $12,000 - plus a $34,000 loan from his grandfather - to borrow $150,000 to buy a gym, which he renovated and turned into a thriving business

Mr Gurner told 60 Minutes Generation Y needs to start saving for their first home amid the Australia's housing affordability crisis

Mr Gurner appeared on the BRW Young Rich List in 2015 in eighth place when he was worth $430million.

That year, he made more than $10million in an hour when buyers snapped up penthouses in his luxury development in Melbourne, domain.com.au reported.

Worth $473million, he has been named Australia's 157th richest person on the 2017 Financial Review Rich List.

During his controversial appearance on 60 Minutes, Mr Gurner said Generation Y's expectations were far too high when it came to purchasing property.

'You're not going to get a house in (Melbourne's) Camberwell for $700,000. You're not going to get one in Alexandria in Sydney or in Newstead in Brisbane,' he said.

After founding his company, Gurner, in 2013, he now has billions of dollars worth of projects across Australia

Worth $473million, he has been named Australia's 157th richest person on the 2017 Financial Review Rich List

'The market has changed. You can go to Perth, you can go to Darwin. But you have to start to get realistic about your expectations.

'You might have to buy an investment property first. You might have to share with mum and dad - you might have to buy with a friend.

'But you've got to get your foot in the door and you've got to slowly get up the ladder.'

The 35-year-old said Generation Y needs to lower expectations when it comes to the property market (stock)

'This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that's normal, thinking owning a Bentley is normal,' he said. Pictured, housing with water views at Woollahra, Sydney.

He was widely ridiculed on social media, with many pointing to the loan he received from his grandfather as his way in to the market.

One social media comment read: 'Maybe the new home buyers would stand more of a chance if they were given 34K by their grandad... that's a fair few smashed avos.'

Another added: 'Nice if you can get it,' while one commented: 'Much like Trump's dad gave him a 'small loan of $1Mil.'
Armed with a single red rose and a bag of food, the fiance of accused drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury has visited her inside Colombian prison.

Scott Broadbridge was the first to arrive at El Buen Pastor in Bogota, after a failed attempt to see the 22-year-old Adelaide woman last week due to paperwork issues.

Mr Broadbridge made no comment as he entered the prison, where he spent an hour speaking to Ms Sainsbury, four weeks after she was arrested for possession of 5.8kg of cocaine at El Dorado Airport.

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Fiance Scott Broadbridge was the first to arrive with a rose at El Buen Pastor in Bogota to see the 22-year-old Adelaide woman

Cassie Sainsbury (pictured) has received her first set of visitors at her Colombian prison, four weeks after she was arrested for possession of 5.8kg of cocaine

Just two minutes after he left, the accused drug smuggler's mother Lisa Evans and her sister Khala arrived at the prison, spending a similar amount of time with the 22-year-old.

Ms Sainsbury is believed to be upset her mother and sister agreed to a $1 million 60 Minutes deal without speaking with her, further complicated by her fiance agreeing a deal with rival network Seven.

Speculation over a rift between Mr Broadbridge and Ms Sainsburys mother and sister was further fuelled by their decision to arrive and leave separately to see Cassie.

Both parties have employed the help of separate legal teams.

Mr Broadbridge made no comment as he entered the prison, where he spent an hour speaking to Ms Sainsbury

Just two minutes after Mr Broadbridge left, the accused drug smuggler's mother Lisa Evans (left) and her sister Khala (right) arrived at the prison

Scott Broadbridge (left, with Sainsbury) hoped to step foot inside El Buen Pastor jail, Bogota, on Sunday, but his paperwork couldn't be completed inside the six-hour visiting window

Mr Broadbridge signed an exclusive deal with Channel Seven to speak on Sunday Night about Ms Sainsbury's ordeal and her side of the story

Ms Sainsbury's mother and sister signed a reported $1 million deal with Seven's rival network Channel 9 after giving her blessing to her fiance to agree a deal with Sunday Night

Sainsbury visited with her mother Lisa Evans (left) and sister

Sainsbury's mother and sister made a desperate attempt on Saturday to communicate with the accused drug smuggler, as her fiance was turned away from the prison gates.

Shouting 'Cassie, its mumma' across the embankment to El Buen Pastor Women's prison, Bogota, the 22-year-old's mother Lisa Evans and sister Khala Sainsbury tried desperately to see her following her arrest.

Colombian police have alleged Ms Sainsbury was lured into becoming a drug mule because she was in debt and told it would be easy money.

Colonel Rodrigo Soler, anti-narcotics chief at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport, said Ms Sainsbury was a perfect mark for drug smugglers.

He alleged she was likely told the job was pre-arranged and airport staff and police were paid off on both sides of the journey to let her through with the 5.8 kilograms of cocaine she carried in her luggage.

Speculation over a rift between Mr Broadbridge and Ms Sainsburys mother and sister was further fuelled by their decision to arrive and leave separately to see Cassie (pictured)

The Adelaide woman claimed she was set up by a man named 'Angelo' who arranged to buy her headphones at a cheap price as gifts for her wedding party.

She claimed the 18 packages wrapped in black plastic containing the cocaine were given to her the morning of her flight and she didn't know they were drugs.

Colombian police seized CCTV footage of Angelo at the hotel where she stayed for eight nights before her flight, and she hoped it would help prove her innocence.

But Colonel Soler and his colleagues said since the beginning of the investigation that they did not believe her story and that she knew what she was doing.

Mother Lisa Evans and sister Khala Sainsbury shouted 'Cassie, its mumma' across the embankment to El Buen Pastor Women's prison, Bogota when they attempted to see her

Cassie's fiance Scott Broadbridge (pictured) was turned away from the prison gates when he went to see her

Cassie claimed the 18 packages wrapped in black plastic containing the cocaine were given to her the morning of her flight and she didn't know they were drugs

Lt Colonel Jorge Triana told Daily Mail Australia soon after news of Ms Sainsbury's arrest broke that drug mules often feigned ignorance when they were caught.

'It's a commonplace strategy that narco traffickers use to take drugs out of the country,' he said.

'Her explanation is not credible. Everyone we catch says they didn't know it was in their luggage, but they know what they were doing.'

Colonel Soler also said '90 per cent' of people in her situation said they were trapped and cheated and didn't know they were carrying drugs.

'They majority also end up accepting responsibility (for the crime) because they say they have economic problems, family problems, they have no job,' he said.

He said all drug mules progress through a familiar three stages after they arrested, starting with denial where Ms Sainsbury is still sitting.
First lady Melania Trump has announced that her son, Barron, will attend a $38,590-a-year private Episcopal school in Maryland, beginning this fall.

While reports had circulated that Barron would attend St Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, Mrs Trump officially announced the news on Monday.

Her announcement answered one of the lingering questions surrounding the first family's unusual living arrangement.

Melania and 11-year-old Barron have been living at Trump Tower in New York since Donald Trump took office in January, while the president has lived at the White House.

Trump has said his wife and youngest child will relocate to the White House after the current school year ends, which meant finding a local school for Barron.

President Donald Trump (far right) and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump (center), are will send their young son, Barron (far left), to the prestigious St. Andrew's Episcopal School in suburban Washington, DC

St. Andrew's (above), which is located in Potomac, Maryland, is an institution that offers instruction from grades six to 12. Annual tuition for middle school is $38,590. If Barron continues on to high school, the Trumps will pay in excess of $40,000 per year

'It is known for its diverse community and commitment to academic excellence,' Melania said in a statement about Barron's new school, which is 20 miles from the White House.

'The mission of St Andrew's is "to know and inspire each child in an inclusive community dedicated to exceptional teaching, learning, and service," all of which appealed to our family,' she added.

Annual tuition ranges from more than $23,000 for pre-K to more than $40,000 for students in grades 9-12. For sixth grade - the grade Barron will be entering - tuition costs $38,590.

If Barron Trump continues on to high school at St Andrew's, the tuition jumps from $38,590 a year to $40,650 per year.

'We look forward to the coming school years at St Andrew's,' Melania said.

Founded in 1978, St Andrew's, a day school, has a total enrollment of 580 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade, according to its website.

Class sizes are small, with anywhere from 11 to 13 students, and all of its graduates go on to college, the school said.

Barron Trump is about to complete fifth grade at Manhattan's prestigious Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

The Trumps' decision to send Barron to St. Andrew's marks a bit of a break from his predecessors. Barack and Michelle Obama sent their young daughters, Sasha (seen left when she started at Sidwell Friends in 2009) and Malia, to Sidwell Friends. Bill and Hillary Clinton did the same with Chelsea (right)

'As we came to know Barron through the admission process, it became clear that he, like all of our newly enrolled students, will be a great addition to St Andrew's,' school administrators wrote in a letter to parents on Monday.

A spokesman said the head of the school, Robert Kosasky, would not have any additional comment out of respect for students' privacy.

One of the prerequisites to completing middle school at St Andrew's is taking a two-day field trip to a Washington, DC, church that runs a soup kitchen.

Students 'make, serve, and eat a meal with the homeless' while listening to a homeless person's life story.

The school is known for research-informed teaching and the use of neuroscience and other brain-based research, both to help high-achieving students unlock their potential and to tailor education to children with learning disabilities or differences.

Barron currently attends Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

In March, the school was placed on lockdown while the NYPD bomb squad searched a suspicious truck that was parked outside of the building.

St Andrew's is located in the wealthy enclave of Potomac, about 17 miles northwest of the White House and a 30-minute drive in light traffic.

After Donald Trump's shock election victory and his inauguration as president, Melania and Barron Trump stayed behind at Trump Tower so that he could finish up his studies

'School leaders are working directly with the Secret Service to ensure that ... logistics and security will continue to work smoothly and discreetly next year for all of our students and families,' the letter to parents said.

The Trumps' decision to send Barron to St Andrew's marks the first time in decades that the school-aged child of a president will attend a school other than at Sidwell Friends, an elite Quaker school with campuses in Washington and Bethesda, Maryland.

President Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, attended Sidwell. So did President Barack Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Malia Obama, 18, graduated from Sidwell in June 2016. She is taking the year off, what is known as a 'gap year', before her expected enrollment at Harvard this fall.

Sasha Obama, 15, is a sophomore at Sidwell Friends. Her parents decided to live in Washington after leaving the White House so she can finish her studies there.

Jenna and Barbara Bush, the daughters of George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, did not attend school in the DC area. They stayed behind in Texas.

Incidentally, Jenna Bush attended St Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin until she graduated in 2000  months before her father took office as president.

President Jimmy Carter is the only recent president to send his child, daughter Amy, to a District of Columbia public school.

Officials estimate it costs $127,000 to $146,000 a day to protect Trump's family, which includes his eldest sons Donald Jr and Eric, who run the family business.

More than half a million people signed a petition demanding the first lady move into the White House or foot the expense of living in New York herself.
A conman who splashed out on a 55,000 Bentley and holidays in Dubai after swindling 1.1 million from an EU fund to help immigrants settle in Britain is facing jail.

Mohammed Chaudhari, 37, milked a soft EU grant scheme to promote social, cultural, and economic integration for migrants by claiming that his firm was helping scores of foreigners learn English.

The fraudster submitted bogus documents to con clueless Home Office officials who did not have time to carry out any checks and were happy to dole out huge sums of taxpayers money as long as the right boxes were ticked on the funding applications.

Mohammed Chaudhari (left), 37, and his sister Suraiya Alam were both convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud at Southwark Crown Court

He claimed people in the community were benefitting, but in reality Chaudhari spent the cash on a fleet of flash cars including a 55,000 Bentley Continental with a personalised registration, a Jaguar XJ, and an Audi Q7.

The crooked businessman, who lived in an expensive apartment in the Docklands area of London, also splashed out on a large amount of designer jewellery including Cartier cufflinks and a Gucci watch and he enjoyed lavish holidays to the Middle East.

When police raided his office, they found wads of 5,000 in cash and a large amount of Indian jewellery.

Yesterday Chaudhari was warned he faced a substantial sentence as he and his sister Suraiya Alam, 43, and business partner Victoria Sherrey, 66, who also helped dupe civil servants, were all convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Prosecutor Edmund Vickers, QC, told Southwark Crown Court that Chaudhari had exploited a lack of resources at the Home Office, while Theresa May was Home Secretary, saying his speciality is pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

Between 2010 and 2015 blundering officials blindly paid out grants to Chaudhari s firms, Inspire Futures and Accent on Training, without carrying out checks to determine whether their projects were genuine because they didnt have the resources to really closely scrutinise every document.

Pictured: Chaudhari's business partner Victoria Sherrey arrives at court

The money was said to help migrants learn English, but police were unable to find out if anyone actually received any tuition.

Mr Vickers said Chaudhari was experienced in applying for funds and began cynically taking advantage of the relative ease of granting funding.

It was an exercise, if you like, in box ticking  as long as you ticked the right boxes and used the right language, the chances were that your project would receive funding he added.

These three defendants fraudulently obtained over 1.13m in EU funds allocated to the businesses which they were running.

They did so by applying for grants from the Home Office.

The funds were part of the EU Integration Fund, and EU members fund  in other words, public money.

These funds, the EU Integration Fund monies, were administered by the Home Office in this country, and they were intended to help the social, cultural and economic integration of third-world nationals coming into the EU, and specifically in this case the UK.

The businesses that the defendants were running or were involved in became involved in targeting soft funding of grant money and those funds that they granted were obtained by fraud over a four-year period between 2011-2015.

Chaudhari submitted false documents to secure the cash, while his sister Alam posed as an independent adviser to assure officials the projects based in Birmingham were using the funds properly.

By the time that the alleged scam was uncovered when a whistleblower tipped off the authorities, the gang had managed to steal 1.13million in EU funds.

Yesterday (Mon) the trio showed no emotion as they were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud following a three week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Judge Stephen Robbins warned Chaudhari he was facing a substantial custodial sentence adding: The only question is how long.

The judge said Alam and Sherrey played lesser roles and he released the pair on bail ahead of sentencing on 23 June.
Labour's manifesto contains no commitment to cut immigration if Jeremy Corbyn is installed at No 10 despite Brexit meaning the end of free movement of people from Europe.

Mr Corbyn insisted migration was essential to Britain and challenged on whether immigration would ever come down under Labour he refused to say yes.

He said a Home Office run by Diane Abbott would offer a 'fair, decent and reasonable' set of immigration rules that looked to economic need and would avoid undercutting of wages by migrant workers.

Mr Corbyn's plans, confirmed today after a sensational leak last week, will infuriate the millions of Labour voters who backed Brexit because of runaway immigration.

Labour instead promised to put growth and jobs ahead of 'bogus immigration targets' and said the party would 'develop and implement fair immigration rules'.

Ukip condemned Labour as a soft touch on immigration tonight, insisting the manifesto was a 'slap in the face for working class communities'.

Labour's manifesto contains no commitment to cut immigration if Jeremy Corbyn (pictured unveiling his plans today) is installed at No 10

Mr Corbyn 's plans, confirmed today after a sensational leak last week, will infuriate the millions of Labour voters who backed Brexit because of runaway immigration

Mr Corbyn (pictured with his shadow cabinet at the manifesto launch today) is also vowing to reintroduce a Migrant Impact Fund to help communities where there is high immigration

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn arrived for his manifesto launch with deputy Tom Watson today

Asked if immigration would fall, Mr Corbyn said: 'Free movement that currently exists within the European Union, obviously at the time we leave the European Union that free movement doesn't continue.

'We will negotiate a trade agreement with the European Union that will ensure tariff-free access to the European Union and future migration will be based on a fair migration policy - a fairness towards our economy and needs of our people, and an end to the undercutting and exploitation that goes with it.

'I believe that a Home Office led by Diane Abbott will be fair and decent and reasonable in the way that it runs it.

'But bear in mind, if there hadn't been people coming here to work in our NHS, all of us would be in far worse health than we are in the present time - just remember that.'

Ukip immigration spokesman John Bickley told MailOnline: 'This is a slap in the face for working class communities whove had to bear the brunt of uncontrolled immigration and its impact on jobs, wages, public services and housing.

'Immigration was deliberately unleashed under Blair and Brown, for electoral advantage and to impose multiculturalism on Britain .

'Labour assumed their core vote had no one else to vote for and could be bribed to stay loyal with lashings of benefits.'

He added: 'No doubt Diane Abbot will soon be telling us that by not setting a cap on immigration, Labour will be setting a ceiling on immigration numbers, that thousands of border control staff will be taken on, costing only 30 each per year and that 2+2=6.'

Ukip immigration spokesman John Bickley lashed Labour over a 'slap in the face for working class communities'

Mr Corbyn is also vowing to reintroduce a Migrant Impact Fund to help communities where there is high immigration.

The document said the Labour Party would not 'scapegoat' migrants and promised to remove foreign students from migration statistics.

The Labour leader has repeatedly hinted he has no problem with the number of people coming to Britain each year - until recently at a record rate of 330,000 a year.

Labour's Brexit plans continue to promise to change Theresa May's negotiating strategy and admit Labour would take a 'no deal' scenario off the table.

Mrs May has warned ruling out walking out of the Brexit talks weakens Britain's hand and would leave her vulnerable to blackmail.

Mr Corbyn's manifesto said he would instead negotiate transitional arrangements that would keep Britain inside the EU until a better deal was available.

He would also unilaterally guarantee the rights of millions of EU citizens in Britain before getting a promise about Britons in Europe in return.

Mr Corbyn's wife Laura Alvarez attended today's manifesto launch in Bradford (pictured)

The 124-page document reveals Labour's Brexit plans continue to promise to change Theresa May's negotiating strategy and admit Labour would take a 'no deal' scenario off the table

After seeing the draft of Labour's plans last week, Migration Watch chairman Lord Green said: 'For anyone who is worried about immigration, this is the worst possible manifesto.

'There are no effective measures proposed to reduce the numbers. Indeed, they have no intention of doing so.

'This reflects an arrogant disregard of many people's genuine concerns.'

The Prime Minister last week recommitted the Conservatives to reducing net migration to the tens of thousands.

Net migration has dropped from its peak last year of more than 330,000 but it is still far above the Government target of the tens of thousands

Migration Watch chairman Lord Green (file picture) condemned the Labour's draft plans as the 'worst possible manifesto' for immigration policy last week

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell was out promoting the manifesto this morning (pictured) ahead of its official unveiling

Mr Corbyn has previously indicated he wants unfettered migration to continue and been inconsistent on what he expects to happen to free movement rules after Brexit.

A leak of his manifesto suggested all EU migrants already here will be given automatic rights to stay  something Mrs May has refused to do as she wants to make sure the rights of British ex-pats are also secured.

The final manifesto promised 'reasonable management of migration' but warned: 'In trade negotiations, our priorities favour growth, jobs and prosperity.

'We make no apologies for putting these aims before bogus immigration targets.'

The document added: 'Freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union.

'Britain's immigration system will change but Labour will not scapegoat migrants nor blame them for economic failures.'

The Labour plans will also strip foreign students out of the official migration statistics - at a stroke removing thousands from the headline figures of people arriving.
Grime superstar Stormzy has donated 9,000 to an Oxford University student so she can go to Harvard.

Fiona Asiedu, from south London, started a Crowdfunding page to raise 12,000 to complete her human development and psychology masters degree at the prestigious American institute.

On her appeal page, called #SW2Harvard, she posted: 'As a young black woman, from an inner city, working class background, this is such an amazing opportunity.'

Music sensation Stormzy donated 9,000 to help Fiona Asiedu go to Harvard University

'Ultimately, I believe that this will encourage young people from similar backgrounds to aspire for greatness and reach their full potential! I really do hope that I am able to make my vision into a reality WITH YOUR HELP!'

Ms Asiedu's friends posted the appeal to Stormzy's Twitter account and the music star donated a whopping 9,000 to reach her target.

He tried to remain anonymous, but when her friends discovered it was him, he blew his cover online.

Miss Asiedu's thrilled friend, who shared the initial Crowdfunding link online, reached out to Stormzy with an offer of thanks.

She wrote: 'Let me take you to Nando's for a thank you chicken because this is all you,' she told Stormzy, after Fiona confirmed she'd reached her fundraising target.

'Deal!' he replied.

Twitter was flooded with comments praising Stormzy for his generosity.

Judith Vickress wrote: 'I love this, what a lovely man.'

User @J03_Blvck said: 'Stormzy is a top lad for sending that kid to Harvard.'

And Natassja Zielinski added: 'Seriously why do I feel that Stormzy's got our backs as much as we've got his.'

Miss Asiedu has since upped her target to 14,000 after the 'overwhelming response'.
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A new multi-million pound housing development might have to be demolished - over claims the homes break planning rules by being too big.

Developers UKS Group were given permission to build 13 three-bedroom houses and one two-bedroom house.

But locals say they have actually built 13 four-beds and one three-bed home - which breaks the planning rules.

Furious neighbours of the new key housing development have expressed their outrage over the build off the A38 in Highridge, Bristol.

Furious neighbours of a new key housing development have expressed their outrage over the build off the A38 in Highridge, Bristol. The new multi-million pound housing development (above) might have to be demolished - over claims the homes break planning rules by being too big

 Slide me  Developers UKS Group were given permission to build 13 three-bedroom houses and one two-bedroom house. But locals say they have actually built 13 four-beds and one three-bed home

The 14 new houses at the entrance to Bristol city centre have almost reached completion.

However, concerns were raised when estate agent signs went up advertising a 'superb offering of three- and four-bedroom houses'.

Bristol City Council has now confirmed the homes don't have planning permission because they are not what the developers were supposed to build.

Local residents say they have 'repeatedly' complained to the city council's planning department about the homes.

'We're outraged that Bristol City Council have ignored all of our pleas for action to be taken,' said Catherine Withers, who lives nearby.

'They built an extra bedroom in each house, which was obviously planned from the beginning because it's on all the advertising boarding.

Bristol City Council has now confirmed the homes don't have planning permission because they are not what the developers were supposed to build. Local residents say they have 'repeatedly' complained to the city council's planning department about the homes

'Serious questions need to be asked about why the council didn't stop it before they started.'

Ms Withers added, 'What's the point in having a democratic planning process when they can just build what they like?'

She has now lodged a formal complaint that the council has failed to undertake its legal duty to properly monitor the building work.

Work began on the site on October 1, 2016, after planning permission was granted in February 2014 for 14 new builds.

Ms Withers claimed that, from the start of the project, the shells of the houses were too tall.

But it was not until January this year that council officers told developers UKS Group that they would need to submit a new retrospective planning application.

Gary and Marilyn Reynolds in their back garden with the new Highridge development built next to them

UKS Group did so, but did not include all the documents, which meant the application was left 'pending' on the council website for five months, leaving residents unable to comment on it while the building work continued during this time.

Ms Withers said, 'It's an absolute lesson on how to build what you like and get away with it.

'Nobody was actually against the houses being built, because we all recognised the need for development, but we wanted to make sure they were smaller homes that did not impact the area.

'It's a case of needing the right houses in the right place.'

Bristol City Council has now admitted that what has been built so far is removed from what UKS Group have planning permission for.

They will now need to submit a new retrospective planning application.

With the houses already being marketed by estate agents Goodman & Lilley, however, residents worry that time is running out for any action to be taken.

But if councillors refuse planning permission, they do have the power to force the developers to rebuild the homes to their original specifications - which could mean knocking them down and starting again.

Local councillor Richard Eddy said last week that the developers had ignored everything the council had told them.

He said, 'Last autumn the applicants applied to amend their plans to make the homes bigger, but were turned down.

Bristol City Council has now admitted that what has been built so far is removed from what UKS Group have planning permission for. They will now need to submit a new retrospective planning application

'They ignored that and have gone ahead anyway but, to this day, the council still have not been given all the documents.'

A spokesperson for Bristol City Council said: 'Planning permission was granted in February 2014 for a residential development of 14 dwellings.

'Development at the site was subsequently brought to the attention of the Local Planning Authority and an investigation was undertaken.

'It appeared that the dwellings were not being constructed in accordance with the planning permission and as such, the development is considered to be unauthorised in planning terms.

'A retrospective planning application has been submitted for consideration and letters will be sent to local residents about this very shortly.'

He added: 'This will be assessed along with comments on the application and a decision will be made by the Council's Development Control Committee.'
A 17-year-old girl who converted to Islam has been convicted of plotting to bomb a Jewish school in Denmark after trying to contact ISIS.

The teenage jihadist sympathiser, who has not been named, could face life in jail after being accused of planning attacks with bombs made from over-the-counter products.

A court in Holbaek heard that she had written notes about planning to carry out attacks in both her former primary school in Farevejle and in a Jewish school in Copenhagen.

A 17-year-old girl who converted to Islam has been convicted of plotting to bomb a Jewish school in Denmark after trying to contact ISIS (file picture)

She was arrested last year in her home in a village 40 miles west of Copenhagen, aged 15 at the time, after her family alerted the police about suspicious chemical experiments in the basement.

The court said in a statement that investigators a range of chemicals purchased at a Danish cosmetic chain store.

Experts said the ingredients she had gathered to produce the high explosive acetone peroxide (TATP) were not enough to build a dangerous bomb, but the court underlined her criminal intent and motivations in the ruling.

Police who searched the residence found a handwritten note with the words 'Allahu Akbar!' (God is greatest), a date, and the address of the Jewish school in Copenhagen

A court in Holbaek heard that she had written notes about planning to carry out attacks in both her former primary school in Farevejle and in a Jewish school in Copenhagen (file picture)

A second note was marked 'bomb attack on the infidels' and gave the address of her own school near Holbaek, a town west of the capital.

She also wrote about her sympathies to ISIS in her notes and tried to contact its leaders via Twitter.

The Danish girl was convicted today of 'attempting a terrorist act'.

She will receive her final sentence on Thursday, but under Danish law, attempting a 'terror act' can lead to life imprisonment.

In February 2015, a gunman killed two people in shooting attacks at a debating event and a Copenhagen synagogue before being shot dead by police.
A pensioner had her head impaled by a badminton racket in a freak incident while watching her granddaughter on May 14.

According to reports, the woman was stood on the sidelines watching her daughter play when the young girl's racket went flying into the air, impaling the grandmother.

The object was removed during a three-hour-long surgery. The woman remains under observation in hospital in Neijiang, China's Sichuan province.

The racket slipped out of the granddaughter's hand impaling the woman on the sidelines

Ouch! She was taken to hospital accompanied by a fire crew to help cut down the racket

The pensioner's temple was impaled by a badminton racket after it flew out of her granddaughter's hands and hit her in the head.

The 65-year-old is said to have been watching her grandchild play the sport when the entire metal racket slipped out of the young girl's hand.

The young girl still had the grip in her hand while the racket itself was lodged in the grandmother's forehead.

Freak incident: The woman was taken to a local clinic and then transferred to a larger hospital

Tough job to remove: The racket was removed during a three-hour-long surgery

According to a doctor at the hospital, the woman is still not out of danger

She was taken to a local clinic where she remained conscious throughout. However she was later transferred to a larger hospital due to the severity of her injuries.

The local fire department were also called in to help with the removal.

Zhang Mingsen, a neurosurgeon at Neijiang Second People's Hospital told reporters that the woman's case was very delicate because the handle was very close to vital arteries.

Zhang said that the woman is still not out of danger as there is a risk of infection.
A six-year-old autistic boy terrified his family on Mother's Day by sneaking out of his home and riding his bike three kilometres and across a busy road to a supermarket.

Raith Barlow was reported missing to police after leaving his home in Highton, Victoria while still in his pyjamas to buy his mother a television with only 40 cents in his pocket.

The adorable little boy was seemingly oblivious to the panic he caused his mother, Stacey, who said she feared the worst.

'I love my mum,' was Raith's response when asked why he decided to take a trip across a busy highway on Mother's Day, Nine News reports.

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The adorable little boy (pictured) was seemingly oblivious to the panic he caused his mother, Stacey, who said she feared the worst

Six-year-old Raith (pictured) left his home early on Mother's Day to buy his mum a television as a gift

Raith's 13-year-old brother contacted Geelong police who joined the hunt for the missing boy on Sunday.

He used a mop to unlock the latch on the front door and bravely pedalled across town - even stopping for traffic on the Princes Highway.

'He is wearing his yellow Vegemite bike helmet, unsure if he is in his pyjamas or has changed,' his panicked mother wrote on Facebook.

Geelong police told Daily Mail Australia the little boy was found after an Aldi store manager Michael Bourdouvalis stopped him at the register when he couldn't pay for the television and called the police.

Raith strapped on his Vegemite helmet and rode three kilometres to an Aldi store with 40 cents in his pocket

His mother Stacey (pictured) said her mind 'went to the worst' when realising Raith had gone missing

'I love my mum': The six year old wanted to give his mum a nice gift for Mother's Day

'He has such a kind heart to try and buy his mother a gift for Mother's Day,' a Geelong police spokesperson said.

Ms Barlow said she is grateful to the store manager to kindly helped Raith return home to spend the day with his family.

'Honestly there's nothing we can say to thank them... we have been very very lucky,' she said.

'His heart was in the right place but it was scary to think he could just take off and do that.'

Staff at Aldi (pictured) spotted the young boy at the register attempting to buy a television without any money
When Jared Kushner's sister promoted investing in her family's new skyscraper from a Beijing hotel ballroom this month, she wasn't just raising money for her business.

She was also pitching a controversial visa program used by the US and other countries that's made $24 billion from China worldwide over the past decade.

Known as 'golden visa' programs, they promise residency to any foreigners who invest a substantial amount of money in a business - provided that it results in a certain number of jobs in the being created or saved in the host country.

The American version of the program has resulted in US green cards being issued to more than 40,000 Chinese in the past decade.

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A projector screen shows video of Donald Trump ahead of a Kushner Companies investment meeting in May. The Kushners, like many, hope to attract Chinese EB-5 investment

If foreigners make an investment of $500,000 or more, and that investment leads to ten or more jobs being saved or created in the US, they can get a green card under the EB-5 system

Nicole Kushner Meyer came under fire after a 'golden visa' pitch earlier this month featured President Donald Trump - her brother Jared Kushner's father-in-law and boss.

It also included vague promises that the project had 'government support' and was 'founded by celebrity developers.'

Nicole Kushner Meyer apologized after mentioning her brother Jared Kushner (both siblings pictured) and his boss/father-in-law Donald Trump in her EB-5 expos in May; she said she wasn't using them to make pitches

She later apologized; a spokesperson said that she was just emphasizing that her brother had left the Kushner Companies, and that she was not trying to use him to sell her investments.

Photos taken before an event held by the Kushners one month later showed video footage of Trump being played on a screen. The context is unclear.

But even without familial connections to the commander in chief, Meyer's business model - based around America's EB-5 visa program - is a strong one.

The US has taken in at least $7.7 billion from Chinese investors over the past decade, according to analysis by the Associated Press.

That makes up just part of the $24 billion global figure, which includes money made by other countries that offer similar programs, such as Spain and Greece.

The flood of capital reflects how China's rise has catapulted tens of millions of families into the middle class.

But at the same time, it shows how these families are increasingly becoming restless as cities remain choked by smog, home prices multiply and schools impose ever-greater pressure on children.

They also feel insecure about being able to protect their property and savings.

This exhibition for investors in Beijing hopes to raise investment. Globally, Chinese have poured $24b into various countries' visa programs in the past 10 years, and $7.7b into the US

Many Chinese - such as this couple, speaking to investment consultants - hope for a better life for their children through the EB-5 program. But critics in the US say it is open to corruption

Some also say it only helps rich businesses that make these presentations, and not struggling US communities. Some 40,000 Chinese have gained green cards in the past 10 years

Their money goes toward government bonds, businesses, mountain ski resorts, new schools and real estate projects, including a Trump-branded tower in New Jersey built by the Kushner Companies.

But the industry is murky, loosely regulated and sometimes fraud-ridden - in the US, federal regulators have linked the EB-5 program to fraud cases involving more than $1 billion in investment in the last four years.

The EB-5 program and many others like it are marketed heavily in China.

China's 'golden visa' investors are part of a wave characterized not by poverty, persecution or war, but by people with steady jobs and homes who are pursuing happiness that's eluded them in their homeland.

The Chinese investors flocking to these programs are people like Jenny Liu, a doctoral student in the eastern city of Nanjing, who sold her apartment two years ago and moved in with her parents.

She used the money from the sale to invest $500,000 in a hotel project in the United States.

If the project creates or saves ten jobs in two years, she'll get a prized green card and a pathway for a less stressful education for her nine-year-old son.

'My son has a lot of homework to do every day, but I don't think he has learned a lot from school,' Liu said.

'I hope he can actually pick up some useful knowledge or skills [in the US] rather than only learn how to pass tests.'

Du Juan (right) talks to a consultant. She hopes to send her daughter to school in the US using the system, but it can take years for the visa to be confirmed after the investment

Investment in ski resorts, hotels and skyscrapers is common. China's growing middle class is increasingly looking for escape routes from the country's unhealthy environment

The key to the investors' spending power is China's real estate boom.

Real estate prices in China's largest cities have more than tripled in the last decade, with prices in Beijing rising by an average of 25 per cent a year during that time.

Since late 2015 alone, Beijing's home prices have jumped 63 per cent, making a 1,300sqft apartment worth more than $1 million.

A family that gained ownership of an ordinary apartment more than a decade ago can now sell it for the price of a 'golden visa.'

And as their dissatisfaction with China's problems grows, more families are choosing to do so.

The Associated Press obtained data from officials in 13 countries on how many Chinese have used their investor programs since 2007.

To estimate money spent, it multiplied the numbers of Chinese investors in each country by the minimum investment required, making the AP's figures for each country an undercount.

The market leader is the United States' EB-5 program, which gives green cards to anyone who invests $500,000 in a business that creates or saves at least ten jobs.

But Portugal has drawn $1.7 billion over four years from Chinese investors willing to buy property to support its faltering real estate market.

Spain and Greece offer similar programs. Chinese have bought the most visas in all three countries.

More investment seekers seek opportunities. Some parents cite the high-pressure and limited Chinese educational system for wanting to move out of the country

Although the US has taken the lion's share of investments, many other countries offer up similar programs, including Spain and Greece

The EB-5 program has been heavily criticized by government watchdogs and targeted by lawmakers of both parties in Congress, who say it promotes fraud and helps developers building megaprojects more than struggling communities.

Defenders of EB-5 say it creates jobs and provides vital funding for projects across the United States, from massive developments in New York to hotels, restaurants and small businesses in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

After the controversy over Nicole Kushner Meyer's presentation earlier this month, The White House said her brother would follow conflict of interest policies.

It added that that Trump and Congress would review 'all the various visa programs' in due course.

Many Chinese are well aware of the risks involved, but invest anyway.

Du Juan attended a seminar in Beijing held by an investment group pitching ski resorts and other projects.

Her primary focus is getting her ten-year-old daughter enrolled soon in an American school.

'I don't worry about the $500,000, but I worry about the loss of time,' Du said. 'I am afraid that we'll be unable to get the visa when we need it.'
President Trump defended himself against an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday morning after a report said he shared 'highly classified' information with the Russians about ISIS operations that came from a US ally.

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' Trump said in two tweets.

Trump's tweets seemingly confirm what the Washington Post first reported early Monday evening. A number of White House and Trump administration officials had released statements slapping down the Post story.

Leading the pack was Trump's National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who told reporters outside the White House, 'The story that came out tonight is false.'

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President Trump used Twitter to defend himself Tuesday morning on the heels of a Washington Post report that said he shared highly classified information with the Russians

Trump's tweets seemingly confirm what the Washigton Post reported, which a flock of White House and administration officials initially denied

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster called a Washington Post story 'false,' which said President Trump leaked 'highly classified' information to the Russians during an Oval Office meeting last week

Unnamed sources told the Washington Post that Trump had passed on highly restricted 'code word' information during his Oval Office meeting last week with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States.

'This is code-word information,' a U.S. official told the paper, referring to the top classification level. The president 'revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.'

McMaster forcefully disputed the Post report  although his denial stated the thrust of the Post story to be incorrect 'as reported.'

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time  at no time  were intelligence sources or methods discussed,' McMaster said.

Post reporter Greg Miller said on CNN Monday night that the White House was 'playing word games to try to blunt the impact of the story' and that he 'absolutely' stood behind it.

On Tuesday morning, Trump blasted his fired former FBI Director James Comey for not sniffing out the leakers in the intelligence community who presumably divulged the information that appeared in the Post.

'I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community,' Trump stated.

On Tuesday morning, Trump blasted his fired former FBI Director James Comey for not sniffing out leakers in the intelligence community

The White House acknowledged last week that Trump's frustration with the intelligence leaks was a factor in his decision to fire Comey.

'You can't deny somebody -- that that wasnt a problem,' Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary said. 'And so I think that was just another one of the many reasons that he no longer had the confidence of the President or the rest of the FBI.'

Intelligence community leakers were also responsible for revealing a Department of Justice conversation with the White House about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

Flynn told the vice president he did not discuss sanctions with Kisylak, the Russian ambassador with whom Trump is said to have discussed the classified information in front of in the Oval Office, during the transition. Justice had evidence to the contrary that it offered to the White House Counsel's office.

The Washington Post reported on the FBI's warning to the White House that Flynn had lied before it alerted the vice president. Mike Pence was left in the dark for two weeks as the White House looked into the acting attorney general's charges.

Sally Yates, a Barack Obama holdover who was running Justice, has since been dismissed. She testified last Monday that she was not the leaker - and doesn't know who is.

The Post dropped another bombshell yesterday that contained quotes from Trump in the Oval Office during his meeting last Wednesday with the Russians.

It didn't say Trump revealed sources and methods  but rather that he passed on to the Russians highly classified information obtained from an ally.

Trump revealed the information to Lavrov while boasting about his own sources of knowledge, according to an official familiar with it.

'I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,' Trump reportedly said.

Monday evening the White House didn't directly address the accusation that Trump shared classified information from a foreign government that he wasn't supposed to.

'The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known,' McMaster said instead, something the Post story never contended occurred.

'Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources,' McMaster said in closely-watched remarks outside the White House, as reaction and concern rolled in from Capitol Hill.

'I was in the room  it didnt happen,' he said.

McMaster then left the bouquet of microphones without answering any questions.

The information pertained to a terror threat to aviation using bombs contained in electronic devices like laptops.

Paul Ryan also spoke out on Monday night about the reports, calling for Trump and his office to provide a full account of the meeting in which he is being accused of sharing secrets with Russia.

We have no way of knowing what was said, but protecting our nations secrets is paramount, the statement from Ryan's spokesman, Doug Andres, read.

The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.'

Sen. Jeff Merkley told DailyMail.com on Tuesday morning,' The president should be ashamed for compromising our security in this fashion'

The flurry of reports and counter-spin prompted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, to warn of a 'downward spiral.'

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said, Bloomberg reported. 'Its got to happen,' he said.

'Obviously theyre in a downward spiral right now and theyve got to figure out a way to come to grips [with] all thats happening,' Corker added.

On Tuesday, reaction to the story, and to Trump's Twitter defense, wasn't much better.

'It's not helpful that this was with the Russians, right? I mean this is just weird,' noted Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraskan from Trump's own party.

Sasse pointed out on Morning Joe that the U.S. and Russia don't have aligned interests, as they're actively trying to fracture NATO.

'Putin is the enemy of the freedom of speech, religion, press and assembly, which is the beating heart of what America means,' Sasse said.

Sen. Jeff Merkley told DailyMail.com,' The president should be ashamed for compromising our security in this fashion.'

The Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations panel said a special prosecutor must be assigned to look into charges of collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

ALL (WELL, SOME OF) THE PRESIDENT'S LEAKS The Trump administration has found itself hamstrung by a series of high-profile leaks to reporters. This week's Washington Post story describing the president sharing allegedly classified Israeli intelligence with Russian diplomats is only the latest example. Some of the resulting news stories put the White House in full-blown spin mode, while others have turned out to be inauthentic. January 25: The New York Times described a leaked draft of an executive order that would reopen CIA 'black site' prisons where terror suspects could be interrogated. Sean Spicer later said it was 'not a White House document,' and he had 'no idea where it came from.' February 2: News reports describe an angry Trump berating Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee resettlement deal negotiated by the Obama administration. February 2: The Associated Press published an excerpt of a leaked transcript of a call between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in which Trump tells him he could send American troops to the border to deal with 'bad hombres down there.' February 5: The Times spoke to West Wing aides who revealed that they couldn't figure out how to work the light switches in the White House's Cabinet Room  and had to work in the dark as a result. February 9: The Washington Post leaned on classified information to report that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had discussed the status of U.S. sanctions against Russia during secret meetings in December with Moscow's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. February 13: The Post reported that Sally Yates, dureing the days before she was removed from her post as acting attorney general, warned the Trump White House's top lawyer that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his Kislyak contacts. February 14: The New York Times reported that Flynn was questioned by the FBI only a few days into his White House tenure, and that agents came away from the meeting believing he hadn't told them the whole truth about his Kislyak meetings. February 17: The Associated Press publishes an 11-page Homeland Security Department memo that proposed using 100,000 National Guard troops to police the southern U.S. border. (The White House said it was not an official document.) April 8: White House staffers dished dirt to the Post about a rapprochement between warring senior aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon  brokered by CHief of Staff Reince Priebus. May 15: The Post reported, based on leaks from 'current and former U.S. officials,' that the president revealed 'highly classified' information about the ISIS terror army to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, upsetting a U.S. ally that had been the source of intelligence Trump handed over willingly. The White House insisted that none of the people in the room with Trump and the Russians saw the information exchange that way. May 16: The Times revealed, based on another leak, that it was Israel that had provided the intel in the first place. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. reaffirmed his country's willingness to work with Washington in the future. Advertisement

'I'm certainly concerned that the president shared code-word, top secret information with the Russians that could have compromised- maybe compromising - a very important relationship of information on ISIS,' he stated.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, was also worried about the larger repercussions, during an interview with NPR.

'We have to ask ourselves what country would share with us absolutely vital, secret, information if they knew they can't trust our president to keep it secret,' Coons told NPR.

Former acting director of the CIA Mike Morell said the source of the information could be put in danger by the Russians and the media outlets that are trying to figure out where it came from.

He also repeated Coons' concerns that foreign powers will stop sharing intelligence with the U.S.

'The other damage ... is that foreign countries share intelligence with the United States regularly, and now they are going to take pause and question whether they should continue to do that ... if they're afraid that the information they're providing could be shared with an adversary of ours and theirs,' Morell warned.

At least one Democratic congressman suggested that Trump should be impeached over the allegations

ALL SMILES: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House. Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

The Russian embassy in Washington released this photo of President Trump warmly shaking hands with ambassador Sergey Kislyak

Images of President Donald Trump meeting with Russia's Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office were issued by the Russian state news agency TASS, and subsequently published by much of the global media

The report comes after a flap over release of photos from Trump's Oval Office meeting with Russia's top diplomats that occurred the morning after Trump fired Comey amid tumult over the FBI's Russia investigation.

As the latest sensational story to come out of Russia broke, White House press secretary Sean Spicer huddled with his communications team in the White House behind closed doors.

A series of press aides declined to comment to a group of reporters, including DailyMail.com, looking for confirmation or a denial that the president had passed on classified information to the nation's longtime adversary.

McMaster commented only as he ran into a pack of reporters in the White House.

'This is the last place I wanted to be. I'm leaving,' he said as a joke.

McMaster later confronted the White House press corps en masse.

'There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the safety of the American people,' McMaster said in a statement Monday evening outside the White House.

'At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly,' said national security advisor H.R. McMaster

Nancy Pelosi, speaking at a CNN town hall on Monday night, said that the reports about Trump, if true, would be 'very, very damaging.'

'It undermines the trust that we would have with our allies,' she told the network.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California called the story 'deeply disturbing' and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies.

The White House's initial reaction was to throw a bevvy of written statements to reporters, including one by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that it first provided to CNN.

Tillerson's statement did not deny the president had passed along secret information.

'During President Trumps meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods, or military operations,' Tillerson said.

In the same set of statements, Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell said: 'This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.'

The president has broad authority to declassify information unilaterally, which would insulate him from having done anything illegal.

President Trump blasted his 2016 presidential election opponent, whom he called 'crooked' Hillary Clinton, as 'not fit' for office because of her 'careless' handling of classified information

Lower-level government officials who disclose highly-classified information, even without ill intent, can get prosecuted.

Trump ran, in part, by campaigning that Hillary Clinton had put the nation's security at risk through her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

'Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,' Trump tweeted in July after Comey called her out in a press conference where he nevertheless didn't recommend prosecution. 'Not fit!'

Merkley told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Trump's complaints about government leaking are 'incredibly ironic' now that 'he's the individual to leak the most sensitiv, the most classified information directly to the Russians.

'It's a continuation of the kind of dangerous, out-of-control, day-to-day activity of the White House,' he said.

An official said Trump revealed the city within ISIS territory where a U.S. ally detected the threat, according to unnamed officials.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer briefed Monday before the allegations against Trump came out

That could run the risk of compromising the source, since the Russians are engaged in a military campaign in Syria, where they are propping up dictator Bashar al-Assad.

McMaster is quoted in the article saying no sources or methods were disclosed, without denying Trump leaked classified information.

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation,' said McMaster, who participated int he meeting. 'At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly,' he said.

Looming behind Russia's meeting are congressional investigations and an FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Trump fired Comey, who was atop the investigation, last week, drawing howls of protest from Democrats and some Republicans. Trump first attributed the firing to Comey's handling of Hillary Clinton's email scandal, but later told NBC Russia was on his mind when he made the decision.

'Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,' a former U.S. counterterrorism official told the Post.

Trump's meeting with the Russians came during a week when he sacked his FBI Director, James Comey, who was overseeing an investigation of alleged Russian election interference

The timing of Trump's Russia meetings were noteworthy given the intense focus on all things Russia.

Moscow also put out images of Trump greeting a smiling Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. They got released by the TASS news agency, the Russian embassy, and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The White House kept U.S. photographers out, and didn't put any photo record out until a day after the fact.

The White House flickr account did not post a Kislyak photo with the president.

The official White House readout of Trump's meeting didn't mention Kislyak was there.

Trump trolled his critics late Thursday by tweeting out a photo of him and Lavrov  as well as an image of himself meeting with Ukraine's foreign minister.

'Yesterday, on the same day- I had meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the FM of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin. #LETSMAKEPEACE!' Trump wrote.

Trump's frank comments at a meeting that included Kislyak are all the more noteworthy because Kislyak is at the center of a burgeoning investigation into his presidential campaign's Russia contacts.

Trump fired former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn after Flynn was revealed to have met with Kislyak during the transition and then failing to tell Vice President Mike Pence about it.
A feud between a tenant and a landlord that began over dirty dishes and ended with allegations of animal cruelty and assault has been heard before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The tenant, a university student who moved into a Footscray sharehouse in Melbourne in November, described to the tribunal almost two months of bitter arguments that led to mutual intervention orders, according to Domain.

The tenant shared the home with two other renters. The landlord lived in a bungalow at the back of the home.

After hearing numerous allegations against each other, this week the tribunal sided with the landlord. The tenant had claimed the landlord violated the Residential Tenancies Act.

A Melbourne tenant claimed he was harassed and punched in the face by his landlord during their bitter feud, which has been heard before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (stock image)

The tenant, a university student who moved into a Footscray sharehouse in November, told the tribunal the pair initially clashed during a heated text conversation over dirty dishes (pictured) but the arguments escalated

Animosity between the two men began to grow 10 days after the tenant moved in, the tribunal heard.

The landlord had yelled at the tenant to clean up the kitchen, but the tenant said he had an exam he needed to study for.

The landlord returned to the landlord's bedroom again later, telling the renter: 'I f***ing told you the rules.'

The tenant said he crawled out of his bedroom window to avoid the landlord and bitter text message battle began between the pair.

'I've just moved in and I'm already getting alarm bells. Don't scream at me like that again and if you need to tell me anything again like that please put it in writing,' the tenant said.

Eventually tensions led to mutual intervention orders and the landlord told the tenant to leave in January (stock picture of Footscray)

The landlord replied: 'The dishes NEED to be washed properly and the sink cleaned afterwardsI spent over an hour last night cleaning up your mess and removing the rubbish from that cupboard that you had hidden in there. This is unacceptable.'

'The dishes and the kitchen were all reasonably cleaned. If this is going to become a recurring issue I will buy my own stuff so that I can clean it how I usually clean dishes. I really don't have time for this petty stuffsome of the dishes you pointed out haven't been used by me. As for the garbage bag, I won't do that again,' the tenant responded.

'Hell if you had just listened for a couple of seconds I would not have raised my voice,' the landlord wrote.

The tribunal heard that the men tried to settle their argument by sharing a pizza but the peace didn't last.

After hearing numerous allegations against each other, this week the tribunal sided with the landlord (stock image)

The tenant said the sharehouse was a 'dictatorship' and he was afraid to come home. He accused the landlord of harassment and using scare tactics to get him to move out.

He claimed one of the landlord's friends invited him outside for a fight and that he was punched in the face while trying to use the washing machine.

The tenant punched himself, the landlord retorted.

The landlord also claimed the tenant has injured his dog and called the RSPCA.

Eventually tensions led to restraining orders against each other and the landlord ordered the tenant to leave on January 2.

The tribunal ruled that the tenant had an unreasonable expectation of what it is like to live in a sharehouse.
A Japanese princess will give up her royal status when she marries a beach tourism worker she met in a restaurant.

Princess Mako, the granddaughter of Japan's emperor, is getting married to ocean lover Kei Komuro who can ski, play the violin and cook, it has been claimed.

The man who won the princess' heart, was a fellow student at International Christian University in Tokyo, where Princess Mako, 25, also graduated.

Once they say 'I do', she will lose her status - despite being Emperor Akihito's granddaughter - as Japanese tradition dictates and become a commoner.

Japan's Princess Mako stands on a bulletproofed balcony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to greet well-wishers who throng to the palace compound to celebrate Emperor Akihito's 78th birthday

Japan's Princess Mako, the first daughter of Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko, poses for photos at Imperial Palace in Tokyo

Passersby watch a TV news reporting that Princess Mako (left), the granddaughter of Japan's emperor, is getting married to Kei Komuro (right), in Tokyo Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Princess Mako of Akishino of Japan attends the official draw ceremony ahead of the World Group Davis Cup tie between Japan and France at Ariake Colosseum (left) and poses for photographs outside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo (right)

Japan Tennis Association Honorary President Princess Mako of Akishino watches a match on day one of Rakuten Open 2016 at Ariake Colosseum on October 3, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan

They met at a restaurant in Tokyo's Shibuya about five years ago at a party to talk about studying abroad, and have been seeing more of each other in recent months.

Komuro has worked as 'Prince of the Sea' to promote tourism to the beaches of Shonan in Kanagawa prefecture, a report on public broadcaster NHK said.

Women can't succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan.

Mako's father and her younger brother are in line to succeed Emperor Akihito, but after her uncle Crown Prince Naruhito, who is first in line.

Mako of Akishino attends the state dinner in honour of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium

Once she marries, Mako will no longer be a princess and will become a commoner.

But the process building up to the wedding is likely to take some time and be full of ritual, as Japanese nuptials, especially royal ones, tend to be.

First there will be an announcement, the equivalent of an engagement, and then a date for the wedding will be picked when the couple will make a formal report to the emperor and empress.

NHK said Mako has already introduced Komuro to her parents, and they approve.

Unlike royalty in Great Britain and other European countries, the emperor and his family tend to kept away from the public eye, although they travel abroad and appear at cultural events.

Therefore, little is known of the princess other than she was a student at the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo in April 2010.

In doing so, she became the first member of the Japanese imperial family to attend university, according to Mainichi.

As part of her arts and cultural property studies, she attended the University of Edinburgh in Scotland on an exchange.

Having finished at ICU, Princess Make returned to Britain where she gained a masters in art museum and gallery studies from the University of Leicester in January 2016.

She is currently working as an affiliate researcher the University Museum of the University of Tokyo whilst combining a doctorate programme at ICU.

Japan's Prince Hisahito (centre, front), wearing a traditional ceremonial attire, is accompanied by his parents, Prince Akishino, Princess Kiko, his sisters Princess Mako, left, and Princess Kako, right, after attending 'Chakko-no-gi' ceremony to celebrate his growth and the passage from infancy to childhood, at the Akasaka imperial estate in Tokyo

Journalists gather in front of the gate of Akasaka Estate where the residence of Prince Akishino is located in Tokyo after the news that the prince's daughter is getting married to an ocean lover was reported Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Part of her official duties is to serve as the honorary president for events like the Tokyo International Book Fair.

Her sister Princess Kako, 22, is following in her footsteps at ICU while her brother Prince Hisahito, 10, is third in line to the throneafter Crown Prince Naruhito and his father Prince Akishino.

Emperor Akihito, 83, is the son of Hirohito, Japan's emperor during World War Two.

Akihito expressed his desire to abdicate last year, and Japan has been preparing legislation especially to allow him to stand aside.

If it gets pushed through, it would be Japan's first abdication in 200 years.
Aspiring heart surgeon Lavinia Woodward, 24, swiped at her boyfriend with a bread knife, before stabbing him in the leg

An 'extraordinary' Oxford University student who stabbed her Tinder lover with a bread-knife could be spared jail after a judge said a custodial sentence would damage her future career as a heart surgeon.

Lavinia Woodward, 24, swiped at her boyfriend with the blade, before stabbing him in the leg.

During her drunken and drug-fuelled rage at Christ Church College, Oxford, she then hurled a laptop, a glass and a jam jar at him.

Woodward, who currently lives in Milan, Italy, previously admitted unlawful wounding at an earlier hearing.

Judge Ian Pringle said the offence would normally mean a prison term, but instead delayed sentencing and slapped her with a restraining order to stay drug-free and not to re-offend.

He told the court: 'It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off, to prevent this extraordinary able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to, would be a sentence which would be too severe.

'What you did will never, I know, leave you but it was pretty awful, and normally it would attract a custodial sentence, whether it is immediate or suspended.'

Woodward (pictured) previously admitted a charge of unlawful wounding at Oxford Crown Court

Judge Ian Pringle delayed sentencing for a period of four months and hinted Woodward won't be jailed - because of her 'extraordinary' talent

Prosecutor Cathy Olliver said Woodward met her ex online and at the time of the attack, September 30, her behaviour 'deteriorated'.

The student's boyfriend called Woodward's mother on Skype, and his then-girlfriend punched him in the face before assaulting him with the knife.

Defending, James Sturman QC said his client's dreams of becoming a surgeon were 'almost impossible' as her conviction would have to be disclosed.

Woodward had a 'very troubled life', struggled with drug addiction, and had been abused by another ex, Mr Sturman said.

Lavinia Woodward will be sentenced on September 25.
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Bashar al Assad has denied killing thousands of detainees at a Syrian prison and then using a secret crematorium to dispose of the remains.

The dictator said allegations by the US State Department that up to 50 people per day are being hanged at Saydnaya prison, near Damascus, are 'a new Hollywood story detached from reality'.

A Syrian foreign ministry statement published by state news agency SANA said the claims were 'devoid of truth.'

Stuart Jones, the acting US assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, made the accusations in a press briefing on Monday during which he said Assad's regime 'has sunk to a new level of depravity'.

The claims match an Amnesty International report released in February which said up to 13,000 people - mostly civilians opposed to the government - have been hanged in secret at the prison.

President Bashar al Assad has denied killing thousands of inmates at Saydnaya prison, near Damascus, and then burning their bodies in a secret crematorium as 'detached from reality'

This satellite image, taken Jan. 15 and provided by the State Department and DigitalGlobe, shows what the State Department describes as a building in a prison complex in Syria that was modified to support a crematorium used to burn dead prisoners

These photos, taken on Aug. 27, 2013 and Apr. 15, 2016, show how Saydnaya prison has been modified with what are believed to crematorium fixtures. The State Dept claims the Syrian government is executing 50 prisoners a day

The final photo, taken on Apr. 18 this year and released by the State Department show the short distance between the main prison and the crematorium is. The Trump administration says there have been mass executions of prisoners

Assad has been accused of other atrocities during the six-year-long civil war, including this bombing of a residential district in the Syrian capital of Damascus in February of this year. Assad has used punishing attacks to try to quell his opposition

Assad's government was also accused of the gas attack on Idlib in April that left this young boy dead. A judge who worked in the prison outside Damascus said some of those who died there were also 'young' - but did not go into detail

Jones told reporters: 'Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves.

'We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Sednaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees' remains with little evidence.'

He added that the crematorium - construction on which began in 2013 - represented 'an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya.'

THE JAIL WHERE PRISONERS ARE BEATEN AND HANGED Hangings at Saydnaya are carried out once or twice a week, usually on Monday and Wednesday, in the middle of the night, according to insiders. Those whose names are called out were told they would be transferred to civilian prisons in Syria. Instead, they are moved to a cell in the basement of the prison and beaten severely. They are then transported to another prison building on the grounds of Saydnaya, where they are hanged. Throughout this process, they remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks. 'They kept them [hanging] there for 10 to 15 minutes. Some didn't die because they are light. For the young ones, their weight wouldn't kill them,' said a former judge who witnessed the hangings. 'The officers' assistants would pull them down and break their necks.' Detainees held in the building in the floors above the 'execution room' reported that they sometimes heard the sounds of these hangings. (Source: Amnesty International) Advertisement

One of the satellite images, provided by the State Department and taken from commercial satellites in January 2015, shows the building that the US says was modified to support a crematorium.

The photo was taken in winter and shows the prison roof covered in snow, except for one section where it has melted, which analysts claim contains the crematorium.

Three other photos were also released, with two - taken in August 2013 and April 2016 - showing a side-by-side comparison of the building believed to house the crematorium, before and after it was altered.

The latter of those two images shows what are believed to be air intake vents, air conditioning units and a 'discharge stack' that could be used to expel the smoke created by burning bodies.

It is not clear why the US waited until now to release the information, but Jones told reporters: 'I would say that this information has been developing.'

The final photograph, taken in April 2017, shows how close the alleged crematorium building is to the prison - easily just a few minutes' walk for a condemned man, and moments for a vehicle.

Jones cited US intelligence agencies and 'credible' humanitarian organizations as sources for the claims about the crematorium.

He added that 'The regime holds as many as 70 prisoners in Saydnaya in cells that have a five-person capacity.'

It's not yet clear exactly where the prisoners are killed, but a judge who witnessed the executions told Amnesty International that they are taken in the night to another building.

There they are beaten before being hanged to death.

Some - described as 'the young ones' - are too light for the rope, and so officers' assistants will pull down on their feet to break their necks.

Others are left hanging for 10-15 minutes.

Amnesty International released the shocking claims in February, along with statistics about the secret hangings, saying up to 13,000 people had been executed there.

It said the executions have happened at a rate of around 50 a day between 2011 and 2015 - the first five years of the country's ongoing civil war.

Assad's regime detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same period, Jones said.

This map shows the relation to the prison of the crematorium, and their proximity to the Syrian capital of Damascus. It's believed that the execution orders came from top officials

Civil war has raged across Syria for six years now, destroying homes and lives. Throughout that period, thousands of prisoners have been held in, and executed at, the prison, the US claims

There is no escape from the war that ravages the country; this child was injured in the April 4 bombing of Damascus. It was initially believed that Assad had been disposing of his opponents in mass graves; now the US believes he has cremated them

Lynn Maalouf, Deputy Director for Research at Amnesty International's regional office in Beirut, said: 'The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population.

'We demand that the Syrian authorities immediately cease extrajudicial executions and torture and inhuman treatment at Saydnaya Prison and in all other government prisons across Syria.

'Russia and Iran, the government's closest allies, must press for an end to these murderous detention policies.'

Jones echoed those thoughts, saying: 'The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime.

'And these atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran.'

He clarified that Washington is not specifically accusing Moscow or Tehran of complicity in the alleged Saydnaya killings, but said Russia is aware of and has supported other abuses.

He also gave a warning to President Vladimir Putin's government: 'Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now.'

He said he had not yet presented the evidence of the crematorium to Russian officials.

But he said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had raised concerns about Assad's brutality with Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrovm during the latter's visit to Washington last week.

State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tillerson had been 'firm and clear' in a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov last week that 'Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al-Assad.'

A main point of that meeting 'was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime,' she said.

The sarin gas attack that claimed this child's life in April is believed to be the work of Assad, who continues to receive backing from Russia and Iran. US officials said they hoped the news of the crematorium may sway them against the embattled ruler

Rescuers search for survivors of an airstrike on a residential area of Saqba Town in the Eastern Ghouta Region of Damascus. Assad continues to bomb civilians in his country, while 65,000-117,000 people were also detained by his regime from 2011-15

Jones also said on Monday that the United States should not wholeheartedly believe a deal to set up 'de-escalation zones' brokered by Russia during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital Astana last week.

The deal was reached with support from Iran and Turkey during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana earlier this month. Jones attended the talks.

'In light of the failures of the past ceasefire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical,' he said.

Jones said Assad's government had carried out air strikes, chemical attacks, extrajudicial killings, starvation, and other measures to target civilians and its opponents.

He criticized Russia and Iran for maintaining their support for Assad despite those tactics.

'These atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran,' Jones said.

'The [Assad] regime must stop all attacks on civilian and opposition forces. And Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance.'

He did not say what measures America might take if Russia does not change its stance.

Tensions between the US and Russia heightened after President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike in April against a Syrian air base that the US said had been used to launch a poison gas attack on civilians.

When Trump took up office he vowed to focus the US's Syrian efforts on defeating ISIS, which has used the chaos created by the civil war to seize land in the area.

He said at the time that he hoped to work with Putin, whose forces are in Syria to protect Assad's regime, to achieve that goal.

But relations with Moscow, already dire under Barack Obama, have not improved and Assad has continued to bombard civilian areas in his battle with opposition rebels.

And last month, when Assad was again accused of using the banned nerve agent sarin in a strike on his own people, Trump ordered a retaliatory US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.
A woman in China was shocked to discover she had a leech stuck in her nose for months.

The woman finally went to the hospital in Shenwan with a 10-day-long nose bleed on May 9 and was surprised when a doctor told her that they suspected a leech was inside her nostril.

Doctors found and removed the three-inch-long leech.

Ouch: The woman went to hospital complaining of a 10-day-long nosebleed and pain

Doctors located the leech which is thought to have been in her nostril for several months

The 49-year-old visited the Shenwan Ear Nose and Throat hospital complaining of a nose bleed along with nasal discomfort for several months.

Doctors examined the patient only to fin a dark brown soft object. It was only when they examined the nostril further that they found that it was a leech.

According to the patient, she often washes her face in a mountain stream.

Doctors think that the leech could have got into her nostril this way.

Doctors managed to remove the leech which measured three inches in total.

It's thought that the creature had been there for months.

It's thought that the leech got into the woman's nostril while she was washing her face
The remarkable story of a pilot who lost his legs in a horrifying crash then went on to become a celebrated World War Two flying ace has finally been revealed, 20 years after his death.

Flight Lieutenant Colin Hodgkinson lost his legs in a crash in a Tiger Moth in 1939 but went on to emulate Sir Douglas Bader and fly Spitfires in the RAF.

He was captured by the Germans after crash-landing in France in 1943 but his Nazis captors deemed him 'no further use to his country' so let him go home.

Their underestimation proved a costly and deadly mistake and he immediately re-joined the RAF with devastating effect, claiming another aerial victory before the war was out.

Despite having less experience than Sir Douglas, Flt Lt Hodgkinson referred to himself as a 'poor man's Bader' - but historians say he was 'much more than that'.

Flt Lt Colin Hodgkinson had many visitors while recovering from the crash in hospital, among them his cousins Terence (centre) and Guy (right), who brought papers, books and welcome family gossip

The determined pilot never let his injuries hold him back and went on to become a flying ace, taking part in the Battle of Britain

Flt Lt Hodgkinson joking with fellow pilots at an Operational Training Unit, October 1942

Flt Lt Hodgkinson and Group Captain Bader were the only two British double amputee pilots to fly during the war.

Yet while Bader remains to this day a household name for his heroics, Flt Lt Hodgkinson's exploits have been largely forgotten - until now.

Flt Lt Hodgkinson and Captain Bader were the only British double amputee pilots in WW2

Historian Mark Hillier has published the late Spitfire veteran's autobiography 60 years after it was penned.

He hopes the book, called Best Foot Forward, will shine some limelight on a man whose courage he says was every bit as great as Baders.

Flt Lt Hodgkinson was just 19 when he suffered his life changing injuries on May 12, 1939, at RAF Gravesend.

His Tiger Moth struck another aircraft at 800ft and plummeted to the ground.

He was rushed to hospital, where his right leg was amputated above the knee and his left leg below the knee.

His trainer was killed in the accident.

But Flt Lt Hodgkinson was determined to bounce back from this devastating blow and asked to have his left leg further amputated so it evenly matched his right.

This brave decision was made so he could emulate Bader and return to the skies.

This picture was taken during a roadside halt on the journey from Barrow Gurney to Roehampton where Flt Lt Hodgkinson was to be fitted for his artificial legs

With 'Pop' Pullin and the Swedish film star Marguerite Viby at Goteborg in September 1944, after he had been repatriated

The flying ace is pictured here at the opening of a new wing at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, in 1942. On the right is Lord Horder, next to Petty Officer Young, another amputee. On the extreme left is the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Womersley, PC, then the Minister of Pensions

Returning to the crew room at Aston Down after a training exercise with a Canadian pupil pilot; slightly behind them is Pilot Officer Jones, the instructor

He wrote: 'Flying? I thought I had done with it.

'To prove to myself that I could still be a man among men I had to get into the war, and in a fighting role.

'The only flying role possible for me, as for Bader, was as a pilot in an operational squadron.

'Getting a ground job or even instructing in the air would not be enough. I had to fly against the enemy.

'My case was vastly different from Bader's. He had done some hundreds of hours in various operational types of aircraft, I had done precisely fourteen and a half in a Tiger Moth.

'He knew men in the service who could help him, I knew nobody.

'None of these disadvantages, even had I been aware of them all, would have mattered to me at the time.

'If Bader could fly, I told myself, so could Hodgkinson.'

This picture was taken just after Colin had got his wings. In the following May, again with help from Sir Victor Warrender, he was posted to No.9 Advanced Flying Unit, Royal Air Force, at Hullavington in Wiltshire

The pilot can be seen here by the Caravelle, a French version of the Comet, in 1956

Colin photographed beside the engine of a Gloster Meteor at Thorney Island in Emsworth, Hampshire in the summer of 1951

Being assisted into a de Havilland Vampire for a test flight during the Korean crisis of 1950

Flt Lt Hodgkinson with Sergeant Shep herd RAAF, at Aston Down. 'Shep' and Colin became close friends

Colin photographed whilst a midshipman in HMS Courageous, after he had been accepted for the Fleet Air Arm. The picture was taken when the ship was lying in Fareham Creek in 1939

When war broke out Flt Lt Hodgkinson was in hospital at Dartford and as many cases as possible were moved imme diately away from the Metro polis, he was among those who went to a converted lunatic asylum at Barrow Gurney, near Bristol, where this photograph was taken some months later. It was there that Colin made the decision to have his damaged left foot amputated to give him a chance of getting into opera tional flying

By Christmas 1940 Flt Lt Hodgkinson was walking on artificial limbs to such a standard that he was allowed back into the air.

He subsequently joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and went on numerous flights, including as a rear gunner on a bomber.

In September 1942 he successfully requested to transfer to the RAF as a Pilot Officer and took control of his first Spitfire since his accident.

He said: 'I approached Tiger Moth No. DE197 like an ex-alcoholic taking his first whisky after a successful cure. 'Now, you b*****d,' I muttered, 'we'll see who's going to be the master round here'.'

Like Bader, Flt Lt Hodgkinson's Spitfire was not modified in any way so he had to swing his hips to use the rudders.

Flt Lt Hodgkinson's first aerial victory was claimed in April 1943 when on combat patrol over the south-east coast of England.

He spotted four Focke-Wulf Fw 190s bombing Brighton and engaged them. He managed to disable one, which crashed into the sea near to the pier.

In November 1943, during a reconnaissance mission over France, his oxygen supply failed, causing him to crash land in a field.

Flt Lt Hodgkinson was dragged from his burning Spitfire by two farm workers and later caught by the occupying forces who placed him in Stalag Luft III - the Great Escape PoW camp - for the next 10 months.

But he was then repatriated as he was deemed 'no further use to his country' by his Nazi captors.

They had underestimated Flt Lt Hodgkinson who returned to the cockpit with devastating effect.

He spent his final years in France and died aged 76 in September 1996.

When 604 Squadron won the Esher Trophy, which is awarded annually to the best all-round squadron in the Auxiliary Air Force, they paraded before King George VI at Buckingham Palace for presentation of the trophy

Flt Lt Hodgkinson, on the right, pictured with Eamon Andrews (left) and Fred Massey after the filming of This is Your Life on 7 October 1957

This television interview with Starikov, the pilot of the Russian TU 104, was a 'scoop'

Mark Hillier, a historian at Goodwood Airfield in West Sussex, said: 'Only three double amputees flew with the Allies during the Second World War - Bader, Hodgkinson and a Russian pilot called Alexey Maresyev.

'Colin was not a natural flying ace but he felt he had to master it because it had cost him his legs.

'He was extremely brave having to overcome not just his disability but his anxiety about flying. Despite this, he constantly volunteered for front line duties.

'He was actually shot down by the Germans and pretty badly smashed up. They sent him home because they thought he was of no use but he rejoined the RAF.

'He called himself a poor man's Bader but he was so much more than that - he was a very special man.

'Colin didn't seek the limelight so he hasn't received the limelight he deserves. He didn't get any medals apart from his standard war medals - there was no Distinguished Flying Cross or bravery awards.

'He is a hero and everyone should know about him.'

A young Colin pictured with his mother and Jezebel, his mother's favourite terrier

Fred Massey, Flight Lieutenant Colin Hodgkinson's sick-berth attendant at Barrow Gurney whilst recuperating after losing his legs, pictured with his wife and a copy of the first edition of Colinis book

When this picture was taken in the garden at Glencot, Colin was eighteen months old

Bader scored 22 aerial victories during the war despite having lost both his legs in 1931 while attempting aerobatic stunts.

He survived the devastating injuries but was retired against his will. However, he retook flight training and although his attempts to rejoin the RAF were rejected his accomplished services were called upon after the war started.

Best Foot Forward, by Colin Hodgkinson

He scored his first victories over Dunkirk during the Battle of France in 1940 before taking part in the Battle of Britain.

In August 1941, Bader bailed out over German-occupied France and was captured.

Despite his disability, the prisoner made a number of escape attempts and was eventually sent to the notorious Colditz Castle.

He remained there until April 1945 when the camp was liberated. He left the RAF a year later.

Alexey Maresyev was a Soviet fighter ace who was shot down in April 1942 and captured by Nazi forces.

Both of his legs were amputated below the knee but after mastering the control of his prosthetic devices he returned to the cockpit in June 1943.

During a dog fight in August 1943 he shot down three German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters. In total, he completed 86 combat flights and shot down 11 German warplanes.

Best Foot Forward, by Colin Hodgkinson, is published by Pen & Sword. Buy it here
Aaron Hernandez's fiancee has addressed rumors that he was secretly gay and even had a prison lover.

The former New England Patriots star committed suicide in his Massachusetts jail cell last month, two days after rumors about his sexuality were first floated publicly on a Boston radio program.

After Hernandez's death, DailyMail.com revealed that he had been in a relationship with one of his prison mates, Kyle Kennedy, who he also left one of this three suicide letters to.

In an interview with Dr. Phil, Hernandez's fiancee Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez says she doesn't believe that Hernandez was gay and that she thinks the allegations he was in a a relationship with Kennedy are a 'crock of bull'.

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Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez says she doesn't believe the rumors that her fiancee Aaron Hernandez was gay

Shayanna also doesn't think that Hernandez (left) had a relationship with Kyle Kennedy (right), his alleged gay prison lover

'I had no indication or any feeling that he was' gay, Shayanna said. 'He was very much a man to me. I don't know where this came from.

'It's embarrassing in a sense, it's hurtful. Regardless if it was true or not, it's just not something that I saw. It's not something I believe and it's not him,' she said in a preview clip from the interview, which is set to air in full on Tuesday.

I had no indication or any feeling that he was [gay]. He was very much a man to me. I don't know where this came from. Shaynna Jenkins Hernandez

Shayanna says she first heard rumors about Hernandez's possible bisexuality from his defense team, and that she asked her boyfriend afterwards if the rumors were true.

'He said it wasn't,' she said.

Dr Phil asked whether the defense team disclosed the rumors because they thought the prosecution might try to use the information to 'line [her] up against him in some way'.

'There's nothing to flip,' Shayanna said.

Dr. Phil also asked about whether Hernandez was concerned that these rumors were about to be released. While they didn't make headlines until after his death, a Boston radio show did do a segment on Hernandez two days before his death, in which a reporter who had been investigating his two murder cases for years first publicly floated the idea that he may have been secretly gay. There is now a theory that the real reason Hernandez allegedly murdered Odin Lloyd was because Lloyd knew about his bisexuality and threatened to expose him.

'Was he concerned about that, did he say?' Dr Phil asked.

'I mean, who wouldn't be concerned with rumors as such?' Shaynna said. 'But I don't know if he got wind that it may be released.'

The final part of Shayanna's Dr. Phil interview is set to air Tuesday. The first half aired Monday

Shayanna also addressed reports that Hernandez had a gay prison lover, identified by DailyMail.com as Kyle Kennedy.

She said she never even heard about Kennedy until after Hernandez died and that she doesn't believe the two had an intimate relationship.

'I dont know who this Kyle Kennedy is. Ive never heard of him, honestly. Aaron has never mentioned him,' she said.

As for rumors that Hernandez and Kennedy had asked to share a cell together and the request was turned down, Shayanna said 'Aaron liked to be in a single cell, from my knowledge'.

She also said that reports that Kennedy got a suicide letter from Hernandez are 'not accurate'.

'There's nothing for Kyle Kennedy. It's nonexistent,' she said.

After Hernandez's death, Kennedy's lawyer came out and confirmed that he had received a suicide letter, and even revealed that Hernandez talked to him about killing himself and promised him a $50,000 watch.

Shayanna said she believes that Hernandez's suicide letter to their daughter may have been forged. Above, his suicide letter to his Shayanna

But Shayanna says the story doesn't click for her.

'If Kyle Kennedy was such a close friend, and Aaron was telling him he wanted to "hang it up," he would still be here because Kyle Kennedy should have, you know, poked that lightbulb in somebodys head and been a true friend and stopped it,.

'I think its very foolish for a man, or his counsel, to come out and talk about a $50,000 watch when he has a child, and offer his condolences to his fiancee and his child but then asking for such things or saying such things. Its not commendable,' she said.

'I think it's a crock of bull,' she added.

In another segment of the interview, Shayanna voiced her suspicions about the suicide letter that Hernadnez left behind to their daughter, and how it could have possibly been forged.

'It did have her name on the top as normal. But as far as the content, very vague, very short, nothing seemed very personal, very loving of course, sensitive, but nothing personal,' she said.

'I feel like with this being such a high profile case, any kind of information can be gathered and put into something. I feel like writing a four-year-old, you can kind of say anything. Youre talking about a guy who was present but not present. So no, it wasnt personal in that way where he was referencing games or pet names or favorite books. It was nothing like that,' she added.

Shayanna also revealed that she and Hernandez's family have become estranged, because she doesn't think they stood by his side through the two trials.

The last time they saw each other was at Hernandez's funeral last month.

I'm very honest with my child. I allowed her to view her father's body in private, just us, and say her last goodbyes. I didn't want her to grow up and think that she couldn't say goodbye.

She also revealed how she helped their daughter say goodbye to the father she never got much time with.

'I'm very honest with my child. I allowed her to view her father's body in private, just us, and say her last goodbyes. I didn't want her to grow up and think that she couldn't say goodbye,' she said.

'She found the courage to actually touch his hand and I think she built up some encouragement to say goodbye,' she added.

Shayanna says that they put a chain in Hernandez's jacket pocket, and that her daughter has the other half. She also has a locket with some of Hernandez's ashes in it.

'I explained to her that daddy won't call anymore, daddy won't be able to talk. But she gets it, she gets it. And we talk about her emotions. I ask her how she feels, she'll ask me how I feel. Some days she's sad, some days she cries. I hope her and make sure she's ok, ' Shayanna said.

In the first half of her Dr. Phil interview, which aired on Monday, Shayanna said that she didn't believe that Hernandez killed himself because their last conversation together had been so optimistic.

Shayanna (pictured with their daughter in court last month, left) said Hernandez's suicide letter to their daughter was 'very vague'. Hernandez pictured right

Shayanna says she believes that Hernandez was murdered. The family is going an independent investigation into Hernandez's death

Hernandez killed himself five days after he was acquitted in a 2012 double murder, but he was still serving a life in prison sentence, without the possibility of parole. He was still in the appeals process for the first murder conviction. Because of Massachusetts law, that conviction was thrown out when he died because he was still in the appeals process.

Shayanna's Dr. Phil interview took place on the day that a judge officially threw out the guilty conviction, and Dr. Phil asked whether she believed the rumors that Hernandez killed himself so that she could collect the rest of his $6.5million contract with the New England Patriots.

The team ended his contract when he was arrested for murder in 2013, but now that the conviction has been thrown out, it opens up the possibility for his estate to sue for the rest of the salary.

Shayanna said 'anything's possible' when asked about rumors that Hernandez killed himself so that she could collect the rest of his $6.5million contract. Hernandez pictured above in 2012

'Did Aaron kill himself so you could collect $6.5million dollars from the New England Patriots?' Dr Phil asked.

'That I don't know,' she said.

'Is that even a possibility?' he asked.

'That I could collect the money?' she said.

'No, that he would do that so you could,' Dr Phil said.

'I think anything is a possibility, but I don't know what [committing suicide] was for... Again if he was sitting right here there's tons of stuff I would ask but I can't. And I can't speculate on what he was thinking and why he may or may not have done it. Whatever the case is, it's just unbelievable to me. I don't believe any of it and I don't believe that would be the cause,' she said.

I can't speculate on what he was thinking and why he may or may not have [committed suicide]. Whatever the case is, it's just unbelievable to me. I don't believe any of it.

Shayanna ended the interview by saying that she hopes the interest in Hernandez's case finally ends so that she and her daughter can move on.

'I think the media made it out to be a little more than it had to. He didn't have a chance when it came to the media. And I've been subject to it and I've gone through my depression moments, anxiety, ways that I've never felt in my life. For him to be by himself and feel that way, I can only imagine. I don't wish it upon anyone.

'Like I said, it's very tragic and I think its time to let his name rest. I think that there's a child at the end of the day that we have to look at who adores her father and I think it's time for her to have closure and I think it's just time to have a fresh start,' Shayanna said.
President Trump pointed a finger at his fired ex-FBI Director James Comey, as he sent off a series of tweets explaining why he decided to share information, which was likely classified, with Russian officials.

'I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community....,' Trump wrote.

Unnamed intelligence community sources told the Washington Post that Trump had revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during their Oval Office meeting last week.

Former FBI Director James Comey (left) got dragged into President Trump's (right) latest controversey - that he spilled classified infor to the Russians - as Trump pointed out that he had asked Comey to 'find the LEAKERS'

President Trump dashed off this tweet Tuesday morning, saying that he had asked James Comey and others to find the sources of information leaked to the media. Monday's blockbuster Washington Post story used unnamed sources

Reporters Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe talked to 'current and former U.S. officials' who said Trump's disclosure could jeopardize a vital source gathering information on the Islamic State.

The U.S. gained access to that source through an intelligence-sharing arrangement 'considered so sensitive,' the Post wrote, that allies and other U.S. government officials have been purposely kept out of the loop.

Russia is not considered a U.S. ally.

The White House's response to the story began by issuing a number of denials, which didn't get to the meat of the matter  that the president had disclosed classified information that he wasn't supposed to.

'At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly,' said Trump's biggets defender, his National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

McMaster also took reporters to task for using unnamed sources in the story.

'Two other senior officials that were present, including the secretary of state, remembered the meeting the same way and have said so,' McMaster told scribes outside the West Wing Monday night.

'They're on-the-record accounts should outweight those of anonymous sources. I was in the room,' he added. 'It didn't happen.'

But on Tuesday morning, Trump dashed off two tweets, giving an explanation, but also seemingly confirming that it did.

'As president I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....,' Trump began.

'...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' the president added.

Trump then looped Comey into the conversation for blaming him for not significantly sniffing out leaks.

ALL (WELL, SOME OF) THE PRESIDENT'S LEAKS The Trump administration has found itself hamstrung by a series of high-profile leaks to reporters. This week's Washington Post story describing the president sharing allegedly classified Israeli intelligence with Russian diplomats is only the latest example. Some of the resulting news stories put the White House in full-blown spin mode, while others have turned out to be inauthentic. January 25: The New York Times described a leaked draft of an executive order that would reopen CIA 'black site' prisons where terror suspects could be interrogated. Sean Spicer later said it was 'not a White House document,' and he had 'no idea where it came from.' February 2: News reports describe an angry Trump berating Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee resettlement deal negotiated by the Obama administration. February 2: The Associated Press published an excerpt of a leaked transcript of a call between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in which Trump tells him he could send American troops to the border to deal with 'bad hombres down there.' February 5: The Times spoke to West Wing aides who revealed that they couldn't figure out how to work the light switches in the White House's Cabinet Room  and had to work in the dark as a result. February 9: The Washington Post leaned on classified information to report that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had discussed the status of U.S. sanctions against Russia during secret meetings in December with Moscow's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. February 13: The Post reported that Sally Yates, dureing the days before she was removed from her post as acting attorney general, warned the Trump White House's top lawyer that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his Kislyak contacts. February 14: The New York Times reported that Flynn was questioned by the FBI only a few days into his White House tenure, and that agents came away from the meeting believing he hadn't told them the whole truth about his Kislyak meetings. February 17: The Associated Press publishes an 11-page Homeland Security Department memo that proposed using 100,000 National Guard troops to police the southern U.S. border. (The White House said it was not an official document.) April 8: White House staffers dished dirt to the Post about a rapprochement between warring senior aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon  brokered by CHief of Staff Reince Priebus. May 15: The Post reported, based on leaks from 'current and former U.S. officials,' that the president revealed 'highly classified' information about the ISIS terror army to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, upsetting a U.S. ally that had been the source of intelligence Trump handed over willingly. The White House insisted that none of the people in the room with Trump and the Russians saw the information exchange that way. May 16: The Times revealed, based on another leak, that it was Israel that had provided the intel in the first place. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. reaffirmed his country's willingness to work with Washington in the future. Advertisement

Trump's Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Comey's inability to stop the leaks was 'probably one of the many factors' that led to his dismissal.

'You can't deny somebody  that that wasn't a problem,' she said. 'And so I think that was just another one of the many reasons that he no longer had the confidence of the president and the rest of the FBI.'

Now, with Trump bringing Comey into the story again, it glues together the two controversies that have taken over Trump's White House for a better part of a week, during a time which was supposed to be devoted to promoting the run-up to the president's first foreign trip.
Labour will impose the 'highest tax burden' on Britain for 70 years - but this will still fail to pay for their fantasy spending plans, a respected think-tank today said.

Jeremy Corbyn has unveiled plans to hammer businesses and the middle classes with 50 billion of tax rises to bankroll a splurge on a massive renationalisation and spending programme.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the left-wing manifesto would take the country back to the days of the 1940s with huge state involvement.

And he warned that the planned tax hikes will probably fail to raise the cash to pay for the spending spree.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictures at his manifesto launch today in Bradford, wants to impose 50billion of tax hikes to bankroll his spending spree

He told BBC News: 'They are suggesting a 50bn increase in tax, which if it were to be implemented by the way would take the tax burden in this country to the highest level it's been in about 70 years.

'But, actually I think there's an awful lot of uncertainty about whether you could actually raise that amount of tax.

'They're talking about very, very large increases in taxes on companies which would likely reduce the amount of investment that they do.

'So, I think the actual amount you could get from these policies  it certainly runs into the tens of billions  but probably doesn't reach the 50bn that Labour are claiming.'

Labour's plans - the party's most left-wing manifesto in a generation - includes plans to hike income and corporation tax.

Under the measures, a 50p top rate of tax will be imposed on those earning more than 123,000, and anyone on over 80,000 faces paying 45p in the pound.

The IFS said this could raise money, but it is 'entirely possible that the policy would raise nothing' as individuals may flee Britain, work less or change their behaviour to avoid being hit by the extra tax burden.

Labour's frontbench has unveiled the most left-wing manifesto in a generation. Experts warned that their plans will fail to raise the cash promised

A supporter at the manifesto launch today shows their support by wearing a Corbyn t-shirt. The Labour leader wants to increase borrowing, spending and taxes

The money is meant to fuel a spending splurge on the NHS, schools and scrapping student tuition fees.

And the party wants to dramatically increase the role of the state, setting the minimum wage centrally and increasing it to 10 an hour by 2020.

Mr Johnson said this 'significant change in the size of the state' creates a clear choice for voters ta the ballot box on June 8.

He said: 'The level of the minimum wage for example, would set the wage of about a quarter of private sector workers directly from Whitehall and more than 60 per cent actually of young workers would be affected by that minimum wage.

'So both the size and the scope of the state would be really quite different to that which we've become used in the last 30 years or so.'

Several hundred people, including Labour supporters and the press, listened as Mr Corbyn outlined his plans to bring back industries into public ownership

The Institute for Economic Affairs said the Labour manifesto 'advocates levels of spending that you'd normally expect during an existential crisis like a war'.

Their chief economist, Julian Jessop said the plans will backfire by discouraging investment and risking the economy ahead of crucial Brexit negotiations.

He said: 'The Labour Party's proposals to dramatically hike taxes would raise the tax burden to the highest share of GDP since the 1940s.

'But their estimates of how much can actually be raised from corporations and the top 5 per cent fail to take full account of the negative impact on the economy.

'It is workers, consumers and shareholders large and small who ultimately pay taxes, not companies.

'Such high rates of taxation will disincentivise work, discourage investment and reduce innovation, making it unlikely that Labour's targeted 48.6 billion would actually be raised.'

He added: 'This sends a confused message as the UK prepares for Brexit'

Mr Jessop said the plans will saddle the younger generation with yet ore debt and ignores the past failure of nationalised industries.

Experts may have poured scour over Labour's left-wing manifesto, but one man makes his loyalty to Corbyn clear at the party's manifesto launch

Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors, said some of Labour's policies, including plans to ban zero hour contracts, are 'worryingly knee-jerk reactions'.

He said: 'Jeremy Corbyn calls his manifesto ambitious, but businesses will be concerned about what happens when this ambition collides with reality.

'Individually, policies to renationalise the railways, water and sections of the energy industry, or to abolish tuition fees, may sound popular.

'But the costs would be staggering, the benefits unclear, and the related tax rises would make the UK a less competitive economy.'

He added: 'Unfortunately, the election has turned into a bit of an arms race, where parties compete to out-promise each other.'

And Tim Knox, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said plans to hike corporation tax are 'economically illiterate', while planned income tax rises would backfire.

Jeremy Corbyn with Labour's manifesto at the launch today in Bradford. Critics say the measures will discourage investment and heap misery on Britain

He said: 'High earners are the geese that lay the golden eggs: the top 1 per cent of taxpayers already pay about 30 per cent of all income tax.

'Forcing them to pay more might be politically tempting but is economically crazy.

'Many of 'the geese' will either fly off to more attractive countries or just stop laying the golden eggs'.

John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'This entire manifesto is based on the clearly absurd belief that businesses can be repeatedly hammered with massive tax increases and crippled with regulation without any wider impact on the economy, jobs and investment.

'If even a handful of these disastrous ideas were implemented it would mean misery for the many and employment for the few.

'Britain's problems cannot be solved by taking yet more money from hard-pressed taxpayers and having politicians waste it when the national debt already stands at a staggering 25,000 per person.

'What we need instead is to simplify and cut taxes along with a major rethink about what the state should and should not do.'
A woman claims she was refused check-in by budget airline Tigerair Australia after arriving only two minutes late for a flight home with her grandmother and two sons.

Meaghan Walters, from Bacchus Marsh in regional Victoria, said she approached the check-in desk at Canberra airport at 7.02pm for a 7.45 flight back to Melbourne on Tuesday.

Tigerair staff then told Ms Walters, 37, she could not board the flight - despite her protests she needed to fly home so her 90-year-old grandmother could attend her best friend's funeral, according to her.

Meaghan Walters (left) was travelling with her 90-year-old grandmother (right) and two sons

The mother-of-two claims Tigerair staff were rude and stopped her from checking in when she was only two minutes late.

Ms Walters said she had driven over two hours to the airport in pouring rain and struggled to quickly make it to the desk with her frail grandmother.

'It took my grandmother a little longer than a younger person to get from the car park up to the check-in,' she told Daily Mail Australia

'They say it closes at 45 mins prior which is fine but 2 minutes... seriously.'

Ms Walters claims check-in employees then argued with her for over five minutes - time she could have spent boarding the plane.

After arguing with staff the mother-of-two was forced to leave the airport and stay at a family member's house with her grandmother and two boys, aged two and 10, before re-booking another flight for 3pm the next day.

'The staff on the night were so rude. Literally walked away from the desk telling us too bad,' Ms Walters told Daily Mail Australia.

'It was all just so disappointing that no one had even an ounce of compassion. I understand you're a budget airline but I didn't realise that made you inhumane and with no heart.'

Ms Walters (pictured) said she had driven over two hours to the airport in pouring rain and struggled to quickly approach the desk with her frail grandmother

Ms Walters claims Tigerair check-in employees then argued with her for over five minutes - time she could have spent boarding the plane

Tigerair said she could organise a transfer ticket, but being told it would take until the next day to have a transfer approved she simply booked a new one.

'So a single mum and an elderly pensioner out another $350 just to get us home and her to her best friend of 75 years' funeral,' Ms Walters said.

Ms Walters' grandmother luckily made it back to Melbourne in time to attend the funeral on Thursday.

'She was really confused and remained really disorientated until I finally got her back here and to my mum's house who will take her to the funeral,' she said of the ordeal.

Ms Walters said she refuses to fly with Tigerair Australia ever again.

'It was an awful experience and I'll never fly with them again even if they are the cheapest.'

A spokesperson for Tigerair Australia told Daily Mail Australia that while the airline sympathises with those who miss flights, it cannot hold up the plane for one person.

'On time performance is important to us, because its important to our customers,' a spokesperson said.

'If youre late to check in for your flight or board our aircraft we cant wait, because it delays all the passengers who were on time and has a knock-on impact throughout the day.'
The Conservatives will scrap the tolls on both Severn Bridges from 2018, Theresa May announced today. Pictured is the original Severn crossing

The Conservatives will scrap the tolls on both Severn Bridges from 2018 if they are re-election on June 8, Theresa May announced today.

The Prime Minister said abolishing the charges would hand a 100million boost to the region's economy and support the Union by bolstering Welsh and English ties.

Around 25 million drivers a year pay the tolls on the two bridges when driving from England into Wales.

The tolls, which cost up to 20 a journey, have been charged for decades since the original bridge opened in 1966. The second crossing has matched the fares since opening in 1996.

Mrs May said the abolition would come into force when the motorway crossings pass into the control of Highways England next year.

She said: 'I want to ensure that our economic progress is shared across the United Kingdom. By abolishing tolls for 25 million annual journeys between two nations we will strengthen the links between communities.

'This will drive economic growth right across the country helping key economic centres in Cardiff, Bath, Bristol and Newport.

'By significantly reducing the cost of doing business between Wales and England, the Conservatives continue to deliver on improving the economic prospects of ordinary working people.'

The Prime Minister (pictured in Birmingham) said abolishing the charges would hand a 100million boost to the region's economy and support the Union

Mrs May's latest election promise came as she visited the Nishkam Trust Primary School in Birmingham today (pictured)

The move was backed by commuters and communities on both sides of the crossings during a public consultation that closed in March.

Ministers had already announced plans to slash the tolls and were due to cut the 6.70 fee for cars to 3.

Maintaining the crossings is expected to cost 7million a year, according to the Welsh Government's response to the public consultation.

The Second Severn Crossing (pictured) has been open since 1996 and charges the same tolls of up to 20 for the largest vehicles

Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns, added: 'Scrapping the Severn Crossing tolls is an example of the Conservatives of taking the big decisions when they're the right decisions, in doing so, transforming the joint economic prospects of South Wales and the South West of England.

'Drivers using this key artery between two nations, en route to London, will benefit from a 100m boost to the local area.'

Labour's manifesto, unveiled by Jeremy Corbyn today, commits to 'working with the Welsh Government to scrap the tolls on the Severn Bridge'.
The three children who drove 500 kilometres down the Australian east coast in a stolen car took a selfie in the back of a police van after being caught at a highway McDonald's restaurant.

The girls, aged 15, 13, and 12, were found at the Pacific Highway rest stop at Glenthorpe in Taree South on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast about 4pm on Monday.

They had driven more than 500km from the 13-year-old girl's Coomera home on the Gold Coast after stealing her family's four-wheel drive Nissan Nivara about 5am that morning.

The three children who drove 500 kilometres down the Australian east coast in a stolen car took a selfie in the back of a police van after being caught at a highway McDonald's restaurant

The girls, aged 15, 13, and 12, were found at the highway rest stop on the Pacific Highway at Glenthorpe in Taree South on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast (turn-off pictured)

Police found the 15-year-old girl in the driver's seat and it's alleged she drove the whole way.

They girls appeared to take a selfie in the back of a police van. The selfie was then used in a Snapchat with the words: 'Ily [I love you] u my girls no matter what.'

One of the girls' relatives says she is shocked the trio went unnoticed for so long.

'What's more alarming to me is not just that the car was stolen, it's that they weren't stopped,' the auntie, who was not named, told Seven News.

Acting Inspector Ben Atkinson said the car hadn't been involved in any crashes.

'(They were) apparent runaways, although they weren't reported as missing people,' he said on Tuesday.

Police found the 15-year-old girl in the driver's seat and the other two girls in the passenger seats in the carpark at the service station

One of the girls' relatives says she is shocked the trio went unnoticed for so long

The girls were planning to make it to Sydney, which would have been a whopping 850km joyride.

One of the children's mothers phoned staff at the service station to look out for the girls. The staff member phoned police when they arrived.

The car had been reported stolen and police found it parked at the service station.

The girls have been taken into the care of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.

The girls drove the four-wheel drive from the 13-year-old girl's home in Coomera on the Gold Coast, where they stole the car about 5am on Monday

'The initial concern is for their welfare because of their ages,' Insp Atkinson said.

However the 15-year-old driver was cautioned under the Young Offender's Act, he said.

The incident follows a similar case last month involving a 12-year-old boy who drove about 1300km across NSW on his way to Perth.

He set off from a home in Kendall near Port Macquarie and was only stopped at Broken Hill when police noticed the car's bumper dragging on the ground.

Children seeking assistance through family issues should contact Kids Help Line on 1800 55 1800.
A security guard was punched in the face by a man she had just tried to help when he was vomiting early Sunday morning.

Zoa Stigler is a part-time security guard for a condo in the River North area of Chicago and was working around 2am Sunday when the man threw a water bottle at her and punched her in the face.

The assault, which broke Stigler's nose and fractured her eye socket, was caught on the security cameras outside the condo and now police are looking for the man.

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Part time security guard Zoa Stigler was punched in the face after 2am Sunday morning outside the building where she worked

Stigler had tried to help the man earlier when he was vomiting on the ground outside the Chicago condo

The man's friends witnessed him punch Stigler, but did nothing to help her. Instead, the group walked away together

The footage shows the man walking up to the building and sitting down right outside. Stigler then goes out to check on him, asking if he needs help.

She even called 911, though police only drove by the apartment, according to WGN.

Then the man started vomiting and Stigler went inside the building to get a bucket to clean it up. When she got back outside three of the man's friends were there, too.

Eventually the man stood up. He and his friends can be seen in the video standing right in front of the condo and Stigler asks them to leave.

That was when the man she had just been trying to help threw his water bottle at Stigler and punched her in the face.

She can be seen taking several steps backwards from the force of the blow.

Then the man and his friends just walked away.

'He didn't show any remorse. He didn't say anything, and he just punched me,' she told NBC Chicago.

Stigler, pictured, is a single mother who is at school part time to complete her business finance degree. She has two daughters and one granddaughter

The man who punched Stigler, pictured, has not yet been identified by police. A report has been filed and if he is arrested, he will only face a misdemeanor

When the man started vomiting on the ground outside the condo, Stigler went inside to get a bucket. When she came back out, three of the man's friends were there with him

Eventually the man, bottom right, stood up and he and his friends were standing outside the condo. Stigler told them they couldn't just stand there and that they needed to move along

For no apparent reason, the man decided to throw his water bottle at Stigler, before punching her in the face

The man's punch broke Stigler's nose and fractured her right eye socket. She is also suffering from numbness, headaches and blurry vision, according to Fox 32.

The building's board president set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for her surgery, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

He wrote on the page: 'Zoa is so dedicated and hard working that in spite of being in pain and disoriented, she had the mind set of cleaning up the mess caused by this thug before being taken to the hospital.... AMAZING!!'

The page was set up Monday and has raised $8,640 in just 21 hours.

Stigler has been a security guard for five years, according to CBS Chicago, but has only worked at that condo for two months. She works part time and goes to school part time to complete a business finance degree.

According to the fundraising page, Stigler was unable to spend Sunday, Mother's Day, with her two daughters and granddaughter.

She is unsure if or when she will be able to return to work, CBS Chicago reports.

A report was filed with police, who are investigating the assault. The man has not been found and Stigler says if he is, she plans to press charges.

If he is charged, he would only face a misdemeanor, according to WGN.

The man's punch broke Stigler's nose and fractured her right eye socket. She will have surgery to fix the damage Wednesday

Stigler reeled back from the force of the blow and the man and his friends walked away as if nothing had happened
A BBC reporter has been ridiculed on Twitter after posting a video of his 'pioneering' money-saving hack of making sandwiches rather than buying them.

'Digital storyteller' Dougal Shaw, who is based in London, came up with the 'lunch hack', which he described as 'a good solution for working parents'.

In the video he states that Britons buy 3.5billion sandwiches each year, spending more than 7.8bn.

He then shows himself buying cheese, ham and different types of bread - but not butter because that's 'too bulky'.

He is seen making the sandwiches in his work kitchen and even doubled his dosage on some days.

In total he spent 9.50 for the week compared to the 17.50 per week if he bought pre-packaged sandwiches.

Mr Shaw described himself as 'the envy of the workplace' because of the fresh bread smells in his office.

But Twitter users don't believe he had discovered a serious 'life hack'.

One wrote: 'Instructions unclear. Sand... which?'

Another said: 'Wait until he discovers the fabled DRINKING HACK, which apparently consists of using tap water instead of buying bottles.'

And one added: 'Do you honestly not feel the slightest bit of shame that you've c*****d this out at the licence payers expense?'

Mr Shaw described himself as 'the envy of the workplace' because of the fresh bread smells in his office

Mr Shaw came under fire in 2015 when he was criticised for stereotyping by using a kebab to explain Greece's potential exit from the eurozone.

The news report explores how Greece might leave the EU - the so-called 'Grexit' - by comparing Greece to a kebab.

It came as eurozone finance ministers were gathering in Brussels for make-or-break talks that could have seen Greece break away from the EU.

In the report by BBC journalist Dougal Shaw, he says: 'To understand this let's think of a more familiar kind of Greek exit. Let's do it with one of the Mediterranean's finest exports, the kebab.
The world may be close to a 'serious act of digital sabotage' which could trigger unrest, 'chaos and disorder', Dutch spy chief Rob Bertholee warned Tuesday.

Sabotage of critical infrastructure 'is the kind of thing that might keep you awake at night,' Bertholee told a timely cyber security conference in The Hague, as global experts grapple with the fallout of a massive cyber attack over the past days.

Digital threats 'are not imaginary, they are everywhere around us,' the head of the country's intelligence services (AIVD) told the conference organised by the Dutch government.

'In my opinion, we might be closer to a serious act of digital sabotage than a lot of people can imagine,' he told hundreds of experts and officials.

Rob Bertholee (left), head of the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (AIVD), and Dutch Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Ministry of the Interior, address a press conference on the presentation of the AIVD's annual report in Zoetermeer in 2016

Rob Bertholee (left) meeting then Afghan President Hamid Karzai (right) when he was a Brigadier General back in 2003

Bertholee highlighted how in 2012 the computers at Saudi Arabia's largest oil company came under brief attack, or how three years later Ukrainian electricity companies were hacked causing a massive blackout lasting several hours.

The world's infrastructure was heavily interconnected, which had huge benefits, but also 'vulnerabilities'.

'Imagine what would happen if the entire banking system were sabotaged for a day, two days, for a week,' he asked.

'Or if there was a breakdown in our transportation network. Or if air traffic controllers faced cyber attacks while directing flights.

'The consequences could be catastrophic.

'Sabotage on one of these sectors could have major public repercussions, causing unrest, chaos and disorder.'

The threat of 'cyber terrorism' from terror groups such as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda was still limited, he said, but 'jihadist-inspired terrorism is the number one priority' of the Dutch intelligence services.

'The level of technical expertise available to a jihadist group is still insufficient to inflict significant damage or personal injury through digital sabotage,' Bertholee said.

'They may not yet have the capability but they definitely have the intent,' he warned.

A programer shows a sample of a ransomware cyber attack on a laptop in Taipei, Taiwan, 13 May, 2017

Countries must be prepared for future threats in the digital domain, with governments and private sector working closely together, as this is 'where our societies have become most vulnerable,' he said.

Security researchers investigating the massive cyberattack campaign over past days on Tuesday reported signs that it might be slowing, and suggested a possible North Korean link.

In the first clues of the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the 'WannaCry' malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang.

Europol meanwhile said the number of affected IP addresses around the world was 163,745 - a 38 percent percent fall from the 226,000 reported on Sunday.
A grandmother is accused of ripping off the taxpayer to the tune of $200,000 by claiming to be blind for 21 years and receiving a disability pension.

During her time claiming benefits, Rebecca Assie, 60, from Sydney, also managed to pass sight tests to get her drivers' licence.

Now, Channel Nine's A Current Affair program has filmed her comfortably going about her day without any assistance.

Rebecca Assie, 60, is accused of ripping off the taxpayer to the tune of $200,000 by claiming to be blind for 21 years and receiving a disability pension

'This is one of the most extraordinary cases that I have ever come across,' Human Services Minister Alan Tudge told the program.

'She received $209,000 in payments... We discovered, however, that she did not have that impairment.'

In 1990, Ms Assie saw ophthalmologist Dr Michael Silva, who said her 'ability to work in paid employment' was affected 'not at all' by her eyesight.

'I cannot understand why this patient is applying for a pension. She has normal corrected vision for distance and near,' he said in his report.

She has been filmed comfortably going about her day, showing no signs of vision impairment

In 1990, Ms Assie saw ophthalmologist Dr Michael Silva, who said her 'ability to work in paid employment' was affected 'not at all' by her eyesight

But Ms Assie went to another doctor, Wadie Hadded, who said she was blind and soon after, she was granted a disability pension.

During her time on the pension, Ms Assie renewed her drivers licence several times.

She claims she has never driven a car and that she held a licence only as a form of identification.

But that doesn't explain how she passed the eye sight tests she needed to gain her licence, according to Administrative Appeals Tribunal documents.

Ms Assie claims she has never driven a car and that she held a licence only as a form of identification

When Centrelink requested that Ms Assie take an eye test, she allegedly faked her supposed condition.

'A person who wished to exaggerate their vision impairment or to feign permanent blindness could simply pretend not to be able to read any letter of the Snellen chart or see the chart itself,' the doctor who assessed her wrote.

The doctor had 'very significant doubts' Ms Assie's vision impairment was genuine.

The Department of Human Services is now pursuing Ms Assie to repay the full amount of $209,499.90.
ABC broadcaster Yassmin Abdel-Mageid said she 'hated the idea of feminism' before she became a mechanical engineer.

The Muslim activist was speaking to oil and gas executives at the APPEA Conference in Perth on Tuesday when she made the confession, according to The Australian.

'I hated the idea of feminism, I was like, "feminism is for chicks who can't handle jokes",' she said.

ABC broadcaster Yassmin Abdel-Mageid, 26, (pictured) told oil and gas executives at the APPEA Conference in Perth on Tuesday she 'hated the idea of feminism' before she became an engineer

The Muslim activist (pictured) said she changed her mind two years ago when she began working in the industry and realised the field field lacked diversity

'I thought people who kept talking about diversity and inclusion were people that studies arts. They weren't engineers. It wasn't until I went into the industry and I saw the reality that I actually started to think, maybe this a thing I should care about.'

She said she changed her mind two years ago when she began working in gas and oil industry.

The TV presenter said she realised the field lacked diversity and had barriers that made it difficult for women like her to succeed.

'So I pretended to be a middle-aged white bloke,' Ms Abdel-Mageid said.

The 26-year-old said she would mimic her male colleague's behaviour and the way they walk but later realised she was 'reinforcing the existing culture.'

She (pictured) also said the industry had barriers that made it difficult for women to succeed

She again drew criticism last month after a controversial Anzac Day post on social media (pictured)

Ms Abdel-Magied has addressed feminism before and drew criticism for comments she made on Q&A in February.

As a guest panellist on the ABC show, Ms Abdel-Mageid exclaimed Islam is 'the most feminist religion.'

She again drew criticism last month after a controversial Anzac Day post on social media.

'Lest We Forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine),' she wrote online.

Numerous politicians and members of the public called for her to be fired from ABC, but the network declined.
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Hundreds of mourners have gathered for the funeral of 11-year-old Evha Jannath, who died after falling from a theme park water ride.

Grieving friends and family have attended a service in memory of the schoolgirl at Leicester's Saffron Hill Cemetery, a week after she was fatally injured on a school trip.

Evha died after she was jolted out of a six-seater rubber-ringed boat on a ride at Drayton Manor theme park in Staffordshire, when she apparently stood up to swap seats.

Evha, a pupil at the private Islamic Jameah Girls Academy in Leicester, was airlifted to Birmingham's Children's Hospital but was pronounced dead soon afterwards.

She had celebrated her birthday just four days before she died and uring the trip Evha bought a present  a bag of sweets  for her mother with her 10 pocket money. The gift was found in her school bag.

Eva Jannath died in hospital after being rescued from the water by staff at Drayton Manor theme park in Staffordshire

The coffin of the 11-year-old was seen arriving at Saffron Hill Cemetery in Leicester, as devastated mourners look on

Grieving friends and family have gathered for the service in memory of the schoolgirl at Leicester's Saffron Hill Cemetery

Evha's tragic death has sent shockwaves around the close-knit community and hundreds turned out to pay their respects to her today

More than 600 people gathered for her funeral at the Muslim prayer hall at Saffron Hill Cemetery in Leicester.

Evha's heartbroken mother Musammath Nurun Nahar, 43, and father Muhammed Suable Islam, 46, were joined by members of the Muslim community in the packed room.

A group of 20 men carried her coffin inside and after prayers were said, the coffin was passed over the heads of the men who had attended the funeral and taken away for a private burial.

Labour politician Keith Vaz, who is seeking re-election as MP for Leicester East was at the service to support the family

He said: 'This is a terrible day not just for them (the family) but for all of us here in Leicester.

'A huge number of people have turned out which shows the warmth, support and love we all have for the family. 'Also the devotion and the sadness of the death of this young girl.

'This tragedy which has affected so many people and today's ceremony and today's burial was a particularly sad occasion. The family are grief-stricken.'

The youngster's family said they have been 'torn apart' by the tragedy and requested that the ride is suspended until the inquiry has concluded and the full facts are established.

Erfana Bora (pictured), the headteacher of Jameah Girls Academy, said a 'fitting tribute' would be created to Evha at the school in Leicester

Friends, family and members of the community were unable to contain their grief as they watched the youngster's coffin pass by

More than 600 people gathered for Evha's funeral at the Muslim prayer hall at Saffron Hill Cemetery in Leicester

Evha's relatives have also requested to see CCTV footage from the Splash Canyon ride at Drayton Manor theme park, showing her last tragic moments.

In a moving interview with The Mail on Sunday, Evha's father said: 'I loved my daughter too much, and she loved me too much.

'I have no tears left in my eyes because I have cried so much.'

Relatives spoke of how Evha was nearly stopped from going on the trip as she was not wearing school uniform, mistakenly thinking she could dress casually.

Her father described his daughter as a 'happy, laughing' girl who showed great promise at school.

'She used to call me and I used to call her,' he said. 'I used to ask her if she had eaten, if she had gone to school, and if everyone around her loved her.'

Labour politician Keith Vaz, who is seeking re-election as MP for Leicester East was at the service to support the family. He said: 'This tragedy which has affected so many people and today's ceremony and today's burial was a particularly sad occasion. 'The family are grief-stricken'

An aerial view of the Splash Canyon ride shows the attraction deserted bar a few officials following the park's closure

As her funeral took place, Staffordshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive confirmed it was investigating the death of Evha

The youngster's family said they have been 'torn apart' by the tragedy and requested that the ride is suspended until the inquiry has concluded and the full facts are established

Ahead of her funeral, Evha's relatives requested to see CCTV footage from the Splash Canyon ride at Drayton Manor theme park, where she fell from a boat

Erfana Bora, the headteacher of Jameah Girls Academy, said a 'fitting tribute' would be created to Evha at the school in Leicester.

She added: 'It is overwhelming to see so many people here today praying for Evha and showing support for her family.

'Pupils and staff at Jameah girls would like to say thank you for the kind words we have received from members of the public.

'Evha's friends were given time off school this morning to visit her family and say goodbye to her.

'Tomorrow we will resume class but with a heavy heart without Evha.

'In the meantime Evha's mum has asked me this morning to keep her name on the school register as she will always be in our hearts and a member of our school.'

Evha's friends were given time off school this morning to visit her family and say goodbye to her

The schoolgirl's family have been desperate for answers after the incident on the six-seater rubber ringed boat last Tuesday

It was claimed Evha was swapping seats on the boat at the park in Tamworth, Staffs when a jolt through her into the water

After the ceremony, Suleman Nagdi, the Chairman of the Muslim Burial Council of Leicester, who helped organise the ceremony, said: 'It was a wonderful turnout. The family were new in Leicester and to think that so many people have come out to support the family is wonderful.

'We are overwhelmed with the support we have had from other parts of the city and even the country.

'All the people who have needed to have come together. The police, the coroner, the school and the community have all helped the family.

'It has been a very tough day for them as they have had to relieve the past week over again, but I am sure with the strong support they have they will come through.

'It is nice that even in sad times like this so many people can come together.'

Evha's headteacher said: 'Evha's friends were given time off school this morning to visit her family and say goodbye to her. Tomorrow we will resume class but with a heavy heart without Evha'

The youngster's mother has asked to keep her daughter's name on the school register 'as she will always be in our hearts and a member of the school'

Evha was airlifted to Birmingham's Children's Hospital but was pronounced dead soon afterwards. She was a pupil at the private Islamic Jameah Girls Academy in Leicester

Mourners helped carry Evha's funeral as her family prepared to lay her to rest, while coming to terms with their devastating loss

Staffordshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive are investigating the death of Evha, while the Muslim Burial Council of Leicestershire said it was providing help and support to Evha's family.

The council said in a statement: 'We would like to emphasise again that the full facts surrounding Evha's sad passing have yet to be fully established and there is still an ongoing investigation.

'In light of this we urge people to not speculate, or present as fact, any details surrounding Evha's passing.'

Drayton Manor reopened on Saturday but the Splash Canyon water ride remains closed. The theme park remained opened yesterday but a minute's silence was held in memory of tragic Evha.

A spokesperson said: 'The whole Drayton Manor community remains deeply saddened and upset by the terrible incident last week.

'On what will undoubtedly be a very difficult day, a minute's silence for reflection will be held with staff and a book of condolence has been opened for colleagues.

'Our thoughts remain with Evha's family and friends at this time.'

It is thought the Health and Safety Executive will now recommend using lifejackets on water rides.
It's a sure sign that summer is on its way: Former President George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara are back in Maine.

A spokesman confirms they arrived at Walker's Point on Monday, less than a month after the former president was released from a hospital in Texas.

Officials said last month that the 92-year-old Bush was treated for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis, but that it wouldn't interfere with his summer plans.

Former president George H. W. Bush was being treated at Houston Methodist Hospital last month (pictured with George W. Bush who visited him)

Bush and his wife, Barbara, arrived at Walker's Point, the site of the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Monday

Bush, the nation's 41st president, has spent every summer in Kennebunkport, Maine, except during World War II, when he was a naval aviator.

The Bushes spend the winter in Houston.

The oldest living president checked into Houston Methodist Hospital on April 14 because of a persistent cough.

The 41st president of the United States was treated for a 'mild case' of pneumonia for the second time this year.

Bush, the nation's 41st president, has spent every summer in Kennebunkport, Maine, except during World War II, when he was a naval aviator. Then-Vice President Bush is seen in Kennebunkport during a vacation in August 1983

In this June 12, 2012, file photo, former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, arrive for the premiere of HBO's new documentary about his life in Kennebunkport, Maine

Dr Clint Doerr, a pulmonologist, said in a statement: 'While President Bush has recovered from pneumonia, he continues to deal with the effects of chronic bronchitis, which is a condition more prevalent with age.'

The doctor said his team will monitor Bush's breathing and his is expected to be discharged at the end of this week.

'This means his airway has a constant, low-level inflammation that can aggravate the symptoms of pneumonia.'

'Once President Bush is home, we will continue aggressive respiratory treatments to help minimize the effects of the chronic bronchitis.'

While in the hospital, he received a visit from his son, former President George W. Bush.

The younger Bush tweeted: 'Big morale boost from a high level delegation. No father has ever been more blessed, or prouder.'

In January, George and Barbara Bush had to skip President Trump's inauguration when both were hospitalized for pneumonia.

The former president said in a note to Trump: 'Barbara and I are so sorry we can't be there for your inauguration on January 20th. My doctor says if I sit outside in January, it likely will put me six feet under. Same for Barbara. So I guess we're stuck in Texas.'

'But we will be with you and the country in spirit. I want you to know that I wish you the very best as you begin this incredible journey of leading our great country. If I can ever be of help, please let me know,' Bush wrote.

The letter was written before he was admitted to hospital with pneumonia.
A cyclist has shared the moment he took on a white van driver who tried to overtake him on a corner, and claimed he could see around it.

YouTuber CBL was riding through London when a white van approached him from behind as he began to turn a corner.

But the reduced visibility did not put the driver off trying to overtake, as he pulled out around the cyclist and tried to get in front of him.

YouTuber CBL was riding along the road in Deptford when he approached a corner with a white van driver very close behind

The driver tried to overtake despite the pair both being on a corner, with their visibility reduced

CBL managed to stay steady as they pulled up to a lane of traffic, despite the driver having beeped his horn at him several times.

But he could not resist trying to teach the driver about the Highway Code.

He asks the white van driver: 'Are you superhuman? Do you have x-ray vision? Can you see around corners?'

Bizarrely, the driver replies: 'Yeah, I can see around corners.'

He then tells the cyclist he should not have ridden in the middle of the road, but should have been keeping to the left.

When the rider CBL asked the driver about what he was doing, the pair got into a long argument about who should have been riding where

When CBL asks why, the driver continues with his rant, accusing him of 'swinging all over the road'.

CBL tells him: 'You can't see around because there's a building right there and I'm perfectly entitled to use all the lane.

'You need to give me just as much room as a car, mate'.

The driver insists that he 'can overtake' and that he should be keeping to the left.

The cyclist gives up trying to explain the overtake rule in the Highway Code and rides off where he can be heard sighing loudly

The cyclists recommends that the driver 'look up rule 163' and read the Highway Code and even says 'you're causing trouble in your car'.

CBL said he was travelling at about 21-23 mph, on the 20mph road, near Deptford, where the A2210 meets the A2.

One viewer asked: 'Why is he so anxious to pass you to get to the back of the queue? That's the question I would have asked.'

Another added: 'You're in the middle of the road argument... that justifies a pointless and dangerous overtake. Well done for keeping calm at all times.'

One posted: 'I watched this first without sound... makes him look even more foolish.'
For months, U.S. allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets.

Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry. A U.S. official said Trump revealed highly classified information about an Islamic State plot to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week. The information had been obtained by a U.S. partner and shared with Washington, according to the official.

'If it proves to be true that the American president passed on internal intelligence matters, that would be highly worrying,' Burkhard Lischka, a senior German lawmaker, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

A second European official told the AP that their country might stop sharing intelligence with the United States as a result of Trump's disclosure to Russia.

President Donald Trump may be facing an intelligence blackout from European nations that are skittish about his willingness to share information with Russia

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talked last week during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House

The revelations  which Trump appeared to verify in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning  are sure to shadow the president as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. After high-stakes visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican, he'll meet some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily. Some of the leaders he'll meet come from countries the U.S. has intelligence-sharing agreements with.

Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said Trump actions send 'a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future.'

Trump has a contentious relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates.

The leaks have only continued to flow.

According to the U.S. official, Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Washington Post first reported the disclosure.

White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting. And by Tuesday morning, Trump was justifying his actions, writing on Twitter that he had an 'absolute right' to share the information about 'terrorism and airline flight safety' with Russia.'

The U.S. and Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.

The White House has looked to Trump's trip abroad as a moment to draw the president out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favorable to his interests than former President Barack Obama.

But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by U.S. courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine.

President Trump used Twitter to defend himself Tuesday morning on the heels of a Washington Post report that said he shared highly classified information with the Russians

Trump's tweets seemingly confirm what the Washigton Post reported, which a flock of White House and administration officials initially denied

The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the U.S. leader's standing.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's 'actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party.'

'Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas,' Cordesman said.
Republicans began lining up to either condemn or question President Trump's actions as President Trump acknowledged passing information to the Russians in the Oval Office.

The White House was in free-fall over a Monday report that Trump had provided highly classified information during his Oval Office meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump only added to the confusion when he came out swinging on Twitter Tuesday morning to push back on the report  and seemingly contradicted his security advisor, who slammed it hours earlier as 'false.'

'Sharing classified info to one of our enemies is a threat to our national security, troops on the ground & relationships w/ trusted allies, wrote moderate GOP Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Twitter.

Bob Corker, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was one of the first Republicans to speak out about reports Trump shared classified information with Russia

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to back up the president in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

'Well, I read the Washington Post story and I read General McMasters response which tends to refute the story, rebut the story,' McConnell said.

'I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda which is the deregulations, tax reform, repealing and replacing Obamacare,' McConnell added.

It's not helpful that this was with the Russians, right, I mean this is just weird,' said Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse.

'I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House,' said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Last week, Sasse came out to say he found it 'troubling' that Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's investigation of alleged Russian election interference to back Trump's campaign.

'We and the Russians do not have aligned interests. They want to exacerbate our internal distrust of each other. They want to fracture NATO,' Sasse said on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' He added: 'Putin is the enemy of the freedom of speech, religion, press and assembly, which is the beating heart of what America means.'

Trump defended himself against an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday morning after a report said he shared 'highly classified' information with the Russians about ISIS operations that came from a US ally.

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' Trump said in two tweets.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker raised the alarm Monday night in stark language, followingthe Washington Post report.

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said.

'It's got to happen. Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips [with] all that's happening.'

House Speaker Paul Ryan also didn't throw Trump any lifelines in Monday comments from his office.

'We have no way of knowing what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount,' the statement from Ryan's spokesman, Doug Andres.

'The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.'

Democrats castigated the president's conduct, saying it potentially compromised in intelligence sources and might dissuade allies from sharing information with the U.S.

The U.S. relies in information from allies to help thwart terror threats against Americans, as it has numerous times since Sept. 11th when it received information about plots to blow up airlines and other threats.

Paul Ryan (pictured outside the Oval Office on May 4) called on Trump to provide a full account of what was said during his recent meeting with Russian officials

Houston Rep. Al Green on Monday called for impeachment charges to get brought against Trump. Since the president has broad authority to declassify information, it is unlikely he could be successfully prosecuted for any kind of crime no matter what he told the Russians, according to many legal experts. Lower-level government employees who disclose unauthorized information can get jailed.

President Trump is not above the law, said Green said in a statement. He has committed an impeachable act and must be charged. To do otherwise would cause some Americans to lose respect for, and obedience to, our societal norms.

Green said only that Trump should be charged in the House, not that he was necessarily guilty. Any impeachment 'trial' would occur in the Senate.

Republicans control both Houses of Congress, making impeachment highly unlikely given the amount of general support Trump has received from his fellow party members.

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said

After the reports emerged on Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins (pictured) also lashed out at Trump's office

McConnell's mention of deregulation and tax reform is a reminder of how the party's long-held policy goals are linked to Trump.

Only one other Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, has called for impeachment in TV interviews.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has denied reports that Trump revealed classified information to senior officials, calling the report 'yet another fake'.

The Washington Post report claimed Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants last week.

Three White House officials who were in the May 10 meeting strongly denounced the story, claiming no intelligence sources and methods were discussed - but they didn't deny that classified information was disclosed.

But the Post's report, citing current and former US officials, shared details about an ISIS terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement.

Democrat Adam Schiff called the reports 'deeply disturbing' and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies

John McCain also offered a timid criticism of Trump, saying: 'We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that'

They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

Meanwhile, Jordan has said that King Abdullah II will speak with Trump via a phone call on Tuesday. The Royal Court said arrangements for the call were made last week.

Jordan is a key ally in the US-led international military coalition against Islamic State, which controls territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

After the reports emerged on Monday, Republican Senator Susan Collins also lashed out at Trump's office.

'Can we have a crisis-free day? That's all I'm asking,' she told reporters, according to HLN's Carol Costello.

John McCain also offered a timid criticism of Trump, saying: 'We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that.'

Democratic leaders were understandably much more stringent in their response to the reports.

Nancy Pelosi, speaking at a CNN town hall on Monday night, said if the reports are true it would be 'very, very damaging.'

'It undermines the trust that we would have with our allies,' she told the network.

Adam Schiff of California called the story 'deeply disturbing' and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster called the Washington Post story 'false', which claimed Trump leaked 'highly classified' information to the Russians during an Oval Office meeting last week

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House

The Russian embassy in Washington released this photo of President Trump warmly shaking hands with ambassador Sergey Kislyak

'That the Russians would be the potential recipients of this intelligence and may be able to determine its source is all the more problematic, since the Russian interest in Syria and elsewhere is, in many respects, deeply antithetical to our own,' Schiff said.

He added that he wants the House intelligence committee fully briefed on what, if anything, was shared with the Russian officials.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner tweeted: 'If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.'

Senator Martin Heinrich chimed in with some sarcastic, helpful advice for the president: 'Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101.'

Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell also said he was concerned by the latest round of reports.

'This is highly damaging for two reasons,' Morell told CBS News.

'First, the Russians will undoubtedly try to figure out the source or the method of this information to make sure that it is not also collecting on their activities in Syria - and in trying to do that they could well disrupt the source.

'The second damage is that third countries who provide the United States with intelligence information will now have pause to do so if the United States is sharing such information with the Russians without their permission.'

The comments come after Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, told reporters it 'didn't happen'.

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation,' McMaster said.

'At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.'

He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way.

'Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources' in the news report, he said.
She posted it on Snapchat, saying: 'If I can't unsee this then you can't either'

But a judge rejected her 'illogical' argument and set a trial date for May 26

Claimed privacy law she was charged with was too vague to be constitutional

ould face six months in jail and $1,000 fine if convicted

Playboy star Dani Mathers' last-minute attempt to avoid trial for flouting privacy laws by body-shaming a naked 70-year-old woman in an LA gym was denied.

The model, 30, claimed the privacy law she was charged with violating was too ambiguous to be constitutional.

However, a Los Angeles judge rejected her 'illogical' argument on Monday and set a trial date for May 26.

Mathers sparked widespread outrage after she shared the naked photo on Snapchat last July with the derisive caption: 'If I can't unsee this then you can't either.'

Playboy star Dani Mathers' last-minute attempt to avoid trial for flouting privacy laws by body-shaming a naked 70-year-old woman in an LA gym was denied

'The court finds the statute is constitutional and not void for vagueness,' Judge Gustavo Sztraicher ruled, New York Daily News reported.

Mathers was charged with misdemeanor invasion of privacy under a California law that prohibits the secret recording or photographing of an 'identifiable person' in a home, changing room or tanning booth without the subject's consent.

Playboy's Miss May 2014 claimed in her defense motion that the wording of the law was too vague to be enforceable - focusing on the definition of 'identifiable person.'

'This was a far-away shot, and the victim, her features cannot be identified,' her lawyer Dana Cole argued on Monday.

He said the woman was only identified after 'a lot of hours and a lot of work' from Los Angeles Police.

Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Chadd Kim scoffed at Cole's 'illogical, circular' argument, saying it's for a jury to decide whether the woman was 'identifiable.'

Mathers has been working on getting a real estate license and worries the California Bureau of Real Estate will reject her application if she is convicted.

Her lawyer said Mathers 'definitely' plans to testify at trial.

It comes after prosecutors insisted they will not go easy on Mathers.

Sorry: Mather's attorney said the 29-year-old woman 'very much regrets' what happened

Contrite tweet: Mathers acknowledged in July her 'mistakes' in the context of the gym incident

The model has asked Los Angeles City Attorneys not to send her to jail, saying she will undergo counseling and anti-bullying courses instead.

She also said that she would go around to schools and talk about how harmful bullying is.

But prosecutors scoffed at her attempts at mercy, claiming that she never apologized to the victim in person, TMZ reported.



If convicted, she faces up to six months in jail for invasion of privacy, and a $1,000 fine.

Mathers' lawyer Tom Mesereau requested that the defendant be eligible for a deferment program.

But the City Attorney's office argued she isn't eligible due to the nature of the crime, reported the New York Daily News.

The attorney's office wrote: 'She should face the consequences of her cruel and criminal act.'

They have not made it clear whether they will seek a jail term.

She later apologized for body-shaming the elderly gym member and deleted her social media accounts.

LA Fitness reported the posting to police and revoked the membership of the blonde beauty (second right), pictured here in October at a charity event in Los Angeles

Mathers has since resumed tweeting, sharing on Friday photos of her dog and her Thanksgiving treats.

The gym, LA Fitness, reported the posting to police and revoked Mathers' membership.

Detectives began investigating after the LAPD received a report of 'illegal distribution' of the image after the photo went viral.

Mathers' attorney entered a plea of not guilty in November to the misdemeanor count on her behalf, City News Service reported via NBC Los Angeles. She was not required to attend.

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Tom Mesereau said Mathers 'very much regrets' what happened.

'She apologized for her behavior and we're looking forward to resolving this case in a very fair manner,' he said.

'Her behavior is appalling and puts every member at risk of losing their privacy,' Jill Greuling, an LA Fitness executive vice president, said at the time.

The woman in the naked photo was identified only by her age and it was not clear if she knew she was being photographed in the shower.

The model first apologized for the Snapchat post in July, tweeting: 'I'm sorry for what I did... I need to take some time to myself now to reflect on why I did this horrible thing.'

Mathers later claimed in an online video that she accidentally posted the photo publicly.

'I just want to acknowledge a photo that I accidentally posted,' she said in the clip posted to her Snapchat Story. 'It was absolutely wrong and not what I meant to do.'

'I chose to do what I do for a living because I love the female body and I know body shaming is wrong, that's not what I'm about and this is not the type of person I am.

'The photo was taken as part of a personal conversation with a girlfriend and because I am new to Snapchat I didn't realize I had posted it, and that was a huge mistake.

'I know I have upset a lot of people out there but please believe me this is not the type of person that I am.

'I have never done this before and I will never do this again, you have my word.'
The 2016 death of a nine-year-old Ohio boy is being investigated as a possible homicide after tests showed the cause was acute cocaine toxicity.

Marcus Lee Jr died the day after Christmas last year, before he was rushed to Akron Children's Hospital by an ambulance from his mother's home in Youngstown.

Police Lt Doug Bobovnyik says the boy apparently ingested cocaine, which was found in his stomach.

The death of Marcus Lee Jr (left), 9, is being investigated as a possible homicide after tests showed the cause was acute cocaine toxicity. His father, Marcus Lee Sr (right) said he was initially told his son's death was likely due to a seizure or other defect

Officers said they weren't contacted until hours after the child died. By that time no cocaine was found in the home.

Marcus' father and stepmother said they were initially told his death was likely due to a seizure or other defect, according to WFMJ-TV.

'I was angry. Nobody was told the truth. I wasn't told the truth,' Marcus Lee Sr said.

The boy's stepmother, Lakeshia Lee, told the station: 'I know that baby didn't deserve that... And we're not going to be quiet about it. I know that much.'

It has taken five months for toxicology reports to come back.

Now Youngstown police have the needed evidence to move forward with the case.

The fourth-grader's mother now has an attorney and police haven't spoken more with her.

Detectives said they interviewed the mother, her boyfriend and a family friend.

Authorities said two other children were removed from the same home by Mahoning County Children's Services.

Prosecutors will decide whether a grand jury should consider possible criminal charges over the boy's death.
This is the dramatic moment a homeowner was filmed ramming two burglars with his car after he found them trying to escape with his things.

Milciades Rodolfo Paiva Moria, 32, launched the unorthodox attack at his home in Ciudad del Este, in Paraguay, on Tuesday last week.

Mr Moria was caught on CCTV pulling into his property as another person on a moped, believed to be his cleaner, waited outside.

This is the moment homeowner Milciades Moria, 32, arrived home (top right, in the Toyta Hilux) to find two men burgling his house (bottom right, maid pictured at the gate on a scooter)

Unbeknownst to the pair, another two people were already inside the house, shoveling valuables into two backpacks.

As Mr Moria went to pull into his drive the burglars emerged from the front door and tried to run to their getaway vehicle.

While one of them is quick enough to escape, the other is hit by Mr Moria's Toyota Hilux and sent sprawling on the floor.

The man seems to escape serious injury as he soon jumps back up and carries on running, joining his accomplice in their Kia Picanto rental car.

As the burglars attempted to flee the house with their stolen good (bottom left) Mr Moria (top left and right) drove his truck towards them

While one of the men managed to escape, the other was sent sprawling by Mr Moria's truck, before clambering to his feet and fleeing again (right)

As the pair attempt to pull away, Mr Moria rams into the rear of their vehicle, causing the window to shatter.

The damage caused the vehicle to break down a short distance away, according to local outlet Ultima Hora, before the men fled on foot.

The pair managed to get away, but police say they have identified the men from rental documents which appear to be under their real names.

Officers say the men are Juan Pablo Sanchez Santander and Alejandro Andres Fernandez Perez, both Chilean, and have put out a warrant for their arrest.
President Trump may find himself in political hot water for sharing classified information with the Russians, but legally he's likely off the hook.

As Business Insider explains, the U.S. system for classifying information has no legal basis, with President Obama last signing an executive order on the matter in 2009.

For the most part, Trump's position as president allows him to get the final word on how sensitive information is doled out, no matter its level of classification.

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President Trump will likely be in more political trouble than legal trouble because, as president, he can declassify most everything that he wants

President Trump is taking heat for allegedly disclosing classified information to Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when the top official was in D.C. last week

So while he took former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to task for her email server, and she could have faced legal repercussions had malicious intent been found, Trump can do whatever he wants with classified intelligence.

He argued that point Tuesday on Twitter.

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' Trump said.

Briefing reporters from the White House, Trump's National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster pointed out that the president, thanks to his role, can make the call about information he discloses.

'As you know the president, it is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people,' McMaster said.

In an off-camera briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer echoed McMaster.

'My understanding is the president of course has classification authority,' Spicer said.

Another Business Insider piece pointed out that because Trump's information came from a foreign ally, that may complicate matters, as the decision to declassify it may not have been unilaterally his.

President Trump (left)'s comments to Sergei Lavrov (right) - if they were found to have been made 'through carelessness or neglect' could be enough to impeach, some experts warn

Most experts believe, however, that Trump won't get in legal hot water for the admissions.

How, and why it was done, could technically be a violation of the president's oath of office.

Former Obama State Department spokesman Johh Kirby, now an analyst at CNN, remarked that this was the first time he'd seen classified content released in such a way.

'The only time I've seen something declassified in this fashion is an impromptu and ill-considered comment publicly, as in a speech or interview,' Kirby said on CNN. 'Certainly not as a result of a private, official meeting.'

Usually, Kirby said, the decision to release classified information is seriously deliberated beforehand.

'It's rare that a president inadvertently makes public classified information, but if he did, it could then be considered declassified,' Kirby explained. 'Even then, however, there is typically inter-agency discussion about that. It's not like a magic wand is waves and it becomes thus.'

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., found a Trump tweet from 2015, which asks if 'gross incompetence' is enough for impeachment. The lawmaker said he believed Trump's disclosure fits the bill

Reporters today asked McMaster if there had been serious thought put behind Trump's disclosures.

'He made the decision in the context of the conversation, which was wholly appropriate,' McMaster replied.

In a post on Lawfare, a website written by national security and intelligence experts, writers said they believed if Trump had given away the information 'through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office.'

'Its very hard to argue that carelessly giving away highly sensitive material to an adversary foreign power constitutes a faithful execution of the office of President,' the experts wrote.

They also pointed out that oath violations, though ones with more legal teeth, had led to the three times Congress passed or came close to passing articles of impeachment against presidents.

Trump, himself, had mused back in 2015, 'Are you allowed to impeach a president for gross incompetence?'

Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline brought that up again Tuesday and the folks at Lawfare agree.

'Recklessly sharing classified intel with Russia meets the standard,' he wrote.
A school sparked outrage when they demanded a black teen change her natural hair because it violated its dress code.

Secily Wilson and Eric Orr were furious when their daughter Nicole Orr, 16, was asked to change her hair by officials at Montverde Academy in Lake County, Florida.

The family said their daughter, a straight-A student at the private academy, felt singled out by the request.

Nicole Orr was asked to change her hair by officials at Montverde Academy in Lake County, Florida

'She literally felt, 'Wow, what's wrong with my hair? The Caucasian girls are able to wear their natural hair straight. Why can't I wear my natural hair the way that it grows?' Wilson told Fox.

They were told the school's handbook banned 'dread-like' hair, which Eric Orr argued was such an ambiguous term it could be used 'to target a certain person or a certain group so we felt we needed to address the issue'.

Secily Wilson (with Natalie) said their daughter, a straight-A student at the private academy, felt singled out by the request

Natalie says she loves to wear her hair in its natural style (pictured)

Montverde Academy in Lake County, Florida, have since reversed their decision

Dr. Kasey Kesselring, Montverde's headmaster, claimed that the policy had been 'more in line with that neat and organized look that we're going for'.

'Not so much the issue of dread locks per say,' he added.

However, since meeting with Orr's parents, the school has reversed its decision and has decided to remove the 'dread lock' line from the handbook 'so no one is singled out.'

Orr's parents were delighted.

'To know that we were able to help our daughter and all the other daughters or boys out there... we feel pretty good about it,' Wilson said.

The moves comes just days after the adoptive mother of two black students branded their Boston charter school racist after her daughters were banned from extracurricular activities and given detention for having braided hair.

Twin sisters Deanna (left) and Mya Scott (right), 15, were banned from track, the Latin Club and all school events after they came to school with braided hair extensions

Twin sisters Deanna and Mya Scott, 15, were banned from track, the Latin Club and all school events after they came to school with braided hair extensions.

The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School students said they believe their school's hair policy is racist.

'What they're saying is we can't wear extensions, and the people who wear extensions are black people,' Deanna told CBS Boston.

But their school's Interim Director Alexander Dan told CBS that the policy is simply meant to minimize fashion expenses for families.

Dan said the extensions are prohibited because they are expensive and 'could serve as a differentiating factor between students from dissimilar socioeconomic backgrounds'.

The school administrator added that the policy is one that is consistent with the institution's desire to create an environment 'that celebrates all that students have in common and minimizes material differences and distractions'.
A disgraced Sydney pharmacist who peddled fake Viagra pills to a children's hospital and was stripped of his registration for 22 months is now practising controversial 'faith healing'.

Pharmacist and wholesaler Mina bought counterfeit Viagra tablets from an unlicensed supplier and sold them to Sydney Children's Hospital, where they intended to use them for children with high blood pressure.

Mina was given a 12 month ban from practicing pharmaceutics but was found to be leading 'faith healing' classes where he claims the power of prayer can provide miracle cures, A Current Affair reports.

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Mina (pictured) was stripped of his registration for 12 months after he was found to have sold fake Viagra pills to Sydney Children's Hospital

The hospital had intended to use the little blue pills (stock image) for children suffering from high blood pressure

The former pharmacy owner and his wife, Yvon, together run a ministry called Celebrate Freedom which claims to use faith and prayer to heal those with medical problems.

Mina - who owns a luxurious Sydney waterfront home - was only de-registered for a year and faced no financial consequences for his role in the circulation of fake Viagra.

It was found Mina had breached his pharmaceutical wholesalers licence by 'purchasing Viagra from an unlicensed supplier, failed to ensure that it was genuine by contacting the manufacturer and knew or ought to have known the product he purchased was not genuine'.

The multi-millionaire now devotes his time to 'healing' people with divine intervention and even stars on a televised healing program that is broadcast to millions of people in the Middle East.

The former pharmacy owner and his wife, Yvon, together run a ministry called Celebrate Freedom which claims to use faith and prayer to heal those with medical problems

Mina claims his ministry can offer miracle cures through the power of prayer

Several participants of the 'faith healing' exercises provided by Mina and his wife gave testimonials about its results.

'She gave me the blessing and it really works, and it took all my pain away,' one woman said.

But Professor Brad Frankum, NSW president of the Australian Medical Association, has denounce Mina's controversial miracle cures.

'It basically feeds on vulnerable people who are looking for a miracle cure, often to very severe illnesses. It offers them false hope,' he said.
A sheriff's deputy was killed early Tuesday in a shootout that prompted a middle-of-the-night pursuit that spanned more than 100 miles across southwestern Montana, involving several law enforcement agencies.

The Broadwater County Sheriff's Office identified the deputy as Mason Moore, 38, who was was a three-year-veteran of the Sheriff's Office.

He was a husband and a father of three children.

Lloyd Barrus, 62, was arrested along with his son,38-year-old Marshall Barrus after a sheriff's deputy was killed early Tuesday in a shootout that prompted a pursuit across southwestern Montana and ended with one of the suspects being also being shot and both arrested

Two suspects have been identified and are in custody in Missoula County.

They are father and son, 38-year-old Marshall Barrus of Gallatin County and 62-year-old Lloyd Barrus.

Before sunrise, the chase ended with the vehicle driving on its rims.

The chain of events began when Moore, a Broadwater County deputy, was pursuing a vehicle on U.S. Highway 287.

Law enforcement personnel investigate the scene of a shootout on Interstate 90 east of Missoula following a high-speed chase. The white SUV was the vehicle being pursued

Deputy Mason Moore was a three year veteran of the Sheriff's Office and was shot and killed near Three Forks shortly before 3 a.m.

Father of three, Mason Moore, 38, who was a three-year-veteran of the Sheriff's Office was killed during the shootout

Dispatchers lost contact with the deputy at about 3 a.m. Tuesday, Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said.

Gallatin County and Montana Highway Patrol officers responded and found Moore dead by the side of the road near Three Forks, about 180 miles southeast of Missoula.

Investigators watched the deputy's dashboard camera to identify the sport utility vehicle that he had been pursuing, Gootkin said.

The SUV was later spotted about 80 miles away. Officers deployed spike strips, but the vehicle continued another 30 miles on Interstate 90.

The vehicle eventually came to a stop about 35 miles east of Missoula.

The passenger got out and shot at officers who returned fire, Gootkin said.

The 140-mile pursuit of the suspects crossed through parts of five counties and involved at least seven agencies, officials said

The passenger was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound.

The driver, 61-year-old Lloyd Barrus, was arrested on suspicion of deliberate homicide. Barrus is the father of the other suspect, Gootkin said.

The 140-mile pursuit of the suspects crossed through parts of five counties and involved at least seven agencies, officials said.

Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester said his officers' cars were hit with gunfire during the pursuit.

The fallen deputy, Mason Moore,had been with the Broadwater County sheriff's office for three years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

'This is a tremendously sad day for all of us here in Broadwater County,' Sheriff Wynn Meehan said in a statement.

'It's difficult to adequately describe how devastating it feels to lose one of our own in the line of duty. Our deputy died protecting the citizens of our county and displayed remarkable courage until the very end. His actions will never be forgotten.'
Police helicopter footage of the Pulse nightclub terror attack shows SWAT units preparing to break in and confront ISIS gunman Omar Mateen.

The video appears to show a bomb disposal robot on standby outside the club where 49 were killed and another 68 wounded in the worst mass shooting in US history.

The footage, released by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, does not show the moment Mateen was shot dead after engaging in a shootout.

Any images of the deceased have also been redacted.

The video appears to show a bomb disposal robot on standby outside the club where 49 were killed and another 68 wounded

The footage shows armored vehicles approaching the building

The fooage also shows policemen standing outside the club waiting for instructions

The footage, released by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, does not show the moment Mateen was shot dead after engaging in a shootout

The footage sheds new light on the efforts to rescue those held hostage in the nightclub

Photographs taken nine days after the massacre show large holes caused by bombs detonated by SWAT teams

Shooter Omar Mateen, pictured, 29, from Port St Lucie in Florida, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, held hundreds of people hostage inside the gay club

The footage shows armored vehicles approaching the building and policemen standing outside the club waiting for instructions.

Shooter Mateen, 29, from Port St Lucie in Florida, who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, held hundreds of people hostage inside the gay club before indiscriminately gunning them down on June 12.

He was killed in a shootout with officers at around 5am, just over three hours after he first opened fire.

Photographs taken nine days after the massacre show large holes caused by bombs detonated by SWAT teams and shed new light on the efforts to rescue those held hostage in the nightclub by Omar Mateen, 29, who later died in a shootout with police.

The photos, released by the city of Orlando, showed where officers breached one of Pulse nightclub's walls to free people trapped inside around 5am.

The 49 victims of Omar Mateen are shown in a poignant collage image

The photos, released by the city of Orlando, showed where officers breached one of Pulse nightclub's walls to free people trapped inside around 5am

The chilling photos also show bullet-riddled walls and blood-stained floors inside the club

The photos, taken nine days after the attack, give the first comprehensive look at the devastating scene.

Large punctures to an exterior cinderblock wall of the nightclub can be seen, and a missing air vent in a blue painted bathroom shows where authorities removed the vent so that hostages could crawl out to safety.

On the other side of the building is a bathroom where patrons were trapped for more than three hours during the police standoff with Mateen.

Another 53 people were injured in the shooting, some still regaining their strength more than seven months after the attack.

Orlando hospitals waived the medical fees of those treated after the shooting.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the the deadliest mass shooting in US history and says the gunman who slaughtered at least 50 innocent party-goers in an Orlando gay club was one of its fighters.

It was the first time ISIS had claimed responsibility for an attack on US soil.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the the deadliest mass shooting in US history and says the gunman behind it was one of its fighters

Large punctures to an exterior cinderblock wall of the nightclub can be seen

Blood-stained floors can be seen in another picture of the shocking scene inside the nightclub

Shortly before the attack, Mateen, who was born in New York to Afghan parents, called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, law enforcement officials told NBC News.

And the terror group's Amaq news agency said on Sunday the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting.

'The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,' Amaq said.
The Louisiana State House has passed a bill that could protect military monuments from being removed or altered, including statues that honor Confederate soldiers and leaders.

The bill passed with a vote of 65-31 after two hours of heated debate on Monday, though all 24 members of the state Legislative Black Caucus voted against it.

The bill, which still has to go through the Louisiana State Senate, would need a popular vote before military memorials are 'altered, removed, relocated, or destroyed', by local governments according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

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The Louisiana State House has passed a bill that could protect military monuments from being removed or altered, including statues that honor Confederate soldiers and leaders like PGT Beauregard, pictured. The City of New Orleans voted in 2015 to remove this statue and if the new bill is passed in the House Senate, the Beauregard statue will likely still be removed

There were four Confederate statues in New Orleans, but two have been removed since the end of April. The Liberty Monument, left, was taken down on April 24 and the statue of Jefferson Davis, right, was taken down on May 11. Workers are pictured wearing masks and bullet-proof vests

Though there is no specific date for the removal of the Beauregard statue or the statue of Robert E Lee, pictured, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had previously said that the four statues would be removed 'anytime, sooner rather than later'

The bill was sponsored by Rep Thomas Carmody Jr (R), who called the bill 'a perfect exercise of democracy'.

'It allows for the people to have their input in the decision to remove military monuments from the public spaces in which they live,' Carmody said, according to CBS News.

He also said he wants to protect Southern heritage, according to The Advocate.

During the two-hour debate, Carmody was the only representative to speak in favor of the bill while ten representatives spoke against it, the paper said.

Rep Gary Carter (D) argued:'In my city, the City of New Orleans, should we have a statue or memorial for someone who fought for my enslavement? Who fought for my disenfranchisement? That's what you're saying, that those people ought to be honored and recognized.'

After the vote was called, the entire Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus walked off the House floor in protest.

'It was disgusting. We just couldn't stay. You have to stand for something,' caucus member Rep. Terry Landry (D) told the Advocate.

The bill was sponsored by Rep Thomas Carmody Jr (R), pictured left, who called the bill 'a perfect exercise of democracy'. Rep Gary Carter (D), right, argued during the two-hour debate that the bill is trying to honor people 'who fought for my enslavement'. Carmody was the only representative who spoke in support of the bill

After the vote was called, the entire Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus walked off the House floor in protest. Caucus member Terry Landry (D) pictured in 2014, called the bill's passing 'disgusting'

According to The Advocate, Carmody said that even if the bill is passed in the Senate, it is unlikely it will stop the last of four Confederate monuments from being removed in New Orleans.

The City Council voted in 2015 to have the monuments removed, but because of legal battles, none were removed until three weeks ago. The Liberty Monument was removed April 24 and the statue of Jefferson Davis was taken down May 11.

The Liberty Monument, an 1891 obelisk, honored the Crescent City White Leage, which attempted to overthrow a biracial Reconstruction government in New Orleans after the Civil War. The attempt failed, but white supremacist Democrats later took control of the state.

The Jefferson Davis statue was erected in 1911 to honor the Confederate president.

Both statues were taken down in the early hours of the morning to avoid disruption and workers wore bullet-proof vests with police watching on in case protesters got out of hand.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu had said earlier that the four Confederate statues, including the still-standing Robert E Lee and PGT Beauregard statues would come down 'anytime, sooner rather than later,' according to ABC News.

'These monuments have stood not as historic or educational markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in celebration of it. I believe we must remember all of our history, but we need not revere it,' Landrieu said in a statement Thursday, according to the site.

When the Jefferson Davis monument, pictured, was taken down Thursday, the mayor said: 'These monuments have stood not as historic or educational markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in celebration of it. I believe we must remember all of our history, but we need not revere it'

A demonstrator that supports keeping confederate-era monuments in place yells as workers dismantle the Liberty Place monument in New Orleans on April 24
Police have seized a trailer belonging to the ex-boyfriend of one of the eight victims of an 'execution-style' massacre in Ohio last year.

Jake Wagner, 24, the owner of the trailer, was allegedly in a custody dispute with Hannah Rhoden, 19, when she and seven family members, including a teenage boy, were shot dead in four homes near Piketon on April 22, 2016.

Their daughter was not in any of the properties when the massacre happened, though several children were found in the homes alive, WCPO reported.

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Police have seized a trailer belonging to Jake Wagner (left), the ex-boyfriend of Hannah Rhoden (right), who was shot dead along with seven members of her family in April last year. The pair had been in a custody battle over their daughter (also left), Hannah's granddad said

Police searched two trailers being held on property belonging to Wagner's sometime boss and seized the third. It's not known which of the above trailers was the one seized

The Wagners had also dropped off items at the property, police said. It's not yet clear what significance the trailers may have

The seizing of the trailer comes after police announced a 'major break' last week, searching three properties in the area on Friday and Saturday.

Bernie Brown, who owns one of the properties that was investigated, said authorities took a trailer owned by Wagner and searched two others.

He said that Wagner is an employee who sometimes fixes cars for him, and that Wagner's family had left items on the property earlier that week.

Police have not yet explained the significance of the trailer, and neither the Pike County sheriff and the Ohio attorney general's office will discuss details of the investigation

Hannah's grandfather said that she and Wagner had been fighting over custody of their daughter prior to her death in Piketon, around 70 miles south of Columbus.

She was found dead next to the body of her other daughter, who was just five days old, the Cincinnati Enquirer said.

The child that she had with Wagner was born in 2013.

She and the other victims - Dana Rhoden, Clarence 'Frankie' Rhoden and his fiancee Hannah Gilley, Christopher Rhoden Jr, Christopher Rhoden Sr, Gary Rhoden and Kenneth Rhoden, all died of gunshot wounds.

Two other properties, either belonging to the Wagners or formerly owned by them, were also searched; one of the properties is seen here

Christopher Rhoden Jr (left), 16, was the youngest victim of the massacre. Husband-to-be Clarence 'Frankie' Rhoden, 20, and fiancee Hannah Hazel Gilley, 20 (both right), also died

Kenneth Rhoden was the only person who was shot once, dying from that single bullet to the head.

His brother, Christopher Rhoden Sr, was the only family member not shot solely in the head. He died of wounds to his head, torso and an extremity.

The police have never named a suspect in the investigation, which had stalled for a year until the recent traction.

As well as Brown's property, police on Friday searched another property formerly owned by Jake Wagner and a relative named George.

The property was sold in March of this year. Police used metal detectors and shovels to comb the grounds.

And on Saturday they visited the he Flying W Farm in Pike County, which is owned by Wagner's grandparents.

In addition to last week's searches, authorities have executed several dozen search warrants in the lengthy investigation.

One of the most recent was issued in April and allowed investigators to put a tracking device on a truck driven by a brother of one of the victims, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, which obtained a copy of the warrant.

The warrant indicated that investigators believe the truck was used in connection with an aggravated murder or by a person intending such a crime, but it doesn't specify a connection to the Rhoden homicide investigation, and it doesn't name the man as a suspect, the newspaper reported.

Kenneth Rhoden (left), 44, and Christopher Rhoden Sr (right), 40, were both killed in the mysterious massacre in Piketon, which took place across four buildings

Gary (left) and Dana Rhoden (right), 47 were also killed execution-style in the brutal and as-yet-unsolved murder. Several children in the homes were spared in the killings

Leonard Manley, 65, whose adult daughter Dana and grandchildren were slain, said he wants justice, but it seems to him that investigators are 'grasping at straws.'

'It's like a wound and then you pick at it,' he told the Enquirer, 'and they are starting to pick pretty hard.'

Manley has long thought the killer knew the properties intimately, in part because Christopher Rhoden Sr had a security system, as well as a pit bull and bulldog, that would have been hard for a stranger to get past.

Daily Mail Online revealed exclusively in the days after the murders that one of the bodies was left covered in dollar bills, and that CCTV cameras had been taken by the killer.

It was also revealed three of the four properties where the killer struck were being used for marijuana production, leading to theories that the massacres were the result of a turf war.
Nicola Sturgeon has accused the Labour Party of copying the SNP's policies for their left-wing manifesto - as she celebrated ten years of the nationalists being in power.

Scotland's First Minister said the country has 'come a long way' and led the UK in 'progressive policies' since the nationalists were elected a decade ago.

But critics pointed out that Scotland's economy is lagging behind the rest of Britain's while literacy rates have fallen over the past four years.

Nicola Sturgeon, pictured today in Queensferry where she celebrated ten years of the SNP being in power, said Corbyn's team had lifted many of their manifesto pledges from the SNP

Jeremy Corbyn today revealed his party's plans to hammer Britain with an extra 50billion of taxes to bankroll his spending splurge.

Economic experts rounded on the blueprint, which they said would take Britain back to the 1940s while still failing to raise the cash to pay for the policies.

But SNP leader Ms Sturgeon tried to lay claim to the leftie manifesto which she said was inspired by policies enacted north of the border.

She told activists in South Queensferry, outside Edinburgh: 'Labour launched its own manifesto this morning, and many of the policies in Labour's manifesto will seem very familiar.'

Ms Sturgeon claimed Labour's manifesto 'directly lifts policies that the SNP is already delivering' including free university tuition, ending hospital parking charges, and the abolition of the so-called bedroom tax.

And she also accused Ruth Davidson's Scottish Tories of taking up SNP policies.

She said the Conservatives, 'who for years have mounted ideological attacks on policies as diverse as free prescriptions and council house building have now - albeit belatedly and with little credibility - decided that they are both a good thing'.

The SNP leader added: 'They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But in this case the imitation shown by both Labour and the Tories is anything but sincere.

Ms Sturgeon, pictured in Queensferry today, said Labour policies to scrap tuition fees and hospital car park charges are straight out of the SNP handbook

Nicolas Sturgeon, pictured today campaigning in Queensferry, said it was a 'special day' as the SNP was celebrating a decade in government in Scotland

'The fact is that they have had the chance to back the SNP's progressive policies - but instead they opposed them tooth and nail.'

Ms Davidson said the SNP's 10th anniversary in power marked a 'missed opportunity'.

And she said ministers could have achieved much more 'if they hadn't spent so much time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK'.

Ms Davidson, who was campaigning in Dumfries ahead of the June 8 General Election, said: 'We've got schools who are going backwards, we've got college places that have been cut, 152,000 of them, so there are fewer opportunities for people.

'We've got an economy in Scotland that's one quarter away from recession, whilst the rest of the UK is growing.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, pictured yesterday outside Parliament, said the economy is stalling and child literacy rates have fallen under the the SNP's leadership

'And all because the SNP have spent more time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK than they have spent doing the job they're paid to do, which is to look after Scotland's public services, Scotland's economy and Scotland's education system.

'I think people, if they stop and think about a Scottish Government that's got more powers than any previous Scottish Government, that's got a bigger budget than any previous Scottish Government, what they could have done in 10 years if they hadn't spent so much time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK and continuing to do so.

'There will be people in Scotland thinking it is a real missed opportunity.'

Ms Sturgeon's predecessor Alex Salmond became First Minister on May 16 2007.
Jeremy Corbyn posed with JME after the rapper endorsed him and urged young voters to take part in the June 8 election

The rapper who posed with Jeremy Corbyn posted racist and anti-Semitic tweets, it emerged today.

JME - whose real name is Jamie Adenuga -has endorsed the Labour leader ahead of the general election and urged young voters to register to vote ahead of June 8.

The pair took part in a photo opportunity and made several posts to social media, including Mr Corbyn's own Twitter and Snapchat accounts.

Mr Corbyn seized on JME's endorsement as an opportunity to try and drive up voter registration among young voters, his most prominent source of support.

But the Labour leader faces embarrassment today after historic tweets by the rapper emerged publicly.

On his verified Twitter account, JME re-tweeted a message reading '#Iamsweatingmorethan a Jew at a cash machine'.

He posted misogynistic messages suggesting rape had been 'renamed to ''surprise sex''.

And he made political threats including 'bomb the White House' and '**** the Queen'.

The posts were made between 2010 and 2013, after his rise to prominence on London's music scene.

Among the Twitter messages which have emerged publicly is a 2011 retweet about a Jew 'sweating' at a 'cash machine'

In other message, the rapper declared 'rape has been renamed to ''surprise sex'''

In August 2012, JME appeared to turn his attentions to American politics and said 'Bomb the whitehouse'

In 2013, JME posted a short tweet which said '**** the Queen'

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn today insisted the Labour leader condemned racism, anti-Semitism and mysoginy.

But senior Conservative Andrew Bridgen told MailOnline the incident was telling about Mr Corbyn.

He said: 'It's often been said you can judge people by the company they keep.

'Jeremy Corbyn keeps some very strange company - from the IRA, to Hamas to characters like this.

'The comforting thing is on the doorstep, it is clear people have already made up their mind about Jeremy Corbyn.

'There is a great many former Labour voters who say they cannot vote for Jeremy Corbyn.'

Mr Corbyn posted messages about his meeting with JME on Sunday as he urged young people to make sure they were registered and able to vote at the general election on June 8

On his own Twitter account, Mr Corbyn posted two pictures of him with JME.

He said he was discussing with him 'how important it is for young people to register to vote' ahead of the June 8 general election.

And he posted another message featuring a picture of him with JME and his campaign slogan that 'Labour will deliver for the many not the few'.

A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said: 'Jeremy condemns anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist language and all forms of discrimination and abuse.

'Jeremy was interviewed by JME for a third party magazine, aimed at encouraging young people to register to vote'.

JME's agent has been contacted by MailOnline for comment.
The US Coast Guard has located a debris field near the Bahamas, where a private plane carrying four people - including two children and a CEO from New York - went missing in the Bermuda Triangle.

Pilot Nathan Ulrich, 52, of New Hampshire, and Jennifer Blumin, 40, of New York, who is the Founder and CEO of event venue development firm, Skylight Group, were identified as two of the people onboard.

Blumin's sons, Phineas, four, and two-year-old Theodore, were also on the plane, authorities confirmed.

The Coast Guard tweeted at 3.30pm on Tuesday that a helicopter crew located 'debris field approx. 15 mi E of Eleuthera, Bahamas'. Crews are searching for survivors.

According to the Coast Guard, the twin-engine MU-2B turboprop, manufactured by Mitsubishi, was 37 miles east of the island of Eleuthera on Monday when air traffic control in Miami lost radar and radio contact with the plane around 2.10pm.

Authorities were searching Tuesday in the Bahamas for a small overdue plane with four people aboard. The people on board the plane were identified as the pilot Nathan Ulrich (right), of NH, and Jennifer Blumin (left) of NY, along with her two-year-old and four-year-old sons

The US Coast Guard of the Southeast tweeted at 3.30pm on Tuesday that crews located a debris field near Eleuthera, Bahamas, where the private plane went missing

The airplane departed Borinquen, Puerto Rico, at approximately 11am Monday and never made it to its destination of Titusville, along the northeastern coast of Florida.

Their plane was at about 24,000 feet when air traffic control lost contact.

'There's no indication of significant adverse weather at the time,' said Lt Cmdr Ryan Kelly, a Coast Guard spokesman.

Coast Guard aircraft, Customs and Border Patrol and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force are all a part of the search.

A Coast Guard cutter arrived later Tuesday to assist with the search.

Blumin has been featured in numerous media outlets that profiled the Skylight Group, which she founded in 2004. The group specializes in re-conceiving historical spaces and converting them for high-end event use.

Skylight has a portfolio of venues that include Skylight West, Skylight One Hanson in Brooklyn and Skylight at Moynihan Station.

Skylight at Moynihan Station is located in the historic James A. Farley Post Office on West 33rd Street across from Penn Station.

Blumin founded the Skylight group in 2004. The group specializes in re-conceiving historical spaces and converting them for high-end event use. She has two children with partner and designer Ramsey (pictured in 2011)

The airplane departed Borinquen, Puerto Rico, at approximately 11am Monday and never made it to its destination of Titusville, along the northeastern coast of Florida (as depicted by this map). Their plane was at about 24,000 feet when air traffic control lost contact

Skylight One Hanson was previously the Williamsburg Savings Bank Clocktower in Brooklyn and Skylight Modern on West 27th and 10th Avenue, is a 15,000-square-foot blank canvas created for Fashion Week in 2013.

The group also has a partnership to run private events on the High Line.

As of 2015, Blumin was living in Tribeca with her husband James Ramsey, a principal of the design studio Raad. The pair have two sons together, four-year-old Phineas and two-year-old Theodore.

But the couples 19th-century Tribeca loft went on the market earlier this month for $3.7 million.

Ulrich, who was piloting the plane, is the founder and owner of Xootr, a manufacturer of folding kick scooters and folding bicycles.

He was also married to actress Rae Dawn Chong from 2011 to 2014. She tweeted about his plane vanishing shortly after 2pm.

'My ex-hubby's (Nathan Ulrich) plane is missing over the Bermuda Triangle. I am sad and in shock. So send prayers to his family. Thanks,' she tweeted.

Ulrich (pictured), who was piloting the plane, is the founder and owner of Xootr , a manufacturer of folding kick scooters and folding bicycles. He is also a mechanical engineer graduate of the University of Pennsylvania

In February, Ulrich had to undergo recurrent training in order to pilot the MU-2 aircraft after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Special Federal Air Regulation (SFAR) on the aircraft in 2008. He posted this photo to his Facebook after landing the plane in February

Ulrich was also married to The Color Purple actress Rae Dawn Chong (pictured), who tweeted about his plane vanishing shortly after 2pm

'My ex-hubby's (Nathan Ulrich) plane is missing over the Bermuda Triangle. I am sad and in shock. So send prayers to his family. Thanks,' Chong tweeted

The SFAR mandates that pilots flying MU-2B planes (file), which started production in 1963, after 2008 would be required to receive type-specific initial training, as well as recurrent training. As of 29 March 2016, there have been three fatal accidents involving the MU-2B

In February, Ulrich had to undergo recurrent training in order to pilot the MU-2 aircraft after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Special Federal Air Regulation (SFAR) on the aircraft in 2008.

The SFAR mandates that pilots flying MU-2B planes, which started production in 1963, after 2008 would be required to receive type-specific initial training, as well as recurrent training.

Recurrent training occurs when professional pilots practice emergency procedures as needed and as mandated.

The agency also required that a fully functional autopilot be available for single-pilot operations, and that FAA-approved checklists and operating manuals be on board at all times.

As of 29 March 2016, there have been three fatal accidents involving the MU-2.

According to his Instagram page, Ulrich owns a Cirrus SR20, a piston-engine plane that seats between four and five people. He is also a mechanical engineer and alum of the University of Pennsylvania.

MYSTERY OF THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE Last year it was reported that hexagonal clouds creating terrifying air bombs with winds of 170mph could be behind the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Scientists have claimed the stormy blasts can flip ships into the ocean and bring planes crashing down into the sea. The winds created by the so-called air bombs are so powerful they generate 45ft high winds. At least 1,000 lives have been lost in the Triangle in the last 100 years. On average, four planes and 20 ships go missing every year. The 500,000km square patch in the North Atlantic Ocean has been blamed for the disappearance of at least 75 planes and hundreds of ships. The plane went off radar around the Bermuda Triangle (aerial view), also known as the Devil's Triangle Advertisement

Last year, it was reported that hexagonal clouds creating air bombs with winds of 170mph could be behind the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.

Scientists have claimed the stormy blasts can flip ships into the sea and bring planes crashing down into the sea.

The 500,000km square patch in the North Atlantic Ocean has been blamed for the disappearance of at least 75 planes and hundreds of ships.

At least 1,000 lives have been lost in the Triangle in the last 100 years. On average, four planes and 20 ships go missing every year.
A homeless man who was cleared after stabbing a teenager to death in an internet cafe claimed he was too busy fighting for his own life to notice he had hurt anyone.

Paul Kim, 51, pulled out a knife and stabbed Yangpu Fan, 19, at the 24-hour K&D Internet Cafe in Queens, New York, on April 26.

He had been watching a film and refused to move computers when a gang of youths asked him to. They then came back with more people and jumped him, throwing him over one of the computers.

Kim, who was living at the cafe, said he was so desperate to fight off the gang that he did not realise he had stabbed someone until a day later.

Paul Kim, 51, said he did not realise he had stabbed Yangpu Fan, 19, at the K&D internet cafe (pictured) because he was trying to fight off a gang of attackers

'I couldn't say nothing but, "What? Somebody died?" ' Kim told the New York Daily News.

'When we finished with the judge, that's when I asked. "Who died?" That's when he told me that somebody actually died.'

Kim said he was held at the stationhouse for 24 hours and was not told that he had stabbed someone.

He was charged with manslaughter and weapons possession after he slammed a knife into Fan's chest.

But on Thursday a grand jury cleared him of charges after the cafe's CCTV footage showed that Kim was defending himself.

The teenagers had wanted Kim to switch to another computer so they could play League of Legends together.

But Kim refused to budge from his regular seat where he was watching a bootleg DVD of The Fate Of The Furious.

The violent confrontation broke out after Paul Kim refused to scoot over so the teenagers could play League of Legends together

The confrontation became violent and after Kim was punched in the head he reportedly pulled out a hammer and shouted: 'You're going to die!'

They fled the cafe in Flushing but returned with reinforcements, including Yangpu Fan, 19.

More punches were thrown and Kim was hurled across one of the computer terminals at one point.

Police say he then pulled a knife and stabbed Fan.

Kim had been homeless since July. He was born in Korea, where his mother abandoned him at three and his father disappeared two years later.

League of Legends is a multiplayer online video game which is extremely popular in the China and Korea, as well as in the US.

Paul Chen, the manager of the cafe, told the New York Post: 'He just sat at the computer and stayed there, playing a game on the internet, until the police came.'

He said: 'He'd basically been living here 24 hours a day, playing games. He'd step out for some food sometimes, but he'd leave his stuff at his seat. It was always the same seat.'

Fan was rushed to New York Presbyterian Hospital Queens, where he died.

Chen said: 'It's really sad that someone had to die over a seat. Those guys shouldn't have ganged up on him, but he shouldn't have stabbed one of them, either.'
'Person of interest': Convicted arsonist Patrick Boggs, 47, has been detained as a person of interest in a deadly Ohio house fire that killed his estranged wife and her family

Authorities in Ohio have arrested a person of interest in Monday's deadly house fire, which claimed the lives of his estranged wife, her boyfriend and their five children, ranging in age from 11 months to 14 years old.

Patrick Boggs, 47, a convicted arsonist with a history of domestic violence and drug offenses, was taken into custody in Ravenna and booked into the Portage County Jail on Monday evening, ostensibly for a suspected parole violation.

Portage County Sheriff David Doak on Tuesday would not say whether Boggs is being held in connection to the deadly Akron blaze that killed Angela Boggs, 38; Dennis Huggins, 35, and their children - Cameron Huggins, 11 months old; Alivia Huggins, three; Kylle Huggins, five; Daisia Huggins, six; and Jered Boggs, 14.

'He is on parole and if he is suspected of violating that in any way the patrol authority can revoke that and put him back in jail,' Doak told Ohio.com, referring to Patrick Boggs.

Names of the dead: The Akron fire killed Angela Boggs, 38 (left), and her long-time boyfriend, Dennis Huggins, 35 (right)

Innocents: Also among the dead were the couple's five children - Alivia Huggins, three; Cameron Huggins, 11 months old; Jered Boggs, 14; Kylle Huggins, five; and Daisia Huggins, six

Firefighters investigate the remains of the Boggs-Huggins' family's burned home in Akron, Ohio on Monday

The 47-year-old man was convicted in 2001 of aggravated arson, arson, felonious assault and domestic violence after he doused his wife, Angela, with kerosene and threatened to set her alight because he suspected her of being unfaithful.

Angela told police at the time that her husband flicked a lighter at her, then poured more kerosene on her after she tried to wash the toxic substance off of herself, and knocked her into the bathtub.

He switched on his lighter and tossed it into the tub, but the flame went out before the lighter struck Angelas clothing, which was sodden with the highly flammable liquid.

During the incident, Boggs was said to have stated to Angela that when she is dead, he would bring their daughter to visit her grave site.

Happier times: Four of Angela and Dennis' children are pictured with Santa Clause at a mall around Christmas time

Baby Cameron Huggins, nicknamed 'Hulk,' is pictured as a newborn at a hospital

Boggs was sentenced to 12 years in prison and released in 2013, at which point he was placed on a five-year probation.

His past criminal record also includes a separate domestic violence conviction involving Angela, whom he had married in 1998.

The estranged couple were still officially married at the time of Monday's deadly fire, believed to be the worst in Ohios history.

Last year, Boggs was convicted of marijuana possession and sentenced to 180 days in jail, and this past February, he was picked up by police on a charge of driving with suspended license and another count of illegal marijuana possession.

As of late Tuesday morning, the deadly house fire has not been confirmed as an arson, and Patrick Boggs has not been named a suspect in that case, but a person of interest.

As of late Tuesday morning, the deadly house fire has not been confirmed as an arson

Patrick Boggs was detained in Ravenna, Ohio, Monday evening, just hours after his estranged wife's home went up in flames

Firefighters found the two-story home in Akron, about 30 miles south of Cleveland, engulfed in flames when they arrived shortly before 3am Monday. The house sat at the top of a winding street in a neighborhood of mostly two-story clapboard houses.

The Akron Fire Department is working with the state fire marshal's office and local police to determine how the fire started, fire Chief Clarence Tucker said. A fire marshal's official said investigators used a dog while collecting evidence but wouldn't say what that evidence was.

The fire occurred a block from a home where a man and a woman died in an April 2016 fire investigated as a potential arson, but there was no indication the fires were related.

Tucker said it couldn't be determined whether the home had working smoke detectors because of the damage Monday. Dennis Huggins' 20-year-old son, Tyennys Huggins, said it did.

He said his father was an electrician and his father's girlfriend was a longtime dialysis technician. The home was titled in both of their names, county records show.

Dennis Huggins' brother, 45-year-old Tony Huggins, stood near the fire-ravaged home Monday evening with his wife, Damonica Huggins, fighting back tears. He said his brother and Angela Boggs loved their children very much, describing her as 'very sweet, soft-spoken and gentle.'

'It's just a tough loss right now,' Tony Huggins said. 'That was my baby brother. I practically raised him.'

Above, witness video of the home when it was still on fire early Monday morning

Tyennys Huggins said he stopped by the family's home nearly every day and helped his father renovate it. He described his father as 'amazing.'

'He's my favorite person on the planet, my best friend,' Huggins said. 'I'm forever gonna miss him.'

Mayor Daniel Horrigan extended his sympathies to victims' families.

'My deepest sympathies and prayers are with the family and loved ones of those who perished, and we pray for strength and healing in the difficult days to come,' Horrigan said of the fire. 'We will see to it that the victims families are supported in this time of great sorrow and need.'
Out of the ten finalists for Miss USA 2017, seven were women of colour' yelled the feminist writers at Bustle, 'and that is a huge achievement.'

No offence to the diversity champions, sat brushing their underarm hair and wondering how to make their tofu look less like bathroom sealant on Instagram.

But these glorious women are much more than their colour. Amongst their number are a national ballet supremo, a nuclear scientist, and a paediatric nurse. And THAT is just part of their huge achievement in life.

Plus they all look fabulous in a sequins and a sash. Which, as Caitlyn Jenner demonstrates, is not an easy look to pull off.

Miss District of Columbia, celebrated moments earlier as a triumph of diversity, veered wildly off-script

In the Q and A section she was asked, 'Do you think affordable healthcare for US citizens is a privilege or a right?' 'I'm definitely going to say it is a privilege,' the 25-year-old responded

The feminazis were jubilant. Never in the field of human swimwear modelling were so many represented so much by so few. Their ultimate vagenda  to demonstrate men are surplus to requirements  was nearly fulfilled.

An oestrogen-spectacular.

But wait! What horror was this? Miss District of Columbia, celebrated moments earlier as a triumph of diversity, was veering wildly off-script.

Did she not get the memo? Diversity is a gender thing, a colour thing, a sexuality thing, a racial thing. It is not a thought thing.

Diversity of thought will not be tolerated by the mammary militia!

When asked whether she considered herself a feminist, she replied, 'I try not to consider myself this die-hard, 'I don't care about men' [type],' she said. 'I'd like to transpose the word 'feminism' to 'equalism'. Women, we are just as equal as men when it comes to opportunity in the workplace.'

The feminazis began free-bleeding in protest at this, trying to self-soothe by looking at pictures of women in pink hats with stupid ears, or reading vegan recipe books written by someone trans.

Who was this diverse creature in a wedding dress masquerading as one of them, only to stand there boldly and defy the pussy consensus?

Had she forgotten that 'our vaginas are made of steel'? That's what we are fighting for, to be seen as victims, a marginalised minority - not for actual achievement!

But little Miss District of Columbia was just hitting her stride. In the Q and A section she was asked, 'Do you think affordable healthcare for US citizens is a privilege or a right?'

'I'm definitely going to say it is a privilege,' the 25-year-old said. 'As a government employee, I am granted healthcare and I see first-hand that for one to have healthcare, you need to have jobs.'

Miss USA is correct. Affordable healthcare should be regarded as a privilege. Not a right

Miss USA is leading the way in this thinking. Brilliant, brave and beautiful, she understands that true diversity also respects diversity of thought

The free-bleeding brigade were apoplectic. By now, iron-deficient and exhausted, resignation was all they could muster.

'A brown girl won #MissUSA but thinks affordable healthcare is a privilege and feminism is man-hate so she's cancelled #ByeGirl'

'Dang, I wanted Miss D.C. to win but I'm sorry, affordable healthcare is not a privilege.'

Liberals defaulted to name-calling, flip-flopping on her faster than Obama on federal funding for his campaign. Suddenly she was 'ignorant' and 'stupid'.

Labels which might have really stuck if it weren't for the fact she is a nuclear scientist for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Miss USA is correct. Affordable healthcare should be regarded as a privilege. Not a right.

If you don't care about your own body or health, then as a taxpayer funding your treatment, nor do I

The Declaration of Independence defines the 'rights' of American citizens; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They will notice healthcare didn't even get a mention.

Yet for over 100 years, some Americans have believed that the government should provide it and taxpayers should pay for it. As if your neighbour is fiscally responsible for your phlebitis.

Perhaps we can agree health care is a necessity of life. Just like food, shelter and clothing.

But no one is seriously demanding universal food care or universal housing. What we can reasonably demand is access to food, shelter and clothing. We can expect choices and competition when we shop for the necessities of life.

If 'food care' was controlled, paid for and regulated by the government we would have overutilization, fewer choices and a limited supply. The free market is efficient, voluntary and fair.

The UK provides a perfect example of what goes wrong when people imagine healthcare is a right, provided by government controlled, singlepayer health care program.

On the supply side there are unacceptable wait times and huge inefficiencies. Fundamentally, these systems ration health care by waiting lists and limited money. The quality of care can be dodgier than an intelligence dossier from the FBI.

On the demand side, there is massive over-utilization because there is little incentive to take care of yourself. Treatment is free at the point of use. For the average Brit, this translates as 'free', absolving them of all responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

If I smoke myself into cancer, the NHS will pick up the pieces.

If I drink myself into oblivion, I will be scooped up by an ambulance crew and offered a new liver.

If I eat myself into the size of Oprah after an emotional weekend, I can get new knees for free.

This is what happens when you see healthcare as a right instead of a necessity.

This is what happens when you expect government to provide it. Instead of reasonably expecting the government to guarantee access to it.

Currently the UK government is standing in the way of the financial reality of unhealthy choices.

We need to strip away this safety net. Stop the government providing a free pass to medical care and make people pay for their poor choices.

Liberals defaulted to name-calling, flip-flopping on her faster than Obama on federal funding for his campaign. Suddenly she was 'ignorant' and 'stupid'

Healthcare IS a privilege. Not a right. We need show our respect for the service provided on the free market by doing our bit to stay well

Demand-side, the only way to change behaviour is to recalibrate the whole system and link the consequences of our actions back to the choices we take.

Supply side, the only way to improve service is to increase competition and choice. Two business fundamentals Donald Trump understands better than most.

Miss USA is leading the way in this thinking. Brilliant, brave and beautiful, she understands that true diversity also respects diversity of thought.

And when it comes to the feminazis and healthcare, we are perfectly aligned.

Women need to be more than man-haters in silly hats. We have equal treatment. We should not expect special treatment just because we have a vagina. Even if it is made of steel.

Healthcare IS a privilege. Not a right. We need show our respect for the service provided on the free market by doing our bit to stay well.

The discussion needs to be about access.

If you don't care about your own body or health, then as a taxpayer funding your treatment, nor do I.
A prisoner sharing a Bogota jail with Cassie Sainsbury has claimed the alleged drug smuggler has created 'tension' among inmates.

The unidentified person told News Corp Ms Sainsbury is 'causing problems' as TV crews and family make regular visits.

'Cassandra wasnt being treated differently but now that shes pulled favours and her family are visiting her on a non-visitor day, shell start to be treated differently.'

Sainsbury has been inside El Buen Pastor since she was arrested at El Dorado International Airport on April 11 for possession of 5.8kg of cocaine.

The cocaine was concealed in the packaging of 15 headphone boxes.

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Sainsbury has been inside El Buen Pastor since she was arrested at El Dorado International Airport on April 11 for possession of 5.8kg of cocaine

Ms Sainsbury had claimed that she had been the victim of theft and bullying while in prison, but the unnamed prisoner disputed that, saying she just 'wants attention.'

A Colombian prison guard supported these claims, labelling Ms Sainsbury as a liar, bully and attention seeker.

The female prison guard working at El Buen Pastor prison said Sainsbury has been feeding 'bad information' to the media since being arrested last month.

'Cassie likes attention and she knows how to get it,' the guard - who wished to remain anonymous - told 9 News.

'She's not my most difficult prisoner, but I don't like her lies.'

A Colombian prison guard has labelled accused drug smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury as a liar, bully and attention seeker

The female prison guard - who wished to remain anonymous - said Sainsbury has been feeding 'bad information' to the media since being arrested last month

'She's not my most difficult prisoner, but I don't like her lies,' the female prison guard said

The guard also claimed the 22-year-old has been bullying a fellow inmate who she was pictured smiling with.

Ms Sainsbury previously told News Corp in a phone interview that she didn't give permission for the photo to be released, however the guard believes she was happy to have the photo taken.

'She is bullying another prisoner for taking a picture with her,' the guard said.

'But we believe Cassie wanted to take the picture.'

She also accused Ms Sainsbury of lying about not being able to access medical facilities or enough food.

'That's a lie. Every prisoner gets checked out for their health. She has access to private doctors too if she wants,' she told 9 News.

The accusations come after Ms Sainsbury hit out at the two separate television deals struck by members of her family and her fiance.

Ms Sainsbury's mother and sister have negotiated a $1 million interview deal with Channel Nine's 60 Minutes program, reportedly without her knowledge, but her fiance Scott Broadbridge has signed on with Channel Seven's Sunday Night.

The guard also claimed that Sainsbury (right) has been bullying a fellow inmate who she was pictured smiling with (pictured)

The 22-year-old said she would be discussing 'whatever's been going on with the two stories' when she gets a chance to be reunited with her mother and sister, who have recently arrived in Colombia, News Corp reported.

'It's just typical family drama,' Ms Sainsbury said from Bogota's El Buen Pastor Women's prison, where she is being held after 5.8 kilograms of cocaine was allegedly found in her luggage on April 11 at Colombia's El Dorado International Airport.

Mother Lisa Evans and sister Khala Sainsbury shouted 'Cassie, its mumma' across the embankment to El Buen Pastor Women's prison, Bogota when they attempted to see her

Cassie's fiance Scott Broadbridge (pictured) was turned away from the prison gates when he went to see her

Colombian police have alleged Ms Sainsbury was lured into becoming a drug mule because she was in debt and told it would be easy money.

Colonel Rodrigo Soler, anti-narcotics chief at Bogota's El Dorado International Airport, said Sainsbury was a perfect mark for drug smugglers.

He alleged she was likely told the job was pre-arranged and airport staff and police were paid off on both sides of the journey to let her through with the 5.8 kilograms of cocaine she carried in her luggage.

'The owner of the drug who convinces the people to smuggle the drugs, he says everything is fixed up. Everything in the airport is fixed. Everything is easy,' he told News Corp.

Colonel Soler said drug traffickers often took advantage of young people like Sainsbury who were facing economic hardship and needed fast cash.

Police said Sainsbury was likely told the job was pre-arranged and airport staff and police were paid off on both sides of the journey to let her through

Sainsbury was thousands of dollars in debt after her failed Yorke's Fitness, in her hometown on SA's Yorke Peninsula failed and she abruptly skipped town.

The Adelaide woman claimed she was set up by a man named 'Angelo' who arranged to buy her headphones at a cheap price as gifts for her wedding party.

She claimed the 18 packages wrapped in black plastic containing the cocaine were given to her the morning of her flight and she didn't know they were drugs.

Colombian police seized CCTV footage of Angelo at the hotel where she stayed for eight nights before her flight, and she hoped it would help prove her innocence.

But Colonel Soler and his colleagues said since the beginning of the investigation that they did not believe her story and that she knew what she was doing.

Lt Colonel Jorge Triana told Daily Mail Australia soon after news of Sainsbury's arrest broke that drug mules often feigned ignorance when they were caught.

She claimed the 18 packages wrapped in black plastic containing the cocaine were given to her the morning of her flight and she didn't know they were drugs

'It's a commonplace strategy that narco traffickers use to take drugs out of the country,' he said.

'Her explanation is not credible. Everyone we catch says they didn't know it was in their luggage, but they know what they were doing.'

Colonel Soler also said '90 per cent' of people in her situation said they were trapped and cheated and didn't know they were carrying drugs.

'They majority also end up accepting responsibility (for the crime) because they say they have economic problems, family problems, they have no job,' he said.

He said all drug mules progress through a familiar three stages after they arrested, starting with denial where Sainsbury is still sitting.

The young woman maintained her innocence to police and media, and through her family, and even when she was filmed waving at TV crews behind bars.

An inmate friend even held out a sign reading: 'Cassandra Pide Libertad Immediata', which translates in English to: 'Cassandra asks for freedom immediately'.
Revolabs' Dean's List Program Brings Conferencing to Education

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By Andrew Bindelglass

Contributing Writer By Andrew BindelglassContributing Writer

As the technology behind video conferencing continues to become more and more effective, more educational institutions are turning to it to as a means to cut costs while still holding valuable class time. These video conferencing services allow professors and guest lecturers to hold lectures as if they were right in the room with their students, even if they are miles away. The same technology can also be leveraged to allow students all over the world to not only virtually attend but take part in lectures, as if they were actually sitting in the classroom.





Revolabs (News - Alert) is the latest provider of video conferencing solutions to make a pivot to focus more on education. Its Deans List program is a version of its video conferencing solution that is aimed specifically at educators to allow them to host virtual lectures from anywhere in the world. The Deans List program also provides discounts and fee structures that are more feasible for educators than other video conferencing services.

The program is currently available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, but the hope is that, as more people utilize the Revolabs family of products, the company will be able to continue to scale and expand its offerings to a wider breadth of countries.

Teleconferencing for education seems as though it will become one of the next big trends in education. The increased efficacy of video conferencing services has made it so that users are seeing less and less of a difference between interactions through this platform and ones that they have face to face. The fact that technology has progressed this far is a huge step for this technology. If teachers can feel as though they are directly in the room with students, and students can not only view but also participate in lectures from anywhere in the world, then that would be a huge step. Movements like the Deans List program from Revolabs are huge advancements, not only in the world of conferencing, but for the greater implications for applications in the future.

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Edited by Alicia Young
A Kansas prosecutor called Tuesday for tougher state regulation of home schools in response to the 2015 killing of a 7-year-old boy whose remains were found in a family pig sty, and has some bipartisan support among legislators.

The state requires only that operators register their home schools with the state and provide 'competent' teachers. The father and stepmother of Adrian Jones claimed to be schooling him in their Kansas City, Kansas home; Michael and Heather Jones have been sentenced to life in prison for his death, and authorities say they abused and starved the boy.

Adrian's maternal grandmother, Judy Conway, is urging lawmakers to strengthen regulation of home schools. Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree, whose office prosecuted the case, told a House committee that greater oversight is necessary.

The murder of seven-year-old Adrian Jones has prompted Kansas lawmakers to consider putting tighter rules on home schooling

Jones was being home-schooled by his father and stepmother in 2015 when he was murdered. Experts say stricter oversight on home-schooled children may have prevent similar crimes from happening. Michael and Heather Jones have been sentenced to life in prison for his death

Judy Conway, Jones' grandmother speaks to reporter after a Kansas House committee hearing on Tuesday

The committee had a hearing on a bill that would require people living in a home where a child is abused to report the abuse. Authorities said at least one other adult had temporarily lived in the Joneses' home.

'This is a step in the right direction but, please, don't stop there,' Dupree told the committee, adding that children who are home-schooled should have contact with the public school system at least once a year so that their welfare can be better monitored.

Conway also testified, fighting back tears as she spoke her about her grandson's abuse. She said the state has 'a lot of great home schools,' but because Adrian was supposed to be schooled at home, 'no one ever saw my grandson.'

'I also believe that in so many ways, that the whole system failed him,' she said.

Shocking photogaphs discovered on his stepmother's computer show how Adrian was forced to stand in the shallow end of the Jones's filthy swimming pool for hours on end with water up to his neck

The Joneses documented the abuse they heaped on Adrian with dozens of pictures. The injury on the right came after they jabbed him with a broomstick. Pictured left if Adrian's mouth after he had tried to chew away at his plywood prison

Adrian was blindfolded and strapped on to an inversion table in one of the dozens of pictures found on Heather Jones's computer

One of the pictures on Heather Jones's computers showed how she and her husband had forced Adrian to stand straight by bandaging kitchen cutting boards to his front and back

The pigs that ate Adrian's remains were kept in a crate on the 15-acre property in Kansas City, Kansas

Committee Chairman John Barker, an Abilene Republican, agreed that home-schooled children should be tested at least once a year in a public-school setting. Other lawmakers in both parties said they're interested in a detailed study of the issue.

The Republican-controlled Legislature previously has resisted tighter oversight because some lawmakers don't want to regulate parents or homes. Rep. John Whitmer, a conservative Wichita Republican, said he worries that strong supporters of public schools will use Adrian's case to try to shut down home schools.

'You can't blame all home-schoolers for this incident,' he said. 'These were not home-schoolers.'

Earlier this month, DailyMail.com reported on the terrifying pictures and videos that were found on Heather Jones' computer.

The shocking photographs chronicling Adrian's abuse were found when Heather Jones gave her landlady passwords for her computer because she wanted her to send pictures of her children while she awaited trial in custody.

The landlady, mom-of-four Jennifer Hoevers, couldn't believe her eyes when she clicked on image after image of the cruelty that was heaped on the little boy.

There was video of him shivering as he stood outside, shackled hand and foot wearing just a T-shirt and pajama pants shortly before 6 on a January evening. 'Let me tell you, Kansas is cold in January,' Hoevers told DailyMail.com.

In the distressing video, Adrian desperately tries to drink from a cup he can't pick up because his wrists are handcuffed behind his back.

There were pictures of Adrian bound tightly with rigid kitchen cutting boards beneath the bandages so he could not bend over.

There was a close-up of his lips, covered with angry sores, caused, investigators believe, because he had tried to chew away at his plywood prison.

There were pictures of him blindfolded and strapped to an inversion table  and others of the injuries that caused his legs.

And there was more  much more. Heather had even saved online ads for straitjackets and blanket wraps for transporting human bodies.

Adrian was made to carry tiki torches and made to walk around aimlessly in a video taken by his twisted father and stepmother

There was also video of him shivering outside, his hands shackled wearing just a T-shirt and pajama pants shortly before 6 on a January evening

'She never told me that I would find pictures of Adrian  I was just shocked beyond belief at what I saw,' Hoevers said.

'I just closed the computer down and spent a good day getting my thoughts together, trying to decide what I should do.'

Graphic pictures of Adrian standing naked in the shower showed him getting thinner and thinner until his tiny frame was skeletal. 'He looked like the pictures you see of concentration camp survivors,' said Hoevers.

She took the images to the police shortly after Heather Jones had been sentenced. The horrific evidence of exactly what went on in Jennifer Hoevers' house was discovered too late to be used in her case  but not too late for Michael's.

She made contact with Judy Conway and gave her a DVD with everything she found on the computer, warning her of how graphic it was. The first time Conway viewed it she threw up.

Adrian's legs were badly swollen from hours of being strapped into an inversion table by his father and step-mother

The extent of Adrian's abuse was documented by this picture of his left arm. The lower arm is swollen so badly it is far thicker than his bicep

'The first picture I saw, Heather was posing him for pictures front and back. He looked like the most malnourished kid from a third-world country,' Conway told DailyMail.com.

Adrian Jones was the fifth of six children born to Judy Conway's daughter Dainna Pearce. The youngest three, Madison, Adrian and Tiesa were fathered by Michael Jones.

By all accounts she was a terrible mother. Her own daughter Keiona  known as Kiki  wrote an on-line letter to her brother after his murder. 'Mom liked to go out a lot; she didn't necessarily know how to be a mom, but you did not understand at the time because you were so young,' Kiki wrote.

'I was always assigned to watch you and your sisters when Mom said she was going grocery shopping, but every time she wouldn't come back from the store until the next day.'

Kiki, now 20 and a junior at Emporia State University in Kansas where she stars on the track and field team and studies child psychology and development, even apologized to Adrian for sometimes wishing he and his sisters had never been born.

'I would get so angry because my friends would get to hang out and be teenagers and I was always stuck at home watching you and your sisters,' she wrote.
Millions of older Americans who have amassed wealth by the time they retire are not spending their money, according to a new study whose results were revealed on Tuesday.

The United States is witnessing an unusual phenomenon whereby young people who are earning less than their parents dont have as much money to put away in savings, according to Bloomberg.

Conversely, their parents and grandparents, who have accumulated valuable assets over the years in stocks and the real estate market, continue to save into retirement.

These findings were reported in a study by the University of Michigan, which conducted a survey in conjunction with United Income, a financial planning software company.

Analysts say these trends are exacerbating the income inequality nationwide since wealthy Americans are gaining larger inheritances.

There is currently $25.3trillion in retirement assets in the US, according to the survey.

Over half of that sum is parked in individual accounts. Economists worry that retirees will keep hoarding the cash rather than spend some of it.

A new study by the University of Michigan has found that older Americans are still saving after their retirement

Unlike retirees from previous generations, older Americans today own vastly more wealth, which was accumulated thanks to the boom in the stock and real estate markets

Older Americans have a psychological barrier to spending money, particularly the fear that they will run out of money before they die

The average American over the age of 60 spends 2.5 percent less each year, according to the data.

When spread out over a 10-year period, it reaches about 20 percent.

The survey found that Americans who died between 2010 and 2012 had estates that were valued 130 percent higher than the estates of those who died between 2000 and 2002.

When examining the reasons that older Americans are more frugal despite their relative wealth, researchers found that they were fearful of one day running out of cash before they die.

The fear that also comes with no longer earning a regular pay check makes retirees think twice before opening their wallets, according to experts.

The reluctance of older Americans to spend deprives the US economy of much-needed infusions of cash. It also limits the quality of life of people who shut themselves off from traveling and social activities due to their unwillingness to shell out money

The reluctance of older Americans to spend is a bad thing, according to experts.

Not only does it deprive the US economy of much-needed infusions of cash, but it also limits the quality of life of people who shut themselves off from traveling and social activities due to their unwillingness to shell out money.

Meanwhile, younger Americans on average dont have the luxury of deciding whether to spend money they dont have because they are earning less than their parents did at their age.

Last month, the National Bureau of Economic Research did a study which found that the average American male who entered the workforce in 1983 earned up to 19 percent less over his lifetime than a man who entered the workforce in 1967.

Women on average have earned more than women of a generation ago, but that was because they have historically earned negligible wages.

Experts believe the problem with older Americans is psychological.

If retirees get the sense that they are receiving a regular stream of income, it might make them more comfortable in spending it.

Thats why some alternatives that have been recommended include longevity insurance  whereby a retiree at age 60 pays an insurance company an up-front fee so that the company then provide an annual annuity beginning at an older age; reverse mortgages; or long-term care insurance.

Another possibility is to 'train' retirees - who tend to take a more pessimistic view of the economy and other financial matters - to think in a way that encourages more spending.
The president's national security advisor says Donald Trump's information sharing with the Russians was 'wholly appropriately' and it did not harm national security.

H.R. McMaster made the claim as it was reported that Israel  one of the nation's closest allies and one with whom Trump has invoked an 'unbreakable' bond  was the source of the 'highly classified information' he passed to the Russians.

He would not say from the White House podium whether the information that Trump gave the Russians was classified at the time and revealed as he left the briefing room that the president 'wasn't even aware' of where the information came from.

'What we don't do is discuss what is and what wasn't classified,' H.R McMaster said. 'What I will tell you that in the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate with that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged.'

His comment that Trump didn't know the source of the information means the president could not have known at the time whether the information he was giving out would jeopardize the United States' relationship with the foreign ally who is said to have provided it.

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The president's national security advisor says Donald Trump's information sharing with the Russians was 'wholly appropriately' and it did not harm national security

Hours after McMaster spoke, the Times reported that Israel was the source of the intelligence, citing a current and former administration source. Prior reports were that the information came from a Middle Eastern ally.

Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, said in a statement: 'Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.'

The Israeli embassy offered no other comment and Dermer did not respond to an email from DailyMail.com asking him if the White House had apologized for Trump's sharing of the information.

Dermer had previously told an Israeli lobbyist group this spring, 'For the first time in many years, perhaps even many decades, there is no daylight between our two governments.'

At an off-camera briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he couldn't comment on the report on Israel, which maintains its heralded Mossad spy organization.

'I'm obviously pleased to see Ambassador Dermer's comment,' Spicer said. 'We appreciate the relationship that we have with Israel and appreciate the exchange of information that we have with them.'

McMaster was unable to confirm that the intelligence came from a partner of the United States in his briefing with reporters at the White House earlier on Tuesday.

But he said he was 'not concerned at all' that intelligence allies would stop sharing information with the US as a result of Trump's conversation with the Russians.

'That conversation was wholly appropriate to the conversation, and I think wholly appropriate with what the expectations are of our intelligence partners,' he said.

Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. (R) said Israel has 'full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States' despite the New York Times report that Israel was the source of the information that Trump gave the Russians

President Trump defended himself against the onslaught of criticism on Tuesday morning that came from a Monday evening report that said he shared 'highly classified' information with the Russians about ISIS operations that came from a US ally.

Trump's tweets seemingly confirmed what the Washington Post first reported early Monday evening and White House had denied.

Three Trump administration officials - including McMaster - released statements slapping down the Post story.

McMaster told reporters outside the White House, 'The story that came out tonight is false.'

Trump then suggested in two tweets Tuesday that it wasn't.

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' he sad.

McMaster soon came before reporters to deny that Trump had done anything wrong.

'He shares information in a way that is wholly appropriate. And I should just make, maybe, the statement here, that the president wasn't even aware of where this information came from. He wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either,' the national security official said.

The harm is coming from leakers within the government who disclosed the talks to reporters, he said.

'It's important to investigate these sort of things, and to make sure that we have trusted organizations across our government that allows for the free sharing of information and collaboration,' he said.

President Trump used Twitter to defend himself Tuesday morning on the heels of a Washington Post report that said he shared highly classified information with the Russians

Trump's tweets seemingly confirm what the Washington Post reported, which a flock of White House and administration officials initially denied

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster called a Washington Post story 'false,' which said President Trump leaked 'highly classified' information to the Russians during an Oval Office meeting last week

McCain fires at 'disturbing' reports on Russia Arizona Sen. John McCain blasted as 'deeply disturbing' the reports that President Trump passed information from a key ally to the Russians. McCain, a Russia hawk, issued a statement Tuesday saying: 'The reports that the president shared sensitive intelligence with Russian officials are deeply disturbing.' He issued his statement after it was reported President Trump passed on highly classified information to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia's ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak at an Oval Office meeting with Trump. 'Reports that this information was provided by a US ally and shared without its knowledge sends a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future,' McCain said. After McCain's statement, the New York Times reported that Israel was the ally that provided the U.S. with the information. McCain also challenged the Russia meeting itself. Kislyak is the figure, reportedly a top Russian spy recruiting agent, at the center of undisclosed Russia meetings involving Trump-linked figures. McCain criticized 'sharing sensitive information with the Russians' instead of 'focusing on Russia's aggressive behavior, including its interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, its other destabilizing activities across Europe, and the slaughter of innocent civilians and targeting of hospitals in Syria.' Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina vented to reporters: 'If information was shared with the Russian ambassador, it seems to me it'd be okay to share with the U.S. Senate.' But Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican, said Tuesday: 'There isn't anybody who can run the White House without criticism,' Hatch told reporters in the Capitol. 'And this man is subject to more criticism than any predecessor that I know of. They hate him,' he added. 'They didn't like the fact that he won. He beat their favorite. It was a remarkable election, and they can't stand it, so they're going to do everything they can do destroy him.' Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York demanded in a blistering floor speech that the White House turn over transcripts of what happened in the Russia meeting. 'If the president has nothing to hide, he should direct the transcript of the meeting be made available,' Schumer said. 'Until the administration provides the unedited transcript, until the administration fully explains the facts of this case, the American people will rightly doubt if their president can handle our nation's most closely kept secrets,' Schumer said. Sen. Richard Shelby, a former Senate Intelligence chairman, was among those who was not seeking any additional disclosures about what might have happened in the Oval Office with the Russians. 'I dont know what he shared, didnt share,' Shelby told DailyMail.com. 'Were all curious about what happened. I guess the question [is] will we ever know? Advertisement

Spicer stepped in to hammer the leakers later as 'dangerous.'

He told a reporter asking if the White House had an idea who had shared the classified information that he doesn't know who did the leaking.

The White House official suggested that there was a manhunt underway after a journalist pointed the finger back at the administration and asked what it was doing to keep information that undermines national security out of print.

'That in itself is a whole process, and I'm not at liberty to get into that,' he said.

Spicer once tried to close the valve at the White House by taking his staffers' phones and rooting through them for evidence that they were blabbing. The president said he didn't agree with that method of management and it is not known how the White House intends to stop the external flow of classified and sensitive information.

Unnamed sources told the Washington Post that Trump had passed on highly restricted 'code word' information during his Oval Office meeting last week with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States.

'This is code-word information,' a U.S. official told the paper, referring to the top classification level. The president 'revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.'

The White House refused to say Tuesday that the president did not share classified tidbits.

Spicer said he would not 'go down a road of parsing what would be and wouldn't be' classified.

'Starting to have a discussion about what is and what isn't, what isn't classified is a very dangerous road,' he argued when pressed.

He also claimed that Trump has broad discretion to share information on common threats with other governments.

'My understanding is the president of course has classification authority. They're not synonymous though,' he admitted.

'So the president can always discuss common threats or common issues with...other heads of government or other government officials as he deems appropriate to tackle the threats that our country faces...there are two separate issues. But yes he does, on the second, because that's not a question of what he thinks...'

McMaster forcefully disputed the Post's report on Monday evening  but his denial did not address the thrust of the report.

'The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time  at no time  were intelligence sources or methods discussed,' McMaster said.

Post reporter Greg Miller said on CNN Monday night that the White House was 'playing word games to try to blunt the impact of the story' and that he 'absolutely' stood behind it.

On Tuesday morning, Trump blasted his fired former FBI Director James Comey for not sniffing out the leakers in the intelligence community who presumably divulged the information that appeared in the Post.

On Tuesday morning, Trump blasted his fired former FBI Director James Comey for not sniffing out leakers in the intelligence community

'I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community,' Trump stated.

The White House acknowledged last week that Trump's frustration with the intelligence leaks was a factor in his decision to fire Comey.

'You can't deny somebody -- that that wasn't a problem,' Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary said. 'And so I think that was just another one of the many reasons that he no longer had the confidence of the President or the rest of the FBI.'

Intelligence community leakers were also responsible for revealing a Department of Justice conversation with the White House about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

Flynn told the vice president he did not discuss sanctions with Kisylak, the Russian ambassador with whom Trump is said to have discussed the classified information in front of in the Oval Office, during the transition. Justice had evidence to the contrary that it offered to the White House Counsel's office.

The Washington Post reported on the FBI's warning to the White House that Flynn had lied before it alerted the vice president. Mike Pence was left in the dark for two weeks as the White House looked into the acting attorney general's charges.

Sally Yates, a Barack Obama holdover who was running Justice, has since been dismissed. She testified last Monday that she was not the leaker - and doesn't know who is.

McMaster suggested Tuesday that the White House did not know who shared the confidential information that appeared in the Post.

The article contained quotes from Trump in the Oval Office during his meeting last Wednesday with the Russians, indicating it was someone well informed.

'I think the real issue, and I think what I'd like to see debated more, is our national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality,' McMaster told reporters on Tuesday. 'And those releasing information to the press that can be used, connected with other information available to make American citizens and others more vulnerable.'

At his Tuesday morning briefing, McMaster said he, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell were in the room when the conversations happened. He did not say they were the only ones, leaving open the possibility that the information the Post received came from someone who works in the White House.

Spicer was unable to say Tuesday afternoon who the other US officials were in the meeting. He said he'd look into it but would not commit to giving out a list of names.

The Post article said Trump revealed the information to Lavrov while boasting about his own sources of knowledge, according to an official familiar with it.

'I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,' Trump reportedly said.

Monday evening the White House didn't directly address the accusation that Trump shared classified information from a foreign government that he wasn't supposed to.

'The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known,' McMaster said instead, something the Post story never contended occurred.

'Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources,' McMaster said in closely-watched remarks outside the White House, as reaction and concern rolled in from Capitol Hill.

'I was in the room  it didn't happen,' he said.

McMaster then left the bouquet of microphones without answering any questions.

The information pertained to a terror threat to aviation using bombs contained in electronic devices like laptops.

Paul Ryan said Monday night that Trump must provide a full account of the meeting in which he is being accused of sharing secrets with Russia.

'We have no way of knowing what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount,' a statement from Ryan's spokesman, Doug Andres, read.

'The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.'

Sen. Jeff Merkley told DailyMail.com on Tuesday morning,' The president should be ashamed for compromising our security in this fashion'

The flurry of reports and counter-spin prompted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, to warn of a 'downward spiral.'

'The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order,' Corker said, Bloomberg reported. 'It's got to happen,' he said.

'Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips [with] all that's happening,' Corker added.

On Tuesday, reaction to the story, and to Trump's Twitter defense, wasn't much better.

'It's not helpful that this was with the Russians, right? I mean this is just weird,' noted Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraskan from Trump's own party.

Sasse pointed out on Morning Joe that the U.S. and Russia don't have aligned interests, as they're actively trying to fracture NATO.

'Putin is the enemy of the freedom of speech, religion, press and assembly, which is the beating heart of what America means,' Sasse said.

Sen. Jeff Merkley told DailyMail.com,' The president should be ashamed for compromising our security in this fashion.'

The Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations panel said a special prosecutor must be assigned to look into charges of collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

'I'm certainly concerned that the president shared code-word, top secret information with the Russians that could have compromised- maybe compromising - a very important relationship of information on ISIS,' he stated.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, was also worried about the larger repercussions, during an interview with NPR.

'We have to ask ourselves what country would share with us absolutely vital, secret, information if they knew they can't trust our president to keep it secret,' Coons told NPR.

Former acting director of the CIA Mike Morell said the source of the information could be put in danger by the Russians and the media outlets that are trying to figure out where it came from.

He also repeated Coons' concerns that foreign powers will stop sharing intelligence with the U.S.

'The other damage ... is that foreign countries share intelligence with the United States regularly, and now they are going to take pause and question whether they should continue to do that ... if they're afraid that the information they're providing could be shared with an adversary of ours and theirs,' Morell warned.

At least one Democratic congressman suggested that Trump should be impeached over the allegations

ALL SMILES: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House. Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

The Russian embassy in Washington released this photo of President Trump warmly shaking hands with ambassador Sergey Kislyak

The White House's initial reaction was to throw a bevvy of written statements to reporters, including one by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that it first provided to CNN.

Tillerson's statement did not deny the president had passed along secret information.

'During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed, among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods, or military operations,' Tillerson said.

In the same set of statements, Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell said: 'This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.'

The president has broad authority to declassify information unilaterally, which would insulate him from having done anything illegal.

Lower-level government officials who disclose highly-classified information, even without ill intent, can get prosecuted.

Trump ran, in part, by campaigning that Hillary Clinton had put the nation's security at risk through her use of a private email server while secretary of state.

'Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,' Trump tweeted in July after Comey called her out in a press conference where he nevertheless didn't recommend prosecution. 'Not fit!'

Images of President Donald Trump meeting with Russia's Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office were issued by the Russian state news agency TASS, and subsequently published by much of the global media

Merkley told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Trump's complaints about government leaking are 'incredibly ironic' now that 'he's the individual to leak the most sensitiv, the most classified information directly to the Russians.

'It's a continuation of the kind of dangerous, out-of-control, day-to-day activity of the White House,' he said.

An official said Trump revealed the city within ISIS territory where a U.S. ally detected the threat, according to unnamed officials.

That could run the risk of compromising the source, since the Russians are engaged in a military campaign in Syria, where they are propping up dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The timing of Trump's Russia meetings were noteworthy given the intense focus on all things Russia.

Moscow also put out images of Trump greeting a smiling Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. They got released by the TASS news agency, the Russian embassy, and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The White House kept U.S. photographers out, and didn't put any photo record out until a day after the fact.

The White House flickr account did not post a Kislyak photo with the president.

An official White House readout of Trump's meeting didn't mention Kislyak was there.

Trump's frank comments at a meeting that included Kislyak are all the more noteworthy because Kislyak is at the center of a burgeoning investigation into his presidential campaign's Russia contacts.

Trump fired former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn after Flynn was revealed to have met with Kislyak during the transition and then failing to tell Vice President Mike Pence about it.

'You can't deny somebody -- that that wasn't a problem,' Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary said. 'And so I think that was just another one of the many reasons that he no longer had the confidence of the President or the rest of the FBI.'

'You can't deny somebody -- that that wasn't a problem,' Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary said. 'And so I think that was just another one of the many reasons that he no longer had the confidence of the President or the rest of the FBI.'
A crash that sheared a car in half, right down its middle, in California on Saturday somehow ended with no fatalities.

Footage shows the Chevrolet Impala on Highway 101, 80 miles northwest of San Francisco torn in two, with its rear end lying around 12 feet away and the driver, dazed, sitting at the wheel.

Tom Bond, who recorded the extraordinary footage, told the Press Democrat it was 'the craziest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen many accidents.'

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This driver miraculously escaped the near-total destruction of her car on Saturday after it was sheared diagonally in half during a head-on collision on a California highway

The accident occurred when the Impala struck a Toyota Sequoia near Geysers Road at around 8am.

The footage shot by Bond, a 70-year-old former US Army ambulance driver, shows the Sequioa's front end crumple.

Its driver, Kevin Fenty, 27, of Huntington Beach, is sprawled on the asphalt, being given first aid.

But the damage to the Impala is even more shocking: Both rear wheels have been torn off as the car was sheared diagonally up its middle.

All of the seats in the car are destroyed - save for the driver's seat.

In that seat is Apol Lansang, 26, of Sonoma, who is seen talking to witnesses who have pulled up to assist the injured parties.

The rear of her car was ripped off and left 12 feet or so away. A Toyota Sequoia had drifted over the divider and into her lane. Police believe drugs may have been a factor

The driver of the torn car (right) escaped with minor injuries. The driver of the Sequoia (right) was given first aid at the scene and had moderate injuries. The investigation is ongoing

According to the California Highway Patrol, Lansang's Impala was struck by Fenty's Sequoia after his car drifted across the lane and into her path.

Both drivers were taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where Lansang was treated for minor injuries and Fenty for moderate ones.

'The scene was, it was pretty intense,' said Sgt Jason Bahlman. 'It was definitely one of the most severely damaged cars Ive ever seen.'

The crash is still under investigation but drugs are believed to have been a factor.

Fenty was arrested at the scene and has been charged with felony DWI with drugs causing great bodily injury, misdemeanor possession of more than 28.5 grams of marijuana and misdemeanor driver unlicensed [to drive] upon the highway.

He was jailed on $30,000 bail.
A man arrested over the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London has been released from police and will not face charges

A man arrested over the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London has been released from police and will not face charges.

The Libyan national, who is in his 50s, has been released from bail because there is insufficient 'admissible evidence' to charge him, Scotland Yard said.

Fletcher, who was 25 and had joined the police aged 18, was killed as she policed a demonstration against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi outside the Libyan People's Bureau in St James's Square on April 17 1984.

Ten Libyan men, who were protesting against Gaddafi that morning, were also shot and injured during the incident.

Scotland Yard said it was an act of state-sponsored terrorism and part of a brutal bombing and shooting campaign waged by the Gaddafi regime during the 80s and 90s, targeting Libyan dissidents in the UK and across Europe, known as the 'stray dogs campaign'.

The shooting triggered an 11-day siege of the building by London's Metropolitan Police, the deportation of 30 Libyans in the embassy and the severing of diplomatic ties between London and Tripoli.

No-one has ever been prosecuted over the killing of PC Fletcher.

Speaking today, the family of the murdered police officer said they were 'deeply disappointed and frustrated' the suspect will not be prosecuted.

He had previously been identified as Dr Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a former minister in Muammar Gaddafi's government and a high-ranking member of the team tasked by the regime with suppressing opposition.

Police refused to confirm his identity on Tuesday.

PC Yvonne Fletcher was murdered outside the Libyan People's Bureau on the 17th April 1984

A family statement said: 'We understand that some available evidence could not be used in court but are satisfied that the Metropolitan Police has left no stone unturned in its pursuit of justice in Yvonne's case.

'The family would like to thank the Met for its continued hard work and diligence and also for always keeping us informed at every turn.

'We are deeply disappointed and frustrated that a prosecution cannot proceed at this time.

'We had hoped that the latest turn of events would finally lead to some closure for the family.

'The family will make no further comment at this time.'

This image, released by the Metropolitan Police, shows colleagues going to the assistance of PC Fletcher after she was shot while on duty outside the Libyan Embassy

Police officers stood guard as PC Fletcher's body made its way to Salisbury Cathedral for the funeral service

An officer lay a floral tribute at the memorial to PC Fletcher, who was shot dead in 1984

PC Karl Bohanan with flowers in St James Square where PC Fletcher was killed during the siege of the Libyan embassy

The death of the officer resulted in the Metropolitan Police Service laying siege to the embassy for the next eleven days, and the UK severing all diplomatic relations with Libya

A spokesman for the Met said: 'We believe our investigation has identified enough material to identify those responsible for WPc Fletcher's murder if it could be presented to a court.

'However, the key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security.

'Therefore, without this material and following a review of all the evidence that was available to prosecutors, the Crown Prosecution Service, who we worked closely with throughout, have informed us that there is insufficient admissible evidence to charge the man.'

Officers stood outside the memorial to PC Fletcher on the 30th anniversary of her death

Pc Fletcher was killed as she policed a demonstration against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi outside the Libyan People's Bureau in St James's Square on April 17 1984 (pictured: flowers left outside the Embassy on the 30th anniversary of her death)

Scotland Yard said the investigation would 'never be closed' but the likelihood of finding further evidence was 'low'.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, of the Met Police, said: 'I am extremely proud of the exceptional work the investigative team and the Crown Prosecution Service have carried out. I know they were incredibly determined to identify those responsible for the senseless murder of a colleague.

'I regret that we have not been able to deliver the justice that the victims and their families deserve.

'Our thoughts today are with WPC Fletcher's family and all those affected by the events of that day in 1984.'
Two men who used drones to fly drugs and mobile phones into prisons have been jailed, Scotland Yard said.

Tomas Natalevicius, 35, and Dalius Zilinskas, 33, were sentenced at Luton Crown Court after admitting smuggling the prohibited items.

The pair were caught after police officers spotted a drone flying into HMP The Mount in Bovingdon in Hertfordshire, on October 13.

They were later found with a holdall containing a drone controller, battery pack, tablet device and white string.

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The pair were caught after police officers spotted a drone (pictured) flying into HMP The Mount in Bovingdon in Hertfordshire, on October 13

Natalevicius was also charged with an incident on August 14, when officers patrolling HMP Pentonville in Islington, north London, saw a drone crash (pictured)

The drone was recovered during searches of cells, alongside a package of cocaine, a cling film-wrapped parcel of cannabis and other items including mobile phones.

Natalevicius was also charged with an incident on August 14, when officers patrolling HMP Pentonville in Islington, north London, saw a drone heading towards the prison.

It crashed after string carrying the package became caught in the propellers, but the drone was found and Natalevicius linked to the crime through DNA evidence.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Heatley, from the Metropolitan Police, said: 'These recovered drones carried a substantial amount of Class A drugs and a large quantity of mobile phones into prisons, which we were able to intercept, thanks to the vigilance of officers and the public.

Tomas Natalevicius (left) and Dalius Zilinskas (right) were sentenced at Luton Crown Court after admitting smuggling the prohibited items

'We worked closely with the prison service and Hertfordshire Constabulary to gather intelligence in order to carry out proactive operations to arrest and prosecute these two offenders.

'The message is clear; if you commit a criminal offence such as this you will be caught and prosecuted.'

Natalevicius, of no fixed address, was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply prohibited articles into HMP Pentonville, conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis into HMP The Mount, handling stolen goods and theft.

Zilinskas, of Luton, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis into HMP The Mount and was jailed for two years and eight months.
The girlfriend of a Penn State fraternity pledge who died during an alcohol-fueled hazing ceremony has spoken out saying her boyfriend had simply wanted to be part of a 'brotherhood.'

Timothy Piazza, 19, was at Beta Theta Pi party at their campus frat house in February, when he fell down a set of stairs after being forced to drink large amounts of alcohol. By the time his frat brothers finally called an ambulance hours later, it was too late.

Both family and friends had been surprised at Piazza's decision to join the fraternity - describing him as someone who had never been into the 'party scene' and didn't even touch an alcoholic drink in high school.

'I was a little bit surprised,' said Kaitlyn Tempalsy, 20, a college sophomore from Flemington, New Jersey who met boyfriend Piazza in high school as part of a sex education program.

'I didn't feel he needed to be part of one but I understood he wanted to be part of a brotherhood,' she said on the Today show. 'Unfortunately, that's not what he got.'

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Kaitlyn Tempalsy, the girlfriend of Penn State fraternity pledge Tim Piazza (pictured together) says her boyfriend had only joined the frat because he wanted to be part of a 'brotherhood'

She told Matt Mauer she believes that if another pledge had been in Piazza's place, he would have sought help for them immediately - and would have stopped the needless loss of life

She believes that if another pledge had been in Piazza's place, he would have sought help for them immediately - and would have stopped the needless loss of life.

'I know if the roles were reversed, he would have helped and he would have walked away from this fraternity,' added Tempalsy, who wears a necklace with a fingerprint replica and a heartbeat graphic in tribute to her boyfriend.

Piazza's heartbroken parents agreed, with his father Jim saying his son would have picked the pledge up and taken him to hospital himself.

Instead, Piazza's frat brothers treated him 'as roadkill and a rag doll,' he said.

'They planned this night out,' added Jim when he, his wife Evelyn and Tim's older brother Mike sat down for interviews with the Today show, Good Morning America and CBS This Morning Monday to condemn the fraternity brothers responsible in Tim's death.

Tim's girlfriend Kaitlyn Tempalsky (left) appeared with his family on CBS This Morning on Monday

Tim's girlfriend Kaitlyn Tempalsky 20, a college sophomore from Flemington, N.J. wears jewelry replicating the thumbprint and a heartbeat graphic of her boyfriend

Tim (center) died in February after he was forced to drink larges amounts of alcohol during a hazing event. He fell down a set of stairs at the frat, but his brothers didn't get help for hours

'They had all the intent to feed these young men lethal doses of alcohol - to bring them to alcohol poisoning levels.

'This was premeditated. They killed our son.'

'Nobody should consume that much alcohol - that's torture,' his wife added.

Tim's older brother Mike, who is a senior at Penn State, said that he warned his brother about joining a fraternity.

They tortured him for 12 hours. They let him suffer for 12 hours. He died a slow and painful death at the hands of these 'men of principal,' as they call it. Jim Piazza, father of Timothy Piazza

'I had advised him to just be cautious. I knew it was something that I necessarily didn't feel that I fit in with so I was concerned that he wouldn't find his place there,' Mike told Good Morning America.

'So I just advised him to keep his wits about him, but ultimately do whatever he felt comfortable with.'

His father Jim said he thought fraternities were 'just a party scene, and that wasn't really Tim's thing.'

But he said when his son looked into it, the frat appeared to be safe and alcohol free.

'I just thought it would be a great distraction for him,' he added. 'I think he wanted to be part of something that was his own and I'm fairly confident that he researched this fraternity and on paper they looked like a good fraternity. Hazing free, alcohol free.'

Mr and Mrs Piazza were visibly struggling to hold back the tears during the emotional interview

Tim's older brother Mike, who will be a senior at Penn State next year, said he warned his brother about joining a fraternity

Tim's brother Mike was the first person in the family to learn his brother was in trouble.

'One of his roommates called me to see if I knew where he was, because he hadn't come home, so I called the hospital just to see and the woman on the phone told me he was in the emergency room.

'So I went over there immediately and when I got there I found out how serious it was,' he said.

'I had to call my mom to let her know that he was severely injured and that they were going to fly him to Hershey Medical Center because it was so severe that they couldn't treat him there,' he said.

Once the family arrived at the hospital, doctors told them that Tim had suffered a traumatic brain injury and that there was no hope for his survival.

'The damage was too severe. The bleeding had been too long,' Mrs Piazza said.

'They let us go in and see him. We talked to him a little bit, we held his hand and a tear came to his eye,' Jim Piazza recalled.

'I said to the doctor: "Can he hear us?" And the doctor said, "Maybe, we relieved a lot of pressure." But frankly, I don't know if I want to know if he heard us or not because if he heard us then he knew he was going to die.'

Tempalsy, 20, a college sophomore from Flemington, New Jersey met boyfriend Piazza in high school as part of a sex education program

She says she was surprised he had decided to join a frat as he always had a very sensible head on his shoulders

Jim said he wants alcohol to be banned from all fraternities, and anti-hazing rules to be strictly enforced.

'We need to have a statement be made with these criminal proceedings.

'Secondly, we need to have Penn State step up. They are one of the largest organizations in the country. They need to make significant changes and make a difference. The rest of the country is watching.

'We have received cards and letters from hundreds of people that we don't know asking us to stick with this - to hold people accountable. And that's what we're here to do,' he said.

Piazza's father Jim blamed a 'flagrant disregard' for the law and said the death 'didn't have to happen' on Friday.

'Sadly, we're never going to see his smile again except in pictures,' said the heartbroken father.

The parents and older brother of Penn State hazing victim Timothy Piazza spoke out Monday morning, detailing how they found out about their son's painful death and the work they're now doing to ensure another parent doesn't have to go a similar tragedy

At one point in her CBS interview, Mrs Piazza broke down in tears speaking about her son's tragic death

The Piazzas are also starting a foundation in their son's name.

Penn State permanently banned Beta Theta Pi on March 30, accusing it of a 'persistent pattern' of excessive drinking, drug use and hazing.

University President Eric Barron called the incident heart-wrenching, sickening and incomprehensible.

'It is numbing how an atmosphere that endangers the well-being and safety of another person could occur within an organization that prided itself on commitment to each other and to its community,' said Barron in a statement last week.

Police have charged 18 people over the death.

The group of young men, who were all brothers of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, are facing charges that range from involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault to reckless endangerment and tampering with evidence.

Two of the men, Brendan Young and Daniel Casey, were indicted on 200 counts by a grand jury, with Casey also racking up one additional charge for underage drinking on the night in question.

'This wasn't boys being boys,' Mr Piazza told CBS This Morning.

'This was murder of our son. They tortured him for 12 hours.

They let him suffer for 12 hours. He died a slow and painful death at the hands of these "men of principal," as they call it.'

In the family's Today show interview, Jim Piazza called the hazing event 'horrific'.

'What happened throughout the night was just careless disregard for human life. They basically treated our son as roadkill and a rag doll,' he said.

He said he also asked the doctors that if his son had been brought in earlier, if it would have made any difference, and they said it would have.

So now the family wants the fraternity brothers who let Tim lie unconscious for hours inside the fraternity to be held accountable.

Using security footage from inside the fraternity, which caught the events of the hazing on camera, a grand jury has indicted 18 fraternity brothers in Piazza's death. Eight of the brothers face felony charges that could land them behind bars for up to two decades.

Jim says he's fine with that punishment.

'I have a lifetime of absence for my son. I would be good with 20 years,' he said.

The Piazzas have also filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and are also working to intact change at the school so that other families don't have to suffer as they have as a result of a preventable death like Tim's.
The European Union on Tuesday set a June deadline for Poland and Hungary to start admitting their share of migrants from overstretched Italy and Greece or risk sanctions.

Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland have opposed an EU plan adopted in 2015 to take in 160,000 Syrian, Eritrean and Iraq asylum seekers from Greece and Italy.

'I call on Poland and Hungary who have not relocated a single person... to start doing so right now,' EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters.

The European Union has threatened to sanction Poland and Hungary if they refuse to resettle and agreed number of asylum seekers who landed in Greece and Italy after crossing the Med

So far almost 19,000 asylum seekers have been relocated to other EU states from Greece and Italy, but both Poland and Hungary are refusing to take a single application and face action

'If no action is taken by them before the next (Commission) report in June, the Commission will not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties and to open infringement procedures,' he said.

Avramopoulos said a total of 18,418 asylum seekers have been relocated to other EU countries from the two Mediterranean states.

Under so-called EU 'infringement proceedings' Brussels sends a letter to national governments to demand legal explanations over certain issues, before possibly referring them to the European Court of Justice.

EU states can eventually face stiff financial penalties if they fail to comply.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and other EU officials have long expressed frustration with the slow pace of relocation of asylum seekers aimed at tackling the worst migration crisis since World War II.

More than one million migrants have poured into the bloc in the last two years.

The relocation plan was launched to help people fleeing the mainly Muslim war-torn countries of Syria and Iraq as well as the repressive east African state of Eritrea.
A Second World War bomb was exploded in a city centre, creating a thunderous boom that could be heard for miles around.

Residents were evacuated after the unexploded German bomb, weighing 550lb, was found at a construction site near the Aston Expressway in Birmingham yesterday.

A bomb squad performed a controlled explosion on the shell, sending a giant plume of dark smoke into the air at about 3.45pm.

The unexploded German WW11 bomb, weighing 550lb, was found at a construction site near the Aston Expressway in Birmingham yesterday

People in Sutton Coldfield, some eight miles away, reported hearing the boom, reported the Birmingham Mail.

Preparation for the explosion caused chaos in the city, with trains to Birmingham New Street cancelled and 13 miles of the M6 closed in both directions to keep the route clear.

Experts covered the bomb with 250 tons of sand before blowing it up.

Evacuated residents cheered as they heard the bomb blast from the Alexander Stadium around two miles away.

Around a dozen Aston neighbours were outside the emergency shelter.

The discovery of the bomb (pictured) sparked a full-scale evacuation of surrounding houses and businesses

Adrian Adams said: 'Everybody's happy because it looks as if we're finally going home.

'It was a big relief hearing the bang. At this moment in time the most important things in the world are a decent cup of tea, a hot shower and probably bed.'

The explosion was so loud - it even set off burglar alarms around Aston.

Yesterday the discovery in Priory Road, Aston sparked a full-scale evacuation of surrounding houses and businesses.

Bomb disposal experts covered the bomb with 250 tons of sand before blowing it up

Police said 'hundreds of homes' were cleared as a result of the bomb drama, which also saw the Aston Expressway closed, along with many surrounding roads.

Sabrina Harley, 18, who lives near Aston railway station, said yesterday that she had received no official information about where she should spend the night after being evacuated.

She said: 'I've heard nothing. I heard about what was going on this morning but I don't know whether we are allowed back home tonight.'

Army bomb experts arrived at the site yesterday in a number of vehicles as they dealt with the bomb

The military brought a number of devices to the construction site where the bomb was found

Another evacuated resident said: 'When I left this afternoon I was told I would not be allowed back.

'The police officer who knocked the door told us to stay inside and to keep all our doors and windows shut.

'When I asked how long we would be evacuated for he said he didn't know. He said it could be a few hours or could be longer.'
One in five child deaths in an east London borough are occurring because the baby's parents are related, a report has found.

A meeting of Redbridge Council's health and wellbeing board heard 19 per cent of the 200-plus infant deaths between 2008 and 2016 were 'attributable to consanguineous relationships'  couples who are at least second cousins or more closely related.

The causes of death have been identified as 'genetic and congenital abnormalities', the board was told.

Redbridge Council heard a report has found 19 per cent of child deaths between 2008 and 2016 were directly due to parents being related (file picture)

Council health bosses were also told nine per cent of the children who died were from Pakistani families in the borough.

According to the Ilford Recorder, Gladys Xavier, chairwoman of the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), told the board 'educational programmes' had been rolled out among Asian communities in the area, while schools had been asked to 'put greater emphasis on genetics' so pupils understand the complications around interfamily marriages.

The paper reported Cllr Joyce Ryan told the meeting some of the communities were 'finding it difficult to accept' the educational programmes.

Other councillors said it was a 'sensitive area' and was being handled as such, with the council 'moving in the right direction'.

Redbridge Council, pictured, heard 'educational programmes' had been rolled out in the community and schools to warn people of the dangers of children from interfamily marriages

Meanwhile, the Recorder said the council's director of public health, Vicky Hobart, defended the statistics and said the report should not be 'misunderstood'.

According to the paper, she said: 'Consanguinity is very common in many cultures and the worry with something like this is that we are dealing with very small numbers.

'It is important to note trends but we should not read too much into it.'
Barbara Granger (pictured) had downed five glasses of wine when she began verbally abusing other passengers

A drunken businesswoman who called a young family 'f***ing s**ts' on a flight from Dubai and told crew to 'give me some f***ing alcohol' has been fined nearly 1,000.

Barbara Granger, 46, had downed five glasses of wine when she began verbally abusing other passengers sitting in the row in front of her.

Granger was travelling from Bangkok to London via Dubai last month when she lost her temper because she was not allowed to smoke or continue drinking.

She had sneaked a small bottle of wine onboard the flight on April 26 which was confiscated by airline staff, but she stole it back during the flight.

Staff on the Emirates flight were also forced to confiscate the businesswoman's E-cigarette as she kept smoking.

Cabin crew member Mr S Ismail was told to 'f*** off and give me some f***ing alcohol' during the seven-hour flight.

At Uxbridge Magistrates today, Granger fought back tears pleaded guilty to displaying abusive and threatening behaviour towards airline staff.

Granger, who runs a leather handbag company, was ordered to pay more than 1,000 in fines and costs but avoided jail.

Fiona Willis, prosecuting, said: 'She had been warned not to drink or smoke her E-cigarette while on board.

'Two hours into the flight the purser Mr Ismail approached her and said she could not have any alcohol and he was told to 'f*** off and give me some f***ing alcohol'.

'Towards a young family in front she said 'f**king a***holes, f***ing shits in front'.

'The E-cigarette was also taken off her and she was reportedly abusive towards staff.

'Ms Granger had a small bottle of wine and it was confiscated but she took it back again.

'She had drunk three glasses of mine from Bangkok to Dubai and had two more in the airport lounge, so five glasses in total.

'Police requested she leave the aircraft and in interview said she had been travelling for a long time.

'She said she had slept most of the way and does not remember any of her behaviour.'

In mitigation James Foster claimed Granger was 'extremely remorseful' and had moved to Thailand after her first partner had died of cancer five years ago.

He added it was 'fortunate' that Granger was not restrained and said she had taken a sleeping tablet on the flight and was intoxicated.

Ms Granger was fined 925, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of 92.50 and costs of 85

Mr Foster said: 'Ms Granger is extremely remorseful and has been crying in consultation, she was absolutely petrified as to what was going to happen to her.

'She lived in the UK for many years and had a company that made leather handbags with her partner.

'Sadly he died of cancer five years ago and she moved abroad to try and escape these difficulties.

'More recently she moved to Thailand and the reason for this flight is that she was intending on moving back with her new partner and they were trying to find a property.

'She had been flying for a long time from Bangkok to Dubai and from Dubai to Heathrow and had a sleeping tablet and was intoxicated.

'Fortunately the flight was not diverted at all and she did not have to be restrained.

'She had slept for the first hour or two and for the last she was fine, this is a part in the middle of the flight.

'She has had to cancel her flight back and she has been living with her partner, this is the address she has provided.

'Ms Granger is in receipt of a pension, she is surviving on 1,500 a month.'

Uxbridge Magistrates ordered Granger to pay a total of 1,102 and said she was 'lucky' they were being lenient.

Chairwoman of the bench Mrs Anuja Kania said: 'The offence that you are charged with is very serious.

'It could have turned into a very dangerous situation not just for yourself but for the other passengers and crew.

'You are very lucky today, this this happened again you can be in no doubt what the consequences will be.

'It went on for a very long time and it was potentially a very dangerous situation in a confined space.'

Ms Granger was fined 925, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of 92.50 and costs of 85.
Pascal Darmon died from his wounds after being attacked by an unnamed man

The former president of Rouen Football Club has been stabbed to death in the centre of the French city.

Pascal Darmon, who now runs a wine business, died from his wounds after being attacked by an unnamed man.

Police at the scene in Rue Alsace-Lorraine said there was 'no known motive' and that the alleged perpetrator was arrested soon afterwards.

'He tried to escape, and fled to a nearby apartment, but was soon taken in to custody,' said an investigating source.

The murder took place in the mid-afternoon on Tuesday, and led to dozens of police and soldiers arriving at the scene.

The suspect, an unnamed male in his 30s, locked himself in a flat opposite the wine and restaurant, and was finally arrested unhurt at 6.40pm.

Police found a handgun at the scene of the murder, but it had not been discharged, said the judicial source.

More than 20 police cars and military vans have cordoned off a large area of the city

The police were deployed near the city's Saint Mark's Square and Alsace-Lorraine Street, where the incident took place

He added that the principal theory being looked at in the initial investigation was a 'settling of scores'.

More than 20 police cars and military vans cordoned off a large area of the city, around 50km north of Paris.

The police were deployed near the city's Saint Mark's Square and Alsace-Lorraine Street, where the incident took place.

Paying tribute to Mr Darmon this evening, Valerie Fourneyron, the former mayor of Rouen and former sports minister of Francois Hollande, expressed his 'immense sadness' to learn of the 'assassination' of the former president of FC Rouen.

Mr Darmon, 55, was president of the club from 2005 to 2012.

His time at the club was always fraught with legal difficulties and he faced a criminal investigation over financial irregularities after leaving the club.

In 2016, two men stabbed a priest to death in Rouen after taking churchgoers hostage.

The attackers were found to be carrying fake explosives when they were shot dead by police.

The aggressor allegedly attacked the former president of Rouen football team in the Rue Alsace-Lorraine, local media reported
Campaign chief: Andrew Murray (pictured) has been drafted in to mastermind Jeremby Coryn's bid for Number 10

The Communist firebrand recruited by Jeremy Corbyn to mastermind Labour's chaotic election campaign was once accused of supporting Iraqi insurgent attacks on British troops, MailOnline can reveal.

Andrew Murray also faced claims he defended Islamic militants who beheaded kidnapped British civil engineer Ken Bigley in Baghdad in 2004.

Murray was chairman of controversial lobby group Stop The War Coalition when it drew up a statement saying Iraqi militants should use 'whatever means necessary' against British forces in the country.

The draft, emailed to members in the same month that married 62-year-old Mr Bigley was murdered, was widely interpreted to condone attacks on British servicemen and civilians.

Two Labour MPs attacked the anti-war group and said their words would lead to 'the murder of more people such as Mr Bigly, as well as hundreds of ordinary Iraqis'.

The MPs tabled a Commons motion urging Stop The War Coalition to 'disavow the outrageous words which they said would only encourage those who use physical force in Iraq'.

The radical group denied the claims and said the statement had been removed from the letter that was finally sent out.

Mr Murray's Stop the War denied supporting the killing of Mr Bigly and said the reference to Islamic insurgents using 'whatever means necessary' had been redacted.

Mr Corbyn and a number of other MPs hit back by tabling a counter motion praising the radical group's activism.

Controversy: Murray, chair of the Stop The War Coalition, is pictured delivering a letter to the Conservative Party Headquarters during the group's emergency protest on December 1, 2015

Long shot: Corbyn has brought privately educated communist firebrand Murray in to salvage the Labour party's chaotic election campaign

The revelations lift the lid on Mr Murray's background and his close links with Mr Corbyn, which have come under intense scrutiny since he was named as the mastermind of Labour's election campaign.

Privately educated Mr Murray, 58, also once called for Nato to be 'defeated' when he spoke at a Europeans Against Nato rally in Strasbourg in 2009, MailOnline has learnt.

He said: 'Our desire to defeat Nato demands that we extend the hand of sympathy and solidarity to those who are suffering from Nato's policy of aggression and imperialism.'

It comes after Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said that Corbyn had changed his mind about supporting Nato after previously branding it a 'danger to world peace'..

Mr Murray also caused outrage after he condemned the Charlie Hebdo Paris terror attack  but when on to described it as 'minute' compared to historic imperialism.

He has spoken out in support of mass murdering dictator Joseph Stalin, writing an article asking 'why hack propagandists abominate the name of Stalin beyond all others.'

When questioned about Mr Murray's views, Jeremy Corbyn said: 'I don't believe that Andrew is anything other than a Democratic Socialist and member of the Labour Party like me.'

A Labour spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We don't comment on staffing matters.' The Stop The War Coalition declined to comment.

Communist: Former Communist Party member Murray was chair of Stop The War Coalition in 2004 when it drafted an email seemingly supporting Iraqi insurgent attacks on British troops

Mr Corbyn and Mr Murray have been close friends and colleagues in the Stop The War Coalition for years. Both have acted as Chair of the radical group, with Mr Murray stepping in when Mr Corbyn stood down in 2011 to become Labour leader.

Like Mr Corbyn  who was privately educated and brought up in a seven-bedroom manor house  Mr Murray enjoyed a privileged upbringing.

Born into a prominent private banking family, he is descended from the Earl of Perth. His grandfather was Lord Rankeillour, a baronet and Tory MP, while his father, a stockbroker and banker, held the honorific title 'Slains Pursuivant of Arms', one of Scotland's most coveted heraldic offices.

His mother, Barbara, was said to be descended from the Spanish kings of Navarre.

Mr Murray's full title is Andrew Drummond-Murray of Mastrick. His father was a member of the Sacred Military Constantin Order of St George, the Venerable Order of St john and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Campaigner: Mr Murray, pictured at a Stop the War demo at the BBC in 2015, once called for Nato to be 'defeated' when he spoke at a Europeans Against Nato rally in Strasbourg

After leaving the private Roman Catholic Worth School in Sussex, where fees are now 32,000 a year, he joined the Communist Party at the age of 18, at the height of the Cold War.

He remained a member for 40 years  only resigning last year before being appointed to lead Labour's general election campaign.

Mr Murray took a job at the Soviet State-owned Novosti news agency and went on to work at the Morning Star Communist newspaper.

His first wife was academic Susan Michie, daughter of Dame Anne McLaren, whose father was Liberal peer Lord Aberconway. They had three children.

After the couple divorced in 1997, he married Anna Kruthoffer, a primary school business manager. They live in London.
A 'loud and aggressive' family fight raged in the hours leading up to the slaughter of a wealthy South African couple and their son in their bedrooms, a court has heard.

The row between 'male voices' lasted into the early hours of the morning, according to a neighbour at the secure estate where the frenzied axe attack took place.

Henri Van Breda, 22, denies murdering his parents and older brother and leaving his schoolgirl sister for dead during the shocking onslaught two years ago. He stands to inherit a share of the family's fortune if he is cleared of the bloodbath.

Neighbour Stephanie Op't Hof, pictured, claimed she heard rowing male voices at the van Breda home in Cape Town on the night of the triple murder two years ago

Ms Op't Hof, pictured, said she had jumped up in fright having heard the argument

Henri van Breda is accused of murdering his parents and elder brother as well as attacking his younger sister Marli with an axe and leaving her for dead during the attack two years ago

Van Breda, pictured, denies killing his family and insists and intruder broke into their home

Van Breda and his family spent seven years living in Australia before returning to their native South Africa.

Today, interior decorator Stephanie Op't Hof described how she 'jumped up in 'fright' as shouting broke out in the Van Bredas' house across the road on the exclusive De Zalze estate, an hour outside Cape Town.

'It was 10pm, it was so loud I got a fright and jumped up to see where it came from. It was loud men's voices,' the mother-of-two told the court hearing Van Breda's murder trial.

The 'aggressive' row was still raging when Mrs Op't Hof went to bed at midnight, she said.

Today, the accused's lawyer suggested to the neighbour, who was renting her property at Goske Street on the sought-after estate, that she had in fact heard Van Breda, his brother and father loudly playing the film Star Trek II using a powerful new sound system.

South African police claim van Breda used this axe to kill his family and attack his sister

The film lasted just over two hours and fitted the timeline that she had given to police, he suggested.

Within an hour or two of the heated exchange, millionaire businessman Martin Van Breda, his wife Teresa, 54, and son Rudi, 21, were dead after sustaining multiple head injuries with a 9lb axe, allegedly wielded by Van Breda, then 19. His sister, Marli, was lucky to survive her appalling injuries, which included a slashed jugular vein.

Mrs Op't Hof added, 'I my wildest dreams I could not have imagined what happened that night. I am not saying that the noises led to the murder, I am only here to say what I heard.'

Prosecutors say Henri (left) murdered father Martin (right), mother Teresa (front right), brother Rudi (centre) and tried to kill sister Marli (front left)

According to Van Breda's version of the gruesome slaying of his loved ones in January 2015, they were all set upon by a masked intruder, as he watched helpless through a crack in the bathroom door.

Then 19, he suffered only minor injuries as he single-handedly disarmed the ruthless killer, before chasing him out of the house, he claims.

But the witness was insistent about what she heard.

'My house has a lot of glass and windows on the front and there were no other barriers to break sound. I am absolutely certain the sounds were coming from the van Breda household. I could hear very clearly with my ears that that is where the loud fighting sounds were coming from,' she told the court.

She also revealed that a sound expert had come to the winelands estate to test the reach of noise from the Van Bredas' home at 12 Goske Street and 'it proved very similar'.

Marli van Breda, pictured, survived the attack having been left for dead by the killer

Van Breda denies killing his parents, Martin and Teresa, and brother Rudi in the frenzied bedroom attack and leaving his sister for dead.

The former physics student waited more than four hours after he claims the killer fled the house before he raised the alarm. In a statement to the court he said it was because he had only recently moved back to South Africa from Australia and didn't know the number for the emergency services.

Several witnesses have testified that a list of emergency contacts 'for the kids' was stuck to the fridge in the family's kitchen. Instead he phoned and sent a whatsapp message to a friend, but she failed to answer him.

Today, the operator who took the 7am call from Henri, began to give evidence about their exchange on the phone, saying that she initially believed it was a 'hoax call'.

She described him sounding 'hesitant' on the phone and stifling what she thought 'sounded to me like a giggle'.

A recording of the phone call will be played by prosecutor Susan Galloway in court tomorrow.

As the long-awaited trial enters its third week, cracks are beginning to show in the picture of the attractive family whose social media feeds portrayed them as a close-knit unit whose vast wealth enabled them to indulge their shared passions for travel and adventure.

Last week, the ex-boyfriend of Marli, 16, described Mr Van Breda as a 'controlling' father who had reduced his daughter to tears over dinner when he raised the subject of her weight.

Marli is listed to give evidence for the prosecution at her older brother's trial, although she reportedly remembers little about the murders.

Van Breda denies three counts of murder, one of attempted murder and perverting the course of justice.
Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is selling his suburban Washington, D.C. home

Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is selling his suburban Washington, D.C. home for $2.2million.

Carlson, who just took over ousted Bill O'Reilly's prime-time 8pm slot on the network, listed the seven bedroom home located along the Potomac River.

The Colonial style abode in the Kent neighborhood of the nation's capital features five bathrooms and one half bath.

The 4,784-square-foot property was recently renovated and has a new kitchen that opens up to a spacious den.

Built on a 9,000-square-foot lot, Carlson's home includes a sunroom, living room, dining room and has a flagstone walkway that is flanked by beautiful shrubs.

The 47-year-old political commentator purchased the residence in 2011 for $2million with his wife Susan, as they have four children together and likely needed the space for the youngsters.

Carlson, who just took over ousted Bill O'Reilly's prime-time 8pm slot on the network, listed the seven bedroom residence (above) located along the Potomac River for $2.2million

The 4,784-square-foot abode was recently renovated and has a new kitchen that opens up to the spacious den. Carlson purchased the residence in 2011 for $2million with his wife Susan, as they have four children together and likely needed the space for the youngsters.

It was announced earlier this month that Carlson signed a two-book deal with Threshold Editions that's worth eight figures.

It's unclear what the books by Carlson will be about, but numerous publishers had expressed interest in him since his show moved into the 8pm time slot on the network thanks to the departures of O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly.

Threshold, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster, has also released books by President Donald Trump and former Vice President Dick Cheney among others.

'I have long admired the Threshold list and am proud to be published alongside so many of my favorite authors,' Carlson said in a statement.

Carlson, who turns 48 later this month, is host of Fox's 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' founder of the conservative online publication The Daily Caller and author of 'Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News,' which came out in 2003.
Israel, the United States' closest ally in the Middle East, was the source of highly classified information that President Trump passed to top Russian officials in the White House.

Israel wouldn't comment on the report in the Times, which the paper sourced to a current and former intelligence official.

But it immediately threw attention on a key Middle East ally, with whom Trump has invoked an 'unbreakable bond.'

Former Mossad director Danny Yatom told The Jerusalem Post this could be a 'grave violation' of intelligence sharing protocol if it's true and could l'lead to harm to the source.'

'We will think twice before conveying very sensitive information,' said Yatom.

Asked how the U.S. government can move on after the president's disclosure to the Russians, Yatom said, 'It can be repaired by asking again the Americans not to do it, not to convey such a nature of information, which is very sensitive and probably after a short period of time, the relations will be recovered, unless the phenomena of conveying information to a third party will continue.'

The Israeli government considers it to be facing an existential threat in Iran, with whom Russia maintains historic ties. Israeli officials are already expressing concern that information Israel passed on to the U.S. could somehow find its way back to Iran.

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U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) shake hands following a joint news conference at the East Room of the White House February 15, 2017 in Washington

There were reports Monday that the information came from a Middle Eastern ally. The information reportedly pertained to an ISIS-driven bomb-making technique.

Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, said in a statement that: 'Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.'

His statement provided a lifeline to the embattled White House, which has tried to bat away concerns that Trump may have inadvertently given away sources and methods by passing on the information.

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Trump's disclosure was 'wholly appropriate,' and did not reveal sources and methods. Asked whether Trump revealed the city in Syria where the information came from, he said most ISIS strongholds are well known to media consumers.

Donald J. Trump and Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States, attended the Wharton Club's 44th Annual Wharton Award Dinner at the Park Hyatt Washington hotel on October 22, 2014 in Washington. Dermer said in a statement 'Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States'

LET'S TALK: David Friedman, (R) the new United States Ambassador to Israel, with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin (L) in the president's Jerusalem residence as Friedman presents his credentials on 16 May 2017

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Trump has exhibited a special bond with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Trump's inveighing against the Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal matched up with Netnyahu's view.

Dermer told AIPAC this spring: 'For the first time in many years, perhaps even many decades, there is no daylight between our two governments.'

At an off-camera briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said he couldn't comment on the report on Israel, which maintains its heralded Mossad spy organization.

'I'm obviously pleased to see Ambassador Dermer's comment,' said Spicer.

'We appreciate the relationship that we have with Israel and appreciate the exchange of information that we have with them,' he added, without commenting further.

President Trump defended himself against an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday morning after a report said he shared 'highly classified' information with the Russians about ISIS operations that came from a US ally.

'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism,' Trump said in two tweets.

ALL SMILES: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US President Donald Trump, and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak (L-R) talking during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House. Alexander Shcherbak/TASS

ALL (WELL, SOME OF) THE PRESIDENT'S LEAKS The Trump administration has found itself hamstrung by a series of high-profile leaks to reporters. This week's Washington Post story describing the president sharing allegedly classified Israeli intelligence with Russian diplomats is only the latest example. Some of the resulting news stories put the White House in full-blown spin mode, while others have turned out to be inauthentic. January 25: The New York Times described a leaked draft of an executive order that would reopen CIA 'black site' prisons where terror suspects could be interrogated. Sean Spicer later said it was 'not a White House document,' and he had 'no idea where it came from.' February 2: News reports describe an angry Trump berating Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee resettlement deal negotiated by the Obama administration. February 2: The Associated Press published an excerpt of a leaked transcript of a call between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in which Trump tells him he could send American troops to the border to deal with 'bad hombres down there.' February 5: The Times spoke to West Wing aides who revealed that they couldn't figure out how to work the light switches in the White House's Cabinet Room  and had to work in the dark as a result. February 9: The Washington Post leaned on classified information to report that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had discussed the status of U.S. sanctions against Russia during secret meetings in December with Moscow's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. February 13: The Post reported that Sally Yates, dureing the days before she was removed from her post as acting attorney general, warned the Trump White House's top lawyer that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his Kislyak contacts. February 14: The New York Times reported that Flynn was questioned by the FBI only a few days into his White House tenure, and that agents came away from the meeting believing he hadn't told them the whole truth about his Kislyak meetings. February 17: The Associated Press publishes an 11-page Homeland Security Department memo that proposed using 100,000 National Guard troops to police the southern U.S. border. (The White House said it was not an official document.) April 8: White House staffers dished dirt to the Post about a rapprochement between warring senior aides Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon  brokered by CHief of Staff Reince Priebus. May 15: The Post reported, based on leaks from 'current and former U.S. officials,' that the president revealed 'highly classified' information about the ISIS terror army to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, upsetting a U.S. ally that had been the source of intelligence Trump handed over willingly. The White House insisted that none of the people in the room with Trump and the Russians saw the information exchange that way. May 16: The Times revealed, based on another leak, that it was Israel that had provided the intel in the first place. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. reaffirmed his country's willingness to work with Washington in the future. Advertisement

The disclosure ensures that Trump will have plenty to discuss when he visits Israel, where Trump will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pray at the Western Wall.

National security advisor H.R. McMaster, asked Tuesday sked if Trump thinks the wall is part of Israel, responded: 'That sounds like a policy decision.'

Netanyahu reportedly asked to join Trump as he prayed at the wall, but a U.S. official told him the site is 'not your territory,' the Associated Press reported, citing on reports out of Israel.

An Israeli intelligence officer told Buzzfeed News the information making its way to Russia represented Israel's 'worst fears confirmed.'

'We have an arrangement with America which is unique to the world of intelligence sharing. We do not have this relationship with any other country,' said the intelligence officer.

'There is a special understanding of security cooperation between our countries,' the officer continued. 'To know that this intelligence is shared with others, without our prior knowledge? That is, for us, our worst fears confirmed.'

The publication had reported in January about Israel's concerns Trump would pass information to the Russians, interviewing the same officer at the time.

'There has to be trust for this sort of arrangement. I cannot speak for Israel's entire security apparatus, but I would not trust a partner who shared intelligence without coordinating it with us first,' the officer concluded.
For the second time in three months, a Georgia man has landed behind bars over a violent family dispute involving pork chops.

Terry Ball, 29, of Athens, was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly violating a family violence bond order after police say he became enraged because someone ate his pork chop, leaving him to eat noodles.

In late February, Ball was arrested for allegedly hurling a pork chop at his 60-year-old mother and physically assaulting her because she failed to buy him cigarettes.

Back in the clink: Terry Ball, 29, of Athens, Georgia, was arrested on May 10 for allegedly getting into a fight with his family over a pork chop - three months after throwing one at his mother

Ball's mother called police to her home on Simmons Street (pictured) saying her son was trying to fight everyone

Ball was charged with simple battery and a probation violation stemming from an earlier incident.

On Wednesday, Bills mother summoned police to their home in the 100 block of Simmons Street in Athens just before 3am, saying that her son was trying to fight everyone in the house, reported the station WAGA.

According to a police report, when officers arrived at the scene, they found kitchen utensils scattered across the floor.

Ball was arrested in February on a charge of simple assault in connection to the attack on his mother

An officer observed that Ball was incoherent, and at one point he allegedly confided in the cop that he was searching for his pot.

On February 20, Ball was eating a pork chop at his home in Athens when he got angry at his mother over the cigarettes.

Police said at the time the man hurled his dinner at the woman before pushing and headbutting her.

A police report obtained by OnlineAthens.com said that Ball's father jumped on top of his son and restrained him until police showed up.

He had already been sentenced to 12 months' probation over a charge of simple battery that had been lodged six months earlier, the report said.

In that case, he was accused of striking a man's face for no apparent reason while he was intoxicated, the newspaper reported.
A horrified father saw his daughter snatched right before his eyes last night, when a man stole his car with the child inside.

Six-year-old Beatrice Felicia had accompanied her father to what they believed was a meeting to sell the family car at around 6.30pm yesterday.

But the girls distraught father instead watched the prospective buyer jump into his Volkswagen in Leyton, East London, and drive away with Beatrice still sitting in the back seat.

The incident prompted a city-wide hunt by police which lasted nearly three hours. Beatrice was eventually found safe and well in the local area just after 9pm.

Police said no arrests had yet been made and the suspect was still at large last night.

Beatrice Felicia, six, of Leyton, London, went missing after a car she was a passenger in was stolen from her father

Although it is understood the man intended to steal the car, it is believed that he did not realise the sellers daughter was sitting in the back.

It is thought the youngster, who is of Romanian origin, was abandoned when he realised she was there. Officers said she was found by her grandmother.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman added: At this stage it is not known how and where Beatrice got out of the car, nor the exact location where she was seen by her grandmother.

Neither Beatrice nor her grandmother speak English. They will be spoken to by police officers in due course.

Beatrices father, who was not identified last night, had arranged to meet the potential buyer near a Jet petrol station on Leyton High Road, around two miles north of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

A staff member at the garage said: I remember the daddy was crying outside, but I didnt see the girl and I didnt see the kidnapper. He added that police officers were looking at CCTV footage captured on the premises.

The suspect was described as Asian and in his 30s, with short dark hair and a dark beard.

The six-year-old was in her father's brown Volkswagen Passat in Leyton High Road, pictured, when it was taken by an Asian man in his 30s

He was dressed in a dark jacket with a white fur lining on the hood and green Nike trainers.

Police were last night still searching for the car  a six-year-old brown Volkswagen Passat.

After Beatrice was taken it was spotted driving towards Chadwell Heath, in the London Borough of Redbridge.

Detectives issued an emergency appeal to find the youngster, who was wearing a pink flowery top and grey leggings. The post was widely shared on social media sites such as Facebook, where one user wrote: How awful for that little girl who is in the stolen car!

Another user, on Twitter, added: Good lord. I hope shes found safe and unharmed.

I cant imagine the emotional mess and panic the parents must be experiencing. Officers last night logged the cars details with their automatic number plate recognition cameras  meaning that if it is spotted police will be alerted. They can then move quickly to intercept the vehicle.

The police spokesman added: There have not been any arrests and inquiries continue.
Florida's lieutenant governor joined hunters paid by the state to stalk and shoot invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades.

South Florida Water Management District spokesman Randy Smith says Lt Gov Carlos Lopez Cantera went hunting Monday night with one of 25 hunters hired to kill pythons on district property.

Smith says Tom Rahill and Cantera brought in a 15-foot-4-inch python.

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Florida's Lt Gov Carlos Lopez Cantera (second from left) joined hunters paid by the state to stalk and shoot invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades

South Florida Water Management District spokesman Randy Smith says Cantera (pictured) went hunting Monday night with one of 25 hunters hired to kill pythons on district property. Smith says Tom Rahill and Cantera brought in a 15-foot-4-inch python (pictured)

Cantera's (center) python marks the 96th reptile that has been caught and killed by the district's hunters since March 25. Tom Rahill (left) leads the 'Swamp Apes' program taking veterans on hunts to remove invasive animals from the Everglades

It was the 96th python caught by the district's hunters since March 25. Rahill leads the 'Swamp Apes' program taking veterans on hunts to remove invasive animals from the Everglades.

He took Cantera hunting along a canal in western Miami-Dade County. The district is paying $8.10 an hour in a python-killing pilot program ending June 1.

Florida's wildlife agency also is hiring contractors to remove pythons from specific areas.

The program is designed to locate and remove invasive Burmese and Northern African pythons on district properties and rights-of-way in Miami-Dade County.

Each participant in the program will receive an additional on-the-spot payment of $50 for each python measuring up to four feet plus and an extra $25 for each foot measured above four feet.

An 8-foot python would pay out $150. An additional $100 will be paid to participants for each eliminated python found guarding 'nests' with eggs.

A total of 36 pythons measuring between seven and eight feet have been killed since March.

The program is designed to locate and remove invasive Burmese and Northern African pythons on District properties and rights-of-way in Miami-Dade County. This graph shows the increasing number of pythons killed since March 25. A total of 96 have been killed
Viktoria Tautz, 34, was photographed outside the Old Bailey, where she is on trial after denying manslaughter

A Hungarian nanny accused of shaking a 10-month-old baby to death screamed 'help, help, help' when she ran into the street with the boy in her arms, a court heard today.

Viktoria Tautz, 35, who was paid just 3.60 an hour, is alleged to have 'snapped' and lost her temper with little Joshua Paul just minutes after his mother left for work.

Joshua suffered severe head injuries and died two days later at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London in the arms of his parents Nirmal and Pearl Vijayan.

Neighbour Senil Mustafa said she went over to the house in Haringey, London, after hearing Tautz screaming 'help, help, help' at around 9am on August 29, 2014.

Ms Mustafa said the baby still appeared to be breathing slightly although his eyes were 'rolling around'.

She told the court her daughter Ganima dialled 999 and relayed instructions to Tautz to put the baby on the floor and give CPR.

Ms Mustafa: 'She applied massage on her, she was breathing air into the baby's lungs.'

She claimed that Tautz told her: 'We were playing on the bed and the baby started crying and then stopped breathing.'

Jurors heard Ms Mustafa's daughter Ganima later told a police community support officer that she saw Tautz explaining how the baby was lying down crying before it suddenly 'went unconscious'.

PCSO Stefanie Gibbs told jurors: 'The nanny said she picked it up and came outside screaming and shaking the baby to try and bring it round.'

The childminder (pictured) told medics Joshua had been crying and that he 'shook twice' when she picked him up before he went floppy and stopped breathing

The Old Bailey heard Joshua was born three months premature with two holes in his heart but by the time of his death was crawling and beginning to pull himself up to stand.

Tautz, who had attended courses in childcare and had provided a reference from a previous employer, was paid to look after Joshua between 8am and 5.30pm but was not allowed to take him out of the house.

When Joshua's mother left for work at 8.40am on 29 August 2014, the boy was 'happy and playing' after breakfast.

Tautz, a student who was employed through an agency, later told police that she had played a game of 'horsey' with the baby on her knee before putting him in his cot.

Tautz, who lives in Barnet, north London, will be assisted during her trial at the Old Bailey by a Hungarian translator. She denies one count of manslaughter

She claimed that she was in the room doing some sewing when Joshua suddenly burst out crying and his face went red.

Tautz said that when she picked him up he went floppy and stopped breathing so she turned Joshua over to pat his back.

She confirmed that while Joshua was in her care he didn't fall, bang his head or shake his head.

Zoe Johnson QC ,prosecuting, said experts had concluded Joshua died 'as a result of being shaken or shaking accompanied by some sort of injury to his head.'

She told jurors: 'On that day, for whatever reason, something snapped in the defendant and for a short while she lost her temper with Joshua and assaulted him causing all those injuries.'

Tautz, of Barnet, north London, denies one count of manslaughter.

The trial continues.
Dr Alan Keightley was head of religious studies at a West Midlands sixth-form college when he began writing to Ian Brady in 1992 at the suggestion of the mother of his youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. For years, he visited Brady in prison every month, spoke to him on the phone every day and received hundreds of letters from him.

Dr Keightley built up a detailed archive of material he has now turned into a biography of Brady that provides a disturbing and unique insight into the man himself  and the nature of evil.

My first meeting with Moors murderer Ian Brady was chilling. He was tall and sinister, wearing a black polo neck sweater, blue jeans and dark glasses.

As he towered over me, I saw myself reflected in the lenses  and realised that, in their dying moments, this must have been the last view his young victims had of him.

I had come to see him in Ashworth Hospital, a high security psychiatric unit, one Sunday afternoon in 1994, 28 years after his conviction  along with his girlfriend Myra Hindley  for multiple murder.

Myra Hindley was as ruthless as I was, Ian Brady claims in chilling beyond-the-grave confessions revealed today

By then I had been corresponding with him for two years. During that first meeting he demonstrated how easy it was to kill someone. Strangulation was best, he told me: simple, silent and quick. He claimed he could do this with one hand.

I asked the question that continues to puzzle and appal us all, even now, more than half a century after his evil deeds, he is dead.

Why children? I demanded to know. He answered immediately, not batting an eyelid: Existential exercises.

Brady was an evil, sadistic psychopath who considered himself an existentialist, in that he believed it was entirely up to him as an individual to live in whatever manner he chose. He was also a nihilist who thought that life was meaningless, the universe had no purpose, and religion was a delusion.

Five young people died in horrible circumstances in and around Manchester between July 1963 and October 1965, their parents were put through unspeakable anguish, and all, it seemed, because of this mans perverted philosophical view of the world.

Brady, and his co-accused Myra Hindley (pictured together) murdered five children in the 1960s and the bodies of four of his victims have been found. The couple became infatuated with Nazis and sadism after getting together at a chemical firm

I was to explore his reasons further as I got to know Brady in visits over the following years. I quickly realised that he was intellectually gifted and very widely read. He was clearly one of the most articulate of killers  and all the more fascinating and dreadful for it.

At Ashworth, he spent his daily life alone in his room, refusing to talk to staff or inmates, whom he considered beneath him.

When I came, he let fly, and I was blasted non-stop as he expounded his nihilistic view that this is a world without meaning or morality  a world in which men like him can do as they please.

Our conversations roamed over religion, philosophy and literature. We talked in depth about Dostoevsky, Sartre and Shakespeare. Through all this, I came to follow his perverted thinking and his strange logic.

As he spoke and his grey eyes penetrated the fog from the French cigarettes he constantly smoked, there was something incandescently evil about him. But I never for one moment thought I was speaking with a madman. He didnt feel he was insane either.

Brady (pictured with Myra Hindley and her younger sister Maureen) was a twisted individual who became obsessed with cruelty and torture

The morons out there are the ones who are mad, he told me contemptuously. People who live conventional, dull, boring lives.

If there was a single word that summed him up, it would be contempt  my contempt for everyone who breathed, as he once put it: contempt for religion, authority, respectability, convention. Contempt even for himself. One of the first stories he told me about himself was of going to the cinema as a youth in the Fifties and pushing his way out during the final credits of the film to avoid having to stand for the national anthem (which was the tradition back then).

A man in the aisle stood in my way as the anthem began. In a rage, I lifted him from the ground and threw him between the seats amongst the litter. I stared at him, waiting for any justifiable excuse to murder him. On this occasion, Brady passed on the opportunity to kill. Soon, though, he would not need an excuse. He would kill simply because he wanted to and he could.

I was first in touch with Ian Brady in 1992, when I was head of religious studies at a sixth-form college in the West Midlands. The mother of Lesley Ann Downey  one of the victims  came to speak to my students about her inability to forgive.

It was she who suggested that I contact her daughters murderer. I wrote to him, and eventually the man whose name was enough to induce total revulsion in people, agreed to meet me.

I came to be a regular visitor of his; almost the only one apart from the late Lord Longford.

Sketch of Brady in 2013 when he appealed against being held in a secure unit. He said he should be returned to a normal prison and had killed for the 'existential experience'

I made monthly, five-hour visits and we talked on the phone every day. He also wrote fortnightly letters to me  often marked DESTROY in red block capitals, a demand I only sometimes complied with. He opened up to me in a way he never would to policemen, psychologists or journalists. Unlike Hindley, who sought high-profile supporters and was constantly campaigning to be released on parole, he accepted that he would never again be a free man. He would live and die in prison.

He bequeathed all of his property to me. His possessions held in store at Ashworth were delivered to me long ago, including his vast number of books, each one with his scribbled comments in the margins.

Now that he is dead, I will receive his cell property. I probably got to know him better than anyone else still alive, yet I have to recognise that what he told me may not be the absolute truth. But it is the truth as he saw it. This is therefore the first and only account of the Moors story told in detail by Brady himself.

It has never been revealed or published before.

Brady and Hindley murdered at least two of their victims at this 'house of horrors' in Hyde, west of Manchester

As a young man, Ian Brady was a delinquent and a petty thief with a very high opinion of himself. He drank to excess, went round in a gang, got into fights and dreamed of becoming a bank robber. But as a criminal, he was small beer.

Indeed, the offence for which, at the age of 17, he was arrested and jailed  the theft of some lead  he probably did not commit but confessed to in ignorance and error.

The injustice, he told me, proved to be a watershed in his life.

I vowed vengeance. If they wanted me to be a criminal, then I said to myself that Id be a proper one.

But what took his criminal activities into a new dimension  becoming one of Britains most notorious murderers of all time and a symbol of out-and-out evil  was when the peroxide blonde Myra Hindley came into his life. Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, aged 60, always maintained that she had been manipulated by Brady into murder.

This infuriated Brady and he never wavered in his insistence to me that she had been not only a willing partner in all their dreadful deeds but one who, as we shall see, surprised even him with her sheer ruthlessness and enjoyment of killing.

Their meeting, he told me, was like the arc of electricity between two electrodes  shades of Frankenstein.

When we were together, there was a third entity, an intoxicating, unified force, something intangible that possessed a power beyond both of us.

He had, he explained as he told me about her, made good use of his two years in Borstal, a juvenile prison camp, immersing himself in the works of authors such as Camus and Dostoevsky who would later have such an impact on his thinking, sowing the seeds of what would come to be his obsessive belief that life had no meaning.

But he also read up on accountancy  which meant that, after his release, he was able to talk his way into a job as a stock controller at Millwards in Gorton, Manchester, the Lancashire distributor for the massive Imperial Chemical Industries, ICI.

It was a way of appearing respectable while he and two mates were planning and carrying out robberies. The thieving was so successful that he was able to buy himself some sharp clothes and a motorbike.

Six months after he started there, Hindley arrived to work in the same office. He was indifferent to her at first. He dictated letters, she typed them.

But Hindley fancied Brady from the moment she first saw him. He was tall, good-looking and shy. There was  as she wrote in a piece for the Guardian in 1995  an immediate and fatal attraction, although I had no inkling then of just how fatal it would turn out to be.

Ian Brady (pictured wearing the glasses) visited the moors in 1986 and was asked to tell police where he had buried the body of murder victim Keith Bennett

It took her a whole year to get him interested. When they finally went on their first date, it was to the cinema, though the film they saw was not Judgment At Nuremberg, about the trial of the Nazis, as has often been claimed, but, surprisingly, King Of Kings, the epic about the life of Christ.

He walked her home and at the end of the street they kissed. His hands were everywhere. She was wearing a girdle. He told her he didnt like them because they accumulated stale sweat. She never wore one again.

The following evening was Christmas Eve and Ian took Myra to see another film, El Cid. He then started to walk her home  but they stopped on the way to go into a church where Midnight Mass was being celebrated, and sat in empty pews at the back.

Brady was curious but soon reassured himself of his contempt for organised religion and  as if to prove it  urinated against the church wall as they left.

They walked to her home in Bannock Street, and he described to me what happened next: Myra asked me in. There was just her grandmother asleep upstairs.

I was accepted on the spot by a ginger-haired brown dog, Lassie, who gave us an excited welcome as we stepped into the living room through the front door.

Myra and I sat by the fire chatting and drinking our way through two bottles of wine. With the heady wine and the flush of a possible romance, we were sexually inventive through the small hours. It was nearly eight in the morning when I put my clothes on, feeling invigorated in every sense  as I invariably did after a night of acrobatic fornication.

For her part, 19-year-old Myra had just lost her virginity. She wrote in her diary: I hope Ian and I love each other all our lives and get married and are happy ever after.

Brady had different feelings. There was no chance of him walking blindly into the death trap of marriage and respectability. I had other things on my mind. His bank robbery schemes, for example.

But they began spending more and more time together. When I asked him if he and Hindley had been in love, half expecting him to dismiss the idea as romantic tosh, what he said was: Of course we were in love.

BRADY'S FIVE VICTIMS Pauline Reade , 16, was the couple's first victim. She was on her way to a local dance when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped Pauline, beaten and stabbed. John Kilbride , 12, was snatched from Ashton market on Saturday November 23, 1963. He was strangled and buried in a shallow grave. He was the second of Brady and Hindley's five victims. Keith Bennett , 12, disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house. Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors where he was murdered. The method of killing has never been made clear. The pair buried his body which has never been found. Lesley Ann Downey , 10, disappeared on Boxing Day. She had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley's house. She was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Edward Evans , 17, was the sick duo's final victim. He had just been to see Manchester United play when Brady lured in Edward. Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe Advertisement

He went on: It wasnt just another romance. Something beyond that was growing. I hadnt planned it that way, but I was happy to let things evolve.

Increasingly, he found Hindley was someone he could trust and speak frankly with about his innermost thoughts. The two of them kept their affair secret in the office, even though they were very soon virtually living together. They would spend their evenings talking in a pub, the Wagon And Horses. They avoided the crowded bar and were usually alone in the snug at the back.

I asked Brady if this was where he began brainwashing Hindley.

No, he replied. Our relationship wasnt master and slave. It was more like teacher and student. I aired my views for open discussion, nothing more. They were on the table to be rejected or accepted.

But Myra was surprisingly in tune with me from the very beginning. I was never conscious of having to exert myself to coerce her into accepting my belief in relativist morality. Bit by bit we were moving towards an almost telepathic relationship. She was as ruthless as I was.

Any doubts he might have had about her were dispelled when Hindley, who had been raised a Roman Catholic, told him she had given up religion. She woke up one morning and realised it was all tosh. We are all just grains on the sand  of no significance whatsoever.

Brady was delighted. They were two of a kind. When you know it has no meaning, lifes much more interesting, he told her.

When she began to bemoan the boring life that probably lay ahead for a working-class girl like her, he put her right.

Lifes a game, he told her. We are limited only by our imagination. It was better to live for a few moments as a tiger than be a sheep for ever.

Brady was becoming increasingly preoccupied with her and what they might do together.

Black mushrooms were growing and flourishing in my mind in Myras company, which filled most of the waking hours. They were drawing ever closer, bound together by their nihilism. Dark preoccupations were luring me to take the path of pure existentialism, in which the will to dare all, and suffer the consequences, was becoming all-important rather than the acquisition of cash from my evening criminal exploits.

Was I mad already? If so, it was catching. Myra was a soulmate. We accepted gladly the indifference of the universe. Our motto was to live fast and die young.

They even began to develop a private means of communication, a secret code of words and body gestures. A Groucho  raising the eyebrows quickly twice (like Groucho Marx)  meant follow the direction of my eyes.

When either of them saw a sexually attractive male or female, desirable to either or both of them given that they were bisexual, they said DC  for delicious creature. This private language would later help them to prey on people as a couple.

One night, Brady asked her if she had a special enemy she would like to eliminate, and she nominated her ex-boyfriend, Ronnie Sinclair.

So would she be prepared to connive in killing him? Include me in! she replied. Would she want to be there when he was murdered? Yes! she said. But I want to watch him being humiliated before he dies.

Take out his false teeth and force him to do whatever you want. Id love to see him treated like a woman. That would be compulsive viewing.

Brady told me that the subtle cruelty of Myras requests on this occasion surprised him, and that it wasnt to be the last time. It was then that he introduced her to Saddleworth Moor, up in the Pennines. He had discovered it on his own, skipping off work one sunny morning and letting his motorbike take me wherever it wished.

He arrived by chance and was thrilled by its desolation  vast hills and plains, with exposed black and brown earth spots everywhere, under a pallid canopy of brooding silence.

Now he wanted Myra to see it, too.

They drove out on his motorbike and stopped for her to take in its vastness. Do you think Ronnie would like to spend eternity here? Brady asked. Hindley, on the pillion, put her arms around Ians waist and replied: We agree on everything these days, Neddie  her nickname for him, after Neddie Seagoon, a character in radios Goon Show.

As they rode back to Manchester, Brady was singing out loud: Hi-ho, hi-ho, its off to work we go! Hindley yelled back: Just call me Snow White!

Brady was being held in a secure unit in Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside after spending 51 years in jail for the murders

Brady would meticulously plan the killing of Ronnie Sinclair, following him many times to work out how and where. I felt no hatred towards him, he explained. He was simply the target in an exercise; a problem to be solved. In fact they would never get round to killing him, and Hindley challenged Brady on this. Was he going soft, she asked.

The dark agenda that had been simmering in Bradys head for years now broke the surface.

So you want excitement? he said to her. You want to make things happen, Kiddo [his name for her]? The mysterious adventure is about to begin!

Years later, Hindley would claim that the first murder came out of the blue, that Brady talked about committing the perfect murder and suddenly there they were doing it. In fact, she was totally involved in the meticulous planning and as enthusiastic as he was, he told me.

They began by scribbling down their thoughts on paper and then devising a detailed plan of the carnage ahead.

On 30 pages of foolscap they drew up a meticulous master list of dos and donts.

The first principle, Brady explained to me, was that there must be no thread connecting our starting point with our destination, and vice versa. They would systematically erase all finger prints, tyre prints or anything else that might implicate them in the killings.

In December 1965, police searched the housing estate home of Brady and Hindley after Edward Evans was killed. The house was pulled down in the 1980s

Their house would be cleaned of anything that might arouse police suspicions, and any potentially incriminating material then placed into a left-luggage office at a railway station.

Above all  and this was Bradys insistence  there should be nothing to connect them to the people they murdered.

This was what had made him wary of killing Sinclair. But a stranger would be okay, and so he told Myra Hindley to pick up anyone you choose  its of no consequence to me.

Then the hunt, the game began: the existential exercise of sheer will power.

He was prepared to die, he told her, and if necessary they would kill each other rather than be caught by the police. If trapped, we use our revolvers [he had two] to fight our way out. If its obvious we wont make it, we turn them on ourselves.

No trial. No prison. Oblivion. Perfect. Better to live and die by choice rather than vegetate. Weve talked it through often enough, Kiddo. Now we throw the dice for maximum stakes. Are you hungry for it? Are you up for it?

According to Brady, Hindley replied: Of course Im with you! I knew it wasnt all talk. I was just waiting for the word go.

Ian Brady: The Untold Story of the Moors Murders by Dr Alan Keightley is published as an e-book on May 22, at 9.99. Available for pre-order on Amazon and other e-tailers.

ARCHIVE OF BRADY'S PERSONAL EFFECTS FROM PRISON Over more than 25 years of their meetings, Dr Keightley compiled an extraordinary archive of Ian Bradys personal effects  all given to him by the killer  that together reveal much about his twisted psyche... The chess set used by Brady to beat disgraced MP John Stonehouse in a 1979 prison chess final (left). Right, a book given to Ian by Myra Bradys cufflinks  in the shape of police handcuffs  display his warped sense of humour Bradys steel cigarette box and lighter. He chain-smoked untipped Gauloises and frequently expressed dismay that smoking hadnt killed him Bradys signet ring with the initials ISB. He was born Ian Duncan Stewart Brady boasted of being well-read and Dostoyevskys Crime And Punishment was one of his favourite novels A Buddha (left) Brady kept on his bedside table, even though he derided all forms of religion. Right, A statuette of Don Quixote. Brady had been known to refer to himself as a cynical Don Quixote, tilting at any laws and customs A Christmas card from Bradys mother. He was fostered as a baby and grew up in Glasgow, moving to Manchester in his troubled teens where he renewed his relationship with his mother This book of Wordworths Poetical Works was given to Brady by Myra Hindley in April 1967 and inscribed: To Ian. With love, Myra xxxxxx. The inscription is marked with a sprig of dried, pressed heather, quite possibly from Saddleworth Moor, where the pair buried their victims Advertisement

'Pauline was on the grass, Myra's lips formed a smile but her eyes had other intentions. Her expression was taunting and pitiless'

Pauline Reade would prove to be the murderous couple's first victim

On Friday, July 12, 1963, Pauline Reade, a 16-year-old trainee baker, wanted to go to a dance at a social club just ten minutes walk away from her home in the Gorton district of Manchester.

None of her friends could come  their mothers wouldnt let them  and so she went on her own. Paulines mum waved her off, thinking how nice her daughter looked with her hair done up. Pauline had on a new pair of white stiletto-heeled shoes, with an ankle strap, which she had bought that day.

Sitting in a parked black van on a deserted street nearby, Hindley heard those stilettos clicking down the road in her direction and guessed she had her prize.

As Pauline passed, Myra attracted her attention. They knew each other vaguely by sight, and she told the teenager she had lost a glove on Saddleworth Moor  would she come and help her look for it? She promised the girl some records as a reward for her help.

Pauline was early for the dance and a trip out with Myra would fill in the time. She took the bait and got in. Myra did a three-point turn and headed for the moor.

Meanwhile, Brady was getting ready in his bedroom at home. He put an elasticised band on his right wrist and slipped a knife under it. He put on surgical gloves and covered them with a leather pair. He then kicked his Triumph motorbike into life and rode to Gorton.

He recalled: No one who saw me ride past them that night could have guessed what I was about to do. It was enfolding before their eyes, but how could they know?

For me, it was the beginning of an existential exercise beyond good and evil.

The streets of Manchester were the backdrop for the scene to which my destiny had been taking me all these years.

The plan was that if he saw Myra Hindleys black van still parked at any of several pre-arranged places, then it meant that she had failed to grab a victim.

Men and women gathered on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester to desperately try and find the bodies of the child victims

But there was no van in sight. It was on.

He remembered hesitating for a moment. Was I about to step through the final doorway to madness? Or had I already entered it long ago? I recoiled at the idea.

Then he laughed away his last-minute doubts. Richards himself again! he cried, his catchphrase linking him in his mind to the evil king Richard III, and swept off to Saddleworth Moor. Who, he wondered, would be waiting with Myra? A boy or a girl? I was impatient for its fruition.

Out on Saddleworth Moor, he pulled in at the lay-by he had agreed beforehand with Hindley. She was waiting in the van with Pauline next to her, smoking a cigarette. He thought the girl rather beautiful, delicate and unspoiled by too much make-up.

All three of them, Brady told me, now set off onto the moor, ostensibly to look for the glove. He strode in front, with Hindley and the girl behind him.

Myra and I knew exactly where we were heading. We had rehearsed it. It was a place on the moor where we would be out of sight from the road.

I dawdled and pretended I was scrutinising the grass closely, to allow the girl and Myra to walk past me. Paulines eyes were also focused on the ground. Myra furtively glanced back in my direction. I immediately moved forward to grasp the girls neck in a Japanese stranglehold.

She collapsed onto the ground and stared up at me. I knelt down and said: Dont make a noise and youll be all right. She turned to plead with Myra, Tell him to stop!

Brady, 79, died of cancer on Monday evening, taking to the grave the secret of where he buried Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor

I looked at Myra. Her lips formed a smile, but her eyes had other intentions. Her expression was taunting and pitiless.

She knelt on the grass to unbutton the girls coat. She then forced her to sit up before easing off her coat, unzipping her dress and unfastening her bra.

Myra! Please dont! Please dont! the girl cried.

The girl lay still, passively accepting the violation and her humiliation with half-closed eyes.

Brady and Hindley carried out sexual acts on the girl. Then Brady stood up and told Pauline to get dressed. She put on her clothes and reached for a bronze medallion she had been wearing.

Hindley snatched it from her and snapped: You wont be needing that where youre going! Brady was furious with Hindley for giving the girl a warning of what was in store for her, and he slapped her face.

Later, he said, Hindley told him she made the remark because she had a feeling that he was going to let the girl go, and was making sure he didnt.

Then, as the girl stood there with a look of terror in her eyes, Hindley dropped another bombshell. She announced to Brady: Shes Pauline Reade. He knew the name. Reade was a former girlfriend of Myras sisters boyfriend.

John Kilbride, pictured left, was killed by Brady at the age of 12. His brother Terry had begged the evil murderer to reveal the final resting place of Keith Bennett, pictured right, another of the five victims

It was a tenuous link but one the police could follow. The no connecting thread principle had been breached.

He guessed that Myra had used the situation to rid her sister of a rival, but in doing so she had endangered them.

He wondered what other idiotic risks she had taken. Angry with Myra, he strode back to the car to get what he needed for the next stage. It was almost dark when I returned and I found Myra only after some anxious moments. I could make out some frenetic movements and I thought the girl was making a fight of it.

Instead, I found Myra astride the girls head, pressing down on her face. I saw the glint of a steel kitchen knife on the grass. Myra had attempted to stab the girls chest, but the knife didnt penetrate her and the blade was bent.

Myra had punched the girls head and face. Blood was streaming from her nose and had soaked the front of her dress. Her eyes were closed now. She gasped for breath. I instantaneously withdrew the sheath knife from my wrist and cut her throat. She was dead within seconds.

As Hindley scanned the moor with binoculars to make sure no one else was about, Brady dug a hole in the peat and together they buried the body. Back at Bradys home, they tore off the clothes theyd worn and burned them.

The ashes and the blade of the kitchen knife were thrown into the river after the bike and the van had been meticulously cleaned. Then the couple unwound with a bottle of wine.

Brady asked Hindley if she was sure that no one had seen her pick up Pauline. Myra was sure. But the next day she confessed to him that she had broken their rules again: she had kept Pauline Reades medallion and also four coins that had fallen from her coat pocket.

I didnt mean to, she said.

Brady was furious. Theft in the course of murder guarantees you a date with the hangman! he told her.

But they got away with Reades murder, despite Bradys fears that Hindley had messed up.

Three months went by, everything was quiet and the two of them were sitting in front of a fire at home drinking cherry wine, Brady told me. He remembered Hindley turning to him and saying: Neddie, whens the next one?

Another one? he replied. Are you that hungry, Kiddo?

Myra responded with Zzzeee!  the high-pitched sound she always made when she was excited.

They spread out a map of Manchester and Brady recalled thinking to himself: Somewhere out there slept a stranger whose life we were soon to enter.

The days of life left for that stranger were few.

'I could never have killed sheep or cattle': How Ian Brady cried when his pet spaniel died but said 'killing people never bothered me in the least'

More than half a century has gone by since the Moors Murders, yet they hold a fascination that will not go away, despite the passage of time.

They were the flip side of the so-called Swinging Sixties, traumatic events that shattered all sense of safety and decency in society. It is one thing to cause another person to suffer to achieve some other goal, as in violent robbery. It is another matter to cause a person pain for no other reason than to make them suffer. Here was pure malevolence and we struggle still to understand it.

But people often got Brady very wrong as they searched for clues to explain who and what this monster of a man was.

Brady was never cruel to animals. As a lad, he ran home in tears when he saw an injured horse being put down in the street. He wept again when his pet spaniel died

It was often said, for example, that as a slum-kid growing up in Glasgow, he imprisoned cats, crucified frogs, sliced up caterpillars with razor blades and beheaded rabbits  and that later he got a job in a slaughter house, where he acquired his taste for the sight and smell of blood.

All this was untrue. Brady was never cruel to animals. As a lad, he ran home in tears when he saw an injured horse being put down in the street. He wept again when his pet spaniel died.

He never worked in a slaughter house, though he was once a meat delivery boy, which was how that particular myth began. The idea of butchering animals appalled him. I could never have brought myself to kill sheep or cattle, he once told me.

But the idea of killing people never bothered me in the least.

This was the real Ian Brady, a much more chilling man than anyone can possibly imagine, driven by complex motives that are not easily understandable.

Another enduring story is that he and Hindley were inspired by Nazi ideology  that Brady was a Hitler fanatic who collected Third Reich memorabilia from childhood and whose terrible deeds were somehow the outcome of his obsession with the Fuhrer.

Ian Brady, pictured by a court sketch artist at his last public hearing in 2013, has cost taxpayers millions in prison and secure hospital bills, it emerged after he died yesterday

But this was not true, either. In fact, as he revealed to me, his political views were Left-wing rather than extreme Right.

The misinterpretation came about because at his trial much was made of his tapes and books on Nazi figures. I also had tapes of Stalin and Churchill, he told me, but these were of no interest to the prosecution.

My interest in the Third Reich was based on aesthetic, not political grounds. I admired the will, boldness and the courage with which Hitler put his beliefs into effect. But he did not identify with Hitler. No one could. He was unique.

Certainly Brady had books on Nazism. I know because I saw them. But they had been sent to him by people who had assumed he was fascinated by the subject. They went largely unread.

The same went for his supposed obsession with the works of the Marquis de Sade. It is part of the accepted Moors Murders story that the 18th-century French aristocrats explicit writings combining sex and violence had a decisive, catastrophic influence on him and may even have precipitated the murders.

Brady dismissed this as nonsense. Again, this was an accusation and an explanation that had been offered by the prosecution at his trial, but he rejected it.

Brady thought they might just as easily have blamed Shakespeares Richard III, which he read at school, and which was a major influence on him. Brady often likened himself to the cruel king of Shakespeares play. Richards himself again, he would say in his sinister way, to describe the onset of his evil state of mind.

Myra Hindley poses for a photo on Saddleworth Moor along with her beloved pet collie

Curiously, I could not find this quotation in Shakespeares text, but among Bradys property was a video of Laurence Oliviers 1955 film. It was here that I found the elusive sentence.

After a moment in which his better nature almost gets the better of him, the king declares: Conscience avaunt. Richards himself again. Brady had watched the film as a teenager and this became his catchphrase.

As for De Sade, Brady had read his works, he admitted, but for the philosophy  life was meaningless and the universe without purpose; therefore, nothing matters  rather than the sexual content, which he described as repetitive and turgid. He said he was bored rigid by it.

The fundamental cause and reason for the unspeakable acts he carried out lay in his conviction that life has no meaning.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted, he would tell me, quoting Nietzsche, famous for his pronouncement that God is dead. Brady believed the truth about life to be as bleak as it could be. In the end, all is illusion or delusion. We each do what we believe is best, thats all.

He called himself an existentialist or a moral relativist and his only faith was in chaos and absurdity. Our yearnings for immortality are comical and preposterous. Life, like death, doesnt give a damn about us.

As for religion, he told me, that was the self-flattering delusion of mankind that some supernatural force is in the least interested in the life of ants on a speck of dust in the universe. Brady was convinced he was a new kind of killer, of which society would see more and more. These killers would be products of the secular atmosphere that pervaded life in the West as the absolute values of good and evil declined.

He aligned himself with the French atheist Albert Camus, and his copy of Camuss book, The Rebel, was heavily highlighted, particularly a passage that concluded: Wickedness and virtue are just accident or whim.

Brady, centre, pictured with Myra Hindley being driven away from his trial in 1966. He has since spent 51 years behind bars, serving time in a secure hospital since 1985

But the intellectual influence that meant most to Brady was the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky. His book, Crime And Punishment, hangs like a shadow over the Moors Murders.

Bradys own copy of the book was among the property he bequeathed to me. As I leaf through it, the margins are littered with his comments in purple ink  marvellous psychological insight, stupendous observation of human nature! Brady was 18 and serving a sentence in Borstal for theft when he came across Crime And Punishment and identified with Raskolnikov, the books anti-hero.

Raskolnikov, a supercilious, poverty stricken student, robs and murders a rapacious old moneylender, a worthless parasite of no use to anyone. Afterwards, he realises money was not the real motive for his crimes, but that the crimes themselves were existential tests of personal will. Brady, as we have seen, went on to use the phrase existential exercises to describe his own murders.

I once pointed out to Brady the irony of him taking Dostoyevsky as his intellectual mentor. The Russian wrote Crime And Punishment to make money to pay for the upkeep of his dead brothers children. How strange that a book that saved childrens lives in the 19th century contributed to the murder of children in the 20th. Furthermore, Dostoyevsky wrote that the worst conceivable crime was crime against children.

But my comments were ignored. They did not fit Bradys twisted philosophy.



Ian Brady: The Untold Story of the Moors Murders by Dr Alan Keightley is published as an ebook on 22nd May, price 9.99. Available for preorder on Amazon and other e-tailers
Natalie Livingstone (pictured right, with Frances Osborne, wife of George Osborne) is determined to turn Cliveden House's notoriety to good advantage

Ever since War Secretary John Profumo spotted good-time girl Christine Keeler swimming naked in the pool one hot sunny evening in 1961, Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire has been associated with sex and scandal.

However, new chatelaine Natalie Livingstone, whose property developer husband Ian bought the house in 2012 for 30 million, is determined to turn its notoriety to good advantage.

She hosted a party in Chelsea on Monday to mark the launch of the inaugural Cliveden literary festival.

Authors speaking, if not skinny-dipping, at the October festival include Frances Osborne, wife of former Chancellor and new Evening Standard editor George Osborne.

Natalie, 40, is an author in her own right having published The Mistresses Of Cliveden.

During writing the Cliveden book, says a friend, she loved discovering that Nancy Astor would bite into an apple to distract her from the distasteful business of sex

Sling and crutches for X-Files stars

Not even a broken foot will stop screen star Gillian Anderson globetrotting from one awards party to the next.

First, the 48-year-old hobbled to the Baftas in London, and 24 hours later she was at New Yorks Webby awards.

Gillian Anderson (right) hobbled to the Baftas in London, and 24 hours later she was at New Yorks Webby awards. The best actress award she received for her role in TV series The Fall was presented by her X-Files co-star, David Duchovny

The mother-of-three accessorised her 1,760 Simone Rocha sleeveless dress with a pair of crutches, after breaking her right foot on holiday in Costa Rica.

The best actress award she received for her role in TV series The Fall was presented by her X-Files co-star, David Duchovny, who refused to be upstaged as he nursed an injured left arm  cause unknown  in a black sling.

The pompous Lib Dem shadow home secretary Lord Paddick has called for an immediate increase in funding for the Metropolitan Police.

Perhaps the Met wouldnt be in need of such money if it wasnt for a certain policeman who retired at 49 in 2007 on an index-linked police pension starting at 63,397 a year.

Paddick also received a 400,000 pay-off from Scotland Yard at the same time.

House Of Cards star Kevin Spacey (pictured) has claimed he was sacked from David Leans Lawrence Of Arabia

House Of Cards star Kevin Spacey has put Albert Finneys nose out of joint by claiming he was sacked from David Leans 1962 movie classic Lawrence Of Arabia.

Albert Finney was Lawrence of Arabia for several weeks of shooting before he was fired and replaced by Peter OToole, Spacey said last week. This is untrue, according to a relative of Finney, 81.

Albert was never fired from Lawrence of Arabia because he was never hired, Im told.

He did a screen test for the role and turned David Lean down for reasons that have been contested over the years, but he never did several weeks of shooting before he was fired.
Victims of crime will soon be asked to write their own police statements online (stock photo)

Victims of crime will be asked to write their own police statements online under a new self-service plan by one of the countrys biggest forces.

They will also be asked to upload evidence such as CCTV and phone camera footage of offences being committed.

Announcing the pilot scheme, to be launched by the West Midlands force later this year, Chief Constable Dave Thompson said the public are just as capable as the police.

It overturns generations of traditional policing where only an officer or trained member of staff can gather evidence.

But Mr Thompson said forces need to move towards self-service to save money and give the public more choice on reporting crime. He suggested victims could write their own accounts of simple offences such as shoplifting, criminal damage and road accidents.

And he said other forces were experimenting with similar ideas, including web chats. These include the Metropolitan Police, Devon and Cornwall, Avon and Somerset, and East Midlands.

But Steve White, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, described the idea as barmy yesterday, saying it was misguided at best to leave the crucial role of gathering evidence to the public.

Mr Thompson said: Most modern companies allow people to do things online. The way the public contact the police could be different. Wed never say do your own interview.

Self-service should not be doing your own crime investigations, but there is quite a lot the public could do to help us. He added: Sometimes the public are just as capable as the police.

Mr Thompson said forces could learn from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Spanish equivalent of HMRC, where tax and benefits claims are submitted online. He added police need to simplify the way we do things to save money, although forces would have to work out how to store the evidence submitted.

Announcing the pilot scheme, to be launched by the West Midlands force later this year, Chief Constable Dave Thompson (pictured) said the public are just as capable as the police

It would only ever be simple things  theres no reason why you couldnt put down your recollection of what happened, he said.

He emphasised that victims would have a choice and could still speak to officers over the phone or face to face. Vulnerable victims and witnesses in more serious crimes such as murder and burglary would be directed to report them in person.

Mr Thompson predicted the system would lead to more crimes being reported as victims and witnesses would find it easier than having to go to the station or wait at home for an officer to attend.

Some statements could be filled out through a series of questions and answers and victims would be able to enter an electronic signature to certify their account.

Artificial intelligence software could sift through statements and decide which cases require victims to speak directly to an officer.

Some statements could be filled out through a series of questions and answers and victims would be able to enter an electronic signature to certify their account (stock photo)

But Mr White said: The idea of members of the public writing their own statements, uploading their own criminal reports and essentially doing their own investigations is quite frankly barmy.

The police service has to deal with often the most vulnerable in society and to assume that everyone has the ability to start their own police investigation by submitting their own statements is misguided at best.

Lets be brutally frank  the police service would not have to come up with these sorts of ideas if it was properly resourced.

Mr Thompson is no stranger to controversy.

Last year there was uproar when he suggested his force would allow frontline officers to wear burkas if they asked.

Yesterday as he spoke to the Police Federation conference, he said police needed to find a different way of dealing with vulnerable people because an inexhaustible pit of vulnerability was consuming ever more resources and time.
Sabbir Miah, 24, pictured, pleaded guilty to five charges of disseminating a terrorist publication on the internet

A Muslim extremist who used Instagram and Facebook to spread terror videos by ISIS and Al Qaeda is facing years behind bars today.

Sabbir Miah, 24, was first arrested in December after he posted propaganda films featuring extremist cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki and jihadi commander Abu Usama al Maghrabi.

He was released on bail and went on to post the ISIS recruitment video What are you waiting for? on Instagram and Jihad is the way on both Instagram and WhatsApp.

Miah was arrested for a second time in February and charged with disseminating terrorist publications.

He appeared at the Old Bailey to plead guilty to five charges of disseminating a terrorist publication on the basis he was reckless as to whether it would encourage terror attacks.

Judge Stephen Kramer QC ordered one of the counts lie on file and fixed sentencing for June 19.

Miah, who has no previous convictions, is facing a maximum jail term of seven years for disseminating a terrorist publication.

He had been charged with three of the offences in December last year, and then charged with a further three offences committed while on court bail.

Miah, of Forest Gate, east London, was remanded in custody.
Pauline Reade would prove to be the murderous couple's first victim

Dr Alan Keightley was head of religious studies at a West Midlands sixth-form college when he began writing to Ian Brady in 1992 at the suggestion of the mother of his youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. For years, he visited Brady in prison every month, spoke to him on the phone every day and received hundreds of letters from him.

Dr Keightley built up a detailed archive of material he has now turned into a biography of Brady that provides a disturbing and unique insight into the man himself  and the nature of evil.

On Friday, July 12, 1963, Pauline Reade, a 16-year-old trainee baker, wanted to go to a dance at a social club just ten minutes walk away from her home in the Gorton district of Manchester.

None of her friends could come  their mothers wouldnt let them  and so she went on her own. Paulines mum waved her off, thinking how nice her daughter looked with her hair done up. Pauline had on a new pair of white stiletto-heeled shoes, with an ankle strap, which she had bought that day.

Sitting in a parked black van on a deserted street nearby, Hindley heard those stilettos clicking down the road in her direction and guessed she had her prize.

As Pauline passed, Myra attracted her attention. They knew each other vaguely by sight, and she told the teenager she had lost a glove on Saddleworth Moor  would she come and help her look for it? She promised the girl some records as a reward for her help.

Pauline was early for the dance and a trip out with Myra would fill in the time. She took the bait and got in. Myra did a three-point turn and headed for the moor.

Meanwhile, Brady was getting ready in his bedroom at home. He put an elasticised band on his right wrist and slipped a knife under it. He put on surgical gloves and covered them with a leather pair. He then kicked his Triumph motorbike into life and rode to Gorton.

He recalled: No one who saw me ride past them that night could have guessed what I was about to do. It was enfolding before their eyes, but how could they know?

Myra Hindley was as ruthless as I was, Ian Brady claims in chilling beyond-the-grave confessions revealed today

Brady, and his co-accused Myra Hindley (pictured together) murdered five children in the 1960s and the bodies of four of his victims have been found. The couple became infatuated with Nazis and sadism after getting together at a chemical firm

For me, it was the beginning of an existential exercise beyond good and evil.

The streets of Manchester were the backdrop for the scene to which my destiny had been taking me all these years.

The plan was that if he saw Myra Hindleys black van still parked at any of several pre-arranged places, then it meant that she had failed to grab a victim.

But there was no van in sight. It was on.

He remembered hesitating for a moment. Was I about to step through the final doorway to madness? Or had I already entered it long ago? I recoiled at the idea.

Then he laughed away his last-minute doubts. Richards himself again! he cried, his catchphrase linking him in his mind to the evil king Richard III, and swept off to Saddleworth Moor. Who, he wondered, would be waiting with Myra? A boy or a girl? I was impatient for its fruition.

Out on Saddleworth Moor, he pulled in at the lay-by he had agreed beforehand with Hindley. She was waiting in the van with Pauline next to her, smoking a cigarette. He thought the girl rather beautiful, delicate and unspoiled by too much make-up.

Brady (pictured with Myra Hindley and her younger sister Maureen) was a twisted individual who became obsessed with cruelty and torture

Brady, 79, died of cancer on Monday evening, taking to the grave the secret of where he buried Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor

All three of them, Brady told me, now set off onto the moor, ostensibly to look for the glove. He strode in front, with Hindley and the girl behind him.

Myra and I knew exactly where we were heading. We had rehearsed it. It was a place on the moor where we would be out of sight from the road.

I dawdled and pretended I was scrutinising the grass closely, to allow the girl and Myra to walk past me. Paulines eyes were also focused on the ground. Myra furtively glanced back in my direction. I immediately moved forward to grasp the girls neck in a Japanese stranglehold.

She collapsed onto the ground and stared up at me. I knelt down and said: Dont make a noise and youll be all right. She turned to plead with Myra, Tell him to stop!

I looked at Myra. Her lips formed a smile, but her eyes had other intentions. Her expression was taunting and pitiless.

She knelt on the grass to unbutton the girls coat. She then forced her to sit up before easing off her coat, unzipping her dress and unfastening her bra.

Myra! Please dont! Please dont! the girl cried.

The girl lay still, passively accepting the violation and her humiliation with half-closed eyes.

Men and women gathered on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester to desperately try and find the bodies of the child victims

Brady and Hindley carried out sexual acts on the girl. Then Brady stood up and told Pauline to get dressed. She put on her clothes and reached for a bronze medallion she had been wearing.

Hindley snatched it from her and snapped: You wont be needing that where youre going! Brady was furious with Hindley for giving the girl a warning of what was in store for her, and he slapped her face.

Later, he said, Hindley told him she made the remark because she had a feeling that he was going to let the girl go, and was making sure he didnt.

Then, as the girl stood there with a look of terror in her eyes, Hindley dropped another bombshell. She announced to Brady: Shes Pauline Reade. He knew the name. Reade was a former girlfriend of Myras sisters boyfriend.

It was a tenuous link but one the police could follow. The no connecting thread principle had been breached.

He guessed that Myra had used the situation to rid her sister of a rival, but in doing so she had endangered them.

Brady and Hindley murdered at least two of their victims at this 'house of horrors' in Hyde, west of Manchester

He wondered what other idiotic risks she had taken. Angry with Myra, he strode back to the car to get what he needed for the next stage. It was almost dark when I returned and I found Myra only after some anxious moments. I could make out some frenetic movements and I thought the girl was making a fight of it.

Instead, I found Myra astride the girls head, pressing down on her face. I saw the glint of a steel kitchen knife on the grass. Myra had attempted to stab the girls chest, but the knife didnt penetrate her and the blade was bent.

Myra had punched the girls head and face. Blood was streaming from her nose and had soaked the front of her dress. Her eyes were closed now. She gasped for breath. I instantaneously withdrew the sheath knife from my wrist and cut her throat. She was dead within seconds.

Ian Brady (pictured wearing the glasses) visited the moors in 1986 and was asked to tell police where he had buried the body of murder victim Keith Bennett

As Hindley scanned the moor with binoculars to make sure no one else was about, Brady dug a hole in the peat and together they buried the body. Back at Bradys home, they tore off the clothes theyd worn and burned them.

The ashes and the blade of the kitchen knife were thrown into the river after the bike and the van had been meticulously cleaned. Then the couple unwound with a bottle of wine.

Brady asked Hindley if she was sure that no one had seen her pick up Pauline. Myra was sure. But the next day she confessed to him that she had broken their rules again: she had kept Pauline Reades medallion and also four coins that had fallen from her coat pocket.

I didnt mean to, she said.

Brady was furious. Theft in the course of murder guarantees you a date with the hangman! he told her.

But they got away with Reades murder, despite Bradys fears that Hindley had messed up.

Three months went by, everything was quiet and the two of them were sitting in front of a fire at home drinking cherry wine, Brady told me. He remembered Hindley turning to him and saying: Neddie, whens the next one?

Another one? he replied. Are you that hungry, Kiddo?

Myra responded with Zzzeee!  the high-pitched sound she always made when she was excited.

They spread out a map of Manchester and Brady recalled thinking to himself: Somewhere out there slept a stranger whose life we were soon to enter.

The days of life left for that stranger were few.
Labour's manifesto was unravelling last night as experts warned the partys 49billion spending spree was fatally flawed.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to finance it with a massive tax raid targeting businesses and the middle classes.

The Labour leader yesterday insisted the sum raised would exactly match the extra spending.

But the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned he might miss his target by as much as 30billion.

Finance experts say Jeremy Corbyn's plans for a massive tax raid to fund a 49billion left-wing manifesto could miss the target by up to 30billion

The independent think-tank said this was because firms might slash investment while wealthy individuals could move abroad.

The IFS, whose work formed part of the basis for Labours manifesto costings, said Mr Corbyns plan would raise the tax burden to the highest level since the post-war 1940s.

The Tories suggested Labours spending plans could cost as much as 95billion and would bankrupt Britain.

On a chaotic day for Mr Corbyns election campaign:

He pledged to scrap a 3billion freeze on state benefits, even though the measure was not in his manifesto;

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell was unable to identify the size of the government budget deficit;

Union boss Len McCluskey said it would be extraordinary if Labour won;

Mr McDonnell rushed out plans to nationalise the water industry, without detailing the cost;

Businesses attacked Labours plans to hike corporation tax by almost 20billion a year.

Labours 124-page manifesto is the most Left-wing offering put forward by the party in decades.

It promises the nationalisation of rail and energy, the scrapping of anti-strike laws and ending the one per cent cap on public sector pay rises.

It also makes a number of expensive commitments, including scrapping university tuition fees at a cost of 11.2billion a year.

Labour has pledged to nationalise rail and energy, scrap anti-strike laws and end a one per cent cap on public sector pay rises. Pictured is Mr Corbyn at a Labour rally in Huddersfield

Labour pledged to borrow 250billion for infrastructure investment, but made no provision for additional debt interest in its costings yesterday.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Tory candidate, warned the plans would bankrupt Britain and drive business abroad. Theresa May claimed Labours sums did not add up.

Speaking at a campaign event in Stoke-on-Trent last night, the Prime Minister said: The people that ought to be worried about the Labour manifesto are ordinary working people who will find themselves paying the price for the spending commitments made by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

Businesses would go under we would have fewer jobs and less money to put into the NHS and other public services.

Mr Corbyn insisted the policy pledges would prove popular and propel him into Downing Street.

Conservative critics say Mr Corbyn's (pictured in Huddersfield) manifesto could cost 95billion and would 'bankrupt Britain'

Dismissing Labours dire performance in the polls and local elections, he said: Opinion is changing and it is moving toward Labour.

Speaking at an event in Bradford he dismissed claims that he was bent on dragging Britain back to the 1970s.

We can embark on this ambitious programme without jeopardising our national finances, he insisted.

The manifesto confirms plans for swingeing taxes on the better off.

The threshold for paying 45p tax will be slashed from 150,000 to just 80,000, dragging 1.3million people into the net once reserved for the very rich.

And the 50p top tax rate will be brought back at a starting rate of just 123,000, lower than when it was introduced by Gordon Brown in 2010.

IFS director Paul Johnson said: Theyre looking at raising an awful lot of money from companies and from higher earners, and the long-run impact of the changes theyre suggesting almost certainly wouldnt raise the full 50billion.

If they were able to raise that amount, that would take the tax burden in the UK to its highest level in 70 years.

'The long-run impact will be rather smaller than the 50billion theyre hoping for.

Tim Knox, of the Centre for Policy Studies, another think-tank, said: High earners are the geese that lay the golden eggs: the top 1 per cent of taxpayers already pay about 30 per cent of all income tax.

Forcing them to pay more might be politically tempting but is economically crazy.

'Many of the geese will either fly off to more attractive countries or just stop laying the golden eggs.

Mr Corbyn insisted his pledges would prove popular with the public and 'propel Labour to victory'. Pictured are Labour supporters in Huddersfield

Business leaders condemned the manifesto. Mike Cherry, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: Jeremy Corbyn pledged to FSB members that a future Labour government would not increase corporation tax for small firms.

We are disappointed that it appears at this stage not to have remained one of the partys election commitments.

Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, said: There are stupid ways to waste public money but undoubtedly nationalisation is the most ridiculous of them all.

Who in their right mind would want to go backwards when the rest of the world is ready to leave us behind? Corbyn. The man tossing us into the dark ages.

Stephen Martin, director general of the Institute of Directors, said that policies to renationalise the railways, water and sections of the energy industry, or to abolish tuition fees, might sound popular.

But he added: The costs would be staggering, the benefits unclear, and the related tax rises would make the UK a less competitive economy.

Manufacturing and business groups have also hit out at Mr Corbyn's (pictured) plans and described his policies as being from 'a bygone age'

Terry Scuoler, chief executive of manufacturing group EEF, said of the manifesto: It falls down badly with policies that are from a bygone age.

Sending out signals to business promising significant tax hikes and increasing red tape is hardly likely to generate the investment and economic growth we vitally need.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said Mr Corbyns manifesto would open up a 58billion budget black hole that would be paid for by every single family in the country.

He added: Jeremy Corbyns numbers simply dont add up, and he cant be trusted to run the economy.

Labour insisted the price of nationalisation should not be counted as a cost because it would be offset by the value of the new assets on the governments books.

More than 1.3million middle class would be forced into the super rich tax bracket under Labour's plans

Middle class professionals face swingeing tax rises under Labours plans to squeeze the better-off to fund an extraordinary public spending spree.

The party yesterday confirmed plans to slash the starting point for paying 45p tax from 150,000 to 80,000, dragging 1.3 million people into a tax band that was designed for the super-rich.

Senior teachers, police officers and doctors will all be caught up in the tax raid.

Labour also confirmed it will look at replacing council tax with a land value tax targeted squarely at those with more valuable properties.

In a manifesto launch speech riddled with the language of class politics, party leader Jeremy Corbyn announced plans to reinstate the controversial 50p top tax rate on all those earning more than 123,000.

He said Labour was justified in extracting a little more from the tight-fisted rich, adding that the cash raised would help fund the partys plans for increasing health spending.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies last night warned that the income tax plans were unlikely to raise anything like the 4.5 billion a year claimed by Mr Corbyn.

The independent think-tank said it was even possible the policy would raise nothing if the better-off chose to put more into their pensions, cut their working hours or even decided to emigrate.

Labours proposals would mean annual tax rises of 1,000 for those earning 100,000 a year.

Those earning 150,000 would pay an extra 5,245 in income tax, while those on 200,000 would pay an additional 7,925.

The plans would also mean that those earning between 100,000 and 123,000  the level at which the personal allowance is clawed back  would face marginal tax rates of 67 per cent.

This would leave them paying two-thirds of every extra pound they earn in income tax.

Tory candidate Andrew Bridgen said Labours tax plans smacked of a return to the 1970s, when marginal tax rates of more than 90 per cent sparked a brain drain of talented individuals.

He said: Labour appear to have learned nothing from the experience of Francois Hollande who put up taxes and crashed the economy, leading to entrepreneurs decamping abroad, many of them to London.

'The better-off are mobile. At the moment we need fences to keep people out of this country  if Corbyn gets in well need them to keep them in.

The small print of the Labour manifesto also left open the door to painful new taxes on every homeowner and business in Britain.

Buried in supporting documents was a potential bombshell policy of a new land value tax.

The tax  which takes the form of an annual charge on the value of land  could replace business rates and council tax, it suggested.

Experts warned it could be used to hammer middle class home-owners with billions in new taxes.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates doubled down on her warning that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was susceptible to Russian blackmail.

'I think that this was a serious compromise situation that the Russians had real leverage,' Yates told CNN's Anderson Cooper in her first sit-down interview since being fired from the Department of Justice, which will air fully Tuesday night.

Yates testified before Congress last Monday where she told lawmakers that she had warned White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn 'likely could be blackmailed by the Russians.'

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Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper for her first televised interview since being fired from the Justice Department by President Trump

Sally Yates (left) told CNN's Anderson Cooper (right) that she believed there was a 'serious compromise situation' relating to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates explained to a Senate panel last Monday why she warned the White House about ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn

'To state the obvious you do not want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians,' Yates said at the time.

Yates had warned the White House that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence on discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador, and Pence subsequently made public statements repeating those untruths.

'And that this was a problem because not only did we believe that the Russians knew this, but they likely had proof of this information and that created a compromise situation,' Yates said during her testimony.

Cooper wanted to know if Flynn's actions were a firable offense.

'You know, I can't speak to a fireable offense,' she replied. 'It was up to the president to make that decision about what he was going to do, but we certainly felt like they needed to act.'

Yates reminded Cooper that she had told McGahn, who wanted to know if Flynn should be fired, that it wasn't her call.

Sally Yates warned the White House that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was lying about conversations he'd had with the Russians and the Russians knew about it, making him susceptible to blackmail

She added that while the decision to fire Flynn is up to the president of the United States 'it doesn't seem like that's a person who should be sitting in the national security adviser position.'

As far as Flynn's actions being illegal, Yates responded to CNN, 'There's certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by his conduct.'

She also stated that she wanted and expected the White House to act.

On her last day at the Justice Department Yates again spoke with McGahn, informing him that materials that showed Flynn's culpability were available for the White House to look at.

Yates had been canned by Trump over her refusal to support his controversial travel ban executive order.

Cooper asked her 'on a personal level' if she was concerned when she didn't see any action taken against Flynn.

It took the White House 19 days since Yates first warned McGahn about Flynn for the president to ask for his resignation.

'Well, sure, I was concerned about it, but I didn't know if perhaps something else had been done that maybe I just wasn't aware of,' she said.

She said it 'absolutely' was surprising that Flynn would sit in on a call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after she had warned the White House about his inappropriate Russian contacts.

After he was fired, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Flynn resigned over a trust issue, not a legal one.

Cooper asked if Yates agreed.

'I don't know how the White House reached the conclusion that there was no legal issue,' she said. 'It certainly wasn't from my discussion with them.'

Cooper, pointing to accusatory tweets written by the president of the United States, asked Yates again if she had leaked information to the Washington Post.

The Post story seemed to have prompted the firing of Flynn, leaving questions remaining about what impact Yates' warning had.

'Absoutely not,' the former top Justice Department official replied. 'I did not and I would not leak classified information.'

Cooper pointed to a specific tweet from Trump, which seemingly accused Yates of being the leaker, and asked her to react.

'There have been a number of tweets that have given me pause,' she said.

Cooper asked if she wanted to elaborate.

'No,' the former acting attorney general said back.
The three children who drove 500 kilometres down the Australian east coast in a stolen car took a selfie in the back of a police van after being caught at a highway McDonald's restaurant.

The girls, aged 15, 13, and 12, were found at the Pacific Highway rest stop at Glenthorpe in Taree South on the NSW Mid-North Coast about 4pm on Monday.

They had driven from the 13-year-old girl's Coomera home on the Gold Coast, where they left about 5am that morning in the girl's family four-wheel drive Nissan Nivara.

The three children who drove 500 kilometres down the Australian east coast in a stolen car took a selfie in the back of a police van after being caught at a highway McDonald's restaurant

The girls, aged 15, 13, and 12, were found at the highway rest stop on the Pacific Highway at Glenthorpe in Taree South on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast (turn-off pictured)

Police found the 15-year-old girl in the driver's seat and it's alleged she drove the whole way.

They girls appeared to take a selfie in the back of a police van. The selfie was then used in a Snapchat with the words: 'Ily [I love you] u my girls no matter what.'

One of the girls' relatives says she is shocked the trio went unnoticed for so long.

'What's more alarming to me is not just that the car was stolen, it's that they weren't stopped,' the auntie, who was not named, told Seven News.

Acting Inspector Ben Atkinson said the car hadn't been involved in any crashes.

'(They were) apparent runaways, although they weren't reported as missing people,' he said on Tuesday.

Police found the 15-year-old girl in the driver's seat and the other two girls in the passenger seats in the carpark at the service station

One of the girls' relatives says she is shocked the trio went unnoticed for so long

The girls were planning to make it to Sydney, which would have been a whopping 850km joyride.

One of the children's mothers phoned staff at the service station to look out for the girls. The staff member phoned police when they arrived.

The car had been reported stolen and police found it parked at the service station.

The girls have been taken into the care of the NSW Department of Family and Community Services.

The girls drove the four-wheel drive from the 13-year-old girl's home in Coomera on the Gold Coast, where they stole the car about 5am on Monday

'The initial concern is for their welfare because of their ages,' Insp Atkinson said.

However the 15-year-old driver was cautioned under the Young Offender's Act, he said.

The incident follows a similar case last month involving a 12-year-old boy who drove about 1300km across NSW on his way to Perth.

He set off from a home in Kendall near Port Macquarie and was only stopped at Broken Hill when police noticed the car's bumper dragging on the ground.

Children seeking assistance through family issues should contact Kids Help Line on 1800 55 1800.
The killers of PC Yvonne Fletcher will not face justice because police are unable to charge anyone for 'national security reasons'.

Scotland Yard issued an unprecedented statement yesterday saying that it had enough evidence to identify her murderer but cannot present it to a court.

It is understood that a dossier of evidence was blocked at ministerial level by the Home Office.

The key suspect, Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a former education minister in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime who was arrested in connection with the shooting in April 1984, has been told by police the investigation against him will not proceed 'at this time'.

The killers of PC Yvonne Fletcher, pictured, will not face justice because police are unable to charge anyone for 'national security reasons', Scotland Yard confirmed

PC Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. A memorial stands in St James's Square nearby, pictured

The Libyan, in his 50s, who was teaching at a British university at the time, was held on suspicion of conspiracy to murder but has been released from bail without charge.

Last night the officer's family said they were 'deeply disappointed'.

PC Fletcher was killed as she policed a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in St James's Square on April 17 1984.

The shooting sparked a ten-day siege of the building before 30 of the occupants were deported back to Libya.

No one has ever been prosecuted over the killing, which led to the severing of ties between Libya and the UK.

Mabrouk was deported after the murder but returned to seek political asylum in 2011.

In 2015, he, his wife and son were also arrested on suspicion of money laundering amid claims he left Tripoli with tens of millions in state funds.

His arrest was described as a 'significant turning point'.

The police officer's family said they were 'deeply disappointed' at the lack of justice. Pictured are tributes left to PC Fletcher at the memorial

Among the evidence against him is thought to be a 'scathing' report on the shooting by the then deputy cabinet secretary Sir Anthony Duff. It has never been published or placed in the National Archives.

The Cabinet Office also refused to release any of it two years ago after a freedom of information battle, saying it holds information from the security services.

Yesterday the Met said: 'We believe our investigation has identified enough material to identify those responsible for WPC Fletcher's murder if it could be presented to a court.

'However, the key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security.

'Therefore, without this material and following a review of all the evidence available to prosecutors, the Crown Prosecution Service have informed us that there is insufficient admissible evidence to charge the man.'

PC Fletcher's colleague John Murray, who cradled her in his arms as she lay dying, said yesterday: 'I am angry this information cannot be made public.

'I suspect there are certain politicians from the past who are very relieved about this decision.'

Speaking from his home in Chingford, north-east London, Mr Murray said he now hopes to bring a private prosecution against Mabrouk.

It is understood that a dossier of evidence into the death of the officer, pictured, was blocked at ministerial level by the Home Office

A Met spokesman said: 'This investigation will never be closed but the likelihood of finding further evidence, in Libya or elsewhere, is low.'

Last night PC Fletcher's family said in a statement: 'We are satisfied the Metropolitan Police has left no stone unturned in its pursuit of justice.

'We are deeply disappointed and frustrated that a prosecution cannot proceed at this time.

'We had hoped the latest turn of events would finally lead to some closure for the family.'

Last night Home Secretary Amber Rudd refused to say why the evidence could not be used.

Steve Kamlish QC, Mabrouk's lawyer, said: 'At no stage, either in interview or since, have the police produced any evidence against my client  not a shred.'
A married Army officer raped a drunk junior colleague after a drink-fuelled United Nations conference, a trans-Atlantic court martial has heard.

Lieutenant Colonel Benedict Tomkins, 49, attacked the woman in her room at a hotel in Kampala, Uganda, the hearing in the US was told.

The woman  an officer in the US Air Force  accused him of forcing her on to a bed during a 'moment of instant aggression'.

Tomkins, who denies rape, told investigators the sex was consensual but 'wasn't rose petal or cupid's arrow' and was 'fairly animal'.

Lieutenant Colonel Benedict Tomkins, 49, attacked the woman in her room at a hotel in Kampala, Uganda, (pictured) the hearing was told

He allegedly later sent her an email saying 'thank you for a fun and memorable evening'.

The court martial is the first to be held on both sides of the Atlantic in a move that allows witnesses to give evidence in the US before the court resumes in the UK next week.

The hearing in front of a British judge and with British soldiers on the court martial board  which acts as a jury  took place at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Judge Advocate General Jeff Blackett said proceedings would be 'governed by the law of England and Wales' and urged American reporters to 'comply with our custom' of keeping alleged sex assault victims anonymous.

The hearing heard that Tomkins, an officer of the Rifles Regiment who has commanded British troops in Afghanistan, met the junior officer at an international conference at a hotel in Kampala.

The hearing in front of a British judge and with British soldiers on the court martial board  which acts as a jury  took place at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland

They had been drinking heavily at a dinner and show at the hotel on January 7 when she invited him to her room to finish a presentation they were working on.

In a video interview played to the court the woman said: 'He came in, shut the door and walked straight over. There was no banter, no discussion. He was very direct as to his intentions. He instantly tried to unzip my dress.'

She recalled 'pushing him away' and said he 'grabbed my wrists or arms and controlled me' and used 'overwhelming force'.

Britains most senior military judge, Advocate General Jeff Blackett, pictured, is presiding over the case

She described it as a 'complete loss of control knowing I was too drunk to do anything'. She passed out and the next memory she had was of them having sex. She said she later woke to find Tomkins typing up the presentation on her laptop before she passed out again. He was gone in the morning.

The woman 'blacked out' any memory of the incident because her boss knew Tomkins and she feared reprisals. She said the British officer sent her emails and asked her if they wanted to 'get together more'. The woman said her 'emotional response was to take all the blame for this' so she responded cordially to his emails, saying to one: 'Thank you as well for a wonderful evening'.

She did not report the alleged rape right away as she was worried about the impact on her career, the court heard, but changed her mind when she began to suffer from anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Tomkins accuses the woman of alleging rape to 'make up for her professional shortcomings'.

The trial continues.
Dr Alan Keightley was head of religious studies at a West Midlands sixth-form college when he began writing to Ian Brady in 1992 at the suggestion of the mother of his youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. For years, he visited Brady in prison every month, spoke to him on the phone every day and received hundreds of letters from him.

Dr Keightley built up a detailed archive of material he has now turned into a biography of Brady that provides a disturbing and unique insight into the man himself  and the nature of evil.

More than half a century has gone by since the Moors Murders, yet they hold a fascination that will not go away, despite the passage of time.

They were the flip side of the so-called Swinging Sixties, traumatic events that shattered all sense of safety and decency in society. It is one thing to cause another person to suffer to achieve some other goal, as in violent robbery.

Brady was never cruel to animals. As a lad, he ran home in tears when he saw an injured horse being put down in the street. He wept again when his pet spaniel died

It is another matter to cause a person pain for no other reason than to make them suffer. Here was pure malevolence and we struggle still to understand it.

But people often got Brady very wrong as they searched for clues to explain who and what this monster of a man was.

It was often said, for example, that as a slum-kid growing up in Glasgow, he imprisoned cats, crucified frogs, sliced up caterpillars with razor blades and beheaded rabbits  and that later he got a job in a slaughter house, where he acquired his taste for the sight and smell of blood.

All this was untrue. Brady was never cruel to animals. As a lad, he ran home in tears when he saw an injured horse being put down in the street. He wept again when his pet spaniel died.

He never worked in a slaughter house, though he was once a meat delivery boy, which was how that particular myth began. The idea of butchering animals appalled him. I could never have brought myself to kill sheep or cattle, he once told me.

BRADY'S FIVE VICTIMS Pauline Reade , 16, was the couple's first victim. She was on her way to a local dance when Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. They drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped Pauline, beaten and stabbed. John Kilbride , 12, was snatched from Ashton market on Saturday November 23, 1963. He was strangled and buried in a shallow grave. He was the second of Brady and Hindley's five victims. Keith Bennett , 12, disappeared on the way to his grandmother's house. Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors where he was murdered. The method of killing has never been made clear. The pair buried his body which has never been found. Lesley Ann Downey , 10, disappeared on Boxing Day. She had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley's house. She was brutally assaulted with the ordeal captured on tape. Edward Evans , 17, was the sick duo's final victim. He had just been to see Manchester United play when Brady lured in Edward. Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe Advertisement

But the idea of killing people never bothered me in the least.

This was the real Ian Brady, a much more chilling man than anyone can possibly imagine, driven by complex motives that are not easily understandable.

Another enduring story is that he and Hindley were inspired by Nazi ideology  that Brady was a Hitler fanatic who collected Third Reich memorabilia from childhood and whose terrible deeds were somehow the outcome of his obsession with the Fuhrer.

But this was not true, either. In fact, as he revealed to me, his political views were Left-wing rather than extreme Right.

The misinterpretation came about because at his trial much was made of his tapes and books on Nazi figures. I also had tapes of Stalin and Churchill, he told me, but these were of no interest to the prosecution.

My interest in the Third Reich was based on aesthetic, not political grounds. I admired the will, boldness and the courage with which Hitler put his beliefs into effect. But he did not identify with Hitler. No one could. He was unique.

Certainly Brady had books on Nazism. I know because I saw them. But they had been sent to him by people who had assumed he was fascinated by the subject. They went largely unread.

The same went for his supposed obsession with the works of the Marquis de Sade. It is part of the accepted Moors Murders story that the 18th-century French aristocrats explicit writings combining sex and violence had a decisive, catastrophic influence on him and may even have precipitated the murders.

Brady dismissed this as nonsense. Again, this was an accusation and an explanation that had been offered by the prosecution at his trial, but he rejected it.

Brady thought they might just as easily have blamed Shakespeares Richard III, which he read at school, and which was a major influence on him. Brady often likened himself to the cruel king of Shakespeares play. Richards himself again, he would say in his sinister way, to describe the onset of his evil state of mind.

Curiously, I could not find this quotation in Shakespeares text, but among Bradys property was a video of Laurence Oliviers 1955 film. It was here that I found the elusive sentence.

Brady, who used the name Ian Stewart-Brady up until his death, was initially jailed for three murders in 1966

After a moment in which his better nature almost gets the better of him, the king declares: Conscience avaunt. Richards himself again. Brady had watched the film as a teenager and this became his catchphrase.

As for De Sade, Brady had read his works, he admitted, but for the philosophy  life was meaningless and the universe without purpose; therefore, nothing matters  rather than the sexual content, which he described as repetitive and turgid. He said he was bored rigid by it.

The fundamental cause and reason for the unspeakable acts he carried out lay in his conviction that life has no meaning.

A childhood photograph of Ian Brady during his time in Glasgow

Nothing is true, everything is permitted, he would tell me, quoting Nietzsche, famous for his pronouncement that God is dead. Brady believed the truth about life to be as bleak as it could be. In the end, all is illusion or delusion. We each do what we believe is best, thats all.

He called himself an existentialist or a moral relativist and his only faith was in chaos and absurdity. Our yearnings for immortality are comical and preposterous. Life, like death, doesnt give a damn about us.

As for religion, he told me, that was the self-flattering delusion of mankind that some supernatural force is in the least interested in the life of ants on a speck of dust in the universe. Brady was convinced he was a new kind of killer, of which society would see more and more. These killers would be products of the secular atmosphere that pervaded life in the West as the absolute values of good and evil declined.

He aligned himself with the French atheist Albert Camus, and his copy of Camuss book, The Rebel, was heavily highlighted, particularly a passage that concluded: Wickedness and virtue are just accident or whim.

But the intellectual influence that meant most to Brady was the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky. His book, Crime And Punishment, hangs like a shadow over the Moors Murders.

Bradys own copy of the book was among the property he bequeathed to me. As I leaf through it, the margins are littered with his comments in purple ink  marvellous psychological insight, stupendous observation of human nature! Brady was 18 and serving a sentence in Borstal for theft when he came across Crime And Punishment and identified with Raskolnikov, the books anti-hero.

Ian Brady, pictured by a court sketch artist at his last public hearing in 2013, has cost taxpayers millions in prison and secure hospital bills, it emerged after he died

Raskolnikov, a supercilious, poverty stricken student, robs and murders a rapacious old moneylender, a worthless parasite of no use to anyone. Afterwards, he realises money was not the real motive for his crimes, but that the crimes themselves were existential tests of personal will. Brady, as we have seen, went on to use the phrase existential exercises to describe his own murders.

I once pointed out to Brady the irony of him taking Dostoyevsky as his intellectual mentor. The Russian wrote Crime And Punishment to make money to pay for the upkeep of his dead brothers children. How strange that a book that saved childrens lives in the 19th century contributed to the murder of children in the 20th. Furthermore, Dostoyevsky wrote that the worst conceivable crime was crime against children.

But my comments were ignored. They did not fit Bradys twisted philosophy.
An intruder was arrested at the White House on Tuesday after trying to climb over the North Fence.

The suspect was arrested by armed Secret Service agents who were seen patrolling the area afterwards.

They were caught after jumping over the bicycle rack beside the North Fence Line.

Traffic was temporarily halted as they cleared the scene but it has since been resumed.

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An intruder was arrested after trying to jump the White House fence on Tuesday. Above, Secret Service agents at the scene afterwards

Despite a large Secret Service presence, NBC reports that White House staffers continued entering and exiting the building.

It came hours after President Trump gave a joint press conference with Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The answered questions in the Roosevelt Room after an Oval Office meeting.

Their conference was overshadowed by President Trump's bombshell admission that he disclosed classified information to Russian officials about the country's plan to defeat ISIS in Syria.

The information came from a US ally which the administration has not yet identified.

Agents were seen patrolling the area afterwards. Traffic was temporarily halted but has resumed

Two secret service agents direct members of the media outside the White House after an intruder tried to jump over the North Fence
Malcolm Turnbull has admitted he and his wife Lucy 'Netflix and chill'.

The Prime Minister was speaking with morning radio hosts Bianca, Terry & Bob from 97.3FM in Brisbane on Wednesday morning.

Bianca asked Mr Turnbull: 'Do you ever Netflix and chill with Lucy?'

He replied: 'Yes, we do.'

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy are pictured together at a 2017 Australian of the Year finalist morning tea at the Lodge in Canberra

'Netflix and chill' is generally used as a euphemism for having sex. The phrase refers to someone asking if their partner wants to 'Netflix and chill' as an invitation for sex. The euphemism often suggests a casual relationship.

It is not known whether Mr Turnbull was aware of the sexual connotation to the millennial term.

Mr Turnbull is in Queensland for the rest of the week to spruik the Federal Budget.

He will visit the Australian Innovation Solutions with MP Ross Vasta in Tingalpa on Wednesday.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Turnbull's office for comment.

Netflix is an online streaming and video-on-demand server. The Netflix webpage is pictured with the House of Cards political drama television series selected

The prime minister and his wife Lucy are pictured kissing in front of their daughter Daisy and son-in-law James Brown at the Liberal Party election event in Sydney on July 2 last year

'Netflix and chill' is a euphemism for sex. It refers to couples watching television or movies together as an invitation for sex (stock image)
A former Sydney private schoolboy faces eight years in a Bulgarian jail after travelling to Syria to allegedly join a terrorist group.

John Zakhariev, a former student at Waverley College in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, converted to Islam and travelled to Syria in 2013, maintaining it was for humanitarian work.

Authorities claimed Zakhariev tried to join a jihadist group, but was turned away.

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John Zakhariev (pictured), a former student at Waverley College in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, is facing terror charges in Bulgaria

Zakhariev, 21, is accused of attending a Bulgarian shooting range in training to fight for Islamic State in the Middle East.

The prosecution alleges Zakhariev stayed with an Islamic militant group - who pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda - when he visited Syria in 2013.

He appeared in Sofia's Special Criminal Court in Bulgaria on Tuesday where he denied the accusations.

'Absolutely not,' he told Nine News when asked if was guilty.

'What kind of terrorist am I? When they raided my apartment they found nothing, just religious material which even a previous expert said is actually normal religious material.'

'What kind of terrorist am I? When they raided my apartment they found nothing,' he said

Australian-Bulgarian citizen John Zakhariev, 21, (left) looks on at the start of a trial on charges of terrorism in Sofia's Special Criminal Court

Zakhariev said he braced himself for the worst possible outcome.

'I think I'll definitely be facing a guilty verdict. Not sure how many years I'm going to receive, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if I'm going to receive the maximum,' he said.

He faces a maximum eight years in prison for the alleged terror offence.

Zakhariev appeared in Sofia's Special Criminal Court in Bulgaria on Tuesday where he denied the accusations

Zakhariev's lawyer asked the court on Tuesday to consider evidence he believed would clear Zakhariev of his alleged crimes.

His lawyer said Zakhariev wrote an anti-Islamic email months before his arrest.

He also asked the court to consider information from Zakhariev's Facebook accounts but Judge Biljana Vrancheva denied both requests.

Zakhariev maintained the evidence could prove his innocence.

Appearing to brace for the worst, Zakhariev said 'I think I'll definitely be facing a guilty verdict'

Zakhariev has appealed for assistance from the Australian Government to serve his sentence in Australia, Nine News reports.

Zakhariev has been held in custody in a foreigners' wing of Sofia's maximum security prison since September.

He is due to appear in court on June 5 for his verdict and sentencing.
New calculations suggest space-time is wildly fluctuating, swinging back and forth between expansion and contraction at a scale billions and billions times smaller than an electron.

And, researchers say the phenomenon could help to finally explain whats driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.

In a new study, scientists propose a scenario that could resolve the issues between quantum mechanics and Einsteins theory of general relativity, by imagining a space-time thats not as static as it appears.

New calculations suggest space-time is wildly fluctuating, swinging back and forth between expansion and contraction at a scale billions and billions times smaller than an electron. 'Relic radiation' from after the Big Bang is shown in yellow in the image above

The researchers from the University of British Columbia suggest there is a huge density of vacuum energy in the universe, as predicted by some  but, in their calculations, oscillations between expansion and contraction cause it to nearly cancel itself out.

But, it doesnt, and instead gives rise to a tiny net effect that slowly causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate, they say.

Space-time is not as static as it appears, its constantly moving, said PhD student Qingdi Wang.

This is a new idea in a field where there hasnt been a lot of new ideas that try to address this issue, said Bill Unruh, a physics and astronomy professor who supervised Wangs work.

Scientists have long accepted the idea that a mysterious force known as dark energy is driving the expansion of the universe.

Its thought to make up roughly 67 percent of the universes contents, but its unclear what dark energy actually is, though many experts point to vacuum energy as the best candidate.

WHAT IS DARK ENERGY? Dark energy is a phrase used by physicists to describe a mysterious 'something' that is causing unusual things to happen in the universe. 'The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by,' Dr Kathy Romer, scientist at the Dark Energy Survey told MailOnline. 'What we'd expect is that the expansion would get slower and slower as time goes by, because it has been nearly 14 billion years since the Big Bang.' Coming up with an equation of state would give the researchers clues about what is making up this mysterious force. The universe is though to be expanding at an accelerated rate. And, many suspect a mysterious force known as dark energy may play a role At the moment the favourite candidate is called the 'cosmological constant'  which has a relatively boring equation of state. 'But, despite its simplicity, the cosmological constant is not the 'something' that scientists are hoping for,' Dr Romer said, 'a cosmological constant then messes up other parts of physics.' 'It's like a table plan at a wedding: you think you've got it all sorted out and then you notice that, because the caterers gave you a round table instead of a long one, your Dad is now going to be sitting next to your Mum's new boyfriend.' Advertisement

But, when the theory of quantum mechanics is applied to vacuum energy, the model predicts there would be far more vacuum energy than the energy of all the particles in the universe.

As a result, the gravitational effect  based on Einsteins theory of general relativity  would likely cause the universe to explode.

In the scenario proposed by Wang and colleagues, however, the two theories coexist without destructive results.

Scientists have long accepted the idea that a mysterious force known as dark energy is driving the expansion of the universe. The Milky Way is pictured

If space and time, are constantly fluctuating between expansion and contraction, the calculations allow for both the large density of vacuum energy and the gravitational effects of Einsteins theory.

And, over time, the small net effect of the nearly-cancelled-out states drives slowly accelerating expansion.

This happens at very tiny scales, billions and billions times smaller even than an electron, said Wang.

Its similar to the waves we see on the ocean, said Unruh.

They are not affected by the intense dance of the individual atoms that make up water on which those waves ride.
Critically-endangered vaquitas could become extinct in a matter of months, with fewer than 30 of the porpoises left, conservationists have warned.

Urgent action to clamp down on illegal fishing is needed to save the 'pandas of the sea', wildlife charity WWF said.

Vaquitas, the world's most-threatened marine mammal, are only found in Mexico's Upper Gulf of California, where their population has declined by 90 per cent since 2011 to fewer than 30 individuals in the latest estimates.

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Save the panda of the sea! Ask @EPN to take immediate

steps to #savethevaquita from extinction before its too

late https://t.co/vrqrvQ347q pic.twitter.com/NUxexhNBaW  WWF (@WWF) May 16, 2017

VAQUITA FACTS - The vaquita is a rare species of porpoise - It is the smallest species of porpoise worldwide, measuring around 1.5 metres (5ft) long - It is only found in Mexico's Upper Gulf of California - It is now the most endangered marine mammal worldwide - Numbers have dropped 90 per cent since 2011 - The species' biggest threat is illegal fishing of totoaba fish - Vaquitas get caught in the gillnets  fishing nets which are hung vertically to trap fish Advertisement

The porpoises are being hit by unsustainable fishing practices and illegal trafficking of the critically-endangered totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is prized in China as a delicacy and for medicine.

Vaquitas get caught in the gillnets  fishing nets which are hung vertically to trap fish  set to catch species such as the totoaba.

A report into the plight of the world's smallest porpoise from WWF comes as the current two-year ban on gillnets is set to expire.

WWF warned that despite some efforts by the Mexican government to enforce the ban, illegal gillnet fishing has continued.

The charity called for a permanent ban to be introduced and enforced for all gillnets.

Action is also needed to remove 'ghost nets', fishing gear that has been lost or abandoned in the water, to prevent the vaquitas being accidentally caught and drowned.

WWF is also urging the US and Chinese governments to work with Mexico to intercept and halt the illegal transport and sale of totoaba products, which it says are smuggled through the US to China.

The worldwide population of vaquitas has declined by 90 per cent since 2011 to fewer than 30 individuals in the latest estimates

Chris Gee, head of campaigns at WWF-UK, said: 'Time is rapidly running out for the vaquita, we could tragically lose the 'panda of the sea' in a matter of months.

'We need the public's help now to motivate the Mexican government to act to protect the species and the World Heritage site that provides home to the vaquita.

'The last hope for the species is the Mexican government immediately putting in place and properly enforcing a permanent ban on gillnets.

'This will also help safeguard this precious World Heritage site and the livelihoods of the local people who depend on it.'

The Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California World Heritage site is home to more than a third of the world's marine mammal species, five of the world's seven turtles and almost 900 fish species as well as many sea birds.

Last week scientists warned that the population of Mexico's endangered vaquita marina has fallen to alarmingly low levels and is heading toward extinction soon if drastic measures aren't taken.

This 1992 photo shows a dead totoaba, top, and a vaquita marina after they were caught in gillnet, set by fishermen to catch totoaba fish in Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Totoaba fishing is the biggest threat to vaquita numbers - the mammals are often accidentally caught in nets

According to results of a survey released in the evening by the country's Environment Department, as of December there were probably only about 60 of the shy, elusive creatures left in the upper Gulf of California.

The study was conducted by the International Commission for the Recovery of the Vaquita using a team of boats and acoustic devices to detect their sonar-like squeaks or clicks.

One scientist who participated said it was like listening to a room full of people clapping, and then hearing less and less clapping as the population dwindled.

Vaquitas, the world's most-threatened marine mammal, are only found in Mexico's Upper Gulf of California

The last such survey found just under 100 vaquitas in 2014. Overall, their numbers are down 92 percent since 1997.

'We are watching this precious native species disappear before our eyes,' said Dr Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, chair of the commission and the survey's co-chief scientist.

Even since the most recent study was conducted, three vaquitas were found dead during just three weeks in March by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, leading some to fear their numbers could be significantly lower.
HTC has revealed its newest smartphone, which can be squeezed in order to take selfies and launch other apps.

The new U11 houses technology called Edge Sense, based around sensors built into the side of the device that respond to being squeezed.

The Taiwanese manufacturer has also become the first to include support for both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa smart virtual assistants.

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The tech giant's new U11 device houses technology called Edge Sense, based around sensors built into the side of the device that respond to being squeezed

THE FLAGSHIP HTC U Squeezable touch-sensitive frame

5.5-inch (14cm) display

12MP camera

Four GB of RAM and 64GB of storage

Snapdragon 835 SoC

3000mAh battery

12MP HTC UltraPixel 3 main camera with 1.4m pixel

Full HD 1080p video recording on front camera

HTC Sense Companion: suggestions based on things you do

3D Audio recording with 4 microphones

3000mAh battery

Talk time on 3G/4G: up to 24.5 hours

Standby time on 3G/4G: up to 14 days

Google assistant and Amazon Alexa

Launched on May 16

Cost 649/$649 Advertisement

The HTC U11, which will cost 649 / $649, was unveiled during a live event in Taiwan and is the tech giant's challenger to the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and the iPhone 7.

The Edge Sense works when the phone is wet and if the user if wearing gloves, HTC said, and it will also support voice dictation for messages.

The two voice assistants, best known for powering rival smart home speakers Google Home and Amazon Echo, will be made available side by side for the first time on the U11.

HTC's own Sense Companion assistant - which uses artificial intelligence to 'learn' user habits and suggest content based on that - is also built into the phone.

Elsewhere, the U11 has a 12 megapixel, UltraPixel 3 rear-facing camera which comes complete with optical image stabilisation (OIS) - which smoothes shaky photography.

The front-facing 'selfie' camera is 16 megapixels and can also be triggered by voice command.

The USonic earphones which come in the box with the phone have also been given active noise cancellation for the first time - meaning they are able to filter out background noise.

The handset will go in sale in Asia on 18 May, although it is not clear if this is pre-orders or on-the-shelves release.

For the rest of the world it is believed the phone will be released in June but a specific date has not been given.

The HTC U11, which will cost 649 / $649, was unveiled during a live event in Taiwan and is the tech giant's challenger to the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and the iPhone 7

The two voice assistants, best known for powering rival smart home speakers Google Home and Amazon Echo, will be made available side by side for the first time on the U11

HTC, which marks its 20th anniversary this week, is hoping to keep stride with Samsung and Apple in the smartphone market, while also putting pressure on its new, emerging rivals from China - OnePlus and Huawei.

HTC says it hopes the U11 will 'revitalise the company', which has had more recent success in its virtual reality headset and platform, Vive, which launched last year.

The HTC U runs on Snapdragon 835 SoC and has four GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

It has a 3000mAh battery.

HTC says it hopes the U11 will 'revitalise the company', which has had more recent success in its virtual reality headset and platform, Vive, which launched last year

SENSE COMPANION The firm has unveiled the HTC U Play and U Ultra, both of which house AI software called HTC Sense Companion. HTC says the Sense Companion will be able to help users save battery life by reminding them to charge the phone during the day when it spots a busy calendar, while also suggesting extra clothing and leaving more time to travel if bad weather is forecast. And the phones are able to understand which apps and contacts are most regularly used and make any notifications received from or relating to them a priority. The firm said the new phones 'represent a new beginning for HTC.' Advertisement

Ernest Doku, mobile phone expert at comparison site uSwitch.com said: 'HTC has created a range of decent and reliable handsets over the last few years, but in a sector swamped by players with big marketing budgets, HTC has found it challenging to deliver a handset that shouts above the din.

'With the launch of the HTC U11, it could just have made some real noise.

'The handset's most distinctive feature - a squeezable 'scroll and select' function - is a considered play for users who crave the full use of their screen.'

The tech giant's integration of two smart assistants, Amazon's Alexa and Google Home, was also praised.

'With this handset, the Taiwanese manufacturer has also tapped into the connected technology boom by putting its virtual assistant front and centre.

'HTC Sense Companion claims to combine the retail nous of Amazon's Alexa and the search engine prowess of Google Assistant for a holistic voice-activated experience,' Mr Doku said.

The HTC U runs on Snapdragon 835 SoC and has four GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It has a 3000mAh battery

The Taiwanese firm launched has already launched two phones this year - mid-range U Ultra and U Play - to a mixed critical response.

The HTC U Play and U Ultra both house AI software called HTC Sense Companion.

The U Ultra features a small second screen at the top of the display that is designed to stay on, offering a faster window to important notifications.

Like Apple, HTC has controversially ditched the headphone jack, meaning users will need to rely on wireless headphones or use an adaptor.

The phones are able to understand which apps and contacts are most regularly used and make any notifications received from or relating to them a priority.

The handset will go in sale in Asia on 18 May, although it is not clear if this is pre-orders or on-the-shelves release. For the rest of the world it is believed the phone will be released in June but a specific date has not been given.

Like Apple, HTC controversially ditched the headphone jack, meaning users will need to rely on wireless headphones or use an adaptor

They are different sizes, with the larger U Ultra also featuring a second, smaller screen at the top of the display that is designed to stay on and offer a faster window to important notifications and other information, a feature HTC calls Priority Assistant.

The U Ultra comes with a 14.4cm (5.7in) display, while the U Play has a 13.2cm (5.2in) screen.

Both phones have fingerprint scanners and feature an ultra-thin 'liquid surface' coloured glass design, with a shiny finish, available in either blue, black, white, or pink.
A giant ball of gas found by astronomers could become the gold standard in measuring the atmospheres of Earth-like planets.

The planet has been compared to the consistency of the Styrofoam models of our solar system made by schoolchildren.

And the puffy planet could help scientists searching for signs of life on other worlds found in the future.

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Researchers from three universities in the US have discovered Kelt-11b (artist's impression pictured), a 'styrofoam' exoplanet orbiting a bright star in the southern hemisphere. And it could become the gold standard in measuring the atmospheres of Earth-like planets

KELT-11B Kelt-11b, orbits a star 320 light years from Earth that is extremely bright. This allowed researchers from three universities in the US to take extremely precise measurements of the planet's atmosphere. This makes it an ideal base for comparison when measuring the atmospheres of other planets in the future. Kelt-11b is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, but passes very close to its host star in an orbit that lasts less than five days. It has a fifth of the mass of Jupiter but it is nearly 40 per cent larger, making it about as dense as Styrofoam. Advertisement

Researchers from three universities in the US made the discovery using the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (Kelt) array.

The planet they found, Kelt-11b, orbits a star 320 light years from Earth that is extremely bright, which allowed them to take extremely precise measurements of the planet's atmosphere.

This makes it an ideal base for comparison when measuring the atmospheres of other planets.

This will become increasingly useful in the next 10 years, when scientists apply similar techniques to exoplanets discovered with the next generation of telescopes.

Kelt-11b is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, which passes very close to its host star in an orbit that lasts less than five days.

The star, Kelt-11, has started using up its nuclear fuel and is evolving into a red giant, and Kelt-11b will be engulfed within the next hundred million years.

Astronomer Joshua Pepper from Lehigh University, who led the study, said: 'We were very surprised by the amazingly low density of this planet. It's extremely big for its mass.

'It is highly inflated, so that while it's only a fifth as massive as Jupiter, it is nearly 40 per cent larger, making it about as dense as Styrofoam, with an extraordinarily large atmosphere.

'We don't know of any real Earth-like planets or stars for which we can measure their atmospheres, though we expect to discover more in future years.

'These (giant gas) planets are the gold standards for learning how to measure the atmospheres of planets.'

Kelt uses two small robotic telescopes, one in Arizona and the other in South Africa, which scan the sky night after night, measuring the brightness of about five million stars.

Researchers search for stars that seem to dim slightly at regular intervals, which can indicate a planet is orbiting that star and eclipsing it.

The discovery was made using the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope array (pictured). Kelt uses two small robotic telescopes, one in Arizona and the other in South Africa, which scan the night sky, measuring the brightness of about five million stars

Kelt-11b is an extreme version of a gas planet, like Jupiter (pictured). The planet has a fifth of the mass of Jupiter but it is nearly 40 per cent larger, making it about as dense as Styrofoam (stock image)

They then use other telescopes to measure the gravitational 'wobble' of the star.

Planets exert a slight tug on a star as they orbit it, and this can be used to measure the planet's mass.

Kelt-11 is the brightest in the southern hemisphere known to host a transiting planet by more than a magnitude and the sixth brightest transit host discovered to date.

Planets discovered by the Kelt survey will be observed in detail by large space telescopes such as Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, to understand how planets form and how their atmospheres behave.

The full findings of the research are published in The Astronomical Journal.
In a million years' time humans and the lives they lead will be almost unrecognisable to anyone alive today.

We will likely have merged with technology to form bionic beings, experts say.

Humans could also have united all theoretical equations to create a 'unified theory' that will give us an unprecedented understanding of our universe.

But life in the year one million will not be easy as we fight to define what it means to be human in a technology-dominated world.

In a million years' time humans and the lives they lead will be almost unrecognisable to anyone alive today. We will likely have merged with technology to form bionic beings (stock image)

An expert made the comments while discussing the new National Geographic series 'Year Million', which investigates what human life will be like in the far future.

Professor Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University in New York City, is a scientist featured in the series.

Professor Greene told Live Science he doesn't think humans in the year one million will look much like people today.

He said our lives will be so different that humans today wouldn't recognise them.

'We'd require an intense education to even understand the parameters of life a million years in the future,' Professor Greene told Live Science.

In the future humans could merge with machines to form hybrid beings, the physicist suggested.

But life in the year one million will not be easy as we fight to define what it means to be human in a technology-dominated world. Bionic technology, such as the arm pictured here, will become commonplace as humans attempt to boost performance and lifespan (stock image)

'We're already finding, on much shorter timescales, [that the] distinction between biological beings and artificial beings is starting to blur,' he said.

'I could see a hybrid species out of the biological and the synthetic.'

And even with a millennia of physics research under their belts, scientists will still have plenty to answer about our universe.

WHAT WILL LIFE BE LIKE IN A BILLION YEARS' TIME? A new video published to YouTube by RealLifeLore this week revealed what could be in store for planet Earth over the next billion years. The experts start the clip 10,000 years into the future, when they speculate that human genetic variation, such as skin and hair colour, will no longer be regional, but will be evenly distributed around the globe. And 20,000 years in to the future, languages will only contain one out of every 100 core vocabulary words of their present-day counterparts. This means that all languages that spoken today will have evolved into something new. In 100,000 years, it is said that humans will have finally made Mars a habitable planet. 500,000 years from now, Earth will have likely been struck by an asteroid that is 3,280 feet (one kilometer) in diameter  unless we can stop it in its tracks. Finally, one billion years from today, the suns luminosity will have increased 10 per cent from its current state. The surface temperature on Earth will rise to a sweltering 117 degrees Fahrenheit 47 degrees Celsius on average.

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'I guess my feeling is there are certain chapters in the story of physics we will complete,' Professor Greene said.

'We'll truly understand fundamental forces [and] the basic ingredients of matter, and unite all the equations that describe [quantum mechanics and gravity] into some kind of unified theory.

'But with every chapter we complete, we ask questions we couldn't even formulate because we didn't have the concepts,' he added.

This image shows some of the genetic enhancements that futurologist Juan Enriquez suggests humanity could acquire in the future. These enhancements, the Harvard researcher said in a recent TED talk, would help human settlers to survive on distant planets

One example is Einstein's theory of general relativity, Professor Greene said.

'Einstein comes and gives us general relativity in 1915, and with it, a new description of gravity.

'Now we can address questions of the origin of [the] universe,' which wasn't possible with earlier physics, he said.

Other people involved in the science fiction writers, including Charles Soule, who has previously written comics for Marvel.

'The year 1 million concept  it's like an abstract,' Mr Soule told live Science.

'Take humanity, and it's accelerated far beyond where we are today, where most of the technological problems today are kind of solved.'

Human would still have problems to solve but they would be very different to the ones we face today, he said, such as figuring out the role of artificial intelligence and defining what it means to be human in a technological world.
It is the world's most popular operating system for mobile phones, and it could soon become an inbuilt feature in cars.

Two major manufacturers have announced that they will be powering the on-board consoles in their next generation of vehicles with Android.

And a concept version of their visions for the future will go on display at a technology conference being hosted by Google, the firm behind Android.

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Audi and Volvo will unveil an in-car version of Android (Volvo edition pictured) at Google's annual developer conference, being held at the firm's headquarters in Mountain View, California, from tomorrow

IN-CAR ANDROID Audi and Volvo both debut their fully integrated in-car versions of Android at the annual Google I/O developer conference. Android Automotive aims to blend each firm's software with the operating system. This will allow users to access popular apps like Google Maps, Spotify and Google Play from the comfort of their car. It will also provide access to the functions of the owner's android handset, like messaging and making calls. And Google's voice assistant software will power all of these functions, enabling hand-free control. The systems are being demonstrated on an Audi Q8 and Volvo V90. Advertisement

Around 7,000 people are expected to attend the annual Google I/O developer conference, being held at the firm's headquarters in Mountain View, California, from tomorrow until Friday.

Audi and Volvo will both debut their fully integrated versions of Android Automotive, which aims to blend each firm's software with the operating system.

This will allow users to access popular apps like Google Maps, Spotify and Google Play from the comfort of their car.

It will also provide access to the functions of the owner's android handset, like messaging and making calls.

And Google's voice assistant software will power all of these functions, enabling hands-free control.

The system will be demonstrated on a concept version of the Audi Q8 Sport.

Patrick Brady, vice president of Android engineering at Google, said: 'We're thrilled to partner with Volvo to bring Android into their next-generation connected cars.

'This partnership gives us the opportunity to deliver a more seamless experience to Volvo drivers through a full-featured infotainment platform and rich ecosystem of Android applications and Google services.'

This is not the first time that Google has explored the potential for using Android to interface with cars.

In 2015 it launched Android Auto, which allowed owners of Android handsets to display information from their smartphones on the car's dashboard.

Android Automotive aims to blend each firm's software with the operating system. In the Audi Q8 concept car (artist's impression pictured), Android will power all of the displays, including the dashboard behind the wheel

Each manufacturer will be able to retain the appearance of their brand's in-car software, while including functions familiar to Android users. Among them is the popular music streaming service Spotify (pictured)

But rather than running its own operating system, the unit acts an external display for connected devices.

Android Automotive makes the next logical leap, by integrating the two.

Each manufacturer will be able to retain the appearance of their brand's in-car software, while including functions familiar to Android users.

'With the advent of Android, we will embrace a rich ecosystem while keeping our iconic Volvo user interface' said Henrik Green, senior vice president of research and development at Volvo.

'We will offer hundreds of popular apps and the best-integrated experience in this broad, connected environment.'
For people living with dementia, recalling memories can be a frustrating process, but a new virtual reality system is being used as a form of therapy.

The VR system, called VirtuCare, shows users scenes designed to relax them - including a nostalgic beach and forest full of animals - in the hope of jogging memories.

A touching new video shows two elderly people trying out the device, and one even says that using it is 'one of the happiest moments of [her] whole life.'

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A touching new video shows two elderly people trying out the VR device, and one (pictured) even says that using it is 'one of the happiest moments of [her] whole life'

THE VIRTUCARE SYSTEM VirtuCare is delivered as a package including a VR Ready laptop, an Oculus Rift, twelve VR scenes pre-installed, training and technical support. The scenes include a beach, a forest full of animals, a luxury yacht overlooking a coral reef and dolphins playing in the sea, an underwater experience of the coral reef and dolphins and even a view of the Earth from the International Space Station set to relaxing piano music. The kit also includes activity cards to help bring back memories through questions and keywords that the carer or nurse can ask. Advertisement

VirtuCare was designed by Hertfordshire based organisations, Tribemix and Quantum Care.

In the video released by the firm, two elderly people with dementia can be seen trying on the device.

The woman in the video is shown a beach scene, which triggers her memories of time spent on the beach in Scotland.

She says: 'I'm just so happy to see that beautiful sight.

'It's beautiful beyond compare.

'It's one of the happiest moments of my whole life.'

While it was initially created to help people living with dementia, the project is now broadening to be used by a range of patient types, including those with respiratory disorders and elderly care.

The system uses real-time 3D to create experiences that immerse the user, while giving them a level of control in what happens in each scene.

On its website, Tribemix said: 'This is important because, with dementia, in particular, the level of stimulation needs to be very accurately controlled.

'The experience can be too stimulating, or not stimulating enough. So by using 3D, we have been able to perfect these balances to deliver our incredible results.'

In a touching video released by the firm, two elderly people with dementia can be seen trying on the device

VirtuCare is delivered as a package including a VR Ready laptop, an Oculus Rift, 12 VR scenes pre-installed, training and technical support.

The scenes include a beach, a forest full of animals, a luxury yacht overlooking a coral reef and dolphins playing in the sea, an underwater experience of the coral reef and dolphins and even a view of the Earth from the International Space Station set to relaxing piano music.

The kit also includes activity cards to help bring back memories through questions and keywords that the carer or nurse can ask.

VirtuCare is delivered as a package including a VR Ready laptop, an Oculus Rift, 12 VR scenes pre-installed, training and technical support

The scenes include a beach (pictured), a forest full of animals, a luxury yacht overlooking a coral reef and dolphins playing in the sea, an underwater experience of the coral reef and even a view of the Earth from the International Space Station set to relaxing piano music

Tribemix said: 'We ask a series of open questions in a similar theme to the scene, i.e. What do you remember from visiting the beach as a child? What are your favourite animals? What do you remember about when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?'

One lady was shown a beach scene through the VR device, and believed her carers had taken her to Whitby where she had first met her husband along the sand of the beach.

Tribemix is now working to roll the project out across its care home group. But the system isn't cheap, and costs 3,995 ($5,140) for the full system

And another resident believed he was in Tunisia when shown the same scene, prompting him to tell his carers about his holidays to Hammamet and Seuss as well as horse riding along the beach.

Tribemix is now working to roll the project out across its care home group.

But the virtual reality programme isn't cheap, and costs 3,995 ($5,140) for the full system.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Co has unveiled a new computer prototype that it claims could handle more data than any similar system in the world.

The California-based firm said the prototype contains 160 terabytes of memory, capable of managing the information from every book in the U.S. Library of Congress five times over.

It is the latest prototype from 'The Machine' research project by HPE, which aims to create super-fast computers by designing them around memory.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Co has unveiled a new computer prototype that it claims could handle more data than any similar system in the world

THE SPECS 60 TB of shared memory spread across 40 physical nodes, interconnected using a high-performance fabric protocol. An optimized Linux-based operating system (OS) running on ThunderX2, Cavium's flagship second generation dual socket capable ARMv8-A workload optimized System on a Chip. Photonics/Optical communication links, including the new X1 photonics module, are online and operational. Software programming tools designed to take advantage of abundant persistent memory. In the future it foresees the unite having a memory-based system with up to 4,096 yottabytes of data  more than 250,000 times the size of today's digital universe. Advertisement

Traditionally, the way processors, storage and memory interact can bog down computers.

'The secrets to the next great scientific breakthrough, industry-changing innovation or life-altering technology hide in plain sight behind the mountains of data we create every day,' said Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

'To realize this promise, we can't rely on the technologies of the past, we need a computer built for the big data era.'

The prototype underscores HPE's ambition to lead computer technology as huge datasets place new strains on devices.

It is designed with 160 terabytes (TB) of memory, capable of simultaneously working with the data held in approximately 160 million books.

It has never been possible to hold and manipulate whole data sets of this size in a single-memory system, and this is just a glimpse of the immense potential of Memory-Driven Computing.

With that amount of memory, it will be possible to simultaneously work with every digital health record of every person on earth; every piece of data from Facebook; every trip of Google's autonomous vehicles and every data set from space exploration all at the same timegetting to answers and uncovering new opportunities at unprecedented speeds.

HOW HPE'S COMPUTER WOULD HELP IN THE REAL WORLD Healthcare: Because the computer is capable of simultaneously analyzing every person in the world's medical records, it will have the information needed to identify matches pf people, diagnoses and treatments or therapies that worked best for people most similar to the patient as opposed to treatments that work best for the average patient. Transportation: Memory-Driven Computing will allow transportation systems to predict problems 'faster and with bigger datasets'. For example, an airport could simulate a near infinite number of potential delays at different places around the terminal and hold the solution in memory so that it would know exactly how to respond if the airport was hit with that specific incident. Retail: Systems built on HPE's Memory-Driven Computing architecture could deliver enormous gains in analytic capacity and provide actionable insights within the attention span of a shopper. Advertisement

'We believe Memory-Driven Computing is the solution to move the technology industry forward in a way that can enable advancements across all aspects of society,' said Mark Potter, CTO at HPE and director, Hewlett Packard Labs.

'The architecture we have unveiled can be applied to every computing categoryfrom intelligent edge devices to supercomputers.'

The California-based firm said the prototype contains 160 terabytes of memory, capable of managing the information from every book in the U.S. Library of Congress five times over - or approximately 160 million books

With that amount of memory, it will be possible to simultaneously work with every digital health record of every person on earth; every piece of data from Facebook; every trip of Google's autonomous vehicles and every data set from space exploration all at the same time

While large data centers that piece together many computers may have enough calculating power, they cannot transfer data efficiently, said Kirk Bresniker, Hewlett Packard Labs Chief Architect, in an interview.

That means HPE's single-system model may one day compete with the infrastructure spearheaded by cloud-computing companies like Amazon.com Inc.

HPE expects its model will over time contain more and more memory.

While large data centers that piece together many computers may have enough calculating power, they cannot transfer data efficiently. That means HPE's single-system model may one day compete with the infrastructure spearheaded by cloud-computing companies like Amazon.com Inc

HPE expects its model will over time contain more and more memory. In the future it foresees the unit having a memory-based system with up to 4,096 yottabytes of data  more than 250,000 times the size of today's digital universe

In the future it foresees the unit having a memory-based system with up to 4,096 yottabytes of data  more than 250,000 times the size of today's digital universe.

And the firm has suggested that when it is capable of analyzing that much data at once, it will have the ability to 'discover correlations we could have never conceived before'.

HPE said its new system could assist in missions to Mars by foreseeing any chain of events before they happen - similar to Star Treks 'The Machine' (pictured)

'And that ability will open entirely new frontiers of intellectual discovery, HPE shared in a press release.

In addition to assisting in different areas on Earth, the technology could also be useful in space - the computer could also assist astronauts in missions to mars.

Those making the journey could rely on the machine to figure out a range of issues that could arise, allowing them to formulate solutions and save them for future events.

Teams could also rely on the onboard computers for help, rather than communicating with Mission Control.

While the prototype remains years away from being commercially available, HPE is already bringing some of the tech from its research program to market. Still, companies and the scientific community have yet to concur on what technology will best serve users

While the prototype remains years away from being commercially available, HPE is already bringing some of the tech from its research program to market.

Still, companies and the scientific community have yet to concur on what technology will best serve users.

'You need computing that scales up with the size of the dataset,' said Kathy Yelick, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley.
Scientists are to examine human remains from the Tudor warship Mary Rose with the hope of re-creating accurate skeletons of some of the crew.

The vessel, Henry VIII's flagship, went on display last year in the newly-revamped Mary Rose museum, exactly 471 years after it perished in the Solent, just outside Portsmouth Harbour, on July 19, 1545.

A DNA expert will examine the bones from crew members to see if they can find out details about their lives and what they looked like.

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A DNA expert will examine the bones from crew members on the Mary Rose which perished in the Solent on July 19, 1545 to establish if any of them come from the same person. Pictured is a reconstructed skeleton of the most complete individual skeleton from the Mary Rose to date alongside a model of him dressed as an archer

MARY ROSE CREW Remains of about a third of the 500-strong crew of Henry VIII's flagship have been found with the rest, apart from the handful of survivors, lost at sea. Many of the remains were discovered in groups, making it difficult to identify individuals. But it has been possible to partially reconstruct 92 skeletons by a physical study of the bones. The experts hope the research could lead to identifying where some of the crew originated. Advertisement

Remains of about a third of the 500-strong crew of Henry VIII's flagship, which was sunk in the Solent in 1545, have been found with the wreckage apart from the handful of survivors.

Many of the remains which were found were discovered in groups, making it difficult to identify individuals by physical observation alone - although it has been possible to partially reconstruct 92 skeletons by a physical study of the bones.

Dr Gary Scarlett, a DNA expert at the University of Portsmouth said he hoped the research could lead to identifying where some of the crew originated.

He said: 'It's wonderful that science can help find new ways to engage people in the life of the ship, its fateful battle and in history.

'I hope, once we have determined for certain which bones belong with which, some whole skeletons might be able to be reassembled.'

Maritime archaeologist Alex Hildred, from the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, said: 'The ability to recreate individuals from bones from DNA analysis rather than having to rely on physical matching has huge benefits; unless key parts of the skeleton of an individual are present, it is difficult to associate a skull with a body, or an upper body with a lower body.

Many of the remains which were found on board the Mary Rose (pictured) were discovered in groups, making it difficult to identify individuals by physical observation alone - although it has been possible to partially reconstruct 92 skeletons by a physical study of the bones

THE HISTORY OF THE MARY ROSE When Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1509, he had just a small fleet of warships. But with threats from both the Scottish and the French, the monarch recognised he needed to build up his Navy. The project started with two ships, the Peter Pomegranate and her larger sister ship, the Mary Rose. Some suggest the ship was named after Henry's sister, Mary Tudor, however it is more likely it was named after the Virgin Mary. After 34 years at sea and three wars, the Mary Rose had been regarded by many as invincible. Then, as she defended England from a French invasion force, she sank taking with her 500 men and a treasure trove of Tudor history with her to the seafloor on July 19, 1545. The ship was rediscovered by divers in 1971 and between 1979 and 1982 the entire contents of the ship were excavated resulting in the recovery of around 20,000 objects. Advertisement

'Only about a third of our 92 partially reconstructed skeletons have skulls, yet we have 179 skulls.

'This technique should enable us to recreate the faces of many more of our crew. Enlarging the number of re-constructed skeletons means we can tell more about them - height, age, provenance, wounds they sustained, diseases they may have had', he said.

The Mary Rose was publicly unveiled in July last year nearly 500 years after the warship sank in battle.

'Displayed alongside their possessions, the collection is seen within the lives of these men, within the context of the ship which was their home, workplace and sepulchre', said Dr Hildred.

The vessel, Henry VIII's flagship, has gone on display in the newly-revamped Mary Rose museum exactly 471 years after it perished in the Solent on July 19, 1545

The unveiling last year (pictured) heralds the end of the 34-year project which saw the ship painstakingly restored after it was raised from the bottom of the seabed in 1982

Visitors could see thousands of artefacts salvaged from the wreckage - following a 5.4m ($7m) revamp at the museum.

Speaking in July 2016, historian David Starkey said: 'For the first time we can actually see the Mary Rose.

'Up to this point from the moment it was brought up in the 1980s, it has been in a state of both being preserved and conserved and to do that it had to be covered by sprays, it had to be put in a huge bag like a condom and then it had to be dried.

'And while of all that went on, there were obstacles between you, the visitor, and the ship. Now all of that has been taken away and you can see the thing, it's there, it's a three-dimensional object.'

Helen Bonser-Wilton, chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, said it had been a 'very exciting close to the latest chapter in her history'.

'Visitors will have stunning panoramic views of the ship from all nine galleries,' she said.

The Mary Rose, a 16th Century warship, sank in battle with the French, killing more than 500 men.

Incredibly, the starboard hull remained intact by being embedded in mud on the seabed, which prevented it from being eroded by tides and bacteria.

In total, 19,000 items were carefully retrieved, including the bones of sailors, a dog called Hatch and other artefacts from the wreckage.

Visitors can see a full uninterrupted view of the hull (pictured) - along with thousands of artefacts salvaged from the wreckage - following a 5.4m ($7m) revamp at the museum

Helen Bonser-Wilton, chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, said it had been a 'very exciting close to the latest chapter in her history'. The display - which gives visitors a panoramic view of the ship without the obstruction of glass or conservation jets - is pictured above

Since being raised in 1982 - an event watched by 60 million viewers worldwide - the hull has been kept in highly protective surroundings.

For decades, it was constantly coated with millions of litres of finely-sprayed, fresh water at a temperature of less than 5C (41F).

That process, along with a series of wax chemicals, were used to stop the wood drying out and to inhibit bacterial activity.

Alex Hildred, Maritime Archaeologist, pictured with the Tudor Rose emblem which was discovered on the wreck of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose. It has now been preserved and will be unveiled to the public

Experts used several processes, including laser scanning, computer modelling and 3D rendering, to produce a digital image of the rose, depicting how it could have looked at the time the ship sunk

The carved Tudor rose - the earliest English figurehead representing the ship's name - was retrieved from the bottom of the Solent more than a decade ago as a small piece of wood

Then, in 1985, the ship was turned upright and titanium props were installed to support the internal structure and work was undertaken to remove as much sediment as possible.

From 1994, active conservation commenced with the spraying of Polyethylene Glycol (Peg), a water-soluble polymer which can penetrate deep into the wood and support the cell walls.

Then, in April 2013, the Peg sprays were turned off and the hull was kept in a state of controlled air-drying phase 100 tonnes of water during the next four to five years.

Once drying was complete, the internal walls surrounding the hull were removed so visitors would be able to see a completely unobstructed view of the hull - a phase that was seen as the culmination of the project.

Small viewing panels have now been replaced with floor-to-ceiling windows and a balcony entered through an airlock so the ship can be seen in all its glory.

Sir Peter Luff, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund which granted 26 million towards the project, said: 'Quite simply, the Mary Rose is awe-inspiring.

'After decades of hard work, this final part of the conservation jigsaw brings the Mary Rose back in to clear focus and spectacular context.'

An illustration of the Mary Rose from the Anthony Roll which shows the red emblem mounted on the forecastle (circled above)

Once drying was complete, the internal walls surrounding the hull were removed so visitors would be able to see a completely unobstructed view of the hull (pictured) - a phase that was seen as the culmination of the project

The Mary Rose famously perished in the Solent, just outside Portsmouth Harbour, on July 19, 1545

Also included in the display is the red rose figurehead which adorned the famous ship.

The carved Tudor rose - the earliest English figurehead representing the ship's name - was retrieved from the bottom of the Solent more than a decade ago as a small piece of wood.

The conserved artefact - which still has its carvings despite years of erosion while languishing in the silt of the sea - has now been officially identified as the flower which was fixed to the bow of the Mary Rose.

The rose was found in 2003, after a group of divers working on a Ministry of Defence excavation made what would transpire to be a hugely historic discovery.

The divers had been searching the area for the ship's bowcastle and were trying to raise the Tudor ship's stem and anchor after the government applied to widen and straighten the channel.

This picture shows the Mary Rose being raised from the bottom of the Solent, near Portsmouth Dockyard, Hampshire, in 1982. The historic event was watched by 60million people worldwide

The raising sparked a 34-year restoration project which involved more than 19,000 artefacts being recovered and preserved for public display. The wreckage is shown after its recoery in 1982

As these pieces were being prepared for lifting, the divers came across a carved wooden artefact, which was about four feet long and shaped like a lollipop.

Unsure what it was, the wood was raised and put into a water tank at the Mary Rose Museum where it was kept without investigation.

But, more than a decade on, it has now been properly identified as the ship's emblem. This year, the Mary Rose Trust asked the University of Portsmouth for help to enhance the carvings to see what was there.

Experts then used a series of techniques - including laser scanning, computer modelling and 3D rendering - to produce a digital image of the rose, depicting how it could have looked.
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Not long before his death, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs envisioned 'building the best office building in the world.'

And, with elaborate glass canopies, a two-story yoga room, a 4,000 person cafe with four-story glass doors, and even patented pizza boxes to prevent food from getting soggy, Apple's highly-anticipated 'mothership' headquarters could soon bring the dream to life - and show the firm's obsession with detail doesn't stop at its products.

The project is estimated to cost a staggering $5 billion (4 billion), and it isn't hard to see why; stunning new images reveal the unimaginable attention to detail at work in the nearly completed 'Apple Park' campus, giving rise to everything from specially crafted door handles to a 'building that breathes.'

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With elaborate glass canopies (pictured left), a two-story yoga room, a 4,000 person cafe with four-story glass doors, and even patented pizza boxes to prevent food from getting soggy, Apple's highly-anticipated 'mothership' could soon bring the dream to life. The door handle, designed by Apple and Foster + Partners (right) is used on both sliding doors and pivoting ones, and is believed to have gone through dozens of protypes. The final version is designed to be integrated into the doorframe with no visible bolts.

Breathtaking new photos appearing in the June issue of Wired, on newsstands May 23, have revealed a close-up look at some of the features that will set Apple's campus apart from all the rest.

Back in 2011, just before his death, Jobs addressed the Cupertino City Council to speak of 'a pretty amazing building,' Wired reports.

'It's a little like a spaceship landed.'

THE OBSESSION WITH DETAIL INSIDE 'APPLE PARK' Construction on Apple's futuristic campus has been estimated to cost roughly $5 billion. Apple has specified every part of the project with rules for contractors, and features include: 'Breathing building' that uses soffits beneath the canopies to inhale, and shafts to exhale warm air - as Steve Jobs hated air conditioning and fans

Artificial hills and a mini-forest of 9,000 native trees, all drought-resistant with hopes they can 'survive a climate crisis' with some hand picked by Jobs

100,000-square-foot Fitness and Wellness Center (including a two-story yoga room made of distressed stone to look like Steve Jobs favourite Yosemite hotel)

Canopies (fins along the glass) on every floor to help the building 'breathe'

A cafe with four-story glass doors that will open up on nice days so employees can eat outside 'Pods' designed for the many different activities that will take place within its walls, from work and collaboration to socializing

1,000-seat Steve Jobs Theater

805,000 square-feet of solar panelling

755-foot tunnel adorned with thousands of tiny white tiles

Shock absorbers to withstand earthquakes

Offices panelled with 'custom timber veneer' from recycled wood - and guidelines for the special wood used frequently throughout the building ran to some 30 pages

Patented pizza boxes to keep food from getting soggy

Contractors were told no vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass Advertisement

'Could we have cut a corner here or there?' Cook told Wired when asked about the obsession with detail.

'It wouldn't have been Apple. And it wouldn't have sent the message to everybody working here every day that detail matters, that care matters.

'I revere him,' Cook says. 'And this was clearly his vision, his concept. Our biggest project ever.'

The futuristic campus will soon be welcoming its first employees, who will be greeted by swathes of artificial hills, a mini-forest that will eventually contain 9,000 drought-resistant indigenous trees, and a 'breathing building' powered by 805,000-square-feet of solar paneling.

According to Wired, the campus will also have a 100,000 square-foot Fitness and Wellness Center  and, this will contain a two-story yoga room built from distressed stone from 'the right quarry in Kansas,' to mimic the stone at Jobs' favourite Yosemite hotel.

Inside the circular building, each floor will be lined with fins called 'canopies,' which will be equipped with soffits on the under that will allow the Ring to 'inhale' air.

And, shafts placed elsewhere will allow it to exhale warm air to the outside, Wired reports.

The building will be home to scores of glass-encased 'pods' designed for the many different activities that will take place within its walls, from work and collaboration to socializing. The pods were the brainchild of Steve Jobs, who said they would help foster a sense of community among employees, while allowing them privacy if they needed it. 'Jobs' idea was to repeat those pods over and over: pod for office work, pod for teamwork, pod for socializing' Wired said

The building will have a massive four-story atrium as its cafe, with four-story glass doors that will open up on nice days so employees can eat outside.

The Apple Park cafe will make use of Apple's patented pizza box, as well, which the firm is believed to have been trialing at its existing campus.

All door handles in the building are custom designed from Apple and Foster + Partners  and, whether a sliding door or pivoting, they'll all have the same kind of handle.

There have been several prototypes, with some that were 'long and barely protruding,' and others that are 'tighter and less forgiving,' according to Wired.

And, the staircases are sculpted from thin concrete that's 'the perfect white.'

The Apple campus will have 360-degree curved glass fronted walls and central courtyard as well as a 1,000-seater auditorium, a gym and 300,000 square feet of 'research' space. Pictured is the most recent image of the site, taken on January 13

APPLE'S PATENTED PIZZA BOX The building will have a massive four-story atrium as its cafe, which will have four-story glass doors that will open up on nice days so employees can eat outside. The Apple Park cafe will make use of Apple's patented pizza box, as well (pictured) In 2012, Apple published a patent for a special food container that requires no assembly before use, and will minimize storage space. It would have several uses, including the storing and transport of food 'in any shape and size,' from eggs and fruits to meat products, or to store got foods such as pizza. And, it could prevent pizza from becoming soggy. 'In one embodiment, the elevated portion can take the form of concentric rings that elevate the pizza from the bottom surface of the container,' the patent explains. 'Elevating the pizza from the bottom surface ensures that any steam that is emitted from the bottom of the pizza can flow away from the bottom of the pizza. 'Allowing such steam to flow away from the bottom of the pizza prevents moisture from becoming trapped between the pizza and the bottom surface of the container and subsequently reabsorbed by the pizza causing it to get soggy.' Advertisement

The building will be home to scores of glass-encased 'pods' designed for the many different activities that will take place within its walls, from work and collaboration to socializing.

Jobs' vision of the campus saw harmony between nature outside and the building itself, and to ensure the right flora would be perfect, he sought out tree expert David Muffly.

The idea was to use indigenous plants that could withstand drought and even a climate crisis.

Breathtaking new photos appearing in the June issue of Wired , on newsstands May 23, have revealed a close-up look inside Apple Park

Earlier this year, a flyover of Apple's mothership revealed work on Campus 2 is nearly complete.

The incredible drone images also reveal the astonishing attention to detail of the site.

From the arrangement of electrical wiring to the finish of a hidden pipe, no aspect of the 2.8 million-square-foot main building has been too small to attract scrutiny.

Apple hopes that the campus will be finished by spring this year.

Since Apple unveiled its plans in 2011, the move-in date has slowly receded.

Jobs' initial projection was 2015, but this spring now seems most likely, according to people involved in the project.

More than $1 billion (800 million) was allocated for the interior of the main building alone, according to a former construction manager.

The campus is something of an exception to the trend of radically open offices aimed at fostering collaboration, said Louise Mozingo, a professor and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at University of California, Berkeley.

Its central office building - a massive ring of glass frequently likened to a spaceship - could be a challenge just to navigate, she noted.

'It's not about maximizing the productivity of the office space, it's about creating a symbolic center for this global company,' she said. 'They are creating an icon.'

KEY FEATURES OF THE SPACESHIP-LIKE CAMPUS Appearing as a giant saucer, the Silicon Valley site near the 280 Highway will be home to 13,000 Apple employees. There will be jogging and cycling trails, with more than a thousand bikes kept on site at all times, which staff can use to make their way around. The Spaceship will have 360-degree curved glass fronted walls and central courtyard as well as a 1,000-seater auditorium, a gym and 300,000 square feet of 'research' space. Apple Campus 2 will additionally have underground parking hidden from view, meaning 80 per cent of the site can be covered in trees. The site was previously owned by Hewlett Packard and the majority of the area is currently covered in asphalt. Elsewhere underground, the auditorium will be where Apple's CEO Tim Cook will present the companies keynotes ahead of product launches, for example. This auditorium will be covered with a circular glass pavilion that will also be an access point for employees and guests. Natural gas will, primarily, provide the building's power and the local energy grid will only be accessed in emergencies. The glass structure will also be fitted with solar panels. The circular, four-storey building will be around a mile in circumference and a third of a mile wide and was recently described by the San Fransisco Weekly as a 'massive glass doughnut' . The building stays eco-friendly with natural ventilation that works instead of air-conditioning for 70 per cent of the year, low energy LED lighting where natural light doesn't reach, and on-site recycling. Advertisement

Its central office building - a massive ring of glass frequently likened to a spaceship - could be a challenge just to navigate. This image shows work progressing on the site, with the outer ring almost complete

The circular, four-storey building will be around a mile in circumference and a third of a mile wide and was recently described by the San Francisco Weekly as a 'massive glass doughnut'

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Technology companies have long favoured generic office parks, but the Apple Campus 2 marks a new chapter in Silicon Valley architecture.

When completed, the campus will house up to 14,200 employees, according to the 2013 project description.

The main building - which boasts the world's largest piece of curved glass - will be surrounded by a lush canopy of thousands of trees.

The new campus will be located at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, which is part of the world-renowned Silicon Valley. Architect German de la Torre, who worked on the project, found many of the proportions - such as the curve of a rounded corner - came from Apple's products

Little remains from the cement-laden campus Apple acquired from Hewlett-Packard, though the iPhone maker preserved a century-old barn that remained intact.

But what was most striking to those who worked on the project was Apple managers' insistence on treating the construction of the vast complex the same way they approach the design of pocket-sized electronics.

Apple's in-house construction team enforced many rules, including no vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass.

What was most striking to those who worked on the project was Apple managers' insistence on treating the construction of the vast complex the same way they approach the design of pocket-sized electronics

Pictured is the cafeteria housed in a huge atrium. There are 59 skylights along the roof, allowing natural light to come inside, while giant glass doors open to let fresh air in

Apple Campus 2 will additionally have underground parking hidden from view, meaning 80 per cent of the site can be covered in trees

And guidelines for the special wood used frequently throughout the building ran to some 30 pages.

The company's keen design sense enhanced the project, but its expectations sometimes clashed with construction realities, a former architect said.

'With phones, you can build to very, very minute tolerances,' he said.

'You would never design to that level of tolerance on a building. Your doors would jam.'

The company's keen design sense enhanced the project, but its expectations sometimes clashed with construction realities, a former architect said

Early in construction, Apple managers told the construction team that the ceiling - composed of large panels of polished concrete - should be immaculate inside and out, just as the inside of the iPhone's audio jack is a finished product

Drone footage taken above the site reveals the vast extent of the construction, with hundreds, if not thousands of lorries and diggers involved

Apple's novel approach to the building took many forms.

Architect German de la Torre, who worked on the project, found many of the proportions - such as the curve of a rounded corner - came from Apple's products.

The elevator buttons struck some workers as resembling the iPhone's home button; one former manager even likened the toilet's sleek design to the device.

But Mr de la Torre ultimately saw that Apple executives were not trying to evoke the iPhone per se, but rather following something akin to the Platonic ideal of form and dimension.

Elsewhere underground, the auditorium will be where Apple's CEO Tim Cook will present the companies keynotes ahead of product launches, for example

Architects working on the building say that many of the proportions - such as the curve of a rounded corner - came from Apple's products

Much of the construction time has been spent in placing small tiles along the walls of one of the access tunnels

'They have arrived at design principles somehow through many years of experimentation, and they are faithful to those principles,' Mr de la Torre said.

Early in construction, Apple managers told the construction team that the ceiling - composed of large panels of polished concrete - should be immaculate inside and out, just as the inside of the iPhone's audio jack is a finished product, a former construction manager recalled.

Each of the thousands of ceiling panels had to win approval from both Apple's in-house team and the general contractor, once at the shop and then again at the construction site.

Natural gas will, primarily, provide the building's power and the local energy grid will only be accessed in emergencies

Technology companies have long favoured generic office parks, but the Apple Campus 2 marks a new chapter in Silicon Valley architecture. Pictured left is Apple's current Cupertino campus

Covering 175 acres, Apple's 'Campus 2' headquarters will replace its current offices at 1 Infinite Loop (pictured)

'The things you can't see, they all mattered to Apple,' the former construction manager said.

One of the most vexing features was the doorways, which Apple wanted to be perfectly flat, with no threshold. The construction team pushed back, but Apple held firm.

'We spent months trying not to do that because that's time, money and stuff that's never been done before,' the former construction manager said.

Signage also required a delicate balancing act, as Apple wanted all signs to reflect its sleek, minimalist aesthetic, but the fire department needed to ensure the building could be swiftly navigated in an emergency.

This image is an artist's impression of what the Apple Campus 2 will look like from above when its complete. The site will be surrounded by a man-made forest featuring 7,000 trees. It was previously owned by Hewlett Packard and is currently covered in around 80 per cent asphalt

Not all of the parking spaces will be hidden. The parts of the multi-storey car park that will be on show, according to this image from Apple, will be covered in plants and greenery to help the concrete structure blend in

Much of the inside of the futuristic building will also be made of glass with stone-coloured walls to add to the building's natural-looking design (pictured). The 175-acre Silicon Valley site near the 280 Highway will house 13,000 staff. Pictured are artist's impressions

During his initial proposals, Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs said he wanted the building to be covered in 40ft floor-to-ceiling panes of curved glass so that all of the building's four storeys would be visible from the outside and offer a large amount of natural light (pictured). Pictured is an artist's impression

The cafeteria will additionally feature an outside dining and picnic area (pictured). Apple's Campus 2 additionally comes with a fitness centre in the northern part of the building. Pictured is an artist's impression
Scientists have long dabbled with the idea that moral enhancement technologies, such as drugs or even surgical techniques, could be used to improve human behaviour.

But, experts now warn that such methods are not only infeasible, but are generally a really bad idea.

While certain types of pharmaceutical or neurostimulation intervention may produce some positive effects, a new study has found that they are just blunt instruments with inconsistent results  and historically, such practices have proven unwise.

Scientists have long dabbled with the idea that moral enhancement technologies, such as drugs or even surgical techniques, could be used to improve human behaviour. A stock image is pictured

WHAT THEY CAN DO The researchers looked at the use of oxytocin (also known as the moral molecule)  a neuropeptide that plays a critical role in social cognition and bonding. In addition, they assessed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are often prescribed for depression and have been found to make people less aggressive, amphetamines, and beta blockers, which are said to decrease implicit racist responses. The study also examined three types of neurostimulation: transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, and deep brain stimulation. These are said to change peoples response to moral dilemmas, make them more utilitarian, and enhance motivation. Advertisement

In a new study, researchers from North Carolina State University and the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) assessed several different types of moral enhancement, including four pharmaceutical approaches and three neurostimulation techniques.

Its thought that these methods could help, for example, to treat criminals who exhibit moral defects.

But, it remains unclear whether these methods really work in the long run.

There are existing ways that people have explored to manipulate morality, but the question we address in this paper is whether manipulating morality actually improves it, said Veljko Dubljevic, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor of philosophy at NC State.

The researchers looked at the use of oxytocin (also known as the moral molecule)  a neuropeptide that plays a critical role in social cognition and bonding.

In addition, they assessed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are often prescribed for depression and have been found to make people less aggressive, amphetamines, and beta blockers, which are said to decrease implicit racist responses.

The study also examined three types of neurostimulation: transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, and deep brain stimulation.

What we found is that, yes, many of these techniques do have some effects, Dubljevic says.

But these techniques are all blunt instruments, rather than finely tuned technologies that could be helpful.

So, moral enhancement is really a bad idea.

Its thought that these methods could help, for example, to treat criminals who exhibit moral defects. But, it remains unclear whether these methods really work in the long run. A stock image is pictured

In short, moral enhancement is not feasible  and even if it were, history shows us that using science in an attempt to manipulate morality is not wise.

Within each of the pharmaceutical methods, the researchers identified issues that present a challenge for their potential use as moral enhancement treatments.

Oxytocin does promote trust, but only in the in-group, Dubljevic says, for example.

And it can decrease cooperation with out-group members of society, such as racial minorities, and selectively promote ethnocentrism, favouritism, and parochialism.

US MILITARY LOOKING TO 'HACK' SOLDIERS BRAINS DARPAs four-year Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program aims to use the body's peripheral nervous system to accelerate the learning process. This would be done by activating a process known as 'synaptic plasticity'  a key process in the brain involved in learning  with electrical stimulation. Some teams will be working with intelligence analysts and foreign language specialists to shape the platform around currently training practices. Researchers will look into using the technique across a wide range of applications, including decision-making and spatial navigation, speech perception, and threat recognition. 'Imagine you're struggling to learn something new, like multiplication tables or how to hit a golf ball,' said Dr Robert Rennaker, of the University of Texas at Dallas Texas Biomedical Device Center. 'When you get it right, when that light bulb comes on, this system is being activated. 'By stimulating the vagus nerve during the learning process, we're artificially releasing these chemicals to enhance those connections active during learning.' Advertisement

And, while amphetamines are said to boost motivation for moral behaviour, the researchers found that they do the same for all types of behaviour  which isnt necessarily a good thing.

These also come with a serious risk of addiction.

Beta blockers, on the other hand were found to decrease racism  but, they also dampened all emotional responses, meaning they may not be very useful.

As for SSRIs, the researchers found that the technique does reduce aggression, but also has serious side-effects, including increased suicide risk.

In short, moral enhancement is not feasible  and even if it were, history shows us that using science in an attempt to manipulate morality is not wise, the researcher explained. A stock image is pictured

The first two stimulation techniques shared a common problem  and deep brain stimulation wasnt found to have any effect at all on moral behaviour.

Even if we could find a way to make these technologies work consistently, there are significant questions about whether being more utilitarian in ones decision-making actually makes one more moral, Dubljevic says.

Our goal here is to share a cautionary note with those who are discussing different techniques for moral enhancement.

I am in favour of research that is done responsibly, but against dangerous social experiments.
Smartphones that charge to full capacity in just five minutes could be on the market as early as next year.

Two years after unveiling a bulky prototype of their ultra-fast-charging technology, Israeli startup StoreDot says the FlashBattery is set to begin production in early 2018.

And, their electric car battery  which is also said to charge in five minutes  is slated to follow in the next few years.

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Smartphones that charge to full capacity in just five minutes could be on the market as early as next year. Two years after unveiling a bulky prototype of their ultra-fast-charging technology, StoreDot says the FlashBattery is set to begin production in early 2018. A mockup is shown

HOW STOREDOT'S NANODOTS WORK The technology was developed at Tel Aviv University. Researchers discovered tiny naturally occurring crystals were able to store a charge or emit light. The crystals - dubbed NanoDots - are two nanometers in diameter and contain short chains of amino acids called peptides. They cover 'cavities' over an electrode in a standard battery. This extends how much of the battery can be used to create a reaction, which leads to a charge. StoreDot claims NanoDots can boost battery capacity tenfold. At one end of the electrode, the crystals act as a capacitor to store energy. At the other end, the crystals pass this energy into the batterys lithium at much faster speeds and efficiency than current batteries. Advertisement

Speaking to the BBC, StoreDot CEO Doron Mysersdorf said the technology is in pilot production at two Asian battery makers, and will move into mass production, in the first quarter of 2018.

The Tel Aviv-based firm previously showed off a prototype at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in 2015, explaining that tiny crystals two nanometers wide - dubbed NanoDots  can boost battery capacity tenfold.

At one end of the electrode, the crystals act as a capacitor to store energy.

At the other end, the crystals pass this energy into the batterys lithium at much faster speeds and efficiency than current batteries.

We will charge a smartphone in five minutes, Myersdorf told the BBC.

Just days ago, the firm demonstrated the radical ultra-fast-charge battery it claims can bring an electric car to full charge in just five minutes  and power it for up to 300 miles.

At the CUBE Tech Fair in Berlin, StoreDot demonstrated a proof of concept of the technology it says is a radical improvement over the traditional lithium ion battery structure.

But, according to the BBC, the presentation ended before the battery was finished charging.

Speaking to the BBC , StoreDot CEO Doron Mysersdorf said the technology is in pilot production at two Asian battery makers, and will move into mass production, in the first quarter of 2018. The firm's iPhone 7 battery cases are shown above

The Tel Aviv-based firm previously showed off a prototype at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in 2015, explaining that tiny crystals two nanometers wide - dubbed NanoDots  can boost battery capacity tenfold

The FlashBattery combines organic compounds with nano-materials to slash charging time down to a fraction of that achieved by current methods, and the firm says it will be available in the next three years.

According to a video on the technology, a car running on StoreDots modules would be equipped with forty pouches  each containing the FlashBattery technology.

These pouches contain nano-dots made from short chains of amino acids, called peptides, arranged in a layered structure.

The peptides are chemically synthesized organic molecules of non-biological origin, according to StoreDot.

These pouches contain nano-dots made from short chains of amino acids, called peptides, arranged in a layered structure. The peptides are chemically synthesized organic molecules of non-biological origin, according to StoreDot

HOW IT WOULD WORK According to a video on the technology, a car running on StoreDots modules would be equipped with forty pouches  each containing the FlashBattery technology. These pouches contain nano-dots made from short chains of amino acids, called peptides, arranged in a layered structure. The peptides are chemically synthesized organic molecules of non-biological origin, according to StoreDot. When combined, these pouches make up a charging module. Advertisement

When combined, these pouches make up a charging module.

The FlashBattery Technology allows for unprecedented charging rate, the video says.

Within five minutes of charging, the car is fully charged and ready to go  five minutes that just bought you an average of 300 miles.

According to StoreDot, the technology avoids the limitations of a typical graphite-based lithium ion battery cell.

The materials in the FlashBattery are not flammable, and have a higher temperature of combustion, cutting down the battery cells resistance.

This, in turn, also improves its safety.

The firm says the technology is now in the advanced stages of development, and could hit the market in just three years to revolutionize the way electric cars are charged.

According to a video breaking down the technology, a car running on StoreDots modules would be equipped with forty pouches (shown right)  each containing the FlashBattery technology

Fast charging is the critical missing link needed to make electric vehicles ubiquitous, says Myersdorf, co-founder and CEO of StoreDot.

The currently available battery technology dictates long charging times which makes the EV form of transportation inadequate for the public at large.

Were exploring options with a few strategic partners in the auto space to help us boost the production process in Asia and reach mass production as soon as possible.
With a Mediterranean cruise you can go to bed in Italy and wake up in France, Malta or Croatia.

If you prefer to explore the Baltic, you could take in St Petersburg, Helsinki, Tallinn and Stockholm all in a week.

But if there is a downside to country-hopping, it is that you do not always have enough time to experience the culture and cuisine of each nation before moving on.

Sermon on the mount: See the famous Pulpit rock near Stavanger on a Norwegian fjords cruise

As lovers of river cruises will already know, learning more about one countrys history and trying its regional specialities can enrich your holiday.

You could discover the heart of France, for example, by sailing along the Rhone or Seine at a leisurely pace, or perhaps get to know Portugal by spending a week on the Douro.

Ocean cruise lines are now following suit, offering immersive itineraries  concentrating on one country to satisfy our desire to explore in depth.

The Norwegian fjords have long been a favourite destination for British travellers, and this year Fred Olsen (fredolsencruises.com, 0800 035 5242) has timed its Scenic Norway And Celebrations cruise to be in historic Stavanger on Norway Day.

On Wednesday, everyone will be putting on national dress, so why not cheer them on and wave the Norwegian flag.

Fred Olsen also offers an Icelandic Explorer, sailing for 11 nights from Newcastle on August 28 aboard Balmoral. After cruising past the Eyjafjallajokull volcano  which was responsible for the ash cloud in 2010  the first call is Reykjavik.

Balmoral heads all the way around the island, so you will get close to geysers and waterfalls, visit interesting towns and spot wildlife. Fares start at 1,399pp.

A boy in traditional costume celebrates Norway Day

With just 19 cabins, MV Dalmatia is small enough to nip into harbours that big ships cannot reach. On a one-week Croatia Island Explorer with Saga (saga.co.uk, 0800 300500), you will visit beautiful Krk, Rab, Losinj and Cres  fares start at 939pp including flights.

Farther afield, Princess Cruises (princess.com, 0843 3742401) is devoting the 2,700-passenger Diamond Princess to Japan-only voyages in 2018.

This year an eight-night Circle Hokkaido cruise sails around the vast north island from Tokyo on July 13, from 1,914pp.

Next year, the seven-night Japan Explorer cruise, departing Tokyo on August 15, 2018, will take in the spectacular floating firework display in the southern city of Kumano, a 300-year-old summer tradition. Fares start at 978pp.

All cruises have performances of Japanese music, dance and storytelling, origami classes, an indoor-outdoor Japanese bath and local cuisine.

Cuba has started to appear on the Caribbean itineraries of big American cruise lines, but few ships get beyond Havana.

In contrast, the four-masted clipper Star Flyer (starclippers.co.uk, 0845 200 6145) sails all around Cubas coastline on nine to 11-night cruises departing in December 2017 and January 2018. Fares cost from 1,705pp.

And Celestyal Crystal (yourcubacruise.com) sails on one-week cruises from Havana all year round, with the promise of Cuban music, cocktails and cuisine on board.

The Holiday Place (020 7644 1770) offers a ten-day package, plus a three-night hotel stay in Havana and flights, from 2,099pp.

Luxury all-inclusive Seven Seas Mariner (rssc.com, 02380 682280) will circumnavigate Australia on a 36-night round-trip from Sydney, starting on December 15, 2018.

Fares start at 23,849pp, but the price includes flights, pre- or post-cruise land tours, drinks, excursions in every port, tips and unlimited wi-fi.
Italian officials are handing out more than 100 ancient properties for free.

The catch? Takers will have to commit to renovating the buildings - a selection of castles, towers and farmhouses are on offer - and turning them into tourist facilities, such as hotels or spas.

The government is hoping that with this initiative it can lure tourists away from overcrowded cities like Venice and boost business in more remote, rural areas.

Italian officials are handing out more than 100 ancient properties across the country for free. But takers will have to commit to turning them into tourist facilities. This, the Castello di Montefiore defense fort in the eastern region of Marche, is up for grabs

According to The Local, 103 properties are up for grabs, located all over the country.

The State Property Agency and Ministry of Cultural Heritage announced the project as part of Italys Strategic Tourist Plan.

A spokesman told the publication: 'The goal is for private and public buildings which are no longer used to be transformed into facilities for pilgrims, hikers, tourists, and cyclists.'

Many of the properties are ancient, including the 13th-century Castello di Montefiore defense fort in the eastern region of Marche region and the 11-century Castello di Blera estate in Lazio.

The government is hoping that with this initiative it can lure tourists away from the overcrowded cities like Venice and boost business in more rural areas. Pictured, a villa along the Via Francigena also on offer

In order to bag one of them, you'll need to provide plans as to how you'll convert the building into a tourist facility.

Successful applicants will receive leases of between nine and 50 years, with the option to renew down the line.

The issue of over-burdened tourist regions has been problematic in Italy for some time now.

In February 2016, the government announced it would be selling tickets to its Cinque Terre U.N. World Heritage park for the first time ever in a bid to slash visitor numbers.

In February 2016, the Italian government announced it would be slashing the overwhelming number of tourists to its overburdened Cinque Terre U.N. World Heritage park (pictured)

It came after a record 2.5million tourists poured into the picturesque park in northwest Italy - many of them from cruise ships - putting a strain on its small fishing villages.

Officials said they aimed to limit that number to 1.5million going forward.

And while some areas are too overcrowded, it's not the first time the Italian government have handed out historic buildings for next-to-nothing to boost numbers in its quieter regions.

In 2015, a selection of beautiful stone houses across rural Italy were sold for just one euro each - part of a plan to attract people to towns that are at dire risk of dying out if they don't expand their population.
He made his runway debut at the Justin Cassin show hour earlier, with the 'support' of his father Richard Wilkins, Karl Stefanovic and the Today host's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough.

And shortly after, Christian 'Prince' Wilkins made a bold statement as he attended the Misha Collection and Myer Fashion Week party at Bondi's Icebergs on Monday.

As he enjoyed time with new bestie Jasmine, 33, Christian strutted around in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words 'f**k off.'

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'F**k off': Richard Wilkins' son Christian wore a graphic T-shirt at a Sydney Fashion Week party on Monday, which he attended with Karl Stefanovic's girlfriend, Jasmine Yarbrough

The T-shirt from label Discount Universe, featured a rose underneath underneath the crude words and retails for approximately $200.

He completed his look with a black Gucci belt and black jeans, with a fur-look coat and brown boots.

Jasmine, meanwhile, wore a black lace dress that exposed her legs, with a leather jacket.

Racy! Jasmine meanwhile wore a black lace dress that exposed her legs

Christian - who previously told Daily Mail Australia that he and his father go through a whopping 15 cans of hairspray a week - had his long and luscious locks out and over his shoulders.

He and Jasmine have been pals for a while, and recently caught up when he was in LA in April.

In the past, the long-haired Chadwick model has even been used as a 'decoy' to trick paparazzi trying to take photos of Karl, 42, and Jasmine, 33, together.

Jasmine made her public debut with new boyfriend and Today co-host Karl, 42, as they sat in the front row of the Justin Cassin show earlier in the day.

Making his runway debut: Jasmine made her public debut with new boyfriend and Today co-host Karl, 42, as they sat in the front row of the Justin Cassin show earlier that evening

The pair watched Christian strut his stuff down the runway, with Karl telling The Daily Telegraph the pair were only there to 'support' Christian.

'We are here for Christian, he has been a great friend of ours so we are here to support him,' Karl told the newspaper.

The couple, who began dating in December shortly after his marriage breakdown, put on a loved-up display while sitting front row.

But they managed to avoid too much attention earlier by sneaking in through the back door, according to News Corp.

Doing their part: The pair watched Christian strut his stuff down the runway, with Karl telling The Daily Telegraph the pair were only there to 'support' Christian

The couple were joined at the event by both of their mothers, Jenny and Cheryl, as well as Jasmine's glamorous sister Jade.

While Karl insisted he was simply there to support Christian, it has been suggested the couple already decided to 'go public' at Fashion Week.

Karl and Jasmine reportedly first met in December last year, several months after his split from wife-of-21-years Cassandra Thorburn.
She enjoyed watching the Louis Vuitton Resort 2018 show in Koka, Japan, at the weekend.

So it comes as no surprise to see PR guru Roxy Jacenko, 36, carrying almost a whopping $8,000 in Louis Vuitton accessories, on Tuesday.

The mother-of-two jetted into Sydney from Tokyo looking incredibly stylish in a white coat, as she pushed her designer luggage through the terminal.

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High-flyer! PR guru Roxy Jacenko carried almost a whopping $8,000 in Louis Vuitton accessories on Tuesday, as she jetted into Sydney Airport

The busty blonde wore a striped blouse with leather trousers, and accessorised with white sneakers, costing approximately $1050.

She had her long locks tied up off her face and wore dark designer sunglasses.

Roxy could be seen pushing a trolley with a Louis Vuitton backpack costing $2,830, and a matching leather suitcase, which retails for upwards of $4,000.

The Sweaty Betty owner appeared in high spirits, and before leaving Tokyo posted her infamous mirror selfie.

Eye-catching: The mother of two jetted into Sydney from Tokyo looking incredibly stylish in a white coat

Head-to-toe designer! The busty blonde wore a striped blouse with leather trousers, and accessorised with white sneakers, costing approximately $1050

Doing what she does best! Roxy appeared in high spirits, and before leaving Tokyo posted her infamous mirror selfie

In Tokyo, the Sydney socialite and businesswoman took in the coveted Louis Vuitton fashion show, rubbing shoulders with the like of Vogue's Grace Coddington.

Roxy confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that she was spending four nights in Japan as a guest of Louis Vuitton.

While at the Louis Vuitton show, Roxy flashed her diamond engagement ring from jailed husband Oliver Curtis.

Mingling: In Tokyo, the Sydney socialite and businesswoman took in the coveted Louis Vuitton fashion show, rubbing shoulders with the like of Vogue's Grace Coddington (pictured)

Living life! Roxy confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that she was spending four nights in Japan as a guest of Louis Vuitton

Roxy's trip to Japan follows a busy few weeks for the Sydney publicist, as her personal life has made headlines.

Last month, she was caught kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal in his apartment, despite previously saying she was still 'married'.

Oliver could be released as early as June 23 if he qualifies for good behaviour.
Kourtney Kardashian kept a low profile as she stepped out in Beverly Hills on Monday.

The 38-year-old mother-of-three wore a pair of black leggings, a white crop top and a black hoodie as she attempted to go incognito at Epione.

She was seen leaving the Comsmetic Dermatology Center whilst talking on the phone.

Chiller: Kourtney Kardashian kept a low profile as she stepped out in Beverly Hills on Monday

The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star accessorized with white trainers and a pair of round sunglasses.

She added a stylish red and black Louis Vuitton handbag to complete her sporty chic look.

The revealing gym gear showed off the raven haired beauty's toned tum.

The social media queen made some big statements on the latest episode of KUWTK on Sunday.

Low profile: The 38-year-old mother-of-three wore a pair of black leggings, a white crop top and a black hoodie as she attempted to go incognito at Epione

Not happy: She told the father of her three children, Scott Disick, that they will 'never get back together', after slamming his womanising antics

She told the father of her three children that they will 'never get back together', after slamming his womanising antics.

The reality star branded Scott 'disrespectful' as he confessed to Kourtney and her family that he is a 'horrible sex addict'.

In a candid chat with his ex, her mother Kris Jenner and sisters Khloe Kardashian and Kim Kardashian-West, Scott acknowledge his issues and admitted he is addicted to sex.

The group had been discussing Scott's decision to bring another woman with him on a family holiday they had taken to Costa Rica at the beginning of the year.

At the time, rumours had been doing the rounds that he and Kourtney were rekindling their romance - they had initially split in 2015.

Viewers have since seen Scott confessing that Kourtney is the 'love of his life' on the family's E! reality show before jetting off, but he later sparked tensions between himself and his ex after bringing another woman back to his hotel room.
She called time on her marriage to Michael Klim in February last year.

And as she prepares to marry her British property developer fiancee Adam Ellis, Lindy Klim has lifted the lid on their failed relationship during a very candid interview with Harper's Bazaar.

'I've learnt to be a much stronger person. I'm not a pushover anymore,' the 39-year-old shared.

Subtle dig at Michael? A 'stronger' Lindy Klim, 39, revealed to Harper's Bazaar in their June/July issue, that she's 'not a pushover anymore'

'A divorce is a really stressful and overwhelming thing - you can't pretend it's OK. It just doesn't work for everybody.'

'But I think, out of that, I've learnt to be a much stronger person. I'm not a pushover anymore,' she added.

Lindy explains that she has become far more independent since her split, and reveals she used to ask her ex-husband if she wanted to buy things during their marriage.

'I used to get away with preferring not to know things. I was like, "I don't want to know about that, it's too hard", or, "I have to ask my husband if I can buy that item". I don't want to be that person,' Lindy continued.

Reflection: 'I used to get away with preferring not to know things. I was like, "I don't want to know about that, it's too hard", or, "I have to ask my husband if I can buy that item". I don't want to be that person,' Lindy told the publication

Shock split: The Balinese princess called time on her marriage of 10 years to Michael Klim, 39, in February last year

Lindy became engaged to British property developer Adam Ellis last October after a whirlwind romance.

The couple first started dating in March last year, just a month after the model and then-husband Michael announced they were separating after 10 years of marriage.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last year, Lindy said she didn't predict falling back in love so soon after her split from Michael, 39.

New chapter: Lindy became engaged to British property developer Adam Ellis last October, after a whirlwind romance

Opening up: Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last year, Lindy said she didn't predict falling back in love so soon after her split from Michael: '[It's] completely not what I expected, to fall back into another relationship, but he's so lovely,' she said cheerfully

'[It's] completely not what I expected, to fall back into another relationship, but he's so lovely,' she said cheerfully.

'It's about time I got on with my life,' the personality continued.

Lindy also said it was 'difficult' juggling single parenthood, and wished Michael and his new flame Desiree Deravi 'all the best.'

Lindy and Michael share three children together - Stella, 11, Rocco, 9, and Frankie, 6.

Brood: Lindy and Michael share three children together - Stella, 11, Rocco, 9, and Frankie, 6

But it seems the Balinese princess is keen to expand her family unit.

Lindy told The Daily Telegraph last week: 'I would like to have some more children, or one more child.

'Adam doesn't have any children of his own but he's an incredible stepfather,' she gushed.
Tough guy actor Ray Winstone appears to be suffering from a delusion.

When asked who would play him in a film about his life, he replies without hesitation: Brad Pitt.

'He looks a bit like me.

Tough guy actor Ray Winstone, left, appears to be suffering from a delusion. When asked who would play him in a film about his life, he replies: Brad Pitt (right). He looks a bit like me'

Meet Gaga's really quite sensible mum!

Sartorial prowess runs in the family with pop star Lady Gaga, 31, and her mother Cynthia Cindy Germanotta, 63, turning heads when they met for lunch at the weekend.

Germanotta dressed like a woman much younger than her years with striking red glasses, tracksuit trousers, white Nike trainers and an over-sized white blazer.

Meanwhile the avant-garde pop star sported a kooky cowboy-style look combining a yellow top with pleated bell sleeves, brown and yellow bell-bottom trousers tied with straps, shades and a broad-brimmed hat.

Gaga, who in 2010 famously wore a dress made of raw beef, says: Im so fascinated by my mother as a style icon. She carries whatever she wears like a queen.

Mummy's girl: Sartorial prowess runs in the family with pop star Lady Gaga, 31, and her mother Cynthia Cindy Germanotta, 63, turning heads when they met for lunch at the weekend

Proud Kate Beckinsale's dead-ringer daughter

Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale played the role of gushing mother when she shared this photo of her 18-year-old daughter reaching a teenage milestone at the weekend.

Lily, whose father is Kates ex-partner, actor Michael Sheen, posed for a photo at her school prom.

Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale, left, played the role of gushing mother when she shared this photo of her 18-year-old daughter, right, reaching a teenage milestone at the weekend

Wearing a strapless red dress similar to her mothers, Lily has grown into a mini-me of the Pearl Harbor star as she shares her long dark hair and peaches and cream complexion.

You take my breath away, Kate, 43, captioned it.

Youre funny and clever and gorgeous and just enough crazy to be my favourite person in world.

Despite her movie star looks, LA resident Lily has no plans to follow either of her parents into acting just yet and will enter higher education later this year.

You take my breath away, Kate, 43, captioned the photo of her daughter. Youre funny and clever and gorgeous and just enough crazy to be my favourite person in world'

..............................................................................................................

Star Wars actor John Boyega, a favourite to play 007, has hired James Bonds trainer to get into shape.

Asked what he wished hed been told when he was starting out, John says: Lose some weight! To an extent, I enjoy being chubby.

'But in terms of the roles Im taking on now, fitness is required. I have a trainer who also trains Daniel Craig.

Hell reveal his new six-pack when he plays the eponymous role of soldier Woyzeck at the Old Vic.
She celebrated five-and-a-half years of marriage to her husband with a vow renewal ceremony in Turks and Caicos.

And during her island stay, Kim Zolciak posed for mirror videos and hit the waters aboard a jet skis.

The mother-of-six took to Snapchat on Monday to give her followers a look into her holiday in the sun.

Sharing her life: Kim Zolciak, 38, took to Snapchat on Monday to give her followers a look into her Turks and Caicos get-a-way

As part of her Snap story, the Don't Be Tardy beauty stared at herself as she chatted and posed as part of a selfie video.

The reality star debuted long, blonde locks, which were a stark contrast to her bright-colored bikini.

Kim used that time to promote a teeth whitening treatment with her followers, and let fans know she would find another coupon code for them.

In love with Kim: As part of her Snap story, the Don't Be Tardy beauty stared at herself as she chatted and posed as part of a selfie video

Time to hit the waters! But the mother-of-six put her swimsuit to good use later when she boarded a jet ski

Family videographer: Eldest child Brielle Biermann, 20, filmed her mother as she sat behind the wheel

But Kim put her swimsuit to good use later when she boarded a jet ski.

Eldest child Brielle Biermann, 20, filmed her mother as she sat behind the wheel.

Over the weekend, Kim and husband Kroy Biermann packed the family together and headed off to the small island, just south of The Bahamas.

The football player posted a topless pic of his wife still in her wedding gown after their vow renewal ceremony

Married again! Over the weekend, Kim and husband Kroy Biermann packed the family together and headed off to the small island, just south of The Bahamas

The eight travelers were there for Kim and Kroy's vow renewal ceremony.

Although the coupled married in November 2011, they met seven years ago in May, which could explain their choice for a spring ceremony.

The couple are parents to Kroy Jr., five, Kash, four and twins Kaia and Kane, three.

Kim also has daughters Brielle, 20, and Ariana, 15, from previous relationships, but Kroy adopted them in March 2013.
She recently suggested she had a new partner in her life, receiving a bouquet of flowers and fresh fruit from her 'bae.'

And it seems things are heating up for Tziporah Malkah and her man, with the 43-year-old 'buying' a beachfront property with her mystery lover.

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Tziporah - previously known as Kate Fischer - shared a shot of a stunning view of the ocean from their new pad.

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New pad? Tziporah Malkah 'buys' a beachfront property with mystery lover after declaring her six-year sex drought is over

'My new joint with Bae. Shocking view - how will I ever get anything done?,' Tziporah wrote alongside a tongue out emoticon.

The image shows an outdoor patio with a glass railing and glass bi-fold doors, tat capitalise on the views of the water.

The property also appears quite modern, featuring down lights and tiles.

Off the market? Tziporah (R) recently suggested she had a new partner in her life

Tziporah revealed she had a new man when she received a bouquet of flowers and fruit from 'bae' recently.

'My Bae is tooooo much!,' she captioned the snap.

The revelation comes after she shared that her sex drought was over during an appearance on Studio 10.

The outspoken star said seeing an old friend was the first thing she did after her stint on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

'Straight after the jungle I was right down there [to visit him]  my six-year drought is over ... yay!' she joyously declared while simultaneously clapping her hands.

Tziporah revealed that it was those unflattering pictures of her wearing a toga-style bed sheet in 2016 that brought her and her navy friend together.

'He found me on Facebook. He saw me in that horrible sheet toga type of thing,' she said.

'It wasn't nice but it sort of brought me to where I am today. That's fine. It brought me him,' she said of the photographs to the panel.

The reality TV personality said that she had first met him when she was a 14-year-old schoolgirl model and he was 17-years-old.

'My drought is over!' She recently revealed that her sex drought was over during an appearance on Studio 10 (pictured on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!)

'He was in the navy and yeah, we met and I was innocent and he was quite happy to do away with. I wasn't sad either,' she said giggling.

'Then he sailed off. And I didn't see him for 30 years.'

Despite being gently pressed on the subject of his identity by co-host Jessica Rowe, Tziporah kept coy about him, explaining that he suffers from PTSD as a result from his time in the navy and prefers to be out of the public eye.

'[And I was like] Well kind of pick the right chick if you want a private life,' Tziporah said in an animated voice.

'But he doesn't like to be talked about but I have got permission to say that,' she added.
He's mostly been making big screen comedies such as Neighbors and Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates but now Zac Efron is heading for a 180 degree change.

The actor, who stars in the new Baywatch movie opening this coming weekend, has signed on to play notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.

The casting of clean cut former High School musical star, 29, was confirmed at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

New role: Zac Efron, left, has signed on to star as infamous serial rapist and killer Ted Bundy, right, in an independent drama slated to start filming in the fall

The independent drama titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile tells Bundy's story from the perspective of his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.

She tried several times to alert police to his suspicious behavior during their relationship and continued to cooperate with law enforcement once he was arrested.

The movie, slated to begin principal photography in October, will be directed by Joe Berlinger who made the Oscar-nominated documentary Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, THR.com reported.

True story: The independent drama to be directed by Joe Berlinger will tell the story from the point of view of Bundy's girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer who had seven year relationship with him

Change of direction: Efron, 29, is known for his big screen comedies like the Neighbors films and Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates. He's pictured Saturday at the Baywatch premiere

It was only in the run-up to his execution in January 1989 that Bundy revealed the extent of his murderous actions claiming to have killed 30 women and young girls in several states between 1974 and 1978.

It's speculated the tally could be a lot higher as it's not known when exactly the Vermont native who moved to Washington state as a boy first started raping and killing.

Bundy was first arrested in Utah in 1975 and convicted the next year of kidnapping a woman. He was then extradited to Colorado to face murder charges in the death of a woman who disappeared from a ski resort in Aspen.

On June 6, 1977, he escaped from the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen through a second floor window and was free for six days before being recaptured.

On New Year's Eve that same year he managed to escape again from a Colorado jail and fled to Florida where he murdered two university students and a 12-year-old girl.

He ultimately died in Florida's electric chair for those crimes.

Killer: Bundy, who was executed in Florida in 1989, confessed to 30 murders but his actual tally may be much higher. He;s pictured following his arrest in that state in 1978
Andy Cohen has claimed that the ladies of the Real Housewives Of Atlanta are steering clear of Phaedra Parks after she confessed to being the source of a 'date rape' rumor.

Phaedra was reportedly fired recently from the hit reality series after leveling 'date rape' allegations against co-star Kandi Burruss and her husband Todd Tucker.

And speaking of Phaedra's future on the series, Andy, 48, told E! Online on Monday that ever since the reunion episode, in which Phaedra admitted she was the source of the lie, 'none of the other women wanted anything to do with her.'

Turning their backs: Andy Cohen has claimed that the ladies of the Real Housewives Of Atlanta want nothing to do with Phaedra Parks after she confessed to being the source of a 'date rape' rumor she spread on the show (pictured on Monday in New York)

The Bravo host explained that it would be difficult to even film the show, now that the stars are avoiding Phaedra.

'So that's what you have to look at, how do you shoot a show about a group of friends, when no one is speaking to one of the friends,' he said.

Phaedra admitted during the reunion episode that she was the one who told fellow housewife Porsha Williams that Kandi and Todd were planning on drugging her and taking her back to their home to take sexual advantage of her.

Andy echoed his sentiments when speaking with ET Online, saying Phaedra was on her own following filming of the last reunion.

Reports: Phaedra Parks was reportedly fired recently from the hit reality series after leveling 'date rape' allegations against co-stars Kandi Burruss and her husband Todd Tucker (pictured February 2017)

Asked by the website if she was fired, Andy said: 'What I can tell you is, what you have to look at is where she stands with the group.

'And when she left the reunion, she was on an island. None of the other women wanted anything to do with her, so that's something that we'll look at as we figure out where to go with the show.'

Phaedra reportedly is blaming producers of the reality series for providing her the lie that got her terminated.

Dramatic: Speaking of Phaedra's future on the series, Andy told E! Online on Monday in New York that ever since the reunion episode, in which Phaedra admitted she was the source of the falsehood, 'none of the other women wanted anything to do with her'

But Andy insists producers are not giving the housewives lines.

'People are not told what to say,' he said.

'We cast women with strong opinions and strong points of view. We can't force any of these women, if you've ever met a housewife you know that we can't force them to say anything.'

Her standing: Asked by the website if she was fired, Andy said: 'What I can tell you is, what you have to look at is where she stands with the group (Porsha L, Kandi R in March)

Andy's explanation comes after a source for TMZ claimed Phaedra is blaming producers of the show for feeding her lies that not only got her kicked off the reality program, but has resulted in her and her family being bullied and threatened.

According to the mother of two, the anonymous producer who supplied the information to Phaedra didn't explicitly tell her to repeat the information on the air, though the implication was there.

In addition, Phaedra claims she explained her interaction with the producer during the reunion show, but it was edited out to make it look like she was the only one at fault.

'She was on an island': Cohen said that after the explosive reunion, Phaedra was on her own

She now claims that her firing was in retaliation for implicating the producer, even though her story didn't reach viewers.

Since the rumor came out, Phaedra claims her family has been the target of online threats, including from one ardent fan who insists her law license should be revoked.

Kandi meanwhile during a recent appearance on The Ryan Cameron Morning Show in Atlanta was asked if she was considering taking legal action against Phaedra for defamation.

Betrayed: Porsha broke down into tears after learning about the source of the lie during the reunion

'Uh yeah, I have thought about it. I have to talk to my attorneys and see. The damage has definitely been done. They told me I should sue Porsha at first,' Kandi told The People's Station.

'When it came out at the reunion that Porsha got the information from Phaedra, I was like, you know what, let's just hold up until you guys get to see the whole thing and I'll get their opinion on how they think I should handle it and go from there,' she said.

Kandi didn't sound like she was looking forward to more legal action.

'Lawsuits are stressful,' she said while noting that she was still dealing with a former employee's lawsuit for unpaid overtime.

Kandi also said she currently employs 71 people at the Old Lady Gang restaurant that she and Todd opened in Atlanta.
Lisa Bonet 'didnt seem incredibly surprised' about the rape allegations toward her one-time co-star Bill Cosby, according to her daughter Zoe Kravitz.

Zoe, Lisa's 28-year-old daughter with rocker Lenny Kravitz, told Allure that she felt her mother, who played Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show from 1984 until 1991, was 'bummed' out as details of the scandal emerged.

'I dont think she wants to hear about anyone being abused, especially by someone she spent so much time with,' Zoe told the publication. 'It feels s----y. You want to shower.'

New insight: Lisa Bonet (L) 'didnt seem incredibly surprised' by the mountain of sex abuse allegations raised against Bill Cosby, her former co-star on The Cosby Show, according to her daughter Zoe Kravitz (R)

Zoe told The Guardian in an August 2015 interview that Bonet, 49, was 'just staying out of' the scandal, which saw Cosby accused by dozens of women of drugging and abusing them.

'Shes just as disgusted and concerned as everyone else is, but I dont think she has any insight,' Zoe said in the interview. 'Its news to her as well.'

Zoe said that she understood why many were interested in a reaction from Bonet, who has stayed publicly mum on the topic.

New avenue: Cosby on Monday agreed with his daughter's theory that the accusations against him could be racially-related. He was pictured in Pennsylvania in September

Gorgeous: Lisa wore a colorful ensemble to Elle's Women in Television event in January

'She was on the show for a long time,' Zoe said. 'Shes also a beautiful woman. It makes people wonder.

She said that her mother is 'a very straightforward person,' and that 'if there was something she felt the world needed to know that would help this case or help any women who had been abused, she would say something.'

The new comments from the Big Little Lies beauty came as Cosby - who played Dr. Heathcliff 'Cliff' Huxtable on NBC sitcom - said that the pile of accusations of sexual abuse against him 'could be' racially-driven, after his daughter Esna asserted that 'racism has played a big role' in the proceedings, adding they've been dogged by 'one-sided' accusations.

Back in court: Cosby smiled as he was snapped in court in Norristown, Pennsylvania last month

'There are so many tentacles' in the situation, the 79-year-old comic told Sirius XM Monday. 'So many different - "nefarious" is a great word - and I just truly believe that some of it may very well be that.'

Cosby next month goes on trial in his native Philadelphia in a 2004 incident in which a Temple University worker named Andrea Constand said he drugged and sexually assaulted her. He has pleaded not guilty to the accusations.

Jury selection commences May 22, with the trial, projected to last two weeks, beginning June 5.

Longtime ties: Cosby and Bonet were seen in this shot from The Cosby Show from 1984
It's not hard to look sexy when you're Gal Gadot, but the Wonder Woman star was in especially fine form at the film's premiere in Shanghai, China on Monday.

Dressed in a slinky cobalt blue gown, the 32-year-old actress showed off her famous curves as she posed on the carpet ahead of the premiere.

Gal's dress featured button detailing at the front, and a low-cut neckline, which showed off her cleavage.

She's the woman: Gal Gadot looked sexy at the Wonder Woman premiere in Shanghai on Monday

The Israeli actress' floor-length gown featured a long split down the left side, which accentuated her long legs.

She wore matching strappy blue stilettos, and accessorized with a variety of rings.

Her long brown hair was worn loose and slicked back.

Joining the stunning star at the Chinese premiere was her handsome co-star, Chris Pine.

Keeping close: Joining the stunning star at the Chinese premiere was her handsome co-star, Chris Pine

Sexy: The Israeli actress' floor-length gown featured a long split down the left side, which accentuated her long legs

The 36-year-old Star Trek actor matched his gorgeous co-star in a dark blue suit and pale blue shirt.

The two posed for photos together, and appeared to share a laugh with the film's director, Patty Jenkins, 45, who also wore blue to the event.

And when she wasn't posing for the cameras, Gal took time out to mingle with the fans.

Blue day: Joining the Wonder Woman co-stars was the film's director, Patty Jenkins, who also dressed in blue

Hamming it up... The trio posed for photos together, and appeared to share a laugh, as Chris pulled faces at the cameras

Write on: When she wasn't posing for the cameras, Gal took time out at the premiere to mingle with fans

It's a sign... The smiling star was seen signing autographs for fans who had lined the nude-colored carpet

Dream role: 'Somehow I think that I always wished to play Wonder Woman, without even knowing it myself,' Gal told Collider during an interview in March

Pals: Gal has forged a strong friendship wit Chris during filming, which was evident at the press conference

Beauty: She later made another stylish outfit change for the Wonder Woman film premiere in Shanghai, China

Promoting: She seemed in high spirits as she talked enthusiastically about the movie

The smiling star was seen signing autographs for fans who had lined the nude-colored carpet.

'Somehow I think that I always wished to play Wonder Woman, without even knowing it myself,' Gal told Collider during an interview in March.

'What I [would] like to do, is to show the stronger side of women, because I feel that theres not enough stories being told about strong women, and independent women, and little did I know that five years later, Id land the part [of Wonder Woman].'

Flashing flesh: Her figure-hugging garment boasted sexy cut-out detailing on either side of her decolletage

Hunk: Chris looked dapper in a blue shirt and dark bottoms
He's the cravat-wearing host of MasterChef who is used to turning up the heat on the show's would-be cooks.

But Matt Preston will find himself in the hot seat, when his cameo on iconic US soap The Bold And The Beautiful airs on Australian screens on Wednesday.

Speaking with Fitzy and Wippa on Tuesday, the 53-year-old said he wasn't too confident about his performance, with the host admitting he was 'more wooden than a sideboard.'

Hamming it up: But Matt Preston will find himself in the hot seat, when his cameo on iconic US soap The Bold And The Beautiful airs on Australian screens on Wednesday

'Apparently they didn't cut it. I'm very surprised they didn't go 'clunk' onto the cutting-room floor in Hollywood because I am more wooden than a sideboard,' he told the radio hosts.

Matt, who will play a wedding planner in his cameo, revealed he took inspiration from television 'handyman' Scott Cam, who has starred on The Block, Renovation Rescue, and Reno Rumble.

'I just got it awfully wrong - the whole thing,' he revealed. ' playing a wedding planner in a pink suit and trying to sound like Scott Cam - I don''t think it worked.'

Acting chops: Speaking with Fitzy and Wippa on Tuesday, Matt said he was 'more wooden than a sideboard'

Matt told the radio hosts that he was still yet to see his performance - a fact that made him 'suspicious.'

'You know that thing when people don't show you stuff - there's normally a reason for that - I'm suspicious,' he said.

'You know when you look really nervous and you start sweating and you look straight down the lens of the camera? That'll be me.'

Pressure test: Matt revealed to the radio hosts that he was still yet to see his performance - a fact that made him 'suspicious'

Fitzy then offered his own twist on a potential scene for Matt, referencing his recent spat with UK chef Marco Pierre White and comments he made about his controversial son.

'You know what would be perfect,' Fitzy opined. 'It's right at the end of the show and there's a close-up of you and your eyes and you see someone has walked into the wedding and it's Marco Pierre White's son and you both lock eyes with each other.'

However, co-host Wippa took things a bit further with: 'And (you) start making out, or you get your cravat off and just strangle him from behind.'

Local episodes: The Bold And The Beautiful cast, including star Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (pictured), recently filmed some episodes in sydney

When pushed for a response, Matt remained diplomatic with: 'I'm just listening to your humour, boys - I'm wallowing in your humour and loving every minute of it.'

The soap shot scenes in Australia in February to mark three decades of television success for the iconic soap.

The special episodes also doubled as a push to boost tourism in Australia, with producers joining forces with Australian airline Qantas.

Aside from Matt, Australian celebrities such as Amanda Keller, Angela Bishop and Ita Buttrose also filmed cameos.
They are the reality TV star couple who are never far from each other's side.

But Tim Robards has been noticeably absent at this year's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, with girlfriend Anna Heinrich attending several events solo.

The former reality star was seen posing up a storm on her own ahead of the Stanzee runway show on Tuesday, which was held at Carriageworks in Sydney.

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Where's Tim? The Bachelor's Anna Heinrich attended the Stanzee runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week solo on Tuesday

Wearing a black and white off-the-shoulder dress from the brand's SS17 collection, the blonde beauty showed off her fit figure.

The mid-length monochrome frock featured an intricate embroidered pattern and bell sleeves that fit the blogger like a glove.

Keeping her heels simple, Anna opted for black strappy Stuart Weitzman stilettos.

Updating her typical middle part, the model mixed up her hairstyle with a soft wavy blowout, teasing the roots at her crown.

Looking good: Wearing a black and white off-the-shoulder dress from the brand's SS17 collection, showed off her fit figure

To no surprise, Anna's makeup looked impeccable, a dewy face with rosy pink cheeks and her signature Oral-B 3D smile.

For a second day in a row longtime boyfriend Robards was not seen in attendance.

Instead Anna brought her sister Andrea as her date to the fashion show.
She recently became engaged to beau of six years, Neil Varcoe.

And as she prepares to head down the aisle, Sunrise's Edwina Bartholomew revealed in a chat with The Thinkergirls that a past dating experience was far from rosy.

Having found out her boyfriend had been cheating on her, the 33-year-old still decided to continue on with the relationship.

'I never thought I would be THAT woman': Edwina Bartholomew, 33, spoke of a past dating experience in a podcast with The Thinkergirls

'I never thought I would be that woman who would go back to someone who cheated on me,' she explained in her interview with The Thinkergirls' Stacey June and Kristie Mercer.

'I had a boyfriend who was cheating on me and evidently, everyone knew about it except me.'

'And then it took one girlfriend to actually pull me aside and I remember the night so clearly because we were at uni in Bathurst in regional New South Wales, and she took me down the street,' the Channel Seven reporter continued.

'She told me that he had been cheating on me and told me everything, and I will always remember that she was the one who put her hand up.'

Candid comments: 'I had a boyfriend who was cheating on me and evidently, everyone knew about it except me,' Edwina told The Thinkergirls' Stacey June and Kristie Mercer

Reflection: 'And you know what? Stupidly, I went back to him and I stayed with him for another few months. Then I came to my senses as, you know, so many women do,' the television personality continued

'And you know what? Stupidly, I went back to him and I stayed with him for another few months. Then I came to my senses as, you know, so many women do.

'I never thought I would be that woman who would go back to someone who cheated on me,' Edwina finished.

Fortunately the experience is behind her, and Edwina recently came engaged to writer Neil Varcoe.

Last month, Edwina announced the happy news via a gushing Instagram post.

Fairytale ending: Fortunately the experience is behind her, having recently become engaged to writer and beau of six years, Neil Varcoe

Sharing the news: 'On this day, two wonderful weeks ago, the love of my life asked me to be his wife. And I said... umm....ahh...let me have a think...just kidding...YES. We are over the moon,' the television personality captioned the snap

'On this day, two wonderful weeks ago, the love of my life asked me to be his wife. And I said...umm....ahh...let me have a think... just kidding...YES. We are over the moon,' the television personality captioned the snap.

The caption was placed alongside a picture of Edwina and Neil walking down a country road during a recent trip to the United States.

Edwina's engagement announcement came just weeks after the bubbly blonde revealed in a podcast the secret behind their happy union.

Winning strategy: Edwina's engagement announcement came just weeks after the bubbly blonde revealed in a podcast, the secret behind their happy union

'During the week he sleeps in one room and I sleep in the other,' she told the publication.

She also revealed that the pair leave letters to each other: 'We set up a noticeboard in our kitchen so that when I leave for work I leave him a note, and then when I wake up there's something there.'

'It can't be a chore, it has to be something nice. One time I remember we had a big fight at night time and the next morning he wrote, 'I love you even when I hate you'.'
She recently purchased a $2.2 million retreat in the New South Wales Southern Highlands.

And Sunrise star Samantha Armytage appears to be getting down to the business of decorating her new digs.

The 40-year-old was spotted hitting a luxury homewares store near her new pad on Sunday.

Nesting: Makeup free Sunrise host Samantha Armytage was spotted going homewares shopping to spruce up her new $2.2m Southern Highlands retreat on Sunday

Choosing a wintry-casual look, Sam, 40, wore a light blue jumper for her shopping expedition.

The popular television presenter matched the jumper with a pair of black jeans, which were tucked into a pair of brown work boots.

With her blonde tresses tied at the back, Sam finished the ensemble with a pair of oversize tortoise shell sunglasses.

Keeping warm: Choosing a wintry-casual look, Sam, 40, wore a light blue jumper for her shopping outing

Best friend: Choosing not to shop alone, Sam brought her faithful and adorable Labrador Banjo along for the trip, who walked dutifully by her side as she strolled the shopping expedition

She also toted a simple black handbag, which she slung over her shoulders.

Choosing not to shop alone, Sam brought her faithful and adorable Labrador Banjo along for the trip, who walked dutifully by her side as she strolled the shopping expedition.

Guard dog: It seems as the trip may have been too much for Banjo, who was later seen waiting patiently for his celebrity owner in her black range Rover

Til you drop: Sam was seen shopping up a storm during the outing

With her mobile phone not far from her hands for the duration of the expedition, Sam also stopped to grab a quick photo of some of the local flora that caught her eye.

The region's fecundity have inspired her, as Sam was also seen bundling some potted greenery into her car.

As the Southern Highland's sun shone down on the presenter, she also looked to be saying greeting some locals who recognised her.

Shutterbug: With her mobile phone not far from her hands for the duration of the expedition, Sam also stopped to grab a quick photo of some of the local flora that caught her eye

Green thumb: The region's fecundity have inspired her, as Sam was also seen bundling some potted greenery into her car

Neighbours: As the Southern Highland's sun shone down on the presenter, she also looked to be saying greeting some locals who recognised her

Exciting times! An avid decorator, Sam appeared to be having a ball picking out new items for her new abode

Sam's new regional NSW property features five bedrooms, plus plenty of space for Banjo to roam free domain.com.au reported at the time of the sale, last month.

The sprawling country retreat also has a wrap around verandah and is surrounded by lush green lawns and trees on the two hectare property.

The living spaces open out onto a spacious outdoor deck, while the property also includes paddocks suitable for keeping ponies.

New pad: Sam's new regional NSW property features five bedrooms, plus plenty of space for Banjo to roam free domain.com.au reported at the time of the sale, last month

Sprawling: The sprawling country retreat also has a wrap around verandah and is surrounded by lush green lawns and trees on the two hectare property
She recently stripped down to nothing but lingerie for a raunchy photo-shoot with her husband Michael.

And Kyly Clarke, 35, wasn't shy to put on another risque display as she stepped out in a dominatrix-inspired leather top at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Monday night.

The mother-of-one was spotted at the Myer x Sass & Bide fashion show posing up a storm in her edgy ensemble, which consisted of a leather top with cut-out detailing and a black skirt with thigh-splits.

Kyly Clarke, 35, wasn't shy to put on another risque display as she stepped out in a dominatrix-inspired leather top at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Sydney on Monday night

Her racy look was accessorised with a pair of caged heels in black patent leather and a pair of dramatic gold drop earrings.

With her brunette mane slicked back behind her ears, Kyly sported a bronzed complexion as well as an earthy-toned makeup look.

Her eyes were lined with black kohl and a dusting of dusty rose eye-shadow, while her cheeks were powdered with bronze-toned blush.

The mother-of-one was spotted at the Myer x Sass & Bide fashion show posing up a storm in her edgy ensemble

Taking to Instagram during the exclusive fashion event, Kyly shared a series of photos of herself posing in front of a white screen.

'The night that was @sassandbide @mbfw #bespoke One off jacket!! The designers that keep on giving, unique, edgy, art in a form of fashion,' she wrote in the caption.

She also spoke about her outfit to the Daily Telegraph, explaining: 'It is a one off so I feel really privileged to be wearing it.'

'The night that was': Taking to Instagram during the exclusive fashion event, Kyly shared a series of photos of herself posing in front of a white screen

'I can see what you're saying [about the dominatrix look] but I feel like I've softened it with the skirt.'

Kyly gushed to the publication about the joys of sitting front row at a fashion show, saying: 'It is about doing a bit of shopping visually.'

'It is really nice to see how people style the looks and to get different ideas so for sure, I really do come to check out the fashion on lots of different levels.'

Lucky me! She also spoke about her outfit to the Daily Telegraph , explaining: 'It is a one off so I feel really privileged to be wearing it'
John Lydon, once known as the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten, was snapped in Malibu on Monday picking up groceries with his wife Nora Forster.

The 61-year-old London native wore a navy blue T-shirt with a graphic that read 'Echo in Venice,' with board shorts brandishing the stars and stripes.

His curly red hair waved in the breeze as he and his spouse were seen leaving the Trancas Market in the well-heeled area.

Stars and stripes: John Lydon, the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten, was snapped shopping in Malibu on Monday with his wife Nora Forster

Lydon, one-time bandmates with the late punk legend Sid Vicious (John Ritchie), wore his politics on his sleeve in a recent series of interviews, where he's professed a guarded sense of support for President Donald Trump.

Lydon, who's been a U.S. citizen for four years, told Good Morning Britain in March that the 45th president is a 'political Sex Pistol' who could turn out to be 'a possible friend' to the political system.

He defended the commander-in-chief's controversial brand of politics in saying, 'What I dislike is the left-wing media in America are trying to smear the bloke as a racist, and thats completely not true.

Outspoken: The 61-year-old punk music icon has given his opinions on President Donald Trump in a series of recent interviews in which he's been both critical and complimentary of the commander-in-chief

'Theres many, many problems with him as a human being, but hes not that, and there just might be a chance something good will come out of that situation, because he terrifies politicians.'

Carving his legacy: The charismatic musician shot to fame as the Sex Pistols' lead singer in the late 1970s

Trendsetting: Lydon was seen onstage in this performance shot in 1976

In a chat with Newsweek in April, he said that Trump is 'allowing us to understand that we ourselves have become disproportionately outsiders,' while adding that 'the way he's done it is amateur hour.'

The outspoken musician, who's also part of the band Public Image Ltd, said that while former President Barack Obama was a 'wonderful man,' he 'couldn't get nothing done' in his two terms.

'Now it's up to all of us,' he said. 'We've got to start sorting this out all over again. It's punk, part two.'
It's no secret that reality shows about dating and sex score high in the TV ratings.

And while programs such as The Last Resort are criticised for being melodramatic and over-edited, celebrity sexologist Dr Nikki Goldstein argues that watching them can help improve your love life.

In a recent blog post, the author of soon-to-be released book Single But Dating explained that relationship shows 'are motivating us to talk about the important issues and in return helping us to explore our own.'

Lets talk sex! While dating shows are criticised for being melodramatic, celebrity sexologist Dr Nikki Goldstein argues that watching them can help improve your love life

Describing these programs as 'a catalyst to begin conversations', Nikki noted that even constructed TV scenarios can teach us something about our own lives.

'The next time you tune into something with a dating and relationships edge, instead of just watching what is happening on the TV, take note of what is really happening with the contestants and what is playing out between the couples on screen,' she suggested.

'Consider if you identify with them and if you do not, maybe look at why.'

'Take note': Describing these programs as 'a catalyst to begin conversations', Nikki noted that even constructed TV scenarios can teach us something about our own lives

Nikki also pointed out that the medium of television may help convey messages to those who are uncomfortable with confrontation.

'Here is the big hint ladies: Men are not great talkers when it comes to the relationship stuff, however they are great at watching TV,' she explained.

'Instead of candle lit dinner and face-to-face investigation of how they are feeling, why not a beer in hand on the couch in front of the box (and Im talking about the TV). They might think its couch potato time, but you could have others plans.'

Shows that focus on therapy and long-term relationship issues are particularly helpful, said Nikki.

'Men are not great talkers': Nikki also pointed out that the medium of television may help convey messages to those who are uncomfortable with confrontation

'People love the idea of romance': The popularity of relationship TV shows has been growing in Australia, with Married At First Sight averaging around a million viewers per episode

Meanwhile, the popularity of relationship TV shows has been growing among Australian viewers, with Married At First Sight averaging around a million viewers per episode.

The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise has also become cult favourite among TV enthusiasts over the past few years.

'People love the idea of romance. They want it in their own lives, and they want to see a heightened version of it on television,' TEN's Executive Producer Hilary Innes told The Daily Telegraph this week.

'Everybody wants to believe that the fairytale is a very real possibility and The Bachelor proves that it is,' she explained.
Her focus has been on expanding her business in China of late as she launches her second flagship clothing store.

And Victoria Beckham was the centre of attention when she attended a Puyi Wardrobe launch event in Hong Kong, looking super stylish in a patterned shirtdress.

The 43-year-old designer stunned in the loose garment as she arrived at a shopping mall in the bustling city on Monday, before changing into a chic velvet skirt.

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Chic: Victoria Beckham was the centre of attention when she attended a Puyi Wardrobe launch event in Hong Kong on Monday, looking super stylish in a patterned shirtdress

Super stylish: The fashion designer later changed into a chic velvet skirt for an Estee Lauder beauty event

Victoria cut a stylish figure in the simple yet elegant attire, which she paired with bright blue heels.

The former Spice Girl wore her bob in loose waves and hid behind a large pair of shades.

Victoria later changed into a chic velvet skirt, teamed with a crisp white shirt, for an appearance at an Estee Lauder beauty event.

The fashionista - who raises children Brooklyn, 18, Romeo, 14, Cruz, 11, and Harper, five, with her husband David Beckham - caused quite a stir during her visit in the city.

Making a statement: The former Spice Girl wore her bob in loose waves and hid behind a large pair of shades

Strike a pose: Victoria looked effortlessly chic as she rode the escalator

Turning heads: The fashionista - who raises children Brooklyn, 18, Romeo, 14, Cruz, 11, and Harper, five, with her husband David Beckham - caused quite a stir during her visit in the city

Public appearance: The 43-year-old designer stunned in the loose garment as she arrived at a shopping mall in the bustling city

Putting her best foot forward: The style maven pulled her look together with edgy heels

Interviewed: The star's outing comes after she was interviewed by Divia Harilda at the Landmark building for a Facebook chat

She revealed: 'I love women. I love to empower women. I think sunglasses are the final touch to a woman's outfit'

Victoria was met with by a fan frenzy as she put in a public appearance at the high profile event.

The star's outing comes after she was interviewed by Divia Harilda at the Landmark building for a Facebook chat.

A day ahead of her sunglasses launch, she said: 'I love women. I love to empower women. I think sunglasses are the final touch to a woman's outfit.

Funky footwear: Victoria cut a stylish figure in the simple yet elegant attire, which she paired with bright blue heels

Accessorising in style: The star carried a giant handbag under one arm

Why so serious: The star failed to raise a smile as she strutted through the shopping mall

Sleepy: Victoria stifled a yawn as she arrived at the airport earlier in the day

Travelling in style: The star was joined by an assistant carrying her suitcase

Centre of attention: Victoria was met by a mob of excited fans and journalists

'I wear sunglasses because like most mums, I am up all night with my children. They hide a multitude of sins.'

Victoria, who also has a store in London's Dover Street, also spoke about her collaboration with make-up brand Estee Lauder.

She said: 'I am a control freak in case you haven't heard already. When I did the collaboration, I had a dining table full of cosmetics and ideas

'I even had ideas about how much pigment should be used for the perfect concealer. I wear a bucket load of it.'

She also said: 'I have such big dreams and things I still want to achieve.'

Taking to the mic: The star delivered a powerful speech to the crowd

Hugging it out: Victoria was seen giving a warm embrace as she headed off

Chic: Victoria tucked a crisp white shirt into a crushed velvet, purple pleated skirt

Bronzed beauty: The star highlighted her cheekbones with a liberal amount of bronzer

Plump pout: Victoria highlighted her lips with a slick of gloss and a dark pink lipstick
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House Rules' Troy and Bec have got their romance back on track after a dramatic break up earlier in the series.

But it's not just their relationship that's having problems, as the couple's Heckenberg property could possibly be the worst in Sydney.

The ceiling has gaping holes, the toilet doesn't flush and the divorced father's children are sleeping in the pantry.

The House Rules teams are going to have to get creative to turn Troy's house from hell into 'ultra-modern castle fit for a king and queen'.

House Rules: It's not just Troy and Bec's relationship that's having problems - as their Heckenberg property could possibly be the worst in Sydney

House from hell! The ceiling has holes, the toilet doesn't flush and the divorced father's children are sleeping in the pantry

With the couple in last place after redecorating Andrew and Jono's bedroom with vulgar orange paint, they earned a reprieve from the 'tent of shame' when they discovered the next renovation would be at their place.

Appearing to find some humour in their property's state of disrepair, Troy and Bec casually walked viewers through the dilapidated home.

'I'm the luckiest girl in the world' Bec said, before introducing the temporary bedding she sets up for her kids when they stay at her partner's place.

The narrow room was about the size of a pantry, with Troy able to stretch his arms from one wall to the other.

Lucky! 'I'm the luckiest girl in the world' Bec said, before introducing the temporary bedding she sets up for her kids when they stay at her partner's place

Bedroom pantry? The 'wardrobe' was bizarrely stocked with six packs of Up & Go, quick oats, instant coffee and more budget staples - proving that the kids' bedroom is essentially for food storage

The 'wardrobe' was bizarrely stocked with six packs of Up & Go, quick oats, instant coffee and more budget staples - proving that the bedroom is essentially for food storage.

'It's embarrassing for the kids,' the self-confessed 'education-lacking low-income earner' confessed.

More embarrassment came in the form of a broken oven, with Bec lamenting: 'We can't even bake the kids birthday cakes.'

Holey moley! 'It's embarrassing for the kids,' the self-confessed 'education-lacking low-income earner' confessed

Not lovin' the oven! More embarrassment came in the form of a broken oven, with Bec lamenting, 'We can't even bake the kids birthday cakes.'

A trip to the bathroom proves risky, with a sign over the toilet and sink reading 'not working, please do not use'.

Proudly showing how he manages to flush the broken toilet, Troy grabbed a bucket from the bath and tipped it into the bowl.

With his head close to the seat, and his hands simulating the process of airflow, he explained: 'That's the process of flushing the toilet, and if you don't get it right, it comes back at ya.'

Be careful! A trip to the bathroom proves risky, with a sign over the toilet and sink reading 'not working, please do not use'

The process: Proudly showing how he manages to flush the broken toilet, Troy grabbed a bucket from the bath and tipped it into the bowl

Smell ya later! With his head close to the seat, and his hands simulating the process of airflow, he explained, 'That's the process of flushing the toilet, and if you don't get it right, it comes back at ya'

When the other couples entered the house, they were stunned by the sink with no drainage, busted pipes, gaping interior and exterior holes, split pipes, and a dinner table so small that diners sit with their knees touching.

Taking a quick look around upon entry, Andrew and Jono quipped: 'Apart from the gaping hole in the roof, it's not too bad!'

With bickering couple Kate and Harry taking home top prize in last episode's Perth makeover, they were tasked with splitting up the zones.

Stunned: When the other couples entered the house, they were stunned by the sink with no drainage, busted pipes, gaping interior and exterior holes, split pipes, and a dinner table so small that diners sit with their knees touching

Er, are you sure? Taking a quick look around upon entry, Andrew and Jono quipped, 'Apart from the gaping hole in the roof, it's not too bad!'

They gave themselves the front stairs, entry, hallway and main bathroom, before infuriating 'villains' Fiona and Nicole by giving them the notoriously tough lounge room and walk-in wardrobe.

The teams were left with a list of 'house rules', with Sean and Ella scratching their heads working out how to 'make a master en-suite fit for a King and Queen' while also incorporating 'Bec's love of V8 supercars'.

At least the pair understood all of the instructions, as Gold Coast blonde Daniella was left confused by the term 'coat hanger' to describe the Sydney Harbour bridge.

House rules! As usual, the teams were left with the daunting list of (sometimes contradictory) house rules to follow

House fools? The rules left Sean and Ella scratching their heads working out how to 'make a master en-suite fit for a King and Queen' while also incorporating 'Bec's love of V8 supercars'

'Ohhh is that it there?' she asked, pointing at a picture of a completely different bridge.

Fiona and Nicole were causing trouble as usual, on this occasion attempting to uncover an alliance between Harry and Kate, Sean and Ella and Aaron and Daniella.

The blow-up came to a head when they accused Sean of sabotage for stealing 50 mil of their lounge room zone.

Whoops! At least the pair understood all of the instructions, as Gold Coast blonde Daniella was left confused by the term 'coat hanger' to describe the Sydney Harbour bridge

That bridge? 'Ohhh is that it there?' she asked, pointing at a picture of a completely different bridge

Nicole was later seen muttering 'Aw whoops! How did that do that?' upon discovering she had measured wrong.

In a rare move, Harry and Kate decided to keep Troy's 14-year-old daughter's 'Kim Kardashian inspired bedroom' bonus, adding a five-point gamble to their workload.

House Rules' continues Wednesday night on Channel Seven

Up to their usual tricks! Fiona and Nicole were causing trouble as usual, on this occasion attempting to uncover an alliance between Harry and Kate, Sean and Ella and Aaron and Daniella

Rivalry: The blow-up came to a head when they accused Sean of sabotage for stealing 50 mil of their lounge room zone
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is a great excuse for celebrities and mere mortals alike to think outside the box with their outfit choices.

But Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell) took it a little far with an unusual princess-themed leather top that appeared a little lopsided on her frame.

The 25-year-old posed in the black leather garment during an event held on day three of Fashion Week on Tuesday.

Fashion Week fail? Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell) donned an unusual princess-themed leather top that appeared a little lopsided on her frame

The top's princess sleeves brought to mind a fairy tale-themed costume with a biker chic edge.

But the fit was less than perfect, with Jesinta's cleavage sitting unevenly in the plunging neckline.

The puffy sleeves were also a little uneven, with one pouf appearing higher than the other.

While the outfit presented some issues, it's clean lines and clinging fit flattered Jesinta's slender figure.

Leather princess: The top's princess sleeves brought to mind a fairy tale-themed costume with a biker chic edge

Tall order! The David Jones model teamed the top with a pair of dark blue denim jeans and black stilettos with pin-thin heels

The brunette teamed the top with a pair of dark blue denim jeans and black stilettos with pin-thin heels.

Her enormous $100,000 engagement ring was also front and centre as a statement piece on her finger.

A studded black handbag completed the look, as did a pair of drop earrings with a silver sphere adornment.

Odd fit: The top's fit was less than perfect, with the beauty's cleavage sitting unevenly in the top's plunging neckline

Boxy: Jesinta posed inside the Bec and Bridge show, with the leather sleeves creating a boxy silhouette as she sat front row at the runway event

The beauty posed again inside the Bec and Bridge show, with the leather sleeves creating a boxy silhouette as she sat front row at the runway event.

Jesinta was seated next to model Elyse Taylor, 30, who wore a bell-sleeved, pleated black dress that reached her ankles.

The wife of AFL star Lance 'Buddy' Franklin also showed off her flawless make up, which featured a neutral lip and dramatic burnt orange blush.

Pushing for grandchildren? Jesinta's mother Valerie (right) told The Daily Telegraph over the weekend she is keen for her daughter to have children

Meanwhile, the David Jones ambassador recently discussed the possibility of having children, admitting her mother Valerie Campbell 'wants to be a grandmother'.

Jesinta and her mum both spoke to The Daily Telegraph on Saturday at the David Jones Mother's Day High Tea, and joked that babies could be coming 'soon'.

The would-be grandmother is keen for her daughter to get pregnant, saying cheerfully: 'I'm not pushing her but it's definitely next on my agenda'.
The pair have been the subject of dating rumours since co-starring on House Husbands together last year.

And Delta Goodrem, 32, and actor Hugh Sheridan, 31, sent fans into meltdown on Monday after Hugh posted a video to Instagram of the pair sharing what looked like an amorous display as they sung a duet.

Hugh was performing at a jazz club when he was joined by Delta for a smouldering love song.

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Love in the air? Delta Goodrem and Hugh Sheridan have reignited romance rumours after singing a romantic duet together

Their tune of choice was When I Fall In Love by Nat King Cole, which is full of romantic lyrics that the pair adoringly performed to one another.

They held hands, looked into each other's eyes and wrapped their arms around each other as they sang the impromptu duet.

Hugh appeared on stage in a black tuxedo with matching bow tie and a white shirt while Delta matched his monochrome attire in an off the shoulder white top and black pants.

Close! They held hands, looked into each other's eyes and wrapped their arms around each other as they sang the impromptu duet

Hugh's Instagram video was accompanied by snaps of the pair laughing and cuddling after the song finished.

He captioned the post: 'Highlight of my day was singing with beautiful @deltagoodrem'.

'Impromptu and perfect #loveher #whenifallinlove... You are a god #musicislove'.

Just friends? He captioned the post: 'Highlight of my day was singing with beautiful @deltagoodrem'

The post welcomed comments from fans saying: 'These two are an item, no doubt about it' and 'cutest couple!'

One passionate fan said: 'I hope you're together but MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS'.

Rumours that the pair were dating surfaced back in January when they shared flirtatious pics online of them together.

Fan favourites! The post welcomed comments from fans saying: 'These two are an item, no doubt about it' and 'cutest couple!'

They shared a day out on the Sydney Harbour, where Delta was seen kissing the actor's cheek as he sported a massive grin in a sweet selfie.

Hugh captioned his snap, in part: 'This one. Thanks for being you. Grateful I met a soul like you.'

Hugh laughed off the rumours in February, telling TODAY, 'As I learned through the magazines, she and I are actually dating, which I'm thrilled about'.
They had been seen flaunting their romance earlier this year, but left fans confused on announcing it had all been a ploy for publicity.

But Jemma Lucy and Chantelle Connelly were caught getting very hands on with each other, suggesting there may be unfinished business between the 'former flames'.

The reality stars were seen putting on an eye-popping display as they ditched their bikini tops to bare their more than ample assets while taking a shower together on Monday during their Spanish break.

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Eye-popping display: Jemma Lucy and Chantelle Connelly ditched their bikini tops to display their more than ample assets while on holiday in Spain on Monday

Jemma slipped into a pair of scanty neon bikini bottoms that barely covered her pert posterior and left her cleavage firmly on display as she showcased her heavily tattooed figure.

Her dark-hued tresses had been soaked-through as she cooled off in the shower from the heat overseas and she wasn't afraid to pull a series of sultry poses as she frolicked with her just as scantily-clad ex-girlfriend.

Chantelle chose to bare her bust, but unlike Jemma kept her modesty covered by strategically placing her hands over her breasts.

She displayed her impressive bronzed glow, along with her own extensive inkings that boasted a large floral pattern reaching from her hip down to the top of her foot on one side.

Pucker up: The reality stars couldn't have cared who was watching as they indulged in a very passionate PDA while taking a shower together

Her long locks were slicked back by the water and she sported a pair of high-rise black bikini bottoms.

Although, Chantelle soon threw caution to the wind and risked putting her breasts on show as she threw her hands up behind her head while indulging in a passionate kiss with Jemma.

Jemma was seen getting very hands on with Chantelle as she caressed the former Geordie Shore star's assets while the duo locked lips.

The girls didn't hold back as they packed on the PDA and while puckering up to her pal, Jemma debuted the results of her recent Brazilian bum lift.

Unfinished business? Chantelle couldn't keep her hands off of her 'former flame' as they frolicked about in the sunshine

The Ex On The Beach star had jetted into Turkey for the cosmetic procedure that left her unable to sit down for three whole weeks.

Jemma had revealed via a Snapchat video that she was having fat transferred from her stomach to her bottom in a bid for a more peachy derriere.

As well as the highly popular bum lift, the reality star also had a small amount of fat removed from her chin while under anesthetic.

She went under the knife weeks after having her G-cup cleavage boosted to a larger size.

Peachy: Jemma's trip to Spain comes after she recently ventured to Turkey to undergo a Brazilian bum lift

While discussing her cosmetic work, Jemma explained that a friend of hers had sold a story on her to reveal her surgery plans.

She branded the insider who sold her story a 'c***', and disclosed that she had only spoke of her intentions to four people.

Jemma vented: 'When you tell about four people a secret and it gets in the press.

'You can't trust f**king anybody, but to be honest it wasn't going to be a secret because everyone would've found out anyway: I'm getting my a** done.'

'It's just annoying as I told a handful of people that I was doing it and I obviously wanted to tell my story,' she continued, before blasting: 'But someone else got there before me, you c***.'

Confusing: Jemma and former Geordie Shore star Chantelle had claimed they were dating back in January, before later announcing their romance had been a ploy for publicity

Meanwhile, her amorous appearance with Chantelle in Spain comes after the girls claimed to have been in a relationship in January.

Jemma had told her fans that she and Chantelle were 'going out' and that they had been together 'for a month'.

However, the former Geordie Shore star later tweeted to her 165,000 followers that it was all just a ploy for publicity.

She wrote: 'Just to let everyone know the whole me and @jem_lucy relationship was a laugh since the papers started it we rode it and had the last laugh' followed by two money emojis.
She's been an advocate of staying in shape throughout her pregnant.

And now Binky Felstead, 27, was weighing in on the dangers of pregnancy exercise, making a positive argument for expectant mothers to maintain their fitness throughout their pregnancy on Tuesday.

The Made In Chelsea star - who is eight-months pregnant with her first child with beau Josh 'JP' Patterson - looked positively radiant as she chatted to the broadcaster's presenters Jacquie Beltrao and Sarah-Jane Mee.

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Radiant: Binky Felstead, 26, was weighing in on the dangers of pregnancy exercise, making a positive argument for expectant mothers to maintain their fitness on Tuesday while showcasing her blossoming bump

Hitting back at critics, she insisted that working out in her third trimester has had positive effects on her mental health and body.

She said: 'As a first-time mum, you are already aware that people are anti-exercise in case it does harm the baby but with the research you're doing your body good and your baby good.

'It helps you with labour, it keeps me and my mind at ease. I suffer from anxiety so I feel so much better.'

The E4 star also shared some of her favourite exercises during the discussion, adding: 'Swimming is really good and lots of stretching, obviously pelvic floor is very good.'

Advocate@ Binky has been an advocate of staying in shape throughout her pregnant

Proving them wrong: Hitting back at critics, she insisted that working out in her third trimester has had positive effects on her mental health and body

Glowing Binky accentuated her blossoming bump with a stomach-skimming nautical inspired midi dress as she chatted on the early morning show.

The reality darling was glowing as she shared an insight to her pregnancy journey while her glossy brunette locks cascaded down her shoulders into a voluminous curl.

Her display comes after she notably took to YouTube when she first announced her pregnancy at the start of 2017 to show how mums-to-be can still take exercise while expecting.

However, she did come under fire earlier this year on social media after announcing her pregnancy in January.

Radiant: The Made In Chelsea star - who is eight-months pregnant with her first child with beau Josh 'JP' Patterson - looked positively radiant as she chatted to the broadcaster's presenters Jacquie Beltrao and Sarah-Jane Mee

Advice: She said: 'As a first-time mum, you are already aware that people are anti-exercise in case it does harm the baby but with the research you're doing your body good and your baby good'

Anxiety: She added: 'It helps you with labour, it keeps me and my mind at ease. I suffer from anxiety so I feel so much better'

The fitness fanatic shared a video of herself doing burpees and lifting weights in the gym on Instagram, but some fans have expressed concerns that her moves could be 'dangerous' for the baby.

Despite many fans praising the reality star for maintaining her fitness regime during pregnancy, SarahjessicaI warned: 'You are not suppose to do hip thrusts as your pelvis should not be elevated above head level. It's dangerous for baby.'

Helena_puddleduck also sounded a note of concern about Binky performing hip thrusts.

'In yoga you are not allowed to do certain moves because your pelvis should not be elevated,' she said. 'I don't know if someone without proper training on exercise during pregnancy should be giving advice. It might not be safe for other mums-to-be.'

Working it out! Her display comes after she notably took to YouTube when she first announced her pregnancy at the start of 2017 to show how mums-to-be can still take exercise while expecting

Fitness fan: Currently in her third trimester, Binky has still been hitting the gym

Squat goals! The star has been doing a wealth of exercises to help her throughout her pregnancy

EXERCISE IN PREGNANCY According to NHS guidelines, it's perfectly safe to keep up your normal level of exercise in pregnancy whether that's yoga, running or dancing. The more active and fit you are during pregnancy, the easier it will be for you to adapt to your changing shape and weight gain. It will also help you to cope with labour and get back into shape after the birth. However, pregnant women are advised against contact sports such as judo, scuba diving, exercise that involves long periods lying on your bag and exercising at altitude. Advertisement

MIC stalwart Binky has recently been voted UK women's 'gymspiration' of the year, beating Scarlett Moffatt, Khloe Kardashian, Lorraine Kelly and her co-star Louise Thompson in a survey by 3D-Lipo.

She told her Instagram fans that she's trying to maintain her fitness and strength by regularly doing 'small modified workouts'.

'Regular exercise throughout pregnancy has great benefits for both mother and child! Just listen to your body and don't over do it,' she added.

Many fans were supportive and praised her stance, including Elisestaples who told her: 'Good for you. Healthy mumma, healthy bubba.'

In reply, Bethgillxmelissamcgovernhypnotherapy told them: 'Of course you can exercise when pregnant. You need to be fit and strong for labour and everything else. See Paula Radcliffe

Strong: The E4 star also shared some of her favourite exercises during the discussion, adding: 'Swimming is really good and lots of stretching, obviously pelvic floor is very good'

Picture perfect: Binky is expecting her first child with boyfriend Josh 'JP' Patterson

Meanwhile, being a fashion model, a TV personality and a regular target for the paparazzi, Binky opened up about the pressures of being in the public eye, and how her pregnancy has impacted this previously.

When it comes to getting 'bikini ready' after the baby comes, Binky told MailOnline: 'I will certainly continue to eat well once I have had the baby as I think strength and health is so important. Then when I am ready I will be back in the gym and training.'

Her schedule being as hectic as it is means Binky will slow down the pace a little when the new arrival comes. 'I am going to take some time off to enjoy being a new mum,' she explained.
Despite their on/off relationship, Rob Kardashian paid her a gushing tribute for Mother's Day on Sunday.

And Blac Chyna proved to be on her finest form as she stepped out for her belated birthday celebrations in Glendale, California with her closest friends on Monday night.

The reality star, who recently turned 29, looked absolutely incredible as displayed her tiny waist in a pink mini-skirt and matching cropped bomber jacket.

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Wow: Blac Chyna, 29, proved to be on her finest form as she stepped out for her belated birthday celebrations in Glendale, California with her closest friends on Monday night

Blac ensured all eyes on herself in the saucy ensemble, which served to accentuate her slimmed down figure.

The Rob & Chyna star's outerwear was cropped just above her waist - ending in a darker pink ribbed panel.

The same detailing was prominent on the waistband of her skirt, which went onto cling on her impressive curves before falling at a risque level.

Without fail, Blac's tiny number also hugged onto her sensational derriere.

Great figure: The reality star looked absolutely incredible as displayed her tiny waist in a pink mini-skirt and matching cropped bomber jacket

Stylish: The Rob & Chyna star's outerwear was cropped just above her waist - ending in a darker pink ribbed panel

Fashionista: The same ribbed detailing was prominent on the waistband of her skirt, which went onto cling on her impressive curves before falling at a risque level

Her inked legs, which were enviably toned, were boosted in a pair of blush pink studded open-toe heels, allowing her sexily strut into the venue.

The Washington D.C native wore her silver locks in a sleek, centre-parted style- framing her striking features which boasted autumnal shadow and a pink pout.

Her night out comes after Rob shared a sweet tribute to her for Mother's Day on Sunday - despite recently calling off their engagement.

The 30-year-old reality star posted a cute video compilation that chronicled Chyna's pregnancy with their daughter Dream Renee, who is now six months old.

Bottoms up! Without fail, Blac's tiny number also hugged onto her sensational derriere

Beauty: The Washington D.C native wore her silver locks in a sleek, centre-parted style- framing her striking features which boasted autumnal shadow and a pink pout

Pins on parade: Her inked legs, which were enviably toned, were boosted in a pair of blush pink studded open-toe heels, allowing her sexily strut into the venue

Company: Black was joined at the belated birthday celebrations with her glam pals

Fancy: The reality star ensured to arrive in style for the festivities

He wrote: 'And happy mamas day to the mother of my only child @blacchyna.

'I am so thankful for our beautiful baby girl and so thankful for YOU and never thought I could be this Happy so thank you for giving me Her.'

Rob also included a few clips of Chyna's 4-year-old son King Cairo, whom she shares with her ex Tyga

Rob and Chyna have had an on and off relationship since they started dating in the beginning of 2016.

In late December, after the birth of their daughter, Chyna left the home she was sharing with Rob at the time.

Tribute: Her night out comes after Rob shared a sweet tribute to her for Mother's Day on Sunday -despite recently calling off their engagement.

Thoughtful: Rob, 30, posted a cute video compilation that chronicled Chyna's pregnancy with their daughter Dream Renee, who is now 6 months old; (pictured 2016)

Grateful: Rob wrote: 'And happy mamas day to the mother of my only child @blacchyna'

Rob documented his heartbreak in a series of Instagram posts, claiming that the public split 'wasnt fake or some publicity stunt'.

He continued, 'This is all very real in my life. I dont play when it comes to my woman and my baby.'

The two subsequently reconciled, split again in February and reconciled again, as Chyna and Rob were seen kissing in a Snapchat video she uploaded earlier in April.

However, E! News quoted a source that Rob and Chyna 'are co-parenting and independently working on themselves but they're more cordial now than they have been, which is why they hung out recently. But by no means are they back together.'
They were responsible for the top three dishes in Sunday's invention test.

And Eloise, Sarah and Sam battled it out in the immunity challenge on Tuesday's episode of MasterChef Australia.

The contestants were challenged to make the most impressive waffle dish, with the winner heading into a battle against a top chef for the immunity pin.

It's on! Eloise, Sarah and Sam battled it out in the immunity challenge on Tuesday's episode of MasterChef Australia

Sarah kept with her Malaysian roots by cooking classic waffles with a coconut jam and mangoes.

Sam made coconut waffles with caramelised bananas and chocolate sauce.

Eloise took a different approach, deciding on a savoury option with waffles and fried chicken and a sticky chilli soy caramel.

Chicken tonight! Eloise's chicken and waffles won her the task, and she later took part in a cooking challenge against chef Charlie Carrington for immunity

As Sarah's waffles were under-cooked and Sam's dish was overwhelmingly sweet, Eloise made it through to the second round to cook for the immunity pin.

Eloise was going up against 23-year-old chef Charlie Carrington and she got the upper hand in the challenge by getting to choose the pantry.

The choices were between 'healthy', which consisted of fresh produce, and 'indulgent', which consisted of chocolate, cream, alcohol and sugary foods.

'Eloise has done a great job of throwing me under the bus here': Eloise chose the Indulgent Pantry to cook with, leaving Charlie concerned

Eloise chose the indulgent pantry as she specialises in boozy desserts.

Her first dish idea was to make a chocolate mousse and peanut butter ice cream but ran into her first problems when she realised that eggs were in the healthy pantry and out of her reach.

Charlie was nervous with the indulgent pantry as he is known for cooking fresh and healthy food.

He said: 'Eloise has done a great job of throwing me under the bus here.'

Cool, calm and collected! Eloise said that she felt 'strangely calm cooking off against Charlie' as she was in her element with the sweet ingredients

Charlie decided on a dish which he called the Midnight Snack, consisting of fried bread, chocolate ganache, cherry compote and a cashew praline.

Eloise said that she felt 'strangely calm cooking off against Charlie' as she was in her element with the sweet ingredients.

After noting Eloise's confidence, Charlie decided to add another element to his dish.

But as Charlie returned to the indulgent pantry, he remarked: 'At this point, my worst nightmare has come true looking at this pantry.'

Mixed reaction: The judges loved Charlie's Midnight Snack creation but were not a fan of his mascarpone and ginger beer foam element

Yum! Eloise's dessert scored 28 out of 30 from the judges

The judges tasted both dishes without knowing who cooked which dessert.

The judges loved Charlie's Midnight Snack creation but were not a fan of his mascarpone and ginger beer foam element.

Eloise's dish was also a hit with the judges with Gary commenting: 'That just put a massive smile on my face'.

With a score of 28 out of 30, Eloise became the first person in this season of MasterChef to win the immunity pin.
Just 18 months ago, he belted his way through a series of chart-topping hits as he joined his One Direction bandmates for an appearance on Carpool Karaoke.

And as Harry Styles, 23, settles into his new career path as a solo artist, it has been announced that he will be returning to James Corden's passenger seat alone for another singing session on The Late Late Show.

On Monday night, the studio audience erupted into cheers as British host James made the announcement about his anticipated collaboration with Harry, which is set to air on Thursday as the star's week-long residency on the show draws to a close.

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Hitting the right notes: Harry Styles, left, will be joining James Corden for a brand new Carpool Karaoke session on Thursday night's episode of The Lat Late Show

Harry and James Corden for Carpool Karaoke. pic.twitter.com/5I9RW2VhYI  Harry Styles Updates (@KingHSUpdates) 16 May 2017

James, 38, said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, here's something to tell you which I hope will make you happy. This Thursday... Mr Harry Styles is gonna help me get to work on Thursday in a brand new Carpool Karaoke. You don't wanna miss it!'

While little has been revealed about what fans can expect, a brief teaser clip shows Harry wearing a brightly coloured short-sleeved shirt during their musical moment, which takes place as they drive through the streets of Los Angeles.

Harry, who has had a packed schedule while promoting his new solo material, had quite the memorable start to his week on James's show, when he faced an awkward quip about his relationship with Kylie Jenner.

Teaser: British TV host James shared a teaser video of the pair sitting in his car on Monday

Promo: In the clip, Harry is seen telling viewers to subscribe to the show's YouTube channel

All things bright and beautiful: The One Direction heartthrob sports a brightly coloured shirt

Coming soon: James announced on Monday night that the instalment will air on Thursday

Excited: The popstar is set to undertake the exciting carpool segment later this week

Fellow guest Aaron Taylor-Johnson revealed that he keeps chickens on his farm, and have named each of the hens residing on his property after a Kardashian.

'I think the first two to go was Kim and Khloe,' said the actor, who likes to cook chickens. 'They lay every day.'

'Do they lay every day Harry?' asked James as Harry cringed in the midst of raucous laughter and applause from the live studio audience.

Harry's time on the show comes some 18 months after he appeared alongside 1D bandmates Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan for Carpool Karaoke just ahead of their previously announced hiatus.

Cringe! During Monday night's show, Harry was left cringing as a quip was made about his relationship with former girlfriend Kendall Jenner

Having a laugh: Harry, who is at the start of a week-long residency on the show, appeared alongside actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Irish joker Niall took pride of place in the passenger seat, while Liam, Harry and Louis all piled into the back seat for their session of singing and driving.

James fell into the role of school teacher, telling the boys off and warning them about playing up in his vehicle.

'Seatbelts on, and if anyone needs a wee, hold it,' he said, as the pop stars all buckled in for the ride.

See more of the latest on One Direction's Carpool Karaoke session with James Corden

Hitting the road: One Direction joined James Corden for a Carpool Karaoke segment, which aired in the US in December 2015

Going for a spin: The boy band (l-r) Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan were on top form during their musical drive

It's getting heated! Liam was grumpy because someone had turned his seat heater on full blast

Cheeky chappy Harry immediately raised his hand and admitted he needed the toilet, while Liam was busy moaning about his seat heater being turned on, exclaiming, 'My a**e is on fire!'.

The 1D boys naturally attracted plenty of attention as they drove around Los Angeles, at one point causing chaos at a traffic light when they pulled up next to a car full of girls.

The shocked fans immediately screamed and attempted to take pictures of the Steal My Girl hit-makers, much to James's alarm.

'Drive safely! Put your hands on the wheel!' he cried out.

'I need a wee': Harry played the naughty school boy as he confessed he needed the toilet

Troublemaker: The long haired singer frequently piped up from the back seat as Corden attempted to keep them in control

Harmonising: The Perfect hit-makers showcased their pleasant vocals during their drive

Fan frenzy: The pop heartthrobs caused a scene when they pulled up next to a car full of hysterical girls at the traffic lights
She's set to join Cannes President Pedro Almodovar on the esteemed jury of the 70th annual film festival.

Building excitement ahead of the famed cinematic event, Jessica Chastain, 40, jetted into Nice, France in a monochrome inspired ensemble and was later flanked by fellow ravishing redheads Julianne Moore, 56, and Susan Sarandon, 70, on Tuesday.

The Golden Globe winner looked chic as she worked a tailored long-line double breasted blazer over a simple white tee as she was welcomed by a wealth of fans at the airport.

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Cinematic chic: Jessica Chastain is set to join Cannes President Pedro Almodovar on the esteemed jury of the 70th annual film festival as she jetted into Nice, France on Tuesday

The American beauty teamed her ensemble with a pair of skintight black denims while strolling out of the terminal in her white brogue-inspired flatforms, carrying her Gucci travel tote.

Covering her facial features, the Zero Dark Thirty actress worked a pair of black oversized shades while her flame coloured locks draped down her shoulders, highlighting her alabaster skin.

Her beaming display comes after she expressed her annoyance that Johnny Depp, whom she's never worked with, employs a full-time sound engineer to feed him his lines on set through an earpiece.

The revelation came after the 53-year-old movie star's former management company, TMG, filed a counter lawsuit detailing the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spends on a sound man - according to Page Six.

Ravishing: Later, ravishing redheads Julianne Moore (L), 56, and Susan Sarandon, 70, jetted into Nice seperately

Buzz: The Golden Globe winner looked chic as she worked a tailored long-line double breasted blazer over a simple white tee as she was welcomed by a wealth of fans at the airport

Upon hearing this, the award winner rolled her eyes, shook her head, and smiled before explaining precisely how she memorizes dialogue.

'I guess my technique is working hard,' the Juilliard grad told BBC News. 'So on the weekends before I would go into my work week, I memorize. I will spend my entire day working on the script and the scenes that I have coming ahead.'

Jessica was in London earlier in the month promoting her role as the titular, ambitious lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane in the political thriller Miss Sloane.

'[Memorizing the script] was so important playing this character because she's the smartest person in the room,' Chastain said.

Snap happy: Jessica beamed as she took a number of selfies arriving in Nice ahead of the film festival

Getting chic done: Covering her facial features, the Zero Dark Thirty actress worked a pair of black oversized shades while her flame coloured locks draped down her shoulders, highlighting her alabaster skin

'She knows more about it than anyone else so I had to say it in a way that, umm, I couldn't search for my lines like I just did. She doesn't talk like that. It had to be cold. It had to be so second nature to me, and the only way to do it is to spend the hours doing it.'

The Zookeeper's Wife stunner will next join Cannes President Pedro Almodovar on the esteemed jury of the 70th annual film festival taking place May 17-28 in France.

Jessica - who boasts 2.3M social media followers - tweeted: 'Im so excited to hang with these incredible artists! #Cannes2017.'

She will also join actor Will Smith, X-Men star Fan Bingbing, actress Agnes Jaoui, director Paolo Sorrentino, German writer-director Maren Ade, filmmaker Park Chan-wook and composer Gabriel Yared on the jury.

'Im so excited!' The Zookeeper's Wife stunner will next join Cannes President Pedro Almodovar on the esteemed jury of the 70th annual film festival taking place May 17-28 in France

Rolling on: The American beauty teamed her ensemble with a pair of skintight black denims while strolling out of the terminal in her white brogue-inspired flatforms, carrying her Gucci travel tote

Fashion forward: Julianne donned a high-neck blouse which draped over her loose-fitting joggers that hugged her ankles and teased at her subtle skin with crochet detail around her thigh and knee

Thrilling: Oscar winner Julianne later jetted into Nice working an all black look as she waded through the excited crowd which has formed throughout the day

Complementing Jessica's look, Oscar winner Julianne later jetted into Nice working an all black look as she waded through the excited crowd which has formed throughout the day.

The Still Alice actress - who is married to director and writer Bart Freundlich - donned a high-neck blouse which draped over her loose-fitting joggers that hugged her ankles and teased at her subtle skin with crochet detail around her thigh and knee.

Letting her red locks command attention, the mother-of-two covered her eyes with a chic pair of fashionable shades, while carrying her leather shoulder bag.

Flying into the coveted event, the film darling is set to premiere Todd Haynes Wonderstruck alongside co-star Michelle Williams at Cannes.

Picture perfect: Letting her red locks command attention, the mother-of-two covered her eyes with a chic pair of fashionable shades, while carrying her leather shoulder bag

Film fanatic: Flying into the coveted event, the film darling is set to premiere Todd Haynes Wonderstruck alongside co-star Michelle Williams at Cannes

Walk this way: Julianne slipped on a pair of wedge sandals as she tackled the city's pavement

All smiles: The award-winning actress was all smiles as she soaked up the sun after landed in the charming spot

Elsewhere, acting legend Susan Saradon appeared to get the memo about Jessica and Julianne's monochrome theme as she stepped out of the airport in a white calf-grazing duster jacket.

The screen siren paired her look with a black jumpsuit while strolling out of the terminal in her metallic trainers.

Eva Herzigova, 44, also showed off her best airport ensemble when she rocked up looking chic in a matching salmon jacket and skinny wide-legged trousers.

She teased her ample assets in a polka dot blouse which was fitted to her slender frame.

The actress accessorised with classy drop earrings and a smart chocolate shade hat.

This year's festival selection includes 49 films, two of which are produced by streaming service Netflix - Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories.

Monochrome muse: Elsewhere, acting legend Susan Saradon appeared to get the memo about Jessica and Julianne's monochrome theme as she stepped out of the airport in a white calf-grazing duster jacket

Step to it! The screen siren paired her look with a black jumpsuit while strolling out of the terminal in her metallic trainers

Stylish: Marion Cotillard figure-skimming number was casually unbuttoned slightly, proved to be the perfect attire for her day off

However the decision to include them didn't go down well with film purists and since the cinematic event has announced that from 2018 only movies set to be released on the big screen will be considered for selection.

Apart from films, A-list stars are set to attend a number of star-studded bashes throughout the festival including the AmFar Gala at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc and Chopard's annual bash at Port Pierre Canto, co-hosted by Rihanna.

Returning to Cannes, Cheryl's ex husband Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini will launch his new pop up restaurant Versini on the rooftop of the Five Seas Hotel.

Check them out! Marion (L) was pictured arriving at the prestigious event in a check shirt dress alongside fellow actress Charlotte Gainsbourg

Silver screen: Also arriving into Nice was supermodel Bella Hadid in an eye-catching metallic leather jacket

Loving life: Mobbed by fans as she headed to the star-studded event, the 20-year-old model ensured she stopped for snaps, beaming as she chatted with the crowd

Silver siren: Ensuring she would turn heads on the outing, Bella donned an eye-catching silver jacket with a fur trim over a plain white T-shirt which rode up to flash her abs

Pretty in pink: Eva Herzigova, 44, looked chic when she made an appearance in a matching salmon jacket and skinny wide-legged trousers
He's the former rugby league star who found reality TV fame after his fling with Vicky Pattison on the sixth season of Geordie Shore in 2013.

Now Australian personal trainer Daniel Conn, known as 'Fit Dan' in the MTV series, has reunited with his ex-girlfriend during a trip to London.

The 31-year-old caught up with Vicky, 29, at the Bonded By Blood premiere - and the pair proved that friendship can blossom out of romance.

From lovers to friends! Former Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison (right) reunited with her ex-boyfriend 'Fit Dan' Conn (left) in London recently, after the pair had a fling back in 2013

Dan shared a photo of the reunion on his Instagram, writing in the caption: 'Finally got to chill with one of my closest friends in UK on my final night.

'She inspires so many, including myself! And now to see how happy she is in love I couldn't be more happy for her!'

The pictured attracted many comments from Geordie Shore fans, with one writing: 'I still think you should be together!'

What a gentleman! Dan, 31, caught up with Vicky, 29, at the Bonded By Blood premiere and congratulated his former flame on finding happiness with fashion designer John Noble

In the snap, Vicky wore a beige bodysuit below a stylish white blazer. Dan wore a pink designer T-shirt and denim jeans.

Dan and Vicky first met in Sydney when she was in Australia filming Geordie Shore season six. They briefly dated but it was never serious.

The following year, the retired NRL player appeared on MTV's Ex On The Beach, where he was introduced as Vicky's former boyfriend.

Holiday romance! Dan and Vicky met in Sydney when she was in Australia filming Geordie Shore in 2013. The following year, he was introduced as her 'ex' in MTV's Ex On The Beach

In an interview with Daily Mail Australia in 2015, Dan claimed that he never actually slept with Vicky during their brief dalliance.

Meanwhile, Vicky and Dan's reunion was as 'just friends' as she has been dating indie clothes designer John Noble since November 2016.

Dan was in London to promote F45 gyms around the United Kingdom and to attend the Balance Festival.
She made plenty of enemies while appearing on The Real Housewives of Sydney.

And now the first season has finished, Athena X Levendi has opened up about why she chose to join the drama-fuelled show.

Speaking with The Daily Telegraph, the 40-year-old revealed she wanted to 'take things to the next level' for the family jewellery business.

Self-promotion: Athena X Levendi has opened up about why she chose to join Real Housewives of Sydney, telling The Daily Telegraph she wanted to 'take things to the next level' for the family jewellery business

Athena X said she signed on as a way of saving the company, because she believed people had 'changed their spending habits'.

'Previously a man would buy his girlfriend a beautiful pendent, now he buys her a boob job,' The Greek-raised star told the publication.

'Yes, we have a longstanding business, but we needed to take things to the next level,' she added.

Tough times? Athena X said she signed on as a way of saving the company, because she believed people had 'changed their spending habits'

The personality certainly drew a lot of attention to herself during her time on the show, as she continuously clashed with co-star Victoria Rees.

In unseen footage aired during Sunday's reunion show, the pair had one of their most dramatic fights yet, with Athena X having to be held back by a producer.

After Victoria insulted her Greek heritage, Athena lunged at her rival and screamed 'I'm gonna f***ing smash you!'

On-screen spats: The personality certainly drew a lot of attention to herself during her time on the show, as she continuously clashed with co-star Victoria Rees

But it is unclear how well her publicity gamble paid off, despite Athena X's declaration that she 'went on this show to better our lives'.

Instead, the blonde beauty told News Corp that she wouldn't know if her plan worked until 'maybe six months' time.

Levendi Jewellers first opened in 1967 and is a family affair, run by Athena X's husband Panos and his brother Michael.

'I'm going to f***ing smash you': In unseen footage aired during Sunday's reunion show, the pair had one of their most dramatic fights yet, with Athena X having to be held back by a producer.

The award-winning business specialises in diamond design pieces and the company boasts that it has, 'earned the brand a global reputation'.

In March, Athena hit back at false allegations made to New Idea magazine that she's a 'wacky artist who does not have $1 to her name'.
Eva Longoria Baston was dressed down as she left her Manhattan hotel on Monday to catch a flight to France.

The 42-year-old Golden Globe nominee - who relies on stylist Charlene E. Roxborough Konsker - wore a cowl-necked grey sweatshirt with white drawstring pants and sneakers.

On Tuesday night, the Lowriders actress will serve honorary chair duties for the Global Gift Foundation Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris.

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Cozy ensemble: Eva Longoria Baston was dressed down as she left her Manhattan hotel on Monday to catch a flight to France

Globetrotter: The 42-year-old Golden Globe nominee - who relies on stylist Charlene E. Roxborough Konsker - wore a grey sweatshirt with white drawstring pants and sneakers

'Bonjour Paris!' Longoria - who boasts 16.6M social media followers - tweeted.

'Getting ready for tonights #GlobalGiftGala [with make-up artist Nilam Holmes Patel]!'

The 'Texican' stunner might also attend some of the nearby Cannes Film Festival events, which runs May 17-28.

Eva will also celebrate her first wedding anniversary with third husband Jose 'Pepe' Baston this Sunday.

Ooh la la! On Tuesday night, the Lowriders actress will serve honorary chair duties for the Global Gift Foundation Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris

Longoria - who boasts 16.6M social media followers - tweeted: 'Bonjour Paris! Getting ready for tonights #GlobalGiftGala [with make-up artist Nilam Holmes Patel]!'

'We can't believe it!' the Blackish director told E! News last Wednesday.

'You know some days it feels like 40 years, and some days it feels like we met yesterday.'

But Longoria still isn't sure about having children with the 49-year-old Televisa president, who has three kids with first wife Natalia Esperon.

'I don't know,' the Empire guest star shrugged.

'We can't believe it!' Eva will also celebrate her first wedding anniversary with third husband Jose 'Pepe' Baston this Sunday (pictured in 2015)

'It's been a lot of fun being a stepmom': But Longoria still isn't sure about having children with the 49-year-old Televisa president, who has three kids with first wife Natalia Esperon

'Right now I am a stepmom to three amazing kids, and I've had my hands full, and they are amazing and wonderful. It's been a lot of fun, a lot of fun being a stepmom.'

The two-time SAG Award winner currently plays bourgeois widow Margot Beste-Chetwynde in the thirties-set, British three-part miniseries Decline and Fall airing Mondays on Acorn TV.

And Eva will next star in Jamie Foxx's summer-bound directorial debut All-Star Weekend with Jeremy Piven, DJ Khaled, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Jessica Szohr.

Three-part miniseries: The two-time SAG Award winner currently plays bourgeois widow Margot Beste-Chetwynde in Decline and Fall airing Mondays on Acorn TV
She's been busy attending Mercedes-Benz Fashion shows in Sydney this week.

And Jennifer Hawkins has announced she will be making the rounds at South Australia's catwalk events in October.

The 33-year-old confirmed her attendance at the Adelaide Fashion Festival while speaking to The Advertiser at the Myer X Acler launch on Tuesday.

Coming to the Adelaide Fashion Festival! Jennifer Hawkins has announced she will be making the rounds at South Australia's catwalk events in October

Jennifer claimed she was looking forward to the festival's atmosphere and revisiting the South Australian capital.

'Its nice to work my way around Australia and I love Adelaides vibe  its very European,' said the former beauty queen.

It will mark the first time in three years the 2004 Miss Universe winner has visited the state. She was last there to film Australia's Next Top Model.

Meanwhile, Jennifer confirmed to The Daily Telegraph she will be returning for the 11th season of ANTM, saying: 'It is such a good show, it's really relevant'.

'I love Adelaide's vibe': Jennifer claimed she was looking forward to the festival's atmosphere and revisiting the South Australian capital, calling it 'very European'

Model moment: It will mark the first time in three years the 2004 Miss Universe winner has visited the state. She was last there to film Australia's Next Top Model

The Myer ambassador supported the state's designers on Tuesday, wearing an outfit from South Australian brand Acler at Fashion Week.

Jennifer wore a plunging frock with thigh split and matching knee-high boots.

She said: 'The designs are very innovative and theyre just cool girls. I can't wait to see them explode on an international level.'

The Adelaide Fashion Festival is set to run between October 11 and 15
He's been filming a number of high-octane stunts for the next installment of the Mission Impossible series.

And Tom Cruise, 54, continued to shoot his action-packed scenes for the upcoming sixth offering from the film franchise in Paris and swapped the city's narrow side streets for the Seine for their next location.

The Hollywood actor showcased his edgy style, wearing a leather jacket as he smiled and waved to the gathering crowd.

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Ferry dramatic: Tom Cruise, 54, continued to shoot his action-packed scenes for the upcoming sixth offering from the film franchise in Paris and swapped the city's narrow side streets for the Seine for their next location

Teaming his look with black denims and matching tee, he sported a pair of thick leather gloves as he rehearsed the scene with actor Sean Harris' character Solomon Lane.

The A-list took to the seas with ease as he prepared to shoot his scene on the large motorised dinghy, holding onto his co-star clad in a full-body strait jacket.

With his fellow actor's head covered in black cloth, Tom grabbed onto his the back of him as they choreographed the scene.

Rehearsal: The A-list took to the seas with ease as he prepared to shoot his scene on the large motorised dinghy, holding onto his co-star clad in a full-body strait jacket

In between scenes: With his fellow actor's head covered in black cloth, Tom grabbed onto his the back of him as they choreographed the scene

Returning as Ethan Hunt for the sixth installment of the espionage thriller, the film is set to involve some of the franchises most dangerous stunts yet - as shown by the risky water sequence.

Though most of the details of the plot remain secret, Skydance Media CEO David Ellison revealed that Tom will be performing the biggest stunt sequence of his career.

Ellison told Collider: 'What Tom is doing in this movie I believe will top anything thats come before. It is absolutely unbelievablehes been training for a year.

Happy: The Hollywood actor showcased his edgy style, wearing a leather jacket as he smiled and waved to the gathering crowd

All action: Tom was working hard in a speed boat rehearsing some of the high-octane scenes for the upcoming picture

'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 [in 2015]. Its gonna be mind-blowing.'

Fitness has always been one of Cruise's assets. In fact for the last Mission Impossible film, he famously trained to be able to hold his breath for six minutes.

'Normally in underwater sequences, people hold their breath for 10 seconds, 15 seconds max,' Cruise explained in a behind-the-scenes video for Access Hollywood .

Danger: Returning as Ethan Hunt for the sixth installment of the espionage thriller, the film is set to involve some of the franchises most dangerous stunts yet

Last but knot least: Teaming his look with black denims and matching tee, he sported a pair of thick leather gloves as he rehearsed the scene with actor Sean Harris' character Solomon Lane

Tough guy: Fitness has always been one of Cruise's assets - he famously trained to be able to hold his breath for six minutes for the previous Mission Impossible film

Helping hand: Tom stepped out of the boat in between scenes

'So I had to prove to everyone that it was actually safe and spend time with the safety guys and the safety officers to show them not only is it safe, it's better that I know how to hold my breath because I'm going to be very relaxed.

'No-one's going to have to rush in. No-one has to panic.'

Also joining Cruise on the latest installment of the franchise is Hollywood hunk Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, Jeremy Renner and The Crown's Vanessa Kirby.

Set for a July 27, 2018 release, Tom is also a producer on the project, having played secret agent Ethan Hunt since 1996.
Network Ten has reportedly 're-evaluated' its safety procedures after a camera jib fell during a live taping and stuck two audience members.

The two fans were injured when the live taping of Studio 10 went to a commercial break on Monday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The audience members were left with minor injuries and host Jessica Rowe was reportedly particularly concerned and held hands with one of the women until paramedics arrived.

Safety: Network Ten has 're-evaluated' its safety procedures after two audience members were hospitalised with minor injuries when a camera jib tilted during a taping of Studio 10

The injured fans were transported to hospital by ambulance, and were released later that day.

A Network Ten spokespersons said they were in constant contact with the audience members and 'are covering all costs' associated with their injuries.

'Obviously everyone was shocked, but the team moved quickly to ensure everyone was OK, 'a source told the Daily Telegraph.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Network Ten for further comment.

After the camera jib fell, a Studio 10 advertorial was played to delay going back to the live show before the audience members could be assessed.

Concern: The publication reports Jessica Rowe (pictured) was particularly concerned for the affected audience members when paramedics arrived

Ms Rowe was particularly concerned for the affected audience members and was observed holding the woman's hand to comfort her.

The shot is hosted by Ms Rowe, Joe Hildebrand, Sarah Harris, Ita Buttrose and Denise Drysdale, who were all believed to be present during the incident.

The popular breakfast show first aired in November 2013 and is filmed at the Sydney Network 10 studios in Pyrmont.

Studio 10 is broadcast live from 8.30am every weekday.
She is accustomed to baring it all as a leading lingerie model.

But Irina Shayk kept a low profile as she bundled up in black stepping out in New York City on Tuesday.

The 31-year-old took the day off from mom duties as she was seen without her daughter Lea De Seine, whom she welcomed with fiance Bradley Cooper in March.

Low profile: Irina Shayk, 31, bundled up in black stepping out in New York on Tuesday

The in-demand Victoria Secret model was uncharacteristically covered head to toe in a dark ensemble that hid her enviable figure.

A black overcoat covered her whole body down to her big military black boots.

The Russian beauty kept her hair in a tiny knot on top of her head as she rocked dark retro eyewear.

Irina ignited pregnancy rumors when she sauntered, midriff largely bare, down the catwalk at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris this past November.

Solo flight: Irina took the day off from mom duties as she was seen without her daughter Lea De Seine, whom she welcomed with fiance Bradley Cooper on March 21

However, Irina and Bradley, 42, kept the birth of their daughter under wraps for two weeks before the news of the arrival was made public last month.

Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper was born March 21, according to People, who were citing her birth certificate in a report about the baby's arrival.

A source close to the couple told the magazine: 'They are both extremely thrilled and feel so blessed.'

Lover's Lane: Irina and Bradley, 42, kept the birth of their daughter under wraps for two weeks before the news of the arrival was made public last month; seen in July 2016

She and Bradley - who's currently directing and co-starring with Lady Gaga in yet another remake of A Star Is Born - have apparently been a couple since 2015.

Bradley was married to Jennifer Esposito from 2006 until 2007, whereas Irina, who's 11 years Bradley's junior, has never been married before.

Meanwhile, Hello! had quoted Irina last year as having said that 'definitely one day I want to have a family because that is the most important thing on this earth.'

She'd explained then, 'I don't think there is a perfect time,' adding that 'I think it's more important to have the right person by your side.'
He was recently seen drowning his sorrows on a flight home to London, after doctors in India refused to carry out a risky operation to change the colour of his eyes.

But Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves appeared to put all of his troubles behind him on Monday, when he stepped out for a night in the English capital with a female friend.

The television star, 33, was seen sharing a kiss with Laura Diores as they made their way into local hotspot Radio for drinks, following a lavish meal.

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Night out on the town: Human Ken Doll Rodrigo Alves was spotted stepping out for drinks at Radio with friend Laura Diores on Monday night

Lip service: The Brazilian shared a kiss with his companion before they made their way in

For the excursion, Brazilian Rodrigo looked his usual colourful self, donning a pink velvet blazer over a crisp white shirt with black checked trousers.

Mexican Laura turned heads in a black sheer top, in which she displayed her sturdy matching bra, and a flared pink skirt with lattice-style black booties.

The pair held hands as they made their way into the venue, looking jovial just days after Rodrigo was left saddened in his bid to add to the 397,000 he has already spent on more than 150 body-changing procedures.

Last month, he travelled to New Delhi for a pioneering operation to change the colour of his eyes from brown to icy grey.

Good spirits: Rodrigo appeared to be in jovial spirits as he stepped out, weeks after failing in his bid to change his eye colour in India

You've got to hand it to him! The pair held hands as they made their way into the popular venue

Colourful character: Rodrigo looked his usual colourful self, donning a pink velvet blazer over a crisp white shirt with black checked trousers

But Brazilian-born Rodrigo, from London, was forced to return the nearly 5,000 miles home after surgeons said his eyeballs were too small to hold the artificial iris.

Tearful Rodrigo landed back in the UK on Monday after drowning his sorrows with champagne on the first class flight home.

He said: 'The doctors said my eye chamber is too shallow. I'm very upset and I have been crying a lot.

'It is frustrating because I was really looking forward to it, but I appreciate the doctors have to take safety very seriously.

Snappy: The following day, he donned yet another snappy outfit as he stepped out in London

Doc: He was spotted on Harley Street, known for its long list of plastic surgeons and doctors

Wild thing: Rodrigo caught the eye in a pair of animal-print shoes and a fitted grey velvet suit

'If I go on a date with someone and it eventually developed into more, the person will expect me to wake up in the morning with blue or light eyes - but not brown. I suppose it's just one of those things.'

Eye-colour changing cosmetic implants have only become possible in the last few years.

The procedure is not illegal in the UK, but eye surgeons strongly recommend it isn't done on healthy eyes due potential risks like glaucoma, blindness and wonky pupils.

The operation would have seen surgeons cut a 2.8mm slit and 'slot in' and artificial iris.

Rodrigo had hoped the op would replace the hand painted 500-a-time contact lenses he has been wearing for nearly 20 years.

'I'm very upset': Last week, the 33-year-old, drowned his sorrows on a flight home after doctors in India refused to carry out the operation to change the colour of his eyes

Drowning his sorrows: Doctors said Rodrigo's eyeballs were too small to hold an artificial iris that could turn his brown eyes ice grey

It is only available cosmetically in a handful of countries, and Rodrigo flew to New Delhi for the operation on April 30.

He had a consultation, before doing shopping and charity work in an orphanage, and then returned for a follow up pre-surgery appointment.

But doctors said he couldn't have the operation because his eye chamber was 0.68mm too small to hold the implant safely.

He is now looking into a laser procedure to change the colour of his eyes and added: 'It removes the brown colour of your natural eye turning into blue.

Crushed hopes: Rodrigo said: 'The doctors said my eye chamber is too shallow. I'm very upset and I have been crying a lot.

Taking a risk: Even though the surgery is allowed in the UK, it can result in glaucoma, blindness and wonky pupils

Big spender: Rodrigo has already spent 397,000 on more than 150 body-changing operations and procedures

'My next surgery will be another nose job as at the moment I sound too nasal and still and I can't breath very well.

'The reason I'm so open about my body modifications is simply because someone has to talk about it to break the taboo and the stigma that plastic surgery is bad for you.'

Rodrigo first went under the knife in 2004 after struggling with the way he looked since childhood.

His long list of surgery includes 8,000 on Botox and fillers, 30,000 on three nose jobs, 3,000 on liposuction to his jaw and 10,000 on pec implants.

Risky surgery: To change his eye colour, doctors would have had to cut a 2.8mm slit and 'slot in' an artificial iris

Long-term habit: Rodrigo has been wearing hand painted 500-a-time contact lenses for nearly 20 years as he has struggled with the way he looks

He has also spent 22,000 on a fake six pack, 7,000 on fillers to his arms, 7,000 on hospital bills, 7,000 on laser lipo, 6,000 on leg lipo and 3,000 on calf shaping.

Rodrigo also indulges in twice-yearly Botox and filler top-ups and takes a cocktail of daily pills consisting of collagen tablets, anti-water retention and hair growth tablets.

He has also had the skin between his inside lip and gum cut to give him a wider smile and liposuction in his legs and back which was re-injected elsewhere in a bid to make him look younger.

Party-loving Rodrigo says he pays for the operations himself through promotional and TV work, brand endorsement and renting out 11 homes in Spain.

Opening up a dialogue: He said he wants to break the taboo surrounding plastic surgery and body modification

Raising the cash: Rodrigo pays for the costly operations with through promotional and TV work, brand endorsement and renting out 11 homes in Spain
Bethany Platts sustained abuse at the hands of paedophile boyfriend Nathan Curtis is set to escalate on Coronation Street after he urges her to participate in a sordid threesome.

The troubled sixteen-year old, played by Lucy Fallon, will be forced to prove her loyalty to the depraved pervert after her worried mother Sarah contact's the police.

Fearing her daughter is terrified of Nathan, played by Christopher Harper, Sarah tells a visiting constable that Bethanys relationship is tearing the family apart.

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Trouble ahead: Bethany Platts sustained abuse at the hands of paedophile boyfriend Nathan Curtis is set to escalate on Coronation Street this week after he urges her to participate in a sordid threesome

The Weatherfield regular already has good cause for concern after a well-meaning attempt at protecting her daughter from Nathan led to a violent confrontation, resulting in Sarahs partner Gary Windass being stabbed in the arm with a broken glass.

However Sarah unwittingly confides in Neil, a seasoned member of Nathans paedophile ring who has already raped Bethany.

After being duly informed of Sarahs growing fears, a furious Nathan drives the teenager to the family home, where she firmly tells her mother she wants nothing more to with her.

Twisted: A worried Sarah unwittingly confides in Neil, a seasoned member of Nathans paedophile ring who has already raped Bethany

But Bethanys fractured relationship with Sarah isnt enough to satisfy Nathan, who demands she sleep with Neil and fellow paedophile Ian as a show of gratitude for their part in helping her sever ties with her mother.

Despite her predicament the teenager will develop a friendship with concerned florist Mary, who recognises her plight after being sexually abused herself as a teenager.

'Mary and Bethany are going to form a nice friendship,' actress Lucy Fallon told OK! magazine.

Fiery: The Weatherfield regular has good cause for concern after a well-meaning attempt at protecting her daughter from Nathan led to a violent confrontation

All over: After being informed of Sarahs growing fears, a furious Nathan drives the teenager to the family home, where she firmly tells her mother she wants nothing more to with her

'Mary has been raped before so she's going to come in handy with Bethany when coming to terms with what happened further down the line.'

Bethany has been subjected to a horrific ordeal in Coronation Street, with viewers left shocked by the soap's disturbing grooming plot.

In recent episodes, Bethany was forced to dress in a sexy outfit by Nathan for the benefit of some of his sick pals.

Coronation Street continues on ITV1 at 7:00pm, Wednesday 17th May.
Natalie Zea is expected to be at the TBS/TNT Upfronts in NYC on Wednesday.

And it looks as if the LA-based actress is already headed that way as the blonde bombshell was spotted sipping a cocktail while aboard a private jet - Kardashian style - in an Instagram post shared on Tuesday.

The wife of Travis Schuldt captioned the humorous clip, 'Chugging bubbles in private.'

Fun in the sky: Natalie Zea was seen headed to NYC on a private jet on Tuesday for the TBS/TNT Upfronts the next day

Hee hee: The wife of Travis Schuldt captioned the humorous clip, 'Chugging bubbles in private'

The Texas native kicked up her long, lean leg as she drank from the flute.

Though it was still early in the morning in California, Zea was nicely made up with her long mane flowing over her shoulder.

TBS announced in April her beautifully twisted comedy The Detour has been given a third season.

Slender after baby: The Texas native kicked up her long, lean leg as she drank from the flute

Pretty as a picture: Though it was still early in the morning in California, Zea was nicely made up with her long mane flowing over her shoulder

Her inspiration? Kim Kardashian often poses on a private jet in her Instagram posts

The former model - who has an amazing TV track record with Justified, Californication and Dirty Sexy Money under her belt - took to Instagram to celebrate, this time with red wine.

The beauty shared three photos from the set of season two of the show that also stars Jason Jones.

In one shot Zea is nearly unrecognized as she is in costume as a cheap hussy.

The blonde wig is over the top as is the purple track suit. 'Want some more of this,' the beauty wisecracked in her caption.

Looking good: The next day the star showed up to the Turner Upfronts in a striking floral dress with yellow strappy heels

Go for it: Natalie Zea seems happy that her show The Detour has been picked up for a third season by TBS

Is that her? The beauty shared three photos from the set of season two of the show that also stars Jason Jones. In one shot Zea is nearly unrecognized as she is in costume as a cheap hussy

Next there was a photo of the Texas native in a black burka. 'How about this?' she wrote.

She was seen smiling as she held up a peace sign.

Lastly the former Passion soap opera star showed a photo of co-star Jones all bloodied as he stars into the camera.

With her TV daughter: Zea and Ashley Gerasimovich in The Detour season two

Her partner in comedy: With Jason Jones on The Detour in 2016

'Then get ready...Season 3 is officially a thing!' she wrote.

The Detour has been a ratings dynamo for the network with better than expected numbers.

'Season Two has been so smart, hilarious and wrong. And from the early nuggets Ive gotten from Jason and Sam, Season Three is going to be even more effed up,' Senior Vice President Of Original Programming Thom Hinkle said in a statement shared on Tuesday.

Samantha Bee of Full Frontal fame is one of the producers along with husband Jones.

Zea is married to actor Schuldt and together they have a daughter Reygan.
Kirsten Dunst opens up about being paid less than her Spider-Man co-stars and being asked to lose weight for a movie role in a revealing new cover story.

The actress was 20 when the first film in the superhero franchise starring Tobey Maguire premiered in 2002.

'Because I was young, I thought, "Oh wow, Im getting paid a lot of money for the Spider-Man movies." But definitely the men were getting paid more,' she told Variety.

Kirsten Dunst and her The Beguiled director Sofia Coppola cover Variety's Cannes edition

Other male stars in Dunst's Spider-Man trilogy, which came to an end in 2007, included James Franco, Joe Manganiello and Willem Dafoe.

Spider-Man has been re-booted twice by Sony starting with 2012's version with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, which spawned a sequel.

Now, a new cast will appear in Spider-Man: Homecoming will debut on July 7 of this year, but Kirsten says she won't be watching.

Super role: She was 20 when she starred in Spider-Man with Tobey McGuire

'I dont care. Listen, Id rather be in the first ones than the new ones,' she told the trade magazine.

But she adds of her own string of Spider-Man films, 'I wish we could have made a fourth.'

Her interview and cover for Variety are with Sofia Coppola, who directs Dunst, 35, in their female-centric remake of Southern Gothic thriller The Beguiled.

Weight battle: Dunst says that her The Beguiled director asked her to lose weight for her role as a boarding school teacher during the Civil War, but was understanding when she said no

Kirsten plays a teacher at an all-girls boarding school who takes injured soldier Colin Farrell in to fix his wounds during the Civil War in the 1800's.

During the filming Coppola suggested Dunst lose weight, but she said no, and used the film's Louisiana set location as a reason, saying, 'Im eating fried chicken and McDonalds before work. So Im like, 'We have no options! Im sorry I cant lose weight for this role.''

'Its so much harder when youre 35 and hate working out,' she added, but says her director was understanding and even credits her as an early source of confidence.

Set straight: Dunst claims that the studio fixed her teeth on the movie art for Spider-Man (L), she is seen in 2001, a year before the first film's release (R)

When they first met when Sofia was 27 and directed 16-year-old Kirsten in The Virgin Suicides.

'She said, "I love your teeth; dont ever fix your teeth,'' Dunst says.

'I remember doing a Spider-Man movie later, and one of the producers was like, "I need to take you to the dentist!" They even fixed my teeth on the poster. But I just knew I was never doing that.'
Danniella Westbrook was reportedly kicked off her flight to Malaga, Spain, this week after clashing with a stag party on board.

According to The Sun, the actress, 43, could not hold back her tears as she was escorted from the plane at London's Gatwick Airport following a row with the lads, who had jeered at her on board.

However, a fellow passenger claimed that Danniella had actually been the one to cause the drama - revealing she was 'suddenly removed' after protesting when she was asked to pack her handbag into her carry-on case.

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Not flying high: Danniella Westbrook was reportedly kicked off her flight to Malaga, Spain, this week after clashing with a stag party on board

The former EastEnders star was reportedly taken off the flight after getting into an altercation with the raucous group - who called out a number of insults towards her as she boarded.

Yet, a source instead claimed to the paper that Danniella had been asked to leave after throwing a tantrum when told she was only allowed one item of hand luggage.

With another flyer asking if she was OK, the insider said she had replied: ''No I'm f****g not. They've made me put my handbag away in my hand luggage.'

Drama: However, a passenger claimed that Danniella had been the one to kick off - being 'suddenly removed' when she protested to packing her handbag in her carry-on case

'She had a bit of an exchange with some other passengers as we were boarding and then we ended up waiting about half an hour without explanation.'

Clearly not resolving the issue, the source then revealed that the cabin crew had interjected and transferred Danniella to a later flight, to avoid any further tension.

EasyJet states on their website that passengers are allowed one item of hand luggage each, which can be lifted into the overhead locker.

Disgruntled: With another flyer asking if she was OK, the insider said Danniella had replied: ''No I'm f****g not. They've made me put my handbag away in my hand luggage'

It is only easyJet Plus cardholders, FLEXI fare, Up Front or Extra Legroom customers who are allowed an additional bag under their seat.

MailOnline has approached representatives of the airline and Danniella for comment.

The mother-of-two was heading back to Spain for a girls' holiday in Marbella - after spending time in a rehab clinic in Mijas last month, in order to 'beat her demons' once and for all.

Back to health: Danniella was heading to Spain for a girls' holiday in Marbella - after spending time in a rehab clinic in Mijas last month, in order to 'beat her demons'

After a month-long recovery in the centre, Danniella was then cleared to return home at the beginning of May.

However, the actress had immediately concerned fans upon her return to the UK, after admitting she had come off all of her medication.

Appearing on Loose Women last week, the blonde confessed that it 'is and isn't safe' to be off her pills - which she took for a number of mental health conditions, including borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and paranoid schizophrenia.

Back to good health: After a month-long recovery in the centre, Danniella was then cleared to return home from Spain (above) at the beginning of May

She explained: 'I got to Mother's Day and I was so sick of being sick, taking all the medication.'

'I've come off all the medication I'm on, I felt so ill the first two weeks, I was really, really poorly. I think a lot of it can be done holistically and in therapy.'

As the Loose Women expressed concerns over her welfare, and advised viewers to talk to doctors before adjusting any of their own medication, Danniella assured them 'I feel fantastic', despite their reservations.
She is known for flaunting some serious flesh but even covered up she makes sure all eyes are on here.

Ariel Winter headed out in an ensemble that at first glance appeared to be a simple black and white number.

But the 19-year-old Modern family star never misses an opportunity to make an impact, and on Tuesday it was no different as she headed out in Studio City, California.

Business lady: Ariel Winter headed out to a meeting in Studio City, California, on Tuesday

On her way to a meeting, the actress wore wide leg tailored pants which dragged across the ground as she walked.

Ariel wore the pants with a contrasting very tight and structured black bodice.

The rather unusual choice for daytime, showed just a hint of cleavage while its boning squeezed in, and highlighted, her waist.

The teen added a pair of giant platforms but even with them, her trousers still touched the ground.

The long and short of it: On her way to a meeting, the actress wore wide leg tailored pants which dragged across the ground as she walked. Ariel wore the pants with a contrasting very tight and structured black bodice

She further accessorized her look with a red backpack.

On Sunday, Ariel took to Instagram to wish a happy Mother's Day to her sister Shanelle Gray.

'I was lucky enough to have an unbelievable sister who raised me to be the woman I am today,' the 19-year-old actress told more than 3.2 million Instagram followers.

Careful there: The teen added a pair of giant platforms but even with them, her trousers still touched the ground

The 5ft1 actress said she 'wouldn't be anywhere without her [sister's] love and guidance,' calling her 38-year-old sibling 'my rock and my best friend in the entire world.'

Winter, who plays Alex Dunphy on ABC's Modern Family, had an infamous falling-out with her mother Chrisoula Workman that wound up in a years-long guardianship battle in the court system between Gray and Workman, amid allegations of abuse toward the latter.

After a Los Angeles court in 2014 granted guardianship to Gray, who had taken her younger sister in two years earlier.
He's recently emerged from his self-imposed post-Angelina exile to deny he's suicidal.

And Brad Pitt - rocking $275 Etnia Barcelona 'SODER SUN BR' shades - even raised a smile as he arrived at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday to promote his new movie.

The 53-year-old actor looked happy as he waved to fans in NYC. But his clothes appeared to be a size too big for him as he has lost several pounds since his shock divorce.

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Cheered up: Brad Pitt even raised a smile as he arrived at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday to promote his new movie

Back in the day: The look was reminiscent to the one he was rocking in his 2008 film The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, as he is pictured with Taraji P Henson

He's still noticeably slimmer, as he tucked a plaid shirt into his tightly buckled up brown slacks.

He added a grey jacket, and brown boots as he kept it casual to make his way into the studio at the Ed Sullivan Theater to discuss War Machine.

The newly sober actor opened up to Associated Press about his new life as a single man.

Smiling: The 53-year-old actor - rocking $275 Etnia Barcelona 'SODER SUN BR' shades - looked relaxed and happy

The Seven actor said he was spending his time 'keeping the ship afloat' and 'figuring out the new configuration of our family.'

'Kids are everything,' Pitt said, of his six children with Angelina. 'Kids are your life. They're taking all the focus, as they should anyway.'

And he directly addressed his own mental health, stating: 'I'm not suicidal or something.'

Lost weight: He's still noticeably slimmer, as he tucked a plaid shirt into his tightly buckled up brown slacks

Still looking good: He added a grey jacket, and brown boots as he kept it casual to make his way into the studio at the Ed Sullivan Theater to discuss War Machine

Greeting: He waved to waiting fans as he stepped out onto the street

Feeling OK: He's recently emerged from his self-imposed post-Angelina exile to deny he's suicidal

Adding: 'There's still much beauty in the world and a lot of love. And a lot of love to be given. It's all right. It's just life.'

In his first post-separation interview last month, to GQ , Pitt was unusually candid, speaking frankly about his struggles with alcohol and the pains of dividing their family.

He continued this when talking to AP, explaining: 'I've got no secrets. I've got nothing to hide. We're human and I find the human condition very interesting. If we're not talking about it, then we're not getting better.'

Under wraps: Brad later hid his flannel shirt by buttoning his coat

Happy: Despite his family turmoil, he seemed in top spirits

Wardrobe: The outfit would appear in a sketch during a special guest appearance on The Late Show

However he was keen to steer the focus from himself to his new film - Pitt plays a four-star Afghanistan commander in the upcoming Netflix war satire War Machine.

And he joked that he found a surprising connection with his character: a swollen ego, and the damage done.

'Hubris is a trap and it's the trap of every great nation that has been number one for too long. You start believing your own stink,' Pitt says. 'Anytime I've gotten in trouble, it's because of my own hubris.'

Pals: The Late Show took a moment to share a BTS snap of the actor with the host, Stephen Colbert

Pitt's new film, written and directed by the Australian filmmaker David Michod (Animal Kingdom), is based on Michael Hastings' 2012 book The Operators, which chronicled Gen McChrystal's tumultuous and short-lived stewardship of the war in Afghanistan.

War Machine, which debuts on Netflix May 26, takes a slightly fictionalized approach. Pitt's character is named Gen Glen McMahon, but the events and personalities covered correspond accurately with Gen McChrystal's downfall.

The switch, made after the project was announced, saved the film from some potentially thorny legal issues.

Inspiration: In War Machine Pitt's character is named Gen Glen McMahon, but the events and personalities covered correspond accurately with Gen Stanley McChrystal's downfall (McChrystal is seen in March 2010)

As they were: Brad is pictured with his wife Angelina Jolie and their oldest children Zahara Pax and Maddox (just out of shot) during their long relationship

'We had no interest in impugning General McChrystal or any of his guys,' said Pitt. 'For me, the problem is more systematic.'

'The impetus for me was a visit to Walter Reed,' added Pitt, who visited the military medical center in 2014 .

'Those young men and women - who are absolutely heroic in a very harrowing situation - their lives are forever changed and so are their families. It just really made me question who is spending this currency of dedication. Who's writing the check? Who's making the order?'

Particularly galling to Pitt was the request last week by advisers to President Donald Trump and military officials for several thousand more American troops in Afghanistan, a war that has already spanned more than 15 years.

It's time to rethink what 'winning' means, he says.

Moving on: Brad kept out of the limelight as he reassessed his life following his split from Angelina Jolie in September

'Nothing that we've ever done has said that more troops are going to do anything but cause any more damage, more loss of life and limb,' said Pitt.

'We talk a lot about supporting our troops but I think supporting our troops is much more than giving them money and a pat on the back. I think it's being responsible to how we use that ultimate dedication.'

Trump's top advisers have said the president has not made any final decision about adding more troops in Afghanistan.

In War Machine, Michod summons some of the spirit of war comedies like Catch 22 and M-A-S-H." The film captures an American military driven by politics, illusions and personal aspirations.

Pitt's general, with a deeper, gruffer voice than McChrystal's, comes charging into Afghanistan with outlandish delusions of grandeur and departs amid self-inflicted scandal.

'We were tapping into a melding of war and comedy - two things that used to co-exist quite conformably, but in this day and age don't,' said Michod.

Little about War Machine is typical for a Hollywood production. It would have never gotten made, Pitt said, without Netflix. The streaming service bankrolled the film for $60 million, making it one of Netflix's most ambitious projects yet.
He plays Gianni Versace's long-time lover Antonio D'Amico in the highly-anticipated season three of American Crime Story.

And as the biographical drama series has been filming in Miami over the past few weeks, Ricky Martin definitely took advantage of the spoils of the Southeastern city.

The 45-year-old actor showed off his ripped frame during a relaxing day in South Beach over the weekend.

Shaking his Bon Bon: Ricky Martin showed off his ripped frame during a relaxing day in South Beach over the weekend

He looked to be in tip-top shape as he showed off his toned physique while making a splash in the Atlantic Ocean.

Ricky wore nothing but a pair of tiny black swim shorts as he ran from the water onto the sand.

The Latin pop star proudly showed off his banging body which featured tattoos around his shoulders down to his biceps and a colorful inking down his right calf.

Ab-solutely ripped! The 45-year-old actor looked to be in tip-top shape as he showed off his toned physique while making a splash in the Atlantic Ocean

The She Bangs hitmaker's short brown locks were combed back as he accentuated his strong jawline with a bit of scruff.

There has been a lot of buzz in Miami as the third installment of the American Crime Story anthology series has been filming there over the past few days.

Last week Ricky filmed what was likely his most emotional scene of the television program as he played Versace's lover D'Amico in the moment he found the iconic fashion designer shortly after he was gunned down.

Livin' La Vida Loca: Ricky wore nothing but a pair of tiny black swim shorts as he ran from the water onto the sand

The pop star-turned-actor had tears running down his face as he cradled Edgar Ramirez, who is playing Versace on the show, on the actual steps of the Italian fashion designer's home: The Versace Mansion.

In July 1997, the icon was murdered by spree killer Andrew Cunanan, who is played by Glee actor Darren Criss in the upcoming series.

Cunanan was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives after killing five men in three months prior to Versace's murder.

He used the gun he killed Versace with to kill himself eight days later while hiding out in a house boat in the area.

Emotional: Last week Ricky filmed the moment Gianni Versace's lover Antonio D'Amico found the iconic fashion designer shortly after he was gunned down

Convincing: He had tears running down his face as he cradled Edgar Ramirez, who is playing Versace on the show

True to life: The gruesome scene was filmed on the actual steps of the Italian fashion designer's home: The Versace Mansion

The Versace mansion has since been converted into a high-end hotel called The Villa Casa Casuarina, which has 10 rooms to accommodate guests.

A day prior Edgar and Ricky were spotted enjoying a much lighter day on set as they filmed a rather amorous scene on South Beach.

Just days ago executive producer and director Murphy took to his brand new Instagram to reveal the name of the highly-anticipated series: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

The upcoming FX series is based on Maureen Orth's 1999 book Vulgar Favors. The 10-episode series, which comes on the heels of 2016's The People v. O.J. Simpson, is set to air next year.
An enthusiastic response has prompted her return to action as Lance Corporal Georgie Lane for the third series of popular BBC drama Our Girl.

And Michelle Keegan, 29, has given fans a first glimpse of the character in a new promotional still as she continues to shoot the forthcoming series on location in South Africa and Nepal.

Sitting on a dusty hilltop, Michelle wears the army fatigues and battered combat boots synonymous with Lane as she stares into the camera.

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Back in action: Michelle Keegan, 29, has given fans a first glimpse of the character in a new promotional still as she continues to shoot the forthcoming series on location in South Africa and Nepal

The actress was widely praised for her acting skills after replacing former EastEnders star Lacey Turner for the shows second series.

Boosted by its growing popularity, BBC bosses have since extended Our Girl to 12 episodes for series three  a significant contrast to the five and six episode runs respectively commissioned for series one and two.

The returning show is expected to have a broader narrative, with Michelles Corporal lane involved in three potentially perilous assignments  including a mercy mission to Nepal following an earthquake.

'Perfect setting with the perfect person': Mark Wright was delighted to be reunited with wife Michelle this week after jetting out to South Africa

Michelle's husband Mark Wright was delighted to be reunited with his wife this week after jetting out to South Africa to join her as she filmed scenes.

The 30-year-old couldn't take his eyes off his other half as they sat watching the sun set together, in a snap posted on Mark's Instagram page.

The married couple looked happier than ever as they got cosy spending the time catching up on what they had missed out on.

Although they were sat on the sand among a beach packed with sun-seekers, the lovebirds were completely absorbed in each other's company.

A very loved-up Mark wrote on Instagram: 'Perfect setting with the perfect person. Can't beat a SA sunset!!'

Missing you: They are set to spend as much as eight months apart as the 29-year-old shoots the latest season of her hit TV show Our Girl

It's a wrap: Last weekend, Michelle took to Instagram to share a shot of herself in Nepal on Sunday, as she revealed that she'd finished shooting scenes for her series Our Girl in the country

Earlier this month, Michelle took to Instagram to reveal that she has completed shooting scenes in the Himalayan nation of Nepal - and the experience left her with 'a totally different perspective on life'.

Sharing a shot of herself smiling while sitting on the steps of a breathtaking ancient temple, the actress wrote: 'Last day in Nepal... what an amazing eye opening journey. Coming away with a totally different perspective on life. Feeling very blessed and thankful. #itsthelittlethings #glasshalffull #ourgirl3.'

But her husband of two years, TV personality Mark, will remain at home, as he has commitments in Essex, Spain and Los Angeles.

The actress had previously shared a shot of the shooting script, with the accompanying caption: 'Here we all are at the read through. The scripts and story for the next series is fantastic, we were all buzzing afterwards.'

Bring it on! Michelle said she will be away for three months, before returning to the UK in the summer and then jetting back out again - which is thought to be up to eight months in total
They are expecting baby number two.

And on Tuesday Dancing with the Star's pro Anna Trebunskaya, 36, revealed she is having a son with 38-year-old boyfriend Nevin Millan.

They already have a daughter Amalya, aged three.

A boy! They are expecting baby number two. And on Tuesday Dancing with the Star's pro Anna Trebunskaya, 36, revealed she is having a son with 38-year-old boyfriend Nevin Millan

The Russian-born dancer's news comes just three years after she welcomed her first child with Nevin.

'It was a bit shocking at first, but I got over that pretty quick,' Anna told People in back in 2014.

'Even though this was not planned, I believe things happen for a reason and it was meant to be.'

It's baby number two: Anna, who already has a three year old daughter with her actor beau, continued: 'Amalya is going to be a big sister!

She further added: 'Ive always wanted to have a baby, but it was never the right time. I guess it was fate - or the universe - telling me it was time to be a mom.'

Anna - who did not disclose the name of the father at that time - promised that she would return to the dance competition show after the baby's arrival.

Millan, 38, is an actor who hails from St Louis, Missouri and who has appeared in small roles in such projects as the movie Being Bin Laden, and TV series True Blood, CSI: NY and Nip/Tuck.

Was #2 planned? Anna, who split from husband Jonathan Roberts in October 2012, admitted that her first pregnancy was completely unplanned

Anna, who split from husband Jonathan Roberts in October 2012, admitted that her first pregnancy was completely unplanned.

The gorgeous redhead last appeared on season 21 of Dancing with the Stars with celebrity partner Gary Busey.

She hasn't been on the series for a couple of years and won't be appearing in season 24 either.
She just announced her clothing and lifestyle company Draper James will be available at Nordstrom.

And one day later, Reese Witherspoon celebrated the new deal with a bit of shopping in Brentwood, California.

The 41-year-old wore a bright floral top from Draper James for her solo retail trip, adding cropped denim and sky-high wedges.

Looking like a Southern belle! Reese Witherspoon stepped out for a bit of shopping in Brentwood, California wearing a top from her company Draper James

The mother of three looked summer ready in her red, blue and white blouse, which featured ruffled sleeves; the piece retails for $78 on Draper James.

Reese highlighted her slim legs in denim; the cropped bottoms had a fitted waist and a flared hemline.

The entrepreneur hit the pavement in taupe colored sandals with a lot of height.

The beaming star slung a brown purse across her body, clipping the Draper James watermelon change purse to it.

Putting her best foot forward: The 41-year-old wore a bright floral top from Draper James for her solo retail trip, adding cropped denim and sky-high wedges

Reese layered on her jewelry; she wore several rings, a watch, hoop earrings and a pendant necklace.

The Legally Blonde star wore her blonde locks loose with her fringe pulled to one side.

To finish off her look, Reese painted her pout a red hue and wore brown tinted sunglasses.

She carried Julia Reed's South book, which is a guide on how to throw Southern style parties.

What a beauty: The mother of three looked summer ready in her red, blue and white blouse, which featured ruffled sleeves; the piece retails for $78 on Draper James

She's a shopper! Reese highlighted her slim legs in denim; the cropped bottoms had a fitted waist and a flared hemline

Reese founded her clothing and lifestyle company Draper James in 2015; she opened her flagship store in Nashville, Tennessee in October of that same year.

The movie star opened two more locations - one in Dallas, Texas and a second in Lexington, Kentucky.

Draper James is a nod to her Southern roots and upbringing; Reese was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Tennessee.

Great news: She just announced her clothing and lifestyle company Draper James will be available at Nordstrom

Welcoming the summer" Reese founded her clothing and lifestyle company Draper James in 2015; she opened her flagship store in Nashville, Tennessee in October of 2015

On Monday, Reese announced on Instagram that Draper James is now available in 15 Nordstrom department stores across the US as well as nordstrom.com.

She revealed the big news with a picture of herself posing on a boat in playful pieces from her line, including the $48 Howdy tee, the $125 scallop denim skirt and the $128 Jack Rogers X Draper James white sandal, which can only be pre-ordered.

Her successful company also has a collaboration with Net-A-Porter on a summer collection, which just launched on their website.

Reese is mom to three kids: Ava, 17, and Deacon, 13, with ex husband Ryan Phillippe and four-year-old Tennessee with husband Jim Toth.

Pretty as a flower: Her successful company also has a collaboration with Net-A-Porter on a summer collection, which just launched on their website

Welcome in y'all! The movie star opened two more locations - one in Dallas, Texas and a second in Lexington, Kentucky
Sydneysiders have been braving chilly weather of late.

But Zac Efron looked sure to heat things up, as he arrived Down Under on Wednesday, ahead of Baywatch's Australian film premiere.

The 29-year-old hearthrob, sporting a low-key ensemble, was pictured heading out of the airport alongside co-star Alexandra Daddario, 31.

Heating things up! Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron, 29, arrived in Sydney on Wednesday, ahead of Baywatch's Australian film premiere, alongside co-star Alexandra Daddario, 31

Zac cut an effortlessly stylish figure as he made his way out of the terminal.

A black hooded sweater with just a subtle pop of colour was teamed with a pair of slim-fitting black pants.

Adidas sneakers and a black cap worked as coordinating accessories.

Looking every inch the movie star, Zac shielded his eyes behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, and carried two medium-sized bags.

Making it look easy: Zac cut an effortlessly stylish figure as he made his way out of the terminal

Casual: A black hooded sweater with just a subtle pop of colour was teamed with a pair of slim-fitting black pants

Details: Adidas sneakers, a black cap and aviator sunglasses worked as coordinating accessories

Co-star Alexandra dressed comfortably for the long-haul flight.

A pastel blue T-shirt and lightwash denim jacket was paired with black ripped jeans that clung to her lean legs.

Black Puma trainers and a blue cap with the Warner Bros logo worked with the off-duty look.

Concealing her gaze behind a pair of stylish sunglasses, the brunette allowed her tresses to fall around her face and shoulders.

Equipped: The California-born star carried two medium-sized bags

The New York-born star carried her hand-luggage in a tan leather tote bag.

Upon leaving the airport, Zac took to Instagram, calling Australia 'home'.

'Home sweet home,' the actor and singer captioned a photo that saw him flashing the piece sign.

He's a fan of the land Down Under! Upon leaving the airport, Zac took to Instagram, calling Australia 'home'

And just a day prior, he took to Twitter to share his enthusiasm for the promotional trip Down Under.

'Taking #Baywatch down under with Bae Babe @AADaddario! See you tomorrow Australia, I told you I couldn't stay away,' the California-born star Tweeted.

Zac and Alexandra arrived in Sydney ahead of the highly-anticipated Australian premiere of Baywatch.

Enthusiastic: Just a day prior, Zac took to Twitter to share his enthusiasm for the promotional trip Down Under, posting: 'Taking #Baywatch down under with Bae Babe @AADaddario! See you tomorrow Australia, I told you I couldn't stay away'

Star-studded: The film adaptation of the television series also stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Priyanka Chopra and Kelly Rohrbach, as well as Baywatch's original stars David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson

The film adaptation of the television series also stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Priyanka Chopra and Kelly Rohrbach, as well as Baywatch's original stars David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson.

The blockbuster sees Dwayne take on the leading role of Mitch Buchanan, joined by a new recruit including Zac as Matt Brody.

Meanwhile it's only recently been announced that Zac will star as notorious rapist and killer Ted Bundy, in drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

Hunky co-star: The blockbuster sees Dwayne take on the leading role of Mitch Buchanan, joined by a new recruit including Zac as Matt Brody

The casting of the former High School musical star, was confirmed at the Cannes Film Festival according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The independent film will tell Bundy's story from the perspective of his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer.

She tried several times to alert police of his suspicious behavior during their relationship, and continued to cooperate with law enforcement once he was arrested.
Ballroom and Latin champion Shirley Ballas is set to replace Len Goodman as Head Judge on Strictly Come Dancing when the show returns in September.

But professional dancer Anton du Beke is reportedly disappointed he was 'overlooked', having been a hotly-tipped favourite for the job.

According to The Sun, the 50-year-old is 'gutted' the BBC did not want another British male on the panel - and is scared he will now be looked down on as 'just a dancer'.

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'He is gutted': Professional dancer Anton du Beke is reportedly disappointed he was 'overlooked' for the Head Judge role on Strictly Come Dancing

Shirley, who holds the nickname 'the Queen of Latin', was confirmed as the show's new Head Judge last month, following Len Goodman's departure in December.

However the publication reports that Anton, who was tipped for the role with odds of 4/1, is upset the BBC opted for a female star - with the channel reportedly holding a four-year 'diversity strategy', which aims to hire more women.

A source told the paper: 'Anton would never say anything negative publicly about being overlooked for the role, but he and everyone in his inner circle has been left gutted by the Beeb's decision.'

Nwe girl in town: According to The Sun, the 50-year-old is 'gutted' the BBC did not want another British male on the panel, opting for Shirley Ballas instead (above)

As something of a veteran on the beloved dancing show, the insider continued that Anton felt he was an appropriate replacement for Len - as another star born and bred in the UK, with expertise in the ballroom world.

'He felt the panel needed a British bloke, a straight swap for Len,' the source went on. 'It's a risk changing such a successful formula.'

Adding that Anton has far more to give as the 'King of Ballroom' on the series, the insider finished: 'It's also been said that he's being looked down on as 'just a dancer' when really there's much more to him than that.'

Main man: A source said of the dancer: 'He felt the panel needed a British bloke, a straight swap for Len. It's a risk changing such a successful formula'

MailOnline has contacted representatives of Anton and Strictly Come Dancing for comment.

Talking on Lorraine in March, the Sevenoaks native remained tight-lipped about deliberations - but stressed it was vital the newcomer have a background in ballroom.

He had said: 'From my own personal opinion, I think it's important that they have a ballroom person on the panel. Just for balance.

All-rounder: Adding that Anton has far more to give as the 'King of Ballroom' on the series, the insider finished: 'It's also been said that he's being looked down on as 'just a dancer''

'You've got Bruno and Craig from musical theatre or the commercial world, and you've got Darcey from classical ballet world, so I think they would require a ballroom person for balance.

'And also the technicalities of what we're trying to do, you spend a week trying to teach your partner how to do the technicalities of ballroom dancing, and if nobody points it out, it's important really.'

While Anton may be upset he lost out on the spot, new judge Shirley certainly fulfills this image - with a host of regional and national titles under her belt.

End of an era: Talking on Lorraine in March, Anton stressed it was vital the newcomer have a background in ballroom like Len, who quit the show in December (above)

She can do it: While Anton may be upset he lost out on the spot, new judge Shirley certainly fulfills this image - with a host of regional and national titles under her belt

The dancing queen is three-time British Open to the World Latin American Champion, 10-time United States Latin American Champion, and multiple-times British National Champion, making her an ideal fit for the expert role.

Shirley was confirmed as the new judge last month, and could not contain her excitement at the prospect of joining the glitzy series.

She gushed after the news broke: 'I am so excited and over the moon to have been given this wonderful opportunity. I can't wait to get in to the ballroom and be part of the incredible and respected judging panel!'

Clearly ecstatic at her casting as a devoted follower of the show, she added: 'Strictly Come Dancing is so loved by the British public, I have always been a massive fan. I just can't wait!'
Mosul from the Islamic State group has displaced half a million people, many relocating to Hammam al-Alil camp

Fear and hunger are driving an ever-growing number of Iraqi civilians into a camp in Hammam al-Alil, where they share harrowing tales of deadly violence and jihadist tyranny in Mosul.

Some arrive at the displacement camp, the largest in the Mosul area, on foot, but most of them are crammed into buses and trucks, relieved and exhausted.

Half a million people are currently displaced as a result of the massive seven-month-old offensive to retake Iraq's second city from the Islamic State group.

Thursday saw what the Norwegian Refugee Council said was the biggest single-day displacement since the start of the operation, with around 20,000 fleeing neighbourhoods of west Mosul.

"I feel safe, I did not think I would get out of there alive," said Shams Hassan, a woman in her forties who reached the Hammam al-Alil camp on Friday with 16 members of her family.

She is from the Al-Faruq neighbourhood of Mosul's Old City and lost track of the number of times she and her relatives had to change houses and neighbourhoods in recent months.

"They always wanted us to be in front of them to use us as human shields. They would come to tell us to change houses," she said.

Around 250,000 civilians are believed trapped in west Mosul where Iraqi forces are pressing an offensive against jihadists

"We would find ourselves in the middle of shelling and car bombs. One of the houses we lived in was struck by a mortar round, it collapsed on us and I was wounded by shrapnel. I had to be carried," she said.

A large population remains in Mosul's Old City, where IS appears to have concentrated most of it remaining resources. Some estimates put the number of civilians still trapped in west Mosul at 250,000.

- 'Hanged from posts' -

Human shields have become a central feature of the vastly outnumbered jihadists' defence and IS has stopped at nothing to deter people from escaping the city.

"Those who tried to flee were executed in the streets and their bodies hung from posts," Shams Hassan said.

Her mother, who reached Hammam al-Alil a few weeks earlier, sat next to her, her gaze lost in the distance.

"Daesh would take our food," the old lady said, using a derogatory Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. "They would come with their guns and take our clothes too."

Civilians trapped in west Mosul areas held by the Islamic State group have said they have run out of food and water

Trapped residents reached by AFP inside the areas still controlled by IS have warned recently that hunger was beginning to kill more people than the intense fighting itself.

There is no clean water left to drink and even unclean water is hard to come by. People are boiling paper and cartons to fill their stomachs.

"A bottle of oil was 50,000 dinars (around 40 US dollars), a can of tomatoes was 50,000 dinars too. Flour was 5,000 dinars. We ate some of it and got sick," said Shams Hassan.

- Eating grass -

"We haven't showered the kids in two months, they have lice," she said.

Having moved countless times, they eventually managed to escape when the Iraqi security forces reached their neighbourhood and escorted them out through holes that both sides have punched in walls in people's homes to move up and down blocks undetected.

"We were walking on broken glass and rubble... my son had to carry me," she said.

At age 72, Ahmed Yunis Dawood dodged sniper fire to leave west Mosul through the neighbourhood's water mains.

"For five days, I would go out at night to check out the streets," he recounted.

In the Hammam al-Alil camp he reached early Sunday, the elderly man found safety but little else.

"The people who arrive here have no tent, no bed to sleep in, no food, no water," Dawood said.

Aid groups have been delivering assistance in the camps to tens of thousands of civilians daily but the lack of funding, the recent peak in displacement and soaring temperatures are leaving many outside the relief net.

In the dusty chaos engulfing the entrance of the camp, where new arrivals are screened and in most cases subsequently dispatched to other locations, one man cried in despair.

"We fled death only to face death here... Take us home, it is better for us," he said. "An air strike will come and we will die together. We were eating grass like cows but at least we were in our homes."
A Palestinian protester prepares to throw stones during clashes with Israeli security forces after a march to remember those displaced at the time of the 1948 founding of Israel in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, on May 15, 2017

Palestinians marching to remember those displaced at the time of the 1948 founding of Israel clashed with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, leaving several wounded.

Annual marches are held on May 15 to mark what Palestinians call the "Nakba," or catastrophe in Arabic.

At a checkpoint on the outskirts of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinian youths hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers, who responded with rubber bullets and the foul-smelling riot control spray known as skunk.

A Palestinian emergency worker said that 11 Palestinians were taken to hospital, most of them wounded by rubber bullets. The extent of their injuries was not known.

Earlier, thousands of people carrying Palestinian flags marched through the city, many carrying large keys to symbolise their claims to the homes they lost in 1948.

Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli security forces in Bethlehem on May 15, 2017, as Palestinians mark 69 years since more than 760,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in the war surrounding Israel's declaration of independence

"I come every year to commemorate this anniversary, this catastrophe," said Salha Orabi, a descendant of refugees and now a resident of the nearby Jelazoun refugee camp.

"The Nakba for us symbolises destruction," he added. "It is us who have left our homes and our land."

In Bethlehem, hundreds of Palestinians stoned Israeli troops guarding the tomb of biblical matriarch Rachel, a shrine venerated by Jews and Muslims, an AFP photographer said.

Soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades, but the number of Palestinian casualties was not immediately known.

In the 1948 Nakba, mourned by Palestinians each May 15, more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in the war surrounding Israel's declaration of independence.

Palestinians take part in a rally to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the "Nakba" in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on May 15, 2017

For the Palestinians, the right to return to homes they fled or were forced to leave is a prerequisite for any peace agreement with Israel, but it is a demand the Jewish state has rejected.

The anniversary came this year against the backdrop of a hunger strike by Palestinians in Israeli prisons, led by jailed leader Marwan Barghouti.

In what the Palestine Liberation Organisation said in a statement was a message from his solitary confinement cell, he said the fast, in its 29th day on Monday, would go on indefinitely.

"My oath and pledge to the prisoners and our people is to pursue the battle for freedom and dignity until it reaches its stated goals," he said.
The US Supreme Court declines to take up a case on a controversial North Carolina voting law

The US Supreme Court on Monday dealt a severe blow to a North Carolina voting law widely seen as discriminating against African Americans.

The Supreme Court opted not to hear the case, thereby leaving in place a ruling by a federal appeals court that had struck down key parts of the legislation enacted by the Republican-dominated state legislature in 2013.

The law was criticized for enacting rules that appeared designed to sideline African American voters, such as reducing the time period for early voting, prohibiting voters from registering on the day of the election, and forcing them to present certain types of photo ID.

The rules were slammed by the Obama administration as deliberately targeting African Americans, who traditionally vote Democrat, and prompted a law suit by the NAACP, the leading civil rights group for African Americans.

After a drawn-out legal battle, a federal appeals court in July 2016 struck down passages of the law that it said were meant to "target African Americans with almost surgical precision."

The Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case came as a surprise, as the majority of its judges are now conservatives and four of them had argued in favor of the law last year. The decision had been deadlocked 4-4, but the appointment by President Trump earlier this year of conservative Neil Gorsuch appeared to have tipped the balance.

The case fell foul of procedural stumbling blocks, after North Carolina's Republican governor was ousted by a Democrat whose new attorney general opposed the passage of the law.

While the court made no pronouncement on its decision, as is usual in such cases, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said it was not clear who was representing North Carolina in its pursuit of the case, and said that no conclusions should be drawn from the court's decision not to hear it.

"Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that the denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case," he said in a statement.

US history is littered with voting restrictions on minorities, even though the 1965 Voting Rights Act banned any such discrimination along racial lines.

Since Trump's election last November, states such as Texas and Wisconsin have tried to adopt legislation similar to North Carolina's, which they have defended as a way to battle voter fraud. Some of these have been permitted by judges and others amended, while some have been struck down by judges who ruled they were designed to discriminate against minorities.
Wolves were reintroduced at the Yellowstone National Park in 1995, in part to manage the rising elk park population

A conservation group on Monday more than doubled a reward for information on who was behind last month's shooting of a rare white wolf at Yellowstone National Park.

The severely injured female wolf dubbed "White Lady" was found by hikers on April 11 near Gardiner, Montana, and had to be euthanized.

Park officials last week offered a reward of up to $5,000 for information on who shot the animal described as "one of the most recognizable wolves and sought after by visitors to view and photograph."

An advocacy group in Montana said on Monday it would more than match the award offered by Yellowstone officials.

"We are receiving more money and I suspect the award we are offering is getting up to $5,500," Marc Cooke, president of the Montana-based Wolves of the Rockies, told AFP.

"There is an outcry on the part of wildlife enthusiasts to get the individual that is responsible for this."

Cooke said he suspects hunters angered by the presence of wolves in Yellowstone were behind the shooting.

"What's going on is because of the individuals that make a living in that area off of hunting, the wolves have disrupted their ability to acquire or to hunt trophy elk," he said.

"Somebody is taking matters into their own hands and doing their own form of private wildlife management -- in other words poaching wolves."

The wolf that was shot was 12 years old -- twice the age of an average wolf in the park -- and had 14 living pups, park officials said.

It was one of only three white wolves in Yellowstone.

Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone in 1995, in part to manage the rising elk park population.

Officials say the number of wolves in the park has fluctuated between 83 and 104 since 2009.
Shaesta Waiz, Afghanistan's first female certified civilian pilot, was born in a refugee camp at the end of the Soviet war

An Afghan pilot hoping to become the youngest woman in history to complete a solo round-the-world flight was preparing Monday to start the Transatlantic leg of her journey.

Shaesta Waiz, 29, was born in a refugee camp at the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan before immigrating with her family to the United States in 1987.

There, she discovered a passion for flying and obtained her pilot's license -- becoming the youngest certified civilian female pilot from Afghanistan.

Now she wants to share that sense of freedom of soaring high above ground with other young women.

"When I found my passion -- flying -- that's when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently," Waiz said as she made a stopover in Montreal.

"What's important is finding your passion and going after it."

Afghan pilot Shaesta Waiz says she wants to share the sense of freedom of soaring high above ground with other young women

Waiz took off from Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday and has mapped out a route that will take her aboard her Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft approximately 25,800 kilometers (16,000 miles) to more than 18 countries, including Spain, Egypt, India, Singapore and Australia, before ending the trip back in Florida in August.

During her 30 stopovers, the engineering graduate and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is backing her trip, will host events to try to get schoolchildren interested in science -- notably aeronautics.

According to ICAO figures, less than five percent of commercial pilots are women.

"If you really break it down into science, technology, engineering and math and explore what those career fields offer, it's very exciting," Waiz said.

"We hope to present to the young kids at these events what those careers are... and hopefully get them to pursue these careers that are in need of more talent."

On the website of her non-profit Dreams Soar, she commented: "Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, 'How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me.'"
Leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw the test of what appeared to be the North Korea's longest-range ballistic missile yet

The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile test and vowed strong measures, including sanctions, to derail Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea's long-term bid to develop a credible nuclear attack threat to the US mainland saw it launch Sunday what appeared to be its longest-range missile yet.

Pyongyang said the new weapon -- called the Hwasong-12 -- was capable of carrying a "heavy nuclear warhead".

In a unanimous statement backed by the North's main ally China, the council on Monday vowed to punish Pyongyang's "highly destabilizing behavior" and demanded a halt to any further nuclear or missile tests.

Pyongyang carried out two atomic tests last year, and has accelerated its missile launch programme, despite tough UN sanctions aimed at denying leader Kim Jong-Un the hard currency needed to fund his weapons ambitions.

"There's a lot of sanctions left that we can start to do, whether it's with oil, whether it's with energy, whether it's with their maritime ships, exports," US Ambassador Nikki Haley told ABC television's "This Week".

North Korean missiles

"We can do a lot of different things that we haven't done yet. So our options are there."

The United States is in talks with China -- Pyongyang's main trading partner -- on a possible new sanctions resolution and the Security Council is expected to hold a closed-door emergency meeting starting around 2000 GMT Tuesday.

- 'A substantial advance' -

Kim personally oversaw Sunday's test, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and pictures by state media showed him gazing at the missile in a hangar before the launch.

South Korea's newly-elected President Moon Jae-In is willing to visit the North to ease tensions

The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, before splashing down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Analysts said the test suggested an actual range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) or more if flown for maximum distance.

"This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested," Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US told AFP.

On the respected 38 North website, aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling said it appeared to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could "reliably strike the US base at Guam" in the Pacific, 3,400 kilometres away.

"More importantly," he added, it "may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)".

The North has made no secret of its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

KCNA cited Kim as saying the North would never succumb to what it called the "highly ridiculous" US strategy of "militarily browbeating only weak countries and nations which have no nukes".

"If the US dares opt for a military provocation against the DPRK, we are ready to counter it," it said.

- 'Reckless provocation' -

In April Pyongyang put dozens of missiles on show at a giant military parade through the capital, including one that appeared to be the type launched on Sunday.

There are doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon sufficiently to fit it onto a missile nose cone, and no proof it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to ensure it survives returning into Earth's atmosphere.

Sunday's test came less than a week after South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation with Pyongyang and had expressed a willingness to visit the North to ease tensions.

But Moon slammed the latest launch as a "reckless provocation" and said dialogue would be possible "only if the North changes its attitude".

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the test was dangerous, but warned against attempts to "intimidate" Pyongyang.

Pyongyang could find itself the target of further global censure after security researchers reported Monday signs of a potential North Korean link to cyberattacks that have wreaked havoc on computer networks around the world.

In the first clues of the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the "WannaCry" malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang.

Other experts quickly jumped on this as sign -- although not conclusive -- that North Korea may have been behind the outbreak.
US President Donald Trump (C) meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak at the White House

Embattled US President Donald Trump faced explosive allegations Tuesday that he divulged top secret intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, a charge the White House scrambled to rebut.

The Washington Post reported late Monday that Trump revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscow's man in Washington Sergey Kislyak.

In a shock twist, the intelligence reportedly came from a US ally who did not authorize Washington to share it with Moscow. That development that could shatter trust that is essential to intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster denied the president had revealed "intelligence sources or methods," but acknowledged that Trump and Lavrov "reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation."

The Post, citing unnamed officials, said that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration recently barred the use of laptops in the passenger cabin from several countries in the Middle East and is mulling the expansion of that ban to cover jets originating in Europe.

US National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster walks out of the White House to speak to the press denying reports that President Donald Trump spoke about classified information with Russian officials

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false," McMaster said without elaborating on which elements were wrong.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen."

McMaster earlier refused to answer questions to a group of journalists gathered in the West Wing, saying "this is the last place I wanted to be" before leaving.

The revelations are the latest in a wave of crises to hit the White House, which late Monday was in a state of shock, with aides frantically trying to put out the fire and determine the source of such damaging leaks.

Since coming to office in January, Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis, lampooning the intelligence services, law enforcement and the media along the way.

Last week, Trump threw his administration into turmoil by taking the almost unprecedented step of firing his FBI director James Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election.

The meeting came a day after that firing, and was already controversial in itself, a red carpet welcome for top aides of Vladimir Putin just months after being hit with US sanctions for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's administration was left red-faced after Moscow surprised them by releasing pictures of what was meant to be a closed-door meeting.

- Ryan wants 'full explanation' -

But political and legal experts said this latest misstep is among the most egregious so far of Trump's presidency.

"This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president of the United States," renowned legal expert Alan Dershowitz told CNN late Monday.

For Trump's already weary allies in Congress, the latest crisis brought more headaches and demanded yet more explanation from an administration that is struggling to leave its legislative mark.

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It's got to happen," said Republican Senator Bob Corker, sounding weary over the latest in a string of Trump contretemps.

"Obviously, they're in a downward spiral right now, and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips (with) all that's happening," Corker said.

Another senior Republican, Senator John McCain, said in reference to the allegations Trump divulged US secrets to the Russians that "if it's true, it's obviously disturbing."

But, he cautioned: "Let's wait and see what this was all about first."

Meanwhile, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer accused Trump of potentially putting American lives at risk.

"If the report is true, it is very disturbing. Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country," the New York senator said.

"The president owes the intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation."
PNG prison breakout

Amnesty International Tuesday called for an independent investigation into the killing of 17 prisoners who broke out of a jail in Papua New Guinea, voicing alarm at the gunning down of unarmed people.

The men were shot dead after a mass breakout by inmates from the Buimo jail in the Pacific nation's second largest city of Lae on Friday, police said.

At least 57 remain on the run. Many were serving time for armed robbery, car thefts, and breaking and entering.

Police shot dead 12 prisoners during a jailbreak at the same prison last year. The National newspaper said only 15 of the 87 who fled at the time were caught and most were badly injured.

Amnesty International's Southeast Asia and Pacific director Champa Patel said: "It is alarming that the security forces' first response was to use lethal force against unarmed people without any concern for their right to life."

"The Papua New Guinea authorities must immediately order an independent and effective investigation into these killings," she said.

"They must suspend any officers involved until the investigation is concluded, and hold suspected perpetrators to account through fair trials without recourse to the death penalty."

Crime and lawlessness is rampant in PNG, a sprawling nation where many still live traditional and subsistence lives in remote areas.

Jails in the country -- which is due to host an APEC leaders' summit next year -- are often overcrowded, with prisoners forced to endure poor sanitary conditions, which Patel said was part of the problem.

"Prison reforms and accountability mechanisms are crucial to stop these incidents from happening again. Whatever the crime committed by inmates, they have the right to be treated humanely," she said.

Police have urged those on the run to surrender.

"These are undesirable people and will be a threat to the community," Lae police official, Anthony Wagambie Jr. said.

"I am warning them that they will be caught. They must do what is good for them and surrender."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he is open to exploring the South China Sea's natural resources with rival claimants China and Vietnam, after securing a "windfall" while in Beijing

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday he was open to exploring the South China Sea's natural resources with rival claimants China and Vietnam, after securing a "windfall" while in Beijing.

Duterte also emphasised he had no immediate plans to pressure China over an international tribunal's ruling last year that its sweeping claims to most of the sea were unlawful.

"If we can get something there with no hassle at all, why not," Duterte told reporters when asked about a proposal for jointly exploring the sea with China and Vietnam.

He emphasised the deal would have to be "fair and balanced".

Duterte made no mention of Malaysia and Brunei, the two other Southeast Asian nations that also have claims to the sea.

The competing claims to the sea, which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits, have for decades made it one of Asia's potential military flashpoints.

Disputed claims in the South China Sea

Beijing's efforts to cement its claims in the sea in recent years by building artificial islands and expanding a military presence there have added to the tensions.

Duterte, who took office last year, abandoned the policy of his predecessor, Benigno Aquino, to forcefully challenge Beijing in diplomatic circles and instead sought to repair bilateral relations.

Duterte has said his decision has earned the Philippines billions of dollars in Chinese investments and aid.

Duterte spoke Tuesday after returning from Beijing, where he had separate meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang on the sidelines of a summit on a global trade infrastructure project.

Duterte praised China's leaders as "generous", "very liberal" and "sincere".

Duterte described his trip to Beijing, his second since assuming office, as a "windfall" for the Philippines, saying more Chinese investments or aid had been offered although he gave few details.

- 'Important partner' -

Duterte said he told Xi and Li that he would not raise last year's international tribunal ruling, which was filed by Aquino and deeply angered China.

The competing claims to the sea, which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits, have for decades made it one of Asia's potential military flashpoints.

"We decided that there is a time for me to ask about the ruling but it is not now," Duterte said.

Xi hailed the "all-round improvement" of relations between the two nations during the forum, calling the Philippines an "important partner" in his Belt and Road infrastructure project.

Chinese and Philippines officials will meet in China on Friday for the first round of bilateral talks on their dispute.

Aquino had avoided direct talks with China for fear of placing the Philippines in a vulnerable negotiating position.

Duterte said he wanted discussions to involve a code of conduct for the sea, which China and Southeast Asian nations have been discussing for some 15 years.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and Philippine Ambassador Jose Santiago Santa Romana will co-chair the meeting in China's southern Guizhou province, the Beijing said on Tuesday.

Their talks will follow the 14th meeting on Thursday of senior officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the implementation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday that the talks would help Beijing and Manila "properly manage differences and promote maritime cooperation for the final settlement of relevant disputes".

The Philippines, under then president Gloria Arroyo, entered into an agreement with China and Vietnam in 2005 to jointly study potential oil deposits in the sea.

But the deal collapsed after Filipino politicians questioned its legality. They alleged it infringed on Philippine sovereignty and accused Arroyo of treason.
The Obung community in Calabar, Nigeria, through which the proposed Cross River Super Highway will run and where the ground breaking ceremony was held

When bulldozers rolled into their forest at the start of last year, the Ekuri community in southeast Nigeria protested: "Indigenes say no!"

They didn't want a superhighway that would wipe their ancestral lands in the Cross River National Park off the map.

Under pressure, the earthmovers left to do their work elsewhere.

But community spokesman Martin Egot said: "They destroyed all the crops, the source of our wealth: cassava, cocoa, plantain... ."

The 800-billion-naira ($2.6-billion, 2.3-billion-euro) highway project, launched in 2015, is huge.

It envisages six lanes, 260 kilometres (162.5 miles) long linking the regional capital Calabar and a new deep water port with Benue state to the north.

- 'Ecological disaster' -

A member of the the Obung community speaks about the Cross River Super Highway, in Calabar, Nigeria

At nearly 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 square miles), the Cross River National Park is the biggest forest in Nigeria, a paradise of endangered gorillas, elephants and other species.

In Africa's most populous nation, the countryside has increasingly been tamed by rampant urbanisation, forest management and poaching.

"Our fathers, our grandfathers used to live in this forest before us and we value what we inherited. It gives us all that we need," said Egot.

The isolated Ekuri -- who live in the middle of the forest -- have been fighting for 30 years to maintain their lifestyle of sustainable subsistence farming.

The mammoth road project threatened to strip more than 50,000 people of their land rights and their homes.

Trees and villages were to have been razed in a corridor 20 kilometres wide, which environmentalists said would have been an "ecological disaster".

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has criticised the lack of transparency and consultation on the project by the Cross River state government.

It "could allow developers to cut down, burn and replant one of Africa's oldest intact rainforests with palm oil or other farming", the environmental charity added.

- Power struggle -

At nearly 4,000 square kilometres, the Cross River National Park is the biggest forest in Nigeria, a paradise of endangered gorillas, elephants and other species

For the last year those for and against the superhighway have been locked in a power struggle.

The project's main backer, Cross River state governor Ben Ayade, has repeatedly vaunted the future economic benefits of linking Calabar with the rest of the country.

"How will this state grow, how will we continue to sustain the payment of salaries, how will we manage our demographics, with 80 percent of our population below the age of 35?" he said in March.

"God made those plants and animals for us and not the reverse. You must have a delicate balance between development and environmental protection."

Against it, two petitions have garnered more than 350,000 signatures, leading Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend the project pending an environmental impact survey.

After stormy negotiations, the road's route was changed to spare some of the communities and endemic species under threat.

The 20-km wide corridor has also been significantly reduced.

Few environmentalists are convinced, however.

"It's a first step," Odey Oyama, the head of the Rainforest Resource and Development Centre (RRDC) in Calabar, told AFP.

"But the superhighway is still crossing the park, which is completely unacceptable."

The environmental activist said he had received a number of death threats because of his opposition to the road and the uncontrolled expansion of the palm oil industry in the region.

But he has not been deterred from taking powerful multinationals to court.

- Palm oil -

Obung community village leader Chief Ntufam Igne (C) speaks during an interview with the AFP, in Calabar, Nigeria

The damage, in part, may have already been done.

Wilmar International, a Singapore-based palm oil giant, in 2011 and 2012 obtained several concessions in the region totalling 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres).

Friends of the Earth in 2015 accused Wilmar of having expanded its activities into the national park and other protected areas, where thousands of hectares have already allegedly been deforested.

The company has said its acquisition was legitimate and that it "categorically" refutes claims of encroachment on to the park.

Logging is of particular interest to companies working in the area, according to one environmentalist.

"The park is home to an abundance of valuable timber. That is a lot of money," said the activist, on condition of anonymity.

According to a map drawn up by WCS from satellite images, other companies such as Dansa Agro Allied, which specialises in pineapple plantations, are also operating illegally in the park.

The company is a subsidiary of the Dangote Group, owned by Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote.

The firms themselves reject the claims, asserting that their activities respect international environmental standards and have created thousands of jobs.

Dansa's lawyers have said the company has no operations in the park and has supported its conservation.

- Divided communities -

The fate of the superhighway remains on hold pending the final decision of the Abuja authorities, expected in the coming weeks.

It also continues to divide locals, where some villagers support the project enthusiastically.

Glory sat on a makeshift stool at the side of a rutted track having her long hair braided.

"We have no good roads, no good water, no electricity, we are suffering a lot," she complained. "The superhighway will help us."

The signs of poverty are everywhere in Obung, a village of houses with roofs of corrugated iron sheets that lies on the park's southern flanks.

Like elsewhere, recession has hit hard and the few employers in the remote region have packed up and left months ago.

Obung's inhabitants are hanging on to the governor's promises to bring modern life to the village.

"The national park didn't bring anything to us. We cannot hunt anymore, we cannot cut timber anymore, we don't have anything to do again," said the village chief, Ntufam Igne.

"With the superhighway, Obung will become a big city. We pray for it."
Australia's $66 billion shipbuilding plan will produce nine frigates and 12 offshore patrol vessels, as well as a dozen new submarines.

Australia revealed details of a massive shipbuilding strategy Tuesday, its largest peacetime naval investment, with plans to construct dozens of new submarines and frigates to shore up its defence capabilities.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the Aus$89 billion (US$66 billion) package -- first flagged in 2015 to replace its ageing fleets -- would boost local industry, with up to 5,000 jobs created in shipbuilding directly and double that in the supply chain.

"We will transform our naval shipbuilding and sustainment industry here in Australia, with Australian workers, in Australian shipyards, using Australian resources," he said as he officially released the plan.

"This is a plan for jobs, a plan for security, a plan for the opportunity that investment in our defence industry brings not just today and tomorrow, but for generations to come."

The program will produce nine frigates and 12 offshore patrol vessels, along with 19 Pacific patrol boats for neighbouring countries.

It also includes 12 new submarines at a cost of Aus$50 billion, with French naval contractor DCNS last year selected to design and build them at an Adelaide yard, beating off competition from Japan and Germany.

While no specific threat was cited, Defence Minister Marise Payne said the program was designed to ensure "we have the most capable, agile and potent Australian Defence Force that we are able to achieve".

"The future frigates, the offshore patrol vessels, the future submarines -- these are platforms that will deliver... the capability that we need to ensure we are protecting Australia and our interests."

Under the plan, Australia's current ANZAC and Adelaide class frigates will be replaced with new ships better able to "detect, track and, if required, destroy enemy submarines".

Its Armidale offshore patrol vessels, designed for border protection, will also be renewed, along with its diesel and electric-powered Collins Class submarine fleet.

Turnbull said more than Aus$1.3 billion would be injected to modernise facilities in South Australia and Western Australia states so the work could go-ahead.

A shipbuilding college would also be established to train workers.

Construction of the patrol boats is slated to start in 2018 with the frigates beginning two years later and the submarine build getting underway around 2022.
Mohenjo Daro was the centre of a powerful ancient civilisation and one of the world's earliest cities,

The Bronze Age metropolis boasted flush toilets and a water and waste system to rival many in modern Pakistan.

Now, archaeologists believe the ruins could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished around 3,000 BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing.

But if nothing is done to protect the site from high summer temperatures, mistreatment by locals and the threat posed by terrorists groups, it could be lost forever.

And researchers have decided to stop uncovering more of the site, believe that it is safer to leave it buried.

Archaeologists warn that if nothing is done to protect Pakistan's Mohenjo Daro ruins (pictured), it will be destroyed. The site could be key to unlocking the Indus script, which has never been deciphered

MOHENJO DARO Mohenjo Daro is an archaeological site on the banks of the Indus river in Pakistan's southern Sindh province. It was built by the Indus Valley people, around 5,000 years ago in 3,000 BC. At their peak during the Bronze Age, the Indus Valley people are believed to have numbered up to five million, with Mohenjo Daro their largest and most advanced settlement. The site could hold the key to unlocking the Indus script, which has never been deciphered. But the race is on to preserve the crumbling city, before it is lost to the annals of history. In the summer, temperatures can soar to above 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) which is damaging the ruins. Pakistan's bloody fight against militancy has also raised the spectre of destruction by an Islamist group. And ordinary citizens of the country have shown wanton disregard for Mohenjo Daro, or 'mound of the dead', according to the society that is working to protect it from further damage. Advertisement

'Everybody knows Egypt, nobody knows Mohenjo Daro, this has to be changed,' says Dr Michael Jansen, a German researcher working at the sun-baked site on the banks of the Indus river in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.

Dr Jansen is at the forefront of a new effort to promote the site internationally while finding ways to protect what is left.

In summer temperatures can soar to above 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit).

'There is enormous thermo-stress,' says Dr Jansen, adding that salt from the underground water table is also damaging the ruins.

But it's more than just the weather and time.

Pakistan's bloody fight against militancy has also raised the spectre of destruction by an Islamist group, much like Islamic State destroyed the ruins in Syria's Palmyra.

There is also a disregard for Mohenjo Daro, or 'mound of the dead', by ordinary citizens.

In 2014 police stood atop the main stupa as hundreds of people swarmed the site to, ironically, commemorate Pakistan's cultural heritage, complete with scaffolding, dancing, fireworks, heavy spotlights and lasers.

Sardar Ali Shah, cultural minister in Sindh province, vowed never to let such a thing happen again.

'It's like you are jumping on the bed bed of a 5,000-year-old ailing patient,' he tells AFP.

Yet today curious visitors still roam the remains with impunity, many leaving rubbish in the once pristine-streets and wells.

Dr Jansen and his Friends of Mohenjo Daro society aim to promote the site internationally, with plans to recruit Pakistanis around the world for conferences, seminars and debates.

Dr Kaleem Lashari, chief consultant to the Pakistani government over Mohenjo Daro, said they will also digitally archive the Indus script, which has never been deciphered, in hopes that making it accessible will increase the site's profile.

Archaeologists believe the Mohenjo Daro ruins (pictured) could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished around 3,000 BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing

THE INDUS PEOPLE The Indus civilisation flourished for half a millennium from about 2600 BC to 1900 BC, before it mysteriously declined and vanished from view. It remained invisible for almost 4,000 years until its ruins were discovered by accident in the 1920s by British and Indian archaeologists. Following almost a century of excavation, it is today regarded as a civilisation worthy of comparison with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, as the beginning of Indian civilisation and possibly as the origin of Hinduism. More than a thousand Indus settlements covered at least 800,000 square kilometres (309,000 square miles) of what is now Pakistan and northwestern India. It was the most extensive urban culture of its period, with an estimated population of one million and a vigorous maritime export trade. Advertisement

At the site itself, he said, technical reviews are being held to examine the water logging issue and other ways to shore up the ruins, while exploring new, modern technology that allows researchers to ascertain what lies beneath the surface in the portions of the city not yet excavated.

But, Dr Lashari says, perhaps the biggest challenge remains Pakistan's international image, tarnished by extremism, corruption, poverty, and insecurity.

'Foreigners are afraid to visit Pakistan and the site because of the chronic issue of law and order,' he warns.

The issues he cites underscore unsettling differences between modern day Pakistan and the civilisation found among the ruins.

At their peak during the Bronze Age, the Indus Valley people are believed to have numbered up to five million, with Mohenjo Daro their largest and most advanced settlement.

Clay and metallic seals, coins, standardised weighing stones, gold and bronze ornaments, toys and whistles, the bric-a-brac of ancient lives have revealed volumes about thriving Indus trade and commerce.

A Buddhist stupa (pictured) at the UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site of Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan, which experts believe was the centre of a the ancient, powerful Indus Valley civilisation

The layout of the city itself suggests an egalitarian people more concerned with cleanliness than hierarchy, says Dr Jonathan Mark Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin.

'In Mesopotamia, the streets went from the city to the palace ... whereas in (Indus) cities all the streets were organised to allow access to the whole city,' he says.

Mohenjo Daro had a complex water and waste management system which observers have wryly noted was better than in many parts of Pakistan today.

Only a small portion of the site has been excavated properly, but the most important building appears not to have been a palace or a place of worship, but a massive public bath.

At their peak during the Bronze Age, the Indus Valley people are believed to have numbered up to five million, with Mohenjo Daro, in modern day Pakistan, their largest and most advanced settlement

Mohenjo Daro is an archaeological site on the banks of the Indus river in Pakistan's southern Sindh province

Houses had tiled bathrooms and their own cylindrical brick wells, sometimes raised to the second floor to allow for a flush system.

None of this, however, has yet explained why such a powerful, advanced and flourishing civilisation disappeared so abruptly around 1900 BC.

Currently, there is no bid to excavate further among the plans being laid by Dr Lashari and Dr Jansen.

'It is actually preserved when it is buried,' explains Harvard University's Dr Richard Meadow.

Despite their access to new technologies, that puts researchers in a quandary, especially as they try to understand what happened to the Indus people.

As Jansen says, the 'best way to learn information is to excavate'.

But mysteries take time to solve: for now, the researchers say, they will settle for ensuring that Mohenjo Daro endures for a few centuries more.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, captured the strategic town of Tabqa last week

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces militia is set to lead the fight for the Islamic State group's bastion of Raqa, but its role has stoked tensions between Washington and Turkey.

The alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters has advanced to within a few kilometres (miles) of Raqa on several fronts, and last week captured the strategic town of Tabqa and the adjacent dam from the jihadists.

However, Ankara considers the key Kurdish component of the SDF to be an affiliate of the designated "terrorist" group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.

What is the SDF?

The alliance was formed in October 2015 in part to address Turkey's concern about the rising profile of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia.

The militia had won a string of victories over IS with the US-led coalition's support, including the highly symbolic recapture of the border town of Kobane in January 2015.

But Ankara considers the YPG to be the Syrian branch of the PKK, and was increasingly unhappy about the swathes of territory coming under YPG control.

The advances were also stirring local tensions with Syrian Arabs concerned that Kurdish forces were seeking to dominate non-Kurdish regions.

The SDF was "designed to facilitate recruitment among Arabs and provide an additional nominal degree of separation between US support and the PKK", the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report last month.

But the SDF's ranks, which estimates place at anywhere between 25,000 and 45,000 fighters, remain dominated by the YPG, which also retains control of the alliance's command, analysts say.

Since its formation, the SDF has won multiple victories against IS, and in November 2016 it announced the start of a long operation to oust the jihadists from Raqa.

In the months since, it has gradually closed in on Raqa, working to encircle it before launching a final assault, expected to start next month.

Why is US support growing?

With the formation of the SDF, Washington began channeling more direct support to the anti-IS fighters on the ground in Syria.

But it continued to insist that supplies including armoured cars went to the Arab components of the alliance, not the YPG.

Last month however, President Donald Trump's administration announced that it would for the first time directly arm the YPG elements of the alliance.

"The US administration appears to have concluded that the benefits of driving IS from Raqa as soon as possible justify the potential costs of further damaging Washington's strategic alliance with Ankara, and the risks associated with attempting to seize an overwhelmingly Arab city... with a Kurdish dominated force," the ICG report said.

Washington has sought to placate Turkey by saying that the weapons will be metered out carefully, and insisting it still wants to "work with the Turks... to take Raqa down".

And US and SDF officials say post-IS Raqa will be administered by a civilian council of local residents.

But the issue is still likely to be among the top issues on the agenda when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets Trump in Washington on Tuesday.

How might Turkey react?

Turkey's concerns about the YPG were significant enough for Ankara to launch its own military operation inside Syria in August 2016, dubbed Euphrates Shield.

The operation had the dual goals of targeting IS and the Kurdish militia, particularly to prevent the YPG from controlling a contiguous strip of territory along the Syria-Turkey border.

While the Kurds have failed to link up the two "cantons" under their control in the northeast with the Afrin region to the west, the Turkish operation has largely floundered.

In April, Turkey launched raids on Kurdish positions in northeast Syria that killed at least 28 people, mostly YPG fighters, prompting a public expression of US concern.

Experts say Ankara lacks good options to prevent the SDF from continuing to lead the fight against IS, with international backing.

"Turkey has few options, other than to escalate," said Aaron Stein, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

"They can invade Tal Abyad (on the Syria-Turkey border), bomb YPG, or move on Sinjar in neighbouring Iraq," he said.

"All of these options could slow the Raqa operation, but Ankara would then be placed in the untenable position of trying to slow a campaign to kill IS dudes. No one wants to be that country."
Chinese authorities have said 66 of the country's universities were affected by the global ransomware attack, but have rejected reports of widespread damage in higher-education computer systems as "malicious" hype

Chinese authorities have said 66 of the country's universities were affected by the global ransomware attack, but have rejected reports of widespread damage in higher-education computer systems as "malicious" hype.

The China Education and Research Network, which operates under the Ministry of Education, said 66 out of 1,600 Chinese universities were affected, mainly due to operating systems not being regularly upgraded rather than any major security shortcomings in university systems.

The statement issued late Monday was perhaps the most detailed comment yet on the cyberattacks by Chinese authorities, who have said little about the contagion since it erupted on Friday even as reports emerged of widespread infection in China.

Qihoo 360, one of China's leading suppliers of anti-virus software, had said Sunday that at least 29,372 institutions ranging from government offices to ATMs and hospitals had been "infected", singling out universities as particularly hard-hit.

But the China Education and Research Network pushed back against such claims.

"These inaccurate statements have seriously misled public opinion, caused panic among teachers and students, and affected the normal order of instruction and life," it said, giving no further details.

Beijing University and Tsinghua University, two of the country's premier institutions located in the capital, have issued statements saying quick security action prevented "large-scale" infection on their campuses, without giving details.

Major universities in Shanghai told AFP on Monday they were not affected.

The indiscriminate attack began Friday and struck banks, hospitals and government agencies worldwide, exploiting vulnerabilities in older Microsoft operating systems. But it appeared to have peaked over the weekend.

Security researchers on Monday said it bore the technical hallmarks of North Korean hacking, though the evidence remained inconclusive.

The muted public response by China could be linked to the sensitive fact that use of pirated computer software is rampant in the country, a sore point with trading partners like the United States who have complained for years of Chinese counterfeiting.

Security experts say pirated software is particularly vulnerable to security threats, but so far no evidence has emerged indicating whether that played any role in the virus's spread in China.

Chinese state media quoted the official Cyberspace Administration of China as saying the ransomware's spread had slowed significantly in China by Monday.

It had urged computer users to install and upgrade security software, but otherwise said little about the cyberattacks.

Among major Chinese entities affected, state-owned oil giant PetroChina has said its payment networks at petrol stations across the country were disabled for about 12 hours over the weekend.
The authorities have redoubled efforts to purge the Thai web following the October ascension of the country's new king Maha Vajiralongkorn

Thai authorities Tuesday backed down on their threat to ban Facebook over posts deemed critical of the royal family after officials said the social networking giant had agreed to expunge such content.

Thailand ferociously enforces a draconian lese majeste law which outlaws any criticism of the monarchy.

Since ultra-royalist generals seized power three years ago more than 100 people have been charged, many for comments made online, and some people have been jailed for decades.

The authorities have redoubled efforts to purge the Thai web following the October ascension of the country's new king Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Last week Thailand's telecom regulator, the NBTC, said it would file a police complaint against Facebook's Thailand office and shut down the hugely popular site if it did not remove more than 130 "illegal" posts by Tuesday.

"Facebook is cooperating with Thailand," Takorn Tantasith, secretary general of the NBTC told reporters after the 10am deadline passed.

Takorn said some 97 web pages deemed critical of the monarchy remained on the platform but authorities were seeking court orders to send Facebook demanding their removal.

Thai authorities last week said Facebook had already removed some 170 posts.

Thai authorities back down on their threat to ban Facebook over posts deemed critical of the royal family after officials said the social networking giant had agreed to expunge such content

The social network giant declined to comment on how many posts it had made unavailable in Thailand since the recent requests.

- Photos and videos scrubbed -

Under its published policies, Facebook says it will comply with a country's request to remove content if it receives a valid court order.

"When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content," the company told AFP.

"If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted."

According to its published data, Facebook made 50 posts unavailable to Thai users after requests from the government in 2016.

No items were restricted in 2015 and 35 items were removed in 2014, the year of the coup.

Vajiralongkorn, 64, became king following the death of his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej who reigned for seven decades.

He has yet to attain his father's widespread popularity.

At least seven people are known to have been charged with lese majeste since he took the throne.

One, human rights lawyer Prawet Prapanukul, is facing up to 150-years in prison after being charged with a record ten separate counts if lese majeste.

Media inside Thailand must heavily self censor when reporting on the monarchy, making it perilous to detail what content has angered the authorities.

Somsak Jeamteerasakul, an exiled Thai academic and monarchy critic, posted a letter from Facebook on his own account informing him that some of his posts were among those censored.

The posts included photographs and video footage taken of Vajiralongkorn in Germany where he spends much of the year.

Thai authorities have previously said they have asked Google -- which also owns YouTube -- and other major web giants to delete pages on the royal family.

Thailand's junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha told reporters on Tuesday some 6,000 web pages have been removed recently by foreign social media platforms and search engines following government requests.

"Now we are trying to work on the remaining ones and we must continue to work by asking for cooperation from foreign governments, the private sector and Thai website administrators," he said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has suggested Mongolia and Turkey should be granted membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), despite not being located in southeast Asia

Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he would push for the inclusion of Turkey and Mongolia in a grouping of Southeast Asian nations, dismissing concerns about their geographic location.

Duterte said leaders of Turkey and Mongolia told him about their desire to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) while they were in China over the weekend for a summit on a global trade infrastructure project.

Duterte, whose nation holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year, held separate meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mongolian Prime Minister Jargaltulga Erdenebat on the sidelines of the summit.

"They want to join ASEAN and since I am now the chair, the Philippines is, they wanted me to sponsor their entry and I said, 'Yes, why not,'" Duterte told reporters in the Philippines.

The 10-member ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

A NATO member bordering the Middle East, Turkey straddles Europe and Asia. Its application for membership to the European Union has been bogged down for years.

Mongolia is a landlocked nation wedged between China and Russia.

Geographic location is the first criterion for ASEAN membership, along with recognition by all other members.

Duterte said Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who also attended the summit in China, asked him if he had considered geography in deciding to sponsor Turkey and Mongolia's ASEAN membership.

However Duterte insisted that the two nations were part of the region.

"They are. I would say that they are," Duterte said.

"Turkey seems to be ambivalent on whether to be a bridge of Europe and Asia or being an Asian ... Sometimes they say they are part of Asia. Sometimes they say they are a bridge of Asia to Europe."

Asked about Duterte's remarks, the ASEAN Secretariat said Turkey and Mongolia have "never applied" for membership to the bloc.

"This issue has never come up for discussion in ASEAN," Lee Yoong Yoong, community affairs director of the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat, told AFP via email.

East Timor has for years sought ASEAN membership but only holds observer status.
An Indian activist holds a model of a foetus during a protest against abortion in New Delhi

An Indian court will decide whether a 10-year-old Indian girl left pregnant after she was repeatedly raped should be allowed to have an abortion, police said Tuesday.

The child, who was often left at home while her mother went out to work on construction sites, has said she was raped by her stepfather, who has since been arrested.

Her case only came to light last week, by which time she had crossed the 20-week legal limit after which terminations are only allowed where there is a danger to the life of the mother or the baby.

"We have filed an application in the concerned court seeking an order for abortion," said Pankaj Nain, the police chief of Rohtak district in northern Haryana state.

"Now it is for the courts to decide," Nain told AFP.

In recent months India's top court has received a number of petitions from women -- including rape survivors and trafficking victims -- seeking abortions where pregnancies had gone beyond 20 weeks.

Activists say the restriction should be extended to 24 weeks as victims of rape are often late to report their pregnancies.

In 2015, the Supreme Court allowed a 14-year-old rape survivor to abort a foetus after the 20-week limit.

Nain said the 10-year-old had made a statement to police and was being given counselling and medical care.

Her ordeal came to light when her mother called a women's helpline last week to register a complaint after her daughter confided in her.

Rohtak hit the headlines last week when a 23-year-old was abducted, raped and killed by her ex-boyfriend.

India has a gruesome record on rape, with the capital New Delhi alone registering 2,199 rape cases in 2015 -- an average of six a day.

Nearly 40,000 rape cases are reported every year in India, but the real number is thought to be much higher, with victims wary of how their complaints will be dealt with or the social stigma attached to sex crimes.
Kuwait, whose Shuaiba oil refinery is shown here, has backed a call by top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend a deal on crude production cuts for nine more months

Kuwait on Tuesday backed a call by top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend a deal on crude production cuts for nine more months.

"Kuwait gives its full backing and support to the joint position of Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend the oil output cuts deal between OPEC and other producers until March 2018," Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouk said in a statement.

Russia and Saudi Arabia on Monday called for extending the deal struck late last year, ahead of an OPEC meeting on May 25.

In a joint statement the two countries said an extension to March 31, 2018 was needed "to ensure market stability, predictability and sustainable development".

World oil prices leapt after the Saudi-Russian announcement and made further gains on Tuesday in Asian trade, with benchmark West Texas Intermediate up 19 cents at $49.04 per barrel.

OPEC members agreed in November to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day for six months beginning from the start of the year, in a bid to reduce the glut in oil supplies and shore up prices that had fallen to historic lows.

The move was partly matched by non-cartel producers led by Russia.
South Korea's new President Moon Jae-In backs engagement with nuclear-armed North Korea to try to reduce tensions, while Trump's US administration has said military action was an option under consideration.

South Korea's left-leaning new leader Moon Jae-In will travel to the US for a summit with President Donald Trump next month, Moon's spokesman said Tuesday, amid high tensions over the North's nuclear ambitions.

The summit will be held in Washington in late June, Yoon Young-Chan said, adding that details of the precise date and agenda would be decided later.

Moon backs engagement with nuclear-armed North Korea to try to reduce tensions, while Trump's administration has said military action was an option under consideration.

"We will prepare the summit as an opportunity to cement personal ties and friendship between the two leaders," Yoon said.

The announcement came a day after the North boasted a "successful" launch of the longest-range missile it has ever tested, sparking global alarm.

Tensions have been ratcheted up as Pyongyang and Washington exchanged hostile rhetoric, but Trump recently softened his posture, saying he would be "honoured" to meet the North's leader Kim Jong-Un.

Sunday's missile launch angered the White House which said the North had "been a flagrant menace for far too long" and called for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.

Moon has said he would be willing to visit the North "in the right circumstances", but also slammed Sunday's launch as a "reckless provocation", saying dialogue would be possible "only if the North changes its attitude."

Tuesday's announcement came as Matt Pottinger, senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, vowed joint efforts to curb the North's military ambitions during a visit to Seoul.

Pottinger and his South Korean counterpart agreed that the two allies would seek "bold and practical" approach over the North, with dialogue with Pyongyang possible but only "when conditions are right", Yoon said.
Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to defend against the threat of invasion by the US, and shows no indication of any willingness to give them up, whatever concessions are offered

North Korea's latest missile launch represents a significant step forward in its weapons capabilities, analysts say, but Pyongyang could be looking to secure a position of strength before a return to the negotiating table.

The intermediate-range missile fired by the North at the weekend, named the Hwasong-12, was its longest-range rocket yet, analysts say.

It was its 10th launch this year, after dozens in 2016, as it accelerates efforts to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

Leader "Kim Jong-Un has stepped up testing compared to his father and grandfather, and it is starting to pay off," Melissa Hanham of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California told AFP. "This is a clear indication of progress."

Pyongyang has long had missiles that can reach targets across the South -- the 500 kilometre Scud -- and Japan, the 1,000-1,300 kilometre Rodong.

But with an imputed range of 4,500 kilometres the Hwasong-12 puts US bases on the Pacific island of Guam within reach.

More significantly, the new missile could be a stepping stone to a properly working ICBM -- which would fundamentally change assessments of the threat posed by Pyongyang.

"This is not that missile but it might be a testbed, demonstrating technologies and systems to be used in future ICBMs," wrote aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling, adding that it could represent the first two stages of such a device.

Pyongyang "may be closer to an operational ICBM than had been previously estimated", he said on the respected 38 North website.

North Korean missiles

A functional ICBM would need a nuclear warhead that can be mounted on to a missile.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency claimed the latest test had proved its guidance and re-entry technologies, and said the rocket was "capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead".

It was "plausible that they have made a compact warhead after five nuclear tests", Hanham told AFP, but KCNA's phrasing was "interesting but vague".

"Its really hard to take their claims seriously without verification from other governments," she added.

- The bigger they are... -

The launch came just four days after the inauguration of South Korea's new left-leaning President Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation and dialogue with Pyongyang to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Moon was part of the South's last liberal government nearly a decade ago, which pursued a "Sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, and declared at his swearing-in that he would go to Pyongyang "in the right circumstances".

Instead, said Koo Kab-Woo of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, he had been posed "an extremely difficult question" by the launch.

"Under the current circumstances, it's very hard" to hold any talks with the North, Koo said.

But the timing of the launch so close to Moon's installation was largely coincidental, he said. "They are just going their way consistently towards the goal of attaining nuclear deterrence capability."

Moon slammed the launch as a "reckless provocation" saying that dialogue would be possible "only if Pyongyang changes its behaviour".

The North "strongly wants to talk with Washington", Koo said, as expressed by a senior North Korean official following a meeting with former US officials in Oslo, Norway.

That remark came just two weeks after President Donald Trump said he would be "honoured" to meet Kim, after their tit-for-tat sabre-rattling raised tensions in the region.

Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to defend against the threat of invasion by the US, and shows no indication of any willingness to give them up, whatever concessions are offered.

The North's young leader is more focused on presenting Pyongyang to Washington and Beijing as their equals, equipped with weapons as devastating as their own, said Choi Kang of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

"The bigger you are, the bigger the advantage you will have over negotiations. Otherwise, you will be looked down on," he told AFP.

"In the Kim Jong-Il era, North Korea launched missiles to get Washington's attention," he said. "But now it's different."
Israeli police walk past the Dome of the Rock in the compound known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount on May 16, 2017

A row erupted Tuesday over US policy toward Israel days ahead of a visit by President Donald Trump, with fresh questions raised over the White House's approach to the ultra-sensitive status of Jerusalem.

Debate over whether the United States should move its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem again flared, while a separate row over the city's Western Wall -- the holiest site where Jews can pray -- also caused waves.

Both issues provoked criticism of Trump's White House in Israel as preparations intensified for his visit to the country and the Palestinian territories on May 22 and 23.

It was the latest sign of the Israeli right's growing disenchantment with Trump after having rejoiced in his election.

Israeli right-wingers have pressed Trump to stick to his pledge to move the embassy to Jerusalem, but the president has backed away since taking office, saying it was still being looked at.

New US ambassador to Israel David Friedman arrives at the presidential compound in Jerusalem to present his credentials on May 16, 2017

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced a political backlash from his right-wing base over the issue, particularly after a report that he advised Trump against moving the embassy to the disputed city for now.

The report led Netanyahu to issue an angry rebuttal.

In an unusual move, he also released some of the minutes of a meeting he had with Trump in Washington in February, showing that he had pressed the new president to move the embassy.

Netanyahu said that "not only would moving the embassy not harm the peace process, but to the contrary.

"It would advance it by fixing a historic wrong and shatter the Palestinian illusion that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel."

Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

- Row over Western Wall -

Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, while Israel considers the entire city to be its undivided capital.

The rival claims to Jerusalem lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and no countries currently have their embassies there, instead basing them in Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv.

Jewish women pray at the women's section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on May 16, 2017

Separately, Israeli officials reacted angrily to reports in local media that representatives of the US consulate had suggested the Western Wall in east Jerusalem did not belong to Israel.

"The statement that the Western Wall is part of the West Bank was received with shock," an official in Netanyahu's office said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Israel is convinced that this statement contradicts President Trump's policies... Israel has reached out to the United States on this matter."

Trump is reportedly planning to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City.

Israel's Channel Two reported that Israeli officials offering to help plan the event were told by American counterparts it was not their remit.

One US official said the Western Wall was part of the West Bank, Channel Two reported.

The White House distanced itself from the alleged comments, saying in statements to US media that they did not reflect the views of the adminstration.

The United States, like most of the international community, has traditionally considered Jerusalem disputed ahead of final-status negotiations.

The issues arose as Trump's controversial new ambassador to Israel David Friedman presented his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin at a ceremony in Jerusalem.

He also later met with Netanyahu.

President Reuven Rivlin shakes hands with new US ambassador to Israel David Friedman on May 16, 2017

Jewish-American Friedman is a strong supporter of Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

The former bankruptcy lawyer has expressed scepticism over the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the basis of years of US peace efforts.

He has also advocated moving the embassy to Jerusalem.

Friedman, who visited the Western Wall after his arrival on Monday, said Trump had given him "the unequivocal and unambiguous mandate to support the state of Israel in every way and in all ways".

"His love for and commitment to the state of Israel is rock solid and it enjoys his highest priority."

Netanyahu told Friedman his immediate visit to the Western Wall was "a strong gesture of solidarity."

"We look forward to receiving President Trump and we want to work with you and with the president these coming years to strengthen our great alliance."
Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram served twice as finance minister and also as the home minister in the Congress-led coalition which was defeated by the BJP in 2014

India's federal police on Tuesday searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son as part of an investigation into suspected corruption during his time in government.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing whether a finance company owned by Chidambaram's son Karti helped a client to circumvent limits on foreign investment.

The allegations date back to 2008 when his father, now a senior leader of the opposition Congress Party and vocal critic of the current government, was finance minister.

"We are investigating if there was criminal misconduct in (the) grant of foreign investment approval to INX Media," a CBI official said on condition of anonymity.

At the time, foreign investments were tightly regulated, and Karti Chidambaram's company is alleged to have helped INX Media bring in money from overseas.

Police also raided the former home of INX Media founder Peter Mukerjea, who is in jail on charges of murder related to the death of his stepdaughter.

Mukerjea was one of India's leading media magnates before his arrest in 2015 and is a former chief executive of media behemoth Star India.

Karti Chidambaram denied the allegations, while his father accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the younger man to wage a political vendetta against him.

"The government, by using CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends," he said in a statement, according to the Press Trust of India.

"The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing... I shall continue to speak and write," said Chidambaram who writes newspaper columns that are often critical of the government.

Chidambaram served twice as finance minister and also as the home minister in the Congress-led coalition which was defeated by the BJP in 2014 after a decade in power.

The party had been hit by a string of corruption scandals as well as perceived mismanagement of the economy.

In a separate case, income tax authorities raided properties linked to former government minister Lalu Prasad Yadav over alleged tax evasion and illegal land deals.

The raids were welcomed by Yadav's opponents in Bihar, a state he once presided over as chief minister and his party now rules in an alliance.

"Mr Yadav, already a convicted politician, and his family acquired several properties through illegitimate and illegal means which needs to be investigated," Devesh Kumar, BJP vice president in Bihar, told AFP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, which rules in New Delhi, is the main opposition party in the eastern state.
The Red Cross, which had briefly suspended operations in the Malian city of Kidal following a burglary at its offices last month, has suffered kidnappings of its staff in the past by jihadist groups

Four Malian Red Cross employees, kidnapped Sunday in the country's restive centre, have been released, a local official told AFP.

"The four Malian workers of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) were released Monday afternoon by their kidnappers. No ransom was paid," the local official said Monday on condition of anonymity.

"They are all in good health".

According to another official who saw the workers after they were freed, "the fact that they are all originally from the region is what probably facilitated their release".

"Our colleagues abducted in the region of Mopti have just been set free without conditions," ICRC tweeted a little after 8pm (2000 GMT) Monday. "Thank you to all who supported us to make this happen".

The Red Cross, which had briefly suspended operations in the northern city of Kidal following a burglary at its offices last month, has suffered kidnappings of its staff in the past by jihadist groups.

In April 2016, three Red Cross workers were taken hostage by Islamist group Ansar Dine in northeastern Mali, but were released days later.

However it is unclear who exactly was behind this weekend's kidnapping.

A foreign security source in Mali's north said the two kidnappers claimed "extremist" ties. A Malian security source had previously told AFP that the kidnappers were "probably Islamists".

The workers targeted in the kidnapping were "conducting a survey of the humanitarian situation" on Sunday around 7 pm "when unidentified and armed individuals said they had to come with them," the Red Cross had posted on Facebook Sunday.

Armed men abducted five Malian workers, the Malian security source had said, including one woman who "was immediately let go".

Northern Mali fell to jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in March 2012, and although these forces were driven out of key towns by a French-led military intervention the following year, the Islamists have now spread further south.

Three Malian jihadist groups with previous Al-Qaeda links recently joined forces to create the "Group to Support Islam and Muslims" (GSIM), led by Iyad Ag Ghaly of Ansar Dine, and have claimed several attacks against foreign and domestic forces.
Bali, a pocket of Hinduism in Muslim-majority Indonesia, is a popular tourist destination known for its tropical climate and palm-fringed beaches.

A man on trial for allegedly stealing large sums of cash from an ATM on the Indonesian resort island of Bali fled from court Tuesday by climbing out of a toilet window, police said.

Peruvian national Jose William Salazar Ortiz had been due to hear prosecutors' sentence demand at the hearing, one of the final stages of a criminal trial in Indonesia.

But after arriving at court, the 38-year-old asked security officers to go to the toilet before proceedings got under way, police official Gede Sumana said.

"After a while, Ortiz didn't return and officers became suspicious -- they thought he might have run away," Sumana told AFP.

Officers broke down the door of the toilet cubicle where Ortiz had been to discover the Peruvian was not there, and a small window inside was open, the official said.

After climbing through the window, police suspect he made his getaway from the court in the Balinese capital Denpasar by hailing a taxi.

They have launched a manhunt for the suspect and have alerted officials at the airport, the port and bus terminals to be on lookout for him.

Ortiz was arrested with two other Peruvian men in January for allegedly smashing open an ATM on Bali and stealing hundreds of millions of rupiah, local media reported.

They are also suspected of stealing money from ATMs on Indonesia's Java island, which lies west of Bali.

Bali, a pocket of Hinduism in Muslim-majority Indonesia, is a popular tourist destination known for its tropical climate and palm-fringed beaches.

Minor crime is common on the island but theft involving large sums is rare.
Heavily-armed soldiers seeking a wage bonus in Bouake, Ivory Coast's second biggest city, triggered a four-day mutiny across the country

Rebel soldiers in Ivory Coast on Tuesday agreed to end a four-day mutiny which drew in troops from across the country after reaching agreement with the government over a wages dispute.

"Calm has returned," said Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi. "The situation is returning to normal in all the military regions."

News of the deal was confirmed by a spokesman for the disgruntled troops, who said their financial demands had been met, ending a dispute which began in January.

"We have found a basis for agreement. We are returning to barracks," Sergeant Cisse Fousseni told AFP after a round of unrest that began early Friday.

The defence minister said banks had reopened and that civil servants could return to work and businesses resume normal activity.

The mutiny, which sowed disruption across the world's top cocoa-producing nation, saw soldiers shooting angrily into the air and heavy gunfire in Ivory Coast's two biggest cities, Abidjan and Bouake, in which one person died.

Map of Ivory Coast, where soldiers mutinied over a wage dispute

A second person died Tuesday of injuries from gunfire in the northern city of Korhogo.

There was heavy gunfire Monday at the country's largest military barracks in Abidjan, the economic capital, as well as in Gallieni camp in the city centre where banks, offices and department stores were closed.

Troops also seized control of Bouake, the country's second city, where sustained gunfire rang out. Border posts were closed, halting traffic to neighbouring Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

But the tensions eased considerably after news of the deal broke.

"We're happy, we haven't slept for five days," said rebel spokesman Serjeant Sidick. "Even we don't want any more mutinies. It stops here. But we didn't have any other way to make ourselves heard."

- 'Everything that was promised' -

On the streets of Bouake, troops left the southern entrance of the city which they had taken over, handing back control of the spiked roadblock to the police.

And life started to resume its normal pace, with most shops open and the main streets, which had been deserted over the past four days, filling up with shoppers.

The mutiny was the latest in a series of armed protests which began in January in the West African country, with troops angered by a wage dispute with President Alassane Ouattara's government.

In Ivory Coast's second city Bouake, troops withdrew from southern entrance which they had taken over, handing back control of the spiked roadblock to the police

That uprising ended when the government agreed to pay the soldiers bonuses of 12 million CFA francs (18,000 euros) each.

At the time, they were given a partial payment of 5.0 million francs with the remainder due to be paid this month. But the last payment never materialised, prompting the latest round of unrest.

According to sources among the rebel soldiers, the government has now agreed to give them an immediate payment of 5.0 million CFA francs with the remaining 2.0 million to be paid next month.

With the agreement, the soldiers have now secured "everything which had been promised in January," one source told AFP.

"We got what we wanted. Full stop," said another.

- 'Can't live like this' -

News that the mutiny was over was welcomed on the streets of Bouake although some appeared unconvinced it would be the end of the story.

"This is a real joy for the people," a farmer called Billy Kouassi told AFP.

"But it's becoming a habit. We can't live with this all the time."

Mutineers in Ivory Coast fire their weapons into the air to press home their demands for wage bonuses

"The mutineers are right. They should be paid. A mistake was made and they had to sit down behind closed doors... But giving them 7.0 million CFA francs? In plain view of people who are suffering?" he asked.

Also relieved was student Cyril Guede, but he too had his reservations.

"They say its all over and then they come back," he told AFP of the rebel soldiers.

"They're happy, they're at peace, they can eat but the people are suffering a great deal," he said, predicting it would only encourage further strikes by other soldiers, civil servants and police.

Ouattara took office in 2011 after months of deadly election violence in which more than 8,000 rebels supported him against troops backing ex-head-of-state Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to concede defeat at the ballot box.

Many of the rebels subsequently joined the regular army, which currently numbers some 22,000 troops.

Last year, the government unveiled a plan to modernise the military, part of which would involve the departure of several thousand men, mainly ex-rebels, who will not be replaced.
Commanders of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters, in the recaptured Syrian town of Tabqa as they advance in their battle for the Islamic State's (IS) bastion of Raqa

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces militia has advanced to within four kilometres north and east of the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion Raqa, a spokesperson and monitor said Tuesday.

The advances bring the SDF, a Kurdish-Arab alliance, closer than ever to the jihadist group's most important remaining Syrian stronghold.

But the fighters are still 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Raqa to the west, and they do not control any territory directly to the city's south, which is bordered by the Euphrates river.

The SDF "on Monday took three villages four kilometres (two miles) north of Raqa", spokesman Talal Sello told AFP.

The alliance also seized two more villages four kilometres to the east of the city on Monday night, he added.

"We are close to encircling Raqa from the east and the north, but we need to advance on the western front before launching the assault (on the city) at the right moment."

Last week, the SDF seized the town of Tabqa and the adjacent dam, around 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa, and the alliance will now push on towards their next target, the town of Al-Mansura.

The SDF has said the long-awaited attack on Raqa would start at the beginning of the summer, probably in June.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor confirmed the capture of the five villages, saying the SDF had advanced by four kilometres on the northern front and two kilometres on the eastern one.

"The SDF wants to link up its troops to the north and east of Raqa," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

IS fighters are still able to move in and out of the city via the area to its south, crossing the Euphrates by boat, according to SDF sources.

From there they head further south to the IS-held town of Al-Sukhna in Homs province, and onwards east, to Deir Ezzor province, which remains almost completely under the control of the jihadists.

The SDF launched an operation to retake Raqa city in November 2016 and it has received key backing from the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes on IS.
Firemen inspect Changi International Airport terminal 2 in Singapore on May 16, 2017

Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from Singapore's Changi Airport after a small fire erupted in a terminal that was later extinguished, authorities and witnesses said, delaying flights at the global hub.

Smoke swept through the airport's Terminal 2 building after a fire broke out in the departure hall, spurring authorities to seal off the area.

Three people were sent to hospital for smoke inhalation, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said on its Facebook page.

"A small fire occurred at the departure hall of Changi Airport Terminal 2. The fire has been extinguished by SCDF," the Singapore Police said in a statement.

Police said the fire alarm was activated at around 5:40pm (0940 GMT) as smoke poured from air vents, sparking an evacuation order and closure of the terminal.

Passengers on flights departing from the terminal on Tuesday evening "should expect significant delays," airport management said.

Singapore Airlines said it was "working closely with the airport authority and various agencies to ensure flights can be resumed in the shortest time possible".

An AFP reporter at the airport said the scene was generally calm as the departure and arrival halls were evacuated. Airport staff were also seen leaving but there was no panic.

M. Ramarao, 36, an Indian software engineer working in Singapore, was set to take a flight back home with his 18-month-old daughter when they were evacuated.

"I am very worried now because we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning for my daughter who fractured her arm, so it's quite urgent," he told AFP.

"If it's for one or two hours it's okay, but they shouldn't cancel the flight."

A Russian tourist who identified himself only as Alexander expressed hope his flight to Moscow would not be cancelled.

"They told us that there was smoke at a part of the airport," he told AFP.

More than 58. million international passengers passed through Changi Airport last year. The airport serves more than 100 airlines flying to some 380 cities worldwide.
Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets in Nigeria including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations

Three female suicide bombers have attacked a herding community in northeast Nigeria, killing two people and injuring seven others, according to a village elder and a civilian militia member.

Ali Musa said the trio, believed to have been sent by Boko Haram jihadists, struck at Shuwari Buri village, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri at around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Monday.

"Two of them rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives, killing two brothers who had retired for the night," he added.

"The third bomber detonated her explosives among residents who had gathered ... injuring seven."

The three bombers had earlier told villagers they were travellers and asked them for accommodation for the night. But they were refused on security grounds.

Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia assisting the military with security, gave an identical account.

Shuwari Buri is in the Konduga area, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings and gun attacks.

Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations.

Many of the bombers have been women and young girls.

The phenomenon has increased as the Islamist militants lost captured territory to the military due to a sustained counter-insurgency that began in early 2015.

The rebels' push for a hardline Islamic state in the region has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria alone and displaced more than 2.6 million others.

Civilians are still facing the fall-out from the conflict: 5.1 million people are severely food insecure and dependent on handouts from aid agencies.
Gunfire broke out between suspected Maoists and security forces in Chhattisgarh which left at least 16 insurgents dead, police said on Tuesday.

The firefight happened near Bijapur district in the same central state where rebels massacred 25 soldiers and injured at least six others last month.

D M Awasthi, chief of the Chhattisgarh anti-Naxal force said that more than 300 police and paramilitary troops had been tracking the rebels in a joint operation since the weekend.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 states in India but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, occupying thousands of square kilometres (miles) of land

'We can confirm at least 16 Naxals have been killed in the ongoing operation,' he told AFP, without elaborating on the circumstances in which they died.

There was however no clarity on when the gun battle took place.

Another police officer said the rebels were killed in two separate gun battles, and that a policeman was also killed.

Wounded Indian security personnel being treated in an army helicopter as they are airlifted to a hospital following an attack by Maoist rebels in Sukma district last month

'One of our jawan (troops) was killed and another two injured in the operation,' local police officer Mohit Garg told AFP.

Last month, in one of the deadliest attacks of its kind in years, rebels killed 24 police commandos as they guarded a road project in Sukhma district, making off with weapons and ammunition.

The government responded with operations across the insurgent-dominated, so-called 'Red Corridor' stretching through central and eastern India, where Maoist rebels have been engaging Indian forces in jungle battles for 50 years.

The guerrillas, who say they are fighting for the rights of tribal people and landless farmers have been locked in a decades-long armed conflict with the authorities.

The Maoists are believed to be present in at least 20 states but are most active in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, occupying thousands of square kilometres (miles) of land.

The decades-long insurgency is believed to have cost tens of thousands of lives.
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Iran's reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, on Tuesday pulled out of this week's presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, ISNA news agency reported.

"I will vote for Mr Rouhani in the presidential election," Jahangiri said as he announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.

"I have completed my historic duty and, together with you, I will vote for Rouhani to help continue on the path to progress for this country," he told a crowd of several thousand people gathered in the southern city of Shiraz.

"Vote for Rouhani because he is the man for difficult situations... I ran as candidate to make the voice of reformists heard," said Jahangiri.

His decision comes one day after Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf withdrew from the race, paving the way for a head-to-head battle between Rouhani and conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi.

Jahangiri, a 60-year-old confidante of the moderate president, was a surprise last-minute entry for Friday's election.

It was assumed Jahangiri ran to back up Rouhani in pre-election debates and he said at his registration that he stood "side-by-side" with the president who is seeking a second four-year mandate.
Saudi special forces take part in counter-terrorism exercises in Riyadh

A Saudi Arabian police officer was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade on Tuesday in a Shiite town, the interior ministry said, as deadly fighting escalated.

The interior ministry said a member of the special police emergency forces died when "a rocket-propelled grenade (was) launched from inside the neighbourhood" and hit his patrol unit in the Almosara area of Awamiya.

"Five others were injured and taken to hospital," it said.

The officer is at least the third person killed in the Gulf coast town of Awamiya since last Wednesday.

The unrest centres on Awamiya's old Almosara district, which is the site of a redevelopment project.

"It's really war," said an area resident who reported his home has been shaken by explosions

in the past two days.

On Friday the ministry said a two-year-old boy and a Pakistani died when gunmen from within Almosara opened fire on passersby, security officers and workers on the project.

Residents gave a higher toll.
Tawfiq Abu Naim (second left), head of the Hamas-run security forces in Gaza, during a press conference on May 16, 2017 on the killing of senior Hamas official Mazen Faqha, in Gaza City in March

Hamas released a recording Tuesday of the purported confessions of the men suspected of murdering one of its commanders in the heart of Gaza, allegedly on behalf of Israel.

At a press conference in Gaza, the interior ministry in the Hamas-run enclave broadcast a 14-minute video.

Images allegedly showed three men, presented as the murderer and his two accomplices, confessing to their roles in the death of Mazen Faqha, although their faces did not appear.

No independent bodies have had access to the suspects, and the images and recordings were impossible to verify.

"Widespread coercion, torture and routine deprivation of detainees' rights by Hamas security services in Gaza call into question whether these confessions were in fact voluntary or may have been extracted under duress," said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch director for Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Faqha, a senior member of Hamas' armed wing, was shot dead next to his home in Gaza City on March 24.

Hamas immediately accused Israel of carrying out the professionally planned operation.

On Monday, the group named Ashraf Abu Leila, 38, as chief suspect, saying he was arrested two weeks after the killing.

Two other unnamed men are alleged to have helped plan the killing with the help of Israel's security services.

The assassination in the middle of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip shocked the Islamist movement and raised fears of a new conflict with Israel.

The two have fought three wars since 2008.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the claims.

In the recordings broadcast on Tuesday, the chief suspect is not named but is identified only by his initials.

He confesses to cooperating with Israeli intelligence since 2004, with an Israeli agent asking him for information about Hamas bases.

His "last mission" was murdering Faqha, saying he shot him five or six times in the head and torso.

A security source recently indicated the suspect was a member of the armed wing of Hamas for several years before being expelled in 2008.

General Tawfiq Abu Naim, head of the Hamas security services in Gaza, said the assassination was prepared for eight months.

Shortly after the killing, the security services launched a campaign against so-called collaborators during which "45 people were arrested", he said.

On April 6, Hamas hanged three men accused of collaborating with Israel in cases unrelated to Faqha's death.
US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has pushed back against calls by at least two congressional Democrats for President Donald Trump to be impeached

Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi has pushed back against isolated calls from within her party to impeach US President Donald Trump following allegations he disclosed top secret information to top Russian officials.

The minority leader in the House of Representatives was responding to calls by at least two congressional Democrats for Trump to be impeached in the wake of Monday's explosive Washington Post report.

"I don't subscribe to that," Pelosi told a CNN town hall Monday night. "What are the facts that you would make a case on? What are the rules that he may have violated?"

"If you don't have that case, you're just participating in more hearsay."

House Democrats Al Green and Maxine Waters have urged Congress to impeach Trump in the wake of the latest bombshell allegations, coming on the heels of the shock firing of FBI director James Comey last week.

The lawmakers say Trump's dismissal of Comey -- who was overseeing probes into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election -- amounts to an attempt to hinder the counterintelligence investigations.

A number of media personalities urged the president to resign following the claim that he divulged highly classified information about the Islamic State group to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and its ambassador to Moscow Sergey Kislyak.

"The president should resign," wrote David Frum, a conservative editorial writer for the Atlantic, a call echoed by influential TV satirist Stephen Colbert who urged the US leader: "Donald Trump, if you're watching, first of all: You're a bad president. Please resign."

Constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe argued even before the latest explosive reports that sufficient evidence had accrued since Trump took office in January to merit launching an impeachment investigation.

"The country is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government," he wrote in the Washington Post at the weekend.

The US impeachment process -- a Constitutional method for removing the president or other federal officials from office on the grounds of "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors" -- involves several stages.

If a majority of the House votes in favor of impeachment, the Senate will then hold a trial.

To convict and oust the president the Senate must achieve the high threshold of a two-thirds vote.

No influential lawmaker has thus far spoken out in support of impeaching Trump.
Soldiers of the Kenya Defence Forces patrol at the scene of an attack by Shabaab militants in Mandera, on October 25, 2016

At least four people died on Tuesday when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device in a small Kenyan town near the border with Somalia, police said.

The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres (310 miles) further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists.

Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks.

Tuesday's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians.

"Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device."

Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected.

Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident.

The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers.

Notable encroachments into Kenya included the 2013 Westgate mall and 2015 Garissa University attacks, while the group also attacked the Ugandan capital Kampala in 2010.
Refugees sit on the floor at a camp for internally displaced people in Kaga Bandoro, Central African Republic, in October 2016

Thousands of people fleeing troubled Central African Republic have streamed into DR Congo following an outbreak of sectarian violence in the border city of Bangassou, the UN's refugee agency said Tuesday.

A UNHCR statement which described the flow as "massive" said at least 2,750 people arrived during the weekend in northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The flow continued in some areas early this week," the statement added.

A UN peacekeeper was killed at the weekend, the sixth in a week, in an attack in Bangassou by the mainly Christian anti-Balaka group from CAR.

The UN mission in that country, MINUSCA, said the assailants were members of a wide coalition including the anti-Balaka group who "attacked civilian populations, targeting in particular Muslims".

The UN has deployed 10,000 troops and 2,000 police to CAR following bloody sectarian fighting that erupted after the 2013 overthrow of leader Francois Bozize.

Among Africa's poorest countries, CAR subsequently descended into bloodshed pitting the anti-Balaka fighters against the mainly Muslim ex-Seleka rebels.

"The refugees who arrive are in bad condition with few personal belongings" and many are hurt, UNHCR said.

The UN agency said that DR Congo, which is also rife with violence, as of end March was hosting 103,000 Central African refugees.
High Negotiations Committee spokesman Salem al-Meslet, pictured in 2016, told AFP, "We will not walk away from Geneva or anywhere as long as we see on the horizon a solution for our people"

Syria's opposition pledged not to walk away from a new round of peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday despite rebel defeats in Damascus and US charges of regime atrocities at an infamous prison.

The sixth UN-backed round of talks got under way after Syria's government secured the evacuation of three rebel-held districts of Damascus through so-called "reconciliation deals."

The opposition has blasted these agreements as forced displacement, but the opposition said it was committed to seeing the negotiations through.

"We will not walk away from Geneva or anywhere as long as we see on the horizon a solution for our people," High Negotiations Committee (HNC) spokesman Salem al-Meslet told AFP.

According to Meslet, HNC members discussed two main topics during their first meeting with UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura on Tuesday afternoon: a constitution for Syria, and thousands of prisoners in regime jails.

"We focused on the issue of releasing detainees, and de Mistura focused on the constitution. No draft was presented during the meeting," Meslet said.

A new Syrian constitution is one of four separate "baskets" that UN-backed talks are focused on, in addition to governance, elections and combating "terrorism" in the war-ravaged country.

- 'Only believe in Geneva' -

De Mistura met with the government delegation, headed by Syria's ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, on Tuesday morning.

The opposition and regime sat down for face-to-face talks in 2014 but have since only held indirect negotiations.

Meslet on Tuesday said the HNC was willing to go back to direct interactions.

"If the other party cares about the lives of Syrians then we will sit (at) the same table in the presence of Mr. de Mistura and discuss all issues. We want a solution that ends this disaster in Syria," he told AFP.

Tuesday was the first time warring parties in Syria returned to Geneva since a landmark agreement was reached to create four "de-escalation zones" across some of Syria's bloodiest battlegrounds.

The May 4 agreement was signed in Astana, Kazakhstan by opposition ally Turkey and regime backers Russia and Iran.

Observers have noted that the growing momentum of the Astana track was putting additional pressure on parties in Geneva, but Meslet told AFP that a final political solution would only come through UN-backed talks.

"We only believe in deals that are agreed upon here in Geneva -- not in Astana," he said.
US President Donald Trump campaigned for office vowing to impose "a total ban on all Muslim immigration", raising concerns that he would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world

US President Donald Trump will urge unity between the world's major faiths on an ambitious first foreign trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Jerusalem, the White House said Tuesday.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster laid out a detailed itinerary for the "historic trip," due to start late this week, and confirmed that Trump would address a gathering of Muslim leaders on his "hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam."

Previous US leaders have generally chosen a US neighbor such as Canada or Mexico for their first presidential voyage, but Trump intends to plunge right into some of the world's most difficult spiritual and political conflicts.

In Saudi Arabia, after a day of talks with King Salman and his crown prince, Trump will attend a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world.

"The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America's commitment to our Muslim partners," McMaster said, adding that Trump will help open a center to de-radicalize extremists.

Trump campaigned for office vowing to destroy "radical Islamic terrorism" and impose "a total ban on all Muslim immigration" to the United States, raising concerns that his election would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world.

In office since January 20, he has already attempted to impose a ban on travellers from a group of mainly-Muslim countries, before his order fell foul of the US courts.

But McMaster stressed that Trump would be visiting sites associated with the world's great religions to stress "that we all have to be united and we have to be joined together with an agenda of tolerance and moderation."

- Western Wall -

US President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in February. The pair will meet again next week in Israel

After Saudi Arabia, Trump's voyage will take him to Jerusalem, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the Vad Yashem memorial to the Holocaust. The next day he will pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.

On the same day, he will meet President Mahmud Abbas of the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem on the West Bank "where he will convey his administration's eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends" the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian officials have put their hopes in Trump to revive the moribund peace process, but -- after early enthusiasm for the Republican billionaire's rise gave way to concerns -- Israeli officials have been on edge in the run-up to the visit.

McMaster failed to answer a direct question as to whether the US government considers the Western Wall to be within Israeli territory, and he said Israeli leaders would not accompany him on his visit to the site in Jerusalem's Old City.

"He's going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect with three of the world's great religions," McMaster said.

After Jerusalem, Trump will head to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis. The US leader will celebrate the contributions of Catholics to America and the world, discuss diplomatic issues with the pontiff and tour St Peter's Basilica.

After the Vatican, the trip takes a secular turn with a visit to Belgium to meet European Union officials and attend the NATO summit on May 24-25. He then heads to Italy and the island of Sicily for the G7 summit on May 26 and 27.
"The use of torture is unnecessary and wrong and must not be used again," said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday said the use of torture was "wrong" but faced criticism from a top rights monitor for not demanding an enquiry on alleged police excesses.

"The use of torture is unnecessary and wrong and must not be used again if it was being used as I see some groups claiming in the media," Museveni wrote in a letter to police and intelligence chiefs.

He expressed concern that security operatives "may torture the wrong person, somebody who is totally innocent," adding: "This is very unfair."

"Somebody may admit guilt when he is innocent in order to be spared being tortured," said the longserving leader.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has repeatedly cited use of torture of detainees in Uganda.

In a 2009 report entitled "Open Secret", HRW said torture and illegal detention were common in Uganda.

In response to Museveni's letter, HRW Africa director Maria Burnett tweeted regret that the president "didn't actually call for investigation, accountability for torture...and he should have."

Museveni's letter came after a number of accusations, including by a town mayor, of torture at Nalufenya prison outside the capital Kampala.

Photographs of Geoffrey Byamukama, mayor of the southwestern town of Kamwenge, in hospital with extensive injuries to his legs and back horrified many Ugandans when they emerged on social media last week.

Byamukama said the injuries were inflicted during questioning by police about the March assassination of Felix Kaweesi, a police spokesman.

Thirteen men also accused of involvement in the murder also showed evidence of injuries when they appeared in court on May 5.

One accused, Ahmad Senfuka Shaban, told relatives he had been beaten with cables, had boiling water and acid poured on his body and electricity shocks administered on his genitals.

Police spokesman Asan Kasingye said media claims the men had been tortured were "not true" and that the Uganda Human Rights Commission -- a government body - was satisfied with torture safeguards.
A policewoman holds an order of service ahead of a remembrance service to mark the 30th anniversary of the killing of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher (pictured) on April 17, 2014

A Libyan man suspected of killing a British police officer during a 1984 London protest against Moamer Kadhafi was released Tuesday because evidence against him could have breached national security.

The suspect, aged in his fifties, was arrested in November 2015 as part of the long-running investigation into the murder of Yvonne Fletcher.

The 25-year-old female officer was killed while policing what had been a small and peaceful demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London.

Her family said they were "deeply disappointed and frustrated" at Tuesday's news.

Supporters of Kadhafi -- the longtime Libyan dictator who would be killed in 2011 -- were holding a rival rally on the same day and "a number of shots were fired" from within the embassy, police said. Fletcher was fatally hit in the back.

The Metropolitan police said that although "enough material to identify those responsible" had been identified, it could not be presented in court.

"The key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security". After a review prosecutors decided there was "insufficient admissible evidence to charge the man".

In a statement released by police, Fletcher's family expressed regret.

"We had hoped that the latest turn of events would finally lead to some closure for the family," they said.

The killing of a woman police constable caused deep public revulsion and sparked an 11-day standoff with police outside the embassy, officially referred to as the Libyan People's Bureau.

It led to Britain severing diplomatic relations with Libya until 1999 and has long been an obstacle in ties between London and Tripoli, along with the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

In 1999, Libya accepted "general responsibility" for Fletcher's death.
A Libyan traveller packs his laptop in his suitcase before boarding his flight for London at Tunis-Carthage International Airport on March 25, 2017

A ban on laptops and other electronics in the cabin of flights from Europe to America will likely be further expanded to include additional countries, a US official said Tuesday.

In March, US authorities banned passengers on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in eight countries from bringing laptops, tablets and other electronic devices larger than cellphones into the cabin.

The Department of Homeland Security sparked deep concern in Europe last week when it said it would soon decide on extending the ban to European airlines.

It is "likely that the restrictions that were put in place in March could be expanded to other areas," Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan said.

"But not solely Europe -- extended to additional areas," he added, without giving details.

DHS Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke is due to attend high-level talks with European partners in Brussels on Wednesday.

Lapan said talks would consider the "scale and scope" of what the laptop ban might entail.

A US ban on now ubiquitous laptops could cause havoc, with more than 3,250 flights a week scheduled to leave EU airports for the US this summer, according to industry data.

Some experts also say there is a security risk in putting them with checked luggage given the danger of their batteries catching fire.

Lapan defended a prospective ban, saying authorities need to keep up with the changing nature of terrorist threats.

"How many attempts have we seen at bringing down a commercial airliner -- underwear bombs, using liquids, using (printer) cartridges," he said.

"It's always incumbent on us to figure out where those who wish to do us harm are going to next and try to stop that."

President Donald Trump is engulfed in crisis amid reports that he shared with top Russian officials details about an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes.
Nigerian troops have been told not to get involved in politics in a warning which comes with President Muhammadu Buhari currently in London for treatment for an undisclosed condition

Nigerian troops have been told not to get involved in politics, the army said Tuesday, in a warning likely to resonate given the country's history of coups and with the president currently abroad and ailing.

Army spokesman Sani Usman said the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, had been told some officers and soldiers had been approached "for undisclosed political reasons".

"On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts," Brigadier General Usman said in an emailed statement, without elaborating.

"He also reminded them that (the) Nigerian Army is a thorough professional, disciplined, loyal and apolitical institution that has clear constitutional roles and responsibilities."

Anyone wanting to get involved in politics should leave the army and any soldier "found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conduct such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame".

He added: "The Nigerian Army will remain apolitical and respect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria."

Nigeria has had six successful military coups since it gained independence from Britain in 1960, leading to decades of army rule that blighted development and fostered large-scale corruption.

The current President Muhammadu Buhari is a former army general who ousted the civilian leader in December 1983 and headed a military government for some 20 months.

Civilian rule was restored in 1999.

Buhari, now 74 and describing himself as a "converted democrat", is currently on medical leave in London for treatment to an undisclosed condition.

No date has been set for his return, fuelling speculation about the seriousness of his illness.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has been made acting president in his absence in line with the constitution.

Buratai put out a statement shortly after Buhari returned from a previous round of treatment in London in June last year and at a time of heightened tensions with oil rebels in the south.

It read: "Nobody is planning any coup."
According to the Washington Post, Trump disclosed highly-classified details about an Islamic State plot to plant explosives on laptops to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak

Allegations that President Donald Trump revealed top secret intelligence to a high-level Russian delegation to the White House have raised questions as to whether any crime was committed, and what the legal consequences might be.

- What was shared? -

According to the Washington Post, Trump disclosed highly-classified details about an Islamic State plot to plant explosives on laptops with a view to blowing up commercial airliners, and named the city in Syria where an intelligence source is believed to have gathered the information.

- Did Trump commit a crime? -

The president has broad powers to declassify secret material, experts agree. Some argue that just by repeating classified intelligence, the president effectively declassifies it, so no crime has been committed.

"I don't think he has done anything illegal. The president generally has the power to declassify material. But you could argue he has been reckless. Just because you are invested with legal authority to do something, doesn't necessarily mean you are right to do it," said Cristina Rodriguez, Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor at Colombia Law School.

- What rules has Trump broken? -

Some experts argue that divulging material that is so highly classified that the US intelligence community had not even divulged it to allies, let alone an adversary power such as Russia, could constitute a violation of the presidential oath of office.

The president swore to "preserve, protect and defend" the US Constitution, and sharing highly sensitive information with Moscow -- accused of interfering with the US election last year -- could be seen as a breach of that.

Such recklessness could be construed as "high crimes and misdemeanors" some legal scholars argue.

"It could very well rise to the level of impeachable offense. You don't have to have committed a crime for impeachment, you can face impeachment for abuse of power or abuse of public trust," said Rodriguez.

- Who might investigate? -

Any probe, or instigation of impeachment proceedings, would have to be launched by Congress. However, since the information was divulged to top-level Russians, and Congressional Democrats are already pushing for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate alleged collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, that independent prosecutor -- if named -- might also be able to take this case into consideration.

David Golove, a professor of law at New York University, said it would be one thing if Trump "just blabbed it in his inimitable manner" -- which could be construed as recklessness -- and quite another if he did it as a "sign of good faith" to build relations with Moscow: "That could be considered his judgment as a commander-in-chief, even if it might seem stupid or wrong," he said.

- Will Congress impeach Trump? -

Republicans are by and large standing by the president, so there is little chance of impeachment proceedings being launched. Public anger may put pressure on Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, who will have to weigh that against the political interests of his party. "As long as Trump is protected by the Republicans there is really no accountability," said Golove.

- What impact on intelligence gathering? -

Critics fear that America's allies will be loath to share sensitive material with US intelligence agencies if they fear the information could end up in the wrong hands. The New York Times reported the material came from Israel, and Russia has intelligence ties to the Jewish state's arch-enemy Iran.

There were also fears that Russia could exploit the information it obtained to track the source itself and prevent it being used against their own activities in Syria.

"Leaving aside the legality issue, the longstanding custom is that no one is supposed to in any way compromise sources of information," said Mark J. Rozell, Dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
Donald Trump's shock dismissal of FBI chief James Comey triggered accusations that the president was trying to obstruct the FBI's probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the November election his way

Donald Trump's beleaguered White House was rocked Tuesday by a pair of explosive allegations -- that he personally tried to quash an FBI investigation, and that he disclosed highly classified information to top Russian officials.

The Republican billionaire's administration, now just barely four months old, was left reeling by the one-two punch, which sparked instant outrage from Democrats demanding a full explanation.

Either claim on its own -- that he divulged top-secret information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during an Oval Office meeting, or that he pressed FBI director James Comey to drop a probe into ex-national security advisor Michael Flynn -- would plunge any White House into serious crisis.

But the reports -- both rebutted by Trump's team -- add to a mounting perception of an administration in a perpetual state of chaos.

As overwhelmed White House staff struggled to explain Trump's decision to tell Lavrov about a specific Islamic State bomb threat gleaned by Israeli intelligence, the New York Times dropped another bombshell.

The paper -- citing two people who read notes written by Comey -- reported that when Comey met Trump the day after Flynn resigned, the president tried to halt any FBI investigation.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Trump is accused of telling Comey, according to a memo written by the former FBI chief, who was sacked last week.

"He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

According to an alleged memo written by former FBI chief James Comey, President Donald Trump asked him to halt an investigation into Michael Flynn (R) because "He is a good guy"

In a letter to acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, the Senate Oversight Committee demanded that all memos and other documents or recordings relating to communications between Trump and Comey be turned over by May 24.

"If true, these memoranda raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede the FBI's investigation as it relates to Lieutenant General Flynn," wrote committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican.

- 'Absolute right' to share intel -

The White House quickly denied any suggestion that Trump was trying to obstruct justice -- a criminal offense -- in his dealings with Comey.

"While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation," a US official said on condition of anonymity.

"The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr Comey."

Probing the Russia connection

Trump spent much of the day trying to put to rest separate allegations that he revealed sensitive information to Lavrov and Moscow's ambassador to Washington, arguing he acted within the law.

White House aides refused to say whether the information pertaining to the group's bombmaking capabilities was classified.

But the president took to Twitter to insist he had the "absolute right" to share "facts pertaining... to terrorism and airline flight safety" with Russia.

- America 'being tested' -

Both allegations fueled calls for a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's ties to Russia and even raised questions about whether he could face impeachment proceedings.

"The country is being tested in unprecedented ways. I say to all of my colleagues in the Senate, history is watching," said top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer.

The party's number two in the Senate, Dick Durbin, said it was "one of the most serious allegations you can make against a leader -- that they're in some way trying to delay or obstruct the administration of justice."

And veteran Republican Senator John McCain called the allegations about the Trump-Lavrov meeting "deeply disturbing."

"The time President Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians was time he did not spend focusing on Russia's aggressive behavior," McCain said.

The Russian intelligence scandal also threatens to corrode trust among allies who shared classified information with the United States on the understanding it would be handled within the usual guidelines.

US President Donald Trump meets the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak at the White House

An administration official confirmed to AFP on condition of anonymity that the original intelligence came from Israel.

Trump is scheduled to visit Israel next week -- a trip that White House officials indicated would still go ahead.

"Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," said Israel's ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer.

- No security 'lapse' with Russia -

Earlier in the day, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster denied Trump had caused a "lapse in national security," saying it was "wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people."

McMaster also indicated that Trump could not have revealed sensitive sources or methods.

"The president wasn't even aware where this information came from," he said. "He wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either."

Trump, himself, appeared ready to weather the storm.

"We had a very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia," he told reporters firing a hail of questions at him.

"We're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible."

Trump's meeting with top Russian diplomats last week came one day after he took the rare step of firing Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia to tilt the 2016 election in his favor.

"On a day when we thought things couldn't get any worse, they have," Schumer said.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia Orchestra will return to national radio with a broadcast Monday night, and will appear three times a week for at least the next year on SiriusXM.

Philly.com (http://bit.ly/2qj5zhQ ) reports the orchestra has only sporadically appeared on national radio since losing the sponsorship of its nationally syndicated series in 1990.

The concerts recorded in Verizon Hall will be broadcast three times a week, making it the only U.S. orchestra to be part of SiriusXM's regularly scheduled programming. The orchestra's concerts are broadcast locally on Temple University's radio station, WRTI-FM.

Twenty-six orchestra programs will be repeated throughout the year. The orchestra is hoping the deal will be renewed in future years.

Ryan Fleur, the executive vice president for orchestra advancement, says "It's exciting to be back on the national stage."
Last Thursday, May 11, the Womens Board of the Adler Planetarium hosted their 15th annual Women in Space Science Award Celebration. This day-long event began with an award ceremony honoring a unique and accomplished woman in the field of space science and exploration, then culminated in an afternoon STEM workshop for local Chicago schoolgirls.

I had the pleasure of attending the celebration, which this year honored Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Interiors Program Manager and Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses. Virgin Galactic is the worlds first commercial spaceline, pursuing a goal that has graced the minds and dreams of both women and men since long before the first human beings orbited the globe: accessible spaceflight for all. As 2017s award recipient, Moses joins past honorees that include NASA astronauts Sunita L. Williams and Colonel Pam Melroy, astrophysicists C. Megan Urry and Vera Rubin, and president and COO of SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell.

The award luncheon at the Drake Hotel in Chicago included a keynote presentation by Moses. After the luncheon concluded, Moses gave additional presentations to the school groups visiting the nearby Adler Planetarium as part of the afternoons STEM activities.

The Women in Space Science Award Celebration is not only an important opportunity to shine the spotlight on a woman who has achieved success in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, and math), it is also a major fundraising effort to support ongoing STEM education programs at the Adler Planetarium. The remarkable turnout and success of the 2017 event helped to raise more than $130,000 toward this goal.

Spotlight on Beth Moses

Virgin Galactic aims to bring spaceflight within reach of everyone, ending its current exclusivity for all but a select few. The spaceline is already testing its craft for flight. SpaceShipTwo, Virgins versatile passenger spacecraft, will be carried to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) for air launch by the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft. Once set free, SpaceShipTwo will rocket away with up to six passengers and two pilots to altitudes of 62 miles (100km) or more before descending back to Earth.

An integral part of putting spaceflight into the hands of the public is astronaut training for the public  and an important question thus arises: How do you train the average citizen to become an astronaut?

A veteran aerospace engineer at NASA, where she helped to turn the International Space Station from a blueprint into a reality, Beth Moses is not only Virgin Galactics chief astronaut instructor, she is also its inaugural astronaut instructor. As she says, I don't just get to do this job, I get to create this job. Its never been done, we have to figure it out as we go, and that it can enthrall so many and space is opening up to the public is so amazing. Of her work, she adds that, No one has ever developed private spaceflight or private spaceflight training for the general public. And that is daunting and amazing and exciting.

Moses has been dedicated to space and spaceflight all her life. While she admits that there were classes and subjects in school she found challenging, she never considered giving up or faltered from that path, even when a well-meaning NASA advisor suggested she go into mechanical engineering, rather than aeronautical and astronautical engineering, because of broader job prospects.

Overall, Moses says she was surrounded by other aerospace engineers, first in school and later at NASA, who created an environment of support and belonging. Ive been really fortunate  everyone around me has always supported me and been equally passionate about the field, she says. You cant do it alone  theres no way you can build a spacecraft alone. You have to team up and that buoys everyone.

Moses is passionate, excited, and enthusiastic about her work and the incredible meaning it holds not only for the future of human spaceflight, but potentially the human race as a whole. Ive always had a passion for space, she says, and I think space and space travel and astronomy bring out the best in humanity, and I really feel its a great unifying force.

Her overall message is simple: I want people to realize that were doing this  humanity is doing this today, there is an International Space Station flying today. Sixteen countries have built it. Companies beyond Virgin Galactic are currently developing systems for private citizens to fly to space and it really unifies everyone. I think its cool. And I think its important  theres some thread of importance in there. It brings people together.

Adlers Women in Space Science Celebration

Moses message during her keynote presentation at the award luncheon was also one of unification. Space is the great unifier, she said, addressing a ballroom of more than 400 guests, including numerous family and friends; Moses grew up in nearby Northbrook and visited the Adler Planetarium regularly as a teen.

Award recipients are chosen based not only on their achievements, but also on the way their work provides inspiration for young girls seeking to pursue similar careers. Moses stressed that she was not there to speak just about being a woman in STEM, but rather about being a part of humanitys first endeavors to open spaceflight for all. Nonetheless, before embarking on her heartfelt and inspiring, presentation, she stressed, We [women] are not few and far between in the aerospace industry, adding, Engineers dont come in pink or blue.

The presentation included both personal memories of her hard work and achievements  including the support that made them possible  and a look at some of the recent test flights undertaken by Virgin Galactic as the company continues preparations that will send its more than 700 currently-ticketed customers into space, starting with the companys founder, Richard Branson.

Her presentation concluded with the same message of unity and, perhaps, peace. Spaceflight by nature is a global endeavor, she said, and the aim of Virgin Galactic is to open space to all to change the world for good. By allowing all of us the opportunity to see our planet from afar, traveling to space can lend a more global perspective to the everyday thinking of any and perhaps every citizen of Earth, reminding us that our world is fragile, beautiful, and shared.

Adler Planetarium Student Program

Following the luncheon, I accompanied the planetarium staff back to the Adler to check out the STEM workshops taking place. Around 250 middle-school girls from the area attended a short presentation by Moses, which included the opportunity to ask questions about her struggles, her inspirations, her goals, and her thoughts on the future of spaceflight.

The girls then headed to one of many team-based, hands-on STEM projects set up around the planetarium, including the Wind Tunnel Challenge in the Community Design Lab and Can You Land on Mars? in the glass-windowed planetarium cafe. The latter station focused on creating and landing a spacecraft (in this case, a paper airplane) on Mars (for workshop purposes, a full-color image of the planet). These students tested their designs under two sets of circumstances, first attempting to toss paper airplanes by hand (powered flight) in the hopes of achieving the right power and trajectory to land on the planet. Next, they tested their designs ability to reach their goal via unpowered flight, dropping their planes with the push of a button from a balloon at ceiling height, letting them free-fall to the planet and hoping their design would provide the right amount of glide to hit their mark.

At each station, Adler staff provided support and all the supplies necessary to let the students imaginations run wild, offering encouragement and guidance while focusing on letting the students work together to find the solution to their given quandary. Overall, the STEM workshop highlighted the benefits of group problem-solving and engineering innovation, two of the major points stressed by Moses as vital to aerospace engineers around the world during the days presentations.

This workshop is just one of many STEM education and outreach efforts put on by the Adler Planetarium, which this year celebrated the 87th anniversary of its opening in 1930 as the first planetarium in the United States. You can visit the Adler online find out more about the planetarium and its current and future programs for all students interested in space science and engineering.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Auburn University's failed, one-day fight to prevent a white nationalist from speaking on campus will cost nearly $30,000 in legal fees under an agreement approved by a federal judge.

School officials said they agreed to pay $29,000 in legal fees "to avoid more costly litigation costs" stemming from the university's attempt to block Richard Spencer from speaking in a campus auditorium last month.

A judge approved ending the suit on Friday, court records show.

The money will go to an attorney for Cameron Padgett, the Georgia man who filed suit to reverse the school's decision barring Spencer from speaking at Auburn.

Padgett, who called himself a libertarian interested in the free exchange of ideas, paid $700 to rent a room in the student union building for a talk by Spencer, a spokesman for the white nationalism movement whose appearances often draw critics.

Citing potential public safety concerns, Auburn reversed its decision and canceled Spencer's appearance, prompting a lawsuit by Padgett on the day the speech was scheduled, April 18. A federal judge held a hearing in Montgomery and ruled against Auburn, resulting in the talk being held as planned.

Several hundred people attended Spencer's appearance and three people were arrested outside the building during a clash between supporters and opponents of Spencer.

Sam Dickson, an Atlanta lawyer who represented Padgett, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) - Hundreds of armed rebels have agreed to withdraw from Central African Republic's city of Bangassou which they attacked over the weekend, killing a peacekeeper at a nearby U.N. base and displacing hundreds, the United Nations said Monday.

Cardinal Dieudonne Nzapalainga of Bangui led negotiations with the Christian rebels to stop the violence. By midday Monday, the U.N. mission in Central African Republic said "assailants have agreed to leave the city." It was unclear if they had begun to retreat.

A Moroccan peacekeeper was killed in Saturday's attack by some 700 anti-Balaka rebels who targeted Bangassou's Muslim district of Tokoyo and the U.N. base. Many residents said they locked themselves in their homes as the anti-Balaka forces controlled the city.

More than 1,000 residents had taken refuge in a mosque, some 1,500 others in a cathedral and 500 others in a hospital, humanitarian agencies said.

Doctors Without Borders said at least 21 people were wounded but access to the area is needed to determine the full toll.

Peacekeepers reported sporadic gunfire late Sunday, but on Monday the situation had calmed, according to U.N. mission spokesman Herve Verhoosel.

Before the cessation of violence, "armed men proceeded to destroy all of the bridges in Bangassou and had occupied the roads," he said.

Central African Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera on Sunday condemned the violence and reassured citizens that "Central African Republic will never be left in the hands of these sowers of death."

Touadera called on the leaders of the armed groups to "stop this blind and unjustified violence," warning that justice will be sought.

Fighting in the eastern region of Central African Republic has mounted in recent months. Five U.N. peacekeepers were killed in May 8 attacks near Bangassou. Clashes from May 6-7 in Alindao between sectarian rebel groups killed at least 37 people, according to the Red Cross.

Central African Republic descended into sectarian conflict in 2013. Violence continues in remote areas outside government control.

___

Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. (AP) - Stationing herself outside a bank building and holding a sign in the unforgiving midday sun, Katie Farnan was multitasking, as usual. She's a mother of two young children and works for a nonprofit firm but also has a third job: Chair of the town hall committee of the activist group Indivisible Front Range Resistance.

And at noon on this spring Friday, she was the very face of a protest movement run by amateurs that has provided the greatest challenge to President Donald Trump: A distracted mother dispensing fruit snacks to her sons, ages 1 and 3, while hoping to intercept a Republican senator attending a private meeting with bank employees.

"He sticks in my craw," Farnan said of Sen. Cory Gardner, who hasn't held a public town hall this year despite activists' pressure campaign. "It's my responsibility to try to get town halls with him and if I can't get town halls with him, I feel like--" She stopped, cut off by 3-year-old Leo's cries of "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

A few months into Trump's presidency, resistance to it is much like Farnan -- exhausted, sometimes exasperated, but determined. The initial electric jolt of the record-setting women's marches against Trump across the country and the spontaneous outpouring of protesters to airports the night Trump announced his initial travel ban on certain immigrants have given way to a long slog of activist trench warfare.

Though there's still plenty of protest aimed at the president, attendance has tapered off, and the self-described resistance has expanded its targets to members of Congress. In doing so, it's following both the tea party playbook and the recommendations of a pair of former Democratic congressional staffers whose Indivisible Guide has become a sort of bible to rookie activists.

The decentralized approach has been effective. Enormous pressure from constituents at town halls preceded the Republican-controlled House's decision to abandon a first bill to revise President Barack Obama's health care law. (A revised bill has since cleared the House.) Videos of angry voters shouting down congressional Republicans have gone viral. Donations to longshot Democratic candidates running for open congressional seats in Republican districts have skyrocketed.

Encouraged, activists are looking for fresh tactics and ways to maintain the energy. In February, Farnan's group held a town hall without Gardner, where constituents fired off questions to a cardboard cutout of the senator. It paid for a plane to fly over the Colorado Rockies' April home opener trailing a banner calling on Gardner to hold a town hall. And Farnan tried to squeeze more out of the bank demonstration by taking cell phone video of demonstrators offering questions they'd ask Gardner at a town hall, for a social media campaign.

Trained as a librarian, briskly efficient and perpetually upbeat, Farnan, 38, produced a box of chalk, drew pictures of a bulldozer and garbage truck on the pavement to captivate her boys, and moved through the protesters, filming quick clips. When, Jack, age 1, wanted to be picked up, she held him with one arm, her cell phone camera with the other. After an hour, she knew she had to go.

Farnan and Lisa Clark, who leads another brand-new activist group in the area, tried to figure out how they'd meet during the next day's tax day protests in Denver. "If anyone else wants to do videos, get them," Farnan called to Clark as she wheeled her stroller toward the car.

Clark, whose full-time job is raising her two children, marveled at Farnan's schedule. "I don't know how she does it," Clark said.

Farnan didn't make the tax protest the following day. She nearly collapsed Friday night and rushed to urgent care, where she was diagnosed with strep throat.

Before Election Day, Farnan was relatively uninvolved in politics. Born and raised in Ohio, she lived there until she and her husband David moved to Boulder in 2011. She was able to tele-commute for her 30-hour-a-week job as director of operations for a New York-based nonprofit. She volunteered for Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012, but didn't do the same for Hillary Clinton's presidential run last year. She had two young kids. Plus, she added, "I thought it was in the bag."

For a month after the election, Farnan was heartbroken and adrift. Her husband said, "It was more difficult from Nov. 9 to January because it was impossible to participate in any way."

Then, one day while browsing Twitter, Farnan saw a link to something called the Indivisible Guide. Her life was about to be changed by Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg.

Levin and Greenberg had met while working as staffers for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Austin, Texas. When Trump won, they were off Capitol Hill and working at liberal organizations. Despondent, they went back to Austin for Thanksgiving, and an old friend who told them about the energy among liberals in the wake of Trump's election. Like Farnan, people wanted to do something -- they just didn't know what.

Levin and Greenberg did. They remembered how the tea party movement sapped the momentum Democrats had after taking all branches of government in the 2008 election, using smart strategy and tactics, Levin said in an interview. "For a relatively small band of advocates spread out across the country, they were quite successful."

The two began writing a Google document, enlisting friends for input. In mid-December, Levin tweeted a link to it that ricocheted around the internet to thousands like Farnan.

"Immediately I was like, 'Oh, this is super easy, applicable and practicable,'" Farnan recalled. One suggestion was for people not to start their own groups but instead join an existing one - in her case, Indivisible Front Range Resistance. Two days after she signed up, she was at a protest.

The Indivisible Guide advises activists to "stall the Trump agenda" by fighting locally and playing defense. Bombard members of Congress with phone calls and meeting requests, it says: "A day that they spend worrying about you is a day that they're not ending Medicare, privatizing public schools, or preparing a Muslim registry."

Farnan's group deluged Gardner's office with calls and demonstrated outside. When Gardner did not schedule a town hall during Congress' winter recess, Indivisible members found him emerging from a private meeting and confronted him with questions. Days later, Farnan ran the town hall without Gardner, which drew more than 1,000 people. Such absentee town halls have become popular across the country.

As Congress' Easter recess loomed, Farnan was trying to come up with new tactics. After putting her sons to bed, she went to the finished basement of her split-level Boulder house. The only sign that this was the base of the resistance was a bumper sticker reading "#NotNormal Resist." Farnan turned on her MacBook. She and other leaders in her group communicate through 27 different Slack channels. One had proudly posted an image of a tweet he'd fired off that morning. "Brian's wife is in labor now but he's tweeting," Farnan sighed.

Her responsibility that night was to post a daily "call to action" -- various tasks the group's 4,000 members could perform the next day. Farnan read reports, memos and emails before settling on her plans. They ranged from calling the Republican leader of the state Senate to support legislation guaranteeing Colorado wouldn't round up Muslims to a health care protest.

But she didn't know what to do about Gardner. She didn't want to repeat herself with another town hall minus the senator. "We don't want to be the group that can't get anyone to show up," she said.

It was nearly 10 p.m. Farnan's gaze drifted to pictures of her sons on the mantel, and she grew downbeat thinking about the world they'd grow up in. "Every time I try to check out, I look at my kids -- and I get so depressed," she said. When she became an activist, she gave up her one leisure activity, guitar lessons. "My fingers have gotten all soft," she said.

As Congress' spring recess rolled around, Farnan got some relief from her workload -- her group, overloaded, scaled back from a nightly call to action to a weekly one. Other groups spearheaded protests.

Levin says that every congressional district in the country has at least two groups affiliated with the Indivisible movement. These organizations only need to agree to follow certain basic principles like nondiscrimination to get included in the network. Indivisible now has a Washington, D.C., office, which suggests issues to focus on but doesn't dictate tactics.

"These groups are all bottom-up," Levin said. "We're not Subway, we're not franchising."

In Colorado, the benefits of a decentralized resistance were clear. An Indivisible group in Republican Rep. Mike Coffman's district helped pack his first town hall of the year with hostile questioners. Another group affiliated with Indivisible, Clark's Together We Will, Colorado, heard about Gardner's private visit to the bank for a private town hall with employees. The following week, environmental and immigration activists smuggled a mariachi band into Gardner's meeting with members of the local chamber of commerce. Last week, demonstrators massed outside Gardner's office to protest Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey and to demand a special counsel for the Russia investigation.

At the end of the 2-week spring recess, Farnan and her family joined thousands of other demonstrators in Denver for the march for science. Icy grey clouds parted just as the march began. Farnan had 182 videos addressing Gardner in hand, including one she shot of herself, and she would post them. She felt that she and the movement had gotten over a hump -- keeping people engaged after the explosion of interest following the Women's March.

"People are looking at midterms. I don't think they're going anywhere," Farnan said, already talking about starting sessions training Indivisible members on how to become canvassers for upcoming elections. "We've passed a couple of critical flameout points."
JACKSON, Ky. (AP) - Curtis Bostic is an attorney, a politician and - for a few weeks in 2016 - an accused horse thief.

On a cold December day in the rugged hilltops of Breathitt County, Bostic was trying to rescue some horses he said had been abandoned and were malnourished. But he was arrested by a sheriff's deputy, who said the horses belonged to two men who follow the local custom of setting them free in the winter to wander the wilderness of the county's abandoned coal fields.

The charges were later dismissed after the sheriff's department said it didn't have probable cause to make the arrest. But during the night Bostic spent in jail, he came up with an idea: A few weeks later, he leased the land where he had been arrested. He sent a letter to the two men who had pressed charges against him. Now, they were the trespassers, and Bostic ordered them to come get their horses before he put them up for adoption.

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, cockleburs fill the mane of a wild or abandoned horse left on 4,000 acres of land in Jackson, Ky. Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, has leased the land and is attempting to turn it into a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

"I can't change the full county. But I can say you are not going to come to my property and drop your horse off in the cold winter," Bostic said.

Bostic wants to turn 4,000 acres of former coal mines into a horse sanctuary. It's the latest idea on how to tackle the growing horse population in the mountains of Kentucky, a state known more for pampered thoroughbreds on pristine farms than bony horses roaming free.

Bostic's descriptions of thousands of horses suffering at the hands of cruel owners have offended the locals who say he doesn't understand their culture.

Clifton Hudson, 30, owns five horses that he sets free to wander land he doesn't own near his home in Breathitt County. He said he provides 600 pounds of salt each month for the horses. He stopped hauling hay bales to the land because the horses were not eating them, a sign he says means they have plenty of grass to graze. The locals often bring their children to the mountains on the weekends to pet and feed the horses.

"It's just really it's more of a pastime than anything else with the people of the county," Hudson said. "So far the only person really had an issue with it has been Mr. Bostic."

Wild horses have been a familiar sight in the Kentucky mountains for decades. But following the Great Recession and the thousands of jobs lost because of the disappearing coal industry, more horses have been set loose.

Just how many and whether they have enough food is up for debate.

Dumas Rescue, a local animal rescue organization, told a legislative committee last fall that Floyd County alone had 1,000 horses. Owner Tonya Conn said they took in 22 horses last year but had to turn away requests for 100 others.

"Some of them have never been touched by human hands," she said.

Debby Spencer, a board member for the Appalachian Horse Center, said Floyd County has just 44 free-roaming horses, based on a census she conducted in 2014 across nine eastern Kentucky counties. She found 440 horses in eight of them, a number she said has since grown to 584.

"There is more than enough food up there," Spencer said.

Bostic lives in South Carolina, where he's a former member of the Charleston County Council and once ran for Congress, losing to former Gov. Mark Sanford in a 2013 primary. He's the general counsel for Kinzer Drilling Co., which owns the land Bostic has leased. He and his wife run an orphanage in Burma and own a private retreat in Charleston that has horses.

"We kind of enjoy being saviors of the world," he said.

But some don't see it that way. Hudson said a lot of owners will breed their horses in the wild, collecting and selling the offspring for side income. Bostic's lease threatens to disrupt that practice.

Breeding of free-roaming horses is tricky. Male horses, once banned from free-ranging based on an unwritten rule among local owners, are running free and mating with female horses without owners' knowledge. In September, Johnson County sheriff's deputies discovered 20 to 30 horses at a former coal mine. Three of the horses, all males, had been shot in the head.

"It looked like they were trying to thin the herd by killing the males," Deputy Terry Tussey said. "It's still an open case. We never found out anything."

Animal aid groups have hosted free gelding clinics in eastern Kentucky, but they depend on owners bringing their horses - and many lack resources to do so.

Local government leaders see the herds of wild horses galloping through the mountains and dream of tourists flocking to watch them. Such efforts have worked elsewhere, including ponies on Assateague Island in Virginia and mustangs at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota. But in Kentucky, a group trying to build the Appalachian Horse Center in Breathitt County has struggled to raise money.

The group has land not far from where Bostic was arrested. It plans to build a visitor center, offer guided tours and treat people with equine-assisted therapy. Local leaders hoped the group would partner with Bostic, but he isn't interested in tourism.

"I don't know how that would ever work," he said. "What I want to do is help the animals that are here."

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, photo, Jay Marshall pets the nose of a horse that has been left to graze on 4,000 acres of land, in Jackson, Ky. Marshall, working with Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, who has leased the land and is attempting to turning it into a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, photo, cockleburs fill the mane of a wild or abandoned horse in Jackson, Ky. Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, has leased 4,000 acres of land and is attempting to turning it into a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, looks over a small herd of horses that are either wild or have been left in Jackson, Ky. Bostic has leased 4,000 acres of land, and is planning on creating a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, photo, Jay Marshall feeds a small herd of horses that has been left to graze on 4,000 acres of land, in Jackson, Ky. Marshall, working with Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, has leased the land and is attempting to turning it into a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, Curtis Bostic checks his maps in an attempt to locate the herds of wild horses on land he leases, in Jackson, Ky. Bostic, who was mistakenly arrested for stealing horses has leased 4,000 acres of land in the hopes of turning it into a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2017 photo, mixture of wild and abandoned horses set free in the winter to wander the wilderness try to find food in Jackson, Ky. Curtis Bostic, an attorney from South Carolina, has decided to do something for the horses and has leased 4,000 acres of land and is attempting to create a horse sanctuary. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A former Cabot cheese employee suspected of stealing machine parts from the company and using them in his side business selling maple syrup production equipment is being investigated by federal authorities.

Randall Swartz is accused of buying parts for Cabot Creamery with company funds and then using them to build machines he sold in his business, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. He also is accused of directing other Cabot employees to work for his side business on company time, the affidavit said.

The FBI searched Swartz's Orleans home in March. No charges have been filed.

Cabot did not say whether the parts, which another employee told investigators were stainless steel piping, clamps, tables, pans and pumps, are used in any of its equipment.

Cabot, headquartered in Waitsfield, is known for its cheddar cheese. Its cheeses are sold nationally.

The Agri-Mark dairy cooperative, which owns Cabot, said it had uncovered information internally and had handed it over to state police in February. The state police are conducting an investigation with the FBI, Agri-Mark spokesman Doug Dimento said.

Swartz and his lawyer didn't return phone calls seeking comment about the case.

Swartz, who worked at Cabot for more than 20 years, was fired in February for stealing from the company, the FBI said.

Another Cabot employee told investigators that Swartz's scheme took place between 2010 and early 2017 and one of the machines funded by Cabot was sold back to the company for more than $19,500, according to the FBI. Swartz did not reimburse the company, the employee said.

Two other Cabot employees who worked with Swartz said they built the machines or parts for the machines and installed and maintained them for Swartz's business, the FBI said.

They said at least eight Cabot-funded machines had been built for Swartz's business since 2010, the affidavit said.

It's the second fraud investigation in recent years at Agri-Mark.

The former head of technology at Agri-Mark pleaded guilty in 2015 to wire fraud in connection with a theft of $1 million from the cooperative. Ronald Rup admitted buying unnecessary items for the company and converting them to his own use or selling them and pocketing the proceeds. He was sentenced last year to more than two years in prison.

The Burlington Free Press first reported on the investigation of Swartz.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - California's attorney general and state lawmakers again moved Monday in the opposite direction from the Trump administration, this time on penalties for criminals.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra termed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' blanket call for harsher penalties for criminals "crazy" and "stupid," while state senators voted to roll back penalties for drug offenders.

Sessions said Friday that federal prosecutors should file the toughest charges possible against most crime suspects.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra criticized U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recent announcement calling for a renewed crack down on criminals as "crazy' and "stupid" while speaking at the Sacramento Press Club, Monday, May 15, 2017,in Sacramento, Calif. Sessions said that federal prosecutors should file the toughest charges possible against most crime suspects, which critics say is a throwback to what they call a failed war on drugs. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The California critics said that is a throwback to what they called a failed war on drugs. They argued that the policy unfairly targets minorities for incarceration.

The state Senate approved ending an added three-year prison sentence for repeat drug offenders, sending the bill to the Assembly.

The three-year enhancement is a relic of "archaic, racist laws," said Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, pointing out that it resulted in minorities being imprisoned for possession of even minimal quantities of illegal drugs.

Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, who is black, said that when she envisions those caught up in the war on drugs, "I see struggling Californians, many of whom look like me."

Her SB180 would still allow offenders to serve the underlying prison or jail sentence. Supporters argued there is little evidence the enhancements deterred crime, and said violent offenders could still get longer sentences based on other factors.

"This bill seeks to treat career traffickers in the same exact way that an individual is treated for their first offense," countered Sen. Jeff Stone, a Temecula Republican.

The bill was approved on a 22-13 vote.

Senators also approved SB439, which could keep children 11 and younger out of juvenile courts. Counties could instead detain and treat the youngest juvenile offenders though their child services systems.

"Youth under 12 are inherently less culpable," argued Mitchell, who carried both bills with Lara. "They need our help, they need resources."

Stone argued that the measure gives children "a free pass until they reach a certain age to commit any crime that they wish."

That measure was sent to the Assembly on a 23-13 vote.

Becerra separately addressed Sessions' order to the nation's federal prosecutors while speaking at the Sacramento Press Club. Sessions was a federal prosecutor during the crack cocaine epidemic. He has promised to make fighting violence and drugs the U.S. Justice Department's top priority.

"It's like not learning from history," said Becerra, arguing that the policy will fill federal prisons and disproportionately target minorities.

"I think it's crazy. I don't understand it," Becerra said. "To the degree that we have anything to do with it we'll try to make sure California is insulated from that type of activity, but ... I can't stop them from being stupid."

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra criticized U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recent announcement calling for a renewed crack down on criminals as "crazy' and "stupid" while speaking at the Sacramento Press Club, Monday, May 15, 2017,in Sacramento, Calif. Sessions said that federal prosecutors should file the toughest charges possible against most crime suspects, which critics say is a throwback to what they call a failed war on drugs. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Moderate senators from both parties met Monday to explore whether they can work on bipartisan legislation overhauling the nation's health care system.

The evening session came as Republican senators have begun closed-door meetings aimed at crafting a GOP bill scuttling much of President Barack Obama's health care law.

With the political stakes high over health care, there seems little chance that a band of moderates from both parties would produce a package that will become the Senate's chief bill, at least until Republicans have exhausted efforts to produce their own legislation.

FILE - In this March 28, 2017, file, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, finishes a television news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington. Moderate senators from both parties met May 15 to explore whether they can work on bipartisan legislation overhauling the nation's health care system. Collins and Bill Cassidy, R-La., were organizers of the meeting. Attendees included several other Republicans plus three Democrats: Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Indiana's Joe Donnelly.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

But Monday's meeting underscored that Democratic and Republican centrists consider it important to show home-state voters that they are seeking middle ground and are not using the issue to score partisan points.

There are already divisions between conservatives and GOP moderates over what their party's bill should look like, with the two factions clashing over issues including Medicaid cuts. Republican leaders are hoping to produce a consensus GOP bill by this summer.

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bill Cassidy, R-La., were organizers of Monday's meeting. Attendees included several other Republicans plus three Democrats: Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Indiana's Joe Donnelly.

Collins told reporters the meeting was aimed at trying to "get away from the partisanship that has made it very difficult to come up with solutions."

In January, Collins and Cassidy introduced legislation that would give states the option of retaining Obama's law. As an alternative, states could enroll people in low-cost, high-deductible plans or let them purchase more expensive policies.

Cassidy said the bill he sponsored with Collins would be "a good place to start," but said senators were open to other ideas.

An aide to one Democrat who attended the session said the lawmakers discussed health care ideas in "broad strokes."

Manchin, Donnelly and Heitkamp all face re-election next year in states that Donald Trump easily carried in last November's presidential voting.

Republicans have long pledged to repeal Obama's 2010 statute and replace it with GOP policy prescriptions. The legislation is one of President Donald Trump's top priorities, and the party has little interest in easily abandoning its effort to show voters they are addressing their promise.

For their part, Democrats have refused to engage in talks with Republicans unless the GOP drops its repeal mantra and agrees to work toward adjustments in Obama's statute. Democratic leaders are in no rush to help Republicans in their drive to dismantle Obama's overhaul, which has fared poorly in public opinion surveys.

With unanimous Democratic opposition expected, Republicans holding a 52-48 Senate majority would lose if just three GOP senators oppose their party's plans. If they secure 50 Republican votes, the bill would pass because Vice President Mike Pence would break the tie.

Collins and Cassidy said they expected the bipartisan lawmakers to meet again.

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Associated Press reporter Erica Werner contributed to this report.
A look at what's happening all around the majors Tuesday:

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HOUSTON, PROBLEM SOLVED

Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish, of Japan, tosses a ball around in the outfield during batting practice before a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, May 14, 2017. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

After taking a step back last season, Dallas Keuchel has regained the form that earned him an AL Cy Young Award in 2015, and he can become the majors' first seven-game winner when the Astros play at Miami. At a time when pitchers are throwing harder than ever before, Keuchel (6-0, 1.69 ERA) is dominating with a fastball averaging 89 mph. The bush-bearded lefty has the second highest groundball rate among qualified starters (64.4 percent) and has pitched at least seven innings in all but one of his eight starts.

RUSHING RANGERS

Yu Darvish starts for Texas, which has won six in a row and taken all five on this homestand with late rallies. The two-time AL West champion Rangers can reach .500 for the first time this season by beating Philadelphia, which has lost eight of 10. Darvish is 7-2 with a 2.26 ERA in 12 interleague starts.

BAD NEWS, BEARS

The sputtering Chicago Cubs try to get back on track when they host Cincinnati to open a 10-game homestand. The World Series champions have dropped seven of nine, including two of three at St. Louis to wrap their most recent road trip. After trailing only the Red Sox and Rockies in runs last season, Chicago ranks 13th in the majors this year. Meanwhile, starters Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks and John Lackey all have higher ERAs this year than last. Lackey (3-3, 4.29) will get first crack at the Reds, opposing veteran Bronson Arroyo (3-2, 5.94).

THICKER SKIN?

Rich Hill and the Los Angeles Dodgers hope he's finally put his recurring blister problems behind him. After missing a month, the left-hander comes off the disabled list to start in San Francisco. Hill (1-1, 3.38 ERA) has totaled only eight innings in two major league starts this season, but recently tossed five hitless innings in a rehab outing for Class A Rancho Cucamonga. The last time he came off the DL in April, he re-aggravated the blister on his left middle finger and lasted only 54 pitches.

GOOD AS GREINKE

Zack Greinke (4-2, 2.79 ERA) tries to follow up an outstanding performance with another one when he starts for Arizona against the visiting New York Mets. Greinke took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning last Thursday before Gregory Polanco hit a leadoff homer for Pittsburgh. The right-hander struck out 11 and walked one in a 2-1 victory.

NAME GAME

There's been a fun meet-and-greet session this week at Progressive Field - Cleveland outfielder Daniel Robertson finally bumped into Daniel Robertson of the Rays. They grew up near each other in California, but had never met. The Indians' Robertson is 31 and played for the first time with his new team last weekend; Tampa Bay's Robertson is 23 and made his big league debut this year.

St. Louis Cardinals' Dexter Fowler, bottom, collides with Chicago Cubs second baseman Tommy La Stella as he tries to break up a double play during the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, May 13, 2017, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Russian billionaire with ties to Vladimir Putin sued The Associated Press on Monday for defamation over a story about his connections to a former Trump campaign chairman.

Aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska claimed in the federal defamation and libel lawsuit that the AP's March 22 story about his business dealings with Paul Manafort was inaccurate and hurt his career by falsely accusing him of criminal activity.

The AP's general counsel, Karen Kaiser, said the news organization stands by its story and will defend itself vigorously.

The AP reported that before signing up with Donald Trump, Manafort secretly worked for Deripaska with a plan to "greatly benefit the Putin government."

The story was based on interviews with people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Those records included strategy memoranda and records of international wire transfers for millions of dollars.

The story said Manafort proposed as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin's government. Manafort pitched the plans to Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006. The story said how much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.

The story said Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009 but noted the two later had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands bankruptcy court.

After the AP story was published, Deripaska purchased advertisements in U.S. newspapers calling the reporting a "malicious assertion and lie," saying he never made any commitments or contracts to covertly promote or advance Putin's interests. He also said he was willing to take part in U.S. congressional hearings to discuss his past business relationship with Manafort.
WASHINGTON (AP) - For months, U.S. allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets.

Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry. The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump revealed highly classified information about an Islamic State plot to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week. The information had been obtained by a U.S. partner and shared with Washington, the Post reported.

"This is what Europeans have been worrying about," one Western official said.

President Donald Trump smiles while meeting with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Monday, May 15, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

The revelations are sure to shadow Trump as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. After high-stakes visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican, he'll meet some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily. Some of the leaders he'll meet come from countries the U.S. has intelligence-sharing agreements with.

Trump has a contentious relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates.

The leaks have only continued to flow.

The Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, said Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting.

The White House has looked to the trip as a moment to draw Trump out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favorable to his interests than former President Barack Obama.

But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by U.S. courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine.

The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the U.S. leader's standing.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's "actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party."

"Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas," Cordesman said.

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Editor's Note: Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - In Vietnam's latest crackdown on dissent, police have arrested an activist who organized a protest against a polluting steel plant, saying he instigated demonstrators to attack and injure several police officers.

A statement on the website of Nghe An provincial police in central Vietnam said 34-year-old Hoang Duc Binh was taken into custody Monday for allegedly "abusing democratic rights to infringe on the interests of the state, the rights and legitimate interests of organizations and citizens," and opposing officers on duty.

Police said his alleged incitement of protesters at a local government office in April caused public disorder.

The protests was among several in recent months over massive fish deaths last year in four central provinces that were caused by the release of pollutants from a steel complex by Taiwanese firm Formosa Plastic Group. The incident, Vietnam's worst environmental disaster, has devastated fishing communities and tourism. Formosa has been fined $500 million.

The provincial government said in a statement that after Binh's arrest, hundreds of protesters Monday used logs, stones and bricks to disrupt traffic on Highway 1, the country's main north-south road. The provincial government blamed a Catholic priest, Nguyen Dinh Thuc, of instigating the protest to demand Binh's release.

Thuc has not been arrested, but the government said his "repeated law violations must be condemned and be seriously dealt with in accordance with the law."

Also on Monday, the Standing Committee of the rubber-stamp National Assembly accepted the resignation of Vo Kim Cu as a deputy of the assembly for his role in the Formosa disaster when he served as party chief and chairman of the people's committee of Ha Tinh province, where the plant is located, the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

Last week, police in neighboring province of Ha Tinh issued an arrest warrant for fellow activist Bach Hong Quyen for allegedly disturbing public disorder.

International human rights groups and some Western governments have often accused Vietnam of jailing people for peacefully expressing their views. Hanoi maintains that only lawbreakers are put behind bars.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council agreed unanimously late Monday that the stalemate between Sudan and South Sudan over the status of the oil-rich region of Abyei has gone on for too long and gave the countries a final six months to implement joint border monitoring.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission has been in Abyei since June 2011 and the council also voted to reduce its military ceiling to 4,791 troops. It was 5,326 in October.

The council's unanimous actions reflected the Trump administration's determination to reform the U.N.'s far-flung peacekeeping operations and take action when missions aren't able to carry out their mandates.

Sudan's north and south fought a civil war that lasted decades and killed some 2 million people. It ended with a 2005 peace deal that required both sides to peacefully resolve the final status of oil-rich border region of Abyei, and gave the south the right to hold a self-determination vote.

It voted overwhelmingly to secede in January 2011 and six months later South Sudan became an independent nation - but the future of Abyei has remained unresolved.

The Security Council on Monday urged the governments of Sudan and South Sudan "to resume direct negotiations in order to urgently agree on a final settlement of the Abyei question" and establish an administration and council for the disputed region.

The resolution expressed renewed concern at "the delays and stalled efforts to fully operationalize" the Joint Border Verification Monitoring Mechanism. It also called on both parties to uphold their commitments in a July 2011 agreement, including to resume border demarcation discussions.

U.S. deputy ambassador Michele Sison told the council that five years of obstacles to deploy the joint border monitoring operation "is enough."

"Regrettably, since 2011 the governments of Sudan and South Sudan have consistently lacked commitment to engage in the work necessary to resolve Abyei's final status" and to establish interim measures they previously agreed on to jointly administer and police the area, Sison said.

Sison said U.N. peacekeeping operations must be effective and the U.S. welcomed the Security Council's decision to give the two countries a final six months to make the monitoring operation fully functional.

South Sudan's ambassador, Joseph Moum Malok, told the council that the U.N. peacekeeping mission "is the best thing that has happened to Abyei in its long history of struggle" toward promoting peace and stability.

He warned that withdrawal of U.N. support for the monitoring operation "will negatively impact" implementation of the agreement between the two countries "by emboldening each side to take a more combative posture along the border." He also warned that this "may lead to proxy conflicts along the South Sudan-Sudan border."

But Malok said South Sudan is encouraged by the recent improvement in relations with Sudan and expressed hope that this can lead to greater cooperation including on Abyei.

Sudan Charge d'affaires Magdi Ahmed Mofadal told the council that to activate the border monitoring mechanism South Sudan has to keep its commitments "in order to create the safe, demilitarized border zone."

He said the Sudanese government is committed to implementing the decisions of political meetings in Addis Ababa on Abyei on Sunday and Monday. He expressed hope that they "will constitute a new start to normalize relations between the two countries, and to address any concerns, especially security concerns."

"We call on our brothers in South Sudan to engage seriously with the government of the Sudan and with the African Union to create the Abyei institutions provided for in the agreement of June 2011 in order to determine the final status of the area," Mofadal said.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Javier Valdez was driving in broad daylight down a street he must have known well, just a block from his office, when he became the latest victim of a wave of journalist killings that has hit Mexico.

Masked gunmen forced Valdez from his red Toyota Camry, shot him dead and left his body in the middle of the street Monday, said Riodoce, the publication he helped start.

The car was found later in the afternoon on a sidewalk next to an elementary school, wedged between a utility pole and a wall with the motor still running and the gears engaged.

In this photo released by Riodoce, journalist Javier Valdez poses for a photo an unknown location in Mexico. Valdez, a veteran reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday, May 15 2017, in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in one of the world's most dangerous countries for media workers. Valdez is the fifth journalist to be murdered in Mexico in just over two months, and the second high-profile reporter to be slain in the country this decade after Regina Martinez Perez, who was killed in 2012. (Riodoce via AP)

Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain in the northern state of Sinaloa, long a hotbed of drug cartel activity.

He is at least the sixth journalist murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the world's deadliest countries for media professionals.

Reporting on Valdez's killing, Mexican media posted images showing a body lying in the street covered by a blue blanket and surrounded by 12 yellow markers of the kind typically used to flag evidence such as bullet casings. Riodoce said Valdez's laptop and cellphone were missing.

Prosecutors announced they were investigating whether the killing may have been due to Valdez's work or a carjacking turned deadly. President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned what he called an "outrageous crime."

Valdez, also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, was an internationally recognized journalist who authored several books on the drug trade.

He was considered a rare source of independent, investigative journalism in Sinaloa, said Jan-Albert Hootson, the Mexico representative for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

"And for that same reason, he and his magazine and his co-workers were always under threat of violence," Hootson said.

According to CPJ, in 2009 unknown attackers threw a grenade into the Riodoce offices days after it published an investigation on drug trafficking. No one was hurt.

By the group's count, some 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico for reasons confirmed as related to their work since 1992. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.

Journalists targeted in Mexico are most often local reporters in places where the rule of law is tenuous, but there have also been killings of journalists with national profiles such as Valdez and Regina Martinez Perez, who was slain in 2012. The recent spate of slayings includes Miroslava Breach, correspondent for La Jornada in the northern state of Chihuahua, who was gunned down in March.

Sinaloa has long been a drug trafficking center and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. Experts say Guzman's arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the gang.

"Drug trafficking there is a way of life," Valdez said in an October interview with Rompeviento TV. "You have to assume the task that falls to you as a journalist - either that or you play dumb. I don't want to be asked, 'What were you doing in the face of so much death ... why didn't you say what was going on?'"

Hootson described Valdez as a warm, friendly man, well-liked by other journalists who frequently sought his help to navigate and understand the complex, dangerous state.

"His door was always open. ... Everybody always deferred to his knowledge," Hootson said. "And in that sense, it's a huge loss for everybody."

Valdez was recognized with the International Press Freedom Award in 2011 by CPJ, which released a report this month warning that widespread impunity leaves journalists vulnerable to attacks in Mexico.

Last Wednesday, the federal Attorney General's Office replaced the head of its division responsible for investigating journalist killings. Ricardo Sanchez Perez del Pozo, a lawyer with a background in international law and human rights, took over the post.

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Peter Orsi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi
MOONACHIE, N.J. (AP) - A plane that crashed near a small airport outside New York City, killing two crew members, didn't report any problems to air traffic controllers a minute before it nosedived, a federal investigator said Tuesday.

The Learjet crash Monday afternoon in an industrial area near Teterboro Airport caused a fire that damaged two buildings and burned 16 cars in a parking lot. The plane struck a building, but no one on the ground was injured.

Jim Silliman, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said Tuesday it appeared from air traffic control audio tapes that the plane's approach was going smoothly right before the crash.

A firefighter stands looks over the scene after a jet crashed into a building near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., Monday, May 15, 2017. (Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media via AP)

"It seemed they were talking to the aircraft while it was on approach and the pilots didn't give any sense of an extreme situation or identify any problem with the aircraft at the time," he said.

Silliman said the voice recorder had been recovered and was being shipped to NTSB headquarters. He said the flight wasn't required to have a data recorder.

He said the wind at the time of the crash "was a concern." Winds were gusting at more than 30 mph and controllers would have tried to have the plane head into the wind to avoid crosswind.

The plane was listing to the right with its nose down at the time of impact, indicating it was out of control, Silliman added, referring to video that shows the plane crashing into the ground nose-first. "Why it got there is of course the subject of the investigation," he said.

The crash has dredged up dormant fears among residents who live within yards of where corporate jets take off and land.

The airport sits in a densely populated area just north of MetLife Stadium, home to the NFL's Jets and Giants, and has been a battleground over the years over the types and number of planes that should be allowed to land there.

Residents of a community of trailer homes that sits across a street from the end of one of Teterboro's runways are accustomed to the sound of planes taking off and landing.

John Falbo, who has lived in the New Jersey community for four years, said he can even smell the jet fuel as the planes pass by. Planes skirt one side of the development, but helicopters pass right over, he said.

Monday's crash "hit so close," Falbo said. "If it had hit here, this place would have gone up like a Roman candle."

New Jersey lawmakers, most notably former Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, have successfully fought off attempts by the Federal Aviation Administration to allow business jets weighing more than 100,000 pounds to use Teterboro. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez recently wrote a federal budget measure to continue that restriction. Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area.

Over the years, air carriers have agreed to a nighttime curfew and a ban on the noisiest planes at the airport. That hasn't altered the fundamental equation for people who live nearby, said Mark Pfeifle, who also lives across the road from the runway.

Pfeifle said Monday's crash reminded him of the potential dangers.

"It could have hit us and could have took our homes out," he said. "A lot of people in here don't exactly have a lot of money, and it could have done a lot of damage."

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. A man can be seen running across a parking lot toward the crash site as thick, black smoke spews into the air.

The two pilots involved in Monday's deadly crash were employed for about a year by Honolulu-based Trans-Pacific Jets, according to company spokesman Ryan Frost. Frost and Silliman both declined to release their names. Frost said that the captain had more than 15 years of experience and had previously flown the same plane for another company. The other pilot had about three or four years of experience.

He said the two were returning to Teterboro to stay in a hotel after earlier flying from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, and then onto Philadelphia.

"The captain and the crew were fully trained, highly experienced professionals and it's a tragedy for the company," Frost said. "They were very experienced in both that type of aircraft, and actually they flew that particular aircraft quite a bit."

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Associated Press writer Caleb Jones, in Honolulu, Hawaii, contributed to this story.

Firefighters respond after a jet crashed into a building near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., Monday, May 15, 2017. (Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Advance Media via AP)

Police officers walk near the site of a deadly small plane crash near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., just west of New York City, Monday, May 15, 2017. Police said the Learjet 35 crashed into a building near the airport sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

In this image provided by the Town of Carlstadt firefighters respond after a jet crashed into a building near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., Monday, May 15, 2017. (Joe Orlando/Town of Carlstadt via AP)

In this image provided by the Town of Carlstadt smoke rises after a jet crashed into a building near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., Monday, May 15, 2017. (Joe Orlando/Town of Carlstadt via AP)

Police officers take pictures near the site of a deadly small plane crash near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., just west of New York City, Monday, May 15, 2017. Police said a Learjet 35 crashed into a building near the airport sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A police officer walks near the site of a deadly small plane crash near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., just west of New York City, Monday, May 15, 2017. Police said a Learjet 35 crashed into a building near the airport sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A firefighter walks near the site of a deadly small plane crash near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., just west of New York City, Monday, May 15, 2017. Police said a Learjet 35 crashed into a building near the airport sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A firefighter walks near the site of a deadly small plane crash near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, N.J., just west of New York City, Monday, May 15, 2017. Police said a Learjet 35 crashed into a building near the airport sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A conservation group says a rare albino orangutan rescued in Indonesia has been named "Alba" after thousands of suggestions were sent from around the world.

The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation said the name means "white" in Latin and "dawn" in Spanish. It hopes the animal will be an ambassador for the critically endangered species.

The 5-year-old female was rescued from captivity in a village on Indonesia's part of Borneo island on April 29. It was the first albino orangutan to be encountered by the foundation in its 25 years of conservation work.

FILE - In this April 30, 2017, file photo released by Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), an albino orangutan sits in a cage as it's being quarantined at a rehabilitation center in Nyaru Menteng, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The BOSF says the rare albino orangutan rescued in Indonesia on April 29, 2017 has been named "Alba" after thousands of suggestions were sent from around the world. (Indrayana/BOSF via AP, File)

The group is collecting information on albinism in great apes to help it decide the primate's future.

"We can't simply place Alba in a forest area, nor in a sanctuary, without thoroughly examining all possibilities," the foundation's CEO, Jamartin Sihite, said in a statement.

The orangutan was dehydrated, weak and suffering from a parasitic infection when rescued. After days of special care, Alba's appetite has improved and her weight has increased by several kilograms, the foundation said.

Orangutans, reddish-brown primates known for their gentle temperament and intelligence, live in the wild only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and on Borneo, which is divided among Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the number of Bornean orangutans has dropped by nearly two-thirds since the early 1970s and will further decline to 47,000 by 2025.

Bornean orangutans were declared critically endangered by the IUCN last year due to hunting for their meat and conflicts with plantation workers, which kills 2,000 to 3,000 a year, and destruction of tropical forests for plantation agriculture. The only other orangutan species, the Sumatran orangutan, has been critically endangered since 2008.

FILE - In this undated file photo released by Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), an albino orangutan sits in a cage as it's being quarantined at a rehabilitation center in Nyaru Menteng, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The BOSF says the rare albino orangutan rescued in Indonesia on April 29, 2017 has been named "Alba" after thousands of suggestions were sent from around the world. (Indrayana/BOSF via AP, File)

FILE - In this May 2, 2017, file photo released by Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), an albino orangutan stands in an enclosure at a rehabilitation center in Nyaru Menteng, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The BOSF says the rare albino orangutan rescued in Indonesia on April 29, 2017 has been named "Alba" after thousands of suggestions were sent from around the world. (Indrayana/BOSF via AP, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - New South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House next month for a summit with President Donald Trump amid worries over North Korea's progress in building a nuclear and missile arsenal, Seoul's presidential office said Tuesday.

The agreement for the leaders to meet in late June followed a meeting in Seoul between Chung Eui-yong, Moon's foreign policy adviser, and Matt Pottinger, the Asia director on Trump's National Security Council, Moon's spokesman Yoon Young-chan said.

The announcement came days after North Korea successfully tested a powerful new missile that analysts believe could reach Alaska when perfected.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, front right, shakes hands with Matt Pottinger, left, Special Assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump and National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for East Asia, during a meeting at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. South Korean media say the nation's new president will visit the White House late next month amid worries over North Korea's escalating progress in its nuclear and missile arsenal. (Yonhap via AP)

Under the leadership of third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been speeding up its pursuit of a decades-long goal of developing nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

North Korea conducted two nuclear tests last year which are likely to have improved its know-how in making nuclear weapons small enough to fit on long-range missiles. Experts say the "medium long-range" Hwasong-12 missile the North fired on Sunday achieved a higher altitude and longer flight time than any other missile the country has tested.

Also Tuesday, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the top American military officer in the Pacific, met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo to discuss the North Korean missile launch. They said the North's "unacceptable" action underscored the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

"We now need to apply pressure on North Korea, and Japan and the United States need to coordinate closely so as to apply pressure," Abe told reporters.

Yoon said Chung and Pottinger in their meeting reaffirmed that Seoul and Washington share a common goal in the "complete discarding" of North Korean nuclear weapons and will pursue "all methods, including sanctions and dialogue" to reach the goal. The allies agreed that dialogue with North Korea could happen under the "right conditions," Yoon said.

"There was a basic exchange of opinions about North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations," Yoon said about the meeting between Chung and Pottinger. "The United States reconfirmed its firm commitment to defend South Korea and both sides also agreed to strengthen collaborative efforts to deter North Korean provocations."

A date and other specifics of the summit are still to be decided, Yoon said. He said the countries will prepare for the summit so that it "serves as an opportunity for both leaders to develop their personal bond and friendship." Pottinger later told reporters that the countries reaffirmed "desires to get the two leaders together quickly" following a telephone conversation last week that Trump used to invite Moon to the White House.

"The state of the alliance is strong and I am fully confident that it will only grow stronger between our two administrations," Pottinger said.

Moon, a liberal, favors a softer approach to North Korea than his conservative predecessors and has offered to visit Pyongyang if the circumstances are right. He has shown a willingness to challenge the United States, saying that Seoul should reconsider its deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system to better cope with North Korean threats. However, Washington remains Seoul's closest ally and military protector.

Moon took office last week after winning an election triggered by the ouster of his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office and jailed in March over corruption allegations. Moon has criticized Park's hard line against the North, saying the approach did nothing to prevent the North from expanding its nuclear weapons and missiles arsenal and only reduced Seoul's voice in international efforts to deal with its rival.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - When researchers traveled to a tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they were astonished to find an estimated 38 million pieces of trash washed up on the beaches.

Almost all of the garbage they found on Henderson Island was made from plastic. There were toy soldiers, dominos, toothbrushes and hundreds of hardhats of every shape, size and color.

The researchers say the density of trash was the highest recorded anywhere in the world, despite Henderson Island's extreme remoteness. The island is located about halfway between New Zealand and Chile and is recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site.

In this 2015 photo provided by Jennifer Lavers, plastic debris is strewn on the beach on Henderson Island. When researchers traveled to the tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they were astonished to find an estimated 38 million pieces of trash washed up on the beaches. (Jennifer Lavers via AP)

Jennifer Lavers, a research scientist at Australia's University of Tasmania, was lead author of the report, which was published Tuesday in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Lavers said Henderson Island is at the edge of a vortex of ocean currents known as the South Pacific gyre, which tends to capture and hold floating trash.

"The quantity of plastic there is truly alarming," Lavers told The Associated Press. "It's both beautiful and terrifying."

She said she sometimes found herself getting mesmerized by the variety and colors of the plastic that litters the island before the tragedy of it would sink in again.

Lavers and six others stayed on the island for 3 months in 2015 while conducting the study. They found the trash weighed an estimated 17.6 tons and that more than two-thirds of it was buried in shallow sediment on the beaches.

Lavers said she noticed green toy soldiers that looked identical to those her brother played with as a child in the early 1980s, as well as red motels from the Monopoly board game.

She said the most common items they found were cigarette lighters and toothbrushes. One of the strangest was a baby pacifier.

She said they found a sea turtle that had died after getting caught in an abandoned fishing net and a crab that was living in a cosmetics container.

By clearing a part of a beach of trash and then watching new pieces accumulate, Lavers said they were able to estimate that more than 13,000 pieces of trash wash up every day on the island, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) long and 5 kilometers (3 miles) wide.

Henderson Island is part of the Pitcairn Islands group, a British dependency. It is so remote that Lavers said she missed her own wedding after the boat coming to collect the group was delayed.

Luckily, she said, the guests were still in Tahiti, in French Polynesia, when she showed up three days late, and she still got married.

Lavers said she is so appalled by the amount of plastic in the oceans that she has taken to using a bamboo iPhone case and toothbrush.

"We need to drastically rethink our relationship with plastic," she said. "It's something that's designed to last forever, but is often only used for a few fleeting moments and then tossed away."

Melissa Bowen, an oceanographer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who was not involved in the study, said that winds and currents in the gyre cause the buildup of plastic items on places like Henderson Island.

"As we get more and more of these types of studies, it is bringing home the reality of plastic in the oceans," Bowen said.

In this 2015 photo provided by Jennifer Lavers, plastic debris is strewn on the beach on Henderson Island. When researchers traveled to the tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they were astonished to find an estimated 38 million pieces of trash washed up on the beaches. (Jennifer Lavers via AP)
JERUSALEM (AP) - An Israeli Cabinet minister called off a long-planned visit to Jordan on Tuesday for a joint scientific venture following a spat between the countries over a deadly shooting in Jerusalem.

Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis said he was skipping an event marking the launching of the "Sesame" particle accelerator because of Jordan's reaction to the killing of a Jordanian who stabbed an Israeli police officer.

Video footage showed the 57-year-old man swiping a knife at the officer in the Old City of Jerusalem before knocking him to the ground on Saturday, in what Israel described as part of a wave of stabbing attacks against Israeli forces over the past two years.

It said the attacker entered Israel on a tourist visa and the officer shot the attacker in self-defense.

Jordan said it holds Israel responsible for killing its citizen and denounced it a "crime." The Israeli government called the Jordanian reaction "outrageous," with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office calling on Jordan to cease playing a "double game" and condemn terror everywhere.

Akunis told Israel's Army Radio his diplomatic protest is the minimal response to the incident.

"The scientific project is important, the peace with Jordan is very important but standing up for the truth is more important than anything," he said.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday that Jordan "will confront all kinds of terrorism," but did not refer to the Israeli comments.

A Jordanian official has said the Israeli statement omitted to say that the incident took place on occupied territory.
SEATTLE (AP) - Does federal law give President Donald Trump broad legal authority to freeze immigration by refugees and citizens of some predominantly Muslim nations?

That's the question before two federal appellate courts that have now heard arguments over Trump's revised travel ban and are being asked by Trump's opponents to use the president's own anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric against him. Federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland earlier this year blocked Trump's revised travel ban from taking effect. Trump wants those decisions reversed.

On Monday a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

In this image made from a C-SPAN video, participants and members in the gallery stand as three judges for the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals enter the room in Seattle, Monday, May 15, 2017. The panel is hearing arguments over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (CSPAN via AP, Pool)

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge's decision putting the ban on ice.

WHAT DOES THE GOVERNMENT SAY?

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall told the appellate court judges the president's directive falls squarely within his duty to secure the nation's borders and that it does not discriminate against Muslims in its language or in its operation.

Previous presidents have blocked certain foreign nationals: Jimmy Carter used his authority to deny some Iranians entry to the U.S. during the hostage crisis, Ronald Reagan to bar Cubans who didn't already have relatives here, and President Barack Obama to keep out North Korean officials. On Monday, Wall said the order doesn't say anything about religion. "This order is aimed at aliens abroad, who themselves don't have constitutional rights," Wall said.

WHAT DO STATES AND GROUPS CHALLENGING THE BAN SAY?

They argue it violates the Constitution by disfavoring Islam and point to statements Trump made repeatedly as a candidate in which he said he would ban Muslims from entering the country. In issuing his decision blocking the ban in March, Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu cited what he called "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" in Trump's campaign statements. Speaking before the 9th Circuit judges on Monday, Neal Katyal, who represented Hawaii, also said Trump had repeatedly spoken of a Muslim ban after the campaign.

They also argue that the while the president has broad authority over immigration, that power extends only as far as Congress has granted it. Because Congress has already adopted a scheme regarding when people may be excluded from the country for terror-related activities, the president cannot override that with his travel ban, they argue.

WHAT POWER DOES THE PRESIDENT HAVE?

In 1952, with the nation fearful of communist infiltration, Congress gave the president the authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to take action: "Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may ... suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate," the law says. But a law subsequently passed by Congress bans discrimination on the basis of nationality when it comes to issuing immigrant visas. How those laws might authorize or constrain Trump's actions is a key aspect of the travel ban cases.

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW WITH IMMIGRATION?

Trump's attempted travel bans have caused the number of refugees coming into the U.S. to plummet in the last two months, despite his executive orders largely being blocked in the courts. The number of refugees arriving in the U.S. dipped to 2,070 in March, which was a six-year low except for a period in 2013 when the federal government was shut down. An executive order signed by Trump in January decreased the refugee limit from 110,000 to 50,000 this fiscal year, but the cap was not blocked in court until mid-March. That caused the State Department to tightly rein in monthly arrivals when the cap was in effect.

WHAT DID THE JUDGES IN HAWAII AND MARYLAND SAY?

Neither U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland nor Watson in Hawaii bought the administration's reasoning that the ban is about national security. Watson cited "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" behind the travel ban. He also noted that while courts should not examine the "veiled psyche" and "secret motives" of government decision-makers, "the remarkable facts at issue here require no such impermissible inquiry." But the scope of the rulings differed. In a challenge brought by Hawaii, Watson blocked the federal government from enforcing the ban and its suspension of the nation's refugee program. Chuang only blocked the ban, saying it wasn't clear that the suspension of the refugee program was similarly motivated by religious bias.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The appellate courts in Washington state and Virginia will issue their decisions, though exactly when they'll rule is uncertain. The travel ban cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court at any rate, but that would likely be cemented if the 4th and 9th Circuits reach differing conclusions.

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Associated Press reporter Meredith Hoffman in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

In this image made from a C-SPAN video, Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, standing at left, presents his arguments during a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Seattle, Monday, May 15, 2017. A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (CSPAN via AP, Pool)

Protesters wave signs and chant during a demonstration against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Monday, May 15, 2017, outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday in Seattle over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Miles Treakle, left, of Seattle, holds a sign that reads "Refugees Welcome Ban Trump," as he protests against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Monday, May 15, 2017, outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday in Seattle over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Protesters wave signs and chant during a demonstration against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban, Monday, May 15, 2017, outside a federal courthouse in Seattle. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday in Seattle over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
NEW DELHI (AP) - India's top investigating agency searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday as part of a financial misconduct investigation.

A spokesman for the Central Bureau of Investigation said the early morning raids involved an investigation into investment clearances given to a company while Chidambaram was in office. The CBI has also raided several other offices in New Delhi and its suburbs, as well as in Mumbai and Chennai.

The investigation stems from allegations that Chidambaram's son, Karti Chidambaram, received bribes to get foreign investment clearances for a media company while his father was in office.

Media personnel film outside the house of Karti Chidambaram, son of India's former finance minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. India's top investigating agency searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday as part of a financial misconduct investigation. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Chidambaram was finance minister until his Congress party-led government was voted out of power in 2014.

He has denied any wrongdoing and says the investigation is an attempt to silence his criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. A Congress party spokesman called the raids and the investigation "revenge" for Chidambaram's strong words against the current government.

Shaina N.C., a spokeswoman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said the investigation was "not a witch hunt" against Chidambaram and that the CBI investigations were free of government pressures.

Karti Chidambaram, son of India's former finance minister P. Chidambaram, gestures to the media waiting outside his house during a raid by the Central Bureau of Investigation in Chennai, India, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. India's top investigating agency searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday as part of a financial misconduct investigation.(AP Photo)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration has approached the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before President Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.

Trump will nominate Callista Gingrich for the post, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said Monday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement.

Trump's foreign trip this month includes a stop at the Vatican.

FILE - In this July 20, 2016 file photo, Callista Gingrich is seen during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The Trump administration has tapped Callista Gingrich, the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If nominated, she would require Senate confirmation.

Callista Gingrich is president of Gingrich Productions and has produced a number of documentaries, including one about Pope John Paul II.

She worked for the House Committee on Agriculture as chief clerk until 2007. She was a key figure in her husband's 2012 bid for the Republican nomination.

She was a congressional aide when she began a six-year affair with Newt Gingrich, then a married Republican congressman.

In 2012, Gingrich's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, told ABC News that he had proposed an "open marriage" so he could continue to see Callista Gingrich without divorcing.

The former House speaker denied the charge.

He converted to Catholicism in 2009, after years of attending mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., where Callista Gingrich has performed in the choir.

Trump's vision for foreign relations and diplomacy has been starkly different to that promoted by the vastly popular Pope Francis. Francis has spoken of the need for bridges between nations, while Trump has advocated for walls and travel restrictions as a means of national security.

Francis has previously remarked that anyone who wants to build walls to keep migrants out is "not Christian."

Francis also has called for an end to the use of fossil fuels, while Trump has pledged to cancel payments to U.N. climate change programs and pull out of the Paris climate accord, although his recent actions and statements have cast some doubt over whether withdrawal from the agreement is still planned.

But the president and the pope share a populist appeal and speak with a down-to-earth simplicity that has endeared them to their bases of supporters. And both share a common concern about the plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic militants.

Speaking to reporters while traveling home Saturday from a trip to Portugal, Francis said he would listen respectfully to what Trump has to say when the two meet. Trump will call on Francis midway through his first foreign trip, after visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel and before attending a NATO summit in Brussels and a G-7 summit in Italy.

"I never make a judgment about a person without hearing him out," the pope said.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the report that President Donald Trump shared classified information with Russian officials (all times EDT):

10:50 a.m.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser plans to brief reporters at the White House.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks to the media outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Monday, May 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The White House says H.R. McMaster will hold an on-camera briefing before noon. He was originally scheduled to appear with press secretary Sean Spicer, but Spicer plans to hold a separate, off-camera session with reporters later in the day, after McMaster's appearance.

Reporters had been promised a briefing from McMaster about Trump's first overseas trip, which opens Friday. But McMaster is likely to face questions about reports that Trump shared classified intelligence information with Russian officials when they met in the Oval Office last week.

McMaster has denied the reports, telling reporters Monday after the story broke: "I was in the room. It didn't happen."

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10:45 a.m.

The Senate's top Democrat says Congress needs to have immediate access to a transcript of President Donald Trump's meeting at the White House last week with senior Russian officials.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York says that if Trump has "nothing to hide," he'll turn over unedited transcripts to the House and Senate intelligence committees. If Trump refuses, Schumer says Americans will doubt that their president is capable of safeguarding critical secrets.

The request came in response to published reports that the president revealed classified information about the Islamic State group in the meeting with Russian officials.

Congress is investigating Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including hacking Democratic emails.

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10:40 a.m.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain says reports that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week are "deeply disturbing."

The Arizona Republican said Tuesday that it sends a troubling signal to U.S. allies and partners around the world. McCain also said in a statement that reports that the information was provided by a U.S. ally and shared without the country's knowledge could mean that other countries won't share intelligence with Americans in the future.

He said the time Trump spent sharing sensitive information was time he did not spend focused on Russia's aggressive behavior, including interference in elections, and its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

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9:35 a.m.

The Senate's top Republican says "we can do with a little less drama from the White House" so the GOP can focus on advancing the party's legislative agenda.

Appearing Tuesday morning on Bloomberg Business, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was responding to reports that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about the Islamic State group to Russian officials.

McConnell says, "I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda." He said the agenda is deregulation, tax reform and repealing and replacing the health care law.

McConnell also says he recommended to Trump that he nominate Merrick Garland to replace fired FBI Director James Comey. Garland, the federal judge nominated to the Supreme Court last year by President Barack Obama, was denied a Senate hearing by McConnell.

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9:15 a.m.

President Donald Trump says more attention should be paid to find who is leaking information to the media.

The Washington Post first reported that Trump's closed-door remarks with the Russians jeopardize a valuable intelligence source on the Islamic State group.

Trump defended himself in a tweet Tuesday by saying he had an "absolute right" to share what he wanted.

In a follow-up tweet, Trump said he had asked ousted FBI Director James Comey and others "from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community."

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9:25 a.m.

A senior European intelligence official tells The Associated Press that his country might stop sharing information with the United States if it confirms President Donald Trump shared classified details with Russian officials.

The official said Tuesday that doing so "could be a risk for our sources."

The official spoke only on condition that neither he nor his country be identified, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

-By Jan M. Olsen

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8:25 a.m.

A senior German lawmaker has expressed concern about reports that President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about the Islamic State group to Russian officials.

Burkhard Lischka said in a statement to The Associated Press that "if it proves to be true that the American president passed on internal intelligence matters that would be highly worrying."

Lischka, who sits on the German parliament's intelligence oversight committee, noted that Trump has access to "exclusive and highly sensitive information including in the area of combating terrorism."

The Social Democratic Party lawmaker said that if the U.S. president "passes this information to other governments at will, then Trump becomes a security risk for the entire western world."

Germany is heavily dependent on U.S. intelligence.

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8:25 a.m.

The Kremlin has dismissed reports that Donald Trump shared classified information with Russian officials last week as "complete nonsense."

The Washington Post's report on Monday claimed that the revelation made by Trump during his meeting with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday dismissed the reports as "yet more nonsense" and said that Moscow doesn't "want to have to do anything with it," adding that "there is nothing to confirm or deny."

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7:25 a.m.

President Donald Trump is using Twitter to defend his sharing of information with the Russians.

Trump says he wanted to share with Russia "facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety." He notes that as president, he has an "absolute right" to do this.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump divulged highly classified "code-word" information that could enable the Russians to trace the source of the intelligence.

Trump added a line in his tweet suggesting why he did it: "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

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6:40 a.m.

Russia's foreign ministry spokesman has denied reports that President Donald Trump revealed classified information to senior officials during the Russian minister's visit to the Oval Office last week.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the revelation put a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, on Facebook on Tuesday described the reports as "yet another fake."

The reports came several days after the White House faced criticism for a possible security breach after it allowed a Russian news service photographer into the Oval Office to snap photos of Trump with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last week.

-Associated Press reporter Paisley Dodds in London.

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4:30 a.m.

Jordan says King Abdullah II is to speak by phone Tuesday with President Donald Trump.

The Royal Court says arrangements for the call were made last week.

The conversation will take place amid a report by The Washington Post that Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials at a meeting last week, putting a source of intelligence about the Islamic State extremist group at risk.

Jordan is a key ally in the U.S.-led international military coalition against Islamic State, which controls territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

The Post, citing current and former U.S. officials, says Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

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3:30 a.m.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull won't comment on a Washington Post report that President Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials, or say whether the report will affect Australia's intelligence-sharing agreement with the U.S.

Australia is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing program with the U.S., Canada, Britain and New Zealand.

Turnbull declined to comment specifically on the report, but said during an interview Tuesday with Adelaide radio station 5AA that he is confident in the Australia-U.S. alliance. Turnbull called it "the bedrock of our national security."

New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee said in a statement that the report was rejected by senior U.S. officials. Brownlee said a resolution to the situation in Syria requires a concerted effort from the U.S. and Russia. Brownlee said he hopes the meeting between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov "is a step towards that."

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3:13 a.m.

President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week, putting a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk, The Washington Post reported.

The disclosure late Monday drew strong condemnation from Democrats and a rare rebuke of Trump from some Republican lawmakers. White House officials denounced the report, saying the president did not disclose intelligence sources or methods to the Russians, though officials did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting.

H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, said: "The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

The White House is lit in blue to honor police officers killed in the line of duty on Monday, May 15, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser has a message to those blaming U.S. intelligence agencies for the cyberattack encircling the globe: Don't point a finger at the National Security Agency. Blame the hackers.

Since Friday, malware has infected an estimated 300,000 computers in 150 countries. Users' files at hospitals, companies and government agencies have been held for ransom.

Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers used a hole in Microsoft software that was discovered by the National Security Agency. The hole was exposed when NSA documents were leaked online.

Homeland security adviser Tom Bossert speaks about the mass destruction offensive malware, Monday, May 15, 2017, during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of Microsoft, laid some of the blame with the U.S. government, criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies for "stockpiling" software code that can be used by hackers.

"We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability, stolen from the NSA, has affected customers around the world," he said.

Tom Bossert, Trump's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, defended the NSA, the lead U.S. signals intelligence agency.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," Bossert told reporters Monday. "This was a tool developed by culpable parties - potentially criminals or foreign nation-states."

Perpetrators put the malware together in a way to deliver it with phishing e-mails, put it into embedded documents and caused infection, encryption and locking, he said.

Cyber experts are telling government officials that the malware was built with parts and codes cobbled together from different places, a U.S. official said. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Cyber experts say the tools were stolen from the Equation Group, a powerful squad of hackers which some have ties to the NSA. The tools materialized as part of an internet electronic auction set up by a group calling itself "Shadow Brokers," which promised to leak more data into the public.

"I haven't found an analyst who doesn't say it doesn't come from the NSA cache," said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Think of it like a master key," Lewis said. "NSA identified a vulnerability in a Microsoft software that the Shadow Brokers, then released so anybody could use it."

The Shadow Brokers "shared that vulnerability with the world and then these criminals took advantage of it," he said.

V. Miller Newton, president of PKWARE, a data protection and encryption company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said leaks of purported NSA hacking tools have been coming out in dribs and drabs since August.

"Criminals or terrorists are going to try to leverage these exploits," he said. "How damaging could it be? Extremely."

"The tools are useful and they are in the hands of criminals today," Newton said. "Holy cow! The government can't protect itself from insiders?"

Salim Neino, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, whose researcher foiled the latest global cyberextortion attack, says the leak of the NSA hacking tools have disrupted the status quo in which nations with high cyber capabilities "don't engage with others in a way that causes harm or disruption." He says the leaks have significantly narrowed the gap between nations and individuals or cyber gangs.

"The concern has always been, when are the real bad guys, the ones that don't care about rules of engagement, the ones who are really out to hurt us, will they become cyber-capable?" he said in an interview Monday night with The Associated Press. "I think today we found out that those who really want to hurt us have begun to, because they became cyber-capable the moment that the NSA cybertools were released."

The Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation in the United States. American officials are working closely with their British counterparts.

Analysts at the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center worked throughout the weekend to keep American officials informed about classified aspects of the investigation.

"Attribution can be difficult here," Bossert said. But he added: "I don't want to say we have no clues."

"While it would be satisfying to hold accountable those responsible for this hack - something that we are working on quite seriously - the worm is in the wild, so to speak at this point, and patching is the most important message as a result," he said.

"Despite appearing to be criminal activity intended to raise money, it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery."

Neither the FBI nor NSA would comment Monday.

If Americans follow the patching information issued by the FBI, Microsoft and the Homeland Security Department, they will be protected from the malware and the variants, Bossert said.

Some U.S. companies, including FedEx, were affected. No federal systems have been victimized thus far, Bossert said.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Senate intelligence committee's top Democrat, wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney on Monday asking what steps the federal government has taken to ensure federal agencies and government contractors have installed critical security updates to defend against the attack.

A Government Accountability Office report in May 2016 said federal agencies consistently failed to apply security patches in a timely matter and sometimes didn't make them for years after a patch had been available, Warner said. The office, he said, also identified cases where agencies were using software no longer supported by its vendors.

_

Associated Press writer Sheila Norman-Culp in London contributed to this story.
BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union's landmark migrant plan to share 160,000 refugees in Italy and Greece among their EU partners is likely to result in less than 40,000 people finding new homes by the September deadline.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Tuesday that more than 18,000 migrants have been relocated and that 12,500 people in Greece and some 4,000 in Italy are eligible to go.

He said those 16,500 people can be relocated by September, but he noted that some countries haven't relocated a single person, "in breach of their obligations."

Avramopoulos told EU lawmakers that the plan, launched in September 2015, "is vital for the success of our (migrant) policy."

Hungary and Poland voted against the plan, but were on the losing side and refuse to take part.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - A former North Carolina lawmaker accused of misusing more than $200,000 in campaign funds on vacations, speeding tickets, haircuts and other items was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges in the case.

Former longtime state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell was sentenced at the end of hearing that lasted more than an hour in a federal courtroom in Winston-Salem. Much of the hearing focused on arguments made on behalf of the 70-year-old Hartsell about how much time he would serve behind bars.

Hartsell faced a maximum sentence of 20 years, but defense attorney Rick Glaser cited Hartsell's record of service to the community as he argued for probation. He began by asking family members and supporters of Hartsell to stand. About a dozen family members, including his wife, Tana, and approximately 30 other supporters stood.

Former North Carolina state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, flanked by his wife, Tana, and defense attorney Rock Glaser, are shown leaving the federal courthouse on Tuesday, May 16, 2017. Hartsell was sentenced to eight months in prison for misusing more than $200,000 in campaign funds for personal use. (AP Photo/Skip Foreman)

"He spent his life repairing the world," Glaser said, drawing from a Hebrew phrase. "He spent his life trying to make the world a better place."

Glaser made references to Hartsell's various mission trips, six of which were to Guatemala, and his work to save jobs at the former Pillowtex plant. That service shouldn't make a difference, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joanna McFadden said.

Probation, McFadden said, "does not promote respect for the law."

"The sentence should deter others who consider committing these crimes," she said.

Judge Thomas D. Schroeder then gave Hartsell a chance to speak. Dressed on a charcoal gray suit with a red tie, Hartsell stood between his defense team and said "I acknowledge my responsibility for the action taken.

"I simply accept this," he said before sitting down.

Before pronouncing the sentence, Schroeder chided Hartsell for what he called "10 years of offensive conduct."

"You put a permanent stain on your career," Schroeder said. "You should be putting a capstone on your career."

After the sentence was handed down, Hartsell's wife, Tana, hugged well-wishers as they exited the courtroom. Shortly afterward, she and her husband held a long embrace between the defense and prosecution tables. Minutes later, they left the courthouse holding hands. They declined to answer questions from reporters.

Hartsell pleaded guilty in February to two tax-related counts and one count of mail fraud. As part of a plea agreement, more than 20 other counts arising from indictments last year are to be dismissed.

A document filed by prosecutors intended to lay out the plea arrangement said Hartsell used about $210,000 from his campaign committee between 2007 and 2015 "to pay for personal goods and services for his own enrichment," including vacations and theater tickets. A 2006 state law limits the use of campaign funds essentially to expenses tied to running for or holding public office - and to charity.

According to the U.S. attorney's office filing related to the plea, the ex-lawmaker from Concord told a state elections investigator that haircuts were a proper campaign expenses because he wouldn't get his hair cut were he not a legislator, while tickets to the theater performance "Jersey Boys" constituted "therapy" for him.

The State Board of Elections began investigating Hartsell's campaign expenses in early 2013, leading to a federal probe. When converting campaign funds to personal use, Hartsell failed to report the money as income on his federal tax returns, the prosecutors wrote.

Still pending for Hartsell are three felony counts in state court accusing him of filing false campaign reports. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Monday that case is set for resolution Friday before a Superior Court judge.
BEIJING (AP) - As a teenager, Zhao Hailong had a role in the award-winning film "Farewell My Concubine," the story of the life-long friendship between two men who met as apprentices in China's famed Peking opera.

Today, almost 25 years later, Zhao is playing the lead on stage in the Peking opera classic of the same name.

At a theater in Beijing, he plays a warlord from more than 2,000 years ago who, surrounded by enemy forces, seeks out his favorite concubine, played in the production by Shang Wei. When she realizes that the warlord is on the verge of defeat, and not wanting to become a burden to him, she kills herself with his sword.

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, Zhao Hailong puts on makeup for his lead role in the Peking Opera classic "Farewell My Concubine" at a theater in Beijing. When Zhao Hailong was a teenager he played a small role in the award-winning film "Farewell My Concubine," the story of the life-long friendship between two men who met as apprentices in China's famed Peking opera. Today, he is the lead on stage in the Peking Opera classic of the same name. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)

In the 1993 film by acclaimed director Chen Kaige, Zhao played the teenage incarnation of Shitou, or Stone, one of the main characters, while Shang is the granddaughter of the late Peking opera master Shang Xiaoyun.

Performers in the Peking style of Chinese opera sing, affect ritualized gestures and stances, and employ acrobatics and martial arts moves, often in stylized battle scenes.

Reporters were taken to watch the weekend performance at the Liyuan Theater as part of China's attempt to showcase traditional Chinese culture on the sidelines of a global forum promoting Chinese investment and transit links with other parts of Asia, Africa and Europe.

The initiative, formally known as "One Belt, One Road," seeks to recreate ancient Silk Road land and maritime trading routes.

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, Zhao Hailong puts on makeup for his lead role in the Peking Opera classic "Farewell My Concubine" at a theater in Beijing. When Zhao Hailong was a teenager he played a small role in the award-winning film "Farewell My Concubine," the story of the life-long friendship between two men who met as apprentices in China's famed Peking opera. Today, he is the lead on stage in the Peking Opera classic of the same name. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, Zhao Hailong stands near a costume before performing as lead role in the Peking Opera classic "Farewell My Concubine" at a theater in Beijing. When Zhao Hailong was a teenager he played a small role in the award-winning film "Farewell My Concubine," the story of the life-long friendship between two men who met as apprentices in China's famed Peking opera. Today, he is the lead on stage in the Peking Opera classic of the same name. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, a performer is helped to put the final touches on his costume at a theater in Beijing. Performers in the Peking style of Chinese opera sing, dance and employ acrobatics and martial arts moves. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, a performer of Peking Opera shows off his costume to the audience ahead of a performance at Liyuan Theater in Beijing. Performers in the Peking style of Chinese opera sing, dance and employ acrobatics and martial arts moves. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)

In this Saturday, May 13, 2017, photo, a performer of Peking Opera takes to the stage at a theater in Beijing. Performers in the Peking style of Chinese opera sing, dance and do acrobatics and martial arts. (AP Photo/Louise Watt)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The presidents of the United States and Turkey vowed Tuesday to repair a relationship battered by years of disputes over Syria's civil war and its various fighting groups, even as they broached a new disagreement over U.S. plans to arm Kurdish fighters.

Delivering a statement alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would re-establish its military and economic partnership with Turkey. He committed to backing Turkey's fight against the Islamic State group and a Kurdish insurgency known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization.

Such groups will "have no safe quarter," Trump said in the White House's historic Roosevelt Room, where he also commended Turkey's "leadership in seeking an end to the horrific killing in Syria."

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Erdogan issued a statement afterward, congratulating Trump for his presidential election victory. While Erdogan called for the extradition of a Pennsylvania-based cleric he blames for a failed coup in Turkey last summer, there was little tension.

The biggest dispute between the two NATO allies in recent days has been the U.S. plans to arm Kurdish Syrian militants to help them fight IS. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the militants and doesn't want them spearheading an operation to retake IS' self-declared capital of Raqqa.

Turkey believes the Kurds in Syria are linked to the PKK. The U.S. sees the Syrian Kurds as their best battlefield partner on the ground in northern Syria.

Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about six miles (10 kilometers) away. Erdogan's government also has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

In his statement to reporters, Trump did not directly address his decision to arm the Kurds. But he asserted the U.S. and Turkey's mutual commitment to ending Syria's conflict.

The meeting took place with a White House still responding to what a senior U.S. official said was Trump's disclosure of classified information about an Islamic State terror threat involving laptop computers on aircraft.

Trump shared the threat in a meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office last week, according to the official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

The U.S. is relying on regional allies including Turkey for intelligence-sharing and military assistance as it crafts a Syria policy, particularly as Iran and Russia work to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

Trump launched cruise missiles last month at a Syrian air base after accusing Assad of using chemical weapons. But the president hasn't outlined a strategy to quell the six-year civil war or usher Assad out of power, which his administration says will be needed to stabilize the Arab country.

Trump has gone out of his way to foster a good relationship with Erdogan. After a national referendum last month that strengthened Erdogan's presidential powers, European leaders and rights advocates criticized Turkey for moving closer toward autocratic rule. Trump congratulated Erdogan.

The White House said after the meeting that Trump raised the incarceration of Pastor Andrew Brunson, an American pastor detained since last October, and asked that the Turkish government expeditiously return him to the United States.

President Donald Trump meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan listens during his meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, where he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made statements. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) - Authorities in Alabama say no weapon was recovered from a man fatally shot by a deputy on Interstate 10.

AL.com reports (http://bit.ly/2qmmj7S) Baldwin County Sheriff Huey Mack said in a news conference Monday that no gun was found on 35-year-old Johnathan David Victor of Metairie, Louisiana, or in his vehicle. Victor was shot by a deputy Friday and died Saturday morning.

Mack says deputies responded to the site of a single-vehicle crash after reports that the car's driver was covered in blood and combative. Mack says Victor exited the car and advanced toward a deputy in an aggressive manner with something in his hands and didn't comply with orders to stop. The deputy fired more than one round from an AR-15 rifle.

Authorities are conducting an internal investigation.
A mother of a child with a pre-existing condition pleaded not guilty to a felony charge on Monday after she allegedly chased down her Republican congressman in Tennessee to confront him over his vote to repeal Obamacare.

Wendi Wright appeared in a Weakley County court Monday on a felony reckless endangerment charge, The Jackson Sun reported.

Authorities say the 35-year-old single mother followed Republican U.S. Rep. David Kustoff's vehicle to confront him on May 8 when he ended a town hall meeting at the University of Tennessee at Martin early following his health care vote.

Sheriff's officials say Kustoff was riding with his aide, Marianne Dunavant, when they pulled off the highway because they feared being run off the road.

Wendi Wright, whose five-year-old daughter Sunni (above together) has pre-existing condition, pleaded not guilty to a felony charge on Monday after she allegedly chased down her Republican congressman in Tennessee to confront him over his vote to repeal Obamacare

Wright (above left with her daughter and right in arrest photo), 35, allegedly followed U.S. Rep. David Kustoff's vehicle to confront him on May 8. Authorities say Wright jumped out of her vehicle and started screaming at Kustoff while pounding on the windows of his car

Authorities say Wright jumped out of her own vehicle, and then screamed at Kustoff while pounding on the windows of his car and reaching into his vehicle.

'She then stood in front of their vehicle in an attempt to keep them blocked in,' the police report states.

The police report goes on to say officers were called to the area, but Wright fled the scene before they could arrive.

However, the 35-year-old was then identified by police when she posted on Facebook about the incident later that night.

She was then taken into custody, before being released on a $1,000 bond.

Wright is scheduled to return to court on June 2 for a preliminary hearing.

Outside of court on Monday, Wright, who was standing with her daughter, said she pursued Kustoff because she wanted to ask him about the healthcare law.

Kustoff (left) was with his aide, Marianne Dunavant (right), in her car at the time of the incident. The police report states Wright 'stood in front of their vehicle in an attempt to keep them blocked in'.

'That was my question to him. What is a pre-existing condition?' the 35-year-old told BuzzFeed News.

Her lawyer, Bruce Brown, added that Wright had been trying to speak with Kustoff about his vote to repeal the current law because her five-year-old daugther, Suni, 'has a pre-existing condition' and 'her family is affected by this health care vote.'

It's unclear what pre-existing condition her daughter has.

Her brother, Brian Wright, told Buzzfeed: 'She is trying to protect her family... specifically our mom, who has sleep apnea and she wonders if that too is a pre-existing condition.

'She wanted to ask some questions and has been completely ignored.'

Kustoff's office declined to speak about the incident. He voted for the American Health Care Act and posted a statement in support of the bill on his website.

'I voted for the American Health Care Act because our current health care system is failing Tennesseans,' he wrote in the May 4 statement, the day the House of Representatives passed the bill.

'We promised the American people we would repeal and replace Obamacare, and today, the House voted to keep our word and provide relief.
EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio (AP) - Police say an Ohio officer suffered an accidental overdose after a drug arrest when he touched powder on his shirt without realizing it was the powerful opioid fentanyl.

He was treated with an overdose reversal drug after brushing off the powder with his hand and passing out Friday in East Liverpool, roughly 85 miles (137 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland near the Pennsylvania line.

Fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin, and a few specks can kill an adult.

East Liverpool police Capt. Patrick Wright says the officer had followed protocol and wore gloves and a mask when searching a car during the drug arrest. But Wright says the officer later instinctively wiped his shirt when another officer noticed powder on it.

Wright says the officer was fine by Sunday.
When everyone has a camera in their pocket, it can be a challenge to pursue landscape photography as a career.

Crystal Hunt, a 1987 graduate of Boiling Springs High School, has met the challenge with her landscapes of local landmarks and scenery. She is an avid outdoorsman and trout fisherman, which also shows up in her photography from time to time.

After graduation, she served in the U.S. Army as a Chinese linguist then earned her masters degree in organizational leadership development. Hunt lives in a log home in the mountains near Pine Grove Furnace State Park.

This year, she will exhibit at 18 art and craft shows, including Foundry Day, Harrisburg Arts Fest and Jubilee Day. Her photography is also available at other locations including her permanent studio gallery at Carlisle Country Market.

Hunt is a member of the board of the Bubbler Foundation and a member of the Boiling Springs Alumni Association and the Foundry Day Committee.

Q. When did you first become interested in photography?

A. I first became interested in photography when I joined the Army in 1988. I needed a camera to record my memories of people and places. I was hooked when I saw Monterrey, California, and Yosemite National Park.

Q. Your work seems to focus on local sites. What draws you to these places as a photographer?

A. I am drawn to photographing the local area because I am thrilled to be home. Its ironic that I joined the service to get out of a small town then became so homesick that I couldnt wait to return. This appreciation is deeply emotional for me.

Q. Your collages of local towns have been featured in a number of places. How did that idea come about, and how do you create those?

A. The idea to create my hometown series montages came about when I simply decided to combine my favorite photographs together. Now, I focus on a towns identity. I research its history and landmarks. Its not all about places, though. I also focus on when a town takes on its uniqueness, such as after dark or during the holidays. It might take me a year or more to get the pictures that I need.

When it comes to physically creating the montage, I first select which pictures I want to use. Then, I begin laying out the pictures symmetrically, such as a town sign in the center, a church in each corner, night shots on the right and left, etc. Once I start creating the montage in Photoshop, the layout happens rather quickly.

Q. What one piece of advice would you give to make everyday photos look better?

A. The one piece of advice I would give to make everyday photos look better is composition. The placement of the subject in the photo as well objects around the subject can make the ordinary look extraordinary. For example, the mill in Boiling Springs looks amazing with a flock of geese flying through its reflection in the water.

Q. In an Instagram world, is there a place for a fine art photographer?

A. In an Instagram world, there is room for a fine art photographer because not everyone with a camera is a fine art photographer, and those with a discerning eye can pick out an amazing photograph. I have seen pictures on social media that are greeted with a chorus of praise, but would be ripped to shreds by professional critics. This is an enlightening, yet recommended, exercise to engage in before posting to Instagram. Its also a great way to improve as a photographer.
MOSCOW (AP) - In another round of sanctions in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday ordered the blocking of access to Russia's most popular social media websites and search engines.

Poroshenko's office on Tuesday published the decree that he signed a day earlier, freezing the assets and banning the operations of hundreds of Russian companies in Ukraine. The decree also calls for blocking access to dozens of Russia's most popular websites for three years, including the search engine Yandex, social media network VKontakte and the email provider Mail.ru. All of them have a substantial audience in Ukraine.

All of the websites were accessible in Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon and it was not immediately clear when and how the Ukrainian government was going to enforce the ban. Unlike Russia, which has in the recent years adopted and enforced a plethora of legislation to crack down on independent websites and online media, Ukraine does not have laws and regulations in place that would allow such a ban.

The ban dismayed many journalists and public figures in Kiev who saw it as an attempt to match Russia's repressive legislation.

Poroshenko "should not have copycatted the Russians, it will attract criticism from our international partners as well as at home," said Kiev-based independent analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.

Most of the internet and media companies banned by Ukraine are privately owned and have grown over the past decades from start-ups working out of a basement to major international businesses.

Yandex, a NASDAQ-traded company that posted $14.5 million in net profit in the first quarter of the year, in a statement on Tuesday described the ban as "sanctions against 11 million Ukrainian users who use our services, against thousands of Ukrainian companies that use our technology and service to develop their businesses."

Yandex said it does not expect the ban to hurt the company financially but it expressed regret that "the sanctions do away with many years of hard work by our team."

Another Russian firm on the sanctions list, the cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement that it expects its products such as anti-virus software to be available in Ukraine despite the ban.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Three polar bear cubs born to two different mothers at a central Ohio zoo last year now have names.

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium looked to the public for help in naming Anana's female cub born Nov. 8. Amelia Gray emerged as the winner in the worldwide contest.

Zoo staff chose the names for Aurora's twin cubs born Nov. 14. The female cub is named Neva, meaning white snow, and the male is Nuniq, after the cubs' late father.

FILE - In this Wednesday, April 19, 2017, file photo, a polar bear cub makes its public debut with her mother Anana in their habitat at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Powell, Ohio. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium looked to the public for help in naming Anana's female cub born Nov. 8. Amelia Gray emerged as the winner in the worldwide contest. (Brooke LaValley/The Columbus Dispatch via AP, File)

Nanuq fathered five surviving offspring as part of a conservation effort at the zoo. He was euthanized in April after veterinarians determined he had liver cancer and few options for treatment.
PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) - Kosovo prosecutors have accused a Serb citizen of war crimes during the 1998-99 war.

Prosecutors from Kosovo and the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, or EULEX, on Tuesday accused a Serb identified as Z.V., of war crimes against the ethnic Albanian civilian population.

A statement said that on May 5, 1999, the defendant killed four people and tortured, beat and stole money and jewelry from at least 25 Kosovo Albanians. If convicted, he could face life imprisonment.

About 10,000 people died and about 1,700 remain missing from the war.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade hasn't recognized.
A South Dakota woman is accused of stealing thousands of dollars she raised on GoFundMe to pay funeral expenses for a friend's daughter.

Thirty-three-year-old Stephanie Lea Blaine of Sioux Falls is charged with grand theft, a felony that carries a maximum five years in prison.

Court documents say Blaine raised about $3,900 online to help her friend with expenses.

Last September, Cynthia Mathis lost her four-year-old daughter and her mother-in-law in a deadly car accident near Brookings, South Dakota, according to KELOLAND News.

'She could light up a room just by walking into it, Mathis said of her daughter, Jasmine.

South Dakota woman is accused of stealing thousands of dollars she raised on GoFundMe to pay funeral expenses for a friend's daughter

As the funeral expenses for Jasmine and her grandmother began to pile up, Blaine stepped in to create a crowdfunding site to help.

'We considered her as a friend,' Matthis said.

The mother checked with the funeral home and hospital where her daughter was treated and discovered no payments had been made.

She informed the online fundraising website GoFundMe.com.

'I contacted GoFundMe myself. They sent me an email with withdrawals that were being taken directly from the account into her bank account,' Mathis said.

Court documents say GoFundMe.com froze the account after discovering that Blaine had made nine withdrawals, The Argus Leader reported.

The website reimbursed the grieving mother.

No phone listing for Blaine could be found, though she declined comment when contacted by KELOLAND News.

'I have nothing to say to you and I want nothing to do with you guys,' she said.

KELOLAND News reported that Blair has had run-ins with the law before which include charges of theft and burglary.

Crowdfunding sites have been fertile ground for scammers looking to make a quick buck.

Earlier this month, a woman from Alabama was charged with theft after she faked having terminal cancer and raised $38,000 online for her 'treatment'.

Jennifer Flynn Cataldo, 37, of Sterrett, Alabama, was charged with two counts of theft by deception according to a statement from the state attorney general's office.

Last month, the family of the 74-year-old man whose murder was filmed and posted on Facebook warned supporters not to donate to any GoFundMe pages that have already been set, because they are fake.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said during a press conference on Monday that multiple crowd-funding pages had been set up in Robert Godwin's name, but that none of them were legitimate.
BERLIN (AP) - A German court has convicted a 32-year-old Iraqi man of raping two Chinese college students in the western city of Bochum.

The dpa news agency reported Tuesday that the court sentenced the man to 11 years in prison.

The defendant, who wasn't identified by name, acknowledged in court that he assaulted the women in August and November last year. DNA evidence linked him to both crimes.

The defendant came to Germany as an asylum-seeker more than a year ago with his wife and children.

The victims, who were 21 and 27 years old at the time, had been studying at Bochum university.

The high-profile case was one of several that fanned a national debate in Germany about how to respond to a rise in violent crimes committed by migrants.
BERLIN (AP) - German prosecutors have charged a 28-year-old Pakistani man with membership in a terrorist organization on allegations he joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba group to fight against Indian forces in the Kashmir region.

The federal prosecutor's office said Tuesday that Muhammad Aafaq I., whose last name wasn't given in accordance with privacy regulations, joined the group in 2008 to fight against Indian control of the areas of Jammu and Kashmir.

Prosecutors say he trained with the group in Pakistan, learning to use weapons like assault rifles and rocket launchers before becoming a trainer of new recruits.

They say he fled the group in 2011 after reports that it was supported by Pakistani intelligence and was fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, "contradictory to his motivation."

They didn't say how he got to Germany.
Graduates and guests at Fairleigh Dickinson University's commencement got an amazing surprise from musician Jon Bon Jovi Tuesday.

The New Jersey university won the chance to have Garden State based rock band to play their graduation after generating the most interest on social media.

Jon Bon Jovi - who was born and raised in Sayreville, New Jersey - spoke to the graduates before the band performed Reunion, a song about a class gathering years later to share memories of their lives.

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Moment to remember: Graduates of Fairleigh Dickinson University were graced with a surprise performance from musician Jon Bon Jovi during Tuesday's commencement

'Today marks the end of one chapter in your life and the start of another,' said the 55-year-old rocked on stage at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, where the band has played to sold-out crowds many times.

'Enjoy the book, you're the one writing it,' he continued.

'Don't take anything personally. Accept both praise and criticism equally, but take neither to heart. There are many surprises awaiting you on the journey,' finished the rocker.

The contest was run by MTVU, and asked students across the country to tweet their best college moments with the hashtag #JBJReunionContest.

Can you believe it?! Some graduates were thrilled when Bon Jovi was introduced on the stage for a surprise performance at their Tuesday commencement ceremony

Rock on! The school, which is located in the Living on A Prayer singer's home state of New jersey, won a nationwide contest to bring the Garden State-based band to play their graduation by generating the most interest on social media

Reunion was first performed by Bon Jovi in 2015 at the commencement exercises for Rutgers University, and appears on the band's current album This House Is Not For Sale.

Most of the students did not know Bon Jovi would be appearing until they were already inside the stadium, home field for the NFL's Jets and Giants.

Although best known for '80s-era hits like Livin' On A Prayer, You Give Love A Bad Name and Wanted Dead Or Alive, Bon Jovi's current album went to No. 1 on the charts.

Cap's off! Melissa Acevedo, of Dover, N.J., who graduated with a masters in accounting from Fairleigh Dickinson University, wears her cap before the start of the school's commencement ceremony, Tuesday

Capture the memories! A graduate takes a selfie as musical group Bon Jovi performs during a surprise appearance at the Fairleigh Dickinson University commencement Tuesday

The group was also the top-selling live band in the U.S. for the first three months of 2017, making them popular with students whose parents watched the band on MTV decades ago.

Iman Suleiman of Garfield, said she loves Bon Jovi because his music was featured on an episode of her favorite TV show, Glee.

'Our generation is one of the last generations that love Bon Jovi,' added Isabelle Nemeh, of Wayne.

And Jessica Awad, of Wyckoff, enjoyed Bon Jovi, even though she had someone else in mind.

Groovin': A Fairleigh Dickinson University staff member shook her stuff to Bon Jovi's performance during a surprise appearance at the school's commencement ceremony

'I would have preferred Justin Bieber, but it's still cool,' she said.

In an interview inside the Giants locker room before the ceremony, Jon Bon Jovi told The Associated Press he hopes the graduates remain flexible about their plans.

'Whatever your vision of how your life is going to be going forward, do it in pencil,' he said.

'The great thing is the journey is about to begin. You may take some turns along the way that may take you to somewhere you never even dreamed of going. It's a great journey.'
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A juror dismissed during deliberations in former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown's fraud trial in Florida told his colleagues that the "Holy Spirit" told him she was not guilty, according to a court transcript.

The transcript released Monday provided new details into why the unidentified juror was released during deliberations after another juror raised concerns over the comments.

Brown, 70, was found guilty of 18 of 22 charges associated with her use of money from a purported charity for poor children called the One Door for Education Foundation. She also was convicted of lying on her taxes about the amount of charitable contributions she made and providing false information on her congressional financial disclosure forms.

Brown had represented the district that included Jacksonville since 1993 but lost re-election last year after the indictment was issued.

Federal prosecutors presented evidence of a scheme where Brown helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for One Door, but spent most of the money on lavish parties, trips and shopping. One Door raised more than $800,000, but gave only one scholarship for $1,200.

The dismissed juror, who was not identified, told the court he was getting information from "my father in heaven" about Brown's guilt while considering the case's outcome.

"Did you say the words, 'A higher being told me that Corrine Brown was not guilty on all charges?'" Judge Timothy Corrigan asked the juror.

"I said the Holy Spirit told me that," the juror replied.

Brown's attorney, James Smith, has said he plans to ask for a new trial before she is sentenced. He objected to the juror's dismissal, pointing out that the juror also said he could follow the court's direction and deliberate appropriately.

But Corrigan believed the comment was enough to spur the juror's dismissal, and to restart deliberations.

"I want to be very clear that I am drawing a distinction between someone who's on a jury who is religious and who is praying for guidance ... from this situation, where the juror is actually saying than an outside force, that is, a higher being, a Holy Spirit, told him that Ms. Brown was not guilty on those charges," Corrigan told the attorneys. "I think that's just an expression that's a bridge too far."

After the juror was replaced by an alternate, the jury took just more than a day to reach a verdict.

Brown could spend the rest of her life in a federal prison. No date has been set for her sentencing.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Authorities say a man armed with a knife has attacked a priest inside Mexico City's cathedral.

Mexico's National Security Commission says the Monday attack was carried out by a man with French nationality. The motive for the attack was unknown.

The Rev. Miguel Angel Machorro was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Mexico City archdiocese spokesman Hugo Valdemar told local Radio Formula that the priest's life was out of danger.

Members of the Federal Protection Service charged with overseeing the sanctuary detained the assailant and turned him over to Mexico City law enforcement officials.
Following their votes in favor of the American Health Care Act earlier this month, local congressmen Scott Perry (R-4) and Lou Barletta (R-11), Cumberland Countys House representatives, issued statements regarding their affirmative votes.

Neither Perry nor Barlettas representatives have responded to multiple requests from The Sentinel for clarification as of press time.

The Sentinel will attempt occasionally to put statements by officials and others on public issues in context. Below, we take a deeper look at the statements both congressmen made this month regarding the AHCA:

BARLETTA: As we speak, "Obamacare" is collapsing. This disaster of a health care law threw people off their preferred plans, eliminated access to their favorite doctors, and on average, increased Pennsylvanians premiums by 32 percent.

PERRY: The Affordable Care Act is broken. Over the last seven years, weve seen less choice and skyrocketing costs for basic medical care. Five states and one-third of U.S. counties have one choice for health insurance this year. Premiums are up about 25 percent this year.

Both Perry and Barletta cite nominally accurate statistics  "Obamacare" exchange plans have averaged a 32 percent premium jump in Pennsylvania, and 25 percent nationwide, while the variety of plans offered over the exchanges have decreased.

However, their statements can be read as referencing the insurance market as a whole, but the statistics they cite apply specifically to the exchange market.

Barletta states the premium increase impacts Pennsylvanians as an undefined group, although the statistic he cites applies only to Pennsylvanians with "Obamacare" exchange plans. Perry maintains that choice is limited for health insurance, as if the statistics cited apply to all insurance plans and not just exchange plans.

These exchanges were set up under "Obamacare" to allow people who do not receive employer-sponsored insurance to shop for plans on a federally regulated marketplace and receive federal tax subsidies.

In Pennsylvania, 426,059 people  3.5 percent of the states population  have enrolled in exchange plans. About 53 percent of Pennsylvanians are covered by employer-sponsored health plans, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

For those not dependent on the exchanges for insurance (i.e., 96.5 percent of the Pennsylvania population), the premium spikes cited by the congressmen do not apply.

In fact, according to Kaisers survey, premiums for employer-sponsored plans only rose about 3 percent last year, and the cumulative increase in employer-sponsored premiums since 2011 has been about 20 percent. This is a significant deceleration compared to the cumulative rise from 2006 to 2011 of 31 percent, indicating that "Obamacare" policies have had a positive effect on premiums for most people.

Perry and Barletta also decry exchange premium increases to justify a bill which will, by definition, increase those premiums further.

The major tenet of the AHCA is the repeal of over $600 billion in "Obamacare" taxes over the next 10 years, as calculated by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. These taxes, such as the 3.8 percent investment income tax, fall mostly on the wealthy, and are used to subsidize exchange premiums for lower-income people.

With those subsidies being cut, premiums for exchange plan buyers will increase under the AHCA. For example, the average 40-year-old making $30,000 per year in Cumberland County is paying $2,480 per year for silver-level "Obamacare" coverage, according to Kaisers database. Under the AHCAs subsidy cuts, that premium will increase to $4,030 per year.

BARLETTA: Additionally, the bill maintains that individuals cannot be discriminated against in the insurance market based on gender.

The MacArthur Amendment, which was added to the AHCA to garner additional GOP support, contains a clause stating nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting health-insurance issuers to discriminate in rates for health insurance coverage by gender.

The rest of the AHCA contains measures that allow states to opt out of "Obamacare" regulations requiring health insurance plans to cover certain essential benefits, as well as opt out of limits on premium hikes for pre-existing conditions.

A number of "Obamacares" required essential benefits  such as maternity care  are obviously gender-related. So are a number of covered pre-existing conditions, such as breast cancer. Without those protections, women will most likely experience higher average premium costs than men, even if their premiums are not being up-rated based on their gender per se.

Barlettas use of a very narrow definition of discrimination does not fully disclose that women will bear a disproportionate amount of the out-of-pocket cost increases under the AHCA.

BARLETTA: Despite false assertions, this bill retains the policy that nobody can be denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition and includes multiple layers of protections to maintain affordable costs for these individuals.

PERRY: [The] AHCA will specifically protect those with pre-existing conditions by prohibiting the denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions and prevents insurance companies from rescinding coverage to this vulnerable group. The proposals will also prevent premium increases on these individuals as long as they maintain continuous coverage.

Barletta and Perry are correct that the AHCA prohibits outright denial of coverage. However, as mentioned above, it also allows states to opt out of "Obamacares" limits on patients being re-rated by insurance companies based on their pre-existing conditions.

If states request this rating waiver, it will allow any patient who has a coverage gap of more than two months to be placed in a separate high-risk pool for those with pre-existing conditions, as opposed to a community pool where premiums do not vary with individual health histories.

Further, the waiver allows healthy patients to opt out of the community pool and take an individual rating instead. While this will create additional options for those patients, it will increase costs for the sicker people remaining in the community pool.

States with these waivers will be given funds by the federal government to subsidize high-risk pools, with $23 billion dedicated over a period of several years under the AHCA. Another $100 billion is dedicated to state stability funds, which could also go toward high-risk pools or to buffer premium increases in community pools.

However, the GOP has provided no math indicating that this subsidy would be sufficient to not cause insurance for pre-existing conditions to become unaffordable. A maximum outlay of $123 billion would only compensate for 700,000 people with pre-existing conditions, out of over 2.2 million patients impacted, according a widely cited analysis from Avalere Health.

People with pre-existing conditions who temporarily lose their coverage due to job loss or otherwise, or people in pools whose healthier patients opt out, will inevitably see cost increases.

Without a score from the Congressional Budget Office, it is impossible to be certain that the AHCAs funding will be sufficient to counteract this, and that nobody will be denied insurance as Barletta claims.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Alabama can keep secret its records from recent lethal injections, including documents about an inmate who coughed for the first 13 minutes of the procedure, a judge has ruled.

Montgomery Circuit Judge J.R. Gaines refused to make the Alabama Department of Correction release execution logs. Alabama death row inmate Tommy Arthur, who is scheduled to be executed May 25, had gone to court after the prison system refused his public records request seeking the logs and other records.

On Monday, Gaines sided with the state prison system.

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows Tommy Arthur at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala. Arthur, who is scheduled to be executed May 25, 2017, went to court after the prison system refused his public records request seeking logs and other records. A judge ruled Monday, May 15, 2017, that Alabama can keep secret its records from recent lethal injections, including documents about an inmate who coughed for the first 13 minutes of the procedure. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)

"Any release of the execution logs would be detrimental to the best interests of the public," Gaines wrote.

Arthur's lawyers argued that witness accounts suggested executed inmates might not have been fully anesthetized after being given the sedative midazolam. His lawyers said the state has refused to turn over records related to the state's last two executions, including one in which inmate Ronald Bert Smith repeatedly coughed.

"The people of Alabama have a right to know what their government is doing in their name, especially when it involves taking a life," Arthur's lawyer Akash Toprani said after the ruling. "If the state is so confident that its lethal injection protocol is constitutional, it would not obstruct public access to these records."

Arthur was convicted of murder in the 1982 slaying of Troy Wicker. Investigators said Arthur was having an affair with Wicker's wife and she paid him $10,000 to kill her husband. Arthur was on a prison work-release program for the slaying of his sister-in-law at the time of Wicker's killing.

The U.S. Supreme Court halted Arthur's execution in November on the same evening he was set to die by lethal injection. It was the seventh time his execution was postponed.

Alabama officials last month asked the state court to set an expedited eighth execution date for Arthur. The request came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Arthur's latest appeal.

The state argued Arthur was attempting to fish for material to try and block his upcoming execution.
MADRID (AP) - Spanish prosecutors have asked a judge to charge Colombia forward Radamel Falcao with defrauding Spain's tax authority of almost $6.1 million from 2012-13.

Prosecutors say in a statement Tuesday they have accused Falcao of gaining illegal fiscal benefits and evading taxes after signing for Spanish club Atletico Madrid in 2011.

The striker stayed for two seasons before joining Monaco in 2013.

Monaco's Radamel Falcao celebrates after scoring during a League One soccer match between Monaco and Lille, at the Louis II stadium, in Monaco, Sunday, May, 14 2017. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

Prosecutors also are accusing Real Madrid's Portuguese defender Fabio Coentrao of trying to defraud tax authorities of almost $1.4 million in 2011.

Last year, Barcelona's Lionel Messi and his father were sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud. They were not sent to jail because sentences of less than two years for first offences are usually suspended in Spain.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Despite his jokes that he'll never get asked back after the historic envelope flub at this year's Academy Awards, Jimmy Kimmel is set to host the Oscars once more. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday said Kimmel will return for the 90th Oscars with producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, the team behind this year's ceremony.

"If you think we screwed up the ending this year, wait until you see what we have planned for the 90th anniversary show!" Kimmel said in the official announcement.

It's an extremely early date to set the host for the 2018 ceremony - Kimmel was not announced as the host of the 2017 Oscars until December 2016, and the previous year's host, Chris Rock, was announced the prior November - but film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs told the Associated Press Tuesday that they were so pleased with the team that they wanted to "keep the momentum going" for the 90th.

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2017 file photo, host Jimmy Kimmel appears at the Oscars in Los Angeles. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, said Kimmel will return for the 90th Oscars on March 4, 2018. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

"It's a big year for us," Boone Isaacs said. "It's going to be a big celebration, and it's wonderful to have a team that's experienced, and freshly experienced, and already has some wonderful ideas."

Ratings for the 89th Oscars this past February were the lowest since 2008 with 32.9 million viewers tuning in, however, even with the drama of the envelope gaffe in which Faye Dunaway, reading an incorrect card, announced "La La Land" as the Best Picture winner. The snafu was corrected on stage, and "Moonlight" was given the award.

Boone Isaacs acknowledged that dip in ratings is "a little troubling," but she doesn't blame the team for the numbers.

"This show was extremely well-reviewed, and we got so much positive feedback from the general public, as well as our members and certainly the board who are very excited about what they delivered for us," she said.

Boone Isaccs expects the movies to help bolster interest this year.

Interest may be up, too, in the aftermath of the envelope situation, which resulted in heightened press coverage after the show as well as immediate changes internally to ensure that it would never happen again. The changes, however, aren't likely to affect the producers or the host.

"That was more about (accounting firm) PwC and not the producers or the host, and we have addressed that issue. That envelope is closed," Boone Isaacs said. "That was a very specific situation that was addressed right away, and now we'll just move on."

New protocols for PwC, which took responsibility for the mistake, were implemented following the ceremony, including a ban on cellphones backstage for accountants, employing a third balloting partner for the telecast and bringing in PwC's U.S. chairman to provide oversight.

Kimmel, who balanced political jabs with lighthearted humor at this year's ceremony, also recently garnered attention for comments he made on his late night show that all Americans deserve the same level of health care given his infant son, who was born with a heart defect that required surgery to repair. He has criticized GOP lawmakers for voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he mocked critics who called him elitist for his health care comments.

The 90th Oscars will be held on March 4, 2018, in Los Angeles and broadcast live on ABC.

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2017 file photo, host Jimmy Kimmel appears at the Oscars in Los Angeles. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, May 16, 2017, said Kimmel will return for the 90th Oscars on March 4, 2018. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Consternation and confusion overtook Capitol Hill on Tuesday as Republicans confronted the revelation that President Donald Trump had disclosed highly classified information to the Russians. Several hours later, lawmakers were shaken anew by reports that the president had asked then-FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating ousted adviser Michael Flynn.

Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said late Tuesday that the developments had reached "a point where it's of Watergate size and scale."

"I think we've seen this movie before," the Arizona Republican said at a dinner to receive the International Republican Institute's Freedom Award. "The shoes continue to drop, and every couple days there's a new aspect."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., joined by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, gestures while meeting with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, to discuss President Donald Trump reportedly sharing classified information with two Russian diplomats during a meeting in the Oval Office. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

McCain said Trump needs to "get it all out ... and the longer you delay, the longer it's going to last." His comments were reported by The Daily Beast.

Yet despite the anxiety and displeasure voiced by McCain and a handful of other prominent GOP lawmakers, Republicans did not appear poised to abandon a president who remains critical to their goals of acting on health care and tax legislation. Several came to his defense and sought to close ranks.

"There isn't anybody who can run the White House without criticism," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior lawmaker. "This man has been subject to more criticism than any predecessor that I know of. They hate him, they didn't like the fact that he won, he beat their favorite, it was a remarkable election."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded tersely "no" when pressed on whether he had concerns about the president's ability to handle classified information, or whether he was losing confidence in Trump.

But McConnell acknowledged that "it would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the White House."

Just the opposite happened over the course of Tuesday.

First Republicans faced questions on a report initially published in the Washington Post that Trump last week shared details about an Islamic State terror threat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

As some Republicans defended Trump and others expressed concerns, another bombshell report landed, this time about a memo where Comey wrote that Trump had asked him to shut down an FBI investigation into Flynn, according to a person familiar with the situation. The White House denied what was first reported by The New York Times.

Republicans, caught off-guard, insisted they wanted to hear from Comey, who was fired last week a day before Trump met in the Oval Office with the Russian diplomats.

"Let's get to the bottom of what happened with the director. And the best way to get to the bottom of it is for him to testify ... I'm not going to take a memo, I want the guy to come in," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Democrats badgered Republicans to stand up to the president, and demanded access to the transcripts of Trump's meeting last week with two Russian diplomats. After the news broke of the Comey memo, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stood in the chamber and said, "I say to all of my colleagues in the Senate - history is watching."

Yet as the House came back into session Tuesday night some Republicans from conservative districts said their constituents were not overly concerned with any aspect of the Russia story.

Addressing the Comey memo, GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas said: "If Comey felt like the president was trying to obstruct justice, Comey would have been duty-bound to report it to the DOJ and act on it. And we're not hearing that happened. I think this is another example of whatever Trump does gets the worst possible spin."

House Republicans were to hold a weekly meeting Wednesday morning after which Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was expected to address the matter. Aides have said he hopes for a full explanation from the White House.

Democrats pointed out that Ryan had called for Democrat Hillary Clinton to be denied classified briefings after Comey concluded last year that she was careless in how she handled classified information over her email accounts. Ryan's aides countered that in the same July 2016 opinion piece, Ryan also said those classified briefings could resume if Clinton were actually elected.

With the White House in chaos and congressional Republicans struggling to respond, communication appeared to have broken down between the two ends of Pennsylvania Ave.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said around midday Tuesday that he'd spent the morning trying to get someone at the White House to call him and explain what had actually happened.

"My major concern right now is that I don't know what the president said," Burr said. "I'd like to think somebody from the White House who was in the room is going to get on the phone and tell me what they said. ... Maybe they're busy."

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Associated Press writers Richard Lardner, Alan Fram, Matthew Daly and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
Delta Air Lines scored the best for on-time flights in the latest government rankings, and United and American weren't far behind.

Virgin America had the highest rate of delayed flights, and discount carrier Spirit Airlines drew the highest rate of consumer complaints.

The Transportation Department released figures for March on Tuesday. The report covers the 12 largest U.S. airlines.

Delta is the best U.S. airline for on-time performance according to the Transportation Department's March report

Delta and ExpressJet top rankings for best on-time performance and lowest complaints for March Here are the government's rankings of the leading U.S. airlines and their on-time performance and consumer complaint rates for March. Ranking top airlines by on-time performance*: 1. Delta Air Lines, 86.9 percent 2. Hawaiian Airlines, 84.7 percent 3. United Airlines, 81.0 percent 4. American Airlines, 80.2 percent 5. Alaska Airlines, 79.8 percent 6. Southwest Airlines, 79.6 percent 7. Frontier Airlines, 79.3 percent 8. SkyWest, 78.5 percent 9. ExpressJet, 75.8 percent 10. Spirit Airlines, 75.0 percent 11. JetBlue Airways, 70.8 percent 12. Virgin America, 65.5 percent Ranking top airlines by consumer complaint rate: 1. ExpressJet Airlines - 0.31 2. Southwest Airlines - 0.34 3. SkyWest Airlines - 0.34 4. Delta Air Lines - 0.44 5. JetBlue Airways - 0.60 6. Alaska Airlines - 0.62 7. Hawaiian Airlines - 1.08 8. United Airlines - 122 9. American Airlines - 183 10. Virgin America - 1.46 11. Frontier Airlines - 3.39 12. Spirit Airlines - 5.05 *The federal government counts a flight as on time if it arrives no more than 14 minutes behind the scheduled time. Advertisement

Through the first three months of the year, airlines bumped one in every 16,000 passengers off a flight - the same rate as in early 2016.

More commonly, airlines find volunteers to give up their seats on overbooked flights - that happened to about one in every 1,500 passengers, slightly less often than in early 2016.

JetBlue had the highest rate of bumping, which it says can occur when a smaller plane replaces a larger one. Delta had the lowest bumping rate and the highest number of volunteers who gave up their seats.

A national debate about bumping and customer service erupted in April after videos showed a man being forcibly pulled off a United Express plane. He had refused to give up his seat to make room for an airline crew member.

United ranks in the middle of the pack for bumping passengers against their will.

In March, 79.9 percent of flights on the 12 largest airlines arrived on time - that's within 14 minutes of schedule. That was down from the 81.5 percent rate in March 2016.

Delta had an 86.9 percent on-time rate, followed by Hawaiian, United and American. Only 65.5 percent of Virgin America flights arrived on time.

Airlines canceled 1.8 percent of domestic flights, up from 1.0 percent a year earlier.

Consumer complaints filed with the government fell by nearly one-third, with Spirit continuing to have the highest complaint rate. The lowest rate belonged to ExpressJet, which operates regional flights for bigger airlines.

Many more consumers complain directly to the airlines, but the carriers do not disclose those figures.
LONDON (AP) - British police say they have dropped a bid to prosecute a Libyan man over the 1984 killing of a London policewoman who was shot dead from inside the country's embassy.

The suspect was arrested in November 2015 in what police said was a significant development.

The Metropolitan Police said Tuesday that they had enough material to identify those responsible, but that the key evidence could not be presented to a court "for reasons of national security."

Yvonne Fletcher was killed and 10 others wounded on April 17, 1984, when someone opened fire with a submachine gun from inside the Libyan People's Bureau in London. Fletcher was policing a large demonstration against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi outside.

The shooting led to a 15-year rupture in diplomatic relations between Britain and Libya.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Tuesday sidestepped questions about whether Jerusalem's Western Wall is part of Israel ahead of Trump's planned visit to the Old City.

H.R. McMaster said Trump will say a prayer next week at the Western Wall, which is revered as the holiest site where Jews can pray. Asked if Trump thinks the wall is part of Israel, he replied only: "That sounds like a policy decision."

The status of sovereignty over the wall became a political issue between the U.S. and Israel earlier this week. According to reports in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked to join Trump at the wall but the U.S. declined, with one official telling the Israelis that the site is "not your territory." Israel angrily demanded an explanation from the White House, casting a cloud over the highly anticipated visit by the new president.

A worker hangs Israeli and American flags on a lamppost along a freeway leading to Jerusalem, days before a planned visit by President Donald Trump, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. The Israeli prime minister's office said it is seeking clarifications from Trump after an American official said the Western Wall is part of the West Bank. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israel captured the Old City, along with the rest of east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. It considers the entire city to be its eternal capital and next week will celebrate the 50-year anniversary of what it calls the unification of Jerusalem.

However, the international community, including the United States, does not recognize Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek as the capital of a future independent state. The Old City is also home to the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

The rival claims to east Jerusalem lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They've often sparked violence.

McMaster's brief comment appeared to be consistent with long-standing U.S. policy that the status of Jerusalem is an issue to be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, Trump has indicated he is disposed toward recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Although his campaign pledge to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem seems to be on hold, U.S. officials have hinted that Trump could make some other gesture to show Washington's new thinking on the city's status.

Trump's signal could be as symbolic as identifying the city as "Jerusalem, Israel," on official White House documents and photographs while he is there, according to sources familiar with planning for the trip. They weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Previous administrations have declined to identify Jerusalem as being in Israel, out of concern for the diplomatic repercussions.
MIAMI (AP) - Who in the world would be so fearless as to invite Taylor Swift to her college graduation party?

Ashley Silvers of Miami, that's who. The 22-year-old with a new degree in public relations and advertising mailed an invite to the megastar that thanked Swift for being a positive influence.

Then she went home from the University of Central Florida to prepare for her New York City-themed party, celebrating her acceptance into Fordham University's business school. A large bouquet of flowers arrived, with a handwritten note and picture drawn by none other than Swift.

Swift sent her regrets in loopy cursive, saying she's very proud of her fan's excitement and ambition. Silvers, who has been to eight Swift concerts, told The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2qsQYhN ) the gift is "unbelievable."
HAGATNA, Guam (AP) - While most of the United States is still out of reach of a missile launched by North Korea, the U.S. territory of Guam, a key military hub in the Pacific, could be within range.

That realization, coming after a missile launch over the weekend, had residents of the island casting a wary eye amid rising nuclear tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. Some worried they might find war at their doorstep, while others say they are more concerned about the potential loss of vital tourism dollars than they are a nuclear attack.

"I think it is scary since North Korea is just insane, to echo the general consensus about North Korea," said Farron Taijeron, a 29-year-old scuba instructor in Guam.

In this May 15, 2017 photo, tourists walk through a shopping district in Tamuning, Guam on the day North Korea conducted its latest ballistic missile test. While most of the United States is still out of reach of a missile launched by North Korea, the U.S. territory of Guam, a key military hub in the Pacific, could be within range. That realization, coming after a missile launch over the weekend, had residents of the island casting a wary eye amid rising nuclear tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. Some worried they might find war at their doorstep, while others said they are more concerned about the potential loss of vital tourism dollars than they are a nuclear attack. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

Patricia Anna Cruz, a 62-year-old substitute teacher, noted that even if you don't go to war, "war may be right next to you."

U.S. experts said the missile launched over the weekend could have a range of 4,500 kilometers (about 2,800 miles), putting Guam easily within range.

Guam is armed with the U.S. Army's missile defense system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, the same system recently installed in South Korea.

"Whether or not they truly have that capability (of reaching Guam), I'll leave that up to our DoD partners to worry about that threat," said Charles Esteves, Guam's Office of Civil Defense administrator. "But with all the layers of defense ... basically we provide that sense of assurance to the public."

Some locals are more concerned about the perception of tourists than any actual threat.

"Guam's primary industries are tourism and of course the military," Esteves said. "So if we start seeing a significant change in our tourist numbers then maybe there's a need for concern."

Gelica Sablan, a 25-year-old Guam resident and college student, echoed those concerns: "Other people from neighboring Asian counties or any country in general might not want to come here because they might think it's a threat that their safety might be compromised."

Some analysts believe the missile, if proven in further tests, could possibly reach Alaska and Hawaii. Others doubt it has that range.

Tasha Rine, a registered nurse from Kenai, Alaska, said the threat from North Korea was a "little too close for comfort.

"I think it should be causing all of us concern at this point," she said while sitting on the steps of a federal building in downtown Anchorage, just after eating her first-ever reindeer dog, purchased from a street vendor. "We live in a very unstable world, and I think that's deeply concerning, and it should be."

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Associated Press writer Caleb Jones in Honolulu and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.

In this May 15, 2017 photo, tourists walk past a hotel in Tamuning, Guam on day the North Korea conducted its latest ballistic missile test. While most of the United States is still out of reach of a missile launched by North Korea, the U.S. territory of Guam, a key military hub in the Pacific, could be within range. That realization, coming after a missile launch over the weekend, had residents of the island casting a wary eye amid rising nuclear tensions between Pyongyang and Washington. Some worried they might find war at their doorstep, while others say they are more concerned about the potential loss of vital tourism dollars than they are a nuclear attack. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

In this May 11, 2017 photo, Charles Esteves, center, administrator of the Guam Office of Civil Defense talks to co-workers during meeting in Agana Heights, Guam. The agency is watching activities in North Korea as it conducts its ballistic missile tests. While most of the United States is still out of reach of a missile launched by North Korea, the U.S. territory of Guam, a key military hub in the Pacific, could be within range. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The Latest on the rescue of two missing Idaho girls (all times local):

1:20 p.m.

Idaho authorities have filed charges against a man accused of fleeing to Nevada with his two young daughters while in the midst of a custody dispute with their mother.

Joshua Dundon was arrested after law enforcement officials said he walked to a ranch seeking help. The girls were rescued in a mountainous area of Nevada after Dundon was taken into custody. Dundon is jailed under $5 million bail on two counts of custodial interference.

Police say Dundon checked the girls out of their elementary school in the Boise, Idaho area last week and vanished. His vehicle was later found burned in the desert, and an Amber alert was issued for the kids.

It wasn't immediately known if Dundon had an attorney in connection with the criminal charges.

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12:02 p.m.

A Nevada woman who alerted authorities after the father of two missing Idaho girls showed up on her ranch says the man was cold, barefoot and looking for help for the kids he said he left behind in the mountains.

Vera Baumann said she had seen news reports and suspected the man who walked to her home Monday was the father of 7-year-old Madison Ann Dundon and 6-year-old Jaylynn Dawn Dundon.

Baumann's husband confirmed the stranger was Joshua Dundon and spoke with him while she called 911. The man later gave directions to authorities on where to find the children.

The girls were found by searchers several hours later and taken to a hospital to be treated for exposure and reunited with family members.

Joshua Dundon was taken into custody by law enforcement. Police did not release further details.
WAVERLY, Ohio (AP) - State authorities on Tuesday charged the brother of one of the eight relatives slain in an unsolved massacre with tampering with evidence and vandalism over the destruction of a GPS tracking device they placed on his truck.

The state attorney general's office accused James Manley of destroying the device being used in the investigation of the slayings.

The charges "are not uncommon when a witness destroys such a device used in a government investigation," the attorney general's office said.

Manley, of Peebles, is the brother of victim Dana Rhoden. His phone is disconnected, and online court records don't list an attorney for him. His father, Leonard Manley, told the Cincinnati Enquirer his son would turn himself in.

Seven adults and one teenage boy from the Rhoden family were slain in April 2016. They were found shot at four homes near Piketon, 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of Columbus. Three children were found unharmed.

Investigators put a tracking device on a truck driven by James Manley, according to a search warrant obtained by the newspaper from Leonard Manley.

The search warrant indicated that investigators believe the truck was used in connection with an aggravated murder or by a person intending such a crime, but it doesn't specify a connection to the Rhoden homicide investigation and doesn't name James Manley as a suspect, the newspaper reported.

An agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation placed the device on James Manley's truck on April 22, according to his arrest warrant, timestamped Tuesday. The device stopped functioning on April 28, the warrant said.

Agents went to Manley's residence in rural Pike County on May 15 to provide notice of the device. As they approached, Leonard Manley swore at the agents and said his son had found and destroyed the device and "that things not on the truck," the warrant said.

Leonard Manley, who lost three grandchildren in the massacre, told the newspaper that his son and his eldest daughter were close and there is no way he could be involved in the killings. He said it seems investigators are "grasping at straws."

"It's like a wound and then you pick at it," he told the Enquirer, "and they are starting to pick pretty hard."

Investigators also have taken a trailer linked to the family of one victim's ex-boyfriend.

The trailer was taken from one of multiple sites that authorities searched late last week. Bernie Brown, who owns property in Peebles where the trailer had been stored, said its owners needed a place to keep household items after recently selling their Adams County farm.

Whatever significance the trailer might have hasn't been publicly disclosed. The Pike County sheriff and the state attorney general's office won't discuss details of any searches or other parts of the investigation into the slayings.

No arrests have been made, and family members have pleaded for anyone with information that might help solve the case to come forward.

Authorities have executed several dozen search warrants in the investigation.
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - A high school worker filed a federal complaint Tuesday against her school district, saying officials were being discriminatory when they reprimanded her for telling a co-worker that she'd pray for him.

Toni Richardson, a special education technician, contends she was "interrogated" by school officials about the remark in which she intended to offer encouragement to a colleague who goes to her church. She was later warned against using "phrases that integrate public and private belief systems."

"The school reprimanded me because my words, spoken privately to a colleague, involved religious content," she wrote in her complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Augusta Schools Superintendent James Anastasio did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Richardson is seeking to have the reprimand rescinded and for the school district to make clear to employees that there's nothing wrong with discussing their faith in private conversations, said her attorney Jeremy Dys.

"No one should be threatened with losing their job for privately telling a co-worker, 'I will pray for you,'" said Dys, who works for the First Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based organization dedicated to religious liberties. "School employees are not required to hide their faith from each other while on campus."

The EEOC has several options, including telling the school district to stop discriminating, ordering mediation for both parties or taking no position and allowing a lawsuit to be filed, Dys said.

Also representing Richardson is a Maine law firm, Eaton Peabody, whose attorney Timothy Woodcock called the school district's actions "unconscionable."

"The law is clear: Employers cannot discriminate against employees who privately discuss their faith while at work," Woodcock said.
DENVER (AP) - Tucked into the more than $257 million the U.S. Olympic Committee spent in 2016 was a $10 million payment to the International Olympic Committee designed, in part, to give the United States a better chance of hosting an Olympics someday - possibly in Los Angeles in 2024.

That $10 million payment is for "International Games Cost Sharing" - essentially, administrative costs for the Rio de Janeiro Games - and was part of a complex negotiation in which the USOC gave up millions to get back into the bidding game after years of embarrassing rejections.

The USOC also paid $5 million in 2014 to offset expenses at the Sochi Games. The overall tab will rise to $20 million per Olympic cycle starting in 2020.

FILE - This June 30, 2015 file photo shows U.S. Olympic Comittee Chairman Larry Probst speaking during a news conference in Redwood City, Calif. Tucked into the more than $257 million the U.S. Olympic Committee spent in 2016 was a $10 million payment to the International Olympic Committee designed, in part, to give the United States a better chance of hosting an Olympics someday - possibly in Los Angeles in 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, file)

"We hope this has removed a road block from a successful bid for the United States," USOC chairman Larry Probst said, after agreeing to the deal in 2012.

Los Angeles and Paris are the bidders for the 2024 Olympics, with a winner to be determined in September.

The USOC released its 2016 tax forms this week, and the $10 million payment represented about 3.9 percent of the federation's overall expenses. The USOC brought in more than $336 million - a typical surplus for an Olympic year - nearly $173 million of which came from broadcast rights and $121 million of which came from sponsorship deals, some of which came from a revenue-sharing agreement with the IOC.

The revenue-sharing deal hung over previous U.S. bids like a black cloud - an unfair bargain in the mind of many IOC members, who used it to justify votes against the United States in its humiliating defeats in the bidding for 2012 and 2016.

But the USOC brings the biggest, most successful team to the Olympics, along with NBC and its TV deal - more than $12 billion for Olympics from 2014 through 2032 - and there are many in the United States who believe the USOC was every bit entitled to special treatment.

This quote, in one of former chairman Peter Ueberroth's farewell speeches in 2008, was widely cited as undermining the Chicago bid for the 2016 Olympics:

"Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement?" Ueberroth said. "Make no mistake about it. ... U.S. corporations have paid 60 percent of all the money, period. Be sure you all understand that. The rest of the world pays 40 percent. It's pretty simple math."

As Ueberroth's successor, Probst vowed to turn the USOC into a less heavy-handed Olympic partner, and he also vowed not to bid for the Olympics again until the revenue-sharing piece was resolved.

"The negotiations in the past were designed at creating better relationships between the IOC and USOC, and I think we've seen, over time, the relationships have improved," USOC chief communications officer Patrick Sandusky said. "We can only benefit on and off the field of play with solid relationship with the IOC."

The 2024 bidding process has turned into something of an embarrassment for the IOC, with three cities dropping out and the U.S. having to switch its bid city to Los Angeles after Boston residents rebelled against being a candidate.

In July, the IOC will meet to consider awarding both the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. The final decision comes at its meeting in Peru in September. If both games are awarded, it would mean no "losers" in the bid process, though neither city is jumping at the prospect of getting a "win" for four years later than it planned.

The decisions of the next few months will be as good a gauge as any as to whether the USOC negotiations were worth the trouble.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump didn't appear to break any law by sharing highly classified information with Russia, but that doesn't make it any less problematic for America's intelligence agencies and their overseas partners.

Even as Trump's national security adviser insisted the Oval Office disclosure to visiting Russian diplomats was "wholly appropriate" and routine, few people outside of the White House saw it that way. Especially troubling was that a foreign country provided the intelligence confidentially to the U.S.

A look at the legal and national security issues at stake:

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017, where he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made statements. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WHAT DID TRUMP TELL THE RUSSIANS?

Trump shared information about a threat from the Islamic State group while hosting Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. The threat related to laptops carried on airplanes, according to a senior U.S. official.

The information appears to be related to the basis for a U.S. and British decision in March to bar laptops and tablets from being carried on board international flights from cities in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. U.S. and European Union officials more recently have discussed expanding the ban to include flights from Europe.

WHERE DID TRUMP GET THE INFORMATION?

A U.S. ally provided the information, the official said, meaning it wasn't necessarily Trump's to share with anyone else.

The New York Times reported that Israel was the provider, though administration officials wouldn't confirm that was true.

The White House said Trump wasn't briefed on the source of the intelligence and didn't know where it came from when he passed it along to the Russians.

WAS WHAT TRUMP DID LEGAL?

Probably.

The system for how U.S. secrets are classified and the rules for how they're handled derive from an executive order.

That means secrets are governed by the president and not by laws passed by Congress. The president's authority to make the classification rules comes from his constitutional powers as the commander in chief and head of the executive branch.

Typically, that has been interpreted to mean that the president has the ultimate authority to classify and to declassify information. Put another way, classified information becomes unclassified by default the moment the president chooses to disclose it.

But there are other laws that could come into play when sensitive information is disclosed to harm the U.S., according to David Pozen, who teaches national security law at Columbia Law School. These include the Espionage Act and Identities Protection Act.

Still, it's hard to imagine the president being prosecuted under those laws given that it's his constitutional power to make national security decisions.

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

The disclosure to Russia appeared to violate an intelligence-sharing agreement that provides the U.S. critical information about threats to the nation.

A breach of trust raises the possibility that U.S. friends might curtail such intelligence partnerships out of concern their secrets - and their sources and methods - could end up in the wrong hands.

The fact that the secrets went to Russia, an adversary of the U.S. and many of its allies, was especially alarming.

U.S. intelligence-sharing agreements include the Five Eyes program with Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. These countries share vast amounts of information and promise not to spy on each other. The U.S. also shares intelligence with countries like Germany that broadly share U.S. national security goals.

Russia, a top espionage concern for the U.S., is different. Even sharing limited amounts of intelligence about terrorist targets with Russia, in Syria for example, has been the source of major controversy in the past.

And Russia's allies and partners include Syria, Iran, China and other American rivals.

HOW HAVE PAST PRESIDENTS HANDLED THESE ISSUES?

Other American leaders routinely authorized disclosing certain secrets to other countries - but not the way Trump did it.

Typically, before disclosing intelligence to another country, there would be an evaluation of costs and benefits, close consultation with the U.S. intelligence community, and detailed consideration of how much to say and in what words so as to mitigate risks.

"That way, they can take steps to protect sources and methods," said Steven Pike, a former State Department official who teaches at Syracuse University.

The White House acknowledged Trump made the decision essentially on the spot. In fact, it was so unexpected that officials later called the National Security Agency and the CIA to inform them of the breach of protocol and try to limit any damage.

WHAT'S ALL THIS TALK ABOUT "SOURCES AND METHODS?"

Intelligence agencies use the phrase "sources and methods" to describe secrets about how intelligence is gathered.

Even when intelligence is declassified, the government typically keeps secret the ways it acquired the intelligence. This way, it preserves its ability to collect more intelligence in the future. When the U.S. this week released details about prisoner killings in Syria, it didn't outline exactly how it knew what it claimed to know.

Trump and his aides insist he did not reveal sources and methods to the Russians, and thus didn't put intelligence-gathering at risk.

But intelligence experts say it's not that simple.

Adversaries can often look at intelligence that has been disclosed and reverse-engineer where it came using a process of elimination.

That raises concerns the Islamic State group might be able to identify a vulnerability that spies have been exploiting and cut it off.

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Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
MORO, Ore. (AP) - Religious beliefs involving the use of pesticides are part of a dispute over noxious weeds on a 2,000-acre organic farm in Oregon that has attracted the attention of organic food supporters.

Sherman County may order the owners of Azure Farms, near Moro, to spray to control the weeds if the farm doesn't come up with a weed management plan by next week.

The county said in a letter it also might do the spraying itself then bill the farm owned by Ecclesia of Sinai.

The farm, which is operated by a major supplier of organic products called Azure Standard, would lose its organic certification if herbicides are applied, the Capital Press reported Tuesday (http://bit.ly/2qoRsaX ).

The company has also cited religious beliefs for refusing to spray, including a biblical passage stating that the land should not be defiled.

Alfred Stelzer, of Ecclesia of Sinai, says the farm "made a covenant" to follow the Bible and cited a passage from the Book of Numbers 35:34 that says the land must not be polluted.

Neighboring farmers who don't use organic methods have complained that the weeds pose a risk to their crops if they aren't contained.

Growers of certified wheat seed, for example, say their crop could be contaminated by rush skeleton weed, Canada thistle, morning glory and white top, the newspaper reported.

If the operation doesn't develop a plan and refuses to allow spraying, the county could ask Oregon agricultural officials to place their operations in quarantine.

A video posted on the farm's website has resulted in hundreds of phone calls and thousands of e-mails to county officials from supporters of the farm.

The Oregon Wheat Commission and several growers are hoping to draw support from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, while a group that certifies organic operations is asking the county to give the farm more time before enforcing its weed control plan.

The conflict began to unfold in March, when Sherman County's weed district supervisor Rod Asher wrote to Ecclesia of Sinai that noxious weeds "have been found to be growing rampant and unchecked on your properties in Sherman County."

Ecclesia of Sinai is based in neighboring Wasco County.

The Stelzer family says on their website that they converted their farm to organic practices in 1971 after pesticide use damaged their land.

County commissioners are expected to take up the issue Wednesday. The county has moved the session from the courthouse to a school gym to accommodate a crowd.

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Information from: Capital Press, http://www.capitalpress.com/washington
BLUE DIAMOND, Nev. (AP) - The Nevada Highway Patrol says a Swiss tourist has died from injuries she suffered over the weekend in a two-vehicle crash on State Route 160 southwest of Las Vegas.

The victim was identified Tuesday as 60-year-old Maria Graf of Switzerland.

The patrol says she was a passenger in a Cadillac that failed to yield the right of way and pulled into the path of an oncoming pickup at about 9 a.m. Saturday at the intersection with State Route 158 near Blue Diamond.

The truck hit the Cadillac, causing both vehicles to overturn.

The Cadillac's driver and two passengers in the F-150 pickup were taken to a Las Vegas hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The cause of the accident remains under investigation but the patrol says driver impairment was not a factor.

The occupants of both vehicles all were wearing seatbelts.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Latest on pretrial rulings in the case of a Minnesota police officer who faces a manslaughter trial in connection with the fatal shooting of Philando Castile last July (all times local):

4:45 p.m.

The trial of a Minnesota officer who killed a black man last July will stay in St. Paul.

Minnesota Public Radio News reports that the state Supreme Court has denied to hear a defense petition that requested a change of venue for St. Anthony police Officer Jeronimo Yanez.

Yanez is charged with manslaughter in the death of 32-year-old Philando Castile. Yanez shot Castile during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights after Castile told him he was armed. Castile had a permit to carry.

The shooting's aftermath was streamed live on Facebook by Castile's girlfriend, who was in the car.

Yanez, who is Latino, goes on trial May 30.

His attorneys wanted the trial moved out of Ramsey County because of pretrial publicity. Previous attempts to get the trial moved were also denied.

11:55 a.m.

A judge has denied several requests by attorneys for a Minnesota officer who killed a black man last July.

Among them, a judge ruled that jurors will not be allowed to view Philando Castile's car in person, so St. Anthony police Officer Jeronimo Yanez won't be able to re-enact what happened the night he shot Castile in a St. Paul suburb.

The aftermath of the shooting was broadcast live on Facebook by Castile's girlfriend, who was in the car.

Yanez, who is Latino, is charged with manslaughter. His trial is scheduled to begin May 30.

Minnesota Public Radio News reports (http://bit.ly/2pT11Ld ) that during Tuesday's pretrial hearing, Judge William Leary III also ruled that the defense can't bring up anything about Castile's character during their opening statements.

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Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mprnews.org
TUPELO, Miss. (AP) - Federal prosecutors won't seek civil rights charges against a white Mississippi police officer in the June 2016 fatal shooting of a black man following a foot chase.

In a statement Tuesday , Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner said there's not enough evidence to prove Tupelo Police Officer Tyler Cook violated the rights of Antwun "Ronnie" Shumpert. Joyner says federal prosecutors can't meet the high standard of proof to show that Cook acted deliberately and with intent to break the law when he shot Shumpert in the backyard of a Tupelo house.

"There is no reliable evidence to contradict the assertion that Cook fired at Shumpert because he perceived him to be a deadly threat to himself and others," according to the statement, which noted officers tried to use nonlethal means, including a police dog, to subdue Shumpert. "It was only when Shumpert punched Cook in the head and Cook feared losing consciousness that he fired his gun."

Shumpert died of injuries at a hospital.

Federal prosecutors and representatives from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division informed Shumpert's family of the decision Tuesday before announcing it publicly.

Family members maintain the shooting was unjustified. Shumpert family lawyer Carlos Moore said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that "a blind man could see this was excessive force." He accused federal prosecutors of not doing enough to challenge Cook's story, but also said he had warned family members that the legal standard for prosecuting a civil rights violation was extraordinarily high.

"They still believed that the Department of Justice would find, as they have found, that it was excessive force and Tyler Cook didn't have to do what he did," Moore said.

State grand jurors declined to indict Cook in August. Shumpert's survivors are suing Tupelo in federal court , seeking $35 million in damages. Moore said the family hopes to prevail there, where the standard of proof will be lower. He also said he hoped to use forensic evidence to prove Cook had no reason to fear for his life.

"Forensic pathologists can tell you who was on top when the shooting was done and that's all I can say," Moore said.

The charges roiled race relations in northeast Mississippi's largest city, with hundreds of people protesting at one point. City officials, protective of Tupelo's carefully cultivated image as a center of commerce and industry, pushed back against claims of wrongdoing.

"The fact that both entities - the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the FBI - that have investigated this case found insufficient evidence for prosecution of Tyler Cook speaks for itself," said city spokeswoman Leesha Faulkner.

The Tupelo City Council voted in April to create a police advisory board , saying they hope the panel will improve the relationship between city police and local residents. The board does not have subpoena power and is not charged with investigating police misconduct.

The AP was unable to reach Cook's lawyer for comment. Cook remains a Tupelo police officer.

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Follow Jeff Amy at: http://twitter.com/jeffamy . Read his work at https://www.apnews.com/search/Jeff_Amy .
WASHINGTON (AP) - Firing FBI Director James Comey is already coming back to haunt President Donald Trump.

In dismissing Comey last week, Trump created the very real possibility that a respected law enforcement official known for an outspoken nature and willingness to buck political convention could resurface in public.

And while Comey himself has been silent, his associates have been exposing intriguing details of his encounters with Trump.

FILE - In this May 8, 2017, file photo, then-FBI Director James Comey speaks to the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Summit in Washington. The White House is disputing a report that President Donald Trump asked Comey to shut down an investigation into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

On Tuesday, an associate revealed that Comey had written a memo in which he described Trump asking him to shut down an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey, who was known to keep a paper trail of sensitive meetings, chronicled the president's request soon after the February Oval Office meeting with the president, an associate who has seen the memo told The Associated Press. The associate was not authorized to discuss the memo by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday on accounts of the memo, which was first reported by The New York Times. The White House disputed the account.

The conversation occurred weeks after the FBI interviewed Flynn regarding his contacts with the Russia ambassador to the United States and after the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, warned the White House that Flynn had misled them about those conversations and could be vulnerable to blackmail.

Flynn was forced to resign Feb. 13 after reports of the Yates-White House conversation.

News Tuesday of Trump's request of Comey immediately renewed concerns from congressional Democrats that Trump was trying to obstruct an investigation that's been examining potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

"We are witnessing an obstruction of justice case unfolding in real time," Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Judiciary Committee member and former federal prosecutor, said in a statement. He called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate.

Some Republicans also called for action, asking Comey to speak to Congress and demanding that any memos or recordings of his conversations with the president be presented to them.

Comey, appointed as FBI director in 2013 by President Barack Obama, spoke often about his desire to be as transparent as possible about FBI actions and about proving to the public that his agency was independent, competent and thorough.

"We're not on anybody's side, ever," he said in a March speech. "We're not considering whose ox will be gored by this action or that action, whose fortunes will be helped by this or that - we just don't care and we can't care."

He riled administrations of both parties with his moral certitude and decisions that critics said strayed from ordinary protocol, such as his public announcement - without the involvement of the Justice Department - that the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her email use.

Testifying before Congress is familiar to Comey, a former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

As FBI director, he was accustomed to hours-long oversight hearings before Congress covering a wide range of topics. In 2007, years before his appointment as FBI director, he recounted to a rapt congressional audience a dramatic hospital room clash three years earlier with fellow Bush administration officials over the approval of a domestic surveillance program.

The associate who described the memo said Comey is willing to testify but wants to do it in public to ensure a full airing of events. Comey created several memos of encounters with Trump to ensure that a record would exist of conversations he found odd or troubling, according to the person.

Comey was abruptly fired May 9 and learned of the dismissal as he was giving a talk in Los Angeles. While the White House initially cited a Justice Department recommendation and Comey's very public handling of the Clinton email investigation as reasons, those explanations quickly shifted.

Trump later admitted in a television interview about Comey's firing that he was bothered by "this Russia thing" and said he would have fired Comey regardless of the Justice Department recommendation. He also tweeted a veiled threat last Friday warning the ex-director against leaking information.

Soon after the firing, a Comey associate told the AP that Comey recounted being asked by Trump at a January dinner if he would pledge his loyalty. The White House has denied that report.

The associate also confirmed an account from the Times that Trump vented about media leaks during his conversation with Comey, and that the president expressed support for seeing reporters in prison.

The associate also confirmed that Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to leave the room before speaking privately with Comey about Flynn, and that the president told Comey he believed Flynn was a "good guy" and asked if the FBI could end the investigation into him.

After Tuesday's revelation, the White House said in a statement, "While the President has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the President has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn."

There is no sign the FBI's Russia investigation is closing. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told Congress last week the investigation is "highly significant" and said Comey's dismissal would do nothing to impede the probe.

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Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman, Julie Pace, Chad Day and Stephen Braun contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) - When the report burst forth alleging that President Donald Trump had revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats, the White House quickly dispatched Trump's national security adviser to declare that the story "as reported is false."

By the next morning, however, H.R. McMaster's pronouncement was undercut by Trump himself, making the aide the latest to face a public conflict with the boss in a White House where credibility problems are becoming an occupational hazard.

Yes, the president said, he had given information to the Russians. But there was nothing wrong with that, he insisted. In two tweets, Trump said the conversation with the diplomats was an acceptable way to provide facts related to airline safety and terrorism, and he declared he had "the absolute right" to share the details.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. The White House has an unusual credibility problem: President Donald Trump's aides deliver questionable statements or aggressively argue points that Tump himself then contradicts. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Still, the day-after accounts prompted questions about McMaster's earlier comments on the story that was first reported by The Washington Post.

These types of conflicts are a near-constant in the Trump administration, which has tangled over accounts involving issues ranging from the size of Trump's inaugural crowd to the firing of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump's claims that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

Trump has frequently tasked aides and surrogates with delivering apparently false or misleading statements or to aggressively argue points that the president later contradicts.

The conflicted information has made it harder for aides to effectively advocate for the president.

"It's always a hard job, but there's no question in my mind the president has made it harder for his immediate staff, which is there to support him," said Ari Fleischer, press secretary to Republican President George W. Bush.

Trump himself has raised doubts about the credibility of what his representatives say. He tweeted last week that since he's a very active president, it's not always possible for his surrogates to speak with perfect accuracy. He also suggested "maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???"

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer got off to a rocky start with beat reporters on the second day of the administration when he delivered a tirade about reporting on the Inauguration Day crowds. Trump had already blasted the media over its reports - accurate - about the numbers.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, has also tangled with the media over the believability of her statements, saying earlier this year in a television appearance that Flynn had Trump's full confidence, hours before Trump fired him. She also referred to a "Bowling Green Massacre" that never occurred.

And Vice President Mike Pence insisted Flynn had not discussed Obama-era Russian sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. That was untrue, something the White House blamed on Flynn when Trump fired him a month later.

Asked Tuesday if he is concerned about White House credibility being undermined, Spicer said "no one would ever want that."

But the loose accounting of facts has raised alarms among both Republicans and Democrats. They note that the administration has yet to face a national or international crisis comparable to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Hurricane Katrina or the Sandy Hook school shootings.

"Lacking credibility makes dealing with crises infinitely more difficult," said Alex Conant, a Republican communications strategist who advised the presidential bid of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Trump rival. "This White House has wasted credibility by arguing things like crowd size."

"This is not business as usual. And the president is truly creating chaos," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in a speech Tuesday to the Center for American Progress' Ideas Conference.

The reliability of White House statements was again questioned after the firing of FBI Director James Comey last week and then in this week's intelligence flap.

When Comey was ousted by Trump, White House officials said the decision came only after the president consulted with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who laid out a case for Comey's dismissal in a memo.

But in an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt two days later, Trump said he had long planned to sack his controversial FBI director. "I was going to fire Comey," Trump said.

The White House made another pivot after Trump disclosed information about an Islamic State terror threat in his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kislyak. That disclosure included highly classified information, the Post reported. A senior U.S official told AP the same thing, saying the threat involved laptop computers on aircraft

The information had been shared with Trump by an ally, so his passing it along to Russia violated the confidentiality of an intelligence-sharing agreement with that country, the official said.

Hours after the story broke, McMaster stood in front of a bank of cameras, saying that the Post story, "as reported, is false." He added that, "at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed," an allegation that was not made in the story, and that Trump "did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

On Tuesday, McMaster said Trump's actions were "wholly appropriate," adding, "The president wasn't even aware of where this information came from. He wasn't briefed on the source and method of the information either."

For Trump staffers, there have been warnings they could be undercut by their boss. Trump, in a May 2016 tweet, offered this piece of advice.

"Don't believe the biased and phony media quoting people who work for my campaign. The only quote that matters is a quote from me!"

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Associated Press Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - A suburban Denver robbery-kidnapping convict was ordered released from prison Tuesday after being mistakenly freed decades early, then re-incarcerated.

Rene Lima-Marin was convicted in 2000 of multiple robbery, kidnapping and burglary counts. He and another man had robbed two video stores at gunpoint.

Lima-Marin was sentenced to 98 years in prison. But he was mistakenly released on parole in 2008, then held a steady job and got married. Authorities realized the mistake in 2014, and police returned him to prison.

FILE - In this May 7, 2014 file photo, Rene Lima-Marin sits for an interview with The Associated Press about the circumstances of his sentencing and incarceration, in a meeting room inside Kit Carson Correctional Center, a privately operated prison in Burlington, Colo. Lima-Marin was sent back to prison after being mistakenly released 90 years early. On Tuesday May 16, 2017, a judge ordered him released from prison again, saying it would be "draconian" to keep him behind bars and that he has paid his debt to society. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

The decision Tuesday ends years of battles by Lima-Marin to be freed.

Chief Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. wrote that it would be "draconian" to keep Lima-Marin in prison.

"Although most of Lima-Marin's sentence remains unserved, he has sufficiently paid his debt to society," the judge wrote.

Samour also pointed out that Lima-Marin, who did not know in 2008 that he was released by accident, had already completed parole and started a family before authorities returned him to prison.

"Without the ability to turn back the clock, how does the court dispense justice under such circumstances?" the judge asked.

Samour also criticized "the government's conscience-shocking deliberate indifference" when it accidentally released a man and didn't notice the error for six years. But Samour added that re-incarcerating Lima-Marin now "would perpetuate a manifest injustice."

Lima-Marin's release was first reported by The Denver Post .

The Colorado Legislature approved a nonbinding resolution earlier this month urging Gov. John Hickenlooper to grant Lima-Marin clemency.

There was no immediate word from the state Department of Corrections on when Lima-Marin would be released from a prison in southern Colorado, the newspaper reported.

Lima-Marin's co-defendant, Michael Clifton, is serving 98 years in prison.
BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. (AP) - A South Carolina sheriff says a girl's body found this weekend is an 8-year-old whose mother previously was found stabbed to death.

The Marlboro County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Tuesday that 32-year-old Jejauncey Harrington has been charged with murder in the death of Iyana Lowery of Bennettsville. He was charged last week with killing her mother, Ella Lowery.

The woman's body was found May 5 in the home she shared with Iyana. Deputies said the girl's body recovered in a remote area of the county was identified using DNA records.

Harrington also faces charges of kidnapping, armed robbery and possessing a weapon during a violent crime. He is being held in Marlboro County's jail.

It wasn't immediately known if he has an attorney.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez plans to meet with an anti-abortion Democratic group amid divisions within the party over whether to back candidates opposed to abortion, according to the group.

DNC officials say there's no meeting confirmed yet.

Democrats for Life Executive Director Kristen Day said Tuesday that the DNC and her group were in talks about scheduling a session with Perez, who proclaimed last month it is "not negotiable" that "every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health."

DNC officials said Tuesday that Democrats for Life wants an assembly that would include Perez and Democratic lawmakers. Talks are ongoing but nothing is scheduled, the party officials said, and they pointed again to Perez's April statement making clear the party's support for abortion rights.

That initial declaration drew sharp criticism from anti-abortion Democrats. Like Day, they argued that Democrats need to open their doors to different viewpoints on the sensitive issue, given the party's shrinking national profile.

"I think he thinks it was a mistake to put out that statement," Day said. "I'm encouraged we're meeting and we're going to have this discussion. I think it's important."

Democrats for Life first requested a meeting with Perez before the Democratic National Committee announced last month it would hold a rally in Omaha, Nebraska, for mayoral candidate Heath Mello, a former state senator who supported abortion restrictions.

News of the rally sparked outcry from National Abortion Rights Action League President Ilyse Hogue, who called support for Mello "politically stupid."

Perez quickly backtracked, pledging that if anti-abortion Democrats "try to legislate or govern that way, we will take them on."

Meanwhile, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders went on to headline the April rally in Omaha, urging Democrats to support Mello. He lost the mayoral race on May 9.

Anti-abortion Democrats have almost disappeared in Congress. Only three senators fit the description, and all three - Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia - are up for re-election next year in states President Donald Trump won in 2016.

Plans for the meeting were first reported in The Atlantic.

___

Associated Press reporter Bill Barrow contributed from Atlanta.
Geraint Thomas has vowed to keep fighting at the Giro dItalia despite Sundays crash which appears to have ruined his chances of contending for overall victory.

Thomas was lying second overall going into stage nine to Blockhaus, but was caught in a huge crash caused by a police motorbike late on the 149km stage from Montenero di Bisaccia  with fellow Brit Adam Yates of Orica-Scott and Thomas team-mate Mikel Landa also among those involved.

The nature of the incident has caused major controversy, but that is of little comfort to Thomas, who dislocated his shoulder in the crash and now finds himself more than five minutes down on the new leader  and pre-race favourite  Nairo Quintana of Movistar.

Geraint Thomas (David Davies/PA)

That couldn't have been much worse. Really shouldn't have happened!!! I'm ok though, around to fight another day. Thanks for the messages  Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) May 14, 2017

The race resumes on Tuesday with an 39km individual time trial to Foligno, with Thomas and Team Sky spending Mondays rest day recovering and regrouping from a blow which appears fatal to their general classification hopes.

Im okay and theres nothing broken, Thomas said on the Team Sky website. Ive had a lot worse injuries and Ill be able to get through it. Its not ideal but hopefully itll be a bit better again tomorrow and I can get stuck in and see what Ive got.

Theres still a lot of racing to be done, whether I go for trying to improve my GC position all the way through to Milan, or just try and target a couple of stages. I think just take it day by day at the moment, but certainly go 100% tomorrow (in the time trial).

Quintana, the 2014 champion, is now the overwhelming favourite in the race and leads by 28 seconds from Thibaut Pinot of FDJ, but the Colombian admitted he could lose the pink jersey in Tuesdays time trial  even if only temporarily.

Feel like I've taken some birthday beats from @anthonyfjoshua  Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) May 15, 2017

Team Sunwebs Tom Dumoulin, who sits third overall, 30 seconds behind Quintana, won silver in the Olympic time trial last year and represents a clear and immediate danger to Quintanas hold on pink.

By a matter of physical nature, its obvious that I should lose some time tomorrow, Quintana said.

Were facing a strong Tom Dumoulin, a talented specialist; also Thibaut Pinot, who rides well against the clock. They will surely do better on tomorrows course than me, though I hope not to lose really much time.

Id of course like to keep the Maglia Rosa, yet we know itll be difficult. I wouldnt dare to say which margin would be enough for me, how much time lost would make me happy. Well wait for tomorrow to see how we feel about our performance.
President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting last week, it has been reported.

Three White House officials who were in the May 10 meeting strongly denounced the Washington Post story, saying no intelligence sources and methods were discussed  but they did not deny that classified information was disclosed.

Citing current and former US officials, the Washington Post said Mr Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

Donald Trump and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office (Russian Foreign Ministry via AP)

The anonymous officials told the Washington Post that the information Mr Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

I was in the room, it didnt happen, HR McMaster, Mr Trumps national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late on Monday. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

He said secretary of state Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources in the news report, he said.

Rex Tillerson said Mr Trump discussed a range of subjects

Mr Tillerson said Mr Trump discussed a range of subjects, including common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. He said that during that exchange the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

Ms Powell said: This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

The Washington Post story  which was later confirmed by The New York Times and BuzzFeed News  does not claim that Mr Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered. Still, it will only heighten Mr Trumps strained relations with intelligence workers and former officials, who view Russia as an adversary.

FBI director James Comey

If true, the breach was ill-timed, coming a day after Mr Trump fired former FBI director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election. Mr Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after he misled vice president Mike Pence about conversations he had with Mr Kisylak.

The Washington Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, Mr Trump would have jeopardised cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group, and make other allies  or even US intelligence officials  wary about sharing future top secret details with the president.
A new decision in the European Court of Justice could complicate Theresa Mays task of securing a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

The Luxembourg-based court has ruled that a free trade deal reached with Singapore in 2013 must be ratified by member states.

Experts believe the ruling is likely to set a precedent for agreement with the post-Brexit UK, handing a veto over the deal to a total of 38 national and regional parliaments around the continent.

An EU flag flying in front of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London (Victoria Jones/PA)

It sets the scene for a repeat of the chaos surrounding Canadas Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta) with the EU, which came close to foundering after seven years of negotiation last year because of opposition in the Walloon regional parliament in Belgium.

In its ruling, the court states: The free trade agreement with Singapore cannot, in its current form, be concluded by the European Union alone.

The provisions of the agreement relating to non-direct foreign investment and those relating to dispute settlement between investors and states do not fall within the exclusive competence of the European Union, so that the agreement cannot, as it stands, be concluded without the participation of the member states.

The process is complicated by the fact that some EU member states, including Belgium, require the approval of regional assemblies as well as the national parliament for ratification.

The Singapore ruling is thought likely to act as a model for the way the EU deals with any UK trade deal.

ECJ rules that EU-Singapore trade deal requires ratification by member states https://t.co/AmtjqRIVVY  Open Europe (@OpenEurope) May 16, 2017

But it has no affect on the divorce deal to take Britain out of the 28-nation bloc under Article 50 of the EU treaties, which requires only a qualified majority of nations at the European Council and the approval of the European Parliament.

The new ruling provides some hope for UK negotiators, as it is less broad than a legal opinion issued to the court in December by Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston.

Ms Sharpston found that, while the EU was able to ratify parts of the agreement as a single body, member-states approval would be needed in areas including air and maritime transport, labour and environmental standards, social policy, some aspects of intellectual property rights and dispute settlement.

The Prime Minister has triggered Article 50 and started the process of leaving the EU. Read the letter: https://t.co/4CfCle4BP1 pic.twitter.com/Gf4DIudIMH  UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) March 29, 2017

The court ruling significantly narrows the range of topics which will be subject to national ratification.

The only aspects of the deal which must go out to the 28 member states for approval are non-direct foreign investment and the regime governing dispute settlement between investors and states. All other parts of the agreement can be sealed by the EU acting as a single body.

Essex University EU law professor Steve Peers said the ruling would make most EU trade deals easier, and that this was particularly the case with a post-Brexit deal, as neither side have expressed an interest in including investment in a future free trade agreement.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake said: Theresa May and Nigel Farages claims of an easy trade deal with the EU after Brexit have been left in tatters. You should have your say on the Brexit deal in a referendum, and if you dont like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.
Labour says it believes in the social obligation to contribute to a fair taxation scheme for the common good.

As well as taking on the social scourge of tax avoidance, it will lower the threshold for the 45p rate of income tax from 150,000 to 80,000 and introduce a new 50p rate on earnings over 123,000.

A proud day for us in @UKLabour: our Manifesto has just been released. #ForTheMany. Read it, discuss it, share it: https://t.co/nXm01GIrNd pic.twitter.com/wTIZBfpwBe  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 16, 2017

Labour has said the income tax increases will raise 6.4 billion a year. Some commentators say this is uncertain, arguing that the changes could affect earners behaviour.

A five pound and ten pound banknote (Yui Mok/PA)

Labour will guarantee no rise in Income Tax for 95% of taxpayers, and no rise in VAT or National Insurance for anyone. RT  pic.twitter.com/brVaQHa1Qd  The Labour Party (@UKLabour) May 14, 2017

Labour has said the top 5% of earners will be asked to contribute more in tax, which will help to fund public services. There will be no rises in income tax for those earning below 80,000 a year.

It has said 95% of taxpayers will be guaranteed no increase in their income tax contributions, and everyone will be protected from any increase in personal national insurance contributions and VAT.

Labour proposes tax rise on the 1.3 million people with the highest incomes (IFS analysis to follow soon) #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/yeQsFQaDrT  Institute for Fiscal Studies (@TheIFS) May 16, 2017

Economic think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said 1.3 million people with taxable income exceeding 80,000 per year will see an impact. Currently, this small group pays more than 40% of all income tax, according to the IFS.

The IFS said the impact for many could be to increase their contributions to private pensions, which bring up-front income tax relief. They could also work less, make greater efforts to avoid or evade tax, emigrate, or not come to the UK in the first place, it said.

Tom Selby, a senior analyst at AJ Bell, said: A perverse knock-on impact of this pledge is that the cost of pension tax relief provided to higher earners would rocket as under the current system it is granted at your marginal rate of income tax.

Labours proposed income tax rise: cash losses by income (assuming no behavioural response), in numbers... (2/2) #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/JNUHndNQtz  Institute for Fiscal Studies (@TheIFS) May 16, 2017

This presumably is not the intention of the policy, and so it would be no surprise to see a Labour government take the axe to pension tax incentives.

Jason Hollands, managing director at Tilney Group, said: Punitive taxes just deter people from working harder, especially contractors, and will negatively impact consumer spending to the detriment of the domestic economy.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures for 2016 suggest that top earners in countries including Sweden, France and Germany pay higher rates of income tax than they do in the UK.

Conservatives have put tax giveaways for the rich & big business before funding for NHS.



Agree with @jeremycorbyn? RT  #RCN17 #ForTheMany pic.twitter.com/UtiG6VpcjS  The Labour Party (@UKLabour) May 15, 2017

The IFS argued earlier this month there is a far from perfect overlap between people who have high incomes and people who are wealthy.

It said high-income people are those who receive a large flow of money over a period of time from salaries, bonuses, dividends or profits for the self-employed, for example.

High-wealth people are those who have built up valuable assets by a point in time, typically in property, pension pots or other financial assets.

Revenues raised by Labour income tax rises highly uncertain-depends on how high earners respond. #GE2017 @theIFS https://t.co/xX36PxDsQA  pic.twitter.com/fx1oGBQmbR  Helen Miller (@HelenMiller_IFS) May 16, 2017

Those who appear on the annual rich list compiled by the Sunday Times represent less than 0.00002% of the UK adult population, according to the IFS.

Some people may have incomes considered high, but they may also have high outgoings  particularly when local incomes are compared with house prices which vary widely across the UK.

For example, a recent study by Lloyds Bank found that a home in Oxford, London, Winchester, Cambridge or Chichester, costs at least 10 times average local earnings typically. Stirling in Scotland was identified as the UKs most affordable city, with an average house price at 3.7 times local earnings.
Dillian Whytes June 3 fight with Polands Mariusz Wach has been postponed after the heavyweight suffered a foot injury.

Whyte had been scheduled to top the bill at Londons 02 Arena.

Promoter Eddie Hearn is banking on Whyte being ready for action by July when it is still hoped James DeGale will make the latest defence of his IBF super-middleweight title.

Dillian Whyte (Peter Byrne/PA)

Whyte injury delays June 3 return https://t.co/WnlUrAEShu pic.twitter.com/6XfN3jY5uy  Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) May 16, 2017

We expect to see him return in July before challenging for the world heavyweight title towards the end of the year, Hearn said.

The 29-year-old Whytes rival, Dereck Chisora, had been scheduled to fight Robert Helenius on May 27 but that has also been postponed owing to what his promoter Nisse Sauerland described as a number of contributing factors.

It had been widely hoped the two would meet in a re-match after Whytes narrow defeat of Chisora in December.
Scotland is leading the UK with its progressive policies, Nicola Sturgeon insisted, as the SNP marked the milestone of 10 years in power at Holyrood.

A decade on from the nationalists first coming to power in Edinburgh, the First Minister claimed the country had come a long way.

She hailed it as a special day for her party, as she marked the 10th anniversary of her predecessor Alex Salmond becoming first minister on May 16 2007.

Over the past 10 years we have worked every day to make Scotland a better country, she stated.

And we have made real progress to be proud of.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said the SNPs 10th anniversary in power marked a missed opportunity, as she insisted ministers could have achieved much more if they hadnt spent so much time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK.

Ms Davidson, who was campaigning in Dumfries ahead of the June 8 General Election, said: Weve got schools who are going backwards, weve got college places that have been cut, 152,000 of them, so there are fewer opportunities for people. Weve got an economy in Scotland thats one quarter away from recession, whilst the rest of the UK is growing.

.@RuthDavidsonMSP has her eyes on the pies campaigning in Dumfries #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/VCnF91yw6x  Katrine Bussey (@KatrineBussey) May 16, 2017

And all because the SNP have spent more time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK than they have spent doing the job theyre paid to do, which is to look after Scotlands public services, Scotlands economy and Scotlands education system.

I think people, if they stop and think about a Scottish Government thats got more powers than any previous Scottish Government, thats got a bigger budget than any previous Scottish Government, what they could have done in 10 years if they hadnt spent so much time trying to rip Scotland out of the UK and continuing to do so.

There will be people in Scotland thinking it is a real missed opportunity.

However, Ms Sturgeon insisted: The SNP has only reached the milestone of 10 years in government because we have worked hard  each and every day  to repay the trust of the people of Scotland and deliver on their priorities.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon after making a speech against the backdrop of the new Queensferry Crossing (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Speaking to activists in South Queensferry, outside Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon said: I know we are not perfect. We havent got everything right and there is much more work still to do.

Work to grow our economy, get more people into employment and drive up standards in our schools even further.

But we can be proud in Scotland that when it comes to progressive policies, we are leading the UK.

.@NicolaSturgeon outlines 10yrs of Scot Gov achievement. Let's keep Scotland moving forward by electing strong @theSNP voices to WM #GE17 pic.twitter.com/UrkLSlQIo9  Lynsey-anne Marwick (@la_lams) May 16, 2017

Labour launched its own manifesto this morning, and many of the policies in Labours manifesto will seem very familiar.

Ms Sturgeon claimed Labours manifesto directly lifts policies that the SNP is already delivering including free university tuition, ending hospital parking charges, and the abolition of the so-called Bedroom Tax.

Meanwhile, she said the Tories who for years have mounted ideological attacks on policies as diverse as free prescriptions and council house building have now  albeit belatedly and with little credibility  decided that they are both a good thing.
The Syrian government has categorically denied US accusations of mass killings at a prison near Damascus, including executing political opponents and burning the victims in a crematorium at the site.

The Foreign Ministry said the allegations are a new Hollywood plot to justify US intervention in Syria.

It described the allegations as lies and fabrications, noting what it called a US track record of using false claims as a pretext for military aggression.

A satellite image of what the US State Department described as a building in a prison complex modified to support a crematorium (State Department/DigitalGlobe/AP)

The State Department said it believes about 50 detainees are being hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, a 45-minute drive north of Damascus.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones briefs the press on the situation in #Syria. pic.twitter.com/atXOkJp1BG  Department of State (@StateDept) May 15, 2017

Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place, said Stuart Jones, the senior US diplomat for the Middle East, accusing President Bashar Assads government of sinking to a new level of depravity.

The allegation came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the US launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assads military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent.

The latest accusations have cast a shadow over peace talks in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives sat down separately with the UN envoy as talks got under way.

The meetings were the sixth round of talks brokered by special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

.@statedeptspox Nauert provides a readout of Secretary Tillerson's discussions on #Syria with #Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov. pic.twitter.com/6k89PRZt5M  Department of State (@StateDept) May 15, 2017

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said: The US administrations accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in Saydnaya prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false.

The allegation could test the Trump administrations willingness to respond to alleged atrocities other than chemical weapons attacks, which Washington blames on Assads government.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have evidence of mass killings in Syrian government prisons, although there have been no substantiated allegations on the use of a crematorium.

Syrian opposition spokesman Salem Meslet said the US allegations were credible and not surprising.
Lloyds Banking Group has been fully returned to private hands nearly nine years after the Government bailed out the lender at the height of the financial crisis, sources have said.

The high street bank said last week that the Governments stake had been reduced to 0.25% and the UK taxpayer was set to make at least a 500 million profit from the final sale.

It is now understood the Governments final tranche of Lloyds shares have now been sold, with an official announcement set to be made when the regulatory news service opens at 7am on Wednesday.

(Andrew Matthews/PA)

Speaking at the banks annual general meeting on Thursday, chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said a return to private ownership represented a major milestone in efforts to turn the bank around from the crisis it faced a few years ago.

At its peak, Lloyds was 43% owned by the state after the Government spent 20.3 billion of taxpayers cash to bail it out at the height of the financial crisis.

It comes weeks after ministers announced they had recouped all of the 20.3 billion ploughed in.
The White House has defended US President Donald Trumps disclosure of classified information to senior Russian officials as wholly appropriate.

It came as officials tried to beat back criticism from fellow Republicans and concerns from international allies.

One day after officials declared that reports about Mr Trumps discussions with the Russians were false, national security adviser HR McMaster said the president had been engaging in routine sharing of information with foreign leaders.

Mr Trump himself claimed the authority to share facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety with Russia, saying in a pair of tweets he has an absolute right as president to do so.

Mr Trumps tweets did not say whether he revealed classified information about Islamic State (IS), as published reports have said and as a US official told the Associated Press (AP).

The official said the information Mr Trump divulged came from a US intelligence partner.

The revelations sent a White House accustomed to chaos reeling anew and drew rare serious criticism of the president from some Republicans.

President Donald Trump listens during a meeting

His action raised fresh questions about his handling of classified information and his dealings with Russia, which is widely considered an adversary by many US officials and Western allies.

A senior US official told the AP that Mr Trump shared details about an IS terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

The classified information had been shared with the president by an ally, violating the confidentiality of an intelligence-sharing agreement with that country, the official said.

The official said that Mr Trump boasted about his access to classified intelligence in last weeks meeting with Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak.

An excerpt from an official transcript of the meeting reveals that Mr Trump told them: I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day.

Mr Trump was later informed that he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA looking to minimise any damage.

The official would not say which countrys intelligence was divulged.

As president, Mr Trump has the ability to disclose classified information largely as he chooses.

Yet his decision to discuss an allys information on IS with other countries could damage his standing with world leaders and lead some countries to start second-guessing their own intelligence-sharing agreements with the US.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster speaks during a briefing at the White House

A senior European intelligence official told the AP his country might stop sharing information with the United States if it confirms that Mr Trump shared classified details with Russian officials.

Such sharing could be a risk for our sources, the official said.

Mr McMaster, in a White House briefing, said: In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged.

He cast some of Mr Trumps revelations as information that was available from publicly available open-source reporting and added that the president did not know the precise source of the intelligence he had shared, suggesting that Mr Trump could not have compromised confidential sources.

The Kremlin dismissed the reports of Mr Trumps actions as complete nonsense.
VIENNA, May 15 (Reuters) - Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called on Monday for talks with all main parties on the possible timing of a snap election, a vote that will be closely watched across Europe with the far-right Freedom Party riding high in opinion polls.

Sebastian Kurz, the new leader of the conservative People's Party (OVP), demanded the vote on Sunday, effectively ending his movement's ruling coalition with Kern's Social Democrats.

Kern, who acknowledged on Sunday he could no nothing to stop a new vote, held a closed-door meeting with President Alexander Van der Bellen and released a statement saying he had also spoken to Kurz by phone.

An early election would give the far-right Freedom Party, currently leading in opinion polls, another chance of entering national government less than a year after its candidate lost a close-fought presidential runoff.

However, some surveys carried out before Kurz took over as head of his party have suggested the OVP would leap from third to first place under his leadership. The 30-year-old has taken a tough stance on immigration.

Kern said he had suggested to Kurz that "we hold talks with all opposition parties on how to handle the (Eurofighter) commission of inquiry and how to handle a proposal for a snap election."

Both the opposition Greens and the Freedom Party have said they will back a snap vote, but only if it is called next month, so as not to interfere with a parliamentary inquiry into Austria's order of Eurofighter jets a decade ago.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache told a news conference he wanted a vote from "early October to mid-October".

Calling a snap election requires a majority in parliament. The OVP and the Freedom Party are together three seats short of a majority. (Reporting by Francois Murphy, Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich and Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
TOKYO, May 16 (Reuters) - Japan's senior ruling party official has signalled Tokyo's readiness to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), saying it was crucial to reach a decision soon, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.

"The key would be how quickly Japan can decide to participate," Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was quoted as telling reporters on Monday.

Nikai, known for his close ties to China, was visiting Beijing to attend a two-day summit of China's Belt and Road initiative that concluded on Monday.

He also said he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday to exchange views on Japan-China relations and escalating tensions over North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes, the Nikkei said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in an interview with CNBC on Monday that joining AIIB, created at least in part as a way to fund the Belt and Road initiative, could be an option if questions over the bank's governance were resolved.

"For now, we are still monitoring (AIIB's) operations carefully," he was quoted as saying.

Japan, following Washington's lead under former U.S. President Barack Obama, did not join the AIIB, partly from concern it was a vehicle to boost China's regional clout and a potential rival of the Asian Development Bank, the Manila-based institution dominated by Japan and the United States.

At the summit, Xi and 29 other heads of state reaffirmed their commitment to building an open economy and ensuring free and inclusive trade under the Belt and Road initiative led by Beijing. (Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Paul Tait)
By Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY, May 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his Mexican counterpart failed to make progress in talks on Monday to resolve a sugar trade spat before the complicated renegotation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) due later this year.

"There's no deal yet," sugar chamber head Juan Cortina, who took part in the talks, told Reuters, saying "no" when asked if progress was made in any area relating to the impasse over Mexican exports.

The sugar talks are being closely watched as the two nations prepare for more complex negotiations over NAFTA, which U.S. President Donald Trump wants to ditch if he cannot secure better terms for Americans.

Ross and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo agreed to continue "open dialogue" over the coming days, Mexico's economy ministry said in a statement, but it was unclear when the delegations would next meet.

The two sides previously set a June 5 deadline for ending a standoff that could escalate to tit-for-tat duties.

They also discussed dates for renegotiating NAFTA in light of Robert Lighthizer's confirmation as the U.S. Trade Representative last week, a development necessary for Trump to trigger a 90-day consultation period before the renegotiation can begin.

On Thursday, Mexico's foreign, finance and interior ministers are due to meet their U.S. counterparts in Washington, in preparations for the NAFTA talks as Mexico has insisted that all parts of the bilateral relationship be discussed along with trade.

Guajardo met with business leaders as well as U.S. officials as part of a major lobbying campaign launched by Mexico aimed at making it harder for Trump to trash a trade agreement that underpins Mexico's economy.

The U.S. sugar industry pressed the U.S. Commerce Department late last year to withdraw from a 2014 agreement that sets prices and quotas for U.S. imports of Mexican sugar unless the deal could be renegotiated. The U.S. sugar lobby wants Mexico to export less refined sugar, sources have told Reuters, a position emboldened since Trump took office.

The current agreement caps Mexico exports of refined sugar at 53 percent of total sugar exports to the United States; the proposal would slash that to just 15 percent. Raw sugar would make up the remainder.

Guajardo told Ross it was important to find a solution that maintains the balance of sweeteners in both markets, the ministry said.

Mexico's agriculture minister has said Mexico would be willing to react in-kind to duties imposed on its sugar, possibly targeting U.S. fructose, for which Mexico is a major market. (Reporting By Adriana Barrera; Writing by Mitra Taj; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel & SImon Cameron-Moore)
By Inna Lazareva

YAOUNDE, May 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With its sunset-like colours, Charnelle Lumiere's painting would seem warm and happy, were it not for the limp body of a young girl hanging from a tree, suspended by a rope around her neck.

"This was me," the 27-year-old says in a voice barely louder than a whisper, staring at the painting, oblivious to the rumble of traffic outside the window in Cameroon's capital Yaounde.

Having been raped at the age of six by a 23-year-old friend of her brother, Lumiere recalls how she kept crying, blood trickling down her legs, as her mother recoiled in shock.

Seven years later, Lumiere finally mustered up the courage to run away when her uncle, too, began to sexually abuse her.

But when the 13-year-old sought shelter with a neighbour, she was allowed to stay only one night. "What happens in the family, should stay in the family, one should never interfere," she told Lumiere, and sent her home.

Aged 17, out of school and pregnant by a classmate who had harassed her into having sex with him, she decided to take her own life by hanging herself.

Luckily, her brother found her and cut her down from the tree with just seconds to spare.

Now she is back on her feet and on a mission to help a new generation of young people avoid the same abuses.

And she is not alone.

In Cameroon, more than 21,000 women volunteers in more than 350 groups around the country have come together as part of RENATA - the national aunties network - to help victims of sexual abuse, violence and early pregnancy rebuild their lives

"We call ourselves 'tantines' - aunties in French," said Cathy Aba, a 28-year-old spokeswoman of RENATA who was herself an victim of "breast ironing", a painful, dangerous practice designed to suppress a girl's physical development.

"Aunties, because an auntie is usually the person a young person can seek help and advice from on issues they can't talk to their parents about.

"We are all young mothers, and we are all survivors of abuse, so we know exactly what we are talking about," she said.

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

In Cameroon, beatings, sexual abuse and rape, particularly within the family, are issues often swept under the carpet.

According to a study done by RENATA in 2009, nearly one in every 20 women in the central African country had been raped. Of those, almost every fifth attack was carried out by a family member.

Many more cases simply go unreported, said Flavien Ndonko, a medical anthropologist who helped set up RENATA in the 2000s and now works for the aid agency Care International in Cameroon.

"People never talk about it - and the perpetrators, they know that," said told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

RENATA also conducted studies that revealed that 10 percent of victims in Cameroon were raped before they were 10 years old. So the "aunties" began an outreach programme in primary schools, targeting children as young as four and five.

"With the children, the first part of what we teach is about the private parts of their body, that no one should be touching them," said Lumiere, who has given many talks in schools.

"But then you have the cases where one of the children tells me: 'Oh, auntie, but what if it's daddy who touches me down there?'

"Other times, you will notice the child listening, and would grow more and more quiet, won't ask anymore questions. and after you would approach him and say 'what's wrong', and they tell you."

The aunties invite parents in to discuss cases, sometimes with psychologists, in an attempt to break the silence: "Often the families will say: 'Even if it happened, because it happened in the family, it stays in the family,'" said Lumiere.

SEX WORKERS

At night some of the aunties can be found in the dark alleyways and brothels of downtown Yaounde's red-light district, talking to sex workers and distributing free contraceptives.

Although funded for many years by the German development agency GIZ, RENATA receives small grants from international donors, but is no longer fully sponsored by anyone.

So the aunties work as volunteers, often holding down second jobs as hairdressers, shop-stall owners, teachers, restaurant managers to make ends meet.

Some of their revenue is under threat following President Donald Trump's order to reinstate the global gag rule that bans U.S.-funded groups around the world from discussing abortion.

Aba, the RENATA spokeswoman, said despite their dwindling resources, she and the other aunties are determined not to give up.

"We won't lower our arms - we will continue, we will find other revenues. We will continue our fight," she said.

Their work is welcomed by Cameroon's government, grappling with low commodity prices and an influx of refugees fleeing conflict in Central African Republic and northern Nigeria.

"Civil society organisations like this are very important," Francisca Moto of the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and the Family told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In parallel, the government was trying to toughen up laws on sexual abuse and let Cameroonians know it is a crime that should not be ignored.

"The new penal code is harder on the issue than before," she said. There is also "increased awareness including among children in primary and nursery schools ... Silence is being broken by many families."

For Lumiere and other aunties, there is still much work to be done.

"Many victims languish in silence due to feelings of guilt," she said. "I tell them it's not their fault. And ... by speaking out you can prevent the same people from doing it to others."

Above all, said Lumiere, her work is an act of defiance after the abuse she endured.

"For me, success is the best form of revenge." (Reporting By Inna Lazareva, Editing by Kieran Guilbert 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)
DUBAI, May 16 (Reuters) - Kuwait supports a proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia to extend a global oil supply cut agreement until March 2018, Kuwait's oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said on Tuesday.

"The agreement aims to restore the balance between supply and demand, through restoring the level of the global oil inventories to the average level of the past five years," Marzouq said in a statement.

He added there were "positive indications" through data for both April and May showing a "noticeable reduction" in oil inventories globally.

Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's top two oil producers, agreed on Monday on the need to extend output cuts for a further nine months until March 2018 to rein in a global crude glut, pushing up prices. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Mark Potter)
PRAGUE, May 16 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Tuesday. ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA========================== Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/2E/events-overview =========================NEWS=================================== IMF: Czech economic growth will pick up to 3 percent in 2017, driven by domestic demand, while public finances should show a second year of surplus, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. Story: Related stories: GOVERNMENT: Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka rejected his coalition partner's nominee for finance minister on Monday, extending a confrontation between the country's two strongest political parties months before a general election. Story: Related stories: CURRENT ACCOUNT: The Czech current account showed a surplus of 31.2 billion crowns ($1.29 billion) in March, higher than expected, central bank data showed on Monday. Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: Central European currencies firmed on Monday on expectations that first-quarter regional economic output data due on Tuesday will show robust growth, though profit-taking caused some retreat in the region's stock markets. Story: Related stories: ---------------------- MARKET SNAPSHOT ------------------------ Index/Crown Currency Latest Prev Pct change Pct change close on day in 2017 vs Euro 26.465 26.456 -0.03 2.01 vs Dollar 24.03 24.095 0.27 6.31 Czech Equities 1,020.51 1,020.51 0.25 10.73 U.S. Equities 20,981.94 20,896.61 0.41 6.17 Pvs close or current levels vs prior domestic close at 1500 GMT ========================PRESS DIGEST============================ GOVERNMENT: The ANO movement of Finance Minister Andrej Babis might quit the government if its leader were to be replaced at the helm of Finance Ministry by a person from another party, ANO Deputy Chairman and Environment Minister Richard Brabec told the paper. Hospodarske Noviny, page 1 (Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy.) For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
By Tom Gardner

ADDIS ABABA, May 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It was the promise of education in Addis Ababa that led 11- year-old Embet to take the fateful decision to leave home.

The young girl from Debat, a small town in Ethiopia's Amhara region, packed up and left for the capital in the company of her older neighbour, who said that her relatives there would welcome her into their home, pay her 200 Ethiopian birr ($8) a month to look after their young children, and send her to school.

"I thought I would enjoy Addis," said Embet, tearfully. "The woman told me fancy things about it. I thought everything would be okay."

But it wasn't. Despite the promises, Embet was never paid by her neighbour's relatives, and she was never sent to school. She slept on a mattress in the living room, was barely fed, and suffered abuse at the hands of her employers.

"I had to do everything," she said, including cleaning, cooking, and looking after the family's young children."

After two months living with the family, Embet fled - walking the streets of Addis Ababa until she was found and taken to the local police station.

Dembet's story is far from unusual: she is one of thousands of girls from all over Ethiopia who are trafficked to Addis Ababa to work in domestic service, some ending up in conditions comparable to slavery.

More than 400,000 Ethiopians are estimated to be trapped in slavery, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by human rights group Walk Free Foundation.

The industry is fed by one of the world's highest rates of human trafficking. Each year, upwards of 20,000 Ethiopian children, some as young as 10, are sold by their parents, according to Humanium, a children's charity.

It is a trade driven by poverty.

Despite a state-led industrial push that has transformed Ethiopia, known for famine, into one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, a third of its 99 million citizens still survive on less than $1.90 a day - the World Bank's measure of extreme poverty.

Addis Ababa's population is now thought to be close to 4 million, and growing at a rate of nearly 4 percent per year -propelled by land shortages which force rural families to send their children to the capital to earn wages to send back home.

A World Bank study in 2010 found that 37 percent of Addis Ababa's residents were internal migrants, the vast majority of whom were drawn by the city's educational or employment opportunities. Wages in the cities are higher than in rural areas, sometimes as much as double.

But young children in particular often fall victim to exploitation.

"Deception is an important part of trafficking," said Lynn Kay, country director of Retrak Ethiopia, an organisation that rescues street children in Addis Ababa and reunites them with their families.

"Children are lured with the promise of a better education in Addis."

"NO FOOD"

Though Embet dreamt of a good education in Addis Ababa, her family - a mother and stepfather, who works as a farmer, as well as four brothers and three sisters - wanted her to find employment.

Before being sent to the capital she spent two months working for another family in a town nearer her home in Amhara, where she was babysitter to a two-year-old boy.

But the work was hard and she missed her school-so she ran away and returned to her family, only to be sent to Addis Ababa when it became clear that her parents could not afford to look after her.

"Things weren't as I expected when I arrived back," Embet told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "There was no food and my mother was having another child."

Under Ethiopian law, it is illegal for a child below the age of 14 years to be engaged in wage labour. But laws against child labour, especially domestic service, are rarely enforced.

"The problem is that the whole economy of a city like Addis Ababa is dependent on being able to access domestic labour - so that parents can go off to work," said Kay.

Whereas most of the street boys that Retrak rescues are runaways who come to Addis Ababa voluntarily, girls are more often victims of human trafficking.

Despite a wide-ranging anti-trafficking law introduced by the Ethiopian government in 2015, the U.S. State Department's 2016 Trafficking in Persons report found that girls as young as eight were working in brothels around Addis Ababa's central market.

The report also noted that while the government was making efforts to curb cross-border trafficking, there was "little evidence of investigation or prosecution of sex trafficking or internal labor trafficking."

Part of the problem is that "traffickers are often respected members of the community," said Kay. Parents pay them to take their children to Addis Ababa and find them employment.

"It can be a very open, public thing." she said. "They are often known as 'brokers' and it is almost like it is an acceptable job."

Some, like Embet's neighbour, are close to the family.

"But what happens is that these children are brought to Addis Ababa and then abandoned," said Kay. "They can come to Addis Ababa and just disappear." (Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
By Abhinav Ramnarayan

LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - The gap between 10- and 30-year French government bond yields reached its widest since December 2014 ahead of a 30-year bond sale seen as the first big test of sentiment since France's presidential election.

France's debt agency has been monitoring the market for a 30-year bond sale via syndication - a system where the borrower appoints banks to sell bonds directly to investors - and started marketing the deal on Tuesday.

Although French government bonds have rallied sharply since it became apparent that centrist Emmanuel Macron would become president ahead of anti-euro, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, investors will be keeping a close eye on this sale.

"The appetite for this deal should be good, but we will be watching it closely because parliamentary elections are coming up and they will determine whether Macron can form an effective government," said ING strategist Benjamin Schroeder.

Macron appointed a conservative prime minister on Monday in a move to broaden his political appeal and weaken his opponents before parliamentary elections in June.

Tuesday's sale will also demonstrate investor appetite for duration, particularly with other long-dated bond sales expected from Germany, euro zone bailout fund EFSF and possibly Belgium.

"The spread between 10- and 30-year has been under steepening pressure since the middle of last month, which we think reflects issuance expectation in the sector," Mizuho strategists said in a note.

Germany is slated to sell 30-year bonds on Wednesday while Belgium has cancelled a bond auction for next week. Analysts said that may be because the Belgian debt agency is planning a 15- or 20-year bond sale this week.

Euro zone bailout fund European Financial Stability Facility is widely expected to sell long-dated bonds this week, and Slovenia is selling bonds maturing in 2027 and 2040 on Tuesday.

The gap between France's 10- and 30-year debt rose to 108.1 basis points on Tuesday, the highest level since December 2014.

High-rated euro zone bond yields were flat to a basis point higher ahead of the release of euro zone economic output numbers for the first quarter of the year, due at 0900 GMT.

Reuters estimates are for 1.7 percent growth year-on-year, a figure that could put further upward pressure on yields.

The yield on Germany's 10-year government bond, the benchmark for the region, up 1 basis point to 0.43 percent.

The lower-rated Southern European bonds outperformed, with the yield on Spanish, Italian and Portuguese 10-year government bonds down 1-3 bps.

For Reuters Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets see reuters://realtime/verb=Open/url=http://emea1.apps.cp.extranet.thomsonreuters.biz/cms/?pageId=livemarkets

(Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA, May 16 (Reuters) - Iranians vote for president on Friday in a contest likely to determine whether Tehran's re-engagement with the world stalls or quickens, although whatever the outcome no change is expected to its revolutionary system of conservative clerical rule.

Seeking a second term, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, 68, remains the narrow favourite, but hardline rivals have hammered him over his failure to boost an economy weakened by decades of sanctions.

Many Iranians feel a 2015 agreement he championed with major powers to lift sanctions in return for curbing Iran's nuclear programme has failed to produce the jobs, growth and foreign investment he said would follow.

The normally mild-mannered cleric is trying to hold on to office by firing up reformist voters who want less confrontation abroad and more social and economic freedom at home.

In recent days he has adopted robust rhetoric, pushing at the boundaries of what is permitted in Iran. He has accused his conservative opponents of abusing human rights, misusing religious authority to gain power and representing the economic interests of the security forces.

Rouhani's strongest challenger is hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, 56, who says Iran does not need foreign help and promises a revival of the values of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

He is backed by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, the country's top security force, their affiliated volunteer Basij militia, hardline clerics and two influential clerical groups.

Another prominent conservative, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, withdrew from the race on Monday and backed Raisi, uniting the hardline faction and giving Raisi's chances a boost.

Under Iran's system, the powers of the elected president are circumscribed by those of the conservative supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989. All candidates must be vetted by a hardline body.

Nevertheless, elections are fiercely contested and can bring about change within the system of rule overseen by Shi'ite Muslim clerics.

CLOSE ALLY

The main challenger Raisi is a close ally and protege of Khamenei, and was one of four Islamic judges who ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Iranian media have discussed him as a potential future successor to Khamenei, who turns 78 in July.

Raisi has appealed to poorer voters by pledging to create millions of jobs.

"Though unrealistic, such promises will surely attract millions of poor voters," said Saeed Leylaz, a prominent Iranian economist who was jailed for criticising the economic policies of Rouhani's hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Although the supreme leader is officially above the fray of everyday politics, Khamenei can sway a presidential vote by giving a candidate his quiet endorsement, a move that could galvanise hardline efforts to get the conservative vote out.

"Raisi has a good chance to win. But still the result depends on the leader Khamenei's decision," said a former senior official, who declined to be identified.

So far in public Khamenei has called only for a high turnout, saying Iran's enemies have sought to use the elections to "infiltrate" its power structure, and a high turnout would prove the system's legitimacy.

A high turnout could also boost the chances of Rouhani, who was swept to power in 2013 on promises to reduce Iran's international isolation and grant more freedoms at home. The biggest threat to his re-election is apathy from disappointed voters who feel he did not deliver improvements they hoped for.

"The result depends on whether the economic problems will prevail over freedom issues," said an official close to Rouhani. "A low turnout can harm Rouhani."

Polls taken by International Perspectives for Public Opinion on May 10 show Rouhani still leads with about 55 percent of the votes, although such surveys do not have an established record of predicting election outcomes in Iran.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes cast, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff election on May 26.

Because the conservatives are now mostly united behind Raisi, the result is likely to be closer than four years ago, when Rouhani won more than three times as many votes as his closest challenger en route to a victory in a single round.

SLOW PACE OF CHANGE

Opposition and reformist figures are backing Rouhani, and his recent fiery campaign speeches have led to a surge of public interest. But voters' expectations of radical change are low.

"I had decided not to vote ... Rouhani failed to keep his promises. As long as Khamenei runs policy, nothing will change," said art student Raika Mostashari in Tehran.

But she eventually decided to vote for Rouhani, she said, because former president Mohammad Khatami, spiritual leader of the pro-reform movement, had publicly backed him.

Rouhani's signature accomplishment has been his nuclear deal, which could be in jeopardy if he loses power, even though it was officially endorsed by Khamenei and all candidates say they will abide by it.

U.S. President Donald Trump has frequently called the agreement "one of the worst deals ever signed" and said Washington will review it.

Although the agreement lifted international sanctions, the United States continues to impose unilateral measures that have scared off investors. Washington cites Iran's missile programme, its human rights record and support for terrorism.

Some experts say Iranian establishment figures may want to keep Rouhani in power to avoid being cast back into isolation.

"With the deal in jeopardy, the system will be in vital need of Rouhanis team of smiling diplomats and economic technocrats to shift the blame to the U.S. and keep Iran's economy afloat," said Iran analyst Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.

Polls expected to open at 03:30 GMT and close at 13:30 GMT, which can be extended. Final results are expected by Sunday.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)
NAIROBI, May 16 (Reuters) - Gunmen suspected of being fighters from Somalia's al Shabaab militant group burst into a government official's house in northeast Kenya and shot him dead late on Monday, police said.

The four attackers in military fatigues struck in Mandera county, a territory near Somalia's border that has seen a string of al Shabaab raids in recent years.

"We suspect the attackers are militants since after the raid they escaped towards Somalia," Edward Mwamburi, the head of the northeastern regional police force, told Reuters by phone.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the administrator of the county's Omar Jillo area. But the militant group has said it will continue to attack Kenya until Nairobi pulls troops from an African Union peacekeeping force inside Somalia.

Al Shabaab, seeking to impose its brand of Islam in Somalia, blew up part of a hotel in Mandera in October, killing at least 12 people.

It also killed 148 students in Garissa University in April 2015, its biggest attack in Kenya in decades. (Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
BANJUL, May 16 (Reuters) - The African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) will invest up to $500 million in Gambia, its president said, an economic boost to the impoverished West African country ostracized by investors under former president Yahya Jammeh.

The money will go towards tourism, infrastructure and agriculture in the tiny riverside country of about 2 million people whose finances are in disarray following what a new government has described as widespread fraud by Jammeh.

"We would be doing integrated transport logistics that would lead to the expansion of the sea port so it can have the capacity to carry more goods and link it to the railway that would take goods all the way to Senegal and Mali," Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah told reporters late on Monday after meeting President Adama Barrow.

The Cairo-based lender was established in Nigeria in 1993 by African governments and investors to finance trade.

The timing of the investments was unclear but Oramah said he plans to send a technical team to Gambia soon.

Barrow defeated Jammeh in a December election, ending a long rule that human rights groups say was marred by torture and murder of political opponents. Jammeh was forced into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January.

He left the economy saddled with over $1 billion in debt -- more than Gambia's annual economic output -- hobbling ordinary government functions.

But foreign aid that had been stopped under Jammeh is coming back, a mark of confidence in the democratically elected government.

The European Union, which had frozen its assistance after Jammeh's government outlawed homosexuality in late 2014, promised Gambia a 75 million euro (63.8 million) aid package in February. (Reporting By Lamin Jahateh, writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Catherine Evans)
DUBAI, May 16 (Reuters) - Turkish airport operator TAV is in talks with banks to obtain $250 million of financing needed for the development of three airports in Saudi Arabia, the company's president Mustafa Sani Sener said on Tuesday.

TAV Airports Holding, in partnership with the local Al Rajhi Holding Group, was selected over the last couple of months to operate Saudi Arabia's Yanbu, Qassim and Hail international airports for 30 years.

Meanwhile, the Turkish company has completed the buyout of construction conglomerate Saudi Oger's stake in the consortium behind Saudi Arabia's Medina international airport, Sener told reporters.

Saudi Oger had a 33.3 percent stake in the consortium, Tibah Airports Development Co; TAV has signed an agreement to buy half of that stake and Al Rajhi is buying half, Sener said. That will leave TAV owning 50 percent of the consortium. (Reporting by Tom Arnold; Writing by Davide Barbuscia; Editing by Andrew Torchia)
By Natalia Zinets

KIEV, May 16 (Reuters) - Ukraine accused Russia on Tuesday of carrying out an organised cyber attack on President Petro Poroshenko's website in response to Kiev's decision to impose sanctions against a number of major Russian internet businesses.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukraine slapped economic restrictions on Russia's largest internet group Yandex and other popular online firms, saying it wanted to guard against cyber threats, and the Kremlin threatened retaliation.

"We have been witnessing Russia's response to the presidential decree that mentioned closing access to Russian social media. The website of the president is affected by an organised attack," the deputy head of the presidential administration, Dmytro Shymkiv, said in a statement.

"The situation is under control thanks to our IT-specialists and there is no threat to the work of the website," he said.

There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.

The Ukrainian sanctions froze any assets held by the Russian businesses inside Ukraine and banned hosts there from linking to them, though the websites were all still accessible in Kiev on Tuesday.

The ban was imposed partly to protect against companies "whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine", the Kiev government's Security and Defence Council said in a statement.

They added to a list of more than 400 Russian firms blacklisted by Kiev since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the ensuing pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine.

Mail.ru Group, which owns the Odnoklassniki social network and Vkontakte, Russia's version of Facebook, said that around 25 million Ukrainians could be affected by the "politically motivated" decision.

"We have never been involved in politics. We have not broken a single law of Ukraine," it said in a statement. It said the Ukrainian market contributed an "immaterial" amount of revenue and so Mail.ru would not revise its financial plans.

Yandex also said it did not expect the sanctions to have a material negative impact on its financial results. There was no immediate comment from other companies on the list.

"SHORT-SIGHTED"

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Moscow had not forgotten the principle of reciprocity when it came to such disputes, calling the move "short-sighted".

Many of the affected sites are hugely popular in Ukraine.

Vkontakte was the second-most visited website in Ukraine as of March, according to data cited by the Ukrainian Internet Association. Yandex, Odnoklassniki and Mail.ru were also in the top five most popular sites that month.

In comments to Russian newspaper Kommersant, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova called the sanctions a "manifestation of politically motivated censorship".

Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations from Kiev that it has been waging a "cyber war" against Ukraine. It also denies accusations that it is fueling the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine by supporting rebels with troops and weapons.

Ukraine has also accused Russian computer hackers of targeting its power grid, financial system and other infrastructure with viruses.

(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Anastasia Teterevleva in Moscow; writing by Alessandra Prentice; editing by Matthias Williams and Gareth Jones)
By Jesus Aguado and Angus Berwick

MADRID, May 16 (Reuters) - Several Spanish banks, including state-owned Bankia, have shown interest in a potential merger with Banco Popular, as its new management considers options for how to cope with billions of euros in toxic assets.

Popular's new chairman Emilio Saracho, brought in in February, has said he would consider a merger as the solution to the bank's 37 billion euros ($41 billion) of non-performing real estate assets, the highest among Spanish banks.

Spanish banks have already undergone huge consolidation since the country's financial crisis, with just 14 left from 55 in 2008, but Popular remains the weak spot since it has been unable to sell off its assets fast enough.

Popular, Spain's sixth largest bank, said on Tuesday that all groups had to declare preliminary interest in a merger by Tuesday evening. Any such declarations were not binding but were needed for it to analyse its options, it said in a statement.

A source familiar with the deal said all the big Spanish banks had been looking over the past weekend at Banco Popular's balance sheet before potentially expressing their interest.

"We have all been looking at risk files, at different samples of assets, including foreclosed assets, and commercial data and now we have been asked to put in a price and structure for the deal," this source said.

Spain's economy minister said on Tuesday that Bankia was one of several Spanish banks analysing a potential merger with Popular.

Analysts say a merger between Popular and Bankia would be complementary and create a domestic giant that would rival Spain's three largest banks: Banco Santander, BBVA and Caixabank.

Bankia, Spain's fourth largest bank, has bounced back from huge losses on property assets after they were transferred to an external 'bad bank' backed by the state, and now has the highest core capital ratio among listed lenders.

Spanish banking sources said Santander and BBVA were looking at Popular, and both banks' chief executives said during their last results that they would analyse opportunities in their home market, though both said they were focused on organic growth.

Two banking sources said that BBVA had approached former Banco Popular chairman Angel Ron in November about a potential tie-up. Representatives for Santander and BBVA declined to comment.

MORE CONSOLIDATION

A Popular spokesman said the bank had hired JPMorgan and Lazard to advise it on its strategic options, which include either a merger or another capital increase after it raised 2.5 billion euros last year.

Popular shares have fallen around 62 percent over the past year and are the worst performers on the European STOXX banking index, which analysts say could encourage potential competitors to make an offer given its cheap price.

Bankia is unable to close deals until June due to restrictions on acquisitions from its 22-billion-euro state bailout in 2012, but a spokeswoman said it could express interest beforehand.

"Bankia is an important entity, which is very healthy, has a lot of capital and a good management team. The information I have is that it is analysing Banco Popular's situation, like the others," Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told reporters in Barcelona.

Caixabank and Banco Sabadell, which have both made informal approaches to Popular in the past, say they are now focused respectively on integrating Portuguese lender BPI and British TSB.

However, last week Saracho, Popular's chairman, asked Sabadell to look again at Popular's balance sheet in case it was interested, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Caixabank and Sabadell representatives declined to comment.

Popular has undergone three leadership shake-ups since last July and reported a 3.6-billion-euro loss for 2016. Earlier this month it said it was looking at selling off its non-strategic assets to boost its capital, although analysts say this is probably not enough to cover the shortfall. ($1 = 0.9038 euros) (Additional reporting by Andres Gonzalez in Madrid and Pamela Barbaglia in London; Editing by Sarah White/Keith Weir/Susan Fenton)
By Ange Aboa

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, May 16 (Reuters) - Renegade troops in Ivory Coast accepted a government proposal on bonuses and returned to barracks on Tuesday, ending a mutiny that had closed businesses, shut major roads and threatened years of economic progress in the world's top cocoa producer.

The dissident soldiers, mostly former rebels who helped bring President Alassane Ouattara to power, rejected an earlier offer late on Monday. But a spokesman for the mutineers said the deal was amended overnight.

"We accept the government's proposal ... We are returning to barracks now," said Sergeant Seydou Kone, speaking in the city of Bouake where the revolt began last Friday before quickly spreading. Some of the 8,400 mutineers had already received the bonuses agreed under the new deal by midday, he said.

The short-lived uprising exposed Ouattara's tenuous grip on an army patched together from former rebel and loyalist fighters in the wake of a 2011 civil war, since when Ivory Coast has transformed itself into one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

As the troops dismantled road blocks and left the streets, Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi, who confirmed a definitive deal to satisfy the mutineers' demands had been reached, urged calm. He said at least two people had been killed in the unrest and another nine wounded.

"There are certainly people who are guilty. Investigations have been requested so that disciplinary measures can be taken against anyone guilty of a criminal act," he told reporters.

Donwahi said an investigation was also being launched into a secret weapons cache discovered at a private residence in Bouake. "Most of the weapons were carried away by the soldiers. Not by the civilian population," he said.

Cocoa exporters at Abidjan port resumed buying beans from the country's interior after a one-day closure, and banks re-opened. The western port of San Pedro remained closed, but exporters there said work would recommence on Wednesday.

International commodities traders Olam International , Cargill and Barry Callebaut ship cocoa from both of the ports.

"THEY ARE JUST BOYS"

The agreement risks angering other factions in the military, who launched counter-mutinies after the government paid the mutineers bonuses of 5 million CFA francs ($8,400) each in January.

It could also provoke a new strike by public sector workers, who resent the soldiers' ability to force government concessions through violence.

"We are fed up. It's too much. They are just boys. They should just leave their weapons and negotiate. You don't negotiate with weapons," said Bouake resident Modibo Diallo, echoing popular anger at the mutineers.

Kone and a second representative of the mutiny said the deal would see each soldier receive an immediate payment of 5 million CFA francs. Another 2 million CFA francs will then be paid at the end of June.

The payout represents the outstanding bonuses promised by the government in January but which it has struggled to pay after a collapse in world cocoa prices squeezed state finances.

Cocoa futures in London and New York, which hit multi-week highs on Monday due to the unrest, dipped on Tuesday on news the revolt had been quelled.

Residents in several urban areas said calm had been restored after scattered gunfire was reported overnight in some cities, including Abidjan and San Pedro.

Many schools in Abidjan remained closed, though the African Development Bank told its thousands of international staff that they could return to their downtown offices. ($1 = 593.4400 CFA francs) (Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Additional reporting and writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Humphrey Malalo

NAIROBI, May 16 (Reuters) - Gunmen from Somalia's al Shabaab militant group burst into a government official's house in northeast Kenya and shot him dead late on Monday, police and the group said.

Four attackers in military fatigues killed Dekow Abbey Sirat in Mandera county, a territory near Somalia's border that has seen a string of al Shabaab raids in recent years. A number of his bodyguards also died in the attack, the militants said.

"We suspect the attackers are militants since after the raid they escaped towards Somalia," Edward Mwamburi, the head of the northeastern regional police force, told Reuters by phone.

Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaabs military operations spokesman, said: "We killed the Kenyan official in Mandera county. He was our target. Some of his body guards also died and others were injured and we took their weapons."

The militant group says it will continue to attack Kenya until Nairobi pulls troops from an African Union peacekeeping force inside Somalia.

Al Shabaab, seeking to impose its radical brand of Islam in Somalia, blew up part of a hotel in Mandera in October, killing at least 12 people.

It also killed 148 students in Garissa University in April 2015, its biggest attack in Kenya in decades. (Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
COPENHAGEN, May 16 (Reuters) - Denmark said on Tuesday it would disregard a European Union directive to lift temporary border restrictions within six months unless the bloc better secured its external frontiers against undocumented migrants.

More than a million people sought asylum in the EU in 2015. An EU deal with Turkey last year reduced the influx to a trickle though thousands of migrants are still reaching Europe from Libya via sea routes to Italy.

With the number of arrivals well down since 2015, the European Commission said on May 2 that Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway should remove lift border controls within six months.

But Danish Prime Minister Lars Lkke Rasmussen told parliament on Tuesday, "The inflow of refugees to Italy and further into Europe is (still) far too high." Unless that changed, Denmark could not relax its own controls, he said.

As part of the EU's response to the surge of refugees and migrants in 2015, the bloc approved emergency controls in its passport-free Schengen travel zone, despite concerns about the impact on trade.

Earlier this month, the EU executive approved maximum six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, Austria's frontiers with Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. Norway is in the Schengen zone but outside the EU.

The Swedish government has said it will remove ID checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden.

Germany has argued that despite the fall in migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans, it needs the controls to counter the threat of Islamic militancy in Europe.

(Reporting by Erik Matzen; editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump was set to hold talks on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan amid tensions over the U.S. decision to arm Kurdish fighters in Syria that angered Ankara, a crucial partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State forces.

The meeting between Trump and Erdogan comes during an uproar in Washington over reports that the U.S. president disclosed sensitive information regarding Islamic State to senior Russian officials during a White House meeting last week.

Trump's approval of plans to supply the Kurdish YPG militia as it advances toward the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria cast a shadow over the talks between the leaders of NATO allies Turkey and the United States. U.S. officials disclosed the plans on May 9.

Erdogan has pledged to use the White House meeting to try to get Trump to change course on the YPG. Ankara regards the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Turkey and Europe.

The YPG, or People's Protection Units, effectively serves as the military of the autonomous Kurdish-led regions that emerged in northern Syria with the retreat of state authority in 2011 that accompanied the outbreak of civil war.

The United States sees the YPG as distinct from the PKK and as a valuable partner in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump, who took office in January, has sought to reach out to Erdogan, and was criticized by some in the United States for congratulating the Turkish president on his contested win in a referendum on constitutional changes that gave him sweeping new powers.

With the two leaders at odds on treatment of the Kurdish fighters and other issues, the White House meeting is unlikely to produce significant results, said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

"The best thing to be hoped for from this is that they come out saying that they are both determined to work on the relationship and that Turkish concerns are being taken into account," said Aliriza, who described the move to arm the YPG as an earthquake in U.S.-Turkish relations.

The visit is further complicated by Turkey's calls for the United States to take steps to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan blames Gulen supporters for a failed coup attempt last July and has conducted a crackdown on them, drawing criticism from Washington. Gulen has denied involvement in the coup and remains in the United States.

The Turkish government has also raised concerns about a U.S. criminal case against Reza Zarrab, a dual Turkish-Iranian national, arrested last year and charged with helping Iran process millions of dollar in transactions that violated U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Will Dunham)
BUDAPEST, May 16 (Reuters) - An 81-year-old German far-right activist has been arrested in Hungary on a European warrant for offences committed while serving a prison term for denying the Holocaust, Hungarian police said on Tuesday.

Horst Mahler, once a founding member of Germany's leftist Red Army Faction guerrilla group in the 1960s before veering to the ultra-nationalist right, was detained in Sopron near Hungary's border with Austria, on Monday, police said.

The Budapest chief prosecutor said in a separate statement that based on the European warrant Mahler's arrest was "justified". Hungarian officials made no further comment.

German media reported in April that Mahler had left the country to avoid a new prison term for writing far-right tracts while serving a previous sentence for inciting racial hatred and denying Nazi Germany's Holocaust against Jews.

Mahler was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009 on those charges but freed on health grounds in 2015.

He became a far-right activist in later life and joined Germany's fringe neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. (Reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto in Budapest, Joseph Nasr in Berlin; editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA, May 16 (Reuters) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered his security chiefs on Tuesday to stop torture by their personnel seeking confessions after media images of a detained politician with septic wounds on his body stirred public outrage.

Human rights activists said those images and other recent incidents where suspects have appeared in court with torture marks on their bodies point to escalating brutality and impunity on the part of Ugandan security personnel.

Pictures began circulating online and in local media last week of Geoffrey Byamukama, mayor of a small town in western Uganda, who was arrested last month on suspicion he participated in the murder of a senior police official in March. [

In a letter emailed to news media, Museveni told heads of the military, police and intelligence services that torture was "not consonant with logic ... The use of torture is unnecessary and wrong and must not be used again".

Opposition supporters and activists have long said they have been subjected to excessive force by Ugandan security services as a show of loyalty to Museveni, who has been in power since 1986 and is one of Africa's longest serving rulers.

Security personnel often disperse opposition meetings and demonstrations with arrests, tear gas and beatings.

Critics say Museveni increasingly relies on brute force by security personnel to blunt growing opposition to his rule. Ugandan officials have denied such accusations.

Maria Burnett, associate director at Human Rights Watch's Africa division, told Reuters that torture was pervasive in Uganda and "overlooked and ignored on a daily basis".

She said Museveni's directive was notable for lacking any call for investigations and accountability into past incidents of torture. "Without accountability, the government's statements smack of public relations and not a fundamental commitment to root out this abusive practice."

Ugandan law criminalises torture and police have pledged in the past to investigate and prosecute officers accused of engaging in it. But such prosecutions have been extremely rare.

In his letter, Museveni warned that torture posed "possible mistakes that may even interfere with the fight against crime".

He said there was the risk of torture being used on entirely innocent people and of some detainees being forced into false confessions to escape their ordeal.

Museveni won re-election to his latest term last year but the vote lacked credibility and transparency, international monitors said. His main rival, Kizza Besigye, maintains he won the election but that Museveni stole his victory. (Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; editing by George Obulutsa and Mark Heinrich)
By Dion Rabouin

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments portfolio manager Adam Kutas, a frontier markets specialist since a trip to Hungary more than three decades ago, has scored big on shares of Olympic Industries, a Bangladeshi cookie maker, up some 620 percent since 2012 for his Frontier Emerging Markets Fund.

Driehaus Capital's Frontier Markets Fund has reaped gains on BRAC Bank, a Bangladesh-based retail and small business lender that has risen 271 percent over the same time.

These investors say the ready availability of easy-to-understand and cheap stocks like banks and retailers is a main attraction of frontier, an asset class less established than emerging markets (EM) like Brazil, Turkey and India, that can have political instability and potential poor liquidity.

"It's very similar to emerging markets 15 years ago," said Chad Cleaver, lead portfolio manager at Driehaus Frontier Markets Strategy. "These are basic industries that happen to be heavily underpenetrated."

After years of sub-par returns, frontier markets started 2017 strong and are getting fresh looks as U.S. valuations look steep and emerging markets have been on an explosive run.

The S&P 500 index trades at a heady 21.35 price-to-earnings ratio, compared with the MSCI International Frontier Market Price Index's 13 P/E.

Fund managers say while they don't buy with a particular P/E in mind, frontier's ratios are generally some of the cheapest in global equity markets.

Lawrence Speidell, chief investment officer (CIO) of Frontier Market Asset Management, says most of the securities he owns trade at 10 times earnings or less.

Frontier stocks and bourses can offer triple-digit returns for investors who make the right call, such as Pakistan's Karachi SE 100 index up threefold over the past five years. But the segment has underperformed badly as an asset class over the longer term.

From 2010 to 2016, the MSCI frontier market index posted a negative average annual return of 2.4 percent, dragged lower by bourses like Nigeria's NSE index, off more than 38 percent from its 2014 peak to the start of 2017.

'STICKING OUR NECKS OUT'

Such a track record helps explain why many mainstream investors steer clear.

"We find them to be very, very (underdeveloped). We have issues of liquidity and I think the emerging markets in general provide enough fertile ground without really sticking our necks out," said Leonardo Vila, a Federated Investors senior portfolio manager who specializes in global small- and mid-cap equities.

"The risk/reward for those frontier exposures may not help me sleep at night."

So far this year, MSCI's frontier market index is up 10.3 percent, beating the S&P 500's 6.8 percent rise, which may account for revived investor interest.

Since the second quarter of 2016, net inflows for actively managed frontier market equity funds have totaled $267.7 million, while EM managed equity funds have had outflows of $4.84 billion, according to eVestment data. Also, $438 billion have left actively managed non-EM equity funds.

Many frontier market portfolio managers are true-believer active stock pickers, which may be a tough sell as the wider fund industry has gravitated toward lower-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds.

For U.S.-based frontier stock funds, some $1.8 billion are invested in actively managed funds, while $668 million sit in passively managed index funds, according to Morningstar Inc.

Despite occasional gems like Olympic, the Bangladeshi cookie maker, active frontier investors have struggled to beat the benchmark, with just one in 13 funds outperforming the iShares MSCI Frontier 100 ETF so far this year.

According to Morningstar data, 43 percent of actively managed frontier funds have beaten the MSCI frontier ETF over a three-year horizon.

EM active managers have fared better, with 37 percent beating the EM ETF year to date, and nearly 62 percent outpacing it over a three-year period.

While acknowledging frontier investments are not for the faint of heart, proponents like Speidell, Frontier Market Asset Management's co-founder and CIO, say the asset class is like "a fine bourbon" and provides a chance to break from the pack.

"The poorer you are, the faster you grow, and this is whats intriguing to me about going to the places where there arent a lot of analysts, where companies dont have their stories down pat to present in slick PowerPoint presentations," Speidell said.

Speidell's fund has done well enough to command a reported 20 percent performance fee on top of a 1 percent management fee.

The growing uncertainty in developed markets created by events like Brexit and Donald Trump's upset election has prodded investors to seek securities that won't sink if U.S. or European stocks take a dive.

Frontier market equities have moved much more independently of U.S. equities than have EM stocks. MSCI's frontier index shows a 42 percent correlation to the S&P 500, compared with 91 percent for MSCI's emerging markets index, according to Reuters data.

Fidelity's Kutas has even invested 5 percent of his mother's retirement account in frontier assets.

Frontier investors say the best is yet to come as capital markets in little-known countries develop and their populations begin to flex their financial muscles. That will only add to gains for banks, retailers and consumer staples stocks for years, or even decades, to come.

"The very long-term thesis is that as you get less civil wars and more peace, you get better managed governments," said Leigh Innes, lead portfolio specialist for T Rowe Price's frontier markets strategy. "These are ... countries that tend to be at an earlier stage of development and are getting that early stability."

(Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Christian Plumb and Jeffrey Benkoe)
MEXICO CITY, May 16 (Reuters) - Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Tuesday he expects U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to tell Congress early next week of plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a move that would produce talks by late August.

Guajardo said he would have more information after meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Vietnam on Thursday as part of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.

During the 2016 U.S. election campaign, Trump vowed to scrap the 1994 deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico if he cannot adjust it to benefit U.S. interests.

"Probably the notification will be sent to Congress by the U.S. executive at some time early next week," Guajardo told Mexican media on Tuesday a day after meetings in Washington with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other U.S. officials.

In Washington, Ross declined to predict the exact timing of the notification, saying that there were more consultations with Congress needed first.

In a meeting on Tuesday, U.S. senators said Ross and new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressed their preference to keep the current trilateral format in the NAFTA talks.

Guajardo also said that a dispute over sugar with the United States could be resolved within two weeks, before a June 5 deadline to break the impasse.

The U.S. sugar industry pressed the U.S. Commerce Department late last year to withdraw from a 2014 agreement that sets prices and quotas for U.S. imports of Mexican sugar unless the deal could be renegotiated. The U.S. sugar lobby wants Mexico to export less refined sugar and has become emboldened since Trump took office.

A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman said Ross and Guajardo discussed possible solutions and that they continue to work toward a negotiated settlement.

Any deal, however, would need agreement from the U.S. sugar producers who brought an anti-dumping case against Mexican competitors.

On Monday, Mexico's sugar chamber said no deal had been reached in talks on Monday to resolve the dispute. (Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City and David Lawder in Washington.; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)
MADRID, May 16 (Reuters) - Spain's conservative government has added its voice to calls for deeper integration in the euro zone, suggesting to Brussels in a paper that members of the bloc should pool some aspects of their debt management and share a budget to fight crisis shocks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's new President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Monday to outline a roadmap for deeper European Union integration, and opened the door to changing the bloc's treaties after meeting in Berlin.

France is also pushing for greater potential cooperation among the 19 countries that use the euro currency, in matters of budget for instance.

The impetus comes after the EU was rocked by Britain's decision to leave, prompting countries to take positions on how best to shore up unity in the bloc.

Spain's proposals, which also include a common euro zone unemployment insurance scheme, were submitted to the European Commission in February but came to light this week and were released by the economy ministry on Tuesday.

Spanish conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has long called for further integration and repeatedly called for steps to complete a euro zone banking union, including by creating a deposit insurance scheme.

His government's proposals go even further than those Germany and France have proposed, including saying that common debt management was a vital part of any fiscal union.

"Participating member states should allow for a certain degree of debt mutualisation," the paper said. It later added: "The introduction of a euro area Treasury ... and the possibility for common debt issuance could also be envisaged."

The joint Eurobond idea has been shunned by Germany amid concerns it would have to bankroll others, and Macron has said he did not favour mutualising debt.

Rajoy had already pushed for jointly issued Eurobonds in 2012, at a time when his government was trying to steer Spain through one of its deepest ever recessions and had to request a European bailout for the country's weakest banks.

Spain, the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, has since recovered to become one of the fastest-growing in the bloc.

Madrid's latest proposals also included a common "rainy day fund" for the euro zone that could used to counter shocks and support investment. (Reporting by Sarah White; Editing by Louise Ireland)
By Umberto Bacchi

ROME, May 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Prompt humanitarian action has kept drought-ridden Somalia from sliding into famine so far but more resources, better security and increased access to remote areas are needed to bring the country back from the brink, experts said on Tuesday.

Almost 3 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa nation that is suffering the effects of repeated rain failures and decades of conflict, according to the United Nations.

A pre-famine alert was issued in February, a move that U.N. officials credit with helping to avert a repeat of the 2011 famine, when the aid response was slow and more than 250,000 people died of starvation.

"After early warning in Feb, the combined actions from donors, humanitarians & Somali gvt have averted the worst scenario," Dominique Burgeon, director of the emergency division at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a Twitter conversation hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

But some 6.2 million Somalis still require aid after drought withered crops, killed livestock and dried up waterholes, according to the United Nations.

Heavy seasonal rains that started in April will allow farmers to plant crops but also bring cold and spread disease, a double threat for people and animals whose immune systems have been weakened by sustained hunger.

"Large-scale relief assistance IS making a difference, but needs are rising. Race against time to #avertsomaliafamine," wrote Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

Last week the United Nations increased its appeal for the country by $900 million to a total of $1.5 billion.

But pouring in money alone will not solve the problem, said Nisar Majid, a researcher at the Feinstein International Center.

"Access and capacity to respond is the limitation, not resources," he wrote.

While African Union and Somali troops have driven Islamist militant group al Shabaab from major urban strongholds and ports, they have struggled to defend smaller, more remote areas from attacks.

Road blocks, conflict and extortions at checkpoints are restricting travel in most of southern and central Somalia, driving up the cost of delivering aid, the United Nations said.

Longer term investments to revive Somali's agricultural sector, which 30 years ago produced about twice as much food as now, and shore up its economy from future shocks were also part of the solution, according to government and U.N. officials.

"#Somalia needs development projects to avoid reccurring famine for good," tweeted the country's minister of information, Abdirahman Osman. (Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
BERLIN, May 16 (Reuters) - - The European Commission will launch infringement proceedings against the Italian government on Wednesday over its handling of an emission-cheating investigation into Fiat Chrysler (FCA), German daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.

The Commission accuses Italy of ignoring the installation of so-called cheat devices to manipulate emission levels in diesel cars at Fiat. No comment from Fiat or the Italian government was available, the newspaper reported.

Italy's transport minister said in February that new tests carried out on FCA found no illegal engine software. (Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by David Clarke)
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who is on an official visit to Beijing said Chinas One Belt One Road would help Sri Lanka to become a hub of the Indian Ocean.

He said this at the high level talks on One Belt One Road programme in Beijing.

The Prime Minister said development in Asia depends on freedom of maritime navigation in the Indian Ocean. It is important to establish peaceful non military ties among the countries in the region. Therefore it is essential to establish multilateral trade ties based on a commercial basis, he said.

He said Sri Lanka expects to become a hub in the Indian Ocean using its strategic location.

The Prime Minister said all countries that are part of the One Belt One Road programme should strive towards ensuring its success. He said the off shore financial city is a part of the One Belt One Road programme. He called for the cooperation of all the countries involved in the project to achieve the intended targets.

Chinese President XI Jinping said all countries should come together because no single nation would be able to overcome the global challenges that have arisen today. He said One Belt One Road did not belong to one group but to the whole world.

More than 30 heads of state and institutions participated at the talks.
HINDUSTAN TIMES, 15th MAY, 2017- Dawn air strikes on a Syrian border town in the Islamic State-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor killed 23 people, most of them civilians, a war monitoring group said on Monday.



The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said jets thought to belong to the US-led coalition hit the town of Al-Bukamal near the border with Iraq.



The warplanes struck near a residential area and a mosque, wounding dozens more, the Britain-based monitor said.



The Islamic State-linked media outlet Amaq said coalition strikes killed 15 people and wounded 35 others in Al-Bukamal.



A spokesman for the US-led coalition against Islamic State could not immediately be reached for comment.



Islamic State holds most of Deir al-Zor province, apart from an enclave at the centre and a nearby air base that Syrian government forces control.
Sinhala Vihare found in Nagarjunakonda

If not for invasions, some sites would have become the biggest Buddhist centres in the world

Bodh Gaya was controlled by Sri Lankan Buddhist monks at one time

Dr. D. Dayalan, Director (Monuments) Archaeological Survey, India, has been instrumental in the recent explorations of the rich Buddhist historical remains of India after extensive excavations. In his archaeological exploration, he has found Buddhist monuments, bespeaking of a rich history, even in Southern Indian states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. In fact, he has even found inscriptional evidence of a monastery called Sinhala Vihare in Nagarjunakonda, built for the Buddhist monks visiting India from Sri Lanka even at that period of history. Details about his latest findings are recounted in his book Buddhist Remains of India. It was released to the general public recently in Sri Lanka. In an interview with the Dailymirror , he requested the Buddhists to visit the new sites as well apart from the traditionally known places. Excerpts of the interview:

QWhat motivated you to compile this book?

When I made a presentation at a conference in India, the attendees did not believe India was a country rich in Buddhism. They were uncertain about my findings. I took it up as a challenge and proceeded with further exploration. This book is an outcome of that. I compiled it in a scientific way. I have covered Tamil Nadu and Kerala in my work, and now am taking up Andhra Pradesh as it is very rich compared with Tamil Nadu. I have already made a preliminary study in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

QHow do you describe the latest findings of Buddhist remains of India and their cultural richness?

It is evident that the Buddha was born in India. All major events related to the Buddhas life took place in India - the birth, the great departure from Kapilavastu, enlightenment and Parinibbana in Kushinagar. Apart from all these activities, he had travelled to a lot of places in India, particularly the Northern and Eastern parts. These archeological sites are vital to the Buddhist community. There is a lot of material evidence in terms of stupas, cetiyas, vihares, and also in the form of inscriptions. After Parinibbana at Kushinagar, his mortal remains have been distributed to eight stupas, which means eight stupas came up in India at the beginning. However, Emperor Asoka is said to have opened up seven stupas out of the eight. Then, he redistributed the relics to 84,000 other stupas he built. That is the traditional story. However, Emperor Asoka has constructed hundreds of stupas all over India. Some of them including Amarawati, Sanchi and Kushinagar still exist. All these are sacred places. Asoka championed the propagation of Buddhism all over India, and the world as a whole. He sent emissaries to every corner of the world. One of them was Arahat Mahinda. It is believed that when Arahat Mahinda was directed to visit Sri Lanka, he had gone to Sanchi, and from there, visited Sri Lanka. This is the reason for Sanchi to be associated with Sri Lankan Buddhism. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, there are a lot of Buddhist relics in the form of stupas and monasteries. Then, it has gradually been spread to Western India, particularly to Maharashtra and Gujarat. There are more than 1,200 Buddhist rock caves there. This is well known to the public and the Buddhist world. When I attended some conferences in India, I heard people say there was nothing much about Buddhism in South India. I took up the challenge to find if there were any archaeological remains of Buddhism in this territory. There were a few places people know about here like Amarawati and Nagarjunkunda. When I took up the preliminary survey, mainly in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, I found more than 200 Buddhist sites. Most of them are gigantic stupas. Amarawathi is one of the biggest of the lot. Then there are Nagarjunakonda, Bhattiprolu and Gantasala. We extended our exploration further. That is in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. People tend to believe there is nothing about Buddhism in these states. But, to our surprise, we found more than 100 sacred sites. They may not be big stupas, but we found a lot of bronzes - Buddhist sculptures, paintings, inscriptions. Kavaripurmpatinam is often referred to as an important centre. It is a Buddhist site. It also happened to be a maritime trade centre. Trade was from South-East Asian parts of the world like Sri Lanka and China. They came there. Along with the traders were Buddhist monks who joined in the expedition. There was a big stupa and monastery constructed at Kavaripurmpatinam. There are many literary references about that. During our excavations there, we visited a huge vihare meant for Buddhist monks. Nagapattinam is also a main Buddhist site. When archaeologists and the common man excavated certain portions of the site, they found more than 800 Buddhist bronzes. I reckon this is one of the biggest hauls of Buddhist icons found in India, or even in the world for that matter.

Another noteworthy finding is the inscription that states Nagapatnam was a trade centre. Merchants from many Buddhist countries had come in and actively engaged in trade. Kancipuram is also yet another important site as many of the Buddhist monks who were scholars had been born there. Some of them headed the Nalanda University. I could get a lot of Buddhist material there. The book is actually an outcome of that.

QAccording to history, a number of Buddhist sites in India remain destroyed due to various invasions. If not for them, how rich would the Buddhist heritage be in your perspective?

As seen in Amarawati, we get only the base of a stupa. Had it remained there, it would have been bigger than Sanchi. One would have been able to see hundreds of Buddhist sculptures. You could say thousands of Buddhist panels depicting various stories of the Buddha, Jataka stories and the life of the Buddha. All the things were embellished on the main stupa. Only the base is found now. Suppose it is full, it would have been one of the greatest Buddhist centres in the whole world. Even in Nagarjunakonda or Saligundam, we only find the remains. If they were in full, they would definitely be very big centres. The stupas had been destroyed from time-to-time.

QWhat were the measures taken by the British, when they ruled India, to preserve these

sacred sites?

When Alexander Cunningham was in charge of the Indian Archaeology Department, it was an undivided India including Afghanistan. In fact, he wanted to explore the Buddhist sites. He explored on the basis of records available, and identified the Buddhist centres in India. He started clearing the areas sometimes covered with debris or jungle. That way, he started covering the maximum number of sites.

Post independence, this became the entity that attended to the upkeep of monuments of national and international importance. All Buddhist sites in India happened to be the nationally important sites. It is the responsibility of the department to preserve these monuments. Originally, Sanchi was gone to wrack and ruin. The Indian Government had taken up conservation of it. However, Sanchi is protected today. The government has also taken effective steps to preserve beautiful Ajantha paintings from various forms of vandalism. In Kanaganhallai, there was nothing visible on the ground. When we explored that area, we found the remains of a stupa. Currently, we have made arrangements to preserve the stupa that consists of hundreds of Buddhist panels.

QOften, we learn about Buddhist remains in India from British oriental studies. How do you compare and contrast them with the studies done by you and other Indian scholars?

The British initiated excavations. Today, every science, including archaeology, has its own development. There is the basis. We do not follow what they did. We are adopting modern trends. In my project, we are doing the digital documentation of Buddhist sites. We are not just going randomly. We are putting everything in GPS.

Western and Southern parts of India are areas where the Buddha had not frequented much. But, in Western India, we get more than 1,200 Buddhist caves. Buddhism has stemmed from Western India, and also Andhra Pradesh, where there are more than 200 sacred sites. In Tamil Nadu too, there are over 100 sites. In Nagapatnam, there is a vihare. Whenever we find Buddhist remains, we give due respect. People even garland and conduct Poojas.

QIn your view, what is the reason for the disappearance of Buddhism from India despite such rich heritage?

We cannot point out an exact reason. Basically, it is patronisation. During the time of Asoka, there was strong patronisation by the kings. Then, there was King Yasawardana, the royal family and people. Later, Buddhism was patronised by traders. Patronisation is vital. When there is no patronisation, it will have its end. Even today, Buddhism is a living tradition in India. In view of the Buddha Purnima, there was a huge gathering at Sanchi.

QHow do you trace the historical link between India and

Sri Lanka?

Basically, there has been a link from the very beginning. It is manifest with the arrival of Arahat Mahinda. The linkage is even older than that. During excavations in Anuradhapura, they have found some pottery that dates back to the epoch of the Buddha. Henceforth, there have been continuous links. Buddhist monks commuted to Southern India along with traders. Even Bodh Gaya was controlled by Sri Lankan Buddhist monks at one time. There is a vihare in Nagarjunakonda known as Sinhala vihare,it has been inscribed so in Prakrit. In essence, Sri Lankan pilgrims toured this place, probably for its facilities. They had put up a vihare there. Also, a tale tells us that a Sri Lankan king sent a missionary to Bodh Gaya in fourth century AD. It is recorded in inscriptions that his request to the king to construct a monastery was accepted. In the fourth century AD itself, a Buddhist community from Sri Lanka visited there.

QWhat is your message to the majority who are only aware of Bodh Gaya and a few other Buddhist sites in India?

There are a number of Buddhist sites like Amarawathi, Nagarjunakonda, Nagapattinam, Kavaripurmpattinam, Kancipuram and Saligundam. If you go to Western India, you will come across Ajantha. All these are very important, sacred sites. If you really want to discover the Buddhist heritage of India, you should travel the whole country.

QThe Indian state Bihar derived its name from vihare. The state has been full of Vihares. What is

your opinion?

Actually, Bihar was the nuclear centre of Buddhist activities. It is Bihar and surrounding states. There remained maximum Buddhist activities. From there, it spread to other parts of India.
India and Palestine Inks 5 Agreements

Published: May 16, 2017

India and Palestine has signed five agreements during the 4 day visit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to India. This is Abbass fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his earlier visits in 2008 and 2012.

These 5 MoUs signed were on visa exemption for diplomatic passport holder, agriculture cooperation, cooperation in field of IT & Electronics, health sector and cooperation in the field of youth affairs and sports.

Salient Highlights

India has called for early resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel and hoped to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. Palestine for its part has thanked India for supporting it in various international forums. Palestine also hopes that India can play a vital role in Middle East Peace process. The Palestinian President also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and called for regional and international efforts to fight the menace.

India is assisting developmental projects in Palestine. It has been contributing to material & technical assistance and is building a techno Park in Ramallah at the cost of $12 million.

Both the countries also called for enhancing cultural exchanges between the two sides. India has sought Palestines participation in the International Yoga Day to be observed next month.

Background

India and Palestine enjoy a long standing friendship. In 1947, India registered its vote against he partition of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly. In 1974, India became the first Non-Arab State to recognize PLO as sole and legitimate representative of the people of Palestine. In 2012, India co-sponsored a resolution that resulted in up-gradation of the status of Palestine to a non-member state. In 2014, India voted in favor of Palestine at the UN Human Rights Council. In 2015, India supported installation of Palestinian flag at the UN Premises similar to the flags of the member states.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2017

Topics: India Bilateral  India-International Relations  India-palestine  International

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Hong Kongs Immigration Department has rejected asylum requests made by a group of refugees, including Sri Lankans, who sheltered US fugitive Edward Snowden four years ago, foreign news agencies reported.

Their lawyer Robert Tibbo on Monday said immigration officials denied applications by the four adults and three children, in what he said is retaliation for helping Snowden. The applicants are from the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Snowden hid in Hong Kong for two weeks in June, 2013, after he leaked documents revealing extensive US government surveillance. His whereabouts were a mystery during the time.

It was not until last year that the role Tibbo and his clients played in sheltering Snowden was revealed. Tibbo said his clients will appeal the ruling. They have also applied for refugee status in Canada.

The lawyer said that the families need to be brought to Canada immediately while the country processes their asylum claims.

Tibbo said Canada needs to take this exceptional step and allow the seven people to enter the country after the Hong Kong government rejected their asylum applications last Friday.

The seven people  four adults and their three children  allegedly helped hide Snowden when the fugitive was in the region in 2013 after he leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance.

They were put in contact with Snowden because they share Tibbo as a lawyer.

Speaking from Hong Kong, through a video conference, surrounded by the seven refugee applicants, Tibbo told reporters they have two weeks to appeal the decision or risk deportation to their countries of origin, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, where they fear for their safety.

A non-profit group is attempting to raise the estimated $15,000 to cover the appeals.

The solution is Canada, he said, adding the country is one of a handful of jurisdictions that permit a review of refugee applications from people who havent been screened by the United Nations.

Tibbo said the Hong Kong government doesnt allow the UN to screen refugee applicants who enter the country.

One of the refugee applicants, Ajith, said he was convinced that he would be killed if he returns to Sri Lanka.
The Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) convener Lahiru weerasekara said they had not been informed of a court order against tomorrows protest march and said they would launch the protest march as scheduled.

We have not received any court order. We will do it today as scheduled from Colombo Fort, he said.

He said they would commence the protest march from Colombo Fort and added that they had not decided yet where to proceed with the march.

We will decide it tomorrow morning, he said. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrated a test of the perfect weapon system after his engineers launched what they said was a new kind of intermediate-range ballistic missile system capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead.



The missile, launched Sunday morning, appeared to show substantial progress toward developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the mainland United States, U.S. rocket scientists said.



North Koreas latest successful missile test represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile, said John Schilling, an aerospace engineer who specializes in rockets. This means North Korea might be only one year, rather than the expected five, from having an ICBM, he said.



Releasing the first photos of the launch - something Pyongyang does with missiles it deems successful - North Koreas state media said that it was a new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket that it called Hwasong-12. It used a reentry vehicle capable of delivering a warhead to a target, the Korean Central News Agency reported.



It flew for 30 minutes, much longer than other recent missile launches, meaning that it went straight up rather than trying to fly as far as possible - a path that would have sent it over Japan. KCNA said the launch was conducted at the highest angle in consideration of the security of neighbouring countries.



TOKYO - c) 2017, The Washington Post  By Anna Fifield  May 15, 2017 -
From power they got the keys to coffers and after that it was always money, money, money

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. ~Bertrand Russell



When the carcass of our polity is sprawled across the landscape of the country, when the carcass is well beyond recognition, when its heart has stopped beating, its nerves ceased to twitch and its blood has hardened so much so that its no redder, but eerily crimson, we know that the predators have done the job.



Fortunately we have not arrived at that burial ground as yet. The heart of Sri Lankas polity is still beating; its nervous system is intact and its blood still redder than ever.



The Joint Opposition that is parading our streets and feeding a starving media with delusional tidbits of political character-assassination is made up of the Rajapaksa family and other Parliamentarians who contested the last General Elections on the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) ticket. They were the ones, who opposed Maithripala Sirisenas Presidential bid on January 8, 2015. They were the ones who backed Mahinda Rajapaksas bid for an unprecedented third term Presidency.



What is the common tie between the Rajapaksas and these other political hoods, who have opted to stand behind Mahinda Rajapaksa and his blatantly deep corrupt practices?



I have written about this before and have no hesitation in writing again and again, even to the utter boredom of the reader. They are the comrades-in-arms (Or more aptly, comrades-in-alms) of the Rajapaksas when they had the coffer-keys.



Make no mistake. It is all about the money. From power they got the keys to coffers and after that it was always money, money, money.



With that money they entertained their friends; with that money they had unlimited luxuries; with that money they acquired cars and houses and girlfriends and boyfriends. All decipherable signs of moral decay were present; all tangible results of avarice were in evidence; all nuanced cryptograms of sloganeering were abundant. Yet, the majority in the country refused to see. They refused to look at them, for they did not want to see what lay beneath the veneer.



It is quite natural for any victim of any crime or misdemeanor to confront the truth. That is a human condition and we find that in abundance in everyday lives of many men and women. For what reason or excuse, Im not qualified to reason out. Yet, its corrosive presence, one simply cannot dispute.

This is the gullibility political sharks of a yester-regime exploited to the hilt.



The gullibility of the masses was shown when the Rajapaksas declared that they were ready to go to the electric chair to safeguard the honour of the brave soldiers, who fell on the battlefield.

The phony patriotism of Rajapaksa and his henchmen is exposed as nothing but phony. But patriotism, if craftily sloganeered and presented as justifiable and gut-wrenching as the Rajapaksa cronies were capable of portraying, it is really dreadful.



It has been recorded in many an international fora and has been debated whether the subject of patriotism defined in a narrow context of local politics is valid and whether that patriotism offers a blanket assurance of insulation from the international audience seeking justice and fairness to all people living in the world, as a majority or a minority. Such nuanced arguments are a way beyond these pathetic, uninformed merchants of corruption and nepotism.



The May Day show has understandably given Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cohorts a false sense of hope; it has given them a massive ego-push that the crowd that gathered on the Galle Face Green came on their own volition.



If one is offered a bottle of arrack and a packet of rice and curry and free transport, of course, who is going to refuse that on a national holiday?



The enormous wealth that the last regime made via various deals is coming out now.

In 1960 and 1970 the United National Party (UNP) managed to gather massive crowds for their May Day rallies. On both occasions the UNP lost at the elections. This delusional madness of the Rajapaksas and their supporters would eventually have its infectious effect claiming not only their immediate staff and cohorts, but will trickle down to the broad masses that rally around him and his failed policies of phony patriotism and groundless and unproven love for them.



Mahinda Rajapaksa has to realise the significance of one modern political dynamic. The social media is not something that could be kept under a carpet of secrecy; it need not have leadership; it need not have even to verify the accuracy of what they are alleged to reveal.



But fortunately or unfortunately, the social media is a double-edged knife. Against a backdrop of darkening clouds of suspicion in some intimidation, abductions and killings of prominent journalists, who had both guts and craft to use their power of the pen to attack the Rajapaksa regime and the then first family, Mahinda Rajapaksas malicious attempt at galvanising massive crowds on May Day celebrations looks hollow and barren.



When one sits down to analyse the current political tempests in Sri Lanka, after a defeat of a maligned regime (I used the word regime intentionally as the Rajapaksas portrayed themselves as a regime as against a Democratic Republic) whose alleged attempt at hoodwinking the masses with slogans such as electric chair, brave soldiers on the battlefield, etc. was thwarted by the voters in January, 2015, one has no option but to deduce that the Rajapaksas attempts are indeed malevolent and treacherous.



They ruled the country for more than eighty four months. Never did a day pass without a member of the first family or their henchmen, in and outside Parliament, allegedly committing at least a white-collar felony. Such white-collar felonies are being investigated today and hopefully, for the relief on many a man and woman.



These political swindlers simply do not realise that taking the voter for granted and treating him or her as a simpleton and sometimes as an idiot is a sin that has no equal. Condescending treatment of equals may be pardonable but if such conduct extends down to the average Siripala and Ran Menika in the rural hamlets, it is not only unpardonable, it is grossly repugnant and deplorable.

But who is there to tell the Rajapaksas? Certainly not the local politicians, nor the native henchmen. It had to come from a visiting Head of Government of our big brother, India.

Prime Minister Modi did not come to occupy the highest seat in Indias polity by being naive and uninformed. If Mahinda Rajapaksa refuses to learn any lesson from the alleged treatment extended to him by Narendra Modi, then he is beyond help.



The May Day rally organised by the so-called Joint Opposition has already claimed two lives. For the organisers of the Joint Opposition this may not be a big ado. Yet, one must remember that those who died as a result of participating in the May Day rally also may be having sons, daughters, wives and parents.



Sacrifices made for the sake of personalities around whom a cult is being built are indeed grave and more often than not, stupid. Yet our unequivocal sympathy goes out to them.

Sigmund Freud said that no one who shares a delusion ever recognises it as such.

That is precisely what has happened to Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cohorts. They do not seem to recognise the delusion; the delusion of a broad mass assent of a failed regime is lingering on and it is being intentionally promoted by them.

The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com
REUTERS, 15th MAY, 2017- Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that intelligence services should beware of creating software that can later be used for malicious means - a reference to global ransomware attacks that researchers say exploited a hacking tool built by the US National Security Agency.



Speaking to reporters in Beijing, where he is taking part in a conference, Putin said that there was no significant damage to Russian institutions, including its banking and healthcare systems, from the computer worm known as WannaCry.



But as a whole it is worrying, theres nothing good about it, it is a source of concern. As regards the source of these threats, I believe that the leadership of Microsoft have announced this plainly, that the initial source of the virus is the intelligence services of the United States, Putin said.



Once theyre let out of the lamp, genies of this kind, especially those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their authors and creators, he added.



So this question should be discussed immediately on a serious political level and a defence needs to be worked out from such phenomena.



Putin said that Russia was not behind the attack.
The Sri Lankan government needs to return to its original good governance and reconciliation agenda to salvage the chance to address fundamental sources of conflict and instability, the International Crisis Group (ICG) today said.

The ICG recognizes itself as an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies which would create a more peaceful world.

In a report titled Sri Lankas Transition to Nowhere which was published on Tuesday, the ICG said President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe must reach workable compromises on key issues.

Economic reform that shares the pain of change equitably and renewed anti-corruption, anti-impunity drives that prioritise a limited number of significant criminal cases implicating both major parties are some of the key issues, the report said.

President Sirisena must speak forcefully and lead a campaign that explains the reform packages benefits for all communities to achieve a deal on the constitution that includes strengthened devolution.

Renewing transitional justice hopes requires rapid launch of the Office on Missing Persons and faster progress on reducing the military footprint in the north and east.

Packaged as part of rule-of-law reforms that include prosecuting alleged corruption and political crimes under the Rajapaksas, transitional justice could yet gain support across communities.

But time is running out. Leaders in both parties should not discount a Rajapaksa return. For their own survival and to deliver on at least some of their big promises, they should reject chauvinistic politics and daily bickering and invest their political capital in promoting an inclusive vision and set up a more accountable polity that can mitigate the risk of new conflict, the report said.

It said two years into President Maithripala Sirisenas term, Sri Lankas fragile hopes for lasting peace and cooperation across party and ethnic lines are imperilled.

Despite significant achievements in the coalition governments first nine months, progress on most of its reform agenda has slowed to a crawl or been reversed. As social tensions rise and the coalition slowly fractures, it is unclear whether it can push its signature new constitution through parliament and to a national referendum, it said.

As the government struggles with large budget deficits and dangerously high debt, hopes for improved living standards have been frustrated, further eroding trust in it and strengthening the appeal of the Rajapaksa-led opposition, the report said.

SLFP ministers were never enthusiastic about being the junior partner in a unity government with their long-time rival, the United National Party (UNP), and are unhappy with what many see as UNP arrogance and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes less-than-consultative style.

Pro-Sirisena SLFP ministers oppose any changes requiring a referendum, which would rule out key reforms, including compromises reached with the Tamil National Alliance to strengthen provincial devolution instead of the federalism they had favoured, it said.
State Minister of Defense, Ruwan Wijewardene said yesterday no one would be allowed to discredit the security forces.

He said there were some elements trying to tarnish the reputation of the security forces by lighting lamps while enjoying the freedom reinstated in this country because of the efforts of security forces who sacrificed their life and limb to do so.

Mr Wijewardene said this at a ceremony held in Aranayake where houses were distributed to landslide victims under the Senehe Siyapatha programme on Sunday.

Some politicians in the North criticize the forces from time to time but they should remember that it is the forces who help them whenever there are disasters, the state minister said.

We are saddened by the recent action of Northern Provincial Council member M.K. Sivajilingam who criticized the forces in the North recently after lighting oil lamps. We remind him that he can do what he is doing today only because of the security forces, he added.
Where are the youth, fired with idealism fighting injustice, after the best were killed by the JVP, LTTE and the State in the late and early, twentieth and twenty first centuries including much of the second tier leadership of political parties?

Who wants the Yahapalanaya (good governance)? Not Sri Lankans, for sure. More thrive on mis- governance or are beneficiaries of serial corruption that has trickled down with the advent of free economy.



They voted for Yahapalanaya because they were not for excessive corruption by a few - relations, friends and boot-lickers of the Rajapaksas.



Families support irregularities if benefits flow to them like obtaining jobs outside the rules of meritocracy; some say, Rajapaksas sold that for a price too. Stories were sold; however flawed.

Now, voters realise that Wickremesinghe (after the massive bond scam) and Sirisena (after appointing defeated candidates to Cabinet portfolios and not pursuing them through the FCID) are no different to the Rajapaksas!



Living was cheaper under the Rajapaksas, wisdom in holding elections in 2015, may make the difference, notwithstanding astrology.



Another regime change is in the making?



People having lived on corruption are blind to corruption, as long as they are also fringe beneficiaries. In a democracy, voting is a weapon through which regime changes are made, to replace one set of rouges with another.



Is memory short, that people keep on changing pillows to reinstall rogues sent home or placed in office, with no other choice in the offing?



Where are the youth, fired with idealism fighting injustice, after the best were killed by the JVP, LTTE and the State in the late and early, twentieth and twenty first centuries including much of the second tier leadership of political parties?



Men in Society PRA, alive - are all over the place, living in disguise.



Politics is no longer peoples power alone, with high finance playing a decisive role with the concepts of free economy in play; changes envisaged through the Constitution cannot cure the impact high finance inputs and reduce impact good men have on methods of electioneering.



Way back, Lal Jayasundera, in post-free economy times, was a business leader, declined to make financial contributions to party campaigns, yet made a negligible company, situated primarily in an outstation, a giant in the commercial world in the city center.



Jayasundera had a few great characters at Hayleys and at the national airline carrier; knew the art of selecting people and entrusting power to them.



Enlightened leadership, has confidence to assign work to the correct people without keeping power within a narrow circle of sycophants.



A characteristic found wanting among the prime administrators of the Rajapaksa regime, led to the down fall of a president. Rajapaksa often entrusted power to wrong persons as he assigned tasks too liberally and failed to supervise them due to an inherent lethargy; Premadasa and Gothabaya did supervise comprehensively and gained fame for their projects.



Look at the two named stadiums-at Kettaramaya and Hambantota, of the funds at Hambantota much of it is alleged to have shifted to private pockets.



May Day rallies were mobile rogues galleries parading on the streets of Colombo, Kandy and Hatton. Stand up, lads and lasses, May Day participants are a negligible few purchased by those collectors of filth and dirt, totals after an islandwide search by politicians in collective -to the strength of number of voters in three electorates aggregated together in Colombo, as against nearly 195 other electorates in the country.



Dont be fooled by pictures in the media or by prejudiced columnists that glorify events, to become a part of an outfit or the speakers at rallies, instead, take a closer look at the pictures- are they not the dead wood, desperately trying once more to have themselves re-elected and come begging for the vote to live in luxury with perks and perquisites?



Good or the better, stayed at home away from the rallies and constitute the bulk vote. May Day is essential to redistribute illegally amassed wealth, among the assembled cadres. Nothing more; nothing less-in a land of robber kings.



Those on stage were primarily artists waiting to stage a comeback.



Where Free Economy and Democracy walk hand in hand, Yahapalanaya is a business proposition for the NGO sector to make more money in pretending to be mock angels.



In 2015, the Government after the victory over terrorism, lived too long on gratitude, believing it is a lifetime carnival, while overdosing the people with corruption sleaze and maladministration.

People used the vote to punish those that are/were living on excesses and will do so again in twenty twenty. Worse than the politicians are the gung-ho administrators that switch sides and are the beneficiaries under every corrupt administration.



Genuine good governance kids and sadhus have gone underground living in shame and guilt, while the typical NGO types are thriving, searching for more loot.



Senanayakes and Bandaranaikes were honourable politicians lived in eras that produced gems as were M.D. Banda, U.B. Wanninayake, Gamini Jayasuriya M.D.H. Jayewardane from the UNP and two poor carpenters from the hill country - William Fernando (Nuwara Eliya) and N.M. Appuhamy (Bandarawela) from the SLFP, lived small, travelling to Colombo on the railway warrants issued to Parliamentarians as they could not afford to run a vehicle for sittings, having shared with them as a paying traveller a clean first class bunk cabin in the night mail trains, while their assistants stayed awake in the third class carriages.



Named Parliamentarians were first elected long before the free economy was introduced.

Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the last Prime Minster, twice banished Parliamentarians for corrupt practices and at the by-elections held to fill those vacancies won and lost seats for her party and cared less. Today the Government is afraid to hold elections on schedule to local authorities as defeat stares at them.



In the North East demerger case in the Supreme Court, one of the petitioners from Ampara District, a young JVP MP, during the troubled times came for court sittings in a night run public bus as his car was taken over by his party. He did not miss a single sitting in court traveling in a bus to and fro from the Eastern Province.



H.L.de Silva and I met Mahinda Rajapaksa in better times before 2009 and requested him to find SLFP MPs as we felt they had security that ordinary petitioners in the demerger case would not have, as against possible LTTE retributions and it was Rajapaksa that directed us to find MPs from the JVP as he felt his party MPs will ask him for too many benefits that he could not afford to give by way of protection, living in cleaner times and furthermore stated JVP Parliamentarians are more prepared to sacrifice their lives for a cause than MPs from the SLFP.



All counsel in the case H.L de Silva, S.L.Gunasekera, Manoli Jinadasa and self did not have any security provided or charged fees as it was in our collective opinion, was for a national cause and this is the only case for which as counsel paid a giant legal fee on a bill submitted by the instructing attorneys, firm of Paul Ratnaike, much to the annoyance of his brother-in -law S.L. Gunasekera, when I told him months later of footing the bill silently, as he engaged the firm.



The invoice was paid upfront by the JVP as it was submitted to the petitioners and I reimbursed money to the JVP stealthily, against their wishes, as the bill was too hefty, since we had assured them of a free run on fees, after the yeoman service done by their MPs especially Wimal Weerawansa and Vijitha Herath.



That was in a period prior to the defeat of terrorism when RAJAPAKSAs were not certain of the own lives next day and all credit to them for the services rendered. They were spoilt and remain spoilt by the sycophants living off them. Manipulators are often manipulated by those close to them.

Defeat of terrorism by the Rajapaksa let loose another bout of cronyism just as JR Jayewardene brought it, after opening the economy. Both necessary features in public interest, revolutionised society which was the immediate cause for the re-return and defeat of governments by the people voting in favour and against the regimes of UNP and SLFP, when they in the process tried to dismantle the rights that voters enjoyed by democracy and the rule of law.



Dont blame foreign manipulators alone. Worse were those within their administrations that double crossed them-serves right for living with stooges around.



The South Korean and French elections saw the emergence of young leaders outside the traditional political formations as winners.



Here in Sri Lanka people are totally dissatisfied with the performance of their frontline Parliamentarians from all parties.



Parliamentary elections maybe held prior to the presidential election to test the waters before Sirisena takes the dive.

Once again the notion of a strong Presidency may arise as Parliamentarians are ruining their reputations.
As 29 heads of government and diplomats return home from the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing which concluded on Monday, May 15, two questions arise.

One, what next for India which boycotted the summit? Two, how will OBOR change the geopolitical dynamic in the arc that sweeps from China through the Eurasian land mass?

India was right to boycott the OBOR summit. Its key component, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is patently illegal. It passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on its way to Xinjiang in northwest China.

PoK is not only illegally occupied by Pakistan; its people live under virtual dictatorship. Unrest is rising. CPEC infrastructure in PoK is increasingly vulnerable to terror attacks. The presence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Pakistan is now well established. It killed 25 people last Friday (May 12) in Balochistan. Top leaders in the Pakistan Senate barely escaped from the suicide bomb attack on their convoy.

As ISIS is driven out of Iraq and Syria, its fighters (Arabs, Chechians and Uzbeks among others) will drift towards Pakistan, the safest haven worldwide for terrorists. Many will step up attacks in Balochistan where the CPEC begins in the port of Gwadar.

For India, Balochistan is the key. New Delhi has dragged its feet over granting permission for setting up a Balochistan government-in-exile in India, similar to the Dharamsala-based Tibetan government-in-exile (now known as the Central Tibetan Administration).

Kulbhushan Jadhav was kidnapped from the Iran-Balochistan border. His case, under adjudication at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, will focus international attention on the Pakistan armys brutalities in Balochistan.

On Saturday, May 13, a day before the OBOR summit began in Beijing, 10 Pakistani labourers working on a CPEC link road were shot dead just 20 km from Balochistans Gwadar port, which is Chinas signature project within the CPEC. The Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Baloch uprising has added to the incendiary mix in violence-torn Pakistan. The Pakistani army has brutalised Balochistan for years. Resistance is now rising rapidly. Attacks by Baloch freedom fighters on Pakistani soldiers are increasingly common.

Balochistan is Pakistans largest province. It occupies 44 per cent of the countrys area but has only 6 per cent of its population. The rest of Pakistan - Sindh, Punjab, FATA and Khyber Pakthunkhwa - is a thin, densely populated wedge. Its agriculture is dependent on water from Indias rivers.

Over 10,000 Chinese working on the CPEC in Balochistan are being protected by 12,000 Pakistani security personnel. But the Chinese are unpopular with the local Baloch. As in Africa, where China is investing heavily in infrastructure, there are reports of racism and ill-treatment of locals by the Chinese.

China is selling OBOR as a $500 billion global project (with an initial corpus of $124 billion) that will transform the economies of the countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. It has pledged large infrastructure investments in Indias neighbourhood: $57 billion to Pakistan, $25 billion to Bangladesh and $1.5 billion to Sri Lanka.

China has pressed India to join the OBOR project knowing fully well it violates Indian sovereignty in PoK. Contrarian voices have meanwhile emerged in China itself, warning the Chinese leadership of the growing threat of terrorism from ISIS in Balochistan and PoK.

OBOR would be acceptable to India provided it does not pass through PoK and Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan. Sensing danger, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the last minute barred the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan from attending the Beijing summit.

China itself, contrary to conventional wisdom, is not as all-powerful as it poses. In recent weeks, there has been a major crackdown on Chinese dissidents and even business tycoons. Guo Wengui, a property billionaire, now in exile in the US, has levelled sensational charges of corruption against senior Chinese leaders.

Some of the charges go right to the top in the tight circle of mandarins around Chinese president Xi Jinping, the driving force behind OBOR.

As The Economist reported last week: Chinese leaders are clearly rattled. The foreign ministry said Interpol had issued a red (corner) notice to members that Mr Guo is a wanted man. He has reportedly been accused by China of bribing a spy chief, Ma Jian (who has been dismissed and is now in custody). A video, purporting to show Mr Ma admitting to wrongdoing and denouncing Mr Guo, has circulated on the internet in recent days, apparently with official blessing. Mr Guo has denied bribing Mr Ma. He says eight members of his own family have been detained and that 120 billion yuan ($17 billion) of his assets have been frozen. Several executives from his property company have been detained by police. Mr Guos outburst comes at a sensitive time for the president, Xi Jinping, who is preparing for a party congress late this year - a hugely important opportunity for him to install his allies into the most important jobs. He doesnt want his efforts to be impeded by anything that could undermine his authority.

For Pakistan, the $57-billion CPEC is a lifeline for a country torn apart by terrorism. Sharif returned to Islamabad from the OBOR summit in Beijing hoping OBOR and the CPEC will give Pakistan the lift its economy needs. But with ISIS migrating to Pakistan and Balochistan on fire, foreign investors, barring China, are wary of committing large funds to Pakistan.

Pakistan is a country beyond the pale. Talking to it, as Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh did from 1999 to 2014, has resulted in greater, not lesser, Pakistan-abetted terrorism, including the Parliament and 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Outcomes of OBOR Summit

Published: May 16, 2017

Belt and Road Forum (BRF) is a gathering of world leaders from across the globe, organized by China to showcase its plans to build a network of trade routes under the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. As of now, 68 countries and international organisations have signed belt and road agreements with China. China has stated that the Belt and Road initiative is an open and inclusive platform to explore and co-develop the China-led blueprint of reviving the Silk Road.

India, however, has boycotted the summit owing to sovereignty concerns related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Unlike India, none of the other countries have sovereignty related issues with OBOR initiative.

Outcomes

The two-day Belt and Road Forum identified and agreed on 270 deliverable goals of Belt and Road Initiative.The Forum resulted in signing of a joint communique by 30 heads of state that promised to implement plans for cooperation in trade and infrastructure programs across Asia, Europe and Africa. However, the forum ended with only promises of joint action by participating countries and did not result in establishment of an institutional framework for implementing the planned construction program.

The Signatories to the joint communique also pledged their support for promoting a rules-based, open and multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organisation at its core.

China has assured the participating countries that it would not attempt to push a countrys political ideologies and systems onto another country during the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative.

China has taken the first step to institutionalise the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) by announcing that the next edition of the BRF would be held in Beijing in 2019 indicating that China will continue to control the Belt and Road Initiative.

Infrastructure Deals

Although India skipped the initiative, 6 of its neighbours namely Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan attended the summit and signed 20 infrastructure deals with China at the Belt and Road Forum (BRF). They have also sought Chinas financial help for advancing infrastructure, power, banking and finance sectors.

OBOR

OBOR is an ambitious Chinas ambitious development strategy and framework that aims to boost its connectivity and trade that will that will connect Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. It was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. It comprises two components viz. the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. OBOR initiative is part of Chinas revived 21st century Silk Road diplomacy that seeks to push it to take a bigger role in global affairs as a major global power. It is basically investment and trade promotion scheme aiming to deepen economic connections between China and rest of the world.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2017

Topics: India China  International  OBOR

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Five years ago, lifelong observers of UN climate negotiations would not have predicted a situation wherein China and India, two of the world biggest populations, and developing nations, would be key leaders in international climate action, given their dependence on coal-based power for development.

According to Bill Hare of Climate Analytics, the actions by India and China could become the main drivers in achieving the goal of limiting global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius increase from pre-industrial levels, which is a key goal of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement (2015), ratified by India, is an international agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Hare was speaking at a press release at the Climate Change Conference in Bonn on Monday, discussing how India and China are slowing their greenhouse gas emissions. The press event was hosted by Climate Action Tracker at the UN Conference, and the press release disclosed that China and India are set to overachieve their Paris Agreement climate pledges. Chinas coal consumption has declined over three consecutive years (2013 to 2016), and a continued slow decline is expected.

The discussion on the increasing role of China and India in achieving carbon emission reduction targets is of special significance in light of the fact that the United States is currently rolling back previous policies which would have helped it achieve its climate goals under the agreement.

Prof Niklas Hohne from the New Climate Institute emphatically stated that the Donald Trump administrations policies would be unsuccessful in achieving US climate goals, whereas India and China were going in the right direction, especially given their increasing investment in renewable energy.

On Monday, at the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) workshop for facilitative sharing of views (FSV) under the International Consultation and Analysis (ICA) process, India presented its achievements, progress and goals relating to greenhouse gas emissions.

The Indian delegation, represented by Ravi Prasad, Dr JR Bhat and Prof Amit Garg, among others, elaborated on the policies of the Indian government in attempting to achieve its targets, disclosed through the Biennial Update Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change last year. Some of the highlights of these statements were:

- Aiming to achieve 40 per cent of non-fossil-fuel installed capacity by 2030.

- Reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released per unit of gross domestic product by as much as 35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

- Aiming to deliver access to electricity to the entire country by 2019. (Currently, 33 per cent of the population does not have access to electricity).

- Increasing solar capacity by 81 per cent in the past year alone.

- Increasing access to LPG to 22 million households who previously relied on firewood.

- Being able to decouple economic growth and emission reduction, because the last decade has seen India achieve 6 per cent increase in GDP but 3.5 per cent increase in emissions, indicating a positive trend towards sustainable development in the next few years.

The presentation by the Indian delegation was met with considerable praise by other countries, such as representatives from the EU, China, Brazil and Japan.

However, it is unwise to rest on these laurels so early on in our climate efforts because although we may be proactive in installing renewable energy, India still continues to rely heavily on coal for its energy needs.

We know PM Modi is closely associated with the Adani Group, and the Adani name has appeared several times with respect to black money investigations. These connections should worry us immensely.

Last month, research by CoalSwarm and UC Irvine revealed that if India goes ahead and constructs the 370 planned coal power plants, the share of fossil fuels in its energy budget would increase by 123 per cent.

Given the increasing inefficiency of coal as a power source, these coal plants would either compromise Indias renewable energy targets, or being sub-optimal white elephants straining the economy.

Therefore, we see that the commitments and statements made by India on the international stage do not necessarily add up when compared with its plans to expand coal-based power in India. This is complete speculation on my part, but there is serious reason to be concerned about how closely our government is aligned with the coal industry.

For example, the Adani Group, which owns coal mines in Australia, plans to export high volumes of low quality, high ash coal to India. We also know that PM Narendra Modi is closely associated with the Adani Group, and the Adani name has appeared several times with respect to black money investigations. These connections should worry us immensely.

In 2016, NASA disclosed that we have already achieved 1.38 degrees increase in temperature, which is dangerously close to the 1.5 degrees target of the Paris Agreement, with the past 30 years having seen a more rapid increase than the past 1,000 years.

The dangers associated with global warming beyond 1.5 degrees will be devastating, including damage to Indias agriculture and food security.

A report by Oil Change International last year discussed how, if global temperature increases beyond 1.5-2 degrees, wheat yield could reduce up to 42 per cent, not to mention the extreme temperatures which would make survival itself difficult.

India, with its vast population and on the path to becoming a developed nation, has the ability to singlehandedly change the planets future, depending on how it deals with it energy demands. So, while the Prime Minister may assure of us of his commitment to solar energy, it is necessary that he simultaneous backs it with an emphatic withdrawal from coal.
James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! 12th May, 2017 - was this the third rate tweet from @realdonaldtrump which may have triggered the fall of the Donald Trump administration - holding out a "threat" to James Comey, the FBI chief who was fired by the US president on May 9, 2017.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Was he being told to clamp up? It reminded one of the "third rate burglary" comment from the White House on June 17, 1972, during the Richard Nixon era - in the wake of the break-in by five plumbers into the Democratic National Centre in the Watergate building to plant bugs for surveillance of Nixons opponents prior to the November 1972 presidential elections for his second term.

On the morning of June 17, a Saturday, Bob Woodward, then a cub reporter with Washington Post, was asked to attend a hearing in the court of judge Sirica when the five burglars were produced, upon arrest by the police. An innocuous hearing, he thought.

When judge Sirica asked the lead burglar, James McGord, where he worked, he responded with a hissing C... I... A. That rang a bell and Woodward was in business for the greatest investigative reporting in the history of journalism in the free world, which brought down Nixon on August 8, 1974, unable to complete his second term.

There are chilling parallels between the Nixonian Watergate times and the present Trumpian Russiangate (not yet "gated" but well on its way). The break-in at 2 am in 1972 was commented upon by the White House as "third rate burglary", and that was a comment which opened up a million questions that a cover-up was well under way.

It was this loose comment from the White House which ultimately proved to be the undoing of the Nixon reign. Would the "third rate" Trump tweet be of the same genre? Time alone will tell.

Even during his campaign, Trump built upon lies and called the mainstream media (MSM) - which he hates to his guts - fake news. Just as Trump has branded the MSM as "enemy of the people", the Nixon administration branded the MSM as "shoddy" or "shabby" journalism and was not beyond bugging the journalists. Both presidents hated the independent media as anathema.

Just as Nixon's cover-up of the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in was the issue which led to his impeachment, it could be Trump's act to trump the FBI investigation into his Russian connections that could spell his doom.

Nixons Attorney General had already appointed a special prosecutor in Archibald Cox to conduct the Watergate investigation and it was this prosecutor that Nixon wanted fired by Elliot Richardson, his Attorney General, who chose to resign.

Then the Deputy Attorney General William Rucklehaus also refused and resigned. Then Nixon caught hold of an assistant in Bork to do the dirty work and the firing of Cox got christened as Saturday Night Massacre.

Now, on this occasion, admittedly Trump got a memo from his deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which was willingly approved by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Comey. The official line, initially, was that it was the Rosenstein memo that was "acted upon".

Richard Nixon at a press conference. Photo: Reuters

But Trump went on air and confirmed that "it was my decision and regardless of the recommendation I had decided to fire Comey", lest Rosenstein demur in public or even resign. And significantly, Trump not only blurted out that the Russia investigation was a "hoax" was the provocation, he chose to record it in writing in his letter to Comey, as if the FBI chief had admitted on "three separate occasions" that the FBI was not investigating Trump. It is in the wake of this scenario that the "third rate" tweet needs to be juxtaposed.

As the Nixon administration chose to sacrifice its officials as "scapegoats" - and the duo of Woodward and Bernstein caught hold of Deep Throat (revealed after 30 years to be Mark Felt, second in command at FBI) who advised them to "follow the money", WA.PO was full of startling stories.

The famous phone call that Bernstein made to Attorney General John Mitchell and his expletive laced response - on the money trail to finance the dubious bugging operations - got printed thanks to the dogged and steadfast adherence to the pursuit of "best attainable version of truth", as the Ben Bradlee (executive editor), Ms Graham (publisher), Woodward and Bernstein team called it. The media needs to be dogged this time too.

Several officials in the Trump campaign had Russia contacts, his own corporate/tax attorney has a boastful claim of a Russia office, Russia lawyer award and specialising on the issue of "sanctions", Trumps tax filings contain no Russia earnings except a "few exceptions" - stunning claims, which require to be investigated by the FBI with the "follow the money" advice of Deep Throat.

No wonder 78 per cent of Americans now want an independent investigator to go into Russiagate. We are waiting with bated breath for a John Dean-White House counsel - who ditched the Nixon bandwagon and came clean before the Senate on the "criminal" acts of the administration.

Of course, it was the admission of Alexander Butterfield in the Watergate hearings that I was aware of the installation of listening devices at the Oval Office as went on record that there were such recordings going on as a matter of policy since 1970, that nailed Nixon.

Now, has the "third rate" tweet from Trump played the Butterfield role? The Wall Street Journal reports that five White House officials confirm that Trump did indulge in "taping" that had been abandoned after the Nixon departure in 1974. Astonishing parallel.

It was the Smoking Gun Tape disclosure that nailed Nixon. The issue had to go up to the Supreme Court before he complied with the order to submit the tapes. Even then 10 crucial tapes handed over had a critical 18.5 minute silence - which obligingly even Nixons secretary Rosemary Woods typed notes had gone as "accidentally missing".

Yet, Nixon carried on with his bluster in January 1974 - It was time for the Watergate inquiry to stop and stop once and for all, so that we may focus on what the Americans elected me as President for - much the same what Trump has been tweeting, that the Russia inquiry was a hoax and it needed to stop. So he fired Comey?

Times have changed. It was the Senate which in a bipartisan vote of 77-0 agreed for a Senate investigation and then judiciary committee said Aye for impeachment proceedings against Nixon. Nixons bluff and bluster were called by Barry Goldwater - a true blue Republican who marched to the White House and Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974. Who would it be this time?

Remember the parting speech of Nixon from the East Room of the White House on August 9, 1974. Those who hate you dont win unless you hate them. Then you destroy yourself. It was HATE which was a consuming passion with Nixon from the end of his first term against anti-Vietnam protesters  leading to his raging animosity against the Democrats and all those who were critical of Nixon's administration.

So it seems with Trump - just watch and hear his snake poem et al and reported "delusionary swearing", including against the idiot box reporting on his shenanigans.

But even three years after resigning, Nixon was still bull-headed enough to refuse to apologise in the famous interview with BBCs Sir David Frost - despite repeating promptings - and Nixon ultimately took the rage in his heart and mind to his grave too.
Unquestionably, the Kulbhushan Jadhav episode is the most serious flashpoint in India-Pakistan bilateral relations.

If the former Indian naval officer, whom Pakistan has dubbed as an Indian spy working against Pakistan's national interests, is executed, it will inevitably exacerbate the already hostile relations between the two nuclear armed neighbours and may even see a repeat of a 2001-2002, situation when India had deployed its strike forces along the Pakistan border in full combat readiness.

This is not a cry wolf situation. There is a serious danger of a full blown military conflict between the two arch rivals that have already fought three wars, apart from the limited war in Kargil in 1999.

This is clear from the fact that while the two sides are engaged in a diplomatic and legal battle in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague over Jadhav, the Indian Army has just conducted exercises in Rajasthan deserts with over 20,000 soldiers of X Corps participating in these war games, along with tanks, artillery and advanced sensors.

Irrespective of the fact what the ICJ's final verdict in the Jadhav case is, (the ICJ has already stayed the execution), irrespective of Pakistans lame duck arguments before the ICJ, irrespective of the fundamental question whether Jadhav was actually a spy or whether he is being framed up, and irrespective of the gross irregularities by Pakistan in conducting the sham trial in a most opaque manner, the case has already put the India-Pakistan bilateral relations in a snake pit.

The ball is firmly placed in Pakistan's court. It is up to Pakistan to prove whether it wants to continue to push the envelope and play to its domestic constituency of three Ms  mullas, military and militants - or whether better sense prevails in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. India wont mind sabre-rattling by Pakistan as long as the Jadhav episode concludes with a positive denouement from the Indian perspective.

Also, India shouldnt grudge Pakistans glee in throwing barbs at India in various international platforms as long as India meets its prime objective of having Jadhav back safely.

The Indian political and strategic establishments are under no illusion that Pakistan will adhere to established international norms and that Pakistan has scant regard for such norms.

Pakistan has thus far behaved in a manner it is known for - boorish, vengeful and deliberately provocative. A classic case of Pakistans boorish diplomacy towards India came into full play in a lesser known incident some years ago, when Pakistan sent 50 dirty, hungry barking dogs by train to India after one dog accidentally boarded the Pakistan-bound train from India and the Pakistani authorities in their wisdom determined that it was a deliberate provocation from the Indians which needed to be responded to in more than equal measure!

Unfortunately, Pakistan remains caught in the same time warp and the same mindset. The portends are even murkier. Pakistans India policy is set to toughen further, now that its strategic relationship with China has got a powerful boost in the shape of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC.

Now the question is what are the options before India to ensure that Jadhav's life is saved and he is brought back safely? As long as Jadhav is alive, and one hopes that Pakistans assurances to the ICJ in this regard are truthful, India can exercise only diplomatic leverages.

India can and should exert enormous pressure on Pakistan through such global powers as the US-led western community, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Japan - perhaps in that order.

These days if there is one nation whose wish will be a command for Pakistan, it is undoubtedly China. However, the China option is no longer available for India as India-China bilateral relations are currently in a deep freeze.

The West will intervene only when it sees an immediate threat to world peace with high possibility of an armed conflict between India and Pakistan. The West hasnt waded into the frame in Jadhavs case because it doesnt see such a threat as of now. Thats why India has conducted mammoth military exercises near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan.

These war games should be seen against this backdrop, as this is India's way of signalling to the West that India's patience is running low and the West should take the possibility of India exercising a military option seriously, should Pakistan go ahead in implementing Jadhav's death sentence given by a kangaroo court in closed-door proceedings without consular access to Jadhav despite 17 on-record requests by India in the last 15 months.

The Pakistani intent is quite clear from the fact that while Jadhavs death sentence was awarded by a four-star general, the appellate authority is headed by a two-star general! Which country in the world can see a junior officer overturning the verdict of a military court led by a senior officer?

If Pakistan goes ahead with the murder of Jadhav, whether it triggers a war or not, one thing is quite certain. It will definitely trigger a race between India and Pakistan for abductions of retired soldiers.
With threats of a pre-emptive strike by the United States, the confrontation is intensifying in the Korean peninsula. North Koreas multiple missile launches beginning March 6 into the Sea of Japan, along with failed nuclear capable ballistic missile firings a month later, reflect the hardening of postures. To add to all this is the troop movement along borders of North and South Korea.

Deterrence

Threat postulations by North Korea are complex and extreme. Founded on doctrine of Weapons of Mass Destruction, its programmes of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons create the mainstay of a credible strategic deterrence. Advanced levels of cyber warfare capabilities, alongside this deterrence, give greater strength to its coercive diplomacy and reflect the underpinnings of a comprehensive security strategy.

The threat is four dimensional. The overarching and lead dimension of the threat is nuclear. Inside reports foresee a race for 50 nuclear weapons by 2020, with one nuke being added to the North Korean arsenal every six or seven weeks. Beijings support to Pyongyang in the long-range intercontinental ballistic missile programme makes this threat even greater and graver.

The massive stockpile of over 500 metric tonne of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas, nerve gas and biological weapons makes the next potent dimension. To add to this is the fact that North Korea has a cyber warfare force of 6,000 warriors which, the South Korean defence ministry says, has been working to cause physical and psychological paralysis in the South.

Photo: Indiatoday.in

Finally, North Koreas one million strong; fourth largest military in the world is equipped with ballistic missiles. The forward deployment of 70 per cent of ground forces and 50 per cent of its air and naval forces within 100 km of the demilitarised zone gives a credible potential to its threats.

In a major transformative change, a new political structure evolved after the Seventh Party Congress in 2016, which consolidated control of the Workers Party under a unified leadership system, and took the military out of the decision-making process. Peter Navarros book Crouching Tiger, on how North Korea got its made-in-China nukes, traces Chinese hands behind Pyongyangs missile technology, ICBMs and mobile launchers.

For China, North Korea provides enormous strategic depth. More significantly, such a frontline state with nuclear and chemical weapons puts the US at risk of extraordinary destruction. So, is the dragon in disguise beneath the North Korean mask? In North Korea, has China attempted to replicate a grand strategy/vision of superpowers keeping war away from their frontiers or just limited to buffer states? Is this a state policy to discredit the US at hands of a small nation? These issues are of enormous salience.

Posture

Redlines are becoming discernible. Jeffrey Lewis, director, East Asia Non-proliferation Programme, postures his theory of an all-out nuclear strike by Pyongyang on Day 1, hitting targets in the US, South Korea and Japan, to deter any aggression or invasion from them. He cites the readiness of North Koreas missile launchers to prove this point. According to him, proximity and posturing by USS Carl Vinson and its carrier group, escorted by Izumo, Japans largest helicopter carrier ship, will only make the North act.

North Korea and China will be wary after in deployment of Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD), capable of shooting down missiles from Pyongyang, as also undermine Beijings nuclear deterrent seriously.

Three contingencies are foreseeable. One, Will China pressurise North Korea to prevent an all-out nuclear and chemical attack? The answer is yes but limited to oil and coal supplies, and any direct intervention seems least likely. Two, can North Korea withdraw from its threatening postulations? With its very survival built on irrationality of its doctrine of weapons of mass destruction, any step back will impel an offensive led by the US military to disarm and neutralise North Korea for posterity.

Offensive

Three, can North Korea respond to a comprehensive strategic offensive by the US and its allies? The chances are slim, and China may get involved adding greater complexity to the situation.

North Korea is on the brink. While US Secretary of State Tillerson insists that Americas objective remains a denuclearised North Korea and not regime change, the fact is both objectives are mutually inextricable. Equally critical are the roles of China and North Korea to break this deadlock.

Should the situation not de-escalate, the US leadership is unlikely to miss this opportunity of neutralising an irrational state. North Korea is on the brink of a catastrophe that can spiral out of control with global and regional ramifications impacting China as much as others.

China must act to pre-empt this crisis. For, it is responsible significantly, if not solely, for the creation of a rogue state called North Korea. India, too, cant remain a bystander in the entire episode. Any proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the region will have its ramifications on India and its neighbourhood.
The ongoing case against Triple Talaq, or the talaq-e-bidat (instant oral divorce) heard in the Supreme Court of India saw a fresh twist today as the counsel for the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Kapil Sibal, argued that its a matter of faith, a custom practiced for the last 1,400 years, and that the court is in no position to ask whether or not the practice is un-Islamic.

In fact, Sibal compared triple talaq to the Ram Janmabhoomi issue, saying that just like many Hindus consider Ayodhya to be the birthplace of Ram, its a matter of faith not subject to constitutional morality because it cannot be verified.

#TripleTalaq: "That Ram was born in Ayodhya is a matter of faith, not Constitutional morality; same in this case", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq:"It is not a question of equity and good conscience, it is a question of faith. You cannot bring Constitutional morality",Sibal  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

Matter of faith like Rams birthplace

Sibal, on behalf of the AIMPLB, said in court that matters of faith such as the Hindu belief of Ram being born in Ayodhya or the question of triple talaq shouldnt see interference from the courts because these are personal/faith-related issues.

"Muslims are practicing triple talaq for the last 1400 years and it is a matter of faith," Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, argued before the five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and includes Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman, UU Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," Sibal argued.

#TripleTalaq: "It is a 1400 year old practice..who are we to say it is unislamic?", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: "Laws in respect of other religions have been codified except Muslim law, that is a challenge before the Court", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: "Personal laws protected by Constitution; Nikahnama basic tenet of Islam", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

Sibal also added that because the Muslim marriage is a civil contract, talaq itself isnt the issue, but even the instant talaq is a matter of practice and part of personal laws into which court interference isnt desirable.

#TripleTalaq: "Shariat is personal law and not subject to fundamental rights", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: "If you interfere, there is no limit as to where it will end. Then question will be raised "why me, why suo moto", Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

Interestingly, Sibal said that any interjection or reform should come from within the community, and not via a court intervention, as its discriminatory and encroaches into personal laws and matters of faith. Sibal, on behalf on AIMPLB, further said that all patriarchal societies discriminate, and one mustnt be singled out for reform, and face communal persecution, when the others too perpetrate anti-women practices.

Hi said that in some areas of Himachal Pradesh, polygamy is being practiced, but is protected under tribal laws and customs, and can only be changed by legislation, not court intervention.

#TripleTalaq: "In a Muslim majority country, Hindus have to be protected; In a Hindu majority country, Muslims have to be protected", Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: "We must protect different cultures; If it is bad, educate them and make them realise it is bad and make laws", Kapil Sibal.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

Regressive and problematic

This comes a day after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the Supreme Court that if triple talaq (instant oral divorce) is struck down, then a new divorce law can be legislated by this government. Moreover, Supreme Court had earlier said that the instant triple talaq is the worst form of marriage dissolution and needs reform.

Photo: Reuters

In this light, the argument put forward by Sibal is extremely problematic because the chief contention against instant triple talaq is precisely that it allows the strangling hold of patriarchal provisions and discriminates against Muslim women, who have no legal recourse once instant talaq is thrust upon them.

As senior advocate and a counsel on behalf of the Bebaak Collective, Indira Jaising, puts it, instant triple talaq is a unilateral and extrajudicial form of divorce available only to Muslim men, and by its very nature, discriminates against the women. Jaising has argued in court that personal laws must stand scrutiny of constitutional rights and must be subjected to Part III of the Constitution, thats enforced by the state, and therefore, subject to Articles 14 and 15 which ensure right to equality and prohibition of discrimination under the eyes of the law.

Courts volte-face on polygamy and nikah halala

Even though at the outset of the triple talaq case hearing, the five-judge vacation bench of the Supreme Court had said that it would not look at polygamy and nikah halala, the affiliated practices against which petitioners have appealed, it has now gone back on its statement. The Supreme Court clarified on Monday, the day three of the hearing, May 15, 2017, that it had not closed the window to scrutiny of the two contentious issues, though it said that a decision on triple talaq wouldnt have any bearing on those two issues.

Not revisiting the Bombay High Court 1951 decision

On Tuesday, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman also said that the court is not going to visit the Narasu Appa Mali judgement of 1951, Bombay High Court, which distinguished between personal laws and laws in force under Article 13 of the Constitution, thereby excluding the nebulous zone what constitutes Muslim personal laws from court interference.

#TripleTalaq: Interesting discussion between RF Nariman J. and Kapil Sibal on A. 13 and Narasu Appa Mali.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: Nariman J. gives reasons why court is not going into Narasu Appa Mali.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

#TripleTalaq: Kapil Sibal says Court will have to decide on Article 13 and corretness of Narasu Appa Mali.  Bar & Bench (@barandbench) May 16, 2017

However, revisiting the 1951 judgement is one of the central tenets of the petitioners written submissions, particularly, the Bebaak Collective submission, which argues that personal laws, being statutes and thereby laws in force, must come under Article 13 and be subject to constitutional scrutiny when they violate fundamental rights of citizens.

Even other legal commentators have expressed hope that the 1951 judgement, which is based on a flawed understandingon what constitutes personal laws, and makes the oversight on how the British colonial law was a product of some kind of legal codification which could be enforced, should be revisited and possibly overruled.

Questions remain
Toyota Motor Corporation designs, manufactures, assembles, and sells passenger vehicles, minivans and commercial vehicles, and related parts and accessories. It operates in Automotive, Financial Services, and All Other segments. The company offers hybrid cars under the Prius name, fuel cell vehicles under the MIRAI name; and conventional engine vehicles, including subcompact and compact cars under the Corolla and Raize names. It also provides mini-vehicles, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and auto parts under the Toyota name; mid-size cars; luxury cars; sports cars under the GR Yaris, Corolla Sport, Corolla Cross, and Supra names; and recreational and sport-utility vehicles under the Highlander name. In addition, the company offers pickup trucks under the Tacoma name; minivans; and trucks and buses. Further, it provides financial services, such as retail financing and leasing, wholesale financing, insurance, and credit cards; and designs, manufactures, and sells prefabricated housing. Additionally, the company operates GAZOO.com, a web portal for automobile information. It operates in Japan, North America, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, Oceania, Africa, and the Middle East. The company was founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Toyota, Japan.
FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. provides digital payment solutions for businesses to control purchases and make payments. It offers corporate payments solutions, such as accounts payable automation; Virtual Card, which provides a single-use card number for a specific amount usable within a defined timeframe; Cross-Border that is used by its customers to pay international vendors, foreign office and personnel expenses, capital expenditures, and profit repatriation and dividends; and purchasing cards and travel and entertainment cards for its customers to analyze and manage their corporate spending. The company also provides employee expense management solutions, including fuel solutions to businesses and government entities that operate vehicle fleets, as well as to oil and leasing companies, and fuel marketers; lodging solutions to businesses that have employees who travel overnight for work purposes, as well as to airlines and cruise lines to accommodate traveling crews and stranded passengers; and electronic toll payments solutions to businesses and consumers in the form of radio frequency identification tags affixed to vehicles' windshields. In addition, it offers gift card program management and processing services in plastic and digital forms that include card design, production and packaging, delivery and fulfillment, card and account management, transaction processing, promotion development and management, website design and hosting, program analytics, and card distribution channel management. Further, it provides other products consisting of payroll cards, vehicle maintenance service solution, long-haul transportation solution, prepaid food vouchers or cards, and prepaid transportation cards and vouchers. The company serves business, merchant, consumer, and payment network customers in North America, Brazil, and Internationally. The company was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a life sciences company, focuses on the provision of preparedness and response solutions that address accidental, deliberate, and naturally occurring public health threats (PHTs) in the United States. The company's products address PHTs, which include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives; emerging infectious diseases; travel health; and emerging health crises and acute/emergency care. It offers BioThrax, an anthrax vaccine; ACAM2000, a smallpox vaccine; Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent to treat botulinum disease; vaccinia immune globulin intravenous that addresses complications from smallpox vaccine; raxibacumab for the treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax; Anthrasil to for inhalational anthrax; reactive skin decontamination lotion kits; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate. The company also provides NARCAN, a nasal spray for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose; Vivotif, an oral vaccine for typhoid fever; and Vaxchora, a single-dose oral vaccine to treat cholera. In addition, it is developing AP003, a Naloxone multidose nasal spray; AP007, a sustained release Nalmefene injection for treatment of opioid use disorder; AV7909, an anthrax vaccine; CGRD-001, a pralidoxime chloride/atropine auto-injector; CHIKV VLP, a chikungunya virus VLP vaccine; COVID-HIG for the treatment of SARS-CoV2; EGRD-001, a diazepam auto-injector; SIAN, an antidote for the initial treatment of acute poisoning of cyanide; and UniFlu, a universal influenza vaccine. Further, the company provides contract development and manufacturing services comprising drug substance and product manufacturing, and packaging, as well as technology transfer, process, and analytical development services. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
In the wake of the past weekends events, the Charlottesville City Council is feeling a sense of urgency to rename both Lee and Jackson parks and to hire a firm to draft a plan for redesigning the spaces.

Following a torch-lit white nationalist demonstration Saturday night, the council has been asked to expedite those plans in order to transform the parks into anti-racist spaces.

At its meeting Monday, the council agreed to do so and spent an hour discussing other recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, a panel the city created last year following public calls for the removal of the citys Robert E. Lee statue.

The calls for removal were made due to the belief that monuments to the Confederacy are racist because of the secessionist movements explicit promotion of race-oriented slavery.

In an email to the council, Frank Dukes, a former member of the recently dissolved commission, said eight of the nine commissioners endorsed requesting that the city develop new, temporary signage in the park.

This signage should be highly visible; it should detail the history that Saturday nights white nationalists and white supremacists want to replicate; and it should expressly counter that historys narrative and make clear the intent to transform the parks into anti-racist spaces, the email said.

I believe its important for us to respond to the events of this weekend, to make it clear that the sentiments of white nationalists spouting fascist rhetoric do not speak for Charlottesville or represent who we aspire to be, Councilor Kristin Szakos said Monday, reading from a statement.

In an interview Tuesday, Dukes said the provocative display Saturday night was unmistakable.

My immediate response was that this is evoking the [Ku Klux] Klan, Dukes said.

At Jackson Park earlier on Saturday, several avowed white nationalists, some of whom also attended the nighttime rally, decried the councils recent vote to remove the Lee statue.

At both events, the demonstrators said you will not replace us. At the evening rally, they chanted blood and soil, a nationalist philosophy that is most often associated with the German Nazi regime.

Since then, those demonstrations and a counter-rally that was held Sunday evening have garnered national attention.

And Mayor Mike Signer has been a target of hate-filled, anti-Semitic messages from anonymous Twitter accounts. On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement that it was deeply troubled by the attacks.

Councilor Wes Bellamy also has intimated that he and his family have been the target of threats.

The eyes of the community, and indeed the country, are watching to see how we respond, Dukes said in his email to the council. Please act now.

* * *

City Manager Maurice Jones said Tuesday that there is no clear timeline for when the signs that were requested will be put up. Jones is expected to consult members of the Blue Ribbon Commission and the citys Historical Resources Committee to draft language for them.

The council also directed staff to continue working on a request for proposals from firms that will draft plans for new designs of the two downtown parks.

Assistant City Manager Mike Murphy told the council that a contract with an architectural firm could be ready by early September.

Jones said the new signs that the commission requested could become a permanent fixture in the park, depending on what happens in the planning process.

Those plans will include drafts of what Lee Park might look like without the Lee statue, as well as versions with it still in place. The plan for Jackson Park will keep the Jackson statue in place, but it will include designs for a new memorial to those who were enslaved in the city.

In keeping with the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission, the new memorial would recognize the slave auction block that was once near the Albemarle County courthouse, Dukes said.

While the firm would be responsible for drafting new designs for the parks and some of the areas around them, the council agreed to hold a competition to solicit designs for a new memorial in Jackson Park.

The redesign of the parks could include the installation of a marker from Montgomery, Alabama.

As part of the Memorial to Peace and Justice project organized by the Equal Justice Initiative, communities where lynchings took place have been invited to accept a marker that recognizes someone who was killed in such a way there.

The proposed marker in Charlottesville would recognize John Henry James, an African-American who was lynched in Albemarle County in 1898 after being accused of assaulting a woman.

The council said it would support accepting the marker, but asked staff to research whether there are records of any other similar lynchings that occurred in the area during that period.

A resolution for the plan the council adopted in February said the design process will be completed within the next year. Jones said a design competition could extend the process.

The city has earmarked $1 million for the project. If more money is needed for it, the city will look toward private fundraising to move it forward.

* * *

In November, the Blue Ribbon Commission unanimously agreed to send two recommendations regarding the citys two prominent Confederate statues: move them to McIntire Park or transform in place.

In straw votes that followed that unanimous decision, a majority of the commissioners said theyd prefer that the Lee statue be moved and to keep the Jackson statue in place.

The council voted 3-2 in February to remove the Lee statue. A month later, a group called The Monument Fund, as well as the Virginia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans and several other individuals, sued the city over its decision to move the statue.

In April, the councilors voted on the same lines to sell the statue.

Signer and Councilor Kathy Galvin remain opposed to moving it, but they voted with the other councilors in February to redesign the two parks and build a new memorial in Jackson Park.

Earlier this month, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore issued a six-month injunction that prevents the city from moving the statue.

Although the plaintiffs in the case sought to block the city from planning to redesign or rename the parks, Moore said those actions can be easily reversed if the court decides later that those actions are illegal.

* * *

Despite the notion that the city will ultimately be barred from moving the Lee statue, per comments Moore made in the court hearing this month suggesting that it is indeed a war memorial protected by state law, several councilors and community members remain committed to the statues removal.

If you are with us, Bellamy said Monday, then you will not tell us how we should feel; you will not tell us what we should do; you will understand and respect us; and you will move forward with us.

The choice is yours, he added. You can be on the side of equity and justice with us, or you can stand on the side of those from Saturday night.

Signer said he took exception to Bellamys with us or against us approach, but he condemned the demonstrations that took place Saturday.

Were not going to put up with it, he said. Our greatness here is our tolerance, our diversity and our ability to systematically rise above hatred.

Signer said the council will decide on renaming Lee and Jackson parks at the council meeting on June 5.
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This was always the main question: Would Donald Trump move beyond mere Twitter abuse and move against institutions that limit his power?

By any reasonable standard, we now have an answer.

Trump's official rationale for firing FBI Director James Comey  that the president was suddenly seized with outrage at the shocking treatment of Hillary Clinton by the FBI during the election  is false in a typically Trump-like way. It requires his supporters to demonstrate their loyalty by defending the indefensible. This is apparently the manner in which Trump identifies true believers. They must be willing, when instructed, to say that 2+2=5. On cable television.

In fact, according to media accounts, Trump has been in a spittle-flinging rage since Comey's March 20 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, in which he confirmed the existence of an investigation of Russian influence on Trump's inner circle. On May 2, Trump tweeted that the "Trump/Russia story" is "phony." On May 9, Trump fired Comey. The president removed a perceived threat, threw an active FBI investigation into chaos and raised the prospect of a Trump stooge being appointed in Comey's place. (The correct answer is 4.)

All this is consistent with  even mandated by  Trump's contempt for institutions. He has called the FBI investigation process "rigged." If the system is dirty, only a fool would not play by the same rules. This is the logic of conspiratorial disdain for government. An independent, nonpolitical FBI? What a joke. It is all political. And politics is power. And power is making people do what you want, or destroying those who get in your way. The gospel according to Nixon.

It is dangerous to have a leader with disdain for the law. It is also dangerous to have a leader who believes that anything legal is permissible. Trump's firing of Comey was legal. It also violated a democratic norm  a proper presidential deference for an ongoing investigation and the independence of law enforcement. There is no evidence that such considerations even occur to Trump. In their place: What kind of sucker would not press all his advantages?

Republicans often talk of judicial restraint; less, recently, of presidential restraint. Presidential limits are often found in norms, not laws  what Lord Moulton called "obedience to the unenforceable."

But Trump seems to take pleasure in throwing acid into the face of convention. In his calls to lock up his electoral opponent; in his wink and a nod toward violence at his rallies; in his groundless accusations of being spied upon by his predecessor; in his Twitter taunting of congressional leaders; in his bold and obvious lies; in his dehumanization of migrants and refugees. Grace, dignity, empathy, integrity and kindness are stripped away, leaving the emperor naked but incapable of shame. Trump is the spendthrift of our public character, squandering an inheritance he does not understand or value.

There is a certain power in shamelessness. It is amazing what our democracy has, so far, allowed Trump to get away with, giving only a grimace, a laugh or a shrug. But this tolerance is about to be tested.

If Trump selects a political crony  of the Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie variety  to head the FBI, the integrity of federal law enforcement and the rule of law will be under direct assault. Such a nomination, again, would not be illegal. But such a bold, banana-republic-style power play by the president  which could only be interpreted as an attempt to quash the Russian influence investigation  would be properly viewed as a constitutional crisis. And the historical spotlight would burn hot on Republican legislators.

Leadership is unlikely to emerge among House Republicans, given the example of sycophancy toward Trump set by Speaker Paul Ryan. The Senate is where the nomination battle  and the battle for the rule of law  will take place. So far, many GOP senators have taken a "wait and see" attitude toward preserving the integrity of federal law enforcement. A largely partisan vote to confirm a Trump loyalist would open the city gates to the ruthless, the shameless and the lawless.

Historical parallels to the Nixon era can be strained. But it is worth listening to Richard Nixon in a reflective moment: "So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice, because over the years you have become fascinated by how close you can walk without losing your balance."

Donald Trump is dancing along the precipice. But his balance is precarious.

Michael Gerson is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. He subs today for Ruth Marcus, who is on vacation.
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Japanese automaker Honda has unveiled the facelift of the third generation Jazz that will go on sale in its home country, Japan, in June this year with global sales beginning by the end of this year. However, as far as its India debut is concerned, as the third-generation model was introduced in mid-2015, the facelift is likely to be introduced at the 2018 Indian Auto Expo.

Whats new?

It is the bumpers (both front and rear) that went under the knife the most

The redesigned front bumper gets extra muscle at the ends, which make the car look wider than the outgoing model

The headlights gets vertically placed multiple LED lighting along with daytime running LEDs, similar to the 2017 Honda City facelift

The fog lamps are also LED

The 16-inch alloy wheels are carried over from the outgoing international version. Like the updated City and the WR-V, the Jazz facelift, in all probability, will get 16-inch wheels this time around in India

The rear spoiler is also carried forward with the upcoming facelift

Honda has not released any complete rear profile shots of the updated Jazz/Fit. But according to the recently leaked images, it gets dual-tone rear bumper and updated tail lamps

The tail lamps now extend all the way up to the rear windscreen, much like the Volvos (a similar setup is found on the current Australian and Japanese version of the Jazz). This make the Jazz look relatively premium and chic!



There are no complete interior pictures as well, but the Japanese-spec hatch gets new upholstery. However, the overall cabin layout remains unaltered

The Indian version is likely to get Honda Indias 7.0-inch Digipad infotainment system with Mirror Link tech, but sadly no Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support

Key missing features  such as passive keyless entry with engine start-stop, auto door lock, driver armrest, steering reach adjustment, among others  in the current Indian-spec Jazz are likely to be offered with the updated model

Expect Honda to resurrect the X label for the facelift model in India as a range topping model like it did with the City facelift: the City ZX

Mechanically, the Japanese-spec Jazz remains unaltered and it will be the same for the Indian-spec version as well. The Jazz facelift will be powered by the 1.2-litre i-VTEC petrol (5-speed manual or CVT automatic with paddle shifters) and the 1.5-litre i-DTEC diesel (6-speed manual).

All in all, like the case with all the Honda facelifts, the Jazz also gets understated aesthetic upgrades and additional goodies, which the segment demands over time. These subtle change definitely make the hatch look fresh and sharper until the fourth-generation arrives in a few years. When launched, the Jazz facelift will continue its fight against the Hyundai Elite i20 and the Maruti Suzuki Baleno, among others.

Source: Cardekho.com
Mumbai: Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju today said Air India's books are "bad", and "business as usual" is not going to help it, but the Government wants the airline to survive.

AI is grappling with "legacy" issues, he added. The minister's remarks came against the backdrop of Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani stating in a Facebook post earlier this week that the massive debt on Air India's books is the root-cause of all its woes.

Lohani termed the over Rs 48,000 crore debt as "insurmountable" and blamed the policies of the erstwhile UPA government for its precarious finances. "Air India is a lovely airline. It has all legacy issues. Its finances are very bad...The books are so bad that the business as usual is not going to help it," Raju told reporters here, after inaugurating Integrated Operational Office Complex building of the AAI, DGCA and the BCAS.

"It is a nice airline, and I would like it to survive," he said, adding that he is "open" to suggestions from any quarters for the airline's turnaround. "Of course there are people who praise it, there are people who bash it. I am not one of the bashers. But I am also not a blind praiser," he added.

Air India, which is surviving on a Rs 30,000 crore bail-out package spread over 10 years announced by the Manmohan Singh government in 2012, is working on ways to improve its financial position.

In the 2015-16, the airline posted operational profit of Rs 105 crore on account of low fuel prices and increased passenger numbers. Currently, its debt is estimated to be a little over 48,000 crore, with nearly a third of borrowings on account of the aircraft acquisition.

A consortium of 19 lenders have extended loans to the national carrier. It is looking to re-jig debt of Rs 10,000 crore under the scheme for sustainable restructuring of bad assets floated by the Reserve Bank.
Mumbai: Country's premier investigating agency the Central Bureau of Investigation raided early Tuesday morning residences of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti. Raids were also conducted at some other places across Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

The case pertains to clearance given to a company under Foreign Investment Promotion Board or FIPB scheme allegedly in contravention of related rules. FIPB comprises five secretaries to the government of India apart form representatives from Finance Ministry.

It has been alleged that the approval granted was in sharp violation of Foreign Exchange Management or FEMA provisions that are implemented by Enforcement Directorate, country's only anti-money laundering agency functioning under department of revenue of Finance Ministry.

But what are the charges against Karti Chidambaram and what led investigating agencies to the doorsteps of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti? Here is a fact checker;

1) ED had summoned former Finance Minister's son Karti in July last year in an incident of alleged money laundering in a case related to Aircel-Maxis deal. Karti was slapped with a summons too by ED.

2) This was the first time that Karti Chidambaram was issued a summons in his name in the Aircel-Maxis case that was being under probe of investigating agencies since 2015.

3) At that time, agencies alleged that Karti was attached to two firms Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited and Chess Management Services, where he was a a director. These firms were charged with laundering money under Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA.

4) ED along with sleuths from income tax department had conducted search and seizure in December 2015 at business premises of Chess Management Services, according to a PTI report.

5) Back then Karti Chidambaram had denied the charges and assured full cooperation in the case with probe agencies. His father P Chidambaram had cliamed the government was launching malicious onslaught against his family.
New Delhi: Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya will lead the Indian delegation to the G20 Labour & Employment Ministers Meet scheduled to be held on May 18-19 in Germany.

Germany is the chair for the G20 Labour & Employment Ministers for the year 2017, a Labour Ministry statement said. According to the statement, the G20 Labour & Employment Track has been discussing topics like Shaping the Future of Work, Reducing Gender Gaps in Labour Force Participation, Labour Market Integration of Regular Migrants and Recognised Refugees, Decent Work in Global Supply Chains, and Boosting Youth Employment.

A G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Declaration is likely to be adopted at the end of this meeting, which will be presented to the Leaders/ Head of the State summit scheduled on July 7-8, 2017 Hamburg, Germany.

Dattatreya is expected to advocate policy interventions aimed at promoting labour mobility for skilled youth, incentivizing MSMEs as well as responsibility of developed states in the Global Supply Chains for capacity building, skill development and technology transfer to promote more inclusive and fair globalization, at the forum of G20.

The minister will also outline Indias recent initiatives for the welfare of its workers including those related to employment promotion, social security, Maternity benefit and child labour at the meeting to be held at Bad Neuenahr in Germany. Dattatreya will be accompanied by Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy and other senior officials.
Mumbai: The government has put its drive against black money hoarders and tax evaders on fast-track and launched a website to put online names of offenders, number of raids conducted, according to a report on NDTV.

Details of raids by income tax department will be put up on the website and government will rate defaulters from high to low risk. As part of its drive against black money, tax evasion and counterfeiting of Indian currency notes, the government started demonetisation drive on November 8 last year.

The notes recall decision sucked out over 86 per cent currency in circulation from the banking system and caused sever cash crunch in country as old Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were withdrawn overnight.

The website created by the Central Board of Direct Taxes will also reveal names of bank customers who deposited 'disproportionate' money into bank accounts during the 50-day long drive against black money.

"We want to change habit from non-tax compliant to tax compliant," NDTV quoted Sushil Chandra, chairman of CBDT as saying.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated the portal dedicated to tax defaulters. "Post-demonetisation personal income tax return filing has gone up due to ownership of unanimous money being identified," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

Jaitley went on to say that it was no longer safe to deal with excessive cash, tax evaded money. After the launch of the website, both taxpayers and tax authorities could easily communicate with each other through customers' permanent account number or PAN details.

"The department is looking to keep the process as non-intrusive as possible with an emphasis on e-assessment to keep human interaction to the minimum," a report in The Economic Times had earlier said.
New Delhi: CBDT on Tuesday said that its searches post demonetisation has resulted in people admitting to undisclosed income worth Rs 16,398 crore and seized assets of Rs 900 crore (Rs 636 crore in cash).

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the number of persons under the tax net has increased by 91 lakh as unaccounted cash lost anonymity post note ban.

Launching a new website on Operation Clean Money, a programme to bring illegal wealth on books, he said the fallout of the November 8 decision to demonetise higher denomination currency has increased movement towards digitisation, number of assessees going up and tax revenue jumping as also fear of dealing in cash being instilled.

CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra said there was 22 per cent growth in e-filed returns post demonetisation. As many as 17.92 lakh people were identified for unexplained deposits post demonetisation, he said, adding the tax department has identified one lakh suspected tax avoidance cases.

We identified around 17.92 lakh persons in whose case the cash transactions did not appear in line with the taxpayers profiles. And online verifications of these transactions are underway, Mr Chandra said. Of the 17.92 lakh, so far 9.72 lakh individuals responded to SMSes and e-mails sent by the income tax department.

These taxpayers have provided response for 13.33 lakh accounts involving cash deposits of around `2.89 lakh crore. The online responses have been assessed and no further action will be taken in cases of satisfactory explanation.

I-T department has on-boarded two specialised data analytics agencies and a business process management agency to augment departmental capability in analysing large volumes of cash deposit data, track the compliance status of

taxpayers and reporting entities.

In Phase II of Operation Clean Money, the high risk cases will be handled by selecting appropriate enforcement action (verification, search, survey, scrutiny). A targeted campaign will be initiated in cases with identified risk issues.

"With the continuous flow of information from various sources including statement of financial transactions (SFT), the IT is conducting analysis in conjunction with previously available/analysed data. Such incremental data analysis has already led to identification of new cases for e-verification. Furthermore, IT has also identified 3.71 lakh new accounts relating to 1.58 lakh taxpayers who made partial declaration of accounts/amounts in their earlier responses. In addition to the earlier 18 lakh cases, 5.68 lakh new cases have been identified for e-verification process," said CBDT.
Mumbai: The teaser of Kangana Ranauts film 'Simran' was released on May 14.

After unveiling the teaser, the team of 'Simran,' which includes Kangana Ranaut, Hansal Mehta, Bhushan Kumar Shailesh R Singh went ahead and hosted a brunch for the media.

The entire team along with Kangana looked in a jovial mood. Staying true to her films character goofball Kangana appeared in a cheerful mood with everybody around.

Talking about the films teaser, Kanganas character is reminiscent of her previous character of Rani from 'Queen'.

'Simran', just like Rani, appears to be extremely simple, goofy and innocent, with her expressions doing all the talking as she gets excited about trying different wigs in a store, laughs uncontrollably, enjoys the softness of the bed like a kid and gives several other interesting expressions throughout.

Kangana had earlier stated that the film was supposed to be a thriller, which she later transformed into a comedy and hence will also be credited as a writer.

Looking at this teaser, it seems the writer in her has definitely done a commendable job.

'Simran', directed by Hansal Mehta, hits the theatres on September 15.
Helen and Deepika in a still from their respective films.

Mumbai: Helen, the Cabaret Queen of the 1960s and 70s, remains unmatched in the grace and sophistication she brought on screen.

Not many know that she was a refugee from Burma, who grew up in Mumbai in miserable conditions and began dancing to support her family.

The Cabaret Queen's journey from a dancing diva to Mrs. Salim Khan is worthy of a feature film, and thats exactly what the Khan family intends to do.

It's been said that a biopic on the yesteryear actress Helen is being planned.

Sources close to the Khan family say that the Helen biopic would be produced by Salman Khan and scripted by Salim Khan.

On a comedy show, when Helen was asked whom did she think could essay her on-screen, she immediately said, Padukone!

The legendary actress-dancing queen thinks that the sexy diva Deepika Padukone is the perfect choice to essay her life on 70mm.

Considering that Salman Khan and Deepika have not yet shared screen space, lets wait to see if they associate together with this project, wherein hell be the producer.

Well, let us tell you that Deepika was initially to debut in Bollywood with Salman Khans Lucky, but that didnt work out and the actress made her debut opposite Salmans contemporary Shah Rukh Khan.

Lets wait for Helens biopic!
Irrfan Khan poses with the Hindi language teachers after the screening of 'Hindi Medium.'

Mumbai: Irrfan Khan, along with his 'Hindi Medium' team, which includes Deepak Dobriyal and producer Dinesh Vijan, hosted a special screening of the film for Hindi language teachers.

They wanted to give the teachers a firsthand viewing experience of the movie. Also, they wanted to know their views about the way they have tried to give importance to the Hindi language in the movie.

The teachers were asked as to what they feel about English having more emphasis over the other local languages in India.

Irrfans film 'Hindi Medium' revolves around the backdrop of the nursery school admissions.

It is the story of every parent in the country, where everyone wants to give their children the best education possible.

'Hindi Medium' is produced by Dinesh Vijan and Bhushan Kumar and is a T-series and Maddock films presentation. It is a slice of life comedy based in the heartland of our country.

The film is all set to release on May 19.
Mumbai: Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan were granted divorce by principal marriage counsellor VS Athavale of the Family Court in Mumbai on May 11.

Their meeting with the principal counsellor lasted for five minutes, and then they officially got separated, leaving behind their eighteen years of marriage.

Since the couple has officially parted ways, Malaika Arora doesnt want to carry the baggage of the Khan surname with her name and wants to discontinue it.

As per reports in a leading tabloid, Malaika was recently invited as a chief guest for an event in Vadodara and the nameplate at her chair read Malaika Arora Khan.

Apparently, the actress wasnt comfortable with this gesture and immediately asked the organisers to remove the Khan from her name.

The organisers, however, made the desired changes.

Well, theres nothing wrong in demanding her name being changed, since she has legally broken ties with her ex-husband Arbaaz Khan.

However, what irks is her social media handle, which still identifies her as Malaika Arora Khan.

Malaika has got the physical custody of their 14-year-old son, though Arbaaz has been granted the permission to have access to his son whenever he wants to.

A leading daily quoted a source saying that Malaika did not seek any alimony or property from Arbaaz.

They were last seen together at the Justin Bieber concert which was held a day before their divorce at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.

The couple had a love marriage in 1998 and filed for a divorce in November 2016 through mutual consent.

There were rumours that their families were looking for reconciliation, but it didnt work. Despite the fluctuating relationship they shared, they always remain cordial with each other.
Mumbai: Rohit Shetty and Ajay Devgns Golmaal 4 team has been shooting for a fight sequence in the Kamalistan studios in Mumbai. A garage sequence, scheduled for a mere 5 days, lasted just seven days, which gets over on May 16.

A source close to the set reveals, A handful of goons enter the garage, wherein all these actors right from Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Kunal Khemu and Shreyas Talpade, were participating in this sequence. Another known character artist who participated for only four days is none other than Sanjay Mishra, who left the sets two days prior to the last day of completing this fight sequence as he had to board the August Kranti train to Delhi.

Sanjay was heard quoting, I have to reach Delhi for shooting of a small budget film.

Elaborating on the fight sequence says the source, The shooting was completed peacefully. Everything went on very much in accordance to the schedule.

Speaking about the Blue Mustang, Rohit was proudly overheard saying, I love my Mustang car, especially the Blue colour which is my favourite. If you guys want to buy a car, buy one in blue. It is extremely satisfactory.

Adding on the kind of respect that Ajay Devgn receives on the sets the source further added, All the actors right from Arshad Warsi and others present on the sets would address Ajay as Boss, while discussing anything with him.

Golmaal 4, also starring Tabu and Parineeti Chopra, is slated for a Diwali 2017 release.
Mumbai: Salman Khan and his 'Tubelight' entourage have finally arrived in Dubai to launch the first track from the film, 'Radio Song'.

The highly anticipated film, also starring Sohail Khan and Chinese actress Zhu Zhu, will reunite Shah Rukh Khan and Salman on-screen after a long time.

After shooting amid beautiful natural locations in North India, Kabir wanted to shoot Radio in a town square typical to those in the 1960s.

The team went on a recce in and around to find a town, which was untouched by modernisation.

Since they were unable to find an apt location, he decided to construct it in Mumbai itself.

Kabir was adamant that the set should look authentic right to the minutest of it details, hence the team converted three acres of Film City into the fictional town Jagatpura.

The Radio' song was shot there with over 1000 dancers. The track, which is a celebratory song in the film, had been shot on a very large scale. It has the touch of the 1960s and required a huge crowd to be dancing on it.

Kabir had organised for 200 dancers and about 800 juniors to be part of the song along with Salman Khan.

First a fan screening in India, now a mega gala in Dubai, Salman Khan truly knows how to gratify his fans all across the world!

The film is set for a Eid 2017 release.
Mumbai: Deepika Padukone, who has been in news for coming in the top five most searched outfits at the Met Gala event, recently took time off from her schedule to spend some quality time with her family.

The actress, who is busy shooting her upcoming film ' Padmavati,' attended her cousin's wedding and made sure that she attends the ceremony from the very beginning.

In fact, to make it yet more special for her cousin, Deepika did an impromptu dance performance on one of the functions!

The wedding turned out to be a family affair for the ' Piku' star, where she met all her cousins and relatives and relived their old time memories!
The citys museums, which pay crumbling testament to a 3000-year-old heritage, are finally being given a leg-up by Tourism Minister Priyank Kharge. Hubs of culture and history across the world, they languish here in Bengaluru, due to apathy across political parties and the community, too. Paltry budget allocations, an absence of trained administrators, the lack of curators and community support need to be addressed before meaningful progress can be made, report Darshana Ramdev and Ranjani Madhavan

This is no trick question, but it will probably stump you. Ask someone how many museums the city is home to and they are bound to look puzzled. As it happens, the number is 13, according to a 2015 report by the Karnataka Tourism Vision Group.

The Karnataka Tourism Department, which has understood the potential of vibrant museum spaces, has launched Once Upon A time, which according to Minister Priyank Kharge, is a sustained effort toward "bringing about awareness on importance of their conservation." A commendable initiative, in light of the fact that most of our museums languish due to total apathy, the absence of trained administrators and curators and a lack of support from the community itself.

The Tourism Ministry, despite being behind the initiative, doesn't actually own any assets, with various museums being maintained by respective departments - Visvesvaraya Museum, for instance, belongs to the Department of Science and Technology. "If we want to improve our museums, the departments concerned need to embrace the idea and work together," said V. Ravichandar, urban evangelist and co-Chair, KTVG. It requires a mindset that is customer and citizen oriented, which he believes, is absent. "Curation is vital too, but the government simply doesn't have the manpower. They're reluctant to let outsiders take over too. It's an uphill struggle. Once Upon a Time is a good initiative, but how will they implement it?"

National Gallery of Modern Art

The community isn't much help either, said Deepthi Sasidharan, Director, Eka Resources, a Delhi-based initiative that manages and organises cultural resources and collections. "People wince at paying Rs 10 to enter a museum but will happily fork out Rs 500 to watch a movie."

A Fulbright scholar who conducted her research on 19th century photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sasidharan believes that museums can only exist with encouragement from the community. "I agree that the government lacks resources in many ways, but we aren't blameless either. It's easy to walk into a museum and complain about the displays or the service, but nobody wants to buy a ticket! People who want to start museums - and there are a handful in Bengaluru - don't get support either. We, as a community, need to understand that museums are a wonderful source of education, for us and our children. That's where the change starts."

Museums have a three-pronged approach, explains Tejasvi Jain, Founder, Rereeti, an organisation that works to revitalise museums. "There are many areas related to audience development that need work as well," she said. "The idea is to provide a curated, interactive experience."

Woods Museum and Interpretation Centre

The bottom line, of course, is funding, or the lack thereof. "Museums can't afford to hire permanent staff or make meaningful changes to the setup," said Vikram Sampath, former head, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, who was part of a Knowledge Commission report on an art administration policy. "We did a survey on the health of various institutions and the budget allocations are shockingly low. Most of the staff is hired on a contractual basis, very few people have the expertise to run the place. A museum is not a one-time set up, it involves continuous upgradation. Museum administration is an actual course in many countries, where you're taught everything from acquisition to dissemination. That doesn't exist here."

And for those who still doubt their worth, Sampath points out: "We haven't had a new museum since Independence. Contrast this with the Louvre, in Paris, which receives more visitors in a year that India gets in all!"

Guided walks, workshops... lots to choose from!

It may be called 'Once Upon A time,' but this is no fairytale. Rather it is the title of a campaign that aims to take a serious look- back at the states roots, starting May 18, International Museum Day. The Tourism and Kannada and Culture Departments have come together to highlight the significance of the citys museums in preserving its heritage in a three- day campaign ending on May 21.

Museum walks, talks, workshops, seminars, film shows, competitions and promotions will be held at the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, HAL Heritage Centre and Aerospace Museum, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, National Gallery of Modern Art, Government Museum, Gandhi Bhavan and the Human Brain Museum at NIMHANS

Making the campaign fun, a treasure hunt is in the offing for students of all ages, who will be offered clues about the specific exhibits they have to locate and the best explorer given a prize. There will also be an open house quiz on museums open to people of all age groups, reveals Mr. B.R Vishwanath, Education Officer of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM).

There is also the Makers Fair at the VITM, where visitors will be able to make use of material provided to build a science based model or exhibit of their choice with mentoring by experts. Adding to their delight, the models will be later put on display. Storytelling sessions will be held on the citys history both in Kannada and English to create awareness about the various museums during the event. People will also get to tell their own stories from city museums by contributing their personal experiences on social media using the hashtag #MyMuseumStory.

Those looking for more serious things to do will be able to attend lectures and talks by experts at the various venues and also see a film screened on the National Council of Science Museums.

People can take a walk with the curators of the museum, or accompany the expert at a gallery. The idea is to let them freely interact with the curator, learn about the process of curation and the basic idea of the exhibit, explains Mr. Vishwanath.

The Kannada and Culture Department is an enthusiastic participant as it oversees the state archives, the gazetteer, and places of heritage value. " Our department is not restricted to Kannada language and culture. Museums are important in preserving our culture and its only natural that we should coordinate with the Tourism Department in promoting them," says Ms Kiran Singh, media officer of the department.

Preserving our 3,000-year heritage is neither easy nor cheap: Priyank Kharge, Tourism Minister

The idea of having this campaign is to encourage people, especially children to go to museums as the holidays are here. More often than not students end up at malls during their vacations. Why not push them to explore our museums instead? We want to bring about awareness among them about the importance of conservation. How many of us even know that there is a Brain Museum in Bengaluru?

We wanted to have an event that curated art, culture, history, science and innovation and have spent Rs 7 to Rs 8 lakh on it. But we need to spend more to preserve our heritage and culture. Let's get our feet wet in the water now and see that we come across as a city sensitive to its roots. This will not happen if it is just a one- time thing or a sole weekend activity. We need to have more programmes of this kind. This is the first time all the museums have allowed us to curate them, along with activities like film screenings and storytelling. Bringing history, art, science and culture together has to be done more often. Having a theme- based narrative like Mohenjodaro or the Wodeyars will engage people.

Today people are willing to pay even Rs 300 to watch a movie in a multiplex, but when a museum increases its ticket price from Rs 2 to Rs 5 they are not willing to spend on it. This mentality needs to change. To preserve our 3000- year old heritage, we need to spend money on its conservation and maintenance. Some may accuse me of being anti-people, but then they also complain about poor infrastructure, not realising the latter cannot be achieved without spending some money. Of course we cannot have exorbitant rates, but with a slight increase in its ticket price to Rs 50 or Rs 60 a museum can sustain itself. Subsidies can be given to school and college children visiting in groups, but why have cheap rates for others? Museums are the one place where we can see how the whole of humanity has evolved over thousands of years. If we do not protect our showcases of art, history, science and heritage, no one will be interested in visiting them.
Hyderabad: Some fifty per cent of doctors have uncontrolled hypertension, according to a recent survey carried out by Indian Medical Association in 33 cities covering over 533 doctors.

The survey results were released on May 16 on the eve of World Hypertension Day. The study found that 21 per cent doctors had masked hypertension. This kind of hypertension is where the blood pressure readings are normal when in the hospital environment but increases once they are back at home. This kind of incidence in the general population is found in one in seven persons.

Dr G. Srinivas, senior general physician explained, In masked hypertension, continuous readings have to be taken for 10 to 15 days during different timings like early morning, mid-afternoon and late evening to understand the pattern of hypertension.

Masked hypertension is a common phenomenon and is often not diagnosed properly. It increases the long-term risk of sustained hypertension and cardiovascular morbidity.

The survey found that 56 per cent of doctors had irregular blood pressure patterns at night, making them prone to future adverse cardiac events. Thirty seven per cent doctors had nocturnal hypertension where the blood pressure went high only after midnight.

Dr K. K. Aggarwal, national president of IMA, explained, Evaluating both daytime and night time blood pressure is crucial for predicting cardiovascular events.

It has been found that blood pressure reading obtained during ones sleep is more accurate and helps in predicting all mortality when compared to those obtained during waking hours. As doctors are involved in stressful jobs, we felt it important to carry out this survey as it will help us understand where we stand and take the right steps to control it.

Dr Shashnak Joshi, president of the Hypertension Society of India explained, A need was felt to understand the pattern of blood pressure during day and night, and hence the ambulatory blood pressure monitoring system was adopted. This gives the blood pressure reading for 24 hours, and this has helped us identify masked hypertension and also nocturnal hypertension. The device is attached to the body and it takes the reading every 30 minutes, which is recorded in the system.

The hectic lifestyle of doctors has also exposed them to the disease.

Apart from drug regimes, it is important to have fresh fruits, vegetables, olive oil and omega 3 foods which will help lower the blood pressure. Nutritionist Madhulika Choudhary explained, Sprouted or whole grains must be consumed and sodium intake has to be reduced on the table and also during cooking. Processed foods, chutneys, pickles are the real culprits behind increased sodium intake and that has to be reduced or completely stopped, depending on the levels.
New Delhi: Police have arrested a 32-year-old-man on Monday for allegedly killing a woman brutally in southeast Delhi's Amar Colony area.

The accused, Mohd Sufiyan, was in a relationship with the victim's friend, both of whom lived together, and used to come to the woman's residence for an overnight stay. But after his girlfriend and the victim had a falling out, he was forced to look for other costly accommodations to spend time with his girlfriend, with whom he was having an extra-marital affair, police said.

On March 27, the body of Pooja (30) was found at her Amar Colony residence with wounds on her neck and wrist. The woman had been killed on March 24 but it was on March 27 that her body was discovered.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Romil Baaniya, initially it was a blind case for them. A team led by under training IPS officer Rohit Rajbir Singh, currently holding the charge as SHO Amar Colony, was constituted. Around 40 suspects were interrogated but no headway could be made.

The police conducted advanced technical surveillance including investigation into various social media platforms, VoIP platforms, said Baaniya. The accused kept pinging the victim on her Facebook even after her death in order to show himself as a very close friend, police said.

This made the investigators suspicious about him. The post-mortem report indicated that she was killed between 9 am to 5 pm on March 24. However, the police team managed to narrow down the time of her death between 1.30-2.30 pm. The CCTV footage from 12 cameras was scanned and a man, who is not a local of the area, was identified. But since he had come in a cycle rickshaw, his face was covered by the hood.

On basis of the footage, police managed to chart the route taken by the accused after killing the woman and they recovered the bloodstained clothes of the accused from Sarai Kale Khan. Sufiyan was questioned in connection with the case. He grew cautious that the police was on his trail.

On Monday, while he was trying to escape with his girlfriend, he was arrested from near Kalkaji temple, said a senior police officer. He was questioned for two hours and confessed to killing Pooja.

Sufiyan is a regular club-goer. Around a year back, he and his friend Samir came in contact with Pooja and her friend at a club in Vasant Vihar. Samir, who is already married got into a relationship with Pooja, who was separated from her husband. As Sufiyan grew close to Pooja's married friend, they used to spend time with each other at Pooja's rented accommodation.

Whenever the couple would come to Pooja's place, she would have to spend time outside at someone else's residence and it irked her. She brought this up with her friend and they had an argument.

Sufiyan, who was already in heavy debt due to his luxurious lifestyle, was finding it difficult to afford taking out his girlfriend to expensive places. The accused had also lent Rs 35,000 to Pooja when they were friends, but she refused to return the amount. He also knew that she kept her jewellery and cash at home and planned to steal them after killing her.

He came to her house on March 24 on the pretext of resolving issues. He asked Pooja to close her eyes saying he had a surprise gift for her. "When she closed her eyes, he slit her throat from behind and then smothered her. Later, he slit her wrist," said Baaniya.

He ransacked her house and stole jewellery and money in order to mislead police into believing that robbery was the motive behind Pooja's death.
The SHO of Women Police Station in Rohtak, Inspector Garima, on Tuesday said they received the letter on May 11 (File Photo) (Representational Image)

Chandigarh: A minor girl from Rohtak has sent a letter to the police alleging rape and blackmail by two persons at gun-point.

The police have appealed the girl to come forward as they could not locate her at the address mentioned in the letter.

The SHO of Women Police Station in Rohtak, Inspector Garima, on Tuesday said they received the letter on May 11, in which the girl, who claimed to be around 17-year-old, has alleged that she was gang-raped in March this year.

She also alleged that the two accused filmed the act and later blackmailed and threatened her with dire consequences if she informed anyone about it.

"We have questioned the two youths, named in the complaint, but they deny having committed the crime. We have appealed the girl to come forward because we could not locate her at the address mentioned by her.

"Through the media also, we appeal her to come forward and assure that we will provide her full protection," the SHO said.

A case has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act and the Arms Act and further investigation into the case is on, police said.

Notably, last week, the decomposed and mutilated body of a 23-year-old woman, who went missing from Sonipat on May 9 and was gang-raped and brutally murdered, was found near the Industrial Model Township in Urban Estate, Rohtak, on May 11.

Stray dogs had bitten off the face and lower portion of her body while some portion of the oesophagus (food pipe) was also found to be missing.

In another incident, a 22-year-old woman from Sikkim was allegedly raped by three men in a moving car in Gurgaon and thrown out on a road.
Police said the woman, a mother of three, hailing from Odisha, came along with her husband and a son in January 2017 to work in the brick kiln. (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: A 35-year-old woman working in a brick kiln was sexually assaulted brutally by a TRS leader in Shameerpet two days ago. The suspect, Gyara Ganesh, sexually assaulted the woman and when she raised an alarm he attacked her private parts injuring her seriously. Police arrested Ganesh on Monday.

The woman who suffered internal injuries is critical. Sources said Gyara Ganesh, an active member of TRS, had contested for the post of sarpanch in the panchayat elections held in 2013, but had lost.

Police said the woman, a mother of three, hailing from Odisha, came along with her husband and a son in January 2017 to work in the brick kiln. Around 15 families are working in the brick kiln owned by one Chand Pasha along with them.

The accused Ganesh's father owns the field adjacent to the kiln. As there is a bore well on the field, kiln workers used to go often to the field to draw water.

On Friday night the workers slept outside their huts as usual. At midnight the victim woke up to relieve herself and went to a place near the field. Ganesh who was in his field saw the woman and dragged her to his field. He gagged her and sexually assaulted her, police said.

When she freed herself and started shouting he punched on her private parts and fled leaving her unconscious. Her husband and other workers who rushed to the spot found her lying on the ground and alerted the police.

She was immediately rushed to hospital. Based on her complaint a case of rape and attempt to murder was registered. Based on the clues given by the victim, police identified the suspect as Gyara Ganesh and tracked him to Adraspalli village. He was arrested and remanded on Monday.
Hyderabad: Police rescued a woman who was kidnapped by a five-member gang as her husband had not repaid money that he had borrowed from them on Tuesday.

The gang took the woman away in a car. The man, K. Srinivas, a washerman, immediately complained to the police who traced the gang to Nizamabad.

Srinivas owed Rs 3 lakh to kidnappers

Police could arrest three of the suspects, including Madipally Srinivas, the main accused. The gang had told Mr Srinivas to repay Rs 3 lakh that he owed them to get his wife back.

Police said Madipally Srinivas had lent Rs 12 lakh to K. Srinivas one-and-a-half years back. After paying Rs 9 lakh, K. Srinivas allegedly stopped repaying the loan.

Madipally Srinivas, who is also a washerman, was angry K. Srinivas was paying even the interest. He forcefully took away K. Srinivass wife on Monday night. The gang called K. Srinivas and asked him to bring the money if he wanted his wife alive, said Amberpet police inspector A.P. Anand Kumar. After his arrest, Madipally Srinivas said he had taken the money from another financier to help K. Srinivas.
Mumbai: Following the spree of raids being conducted at the various residences of former finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti, the CBI has now raided the house of former director of INX Media Peter Mukerjea.

Meanwhile, Karti has been taken by the CBI for questioning after the raid at his Chennai residence.

Earlier an FIR was lodged against Karti, Peter's wife Indrani Mukerjea, unknown officers of FIPB Unit of Ministry of Finance and others over alleged financial misappropriation over Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to Peter and Indrani's media company INX Media in 2008.

The charges include criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by corrupt or illegal means to influence public servant and criminal misconduct.

The case has been registered under section 120-B r/w, section 420, section 8 and section 13(2) r/w and 13 (1) (d) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to reports, the raids are being conducted in about 15 locations across the country. The raids are to do with a particular deal which involved required permissions being given to a TV channel, and that the deal was linked to Indrani Mukherjee and her company INX Media. INX Media operated channels like NewsX, 9X and 9X Music.

It is alleged that while the clearance was only for Rs. 4 crore, the actual foreign investment was much higher, and this was allowed because Karti allegedly facilitated the deal. The CBI is also investigating a money trail and the bribe allegedly given to Karti.

According to reports, on Sept 22, 2008, Karti's Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL) allegedly received Rs. 35 Lakhs from INX Media, on the same day another Rs.60 lakh was allegedly paid from INX Media to Northstar Software Solutions Pvt Ltd. On September 24, 2008, another tranche of 20,000 Dollars were allegedly paid to ASCPL's Singapore subsidiary by INX Media.

The involvement of P. Chidambaram is also being investigated, since he was a Union Minister then.

Earlier, On 17 April, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it had issued notice to Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd, its promoter Karti, and Advantage Strategic Consulting for violating foreign currency laws to the tune of Rs 2,307 crore.

Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the national capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval.
A Delhi court in 2013 ruled that the encounter was genuine and convicted lone suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Shahzad Ahmed of killing Delhi police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The Saket Court on Tuesday discharged the caretaker of the Batla House, where two suspected militants were killed in an encounter in 2008.

The caretaker was accused of harbouring tenants allegedly engaged in terrorist activities.

Counsel for Abdul Rehman, M.S. Khan, submitted that the police had failed to produce the original lease deed, the crucial piece of evidence, which was allegedly forged by Rehman.

The encounter, which had taken place during the former UPA regime, came into news in 2016 amid a claim by an alleged ISIS operative that he had fled Batla House right before the police raided it.

Batla House encounter, officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorists were killed while two other suspects were arrested.

Encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action, was also killed during the incident.

According to the reports, Mohammed Sajid alias Bada Sajid is one of the six persons who features in the 22-minute video allegedly posted by the Islamic State recently, however he was one of the terrorists who was claimed as killed in the encounter.

A Delhi court had in 2013 sentenced to life the lone convict and suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Shahzad Ahmad in the case for killing decorated police officer Sharma and injuring two other policemen.
New Delhi: With the CBI raids underway at former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti's various residences, the Congress has asserted this is political vendetta of the worst kind.

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh took to Twitter to condemn the ongoing raids.

"Strongly condemn raids against Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. Political vendetta of the worst kind," he tweeted.

Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said the BJP has always initiated such things with the intention of taking revenge, be it in the Virbhadra Singh case, National Herald case or the present raids.

"Right from the day the BJP came into power, it has launched investigations with the intention of taking revenge. It is using the CBI and other legal tools against all its opponents. It did so in Virbhadra Singh case, National Herald, against Manmohan Singh also. Same is it doing now against Chidambaram, who is known for his honesty," Tiwari told ANI.

The senior Congress leader lashed out at the Centre, accusing it of using national agencies to target his son.

"FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said in a statement.

Asserting that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram added that the approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," the senior Congress leader added.

Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the national capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval.
New Delhi: Expressing contentment over the raids conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti's various residences, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has said that now the nation will know that the grand old party is the most corrupt party in the history of the world.

"What do you expect Congress to do? Their president and vice-president are facing trial in the National Herald case. The whole country will come to know that it is the most corrupt party in the history of the world," Swamy said.

Accusing Chidambaram of giving illegal clearances in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), Swamy alleged that the former's son always benefitted from such approvals.

"It was expected because, as finance minister, he has given so many clearances in FIPB, which are all illegal and his son has always benefitted from this. The raids have to take place to get the documents and get incriminating evidence which they have kept," he said.

"Karti has got 21 illegal bank accounts abroad and he has built many houses in several countries. He has got them financial activities undeclared in 18 countries. So therefore, money laundering has to be there," he added.

Swamy said he was unhappy with the delay, but since it has finally happened he is now content with the development.

With the raiding the Chidambaram residence in New Delhi on Tuesday in connection with the FIPB approval in several cases, the senior Congress leader lashed out at the Centre, accusing it of using national agencies to target his son.

"FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me," he said in a statement.

Asserting that every case was processed according to law, Chidambaram added that the approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," the senior Congress leader added.

Meanwhile, the CBI is expected to raid Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

The raids are happening at around 14 different locations in Chennai and also in the national capital in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval.
New Delhi: One of India's top lawyers Harish Salve charged only Re 1 as the fee to fight India's case at the International Court of Justice against the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav by a Pakistani military court.

This was disclosed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj late on Monday night in response to a tweet by one Sanjeev Goyal, who said India could have got any good lawyer with much less fee than what Salve must have charged for fighting the case.

"Not fair. #HarishSalve has charged us Rs. 1/- as his fee for this case (sic)," Swaraj tweeted.

Salve was India's lead attorney at the ICJ hearing the case of Indian national Jadhav. India has petitioned the ICJ, urging that it immediately suspend Jadhav's death sentence, expressing fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at ICJ.

Pakistan has alleged that Jadhav was an agent of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). India has denied Jadhavs any such connection with the government.

The ICJ on Monday heard arguments of both India and Pakistan. On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by repeatedly denying it consular access to Jadhav.

India, in its appeal, has asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing business after he retired from the Indian Navy.
The two countries also inked five agreements following talks between Narendra Modi and Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Ahead of his upcoming visit to Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas India's unwavering support to the Palestinian cause.

After holding extensive talks with Abbas, Modi said India hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

The two countries also inked five agreements following talks between Modi and Abbas. "India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause," the prime minister said in his media statement.

Modi also said that India hopes for an early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides so as to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue.
Kollam: A British bungalow or the sayippan bungalow' buried under water in the reservoir of Thenmala dam has surfaced with the water level coming down owing to lack of rains.

It had earlier surfaced in 2013, the first time in thirty years after the construction of the dam that made the water to inundate the structure entirely.

The bungalow turning visible over the water in the reservoir is an indicator of the alarming rate of decrease in the quantity of water in the dam.

The catchment area received very less rainfall this year, coming down to just near 88 metres from a total capacity of 116.73.

The top portion of the bungalow in the reservoir is now visible over the water, which was completely visible when the water level became 82 meters in 2013. The bungalow is inside the reservoir about three kilometres from the dam in Thenmala, deep inside the forest.

The building was constructed by British industrialist T.J. Cameroon in 1887. Word has it that the building was intended to facilitate the collection of reed from the surrounding forests, the raw material for Travancore Paper Mill started at Punalur which was later known as the Punalur Paper Mills.

The building was constructed with the permission of the then king of Travancore, Sree Moolam Thirunal Rama Varma. The building was situated alongside the British Road to Shenkottai, which was then part of Travancore kingdom.

The road also disappeared in water with the construction of the dam.

Residents also call it Kannadi Bungalow or glass bungalow, due to its large glass window panes. It has no considerable dilapidation even after three decades under the water.

It was inundated by water by the time when the Parappar dam or Thenmala dam across the Kallada river was commissioned in 1984.
New Delhi: The Law Commission has decided to "go slow" on its report on the uniform civil code as it will await the Supreme Court verdict on triple talaq, highly-placed sources in the panel said on Tuesday.

The law panel, which advises the government on complex legal issues, has decided to await the verdict of the constitution bench of the apex court before involving various stakeholders for discussion to complete its report on the common code.

"The Supreme Court is likely to explain what personal law is. It is also likely to delve into the issue of religious faith and religious practice. Till the time the judgment is out, we have decided to go slow on the report on civil code," the source said.

The Commission believes that the verdict will provide guideline to the panel in drafting its report.

"Once the roadmap is set, we will start consultations with stakeholders," the source said.

The apex court had on Monday made it clear that it will keep open for adjudication in the future the issues of polygamy and 'nikah halala' among Muslims.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar had said, "It may not be possible to deal with all the three issues in the limited time we have. We will keep them pending for future."

The apex court has also said that it will only deal with the issue of triple talaq that too if it was fundamental to Islam.

Indicating need for wider consultation before taking a call on a uniform civil code, the government had in June last asked the Law Commission to examine the issue.

Implementation of a common code is part of the BJP's election manifesto.

Some Muslim leaders have opposed any move to abolish triple talaq and other personal laws.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued its hearing on a bunch of petitions relating to the practice of triple talaq, with the All India Muslim Personal Board presenting its case in the court.

Senior Congress leader and advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the AIMPLB, argued that a tradition like triple talaq, which is centuries old, cannot be termed unconstitutional all of a sudden.

Triple talaq is going on since 1,400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional? It's a matter of faith, Sibal told the apex court bench.

Furthering his argument, Sibal said, There is no question of constitutional morality and equity in matters of faith.

Also making a reference to the Ayodhya temple issue, Sibal pointed out that if Hindus' faith about Lord Rama is not arguable, Muslims' faith in triple talaq should also not be questioned

"If Hindus faith about Rama's birth at Ayodhya can't be questioned, then triple talaq, a matter of faith for Muslims shouldn't be (questioned too)," said Sibal

He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

Sibal further remarked that the court should not be hearing the case in the first place. The advocate said so when Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, one of the five judges constituting the bench asked if they should not hear the matter at all, following his non-interference in faith reasoning.

The apex court, however, asked the AIMPLB to state its opinion on the position of e-talaq in Islam, given through Whatsapp messages.

Earlier, The Centre on Monday had informed the Supreme Court that it would bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims if the court held triple talaq invalid and unconstitutional.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, India s top law officer, made this submission after a five-judge constitution bench asked him about the remedies for Muslim men if triple talaq was struck down.

The multi-faith bench comprising Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and Justices Kurian Joseph, Rohinton Nariman, Uday Lalit and Abdul Nazeer is examining the legality of triple talaq after a clutch of petitions for a ban on the practice was filed.

The AG said triple talaq was not fundamental to Muslim personal law, and as the guardian of fundamental rights, the court should protect the rights of half of the Muslim population, which suffers discrimination.

The CJI told the AG, We (court) are guardians of fundamental rights as well as minority rights. We agree with you that if triple talaq is arbitrary, extra-judicial, it must go. But we are not here to tinker with religion, tenets of religion and religious practices. Tenets of religion can never be tested by courts. What we may ultimately decide will impact a large section of the population.

The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been pushing for a ban on the contentious practice on grounds of gender equality and justice. The push also looks to win support from Muslim women and chip away at an important bloc of voters that has viewed Modi with suspicion. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has promised reforms in personal law but opposed a blanket ban on the practice.
Border migrants take shelter in a bunker after shelling from Pakistan side at Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. (Photo: PTI)

Jammu: Around 1700 people have been dislocated from the areas close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district because of shelling by the Pakistani Army which continued through the last night, a senior official said today.

The Pakistani Army pounded hamlets besides the Indian Army posts in Nowshera and Manjakote sectors of Rajouri last night, Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary said.

"Shelling (by the Pakistani Army) started in Ans Bhandhaar areas of Nowshera in Rajouri at 22.55 pm yesterday. Lam and Kalsian areas were also affected, he said.

The guns fell silent since this morning, they said.

Earlier during the day yesterday, the Pakistani troops resorted to firing and shelling in the Nowshera sector since 4 pm, the Deputy Commissioner said.

Choudhary said that four villages in Nowshera have borne the brunt of small arms fire from across the LOC.

Nearly 1700 people have already been evacuated from LoC hamlets hit by shelling by Pakistan and shifted to relief camps, he said.

Around 120 officers from various departments have been deployed to organise facilities at relief camps.

"Inter-departmental teams deputed by the district administration for damage assessment reported small arms firing from 4 pm yesterday in Sarya village followed by firing in Khamba, Anwas and Bhandar villages," he added.

The DC said the damage assessment teams were withdrawn at 5.30 pm in view of the intermittent firing by Pakistan.

On May 14, the Pakistani Army had fired indiscriminately using small arms, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars in Nowshera and Manjakote sectors of Rajouri.

On May 13, authorities ordered closure of fifty-one schools in Nowshera sector and also Manjakote and Doongi zones.

The district administration has provided immediate relief of Rs 1 lakh each to the next of kin of the six people who have died in the Pakistani shelling and given financial assistance to the injured, Choudhary said.

Overall, of the 64 villages along the LoC in Rajouri, 23 are located in Nowshera sub-division where 8 villages are badly affected and remaining 15 villages sustained minor losses, while five villages in Doongi and nine villages in Manjakote have been affected, he said.

"Eight villages of Nowshera have been badly affected by heavy shelling which include Khamba, Sarya, Bhawani, Kalsian, Manpur, Danaka, Khori and Ganya. Nearly 1700 people have been shifted to camps," he added.

"Fourteen buses, seven mini-buses, 14 other vehicles were pressed into service to evacuate the people from the forward areas," he said.

Cooked food, lighting, bedding, first aid, medical care, drinking water and sanitary facilities have been provided to the displaced people in the relief camps where Anganwadi centres and playways for children have also been opened, he said.

The DC said the administration is preparing to make more relief camps functional. Over 25 buildings have been earmarked for this purpose.

He added that class work of migrant students and local students will be resumed this week to ensure that education doesn't suffer.

Six teams of veterinary surgeons and para vets visited the forward areas where more than 50 injured animals were treated, Choudhary said, adding 12 animals were reported dead.

"Six ambulances have been pressed into action for shifting of the injured. One mobile medical unit was stationed at Nowshera and another deputed to forward areas," he added.
Dr Deepak Mittal, (left), joint secretary of Indias ministry of external affairs, greets Pakistans Syed Faraz Hussain Zaidi as they wait for judges to enter the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi/The Hague: In an engaging duel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday that saw both countries go hammer and tongs at each other, Pakistan raked up the alleged passport of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to argue that India had deliberately given him a passport with a Muslim name (Hussein Mubarak Patel) to facilitate covert and illegal terror operations in Balochistan. It added that the Vienna Convention provisions on consular access were not intended for a spy involved in terror activities.

New Delhi argued before the court earlier in the day that India had not even been given consular access to Jadhav by Pakistan despite repeated requests in violation of the Vienna Convention and that the Pakistani military Courts verdict sentencing him to death had no credibility.

Pakistan maintained India was wrong in invoking the jurisdiction of this court, arguing that Indias application was unnecessary and misconceived and must be dismissed.

ICJ reserves Jadhav verdict

New Delhi, in a strong plea earlier in the day, demanded the immediate suspension of the death sentence given to Jadhav by the Pakistani military court.

After hearing both parties, the ICJ said it would announce its order in a public hearing, the date of which will be publicly communicated.

The Indian delegation included joint secretary (dealing with Pakistan-related issues) in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) Deepak Mittal and eminent lawyer Harish

Salve, both of whom addressed the court while the Pakistani representatives got their turn a few hours later. India presented its case in about 90 minutes while the Pakistanis wrapped up their arguments in less than an hour.

The graver the charges, the greater the need for continued adherence of the Vienna Convention. Jadhav has been in judicial custody without any communication with his family, Mr Salve said. Describing the situation as grave and urgent, India said it had not been given the copy of the charges filed against Jadhav. India sought relief from the ICJ including immediate suspension of the sentence of death awarded to Jadhav, and restraining Pakistan from giving effect to the sentence awarded by the military court, and directing it to take steps to annul the decision of the military court.

India has accused Pakistan of egregious violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (hereinafter the Vienna Convention) in the matter of the detention and trial of Jadhav.

While New Delhi said Pakistan had attached conditionalities in return for consideration of consular access which was unacceptable, Islamabad however claimed that it had been prepared to grant consular access with reference to a bilateral agreement in 2008 between the two sides. While India had expressed fears that Pakistan could execute Jadhav even before the hearing was over, Islamabad said it was false that Pakistan would execute Jadhav immediately.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of a penal provision on sexual harassment on the ground that it was "vague" and susceptible to misuse.

The change in section 354A (sexual harassment) of the IPC was brought about after the horrific December 16, 2012 gangrape-cum-murder case.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar sought the response of the Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs and posted the matter for hearing on August 30.

The petition, filed by advocate Divyadeep Chaturvedi, sought striking down of provisions under section 354A (sexual harassment) of the IPC, including the one which says "a man making sexually coloured remarks shall be guilty of sexual harassment".

The expression "is too vague and makes it impossible for a person of ordinary intelligence to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly," the plea said.

It said this puts the liberty of a person in jeopardy, merely on the basis of the subjective interpretation of the person perceiving himself or herself being subjected to a particular remark.

It said section 354A is "unconstitutional, arbitrary and unreasonable" and violative of Articles 14 (equality before law) and 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) of the Constitution.

The petition also said the provision does not specify the gender of the subject of crime but only of the perpetrator, which is "unreasonable".

As per the provision the gender of the perpetrator is given as man whereas the victim's gender is not specified.

After the gangrape of a 23-year-old woman on December 16, 2012, a committee under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court judge Justice J S Verma was constituted to suggest amendments to the criminal law to sternly deal with sexual offences.
The high-level meeting was also attended by NSA chief Ajit Doval and Union Minister Jitender Singh. (Photo: PIB)

New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday described religious radicalisation as a serious security threat and said if not checked in time, it could lead to terrorism.

Singh, who reviewed the security situation in the Northeast with chief secretaries and DGPs of the region here, also expressed concern over the proliferation of illegal arms in the region and asked the police chiefs to launch organised

campaigns against arms smugglers.

"If we talk about the future security threats, radicalisation has come as a huge security challenge. Radicalisation is a trans-national phenomenon. If we can't

check it, it will turn into terrorism," he said at the meeting which was also attended by NSA Ajit Doval and other top security officials.

The home minister said because the Northeast was especially vulnerable to attempts of radicalisation, it was essential to identify those behind it.

"Some of these agents are operating in the name of religion while some others are operating in the name of NGOs or carrying out development programmes for individuals, socio-culture uplift and education," he said.

Singh said it was necessary to monitor their activities and take pre-emptive action. "Some of these agents even get foreign funding. So it is necessary to closely monitor their foreign funding and utilisation," he said.

The home minister said though most of the Northeast was free from militancy, the proliferation of illegal arms was a problem that needed to be tackled.

"The proliferation of illegal arms in such large numbers leads to more crimes. I urge the DGPs to launch an organised campaign against illegal arm traders," he said.

Singh said arms, narcotics and fake Indian currency notes were being smuggled into India through the international border abutting the Northeast.

"These borders are practically un-policed. There is need to set up more police stations on the border areas as these will check cross-border crimes and bring a sense of security to the people who live in these remote areas," he said.

The home minister, however, said there had been a significant improvement in the security situation in the Northeast in last few years.

"Most of the areas are now free from insurgency and militants have been losing support even in the few pockets where they have influence," he said.

Singh said this had been made possible by effective counter-insurgency operations, a responsive development orientation and improved relations with neighbouring countries.

"(But) in some areas, armed gangs are indulging in extortion, kidnapping and abduction in the name of militancy," he said.

The home minister also asked the police chiefs to ensure that surrendered militants staying in designated camps did not indulge in crime.

"There is a need to keep all cadres of underground groups, which are engaged in peace talks with the government, in designated camps and ensure that they follow agreed ground rules. I am told some are involved in violent criminal activities such as extortion and kidnapping," he said.
Chennai: Tamil film superstar Rajinikanth will launch his own political party with the revenue generated from his films and will under all circumstances shun endowment in the process, asserts Chennais famous astrologer Shelvi.

Unlike in the past, Rajini will emerge as action hero in real life, he opines. Rajini has been keeping his plans under wraps due to his Sani Dasa period, which is coming to an end. The coming years augur well for his entry into politics. Henceforth, we will see him translating his words into deeds, Mr. Shelvi predicts.
Chennai: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday swooped down on the residences and premises belonging to former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu.

The raids were in connection with an FIR registered this morning against P Chidambaram in connection with Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance given to INX Media in 2008 when he was finance minister in the UPA-1 government under then prime minister Manmohan Singh.

INX Media had launched NewsX in 2008 with jailed Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani Mukerjea as partners.

Official sources in Delhi said the searches were spread across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Gurugram.

The raids are also taking place at the Nungambakkam residence of P Chidambaram in Chennai, a senior police official said in Chennai.

Unconfirmed reports said the raids were also on at Karaikudi, the hometown of Chidambaram.

Reacting to the raids on the various places, Chidambaram alleged that the government wanted him to stop writing against it and is, therefore targetting him.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends...The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations," the senior Congress leader said in a statement in Chennai.

"All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," he said.

The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials, he said, adding there was no allegation against any of them.

"There is no allegation against me," he added.

Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP comprising five secretaries to the Government of India, he maintained.

The agency had on Monday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media, run by its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea, in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.

The agency had registered the case against INX Media through its director Indrani Mukerjea, Peter Mukerjea, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.

It had levelled the charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification by corrupt or illegal means, to influence a public servant and criminal misconduct.

The CBI has alleged that Karti Chidambaram used his influence in the Finance Ministry to help the company scuttle the probe against it.

INX Media had sought the FIPB clearance on March 13, 2007, for permission to issue, by way of preferential allotment up to 14.98 equity shares to three non-resident entities--Dunearn, NSR PE and New Veron Pvt Equity Ltd.

The company sought this approval for engaging in the business of creating, operating managing, and broadcasting a bouquet of TV channels.

The FIPB unit, while sending the brief of the proposal which was to be put to the FIP board for its meeting scheduled on May 18, 2007, had clearly mentioned that Foreign Direct Investment of Rs 4.62 crore proposed issue at the face value could be allowed and for investment in INX News a separate FIPB approval would be required.

The board recommended the proposal of INX Media for consideration of the Finance Minister but not that of INX News.

The recommendations were cleared by the then Finance Minister, the FIR alleged.

The company in violation of the recommendations made investment to the tune of 26 per cent in the capital of INX News which included foreign investment and generated more than Rs 305 crore of FDI in INX Media against the approved inflow of Rs 4.62 crore by issuing shares to foreign investors at a premium of more than 800 per share, it alleged.

The Investigation wing of the IT Department sought clarification from the company in 2008. The company in its response said the investment was in accordance to the recommendation.

The company "in order to wriggle out of the situation without any punitive action entered into criminal conspiracy with Karti P Chidambaram, son of P Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister or India and Promoter Director of Chess Management Services, Chennai so as to get the issues resolved and addressed amicably by influencing the public servants of the FIPB Unit of Finance Ministry by virtue of his relationship with the then Finance Minister," the FIR alleged.

It alleged that the officials by virtue of influence exercised over them by Karti, not only ignored the serious illegality on the part of INX Media on both the counts but also deliberately showed undue favours to INX Group by abusing their official position and advised the company to file for fresh clearance.

The officials of the FIPB unit ignored the request of Revenue Department to investigate the matter as to how investment was made by the company without the FIPB approval.

The company, on the advice of FIPB officials, filed fresh request which was cleared by the Finance Ministry and the Finance Minister.

"Such deceitful and fallacious proposal was favourably considered by the officials of Finance Ministry and approved by the then Finance Minister," it alleged.

The concurrence to the 'proposed investment' which had already been made without the approval of the Finance Ministry shows the malafide and dishonest intention on the part of Finance Ministry officials.

"By such partisan and malafide acts done pursuant to the criminal conspiracy with the beneficiary company and the intermediaries, the senior officials of the Finance Ministry not only granted the illegal approval but also misinformed the investigation...by Income Tax department," it alleged.

The CBI has alleged that for the services rendered by Karti Chidambaram through his company Chess Management Services consideration in the form of payment were received against invoice raised on INX Media by Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited (ASCPL), the FIR alleged,

"The source informs that the very reason for getting the invoices raised in the name of ASCPL for the services rendered by Chess Management Service Limited was with a view to conceal the identity of Karti Chidambaram...," it alleged.

The FIR filed on source information alleged that Karti was indirectly handling ASCPL.

Invoices for approximately Rs 3.5 crore were also raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which Karti was having "substantial interests" directly or indirectly, the agency alleged in the FIR.

"Such invoices were falsely raised for creation, acquisition of media content, consultancy, in respect of market research. However INX group in its record has clearly mentioned the purpose of payment of Rs 10 lakh to ASCPL as towards management consultancy charged towards FIP notification and clarification," the FIR alleged.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu minister V Saroja on Saturday dismissed the allegations of graft against her, saying the official who made the claim had done so to divert attention from a complaint of financial irregularities against her.

The social welfare minister also denied J Raja Meenakshi's claim that she had summoned the official to her house to discuss her transfer to this city. On May 11, Meenakshi, the Dharmapuri District Child Welfare officer, had filed a complaint with city police alleging that the minister had demanded Rs 20 lakh for her transfer to Chennai.

She had claimed she had already paid Rs 10 lakh to the minister to allow her to continue in her job.

Denying the allegations, Saroja said Meenakshi had made the allegations to malign her and at the instigation of someone, but did not name anybody. In a statement, the minister alleged that the Dharmapuri probation officer had on March 1, 2017 written to the district collector, accusing Meenakshi of forging bills to embezzle money from funds allotted towards child welfare activities.

A probe was launched into the matter under a revenue officer who had summoned Meenakshi and the probation officer to appear for a hearing on April 21, Saroja alleged. While the probation officer appeared, Meenakshi did not and sought postponement of the hearing, citing health reasons and that she was scheduled to be admitted to a Chennai hospital, the minister said.

Following this, the hearing was postponed and she was asked to appear on June 8 with relevant medical certificates, Saroja said, adding, Meenakshi had on May 7 met her at Chennai and urged that she be made permanent in her existing post and also placed a request for transfer.

Meenakshi herself was aware that no rule permitted absorption of a temporary staff in that post and therefore the minister told her it was not possible to consider the case, Saroja said.

"Further, her meeting the minister concerned (Saroja) without making pleas to the district collector or the department commissioner or secretary makes it amply clear it was meant to malign my reputation," Saroja said.

"Therefore, with the intention of diverting attention away from the probe into embezzlement charges against her and to malign me, she has wantonly made false accusations at the instigation of somebody. All the charges are contrary to facts," she added.

The minister said Meenakshi was appointed following a 'transparent' recruitment system after advertisements were given in newspapers calling for candidates. Meenakshi was appointed as District Child Welfare Officer in September 2016, she said.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has ordered stringent action against those involved in forged manual challans in the Commercial Taxes department and other documents in Nizam-bad district and other places.

Mr Rao has also asked principal secretary Somesh Kumar to transfer all long-serving officials working in the commercial taxes and stamps and registration departments in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district.

Taking a serious note of the multi-crore scam, Mr Rao held a high-level meet with finance minister Etala Rajender, chief secretary S.P. Singh, among others.

The CM asked officials to check whether any Bodhan-type scam prevailed in other districts and bring the culprits to book.

He said that the commercial taxes department, which accrues finances in abundance to the state, should work effectively and there was no place for corruption in his government.

We achieved the state with a lot of hard work. We should not compromise on putting a stop to corruption. This is a malady of the former governments. Though we have reformed the administration, yet some people are taking undue advantage of our kindness, he said.

The CM added, We have to catch such thieves and ensure that there is no scope for corruption in the future. Any atmosphere of corruption should not prevail in our state.

In Nizamabad district, commercial tax officials and tax consultants had allegedly encouraged 114 rice millers to evade VAT in 2012 and 2014 by producing fake challans and stamp papers with forged signatures. The state government lost `65 crore in revenue.
New Delhi: In a significant assertion ahead of his visit to Israel likely in July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause but added that New Delhi hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

The comments were made in his speech at Hyderabad House in the Capital in the presence of visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas whom PM Modi described as an old friend of India. The statement is being seen by observers as a balancing act between Palestine and the Jewish State. At the same time, India has continued the Nehruvian policy of support to the Palestinian cause. India also called for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution.

Hailing Indias support and praising the Prime Minister, the Palestinian President called for establishing an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its Capital. He also recalled the support from India since the time of Mahatma Gandhi. President Abbas also said he had informed PM Modi of the discussions he had held with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue of the solution for peace between Palestine and Israel.

In his speech, the Prime Minister said, I am delighted to welcome back President Mahmoud Abbas, an old friend of India, on his State visit to India. The relationship between India and Palestine is built on the foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle. India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause. And ,we hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.
New Delhi: Whatsapp on Tuesday asserted in the Supreme Court that it had never shared data with third parties though its 2016 privacy policy allowed it.

A five-judge Constitution bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra, A.K. Sikri, Amitav Roy, A.M. Khanwilkar and M.M. Shantanagouder, however, rejected the submission and said that it cannot leave the fate of its 160 million Indian subscribers to their fate.

We cannot leave 160 million subscribers trapped in a corridor of charity, Justice Dipak Misra said. The court would examine whether the companys privacy policy was against public policy in India and whether it is needed to be subjected to constitutional controls  provided the court was convinced that there was a case for judicial interference at all.

Senior counsel K.K. Venugopal for Facebook said We are subject to total regulatory control. We can file an affidavit stating that not a single piece of information has been shared with anybody. Even I cannot access the information if I want to. There is no element of human intervention in the process. Machines take care of this.

In any case, the right to communicate, the right of choice of communication is not a right which can arise against a private party. It can only lie against the state, he said. He argued that Whatsapp was not a public body discharging public functions and hence no PIL or petition claiming violation of fundamental rights can be filed against the company.

Counsel Madhvi Divan, appearing for the petitioners said This is economic espionage in the name of free service. Look at their business model. They have acquired Whatsapp for a whopping 19 billion dollars.

She argued against the 2016 privacy policy saying it allowed sharing of data with third parties, it offers the user no choice, the age of consent has been reduced to 13 from 16. In case of minors, parents have to agree to the policy, she said. Whether they do take such consent no one knows, she said.

She also argued that Whatsapps privacy policy was unconscionable both substantively and procedurally. The company uses a public resource such as spectrum and performed a public function, she said, to claim that the courts could direct them to respect the Indian citizens right to communicate freely. She said Whatsapp is following double standards in India and elsewhere.

If there is no data-sharing how has Whatsapp agreed in Italy and EU not to transfer such data, she asked. With Facebook agreeing that they were abiding by such an interim order passed by Italy, the bench said, We are the regulator. You must maintain a world standard.
Scholars from 20 nations would participate in addition to the scholars from various parts of India, Dr. Samuel said.

Chennai: The International Conference on Tirukkural, which begins in Nagercoil (headquarters of Kanyakumari district in the state) from Wednesday will urge the Unesco to declare the everlasting masterpiece - Tirukkural, authored by Tamil savant Tiruvalluvar about 2,000 years ago, as the Book of the World.

The Tirukkural, composed in classical Tamil, has acquired the status of scriptural authority as a canon informing the behaviour of Tamils in their day-to- day interpersonal relations all over the world and it richly deserves to be declared as the Book of the World.

We shall pass a resolution at the conference urging Unesco to declare it as Book of the World. Also, we have planned to conduct the next Tirukkural conference on the premises of Unesco in Paris in 2020, says Dr G. John Samuel, Founder-Director, Institute of Asian Studies, Sholinganallur, here. Prof. Armoogum Parsuramen, chairman, International Association of Tamil Diaspora (INTAD), Mauritius., would preside over the conference.

The three-day event, which will be held from May 17 at Scott Christian College, Nagercoil will see the presentation of 130 research papers. A 550-page souvenir will be released on the occasion. Scholars from 20 nations would participate in addition to the scholars from various parts of India, Dr. Samuel said.

The conference is being held under the joint auspice of Institute of Asian Studies, Chennai, and International Association of Tamil Diaspora (INTAD), Mauritius.

Close to Nagercoil, is the majestic 133 feet high Tiruvalluvar statue gracing the confluence of the tri-seas off the coast of Kanyakumari, along with the Vivekananda Rock Memorial.
New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday announced the launch of a nation-wide public campaign along with other like-minded forces in the next 24 months to expose the BJP-led government.

Stating this at a press conference here, AICC incharge of communications Randeep Surjewala said the party led by Rahul Gandhi would expose the "failures" of the government before the public in every nook and corner of the country.

To mark the completion of three years of the Modi government, the Congress young brigade today highlighted its "failures" on various counts including issues of dealing with the Pakistan and Kashmir policy, internal security, women safety and rising cases of rapes, atrocities on dalits, high petrol and diesel prices, besides generation of jobs.

A power-point presentation was also made during the press conference that besides other things highlighted the "failures" of this government on bringing back black money, GST, Aadhaar, renaming of UPA schemes, Digital and Skill India and not addressing the problem of farm debt.

"To expose the falsehood of the BJP, the Congress party in the next 24 months will launch an extensive country-wide public campaign after bringing all such like-minded and those forces troubled by this government," Surjewala told reporters.

Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev and Divya Spandana also raised the issues of rising cases of intolerance in the country and of attempts being made to change the narrative rather than focusing on resolving public problems.

Scindia said when this government came to power they kindled a lot of hope by selling the dream of bringing "achhe din" in the country, but in the last three years it "shattered people's dreams".

"There is an environment of intolerance prevailing in the country. If anybody discusses it, they are termed as anti-national.

"This government decides what the people should eat, learn and wear. It tries to push its policies based on a regimented 'soch vichar' (ideological approach)," he said.

Pilot said the Congress would present a better alternative model of governance before the people of the country and will expose the BJP on its "failure to fulfil the lofty promises made before coming to power".

"We will prepare a blueprint of an alternative model of governance and not by selling lies to the people," he said.

The Congress screened a video entitled "Teen saal barbaad, lipapoti sarkar" during the press conference. The Congress leaders also raised the issue of senior functionaries of the government trying to help fugitives like Vijaya Mallya and Lalit Modi escape the country.
Bengaluru: In what could be seen as a game of one upmanship given their rivalry , senior BJP leader, K.S.Eshwarappa, who has been at loggerheads with BJP state president, B.S.Yeddyurappa, has already met senior officers of Vijayapura in North Karnataka to assess the drought in the district, when the latter is still to set off on his tour of drought- hit districts.

It was soon after Mr. Yeddyurappa announced his tour of drought- hit districts starting Thursday, that Mr. Eshwarappa fixed his three- day tour schedule of Hyderabad-Karnataka starting May 15, according to sources. Being at liberty to go on such a tour in his capacity as Opposition leader in the Legislative Council, he held meetings with the Deputy Commissioner, Chief Executive Officer and development secretaries of Vijayapura on Monday on the spending on drought relief in the district, which is having a worse time than even last year owing to shortage of water and poor rain .

The next two days will see him hold meetings with district officials of Raichuru and Koppal districts as well. Going by his tour schedule, Mr. Eshwarappa is unlikely to accompany Mr Yeddyurappa and other party leaders on their visit to drought hit- districts of both Hyderabad and Mumbai Karnataka, say sources.
Thiruvananthapuram: A case might be registered against BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan for posting a misleading video on the social media alleging that the CPM activists had celebrated the recent murder of a BJP activist in Kannur.

This was stated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the Assembly on Monday. Replying to an adjournment motion on the murder, the chief minister opposed the BJP's demand for implementing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Kerala. He cited the alleged excesses in Manipur following the implementation of AFSPA and the stir by Irom Sharmila. Even children were killed and women raped by the security personnel under the cover of the Act. I dont think the Opposition would welcome the enforcement of AFSPA in Kannur, said Mr. Vijayan.

None knows where the CPM carried out a victory procession following the recent murder as alleged by Mr Kummanam Rajasekharan in a picture posted on the social media, he said. The legal aspects of psting such wrong information is being examined and a case might have to be registered against him in this connection, he said.

While Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan and Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala flayed the BJPs criticism against the Governor for not acting against the government, BJPs O.Rajagopal said that the statement against the Governor should be considered only as an expression of sentiments by youngsters.

The Opposition staged a walkout after Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan denied permission for the adjournment motion notice given by Mr K.C. Joseph, Congress. Kerala Congress (M) and BJP staged a walkout over the Kannur murder.

Mr Vijayan said that the recent murder should be considered and as an isolated incident and that the CPM local leadership had stated that they had no role in the incident. The incident would not affect the peace move s initiated in Kannur in February. The police would bring those involved in the murder before the law, he said.

Mr Ramesh Chennithala alleged that even when peace talks were being carried out, the CPM was making bombs and weapons. Mr. Rajagopal alleged that the CPM was trying to curb the freedom of other political parties to function in the state.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accepted RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's invitation to attend a rally of political parties opposed to the BJP-led central government in August next.

"Lalu Ji, We accepted your invitation to be there on August 27. We will be there," Banerjee said in a tweet.

Lalu Ji we accepted your invitation to be there on Aug 27. We will be there https://t.co/oWXw8wxTFo  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) May 16, 2017

Banerjee's acceptance of the invitation came on a day when IT raids were carried out at various locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in search of the alleged benami properties linked to Lalu Prasad and others.

The former Bihar chief minister earlier this month had said he would convene in August in Patna an all-India rally of parties opposed to the BJP-led government at the Centre.

According to the RJD, the meeting would be a precursor to a Bihar-like grand alliance at the national level to dethrone the Narendra Modi government from power in the 2019 general election.
Hyderabad: As part of efforts to attract more investments to TS, IT minister K.T. Rama Rao will be meeting heads of seven or eight major companies from different sectors from May 21 to 25 during his visit to the USA.

Mr Rao is also likely to visit Stanford University to deliver a lecture on development and journey of Telangana. University representatives met him in Hyderabad a few months ago and invited him.

Mr Raos visit comes on the heels of AP Chief Minster N. Chandrababu Naidu visit to the USA.
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee met Congress president Sonia Gandhi here Tuesday and discussed possible names for a consensus Opposition presidential candidate. She is learnt to have told the Congress president her party was fine with the re-election of President Pranab Mukherjee if there was a consensus on him.

The two leaders also discussed the need for Opposition unity amid the politics of vendetta being played out by the ruling party. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting.

Some political vendetta is going on, discussed that in detail. Will meet again within the next 10 days to decide on the consensus candidate, Ms Banerjee told reporters after the meeting.

She said she had a detailed discussion with Mrs Gandhi on the presidential polls as well as the current political situation.

There is still time and we will meet again. But the government should also take the initiative for a consensus candidate, she said.

Congress sources told this newspaper that though Ms Banerjee had agreed to the name of former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi as a possible Opposition candidate, she was also agreeable to a second term for Mr Mukherjee.

Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar had said on Monday that he was in favour of Mr Mukherjee being a consensus candidate for President, but added that it was up to the ruling party to take the first step in this regard.
An empire which is toppled by its enemies can rise again, but one that is toppled from within crumbles that much faster. It could be a Trojan or a saboteur who brings it to its knees. History is replete with such examples  from Achilles in Troy (in Greek mythology, he was a hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homers Iliad) to Mir Jaffar in the decisive Battle of Plassey (who assembled his troops to assist Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah against a much smaller force led by Robert Clive, but did not lead them into combat, thus neutralising the Nawab of Bengals fighting efficacy, leading to his rout and subsequent death). The reprobate British did their best to prevent decolonisation as many of them played their part to the hilt in order to serve the Churchillian diktat of keeping a bit of India, using cunning and subterfuge to blindside Indians, as they were ordered to leave the subcontinent after the Second World War. However, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and even Lord Louis Mountbatten fixed the subversive political department under the wily Sir Conrad Corfield.

There were many deceitful characters floating around in those uncertain times. F. Paul Mainprice was one such gadfly. He came from Londons Bexhill and joined the Indian Civil Service in the late 1930s, serving in Assam and Madras provinces. Towards the end of his service, he was transferred to the political department and served as political agent for the states in Assam and later in the crucial areas of Gilgit and Chilas. In 1947, he was acting political agent in Gilgit, from where he was relieved in August when Gilgit was handed back to the Kashmir government.

He reportedly reached Srinagar around August 26-27 and stayed at the famed Nedous Hotel. After about a week, he left for Delhi. He had lots of boxes full of papers with him. In Delhi, it is learnt he contacted Mahatma Gandhi, to whom he gave a certain note on Gilgit, probably on the lines that Gilgit should remain under the Indian government or that of Pakistan. It is further learnt a copy of that note was passed on by him to Pakistans deputy high commissioner. He then reportedly left for Kalimpong, as his address there was Care of Mrs Shariff, Tashiding.

As we now know, Pakistan got possession of Gilgit-Baltistan through the connivance of two British military officers. In 1935, the Gilgit agency was leased for 60 years by the British from the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir because of its strategic location on the northern borders of British India. It was administered by the political department in Delhi through a British officer. With impending Independence, the British terminated the lease, and returned the region to the Maharaja on August 1, 1947.

The Maharaja appointed Brig. Ghansara Singh of the J&K state forces as governor of the region. Two officers of Gilgit Scouts, Maj. W.A. Brown and Capt. A.S. Mathieson, along with Subedar Major Babar Khan, a relative of the Mir of Hunza, were loaned to the Maharaja at Gilgit. But as soon as Maharaja Hari Singh acceded to India on October 26, 1947, Maj. Brown imprisoned Brig. Ghansara Singh, and informed his erstwhile British political agent, Lt. Col. Roger Bacon, who was then at Peshawar, of the accession of Gilgit to Pakistan. The conspiracy saw Maj. Brown on November 2 officially raising the Pakistani flag at his headquarters, and claimed he and Mathieson had opted for service with Pakistan when the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of India.

Earlier, Mainprice had arrived in Srinagar on June 13, 1948. He stayed for some time at Nedous Hotel, then moved into a houseboat. From the beginning, his activities came under the notice of the police. He visited Bandipur, Baramulla and Sopore in the beginning, and then at Baramulla tried to take some photographs and came under the Armys notice. He was eventually stopped from doing so. He came into very close contact with Dr Edmunds, principal of the local missionary high school, who was incidentally known for his pro-Pakistan sympathies.

Remember this was an extremely fluid and dangerous time. He accompanied him to Mahadev on a trekking expedition. During his stay in Srinagar, he had a close association with Capt. Annette and other Europeans, who were also seemingly pro-Pakistan. He tried to establish contact with local people and was observed trying to get information from them on military movements and the working of the government. It seemed his purpose of staying on in Srinagar was to wait for United Nations Kashmir Commission to arrive and to supply them with data. During the commissions stay in Srinagar, he first tried to approach the commission, in which he did not succeed, but then contacted Mr Symonds, secretary to the commission, and also he tried through his other European friends to influence the commission through Mr Symonds in favour of the states accession to Pakistan.

When his activities got absolutely objectionable, the government was forced to pass an order against him under the Defence Rules to leave the state, but he refused to obey it, calling it a ridiculous and scandalous order. However, under the Defence Rules, the DIG, Kashmir Range, was deputed to inform him he would have to leave the state, and if he refused to do so he would be forced to leave and put on the aircraft. When the DIG reached his houseboat, he was found to be absent and closeted with Capt. Annette in the latters boat. He was sent for by the DIG and told he had to leave that day, as the time limit given to him was about to expire. To this he replied that he was not going. The DIG told him the order would have to be carried out and he would have to leave.

At this Mainprice got excited and made a sudden assault on the DIG, knocking off his hat and spectacles, and tried to grapple with other police officers. However, he was overpowered and driven to the airport, where he was put on a plane bound for Delhi. After he left, a magistrate was asked to make an inventory of all his belongings, so that these could be handed over to Capt. Annette, in accordance with Mainprices wishes. While making this inventory, some papers were found that indicated Mainprice had been busy writing a note on the happenings in Jammu in a very exaggerated manner, and also a note on the history of Kashmir, including Gilgit; possibly for the benefit of the commission on how the state actually came under Dogra rule.

He also seemed to be trying to compile a census of the population of different communities in various districts of the state. He was busy telling people that he was private secretary to Sir Walter Monckton, constitutional adviser to His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad (one of those opposed to the unification of India and the merger of the princely states with the two dominions). He was also expressing a desire to be closely associated with the UN commission on Kashmir to give them all the information he had collected.

Further, it was discovered he had some links with a certain Anglo-Indian officer of the Royal Indian Air Force, and through him had managed to take some aerial photographs of the state of J&K. It was thus obvious how Mainprice, like so many other assorted characters who were floating around after the British had officially handed over India to Indians, continued to obfuscate and frustrate us.
One million miles from Earth, a NASA camera is capturing unexpected flashes of light reflecting off our planet. The homeward-facing instrument on NOAAs Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, launched in 2015, caught hundreds of these flashes over the span of a year. As keen observers from outside NASA wrote in, questioning the source of these lights, scientists deciphered the tiny cause to the big reflections: high-altitude, horizontally oriented ice crystals.

NASAs Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) instrument aboard DSCOVR is taking almost-hourly images of the sunlit planet from its spot between Earth and the sun. Alexander Marshak, DSCOVR deputy project scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, first noticed light flashes occasionally appearing over oceans as he looked through that days EPIC images.

Investigating the flashes, Marshak and his colleagues found that similar reflections from our pale blue dot caught the attention of astronomer Carl Sagan in 1993. Sagan was looking at images taken by the Galileo spacecraft, which launched in 1989 to study Jupiter and its moons. During one if its gravitational-assist swings around Earth, Galileo turned its instruments on this planet and collected data. Sagan and his colleagues used that to test a key question: Whether spacecraft could detect signatures of life from afar.

Large expanses of blue ocean and apparent coastlines are present, and close examination of the images shows a region of [mirror-like] reflection in ocean but not on land, they wrote of the glints [[link to: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v365/n6448/abs/365715a0.html ]].

Flashes of light reflected off oceans  like those referenced by Sagan  could have a simple explanation, Marshak said: Sunlight hits a smooth part of an ocean or lake, and reflects directly back to the sensor, like taking a flash-picture in a mirror.

But when the scientists took another took a look at the Galileo images, they saw something Sagan and his colleagues apparently missed -- bright flashes of light over land as well. And those flashes appeared in the EPIC images as well. As the contact listed on the website that posts all EPIC images, Marshak started getting emails from people curious about what the flashes were.

We found quite a few very bright flashes over land as well, he said. When I first saw it I thought maybe there was some water there, or a lake the sun reflects off of. But the glint is pretty big, so it wasnt that.

Instead, he and his colleagues Tamas Varnai of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Alexander Kostinski of Michigan Technological University, thought of water elsewhere in the Earth system: ice particles high in the atmosphere. The scientists conducted a series of experiments, detailed in a new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, to confirm the cause of the distant flashes.

First, the researchers cataloged all of the prospective sunlight glints over land in images from the EPIC camera. The flashes show up in three distinct colors because the camera takes the red, green and blue images several minutes apart. In all, the scientists found 866 bursts between DSCOVRs launch in June 2015 and August 2016.

The scientists reasoned that if these 866 flashes were caused by reflected sunlight, they would be limited to certain spots on the globe  spots where the angle between the sun and Earth is the same as the angle between the spacecraft and Earth, allowing for the spacecraft to pick up the reflected light. When they plotted the locations of the glints with where those angles would match, given Earths tilt and the spacecrafts location, the two matched.

This helped confirm that it wasnt something like lightning causing the flashes, Marshak said: Lightning doesnt care about the sun and EPICs location. The researchers also plotted angles to determine that the light was reflecting off of ice particles floating in the air nearly horizontally.

Another feature of the EPIC data helped confirm that the flashes were from a high altitude, not simply water on the ground. Two channels on the instrument are designed to measure the height of clouds, and when the scientists went to the data they found high cirrus clouds, 3 to 5 miles (5 to 8 kilometers) where the glints were located.

The source of the flashes is definitely not on the ground. Its definitely ice, and most likely solar reflection off of horizontally oriented particles, Marshak said.

Detecting glints like this from much farther away than in this case could be used by other spacecraft to study exoplanets, he said. As an Earth scientist, however, Marshak is now investigating how common these horizontal ice particles are, and whether theyre common enough to have a measurable impact on how much sunlight passes through the atmosphere. If so, its a feature that could be incorporated into computer models of how much heat is reaching and leaving Earth.

The DSCOVR mission is a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, with the primary objective to maintain the nations real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.

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A New Hampshire man who was injured in a house explosion is thanking "Siri" for saving his life.

Christopher Beaucher says he was checking on his mother's vacant cottage in Wilmot on May 1 when he saw something suspicious and went inside.

He tells WMUR-TV when he switched on a light, the house exploded into flames.

Beaucher's face and hands were badly burned. He grabbed his cellphone, but was unable to dial due to his injuries. He says he somehow asked his iPhone 's voice-controlled virtual assistant Siri to call 911, believing he was going into shock.

Beaucher is still undergoing treatment for his injuries, but says he hopes to return to his job as a cook and tend to his farm.

Authorities are still investigating the explosion.

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President Donald Trump welcomes UAE's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP)

Washington: President Donald Trump is meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi at the White House.

The president welcomed Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday for their first face-to-face meeting since Trump took office.

Sitting alongside one another in the Oval Office, Trump called Sheikh Mohammed a "very special person" who loves his country and loves the US.

Sheikh Mohammed's visit comes days before Trump travels to fellow Arab Gulf nation, Saudi Arabia, in the first leg of his four-country foreign trip.

The two leaders are expected to discuss the civil war in Syria, Iran and other topics.
Washington: The Trump administration is accusing the Syrian government carrying out mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burning the dead bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital.

The State Department says about 50 detainees a day are being hanged at Saydnaya (Said-nay-ah) military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus. It says the crematorium is being used to hide evidence of the extent of the killings.

The department is releasing newly declassified photographs showing what it says is a building in the prison complex that has been modified to support the crematorium.

In presenting the photographs, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Stu Jones, said Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government "has sunk to a new level of depravity" with the support of Russia and Iran.

Meanwhile, Syrian government called US claims as are unfounded and disconnected from reality. "These allegations are totally unfounded, they are nothing but the product of the imagination of this administration and its agents," state news agency SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

"Successive US administrations have repeatedly fabricated lies and allegations to justify their aggressive and interventionist policies in other sovereign countries," the ministry said.
Indias Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Tanmaya Lal participated in a UN Security Council (UNSC) debate on sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism on Monday. (Photo: Twitter)

United Nations: India has asserted in the UN that prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence against women and children in conflict is essential as it underscored the need to increase the involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution.

"Despite the increased focus on the Women Peace and Security agenda, along with the evolving normative framework during the last decade and a half, women and girls continue to be major victims despite being non-combatants, Indias Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Tanmaya Lal said here.

Participating in a UN Security Council (UNSC) debate on sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism on Monday, Lal said the heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated by terror networks such as ISIS in west Asia, Boko Haram in parts of west Africa and AI Shabaab in east Africa, especially against women and girl children, are stark reminders of the serious challenges that need to be overcome by the international community.

"We also agree that there is a need to increase and institutionalise the involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution. This requires not only normative advice but capacity building and institution building at the ground level," he said, adding that the issue of women peace and security cannot be seen in isolation from the wider societal context involving gender and development issues.

He stressed that "prosecution is essential for prevention" and the international community has an important role in helping build adequate resources and capacities in this regard.

India recently contributed to the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Special Court was among the landmark tribunals that also tried and convicted persons for crimes that included the use of child soldiers and forced marriages.

India, which has been the lead troop contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, had in 2007 deployed the first ever all-women formed police unit for peacekeeping with the UN Mission in Liberia.

In keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modis commitment to higher representation of Indian female peacekeepers in police units to UN peacekeeping missions, Lal added that India is committed to fulfilling the pledge to have 15 per cent of military observers as women by the end of this year.

India has also committed to provide another all-female formed police unit. Lal informed the Council that India took the lead in hosting specialised training courses for peacekeepers on sexual violence in armed conflict situations that have focused on the role of women in the context of post conflict situations.

Last month, India hosted the third such specialised course, for female military officers, was organized by the Centre for UN Peacekeeping in New Delhi in partnership with UN Women. Over 40 women officers from nearly 30 countries attended the course.

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said at the UNSC meeting that sexual violence in conflict is no longer seen as merely a women's issue or as a "lesser evil" in a false hierarchy of human rights violations.

"Instead, it is rightly viewed as legitimate threat to security and durable peace that requires an operational security and justice response, in addition to ensuring multi-dimensional services for survivors of such crimes," Mohammed added.

She said that a robust legislative framework is now in place, including a series of precise Security Council resolutions with new tools to drive change and progress.

As for accountability at the international and national level, "there is a gradual shift from a reality in which it is cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in conflict, to one where there are consequences for anyone who commits, commands or condones such crimes, the deputy UN chief said.
A firefighter stands looks over the scene after a jet crashed into a building near Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, New Jersey. (Photo: AP)

New Jersey: A small plane on Monday crashed on approach near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey killing two pilots and sparking fires at two buildings that could be seen from New York, said by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local police.

The FAA said the Learjet 35 departed Philadelphia and went down at 3:30 p.m. local time about a quarter mile from the airport in a residential area in northern New Jersey on approach to Runway One.

Carlstadt Police Sergeant John Cleary told reporters the plane hit one building in an industrial or manufacturing area, skidded across a parking lot and broke apart. The flaming debris then set a second building on fire, he said.

"The plane was seen listing to its left side so obviously there was some sort of malfunction," Cleary said.

Carlstadt Police Department Sergeant Scott Jordan said two pilots had been killed in the crash.

No passengers were aboard the flight and Jordan had no information on the status of anyone on the ground. The area around the fire scene was crowded with police and rescue equipment as smoke poured from a building still on fire. Some vehicles were also damaged on the ground at the crash site.

The FAA did not release information about the status of anyone aboard the aircraft. The FAA said it is sending a team to the site to help the people and for further information.

Teterboro Airport said in a statement it "has been closed and flight operations ceased following the crash of a Learjet on final approach to the airport."

Flight data compiled by Flightaware, a website that tracks plane movements, said the Learjet 35 had started the day at Teterboro and flown to Massachusetts before flying to Philadelphia.

The National Weather Service said strong winds had been reported in the area.
Deepak Mittal, joint secretary of India's Ministry of External Affairs, left, greets Pakistan's Syed Faraz Hussain Zaidi as they wait for judges to enter the World Court. (Photo: AP)

Washington: The US urged India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue to reduce tension as they faced-off at the International Court of Justice over the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav.

"We believe India and Pakistan stand to benefit from practical cooperation," a State Department spokesperson said.

When asked about the US' stand on the case of Jadhav, a former Indian Navy man who is facing the death penalty in Pakistan, the official said, "We encourage India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue aimed at reducing tension." Jadhav, arrested in March last year, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and subversive activities. His sentencing has become the latest flashpoint in the India-Pakistan ties.

Pakistan has denied India consular access to Jadhav 16 times, claiming he was an agent of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

His execution was stayed last week by the ICJ, which on Monday heard arguments presented by both the sides.

India has petitioned the ICJ, urging it immediately suspend Jadhav's death sentence, expressing fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at ICJ.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by repeatedly denying it consular access to Mr Jadhav. India, in its appeal, has asserted that Mr Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing business after he retired from the Indian Navy.

India has denied that he has any connection with the government.
Damascus: More than 1,000 insurgents and their families left an opposition-held district of Damascus on Monday, completing an agreement between the Syrian government and rebels, said Syrian state media outlets and a war monitoring group.

Well over 3,000 people have left Qaboun in two days of evacuations, paving the way for the government to regain control of the area, said by Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.They headed for areas still under opposition control east of the Syrian capital, or for the northwestern province of Idlib, also held by insurgents, it said.

Syria's military released a statement saying it had "returned peace and security to the Qaboun area" after killing many insurgents and blowing up tunnels they had used for supplies.

"This strengthened the perimeter of security around Damascus and chokes the terrorist groups" to the east, it said, referring to rebels.

Damascus has done a number of similar deals in recent months with the Syrian opposition, supported in some cases by Syria's ally Iran and Qatar, which backs the rebels. The government sees the deals as an alternative to failing peace talks.

The opposition says the agreements amount to forced displacement of President Bashar al-Assad's opponents from areas around the capital, and are often reached after months or years of siege by government forces and their allies.

The United Nations has criticised both the use of siege tactics which precede such deals and the evacuations themselves as amounting to forcible displacement.

State TV quoted the Damascus provincial governor as saying that Qaboun "is empty of militants". It said army engineering teams had entered the district, on the city's northeastern edge, to begin clearing it of mines and unexploded ordnance.

On Monday, the Observatory said 1,300 rebel fighters and their families had left. On Sunday, more than 2,000 rebels and their family members left Qaboun, said state media.

Also, several hundred fighters had decided to stay in the district under the agreement as government forces took control.

Many residents and some rebels have chosen to stay, preferring not to move to Idlib, areas of which are frequently targeted by air strikes.
To make things uglier, the North could hit the South with chemical or biological warheads. (Photo: AP)

Tokyo: The scenario has become pretty familiar by now. Sometime in the early morning, a missile roars off its launcher in North Korea and flies off to a splash zone somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. But what if Pyongyang wasnt just testing its hardware or drilling its troops. How long would it take to hit its real world, primary targets.

Below, two experts talk to The Associated Press about what would happen if North Korea fired at targets near and far. They are David Wright, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics, an independent space technology and rocketry consulting company based in Germany.

The takeaway it would get very messy, very fast.

Seoul: From essentially zero to 6 minutes

Well before North Korea had a nuclear program, it realized it could hold the 10 million people of greater Seoul, the capital of South Korea, hostage with the threat of a massive, conventional artillery strike from its dug in gun batteries concentrated just north of the Demilitarized Zone.

If it were to launch such a strike first, the first wave of shells could land with essentially no warning. Estimates vary as to how much damage such an attack could actually wreak Pyongyang cant, as it has claimed, reduce Seoul to a sea of ashes before a pulverizing counterattack but it would be considerable. Seouls defenses are porous.

It has Patriot missile-defense batteries, but they are intended to protect against short range Scud missiles. They would not help against an artillery attack. The much talked about, state of the art THAAD missile defense system deployed in South Korea this month also cannot protect Seoul from either artillery or incoming missiles it isnt designed to do that from its current site.

To make things uglier, the North could hit the South with chemical or biological warheads.

One nuclear scenario that has been raised is an attack on the city of Busan, a major port sometimes used by the US Navy. Thats an option Pyongyang might consider if it believed it was under immediate threat of attack and wanted to make a show of overwhelming force to keep Washington from committing further.





Tokyo: 10-11 minutes

Japan also has Patriot missiles it deploys, among other places, on the grounds of its Defense Ministry in downtown Tokyo.

It helped develop with the US the ship based Aegis system, which is designed to intercept medium-range missiles and potentially intermediate range ones that means missiles with a range of less than about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

The Patriots are designed to intercept an incoming missile at its terminal stage just before it hits if the Aegis ship-based SM-3 missiles fail to intercept them farther out and higher up, at mid course.

Schiller has one strong caution at this point: It remains unknown whether Pyongyang actually has a working nuclear warhead, not just some nuclear device that goes boom in a tunnel, under laboratory conditions.

But serious questions have been raised over whether this multilayer strategy, even when augmented by the THAAD system, would be a reliable missile shield.

One problem is whether it could be overwhelmed by a swarm attack several incoming missiles at the same time.

North Korea, likely aware of that fear, simultaneously launched four medium range Scud ER missiles into the Sea of Japan in March.

Recognizing the current shields weaknesses, some Japanese ruling party lawmakers are pushing for a first strike plan of Japans own, using ballistic or cruise missiles, or F 35 stealth fighters.

San Francisco: 30-34 minutes

To be classified as an ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile the missile must have a minimum range of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles). North Korea does not at this time have such a missile, as far as the experts can tell.

The missile it launched on Sunday came close, flying for 30 minutes on a highly lofted trajectory that if flattened out would suggest a range of about 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles).

Thats good enough to get it to Guam, the key US military hub in the Pacific, in about 15 minutes. Beyond that, its capabilities are in doubt.

Schiller explains that the time it takes for an ICBM to cover its first 5,500 kilometers is usually a little more than 20 minutes. If you fire at something 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, however, he says it will still reach it in less than 30 minutes.

So while Wright suggests 33-34 minutes to San Francisco, Schiller predicts a faster trip to the West Coast saying a missile could hit Seattle (8,000 kilometers, or 5,000 miles away) and Los Angeles (9,000 kilometers, or 5,600 miles) away in under 30 minutes from launch.

But thats assuming a North Korean launch from within its own territory. To get around the distance problem, and to bolster its stealth, North Korea is already developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Experts believe it will take years for the North to have a sub-based missile it could actually use in an attack, but it successfully tested its first one named Polaris, the same name as the first U.S. missile of that kind last year.

Washington, D.C.: 30-39 minutes

New York and Washington are less than 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) away. That translates into about 30 minutes according to Schiller, or 38-39 minutes by Wrights estimate.

The United States relies in large part on its Ground-based Missile Defense system, with bases in Vandenberg Air Base in California and Fort Greely, Alaska, to intercept incoming ICBMs.

According to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which estimates that North Korea now fields hundreds of missiles that can reach US forces forward deployed to the Republic of Korea and Japan, US missile defense systems like the GMD and THAAD discourage adversaries from believing they can use ballistic missiles to coerce or intimidate the US or its allies.

But critics point out the GMD, which has cost $40 billion, had six out of its nine test intercepts fail between 2002 and 2016. They claim the strategy has no credible plan for defeating countermeasures such as decoys.

In its current form, strategic missile defense is a waste of resources at best and dangerous at worst, the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a report published last year. It is not a reliable defense under real-world conditions; by promoting it as a solution to nuclear conflict, US officials complicate diplomatic efforts abroad, and perpetuate a false sense of security that could harm the US public.

Wright said that aside from stopping an incoming missile, another big question is what would or should a US president do in response.

The timelines are short, he said. Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike.

What if the president does decide to hit back hard?

Land-based ICBMs could be in the air within five minutes. Submarine-based missiles in 15.

And once launched, they cant be recalled.
London: The Italian Supreme Court has ruled against a Sikh who wanted to carry a kirpan in public and said that migrants in the Western world must conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in.

The Italian High Cassation Court on Monday ruled against the Sikh Indian migrant who wanted to carry a kirpan, a dagger considered sacred in Sikhism, even as it was against the Italian law, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The court said migrants who choose to live in the Western world have an obligation to conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in, even if its values differ from their own.

"An attachment to one's own values, even if they are lawful in the country of origin, is intolerable when it causes violating the laws of the host country," the court said.

"The multi ethnic society is a necessity, but it can't lead to the formation of conflicting cultural groups of islands according to the ethnicities they're made up of, precluding the unity of the cultural and judicial fabric of our country, which identifies public safety as an asset to defend and as such bans carrying weapons and objects aimed at injury," the court said.

The Sikh man, who has not been named, was appealing against another court's decision ordering him to pay a 2,000 euros in fine because he had been caught leaving his home in Goito, northern Italy, armed with a knife measuring nearly 20 cm, BBC reported, citing local media.
The Hague: Reflecting the chill in Indo-Pak ties, a curt namaskar was all that a senior Indian diplomat had to offer to an extended hand of a member of the Pakistani delegation at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), hearing the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

Ahead of the hearing on Monday, Deepak Mittal, who is the head of the Pakistan division in the external affairs ministry and is representing India in the retired Navy officer's case at the ICJ, ignored the handshake gesture by Syed Faraz Hussain Zaidi, Councellor of the Pakistan Embassy in the Netherlands as Adviser, and offered a 'namaskar' instead.

Interestingly, Mittal shook hands with some of the Pakistan delegation members, including the Pakistani attorney general, the main lawyer in the case from the Pakistan government.

Last week also, frosty Indo-Pak relations were on full display when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was on the dais with his Pakistani counterpart at an event in Japan.

There is increasing strain in Indo-Pak ties in the aftermath of the Jadhav episode and the beheading of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan Army.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty handed down to Jadhav by a Pakistan military court, alleging violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. On May 9, the highest court in the UN gave Jadhav a lease of life.

India, in its appeal to the ICJ, had asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business activities after retiring from the Indian Navy. India has denied that he has any connection with the government.

Fight for justice

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) begins hearing over the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by Pakistan on charges of being an Indian spy.

Pak on Monday said that Jadhavs execution was not imminent, saying that a time frame of 150 days is provided for seeking clemency and in case even if it started on April 10, 2017, the date of his conviction, the period could extend to well beyond Aug 2017.

May 9: The ICJ puts a stay on the death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav after an appeal from India

May 8: India moved a petition in the UN seeking justice for Jadhav after being denied 16 consular accesses, alleging violation of the Vienna Convention

April 26: Pak denies 16th request for consular access to Jadhav

April 10: Pakistan Armys Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a press release informed that Jadhav had been awarded the death sentence by a military court in Pakistan.

January 6: Pakistan announced that it has submitted a dossier to the UN secretary general over Indian interference in Islamabad

Dec 7, 2016: Pak minister Sartaj Aziz says conclusive proof against Kulbhushan has not found.
Prosecutor Victoria Rose said Galloway had accepted that he urged his partner to carry out the sexual acts on the animals. (Photo: Pixabay/Representational)

London: A man in the United Kingdom has been jailed for a year for encouraging his girlfriend to have sex with three dogs at a bestiality party.

According to a report in Daily Mail, 65-year-old Daniel Galloway has also been found guilty of keeping more than 12,000 indecent images of children and distributing them, and possessing several extreme and prohibited images.

When the police questioned Bowditch, she admitted to having sex with a St Bernard, a black Labrador and an Alsatian. She was given a 12-month community service order in April 2017.

Galloways sentence was adjourned after the discovery of the images. Police found evidence of the party where owners watched their dogs have sex with women.

They also found a DVD and USB stick at the Lincolnshire home where Bowditch and Galloway lived along with details of the event posted on an online bestiality forum. The incident took place between November 2011 and November 2014.

Prosecutor Victoria Rose said Galloway had accepted that he urged his partner to carry out the sexual acts on the animals.

Galloway will have to register as a sex offender for ten years. He has also been made a subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Kabul: Afghan security forces have regained control of a district centre close to the northern city of Kunduz that fell to Taliban insurgents earlier this month, officials said on Tuesday.

A statement from the interior ministry said security forces had launched their operation to retake Qala-i-Zal, a district to the north-west of Kunduz, on Tuesday morning and had secured the district governor's office, police headquarters and other areas.

"Right now, a massive operation in insecure areas of Qala-i-Zal is ongoing," it said. "Afghan security forces will not let Taliban insurgents rule our people in any part of the country."

The defence ministry said one insurgent had been killed in the operation. There was no word on any casualties among security forces.

Taliban fighters seized Qala-i-Zal, on the border with Tajikistan, on May 6 as they stepped up pressure on Kunduz at the start of their annual spring offensive.

Fighting has been going on all around Kunduz, with security forces struggling to open the main highway into the city after it was blocked with mines and improvised roadside bombs.

Although the city centre itself is in government hands, the Taliban control most of the surrounding districts and thousands of residents are reported to have fled their homes to avoid the fighting.

Kunduz has been one of the Taliban's main targets ever since international troops largely ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014. Over the past two years, the insurgents have twice managed to seize the city centre for brief periods before being driven off after days of fighting and air strikes.

According to US estimates, the government controls only about 60 percent of the country with the rest either under Taliban control or contested by the insurgents.
Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said all countries should respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as he inaugurated the high profile Belt and Road forum boycotted by India due to concerns relating to a controversial economic corridor traversing through PoK.

In his opening address outlining China's vision, 63-year-old Xi referred to ancient Silk Road and spoke about significance of various civilisations, including the "Indus and Ganges civilisations".

Without referring to India's objections to the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor (CPEC), Xi said, "all countries should respect each other's sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each other's development paths andsocial systems, and each other's core interests and major concerns.?

India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion CPEC, which goes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). However, a few Indian scholars attended the opening session of the two-day "Belt and Road" conference in Beijing that brought together leaders from 29 countries.

Xi said the Belt and Road initiative is "a project of the century" that will benefit people across the world.

Denying any attempts to form a "small group" of nations taking part in the Belt and Road initiative of which CPEC is a part, Xi said China plans to build it as a road to peace and link his country to much of Asia, Europe and Africa.

"Pursuing the B and Road initiative, China has no intention to form a small group detrimental to stability," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The B and Road initiative should be built into a road for peace, as the pursuit of the initiative requires a peaceful and stable environment, Xi told the forum attended by 29 heads of state and government besides representatives of over 100 countries and international organisations.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickramasinge, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were among world leaders who attended the high-profile meeting.

The United States sent a delegation led by Matt Pottinger, special assistant to the president and senior director for Asia at the National Security Council.

Other delegates include officials, entrepreneurs and financiers from over 130 countries, and representatives of key international organisations such as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, and International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde.

"The ancient silk routes thrived in times of peace, but lost vigour in times of war. The pursuit of the Belt and Road initiative requires a peaceful and stable environment," Xi said.

"We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation; and we should forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance," he said.

Xi announced China would contribute an additional USD 14.5 billion to the Silk Road Fund, which was set up in 2014 to finance infrastructure projects, taking it to USD 55 billion and USD 8.75 billion financial assistance to the countries taking part in his Belt and Road initiative aimed at expanding China's influence and global connectivity.

In his speech, Xi said Belt and Road initiative focuses on the Asian, European and African countries, but is also open to all other countries.

He said China will provide assistance worth 60 billion yuan (USD 8.7 billion) to developing nations and international organizations participating in the Belt and Road initiative to launch more projects to improve people's well-being.

China will set up 50 joint laboratories with countries participating in the Belt and Road initiative to enhance cooperation on innovation, he said.

Also China will encourage financial institutions to conduct overseas RMB fund business with an estimated amount of 300 billion yuan (about USD 43.5 billion), Xi said.

Named after the historic Silk Road, the Belt and Road initiative was proposed by Xi in 2013 to chart out new territories for international cooperation.

"Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes embody the spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit," Xi told an audience of more than 1,500 from across the globe.

"The Silk Road spirit has become a great heritage of human civilization," he said.

The B&R includes a maze of roads and port projects. While CPEC is highlighted as "flagship project", the B&R included Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, New Eurasian Land Bridge, China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and 21st century Maritime Silk Road.
Peshawar: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari has said China is well aware of the level of corruption in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

"We have no hopes from this government, it is incompetent," Geo News quoted Zardari, as saying.

Taking a jibe at PTI chief Imran Khan, Zardari said he is afraid of going to jail and addresses rallies from his drawing room. He said that the PPP's efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas has enabled everyone to carry out political activities in the region.

Zardari said his party wants a merger of FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so that it does not become a slave to a governor or the president. Zardari said he has many projects in mind for the region and promised to make FATA tax-free.

He maintained that the PPP would not forge an alliance with any political party for the upcoming general election.
Jamil added that he would knock on the doors of all courts to get justice for his pet. (FIle Photo)

Lahore: In a peculiar punishment, a dog was on Tuesday sentenced to death in Pakistan's Punjab province for biting a child.

The dog, which bit a child, was sentenced to death by Assistant Commissioner Raja Saleem in Bhakkar's Kalor vicinity in Punjab province, Geo TV reported.

Assistant Commissioner Saleem said that the sentence was announced on humanitarian grounds. "The dog injured the child hence it should be killed," Saleem ruled.

An official was also instructed to check the dog's registration, he said, stating that a case against the dog's owner is in progress in a civil court.

The dog's owner filed an appeal with the Additional Deputy Commissioner against the peculiar punishment.

"The affected child's family registered a case against my dog, following which it completed a one-week prison sentence.

Any further punishment for it would be unfair," the channel quoted the dog's owner Jamil as saying.

Jamil added that he would knock on the doors of all courts to get justice for his pet.
Islamabad: Fourteen crew members of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight were detained at London's Heathrow Airport and later let off after the aircraft was thoroughly searched for over two hours post-landing.

The Dawn and the Express Tribune newspapers quoted PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar, as saying that Flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London arrived at Heathrow Airport at 2.50 p.m. on Monday, and after passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by authorities.

It is yet not known why the crew was detained. Tajwar said nothing was found on the plane, adding that the PIA plans to take up the case with the British aviation authorities.
Global cyber chaos is spreading as companies boot up computers at work following the weekend's worldwide ransomware cyberattack. (Photo: AP)

Shanghai: Chinese authorities have said 66 of the country's universities were affected by the global ransomware attack, but have rejected reports of widespread damage in higher-education computer systems as "malicious" hype.

The China Education and Research Network, which operates under the Ministry of Education, said 66 out of 1,600 Chinese universities were affected, mainly due to operating systems not being regularly upgraded rather than any major security shortcomings in university systems.

The statement issued late Monday was perhaps the most detailed comment yet on the cyberattacks by Chinese authorities, who have said little about the contagion since it erupted on Friday even as reports emerged of widespread infection in China.

Qihoo 360, one of China's leading suppliers of anti-virus software, had said Sunday that at least 29,372 institutions ranging from government offices to ATMs and hospitals had been "infected", singling out universities as particularly hard-hit.

But the China Education and Research Network pushed back against such claims.

"These inaccurate statements have seriously misled public opinion, caused panic among teachers and students, and affected the normal order of instruction and life," it said, giving no further details.

Beijing University and Tsinghua University, two of the country's premier institutions located in the capital, have issued statements saying quick security action prevented "large-scale" infection on their campuses, without giving details. Major universities in Shanghai said on Monday they were not affected.

The indiscriminate attack began Friday and struck banks, hospitals and government agencies worldwide, exploiting vulnerabilities in older Microsoft operating systems. But it appeared to have peaked over the weekend.

Security researchers on Monday said it bore the technical hallmarks of North Korean hacking, though the evidence remained inconclusive.

The muted public response by China could be linked to the sensitive fact that use of pirated computer software is rampant in the country, a sore point with trading partners like the United States who have complained for years of Chinese counterfeiting.

Security experts say pirated software is particularly vulnerable to security threats, but so far no evidence has emerged indicating whether that played any role in the virus's spread in China.

Chinese state media quoted the official Cyberspace Administration of China as saying the ransomware's spread had slowed significantly in China by Monday.

It had urged computer users to install and upgrade security software, but otherwise said little about the cyberattacks.

Among major Chinese entities affected, state-owned oil giant PetroChina has said its payment networks at petrol stations across the country were disabled for about 12 hours over the weekend.
Beijing: Sri Lanka, which attended the just concluded Belt and Road Forum here, has backed India's concern over the Kashmir issue, saying it is difficult for New Delhi to accept the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it goes through the "heart of Indian interests".

India, which skipped the high-profile meeting, would have joined "very happily" in the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative of China, said Sarath Amanugama, Sri Lankas Minister on Special Assignment.

"Unfortunately, the issue is going through the heart of Indian interests. If it is some uncontested region, India would have negotiated its way out. Here especially the Kashmir issue getting dragged into it, makes it difficult for India to be flexible, Amanugama, who accompanied Lankan Prime Minister Wickramasinghe to the two-day forum said.

He said India, China and Sri Lanka were very much part of the ancient Silk Road route as the Chinese Buddhist scholars like Faxian visited both India and Sri Lanka leading to big discoveries of Buddhist relics in the island nation.

"(Chinese) President Xi Jinping has emphasised connectivity. These countries were connected many centuries ago. This will link up these countries on certain rational basis. Once the regional problems are resolved, then India has to play big role in the initiative," he said, adding that India anyway has to play big role "because you cannot think of a belt and road without going over and close to India."

India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion CPEC, which goes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The two-day conference in Beijing brought together leaders from 29 countries.

Besides Wickramasinghe, the summit was attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and several other leaders, heads of UN, World Bank and IMF.

Wickaramasinghe, who arrived here a day after he hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Sri Lanka, had a low-key presence at the high-profile summit.

While Sharif and many other leaders spoke at the inaugural ceremony, the Sri Lankan leader reportedly took part in the discussions in the roundtable meeting on Monday.

Amunagama said that Sri Lanka will not permit any foreign military operations in its port by any country including China, in an effort to reassure India's security concerns over Chinese military activity.

Confirming reports that recent Chinese requests for docking of its submarines was declined, he said, "We denied the permission."

"Lanka's position is that our harbours and ports are for commercial operations. All other countries have no strategic interests. We are equidistant from everyone," he said.

Earlier, the problem came because a Chinese submarine was allowed to be docked in Colombo harbour by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2014 which sparked protests from India.

"China, India, US and all other countries, they cannot come into our territorial waters without the consent of the Sri Lankan government," Amanugama said.

Even the Hambantota harbour which Sri Lanka plans to hand over to China under debt equity scheme will function under Sri Lankan Port Authority (SLPA).

He said in the agreement currently being finalised to give 80 per cent stake for Chinese shipping company, it will be allowed to operate inside the harbour but all the outside operations will be carried out SLPA.

The harbour master who permits the ship movement in the harbour will be an SAPA employee, he said. Allaying India's concerns, he said Sri Lanka is taking assistance from the Indian Navy to maintain maritime security including tracking submarines.

India is also providing patrol boats, he said. About Hambantota port, he said, it is entirely a commercial operation. "It was constructed with Chinese assistance costing about USD 1.4 billion. It was established during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa," he said.

"But we had an extended debt. Sri Lanka is facing a problem of debt repayment," he said, defending Sri Lanka opting for debt swap for harbour.

Sri Lanka has an estimated debt of USD eight billion to China. The loans were taken for different mega projects.

"So last year we raised it with Premier Li Keqiang. At first we asked for a debt relief, either to write it off or to reschedule payment. But the Premier said it is not possible because they have lent money to several other countries. We cannot write it off to create precedent," he said.

"But suggested why dont you convert into equity by forming a joint venture company. It will be registered in Sri Lanka and will be Sri Lankan company. Chinese side will convert that into equity. Sri Lanka doesnt have to repay," he said, adding that it was a "win win situation.
Top lawyer Harish Salve has charged only Rs 1 as his fee to fight India's case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the death penalty given to the former Navy officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a Pakistani military court.



This was disclosed by the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj late on Monday night, responding to a twitter comment in which one Sanjeev Goyal stated that it would have been cheaper for the government, had it hired some other lawyer.



Not fair. Harish Salve has charged us Rs 1 as his fee for this case, Swaraj tweeted.



The veteran lawyer argued for close to 90 minutes at the at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the ICJ, on Monday. Salve was requested by the government to argue the case because of his expertise in international affairs.



India and Pakistan presented their cases. The Court will now begin its deliberations, says a statement from the International Court of Justice.



While India made three specific requests to the court including cancellation of the execution of Jadhav Pakistan's single-point submission was to reject the Indian requests.



On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying consular access to Jadhav 16 times.



While Pakistan maintained Jadhav was an Indian spy, India asserted that he was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing business after he retired from the Indian Navy.



The two neighbours are fighting a legal battle at the ICJ after 18 years.
President Donald Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov when the latter met him at the White House last week, The Washington Post has alleged.



The news report was immediately refuted by both the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the National Security Advisor, who said that there was no discussion of specific threats with the Russians.



"This is code-word information," an unnamed US official familiar with the matter, was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.



Code-word information is a terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies, the daily reported.



Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," the newspaper said, adding that following this, US officials have gone into damage control mode.



According to the daily, the sensitive classified information was given to the US by one of its allies, which had not given it permission to share this with the Russians.



However, the Trump Administration denied the allegations.



"During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism.



During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations," Tillerson said.



"The President and the (Russian) foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation," said HR McMaster, the National Security Adviser, who participated in the meeting.



"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly," McMaster said.



"This story is false. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," said Dina Powell, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, who also attended the meeting.



But The Washington Post said the information the President relayed had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government, officials said.



Talking to reporters, McMaster described the story as false.



"The President and the Foreign Minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation.



"At no time, at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known," McMaster said.



"Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen. Thanks, everybody," McMaster said without taking any questions.



In a statement, the Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said if news reports are true, Trump has "compromised a key source of intelligence collection" against ISIS and jeopardised the security of the American people.



"Even if President Trump unwittingly blew a highly classified code-word source to the Russians, that would be dangerous enough.



"If the President outed a highly classified code-word source intentionally, that would be even more dangerous," Pelosi said.



She demanded that Congress must be given a full briefing on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.
The CBI today carried out searches at several places linked to former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.



Official sources in Delhi said the searches are spread across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Gurugram.

The raids are taking place at the Nungambakkam residence of P Chidambaram in Chennai, a senior police official said in Chennai.



The agency yesterday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media, run by its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea, in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.



The agency registered the case against INX Media through its director Indrani, Peter, Karti, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.



It has levelled the charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification by corrupt or illegal means, to influence public servant and criminal misconduct.



Reacting to the raids, the former finance minister alleged that the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son.



He said FIPB approval was granted in "hundreds of cases."



"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends...The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations," the senior Congress leader said in a statement in Chennai.



"All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," he said.



The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials, he said, adding there was no allegation against any of them.



"There is no allegation against me," he added.



Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP comprising five secretaries to Government of India, he maintained.



The CBI has alleged that Karti used his influence in the Finance Ministry to help the company scuttlethe probe against it.



INX Media had sought the FIPB clearance on March 13, 2007 for permission to issue, by way of preferential allotment upto 14.98 equity shares to three non-resident entities--Dunearn, NSR PE and New Veron Pvt Equity Ltd.



The company sought this approval for engaging in the business of creating, operating managing, and broadcasting bouquet of TV channels.



The FIPB unit, while sending the brief of the proposal which was to be put to the FIP board for its meeting scheduled on May 18, 2007 had clearly mentioned that Foreign Direct Investment of Rs 4.62 crore proposed issue at the face value could be allowed and for investment in INX News a separate FIPB approval would be required.



The board recommended the proposal of INX Media for consideration of the Finance Minister but not that of INX News.



The recommendations were cleared by the then Finance Minister, the FIR alleged.



The company in violation of the recommendations made investment to the tune of 26 per cent in the capital of INX News which included foreign investment and generated more than Rs 305 crore of FDI in INX Media against the approved inflow of Rs 4.62 crore by issuing shares to foreign investors at a premium of more than 800 per share, it alleged.



The Investigation wing of the IT Department sought clarification from the company in 2008. The company in its response said the investment was in accordance of the recommendation.



The company "in order to wriggle out of the situation without any punitive action entered into criminal conspiracy with Karti P Chidambaram, son of P Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister or India and Promoter Director of Chess Management Services, Chennai so as to get the issues resolved and addressed amicably by influencing the public servants of the FIPB Unit of Finance Ministry by virtue of his relationship with the then Finance Minister," the FIR alleged.



It alleged that the officials by virtue of influence exercised over them by Karti, not only ignored the serious illegality on the part of INX Media on both the counts but also deliberately showed undue favours to INX Group by abusing their official position and advised the company to file for fresh clearance.



The officials of the FIPB unit ignored the request of Revenue Department to investigate the matter as to how investment was made by the company without the FIPB approval.



The company, on the advise of FIPB officials, filed fresh request which was cleared by the Finance Ministry and the Finance Minister.



"Such deceitful and fallacious proposal was favourably considered by the officials of Finance Ministry and approved by the then Finance Minister," it alleged.



The concurrence to the 'proposed investment' which had already been made without the approval of the Finance Ministry shows the malafide and dishonest intention on the part of Finance Ministry officials.



"By such partisan and malafide acts done pursuant to the criminal conspiracy with the beneficiary company and the intermediaries, the senior officials of the Finance Ministry not only granted the illegal approval but also misinformed the investigation...by Income Tax department," it alleged.



The CBI has alleged that for the services rendered by Karti through his company Chess Management Services consideration in the form of payment were received against invoice raised on INX Media by Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Limited (ASCPL), the FIR alleged.



"The source informs that the very reason for getting the invoices raised in the name of ASCPL for the services rendered by Chess Management Service Limited was with a view to conceal the identity of Karti Chidambaram...," it alleged.



The FIR filed on source information alleged that Karti was indirectly handling ASCPL.



Invoices for approximately Rs 3.5 crore were also raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which Karti was having "substantial interests" directly or indirectly, the agency alleged in the FIR.



"Such invoices were falsely raised for creation, acquisition of media content, consultancy, in respect of market research. However INX group in its record has clearly mentioned the purpose of payment of Rs 10 lakh to ASCPL as towards management consultancy charged towards FIP notification and clarification," the FIR alleged.
India has asserted in the UN that prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence against women and children in conflict is essential as it underscored the need to increase involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution.



"Despite the increased focus on the Women Peace and Security agenda, along with the evolving normative framework during the last decade and a half, women and girls continue to be major victims despite being non-combatants, Indias Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Tanmaya Lal said here.



Participating in a UN Security Council debate on sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism yesterday, Lal said the heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated by terror networks such as ISIS in west Asia, Boko Haram in parts of west Africa and AI Shabaab in east Africa, especially against women and girl children, are stark reminders of the serious challenges that need to be overcome by the international community.



"We also agree that there is a need to increase and institutionalise the involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution. This requires not only normative advice but capacity building and institution building at the ground level," he said, adding that the issue of women peace and security cannot be seen in isolation from the wider societal context involving gender and development issues.



He stressed that "prosecution is essential for prevention" and the international community has an important role in helping build adequate resources and capacities in this regard.



India recently contributed to the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone. The Special Court was among the landmark tribunals that also tried and convicted persons for crimes that included the use of child soldiers and forced marriages.



India, which has been the lead troop contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, had in 2007 deployed the first ever all-women formed police unit for peacekeeping with the UN Mission in Liberia.



In keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modis commitment to higher representation of Indian female peacekeepers in police units to UN peacekeeping missions, Lal added that India is committed to fulfilling the pledge to have 15 per cent of military observers as women by the end of this year.



India has also committed to provide another all-female formed police unit.



Lal informed the Council that India took the lead in hosting specialised training courses for peacekeepers on sexual violence in armed conflict situations that have focused on the role of women in the context of post conflict situations.



Last month, India hosted the third such specialised course for female military officers was organized by the Centre for UN Peacekeeping in New Delhi in partnership with UN Women. Over 40 women officers from nearly 30 countries attended the course.



Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said at the UNSC meeting that sexual violence in conflict is no longer seen as merely a women's issue or as a "lesser evil" in a false hierarchy of human rights violations.



"Instead, it is rightly viewed as legitimate threat to security and durable peace that requires an operational security and justice response, in addition to ensuring multi- dimensional services for survivors of such crimes," Mohammed added.



She said that a robust legislative framework is now in place, including a series of precise Security Council resolutions with new tools to drive change and progress.



As for accountability at the international and national level, "there is a gradual shift from a reality in which it is cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in conflict, to one where there are consequences for anyone who commits, commands or condones such crimes, the deputy UN chief said.


Three Indian-origin South Africans have been arrested in a massive corruption scam for allegedly selling seats to Indian students to study medicine and other health science courses at a university here.



Varsha, 44, and Hiteshkumar Bhatt, 46, owners of 'Little Gujarat' restaurant in Durban as well as co-accused Preshni Hiramun, 55, a school teacher, are facing charges.



They were a part of a syndicate allegedly selling places to study medicine and other health science courses at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where racial quotas restrict the number of places for Indian students.



The trio were later granted bail of over USD 3,000 each when they appeared in court yesterday and were charged with fraud and contravention of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

The arrest of the accused follows a sting operation by the weekly Sunday Tribune.



A reporter posing as a parent was allegedly told by Hiramun, a former teacher at a government school, that places for studying pharmacy could be secured for USD 18,987 while a place for studying to qualify as a doctor would cost twice that amount.



The three accused faced raids on their homes and businesses by members of the elite Hawks Organised Crime Unit and spent the weekend in jail.



At Hiramun's home, laptops were found hidden in a washing machine. Hawks investigator Mandla Mkhwanazi told the court that more arrests were likely as the investigation continued, with possible links to a second university in the country, but would not give details due to the sensitive nature of the probe.



For the current year of study, the medical school received 6,945 applications for just 250 available places.



In attempts to give preference to the Black students previously denied opportunities in the apartheid era, Indian- origin students need a pass mark in their final year of schooling of not less than 90 per cent, while black students need 83 per cent.



Because of this quota, many Indian parents send their children abroad to countries like India or China to study in medical fields.



University authorities have promised a no-tolerance approach of action against both staff who assisted in providing places and students who secured seats at the institution though the scam.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today told the Supreme Court that triple talaq is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years and hence the question of constitutional morality and equity did not arise.



The Muslim body also equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya.



"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said.



"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar.



He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.



The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.



Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.



Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today held extensive talks on key bilateral, regional and international issues, including the Middle East peace process.



The focus of the talks was to further deepen bilateral cooperation between India and the Palestine.



"A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.



Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and reiterated India's support to the Palestinian cause.



In the morning, Abbas was warmly welcomed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi at Rashtrapati Bhawan. He was also given a ceremonial guard of honour there.



The visit of the Palestinian President comes ahead of Modi's visit to Israel which is likely to take place in July.



Ahead of Abbas' visit, India reiterated its "political support" to the Palestinian cause and had said that it continued to assist developmental projects there. The Palestinian president arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today assured Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas of India's "unwavering support" to the Palestinian cause, saying it hopes to see a sovereign, united and an independent Palestine, co- existing peacefully with Israel.



Modi, who is scheduled to travel to Israel in July, also hoped for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution.



After extensive and wide-ranging talks between Modi and Abbas, the two sides signed five agreements.

Addressing a joint press event with Abbas, the prime minister said, "We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to President Abbas during our conversation today."



Modi also added that "India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause. India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli side to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution."



Modi's remarks come ahead of his scheduled visit to the Jewish state and assume significance in the backdrop of growing proximity between India and Israel. Modi will be the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel.



On his part, Abbas said Palestine appreciates the solidarity India extends to its cause.

"India is a friend. It has influence at the international level. India can play an important role (in the resolving Palestine Israel crisis," Abbas said.



He also said that he recently had meetings with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed possibilities of an early resolution to the long-pending dispute with a two-state solution.



Modi also noted that he and the visiting dignitary had an extensive exchange of views on West Asia and the Middle East peace process and said the challenges in West Asia should be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means.



The Palestine President also condemned terrorism in all forms.



The two sides signed agreements for visa exemptions for diplomatic passport holders, in the fields of agriculture cooperation, IT and electronics, health sector and cooperation in the field of youth affairs and sports.



"At the bilateral level, India is committed to be a useful development partner of Palestine. We would continue to support development and capacity of the Palestine. The agreements concluded today are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction," Modi said.



Referring to the technopark jointly built by India and Palestine in Ramallah, he said it will a one-stop solution to IT-related services in Palestine.



In October 2015, India has announced grant of USD 12 million for setting up the park with payment of USD 3 million each on half-yearly basis for 2 years. The Palestinian side has made the land available for the project.



Abbas said India is "ahead of all friendly countries" in helping Palestine.



Modi said the India is looking froward to enhance cultural exchanges by adding new elements including yoga.



"I have reaffirmed our coalition on this to President Abbas during our conversation today.



"President Abbas and I concluded useful and detailed discussion that will add further strength in partnership," he said. e.
A 35 year old man arrested in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan for attempting to make an Aadhaar Card by the name of slain Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden has done it out of curiosity and is found to be mentally fit, police said.



Saddam Mansuri, a Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) operator has been sent to 15 day Judicial custody by ACJM Prashant Kumar on Tuesday. Mandal Deputy Superintendent of Police Chanchal Mishra , Who's also investigating the case told DH, "Primary investigations suggest that Mansuri has no previous criminal record against him. Also we have consulted doctors who stated him mentally fit. We are preparing a charge-sheet against him".



While pleading his innocence before court Mansuri stated all the allegations baseless and claimed that someone else might have uploaded the enrollment details to get the Aadhaar card. However according to the police investigation the user identification logged in during the process was that of Mansuri.



"Our preliminary investigation suggests that Mansuri has done it out of curiosity and as of now no other motive seems to be there. We are also extracting and tracking all the names of clients he made Aadhar cards for", Chanchal added.



Interestingly the address mentioned in the Aadhaar enrollment form was that of Abbottabad, a town located in north-eastern Pakistan. Police in its primary investigation also found that Mansuri has also uploaded a pixelated picture of Osama bin Laden along with the form.



The incident came into the light after officials Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had detected it and contacted Rajasthan department of information and technology. "We informed the local police station and asked them to file FIR against him after our technical team from New Delhi found the anomalies highly suspicious and we were asked by our Jaipur Office to get in touch with the police and book him", Sanjay Aludia working at State IT Department in Bhilwara said.



On Monday Bhilwara Police arrested the accused under Section 66D (cheating by personation) of the Information Technology Act and Sections 467 and 468 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Congress today said that none of its leaders or that of the opposition would be cowed down by the politics of "revenge and vendetta" which had "become the DNA of this BJP government".



The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people.



The remarks came after government agencies searched Congress leader P Chidambaram's premises and properties allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad.



The AICC incharge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said, "The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government."



"We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta," he said.



Surjewala, instead, accused the BJP and its leaders of being corrupt as he highlighted the alleged scams involving top party leaders holding ministerial positions in this government.



"May we ask the prime minister, that if the yardstick is morality, why is he shying away from ordering an inquiry into the Sahara-Birla excel sheets in which he himself has been named repeatedly about having taken bribes," he alleged.



Surjewala also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not take action on the Rs 20,000 crore loss caused to public exchequer in Gujarat State Petroleum scam when he himself was the chief minister.



The Congress leader wondered whether the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was corruption and asked why the Modi did not take action against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan whose name allegedly cropped up in the scam.



He claimed that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj allegedly helped people like Lalit Modi who escaped from the country and were wanted by investigative agencies for alleged money laundering.



Surjewala asked who were the people who helped fugitives like Vijay Mallya escape the country.



He said the Congress leaders would continue to tell the country how one autocratic ruler cannot suppress the voice of dissent and those who disagree with them.



Surjewala claimed that the truth was out there for everybody to judge and the government, blinded by revenge, was registering false cases against opposition leaders.



Chidambaram earlier today said, "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations."


The CBI today carried out searches at the house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea here as part of investigations into a case linked to Karti Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram, over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.



The search was among the raids carried out at multiple locations across the country, including at the homes of the former finance minister and his son, CBI sources said.



A team of CBI sleuths are conducting searches at Peter's bungalow in the posh Worli area in south Mumbai, agency sources said.



Both Peter and his wife Indrani Mukerjea, founders of INX Media, are accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and are lodged in jail here.



The CBI has been conducting searches at 17 locations across the country, including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai and Chidambaram's hometown of Karaikudi, as part of a probe into the alleged criminal misconduct in approval of foreign investments in India.



The agency had yesterday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media in 2007 when Chidambaram was the finance minister.



The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Peter, Indrani, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.



Indrani was arrested in August 2015 after chilling details of the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora came to light that year. Peter was arrested and made an accused later in November 2015.



According to CBI, which investigated the murder case and filed the chargesheet, that both Peter and Indrani had siphoned off money from INX Media.
Amid the unrest in Kashmir, the RSS will hold its annual review meeting for the first time in Jammu in July, looking to send out a message to separatists that the valley is an integral part of the country.



Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP president Amit Shah and leaders from VHP will attend the three-day meeting which is scheduled from July 18-20, sources in the Sangh said.



"The time and place of meeting was decided to send out a clear message to separatists in the Kashmir valley that the region is integral part of India and the Sangh is committed to its unity," they added.



The sources also indicated that incidents of stone- pelting and the attack on CRPF jawans could come up for discussion during the meeting.



When contacted, RSS's Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh of RSS, Manmohan Vaidya confirmed the meeting.



"This is an annual review meeting of the prant parcharks (state publicity officers) to take stock of events and activities of the year gone by, and at the same time, draft out a plan of action for the coming days," Vaidya told PTI.



He said the meeting will review the summer training camps which RSS organises every year.

Vaidya said it was decided to hold the meeting in Jammu after the regional office there came forward to organise the event.



"Earlier we had a small office in Jammu but in the last few years it has been expanded. Now they have volunteered to organise this meeting. This will be the first major meeting of the Sangh in Jammu and Kashmir," he added.



Vaidya said there would be no major decisions in the meeting but various issues facing the country may be taken up for discussion.




Burger King has recently come under fire for reportedly inflating Croissan'wich prices whenever a coupon is used. Now, a Maryland woman has filed a class action lawsuit against the restaurant chain to make it pay for what she says is a scam.

Buy 1, Buy Another

Koleta Anderson is the customer behind the suit, which was filed with the US District Court in Maryland. She alleges that Burger King is purposely increasing prices for its breakfast sandwiches whenever they're purchased with a "buy one, get one free" coupon.

Anderson first grew suspicious of the BOGO offer when she was charged $3.19 for two sandwiches with the coupon. When she later bought a third Croissan'wich, she was only charged $2.16.

Anderson first grew suspicious of the BOGO offer when she was charged $3.19 before tax for two sandwiches with the coupon. When she later bought a third Croissan'wich without a coupon, she was only charged $2.16. Anderson repeated the same series of purchases at a variety of locations in Virginia and the Washington D.C. area. The same thing happened.

Is Your Burger King Doing This, Too?

Anderson's lawyer hired a private investigator to check out a location in Florida for further proof the burger chain was up to no good. Sure enough, the investigator ran into the same pattern. And since then, the Miami Herald has also tested the BOGO coupons.

SEE ALSO: These 13 Foods Aren't What You Think They Are

Spoiler alert: Things are not looking good for Burger King. The paper saw the pre-tax price of a single Sausage Croissan'wich increase from $2.99 with no BOGO coupon to $3.19 with the coupon at two separate Florida locations. That's less than the change initially observed by Anderson, but it's still not "free."

Readers, what do you think of this case? Have you ever come across a shady coupon? Let us know in the comments below!
Vodafone India today reported a 10.2 per cent decline in FY17 operating profit to Rs 11,784 crore on margin contraction primarily impacted by the competitive pressures after the entry of Reliance Jio.



In its financial performance, which comes a week after the largest telco Bharti Airtel, and the third largest operator Idea Cellular reported huge reverses in March quarter numbers, the second largest telco reported a marginal 0.6 per cent decline in revenue at Rs 43,095 crore.



The British company, which is set to be merged with Idea to create the biggest telco in the country, reported a margin contraction of nearly 3 percentage points to 27.3 per cent for the year, indicating the dent inflicted by the near- free data offering by the Reliance group company.



Vodafone's subscriber base increased 5.6 per cent to 209 million and the revenue market share increased 0.7 per cent in the nine months to December 2016, to 22.7 per cent.



The entry and the initial free offerings of Reliance Jio has severely hurt the financials of the incumbents as they seek to protect their customers from moving out.



Traditionally, the voice segment contributes a major chunk of the toplines for the older companies, but Jio is offering free voice in bundled packs focused on data.



Vodafone said data revenue grew 5 per cent during the year to Rs 8,467 crore, which is only a fifth of the overall base. Its total data users declined by 1 per cent to 66.9 million, and those consuming over 1MB declined at a faster clip of 2.9 per cent to 43.5 million.



It had a service average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 158 for the March quarter, but the ARPU on data was hit by Jio's entry and fell to Rs 140 from Rs 160.



Bharti's net income plummeted 72 per cent in the March quarter and 37.5 per cent for the fiscal, while Idea booked a loss of Rs 325 crore for March quarter and Rs 404 crore for the fiscal.



The Vodafone management expressed satisfaction at the performance in challenging times.



"Amidst an unprecedented and intensely competitive environment, we delivered a stable performance in the year," the company's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sunil Sood said.



The service revenue declined 0.5 per cent to Rs 42,956 crore for the year, of which 17 per cent came from Vodafone Business Services.



The company invested Rs 8,311 crore during the year and its net debt stood at Rs 60,200 crore as on end March.

It has 1.41 lakh total sites in the country, of which 1.06 lakh are broadband ones. The India operations, which was the growth driver for the group for many years in the past, proved to be a drag on the group's global operations, which reported a net loss of Euro 6.1 billion on a 3.7 billion euro tax impairment from India operations.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday vowed to fight the fascist and communal forces tooth and nail. In a tweet soon after the Income Tax department sleuths raided his residence in New Delhi and Gurugram, Lalu tweeted, I will not bow down. I will fight fascists till my last breath.



While no Income Tax raids took place in Patna or any of the residences of RJD chiefs family in Bihar, the official residence of Rabri Devi  10, Circular Road, where Lalu stays with his two sons (both ministers), remained out of bounds for the mediamen.



As RJD MPs, MLAs and former legislators rushed in there to express solidarity with their leader, Lalu took to social media to respond. BJP ko naya alliance partners mubarak ho. (Congrats to BJP on its new alliance partners), tweeted Lalu and continued that the BJP-backed media should also tell which are the 22 places where the Income Tax sleuths have raided my house.



Asking the media and the BJP not to jump to the conclusion over his message Congrats to BJP on its new alliance partners, the RJD leaders clarified that it does not mean BJP will get JD (U) as the new ally.



What Lalu ji meant was the BJP has got new alliance partners like Income Tax and the CBI, clarified RJD national spokesperson Manoj Jha, adding that there was no threat to the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government.



Lalus tweet came soon after BJP leader Sushil Modi alleged on Tuesday that Lalus daughter Misa Bharti, who is also a Rajya Sabha member and has been in the eye of storm over alleged land deals in Delhi, had purchased industrialist Vivek Nagpals company KHK Holding Pvt Ltd for just Rs 1 lakh. Out of 10,000 shares, Misa held 9900 shares while her husband Shailesh Kumar had the remaining 100 shares of the company, alleged Modi.



Lalu is not going to be cowed down by such baseless allegations. Whatever property we have, is already in public domain and shown in the Income Tax return, an RJD leader quoted Lalu as having told his supporters.



Beware egoist and fascist BJP leaders! Before threatening Lalu, look at ur face in mirror. There are millions of thousands of Lalus in Bihar, said Lalus another tweet.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee batted for a joint candidate for the upcoming presidential election at a meeting today with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.



The Trinamool Congress chief said names were not discussed, but the need for consensus was reiterated.



"We want the entire opposition to get together and come out with a consensus candidate who will be good for the country," she told reporters after the 40-minute meeting at 10 Janpath, the residence of the Congress chief.



Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was also present at the meeting here.



"There are so many political equations. We will talk together, we will discuss together. We will prefer a consensus candidate who will work for the country and will be a better candidate for the country," she said.



The meeting between Banerjee and Gandhi was part of a series of meetings that the Congress president has been holding with other political leaders for a possible joint candidate for the presidential poll.



Banerjee said if the Opposition wanted, it could set aside differences for this purpose.



"There is still time and we will meet again. But the government should also take the initiative for a consensus candidate," she said.



Banerjee said she would not disclose the discussions that took place but stressed that an ideological fight should be fought politically.



She also criticised the government for unleashing what she called a vendetta against its political rivals.

"In a democracy, it is not right to jail or book opponents by lodging false cases and using investigative agencies such as the CBI against them," she said.
Close on the heels of the murder of Lt. Ummer Fayaz in the Kashmir Valley, a BSF Assistant Commandant from Jammu, who had topped the recruitment exam, has written to the government alleging that militants are threatening him and his sister.



Nabeel Ahmed Wani, the topper of the All India Examination for BSF Assistant Commandant (Works) last year, said his sister, a civil engineering student in Chandigarh, had been staying in a hostel but the college authorities now want her to move elsewhere.



Wani wrote to Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday (May 14) asking her to arrange for hostel facility for Nida Rafiq.



"She was worried that she would not get a place to say as a Kashmiri, especially with my background. I didn't want to involve the BSF in a personal matter, so I wrote to the minister," Wani told PTI over phone from BSF Training Academy in Tekanpur near Gwalior.



Wani said he has spoken to his seniors in the BSF asking them to allow personnel to carry their arms when they go on leave, especially in militant-affected areas, and also to secure their travel plans home.



He said he will go home for his cousin's wedding in next two months. "People like me and my family members are always under threat from militants. After the murder of Lt Ummer Fayaz, I am scared about my family's security. My mother lives alone in Jammu while my sister is in Chandigarh. I worry, especially now, as terrorists are targeting our families," said Wani.



He topped the exam last year around the time the Valley was on the boil following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.



He had written the mail to Gandhi on May 14 and he got a response the very next day.

"The minister immediately took it up with the college authorities, who have now allowed Mr. Nabeel's sister to stay in the hostel," a senior official of the WCD Ministry said.



Wani said, "I am now worried for all those Kashmiris who are serving in the Army or paramilitary forces. We (Kashmiris) join the forces despite a lot of opposition and now, with this trend of killing Kashmiris serving as soldiers, a sword hangs on all of us. This is very disturbing."



As for his sister, he is now comforted she will remain safe in the security of her hostel room.



"She is safe for now. Pray for her, she wants to become the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to serve the Indian Army," he said.
Eight Naxals, allegedly involved in the deadly attack on CRPF personnel last month, were today arrested from two places in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, police said. With this, the number of ultras arrested for the April 24 attack has risen to 17, officials said.



Five of them were apprehended from Chintalnar police station limits, while the rest from Chintagufa police station area during joint search operations carried out by CoBRA and district police force, Jitendra Shukla, Sukma's Additional Superintendent of Police, told PTI. CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) is a specialised unit of CRPF.



Among the arrested rebels, Madkam Kesha (25), Madvi Kosa (30) and Tati Kosa (25) were associated with the Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisaan Mazdoor Sangthan (DAKMS), a wing of Maoists, while Oyam Hadma (21) and Kunjam Vichem (25) were members of 'Jan Militia', a special unit of Naxals, the senior officer said.



The rest were identified as Rava Dewa (25), Kunjam Aaytu (50) and Madkam Bheema (52), all members of Gram Party Committee of Maoists, the ASP said. These rebels were part of the Maoist group that attacked a contingent of CRPF personnel, belonging to 74th battalion of the para-military force, in Burkapal area of Sukma district. Twenty-five troopers were killed in the April 24 assault, Shukla said.



Besides, they were reportedly part of the Maoist squad that killed a former Sarpanch of Burkapal on March 7 this year. They all were also allegedly involved in several other Naxal incidents, including attacks on police teams, triggering IED blasts, murder, loot and arson, he said.



He said they were produced before a local court which sent them in 14-day judicial remand. With this, the number of ultras arrested for the April 24 attack, the deadliest assault by Maoists targeting security forces this year, has risen to 17, the officer added.
A day after the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing illegal mining cases in the state, arrested senior IAS officer Gangaram Baderiya for allowing a mining company to lift iron ore after receiving a bribe of Rs 10 lakh through cheque, former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Tuesday applied for the anticipatory bail.



Kumaraswamy moved the court for the anticipatory bail Baderiya claimed that there was heavy pressure on him by the Chief Mnisters office to sign certain documents. Kumaraswamy was the Chief Minister when the incident took place. The SIT officials were planning to serve notice on HD Kumaraswamy. Hence, he applied for the anticiaptory bail. Kumaraswamys bail petition will come up for hearing on Wednesday.



The case relates to granting permission to Janthakal Enterprises, a company owned by mining baron Vinod Goel, to lift iron ore on the basis of two forged letters of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF).



Baderiya was director, Mines and Geology Department, when Kumaraswamy was the Chief Minister. He accorded permission based on the letters issued by the MoEF, which were forged by Goel. Immediately after the permission was accorded, Janthakal Enterprises lifted and transported 1.70 lakh MT of iron ore.



The Lokayukta report on illegal mining (part-2) had stated that Janthakal Enterprises submitted forged MoEF letters of no objection to lift and transport iron ore in old dumps in Chitradurga. Goels application seeking permission to lift iron ore was pending before Baderiya in 2007.



The Lokayukta report-2 on illegal mining has an interesting note by Gangaram Baderiya before the permission was accorded to Janthakal Enterprises. The noting was made when H D Kumaraswamy was the chief minister.



In August 2015, Kumaraswamy was arrested and released on anticipatory bail in the case of granting mining lease to Sri Sai Venkateshwara Minerals (SSVM), also owned by Goel. This case was registered by the SIT based on certain illegalities in granting mining lease to SSVM, mentioned in the Lokayukta report (part-2).



Of the 29 applications received by the Director of Mines and Geology in respect of land in NEB Range (Sandur taluk, Ballari district), SSVM's was the last application. However, on October 5, 2007, when the file was placed, Kumaraswamy made a note directing the officials to consider SSVM for the lease.




Many countries experience vigilantism against criminals either by way of spontaneous mob action or more often arising from a deep dissatisfaction with the states criminal justice system. However, vigilantism can also spring from growing intolerance rooted in extreme and often violent interpretations of faith.





The latter is especially dangerous, for it can rupture the social fabric. If a state tolerates such forms of vigilantism, for whatsoever reason, its polity too is damaged. How do India, Pakistan and Bangladesh measure on the basis of these observations?





Pakistan aspires to be a moderate and progressive Islamic country. However, its political class and the army have allowed the extreme religions of the Arabian Peninsula to erode the traditional and more tolerant forms of the Islamic faith that were widespread in South Asia.





The process began early after Partition and gathered steam from the 1970s. General Zia-ul-Haq put the country, including the army, firmly in pursuit of more rigid and sharper forms of Islam. He also made capital punishment mandatory for blasphemy. This was only a manifestation of a deeper social process. This opened the gates for the misuse of blasphemy laws against the weak, including the minorities. Often, blasphemy accusations were made for personal gain or to settle scores and mobs were incited to vigilante violence against the innocent or the mentally disturbed.





Since the late 1980s, over 1,300 blasphemy cases have been registered and more than 60 suspected blasphemers have been killed by vigilantes. Worse, law enforcement personnel, local police, lawyers and judges have been intimidated by the vigilantes. Only some Pakistani vigilante cases have drawn national and international attention. Among them, the 2011 murders of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Pakistans Minister of Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti. Last month, the gruesome murder of Mashal Khan, a young student in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the killing in Punjab by three sisters of Fazal Abbas, a middle-aged man accused of blasphemy 13 years ago, has shaken Pakistans small liberal community.





Taseer was murdered by his own security guard, Mumtaz Qadri. He was enraged that Taseer had sympathised with a woman accused of blasphemy. This act should have led to Qadris complete social condemnation. Instead, he was showered with rose petals on his way to court and gained wide social support. He was convicted and executed in March 2016 and protest demonstrations were held across Pakistan. Today, his grave on the outskirts of Islamabad has become the shrine of a martyr attracting donations for the construction of a mausoleum.





Mashal Khan was brutally tortured and killed by his fellow students in his hostel room. They suspected him of posting blasphemous material on social media. He was innocent. Perhaps, his free spirit angered his peers whose young minds were poisoned by bigotry. After killing Abbas in cold blood, the three sisters expressed joy that they had now done what they could not have earlier, as they were too young when he had supposedly blasphemed. Again, the poison of bigotry at work.





Bangladeshs Islamic vigilantism has targeted bloggers advocating democracy and civil liberties, as well as persons, including Hindus, who have insulted Islam and, in a few cases, persons with differently sexual orientation. Since 2010, around 35 people have been killed in vigilante acts. Bangladesh authorities deny the presence of IS or the al-Qaeda in the country, though these groups have claimed to have committed some of the acts. Many bloggers have had to leave Bangladesh because of threats.









Popular anger





Free thought and fearless expression within the law are basic constitutional rights in India. Thus, the killing of rationalists violated one of the countrys intrinsic and core qualities. The cow is sacred and venerated by a large section of Hindus. In many parts of India, cow slaughter is legally banned. Illegal cow slaughter causes deep revulsion and leads to popular anger in these areas. It also leads to law and order problems.

There is need for all to respect the popular Hindu sentiment towards cattle.





However, there can never be a justification for vigilantism. It has no place in India and the cases in UP and Rajasthan are reason for introspection. Naturally, the full might of the law must visit the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. The opposition parties claim that such vigilantism is the result of the BJP seeking to consolidate its Hindu base. The BJP denies these charges. Politics apart, the social and economic reasons which are leading to these actions need urgent and objective academic examination.





The fact is that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all going through intense change. Pakistan and Bangladesh are Islamic countries and the Islamic world is in ferment. The purveyors of narrow theologies wish to steer the ummah on extreme and violent paths. In Pakistan, the states security institutions wish to use groups that have come within the sway of such thinking to promote foreign policy interests of the country. The inevitable price of such policy is internal vigilantism on sectarian and ideological considerations. So long as Pakistan does not re-orient its foreign and security approach, its social peace will only deteriorate.





The Indian Muslim community has almost completely avoided the extremist contagion impacting Pakistan and Bangladesh. The changing ethos of sections of the youth in the Kashmir Valley, though, need to be arrested.





Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured the country that his government is committed to social harmony and inclusive economic development. While there is no reason to doubt his focus, there is a need for swift action against cow vigilantism, so that there is no scope for misperceptions and misapprehensions among any section, including the minorities.





Pakistan has witnessed vigilante action against suspected blasphemers of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad since the mid 1980s. Over the past decade, Bangladesh has seen Islamic vigilantism against liberals and minority individuals. There have been recent cases of cow vigilantism in some parts of India. Some sections of Indian opinion fear that it may go down the path of its western and eastern neighbours.
Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said Taiwan-based IT major Foxconn has sought 13 acre land at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trusts special economic zone (SEZ).



Foxconn has sought a land parcel of 13 acres in special economic zone in JNPT, and I have spoken to Maharashtra Chief Minister about the project, Gadkari told the media here. However, he said he is not having much details of the companys proposal.



Foxconn Technology Group is one of the worlds largest electronic manufacturing contractors, headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan. It is the third largest information technology Company by revenue. The contract manufacturer makes products for global device brands like Apple, BlackBerry, Amazon, Motorola, Xiaomi, and Sony and has large number of its factories in China.



The Ministry of Shipping is promoting coastal led development plan where it allow the companies to set up a manufacturing hub.


Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (Kassia) has urged for setting up a joint action committee of southern MSME associations to implement government programmes in South India.



Kassia, on Tuesday, submitted a memorandum to Kalraj Mishra, Union Minister for MSME in this connection. We have requested setting up of a Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Southern Industry MSME Associations, comprising the six States namely Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to look into the interests and objectives of MSMEs, Kassia said in its memorandum.



The JAC should meet in certain frequencies, for example once a month or twice a quarter, across the southern states along with Central Ministers and the officials of various MSME departments, the memorandum said.



We see all the three ministers for MSME are from north India and regional peculiarities play an important role in case of the MSME sector, B Pravin, Honorary General Secretary of Kassia, said. He also said that the sector in the south was facing neglect for the past 10 years, adding, Though policies are being made, they have not been implemented fully.



Earlier in the day, Mishra launched My KASSIA mobile app and a MSME Handbook in Kannada. The handbook is the first MSME handbook in the country on the MSME sector in a regional language.
Here is the full article: President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trumps disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trumps decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trumps meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.This is code-word information, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.The revelation comes as Trump faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James B. Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trumps subsequent admission that his decision was driven by this Russia thing was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak  a key figure in earlier Russia controversies  into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.For most anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.The CIA declined to comment and the National Security Agency did not respond to requests for comment.But officials expressed concern with Trumps handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States and its allies ability to detect future threats.It is all kind of shocking, said a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials. Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesnt grasp the gravity of the things hes dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And its all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic States territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling, said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said that the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russias presence in Syria. Moscow and would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.Russia could identify our sources or techniques, the senior U.S. official said. A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, I dont think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out.At a more fundamental level, the information wasnt the United States to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments  and even individual agencies  are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.The officials declined to identify the ally, but said it is one that has previously voiced frustration with Washingtons inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.If that partner learned wed given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first that is a blow to that relationship, the U.S. official said.Trump also described measures that the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. Can you believe the world we live in today? he said, according to one official. Isnt it crazy.Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout.Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.One of Bosserts subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trumps discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those.He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it  and that has big downsides, the second former official said. Does he understand whats classified and whats not? Thats what worries me.Lavrovs reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administrations ties to Russia. Trumps initial national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and misleading statements about them. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBIs Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.Im sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details he gleaned from Trump, said the former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria, the summary said. Trump also raised Ukraine and emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia.Sent from my LG-K330 using Tapatalk
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar charged that the Siddaramaiah government has not taken steps to fulfil its promise of taking action against all involved in illegal mining and the SIT has now arrested IAS officer Gangaram Baderiya as it had no other option after the Supreme Court directed it to complete the probe in three months.



Shettar told reporters here that action should be taken against all guilty officials. The state government is protecting corrupt officials and has neglected the case of Rs 5 crore cash found at the house of IAS officer Kapil Mohan, he charged.



The Congress government is blaming the Union government for everything, though the NDA government provided the highest amount for drought and flood relief works in the state, in the last 10 years. Funds to the states are provided as per guidelines and it is always less than the amount sought by the states. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should have attended Niti Ayog meeting to get the guidelines changed to get more funds, Shettar said.



He also charged that the launch of skill development programme on Monday was just a formality and the government is moving at a snails pace. I am ready for a public debate with the chief minister regarding the details mentioned in the charge sheet released by the BJP as it is based on the statistics of the government itself, Shettar challenged.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and several of his Cabinet colleagues would have been in trouble with an array of charges against them had the Karnataka government not weakened the Lokayukta, BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa said on Tuesday.



Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, Yeddyurappa blamed the chief minister for deliberately destroying the institution of Lokayukta and replacing it with a dummy authority.



Reacting to Siddaramaiahs recent statement that Yeddyurappa had no moral right to comment on the government since there were several charge sheets against him and that he was out of jail on bail, the BJP leader only said, Its okay. Good.



He said the arrest of IAS officer Gangaram Baderiya by the Special Investigation Team will soon reveal the role played by politicians in the Jantakal Enterprises case. The case dates back to 2007 when Baderiya was director of the Mines and Geology Department. JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy was the chief minister. Baderiya has been arrested on charges of favouring a mining firm in return for a bribe.



A bag of lies



Yeddyurappa termed the booklet released by the Siddaramaiah government on completion of four years in office a bag of lies. He said the BJP will expose the corrupt deeds of the government during the 36-day Janasamparka Abhiyan tour across the state from Thursday.



According to Yeddyurappa, the major scams in the government include awarding a tender worth Rs 200 crore to Matrix Imaging Solutions in which Siddaramaiahs son Yathindra was a partner, irregularities to the tune of Rs 190 crore while setting up drinking water units and Rs 1,335-crore government grants going missing in the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj department.



Yeddyurappa said the chief minister was misleading people on the utilisation of grants. He said while Rs 14,399 crore had been earmarked in the 2016-17 budget for the welfare of SC/STs, the government had spent only Rs 5,604 crore. He said Siddaramaiah and his Cabinet colleagues should tour the state and assess the drought situation. The chief minister has time to visit Dubai, watch two movies on the same day, but no time for the state, he charged.



He said there is nothing wrong in senior leader K S Eshwarappa holding drought review meetings in a few districts. He (Eshwarappa) is discharging his duties as Leader of the Opposition in Council, Yeddyurappa said.
The Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation and Gail Gas Ltd have proposed to float a joint venture company to implement the city gas distribution project in the state.



The company has been proposed for implementing city gas distribution (CGD) projects  supply of Piped Natural Gas to households and Compressed Natural Gas  in various cities and towns in the state, excluding Bengaluru. Gail Gas Ltd has already taken up implementation of CGD project in Bengaluru Urban and Bengaluru Rural districts.



The state Infrastructure Development Department has sought the Cabinet approval to float the company. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is scheduled to chair the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.



The CGD will be implemented in cities and towns such as Belagavi, Gokak, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Vijayapura, Dharwad, Davangere, Harihar and Tumakuru that are located along the Dabhol-Bengaluru gas pipeline alignment. However, the company has to participate in the bidding process that the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) conducts to obtain licence to implement the project.



Besides, the Revenue Department has proposed to fix a nominal fee for regularising illegally built dwelling houses on plots measuring not more than 30/40 sqft each on the government land within certain limits of urban local bodies.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday met film producer Parvathamma Rajkumar at M S Ramaiah Hospital and enquired about her health. Sidddaramaiah later told reporters that Parvathamma Rajkumar is stable now and wished her speedy recovery.



Parvathamma, who is the wife of legendary Kannada actor the late Rajkumar, was admitted to the hospital recently after she complained of giddiness, fatigue and breathing problems.
Police have arrested three men who reportedly set up a honey trap to extort Rs 17 lakh from a Mangaluru-based doctor.



Rimzi (23), a resident of Mastikatte in Ullal, Hassan Sadik Iqbal (30), of Dharmanagara in Ullal, and Narayana Salian (52), from Someshwara, had reportedly abducted the doctor on May 3, assaulted him and then captured him on camera in a compromising position with a woman.



The doctor was forced to transfer Rs 14 lakh to the bank account of Rimzi and give his credit card to the suspects who used it to shop for Rs 3 lakh, Mangaluru Police Commissioner M Chandra Sekhar told journalists on Tuesday. The doctor, whose identity wasnt disclosed, later approached the police. A case has been registered under various sections of the IPC.
The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday told former union minister and senior counsel P Chidambaram to ensure all documents related to a case represented by him are in place. Chidambaram appeared for Metro Cash and Carry India Pvt Ltd which has challenged the lower court order of issuing a non-bailable warrant against the owners of the supermarket  Aravind Mediratta and Raviganesh Venkataraman.



Justice K S Mudagal asked the senior counsel what was the urgency in hearing the matter during the vacation. Justice Mudagal, in a lighter vein, said: Sir, it is a pleasure to hear you, but the matter cannot be heard out of turn when the court timings are over. She asked the senior counsel to comply with the office objections (ensure the documents of the case are correctly placed) and adjourned the matter for a week.



The petitioners had stated that the order of the magistrate was arbitrary and contrary to law and sought quashing it. Metro Cash and Carry was booked for not maintaining records by the labour department following an inspection at its Kanakapura Road outlet in August, 2016.




Nearly 50 ex-servicemen, who had turned up at Brigade Road with their medals for the inauguration of the renovated War Memorial and TenderSURE projects, left the venue disappointed after waiting under the sun for more than an hour on Tuesday.



Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was supposed to arrive at the venue at 11 am but there was no sign of him till noon. Soon after his arrival, the entire focus was on the TenderSURE projects and the achievements by the Congress government in the past four years.



The ex-servicemen felt they were invited for a political event and not for paying tribute to soldiers. Most of the war veterans left the venue fuming while the chief ministers speech was in progress.



War veteran Veerappa M Gumkar said, We have been insulted here. Our presence was not acknowledged in the welcome address by MLA N A Haris. There is no discussion about the War Memorial or the problems faced by ex-servicemen in various government offices.



Another ex-serviceman K D Shelley said, We were called here for the inauguration of the War Memorial but the whole event turned out to be political. We do not understand politics. We came here with the belief that our grievances would be heard. Amid the commotion, Siddaramaikah said his government was concerned about the problems faced by ex-servicemen and he would speak to them after the event.



To pacify the angry veterans, Wing Commander G B Athri said the ex-servicemen had come here to show gratitude to the state government for renovating the War Memorial, which was in bad shape. We want this War Memorial to be as prominent as the India Gate. This place should be maintained like a tourist destination, said Athri.




Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said 50 roads in the city will be developed under the TenderSURE project at a cost of Rs 700 crore. He was speaking at the formal inauguration of five TenderSURE roads  Residency Road, Nrupathunga Road, Modi Hospital Road, Jayanagar 11th Main and Museum Road  at the War Memorial at the intersection of Brigade Road and Residency Road. Siddaramaiah directed Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials to complete work on the 50 roads within the stipulated time.



The chief minister said these state-of-the-art roads with high standard specifications are the first of their kind in India. He said, The road infrastructure got a boost due to the pedestrian-friendly TenderSURE roads. Conveyance and transportation improve due to good roads. Siddaramaiah expressed his displeasure over the BBMPs poor revenue collection.



He pointed out, BBMPs total revenue collection from property tax was Rs 2,300 crore last year whereas an expenditure of Rs 10,000 crore is required for the city. The revenue collection must be improved. The chief minister said the state government released a fund of Rs 7,300 crore for civic infrastructure realising the inadequate revenue collection to manage the city.



Indira Canteens

The chief minister said Indira Canteens, offering subsidised meals and breakfast, will be inaugurated on August 15 across 198 wards. This will support the urban poor, most of whom are migrant labourers, he said.


A 21-year-old construction labourer was buried alive when a part of an excavated mud wall collapsed on him at a building site of Brigade Group at Katamnallur in Avalahalli on Old Madras Road, east Bengaluru, on Tuesday. Sharana Basappa, a native of Sindhanur town in Raichur district, is the victim.



Six labourers, including Basappa, were digging the foundation pit for a retaining wall to hold the mud. The work is part of the construction of a basement. As the mud wall was soaked with water leaking from a pipeline, it loosened and collapsed on Basappa while the other labourers managed to run to safety, said one of the workers. A worker then called the police who alerted the Fire and Emergency Services Department which rushed its men to the spot. Basappa was found dead in the debris. His body was shifted to a government hospital for post-mortem.



Basappas father lodged a complaint with the jurisdictional Avalahalli police who have booked Brigade Group and the contractor under IPC section 304A (criminal negligence causing accidental death). We are verifying the contract agreement and will fix culpability on the appropriate person, a senior police officer said.




They're calling it the nondenial denial.The reeling Trump administration, hoping to stop the bleeding in the wake of Mondays bombshell story in The Washington Post that reported Trump leaked classified intel to the Russians, responded to the damning news using clever wordplay.The White House chose to wheel out the one figure in the Trump universe who is seen as having some shred of credibility, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who issued what could only be described as a non-denial denial.Video:Theres nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people, McMaster said, with a straight face, before continuing, At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.McMaster called the story false and said he knows that because he was in the room.The only problem with McMasters phony denial was that he was refuting something not even asserted by The Washington Post, as several reporters pointed out after his statement.FollowKaty Tur  @KatyTurNBCMcMaster saying "sources and methods" is a red herring. Article doesnt say Trump revealed sources and methods to Russians.7:09 PM - 15 May 20173,189 3,189 Retweets 4,986 4,986 likesFollowJim Sciutto  @jimsciuttoMcMaster statement fundamentally insufficient. WaPo reported POTUS revealed Intel from secret source, not that POTUS revealed the source7:10 PM - 15 May 2017  Manhattan, NY2,781 2,781 Retweets 4,192 4,192 likesThe fact that the administration rushed to respond to the Posts report indicates they know just how damaging it has the potential to be. But their attempt to use wordplay to provide cover isnt fooling anyone.If they really wanted the public to know what went on in Trumps meeting with the Russians, they would have invited the American press into the room, not just the Russian media.
The city police on Tuesday detained Jagadish alias Jagga alias Tami (35) under the provisions of the Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Slum-Grabbers Act.



Currently, Jagadish is lodged in Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara. Jagadish, a history-sheeter at Kamakshipalya, Basaveshwaranagar and Halasuru police stations, is involved in 13 criminal cases, including three murders, two extortions, robbery, abduction and assaults.



The police arrested Jagadish several times and sent him to the prison. However, he obtained bail and repeated his criminal activities. Hence, the police deemed it necessary to detain him to ensure the public order. Based on a report, City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood passed an order directing the police to detain him.




A Rajasthan man arrested for trying to create an Aadhaar card in the name of the slain al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Ladin has no criminal records and is mentally fit. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Prashant Kumar on Tuesday sent the 35-year-old Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) operator Saddam Mansuri to 15-day judicial custody. Mansuri was arrested on Monday.



Preliminary investigations reveal that he has no criminal records, Mandal Deputy Superintendent of Police Chanchal Mishra told DH. We have also consulted doctors who have stated him to be mentally fit. We are preparing a charge sheet against him, Mishra said.



Mansuri pleaded his innocence before the court saying someone else could have uploaded the enrolment details to get the card. The police claimed that the user identification logged in during the enrolment belongs to Mansuri.



He must have done it out of curiosity. As of now, there is no other motive. We are also tracking the names of all his clients for whom he had made Aadhaar cards, Mishra said. The address mentioned in the Aadhaar enrolment form is located in Abbottabad in north-eastern Pakistan. The police have also found that Mansuri had uploaded a pixelated photograph of Bin Laden.



The incident came to light when UIDAI officials spotted the application and contacted the Rajasthan information technology (IT) department. We informed the local police and asked them to file an FIR against him, said Sanjay Aludia, who works with the state IT department in Bhulwara. Our New Delhi team found it highly suspicious and our Jaipur office asked us to book him, Aludia added.
The chairperson of radical womens outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of Faith) Asiya Andrabi and her close aide Fahmeeda Sofi were booked under Public Safety Act on Monday.



The separatist leader, who was arrested on April 26 from her Soura residence on the outskirts of Srinagar city, was believed to be instrumental in organising student protests across the Kashmir colleges.



The DeMs spokesperson Nahida Nasreen, while confirming slapping of PSA on Andrabi and Fahmeeda, said police were about to shift them to Kotbhalwal jail in Jammu.



The duo has been taken to police control room where they will undergo a medical check-up and then they will be shifted to Kotbhalwal jail. This is what we were told, Nasreen said.



It is not for the first time that radical Andrabi has been booked under the PSA. In 2015, She was booked for celebrating Pakistan Day under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The group had been in news for an aggressive campaign against obscenity, vulgarity and other social evils.



In 1990s when insurgency was at its peak in Kashmir, Andrabi and her associates campaigned against beauty parlours and obscene posters depicting women in bad light.



Andrabi is married to Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, who has been awarded life term for his role in the murder of human rights activist lawyer H N Wanchoo 1992. In 2013, Andrabis three nephews were arrested in Pakistan for terror links.


Her call for a consensus came a day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a proponent of opposition unity, put forth President Pranab Mukherjees name for the second term as a consensus candidate. The electoral college tilted in favour of the Modi government after the recent round of Assembly elections with the NDA just 17,500 votes short of a simple majority.



The YSR Congress and TRS have also announced their support to the BJP. There are so many political equations. We will talk together, we will discuss together. We will prefer a consensus candidate who will work for the country and will be a better candidate for the country, Mamata said.





The Opposition parties are still undecided on whether to put up a joint candidate for the Presidential polls with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asking the Modi government to take an initiative for a consensus on the issue.Mamata discussed the Presidential elections during her 45-minute meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi here on Tuesday and said she would come again for consultations on the issue. There is still time and we will meet again. But the government should also take the initiative for a consensus candidate, she told reporters after meeting Sonia.


The RJD chief tweeted soon after BJP leader Sushil Modi alleged that Lalus daughter Misa Bharti  a Rajya Sabha member, who is in the eye of the storm over land deals in Delhi  had purchased industrialist Vivek Nagpals company KHK Holdings Pvt Ltd for just Rs 1 lakh.



Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday vowed to fight fascist and communal forces tooth and nail. In a tweet soon after the Income Tax Department officials searched his residences in New Delhi and Gurugram, Lalu tweeted, I will not bow down. I will fight fascists till my last breath.While no searches took place in Patna or any of the residences of the RJD chiefs family in Bihar, the official residence of Rabri Devi  10, Circular Road, where Lalu stays with his two sons (both ministers), remained out of bounds for the media. As RJD MPs, MLAs and other party leaders rushed there to express solidarity with their leader, Lalu took to social media to respond. BJP ko naya alliance partners mubarak ho. (Congrats to the BJP on its new alliance partners), Lalu tweeted.The RJD leaders, however, clarified that their leader was not hinting at a BJP-JD(U) merger. What Lalu ji meant was that the BJP has got new alliance partners like the Income Tax and the CBI, clarified the partys national spokesperson Manoj Jha, adding that there was no threat to the Nitish Kumar-led government.Lalu in his tweet, also asked the BJP-backed media to mention the 22 places belonging to him that the I-T officials raided.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday assured visiting Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas of Indias unwavering support to the Palestinian cause. Addressing a joint press conference after the bilateral meeting, Modi said India hoped to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, coexisting peacefully with Israel.



Abbas, for his part, said he appreciated the solidarity that India extended. The relationship between India and Palestine is built on the foundation of long-standing solidarity and friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle. India has been unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause, Modi said.



India was the first non-Arab state to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a legitimate representative of Palestinian people in 1974, and acknowledge it as a separate state in 1988.



The Modi-Abbas meeting on Tuesday assumes significance as it comes a few weeks before Modis visit to Israel. Modi is the first head of the government to travel to the West Asian nation.



India and Palestine signed five memoranda of understanding, including one on information technology and electronics.



India is undertaking project assistance for a flagship techno-park project in Ramallah. Once completed, it will serve as an IT hub offering a one-stop solution for all IT-related training and services in Palestine, Modi said. Other bilateral exchanges include a thrust on more training on yoga.




Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said the CBI searches against him and his son were attempts by the Modi government to silence him from writing against its policies.



The CBI search was conducted in connection with the reported payoffs in the clearances granted to a news channel during Chidambarams tenure as finance minister.



The searches came on the day the Congress launched a strong critique of the NDA governments policies  at a time when the government is celebrating its third anniversary.



The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends, Chidambaram said in a statement.



The governments aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations, he said.



All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write, Chidambaram said, adding there were no allegations against him.



Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB, Chidambaram said.




Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday that people in high places buying assets through shell firms is not a small matter and the day of reckoning has come for many.



Responding to charges by former finance minister P Chidambaram and the Congress that the Modi government was pursuing political vendetta against Chidambaram and his son, Jaitley said, Unless there is substantial basis and reason to suspect there was tax evasion or crime committed, these departments dont act.



Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, Chidambaram is accountable for the property his son holds and will have to answer to the CBI and cooperate with their procedures.



Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal also rejected Chidambarams charge that he was being targeted for his newspaper columns, which were critical of the government. The issue was why beneficiaries of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) gave money to the firms owned by his son, Goyal said.



Goyal said the former finance ministers columns did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire. He will be accountable for his sons stroke.



Goyal said the BJP government never comes in the way of law and that investigative agencies work independently.



After all, it is not us who demanded reopening of fodder scam cases. The Supreme Court gave the verdict, he said.



Hitting out at the Congress, Goyal said the Opposition party was feeling helpless in the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modis massive popularity and instead of introspecting, it was raising wrong issues.




When Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met the Chinese leadership in Beijing during the One Belt, One Road summit over the last weekend, the top item on his agenda to finalise the long-term plan for the CPEC. The plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistans economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture.



Dawn claimed that its report is based on the actual plan document, which was exclusively made available to the newspaper. The main thrust of the plan lies in agriculture, contrary to the image of CPEC as a massive industrial and transport undertaking, involving power plants and highways.



Thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up demonstration projects in areas ranging from better seed varieties to new irrigation technologies.



The plan identifies opportunities for Chinese enterprises in Pakistans agriculture sector such as the absence of cold-chain logistics and processing facilities because of which 50% of agricultural products go to waste during harvesting and transport.



For industry, the plan divides Pakistan into three zones. While the western and north western zones are marked for mineral extraction, the central zone is marked for textiles, household appliances and cement. The southern zone has been earmarked for the petrochemical, iron and steel, harbour industry, engineering machinery, trade processing and auto industry.



The Gwadar port, in which China has invested heavily, is considered to have a central role in the plan as it connects Balochistan with Afghanistan.



The plan also includes safe cities project, in which explosive detectors and scanners will be deployed to cover major roads, case-prone areas and crowded places in urban areas to conduct real-time monitoring. Peshawar could the be first such safe city.



Dawns report triggered a row in Pakistan with Opposition parties asking the government to come clean on the CPEC plan, whereas a minister described the report factually inaccurate.







Riding on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China appears to have elaborate plans to enter Pakistan in a big way to capture large portions of Pakistans agriculture and industrial markets, as suggested by a report in Pakistans Dawn newspaper.
The Indian Air Force has finalised Ambala on the western front and Hashimara on the east as the two bases to house two squadrons of new Rafale fighter jets that would be arriving from France from 2019 onwards. While the force chose Hashimara in West Bengal a long time ago, it recently selected Ambala in Haryana, sources told DH.



One of the oldest and largest airbases that the IAF inherited from the Royal Air Force, Ambala is home to the British-origin Jaguars and Russian MiG-21s that are being phased out. The IAF zeroed in on the Harnaya station after it ran into land acquisition issues with Sarsawa in Uttar Pradesh, its first choice. Establishing the Rafale base in Sarsawa would have required an additional 540 acres of land, which meant protracted negotiations with farmers.



The IAF looked for alternatives and selected Ambala after reviewing a few other stations. On the other hand, Hashimara was the first choice for the eastern sector as the lone MiG-27 squadron in the north Bengal base is due to retire in 2018.



A team from Dassault Aviation had visited the base to review the maintenance and the infrastructure required to be set up. It was one of the eastern airbases that was spruced up up during the 11th Five Year Plan.



In September 2016, India signed the Rs 59,000-crore (7.87 billion Euro) deal with France to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets. The first aircraft is to be delivered within 36 months (by September 2019) and all the aircraft would be in place in 67 months (by 2022).



The jets would come with Meteor beyond-visual-range missile. Sources said the defence ministry and the IAF were trying to expedite the delivery schedule by a few months so that the first Rafale jet arrives in the first half of 2019. The IAF currently has 33 fighter squadrons as against the authorised strength of 42 squadrons.




The state government made necessary amendments to the Public Services Commission Act at a special session in Amaravati called for passing the GST Bill. Sindhu will get her appointment order after Governor E S L Narasimhan gives his nod to the amendments.



The state government also gave her Rs 3 crore and a 1,000 square-yard residential plot in the new capital after she won a silver medal for the country. At present, Sindhu is working as a deputy manager in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited here.



The 22-year-old lives in Hyderabad and attends training at the Pullela Gopichand Academy. Sindhu showed extraordinary grit at the Olympics. The state government is trying to honour her by offering her the post of a deputy collector, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu said.



The Andhra Pradesh government also offered Gopichand 10 acres in Amaravati to set up a Badminton Academy. Sindhus mother Vijaya said her daughter will take up the job offered by the AP government. Sindhu chose AP over Telangana though Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao offered her a similar job. A fortnight ago, Rao handed over a 1,000 square-yard plot in the upmarket Shaikpet area in Hyderabad.





The Andhra Pradesh government will soon appoint ace shuttler P V Sindhu as a deputy collector in recognition of her performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics.


Though the counsel contended there was an interim order and the company has filed an appeal against it, the bench asked, Why shouldnt we also do it here? Advocate Madhvi Divan, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that WhatsApp was performing a public function as it does not have its own network and used telecom service providers.



The petition was filed by two students contending that the 2016 agreement by WhatsApp with Facebook violated their fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, among others. The court listed the petition for further consideration on July 21.







The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned internet messaging service WhatsApp over its privacy policy, saying the tenor of its 2016 user licence policy seemed to indicate the company was undermining the right of free communication. A five-judge Constitution bench presided over by Justice Dipak Misra said the court would intervene to ensure the rights of citizens to communicate freely were protected.Cannot violate lawsWe are the data protection authority here. You cant violate Indian laws only to widen the language of your policy. We will protect rights of our citizens to communicate freely, the bench said. There is no specific law governing data protection or right to privacy in the country. The company had earlier raised the issue that the right to privacy was still to be adjudicated upon by the apex court in Aadhaar matter.It is our constitutional duty to protect citizens rights. We dont think any person would want all his data shared with others. You cant apply different standards of data protection in India, the bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri, Amitava Roy, A M Khanwilkar and Mohan M Shatanagoundar, said. During the hearing, the bench sought to know if WhatsApp had given an undertaking before a court in the European Union not to share users data.
Spelling more trouble for RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, the Income Tax (I-T) department on Tuesday carried out raids at 22 locations on companies and people associated with him in the national capital region, on charges of alleged benami transactions to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore.



Income tax officials said the raids were carried out on offices and residences of prominent businessmen and real estate agents in connection with land deals involving Lalu and his family.



In the national capital, the tax department teams visited posh localities in New Friends Colony, Sainik Farms and a few farmhouses in Bijwasan and south Delhi areas.



Searches were also carried out on the premises of RJD MP and former Union minister Prem Chand Guptas son and a few other businessmen involved in the purchase and sale of real estate assets.



The BJP had last week accused Lalu, his daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti, and two sons Tejaswi and Tej Pratap, both ministers in the Bihar government, of being involved in corrupt land deals worth over Rs 1,000 crore.



People in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small matter and I think the day of reckoning has come for many  they will all be held accountable, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters on Tuesday, even as the raids were being carried out.



Officials said a team of 100 income tax officials and police department fanned out across the capital to carry out the raids.



There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion, a senior official said.



While raids are being conducted on a dozen locations, 10 other official premises have been brought under the survey procedure which mandates I-T officials to scan only business premises, the official said.



So far, some documents and computer hardware have been seized from the premises under search, the official said.



Lalu defiant

Lalu, however, struck a defiant note, daring the Modi government to silence his voice. The BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice... If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalus will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats, he said in a series of tweets in Hindi.


The CBI on Tuesday searched the premises of Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, on allegations of receiving kickbacks to help a media company circumvent rules to raise foreign direct investment (FDI).



Searches were also carried out at 14 locations in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram in the early hours of Tuesday.



In Mumbai, searches were carried out at the bungalow of former media mogul Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani  founders of INX Media. Peter and Indrani are currently in jail for the murder of Sheena Bora, Indranis daughter from her first marriage.



On Monday, the CBI filed an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas, INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Ltd (indirectly owned by Karti) and its director Padma Vishwanathan on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct.



According to the FIR, INX Media generated more that Rs 305 crore in FDI when the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had approved Rs 4.62 crore. When the violations led to an Income Tax (I-T) probe, the CBI claims that INX Media roped in Karti to influence the probe and wriggle out of the situation.

The allegations levelled by the CBI are based on the information given by a source, the FIR stated.



The CBI recovered Rs 10 lakh vouchers which were paid for the services. These vouchers were issued in favour of Advantage Strategic Consulting (P) Ltd, said CBI Joint Director (anti-corruption) Vineet Vinayak. Invoices of Rs 3.05 crore have also been recovered, he added.



Briefing media persons in Delhi, Vinayak made it clear that the CBI had searched Kartis residence and not that of P Chidambaram. At the same time, Vinayak did not rule out that P Chidambaram was not under the CBI scanner.



We have set the process of investigation in motion with the FIR. All the relevant issues will be investigated. All the people whose involvement has come forth will be examined, he added. Vinayak said the CBI has also recovered mails and hard disks which need to be examined.



Karti was present in his Nungambakkam residence during the raid, while P Chidambaram was in Bengaluru to argue a case in the Karnataka High Court.




At the May 11 board meeting, the San Dieguito Union School District (SDUHSD) board approved a resolution opposing youth access to marijuana through commercial storefronts and commercial cultivation.

Since the passage of Proposition 64, public agencies have been working on establishing regulations for the sale and cultivation of recreational marijuana in their jurisdictions. State and local governments must have regulations and local ordinances in place by Jan. 1, 2018.

This is a concern of ours and one of the things were watching is how the attitudes have changed on the use of marijuana over time and to see if theres change with the passage of Prop 64, SDUHSD Superintendent Eric Dill said, noting they will learn more from the results of their annual student Healthy Kids Survey. One thing we definitely have seen with the normalization of the use by adults is the spillover effects as it becomes more easily available for youth.

SDUHSD Vice President Joyce Dalessandro said its important to share the districts stance but the cities and jurisdictions have the ultimate control.

In January 2017, the city of San Diego legalized recreational pot dispensaries and opened up the possibility to allow farms, manufacturing facilities and testing labs. There are 15 dispensaries throughout the city; the closest location in North County is on Roselle Street in Sorrento Valley.

The city of Del Mar has an existing prohibition in place for both medical and non-medical marijuana related businesses and the city of Solana Beach also has a ban in place for medical marijuana cultivation delivery and dispensaries.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors banned medical and non-medical marijuana facilities within the unincorporated areas of the county in March, and in 2014 Encinitas residents rejected Measure F, an initiative which would have allowed medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. The Encinitas City Council is currently considering allowing pot cultivation.

SDUHSD board member Mo Muir requested that the board consider a resolution and brought forward the language drafted by the San Dieguito Alliance for Drug Free Youth.

Once kids get off track, its very tough to get them back on, Muir said. We want our kids to be successful in college and successful in classes and drugs take that away.

The resolution states that marijuana use is harmful to the adolescent brain, that frequent users of todays highly potent marijuana lose an average of eight IQ points and that students who use marijuana are 60 percent less likely to complete high school and graduate college.

The resolution also states that following the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, teen use is 50 percent above the national average and marijuana-related traffic deaths have increased.

Commercializing marijuana would increase its availability and normalize its use, leading to increased negative health consequences, particularly among young people, the resolution reads.

SDUHSD board member John Salazar said he would vote for the resolution but as he has stated in the past, he doesnt believe resolutions really do anything. He said he thought all of the information in the resolution was fine although he believes pro-marijuana advocates will find a way to argue against many of the statements.

Were taking a very logical opinion for a school board but I do believe theres going to be laws in place that require these facilities to be a certain distance from schools. None of thats going to matter. I think theres going to be a lot more marijuana use down the line from particularly our high school students and it seems like the citizens of California approve it.

We better be preparedjust about every single board meeting we expel students for bringing marijuana to school and selling it, Salazar continued. If theyre caught with marijuana theyre not expelled but if theyre selling it they are and I dont think thats a real good practice. I think we better figure out a way to rehab these kids and not just expel them.

The district does have READI (Recovery Education Alcohol Drug Instruction), a two-day program that provides support for students with substance abuse issues. If a student is caught in possession of drugs or alcohol, under the influence of drugs or alcohol or in possession of drug paraphernalia, they are given the choice of a five-day suspension or enrolling in the READI program.
Boy, wouldn't it be great to get that mentally unstable thug out of the Oval Office? That's putting it undiplomatically, I know, but the time has passed for treating the presidency of Donald Trump as anything less than a freaky aberration of our democratic norms. Thank you, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for dispensing with all delicacy and stating that Trump has put our institutions under assault "internally," as well as "externally."

Impeachment is the constitutionally sanctioned way to get rid of him, but that job would fall on the shoulders of a Republican-controlled Congress. Despite polls showing a collapse in the general public's support for Trump, Republican backing for the president remains high. Thus, such a bold move seems unlikely for now.

So what are Democrats, independents, never-Trump Republicans and no-longer-Trump Republicans to do? Wait until Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, for the midterm elections and hope they deliver a Democratic House majority. Then impeachment proceedings may commence.

As for congressional Republicans, many now find themselves in a basement elevator shaft looking up at the freight platform barreling down. Do they not get re-elected because they offended the Trump base  or do they not get re-elected because their leadership has appalled most everyone else?

There is a third option: doing what's right for the country and letting the chips fall. If patriotic Republicans lost, they would lose with honor, for history will not treat the Trump era kindly.

Of course, 18 months seems a long wait for those seeing a nation in peril. This is a president engaged in abuse of power, likely obstruction of justice and possible collusion with foreign adversaries. On a more pedestrian level, brazen lies, corrupt self-dealing and mob-inspired threats against public servants show the rot spreading daily from the fish's head. What does one do in the meantime?

Draw hope from the reality that much of the toxic agenda is making little headway in the chaos. We always knew the Trump administration would be a circus, but actually, it's a circus overshadowed by the sideshow.

Meanwhile, many of the campaign promises Trump is breaking needed breaking. Trump has done a U-turn on his vow to treat NATO as "obsolete." He's backed off on labeling China a currency manipulator (which it used to be but is no longer). The Export-Import Bank lives, and so, probably, will NAFTA.

Some Trump-issued threats are outrageous, such as his telling fired FBI Director James Comey that their conversations may have been recorded. Some are clown-like, such as the tweet that he might cancel the White House press briefings.

For all the attention and curiosity showered on the Trump base, its electoral power has been greatly exaggerated. Even in their full flower last November, Trump voters failed to muster a majority. (Hillary Clinton got 3 million more votes. Have you heard?)

The Electoral College will not be operative in the midterm elections. Therefore, it will be unable to magically award victory to politicians receiving fewer votes than their rivals.

Those hungry for the cleansing action of an impeachment may get their wish eventually. True, Senate Republicans would probably have enough votes to stop the removal of Trump, but the impeachment process would freeze the agenda for several more months. And perhaps some senatorial Republicans will come over to save themselves and the nation.

Hang in there, American patriots. A president consumed by his own craziness will probably lack the organizational ability to permanently disable the democracy. Trump may be delivering a lot of pain, but one hopes that like a kidney stone, he, too, shall pass.
With this, Germany becomes the latest nation to approve testing of autonomous vehicles on its roads. However, unlike many others, the country is quite strict about safety norms.

Germany is the latest nation to pass a law approving autonomous driving tests on its soil. The nation has followed on the precedent set by USA and South Korea, where companies are now free to host autonomous car driving tests on road. While this is great news for a number of German car makers and their self-driving endeavours, the country has imposed a number of safety restrictions for such tests to be undertaken.

The safety restrictions imposed by Germany state that a human driver must be present at all times behind the wheels of a self-driving car, should need arise to take control from the AI algorithms. Alongside, a black box must be present in every such car and record every detail of journeys taken, including driver information, when the car switches between human and machine control, and more. This data will be used to impose regulatory norms on road safety, based on the self-driving vehicles. The driver will be held responsible for an accident that would occur on his/her watch, and in case of accidents occurring when the car is maneuvering itself, the company in question will be held responsible.

These safety norms are much stricter than a number of US cities, which permit companies to ply vehicles without a human driver. South Korea, meanwhile, is building a small city to present companies with a simulated track on which self-driving tests can be held. The idea of modeling an experimental city for road tests not only make such tests safer, but also give companies with a realistic ground for testing. Germany, meanwhile, is home to some of the world's largest car makers including BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, each of which will presumably benefit from not having to shift its self-driving assemblies to a different country.

With these tests, companies are vying to present advanced levels of autonomy in cars, that is expected to go hand-in-hand with implementing clean energy sources to power these vehicles. The year 2020 is expected to be a crucial deadline, when companies across the world present production models of fully electric cars that can steer themselves.

Source
Samsung and Intel claim that they have been harmed by Qualcomm's misconduct in business practice

Samsung and Intel have filed new briefs backing the United States Federal Trade Commission in its lawsuit against Qualcomm over its alleged anti-competitive practices. In their amicus briefs, the tech giants claim that they have been harmed by Qualcomm's misconduct in business practices. Back in December, Qualcomm was fined nearly $854 million by antitrust regulators in South Korea for the same. In January, the San Diego-based chip maker was sued by Apple for overcharging for the use of basic patents. Qualcomm then countersued Apple for breach of the agreement and alleged threats.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Intel has claimed that Qualcomm's practices have "inflicted and continues to inflict precisely the harms that the antitrust laws seek to protect against."

"Intel is ready, willing, and able to compete on the merits in this market that Qualcomm has dominated for years. But Qualcomm has maintained an interlocking web of abusive patent and commercial practices that subverts competition on the merits. These practices have illegally coerced mobile phone manufacturers into purchasing the chipsets they need from Qualcomm and Qualcomm alone," Intel wrote on its website.

While Intel is a major rival of Qualcomm, Samsung continues to be both competitor and customer. Samsung develops its own custom chipset for its mobile devices, but also uses Qualcomm's chipset for its mobile devices in select markets. The South Korean company believes that Qualcomm is limiting it from licensing its chipsets to non-Samsung entities. "Despite having requested a license from Qualcomm, Samsung cannot sell licensed Exynos chipsets to non-Samsung entities because Qualcomm has refused to license Samsung to make and sell licensed chipsets," Samsung said in its brief.

While Qualcomm didn't respond to Samsung and Intel's briefs in support of FTC, the company did cite financial challenges due to Apple lawsuit. Qualcomm's plea to dismiss the FTC lawsuit will be heard in June in California's federal court.
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SAN DIEGO (AP)  The federal government said Friday that it has settled on finalists to design President Donald Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico, but it won't identify them.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it will notify finalists over the next several days. It won't say how many there are, but it has said previously that it would pick up to 20 for contracts expected to be valued between $200,000 and $500,000.





. . .
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There are now more than 1,300 sites prioritized nationally for cleanup, but President Trump has said he wants to cut the $1 billion allocation by 30 percent.



WASHINGTON (AP)  As the head of the Environmental Protection Agency rolls back regulations aimed at preventing future pollution, he also is pledging to focus on cleaning up decades-old contamination.

Scott Pruitt has directed his regional chiefs to elevate Superfund cleanup efforts to what he describes as their rightful place as the agency's core mission.





. . .
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The new owner of a 440-acre Oregon cattle ranch said she called her husband on their yacht to say: Honey, I just bought the most amazing birthday gift for you.



By ERIC MORTENSON

Capital Press

SALEM, Ore.  Diane Daggett remembers the conversation with the woman who had just purchased the Daggett family's 440-acre cattle ranch in Northeast Oregon's Wallowa County, land that had been in the family for four generations.

The buyer said she had called her husband, who was aboard their yacht in the Cayman Islands, to share the news. Honey, the woman said she'd told him, I just bought the most amazing birthday gift for you.





. . .
Queen Anne building sold; 30 units planned



Journal staff reporter By BRIAN MILLER Journal staff reporter

Photo by Colliers [enlarge] BuildingWorks design would add a penthouse to the landmarked structure.

Seattle Public Library has sold the former telegraph and telephone exchange building it owned at 1529 Fourth Ave. W. for $2.5 million, according to King County records.

The buyer was Garfield 1529 LLC, which shares a mailing address with project manager Chris Faul, formerly a partner with Point32. Faul now runs his own company, called Faul.

Seattle Public Library was represented in the sale by Arvin Vander Veen and Casey Gibson of Colliers.

Faul has filed early plans with the city, prepared by architect BuildingWork, to convert the old Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Garfield Exchange into 30 residential units. Whether they would be apartments or condominiums is unknown.

In public records, Faul is listed as the manager of the ownership LLC. Queries to Faul were not returned before deadline.

The library had been using the Garfield Exchange for storage. The three-story, 23,040-square-foot structure was built in 1922, with an addition in 1929. The 12,000-square-foot property is at the corner of West Garfield Street, opposite the Queen Anne branch library.

Pacific Northwest Bell, the successor to PT&T, vacated the exchange in 1967, after it sat empty for a half-dozen years. The property was then donated to the library.

Last year, the library had BOLA Architecture + Planning prepare a landmark application for the Garfield Exchange. The Landmarks Preservation Board designated it a landmark, and the building went on the market as surplus property.

BuildingWork's plan calls for adding a 3,355-square-foot penthouse to the structure. A new stair and elevator core would be located within the U-shaped light well on the rear of the building.

Parking is planned for 13 vehicles in the 5,280-square-foot basement, accessed from the alley.

Total project size, including the parking and penthouse, is estimated at about 34,000 square feet.





Brian Miller can be reached by email at brian.miller@djc.com or by phone at (206) 219-6517.




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SEATTLE  The QFC property at 416 15th Ave. E. has sold for $11.25 million to Hunters Capital.

Jill Cronauer of Hunters Capital confirmed it bought the 37,804-square-foot property at the corner of East Republican Street, and acted as its own representative. Cronauer said there are currently no plans to redevelop the property.





. . .
New York, New York- the DMU trip so good they offered it twice

Students at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) can start off the New Year in New York as part of an incredible #DMUglobal experience.

In January, DMU took more than 1,000 students and staff to the Big Apple for a mix of academic activities and cultural events. And now the university has announced plans to repeat the visit in January 2018.

Students can whet their appetite for what promises to be an incredible experience by watching this new video:

DMUs New York trip in January this year was thought to be the single biggest-ever overseas visit by a UK university.

Each student followed a programme of activities and cultural events especially designed to link to academic courses, helping students to deepen understanding of key themes in their areas of study.

The itineraries included:

Nurses meeting researchers studying the effects of stress in 9/11 survivors

Architecture students having a personal tour of the High Line from its architect

Contour Fashion students had an exclusive meeting with the design team from Victorias Secret

Engineering students having a tour beneath the city streets to see the multi-million-pound East Side Access programme

DMU Contour Fashion student Mollie Falkingham met with the design and technical team at Victorias Secret. She said: It was a huge opportunity.

Nurses Laurel Beavon and Natalie Barnaby got to volunteer at the Gay Mens Health Crisis centre, the first helpline to be opened in New York when the AIDS crisis began. It runs pioneering healthcare programmes including the mobile testing vans and is supported by regular fund-raising events.

Natalie, who has since graduated, said: We learned about their healthcare programmes and their fundraising. It was probably my favourite part of the visit because it was linked to our course.

Those who went to New York in January have urged students to sign up when the opportunity is advertised next term through #DMUglobal.

Ross Thomson, freelance arts, said: Its an amazing thing that the university has and these opportunities do not come every day. Take the opportunity and grasp it with both hands.

Do not miss this kind of experience because I know its cliche but its definitely once in a lifetime, said Joseph Silva, Architecture student.

Full details about dates and bursaries will be announced soon. Meanwhile, 850 students are preparing for a similar experience in Berlin next month, which features even more academic-led trips.
India and Japan are set to unveil an Asia-Africa connectivity project, as a counter to China's massive 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) initiative that proposes to simulate the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project elsewhere, including Europe and Africa as well.

The Indo-Japanese initiative, called the 'Freedom Corridor', stretching from Asia-Pacific to Africa, aims at stabilising the region amid Chinese designs that have a destabilising effect on countries of the region.

The Indo-Japanese project, proposed during a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe at their annual summit at Tokyo last November, is expected to see a soft launch later this month, say reports.

Under the Asia-Africa connectivity initiative, India and Japan will support massive infrastructure projects and capacity building programmes in East Africa. Japan is expected to join India for developing the strategically-located Trincomalee port in eastern Sri Lanka. Besides, Japan will join India in the development and expansion of Iran's Chabahar port and the adjoining special economic zone, according to reports.

The two countries are also likely to join hands to develop Dawei port along the Thai-Myanmar border.

The India-Japan infrastructure development projects aims at developing quality infrastructure and the central theme of Japan's collaboration is Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (PQI), a theme developed by Japanese Prime Minister Shoinzo Abe.

The two countries are already collaborating in infrastructure development in northeast India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The plans are expected to get a further fillip during the Africa Development Bank meeting in Ahmedabad on 24 May, which will discuss joint projects on capacity building and infrastructure

India and Japan will be holding separate sessions with stakeholders from Africa on the sidelines of the Africa Development Bank meeting. Japan's state minister of finance will lead the country's delegation at the meet.

An India-Japan partnership to develop the `Mekong-India Economic Corridor (MIEC)' connecting the Kenya-Tanzania-Mozambique (KTM) growth zone through Jawaharlal Nehru and Kochi ports, will open up new vistas of Africa-Asia connectivity and help unlock Africa's true economic potential, say experts.

Countering China's expansionary tactics is important for India as the OBOR continental and maritime routes are of strategic concern for India both in terms of national security and also due to economic reasons.
Calls were made at a meeting of the Donegal Branch of the Irish Farmers Association to have the position of the group development officers in the county clarified.

The role is currently being filled by Marcus OHalloran who serves as the development officer in both Donegal and Monaghan.

He was introduced at a meeting of the group in January as a replacement for Davy Keith.

At Tuesday's meeting of the county executive in Letterkenny, Environment and Rural Affairs Chairman, Francis Burns, said he would be calling for Mr OHalloran to be appointed permanently to the role as he had done a good job since he came in and gets on well with everybody.

He said the current arrangement was that he covers Donegal three days per week and two in Monaghan and that they should write to the national organisation to get the agreement a bit more permanent. Committee member Mabel Russell said that there had previously been a proposal seeking made for a full time development officer to be appointed for Donegal

Branch Dairy chairman, Lawrence McNamee, who chaired the meeting in the absence of branch Chairman Michael Chance, said he agreed with Mr Burns' proposal and added that he had not heard any update on appointing a full time development officer to the county. Marcus OHalloran told the members he was hoping to hear news on the situation at the end of this week.
According to Geneva County Sheriff Tony Helms, Markies Maynor, 24, of Chancellor, was arrested after allegedly shooting a dog at close range with bird shot and not seeking treatment for the dog. Helms said a neighbor took the dog to a local veterinarian for care. Maynor has been released from the Geneva County Jail on a bail of $3,000.
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Sydney-based logistics start-up Shippit has declined the opportunity to close a $5m Series A funding round, instead settling for a more modest $2.2 million from a line-up of new investors.

Co-founders Rob Hango-Zada and William On originally sought to raise $3 million for the shipping management platform they launched to market in February 2015. The purpose of the raise was to obtain capital to invest in strategic hires for their product engineering team as well as the start-ups expansion into the wider Asia Pacific region within the next 12 months. The company currently services more than 750 merchants across Australia, including Sephora, Topshop, Thankyou and Pet Circle, with 250,000 parcels delivered via its platform each month

While the round was oversubscribed by $2 million, Hango-Zada and On, who share the companys CEO role, made the decision to turn down $2.8 million in funding from interested investors, owing to growth experienced by Shippit during the round, which was round led by prominent APAC venture fund Aura Group. Additional capital was contributed by AddVenture Fund, RTL Group Investments and private investors.

Hango-Zada spoke to Dynamic Business about the Shippits Series A funding round, including the very hard albeit fiscally responsible decision to revise their initial funding target.

DB: What motivated Shippit to undertake its Series A round now?

Hango-Zada: Although we have enough cash to see us through to the end of the year, we wanted to capitalise on the momentum we were experiencing and continue to grow. It was purely a discretionary raise. Will and I have talked about it being a little bit like racing in the Grand prix. Think about a Formula One race car going around the track  you need to know exactly when to pull into the pit stop and refuel. You dont want to have much too much fuel in the tank and burn the time and you dont want to have too little and run out in your efforts to make it there. Thats kind of the operating principle we work under.

DB: What makes your Series A investors ideal business partners?

Hango-Zada: Shippit doesnt just look for funding, we also want to surround ourselves with investors who can contribute mental capital. Given our ambition to expand into the Asia market, Aura Group is an ideal partner  theyve got great networks in the region and have successfully worked with start-ups to take them to IPO. Similarly, we handpicked a couple of private investors based on their expertise in certain domains. One is personal investors working for a large venture capital firm in the U.S and the other is well-versed with, and has great relationships in, the local retail market.

DB: To ensure a good fit, what criteria did investors need to meet?

Hango-Zada: Firstly, they needed to have a track record of growing the start-ups they had invested in. Secondly, they needed to be able to assist us with international expansion. Thirdly, there had to be follow-on potential. By this, I mean we want our investors to get involved in Shippit, commit to the vision and consider it as much their business as ours so theres no question of their future participation, provided we hit our milestones and key deliverables.

DB: Why did Shippit turn down $2.8m in capital? Was it a tough call?

Hango-Zada: It was very hard because you look at that money and think about all the things you can do with it. However, many start-up founders just look for the big numbers without really considering the massive responsibility they have to their shareholders to spend capital efficiently. Will and I are dual CEOs and considering our bandwidth we would have struggled to hire as many people as we needed to hire in the short-term to justify the larger capital investment.

Weve always been fiscally responsible, which has involved looking at investments that will deliver a return for the business. We took the same disciplined approach to our Series A round. The valuation exceeded our expectations, as did the offers, and this put us in a great position. Before we made our final decision, we re-evaluated what we needed and, considering our growth ambitions, settled on a figure much closer to $2 million.

Underlying our decision not to accept the full amount on offer was the fact that during the raising process, our our subscriber base grew by over 40% and our revenue doubled, which alleviated our need for capital.

DB: How would you account for Shippits growth trajectory?

Hango-Zada: The key has been really listening to the customers and refining the product based on customer feedback. We dont see ourselves as a shipping platform, we see ourselves as an enabler for delivering in the space of ecommerce, based on the consumer demand of today. We have an obligation to our customers to keep delivery rates low and to streamlining the delivery process  thats been our diligence focus since we launched. Having marquee enterprise clients who support Shippit and are genuinely interested in developing new, innovative solutions has also been critical. Its enabled us to build expertise in those verticals, meaning we can better service the customers in those verticals.

DB: Noting your expansion plans, what opportunity does Asia present?

Hango-Zada: If you look at Asia, logistics infrastructure is trailing consumer demand. China has done a terrific job in terms of innovating in this space but across South East Asia, there is still significant room for improvement. What gives us an advantage is our intimate understanding of how retailers operate and how consumers expect to receive their goods. We have a unique opportunity based on our business model and the fact our software platform enables logistics and logistics enables our platform  this means we can fix logistics issues in the region while leveraging our software platform to further drive growth. Its important, however, not to be naive about the competition that already exists. We are not just setting up shop and expecting businesses to join us, we are going in with a determined approach, based on demand from our customers to enter markets in the region.
Ever wonder how the cable television industry would get back into the wireless business? Charter Spectrum has announced it will resell Comcasts Xfinity Mobile wireless service to customers inside its region. The good news is that this deal lets Charter get quick access to wireless without competing with Comcast.

Comcast and Charter Communications last week said they had reached an operational agreement about working together on wireless communications going forward. My understanding is that both agreed to sell wireless only to their existing customers in their existing regions.

While this is limiting in one sense, it does open a growth opportunity for Comcast. On one hand, it means there will be no national expansion for Charter or for Comcast. On the other hand, it could allow Comcast to move more deeply into the reseller business with all the smaller cable television companies nationwide.

Wireless Success Stories

The important question going forward is this: Will Comcast and Charter be successful with wireless this time around? You see, they tried wireless plays before and failed. Now they are trying again. However, we may not know whether this gambit will be successful for at least a quarter or two.

Wireless is a complicated business. AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile are the only successful big-time players. The others struggle for a smaller market share. In the past, various companies  among them, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Amazon and Facebook  tried to compete with the leaders but failed.

Even Google is still struggling in wireless. Android is a hit, but Googles Pixel phone and its Project Fi service are not.

Charter, Comcast and Verizon

It will be interesting to see what strategy Comcast and Charter use to grow in wireless. Success is not guaranteed  especially if you do not follow the leaders, which neither Comcast or Charter seems to be doing.

Will limiting the size and scope of their addressable markets work? Will not focusing on wireless as a standalone product work? These are two of the mistakes they made years ago. Will it be different this time?

Its important to remember that even though Charter will resell Comcast, Xfinity Mobile is already a reseller of Verizon Wireless. What this means is that Charter will be a reseller of Verizon Wireless  two steps removed. This arrangement raises an interesting question: Why didnt Charter deal directly with Verizon?

Cracking the Code

Selling Verizon services limits Comcast, and selling Comcast limits Charter. That said, wireless is a huge growth opportunity for any company that can crack the code. So, the critical question is whether Charter and Comcast can crack the code this time.

Congratulations to Charter on entering wireless through Comcast Xfinity Mobile. There is an enormous opportunity for real growth, if it can crack the code. Only time will tell, but I wish both Charter and Comcast success.
Google has been working on a plan to install an ad blocker onto its Chrome browser for both desktop and mobile versions, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

It also has been considering a collaboration with Microsoft, Facebook and other firms to develop a set of standards that would determine which types of advertising to block from websites, according to AdAge. That effort presumably would aim at enhancing the consumer experience in a way that would not jeopardize ads from legitimate firms.

Google has been working closely with the Coalition for Better Ads and industry trade groups to explore a multitude of ways to support the Better Ads Standards, said a company spokesperson who declined to comment on the Chrome ad blocker rumor.

A group of major social media, advertising, trade and other groups last year formed the coalition to help standardize a set of protocols for eradicating malicious, fraudulent or annoying advertising from websites, while making sure consumers could see legitimate Web ads. Online advertising is the revenue lifeblood of many online firms, and the most attractive way for advertisers to reach their customers, particularly younger people.

Google and other companies in the Web search and browser arena have struggled to find ways to eradicate abusive advertising in recent years.

Ad Purge

Google earlier this year announced that it had removed more than 1.7 billion bad ads from its various websites in 2016  more than double the prior year totals.

Facing several major suits and investigations related to abusive advertising, Google launched a crackdown on advertising from payday loan operators trick-to-click ads, ads that injected malware, ads that peddled illegal pharmaceuticals, and other types of fraudulent or abusive advertisements.

Two-thirds of more than 1,000 ad-blocking consumers polled said they would remove the blocking tools if they were convinced the ads did not contain malware, would not slow down their browsers, and would neither block content nor unleash annoying music or video, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported last year.

It was on the heels of that reports release that advertising firms, trade organizations, search engines, social media companies, traditional media companies and others  among them IAB, Facebook, Google, The Washington Post and News Corp.  formed the Coalition for Better Ads with the goal of improving consumers online advertising experience.

The coalition last month released Initial Better Ad Standards, a comprehensive report based on research involving 25,000 desktop and mobile Web consumers in North America and Europe.

The coalition ranked four types of desktop ads  pop-up ads, autoplaying video ads with sound, prestitial ads with countdown and large sticky ads  as falling below consumer standards.

The study showed a total of eight mobile ad types that fell below standards, including ads with density greater than 30 percent, flashing animated ads, full screen scroll-over ads, and postitial ads with countdown.

Security Matters

This is a good move by these organizations, as malicious ads have been a good way to drop ransomware and other threats on unsuspecting victims, said Jon Clay, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro.

There have also been a number of cases where third-party ad blockers have been used as a disguise for malicious apps, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The use of ad blockers raises a question of gatekeeping, however, Clay pointed out. Who would determine which ads would be allowed to display and which would not? One solution might be to allow the end user to be in charge of the types of ads allowed.

Although its not likely that installing ad blockers would harm Google enough to hurt the companys bottom line, it could make the return on posting to Google sites less attractive for publishers, noted Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at Poynter.

Its another illustration of the gulf between the interests of publishers and platform companies, he told the E-Commerce Times. Google, Facebook, et. al., are all concerned with a smoother user interface. If there is collateral damage to publishers, so what?

Microsoft, which reportedly has been working on ad-blocking software for Edge, declined our request to comment for this story, saying it does not comment on rumors and speculation.
Competition in telecom price and service packages has been getting a lot of attention lately. However, network providers also have been pursuing other opportunities that consumers might miss if theyre exposed only to traditional advertising. AT&Ts cooperation with the U.S. government in developing a national emergency responder network is a case in point.

AT&T moved quickly to take the first steps toward launching the network since late March, when the U.S. Commerce Department chose it to be the governments partner for establishing the responder system.

The company and the initial group of tech businesses involved in the project have had an extremely productive month collaborating on a number of priorities, such as state plans and the development of an online portal that will be used to deliver the plans to the states and territories, said Mike Poth, CEO of FirstNet, in a recent online post.

We have also had initial discussions regarding the FirstNet core network architecture, he added.

As project leader, the company is charged with providing 50 states and several territories with draft plans for participation in the national network linking emergency service agencies.

The FirstNet Partnership

The Commerce Department will provide 20 Mhz of broadband spectrum and US$6.5 billion in initial funding to the partnership.

AT&T will deploy and operate a nationwide high-speed broadband network dedicated to police, fire, ambulance services and other first responders. Over a projected duration of 25 years, AT&T expects to invest nearly $40 billion in the effort.

FirstNet, an agency established within the Commerce Departments National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will administer the program on behalf of the federal government. Congress established the First Responder Network Authority  or FirstNet  in 2012 to create a much-needed nationwide interoperable broadband network dedicated exclusively to first responder agencies.

The need for better communication and coordination among such agencies on a national basis was revealed during the 2001 terrorist attack in New York. Currently, first responders use commercial networks  the same ones used by consumers and businesses  for mobile data and applications.

That can become problematic during a public safety crisis, when commercial networks become overwhelmed, noted AT&T.

First responders use more than 10,000 networks for voice communications, which often lack interoperability, the company pointed out. That severely limits first responders ability to communicate with each other when responding to a situation.

The law establishing FirstNet calls for the deployment and operation of the network on a single, national architecture. FirstNet will hold the spectrum license for the network, and it will be responsible for taking all actions necessary to build, deploy and operate the system in consultation with federal, state, tribal and local responder agencies, as well as other key stakeholders.

IT and Telecom Opportunities

Initial technical support will come from Motorola Solutions, General Dynamics, Sapient Consulting, and Inmarsat Government, AT&T reported, but there will be room for other providers.

Our FirstNet team includes small business subcontractors who fit the Department of Commerces subcontracting goals and category designations as appropriate for federal government procurements, said Chris Sambar, AT&Ts senior vice president for FirstNet.

Among the team members are service-disabled veterans, HubZone small businesses, women-owned small businesses, and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The FirstNet effort also could provide opportunities for innovation in network technologies and open the door for more business participants. When the network scheme first was floated after enactment of the 2012 legislation, some skeptics contended that the proposed technology would be obsolete before the system was completed. Both FirstNet and AT&T take issue with that view.

FirstNet and AT&T will innovate and evolve the network to keep the public safety community at the forefront of technology advances. For example, as 5G network capabilities develop in the coming years, FirstNet and AT&T will work together to provide the exponential increases in the speed with which video and data travel across the FirstNet network, AT&T said. Other examples of potential innovations:

Further the development of public safety-focused Internet of Things and smart city solutions, such as providing near real-time information on traffic conditions to determine the fastest route to an emergency.

Enable advanced capabilities, such as wearable sensors and cameras for police and firefighters, and camera-equipped drones and robots that can deliver near real-time images of events such as fires, floods or crimes.

Today, public safety is treated the same as other commercial or enterprise users on wireless communications networks, noted FirstNet Chief Technology Officer Jeff Bratcher.

With the FirstNet network, public safety will have the priority access, capacity, and resilient, hardened connections that they dont have today, he told the E-Commerce Times. This will allow them to take advantage of advanced technologies, tools and services  for every day and for every emergency  to help save lives and protect communities.

A key requirement of the agreement calls for the company to prepare individual draft participation plans for the governors of U.S. states and territories. States may opt in or opt out of the FirstNet program, but if they opt out, their own networks must be compatible with FirstNet.

We are expecting to deliver draft state plans in June with final plans expected to be delivered in the fall, said AT&Ts Sambar.

Commercial Impact for AT&T

While AT&T will prioritize first responder use of the network, the company will be able to access the 20 Mhz of spectrum provided through the FirstNet license when not in use for public safety purposes, according to the agreement with the Commerce Department. As a result, AT&T could gain some commercial leverage.

I dont see how it doesnt, observed David Krebs, executive vice president at VDC Research.

Securing access to valuable frequency is the currency of todays carriers and a critical differentiator, he told the E-Commerce Times.

One question we have is what impact this has for existing public safety/first responder customers of competing providers, such as Verizon and others, he said.

Experience gained in utilizing sensors and wearables could be a plus, AT&T acknowledged, noting further that it also will have the ability to connect FirstNet users to the companys telecom network assets, which are valued at more than $180 billion.

However, AT&Ts ability to generate a direct profit from the venture has yet to be determined, according to Krebs, who said the issue is lacking much clarity at this time.

Initially, AT&T will look to engage individual states by shouldering the capital expenditure heavy investments to build out the infrastructure, and leverage existing infrastructure as available, he observed.

This will ultimately be funded by service or subscription fees by the users. However, what that service fee will be  especially in the context of the massive infrastructure investments and the fairly finite user pool  remains a huge unknown, said Krebs.

There has been a great deal of speculation that cell tower operators also could benefit from the project, he pointed out.

Although it is unclear which specific companies would benefit, Krebs said, some of the leading providers in the sector should be well positioned to participate in the venture.
I dont know about you but I cant seem to get out of my head the image of that poor Asian doctor who, seemingly unconscious, was dragged off that United flight. The fact that the airline did that to a 69-year-old doctor just so it could save money moving employees around is nearly as unbelievable as the initialtone-deaf response from Uniteds CEO, who blamed the passenger. (It was only after a tremendous backlash that the CEO offered an actual apology.)

While the United debacle was going on, I happened to be reviewing Qualcomms counterclaim against Apple, and holy crap. It alleges that Apple crippled the modems in some iPhones to cover up its use of cheap parts, and that it aggressively acted to prevent anyone, particularly Qualcomm, from pointing it out.

I have the view that if you pay for a thing, you should get that thing  and Apple customers, according to Qualcomm, are getting screwed. Given how we depend on our phones, my guess is that if this is true, it wont end well for Apple.

Ill share some thoughts on customer abuse and then close with my product of the week: the Netgear Arlo Security Camera system (again).

Customer Abuse

I often wonder if top executives and boards have some weird undiagnosed disease that causes them, from time to time, to do something so incredibly stupid you have to wonder if someone snuck up on a bunch of them and hit them with a stupid stick.

I recall having a discussion with an IBM exec I reported to back in the early 1990s about the companys practice of intentionally creating buggy products and then charging customers to fix the problems it had created. I asked why we were doing something that seemed insane, only to be told, effectively, that since the customer had no choice, IBM could do what it wanted to them and they would pay whatever IBM charged.

It was like selling air. It remains one of the most idiotic responses Ive ever heard, and shortly after I left the firm that entire executive team was canned. (Apparently the newly hired CEO, Louis Gerstner, agreed with my assessment.)

Microsoft had a group of executives who covered up that Office 98 wasnt backward-compatible, and a different group covered up the issues with Windows Vista that should have prevented its release. Those issues created massive problems with customers, and most of the folks responsible lost their jobs as a result.

To hit aggressive price points with lithium-ion batteries in the early 2000s, Sony covered up that they hadnt updated their lines to prevent metal contamination. The batteries became contaminated and caught fire, forcing massive recalls and pretty much wiping out Sonys lithium-ion battery business.

Those batteries could have resulted in an impressive number of deaths had one of them gone up next to a better fuel source on a plane. The lithium-ion coverup followed Sonys institution of a program to put rootkits on PCs in an attempt to combat piracy, which opened those PCs to hacking and put customers at risk. The backlash over that helped wipe out Sonys Walkman business and opened the door to the iPod.

Takata covered up that their airbags were not aging well and actually could kill drivers when they deployed. It apparently did not do anything to address the problem, which eventually was discovered and resulted in the biggest automotive recall in history. It still might put the company out of business.

It appears that Samsung cut short quality testing to get the Galaxy Note7 out quickly only to find out it was catching fire. In an effort to address that problem quickly, it guessed wrong about the cause, and replacement phones caught fire too. To recover some of the costs associated with its massive recall, Samsung decided to sell refurbished Galaxy Note7s, and I doubt thatll end well. I think Samsung has a death wish.

It really seems like an epidemic of stupid at times

Uniteds Disastrous Decision

There were two paths that United could have taken to move employees to another location without causing an uproar. One was to increase the voucher amount offered to passengers to a point where it was cheaper to charter a plane to move the employees, or simply to have in place what many non-airline companies use, a fleet of smaller planes for employees use.

What is particularly scary about the method that United chose is that it didnt factor in why people werent taking a US$1,000 voucher to change flights. Its method for choosing which passengers to bump only focuses on connections, so those who were ending up at the destination airport were prioritized for bumping.

What if someones job depended on getting to a location on time? What if someone had a dying relative, a wedding or funeral to attend? What if someone were a doctor who needed to get to a critical patent? None of those possibilities was been taken into account, and the poor guy who was beaten up was in fact a doctor.

Uniteds decision has cost it millions in brand damage, and because the passenger looked as though he might have been Chinese, China is treating this like a racial attack on its people, which could result in sanctions. I bet that before this is over, Congress might put a law on the books addressing it. Id name it The United CEO Is An Idiot Law. (By the way, PRWeekwants its award back. Suddenly this is an Oscar 2017-like event.) It may even cost the CEO his job  all because it didnt have a better way to move employees around, which is kind of sadly ironic given it is in the transportation business.

At the end of that last linked article, the author asks why it took so long for United even to understand this was a problem. It was because, in the minds of its executives, customers had stopped being people and had become an exploitable resource instead. That attitude generally is considered a company and career killer.

Apples Secret War on Customers

Between Apple and Samsung, Im not sure which has the stronger tendency for suicidal policies. Apple clearly has a problem, because it is a firm that is valued largely for its innovation, and that is one word that largely has been used in the past tense since Tim Cook took over for Steve Jobs. While the iPhone has done well  particularly this last quarter, thanks to Samsungs suicidal moves  nothing else has risen to diversify Apples revenue or offset a trend of increasing margin pressure. As a result, Apple has moved to a strategy of aggressively cutting costs.

That sets a foundation for the kind of problem that I mentioned earlier in this column. You see, Apple customers effectively are locked in to Apple services  which would be OK, as long as Apple didnt see it as an opportunity to mine them, and could grow its revenue and margins by creating more and more compelling products.

However, Apple hasnt done that. The Apple Watch has languished, the iPad is in decline, and the iPad Pro has been a disappointment. MacBooks, Macs and iMacs have been cash cows for so long that reviving them seems increasingly unlikely, and is driving the company go cheap on components while considering charging more and more for iPhones.

The Qualcomm filing basically just says Apple is an assh*le, which is far from an uncommon position from any Apple supplier. It gets interesting on page 46 of the whopping 130-page document. It alleges that Apple not only has been using sub-optimal (read cheap) parts, but also has been threatening to retaliate should anyone point that out.

Point 4 on page 46, basically says there are two iPhones in market sold as the same phone: one with cheap parts, and one with good parts but that Apple is crippling so that people cant tell the difference (and thereby avoid the bad phone). However, Apple cant cripple it enough, so people are barred from pointing out that the crippled phone is still better. WTF!?!

Here is the thing: Increasingly we live on our cellphones. We depend on them to work if there is an emergency. Our lives increasingly literally depend on them, and folks think that by buying Apple they are getting the best. However, if Qualcomm is correct, they either are getting a substandard phone  or worse, an intentionally crippled product.

The potential consequences range from poor performance to bad connectivity, which could leave users with a phone that doesnt work when they most need it. Cutting quality while raising prices and aggressively covering that up only works temporarily. Eventually people figure it out  and that didnt end well for IBM or for the CEO that shortly thereafter was fired.

Like all of the other examples Ive cited here, Apples alleged action is customer abuse. If it turns out to be true, then it means that the only difference between Apple and all the rest of these bad examples is that Apple has taken more money from its customers. I expect that as a reason to buy from a company, that likely falls pretty low on anyones list.

Ill add one other element that I think is very similar to the old IBM and the new Apple. Both companies enjoyed  and still enjoy  phenomenal customer loyalty. Even though IBMs behavior had been going on for years, most customers seemed to give IBM the benefit of the doubt. As a result, when the problem became pronounced it went to nuclear unbelievably fast.

Certainly, it was way too fast for the existing management team to respond, and the result was a purge. It eventually saved the company, but it was a very close thing. Apples loyalty is, if anything, greater than IBMs was  and todays consumer market certainly can move a ton faster than enterprise computing did back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

What this means is that if this alleged anti-customer behavior is left in place too long, the backlash on Apple could be unrecoverable  particularly if Google further reduces the migration pain to Android.

Given that many of you have huge investments in Apple, Im suggesting you might not want to have all those eggs in that same troubled basket. Diversification may save your ass.

Wrapping Up

There are times when I wonder if boards and CEOs either are mentally challenged or suicidal. From Samsung, to United, to Apple, this year has been an increasingly ugly example of executives behaving badly.

I know I missed the chapter in management school that suggested screwing customers was a great business practice, but I seriously think those pages should be torn into little bitty pieces and tossed out, along with the idiots who adhere to this strategy.

In any case, this month has provided a strong teachable moment. Lets hope a lot of executives learn by watching rather than doing. It is never OK to abuse customers. When companies do, they have translated customers into things. We really dont like being mistreated as things.

When I last wrote about this product, Id installed two cameras and was impressed that the batteries had lasted a couple weeks. Well, its been over a month, and Im now up to 10 cameras. Ive had to recharge only two batteries, both of which had more than half their battery life left even though they were in very high traffic areas, which suggests these puppies could last for months in low-traffic areas.

Weve caught stray dogs wondering in our yard, the gate left open and our dogs sneaking in and out of it, delivery people who have lied about deliveries, pet sitters who werent doing what they said they were doing, and a herd of deer wandering in to munch on our newly planted flowers. This system is AWESOME!

Netgear Arlo Pro

The Netgear Arlo is my third camera system, and it was by far the easiest to set up. The lack of wiring means I can put the cameras anyplace I want, and I can install a ton of them. My dogs and cats each have their own tracking camera, but my wife had me move the one that was on her. (Thatll teach me to tell her, huh?)

I did figure out one thing: It is cheaper to buy the cameras in the bundle then one by one. You can get an Arlo system with four cameras for $350 if you shop around, while the cameras individually cost around $150.

Sadly, I didnt figure this out until after Id purchased an additional eight cameras. Further, you get up to five cameras with the free service, but if you want to go to 10 it will set you back $99 a year. However, you then get 30 days of storage for up to 10 GB of data. For 15 cameras, its $149 a year and you get 60 days storage for up to 100 GB.

Arlo just launched a $450 camera, and what makes it different is that it has local storage, a 3G/4G connection, and a massive battery. Sadly, this is only available to large companies or the government, and we know they would never use them to spy on you

It has been a long time since I was this excited about a product, and that is why the Netgear Arlo is my product of the week  again! You could call this the iPod of security camera systems.
Microsoft this weekend unleashed its wrath on the National Security Agency, alleging it was responsible for the ransomware attack that began last week and has spread to thousands of corporate, government and individual computer systems around the world.

Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith launched a blistering attack on the NSA and governments worldwide, equating the ransomware attack with the U.S. military allowing the theft of a Tomahawk missile cache.

This is an emerging pattern in 2017, Smith wrote Sunday in an online post. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on Wikileaks and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world.

The attack illustrated a disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today  nation state action and organized criminal action, Smith said.

Governments should treat the attack  which has impacted more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries, according to Trump administration officials  as a wake-up call, Smith added, reiterating Microsofts call for a Digital Geneva Convention to govern the worldwide use of cybertools.

New Variants Popping Up

The WannaCry exploit is part of a trove of hacking tools the Shadow Brokers allegedly stole from the NSA and then leaked to the Internet. The attack mechanism is a phishing operation that encrypts files using the AES-128 cipher, and demands a ransom ranging from US$300 to $600 in bitcoins in order for the data to be released.

WannaCry has targeted computers using Windows systems, particularly legacy systems. Microsoft earlier this year issued a patch to protect computers from the malware, but in many parts of the world, users of Windows XP or Windows Vista failed to upgrade their systems or download the patch.

Microsoft issued a new patch last week, as well as a patch that would cover the legacy systems, as it stopped providing routine upgrades for them last month.

Two additional variants of the WannaCry malware were patched versions  rather than recompiled versions from the original authors  according to Ryan Kalember, senior vice president of cybersecurity at Proofpoint, which helped stop the original strain of the virus last week.

The first variant, WannaCry 2.0(a) pointed its kill switch to a different Internet domain, which promptly was registered and sinkholed, he told the E-Commerce Times. The second variant, WannaCry 2.0(b) had its kill switch functionally removed, which allows it to propagate, but prevents it from properly deploying the ransomware payload.

Proofpoint has found new variants of ransomware emerging every two to three days for the last 14 months, said Kalember, so organizations need to make sure they have the latest patches.

The WannaCry worm will not infect computers that have been in sleep mode, even with Transmission Control Protocol port 445 open on an unpatched system, noted Trend Micro in a Monday online post.

Still, administrators should patch such machines, the company warned.

Return to Normalcy

Tom Bossert, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, addressed the issue at the White House daily press briefing.

Bossert spoke to his counterpart in the UK, he said, noting that no government systems were affected and less than $70,000 in ransom has been paid to release computers seized in the ransomware attack, worldwide.

The government was not aware of any payments resulting in data recovery, he added.

The Department of Homeland Security was aware of a small number of potential victims in the U.S. and was working with them to confirm and mitigate the threat, a DHS official who requested anonymity told the E-Commerce Times.

Federal Express has resumed normal operations and systems are performing as designed, said spokesperson Rae Lyn. The Ransomware attack disrupted the companys sorting operation in Memphis, Tennessee, and it waived the guarantee on deliveries due last Saturday.

The National Health Service in the UK was working to recover from the ransomware attack, which led to widespread computer disruptions, ambulance diversions, and cancellations of surgeries and office appointments.

There are encouraging signs that the situation is improving, with fewer hospitals having to divert patients from their A&E units, said Anne Rainsberry, national incident director.

Two hospitals still were diverting patients, however. The Lister Hospital  East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust was diverting patients for trauma, stroke and urgent heart attack treatment that would require diagnostic services. Also, Broomfield Hospital  Mid Essex Hospital Services was diverting trauma patients patients to Southend University Hospital.

The German Deutsche Bahn rail system largely has recovered from an attack of the initial strain of Wannacry, which caused electronic departure boards to display the hackers ransom demands, according to Lutz Miller, spokesperson for the rail service.

Train operations were not impacted, he told the E-Commerce Times, but some ticketing machines malfunctioned, and extra staff were positioned in affected rail stations.

Passengers were urged to use the DB Navigator or the DB Streckenagent apps.

The apps, the website, and customer service lines were not affected by the attack, Miller said, noting that it would take a few more days for departure boards to return to normal operation.

The city of Newark was hit by a ransomware attack last fall, but Frank Baraff, spokesperson for the city, told the E-Commerce Times that at the request of federal and state law enforcement, it would not comment further.

An FBI spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.

The NSA did not respond to our requests to comment for this story.
Microsoft on Tuesday announced the general availability of its phone sign-in for customers with Microsoft accounts  a system that could be the beginning of the end for passwords.

The new system requires that customers add their accounts to the Microsoft Authenticator app, which comes in both iOS and Android versions, noted Alex Simons, director of program management of the Microsoft Identity Division.

After supplying a username, a member will get a mobile phone notification. Tapping approve on the app will authenticate the members information.

The new phone sign-in process is easier than two-factor authentication, according to Simons. 2FA requires users first to enter passwords, and then to enter a code delivered via text or email.

The new process is safer than password-only systems, which can be forgotten, stolen for use in a phishing scheme, or otherwise compromised, he said.

Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft Authenticator, introduced last summer, started out as a replacement for earlier authentication apps, both for enterprise use in Azure AD and consumer use in regular Microsoft accounts. The initial version allowed fingerprint authentication in place of passcodes, and offered support for wearables including Apple Watch and Samsung Gear.

Setting up Microsofts new phone-in system is easy. If customers already have Microsoft Authenticator for their personal accounts, they can select the dropdown button on the account tile and select enable phone sign-in.

Android users will be prompted to set up the authenticator. iPhones will set up the authenticator automatically. Users who dont have a phone available can elect to access their accounts using a password.

Microsoft has not made the phone sign-in system available to Windows Phone users.

Windows Phone makes up less than 5 percent of the active Authenticator Apps user base, Simons noted, so the company has prioritized iOS and Android. When the system achieves success on those two platforms, Microsoft will consider making it ready for Windows Phone.

Password Problems

The idea of moving away from passwords has been around for years, in part due to their vulnerability to hacking.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Cloud Platform General Manager Julia White discussed the idea of moving away from passwords at the Government Cloud Forum in November 2015.

Microsoft then employed Windows 10 Password to give customers a smart card level of threat detection, using the card as the first level of protection, then Windows Hello for confirmation through biometrics, such as face recognition, iris scanning or fingerprints.

Better Than 2FA?

The new functionality from Microsoft is not groundbreaking, but it represents a true upgrade from traditional password authentication methods, suggested Rik Ferguson, vice president for security research at Trend Micro.

This technology is definitely an improvement over using authenticator apps to generate one-time passwords, which can still be hijacked through a man-in-the-browser attack, he told the E-Commerce Times.

The new app represents true two-factor authentication in the same way Apple uses its Trusted Device authentication or Google uses its prompts.

Using interactive prompts or using an out-of-band trusted device like a smartphone rather than one-time passwords from an authenticator app or SMS does away with having data pass through the same browser, Ferguson added.

However the new system doesnt necessarily make logins more secure, Trend Micro Cloud Security VP Mark Nunnikhoven told the E-Commerce Times.

Microsofts approach substitutes something you know, the password, with something you have, the phone, he said, but it is not as strong as genuine two-factor identification.
Just as the Shadow Brokers hacker group started crowing about a dump of never-seen-before flaws in Windows, Microsoft announced it already had fixed most of the exploits.

Today, Microsoft triaged a large release of exploits made publicly available by Shadow Brokers, Microsoft Principal Security Group Manager Phillip Misner wrote in a Friday post.

Our engineers have investigated the disclosed exploits, and most of the exploits are already patched, he added.

Three of the dozen zero day vulnerabilities aired by the hackers, which they claimed were part of a large cache of data leaked from the U.S. National Security Agency, did not work at all on Windows 7 and above.

Customers still running prior versions of these products are encouraged to upgrade to a supported offering, Misner recommended.

As of the most recent patch cycle, no supported versions of Windows were vulnerable to the Shadow Brokers exploits, said Bobby Kuzma, a system engineer at Core Security.

In other words, he told TechNewsWorld, for the love of God get XP, Vista and 2003 Server off of your networks.

Irresponsible Action

Microsofts decision not to patch vulnerabilities affecting older versions of Windows that no longer are supported is understandable, but it doesnt make the situation less worrisome, said James Scott, a senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

Many systems used in homes, businesses and critical infrastructure run on versions of Microsofts operating system prior to Windows 7.

Microsofts decision to knowingly put these systems at further risk, for any amount of time  even the hours or days necessary for resource allocation and modernization  is irresponsible, Scott told TechNewsWorld.

Every business, individual and critical infrastructure operating an OS that precedes Windows 7 remains at risk of compromise and exploitation, he said.

Whats more, the disclosure has drastically increased this risk by making knowledge of the vulnerability and attack vector publicly available to unsophisticated script kiddies, cybercriminals, cybermercenaries, hail mary threat actors, cyberterrorists and nation-state APTs, Scott added.

Follow-Through Needed

Microsofts release of patches and disclosure of vulnerabilities is a good thing, but enterprises need to take the process to the next step, cautioned Leo Taddeo, chief security officer at Cryptzone and a former FBI special agent.

According to the 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, most successful attacks exploit known vulnerabilities that have never been patched, despite patches being available for months or even years, he told TechNewsWorld.

So, while its important that Microsoft publicly disclosed the vulnerabilities and issued a patch, Taddeo continued, the challenge for enterprises is to update their infrastructure with the latest supported version of the affected products.

The same is true for consumers.

Microsoft did the right thing by patching Windows as quickly as possible and getting the patches to people, said Jack E. Gold, principal analyst at J.Gold Associates.

Whether they deploy them or not is a different issue, he told TechNewsWorld. Two-thirds to three-quarters of consumers dont even have up-to-date antivrus programs. If theyre not concerned about that, how concerned are they going to be about these patches?

Questions About Sourcing

Although Microsoft is usually very responsible about crediting sources who made the company aware about vulnerabilities in its products, that wasnt the case with the Shadow Brokers flaws.

That raises a number of possible scenarios, suggested Core Securitys Kuzma. Perhaps Microsoft found the vulnerabilities itself  or it may have purchased them from Shadow Brokers when the outfit put them up for sale on the Dark Web earlier this year. The Shadow Brokers may have pre-leaked the flaws to Microsoft, or perhaps the NSA passed them on to the company.

The timing of Microsofts action raises some questions, Scott White,director of the cybersecurity program at The George Washington University, told TechNewsWorld.

Microsoft had a ton of vulnerabilities in Windows, and it just found them a month before we were about to get a zero day attack? he asked. Were these patches discovered by Microsoft or was someone assisting Microsoft and letting them know of these vulnerabilities?

Potential Threat to Everyone

The Shadow Brokers flaws likely will impact businesses more than consumers.

The danger for consumers is limited as long as theyre keeping their security updated, said Mike Cotton, vice president of research and development at Digital Defense.

Microsoft has gotten good at ensuring that if youre behind a firewall or logging on to public WiFi, the network services that these exploits target are not exposed under most configurations, he told TechNewsWorld.

Most of the risks are on business networks because the way theyre configured those network services are exposed to these exploits, Cotton added.

As for the Shadow Brokers, their bark may be worse than their bite.

Theyre an irritant more than an absolute threat to our national security compared to the Russians or Chinese  but it doesnt make them any less criminal. They may be small fish in the pond, but theyre still fish, GWs White said.

The threat from this group derives from the fact they have some kind of source that is able to get them weaponized tools from the NSA, Cotton added.

The NSA is a tier-one cyberpower  maybe the preeminent cyberpower in the world, he explained, so if theres an inside source leaking tools to Shadow Brokers, the distribution of those tools poses a large threat to everyone.
By Dahr Jamail

When he was six years old, Dean Miller already knew he wanted to be a marine biologist. At that time, growing up in Australia, the world of marine biology seemed both spectacular and limitless, he said.

I wanted to study the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, the intricate and complex connections between the thousands of different life-forms that represent the most diverse ecosystem on the planet, Miller told Truthout.

But in the last two years, this has all changed for him.

I now look at the reef as an ecosystem that is suffering from our actions and I feel guilty beyond belief that this is happening in my backyard, on our generations watch, he explained. I no longer dream of the kaleidoscope of life, color and movement that represents the worlds coral reefs. Instead, I worry and fight for the actual existence of coral reefs as we know them, as the changes I see are happening all too quicklymuch quicker than the reef can adapt.

This is because over the last two years, the Great Barrier Reef, which is so dear to Miller and countless others who revel in the beauty and mysteries of the oceans, has been dying off at an unprecedented rate due primarily to warming ocean waters.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals become stressed by warmer-than-normal water, causing them to expel symbiotic algae that live in their tissues, from which they get their energy. Coral turns completely white when it bleaches. If it remains bleached long enough, it dies.

One scientist has already gone so far as to declare the Great Barrier Reef is now in a terminal stage. Most of those studying the reef agree that what is happening is unprecedented. This is because, at a minimum, two-thirds of the 1,400-mile long reef bleached out last year, which led to 22 percent of it dying. Now another bleaching event has resulted in at least two-thirds of the reef bleached again.

Dean Miller, a marine scientist with Great Barrier Reef Legacy, a nonprofit environmental organization that works to promote better stewardship of the reef by providing free access for scientists. Dahr Jamail

The bleaching this year has moved much farther south and has taken scientists by surprise in its severity and extent, Miller said. And he fears the state of the reef could be even worse than scientists realize, since only aerial surveys have been conducted to assess the damage and no research vessel is currently active on the reef to provide finer details.

With ocean temperatures rising across the globe as anthropogenic climate disruption continues to pick up speed, the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral ecosystem on Earth, may well be an example of what is happening to all of the coral on the planet.

This Is New for All of Us

Marine biologist David Burdick coordinates a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-funded long-term coral reef monitoring program out of the University of Guam Marine Laboratory, and has been conducting field studies of Guams coral reefs for more than a decade.

In 2013, we had a moderate to severe bleaching event that came out of nowhere and lasted for three months, and we lost a quarter of the coral that was impacted from the 80 percent of the coral species that bleached, Burdick told Truthout during a recent interview on Guam.

Then, less than seven months later, what he called an unusual sea-surface temperature spike caused another moderate to severe bleaching event. Corals that were already weakened by the 2013 eventmany of them died, he explained. The event was fairly widespread, and corals that survived the 2013 event did not survive this one.

Fifty percent of the coral that bleached during the 2014 event died.

Marine biologist David Burdick who has been studying the coral around Guam for more than 10 years, told Truthout the frequency of bleaching events he is seeing is all new to us. David Burdick

Then, while we were still analyzing all of our data from that event, we had another large bleaching event in 2016, Burdick said. So we had three major bleaching events, essentially having one per year, which is a pattern now, apparently.

Prior to these events, theyd never seen anything on Guam that would be classified beyond a moderate coral bleaching event.

This is all new for us, Burdick said.

Miller is equally stunned by what he is seeing along the Great Barrier Reef, which is eerily similar to what Burdick is seeing on Guam.

Parts of the reef that didnt bleach last year are now under immense pressure, and this is totally different because this is back-to-back bleaching, Miller explained. The system was already stressed, and this is a new stress event. We are seeing much mortality on reefs in our area  What didnt die last year is dying this year.

In addition to the new bleaching in this years event, southern portions of the reef that are typically in cooler waters are now also bleaching out.

Its heartbreaking to see, Miller added. Seventy thousand direct tourism-related jobs and a $6 billion tourism industry are all at risk, especially on top of the recent damage from Cyclone Debbie.

According to Dean Miller, this years Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching event has taken scientists by surprise by its severity and extent and is occurring much further south than last years, which killed 22 percent of the reef. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

A study published this March in the journal Nature found that last years bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef was so severe that there was no similar analog in the thousands of years of ancient coral cores scientists use to study past climates.

Another study published in Nature projected that by the year 2050, more than 98 percent of global coral reefs will be afflicted by bleaching-level thermal stress every single year.

However, the prognosis could be even worse: The scientists involved in the study from this March speculated that the era of never-ending global coral bleaching may have already arrived, albeit several decades earlier than was predicted even just last year. They explained that the Great Barrier Reef needs 10 to 15 years between bleaching events in order to fully recover, and that recovery time period is no longer realistic.

We Dont Even Know What We Are Losing

Laurie Raymundo is a coral ecologist at the University of Guam Marine Lab who has worked closely with Burdick for years. Similar to Miller, she knew when she was 11 years old that she wanted to study coral. She now teaches at the University of Guam, and is designing a course in coral reef ecology and management that will include anthropogenic climate disruption impacts. She has lived in Guam since 2004 and is a co-author of the 2016 Paris climate agreement.

Like the other scientists Truthout spoke with, Raymundo is deeply troubled by what she is seeing.

Coral Ecologist Laurie Raymundo with the University of Guam is a co-author of the 2016 Paris climate agreement. Laurie Raymundo

If we lose coral reefs, Raymundo warned Truthout, We will lose all our sensitive species, and we will have lower diversity.

Equally worrying to her is the fact that there is still so much we dont know about the importance of coral reefs.

We dont even know what we are losing, and we dont understand what a loss of biodiversity fully means, for pharmaceuticals, ecologically and in so many other ways, she said. We are losing things before we even actually know, fully, what we are losing.

One crucial thing we do know were losing: much of our air. While coral reefs only cover 0.0025 percent of the oceanic floor, they generate half of Earths oxygen and absorb nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels.

A report by the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization shows that coral reefs are responsible for producing 17 percent of all globally consumed protein, with that ratio being 70 percent or greater in island and coastal countries like those of Micronesia.

At the time of this writing, Earth has lost nearly half of its coral, and oceanic warming only continues to accelerate.

We are finding that reefs living under anthropogenic stresses for many years have already lost their more sensitive coral species, and the ones that are there now are already the tough bastards, Raymundo said. And when reefs have lower diversity, there is less ecological redundancy; hence, they are more likely to collapse.

A Future Without Coral?

A 2012 study revealed that half of the Great Barrier Reef had already vanished in just the previous 27 years. Two years later, the worlds most qualified coral reef experts released a report showing that, without dramatic intervention, the Great Barrier Reef would disappear completely by 2030.

Furthermore, a study published and released by NOAA in 2011 warned that, unless action is taken now to reduce the threats, 90 percent of all reefs will be threatened by 2030, and all of Earths coral reefs could be completely gone by 2050. The study, Reefs at Risk Revisited, listed human-caused climate disruption, warmer water temperatures, ocean acidification, shipping, overfishing, coastal development and agricultural runoff as the contributing factors.

While that might sound extreme, Miller told Truthout he thought the report actually didnt go far enough.

I think its too conservative, he explained. Corals need many years to adjust to the warmer ocean waters, and we dont have that kind of time anymore. The warming we are seeing now is happening far too fast to allow for evolution  So what were seeing now is death. Thats what bleaching is.

Burdick, who described Guams reefs as getting clobbered, agreed.

Various factors will buy some areas some time, so some coral species might eek out a bit longer, for a while, he said. But [with] bleaching events every five to 10 years, you wont give coral enough time to come back to where it was. It is all about the rate of change. And right now, that rate is increasing, and rapidly at that.

Back in Australia, Miller is dismayed by the fact that his government is doing very little, if anything, to mitigate the crisis.

Truthout asked Miller what steps the Australian government is taking to save the Great Barrier Reef.

From what I can tell, virtually nothing, he answered. They are not focussed on this at all, but rather are pushing for the Adani Coal Mine to go ahead. We here in Australia can hardly believe it, to be honest. In fact, the government has had almost no comment on the bleaching at all.

The coal mine he referred to is looking like it is going to move forward, which will, according to Miller, bring an additional 500 ships carrying coal across the Great Barrier Reef every single year.

Truthout interviewed Millers colleague, John Rumney, the managing director of Great Barrier Reef Legacy in February, when this years bleaching event began.

This coral is in big trouble, Rumney said at the time. Like Miller, Burdick and Raymundo, Rumney warned of the extreme loss of biodiversity that comes with the disappearance of reefs.

When all that coral goes, all that diversity of fish that depends on it goes, Rumney told Truthout. The entire food chain is in big trouble.

[facebook https://www.facebook.com/ReefLegacy/videos/1068711729862678/ expand=1]

Miller concurred, saying, We might see ecosystem collapse as we know it.

The need for independent research on the Great Barrier Reef during this second mass-bleaching event is needed more than ever, according to Miller. His and Rumneys organization is striving to get more scientists out to the reef as quickly as possible.

The worlds greatest natural icon and largest living structure needs our help more than ever, and unless we act as a concerned global population, nothing will be done, he concluded. It is not too late. The reef is worth savingand our actions now will determine the fate of coral reefs in as little as 5 to 10 years. We must act.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Truthout.
by Rebecca Adamson

The McKinsey Global Institutes report, The Power of Parity: How Advancing Womens Equality Can Add $12 Trillion to Global Growth, concluded that, Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. If women  do not achieve their full economic potential, the global economy will suffer.

The report identified three elements that are essential for achieving the full potential of gender parity: gender equality in society, economic development and a shift in attitudes. According to the report, 95 percent of company CEOs are still male and of the 22,000 global firms that were reviewed, 60 percent failed to have any women on their boards.

Facing this disparity head on the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN) held the first webinar on Gender Lens Investing: The Business Case, Opportunities and Action. Gender Lens Investing is defined as the integration of gender into investment analysis and it makes a strong business case for more female CEOs. Panelists, Kathleen McQuiggan at Pax World and Julianne Zimmerman at Reinventure Capital, shared research on the business case for investing in women. The conclusion was that the case for gender investing has never been stronger and that companies where women are better represented in leadership simply perform better.

At the same time, both the IEN webinar and McKinsey report point to evidence of persistent misconceptions about women founders and leaders, along with significant discriminations and market inefficiencies connected to gender and race. Over the past six years, researchers and experts in the tech industry have begun to consider the effects of this gender bias.

Ninety percent of tech employees are men and at the senior levels men account for 96 percent. Of the women entering the tech industry, 56 percent leave citing that they were pushed out by sexism and of the 6,517 companies receiving venture funding from 2011 to 2013, only 2.7 percent had women for CEOs.

As such, gender lens investing is crucial for breaking through the glass ceiling in these companies, but its not just within the rank and file of the tech industry that women face discrimination. As McKinsey points out, gender parity requires a shift in attitudes and here again the tech industry offers no better place to see cultural attitudes towards women than on the Internet.

Across websites and social media, gender discrimination exists along a spectrum of illicit sexual surveillance, creep shots extortion, doxxing, stalking, malicious impersonation, threats and rape videos. Misogyny on Twitter, a report by Demos found that over a six-week period more than 6 million instances of the word slut or whore were used in English on Twitter. Of these tweets, 20 percent were deemed to be threatening.

Originally filed under controversial humor, the social media companies recognize such postings can be overt efforts to silence women, but so far, the sanctity of free speech is taking precedence over freedom for women to engage in online communities. At the same time, When it comes to copyright and intellectual property interests, companies are highly responsive. But violence against women frequently gets a lukewarm response until it becomes an issue of bad press, stated Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly in 2014.

At the annual SRI Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing last November, a panel was held for the very first time on The Truth About Violence Against Women and Gender Inequality. Jamia Wilson, executive director of Women, Action and the Media, recounted how a group of women were able to elevate the online violence against women to an issue of bad press. Advertisements for Dove, iTunes, Finn Air and others were appearing on live pages with names like I kill bitches like you, I Love the Rape Van and many others with worse titles.

Thus Women, Action and the Media and other feminists launched a campaign directed at the advertisers, asking, Were these values a reflection of the companys values? The advertisers responded immediately and the social media companies followed. Pat Zerega, senior director of shareholder advocacy at Mercy Investments, shared how teaming with feminist stakeholders led to using shareholder advocacy as the means for increasing corporate accountability and awareness of extractives, trucking, hotels and other industries in the forefront of violence against women. Check out Mercy Investments groundbreaking effort: Truckers Against Trafficking.

Perhaps the extractive industries might not set out to perpetuate violence against women, but it certainly is a widespread by-product of how they do business. Take the tragic scene of conflict, environmental destruction and violence against women that is playing out under a national media spotlight at the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) site in North Dakota. The Bakken region of North Dakota started experiencing its oil boom back 2010. The rapid oil development brought an influx of cash and thousands of oil workers living in man camps with time and money on their hands.

The rates for murders, aggravated assaults and robberies have tripled and rates for sex crimes, forcible rape, prostitution and sex trafficking have increased by 20.2 percent, according to Kathleen Finn, scholar in residence at the American Indian Law Clinic University of Colorado. The response by the state of North Dakota to protect the women and children from the escalating oil-induced violence has been to allocate $100,000 over a five-year period for the victims. The response by the state of North Dakota to the company building DAPL, Energy Transfer Partners, has been to allocate more than $23 million over a five-month period for the law enforcement, National Guard and security forces to protect company equipment.

The fight against DAPL has implications beyond the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It is a fight for everyone who wants clean air, clean water and gender equality. As governments increasingly prove incapable or unwilling to protect these things, citizens are turning to the market and the market is responding. Thanks to DAPL, social responsibility is on every ESG (environmental, social and governance) investors radar.

As of this writing, a coalition of more than 150 investors representing more than $1.3 trillion in assets under management called on banks financing DAPL to address or support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes request to reroute the pipeline and avoid their treaty territory. Lead investor Boston Common Asset Management was joined by Storebrand Asset Management and Calvert Research and Management along with CalPERS and the comptroller of the city of New York in a statement about reputational and potential financial risks for banks with ties to DAPL. The investors are concerned banks may be implicated in conflict and controversies related to the pipeline and could face long-term brand and reputational damage resulting from consumer boycotts and possible legal liability.

Within the investment community, ESG investing is mainstreaming at an unprecedented rate. Considerable progress quantifying environmental risks and building them into the business model has been made. For example Carbon Tracker provides financial and regulatory analysis to ensure that the risk premium associated with fossil fuels is correctly priced. The emergence of unburnable carbon, stranded assets, wasted capital and fossil fuel risk premium has equipped investors with a wealth of tools to integrate environment into their decisions. Likewise, governance is also making progress. evidenced by the creation of many funds and indices designed around CEO pay, board diversity, etc.

Social, on the other hand, has not made as much progress. While investors are able to easily assess companies based on women represented on boards, equal pay, etc., there are few if any tools for investors to gauge how companies are addressing violence against women in their operations and supply chains. Complicit in the lack of progress is the fact that the Securities and Exchange Commission does not require corporations to report on community relations or human rights, due to their perceived lack of material relevance, so they fail to disclose what could be deemed material social risks and social costs and corporate accountability to the victims.

But the times, they are changing. ESG investing is mainstreaming at an accelerated rate. To stay true to our original purposecreating a better world through the marketwe must create the tools, methodologies and social metrics to achieve relevance with the female half of our stakeholders.

Rebecca Adamson, an Indigenous economist, is founder and president of First Peoples Worldwide.

Reposted with permission from our media associate GreenMoney.
The Explorers Club in New York City was covered with portraits of primates on May 10, in the first art exhibit the club has ever hosted in its 113 years. The show featured artist Robin Huffman who was honored Wednesday evening for her work in environmental conservation.

The exhibit, Witness, displayed the many monkeys and apes that Huffman has cared for during her time at animal sanctuaries around the world. Huffman told EcoWatch that these animals deserve to live freely just like we do and to make that happen, we must be their voice.

Huffman spoke at The Explorers Club on May 10. Cassie Kelly

This is the first gallery weve ever done and weve done it in part because her work is downsizing a global issue, said Will Roseman, executive director of The Explorers Club. Witness is the perfect name for it because its forcing us to witness what weve done to these beautiful creatures.

Huffman has not always been a painter, in fact, she used to be an interior designer in New York where she lived a lavish life of cocktail parties and schmoozing with corporate executives. But, about 10 years ago, Huffman found her true purpose, which she said was to help primates.

I went to look at gorillas on a volunteer vacation. I was studying them, and then I fell in love with them, she said. Suddenly my career of thirty years, with a great income and a condo, just didnt matter.

Huffman ditched her high-rise apartment overlooking the city and headed for Cameroon, where she worked at a sanctuary for several months. Now, I refer to my life as BP and AP, before primates and after, she explained.

She began collecting the monkeys stories, photographing them and later painting them.

This is Zero Zero, a mustached guenon, who arrived at the sanctuary after being orphaned, sick and injured. After four days of care and attentionhe loved mangos and leavesZero Zero fell ill and died.

Zero Zero arrived at Ape Action Africa sanctuary in Cameroon with just days left to live. Cassie Kelly

I was still grieving five years later, thinking about the brief life of that innocent animal, she said. Then, somebody said you should paint his picture, tell his story, and I did it as a way to get over the sadness and pay tribute.

Since beginning to paint, Huffman has created dozens of portraits. She often works out of friends homes or anywhere she is welcome.

Ive even painted in the corridor of the storage facility where I hold my work, she said. I sold my home to be able to budget and afford going to Cameroon and pay to volunteer at the sanctuaries. My ideas of what is important changed a lot. Things that were unimportant felt like unwanted weight.

Huffman alongside her portrait of Kecksie, a vervet monkey. Cassie Kelly

Huffman said her life has a calling now. She wants to educate others about the exotic pet trade, horrendous conditions for animals in captivity, poaching and overall conservation efforts that can give these animals their habitat back.

For example, this is Rocky, she was put on display as a spectacle for 10 years with a chain around her neck, which was attached to a metal cart. She now has poor vision from the harsh sun and is very small for a full grown female chimp due to malnutrition.

Rocky is a chimp, timid and shy, but has a heart of gold. Cassie Kelly

Its about animal welfare, but also about conservation and preserving a species, she said. Its about respecting the individual and realizing they have as much of a right to live as we do.

Frida, a patas monkey, was also at the Ape Action center where she gorged herself on scrambled eggs. Cassie Kelly

Itd be a better world if there didnt have to be sanctuaries, but for now they do have to exist, she concluded.
By Andy Rowell

We have known for years that the days of finding easy oil outside the Middle East are over. It means that the oil industry has to go into fragile ecological areas like the Arctic or exploit dirty unconventionals like the tar sands or shale gas.

Or the industry can go deep offshore, where the ecological risks are also huge, but where the consequences of a spillage are devastating as stopping any oil spill on the bottom is deeply problematic.

But as people fight the tar sands industry in Canada or fracking in the UK, there is a new battleground: Brazil.

There is a growing conflict in Brazil just off the mouth of the vast Amazon, where the oil industry has been searching for oil in the hope of finding what has been descried as Latin Americas next big oil discovery.

According to the usual industry hype, the area known locally as the Foz do Amazonas Basin may contain some 14 billion barrels of oil some 120 kilometers offshore.

However, the oil industry has a problem. For years, Brazilian scientists believed the area could be home to a large reef, but the depth of the water and murky silt pouring out from the Amazon delayed efforts to explore the area.

But last year, an amazing reef was discovered after a scientific expedition. It defied expectations as the huge amounts of silt coming from the Amazon River should in theory cut out light and prevent a flourishing reef. But this is not the case.

Massive Coral Reef Discovered at Mouth of Amazon, But Its Already Threatened by Oil Drilling https://t.co/NeiL44azaO @OceanLeadership  EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) April 25, 2016

The scientists were astounded by what they saw.

We brought up the most amazing animals Ive ever seen on an expedition like this, Oceanographer Patricia Yager from the University of Georgia told National Geographic last year. All the scientists just hung over the rails amazed at what we were finding.

According to the magazine, There were sea fans, and yellow tubes, and tiny, sunset-colored fish, as well as pink coral-like crusted algae called rhodoliths, and gorgeous sponges in yellow and red. National Geographic called it one of the most surprising finds in modern sea research.

Fabiano Thompson of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, one of the many co-authors of a scientific study with Yager, said simply, We found a reef where the textbooks said there shouldnt be one.

But this newly discovered reef, which is over 1,000 kilometers long, is just kilometers from where French oil company Total, along with its partners BP and Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, want to drill for oil.

And now environmentalists are fighting back. Greenpeace wants a total ban on drilling in the area.

BP and Total are proposing a technically challenging, risky deepwater operation close to a unique and largely unexplored biome in an area with an unknown number of endangered species, said Sara Ayech, a Greenpeace oil campaigner.

Valdenira Ferreira, a researcher at the Institute for Scientific Research of Amapa, who is helping prepare a study for the nations Environment Ministry, also told Reuters, In terms of environmentally sensitive environments, this is the biggest in Brazil.

Total, which paid just under $200 million for five exploration blocks, is now waiting for final approval from Brazils environmental regulator, IBAMA. Its an area that is very sensitive. Were concerned about everything there, Alexandre Souza, an environmental analyst for IBAMA, told Reuters.

Total and BP are also now facing opposition from Brazilian prosecutors and a possible legal challenge over the drilling plans. Federal prosecutors in the state of Amapa are calling on IBAMA to suspend the licensing due to concerns over the spill risks to the reef.

A statement by the prosecutors said Total did not take into account the important ecosystem of the coral reef of the mouth of the Amazon River in its drilling plans, nor has it adequately responded to information. If IBAMA does not take notice of its plans, then the prosecutors are threatening legal action within ten days.

In turn, the oil companies argue that all the necessary environmental impact assessments have been carried out. However, if IBAMA accepts the prosecutors assessment, BP and Total will have to undertake new environmental impact assessments.

The scientists who studied the reef are asking everyone to proceed with caution: Such large-scale industrial activities as oil drilling present a major environmental challenge, and companies should catalyze a more complete social-ecological assessment of the system before impacts become extensive and conflicts among the stakeholders escalate, they warned last year.

That warning still has not been heeded.
By Louisa Casson

Its a horror story.

A truly shocking 38 million pieces of plastic have been found on Henderson Island, one of the Pitcairn Islands that make up one of the UKs last remaining overseas territories.

This island has no one living on it, yet its beaches are now home to 18 tonnes of plastic waste that have washed up from the surrounding ocean. This makes it the highest density of human-made debris found anywhere in the world.

The island is situated in the middle of a giant garbage patch, where pieces of plastic that have entered the ocean are carried by sea currents and accumulate. There are now plastic hotspots like this in all of the major oceans. Last month, scientists warned of the staggering amount of plastic debris accumulating in seas within the Arctic Circle. Its clear that even the most remote corners of the planet arent safe from the blight of plastic pollution.

Closer to home, Greenpeaces boat the Beluga II is currently on an expedition around the coast of Scotland to investigate the impact of plastic on some of the UKs most iconic wildlife, like gannets, puffins and basking sharks.

On its first day after setting sail, Greenpeace found plastic waste on the internationally renowned seabird colony of the Bass Rockhome to the worlds largest colony of northern gannets. Plastic is a choking and entangling hazard for many sea creatures, with studies showing 90 percent of seabirds and one in three turtles have now eaten plastic. As plastic enters every level of the food chain, it can also travel back to our plates in seafood. Scientists have urgently called for more research into the possible risks for human health.

But we can already see far too starkly that in both UK-governed waters close to home and on the other side of the planet, plastic pollution is mounting up. A rubbish trucks worth of plastic enters the oceans globally every minute, with researchers estimating about 13,000 pieces of debris are washing up on Henderson Island daily.

This is a global problem, requiring global solutions, but the responsibility of the UK government is clear. Whichever party wins the election, the next UK government must take concrete action to reduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean and causing such harm to marine life.

The government designated the ocean around the Pitcairn Islands as a fully protected marine reserve in 2015, vowing to protect the precious biodiversity that inhabit the surrounding ocean, but its clear much more needs to be done at source to protect these creatures from the plastic threat.

This can take the form of targeting particularly polluting plastic items, like throwaway plastic packaging. We know plastic bottles are a huge part of the problem, with 16 million ending up in the environment every single day in the UK alone.

To stem this flow, we need to see action from major soft drink companies like Coca-Cola, which produces a whopping 3,400 single-use plastic bottles a second, to ditch throwaway plastic and embrace reusable packaging (call on the company to do so here!). Governments can also help by introducing Deposit Return Schemes to increase the number of bottles which are collected, and we can all try to reduce our plastic footprintstopping plastic from ending up in the ocean in the first place.

The sight of plastic overwhelming some of the most precious and remote parts of the world must act as a huge wake up call. We must urgently bring to an end the era of throwaway plastic, because our oceans simply cannot stomach any more plastic.

Louisa Casson is a campaigner in Greenpeace UKs oceans team.
ECSUs 164th Commencement Ceremony Celebrates 159 Graduates

On Saturday, May 13, 2017, 159 Elizabeth City State University students walked across the stage at the R. L. Vaughan Center, receiving diplomas and celebrating not only their education, but their experience as members of the Viking community. It was the 164th ECSU commencement ceremony.

Student Government Association President Ajanae Willis stirred the crowd of graduates, students, family and friends with a greeting not only designed to celebrate the day, but also inspire graduates to go forward and be agents of change.

Willis, a history major from Fayetteville, North Carolina, brought to light the issues of mass incarceration, the sexualization of women in popular culture and the need to stand up and be counted among those who will be a positive force for change in the culture.

You have not overcome us, in fact we have overcome you, Willis said, pointing at what she describes as an oppressive system.

Williss speech was met by roaring applause. Chancellor Thomas Conway, when he took the podium to introduce the keynote speaker, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, observed that it was because of motivated students like Willis that he wanted his job as ECSU chancellor.

Butterfield, a native of Wilson, North Carolina, in his speech, urged students to, have faith. He said have faith in God, family, and your school. Now that you have graduated, he said, be a leader in your alma mater, and be a positive influence for future ECSU Vikings.

He also encouraged students to use their education to positive ends. In the world, he observed, there are many issues such as poverty and discrimination.

Students, he said, cannot ignore these issues. Their education, he said, has prepared them for a life of service in whatever field of endeavor they pursue.

Many students, such as Willis, will go on to earn graduate degrees, while others will go on to seek careers. Whatever they choose at this point in their lives, Butterfield celebrated their efforts and observed that ECSU has been through a great deal throughout its 126 year history, and is alive and well and deserves to be preserved.
Two ECSU Graduates Receive Army Officer Commissions

Two Elizabeth City State University graduates have been commissioned as officers in the United States Army. Former ROTC Cadets Ryan Ferguson and Kourtney Hicks are now second lieutenants.

On Friday, May 12, in the second floor auditorium at the Ridley Student Center, family and friends of the commissioned officers gathered for the commissioning, officiated by ECSU alum, Col. Marvin Thorton.

Thorton, a 1990 graduate and Elizabeth City native, is currently serving on the Joint Staff as the Chief of Logistics Operations and Policy at the Pentagon. As an officer in the Army, Thorton reminded the newly commissioned officers that they are now and always will be officers and must carry themselves as such. As Viking alumni, Thorton also encouraged the graduates to remain loyal to their school, and to future Vikings.

There is a lot of pride in being a military officer, and a lot of pride in being a Viking officer, said Thorton.

Being an officer in the military, he said, is an obligation 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

In or out of your uniform, you are an officer representing your country 24-hours a day. Act accordingly, Thorton said.

And be loyal to your school, he told them. Bring back to ECSU the spirit and encouragement they received as students, and help future generations succeed.

Ferguson is a native of Elizabeth City. He joined the ROTC program in spring 2014. He graduated with a degree in social work, with a minor in military science.

Ferguson interned as a guidance counselor at River Road Middle School during the 2016-2017 school year. After working as support staff for the Cadet Summer Training program, Ferguson will attend the First Artillery Officer Leadership course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Hicks is from Newport News, Virginia. She transferred to ECSU in spring 2015.

In 2013 she joined the Virginia National Guard. She specialized at the Signal AIT School, graduating in the top 15 percent of her class.

She is a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success, the Computer Science Pi Byte Club, and the ECSU Viking Volunteer Corps. Hicks graduated with a degree in computer science, with a concentration in information systems.

After serving as support staff at the Cadet Summer Training program, Hicks will attend the Signal Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Gordon, Georgia.




New Zealand seafood industry backs TPP ratification

New Zealands seafood industry has come out in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) following the announcement that the countrys Cabinet had decided to ratify the trade agreement.

In expressing their support, Seafood New Zealand chief executive Tim Pankhurst said the industry relies on trade, as does wider New Zealand.

We exported NZ$1.8 billion (US$1.24 billion) of seafood last year and free and open access to markets is critical for the industry, he said.

He added, The ratification of TPP by the New Zealand government sends a strong signal that we continue to support the agreement despite the withdrawal of the United States.

Pankhurst noted that there were still very valuable markets for New Zealand among the remaining TPP countries as he commended Trade Minister Todd McClay and the Cabinet for continuing to support exporters with access to global markets.

The proposed TPP include the US (which has backed out), Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Battle against ASF in Ukraine, Moldova gets EU funding

The European Union will extend financial support for two pilot projects intended to eradicate African swine fever in Ukraine and Moldova.

For this year, the envisaged financial support for Ukraine is up to 250,000 euros (US$274,681), allotted for the improvement of its surveillance system for both domestic pigs and wild boar in regions bordering the EU and Moldova, the pig industry news site Traffic Lights reported.

The amount earmarked for Moldova is up to EUR150,000, which will support the purchase of equipment needed to control the disease, with which afflicted pigs have high mortality rates.

The spread of the disease in Ukraine and Moldova poses a serious threat to the southern part of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, the Traffic Lights report stated.

Also, the presence of the disease in the Russian Federation and Belarus represents a continuous source of infection for the already infected EU member countries.

The EU said that countries from Finland to Romania need to give political priority to the threat posed by the disease.




Micronutrients to set up new facility in Indiana, US



Nutreco's Micronutrients announced plans to expand its operations in Indiana, US, with the establishment of a new facility in Henry County and the creation of up to 50 new jobs by 2020, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) says.

"Indiana has a strong tradition in agriculture, and the industry continues to grow today as companies like Micronutrients are utilizing new techniques and technology to provide innovative solutions to farmers and consumers across the globe," said Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch, who also serves as Indiana Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. "Agriculture and agribusiness are vital contributors to the state's economy, providing US$31 billion annually toward the state's GDP. We are excited to see companies like Micronutrients choosing to grow here in Indiana, and I am confident that our hardworking Hoosier workforce will help propel their future success."

The company, which was acquired last year by Nutreco, will invest approximately US$30 million to construct a new 164,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and warehouse at 385 E. County Road 400 S. in New Castle. The new facility, which will house mixing tanks, spray dryers and packaging equipment, will allow Micronutrients to increase its production of hydroxy trace minerals. These minerals improve the stability of premix and feed, as well as bioavailability in animals to better facilitate digestion and increased animal performance.

Sold under the IntelliBond brand, the company's minerals are used in every US state and around the world.

Micronutrients, which was established in Indianapolis in 1994, plans to break ground in Henry County in late 2017, allowing the company to continue its current growth and increase its market share globally. The company employs more than 150 full-time associates across its main office and manufacturing plant in Indianapolis and plans to begin hiring in late 2018 prior to launching operations in New Castle by early-to-mid 2019.

"Indiana was originally chosen in 1994 as it was the home base for the overall corporation," said Ted Moore, vice president of operations at Micronutrients. "Continued expansion in Indiana, specifically New Castle, is for an entirely different reason. While there is something to be said for having current operations nearby, the primary reasons for the New Castle location decision were the cooperative nature of the state and local governments and, most importantly, the quality workforce that is available in Indiana."

"Henry County is pleased to welcome Micronutrients USA to our community, and we look forward to growing together," said Butch Baker, president of the Henry County Board of Commissioners. "This project shows agribusiness and food processing is thriving here."

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) offered Micronutrients USA up to US$500,000 in conditional tax credits based on the company's job creation plans. These tax credits are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives. The IEDC will also provide the community with up to US$200,000 in infrastructure assistance from the state's Industrial Development Grant Fund. Henry County approved additional incentives at the request of the New Castle-Henry County Economic Development Corporation.

Indiana's agriculture and agribusiness industry supports more than 107,000 Hoosier jobs and contributes an estimated $31 billion to the state's economy each year. Henry County recently became home to Boar's Head, which announced plans to establish operations in New Castle in 2014, creating 200 new jobs for Hoosiers.
How can I know the ovulation time?

Answered by: Dr Abha Majumdar | Head, Centre of IVF & Human Reproduction,

Dept of Obstetrics and Gynaecology,

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital,

New Delhi



Q: I am a 30 years old married female who had TB one year back. I took treatment for 18 months and then doctor told me that everything is normal. Later, my period cycle was normal then three months after my marriage, period cycle was 36 days delay and on 37th day I got menses. The same happened the following month. After that I started getting early menses. I consulted a doctor who asked me to take Letrozole from the second day of menses and told me to come on fifth day of menses. I went and she changed the medicine to Siphene 100 once a day and told me to take scan on 10th day. What is the right time to have sex? Is my past TB treatment stopping me from becoming pregnant? How can I know the ovulation time?

A:Since your cycles are irregular, you might be anovulatory i.e. not making eggs on your own. You do need an ovulation induction and follicle monitoring by which you can know when is the right time to conceive. To know whether TB has any effect on your chances of getting pregnant, you should get your fallopian tubes checked by Hysterosalpingography (HSG).
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People in Europe and the World expect from CoE to make a succes of its "Monitoring" for Human Rights and Democracy, despite difficulties, said Finland's President Tarja Halonen to "EuroFora" at a crucial moment for the mecanism built 15 years ago by the paneuropean organization which celebrates its 60th Anniversary in 2009.Halonen, known as "Mother" of CoE's "Monitoring" mecanism, a long-time MEP and former Foreign Minister before becoming Finland's President, holds a long experience in the mattter, after also serving twice as CoE and EU Chairwoman in the past. That's why she is well placed to judge how CoE's "monitoring" should deal today with some crucial issues of importance both to CoE and to the EU.The move came just a Month before a crucial, last visit to Turkey, scheduled for June, by the President of CoE''s "Monitoring" Committee, Ukranian MEP Serge Holovaty, to finalize his Report on Ankara, the CoE Member State with the longest Monitoring procedure. From its results depends its overall credibility.This is a Test-case, because, in fact, it's in order to avoid Sanctions threatened against Turkey by a CoE's Assembly's April 1995 Resolution for grave Human Rights violations, Democracy gaps, the continuing Military Occupation in Cyprus, the unresolved Kurdish problem, Aegean differend with Greece, etc., that MEPs decided to create, for the 1st time on April 1996, a "Monitoring" proces, allegedly destinated to check, without excluding Countries who did not fulfill all CoE's standards.In the Past, the obliged withdrawal of Greece's Military regime and of its "Civil" cover-up out of the CoE had helped bring back Democracy in 1974. But, on the contrary, since April 1996, the idea was to "monitor" Human Rights' respect while keeping most concerned Countries inside the CoE. After Turkey's oldest example, this was extended also to several former "Eastern" European Countries, even if CoE's Assembly has imposed to some of them (fex. Ukraine, Russia, etc., after Belarus, Serbia, etc) various "Sanctions", that Ankara always avoided. Curiously more succesful even than .. USA itself, (a CoE "Observer" since 1995), which has been at least threatened with sanctions some years ago..EU-effects of CoE's Monitoring process became obvious between 2001-2008, since the "closure" of this procedure, when CoE felt that a Country had met most of its Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law obligations, (i.e. the "Copenhagen Criteria" for the EU), helped trigger Negotiations with the EU for "Accession" or other closer relations : This occured already before the 2004 and 2007 EU Enlargements to former "Eastern" European Countries, as well as for the commencement of "accession" negotiations with Croatia, and of "open-ended" negotiations with Turkey in 2005.But a stricking new development are Holovaty's recent findings that on core Human Rights issues as Torture and Freedom of Expression, Turkey, even "5 Years after" CoE closed its "Monitoring", back in 2004, inciting EU to start accession Negotiations in 2005, still presents grave problems.His findings are of crucial importance after a 2008 CoE Resolution called, "if need be", to "seriously consider the possibility of Re-Opening the Monitoring procedure for Turkey" : A move which might affect Ankara's controversial EU bid, since EU Accession Negotiations are based on the Hypothesis that the Candidate fullfils the "Copenhagen Criteria" (See above)..-------------------------Holovaty expressed his will to check "Matters still Outstanding" and those that he "didn't have an opportunity to discuss" at an earlier visit this year, "in order to discuss the more complex issues in greater depth", at his forthcoming New Visit to Ankara, before the December 2009 EU Summit. This is all based on the 2004 CoE Resolution which stresses that, CoE "will continue.. post-monitoring Dialogue with the Turkish authorities,...in addition to a 12-points list,..and on any Other Matter that might arise in connection with Turkeys Obligations as a CoE member state".CoE's Resolution also asks from Turkey "to secure the proper Implementation of Judgements, particularly in the Cyprus v. Turkey InterState case", of 2001, which concerns also the plight of many Hundreds of MISSING People. It adds Turkey's obligations to "execute" ECHR's Judgements in the Loizidou case,..and in particular adopt General Measures to avoid repetition or continuation of Violations found by the Court" to the detriment of Refugees.Nevertheless, Holovaty said to "EuroFora" that "MISSING" persons,"might be included" and cannot be excluded, but he has yet to examine the situation "to find out which issues will be raised" to the Turkish Government.Therefore, "EuroFora" asked Halonen, as the Historic "Mother" of CoE's Monitoring mecanism, if she thought that, "whenever there are grave Human Rights Violations, as fex. "MISSING" persons, attested even by ECHR's judgements, they should be always checked by a Monitoring process. Or could they be forgotten ?"- "We (CoE) must be, at the same time, Fair, Realistic, but not in the mind that "now we have Forgotten", etc., replied to "EuroFora"'s question Halonen, speaking as a matter of general principle.- "When we think of those People that are suffering from the lack of Democracy, of Human Rights, and of the Rule of Law", "we should find a base on how to deal with the (Monitoring) system more rapidly"', she stressed.- "Sometimes it's very difficult to combine Transparency and Effectivenes together, particularly in this specific case", she went on to say. But, "I have not found a (CoE Member) Country who could be insensitive in this sens", Halonen answered concerning grave Human Rights violations attested by the ECHR.- "I have no ready-made answer. I have the expectations that you, in the CoE, will, step by step, find the different types of the monitoring systems."Also "because this is a part of the UN's Post-Conflict system, (fex. when it comes to Cyprus' MISSING persons), and it's a more Global system". So that, "If we make a succes in Europe, the others will follow", throughout the World. "But they expect that we (Europe) are this opportunity, this Opportunity to make a Succes", Halonen concluded.In addition, she advised to extend CoE's Monitoring to all its 47 Member States, "because, as long as we hear that, all these monitoring systems are "OK for the neighbor, but not for me", "it's very difficult" to understand. Something which could make easier to Compare...Finnish MEP Jaako Laakso, former CoE Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories of Cyprus and one of the 5 Signatories of the Historic CoE's call to create the "MONITORING" mecanism since 1996, was more specific : - "We (CoE Assembly) have to find a way for the issue of Cyprus' MISSING People to be better followed", he stressed, anouncing his intention to "speak to Mr. Holovaty" about that. "There might be also other ways", added Laakso.- The 2008 "Year had been a very Bad one for Turkey with regard to Human Rights in general, and Freedom of Expression in particular", denounced, meanwhile, Holovaty's preliminary Post-Monitoringh Draft Report by Holovaty, published by the CoE on April 2009."Amnesty International believes that freedom of expression is not guaranteed given the various articles of the Criminal Code that restrict it. .. "For example, 1,300 Websites are said to have been closed down by the (Turkish) authorities in 2008" ! While "the new Turkish Criminal Code was used to bring a total of 1,072 proceedings between June 2005 and April 2008, and led to the conviction of 192 people", for expressing views. "Representatives of the Ozgur Gundem newspaper, which specialises in Kurdish affairs, ..complained about Numerous Attacks on their Freedom of Expression ...as was everyone who advocated a settlement to the question by means other than the intervention of the army" "According to their figures, 19 Newspapers had been suspended 43 times between 4 August 2006 and 4 November 2008" !...Moreover, on 2008, CoE's "Ministers adopted its 4rth Resolution on the execution of the judgments of the ECHR, ...and outstanding issues regarding 175 Judgements and decisions relating to Turkey delivered between 1996 and 2008... concerning Deaths resulting from the excessive use of force by members of the Security forces, the failure to protect the right to life, the DIisappearance and/or death of individuals, Ill-Treatment and the Destruction of property". CoE's " Ministers urged the Turkish authorities ...to ensure that members of Security forces of all ranks can be prosecuted without administrativeauthorisation" for "serious crimes". Holovaty reminded."Nonetheless", Holovaty heard anew of "Several cases of Violence committed last year (2008) by the (Turkish) security forces". Amnesty International speaks of Many Cases of ill-treatment and Torture in the prisons and by the police". "Including, fex."'the death of Engin Ceber, a young man of 29 who died on October 2008 as a result of the TORTURE allegedly inflicted on him by police officers, prison staff and members of the gendarmerie. He was part of a group of people arrested on September 2008 during a demonstration and Press Conference in Istanbul'. Proceedings against suspects are "on-going" in this case.- " I therefore noted an Obvious Contradiction between the Governments stated zero tolerance policy.... of Torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and the different testimonies given", denounced CoE's Rapporteur. Turkish "authorities must make considerable efforts to guarantee that proper investigations are carried out into allegations of abuses by members of the security forces and that perpetrators are effectively punished" "In this respect, I have requested detailed Statistics on the number of Investigations, acquittals and convictions in cases involving allegations of abuse in order to show the positive impact of the measures taken to date", Holovaty said, repeating a permanently unsatisfied CoE's demand to Turkey since a Decade...- "The Political Crisis that shook the country in the spring of 2008 highlighted the Weaknesses of the (Turkish) Constitution", which comes from the Military regime of 1982, "and the Urgent Need of Reforms", stressed from the outset CoE's Rapporteur in 2009. In particular, "the ...Democratic functioning of state institutions, including the independence of the judicial system, are crucial", he observes.But, "the Electoral system and the ways in which it is circumvented do not appear to give those elected complete Legitimacy, and tend to pervert the course of direct universal suffrage", denounces Holovaty, observing that, even 5 Years later, Turkey did not yet change the 10% nationwide Threshold for a party to take any seat, which is "far higher" than the "3%" maximum in Europe and already condemned as contrary to European Standards by the CoE.+ Moreover, EU Parliament's 2009 Report on Turkey, drafted by Dutch MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten and adopted in Strasbourg on March, expresses "Concern over the Failure of the (Turkish) Judiciary to prosecute cases of Torture and Ill-treatment, the Number of which is Growing". EU also "is concerned about continuing Hostility and Violence against Minorities" in Turkey. It also "calls on the Turkish Government to launch, as a matter of Priority, a Political Initiatve favouring a lasting Settlement of the Kurdish issue, (while "condemning violence.. and terrorist groups"). EU "regrets that No progress has been made on establishing full, systematic Civilian suprevisory functions over the (Turkish) Military".The final results of Holovaty's 2nd and last visit to Turkley will be known later this year, and, at any case, before EU's December 2009 Summit.
At approximately 182 million people, Nigeria is Africas most populous country. Since the median age is just 18, that population is expected to relatively soon reach 400 million. Nigeria is also Africas second biggest economy, with a vibrant, emerging entrepreneurial class that is the countrys economic future. Thus, Nigeria carries a great deal of regional influence.

The 2015 election of Muhammadu Buhari as President was a milestone for Nigeria and its neighbors, said Deputy Director of the Office of West African Affairs Nathan Holt during a recent teleconference.

President Buharis electoral platform was that he wanted to fight insecurity, particularly the depredations of Boko Haram and other forces in the northeast. He wanted to grow the Nigerian economy, create jobs for its growing population, and he wanted to fight corruption.

Those are areas of focus that very much are consistent with U.S. interests in Nigeria. We too want to partner with Nigeria and its neighbors to fight terrorism. We too support private-sector-led economic growth. And we are very much in favor of President Buharis campaign against corruption, he said.

The United States supports Nigeria in its fight against Boko Haram and ISIS West Africa. This includes intelligence sharing, training, advice on strategic communications, and various services to support victims of Boko Haram, said Deputy Director Holt.

But we also provide humanitarian assistance to Nigeria. Over the past two years, we have provided nearly half a billion dollars worth of assistance to the people of North Eastern Nigeria, as well as to their Lake Chad basin neighbors, all of whom are facing near famine conditions. Were working as hard as we can and as fast as we can to deliver food assistance and other support to those people, said Deputy Director Holt.

At the end of the day, I think we and our partners all recognize theres no purely military solution. At the end of the day, the hopes and aspirations of the people need to be met; education and water and basic governance needs to be provided in areas where it has not been provided before. And its a joint effort. There are no easy solutions, but were in this for the long haul.
Hello everybody, please if anybody went through this or heard of somebody who did, please give me your two cents. Two weeks after my second interview with my number one choice company (let's call it #1), I sent a follow-up email but they never replied. After three months of silence, I assumed they hired somebody else and so when company #2 (a very good one, but one where I will have to commute to Dubai daily) asked for security clearance documents, I sent them right away. A couple of weeks later, the first company, the one I wanted most, contacted me and requested SC documents (no offer yet, either). However, I am hesitating to send the documents. Now company #2 didn't make me any offer. They just requested SC documents and all they said was that I had been shortlisted. So can I just go ahead and send my documents to company #1 as well? Does it happen for SC to be run for the same candidate by more than one potential employer at the same time? Please help.



Thanks!
The U.S. State Department recently released newly declassified reporting and photos that underscore the brutality of the Syrian regime made possible by the continuing support of its allies Russia and Iran.

According to the United Nations and credible human rights organizations, the Syrian civil war which started in 2011, has claimed more than 400,000 lives, many of which were civilians.

Since 2012, the regime has routinely conducted airstrikes and artillery strikes in dense urban centers, including with barrel bombs, and improvised unguided bombs. The Assad regime systemically targeted eastern Aleppos hospitals in multiple strikes, killing patients and medical professionals.

In addition to airstrikes, the regime continues to systematically abduct and torture civilian detainees, often beating, electrocuting, and raping these victims. According to numerous NGOs, the regime has abducted and detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people between 2011 and 2016.

Moreover, the regime has also authorized the extrajudicial killings of thousands of detainees using mass hangings at the Saydnaya military prison - one of many detention facilities. We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Saydnaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees remains with little evidence, said Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones in a briefing.

These appalling atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran, said Acting Assistant Secretary Jones.Two weeks ago, at the Astana conference in Kazakhstan - Turkey, Russia, and Iran, the guarantors of the Astana process  agreed to create de-escalation zones that would reduce violence and save lives. In light of the failures of past ceasefire agreements, the United States has reason to be skeptical about this agreement.

The regime must stop all attacks on civilians and opposition forces, and Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance, said Acting Assistant Secretary Jones. Russia has either aided in or passively looked away as the regime has conducted an airstrike against a UN convoy, destroyed east Aleppo, and used chemical weapons, including sarin, against civilians in Idlib province on April 4th.

During his recent visit, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledged that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. Russia must now with great urgency exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now.
taimurmaqbool said: Hello all. I'm new to this forum. Sorry if this is a double post.

I'm visiting my parents in Dubai for the summer. I'm on a visit visa. I wish to drive my father's car while I'm visiting and have an Ontario Class G2 licence aswell as an IDP from the same province. AFAIK, I can drive a private car as long as insurance covers me. Is this information correct? If so, is a Dubai insurance company likely to insure an Ontario G2 driver who is visiting Dubai to drive his father's car?

Thanks in advance. Click to expand...

The information in the article that Chocoholic has posted still seems to be valid. I contacted the RTA a couple of weeks ago asking the same question for my son visiting and driving my car on a UK licence. I initially asked via their chat service and then to be safe and so I had it in writing I sent an email to [email protected] and they responded very quickly confirming. The only thing they did advise was that he carried his passport with his licence. I then repeated the same with my insurance company who confirmed in writing that they would cover any driver providing they were considered 'legal' by the RTA.
I'd bring both my passport and my residence card - but as a US citizen, you should be fine to travel on your own. The restriction for the UK is six months, and I believe it may be the same for Ireland (but if not, it's at least 90 days in the last 180). Shouldn't pose a problem unless your stay in the UK was a prolonged one (say, close to six months).

Cheers,

Bev
A California air monitoring agency hit San Antonio-based refiner Valero Energy Corp. last week with six violations by for a flaring incident at its Benicia refinery.

The 165,000 barrel-a-day Benicia crude oil refinery  located on the northeastern side of the San Francisco Bay Area  experienced a flaring incident on the morning of May 5 when the site lost power from Pacific Gas & Electric around 6:45 a.m.

The refinery began flaring or burning off of hydrocarbons as an emergency safety measure, creating thick plumes of smoke that forced local authorities to declare some evacuations and shelter-in-place advisories for areas downwind of the refinery before 8 a.m.

During the May 5 flaring incident Valero spokeswoman Lillian Riojas confirmed the flaring was due to power outages and that decisions on evacuations were up to local authorities or local emergency planning committees.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District or BAAQMD said on May 9 that Valero had committed four violations for excess visible emissions that it described as excess smoke, and two public nuisance violations for the evacuations and shelter-in-place advisories.

Valero does not comment on pending or potential notice of violations from the power outage caused by Pacific Gas & Electric on May 5 at Valeros Benicia refinery, Riojas said when asked for comment.

Valero Refining Co., a subsidiary of Valero Energy, agreed in April to pay $340,000 to settle 28 notices of violation issued for non-compliance of air quality regulations.

Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

A news release from the AAQMD said most of the violations occurred in 2014 and included 11 brief violations of emission limits, five for emission limit violations due to upsets in the refinerys fuel supply, and five for minor leaks from storage tanks.
Garrison Keillor may have retired as host of Prairie Home Companion last year, but that doesnt mean hes stopped working.

Some of that work even has ties to the program, a public radio juggernaut he created in 1974.

I wrote a screenplay called Lake Wobegon, started a musical, worked on a memoir, and wrote a book of limericks, Keillor said in response to some e-mailed questions. And wrote a weekly newspaper column. I also wrote a lot of letters to friends. And I have practiced doing solo standup.

Hes also done some live gigs across the country. Hell return to San Antonio on May 24 to make his second appearance at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

Aaron Zimmerman, vice president of programming and marketing for the Tobin Center, jumped at the chance to present Keillor again.

Hes just such a magnificent speaker and so intelligent. Its really a great evening, said Zimmerman. When I learned (he was leaving) Prairie Home Companion, I didnt know how much longer he was going to be touring, so I didnt want to blow our opportunity to have him back.

More Information Garrison Keillor When: 7:30 p.m. May 24 Where: H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle Tickets: $44.50 to $100. The $100 tickets include a meet and greet with Keillor. Available at the box office, 210-223-8624 or at tobi.tobincenter.org. See More Collapse

Keillor has done a fair amount of touring since he retired from delivering the news from Lake Wobegon on a weekly basis.

I like the road and find it rather serene, he said. I get a lot of work done in hotel rooms and airport lounges. And you overhear wonderful dialogue.

Some of his travels have inspired columns for the Washington Post.

The Post gives me freedom to write about anything, no need to stick to politics. So I've been going off in all directions, he said via email. Of course, the new administration is a gold mine for satire, and it's hard to resist writing about the guy with the hair, but I also get to write about odd corners of America and about the heartland and the human comedy.

In one, he wrote about the pleasures to be found on late-night drives across his native Minnesota; in another, he recounted opening the door to his hotel room during a visit to Alaska to discover several police officers with guns drawn attempting to arrest the man holed up across the hall.

The feedback from readers when he writes about national politics, he said, falls into two categories. 1. You are a national treasure and you speak for what is best in our history. 2. You are an idiot and I hope you're hit by a bus. There is no in-between.

One thing he is not likely to spend his retirement doing is dropping by Prairie Home Companion. The program  now hosted by his hand-picked successor, bluegrass phenom Chris Thile  has continued without him. (It no longer airs on KSTX, the San Antonio public radio station that once carried it. It was dropped as part of a shuffle of the stations weekend programming.)

I think it would be awkward for the new people, he said about guesting. And I don't feel the urge to.

Nor does he feel the need to listen to the show. But then, he never has.

I never tuned in the Sunday rebroadcast and sat and listened to myself talk, he said. It just seems perverse.

dlmartin@express-news.net

Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
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San Antonios 136-year-old Buckhorn Saloon & Museum was once a place of camaraderie and comfort for Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, but in the 1930s it was a source of terror for the young Carol Burnett.

In her autobiography One More Time, the San Antonio native who grew up to be one of Americas best-loved TV comedy stars, wrote about the stuffed African gorilla that originally was displayed in the front window of the establishments third location at Houston and South Flores streets.

Burnett shares this memory of the ape in Chapter 2, which described her early San Antonio years with her grandmother, whom she called Nanny.

When we were downtown, Id hold on to Nanny for dear life whenever we got anywhere near the Buckhorn Saloon, she writes. There was a giant ape in the window. King Kong. They said it was just some old ape that was stuffed, but I knew better.

It was King Kong. He was alive, and he was after me. I know it, and he knew I knew it, because I could see him move when nobody else was looking.

More Information Buckhorn Saloon & Museum Where: 318 E. Houston St. Hours: Opens at 10 a.m., 365 days a year. Closing time varies. Entrance fee for all museums: Adults, $19.99. Children 3 to 12, $14.99. Includes 10 percent off lunch. More information: 210-247-4000 or buckhornmuseum.com. See More Collapse

Nanny didnt believe me at first, but I screamed so loud one day that we started walking on the other side of the street after that.

Burnett wasnt alone in her fear. According to Bob Reinhardt, the Buckhorns head greeter and a Texas history buff, that black gorilla frightened many a young passer-by from its old window perch. Nicknamed The Guard, the figure is now displayed inside the museum.

Reinhardt, who with his goatee and Wild West garb resembles Buffalo Bill Cody, has been a fan of the Alamo and Texas since he was a child of 8 in his home state of New Jersey. He became hooked while watching Disneys Davy Crockett TV series. Decades later, he moved to the Lone Star State, where he participated in historic re-enactments and nabbed small roles in Western movies.

He has been with the Buckhorn for 20 years, as long as it has been at its current location, 318 E. Houston St.

Reinhardt also is known for the way he keeps kids and others in the museum from touching the animals  by shooting his trusty cap pistol.

During a recent visit, Texas Bob talked about the landmarks history  and the many changes the tavern, cafe, museums and gift shop have undergone during its four moves.

The Buckhorn was founded in 1881 by Albert Friedrich, a 17-year-old bellhop and bartender at San Antonios old Southern Hotel on Main Plaza.

When Friedrich, brother of the air-conditioning pioneer, decided to open his own saloon on Dolorosa Street, history was on its way to being made.

A hunter himself, Albert brought in his own trophies to decorate, Reinhardt said. When cowboys, hot and thirsty off the trail, stopped in, they had little money to spend. So Albert told them if they brought in a pair of antlers, theyd be rewarded with a free beer.

Soon the walls were covered with an impressive array of horns.

Friedrichs wife, Emilie, who had a talent for crafting works of art from rattlesnake rattles, made a similar offer.

Anyone who brought in a jar of rattles would get a shot of whiskey, Reinhardt said.

After the couple moved the Buckhorn to Houston and Soledad streets in 1896, one of its most famous visitors, Roosevelt, stopped in to recruit men to join his Rough Riders and fight in the Spanish-American War.

He returned as President Roosevelt in 1906, Reinhardt said. The Friedrichs presented him with two handmade gifts, which are on display in the Buckhorn today. One was a white-tail deer picture that Emilie fashioned from 637 rattles; the other a chair made from 52 sets of buffalo horns by Alberts father  a premier horn furniture maker who frequently got orders from kings and queens in Europe.

Three more moves took place over subsequent decades. In 1922, the Buckhorn relocated to Houston and South Flores streets. During Prohibition, which lasted from the 20s to 1933, its saloon was turned into a soda fountain.

To keep the place afloat, Friedrich added a lunch menu and curio shop. The latter sold everything from postcards to Western oddities, such as armadillo baskets and jackalopes  a stuffed jack rabbit with horns grafted to its head that was fashioned after a mythical creature.

Today, those hybrids are still for sale, as well as souvenir shirts, Western jewelry, wall hangings, mugs and more.

After Friedrich died in 1928, his son and daughter ran the place. In 1956, however, they decided it was time to get out of the business. Initially, they thought the best option would be to sell the Buckhorns collection piecemeal.

However, Harry Jersig, president of Lone Star Brewery and a big-game hunter himself, felt it was a part of San Antonio history that needed to be preserved. Lone Star purchased the Buckhorn, reinstating the collections 3 miles south at the brewery.

Also relocated was the original back bar with the same mirrors that Roosevelt looked into, Reinhardt said. But not the bar itself.

Thats because the wood suffered from dry rot from the great flood of 1921  when downtown San Antonio was covered with 8 feet of water. When movers tried to relocate it, the bar fell apart. So a reproduction of the original was built.

The Buckhorns Hall of Horns and its 1964 addition, the Hall of Fins, stayed at this fourth location for more than 40 years, until Lone Star fell on hard times. According to a 1999 story in the San Antonio Express-News, the brewery changed hands five times in a single decade before the last owner, Stroh Brewing Co., decided to close it, along with the museum, in 1997.

Friedrichs granddaughter, Mary Friedrich Rogers, and her husband, Wallace, came to the rescue. They bought the Buckhorn and moved it back to Houston Street.

Its come full circle, Rogers said in an Express-News article. Its back in the family for good. It will never leave.

Built in 1921, the building that became its new home underwent extensive remodeling. It was gutted and the ceiling was knocked out and made higher, Reinhardt said.

Todays Buckhorn contains more than 40,000 square feet for exhibits as well as 8,000 square feet of convention and private event space.

Its varied displays, located upstairs and down, include the North American, Asian and African halls. Theyre decorated with more than 500 species of animals, as well as a monument to San Antonio sportsman Bill Negley. He was reputed to be the only hunter to bag the big five  elephant, rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, leopard and lion  with only a bow and arrow.

Another popular attraction is devoted to the seven seas. Sharks, swordfish and a world-record black marlin, weighing 1,056 pounds, can be found.

Patrons with a taste for the odd can enjoy its hall of curiosities  including some mind-bending optical illusions  as well as a room dedicated to the American sideshow that contains an eight-legged lamb and shrunken heads from Ecuador.

In 2006, the Texas Ranger Museum, featuring hundreds of authentic artifacts including automatic handguns, shotguns, badges and more, was added. Included is a re-creation of San Antonio at the turn of the century, including a saloon, jail cell, blacksmith, a newspaper  the San Antonio Express-News  and a replica of the 1934 Ford V8 Deluxe, the Bonnie-and-Clyde getaway car.

Many of the Buckhorns patrons are as colorful as the place itself, particularly those who gather to chat and drink around its storied full-service bar, which is presided over by the iconic 78-point Brady buck.

Ive met all types of people from every continent  Iceland, India, France, New Zealand, longtime bartender Javier Martinez said.

A group from Scotland, who have their own Texas-style bar, journey to the Buckhorn every June, he said.

People are amazed by the collection itself, Martinez said. Then, when they learn the history behind the place, theyre really blown away.

(Express-News archives contributed to this report.)

jjakle@express-news.net

COMING WEDNESDAY: Womens rights under Spanish rule.
WASHINGTON  U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas remained tight-lipped Monday about his position on the short list to replace sacked FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the bureaus investigation into possible ties between associates of President Donald Trump and the Russian government.

Cornyn declined to give a public account of his interview Saturday with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, which came a day after he released a statement saying that his focus remains on representing Texas in the Senate.

Cornyn was one of eight candidates interviewed over the weekend and arguably is the most prominent. Of the 14 people who have emerged as potential candidates, three, including Cornyn, are serving or have served in Congress.

In Austin, the Texas Capitol was abuzz Monday about possible replacements for Cornyn, should he become FBI director  though several key lawmakers rated his chances as a long shot.

Gov. Greg Abbotts name started making the rounds within hours after Cornyns name was floated as a possible contender for the FBIs top post.

While John Wittman, Abbotts press secretary, declined comment, others close to the governor said he had no interest in appointing himself senator on an interim basis until a special election would be called. Not going to happen, said a Capitol aide who said he has spoken with him.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Cornyns seat, rejected the suggestions, as well.

I announced months ago that I am running for re-election, and that is what I am going to do, he said in a statement dismissing the speculation. My only focus now is getting the conservative priorities we passed out of the Senate to the House to the governors desk for his signature.

Political observers say Cornyn is an intriguing prospect  both for what he represents and what he doesnt. A genial presence in Washington with a law enforcement background as a former state judge and Texas attorney general, Cornyn could be just what the White House needs if it is seeking quick confirmation of a trusted senator with friends on both sides of the aisle.

On the other hand, his position as the Republican whip, or second in command to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, adds little to the much-needed aura of impartiality that the administration needs to maintain the FBIs jealously guarded image of independence, particularly in light of the partisan furor over Comeys firing.

Cornyn, 65, has left open the question of whether he would be willing to give up his relatively safe position as the senior GOP senator from deep red Texas to become an essentially at-will employee for a president whose most famous contribution to popular culture is the phrase Youre Fired.

But the meeting with Sessions, at least his second in a week, suggests that Cornyn is keeping his options open. Though Cornyn is in his third term in the Senate, GOP term-limit rules will force him to relinquish his whip post at the end of 2018. He will then have to choose between challenging McConnell, whose leadership position is not term-limited, or accepting some lesser position.

As McConnells No. 2, Cornyn didnt have the same national profile in the GOP battles with the Obama administration. But he has been a reliable champion of his partys agenda, while working with Democrats on criminal justice and sentencing reform.

Most importantly, he never publicly opposed Trumps improbable march to the GOP presidential nomination, even when the last Republican standing in Trumps way was fellow Texan U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Cornyns been a low-key guy, so he doesnt have any kind of baggage associated with him, like many in the conservative movement do, said Craig Goodman, a political scientist at the University of Houston at Victoria.

While some observers believe that Trump must pick an FBI director outside of the political maelstrom, Goodman notes that Trump has a track record of rewarding loyalty over independence.

If you look at the various rationales for why James Comey was fired, it becomes pretty clear that independence is not something that President Trump values in his appointees, Goodman said.

Those who know Cornyn well say that with his background as a judge and prosecutor  and student journalist  they could not imagine him agreeing to the sort of loyalty pledge that Trump reportedly demanded of Comey.

Trump, for his part, denied those reports in a Fox News interview Saturday. I want loyalty to the country. I mean, I want loyalty to the United States of America, Trump said. I want him to do a good job  or her  to do a great job.

It is unclear when Trump will announce Comeys successor. Also among those in the running are Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina congressman and former prosecutor who led the House investigation into the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic base in Benghazi, Libya, and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, a former FBI agent.

Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist in Austin who has worked for Cornyn, said that if the senator remains in the mix, he likely will have some questions of his own. He may have questions about what the president is looking for in an FBI director, he said.

Steinhauser said that since Cornyns name has come up, he has little choice but to consider it seriously, whatever the political considerations. This is a case where the senator is very happy where he is. Hes the second-most-powerful Republican in the country. He isnt necessarily going looking for another job, he said. But if theres an offer, you have to consider that and serve your country in the best way possible.

Todd Ackerman and Mike Ward contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN - Gov. Greg Abbott sought to dispel fears that the new sanctuary cities law will prompt profiling, as a growing group of communities promised to join in challenging the law in a summer of resistance.

As the husband of the first Hispanic first lady in the state of Texas, I want to make sure that neither she nor her family is going to be stopped and detained inappropriately, Abbott said Tuesday when asked about concerns over the law, known as Senate Bill 4.

If you are Hispanic  or, frankly, anybody from any other country  you are not going to be stopped and required to show your papers unless you are suspected of having committed some serious crime, said Abbott.

He spoke to reporters after a memorial service for fallen peace officers at the Texas Department of Public Safety, and he accommodated a request from a Univision reporter to deliver his message about the sanctuary cities law via a Facebook livestream.

Opponents are unwavering.

The governor and the other cynical supporters of SB 4 know this law has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with scapegoating immigrants for their political gain, said Austin City Council member Greg Casar.

Casar was among leaders from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and El Paso County who gathered at the south steps of the Texas Capitol on Tuesday with promises to fight the law in court. The rally was organized by the Austin City Council, United We Dream and Texas Organizing Project.

The sanctuary cities law is touted by Abbott and other supporters as a public safety measure meant to crack down on local entities that provide safe harbor to people who are here illegally and may commit crimes.

It has drawn an onslaught of criticism from civil rights activists, immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers, including Latinos who say that people who look like them will be unfairly targeted.

Top law enforcement officials including San Antonio Police Chief William McManus opposed passage of the law, saying it will erode trust and reduce cooperation of the community with police.

Particular concerns have been raised about a provision that gives law officers the authority to ask people who are detained about their immigration status, regardless of what their chiefs may prefer.

The law requires local governmental entities and law enforcement officials to comply with federal immigration laws and detainer requests for people in custody. It includes a Class A misdemeanor charge for sheriffs, police chiefs or constables who dont comply with federal immigration detainer requests. It provides for removal from office for elected or appointed officials who dont abide by the law.

Maverick County and El Cenizo, a small town south of Laredo, already have filed a lawsuit saying the law infringes on the rights of city and county officials.

The state has taken a proactive position in court. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion for declaratory judgment a day after Abbott signed the measure into law, seeking a ruling that the ban is constitutional and can be implemented as scheduled on Sept. 1.

They werent listening to the police chief, they werent listening to the city council, said San Antonio City Councilman Rey Saldana of Republican officials. At this point, the other step is to ask, Are there elements of SB 4 as it passed that are unconstitutional?' The fact that there are pieces that force local police officers to enforce federal laws is something we believe is unconstitutional and will not stand up in court.

Saldana said he is hopeful the San Antonio City Council will file a resolution by the end of this week or next week to provide direction to the city attorney, and join other cities in the lawsuit against the law.

Delia Garza, an Austin council member, said the law ignores the fact that the federal immigration system is broken and that most undocumented immigrants that cross the border for a better life lack the resources to navigate the federal immigration system.

The law criminalizes an entire ethnicity, she said, and confirmed Austin would move forward this week against SB 4 in court.

This Thursday, we are poised to approve a resolution that directs our city legal team to take any legal action necessary to challenge this awful law, she said.

The El Paso County Commissioners Court voted Monday 4-1 to file a lawsuit.

Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat who is chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the House, called for continuous marches, rallies and protests against what he called the show-me-your-papers bill. He said opponents will target Abbotts re-election effort next year.

To the governor I say, thats just this summer, because in 2018 we are coming for him, Anchia said. We will resist with our votes and we will allow our votes to speak in November 2018 to make sure Greg Abbott is the last governor who is going to be anti-Latino and use our community for his political gain.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
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REYNOSA, Mexico  In parts of his hometown, Francisco Paco Rojas makes certain his hands are in plain view.

A hand slunk behind the back or below the steering wheel has a tendency to invite the attention of nervous drug gangs fighting for control of Reynosas lucrative smuggling corridor.

If there is a clash, keep down, Rojas explained, and do not run. They will shoot you, even if youre innocent.

After years of navigating the violent clashes that at times grip this sprawling factory town, residents have adopted techniques to mitigate the danger. These are a few of the measures that Rojas, a 50-year-old radio journalist, uses to keep safe as he reports. And they have served him well these past few weeks as the city has come under siege.

The violence had been slowly building earlier this year. Then in the early hours of April 22, federal forces killed Juan Julian Loisa Salinas, known as Comandante Toro, the local Gulf Cartel boss. Cars and buildings were set ablaze in that confrontation. Since then, clashes between rival factions of the cartel spill into the streets nearly every day, leaving behind a trail of 28 dead so far, and there will almost certainly be more in the days to come.

It wasnt supposed to be like this. Three years ago, Mexico launched Plan Tamaulipas, an ambitious effort to quell violence. Instead, insecurity has deepened. In one of the worlds deadliest countries, Tamaulipas is one of its most troubled states and Reynosa among its most dangerous cities, especially for journalists, who are compelled to self-censor or avoid coverage of organized crime and public corruption altogether. Amid the bullets and reporting limitations, some local journalists have taken on the role of war correspondents in their backyard.

Narco trafficking and corruption have expanded like a weed through society, Rojas said. Your neighbor could be one of them, you never know.

One recent afternoon, Rojas called on colleagues at La Raza, the radio station where he works, to pore over social media to help him navigate clear of possible gunbattles. Over a career that spans three decades, Rojas longevity in the trade might be attributed, in part, to his capacity to adapt to ever-changing security threats.

But when violent clashes erupt, even these precautions seem inadequate. Wide swaths on the citys periphery are extremely volatile, and the fractured cells of the Gulf Cartel fighting for control of Reynosas plaza are unpredictable, lashing out indiscriminately at bystanders and local businesses.

Terrible, Rojas said of the current state of the city. Despite the years of violence, weve never seen this before.

To advise residents of gunbattles, the city issues code red alerts, often several at once as the violence spreads, leading Mayor Maki Ortiz Dominguez to make a desperate call for peace. And Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, the Tamaulipas governor, delivered a seven-minute TV message to residents, pledging to aggressively pursue crime and re-establish trust in a state reeling from a string of public corruption scandals.

Authorities over the weekend found a tunnel connecting the state jail in Reynosa to a wooden house outside the prison, as well as two other houses storing weapons and drugs. The tunnel was 16 feet deep, 45 feet long and 4 feet wide. Seemingly improbable discoveries such as these occur with such regularity that they are considered almost routine.

Meanwhile, in a series of raids on casinos, junkyards and bars, Mexican authorities this past week sought to undercut the illicit cash flowing to drug gangs. At one junkyard raid, surrounded by tense men carrying assault rifles, Miguel Dominguez, a veteran newspaper correspondent, hinted at the inherent danger of writing about the crackdown.

During the war between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, six of his colleagues disappeared, a fate he narrowly escaped, said Dominguez, 51. After those harrowing days, journalists insulated themselves from criminal groups and corrupt officials, choosing to tailor coverage to avoid scrutiny and publishing stories without bylines.

Social media rushed in to fill the void left by trained journalists, a consequence fraught with problems. While vital, social media regularly distort events. Besides, anonymity on social media is no guarantee of security. In late 2014, Dr. Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a prolific member of #reynosafollow, was kidnapped and disappeared.

We take measures that affect the quality of the journalism, Dominguez said. Its an instinct that each of us has taken to survive.

In May 2014, with security reaching a crisis point, officials unveiled Plan Tamaulipas. The state had the highest rate of kidnappings in the country, and state- and local-level law enforcement institutions and governance were weak. By surging resources to Tamaulipas, the federal government has backed efforts to restore public security in the state.

With Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, Mexicos interior secretary, visiting Reynosa on Monday, Gov. Cabeza de Vaca called for financial resources to increase the state police force from about 2,500 to 9,000, but Chong said Tamaulipas has all it needs to take on organized crime, adding that the government strategy is not just about making arrests.

Its to go further, Chong told a room packed with journalists. Its to ensure the bosses down to the lookouts know they will have to face justice.

Mexicos drug war ranked as the second-deadliest conflict in the world in 2016, claiming 23,000 lives, according to a recent survey by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Only Syria was worse off.

Drug-fueled organized crime has made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with the National Human Rights Commission reporting 125 killed since 2000. Javier Valdez, a veteran journalist, was killed Monday in Sinaloa near the offices of his newspaper. Although shocking, these attacks against journalists are carried out with near total impunity.

His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

This month, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto pledged to prioritize the safety of journalists for the remainder of his term in office, which ends next year. Pena Nieto also guaranteed he will fund a federal protection mechanism that would have run out of money in October.

Safety of any sort is difficult to discern on streets crawling with men armed with assault rifles. For journalists, every day is a frenetic search for the next battle and how to best inform the community.

Rojas is careful not to utter certain names on his radio program, and he decided long ago that some investigations were not worth the risk, he said, as a caravan of heavily armed state police sped past his studio that overlooks a city plaza.

Rojas received word that there would be more fighting in the evening, and he was preparing for the long night ahead.

Its tough, Rojas said. Now I have to file.

anelsen@express-news.net

Twitter: @amnelsen
From the way Greg Brockhouse talks about Councilman Ray Lopez, voters would be forgiven for thinking the runoff in District 6 is between the two archenemies.

Brockhouse is very much in the running. In a crowded field of eight candidates, he earned far more votes than anyone else, including Joseph Cortez, a former adviser for Lopez who had the support of the councilman. Brockhouse won 36 percent, while Cortez limped into fourth place with about 17 percent.

Term-limited out of office, Lopez didnt run. With Cortez out, the councilman is now supporting Brockhouses opponent, Melissa Havrda. (Cortez also endorsed Havrda.)

This does not surprise Brockhouse, who ran against Lopez in 2013.

I didnt even need to think twice about it, Brockhouse told me. Of course he would. Rays old school. The fact that I challenged him in 13 is the end of the relationship.  It could have been a stuffed animal and Ray would have supported him.

Havrda is no stuffed animal.

Shes an attorney specializing in Social Security disability law who once served on former Mayor Ed Garzas staff and the boards of the Magik Theatre and the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Havrda did not return a call on Monday.

Brockhouse likes to point out that she made the runoff by only 28 votes. In any case, the councilmans endorsement of Havrda has nothing to do with her, Brockhouse said.

One hundred percent its just because I ran against him, he said. Hes not able to let it go.  Thats just Ray.

To the contrary, Lopez told me, he believes in Havrda.

For a myriad of reasons, I believe that Melissa is definitely the one to move us forward, Lopez said. I know a lot of people who ask me for my advice on who to vote for, and I tell them Im supporting her and endorsing her.  I think she has an open-mind approach to the issues facing the city.

Lopez also had plenty to say about his distaste for Brockhouse.

Politically, for virtually every issue  weve been on the opposite sides, he said, mentioning council pay, bonds, the Vista Ridge water pipeline and former Mayor Julian Castros Pre-K 4 SA program.

Brockhouse, the councilman said, actively worked against those issues, while Lopez supported them.

Brockhouse has proved a perennial pot-stirrer, antagonizing those in power by leading political movements against the council-pay charter amendment and a San Antonio Water System rate hike, to name just two. He likes to frame his involvement, though, as constructive criticism, not obstructionism.

I was never opposed to paying council people, Brockhouse said. What I was opposed to was the council people paying (City Manager) Sheryl Sculley what they were paying her.  Im opposed to portions of the bond, but on the whole I supported the bonds and I voted for them.

Thats Ray making up stories to fit his narrative, Brockhouse added. Ray and I are probably aligned 90 percent of the time.  The problem with a guy like Ray is hes very superficial and high-level.

Lopezs problem might simply be Brockhouse.

As San Antonio Express-News columnist Gilbert Garcia has chronicled, the 2013 council race between the two turned ugly when Brockhouse accused the councilmans team of race baiting. After losing, Brockhouse sent a nettling open-records request to uncover how Lopez was conducting business at City Hall.

Its also clear that Lopez and Brockhouse see the needs of the booming district differently. Concerned about air quality and traffic congestion, the councilman has called for HOV lanes and an expansion of public transportation.

Brockhouse brushed off those solutions, laying the blame for congestion, naturally, at the outgoing councilmans feet.

Not from a District 6 perspective, thats not really the issue, he said. Its a lack of communication, frankly, between the council office and TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation).

He also scoffed at the significance of Lopezs endorsement of Havrda.

If Ray Lopezs endorsement really mattered, Brockhouse said, it wouldnt be Melissa Havrda in the runoff.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
(This article has been updated with quotes and information from OSU Extension Field Specialist Dianne Shoemaker and Pennsylvania dairyman and DFA board member Jeff Raney.)

By Susan Crowell / editor@farmanddairy.com

MEDINA, Ohio  Approximately 225 independent milk producers in the Mideast marketing order have until Nov. 30 to find a new home for their milk.

The dairymen received letters from Dairy Farmers of Americas Dairy Marketing Services, dated May 15, informing them that the cooperative will no longer market the independent producers milk. The farmers will receive a six-month notice of termination.

The farmers will have the option of joining DFA or finding another market by Nov. 30, 2017.

This action will affect approximately 92 farms in Ohio; 85 farms in Indiana; 35 in Pennsylvania; six in New York; four in West Virginia; and one in Kentucky. These farms contribute roughly 10 percent of the milk marketed by DMS in Federal Order 33.

It does not affect any organic milk producers who market through DMS.

The announcement comes on the heels of a similar action in the Northeast in March that affected 900 independent milk shippers.

Cant assess balancing costs

Dairy Marketing Services said growth in the regions milk supply and declining consumer demand for fluid milk products has triggered a supply-demand imbalance, particularly in the eastern United States.

According to the USDAs Agricultural Marketing Service, the total milk marketed in the Mideast marketing order (Federal Order 33) has increased nearly 27 percent in the past seven years, from 1.45 billion pounds in April 2010 to 1.84 billion pounds in April 2017. Last year, surplus milk in the region was forced to be dumped, and it looks like additional milk will continue to be dumped this year.

In the Mideast area, Dairy Marketing Services manages and markets milk for some independent producers. However due to federal order blend price payment rules, the balancing costs to move excess milk can only be charged to co-op members. For example, since July 2014, DFA members have been assessed a marketing adjustment charge that is recalculated every month. It has been as high as 95 cents per hundredweight in the Mideast region.

As a result, the letter states, we are unable to continue marketing your milk under the current DMS arrangement. It was signed by Bill Cummings, chief operating officer of the DFA Mideast region.

Dairy plants and processors typically have a contract with DMS that allows them to get additional milk from DMS when their own producers milk isnt sufficient to keep the plant running. Because of seasonal variations on both the milk supply side and the processors demand side, the plants dont need the same amount of milk all the time. DMS juggles the milk supply distribution to figure out what to do with the balance of milk.

Its a challenging job and its good that someone is doing it, said Dianne Shoemaker, Ohio State University Extension field specialist in dairy production economics.

DFA will take members

There is no currently written contractual agreement between the co-op and independent dairy farms.

If the producers join DFA, the co-op said it would waive a capital retain payment (equity investment of 10 cents per hundredweight of milk shipped) for the first year of membership. Co-op members get that investment back, based on a predetermined schedule, should they leave for another market, retire, or leave the dairy industry.

DFA will also allow these independent farms to terminate their co-op membership at any time during that first year, with 30 days written notice.

We understand that there are limited options in the marketplace, said Heather J. McCann, communications manager with DFAs Medina, Ohio, office. Were not looking for anyone to lose their market.

Where to go?

There may or may not be other marketing options for individual dairy farms, according to Shoemaker.

There are still a large number of independent milk buyers in Federal Order 33. The question is, do they need more farmers, she said. Those [farms] with the highest quality milk have the best chance.

Milk buyers include milk and other dairy product processors, as well as the regions cheese plants. But if a plant is accepting new farms depends on its needs and other variables: the farms location and whether or not there is an established milk pick-up route in that area to the processing plant; the amount of milk the farm is shipping; and the breed of dairy cow milked, for example.

Shoemaker cautions farmers to consider all cost factors before making a decision. Ask the milk hauler, the co-op or prospective processor milk buyer about transportation costs  in addition to the regular hauling charge, is there a stop charge (a set amount charged just to stop at the farm); an additional charge per hundredweight; a fuel surcharge; a destination charge?

If choosing to join DFA, dairymen need to consider equity requirements in Year 2, and also participation in the Cooperatives Working Together, or CWT, program, she added. CWT includes an assessment of 4 cents per hundredweight, which funds an export assistance program to expand markets for U.S. dairy products.

Best solution?

Crawford County, Pennsylvania, dairyman Jeff Raney, who serves as chairman of the co-ops Mideast Area Council, said the co-op has been talking about taking action for several years.

The whole industry is under stress and this became the best solution available, he said.

Raney is also on DFAs executive committee.

McCann said the co-op has been searching for ways to share marketing, transportation and other balancing costs fairly across the marketplace, but theres not a good mechanism to do so under the federal order, so we were looking for an alternative that would give producers an opportunity to continue in the marketplace.

Nationally, DFA markets approximately 22 percent of the nations milk supply. There are nine other cooperatives serving various parts of the Mideast federal order.
If it had an arrangement with ACA, it would not need to have branches, zones, regional committees or even meetings, as the functions they normally fill could be done in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost by ACA.
A lot of the farmers at the time didnt have power, they were all running on generators and a couple of farmers had run out of diesel so they couldnt milk their cows, she said.
CARSON CITY  Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 85 into law on Monday, requiring all Nevada students to receive instruction in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the use of an automated external defibrillator before graduation from high school.

Were very pleased to see this important bill become a law. Nevada now joins 36 other states in the U.S. that have passed legislation ensuring all students are trained in basic CPR prior to high school graduation. These states add over one million lifesavers to their local communities each year, said Rick Casazza, board member, American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Northern Nevada.

Sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death, with nearly 326,200 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurring each year in the United States. It strikes suddenly and without warning, and what happens within the first few minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

Clark County Fire and Rescue responded to 748 people who suffered a cardiac arrest in 2013. Only 20 percent of those people received bystander CPR; while nationally, only 45.9 percent of witnessed cardiac arrests receive CPR from a bystander, prior to EMS arrival. As a result, survival rates of a SCA are dismal, around 10-11%, often because the person who witnesses the cardiac event is not trained to react properly.

Evidence shows that CPR initiated promptly by a bystander can double or even triple the chances of survival. With EMS response times exceeding 10 minutes in many areas Nevada, the need for trained bystanders is extremely important.

Clark County School District was an early adopter in Nevada of the CPR in Schools program and has seen the benefits of the training.

Training our students in CPR prepares them to help others in their time of need. Its easy to incorporate into the school day, and the students love the interactive nature of the training, said Diane Towery, Health Teacher, Fertitta Middle School.

When AB 85 is enacted on July 1, more than 48,000 students a year across Nevada will be trained to respond in a cardiac emergency until medical professionals arrive.
To celebrate the release of her new book Florence Nightingale: A Very Brief History, Lynn McDonald tells us a little bit about herself.

Lynn Mcdonald

I am an activist and a scholar both: I like to do research and to work on practical causes - now mainly climate change.

As a researcher I have done my homework on Florence Nightingale. I am the only person in the world who has read everything surviving of her work - there is a lot, all over the world.

I found it to be a pleasure to read her - not mere duty - and friends who helped proof read also felt moved at times, and at times we laughed! She was witty. She worked on important things, like health care for the poorest.

I am not much like Florence Nightingale. She was smarter than I am and worked harder, although I am no slouch. But I take holidays and go to the theatre, concerts and dinners. Like her, my Christian faith is important and shapes how I think about the world.

I admire Florence Nightingale for her kindness but am not remotely in the same league. Her day-to-day kindness to nurses, poor villagers, old soldiers, etc., was amazing. This is not well known, and in a cynical world not understood. How she had the decency and energy to help so many people I cannot understand.

I am still a political activist, in a limited way. I was a member of Parliament in Canada in the 1980s, for the New Democratic Party, which is like the Labour Party. Now I lobby on climate change, with a voluntary organization I co-founded, JustEarth: A Coalition for Environemtnal Justice. In recent years I have come to work on electoral reform, proportional representation. We badly need it in Canada as we get majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote, and they act as if they had 90%.

I have been a successful public health advocate. Yes, like Nightingale, I have saved lives! My Non-smokers Health Act of 1988 was the first legislation in the world to provide for smoke-free work and public places, and name tobacco as a hazardous product. The cigarette companies fought it vigorously, but we - my political colleagues, including many Conservatives and Liberals - got it in. It was a private members bill, opposed by a strong majority government. The campaign was supported by the Canadian Cancer Society, the Lung Association, Physicians for a Smoke-free Canada, the Non-smokers Rights Association, medical groups, etc. Hilarious, the antics the cigarette companies tried, but we won!

I am a feminist, a former president of what was then Canadas largeest womens organization. Not everything has been solved, but we have made great progress and the great issue for me now is climate change.

I like to write, get a lot of satisfaction from making a point in a convincing way.

I am an environmentalist at many levels - I love birds and walks in green places. We live on Gods good earth and have a duty to protect it.
Kim Kardashian West's assistant has said her Paris robbery ordeal was "terrifying".

Kim Kardashian West

The 36-year-old television personality was robbed at gunpoint in the French capital in October last year, and her assistant Stephanie Shepherd has said she struggled to "hold it together" in the aftermath as she was trying to ensure the safety of the brunette beauty.

She said: "It was terrifying. At the time, I had to hold it together and make sure everything was getting handled and that we could get Kim home as quickly and safely as possible, and obviously I can't even begin to imagine what she's gone through, what she's had to deal with."

Since the incident, security for all members of the Kardashian family - including Kim's mother Kris Jenner, her sisters Khloe and Kourtney, and half-sisters Kylie and Kendall - has been ramped up, and Stephanie says even staff like herself have become "more cautious".

She added: "Even I have been more cautious. We have alarms and security plans, and all that. Still, whenever I've had to stay home alone, I get a little scared. So I did get a couple of extra pepper sprays."

Elsewhere, Stephanie insists that life with the 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star - who has three-year-old daughter North and 17-month-old son Saint with her husband Kanye West - isn't always dramatic, as she praised rapper Kanye for being "so funny".

Stephanie told Refinery29: "I think people would be surprised to know how funny Kanye is. I know everyone thinks he's so deep and serious, but he's also so funny, like he has me rolling laughing and sometimes I'm like, 'Is this inappropriate that I'm laughing so hard?' He has these one-liners, and he's just so unfiltered, he makes me laugh so hard. But he's also truly the hardest working man I've ever met."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would be able to marry at Westminster Abbey, if they were to wed, despite being a divorcee.

Prince Harry

The 'Suits' actress was married to her former partner Trevor Engelson for two years before they split in 2013, but she has since moved on from her former beau and has been dating the 32-year-old royal for over a year.

Although the pair have not made any plans to tie the knot, it has been reported if they did decide they wanted to take their romance to the next step and be husband and wife they would not be barred from having their marital ceremony at the historic church where Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh married, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

A spokesperson from Westminster Abbey told the Express Online: "The Abbey follows the General Synod Ruling of 2002. Since then it has been possible for divorced people to be married in the Church of England."

And the 35-year-old actresses - whose father is Jewish - faith would also not prevent her from enjoying an "interfaith" relationship either.

However, it is believed the Archbishop of Canterbury would need to provide the couple with a special licence to allow them to exchanged vows, as well as permission from the monarch.

Although there is not an official legal barrier preventing a member of the royal family from wedding someone of a different faith, the Act of Settlement of 1701 doesn't allow anyone who is next in line to the throne to marry a Catholic partner and still keep their place as successor.
India based Heros Fashion Pvt Ltd has developed custom-fit anti-stain white shirts for men and women, made with lotus stems. The shirts, treated with hydrophobic nanotechnology, are suitable for all ages and for all occasions. These are also eco-friendly as they do not use any polluting resources during any stage of the production process.

NoMark Lotus is a white custom-fit tailored shirt, made with lotus stems, having anti-stain effects. It is just the best white shirt ever made, Binoy Ravjani, co-founder and CEO of the Jaipur based company, told Fibre2Fashion.

For making lotus fabric, harvested lotus stems are first converted to fibres, which are then meticulously rolled into thread, ready to be handwoven using traditional Thai or Burmese frame looms.

India based Hero's Fashion Pvt Ltd has developed custom-fit anti-stain white shirts for men and women, made with lotus stems. The shirts, treated with hydrophobic nanotechnology, are suitable for all ages and for all occasions. These are also eco-friendly as they do not use any polluting resources during any stage of the production process.#

Terming lotus fabric as the most eco-friendly fabric in the world, Ravjani says, Waste is transformed into a quality textile that doesnt use any polluting resources such as oil, electricity, gas, or any toxic chemicals during any stage of the production process.

Further, by wearing lotus fibre fabric, one feels calm, peaceful and meditative. It is because the lotus plant is believed to have many healing abilities. Lotus plants are pure by virtue, and they radiate this purity through their fibres. Up to a certain point, it cures the wearer from headaches, heart ailments, asthma, and lung issues, claims Ravjani.

When asked about anti-stain property of lotus white shirts, he said, the lotus fabric is treated with the hydrophobic nanotechnology, which means all the drinks like wine, water, soft drinks, juices, or any other liquid would just roll off the shirt. We chose to go for the hydrophobic nanotechnology, instead of the traditional sprays which are harmful to the environment and make the fabric rough and unbreathable.

Besides being extremely breathable, soft and silky, exciting features of NoMark Lotus include high density stitching, misalignment at the armscye, use of Australian MOP buttons, darting, split yoke, magnetic collar stays, pentagonal gussets and French seams.

Established in 1978 by Hero Ravjani as Heros Textile Printers, the company changed its name to Heros Fashion Pvt Ltd in 1992, when it started exporting made-ups and readymade garments to Japan, the US, Europe and Australia. Since then, the company has been serving its customers by constantly evolving and adapting to the market trends with its ethnic and traditional block prints. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Africas fashion industry will attract global attention at the 2017 annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB), being organised during May 22-26, 2017 in Ahmedabad. This years annual meetings are focusing on transforming agriculture for wealth creation in Africa, and are expected to be attended by around 3000 experts and industry people.Beautifully dressed models will walk the catwalk to show how African fabrics are inspiring more and more famous designers. By combining a fashion show and panel discussion, the India Fashionomics session will use the global value chains in textiles to illustrate possibilities for African agriculture-related industrialisation.

Africa's fashion industry will attract global attention at the 2017 annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB), being organised during May 22-26, 2017 in Ahmedabad. This year's annual meetings are focusing on transforming agriculture for wealth creation in Africa, and are expected to be attended by around 3000 experts and industry people.#

Fashion is not just about design or inspiration. Its also a multi-million dollar industry that creates millions of jobs, including in textile and clothing manufacturing, says Emanuela Gregorio, gender specialist at the AfDB.Through its fashionomics initiative, AfDB is supporting the development of creative industries that utilise products, especially cotton, in Africa. Through this initiative, AfDB is promoting investments in the fashion sector, increasing access to finance for entrepreneurs and incubating and accelerating starts-ups.At a session on `Creating Wealth through Fashonomics, experts and practitioners will discuss methods of promoting textile manufacturing in Africa which has mostly small and medium enterprises as the textile and clothing firms. It will also set agenda for how the involvement of African countries in the global textile industry could look like (from conception and design).The Bank is investing in high-growth sectors that have the potential to promote economic empowerment and create 25 million jobs over the next decade. The Bank considers the creative industries as offering massive potential for continent-wide job and gross domestic product (GDP) growth. For instance, instead of exporting raw cotton, Africa needs to move to the top of the global value chain and produce garments targeted at the growing African and global consumers.The textile/clothing market is already worth more than US$31 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa and accounts for the second largest number of jobs after agriculture, employing many women and young people besides men.In Ethiopia, a pioneer in the textile industry in the region with more than 40,000 employees, salaries are three times lower than in Cote dIvoire and the cost of electricity remains low due to availability of hydropower, and inputs are affordably priced. It is expected that the textile clothing industry could generate 400,000 jobs in SubSaharan Africa alone and exports could double in the next 10 years. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Benzene prices marched lower in Asia in the last week due to unfavourable market conditions in the region.

Benzene prices marched lower in Asia in the last week due to unfavourable market conditions in the region. In Korea, average prices stepped down by...#

In Korea, average prices stepped down by US$ 30/ton and assessed at US$ 715/ton in the last week, a reduction of 4.03 per cent over the price prevailing at the end of the previous week.

Benzene prices marched lower in Asia in the last week due to unfavourable market conditions in the region. In Korea, average prices stepped down by...#

In Japan, average prices decreased by US$ 30/ton to US$ 720/ton in the last week, as compared to previous week, after a drop of 4 per cent.

Benzene prices marched lower in Asia in the last week due to unfavourable market conditions in the region. In Korea, average prices stepped down by...#

In India, average prices reduced by US$ 30/ton and quoted at US$ 725/ton in the last week, as compared to previous week, a fall of 3.97 per cent.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
It is known to all that Sunil Grover is busy with live concerts after he quit The Kapil Sharma Show. Sunil was recently in Dubai for his comedy gig. And look who was impressed by Sunil's comedy gig!

Yes, it is none other than Shilpa Shetty. The actress, who attended the event, took to social media to thank Sunil for bringing smile on everyone's' face. Read on...

Shilpa Shetty Thanks Sunil Grover Shilpa Shetty wrote, "Many laughs tonight thanks to the very talented @WhoSunilGrover #dubai #jokes #laughter #fun." Sunil Grover Sunil too, wrote, "Thanks aapka. You make laughter look even more beautiful. Aapko 'hot' etc nahin likhunga, kyunki Kundra sahab bhi twitter pe hain. " Sunil & Raj Kundra's Morphed Picture Later, he also shared a funny morphed' picture that his fans had created. Posting the picture Sunil wrote, "While we were in Dubai for this event, aap yeh dekho Mumbai main kya ho raha tha @TheShilpaShetty." Kapil-Sunil Post Sunil and Kapil's fight, looks like celebrities are also taking sides of Kapil and Sunil just like their fans. The celebrities who attended Kapil's show are seen praising him, while those who saw or attended Sunil's show thanked him for bringing smiles on everyone's face. Mika Singh & Manisha Koirala Praise Kapil We recently saw Mika Singh supporting Kapil, and Manisha Koirala, who had been on the show thanking Kapil for making her laugh! Mika Singh Support Kapil & Kiku Mika Singh wrote, "Bhaaji @KapilSharmaK9 your show is rocking.. @sherryontopp and @kikusharda are superb... God bless." Manisha Koirala Thanks Kapil Manisha Koirala was on Kapil Sharma's show to promote her film Dear Maya. After the show, she wrote, "Thank you kapil for making me laugh so much  @KapilSharmaK9." Bank Chor Trailer Mocks Kapil Sharma Recently, there was Bank Chor movie trailer was released which mocked Kapil Sharma. Apparently, Kapil was to do the film, he had also signed the film. But, because of his busy TV schedule, he couldn't do the film and Riteish replaced Kapil. Riteish Replaces Kapil! As a result of this, the movie got delayed. Coming back to the trailer, a background voice in the trailer said, "Hum Riteish (Deshmukh) ko laaye, kyunki Kapil Sharma bewafaa hai, Chaho toh Sunil (Grover) se pooch lo!"

The makers of the film not only mocked Kapil, it took advantage of Sunil and Kapil's fight!

Watch Bank Chor Trailer Here

Recently, a fan tweeted that his French girlfriend saw a picture Sunil and said that he looked like the younger version of the Hollywood actor, George Clooney.

He wrote to Sunil, "@WhoSunilGrover Dude, I was scrolling down on FB & this passed by.My gf beside me said You look like a younger George Clooney.she is french." Sunil replied for the tweet, "I completely agree with her. She makes sense to me."

Although Kapil and Sunil's fight has divided the team, fans and, now even celebrities, the two comedians continue to entertain the audiences in their own way.

While Kapil continues with his show unaffected, Sunil is busy with live shows. We also watch Sunil as fans' favourite characters Gutthi, Dr. Mashoor Gulati and Pinky on live shows as well as Sony TV's other shows.

A few of Kapil and Sunil's fans are already divided after the comedians' fight. And now, we feel celebrities are also choosing their sides!

What do you think - Are celebrities too, taking Kapil and Sunil's sides? Hit the comment box to share your views...
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/15/17 -- Golden Arrow Resources Corporation (TSX VENTURE: GRG)(FRANKFURT: GAC)(OTCQB: GARWF) ("Golden Arrow" or the "Company") is pleased to report that it has filed on SEDAR a Technical Report pursuant to Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects" and Form 43-101F1 to present the results of a pre-feasibility study for the Chinchillas silver-lead-zinc joint-venture project with Silver Standard Resources Inc. ("Silver Standard"), as announced March 31, 2017.

The Technical Report bears an effective date of December 31st, 2016 and was prepared by Ken Kuchling, P. Eng., Bruce Davis, Ph.D., F.AusIMM, Robert Sim, P.Geo., Anoush Ebrahimi, Ph.D., P.Eng., Adrian Dance, Ph.D., P.Eng., FAusIMM and Ken Embree. P.Eng., all of whom are independent Qualified Persons for the purposes of NI 43-101.

The contents of the news release have been reviewed and approved by Mr. McEwen, P.Geol., who is VP Exploration and Development for Golden Arrow and a QP under the requirements of NI 43-101.

About TSX Venture 50

The TSX Venture 50 are the top 10 companies listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, in each of the five major industry sectors - mining, oil & gas, clean technology & life sciences, diversified industries and technology - based on a ranking formula with equal weighting given to return on investment, market cap growth, trading volume and analyst coverage. All data was as of December 31, 2016.

About Golden Arrow:

Golden Arrow Resources is a Vancouver-based exploration company focused on creating value by making precious and base metal discoveries and advancing them into exceptional deposits at its more than 200,000 hectares of properties in Argentina. The Company's pre-feasibility level Chinchillas Silver-Lead-Zinc Project is moving towards production via a joint venture with Silver Standard Resources Inc. Golden Arrow is now actively exploring the new Antofalla silver-gold-base metal project, an exciting new exploration opportunity with similarities to Chinchillas.

Golden Arrow was recognized as a TSX Venture 50 company in 2017. TSX Venture 50 is a trademark of TSX Inc. and is used under license.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Mr. Joseph Grosso, Executive Chairman, President and CEO

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 contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Company's public disclosure documents for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent U.S. federal and state registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. registration requirements. This release does not constitute an offer for sale of securities in the United States.

Contacts:

Golden Arrow Resources Corporation

Corporate Communications

1-604-687-1828

Toll-Free: 1-800-901-0058

info@goldenarrowresources.com

www.goldenarrowresources.com




TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged a pair of former head traders who ran the commercial mortgage-backed securities or CMBS desk at Nomura Securities International Inc. with deliberately lying to customers in order to inflate the profits of the CMBS desk and line their own pockets as a result. The SEC alleged that James Im and Kee Chan each misrepresented price information while acting as intermediaries on trades with Nomura's customers who sought to buy and sell CMBS on the secondary market. In certain instances, Im and Chan allegedly pretended they were still negotiating bond purchases with a third-party seller at higher prices when Nomura had already acquired the bonds at a lower price. The SEC alleged that in one instance, Im bragged about his purposeful deception of a customer, and Chan once altered an email to a customer to prop up his lie about the bid price for a bond. According to the SEC's complaints, Chan and Im fraudulently generated more than $750,000 in extra trading profits for the CMBS desk, and they received substantial bonuses based largely on the desk's performance. Chan agreed to settle the charges by paying $51,965 in disgorgement plus $11,758 in interest and a $150,000 penalty. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Chan also agreed to be barred from the securities industry with the right to reapply after three years. The settlement is subject to court approval. The case continues against Im. 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.


CHARLOTTE (dpa-AFX) - A Rockland couple has been arrested and charged today with engaging in a scheme to embezzle more than $2.7 million from Bank of America using fraudulent donations to non-profit organizations. A third person, who was previously charged in a criminal complaint, was also charged in the indictment unsealed today, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston said.



Palestine Ace, aka Pam Ace, 45, a former Senior Vice President of Bank of America's Global Wealth & Investment Management Division; her husband, Jonathan R. Ace, 46; and Brianna Alexis Forde, 35, of Boston, were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. In addition, Palestine Ace was also indicted on 12 counts of bank fraud and four counts of wire fraud; Jonathan Ace was also charged with two counts of wire fraud and one engaging in an unlawful monetary transaction; and Forde was also indicted on two counts of wire fraud.



According to the indictment, from approximately October 2010 to April 2015, the defendants engaged in an embezzlement and kickback scheme to defraud Bank of America of approximately $2.7 million using fraudulent donations to non-profit organizations. As part of the scheme, Palestine Ace used her position as a Senior Vice President at Bank of America to misappropriate funds from a marketing budget and transfer the money to non-profit organizations.



Specifically, Palestine Act allegedly authorized 75 transactions, each under $50,000, to non-profit organizations in Boston and Atlanta. Then, the defendants, either directly or indirectly, informed the non-profit organizations that a substantial portion of the donated funds must be returned in order to ensure that Bank of America would continue to fund the organization.



The non-profit organizations either wrote a check to Jonathan Ace or Forde, or they returned funds to a Bank of America account, to which the defendants had access. On various occasions, Jonathan Ace pressured the recipients of the donated funds to return a higher percentage of the funds to him, by using intimidation and threats of public humiliation.



The indictment also alleged that Palestine and Jonathan Ace used a portion of the funds they embezzled from Bank of America to support their lifestyle and pay for personal expenses, including lavish birthday parties and the purchase of a $17,000 Kawasaki motorcycle.



The charges of wire fraud and bank fraud each provide for a sentence of no greater than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of unlawful monetary transaction provides for a sentence of no greater than 10 years in prison, two years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Figure 1: Learning process

Figure 2: Features of the technology used in this system



Fujitsu Limited Public and Investor Relations Tel: +81-3-3215-5259 URL: www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/

TOKYO, May 16, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Limited today announced that it is providing Nomura Securities Co., Ltd. with an analytical AI (machine learning technology), which will be deployed in June 2017. This will enable further improvements to data quality in areas where conventional methods of ensuring data quality had reached their limits by taking an autonomous analytical approach, using actual data and AI, to find situations that deviate from the norm.Using the opportunity of this deployment, Nomura Securities plans to expand the range of its systems that apply this technology, with the goal of further improving data quality. In addition, noting the general applicability of the technology that is now being adopted by Nomura Securities, Fujitsu plans to offer it in other industries as well.BackgroundIn Nomura Securities' IT department, there has been a demand for a high quality system that can swiftly deal with the fast-paced changes in the environment of the securities business. In addition, alongside the processing performed by securities systems, there has also been needs for continuous improvement in the quality of data recorded and stored day by day through such processes as a variety of manual entry tasks and internal business processes. In previous methods of ensuring data quality, however, there were limitations in the ability to grasp human input errors and the patterns of occurrences when data deviated from the norm.About the Analytical AI TechnologyFujitsu and Nomura Securities carried out a joint trial focusing on the occurrence tendencies and frequencies of past data. Using machine learning core technology and acceleration technology developed by Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., the two companies verified whether this system can autonomously analyze data simply run through the system, without any prior training, after separating it into ordinary patterns and patterns that deviate from the norm (anomalies).Given the trial results, Nomura Securities plans to deploy data analysis AI based on these technologies.Example of Use at Nomura Securities1. Significantly improving verification task efficiency for large volumes of operational dataPreviously, there had been cases in which manually checking large volumes of operational data in their entirety was impractical, meaning that ordinary system checks were not comprehensive. In this trial at Nomura Securities, by applying the analytical AI, a few dozen records that deviated from the norm were separated out from records numbering in the tens or hundreds of millions, including a few records showing patterns that even experts could not have recognized, enabling new discoveries. Because the analytical AI can quickly detect patterns that differ from the everyday norm, this system can significantly improve the efficiency of operations. Moreover, by building up a store of new discoveries from the detected patterns as expert knowledge, ongoing improvements in data quality and analysis accuracy can be expected.2. Efficient and comprehensive extraction of test cases through pattern analysisPreviously, the creation of test cases had to rely on the knowledge of experts, but by applying analytical AI, it is possible for it to autonomously train itself on the operational data that is produced day by day, reflecting new data patterns in test cases. Because it can comprehensively extract data patterns that are highly important to operations, while at the same time omitting unnecessary data patterns, enabling efficient test validation, this system can contribute to improving test quality and productivity.http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_FujitsuAI516Fig1.jpgFigure 1: Learning processhttp://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_FujitsuAI516Fig2.jpgFigure 2: Features of the technology used in this systemAbout Fujitsu LtdFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 159,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702; ADR:FJTSY) reported consolidated revenues of 4.7 trillion yen (US$41 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.* Please see this press release, with images, at:http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/Source: Fujitsu LtdContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2017 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until June 27, 2017 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Catalyst Hedged Futures Strategy Fund (MUTF: HFXAX, HFXCX, HFXIX), if they purchased the Fund's Class A, C and I shares between November 1, 2014 and April 28, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

What You May Do

If you purchased shares of Catalyst Fund and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn ( lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com ). If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by June 27, 2017.

About the Lawsuit

Certain of the Fund's executive officers and/or trustees and others are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

The alleged false and misleading statements and omissions include, but not limited to, that: (i) the Fund's prospectuses declared "[T]he Fund employs strict risk management procedures to adjust portfolio exposure as necessitated by changing market conditions"; (ii) despite converting from hedge fund to a more risk-limiting mutual fund, it continued to invest using a heightened risk strategy; and (iii) as a result, the Fund's financial statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana.

To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Contact:

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner

lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com

1-877-515-1850

206 Covington St.

Madisonville, LA 70447

SOURCE: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC
NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / May 15, 2017 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, the former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until June 20, 2017 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Ocwen Financial Corporation (NYSE: OCN), if they purchased the Company's securities between May 11, 2015 and April 19, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

What You May Do

If you purchased securities of Ocwen and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com). If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by June 20, 2017.

About the Lawsuit

Ocwen and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On April 20, 2017, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Florida Attorney General had filed suit against Ocwen based on a myriad of failures by the Company to meet obligations to its customers over many years, resulting in increased borrowing expenses and even illegal foreclosures. Further, financial regulators in over 20 other states have issued cease-and-desist and license revocation orders against Ocwen alleging faulty escrow management and other licensing issues.

On this news, the price of Ocwen's shares plummeted.

About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California, and Louisiana.

To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Contact:

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner

lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com

1-877-515-1850

206 Covington St.

Madisonville, LA 70447

SOURCE: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The following are some of the biotech stocks that made their way onto the Day's Gainers & Losers' list of May 15, 2017.



GAINERS



1. Cellular Biomedicine Group Inc. (CBMG)



Gained 62.26% to close Monday's (May 15) trading at $8.60.



News: The Company has added a second clinical trial site for its phase I clinical trial of C-CAR011 in patients with refractory Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma, dubbed CARD-1.



Initially designed as a single site trial, CARD-1 is being conducted at Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital in Nanjing China. The second site where the trial will be conducted is Shanghai Tongji Hospital.



C-CAR011 is Cellular Biomedicine's proprietary anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) construct that is entirely engineered and manufactured in the Company's own GMP manufacturing facility in China.



The Company noted that it is evaluating new interests in expanding its clinical development and CAR-T partnerships with leading hospitals in major cities in China.



The new trial will benefit patients in Shanghai and provide incremental data in safety and tolerability of C-CAR011 in more chemorefractory and aggressive DLBCL patients, according to Cellular Biomedicine.



2. EnteroMedics Inc. (ETRM)



Gained 31.18% to close Monday's trading at $6.10.



News: The Company reported Q1, 2017 financial results.



Net loss for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 narrowed to $7.36 million or $1.27 per share from $7.41 million or $66.14 per share in the year-ago quarter. Revenue generated from sales of obesity therapy vBloc dropped to $40 thousand in Q1, 2017 from $72 thousand in the year-ago quarter.



Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the Company to incur a loss of $0.63 per share on revenue of $200 thousand.



Operating expenses declined to $7.05 million in the first quarter of 2017 from $7.57 million in the first quarter of 2016.



The Company will host a conference call on Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:30 AM Eastern Time to discuss the Q1 results and to provide an update on the commercialization of vBloc Neurometabolic Therapy.



3. Ekso Bionics Holdings Inc. (EKSO)



Gained 19.63% to close Monday's trading at $1.95.



News: An interview with Thomas Looby, President and CEO of Ekso Bionics was aired on CNBC.



Ekso Bionics is a pioneer in the field of robotic exoskeletons. During the interview, the CEO provided an update on the stroke rehabilitation market.



Thomas Looby said, 'In the area of stroke rehabilitation, there is a need to ignite patient neuroplasticity through repetitive motion and the Ekso GT technology is ideally positioned to meet that demand.'



4. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALNY)



Gained 16.26% to close Monday's trading at $66.00.



News: No news



Near-term catalysts:



-- A pivotal phase III program of Fitusiran in severe haemophilia A and B, dubbed ATLAS, is expected to be initiated early this year. -- Top-line data from a phase III study of Patisiran in patients with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis with polyneuropathy, dubbed APOLLO, are expected to be reported in mid-2017.



5. BiondVax Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (BVXV)



Gained 15.07% to close Monday's trading at $8.40.



News: No news



Near-term catalyst:



-- Immunogenicity results from the Company's European Phase 2b clinical trial of universal flu vaccine candidate M-001 are expected by the end of Q2 2017. The company reported positive preliminary safety results from the trial last November.



6. RA PHARMACEUTICALS INC. (RARX)



Gained 14.87% to close Monday's trading at $26.50.



News: No news



The Company's lead compound is RA101495, currently under phase II program in paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH. The phase II program consists of two studies - one conducted outside the U.S. and one conducted in the U.S.



Near-term catalyst:



-- Initial data from the two phase II studies of RA101495 in PNH are expected in mid-year 2017 and additional results at year-end. -- A phase II trial of RA101495 in myasthenia gravis and a phase IB trial in lupus nephritis are expected to be initiated in the second half of 2017.



7. Ignyta Inc. (RXDX)



Gained 12.78% to close Monday's trading at $7.50.



News: The Company's lead compound Entrectinib has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of NTRK fusion-positive, locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors in adult and pediatric patients who have either progressed following prior therapies or who have no acceptable standard therapies.



Entrectinib is under development for solid tumors.



Near-term catalysts:



A phase II clinical trial of Entrectinib in cancer patients with 'fusions' of NTRK1, NTRK2, NTRK3, ROS1, and ALK genes, dubbed STARTRK-2, is ongoing.



-- Complete TRK and ROS1 enrollment of STARTRK-2 in 3Q17 -- Announce top-line NDA registration-enabling data (after consultation with FDA) in the first half of 2018.



8. ImmunoGen Inc. (IMGN)



Gained 11.22% to close Monday's trading at $4.56.



News: No news



Near-term catalysts:



-- Initial data from phase 1b/2 trial of Mirvetuximab soravtansine in combination with Avastin, carboplatin, Doxil or Keytruda in ovarian cancer, dubbed FORWARD II, are expected in Q2, 2017. -- Pooled data from over 100 ovarian cancer patients treated in multiple Mirvetuximab soravtansine phase 1 cohorts and data from phase I steroid eye drop expansion cohort are anticipated in Q2, 2017. -- Initial phase I data for IMGN779 for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia are expected in mid-2017.



LOSERS



1. Eagle Pharmaceuticals Inc. (EGRX)



Lost 13.60% to close Monday's trading at $82.30.



News: The Company has appointed Pete Meyers as its Chief Financial Officer, replacing David Riggs.



Riggs served as CFO of Eagle Pharma since 2013, and was instrumental in the Company's IPO.



The Company held its IPO on February 12, 2014, offering its shares at a price of $15 each.



2. OncoSec Medical Inc. (ONCS)



Lost 9.82% to close Monday's trading at $1.01.



News: No news



Recent event:



On May 10, OncoSec entered into a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with Merck (MRK) to evaluate the combination of OncoSec's ImmuoPulse IL-12 with Merck's anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA in a Phase II clinical trial, referred to as PISCES.



As per the agreement terms, OncoSec will sponsor and fund the study and Merck will provide KEYTRUDA. Additional details of the collaboration were not disclosed.



Near-term catalyst:



-- The Company will host its fiscal third quarter 2017 financial results conference call on Thursday, June 1 at 1:15 PM PT/4:15 PM ET.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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MELBOURNE (dpa-AFX) - Elliott responded to directors of BHP Billiton's 'do nothing' approach to unlocking substantial additional value for its shareholders - reinforcing a call for shareholders worldwide to demand a halt to chronic underperformance at BHP.



The response follows BHP's swift dismissal of Elliott's comprehensive Shareholder Value Unlock Plan proposals published on April 10, 2017, which offered a range of solutions to increase value and improve capital returns to shareholders.



In documents released today, Elliott showed total shareholder returns at BHP have substantially underperformed Rio Tinto, a comparable portfolio, as well as the ASX 200, the FTSE 100 and the S&P 500 over the year to date and for the last two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight years. BHP's total shareholder returns from November 2008 to date have been 128% lower than Rio Tinto, its nearest peer.



Elliott said it has spent the past month seeking feedback on its initial proposals from Australian and global investors, holding BHP shares worth tens of billions of US$.



In a subsequent letter and accompanying presentation provided to BHP today, Elliott reveals extremely broad and deep-rooted shareholder support for proactive steps to be taken by BHP management to review its petroleum business. Elliott is now calling for an in-depth, open and timely independent review of the petroleum business - with full disclosure of the review results.



Elliott has also unpicked much of BHP's rationale for rejecting its Shareholder Value Unlock Plan proposals, exposing flawed and misleading claims from BHP management on the supposed costs of proposed unification measures, designed to defend an entrenched 'do nothing' approach. Elliott's analysis shows how BHP management has inflated the cost of unification by over US$1bn - with Elliott maintaining that the unification cost is nearer US$200 million.



Elliott's response today offers a new approach as a solution to the regulatory concerns raised in recent public feedback on the unification ideas in Elliott's Shareholder Value Unlock Plan, as part of Elliott's call for BHP's management to work harder and more constructively for a unification solution. Under Elliott's revised proposal, BHP would stay incorporated in Australia, Australian headquartered and Australian tax resident, retaining full ASX and LSE listings, with ordinary shares listed on the ASX.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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CHICAGO (dpa-AFX) - Boeing Co. (BA) said that it would assemble new U.S. Air Force trainer jets at its main military aircraft facilities in Missouri. The move sets up the St. Louis plant in competition with facilities in Alabama and South Carolina run or planned by Boeing's rivals in bidding to build an initial 350 T-X jets. Boeing said the move would support around 1,800 jobs in a region where it has shed workers in recent years. The company already assembles combat planes in the St. Louis facility and has built test aircraft for the trainer contract in partnership with Sweden's Saab AB. 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.
COLOGNE, Germany, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global testing service provider TUVRheinland has expanded its global involvement in the field of wireless communication technologies by acquiring a wireless lab in the Swedish city of Lund. The acquisition of the laboratory also constitutes the foundation for TUVRheinland's newly established national subsidiary in Sweden. The wireless lab was acquired from Tech Mahindra, a provider of services and solutions in the fields of information, communication and technology. By acquiring the laboratory, TUVRheinland has expanded its European wireless network to four locations. In addition to the lab in Sweden, TUVRheinland also operates corresponding facilities in Cologne, Nuremberg and Leek (Netherlands).

"We can now offer testing services to the industry in the field of long-range wireless communication such as 2G, 3G and LTE, as well as antenna performance tests such as Over The Air, known for short as OTA," explains Stefan Kischka, Vice President Wireless / Internet of Things at TUVRheinland. "The laboratory in Lund is a great platform for TUVRheinland to tap into the entire Scandinavian market," adds Anders Nordlof, Managing Director of the national subsidiary TUVRheinland Sweden AB. The Lund laboratory is located in the heart of a technology cluster consisting of research and development companies, manufacturers and integrators. "We will also focus on regulatory tests and approvals as well as various protocol tests at this site in the future," says TUVRheinland expert Stefan Kischka.

Complete range of wireless communication technologies for different industries

TUVRheinland is one of the leading testing service providers and pioneers in the entire field of wireless communication technologies. For example, the testing service provider set up the world's first WiFi lab. The experts from TUVRheinland were also involved in Bluetooth technology right from the start. Furthermore, TUVRheinland is also the global leader when it comes to short-range wireless, i.e. WiFi, Bluetooth or ZigBee for smart home applications, where it checks whether the corresponding devices comply with the wireless communication protocols. TUVRheinland tests many devices at its laboratories in Japan and China, where the majority of these products are made.

TUVRheinland Center of Excellence Wireless/IoT in Silicon Valley

As a member of the fast-growing LoRa Alliance, TUVRheinland also provides support with the standardization process as well as the testing and certification of products before they are launched on the market. For this purpose, the experts operate specialized laboratories for wireless communication technology and IoT products in Europe and the USA, as well as in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. This way, the testing service provider is always close to manufacturers and users around the world and can offer its competence in the field of wireless communication standards. The same applies to Silicon Valley in the USA, where the testing service provider opened the first laboratory for wireless communication technologies back in 1986. Together with the recently opened laboratory in Fremont, California, the facility forms the "TUVRheinland Center of Excellence Wireless / IoT" that performs wireless communication tests, for example in the North America region.

Thanks to this diverse expertise and its resources, TUVRheinland distinguishes itself as a testing service provider that can cover all the wireless communication needs of a customer, regardless of its industry, globally and comprehensively - providing consulting services, test solutions, market access analyses for new technologies, but also independent tests and certifications of existing ones.

Like cyber security and autonomous driving, for example, the expansion of testing facilities for wireless communication technologies is one of the future-oriented digitalization topics on which the testing service provider will be placing a stronger focus in the future.

Further information is available at www.tuv.com and on the TUVRheinland platform "Connected to the future" regarding the company's future-oriented topics at www.tuv.com/c2f.

TUV Rheinland is a global leader in independent inspection services, founded 145 years ago. The group employs 19,700 people around the globe. Annual revenue is more than Euro 1.9billion. The independent experts stand for quality and safety for people, technology and the environment in nearly all industrial sectors and areas of life. TUV Rheinland inspects technical equipment, products and services, and oversees projects, processes and information security for companies. Its experts train people in a wide range of careers and industries. To this end, the company operates a global network of approved labs and testing and education centers. Since 2006, TUV Rheinland has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact to promote sustainability and combat corruption. Website: www.tuv.com
New Report Shows Many Candidates with a Prior Business Master's Degree Are Considering an MBA



RESTON, Va., 2017-05-16 06:01 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Three in 4 prospective graduate business school candidates who hold a prior master's degree are considering enrolling in MBA programs, according to new research from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Findings from the Council's 2017 mba.com Prospective Students Survey Report released today show that the MBA remains the predominant program format considered by candidates with both prior business master's degrees (61 percent) and non-business master's degrees (86 percent).



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0d5fa2ea-6ea2-4f4e-8fcb-38ffc 02b4070



"These findings demonstrate that a business master's degree is not necessarily the end of graduates' business education," said Sangeet Chowfla, president and CEO of GMAC. "For many, their business master's degree is a stepping stone to continued professional development that may include an MBA down the road, in either a full-time or part-time format."



The findings of the mba.com Prospective Students Survey Report show that globally 22 percent of prospective business school candidates have a prior master's degree, with considerable regional variation. While 2 in 5 European candidates have a prior master's-level credential, the same is true of just 14 percent of U.S. candidates.



Key Findings



Demand for Business Master's Programs Continues to Grow



Fueled by growing candidate demand, non-MBA business master's programs continue to proliferate. Globally, the percentage of candidates considering only business master's degrees - such as Master of Finance, Master of Accounting, and Master in Management - has increased from 15 percent in 2009 to 23 percent in 2016. This rise in interest has been particularly strong among candidates from East and Southeast Asia and Western Europe, where now more than 2 in 5 candidates report considering only these program types.



Non-MBA programs and MBA programs attract distinct candidate pools seeking different outcomes. Candidates considering non-MBA business master's programs skew younger and the majority have little to no prior work experience. Compared with MBA candidates, individuals preferring business master's programs are more interested in developing their technical skills. MBA candidates are typically older, have more years of work experience, and are more interested in developing their managerial and leadership skills.



International Study Demand Remains Strong



Nearly 3 in 5 prospective business school students (59 percent) intend to apply to programs outside their country of residence, up from 44 percent in 2009. Most candidates seek study opportunities outside their country of citizenship to receive a higher-quality education (63 percent of respondents), to increase their chance of securing international employment (58 percent), and to expand their international connections (51 percent). One-third (34 percent) of candidates who prefer to study outside their country of citizenship intend to seek employment in the country where they prefer to attend school.



U.S. Remains Most Preferred Study Destination Though Candidate Preferences Are Shifting



Consistent with past research, more than 9 in 10 U.S. candidates prefer to study domestically (96 percent). Globally, among full-time MBA candidates looking to study outside their country of citizenship, 58 percent prefer to study in the U.S., down from 61 percent in 2009. Since 2009, there has been an increase in MBA candidates preferring to study in Canada (4 percent in 2009 vs. 7 percent in 2016).



There has been a similar shift in preferred study destinations among non-U.S. candidates interested in business master's programs. In 2016, 47 percent of non-U.S. prospective students interested in business master's programs expressed a preference for study in the U.S., down from 57 percent in 2009. Over time, a greater share of these candidates have shown interest in applying to programs in Western Europe (34 percent in 2016 vs. 30 percent in 2009), Canada (7 percent in 2016 vs. 4 percent (2009), and East and Southeast Asia (7 percent in 2016 vs. 4 percent in 2009).



Recent Immigration Policy Changes Having Impact on International Study Choices



Recent shifts in immigration policies may impact candidates' study destination preferences in 2017. Anticipated changes in U.S. immigration policies and last year's Brexit vote in the United Kingdom may make it more difficult for non-citizens to obtain student visas to study in those countries or to obtain work visas after graduation to seek employment, one of the main reasons for studying in those countries.



Since November 2016, a growing share of international candidates say they are now less likely to pursue a graduate business degree in the U.S. due to the U.S. presidential election results. The percentage of non-U.S. citizen mba.com registrants who say they are now less likely to study in the U.S. has grown from 35 percent in November 2016 to 43 percent in April 2017.



Early indications are that the British Brexit vote to leave the European Union may negatively impact international candidate demand to apply to U.K. business schools. In December 2016, among nearly 1,300 non-U.K. GMAT test takers surveyed about the Brexit vote, 45 percent indicated that the Brexit vote has made them less likely to study in the U.K. A country-level analysis reveals that Indian candidates are the most negatively influenced by the Brexit vote, with 58 percent reporting that it has made them less likely to study in the U.K. GMAC launched a second survey of non-U.K. GMAT test takers on March 29, the day the U.K. triggered Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which allows the U.K. to unilaterally quit the European Union. This survey closed on April 7 and showed the same percentage of candidates would be less likely to study in the U.K.



Education Costs and Financing Continue to Weigh Heavily on Candidates' Minds



The predominant reservation candidates have about pursuing a graduate business education revolves around costs. Approximately half of surveyed candidates indicate that not having enough money available to pay for their education (52 percent of respondents) and potentially having to take on large debts (47 percent) may prevent them from pursuing a graduate business degree.



The two most important financial aspects that candidates evaluate when deciding where to apply are total tuition costs and scholarship availability. Compared with 2009, candidates, on average, expect to cover a greater share of the cost of their education with grants, fellowships, and scholarships and a smaller share with parental support, loans, and employer assistance.



Analysis in the 2017 mba.com Prospective Students Survey Report is based on survey responses provided by 11,617 individuals who registered on mba.com between February and December 2016. To download the full report visit: gmac.com/prospectivestudents. For supporting graphics, visit the GMAC News Center.



About GMAC: The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a global, nonprofit association of 220 leading graduate business schools. Founded in 1953, we are actively committed to advancing the art and science of admissions by convening and representing the industry and offering best-in-class products and services for schools and students. GMAC owns and administers the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), used by more than 6,500 graduate programs worldwide, and the NMAT by GMAC exam, for entrance into graduate management programs in India. The Council is based in Reston, Va., with offices in London, New Delhi (Gurgaon) and Hong Kong. For information on assessments, study tools and services for candidates, visit www.mba.com. For information about The Council and our market intelligence, professional development opportunities and services for graduate management education, please visit www.gmac.com.



MEDIA CONTACT: Jennifer Garfinkel; Director of Media Relations, GMAC +1 (703) 668-9805 or jgarfinkel@gmac.com

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
12.783 Punkte, das ist der Rekordstand, den der DAX gestern im Laufe des Handelstages aufgestellt hatte. Die Gewinne konnte der Leitindex allerdings nicht ganz halten. Heute ist vorborslich erst einmal Zuruckhaltung angesagt. Markus Horntrich, Chefredakteur von DER AKTIONAR, erlautert die weiteren Perspektiven des DAX. Weitere Themen im Morning Briefing: Dow Jones,Apple, Electronic Arts, Walt Disney und Nvidia.

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.
Artist impression of the main arches at Hari Raya Light Up 2017

Artist impression of the sub arches at Hari Raya Light Up 2017

Artist impression of the wau installation at Hari Raya Light Up 2017

Artist impression of the stage fashioned after a kelong at Hari Raya Light Up 2017

Artist impressions of exhibition area at Hari Raya Light Up 2017



SINGAPORE, May 16, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The annual Hari Raya Light Up 2017 in Singapore will return to Geylang Serai from 20 May to 7 July 2017, to delight local and international visitors with a visual extravaganza comprising over 900,000 LED light bulbs, and a month-long shopping fiesta.Themed "Deepening the kampung spirit", the annual event will feature new larger-than-life installations fashioned after traditional Malay icons, and educational displays about Malay arts and culture. The ever-popular bazaar will also return with a wide array of food, snacks, and traditional Malay costumes and accessories. These will be complemented by free weekend performances and movie screenings.Dr Teo Cheng Swee, Chairman of Hari Raya Light Up 2017 Organising Committee said, "Every Hari Raya Puasa, Geylang Serai is illuminated with brilliant light displays. While being a platform for commemorating Ramadan, the annual Hari Raya Light Up also provides an opportunity for local and international visitors alike to explore the precinct and understand more about the Malay culture in Singapore. We hope that this year's event will once again charm everyone who passes through Geylang Serai, with the myriad of exhibits and lively bazaar.""The Hari Raya Light Up is one of Singapore's major festive attractions, adding colour to the vibrant Geylang Serai precinct and to Singapore as a whole. We are glad to continue supporting the event in providing a rich festive and cultural experience for Singaporeans and international visitors," said Mr Kenneth Lim, Director of Cultural Precincts Development, Singapore Tourism Board.- Larger-than-life installations to acquaint visitors with Malay traditionsOver seven weeks, visitors will be treated to a visual feast of larger-than-life light installations modelled in the likeness of traditional Malay heritage icons.Located along Sims Avenue and Changi Road, the centerpieces of Hari Raya Light Up 2017 will incorporate a kampung, as if welcoming visitors into a traditional Malay home of yesteryear. This will be complemented by leaf motifs designed like songket, a traditional Malay fabric made of hand-woven patterns. Additionally, other arches will feature words of blessings that Muslims often use during the holy month.Other gigantic installations include a 4.4-metre tall wau (Kelantanese kite) which allows the curious to learn about the richness and diversity of Malay arts and culture, and a 12-metre wide kelong (offshore platform made of wood) and sampan (fishing boat) that will form the main stage area for weekly performances and movie screenings.To educate members of the public about the history of Hari Raya and Geylang Serai, Hari Raya Light Up 2017 will feature a temporary exhibition, with a housing that mimics the weaves of a ketupat (rice dumpling). Visitors will be acquainted with Malay traditions during Ramadan and Hari Raya Puasa, the history of Hari Raya bazaars and the Malay community's spirit of gotong royong (co-operation).Visitors will also get a blast from the past, in the form of a pop-up museum showcasing gongs, fishing boats, weaponry used by Malay nobles and traditional Malay games.- Ever-popular Geylang Serai Bazaar to return 25 May to 24 June 2017In conjunction with Hari Raya Light Up 2017, the annual crowd-pleaser, Geylang Serai Bazaar, will return from 25 May to 24 June 2017. Spanning the areas around Geylang Serai market, Joo Chiat Complex and along Haig Road, stalls will offer exciting snacks such as candyfloss burritos, poke bowls and rainbow planet ice-cream buns. Malay patrons preparing for Hari Raya Puasa can also find a wide variety of traditional costumes and decorations at the Geylang Serai Bazaar.- Breaking fast with new citizensAnother highlight of the festivities is a mass break fast session on 17 June. For the first time, new citizens will be invited to break fast alongside the locals to better understand the meaning behind Hari Raya.- Rich line-up of community eventsTo further enliven Geylang Serai during Hari Raya Puasa, cultural performances will be held near Kampong Kembangan Community Club every weekend between 20 May and 7 July 2017. Popular acts that will perform include Ramili Sarip - Singapore's very own "Papa Rock" - and other cultural groups well-versed in the kompang (traditional Malay percussion instrument) and Malay dance.Movie buffs can also look forward to free screenings of popular Malay films by P. Ramlee, such as Laksmana Do Re Mi, Seniman Bujang Lapok, Pendekar Bujang Lapok and Ali Baba Bujang Lapok.Additionally, a Cultural Heritage Race on 3 June 2017 will bring Malay traditions closer to participants, as they race around Geylang Serai to discover more about Hari Raya celebrations. The event is open to new citizens, locals and tourists keen to experience another aspect of multi-racial Singapore.For more information about Hari Raya Light Up and its fringe activities, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/HariRayaLightUpSingapore2017/Artist impressions of various displays are available here. http://bit.ly/2rl5eJuPlease credit them to "Hari Raya Light Up 2017".For media queries, please contact:Charlene HoNinemer Public Relations P L+65 6534 9909charleneho@ninemer.comNur Atiqah M. HattaNinemer Public Relations P L+65 6534 9909atiqah@ninemer.comSource: Hari Raya Light UpCopyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Australian dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Tuesday. The Australian dollar fell to 1.4922 against the euro, 0.7913 against the U.S. dollar and 87.52 against the yen, from early highs of 1.4888, 0.7939 and 87.84, respectively. Against the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars, the aussie dropped to 1.0759 and 1.0025 from an early near 3-week highs of 1.0779 and 1.0049, respectively. If the aussie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.50 against the euro, 0.77 against the greenback, 86.00 against the yen, 1.05 against the kiwi and 0.99 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.
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The New Zealand dollar weakened against most major currencies in the Asian session on Thursday. The NZ dollar fell to a 6-day low of 1.5930 against the euro, from yesterday's closing value of 1.5876. Against the U.S. dollar and the yen, the kiwi dropped to 2-day lows of 0.7062 and 78.30 from yesterday's closing quotes of 0.7082 and 78.43, respectively. If the kiwi extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 1.62 against the euro, 0.69 against the greenback and 76.00 against the yen. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Global Leader in Serialisation Provides Best Practices and Practical Solutions

BRUSSELS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Systech International, a global technology solutions leader for the pharmaceutical industry, is proud to announce its upcoming serialisation webinar titled "The Clock is Ticking: Overcoming the Challenges of Implementing Serialisation in the EU"on 24 May 2017. This webinar is in response to the upcoming FMD deadlines for coding, serialisation, compliance reporting, and verification-as well as the need for flexible, reliable, hardware vendor-neutral solutions to meet these requirements. The new regulations are effective 9 February 2019, giving pharmaceutical companies, their CMO/CPO partners, and others who license pharmaceutical products less than two years to meet an extensive set of requirements. These directives apply to all EU member states, EEA members, and Switzerland.

As its most basic level, the law requires that every prescription drug have its own unique identifier-whether applied in the factory or at the packaging site. That identifier must be stored in a centralized EU database. In addition, the pharmacists or entity that dispenses the drug must scan the product and verify it against the database before it is sold to the patient. The mandate is meant to reduce the number of fake drugs in the market-whether a result of counterfeiting, diversion, or black market activity-and most importantly, to protect patients.

According to Alastair Taylor, Systech's Director of European Sales, "While the largest global pharmaceutical companies have been working to meet serialisation mandates for the past several years, the current issue is two-fold: (1) small and mid-sized firms, as well as their partners, may not be as well-prepared; and (2) since serialisation solutions include a hardware requirement, some vendors won't be able to logistically meet the deadlines. For example, if a pharmaceutical company has 50 lines to serialise and only one hardware vendor, they may be at a significant disadvantage for compliance."

The Systech Difference

Systech's approach is completely different from other serialisation vendors and reduces both the risk and cost of serialisation. Because Systech is hardware-agnostic, the company can select among multiple trusted hardware partners or retrofit its solution to existing packaging lines. Although Systech has a long history of serialising the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, many smaller companies need to be cost-focused. "TCO should be an important metric in a customer's buying decision," states Andy McLaughlin, Systech's Director of Global Services in Europe. "Most serialization programs are viewed over a ten-year period, and with Systech the total cost of ownership can be significantly lower than alternative methods. Why? We have experience on thousands of lines. We have more resources than our competitors. We're already working with top partners. Furthermore, product line uptime is higher with us, so there's little to no downtime or loss of revenue."

At the Systech live webinar, Andy will share his experiences developing serialisation implementation strategies, as well as best practices for the European market. The webinar takes place on Wednesday, 24 May 2017 at 4PM CET/3PM GMT/10AM EST. Andy oversees Systech's European customer programs for its Professional Services team. He is responsible for consistent and scalable delivery throughout the entire project lifecycle, ensuring projects are completed on time, within budget, and with excellent customer satisfaction. Throughout his career, Andy has delivered software solutions to the pharmaceutical, clinical trial, and medical device sectors.

About Systech International

Systech, a global leader in product verification and brand protection, is re-defining the future of authentication. As the innovator of serialization, Systech is trusted by top pharmaceutical companies worldwide to ensure regulatory compliance, mitigate risk, ensure supply chain integrity, and drive efficiency. Beyond compliance, the company is leading the charge to protect global brands-for consumer packaged goods, food & beverage, health & beauty, pharmaceutical, and contract manufacturing companies. Its best practices and award-winning technologies are guiding Product and Brand Protection Officers in their quest to improve patient/consumer safety, increase engagement, decrease counterfeiting, avoid diversion, and reduce harm to coveted brands. For more information visit www.systechone.com.

SYSTECH CONTACT

Erin Dunkel

Vice President, Marketing

+1 (610) 761-8960

Erin.Dunkel@systechone.com

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/461585/Systech_Logo.jpg
BERLIN, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

All-in-one solution for qualified customer feedback and review aggregation also available in the United States , Canada , United Kingdom , and Australia as of now

Started as a platform for review marketing in 2013 in Germany, ProvenExpert.com has established itself in the markets of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (DACH region) by now. More than 20,000 companies, including renowned companies such as Postbank, insurance company Barmenia, or electronics retail chain Expert rely on the innovative solutions offered by ProvenExpert.com. As of now, all services are available in English for international customers. With this, the company is heading for new markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Entering the English-speaking countries is the review platform's first step within the framework of an extensive internationalization strategy that aims at becoming the number one in the area of review marketing worldwide. More languages and markets are to follow later this year.

Expanded focus: English-speaking market offers opportunities

ProvenExpert.com is also looking to establish itself on the new markets with the best price-performance ratio as well as a clear focus on fairness and customer service. This is especially interesting for small and medium businesses. "Existing providers of similar services in the English-speaking countries are often non-transparent and expensive. Our mission is to excite freelancers, service providers, and companies with an excellent service - and to support them with their entry into professional review marketing," says Remo Fyda, CEO of ProvenExpert.com. What is more, the company operates in compliance with German data protection standards and maintains a rigorous policy against fake reviews.

Reviews lead to more new customers and increased revenue

With the SaaS solution, reviews of satisfied customers can be actively obtained through industry-specific customer surveys. Additionally, customers are able to aggregate existing reviews from external platforms such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor to present them all on one profile and rating seal. Fyda continues on the benefits of ProvenExpert.com: "Customer reviews are a major lever for company growth. 74 percent of all internet users put more trust into a local company if it has received positive reviews. With our solution, we have created the perfect basis for small and medium businesses to acquire new customers and increase revenue with the help of customer feedback - and that also holds true for international markets." Individual services for enterprise customers - such as POS solutions and profile hierarchies - make ProvenExpert.com the ideal partner for corporate groups and companies with complex structures.

About ProvenExpert.com:

Online surveys offered by ProvenExpert.com enable service providers, freelancers, and companies to get feedback from their customers and to present customer reviews on the Internet in a way that is highly effective in terms of advertising purposes. Numerous industry-specific templates help to create customer surveys in only a few minutes. The qualified customer feedback shows in detail what excites customers, how satisfied they are, and where there is still potential to develop. From these surveys, new reviews are generated that can be presented with the ProvenExpert rating seal - along with all reviews that have already accumulated on portals such as Yelp, Facebook, or Google.

Press materials:

Press Kit:https://www.provenexpert.com/press/presskit-provenexpert.zip

Sample profile:https://www.provenexpert.com/john-smith-services/

Press contact:

Expert Systems GmbH | Maria Hinz | +49-30-270041906 | mhinz@provenexpert.com
SINGAPORE--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) -Zecotek Photonics Inc. (TSX VENTURE: ZMS) (FRANKFURT: W1I) (OTC PINK: ZMSPF), a developer of leading-edge photonics technologies for healthcare, industrial and scientific markets, is pleased to provide an update to the exclusive LFS scintillation crystal supply agreement previously announced on January 25, 2017. Zecotek and Shanghai EBO Optoelectronics have been working diligently to establish rigorous control systems for product delivery and have laid out an aggressive marketing and sales plan to target the key OEMs in China.

"We are working closely with the EBO Optoelectronics management team as we set the ground work to fulfill over $21 million worth of LFS crystals over the next three years," said Dr. A.F. Zerrouk, Chairman, President, and CEO of Zecotek Photonics Inc. "We have implemented a state-of-the-art quality control system to ensure standardization of our crystal products. The system also allows batch testing of crystals which ensures stable and reliable supply of our high performance LFS products. At the same time, we are working with EBO to develop a marketing and sales plans to grow the value of the agreement. EBO Optoelectronics has an extensive client list that includes all of the top PET OEMs in China. Over the coming months, we will target companies that were not included in the initial contract as we look to leverage our relationship with EBO and expand our footprint within the Chinese market place."

Zecotek is also pleased to announce the forming of a new subsidiary: Zecotek China. This wholly owned subsidiary was established in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and will operate under Zecotek Imaging Systems. Zecotek China will be able to conduct business with greater efficiency and ease within the region. There are certain tax incentives and infrastructure within the local business environment that are not available to Zecotek Imaging Systems. Zecotek China will be able to work more closely with EBO Optoelectronics and its customers both in and out of China. It will also allow Zecotek to take advantage of favorable trade conditions thereby reducing the cost of production and improving margins.

"The current business climate in China demands that we have a direct and local presence in the country," continued Dr. A.F. Zerrouk. "By breaking down barriers to doing business, we are bringing Zecotek closer to our customers in China. We will be able to offer services and terms that were difficult if not impossible to offer as a foreign company."

EBO Optoelectronics is the largest crystal array producer and supplier in China and uses Zecotek's LFS scintillation crystals exclusively for their PET arrays. It has an extensive and impressive international customer list including the top PET OEMs in the world, and serves the second largest medical device market in the world. The significant growth in China's medical device market is due to an increase in discretionary income and having the world's largest aging population. The annual growth of the medical device market has reached up to 20 percent for the past six years and is expected to continue at this pace for the next five years. Zecotek has created a strategic partnership with EBO Optoelectronics with the goal of becoming the leading supplier of scintillation crystals and other the key components in China and around the world.

About Shanghai EBO Optoelectronics Co. Ltd.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Shanghai, EBO has more than 120 employees and 4,000 square meters of manufacturing space. Shanghai EBO fabricates and supplies crystal arrays to an extensive customer base which includes: Neusoft Medical Systems, Samsung Medical, Topgrade Healthcare, FMI Medical Systems, IHEP of CAS, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and many domestic and foreign universities and research institutions. EBO has the highest standard processing production line and offers shaped crystal customization and crystal array assembly to end users.

About Zecotek

Zecotek Photonics Inc (TSX VENTURE: ZMS) (FRANKFURT: W1I) is a photonics technology company developing high-performance scintillation crystals, photo detectors, positron emission tomography scanning technologies, 3D auto-stereoscopic displays, 3D metal printing, and lasers for applications in medical, high-tech and industrial sectors. Founded in 2004, Zecotek operates three divisions: Imaging Systems, Optronics Systems and 3D Display Systems with labs located in Canada, Korea, Russia, Singapore and U.S.A. The management team is focused on building shareholder value by commercializing over 50 patented and patent pending novel photonic technologies directly and through strategic alliances with Hamamatsu Photonics (Japan), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland), Beijing Opto-Electronics Technology Co. Ltd. (China), NuCare Medical Systems (South Korea), the University of Washington (United States), and National NanoFab Center (South Korea). For more information visit www.zecotek.com and follow @zecotek on Twitter.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on management's expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual future results and trends may differ materially from what may have been stated.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. If you would like to receive news from Zecotek in the future please visit the corporate website at www.zecotek.com.

For Additional Information Please Contact:

Zecotek Photonics Inc.

Michael Minder

T: (604) 783-8291

ir@zecotek.com
New plant in the Free Industrial Zone of Jizzakh in Uzbekistan

Exclusive license to produce LCVs 1 in Uzbekistan with a production capacity up to 16 000 vehicles per year for local and export markets from 2019

Project based on Groupe PSA platform technologies and on SC Uzavtosanoat supplier network

Regulatory News:

Groupe PSA (Paris:UG) and SC Uzavtosanoat decided to jointly create an equally owned Joint Venture (JV) Uzbekistan PCA. This partnership aims at building a production plant in the Free Industrial Zone of Jizzakh, located 200 km from Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, to produce Peugeot and Citroen LCVs1, for passenger and freight carriage. The Charter capital of the new JV will represent circa 30 million euro, with equal shareholding. Global investments represent around 130 million euros.

Groupe PSA will provide new technologies, intellectual property, and contribute to the implementation of modern production processes and organization of training to employees. The plant will operate in accordance with the Group modern systems in production, quality, purchasing, supply and sales. Furthermore, the joint venture considers at least 50% of parts localization in the first year of production, by attracting domestic component parts manufacturers 30 large factories owned by SC Uzavtosanoat and more than 160 small and medium enterprises.

The production capacity is estimated up to 16 000 vehicles per year, to be sold in Uzbekistan and exported to foreign countries.

With a population over 32 million, there is a huge potential for further development of industrial production and growth of the automotive market in Uzbekistan.

"This LCV1 segment was the only non-occupied vehicle segment in Uzbekistan"- noted Mr. Yusupov Rustam, Deputy Chairman of the board of SC Uzavtosanoat"So this project is a significant qualitative leap in the development of the domestic automotive industry. And more globally, along with the increase of employment, this joint venture will positively contribute to the profitable growth of the Uzbekistan automotive industry".

Christophe Bergerand, Eurasia Vice-President for Groupe PSA commented: "This project is fully in line with our Push to Pass plan and this is a great opportunity for Groupe PSA to develop our LCV business and profitable growth plan in the Region. We appreciate the established constructive dialogue with the Uzbek teams and personal support of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoev, which was a determining factor in the creation of the joint venture".

About SC Uzavtosanoat

SC Uzavtosanoat was established in March 17, 1994. The company currently joins 75 large and medium-sized enterprises and companies, including companies with foreign capital and technology from South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, USA and CIS countries. The main activity of the joint stock company is the production of passenger cars, buses, trucks and component parts. Total number of employees counts at more than 24 thousand, of which more than 5 thousand have been trained at the world's leading industrial companies.

About Groupe PSA

With sales and revenue of 54 billion in 2016, the Groupe PSA designs unique automotive experiences and delivers mobility solutions that provide freedom and enjoyment to customers around the world. The Group has three car brands, Peugeot, Citroen and DS, as well as a wide array of mobility and smart services under its Free2Move brand, to meet the evolving needs and expectations of automobile users. The automobile manufacturer PSA is the European leader in terms of CO 2 emissions, with average emissions of 102.4 grams per kilometre in 2016, and an early innovator in the field of autonomous and connected cars, with 2.3 million such vehicles worldwide. It is also involved in financing activities through Banque PSA Finance and in automotive equipment via Faurecia. Find out more at groupe-psa.com/en.

Media library: https://medialibrary.groupe-psa.com// Twitter: @GroupePSA

1 light commercial vehicles

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005705/en/

Contacts:

Groupe PSA

Media contact:

(+33) 1 40 66 42 00

press-psa@mpsa.com
SWINDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Carlton James Group ("Carlton James"), a private investment group specializing in diversified portfolios across varying global asset classes but with a core emphasis on real estate, today announced the launch of the Carlton James Diversified Alpha Fund (The Fund), a regulated mutual fund listed on the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange (CSX), designed to provide investors with results that exceed market expectations and create yield factors, while simultaneously protecting and managing against risk.

The Fund is led by Chairman Anthony "Tony" Moore who possesses more than 40 years' experience in the global financial services industry and has transacted business in 20+ countries; CEO Simon Carlton, who has led The Carlton James Group for several years, successfully sourcing and packaging deals in the US and the UK; Ryan Whitefield, who possesses over two decades' experience working in real estate development and construction; and Dr. Umair Mehmood, a renowned precognition strategist who has maintained a stellar career advising public sector (GRE) and corporate entities on strategic agility and risk climate.

The Fund will actively seek secured and collateralised debt financing opportunities that it believes will exceed targeted returns for investors. The Fund will focus primarily on the financing of developments in both the global real estate and technology sectors, leveraging its principals' extensive experience in identifying specific investment mediums, as well as evaluating multiple opportunities within each potential investment. Carlton James will utilise its cost-effective structure, network, and the ability to construct smaller ownership positions, making the same funding opportunities extremely flexible and profitable versus the traditional financing models.

The fund strategy deploys numerous low-risk methods to protect principle investments and maintain what it considers "Delta" exposure, but also generate "Alpha" gains via opportunistic investment. The core layer of the investment strategy drives the base return on a low risk asset-backed profile, while the alpha section of the fund seeks out the higher yields, utilising a low capital deployment ratio while leveraging deal flow opportunities.

The Fund is seeking a targeted investment return of nine percent (9%) per annum gross with the net proceeds being eight percent (8%) after the investment management fee has been paid. The Fund also anticipates paying additional bonuses of up to fifteen percent (15%) throughout the life term of the investment cycle based on investors' retention.

The Fund debuted recently at the 4th Aspire Investment Summit, held at the prestigious Abu Dhabi Chamber and an event that discussed high yield ethical investments and shared collaborative wisdom, essential for inclusive and sustainable growth. The event was attended by both Carlton James Group Chairman Tony Moore and CEO Simon Calton, as well as Aspire Investments President Dr. Munir Ahmad Ch., and guest of honor Dr. Syed Qaiser Anis, the President of Pakistan Business Council in Abu Dhabi.

"Today's economic climate is one that, while considered volatile, also presents tremendous investment opportunity," said Tony Moore, Chairman of the Board of Carlton James. "However, the status quo of investing is no longer effective in generating yield and high returns. We believe our architectural approach to funding, via commercialization of emerging technologies or acquisitions of development sites, will enhance investment yields for both company shareholders and investors with a low-medium risk profile."

"Over the past several years, the Carlton James group has provided above-market returns to our network of private investors, establishing our investment strategy as second to none," said Simon Carlton, CEO of Carlton James Group. "Now, following the recent high-profile additions to our executive management and advisory teams, we are pleased to announce this international mutual fund offering that we are confident will provide a broader shareholder base with exposure to what we consider a winning formula for increased yield and high returns. We look forward to working with new investors and advisors around the world seeking an innovative, diversified investment opportunity to combat global market conditions."

To learn more about Carlton James Group and our investment strategy, please watch our video.

About Carlton James Group

Carlton James Group is a private funding group that specializes in real estate, land, and technology with the goal of investing in diverse portfolio projects with the potential to generate higher returns and secure their capital against global financial upset. Carlton James offers a compelling investment vehicle that provides individuals the opportunity to invest in the company as preferred shareholders with a fixed return on investment and fixed term of investment. Carlton James invests its energy and expertise in exceptional businesses across industry sectors where it believes there is the potential for significant capital growth and market opportunity.

For more information, please visit our website at www.carltonjamesgroup.com, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Company contact:

Carlton James Group

info@carltonjamesgroup.com



Media contact:

Matt Bretzius

FischTank Marketing and PR

matt@fischtankpr.com
MONTPELLIER, France, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Qualtera SAS (Qualtera), provider of integrated enterprise solutions for BDA (Big Data Analytics) for semiconductor manufacturing and test operations, today announced that it was selected by Spreadtrum Communications (Spreadtrum) to integrate Silicondashin their global supply chainin a move aimed at further increasing IC quality control, supply chain visibility, IC-level traceability and overall efficiency of yield management.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/511309/Qualtera_Logo.jpg )





Capitalizing on the latest big data and stream computing technologies, Silicondash provides unparalleled capabilities for the integration, alignment and analytics of high-volume manufacturing and test data across the entire semiconductor supply chain. Highly reliable in-line control strategies running on real-time compute engines ensure that manufacturing issues are automatically and instantly detected and prevented, providing customers with significant cost reductions while gaining in IC quality control, and engineering speed and efficiency.



"At Spreadtrum we serve mobility and automotive markets that require a steep product ramp, rapid scaling and high device quality. Silicondash enables us to have instant visibility and full control of our global production operations. Through the entire product lifecycle, from product introduction to mass production, and across the entire supply chain, from foundry to packaged parts. The instantaneous responses and insights provided by Silicondash help us to improve our product quality while increasing our speed and efficiency to achieve business goals and satisfy our customer needs," said Brian Chen, VP of Operations at Spreadtrum.



"We are delighted that after extensive evaluation, Spreadtrum Communications decided for the adoption of Silicondash. It rewards years of R&D and innovation, and shows the enormous benefits that high-performance big data analytics bring to semiconductor manufacturing, and opens up the fast growing semiconductor market in China to our solutions and our company," said Paul Simon, EVP of Marketing and Asia Business Operations at Qualtera.



About Silicondash

Within Silicondashyears of semiconductor manufacturing and test expertise are built into an all-in-one platform incorporating proprietary data models, analytical algorithms andhigh-speed stream compute engines. The latest in cloud and big data technologies ensure ultra secure data transfer and storage while generating highly reliable analytical results in real-time and allowing systematic and reproducible data mining. Silicondash provides both off-line and in-line modules to address the data analytics needs in the supply chains of fabless companies, IDMs, foundries and OSATs. Customers collect data throughout their supply chain in real-time, at part level, directly from test equipment. The platform's analytical engines and API's then allow for control strategies to be easily developed, simulated, and applied throughout the supply chain for real-time issue detection, decision and action. Silicondash-Offline modules include advanced analytics, high-speed data visualization, simulation and modelling capabilities required for advanced analytics and engineering at different stages of the product lifecycle. Currently Silicondash is deployed in high volume production at multiple companies in Asia, US and Europe.

About Spreadtrum Communications

As an affiliate of Tsinghua Unigroup, Ltd, Spreadtrum Communications is a fabless semiconductor company that develops mobile chipset platforms for smartphones, feature phones and other consumer electronics products, supporting 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards. Spreadtrum's solutions combine its highly integrated, power-efficient chipsets with customizable software and reference designs in a complete turnkey platform, enabling customers to achieve faster design cycles with a lower development cost. Spreadtrum's customers include global and China-based manufacturers developing mobile products for consumers in China and emerging markets around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.spreadtrum.com.

About Qualtera

QUALTERA, SAS is a leading provider of big data analytics systems for semiconductor test and manufacturing industries.Qualtera provides the next generation of high-volume industrial big data solutions for real-time intelligence and control of IC manufacturing and test operations leading to improved manufacturing excellence, accelerated product ramps, world-class yields and quality, at considerable cost reductions. Qualtera is an ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified company, operating worldwide at major fabless companies, IDMs, foundries and OSATs. For more information, please visit http://www.qualtera.com
Turkcell adds Turkey to the list of countries which have their own search engines. Yaani mobile app is now available for smartphone users as a search engine developed specifically for Turkey.

Turkcell (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL)continues its journey as an innovative digital operator originating in Turkey that provides global products and services. Turkcell built Turkey's largest data center last year and has taken a significant step towards keeping the data generated by BiP, fizy, lifebox, TV+, Paycell and other services used by millions of users, in Turkey. With Yaani, Turkcell has added Turkey to the list of countries with their own search engines.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171026006208/en/

Turkcell's CEO Kaan Terzioglu speaks at the promotional event for the Turkcell's search engine 'Yaani' in Istanbul, Turkey (Photo: Business Wire)

Yaani is Turkey's search engine, not Turkcell's

Turkcell's CEO Kaan Terzioglu said that having its own search engine puts Turkey on a privileged list with a few other countries and continued: "The source of power is recently changing. Data is now the most important source of power. If we want to be strong as a country in this new era, we should keep the digital data in our country and process it to develop innovative services. Services we have developed are used by millions, not only in Turkey but also around the world. We now take another step with Yaani and enter the search engine market which is among the industries which generate enormous amounts of data. It is Turkey's search engine, not Turkcell's. It will grow by our support."

Terzioglu reminded that Turkcell commissioned Turkey's largest data center last year in Gebze and continued: "We cannot stop by just building the database. It is important to develop services working on the database. We will store the data generated by Yaani at Gebze Datacenter. Yaani's design is based on Turkey's patterns of use and it understands Turkish very well. It learns as we search. So, it will give us better search results every time."

"Our objective is to reach a market share of 25%"

Terzioglu also spoke on their objectives regarding the search engine and said: "Our primary objective regarding Yaani is to reach a market share of 25% in Turkey. After reaching this goal in Turkey, we can repeat the same achievements on a regional scale."

A search engine with the best understanding of Turkish

The native language of Yaani is Turkish. This means that Yaani is designed to understand the unique syntax of Turkish very well. This will ensure that Yaani will return better results to searches made in Turkish. Yaani uses a blue bead icon, a specific symbol representing Turkey. The search engine learns from the search patterns of the users. Similar searches are easily displayed to the users using historical data.

Everything closest to you is at Yaani

For its initial phase, Yaani has been designed as a mobile app and it sets the bar high in location-based searches. Yaani users can view the closest locations based on their search location. For example, Yaani users can directly access the movie theaters and times while searching for movies. Those looking for dining options can access the closest restaurants and cafes along with contact information through Yaani.

Fully integrated with Turkcell services

Yaani works in integration with Turkcell services to facilitate the lives of its users. Kaan Terzioglu said that TV+, BiP, Lifebox, Fulltrip, Dergilik, Paycell and other services would be integrated with Yaani in a few months. Terzioglu mentioned that the cheapest online shopping options would be available on Yaani shortly and continued: "Yaani will grow with the mobile ecosystem in Turkey. The data resulting from the searches made on the search engine will be stored in the country and processed in accordance with the applicable regulations to help the national economy. This step will lay the foundation of 'Big Data Platform'. Collected big data will help us create a platform to closely monitor the economic, commercial, health and social trends as well as relevant needs and problems. We are now integrating Turkcell services and developers will soon be able to use their services in integration with Yaani. This will bring new business opportunities."

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171026006208/en/

Contacts:

Turkcell Corporate Communications

Burak Mergen

Burak.mergen@turkcell.com.tr
Regulatory News:

16/05/2017

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

Province of Quebec

Pre-Stabilisation Notice

The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, (contact: Rom Balax, +442070856268) hereby gives notice that the Stabilising Manager(s) named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation EU/2016/1052 under the Market Abuse Directive (EU/596/2014).

The securities: Issuer: Province of Quebec Guarantor (if any): None Aggregate nominal amount: GBP tbc Description: GBP Benchmark Offer price: tbc Other offer terms: tbc Stabilisation: Stabilising Manager(s): The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (co-ordinating stabilisation manager) HSBC Bank plc RBC Europe Limited Stabilisation venue: Luxembourg Stabilisation period expected to start on: 16/05/2017 Stabilisation period expected to end no later than: For a maximum of 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility: The Stabilisation Manager(s) may over allot the securities in an amount not exceeding 5% of the aggregate nominal amount stated above.

In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilising Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, there is no assurance that the Stabilising Manager(s) will take any stabilisation action and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time. Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules.

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

This announcement is only directed at, and the offer of securities to which it relates are only available to, persons outside the United Kingdom and persons in the United Kingdom having professional experience in matters related to investments or who are high net worth persons within article 12(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 and must not be acted on or relied upon by other persons in the United Kingdom.

In addition, if and to the extent that this announcement is communicated in, or the offer of the securities is made in any EEA Member State that has implemented Directive 2003/71/EC, as amended (together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Directive") before the date of publication of a prospectus in relation to the securities which has been approved by the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with the Prospectus Directive (or, where appropriate, has been approved by a competent authority in another Member State and notified to the competent authority in that Member State in accordance with the Prospectus Directive), this announcement and the offer are only addressed to and directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive (or who are other persons to whom the offer may lawfully be addressed) and must not be acted on or relied on by other persons in that Member State.

This announcement is not an offer of securities for sale into the United States. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration. There will be no public offer of securities in the United States.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005724/en/

Contacts:

The Royal Bank of Scotland plc

Rom Balax

+442070856268
HELSINKI, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Cloudstreet, the Nokia spin-off, and Dynamic Network Slicing innovator specialized in delivering SLA-assured mobile Internet connectivity on-demand, and Goodmill Systems, a leader in providing uninterrupted mobile broadband connectivity, are pleased to announce that they have entered into a strategic partnership to extend failsafe connectivity for public safety personnel and vehicles. The partnership brings together two strong Finnish innovators and EU Horizon 2020 grant winners whose combined offerings provide a true paradigm shift for the Critical Communications industry.

True to their slogan, 'Always online', Goodmill Systems, have solved the critical issue of ensuring cross-carrier connectivity by allowing users and devices to seamlessly "hop" multiple LTE networks to provide uninterrupted service for the gamut of life- and mission- critical public safety applications. Cloudstreet's SLA-assured, Dynamic Network Slicing technology ensures public safety operatives dedicated mobile capacity and ultra-low latency within each cell of a network wherever and whenever they need it, even in the face of chronic congestion.

Together, the two companies provide a true End-to-End (E2E) solution for the safety- and security-essential demands of coverage, capacity and latency-assured throughput across multiple, heterogeneous networks. Taken as a whole, the strategic business and technology partnership eliminates the final hurdle for Critical Communications as the industry moves from its previous, voice-centric generation of dedicated public safety networks (like TETRA), to leveraging the full power, reach and data-handling capacity of 4G LTE and ultimately 5G networks. These combined platforms will not only bring business-critical cost savings to budget-conscious public safety agencies world-wide, but finally deliver on the mandate of ensuring truly pervasive connectivity when and where it is needed most.

"This partnership removes the last obstacle for Critical Communications from a network connectivity perspective and well in advance of the arrival of 5G," said Petteri Suomalainen, CEO and Co-Founder of Goodmill Systems. "By combining Cloudstreet's next-generation Dynamic Network Slicing platform, for today's 4G LTE networks with Goodmill System's ability to deliver cross-carrier connectivity, ensuring public safety operatives as 'Always Online', this partnership not only dramatically advances Critical Communications infrastructure, but directly supports the industry's mandate to ensure the safety and security of citizens and save lives. We are excited to be working with a fellow innovator like Cloudstreet to make this a reality."

"Bringing these essential innovations together effectively closes the loop on a core public safety requirement," said Mika Skarp, CTO and Founder of Cloudstreet. "While much of our industry focuses on expanding network capacity, in an era of ever finite mobile bandwidth, our Critical Communications infrastructure needs moreover to ensure reliability and interoperability across public networks. By combining Cloudstreet's Dynamic Network Slicing with Goodmill's hybrid mobile network connectivity we are delivering precisely on these mission- and life-critical demands."

Critical Communications authorities, mobile operators and media are invited to meet both companies for further discussions at Critical Communications World at Asia World Expo, Hong Kong (May 16th-18th) at the Critical Communications Finland booth.

CONTACT:

Brendan Tully Walsh

Marketing Head, Cloudstreet

brendan.walsh@cloudstreet.co

+1(514)-802-6099

Juhani Lehtonen

VP Sales & Marketing

Goodmill Systems Ltd.

juhani.lehtonen@goodmillsystems.com

+358-50-572-5542

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/cloudstreet/r/cloudstreet-and-goodmill-systems-partner-to-deliver-flawless-mobile-connectivity-and-coverage-for-cr,c2265999

The following files are available for download:
ABU DHABI, UAE, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The second installment of Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority's contribution to the restoration of the Chateau de Fontainebleau's Imperial Theatre has seen the launch of the final phase of restorative works. In recognition of Abu Dhabi's contribution to the restoration, the theatre was renamed as the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Theatre.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/511797/Imperial_Theatre_Restoration.jpg )



As part of the agreement between the Government of Abu Dhabi and France in 2007, part of which concerned the Louvre Abu Dhabi project, the contribution allows for the restoration of the theatre thanks to the generosity of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. The first phase of the restoration was completed in April 2014 and saw the rejuvenation of the main auditorium with 25 specialists and 135 craftsmen working on site, reviving the theatre's original decor. The second phase of renovation will begin in June 2017 with the focus turning to certain machinery, the upper levels of the salons and the podium upon which one of the most important stage sets in France has been preserved. In spring 2019, the public will be able to experience this Second Empire architectural masterpiece in its entirety. The theatre was exquisitely designed by Hector Lefuel for the Imperial family between 1853 and 1856, and was used by Napoleon III on no more than a dozen occasions, before its doors were closed for over a century, thus preserving it in its original state.

Following these restoration works, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan theatre will represent a museographic space dedicated to the performing arts and decorative arts of the Second Empire.

His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority said, "The protection of cultural heritage anywhere is of the upmost importance to ensure that the history of our societies and civilisations is passed onto future generations. It is through our common commitments to this cause that we have been able to make great strides in our cultural cooperation with France. The renovation of the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Theatre represents our nation's dedication to the preservation of this heritage, not just within our own region, but internationally as we strive towards a global community united by culture."

A classified UNESCO World Heritage Site, Fontainebleau, which hosts 1530 invaluable artifacts and rare furniture, was home to 34 French monarchs and emperors. There, Napoleon bade farewell to his Old Guard and went into exile in 1814. With modifications of the chateau's structure, including the cobblestone entrance wide enough for his carriage, Napoleon helped make the chateau the place that visitors experience today. Fontainebleau was the setting of the Second Empire court of his nephew Napoleon III. The chateau is also home to the Ecoles d'Art Americaines, a school of art, architecture, and music.
E-Commerce platform among nominees for Google's Growing Businesses Online Award

ChannelAdvisor Corporation (NYSE:ECOM), a leading provider of cloud-based e-commerce solutions that enable retailers and manufacturers to increase global sales, today announced it was shortlisted for the Growing Businesses Online Award in this year's prestigious Google Premier Partner Awards.

The awards recognise the achievements of the very best digital marketing agencies and providers across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EMEA)-approx. 2,000 Partners were eligible for the awards in EMEA this year.

ChannelAdvisor based its award submission around a recent campaign it created for Brookes UK. Brookes UK needed a solution to grow its online business and turned to ChannelAdvisor for help. ChannelAdvisor now manages digital marketing for Brookes UK's websites Outdoor Look and eBrookes.

"As a Google Partner, it is an honour to be shortlisted for the prestigious Growing Businesses Online Award," said Jon Maury, managing director, EMEA at ChannelAdvisor. "We are very proud of the work we are doing with Brookes UK and our other clients. This nomination confirms we have what it takes to help them grow online."

ChannelAdvisor is part of a select group of digital specialists called Google Partners. This is a programme set up by Google specifically to help small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) get online and find new customers. To qualify, digital marketing agencies or professionals must pass a series of exams and prove their expertise in using and applying Google's advertising products.

"Becoming a Google Partner shows prospective clients you have what it takes to help them grow online," explains Helene Ambiana, Head of Google Partners. "For small businesses that have just started out, or even larger firms yet to take their first step online, it's reassuring to know they're working with a reputable provider that's approved by Google."

The six winners from EMEA will be announced at Google's award ceremony in Dublin, Ireland, this September.

For more details about ChannelAdvisor, visit our blog, follow us on Twitter @ECOMemea, Like us on Facebook and connect with us on LinkedIn.

About ChannelAdvisor

ChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM) is a leading e-commerce cloud platform whose mission is to connect and optimise the world's commerce. For nearly two decades, ChannelAdvisor has helped retailers and branded manufacturers worldwide improve their online performance by expanding sales channels, connecting with consumers around the world, optimising their operations for peak performance and providing actionable analytics to improve competitiveness. Thousands of customers depend on ChannelAdvisor to securely power their sales and optimise fulfillment on channels such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook, Walmart and hundreds more. For more information, visit channeladvisor.co.uk.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170727006052/en/

Contacts:

ChannelAdvisor

Jennifer Hakim, 0203 300 4221

Jennifer.Hakim@channeladvisor.com
THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- MEXICAN GOLD CORP. (the "Company" or "Mexican Gold ") (TSX VENTURE: MEX) is pleased to report that it has acquired a 100 % interest in the Pueblo Nuevo and La Luz 1 concessions at the Las Minas project, Veracruz State, Mexico.

Pursuant to the terms of the option agreement, the company acquired the Pueblo Nuevo and La Luz 1 concessions for US $ 150,000 plus VAT in cash. Mr. Ramon Farias Garcia, property owner, retained a 1.5% royalty, of which 0.5% can be purchased for US$ 500,000, plus VAT. Mexican Gold has a right of first refusal on the remaining 1% royalty.

Brian Robertson, Chairman, President and CEO stated, "We are very pleased to own a 100% interest in these two concessions. I wish to thank Mr. Farias for his strong support during the option period and willingness to renegotiate the option agreement on many occasions during difficult market conditions. We now look forward to advancing these properties, which contain historical mines with extensive workings, to the drill ready stage."

The Company recently completed an exploration program at the Pueblo Nuevo concession, including trenching, sampling and mapping. Assay results from the sampling program are pending. The program was focussed on identifying drill targets, building on earlier grass roots exploration work completed in 2015.

The Pueblo Nuevo Concession

The Pueblo Nuevo concession covers an area of approximately 97.5 hectares with numerous high-grade epithermal quartz veins and silicified structures hosted in a sedimentary-igneous package. The veins have indicated strike lengths of 100 to 300 metres, with widths varying from 0.50 to 3.0 metres.

The concession is the site of several historical underground mines and adits including the La Miqueta, La Miqueta Alta, Marangola, Murcielagos, Dos Rios and El Cobre. The La Miqueta mine was extensively mined in the past and has 21 known levels. Historic mining activity was carried out on narrow (10-20 cm) quartz veins in both diorite and marble, extending approximately 100 metres on strike and over 100 metres vertically. Recent chip sampling of a vein on Level 1 at the historical La Miqueta mine graded to 11.99 g/t gold, 40.8 g/t silver and 1.34% copper or 14.76 Au Eq(1) over 1.0 metres. The Tamiagua vein structure consist of two parallel veins located approximately 16 metres apart and varying from 20 to 50 centimetres in width. Historical mining carried out on one of the veins included three levels with extensive stoping between levels Recent sampling of the veins graded up 28.02 g/t Au, 14.0 g/t Ag and 0.01% Cu over 0.2 metres .

Table 1 below details selective sampling results:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sample No Location Width (M) Au (g/t) Ag(g/t) Cu % Au Eq ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6995 Level 1 La 1.0 11.99 40.8 1.34 14.76 Miqueta Mine ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2591 Tamiagua 0.2 28.02 14.0 0.01 29.38 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1360 La Luz I Chip 0.49 6.7 0.01 0.58 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a map of sample results and historical workings at Pueblo Nuevo concession, please click here: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1094897_map.pdf

The Luz Concession

The La Luz 1 concession adjoins the west boundary of the main Las Minas concession block and covers an area of approximately 43 hectares. Historical underground workings are present on the property, including Mina Blanca and other smaller adits. The mine workings are located in a deeply eroded valley and targeted a pyritic zone within a highly bleached diorite host rock. A selected chip sample from the pyritic zone graded up to 0.49 g/t gold, 6.7 g/t silver and 0.01% copper. Marble is found on the concession, indicative of a potential underlying skarn zone similar to the six other skarn zones located at Las Minas

All reported intervals referred to in this news release are sample lengths and additional information is required to determine true widths. Assays are uncut, length - weighted average values.

Gold equivalent (Au Eq) calculations use metal prices of US $1250/oz. for gold, US $18.00/oz. for silver and US $3.00 /lb. for copper. No adjustments have been made for potential relative differences in metal recoveries.

Au Eq g/t = Au g/t + ((Ag g/t x 0.014) + (Cu% x1.64))

About Las Minas

The Las Minas Project hosts near-surface gold, silver and copper skarn mineralization and high-grade gold - silver epithermal vein deposits. The project is comprised of six mineral concessions covering approximately 1,616 hectares (3,995 acres), with several small scale, past-producing mines and a number of untested targets.

The district is host to one of the largest under explored gold - silver copper skarn systems known in Mexico, and has a production history that extends back to the Aztec era. The Las Minas granodiorite intrusive measures approximately 10 kilometres in diameter and underlies the Las Minas concessions. The mineralization controls and association with magnetite appear to be similar to the Guerrero Gold belt, which is the site of the Los Filos and Morelos gold deposits.

Las Minas is an early-stage exploration project and does not contain any mineral resource estimates as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The potential quantities and grades disclosed herein are conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource for the targets discussed herein. It is uncertain if further exploration will result in these targets being delineated as a mineral resource.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Sonny Bernales, P. Geo., a registered Professional Geoscientist in the Province of British Columbia and a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Bernales is responsible for logistics and supervision of all exploration activity conducted by Mexican Gold on the property.

The Company has implemented and adheres to a strict Quality Assurance/Quality Control program which includes inserting mineralized standards and blanks into the sample stream, about 1 for every 10 samples. The standards and blanks were obtained from CDN Resource Laboratories Ltd. of Langley, BC, Canada. Each sample bag is properly sealed and kept in a secured, restricted storage place prior to shipping to the lab. Samples are shipped directly by Mexican Gold or picked-up by the lab vehicle with chain of custody/sample submittal signed and dated. The Company sends it samples to SGS Mineral Services (ISO/IEC 17025) at Durango, Mexico, an accredited and independent laboratory.

About Mexican Gold Corp

Mexican Gold Corp. is a Canadian based mineral exploration company committed to building long-term value through ongoing discoveries and strategic acquisitions of prospective precious metals deposits in Mexico. Mexican Gold is exploring the Las Minas Project, which is located in the core of the Las Minas district in the Veracruz State, Mexico. The district is host to one of the largest under-explored skarn systems known in Mexico and has a strong production history that dates back to the Aztec era.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain information that may constitute "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements about the magnitude or quality of mineral deposits, anticipated advancement of mineral properties or programs, future operations, results of exploration, prospects, commodity and precious metals prices, future work programs, anticipated financial and operational results, capital expenditures and objectives and the completion and timing of mineral resource estimates. Forward-looking information is necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including the risks identified in the Company's disclosure documents available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information contained in this press release is given as of the date hereof and is based on the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management as at the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) have reviewed or accepts responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.

Contacts:

Brian Robertson

Chairman, President & CEO

Phone: 807-474-4271or 807-251-1816

Fax: 807-474-4272

E-mail: info@mexicangold.ca

Website at www.mexicangold.ca




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: BMK) ("MacDonald Mines", "MacDonald" or the "Company") has received results for its initial sampling program of the Oxide Sands at the Wawa-Holdsworth Project ("Holdsworth"), located near Hawk Junction, 25 kilometres northeast of Wawa, Ontario.

Highlights include:

-- Average grade of 2.95 g/t gold for Sample A and 5.45 g/t gold for Sample BE (Figure 1); -- For Sample A, the new MacDonald result shows a respective gold grade difference of +246% and +247% compared to the results for the same location reported by Hawk Junction Capital Corp (1.20 g/t gold)in 20021 and Noble Minerals (1.19 g/t gold)in 2009; and -- For Sample BE, the new MacDonald result shows a gold grade difference of +641% compared to the grade estimation results reported for the same location by Hawk Junction Capital Corp (0.85 g/t gold) in 2002.

Quentin Yarie, MacDonald's President and CEO commented: "Results obtained using robust assay methods suggest that the grade of the Oxide Sands may have been historically underestimated. This supports Sears' 1989 observation that elevated sulfur in some of the material may result in the underestimation of the gold grade by standard fire assay methods if no mitigation methods are implemented2. MacDonald's results are promising and we look forward to advancing the Wawa-Holdsworth project further."

Figure 1. Oxide Sands sample location

Results from the Oxide Sands Sampling

During the spring of 2017, to validate their historically reported gold content, the Company started a targeted sampling program of the Oxide Sands. Two locations were selected for this testing program and sampling at each locations was done by taking greater than 75 kg representative samples of the exposed Oxide Sand material at the historic excavations. Representative fractions of these sands were then sent for analyses.

Results indicate that the gold content of the Oxide Sands may have been underestimated by the previous operators as MacDonald's sampling indicates significant increases of the gold content compared to the historic results and grade estimations from the same locations reported by Noble Minerals in 2009 and Hawk Junction Capital Corp. in 2002.

Table 1 - Results from the Oxide Sands sampling compared with historic results

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- BMK Sample Gold Average Grade (Hawk Grade (Noble number Sample (g/t) Grade (g/t) Junction - 2002)1 Minerals - 2009) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17261 A 3.09 2.95 1.2 1.19 17262 2.71 17263 3.05 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17264 BE 6 5.45 0.85 N/A 17265 4.9 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wawa-Holdsworth Project Details

The Project is comprised of 19 contiguous patented mining claims covering approximately 304 hectares. Sixteen of these are located in the extreme southern part of Corbiere Township and the remaining three extend into the northern part of Esquega Township, in the Wawa Area of Northern Ontario.

Project Overview

Historic work by previous operators defined three gold targets on the Wawa-Holdsworth Project:

-- Greenstone-hosted quartz-carbonate vein deposit (Soocana Vein System); -- BIF-hosted gold deposits (gold-bearing pyrite zones in an Algoma-type iron formation); -- Gold-bearing Oxide Sands developed from the weathering of the auriferous Pyrite Zones.

MacDonald Mines has identified the Oxide Sands as a short-term target for gold production. The Oxide Sands are interpreted to be derived from the weathering of an auriferous and pyritized Algoma-type iron formation that, so far, has been traced on the property over a 2 km-long strike length. The mineralized sands appear to reach a depth of at least 8 metres.

The soft and relatively unconsolidated oxide sands material appears to be amenable to being extracted like an aggregate. The area's shallow overburden, the proximity to labour and equipment and the easy access to the site should result in very inexpensive mining costs should the Company delineate a large enough deposit.

Preliminary metallurgical testing conducted by previous operators on composite samples recovered, without crushing, between 69% and 98.7 % gold and the Company has already initiated metallurgical testing of the Oxide Sands to achieve the highest possible gold and silver recovery. Results should be made available this summer.

The Company is currently ramping up its sampling program to better define the Oxide Sands and will continue to prepare for their potential extraction. The near-term exploitation of the Oxide Sands will provide the Company with good cash flow to further advance exploration of the other gold targets on the property.

On-site Quality Assurance/Quality Control ("QA/QC") Measures

Grab and channel samples are transported in security-sealed bags for Fire Assay/Atomic Absorption (Au 50gm) analyses at TSL Laboratories in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Individual samples are labeled, placed in plastic sample bags and sealed. Groups of samples are then placed into durable rice bags that are then shipped. The remaining coarse reject portions of the samples remain in storage at TSL Laboratories in Saskatoon if further work or verification is needed. One Certified Reference Material was included with the samples.

Qualified Person

Quentin Yarie, P Geo. is the qualified person responsible for preparing, supervising and approving the scientific and technical content of this news release.

About MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd.

MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. is a mineral exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario focused on gold and silica exploration in Canada. The Company has built a portfolio of safe-jurisdiction, infrastructure-rich projects that demonstrate the greatest market potential for return. The Company is aggressively advancing its highly prospective Wawa-Holdsworth Project and recently secured 100% interest in the Holdsworth property.

The Company's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "BMK".

To learn more about MacDonald Mines, please visit www.macdonaldmines.com

1 Report on the Holdsworth Gold Prospect, Wawa Area, Ontario for Hawk Junction Capital Corp., Seymour M. Sears P.Geo., October 2002.

2 Summary Report on a 1988 Work Program on the Holdsworth Property of Reed Lake Exploration Ltd., Seymour M. Sears, April 1989.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may", "should", "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "estimates", "predicts", "potential" or "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Contacts:

MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd.

Quentin Yarie

President & CEO

(416) 364-4986

qyarie@macdonaldmines.com



MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd.

Mia Boiridy

Investor Relations

(416) 364-4986

mboiridy@macdonaldmines.com




Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
YORK (PENNSYLVANIA) (dpa-AFX) - Henry Schein, Inc., (HSIC), a provider of health care products and services, announced Wednesday that it has extended its existing agreement in Canada with DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (XRAY)to include the CEREC CAD/CAM restoration system and the Schick line of imaging sensors. This extension runs through December 31, 2020. In the previous agreement, Henry Schein's Canadian dental subsidiary agreed to carry the entire DENTSPLY SIRONA product line with the exception of CEREC and Schick. With this new agreement, Henry Schein Canada will represent the entire DENTSPLY SIRONA product line, effective September 1, 2017. The revised agreement is expected to be neutral to Henry Schein's earnings per share in 2017 and accretive thereafter. Henry Schein Canada's existing agreement with DENTSPLY SIRONA was established in August 2005. 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.
LEADING CANCER CENTER TO CONDUCT NOXXON TRIAL IN METASTATIC COLORECTAL AND PANCREAS CANCER PATIENTS

TRIAL IS PART OF COLLABORATION WITH MERCK CO/MSD

Regulatory News:

NOXXON Pharma N.V. (Paris:ALNOX) (Alternext Paris: ALNOX), a biotechnology company whose core focus is on improving cancer treatment by targeting the tumor microenvironment, today announced the signing of an agreement with the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg under which the NCT will conduct a trial evaluating NOXXON's lead product candidate NOX-A12 in combination with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in metastatic pancreatic and colorectal cancer. In some preclinical studies, NOX-A12 has shown an ability to make the immediate area surrounding a model tumor, the so-called tumor microenvironment, more accessible to the immune system. The ability of many tumors to use the tumor microenvironment to hide from the immune system is believed to contribute to the insensitivity of some tumors towards checkpoint inhibitors, such as Keytruda

The NCT is a leading center for cancer research and treatment, located in Heidelberg, Germany. It was jointly founded by the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg University Hospital, Medical Faculty Heidelberg and German Cancer Aid (Deutsche Krebshilfe) in 2004 to conduct interdisciplinary research for preventing and treating cancer to ultimately benefit patients.

The NCT investigators leading the clinical trial include Prof. Dr. Dirk Jager, Managing Director, head of the clinical and tumor immunology research groups, and Dr. Niels Halama, Group Leader, both recognized leaders in clinical cancer research with significant experience in studying the tumor microenvironment in a clinical setting. Throughout his career, Prof. Dr. Jager has focused on tumor and immunology as well as the interdisciplinary connections between both fields, both scientifically and clinically.

NOXXON's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Jarl Ulf Jungnelius, commented: "Dr. Jager and Dr. Halama are experts in the treatment of metastatic cancer patients as well as the tumor microenvironment. We are extremely pleased that they will be collaborating with NOXXON on this groundbreaking study."

Prof. Dr. Jager, Managing Director of the NCT Heidelberg, commented: "This trial will enable us to explore the potential of NOX-A12 in combination with Keytruda to benefit patients with few viable treatment options. Importantly, the trial will help us to better understand the ability of NOX-A12 to modify the tumor microenvironment and make it more accessible to the immune system to facilitate tumor destruction."

About NOXXON

NOXXON Pharma N.V. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatment. NOXXON's goal is to significantly enhance the effectiveness of cancer treatments including immuno-oncology approaches (such as immune checkpoint inhibitors) and current standards of care (such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy). NOXXON's Spiegelmer platform has generated a proprietary pipeline of clinical-stage product candidates including its lead cancer drug candidate NOX-A12, which is the subject of a clinical immuno-oncology collaboration agreement with Merck Co. MSD (NYSE: MRK) to study NOX-A12 combined with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in pancreatic and colorectal cancer. NOXXON is supported by a strong group of leading international investors, including TVM Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, DEWB, NGN and Seventure. NOXXON has its statutory seat in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and its office in Berlin, Germany. Further information can be found at: www.noxxon.com

About the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg

The NCT Heidelberg is a joint institution of the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg University Hospital and German Cancer Aid. The NCT's goal is to link promising approaches from cancer research with patient care from diagnosis to treatment, aftercare and prevention. The interdisciplinary tumor outpatient clinic is the central element of the NCT. Here the patients benefit from an individual treatment plan prepared in a timely manner in interdisciplinary expert rounds, the so-called tumor boards. Participation in clinical studies provides access to innovative therapies. The NCT thereby acts as a pioneering platform that translates novel research results from the laboratory into clinical practice. The NCT cooperates with self-help groups and supports them in their work. Since 2015, a second site for the NCT beside Heidelberg has been under development in Dresden.

Disclaimer

Certain statements in this communication contain formulations or terms referring to the future or future developments, as well as negations of such formulations or terms, or similar terminology. These are described as forward-looking statements. In addition, all information in this communication regarding planned or future results of business segments, financial indicators, developments of the financial situation or other financial or statistical data contains such forward-looking statements. The company cautions prospective investors not to rely on such forward-looking statements as certain prognoses of actual future events and developments. The company is neither responsible nor liable for updating such information, which only represents the state of affairs on the day of publication.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005837/en/

Contacts:

NOXXON Pharma N.V.

Aram Mangasarian, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer

Tel. +49 (0) 30 726 2470

amangasarian@noxxon.com

or

NewCap

Florent Alba

Tel. +33 (0) 1 44 71 98 55

falba@newcap.fr
HONG KONG, CHINA and CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Sunshine Oilsands Ltd. (the "Corporation" or "Sunshine") (HKSE: 2012) hereby announce that each of Dr. Qi Jiang and Mr. Gerald F. Stevenson has confirmed that they will not stand for re-election at the Annual Meeting of the Corporation to be held on June 27, 2017 (the "AGM"). Their terms as Director of the Corporation will expire at the conclusion of the AGM. Each of Dr. Qi Jiang and Mr. Gerald F. Stevenson has confirmed that he has no disagreement with the Board and that there are no matters that need to be brought to the attention of the shareholders of the Corporation.

Save as the aforesaid two Directors, the Corporation wishes to announce all other Directors currently on Board have confirmed that they will offer themselves for re-election at the AGM.

The Board would like to thanks Dr. Jiang and Mr. Stevenson for their dedicated services and contributions to the Corporation over the years and wishes them success in their future endeavours.

The Corporation is pleased to further announce that Ms. Gloria Pui Yun Ho ("Ms. Gloria Ho"), currently the Chief Financial Officer of Sunshine, be proposed for election as an Executive Director; whereas, Mr. Jeff Jingfeng Liu ("Mr. Jeff Liu") be proposed for election as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Corporation at the AGM.

Biographical details of each of Mr. Jeff Liu and Ms. Gloria Ho are as follows:

Mr. Jeff Liu

Mr. Jeff Jingfeng Liu, aged 39, is the founder and CEO of Jingshuo Capital, which is an investment management company focusing on investment advisory and private equity fund investment management business. He has more than 16 years of financial and investment related experience. Prior to founding Jingshuo Capital, Mr. Liu was executive director of investment management division of Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC from 2012 to 2016, where he was providing discretionary investment services to the entrepreneurs and listing companies in Greater China region, helping the clients to invest in global special investment opportunities, and invest in the leading private equity fund and hedge fund. From 2001 to 2008, Mr. Liu started his professional career at HSBC where he held various senior roles in commercial banking department and specialized in corporate financing business for State-owned enterprises and private enterprises in China. After that, he joined JP Morgan as vice president of private banking Greater China team based in Hong Kong in 2009, where he was providing private wealth management and investment advisory services to ultra-high net worth individuals and institutional clients. Mr. Liu graduated from Fudan University of China in 2001 and holds bachelor degree in economics.

There will be no service contract between the Corporation and Mr. Liu should he be elected as an independent non-executive Director. If elected, Mr. Liu is entitled to receive director's emolument in accordance with the emolument policy of the Corporation. In accordance with the Corporation's articles of incorporation and by-laws, Mr. Liu, if elected, shall hold office as a director subject to re-election at the next annual meeting of the Corporation.

Save as disclosed herein, Mr. Liu has not held any directorships in other listed public companies in the last three years and does not hold any other positions in the Corporation nor in any other subsidiaries of the Corporation. Mr. Liu does not have any relationship with any Directors, supervisors, senior management, substantial or controlling shareholder (as defined under the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the "Listing Rules")) of the Corporation. Mr. Liu does not have any other interests in the securities of the Corporation within the meaning of Part XV of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Chapter 571 of the Laws of Hong Kong) (the "SFO"), except that he is interested in 600,000 Shares of the Corporation.

Ms. Gloria Ho

Ms. Gloria Pui Yun Ho, aged 36, is the Chief Financial Officer of Sunshine currently. Ms. Ho has extensive experience in investment, risk management, corporate banking and finance. She previously worked in equity research, credit analysis, capital strategy, funds management and auditing in several international institutions and most recently as the Chief Executive of a reputable Chinese-based asset management firm. She is a Chartered Accountant, Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. Ms. Ho holds a postgraduate certificate in Financial Engineering at Stanford University and a M.Sc. in Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

There will be no new service contract between Ms. Ho and the Corporation should her be elected as an executive Director, other than the employment contract in her capacity as the Chief Financial Officer of the Corporation. If elected, she will be entitled to receive director's emolument in accordance with the emolument policy of the Corporation in her capacity as executive Director (such emolument policy is subject to revision by the Compensation Committee of the Corporation). In accordance with the Corporation's articles of incorporation and by-laws, Ms. Ho, if elected, shall hold office as director subject to re-election at the next annual meeting of the Corporation.

Save as disclosed in this announcement, Ms. Ho has not held any directorships in other listed public companies in the last three years and does not hold any other positions in the Corporation nor in any other subsidiaries of the Corporation. She does not have any relationship with any other Directors, supervisors, senior management, substantial or controlling shareholder of the Corporation (as defined under the Listing Rules). Save as 5,000,000 share options of the Corporation, Ms. Ho does not have any interests in the securities of the Corporation within the meaning of Part XV of the SFO.

Save as disclosed in this announcement, both Ms. Ho and Mr. Liu have confirmed that there is no other information that is required to be disclosed in accordance with Rule 13.51(2)(h) to (v) of the Listing Rules and there is no other matter relating to their proposed election that needs to be brought to the attention of the shareholders of the Corporation.

ABOUT SUNSHINE OILSANDS LTD.

The Corporation is a Calgary based public corporation listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since March 1, 2012. The Corporation is focused on the development of its significant holdings of oil sands leases in the Athabasca oil sands region. The Corporation owns interests in approximately one million acres of oil sands and petroleum and natural gas leases in the Athabasca region. The Corporation is currently focused on executing milestone undertakings in the West Ells project area. West Ells has an initial production target of 5,000 barrels per day.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This announcement contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, the plans and expectations of the Corporation. Such forward-looking information is subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors. All statements other than statements and information of historical fact are forward-looking statements. The use of words such as "estimate", "forecast", "expect", "project", "plan", "target", "vision", "goal", "outlook", "April", "will", "should", "believe", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the Corporation's experience, current beliefs, assumptions, information and perception of historical trends available to the Corporation, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to those associated with resource definition and expected reserves and contingent and prospective resources estimates, unanticipated costs and expenses, regulatory approval, fluctuating oil and gas prices, expected future production, the ability to access sufficient capital to finance future development and credit risks, changes in Alberta's regulatory framework, including changes to regulatory approval process and land-use designations, royalty, tax, environmental, greenhouse gas, carbon and other laws or regulations and the impact thereof and the costs associated with compliance. Although the Corporation believes that the expectations represented by such forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions and factors discussed in this announcement are not exhaustive and readers are not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as the Corporation's actual results April differ materially from those expressed or implied. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, subsequent to the date of this announcement, except as required under applicable securities legislation. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this announcement and are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing lists are not exhaustive and are made as at the date hereof. For a full discussion of the Corporation's material risk factors, see the Corporation's annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2016 and risk factors described in other documents we file from time to time with securities regulatory authorities, all of which are available on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at www.hkexnews.hk, on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com or on the Corporation's website at www.sunshineoilsands.com.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited take no responsibility for the contents of this announcement, make no representation as to its accuracy or completeness and expressly disclaim any liability whatsoever for any loss howsoever arising from or in reliance upon the whole or any part of the contents of this announcement.

By Order of the Board of Sunshine Oilsands Ltd.

Sun Kwok Ping, Executive Chairman

As at the date of this announcement, the Board consists of Mr. Kwok Ping Sun, Mr. Hong Luo, Dr. Qi Jiang and Mr. Qiping Men as executive directors; Mr. Michael John Hibberd, Ms. Linna Liu and Ms. Xijuan Jiang as non-executive directors; and Mr. Raymond Shengti Fong, Mr. Gerald Franklin Stevenson, Ms. Joanne Yan and Mr. Yi He as independent non-executive directors.

Contacts:

Sunshine Oilsands Ltd.

Mr. Hong Luo

Chief Executive Officer

(1) 403-984-1450

investorrelations@sunshineoilsands.com

www.sunshineoilsands.com




SANTA MONICA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- The board members of Webspectator Corp today announced the new leadership of Delaware Corporation Webspectator, naming digital media veteran Andy Batkin as the new CEO to replace former CEO Andre Parreira. Batkin, a serial entrepreneur and digital media consultant, built the business model for YAHOO and many other publishers back in 1995 and created the cpm impression model for digital advertising. Mr. Batkin has a wealth of experience in revenue generation and his leadership has been crucial in creating new strategies and client relationships for Webspectator.

"Andy Batkin is a digital media and advertising powerhouse whose experience is unparalleled. We are thrilled to bring him on in full confidence that his guidance will reinvigorate the Webspectator brand and improve our productivity, client relationships, and generate revenue growth for Webspectator," said Jose Bassi, Chairman of the Board of Webspectator. "Andy is considered one of the founders of the interactive marketing space and we know that his leadership and vision will carry Webspectator and the digital advertising industry into the new era of time-based advertising."

Webspectator is well known for its pioneering advertising solution that combines real-time viewability analytics with ad-serving. The digital advertising and exchange network measures, in real-time, the effective attention, engagement and time spent viewing ads, videos or any media content. The service is ideal for publishers looking to increase inventory and revenue while proving to their advertisers that their ads have been 100% viewed for 20 seconds rather than the IAB standard of 50% and one second.

Webspectator is well known for its pioneering advertising solution that combines real-time, MRC Accredited, viewability analytics with ad-serving. The digital advertising marketing technology company measures, in real-time, the effective attention, engagement and time spent viewing ads, videos or any media content. The service is ideal for publishers looking to increase inventory and revenue while proving to their advertisers that their ads have been 100% viewed for 20 seconds rather than the IAB standard of 50% and one second.

"I am honored to be named CEO of Webspectator," said Andy Batkin. "There is no doubt that the industry is poised to develop a time based currency that will solve the issues the digital advertising community is facing. I am looking forward to leading Webspectator to become a global marketing technology leader."

Notable clients who have improved their inventory and revenue using Webspectator's martech solution include: Time, Inc. sites, Forbes, CondeNast, ABCNEWS, Warner Brothers sites (TMZ, Ellen, etc.) Conde Nast, Scripps Networks, Sinclair Broadcasting, Wikia and many more USA and global publisher clients. The Webspectator footprint has grown to over 395 million monthly uniques here in the USA (on desktop and mobile) and over 735 million globally.

About Webspectator:

WebSpectator pioneered the time and attention ad space with the first holistic advertising solution, combining real-time analytics and ad serving. Its proprietary and MRC accredited metric measures effective content engagement and trades the time-spent viewing ads, videos or any media component. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, WebSpectator is compatible with all industry standards and platform apps. If you would like to learn more about the company, please visit http://www.webspectator.io/

Media Contact:

Transform PR

webspectator@transform.pr

415-595-2030



Company Contact:

Webspectator

andy@timebasedads.com




AMSTERDAM (dpa-AFX) - The Dutch factory activity grew at the fastest pace in six-and-a-half-years in August, survey data from IHS Markit showed Friday. The manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index climbed to 59.7 in August from 58.9 in July. This was the highest score since February 2011. The sector extended the current sequence of growth to 50 months. Manufacturers reported a sharp increase in output in August and new orders received by Dutch manufacturers grew at the fastest pace since December 2013. Data indicated that the level of employment in the Dutch manufacturing sector continued to rise in August. On the price front, survey showed that input price inflation ticked up for the first time in six months. Conversely, output charge inflation eased during August. 'The manufacturing sector appears to be on track to contribute towards an upswing in GDP growth in 2017,' IHS Markit economist Sam Teague, said. 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.
EUGENE, OR -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 --Quest Solution, Inc. (OTCQB: QUES), is pleased to announce its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017.

Q1-2017 and Subsequent Highlights

Positive Operating Income of $0.1 million for Q1-2017 versus a loss of $0.7 million in Q1-2016

Significantly reduced Operating Expenses for Q1-2017 from $3.7 million in Q1-2016 to $2.9 million in Q1-2017 a decrease of $0.8 million or 21%

Substantial reduction of Net Loss from continuing operations for the three months ended March 31, 2017 bringing Net Loss down to $0.3 million, an improvement of $1.2 million compared to same period last year

Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended March 31, 2017 of $0.6 million an improvement of $0.7 million, compared to same period last year

Appointment of Shai Lustgarten as President and CEO

First Quarter 2017- Select Financial Results from Continuing Operations(1) Three Months Three Months Ended Ended 3/31/2017 3/31/2016 ------------ ------------ Revenues 14,437,556 14,875,152 Gross profit 2,991,947 2,954,168 Gross profit margin 20.7% 19.9% Operating expenses 2,904,505 3,674,934 Operating income 87,442 (720,766) Net loss from continuing operations (331,158) (1,468,922) Adjusted EBITDA 557,557 (107,888) Adjusted EBITDA % 3.9% (0.7%) Loss per share from continuing operations - basic (0.01) (0.04) Weighted average shares outstanding - basic 35,141,560 36,928,478

Please refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2017, and the financial tables included below for the Company's GAAP financial statements and a reconciliation of GAAP results to Non-GAAP measures.

Shai Lustgarten, CEO, commented, "Q1 was a continuation of the improvement that began in Q4 with a renewed focus of the Company as a provider of supply chain and mobile solutions for the U.S. market. The results of the restructuring and consolidation programs are beginning to show up in improved company results and we believe this trend will continue throughout 2017. Sales activities with our large base of Fortune 500 enterprise accounts is strong and we are having early success with our new Route Edge software platform. In addition, the Company continues to show progress on the retiring of its supplier note, having reduced it by $1.6M or 17% during the quarter."

(1)All of the assets and liabilities attributable to the divestiture of Quest Solution Canada Inc. have been reclassified into the "held for disposal" asset and liability categories on the balance sheet. On the statement of operations, the financial results of Quest Solution Canada Inc. have been reclassified out of the activity from continuing operations, and disclosed separately in the category for discontinued operations.

Operating Expenses Decreased 21% Over A Year Ago

In the first quarter of 2017 the Company continued with its streamlining of operating expenses and the benefits of the restructuring and consolidation plan are being realized. The Company achieved a reduction of 21% in total operating expenses compared to the same period last year. For Q1-2017, G&A expenses, comprised of general and administrative, salary and employee benefits and professional fees, as a percentage of net revenues, were 17.1% compared to 18.6% in Q1-2016, confirming the positive results from management's targeted cost reduction programs.

Result is Adjusted EBITDA Increased to 3.9% in Q1-2017 from (0.7%) in Q1-2016

"As a result of stable revenue, improved gross margins and expense control in the first quarter of 2017, the Company realized an Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of net revenues of 3.9%. The results were consistent with the trend that commenced in Q4-2016 and an improvement of 4.6 points from Q1-2016." "Management believes Q1-2017 demonstrates and affirms that the efforts on cost reductions are showing their effect and we believe that this trend will continue throughout 2017. We will remain focused on continuing to drive sales, creating a more favorable product and services mix to improve margins and continue to work towards additional cost efficiencies across the enterprise".

Q1-2017 Financial Results

Revenues

For the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, the Company recognized $14.4 million and $14.9 million in net revenues, respectively. This slight decrease was a result of shipments being moved into Q2 because of temporary unavailability of stock at the manufacturer. We will continue to put efforts on growing our revenues by providing additional value added services.

Gross Margin

Gross profit margin for the three months ended March 31, 2017 was 20.7% of revenue compared to 19.2% for the comparative period of the prior year. The Company has been able to maintain stable gross margin even in very competitive market conditions which exemplifies its strong relationships with its customer base.

Net Loss from Continuing Operations

For the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, the Company realized a net loss from continuing operations of $0.3 million compared to $1.5 million in Q1-2016. $0.8 million of the improvement was due to lower operating expenses and $0.4 million was a result of reduced interest expenses.

EBITDA

The Company's operating expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and March 31, 2016 included non-cash expenses consisting of depreciation, amortization of acquisition intangibles and stock-based compensation for employee and director stock options and one-time non-recurring costs.

Without the effect of these non-cash expenses, the Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation and Amortization ("Adjusted EBITDA") for the three months ended March 31, 2017 was $0.6 million compared to a loss of $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016.

Please refer to the financial tables included below for a reconciliation of generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP") to non-GAAP financial results. Please refer to the financial tables included below for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.

Balance Sheet Summary

Net deferred revenue consists of prepaid third party hardware service agreements, software maintenance service contracts and the related costs and expenses recorded net of the revenue charged. As stated in the footnotes to the financials, the Company had deferred revenue of $8.8 million and deferred costs of $7.4 million. This net deferred revenue of $1.4 million at March 31, 2017 will be recognized in income over the term of the contracts, normally one to five years, with three years being the average term.

About Quest Solution, Inc.

Quest Solution is a Specialty Systems Integrator focused on Field and Supply Chain Mobility. We are also a manufacturer and distributor of consumables (labels, tags, and ribbons), RFID solutions, and barcoding printers. Founded in 1994, Quest is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, with offices in the United States.

Rated in the Top 1% of global solution providers, Quest specializes in the design, deployment and management of enterprise mobility solutions including Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC), Mobile Cloud Analytics, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), and proprietary Mobility software. Our mobility products and services offering is designed to identify, track, trace, share and connect data to enterprise systems such as CRM or ERP solutions. Our customers are leading Fortune 500 companies from several sectors including manufacturing, retail, distribution, food / beverage, transportation and logistics, health care and chemicals / gas / oil.

Information about Forward-Looking Statements

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this press release relating to plans, strategies, economic performance and trends, projections of results of specific activities or investments, and other statements that are not descriptions of historical facts may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This release contains "forward-looking statements" that include information relating to future events and future financial and operating performance. The words "may," "would," "will," "expect," "estimate," "can," "believe," "potential" and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which that performance or those results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time they are made and/or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause these differences include, but are not limited to: fluctuations in demand for Quest Solution, Inc.'s products, the introduction of new products, the Company's ability to maintain customer and strategic business relationships, the impact of competitive products and pricing, growth in targeted markets, the adequacy of the Company's liquidity and financial strength to support its growth, the Company's ability to manage credit and debt structures from vendors, debt holders and secured lenders, the Company's ability to successfully integrate its acquisitions, risks related to the sale of Quest Solution Canada Inc. to Viascan Group Inc. and other information that may be detailed from time-to-time in Quest Solution Inc.'s filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Examples of such forward looking statements in this release include, among others, statements regarding revenue growth, driving sales, operational and financial initiatives, cost reduction and profitability, and simplification of operations. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting Quest Solution, Inc. please refer to the Company's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. Quest Solution, Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless otherwise required by law.

Financial Tables Follow

QUEST SOLUTION, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (UNAUDITED) For the three months ending March 31, 2017 2016 ------------ ------------ Revenues Total Revenues 14,437,556 14,875,152 Cost of goods sold Cost of goods sold 11,445,609 11,920,984 ------------ ------------ Gross profit 2,991,947 2,954,168 Operating expenses General and administrative 412,945 849,279 Salary and employee benefits 1,945,883 2,177,590 Depreciation and amortization 442,400 437,172 Professional fees 103,277 210,893 ------------ ------------ Total operating expenses 2,904,505 3,674,934 ------------ ------------ Income (loss) from operations 87,442 (720,766) ------------ ------------ Other expenses: Interest expense 355,658 747,906 Other expenses 6,042 250 ------------ ------------ Total other expenses 361,700 748,156 ------------ ------------ Net loss Before Income Taxes Provision for Income Taxes Current 56,900 - ------------ ------------ 56,900 - ------------ ------------ Net loss from continuing operations (331,158) (1,468,922) Net loss from discontinued operations - (33,807) ------------ ------------ Net Loss (331,158) (1,502,729) ============ ============ QUEST SOLUTION, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (UNAUDITED) As of March 31, December 31, 2017 2016 ------------- ------------- ASSETS Current assets Cash $ 277,122 $ 289,480 Restricted Cash 662,581 665,220 Accounts receivable, net 6,293,252 10,589,677 Inventory, net 629,165 531,593 Prepaid expenses 338,185 272,926 Other current assets 355,655 772,966 ------------- ------------- Total current assets 8,555,960 13,121,862 Fixed assets, net 120,980 136,835 Goodwill 10,114,164 10,114,164 Trade name, net 2,792,231 2,936,481 Customer Relationships, net 6,154,477 6,435,652 Other assets 45,463 47,563 ------------- ------------- Total assets $ 27,783,275 32,792,557 ============= ============= LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' (DEFICIT) Current liabilities Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 9,676,600 10,566,066 Accrued interest and accrued liabilities, related party 23,478 - Line of credit 2,584,452 5,059,292 Advances, related party 100,000 100,000 Accrued payroll and sales tax 1,937,889 1,829,934 Deferred revenue, net 913,139 879,026 Current portion of note payable 8,151,424 9,782,925 Other current liabilities 242,499 227,932 ------------- ------------- Total current liabilities 23,629,481 28,445,175 Long term liabilities Note payable, related party, net of debt discount 17,515,345 17,515,345 Accrued interest and accrued liabilities, related party 781,304 629,238 Long term portion of note payable 130,294 130,294 Deferred revenue, net 517,246 565,423 Other long term liabilities 378,778 332,270 ------------- ------------- Total liabilities 42,952,448 47,617,745 ------------- ------------- Stockholders' deficit Series A Preferred stock; $0.001 par value; 1,000,000 shares designated, 0 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. - - Series B Preferred stock; $0.001 par value; 1 share designated, 0 shares and 1 share issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. - - Series C Preferred stock; $0.001 par value; 15,000,000 shares designated, 3,143,530 and 0 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively, liquidation preference of $1 per share and a cumulative dividend of $0.06 per share 3,144 3,144 Common stock; $0.001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; 35,095,763 and 36,871,478 shares issued and outstanding of December 31, 2016 and 2015 respectively 35,202 35,095 Common stock to be repurchased by the Company (230,490) (230,490) Additional paid-in capital 18,335,835 18,302,262 Accumulated deficit (33,312,864) (32,935,199) ------------- ------------- Total stockholders' deficit (15,169,173) (14,825,188) ------------- ------------- Total liabilities and stockholders' deficit $ 27,783,275 32,792,557 ============= ============= QUEST SOLUTION, INC. RECONCILIATION OF GAAP MEASURES TO NON-GAAP MEASURES (UNAUDITED) For the three months ending March 31, EBITDA Calculation: 2017 2016 ------------ ------------ Net loss income (331,158) (1,502,729) Net loss from discontinuing operations - 33,807 Income Taxes 56,900 - Depreciation & Amortization 442,400 437,172 Interest Expense 355,658 747,906 ------------ ------------ EBITDA 523,800 (283,844) ------------ ------------ Adjusted EBITDA Calculation: EBITDA 523,800 (283,844) Non Cash stock compensation 26,756 149,011 Divestiture related costs 7,001 - Merger related costs - 8,700 One time nonrecurring costs - 18,245 ------------ ------------ Adjusted EBITDA 557,557 (107,888) ------------ ------------ Net Revenue 14,437,556 14,875,152 Adjusted EBITDA as a % of Net Revenue 3.9% (0.7%) ============ ============

The merger related costs are fees from an independent valuation firm and legal firm which are related to the business acquisitions. The divestiture related costs are fees from a legal firm which are related to the divestiture of Quest Solution Canada Inc.

Investor Contact:



Joey Trombino

CFO

(714) 899-4800

jtrombino@questsolution.com




SpiderCloud Wireless, a leading provider of scalable small cell systems, announced today the commercial availability of its Frequency Agile small cell, the SCRN-220, for its Enterprise RAN (E-RAN) platform. The SCRN-220 is an enterprise-grade LTE small cell that can be software configured for any of the major USA bands. LTE Bands supported are 2(1900), 25(1900), 4(1700), 66(2100), 12(700) 13(700) with channel widths of 5, 10, 15 and 20 Mhz.

The SCRN-220 was developed to meet the market demands of operators, enterprises, and third party providers for a frequency agile LTE small cell. It is based on SpiderCloud's E-RAN architecture that includes a Services Node controlling up to 100 self-organizing LTE small cells, capable of delivering coverage and capacity in indoor locations as large as 1.5 million square feet.

For mobile operators and their systems integration partners, the SCRN-220 simplifies national engineering, deployment, and break-fix maintenance. One single radio type works anywhere in the USA. It makes it easier to manage both inventory and projects. The frequency agility of SCRN-220 provides investment protection to mobile operators if they ever need to change the spectrum being used for enterprise LTE small cell networks.

For enterprises that are purchasing small cells, SCRN-220 offers unprecedented flexibility and investment protection. An enterprise that purchases SCRN-220 for use with one mobile operator can easily re-configure it to use with another mobile operator if it changes its preferred provider. Medium-large enterprises in the USA manage operator costs via contractual relationships and the ability of the SCRN-220 to be software re-configured for a different mobile operator satisfies their investment protection needs.

SCRN-220 operates at four times the power of typical DAS radio heads and covers twice the area, enabling mobile operators and enterprises to cover more space with fewer radios. This enables MORE LTE in more places and delivery of higher performance service to demanding subscribers.

The SCRN-220 features:

Configurability for LTE Bands 2, 25, 4, 66, 12, or 13 licensed radio

Industry leading Qualcomm FSM SoC

64 active LTE users

150 Mbps peak downlink rate

Power over Ethernet (PoE+) attachment to Ethernet fronthaul network

Software upgradable to Cat-M1 and NB-IOT

"SCRN-220 will be commercially available in the third quarter of 2017. Several Tier-1 operators in the United States are evaluating inclusion of SCRN-220 into their Enterprise RAN strategies," said Mike Casey, Senior Vice-President Global Sales, SpiderCloud.

Meet SpiderCloud at Small Cell World Summit in London on May 22-24, 2017.

About SpiderCloud Wireless

SpiderCloud Wireless develops breakthrough, small cell network platforms that allow mobile operators to deliver unprecedented cellular coverage, capacity and smart applications to enterprises. Customers include America Movil (Telcel), Verizon, Vodafone UK, Vodafone Netherlands, and Avea, among others. SpiderCloud Wireless is backed by investors Charles River Ventures, Matrix Partners, Opus Capital and Shasta Ventures. SpiderCloud Wireless is a registered trademark and SmartCloud a trademark of SpiderCloud Wireless, Inc. 2017 SpiderCloud Wireless, Inc. For more information visit www.spidercloud.com and follow SpiderCloud on Twitter http://twitter.com/spidercloud_inc

Qualcomm and FSM are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005387/en/

Contacts:

SpiderCloud Wireless

Art King

Director of Enterprise Services & Technologies

art.king@spidercloud.com
VeerCosmetics.net Features In-Depth Articles about Veer Cosmetics, Reviews from Others Who Have Used the Product and More

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2017 / Veer Cosmetics is pleased to announce the launch of their new review website, VeerCosmetics.net.

To check out the new site and read some of the recent posts about Veer Cosmetics, please visit http://veercosmetics.net/.

As a company spokesperson noted, even though VeerCosmetics.net launched just recently, it is already getting a lot of positive attention from visitors to the new site.

For example, one of the recent posts that has created quite a buzz with readers is titled "Veer Cosmetics Gets a 98% Rating from Morning Health News." As the post notes, representatives from Morning Health News recently gave Veer Cosmetics a try, and they were very impressed with the results.

As the article notes, Veer Cosmetics is a liquid foundation that is made from a carefully formulated list of ingredients. It is designed to help women mask scars and other skin blemishes while protecting their skin from the harsh ultraviolet rays of the sun. Veer Cosmetics also contains ingredients to moisturize the skin; these include Candelilla wax and Stearic acid.

Using Veer Cosmetics is easy, the article notes. People simple need to use the pump feature to pump or pour a small amount of the cosmetic onto the back of their hand or a palette. Then, they can use an applique brush to apply it to different parts of the face. If needed, the makeup can be smoothed evenly across the skin.

"The Veer liquid foundation sets quickly (usually in minutes) and provides great coverage for users," the review noted, adding that the foundation's extra hydration allows any wrinkles in the skin to be filled out, thus appearing less visible.

While the review notes that some women may have difficulty at first using the right application technique, the foundation provides so much full coverage that women do not need a lot of practice before they are applying the makeup like a pro.

"Finally, this product is easy to use and easily accessible directly from the manufacturer. Being able to purchase the Veer product of your choice directly from the manufacturer's website ensures greater quality control and a more reliable customer guarantee," the new review on VeerCosmetics.net noted.

About Veer Cosmetics:

Veer Cosmetics HD Foundation is a powerful liquid foundation providing all over coverage. To learn more visit the official company website, www.cosmeticsbyv.com or veercosmetics.net to view real reviews of the product.

Contact:

Pam Collins

admin@rocketfactor.com

(949) 555-2861

SOURCE: Veer Cosmetics
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2017 / CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSXV: CVV) (OTCQB: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) ("CanAlaska" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from the four reconnaissance drill holes at the Nisku target located 7 kilometres east of CanAlaska's North Ruttan copper-zinc property in the Leaf Rapids area of northern Manitoba.

Drilling intersected massive iron sulphides between surface and 150 metres depth, with elevated copper mineralization in holes NSK001, NSK002 and NSK003. Drill hole NSK004 located to the east intersected volcanics with minor sulphides. The drilling tested a coincident VTEM magnetic and electromagnetic target, which has the characteristics of a large volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit. The target is located 10 kilometres east of the past producing Ruttan copper-zinc massive sulphide mine. The Ruttan mine was one of the largest VMS deposits in Canada.

Nisku Copper-Zinc Target

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: http://www.accesswire.com/uploads/26814_figure1.jpg

Drill holes NSK001, NSK002, and NSK003 showed elevated copper, silver, as well as local gold and arsenic in the volcanics and in sulphidic argillite. Drill hole NSK003 showed an upper and lower section of elevated copper-silver mineralization. At 85 metres depth the lower zone shows copper and silver associated with gold-arsenic mineralization in the lower section. This lower 11 metre section averaged 0.05% Cu with values up to 0.58 g/t gold and 3.3 g/t Ag and over 1% arsenic. Locally intense chlorite and biotite mineralization overprints the rock, and there are additional zones of quartz carbonate alteration and altered feldspar porphyry dykes.

Drill holes NSK001 and NSK002 intersected multiple zones of massive and semi massive pyrrhotite mineralization with local elevated silver and gold-arsenic mineralization. Drill hole NSK002 undercut drill hole NSK001, and showed there is significant disruption of the stratigraphy with lack of continuity of the banded iron formation and feldspar porphyry dykes, but elevated copper was intersected in both drill holes.

The Nisku target represents a zone of VMS mineralization along a 1 km geophysical target within a volcanic-sedimentary sequence extending the whole length of the Nisku property. The recent drilling has set the framework for more detailed interpretation of the zone and the localization of the expected feeder pipes proximal to the massive sulphides and stratigraphic rock package intersected in these first four drill holes. Additional information on the Ruttan and Nisku targets and the recent drilling is posted on the CanAlaska website at http://www.canalaska.com/s/BaseMetals.asp?ReportID=776300

CanAlaska President Peter Dasler commented, "The Nisku drilling has confirmed another VMS target on our Ruttan area claims. It is encouraging to see the same association of copper-gold-silver mineralization as we see in our nearby North Ruttan project. The North Ruttan VMS zone has always been associated with high gold values, and it is encouraging to see that this system appears to be repeated 7 km to the east. Both targets have only been tested to a depth of 150 metres and are now awaiting further infill and deeper drilling."

About CanAlaska Uranium

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSXV: CVV) (OTCQB: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) holds interests in approximately 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres), one of the largest land positions in Canada's Athabasca Basin region - the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium." CanAlaska's strategic holdings have attracted major international mining companies Cameco, Denison, KORES, and KEPCO. CanAlaska is a project generator positioned for discovery success in the world's richest uranium district. For further information visit www.canalaska.com.

The qualified technical person for this news release is Dr Karl Schimann, P. Geo, VP Exploration, for CanAlaska.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

"Peter Dasler"

Peter Dasler, M.Sc., P.Geo.

President & CEO

CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.

Contacts:

Peter Dasler, President

Tel: +1.604.688.3211 x 138

Email: info@canalaska.com

John Gomez, Corporate Development

Tel: +1.604.484.7118

Email: jgomez@canalaska.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking information

All statements included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions made by the Company based on its experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. In addition, these statements involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will prove inaccurate, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to revise or update these forward-looking statements after the date hereof or revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events.

SOURCE: CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.
SAN MATEO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Reflektion, the leading Artificial Intelligence-driven customer engagement platform for retailers and brands worldwide, today announced a strategic alliance with Mad Mobile, a recognized leader in mobile-first retail transformation. The alliance represents a unified commerce solution for joint customers and extends Reflektion's deep understanding of individual online shoppers into physical retail environments.

The alliance enables retailers to unify the data-rich world of eCommerce with the data-scarce world of offline, in-store retail. By leveraging a single, shared data set, joint clients can seamlessly connect promotions, schedules, experiences and insights; gaining a complete understanding of the end-to-end customer journey.

"At Reflektion, we're committed to working with like-minded partners -- like Mad Mobile -- that share our goal of creating retail customer experiences that are highly relevant, intimate and connected across channels," said Kurt Heinemann, CMO, Reflektion. "We recognize the best way to create real, cross channel customer engagement is to combine the unique strengths of several partners. Partnerships like this transform what have traditionally been considered 'pie in the sky ideas' into real, actionable opportunities for brands to wow their customers."

Consumers expect high-end, high-touch experiences with their favorite brands both online and in-store. Store associates must be able to access customer preference and behavioral data, engage customers and transact with them anywhere on the floor. This strategic partnership aims to make this type of clienteling experience a reality for all retailers.

Mad Mobile's unified commerce platform enables retailers to leverage their key technology partners, such as Reflektion, in-store. "We're committed to transforming retail with mobile solutions that empower store associates to engage with customers, enhance the in-store shopping experience, and sell more effectively," said Bruce Bennett, CEO, Mad Mobile. "By creating this alliance with Reflektion, we're able to provide store associates with an enriched, real-time view of each individual customer as they walk in the door. Reflektion enables the store associate to anticipate what the customer is likely there to see."

About Reflektion

Reflektion's AI-driven customer engagement platform understands and influences the intent of each customer in real time and instantly delivers the most individually relevant content across the touchpoints that matter most -- including Web, site search, merchandising and email. Reflektion's platform is driving dramatic conversion growth and revenue increases for the world's best brands, such as Disney, TOMS, Marmot, Sur la Table and Godiva.

Founded in 2012 by pioneers in deep learning, Reflektion is bringing the strength of artificial intelligence to bear on the retail and ecommerce industry. Its platform uniquely combines individual shopper insights, product intelligence and deep learning to create more intimate and impactful commerce experiences.

Reflektion is backed by leading investors including Battery Ventures, Hasso Plattner Ventures, Clear Ventures and Intel Capital.

About Mad Mobile

Mad Mobile is the leader in Unified Commerce with a platform that graphs real-time data from retail enterprise systems and key technology partners to unleash powerful new insights and mobile functionality for store associates. Mad Mobile's award winning Concierge application enables store associates to conduct clienteling, assisted selling, and MPOS on any mobile device.

Top clients include Talbots, Books-A-Million, Ashley Furniture, Helzberg Diamonds, Aeropostale, Sysco, AutoNation, and Payless Shoesource. Offices in Tampa (HQ), NYC, Milan, Buenos Aires, and London.

Media Contact

Ned Tadic

Finn Partners for Reflektion

Ned.tadic@finnpartners.com

312-329-3979




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Note to editors: Three images are included with this press release on Marketwired's website.

Hootsuite, the most widely used platform for social media management, today announces the launch of Hootsuite Impact, following the acquisition of leading social analytics company LiftMetrix in February 2017. Hootsuite is also launching Hootsuite Value Realization services to help enterprises understand how to best measure and maximize the business impact of their investment in social media. These new offerings provide a technology solution and strategic services for enterprises to realize their return on investment (ROI) from social.

As social matures into a key customer engagement channel, marketers are challenged with the need to demonstrate ROI. According to Forrester Research, 44% of marketers say they haven't been able to show the impact of social at all and another 36% say they have a good sense of the qualitative, but not quantitative, impact of social initiatives.

Hootsuite Impact is integrated into the Hootsuite Platform with an easy-to-use interface to give organizations a complete view of their owned, earned and paid social initiatives in one dashboard. It integrates seamlessly with web analytics solutions like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics, along with business intelligence (BI) tools such as Tableau so marketers can compare social data to other marketing efforts and share it with additional teams. With Hootsuite Impact marketers will be empowered to identify, measure, and track campaigns in order to dedicate time and resources efficiently, and deliver the largest impact to the bottom line.

"Hootsuite Impact allows us to identify the content and social networks that are driving our site goals and digital conversions. We can measure our business objectives, utilize key findings and tailor our social strategy in real-time to capitalize on positive performance," said A'Leisha Stefani, senior social media manager at media conglomerate Meredith Corporation.

Industry Expertise to Deliver Social ROI

Along with Hootsuite Impact, the company is launching Hootsuite Value Realization services to help enterprises realize the full value of social. Starting with an ROI consultation, Hootsuite's team of experts will work with enterprises to assess the people, processes, and technology required to create a measurement framework, and establish KPIs that deliver actionable insights.

"Hootsuite's goal is to enable organizations to leverage social data to drive business outcomes. With Hootsuite Impact and our Hootsuite Value Realization services, we want to be our customers' trusted partner in proving and growing the value of social across their organizations," said Matt Switzer, SVP of Strategy & Corporate Development at Hootsuite.

More Information:

-- Hootsuite Impact: https://hootsuite.com/products/impact -- Hootsuite Enterprise Services: https://hootsuite.com/training-services -- Definitive Guide to Social ROI: www.hootsuite.com/resources/guide/the- roi-of-social-media

About Hootsuite

Hootsuite is the most widely used social media management platform, used by over 15 million people around the globe and trusted by more than 800 of the Fortune 1000. Hootsuite's battle-tested technology, extensive ecosystem, and social DNA help organizations to champion the power of human connections at scale. To learn more, visit www.hootsuite.com.

To view the photos accompanying this press release please click on the following links:

http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170515-1094803HI_800.jpg

http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170515-a800hoot.jpg

http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170515-b800hoot.jpg

Contacts:

Julie Huang

@juliewh11

Corporate Communications

media@hootsuite.com




SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CannabisFN"), the leading creative agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, announces the publication of an article discussing Future Farm Technologies Inc.'s (CSE: FFT) (OTCQB: FFRMF) extraction technology and what it means for its future.

Cannabis concentrates and edibles are the fastest growing segment of the cannabis industry that experts believe could eclipse flower sales by 2020. These concentrates are used to make edibles, topical ointments, capsules, and other packaged products that require a more professional extraction method. Investors may want to consider companies that are operating on the forefront of this exciting subset of the cannabis industry.

Cannabis Extracts Market

Botanical extraction is the process of collecting desirable compounds from a plant while leaving behind undesirable compounds and unusable plant material. In the cannabis industry, extraction has become a popular technique for removing cannabinoids -- like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol (CBD) -- from cannabis or hemp plants. These compounds can then be incorporated into teas or tinctures, or be baked into edible products.

According to Bloomberg, edibles may account for half of the $5.4 billion in cannabis sales in 2015. Many consumers have heard of Snoop Dogg's Leafs brand of edibles, but there are hundreds of other brands popping up around the country, including names like Dixie Elixirs, Incredibles, and BlueKudu. Edibles are also taking many different forms, ranging from traditional baked goods to beverages and various types of candies.

These dynamics have encouraged many cannabis cultivators to expand into the extraction business. In economic terms, their goal is to simply produce as much extract as possible from a unit of product (maximizing yield) within a given unit of time (maximizing throughput). At the same time, these cultivators want to preserve cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids to ensure that their product meets the needs of consumers.

Proprietary Technology

Future Farm has developed a patent-pending cannabis extraction technology that's capable of high throughput while maintaining quality. In particular, the machine is capable of processing 20 pounds of cannabis per hour with a 10% cannabis oil yield. The cannabis oil yield per run is approximately 908 grams that wholesale for $10 to $20 per gram. As a result, the technology can potentially generate $9,080 to $18,160 per hour in revenue for cultivators.

The technology uses a closed loop liquid-liquid phase system without pressurization, which creates a safer environment for workers. Low temperatures and short residence times help preserve the essential components, such as cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids. These attributes help set the technology apart from many other extraction devices that are on the market and make it a compelling option for cultivators looking to expand their margins.

Commercialization Progress

Future Farm has already begun installing its extraction machines in California, Rhode Island, and Washington State.

In May, the company announced that its extraction machine was purchased by FFM Consulting Services LLC and delivered to the California-based extraction facility. Data generation and process development is expected to begin on May 12 with the first independent run expected on May 15. With the equipment installed, the company projects that the facility will be in full production and generating revenue within the next 90 days.

"We believe this alcohol extraction machine is the best extraction equipment on the market today, which allows us to be able to process large amounts of cannabis flower into highly pure concentrates from day one," said Future Farm CEO Bill Gildea in a recent press release. "This equipment will immediately allow for high-volume and highly pure extraction production, which will benefit California's medical marijuana community."

Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/future-farm-looks-capitalize-high-growth-extracts/

For more information, visit the company's website or investor presentation.

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About CFN Media

CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed.

Disclaimer:

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/.

CFN Media

Frank Lane

2063697050

flane@cannabisfn.com




GRAND ISLAND, NE -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Sense Technologies, Inc. (OTC PINK: SNSGF) -- Sense Natural Products, Inc., which operates a unique all-natural soybean crush mill in Scribner, Nebraska has completed the final step to obtain industrial revenue bonds to be issued by the City of Scribner located in Dodge County Nebraska. Sense Natural Products received strong endorsements from several local community leaders that arrived to show support for expanding the facility.

The City of Scribner then went on to vote unanimously in favor of and signed the bond resolution. Sense Natural Products now expects to close on their acquisition of the adjacent facility known as 120 Railroad St within a month. The remaining funds will be used for plant expansion, ongoing research and development, and for production enhancements. Plant renovations, upgrades and expansion are already underway, and the plant is producing what many consider to be the highest grade of all-natural soybean meal in the market today.

xMeal is still undergoing real world trials and empirical studies, but so far, it has achieved significant results for its growers. Both poultry and swine growers have reduced the need for anti-biotics, reduced death loss, improved feed efficiency and improved average daily gain. xMeal has provided higher energy content per delivered pound, and is delivering a concentrated product that has around half of the moisture content (waste) of similar products. These ongoing trials have demonstrated significant health benefits, which have resulted in increased profitability for the growers that use xMeal.

Sense Natural Products also produces a premium soybean oil. This is a proprietary process that creates a 99.5% pure unrefined raw degummed soybean oil. Because the oil is never refined, the health properties that remain in the oil have shown significant benefits, including reduced death loss and greater feed conversion, all the while saving the grower delivery costs and reducing waste. The caloric density associated with its purity meets or exceeds that of refined oils, while containing many more heat-sensitive nutrients than can be found in refined oils.

With these developments in Sense Natural Products, Inc., management now anticipates a projected increase in the gross revenue of SNSGF by over twenty million dollars per year in the first year. This fast-growing company is poised to lead the way to high-protein, high-energy, ultra-high-nutrition soybean meal for both animal and human nutrition while helping reduce or even eliminate the need for anti-biotics in animal feed.

Swine and Poultry growers interested in performing trials of xMeal or xOil should contact the plant at 402:664-2400.

About Sense Technologies, Inc.

SNSGF is a fully-reporting entity.

Sense Technologies, Inc. http://SenseTech.com develops and markets backing awareness products for safety and acquired the assets and intellectual property of Scribner Natural Products in September of 2016. The facility reopened and commenced operation as Sense Natural Products, Inc. in September of 2016 and more information can be found at: www.SenseNaturalProducts.com

About Sense Natural Products

Sense Natural Products is an industrial food and feed products company in Scribner Nebraska, where it operates a proprietary all natural extruded and expeller pressed soybean crushing mill. Learn more about the history of Scribner Natural Products and the current management team of Richard Bell and David Dennis from an interview with Michael Yorba segment 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3d6GH7RIAU and, segment 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgRE_ykvGo4

See the Public Wire report here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIN34iBG8Vg

"We are on a fast track because it is in our shareholders' interest to commence the profit potential just as soon as we can," said Bruce Schreiner, Sense Technologies, Inc.'s President. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sense-technologies-inc-provides-further-130100187.html

Forward Looking-Statement

This press release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. In particular, there is no assurance that the parties will reach a definitive agreement for the proposed transaction or that the transaction will be completed. Additionally, no assurance can be provided that the terms of any transaction will be similar to those contemplated by the Letter of Intent. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact Sense Technologies, Inc.

Website: http://www.sensetech.com/

Email: info@sensetech.com




SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- CFN Media Group ("CFN Media"), the leading agency and digital media network dedicated to legal cannabis, today announced publication of an article covering ABcann Global Corp. (TSX VENTURE: ABCN) following its going-public transaction.

There are about 40 licensed producers that have received approval from Health Canada to cultivate and sell medical cannabis to consumers. The largest company in the space is Canopy Growth Corp., which has become the first cannabis 'unicorn' with a valuation that's well over C$1 billion. Many other licensed producers are close to achieving these kinds of valuations as they ramp up production and revenue.

ABcann Global is priced significantly lower by comparison with a market capitalization of about C$85 million, despite being one of the first licensed producers approved by Health Canada in 2014. The company hasn't scaled up its production as quickly as other LPs, but it has signed high-profile partnerships with companies like Syqe Medical Inc. -- the innovator behind the first metered dosage inhaler -- and developed some of the highest yields in the industry.

In addition, the company has the cash on hand to significantly expand its capacity over the near-term. Management anticipates that its Van Luven facility will double its capacity, to about 29,000 square feet, this year while the Kimmet facility will come online next year with a 150,000 square foot presence.

Experienced Management Team

ABcann Global has an experienced management team that's well-positioned to execute on plans to become a leader in the space.

Chairman Ken Clement has developed a strong rapport with Health Canada and cultivated several strategic partnerships around the world. His goal of standardizing production and doses of cannabinoids has help shaped the company's unique focus relative to other licensed producers that are focused on simply maximizing production of commoditized products that will eventually be hard to compete against as the market grows.

CEO Aaron Keay has over 10 years of experience across many different sectors, serving in corporate finance, senior management, and board member roles. With a history of raising over $250 million, Mr. Keay is well-positioned to help the company secure funding and grow. Mr. Keay is also joined by a seasoned executive management team with experience across areas of management, finance, and the operation of cannabis businesses.

Finally, the company has developed a solid board of advisors that includes the 'father of cannabis', Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, Ph.D. Dr. Mechoulam is an organic chemist and professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He's best known for being the first scientist to isolate tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and then cannabidiol (CBD) in 1963. Dr. Mechoulam is joined by many other prominent researchers and scientists in the field.

Rapidly Growing Market

Canada's cannabis industry could be worth between $12.7 billion and $22.6 billion by 2020, according to Deloitte Canada, eclipsing the combined sales of beer, wine, and spirits. The country is widely expected to implement recreational legalization by early next year, which could open the market significantly beyond the medical users that are currently served under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations -- or ACMPR.

PI Financial believes that there could be a shortfall in supply with only about 40 companies licensed by Health Canada to grow and sell the drug. According to a recent report, the analyst reckons that LPs would need to cultivate a total of 610,000 kilograms to fulfill domestic and export demand by 2019. The problem is that existing capacity would fall short and lead to a 200,000 kilogram shortfall and it could be difficult to onboard enough new LPs.

Please follow the link to read the full article: http://www.cannabisfn.com/abcann-compelling-value-going-public/

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About CFN Media

CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading creative agency and media network dedicated to legal cannabis. We help marijuana businesses attract investors, customers (B2B, B2C), capital, and media visibility. Private and public marijuana companies and brands in the US and Canada rely on CFN Media to grow and succeed.

Disclaimer:

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CFN Media and CannabisFN.com, is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority, and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. Emerging Growth LLC may from time to time have a position in the securities mentioned herein and may increase or decrease such positions without notice. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Emerging Growth LLC may be compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation or equity securities in the companies it writes about, or a combination of the two. For full disclosure please visit: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/.

Frank Lane

President

CFN Media Group

(206) 369-7050

flane@cannabisfn.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Tudor Gold Corp. (TSX VENTURE: TUD)(FRANKFURT: TUC) (the "Company" or "Tudor Gold") announces that it has appointed Raul Sanabria to head up the exploration programs at their 60% - owned Treaty Creek property and Electrum Project located within the Golden Triangle and in close proximity to some of British Columbia's largest mines.

Raul has more than 16 years of progressive experience in the mining and exploration industry worldwide, having worked in Europe, West Africa, Canada and in several countries of Central and South America mainly in precious metals, in a wide range of geological settings and deposit types. He also explored for base metals, Mississippi Valley F-(Zn-Pb), uranium, iron ore, amongst others during his career, and successfully discovered and advanced several projects. He had been leading the exploration teams that drilled and discovered Copper Belle Au-porphyry (0.7 gpt Au over 270m) and in the GR2 high grade Au-Ag intermediate sulphidation epithermal system both in the Golden Triangle now known as the Treaty Creek Property, near Stewart, BC, one of Tudor Gold's key properties. He also discovered the Treasure Property (orogenic lode-gold deposits) in Red Lake, Ontario, re-interpreted the geology of the Vetas alkalic gold system and the very rich Santa Ana silver mines, both in Colombia.

He was the former Chief Geologist for Red Eagle Exploration (a subsidiary of Red Eagle Mining, Colombia), and former VP Exploration of American Creek Resources, G4G Resources, Northern Iron Corp, and Principal Geologist and CEO for Condor Precious Metals Inc. Raul is thrilled to be back working in B.C. with Tudor Gold in a prolific mining camp, the home of two of his discoveries.

Walter Storm, CEO of Tudor Gold said, "We are excited to have engaged Raul Sanabria to work with Tudor Gold. Raul has the perfect background to advance our projects because of his extensive work on the Tudor Gold properties and his discoveries at the Copper Belle and GR2. We particularly like his thinking outside-the-box perspective in exploration."

CHF Capital Markets Retained for Investor Relations

The Company has engaged CHF Capital Markets ("CHF"), a highly regarded Canadian firm headquartered in Toronto, as its investor relations partner.

Effective immediately, the services agreement with CHF (the "Agreement") is for an initial three-month period (the "Term"). Pursuant to the Agreement, CHF will notably conduct on behalf of the Company (the "Services"), in exchange for an aggregate fee of $16,350, an investor relations outreach program (including road shows), a feature article about Tudor Gold in its newsletter, social media outreach, and periodic communications with brokers and Company shareholders. The Parties will consider entering into another service agreement following the initial three months of the Term. The Agreement remains subject to regulatory approval.

Mr. Walter Storm, President & CEO of Tudor Gold, commented, "We are pleased to retain CHF, as a firm with extensive knowledge of the mining industry and experience with Canadian capital markets. We look forward to working with CHF in the further development of our investor relations activities."

About Tudor Gold

Tudor Gold is a significant explorer in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, an area which hosts multiple past-producing mines and several large deposits that are approaching potential development. The Company has a 60% interest in both the Electrum and Treaty Creek properties, and a 100% interest in the Mackie, Eskay North, Orion, Fairweather, Delta and the High North properties, all of which are located in the Golden Triangle area.

Walter Storm, President and CEO

For further information, please visit the company's website at www.tudor-gold.com.

Cautionary Statements regarding 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 "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" 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.

All statements including, without limitation, statements relating to the uture plans, objectives or expectations of the Company are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's plans or expectations include risks relating to the actual results of current exploration activities, fluctuating gold prices, possibility of equipment breakdowns and delays, exploration cost overruns, availability of capital and financing, general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes, timeliness of government or regulatory approvals and other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. The Company 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 otherwise 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:

Cathy Hume

CHF Capital Markets

416-868-1079 ext. 231

cathy@chfir.com




Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 24, 2017) - Rheingold Exploration Corp. (CSE:RGE) ("Rheingold" or the "Company") - a company currently focused on the exploration and development of natural resource projects targeting metals used in the manufacturing of traditional and innovative batteries, has entered into an Option and Purchase and Sale Agreement with Woodbury Resources, LLC of Denver, Colorado and Bi-Petro, Inc. of Springfield, Illinois, whereby Rheingold has an option to purchase the oil and gas leases located primarily in Cumberland and Jasper Counties, Illinois ("Option Agreement").

The Option Agreement allows Rheingold to purchase 37,500 acres previously leased for oil, gas and lithium extraction by Woodbury and Bi-Petro in the 'Woodbury Carper Lithium Resource Project'. The Project represents a lithium resource development opportunity at shallow drilling depths (less than 4,000 feet) in the heartland of the United States, located on fee acreage that is easy to permit and drill, with several existing wells capable of producing large volumes of lithium-rich brine.

Total option purchase price, subject to the Company completing its due diligence, is US$8.0 million, Payable as follows:

$100 on signing

$99,900 in 90 days from signing

$2,000,000 in 6 months from signing, of which the Company may make  in Shares

$2,000,000 in 12 months from signing, of which the Company may make  in Shares

$3,900,000 in 17 months from signing, of which the Company may make  in Shares

Hunter Stuart Energy Advisors has previously been hired by Rheingold to locate prospective lithium properties for the Company. Clifford C. Clark, a geologist working with Hunter Stuart Energy Advisors states: "The Carper Sandstone is a known oil and gas producing zone in the State of Illinois with several hundred wells that have produced oil from the Carper. The optioned property covers an accumulation of Mississippian-age Carper Sandstone that was deposited in an ancient delta referred to as the 'Woodbury Carper Delta'."

"The lithium was discovered as a result of drilling three exploratory wells in the search for oil and gas from the New Albany Shale and Carper Sandstone. All three wells had significant shows of oil in the Carper Sandstone at 3,600-3,800 feet and shows of gas in the New Albany Shale at 4,000-4,100 feet, which led the operator to set production casing and test the wells," explains Clark.

Clark continues: "Two wells that are included in the assets under the Option Agreement have produced brine from the Carper Sandstone that have been tested for lithium content (tests are not NI 43-101 compliant). The lithium readings from known and credible laboratories were measured at 108 ppm and 243 ppm . The Carper brine from the #1 Swim Well measured at 108 ppm lithium in a test performed by XENCO Labs of Midland, Texas, an accredited laboratory, using EPA6010B methods. The Carper brine from the #2 Holsapple Well measured at 243 ppm lithium in a test performed by TechLabUSA in Ft. Collins, Colorado, also an accredited laboratory using EPA6010B methods."

Clark believes more testing using advanced methods for determining lithium content is needed to more precisely determine the lithium content of the brine on the optioned properties. Clark concludes: "The leasehold is located in a rural area that has existing road, electrical, and natural gas infrastructure in place. This project is privately owned land and it takes less than a month to get a drilling permit versus sometimes up to years to get a permit on Federal Lands. Assets that would be included under the Option Agreement, and are located in Cumberland County, Illinois, include three wells of which two are producing and the third is not yet completed. It is significant to note that the optioned land has a permitted salt water disposal well, which may be used to dispose of the brines."

Rheingold's president, Logan Anderson adds that, "Rheingold is extremely pleased that the Hunter Stuart team, utilizing their experience and database of oil field brine data from over 100,000 wells, has negotiated this option on a highly prospective lithium property in an area of the United States that has immediate access to all of the services needed."

Qualified Persons

The technical portions of this press release were prepared by Clifford C. Clark a Licensed Professional Geologist (State of Illinois) and reviewed by Fred J. Bonner P.Geo., a Director of Rheingold and a Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101.

For more information, please contact: loganbanderson@outlook.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Logan Anderson"

Logan Anderson, President

Forward-looking statements

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of the Company and certain of the plans and objectives of the Company with respect to the same. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

THE CSE DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 30, 2017) - RJK Explorations Ltd. (TSXV: RJX.A) ("RJK") has completed the previously announced sale to New Gold Inc. (TSX: NGD) (NYSE MKT: NGD) ("New Gold") of all of its interest in the BW East Claims, the BW West Claims and the BW South Claims, located in the Blackwater Gold District in British Columbia (the "Properties"), for total cash consideration of C$1.0 million.

The sale includes all of RJK's technical information related to the Properties, the permits held under the Mineral Tenure Act (British Columbia), and all of RJK's rights under various underlying agreements. Shareholder approval to the sale was obtained by way of special resolution at RJK's Annual and Special Meeting of shareholders held on June 26, 2017 and the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange to the sale was also been obtained.

A cash finder's fee in the amount of $82,500 is payable in connection with such sale to Doug McKay & Associates.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Glenn Kasner, President

Telephone: (705) 567-5351

Mobile: (705) 568-7567

Kasner1@ntl.aibn.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Lincoln Mining Corporation (TSX VENTURE: LMG) ("Lincoln" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that pursuant to a letter agreement dated May 9, 2017, the Company, through its subsidiary, Lincoln Gold US Corp. ("Lincoln US"), granted Ausgold Resources Pty. Ltd. ("Ausgold") an option until June 30, 2017 to enter into a joint venture agreement for the development of the Oro Cruz Property located in Imperial County, California ("JV Option"). As consideration for granting the JV Option, Ausgold has paid Lincoln US USD$7,500 and committed to purchasing USD$30,000 worth of securities in the Company's next private placement.

The JV Option is exercisable by Ausgold providing Lincoln US with notice that Ausgold is satisfied with its due diligence investigation of Lincoln US's Oro Cruz Property and entered into an option with a third party to acquire certain mineral claims referred to as the Hercules claims in Imperial County, California.

If the JV Option is exercised, the joint venture will cover the Hercules claims and the 131 claims held by Lincoln US as well as any mining interests or mineral properties acquired by either party within five miles of the Lincoln US claims.

If the JV Option is exercised, the parties agree to negotiate a formal joint venture agreement which will include the following:

a. periodic payments to Lincoln US from June 30, 2017 until January 15, 2019 totalling US$225,000 plus 200,000 shares of Ausgold (or an additional US$30,000 if Ausgold shares are not publicly traded); b. expenditures of an aggregate of US$1,000,000 by January 15, 2019 on the claims covered by the joint venture, with Ausgold as the operator; c. upon the above payments and expenditures being made, Ausgold will hold a 51% joint venture interest and Lincoln US will hold a 49% interest; d. upon Ausgold earning a 51% joint venture interest, Ausgold shall have the right to increase its interest in the joint venture to 75% by spending an additional US$1,100,000 on the joint venture properties by January 15, 2020.

Lincoln is a Canadian precious metals exploration and development company, with interests in the Pine Grove gold property in Nevada and the Oro Cruz gold property in California. In the United States, the Company operates under Lincoln Gold US Corp. and Lincoln Resource Group Corp., both Nevada corporations.

On behalf of Lincoln Mining Corporation

Paul Saxton, President & CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

604-688-7377

www.lincolnmining.com




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Opening up the latest controversy involving President Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported that he divulged highly classified information to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov when the latter met him at the White House last week. The White House denied the report even as the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee joined Democrats in slamming Trump over the Washington Post bombshell. Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak also was present when Lavrov met Trump in the Oval Office last Monday, a day after FBI Director James Comey was fired. Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on an Islamic State terror threat, the Post reported quoting current and former U.S. officials. The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, the Washington Post quoted officials as saying. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster made a damage-repairing effort by saying that nothing of the sort happened at the meeting, which he also attended. 'At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known,' he told reporters. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also spoke in support of the President. 'During President Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations,' Tillerson said in a statement. 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, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --



Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Supercapacitor Materials 2017-2027" report to their offering.

"Supercapacitor Materials 2017-2027", explains how, out of the spotlight, very important advances are occurring even beyond market leader Maxwell's superlative opening up of new applications with tailored products. In the desert for supercapacitor manufacture - Europe - Skeleton Technologies has started to make supercapacitors partially based on graphene that set the record for power density and Yunasko in the Ukraine set the record for production hybrid supercapacitor energy density - up near lead acid and NiCd batteries and something Nippon Chemical says it will match next year.

The report has a global sweep. From ongoing visits, it explains how, recognising the distaste of the Japanese motor industry for highly toxic electrolytes, Nippon Chemical in Japan jumped from nowhere to number two in supercapacitors in the world by making supercapacitors for cars that had benign electrolytes.

"Supercapacitor Materials 2017-2027" expresses the view that, partly because its supercapacitor suppliers have become more capable, China has recently reversed its policy on traditional hybrid vehicles, declaring that in 2030, 30% of cars made would be hybrids that do not plug in - candidates for supercapacitors. With GM now adopting them, supercapacitors are rapidly taking market share of stop-start systems for conventional vehicles.

"Supercapacitor Materials 2017-2027" finds that electrolytes with totally new chemistry are pairing well with new exohedral active electrodes. Hybrid capacitors are benefitting from totally new electrolyte-electrode pairings in the laboratory at least. Are the old rules of extremely hydrophobic assembly following complex high temperature processes really necessary for best performance? Everything is being questioned now.

Key Topics Covered:

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

1.1. Comparison with batteries

1.2. Comparison with electrolytic capacitors

1.3. Focus on functional materials

1.4. Options: operating principles

1.5. What needs improving?

1.6. Construction and cost structure

1.7. Choices of material: important parameters to improve

1.8. Progress with electrode materials

1.9. Electrolytes

1.10. Supercabatteries

1.11. Graphene goes well with the new electrolytes

1.12. Materials maturity and profit

1.13. Market forecast 2017-2027

1.14. Hemp pseudo graphene?

1.15. Supercapacitors on the smaller scale

1.16. Supercapacitor materials news

2. INTRODUCTION

2.1. Where supercapacitors fit in

2.2. Supercapacitors and supercabattery basics

2.3. Supercapacitors and alternatives compared

2.4. Fundamentals

2.5. Laminar biodegradable option

2.6. Structural supercapacitors

2.7. Electrolyte improvements ahead

2.8. Equivalent circuits and limitations

2.9. Supercapacitor sales have a new driver: safety

2.10. Disruptive supercapacitors now taken more seriously

2.11. Change of leadership of the global value market?

2.12. Battery and fuel cell management with supercapacitors

2.13. Graphene vs other carbon forms in supercapacitors

2.14. Environmentally friendlier and safer materials

2.15. Printing supercapacitors

2.16. New manufacturing sites in Europe

2.17. Modelling insights

3. SEPARATORS

4. ELECTROLYTES BY MANUFACTURER

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Toxicity

4.3. Gel electrolytes

4.4. Ionic liquids

4.5. Electrolytes compared by manufacturer.

5. ELECTRODE MATERIALS AND OTHERS

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Electrodes and other materials compared by company

5.3. Materials optimisation

5.4. Progress with electrode materials

5.5. Graphene

5.6. Higher voltage electrolytes

5.7. Aqueous electrolytes become attractive

5.8. Organic ionic electrolytes

5.9. Acetonitrile concern

5.10. Supercabattery improvement

6. COMPANY PROFILES

6.1. 2D Carbon Graphene Material Co., Ltd

6.2. Abalonyx, Norway

6.3. Airbus, France

6.4. Aixtron, Germany

6.5. AMO GmbH, Germany

6.6. Asbury Carbon, USA

6.7. AZ Electronics, Luxembourg

6.8. BASF, Germany

6.9. Cambridge Graphene Centre, UK

6.10. Cambridge Graphene Platform, UK

6.11. Carben Semicon Ltd, Russia

6.12. Carbon Solutions, Inc., USA

6.13. Catalyx Nanotech Inc. (CNI), USA

6.14. CRANN, Ireland

6.15. Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), USA

6.16. Grafoid, Canada

6.17. GRAnPH Nanotech, Spain

6.18. Graphene Devices, USA

6.19. Graphene NanoChem, UK

6.20. Graphensic AB, Sweden

6.21. Harbin Mulan Foreign Economic and Trade Company, China

6.22. HDPlas, USA

6.23. Head, Austria

6.24. HRL Laboratories, USA

6.25. IBM, USA

6.26. iTrix, Japan

6.27. JiangSu GeRui Graphene Venture Capital Co., Ltd.

6.28. Jinan Moxi New Material Technology Co., Ltd

6.29. JSR Micro, Inc. / JM Energy Corp.

6.30. Lockheed Martin, USA

6.31. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA

6.32. Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Germany

6.33. Momentive, USA

6.34. Nanjing JCNANO Tech Co., LTD

6.35. Nanjing XFNANO Materials Tech Co.,Ltd

6.36. Nanostructured & Amorphous Materials, Inc., USA

6.36.1. Nippon ChemiCon/ United ChemiCon Japan

6.37. Nokia, Finland

6.38. Pennsylvania State University, USA

6.39. Power Booster, China

6.40. Quantum Materials Corp, India

6.41. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), USA

6.42. Rice University, USA

6.43. Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey, USA

6.44. Samsung Electronics, Korea

6.45. Samsung Techwin, Korea

6.46. SolanPV, USA

6.47. Spirit Aerosystems, USA

6.48. Sungkyunkwan University Advanced Institute of Nano Technology (SAINT), Korea

6.48.1. Taiyo Yuden

6.49. Texas Instruments, USA

6.50. Thales, France

6.51. The Sixth Element

6.52. University of California Los Angeles, (UCLA), USA

6.53. University of Manchester, UK

6.54. University of Princeton, USA

6.55. University of Southern California (USC), USA

6.56. University of Surrey UK

6.57. University of Texas at Austin, USA

6.58. University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wx5zdv/supercapacitor

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
BLAINVILLE, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Maya Gold & Silver Inc. ("Maya" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: MYA) is pleased to provide a progress update on its 2017 spring diamond drill program at its Zgounder Silver Mine Morocco. The Corporation is also pleased to announce the results near surface of its first trench in undeveloped sector to the East of the mine has provided encouraging results.

Highlights:

-- TRZG_EXT-6-17R1 intersected copper oxides zones -- TRZG_EXT-6-17R1 intersected 481 g/t Ag over 8 meters (the trench is being expanded) -- Including 724 g/t Ag over 5 meters -- Higher grade silver mineralization near contact with the Rhyolite contact to the south

The five holes drilled in fan pattern toward south inclined at 45 degrees intersected native silver and sulfides mineralization zones below the trench TRZG-EXT-6-17T1, on an undeveloped sector to the East of the mine adjacent to previous hole ZG-EXT-06.

"This is a very exciting result for Maya at the beginning of this drilling campaign. This discovery clearly shows the ancient and previous owners have not only left unprocessed mineral deposits, but also significant silver mineralization to be discovered and developed. These initial results bring a new perspective and additional insights to the area to the East of our Zgounder Mine and indicate a validation of our belief of the existence a larger mineralization zone" said Noureddine Mokaddem, President of Maya.

GoldMinds Geoservices Inc ("Goldminds") representatives were on site last week to review procedures, sampling and verify access for the scan. Next week is scheduled to be the start of an update scan program of the main openings and extractions zones and drifts by GoldMinds with Geosight Cavity Monitoring System (CMS).

It is also important to note the development that level 1975, 25 meters below main level 2000 has been dewatered, access has been installed and this level is now accessible, which will permit surveying and should allow the calculation and reclassification of inferred mineralized blocks from previous statements into upper resource categories.

As press released on April 19, 2017, the Corporation began a 6,000 meter drill program and to date 5 HQ diameter holes drilled in fan pattern in opposite direction of the ZG-EXT-06 have been completed. Results are pending and will be disclosed ounce validated and interpreted.

One diamond drill rig is now being used and another one should arrive soon to perform underground diamond drill holes to test extensions at depth in addition to percussion holes.

The objectives of the current drilling program are fourfold:

-- Develop and upgrade inferred mineral resources into measured and indicated categories; -- Continue to prove the hypothesis that widespread mineralization occurs across the known deposit; -- Explore lateral extensions of the known deposit to the North and to the East; -- Explore possible extensions to the known deposit at depth.

Click here to view the picture presenting the drill set-up and trench location in the eastern sector as well as the contemplated drill plan in the sector.

Click here to view the Drill plan

Trenching Results - TRZG-EXT-6-17T1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From To Length (m) Ag (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 1 1 1054 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2 1 360 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 3 1 307 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 4 1 196 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 5 1 1704 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 6 1 43 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 7 1 54 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 8 1 135 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assay not capped, Ag by AA, thickness intersected probably represent 90% of true thickness

Quality Assurance / Quality Control (QA/QC)

These results are produced at the mine laboratory which includes of blanks and standards as normal control procedures. External independent samples will be taken as part of the new program for the mineral resource update of 2017. The results are considered to be reliable for disclosure as laboratory procedures and QA/QC was reviewed in previous assignment.

Qualified Persons

The technical content of this news release has been prepared and reviewed based on the information's received from the ZMSM by Claude Duplessis Eng. Geological Engineer from GoldMinds Geoservices Inc, independent Qualified Person under NI 43-101 standards.

ABOUT MAYA

Maya Gold & Silver Inc. is a Canadian publicly listed mining corporation focused on the exploration and development of gold and silver deposits in Morocco. Maya is initiating mining and milling operations at its Zgounder Mine owned by Zgounder Millennium Silver Mining ("ZMSM"), a Maya 85% owned joint venture with l'Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines ("ONHYM") of the Kingdom of Morocco (15%).

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.

Forward-looking statements

This news release contains statements about our future business and planned activities. These are "forward-looking" because we have used what we know and expect today to make a statement about the future. Forward-looking statements including but are not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work and analyses. Forward-looking statements usually include words such as may, intend, plan, expect, anticipate, and believe or other similar words. We believe the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable. However, actual events and results could be substantially different because of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business or events that happen after the date of this news release. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. As a general policy, we do not update forward-looking statements except as required by securities laws and regulations.

Contacts:

Maya Gold & Silver Inc.

R Martin Wong CPA CA

Interim Chief Executive Officer

450-435-0700

mwong@mayagoldsilver.com



Maya Gold & Silver Inc.

Noureddine Mokaddem

President

450-435-0700

nmokaddem@mayagoldsilver.com



Maya Gold & Silver Inc.

Nathalie Dion

Investor Relations

450-435-0700 ext. 202

ndion@mayagoldsilver.com




GUANGZHOU, China, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 14th and 15th, the world spotlight was on Beijing for the important occasion of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. At the same time, five letters were sent from five national floral emblems of five countries in Asia, Europe, America and Africa along the Maritime Silk Road, expressing good wishes to Guangzhou for setting sail on the 21st Maritime Silk Road through the floral whisper of these "envoys", and making the "World Flower City" the focus both at home and abroad.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512323/View_of_Guangzhou.jpg

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512324/Floral_Whisper_Silk_Road.jpg

The passage of Kapok's floral whisper Guangzhou, I Inspire You with Passion was published by the Clarin of Argentine while the one of jasmine's Guangzhou, I Adorn You with Elegance was published in Daily Times of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the article of lotus's floral whisper Guangzhou, I Embrace You with Vigor was delivered in Al-Ahram of Egypt and the one of rose's Guangzhou, I Embrace You with Love was delivered in The Daily Telegraph of England. In Singapore, the orchid's floral whisper Guangzhou, I Welcome You with My Friendship was reported in The Straits Times. The reply Guangzhou, Flower City in Bloom by Guangzhou to the Floral Whisper along the Silk Roadappeared in theWall Street Journal. The unique perspective, floral whisper, was chosen and related to the whole story of Floral Whisper along the Silk Road, The whole world gets to know about Guangzhou's splendid history as the "Birthplace of the Maritime Silk Road" and the "Millennium Commercial City," and its unique charm of "Openness, Beauty, Vigor, Inclusiveness and Friendliness" now as an international exchange center and an intersection ofinternational trade.

Guangzhou, a world famous port city, has been the main port of the Maritime Silk Road since the third century, acquiring its long standing reputation as a hub for trade and commerce. It was China's largest port during the Tang and Song dynasties, and China's only port open to foreign trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

During theHan Dynasty, a variety of flowers were brought into Guangzhou with the development of Maritime Silk Road trade. Flower trade in the city became famous nationwide in the Tang Dynasty. Guangzhou, the Millennium Business City, made affluent by the Pearl River and the sails in it, breeds its colorful culture closely related to flowers. What the Maritime Silk Road brings to Guangzhou is not only booming trade and cultural communication, but also a beautiful name: "Flower City".

In China, Guangzhou, whichwas regarded as the "window of China" as it opened up to the world, is one of the richest and earliest cities that adopted the reform and opening policy. According to Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee Publicity Bureau,through the Belt and Road Initiative, Guangzhou is opening up to the world and innovating at a faster speed, rising to an international hub of innovation, communication and transportation. Actively practicing the Silk Road spirit of "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit," Guangzhou is becoming an important example, and a bond connecting China and the countries and regions along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The Maritime Silk Road, unfailing for thousand years, is bringing the "Millennium Commercial City" continuous vitality, and instilling new impetus into the "World Flower City".

Image Attachments Links:

http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=289484

http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=289485

http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=289486

http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=289487
MCLEAN, VA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- The Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) today announced it will feature working production lines and demonstrations at this fall's PROCESS EXPO, the largest food processing event in North America showcasing the widest array of equipment and solutions. This unique, exciting exhibit, taking place September 19-22 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, will feature a deli line incorporating stuffing, slicing and packaging and a second sausage link/hang line which will include a bowl cutter, mixing, stuffing, linking and hanging. The suppliers that signed up to participate in these two lines include:

AmTrade Systems, Inc.

GEA North America

Handtmann, Inc.

JBT Corporation

Mimasa a PRIMEdge Inc. Company

RapidPak - Middleby Processing and Packaging

Nu-Meat Technology

Poly-clip System

Viskase Companies, Inc.

Weber, Inc.





FPSA's Meat Industry Suppliers Alliance (MISA) has been instrumental in bringing the working production line concept to fruition, and this is the first time a collaboration of multiple suppliers will put together a production line at a trade show. Demonstrations of the production lines will run three times a day and give the processors a chance to interact with the equipment manufacturers.

"We highly encourage meat processing industry professionals to make plans to join us at PROCESS EXPO where they will find new solutions and have access to leaders who will share important updates impacting the industry, both in the education courses and throughout the show floor," said Jarrod McCarroll, CEO, Weber, Inc. and Chairman of MISA for FPSA. "The exhibitors and education program will focus on the development of new technologies like virtual and augmented reality, which will be on display, as well as discussions on diagnostic monitoring systems focusing on machine uptime and total cost of ownership. In addition, these production lines are a great way for processors to see the full line in action, to avoid potential purchasing mistakes, and discuss issues, ideas and thoughts with the suppliers face to face that might make a production line more effective and efficient," McCarroll added.

Over 600 exhibiting companies, spanning 220,000 square feet, will offer equipment, machinery and demos for buyers in all of the vertical industry sectors, including: bakery, grains, seeds and snacks, beverage, dairy, meat, poultry and seafood, prepared foods, fruits and vegetables, confectionery and candy, co-packers and pet foods. Registration is now open. General sales of exhibit space are available on the website, where you can reserve a booth. For more information about exhibiting, contact Grace A. Cular Yee, Vice President, Sales, at 703-663-1220, or Alaina Herrera, Exhibit Sales Associate, at 703-663-1212.

The Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) is a global trade association serving suppliers in the food and beverage industries. The Association's programs and services support member's success by providing assistance in marketing their products and services, overall improvement in key business practices and many opportunities to network among industry colleagues. Programs and services to achieve these objectives include PROCESS EXPO (industry leading trade show), electronic media marketing, education, market intelligence, research, and advocation of critical industry issues such as food safety, sanitary design of equipment, and global trade.

FPSA members are organized in vertical industry councils which focus on specific needs and concerns that are unique to each industry sector. FPSA councils currently represent the Bakery, Beverage, Dairy, Prepared Foods, and Meat sectors.

For further information, Contact:

Amy Riemer, Media Relations Contact

978-475-4441 (office) or 978-502-4895 (cell)

amy@riemercommunications.com




A shoot-out between the armed forces and gasoline thieves; an attack on government headquarters with five dead; a mother and activist killed in Tamaulipas This is Mexicos litany of crime in May, but it could just as easily apply to April and probably June, as violence and impunity spread to the very heart of its society.

The funeral for four people killed in a recent clash between the military and civilians in the state of Puebla. JOSE CASTANARES (AFP)

More information La violencia en Mexico se desata este ano y debilita cada vez mas el sistema

For President Enrique Pena Nieto and his administration, 2017 is proving the most violent year yet. January and February saw an alarming uptick in violence while March recorded 2,020 murders. The last time Mexico saw more than 2,000 murders in a month was in 2011, during Felipe Calderons presidency, when the army was called on to join the fight against organized crime  a struggle that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and left more than 30,000 missing.

The violence has been flagged up in a report by the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Citing the 23,000 murders in 2016, the think-tanks Armed Conflict Survey 2017 named Mexico the second-most-violent country in the world, second only to Syria, whose death toll was 73,000, but beating war zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq which saw 17,000 and 16,000 murders respectively.

Some 39% of Mexicans believe drug cartels run the country, according to a survey by pollsters Parametria

The IISS notes an increase of 22.8% in crime over the last year in Mexico, despite Pena Nietos campaign promise to tackle the problem. It also observes that Mexico has made no progress with its Internal Security Law, legislation aimed at regulating the armed forces involvement in fighting organized crime.

The IISS report has raised hackles in Mexico with government officials refuting the claim that Mexico is the second-deadliest country in the world  a conclusion they say has no solid foundation. In a joint statement, the Foreign and Interior Ministries point out that it was irresponsible and incorrect of the IISS to use the term armed conflict to describe Mexicos violence. They go on to cite UN figures that put Brazil and Venezuelas homicide rates significantly above Mexicos.

We have a very serious problem with violence and a lack of accountability, says security analyst Alejandro Hope. But this report doesn't make sense.

The law-enforcement tactic of breaking up the drug cartels is partly responsible for the surge in violence as new bosses jockey for power. The Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel, for example, is flexing its muscles following the extradition to the US of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, boss of the Sinaloa cartel that is now struggling to maintain its position.

This report doesnt make sense Alejandro Hope, security analyst

One of El Chapos successors, Damaso Lopez, The Professor, was arrested last week in a wealthy neighborhood of Mexico City. Days later some of his colleagues would be murdered in the same area, suggesting the drug gangs were operating at the heart of the capital.

Not that this is news. What is worth a headline, though, is the general perception of the role of the cartels in Mexican society. In an article in the daily Milenio, Francisco Abundis, director of pollsters Parametria, writes that 39% of Mexicans believe the cartels run the country, against 28% who believe it is the president. And when it comes to things being done for the community, 36% believe the cartels do more than the government and 35% believe that organized crime generates jobs.

Undoubtedly, 2017 is being shaped by Mexicos relationship with the United States. President Trump is intent on drawing attention to the countrys lack of accountability and corruption, and is now focusing on its organized crime record. All three are linked and are steadily eating away at the fabric of Mexicos society.

Journalists strike against violence Luis Pablo Beauregard Journalists in Mexico are on strike on Tuesday to protest the violence suffered by media professionals in the country. On Monday, Javier Valdez, a high-profile reporter specializing in covering the drug trade was murdered in Sinaloa state  the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico this year. The murder of Valdez sparked a huge online reaction while media outlets including the online news portal Animal Politico said they would strike. The newspapers Reforma and La Jornada, where the work of Valdez was published, printed an open letter criticizing the state of free speech in Mexico. Meanwhile, President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the murder.

English version by Heather Galloway.
PITTSTOWN, NJ--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Sky Manor Airport Partners, LLC ("N40" or the "Airport"), announced today that it hosted its Young Eagles Rally on April 29, 2017. The event organized by the Sky Manor EAA ("Experimental Aircraft Association") Chapter 643 was attended by a group of approximately 25 children, ages 8-17 years old. The EAA643 Chapter group of pilots based at Sky Manor Airport, hosts Young Eagles flight events at least twice a year.

The National Young Eagles program, which began in 1992, has teamed with over 43,000 pilots whom own or rent their planes, providing aviation experiences with over a million children ages 8 to 17.

Many of the children who attended the Young Eagles Rally on April 29, 2017, were experiencing flying in a small airplane for the first time. In attendance was Young Eagles pilot, Brent Connelly of Hackettstown, NJ, who volunteered for the event with his red, white and blue plane, flew at the Rally with Andre, a 12 year old from Princeton, NJ, who came to the event with his 8 year-old brother Isaac and his father Darrell.

After flying with Andre, Brent Connelly commented on the experience, stating, "One of the most rewarding things is to see the faces of these children just light right up when we level off over some scattered clouds."

Darrell, Andre's father, said that his son, who had not previously expressed any special interest in aviation, was "overwhelmed" by the experience and couldn't wait to do it again. Darrell continued to say, that the entire experience, from the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the people and staff at Sky Manor and of the EAA organization provided both a comforting and reassuring feeling for a parent who was (naturally) a little "anxious" about the prospect of his boys flying in a small, propeller driven, airplane.

The Sky Manor Airport Partners, LLC, owners of the airport, encourage and support the EAA Chapter in its efforts to share the joy and freedom of aviation with the next generation of pilots. The aim of the Airport is to invest in and pass down a continued interest in aviation and all things related.

About the Young Eagles

Founded in 1992, the Young Eagles program has dedicated nearly 25 years to giving youth ages 8-17 their first free ride in an airplane. It's the only program of its kind, with the sole mission to introduce and inspire kids in the world of aviation. Today, the Young Eagles program has flown over 2 million kids with the help of EAA's network of volunteer pilots and ground volunteers. The Young Eagles reached their goal and celebrated the 2 millionth Young Eagle flown during AirVenture Oshkosh 2016. Join the Young Eagles in offering every child, tween, and teen the chance to experience the Spirit of Aviation'.

About the Experimental Aircraft Association

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is a growing and diverse organization of members with a wide range of aviation interests and backgrounds. Founded in 1953 by a group of individuals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who were interested in building their own airplanes, EAA expanded its mission of growing participation in aviation to include antiques, classics, warbirds, aerobatic aircraft, ultralights, helicopters, and contemporary manufactured aircraft.

Membership in EAA enables you to share the spirit of aviation with the most passionate community of recreational pilots, builders, and restorers. EAA is the only association that offers the fun and camaraderie of participating in the flying, building, and restoring of recreational aircraft with the most passionate community of aviation enthusiasts.

About Sky Manor Airport Partners, LLC

Founded in the 1940s, Sky Manor Airport is home to several aviation-related businesses, and about 110 aircraft. Sky Manor is one of only 43 pubic-use airports remaining in New Jersey. It has a 2,900-foot paved runway that is equipped for day and night operations. The airport is used for business, recreation, training, and public safety aviation activities.

For additional information, please visit the Sky Manor Airport website at http://www.skymanorairport.com.

Editorial Contact:

Sky Manor Airport Partners, LLC

Paul Ruo

Phone: (215) 801-6163

E-mail: paul.ruo@skymanorairport.com

Reference # SMAP2017-002
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Earth Alive Clean Technologies Inc. (CSE: EAC)(CSE: EAC.CN)(CNSX: EAC) ("Earth Alive" or the "Company"), a leading Canadian Clean-Tech company, developer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art microbial technology-based products for sustainable agriculture and mining, is pleased to announce that it has been approved as an official provider by The Societe Du Plan Nord in Quebec.

The Societe du Plan Nord is the key authority for the deployment of the various components of Plan Nord ("Plan"). The approval means both the Company's EA1 microbial dust control and Soil Activator biofertilizer products will be included on The Business Development Office of the Societe du Plan Nord's Business Web Platform, enabling supply of the Company's flagship products in the territory that the Plan covers.

"This is a significant development for our Company and opens many doors for our products in both the private and public sectors. This approval provides access to major mining players in Quebec and a pool of business opportunities," said Michael Warren, Interim CEO of Earth Alive.

Luis Restrepo, Director of Operations of Earth Alive, stated, "It's a great opportunity for Earth Alive to be part of development of Plan Nord, both our microbial technologies EA1 dust control solution and Soil Activator are now approved and available to the community of companies of Plan Nord. With our combined efforts and technologies, we will also be able to assist First Nations concerns with respect to dust control, soil erosion and revegetation programs." Earth Alive is making a difference providing solutions to help reach targets for the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Launched by the government of Quebec in May 2011, Plan Nord is a vast sustainable project to develop northern Quebec's economic potential. The territory covered by the Plan includes all of Quebec north of the 49th parallel and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Plan Nord toward 2034, 2015-2020 Action Plan includes priority actions in mining, forest, energy, wildlife, tourism and bio-food sector and intends to foster $80 billion in energy, mining, and forestry investments and create jobs or consolidate 20,000 jobs a year for the 25 year duration.

About Earth Alive Clean Technologies:

Earth Alive aims to be a key player in world markets of environmentally sustainable industrial solutions. The company works with the latest innovations in microbial technology to formulate and patent innovative products that can tackle the most difficult industrial challenges, once only reserved to environmentally harmful chemicals and additives. The Company is focused on environmental sustainability in the agriculture industry, and 2) dust control for the mining industry.

For additional company information, please visit: www.earthalivect.com

About Plan Nord:

The aim of the Plan Nord is to promote the potential for mining, energy, tourism, and social and cultural development in Quebec north of the 49th degree of latitude. It will create jobs and wealth for northern communities and for Quebec as a whole, while ensuring respect for the northern population and the environment. By harmonizing the economic, social and environmental aspects of the Plan Nord, the Quebec government intends to make it a responsible, sustainable and unifying project for Quebec society.

For additional information, please visit: www.plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward Looking Information

Except for statements of historical fact, this news release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" occur. Although Earth Alive believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

For media information and interview requests,

Mr. David Gilmour

(e) dgilmour@earthalivect.com

(p) 514-814-2899



For investor relations,

Mr. Frederick Chabot

(e) frederick@contactfinancial.com

(p) 438-863-7071




City Merchants High Yield Trust Ltd

HEADLINE: Retirement of Chairman and Appointment of New Director

As set out in his Chairman's statement in the Annual Financial Report, after serving as Chairman of City Merchants High Yield Trust Ltd ('the Company') and its predecessor for over a decade, Clive Nicholson expressed his intention to retire from the Board once his successor had been appointed.

The Board of the Company is pleased to announce its intention to appoint Mr Tim Scholefield as a non-executive director of the Company at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting on 15 June 2017 or as soon thereafter as the necessary regulatory clearance has been received from the Jersey Financial Services Commission. It is intended that Mr Scholefield become Chairman upon his appointment as a director, and Mr Nicholson's retirement will take effect on the same date.

A further announcement will be made to confirm these Board changes.

Mr Scholefield was Head of Equities at Baring Asset Management until 2014. He has since developed a small portfolio of non-executive directorships including F&C Capital and Income Trust plc, Fidelity Asian Values Plc and Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Plc and is an external member of the General Medical Council's Investment Committee.

Mr Scholefield does not currently hold any of the Company's ordinary shares.

There is no information to disclose in respect of paragraphs 9.6.13(2) to 9.6.13(6) of the Financial Conduct Authority's Listing Rules.

R&H Fund Services (Jersey) Limited

16 May 2017


ECOVISTA PLC



UNAUDITED INTERIM RESULTS FOR THE SIX MONTHS TO 28(TH) FEBRUARY 2017



CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT



I have great pleasure in making my first Chairman's statement since the departure of our former chairman Luca Tenuta. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his service to the Company.



The unaudited financial results for the period to 28(th) February 2017 show a loss of GBP 87,453 (30 June 2016: 206,791).



CASH FLOW AND FUNDING



Cash in hand at 28(th) February 2017 of 50,813, which together with the capital raised post this financial period, under analysis adequately covers routine running expenses



Since the year end we have raised GBP 470,000 in by way of two one year convertible loan notes.



OUTLOOK



In December 2016, the company received revised planning permission for the property at 100 Rye Street for a Five Bedroom 4,500 sq. ft. property. The demolition has been completed and building works are commencing in early June.



The company is also looking at a number of other sites and I hope to report on their progress shortly.



The company is also looking to secure further funding in order to exercise our option on Cignella Srl at current values we believe there is significant profit potential in owning this complex.



The directors are also actively seeking further property investments - commercial and residential in the UK to enhance shareholder value. We thus look to the future with confidence.



Louise Stokely Chairman



31 May 2017



ECOVISTA PLC



CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME



FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 28 FEBRUARY 2017



Interim Accounts Interim Accounts



Six Month Period Financial Six Month Period Statements



Ended Fourteen Months Ended Ended



28th February 31st August 30th June



2017 2016 2016



GBP GBP GBP



Revenue 4,950 5,142 5,142



Cost of sales - - -



------------------ ------------------ ------------------ Gross Profit 4,950 5,142 5,142



Administrative (92,403) (221,678) (211,937) expenses



Bank Interest 4 received ------------------ ------------------ ------------------



Loss before tax (87,453) (216,536) (211,933)



Taxation - - -



------------------ ------------------ ------------------ Loss for the (87,453) (216,536) (206,791) period



3,590,315,700 3,590,315,700 3,590,315,700



(0.002p) (0.006p) (0.006p)



ECOVISTA PLC



CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION



FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 28 FEBRUARY 2017



Interim Accounts Financial Interim Statements Accounts



Six Months Ended Fourteen Months Six Months Ended Ended



28th February 31st August 30th June



2017 2016 2016



GBP GBP GBP



Fixed Assets



Freehold Property 1,165,000 1,165,000 1,165,000



Fixed Asset 760,794 760,794 661,961 Investments



Goodwill on 1,745 1,745 2,416 Consolidation ------------------------------------- ---------------- 1,927,539 1,927,539 1,829,377



Current Assets



Debtors 59,999 72,124 192,076



Prepayments 1,850 - 5,750



Bank and cash 50,813 31,822 31,822 ------------------------------------- ---------------- 112,662 103,946 229,648



Current Liabilities



Amounts falling due (115,208) (119,104) (119,104) within 1 year



------------------------------------- ---------------- Net current assets (2,546) (15,158) 110,544



Convertible loan (184,645) (184,645) (178,000)



Other Loan (100,066) - -



------------------------------------- ---------------- Net assets 1,640,282 1,727,736 1,761,921



Equity



Issued share capital 163,190 163,190 163,190



Share premium 2,343,045 2,343,045 2,343,045



Other reserve 22,000 22,000 22,000



Profit and loss (887,952) (800,499) (766,314) ------------------------------------- ---------------- 1,640,282 1,727,736 1,761,921



The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for this announcement.



FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:



Ecovista PLC Louise Stokely 100 Rye Street Bishops Stortford CM23 2HH Telephone 01279 654151



NEX EXCHANGE CORPORATE ADVISER: Alexander David Securities Limited David Scott -Corporate Finance James Dewhurst - Institutional Sales Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7448 9820 http://www.ad-securities.com 49 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4N 4SAAlexander David



This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.



Source: Ecovista Plc via GlobeNewswire



B0W5NJR16



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Event Managers Now Equipped to Manage Entire Event Lifecycle, with Award-Winning Venue Sourcing Solution

etouches, a leading global provider of cloud event management software, today announced its Venue Sourcing offering, an innovative and robust solution now fully integrated into the etouches event management platform. With a strengthened venue sourcing offering, the platform now provides the industry's most complete, end-to-end solution that supports the entire event lifecycle.

Announced today at IMEX America, Venue Sourcing integrates sourcing and booking with meeting registration and approval, along with an enterprise calendar. The result is a first-of-a-kind solution that enables data incorporation throughout the entire event lifecycle, including unprecedented visibility to drive value and ROI through strategic venue sourcing.

"Travel and meeting professionals must validate their success to senior management and stakeholders, making quick access to meetings data vital. They can drive millions and even tens of millions of dollars in savings through strategic venue sourcing," said Mike Tenholder, vice president, Channel and Partner Management, etouches. "Using Venue Sourcing, they don't have to spend days gathering data or duplicating entry of the same information on multiple spreadsheets. All the data they need is instantly available all in one place. We make strategic sourcing simple, so our customers can focus on creating incredible meetings and events, while we handle the data and analytics to maximize success."

Empowered by etouches' 2016 acquisition of venue sourcing and booking platform Zentila, the Venue Sourcing solution combines the features and functionality of Zentila's award-winning platform with etouches' best-in-class event management software (EMS) solution. Venue Sourcing provides access to 225,000 venues worldwide and is unique in that it automates the heavy lifting needed to source, negotiate, and book a meeting. As a result, it captures 10 times more data to increase event performance while reducing sourcing and booking time by 70 percent, enabling organizations to handle more meetings with the same size staff. Travel and meeting professionals gain instant access to data-driven insights in real time. With greater visibility to manage meeting spend, they can enhance the attendee experience while also driving significant gains in productivity, profitability, and compliance with travel protocols.

This latest integration enhances etouches' industry-leading ability as a global provider to provide an end-to-end solution for clients with tools to enhance every aspect of an event, including venue sourcing, event management, real-time attendee engagement, and ROI. Most recently, etouches finalized the integration of Loopd technology to create a first-of-its-kind solution to manage every aspect of the event and meeting lifecycle-including unprecedented visibility into real-time performance of live events. Combining an exclusive wearable smart badge with bi-directional CRM, data analytics, and mobile technology, Loopd transforms the attendee experience and provides data-driven insights that help meeting planners realize ROI and monetize their events.

"In recent years, etouches has struck a balance between strategic technology acquisitions and organic product development to build out our event management solution, with a mission of making events and meetings better for all parties-participants, planners, and sponsors," said etouches Chief Technology Officer Shane Edmonds. "With Venue Sourcing integrated into our comprehensive end-to-end platform, etouches now offers an unrivaled solution that lets our customers measure and manage the entire event lifecycle."

Earlier this year, etouches announced the company was acquired by HGGC, a leading middle market private equity firm. HGGC's investment will help etouches expand its business and further invest in its market-leading cloud platform. More than 1,300 customers use etouches' integrated event management and sourcing platform to organize and execute world-class events around the world. Over the past 12 months, etouches has executed 46,000 events totaling 5.8 million registrations.

etouches will demonstrate its full event lifecycle solution, including Venue Sourcing and Loopd, at booth G859 at IMEX America, taking place October 10-12, 2017. For more information, visit https://portal.imexamerica.com/vex/exweb.php?back=vexsearch.php$$exhibname=etouches$standnum=$action=specific&uid=301380.

About etouches

etouches is a global leader in cloud based analytics and data driven end-to-end event management and venue sourcing solutions. The award winning open source platform delivers innovative technology solutions to streamline the event process, providing real-time data and analytics on event performance, customer engagement, and increasing measurable event ROI. Founded in 2008, etouches has assisted over 25,000 event professionals in planning, executing, and measuring their events. With a focus on event sourcing, registration, marketing, logistics, engagement, mobile, and data analytics, the company serves more than 1,300 customers including leading corporations, associations, agencies, and educational institutions globally. Headquartered in the United States, the company also has offices in the UK, Belgium, Australia, Singapore, and UAE. etouches is a portfolio company of private equity firm HGGC. etouches has experienced 50 percent CAGR over the past 4 years. Learn more at etouches.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171010006069/en/

Contacts:

Text100

Crystal Monahan, +1-617-399-4921

crystal.monahan@text100.com
CHENGDU, China, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 5th edition of the Chengdu International Urban Modern Agricultural Expo (alternatively known as AGRO Chengdu) is set to take place in Chengdu, China fromJune 30 to July 3, 2017. A completeevent foragriculturalproducts and technologyheld in western China, the Expoaims to stage a professional exchange platform for both domestic and foreign agricultural enterprises to establish their brands, expand market reach and promote cross-border trade cooperation.

Chengdu is an important city in China's Belt and Road initiative and also one that the Chinese Governmenthas heavily invested in. The operation of China-Europe block train railway has become a great artery for Chengdu's economic development and contributes significantly to a higher levelof international cooperation, with its impact extending to theagricultural sector.

Every year, agricultural institutions, business associations, and enterprise representatives from more than 10 countries and regions convene at AGRO Chengdu to trade and exchange. Mr. Amir Laty, The Consul General of Israel in Chengdu, after attending the 4th AGRO Chengdu,providedvery positive feedback on the show and considered Chengdu as having agreat potential for cooperation with manycountrieswith Israel being one of them.

This year, the 5thAGRO Chengdu will cover an exhibition floor of 55,000m2 with 1,300 exhibitors demonstrating agricultural products and technology coveringthe entire agricultural supply chain -- from modern agricultural technologies, special agricultural products, materials used for agriculture, agricultural machineries, agricultural products cold chain logistics and packaging, to modern agricultural comprehensive service and others. It is worth mentioning that the Expo has also added a cooperation pavilion dedicated tothe "Belt and Road" initiative, which focuses on displaying agricultural products, technological equipment and cooperation projectsbrought byvarious countries and cities participating in the grand Initiative.

Enterprises from 11 countries including Russia, Israel, France, Malaysia, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and Nepal have confirmed that they will attend the exhibition, andparticipation of more countriescan be expected. The 5thAGRO Chengdu would like to welcome all industrial organizations, business associations and corporations to attend the exhibition to jointlyexploredevelopmentprospectin western China. For interested parties, please contact Miss Zhao at Chengdu New East Exhibition Co.,Ltd. (organizer of the Expo), at+86-028 86280019/ +86-18215577029 or email 261032945@qq.com.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512309/AGRO_CHENGDU_2016.jpg
Dow Jones received a payment from EQS/DGAP to publish this press release.

MAGNIT PJSC (MGNT) Magnit Tops the List of Russia's Largest Employers by Forbes 10-Oct-2017 / 15:43 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Regulatory Announcement, transmitted by EQS Group. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Press Release Krasnodar October 10, 2017 Magnit Tops the List of Russia's Largest Employers by Forbes Krasnodar, Russia (October 10, 2017): Magnit, one of Russia's leading retailers (MOEX and LSE: MGNT), tops the list of the largest Russia's employers. Please be informed that "Magnit" retail chain topped the list of the largest Russia's employers among the companies included in the Annual Ranking of the 200 Biggest Russia's Nongovernmental Companies by Forbes business magazine. Please follow the link below to view the full version of the list: http://www.forbes.ru/karera-i-svoy-biznes/351113-10-krupneyshih-rabotodateley- rossii-sredi-chastnyh-kompaniy-2017 [1] For further information, please contact: Timothy Post Head of Investor Relations Email: post@magnit.ru Office: +7-861-277-4554 x 17600 Dina Svishcheva Deputy Director, Investor Relations Email: Chistyak@magnit.ru Office: +7-861-277-4554 x 15101 Media Inquiries Media Relations Department press@magnit.ru Company description: Public Joint Stock Company "Magnit" is one of Russia's leading retailers. Founded in 1994, the company is headquartered in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar. As of June 30, 2017, Magnit operated 35 distribution centers and 14,844 stores (11,114 convenience, 430 hypermarkets and 3,300 drogerie stores) in 2,567 cities and towns throughout 7 federal regions of the Russian Federation. In accordance with the reviewed IFRS consolidated financial statements for 1H 2017, Magnit had revenues of RUB 555 billion and an EBITDA of RUB 49 billion. Magnit's local shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX: MGNT) and its GDRs on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: MGNT) and it has a credit rating from Standard & Poor's of BB+. Measured by market capitalization, Magnit is one of the largest retailers in Europe. ISIN: US55953Q2021 Category Code: MSCU TIDM: MGNT LEI Code: 2534009KKPTVL99W2Y12 OAM Categories: 3.1. Additional regulated information required to be disclosed under the laws of a Member State Sequence No.: 4721 End of Announcement EQS News Service 617521 10-Oct-2017 1: http://public-cockpit.eqs.com/cgi-bin/fncls.ssp?fn=redirect&url=ef9241d02b4441a81118caf572faddbf&application_id=617521&site_id=vwd&application_name=news

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 10, 2017 09:43 ET (13:43 GMT)
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ABN) (OTCBB: ABNAF) (FRANKFURT: E2L2) ("Aben" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an updated timeline and summary of the Company's exploration plans for its 100% held 23,000 hectare Forrest Kerr Gold Project, located in BC's Golden Triangle, for the 2017 field season.

B.C.'s Golden Triangle map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Golden_Triangle_map.jpg

The Aben exploration team will arrive to site in the third week of June to begin field work that will include drill target generation, ground truth exploration and surface sampling. Aben has applied for a Multi-Year Area Based permit from the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines, wherein three main zones have been defined as a focus for exploration activities and subsequent drill testing in 2017.

Historic drilling on the Forrest Kerr Project has encountered several high grade precious metal and base metal intercepts including:

-- North: Carcass Creek hole RG91-21 returned 9.87 g/t Gold over 29 meters including 91.69 g/t Gold over 1.95 meters;

Forrest Kerr Carcass Zone showing historical drill holes and sampling:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Carcass_Creek.jpg

-- Central: Boundary Zone hole RG91-16 returned 33.4 g/t Gold over 11 meters including 326 g/t Gold over 0.45 meters;

Forrest Kerr Boundary Zone showing historical drill holes and sampling:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Boundary_Zone.jpg

-- South: Forrest Creek hole A90-7 returned 2.28 g/t Gold, 0.3% Copper and 6.3 g/t Silver over 28 meters, while hole A90-13 encountered 2.5 g/t Gold, 0.3% Copper and 6.1 g/t Silver over 35 meters. These two holes were collared 50 meters apart and were interpreted to test the same shear zone.

Aben has not been able to independently verify the methodology and results from historical work programs within the property boundaries. However, management believes that the historical work programs have been conducted in a professional manner and the quality of data and information produced from them are relevant.

The areas of interest contain several precious and base metal occurrences within Hazelton Group rocks, which host several mineral deposits throughout the region. Widespread quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration zones indicate that a robust hydrothermal system was active and is likely related to early Jurassic intrusive bodies found in close proximity to the altered zones. The property has excellent potential to host both volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization similar to the historic Eskay Creek mine and transitional epithermal vein mineralization analogous to Pretivm Resources Brucejack gold mine. Exploration in 2017 will be guided with both of these depositional models in mind as Aben seeks to extend historically defined mineralization and probe for a new discovery.

The Forrest Kerr Gold Property has significant potential to host precious metal mineralization in the heart of the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. The Property is host to numerous mineralized occurrences that have been defined through systematic fieldwork conducted from the late 1980's to the mid 2000's. Only limited fieldwork has been completed on the Property in the last decade, during which the area has seen major infrastructure improvements including road access and hydro-electric facilities. In addition, rapid melting rates of glaciers on the property have provided new exposures in areas that were inaccessible during previous exploration campaigns.

The Golden Triangle is host to significant mineral deposits including Galore Creek, Copper Canyon, Schaft Creek, Brucejack, Snowfield, KSM, Snip, Granduc, and Red-Chris amongst others.

Aben's Forrest Kerr land package is located along the Forrest Kerr Fault, immediately north of the Iskut River and extends 6 kilometers north of More Creek. The project is road accessible to its northern portion via the Galore Creek road and to its southern end via the Coast Mountain Hydro road. The Forrest Kerr Hydroelectric Facility, which supplies 195 MW of energy to the BC power grid via the 287 kV Northwest transmission line, is located in the southern portion of the property. The claims span 40 kilometers in a north-south direction over Hazelton and Stuhini Group rocks, a complex assemblage of volcanic and sedimentary sequences which host numerous significant gold deposits in B.C.'s Golden Triangle area.

Forrest Kerr project, B.C., Golden Triangle claims map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Project_map_small.jpg

Cornell McDowell, P.Geo., V.P. of Exploration of Aben Resources, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release and is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Aben Resources:

Aben Resources is a Canadian gold exploration company developing projects in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, the Yukon and Saskatchewan.

For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: ABN), visit our Company's web site at www.abenresources.com.

Aben Resources has approx. 31.5 million shares issued and outstanding.

ABEN RESOURCES LTD.

JAMES G. PETTIT, President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.

Contacts:

Aben Resources Ltd.

James G. Pettit

President & CEO

604-687-3376 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181

604-687-3119 (FAX)



Aben Resources Ltd.

Don Myers

Corporate Communications

604-687-3376 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181

604-687-3119 (FAX)

info@abenresources.com

www.abenresources.com




Shell International Finance B.V. and Royal Dutch Shell plc

16 May 2017

Publication of Prospectus Supplement

The following documents (the "Documents") are available for viewing:

Prospectus Supplement dated 9 May 2017

Royal Dutch Shell plc unaudited consolidated interim financial statements as at and for the three month period ended 31 March 2017

Shell International Finance B.V. Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2016

The Documents must be read in conjunction with the Information Memorandum dated 9 August 2016, as supplemented by the first supplement dated 24 August 2016, the second supplement dated 7 November 2016, the third supplement dated 13 February 2017 and the fourth supplement dated 11 April 2017, relating to the Programme. The Information Memorandum constitutes a base prospectus for the purposes of Article 5.4 of Directive 2003/71/EC as amended. Full information on Shell International Finance B.V. and Royal Dutch Shell plc is only available on the basis of the Information Memorandum.

The Documents are available for viewing at the 'Financial Publications' section of Shell's website. To view the Documents, please paste the following URLs into the address bar of your browser.

Prospectus Supplement dated 9 May 2017

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/euro-medium-term-note-programme.html

Royal Dutch Shell plc unaudited consolidated interim financial statements as at and for the three month period ended 31 March 2017

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/quarterly-results/q1-2017.html

Shell International Finance B.V. Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2016

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/debt-information/shell-international-finance-bv-reports.html

Other content available on Shell's website and the content of any other website accessible from hyperlinks on Shell's website is not incorporated into, and does not forms part of, this announcement.

The Documents have also been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm.

Enquiries:

Shell Media Relations

International, UK, European Press: +44 (0)207 934 5550

Shell Investor Relations

Europe: + 31 (0)70 377 3996

DISCLAIMER - INTENDED ADDRESSEES

Please note that the information contained in the Information Memorandum may be addressed to and/or targeted at persons who are residents of particular countries (specified in the Information Memorandum) only and is not intended for use and should not be relied upon by any person outside these countries and/or to whom the offer contained in the Information Memorandum is not addressed. Prior to relying on the information contained in the Information Memorandum, you must ascertain from the Information Memorandum whether or not you are part of the intended addressees of the information contained therein.

This publication does not constitute an offering of the securities described in the Information Memorandum for sale in the United States. This is not for distribution in the United States. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or under any relevant securities laws of any state of the United States and are subject to U.S. tax law requirements. Subject to certain exceptions, the securities may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons, as such terms are defined in Regulation S under the Securities Act. There will be no public offering of the securities in the United States.

Your right to access this service is conditional upon complying with the above requirement.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2017 / A delegation, representing the booming ceramic industry of Gujarat, and organizers of Asia's largest exhibition to meet with the Ceramic tiles, sanitary ware, and bath-fittings industry in Canada Toronto by participating at Stonex Canada, and also meeting with TTMAC and VAUGHAN Chambers to get participation and involvement from Canadians at the Vibrant Ceramics Expo and Summit 2017, which is being held from 14th November 2017 to 19th November 2017 at Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad Gujarat, India. The event is spread across 50,000 square meter area with more than 250 exhibitors, 400+ brands and thousands of sizes and designs under one roof. This will be a great deal for the buyers, is cheaper than China, and has more stylish options than Italy (An initiative of Prime Minister of India - Mr. Narendra Modi). This event is being organized in association with the Morbi Ceramics Associations.

Gujarat happens to be world's 2nd largest tile manufacturing zone. The Indian ceramic Tile Industry is estimated to be of INR 24,000 crores, of which 40% has been organized and 60% has been unorganized. The major chunk of the country's entire ceramic production takes place in the Indian federal state of Gujarat, situated in country's northwestern part. It is leading the tile production industry and is proceeding with giant strides. The cumulative investment for ceramic industry in Gujarat, alone, is 8000 crores.

CEO of Vibrant Ceramics Expo and Summit 2017, Mr. Sandip Patel, said, "Technology transfer, investment and joint ventures, B2B as well as B2G networking opportunities will be key highlights at the conference, while the exhibition would showcase latest technology, ceramic tiles, sanitary-ware and bath-fittings. Vibrant Ceramics is one-of-a-kind initiative that aims towards unifying and synergizing the key players in the ceramics industry. We shall bring forward all sorts and types of business resources on a common destination to enable flawless interaction, channeling and networking. We hope to get great participation from Canada, with positive associations already in our stride from Canada, we want to further strengthen our ties with Canada in this aspect too."

"As the customers, manufacturers, researchers, buyers, technologists and innovators come together on the common platform to discuss, share, debate and celebrate the best of the ceramics industry; Vibrant Ceramics 2017 shall be an international event that will successfully register its name in the key commercial milestones of the year."

Vibrant Ceramics was initiated and held by pursuing the idea of our honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, to see India proliferate in the corporate and commercial realms across the world by providing the optimal combination of skilled human resources and state-of-the-art technology. Vibrant Ceramics 2017, the second edition, shall be an ideal portal to meet, interact, and discuss business possibilities for industrialists, dealers, customers, experts, and all those who matter in the ceramics industry. Vibrant Ceramic offers foreign delegate added advantage of 3 night accommodation, all meals, local transportation and most exciting factory/plant visit by helicopter.

The roadshows for Vibrant Ceramic 2017 will be conducted in nearly 65 countries across the globe, which the organizers would be visiting personally along with the 100 smart cities of India.

For more information, please feel free to contact:

Janki Trivedi

janki@moleculecommunications.com

+917045596726

Office Contact:

+917045831440, +919223607771 (India)

SOURCE: Money Canada Limited
Spains Finance Ministry is set to begin proceedings to retrieve just under 1 billion in tax breaks given to around 100 leading Spanish companies that have acquired or bought stakes in overseas firms since 2002 , ministry sources have told EL PAIS.

Spanish Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro. LUIS SEVILLANO ARRIBAS (EL PAIS)

The decision, outlined in the Finance Ministrys 2017-2020 Stability Plan, is based on a European Court of Justice ruling from December backing the European Commissions view that the tax breaks given to Spanish companies buying more than a 5% stake in foreign businesses were illegal under European Union (EU) competition rules.

The estimated 1 billion the government expects to recover is well short of the 8 billion Brussels had cited.

The estimated 1 billion the government expects to recover is well short of the 8 billion Brussels had cited

The tax breaks, known as the Spanish Goodwill III, were established under the government of former Popular Party Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to encourage Spanish firms to expand internationally. Among the beneficiaries were telecommunications giant Telefonica when it bought the UKs O 2 ; Santander bank, which acquired British mortgage lender Abbey; electricity utility Iberdrola, now the owner of Scottish Power; and Ferrovial, with its buyout of airports operator BAA. Other companies that benefited were construction player Sacyr, toll-road firm Abertis, technology outfit Cintra, and highway eateries chain Autogrill.

In December 2016, the European Commission explained its view in the following statement: In 2002, Spain introduced a special tax scheme, derogating from the normal tax regime, granting corporate tax deductions to companies resident in Spain that would buy shares and bonds of foreign companies. In particular, the measure allowed these companies to deduct from their corporate tax base the so-called financial goodwill, i.e. the difference between the costs of acquisition of the shareholding of the target company and the market value of the underlying assets of that company. The deduction was allowed for a period of up to 20 years following the acquisition. In contrast Spanish companies making domestic acquisitions were subject to the normal tax rules and could not benefit from the measure.

Telefonica benefited from the tax breaks. R.V. (EFE)

The Spanish Finance Ministrys response, outlined in its 2017-2020 Stability Plan, which was sent to the European Commission last month, reads: Spain will set about recovering the subsidies through a new procedure approved under the General Tax Law in 2015. It adds: The entities that will be the object of action have been identified.

The Finance Ministry also said that firms affected by the move would be required to reduce their tax loss carry forward to 5 billion.

English version by Nick Lyne.
16 May 2017

B.S.D. CROWN LTD. (LSE:BSD)

(the "Company")

CORRECTION OF RESULTS OF EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

HELD ON 5 MAY 2017

(the "Meeting")

Ramat Gan, Israel

The Company refers to its announcement dated 5 May 2017 with respect to the results of the Meeting.

There has been a mistake of the tallying of the votes with respect to Resolutions No. 2-5 on the agenda of the Meeting.

The full amended results are shown below:

Results of the Meeting

The Company announces the summary of the votes cast at the Meeting :

No Resolution Votes

For % Votes

Against % Votes Withheld 1 To amend the Company's articles of association 39,305,538 43.63 50,787,948 56.37 1,080,572 6 To appoint PWC Israel as auditor of the Company 39,536,998 43.78 50,780,788 56.22 856,272 7 Re-election of Gregory Gurtovoy as a director 39,101,145 42.89 52,070,780 57.11 2,133 8 Re-election of Eli Arad as a director 39,100,954 42.89 52,069,619 57.11 3,485 9 Re-election of Nir Netzer as a director 39,100,954 42.89 52,069,619 57.11 3,485 10 Re-election of Arik Safran as a director 39,100,954 42.89 52,069,619 57.11 3,485 11 Election of Shmuel Messenberg as a director 43,314,435 52.54 39,125,632 47.46 4,303 12 Election of Keren Marcus as a director 43,312,487 52.54 39,127,580 47.46 4,303 13 Election of Avi Zigelman as a director 43,314,735 52.54 39,125,332 47.46 4,303 14 Election of Joseph Williger as a director 43,310,930 52.54 39,129,137 47.46 4,303

Accordingly, Resolutions 1 and 6-10 have not been passed and Resolutions 11 to 14 have been passed.

Note: With respect to these resolutions, there have been no corrections in the tallying of votes.

In relation to Resolutions 2 through 5, the votes cast at the Meeting were as follows:

No Resolution Votes Received Votes Disqualified Balance For Against 2 Election of Gal Chet as an external director 90,733,262 9,428,404 81,304,858 of which: total votes 39,070,466 42,234,392 total votes with no personal interest 615,309 12,280,171 3 Election of Yair Shilhav as an external director 90,733,262 9,428,225 81,305,037 of which: total votes 39,068,945 42,236,092 total votes with no personal interest 614,109 12,281,371 4 Election of Shlomo Wertheim as an external director 91,811,039 10,412,501 81,398,538 of which: total votes 42,912,609 38,485,929 total votes with no personal interest 12,755,423 233,917 5 To amend the Company's Remuneration Policy 90,730,157 9,427,974 81,302,183 of which: total votes 39,065,991 42,236,192 total votes with no personal interest 611,334 12,281,471

Accordingly, Resolution No.4 passed and Resolutions No. 2, 3 and 5 did not pass, since according to Israeli law, with respect to Resolutions No. 2-5, it is required both that (i) a majority of the total votes be voted in favour and (ii) a majority of the total votes with no personal interest be voted in favour. For additional explanations, please see below commentary.

Explanation of the Correction of Voting Results of the Meeting

Pursuant to Section 239(b) of the Israeli Companies Law, the tallying of votes with respect to the appointment of External Directors shall be done in two phases: An initial tallying of the "majority vote at the General Meeting" (the "Total Vote Counting"); and From the total votes participating, the votes of shareholders who are either classified as controlling shareholders of the Company or as having a personal interest with respect to a controlling member will be deducted (the "Total Votes With No Personal Interest"). Pursuant to Section 276 of the Companies Law (referred to in section 239(b)), a shareholder participating in a vote shall indicate on such shareholder's voting card whether or not such shareholder has a personal interest in the specific subject matter. If the shareholder does not indicate such personal interest, then the votes of such shareholder shall not be counted for purposes of the Total Vote Counting. The Company has received evidence that voting cards representing an aggregate of 29,949,817 shares, which were disqualified from voting by the Company with respect to Resolutions No. 2-5 because, allegedly, the holders of such shares did not inform the Company nor indicate on their voting cards whether or not they have a personal interest, have in fact been marked with an indication that the holders thereof do not have a personal interest in these resolutions. The Company has received copies of the signed voting cards. The Company has also received from the banks that had processed the votes confirmation that the votes with respect to these resolutions have indeed been marked in real-time with respect to the personal interest requirements. In addition, the Company has received confirmation from Broadridge Financial Solutions Ltd. that it had indeed transferred to the Company in real-time voting with an indication of the holders thereof that they do not have a personal interest (such confirmation relates to votes which the Company has incorrectly disqualified). Consequently, the Company mistakenly disqualified 29,949,817 of the shares for purposes of the Total Vote Counting. In fact, holders of only 10,412,501 shares did not inform the Company whether or not they have a personal interest, and therefore only such shares should have been disqualified for purposes of the Total Vote Counting for Resolution No. 4. The tallying of votes in compliance with applicable law shows that there was a mistake in the tallying of the votes for Resolutions No.2-5 and that in fact, the voting on Resolution No. 4 passed in the Total Vote Counting (and not only in the Total Votes With No Personal Interest), since the total number of votes whose holders had informed the Company whether or not they have a personal interest and voted in favour of Resolution No. 4 was 42,912,609 (and not 12,962,792, as originally reported by the Company), and the total number of votes whose holders voted against Resolution No. 4 and informed the Company whether or not they have a personal interest was 38,485,929. Consequently, the holders of a majority of votes voted in favour of Resolution No.4. Therefore, the Company hereby announces that Resolution No. 4 had indeed passed, and that Mr. Wertheim had been appointed to serve as an External Director, effective as of 5 May 2017 . Furthermore, in the circular of the Meeting, the previous board members recommended to resolve to approve Resolution No.4:

(Page 8, Revised Notice of Extraordinary General Meeting)

The Company reserves its right with respect to any claims or actions it may have regarding the tallying of votes with respect to the aforementioned resolutions.

Enquiries:

Joseph Williger, Active Chairman of the board: Yossi@ydekel.co.il
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Theratechnologies Inc. (TSX: TH) today held its annual meeting of shareholders.

As part of the meeting, shareholders proceeded to elect the Company's Board of Directors for a one-year term and elected KPMG LLP, as auditors for the current fiscal year. In addition, shareholders adopted a resolution modifying the share option plan of the Company entitling the Board of Directors to make certain amendments to the plan without seeking shareholder approval.

All candidates proposed for the position of directors were elected in the following proportion:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # IN FAVOUR % IN FAVOUR ABSENTION % ABSTENTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gerald A. Lacoste 26,635,296 99.27 195,357 0.73 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dale MacCandlish-Weil 26,694,076 99.49 136,577 0.51 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Pommier 26,501,133 98.77 329,520 1.23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dawn Svoronos 26,669,913 99.40 160,740 0.60 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jean-Denis Talon 26,497,133 98.76 333,520 1.24 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luc Tanguay 26,672,738 99.41 157,915 0.59 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to reviewing highlights from last year, both Mrs. Svoronos and Mr. Luc Tanguay, respectively Chair of the Board and President and CEO of Theratechnologies, shared their vision as to where the Company would be heading in the coming years.

"Ever since regaining commercial rights to EGRIFTA, the future has never looked brighter for Theratechnologies. We have quickly been able to appreciate just how much leverage we gained. With the potential launch of ibalizumab in the United States, we are now poised to reach new levels of growth and to give our company even more momentum," said Luc Tanguay, President and CEO, Theratechnologies Inc.

"We are also thrilled with the acquisition of the commercial rights for ibalizumab in Europe. We concluded a great agreement with our partner TaiMed for this territory. If approved in Europe, ibalizumab will further support mid and long-term growth for our company and shareholders," added Mr. Tanguay.

"The Board is quite pleased with how management's strategic plan is unfolding. I am very proud of what has been done thus far and I am convinced that the best is yet to come," said Dawn Svoronos, Chair of the Board, Theratechnologies inc.

"However, I am more than disappointed with the decision made by the Government of Quebec to refuse reimbursement of EGRIFTA primarily for the patients in Quebec who need the drug. I wish our officials had enough vision to recognize what a Quebec-based company has accomplished and send the message that it supports Quebec-based research," added Dawn Svoronos.

About Theratechnologies

Theratechnologies (TSX: TH) is a specialty pharmaceutical company addressing unmet medical needs to promote healthy ageing and an improved quality of life among HIV patients. Further information about Theratechnologies is available on the Company's website at www.theratech.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains statements that are considered forward-looking information ("FLI") within the meaning of securities laws that are based on our management's belief and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. You can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "would", "outlook", "believe", "plan", "envisage", "anticipate", "expect" and "estimate" or the negatives of these terms, or variations of them. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, the approval of ibalizumab in the United States and in Europe for the treatment of MDR HIV-1 infected patients and the growth of Theratechnologies based on such approvals.

Forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Theratechnologies' control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. These assumptions include but are not limited to, the following: the BLA submission will be accepted for review by the FDA, all data obtained from the conduct of the Phase I, II and III clinical trials will be sufficient to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of ibalizumab and no other clinical trial will need to be conducted, ibalizumab will be approved by the FDA and by European regulatory authorities for the treatment of MDR HIV-1 infected patients and, if approved, Theratechnologies will have set-up on time the necessary infrastructure to launch and commercialize ibalizumab in the United States and Europe. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk that the data obtained so far from the Phase I, II and III clinical trials do not allow the FDA or a European regulatory authority to approve ibalizumab, that additional studies need to be conducted prior to the FDA or a European regulatory authority approving ibalizumab, that the FDA and/or a European regulatory authority does not approve ibalizumab as a treatment for MDR HIV-1 infection and, if approved, that the FDA and/or a European regulatory authority imposes a significant limitation on its use resulting in a smaller patient population who could benefit from ibalizumab.

We refer potential investors to the "Risk Factors" section of our Annual Information Form (AIF) dated February 7, 2017 for additional risks and uncertainties about Theratechnologies. The AIF is available on the Company's website at www.theratech.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The reader is cautioned to consider these and other risks and uncertainties carefully and not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and speak only as of the date of this press release and represent our expectations as of that date. We undertake no obligation to update or revise the information contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable law.

Contacts:

Denis Boucher

EXOCET Public Relations inc.

514-913-1957




NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Lotame, the leading independent data management platform (DMP) as well as the most trusted and comprehensive data exchange, today announced a partnership with technology-driven advertising research and market research company, Survata, to create Segment Validation. This introduces a first-to-market solution that empowers brands, agencies and data sellers with a universal "ratings currency" across the digital advertising ecosystem. It also offers clients a seamless way to conduct custom research and activate against exact audiences.

"Appending behavioral and attitudinal data, in real-time, to self-reported data for instant insights into consumers' engagements with a brand is the future of market research," said Jennifer Hirt-Marchand, Partner of Research at midwest advertising agency Marcus Thomas. "Technological advancements are causing changes in consumer behavior, which is radically changing the way we collect and mine for audience insights. You used to have to choose between quality, speed and cost. With this partnership, we can conduct research faster with a common metric that brands understand to help them be more agile, more efficient -- smarter. "

Survata can interview consumers who are in an advertiser's segments, which lets marketers validate that third-party segments reflect what they intended to purchase. Survata's publisher network has the requisite scale and Lotame has more than eight billion data points in these segments to enable this validation, creating a universal metric for the industry.

This server-to-server integration also allows for the seamless and objective tracking and measurement of survey responses, which can then be combined with other first-, second- and third-party data segments via the Lotame DMP. Marketers, agencies and publishers will be able to conduct segment validation and audience profiling as well as custom segment creation. Behavioral data can also be made available on survey respondents.

While most ad effectiveness campaigns must be set up prior to the launch, this partnership will enable users to measure for ad effectiveness at any time during a campaign, offering additional flexibility and insights into campaign performance.

"Our exclusive partnership on Segment Validation with Lotame is exciting for many reasons," said Chris Kelly, Survata CEO. "This integration creates an industry standard for validating segments, so advertisers truly reach the audience they want to reach. Beyond that, brands, agencies and media companies can now easily access Survata's other applications, such as ad effectiveness, via Lotame. We're thrilled to enable marketers to save time and expand their capabilities with Lotame's help."

Using research to demonstrate they have the target audiences an advertiser wants, publishers will be able to respond confidently to requests for proposals (RFPs) and charge premium for their highly qualified inventory. Agencies will be able to target brands' key audiences even more effectively by offering seamless, planning, execution, and measurement, removing the need for offline to online translation normally required when targeting consumers based on attitudes.

"Lotame is dedicated to empowering our clients to effectively complete as much of their advertising execution as possible within our single platform," said Laura Lewellyn, Senior Director of Market Innovation at Lotame. "By partnering with Survata to launch a new ratings currency, we're leading the charge for substantiated research segments. Clients can easily add more first-party research data to their data library and put it to action for their marketing plans, in essence extending DMP functionality to become a research and planning tool."

About Lotame

Lotame enables companies to use data to build stronger connections with their consumers. Lotame is proud to be the leading independent data management platform (DMP) and offer the most widely used, trusted and comprehensive data exchange in the industry. Committed to innovation, agility and -- above all, customer success -- the Lotame team aims to continuously find new and meaningful ways to help its clients harness the power of data to fuel more relevant and personalized experiences across screens and devices, online and off. Lotame is headquartered in New York City, with resources around the world, including Maryland, San Francisco, London, Singapore, Mumbai and Sydney.

About Survata

Survata sells Brand Intelligence to the world's leading brands and agencies. Clients use Survata's platform to talk to consumers after every touchpoint, from ad impressions & site visits to purchases & offline behavior. Survata integrates with leading audience platforms like Lotame to enable powerful ad research, customer research, and market research. The company is headquartered in San Francisco.

Media Contacts

Lacy Gallagher

Email Contact

PR Director

Blast PR for Lotame



Guillermo Murga

Email Contact

PR Lead for Survata




MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Amex Exploration Inc. (TSX VENTURE: AMX) announces that each of the 5 nominees proposed for election: Messrs. Victor Cantore, Jacques Trottier, Pierre Carrier, Andre Shareck and Yvon Gelinas, listed in the Management Information Circular filed on SEDAR April 27, 2017, were duly elected to serve as directors of Amex Exploration Inc. until the next annual shareholders meeting.

Amex also announces that its shareholders have approved the proposed 10% rolling stock option plan. In accordance with the new option plan, the Board of Directors has approved the granting of an aggregate of 1,550,000 incentive share purchase options to its directors and consultants. All of the options vest immediately and are exercisable for a period of 5 years at the exercise price of $0.26.

About Amex

Amex Exploration Inc. is a junior mining exploration company, the primary objective of which is to develop and bring into production viable gold and base metals deposits in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Amex has two main projects: the 100% owned Perron gold project located 110 kilometres north of Rouyn Noranda, Quebec, consisting of 116 adjacent claims covering 4518 hectares (Agnico Eagle Mines is currently earning in for 51% under JV agreement); and the 100% owned Eastmain River gold properties consisting of 135 claims covering 7,102 hectares. In addition, Amex has the 100% owned Cameron project located in Lebel-sur-Quevillon, Quebec and an option agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the Gowan Property located near the Kidd Creek Mine.

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:

Amex Exploration Inc.

Victor Cantore

President and Chief Executive Officer

514-866-8209




PARIS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

As the 70th Cannes Film Festival opens, L'Oreal Paris marks its 20th year as official beauty partner.



L'Oreal Paris begins its festival-long celebration of beauty and cinema with the Cannes public, starting today on the L'Oreal Paris beach.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512439/Loreal_Paris_Cinema_Club.jpg )



Marking its second decade as the Official Cannes beauty partner, today L'Oreal Paris inaugurates its free Outdoor Cinema open to the public to celebrate women in film with six of its ambassador actresses. The brand opens its Pop-up Boutique to all festival-goers; and gives the world the first red carpet beauty looks under the new creative direction of global makeup director Val Garland. This edition also welcomes the new L'Oreal Paris Global spokesperson, the young andaccomplished actress Elle Fanning, who makes her debut on the red carpet on May 17th.

As Cannes enters its second week, the brand celebrates 20 years of collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, its Canniversary, with the L'Oreal Cinema Club soiree.

Cannes 2017, it's going to be a beauty!



DAY BY DAY: BEAUTY AT THE FESTIVAL: L'OREAL PARIS AT CANNES 2017

May 17th -22nd Celebrating Beauty and Cinema: L'Oreal Paris Lights up the Big Screen with the L'Oreal Paris Outdoor Cinema open to the general public, Martinez beach.

From the opening night with Julianne Moore on the evening of May 17th, every evening has a different L'Oreal Paris actress. This includes new global ambassador Elle Fanning who will introduce her iconic film choices to the public, until May 22nd. These special free screenings start at 9pm every night.

May 17th Julianne Moore introduces Maps to the Stars, 2014, Award for Best Actress: 1h,52 minutes.

May 18th Susan Sarandon introduces Thelma and Louise, 1991, Out of Competition: 2h,10 minutes.

May 19th In her first role for the brand, Elle Fanning, new L'Oreal Paris actress ambassador, introduces Ginger & Rosa: 1h,30 minutes.

May 20th Aishwarya Rai introduces Devdas, 2002, Out of Competition: 3h,5 minutes.

May 21st Andie MacDowell presents Sex, Lies, and Videotape, 1989, Palme d'Or: 1h,40 minutes.

May 22nd Eva Longoria presents Lowriders, 2017, screening at the L'Oreal Paris Cinema following its worldwide release May 12th: 1h,39 minutes.

Democratizing the Festival experience to the public, the L'Oreal Paris Big Screen will show films at the same time as the official gala screenings, just along from the Palais des Festivals on the Martinez beach. Follow our social media channels to stay tuned for the latest updates.

MAY 17TH - 28TH: L'OREAL PARIS 100% MAKEUP CANNES POP UP BOUTIQUE

The first immersive L'Oreal Paris Pop-up Boutique is now open! Open every day of the festival, 100% dedicated to makeup, festival-goers can discover the beauty influences and innovations in real-time. Including the new red carpet looks created by new global makeup director Val Garland, the maverick artist behind some of the most inventive looks in beauty today and at Cannes for the first time in her new role at L'Oreal Paris. Revolutionizing the shopping experience, shoppers can access free tutorials, expert advice and services with a chance to win the exclusive and elusive, Cannes red carpet tickets! The boutique will also give fans and consumers the opportunity to discover the latest collection of products, including the limited-edition Red Carpet Color Riche, featuring the Palme d'Or - a collector's edition created for the brand's Canniversary. There is also the opportunity to have red carpet looks recreated by our makeup artists and to meet our actress ambassadors' in-store.



MAY 24TH: THE CANNIVERSARY PARTY, L'OREAL PARIS CINEMA CLUB

Two decades calls for a celebration! On May 24th, L'Oreal Paris throws its biggest Cannes party yet, with the greatest names in filmmaking and beauty in attendance. A night where cinema comes to life, and different scenography, projections and installations celebrate the art of filmmaking. This all comes together with a live showcase and exclusive performance, watched by every L'Oreal Paris actress in town. Guests will include Eva Longoria, Bianca Balti, Barbara Palvin, Doutzen Kroes, Lara Stone, Maria Borges, Irina Shayk, Kristina Bazan, Alexina Graham, Neelam Gill and Lena Meyer Landrut along with Marlon Teixeira; and fashions designer, Olivier Rousteing.



MAY 25TH: AMFAR CINEMA AGAINST AIDS: GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD COLLECTION

L'Oreal Paris hair and makeup artists bring beauty into the Golden Age of Hollywood by showcasing these styles on 40 top models including L'Oreal Paris ambassadors who will take to the charity runway at the Hotel du Cap-Eden Roc. This year's list includes at the most sought-after faces on the Cannes schedule, including L'Oreal Paris ambassadors Doutzen Kroes, Bianca Balti, Barbara Palvin, Irina Shayk, Lara Stone, Maria Borges, Alexina Graham, Kristina Bazan, Neelam Gill and Marlon Teixeira among amfAR's co-chairs. The event will bring together stars in film and fashion in an effort to raise awareness and funds in the fight against AIDS. The evening will be hosted by Eva Longoria and supported by the iconic fashion editor, Carine Roitfeld.

MAY 17TH-24TH: MAKING RED CARPET FIRSTS

From the Opening to the Closing Ceremonies and every day in between, L'Oreal Paris reaffirms its commitment to diversity and to cinema by continuing to promote exceptional talent and women from all corners of the globe. On the red carpet for this historic edition of Cannes both Elle Fanning, the newly announced global face of L'Oreal Paris, Deepika Padukone, the Bollywood star, Guan Xiaotong, the 19-year-old Chinese acting sensation and Wotan Wilke Mohring, the German-born actor make their festival debut for L'Oreal Paris. Representing the brand to the international audience at Cannes and watching at home. The Angolan-born model, Maria Borges, will also represent the brand for the first time at this 70th edition.
SINGAPORE -- (Marketwired) -- 07/27/17 -- Aon plc (NYSE: AON)

Only 51 percent of Singapore companies have emotional and psychological wellness programmes in place

38 percent have no plans to implement these programmes in the future

72 percent of employers in Singapore consider stress and mental health an issue affecting productivity, yet only 51 percent have emotional and psychological wellness programmes in place, according to the APAC Benefits Strategy Study 2017 by Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement, and health solutions. It is also alarming to note that only 62 percent of organisations in Singapore have plans to implement such programmes in the future -- 6 points lower than the APAC average.

The United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) has defined stress as a 'global epidemic' and dubbed it the 'silent killer'. It is a growing phenomenon in many Asian countries, especially those with advanced economies and where Western consumerism and lifestyles are prevalent such as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

In its early stages, the physical manifestations of stress include chronic issues such as back pain, fatigue, and headaches. There is also clear scientific evidence linking stress with depression, cardiovascular disease, and various cancers -- resulting in economic impact related to absenteeism, lost productivity, staff turnover, workers' compensation, medical insurance, and related expenses.

Encouragingly, APAC Benefits Strategy Study 2017 found that 74 percent of Singapore employers have physical wellness programmes in place to help prevent the onset of these chronic issues.

Aon senior clinician, Dr. Menandro Sandoval, said: "Through our analysis of client medical plan data, we are able to identify patterns. For instance, a high proportion of visits to General Practitioner clinics for Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (URTI) and various gastrointestinal illnesses are related to suppression of general resistance process, which can be attributed to mental health issues such as stress, depression, and anxiety. By identifying this root cause, we can help employers develop risk management programmes that address employee health holistically and create positive impact."

Tim Dwyer, CEO of Aon Health & Benefits, Asia Pacific, emphasised: "Employers in Asia have proactively implemented physical wellness programmes, but have been unwilling to promote mental health ones. However, our recent study showed that Singapore employers now view their employees' health and well-being -- both physical and mental -- as a top 3 focus area. Meanwhile, across Asia, Aon has made significant investments in technology, resources, and people that can transform how organisations think about their employees' physical, mental, financial, and emotional well-being and we will continue to develop solutions that address our clients' holistic employee well-being needs."

About the Aon APAC Benefits Strategy Study 2017

The inaugural Aon APAC Benefits Strategy Study 2017 surveyed 461 respondents across 22 countries and 24 industries, seeking to understand how HR practitioners are executing on their benefits strategy in today's challenging business environment.

For further information on the study, please visit: http://aon.io/2tKEwxf

About Aon

Aon plc (NYSE: AON) is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.

For further information on our capabilities and to learn how we empower results for clients, please visit http://aon.mediaroom.com.

Media Contacts

Angelyn Varkey

T: +65 6239 8878

M: +65 9784 6927

E: Email Contact



Jini Pillai

T: +65 6313 7111

M: +65 8133 8523

E: Email Contact




OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, today made the following statement:

"We thank the Auditor General for his work. The information in these reports will help the government to continue delivering on its priorities.

This government has put forward an ambitious agenda and is committed to delivering real and meaningful results to Canadians.

In terms of the reports' recommendations, the government is, for example, already working to:

-- improve the management and review of psychological health and safety within the RCMP; -- improve the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to make it work for employers, for workers and for all Canadians -- ensure the safety of Canadians by facilitating the screening of people, goods and services at the borders between the United States and Canada -- ensure that trade deals protect Canadians' economic interest; -- invest in northern infrastructure and Indigenous communities; and -- phase out any remaining inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025

Our government's emphasis on evidence-based policy, results and delivery is directly in line with the Auditor General's recommendations to improve program tracking and reporting.

For my part, as President of the Treasury Board, I have accepted the Auditor General's recommendation on the management of fraud risk and am taking the appropriate action to improve oversight across government.

Canada has one of the most professional and dedicated public services in the world. We must continue to support our employees, ensuring they have the tools to help them recognize and report conflict of interest situations when performing their duties.

We are modernizing how the government operates, in order to reflect the values and expectations of Canadians and deliver on the service they deserve.

Greater openness and transparency in government helps strengthen Canadians' trust in our public institutions. That is why the government issued an Order in Council to provide the Auditor General of Canada with access to confidential information.

We look forward to continue working with the Auditor General to ensure the delivery of services and programs to Canadians is done in a way that is fiscally prudent, efficient and effective."

Follow us on Twitter: @TBS_Canada.

Contacts:

Jean-Luc Ferland

Press Secretary

Office of the President of the Treasury Board

613-369-3163



Media Relations

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

media@tbs-sct.gc.ca

613-369-9400

TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired)

613-369-9371




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Aydon Income Properties, Inc. (CSE: AYD)(CSE: AYD.CN)(CNSX: AYD) (the "Company"), announces that further to its news release dated May 2, 2017, the British Columbia Securities Commission, the Company's principal regulator, issued a Management Cease Trade Order ("MCTO") against the Company's Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer on May 2, 2017, as opposed to a general cease trade order against the Company. The MCTO prohibits trading in securities of the Company, either directly or indirectly, by these individuals.

As disclosed in the Company's News Release dated May 2, 2017 (the "Default Notice") this action was expected due to the fact that the Company was unable to file its annual financial statements, Management's Discussion & Analysis and related Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer certificates for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 (the "Required Filings") before the May 1, 2017 filing deadline.

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 4.4 of National Policy 12-203 - Alternative Information Guidelines the Company reports the following:

(i) There have been no material changes to the information contained in the Default Notice and the Company expects to file the Required Filings on or May 30, 2017;

(ii) There have been no failures with respect to the Company fulfilling its stated intention of satisfying the requirements of filing the Required Filings;

(iii) There has not been, nor is there anticipated to be, any specified default subsequent to the default which is the subject of the Default Notice; and

(iv) There is no other material information about the affairs of the Company that has not otherwise been reported.

The Company confirms that it intends to satisfy the provisions of the alternative information guidelines so long as it remains in default of this filing requirement, being the provision of bi-weekly updates by way of news release.

Aydon Income Properties Inc. is a Real Estate Investment Company acquiring income producing real estate assets in select areas of the United States and Canada.

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Vid Wadhwani, Director

Statements in this release may be viewed as forward-looking statements. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. There are no assurances the company can fulfill such forward-looking statements and the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements. Forward-looking statements are only predictions; actual events or results may differ materially as a result of risks facing the company, some of which are beyond the company's control.

Contacts:

Vid Wadhwani

Director

info@aydonproperties.com




IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2017 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against KBR, Inc. ("KBR" or the "Company") (NYSE: KBR). Investors, who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between February 26, 2016 and April 27, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm before the July 3, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased KBR shares during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esq., of Khang & Khang LLP, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone at (949) 419-3834 , or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may also choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, KBR made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that the Company's United Kingdom subsidiaries violated applicable bribery and corruption laws. On April 28, 2017, the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office confirmed that it had opened an investigation into the activities of KBR's UK subsidiaries for suspected offences of bribery and corruption. When this news was announced, KBR's stock price dropped materially, which caused investors harms according to the Complaint.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have questions about this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834 , or via e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.

Contact:

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2017 / Khang & Khang LLP (the "Firm") announces a class action lawsuit against ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd. ("ImmunoCellular" or the "Company") (NYSE MKT: IMUC). Investors, who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between May 1, 2012 and December 11, 2013, inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the Firm before the June 30, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.

If you purchased ImmunoCellular shares during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esq., of Khang & Khang LLP, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone at (949) 419-3834 , or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may also choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, ImmunoCellular issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that the Company retained Lidingo Holdings, LLC to publish promotional articles designed to unlawfully promote the Company; and that the market was led to believe that the Company's clinical studies for its product candidate ICT-107 were going well and the share price was artificially inflated. When this news was announced, ImmunoCellular's stock price fell significantly, which harmed investors according to the Complaint. On April 10, 2017, the SEC announced enforcement actions against numerous individuals and entities, including ImmunoCellular, that engaged in stock promotion schemes.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have any questions about this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone at (949) 419-3834 , or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in certain jurisdictions.

Contact:

Joon M. Khang, Esq.

Telephone: 949-419-3834

Facsimile: 949-225-4474

joon@khanglaw.com

SOURCE: Khang & Khang LLP
Eight consecutive months of internal confrontation within the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)  triggered by the resignation on October 1 of its secretary general, Pedro Sanchez  climaxed on Monday with a three-way debate between the candidates who hope to fill the position at a vote this coming Sunday.

Susana Diaz, Patxi Lopez and Pedro Sanchez. Uly Martin (EL PAIS)

On May 21, 187,000 card-holding members will decide whether Susana Diaz, Pedro Sanchez or Patxi Lopez get to lead a deeply divided party whose fracture lines were evidenced at the debate, held at party headquarters in Madrid.

The leading candidate in the race, Susana Diaz, who currently serves as the premier of the populous southern Spanish region of Andalusia  traditionally a PSOE power base  laid the blame for the partys continuing crisis squarely on Pedro Sanchez, who is hoping to get his old job back and recently surprised political analysts by securing enough party endorsements to become the second strongest contender.

Susana, I hope you will acknowledge that abstaining was the worst of all possible decisions

Pedro Sanchez

Diaz, who is focusing on Sanchez as the rival to beat, said that his constant swerving on the issues while party secretary was the cause of the PSOEs back-to-back defeats at two general elections held in Spain: one was held on December 20, 2015, when emerging protest parties Podemos and Ciudadanos gained a congressional presence and the Socialists lost 20 deputies, representing their worst electoral result in Spains democratic history. A repeat election was held on June 26, 2016 to try to break the deadlock, and the PSOE fared even worse, losing a further five seats.

Susana Diaz and Pedro Sanchez greet each other before the debate. Angel Diaz (EFE)

With Spanish politics in a stalemate and a third election on the horizon, PSOE leaders decided to stop blocking the interim prime minister, Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP) conservatives, from being reinstated to a new term in office. Sanchez opposed such a move, but his views were overruled and he resigned. The party has been led by a temporary management team ever since.

Pedro, the problem is you, said Diaz on Monday, accusing her rival of lacking a clear project. I dont think you are pro-Podemos or pro-Ciudadanos: you are pro-Pedro Sanchez and you do whatever is in your own best interest.

Sanchez, for his part, blamed Diaz for supporting the PSOEs decision to abstain at Rajoys reinstatement vote in Congress, portraying this move as a betrayal that the party grassroots have neither forgiven nor forgotten.

Susana, I hope you will acknowledge that abstaining was the worst of all possible decisions, he told her.

Pedro, the problem is you

Susana Diaz

Besides attacking one another, both nominees also made campaign promises. If the PSOE, with me at the helm, does not do better at the polls, I will leave; I will not lay the responsibility at anyone elses feet, said Diaz. And Sanchez announced that if I am secretary general, my first measure will be to demand the resignation of Mariano Rajoy.

The third candidate in the running, former Basque premier and ex-congressional speaker Patxi Lopez, accused both his rivals of helping create a rift within Spains socialists, and warned that the PSOE runs the risk of disappearing if Sanchez and Diaz keep this up.

English version by Susana Urra.
SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Glympse, the leading real-time location services platform, today announced its new app for the Samsung Smart TV. The first in the industry, Samsung brings the Glympse experience to the TV, enabling consumers to see the real-time location of their friends, loved ones or even a pizza delivery or cable technician, directly from the home's largest screen. The Glympse app is available for download from the Samsung TV app store.

"We believe the TV will be a hub for family communications," said Mi Young Yoo, vice president of the Visual Display Division at Samsung Electronics. "We look forward to partnering with Glympse to innovate our Smart TV offering, providing relevant in-home experiences that our customers expect from Samsung."

This announcement follows news that Samsung has also preloaded the Glympse app on their new Family Hub refrigerator. Now, Glympse users can easily share location directly to their Samsung TV or Family Hub -- further connecting household members through communicating their current location and updating on arrival times.

Both the Samsung TV and Family Hub take advantage of the new Glympse family group, which allows households to create a private group consisting of family, friends, connected cars, home devices, and more. Members simply share location to the group and it will appear on any member's device, including the TV.

"Our platform enables location sharing across a wide range of needs, including consumers, businesses, and Internet of Things -- anywhere real-time location and estimated time of arrival is required," said Bryan Trussel, co-founder and CEO, Glympse. "Our strong and growing relationship with Samsung has allowed us to maximize the ways we provide this technology -- from the handset to the watch and now the TV and the fridge. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Samsung and expanding our reach to more devices and people across the globe."

To set up a Glympse group for your family on the TV, users simply enter their mobile number and they will receive an SMS with a link to add the device to a specified group. Glympses shared to the group will appear across the range of connected devices, including messages from forwarded third-parties, i.e., a technician that is coming to work on the home's internet or a food delivery, which allows consumers to quickly view arrival times, and better plan and optimize their time.

Glympse is proud of its relationship with Samsung and the Tizen operating system. The company participated in the Tizen Developer Conference (TDC) keynote presentation today. Over the past 12 months, Samsung has integrated Glympse across its Galaxy S7, Gear S2/S3, and Family Hub devices and each of the devices will work seamlessly across each other. This year, Glympse is adding partners who will now participate in the new groups ecosystem, including GM, Mercedes, Volvo, T-Mobile SyncUp Drive, Navdy, Logitech, which enables users to share location from these devices directly to the home.

For more information about Glympse, visit www.Glympse.com. To download the app, visit http://www.samsung.com/sa_en/smarthub/mobile/index.html.

About Glympse

Glympse, the pioneer and leading real-time location sharing platform for both consumers and businesses, is the standard in connecting people and brands through the devices they use most. Through its robust platform, Glympse provides a simple way to integrate location sharing across messaging, wearables, IoT, auto, navigation and more. Through their global enterprise-scale business solutions, Glympse is giving companies tools to improve user experience and increase engagement through location.

Glympse partners with a wide-variety of top-tier companies for integrations into their products, services and applications. This includes Amazon Echo, ADT, Blackberry, BMW/MINI, Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Ford, Garmin, General Motors, GoGo, Google, IBM iX, Jaguar/Land Rover, Mercedes, Microsoft Dynamics, Pizza Hut, Rogers Communications, Samsung, Verizon, Vodafone, and Volvo. The company is backed by Menlo Ventures, Ignition Partners, Verizon Ventures, and UMC Capital.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Amid an uproar over reports President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian officials, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster sought to defend the president during a press briefing on Tuesday.



McMaster, who said he was in the room when Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, claimed the discussion was 'wholly appropriate.'



'I was in the room, the Secretary of State was in the room, as you know, the deputy adviser for national security, Dina Powell, and none of us felt in any way that conversation was inappropriate,' McMaster said.



The comments from McMaster come after a Washington Post report claimed Trump revealed classified information to the Russian officials in a White House meeting last week.



Current and former U.S. officials told the Post that Trump shared information provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies.



The Post said Trump's decision to share the material with Russia endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.



McMaster refused to say whether the information provided was classified but said he was standing by his previous claim that the premise of the Washington Post story is false.



Declaring that Trump in no way compromised sources or methods in the course of the conversation, McMaster suggested the president was not even briefed on the source of the information.



Trump took to Twitter earlier in the day to defend his 'absolute right' to share the information with Russian officials.



'As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety,' Trump tweeted. 'Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.'



Trump went on to note he has been asking former FBI Director James Comey and others to find the 'leakers' in the intelligence community since the beginning of his administration.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Cressey Development Group has officially broken ground on Bellevue; a stunning luxury project nestled on the shores of the prestigious West Vancouver. This boutique project will offer 35 private residences, all of which offer stunning views of Point Grey and the University of British Columbia.

Bellevue is built on the last remaining pre-zoned high-rise site on the western edge of Ambleside. Like every Cressey project that adheres to a specific set of standards, the building is conveniently located in the sought after community of Dundarave. This coveted neighbourhood offers a wide breadth of shops and amenities, all within walking distance.

"We are very excited to join this exquisite community. Bellevue will not only fit with the character of the community, but continue with its legacy of luxury," explained Jason Turcotte, Vice President of Development at Cressey Development Group.

The sixteen storey building will be an exclusive boutique offering, featuring two and three bedroom homes complete with multi-paneled glass doors that open to reveal an expansive exterior space, providing outdoor living rooms that are ideal for entertaining.

The grand two-storey amenities building, marked with sophistication, will feature an indoor swimming pool and hot tub with towel service, state-of-the-art gym and Pilates studio as well as a landscaped rooftop. Through a combination of superior design, thoughtful attention to detail and quality construction, Bellevue brings utility and ease into residents' lives.

Ranked as one of Vancouver's best neighbourhoods by Vancouver Magazine, Dundarave has a longstanding history of prestige and charisma. Cressey Developments is excited to contribute to the charm and integrity of the community with Bellevue's exquisite private residents.

About Cressey Development Group

Since 1969, Cressey has been building multi-family residential projects affording them over 40 years of experience. With over 200 projects to date, the company has earned a reputation for constructing landmark residential, retail, office, hotel, industrial and mixed-use projects throughout British Columbia, Alberta and Washington State.

Contacts:

Media Relations

Maxine Jakubke

604-738-2220

Maxine@talkshopmedia.com




DUBLIN, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Liquid Handling Market 2017-2021" report to their offering.

The global liquid handling market to grow at a CAGR of 6.87% during the period 2017-2021.

The report, Global Liquid Handling 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, one driver in market is cost and time saving. In the US, rising healthcare expenditures encourage physicians to eliminate unnecessary spending while providing quality patient care. Though the reference laboratory tests represent a small percentage of the hospital's total test volume, it is a disproportionate percentage of laboratory costs. The hospitals do not have the equipment or the expertise to run and interpret every test that the physicians order.

However, reference lab vendors can perform difficult and esoteric procedures that are not possible to perform in the in-house hospital laboratories. Few tests are rare and require expensive equipment that most of the hospitals find difficult to purchase and use in the in-house laboratories. However, reference and diagnostic laboratories find it economically feasible to offer these tests, because they can perform them for the hospitals across the country. The labs can invest in the very best and most up-to-date equipment because they have a high number of clients.

Key vendors



Labnet International

Bio-Rad Laboratories

Aurora Biomed

Gilson

Thermo Fisher Scientific



Other prominent vendors



Accel Biotech

Andrew Alliance

BioTek

BRAND

Beckman Coulter (Danaher)

(Danaher) Alpaqua Engineering



Key Topics Covered:



PART 01: Executive summary



PART 02: Scope of the report



PART 03: Research Methodology



PART 04: Introduction



PART 05: Market landscape



PART 06: Market segmentation by end user



PART 07: Geographical segmentation



PART 08: Decision framework



PART 09: Drivers and challenges



PART 10: Market trends



PART 11: Vendor landscape



PART 12: Key vendor analysis



PART 13: Appendix



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/n8z585/global_liquid

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
AURORA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- As a leading provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and as the only certified Canadian Global Data Synchronization Network data pool, Commport Communications International, inc. ("Commport") was pleased today with the recommendations of the government appointed Expert Panel in their review of Ontario's Healthcare Sector Supply Chain.

"We commend Ontario's Minister of Health and Long-Term Care for recognizing the need for modernization in the provincial healthcare sector supply chain," said Dave Ralph, founder and CEO of Commport. "We had the privilege of sharing our views with the panel, and look forward to working with the ministry on implementation."

The Strength in Unity report released by McKinsey in 2012 called for faster adoption of both digital technology and global standards for supply chain automation and inventory management in healthcare. The report went on to highlight that the retail sector is currently 30 years ahead of healthcare, and that the lack of supply chain efficiency and automation is having a negative effect on government budgets and public health.

"Our EDI technology could save hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the provincial health budget overnight and without any direct costs to the public system," said Dave. "In addition, our GDSN data pool service leverages global standards in product content and supply chain management and would update Ontario's procurement systems daily with clean data."

Commport is a growing Ontario-based company and a key contributor to the province's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) cluster. Commport was started in 1985 by Dave Ralph and currently supports over 50 direct jobs in Aurora. Today the company is partnered with 75 Ontario hospitals, other sub-national North American governments, crown corporations, large and small retailers and thousands of their suppliers. More information is available at www.commport.com.

Contacts:

Commport Communications International, inc.

Brian Miles

Vice President

905.726.5297

brianm@commport.com

www.commport.com




Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (ticker: PSH:NA) today announces that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's ordinary shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Date of purchase: 16 May 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 11,400 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 1,225 pence 15.82 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 1,218 pence 15.73 USD Average price paid per Share: 1,222.87 pence 15.79 USD

PSH intends to cancel these Shares. The net asset value per Share related to this Share buyback is USD 18.36 GBP 14.20 which was calculated as of 9 May 2017. After giving effect to the above Share buyback, PSH has 239,793,351 outstanding Shares. The prices per share in USD were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the 1 special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) has not been affected.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (PSH:NA) is an investment holding company structured as a closed ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006623/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Maitland

James Devas, +44 20 7379 5151

Media-pershingsquareholdings@maitland.co.uk
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/16/17 -- Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SYH) (OTCQB: SYHBF) (FRANKFURT: SC1P) (the "Company") announces that it has arranged and closed a non-brokered private placement of 1,000,000 flow-through shares (the "FT Shares") at a price of CAD $0.60 per FT Share, for total gross proceeds of CAD $600,000. A strategic, institutional investor subscribed for the full amount of the financing.

Skyharbour intends to utilize the proceeds from this private placement for exploration and diamond drilling at the Moore Uranium project. The Company is fully funded for multiple upcoming diamond drill programs at its flagship Moore Uranium project located on the southeast side of the Athabasca Basin proximal to regional infrastructure, as well as nearby development projects and producing mines.

In connection with the financing, Skyharbour issued a total of 70,000 warrants to finders (the "Finder's Warrants") who introduced certain subscribers to the private placement. Each Finder's Warrant will entitle the finder to purchase one additional common share for two (2) years at a price of CAD $0.75 per common share. The Company also paid to finders a total of CAD $42,000 in cash fees associated with this financing. The private placement is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, and all securities are subject to a four-month hold period.

Further, the Company announces an amendment to the amount of finders fees paid pursuant to the financing closed on April 18, 2017. The Company issued an aggregate of 127,322 Finder's Warrants and paid a total $85,948.30. Details of the Finder's Warrants can be found on the Company's news release issued April 18, 2017.

About Skyharbour Resources Ltd.:

Skyharbour holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with five drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines to acquire 100% of the Moore Uranium Project which is located 20 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River mine. Moore is an advanced stage uranium exploration property with a high grade uranium zone known as the Maverick Zone with drill results including 21% U3O8 over 1.5 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. Skyharbour recently signed an option agreement with AREVA Resources Canada whereby AREVA can earn in 70% on the Company's Preston Project through $8 million in project consideration. Preston is a large, geologically prospective property proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company also owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point Uranium Project on the eastern perimeter of the Basin which hosts an NI 43-101 inferred resource totaling 7.0 million pounds of U3O8 at 0.03% and 5.3 million pounds of ThO2 at 0.023%. The project also hosts a high grade surface showing with up to 68% U3O8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco, where high-grade uranium mineralization was recently discovered. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions.

Skyharbour's Uranium Project Map in the Athabasca Basin: http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Landpackage_2014.jpg

To find out more about Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SYH) visit the Company's website at www.skyharbourltd.com.

SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES LTD.

Jordan Trimble, President and CEO

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.

Contacts:

Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

Jordan Trimble

President and CEO

604-687-3850 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181

604-687-3119 (FAX)



Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

Nick Findler

Corporate Development and Communications

604-687-3850 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181

604-687-3119 (FAX)

info@skyharbourltd.com

www.skyharbourltd.com




TORONTO, June 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX:JAG) announced today the voting results from its annual general and special meeting of shareholders held on June 5, 2017 (the "Meeting").

Election of Directors

Each of the nominees for election as directors listed in the Company's management information circular dated April 25, 2017 were elected as directors of the Company for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. The voting results for the election of directors were as follows:

Nominee Votes For % For Votes Withheld % Withheld Richard Falconer 250,987,795 99.98 60,343 0.02 John Ellis 240,343,457 95.74 10,704,681 4.26 Robert Getz 240,539,881 95.81 10,508,257 4.19 Rodney Lamond 250,988,057 99.98 60,081 0.02 Luis Miraglia 224,872,222 89.57 26,175,916 10.43 Edward Reeser 240,343,413 95.74 10,704,725 4.26 Thomas Weng 250,572,767 99.81 475,371 0.19

Other Items

All other resolutions tabled at the Meeting were successfully approved by shareholders, including; (i) the reappointment of KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants, as auditors of the Company; (ii) the fixing of the number of directors of the Company at seven; (iii) the passing of a special resolution to authorize and empower the directors of the Company to, following the completion of the Meeting, by resolution of the directors, determine from time to time the number of directors of the Company, subject to the Company's articles and the applicable limits described in the Business Corporations Act (Ontario); and (iv) the creation and adoption of new articles of the Company. Voting results for all resolutions can be found under Jaguar's profile at www.sedar.com .

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 and Caete Gold Mine Complex (Pilar and Roca Grande mines, and Caete Plant) 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 atwww.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, among other things, production statistics, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, and restarting suspended or disrupted operations. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline for the development of its 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; political 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; 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 additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking information made in this news release, see the Company's most recent Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information set forth herein reflects the Company's reasonable expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

For further information: Rodney Lamond, President & Chief Executive Office, rrodney.lamond@jaguarmining.com, 416-847-1854; Joanne Jobin, Vice President, Investor Relations, joanne.jobin@jaguarmining.com, 416-847-1854
Atc Aluvation Technology Center Paderborn GmbH, a Paderborn, Germany-based technology company, raised funding from High-Tech Grunderfonds.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop its technology.

Founded by Markus Belte in October 2016, Atc Aluvation Technology Center Paderborn has developed a system to heat treat aluminium components connected to an Industry 4.0-based data network, which consists of standardized furnace modules for annealing and cooling down materials.

The furnace module systems are mobile (suitable for transport by road), modular (flexible application and configuration) and standardized.

FinSMEs

16/05/2017
I first met Hugh Thomas in 1968 when I arrived at the University of Reading to study for a Masters degree in Contemporary European Studies. I had previously been at Oxford where I was deeply disappointed by the lack of opportunity to work on contemporary history. The opportunity to study with Thomas made a welcome change. At the time, of course, I knew little about him other than that he was the author of the great book on the Spanish Civil War published seven years earlier.

Hugh Thomas, during a visit to Madrid in 2003. GORKA LEJARCEGI

Born in 1931, Hugh Thomas was the only son a British colonial officer in what was then the Gold Coast, now Ghana. His uncle, Sir Shenton Thomas, was the governor of Singapore who surrendered to the Japanese invaders in 1942. Hugh studied history, not very assiduously, at Queens College Cambridge but did attain prominence as a swashbuckling Tory president of the Union. When he came down, he led a champagne-fueled life as a man-about-London.

The Spanish Civil War was quickly established in the popular mind as the book on the conflict

He was locally recruited for the Paris Embassy, thanks, it was said, to the influence of Harold Nicholson, who was a friend of the then-ambassador, Sir Gladwyn Jebb. He left in early 1957, claiming that he did so because of disgust with the British role in the Suez crisis. However, he may have jumped before he was pushed. Rumors swirled around about important documents inadvertently left on the Metro and/or an affair with the wife of a French Minister. The publicity given to his clash with the Foreign Office made him an attractive catch for the Labour Party. He stood, unsuccessfully, as parliamentary candidate in 1957-1958 for Ruislip and Norwood. His altered allegiance was cemented when he edited an attack on the political elite in The Establishment in 1959.

However, this did not solve the issue of an income. A brief stint as a lecturer at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst did not satisfy him. He tried his hand as a novelist but The Oxygen Age (1958) did not sell. However, the previous years equally unsuccessful The Worlds Game would change his life. Dedicated to Gladwyn Jebbs friend Nancy Mitford, it cemented an already key connection. More importantly, it had been read by the gentleman-publisher, James McGibbon, then a literary agent with Curtis Brown. McGibbon invited him to lunch and told him that the scene in his novel where the hero went to fight in Israel had reminded him of volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Remarking that the time was ripe for a broad survey of the war, he urged Hugh to make a pitch. It was taken up by Eyre and Spottiswood. Although he did not know any Spanish, Hugh set to reading voraciously and ruthlessly picking the brains of innumerable participants on both sides, as well as of the war correspondent Henry Buckley and the great expert on the conflict, Herbert Southworth.

Banned in General Francos Spain, the translation became a clandestine best-seller

Published in 1961, it was quickly established in the popular mind as the book on the Spanish war. Eulogistic reviews from liberal pundits such as Cyril Connolly and Michael Foot saw the book widely accepted as a classic and it would go on to sell nearly a million copies throughout the world. Not only was it written in a colorful and highly readable style, but The Spanish Civil War was the first attempt at an objective general view of a struggle that still excited the passions of right and left.

Although banned in General Francos Spain, the translation by an exiled Spanish publishing house in Paris, Ruedo Iberico, became a clandestine best-seller. The dictators propagandists had never ceased proclaiming that the war had been a crusade against communist barbarism. However, the impact of foreign works by Thomas and Southworth, smuggled in despite the efforts of the frontier police, entirely discredited the standard regime line. An example of the regimes efforts to stifle the impact of Hughs book was the case of Octavio Jorda, a 31-year-old working-class Valencian who was arrested at the French border with two suitcases packed with copies of The Spanish Civil War. At his subsequent trial, he was found guilty of illegal propaganda and spreading communism and sentenced to two years imprisonment.

In response to Thomas and Southworth, Francos then-minister of information, Manuel Fraga, set up an official center for Civil War studies to streamline crusade historiography. It was too late. So successful was the book that even Franco himself was regularly asked to comment on statements in the book. The Caudillo largely dismissed it all as lies, denying that civilians were killed when he bombed Barcelona or that there were mass executions. The notoriety of Thomass book success would underlie colossal sales after the dictators death in 1975. In frustration, the Centers director, Ricardo de la Cierva, called Thomass book a Vademecum for simpletons.

Thomas in 2014. Mario Guzman (EFE)

Now financially more secure, in 1962, he married the beautiful Vanessa Jebb, daughter of Lord Gladwyn Jebb. A serene influence, she was the jewel of the glittering social circle that met at their home in Ladbroke Grove. She gave him three children, Inigo, Isambard and Isabella. In 1966, he was made Professor of History at the University of Reading. He was a thoroughly entertaining and popular teacher, as I saw for myself as a Masters student. He was never comfortable with the creeping administrative demands of academic life and I substituted for him when he took a sabbatical to concentrate on his writing.

During this time, I worked as his research assistant on the third edition of The Spanish Civil War. He resigned in 1976. My good fortune in working with him meant that I was often invited to his home and met hugely interesting people. Thanks to that, I met and became friends with the great Cuban writer, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and made the contact with Ramon Serrano Suner that opened the door to my many later interviews with him while I was working on my biography of Franco. Whether in intellectual or social circles, Hugh could be charming and generous but he was quite thin-skinned. He did not take criticism lightly or, indeed, at all, as a bitter polemic with Herbert Southworth in the Times Literary Supplement demonstrated.

Thomas's study of the Spanish Civil War remains one of the key works on the conflict.

Even before going to Reading, he had begun research for his gigantic history, Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom. At nearly 1,700 pages, it was not a success. Its long early survey of the Islands history, beginning with the British occupation of Havana, was found to be hard going by many readers. Only when it reached Castros revolution did it match the confident sweep of the Spanish book. After Cuba, he was commissioned to do a similar job on Venezuela but never really got started. Moreover, he felt constrained after spending, as he put it, seven years in the study of a short period in the history of a small society and it is, therefore, natural that I should wish to write on a more generous scale. The result was An Unfinished History of the World, published in 1979.

In the 1980s, Thomas became an advisor to Mrs Thatcher

At the behest of his friend Roy Jenkins, he had another unsuccessful attempt to secure a Labour seat but was thwarted by members of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency on the selection committee. Thereafter, if not in consequence, he publicly declared his abandonment of the Labour Party and his embrace of Thatcherite free-market economics. He became one of her unofficial advisers and was made chairman of her think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies in succession to Keith Joseph. In line with his new political vocation, when An Unfinished History of the World was awarded a 7,500 Arts Council Literary Award in April 1980, he refused to take the check. Saying that his bank manager would be aghast, he made the gesture on the grounds that the final chapters of the book argued that the intervention of the state (leads) to the decay of civilization and the collapse of societies. In History, Capitalism and Freedom, a pamphlet published with a foreword by Mrs. Thatcher, he argued that the decline of Britain was the consequence of the encroachment of the state. At the Centre for Policy Studies, he tried to help Keith Joseph, now Minister of Education, to re-establish a sense of the glories of English history which they both believed had been obscured by the works of Eric Hobsbawm, E.P. Thompson and others. It was a project that belied his own works on Spain and Cuba and led to accusations that a first-class historian was trying to turn a subject on which he had never worked into hollow, pseudo-patriotic indoctrination.

In his 1983 pamphlet, Our Place in the World, he attributed the decline of Britain to the transformation of the old England of individualism and laissez-faire into an England organized from above. He was rewarded by being ennobled as Lord Thomas of Swynnerton and there were rumors that he might be sent to Madrid as ambassador, although the deficiencies of his Spanish might have rendered the job difficult.

Thomas spent the last 20 years of his life working on a series of books about imperial Spain

After the defeat of Mrs. Thatcher in 1990, his prominence in the Tory Party diminished and he was increasingly disillusioned by what he saw as a festering Euro-skepticism. Finally, in November 1997, he crossed the floor of the House of Lords to the Liberal-Democrat benches. He announced: I have resigned the Conservative whip in the House of Lords because since the election of May 1st last, its attitudes towards the European Union as it is presently constituted, and as it is likely to develop, have become ever more critical and skeptical.

Finally free of the politics that had never really fulfilled him; he returned to his real metier and began to write a series of flamboyant works on imperial Spain. The sparkling narrative drive of his work on Spain was carried over first into The Conquest of Mexico (1993) and then The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 14401870 (1997). They were followed by what was his crowning achievement, a trilogy about the Spanish Empire, consisting of Rivers of Gold (2003); The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V (2010) and World Without End: The Global Empire of Philip II (2014). When I last spoke to him a couple of weeks before his death, he was fulminating about Brexit.
Bengaluru: Ten people were arrested with demonetised currency amounting to over Rs 3 crore they were trying to change into new notes, said police on Monday.

"On a tip-off, we searched a car parked near a temple in Basavangudi and found demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes amounting to Rs.3.25 crore the accused were attempting to exchange for new notes," Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru South, S.D. Sharanappa told reporters here.

The accused have been identified as V. Srinivas 43, M. Mahesh, 32, P. Karunakaran, 48, Abdul Mujeeb, 40, S. Neelakanta, 32, H.G. Jambane Gowda, 62, A. Narayana, 48, K. Udayakumar, 34, S. Karthik, 32, and P. Rudrakumar 47.

A case has been registered against them under Sections 5 & 7 of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017.

"Three more persons, Prasad, Shashi and Rajendra are absconding, and we have formed a special team to search and nab them," said Sharanappa.

On 14 April, police raided the residence of former Bengaluru City Corporation corporator V. Nagaraj and seized Rs.14.8 crore of demonetised notes.

Nagaraj was arrested on May 10 along with his two sons and have been remanded to police custody till May 22 in the money laundering case.
Karma, they say, catches up with you eventually and never misses its date.

This is true in the case of the father-son duo, P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. This is probably the first time that Chidambaram Sr is facing a CBI raid. There is a probability that the former Union finance minister and one of the top leaders of the Congress may just be paying the price for his sons deeds  that arent limited to the ongoing INX episode.

At the time of writing, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raids were being carried out at the Chennai houses of Chidambaram and his son. The raids began early in the morning and further details are awaited, according to early reports.

The case in question that led to Tuesday's raids, according to media reports (read here and here) is that of clearances given to INX Media. Karti allegedly facilitated the clearances for kickbacks in 2008 when Chidambaram was a Union minister in the UPA government. But this is isnt the first instance in which investigative agencies have moved against the Chidambarams.

As per the above cited reports, in April, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had issued a show-cause notice to Karti and a firm purportedly linked to him for alleged violations of the FEMA laws to the tune of Rs 45 crore. Also, the agency also issued a similar notice, after over two years of investigations, to another firm Vasan Health Care Private Limited, which is based in Chennai, for alleged forex violations of Rs 2,262 crore.

Not just the INX episode

But the charges against the Chidambarams are not limited to INX Media case. The father-son duo is also facing probes in the Aircel-Maxis case in which Karti allegedly made a killing through a company he owns  Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited. When the probe advances further, both the Aircel-Maxis case and forex scams could prove to be the biggest jolt also for Chidambaram Sr in his political career, considering its multiple dimensions. What will work against the former Union minister is the fact that all through the timeframe of his sons alleged wrongdoings, he was holding office in the UPA government. His direct involvement in Kartis doings are still being investigated

In a piece published on 5 July last year, it was argued that the ED summoning Karti might just have been the beginning of several sleepless nights for the father and son.

Aircel-Maxis case

The bigger trouble in waiting for the Chidambarams may be the Aircel-Maxis case. In a nutshell, the whole story of the Aircel-Maxis case pertains to the forced selling of Aircel in 2006 by its owner entrepreneur C Sivasankaran, allegedly under pressure from former Union telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran. To return the favour, Maxis invested around Rs 47 crore in the Sun Group, owned by Dayanidhi Marans brother, Kalanidhi Maran.

Karti allegedly facilitated the whole transaction through his firm Advantage Consulting and passed along the bribes.

Karti may not have a solid defence in the Maxis case. As a New Indian Express investigative series revealed, he will have a lot of explaining to do to prove the legitimacy of his assets worldwide through the firms allegedly owned by him and an army of benamis who have facilitated the transactions. When the skeletons begin to tumble out of the closet, the case may not be limited to the Aircel-Maxis deal alone. The investigations are leading to a complex web of benami transactions used by the Chidambarams to hide their ill-gotten wealth.

As the New Indian Express expose revealed, Karti owned majority stake in Advantage through a holding company Ausbridge. But, the ownership of the company  Advantage  was shown in the names of benamis, who in turn wrote wills later to transfer the ownership to Kartis daughter. And who keeps these wills? Here again, Karti, as found in his vault by a joint team comprising Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate authorities.

Now, what is Advantages wealth? Advantage India holds 90,000 shares out of the 1.5 lakh equity shares of Vasan Eye Care. The firm procured the shares at a throwaway price of Rs 100 per share. However, the report states, that it actually paid only one-third, or Rs 33 per share. It sold 60,000 shares in two tranches of Rs 30,000 to Sequoia Capital Investments, a Mauritius-based investment fund.

In the first tranche, 30,000 shares were sold at Rs 7,500 per share or Rs 22.5 crore. Assuming that the second tranche was also sold at the same price and if the balance shares are valued at the same price, then Vasan Eye Care's share would amount to Rs 112.5 crore that Advantage acquired at a mere Rs 50 lakh, according to the report. Now, thats quite a killing, isnt it?

Kartis empire is spread across several countries, which would also mean several jurisdictions. The Singapore subsidiary of Advantage, Advantage Singapore, has real estate investments in at least 15 countries. But, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA),the ED can expand its probe to any geographies and seek help of international agencies if needed.

Political vendetta?

Chidambaram Sr has always trained his guns at the ruling BJP government citing political vendetta, whenever investigators targeted Karti or his 'friends'.

"If the government wishes to target me, they should do so directly, not harass friends of my son who carry on their own businesses and have nothing to do with politics," the former finance minister had said. But, Chidambarams apparent attempt to politicise the issue may not work, since the Congress itself will not want to get involved in the case given its seriousness and its larger political implications. There is immense pressure on the Narendra Modi government not to lower its guard against corruption.

In its two-year rule, the Modi government has gained a reputation for its way of dealing with cronies and crooks. The government won't want to damage that image in this case. It has already lent a free hand to various investigating agencies against the Chidambarams  in a series of cases including the Aircel-Maxis case  to inspect the complex threads of the deals, counter-deals and kickbacks.

Karti had once jokingly said that having an Aircel SIM card is his only involvement in the Aircel-Maxis deal. But, it is unlikely that there will be any takers for his jokes, not just in the Aircel-Maxis case, but likely in other cases too where the father-son duo may have been involved, directly or indirectly.

Chidambaram, the lawyer-turned-politician may have to fight lot harder to wriggle out of the mess created by his son to avert political downfall.

Follow all the live updates here
New Delhi: India will transform gradually from a young to a greying country and by 2050 every fifth Indian will be in their 60s as against every 12th at present.

Flagging the demographic transition, a PFRDA-CRISIL report on Monday said it is important that the development of the under-penetrated pension market in India be initiated now, when the situation is ripe.

Demographically, India will transition slowly from a young to a greying country, where persons above the age of 60 would increase from 8.9 percent of the population now to 19.4 percent by 2050, said PFRDA chairman Hemant G. Contractor in the report titled financial security for Indias elderlythe imperatives.

Demographically, India will transition slowly from a young to a greying country, where persons above the age of 60 would increase from 8.9 percent of the population now to 19.4 percent by 2050, said PFRDA chairman Hemant G. Contractor in the report titled financial security for Indias elderlythe imperatives.

As per the report, the population of people above 80 is likely to increase from 0.9 percent tto 2.8 percent by 2050.

Continuously declining inter-generational support within families makes it imperative to have a well-developed, self- sustaining pension system in the country, the report said. Almost 90 percent of the population was below the age of 60 years and the working age population proportion stood at 44 percent in 2015. Contractor said the promotion and development of a pension system is also vital to the growth of the Indian economy as it serves the twin objectives of providing income security to a vast multitude of the ageing population, and garnering long-term funds for critical, growth-driving sectors of the economy as also the capital market.

A developed pension sector not only reduces the fiscal burden on the exchequer, it also has a stabilising effect on the economy by promoting long-term savings combined with long-term investments, he said. According to him, the pursuit of an affordable, adequate, efficient and sustainable pension system will involve a great deal of inter-ministerial, inter-state, inter-regional and inter-institutional decisions and coordination. The report said the government should focus on the financial awareness of pension products in the country. Having personal finance and retirement planning a part of the formal education curriculum can aid in achieving the overall objective of financial literacy, it said and made a case for sufficient incentivisation of intermediaries to increase penetration.

India is a grossly under-penetrated financial market in terms of retail participation. The most that investors prefer investing in is bank fixed deposits (FDs), which account for more than 44 percent of the financial savings in the market. Provident and pension funds form just 14 percent of the savings and are primarily fed by the organised section of the society. As per the report, increasing the penetration of pension products via voluntary pension schemes is the biggest hurdle the Indian pension industry faces today, especially given the gargantuan size of the unorganized sector.

Citing a case study of the governments flagship Atal Pension Yojna, the report said of the 47 lakh subscribers, almost 49 percent have subscribed for Rs1,000 pension, and about 37 percent for Rs 5,000, the top bracket. Though the pension amounts seem low, it can be inferred that people are not able to afford even these contributions, the report said.
New Delhi: Recording a three-fold jump, India's gold imports rose to US $3.85 billion in April, mainly on account of Akshaya Tritiya. Gold imports stood at US $1.23 billion in April last year, as per official data released today.

Imports of the precious metal were on a decline between February and September last year. They grew in October and November but again dipped in December and January. In February and March, they recorded high growth rates.

In March this year, gold imports had risen to US $4.17 billion from US $974 million in the same month previous year.

Surge in gold imports in April contributed to the widening of trade deficit to US $13.2 billion as against US $4.84 billion in April 2016. Silver imports too grew by 61 percent to US $353 million in April.

India is the world's second biggest gold consumer after China. The imports mainly take care of demand by the jewellery industry.

In volume terms, India imported 560.32 tonnes of gold during April-January period of the last fiscal.

At present, gold import attracts 10 percent duty. The gems and jewellery industry along with the commerce ministry have time and again urged the Finance Ministry to consider a cut in the import duty.

During April to December period of last fiscal ended 31 March, the current account deficit halved to 0.7 percent from 1.4 percent a year ago.

The surge in gold imports in April is on account of low base effect and the increase in demand due to Akshaya Tritiya, which fell on 28 April.

ICRA said that the surge in imports was led by restocking, as well as festive season demand.

"The volume of gold imports is likely to taper off in the coming months," it said.
Mumbai: Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) on Monday announced the price of Honda Africa Twin at Rs12.90 lakh, ex-showroom Delhi, and also started limited bookings.

Honda Africa Twin, the 1,000cc adventure motorcycle from the Japanese maker, is slated for a July launch. The bike comes to India via the CKD (completely knocked down) route.

HMSI said pre-launch bookings for the Africa Twin is open only to first 50 orders, and a few lucky customers will get a chance to attend the grand outdoor True Adventure Africa Twin India. A booking amount, however, hasnt been disclosed.

The legendary adventure motorcycle, in its new avatar, will be known as Honda CRF 1000L Africa Twin in the local market and will be assembled in India. These bikes will be sold through its Wing World outlets which are available in 22 cities.

Y.S. Guleria, senior vice-president for sales and marketing, said the Honda Africa Twin is inseparable from the worlds toughest motor rally raids in the worldthe Dakar Rally.

The Honda Africa Twin is powered by an all-new 998cc parallel-twin engine that puts out 95PS and generates 92Nm of torque. The company has launched only the dual clutch transmission (DCT) version for now.
China and India have surpassed the United States to become the two most attractive countries for renewable energy investment, a report by UK accountancy firm Ernst & Young showed on Tuesday.

In an annual ranking of the top 40 renewable energy markets worldwide in terms of allure, China was the top country, followed by India.

The United States, which ranked the highest last year, slumped to third place, due to a shift in US energy policy under President Donald Trump.

Trump has issued orders to roll back many of the previous administration's climate change policies, revive the US coal industry and review the Clean Power Plan, which requires states to cut carbon emissions from power plants.

Meanwhile, China announced this year that it would spend $363 billion on developing renewable power capacity by 2020. India's government has unveiled plans to build 175 gigawatts of renewable energy generation by 2022.

Among European countries, Germany ranked fourth, France eighth and Britain moved to 10th place, from 14th last year.

While Britain's renewable investment environment is more settled than in recent years, which were beset by subsidy cuts, future energy policy after it leaves the European Union is uncertain, the report said.

"The UK's reappearance in the top 10 is the result of other countries falling away  notably Brazil, which cancelled a wind and solar auction in December - rather than any particularly encouraging resurgence," said Ben Warren, EY's head of energy corporate finance.
Amparo Vargas saw her daughters murderer twice. The first time was inside the courthouse. The man who raped the young woman on the back seats of a bus, broke her neck and left her body under a bridge, all in under 40 minutes, was flanked by two police officers when she spotted him in a hallway. Vargas walked up to him and, instead of jabbing her pen in his neck, as the officers had expected, she simply asked him: Why?

Women protest in Mexico City on Mother's Day. Daphnee Denis

More information Estado de Mexico, capital del feminicidio

The second time was at the trial. Sitting in the third row, she stared at Cesar Legorreta, aka El Coqueto (The Dandy), and slowly moved her thumb across her throat, as if to let him know that she wanted to slit his throat. The judge saw it and had her expelled from the room.

But she didnt mean it. Five years later, sitting with her remaining daughters, Amparo Vargas would rather have El Coqueto rot away inside a prison  hopefully one of the worst in the world, such as the ones in the state of Mexico.

The state has one of the highest crime rates and one of the most corrupt police forces in the country

Cecilia, 16, went missing in November 2011, on her way home from the theater. For 30 days, her desperate mother went to every morgue, dump and any other place where a body might be found. She plastered the state with photographs of her daughters face, and went daily to the attorneys office to beg for information.

They treated me like I was crazy; they asked me for money or else wanted to know what a girl was doing alone on the streets at 9pm. They made me feel like a bad mother, she recalls.

On Christmas Day, she took advantage of the fact that the employees who routinely turned her away her were at home, and she bribed an intern with 100 pesos (5) so she could take a look at the latest case files. Inside the third file, she saw that a body that fitted her daughters description had been found under a bridge.

Amparo Vargas at her home in Tultitlan. Daphnee Denis

After that, Amparo decided to find the murderer. After putting up signs for days, she noticed that someone was tearing down the posters on the bus covering Route 57. The first day she didnt think much of it. By the fourth day, she knew that the killer used the bus. He was the driver.

Femicides in this industrial belt surrounding the capital, home to 16 million people, have earned Mexico state the dubious honor of having a higher murder rate for women than the border city of Ciudad Juarez in its darkest years, where between 1993 and 2005, 374 women were murdered. But according to the Citizen Observatory against Gender Violence, last year alone 263 women were killed in Mexico state.

Official figures are much lower  only 61  because the other killings did not meet the authorities definition of femicide. Humberto Padget, a journalist who co-authored the book Las muertas del Estado (The States dead women) compared the data and concluded that the number of deaths in Mexico state could be 10 times higher than that of Ciudad Juarez.

In the city of Ecatepec, which has a similar population (1.6 million), there were 55 femicides last year according to official figures. That is nearly twice as much as in the worst years of Ciudad Juarez, says Padget.

Throughout Mexicos modern history, which began nine decades ago, Mexico state has been ruled uninterruptedly by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), including a stint by the current president of the nation, Enrique Pena Nieto, who was governor between 2006 and 2012. The state perfectly encapsulates the PRIs development model: it gets a passing grade in schooling, health, education and life expectancy, according to international standards, but the structure of society is rotten.

Cecilia's personal objects. Daphnee Denis

One day in October 2014, the authorities in Ecatepec decided to clean up the foul-smelling canal that runs through the city. When they drained it, they found the bodies and remains of some 21 women, according to a deputy from the Democratic Revolution Party (PDR).

With 11 million registered voters, Mexico state is considered a stepping stone to the countrys presidency for any ambitious politician. With three weeks to go before state elections, the PRI is ahead in some polls, but for the first time a leftist candidate, Delfina Gomez, has a strong chance of winning. The third nominee is another woman, Josefina Vazquez Mota, of the center-right National Action Party, and femicides are high on the campaign agenda.

The state also has one of the highest crime rates in the country, as well as a police force with a reputation for corruption. Every day, in places like Ecatepec, Chimalhuacan or Chalco, there are, on average, seven violent deaths, 14 kidnappings and 141 reported cases of theft. Impunity is upwards of 95%.

After murdering Cecilia, El Coqueto killed three more women, making a total of six. Five years later, Amparo has the answer to her question of why he did it. Because he could.

English version by Susana Urra.
According to a recently released report by the UN Economic and Social Council for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), India is likely to grow 7.5 percent in 2018, provided Donald Trump does not play spoil sport. The report warned that if the US policies take a severe protectionist turn, India's growth could be affected by as much as 1.2 percent. Despite the current political climate in the United States, Indias exports grew by a whopping 20 percent this April.

Given the sudden jump in exports as well as talks of greater trade protectionism around the world, FirstData decided to evaluate Indias export relationships and portfolio of commodities to gauge our susceptibility to external economic shocks.

The analysis graphically represents Indias dependence on limited big ticket export partners and high value commodities. For example, the UAE and the US collectively account for Rs 3.9 lakh crore or over 24 percent of Indias total value of export relationships. To put this in context, Singapore, the country with the third highest export value relationship, accounts for only Rs 73,900 crore, which is a steep drop of over Rs 1,20,000 crore from where the US is pegged.

Even within the commodity portfolio of exports to the UAE and US, the top 5 commodities disproportionately account for the total export relationship, further exposing India to external sector/ industry based economic shocks. It has to be remembered both the US and UAE are at present geo-politically sensitive.

1. Universe of Indias export relationships

&amp;lt;a href='#'&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img alt='Export Relationships by Country and Value ' src='https:&amp;amp;#47;&amp;amp;#47;public.tableau.com&amp;amp;#47;static&amp;amp;#47;images&amp;amp;#47;In&amp;amp;#47;IndiasExportStory_v5&amp;amp;#47;Export_Countries&amp;amp;#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Key takeaways:

a) In 2012-13, India exported over Rs 16 lakh crore worth of commodities to over 230 countries, extended entities and disputed territories.

b) Regionally, our biggest trading blocs are West Asia - Gulf Corporation Council (17 percent), EU (16.7 percent), North America (13.2 percent) and North East Asia (13.1 percent), which collectively account for 60 percent of the total value of all commodities exported.

c) Exports to our immediate 7 neighbours account for only 9 percent of the total value of all commodities exported, with exports to China alone accounting for 4.5 percent. Pakistan (0.6 percent), Nepal (1 percent), Bhutan (0.07 percent), Myanmar (0.1 percent), Sri Lanka (1.3 percent) and Bangladesh (1.7 percent) account for the remaining.

2. Indias portfolio of export commodities

&amp;lt;a href='#'&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img alt='Commodities Traded by Value ' src='https:&amp;amp;#47;&amp;amp;#47;public.tableau.com&amp;amp;#47;static&amp;amp;#47;images&amp;amp;#47;In&amp;amp;#47;IndiasExportStory_v1&amp;amp;#47;Export_Commodities&amp;amp;#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Key takeaways:

a) In 2012-13, India exported 53 categories of commodities*

b) Petroleum is our highest value export commodity, accounting for 20 percent of the total value of all commodities, followed by gems and jewelry (14.4 percent), machinery/instruments/ equipment (11.4 percent), chemicals (8.8 percent) and metals and alloys (7.4 percent).

c) Collectively, the top 5 commodity categories account for 62 percent of the total value of commodities exported.

3. Relationship between number of commodities traded, commodity type and total value

&amp;lt;a href='#'&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img alt='Countries by Commodities Traded and Value ' src='https:&amp;amp;#47;&amp;amp;#47;public.tableau.com&amp;amp;#47;static&amp;amp;#47;images&amp;amp;#47;In&amp;amp;#47;IndiasExportStory_v2&amp;amp;#47;Export_CommodityCategory&amp;amp;#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Key takeaways:

a) There is a positive but weak linear relationship between the number of distinct commodity categories traded and the total value of the export relationship (correlation coefficient: 0.36)

b) For example, we export 53 commodity categories to both Australia and the UAE, however, the value of the export relationship with the UAE is 15x the value of the export relationship with Australia.

c) This is because the portfolio of commodities exported to the UAE leans towards high value commodities like petroleum and gems and jewelry, while the commodity portfolio for Australia leans towards relatively low value commodities like machinery, chemicals, yarn and ready made garments.

4. Deep dive into Indias partner and commodity dependency

&amp;lt;a href='#'&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img alt='Value of Export Relationships by Rank Order of Countries ' src='https:&amp;amp;#47;&amp;amp;#47;public.tableau.com&amp;amp;#47;static&amp;amp;#47;images&amp;amp;#47;In&amp;amp;#47;IndiasExportStory_v3&amp;amp;#47;Export_ValueofExportRelationshipsbyRankOrderofCountries&amp;amp;#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Key takeaways:

a) The top 10 countries by relationship value account for over Rs 8.3 lakh crore or 50 percent of Indias total value of export relationships. Countries ranked between 11 - 60 account for over Rs 6.9 lakh crore or 42 percent. Countries ranked between 61 - 235 account for only 6 percent of the total value of export relationships.

b) The UAE and USA collectively account for Rs 3.9 lakh crore or over 24 percent of Indias total value of export relationships.

c. To put the numbers in context, Singapore, the country with the third highest export value relationship, accounts for only Rs 73,900 crore, which is a sharp decline of over Rs 1,20,000 crore from where the US is pegged. The export dependency on the UAE and US leaves India susceptible to external economic shocks.

&amp;lt;a href='#'&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img alt='Top 5 Commodities Exported to UAE and USA ' src='https:&amp;amp;#47;&amp;amp;#47;public.tableau.com&amp;amp;#47;static&amp;amp;#47;images&amp;amp;#47;In&amp;amp;#47;IndiasExportStory_v4&amp;amp;#47;Export_UAEandUSATop5CommodityComparison&amp;amp;#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Key takeaways:

a) Even within the commodity portfolio of exports to the UAE and US, the top 5 commodities disproportionately account for the total export relationship, further exposing India to external sector/ industry based economic shocks.

b) India exports 53 distinct commodity categories to the UAE, but the top 5 categories account for over 82 percent (Rs 1.6 trillion) of the total value of exports.

c) Likewise, India exports 53 distinct commodity categories to the US, but the top 5 categories account for over 60 percent (Rs 1.1 trillion) of the total value of exports.

*Department of Commerce defines over 90 categories of commodities. We have further grouped categories to ensure better classification (eg: Finished Leather and Leather Goods would be classified under Leather)

Source: 2012-2013, Department of Commerce
Ahmedabad: Around 120 computers connected to the Gujarat governments information technology network were hit by the ransomware WannaCry virus, though no valuable data was compromised, a senior government official said on Monday.

As per our information, so far the virus has affected around 120 computers in different government departments linked to the Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN), said Dhananjay Dwivedi, secretary of the state governments science and technology department.

But none of the affected computer has any valuable data or important information that could adversely impact the governments functioning, said Dwivedi.

Many computers linked to the district collectorate across Gujarat were affected by the WannaCry virus even though no major data loss was reported. Following the attack, computers that were functioning were shut down as precautionary measure, crippling the work, officials said.

Six computers at Mehsana district collectorate were affected by the ransomware attack with the message reflecting on the screen saying that the data of the computer has been encrypted and one will have to pay a certain amount in bitcoins to get the data back, said an official of National Informatics Centre.

Mehsana collector Alok Pandey said following the attack, all computers connected to the district collectorate were shut down as precautionary measure. All computers have been shut down after the attack was reported in some computers. These were the computers operating independently and there is no data loss as such due to the attack, said Pandey.

Several collectorates across Gujarat reported instances of computers getting affected by the virus. At least three computers of Jamnagar Regional Transport Office were also affected by the virus, leading to shutting down of the RTOs entire operation. The computers which were linked to the works related to the registration certificate (RC) books were affected by the virus, which sent out the message that the data have been encrypted, said Assistant RTO F.U. Jakhra.

The affected computers, however, were not linked to GSWAN network, and were being handled by a private agency, added Jakhra. States Crime Records Bureau (CRB) issued advisory for the police stations and public to take precautionary measures to prevent the attack and said reports have been sought from individual police stations where computers were affected by the virus.
New Delhi: The global ransomware attack has affected several computers of a state power distribution company in West Bengal but the central government computer system has largely escaped, officials said on Monday. State agencies that manage government websites and build supercomputers have installed security patches issued by Microsoft Corp.

Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that there was no serious impact on India, with only isolated incidents in parts of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh states, and the government was monitoring the situation. However, West Bengal Power Minister Sovandev Chattopadhyay said that several billing centres of the state's Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL) had been infected by the ransomware worm.

"The full extent and magnitude of the problem will be realised by tomorrow," he said, the situation will be very serious if household electricity consumption data from the central server of the utility could not be retrieved beforehand. A power department official who did not want to be named said billing for around 800,000 households was affected when the ransomware blocked access to files in the computers.

A senior official at the Federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said its Computer Emergency Response Team was gathering all possible information about the ransomware. The cyber attack, which shut car factories, hospitals, shops and schools over the weekend, has proved less severe than anticipated in Asia, but industry professionals have flagged potential risks in the future.

Aruna Sundararajan, secretary of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said the government was constantly monitoring the situation and that a few stand-alone computers at a police department were "back in action" after being infected over the weekend. It was not immediately clear what the police department did to secure its systems.

India's National Informatics Centre, which builds and manages almost all government websites, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a premier research institute that has built supercomputers, have actively installed patches to immunise their Windows systems, Sundararajan said. Her ministry has also asked chief information security officers of all organisations run by provincial governments to follow guidelines issued by New Delhi to tackle the issue.
As part of precautionary measures, banks did not operate some automated teller machines (ATMs) running on old software in view of threat from ransomware 'WannaCry'.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation CERT-In on ransomware, which has impacted various IT networks in over 150 countries.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has come out with a list of do's and dont's and webcast on how to protect networks from the global ransomware attack. Most ATMs were running fine, there could be some which may not have updated Microsoft's Windows operating system, sources said.

Such ATMs could be prone to attack so as precautionary measure banks running such ATMs refrained from feeding cash, sources added. However, there was no official information in this regard from the RBI in this connection till late evening.

There are a total of 2.2 lakh ATMs in India, of which few may be running on old Windows XP.

In a separate malware attack last year, 3.2 lakh debit cards were compromised in the country. Data of the users who transacted from ATM machines of Hitachi were compromised during three months of May, June and July last year.

The Hitachi ATMs deployed by many White Label ATM players and Yes Bank were impacted by the malware.
After making her debut in a supporting role in the two-part crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur (2102), followed by a raft of award nominations, Huma Qureshi went on to do films in several different genres. That same year, she played the lead female role in the romance Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, and followed it with a role in the supernatural thriller, Ek Th Daayan.

Further, the actress was seen in the black comedy Dedh Ishqiya (2014), the revenge drama Badlapur (2015) and most recently, in a comic role opposite Akshay Kumar in Jolly LLB 2. Huma  a history graduate, found herself in the international space with Gurinder Chadhas British-Indian historical drama Viceroys House.

Huma is now looking forward to the release of Dobaara: See Your Evil, which happens to be a remake of the supernatural/psychological horror Hollywood flick, Oculus  rated as one of the scariest of films ever. Besides Adil Hussain, Lisa Ray, Rhea Chakraborty and Madalina Bellariu Ion, the film also stars Humas brother, Saqib Saleem.

The brother-sister duo is working together for the first time, and while Huma says, that she couldnt disconnect from being an actor and a sister, Saqib tried maintaining a balance between their "professional and personal relationship" on the sets.

"First of all, we never thought that we would do a film together, but it happened...then we started shooting together. I had to stay away from the fact that we are siblings or else it would have been difficult, and once we moved past that, it was a lot of fun. But we share an awkward sibling relationship in the film, totally different from how we are in real life. In the film, our characters detest each other, even though there is a lot of love between the two, says Saqib.

Says Huma, It can get very irritating working with your brother. Just imagine, what you have to go through at home, the same follows at the work place [laughs]! Actually I was more irritating on the sets as compared to Saqib. I could never disconnect from being an actor and being a sister. I was always a sister on the sets, watching out for him, what is he doing, why is he doing it, who is he getting friendly with, why is he helping out so and so, whether or not he has eaten his food. Saqib wouldnt like it, and he was like, Back off man, give me my space. So I was the more irritating (one) in this sibling equation. But there was definitely a comfort level. You can say anything, you can trust him, you know each others reactions. Saqeeb and I dont look very similar but there is a kind of similarity in our reactions if you speak to both of us.

Saqib further says, It is because of the fact that we are family, sometimes the lines tend to get blurred while working together, but then you enjoy that also. At times, I would speak to Huma as an actor and at others, as a brother," he said. However, Saqib found the balance very interesting. "It made us understand each other as actors more. We got to know each other's process of working. For that, I think this film was a great exercise and we had great fun shooting," he says, adding, We both wanted the film to become better, that was our endeavour, and I think both of us gelled on the set. I was surprised. We bonded really well. It was a very nice equation we shared. I thought we wont gel on the set because we are two different kinds of people, but I think we somehow managed. I think we brought different energies. As actors, we have different energies and that kind of helped while shooting the film."

Oculus, which released in 2013, was a thriller mystery about the relationship of two adult siblings who lose their parents very early on. While the girl believes that an antique mirror is the reason for the death of her family, her brother is trying to rebuild their lives. The two of them together try to find the truth. So, how well did being real life siblings work out for Huma and Saqib in Dobaara? I was really amazed at Humas performing skills. She did not have a very conventional debut and I have always admired her as an actress. She is very alive in this film and in every scene. She is extremely spontaneous and can be seen playing with the dialogues, says Saqib about Huma.

He continues, My character is very rational and practical person, whereas in real life I get swayed by emotions. I am the frivolous kind but I play an intense person in the film. I am not a trained actor. I take time to get into the character. My character here is sent to a juvenile home where I spend 12 years. I am a complete loner. I stationed myself in Delhi for some time to attend workshops to get into the skin of the character. I also visited juvenile homes in the city to bring authenticity to my performance. Then, I spent some time all alone in a room. I locked myself in a room with no access to the outside world...absolutely no communication...no phone, no television...nothing at all, and it was so very difficult. While in my character, my silence talks about my angst, I dont verbalise emotions, but post-pack up I was a different person...

It is a fact that horror as a genre hasnt been explored in Bollywood, and most of the times it's presented in somewhat cheap/tacky fashion by mixing in sex. But Huma says the horror in Dobaara is world class. It is not tacky. There is no sex scene. The premise is the same (as Oculus), we play siblings, an incident happens in the family and both of us have two different points of view as to what happened that night. The brother is trying to run away from the past and the sister is trying to drag him back into it. They were little when the incident happened so their memory has become hazy. They are trying to recollect and come to terms with it, get closure and remember the truth of what happened. The premise is very similar but the emotions are different and it also plays a major part unlike Hollywood, since we have a different value system, says Huma.

Adds Saqib, I would like to believe that Dobaara is clutter-breaking and path-breaking horror film. That time has gone when we made the Ramsay kind of movies, or those sleazy films with shots of a girl taking a shower who then gets killed. We have outgrown all those tantriks, babas and maulvi kind of horror films, that was a scare (tactic) then. We have to evolve, the genre has to move past all these cliches. There is no divine intervention shown here. Within no time we can think of five romcoms in Bollywood but there is no recall value for the horror genre. The only film I can remember is Ram Gopal Varmas Raat. But there is an audience for horror films.

But why would people who have seen Oculus watch Dobaara? Because Dobaara is not a cut-copy-paste of Oculus. When we talk of remakes, lot of people steal and copy without giving adequate credit. Sometimes, it is just a scene-by-scene replication of the same thing. Dobaara is not a film where a Patricia becomes Padma or Stewart becomes Sameer. It is far more nuanced than that; it is an actual adaptation where the characters are Indianised, where the context is changed. It is about an Indian family living in London and something that happens with them. I would want more and more better films in horror genre. It is as important as a drama or a biopic or a comedy or a romantic film, says Huma, whos yearning to do a slapstick comedy, a historical, a biopic and a race driver movie among others. There is no end to my desires. Actors are greedy. I want to keep working.

Meanwhile, Saqib, who is currently working on a romantic comedy titled Makhna with Tapsee Pannu, will be also joining his father in his restaurant business. Huma and Saqibs father runs a chain of restaurants in Delhi, and the latter will be helping in bringing the restaurant to Mumbai: "My dad and I have been discussing for a long time. Now I have started to act upon it. I am very excited to explore it as it will involve me and dad working together."
Sridevi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Soankshi Sinha and Radhika Apte - These are some Hindi film beauties who have shared the screen space with Tamil superstar Rajinikanth. Now, it is confirmed that Huma Qureshi will be cast opposite the superstar.

It was earlier reported that Vidya Balan had been approached to star opposite Rajinikanth in Pa Ranjith's next. Balan was reportedly also approached for KS Ravikumar's 2014 action film Lingaa and Ranjith's 2016 gangster flick Kabali. The third time was not a charm either as India Today reports that she has turned down the film owing to date issues.

Now, Pune Mirror reports that the makers have approached Qureshi for the role opposite Rajinikanth. She is known for her nuanced performances in Anurag Kashyap's 2012 crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur, Abhishek Chaubey's 2014 black comedy Dedh Ishqiya and Subhash Kapoor's courtroom drama Jolly LLB 2 that released earlier this year.

She is currently gearing up for Prawaal Raman's psychological horror film Dobara - See Your Evil and Gurinder Chadha's period drama Viceroy's House. If she gives a nod to Ranjith's film, it will be her first foray into Tamil cinema.

The report by Pune Mirror states that Rajinikanth will begin shooting for Ranjith's directorial from 28 May. The film will be produced by his daughter Aishwarya Rajinikanth and her husband-actor Dhanush's home production banner Wunderbar Films.

It was earlier reported that the film will revolve around the life of notorious underworld giant Haji Mastan or better known as Sultan Mirza. However, the makers rubbished that rumour through a statement that read, "The film is not based on the life of Haji Mastan. It's not even a biopic. It's just a fictional story set in Mumbai."

This statement came after Mastan's son Sundar Shaekhar sent a legal notice to Rajinikanth for projecting his father as "a smuggler and don".

(With inputs from agencies)
"Andavan Solaran, Arunachalam seiran (God commands, Arunachalam acts on it)."

When Rajinikanth spoke to his fans on Monday morning, 15 May 2017, this punch dialogue from his 1997 superhit Arunchalam must have been at the back of his mind. Realising the fluid political climate in Tamil Nadu has been leading to speculation about the Superstar taking a political plunge, he almost shut the door on the political world  albeit with a caveat, saying: "My life is in the hands of God". The Superstar meant that should God knock on his door and ask him to step into politics, he would be willing to. Those who heard the 16-minute long speech, were certain Rajini is testing the waters.

"Andavan Solaran, Rajinikanth seiran" is by far, the most ambigiously clear answer to "Will Rajini enter politics?", easily the question most asked in India, after "Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?"

"I am a tool in the hands of God and he is using me to do his bidding. He is using me as an actor now so I am working as an actor now. Tomorrow, whatever he decides. But I will always perform the duty that he bestows on me. So do not feel disappointed if I don't enter politics," said Rajinikanth, making it clear that it would need a Hand of God for him to score a political goal.

On the face of it, Rajinikanth's reluctance to embrace politics would be good news to established political warlords but it would disappoint his fans who were looking to him doing an MGR and a Jayalalithaa. But it was obvious from the tone and tenor of his address that he does not hold politicians in very high esteem.

"I don't support any political party," Rajinikanth said emphatically, also regretting his "Even God will not save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa and AIADMK are voted back to power" statement of 1996. That thumbs down to Jayalalithaa ensured her defeat that year and with that started the "Will he, won't he" speculation on Rajinikanth.

The DMK would be embarrassed to hear Rajini regretting that he had earlier "supported a party", calling his decision "a political accident". His reference was to the 1996 assembly election where he extended support to the DMK-TMC alliance, helping it sweep the polls. "My fans even helped this party win," he said. Though Rajini had rued his harsh words after Jayalalithaa passed away in December last year, this is the first time he is making a larger point, expressing unhappiness over the events it led to.

"My name has been dragged into politics for the past two decades. I am pushed to clarify during every election that I am not affiliated to any political party," he said. Rajinikanth made no bones about his displeasure over how his name was misused by politicians and fans alike to make money. "In subsequent elections, these people claimed that I was supporting a political party, just so they could make money," he added, without taking any names.

The most recent incident of this kind occurred when Gangai Amaran, the BJP candidate in the RK Nagar byelection (which was rescinded by the Election Commission after evidence of cash for votes surfaced) met Rajini at his residence and used the photograph of the two hugging each other, to suggest the actor supported him. A miffed Rajini tweeted that he was not supporting any candidate in the bypoll.

But just when his fans were digesting the actor's rebuff to the political arena, Rajini did a "Idhu eppadi irukku (How is it?)", a hit dialogue from the Rajini-Kamal Haasan-Sridevi starrer 16 Vayathinile. Elaborating on a hypothetical situation where he does enter politics, Rajini went on to list out his set of conditions.

"If there is a situation where I have to enter politics, I will never let such people (who are interested in politics for money) even come near me," he said. Is this a Tamil remake of Narendra Modi's "Na khaaonga, na khaane doonga"? This implies Rajini's emphasis on clean politics, which may be too Utopian given the money power-driven elections Tamil Nadu sees.

The actor has often been attacked for backing out in the face of criticism, of not being thick-skinned enough, a must for a politician. A recent instance was Rajinikanth choosing to opt out of the trip to Jaffna after the likes of Vaiko opposed the trip. Rajini chose the platform to rebut that impression clarifying that he thought "wisely" before taking the decision  his choice of words again reflecting his disgust with the crop of public representatives.

"If you step into the water and later realise that there are crocodiles in it, you should not brave them and refuse to step out of the water. Such blind courage will take you nowhere," he said.

This basically indicated that Rajini was not the kind to take opposition head on. He clearly hates confrontations of any kind and would prefer to sidestep them. Already actor-turned-politician Sarath Kumar has announced that he will oppose Rajinikanth should he decided to don a political veshti.

Rajini also has made his lack of interest in any of the existing political parties evident. That again won't be music to the BJP's ears, that has been trying to woo him for a long time. But should Rajini think God wills him to have a political way, the BJP will be first in the queue to meet him with a party application form.

Will Rajinikanth be successful as a politician? The jury is out on that given that there does exist a political vacuum in Tamil Nadu. But is the actor best suited to aim for the top job or will he end up like a Chiranjeevi, who has gone back to Tollywood? Rajini's views on the most burning issues aren't known, and unlike Kamal Haasan, who does not shy away from articulating his viewpoint on contentious subjects, he is a recluse. Yes, he enjoys enormous goodwill and political parties will salivate at the prospect of converting that into votes.

This week, Rajinikanth will pose for photographs with at least 5,000 fans. But has his speech put a firm full stop on speculation over his political avatar? No. On the contrary, people think that yet again he has not foreclosed the option.

For the moment, all Rajinikanth has done is to announce that all queries on his political role may be forwarded to God.
New Delhi: Following the recent killing of Lt. Ummer Fayaz in the Kashmir Valley, a BSF Assistant Commandant from Jammu, who had topped the recruitment exam, has written to the government alleging that militants are threatening him and his sister.

Nabeel Ahmed Wani, the topper of the All India Examination for BSF Assistant Commandant (Works) in 2016, said his sister, a civil engineering student in Chandigarh, had been staying in a hostel but the college authorities now want her to move elsewhere.

Wani wrote to Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday asking her to arrange for hostel facility for Nida Rafiq.

"She was worried that she would not get a place to stay as a Kashmiri, especially with my background. I didn't want to involve the BSF in a personal matter, so I wrote to the minister," Wani told PTI over phone from BSF Training Academy in Tekanpur near Gwalior.

Wani said he has spoken to his seniors in the BSF requesting them to allow personnel to carry their arms when they go on leave, especially in militant-affected areas, and also to secure their travel plans home.

He said he will go home for his cousin's wedding in next two months.

"People like me and my family members are always under threat from militants. After the murder of Lt Ummer Fayaz, I am scared about my family's security. My mother lives alone in Jammu while my sister is in Chandigarh. I worry, especially now, as terrorists are targeting our families," said Wani.

He topped the exam in 2016 around the time the Valley was on the boil following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen

terrorist Burhan Wani.

He had written the mail to Gandhi on 14 May and got a response the very next day.

"The minister immediately took it up with the college authorities, who have now allowed Mr. Nabeel's sister to stay in the hostel," a senior official of the WCD Ministry said.

Wani said, "I am now worried for all those Kashmiris who are serving in the Army or paramilitary forces. We (Kashmiris) join the forces despite a lot of opposition and now, with this trend of killing Kashmiris serving as soldiers, a sword hangs on all of us. This is very disturbing."

As for his sister, he is now comforted she will remain safe in the security of her hostel room.

"She is safe for now. Pray for her, she wants to become the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to serve the Indian Army," he said.
Despite the Delhi government's claim to have made significant improvement in the health sector, the capital city's measures to tackle quackery have been ineffective, revealed a study conducted on the unqualified medical practitioners in India by a Senior Fellow in the Shiv Nadar University.

The study was conducted by Shailaja Chandra, the principal investigator, who is a former secretary to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and a Senior fellow at the university. The study says that the Delhi Medical Councils (DMC) effort to tackle the menace of quackery is negligible. In the last 10 years, it has issued only 875 closure orders to unqualified medical practitioners in the city.

In 2009, the DMC had published a list of 40,000 registered doctors on its website. Interestingly in the same year, the Association of Medical Consultants published a study which said that there were equal number of quacks operating in the city.

The study further reveals that apart from issuing closure notices, the DMC has also requested the police to register 415 number of cases against quacks, of which 145 cases have been registered.

The responses received from the DMC show that the council had booked hundreds of cases under the law, but seen over a 10-year period and looking at the large numbers of unqualified medical practitioners operating particularly in the unorganised colonies of Delhi, the action taken by the DMC is insignificant, says the study.

The study highlighted that there is no co-ordination with the police and hardly any follow-up on the cases is done in the courts. Though the records say that 184 cases were filed on behalf of the DMC in the court, 10 of them were against practitioners of the Indian System of Medicine, of which the council obtained conviction in 40 of them.

Chandra, in her comments, said, Despite being asked, no response was given on whether the convictions ended in imprisonment or fine or acquittal. Apparently no effective deterrent action is being taken against quacks practicing modern medicine. She added that the situation in other states is unlikely to be any better.

The study also says that in the last three to four years, approximately 200 cases has been filed by the Delhi Bharatiya Chikitsya Parishad (DBCP) against persons practicing Indian Systems of Medicine without the requisite qualification. It further said that telephonic clarification was given by the secretary of the parishad that they do not have the staff to pursue the court cases and the quacks are able to engage well-paid lawyers to represent them.

Whatever action the DBCP takes is aimed at those who practice the AYUSH systems of medicine without being qualified to do so. Even those cases have not reached any conclusion, said Chandra in her comments.

It further said, It is clear that whatever little is done is prompted by the need to show some activity but there is no thinking about what would give the best protection to the consumer and whether the laws need to be modified on the basis of so many years of experience.

The report further says that each slum in the capital city has 10 to 40 unqualified medical practitioners.

Stating the reasons why quackery finds a suitable place in the slums to breed, the study says that whether it is in a village or a slum, going to an unqualified medical practitioner becomes the first choice because it is both time and cost-effective. A private doctor would charge Rs 100 as consultation fee and would expect that the medicines be bought from a chemist where the bill would come to an additional Rs 50 or more  even if the medicine is purchased for just two days, the report says.

An unqualified practitioner, on the other hand, charges approximately around Rs 75 which includes the medicine cost as well.

The study further said, Most of the labourers said that the public health centre doctors came at their own will and in some cases, did not turn up at all. In the process, they could lose a days wages (Rs 300)."

When questioned on the government action, Dr Girish Tyagi, the registrar of the DMC told Firstpost, There are various agencies involved in the anti-quackery enforcement  the Delhi Police, Chief District Medical Officers, Office of the Drug Controller, the general public are also a part of it. Enforcement against quackery can be successful only by co-ordination among all the agencies. He also mentioned that not all the cases sent by the medical council have been registered by the Delhi Police.

He also said that there is no study conducted by the government which lets one know as to how many quacks are there. In 2006, a study was conducted by the Delhi government, but the findings of the study was never made public.
Brett H. McGurk in Madrid on May 11. LUIS SEVILLANO

Few high-ranking officials in Washington have survived Donald Trumps driving desire to obliterate all traces of his predecessors time in office. Yet there are areas where not even someone as bent on change as the US president can afford to create instability. One such area is the global coalition that is fighting the Islamic State (ISIS), and whose US representative is Brett H. McGurk. Tapped for the post by Barack Obama in November 2015, his strategy against the Caliphate has proven so successful that McGurk can afford to maintain the same approach without having to sever ties with the past  or make new plans for the future.

Question. You are in Spain as part of a round of visits to coalition partners. Is Spain doing all thats necessary?

Answer. In Iraq, we have returned 1.7 million people to their homes, in areas that used to be living under ISIS, and Spain should be very proud of this record, because Spain came in at the darkest hour in 2014, when the Iraqi security forces had been completely disintegrated. Spain, one of the founding members of the coalition, came in to help retrain the Iraqi security forces. It looked like a daunting challenge back then, I remember those days quite well. We have now trained almost 97,000 members of the Iraqi security forces, Spain has trained nearly 20,000, and Iraqi security forces, the ones we have trained, have not lost a single battle against ISIS. Spains contributions have been absolutely vital to the success we have had so far.

Spains contributions have been absolutely vital to the success we have had so far

Q. In terms of land and resources, ISIS is clearly losing. But dont you think we run the risk of underestimating their ability for long-term resistance?

A. Nobody is saying that, once you defeat their territory, the war is over. ISIS, Al Qaeda, these groups will be with us for many more years to come. But what made ISIS this global phenomenon that attracted almost 40,000 of these Jihad-oriented people to Syria, was this notion of the Caliphate, the Homeland. Come be a part of this historic movement. The propaganda of ISIS, two years ago, everything they said was retained as a part of the Caliphate. Territorial gain is a necessary condition for the defeat of ISIS, but not a sufficient condition, it is one element of an overall campaign.

Q. Is ISIS still strong on the internet and on social media?

ISIS, Al Qaeda, these groups will be with us for many more years to come

A. The answer is yes, although their message has fundamentally changed. They are no longer calling recruits to come to Syria, in fact they are saying, Dont come to Syria, its too hard to get to Syria. We are working very closely with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, to make sure that extremist content, ISIS content, is taken offline, and we are constantly countering the messages on these platforms. We also have a very active counter-messaging campaign within the coalition, demonstrating that this is a losing proposition: If you join ISIS now and you try to go to Syria, first of all you probably wont get there. If you are in ISIS and you are in Syria, youre probably going to die in Syria. Right now the odds are that youre going to be killed in Syria. We want to make sure these people can never get out of Syria.

Q. You mentioned your operations in Iraq and Syria, of course, because of the physical presence of ISIS there. You have a lot of experience in Iraq, youve been there. But what about Syria and Bashar al-Assad? The US government attacked the Assad regimes military positions last month for its use of chemical weapons.

A. The Iraqi government is an elected, legitimate government under a constitution, and they have asked for our help. The Assad regime has brutally repressed what were the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people for a better life and more accountability from their government, so I think the two situations are just completely different. The chemical weapons strike was the response to the Assad regime using chemical weapons on some people, and President Trump took decisive action to make sure he would enforce international norm against that activity.

There is a lack of trust with Russia, to say the least

Weve also made very clear that the only way the civil war can end in Syria is through a political solution. We have to prioritize the defeat of ISIS. So long as there is a Caliphate in the middle of Syria, controlling millions of people, its hard to imagine how you can have a constitutional referendum or elections. Russia has a proposal right now; we have to be extremely cautious with that proposal, because so many of the details have to be worked out. But where we can find some common ground with Russia, we will try to advance.

Q. How is your cooperation with Russia, which backs al-Assad?

A. Obviously, there is a lack of trust with Russia, to say the least, for a number of issues that have nothing to do with the counter-ISIS campaign. We have military-to-military discussions with the Russians every day, professional military to military discussions focusing on de-confliction over the skies of Syria, to make sure that there are no accidents. Its a very professional dialogue. That does not mean that we are cooperating with the Russians or coordinating with them.

Turkey is a bedrock strategic ally and we are looking forward to deepening that cooperation

Q. What about Turkey? Do you think the political changes there will affect the cooperation to effectively counter the ISIS threat?

A. Turkey is a bedrock strategic ally, a bedrock NATO ally, and we are looking forward to deepening that cooperation. Were looking forward to having President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan in Washington next week, that will be a very important visit about strengthening our overall relationship. Turkey has worked very closely with us to make sure that their border with Syria now is pretty much sealed. The attacks in Paris, the attacks in Brussels, these were operations that were planned in Raqqa [the Caliphates de facto capital in Syria] by ISIS, they formed an operational team, sent them out through Turkey to carry out their attacks  ISIS cant do that any more.

Q. Do you have any evidence that the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may still be alive?

Weve made very clear that the only way the civil war can end in Syria is through a political solution

A. We have now eliminated virtually all of his deputies. There was a period when we had not heard from him for some time, and then he released an audio tape around the end of last year. I think the going assumption now is that he is still alive, but it is a matter of time until that changes.

Q. Do you think the risk of attacks may increase in Europe as ISIS is weakened in Syria and Iraq? They have resorted to rudimentary techniques here such ramming trucks into people

A. One: we have to remain vigilant, because these people want to attack us every single day if they can. Two: we have to degrade their ability to do the major types of operations, such as the Brussels attacks and the Paris attacks. That is why we work so hard to make sure that once they are in Syria they are bottled in there. The individual attack, the attack by a radicalized individual, that is a serious law enforcement challenge.

Q. The recent changes in the White House have made waves in the world, especially with regard to US diplomacy and foreign policy. Is anything going to change in the fight against ISIS?

A. President Trump has made very clear that this is our number-one priority and that charge has gone down throughout the government, and his delegation of authority to the Secretary of Defense and to the commanders has enabled a pretty swift move in the campaign. We are moving with real unity of purpose and real unity of effort from Washington.

Q. Are resources still the same?

A. If we need more resources the commanders will obviously ask for them.
India is facing the worst drought it has seen in the last 150 years, affecting the lives of millions of people across the subcontinent. Vikram Soni, professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Milia Islamia, came into prominence with his efforts to save the Delhi Ridge.

An unconventional physicist, he has also been working on non-invasive solutions to curb water shortage for the last three decades. A lot of his work is focussed on rivers and their floodplains, particularly on 'conserve and use' solutions that can provide a perennial and sustainable source of water for river bank cities.

In an interview with Firstpost, Soni discusses the drought, the problems going forward and various schemes to mitigate the water crisis. Here are excerpts from the interview:

India is facing an unprecedented drought  hundreds of farmers are committing suicide and large numbers of animals are dying. What immediate steps should the Centre and state governments take to tackle this situation?

Out of all the water on the planet, only about two percent is fresh water. A large portion of this water worldwide is already contaminated by chemicals, industrial effluents, sewage, and fertilisers. We have overexploited groundwater, rivers and lakes. Only fresh water can be used for human consumption and agriculture. But this water is not just for human beings. We forget that there are others  plants, birds, animals.

In the last few decades, nearly 50 percent of the wild species on land, rivers and in the oceans are now endangered. We are losing forests which hold fresh water at an alarming rate. This is bad news. There are too many of us and limited natural resources. Yet, we use our waters in a profligate way. We must conserve our natural water resources and only use what is replenished by nature.

We need to take the following steps to ensure that we conserve our freshwater supplies:

- All natural resources and sources of water  mountains, lakes, rivers, floodplains, forests, hills must be declared as inviolate. A huge penalty should be charged for destruction of these resources.

- At the same time, there is a need to augment water. This can be done by planting more forests  move it towards the norm, which is 33 percent. All rivers and their floodplains, streams and lakes, must be forested along their boundaries for at least half a kilometre on all sides and declared as water sanctuaries.

- Water consumption  whether in cities, industries or for agriculture  must be strictly regulated. We need to move to a more sustainable way of living.

Water is getting scarcer by the year. Delhi is also in the throes of a water crisis affecting several parts of the city. Do you think that we are doing enough to control the issue?

Yes, water is getting scarcer. This point has been stressed by Planning Commission ex-member, Mihir Shah, who maintains that we will have only half the water that we require by 2030. Imagine what that would be like. I believe our agricultural map needs to be redrawn so that half the country that is water short adopts more efficient water practices like drip irrigation and changes to less water intensive crops.

Already, 80 percent of our water is being utilised by agriculture and we are industrialising in a big way. By contrast, in the USA, 60 percent water is used by industry, particularly the energy industry, and only 30 percent by agriculture. But here is the dilemma.

Cities like Delhi  which house a 20 million population are simply unsustainable. Delhi is a parasite city and gets its water from other river basins located as far as 300 kilometres away. We cannot expand in an irrational way. The city needs to respect the carrying capacity principle and become more self-sustaining and local.

Finally, people need to be incentivised to move to other cities, decongest Delhi and only then we may find an answer to Delhis congestion, water and pollution problems.

How is your project to extract water from the floodplains of River Yamuna going?

The Yamuna project is doing well for the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). Last year, the project contributed 25 MGD (million gallons daily) to Delhis water supply  no surprise that for the first time they earned a profit of Rs 250 crore.

The project is supposed to deliver 50 MGD but cannot, as the pipeline is in disrepair and can only handle 25 MGD. However, the DJB has taken no interest in taking the project to completion but only picked up the profit. Though the government continues to advertise the project in leading newspapers and on their websites as a feather in their cap.

I have been an honorary advisor to the DJB and was meant to supervise the project but I am disappointed by the way they function. Since July 2016, the project has again got stalled. This project started in 2009 from the prime ministers secretariat. I have spent seven years and thousands of hours of free voluntary work to see this project to completion and feel very strongly about bringing this to a satisfactory conclusion.

A large amount of public money, Rs 13 crore, was spent on the SCADA system which monitors and regulates all hydrological parameters of the floodplain water. It has not been working. It was not understood by the DJB engineers, nor did they have any inclination to do so. Even the company contracted to install and control the SCADA system, was not able to operate it satisfactorily till we intervened on our own accord last month.

The Delhi government needs to wake up now and expedite this project. It is a pioneering project and can provide water to hundreds of river cities.

You had demonstrated that the Yamuna flood plains in Delhi could provide 200-250 million cubic meters) of water per year. This could have gone a long way in mitigating the water situation in the capital. Why is it not being effectively implemented?

This quantum of water could be sourced from the entire Yamuna floodplain. In Delhi, which runs from Palla to Wazirabad to Okhla (48 kilometres), we can only use the section from the north of Wazirabad till Palla as the rest has been built upon.

For this section, we had estimated this project would have a sustainable yield of 50-60 MGD, which would provide water for over two million people in the city. The floodplains are an exceptional aquifer wide and deep.

They store a huge amount of water  about 40 percent of their volume; they carry about 20 times more water than the rivers themselves. Ecologically, we have to observe the sacred rule  that we can only withdraw as much water as is recharged, by floods and monsoon.

Are there other challenges?

Till we finished our research, there were no scientific studies on the water potential of the floodplain. The floodplains have to be used with great caution so that they are not over-exploited. They are the only uncontaminated, unused source of fresh water left, but a lot of them are likely to be lost forever.

How does this happen? Noida has over exploited the floodplains for housing coupled with sand mining  this has allowed the inflow of the polluted waters from the Hindon river and Yamuna, terminally contaminating the floodplain. Our study of Tamil Nadu shows that the floodplains of many rivers are overexploited and polluted from intensive agriculture and industries.

Another looming challenge is one that we ran into just two weeks ago. We were shocked to discover that farmers are over drafting the water from the floodplains for multiple cropping in Palla in Delhi. They are cultivating paddy and flowers, both of which are extremely water intensive, in the month of May.

Unregulated agriculture and over-drafting of water from the floodplain would reduce the water level in the aquifer. If this falls below the level of water in the river, the pollution from the river can seep in and completely destroy the floodplain forever.

This is a new phenomenon we have observed. Neither the water resources ministry nor the Water Commission nor the governments are even aware of it. They need to act immediately. This will be the last straw because this is the only source of unpolluted water left in India.

How much does this scheme cost to operate on an annual basis? In what quarters has there been resistance to put this into action?

The capital cost for setting up a project which would yield 100 MCM a year is not so much  about a 100 crores  as compared to the huge profits  Rs 500 crore a year  generated by this scheme. The cost of operation and maintenance every year is usually less than 10 percent of the project cost. We expect the running cost to be under five crore a year.

However, government machinery and government water bureaucracy is very orthodox and very reticent to work on new schemes even though they are hugely beneficial and ecologically non-invasive.

These evolutionary resources if conserved and used can sustainably provide huge, perennial economic and health benefits for the citizens. Unfortunately, for short term profit, like real estate, our living natural resources are being irreversibly lost.

We have seen most of the Yamuna floodplains being constructed over in Delhi and the definitions of the floodplains being changed overnight. Most of the Delhi Ridge was sold off by the DDA to land sharks and given away protected land to the institutions. Seeing how things are, the Army also decided to build colonies on the ridge.

If the state governments are willing to implement it, how much time will it take to operationalise?

The study would take close to a year to complete to understand the hydrogeology and make estimates for withdrawal of water. Setting up the project could take another year.

Are there any other water schemes that you are working on?

We have also been working on another scheme for several cities to provide real and local mineral water to their citizens. RO water causes several health problems since this water is demineralised and acidic. Our studies show that cities like Delhi, Udaipur, Alwar can receive large portions of their drinking water needs from local forested hills  the Aravallis.

In Tamil Nadu, we estimate several cities like Vellore, Madurai, Coimbatore, Kanyakumari could get mineral water from the Western Ghats. Mumbai from Borivali National Park, Bangalore from Bannerghatta and hundreds of other cities in India and abroad can get subterranean mineral water from locally forested hills or compressed forests.

This would be a huge boon for the health of the citizens and generate a large revenue for the government  even if the water was being sold at a very affordable price like Rs two-five per litre. The hills and forests could be protected and would be given an elevated status of mineral water sanctuaries. But, the principle of conserve and use strictly applies here too.

Could these projects have helped mitigate the water crisis in South India, had they been implemented there?

Local mineral water could be provided to several cities from the Eastern and the Western Ghats. South Indias rivers have large prominent floodplains. Our study shows that this scheme could be used to provide bulk water to several cities.

However, in view of our recent findings, indiscriminate agricultural practices could finish off the floodplains. Cities and agriculture and growing populations are putting far too much pressure on our living natural resource.

So, farmers will also have to practice more efficient agriculture like drip irrigation and change their cropping pattern. That is the only way we can maintain our river and groundwater regime in a healthy condition.

Traditionally, Indian farmers had developed an expertise in water management. Why are these no longer used? And why do we as a nation seem to have developed a preference for mega schemes?

Several states have over-exploited not only the water resources but their soil too. In the last 30 years, we have seen the organic content in the soil reduce to less than half due to heavy leaching from pesticides and fertilisers. This cannot continue.

We certainly need natural and experiential wisdom and certainly not just gung-ho development to have an enduring scheme of living. If we have to work with the planet, then we have to understand how the planet works.

Mountains, rivers, floodplains and forests are evolutionary resources  they took millions of years to form and cannot be humanly engineered. For example, once the rivers lose their catchments, they will cease to flow and will result in a terminal loss.

We must preserve these resources in their entirety and whilst using them, utmost caution is to be practiced  only as much water recharged by rainfall can be withdrawn. These conserve and use schemes can benefit the cities, people, wildlife and the planet; and preserve and protect these invaluable resources from the pressures of human expansion.

Many of our large rivers are very literally in the 'ICU', a phrase used by waterman Rajender Singh. How can these rivers be revived?

By carrying out a case study of the river Yamuna in Delhi, we found that at least 50 percent of the virgin monsoon (July to September) flow is required for desilting the river. A similar flow is needed for adequate recharge of the floodplain aquifers along the river. For the non-monsoon period (October to June), about 60 percent of the virgin flow is necessary to avoid the growth of still water algae and to support river biodiversity.

We have seen the Indus Delta disaster, where the sea ingress into the delta is almost 80 kilometres. The Yamuna today is hardly a river. It flows like a Nullah with only 28 percent of its virgin flow running in Delhi. In April, one could walk across the river. To prevent the ingress of the sea into the river delta and all other mentioned reasons, the river must be allowed to flow.

Leading foresters warn that more forests have been cut in the last three years than in the entire history of India. How will this affect our water sources?

As the human population is increasing, it is clear that forests across the world are being destroyed. But, the way forward is for forest cover to increase to prevent global warming, to conserve biodiversity and to augment freshwater resource for the growing population.

We suggest carbon credits could be given to farmers for forest cultivation. This will enthuse the farmer and at the same time get the total forest area up to the norm of a third of the country area, revive the soil and purify the water below it.

The cultivated area in India (approximately 1.5 million square kilometres) is a little less than half of the countrys area. Of this, close to half is water deficit, where we would place forests in one-third of it. This would add forests close to six percent of the total area of the country  a step in the right direction.
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
There is almost a mass frenzy and a wave of misinformation on the question of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in India. Is it safe? Can it be eaten? Will bees die because of it? Does it really give higher yields? Is GMO good science? After years of propaganda fornicating with real science, and being courted by big agro money, the truth seems to be lost.

Only a few year ago, the case of Bt Brinjal, betrayed not only real science but misinformation and propaganda were able to sustain the debate for many months. The truth finally came out after a public hearing and public pressure. The conclusion: a moratorium was put on the Bt Brinjal indefinitely.

Are we experiencing the same wave of propaganda with genetical modified (GM) mustard? In these times of post-truth and alt-facts, it has become difficult to find out the answer to one simple question: why does India need GM mustard?

While the proponents of GM mustard are claiming that the herbicide tolerant GM mustard will increase yield by 25-30 percent, will reduce Indias edible oil import bills, and that GM mustard is safe, the evidence in the Supreme Court of India points to the opposite being the case.

To understand more about this, Firstpost writer Indra Shekhar Singh speaks with Aruna Rodrigues, the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court HT GM mustard case. She has exposed agronomical fraud with the help of public documents, and previous Chief Justice of India gave an interim injunction in the pendency of the case being heard. Edited excerpts from the interview:

Despite your case still being heard in the Supreme Court, we are hearing that the Government of India may approve commercial cultivation of GM mustard anytime now? What do you make of it?

It is curious indeed that the regulatory body is acting improperly while the case is being heard. But we have come to expect such behaviour. More pointedly, there is a verbal order of injunction based on the clear assurance by the Attorney General to the Chief Justice of India on 24 October 2016 that the Centre would not release GM mustard without the prior approval of the court. This was widely reported in the newspapers contemporaneously.

Does the herbicide tolerant (HT) GM mustard give higher yields? What has the government stated in the court?

The straight answer is no. GM mustard has  over a period of at least 10 years  been promoted as a hybrid product that will provide superior yield as compared to its non-GMO counterparts in agriculture, both varieties and hybrids. In the last few days, in the aftermath of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) approval on 12 May, virtually all media, especially the print focussed on this "supposed" superiority (higher yields) along with the other "supposed" issue that is the presumed biosafety of GM mustard variety called HT DMH 11.

The fact is that the government themselves in their "reply" (to our application) admitted on 88, pg 56, "No such claim has been made in any of the submitted documents that DMH 11 outperforms non-GMO hybrids. The comparison has only been made between hybrid DMH 11, National Check (NC) Varuna and the appropriate zonal checks (ZC). A maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of 2,670 kilogrammes per hectare has been recorded over three years of Biosafety Research Level (BRL) trials which were 28 percent and 37 percent more than the NC and ZC respectively".

Indias best varieties and non-GMO hybrids outperform HT DMH 11 hands down. Therefore, this GM mustard fails the first test of a GMO risk assessment protocol, which is of need. There is no point to this mustard. As for the yield claims above, the whole story uncovered in public documents reveals that even these statistics are certainly unreliable. There has been active fudging of data and a wholesale deviation from scientific norms in the field testing, from which no meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

They have even stated again in the government's reply (at 65, page 45): The developers have nowhere claimed that the yield increase is due to the three transgenes. Therefore, based on this evidence alone I may be permitted a degree of pungent comment in the form of QED.

Can this GM mustard help bring down Indias edible oil import bill and save our precious foreign reserve?

I have made several enquiries and must make a calculated guess as to why the media story is so divergent from the facts as admitted by the Union of India in the Supreme Court. There is an interesting pointer  the fact is that AG Mukul Rohatgi actually stated in the Supreme Court that HT DMH 11 would substantially reduce our import bill of edible oil. If there is no superior yield this logic is ludicrous. It gains further stupefaction when we also consider rapeseed oil, which is the nearest equivalent to mustard oil; and that import, in the form of mainly GM Canola from Canada, is less than 2 percent of our total oilseeds' imports. On what strange logic will our import oil bill be reduced?

These comments are, apart from the biosafety of this herbicide tolerant mustard, which also makes HT DMH 11 and its HT variants pesticidal crops. The transgenes in it are toxic and glufosinate (the herbicide that will eventually be sprayed no matter what the regulators are putting out) is an acknowledged neurotoxin. It is also to note that the technical expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court has recommended not to allow HT crops in India.

In your opinion who is responsible for this push for this GM Mustard?

The fact is that the NITI Aayog, which has not done its homework at all, also believes without any science to back that belief that GMOs provide superior yield, even though no GMO at present has any trait for yield and the two technologies of both HT and BT, currently 99 percent of plantings worldwide, have proven to be unsustainable. In India, BT Cotton has failed on the central governments own admission in the Delhi High Court in 2016. HT GM mustard also, decisively, has no yield superiority. The claim of superior yield is the basis of the NITI Aayogs endorsement of GMOs in their national agriculture policy for Indias food security. Therefore, that this is also the advice that has been received by the prime minister or Prime Minister's Office would be a natural conclusion. Where is the science? Where is the truth?
India can play "a very important role" in resolving the dispute between Palestine and Israel, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday, on the eve of his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

Abbas, who is being hosted by India ahead of Modi's first ever visit to Israel, said New Delhi's role will have significance as it has good relations with both the countries.

"There should be a role for India in making peace in our region. India has played this role (by supporting the Palestinian cause) and we are looking forward that India continues to play the same role," he said.

"We know very well that India has good relations with Israel and Palestine. So India can play a very important role in bringing peace (between Israel and Palestine)," he said.

He said that he will ask Modi to use India's "good offices" in bringing in peace between Israel and Palestine.

Palestine is against any kind of military intervention to resolve the dispute, said Abbas, who will also be meeting his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday.

Abbas' comments assume significance as Modi is slated to visit Israel in a couple of months, which will be the first visit by an Indian prime minister.

India has been a vociferous supporter of the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian president said that during his meeting with Modi and Mukherjee, he will also apprise them of the ongoing political developments in Palestine and West Asia.

Condemning terrorism by Islamic State, Abbas said ending the "Israeli occupation" will greatly help in countering terrorism in the region.

"So, achieving this justice is the basis for success in fighting terrorism being practised by terrorist groups such as Islamic State in the region. We condemn all their barbaric activities," he said.

The West Asia region, Abbas said, is living in a state of instability and conflict, especially after the Arab Spring, which is "catastrophic" for the region and its people.

"It has inflicted severest damage to the stability and integrity of the social fabric," he said.

Abbas also pitched for an agreement with India on religious tourism, as Palestine has several religious shrines.

The Palestinian president is on a four-day visit to India, from 14 to 17 May.
So the curtain has come down on Beijing's One Belt One Road (OBOR) summit, touted as the decade's most epoch-making diplomatic show. After initial foot-dragging, even the US and Japan participated in it, making India the most conspicuous absentee. There have been arguments within India that, by boycotting the Beijing meet, India was denying itself unending benefits of something as big as OBOR. Left-leaning intellectuals as well as some well-meaning economists lamented that India was committing a monumental blunder by isolating itself from what Chinese media markets as "Globalisation Version-2".

But they are forgetting two things:

1. Just four months from now, China will host the next BRICS summit (a five-nation grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), where India can talk bilateral or multilateral deals involving Beijing-at its terms. Forget belt-and-road. India can begin the dialogue with China and others in the group where it ended at the 15-16 October 2016 BRICS summit in Goa.

2. On 1 June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin, an important-even if wary-member of the belt-and-road brigade. They will discuss a wide range of projects including gas pipelines and railways. India is already playing a key role in several regional infrastructure projects as part of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation that has in it Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal) and Bbin (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal).

By staying away from OBOR, India hasn't shut its doors to either China or other countries of the region. OBOR is neither the beginning nor the end of India's business with China. All that India said was that it objected to OBOR because it infringed on the nation's sovereignty.

There are other forums where India can do business with China in ways that do not kick up sovereignty issues, and on terms that are not as unilateral as in the case of OBOR deals with many countries. Without OBOR, or without even BRICS, India can still take advantage of Chinese investments and expertise in a mutually beneficial way on a bilateral basis.

Pakistan is China's vassal, India isn't

After keeping away from OBOR, India must now tell China that it's ready to talk business.

It's well-known by now that China is bulldozing countries like Pakistan and poor nations like Laos and many others in Central Asia into agreeing to OBOR projects with high-interest loans that could push them into debt-traps.

Obsessed with demeaning, denigrating and disintegrating India, Pakistan has turned itself into a vassal state of China and is ready to beg for and accept any military or economic help from it on any terms dictated to it. Its acceptance of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an OBOR offshoot, isn't a surprise. It's a repetition of what Pakistan had done with US assistance during the early days of Afghanistan crisis.

On its part, China is caught between a strategic interest in Pakistan and an economic stake in India. China needs Indian market as much as India needs Chinese investments and imports. But unlike Pakistan, India is no satellite or colony of China and needs to seek and push for honourable deals with the tricky, big neighbour.

Indian boycott of OBOR was no knee-jerk reaction. It was evident from the fact that India announced that it was staying away from it only in the last minute, though China's President Xi Jinping was desperate to have Modi on board to give OBOR more legitimacy and acceptance.

To please India, China displayed uncharacteristic patience to explain why OBOR did not amount to violation of its sovereignty. China even went to the extent of forcing Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to drop Giljit-Baltistan chief minister from his entourage to Beijing. India's main objection to attending the Beijing meet was that the Cpec projects run through Pakistani territories including Gilgit-Baltistan which India claims to be its own.

But the Modi government had no choice other than to boycott the Beijing summit. Modi had to deliver a message to China. He did.

This came after two other messages Modi delivered to Pakistan:

1. Following the September 2016 Uri attacks, India boycotted the 19th summit of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) to be held in Islamabad in November. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives joined the boycott, leading to the summit's indefinite "postponement".

2. Earlier this month, India launched what had been planned as a SAARC satellite but what, without Pakistan, was renamed as South Asia Satellite.

With the Saarc summit and the SAARC satellite and then the Obor boycott, Modi did the best he could. The historic blunders of the foreign policies of his Congress predecessors committed over decades isn't easy for Modi to correct in a matter of three years.

A Silk Route isn't always smooth

Critics of Modi's decision on OBOR not only overlooked India's political compulsions but also the tension, un-profitability and failures underlying OBOR programmes worldwide.

In Laos, for instance, the government is wary of Chinese domination as the construction of a 420-km rail line gets underway, and local farmers there are agitated over losing land. Two months ago, China indefinitely put on hold work on the 1,000-km gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China (via Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan) because of Beijing's reduced fuel demand. A huge controversy raged in Indonesia over land acquisition before work could finally begin last month on a rail line to connect Jakarta with Bandung.

And the construction of a $2.9-billion, 350-km Belgrade-Budapest rail line, a flagship belt-road project of Europe, is being investigated for possible violations of European Union rules on public tenders. Sri Lanka recently scaled down its deal with China over the Hambantota port following widespread protests by locals. It's easy to see that China is biting more than it can chew.

As Wade Shepherd, the author of Ghost Cities of China, notes: "The Hambantota fiasco is sending a clear message to Beijing: showing up with bags of money alone is not enough to win a new Silk Road."

The Economist quotes investment research firm Gavekal as saying: "The Chinese think they will lose 80 per cent of their money in Pakistan, 50 per cent in Myanmar and 30 per cent in Central Asia. Perhaps they can afford this, but it would be a costly mess."

It's clear that, even without the sovereignty violations, there was no compelling reason for India to jump onto the belt-road bandwagon, especially if there were other ways of doing business with China.

BRICS summit in China in September

China has already chosen a theme for the September 2017 BRICS summit to be held at Xiamen in its eastern province of Fujian: "Stronger partnership for a brighter future."

The communique at the end of last year's eighth summit in Goa, to which Xi was a signatory, talked of how "mega-regional trading agreements" significantly altered the nature and scope of cross-border trade. In his own individual statement, Xi called for "confidence-building measures" to ensure better prospects for BRICS members.

At the China summit, Xi must first begin building confidence among BRICS members if he really means business.
Farooq Ahmad Dar, the shawl-weaver, who was tied to the front bumper of a military jeep by an army major in the Beerwah area of Budgam in central Kashmir, said on Monday he expected little from any institution, including the State Human Rights Commission where he has filed a complain against the army, for his ordeal on the day the Srinagar Parliamentary constituency went to the polls on 9 April.

On Monday, it was reported that Major Nitin Gogoi from the 53-Rashtriya Rifles was given a clean chit after an internal inquiry was constituted in the case. The army had convened a court of inquiry on 15 April, two days after the police registered an FIR in the case.

Dar, 27, a resident of Chill-Brass in the Budgam district had voted under serial number 612 on the electoral list on 9 April during the Srinagar bypolls amid violence that left eight people killed.

According to Dar, he had left home along with his cousin, after casting his vote, to attend the funeral procession for one of his relatives in Gaumpora village, a few kilometers from his village. When the duo reached Utilgam, a village near Gaumpora, the army stopped them and tied him to the front bumper of the jeep as it patrolled villages, apparently serving as a human shield against stone-throwing crowds.

"Everyone on TV was saying I was pelting stones and so I deserved it. But the truth is, I have proof that I voted and then left my village to attend the funeral of my relative. How can I expect justice from anyone?" Dar asked.

"Since that day I have only made one vow that I will never vote in my life come what may," Dar told Firstpost on the phone from his village, which is surrounded on three sides by mighty mountains and connected with the main district by a cement bridge.

However, Colonel Rajesh Kalia, the army spokesperson in Srinagar, told Firstpost that the court of inquiry concerned with the incident wherein a civilian was tied to an army jeep is still incomplete.

"Reports in some sections of the media of the army major being given a clean chit are speculative," said Kalia.

Dars case of being used a human shield had drawn condemnation from people across the ideological lines in the Valley. Although this was not the first time the army had used human shields, the pictures and videos of Dars ordeal had created public outrage.

But Dar says he is of firm belief that no one will be persecuted or held guilty for his ordeal, but since that day he says he only feels guilty about one thing: Having gone out and voted.

"When they cant punish an officer for doing wrong with someone who risked his life and voted, and then peddle lies against the same man, how do you think they are going to punish an officer for committing a crime?" Dar asked.

Dar had undergone a medical test and is being treated at the SKIMS Hospital in Srinagar for a serious psychological ailment after the incident.

The State Human Rights Commission is also investigating the case after a human rights activist Mohammad Ahsan Untoo filed a complaint against the army for using Dar as a human shield.

The Budgam district authorities has earlier said that there was no electoral staff deployed at that time of the day, when Dar was tied to the jeep.

The Opposition National Conference on Monday expressed disappointment over the alleged clean chit provided by the army to its Officer. National Conference state spokesperson Junaid Azim Mattu said it was tragic that the army, rather than initiating swift and strict disciplinary action against the erring major, has ended up commending him and condoning his act of tying a civilian to an army jeep.

"The verdict of the military investigation goes against not only the Military Code and the very premise of the Geneva Convention but also violates the Fundamental Rights provided by the Constitution of India to all its citizens," he said.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Arun Jaitley and Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat would be in the Kashmir valley where they would review the security situation, amid a spike in militant attacks and incidents of violence, officials said on Tuesday.

Jaitley, who also holds the finance portfolio, will be in Srinagar primarily for the two-day meeting of the GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council on 18 and 19 May.

However, he is also likely to review the security situation in the restive valley region and take stock of counter-terror operations, they said.

Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat is leaving for Kashmir on Wednesday where he would be briefed by top army commanders about incidents of cross-border firing and ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops.

It was not immediately known if the two would review the ground situation together or separately.

Jaitley and Rawat's Kashmir visit comes in the wake of beheading of two Indian security personnel by Pakistani military in Poonch district earlier this month which was termed "barbaric" by India.

While Rawat hinted at retaliation to avenge the killings, Jaitley had said the sacrifice of the two soldiers will not go in vain and that the armed forces will react "appropriately".

The Kashmir valley has witnessed a spurt in incidents of violence and militant attacks in the last couple of months.

The Pakistani troops were involved in 67 ceasefire violations in the first four months of 2017, with maximum of 26 incidents reported in April, according to army sources.

They said a total of 27 militants were killed between January and April in counter-insurgency operations.
A sensational sting by a television channel has proved conclusively in public that Hurriyat leaders organise disturbances in Kashmir, and receive hundreds of crores from Pakistan for this.

Senior separatist leader Naeem Khan admitted that they burnt 35 schools, as well as some hospitals, panchayat buildings, and police stations. Khan is the provincial president of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, the organisation that Syed Ali Shah Geelani founded and heads.

What should astound us is not just the fact that this happens but the fact that the government has allowed this sort of thing to happen, not just in the recent past but for decades.

For, none of this is new. Money has been coming to Kashmir  from Pakistan and elsewhere  since 1955 when the Plebiscite Front was formed. There was turmoil in the Valley during the 1980s, partly fermented by money from abroad.

That has only increased since. Pakistans outlays to sustain the Kashmir insurgency and militancy through the 1990s and beyond must have run to thousands of crores a year. The recording of Naeem made it clear that hundreds of crore were no big deal.

Throughout Saturday on 7 May, another television channel ran what it also called an expose. It showed that Ahmad Sagar of Srinagar is the conduit for Pakistani funding to Shabir Shah, another leader of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat.

This too was old hat. Sagar has been doing that since at least the early 1980s. Not only that, in 1984, he established the Islamic Students League, of which Naeem Khan became the president in 1986 and Yasin Malik the general secretary.

Open collusion

Not only is none of this new, those who have run Indias spy operations have known all these for decades. Not only have they done nothing to stop it, they have actually facilitated it!

Amarjit Dulat, the leading figure among the spies who have handled Kashmir, wrote openly in a book he published in 2015 that money has been coming to Kashmir not just from Pakistan but also from New Delhi.

He should know. For more than two decades, he has engaged in competitive deal-making with various Hurriyat leaders, to outbid his Pakistani counterparts. Dulat is not the only one. Overall, Indias so-called intelligence set-up has been doing this for decades.

Thats not all. That is only part of what they have been up to. An even more astounding part of the shenanigans in Kashmir is that the intelligence agencies have routinely arranged jobs and promotions for close relatives of the most active anti-India leaders.

Just a few weeks ago, a major controversy erupted over the fact that Geelanis grandson was given a plum job at the Sher-e-Kashmir International Conference Centre. Since the place is frequently used for high-security state functions (former prime minister Manmohan Singh has stayed at the hotel there, and Dulat stays when he visits), it is surely not possible for anyone to be employed there without clearance from security agencies.

The most astounding part of that revelation was that Geelanis grandson was given the job at the height of last years agitations when most people could move around owing to a shutdown called by his grandfather. But the young mans well-paid job is part of a long-established pattern.

Khan's wife, Hameeda, for instance, is not only a teacher, but the head of the department of English at Kashmir University. People like her influence the appointment of the vice-chancellor.

Khan, who admitted to getting 35 schools burnt in order to create 'chaos', is generally very temperate in his anti-India talk compared with Hameeda. For years, she has obstreperously highlighted mass rapes, mass graves and other atrocities of the Indian state on the international conference circuit.

During an interaction of Kashmiri civil society with a visiting delegation of European Union ambassadors about five years ago, she sprawled on her arm across the dinner table as if she were falling asleep. Perhaps the professor thought that was an appropriate way to show disdain for another speaker. The vice-chancellor sat silently on the other side of the table.

That the Indian establishment turns a blind eye to all sorts of things is a horrifying aspect of the putrid mess in Kashmir.
Harish Salve may have charged the princely sum of Re 1 for representing India at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but his passion is up against a formidable force: Khawar Qureshi, who is representing Pakistan.

On Monday, in the face-off between India and Pakistan, Qureshi rejecting India's attempts to invoke ICJ's jurisdiction in the case, saying provisions of the Vienna Convention did not apply on spies, terrorists and those who indulge in espionage. Rebutting India's case, he asserted that this forum is not a criminal court of appeal nor does it exercise criminal jurisdiction.

"India's plea for invoking provisions of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention is not relevant in this case. The Vienna Convention was adopted for better communication between friendly countries. But it cannot apply in this case of a spy set up by a state.

"It is clear from the Vienna Convention that the provision being sought under Article 36 by India cannot be entertained by this court," Qureshi said in his 45-minute reply to arguments put forth by Indian counsel Harish Salve earlier and later shot back that Jadhav "is a terrorist" and New Delhi's story was "far-fetched at best".

"India invoked the jurisdiction of this court improperly," he said. "This court exists to ensure that states engage in peaceful resolution of disputes. This court does not exist for time-wasting and political grandstanding," he added.

So, who is Khawar Qureshi?

Khawar Qureshi is a Queen's Council at Serle Court Chambers and McNair Chambers Qatar. His stint at ICJ is not his first, in fact in 1993, he was the youngest lawyer to have appeared in the ICJ as counsel for Bosnia in the Genocide case against (the then) Yugoslavia. According to Chambers and Partners (2014), Qureshi, "delivers the goods, and is particularly good at difficult cases. He is part of the team and very flexible. As such he's completely what the modern barrister should be like...He is a very powerful advocate who works incredibly hard and gets on top of both the legal issues and the facts."

Qureshi has taken on numerous cases before English courts and has also appeared before International Arbitral Tribunals; he has advised on matters involving at least 80 different jurisdictions. According to The Lawyer, however, in one of the cases he had taken on involving Gibson Dunn and Peter Gray, Qureshi had reported himself to the Bar Standards Board following an adverse ruling. Gray had misled the High Court in March in a case between Gibson Dunn and Republic of Dijbouti, where Gray made a number of accusations to the court about Qureshi's conduct, alleging that Qureshi was aware of misdated phone transcripts that led Gray to losing his job.

With inputs from AFP

Also read: All you need to know about India's representative at International Court of Justice, Harish Salve
Monday's hearing before the International Court of Justice at the Hague may appear to be a victory for India in terms of political points scored back home, but there were some key legal issues that Pakistan did point out that require our consideration.

The legal issues stem from the fact that there was a 2008 bilateral agreement on consular access. An agreement that India sought not to rely on at the Hague on Monday and merely restricted itself to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In doing so, India made the point that the agreement had not been registered with the United Nations and therefore, India would have to restrict the argument to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations alone.

This perhaps may be the first instance of a State disavowing a bilateral treaty, in accordance with which it has been acting, in the midst of a court proceeding. The ICJ is not an ordinary court in the strictest sense, the ICJ is a diplomatic body and statements made before the ICJ have consequences. Which is why States are represented by agents who instruct counsel to argue the case for them, rather than just counsel alone. Statements made by an agent or an agent via their counsel bind the State in the international fora.

By refusing to acknowledge the 2008 Agreement, India could have well just terminated that agreement. The agreement is critical for the fate of many Indian fishermen who end up straying into Pakistani waters year after year as it called for the exchange of prisoner lists and consular access.

Coming to the point of consular access, one of the key arguments that Pakistan raised before the court was that India had failed to prove the nationality of Kulbhushan Jadhav. While to many this may seem like a technicality, it is not. In the case of Mexico versus United States (The case concerning Avena and other Mexican nationals; more commonly the Avena Case), the ICJ was quite clear on the point that in order for a State to exercise diplomatic protection, it must prove that the person it is trying to protect is a national of that State. Pakistan raised the dispute in court on Monday, as India was not dealing with the Indian passport with which Jadhav was found.

While there is abundant evidence that may exist to prove that Jadhav is an Indian national, this evidence was not put before the court. Instead India relied solely on Pakistan's assertion that he was an Indian spy. If we are disputing the Pakistani narrative of things, it becomes incumbent upon India to prove that the Pakistani narrative is false. Towards this, among the many annexes in India's pleadings before the ICJ, annexing Jadhav's birth certificate or perhaps a copy of his original passport would have gone a long way in countering this objection by Pakistan.

Put simply, not all spies are of the same nationality as the State for which they are spying. Sometimes foreign spies can be engaged as well (think James bond and how he always had someone local working for British Intelligence if you need to understand it simply). We still have a burden to prove he is a national of India.

The other is the ground of jurisdiction and reliefs. India has approached the ICJ to ask Pakistan to release Jadhav on the grounds that his rights under the Vienna Convention had been violated or in the alternative, to declare that the military court trial was unfair and not carried out in accordance with International Law, and order a new trial ie relief by way of restitution in integrum, which is legalese for returning to the original condition.

This becomes very problematic in light of the jurisprudence of the ICJ and in particular the fact that the ICJ is a body for the pacific settlement of disputes between States and not individuals. The Vienna Convention does not provide for the right to fair trial. Indeed the right to fair trial even though recognised under International Law is not one that is justiciable before the ICJ in a case where the Vienna Convention has been breached. Let us take an example. Tomorrow, if an Indian were to be put through the kangaroo courts of North Korea and sentenced to death, if India had consular access to that Indian, there is precious little India could do to have that trial set aside, as North Korea has the right under International Law to run its affairs in accordance with its sovereign rights.

Now if the final relief is one that the court cannot grant, then interim relief is something the court may be unlikely to grant in this case. In the La Grande Case (Germany versus United States), the court held that as a way of restitution, a full new trial need not be provided and in fact, even if review and reconsideration taking into account that consular access was not provided would be sufficient relief for restitution in integrum.

In the Mexico versus United States case the Court at Paragraph 122 held:

"The Court reaffirms, that the case before it concerns Article 36 of the Vienna Convention and not the correctness as such of any conviction or sentencing. The question of whether the violations of Article 36, paragraph1, are to be regarded as having, in the causal sequence of events, ultimately led to convictions and severe penalties is an integral part of criminal proceedings before the courts of the United States and is for them to determine in the process of review and reconsideration. In so doing, il is for the courts of the United States to examine the facts, and in particular the prejudice and its causes, taking account of the violation of the rights set forth in the Convention."

Further, in the same case, Mexico had contended that failure to grant consular access would lead to a violation of due process making the trial unfair. This is the exact argument India is going with before the court. The court however was very clear on this point and at Paragraph 124 said:

"Whether or not the Vienna Convention rights are human rights is not a matter that this Court need decide. The Court would, however, observe that neither the text nor the object and purpose of the Convention, nor any indication in the travaux preparatories, support the conclusion that Mexico draws from its contention in that regard."

By saying this, the court refused to review if the trial had been fair or not and in terms of the relief held that review and reconsideration along with clemency may be valid means of remedy rather than setting aside the trial itself. (See Para 141,142 and 143) saying on the point of a clemency procedure:

"The Court considers nevertheless that appropriate clemency procedures call supplement judicial review and reconsideration, in particular where the judicial system has failed to take due account of the violation of the rights set forth in the Vienna Convention, as has occurred in the case of the three Mexican nationals referred to in paragraph 114 above" (Para 143)

It would be wise at this stage to point out that India, in none of its pleadings before the court, has asked for consular access as a prayer, including in its main pleas before the court. None of them include a relief by way of a direction that Pakistan grant consular access to the Indian national concerned: Which is the relief to address India's primary and continuing grievance under the Vienna Convention. Consular access would help Jadhav find lawyers to fight his appeal and also help him liaison with his family back home. The primary aim of the Vienna Convention is to facilitate those rights. However, in the reliefs sought before the ICJ, India has not asked for consular access to be granted either as a final or as an interim relief.

Last but not least, India failed miserably on Monday to establish urgency before the court. The chances of its interim application being allowed largely evaporated when Pakistan agreed to consent to an early hearing for quick disposal of the matter. Further, in all previous cases there was a lot more urgency before a State went to the court. In the first case of this kind  Paraguay versus the United States, Paraguay approached the court on 3 April, 1998 when the execution date for its national was set for 14 April, 1998. There were around two weeks to go.

In La Grande (Germany versus United States), the execution was scheduled for the following day and in the Mexican case, there was around a month. If Pakistan is able to establish that Jadhav won't hang within the time that the case could be heard and disposed off by the ICJ then there is no chance of India getting an interim measure. Pakistan was able to do so by pointing out that there was still time before the execution and therefore the court need not intervene.

Let us now revisit the key fact that the ICJ is a diplomatic body and not a court per se. It exists to have States settle disputes peacefully rather than go to war. The court will be reluctant to interfere in the internal workings of a State unless it has to. This is why India also hardly ever goes to the ICJ to litigate. Quite likely, this is the first time India has applied as an applicant to the court to seek substantive relief. The last time India was before the ICJ as an applicant in 1971 was when it challenged a decision by the International Civil Aviation Organisation on the grounds that it did not have jurisdiction. It has been consistent Indian policy to have affairs settled bilaterally rather than invoking the jurisdiction of the ICJ.

Which makes this author wonder why India has suddenly decided to do this. The Vienna Convention is a very strict convention. It requires that the person arrested be informed of their right to consular access and also requires that this access be supplied at the earliest. Tomorrow, if a terrorist is picked up in Jammu and Kashmir, and the authorities fail to inform him of his consular rights, Pakistan could suddenly make an application against us before the ICJ. Bilateral relations work better for States that share long borders and keep facing the problem of nationals slipping in from one territory to another. To invoke a multilateral framework and at the same time disavow a bilateral one is something that India has seldom done.

After Monday's hearing, one really wonders if the advice of the legal mandarins in the Ministry of External Affairs is being heeded or if India is purely moving this case as a result of a political decision.

REF: India's Application

REF: Mexico's Pleadings

REF: Mexico Judgment
On 15 May, 2017, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard India and Pakistan in relation to the request made by India to the ICJ, to indicate provisional measures pending the final decision of the court on the alleged violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963 (VCCR) in relation to the trial of Kulbhushan Jadhav. Primarily, India has requested for Pakistan to ensure that Jadhav is not executed pending the final judgment of the ICJ.

At the outset, it must be clarified that the main dispute is not a criminal appeal to the ICJ; the ICJ can only assess if there were issues in relation to consular access in the arrest, trial and sentencing of Jadhav. In the past three cases involving the same convention  Bread, LaGrand and Avena  the ICJ specifically clarified that it does not act as a court of criminal appeal but only adjudicates upon the violations of the treaty obligations, which in this case is the VCCR. In fact, considering that this not a criminal appeal, the ICJ has never annulled a sentencing decision in such cases; it has only declared aspects related to consular access being violated (for example, absence of communication with the accused), and has only ordered review and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences by the respondent country using the method of its choice.

Similarly, it must be borne in mind that the mandate of the proceedings on the 15 May was much narrower than the final proceedings; it was simply to decide upon the provisional measures requested by India. The object of such proceedings was to protect the object of the litigation. Traditionally, there have been three conditions to be fulfilled for the ICJ to indicate provisional measures: Prima facie jurisdiction of the ICJ on the matter; linkage of the provisional measures to the claim/rights which form the subject matter of the dispute and urgency. In some cases, the ICJ has also tested if the rights asserted by a party are at least plausible.

This piece will briefly discuss, and analyse the key arguments made by India, and Pakistan on these parameters.

Prima facie jurisdiction

In any case before the ICJ between sovereign states, the issue of consent to the jurisdiction of the ICJ assumes prime importance.

The basis of such consent can be found in Article 36 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (Statute). To a limited extent, the question of jurisdiction is also material to the proceedings related to provisional measures. In a request for the indication of provisional measures, the ICJ does not have to finally satisfy itself that it has jurisdiction. However, this does not imply that the ICJ may indicate provisional measures unless the provisions invoked by the applicant country appear, based on first impressions, to afford a basis on which the jurisdiction of the ICJ might be founded. For instance, if the court finds that it has a prima facie jurisdiction in this case  Pakistan will have an option to challenge the same; and the decision on jurisdiction at this stage is without prejudice to Pakistans right to contest the jurisdiction of the ICJ at a later stage in the proceedings.

In this case, India solely relies on the Optional Protocol concerning the Compulsory Settlement (Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Access) in its arguments, which confers jurisdiction of the court pursuant to the Statute. Pakistan is incorrect when it argues that such a jurisdiction conferred by the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Access can be limited by limitations/reservations to the compulsory ipso facto jurisdiction of the ICJ under another provision of the Statute; and incorrectly places reliance on the reservations relied upon by India in the Aerial Incident of 10 August, 1999 case brought to the ICJ by Pakistan. The Optional Protocol provides for an independent basis of jurisdiction, and the reservations do not cancel out the same. In fact, the Optional Protocol has been the basis of the jurisdiction in earlier cases before the ICJ where the US, the respondent state, had reservations to the compulsory ipso facto jurisdiction in relation to disputes involving multilateral treaties.

India also clarified that the basis of jurisdiction was not the bilateral Agreement on Consular Access, 2008 (Agreement) between India and Pakistan. Pakistans counter, however, is on the point that India has never alleged a violation of the Agreement, even though it amplifies the understanding of the VCCR. By such an argument, Pakistan seems to suggest that India is inappropriately treaty shopping.

At the outset, it must be noted that international law does not preclude India from choosing an enforceable treaty and approaching the ICJ for its violation, as India could not have claimed the violation of the 2008 Agreement to settle this dispute at the ICJ. However, the court may consider that the Agreement is special law overriding the general law i.e. the VCCR; and the Agreement is the specific treaty regulating the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan in relation to consular access. Such an argument, if successful, can pose limitations on the jurisdiction of the ICJ as the Agreement provides no basis for jurisdiction and the compulsory ipso facto jurisdiction under the Statute is inapplicable owing to Indias reservations to such jurisdiction. There may be some merit in this argument. Unfortunately, the text of this Agreement is not available for us to analyse this argument in detail. However, India gave a strong argument when it said that this Agreement reinforced the VCCR, which allows subsequent treaties to confirm or supplement or extend or amplify the provisions of the VCCR which has, in fact, been accepted by Pakistan.

Pakistan also did not establish that the Agreement provides for contrary and different obligations from the VCCR; and that the Agreement provides for permissible modifications of the multilateral convention as per the law of treaties. Therefore, as long as it is seen that the Agreement does not amend or modify the obligations under the VCCR, India can choose which treaty it wants to base its claims on.

Pakistan also argued that the VCCR was inapplicable in cases of terrorism and espionage which Jadhav is charged with. However, there is no express bar in the VCCR for its in-applicability in such cases. Though it is admitted that the previous cases involving Bread, LaGrand and Avena did not involve accusations of crimes related to terrorism and espionage; and that there is no ostensible basis in international law for Harish Salves assertion that the graver the charge, greater is the need for punctilious adherence to the Vienna Convetion  India still has a strong claim for the purpose of these proceedings. It must be noted that these arguments dont confirm/deny the prima facie applicability of the VCCR. Such arguments are ideally reserved for the final proceedings.

Plausibility of success and the linkage of the provisional measures to the claims/rights in the main dispute

Pakistan argued that India had asked for the suspension of the sentence of death awarded to the accused; and the ICJ, as discussed above, cannot be a criminal appellate court. Since the ICJ cannot order such an unprecedented annulment, Pakistan argues that there is no realistic, plausible prospect of obtaining such relief from the ICJ. However, in arguing so, Pakistan ignores that there are other aspects to the claim/relief by India seeking declaratory reliefs, and other directions whose legality cannot be questioned at this stage. Ensuring that Jadhav is not executed is also imperative for the adjudication of those claims. It must also be noted here that provisional measures requested by India were indicated by the ICJ in all the past cases relating to VCCR violations, where parts of the final relief sought by the applicant countries were almost like the ones that sought by India in this case.

Pakistan additionally submitted that there was no apparent and/or realistic nexus between the request for provisional measures and the rights/relief which the provisional measures are intended to ensure the preservation of. However, it did not substantiate on this, besides mentioning that the final relief was aspirational. This was a weak argument as well. India, in its submissions, has successfully shown that there is a prima facie application of paragraph 36 of VCCR in absence of the alleged communications on charges, verdicts, and the alleged denial of consular access in many instances. Arguments raised by Pakistan about the alleged passport Jadhav was apprehended with, or about the applicabity/in-applicability of the VCCR in cases of terrorism and espionage are not material at this stage, and may have bearing in the final stage of the proceedings.

Urgency

Another important factor that needs to be considered is whether the requirement of provisional measures is urgent. Urgency, as has been understood by the ICJ in several cases requires the ICJ to see if there is an urgent need to prevent irreparable prejudice to the rights that are the subject of the dispute, before the court has had an opportunity to render its final decision. This urgency, as Pakistan argues, must be measured in terms of imminence, but one must not lose sight of the fact that an assessment of urgency must factor the possibility that the court might not have the opportunity to render the final decision in a matter of months. Therefore, the fact that no execution dates have been fixed, as argued by Pakistan, is not necessarily a circumstance that would preclude the ICJ from indicating provisional measures requested by India. Even in Avena, provisional measures were indicated in relation to the Mexican nationals who awaited execution in six months from the day the request for provisional measures was filed.

Lastly, it must be noted that India has a strong case for urgency, as Pakistan has not once convincingly indicated details about Jadhav; and whether Jadhav can, in fact, seek or receive remedy under writ remedy in Pakistani courts, or through discretionary clemency proceedings.
As the war of words between India and Pakistan takes place at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, a United Nations (UN) panel came out strongly against Pakistan, cautioning it to conduct civil proceedings in cases like Kulbhushan Jadhav's.

The UN panel questioned the lack of independence of military court judges, considering that they are placed within the airtight military hierarchy and holding 'closed trials'. Findings from the UN Committee Against Torture  on the countries it examined during its latest session from 18 April to 12 May: Afghanistan, Argentina, Bahrain, Lebanon, Pakistan and Republic of Korea  cover positive aspects of how the respective country is implementing the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and also main matters of concern and recommendations.

According to the report, the UN panel has raised concerns over Pakistan government's habit of "detain any person suspected of committing an offence under the Act for up to three months without review or the possibility of a habeas petition and allowing the detention without trial of up to a year of any person suspected of being involved in the activities of a proscribed organisation." The report also said that confession is taken in as evidence as long as the district superintendent of police is present when the accused confessed, in contrast with civilian courts where confessions are only admissible in court if made to a magistrate. "The committee is also seriously concerned that the state party has authorised military courts to try civilians for terrorism-related offences, most recently in the 23rd amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, approved in 2017," said the report.

The report also said that the military courts should not be handling terrorism-related prosecutions and that criminal cases against civilians should be transferred to the civilian courts.

Jadhav was given a death sentence by a Pakistani military court on 10 April on the charges of espionage and waging war against Islamabad. Jadhav, a former Indian naval officer, was allegedly arrested in Balochistan in March 2016 and Pakistan said Jadhav worked for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) fuelling the Baloch separatist movement and attempting to sabotage the CPEC project. India says Jadhav has been kidnapped and framed. Islamabad has rejected 16 Indian requests for consular access to Jadhav, who is held at an unknown prison in Pakistan.

India and Pakistan on Monday clashed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the fate of alleged spy Kulbushan Jadhav with New Delhi invoking the court's jurisdiction to see that the death sentence against him was annulled immediately. But Pakistan rejected the plea on the ground that India had no right to invoke the jurisdiction of the UN's highest court because the Vienna Convention does not provide for matters relating to spies, terrorists and those who indulge in espionage.

However, Islamabad suffered a jolt when it was not allowed by the court to play the video containing a purported confession by Jadhav, a former navy official, who India says was abducted from Iran and taken to Balochistan.

The Indian case was put up strongly by noted lawyer Harish Salve who demanded that Pakistan should annul Jadhav's death sentence and see that he was not executed as his trial was held under "farcical" circumstances in violation of the Vienna Convention.

The ICJ had last week "stayed" the execution on a petition by India, which approached the UN court after 46 years on an issue with Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas here ahead of India-Palestine delegation-level talks.

A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi pic.twitter.com/mZna67fbZB  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017

Earlier, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi ahead of holding talks with the prime minister.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Abbas. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted

Deepening historically close & friendly ties. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine receives ceremonial honours at @RashtrapatiBhvn pic.twitter.com/UU112V4gji  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017

Later, Abbas paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

"Reinforcing support to Palestine. Sushma Swaraj calls on Abbas," Baglay said.

On Monday, addressing a gathering at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, Abbas said that he would seek the help of Modi's good offices to reach the two-state solution that envisaged an independent, sovereign Palestine with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Abbas arrived in New Delhi on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.

With inputs from IANS
Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, was roughed up during an event in Srinagar on Tuesday, reports said. Chaos erupted at Mufti's meeting with members of women self-help groups set up under the state government's ambitious Umeed scheme.

Srinagar: Chaos erupted at J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti's meeting with members of women self help groups set up under J&K govt's UMEED scheme pic.twitter.com/VDVKogcFX0  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

After the incident, Mufti said, "Women were present in large number and probably one of them became unconscious which created panic."

Women wr present in large no.s&probably a lady fell unconscious, seeing that others panicked.Hope this programmme is organised again: J&K CM pic.twitter.com/bSL1oyjOOK  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

Kashmir has been facing an unprecedented number of protests and violent incidents since Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter on 8 July, 2016 with youths taking to the streets and pelting stones at security forces. Though the violent protests had subsided briefly, they resurfaced again in April 2017 after nine civilians were killed in police firing during the Srinagar bypolls. According to several reports, the latest protests are seeing participation from students as well.

The Umeed scheme was launched in the state with an aim to create self-help groups for women from rural areas, train them to create their own capital as well as offer capital. The goal of the scheme is to either enhance their existing livelihoods or create new livelihood so as to bring rural families out of poverty.

Earlier this week, Mufti had faced severe criticism from the Hurriyat Conference and was accused of following the diktats of Delhi after she asked the people of Kashmir to differentiate between Kashmiriyat and Islamic State. Though the Hurriyat also recently criticised the radicalisation of the Kashmir struggle, the fact that the chief minister had to face resistant at the meeting with members of these self-help groups, reinforces the reports that the PDP-BJP government is losing its popularity in the state.

But the troubles for Mufti and her government are not just related to the growing resentment among Kashmiris in the Valley. Mufti is facing challenges with reports claiming that her role in the state government has been reduced to just a photo-op.

According to a column published in State Times, a Kashmiri newspaper, Mufti is losing her significance for its alliance partner BJP and also the ruling party at the Centre. And that a governor rule in the state is more likely considering the growing unrest in the Kashmir Valley.
New Delhi: Najeeb Ahmad's family has pinned its hope on the Central Bureau of Investigation, which was asked by the Delhi High Court on Tuesday to trace the missing Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student.

"I hope the CBI finds my son," Najeeb's mother Fatima Nafees said, accusing the Delhi Police -- so far in charge of the case -- of not doing enough to find Najeeb, missing for the last seven months.

Delhi Police, however, insisted it had done all it could, and had succeeded in ruling it out as a case of abduction.

Nafees, while welcoming the transfer, said though they wanted an independent inquiry into the case, the family

was satisfied that it had been transferred to the premier investigating agency.

"The district police didn't do anything. When the probe was transferred to the Crime Branch, they didn't do anything either," she alleged.

The mother said the police "tarnished" Najeeb's image by saying that he suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

"They kept saying that Najeeb had OCD when he was only undergoing treatment for insomnia. Even if he was depressed, that doesn't mean that the police could blame my son for his disappearance and not probe those who had beaten him up before he went missing," she said.

The investigators from the Crime Branch, however, said that the High Court had noted that the police had followed the court's directions.

They pointed out they had also traced the autorickshaw driver who had ferried Najeeb from JNU to Jamia on the day he went missing.

"There were many angles that we worked on and one of them was the abduction angle. But with the auto driver being

traced, it emerged that Najeeb had left the university on his own," a senior police officer said.

Last week, the police had approached mosques in the national capital and UP, requesting them to make regular announcements about Najeeb, in the hope of making a headway.

They also wrote to the directors general (DGs) of police and prisons of all states and railway police, urging them to to share any information they might get about the student.

But the case being moved to the CBI was largely hailed by JNU students and teachers. They welcomed the High Court order, but wondered if the government agency would be allowed to probe the case.

"It is a good move, but we were demanding an independent enquiry monitored by the court. Even the CBI functions under the ambit of the central government and can be influenced as we have seen in several cases," JNU students' union (JNUSU) president Mohit Kumar Pandey said.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli on Tuesday transferred the case to the CBI responding to a plea filed by Nafees after Delhi Police said it had no problems with the case being moved.

The court said the probe by the CBI would be supervised by an officer, holding a rank not lower than that of a DIG.

The student went missing in October 2016 following a scuffle at his hostel with some students of the Akhil

Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a students' group affiliated to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma said he welcomed the move, but hoped the CBI would trace Najeeb and also unearth "his alleged links with the ISIS which Delhi Police has been hiding".

JNU Teachers' Association president Ayesha Kidwai urged the CBI to take up the search for Najeeb with an "earnestness" that "nobody, neither the police nor the JNU administration" had exhibited so far.
The Delhi High Court has transferred the case of Jawaharlal Nehru University's (JNU) missing student Najeeb Ahmad to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) with immediate effect, according to PTI.

Najeeb, a Biotechnology student, has been missing since a brawl at his hostel on 14 October, 2016. The Left-linked All India Students Association (AISA) has alleged that before he vanished, Najeeb was beaten up by activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which is linked to the RSS. The ABVP, however, has denied any involvement in his disappearance.

Soon after Najeeb went missing, several protests were held in Delhi University and JNU campuses. In one such protest in November, 2016, the Delhi Police was be seen forcing students into a bus and in the process manhandling even women protesters, according to this Firstpost report. As the police tried to detain the students and force them into a bus, the students resisted the police action, which led to the scuffle, Times Now reported. Najeeb's mother, who was present at the protest along with 30-40 JNU students, was also detained and manhandled in the process. The students and Najeeb's mother could be seen being dragged and shoved by the police officials, in an attempt to empty the streets.

Najeeb's sister said that the police mistreated her and Najeeb's mother and dragged them into the police vehicle. "They abused us, harassed us, is this the way to treat women," she told the CNN News18. She also said that the police action started even before the protesters could assemble. Another Firstpost report pointed to the Delhi Police's ineptitude at finding Najeeb and said: "Its inability to find a 27-year-old student can be due to two reasons: Because of complete ineptness of police that cannot trace a student and a probability of some unfortunate incident that had struck Najeeb. While the former can only be a matter of embarrassment for police, the possibility of the latter coming true can seriously change the narrative of the student politics in Indias one of the best universities."

The case of the missing student gathered enough political steam; BJP claimed that the Opposition was not particularly concerned about the case, but that it was playing games. The BJP accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Congress and the Left of "orchestrating" the protest by JNU students at India Gate, saying they cannot digest the "good work" done by the Narendra Modi government.
New Delhi: NGOs whose licences were suspended for non-compliance of government rules have been given a final deadline of 14 June to file their returns for the last five years.

They would have to upload their annual returns for the financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15 along with a renewal application under the mandatory Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, a home ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The government is estimated to have cancelled the licences of nearly 7,500 NGOs after they failed to disclose their income and expenditure statements. However, there is no official government figure available.

Starting 15 May and till 14 June, all such NGOs can upload their missing annual returns along with the requisite documents within 30 days.

No compounding fee will be imposed on them for late filing of annual returns during this period, the spokesperson said, adding that this exemption was a one-time measure.

The renewal of registration under FCRA cannot be granted unless the annual returns are uploaded by the organisation, the spokesperson said.

The government scheme is not applicable to NGOs like Greenpeace, Sabrang Trust, Islamic Research Foundation and 1,300 others whose registrations have been cancelled for allegedly violating various provisions of the FCRA.

In November 2016, the government had directed more than 11,000 NGOs to file applications for renewal of registration by 28 February 2017.

However, only 3,500 NGOs filed applications for renewal while the registration of more than 7,000 NGOs were deemed expired due to non-filing.
Mumbai: Maharashtra Prisons Department has ordered an inquiry into a complaint that the jailed NCP leader and former state minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer Bhujbal are getting several concessions. Activist Anjali Damania has filed the complaint.

Bhujbal duo were arrested in March 2016 by the Enforcement Directorate under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Both are lodged in the Arthur Road jail here.

"I have forwarded Damania's complaint to DIG (deputy inspector general) prisons for inquiry," Bhushan Kumar Upadhyaya, additional director general, prisons, told PTI.

Damania has alleged that Bhujbal and Sameer were getting several facilities in the prison. Bhujbal has been given a TV set and gets non-vegetarian food and fruits, while Sameer Bhujbal is given `vodka', she has said.

Sameer, a former MP, is also allowed to use mobile phone, she said.

In 2016, the ED registered two cases under PMLA against the NCP leader and his nephew.

The first case pertains to Maharashtra Sadan scam and Kalina land allotment case, while the second relates to Hex

World, a housing project in Navi Mumbai launched by a company owned by the Bhujbal family, where some 2,400 flat-buyers were allegedly duped.
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According to reports, Chidambaram's son Karti in 2008 took Rs 90 lakh from INX media to get FIPB clearance from his father. Chidambaram was the union finance minister in 2008.

Reports added that when ED was investigating the Aircel Maxis deal and Karti's role in it, they got hold of these documents pertaining to the current case and passed it on to the CBI.

Just when the Congress is getting into a huddle to figure out a way to combat the Modi magic, a blow like this to one of the top leaders of the party can damage the party's reputation. Questions will again be raised whether UPA bent rules during the 10-year-long rule.

INX media has been embroiled in controversy for a while. CBI recieved the tip-off during Aircel-Maxis investigation. According to various reports, Advantage Strategies Private Ltd, a singapore-based company, allegedly managed by Karti, which help INX media.

"Every case was processed according according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB consisting of five secretaries to the Government of India."

Accusing the Centre of using central agencies to target Congress leaders, especially son Karti and him, former finance minister Chidambaram issued his first statement after the CBI raids on his home (17 locations). "FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases," the statement said.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Karti received kickbacks for the FIPB clearance to INX Media. Any wrongdoing has been denied by Chidambaram, who in a statement has alleged a political attempt to silence his voice by targeting his son.

Incidentally, the leads for this raid seem to have emanated from the investigation into the Sheena Bora murder case. The CBI has been probing into the financial transactions of the Mukherjea couple to see if there was a financial motive in committing the murder. It is being suggested by sources that from that investigation, the dots were connected to Karti Chidambaram's alleged involvement.

Contrary to what was initially assumed, the CBI raids at the Chidambaram residence and 17 other locations across many cities are not linked to the Aircel-Maxis case. These raids have taken place reportedly taking cognisance of Karti Chidambaram's alleged role in the FIPB clearance of INX media channels in 2007-08. This group was owned then by Peter Mukherjea and Indrani Mukherjea, both of who are incidentally in prison in connection with the Sheena Bora murder case.

Given the partisan quality of the political discourse of our times he would remain guilty till he is proved innocent. It would not only damage his own image but also ruin that of his party, the Congress. Being a politician he stands to lose much more than his son. Would be interesting to follow how he defends himself from now on.

There will still be a great distance for the agencies to cover before the charges which led to raids reach the legal conclusion. It's possible he and son Karti would come clean in the end. What would be worrying him most is the politics that would eventually come to fill the gap of time.

Raids, as former Finance Minister P Chidambaram would know, don't mean much by themselves.

Why Chidambaram would be more worried about the political fallout

-While the clearance granted was only for Rs 4 crore, the actual foreign investment was reportedly much higher - An FIR has reportedly been filed against Karti, Indrani Mukherjee and Peter Mukerjea, who owned INX media - Chidambaram has accused the Centre of trying to silence his voice and targeting his son in the first statement that he issued after the raids.

-The raids are purportedly related to a 2007-08 case of FIPB approval given to INX media at the behest of Chidambarams son, Karti

- CBI is raiding P Chidambaram's Chennai residence - At least 13 other locations  Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai and Chandigarh  are being searched by CBI officials. However, reports over the number of locations is varying.

"But the charges against the Chidambarams are not limited to INX Media case. The father-son duo is also facing probes in the Aircel-Maxis case in which Karti allegedly made a killing through a company he owns  Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited."

This is true in the case of the father-son duo, P Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. This is probably the first time that Chidambaram Sr is facing a CBI raid. There is a probability that the former Union finance minister and one of the top leaders of the Congress may just be paying the price for his sons deeds  that arent limited to the ongoing INX episode. This Firstpost article notes:

Karma, they say, catches up with you eventually and never misses its date.

Firstpost spoke to senior Congress leader in Tamil Nadu S Thirunavukkarasar after the sudden CBI raids at Chidambaram's house on Tuesday. When asked, Thirunavukkarasar said that he does not understand why such raids are happening only in Tamil Nadu. The senior Congress leader said that first raids were conducted on AIADMK ministers and now it's Congress' turn.

Senior Congress leader S Thirunavukkarasu, speaking to Firstpost, said that the BJP at Centre is exploiting leadership vacuum in Tamil Nadu since neither Jayalalithaa nor Karunanidhi are in the mainstream political scene. He also said that BJP will not succeed in this. "They have no base and no cadre here. Congress will fight legal issues legally and political issues politically."

onsidering the idea that the Chidambarams may have have been anticipating CBI raids  or those from other agencies  for a while, why would they be concealing self-incriminating evidence in lockers at home? Not if they not fools. And the Chidambaram household is full of bright lawyers. There could be more to the raids than meets the eye.

Karti Chidamabaram's company is alleged to have facilitated foreign investment for former promoters of INX Media Peter and Indrani Mukherjea. The amount involved in this particular case, according to media reports, is a 'paltry' - well paltry, given the financial stature of the Chidambarams - Rs 10 lakh.

Is there more to these raids than meets the eye?

But this is not the first time Karti Chidambaram has faced similar allegations. In a way, these charges against Karti have damaged the image of his father Chidambaram and the party the same way the allegations against Vadra and his ridiculous 'Are you serious?' retort hurt Congress. Read the full report here

Of course, Karti's father has defended his son and alleged that the government is controlling the CBI and ordering these raids because they do not want him to write against the government.

India Today in a detailed report also explained that investigation had revealed that Karti had received kickbacks from INX Media when FIPB approval papers for the company were pending with his father, who was finance minister at that time. The report said that on 22 September, 2008, Karti's company got Rs 35 lakh from INX Media.

The allegation against Karti in this case is that his company Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited facilitated clearances to INX Media in 2008 for kickbacks.

While the war was on, the sacked journalists had met the then Information and Broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi and Chidambaram. Reacting to complaints by the sacked staff, Chidambaram had asked the SFIO to look into INX Media's funding and transactions.

In January 2008, INX Media, founded by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, ran into trouble when the couple had a dispute with journalist Vir Sanghvi, the CEO. As a turf war raged, Mukerjea fired several journalists close to Sanghvi, most of them on fictitious charges, leading to an exodus at the channel.

INX media, the company that is being linked to the CBI raid on Chidambaram and his son, has always had a controversial history. Ironically, Chidambaram himself had once referred its financial transactions for investigations by a Serious Frauds Investigation Officer (SFIO).

But, in 2013, on the eve of Lok Sabha elections, the investigation was called off without any explanation.

In 2010, the Enforcement Directorate, registered a case under FEMA for alleged diversion of the funds received by the company from three entities in Mauritius without prior approval of the FIPB. The three that came under the ED scanner were were New Vernon Private Equity Limited, New Silk Route and Dunearn Investment.

The ongoing case against INX Media, which is believed to be the reason behind the CBI raid on Chidambaram and his son's home, was actually initiated by the UPA government in 2010.

Another spokesperson Randeep Surjewala cited such raids on leaders of the opposition as the trait of dictatorial rulers. There was an Enforcement Directorate raid on Karti Chidambaram's properties in later 2015. Nobody knows what came out it. The Congress had called it a 'phising expedition'. Will today's raids be a similar expedition? Stay tuned for more.

In the case of P Chidambaram, the Congress cannot do much but play victim and cry itself hoarse about being selectively targeted by the government. "This is all to create (a negative) perception. Why no raid for three years?" Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan asked and the told the media that the BJP government at the Centre had ushered in 'raid raj'.

The leaders facing the embarrassment may cry foul and the reason for the raids could be malicious - after all, how many such raids have resulted in big men landing in jail? - but for the onlooker there's something satisfying in the process. If the politicians did not cut each other to size who would? Would sons and kin of politicians ever be under scrutiny if the latter operated as a cartel? Vendetta politics has its uses after all; it cannot be all bad.

Son trouble everywhere for opposition politicians. As CBI conducts raids on Karti Chidambaram's properties across states there is news that Income Tax department is conducting a similar operation against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's kin. The landed properties owned by firms of his sons are under scanner, media reports say.

P Chidambaram's son has been mentioned as the third accused in the FIR filed in case against INX Media.

Copy of the FIR filed in the INX case filed on Monday

Karti added that his father, P Chidambaram has already said what is to be said.

Coming out of his Chennai residence very briefly, Karti Chidambaram told reporters gathered that all charges levelled against him and his father are baseless. "I am being targetted politically and personally. We will give a detailed statement once the raids are over."

INX Media has always had a controversial history. Ironically, Chidambaram himself had once referred its financial transactions for investigations by a Serious Frauds Investigation Officer (SFIO). In January 2008, INX Media, founded by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, ran into trouble when the couple had a dispute with journalist Vir Sanghvi, the CEO. As a turf war raged, Mukerjea fired several journalists close to Sanghvi, most of them on fictitious charges, leading to an exodus at the channel.

TV channels reported that founders of INX Media Peter Mukherjea and Indrani Mukherjea's residence in Mumbai's Worli was raided by CBI as well on Tuesday. The ongoing case against INX Media, which is believed to be the reason behind the CBI raid on Chidambaram and his son's home, was actually initiated by the UPA government in 2010.

Senior Congress leader Karate Thiyagarajan told Firstpost, "This is to spoil the name of our great leader P Chidambaram. He was so honest in his term as the finance minister. But now as he is emerging as the next face in Tamil Nadu and is getting all fame to be the next chief ministerial candidate these kinds of political games are eventuated around him. He carried out proper protocol in signing files during his term as the finance minister. He brought a lot of anomalies that were existing earlier to limelight. That has now turned against him as a CBI enquiry. This is a political drama staged to spoil his name."

As the fate of Chidambaram and his son Karti hang in the balance, Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu have come out in support of the former finance minister.

As of now, its difficult for their lawyers to get in touch with the Mukerjeas as they need permission from the prison department. The lawyers are only allowed to meet their clients when theyre in court for their hearings.

The Mukerjeas are both lodged in different Mumbai jails in connection with Sheena Bora  Indranis daughters  murder case.

Karti fianlly reacts to the CBi raid against him and his father, former union minister P Chidambaram. Talking to the media briefly, he claimed that the raid is part of the Centre's political witch hunt against the Opposition. Karti added that the CBI has no proof against him and that the corruption charges are a ploy by the Centre to stifle his father's dissenting voice.

Karti added that his father, P Chidambaram has already said what is to be said.

Coming out of his Chennai residence very briefly, Karti Chidambaram told reporters gathered that all charges levelled against him and his father are baseless. "I am being targetted politically and personally. We will give a detailed statement once the raids are over."

Only corruption and black money are being targeted: Union Minister Ananth Kumar on P Chidambaram saying Govt trying to silence him pic.twitter.com/nAPVtzpdTX

Moreover, ED is also probing a firm called, Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd of which Karti is a director. The ED says it has found several irregularities in the claims pertaining to the operation of over 100 ambulances in Rajasthan.

This is not the first time Karti Chidambaram has faced similar allegations. Last month, ED had issued a show-cause notice to Karti and his firm Advance Strategic Consulting Private Limited for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) laws to the tune of Rs 45 crore. Besides, the father-son duo is also facing probes in the Aircel-Maxis case in which Karti allegedly made a killing through his company.

However, it should also be noted that no matter how much the CBI and government may claim that the law was taking its own course and the investigative agency was acting on its own, the fact remains that the investigative agency would not proceed with an act of this nature against a person as high as Chidambaram unless it had secured clearances from the political leadership in the government."

"The CBI raids at 16 places related to former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti are indications that Narendra Modi government at the Centre has begun a massive crackdown on corruption cases against individuals of all hues.

INX Media has always had a controversial history. Ironically, Chidambaram himself had once referred its financial transactions for investigations by a Serious Frauds Investigation Officer (SFIO). In January 2008, INX Media, founded by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, ran into trouble when the couple had a dispute with journalist Vir Sanghvi, the CEO. As a turf war raged, Mukerjea fired several journalists close to Sanghvi, most of them on fictitious charges, leading to an exodus at the channel.

TV channels reported that founders of INX Media Peter Mukherjea and Indrani Mukherjea's residence in Mumbai's Worli was raided by CBI as well on Tuesday. The ongoing case against INX Media, which is believed to be the reason behind the CBI raid on Chidambaram and his son's home, was actually initiated by the UPA government in 2010.

Senior Congress leader Karate Thiyagarajan told Firstpost, "This is to spoil the name of our great leader P Chidambaram. He was so honest in his term as the finance minister. But now as he is emerging as the next face in Tamil Nadu and is getting all fame to be the next chief ministerial candidate these kinds of political games are eventuated around him. He carried out proper protocol in signing files during his term as the finance minister. He brought a lot of anomalies that were existing earlier to limelight. That has now turned against him as a CBI enquiry. This is a political drama staged to spoil his name."

As the fate of Chidambaram and his son Karti hang in the balance, Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu have come out in support of the former finance minister.

As of now, its difficult for their lawyers to get in touch with the Mukerjeas as they need permission from the prison department. The lawyers are only allowed to meet their clients when theyre in court for their hearings.

The Mukerjeas are both lodged in different Mumbai jails in connection with Sheena Bora  Indranis daughters  murder case.

Karti fianlly reacts to the CBi raid against him and his father, former union minister P Chidambaram. Talking to the media briefly, he claimed that the raid is part of the Centre's political witch hunt against the Opposition. Karti added that the CBI has no proof against him and that the corruption charges are a ploy by the Centre to stifle his father's dissenting voice.

In a sensational development, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday raided the residences of former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti P Chidamabaram, simultaneously with 14 other locations across Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai, various TV reports said.

However, the details about the reason behind behind the raids are still sketchy.

According to News18, the raid came after a FIR was filed against Chidambaram and Indrani Mukherjea over alleged financial misappropriation over Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to Peter and Indrani's media company INX Media in 2008.

According to Times Now, the former union minister is currently in New Delhi while his son is in Chennai. The CBI's Tuesday raid was a first for Chidambaram, however, that is not true about his family.

On 17 April, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it had issued notice to Vasan Health Care Pvt Ltd, its promoter Karti, and Advantage Strategic Consulting for violating foreign currency laws to the tune of Rs 2,307 crore.

The ED said it had served notice to Vasan Health Care Pvt. Ltd, its promoters and their relatives for violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to the tune of Rs 2,262 crore. Advantage Strategic Consulting was served notice for Rs 45 crore for sale of Vasan Health Care's shares to overseas investors.

Next day, Chidambaram accused the ED of making wild allegations against his son Karti in an alleged forex violation case.

In a statement, the former finance and home minister said the ED's press release did not refer to any specific act on the part of Karti.

Instead, he said it made the "extraordinary and ridiculous" allegation that Karti "appears to be the controller and ultimate beneficiary" of certain transactions of two companies.

Former union minister Chidambaram is also accused in the Aircel-Maxis deal.

In his application to Supreme Court, Swamy had alleged that Chidambaram had illegally granted FIPB clearance to Aircel-Maxis deal in 2006.

Swamy has claimed that the then finance minister had given FIPB clearance to the deal which should have been referred to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), headed by the Prime Minister, as the CCEA alone was empowered to clear foreign investments over Rs 600 crore.

With inputs from agencies
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New Delhi: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was on Tuesday accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here ahead of holding talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Abbas. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted

Deepening historically close & friendly ties. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine receives ceremonial honours at @RashtrapatiBhvn pic.twitter.com/UU112V4gji  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017

Later, Abbas paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

"Reinforcing support to Palestine. Sushma Swaraj calls on President Mahmoud Abbas," Baglay said.

Abbas will participate in delegationlevel talks with Modi. The two sides are expected to sign a series of agreements.

The visiting President will also call on Mukherjee and meet Vice President Hamid Ansari.

The fourday official visit of Abbas comes ahead of Modi's visit to Israel in July. This is the Palestine President's fifth visit to India and the third state visit after 2008 and 2012.

A delegation comprising Palestine Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash is accompanying Abbas.
New Delhi: A parliamentary panel headed by Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury is likely to review the clearance given for commercial cultivation of genetically-modified mustard by central biotech regulator GEAC.

Last week, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), under the Environment Ministry, had recommended the GM mustard for commercial cultivation. The final approval is yet to be given by Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests, headed by Chowdhury is likely to review the GM crops and their environmental impact, an official source said.

Also, Chowdhury has said the environment minister should wait for the committee's report before taking any decision in the matter.

The committee has deliberated upon this subject several times and is likely to meet this month to review the clearance given by the GEAC for GM mustard's commercial cultivation, source added.

Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP), Delhi University South Campus, had submitted an application to the GEAC for the environmental release of GM mustard (brassica juncea) hybrid DMH-11.

The environment ministry had received over 700 comments from various stakeholders, including farmers and researchers, on the Assessment of Food and Environmental Safety (AFES) report on GM mustard which it had earlier posted on the ministry website.

The application was submitted in 2015 after which several rounds of meeting were held by the GEAC. The sub-committee also convened meetings with experts.

The GEAC had also heard the views of various NGOs which are not in favour of giving an approval to GM crops. Among the opponents were organisations affiliated to the RSS.

GM mustard is the second genetically modified food crop after Bt Brinjal that has obtained all required regulatory approvals and reached the Environment Minister's table for clearance.

Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh had refused clearance to Bt Brinjal and put an indefinite moratorium on the decision.
Over a week after parts of a woman's dead body were found in different places in Mumbai, the police has now found the severed head of the woman.

The Priyanka Gurav murder case has turned out to be one of the most twisted and gruesome murder cases the country has seen.

On 5 May, 23-year-old Priyanka went missing. Her torso was found a day later in a drain in Navi Mumbai, around 50 km from where she lived. Priyanka was staying with her in-laws in Worli, reported NDTV.

The only clue which the police had to identify the body was a Ganesh and Om tattoo on the shoulder of the woman. The identity of the body was established after Priyanka's sister confirmed it on 9 May, according to Mid-Day.

According to The Hindu, the police found out that Priyanka was murdered by her husband and his family only a few days after their marriage. The report said that Priyanka had complained more than once to the police that 25-year-old TCS employee Sidesh Gurav had refused to marry her after being in a physical relationship with her.

The Guravs were reportedly frustrated with demands for marriage made by Priyanka. The Guravs eventually agreed to the marriage, but only after plotting Priyanka's murder.

Hindustan Times further reported that the police had earlier arrested Sidhesh Gurav, his parents Manohar and Madhuri, and a friend Durgesh Patwa in the case.

The Mid-Day report also explained that Priyanka's severed head was found on the Shahapur-Nashik road in Thane. They also arrested one more person in connection with the case.
United Nations: Women have to play a greater role in conflict prevention and resolution and towards this goal India has been training women peacekeepers from around the world, Deputy Permanent Representative Tanmaya Lal told the Security Council on Monday.

"There is a need to increase and institutionalise the involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution," he said at the debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict as a Tactic of War and Terrorism.

"This requires not only normative advice but capacity building and institution building at the ground level."

As its contribution to capacity building, "India has also taken the lead in hosting specialised training courses for peacekeepers on sexual violence in armed conflict situations," he said.

"These have focused, among other issues, on the role of women in the context of post-conflict situations," he added.

He said that over 40 women officers from around 30 countries attended the third such specialised course organised by the Centre for UN Peacekeeping in New Delhi in partnership with UN Women, the agency for empowering women and promoting gender equality.

"Such courses provide the participants not only an opportunity to train to be ready for deployment but also to network and share experiences and best practices," he added.

Lal spoke of India's contribution to increasing the role of women in peacekeeping operations and how it had a multiplier effect in the country they were deployed in.

India made history in 2007 by deploying in Liberia the first all-women police unit in a UN peacekeeping operation and since then the percentage of Liberian women in the security sector had trebled, he said.

Lal added that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had acknowledged the contribution of Indian women police in "inspiring Liberian women, imparting in them the spirit of professionalism and encouraging them to join operations that protect the nation".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was committed to raising the representation of women in peacekeeping missions, Lal said.

"India is committed to fulfilling the pledge to have 15 per cent of military observers as women by the end of this year (2017)," he said.

"India has also committed to provide another all-female formed police unit."

Deputy Secretary-General Amina J Mohammed said that sexual violence was a legitimate threat to peace and women and girls had to be protected and empowered as a part of the counter-terrorism efforts.

Extremists in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali and elsewhere were using sexual violence to advance their military, economic and ideological goals, she added.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday described religious radicalisation as a serious security threat and said if not checked in time, it could lead to terrorism. Singh, who reviewed the security situation in the Northeast with chief secretaries and DGPs of the region here, also expressed concern over the proliferation of illegal arms in the region and asked the police chiefs to launch organised campaigns against arms smugglers.

"If we talk about the future security threats, radicalisation has come as a huge security challenge. Radicalisation is a trans-national phenomenon. If we can't check it, it will turn into terrorism," he said at the meeting which was also attended by NSA Ajit Doval and other top security officials. The home minister said because the Northeast was especially vulnerable to attempts of radicalisation, it was essential to identify those behind it.

"Some of these agents are operating in the name of religion while some others are operating in the name of NGOs or carrying out development programmes for individuals, socio-culture uplift and education," he said. Singh said it was necessary to monitor their activities and take pre-emptive action. "Some of these agents even get foreign funding. So it is necessary to closely monitor their foreign funding and utilisation," he said.

The home minister said though most of the Northeast was free from militancy, the proliferation of illegal arms was a problem that needed to be tackled. "The proliferation of illegal arms in such large numbers leads to more crimes. I urge the DGPs to launch an organised campaign against illegal arms traders," he said. Singh said arms, narcotics and fake Indian currency notes were being smuggled into India through the international border abutting the Northeast.

"These borders are practically un-policed. There is need to set up more police stations in the border areas as these will check cross-border crimes and bring a sense of security to the people who live in these remote areas," he said.

The home minister, however, said there had been a significant improvement in the security situation in the Northeast in last few years. "Most of the areas are now free from insurgency and

militants have been losing support even in the few pockets where they have influence," he said. Singh said this had been made possible by effective counter-insurgency operations, a responsive development orientation and improved relations with neighbouring countries.

"(But) in some areas, armed gangs are indulging in extortion, kidnapping and abduction in the name of militancy," he said. The home minister also asked the police chiefs to ensure that surrendered militants staying in designated camps did not indulge in crime. "There is a need to keep all cadres of underground groups, which are engaged in peace talks with the government,

in designated camps and ensure that they follow agreed ground rules. I am told some are involved in violent criminal activities such as extortion and kidnapping," he said.
New Delhi: A taxi driver has been arrested in New Delhi after he allegedly rammed his vehicle into the wall of Union minister Kiren Rijiju's official residence in Lutyens' Delhi, police said on Monday.

A CISF personnel, guarding the house of the Minister of State for Home Affairs, suffered injury in the incident that occurred on Saturday, they said.

The driver has been identified as Abhishek, a resident of Noida sector 110, and police said he was in an inebriated condition when he rammed the vehicle into the wall of Rijiju's residence on Krishna Menon Marg.

On a complaint by the injured CISF constable, Saurabh Kumar Gautam, a case was registered at Tughlak Road police station.

Officials said the vehicle ramming into the house in the high-profile area had sent security personnel in a tizzy.

The driver was accompanied by a woman, they said, adding his medical examination has confirmed that he was drunk.

He has been arrested, police officials said.
Three years into his office at 7 Race Course Road (now renamed a ponderous Lok Kalyan Marg) Narendra Modi has decimated his political rivals, to the point that some among the demoralized Opposition have abandoned all hopes of stopping him in 2019 and are instead gearing up for 2024.

And yet, instead of being the platform for a quantum leap into the future, this so-called "demographic dividend" is pulling India down because there are no jobs. Leave alone enough better and good quality jobs, there are simply no jobs for a million youth who join India's workforce each year.

This may sound alarmist but the truth is, things are about to go out of control. India is growing at a fast clip. In fact, it is the world's fastest-growing economy but the growth is essentially jobless. The crisis, which has not been tackled by adequate policy changes and display of political resolve, has been a long time coming. It may be unfair to blame Modi for it but as the prime minister, the onus of creating jobs falls largely (not entirely) on his shoulders.

Romesh Wadhwani, chairman of the Wadhwani Foundation recently wrote in Times of India: "Between 2005 and 2012, Indias GDP growth was 54% but its net job growth was only 3%. There were only about 15 million net new jobs. This giant disconnect will worsen in the coming decade. Assuming 7-8% annual growth, 2025 will see GDP double. India will add over 80 million net new job seekers. But at current rates only 30 million net new jobs  mostly informal, and low-wage ones  will be created. India should therefore prioritise policies that link GDP growth with job growth."

To complicate our problem, global advisory firm McKinsey & Company reckons in a report presented in February that within the next three years, nearly half of India's IT workforce will become "irrelevant" unless they are retrained on an urgent basis.

If 50% to 60% of the 3.9 million white collar workers in India's $150 billion IT services industry become obsolete overnight, that should be enough to rob any government of its sleep.

Creation of jobs was one of the key tenets that propelled Modi to power in 2014. Sure enough, surveys indicate that it remains the key concern among the youth who are otherwise still positively inclined towards Modi. Worringly for the prime minister, the mutters around unemployment are growing and it won't be long before this has a political fallout.

A recent survey coinciding with Modi's three years in power, conducted by LocalCircles via 2,00,000 votes collated from over 200 places including Tier-1 (42%), Tier-2 (28% ), Tier-3 cities and rural areas (30%) indicates that 61 percent of people are still happy with the Modi sarkar. However, in a stunning indicator of the magnitude of the problem, there has been a 20 percent rise in the number of people who are unhappy with the government's efforts at creating jobs.

The survey, conducted among participants with an average age of 32, finds that while 43% of people accused the government of not doing enough on employment front, that number has zoomed to 63% this year.

The government has acknowledged that there has been a rise in unemployment, but its data hides more than it reveals. It told the Rajya Sabha during this year's budget session that overall unemployment has risen to five percent. This is in accordance with the Labour Bureau data released in September 2016 but experts have pointed out that the actual number of unemployed is much higher.

In his book India's Big Government, excerpts of which were carried with permission by Firstpost, author Vivek Kaul points out why the unemployment figures based on Labour Bureau's Usual Principal Status (UPS) method and Usual Principal and Subsidiary Status (UPSS) serve more to hide the real unemployment numbers than reveal those.

Parsing the data, Kaul writes: "Only 60.6% percent of the individuals who were available for work all through the year were able to get work for the entire year. In rural areas, this figure was at 52.7 percent. This basically means that close to half of rural India cannot find work for all 12 months of the year." According to his diagnosis, "India's main problems when it comes to unemployment are the lack of regular work and formal jobs."

Kaul's estimates are echoed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 35-member intergovernmental economic organisation, established in 1961, which promotes policies on democracy and market economy. In its February 2017 Economic Surveys India report, the global body marked four crucial areas which India must immediately address to reverse the dire trend in jobs: Better data to reveal real unemployment figures, skilling up the youth and making them ready for the market, investing more in key sectors such as education and most importantly, fixing the archaic labour laws.

The survey points to a strange mismatch in India between employers, who are suffering due to lack of skills shortages in several areas such as information and communication technology (ICT), financial services, tourism, retail and skill-intensive manufacturing and youth who are suffering from unemployment simply because they don't have enough skills for the jobs on offer. So while the education system churns out graduates by the millions, most of these youths are largely unemployable.

The OECD report states that unless India makes its labour laws more flexible and equal, the labour market performance will continue to drag down the markers. It reads: "Promoting quality employment and reducing both labour informality and income inequality would require introducing a simpler and more flexible labour law which does not discriminate by size of enterprise, gender or job contract."

The report acknowledges government's effort in "regroup(ing) the multitude of labour laws into four Codes, to loosen employment protection legislation which requires firms to get governments approval for firing even one employee and to remove restrictions on working women" but also notes that "these proposals have met considerable resistance."

So the path for Modi government is clear. It must a) Fix the labour laws; b) Skill up the youth; c) Invest more on education to bridge gap between degrees and employability and d) Work on providing reliable data.

To these ends, the Modi government has already taken some steps. It has, according to recent media reports, formed a task force headed by NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya to work on a methodology to generate timely and reliable employment data that may replace obsolete and inaccurate statistics. Livemint has reported this to be a project "personally initiated by Modi".

It has also undertaken several programmes such as Skill India Mission and self-employment schemes such as Stand Up India. The 2015 National Skill Development and Entrepreneurship programme hopes to train 500 million people by 2022.

Bandaru Dattatreya, the Union minister for Labour and Employment, said recently that government will create 50 million jobs by 2020 through a combination of procedures such as digital solutions and job fairs.

Unless the labour law is fixed, these plans extremely ambitious. Here, the government has already faced and is likely to face stiff headwinds not just from the Opposition but even from within its own trade wing. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, RSS's trade arm, has been at loggerheads with the government and forced it recently to rescind several steps such as taxing Employees Provident Fund. This has created considerable areas of internal friction.

Writing in Business Standard, TN Ninan has forecast bigger troubles ahead for the government if it fails to carry the Opposition through in reforming labour laws on a priority basis. The proposed changes, writes Ninan, "are what the doctor ordered: offering flexibility in operations to the smaller companies, better compensation for the retrenched, a more representative character for trade unions, and a new framework for minimum wages. The proposals have been in the works for the best part of two years, and found brief mention in Arun Jaitleys Budget speech this year. But the Congress has already declared its opposition. We should be prepared for a parliamentary battle in which the regional parties might become the swing factor."

To sum up, Modi's toughest job will require vision, adequate policy changes and strict adherence to deadlines. Additionally, he must fall back on his considerable political talent to convince the Opposition that obstructing labour laws will have a domino effect on India's job market and create a crisis that cannot be mitigated.

For India's sake, let's hope Modi succeeds.
What is marriage? What is divorce? These two questions are at the heart of the debate the country is having over triple talaq.

The matter is in front of the Supreme Court, which will decide if this practice is or is not in line with fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. But there are certain things we need to understand in order to fully appreciate the magnitude of what is happening.

Muslim law in India comes from The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 which says that in so far as matters concerning marriage, divorce, inheritance and other personal matters, the law governing Muslims in India shall be the Muslim personal law or the Shariat.

This law exists along with other civil laws and statutory laws that govern Muslim personal affairs, such as the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1937.

Under Shariat, as applied to India, only a man can initiate divorceunder the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1937 a woman may also initiate the divorcethe only difference being that under the former, the husband does not need to show cause, while under the latter, the wife must show cause.

So when the Supreme Court looks at triple talaq, it is looking at a specific mode of Islamic divorce under the Shariat and is checking to see if that mode is compatible with the Constitution. Like all other forms of divorce under the Shairat, a man initiates triple talaq (note: a Muslim woman can only sue for divorce for cause and not at will) and may instantaneously divorce his wife. This is not the case with other religions in India who have their own personal laws, where all marriages are to be dissolved only for cause and not at will.

Challenging triple talaq will not give Muslim women relief. Their husbands still retain the right to divorce them at will and without going to court: Albeit through a slightly longer procedure.

These problems stem from how Shariat is applied to India. Muslim personal law has not evolved since its pre-independence form. Unlike Muslim personal law, Hindu personal law was codified extensively in the 1950s through the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act.

Funnily enough, today, when it comes to divorce, a Hindu woman is in the same position as a Muslim womanshe must seek the intervention of a court who will judge if there is a cause for a divorce before granting her oneher only hope for a quick process is to have her husband consent to it. The same is the case with a Hindu man. However, unlike a Muslim man, a Hindu man may not divorce his wife at will.

Which brings us back to the main point: Triple talaq goes to the core of how we, as a society, view marriage and divorce. If we were to view marriage as an institution where people are bound for life and can't leave at will, then knocking down triple talaq will hardly achieve anything.

This is because a Muslim man can still divorce his wife at will using the other modes of Islamic divorce, which the woman can't stop. So the only way forward would be to remove divorce from the ambit of Shariat as it is applicable to India and modify the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1937 and force Muslim men to have to use the same procedures as women to obtain a divorce.

Or society can choose to be more progressive and look at marriage as what it is: A relationship between two consenting adults where either party is free to leave "at will". This will mean that both the husband and the wife can unilaterally obtain a divorce. It will require amending the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1937 to provide women with an at will ground such as "irreconcilable differences with her spouse" and a procedure for her to get a divorce. That is true equality, the ability of both parties to leave at will.

But that's something India isn't ready for. Neither is this government. That's why despite at will divorce being contemplated under the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2013 under the Lok Sabha, the new government has been reluctant to reintroduce the bill.

The problem with the Supreme Court having to decide triple talaqdue to Parliament abdicating its lawmaking functions and refusing to legislate on an issue deemed too sensitiveis that firstly, we will have the Supreme Court first determining if triple talaq is permissible via Islamic jurisprudence and secondly, testing that proposition against the Constitution.

To a pious Muslim, this amounts to someone without Islamic authority interpreting Muslim law, similar to how many Hindus view Max Muller and his translation of Indian works. Muller lacked authority, and his translations and interpretations continue to be debated.

An issue like this is best left to Parliament. The Attorney General should turn up at court and say Parliament is considering amending the laws, move a bill and provide Muslim men and women with true equality when it comes to marriage law.

This would render triple talaq irrelevant not because it conflicts with the Constitution, but because there is a law on divorce made by Parliament that overrides triple talaq. With all due respect to our courts, questions of this nature must be debated and adjudicated by Parliament.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said it was keeping open for adjudication in the future the issues of polygamy and 'nikah halala' among Muslims as the Centre insisted deliberations on these aspects as well.

The observation was made when Attorney General (A-G) Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, said the issues of polygamy and 'nikah halala' were also part of the order of a two-judge bench which had referred to the Constitutional bench the three issues, including the practice of triple talaq among Muslims.

"The scope of referring had all the three issues that was divorce, nikah halala, polygamy. All these three issues are before this court by virtue of the reference order of the two- judge bench," Rohatgi said.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar said, "It may not be possible to deal with all the three issues in the limited time we have. We will keep them pending for future."

The Centre's assertion assumes significance in the backdrop of the remarks of the apex court that it will only deal with the issue of triple talaq that too if it was fundamental to Islam.

The AG asked the bench also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman, UU Lalit and Abdul Nazeer to make it clear that the issues of polygamy and 'nikah halala' are still open and would be dealt by other bench in future.

"It will be dealt in future," the bench clarified.

The bench is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the practice of triple talaq among Muslims.

The Centre has resumed its arguments in the case on Monday.

During the last hearing, the apex court had observed that triple talaq is the "worst" and "not a desirable" form of dissolution of marriage among the Muslims, even though there were schools of thought which called it "legal".

The remark was made by the bench when senior lawyer Salman Khurshid referred to the various schools of thought and the stand of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) that triple talaq was "abhorrent", yet valid.

The day-long hearing on the matter last Friday also saw two veterans, jurist Ram Jethmalani and former Union Minister and Islamic scholar Arif Mohammad Khan, coming out all guns blazing against the practice of triple talaq.

While Jethmalani attacked the practice on various constitutional grounds including the right to equality and termed it "abhorrent", Khan said it was akin to the pre- Islamic era practice of burying a female child alive in the Arabian region.

Khan had said the whole Shariat law has been distorted as "Shariat is the Holy Quran and not the opinion of these people (clerics). The Holy Quran considers the importance of family and it provides four steps before pronouncement of divorce."

"Triple talaq is far from being fundamental and very far from being sacramental to Islam. It violates every good thing which Islam prescribes. What we are seeing in the form of triple talaq is similar to the pre-Islamic era practice where female infants were buried alive," he had said.

Jethmalani had said "the right of triple talaq is available only to the husband and not to the wife and it breaches Article 14(Right to Equality) of the Constitution."

He had said triple talaq was a discrimination on the ground of sex and this practice was abhorrent to the tenets of holy Quran and no amount of advocacy can save this "sinful" practice which is contrary to constitutional tenets.

How can a woman be allowed to become ex-wife only because her husband wants and this is "the highest kind of unconstitutional behaviour", the noted jurist had said.

Khurshid, who is assisting the court in personal capacity, had said he himself found triple talaq "sinful" and anything which is sinful could not have been ordained by Islam. He also reiterated that triple talaq was a "non-issue" which does not require judicial scrutiny.

He had said the irrevocable nature of triple talaq can be negated if the three-time pronouncement of talaq in one go is considered one leaving the scope for reconciliation and re-union during the 'iddat' (waiting) period.

Referring to the prevalent practice in Islamic nations, he had said even if one says talaq thrice in a go, it was considered as one, thus negating irrevocability of divorce.

The bench had asked Khurshid if triple talaq was India- specific and what had led to its repeal in other countries.

Khurshid said whatever was happening in India now, might have happened in other countries, leading to the ban.

To this, the bench had said, "it is like death penalty which is abhorrent but permissible in the law of many countries and many have repealed it," adding whether anything which is sinful be taken as prescribed by God and made a law by man.

When advocate Farha Faiz, a petitioner in the case, had started her arguments, the bench had said it was not concerned with personal facts.

She had said what Imams and clerics say is not important, the only thing is that the holy Quran says everything.

"The Holy Quran is in mandatory language. It is not an advise. If we are adopting one procedure for marriage, why can't we have one procedure for talaq also?" she had said.

To this, the bench had said, "we cannot do that. We cannot wipe out (the difference between) Shias or Shunnis".

Faiz also alleged that the Muslim clerics were running a parallel judicial system like the trial courts and the high courts and the clerics were forcing Muslims not to go to the courts.

"Point taken, you have raised a very valid and good point," the bench had said.

The apex court has fixed a six-day schedule for hearing in which three days would be available for those challenging triple talaq and three days for those defending it.
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Lucknow: A court in Maharajganj on Monday remanded suspected Hizbul Mujahideen operative Naseer Ahmad to 12-day custody of Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad.

"ATS has got 12 days' police custody remand of Naseer. He will be brought here for interrogation," an ATS official said.

Naseer Ahmed alias Sadiq (34), hailing from Banihal in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir, was held on 13 May from Sonauli border post in Maharajganj.

He was trying to sneak into India from Nepal in the guise of a shawl and carpet vendor and was nabbed by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which guards the 1,751-km-long open border.

Naseer was carrying a Pakistani passport and an identity card showing that he was a resident of Lala Musa village in Gujarat district in Punjab province of Pakistan.

He was handed over to the Uttar Pradesh ATS for further investigation.

Naseer had joined Hizbul Mujahideen in 2002-03 and moved to Pakistan.

In 2002, he sustained bullet injuries during an encounter with the army in Banihal.

Naseer was residing in Pakistan since September 2003 and was involved in many attacks against civilians and security forces including an attack on an STF camp in India in 2003.

He was sent to India by his handler for a specific mission, an SSB spokesperson had said.

When he was asked for his identity proof by the SSB personnel at Sonauli, Ahmed was unable to produce any supporting documents, the spokesperson said.

The paramilitary force, based on initial interrogation of the terrorist, said he and his accomplice Mohd Shafi landed in Kathmandu on 10 May from Faisalabad in Pakistan via Sharjah.

Shafi separated from him in Kathmandu.

The SSB said Naseer reached the India-Nepal border in a bus with an intention to sneak into Indian territory and carry out terrorist activities in India.

"He was in touch with a handler from India, who used to deposit money, in his account, off and on. On his instructions, he came to India for undertaking terrorist activities but was apprehended by the SSB," the spokesperson said, adding the handler who provided him money has been identified.

Naseer was part of the terrorist team that attacked the Special Task Force camp in Ramsoo near Banihal in 2003, he added.
New Delhi: Law enforcement agencies on Tuesday raided the residences and properties of two top opposition leaders P Chidambaram of the Congress and Lalu Prasad of the RJD as well as businessmen in a multi-city crackdown on alleged corruption and benami properties.

The searches by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (I-T) department were condemned by the opposition as "political vendetta" by the Centre with the Congress saying it will not be cowed down by the politics of "revenge" which was the "DNA of the government."

But the NDA government hit back, saying Tuesday was the day of accountability for the "corrupt." Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stoutly defended the searches, asserting that the "day of reckoning" has come for many and they will be held accountable for their misdeeds.

The CBI searched the homes and offices of Karti Chidambaram, son of P Chidambaram, a former finance minister, across four cities including Chennai for allegedly receiving money from a media firm INX owned by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea to allegedly manipulate a tax probe.

Separately, the Income Tax department conducted raids and surveys on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in connection with alleged benami deals stated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad, who is the chief of Rashtriya Janata Dal, and some of his family members. RJD is a partner of the ruling alliance in Bihar that also comprised the JD(U) and the Congress.

CBI sleuths fanned out across the Chidambarams' properties in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram early in the morning, a day after the agency filed an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas (currently in jail on charges of murdering their daughter Sheena Bora), INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services and its director Padma Vishwanathan.

The FIR related to charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct. The CBI, which searched Chidambaram's home in Nugambakkam in Chennai, also carried out searches at the house of Peter Mukerjea, a former media baron, in Mumbai, sources said.

It is alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, which was promoted by the Mukherjeas, for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.

P Chidambaram came out with a strong statement in response to the searches, saying the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son to silence his voice. The FIPB approval was granted in "hundreds of cases", the senior Congress leader said.

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends... The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations," he said. But he would continue to speak and write, he declared.

The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB secretariat and the competent authority in each case are public officials, Chidambaram said, adding that there was no allegation against any of them. "There is no allegation against me," he added.

Karti said he has not done anything wrong and alleged a political vendetta behind the CBI raids against him in connection with the INX Media case. "They have not seized any documents and cannot prove any charges against me. I have not done anything wrong," Karti told reporters in Chennai.

The Congress for its part said that none of its leaders or that of the opposition would be cowed down by the politics of "revenge and vendetta" which had "become the DNA of this BJP government".

The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people. "The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government. We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta," the AICC in-charge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said. West Bengal chief minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee also accused the Centre of unleashing political vendetta.

Union Minister and BJP leader Piyush Goyal rejected Chidambaram's charge that he was being targeted for his columns critical of the government and claimed that the issue was why beneficiarie of the FIPB gave "money to the firms owned by his son".

The former union finance minister's columns "did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire", Goyal told reporters and took a dig at Chidambaram, saying that he will be accountable for his "son stroke."

Rejecting allegations of political vendetta levelled by Prasad and Chidambaram, Goyal claimed that the BJP government never comes in the way of law and that investigation agencies work independently.

IT officials said the department began raiding the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, Rewari and few others since early morning in connection with alleged benami deals linked to Lalu Prasad.

In the national capital, tax department teams visited posh localities in New Friends Colony, Sainik Farms and few farmhouses in Bijwasan and south Delhi areas.

Tax department officials said some of the properties allegedly belong to the kin of Lalu Prasad in a 'benami' way.

Prasad, however, sought to put up a brave face, saying he was "not scared at all" and will continue to fight against the "fascist forces".

"BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake... Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge... Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice... If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats)," he said in a series of tweets.

The IT officials said the searches are also being conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP P C Gupta and few other businessmen involved in the purchase and sale of real estate assets.

"People and businessmen connected to the land deal involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched. There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion," an IT official claimed.
The CBI raids on P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram in connection with the FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) clearances accorded to Peter and Indrani Mukerjea-owned INX Media in 2007-08, has only put a smirk on the faces of most of his colleagues in the Congress party in Tamil Nadu.

While state Congress president S Thirunavukkarasu told Firstpost that the raids were political vendetta by the BJP and that the BJP is exploiting a leadership vacuum in Tamil Nadu by carrying out such raids on AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) ministers and now the Congress, the reaction from other party men was less than warm.

A senior Congress leader who hails from Tamil Nadu, when contacted, stated that he did not have anything to say on the subject. Even if I say he is God, how does it matter? Will anybody believe me? he asked. The mood is similar among other state-level leaders. Vara vaendiyadhu dhaan (The raids were meant to happen), said a Congress party worker who did not wish to be named.

Faction-Ridden Tamil Nadu Congress

It is only the clout with the Gandhis that has brought P Chidambaram so far, according to Congress workers in the state.

From the beginning, he has been seen as an elite politician in the state and has not really involved himself with the masses, said Aazhi Senthilnathan, political analyst. The complaint against him is that while the Congress was in power, he would work but when the Congress was out of power, he would simply go on to his personal work and not involve himself in party work. That has been a big drawback for him, he said. Senthilnathan added that the small activities that an elected representative usually indulges in  such as attending ear-piercing ceremonies in their constituency, marriage functions or funerals  these were outside of Chidambarams ambit, making him appear to be more of an elite than a mass leader.

There are, in fact, a number of factions within the fractured Tamil Nadu Congress unit. Thirunavukkarasu has his followers, his predecessor EVKS Elangovan has his, while others such as Peter Alphonse and MLA Vijayadharani have their own set of men. GK Vasan too had his clout until 2014 when he split to form the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). These factions are unified in their dislike of Chidambaram. He is a self-serving man, confided one leader from the TMC.

Ally DMKs Ire

A request for comment on the CBI raids on Chidambaram and son elicited a terse response from ally Dravida Munnetra Kazhagams (DMK) working president MK Stalin. Chidambaram will face this legally, he said.

The DMK is furious with Chidambaram. In March 2014, towards the end of the UPAs tenure, DMK chief M Karunanidhis wife Dayalu Ammal was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate to answer questions related to the money laundering charges on Kalaignar TV as part of the 2G case.

At the end of his term, he prodded the ED to do this to us and dragged in Dayalu Ammals name needlessly despite knowing she is old and unwell, said a senior DMK leader who did not wish to be named. He did it deliberately.

Dayalu Ammal is Stalins mother and was also a director in Kalaignar TV during the period in question.

The politicians houses in Chennai, Delhi, Sivaganga and other locations have been raided in connection with the FIPB clearances for INX Media. A troubled-looking Karti, told reporters as he walked out of his house, All these charges are baseless. I am being targetted politically and personally. I will give a detailed statement after the raids. Whatever has to be said, my father has spoken, he stated.

Political analyst Aazhi Senthilnathan recalls a telling comment on the Chidambaram family that he once heard. Patthu rooba sambaadhichu, anju rooba kuduttha avan nallavan-ya. Aana ivanga oru paisa kooda selavu panna maattaanga, was the comment made by someone in Chidambarams constituency and hometown of Sivaganga, he laughed. What the voter told Senthilnathan was this  If he earns Rs 10 and spends Rs 5 on us, he would be called a good man. But they (Chidambaram family) will not spend even one paisa (on the people).

That, in effect, sums up why nobody really loves Chidambaram.
The Indian National Congress seems to have a family problem.

A Congress leader who admitted that this problem does, in fact, exist in the party is none other than Karti Chidambaram, son of former finance minister P Chidambaram.

PTI had reported that according to Karti, political parties, including the Congress, have become "family private limited" companies.

Nothing could be more ironic than Karti talking about issues of nepotism and corruption due to power abused by family members of a politician.

As if the Dhingra Commission concluding that Robert Vadra  son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi  made illegal profits of Rs 50.5 crore from a land deal did not damage the image of the Grand Old Party enough, the CBI on Tuesday raided multiple premises linked to Chidambaram and his son Karti.

The raids are in connection with a case regarding Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance given to a company. This is a case in which a police complaint had named Karti as an accused, NDTV reported.

The allegation against Karti in this case is that his company Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited facilitated clearances to INX Media in 2008 for kickbacks.

India Today in a detailed report also explained that investigation had revealed that Karti had received kickbacks from INX Media when FIPB approval papers for the company were pending with his father, who was finance minister at that time. The report said that on 22 September, 2008, Karti's company got Rs 35 lakh from INX Media.

Of course, Karti's father has defended his son and alleged that the government is controlling the CBI and ordering these raids because they do not want him to write against the government.

But this is not the first time Karti Chidambaram has faced similar allegations. In a way, these charges against Karti have damaged the image of his father Chidambaram and the party the same way the allegations against Vadra and his ridiculous 'Are you serious?' retort hurt Congress.

Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had issued a show-cause notice to Karti and his firm Advance Strategic Consulting Private Limited for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) laws to the tune of Rs 45 crore.

Chidambaram Sr again had to face tough questions at that time and again gave similar answers of the allegations being baseless. The former finance minister had said that the companies served a notice had claimed that Karti was never their shareholder or director, according to The Times of India.

The father-son duo is also facing probes in the Aircel-Maxis case in which Karti allegedly made a killing through his company. The whole story of the Aircel-Maxis case pertains to the forced selling of Aircel in 2006 by its owner entrepreneur C Sivasankaran, allegedly under pressure from former Union telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran. To return the favour, Maxis invested around Rs 47 crore in the Sun Group, owned by Dayanidhi Marans brother, Kalanidhi Maran.

Karti allegedly facilitated the whole transaction through his firm Advantage Consulting.

FIR filed in the INX Media case by Firstpost on Scribd

With inputs from PTI

Follow all the live updates here
The raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation on former finance minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram should not surprise anyone who has been watching how politics plays out in India, where CBI and income tax raids on any political personality is usually interpreted as a case of political witch-hunt or vendetta.

This is true of any ruling party on any issue, be it communal riots or corruption. In the case of Chidambaram and his son Karti, the case is loaded with a political context because senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has been in vocal and transparent pursuit of cases where he accuses the father and son of illegal -- not just improper -- conduct. Here's where the challenge is immense for Swamy and the CBI.

First of all, there is a commonsensical question of how much evidence can the CBI possibly unearth on a case pertaining to 2008 involving approvals by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for INX Media -- nine years later in the age of the Internet and digital transactions. The government's law-enforcing arms have also been pursuing firms or associates said to be linked to Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis case and another involving foreign exchange law violations. In each case, evidence needs to be substantial to link the minister who was technically lording over all of India's economy.

The second point is that even if approvals were given what was the illegality in them. Chidambaram says the concerned approvals were given by multi-member panels empowered under law. At best, there may be a potential case of conflict of interest where the minister as a somewhat connected party may have had to recuse himself where some kind of personal interests were involved. That too is a matter of ethical convention than legal detail. Swamy cites technical rules that smack of discretionary approvals by Chidambaram -- but the key point is that waiver of rules, even if true in some cases, do not necessarily constitute a violation of law.

The third point is that the prosecution has to establish a quid pro quo involving clearly questionable payments with equally questionable approvals in front of an independent judiciary that must be confronted with irrefutable evidence of the correlation between the two.

This brings us to more difficult questions in modern political and public life. Does a son have an identity separate from his father in professional matters? Should his pursuit of a career or profession come to a halt because his father is a public figure? The prosecution has to establish through an elaborate chargesheet that payments purported to be received by the son or somebody representing him were clearly linked to the father with no other professional activity involved.

Such things in the past have usually led to political consequences rather than judicial convictions. In the case of the late former Maharashtra chief minister Abdul Rahman Antulay courts issued strictures linked to irregularities in cement allocations under his rule, but the scandal dragged on in courts for years and was subject mostly to political interpretation. Writings on the case made a celebrity out of journalist-turned-politician Arun Shourie but did not quite silence Antulay, who remained in active politics (albeit somewhat sidelined) despite donations to his Indira Gandhi Pratibha Prathishtan (trust) being linked to allocation of cement by his government.

From all indications, the best case scenario for Swamy and the CBI would be to politically immobilise Chidambaram. The matter gets tricky because Karti Chidambaram is a professional in his own right. Even in the current NDA government, there are ministers whose close relatives are business executives and entrepreneurs. Quid-pro-quo linkages involving family connections are tough to establish in courts -- and easy to allege on TV channels.

In the Antulay case, the trust that received donations was directly linked to the leader. Can a similar link be established in the Chidambaram case? On the face of it, that looks like a daunting task for the prosecution.

While the wheels of justice may grind slowly, politics cannot wait. The Congress party is already linking the CBI raids to the BJP's explicit ambitions to increase its political footprint in the minister's home state. Chances of a political turmoil seem higher than a meaningful prosecution of the 71-year-old minister known for his own legal chutzpah.

(The author is a senior journalist. He tweets as @madversity)
The CBI raids at 16 places related to former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti are indications that Narendra Modi government at the Centre has begun a massive crackdown on corruption cases against individuals of all hues  no matter how high and mighty they may have been in the preceding years. This action is likely to have sent a chill down the spines of political leaders and other individuals against whom serious corruption charges are being probed.

The Tuesday morning raids in Chennai and elsewhere sent out a clear message that there are no holy cows.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the CBI would not embark on such a massive early morning raids at the homes of the senior Congress leader, Rajya Sabha MP, noted lawyer and the man who ruled at the finance and home ministries of the country for 10 years, unless the investigative agencies had gathered substantive evidence against him. It should also be noted that no matter how much the CBI and government may claim that the law was taking its own course and the investigative agency was acting on its own, the fact remains that the investigative agency would not proceed with an act of this nature against a person as high as Chidambaram unless it had secured clearances from the political leadership in the government.

The political leadership in turn would have scrutinised all the documents against the former finance minister. The Modi government cant afford to set off on raids at multiple locations owned by the former finance minister on the basis of a half-baked case, unless it was pursuing the cases with a malafide intent, commonly called a political vendetta.

Chidambaram, on his part, has been crying foul for a long time. The Congress has been accusing the Modi government of "political witch hunting", not just in this case but all other cases of alleged corruption concerning its top party leaders  these include the National Herald cases involving Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi where they are out on bail and the dubious land deals of Robert Vadra.

The Congress' political witch hunting charge has not been sustainable in the National Herald case and Vadra land deal cases because the volume of evidence in the public domain is so substantive that no one who has gone through even parts of this evidence would be inclined to consider the innocence of the Nehru-Gandhi family members.

The problem for Chidambaram is even worse than the one faced by the Gandhis. The charges of wrongdoing against him are not of the NDA governments creation. He and his son have been in the eye of suspicion for their alleged roles in the Aircel-Maxis deal, FIPB clearance for INX Media and other such cases even when the UPA government was in power. It is anybody's guess how the investigation process will proceed if the charges were made against the boss of the home and finance ministries.

The timing of the CBI raids at Chidambarams homes is such that he will have to fight his own battle, without much support from the Congress. As it stands, the Congress top brass is busy protecting Sonia and Rahul in the National Herald case, in which besides the main case of cheating and misappropriation of public money, acquiring real estate worth Rs 2,000 crore that belonged to the defunct print media outlet, the Income Tax Department is now allowed by the high court ask to scrutinise party books.

Its not yet certain as to what the CBI has secured from Chidambarams homes and elsewhere. The CBI may or may not make that public. It depends on how much the CBI wants to reveal in the public domain. But the former finance minister must have seen it coming. There have been so many reports, so many notices and also searches by various central investigative agencies to firms purportedly linked to Karti.

Last month, the Enforcement Directorate had issued a statement saying that "a show cause notice has been issued to Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited, its directors and also to Karti P Chidambaram who appears to be the controller and ultimate beneficiary in these transactions."

This notice was for an alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violation to the tune of Rs 45 crore. The firm Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited had come under the ED's lens over money laundering charges in the Aircel-Maxis deal.A similar notice had also been issued in the case to Chennai-based M/s Vasan Health Care Private Limited for alleged forex violation of Rs 2,262 crore. Earlier, the ED had carried out searches in the premises of Advantage Strategic Consultants Private Limited and others.

Interestingly, no Congress leader was seen on television channels defending Chidambaram, at least by around 10 am, but the support for him ironically came from the Samajwadi Party. Its an open question as to why the Samajwadi Party began defending charges against a senior Congress leader since morning, even before the facts of the case were available.

The Samajwadi Party perhaps was concerned about the fate of its own leaders. Lalu Prasad Yadav, his sons (deputy Chief minister Tejwashwi and minister Tej Pratap) and daughter (Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti) have a lot to explain about shell companies, alleged fraudulent transactions, land-grabbing and so on. Mayawati has not come up with any valid explanation for her former Number Two Nasimuddin Siddiqui's money extortion charge against her. Siddiqui's tapes are a fit case to be probed by investigative agencies. Mamata has own share of problems in Sharada and Narada cases. Arvind Kejriwal has been put on mute mode by Kapil Mishra, former Delhi government minister. Kejriwal faces serious charges of corruption, nepotism, cronyism and favouritism.

Unfortunately for the Congress and its potential UPA-3 allies, the charges against them are flowing thick and fast at a time when Sonia was trying to stitch together Opposition unity for presidential and vice-presidential elections. Under the circumstances, what credibility Opposition unity and the combined Opposition presidential candidate will have in the public eye is easy to guess.

This also comes at a time when BJP is preparing to celebrate the Modi governments completion of three years in power at the Centre. This surely will be one of the main talking points  "war against corruption"  by the BJP. Three years ago, in the run-up to parliamentary elections, Modi used to sarcastically call Chidamabaram a "recounting minister". Will there now be a new nomenclature for the former finance minister by the BJP?

Follow all the live updates here
New Delhi: The Congress today announced the launch of a nationwide public campaign along with other likeminded forces in the next 24 months to expose the BJPled government.

Stating this at a press conference here, AICC incharge of communications Randeep Surjewala said the party led by Rahul Gandhi would expose the "failures" of the government before the public in every nook and corner of the country.

To mark the completion of three years of the Modi government, the Congress young brigade today highlighted its "failures" on various counts including issues of dealing with the Pakistan and Kashmir policy, internal security, women safety and rising cases of rapes, atrocities on dalits, high petrol and diesel prices, besides generation of jobs.

A powerpoint presentation was also made during the press conference that besides other things highlighted the "failures" of this government on bringing back black money, GST, Aadhaar, renaming of UPA schemes, Digital and Skill India and not addressing the problem of farm debt.

"To expose the falsehood of the BJP, the Congress party in the next 24 months will launch an extensive countrywide public campaign after bringing all such like-minded and those forces troubled by this government", Surjewala told reporters.

Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev and Divya Spandana also raised the issues of rising cases of intolerance in the country and of attempts being made to change the narrative rather than focusing on resolving public problems.

Scindia said when this government came to power they kindled a lot of hope by selling the dream of bringing "achhe din" in the country, but in the last three years it "shattered people's dreams".

"There is an environment of intolerance prevailing in the country. If anybody discusses it, they are termed as antinational.

"This government decides what the people should eat,learn and wear. It tries to push its policies based on a regimented 'soch vichar' (ideological approach)," he said.

Pilot said the Congress would present a better alternative model of governance before the people of the country and will expose the BJP on its "failure to fulfil the lofty promises made before coming to power".

"We will prepare a blueprint of an alternative model of governance and not by selling lies to the people", he said.

The Congress screened a video entitled "Teen saal barbaad, lipapoti sarkar" during the press conference.

The Congress leaders also raised the issue of senior functionaries of the government trying to help fugitives like Vijaya Mallya and Lalit Modi escape the country.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accepted RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's invitation to attend a rally of political parties opposed to the BJP-led central government in August.

"Lalu Ji, We accepted your invitation to be there on 27 August. We will be there," Banerjee said in a tweet.

Banerjee's acceptance of the invitation came on a day when IT raids were carried out at various locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in search of the alleged benami properties linked to Lalu Prasad and others.

The former Bihar chief minister earlier said he would convene in August in Patna an all-India rally of parties opposed to the BJP-led government at the Centre.

According to the RJD, the meeting would be a precursor to a Bihar-like grand alliance at the national level to dethrone the Narendra Modi government from power in the 2019 general

election.
There's this curious case about Nongthombam Biren Singh and threats in the daytime.

The newly minted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief minister of Manipur, a man in the middle of a love-fest with large swathes of this conflict-weary, deliberately impoverished state and, certainly, with local media, is placed in a spot in the strangest mannerone that combines privilege and power in an unsavoury mix. Its quite a story.

Six years ago his son Nongthombam Ajay Meetei stood accused of killing a student in a case of road rage. Irom Roger wouldnt permit the political princeling in an SUV overtake. Ajay shot Roger, who died on the way to the hospital.

Biren was then a minister in the two-term Congress government of Okram Ibobi Singh, Manipurs cynical strongman, and among his favourites. After initial attempts at playing things down, public furor compelled the government to hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). To his credit, Biren handed over his son to the custody of CBI investigators.

Nearly six years passed before a local court in Imphal announced a verdict in January this year, holding Ajay guilty and sentenced him to five years of "rigorous" imprisonment. By then Biren had moved on from Congress, after the estrangement with Ibobi, and joined BJP. At the time of his son's sentencing, Biren was BJP spokesperson for Manipur.

There was talk then of Ibobis heavy hand influencing matters  especially as the well-connected in Manipur usually, and quite literally, get away with murder. It seemed like an opportune moment for a former mentor and systemic player par excellence to pull the plug on a renegade.

But that hardly dented Birens political fortunes. Whatever the behind-the-scenes activity, he held the moral high ground from his visible actions from years earlier of cooperating with the investigation. He won his seat in general elections to the assembly in early March. BJP cobbled together a majority with allies in the 60-member assembly, trumping Congress which won 28 seats to emerge as the single-largest partyand brought Ibobi perilously close to an astounding fourth term. Biren was chosen in mid-March to lead BJP in Manipur. And there he is today, Congress rebel to BJP chief minister in five months flat.

Meanwhile, Roger's mother thought her sons killer had got away with too little. She wanted more punishment for Ajay. She began to explore ways and, through local rights activists managed to finally engage a New Delhi-based lawyer, Utsav Singh Bains  local lawyers were evidently scared of taking on the case  to escalate the matter to Manipur High Court, to appeal the case; and to file a petition in the Supreme Court.

Last week, Bains claimed he had received threatening WhatsApp calls from several people asking him to back offhe claims this happened in late-March after he returned to New Delhi from Imphal. He maintains the callers identified themselves as speaking on behalf of People's Liberation Army, a major rebel group with access to Manipurs power structurethe same as with several dozen other major rebel groups in Manipur of various ethnicities and political persuasions. (Police reportedly agree that the call originated in Myanmar, where PLA, the armed wing of Revolutionary Peoples Front, and several other major rebel groups in Manipur maintain refuge for leaders and cadres.)

Over the weekend Binalakshmi Nepram, a media-savvy rights activist who has taken interest in the matter of helping Rogers mother with counsel, has alleged that Manipur police personnel visited her family home in Imphal on the afternoon of 12 May and intimidated her aged parents upon not finding Nepram home. They allegedly did the same at the home of the candidate who contested against Biren in the assembly elections. The police version in some media reports is quite vanilla, that they were merely following up on Bainss accusations, and the visits were merely that of investigation to learn more from people who were familiar with Bains and the matter of judicial review.

Whether it was intimidation or intimationor over-reactionmay yet be proven over the next several days, weeks and months, but it does take a little shine off Biren, besides underscoring several axioms about Manipur. The primary one being: the intimate and opportune relations that politicians of Manipur maintain with rebels of various shades in an arrangement of mutual benefit has for decades married local ethno-nationalist sentiments to pure survival.

As to Biren, has this studiously humble and affable candidate, before, during and just after elections, now grown fangs and claws two months into his job as chief minister of a BJP-led government?

The answer is complicated. In Manipur it usually is.

Biren has moved on rapidly from being a trusted colleague of Ibobi, and reportedly at his ear on significant policy aspects and attitudes. This included taking a hard line with residents of the tribes of Manipur, those of the minority Naga, Kuki and Zomi people who constitute roughly forty percent of the population but whose homelands in the hill areas cover nearly a ninth of the state. Manipurs "hill people" have repeatedly protested against perceived majoritarian bias of the plains-dwelling Meitei who largely inhabit Imphal Valley, radiating from the states population, administrative and commercial hub of the capital, Imphal.

Since 2010 Ibobi has proved to be increasingly unpopular with the tribes, and has used that animosity, including suggestions of carving out administratively independent Naga homelands in Manipur by the largest Naga rebel group, National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah)  currently in peace and reconciliation talks with the government of India  to shore up his own eroding popularity among the Meitei by playing to their paranoia about loss of Manipurs territory.

In mid-2015 there was a fracas over proposed legislation that sought to secure for Manipur a special permit for entry and residence of non-Manipuri people, besides proposed legislation over commercial premises and property. It was widely perceived by tribal folk as a measure to their detriment. Violence erupted in southern Churachandpur district, nine Zomi protesters were killed by Manipur police personnel, and as this piece is being written their bodies still lie in the local morgue as a sign of protest.

A months-long economic blockade of two major gateway highways in Manipur that began late last year brought the plains areas of the state to near-standstill. It was quite blatantly a ploy by NSCN(I-M) proxies in Manipur to create leverage for negotiations. Ibobi countered that to his own political advantagein effect, the more Nagas blockaded the Meitei, the more Ibobi would regain his credibility and shoot for a fourth term to run a state he stood accused of impoverishing despite a gargantuan amount of development assistance by the Central government.

Ibobi struck on 25 November, when police arrested the president and information secretary of United Naga Council, the umbrella organisation of Naga tribes in Manipur. He flatly ignored the consequent outrage of Naga groups. On 9 December, Ibobi announced the formation of seven new districts adding to the existing nine. Of these, four were earlier part of the Naga-majority districts of Ukhrul, Senapati, Tamenglong and Chandel. This removed non-Naga areas, and leveraged disquiet that even some Naga tribes and clans have towards domineering NSCN(I-M), and by extension the northern Tangkhul tribes to which several of its key leaders and a large part of its cadres belong. In effect, it administratively cauterised non-Naga areas from a Naga push.

The thing is although this happened after Biren left the Congress  and his former mentor  Biren, as some insiders tell me, has for long been a votary of protecting majoritarian interests.

This author has held an opinion for nearly two years, especially in my columns for the newspapers Mint, that the BJP-led central government would do little to alleviate the situation in Manipur, waiting for Ibobi and the Congress to crash and burn, allow the momentum of anti-incumbency replace him, and then step in with solutions to festering issues and grand announcements about developing infrastructure and the economy.

That is exactly what has happened. The poison of the last days of Ibobis rule has been spectacularly reduced. Within days of Biren and the BJP assuming power in Manipur, the blockade was lifted after a concord with Naga groups in Manipur (talks between BJP-appointed interlocutors and NSCN(I-M) were, in any case, moving in parallel). The announcement of centrally aided projects poured in.

Meanwhile, Birens other efforts at optics have been astoundingly good and proved a refreshing change from the crushing debilitation of the preceding fifteen-year, three-term Congress administration of Ibobi.

Biren made a hugely publicised visit to the Tangkhul redoubt of Ukhrul. Earlier this month he did the near-impossible: he got communities in Churachandpur to believe, as part of a written undertaking, that his government would consult all groups before legislating matters related to residency and the so-called Inner Line Permit. And, in turn, he received assurance from community members that they would claim and bury their nine dead by 24 May.

Whatever his personal predilections, for the sake of BJPa party that keeps a close advisory watch on Biren with its cohorts of Sangh organisations and policy think-tankshe is for all practical purposes, and for the moment, Inclusive Biren.

Alongside, since forming the government Biren has presided over the regular changing of loyalties of Congress functionaries and even members of the legislative assembly over to BJP  a procurement, if you will, by laying out the promise of a new order with a new outlook. Biren has also quite blatantly reached out to local media in a manner quite disturbingly common across India, by last week offering them insurance.

Is he opportunistic? Certainly: what politician is not?

Is he a majoritatrian? He will have to be to some extent, inclusiveness or not, to assuage fears of the Meitei community.

Is he given to nepotism? How the state intervenes in a review for his son's sentencing will be the gauge on that count.

Will he be Ibobi II?

Give Biren a year or so to score that.

The author is an award-winning author of several books, a columnist, and consultant to think-tanks and media.He tweets @chakraview
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday described the three years of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre as "three years of failure".

"The Modi government is gearing up to celebrate three years in office. Actually, it is three years of failure," he said, while addressing a public meeting.

Yechury alleged that the government had failed on multiple fronts  the corporates were looting the country, 51 percent of the children in the country were suffering from malnutrition, the country had failed to ensure education and jobs for all, farmer suicides were continuing and communal harmony was facing a serious challenge.

"Where is the success? The government should celebrate three years of failure," he told the gathering at the state conference of the Students Federation of India (SFI).

Yechury alleged that the affidavit filed by the Centre before the Supreme Court on triple talaq showed its "dubious" nature as the Women's Reservation Bill was yet to be passed.

"If they (the Centre) had real sympathy towards the problems of women they would have taken the initiative to pass the Women's Reservation Bill. I am surprised that the bill is yet to be passed in Parliament," he said.

The leader also termed the formation of the 'anti-Romeo' squads and 'gau raksha dals' (cow protection squads) by the Uttar Pradesh government, led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, as "illegal".

By forming the 'anti-Romeo' squads, the Uttar Pradesh government had "infringed upon the rights of the youth" and the cow protection squads had "stepped up atrocities on Muslims and Dalits", the Rajya Sabha member claimed.

"This government is trying to fan communal sentiment. These are illegal and should be withdrawn forthwith," said Yechury.
Postanjyans daughter was examined: Doctors do not say good things - Yerkir Tsirani member (video)

Mayoral candidate Zaruhi Postanjyan did not break any law by showing up at a campaign office of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) in Yerevans Avan district while voting continued in municipal elections in the Armenian capital on Sunday, May 14, says human rights activist Nina Karapetyants. She says that human rights are not protected in Armenia. The incident proved once again that Armenia is not a safe country even for people who have immunity. Postanjyan and her daughter entered on May 14 the HHK office in Avan district just the moment when HHK activists were looking through what she described as lists of residents who promised to pay for Yerevans incumbent Mayor Taron Margaryan. Seeing the 'unexpected guests' they hid the lists in a drawer and refused to open it. Moreover, they forced Postanjyan and journalists out of the office, saying nobody had the right to enter their office without permission. Zaruhi Postanjyan refused to leave the premises before being dragged away by police officers. It appeared they were going to detain her but changed their mind at the last minute. When justifying their actions, HHK activists said likewise they could break into campaign offices of the rival teams in an attempt to check documents there. Should Eduard Ashotyan or Armen Ashotyan enter a campaign office of Postanjyans Yerkir Tsirani party, the police would not treat them in the same way as they treated Postanjyan, Nina Karapetyants said. Instead of checking the authenticity of the information given by Postanjyan, the police used force against her. Gohar Arshakyan, a member of the Yerkir Tsirani party, says she saw the injuries inflicted by police officers on Postanjyan and her daughter. When I saw her bruises, was totally flabbergasted. How can one possibly cause such injuries to another person? Postanjyans daughter was examined today and doctors do not say good things about her health, Gohar Arshakyan said.
There is an uncanny resemblance between TT Krishnamachari and P Chidambaram. Both would go down in the history as union finance ministers sharing the ignominy of facing charges of corruption. Like Krishnamachari Indias fifth finance minister (1957), Chidambaram was quite eloquent on various issues.

The similarities end here. Krishnamachari was accused of manipulating the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation to disburse a loan to Kanpur-based industrialist Haridas Mundhra. He was equivocal when members of Parliament raised pertinent queries about the manner in which the loan was disbursed. Jawaharlal Nehrus son-in-law Feroze Gandhi led the attack on Krishnamachari.

Besieged from all quarters following a judicial probe which exposed a web of lies and plenty of deceits, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru still encumbered by the legacy of Gandhian austerity had no option but to sack not only the finance minister but also his secretary. However, Nehru reinstated him in the cabinet six years later in 1963 at a time when he was quite vulnerable.

Unlike Nehru, Manmohan Singh had no qualms about retaining ministers with dubious track records. In Chidambarams case, the influence of his son Karti Chidambaram in the sphere of governance was an open secret. His many deals were under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Similarly, officials of the CBI subjected his wife Nalini Chidambaram to an extensive inquisition with regard to the Saradha group financial scam.

There were more than one reason for Manmohan Singh to check the veracity of the allegation and remove Chidambaram if necessary. But as prime minister Manmohan Singh was perpetually conscious of the fact his official status was beholden to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her family. And Chidambaram was perceived to be quite close to 10 Janpath (the official residence of Sonia Gandhi). Chidambaram was beyond reproach.

Remember the manner in which Digvijaya Singh had to eat his words after he described Chidambaram as "intellectually arrogant". Similarly, Pranab Mukherjee as senior cabinet colleague in the government was practically goaded to make up with Chidambaram when he made a critical statement about Chidambarams functioning as home minister. Chidambaram had a run in with the finance ministry following the discovery that there were attempts to bug the office of Pranab Mukherjee as union finance minister.

The sense of political omnipotence that Chidambaram used to exude was quite disproportionate to his real political clout. And much of it emanated from his overt attempts to subvert the government in Gujarat then headed by Narendra Modi and stoke a rebellion in the state bureaucracy. As a home minister, he changed the ministrys affidavit in the Ishrat Jehan encounter case much against the wishes of his secretary GK Pillai. Similarly, he roped in a Gujarat cadre IPS, Kuldeep Sharma, in the home ministry despite opposition by the state. The obvious objective was to rattle the Modi government and create a situation of insurrection by top bureaucracy. Chidambaram partly succeeded in his design but Modi ultimately proved to be more than a match for him.

The raids by CBI on the residential and official premises owned by Chidambaram and his family seem to be a logical culmination of the probes being conducted by the investigative agency on Karti Chidambaram's financial deals. It would be wrong to assume that the raids by CBI are a proof of anybodys culpability. Given the record of shoddy investigations by the agencies, political corruptions are rarely proven in the court of law.

Like TT Krishnamachari, Chidambaram may come out unscathed. There is nothing that can stop him from getting reinstated as a minister much like Krishnamachari. But that is hardly an issue. In history, he will be known for the dubious distinction of being a finance minister who not only faced allegations of corruption but was also subjected to CBI raids. However, this historical imagery about himself would be difficult to live with for Harvard-educated Chidambaram.
Political killing is not a new phenomenon in the northern district of Kannur in Kerala. One of the strongest and oldest bastions of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the district had always been the bloodiest one as well.

Last Friday, when 32-year-old P Biju, an RSS functionary was hacked to death in broad daylight at Ramanthali, a suburban area of Payyanur, it was deja vu again  an alleged well-orchestrated revenge killing.

Biju had been the 12th accused in the killing of CPMs Dhanaraj in July 2016. For those maintaining the score sheets at Kannur, it was yet another red tick against the BJPs name, leaving one to ponder when the next head will roll on the opposite side.

Strangely though, the BJP, instead of pinning down the Left government on the violence, decided to go for the governors jugular. This has, in effect, taken the focus away from the gruesome killing.

The BJP had raised the Kannur issue with the governor, P Sathasivamand, but not all in the party were happy with the head of the states reaction. MT Ramesh, one of the general secretaries of the party in the state and a well-known media face was the first to set the ball rolling over social media.

"It is not because we do not know the address of the chief minister's office that we went to the governor. The governor should have acted on his own, deplored Ramesh in a Facebook post.

It appeared that Ramesh was not aware that governors of states cannot act without seeking the advice of the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan or the cabinet. As if that was not embarrassing enough, the real shot in the foot arrived soon after.

The firebrand woman general secretary of the party and member of the National Executive from Palakkad, Shobha Surendran, said, "If the governor is scared of the chief minister, then he should quit his post immediately."

Adding fuel to the fire, BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan released a video claiming to be of CPM cadre rejoicing after the killing of Biju. More than two days have passed since the CPM state leadership challenged the authenticity of the video, but the BJP still has no answers to give.

On Monday, when the State Assembly met, the partys single member in the legislature, O Rajagopal, was cornered by both the treasury benches and the Congress-led Opposition. It finally forced the MLA to say that the sentiments expressed against the governor was the doing of young leaders in the heat of the moment and should be seen only as an emotional outburst of a few, who are still coming to terms with having lost a young party worker.

The BJP spokesperson candidly admitted to the political blunder some of his colleagues had committed. "Such irresponsible statements by a few in the party have put the party in a very tight spot. We have lost a worker to CPMs violence but nobody is speaking of that now. The whole focus has been shifted and we have given our political opponents a chance to get at us now," BJP state spokesperson MS Kumar said, while speaking to Firstpost.

So, whatever the BJP state leaderships political strategy was when they set foot at the Raj Bhavan boomeranged as the issue of 'insulting the head of the state (read governor)' gathered prominence in the news space relegating the core issue of political violence in Kannur to a sub-plot.

The loud-mouth rhetoric of the two general secretaries of the saffron party also provided cannon fodder to the CPM leadership. Not only did chief minister deplore the comments of the BJP leaders on the floor of the House, he also managed to get away without much trouble on Kannur. In fact, the Congress, which had been at the CPMs throat over Kannur, was seen as taking a softer stand after the BJP attacked the governor.

Meanwhile, the CPM, which was certainly on the backfoot over the weekend, not only attacked with renewed energy but gave an entirely new spin to the Kannur killings. The BJP in the state is arm-twisting the Governor to bring in central government interference in the state. It somehow wants to portray that the law and order situation has collapsed in the state by one unfortunate incident at Kannur. They are only clearing the grounds for greater violence in the state in days to come, said Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPM State Secretary at Thiruvananthapuram.

"The BJP in the state is arm-twisting the governor to bring in central government interference in the state. It somehow wants to portray that the law and order situation has collapsed in the state by one unfortunate incident at Kannur. They are only clearing the grounds for greater violence in the state in days to come," said Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPM state secretary at Thiruvananthapuram.

BJPs Kannur agenda

This is how Kannurs politics has always gone after every bout of killing: A few noises would be raised; an all-party peace talk would follow, bringing in a truce that would then await its turn to be broken by the next provocation.

But by dragging the governors office into the issue, the BJP state leadership has shown its clear intentions of fishing in troubled waters, nowadays a widely successful political strategy.

It is also perhaps not a surprise that the partys bigwigs in the state pleaded before the governor to enforce the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) at Kannur.

Sources inside the party confirm that it was a well thought out strategy to make such a tall demand, knowing very well that it may not yield any immediate result, but would bolster the argument that there is a breakdown in law and order in the state.

That the feelers would have come from the central leadership to coin such a strategy is the sneaking suspicion, given the track record of the party in using governors to serve its political ends in the federal structure.

The BJP was certainly preparing the grounds for a central government intervention. But with the state leadership completely botching it up, sources inside the party confirm that the leadership in Delhi is terribly miffed at the way the state leadership handled the whole issue.

Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy minced no words when he put it out. "Constitutional heads need to be respected. The governor was right in handing over the BJPs complaint to the chief minister for necessary action," said Rudy in Delhi.

Also, the BJP, by uttering the words AFSPA, had initially succeeded in setting the cat among the pigeons for the CPM in Kerala. For the comrades who are known to take up arms at even a murmur of AFSPA, the BJPs demand would have surely set alarm bells ringing. But the partys own blunder took the wind out of its sails.

Senior leaders now concede that it was a desperate attempt to mollify the emotions of its own cadre that the middle rung leadership of Ramesh and Surendran would have erroneously turned their guns at the governor, who had by then passed on the partys written request to the chief ministers office, directing necessary action.

But there is also a line of argument that says that the BJP in Kerala is so flustered, that it could have attacked the governor presuming an unholy alliance between the governor and the chief ministers office.

"Since this government came to power, we have been losing our workers in Kannur and how many promises did the chief minister make? The party feels that there is no point in trusting him. We had no option but to go to the governor," added the BJP spokesperson.

But political analysts point out that by putting the governor himself in a spot of bother, the BJP seems to have forgotten that the governor, after all, is an appointee of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

"What was the BJP expecting out of the governor? He is constitutionally bound by his duties. So, he will do what he has to. By taking out your ire on him, you are only exposing your political incompetence," advocate A Jayashankar, one of the states prominent political analysts, told Firstpost.

That the BJP indeed had a grand plan in place for Kannur is substantiated by the protest echoed outside the Kerala House in New Delhi by the Jan Adhikar Sammithi, a usual suspect that is used by the party for keeping the Kannur heat alive in Delhi.

But the Red Terror Reigns at Kannur posters that were flashed before the Kerala House were severely watered down by the self-inflicting rhetoric of the partys leaders in the state, in the course of attacking the governor.

The CPM had always found the BJP-RSS combine as its biggest and strongest political adversary in Kannur and the well-calculated killing of cadre on either side, with the CPM mostly having the upper hand, is only a reflection of the bitter power struggle in the district.

Unless both the parties stick to their words and ensure that the promises they make at the peace table percolate down to the cadre on the ground, no solution is possible.
Kannur: Two CPM workers were arrested on Mondya for their alleged roles in the 12 May killing of an RSS worker at Payyanur town, even as the Centre said it was 'keeping an eye' on the politically volatile north Kerala district of Kannur.

Rinesh (28) and K P Jyothish (26) were arrested from Kannur on Monday.

"We have arrested two CPM workers. We are still ascertaining as to how many persons were involved in the crime," Kannur Superintendent of Police Siva Vikram told PTI, adding that police was on the lookout for more persons.

Two persons who had helped the accused to flee were taken into custody on Sunday and were still being questioned, the police said.

While accusing the state government of not having "the political will to fight out violence and killings," Union minister JP Nadda said the CPM-led LDF government should take moral responsibility for such incidents.

"We condemn the attacks on BJP-RSS workers and the political party which has indulged in such activities," Nadda told reporters in Kannur earlier in the day.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, on the other hand, hit out at the BJP for demanding imposition of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Acts (AFSPA) in Kannur.

Some people have sought imposition of AFPSA in Kannur, he said, adding that "they would do well to remember that in Manipur, where it had been implemented, 1,528 fake encounters and killings had been reported."

The victims ranged from a 12-year-old child to a 72-year-old woman, the chief minister added.

Kerala's democratic society, which stands for the human rights, cannot accept this, Vijayan said in a Facebook Post. "How can a democratic party demand for such a law," he asked.

"The government is committed to take forward the peace efforts and ensure protection for life and property," he said adding that the state government would take an uncompromising stand against these type of incidents.

Earlier, in the assembly, Vijayan said a case would be registered against the BJP state president, if necessary, for allegedly "spreading false" reports related to the killing of the RSS worker in Kannur.

The RSS worker, Biju, an accused in the killing of a CPM worker, was out on bail when he was attacked on 12 May. It was the first incident of political violence after peace talks were held between leaders of the CPM and BJP-RSS in Kannur in January.

The BJP'S Kerala unit had submitted a memorandum to Kerala Governor P Sathasivam, seeking action and to declare Kannur a disturbed area and to impose AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) there to maintain law and order.

BJP leader Sobha Surendran today continued her attack against the governor, saying he should demit office if he was scared to take action against the chief minister.

"Why isn't the governor visiting Kannur? Why can't he seek a report from the government?" she asked in New Delhi.
By Michelle Martin

| BERLIN

BERLIN Once a self-styled "anti-party party", Germany's environmentalist Greens have been plunged into crisis by the very success that brought them into the political establishment.The former fringe group appears to have turned off many voters by shifting towards the centre, and its collapse in popularity could complicate coalition arithmetic after a Sept. 24 national election. Chancellor Angela Merkel is on track to return to power but will almost certainly need a coalition ally.The Greens' top candidates are pragmatists seen as open to an alliance with Merkel's conservatives. But the slump in their poll ratings by around half since last summer, to 6-8 percent, makes that constellation unlikely.The Green's problems crystallised in two votes this year: in March, when they crashed out of the state assembly in the Saarland, and on Sunday, when they only just scraped back into parliament in the populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia."Perhaps the Greens need to become a bit more rebellious and unconventional again," said veteran Greens MP Hans-Christian Stroebele, 77, a lawyer who made his name in the 1970s defending militants of the Red Army Faction urban guerrilla group. The environmental party was born in 1980, growing out of the ecologist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some Greens won seats in the national parliament for the first time in 1983 - and in those days, some knitted in parliament.The party tasted power at national level in a 1998-2005 tie-up with the Social Democrats (SPD), and could team up with either Merkel's conservatives, or the SPD and the far-left Linke, after September's election.But the Greens' plunge in the polls suggests neither of those alliances would command a parliamentary majority. That could force the largest party bloc - probably Merkel's conservatives - to team up with two allies rather than one.

A senior official from Merkel's conservatives said the chancellor had wanted to leave open the possibility of a tie-up with the Greens but that was now doubtful because "they have no candidates and no issues".BROKEN TABOO

The party holds seats in 14 of Germany's 16 regional assemblies, and in three states has broken its former taboo against forming alliances with conservatives. Its first state premier said during the migrant crisis he prayed for Merkel every day.Supporters complain the Greens have become too normal and too boring, said Thomas Petersen of the Allensbach Institute. A survey found 13 percent consider the party "cool", down from 59 percent seven years ago.

The Greens are partly victims of their own success; their environmentalist agenda has become mainstream.After Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster, they boasted as much as 28 percent support. But Merkel's decision then to turn away from nuclear power robbed the Greens of a key rallying point. Multiculturalism, another party cause, has also advanced.A recent survey by pollster Forsa found half of Germans would not miss the environmental party if it ceased to exist."At the moment they lack something that makes supporters say: that's why we need the Greens," said Berlin-based political analyst Gero Neugebauer.Petersen said many people "think the Greens are a bit schoolmarmish and have a know-it-all attitude - they see them as people who want to tell us what to eat, and how to travel to work, and this lecturing attitude annoys people."

The Greens caused outrage during the 2013 election campaign by proposing some canteens introduce a weekly vegetarian day. More recently, the party has upset some drivers by proposing a higher tax on cars that are not environmentally friendly.Commentators also link the party's weakness to its top election candidates - Katrin Goering-Eckardt and Cem Ozdemir, the first politician of Turkish origin to win a seat in the national parliament. Both are aged 51 and party veterans."Neither represent a Green revival," said Neugebauer.Goering-Eckardt admitted the party was struggling."We can and will change the situation," said the softly spoken Lutheran, who grew up in the former Communist East.To do well in September's election, the Greens may need something they do not want, said Manfred Guellner, head of the Forsa polling institute."There's not enough time for much to happen there - unless there's another Chernobyl or Fukushima," he said. (Additional reporting by Hans-Edzard Busemann and Paul Carrel; Editing by Andrew Roche)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Beijing: China appears to be laying the groundwork for the mass collection of DNA samples from residents of a restive, largely Muslim region that's been under a security crackdown, rights observers and independent experts said on Tuesday.

Police in western China's Xinjiang region confirmed that they are in the process of purchasing at least $8.7 million in equipment to analyse DNA samples.

Observers from Human Rights Watch said they've seen evidence of almost $3 million in additional purchases related to DNA testing. They warned such a collection programme could be used as a way for authorities to beef up their political control.

The move comes after Chinese authorities in 2016 reportedly required Xinjiang residents to submit DNA samples, fingerprints and voice records to obtain passports or travel abroad.

If used at full capacity, the new equipment could be used to profile up to 10,000 DNA samples a day and several million a year, said Yves Moreau, a computational biologist specialising in genome analysis and DNA privacy at the University of Leuven in Belgium.

Since it started collecting DNA profiles in 1989, China has amassed the unique genetic information on more than 40 million people, constituting the world's largest DNA database, according to a study in 2016 by forensic researchers at the China Ministry of Public Security.

Unlike many other countries, China lacks legal protections to guard people's privacy and prevent their genetic information from being misused, said Helen Wallace, founder of the British group GeneWatch.

Xinjiang borders several unstable Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan. It's experienced numerous bombings and vehicle and knife attacks blamed on ethnic separatists from the native Uighur Islamic minority.

In one of the most recent attacks, eight people, including three assailants, were killed in a February knife attack in southern Xinjiang's Pishan County, which borders Pakistan.

Chinese authorities seeking to counter religious extremism among the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) have taken increasingly aggressive steps to quell the unrest. Those have included mandatory satellite tracking systems for vehicles in some areas, rewards for terror-related tips and prohibitions against women wearing veils and men growing beards.

The purchases of DNA testing equipment in Xinjiang were confirmed by an official at the regional Public Security Bureau. The official, who gave only her surname, Huang, said a supplier already had been found. In Xinjiang's Sheche County, suppliers were being sought for voiceprint collection systems and 3-D portrait systems, according to a security official surnamed Yin, who declined to give further details.

The scale of the purchases raises "a legitimate concern that Chinese authorities could be planning to DNA profile a large fraction, or even all of the Uighur people in Xinjiang," Moreau said.

"Xinjiang is already an oppressive region with a high level of surveillance," said Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang. "To collect even more information on a mass scale unrelated to criminal investigation opens the door for an even greater level of surveillance and control."

Government-sponsored DNA databases compile the genetic markers present in each individual, typically from blood, saliva or hair samples. They're used by law enforcement agencies around the globe as evidence in criminal prosecutions and to monitor prior offenders.

In the United States, where laws generally limit DNA collection to people who have been arrested, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has 12.8 million offenders in its DNA database, according to the agency. That's almost 4 percent of the total US population. The United Kingdom has 5.2 million people in its database, or about 8 percent of its population, according to the British government.

China's database now covers about three percent of its population. It's been used by authorities to reunite abducted children with their parents. It was also used in a highly publicised case in 2016 to help track down a serial killer who, authorities said, admitted to the murders of 11 women and girls over a 14-year period.

"It's clear there's a fairly large infrastructure being built for DNA collection and they're planning to expand that further," Wallace said. "I would like to see China put their legal database on clear legal footing. That includes the kinds of safeguards we see in other countries."
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an extension of China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) policy, the brainchild of Chinese president Xi Jingping.

While OBOR is aimed at linking China to Eurasia and fostering economic cooperation between countries, CPEC has one aim: Strengthening the relationship between China and Pakistan to almost symbiotic proportions through a $50 billion investment to expand and upgrade Pakistan's infrastructure.

India has been wary of CPEC from the outset, even going as far as to boycott the high-profile Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. And with good reason.

At the heart of CPEC are a series of roads, power plants and development projects connecting China's restive Xinjiang province to Gwadar in southwestern Pakistan. The trouble is: CPEC passes straight through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Little wonder then that, according to a report in Al Jazeera, after the announcement of CPEC by Xi in June 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told China that this plan was "unacceptable".

Suchitra Vijayan, a New York-based lawyer told Al Jazeera that India has taken this position because it wants to keep Kashmir as a bilateral issue. However, with the introduction of China and CPEC, Kashmir could become an international issue, which plays into Pakistan's strengths, Vijayan added.

According to a report in The Tribune, Beijing has positioned its armed forces in Gilgit and Baltistan to protect the workers who are constructing CPEC.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has "gifted" 1942 square kilometres of PoK to China to build the Karakoram highway, which is dangerously close to the Siachen glacier, the highest battleground in the world and which happens to be under the control of India.

Strategic analysts in the Indian Army speaking off the record to The Tribune, said that Pakistan has been insisting on demilitarising Siachen and that if India does so, they will be unable to recapture the glacier. They said that the manner in which Beijing and Islamabad were manoeuvring and encroaching on India's territory would have "long-term consequences" for India.

China has looked to assuage India's fears and signalled that they would stay neutral on Kashmir.

According to a report in the Indian Express, Xi, at the opening of China's Belt and Road Forum, said: "All countries should respect each others sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each others development paths and social systems, and each others core interests and major concerns.

While Xi did not mention India or CPEC, the implication was clear. However, political analysts worry if China, given the high stakes involved in CPEC, will be able to stay neutral if the Kashmir issue heats up.

For now, India has no choice but to wait and watch.

With inputs from agencies
Washington: Embattled US President Donald Trump faced explosive allegations that he divulged top secret intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, a charge the White House scrambled to rebut Monday.

The Washington Post reported that Trump revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscow's man in Washington Sergey Kislyak.

In a shock twist, the intelligence reportedly came from a US ally who did not authorize Washington to share it with Moscow. That development that could shatter trust that is essential to intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster denied the President had revealed "intelligence sources or methods", but acknowledged that Trump and Lavrov "reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation".

The Post, citing unnamed officials, said that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration recently barred the use of laptops in the passenger cabin from several countries in the Middle East and is mulling the expansion of that ban to cover jets originating in Europe.

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false", McMaster said without elaborating on which elements were wrong.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didn't happen".

McMaster earlier refused to answer questions to a group of journalists gathered in the West Wing, saying "this is the last place I wanted to be" before leaving.

The revelations are the latest in a wave of crises to hit the White House, which late Monday was in a state of shock, with aides frantically trying to put out the fire and determine the source of such damaging leaks.

Since coming to office in January, Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis, lampooning the intelligence services, law enforcement and the media along the way.

Last week, Trump threw his administration into turmoil by taking the virtually unprecedented step of firing his FBI director James Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia to skew the 2016 election.

The meeting came a day after that firing, and was already controversial in itself, a red carpet welcome for top aides of Vladimir Putin just months after being hit with US sanctions for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump's administration was left red-faced after Moscow surprised them by releasing pictures of what was meant to be a closed-door meeting.

For Trump's already weary allies in Congress, the latest crisis brought more headaches and demanded yet more explanation from an administration that is struggling to leave its legislative mark.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount", said Doug Andres, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration".

Senior Republican Senator John McCain told CNN that "if it's true, it's obviously disturbing." But he cautioned: "Let's wait and see what this was all about first".

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer accused Trump of potentially putting American lives at risk.

"If the report is true, it is very disturbing. Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country", he said.

"The president owes the intelligence community, the American people and Congress a full explanation."
Washington: President Donald Trump defended revealing information to Russian officials, saying in a pair of tweets on Tuesday that he shared "facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety" and had "the absolute right" to do so.

Trump was responding to reports of Monday that he revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting early May, putting a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk.

But Trump tweeted that he shared the information for "humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS and terrorism."

Trump says he wanted to share with Russia "facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety." He noted that as president, he has an "absolute right" to do this.

The reports by The Washington Post and others drew strong condemnation from Democrats and a rare rebuke of Trump from some Republican lawmakers. White House officials denounced the report, saying the president did not disclose intelligence sources or methods to the Russians, though officials did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the 10 May meeting.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," said HR McMaster, Trump's national security adviser. "At no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also disputed the Post report. He said Trump discussed a range of subjects with the Russians, including "common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism." The nature of specific threats was discussed, he said, but not sources, methods or military operations.

The Post, citing current and former US officials, said Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The ambassador has been a central player in the snowballing controversy surrounding possible coordination between Trump's campaign and Russia's election meddling.

The anonymous officials told The Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

The New York Times and BuzzFeed News published similar reports later Monday.

Russia's foreign ministry spokesman denied the report. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, on Facebook on Tuesday described the reports as "yet another fake."

The revelations could further damage Trump's already fraught relationship with US intelligence agencies. He's openly questioned the competency of intelligence officials and challenged their high-confidence assessment that Russia meddled in 2016 presidential election to help him win. His criticism has been followed by a steady stream of leaks to the media that have been damaging to Trump and exposed an FBI investigation into his associates' possible ties to Russia.

The disclosure also risks harming his credibility with US partners around the world ahead of his first overseas trip. The White House was already reeling from its botched handling of Trump's decision last week to fire James Comey, the FBI director who was overseeing the Russia investigation.

A European security official said sharing sensitive information could dampen the trust between the United States and its intelligence sharing partners. "It wouldn't likely stop partners from sharing life-saving intelligence with the Americans, but it could impact the trust that has been built, particularly if sharing such information exposes specific intelligence gathering methods," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorised to speak about such intelligence sharing.

The revelation also prompted cries of hypocrisy. Trump spent the campaign arguing that his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should be locked up for careless handling of classified information.

The Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, Trump would have jeopardised cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group, and make other allies  or even US intelligence officials  wary about sharing future top secret details with the president.

Afterward, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on Monday evening.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats expressed concern about the report.

GOP Sen Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order." He described the White House as "on a downward spiral."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also called the story "disturbing," adding, "Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country."

The controversy engulfed the White House. Reporters spent much of the evening camped out adjacent to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office, hoping for answers. At one point, an eagle-eyed reporter spotted a handful of staffers, including Spicer and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, walking toward the Cabinet Room.
Istanbul: Turkish opposition members and human rights defenders are urging President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Turkey's deteriorating human rights and democracy in talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

Erdogan is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House for discussions expected to centre on the friction between the two NATO allies over a US decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters considered as terrorists by Turkey. They will also likely focus on a Turkish request for the extradition of a US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Turkey blames for 2016 summer's failed coup.

The Trump administration has placed priority on US security issues and advancing foreign policy goals, and there is no indication that the issues of human rights and media freedoms will figure prominently on the agenda.

The meeting comes weeks after Erdogan's narrow victory in a national referendum that will expand the powers of his office  development critics say takes Turkey closer toward autocratic rule.

"Turkey is under a state of emergency since the failed coup, during which human rights have been trampled on," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a legislator from Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP. "The media and press freedoms have been placed under government control. Torture and ill-treatment have increased."

"Human rights and democracy are not part of Trump's agenda, but we hope that he abandons this stance," Tanrikulu said. "A Turkey that moves away from the world is to no one's interest."

About 47,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to the coup, while 1,00,000 people suspected of association to Gulen's movement have been fired from government jobs. Turkey also moved to crackdown on other opponents, jailing more than 100 journalists and about a dozen legislators from an opposition pro-Kurdish party.

Trump has been keen on maintaining a good relationship with Erdogan. He congratulated Erdogan on his referendum win even as human rights advocates and some European leaders voiced concerns over the direction Turkey is taking.

Erdogan's ties with the former US administration were strained, among other issues, over Washington's frequent calls for Turkey to respect human rights and freedom of expression. The fact that the Trump administration hasn't publicly outlined these issues as part of the agenda might come as a relief to Erdogan.

A senior Turkish government official said, however, that Trump not focusing on human rights in Turkey was "not an issue for us."

"I don't think it would even have crossed the president's mind. Our priority is the YPG issue," the official said.

He was making a reference to the Syrian Kurdish fighters whom the US has decided to provide with weapons ahead of a possible operation to recapture the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to reporters.

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and has designated both groups as terrorists. Turkey fears that weapons supplied to the YPG will end up in the hands of the PKK  which has led a three-decade long insurgency in Turkey, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

Ozturk Turkdogan, the head of Turkey's Ankara-based Human Rights Association, said that he hoped Trump would raise human rights issues and push Erdogan to revive efforts for a peaceful solution to the conflict with the PKK rebels.

"A new initiative with the Kurds would bring peace to Turkey and resolve the Kurdish issue that is plaguing West Asia," he said.
Washington: President Donald Trump wants the NATO countries to make a greater effort towards combating terrorism and expects more financial commitment than they agreed to, the White House has said.

"With respect to NATO, there's two issues. One is, he (Trump) would like to see a greater effort placed on combating terrorism. And two is to see more of the countries living up to their financial obligation that they agreed to," the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.

Trump leaves on a five-nation tour later this week, during which he would attend the NATO Summit in Brussels.

In his meeting with NATO leaders, the US President would confer on the war in Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS.

At a separate news conference, the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said that NATO will continue to be the guarantor of peace and stability in the North Atlantic area.

"Our commitment to collective defense under Article 5 of the NATO charter is clear. And this summer, we expect there to be numerous exercises with more than 20 nations in the Black Sea and Baltic regions of Europe," he said.

"This collective training involves a joint and combined force of tens of thousands of ally and partner nation personnel, and training together helps maintain joint readiness, build interoperability, and strengthen relationships across Europe.

"The Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions and these exercises there are a demonstration of the US, allied, and partner commitment to security and stability," he added.

Davis said Enhanced Forward Presence or EFP is a NATO mission which is demonstration of allied solidarity to defend NATO territory against any possible aggression. The US is a framework nation of this effort.

"We are responsible for deploying the battlegroup to Poland, and there are three other battlegroups that other NATO countries are doing in each of the three Baltic countries.

"Our battlegroup consists of about a thousand soldiers from the Second Squadron, Second Stryker Cavalry Regiment as well as another 350 personnel from other nations," he said.

The ERI, or European Reassurance Initiative, is a budget thing, Davis said.

"The European Reassurance Initiative is a funding measure to assure our NATO allies and partners of the US commitment to the security and territorial integrity of NATO. In 2017, the budget for that is USD 3.42 billion," he said.
By Ingrid Melander and Emmanuel Jarry

| PARIS

PARIS A leading French conservative accused President Emmanuel Macron of "dynamiting" the political landscape on Tuesday as he put together a government that is expected to include former rivals on both left and right.Macron wants to break through the left-right divide that has dominated the euro zone's second-largest economy for decades, and so is drawing in figures from outside his year-old centrist Republic on the Move (REM) party to complete his list of ministers, expected on Wednesday."We want to bring people together, beyond old divides that have become pointless," REM's secretary-general Richard Ferrand told France Inter radio.The divide-and-conquer tactics by the centrist Macron, elected on May 7, are spreading alarm in the Socialist party and the conservative Republicans (LR), both of which are still licking their wounds after their presidential defeat.They fear he will poach more of their leading figures as he tries to widen his political base before crucial parliamentary elections in June.In a sign of that concern, LR senior lawmaker Francois Baroin disowned party colleague Edouard Philippe for accepting Macron's offer of the job of prime minister on Monday."What Emmanuel Macron is proposing is dynamiting not political reshaping," Baroin told BFM TV. Baroin is leading LR's campaign for the parliamentary elections, which will be key for his party's future as well as Macron's chances of carrying out his pro-business, pro-EU policies.

Benoit Hamon, who gathered just over 6 percent of the votes for the Socialist Party in the first round of the presidential election in April, said left-wingers did not belong in the upcoming government."Who can think that the Left will pull itself together if it is part of a coalition led by a member of The Republicans party?" he said.But the list of those tipped to be part of the government included veteran Socialists, as well as conservatives, centrists and newcomers to French politics. Macron has said he wants a team of maximum 15 ministers, fewer than in the outgoing Socialist administration.Initially expected for late Tuesday, the announcement of who will be part of the government was postponed to 3 p.m. Wednesday (1300 GMT). The president's office said Macron wanted to allow time for thorough checks on the ministers' background, including their tax situation, and avoid conflicts of interest.HEAVYWEIGHTS?

Among the names being touted by French media are three veteran socialists: outgoing defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and ex-World Trade Organisation boss Pascal Lamy. Le Drian with Philippe on Tuesday, giving weight to talk that he could keep his job.There are also centrists, including Modem party leader Francois Bayrou and EU lawmaker Sylvie Goulard, a former adviser to former European Commission president Romano Prodi.Conservatives whose names are being floated include LR lawmaker Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, as well as Thierry Breton, who was economy minister under conservative President Jacques Chirac.Among possible civil society nominees is Nicolas Hulot, a popular former TV documentary star turned environment activist, who helped prepare the 2015 United Nations COP21 climate summit in Paris. A spokesman for Hulot told Reuters he was in talks with Macron but that nothing had been decided.

An overwhelming majority want politicians from the Left, Right and centre to be included in the government, a Harris Interactive poll showed on Tuesday.But in a sign of how little known France's new prime minister is, 57 percent of those surveyed said they did not know him well enough to say if his appointment was a good or a bad thing, while just under a third said it was a good thing.Some conservative lawmakers said they doubted Macron could poach any big names. "The heavyweights won't give in," a source close to former prime minister Alain Juppe said.But over 20 LR members of parliament, including some party heavyweights and former ministers, issued a joint statement on Monday urging the party to positively respond to the "hand extended by the president".While the head of France's main employers group Medef, Pierre Gattaz, said Macron's first days in office were "faultless", the head of the country's largest union, the CFDT, warned him not to "go at it with an axe" to carry out his planned business-friendly reforms."No one wants him to fail. We don't know what would happen if he did, there could even be violent clashes," he told Les Echos daily in an interview, urging him to consult unions. Macron was to meet U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday evening to discuss issues including Syria and climate change, and he is set to visit French troops in Africa on Friday, sources said. (Additional reporting by John Irish, Richard Balmforth, Marine Pennetier; Editing by Andrew Callus and Ralph Boulton)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
BUDAPEST An 81-year-old German far-right activist has been arrested in Hungary on a European warrant for offences committed while serving a prison term for denying the Holocaust, Hungarian police said on Tuesday. Horst Mahler, once a founding member of Germany's leftist Red Army Faction guerrilla group in the 1960s before veering to the ultra-nationalist right, was detained in Sopron near Hungary's border with Austria, on Monday, police said.

The Budapest chief prosecutor said in a separate statement that based on the European warrant Mahler's arrest was "justified". Hungarian officials made no further comment.

German media reported in April that Mahler had left the country to avoid a new prison term for writing far-right tracts while serving a previous sentence for inciting racial hatred and denying Nazi Germany's Holocaust against Jews.

Mahler was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009 on those charges but freed on health grounds in 2015. He became a far-right activist in later life and joined Germany's fringe neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. (Reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto in Budapest, Joseph Nasr in Berlin; editing by Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Mosul: Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State militants liberated on Monday a neighbourhood from the group after heavy clashes in the northern part of western side of Mosul, the Iraqi military said.

The special forces of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) freed al-Uraybi neighbourhood and raised the Iraqi flag over some of its buildings after killing many IS militants, Abdul-Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

The recapture of the neighbourhood came a day after the CTS forces, army and the elite forces of the federal police, known as Rapid Response, initiated a new push into four neighbourhoods, including Uraybi, and managed to defeat the IS defensive lines after fierce street-to-street clashes.

The troops are still engaged in heavy fighting in the other three neighbourhoods of Rifai, Iqtisadiyn and 17 July after they seized parts of them.

The troops are now pushing to seize the remaining neighbourhoods in north and northwest of the city centre to tighten noose around the Islamic State redoubt in the neighbourhoods of the old city centre in the western side of Mosul, including old areas around the historical al-Nuri Mosque.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi jet fighters carried out an airstrike on a village near the Islamic State-held town of Tal Afar and destroyed three Islamic State vehicles carrying rocket launchers, leaving 12 of them killed, the JOC said in a statement citing intelligence reports.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has been under the Islamic State control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling Islamic State militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
Carlstadt : A jet crashed into a building near a small airport, killing two crew members and sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air, authorities have said.

Police said no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3.30 pm on Monday about a quarter-mile (roughly 400 metres) from the runway at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, just west of New York City. No one on the ground was reported to have been injured.

Emergency responders reached the scene a short time later and worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze. The plane crashed into a building in an industrial area, said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the town of Carlstadt.

He said it crashed next to a township facility, but no one inside that building was harmed. He said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the jet left Philadelphia and went down in Carlstadt. A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing to its side before it crashed.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. The National Weather Service warned of strong winds of 15 to 25 metres per hour with gusts up to 45 metres per hour just before the plane went down.

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn and crashed a few hundred yards from the airport. He was aboard another plane at the airport at the time.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday assured Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas of India's "unwavering support" to the Palestinian cause, saying it hopes to see a sovereign, united and an independent Palestine, co- existing peacefully with Israel.

Modi, who is scheduled to travel to Israel in July, also hoped for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution.

After extensive and wide-ranging talks between Modi and Abbas, the two sides signed five agreements.

Addressing a joint press event with Abbas, the prime minister said, "We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel. I have reaffirmed our position on this to president Abbas during our conversation today."

Modi also added that "India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause. India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli side to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution."

Modi's remarks come ahead of his scheduled visit to the Jewish state and assume significance in the backdrop of growing proximity between India and Israel. Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel.

On his part, Abbas said Palestine appreciates the solidarity India extends to its cause.

"India is a friend. It has influence at the international level. India can play an important role (in the resolving Palestine Israel crisis)," Abbas said.

He also said that he recently had meetings with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed possibilities of an early resolution to the long-pending dispute with a two-state solution.

Modi also noted that he and the visiting dignitary had an extensive exchange of views on West Asia peace process and said the challenges there should be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means.

The Palestine president also condemned terrorism in all forms.

The two sides signed agreements for visa exemptions for diplomatic passport holders, in the fields of agriculture cooperation, IT and electronics, health sector and cooperation in the field of youth affairs and sports.

"At the bilateral level, India is committed to be a useful development partner of Palestine. We would continue to support development and capacity of the Palestine. The agreements concluded today are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction," Modi said.

Referring to the technopark jointly built by India and Palestine in Ramallah, he said it will a one-stop solution to IT-related services in Palestine.

In October 2015, India had announced grant of USD 12 million for setting up the park with payment of USD 3 million each on half-yearly basis for two years. The Palestinian side has made the land available for the project.

Abbas said India is "ahead of all friendly countries" in helping Palestine.

Modi said the India is looking froward to enhance cultural exchanges by adding new elements including yoga.

"I have reaffirmed our coalition on this to president Abbas during our conversation on Tuesday.

"president Abbas and I concluded useful and detailed discussion that will add further strength in partnership," he said.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas landed in New Delhi late Sunday night, starting his four-day state visit. Though he has visited India five times before, this is his first visit when a BJP government is in power. The Congress had historically supported the Palestinian cause, while the BJP had always been closer to Israel. Yet, successive Indian governments had always trodden a tightrope, maintaining its ties with both Israel and Palestine. So much so, that any state visit to Israel had also included time in the Palestinian territory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, is now set to break this tradition. He will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel. Moreover, his Israel visit, in about four months time, will be a standalone one  Palestine is not on the agenda.

To maintain the balance ahead of his trip, Abbas has been invited to India. Despite Modi and BJP's natural inclination towards Israel, the prime minister has invested time and energy in cementing closer ties with other Gulf countries. He has already visited UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and has established a rapport with the ruling families.

While announcing Abbas's visit, India reiterated its support for the Palestinian cause. "India and Palestine enjoy historically close and friendly ties. Apart from the political support to the Palestinian cause, India continues to support development projects in Palestine by extending technical and financial assistance," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said in a statement.

But the fact is, support for the Palestinian cause has been more of a formality. India cannot be faulted though as most Arab states themselves have over the years merely extended lip service to the Palestinian cause.

Now, however, US president Donald Trump is talking about exploring a permanent solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute, which has long blotted the region. The focus of the world will once again shift towards peace talks if Trump seriously embarks on a peace mission. As a presidential candidate, he had threatened to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but nothing has materialised as of now. He is still considering the pros and cons of such a move.

If Trump goes ahead with the move, chances of talks on a permanent solution to the crisis will fizzle out. Abbas will not be in a position to begin peace talks if the US signals its support to Israel by shifting its embassy. Palestinians, who believe in the two-nation theory, have always dreamt of Jerusalem as the new capital.

The two-nation theory envisages an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel. The boundary between the two states, however, is the subject of dispute.

Abbas travelled to Washington for a meeting with Trump on 3 May. During their meet, the US president talked of a peace deal but details of what he had in mind have not been disclosed. According to reports in US media, Trump made the point that Washington could at best be a facilitator and that the Palestinians and Israelis must work together to reach an agreement.

A desperate Abbas is reported to have said: "We rely totally on God Almighty, then on you and we promise to be true partners to achieve a historic peace agreement." That statement did not go down well among Palestinians.

During Abbas's meeting with Modi, slated for Tuesday, the Palestinian leader is expected to give him a heads up on the talks with the US president and the general situation in the West Asia region. Earlier, the Palestinians were keen to involve India in the peace process. New Delhi, historically, has not been keen to get entangled in the complications.

But now, in 2017, the situation is very different. India is hoping to extend its footprints in the region and having excellent ties with both Israel and Palestine, Modi may see things differently  if one more such request comes in from Abbas.

Abbas and Modi will sign several deals "on cooperation in various areas", the foreign ministry said, without providing details. On Monday, Abbas will give an address at the Islamic Centre. He will also visit an IT centre in Noida. India is building a tech park in Palestine.

The formal part of his visit will be on Tuesday, where he will inspect a guard of honour and be welcomed formally by President Pranab Mukherjee in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The president will also hold a banquet for Abbas.

Mukherjee had visited Palestine and Israel in 2015. The minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, and Indian vice president Hamid Ansari will also call on Abbas on Tuesday.
Paris: France's new prime minister Edouard Philippe is a low-profile 46-year-old from the Right-wing Republicans party whose politics and interests mirror those of centrist President Emmanuel Macron.

As well as being of similar age, both come from provincial France but followed a classic route through the elite universities Sciences Po and ENA, then public service in Paris and on to politics.

Both have also worked briefly in the private sector: Philippe in a law firm and then as a lobbyist for state nuclear group Areva, while Macron was once an investment banker.

And both count well-connected political advisor and writer Jacques Attali as well as late Socialist prime minister Michel Rocard as influences during their ascent through French political life.

But whereas Macron considers himself left-leaning and got his break under Socialist President Francois Hollande, the bearded Philippe has worked his way up internally through the conservative Republicans party.

The mayor of his hometown since 2010, the gritty northern port of Le Havre, Philippe was first elected to parliament in 2012 as a Republicans MP for his Seine-Maritime area.

The son of two teachers is a longtime ally of ex-prime minister Alain Juppe, the veteran centrist whom he backed as a candidate for the Republicans' nomination for this year's election.

"He has the advantage of being completely unknown to the average French person," political analyst Chloe Morin of the Jean-Jaures Foundation, a left-leaning think-tank, told AFP.

Macron, who won the presidential election on May 7, came to power promising to renew French politics and bring in fresh faces.

As well as their similarities in outlook and experience, Philippe's political positioning is crucial to understanding why France's youngest president has plucked him from relative obscurity.

Macron is hoping to attract other young, centrist allies in the Republicans to his new Republique En Marche party (Republic on the Move, REM), and his choice will perhaps entice others to cross over.

Speaking last Thursday, Philippe encouraged Macron to "transgress" by naming someone from outside his party which he hinted would encourage some of his colleagues to join the REM.

Macron wants to win a parliamentary majority in June elections with the REM, which he hopes will redraw the political landscape, ending the grip on power of the traditional forces of left and right, the Socialists and Republicans.

Clever but aloof?

Philippe is sporty, multi-lingual and known to be an intellectual, but is also seen by some critics as aloof or even arrogant.

"Intelligent, lively and at times a bit crazy," one insider who worked with him in the Republicans party told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that he had a tendency to be "brusque" with colleagues.

"He's not easy to get to know," a local politician in his native Normandy region also said on condition of anonymity, adding that Philippe "doesn't have massive warmth" despite having many qualities.

A book last year on Juppe by journalist Gael Tchakaloff was brutal, describing Philippe as having "arrogance, an excess of self-confidence and ambitions beyond all proportion".

The new prime minister is also a keen amateur boxer, has written two crime thrillers, and has a strong interest in war-time British prime minister Winston Churchill.

And his impersonations of senior politicians such as ex-presidents Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Jacques Chirac or Nicolas Sarkozy are admired by colleagues and friends alike.

He is married, has three children and speaks German, which could come in handy as Macron seeks to persuade Berlin to join his ambitious efforts to "reform and relaunch" the European Union.

In Le Havre, an important port for container ships on the Channel coast, he has organised an international conference called Positive Economy Forum since 2012.

Inviting activists, economists and business executives, it tackles many of the themes that were central to Macron's election such as how to modernise France to increase economic growth while respecting workers and the environment.
By Christine Kim and Tom Miles

| SEOUL/GENEVA

SEOUL/GENEVA North Korea's missile programme is progressing faster than expected, South Korea's defence minister said on Tuesday, after the U.N. Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday's test-launch.Han Min-koo told South Korea's parliament the test-launch had been detected by the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, whose deployment in the South has infuriated China.The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programmes, even from its lone major ally, China, said the missile test was a legitimate defence against U.S. hostility.The North has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the U.S. mainland.U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang's provocations and has warned that the "era of strategic patience" with North Korea is over. U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Tuesday China's leverage was key and it could do more.Han said Sunday's test-launch was "successful in flight"."It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced calibre compared to Musudan missiles that have continually failed," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km (1,860 to 2,485 miles).Asked if North Korea's missile programme was developing faster than the South had expected, he said: "Yes."Han said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile unit deployed by the U.S. military in the South detected the North Korean missile, marking the first time the controversial system has been put to use since its deployment last month.China has strongly opposed THAAD, whose radar it fears could be used to spy into its territory, despite assurances from Washington that THAAD is purely defensive. South Korean companies, from automakers to retailers and cosmetics firms, have been hit in China by a nationalist backlash over Seoul's decision to deploy the system.The North's KCNA news agency said Sunday's launch tested its capability to carry a "large-size heavy nuclear warhead". Its ambassador to China said in Beijing on Monday it would continue such test launches "any time, any place".The test-launch was a legitimate act of self-defence and U.S. criticism was a "wanton violation of the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK", a North Korean diplomat told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Tuesday.

DPRK are the initials of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."The DPRK will bolster its self-defence capabilities as long as the United States continues its hostile policies towards the DPRK and imposes nuclear threats and makes blackmail," diplomat Ju Yong Choi said.The missile flew 787 km (489 miles) on a trajectory reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 km (1,312 miles), KCNA said.Pyongyang has regularly threatened to destroy the United States, which it accuses of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war by conducting recent military drills with South Korea and Japan.Trump and new South Korean President Moon Jae-in will meet in Washington next month, with North Korea expected to be high on the agenda, the South's presidential Blue House said.Moon met Matt Pottinger, overseeing Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, on Tuesday and said he hoped to continue to have "sufficient, close discussions" between Seoul and Washington, the Blue House press secretary told a briefing.

"FURTHER SANCTIONS POSSIBLE"

In a unanimous statement, the 15-member UN Security Council on Monday said it was of vital importance that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions"."To that end, the Security Council demanded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the council said, adding that it was ready to impose further sanctions on the country.The North's foreign ministry rejected the statement, saying it infringed on its right to self-defence, particularly as the missile was test-launched at a sharp angle to ensure safety of neighbouring countries.The UN statement also condemned an April 28 ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang.Following that launch, Washington began talks with China on possible new U.N. sanctions. Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated new measures before involving remaining council members.

The United States sees China as key, U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Wood told reporters on a conference call."I'm not going to talk about various policy options that we may or may not consider, but I will say this: we are certainly engaged right now in looking at a number of measures - political, economic, security - to deal with these provocative acts by the DPRK, and dangerous acts in many cases," he said."So we are going to be raising the level of engagement with China on this issue. China really is the key in dealing with the North Korea issue. Ninety percent of the DPRK's trade is with China, so clearly there is a lot more leverage that China has, and we would like China to use."The Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has stiffened them in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.Trump warned in an interview with Reuters this month that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible. In a show of force, the United States sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.Admiral Harry Harris, the top U.S. commander in the Asia-Pacific, said continued missile launches by North Korea showed the importance of the alliance between Japan and the United States and called the North's actions unacceptable.Harris met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who also said China could apply more pressure to rein in North Korea."Now is the time to put pressure on North Korea," Abe said. "Japan and the United States must coordinate and put pressure."The U.S. Seventh Fleet carrier, the Ronald Reagan, left Yokosuka in Japan on Tuesday on its regular spring patrol and will be out for around three to four months, a Seventh Fleet spokesman said.Besides worries about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link the North with the global WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park in SEOUL, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS and Kiyoshi Takenaka and Minami Funakoshi in TOKYO; Writing by Nick Macfie)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Christine Kim and Tom Miles

| SEOUL/GENEVA

SEOUL/GENEVA North Korea's missile program is progressing faster than expected, South Korea's defence minister said on Tuesday, after the U.N. Security Council condemned the weekend launch of a new long-range missile and demanded Pyongyang halt weapons tests.Han Min-koo told South Korea's parliament that Sunday's test had been detected by the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, which was deployed in South Korea last month, infuriating China.North Korea has defied all calls to rein in its nuclear and missile programs, even from China, its lone major ally, calling them legitimate self-defense.It has been working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland, and experts say Sunday's test was another step toward that aim.U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, and U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Tuesday that China's leverage was key and Beijing could do more.The U.S. ambassador the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the United States believed it could persuade China to impose new U.N. sanctions on North Korea and warned that Washington would "call out" states supporting Pyongyang and target them with sanctions too.Speaking to reporters ahead of a closed-door meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council on the missile launch, Haley made clear that Washington would only talk to North Korea once it halted its nuclear program.The United States has been discussing possible new U.N. sanctions with China since North Korea's previous missile test about two weeks ago."The conversations that I have had ... in dealing with Beijing is that if (North Korea) did something else and if it looked to be long-range, which this does, and if it looks like it is proactively leaning toward an ICBM, which it does, then we would take action," Haley said.

"I believe that China will stay true to that and we will come together on how we're going to do that," she said. "We have not seen anything from them in the past week but we are encouraging them to continue moving forward."South Korea's Han said Sunday's test was "successful in flight.""It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced caliber," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km (1,860 to 2,485 miles).Asked whether North Korea's missile program was developing faster than expected, he said: "Yes."Han said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system detected the missile, marking the first time it had been put to use since its deployment.

China has strongly opposed THAAD, saying it can spy into its territory, and South Korean companies have been hit in China by a nationalist backlash over the deployment.North Korea says Sunday's launch tested the capability to carry a "large-size heavy nuclear warhead" and its ambassador in Beijing said on Monday that Pyongyang would continue such test launches "any time, any place."A North Korean diplomat, Ju Yong Choi, told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Tuesday that North Korea would "bolster its self-defense capabilities as long as the United States continues its hostile policies ... and imposes nuclear threats and makes blackmail."New South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Matt Pottinger, overseeing Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, on Tuesday and afterwards South Korea's presidential Blue House announced that Moon would meet Trump in Washington next month."FURTHER SANCTIONS POSSIBLE"

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council said it was vital that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions".The council demanded North Korea halt its tests and said it was ready to impose further sanctions.North Korea's foreign ministry rejected the statement, saying it infringed on its right to self-defence, particularly as the missile was fired at a sharp angle to ensure the safety of neighboring countries.U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Wood said China was key given that 90 percent of North Korea's trade was with that country. "Clearly, there is a lot more leverage that China has, and we would like China to use," he said.The Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has stiffened them in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.Trump warned in an interview with Reuters this month that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, and in a show of force, sent the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group to Korean waters to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.Another carrier, the Ronald Reagan, left Yokosuka in Japan on Tuesday on its regular spring patrol, which would last three to four months, a spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet said.Besides worries about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs, cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link Pyongyang with the WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park in SEOUL, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Kiyoshi Takenaka and Minami Funakoshi in TOKYO; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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Islamabad: The British authorities detained 14 crew members of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight and the aircraft was "thoroughly searched" over security threats after it landed at

London's Heathrow Airport.

Flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London arrived at Heathrow Airport at 2.50 pm on Monday. Upon landing, as passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by the authorities, PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar.

Tne crew was released after two hours of interrogation pertaining to the security concerns, Geo News reported on Tuesday.

"We have not been informed as to why was the crew detained," said Tajwar. The crew members' passports were also taken away by the police, the report said.

According to the British Police, the crew was taken under custody over security concerns but was released later as nothing was found during the search operation.

PIA said it is seeking to protest against the British Police misconduct with the flight crew.

The flight, meanwhile, was later cleared to take off from Heathrow Airport with replaced crew members.
Independent Observer Public Alliance presents preliminary opinion on May 14 vote

On May 14, 2017, Yerevan City Council (Council of Elders) election day, the Independent Observer Public Alliance conducted a short-term observation mission at 60 polling stations and in all the 10 District Election Commissions in Yerevan city. Also, there were 5 mobile observation groups to monitor the situation outside the polling stations as well as to prevent and solve any possible problems at the observed polling stations. About 140 observers were involved in the observation mission. According to the information collected at the observed polling stations, the situation below was identified. Inside the polling stations in course of the voting: 1. At 77% of the observed voting stations, cases of filling out the voting papers or putting them into envelope by the voters outside the voting booth were identified. 2. At 46% of the observed voting stations, cases when more than one person entered the voting booth at a time were identified. 3. At 42% of the observed voting stations, cases when the voters informed someone or just voiced aloud their vote after voting were identified; moreover, in the vast majority of such cases, the voters voiced about voting for the RPA (Republican Party of Armenia), Taron Margaryan or number 3 and in 2 cases about voting for Nikol Pashinyan and Yelk bloc. 4. At 35% of the observed voting stations, cases of examining the signed voting lists and taking such information outside the polling station were recorded. Moreover, such actions were mostly taken by the proxies of the Republican Party of Armenia and the observers of Hayk Union of Young National Conservatives and Geghama Youth Territorial Association NGO. 5. At 28% of the observed voting stations, the presence of the persons not entitled to stay in the voting room was identified. At 4 polling stations, there were candidates in the voting room, all of them nominated by the RPA. However, it should be noted that the real number of the persons not entitled to stay in the voting room was larger as persons with observers badges representing the Legal Culture Development Institute NGO, Geghama Youth Territorial Association NGO and Hayk Union of Young National Conservatives, whose names were missing from the lists posted on the CECs (Central Electoral Commission) official website and who were therefore observers with false badges non-accredited by the CEC, were identified at the polling stations. Moreover, GETA NGOs observers list mentions the voting day to be observed as April 2, National Assembly election day and the lists of all the 3 organizations contain incomplete details of the observers; it follows that the CEC accredited the observers data presented in violation of the relevant procedure and the badges were issued to the third parties. 6. At 41% of the observed voting stations, persons not wearing their badges visibly were noticed. 7. The violations of the observers rights and pressure against them at some voting stations reached a level dangerous for a person. Particularly, during the voting day, the observers representing the Independent Observer Alliance faced threats at the polling stations below : 3/11, 3/19, 6/9, 8/19 and 9/3. At polling stations  6/9 and 8/19, the observers suffered violence. 8. At 81% of the polling stations, some problems with the electronic registration device were identified. Around the polling stations in course of the voting: 1. At 22% of the observed polling stations, voter guidance actions in favor of some party/bloc, with the vast majority in favor of the Republican Party of Armenia, were taken around the polling station or right at its entrance. 2. At 33% of the observed polling stations, cases of taking people in groups to the voting stations by taxi or other vehicles were noticed. 3. Next to the 12% of the observed polling stations, there were campaign headquarters, all of them of the Republican Party of Armenia. At 2 of such polling stations, numerous voters leaving such headquarters and entering the polling stations were noticed. During the vote count: 1. At 16% of the observed polling stations, the vote count session started with delay mostly because of lunch break and at 7% of the observed polling stations, the session was interrupted. 2. At 10 (16%) of the observed polling stations, voting papers in favor of a party with inks of a distinctive color or shade were noticed; in 9 of such cases, such voting papers were in favor of the RPA. 3. At 10% of the observed polling stations, the commissions showed a non-uniform approach to declaring the voting papers invalid. 4. At 13% of the observed polling stations, there were cases when persons without any badges or police officers were present during the vote count. 5. At 10% of the observed polling stations, there were envelopes with 2 voting papers. 6. At polling station 03/19, a person without any badge took a direct part in the vote count. After the Independent Observer Alliance alerted the district election commission, a dispute occurred at the poling station and then the person in question left after shoving a commission member, then he returned alone with the badge. After the incident, as Daniel Ioannisyan, Media Manager at Independent Observer Alliance, arrived at the polling station, his access was obstructed for some time and after entering the polling station, it was revealed that 23 voting papers in favor of Yelk bloc were put into the bundle of the RPA voting papers; however, the observers prevented it. 7. At polling station 07/53, the representative of the ArmRusInfo media representing the Independent Observer Public Alliance was prevented from entering the polling station. Later, an observer at the polling station said that the ballot papers were not counted and the numbers written in the records had nothing to do with the reality and particularly at the moment the voting papers were taken out, the observer estimated that there were 26 voting papers in favor of Yelk bloc, 10 voting papers in favor of Yerkir Tsirani party and 425 voting papers in favor of the Republican Party of Armenia, whereas the numbers in the final records were 10, 3 and 448, respectively. It should be noted that at the election campaign stage as well as on the silence day and voting day, for the first time facts of widespread and systematic vote-buying by the Republican Party of Armenia and facts of the police involvement in the election campaign (data of the fax message sent by the Guard and Patrol Service Regiment to the RPAs headquarters in Arabkir administrative district) were revealed. Instead of examining the revealed materials, the police did everything possible to keep Taron Margaryans headquarters inaccessible. Moreover, on the voting day, the police used violence against Zaruhi Postanjyan and her daughter who visited Taron Margaryans headquarters in Avan to track the alert of vote-buying. The materials revealed at the RPAs campaign headquarters in Arabkir on the day before the elections provided all the grounds for the RA Central Electoral Commission to have the RPAs candidacy annulled in a court of law, but instead, it rejected the relevant application of Yelk bloc. On the voting day, a number of acts of violence against journalists, observers and electoral processes were recorded and relevant crime reports were submitted. Summing up the preliminary findings of the observation, we can identify as follows: 1. The voting took place with low turnout but still under control over the voters. 2. The independent institute of election observation was once again abused and discredited by persons acting as if observers on behalf of NGOs but presenting the interests of the candidates. 3. The competent bodies, namely the RA Central Electoral Commission, RA Police and the other law enforcement bodies again showed inaction in terms of removing the frauds and abuses identified during the election campaign by thus encouraging the Republican Partys unpunished behavior. 4. During vote counting at several polling stations, arithmetic frauds were recorded. 5. The statistical study of the pattern in the official data on turnout and vote distribution shows that unlike the distribution of the voting papers in favor of Yelk bloc and Yerkir Tsirani party and invalid voting papers that is proportional and close to the Normal (Gaussian) distribution, the picture with the Republican Party is different. By the vote percentage, the graphics of the number of polling stations has 2 peaks: the basic one and the small one. The latter (small) peak falls within the highest percentage; this shows that the fact that the RPA got the highest percentage of votes at a number of polling stations was influenced by other factors as well, apart from the voters votes (e.g. vote theft or falsification of the records). The Independent Observer Public Alliance believes that the Yerevan City Council Elections of May 14, 2017 were held in a blatant violation of the essential principles of democratic elections. Independent Observer Public Alliance represented by: Helsinki Citizens Assembly-Vanadzor Union of Informed Citizens
By Michael Holden

| LONDON

LONDON One of Britain's most notorious killers, "Moors murderer" Ian Brady, who murdered five children with his lover and accomplice Myra Hindley during a sadistic two-year reign of terror in the 1960s died on Monday. Brady and Hindley were jailed for life in 1966 for abducting, torturing, sexually abusing and then murdering the children before burying their young victims on the bleak Saddleworth Moor near the northern city of Manchester.Brady died at Ashworth secure hospital in Liverpool, where he has been housed since 1985 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, aged 79."We can confirm a 79-year-old patient in long-term care at Ashworth High Secure Hospital has died after becoming physically unwell," a spokesman for the hospital said.For many of his last years, Brady had been on intermittent hunger strike and staff at Ashworth fed him via a tube through the nose on the grounds he was insane and incapable of deciding to end his own life.In 2013, a Mental Health Tribunal rejected his request to return to prison, ruling it was necessary in his interests and for the safety of others that he remain at Ashworth.

The sadistic nature of the Moors Murderers' killings made them among the most despised figures in Britain.Brady was found guilty of snatching and killing 12-year-old John Kilbride, Edward Evans, 17, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, while Hindley was convicted of murdering Downey and Evans and shielding her lover in the third case.In the 1980s, the couple admitted abducting and murdering 16-year-old Pauline Reade on her way to a Manchester disco in 1963 and killing Keith Bennett, 12, in 1964.

They were finally caught when Hindley's brother-in-law tipped off police During their trial the court heard tape recordings made by the couple of their victims pleading for mercy before they were tortured and killed.One tape featured the voice of Downey, filled with pain and fear, whimpering: "I want to see my mummy. Please God, help me."

Although their crimes took place 40 years ago, the revulsion felt by Britons and the hatred directed at them by the tabloid press hardly diminished.Hindley was Britain's longest serving female prisoner when she died in 2002 after 36 years in jail.Successive UK governments had refused to release her despite her claims she had reformed and was driven to commit the murders by the psychopathic Brady. He insisted she was as much to blame.Hindley had tried to court favour by helping police to find the missing body of Bennett. But despite exhaustive searches, his body has never been found.When she was cremated, a banner which read "Burn in hell" was left outside the building. (Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Lisa Shumaker)

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By Timothy Gardner

| FAIRBANKS, Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed an agreement recognizing the landmark Paris climate accord at a meeting of Arctic nations in Alaska on Thursday, but said President Donald Trump was not rushing to decide whether to leave or weaken U.S. commitments to the pact.Trump's efforts to dilute U.S. climate policies have made the country an outlier on the issue and put Tillerson in an awkward position at a meeting of the Arctic Council. The council meets every two years to tackle climate change and other problems facing the North. The Arctic is warming at a faster pace than any other part of the world, forcing native villagers on coasts and rivers in the region to move to higher ground as permafrost and glaciers melt and seas rise.Global warming also puts stress on wildlife such as walruses and polar bears as they lose their habitat areas.The Arctic agreement Tillerson signed with foreign ministers from the other seven nations of the council, including Russia, Canada and Norway, made only a passing reference to the Paris pact. It noted "entry into force" of the pact and its implementation and called for global action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.Still, Tillerson's signing of the document surprised a source close to the State Department. "We'd heard ... that there would likely be a significant U.S. effort to redline or even remove entirely the Paris and climate language," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the talks.

Tillerson signed the agreement at a dinner the council members ate together on Wednesday night after hours of debate before the meal, Denmark's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told Reuters. The ministers stressed to Tillerson the business benefits, as well as the advantages to the environment and Arctic natives, of taking action on climate, Samuelsen said. Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil is one of Trump's advisers who supports staying in the agreement."He was happy about it; he seemed to be satisfied. We all were because it's a big step," Samuelsen said. A local tribal leader also pressured Tillerson to act at a celebration of the council on Wednesday. "We the tribes ask you to listen to our land. It's telling us to implement promises to slow the change," Chairman Victor Joseph of the Tanana Chief Conference said before Tillerson was introduced at the celebration.It was unclear how much influence the Arctic agreement, signed late on Wednesday and made public on Thursday, would influence Trump's decision.

Tillerson told the council the Trump administration was reviewing how it will approach climate change but was not going to rush to make a decision on Paris. "We are appreciative that each of you has an important point of view," said Tillerson. "We are going to make the right decision for the United States," said Tillerson.Trump is expected to make a decision on Paris after a Group of Seven summit at the end of May.Finland's Foreign Minister Timo Soini, whose country will chair the council for the next two years, praised U.S. leadership in the Arctic Council, but added that the Paris pact is an important tool in fighting climate change.

Arctic warming is thawing permafrost and melting sea ice, causing damage to infrastructure but also opening up new oil reserves, shipping routes and access to fisheries - intensifying a decades-long race for Arctic resources.Adding pressure on Trump, scientists from the United States and other Arctic nations issued a report ahead of the meeting warning that the warming could lead to trillions of dollars worth of damage to buildings, roads and other infrastructure this century.. The council also signed an agreement on sharing science and data on the Arctic, an effort led by Russia and the United States, and addressed Arctic search and rescue and communications.Trump's administration has already reversed Obama-era bans on offshore drilling in certain parts of the Arctic, a turn that could intensify competition for resources in the region with major oil producer Russia.Russia has beefed up its military presence in the Arctic to levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, as global interest in the region's oil, gas and rare earth metals heats up. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Tom Brown and James Dalgleish)

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DUBAI A leading Bahraini human rights activist was denied bail on Tuesday on charges of writing an editorial critical of the government, a pro-opposition rights group reported.The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy added that Nabeel Rajab's health is deteriorating after he underwent an operation last month for bleeding ulcers.There was no immediate government comment on the report.

Rajab was a leading figure in a 2011 pro-democracy uprising led by Bahrain's Shi'ite Muslim majority and he has been repeatedly detained.In a New York Times column published under his byline in September, Rajab addressed readers in the first person, saying he was writing from a "Bahraini jail cell where I have been detained, largely in isolation, since the beginning of summer".

The column said Bahrain was a country "that has subjected its people to imprisonment, torture and even death for daring to desire democracy".

Rajab faces a separate trial for tweets he is accused of making about the Gulf Arab kingdom's prison system and its involvement in the war in Yemen.The United Nations Committee against Torture on Friday called on Bahrain to release Rajab from more than nine months of solitary confinement and investigate widespread allegations of ill-treatment and torture of detainees.Bahrain denies any systematic abuse by police or in its prisons and says it is facing a violent uprising backed by its regional rival Iran. (Reporting By Noah Browning, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

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By Yeganeh Torbati

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON The Trump administration said on Monday it was vastly expanding the scope of a policy blocking U.S. assistance to foreign groups that perform or provide information about abortions, a move critics say will hinder women's access to critical care.The new policy means that $8.8 billion in U.S. assistance to an array of programs fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and maternal and child health will be subject to the so-called Mexico City policy.The policy, introduced in 1984, holds that no U.S. government funding for family planning services can be given to foreign clinics or groups that offer abortion services or discuss abortion, even if the funds for those activities come from non-U.S. government sources.The policy previously applied to a much narrower stream of about $600 million in U.S. government funds.Since it was unveiled, the Mexico City rule has been routinely rescinded under Democratic administrations and reinstated under Republican ones, and is used by presidents to signal where they stand on abortion rights.Critics of the policy call it the "global gag rule," and say it hurts vulnerable women worldwide who depend on aid groups for their healthcare. Even when the Mexico City policy is not in place, federal law prevents the use of U.S. funding for abortions abroad.

President Donald Trump, a Republican, reinstated the policy in January, just days after taking office, but he went further and directed government agencies to figure out a plan to apply the policy "to global health assistance furnished by all departments or agencies."U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has approved a plan to expand the policy's provisions to funding for HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria and other health programs, the State Department said on Monday.That includes about $6 billion in funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the world's largest provider of AIDS-fighting medicine. PEPFAR, launched in 2003 during Republican President George W. Bush's administration, has been credited with saving millions of lives and enjoys bipartisan support.

Other programs affected by the expanded policy, called "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance," include the President's Malaria Initiative, which received about $621 million in funding in 2016, according to its website.OVERALL AID LEVEL UNCHANGED

The State Department said in a statement: "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance does not reduce the amount of global health assistance the U.S. Government makes available, and funding previously obligated will not be affected as a result of this policy."

U.S. officials said the malaria and HIV/AIDS programs would be resilient even if the United States had to deny funding to existing healthcare providers."We have a diversity of partners who are providing services and that would be available to continue those services," a senior administration official told reporters on condition of anonymity.The new policy applies to funds provided to foreign non-governmental organizations, but not to aid provided to governments or multilateral organizations, the State Department said. The expanded policy also does not apply to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief or to U.N. funds and programs.Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the expanded policy would have "severe consequences for millions of vulnerable women and children."Anti-abortion groups praised the decision, saying it merely represented a realignment of funding. (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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By Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Facing a deluge of criticism over his handling of highly classified information, U.S. President Donald Trump defended having shared "facts" with senior Russian officials, saying on Tuesday he had an "absolute right" to do so and had been trying to get Moscow to be more active in combating Islamic State militants.Trump's acknowledgement that he had given sensitive information during a White House meeting last week undercut intense efforts by senior aides to play down the incident on Monday evening, after news reports emerged of Trump's conversations about a planned Islamic State operation. The president took to Twitter on Tuesday to defend his actions in the face of intense criticism, including from some of his fellow Republicans.Two U.S. officials said Trump shared the intelligence, supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant Islamist group, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during an Oval Office meeting last Wednesday. The disclosures roiled the administration as it struggled to move past the backlash over Trump's abrupt firing on May 9 of FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating potential ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Russia has denied such meddling, and Trump bristles at any suggestion he owed his Nov. 8 victory to Moscow."As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump said on Twitter. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism." A U.S. president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, but multiple U.S. and allied officials told Reuters that Trump had endangered cooperation from an ally that has some intelligence on Islamic State. In his tweets, Trump did not dispute media reports, initially from The Washington Post, that he revealed details that could jeopardize intelligence capabilities.

That appeared to put him at odds with members of his own senior staff. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster denied on Monday that Trump had revealed intelligence sources and methods or military operations at the Russia meeting. U.S. ALLIES

In a later tweet, Trump took aim at "LEAKERS in the intelligence community," a frequent target of his months-old administration. The U.S. officials told Reuters that Trump revealed the information to the Russians without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement.

U.S. allies including Australia, New Zealand and Japan cited the White House denials and said intelligence sharing would continue. Some analysts, however, said the reports could undermine trust between partners.The reports came days before Trump departs on Friday for his first overseas trip as president, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium on visits that will test his foreign policy skills.The turmoil has overshadowed Republican legislative priorities such as healthcare and tax reform and laid bare sharp divisions between the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies, which concluded in January that Russia had tried to influence the election in Trump's favor. Trump repeatedly assailed his Democratic rival in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information by email while she was secretary of state. The FBI concluded after an investigation last year that there were no grounds to pursue any charges against Clinton.KREMLIN DEFENSE

The Kremlin came to Trump's defense, calling reports that he had disclosed classified material in the White House meeting as "complete nonsense." Trump has frequently said he wants better relations with Moscow. The two top Republicans in Congress, which is controlled by the party, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, were muted in their response. Ryan's office said he hoped for a full explanation, while McConnell told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday he wished for a little less drama from the White House.Other Republicans, however, expressed concern. Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday that even though the president has legal authority to disclose classified information, "it would be very troubling if he did share such sensitive reporting with the Russians." She called for the Senate Intelligence Committee to be briefed on the matter. Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Monday the allegations were "very, very troubling.""Obviously, theyre in a downward spiral right now," he said of the White House. "And theyve got to come to grips with all thats happening." U.S. Senator John McCain, a Republican foreign policy hawk who has frequently criticized Trump, said the reports that the president shared sensitive intelligence with Russian officials "are deeply disturbing." (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Tim Ahmann, Patricia Zengerle, Jeff Mason, Mark Hosenball; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Alistair Bell; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Frances Kerry)

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By Colin Packham and Charlotte Greenfield

| SYDNEY/WELLINGTON

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON President Donald Trump's alleged disclosure of highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister is unlikely to stop allies who share intelligence with Washington from cooperating, officials said on Tuesday.Some experts added, however, that the reports could undermine trust between partners."If this really happened, it's an unfortunate episode," said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO and now with the European Leadership Network think-tank in London. "But they'll suck it up. Why? Because other countries need U.S. intelligence cooperation more than the other way round." In a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, Trump disclosed intelligence about a planned Islamic State operation, which was supplied by a U.S. ally, two officials with knowledge of the situation said.The name of the ally or intelligence-sharing operation was not disclosed.The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect and Trump said he had an "absolute right" to share facts to get Moscow to step up its fight against Islamic State. Interfax news agency quoted the Russian foreign ministry saying the reports were "fake".Two of Washington's allies in the intelligence sharing network known as "Five Eyes" - which groups the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - played down the impact on their relationship with Washington.Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told a radio station in Adelaide he would maintain "my normal circumspection and discretion" on classified matters, adding the alliance with the United States "is the bedrock of our national security".Trump and Turnbull met last week aboard a decommissioned aircraft carrier in New York City after beginning their relations with a testy phone call in February.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee noted the story had been denied."The media reports have been rejected by senior U.S. officials who were in the meeting," he said in an email via his spokeswoman. "If there is ever to be a resolution of the dreadful situation in Syria, it will require concerted efforts from both the U.S. and Russia."A Japanese government official said it was simply not possible to stop cooperating with Washington on intelligence matters."If the report is true and Mr. Trump is an untrustworthy person, it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't share information with the U.S. anymore," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the two U.S. officials said.'SERIOUS JEOPARDY'

National security analysts said relations could be damaged."Effectively, Trump's actions have thrown the world's most important intel sharing relationship into doubt at best, serious jeopardy at worst," Stephanie Carvin, a former national security analyst for the Canadian government, said on Twitter, referring to the "Five Eyes" arrangement.James Curran, professor of foreign policy at the University of Sydney, said the intelligence relationships were too important and productive to be damaged by Trump's alleged disclosures to the Russians."No real practical impact, but I do think it will raise more eyebrows about this president's style and his cavalier attitude to this type of thing, said Curran.

Over the long term, however, such behaviour "can potentially have very serious consequences for America's intelligence relationships across the world", Curran said.Rhys Ball, who formerly worked for New Zealand's intelligence service and is now a Massey University security and defence analyst, said he thought it would be "business as usual" for the "Five Eyes" community."Clearly someone has gulped at what was discussed or exchanged. But this might be the new norm when it comes to the United states and its attitude and foreign policy approach to the likes of the Russians," Ball said.Even before Trump's meeting with the Russians, Washington's intelligence partners abroad have noted a barrage of reports around Trump, the Russians and spies.They include the investigations into his election campaign's ties to Moscow, probes into Russian interference in the election, the president's own expressions of disdain for the U.S. intelligence community and his claim that former President Barack Obama spied on him, citing a media report."First the firing of the FBI chief and now this," said one NATO diplomat referring to Trump's decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey. "How do we know the U.S. defence secretary won't be fired next week or that intelligence finds its way into the wrong hands?" But Ball said intelligence co-operation was too important to be constrained."Five Eyes is far too significant for anyone to wash their hands of it and Five Eyes has weathered a few storms over the years," Ball said. (Additional reporting by Takashi Umekawa and Yoshifumi Takemoto in Tokyo; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Ralph Boulton)

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Geneva: A new round of Syria peace talks opens on Tuesday, the latest United Nations push to resolve a sixyear conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people.

Five previous rounds of UNbacked negotiations have failed to yield concrete results and hopes for a major breakthrough remain dim.

Syrian President Bashar alAssad has strengthened his position on the ground, with the rebels reeling from a major setback in the capital Damascus.

Assad has also recently called the Geneva process "null", telling Belarus's ONT channel that it had become "merely a meeting for the media".

The Syrian leader has however given more credit to a separate diplomatic track in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, which is being led by his allies Russia and Iran along with opposition supporter Turkey.

The Astana track produced a 4 May deal to create four "deescalation" zones across some of Syria's bloodiest battlegrounds.

The UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has dismissed suggestions that the Astana negotiations were overshadowing the Geneva track.

"We're working in tandem", he told reporters on Monday.

The UN negotiations are focused on four separate "baskets"; governance, a new constitution, elections and combating "terrorism" in the warravaged country.

With Assad's negotiators and the main opposition High Negotiations Committee expected to be in the Swiss city until the weekend, de Mistura said he wanted to drill down on several issues in hopes of generating solid proposals.

But one issueAssad's fateremains a daunting roadblock.

The HNC has insisted the president's ouster must be part of any political transition, a demand unacceptable to the Syrian regime.

Aron Lund, a fellow at The Century Foundation, said the Geneva talks were revolving around the "dead end" issue of Assad and were not "moving forward in any visible way".

De Mistura, who has lasted as Syria envoy far longer than his two predecessors, has consistently tried to resist pessimism.

The alternative to peace talks is "no discussion (and) no hope", he said.

The Syrian regime delegation is being headed as usual by UN ambassador Bashar alJaafari and the HNC will be led again by Nasr alHariri and Mohammad Sabra.

The opposition position has weakened since the last round ended on 31 March after the government secured the evacuation of three rebelheld districts, bringing it closer to exerting full control over the capital for the first time since 2012.

Another shifting force influencing the talks is the role of the United States, an erstwhile opposition supporter that largely withdrew from the process under President Donald Trump.

De Mistura said Monday he was "encouraged by the increasing engagement, the increasing interest, by the US administration in finding a deescalation".

However, Washington late Monday warned Russia to not turn a blind eye to Assad's crimes, with the State Department releasing satellite images that it said backed up reports of mass killings at a Syrian jail.
The UN Security Council on Monday strongly condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile test and vowed to ratchet up the pressure on the regime, including sanctions, ahead of an emergency meeting to discuss the launch.

North Korea on Sunday launched what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile yet, saying it was capable of carrying a "heavy nuclear warhead" in a test aimed at bringing the US mainland within reach.

In a unanimous statement backed by China, the council vowed strong measures in response to Pyongyang's "highly destabilising behaviour" and demanded a halt to "further nuclear and ballistic missiles tests".

Pyongyang has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of 2016, with the Security Council adopting two sanctions resolutions last year to ramp up the pressure and deny leader Kim Jong-Un the hard currency needed to fund his military programmes.

"There's a lot of sanctions left that we can start to do, whether it's with oil, whether it's with energy, whether it's with their maritime ships, exports," US ambassador Nikki Haley told ABC television's This Week".

"We can do a lot of different things that we haven't done yet. So our options are there."

The United States is in talks with China  Pyongyang's sole major ally and main trading partner  on a possible new sanctions resolution and the council is expected to discuss its steps during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.

'A substantial advance'

Kim personally oversaw Sunday's test, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and pictures by state media showed him gazing at the missile in a hangar before the launch.

In others, he gleefully clasped hands with officers and staff after the black missile  named as the Hwasong-12  ascended into the sky in the dawn light, atop a column of fire.

Under UN resolutions, North Korea is barred from developing nuclear and missile technology, with six sets of sanctions imposed on the isolated regime since it first tested an atomic device in 2006.

The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, with KCNA saying it flew to an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometres and travelled 787 kilometres before coming down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

That suggests a range of 4,500 kilometres or more if flown for maximum distance, analysts said.

Aside from Pyongyang's space launches, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US said: "This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested."

On the respected 38 North website, aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling said it appeared to demonstrate an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could "reliably strike the US base at Guam" in the Pacific, 3,400 kilometres away.

"More importantly," he added, it "may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)".

The North has made no secret of its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

KCNA cited Kim as saying the North would never succumb to what it called the "highly ridiculous" US strategy of "militarily browbeating only weak countries and nations which have no nukes".

"If the US dares opt for a military provocation against the DPRK, we are ready to counter it," it said.

'Reckless provocation'

Last week South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation with Pyongyang and said at his inauguration that he was willing "in the right circumstances" to visit the North to ease tensions.

But he slammed the latest test as a "reckless provocation" and said dialogue would be possible "only if the North changes its attitude".

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday the North's latest missile test was dangerous but warned against attempts to "intimidate" Pyongyang.

"We consider (the missile test) counter-productive, harmful and dangerous," Putin told reporters after an international forum in Beijing.

But he added: "We must stop intimidating North Korea and find a peaceful solution to this problem."

In April Pyongyang put dozens of missiles on show at a giant military parade through the capital, including one that appeared to be the type launched on Sunday.

There are doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon sufficiently to fit it onto a missile nose cone, and no proof it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to ensure it survives returning into Earth's atmosphere.
The United States on Monday accused Syria of building a prison crematorium to destroy the remains of thousands of murdered detainees, putting pressure on Russia to rein in its ally.

Warning Moscow it should not turn a blind eye to Bashar al-Assad's crimes, the state department released satellite images that it said backed up reports of mass killings at a Syrian jail.

"The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for West Asia.

And he added a message to President Vladimir Putin's government: "Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now."

Jones' warning came as UN-mediated peace talks between Damascus and the Syrian opposition were about to resume in Geneva, and appeared aimed at maintaining pressure on Assad's backers.

The head of the opposition delegation to the talks welcomed the US statement but complained it had come too late.

"This is but a drop in the ocean. What happens in the regime's prisons is much uglier than this," Nasr al-Hariri said.

"The time has come for the world  chiefly the US  to act to halt these human rights violations."

'Cover up'

One newly released image, a commercial satellite photograph dating back to January 2015, shows snow melting on the roof of a building attached to the Saydnaya military complex north of Damascus.

This, along with an earlier picture allegedly showing heavy-duty ventilation systems on the structure, appears to support earlier claims by rights groups that Saydnaya is an execution centre.

"Beginning in 2013, the Syrian regime modified a building within the Saydnaya complex to support what we believe is a crematorium" built in "an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya," said Jones.

Jones, an acting assistant secretary of state, said Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the US "intelligence community"  implying that classified evidence beyond the commercial pictures exists.

At Saydnaya, Syria holds up to 70 prisoners in cells that are meant for five, Jones alleged.

"And according to multiple sources, the regime is responsible for killing as many as 50 detainees per day at Saydnaya."

He did not give an official estimate for the total number killed but cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died in the prison between 2011 and 2015.

Assad's regime, he alleged, has detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same period  the first five years of a civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead.

It was not immediately clear why the United States waited more than two years to present its evidence.

Jones said: "I would say that this information has been developing."

He also said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had raised concerns about Assad's brutality with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to Washington last week.

Sarin attack

Moscow, along with Iran, is Syria's main foreign backer and Washington believes Russian pressure is the only thing that will compel Assad to negotiate a peace deal.

President Donald Trump came to office vowing to focus US efforts in Syria on defeating the Islamic State group, a jihadist force that exploited the civil war to seize the east of the country.

He also said he hoped to work with Putin towards this goal.

But relations with Moscow, already dire under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, have not improved and Assad has continued to bombard civilian areas in his battle with opposition rebels.

Last month, when Assad was again accused of using the banned nerve agent sarin in a strike on his own people, Trump ordered a retaliatory US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base.

When asked whether the Saydnaya deaths could trigger action, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump would never "telegraph the actions he takes."

"When he's ready to act, he will let everyone know," he said.
Washington: A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court heard case on Monday against US President Donald Trump's travel ban without giving an immediate ruling.

Streamed live through the website of the US Courts for the 9th Circuit from a court room in Seattle, Washington state, the three judges grilled Acting US Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall for his defence on behalf of the Trump administration.

In his 30-minute oral argument, Wall said the president's executive order signed on 6 March, which bars nationals of Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days, has nothing to do with his statements about Muslims on campaign trails last year.

Neal Katyal, an attorney representing the state of Hawaii, told the judges that the President had not disavowed the rhetorics until last week, by taking the statements off his campaign website.

The travel ban, the second of the kind, was blocked on 15 March by a federal judge in Hawaii.

Wall tried at the appeals court to repeal the nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) imposed by US District Judge Derrick Watson.

However, after more than an hour of hearing, including Katyal's 30-minute argument, the three judges neither gave an immediate ruling, nor hinted when to make a decision.

It was the second time the 9th Circuit Court heard case against travel ban.

On 9 February, another panel of judges ruled in San Francisco, Northern California, against reinstating the travel ban signed on Jan. 27 by Trump as part of an executive order.

The President subsequently issued the revised order in early 6 March, taking Iraq off the list of seven Muslim-majority countries.

In initiating the legal challenge against the second travel ban on 9 March, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin noted that the new order, compared with the initial ban, "nothing of substance has changed: there is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries."
Largest Donors for Humanitarian Aid to Armenia

According to data published by the RA National Statistical Service, Armenia received humanitarian aid worth 21.8 billion AMD from other countries in 2016. Humanitarian aid is assistance in the form of goods which the developed countries provide in order to help the population of less developed countries. Being a developing country, Armenia has also been receiving humanitarian aid from developed countries during the last years. The dynamics and sources of the aid are discussed below. Dynamics of Received Humanitarian Aid In 2016, Armenia received 7,631 tons of goods worth 45.6 million USD as humanitarian aid, which is lower than the indicator of the previous year by 7.5% or 3.6 million USD. The figure below shows that the volume of this type of assistance to Armenia has been steadily declining since 2011. As a result, the volume of aid provided in 2011 exceeds that of 2016 by 25%. However, in the first quarter of 2017, the volume of humanitarian aid imported to Armenia registered sharp increase by about 63% compared to the comparable period of the last year. It is noteworthy that the volume of humanitarian aid from the following countries has sharply increased in the first quarter of this year compared to the comparable period of last year: Switzerland (888.8 times), Germany (4.3 times), China (2.6 times). However, the volume of aid provided by the US has reduced by 53% at the beginning of this year. The following have had the largest share in the commodity structure of the received aid in 2016: products of chemical and related industries (51.7%), textile goods (14.3%), various industrial products (7.3%), as well as machines, equipment and various mechanisms (7.1%). The largest growth (compared to last year) has been registered in the textile items, the import volume of which has increased by 101%, reaching 6.5 million USD. At the same time, 17% growth has also been recorded in prepared food products. In 2016, Armenia received prepared food products worth 300 million AMD. Sources of Humanitarian Aid In 2016, the largest donor country for humanitarian aid to Armenia was the United States of America (21%), followed by Switzerland (16.9%) and China (14.2%).Moreover, since 2004, the US has continuously been the main source of humanitarian aid provided to Armenia. The share of this country in the total volume of assistance has even increased that of 73% during some years. The only exception is the year 2012, when Chinas share reached 31.7% of the total aid. One of the most important sources of humanitarian aid is also the EU. The share of its member countries in the total assistance formed 24% in 2016, decreasing by 3.7% compared to the previous year. The largest donor country among EU states is Italy (5.3%), followed by Germany (4%),Great Britain (3.9%)and the Netherlands (2.3%). It is interesting to note that during last year, the Russian Federation provided only 14 thousand USD humanitarian aid to Armenia and, thus, the share of CIS countries in the total aid has not exceeded 0.1%. AndranikManukyan Union of Informed Citizens
Teachers did not allow new principal to enter school building

The teaching staff of Special School N17 closed the doors of the building this afternoon disallowing Ashot Arshakyan, Head of the General Education Department at the Ministry of Education and Science, and Vergine Yesayan, the new principal of the school, from entering the premises, Noyem Khachatryan, one of the teachers of the school, told A1+ Company. In this way, the teachers show their disapproval of the new principal who, they say, was appointed illegally. First we talked to them through a window and then we went out. The ministry official said we had no right to close the doors before them and they would enter anyway. We replied that the acting director was in hospital and it was not polite to introduce the new director in her absence. Ashot Arshakyan suggested that the deputy principal could act as an acting principal after receiving an authority from the Ministry to introduce the new principal to the staff. We refused the offer, Noyem Khachatryan said. The teachers demand that the new principal be appointed in accordance with the applicable laws. Four contests for the vacant position have been announced since January 2017, but they have been cancelled every time for different reasons: either the Ministrys representative was unwell and could not come, or three of the eight-member commission were absent. As a result, Minister of Science and Education Levon Mkrtchyan decided to appoint the new principal alone. Before leaving the area, Ashot Arshakyan and Vergine Yesayan said if the protest continued, next time they would return with law enforcement agencies.
It looks like Asus may soon kill its Android powered ZenWatch smartwatch series, according to a latest report from Digitimes. The company is said to take this move owing to lower than expected sales of its smartwatch devices.

The report further added that sales of ZenWatch devices have been lower than expected, with ZenWatch shipments currently averaging 5,000 to 6,000 units per month. Asus had introduced ZenWatch in 2012 and following couple of iterations, in 2016 we saw the ZenWatch 3 which was the third generation Android Wear smartwatch with a round dial.

It must be noted that Asus has not confirmed killing of the ZenWatch smartwatch lineup. Motorola had also announced in December last year that it has no plans to launch a new smartwatch anytime soon. Meanwhile, Samsung is focusing on Tizen powered smartwatch instead of Android Wear.

Source
Xiaomi just launched Redmi 4 smartphone in India. Manu Kumar Jain, the VP and MD of Xiaomi India also shared some more news about its upcoming Mi Home stores in India. Jain said Xiaomi Mi Home stores will be launching in four more cities in the country  Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Last week, Xiaomi unveiled its first Mi Home Store  exclusive offline retail store in Bengaluru. Jain also stated that after monitoring the success of the five Mi Home stores, Xiaomi will roll out 100 Mi Home stores in two years. Jain also stated that Mi Home is an extension to Mi.com which at present is the main platform for Xiaomi products. The stores allow customers to experience as well as buy smartphones, power banks, headphones, fitness bands, air purifiers as well as other ecosystem products that are launched in India.

In October last year Xiaomi expanded its offline reach beyond China region by opening its first overseas Mi Home store in Singapore. It already has Mi Home stores in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Source
Arla Foods Ingredients

bakery mixes and other bakery products; cheese products - natural and imitation; dairy products - natural and imitation; minerals and food supplements; nutraceutical and functional food ingredients; proteins - animal or plant origin

Arla Foods Ingredients is a leading whey ingredient supplier for infant nutrition, baking, dairy, medical applications and sports nutrition. Were known for having the industrys highest levels of quality, innovation and food safety.

Our functional and nutritional whey proteins, milk minerals, lactose and whey permeate can promote nutrition, improve texture, prolong freshness and increase yield for industrial food products.

45 scientific staff and 22 food and dairy technicians work to discover and carefully document the effects of our functional and nutritional ingredients. At application level, some 40 dairy technicians, scientists and engineers, work in well-equipped pilot plants to help our customers prepare these discoveries for success on their production lines and in the marketplace.

Arla Foods Ingredients Group P/S is a subsidiary of Arla Foods, a global dairy cooperative owned by dairy farmers in six countries.
Azelis has opened an extraction and distillation plant to produce smoke flavors. This new facility is one of the few units in the world producing highly concentrated... Read More
From governments to individuals, there's plenty of finger-pointing going on following the latest global cyberattack.

Who's being targeted for blame? There's Microsoft, whose ubiquitous Windows operating systems were compromised after attackers exploited a security hole.

Then there's the U.S. government, whose Windows hacking tools were leaked to the internet and got into the hands of cybercriminals.

There are the companies, universities, hospitals and other organizations that didn't install Microsoft's fixes and take other precautions, such as backing up data.

Lastly there are, of course, the attackers, who kidnapped precious data and demanded ransom be paid.

"You can point a lot of fingers, but I think given that this was not a zero-day vulnerability (for which no patch is available), the people hacked are to blame," said Robert Cattanach, a partner at the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney and an expert on cybersecurity and data breaches. "Still, the NSA can't be very proud of this. Microsoft can't be proud."

Here are some of the key players in the attack and what may  or may not  be their fault.

 THE NSA

"WannaCry," as the ransomware is known, uses a Windows vulnerability originally identified by the NSA, according to security experts. So it makes sense to assign some responsibility to the NSA  the attackers didn't come up with this security hole on their own, after all.

On top of that, critics say, the government didn't notify companies like Microsoft about the vulnerabilities quickly enough. Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for "stockpiling" software code that can be used by hackers.

"We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world," wrote Smith in a blog post on Sunday.

The ACLU, meanwhile, urged Congress to pass a law requiring the government to disclose vulnerabilities to companies "in a timely manner," so that they can patch them as soon as possible. Microsoft did issue patches for the vulnerabilities before the attacks took place, but not everyone downloaded them.

Avivah Litan, a cybersecurity analyst at Gartner, agreed that the government is "is negligent not doing a better job protecting companies," but added that it's not like "you can stop the U.S. government from developing cybertools" that then work as intended.

 MICROSOFT

It's hard to blame Microsoft, Litan said, since it issued fixes and generally did what it should.

Still, it was Microsoft that wrote the exploitable software to begin with. And, while the company did issue early fixes for its newer operating systems, patches for older Windows systems were only issued free of charge over the weekend, after the attacks began.

Microsoft should know that there are people, small businesses, schools and hospitals that still use older version of Windows, such as XP (which came out in 2001). And just as they are unlikely to pay for an upgrade to their operating systems, they may not want to  or be able to  pay for security fixes.

"Clearly having the vulnerability be in Microsoft software was one of the key elements," said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer of McAfee, a security company in Santa Clara, California. He noted, however, the complexity that can be involved in patching a security hole.

 COMPANIES, HOSPITALS, OTHER VICTIMS

It's hard not to engage in a bit of victim-blaming in this situation, especially because security experts say the attacks could have been prevented. No company  or hospital, or university, or individual  asks to be the victim of cybercrime, but there are also things companies can do to prevent the attacks from succeeding.

This includes whitelisting certain websites and software so only approved programs can run on a computer, or disabling administrative privileges on a company's machines so that only the IT department can download programs. Multiple backups also help. If you have a backup, there's no need to pay ransom for your data.

"It's not rocket science," Litan said.

Michael Mitchell, spokesman for Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International, said the company is not aware of any incidents from the attack, though it did alert employees. Asked what the company is doing to prevent such exploitations, he cited "basic IT security blocking and tackling."

"The operating systems on our computers and software downloads are managed centrally so that regular users cannot download executable files from the internet without administrative rights," he said in an email. "Software updates and security patches are pushed to us as needed so that we are using the most current approved versions of software on our computers."

 THE CRIMINALS

For all the worldwide chaos they have caused, the ransomware attack's perpetrators have reportedly made little more than less than $70,000, according to Tom Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

They exploited a perfect storm of factors  the Windows hole, the ability to get ransom paid in digital currency, poor security practices  but it's unclear if the payoff, at least so far, was worth the trouble. If they caught, that is.

__

AP Food Industry Writer Candice Choi contributed to this story.
Thailand backed off a threat to block Facebook on Tuesday, instead providing the social media site with court orders to remove content that the government deems illegal.

Thailand made the threat last week as it wanted Facebook to block more than 130 posts it considers a threat to national security or in violation of the country's lese majeste law, which makes insults to the monarchy punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Thailand's military government has made prosecuting royal insults a priority since seizing power in a coup three years ago.

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of Thailand's broadcast regulator, said Facebook had requested the court orders before it would take action but he expected the social media giant would comply with the government's demands.

"Facebook has already responded that it will comply when we have court orders," Takorn told reporters.

Emails and calls seeking confirmation from Facebook were not immediately returned.

Last week, the regulator demanded that Facebook remove more than 130 posts by Tuesday or face legal action that could shut down the site. In a change of tactic, Takorn said that Thailand had forwarded 34 court orders to Facebook so far.

"The websites that need to be taken down are not only those that are a threat to stability but they also include other illegal websites such as porn and websites that support human-trafficking which take time to legally determine," Takorn said.

Reports about the Facebook restrictions were blocked on BBC World News in Thailand on Tuesday.

Thai authorities try to take pre-emptive actions against material they consider illegal, having local internet service providers block access or reaching agreements with some online services such as YouTube to bar access to certain material in Thailand.

Much of that is content deemed in violation of the country's lese majeste law, the harshest in the world. The military government has charged more than 100 people with such offenses since the coup and handed down record sentences. Many of those cases have been based on internet postings or even private messages exchanged on Facebook.

Last month, Thai authorities declared it illegal to exchange information on the internet with three prominent government critics who often write about the country's monarchy.

Facebook, which is blocked in a number of authoritarian countries such as North Korea, has said it relies on local governments to notify the site of information it deems illegal.

"If, after careful legal review, we find that the content is illegal under local law we restrict it as appropriate and report the restriction in our Government Request Report," Facebook has said in past statements outlining its policy.
There's no doubt that Macy's (NYSE: M) is in the midst of a rough patch. Adjusted earnings per share peaked at $4.40 in 2014. By 2016, adjusted EPS had fallen to just $3.11 -- and would have been even lower, but for $209 million in asset sale gains. Adjusted EPS could fall even further this year.

This negative earnings trend has caused Macy's stock to plunge. The latest blow came last week, as steep declines in first-quarter sales and earnings at Macy's led to a nearly 20% drop in its share price on Thursday and Friday.

Macy's stock crashed last week after a disappointing earnings report. Image source: Macy's.

That said, Macy's stock has fallen to irrationally low levels. Here are three reasons why Macy's shares look very attractive right now.

Macy's has a turnaround plan

Today, investors are treating Macy's as if it is doomed. Following the most recent sell-off, Macy's stock trades for less than eight times earnings.

But Macy's isn't Sears. Many investors have short memories, but the company's sales woes only began about two years ago. It was certainly slow in reacting, but in the past year, Macy's has started to address its problems. It's just too early to tell if its turnaround plan will work.

One big initiative at Macy's is a proactive downsizing of its store base. The recent closure of more than five dozen stores actually hurt Macy's in the first quarter, as the lure of clearance sales at the locations that were closing drew traffic away from the remaining Macy's stores. By contrast, Macy's will get the full benefit of its store closures starting this quarter.

Macy's closed dozens of stores last quarter. Image source: Macy's.

Macy's is also doubling down on exclusive brands, which have been much more successful compared to widely distributed brands that often become commoditized. For example, in February 2018, Macy's will become the exclusive U.S. department store for sales of DKNY-branded women's apparel and accessories.

Additionally, Macy's is changing its operating model in several departments. For example, in its women's shoe departments, it is shifting to a curated assortment with deeper inventory of styles that are expected to sell well. It is also converting many of its shoe sections to an "open-sell" model, putting inventory on the selling floor rather than holding it in a stockroom. Today, most customers prefer this self-serve format, as evidenced by a double-digit jump in shoe sales at Macy's pilot stores.

Finally, Macy's plans to reset its marketing approach later this year, with a focus on promoting hot products rather than just big sales.

Thus, there are a lot of changes happening at Macy's. They probably won't all work -- but if some succeed, it will help Macy's stabilize its comp sales trends going forward.

Real estate value is still being ignored

Even if sales trends remain weak, owners of Macy's stock will have an opportunity to profit from the company's vast pool of real estate. Indeed, Macy's real estate assets have been valued at as much as $20 billion. Meanwhile, its enterprise value has fallen to less than $13 billion.

Macy's has been very transparent about the fact that it will take time to get full value for its excess real estate. Investors are frustrated with the slow pace of real estate sales, but Macy's has already brought in nearly $1 billion in asset sale proceeds since starting to focus on this area in 2015.

Right now, Macy's is actively marketing the upper floors of its Chicago flagship building for redevelopment as office space. It is also studying options for maximizing the value of its Manhattan flagship store and -- in concert with Brookfield Asset Management -- working to identify redevelopment opportunities elsewhere in its real estate portfolio.

Macy's is still studying how to get the most value out of its Manhattan flagship store. Image source: Macy's.

Most importantly, Macy's has been willing to sell stores where the real estate value exceeded the ongoing value of operating the store. This suggests that if Macy's turnaround efforts fall short (reducing the expected value of continuing to operate particular stores), the company will accelerate its real estate sales.

The dividend is a great incentive to be patient

One last reason why the recent sell-off in Macy's stock seems overdone is that the company offers a very attractive dividend. In fact, its yield reached 6.4% by the end of last week.

This wouldn't be much comfort if the dividend didn't seem sustainable. Fortunately, Macy's free cash flow has been quite stable, compared to the big swings in its accounting earnings. Free cash flow is what ultimately pays for dividends, and right now, Macy's is generating about twice as much as it needs to support its current payout.

Macy's stock price may remain depressed until the company shows tangible progress either in its retail turnaround or in its real estate monetization efforts. It's not possible to be sure when the outlook will brighten for Macy's, but the generous dividend represents a good reason for investors to stay patient.

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When Hercules Capital (NYSE: HTGC) proposed a conversion to an externally managed company, shareholders voted with their feetand sent the company's share price down more than 12% in a single trading day.

On Monday, its board of directors nixed the plan, and the stock rallied by as much as 7% intraday, but this story seems far from over.

Why Hercules is folding

Externalizing the management team was a good plan for insiders -- until they faced competition for the right to manage the business-development company (BDC).

TCW proposed an alternative to Hercules Capital's plan last week, which included a number of shareholder-friendly provisions. TCW's proposal included a promise to invest 50% of the incentive fees it earned to purchase shares of Hercules' stock. Under the incentive structure, TCW would also be penalized for losses just as it would be rewarded for any gains, a feature that was missing in Hercules' proposal.

External management contracts frequently extract 40% or more of a BDC's would-be earnings power. Image source: Getty Images.

When it comes to alignment, TCW's proposal may go down as one of the best fee structures ever offered to shareholders of a publicly traded BDC, whether in the form of a competitive bid for a management contract or as part of a fresh IPO. And it came from a company with credibility -- TCW manages more than $190 billion in assets, which includes a successful BDC with $1.7 billion in assets, TCW Direct Lending.

With a superior offer on the table, the Hercules team correctly assessed that the status quo was better for their interests than a public bidding war over a management contract.

What's next?

Hercules' shares still trade for 13% less than they did immediately prior to the unveiling of the externalization plan, and its status as one of the most richly valued BDCs may be forever impaired.

The externalization proposal was all about who should benefit from the company's success and scale. It was a management compensation plan by another name, as it served to direct the benefits of the company's scale to management rather than shareholders.

Shareholders know better.Hercules doesn't have to externalize to reward its insiders. For years leading up to its merger with Ares Capital, internally managed American Capital was a serial shareholder abuser, issuing as many stock options as the law allowed despite its poor performance. Hercules could easily follow the same route.

If this externalization plan really was all about compensation -- and it does seem that way -- it stands to reason that compensation expenses will be heading higher, even if the company remains internally managed. Investors shouldn't bank on the board of directors for protection. The same crew that signed off on the externalization plan will likely give the rubber stamp on employee pay, too.

The bottom line: Hercules Capital built its record by marrying good underwriting with low expenses, but the expense part of the equation may be gone for good. The only question now is just how much more management can and will carve out for itself.

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The Latest on a jet crash near a New Jersey airport (all times local):

10:40 p.m.

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment a jet crashed near a small airport outside New York City and burst into flames.

The Learjet 35 went down Monday afternoon near Teterboro Airport, killing both crew members. No one else was onboard the aircraft, which was coming from Philadelphia.

The surveillance video shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. Clouds of thick black smoke spewed into the air. A man can be seen running across the parking lot toward the crash site.

Authorities say three buildings were involved in the crash, though only two sustained major damage. Thirteen cars in the surrounding parking lots also were damaged.

No injuries were reported on the ground.

___

10:05 p.m.

Authorities say three buildings were involved in the fatal crash of a jet near a small New Jersey airport, though only two sustained major damage.

The crash Monday afternoon near Teterboro Airport killed both crew members. No one else was on the Learjet, which was coming from Philadelphia.

Police in Carlstadt say two of the buildings sustained fire damage mostly to their exteriors. The third structure, the town's public works building, didn't sustain any fire damage, but wreckage was strewn across the building's parking lot.

Authorities say 13 cars in the parking lots of the three buildings were damaged.

No injuries were reported on the ground. The National Transportation Safety Board will inspect the crash scene Tuesday.

___

9 p.m.

A jet that struck a building and crashed while trying to land at a small airport near New York City was registered to an address in Montana.

Authorities say Monday's crash in Carlstadt, New Jersey, killed two crew members and sparked a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air. They say no passengers were aboard and no one on the ground was injured. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

The plane was registered in Billings, Montana, to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address.

The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There's no answer at their residence.

___

7:45 p.m.

Flights are being allowed to depart again from a small New Jersey airport that was shuttered after a deadly jet crash. But no inbound flights are being allowed to land at Teterboro Airport, just outside New York City.

Police say two crew members were killed but no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down Monday afternoon in Carlstadt, not far from the airport.

A Carlstadt police spokesman says the plane appeared to be listing before it hit a building in an industrial area and crashed.

No one on the ground was injured.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

___

6 p.m.

Authorities say everyone on the ground in the areas where a jet crashed near a small airport outside New York City are accounted for and uninjured.

Carlstadt, New Jersey, Mayor Craig Lahullier said all of the town's employees already had left for the day before the plane crashed near its public workers building. He called it a miracle.

Police earlier said two crew members aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the jet left Philadelphia and went down in Carlstadt.

Deputy police Chief Thomas Berta said everyone in the buildings in the industrial area were accounted for.

___

4:55 p.m.

Weather forecasters had issued a warning about strong winds minutes before a jet crashed outside New York City, killing two crew members.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. But the National Weather Service warned of strong winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 45 mph just before the crash Monday at 3:30 p.m.

Police say that two crew members were killed, but no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

A Carlstadt police spokesman says that the plane appeared to be listing to its side before it crashed into a building in an industrial area.

It's not clear if anyone on the ground was injured.

___

4:40 p.m.

Police say that two crew members have been killed in a jet crash near a small airport outside New York City.

Police in Carlstadt said that there were no passengers aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. Monday near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the jet left Philadelphia and went down in an industrial area in Carlstadt.

The cause of the crash is under investigation

A Carlstadt police spokesman says that the plane appeared to be listing to its side before it went down.

Town spokesman Joe Orlando says the plane crashed into a building in an industrial area.

___

4:15 p.m.

Authorities say a jet has crashed at a small airport outside New York City, sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air.

It wasn't immediately known how many people were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. Monday near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. It also wasn't clear if anyone on the plane or on the ground had been killed or injured.

Emergency responders reached the scene a short time later and were working to extinguish the blaze.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported that the jet left Philadelphia and went down in Carlstadt.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Oil jumped 2 percent to its highest in more than three weeks on Monday, topping $52 a barrel after Saudi Arabia and Russia said that supply cuts need to last into 2018, a step towards extending an OPEC-led deal to support prices for longer than first agreed.

Energy ministers from the world's two top producers said that supply cuts should be prolonged for nine months, until March 2018.

That is longer than the optional six-month extension specified in the deal, and shows that the battle to reduce overall supply has been more difficult than originally anticipated, in part because of rising U.S. production.

The ministers said they hoped other producers would join the cut, which would initially be on the same volume terms as before.

Global benchmark Brent crude settled up 98 cents, or 1.9 percent, at $51.82 a barrel, having touched $52.63, the highest since April 21. U.S. crude ended $1.01 firmer at $48.85 a barrel, a 2.1 percent gain.

Oil traders were surprised by the strong wording of the announcement, though it remained to be seen whether all countries participating in the deal would agree with the Saudi-Russian stance when they meet to decide policy on May 25 in Vienna.

"Todays announcement will likely further extend the oil price rebound started last week on decent stock draws and low positioning," said analysts at Goldman Sachs in a note. They noted the rally has been modest so far, compared with last year's move when cuts were first announced.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers originally agreed to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017, with a possible six-month extension, in a bid to shore up prices.

Oil has gained support from the deal but inventories remain high and rising output from other producers, including the United States, is keeping prices below the $60 that top exporter Saudi Arabia would like.

Some analysts said that U.S. production could still threaten to disrupt the market balance unless the cuts were deepened.

"We are of the camp that the extension cuts might not be enough - they might need to extend the cuts and to increase them to stabilize this market," said Oliver Sloup, director of managed futures at iitrader.com.

U.S. production is currently forecast to average about 9.31 million bpd this year - a level reached already, according to government figures. Sloup says it could surpass that if buoyed by higher prices.

Some analysts doubted that the producers would stick to a prolonged curb.

"Extending the cuts until March 2018 would take account of the fact that demand in the first quarter of a year is lowest for seasonal reasons," said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

"We are skeptical about Russia's willingness to actively participate in any extended cuts."

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore and Alex Lawler in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Goodman)
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Two longtime newspaper rivals in the once highly competitive Chicago market may end with the acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times by the owner of the Chicago Tribune, which has grabbed the attention of the U.S. Justice Department Monday.

Chicago-based Wrapports LLC announced in a statement it has agreed to enter into discussions with tronc Inc., owner of several major newspapers, after failing to interest other media companies in acquiring the Sun-Times.

In a statement, Wrapports states if tronc acquires the Sun-Times, it would operate the newspaper as a separate unit, keeping in place the independent newsroom.

"The investors and board members of Wrapports have been committed to keeping a strong media voice in Chicago alive," Wrapports Chairman John Canning said. "We believe an ownership that can bring substantial digital resources is necessary and is the best path for the Sun-Times long term."

Wrapports said it voluntarily informed the U.S. Justice Department of its talks with tronc and will accede to the department's suggestion to advertise that the Sun-Times is up for sale. The ad will be placed in the Sun-Times on Tuesday.

The privately owned Wrapports says the Sun-Times will be sold to tronc if no other viable buyer expresses substantial interest within 15 days of the advertisement inviting expressions of interest.

The Justice Department's Antitrust Division announced in a statement it will closely monitor the sale process for the Sun-Times. It is advising interested prospective buyers to contact the department.

Last year, the Justice Department stopped Tribune Media Group  tronc's former name  from taking over the Orange County Register due to antitrust issues. Tronc also owns the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune.

"If we successfully close, we will be pleased to have the Chicago Sun-Times join our existing family of strong brands and help it maintain its independent voice," tronc CEO and Director Justin Dearborn said. "tronc will benefit from increased unique visitors, better engagement with Sun-Times consumers and more data for future troncX initiatives."

In addition to the Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, Chicago-based tronc publishes the Orlando Sentinel and the Baltimore Sun. The Tribune has handled all of the Sun-Times' printing and distribution since 2007.

Knight says since 2011 the two companies have discussed the possibility of a further combination of the businesses, resulting in the Chicago Tribune Media Group's 2014 purchase of the Sun-Times' suburban-Chicago newspapers.

According to tronc executives, Wrapports management approached tronc about pursuing the latest transaction.

"We look forward to operating the Sun-Times as a separate news unit, which means an independent Sun-Times will continue to produce the award winning journalism readers are accustomed to seeing online and print daily," said Jim Kirk, Sun-Times publisher and editor-in-chief.
With so much change coming at the upper management and parent company of Spectra Energy Partners (NYSE: SEP), one could forgive the company if it suffered an earnings hiccup this past quarter. That wasn't the case, though, as Spectra generated yet another quarter of consistent results.

Here's a short rundown of Spectra Energy Partners' most recent quarterly results as well as a look at what's in store over the next few quarters and beyond as the company gets a new managing general partner above it.

Image source: Getty Images.

By the numbers

Metric Q1 2017 Q4 2016 Q1 2016 Operating revenue $700 million $663 million $624 million EBITDA* $499 million $474 million $447 million Earnings per share $0.74 $0.70 $0.80 Distributable cash flow $356 million $271 million $371 million

Source: Spectra Energy Partners earnings release. *EBITDA= earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

One of the upsides of investing in Spectra Energy Partners is that the merger of its former parent Spectra Energy and its new parent Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) hasn't materially changed Spectra Energy Partners' business. This past quarter, there was a $46 million in charges related to the parent merger, but that is small potatoes compared to the several hundred million in transaction-related costs at Enbridge this past quarter.

On just about every other metric, Spectra Energy Partners held true to its reputation of steady growth. Operating revenue and EBITDA both increased modestly thanks to several major projects coming online in 2016. That modest decline in distributable cash flow and earnings per share is a result of those one-time, transaction-related charges.

The bulk of Spectra's earnings comes from its U.S. Transmission business. This past quarter, ongoing EBITDA -- that's without those transaction adjustments -- increased thanks to several projects coming on line.The largest of those projects was its $1.1 billion AIM pipeline to deliver natural gas to New England.

Looking forward

Since this time last year, Spectra Energy Partners has completed about $1.8 billion in projects. This coming year, management estimates that it will put another $3.9 billion in new assets into service. The bulk of that spending is on two projects. One is the NEXUS pipeline that will deliver natural gas from the Marcellus shale region to the Enbridge's Dawn Hub natural gas terminal that serves as a supply hub for its natural gas distribution in Ontario and Quebec. The other is the Sabal Trail gas transmission pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas to customers in Florida. Sabal Trail is mechanically complete and should be in service in the coming months while NEXUS should come into service in the second half of the year.

These projects and several others slated for service in 2017 translate to full year distributable cash flow guidance of $1.4 billion to $1.48 billion with a distribution coverage ratio of 1.05x to 1.15x. This should help ensure that Spectra Energy Partners can continue its streak of 38 consecutive quarters with a distribution increase.

What management had to say

Bill Yardley, Chairmanand President ofSpectra Energy Partners, commented on the partnership's most recent performance in his press release statement.

10-second takeaway

With Enbridge in the middle of its restructuring process and Enbridge Energy Partners (NYSE: EEP) part way through a strategic review that led to a 40% distribution cut, Spectra Energy Partners looks like the most stable investment underneath the Enbridge umbrella for now. With that $3.9 billion in new assets to come online by the end of the year and another $500 million under construction, there is certainly enough growth in the works to keep Spectra going for a couple of years.

Beyond that, investors should watch to see how parent company Enbridge decides to allocate capital. It said in its most recent investor presentation that it has more than CA$48 billion in expansion projects under review. At the same time, it has four subsidiary partnerships below it to allocate those projects. That's a lot of mouths to feed for one parent organization. Investors will need to keep track of which projects get assigned to which subsidiary.If some projects initially programmed for Spectra Energy Partners are allocated to other entities, it could hamper Spectra's growth in the longer-term future.

10 stocks we like better than Spectra Energy PartnersWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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Stores can't keep them in stock. Parents are scrambling to find them. And some schools have banned them.

The mania for fidget spinners  the 3-inch twirling gadgets taking over classrooms and cubicles  is unlike many other toy crazes. They're not made by a major company, timed for the holiday season, or promoted in TV commercials. They're more easily found at gas stations or 7-Eleven than at big toy chains.

"It just took off," says Richard Gottlieb, a consultant at Global Toy Experts in New York.

Fidget spinners have been around for years, mostly used by kids with autism or attention disorders to help them concentrate. But they exploded in popularity this spring.

Shannan Rowell, a sixth-grade special education teacher, says that after a weeklong break in late April more than half of her 25 students suddenly had one.

"They seem to be taking over classrooms," says Rowell, who lives in North Grafton, Massachusetts.

Gottlieb thinks it's likely a kid brought one to a playground and the craze spread from there. Recent YouTube videos of people spinning them on their noses, foreheads and shoes also helped.

Helen Holden heard about fidget spinners last month when her 7-year-old twins demanded she stop at a 7-Eleven to buy them. "I thought it was a drink," says the bank vice president and blogger from Los Angeles.

That store was sold out, and so were several other 7-Eleven locations that she called. The chain says spinners have "been flying off the shelves" since they went on sale in March.

Holden's kids said they needed them before school on Monday so they could practice spinning them. So she signed up for Amazon Prime, paid $5.99 for one-day shipping and had two $15 fidget spinners delivered on a Sunday.

"I totally got suckered by my kids," she says.

At Funky Monkey Toys, owner Tom Jones says he got a phone call about the fidget spinners in April. About 30 minutes later, another person called. "I said, 'Whatever they are, I need to get them.'"

Now, the phone has been ringing 20 to 30 times a day with people checking if they're in stock. His shop in Oxford, Michigan, can sell up to 150 in a day.

"We run out of them frequently," says Jones, who recently got a shipment of 2,000.

On Amazon.com, 18 of the top 20 best-selling toys and games were fidget spinners, ranging from ones that cost just a few dollars to $12 versions touting stainless steel bearings.

Five Below, which sells items for $5 or less, says on its website that customers can only buy two fidget spinners at time.

Toys R Us flew fidget spinners in this month from China, rather than wait for ship transport. It says Rubik's Cubes, yo-yos and other toys to occupy restless hands have been hot sellers since the beginning of the year. It also started selling $12.99 fidget cubes  the items that made up the rest of the Amazon best-sellers  which fit in the palm of a hand and have clickers, wheels and switches on the sides.

Unlike hot toys at the holiday season, which are often made by one company, manufacturers  mostly in China  are making the fidget spinners as fast as they can. Jim Silver, the CEO and editor-in-chief of toy review website TTPM, expects the fad to last into the summer and then fade as more of them flood into the market.

"Demand starts to waver," he says.

Engineer Catherine Hettinger says she came up with a toy that was similar but not exactly the same in the early 1990s, but a patent expired more than a decade ago after she stopped paying the maintenance fees. Hettinger, who lives in the Orlando suburb of Winter Park, Florida, says she is not making any money from the craze.

"No one has contacted me. Nobody has sent me a check," she says. "But once a patent expires, it's public, so I wouldn't expect anything at this point."

Despite being marketed as a concentration aid, some teachers say fidget spinners have become a distraction.

Rowell, the sixth-grade teacher, says students twirled them too fast, banged them against desks or tried to whirl them on top of each other. She lets students bring them into the classroom, but only if they spin them under their desks and follow the rules she hung on the wall: "YOU MUST BE LOOKING AT THE TEACHER," ''YOU MUST BE LOOKING AT YOUR WORK" and "YOU MUST BE DISCREET."

Some schools have banned them. A middle school in Williamstown, New Jersey, wrote that spinners needed to stay in backpacks because they were a distraction in classrooms, hallways and during lunch periods. An elementary school in New York told parents to keep the gadgets at home because they were twirling into children's faces.

It's not just kids spinning them. Gottlieb thinks adults are reaching for spinners because they are more stressed out. "People don't smoke as much, so they have to figure out a way to work out their stress," he says.

Kim Juszczak, a lawyer from New York, whirls her red-and-black spinner on the subway or while she's thinking up legal arguments for a case.

"I'm naturally kind of fidgety," says Juszczak, who used to bend paperclips in her hand.

She first saw a spinner on Instagram, and got hers for about $6 on Amazon. Then she bought six more for friends and relatives.

"They're addictive," she says.

____

Associated Press reporters Terrance Harris in Orlando, Mike Householder in Detroit and Joseph Frederick in New York contributed to this report.

_____

Contact Joseph Pisani at http://twitter.com/josephpisani
India's top investigating agency searched the homes of former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday as part of a financial misconduct investigation.

A spokesman for the Central Bureau of Investigation said the early morning raids involved an investigation into investment clearances given to a company while Chidambaram was in office. The CBI has also raided several other offices in New Delhi and its suburbs, as well as in Mumbai and Chennai.

The investigation stems from allegations that Chidambaram's son, Karti Chidambaram, received bribes to get foreign investment clearances for a media company while his father was in office.

Chidambaram was finance minister until his Congress party-led government was voted out of power in 2014.

He has denied any wrongdoing and says the investigation is an attempt to silence his criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. A Congress party spokesman called the raids and the investigation "revenge" for Chidambaram's strong words against the current government.

Shaina N.C., a spokeswoman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said the investigation was "not a witch hunt" against Chidambaram and that the CBI investigations were free of government pressures.
Walt Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger has revealed that hackers claimed to have access to an unnamed upcoming movie and have demanded a ransom, the Hollywood Reporter said on Monday.

Iger made the comments during a town hall meeting with ABC employees in New York City, the Hollywood Reporter said, citing multiple sources.

The hackers have demanded that a huge sum be paid on Bitcoin, but Disney has refused to pay, the publication said.

Disney was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
There's no shortage of deal seekers in China, especially when we're talking about markdowns on brand-name apparel.Vipshop Holdings(NYSE: VIPS)posted another quarter of heady growth after Monday's market close, and while it wasn't enough to wow all the Wall Street pros -- there was one analyst downgrade on Tuesday -- the stock did manage to open higher on Tuesday following the solid financials.

Net revenuefor the online discounter's first quarter rose 31% to the U.S. equivalent of $2.32 billion. There were 26 million active customers during the period, up 32% since the prior-year period. They placed 72.1 million orders during the first three months of the year. More than 55.5 million people placed an order through Vipshop over the past year, an improvement of 38%.

Image source: Vipshop.

Into the VIP lounge

The bottom line didn't grow as quickly as the top line, but Vipshop's adjusted earnings still rose by a better-than-expected 28% for the quarter. Vipshop's adjusted profit of $0.19 a share was just ahead of the $0.18 a share that analysts were modeling. This is old hat for the dot-com darling, as it routinely exceeds Wall Street profit targets.

Quarter Earnings Per Share Estimate Beat Q2 2016 $0.16 $0.14 14% Q3 2016 $0.15 $0.14 7% Q4 2016 $0.23 $0.21 10% Q1 2017 $0.19 $0.18 6%

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

Companies that continuously trounce expectations tend to move higher, and that's been Vipshop. The stocks has moved higher every single month this year -- up 34% year to date through Monday's close -- a fitting surge for a company that turned heads when it doubled for three consecutive years between 2012 and 2014.

Vipshop is making the most of its popularity. It's fleshing out its own delivery network within China, now armed with 23,000 last-mile delivery specialists. Vipshop's last-mile staff also help pick up returns, shaving its shipping costs dramatically.

Wall Street couldn't agree if Vipshop did enough to keep this year's winning streak going. JPMorgan upgraded the stock from neutral to overweight, but Nomura Instinet took the stock from buy to neural. They're passing ships here, and only one will be right.

Vipshop initiated top-line guidance for the current quarter, targeting 26% to 30% growth. The outlook would suggest decelerating growth, but it's hard to take the company's historically conservative guidance as gospel. It was also eyeing 26% to 30% growth for the first quarter, and we now know that played out to be a 31% spike.It forecasted 30% to 33% growth the quarter before that, only to check in with 37% revenue growth.

Whether Vipshop is setting the bar low on purpose or its fundamentals are in a perpetual state of improvement, one of the hottest stocks from 2012 to 2014 may be getting started on a new hot streak.

10 stocks we like better than Vipshop HoldingsWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters did not respond to FOX Business request for comment.

The DOJ also did not respond to calls for comment.

A spokesperson for Hatch would not comment and would not confirm or deny the substance of the conversation.

As FOX Business

Among those who voiced doubt was White House staff secretary Rob Porter. Garland is currently the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and while Republicans in Congress successfully blocked his appointment by President Obama to the Supreme Court during the 2016 presidential campaign, his legal credentials are well-established having served as both a prosecutor and corporate lawyer.

Priebus is just the latest name added to the growing list of White House officials and Congressional lawmakers who support having Garland added to the list of candidates under consideration for the top job at the FBI.

In an interview with FOX Business, Josh Holmes, the former chief of staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and current president of Cavalry LLC, which handles media relations and issue management strategies for Fortune 500 companies, said he spoke with his former boss on Sunday and was told that he supports Garlands candidacy.

In the conversation I had with him, he [McConnell] told me that hes extremely qualified, he has experience as a prosecutor, somebody who understands law enforcement, understands action in all forms of law enforcement and he would have Democratic support, Holmes said.

McConnells spokesperson declined to comment on the conversation between Holmes and the senator.

Sen. Orrin Hatch publicly threw his support behind Garland at a press conference Thursday. Merrick Garland is a very fine fellow. Theres never been an issue with Merrick Garland, he told reporters. Merrick is a very fine man. I like Merrick.

Hatch also confirmed that he proposed Garland to the White House but did not elaborate or give any details on the conversation.

Democrats, who largely supported Garlands nomination to the Supreme Court, are unsurprisingly also on board with his consideration for the FBI position. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) responded to Sen. Lees proposal with support of her own.
President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.

The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.

The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known...I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

Russia's foreign ministry said reports that Trump had revealed highly classified information were "fake", according to the Interfax news agency.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.

Still, the news triggered concern in Congress.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and "reckless".

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.

Obviously, theyre in a downward spiral right now and theyve got to come to grips with all thats happening," he said of the White House.

SECRET COMPARTMENT

The latest controversy came as Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure compartment to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

After Trump's disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardize a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the U.S. officials said.

Since taking office in January, Trump has careened from controversy to controversy, complaining on the first day about news coverage of his inauguration crowds; charging his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, with wiretapping; and just last week firing the FBI director who was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and the Russian government.

Trump, a Republican who has called allegations of links between his campaign team and Russia a "total scam," sharply criticized his 2016 election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for her handling of classified information as secretary of state, when she used a private email server.

The FBI concluded that no criminal charges against Clinton were warranted, but Comey said she and her colleagues had been "careless" with classified information.

'NO FILTER'

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they have been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.

One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: He has no filter; its in one ear and out the mouth.

One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure particularly unfortunate, as the President prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important U.S. allies. He also has stops planned in Israel and the Vatican.

The president's trip and latest uproar over his meeting with Russian officials come amid rumors that he might shake-up his senior staff in a bid to refocus his administration.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Mark Hosenball, Susan Cornwell, Ayesha Rascoe and Steve Holland; Editing by Kieran Murray and Bill Tarrant, Ralph Boulton)
On tax reform, the Administration initially sought to pass a bill and have it signed into law before the August congressional recess. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin backed off that but remained hopeful that tax reform could still be completed this year. A paltry one-page policy proposal was then released prior to President Trumps first 100 days. The proposal, while at least a first step, raised more questions than answers. While I disagree, some Democrats and other detractors insist tax reform should not go forward until it is clear how such would impact the President, his family and their myriad companies. Mr. Trump heretofore has refused to do so. It seems obvious that the examination of his tax returns could greatly impact the various investigations, but tax reform legislation should not be held hostage to such release. And what of repealing Dodd-Frank and reinstating Glass-Steagall? Only a turn to the populist away from Wall Street is likely to reassure the blue collar supporters at the heart of the Trump base.

Perhaps the greatest missed opportunity is the $1 trillion dollar infrastructure investment bill supported by huge numbers of Republican, Independent and Democrat voters. The one domestic policy issue around which the nation across all states, urban and rural areas and party affiliations could come together is leaderless. This initiative above all is sorely needed to put America back to work, repairing our rail, bridges, airports and shipping ports, expanding and enhancing broadband and connectivity for all Americans, not to mention other items like mitigating toxic water and waste systems. The nations roads, specifically, are approaching third world conditions, and a mother of all political bombs has such been dropped on them, all but obliterating the potential for a visibly greater America in time for the November 2018 elections.

Arguably, tax reform and infrastructure could do more economic good for our country by creating jobs and a sure-footed path to progress than anything else. Alas, the firing of Mr. Comey has thrust the various investigations about any meddling by Russians and collusion with those in Trump world into a higher gear than a few days ago. By succumbing to the obsession of the media coverage, rejecting the counsel of seasoned advisors and taking his focus off the commitments made to and needs of the American people, the President has surely shot his legislative agenda in the head. It will remain in the ICU, if not morgue, for the year.

Efforts to reunite the country by rattling the saber of war and increased foreign military intervention are unwise. The public is weary and the budget insufficient to escalate conflict after conflict in either a false show of power or a diversionary commercial from the reality of the investigations now taking place. The President has few choices but to appoint a credible and respected non-partisan to replace FBI Director Comey, file the campaign 2016 handouts and get on with the specific business of jobs and infrastructure.

When Mr. Trump was elected, I promised myself to be fair and optimistic in public comments about him. Ive done so and received criticism for being too idealistic and hopeful. I believe he truly wants to fulfill his campaign promise, and is likely both perplexed and apoplectic with distractions. But clearly the White House is distracting from its own agenda and has grossly underestimated the impact of the perceived or real interference with the ongoing investigations into election tampering and cyberattack on the U.S. democratic process. We all want our country to do well. We need integrity, bipartisanship, steady, focused and competent leadership to move forward as a nation.

President Trump has made a grievous miscalculation that has mortally wounded his 2017 legislative agenda. Thats not only exceedingly bad for the President, but hugely harmful to our people and our country.

Former US Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton is a policy and political commentator and author of Ponzimonium: How Scam Artists Are Ripping Off America. He can be reached at bartchilton@bartchilton.com
The chance of Judge Merrick Garland becoming the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has diminished in just the past 24 hours as White House officials told Congressional lawmakers on Tuesday that theyre not interested in adding him to the potential short list of replacements for former FBI chief James Comey, FOX Business has learned.

This new revelation comes as Garland has reportedly indicated to friends that he loves being a judge and has no intention of leaving the bench.

As the White House spread the word that they arent interested in nominating Garland to be the next FBI chief, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters on Capitol Hill that he recommended the former prosecutor to President Trump. It was unclear, at the time, the presidents reaction to McConnells proposal.

Garlands office did not respond to repeated calls for comment.

Garland is currently the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals and while Republicans in Congress successfully blocked his appointment by President Obama to the Supreme Court during the 2016 presidential campaign, his legal credentials are well-established having served as both a prosecutor and corporate lawyer.

FOX Business was first to report that Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) pitched Garland as a possible Comey replacement on Wednesday during a private gathering at the White House with senior administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence and White House counsel Don McGahn, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. When Lee floated the possibility of appointing Garland to the FBI post, the reception was mostly positive, with Pence and McGahn seeing merit in the idea. However, others in attendance said it was a non-starter given Garland's affiliation with the Obama administration.

FOX Business was also first to report that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) proposed Garland as someone who should be considered to become the next FBI director during a phone conference on Wednesday with White House officials, including Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Priebus agreed, according to numerous sources, and said including Garland on the list of candidates was worthy of a conversation and consideration.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters did not respond to FOX Business request for comment.

Spokespersons for Senators Lee and Hatch had no comment.

It was always going to be a long shot for Garland to replace Comey, particularly after the outrage that came from the base of the Republican Party when Lee published a tweet voicing his support for Garland.

Ann Coulter, conservative social and political commentator, represented the right wing outrage when she tweeted on Sunday that she thought Lee was proposing Garland in order to gain support from Democratic opponents.
After 1,889 girls from all over the world auditioned to become one of literatures most beloved characters, one 15-year-old Irish-Canadian actress won the coveted role. Amybeth McNulty believes she was practically born for the part.

My mom gave me Anne of Green Gables as a present so that was my first introduction to Anne, little did I know, the star of Netflixs Anne With an E told Fox News.

SHIRLEY TEMPLE: CRYING ON CUE WAS METHOD ACTING

The novel, which was written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, was published in 1908 and explores the impassioned orphans tumultuous years attempting to navigate everyday life.

The Donegal, Ireland, native immediately identified with the heroine.

I liked that she was fiery and she didnt really care what people thought, explained McNulty. As a 9-year-old bookworm I kind of sped through it. I loved the story and I loved that she got into trouble a bit. She was quite like myself, I find.

While the story takes place 150 years ago, the new series dives into Annes teenage years and explores themes that still remain relevant to todays viewers.

FORMER CHILD STAR LINDSAY LOHAN WANTS A FRESH START

Anne was an accidental feminist, explained McNulty. She was a feminist before feminism really existed, which I find really intriguing. And were dealing with prejudice, exclusion, bullying, sexuality and just all kinds of very relatable topics today that Lucy Montgomery wrote in her book.

McNulty was determined to take on the role. After sending in an audition tape from Ireland, she was placed on a list for a couple of months, until the list of potential girls to play Anne was narrowed down to five. McNulty was then flown to Toronto where she got the part. Soon, the naturally blonde actress was transformed into a fiery red head to film in Prince Edward Island, where the story takes place.

I love it, she said of the hair transformation. Sadly, Im not a natural redhead. But, I prefer my red hair to my blonde hair. So thats a really good thing.

She also enjoyed getting into costumes from the 1890s, a far cry from the casual jeans and T-shirt she wears off-camera.

FORMER 'HAPPY DAYS' STAR WANTS NETFLIX REBOOT

Theyre my favorite! she said. I think the boots were my favorite part of the costume. But we had bloomers, we had big pouty dresses. Luckily, I didnt have to wear a corset, but I know a couple who did in the cast, so I felt bad for them.

McNulty was also aware of the great responsibility she was given to play a character many grew up with from their childhood.

I think because [Anne] is so iconic and so beloved, I was just so honored to be able to have my portrayal of her out there, especially on such a great network like Netflix and CBC, she said. So that was a real honor for me. And I think, as soon as I got into my head that this is just my portrayal of her - if people like it, thats great. If they dont, thats fine. Once I said that to myself, I was fine.

And although some audiences may assume that Anne with an E is strictly for females, McNulty insisted that its a series for families to enjoy together. She also added it it might inspire future shows aimed for young girls like her to focus more on their own everyday lives.

Luckily, this show is also a family show, said McNulty. Its [for] boys, girls, old, young; its for anyone. Its a family showDefinitely I think recently there has been quite a few shows that are designed towards teenage girls. But perhaps I think they should be more empowering and less about makeup and clothes and [instead be] more realistic and authentic to who we are.

The future for Anne with an E, is uncertain though. Viewers can currently stream the first eight episodes on Netflix, but McNulty admitted that its still unknown whether fans can expect more.
Suddenly, Bill Cosby has a lot to say.

In his first interview in over two years, the disgraced 79-year-old comedian said he does not want to take the stand in his upcoming sexual assault trial, and suggested some of the accusations against him are motivated by racism. He also expressed concern that participating in the more than 30-minute interview with Sirius XMs Michael Smerconish could cause "trouble" for him.

The unedited chat aired during The Michael Smerconish Program on the POTUS (Politics Of The United States) channel on Tuesday morning. During the in-depth talk with Smerconish, Cosby said he would not discuss the sexual assault allegations against him.

Thats not something that, uh, any smart person would want to do.

He said he did not anticipate he would take the stand at his trial, which is set to begin this summer.

COSBY ARRAIGNED ON AGGRAVATED ASSAULT CHARGES

No, I do not, he answered when asked by Smerconish if he thought he would take the stand.

When asked why, he replied, Once again, I go back to lawyers when you have to deal with examination, cross examination, et cetera, et cetera Theres more than two sides to every story  sometimes four or five But I just dont want to sit there and have to figure out what I believe is the truthful answer as to whether or not I am opening a can of something that my lawyers are scrambling [to shut].

He noted he has been absent from public life since dozens of women accused him of sexual abuse.

I have not performed in over two years. I have not spoken at a graduation in two years or even to speak to an incoming high school freshman class to give them some idea of what they are going to face and what they ought to do.

Part of the interview included clips of Cosby being interviewed by his daughters Esna and Erinn.

Cosby said at one point, responding to a suggestion by one of his daughters, that the more than 50 women accusing him of drugging them, sexually assaulting them or both could be motivated, in part, by racism.

Could be. Could be, he said at the suggestion.

I cant say anything, but there are certain things that I look at and I apply to the situation. There are so many tentacles. So many different  nefarious is a great word. And I just truly believe that some of it may very well be that, the once-celebrated comedian stated during the interview.

He acknowledged, when prompted by Smerconish, that his accusers span all races.

Its not all, not every. But I do think that there is some [racism], he said. When you look at the power structure and when you look at individuals there are some people who can very well be motivated by whether or not they are going to work or whether or not they might be able to, um, get back at someone. So if its in terms of whatever their choice is, I think you can also examine individuals and situations and they will come out differently.

Cosby also discussed his health, which has been declining, calling himself unsighted.

My health is good. I am well. The glaucoma has been known to me for decades  many, many decades  and it is now that I, after my exams, have been registered  I am registered in Massachusetts as legally unsighted. And trust me, I have some bumps on my forehead and eyebrows that prove that, that, um, there are certain things that I have walked into.

BILL COSBY DETAILS SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WITH TEEN

Cosby mused about the timing of the accusations calling it impressive the way all the sexual assault accusers spoke out. He suggested that was because previous accusers saw results when they came forward. Some of Cosbys accusers have claimed he paid them in various ways over the years.

I think that the numbers came because the numbers prior to the numbers did work. So, the piling on, so to speak is a way  and certainly an impressive, impressive way to get public opinion to come to the other side, Cosby told Smerconish.

Smerconish explained how the interview came about ahead of the airing.

I was contacted recently by a public relations person who works for Cosby and I said Im interested in the audio. I am interested in this case, but I am not interested in playing it unless I can talk to the man. So Bill Cosby was made available to me yesterday [Monday].



Cosby noted that he was speaking to Smerconish after a different Mothers Day at the Cosby home. He revealed he ordered a meal for his wife, Camille, and paired it with a note to surprise her at their home.

Then, she came down and she read the note and she smiled and everything there was just perfectly done, and its exactly what she hasnt had in a long time, and it was done the way she loves it. And so we ate that together.

He said the conversation then alluded to the ongoing scandal surrounding their family and things were removed from my plate until I apologized.

EVIN COSBY: DAD BILL COSBY 'IS NOT ABUSIVE, VIOLENT OR A RAPIST'

Cosby said he was doing the interview because he feels he still has a lot to offer as a performer, and he hopes that if the pending trial goes in his favor he can be remembered as being the guy that they give back all the things that they rescinded.

The star explained he opted to the interview because he decided it was time to do something so the people who still have faith in me, and are still wondering what I sound like" could hear from him.

Cosby has had nearly all of his honorary college degrees revoked and his standup shows were canceled nationwide. Many networks also stopped airing reruns of The Cosby Show after women began sharing eerily similar stories of being abused by the star.

I want people to understand that my work as an artist, a performer, I owe a great deal to people who saw things in me. And in many ways I returned the favors.

BILL COSBY LOSES APPEAL TO QUESTION ACCUSER BEFORE TRIAL

He implied that his accusers were people he was trying to guide.

 Gloria Steinem had a very interesting quote. She said, The truth shall set you free, but first it might piss you off. And Ive said a lot of things to people, trying to give them the truth, trying to motivate them to guide them into strength and Ive taken some hits from people who are supposed to be watching out for people like this. And I do feel like right now, as I speak to you, I want to get back to the laughter and enjoyment of things that Ive written and things that Ive performed on stage.

Cosby said he is confused by the fact that a resurfaced 2005 deposition spurred the current trial he is facing.

I have an emotion about what the judge did, and Im still very much confused about how that came about and caused whatever is happening today.

At the end of his chat, he thanked Smerconish for letting him speak out.

He concluded, I just hope Im not in trouble now, man.


Police are on the hunt for former Deadliest Catch star Jake Harris, who failed to show up in court on Friday in Phoenix, Arizona.

The 31-year-old star was due in court Friday to face charges, but he was nowhere to be found.

Fox News can confirm that Harris, who formerly appeared on the hit Discovery Channel series, had a bench warrant placed on him by a Maricopa County judge following his failure to appear in court on May 12, 2017.

According to TMZ, he was scheduled to appear to answer to allegations including two felony drug possession charges. Harris was allegedly caught last month after he took off with a vehicle that belonged to his friend. When police found him the next day, he was reportedly in possession of both Xanax and crystal meth.

Many fans of the hit TV series may remember Jake as the son of the late captain Phil Harris. Phil died in 2010 of an apparent stroke. Following the loss of his father at age 24, Jake told PEOPLE Magazine, Im going to be looking at that [captains] chair in a different way. We definitely talked about it, but I just didnt think it would happen so soon. Thats definitely something where I would take over and take the responsibility.

However, Harris never ended up in the captains chair, with his older brother Josh, who purchased and operated the family ship the Cornelia Marie. The ship and most of its crew stopped appearing on Deadliest Catch soon after Phils death. In November 2016, Jakes brother Josh took to social media to tell fans Jake was in the ICU following an attack and robbery committed against him. Josh continued to regularly update followers on Jakes condition at the time.

I have some terrible news today. My brother was jumped last night and some individuals decided to beat him pretty good, which is a terrible, terrible thing, Josh said in a Facebook video. Some individuals beat him to the point where it cracked his skull from his forehead all the way back to where you would be balding as an individual.

Two people were arrested in connection to the violent incident shortly after it was reported.

Local Seattle news network KIRO 7 reported that Jake was released from the hospital in January and was recovering well.

Its unclear at this time why Harris didnt show up for his May 12 court date. The Facebook page previously updated by Jakes brother Josh has not shared a post since May 11 and has made no mention of the recent charges against the former reality star.
And you thought you loved Thin Mints and Samoas.

A Girl Scout leader from Kentucky has gone on the run after allegedly stealing more than $15,000 worth of cookies from not only her own troop, but maybe neighboring troops as well, reports the Appalachian News-Express.

Leah Ann Vick, of Auxier, Ky., was formally indicted by a Pike County jury on a charge of felony theft by unlawful taking, and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted, according to district attorney Rick Bartley.

Authorities are currently looking for Vick, 26, who they believe to be actively evading law enforcement.

SURVEY FINDS MOST POPULAR GIRL SCOUT COOKIES IN EVERY STATE

The crime originally occurred on Feb. 1, per the indictment. According to the Bartley, Vick picked up a large order of cookies for her Wilderness Road chapter  and perhaps a few orders belonging to other troops  in Pikesville, Ky.

Vick was then supposed to return to pay for the cookies once they had been sold (the local troops dont normally provide payment up front), but she never went back. The Girl Scouts also say they have no record of Vick dropping off her troops shipment with her girls.

She picked up the cookies and never took them to them, so we dont know what she did with them, said Bartley.

She has never paid for any of them and, anyone who has tried to contact her about them has not been able to contact her, he added.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Authorities also confirmed that Vick has been using several different addresses in eastern Kentucky since going on the lam, making it that much harder for law enforcement to track her down.

It looks like she picked up the cookies and, now, she and the cookies have disappeared, stated Bartley.

Vicks indictment follows a similar, though more disturbing incidence of theft from a Girl Scout in California. On Feb. 17, a 12-year-old scout in Union, Calif., was robbed at gunpoint while selling cookies outside a Safeway supermarket alongside her mother. The Union City Police Department later raised $1,000 for the girls local troop.
A Wisconsin police officer has gone above and beyond the call of duty for a local 8-year-old, who will receive one of her kidneys in June. It all started in December, when Milton police deputy Lindsey Bittorf saw a post from Jackson Arnesons mom on Facebook and felt moved to help, CBS News reported.

Jackson went in for a routine kidney appointment the end of November, Kristi Goll, Jacksons mom, wrote on her Facebook page. At this appointment, his labs showed his kidney function is still decreasing and the doctors are in talks of activating him on the deceased donor list for a kidney transplant.

TEEN DIES AFTER DRINKING TOO MANY CAFFEINATED BEVERAGES

Goll then requested if any of her friends or followers would be willing to get tested to see if they met the O+ blood type requirement for a living donor, as doctors said it would be a better match for Jackson than a deceased donor. The post was shared more than 1,500 times and caught the attention of Bittorf, who had never met the family before.

Maybe this is just weird and odd but as soon as I saw her post, I just knew. Its me, Bittorf, also a mother, told NBC 15.

Bittorf was one of more than 50 who volunteered at the UW Health Transplant Program to have their blood tested. Earlier this month, she stopped by the familys home to deliver the good news with a plaque she had made for Jackson.

Jackson, I took an oath to serve and protect my community. My kidney will now be able to serve and protect you! I am your kidney donor, the plaque said.

CALIFORNIA BABY BORN WEIGHING 13.5 POUNDS

Goll took to Facebook to share the good news.

After months of searching for a kidney donor for Jackson, I can say, the search is over!! I cant even put into words how amazing of a gift we are receiving from this amazing person, Goll wrote in a May 2 post on Facebook. She surprised us after work today and I still feel in shock. Jackson is so excited and says, I think my new kidney will make me run faster! Today you became our hero.

The transplant is scheduled for late June, and Bittorf said shes thrilled to be able to give Jacksons parents peace of mind.

Its the best feeling being able to give a parent the OK that your kid is going to be healthy, she told NBC 15. You dont have to worry anymore about your son.
The family of a South Carolina teen who collapsed and later died after consuming an excessive amount of caffeine is speaking out to warn others about the potential dangers of energy drinks and other stimulants.

It wasnt a car crash that took his life, Sean Cripe said of his 16-year-old son Davis, according to USA Today. Instead, it was an energy drink. Parents, please talk to your kids about these energy drinks. And teenagers and students: please stop buying them.

ENERGY DRINKS MAY BE RISKY FOR PEOPLE WITH GENETIC HEART CONDITION

On April 26, Davis Allen Cripe consumed a large Diet Mountain Dew, a cafe latte from McDonalds and an energy drink in a span of two hours. He then collapsed at his Spring Hill High School and later died at Palmetto Health Baptist Parkridge Hospital. The Richland County Coroner said on Monday that the official cause of death was a caffeine-induced cardiac event causing a probable arrhythmia.

Davis, like so many other kids and so many other people out there today, was doing something (he) thought was totally harmless, and that was ingesting lots of caffeine, Coroner Gary Watts said in a news conference. We lost Davis from a totally legal substance.

Watts said Cripe was healthy and had no family history of a medical problem that could have been exacerbated by the high levels of caffeine in his system, according to USA Today.

EX-ESPNER HAD MISCARRIAGE DURING LIVE BROADCAST

Dr. Teo Mendez, an orthopedic surgeon at New York Orthopedics, told Fox News that part of the danger is not knowing exactly how much caffeine is in these energy drinks.

When you start having these energy drinks theres a wide variability in the amount of caffeine in them, Mendez told Fox News. For example a Red Bull Has 80 mg of caffeine, some of these other energy drinks that they call Red Line could have up to 500 mg of caffeine  so seven times as much.

He also warned on the other stimulants like guarana that are added to these drinks and contain twice the amount of caffeine as a coffee bean. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children and adolescents under 18 should not consume these energy drinks, which Mendez agrees with.

I think if youre under 18, I would follow the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics, he said. We really should be monitoring our kids and not allowing them to be drinking energy drinks.

MOM DIES DAY AFTER GIVING BIRTH TO HEALTHY BABY BOY

Mendez said his warning is especially true for teenage athletes who can be confused by the difference between an energy drink and a sport drink. Some telltale warning signs of toxic doses of caffeine include anxiety, sweat, increased blood pressure, heart palpitations, headaches and generally feelings of nervousness.

[Parents] should be vigilant, especially with young kids, you need to tell them to stay away from these energy drinks, he said.

Watts said Cripe had a history of drinking caffeinated beverages but the family said it had not reached the levels of addiction.

The purpose here today is not to slam Mountain Dew, not to slam cafe lattes, or energy drinks, Watts said on Monday, according to NBC News. But what we want to do is to make people understand that these drinks  this amount of caffeine, how its ingested, can have dire consequences. And thats what happened in this case.
You think its a bit of harmless fun, but watching porn really does affect a mans performance in the bedroom.

Men partial to perusing a lot of X-rated material are more likely to suffer erectile dysfunction  and its because they are so used to looking at kinky images, experts suggest.

And those men who prefer watching their fantasies played out on screen are also less likely to enjoy actually having sex, the study showed.

While experts quizzed both men and women on their porn-watching habits, they only found a link to sexual dysfunction in men.

IS PORNOGRAPHY A PUBLIC HEALTH THREAT?

Researchers surveyed more than 300 men between 20 and 40 who visited a San Diego urology clinic for treatment.

While only 3.4 percent said they would rather masturbate and watch porn than have sex, there was a statistical link between the amount of porn they watched and sexual dysfunction.

Most of those men quizzed admitted to watching porn.

One in four said they watched porn less than once a week, while 21.3 percent said they watched porn three to five times a week.

Five percent admitted to watching porn six to 10 times a week and 4.3 percent said they indulged more than 11 times per week.

Dr. Joseph Alukal, an associate professor of urology and director of male reproductive health at New York University, said: Visual stimulation will often increase sexual arousal in both men and women.

But when the majority of their time is spent viewing and masturbating to pornography, it is likely they will become less interested in real-world sexual encounters.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WHY SOME MEN GET SLEEPY AFTER SEX

These studies suggest the issue may be trivial in women, but not so for men, and could lead to sexual dysfunction.

Sex is half in your body and half in your head and it may not be a physical component driving the behavior, but a psychological one.

For this reason, its important for physicians to understand the underlying issues leading to the sexual dysfunction prior to suggesting treatment options.

Dr. Matthew Christman, a staff urologist with the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, told HealthDay the reason porn addicts are at greater risk of erectile dysfunction is that their tolerance for sexual stimulation is higher.

He said: Tolerance could explain the sexual dysfunction, and can explain our finding that associated preferences for pornography over partnered sex with statistically significantly higher sexual dysfunction in men.

5 SIGNS YOUR SEX LIFE NEEDS A MAKEOVER

Erectile dysfunction is a very common condition, particularly in older men.

It is estimated that half of all men between the ages of 40 and 70 will have it to some degree.

It is defined as the inability to get and maintain an erection.

The researchers also surveyed women between 20 and 40 about their porn habits but found no link with sexual dysfunction.

The findings were presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American Urological Association on May 12.

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Previous studies into porn and its impact in the bedroom have also found that men who watch a lot of racy clips are less likely to be satisfied having sex with their partner.

An Indiana University and University of Hawaii study of more than 50,000 participants who had taken part in 50 previous porn studies found men who watch porn in an intimate relationship are more likely to be less satisfied with their sex life and their partner.

First published on The Sun
Note: I wrote this before the latest despicable, dishonest smearing of the President, but that incident simplify magnifies my case.

Here is what National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster said Monday in response to the latest Washington press corps hysteria:

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the President did not discuss any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh anonymous sources. And I was in the room, it didnt happen."

This simply reinforces the following, which I wrote earlier today.

After almost four months of watching the news medias unending dishonesty, hostility, and contempt toward the Trump administration, it is time to have a blunt conversation.

The President owes Americans the defense of the United States Constitution.

The President owes the American people a sound job as commander in chief, protecting the country.

The President owes the American people a dramatically stronger economy with more jobs, better take home pay, and increased opportunities for investment growth; which will help people prepare for retirement, strengthen pension funds, and guarantee Social Securitys solvency.

The President owes the American people a better health system with greater access, lower costs, and better health outcomes.

Indeed, the President owes the American people many things.

But the President does not owe anything to the Washington press corps and the left-wing hypocrites who dominate today's news media.

I first learned this rule after reading the transcript from President Franklin D. Roosevelts opening press conference with the White House Press Corps on March 8, 1933. During FDRs inaugural meeting with the press, no one was permitted to directly quote the President except via a prepared quote from his office. The vast majority of the conversation was either without attribution or completely off the record. The purpose of the meeting was for the media to understand what was going on  not for them to play gotcha or win clever attacks disguised as questions. Those were the rules.

Since Watergate, the news media has acquired a steadily more arrogant attitude and has moved further and further to the left. Today, they are adversarial opponents of conservatives especially the Trump administration.

I learned the hard way as Speaker of the House that I could not regularly meet with reporters on camera. It set up an arena for gotcha questions. Reporters gained imaginary points for finding stupid, narrow, often irrelevant things to argue over. Instead of being an opportunity for a genuine public dialogue, the daily on-camera briefings became a bloody battleground  totally to my disadvantage. Within a few weeks, we were forced to stop.

President Trump's instinct to radically overhaul his relationship with the media is exactly right.

When reporters behave like picadors in daily briefings, trying desperately to taunt and embarrass Sean Spicer rather than listen and report on what hes saying, it undermines our free society's right to accurate information. The daily briefing may draw big audiences as a reality television spectacle, but it does not serve the country or President Trump well.

While there remain some serious, historically-minded reporters, they are unfortunately becoming more of a rarity. Instead, much of the Washington press corps has become an incestuous collection of voyeurs who watch, judge, and attack without knowledge or responsibility. This creates a hostile, propagandistic, and distorted version of news coverage.

A visit by Egyptian President el-Sisi to the White House last month led to a young American woman being released from an Egyptian jail. Had Obama achieved this, it would have been lauded by the press as a major sign of leadership and compassion. However, because it was President Trump, the media mostly ignored it.

Similarly, when the new relationship between President Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping directly resulted in a trade breakthrough for American beef, natural gas, and certain financial services, ending a 13-year period in which the Chinese refused to buy American beef, we heard very little from the media. It should bring billions of dollars into the United States, yet the media felt it wasnt important enough to cover.

The recent jobs numbers  manufacturing, in particular  have been remarkable. But, of course, most Washington reporters treat the release of these numbers as non-events. After all, this would mean they have to report good news, and in the left-wing newsrooms in which they are all so deeply embedded, positive news related to the President is simply not permissible.

The Presidents upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Brussels and the G-7 in Sicily is a remarkable tour for a new president  especially one who the media insisted knew nothing about international relations. But, of course, the Washington news media wants to trivialize the trip with a discussion of White House gossip and whether the diplomatic journey will have a big domestic effect  as they define it.

If you review the first four months of news coverage  much of which is based on unnamed sources  it becomes obvious how overwhelmingly negative, hostile, gossipy, and focused on undermining and weakening President Trump and his team the press corps truly is.

Given a choice between writing a story about a big historic accomplishment and a petty piece about infighting in the White House, the Washington press corps will go for the dirt every time. If Washington is the swamp, the media is the muck.

I challenge anyone to analyze the last four months of news coverage of President Trump and come to the conclusion that it is unbiased, serious, or focused on important topics.

My guess is, that you will unfortunately come to the same conclusion that I have. In this instance, President Trump should take a note from FDR to remind the Washington press corps that he works for the American people  not the elite media.
Its clear that the liberal media and the political Left will do anything they can to derail President Trump and his administration.

The latest example is the laser-like focus on a bogus news story hatched by the Washington Post: That President Trump revealed classified material, including highly classified intelligence sources, to the Russians during his meeting at the White House last week.

That story seems to have taken on a life of its own despite strong and unequivocal denials from the National Security Adviser, General H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  both of whom were in the meeting.

The President is the Commander-in-Chief. He is our president. He has the constitutional authority to share what information he deems necessary with nations and their leaders. In the case of the meetings with top Russian officials, its been reported that President Trump was discussing real threats from the Islamic State  ISIS  threats that President Trump understands present a clear and present danger to our country and our freedoms.

His desire to communicate with the Russians in an attempt to enlist their support in battling radical Islamic jihadism should be applauded instead of attacked.

The truth is, whats really putting our nation is risk is the flagrant leaking from within the federal bureaucracy  those who oppose President Trump who are breaking the law when they leak classified materials.

President Trumps critics and opponents  including many in the news media  claim this faux story about President Trump providing classified material to the Russians puts the United States at risk.

The truth is, whats really putting our nation is risk is the flagrant leaking from within the federal bureaucracy  those who oppose President Trump who are breaking the law when they leak classified materials.

The real story  the real crisis  is the ongoing leak of classified information. That is serious and something that the Trump Administration must address without delay. How this latest story unfolded has become all too common in Washington. Its a manufactured crisis that puts our national security at risk.

Lets hope Attorney General Sessions has impaneled a grand jury to investigate these troubling leaks. These leakers need to face criminal charges and face prosecution.

The Trump Administration needs to send a strong message. Its time to seek out and prosecute those who are criminally leaking classified material.

The fact is that many of those working to derail the Trump Administration work inside the federal government. They are part of the bureaucratic swamp and in many cases are loyal to President Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton.

They dont like the way the election turned out. And they really dont like that President Trump is in the Oval Office.

Theres no question that theres a deep state shadow government at work here. What were experiencing is an unprecedented bureaucratic soft coup undermining our security.

The Obama Administration took action to empower the entrenched bureaucracy to subvert our national security right before leaving office. It has led to dangerous leaks, criminal violations of the Espionage Act, and the creation of a shadow government to sabotage the new Administration.

At the American Center for Law and Justice, were directly engaged in half a dozen lawsuits to expose the shadow government and stop these dangerous national security leaks.

Its time to plug the leaks and punish those who are responsible for leaking classified information.
The Washington Post triggered the latest anti-Trump political delirium Monday evening when it published a story headlined, Trump Revealed Highly Classified Information to Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador.

The newspaper ink was barely dry when Democrats began fulminating while the media convulsed. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz earned the top hysteria award when he declared, This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president! Puh-leeze.

Mania and madness seem to have gripped the nations capital, spreading like a plague of locusts. Several deep breaths are in order. Here are five reasons why its time to blow into a paper bag.

1. THE PRESIDENTS AUTHORITY

The Washington Post accuses President Trump of revealing more than he should have to Russia. Specifically, that he divulged the city in ISIS-held territory where an aviation terror threat was detected. But as President, he alone makes the decision to disclose classified material. He is legally entitled to reveal it. The President is the absolute authority on classified information. He can declassify anything to further national security interests. According to National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, the named ISIS city was fairly obvious and it was nothing you would not know from open-source reporting.

2. THE U.S. ROUTINELY SHARES INTEL WITH RUSSIA

For years, the U.S. and Russia have shared intelligence information dealing with common interests, especially terror threats and the fight against ISIS. Recently, Russia has been the target of deadly aviation attacks by terrorists. ISIS is believed to be behind the bombing of a Russian passenger jet in 2015, killing all 224 people on board. So, it makes sense for the U.S. to share aviation intelligence warnings with Russia. As McMaster said repeatedly, it was a totally appropriate conversation and a part of routine information sharing.

3. WASHINGTON POST STORY IS MORE OPINION THAN REPORTING

If you examine the Post story carefully, much of it is reaction from anonymous people who express their alarm at what President Trump disclosed. Heres an example from the Post story: It is all kind of shocking, said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials. But who are these officials? How senior are they? What branch of government? How politically biased might they be? Do they really know what theyre talking about? So, the Post story is mostly editorializing disguised as straight reporting.

4. THE TERROR THREAT WAS ALREADY WELL KNOWN

Is there anyone who did not already know that terrorists were plotting to use explosives in laptops to bring down airlines? The disclosure to the Russians doesnt seem terribly revealing. It has been widely reported for quite some time. Seven weeks ago the U.S. government instituted a ban on laptops from airports in certain majority-Muslim countries. Every major newspaper in America covered it. This was the subject President Trump discussed with the Russian diplomats.

5. THE LEAKERS COMMITTED A FELONY

Whoever leaked this classified information to the Post committed multiple felonies under the Espionage Act. It appears that notes of the meeting were transferred to a computer, and the material was leaked from there. Regardless, the person or persons who committed these acts should be prosecuted, once identified. Why? McMaster answered that question when he said, national security has been put at risk by the leaks. But the fact that no one seems concerned that crimes were perpetrated underscores just how dysfunctional politics and the media have become.

Sadly, Americans have grown accustomed to an unhealthy psychopathy in Washington. Lets hope its not terminal.
If proof is needed that Barack Obamas lead from behind foreign policy was a dismal failure, look no further than Libya. And if President Trump wants a win against terror, he should look to the same place.

Since longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown and killed by a howling mob in 2011, Libya  the oil-rich gateway to northern Africa  has had no government. Or rather, it has three competing governments, each claiming to be the countrys rightful ruler. Oh, and did we mention 1,600  count them  armed militias? Not a recipe for stability.

To make matters worse, the countrys infrastructure has crumbled. Electricity is available only for a few hours a day, even in the capital, Tripoli. Oil production, which made Libya one of the most prosperous nations in the region, is at between a third and a half of capacity. Civilians are kidnapped  or worse  by marauding gangs. Banks refuse to let customers withdraw more than $20 at a time. And more than $40 billion in international aid has simply gone missing.

How did things reach such a point of chaos? Many Libyans point to Obamas tepid response after Qaddafis overthrow. His idea was to provide logistical support and back the militia groups that he thought could be persuaded to create democracy.

Instead, the various militias, including some allied with Al Qaeda and ISIS, fought among themselves like Bloods and Crips, resulting in at least 55,000 deaths, many of them civilians.

The country, whose population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, nonetheless is divided by geography. In the east, tribal leaders are still nursing a longtime grudge against the poor treatment they received from Qaddafi during his 42 years in power. The east is ruled by Kalifa Haftar, a former officer in Qaddafis military who promoted himself to general of the so-called Libyan National Army, which is effectively a big militia. Haftar, who lived for 20 years in exile in Virginia, has spurned U.S. support in favor of closer ties with Russia, though he remains open to contact with the Trump administration.

Libya also has an elected parliament, which fled Tripoli and took refuge in Tobruk, in the east. And a weak cabinet holds court in Tripoli, surrounded by armed jihadi militias.

In the west, and around Tripoli, various jihadi militias battle each other  and Haftars troops, when they venture out of the east.

When Italys prime minister visited the White House last month, he urged Trump to take an interest in Libyas future. The presidents response: Libya is not a priority.

He might want to reconsider. Helping to stabilize Libya would be a foreign policy win for the U.S., and a signal to Russia that American leadership in world affairs is making a comeback. Trump needs to clean up the mess made by the last administration, says former Libyan prime minister Mahmoud Gebril, who survived four assassination attempts. The militia leaders are ready to put down their weapons in exchange for amnesty. This civil war has gone on too long. It would be a peace of exhaustion.

Libya needs U.S. leadership, Walid Phares, a Middle East scholar and author (and Fox News contributor) who advises Trump, told me. Congress wants to destroy the jihadists. That can be done, but the president needs to step up.

Libya is sure to come up when Trump visits Saudi Arabia this week. It is a chance for the president to do something substantive and positive. He cant tweet it. He has to treat it like the opportunity it is.
Ensnared by party politics, we are forgetting our country. Instead of devoting our loyalties to the Constitutionthat sturdy enabler of human aspirationsRepublicans and Democrats alike close their eyes to lawlessness, excusing even outright criminality if one of their partys leaders stands accused.

Buoyed by a strong economy, Democrats brushed off President Clintons degradation of the presidency. Republicans ignored the waste and fraud that ravaged the foreign endeavors of the second President Bush. Democrats cheered the imperious use of executive orders by President Obama and resolutely shut their eyes to Hillary Clintons murderous duplicity (have we all forgotten Benghazi?)

Now Republicans, who long claimed to be the Constitutions defenders and champions of national security, shrug off Russian penetration of our political system and justify the reckless use (following Obamas precedent) of executive orders by their presidentwhose behavior would excite outrage if the fingers on the keypad belonged to a Democrat.

And a flatulent Congress cringes and points at the other guy.

Both parties have failed us. We have not had a serious, competent president since George H. W. Bush left office. Thats a quarter-century of mediocrity, intermittent malfeasance, diminished security, destructive pandering to interest groups and resultant social calamity.

Its fine to take strong positions and to rally to politicians who promise to pursue the legislation and policies we think best. But its fatal to place any single man or woman above the Constitution.

Yet, we have survived. The instruments of government bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers have proven so robust and well-considered, so far-sighted and attuned to human foibles, that our system has outlasted countless charlatans, demagogues, ideologues, thieves-in-office, pestiferous lobbyists and the legions of other Washington parasites whounlike the hardworking bureaucrats they condemnfeed off our government while contributing nothing.

The men who met in Philadelphia in 1776 got it amazingly right. Now, almost two-and-a-half centuries later, we seem determined to get it wrong.

The core of our national being is the Constitution and the rule of law. As a child of the 1960s, it took me a little time to appreciate the transcendent beauty of the law, a beauty so profound it can survive acid-hurling lawyers. We take it for granted that our property cannot be seized by a better-connected neighbor; that our persons cannot be violated with impunity; and that should worse come to worst were entitled to our day in court, to be judged by a transparently selected jury of our peers. No man is aboveor belowthe law.

We do not grasp how revolutionary these fundamentals are in the bloody, unjust pageant of humankinds history.

Now the laws that protect us from barbarity are being undermined by party politics, left and right. The Obama administration embraced lawlessness when convenient (and subterfuge as a means of governance). Now the Trump administration replicates the Nixon administrations effort to evade potentially embarrassing revelations and possible legal consequences. (President Trumps euphoric grip-and-grin with Russias foreign minister and ambassador immediately after firing the FBI director should have troubled even his staunchest defenders.)

The difference today is that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have turned their backs on our country in favor of shabby party politics in which a brief tactical advantage is more important than the long-term strategic well-being of our nation.

Its fine to take strong positions and to rally to politicians who promise to pursue the legislation and policies we think best. But its fatal to place any single man or woman above the Constitution.

Democrats, for their part, need to stop brushing off the duplicity and criminality of Hillary Clinton. Shes gone and good riddance. But Republicans, with their penchant for parading their patriotism, damned well ought to be leading the effort to uncover the full extent of Russian involvement in our last election and Vladimir Putins influence today. To do otherwise is not only hypocritical, but complicit.

Presidents are not idols to be worshipped. We should praise them when they do well and criticize them when they err. To reflexively defend egregious behaviors and abuses of power because the transgressor is our guy is un-American: Refusing to think for ourselves and act with integrity ignores our essential right and duty as citizens.

The safest, wisest course that we, the People, can follow in these shabby times is to adhere to the oath taken by our military officerswho pledge loyalty not to an individual, office or party, but to the Constitution of the United States. If in toxic Washington today we cannot fulfill Lincolns vision of malice toward none, we still must demand justice for all. And that justice must be rigorous.

Even when it pursues those for whom we voted. Even when it calls to account those who embody our hopes and give voice to our dreams. Even when it applies to a president.
On Monday, hundreds of families, friends, colleagues, and loved ones from every corner of the country gathered at the U.S. Capitol for the 36th Annual National Peace Officers Memorial Day to honor the 394 officers who gave their lives in service to their communities. Their names will forever be etched in hearts and on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial along with the over 21,000 that came before them.

Passersby may not recognize these names, but they are the names of our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and friends. Some were ambushed and executed; some lost their lives responding to a call to save a life or someone who called for help. These are the men and women who gave their lives so we could, in many cases, keep ours.

During National Police Week, we must remind ourselves the safety of our families and neighborhoods must not be taken for granted. The 394 additions to the wall are painful affirmations that our security comes at a tremendous cost.

Tacoma Police Officer Jake Gutierrez from my home state of Washington is one of the many examples of this cost. He lost his life in the line of duty late last year while protecting a woman from domestic violence. Jake was supposed to exchange wedding vows with his fiancee just a few weeks later. Instead, she and his three daughters and granddaughter attended his funeral and tried to picture a life without him.

I have also felt this pain personally during my 33 years serving in the King County Sheriffs Office. In 1982, I lost my partner and best friend, Sergeant Sam Hicks, who was ambushed, shot and killed investigating a homicide. Just two years later, my friend, patrol partner, and Academy classmate, Mike Raburn, was stabbed to death while serving a civil warrant. These were good men whose deaths forever changed the lives of the many who loved and cared for them.

Despite the daily acts of selfless courage and commitment to community we see from our members of law enforcement, whether its de-escalating a domestic dispute or holding the hand of a dying man after a vehicle accident, this is not the image of law enforcement much of America has come to be familiar with.

Instead, our televisions and newsfeeds are dominated by stories that villainize those who do the most on our behalf and attempt to exploit the few bad apples working in law enforcement as representatives of the entire community.

When a law enforcement officer acts out of line they should  and must  be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. But it is also our responsibility and the responsibility of the media not to rush to judgement when we see cropped cell phone videos that often do not tell the full story.

The consequences of supporting or allowing this public distortion of law enforcement to continue are grave. We have already seen the repercussions with targeted attacks against law enforcement and recruiting difficulties in law enforcement agencies across the country.

Instead of continuing down this dangerous path, lets turn the table and ask ourselves what we can do on behalf of law enforcement. We must begin with recognizing their sacrifices and saying thank you. We must highlight the good deeds of the everyday officer rather than cherry picking the bad. And at a state and federal level we must do our part to make sure our law enforcement agencies have the tools and resources necessary to perform their critical mission of keeping us safe.

Republican Dave Reichert represents Washington States 8th district in the House of Representatives where he serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. He served 33 years in law enforcement.
Earlier this month, the House passed its ObamaCare Repeal bill, and there are those on both sides of the aisle not satisfied with the product.

Virtually every Republican ran on dismantling the abomination of ObamaCare and fixing our broken health care system. Does the House Health Bill do that? I dont think so, and Ill tell you why.

There were many areas of reform considered  repealing regulations, cutting taxes, and introducing free market reforms into the system. The bill so far falls short on two of the three (it cuts taxes). But most importantly it falls short on free market reforms to lower prices and provide better, less expensive health care to millions of Americans.

The people who wrote the bill dont really think theyve solved the problem, either. Strong evidence for that is the House bills creation of a massive federal program to pay insurance companies to continue coverage for those who develop a pre-existing condition, aka become seriously ill without insurance.

By creating this $140 billion federal entitlement to perpetually fund a high-risk pool, the House acknowledges that the brokenness of our health insurance system will continue, and they have offered no other solution than a federal bailout to insurance companies and states.

If Congress really wanted to fix our rotten insurance system, they would first have to understand the problem. I hope to be part of helping them do that as the bill moves to the Senate.

The House bill to create federal subsidies for insurance companies to cover patients with serious illness is not capitalism but rather a Band aid similar to the Band aids of ObamaCare. Federal subsidies given to insurance companies is crony capitalism at its worst and will inevitably lead to bigger and bigger taxpayer bailouts until government creeps into every nook and cranny of health care  and we awake to discover that the Republican plan doesnt look too different from Obamas plan.

If Congress really wanted to fix our rotten insurance system, they would first have to understand the problem. I hope to be part of helping them do that as the bill moves to the Senate.

Insurance, historically and logically, only works if you are buying insurance against some event that is unknown but whose occurrence can be predicted with some accuracy. It also works best if you are spreading the risk among a large pool of people. Both of these issues can be addressed in the Senate version of the bill.

A pool of people can buy insurance against death as long as they are not yet dead. But wouldnt life insurance go sky high if you developed a serious pre-existing condition? Absolutely, but the purchasers protect themselves by buying multi-year policies.

So, life insurance is often purchased for 20 years, and if you become sick during that 20 years and the risk of you dying increases, the insurance company bears that risk, not you. Thats how health insurance should work.

Could health insurance work that way? Yes, but only if we allow the consumer to be in charge again.

Health insurance is so regulated that competition, innovation, and change are stagnant. No new product is introduced. No market forces force change.

But the ability to band together in buying pools will allow consumers of health care to demand it. Thats the only way we will have change. I think it is quite clear the insurance companies will NEVER, out of the goodness of their hearts, offer such a product.

Insurance companies argue multi-year policies are difficult. They might have a point if the policy were to cover every hangnail and knee abrasion, but there is some definable point at which risk could be calculated. That requires all sorts of different policies to be offered, including returning to catastrophic policies where only grave illnesses and hospital visits are under insurance, and everyday health care is not, lowering the cost of both the policies and the health care.

Somewhere on the spectrum from no deductible upwards there is a spot at which risk could be measured and a multi-year insurance policy sold. The deductible that is both profitable and still economical to the consumer could be discovered through negotiation.

That negotiation will only occur if we empower the consumer by letting them join national buying groups. Imagine if the tens of millions of people who belong to Credit Unions, or organizations like the NRA or ACLU, could negotiate as a group for health insurance and drug prices! Imagine the insurance executives and drug companies coming on bended knee to negotiate for the business of tens of millions of people!

I have proposed legalizing nationwide Association Health Plans. My Senate Bill 222 does just that. I have advised the President to act through his Secretary of Labor to review existing law and make it explicitly known that national associations can negotiate as one to bring down insurance prices.

Even without legislation, I believe the President has the power to legalize much of what is needed for national health care co-ops or buying groups.

Capitalism, competition, and freedom do work! But only if government gets out of the way. If consumers have choices  and power  we can go a long way toward fixing our problems.
The Washington Post started a new anti-Trump firestorm late Monday when it reported that President Trump revealed highly classified information on terrorist threats from ISIS in Syria to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The Posts sources, current and former U.S. officials, portrayed this as a major scandal that put sensitive intelligence sources and methods at risk.

The Post claims it did not reveal all the details of the disclosures from its sources because U.S. officials said this would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

Yes, theres a scandal here. It concerns former and current U.S. officials leaking classified information to the press to undermine a U.S. president.

Did President Trump slip and accidently tell the Russians something classified? Other U.S. participants in the meeting denied this. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told the press Monday evening: I was in the room. It didnt happen.

But keep in mind U.S. officials unfamiliar with intelligence sometimes make such mistakes. For example, in 2014, the Obama White House accidently revealed the name of the CIA Station Chief in Afghanistan to the press. The Obama White House also reportedly revealed sensitive intelligence to the media concerning the Stuxnet virus to sabotage Irans nuclear program and details of the Usama bin Laden raid. Where was the outrage by the mainstream media and Congressional Democrats over these leaks?

Senator Dianne Feinstein accidently leaked classified sensitive information on drone strikes in 2009 during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Nothing happened to her.

And of course there is Senator Patrick Leahy who deliberately leaked classified information to hurt President Reagan in 1987. As a result, he was thrown off the Senate Intelligence Committee and earned the nickname Leaky Leahy.

Furthermore, under U.S. law, the President of the United States is our nations ultimate classification authority. He can declassify information as he sees fit to conduct his national security policy.

The real scandal here concerns the current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Post to generate this story. We dont know if these sources lied, misrepresented what went on in the Trump meeting with the Russians, or were second-guessing what Trump told them.

We do know that current U.S. officials -- possibly with the NSC and intelligence agencies -- originated this story and revealed highly classified intelligence to the Post as part of their leaks. They were joined by former U.S government officials who I assume worked for the CIA and the Obama NSC. These people committed felonies. They must be identified and prosecuted.

The leaks also are another indication of the serious problem the Trump administration continues to face with leakers. Major house cleanings at the NSC, CIA, ODNI and the State Department to address this serious security threat are long overdue. It is urgent that the Trump administration bring in new blood to replace hundreds of Obama loyalists placed in key positions throughout the government by the last administration.

Just as serious is how partisan cowards entrusted with national security information are anonymously leaking U.S. intelligence to ruin an American president and our democratic system. Its about time the mainstream media and congressional Democrats start focusing on the dangers of such leaks to our security and system of government instead of just using them to advance their political agenda against President Trump.
Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in The Hill newspaper and on TheHill.com.

When will Republicans drop the partisan games and apologize to Hillary Clinton?

If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president, Clinton declared at a forum in New York City earlier this month.

Those words led Republicans to mock Clinton for refusing to accept responsibility for running a bad campaign that ended in defeat.

But Clinton then got backing  of a kind  from the man who beat her, President Trump.

The president fired FBI director James Comey last week, ostensibly for violating policy when, despite clearing Clinton of any crime, he still went on national television last summer to condemn her as a careless public official.

At that July 2016 press conference, Comey defamed Clinton to the point that Republicans criticized him for not recommending that she be charged with a crime.

Comeys impact on the campaign grew larger when, just 11 days before the November election, he sent a letter to Congress announcing that the FBI was reopening the investigation into Clintons use of a private email address and server.

Nothing came of the last-minute investigation, just as no charges resulted from the first investigation. But with Trump campaign surrogates, including retired Gen. Michael Flynn, shouting lock her up, Republicans and a supplicant press made a big issue out of the controversy.

How times change.

Last week Trump agreed with a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein which flatly stated that it is not possible to defend the directors handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clintons e-mails.

That memo was released a week after Comey gave testimony to Congress in which he wrongly claimed hundreds and thousands of emails, had been forwarded by Clinton aide Huma Abedin to her husbands non-secure computer.

In fact, most of the Clinton emails found on the non-government computer occurred as a result of a backup of personal electronic devices, according to the FBI. And only two email chains of classified information had been mistakenly sent to the private computer.

Trump found it convenient to use Comeys errors to get rid of the leader of the agency investigating charges that his campaign had treasonous ties to Russia.

But whatever the reason, Trump stood with Clinton  at least for a while. In an interview broadcast Saturday with my Fox News Channel colleague Jeanine Pirro, Trump reverted to his earlier insistence that Comey gave Clinton "a free pass like nobody's ever, ever gotten a free pass."

Clinton, meanwhile, is refuting Republican claims that Russian interference did not swing votes to Trump.

I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comeys letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off  and the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling and persuasive, Clinton explained at the New York forum.

She specifically pointed to data coming from pollster Nate Silver. On his website FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver later noted that Comeys letter does not excuse every bad decision made by the Clinton campaign.

But Silver concluded: Hillary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28.

Silvers breakdown shows that Comeys letter hurt Clintons chances of victory in swing states key to winning the Electoral College  such as Wisconsin and Michigan. Clinton lost in each of those states by less than one percentage point.

And keep in mind while Comey was maligning Clinton, he never mentioned the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaign.

But Republicans still refuse to accept the reality that Russia, a hostile foreign power, played a major role in electing Trump.

Comeys sudden dismissal is now part of a fire that threatens to burn down the GOPs House majority next year.

The firing came one day after Sally Yates, the former acting Attorney General, told the Senate she warned the White House Counsel about former National Security Adviser Flynns ties to Russia weeks before he was fired. Yates, too, was fired by Trump.

How quickly will Capitol Hill Republicans abandon their Republican president in order to save themselves before they are fired by voters?

The flight is beginning.

"I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey's termination," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr(R-N.C.).

Comeys removal at this particular time will raise questions," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, (R-Ariz.), who had previously called for an independent special prosecutor, expressed regret at Comeys firing.

All this comes at a time when a full 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Trumps job performance, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

But it makes no sense to run slowly from an inferno. This conflagration is threatening to burn every Republican on the ballot in 2018.

The President's firing of Director Comey is a smoke signal. And where there's smoke, there's fire. And this is a bonfire, tweeted Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.).

How far will the fire have to spread before Republicans decide it is every GOP candidate for himself or herself  whatever the consequences for Trump?
White House officials aggressively pushed back Monday against a Washington Post report that President Trump revealed classified information about ISIS to Russia's foreign minister and Moscow's ambassador to the United States during a White House meeting last week.

In a brief statement in front of the White House, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster described the Post's story as "false."

The newspaper cited current and former U.S. officials who said Trump jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on ISIS in his conversations with the Russian officials, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation," McMaster said. "At no time, at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

McMaster's statement echoed earlier denials issued by two other administration officials who attended the meeting, though none of them denied that classified information was disclosed.



"This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy.



In addition, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump and Lavrov "did not discuss sources, methods or military operations."

McMaster said the statements by Powell and Tillerson "should outweigh [the accounts] of anonymous sources [in the Post report].

"I was in the room," McMaster concluded. "It didn't happen."

The officials told the Post that Trump offered details about an ISIS terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The newspaper says the information was very sensitive and had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

The Post claimed the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, the paper said, Trump jeopardized cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of ISIS.



Afterward, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper reported.



If the Post report is true, it's unlikely that Trump has broken any law. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Monday evening that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."



He said he would have more to say when he knows more about the news report.



"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline -- it's creating an environment that I think makes -- it creates a worrisome environment."

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."



Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, "We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that."



Democrats quickly jumped on the report, with the Democratic National Committee issuing a statement saying, "Russia no longer has to spy on us to get information  they just ask President Trump and he spills the beans with highly classified information that jeopardizes our national security and hurts our relationships with allies.

"If Trump werent president, his dangerous disclosure to Russia could end with him in handcuffs," the DNC statement continued.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that if the Post report was true, "it is very disturbing ... The President owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, called the story "deeply disturbing" and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardize sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies.



"That the Russians would be the potential recipients of this intelligence and may be able to determine its source is all the more problematic, since the Russian interest in Syria and elsewhere is, in many respects, deeply antithetical to our own," Schiff said. He added that he wants the House intelligence committee fully briefed on what, if anything, was shared with the Russian officials.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee, tweeted that if the Post's report was true, Trump's disclosure represented a "slap in the face to the intel community."

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- who had just had a root canal -- read reporters a statement he scrawled out in the dentist's chair after learning about the story.



"These reports, if true, are of the gravest possible concern. It could harm our national security by cutting off important sources of intelligence that protect Americans against terrorist acts," Wyden said.

Fox News' John Roberts and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
That didn't take long.

A small group of President Trump's most outspoken critics has seized on the James Comey controversy to make a  very  early push for impeachment.

The latest call came from Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who released a statement suggesting Comeys ouster from atop the FBI was an obstruction of the investigation of the presidents campaign ties to Russian influence in his 2016 presidential election. He said Trump has committed acts that amount to intimidation and obstruction.

Our mantra should be I.T.NImpeach Trump Now, Green wrote in an email, which included a line in red pushing those who received the email to forward this email to others who may be interested.

The White House has defended the decision to fire Comey. The president's team last week cited a DOJ memo castigating his handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe, though Trump himself has since said he would have fired Comey regardless of any recommendation.

Most Democrats are fighting back by calling for a special prosecutor to probe Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, worried Comey's firing was meant to blunt that investigation.

But a handful of Democrats want to go the distance, and are openly using the "I" word.

Green joined other Democratic lawmakers like Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who has been discussing impeachment for months. Waters took to Twitter in April saying that she would fight every day until hes impeached.

She later denied calling for impeachment, but on Thursday renewed her push during an interview with MSNBCs Chris Hayes.

Ive said all along that he will lead us to impeachment, and hes doing just that, Waters said on MSNBC. Were fiddling while Rome is burning. This president needs to be impeached.

Waters has received her fair share of impeachment backlash from Trump supporters. Most recently, Waters was greeted by pro-Trump protesters before a town hall on Saturday, with some holding signs calling for her impeachment.

Others Democratic lawmakers who have brought up the topic of impeachment include Reps. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., who told a local news station last week that Democrats were actually pretty close to considering impeachment, and Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who said on local radio that if there was an impeachment clock, Comeys ouster would have moved it an hour closer.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., also joined the discussion, tweeting last week that Impeachment will happen if a handful of Republicans in Congress join Dems to put country above party. Or in 2019 after Dems win the House.

But one former Democratic lawmaker told Fox News that even suggesting impeachment is "dangerous" for the American people.

Dennis Kucinich, former Ohio congressman and a Fox News contributor, told Fox News on Tuesday that there was a danger in engaging in compulsive opposition.

Kucinich, who called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over the decision to go to war in Iraq, told Fox News that this is only an option after exhausting a number of other options.

It is destructive to America to proceed with an impeachment at this stage of the presidency, Kucinich said. This is not the first thing you reach for, because when the first big move a party makes is towards impeachment, its very difficult for the American people to conclude that it is anything but a partisan issue.

In order to impeach the president of the United States, the House of Representatives must have the support of the majority of members. At this point, no Republicans have voiced support, or even made the suggestion to begin the impeachment process.

While Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, has said she is doing her homework on the issue, she also took a shot at the vice president suggesting he wouldnt be much better.

I will just say I understand the calls for impeachment, but what I am being cautious about and what I give you food for thought about is that if President Trump is impeached, the problems dont go away, because then you have a Vice President Pence who becomes President Pence, Gabbard said at a town hall last month.

Kucinich told Fox News that while he is aware of the extreme opposition to President Trumps policies, Democrats should focus on their ability to impact policy, which could be attractive to Americans in 2018.

Its far better to offer alternatives to the policies of this president," Kucinich said. "Otherwise, this is a grim partisan effort which inevitably will go nowhere.

In the wake of a New York Times report on Tuesday evening suggesting that Mr. Trump asked Comey to end the probe into former National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, former Republican Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., jumped on the bandwaggon suggesting the Trump family may not be in Washington for long.

Jolly tweeted: "Hope that private school tuition in Maryland this Fall for the POTUS family is refundable."
On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.
Israel demanded an explanation from the White House Monday after a U.S. official reportedly questioned the countrys claim to the Western Wall in Jerusalems Old City.

One U.S. official reportedly told the Israelis the site is not your territory. The report said the comment prompted shouting from the Israeli delegation helping with preparations for Trumps visit.

"The statement that the Western Wall is in an area in the West Bank was received with shock," an Israel official said, according to Reuters.

The Western Wall is revered as the holiest site where Jews can pray. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked to join President Trump at the site during Trumps visit to Israel, but U.S. officials preparing the presidents trip rebuffed the request, according to Channel 2 TV in Israel.

Israel captured the Old City, along with the rest of east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. It considers the entire city to be its eternal capital and next week is set to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of what it calls the unification of Jerusalem. However, the international community does not recognize Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek as the capital of a future independent state.

Israeli officials appear to be growing increasingly nervous over Trump's visit, when he is expected to make an attempt at re-launching long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

On the campaign trail, Trump voiced solidly pro-Israel positions. His campaign platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state. He showed little concern about Israeli settlement construction on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians, expressed support for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kellyanne Conway told me on Sunday that much of what she calls the presumptively negative coverage of President Trump can be tied to the quest to go viral.

After days of what the presidents counselor called the myopically obsessive coverage of the James Comey firing, Conway said other important storieslike the administration getting China to accept U.S. beef importswere largely being ignored.

I often agree that journalists want to create "moments" and that issue stories get short shrift from the media. But in this particular case, Trump bears some responsibility for causing the distractionsnot just by canning Comey, but by floating the idea of canceling the press briefings and the notion that he might have secret tapes.

Now that the Comey drama has seemingly peaked, much of the media have moved on to the fallout. That is, they are portraying the Comey firing as such an earthquake that were still feeling the aftershocks.

The Washington Post, for instance, leads the paper with the notion that this turmoil warms Vladimir Putins heart:

While U.S. sanctions havent been lifted, the Kremlin has collected a different return on its effort to help elect Trump in last years election: chaos in Washington.

The presidents decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey last week was the latest destabilizing jolt to a core institution of the U.S. government. The nations top law enforcement agency joined a list of entities that Trump has targeted, including federal judges, U.S. spy services, news organizations and military alliances.

Destabilizing joltthats a pretty strong phrase for a news story.

The story approvingly quotes James Clapper, the former national intelligence chief, as telling CNN that in many ways, our institutions are under assault, both externally  and that's the big news here, is the Russian interference in our election system  and I think as well our institutions are under assault internally. He confirmed that he was referring to Trump.

But Im a bit puzzled. If the Russians, through their hacking, pushed Trump over Hillary Clinton during the campaign, wouldnt they want a stronger president who could deliver on easing sanctions and cooperating with Moscow? It never hurts to have your adversary in chaos, but then he cant do much for you.

The New York Times spotlights a different kind of disunityon the Hill:

Senate Republicans, increasingly unnerved by President Trumps volatility and unpopularity, are starting to show signs of breaking away from him as they try to forge a more traditional Republican agenda and protect their political fortunes.

Several Republicans were dismayed by Trumps handling of the Comey matter and are pursuing their own agenda on such issues as health care, drug funding and NAFTA, the story says.



The agenda part isnt surprising, since Trump essentially pulled off a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. But its true that as long as his approval numbers remain low, hell have less clout with lawmakers.

Speaking of polls, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC survey finds just 29 percent of those questioning approving of the Comey firing, and 38 percent disapproving. But what I find telling is that a third had no opinion.

Some 78 percent said they would prefer an independent prosecutor or commission to probe possible ties between Trump associates and Russia.

Chris Cillizza, now with CNN, blames the president: Trump himself has done little to assuage concerns returning members might have about the ability of Congress to conduct a fair look into Russia and the 2016 election. The shocking firing of Comey is one thing. The inability of the White House to settle on a single explanation for why Comey was fired rapidly turned into a debacle aided and abetted by the president.

But overall, Trumps approval rating38 percent in NBC/WSJis virtually unchanged from the last poll.

That suggests to me that lots of ordinary folks just dont care all that much about the Comey firestorm.

As a journalist living in Washington, I think its an important story. But especially if the president picks a respected and non-partisan person to lead the FBI, the country will move on, and Trump will blame the press for refusing to do the same.
The White House grappled late Tuesday with the political ghost of James Comey, as an explosive new report said a memo written by the ousted FBI chief claimed President Trump once asked him to end the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The White House sharply disputed the report, as Democrats seized on it as potential proof of "obstruction" of justice.



According to The New York Times the memo quoted Trump as saying he hoped Comey could "let this go" with regard to Flynn.

The Times said Comey wrote the memo shortly after an Oval Office meeting on Feb. 14, the day after Flynn resigned from the Trump administration. The paper acknowledged it had not seen a copy of the memo, but said a Comey associate read parts of it to a reporter over the phone.

The memo was presented as the clearest evidence yet that Trump tried to influence the Justice Department and FBI probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and alleged links to Trumps associates.

But the White House rejected the characterization that the president tried to shut down an investigation.

[T]he President has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn, an official said. The President has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the President and Mr. Comey.

Trump reportedly told Comey, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.  He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

According to the Times, Comey wrote in the memo that Trump told him Flynn had done nothing wrong. But Comey did not say anything to Trump about limiting the investigation, replying, "I agree he is a good guy."

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe also testified last week on Capitol Hill that there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date." The FBI had no official comment on the Times report Tuesday.

The Justice Department also declined to comment on the New York Times report, on the existence of the Comey memo, or whether there was any such conversation between Trump and Comey.

A law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News that Comey documented a meeting with Trump that made him uneasy. The source added that the former FBI director is a copious note-taker, dating back to his days as a federal prosecutor.

Last week, the Senate intelligence committee subpoenaed Flynn for documents related to its investigation into Russia's actions during the 2016 election campaign.

Other congressional committees and the Pentagon's inspector general are also separately examining whether Flynn was fully forthcoming about his foreign contacts and earnings from organizations linked to the governments of Russia and Turkey.

Trumps inner circle has been dogged by critical reports about his discussions behind closed doors. His team is still grappling with a Washington Post report that he shared classified details on an ISIS threat with visiting Russian officials  the White House has defended Trumps discussions as wholly appropriate.

But more broadly, Trump has faced growing accusations from Democrats that he fired Comey last week out of frustration with the Russia investigation.

Enough is enough, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, told reporters moments after the Times report was published. Congress really needs to get to the bottom of this.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said on the Senate floor that he was shaken by the report.

On a day when we thought things couldnt get any worse, they have, Schumer said. Concerns about our national security, the rule of law, and the independence of our nations highest law enforcement agencies are mounting  the country is being tested in unprecedented ways.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a statement that Trump's request "appears to cross the line into ... obstruction of justice" and called for the appointment of a special prosecutor.

House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, requested that the FBI turn over all documents and recordings that detail communications between Comey and Trump by May 24.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., had no immediate comment, but his spokeswoman AshLee Strong said, "We need to have all the facts, and it is appropriate for the House Oversight Committee to request this memo."

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News he had not read the Times report, but said, "In todays Washington, I find there are a lot of allegations and small truths."

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, told reporters the Times was obligated to produce the memo.

"I could write something and I could read it over the phone and tell them that it came from [Comey]," he said. "If they're reporting it and they've got somebody that's got the document, they need to get the document and get it released."

Burr added that that he and ranking member Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., had met with Comey the day before he was fired last week.

"The director of the FBI shared more information with Sen. Warner and myself than any director has ever shared," Burr said. "I think something as material as that probably would have been something he would have shared, had it happened."

Fox News' Chad Pergram and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.
President Trump on Tuesday defended conversations he had with Russian officials following a report that he discussed classified information in those talks, saying he shared "facts" about terrorism and had "the absolute right to do" so.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all strongly pushed back Monday evening following The Washington Post report that Trump disclosed to Russian officials the foreign city where an ISIS plot was hatched  a development that could potentially lead the Russians to discover U.S. intelligence sources and methods. But Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted his first response to the firestorm.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism, Trump wrote in a pair of tweets.

The Washington Post report relied on anonymous current and former U.S. officials in its account of the small May 10 Oval Office meeting Trump had with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

A Russian government spokesperson on Tuesday morning also denied any classified information was discussed in the meeting, describing the reports as "yet another fake."

The report alleging details of the meeting shows the Trump administration is still suffering from the leak problem that's plagued it since Day 1. Trump has pressed officials to go after those who are leaking, and there have been some government inquiries into the matter; however, to this point no one has publicly been named as the source of any leaks and there's no reports that anyone has been fired or prosecuted for the leaks.

The leak to The Washington Post that claimed Trump gave up secrets vital to the U.S. intelligence community also comes in the wake of Trump firing FBI Director James Comey on May 9.

"I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....," Trump wrote in a later tweet.

Trump, in his tweets, never said he shared sensitive or classified information and never said he disclosed sources, methods or even locations. The president's defense lines up with the Monday statements of McMaster and Powell, both of whom were at the meeting with Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," McMaster said. "At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

He added: "I was in the room. It didn't happen."

Powell said Trump discussed "common threats" faced by Russia and the U.S.

"This story is false," she said in a statement.

But Trump's supposed disclosure as reported by The Washington Post drew strong condemnation from Democrats and even cautious alarm from some top Republicans, marking an -- at-best -- embarrassing political moment as Trump prepares to visit the Middle East on his first presidential trip abroad.
President Trump pressed for the return of a jailed American pastor Tuesday during his first face-to-face meeting with Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the White House.

The White House said Trump "raised the incarceration of Pastor Andrew Brunson and asked that the Turkish Government expeditiously return him to the United States."

A source briefed on the discussions told Fox News both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence separately pressed Erdogan for the pastor's release.

Brunson has been behind bars in Turkey since October on what he claims are false charges. Brunsons family and supporters have asked the Trump administration  and the president specifically  to take up the cause and fight for his release.

Christian leader Dr. James Dobson said in a statement he commended Trump and Pence for "using their power for good."

President Trump and Vice President Pence have yet again demonstrated that they are defenders of the church focused intently upon religious liberty here but also on religious liberty abroad," he said. "Of the countless issues facing our world, its clear that to this White House the well-being of any individual American rests at the top of the list of priorities and especially when that American is a prisoner of conscience."

On Monday, the American Center for Law and Justice, which is advocating for the family, said it had submitted a formal written statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Brunson's case.

In a written statement in late March, Brunson also said the State Department should impose sanctions on Turkey.

Will the Turkish government face no consequence for stubbornly continuing to hold an American citizen as a political prisoner? he said.  I appeal to President Trump: please help me. Let the Turkish government know that you will not cooperate with them in any way until they release me. Please do not leave me here in prison.

US PASTOR HELD IN TURKEY ASKS TRUMP FOR HELP

Since then the charges against Brunson have grown to accusations of terrorism though there is little  if any  evidence to support those claims.

While Brunsons case has made headlines because hes a U.S. citizen, the circumstances of his detention are common in Turkey. According to TheSlate.com, nearly 50,000 people have been arrested since an attempted July coup.

Besides asking for the pastor's release, Trump told Turkey's controversial leader it was a great honor to welcome him to the White House. Trump offered compassion and support for the horrible terrorist attacks against the Turkish people and vowed that the relationship we have with Turkey is going to be unbeatable.

Erdogan returned the praise and congratulated Trump twice on his November White House win and said his victory has led to the awakening of a new set of aspirations and expectations in our region.

But despite the polite words, the meeting was not without tensions. The Turkish government has been riled by a Trump administration decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters in the fight against Islamic State terrorists, part of an operation to retake their capital of Raqqa.

Tuesdays meeting between the two heads of state also comes as the White House scrambles to respond to a report that Trump shared classified information with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat.

The White House has defended Trump's discussions as "wholly appropriate."

The U.S. is relying on regional allies like Turkey for intelligence-sharing and military assistance as it crafts a Syria policy, particularly as Iran and Russia work to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

Trump launched cruise missiles last month at a Syrian air base after accusing Assad of using chemical weapons. But the president hasn't outlined a strategy to quell the six-year civil war or usher Assad out of power, which his administration says will be needed to stabilize the Arab country.

Tension was expected already for the Erdogan talks, after the U.S. announced last week that it would arm Kurdish Syrian militants to help them fight ISIS. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the militants and doesn't want them spearheading an operation to retake ISIS' self-declared capital of Raqqa.

Turkey believes the Kurds in Syria are linked to a Turkish Kurdish group, known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization. The U.S. sees the Syrian Kurds as their best battlefield partner on the ground in northern Syria.

Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about six miles away. Erdogan's government also has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again.

Trump has gone out of his way to foster a good relationship with Erdogan. After a national referendum last month that strengthened Erdogan's presidential powers, European leaders and rights advocates criticized Turkey for moving closer toward autocratic rule. Trump congratulated Erdogan.

Fox News Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Tuesday adamantly defended President Trumps conversations with Russian officials as wholly appropriate, pushing back for a second day on a news report claiming the president revealed highly classified information on an Islamic State terror threat during that meeting.

During a tense White House briefing, McMaster also ripped the leaks fueling such media reports  and said the president was not even aware of the source of the information he apparently shared with the Russians.

He wasnt briefed on the source and method of the information, McMaster said.

McMasters central contention was that the details discussed in that meeting concerned ongoing operations that were public for months and information available in open source reporting.

The president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation, McMaster said.

The same official publicly had refuted The Washington Post report on Monday evening, describing the claims as false.

The president himself has since acknowledged he shared facts about the terror threat with Russia, while saying he was in his right to do so.

Trump spoke briefly about the controversy Tuesday in between meetings with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He said he had a very, very successful meeting with the Russian foreign minister earlier this month, and the U.S. wants to get as much help as possible in the fight against terrorism.

We're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years, Trump said.

McMaster on Tuesday continued to dispute the premise of the Post story. While acknowledging Trump shared information with the Russians, he maintained the discussion was appropriate.

I stand by my statement that I made yesterday  the premise of that article is false, he said.  That conversation was wholly appropriate.

The White House has not explicitly denied classified information was shared, but has  along with the Kremlin  denied the framing of the original report. McMaster denied that the conversation was inappropriate or that it resulted in any lapse in security.

Rather, he said the leaks are what put security at risk.

The national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality, McMaster said.

The New York Times reported Tuesday afternoon that the intelligence in question was actually provided by Israel.

Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States, said in a statement responding to the report: "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump."

The Washington Post report has only fueled tensions on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and some Republicans are fuming over Trumps decision last week to fire FBI Director James Comey. Some Democrats suggest he did so to blunt the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race and alleged ties to the Trump campaign, and the revelation of sensitive information being shared with Moscow only stoked that political fire.

Trump reportedly shared information about an ISIS threat involving the use of laptops on planes. The Post report quoted unnamed officials saying he revealed the city where an intelligence partner detected the threat.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers raised concerns about the implications of such information being disclosed, especially to the Russians.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo plans to brief House Intelligence Committee members late Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday downplayed the developments, but also told Bloomberg Business TV we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so lawmakers can focus on a policy agenda.
British chip design firm ARM Holdings said it is coordinating with U.S. researchers to help develop computer chips that can be implanted in a person's brain, aiding with brain and spinal injuries.

Designed to sit inside the skull, the chip will aid in allowing people to carry out tasks, as well as receiving sensory feedback. The project is expected to last 10 years and is being done in conjunction with researchers at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE), at the University of Washington.

ARM's director of healthcare technologies, Peter Ferguson, told the BBC that there were some prototype devices already, but that there needs to be something that can be low power and "ultra small."

GOOGLE IS GOING TO BRING ITS ASSISTANT TO THE IHPONE, REPORTS SAY

The chip would transmit signals from a person's brain to a stimulator in their spinal cord, thus allowing control of movement. By doing so, information could be sent back and forth to the brain, such as how a person is holding an object or the temperature of the object.

The findings could be useful for stroke victims, who often have brain impairments or those with spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

ARM was acquired by Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank in 2016 for $32 billion.


Cyber security researchers said Monday they may be able to link North Korea to the unprecedented global cyberattack that took more than 300,000 computers hostage in 150 countries last week.

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said that some of the code used in the version of the WannaCry software had also been used in programs run by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group.

"This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kurt Baumgartner, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab, told Reuters.

The researchers said it was too early to confirm that Pyongyang was behind the cyberattacks. The researchers said they would have to study the code more.

The idea that North Korea could be behind the attack is not a reach. Both U.S. and European officials told the news agency that North Korea should not be ruled out as a suspect.

Hackers for the Lazarus Group were blamed for the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. The 2014 Sony hack was also pinned on the hacker collective.

Fridays attack is believed to be the biggest online extortion attack ever recorded, spreading chaos by locking computers that run Britains hospital network, Germanys national railway and scores of other companies, factories and government agencies worldwide.

Homeland Security officials told Fox News on Monday that a limited number of U.S. companies were hit by the WannaCry malicious software. CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team) worked with the affected companies to get a patch to parties affected by the ransomware infection.

The officials would not name the companies involved, but stressed that the money paid out worldwide so far since the attacks surfaced on Friday is a relatively small number. Reports suggest the total ransom paid out is less than $50,000.

Steven Wilson, Head of Europols European Cybercrime Center, told Sky News on Sunday that it was now important that IT departments checked their systems on Monday morning to ensure they had not been compromised.

He added: Its not a massively sophisticated attack. What is new is the use of a worm to propagate through systems.

It is beyond anything we have seen before.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ryan Gaydos is a news editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @RyanGaydos.
Iron Man-like exoskeletons. Helicopters. ATVs. Drones and body armor. These are just a few of the cutting-edge innovations showcased this week for the most elite military forces in the world.

The annual four-day Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) kicked off earlier this week, packed with options to give fighting forces technological advantages they can use against their enemies.

Defense officials from the U.S. and its allies will be exploring the conference, scouring for the best advanced technology. Groups like the Army Delta Force, Green Berets and Rangers as well as Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders and Air Force PJs all will use some of this technology.

An annual collaboration between the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the National Defense Industry Association, SOFIC is expected to have more than 400 companies from all around the world.

Held at the Tampa Convention Center, there are nearly 1,000 booths bursting with defense innovation to be explored. Titans like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Polaris and several others are out in full force vying to provide solutions for special operations.

This year, the Innovation Showcase is giving 30 entrepreneurs and start-up companies an opportunity to introduce their innovations to SOFIC customers.

What's new this year

There will be a few new elements this year, including the recently held hackathon, organized by SOFWERX.

SOFWERX is a place where SOCOM can bring tough challenges special operations teams are facing, with companies gauging how to best aid them. It is a fantastic way for SOCOM to benefit from fresh, new ideas and perspectives and do business with new companies.

The hackathon had teams compete in realistic challenges pertaining to factors like location, exoskeleton armor and social media analysis.

The top prize was $5,000 and the winners will be announced during the conference.

What can you window-shop at SOFIC?

More than 11,000 people are expected to participate in the conference, including law enforcement, federal and local government representatives as well as officials from SOCOM.

The SOFIC exhibit floor is heaving with incredible and futuristic technology -- products for all different types of terrains and purposes.

Ground vehicles include armored vehicles, motorcycles, military-grade ATVs and cars that look like regular vehicles but are actually discreetly heavily armored and more.

The gun industry is also out in full force with a full array of rifles, pistols, carbines, optics, ammo night-vision and more to choose from.

Beretta, Glock and Remington are just some of the many munitions makers showcasing their solutions alongside powerhouses like Nightforce, Leupold and Surefire.

In addition, there is also state of the art body armor, apparel, helmets and boots.

Robotics are again featured heavily this year, including smart robots to defuse bombs and micro flying surveillance drones peppered throughout the floor.

Chemical, biological and radiological threats have been in headlines recently and companies have brought many solutions to tackle these challenges from detection devices through to protective clothing.

Solutions for water are also well represented this year. There are submersibles, fast boats like the legendary Zodiacs, underwater drones that can conduct missions on their own  just to name a few.

Schedule of events

In addition to the exhibition, there are many high-level briefings about issues like operations, requirements, and the latest technology projects throughout SOFIC.

Some of the big highlights of the week are the appearances of USSOCOM Commander Gen. Raymond Thomas III, USA and SOCOM Acquisition Executive James Geurts, who provided highly motivating keynotes.

SOCOM Directors from J2 through J8 will also be delivering briefings on Wednesday. They will be covering a wide range of events, including Intelligence, Operations and Logistics. It is a great opportunity for companies to benefit from their insight.

In the context of SOF missions, they will share their thoughts on acquisition, requirements, operations, tech, and sustainment issues that could be opportunities for companies to provide solutions. Briefings like these give companies greater clarity on what the SOCOM commanders are on the hunt for.

Charity is Big

Supporting veterans, wounded operators, families who have lost someone and military heritage is always a key undercurrent to SOFIC. Alongside all this advanced weaponry, vehicles and tech, there is even a charity row representing very worthy causes like: Task Force Dagger Foundation, The OSS Society, Inc. Navy Seal Foundation Red Circle Foundation and Army Ranger Lead the Way Fund.

Networking and doing business carries on into the night. The evenings are filled with opportunities to party for a cause with fundraisers for worthy causes related to Special Operations. On Wednesday evening, there will be the first Operation SOFtalk held at the Ritz Ybor.
Note to parents: Keep a close watch on your belongings at the Happiest Place on Earth.

A Florida mother has been accused of using her daughter to help steal a stroller at Walt Disney World in Orlandoand selling the high-end baby accessory online.

On April 15, Lauren Collazo reported that her $1,800 Bugaboo stroller, which she had left outside a Hollywood Studios attraction, was stolen while she was on a ride, reports WFTS.

DISNEY CRUISE LINE MAKES HISTORIC TRIP

Disney World surveillance video showed a woman, later revealed to be Michelle Craig of Spring Hill, Fla., using Collazos stroller with a child inside.

According to WFTS, Collazo had also stored several essential items in the stroller's bottom compartment including wallets, her nieces EpiPen, and her car keysstranding the family at the park. Collazo was forced to call her husband, who had to fly in from Miami to help the family.

It was the fact that she took it away from me the day that I needed it the most and ruined everybody's day at Disney, Collazo told WFTS.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Detectives in Orange County issued an arrest warrant for Craig and, nearly three weeks after the incident, Craig turned herself in to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office Wednesday. Police discovered that the child Craig was seen pushing in the stroller was, in fact, her own daughter.

Though the investigation is ongoing, authorities say they have since found multiple posts advertising different high-end strollers, diaper bags and designer purses for sale on Craigs Facebook page, reports SaintPetersBlog.

Due to the value of the items, Craig now faces a charge of grand theft, an offense punishable with jail time, probation and/or additional fines.
At Japans Hirakata Park in Osaka, a new service lets visitors hire a fake fighter who will pretend to punch them in order to impress their date.

Upon request, hired actors will attack you and others in your party but ensure that you come out winning the fight.

We think it's more romantic to be a lover rather than a fighter, but the theme park put out a video of what the experience is like if you want to play the hero for that special guy or gal of your dreams.

The park also offers other elaborate scenarios in which guests can show their heroic skills: They can defuse a fake bomb, or pretend to donate blood in an emergency situation.

Guests who want to participate need to attend a class to get the low down on where to be when the actors approach, though the park asks that they keep it a surprise from their dates.
It may seem like a harmless souvenir, tucking a lava rock from the Big Island into your pocket. But many tourists apparently believe that Hawaiian memento comes with weighty baggage: a curse warning that Pele, the volcano goddess, will have her revenge.

The Wall Street Journal reports that hundreds of visitors mail back their pilfered keepsakes each year after learning of the legend. Some even hand-deliver the mineral chunks back to the slopes of the Kilauea volcano.

The deluge of returned rocks is driving National Park Service workers "insane," Motherboard reported in December. "There is NO 'Curse of the Rocks,'" one rep wrote to colleagues.

Another called the widespread myth "deeply offensive" to native inhabitants. The legend's origins are unclear, but the best guess is that it has nothing do with the local religion and more to do with park rangers fabricating the story decades ago in a bid to halt the thefts. (It is, in fact, illegal, to take artifacts from national parks.)

Since then, thousands of hunks of red and black rock of all sizes have come flooding back from all corners of the globe, and are now sitting in a pile in Volcanoes National Park.

One "not typically superstitious" 52-year-old says he ferried his black rock back 10 years after he took it, after his marriage collapsed and his mother died.

After the return, he says his luck began to turn around. "I feel kind of silly," he says, "but seeing is believing."

A similar legend surrounds Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, and visitors have been returning contraband for decades.

(In related news, this "cursed" gem could be priceless, or not.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Tourists Returning 'Cursed' Lava Rocks to Hawaii Volcano
The top 10 finalists have been named at the Miss USA contest in Las Vegas.

Contestants from Minnesota, New Jersey, Missouri, Tennessee, California, District of Columbia, South Carolina, New York, Illinois and Alaska will continue on in the beauty pageant.

The winner of Sunday's 2017 Miss USA competition held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip will go on to compete in the Miss Universe contest.

The two-hour show featured 51 contestants representing each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Fox network is carrying the broadcast that started at 8 p.m. EDT.

The beauty pageant this year includes five women who immigrated to the U.S. at a young age and now as citizens hope to represent the nation on a global stage. The women from Florida, North Dakota, Hawaii, Connecticut and New Jersey told The Associated Press this week they have faced challenges and opportunities as immigrants.

"As Miss USA, I would love to be able to be that inspiration for our immigrant community," Linnette De Los Santos, who emigrated with her family from the Dominican Republic when she was 5, told The Associated Press days ahead of the competition. "If I would have stopped following my dreams and working hard towards what I wanted, I wouldn't be sitting here as Miss Florida USA or in law school ready to become an immigration attorney."

The contestants' remarks stand in stark contrast to the scandal that enveloped the pageant in 2015, when then-part owner and now U.S. President Donald Trump offended Hispanics when he made anti-immigrant remarks in announcing his bid for the White House.

Trump co-owned The Miss Universe Organization with NBCUniversal, but the network and the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision quickly cut ties with him, refusing to air the show. Trump sued both networks, eventually settling and selling the pageant to talent management company WME/IMG.

The show kicked off with a performance from a Cirque du Soleil show  a Las Vegas staple  based on Michael Jackson songs. The contestants took the stage as Jackson's "Black or White" played and acrobats performed.

The broadcast also aired a Mother's Day clip with messages from the contestants to their moms.

The show is being hosted by Julianne Hough, Ashley Graham and Terrence J. Grammy winner Pitbull and CMA Award winner Brett Eldredge will perform.

Last year, District of Columbia resident Deshauna Barber became the first-ever military member to win Miss USA.
Brad Pitt says there needs to be a rethinking of what winning the war in Afghanistan means and sending more American troops there will only cause more damage.

The Oscar-nominated actor also tells The Associated Press that the public should reassess how it supports soldiers and needs to do more than just give money to causes and give veterans a pat on the back.

Pitt's comments came in an interview last week in which the actor discussed his life, and his upcoming Netflix film "War Machine ." The film takes a satirical look at the war in Afghanistan through a fictionalized version of former Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was removed from command after an infamous 2010 profile in Rolling Stone magazine.

President Donald Trump is considering sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, although top advisers stress no decision has been made.

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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Federal judges on Monday peppered a lawyer for President Donald Trump with questions about whether the administration's travel ban discriminates against Muslims and zeroed in on the president's campaign statements, the second time in a week the rhetoric has faced judicial scrutiny.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, who is defending the travel ban, told a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that "over time, the president clarified that what he was talking about was Islamic terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor or shelter them." He argued that the executive order halting travel from six majority Muslim nations doesn't say anything about religion, and neither the state of Hawaii nor an imam from that state who wants his mother-in-law to visit has standing to sue.

"This order is aimed at aliens abroad, who themselves don't have constitutional rights," Wall said in a hearing broadcast live on C-Span and other news stations.

Neal Katyal, who represented Hawaii, scoffed at that argument and said Trump had repeatedly spoke of a Muslim ban during the presidential campaign and after.

"This is a repeated pattern of the president," Katyal said.

The 9th Circuit panel was hearing arguments over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The judges will decide whether to uphold a Hawaii judge's decision in March that blocked the ban.

Dozens of advocates for refugees and immigrants rallied outside the federal courthouse in Seattle, some carrying "No Ban, No Wall" signs.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge's decision putting the ban on ice. They also questioned whether they could consider Trump's campaign statements, with one judge asking if there was anything other than "willful blindness" that would prevent them from doing so.

On Monday, Judge Richard Paez questioned Katyal about Trumps statements, calling them "profound." But the judge wondered whether Trump is forever forbidden from adopting an executive order along the lines of his travel ban.

Katyal said no, and suggested the president could work with Congress on legitimate measures.

Monday's arguments mark the second time Trump's efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide  a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel.

The president then rewrote his executive order, rather than appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in March, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu blocked the new version from taking effect, citing what he called "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" in Trump's campaign statements.

"Again, in this court, the President claims a nearly limitless power to make immigration policy that is all but immune from judicial review," Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin wrote to the 9th Circuit. "Again, he must be checked."

The administration's lawyers are seeking to persuade the judges that the lower court's decision is "fundamentally wrong," and that the president's order falls squarely within his duty to secure the nation's borders. The order as written is silent on religion, and neither Hawaii nor its co-plaintiff, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, has standing to sue, they say  arguments that were rejected in the lower court.

The travel ban cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court, but that would likely be cemented if the 4th and 9th Circuits reach differing conclusions about its legality. Because of how the courts chose to proceed, a full slate of 13 judges heard the 4th Circuit arguments last week, while just three, all appointees of President Bill Clinton, will sit in Seattle.

For that reason  with the possibility for myriad concurring or dissenting opinions  it could take the 4th Circuit longer to rule, noted Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond law school in Virginia.

__

Associated Press reporter Martha Bellisle contributed to this report.
Federal investigators will be at the site of a deadly jet crash near a small airport outside New York City on Tuesday, working to determine what caused the aircraft to go down before bursting into flames.

Police said two crew members were killed when the Learjet 35 crashed among small warehouses and industrial buildings Monday afternoon in Carlstadt a quarter-mile from the runway at Teterboro Airport. There were no passengers aboard and no one on the ground was reported injured.

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. A man can be seen running across a parking lot toward the crash site as thick, black smoke spews into the air.

Two of the three buildings involved in the crash sustained fire damage.

Emergency responders worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, which left a smoldering wreckage of cars in a parking lot. Police said 13 vehicles also were damaged.

The plane was registered in Billings, Montana, to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address. The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There was no answer at their home Monday night.

The airport was closed after the crash. Departing flights resumed in the evening, but no arriving flights were allowed.

Carlstadt Mayor Craig Lahullier said all town employees already had left for the day before the plane crashed next to the town's public works building.

"I tell ya, it's a miracle," he said. "Thank God the guys were out of there, that's all I can say."

Town spokesman Joe Orlando said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage. Witnesses said they heard loud popping noises, apparently from car tires exploding in the heat and flames.

Orlando had left the public works building about 15 minutes before the plane hit. When he returned, he saw the plane's engines on the ground.

"If this had happened 20 minutes earlier, people would have been at their cars," he said. "That was the first thing I thought of: `I was just right there.' You could see the fan blades, the landing gear. Car tires were blown off."

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL who was aboard another plane at the airport waiting to take off, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn.

A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing before it crashed.

The National Weather Service warned of strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph just before the plane went down.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board will inspect the crash site Tuesday.

The jet had flown from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, early Monday morning. It then flew to Philadelphia later Monday morning before leaving for Teterboro in the afternoon.

Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area. It sits in a densely populated residential and industrial area just north of MetLife Stadium, where the NFL's New York Jets and New York Giants play.
For months, U.S. allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets.

Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry, and potentially putting crucial intelligence-sharing agreements at risk.

Revelations that Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week prompted one European official to tell The Associated Press that his country might stop sharing intelligence with the U.S. as a result.

A second official, senior German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka, called Trump's disclosures "highly worrying."

The information Trump revealed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak centered on an Islamic State plot and was based on intelligence provided by an American partner, according to a U.S. official.

The disclosure  which Trump appeared to verify in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning  is certain to shadow the president as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, he'll meet with important Arab allies working with the U.S. on the fight against the Islamic State. He'll also huddle with some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily.

Some of the leaders Trump will meet come from countries the U.S. has intelligence-sharing agreements with.

At least one Republican says the president is putting those agreements at risk by divulging classified information to Russia, a country many in the U.S. and in the West view as an adversary. Arizona Sen. John McCain said Trump's actions send "a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future."

Trump declared on Twitter Tuesday that it was his "absolute right" to share information with other countries. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said it was "wholly appropriate" and argued that it was based on publicly available information. And indeed, presidents are legally authorized to disclose classified information.

Yet Trump's decision is all the more confounding given his tense relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates.

The leaks have only continued to flow, undermining Trump and exposing details of the investigations into whether his campaign played a role in Russia's election meddling.

According to the U.S. official, Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Washington Post first reported the disclosure.

White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting. Trump later said he did share information about "terrorism and airline flight safety" with Russia."

The U.S. and Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.

The White House has looked to Trump's trip abroad as a moment to draw the president out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favorable to his interests than former President Barack Obama.

But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by U.S. courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine.

The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the U.S. leader's standing.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's "actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party."

"Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas," Cordesman said.

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Editor's Note: Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
A man in the U.S. illegally -- with a string of shootings to his name -- was arrested in a weekend shooting that wounded a limousine driver in west Phoenix, prosecutors said.

Zhair Zamora-Sepulveda, 29, and his girlfriend hired a limo for the night Saturday. Zamora-Sepulveda balked at paying the driver for services that went beyond the original contract, police said.

Once they arrived at the home of Zamora-Sepulvedas girlfriend early Sunday, the man then went into the house and came out with a handgun, police said. He allegedly fired numerous rounds, hitting the 43-year-old driver twice in the legs.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CONNECTICUT GRANTED 2-YEAR STAY OF DEPORTATION TO GUATEMALA

"The suspect fired multiple rounds in a downward direction toward the victim," Sgt. Alan Pfohl with Phoenix police told AZ Family.

Zamora-Sepulveda still had the gun in his hands when officers arrived, police said.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DEPORTED 15 TIMES ARRESTED IN HIT-RUN CRASH THAT HURT 6-YEAR-OLD BOY

Zamora-Sepulveda "is a previously deported felon and illegally in the United States," according to a probable cause statement obtained by KTVK. He was deported and was given probation following a 2009 misconduct with weapons charge, AZ Central reported.

He also admitted that he shot someone in the stomach in February 2013, court documents showed without providing further details.

Zamora-Sepulveda is currently jailed on $100,000 bond on suspicion of aggravated assault and misconduct involving weapons, Phoenix police said.

He didn't have an attorney at his initial court appearance Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A man has been arrested in connection with a body found encased in concrete near Lake Mead.

Edward Bedrusian, 54 was booked in the Clark County Detention Center in Nevada on one count of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon Saturday, according to court documents.

The remains of the deceased were spotted May 2. Workers near near Aztec Wash observed a foul smell and discovered a partially exposed tarp and reported it, Lake Mead spokeswoman Christie Vanover said.

The Clark County Coroners office is helping to identify the remains. At first, park rangers didn't believe they were human, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.

OREGON MAN WHO ALLEGEDLY BEHEADED HIS MOTHER SHOWED NO SIGNS OF ISSUES, FATHER SAYS

A search had been launched for anyone connected to this crime. Police arrested Bedrusian two weeks later.

Other details of the arrest werent immediately available.
Authorities have arrested a brain surgeon and a nurse in Northern California on multiple charges involving child sexual abuse.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports Dr. James Kohut was arrested Sunday at his home in Santa Cruz in cases involving a child under the age of 10 and a child under 14. He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail and is being held without bail.

Watsonville police Capt. Jorge Zamora says nurse Rashel Brandon was arrested May 10 and charged with 11 felonies involving child sexual abuse as well as multiple charges related to the production of child pornography.

Both Kohut and Brandon worked at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.

KSBW.com reported that Kohut was disciplined for a botched brain surgery in 2002. According to the board, an x-ray showed an aneurysm on the left side of a 36-year-olds head. Kohut mistakenly attempted to remove the aneurysm from the patients right side, the report said.

Zamora says a third, unidentified suspect is in custody outside of California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Four men pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter Monday in the 2013 hazing death of a New York City college freshman, in a case that made headlines after investigators said the fraternity members went to great lengths to cover it up.

Former Pi Delta Psi fraternity members confessed that they physically abused Chun Michael Deng, 19, a Baruch College freshman, then tried to hide it in their rented house in Pennsylvanias Pocono Mountains in December 2013.

The four defendants, Kenny Kwan, Charles Lai, Raymond Lam and Sheldon Wong, had been charged with third-degree murder, but their charges were reduced after they pleaded guilty to felony manslaughter. They will be sentenced in December, but they face 22 to 36 months in prison.

Deng joined about 30 people on a trip to Tunkhannock Township, Pa., one week in December to take part in a pledging ritual for Pi Delta Psi, investigators said.

WOMAN CHARGED WITH SHOOTING, KILLING DAD FOLLOWING EVICTION FROM PARENTS MANSION

Fraternity members blindfolded Deng, forced him to wear a heavy backpack and then repeatedly tackled him during the hazing ritual, known as glass ceiling, police said.

Deng cursed and hit Lam at some point during the ritual, Monroe County Assistant District Kim Metzger told the judge. She said Kwan was the last brother to tackle Deng.

Mr. Deng did not stand up after that moment, Metzger said.

The fraternity members brought Deng inside the house where they changed his clothes and searched information online about his symptoms, prosecutors said.

The group called a national fraternity official, who told them to conceal any materials that had the fraternity symbol on it, The New York Times reported.

The fraternity brothers waited an hour before taking Deng to the hospital, according to court documents. Deng died a day later on Dec. 6 from major brain trauma.

Wong did not take part in the hazing but helped arrange it as a pledge educator, Metzger said.

The pleas come a week after prosecutors announced criminal charges against Beta Theta Pi and 18 Penn students after the death of Timothy Piazza, 19. Piazza died on Feb. 4 after he fell down a flight of stairs while intoxicated during a Beta Theta Pi pledge party. The fraternity members didnt call an ambulance for 12 hours.

PENN STATE FRATERNITY BROTHERS CHARGED IN CONNECTION WITH STUDENTS DEATH TO BE ARRAIGNED

Another suspect has pleaded guilty to hindering apprehension and was sentenced to probation. The fraternity itself was charged with murder, and dozens of other suspects face less serious charges.

Baruch College permanently banned Pi Delta Psi. The administration also established a moratorium on pledging at all Greek groups on campus.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Gay conservative writer Chadwick Moore described his experience being heckled by campus activists on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Monday, saying that they "dont have any talking points" and are "not being taught the other side at all."

Moore, who recently detailed his political conversion to conservativism, was the subject of protests by students at Portland State University in Oregon earlier this month.

"Repeatedly, the students would talk over me," Moore told host Tucker Carlson. "This was a new tactic to sort of disrupt the speech, to make sure other people couldnt hear what I was saying, to try to throw me off, because theyre not educated enough today in school to properly argue.

INTO THE MIDDLE OF A MOB: WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED TO SPEAK AT MIDDLEBURY

"None of them stayed for the q-and-a because they couldnt question what I was saying," Moore continued. "They dont have any talking points. Theyre not being taught the other side at all."

The Portland State incident involving Moore was the latest in a series of disruptive incidents on college campuses that have involved appearances by conservative speakers, most notably at the University of California at Berkeley and Middlebury College in Vermont.

ANN COULTER CANCELS BERKELEY EVENT AMID PROTESTS

On Monday, Moore told Carlson that university administrators are reluctant to welcome him on campus.

"Ive not seen any administration standing up [for me]," Moore said. "They dont stand up for the promotional materials being torn down, desecrated. Theres just silence from professors and administrators."

Moore described the protesters as "feral animals running around on the left, attacking everyone and the Democratic Party and the media are not telling them to stop ... Its very surprising and theyre not winning any hearts or minds in this country by letting this behavior continue."
Three burglars died and a suspect escaped after their car crashed into a Georgia pond while on the run from police on Monday.

The police chase began after officers received a call about a burglary at a Sprint PCS store in Fayetteville around 4:30 a.m., Fox 5 Atlanta reported. When they arrived, they chased a car with four men that was leaving the scene.

Three of the men were identified as Mark Anthony Mathis, 19, Eddie Alford, 21, Devongelo Hunter, 19.

The police pursuit continued to Clayton County where the suspected burglars' car struck another vehicle, went airborne and crashed into a pond, police said. The car was submerged within 15 minutes.

POLICE: COP SHOT IN UPSTATE NY, SUSPECT BARRICADED IN HOME

"My officers immediately entered the vehicle and tried to get to the folks inside to render aid, but they were unsuccessful," Deputy Clayton Police Chief Joseph Woodall told Fox 5 Atlanta.

Mathis, Alford and Hunter were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are still searching for the fourth suspected burglar who managed to escape.

EX-FRATERNITY BROTHERS PLEAD GUILTY IN HAZING DEATH

Th driver of the other vehicle struck was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The four suspects had criminal records in the county, investigators said.

Click for more from Fox 5 Atlanta.
The Wisconsin man who allegedly stole a cache of firearms and sent an anti-government manifesto to President Donald Trump said from jail he "doesn't know" where some of the weapons are.

"They're buried, okay? I don't know," suspect Joseph Jakubowski told WTMJ from jail. "Honestly, I give you, with all the blood in my body. I buried them and I don't know where. I don't know, woods look all the same."

Jakubowski, 32, broke into a gun store near Janesville and stole 18 guns, two silencers and ammunition, and mailed the manifesto to the White House on April 4, investigators alleged.

His burned vehicle was found a few miles from the shop. Jakubowksi also sent the rambling, threatening manifesto to about two dozen other people before going on the run, authorities claimed.

Jakubowski was arrested in rural Vernon County, Wisconsin, on April 14, after a retired school counselor found him camping on his property and calmly talked to him before calling authorities.

POLICE: COP SHOT IN UPSTATE NY, SUSPECT BARRICADED IN HOME

Authorities said they've found five of the stolen weapons - but an automatic weapon and 12 additional handguns might never be found.

They believe Jakubowski may have traded weapons to get a ride to Vernon County, WTMJ reported.

Jakubowski said that he "did get a ride in the beginning." He didn't mention making a weapons trade to do so, according to the station.

Jakubowski's arrest ended fears over when and where he could possibly stage an attack. While he was on the run, authorities said they would offer extra security to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Ryan's family, Fox News reported last month. Ryan is a native of Janesville.

Jakubowski told WTMJ on Friday he had no plans to harm the public while on the run.

GEORGIA BURGLARS ON THE RUN ARE KILLED AFTER CAR CRASHES INTO POND

Jakubowksi said he intended to go to North Dakota "to get off the grid, to go into the wild, to disappear." He blamed the media for stoking public fear and said he wanted to be free "of society, the system, government, all of it. It's all I wanted to do."

The manifesto was proof he had no violent intent, he said. According to Jakubowski, if the media didn't exist to tell people about what his assumed thoughts were, people would not have been scared.

"I ain't trying to hide nothing now, because if anybody seen the title of my letter, it said 'honor, dignity, truth,' that's what I stand for, that's what I'm fighting for that's exactly with the government, this system is destroying," Jakubowski said.

During the manhunt, authorities said Jakubowski may have had an accomplice. But Jakubowski has claimed that he was on his own.

Jakubowski has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges related to the burglary. He's being held at the Rock County Jail in a high-security area away from other inmates, and is due back in court next month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A juror dismissed during deliberations in former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown's fraud trial in Florida told his colleagues that the "Holy Spirit" told him she was not guilty, according to a court transcript.

The transcript released Monday provided new details into why the unidentified juror was released during deliberations after another juror raised concerns over the comments.

Brown, 70, was found guilty of 18 of 22 charges associated with her use of money from a purported charity for poor children called the One Door for Education Foundation. She also was convicted of lying on her taxes about the amount of charitable contributions she made and providing false information on her congressional financial disclosure forms.

Brown had represented the district that included Jacksonville since 1993 but lost re-election last year after the indictment was issued.

Federal prosecutors presented evidence of a scheme where Brown helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for One Door, but spent most of the money on lavish parties, trips and shopping. One Door raised more than $800,000, but gave only one scholarship for $1,200.

The dismissed juror, who was not identified, told the court he was getting information from "my father in heaven" about Brown's guilt while considering the case's outcome.

"Did you say the words, 'A higher being told me that Corrine Brown was not guilty on all charges?'" Judge Timothy Corrigan asked the juror.

"I said the Holy Spirit told me that," the juror replied.

Brown's attorney, James Smith, has said he plans to ask for a new trial before she is sentenced. He objected to the juror's dismissal, pointing out that the juror also said he could follow the court's direction and deliberate appropriately.

But Corrigan believed the comment was enough to spur the juror's dismissal, and to restart deliberations.

"I want to be very clear that I am drawing a distinction between someone who's on a jury who is religious and who is praying for guidance ... from this situation, where the juror is actually saying than an outside force, that is, a higher being, a Holy Spirit, told him that Ms. Brown was not guilty on those charges," Corrigan told the attorneys. "I think that's just an expression that's a bridge too far."

After the juror was replaced by an alternate, the jury took just more than a day to reach a verdict.

Brown could spend the rest of her life in a federal prison. No date has been set for her sentencing.
Critics of a Kentucky appellate courts decision allowing a T-shirt printer to refuse the business of a LGBT organization on religious grounds have decided to file a legal appeal of the action to the states highest court.

The Lexington Human Rights Commissions decision Monday follows the groups second consecutive legal defeat in its battle with Blaine Adamson of Hands On Originals, a T-shirt company. In 2012, Adamson refused a LGBT groups request to make T-shirts promoting a gay pride festival because doing so would violate his Christian beliefs.

After the Lexington Human Rights Commission (LHRC) ruled that Adamson had violated the citys fairness ordinance, he took the group to court and won. The LHRC then asked the Kentucky Court of Appeals to review the decision, and Friday it lost again in a 2-1 vote.

We have 30 days to file [an appeal], Raymond Sexton, the LHRCs executive director said to Fox News.

We were surprised and disappointed about the courts decision. Last night, our board unanimously voted to file for a discretionary review. Our position remains the same, that is it was about the message being printed then Hands On Originals would have declined to do the work immediately. It wasnt until they found out what event the shirts were for that they had a problem.

But when they present a message that conflicts with my religious beliefs, thats not something that I can print. Thats the line for me.  Blaine Adamson

Adamson, who has been represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom with support from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said he never had any intention to be hostile to gays or refuse their business.

I never thought living out my faith would be the cause of so much controversy, Adamson said in a statement provided to Fox News.

People often ask me why I made that decision. Here is what I tell them: I will work with any person, no matter who they are, no matter what their belief systems are. But when they present a message that conflicts with my religious beliefs, thats not something that I can print. Thats the line for me.

The citys fairness ordinance prohibits businesses that cater to the public from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation. The appellate courts chief judge, Joy A. Kramer, wrote in the majority opinion that what Adamson objected to was spreading a gay groups message of pride in their sexual orientation  not the fact that they were gay.

Adamson, who says that he has regularly employed and served LGBT individuals and serves everyone regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, says he feels vindicated but that he still may have to defend his right to free speech.

In my case, thankfully the legal system has worked, Adamson says. [The court] found that I do not refuse to do business because of who people are, but because of the messages that Im asked to print. Were so grateful for that ruling. But that decision is not set in stone.

Adamson maintains his belief that religious liberty is the first and most important freedom.

As I have gone through this process, I have often marveled that something like this can actually occur in America. This is not the way it should be, he says.

But youre not free if your beliefs are confined to your mind. Everyone in world history under every sort of government regime has been free to believe in their mind. What makes America unique is our freedom to peacefully live out those beliefs.
A PortMiami toll worker was arrested after authorities say he stole parking toll revenue.

The Miami Herald reports 47-year-old Darrel Cason was arrested Monday and charged with official misconduct, organized scheme to defraud and grand theft.

According to the arrest warrant, Cason was arrested after a long-term investigation into the theft of parking toll revenue.

The Miami-Dade County employee was taken into custody at PortMiami.

Authorities havent said how much money was missing or for how long the scheme went on.

Its unclear if Cason has an attorney.
A New York police chief was shot responding to a domestic incident Tuesday morning by a suspect later found dead in a home after a standoff, officials said.

Chief Arnold "Butch" Amthor was shot in the shoulder, taken to St. Lukes Hospital in Newburgh and is expected to survive, Orange County officials told Fox News.

The suspect was found dead in a home hours after a standoff with police began, FOX 5 New York reported. State troopers, State Police investigators, and a negotiator were on the scene after the mid-morning shooting.

Amthor was struck while interviewing a suspect and was conscious and alert while being transported to the hospital, WABC reported.

He is the police chief of Maybrook and the neighboring town of Montgomery.

The shooting occurred in Maybrook, which is about 70 miles north of New York City, around 9:45 a.m., according to multiple reports.

Fox News' Whitney Ksiazek and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more from FOX 5 NY.
A couple, their five children, and family dog died after flames engulfed an Ohio home on Monday in one of the deadliest house fires Akron had ever seen.

A family member identified Dennis Huggins, 35, Angela Boggs, 38, and their children, Jered Boggs, 14, Daisia Huggins, 6, Kyle Huggins, 5, Alivia Huggins, 3, and 11-month-old Cameron Huggins, as those killed in the house fire about 30 miles south of Cleveland.

"I want my nieces, I want my nephews, you know, it's hard for me to explain to my grandchildren that my nieces and nephews, their cousins won't be around the play and spend the night," Dwayne Huggins, the brother of one of the victims, told Fox 8 Cleveland.

HIGH-RISE APARTMENT FIRE IN PITTSBURGH LEAVES 1 WOMAN DEAD

The fire started at the two-story home on Fultz Street about 3 a.m., officials said. Firefighters initially could not access the upper level of the home becuase of structural damage to the building.

"The heat is very intense, it affects the structure of the home pretty quickly, so in this fire we had to be very careful not to get firefighters injured or killed, it was a difficult battle," Akron fire chief Clarence Tucker said.

Though officials are still determining what caused the fire, it appeared to have started near the front of the home, firefighters said. A fire marshal's official said investigators used a dog while collecting evidence, but did not specify what was collected.

"You can never rule out the possibility of arson," Tucker said.

TEXAS HOUSE FIRE: 3 CHILDREN KILLED, 3 FAMILY MEMBERS CRITICALLY INJURED

Tyenny Huggins, Dennis Huggins' son, said he first found out about the fire after he tried contacting the family on Monday.

"I just saw my dad last night, and I feel like I'm going to see him tomorrow," Tyenny Huggins said. "I feel like I'm going to see him later on."

Huggins added, "I'm forever gonna miss him."

Relatives also described the couple as soft-spoken and gentle.

A GoFundMe account was created on Monday to help the family pay for funeral expenses.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click here for more from Fox 8 Cleveland.
In a major development in the year-long murder mystery of the Rhoden family, authorities have charged a family member with tampering with evidence, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Tuesday afternoon, marking the first arrest in the investigation.

Brother of one of the victims, James Manley, 40, of Pike County has been charged with destroying a GPS device that was part of the investigation into the murders of the eight members of the Rhoden family last spring.

Law enforcement showed up at his home on Monday to remove a tracking device they placed on his vehicle on April 22. However, Manley's father Leonard Manley told police his son discovered the GPS on April 28 and removed it, according to court documents.

IAN BRADY, BRITAINS INFAMOUS MOORS MURDERER SERIAL KILLER, DIES WITHOUT REVEALING FINAL VICTIMS LOCATION

Authorities say the charges Manley faces that are connected to the Rhoden family slayings are not uncommon when a witness tampers with evidence in a government investigation. He is charged with one count of tampering with evidence, a felony of the third degree and one count of vandalism, a felony of the fifth degree.

Law enforcement have accelerated the investigation that has had no major public breakthroughs in nearly a year, marking the Rhoden family massacre as one of the most prolific unsolved cases in the nation.

EX-BARUCH COLLEGE FRATERNITY BROTHERS PLEAD GUILTY IN HAZING DEATH

On Friday and Saturday, several state and county investigators were searching a farm in Adams County, roughly 10 miles away from the Rhoden family massacre scene. A second search in Peebles was conducted Friday along State Route 41. Earlier Saturday, several police and government vehicles were seen leaving Flying W Farms in in Piketon on Camp Creek Road. Authorities have not detailed what evidence, if any, was collected.

In overnight hours of April 21 and 22 in 2016, eight people were shot to death in four homes near Piketon in rural southern Ohio. Six adults and a 16-year-old boy were discovered to have been shot execution-style. An eighth victim was found with nine gunshot wounds.

READ MORE FROM FOX 19 CINCINNATI.
Authorities say a police officer has been shot in an upstate New York village and a suspect is barricaded inside a home.

State police say the officer was shot around 9:20 a.m. Tuesday in the village of Maybrook, 55 miles (88 kilometers) north of New York City.

Details of the officer's injuries haven't been released, but Trooper Steven Nevel says the officer is expected to survive.

State police say troopers and a police negotiator are at the scene where a suspect is barricaded inside a home.

No other details have been released.

A man who answered the phone at the Maybrook Police Department says the agency isn't releasing details.

Maybrook is a village of 3,000 residents just west of Stewart International Airport in nearby Newburgh.
Officials say deputies in East Tennessee have fatally shot a man after he pointed a gun at them while they were trying to take him into custody on outstanding warrants.

A statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says deputies initially tried to pull over 47-year-old Buford S. Whitson on the active warrants Monday evening in Elizabethton, but he refused to stop. The statement says deputies pursued Whitson to Johnson City, where he eventually stopped his vehicle.

Officials say Whitson pointed a gun at deputies as they tried to take him into custody. Deputies then fired, striking Whitson, who was taken to the Johnson City Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The statement did not name the deputies or release the races of either Whitson or the deputies.
South Korean media say the nation's new president will visit the White House late next month amid worries over North Korea's escalating progress in its nuclear and missile arsenal.

Officials made the announcement to local media, and the trip couldn't be immediately confirmed by foreign news organizations. There were no other immediate details.

The announcement Tuesday comes days after North Korea successfully tested a powerful new missile that analysts believe could reach Alaska when perfected.

Liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in favors a softer approach to North Korea than his conservative predecessors and has offered to visit Pyongyang if the circumstances are right.

But Washington is Seoul's closest ally and military protector, and the North's rising nuclear and missile tests make close coordination crucial.
A recent college grad was killed boating with family in town to celebrate her graduation.

Just a day after graduating, University of Miami student Elizabeth Goldenberg, 22, was fatally ejected in an airboat crash Saturday morning in the Florida Everglades.

Goldenberg, who was known to friends and family as Ellie, died from her injuries at Kendall Regional Medical Center, according to the Miami Herald.

Her sister, Dana Goldenberg, 20, was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Parents David and Renee Goldenberg, both 54, escaped the crash uninjured. The family members were visiting from Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

Officials have not identified the person behind the wheel, but said the crash was under investigation.

The 22-year-old, who planned to pursue an acting career, graduated magna cum laude with a degree in fine arts on Friday.

Click for more from the New York Post.
A 14-year-old physics major who was the youngest person to graduate from Texas Christian University said he doesn't regret missing out on the normal "college experience."

"Nothing at all," Carson Huey-You told Ainsley Earhardt on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.

"Overall it was a positive experience. I really liked going and learning all the stuff that I can learn to grow," he added.

The teenager joined more than 2,000 students at graduation on Saturday to get his diploma at the Fort Worth school founded in 1873.

"It was very exciting, but I was also really really nervous. I actually ended up walking past the dean of Science and Engineering and not giving him a handshake," Huey-You recalled.

TRAYVON MARTIN RECEIVES POSTHUMOUS AERONAUTICAL SCIENCE DEGREE

Huey-You started at TCU in 2013 when he was just 11 years old. He also earned a minor in Chinese and math. Huey-You now plans to get his graduate degree in quantum mechanics.

Though he is the youngest to graduate from the university so far, Huey-You has some competition: his 11-year-old brother Cannan who will also be attending TCU in the fall.

"I'm going to double major in physics and astronomy and also engineering," Cannan Huey-You said.

TRUMP TO LIBERTY U GRADS: RELISH BEING AN 'OUTSIDER'

As for the secret to having two successful children? Huey-You's mother, Claretta Kimp, said there's no "magic pill."

"I think I did what every other loving parent does. I nurtured, showed a lot of patience and was there for them to just support them in whatever direction they wanted to go," Kimp told Fox & Friends.
A series of attacks in remote areas of Central African Republic have forced more than 15,000 people to flee their homes over the past week while at least 130 are feared dead, authorities said Tuesday.

Among the victims are six U.N. peacekeepers, marking the deadliest month for the mission since it began in 2014.

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights warned that the violence in areas previously spared major sectarian bloodshed was "highly worrying."

"The hard-earned relative calm in Bangui and some of the bigger towns in CAR risks being eclipsed by the descent of some rural areas into increasing sectarian violence, with defenseless civilians  as usual  paying the highest price," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said.

Gen. Balla Keita, commander of the U.N. mission, said at least 30 people were killed and 32 wounded when militia fighters from a predominantly Christian group known as the anti-Balaka attacked the southeastern town of Bangassou over the weekend.

It was the first death toll given since the attack apart from the confirmation of the peacekeepers' deaths. Humanitarian agencies have called it impossible to retrieve corpses from the streets because of the ongoing insecurity.

The U.N. mission noted that "deliberate attacks in Bangassou, with heavy weaponry, seem to be well-planned as the perpetrators made access very difficult by destroying bridges and blocking all accessible roads to town," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general.

Humanitarian agencies indicated more than 7,200 people fled Bangassou after the weekend fighting sparked by the anti-Balaka attack. An unknown number of people fled toward the border with Congo.

Meanwhile, the U.N. said unconfirmed reports suggest up to 100 were killed in attacks in the town of Alindao. Some 8,500 people have been displaced by violence there, Dujarric said.

These areas of Central African Republic did not experience major violence during the sectarian bloodshed that erupted in late 2013 and ultimately forced nearly all of the Muslims in the capital, Bangui, to flee to the country's north and beyond to neighboring Chad.

Fighting has mounted, however, and last month Doctors Without Borders warned of "levels of violence that have not been seen since the peak of the conflict in 2014."

Zeid, the U.N. human rights chief, said the death toll prior to the attacks on Alindao and Bangassou already was at least 121 since March.

In Bangui, dozens of people held a demonstration against the violence in the southeast. Prime Minister Simplice Mathieu Sarandji assured those protesting that the government would punish those responsible.

"There are widows and orphans in front of us today," he said. "These people only want one thing: that justice is done."

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.
A helicopter search crew found debris near the Bahamas on Tuesday while looking for an airplane with four passengers, including two children, that vanished a day before.

The debris and an oil slick were spotted about 15 miles from the coast of Eleuthera, according to the United States Coast Guard. It's unclear if it came from the missing plane, according to Marilyn Fajardo, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami.

"We are still searching for survivors," she said.

The MU-2B airplane heading to Titusville, Florida lost radar and radio contact just after 2 p.m. Monday, about 37 miles east of the island. The plane departed from Borinquen, Puerto Rico about 11 a.m. that day.

NEW JERSEY PLANE CRASH: INVESTIGATORS NEAR TETERBORO LOOK INTO CAUSE

Jennifer Blumin, 40, of New York, Nathan Ulrich, 52, of Lee, New Hampshire, and Blumin's 4-year-old and 10-year-old sons were on board.

Blumin was founder and CEO of Skylight Group, which provides event space around New York City, specializing in the fashion industry.

The company confirmed she and members of her family were on the plane in a statement.

"Her family is working with investigators and we politely ask that you respect their privacy at this time," the company said.

MARYLAND BUS CRASH: AT LEAST 30 INJURED, MOSTLY CHILDREN

Ulrich, who was listed as the pilot of the plane, is the co-founder of Xootr, a company that makes adult scooter, according to Fox 5 NY.

It's unclear who was flying the plane at the time, Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Kelly, a Coast Guard spokesman, said. Blumin owned the plane through a consulting company, according to New York State and aviation records.

The Coast Guard deployed aerial search crews on Monday and Tuesday. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force also assisted with the search.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click here for more from Fox 5 NY.
The European Union's landmark migrant plan to share 160,000 refugees in Italy and Greece among their EU partners is likely to result in less than 40,000 people finding new homes by the September deadline.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Tuesday that more than 18,000 migrants have been relocated and that 12,500 people in Greece and some 4,000 in Italy are eligible to go.

He said those 16,500 people can be relocated by September, but he noted that some countries haven't relocated a single person, "in breach of their obligations."

Avramopoulos told EU lawmakers that the plan, launched in September 2015, "is vital for the success of our (migrant) policy."

Hungary and Poland voted against the plan, but were on the losing side and refuse to take part.
A German court has convicted a 32-year-old Iraqi man of raping two Chinese college students in the western city of Bochum.

The dpa news agency reported Tuesday that the court sentenced the man to 11 years in prison.

The defendant, who wasn't identified by name, acknowledged in court that he assaulted the women in August and November last year. DNA evidence linked him to both crimes.

The defendant came to Germany as an asylum-seeker more than a year ago with his wife and children.

The victims, who were 21 and 27 years old at the time, had been studying at Bochum university.

The high-profile case was one of several that fanned a national debate in Germany about how to respond to a rise in violent crimes committed by migrants.
Gulf states that long opposed Israel's every move are proposing a rapprochemont in the hopes of restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The development comes just days ahead of historic meetings between President Trump and Middle Eastern leaders. It consists of a draft proposal reportedly offered up by Sunni Muslim Gulf states and offers closer economic and diplomatic ties with Israel in exchange for significant moves in restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The plan, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is outlined in a draft document circulated by the Gulf states, the mostly Sunni Muslim countries that line the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

It could significantly alter the Middle Eastern diplomatic and economic landscape if embraced by the various parties. The proposal would allow Israeli planes to fly through Gulf state airspace and enable direct communications with the Jewish state, both of which today are limited by the long-running hostility in the region. In exchange, the Gulf states reportedly call on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and ease trade restrictions in the Gaza Strip.

The Journal quoted a senior Arab official said to be involved in the discussions, who said, We no longer see Israel as an enemy, but a potential opportunity.

The report states that the Arab proposal is aimed in part at aligning them with President Trump, who has expressed a willingness to work with them on pushing the various sides toward a new Middle East peace deal. The Journal says that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the countries who have told the U.S. and Israel they are willing to open their airspace and allow direct communications, in exchange for the Israeli concessions with the Palestinians.

A Middle East analyst close to the White House tells Fox News about the report, the president has been clear that he wants to see peace and integration between Israel and its Arab neighbors, not least of all so they can cooperate against the threat posed by Iran. This is a welcome step in that direction. It makes many requests of the Israelis and the White House knows the Israelis can't meet all of them, and the President won't pressure them to. But these sorts of initiatives are the sorts of deals the President wants to see from regional players.

Israel has not yet officially commented on the proposal. And while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed calls to curtail settlement building, in March he said that Irans threat to its Gulf State neighbors opens the possibility of closer ties with Arab countries beyond Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has peace agreements.

He talked about nurturing these interests by normalizing ties with countries in the region and opening new diplomatic streams between us and the Palestinians.

President Trump met with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, part of the UAE, on Monday in Washington. After arriving in Saudi Arabia on Friday, he is expected to attend an Arab, Islamic and American Conference on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and over a dozen heads of state from Arab and Islamic nations including Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Pakistan and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Then, on Monday, Trump is expected to travel to Jerusalem for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
Notorious British murderer Ian Brady has died, and the location of where he buried his final victim has died along with him.

Brady, one of Britains most infamous serial killers, died Monday at a high-security hospital on Merseyside in North West England after battling a lung and chest condition. He was 79.

Brady spent more than five decades behind bars after killing five children, along with accomplice Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, between July 1963 and October 1965.

MOORS MURDERER BRADY DUE TO ADDRESS TRIBUNAL

Hours before his death, Brady reportedly was told to do the right thing and reveal the location where 12-year-old Keith Bennett, the last of his child victims, is buried. He decided not to reveal the information, taking the location of Bennett's body to his grave.

Despite Bradys death, Greater Manchester Police said Tuesday they wont close the case of Bennetts murder and would act on credible and actionable information in the search to find the boy's body.

Bennett was one of five children murdered by Brady and Hindley, who ultimately became known as the Moors Murderers, after they tortured and murdered Edward Evans, 17, Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, and Lesley Ann Downey, 10.

UK'S 'MOST EVIL' SERIAL KILLER IS FIGHTING FOR RIGHT TO DIE

Imprisoned since 1966, Brady was given three life sentences for the killings of Downey, Evans, and Kilbride and later went on to admit murdering Bennett and Reade, but was never tried in court for their deaths.



In 2013, Brady was denied a request to relocate to a Scottish prison where he wouldnt be force fed and where he could be allowed to die, if he so wished.

Upon hearing news of Bradys death, Kilbrides brother, Terry, in an interview with The Sun, described Brady as a murderous psychopath who ruined our lives all these years and hell still ruin it even though hes gone."

"Those two individuals, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, they didn't just destroy five young children's lives," former police officer Norman Brennan, who represented Downey's family, told BBC Two's Newsnight. "The ... false hopes that they gave the families for over 50 years destroyed all of the families as well, even to this day."
Irans senior vice president dropped out of the countrys presidential race Tuesday to endorse current President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking a second term.

Eshaq Jahangiri, 60, a reformist and moderate, dropped out of the election, leaving just four candidates remaining in the race, according to state-run IRNA news agency.



The election is set to take place on Friday, May 19.

To me, supporting Dr. Rouhani and voting for him is equal to supporting the mighty Iranian nation, Jahangiri told the Tehran Times.

On Monday, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, 55, dropped out of the election and endorsed hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, 56, who is believed to be a favorite of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Irans top decision-maker.

IRANIAN CONSERVATIVE DROPS OUT OF RACE TO BACK CANDIDATE CHALLENGING PRESIDENT ROUHANI

Raisi, a cleric and former attorney general, serves as the head of the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran.

Raisi is believed to be Rouhanis main rival in the race but it's not clear if Raisi will be unable to unseat him. Since 1981, every Iranian president has won re-election.

The election is being largely viewed as a referendum on the 2015 nuclear deal struck with world powers led by Rouhanis administration. The deal saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

FRANCES ATR DELIVERS FIRST PLANES TO IRAN AS TRADE GROWS

Iran has since resumed crucial oil exports to Europe and concluded billion-dollar deals to purchase passenger planes, but the effects have yet to trickle down to most Iranians, creating an opening for hard-liners who feel Rouhani gave too much away.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


The last of the Islamic State militants remaining in the Iraqi city of Mosul were completely surrounded and on the brink of total defeat, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday.

Iraqi forces have reduced the amount of territory held by ISIS in the city to around 129 square miles, Iraq Brigadier Gen. Yahya Rasool said at a news conference, Reuters reported.

The recent advancement in Mosul came after Brett McGurk, a special presidential envoy for the coaition against the Islamic State, said Monday that the fight against the militants was entering its final stages.

The world is now seeing that (Iraqi) soldiers are completely destroying Daesh, McGurk said.

McGurk and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Sillman ment with Iraqi officials, who were asking for additional aid in the fight against the Islamic State, not weapons and training.

"We are looking for more support as the west side of the city will be liberated soon," Maj. Gen. Muhammed al-Shimary with Nineveh Operations Command told McGurk after thanking him for U.S. assistance in the fight so far.

President Trump pledged to accelerate the military fight against the Islamic State. While the White House is yet to release an official overhaul of the ISIS fight, since taking office Trump has handed greater decision making power regarding troop levels in the Middle East to the Pentagon.

Additionally, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has emphasized the limited role the U.S. will play in reconstruction in Iraq and Syria.

"As a coalition we are not in the business of nation-building or reconstruction," Tillerson said during a meeting of foreign ministers in Washington in March. Instead, he said the U.S. would equip "war torn communities to take the lead in rebuilding their institutions and returning to stability."

The operation to retake Mosul from ISIS was formally launched in October and while the initial weeks of the fight were marked with a string of swift territorial gains, combat in the city's west has devastated infrastructure and inflicted high civilian casualties.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Israeli Cabinet minister has called off a long-planned visit to Jordan for a joint scientific venture following a spat between the countries over a deadly shooting in Jerusalem.

Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis says he is skipping Tuesday's event in Amman marking the launching of the "Sesame" particle accelerator because of Jordan's reaction to the killing of a Jordanian who stabbed an Israeli police officer.

Video footage shows the 57-year-old man swiping a knife before knocking the officer to the ground. Police say the officer shot then his attacker dead.

Jordan said it holds Israel responsible for killing its citizen and denounced it a "crime." The Israeli government called the Jordanian reaction "outrageous."

Akunis tells Israel's Army Radio his diplomatic protest is the minimal response to the incident.
An Israeli cabinet member on Tuesday claimed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should not simply be removed from office -- he should be killed.

The reality of the situation in Syria is that they are executing people, using directed chemical attacks against them, and the latest extreme  burning their corpses, something we havent seen in 70 years, Yoav Gallant said in a speech, referencing the Holocaust.

Gallant, a retired IDF general, said reports of the Syrian president executing prisoners and burning their bodies crosses a red lineand is nothing less than a genocide, with hundreds of thousands killed.

He said Assad needed to die before Israel could fully confront any threats from Iran, one of Syria's closest allies. Once we'll be done with the tail of the snake, we will be able to deal with its head in Tehran, he continued.

ISIS ON 'BRINK OF TOTAL DEFEAT' IN MOSUL, COALITION SPOKESMAN SAYS

In a conversation with The Times of Israel after his speech, Gallant stood by his comments. He acknowledged that targeted political assassinations are considered illegal under international law, but clarified that he wasnt speaking about practicalities.

However, he added, Anyone who murders people and burns their corpses does not have a place in this world.

SYRIAN REGIME USING CREMATORIUM TO 'COVER UP' MASS MURDERS, STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS

On Monday, the U.S. revealed evidence that the Syrian regime conducted mass killings of thousands of political opponents and burned the bodies to hide the evidence. State Department officials said Syria was hanging about 50 detainees each day at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus, before burning them in a crematorium.

The accusation came as President Donald Trump weighed options to try to bring an end to Syria's civil war.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kosovo prosecutors have accused a Serb citizen of war crimes during the 1998-99 war.

Prosecutors from Kosovo and the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, or EULEX, on Tuesday accused a Serb identified as Z.V., of war crimes against the ethnic Albanian civilian population.

A statement said that on May 5, 1999, the defendant killed four people and tortured, beat and stole money and jewelry from at least 25 Kosovo Albanians. If convicted, he could face life imprisonment.

About 10,000 people died and about 1,700 remain missing from the war.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade hasn't recognized.
German prosecutors have charged a 28-year-old Pakistani man with membership in a terrorist organization on allegations he joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba group to fight against Indian forces in the Kashmir region.

The federal prosecutor's office said Tuesday that Muhammad Aafaq I., whose last name wasn't given in accordance with privacy regulations, joined the group in 2008 to fight against Indian control of the areas of Jammu and Kashmir.

Prosecutors say he trained with the group in Pakistan, learning to use weapons like assault rifles and rocket launchers before becoming a trainer of new recruits.

They say he fled the group in 2011 after reports that it was supported by Pakistani intelligence and was fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, "contradictory to his motivation."

They didn't say how he got to Germany.
Poland's prosecutors say they are pursuing murder suspicions in the mysterious death of a young Polish woman vacationing in Egypt.

The April 30 death of 27-year-old Magdalena Zuk has shocked the nation, which has seen footage of her struggling against men in a hospital corridor and her terrified pleas over the phone to her boyfriend to take her home.

Head of the investigating team Ewa Weglarowicz-Makowska told a news conference Tuesday they are pursuing suspicions of murder. Other scenarios include a nervous breakdown or human trafficking. Details from an autopsy performed in Egypt are expected soon.

Zuk flew alone to the Marsa Alam resort but showed signs of distress. Taken to a hospital, she jumped from the window, sustaining injuries. She died hours later at another hospital.
A Mexican priest was stabbed in the neck while he was saying mass in Mexico Citys cathedral Monday evening.

Witnesses say it looked like the attackers intention was to slit his throat.

Father Miguel Angel Machorro remains in critical condition, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Mexico said.

MEXICO'S CATHOLIC CHURCH CALLS FOR SEARCH FOR MISSING PRIEST

The attacker, who was caught as was trying to run away, identified himself as a U.S. national. Mexican authorities identified him as John Rene Rock Schild, 35. The man said he is an artist and refused to offer any information that could incriminate him, Mexico City prosecutors said.

At a news conference, a lawyer of the archdiocese, Armando Martinez, said they needed more information to draw any conclusions.

We cannot talk about terrorism, we cannot talk about motives because we obviously have no significant facts, he said.

MEXICO'S CATHOLIC CHURCH: WORK ON TRUMP WALL IS TREASON

The stabbing took place in front of dozens of worshipers at the Mexico City cathedral, Latin America's largest and a popular tourist draw on the landmark Zocalo square.

In a radio interview Tuesday morning, archdiocese spokesman Hugo Valdelomar provided some details of the attack.

"After celebrating mass at the high altar, Father Miguel came down [to the pews] to bless worshipers with holy water and when he turned to walk back to the altar, the man stops him and tries to slit his throat, he said. He grabbed his neck and tried to slit his throat."

ANOTHER PRIEST GOES MISSING IN NORTHERN MEXICO, CATHOLIC CHURCH DEMANDS ACTION

Valdemar said that Father Miguel sustained serious wounds near the jugular vein and the lung and was bleeding profusely.

We almost lost him right there, he said.

The spokesman said that the attacker showed extreme coldness and declared he was not a Muslim nor did he belong to any Islamic movement. He noted that when the man was arrested he reserved his right to testify  "that means that he is not so crazy either, shall we say," Valdelomar said.
A tiny island has all the makings of a secluded paradise -- except for the 38 million pieces of trash.

Henderson Island, a UNESCO world heritage site in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, has a higher density of trash than any other spot on the planet, researchers concluded in a study published Tuesday.

"It's both beautiful and terrifying," lead author Jennifer Lavers, a research scientist at Australia's University of Tasmania, reacted. She said her team estimated more than 13,000 pieces of trash washed up every day on the island, which is about 6 miles long and 3 miles wide.

Photos showed toy soldiers, dominos, toothbrushes and hundreds of hardhats of every shape, size and color scattered on the sand. A crab took shelter in what looked like a cosmetics container.

How could it happen? Lavers said Henderson Island is at the edge of a vortex of ocean currents known as the South Pacific gyre, which tends to capture and hold floating trash.

Still, organizing a cleanup would be no easy task. The island is located about halfway between New Zealand and Chile. It's part of the Pitcairn Islands group, a British dependency, and so remote that Lavers said she missed her own wedding after the boat coming to collect the group was delayed. Luckily, she said, the guests were still in Tahiti, in French Polynesia, when she showed up three days late, and she still got married.

BEEKEEPER'S STOLEN HIVES RECOVERED IN 'STING' OPERATION

The report appears in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Lavers said she sometimes found herself getting mesmerized by the variety and colors of the plastic that litters the island before the tragedy of it would sink in again.

Lavers and six others stayed on the island for 3 months in 2015 while conducting the study. They found the trash weighed an estimated 17.6 tons and that more than two-thirds of it was buried in shallow sediment on the beaches.

Lavers said she noticed green toy soldiers that looked identical to those her brother had as a child in the early 1980s, as well as red Monopoly motels.

VIDEO: BEAR BOUNCES OFF HARDWARE STORE WINDOW

She said the most common items they found were cigarette lighters and toothbrushes. One of the strangest was a baby pacifier.

Lavers said she is so appalled by the amount of plastic in the oceans that she has taken to using a bamboo iPhone case and toothbrush.

"We need to drastically rethink our relationship with plastic," she said. "It's something that's designed to last forever, but is often only used for a few fleeting moments and then tossed away."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Syrian government "categorically" denied on Tuesday US accusations that mass killings are happening at a prison north of Damascus, with the victims burned there in a crematorium.

The allegations are "a new Hollywood plot" to justify U.S. intervention in Syria, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It called the State Department's allegations "lies" and "fabrications," noting what it called a U.S. history of making up false claims as a pretext for military aggression.

"The U.S. administration's accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in Saydnaya prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.

SYRIAN REGIME USING CREMATORIUM TO 'COVER UP' MASS MURDERS, STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS

About 50 detainees are hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, the State Department said Monday.

Many of the bodies are burned in a crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones said. He accused President Bashar Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity."

The State Department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The images, which started to be taken in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.



REPORT ACCUSES SYRIAN REGIME OF CARRYING OUT MASS HANGINGS

Amnesty International has said 13,000 people were killed in four years at the prison.

The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the U.S. launched cruise missiles on a government air base in April after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have accumulated evidence of mass killings in Syrian government prisons, though there have not been any substantiated allegations so far of the use of a crematorium.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The United States is on a collision course with its NATO ally Turkey, pushing ahead with arming Syrian Kurds after deciding the immediate objective of defeating Islamic State militants outweighs the potential damage to a partnership vital to U.S. interests in the volatile Middle East.

The Turks are fiercely opposed to the U.S. plans, seeing the Kurdish fighters as terrorists. And when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits the White House on Tuesday, the most he and President Donald Trump may be able to do is agree to disagree, and move on.

If we are strategic allies, then we should make decisions in alliance, Erdogan told the Sabah newspaper Sunday. If our alliance is going to be overshadowed, then we should take care of ourselves, he said. We cant allow this alliance to be taken over by policies against Turkey.

The challenge is hardly new. Long before Trump took office, U.S. presidents have grappled with the fragility of partnering with Turkeys government and the Kurds to carry out a Middle East agenda.

Jonathan Schanzer at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies told The Associated Press that the Turks see this as a crisis in the relationship.

Past administrations have sought a delicate balance. Too exuberant in its support for the Kurds, and the U.S. risks pushing ally Turkey toward U.S. geopolitical rivals like Russia or emboldening the Kurds to try to create an independent state  a scenario that would destabilize multiple countries in the region. Too little cooperation with the Kurds risks squandering a battlefield ally with proven effectiveness against extremist threats and who has staunchly supported Washington.

Trump has made his priorities clear.

His administration is arming Syrian Kurdish fighters as part of an effort to recapture the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State groups self-declared capital. Coupled with the U.S.-backed fight in the Iraqi city of Mosul, Raqqa is seen as a key step toward liberating the remaining territory the militants hold.

Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the Kurdish militants in Syria for years and doesnt want them spearheading the Raqqa effort. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish group, known as the YPG, a terrorist group because of its ties to the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party inside Turkey. The United States, the European Union and Turkey all agree the PKK is a terrorist organization.

The Turks fear any weapons the U.S. provides the Syrian Kurds could well end up with their ethnic brethren in Turkey, whove fought violently as part of a separatist insurgency for more than three decades. As a nod to Turkeys concerns, the Pentagon has promised tight monitoring of all weapons and greater intelligence sharing to help the Turks better watch over their frontiers. Kurds are an ethnic group predominantly concentrated along the borders of four countries  Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

But a face-to-face confrontation on the matter between Trump and Erdogan seems inevitable.

Erdogan and other top Turkish officials have pressed for the U.S. to reverse its strategy, however low the prospects of Trump changing his mind. As a result, experts see Erdogan using the meeting to confront Trump on a host of other Turkish grievances. Those include extraditing the Pennsylvania-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for fomenting a failed coup last summer, and dropping U.S. charges against Reza Zarrab, a Turkish businessman accused of money-laundering and violating U.S. sanctions in Iran.

I see this trip as a new milestone in Turkey-U.S. relations, Erdogan said, as he prepared to fly to Washington.

The U.S., too, has a wish list for Turkey. Washington is concerned by rising anti-Americanism in Turkey that Erdogans government has tolerated since the July coup attempt. The U.S. also has pressed unsuccessfully for the release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor, and other detained U.S. citizens.

Trump has prioritized protecting U.S. national security interests over lecturing allies on democratic values or human rights, said James Phillips, a senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs at the Heritage Foundation. I dont think the president will lose any sleep if he is criticized for meeting with President Erdogan, as long as it pays dividends for advancing his foreign policy agenda.

But Erdogan may not be amenable to accepting the U.S. military support for the Kurds in a quid pro quo. Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about six miles away. His government has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

Barack Aydin of the Washington-based Kurdish Policy Research Center, said the key ought to be a broader peace process between Erdogans government and Kurdish opponents in Turkey, which would eliminate these problems.

That would be a very good start, Aydin said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
The editor of a leading Turkish opposition newspaper has been formally arrested for allegedly spreading "terrorist propaganda," the state-run Anadolu news agency said Tuesday.

Oguz Guven, the editor of Cumhuriyet newspaper's online edition, was formally arrested Monday evening after being detained Friday.

Guven was arrested on the grounds that he bears legal responsibility for the newspaper's tweets, specifically in reference to a tweet on the death of prosecutor Mustafa Alper in a traffic accident last week.

The deleted tweet described Alper as having been "mowed down" by a truck, seen by many as an unsavory choice of words.

Alper, chief prosecutor of Denizli province in southwestern Turkey, filed the first indictment against the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen following last summer's coup attempt.

The Turkish government blames Gulen for orchestrating the July 15 coup, which he denies.

Citing the court decision, Anadolu said the tweet's wording stood against news principles and was chosen to create a "perception of warning" for prosecutors working against the Gulen network.

Reporting Guven's testimony, Cumhuriyet said the breaking news tweet was posted in a hurry, leading to an error in language, and was deleted in 55 seconds before a new tweet was issued. Guven said the phrase "mowed down" is often used to describe traffic accidents and was not ill-intentioned.

"We did not aim to commit a crime," Guven said, adding that the article linked to the tweet and other tweets are proof he did not praise a terror organization.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday the judiciary would "do what's necessary to people using inappropriate expressions" following Alper's death.

Twelve journalists and senior staff members of Cumhuriyet are imprisoned pending trial on charges of "aiding terrorist organizations," including Gulen's network and Kurdish militants.

According to Platform 24 for independent journalism, 165 journalists are behind bars in Turkey. More than 47,000 people have been arrested since the failed coup.
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Turkish opposition members and human rights defenders are urging President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Turkey's deteriorating human rights and democracy in talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

Erdogan is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House for discussions expected to center on the friction between the two NATO allies over a U.S. decision to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters considered as terrorists by Turkey. They will also likely focus on a Turkish request for the extradition of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Turkey blames for last summer's failed coup.

The Trump administration has placed priority on U.S. security issues and advancing foreign policy goals, and there is no indication that the issues of human rights and media freedoms will figure prominently on the agenda.

The meeting comes weeks after Erdogan's narrow victory in a national referendum that will expand the powers of his office  a development critics say takes Turkey closer toward autocratic rule.

"Turkey is under a state of emergency since (the failed coup), during which human rights have been trampled on," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a legislator from Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP. "The media and press freedoms have been placed under government control. Torture and ill-treatment have increased."

"Human rights and democracy are not part of Trump's agenda, but we hope that he abandons this stance," Tanrikulu said. "A Turkey that moves away from the world is to no one's interest."

About 47,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to the coup, while 100,000 people suspected of association to Gulen's movement have been fired from government jobs. Turkey also moved to cracked down on other opponents, jailing more than 100 journalists and about a dozen legislators from an opposition pro-Kurdish party.

Trump has been keen to maintain a good relationship with Erdogan. He congratulated Erdogan on his referendum win even as human rights advocates and some European leaders voiced concerns over the direction Turkey is taking.

Erdogan's ties with the former U.S. administration were strained, among other issues, over Washington's frequent calls for Turkey to respect human rights and freedom of expression. The fact that the Trump administration hasn't publicly outlined these issues as part of the agenda might come as a relief to Erdogan.

A senior Turkish government official said, however, that Trump not focusing on human rights in Turkey was "not an issue for us."

"I don't think it would even have crossed the president's mind. Our priority is the YPG issue," the official said.

He was making a reference to the Syrian Kurdish fighters whom the U.S. has decided to provide with weapons ahead of a possible operation to recapture the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters.

Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and has designated both groups as terrorists. Turkey fears that weapons supplied to the YPG will end up in the hands of the PKK  which has led a three-decade long insurgency in Turkey, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

Ozturk Turkdogan, the head of Turkey's Ankara-based Human Rights Association, said that he hoped Trump would raise human rights issues and push Erdogan to revive efforts for a peaceful solution to the conflict with the PKK rebels.

"A new initiative with the Kurds would bring peace to Turkey and resolve the Kurdish issue that is plaguing the Middle East," he said.
Since the wave of protests against President Nicolas Maduro began a month and a half ago, something unprecedented and unconstitutional has started to take place in Venezuela: Hundreds of civilians have been brought to military justice in compliance to the new "Plan Zamora," an operative launched by the government to preempt a coup.

According to justice records, since the beginning of April 275 civilians have been prosecuted in military courts in four different states, including the capital. Of those, 159 were imprisoned and remain behind bars.

MORE KILLED, HUNDREDS INJURED IN VENEZUELA PROTESTS

Most of them were charged with attacking an officer and association with intent of rebellion." In the state of Zulia, 14 people were brought before military justice for destroying a statue of late President Hugo Chavez.

The practice of trying civilians in military courts, banned by the Venezuelan constitution, comes after longtime chavista Attorney General Luisa Ortega broke ranks with the government and publicly condemned the arbitrary arrests of demonstrators, among other recent decisions deemed anti-constitutional.

VENEZUELA'S MADURO SEEKS TO EXPAND ARMED CIVILIAN MILITIAS

"The government is resorting to military justice because it realized the AGs office wasn't going to lend itself to political persecution, Gonzalo Himiob, director of the NGO Venezuelan Penal Forum told Fox News.

He added that with the military trials the government is trying to suggest a confrontation between two armed sides.

That is false, he said. Those who are armed are the military, the police and the paramilitary groups."

The opposition says the new trend is a "persecution" maneuver to cool protests against Maduro, which in the last six weeks has left 38 dead and more than 800 injured.

VENEZUELA'S MADURO TALKS TO COWS DURING OFFICIAL ACT: WILL YOU SUPPORT ME?

Despite the deaths, opposition leaders continue to call for daily street protests to reject Maduro's intentions to elect a Constituent Assembly that would to rewrite the Constitution. They say such assembly would be "fraudulent" and only seeks to keep Chavismo in power.

"The only thing that Maduro is looking for is to not call for any more elections. That Constituent Assembly is a fraud and we are not going to participate," said opposition leader Henrique Capriles to Fox News.

The oppositionled Congress passed resolution last week calling military trials a violation of human rights" and Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro has said that what is happening in Venezuela is "a practice of dictatorships."

But so far all condemnation has fell on deaf ears, as Chavismo remains deeply encroached in virtually all of the nations institutions.

Maduro, whose government is rejected by seven out of 10 Venezuelans according to most surveys, justifies the use of military trials saying the demonstrations have resulted in "terrorist acts" and come up to and "armed insurgency" seeking to overthrow him.

"Venezuela is the victim of a national and international ambush of fascism," he said again last week.

Maduro, 54, who narrowly won election to replace Chavez in 2013, says he is the victim of an international right-wing conspiracy that has already brought down leftist governments in Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years.

As international pressure on him grows, the European Union on Monday became the latest to call for elections in its most outspoken statement yet on the Venezuela crisis.
Duck Donuts Announces New Franchise Location in Alpharetta, Georgia - One of Americas Friendliest Towns

Duck Donuts is expanding to the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Georgia, as franchise owner Youn Hee Lee plans a May 19 opening. Duck Donuts will welcome 25-40 new jobs to the Alpharetta community.

MECHANICSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA (PRWEB) May 15, 2017 - Duck Donuts is expanding to the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Georgia, according to Russ DiGilio, founder and owner of Duck Donuts Franchising Company LLC.

Franchise owner Youn Hee Lee plans to open on May 19, at 3005 Old Alabama Road, Suite 170, Alpharetta, five minutes from North Point Mall. The 1,300 square-foot shop will reflect the franchises iconic beach theme and offer select retail items in-store.

While I was making plans to relocate and retire, I decided instead to shift careers and start a small business venture with my children. My son suggested Duck Donuts, and after visiting various Virginia locations, we decided it would be a great business opportunity, says Lee. The donuts were as delicious as my son described, and I love seeing the memories made among families when visiting Duck Donuts. As a grandmother, I wanted to contribute to that family-friendly atmosphere.

The city of Alpharetta replicates our companys family-friendly environment, and we are thrilled to plant deeper roots in the Peach State, says DiGilio. With each new franchise location, Duck Donuts welcomes 25-40 new jobs to the community.

Alpharetta is located in northern Fulton County, 22 miles north of downtown Atlanta. It is well-known for its vibrant southern culture. Ranked number seven on Forbes list of Americas Friendliest Towns, Alpharetta was also named number one by Forbes in 2009 as the Best Place to Move in America. It is home to branch campuses of Georgia State University, Gwinnett Technical College, and Reinhardt University, as well as many cultural events. Coined the Technology City of the South due to its large number of tech-focused companies, Alpharetta is Georgias 12th most populous city.

As of May 9, 2017, Duck Donuts Franchising Company has 37 open stores and 126 contracts.

As the sole proprietor and first-time franchise owner, Youn Hee Lee welcomes support, help, and insights from her two children, Rebecca Lee and Jae Lee, as well as her husband Hee Kwon Lee.

Our Duck Donuts family is growing, and were thrilled that new franchisees like Yon Hee Lee are also involving their entire family in the business. Our purpose statement is, Our family serving your family, and with each new store opening, we become more passionate about this promise, says DiGilio.

Its hard for my family to choose a favorite Duck Donut flavor, but we love the Strawberry Lemonade. It offers the perfect combination of sweet and tangy, says Lee.

Donuts at this location will be made fresh to order, Monday - Thursday, 6:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m., and Friday - Sunday, 6:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m. for the first two weeks. Opening weekend hours are May 19May 21, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. For Grand Opening specials, regular store hours, and donut topping updates, visit the Duck Donuts Alpharetta, GA Facebook page or connect on the web at DuckDonuts.com.

About Duck Donuts

Duck Donuts was founded in 2006 by Russ DiGilio in Duck, North Carolina. His intention? To solve a family vacation problem: Our family wanted a place to buy warm, delicious & made to order! donuts, and when we couldnt find one, we decided to start our own.

By 2011, Duck Donuts had expanded to four Outer Banks locations and the donut business was so successful that DiGilio was continuously approached about franchise opportunities and by fans who begged for a Duck Donuts in their communities. The first franchise opened in Williamsburg, VA, in 2013, and there are now 37 open franchise locations and 126 contracts.

Duck Donuts store openings are scheduled for:

Nags Head, NC  May

Dayton, Ohio  May

Jacksonville, NC  May

Wilmington, NC  May

Hershey, PA  May

Baltimore, MD  May

Kissimmee, FL  June

Duck Donuts emphasizes the importance of giving back to the local community through their #QuackGivesBack initiatives every month and their national corporate partnership with Chemo Duck. Our mission is twofold, says DiGilio, to serve the most amazing warm, delicious, and made-to-order donuts, and to contribute to the communities we call home.

The Duck Donuts Experience

We discovered that the most powerful marketing advantage we have is the aroma of warm donuts wafting from every store. Our light vanilla cake donut is a little crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, made fresh right in front of you, hand-dipped in hot icing, and sprinkled with your choice of delicious toppings and drizzles. Its that simple, says DiGilio.

Children (and grownups) love to stand on the strategically placed step in the waiting area, allowing them to see the entire process as the donut machine cooks and carries their donuts down the line, where they are dipped, topped, packaged, and served warm in the box. Duck Donuts serves its own signature coffee blends - Riptide Roast, Light House Blend, and Sunset Pier Decaf with new special seasonal flavors changing throughout the year - and offers breakfast options, as well as catering services. Indoor and outdoor seating is available at most locations.

To learn more or to share your Duck Donuts experience, Like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, or send us a Tweet.

Contact:

Anne Deeter Gallaher

Deeter Gallaher Group LLC

+1 717.525.8042

SOURCE Duck Donuts

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Spotsylvania County School Board member Amanda Blalock announced Monday that she will step down at the end of June because her family is moving.

Her new home is in Spotsylvania, but outside of the Lee Hill District, which she has represented on the School Board since 2008.

But Blalock, 48, is not done with politics. She also declared her candidacy Monday for the 88th District House of Delegates seat held by Mark Cole, RSpotsylvania. She is running as an independent.

Ive had an interest in running for House of Delegates for quite some time now, said Blalock, who is married with seven children. I just feel like I could affect change on a broader scale at this point in my political career. She said her areas of interest include public education and redistricting reform.

The Spotsylvania School Board must appoint Blalocks replacement within 45 days of her resignation, which takes effect July 1.

The goal is to make it as smooth as possible regardless of who is appointed by the School Board, Blalock said.

The seat will be up for grabs again during Novembers general election. So far, Lisa Phelps is the only candidate who has submitted paperwork to run, Registrar Kellie Acors said.

Blalock, meanwhile, is entering a crowded race for the 88th District House seat that represents parts of Fredericksburg, Stafford County and Spotsylvania. The other candidates are Cole, Democrat Steve Aycock and Green Party member Gerald Anderson.
Cumbria Constabulary and the NFU have teamed up to create Country Watch West  a collaborative scheme to fight farm-based crime.

Launched on Monday (15 May), Country Watch West has taken inspiration from the successful Country Watch Eden crime prevention initiative, which was created in 2015 to tackle the persistent problem of sheep theft in eastern Cumbria.

Led by PC Leanne Pettit with the help of NFU Cumbria county adviser Helen Forrester, Country Watch West will begin life by sharing intelligence about rural crime with farmers on Facebook  via the Country Watch West page.

See also: Shock rise in farm thefts prompts crime warning

Ms Forrester said: Crime prevention information, suspicious sightings and appeals for information will all be found on the new Facebook page. Well then progress to organising nights of action when farmers join police officers patrolling rural west Cumbria after dark.

Gary Slater, Cumbria Constabularys superintendent, added: We see this as an excellent opportunity to engage with the public to report suspicious activity in the rural areas within West Cumbria.

It could be suspicious vehicles or people seen in suspicious circumstances or concerns over sheep worrying, which can be an issue at this time of year.

Our police officers and police community support officers can access the Facebook pages on their mobile devices when they are on patrol and update members of the public immediately using this social media format.

A logo has been designed for Country Watch West by Cockermouth School pupil Daisy Holman, whose artwork was chosen by Cumbria police and crime commissioner Peter McCall and NFU Cumbria county chairman David Raine.

As part of this new alliance between the farmers and police, some west Cumbrian police officers will also be given a crash course in handling sheep by an NFU member  in case they need to move sheep to a safe location without any help.

Rural crime cost the North West 4m in 2015, according to rural insurer NFU Mutual, with sheep rustling and quad bike thefts notable problems.
Story Highlights 40% view Democratic Party favorably, down from 45% in November

GOP rating basically unchanged at 39%

Both parties are below historical average ratings

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' opinions of the two major political parties are now similar after the Democratic Party's ratings slipped to 40% -- from 45% last November -- while the Republican Party's image is essentially unchanged at 39%.

The latest update on the party's images is based on a May 3-7 Gallup poll, which asked Americans whether they have a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of each party.

Throughout last year's contentious presidential election campaign, U.S. adults rated neither party highly. In fact, more rated each party unfavorably than favorably. But Democrats maintained a slight edge in favorable ratings, including 45% to 40% in Gallup's prior measurement, conducted last November after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election.

So far, Trump's unpopularity as president has done little to erode Americans' views of the GOP, perhaps because they were already quite negative. However, Americans are now less positive toward the Democratic Party than they were last fall.

The decline in Democratic Party favorability is mostly a result of lower ratings from self-identified Democrats. In November, 83% of Democrats had a positive opinion of the Democratic Party; now, 77% do. Independents are also slightly less positive toward the Democratic Party, while Republicans' negative views of the opposing party are steady.

Favorable Ratings of the Democratic Party, by Political Party Nov 9-13 , 2016 May 3-7 , 2017 Change % % pct. pts. Democrats 83 77 -6 Independents 37 34 -3 Republicans 14 15 +1 Gallup

Currently, 79% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of their preferred party. Thirty-three percent of independents and 9% of Democrats rate the Republican Party favorably.

Americans Usually Rate Democratic Party Better Than Republican Party

Gallup has asked Americans to evaluate the political parties using the favorable/unfavorable format since 1992. Over time, Democratic Party and Republican Party favorability have averaged 50% and 44%, respectively, indicating that both parties' current ratings are below their historical norms.

The historical statistics also make clear that Democrats' ratings usually exceed Republicans' ratings -- by six percentage points, on average.

The Democrats' image was significantly more favorable than Republicans' in 1998 and 1999 when the GOP led impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton, in 2006 through 2009 near the end of the George W. Bush administration and beginning of the Barack Obama administration, and from late 2012 after Obama's re-election through early 2014.

Republicans have yet to enjoy a sustained period of time in which their favorable ratings significantly exceed those for the Democratic Party. There were a few brief eras when Republican and Democratic Party ratings were similar, including:

2002 and 2003, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to a rally in support of elected leaders, including then-President George W. Bush

late 2004 and early 2005, during and shortly after Bush's successful re-election campaign

2010 and 2011 after the GOP won control of the U.S. House of Representatives amid frustration with Obama and the Affordable Care Act

The Democratic Party's typical favorability advantage to a large degree reflects its usual lead in party identification among U.S. adults.

Implications

Americans are quite negative toward both of the major political parties at this time. Trump's unpopularity and the GOP's challenges in governing a divided nation have done little to weaken the party's poor image further. But those same factors have also done little to cast the opposing party, the Democrats, in a more favorable light.

If anything, the Democratic Party's positioning appears weakened, largely because its own supporters now hold a less positive view of the party. That could indicate Democrats are frustrated with the party's minority status in Washington. Not since 2003 through 2006 have Democrats failed to control the presidency, House of Representatives or Senate. Prior to that, Democrats had control of either Congress or the presidency for more than 50 years.

Next year Democrats will have a chance to change their minority party status in the federal midterm elections. Midterm elections are often a referendum on the president, so Democrats' prospects for a strong showing are enhanced by Trump's low approval ratings. However, if Democrats cannot improve their party's image between now and November 2018, it may hinder their ability to regain some measure of power in Washington.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
In March, Caesars Sportsbook announced it will soon be teaming up with another popular horse racing platform to offer betting on dozens of races throughout the world. Customers using the Caesars app reported not being able to bet this year's Kentucky Derby and the same seems to be applying to this weekend's Preakness Stakes.
You can bet online from Colorado using Xpressbet, however, be prepared to provide your social security number. International online racebooks do not require a social security number and will also accommodate your Preakness Stakes and other horse wagers .

Colorado has a few places where one can watch this years Preakness Stakes simulcast live including Arapahoe Park Race Track in Aurora.

Check the Arapahoe Park website for details as to when the Preakness Stakes festivities are set to begin.

Effective April 21, 2003, off-track simulcasts have been permitted. Out-of-state simulcasts are also permitted. Parimutuel wagering only.

There are advantages to betting at either internationally licensed online racebooks or US-based racebooks that we review below.

Bookmaker Racebook vs. TwinSpires

Bookmaker TWINSPIRES.COM 8 Percent Cash Back No Cash Back Up to $300 Free Cash Signup Bonus $100 Signup Bonus In Business Since 1986 Taking Bets Online Less Than 10 years Does Not Require Social Security # Must Provide Social Security # Encourages Tax Declaration of Winnings Reports Tax Info to Government Offers Betting on Hundreds More Events Limited to Horse Betting Betting on Over 50 Race Tracks Betting on Over 50 Race Tracks
WannaCry Ransomware Threat Prompts US Government Emergency Meetings, Experts Blame NSA

After the initial salvo of infections, the ransomware known as WannaCry has started to initiate a second wave of attacks that has affected even more countries. The online security breach has prompted the White House to hold emergency meetings with experts. It has been speculated that the NSA was involved in some way that led to the eventual development of the virus.

Experts claim that the WannaCry ransomware was created from some hacking tools available online. The tools were allegedly leaked by a group who call themselves the Shadow Brokers. It appears that one of those tools were developed by the NSA to take advantage of a Windows vulnerability to give them unrestricted access to a computer. Gizmodo confirmed that Microsoft immediately took action when the tools were leaked and released a patch to fix the vulnerability.

However, when the WannaCry ransomware started to attack computers last week it revealed just how many computers were not updated. Over 200,000 victims across 150 countries were infected with the ransomware that crippled their computers. The victims were asked to pay amounts from $300 to $600 in order to gain back access to their files. This potentially places the blame on the NSA for a global chaos that has rendered some important services to shut down until it is resolved.

Cyber security experts claim that ATMs went offline, factories and other manufacturing processes were halted, medical facilities had to turn away patients, and obviously sleepless nights for cyber security experts. New outlets confirm that the US government's Cyber Response Group continues to huddle with Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert. It is suspected that they are discussing the extent of the NSA'a involvement with the WannaCry ransomware.

The WannaCry ransomware attacks are an ideal example of why a collection of vulnerabilities by the US government becomes a problem. The vulnerability exploit stolen from the NSA has obviously caused problems for a lot of people around the world. Users are advised to update their Windows OS on all of their computers to hopefully prevent the spread of the virus, as suggested by Gamenguide.
Councilwoman Suzie Price and Vice Mayor Rex Richardson are in the running for the city's top political post.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Three stage refurbishment : Bonn cathedral to close for two to three years

Bonn Clean up and restoration works will begin on Bonn cathedral from July. The basilica on Munsterplatz will remain closed for a lengthy period. The costs of the works are estimated to be Euro 20 million.

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The preparations for the refurbishment of Bonn cathedral will begin in July. The closure is an interference with inner city life, said the city dean Wilfried Schumacher at a press conference on Monday evening. The basilica will remain closed for two to three years. Planners have announced a building period of 30 months but it could be shorter or longer. This sort of building can lead to surprises, although nearly every stone has been analysed over the last three years.

The last service will take place at noon on 23 July. Schumacher will then close the doors to the papal basilica and hand the keys over to project head Agidius Strack and architect Ulrich Hahn. The more than 260-year-old cathedral bells will ring for the last time before a procession through the city to Sankt Remigius, where the congregation will find a temporary home at the Catholic university parish church. Only the Sunday evening service, which according to the city deans office is attended mainly by young people, will take place in the Protestant Schloss church.

The sound of the cathedral bells will be replaced by the hustle and bustle of the builders, said Schumacher, who had invited residents to an information talk the same evening. The project head said up to 50 workmen from various trades will work on the site at peak times. Setting up the work site in the centre of the pedestrian zone will also be a logistical challenge.

The cathedral needs to be cleared before works can begin on 15 August. Church pews and moveable object such as statues, pictures and lights will be stored. The large organ will need to be taken to pieces and correctly stored for the duration of the works. The churchs treasures will be placed in a bank vault, reported Schumacher.

All passersby will see of the preparatory works to the roof structure is extraction hoses and a special vehicle which will be used to remove dust and insulation. In the second phase of works, scaffolding will be erected throughout the interior of the cathedral. Braces and tie rods will stabilise the building, which moves several millimetres each year. Vaults and cracked walls will be repaired. Building services and lighting will be renewed. All the old cabling must be removed. The appointed lighting planner has already done the lighting for Cologne Cathedral.

During the final phase of works, the cathedrals west and south facades will be restored. During this time restorers will work on areas of the interior such as the altars and the mosaics in the choir. The congregation will take the relics of the citys patron saints with them. Their blessing will perhaps help with the building works.

For current information on the building works go to: bonner-muenster.de/sanierung. Anyone wanting to sponsor a stone at the cathedral can find information atmein-bonner-muenster.de.
Government after the state elections : SPD rules out grand coalition in NRW

Dusseldorf There will be no grand coalition in North Rhine Westphalia after the state elections. The SPD ruled this out on Monday evening. Will there now be a black-yellow coalition?

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After the surprising election victory in North Rhine Westphalia, CDU main candidate Armin Laschet now faces difficulties in forming a government. The SPD state leadership ruled out a governing coalition with the CDU on Monday evening. There will be no grand coalition with us, said SPD party leader Norbert Romer. The decision was made by the party leadership in view of the majority gained by the CDU and FDP in the new state parliament.

The FDP played a high risk game on the day of the state elections. Leading Free Democrats threatened that the FDP would rather be in opposition than make sweeping concessions to the CDU in coalition negotiations We will only agree when there is a true political exchange, said FDP leader Christian Lindner in Berlin.

On Monday evening the CDU and FDP agreed to initial exploratory talks. A spokesperson for the FDP said Laschet had invited the Liberals although a date has not yet been agreed.

After its worst ever result, the NRW SPD is busy reorganising itself without the former state head Hannelore Kraft. Romer said personnel decisions should be made by the summer break. Kraft did not take part in the leadership meeting. The Minister President resigned her party offices with immediate effect on the night of the election.

CDU state leader Laschet signalled a leaning towards the FDP without committing himself. Referring to a very small majority alliance with the FDP, he said before a leadership meeting in Dusseldorf: You can also govern with a majority of one. The conditions would be: lots of consensus and the will to really make things better. He sees commonalities with the FDP in education, in economic policies and in the removal of bureaucracy. Things are different in the area of internal security.

Before the election, Laschet emphasised several times that the CDU had the most points of agreement with the FDP. However, he also did not expressly rule out a coalition with the SPD. A grand coalition would have a comfortable majority in NRWs new state parliament.

In the Cologne Anzeiger, CDU expert Wolfgang Bosbach expressed scepticism for a black-yellow coalition in Dusseldorf with only a majority of one.

After the preliminary official results in NRW, the CDU beat the SPD by 33 per cent to 31.2 per cent. The FDP followed with 12.6 per cent. The AfD is entering the Dusseldorf state parliament for the first time with 7.4 per cent. The Greens dropped to 6.4 per cent and the Left Party, with 4.9 per cent, was around 8,500 votes short of those required to enter the state parliament. The NRW Pirates gained 1 per cent. Participation in the vote rose from 59.6 per cent to 65.2 per cent. It is expected the new state government will first convene on 1 June. There is no time limit for voting for a new Minister President.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
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.
Tension! 20 Farmers Killed In Suspected Herdsmen Attack In Niger State

clarajancita at 16-05-2017 10:16 AM (5 years ago) (f)

Fulani herdsmen carrying guns have attacked a community in Niger state shooting about 20 people dead in yet another bloody attack. Nigerian herdsmen armed with guns, reportedly killed 20 farmers and injured eight other people in a mosque in Niger state over the weekend, police said on Monday. Fighting over land use between semi-nomadic cattle herders and more settled communities, claims hundreds of lives a year in the middle belt and in the north of Nigeria. Last year, the government said preventing attacks was a security priority.

Fulani herdsmen carrying guns have attacked a community in Niger state shooting about 20 people dead in yet another bloody attack. Nigerian herdsmen armed with guns, reportedly killed 20 farmers and injured eight other people in a mosque in Niger state over the weekend, police said on Monday. Fighting over land use between semi-nomadic cattle herders and more settled communities, claims hundreds of lives a year in the middle belt and in the north of Nigeria. Last year, the government said preventing attacks was a security priority. Bala Elkana, a spokesman for Niger state police, said the attack happened at about 05:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Saturday at Epogi community, in the Mokwa area of the state.

Bala Elkana, a spokesman for Niger state police, said the attack happened at about 05:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Saturday at Epogi community, in the Mokwa area of the state. Quote It was a clash between farmers and herders which had been initially handled but some herders felt unsatisfied and  they launched a reprisal attack on some villagers praying in a mosque, Elkana said. Three people had been arrested, he said.

Nigerias poor transport and communications infrastructure can slow the speed at which reports of events in some rural communities are passed on. Elkana said. Three people had been arrested, he said.Nigerias poor transport and communications infrastructure can slow the speed at which reports of events in some rural communities are passed on.

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 16-05-2017 10:16 AM (5 years ago) | Hero

HUMANresurce at 16-05-2017 10:49 AM (5 years ago)

(m) THIS COUNTRY NIGERIA, IS IT A COUNTRY OR AN ANIMAL KINGDOM? SO AFTER ALL THE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE KILLINGS OF VILLAGERS ACROSS THE NATION BY THE HERDSMEN, THE NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE STILL ALLOW THEM TO BE CARRING GUNS? NA WAOOOO. THIS COUNTRY GET A VERY LONG WAY TO GO. Posted: at 16-05-2017 10:49 AM (5 years ago) | Upcoming THIS COUNTRY NIGERIA, IS IT A COUNTRY OR AN ANIMAL KINGDOM? SO AFTER ALL THE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE KILLINGS OF VILLAGERS ACROSS THE NATION BY THE HERDSMEN, THE NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE STILL ALLOW THEM TO BE CARRING GUNS? NA WAOOOO. THIS COUNTRY GET A VERY LONG WAY TO GO. Reply

Mykie010 at 16-05-2017 11:02 AM (5 years ago)

(m) Quote from: HUMANresurce on 16-05-2017 10:49 AM THIS COUNTRY NIGERIA, IS IT A COUNTRY OR AN ANIMAL KINGDOM? SO AFTER ALL THE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE KILLINGS OF VILLAGERS ACROSS THE NATION BY THE HERDSMEN, THE NIGERIAN POLICE FORCE STILL ALLOW THEM TO BE CARRING GUNS? NA WAOOOO. THIS COUNTRY GET A VERY LONG WAY TO GO.

. That is why they call Nigeria a zoo,a country of lawlessness.. Posted: at 16-05-2017 11:02 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac . That is why they call Nigeria a zoo,a country of lawlessness.. Reply

Mykie010 at 16-05-2017 11:04 AM (5 years ago)

(m) Buhari thank u very much oo,we dey see una hand work..somebody like zaki68 can never condemn this act... Posted: at 16-05-2017 11:04 AM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Buhari thank u very much oo,we dey see una hand work..somebody like zaki68 can never condemn this act... Reply

christianity at 16-05-2017 12:47 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Its not a country, its zoological republic, where monkeys and baboons have a field they killing themselves Posted: at 16-05-2017 12:47 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Its not a country, its zoological republic, where monkeys and baboons have a field they killing themselves Reply

benosky4 at 16-05-2017 03:00 PM (5 years ago)

(m) These herdsmen are not Nigerians, sadly our leaders bribe from them in exchange for the lives and privileges of ordinary Nigerians.

#GodHelpUs. #MyVerdict. Posted: at 16-05-2017 03:00 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac These herdsmen are not Nigerians, sadly our leaders bribe from them in exchange for the lives and privileges of ordinary Nigerians.#GodHelpUs. Reply

benosky4 at 16-05-2017 03:01 PM (5 years ago)

(m) These herdsmen are not Nigerians, sadly our leaders take bribe from them in exchange for the lives and privileges of ordinary Nigerians.

#GodHelpUs. #MyVerdict. Posted: at 16-05-2017 03:01 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac These herdsmen are not Nigerians, sadly our leaders take bribe from them in exchange for the lives and privileges of ordinary Nigerians.#GodHelpUs. Reply

morgan1 at 16-05-2017 03:17 PM (5 years ago)

(m) These guys are not Herdsmen,,,they ar just different group of militant,,,, Posted: at 16-05-2017 03:17 PM (5 years ago) | Hero These guys are not Herdsmen,,,they ar just different group of militant,,,, Reply

chukkychukky at 16-05-2017 03:23 PM (5 years ago)

(m) na dem dem Joramentity aka chukkychukky Posted: at 16-05-2017 03:23 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac na dem dem Reply
Nokia 3310 (2017) Feature Phone Launched in India at Rs. 3310: Threat to major budget smartphones Features oi -Harish Kumar Nokia 3310 has been launched in India at Rs. 3,310.

The iconic Nokia 3310 is back to bring nostalgia to the fans. We say this as the Nokia 3310 (2017) has been released in India at a price of Rs. 3,310.

The Nokia feature phone that has been launched in India today will go on sale in the country starting from May 18. It will be available in different color variants including Yellow, Warm Red, Grey, and Dark Blue with a matte finish.

The device features the classic numeric keypad as seen in the original Nokia 3310 that went official in the early 2000s. Also, this phone brings back the snake game to the users.

Nokia upcoming Android smartphones Expecting to Launch in 2017

Take a look at the competition that the Nokia 3310 will give to the other budget smartphones in the market.

Best Mobiles in India
Display

The Moto C is fitted with a 5-inch display display with a WVGA resolution of 854480 pixels. As the name suggests, the Moto C Plus is is not a bigger variant with a larger display but with upgraded specs. The Moto C Plus bestows a 5-inch display with HD 1280720 pixel resolution.

Hardware

The Moto C comes in two variants - one is the 3G variant with a 32-bit 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor and the 4G version with a 64-bit 1.1GHz MediaTek quad-core chipset. Both the variants have 1GB RAM and 8GB storage space.

The Moto C Plus makes use of a 64-bit 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek chipset that is teamed up with 1GB RAM and 16GB storage capacity.

Camera

The Moto C features a 5MP main snapper at its rear and a 2MP selfie camera with selfie light as well. The plus variant has an 8MP main snapper that is claimed to perform pretty well even under low ambient light conditions. The selfie camera remains the same 2MP with selfie light.

Battery

The Moto C comes with a 2350mAh battery that should be render a decent backup to the entry-level smartphone. On the other hand, the Moto C Plus gets the power from a capacious 4000mAh battery that is claimed to give a backup of up to 30 hours to the device.

Pricing and Availability

The Moto C and C Plus will be made available this Spring in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America in a slew of attractive color options - Pearl White, Starry Black, Fine Gold and Metallic Cherry. The Moto C 3G is priced at 89 (approx. Rs. 6,200) and the 4G variant is priced at 99 (approx. Rs. 7000). On the other hand, the Moto C Plus is priced at 119 (approx. Rs. 14,000).
Availability

The revamped Nokia 3310 (2017) will hit the Indian stores from May 18, 2017. If you are concerned about the price, the company has revealed an interesting price tag for this device.

Also Read: Nokia 6 First Impressions: The great comeback?

That is, this handset will cost just Rs. 3310. The company made this feature phone available in four different colors- Warm Red and Yellow with a gloss finish, Dark Blue and Grey with a matte finish.

Similar design of original Nokia 3310

As you have seen already, the refurbished Nokia 3310 gets a similar design of original model which was launched long back. Like other feature phones, even this handset will come with a classic numeric keyboard.

Impressive specs for a feature phone

Though it is a feature phone, it offers impressive specs in it. With 2.4-inch QVGA display, it has a sufficient battery of 1200 mAh capacity.

The company says that it is enough to offer a standby time of up to a month and also maximum talk time of 22.1 hours. It provides a 16MB of internal storage with an expandable option of up to 32GB and runs on Nokia Series 30+ OS.

Other details

The phone will sport a 2MP rear camera with LED flash option and has an in-built MP3 player. It includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack and supports FM as well.

Also Read: Nokia Phones' are likely to launch in the first week of June in India

The device also comes preloaded with an improvised version of a snake and other games. It is a 2G phone with dual SIM (microSIM) support.
Display and software

In terms of display, the smartphone features a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with the resolution of 10801920 pixels at a PPI of 403 pixels per inch.

On the software front, the Redmi Note 4X runs on Mi 10, which is based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system.

Impressive Hardware

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X packs a non-removable Li-Po 4100mAh battery under the hood, which is sufficient to keep the lights on for longer hours.

The heart of the device is an Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor running at 2.1GHz. As mentioned earlier, it has 32GB/64GB of inbuilt storage. Moreover, the storage space can be expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card.

As far as the RAM capacity is concerned, the Redmi Note 4X ships with 3GB/4GB of RAM.

Cameras

The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X features a 13MP primary shooter on the back. Up front, there is also an 8MP snapper for taking selfies and video calls.

Connectivity options

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X is a dual SIM (GSM and GSM) smartphone that offers support for both Micro-SIM and Nano-SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, Infrared, USB OTG, FM, 3G and 4G.

Additionally, the phone also has sensors like Compass Magnetometer, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor and Gyroscope.

Pricing

The standard version of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X is available at 699 Yuan. However, the company might release the Red color variant with a slightly higher price tag. We will know for sure when the device gets officially unveiled tomorrow.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 becomes the highest shipped smartphone in Q1 News oi -Samden Sherpa Xiaomi is disrupting the smartphone market in India.

Well, we cannot deny the fact that Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo are taking a significant share in the smartphone market in India.

Further reports now indicate that these companies are seeing a significant growth in the Indian smartphone market in the first quarter of 2017. While these companies are doing great it seems Xiaomi is taking a slight edge. As per the report from International Data Corporation (IDC), Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 has become the most shipped smartphone in the first quarter.

SEE ALSO: Xiaomi Redmi 4 First Impressions: Big battery, premium design with a Snapdragon CPU underneath

Well, this is no surprise; the smartphone is quite popular among the fans as well as the consumers. Besides, Xiaomi is also providing the Redmi Note 4 with a lot of features and high-end specs at a very low cost. And just to add, the company has more or less changed the mindset that people have regarding Chinese phones or the brands themselves.

That being said, while the shipments have been great for Xiaomi, the company has also popularized the trend of buying phones directly from the retailer's website. According to IDC again, "direct internet channel captured 4 percent market share" in this quarter.

In terms of individual vendors, Samsung is at the top while Xiaomi is behind the South Korean tech giant with 39.8 per cent sequential growth in Q1 2017 over the previous quarter. But the company leads in online smartphone shipments with 40.6 per cent share.

All in all, IDC's data for Q1 2017 shows that China-based vendors have captured 51.4 percent share of the smartphone shipments in India. India saw a total of 27 million smartphones shipped in the quarter with 14.8 per cent growth.

Xiaomi Mi Router 3C that delivers 300Mbps wireless speed launched at Rs. 1,199

However, Indian manufacturers seem to be still struggling and it seems that they need to do a lot in terms of gaining market share in India.

Jaipal Singh, Market Analyst, Client Devices, IDC India in a press statement expressed, "Intense competition from China-based vendors continues to be a major challenge and is expected to increase in coming quarters." "Recovery of the homegrown vendor is necessary for Indian smartphone market not only to fill-in the vacuum created for last few quarters but also to fuel the feature phone to smartphone migration," he added.

Best Mobiles in India

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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.
US intelligence community 'under assault' by Trump: Clapper

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 6:16AM

US intelligence agencies have come "under assault" by President Donald Trump following his firing of FBI chief James Comey, says former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Clapper said that the "very disturbing" dismissal last week highlighted clashes between the intelligence community and the Republican president, who has been accused of getting help from Russia to win the race for the White House.

"I think in many ways our institutions are under assault," Clapper said. "Both externally, and that's the big news here, is Russian interference in our election system. And I think as well our institutions are under assault internally."

In a separate interview with ABC News, the former spy chief described Comey's firing as "another victory on the scoreboard" for the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Comey was overseeing two important investigations that shaped Republican Trump's last year victory against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Before the November 8 vote, Comey led a controversial probe into Clinton's use of a personal server to exchange government emails while she was secretary of state.

After the election, he began investigating Trump's alleged ties to Russia as well as a series of cyber attacks against Clinton's campaign, which Democrats claimed were conducted by Russian hackers and aimed at influencing the outcome of the vote.

Trump-Comey tapes

Trump has warned Comey against talking to the media about his firing, threatening him with recordings of their private talks.

"James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump wrote in tweet Friday morning.

Comey, however, has indicated that he would publicly testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee if the panel agrees to arrange one. He has already declined invitations for a closed-door session.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC on Sunday that Trump should turn over any tapes he has of his conversations with the former FBI chief.

"You can't be cute about tapes," the North Carolina lawmaker said. "If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over. I doubt if there are. But we need to clear the air."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called on Trump to release the tapes "immediately."

He also took the opportunity to repeat his many calls for a special prosecutor to lead the Trump-Russia probe, saying the Democratic Party would not support Trump's new FBI director if his administration turns down the request.

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India Appeals To ICJ To Halt Execution Of Ex-Naval Officer

May 15, 2017

India has appealed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Pakistan to suspend the execution of a retired Indian naval officer convicted of espionage.

Deepak Mittal, joint secretary of India's Foreign Ministry, told the court in The Hague on May 15 that the death sentence handed down to Kulbhushan Jadhav last month followed an "unjust" trial in a Pakistani military court.

He said that Pakistan failed to respond to Indian demands for information about the case.

But Pakistan's representative Muhammad Faisal told the tribunal that Jadhav had "confessed to having been sent by India to wage terror on the innocent civilians and infrastructure of Pakistan."

Faisal, from the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry, said the court had been shown a video of the confession which was available online "for viewers to decide for themselves whether Commander Jadhav is confessing voluntarily."

Faisal showed the court a photograph of a passport which he said was found in Jadhav's possession bearing a completely different "and Muslim" name.

"India has been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to provide an explanation for this passport which is the most obvious indication of covert and illegal activity," Faisal said.

Jadhav's arrest and trial has further strained tense relations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Pakistani officials say Jadhav was arrested in the southwestern province of Balochistan in 2016.

India denies Jadhav was a spy and claims he was kidnapped from Iran. It lodged a protest at the ICJ last week, accusing Islamabad of "egregious violations" of the Vienna Convention On Consular Relations.

With the case expected to take months or years to resolve, New Delhi is calling on the international court to order Islamabad to prevent Jadhav's execution pending the final outcome.

The court's president has already written to Pakistan urging it to refrain from steps that could affect the hearings, effectively a request to prevent the execution from taking place.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/india-pakistan-execution-ex -naval-officer-espionage/28488873.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 Defends Intelligence Sharing With Russia Amid Intense Criticism

RFE/RL May 16, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump has defended what he called his "absolute right" to share information with Russian officials amid controversy over classified information.

Trump's comments, made in series of Twitter posts on May 16, appeared to confirm U.S. media reports that he had disclosed highly classified material to Russia's top diplomat during a meeting at the White House last week.

The disclosure, which may have jeopardized intelligence sourcing about the Islamic State extremist group, further roiled lawmakers and policymakers in Washington, which is still grappling with the fallout from Trump's abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey a day before the meeting with the Russians.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. [White House] meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," he wrote

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he added, using an acronym for the IS group.

The Kremlin described the reports published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters, and other media late on May 15 as "complete nonsense."

But congressional Democrats and some Republicans condemned the reported disclosures as "troubling," "dangerous," and "reckless."

"Reports that this information was provided by a U.S. ally and shared without its knowledge sends a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future," John McCain, an influential Republican senator and vocal critic of Kremlin policies, said in a statement on May 16.

The media reports, which cited anonymous officials, said the information Trump relayed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during their May 10 meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner country through a highly sensitive intelligence-sharing arrangement.

The reports quoted the sources as saying that the partner had not given Washington permission to share the material with Moscow, and that Trump's alleged decision to do so jeopardized cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of IS.

'Off-Script'

During his Oval Office meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak, Trump reportedly went off-script and began describing details about an IS threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, reports said.

They said that in his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump boasted about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day."

While discussing classified matters would be illegal for most people, the president has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that Trump's disclosures broke the law.

After the reports of Trump's disclosures emerged on May 15, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, denied that anything improper took place.

At a press briefing with reporters at the White House on May 16, McMaster repeated those remarks.

"In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged," McMaster said.

"The president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation," he said.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for more information on the reports. Meanwhile, CIA Director Mike Pompeo will brief members of the House Intelligence Committee later on May 16.

Pompeo will likely be questioned by lawmakers about the same reports.

'Worrisome Environment'

Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that such disclosures would be a "slap in the face" to the U.S. intelligence community.

"Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians," Warner said on Twitter.

The second-most-senior Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, called the reported disclosures "dangerous" and "reckless."

he Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, told reporters that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline...it creates a worrisome environment."

On May 16 in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the media reports, saying, "We don't want to have anything do to with this nonsense. It's complete nonsense, not a subject to be denied or confirmed."

In an acerbic Facebook post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that the reports were "the latest fake," but did not comment directly on their substance.

In response to what she said was a wave of requests for comment, she wrote: "Guys, have you been reading the American papers again? You shouldn't do that."

With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, The Washington Post, and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-accused-disclosing -highly-classified-secrets-islamic-state-russian -envoy-lavrov-kislyak/28489852.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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Israel Provided Intelligence Trump Shared With Russian Officials - Reports

Sputnik News

21:09 16.05.2017(updated 21:35 16.05.2017)

Israel was the source of the intelligence information that US President Donald Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak during their discussion at the White House last week on efforts to fight terror groups, media reported.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  At least a part of the intelligence that the United States had about Daesh plans came from the Israelis, The New York Times reported on Tuesday citing two unnamed officials.

The Israeli government did not comment whether it was the source of the information, the media noted.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer refused to confirm on Tuesday that Israel was the source of intelligence information that US President Donald Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister on May 10.

When asked to confirm reports that Israel was the source of the intelligence information shared with Russian officials, Spicer said, "I cannot comment specifically on that."

"We appreciate the relationship we have with Israel, and appreciate the exchange of information that we have with them. That being said, I'm not going to comment any further on that," Spicer added.

On Monday, the Washington Post reported that Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak information about a terror threat involving laptops on airplanes. The information reportedly came from a US partner through an intelligence-sharing agreement.

Following the media reports, National Security Adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster stressed earlier that Trump has not revealed any intelligence sources in the conversation at the White House last week. The officials spoke about threats from terrorist organizations, including threats to aviation.

Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell in a statement refuted the media claims and called the story "false." Later, Trump himself took to Twitter and said that he had every right to share information on terrorism and the safety of flights with Russian officials.

Kremlin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov echoed the sentiment, calling the allegations that Trump shared secret information with Russian officials "absurd."

On May 10, Trump met with Lavrov and Kislyak at the White House. The two Russian diplomats also held a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and discussed global terrorism, Syria, Ukraine as well as bilateral relations.

 Sputnik

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Trump Talk with Russians 'Wholly Appropriate', Adviser Says

By Steve Herman, Ken Bredemeier May 16, 2017

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Tuesday that information about terrorism and threats to international aviation that President Donald Trump shared with Russian diplomats last week was "wholly appropriate" and did not compromise U.S. intelligence sources.

McMaster stood by his account from the day before, that the premise of U.S. news accounts was false that Trump had divulged highly classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Moscow's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in a meeting at the White House.

"I'm not concerned at all," said McMaster, who was at the Oval Office meeting. "That conversation was wholly appropriate to the conversation, and I think wholly appropriate with the expectation of our intelligence partners."

Trump, speaker alongside visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters Tuesday his meeting last week with Lavrov was "very successful."

Media accounts raise concern

The news accounts, first in The Washington Post and later other publications, said that Trump's comments about a possible Islamic State airline terrorist attack were specific enough that it could have given the Russian envoys enough information to determine the U.S. intelligence source, a government with an intelligence-sharing agreement with Washington and one that had not agreed that the U.S. could share the information with Russia.

"The president in no way compromised any sources," McMaster said.

The national security adviser's remarks came hours after Trump defended his "absolute right" to share information with the two Russian diplomats.

Trump tweets about meeting

In early morning Twitter comments, Trump said he wanted to pass on "facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety" as he met with Lavrov and Kislyak, and urge Russia to "greatly step up their fight" against Islamic State and terrorists.

Trump appeared to be boasting about inside knowledge of a looming threat to aviation, according to The Post.

The New York Times reported that the information, which was deemed to be especially sensitive, had not even been shared widely within the U.S. government or shared with other allies.

The two newspapers, and others, further said the information could jeopardize a critical source of intelligence about Islamic State and the manner in which it was collected.

A U.S. president has the power to declassify nearly any information, so what Trump did does not appear to be illegal. But intelligence officials, quoted by the newspapers, expressed concern that the information, provided by a U.S. partner government, could harm crucial international relationships.

Information leaks

As he defended his disclosure Tuesday, Trump also said that from the beginning of his administration in January he has been pressuring the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others in the U.S. government "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community." After-the-fact published reports of Trump's interactions with foreign leaders have at times angered him.

Before Trump's Twitter comments, McMaster and other members of Trump's administration on Monday had denied the accuracy of the news reports on Trump's meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak.

As the controversy over Trump's remarks unfolded, the Senate majority leader, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, gently chided the president.

"We could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so we can focus on our agenda," McConnell told Bloomberg Television.

Other lawmakers voiced concerns about Trump's revelations to the Russians.

Schumer wants transcript of conversation

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer called for the White House to release a transcript of Trump's meeting with the Russian officials to lawmakers on congressional intelligence committees.

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told VOA that Trump "has the ability to disclose classified information. That doesn't make it right. And where it's sensitive and could put sensitive relationships and sources at risk, it's just as dangerous whether it's legal or not."

Another Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, said, "There are a whole host of issues here, both legal and strategic  trusted allies, trust of our intelligence community. And it seems we have one more action by this president that continues to show a pattern of, frankly, disrespecting and disregarding the leadership of the intelligence community."

Republican Senator John McCain, a key foreign affairs expert, said Trump's disclosure risked the cooperation of allies in future intelligence-gathering operations. "It's a serious concern and we have to know who it is he [Trump] may have unmasked [the intelligence source] by giving that information" to the Russian officials, McCain said.

Russia weighs in

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday denied that Trump revealed any classified information at last week's meeting, calling the reports "fake."

The Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency declined immediate comment when contacted by VOA.

Since the early days of the Trump administration, the president's apparent willingness to work with Russia has had some U.S. allies ill at ease.

"It's a key concern," a Western diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity told VOA at the time. "Russia has been a very disruptive player."

But some former intelligence officials think the repercussions from the Oval Office meeting will be minimal, if any.

"No damage - no sources or methods revealed," said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer now with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.

Cause and effect

Pregent, who worked with McMaster in Iraq, said it is unlikely the national security adviser would have allowed the president to cross any lines.

The story broke as the White House remains embroiled in controversy over Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey. That occurred one day prior to the Oval Office meeting with the Russians.

The FBI is investigating alleged links between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

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Military Strikes Continue Against ISIS Terrorists in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, May 15, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 23 strikes consisting of 84 engagements, 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 17 strikes consisting of 20 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed an ISIS pump jack and an ISIS wellhead.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, five strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three ISIS fuel trucks, two ISIS wellheads, and an ISIS pump jack.

-- Near Raqqa, nine strikes engaged seven ISIS tactical units and destroyed three vehicles, two fighting positions and an artillery system.

-- Near Tabqah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted six strikes consisting of 64 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Haditha, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units and a sniper; destroyed 12 fighting positions, five vehicles, two mortar systems, two rocket-propelled grenade systems, two heavy machine guns, two anti-air artillery systems, two vehicle bombs, and a weapons storage facility; damaged ten ISIS supply routes, a fighting position, and a vehicle bomb facility; and suppressed two ISIS tactical units.

-- Near Rawah, a strike destroyed an ISIS command-and-control node.

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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Hamas discloses identity of key commander's murderer

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 5:33PM

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has revealed the identity of the man responsible for the assassination of one of its high-ranking military commanders in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Assistant Military Attorney General Fadl al-Jadili told Arabic-language Safa news agency on Monday that the first hearings for the three men accused of killing Mazen Fuqahaa were held in Gaza City today.

He named Ashraf Abu Leila as the prime suspect in killing the 38-year-old military commander.

Jadili added that the two other defendants attended a separate hearing, noting that they had been tasked by Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet, with tracking down Fuqahaa's movements prior to his assassination.

He pointed out that the final trial of the trio will be open to the public, stressing that the names of the other two suspects would be disclosed within the next few days.

Speaking at a press conference in Gaza City on May 11, the new chief of Hamas's political bureau said Palestinian security forces in Gaza Strip had detained Fuqahaa's assassin.

Ismail Haniyeh stated that a fair and appropriate punishment would be handed out on the basis of the movement's judicial principles, and in honor of Fuqahaa, all Palestinian martyrs as well as all prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Hamas chief stressed that the Israeli regime was behind the criminal act.

"The Israeli occupation is the entity that gave orders regarding Fuqahaa's assassination. The killer has confessed to the crime and spelled the assassination out in details," Haniyeh pointed out.

Unknown assailants fired at Fuqahaa at the entrance to a residence in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City on March 24. They shot four bullets into the man's head before they fled the area.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas's political bureau, said the assassination was carried out with a gun equipped with a silencer.

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UN urges $1.4 bn in donation for South Sudanese refugees

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 2:43PM

The United Nations has urged donor countries to raise their contributions to South Sudanese refugees, saying some USD 1.4 billion would be needed to help people out of famine inside and outside the war-torn country.

World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement on Monday that the situation of refugees in South Sudan and in other countries was very dire, adding that people were "close to the abyss."

"The suffering of the South Sudanese people is just unimaginable," said Beasley, adding, "These are families like yours and mine, our brothers and sisters, and the world must help them now -- not later."

Beasley, who was appointed WFP chief in March, said that shortages of cash had forced the UN body to decrease its aid to famine-stricken refugees, who have escaped poverty and war in South Sudan.

"Our funding situation forced us to cut food rations for many refugees in Uganda," Beasley said in a briefing with reporters in Geneva.

A civil war that broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 has left nearly two million people internally displaced, while around two million others have sought refuge in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.

South Sudan, the world's youngest nation which split from the north in 2011, has declared famine in some areas, warning that one million people are on the brink of starvation.

The WFP and the UN refugee agency had initially requested USD 1.2 billion in donation, but they said later that the amount would not be enough.

The UN said recently that the number of people who fled to Sudan in March had surpassed the expected figure for the entire year, noting that about 375,000 South Sudanese refugees were now in Sudan.

Uganda is hosting the largest number of refugees from South Sudan, with an estimated 900,000 people now living in camps there. Sudan and Ethiopia are next, with each hosting around 375,000 refugees.

Beasley also lamented that donor nations had become increasingly distracted from emergencies like South Sudan.

"We've got to break through all of the smoke" Beasley said, adding, "People aren't receiving the normal information they receive on international crises."

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EU urges sides in Venezuela conflict to end clashes peacefully

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 1:1PM

European Union (EU) foreign ministers have called on the government and the opposition in Venezuela to abstain from violence and seek a peaceful solution to the clashes on the streets, which have left nearly 40 people killed.

"Violence and the use of force will not resolve the crisis in the country," said a statement by EU foreign ministers after their meeting in Brussels on Monday.

The statement added that all sides in Venezuela needed to work towards a settlement, which would allow "the establishment of an electoral calendar."

At least 38 people have been killed in protests and street clashes between followers and opponents of President Nicolas Maduro.

The protesters have demanded a snap election, saying Maduro should immediately leave office as he has been unable to find a solution to the oil-rich country's economic woes. Maduro insists that the Western-backed opposition is using a global slump in oil prices to heap pressure on his administration.

The EU urged Venezuela's government to allow peaceful protests in the country.

"The fundamental rights of the Venezuelan people must be respected, including the right to peacefully demonstrate," said the EU statement, adding that an alleged government decision to "expand and further strengthen armed civilian groups is worrying as it can fuel further violence and does not contribute to a solution."

The EU also said that it was ready to cooperate with Caracas to ensure the protection and security of more than 600,000 European citizens in Venezuela.

Protests in Venezuela started on April 1 when the opposition criticized a move by the powerful, pro-government Supreme Court to dismiss parliament members from its board. The court later withdrew the decision but protests turned into a massive call for Maduro's removal from office.

Reports say that dozens have also been injured during the protests.

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China, Vietnam Agree to Minimize South China Sea Disputes

Sputnik News

22:41 15.05.2017(updated 00:57 16.05.2017)

As tensions continue to mount on the Korean Peninsula, Chinese officials showed diplomatic progress with Vietnam over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

A joint statement released by China and Vietnam indicated that both nations will seek to keep maritime peace and refrain from belligerent actions.

Both sides agreed to "manage and properly control" disagreements on the open seas, vowing "not to take any actions to complication the situation."

Despite "positive" discussions between Hanoi and Beijing last week, the statement said, both sides need to take proactive measures ensure their differences don't widen.

Since his election, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has backed off of his country's previous claims in the South China Sea, presumably to pursue better ties with Beijing.

The South China Sea allows the passage of trading ships with $5 trillion in economic value each year. Island building has proved particularly contentious: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson remarked that China's activities in the South China Sea amounted to "an illegal taking of disputed areas without regard for international norms."

Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei also claim to own some of the islets and reefs in the South China Sea, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The source of competing territorial claims boils down to a race for resources, according to David Rosenberg, political science professor at Middlebury College. Hyrdocarbons and fisheries, in particular, are particularly lucrative resources that are up for grabs, according to the CFR.

 Sputnik

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UN chief 'outraged' by latest attacks in CAR, warns they could be war crimes

14 May 2017  Strongly condemning the latest attacks against civilians and the United Nations in Central African Republic (CAR), Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today urged authorities to investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

"The Secretary-General is outraged by the attacks perpetrated by suspected anti-Balaka against civilians and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA)," his spokesperson said in a statement.

He added that the Secretary-General reiterated that attacks against UN peacekeepers may constitute a war crime.

Armed assailants attacked civilian populations overnight on 12 and 13 May, targeting in particular Muslims, in the Tokoyo neighborhood of Bangassou, in south-eastern CAR, according to MINUSCA. Preliminary information reported that displaced civilians sought refuge at a mosque, a Catholic church and a hospital.

"These attacks led to significant population displacement, an undetermined number of civilian casualties and the death of one Moroccan peacekeeper, bringing to six the number of peacekeepers killed in the Central African Republic this week," the spokesperson said, noting that Mr. Guterres offered his condolences to the family of the bereaved peacekeeper and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco.

In today's statement, the Secretary-General reaffirmed the UN's support for MINUSCA, which is in CAR to protect civilians and stabilize the country, and extended his appreciation to the Governments whose troops and police contribute to MINUSCA peacekeeping.

CAR is emerging from civil conflict which began in 2013, with clashes between the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition and anti-Balaka militia, which are mostly Christian.

"These recent incidents amply demonstrate that the situation in the Central African Republic is still fragile hence the need for continued and sustained regional and international support to overcome the challenges at hand," the Secretary-General's spokesperson said.

The attack came just hours after the UN held a memorial ceremony to honour five peacekeepers killed on 8 May in a nearby village of Yogofongo. People connected with the anti-Balaka group are also suspected in the attack. UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, and other senior UN officials, took part in the ceremony.

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Israeli TV: US Tells Israeli Officials Western Wall is 'Not Your Territory'

By Ken Schwartz May 15, 2017

Israeli officials are reported to be shocked and "astonished" after a U.S. official allegedly told them the Western Wall  Judaism's holiest site  is in the West Bank and "not your territory."

The exchange, reported by Israel's Channel 2 television, is threatening to create a fierce diplomatic storm as Israel gets ready for a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump later this week.

According to Channel 2, Netanyahu's team asked the U.S. official if the prime minister could join Trump at praying at the Western Wall.

The American reportedly shot back "no" because this is "not your territory" and said it is part of the West Bank, sparking a shouting match between the Israeli and American teams.

A White House spokesperson told VOA "these comments were not authorized by the White House. They do not reflect the U.S. position and certainly not the president's position."

The Western Wall, in east Jerusalem's Old City, is the remnant of the ancient temple, destroyed more than 2,000 years ago. It is Judaism's holiest religious site.

The area is also home to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site.

Israel captured the Old City and east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it to the rest of the city  a move the international community does not recognize.

The issue of the wall and the mosque is one of the most sensitive issues surrounding the Middle East peace process. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as a capital of a future state.

The diplomatic controversy erupted on the day the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, arrived to take up his new post.

Friedman's first stop was the Western Wall, where he said he "prayed for the president. I wished him success, especially on his upcoming trip."

Friedman is an orthodox Jew and a strong supporter of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

But Trump has said Jewish settlements "don't help the [peace] process."

VOA's Steve Herman contributed to this report.

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Trump Signals Shift in Middle East Strategy With Symbolic First Stop in Saudi Arabia

By Peter Heinlein May 15, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump is about to embark on his first foreign trip, a nine day journey that takes him to the seats of the world's three great Abrahamic (monotheistic) religions and signals a 180-degree shift from his predecessor's approach toward the Middle East.

"The most useful way to look at President Trump's strategy is to see him as the anti-Obama," said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "He is definitively changing American foreign policy from the Barack Obama era to the Donald Trump era as it concerns the Middle East."

"Obama made a purposeful effort to talk directly to the people," Satloff explained. "His first trip to the Middle East included speeches not to national assemblies and parliaments, but to universities where he could talk over the heads of the leaders. He wanted to create a new balance in the Arab world, characterized by speaking to people rather than leaders."

"Trump wants to undo all that," Satloff said.

Symbolic first stop

The first stop on Trump's tour will be Saudi Arabia, site of Islam's holiest shrines, where he will be welcomed by King Salman, who is assembling a greeting committee of as many as 20 heads of state representing a large percentage of the world's 1.5 billion Sunni Muslims.

Trump's advisers see the Riyadh visit as an opportunity to repair the president's image with Muslims after an election campaign marked by rhetoric many saw as Islamophobic, and a presidency that began with announcement of a temporary ban on Muslim refugees, and visas for citizens from a handful of Muslim-majority countries.

Within the human rights community, the visit has been met with a collective shrug. "It's certainly a consistent choice, given the parade of dictators who've been welcomed at the White House," said Andrea Presow of Human Rights Watch.

Before he makes his first presidential step outside the United States, Trump will have hosted several autocratic Muslim leaders, including such heavyweights as Egypt's Abdel Fatah al-Sissi and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"Expectations are low," said Richard LeBaron of the Atlantic Council, a former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait. "The travel ban didn't come as a shock to Muslims, LeBaron told VOA. "They had built it into their expectations about Trump."

But the image of being warmly greeted by such a strong representation of Sunni Muslim kings, emirs and presidents is a potential bonanza for a U.S. leader beleaguered by domestic troubles.

Radical ideology addressed

Briefing reporters about the trip, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Trump would deliver a strong message to Sunni leaders about the need to confront radical Islamism, which McMaster called "an ideology that uses a perverted interpretation of religion to justify crimes against all humanity."

"He [Trump] will encourage our Arab and Muslim partners to take bold, new steps to promote peace and to confront those, from ISIS to al-Qaida to Iran to the Assad regime, who perpetuate chaos and violence that has inflicted so much suffering throughout the Muslim world and beyond," McMaster said.

That message is likely to be welcomed by Sunni Muslim leaders, who worried about Obama's outreach to Iran, which they see as a regional troublemaker.

Ali Shihabi, a Saudi national who is executive director of the Arabia Institute, a Washington based research organization, says Trump's visit "sends a message that he understands that America's Muslim allies are the first line of defense in the fight against terrorism".

Others question whether, as with so many Trump initiatives, there's less than meets the eye with the Middle East policy shift.

"But it may signal a possible shift in the marked hostility to Islam characterized by Trump's campaign,"said Nathan Brown, professor of international relations at George Washington University.

Robert Satloff says substantive change or not, the symbolism of simultaneously reaffirming America's longstanding ties with Sunni Arab states and Israel sends a powerful message to Iran that the other team - the pro-Western, pro-stability team - seems to have a captain that is ready to lead."

"Does that team actually have a strategy? Does it have a series of well-defined tactics ready to be executed?" Satloff asks. "That remains to be seen. But the first step, mainly getting the team together and providing leadership is important, and I'm quite sure the Iranians, and their team, are taking notice".

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Trump Downplays Comey Controversy, Says Search for New FBI Director 'Moving Rapidly'

By William Gallo May 16, 2017

White House officials on Monday continued to deflect criticism of President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey and insisted the search to name his successor was moving quickly.

Six days after Trump fired Comey, the firestorm over the decision raged on in Washington, with Democrats ramping up their calls for a special prosecutor to look into possible Russia-Trump ties.

Although the extent of the political fallout remained unclear, the decision to fire Comey has become a distraction from the president's legislative agenda, which already was facing major roadblocks.

Before being fired, Comey was overseeing an investigation into alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election, as well as into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Many Democrats think the firing amounted to obstruction of justice, and Trump himself acknowledged that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he fired Comey.

Not 'up to the job'

On Monday, White House officials again dismissed the controversy as a partisan attack.

"The president has every right to fire a person because he believed Director Comey lacked the judgment and the decision-making skills and wasn't up to the job," White House ppess secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing.

For a second consecutive briefing, Spicer also refused to clarify a tweet from last week in which the president appeared to threaten Comey into silence.

"I was very clear. The president has nothing further on that," said Spicer.

Trump, meanwhile, spent much of Monday immersed in presidential ceremony, surrounding himself with police and laying a wreath during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol to honor slain officers.

His only public mention of the firing of his FBI chief came during a meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Trump said the process to name Comey's successor was "moving rapidly."

Democrats' stance

Some opposition Democratic senators said they would not confirm Comey's successor until a special prosecutor was appointed to carry out an independent investigation of Russian interference in the election, which was aimed at helping Trump defeat his Democratic opponent, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But White House spokesman Spicer said there was "frankly no need for a special prosecutor," because the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Comey headed and committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives already were conducting probes of Russia's involvement.

The Trump administration has interviewed at least eight candidates for the top FBI job, and Trump has said a decision could come before he leaves Friday on his first overseas trip as president.

Even some of Trump's supporters have criticized the firing of Comey, especially after the White House offered changing explanations for the decision. They also were put off by an ominous tweet by the president that said the ousted FBI leader had better hope there were no "tapes" of their conversations.

'You can't be cute'

On Sunday, lawmakers urged Trump to turn over any tapes of conversations with Comey. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the White House must "clear the air" about whether there are any taped conversations. "You can't be cute about tapes. If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over," Graham told NBC's Meet the Press.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday found 29 percent of Americans approved of Comey's firing, while 78 percent supported an independent commission or special prosecutor to investigate Russia's interference in the election.

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Venezuela - The Crisis of 2017

The National Socialist Party had ruled Venezuela for 17 years. Economic pressures mounted in recent years, especially since the price of oil  Venezuela's chief export  began falling in 2014. Venezuelans face chronic, severe shortages of food, medicine and other basics in what once was Latin America's wealthiest country.

Since taking office in 2013, Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution faced non-stop attacks from Venezuelas U.S.-backed right-wing opposition, making advancements difficult. Improving upon destabilization tactics used during Chavezs administration, the opposition seemed to have perfected the art of sabotage.

Despite right-wing sabotage, Maduros government lived up to its promise to continue improving living conditions for Venezuelas poor and oppressed. Under his administration, Venezuela expanded its free health care coverage to more than 60 percent of the population, according to the countrys Ministry of People's Power for Health. The Venezuelan president has also made free health care available to people in historically impoverished departments like Amazonas, Bolivar and Delta Amacuro.

Public housing for all Venezuelans has also been a mantra of Maduros administration. In January 2017, he announced that his government reached its goal of delivering 1,400,000 homes to Venezuelans across the country. The public housing program is either free or low of cost, depending on the family's means. Venezuela currently has the second lowest rate of homelessness in Latin America, with only 6.68 percent of its population being unhoused.

Maduro, who actively supported Venezuelas student movement against neoliberalism during the 1980s, has made important strides in public education since coming to power. The Venezuelan president has significantly grown the countrys Canaima program, a computer literacy and technology education campaign established by Chavez in 2009. Maduros administration has provided more than 4,800,000 computers and over 100 million technology textbooks to students across the country.

Maduro also made tremendous advancements in improving the representation and civil rights of historically oppressed sectors of Venezuelan society, like women, Afro-Indigenous people and the LGBTQ community.

Intense street demonstrations have roiled Venezuela's capital and other cities almost daily since early April 2017, with protesters demanding that Maduro release political prisoners, schedule long-overdue elections and open access to humanitarian aid to offset severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.

Opposition leaders called on to their supporters to shake up the country and reject the invoking of a National Constituent Assembly, a measure that President Nicolas Maduro announced on May Day in a bid to appease social tensions in the country. Julio Borges, president of the National Assembly, called President Maduro's move a coup d'Etat and called everyone to take to the streets tomorrow in order to shake up the country.

With Venezuela's capital girding for massive demonstrations, President Nicolas Maduro accused the United States April 19, 2017 of trying to overthrow his leftist government. In an address from the national palace in Caracas, Maduro complained of "a State Department push" to "provoke an imperialist intervention" in the South American country, with pro- and anti-government demonstrations as a backdrop.

At a press conference called by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition, Henrique Capriles a representative of the Justice First party said that one of the fundamental requirements for the opposition to abandon street protests is for the democratically-elected government of Maduro to schedule general elections despite the fact the Maduro's term does not end until 2019 and that it runs contrary to what is established in the country's constitution.

Venezuela's Vice President Tareck El Aissami indicated that the opposition is trying to depict Venezuela as a country in chaos to justify foreign intervention. "We know there are groups interested in selling the world a country in chaos, Henrique Capriles has said in an irresponsible manner that the government is guilty of these deaths and therefore will have to prove these serious allegations in court."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the implementation of a "special plan" dubbed Zamora against an alleged coup in the country. "I have decided to launch strategic, special, civil and military plan to ensure the functioning of our country, its security, internal order and social integrity," Maduro said. He added that the current phase of the plan was directed against reported activities of the United States in order to "cope with a coup, escalation of violence and to ensure peace in Venezuela." According to Maduro, the US Department of State had ordered to "attack" the Venezuelan revolution and institutions in order to approve "an imperialistic intervention."

Venezuela's center-right opposition organized "the mother of all marches" to protest Maduro's administration, and the Venezuelan leader rallied his supporters to turn out for a counter-march. He ordered military troops to fan out across the country and announced plans to vastly expand the country's civilian militia  to half a million members from its current 100,000.

The turbulence erupted after the Venezuelan Supreme Court's March 30 announcement that it would strip the opposition-controlled National Assembly of its legislative powers. The court  stacked with appointees of Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez  reversed its position in the wake of domestic and international outcries about an attempted power grab.

Referenda

A dry run vote 16 July 2017 for the National Constituent Assembly coincided with a symbolic referendum called by the opposition which asked people to vote whether they want a constituent assembly or not; whether they want the armed forces to support the existing constitution and the decisions of the national assembly; and whether they want immediate general elections. Opposition leaders claimed that more than 7 million Venezuelans participated, 98 percent of whom opposed the assembly, but short of the 11 million they had hoped for in a country of just under 20 million eligible voters.

President Nicolas Maduro described the event as the "biggest and most impactful dry run of all dry runs that have taken place in the last 18 years". Calling it "a hymn to peace," Maduro said the people of Venezuela through their extensive participation in the constituent electoral process have shown that the way to solve the country's problems is through peace and urged the opposition to dialogue instead of violence.

Instead of denouncing rightwing violence that aims at regime change, many on the U.S. left have stayed silent, or opted to give an evenhanded analysis that supports neither the Maduro government nor the oligarchy trying to violently overthrow it. Rather, the left prioritizes its energy on lecturing on Maduros authoritarianism and the failures of Chavismo. Posters of Chavez remain in the homes of Venezuelas poorest barrios because he proved in action that he was a champion for the poor, while fighting and winning many pitched battles against the oligarchy who wildly celebrated his death. There remains a mass movement of revolutionaries in Venezuela dedicated to Chavismo and to defending Maduros government against the violent anti-regime tactics.

The oligarchy has not accepted the balance of power that Chavez-Maduro have tilted in favor of the working class. A new social contract has not been cemented; it is being actively fought for in the streets. Maduro has made some concessions to the oligarchy its true, but they have not been fundamental concessions, while hes left the fundamental victories of the revolution intact.

Venezuelans headed to the polls 30 July 2017 to elect representatives for the National Constituent Assembly, an initiative from President Nicolas Maduro to further develop the country's democracy and to help ease tensions with the opposition. Maduro presented the National Electoral Council, with his proposal for structuring the electoral bases through which constituent representatives will be elected. This will open the way for 540 constituent parliamentarians to be elected by the Venezuelan people in a manner that is "direct, secret, universal, territorial and sectoral."

More than 30 representatives of Indigenous communities in Venezuela had been nominated as candidates for the National Constituent Assembly. Women throughout Venezuela met to debate new proposals for the constitutional process. The Revolutionary Sex and Gender Diversity Alliance, an organization across Venezuelan national territory, came together to collectively design an initial set of proposals to participate in what militant Maria Helena Ramirez Hernandez calls a new stage of the Bolivarian Revolution that seeks to overcome fascism, hate and terrorism financed by the US Government and carried out by the opposition in Venezuela.

High-profile opposition leaders fired back against President Nicolas Maduro, rejecting the process and calling for a "full rebellion" against the government. Head of the right-wing opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, echoed Lopezs called for an escalation of protests, citing the opposition's continued rejection of the Constituent Assembly, called by Maduro to promote dialogue. The call is that we continue in absolute rebellion (against) the Constituent Assembly ... because the country unanimously rejects the communist Constituent Assembly," he stated.

The president of the National Electoral Council Tibisay Lucena has announced that turnout in Venezuela's historic National Constituent Assembly was over 41 percent, indicating that over 8 million people voted in the elections, in a country of just under 20 million eligible voters. The voting process was peaceful with the exception of a few isolated incidents of violence as opposition supporters protested and staged guarimbas in a bid to shut down the election.

The opposition said the unpopular measure would result in a socialist dictatorship and had called on Venezuelans to boycott the vote. Dozens of polling places in Caracas, the capital, were empty. Members of the opposition estimate only two to three million people voted. Polls show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans oppose the assembly.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported 8 August 2017 on widespread and systematic use of excessive force and arbitrary detentions against demonstrators in Venezuela. The teams findings also indicate patterns of other human rights violations, including violent house raids, torture and ill-treatment of those detained in connection with the protests. Security forces, mainly the National Guard, the National Police and local police forces, systematically used disproportionate force to instil fear, crush dissent, and to prevent demonstrators from assembling, rallying and reaching public institutions to present petitions.

According to the UN Human Rights teams analysis, security forces are allegedly responsible for at least 46 deaths, while pro-Government armed groups, referred to as armed colectivos are reportedly responsible for 27 deaths. It is unclear who the perpetrators in the remaining 51 deaths may be. Some groups of demonstrators have also resorted to violence, with attacks reported against security officers. Eight officers have been killed in the context of the demonstrations.

The Attorney-Generals Office was also investigating at least 1,958 reported cases of injuries, although the actual number of people injured may be considerably higher. Armed colectivos routinely break into protests on motorcycles, wielding firearms and harassing or in some cases shooting at people.

Reliable estimates suggest that between April 1, when the mass demonstrations began, and 31 July, more than 5,051 people have been arbitrarily detained. More than 1,000 reportedly remain in detention. In several of the cases reviewed by the UN Human Rights Office, there were credible reports of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by security forces of such detainees, amounting in several cases to torture. Tactics used included electric shocks, beatings, including with helmets and sticks while handcuffed, hanging detainees by the wrists for long periods, suffocation with gas, and threats of killings  and in some cases threats of sexual violence  against the detainees or their families.

Local Voting

Venezuela's election board said the ruling party won a majority of state governorships in elections 15 October 2017. But opposition parties cried foul. Gubernatorial races were held in the nation's 23 states at a time of growing opposition to President Nicolas Maduro. The National Electoral Council announced the results for all but one state, where vote-counting was still going on. It said the socialist ruling party had won 17 states, while the opposition coalition took 5. It said 61 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.

Maduro declared victory at a news conference following the announcement. He said Venezuela has grown stronger, as truth has prevailed in the country. The opposition coalition told reporters that it would not recognize the results announced by the electoral council because they suspect the elections were rigged. It said the pro-government election board relocated more than 200 polling stations shortly before voting began.

Nationally, Chavismo received 54 percent of the total vote, reestablishing the pattern for other more prominent elections to public office. For their part, the MUD won 45 percent of the votes. The MUD dropped almost 3 million votes in comparison with their best ever result in the parliamentary elections of 2015 of more than 7 million votes.

Historically pro-opposition states like Lara, Miranda y Amazonas, usually opposition trampolines in maneuvers for Presidential elections, were won by Chavista candidates by a good margin. From the perspective of governorships supposedly serving as an alternative political model to Chavismo, in effect the MUD opposition yesterday lost three states crucial to their presidential aspirations. Opposition leaders like Henri Falcon and Henrique Capriles have lost ground and now lack a power base from which to launch more important political campaigns.

Venezuela's opposition faced a deep political crisis as fractures within the coalition have emerged following the surprise loss in this month's regional elections. Four out of five opposition governors in Venezuela accepted their elected posts last week in defiance of the opposition Democratic Unity Coalition (MUD). The four opposition politicians broke with the official MUD line when they chose to acknowledge the National Constituent Assembly, which is aligned with President Maduro's party, and be sworn in as governors.

While more radical sectors led by the Popular Will party claimed fraud so as to legitimize themselves to their supporters and make themselves look more credible to interventionist forces overseas, so-called moderates like Democratic Action, the New Time and the Progressive Advance parties, among others, are taking advantage of the governorships they won to position themselves for opposition leadership in future elections.

These regional elections took place after having been preceded by a cycle of violence promoted by anti-Chavista forces both inside and outside Venezuela. After four months of violence from April to July and efforts by Venezuelas political opposition to boycott the elections to the National Constituent Assembly at the end of July, Chavismos forces managed to turn the conflict to an electoral one. The narrative that a dictatorship exists in Venezuela was undone by the United Democratic Table (MUD) opposition alliances participation in these regional elections.

The still fresh images of the violence and terrorism that almost sunk Venezuela into chaos between April and July, leaving over 100 people dead, created an electoral climate outside committed opposition followers unfavorable for the MUD in terms of electoral support. The MUDs failure to bring about the overthrow of the government strengthened perceptions of Chavismo as representing order and stability. In times of stress, insecurity about the future and continuing turbulence those perceptions attracted support among the population.

Candidates for Venezuela's Socialist Party took 23 of 24 state capitals as well as the governorship for the state of Zulia, election authorities announced 10 December 2017. National Electoral Council [CNE] officials presented partial results for the capitals of the 23 states as well as Caracas, with candidates for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) taking all but the top mayor position in Tachira state. Omar Prieto of the PSUV also won the governorship for the state of Zulia, leaving the PSUV in all but four of the country's 23 states.

Three of the coalition's main parties - Popular Will, Justice First and Democratic Action - boycotted Sunday's polls, saying the election board was at the service of Maduro's "dictatorship" and turning a blind eye to abuses by the state. Maduro said the three abstaining parties would be banned from participating in future elections. But other opposition parties did put up candidates, adding to confusion and acrimony within opposition ranks.





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Putin says Russia not responsible for recent global cyber attack

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 8:46PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that his country had nothing to do with the recent global "ransomware" cyber attack that targeted some 150 countries over the weekend.

"Microsoft's management has made it clear that the virus originated from US intelligence services," said Putin while addressing reporters in the Chinese capital Beijing on Monday.

Earlier, Microsoft President Brad Smith noted that US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA), were to blame for the attack because they stockpiled malicious software code which was used by the hackers.

The NSA claims the software used in the attacks had been stolen from it.

"Once they're let out of the lamp, genies of this kind ... can do damage to their authors and creators," said Putin. "So this question should be discussed immediately on a serious political level and a defense needs to be worked out from such phenomena," he added.

Putin went on to stress that Russian institutions were not significantly affected in the attacks.

The Russian president also noted that last year Moscow had called on the US to engage in negotiations about dealing with cyber threats. "Unfortunately, they refused our proposal," he said.

"The previous administration told us they were interested in reaching back to this proposal again, but nothing was actually done," he added. On Friday, hundreds of thousands of computer systems across the world were targeted in a cyber attack.

When the ransomware virus infects a computer system, data on that system get encrypted, and images appear on monitors demanding a payment of $300 in the almost untraceable virtual currency Bitcoin.

The payment must be made within three days, otherwise the price would be doubled; and if none is received within seven days, the locked files will be deleted, according to the screen messages.

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Governments, Companies Brace For New Cyberattacks As Business Week Begins

RFE/RL May 15, 2017

Managers and employees at government offices, organizations, and businesses returned to work warily on May 15 amid fears that a massive cyberattack could worsen after the weekend.

In Asia, where the effect appears to have been limited so far, investors shrugged off threats posed by the WannaCry "ransomware" attack, with stocks mostly up across the region.

The cyberattack, which began on May 12, disrupted hospitals, banks, shops, schools, and government agencies in 150 countries, attacking through vulnerabilities in older versions of Microsoft computer operating systems.

The attack, believed to be the biggest online extortion scheme ever, has already hit some 200,000 victims at 100,000 organizations worldwide, according to Europol, Europe's police agency.

An international manhunt was under way to capture those responsible, the agency said.

In China, the world's second-largest economy, payment systems and government services reported some outages. National cyberspace authorities were quoted as saying on May 15 that the attack is still spreading in the country but has slowed significantly.

Japanese firms including Hitachi and Nissan reported problems they said had not seriously affected their business operations.

Among the big victims were U.S. package delivery company FedEx, car production facilities in Europe, Spanish telecom Telefonica, Britain's National Health Service, and Germany's rail network.

Russia's Interior Ministry said some of its computers had been hit, and authorities said the country's banking system and railway system were also attacked but that no major problems were detected.

The attackers told computer users to pay $300 to $600 in anonymous bitcoin currency to retrieve files that the virus had decrypted, blocking owners from getting access.

Experts said account addresses linked to the WannaCry software code appear to show the attackers received about $32,500 in bitcoin as of 1100 GMT on May 14. That figure is expected to rise, although many experts and government agencies urge victims not to give in to the demands.

Cybersecurity experts said new versions of the ransomware are likely to surface as the business week starts in many parts of the world.

Microsoft President Brad Smith in a blog post on May 14 acknowledged what researchers had concluded: The ransomware attack was developed through a tool built by the U.S. National Security Agency that was leaked online by hackers in April.

Security experts said computers affected by the ransomware appear to be ones that had not been recently updated.

Experts said many organizations do not update their systems because of costs. Others, such as hospitals, find it difficult to upgrade without disrupting operations.

"Expect to hear a lot more about thiswhen users are back in their offices and might fall for phishing e-mails" or other as yet unconfirmed ways the ransomware, also called a "worm," may attack, Christian Karam, a Singapore-based security researcher, told the Reuters news agency.

The threat eased after a Britain-based researcher -- who declined to give his name but issues tweets under the profile @MalwareTechBlog -- said he accidentally came upon a way to at least temporarily limit the ransomware's spread by registering a web address to which he noticed the malware was trying to connect.

Experts said his action helped delay attacks and gave organizations time to explore ways to block future intrusions.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ransomware-computer-attacks- bitcoin-hacking/28488259.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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WannaCry Ransomware Cyberattacks Slow

RFE/RL May 15, 2017

Managers and employees at government offices, organizations, and businesses returned to work warily on May 15 amid fears that a massive cyberattack could worsen after the weekend, but computer infections appear to have slowed.

The WannaCry "ransomware" attack, which began on May 12, disrupted hospitals, banks, shops, schools, and government agencies in more than 150 countries, attacking through vulnerabilities in older versions of Microsoft computer operating systems.

Among the big victims were the U.S. package delivery company FedEx, car production facilities in Europe, the Spanish telecom firm Telefonica, Britain's National Health Service, and Germany's rail network.

"The number of victims appears not to have gone up and so far the situation seems stable in Europe, which is a success," Jan Op Gen Oorth, senior spokesman for Europe's police agency Europol told the AFP news agency.

"It seems that a lot of Internet security guys over the weekend did their homework and ran the security software updates," he added.

"We haven't seen a second spike in #WannaCry #ransomware attacks, but that doesn't mean there won't be one," Britain's National Crime Agency said on Twitter.

Inbox 'Landmines'

Companies have been warning employees to be careful when clicking on attachments and links in their e-mails.

But Michael Gazeley of the Hong Kong-based cybersecurity firm Network Box told the Reuters news agency that there are still "many 'landmines' waiting in people's in-boxes" in Asia, with most of the attacks having arrived via e-mail.

Tom Bossert, the Homeland Security Adviser under U.S. President Donald Trump, told ABC television that the cyberattack was for now "under control" in the United States.

The attackers told computer users to pay $300 to $600 in the anonymous bitcoin currency to retrieve files that the virus had decrypted, blocking owners from getting access.

The ransomware warning said the cost would double after three days, and threatened to delete files within seven days if no payment was made.

Experts said account addresses linked to the WannaCry software code appear to show the attackers received about $32,500 in bitcoin as of 11 a.m. GMT on May 14. That figure is expected to rise, although many experts and government agencies urge victims not to give into the demands.

Putin's Warning

During a visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that his country was not behind the attack, and pointed the finger at the United States.

"Russia has absolutely nothing to do with it," Putin said.

"As for the source of these threats, Microsoft's leadership stated this directly: they said the source of the virus was the special services of the United States."

He was referring to a weekend blog post by Microsoft president, Brad Smith, stating that the U.S. National Security Agency had developed the code being used in the attack.

It was leaked as part of a document dump, according to researchers.

"Once they're let out of the bottle, genies of this kind, especially those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their authors and creators," Putin said.

Putin insisted that his country was not behind the attack.

The United States has accused Russia in the past of mounting several cyberattacks.

Russia's Interior Ministry earlier said some of its computers had been hit, and authorities said the country's banking system and railway system were also attacked but that no major problems were detected.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and the BBC

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/wannacry-ransomware-cyberattacks -slow-putin-warning/28489285.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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Global Cyberattacks Appear to Ease, Except in Asia

By Ken Bredemeier May 15, 2017

The worldwide ransomware cyberattacks appeared to ease Monday, although thousands more computers, mostly in Asia, were hit as people signed in at work for the first time since the infections spread to 150 countries three days ago.

Health officials in Britain, where surgeries and doctors' appointments in its national health care system had been severely impacted Friday, were still having problems Monday. But health minister Jeremy Hunt said it was "encouraging" that a second wave of attacks had not materialized.

He said "the level of criminal activity is at the lower end of the range that we had anticipated."

In the United States, Tom Bossert, a homeland security adviser to President Donald Trump, told the ABC television network the global cybersecurity attack is something that "for right now, we've got under control."

He told reporters at the White House that "less than $70,000" has been paid as ransom to those carrying out the attacks. He urged all computer users to make sure they install software patches to protect themselves against further cyberattacks.

In the television interview, Bossert described the malware that paralyzed 200,000 computers running factories, banks, government agencies, hospitals and transportation systems across the globe as an "extremely serious threat."

Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers behind the "WannaCry" ransomware attacks, who demanded $300 payments to decrypt files locked by the malware, used a vulnerability that came from U.S. government documents leaked online. The attacks exploited known vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems.

During the weekend, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the clandestine U.S. National Security Agency had developed the code used in the attack.

Bossert said "criminals," not the U.S. government, are responsible for the attacks. Like Bossert, experts believe Microsoft's security patch released in March should protect networks if companies and individual users install it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had nothing to do with the attack and cited the Microsoft statement blaming the NSA for causing the worldwide cyberattack.

"A genie let out of a bottle of this kind, especially created by secret services, can then cause damage to its authors and creators," Putin said while attending an international summit in Beijing. He said that while there was "no significant damage" to Russian institutions from the cyberattack, the incident was "worrisome."

"There is nothing good in this and calls for concern," he said.

Even though there appeared to be a diminished number of attacks Monday, computer outages still affected segments of life across the globe, especially in Asia, where Friday's attacks occurred after business hours.

China

China said 29,000 institutions had been affected, along with hundreds of thousands of devices. Japan's computer emergency response team said 2,000 computers at 600 locations were affected there.

Universities and other educational institutions appeared to be the hardest hit in China. China's Xinhua News Agency said railway stations, mail delivery, gas stations, hospitals, office buildings, shopping malls and government services also were affected.

Elsewhere, Britain said seven of the 47 trusts that run its national health care system were still affected, with some surgeries and outpatient appointments canceled as a result. In France, auto manufacturer Renault said one of its plants that employs 3,500 workers stayed shut Monday as technicians dealt with the aftermath of the Friday attacks.

Security patches

Computer security experts have assured individual computer users who have kept their operating systems updated that they are relatively safe, but urged companies and governments to make sure they apply security patches or upgrade to newer systems.

They advised those whose networks have been effectively shut down by the ransomware attack not to make the payment demanded, the equivalent of $300, paid in the digital currency bitcoin.

However, the authors of the "WannaCry" ransomware attack told their victims the amount they must pay will double if they do not comply within three days of the original infection, by Monday in most cases. The hackers warned that they will delete all files on infected systems if no payment is received within seven days.

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Norwegian Air Force Craves NATO Missile Shield to Plug Defensive Gaps

Sputnik News

14:15 15.05.2017

Norway must either join NATO's missile shield or get one of its own. The Norwegian Air Forces arrived at this conclusion after identifying enormous gaps in today's air defense in a classified document.

The Norwegian Armed Forces were found unable to protect the Nordic country from attacks with missiles and high-precision bombs. Norwegian air defense capabilities were described as "limited," as well as having too short of a range and too small scope. This makes the Norwegian air bases, which are looking forward to becoming bases for a new fleet of F-35s, easy targets, the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen reported.

Therefore, the Norwegian Air Force concluded that Norway basically has two choices: join NATO's much-debated missile shield or acquire a national missile defense system. Incidentally, this is the first time the Norwegian Air Force indicated its desire for a missile shield.

This places the Norwegian politicians between a rock and a hard place. A separate missile shield would be extremely expensive, even for oil-rich and well-to-do Norway. On the other hand, NATO's missile shield was previously criticized as stimulating a new nuclear arms race.

Meanwhile, both Evnes and rlandet, which are Norway's leading air bases, were identified as having crucial deficiencies in terms of security. Combat aircraft bases were recognized as the most likely targets, with missile attacks to be expected as the initial phase of a strategic attack against Norway. Based on data from the Norwegian Intelligence Service, tactical ballistic missiles (TMBs) have emerged as a new major threat.

"The future air force should either have its own capacity against TBMs or contribute to NATO's BMD architecture to address such threats," the Air Force wrote, as quoted by Klassekampen. BMD is the abbreviation for Ballistic Missile Defense, which is NATO's term for the missile shield.

The Norwegian government remains undecided whether or not Norway should participate in NATO's missile shield, but has appointed a panel of Norwegian and American experts to assess what a possible Norwegian contribution may consist of. Norway was previously reported to be able to contribute with a number of radars and sensors to the missile shield (such as the Globus II radar in Vard) or the Aegis radar system currently installed on five Norwegian frigates. The panel will set forth its recommendation in 2017, and the government is expected to deliver its verdict in mid-2018.

Previously, Russia promised a sharp response in case Norway joins NATO's controversial missile shield. In March, Russia's ambassador to Norway Teimuraz Ramishvili said that such a decision would spur a lasting worsening of the relations between the neighboring countries. He also warned of "catastrophic results" for Europe and the whole world.

Over the past decade, Norway seems to have evolved from being an opponent against the missile shield to a keen supporter of NATO's plans. Ironically, the NATO Secretary General, former Norwegian Prime Minister and former Labor leader Jens Stoltenberg, was skeptical about the US missile defense system. For his speech against the missile defense system during a trip to Moscow in 2007, he was grilled in the Norwegian media for "showing a soft spot for the Russians."

 Sputnik

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China's Xi Confident In Future Of 'One Belt, One Road' Plan

May 15, 2017

Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed confidence in the future of his One Belt, One Road initiative, a plan that could increase Beijing's global influence on trade and geopolitics.

At the end of a two-day summit in Beijing on the project, Xi said the One Belt, One Road plan could lead to "peace and prosperity" if all involved make joint efforts.

The Chinese leader said the summit reached a broad consensus and achieved positive outcomes, insisting that the initiative would work to ensure an open world economy, rebalance globalization, and work toward trade liberalization.

However, he cautioned that the undertaking still had a long way to go.

Addressing officials from 30 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa earlier on May 15, Xi appealed to foreign governments to pursue "greater openness and cooperation" and "reject protectionism" in seeking global economic growth.

"In a world of growth, interdependence, and challenges, no country can tackle the challenges or solve the world's problems on its own," said Xi, who was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On May 15, Xi pledged an additional $124 billion for China's trade initiative, which seeks to connect the country with Africa, Asia, and Europe through a network of ports, railways, roads, and industrial parks.

Beijing is promoting itself as a champion of free trade at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has been questioning trade deals as he pursues an "America First" foreign policy.

In one of his first actions after taking office in January, Trump signed an order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major trade pact that was negotiated under President Barack Obama but never ratified by the U.S. Congress.

Russia has reacted cautiously to the One Belt, One Road initiative, which analysts say has the potential to increase Beijing's influence in regions such as Central Asia at the expense of Moscow.

But Putin voiced support for the plan on May 15 and said Russia intends to be heavily involved.

"Everything that is being proposed is part of the trend of modern development and is very much needed and in demand to a high degree," Putin said at the forum.

"This is precisely why Russia not only supports One Belt, One Road, but will actively participate in its implementation together with our Chinese partners and, of course, with other countries that are interested."

Putin also said that the One Belt, One Road project provides "hope for some stability" amid economic uncertainty.

He said that what he called the "internal political struggle" in the United States, Britain's decision to leave the European Union, and other issues were causing jitters in the world economy.

Other leaders of former Soviet republics who attended the summit were Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyaev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev, and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic were also among those in attendance.

Few Western leaders were there, although Britain, France, and Germany were represented by top finance officials. The United States sent a senior White House adviser.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, TASS, and RIA

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/china-one-belt-one- road-forum-xi/28488630.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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China dispatches 5th peacekeeping force to Mali

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 18:29, May 16, 2017

DALIAN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A team of 190 officers and soldiers Tuesday departed from northeast China's Dalian for a United Nationspeacekeeping mission in Mali.

The team is part of China's 395-strong fifth peacekeeping force to Mali, which consists of security personnel, military engineers, and medical staff.

The remaining teams will depart on May 24 to relieve the fourth peacekeeping group. Some 79 members of the fifth group had previously taken part in the third peacekeeping force sent to Mali.

The fifth group will stay in Mali for one year, covering tasks including ensuring security, repairing roads, bridges, airfield runways and campsites, as well as emergency rescue and medical treatment.

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NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu on the latest ballistic missile test by North Korea

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

14 May. 2017

Press Release (2017) 085

Issued on 14 May. 2017

The launch of a new ballistic missile test by North Korea this morning (14 May 2017) is a new flagrant breach of a series of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, constituting a threat to international peace and security.

This is a time when de-escalation is needed, not provocation.

North Korea should comply with its international obligations, cease all activities related to its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, abandon all existing weapons of mass destruction programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and engage in a credible dialogue with the international community.

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North Korea Says Launch Was New Type Of Missile, Warns U.S.

RFE/RL May 14, 2017

North Korea claimed that it has successfully tested a new type of mid-range to long-range missile, and warned the United States that it is in its "sighting range" for a strike.

The official KCNA news agency said on May 15 that it was a test of the abilities of a "newly developed ballistic rocket capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead."

It said the May 14 launch was supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, who warned the United States not to misjudge the country's military capabilities.

North Korea's latest ballistic missile test triggered an international outcry, with the European Union and NATO describing it as a "threat to international peace and security," and China voicing concern about mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was opposed to any new countries acquiring nuclear weapons, but that the world should talk to North Korea rather than "intimidating" it.

The missile flew more than 787 kilometers and reached an altitude of 2,112 kilometers, KCNA said, basically matching what officials in South Korea and Japan had determined earlier.

The missile landed in the Sea of Japan surrounded by the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the Russian Far East.

"The test-fire aimed at verifying the tactical and technological specifications of the newly developed ballistic rocket capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead," KCNA said.

Experts said the distance flown by the missile would suggest a range of 4,500 kilometers if flown for maximum distance, putting a U.S. base in Guam within its capabilities.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, told ABC TV that Kim was "in a state of paranoia."

"He's incredibly concerned about anything and everything around him," Haley said.

In a tweet, she added, "There are no excuses that justify N. Korea's actions. This was close to home for Russia. China can't expect dialogue. This threat is real."

Speaking during his visit to China, Putin said Russia considers North Korea's missile launches and nuclear tests to be "counterproductive, harmful, and dangerous."

"We need to return to a dialogue with North Korea, stop intimidating it, and find peaceful solutions," he also said.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the North Korean missile crashed some 500 kilometers away from the city of Vladivostok in Russia's Far East, but Putin said the missile "presented no threat to us."

In Washington, the White House called North Korea a "flagrant menace" and said "the United States maintains our ironclad commitment to stand with our allies in the face of the serious threat posed by North Korea."

The White House statement called for stronger sanctions against the North, but did not directly threaten U.S. military action.

It also seemed to suggest that Russia should be concerned enough to do more to rein in North Korea.

"With the missile impacting so close to Russian soil -- in fact, closer to Russia than to Japan  the president cannot imagine that Russia is pleased," the statement said.

North Korea is widely believed to be developing an intercontinental missile tipped with a nuclear weapon that is capable of reaching the United States. President Donald Trump has vowed not to let that happen.

The U.S. military said the type of missile fired on May 14 was "not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile."

North Korea's missile program has been banned by United Nations resolutions, but it has continued to test ballistic missiles and to develop its nuclear program.

The launch is the first since South Korea's new president, Moon Jae-in, took office this week. He has said he favors engagement with Pyongyang to bring it to the negotiating table, in contrast to a tougher stand by his predecessor.

Nevertheless, Moon on May 14 condemned the missile launch as a "reckless provocation."

The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on May 16 to discuss the missile launch at the request of the United States, South Korea, and Japan, diplomats said.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/north-korea-missile-ballistic -us-japan-russia-china-nuclear/28487737.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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Missile tests show N Korean leader is paranoid: Nikki Haley

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 9:6AM

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says a barrage of missile tests shows that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is "in a state of paranoia."

Haley made the remarks in an interview with ABC News on Sunday after Pyongyang conducted another ballistic missile test over the weekend.

She said that the United States will continue to "tighten the screws" on the North Korean government.

"Well, I think you first have to get into Kim Jong-un's head, you know, which is he's in a state of paranoia. He's incredibly concerned about anything and everything around him," Haley told ABC.

"What we're going to do is continue to tighten the screws. He feels it. He absolutely feels it. And we're going to continue, whether it's sanctions, whether it's press statements, anything that we have to do."

According to the South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pyongyang launched the missile from Pyongan Province on Sunday morning. The US Pacific Command also confirmed the missile launch.

After flying over 700 kilometers (435 miles), the missile landed in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) surrounded by the Korean Peninsula, Japan and the Russian Far East.

Following the test, the White House called for tougher sanctions against North Korea.

"Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea," the White House said in a brief statement Sunday, adding the country "has been a flagrant menace for far too long."

President Donald Trump has warned that a "major conflict" with North Korea is "absolutely" possible in the ongoing standoff over its nuclear and missile programs.

The Trump administration has also said all options are on the table, and has sent an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region in a show of force.

The US military has also begun transporting parts of the controversial THAAD anti-missile system to a planned deployment site in South Korea.

Pyongyang has threatened the US with a nuclear attack in case of a direct military action, and has indicated that weapons tests would continue more frequently.

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Pyongyang's Successful Missile Test Shows Progress Toward ICBM Nuke Capability

Sputnik News

22:35 15.05.2017(updated 00:45 16.05.2017)

Days after South Korea elected a new president who might be favorable to better diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, North Korea launched a medium-range ballistic missile that might accommodate a large nuclear warhead into the Sea of Japan.

"North Korea's latest successful missile test represents a level of performance never seen before from a North Korean missile," aerospace engineer John Schilling wrote on 38 North, a website dedicated to North Korea security topics. Despite Hwasong-12's classification as a medium-range missile, it could have allowed North Korea to test subsystems of ICMBs.

US President Donald Trump's frequent declarations about "solving" the North Korean "problem" may have forced Pyongyang's hand into accelerating ICBM development. "The possible testing of ICBM subsystems in this low-key manner may be a North Korean hedge" against the prospect of escalation with US forces, Schilling said.

It could represent significant progress toward the nation's goal of reaching greater ICBM capabilities, according to various experts. The most recent test was "not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile," US Pacific Command said in a statement. But David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists estimated the projectile's range to be 2,800 miles.

The "Korean-style" missile was "capable of carrying a large, heavy nuclear warhead," North Korean state-media outlet KCNA reported. Based on the missile's altitude and flight time, the DPRK may have launched a "new type of missile," Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said.

The missile originated in Kusong, North Korea, before flying roughly 490 miles, where it landed in the Sea of Japan, just 60 miles from Vladivostok, Russia.

Japanese and South Korean international affairs teams have agreed that "dialogue for dialogue's sake with North Korea is meaningless," Japanese President Shinzo Abe said over the weekend.

New South Korean President Moon Jae-in "expressed deep regret over the face that this reckless provocation" followed Moon's successful bid to replace impeached former President Park Geun-hye, a spokesman said. Contrary to Abe's assertion, Moon is "leaving open the possibility of dialogue with North Korea," according to Moon's secretary.

Technology used by North Korea to send satellites out of the atmosphere may be how the DPRK has covertly developed its ICBM capability, Military.com reported. Washington "should never expect" the leadership of North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, according to KCNA.

Pyongyang has been nothing short of a "flagrant menace," a White House statement said, "for far too long."

 Sputnik

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Latest North Korean Launch Involves Liquid Fuel Single-Stage Missile - Reports

Sputnik News

18:32 15.05.2017(updated 20:28 15.05.2017)

The North Korean missile launch on Sunday reportedly involved a KN-17 medium-range ballistic missile.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Preliminary assessment by US authorities indicates that North Korea launched a liquid-fuel single-stage KN-17 missile, NBC News reported citing two military officials.

On Sunday, North Korea launched a missile in the vicinity of Kusong in the North Pyongan province. The missile fell in the Sea of Japan after flying some 500 miles.

A number of countries, including the United States, Japan and South Korea, criticized North Korea for conducting the latest missile launch.

According to the Yonhap News Agency, North Korea said it had launched the Hwasong-12 missile, which had reached an altitude of 2,111 kilometers (1,311 miles) and flown 787 kilometers (489 miles).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the site of the test-fire of the new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic missile, Hwasong-12, on Sunday.

 Sputnik

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Experts: North Korea 'Step' Closer to Striking the Continental US

By Baik Sungwon May 15, 2017

North Korea's latest missile launch suggests a major step forward in Kim Jong Un's quest to develop a nuclear tipped intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the U.S. mainland, analysts say.

Pyongyang claimed on Monday that the missile it fired over the weekend was a "new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket" capable of carrying "a large, heavy nuclear warhead."

The missile, dubbed the Hwasong-12, was launched at a high trajectory on Sunday, reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometers and traveling 787 kilometers before landing in the sea near Russia, the North's official news agency KCNA reported.

"The test-fire proved to the full all the technical specifications of the rocket," KCNA said. "It also verified the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re-entry situation and accurate performance of detonation system."

Technical progress?

South Korea's military, however, minimized the Kim regime's claim of technical progress in re-entry technology, which, if successful, allows a warhead to reach its target without burning up while re-entering the atmosphere. The military said that although more analysis is required to verify the North Korean claim, "we believe the possibility of that is low."

North Korea has made no secret of its desire to develop an ICBM capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland, but many had believed it was far from mastering the re-entry technology needed for perfecting an ICBM, which uses similar engineering in early flight stages.

The Trump administration has made stopping the development of a North Korean ICBM a top priority, and stressed the U.S. would consider military action to take out launching sites and nuclear facilities, if needed.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told VOA that "this is definitely a step toward an ICBM technology, so I find this kind of launch much more concerning than the satellite launches."

Advanced capabilities

If North Koreans had fired the missile at a lower angle, rather than "almost straight up,  it would have gone maybe as much as 4,000 kilometers, and that is not technically an intercontinental [ballistic missile], but it's still a longer range" than any North Korean missile had previously tested.

McDowell said the increased velocity and altitude and the range of the launched missile, which appeared to be an improved version of the mid-range Musudan model, indicate that the communist state might have advanced its missile capabilities through its test launches over the years.

Similar assessments came from aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling, who wrote on the website of 38 North, a monitoring project based in Washington, that the missile test represents "a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile."

The test seems to have not only "demonstrated an intermediate range ballistic missile that may enable the regime to reliably strike the U.S. base at Guam in the Pacific," Schilling said, but "more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile."

An early test for Moon Jae-in

The North Korean missile test occurred days after Moon Jae-in, of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, was sworn in as the president of South Korea, replacing his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye, who was recently ousted in a corruption scandal. Moon campaigned on a promise to engage North Korea, in contrast to Park, who was bent on cutting all ties to the reclusive regime.

"We should understand that just because a liberal president has been elected, it doesn't mean that Pyongyang is going to suddenly stop testing," Ken Gause, director of the International Affairs Group at the Center for Naval Analyses, told VOA. "This launch could be designed to see how Moon Jae-in reacts."

Kim is testing Moon to determine whether he is going to interact with the U.S. and China and seek refuge in the alliance as part of a united front against North Korea, or if he is going to reach out to Pyongyang in an effort to seek an inter-Korean solution, Gause said. "Knowing these answers will help Kim Jong Un calibrate his foreign policy toward the new administration in Seoul."

Test could lead to talks

Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, reads Pyongyang's launch of the latest missile as a gesture to encourage South Korea's newly elected president to contact the regime.

"North Korea does not believe that adopting soft or accommodating positions is the best way of inducing dialogue, but rather sees demonstrations of strength as most likely to eventually produce the negotiated outcomes it wants," Romberg said in an email to VOA.

In response to Sunday's launch, Moon strongly condemned North Korea, saying there still remains the possibility of a productive inter-Korean dialogue but that the South would deal rigorously with any such provocation.

Jenny Lee contributed to this report.

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US Intelligence Takes Increased North Korean Saber-Rattling Seriously

By Jeff Seldin May 16, 2017

North Korean claims that its newly-tested ballistic missile can carry a nuclear warhead appear to explain a subtle but significant shift in the way U.S. intelligence views Pyongyang.

Top officials, who once described North Korea as a "second tier" adversary with more intent than capability, now refer to it as an "increasingly grave" threat bent on demonstrating that the United States will soon be within its military reach.

"We have assessed this as a very significant, potentially existential threat to the United States that has to be addressed," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week on worldwide threats.

"It is the highest priority, one of the highest, if not the highest priority of the intelligence community at this time," Coats added.

Coats' comments seem to contrast the view taken by his predecessor, James Clapper, who just over a year ago told lawmakers that among nation states, Russia and China were the "prime" threats to the U.S.

And earlier this month, then-FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Russia poses "the greatest threat of any nation on Earth, given their intention and their capability."

Current and former officials, however, caution the intelligence community's use of increasingly stronger language to describe the threat from North Korea is not so much a change in thinking as it is a stark acknowledgment of an evolving threat.

Likewise, they warn that the elevation of North Korea on its list of threats should in no way diminish the danger posed by Russia.

"It's hard to rack and stack the North Korean and the Russian threat," former CIA and National Security Agency Director, Gen. Michael Hayden, told VOA via email.

"Russia is more global, more powerful but also in its own way more restrained," he said, while North Korea "is more willing to conduct provocative and unpredictable action."

Such unpredictability, combined with what officials have described as a ratcheting up of its development and testing program over the past year, has many now describing the North Korean issue as one that has escalated from a regional threat to a global one.

The ever more dire warnings appear to have found a receptive audience, both in the White House and Congress.

Asked about Comey's testimony earlier this month describing Russia as the greatest threat, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters the president has been "very clear" about his views regarding the North Korea nuclear threat.

Likewise, during last week's Intelligence Committee hearing, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein called the latest assessments on North Korea's activities "deeply concerning."

"I would argue that the greatest danger to the United States is North Korea," she said.

Making the situation even more worrisome for U.S. officials is what they described as a persistent lack of clarity about what is going on inside such an isolated country.

In response, the CIA last week announced the creation of a Korea Mission Center to "get back on our front foot with respect to foreign intelligence collection," according to CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

"We should not all focus simply on the ICBM's either," Pompeo told lawmakers.

In fact, the latest, unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment raises significant concerns about North Korea's conventional military force.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "has further expanded the regime's conventional strike options in recent years," the assessment warns, citing better training and upgraded artillery systems.

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo told the country's parliament Tuesday that not only was Sunday's missile test successful, but that the program itself was developing faster than expected.

"There's a worry about where they're really going with this march forward -- how far are they going to take it?" said Cortney Weinbaum, a senior technical analyst at the RAND Corporation. "It adds a very thick layer of uncertainty that makes a lot of people very nervous."

Weinbaum, who spent 14 years working for U.S. intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, said the uncertainty alone would merit elevating North Korea on the list of threats.

Adding to the concerns is a growing realization that while international sanctions may have slowed North Korea's progress, they have not stopped it altogether.

"The North Koreans have really perfected their networks and driven them deep underground," Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton said at forum in Washington late last month.

"It's very necessary for the international community to come together and share information and go after some of these companies that are providing either products or equipment that contribute to the weapons program or financial measures that continue to the sort of sustainment of the regime," she said.

U.S. officials say China, for one, has shown a willingness to take significant financial and economic action against Pyongyang, pointing to the recent ban on North Korean coal imports, but caution it is just the start.

"The intelligence suggests we're going to need more to shake free this terribly challenging problem," said the CIA's Pompeo.

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Macron appoints Edouard Philippe as French prime minister

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 4:56PM

Newly-inaugurated French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed a center-right lawmaker and mayor as the country's prime minister, handing a top position in his administration to a moderate from France's conservative Republican Party.

Macron named Edouard Philippe, the 46-year-old mayor of Le Havre in northern France and a parliamentarian, to the job on Monday.

Philippe was a close associate of former prime minister Alain Juppe and used to support the presidential campaign of Francois Fillon until the candidate was embroiled in an embezzlement scandal last year.

The appointment comes on the first day of Macron's presidency after inauguration as the centrist aims to broaden his political appeal and weaken his opponents before legislative elections in June.

It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his party without being forced to by a defeat in parliamentary elections.

Describing the move as a "tough" choice, one of Macron's close aides said on the sidelines of the inaugural ceremony a day earlier, "In government, you will see that a lot of the inner circle will drop out."

Christophe Castaner, Macron's campaign spokesman, added that "I was among the first to say 'why not a prime minister from the right'? That's in the nature of what we are trying to do... It's tough... especially for the longest-serving ones."

In his first speech as president on Sunday, Macron promised to restore France's shattered self-confidence and help rebuild the flagging European Union.

He said he intended to convince people that France was "at the dawn of an extraordinary renaissance" and that the world and Europe "need France now more than ever."

Macron, 39, who is a former investment banker and economy minister, won the presidential election with 66 percent of the votes on May 7.

Macron is France's youngest president ever and the first to be born after October 5, 1958, when President Charles de Gaulle set up the Fifth Republic from the ashes of the Fourth Republic, replacing a factional parliamentary government with a centralized one.

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Macron And Merkel Pledge Cooperation On EU Reforms

RFE/RL May 15, 2017

France's new President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to work together to strengthen the European Union, saying they were prepared to discuss changes to existing treaties to modernize the 28-nation bloc.

Macron spoke alongside Merkel at a news conference in Berlin on May 15, hours after he named conservative politician Edouard Philippe as his prime minister.

Macron, who assumed office a day earlier, said he would work closely with Merkel on a "road map" to reform the EU and the eurozone, adding that "there is absolutely no taboo for us here."

"There are several areas in which we can cooperate in the short term," he added. "Common asylum policy, posted workers, and bilateral trade. All these will have an impact on our citizens. We need more pragmatism, less bureaucracy ,and a Europe that protects our citizens."

Macron's defeat of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a run-off vote this month was greeted with relief by pro-EU political forces rattled by a surge in populist, Euroskeptic sentiment across the continent, including last year's Brexit referendum vote approving Britain's departure from the bloc.

His candidacy and victory was embraced by Merkel, who said during the May 15 news conference that, while treaty changes are not an immediate subject of discussion, she is open to the idea.

"First we need to work on what we want to change, and then if it turns out it needs a treaty change, then we're prepared to do that," she said.

Macron added that he intends to back economic reforms in France, where Le Pen and his other opponents are seeking to bounce back in parliamentary elections slated for June 11 and 18.

His push for reforms aimed at combating unemployment in the country comes "not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it," Macron said.

Meanwhile, Philippe said hours after his appointment on May 15 that he decided to accept the job Macron offered him because France is in a "unique situation."

"I told myself that the situation we were in was so unique that we should try something that had never been tried before," Philippe, a lawmaker and mayor of the port city of Le Havre from the center-right Republicans, said in comments broadcast by TF1 television.

Macron may need the support of the center right to push through economic reforms.

Macron and Philippe, who had been tipped as favorite for the job, are known to have similar views on the economy and social issues.

With reporting by AFP, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, and the BBC

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/macron-merkel-cooperation-eu- reforms-france-germany/28489769.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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Macron Calls for EU Reforms, Vows to Work Closely with Germany

By VOA News May 15, 2017

French President Emmanuel Macron spent his first full day in office traveling to Germany, telling Chancellor Angela Merkel he wants to work closely with her to create "deep reforms" to the European Union.

Macron said in Berlin Monday there must be a "less bureaucratic" Europe and that he is ready to change EU treaties if needed.

He also said France will push for economic reforms in the country to bring down unemployment and implement a reform agenda "not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it.''

Macron said he does not favor European countries taking joint responsibility for old debts and that he has never pushed for jointly issued eurobonds. Germany, which has Europe's largest economy, has always opposed taking direct responsibility for weaker EU countries' debts.

Merkel told Macron "Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that."

The German chancellor said she and Macron agreed to develop a medium-term road map on how to deepen European Union integration. She said Germany would also be willing to change EU treaties if the changes make sense. But the two countries should first work on what they want to reform, she added.

She said the French and German governments would hold a meeting on key issues in July.

The visit to Germany marked Macron's first foreign trip after his inauguration on Sunday, continuing a tradition of French presidents making their first international trip to Germany.

In his inaugural address, Macron vowed to restore France's place in Europe and the world.

Macron, a centrist, was elected last week, defeating anti-EU, anti-immigrant candidate Marine Le Pen. The campaign exposed deep splits in France over the country's role in Europe.

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Germany slams Turkey's refusal to let MPs visit Incirlik

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 3:16PM

Berlin has condemned Ankara's refusal to grant permission to German lawmakers to visit their country's soldiers serving in a NATO mission at a Turkish airbase.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's top spokesman Steffen Seibert on Monday described as "unacceptable" Ankara's ban on a visit by the German Parliament's defense committee to Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.

The spokesman also warned that Germany could move its troops elsewhere, saying that Berlin would now "look into alternative locations" for its military personnel.

Germany has more than 250 troops deployed to Incirlik, using the airbase for flying Tornado jets over Syria and refueling flights as part of the US-led coalition allegedly battling the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

Speaking at a news conference in the day, Merkel also reiterated the need for German lawmakers to be able to visit the soldiers serving at the Turkish airbase.

"We will continue to talk with Turkey, but in parallel we will have to explore other ways of fulfilling our mandate, that means looking at alternatives to Incirlik, and one alternative among others is Jordan," she said.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen recently said that Berlin hoped to invest 58 million euros (USD 65 million) in mobile barracks and other facilities in Incirlik.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer suggested that Turkey's Monday rejection of the visit was tied to Berlin's decision to grant asylum to Turkish soldiers accused by Ankara of participating in last year's failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

German media have reported that over 400 Turkish military personnel, diplomats, judges and other officials and their relatives had sought political asylum in Germany.

Additionally, relations between Ankara and Berlin soured in June, when the German Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian "genocide" at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million of its nationals were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, but Turkey argues that it was a collective tragedy, during which 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks lost their lives.

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Germany Views Jordan as Alternative for Troop Relocation From Turkey's Incirlik

Sputnik News

15:04 15.05.2017(updated 17:33 15.05.2017)

Germany will continue searching for an alternative to relocate its troops stationed at Turkey's Incirlik airbase to neighboring countries, such as Jordan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday.

BERLIN (Sputnik)  German-Turkish links were tested by the arrest, February 27, of Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist working for Die Welt newspaper.

He was arrested and detained on charges of supporting a terrorist organization and inciting public violence.

The situation worsened when German authorities banned pro-Erdogan demonstrations in Germany in the run-up to the referendum. Germany has a significant Turkish population which Erdogan was keen to ensure voted in favor of the controversial referendum.

Both Germany and Turkey are NATO members, with the alliance making much use of Turkish assets for its Middle East operations  particularly the airbase at Incirlik in southern Turkey.

The granting of asylum to NATO staff and their families is likely to cause diplomatic tensions between Berlin and Ankara.

"This is challenging. And we have let them know via various channels. We shall continue negotiations, but simultaneously we shall observe the implementation of what is already in this mandate, because we had difficulties with visits already. This means seeking an alternative to Incirlik, Jordan, among others, is a possible alternative for example," Merkel told reporters.

The government spokesman added that Berlin would continue its efforts toward arranging the visit and did not comment on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's plans to visit the base in the near future.

In 2016, Berlin prolonged until the end of 2017 the deployment of six Tornado jets and hundreds of German personnel at the airbase despite strained relations between the two countries. German-Turkish relations deteriorated after the German parliament's decision in June to label the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. Following this decision, Ankara restricted a delegation of German lawmakers from accessing the air base in June 2016. Nonetheless, in October, Turkey allowed the delegation to visit the base.

In November 2016, German media reported that military officials have traveled to Jordan's capital Amman to investigate a possible relocation of Tornado spy jets from southern Turkey.

The Turkish Incirlik air base stations hundreds of German personnel and several Tornado jets to carry out airstrikes against the the Islamic State terror group (banned in Russia) in Iraq and Syria alongside the United States and several other NATO member states.

 Sputnik

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Incirlik Crisis: Are German Armed Forces Really Planning to Leave Military Base?

Sputnik News

19:44 16.05.2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Berlin will consider other options for the placement of its armed forces following Ankara's decision to ban German lawmakers from visiting the Turkish Incirlik military base.

The trip was to take place on May 16, but the Turkish authorities refused to coordinate it. Following the incident, German officials announced their readiness to look for alternative military bases, for example in Jordan.

According to political expert Azhdar Kurtov, Erdogan is perfectly aware of the importance of the base for its NATO allies. Thus, the Turkish leader uses it as a means to reach his political goals, the expert argued.

"Erdogan, in fact, is bargaining with the US and the EU. When he hears criticism in his address or gets information about someone's intentions to help the Kurds, there are immediately reports of Ankara's readiness to close the Incirlik base for the allies. The situation with Germany is additional proof of this tactic," the expert told RT.

The Turkish Incirlik air base is used by the United States, along with several other NATO member countries, to carry out airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq and Syria. Hundreds of German personnel are also stationed at the base.

According to Kurtov, at the end, Erdogan is unlikely to demand Berlin or Washington leave the air base. The expert believes that the so-called Euro-Atlantic solidarity still plays a primary role for Turkey.

"In addition, we shouldn't forget that Ankara receives money for the rent. Erdogan's bravado is of a political nature. He keeps the allies tense and at the same time promotes the image of a strong leader in the eyes of his citizens, demonstrating that Turkey at any time can break up with NATO, although this is unlikely to happen," Kurtov said.

Germany, in turn, refrained from attacking Turkey, with Angela Merkel making an important remark: "We will continue negotiations."

The western coalition understands that there is no airfield that would be more convenient for them than Incirlik.

Most airstrikes against Daesh take place in the north and east of Syria, and Jordan borders the Arab republic on the south. German pilots would have to overcome about 1400 km to fly to Raqqa and about 1800 km to Mosul.

Thus, if Germany has to withdraw its military from the base, the Middle East campaign for the German Air Force might be over, RT concluded.

 Sputnik

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German-Turkish Relations Hit New Low as NATO Partners Fall Out Over Airbase

Sputnik News

18:52 16.05.2017(updated 18:54 16.05.2017)

Diplomatic relations between Berlin and Ankara have plunged to a new low after Turkey refused to allow German lawmakers access to German staff working at the strategically important Incirlik airbase in southwestern Turkey.

Both Germany and Turkey are NATO members, but relations between the two countries have been marred by a series of fallouts in recent months  not least over media freedom and human rights issues.

The latest row concerns the strategically import airbase at Incirlik airbase in southwestern Turkey, which is heavily used by other NATO members, including Germany, the US and the UK for operations in the Middle East.

There have been differences between Berlin and Ankara for months over demands by German MPs for access to their staff on the airbase, which they have been denied for a second time.

Now the German Government has signaled that it may move its Tornado aircraft to another base  possibly in Jordan.

Wolfgang Hellmich, the chairman of the Bundestag Defense Committee, told the German news agency DPA "we're not going to be blackmailed" by the Ankara government.

The latest spat comes after a series of fallouts between the two countries. Germany is demanding the release of Deniz Yuecel, a German-Turkish journalist working for 'Die Welt' newspaper. He was arrested and detained on charges of supporting a terrorist organization and inciting public violence.

He is one of six German citizens detained in the crackdown on followers of exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, now living in the US, who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames for being behind the failed coup, July 2016.

In September 2016, the front cover of the respected German magazine Der Spiegel, showed Erdogan wearing sunglasses reflecting two minarets as rockets taking off from a mosque and describing him in an article as a "Dictator."

Prior to that, there was diplomatic strain when German satirist Jan Bohmermann broadcast a poem on ZDF television sitting in front of a portrait of Erdogan, reading out a poem that accusing the Turkish president of "repressing minorities, kicking Kurds and slapping Christians while watching child porn", among other things. Erdogan demanded that Bohmermann be prosecuted, but plans to do so were quietly dropped.

 Sputnik

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India Builds Longest River Bridge Near Chinese Border

Sputnik News

16:41 15.05.2017(updated 16:43 15.05.2017)

In order to improve military mobility along the India-China border, India has completed the construction of the country's longest bridge over the trans-boundary Brahmaputra river which flows through China, India and Bangladesh.

NEW DELHI (Sputnik)  Set to be formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 26, the bridge will not only significantly improve connectivity in India's north-eastern region, but it will also help contain the adverse situation along the border.

As the crow flies, the bridge is less than 100 km from the Chinese border and is designed in such a way so as to facilitate quick movement of troops and artillery in times of conflict. It has been built to withstand the weight of army tanks of up to 60 tons. "It will be used by people of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh besides defense forces extensively," Assam Chief Minister Sarbandanda Sonowal said.

The 9.15-km-long bridge will significantly reduce the travel time between Arunachal Pradesh that shares its border with China and Assam that hosts the north-eastern region's crucial rail route and civilian airfields. Arunachal Pradesh does not have its own operational railways and civilian airport.

This bridge will serve major connecting point to the military bases in the eastern part of India to the China border. Through this, India can swiftly move forces from Panagarh military base located in West Bengal.

Panagarh will be the base station for mountain strike corps which is being raised by the Indian Army especially for operations against China.

India has positioned its six C-130Js in Panagarh in West Bengal to improve the mobility of armed forces on the border with China. The location is some distance away from the border but within easy reach of the planes earmarked for special operations and rapid troop redeployment.

 Sputnik

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Commander: US unaware of Iran's military capacities

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, May 15, IRNA -- Americans have limited knowledge of Iran's military capabilities and capacities, Spokesman of Armed Forces Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said.

Regarding the news reported by the US media and agencies about Iran's defensive power, it is concluded that US military and its intelligence systems are not able to understand Iran's military power, General Jazayeri said.

He reiterated that Iran today enjoys active deterrence power in a way that no aggressor can go untracked until being busted or annihilated.

General Jazayeri pointed to the significant popular support of Iran's armed forces, and said that stability and peace in west Asia rely on aliens' withdrawal.

All aggressions, wars and bloodshed in the region are caused by the US, the Zionist Regime and their allies, he noted.

Even if Americans spend ten times more than what they have spent on dominating the region, they will not be able to achieve their goals, General Jazayeri added.

9376**2050

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Iran nuclear deal helped release of seized South Pars equipment: Official

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, May 15, IRNA -- The South Pars confiscated equipment was released after implementation of the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers known also as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), says Pars Oil and Gas Company Managing Director.

There is good interaction between us and international companies, Mohammad Meshkin Fam said on Monday.

"At the time of sanctions, the equipment, including the compressors bought from German company Siemens for development of several phases of the South Pars Gas Field were stopped and returned just a few miles away from our border waters," Meshkin Fam said.

"The compressors were not released until after implementation of the JCPOA and we had to buy the equivalent ones from China and construct relevant foundations to install the machinery," he said.

Now after the release of purchased Iranian equipment from the German-based company, we had to construct new foundations for the Siemens machinery, he added.

Sanctions associated with mismanagements and managerial changes among main contractors involved in the projects in South Pars caused perplexity in the implementation process of some of the phases, Meshkin Fam had said earlier.

The nuclear agreement between Iran and the world six powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed on January 16, 2016.

The South Pars Field is the world largest natural gas condensate field, 3,700 square kilometers, located in the Persian Gulf on the water border line between Iran and Qatar.

9411**2044

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U.S doesn't know much about Iran's military capabilities

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Mon / 15 May 2017 / 14:13

Tehran (ISNA)  U.S. information about Iran's actual military capabilities was so limited, Iranian senior spokesman for armed forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri emphasized.

"US reports on Iran's defense power shows the country's limited information on our actual military capabilities," he said.

"Iran has allowed a short glimpse into its defense power for hostile countries particularly US, to confuse its enemies and prevent any potential invasion," Jazayeri went on to say.

"Currently, the deterrence power of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on active deterrence in a way that any aggressor is reduced to annihilation and surrender," he added.

"It has been years since the threat of war and military aggression against our country has moved away due to our active deterrence power, but this does not mean that we will stop our progress in various defense fields," the spokesman stressed.

"Stability and peace in West Asia region depends on removing the outside powers from this vast and strategic territory. All instances of war and bloodshed in the region are the result of wrong policies of the US and Israeli regime, as well as all corrupted and reactive governments. Yet, even if the Americans spend ten times more expenses of what they already have for dominating the region, they will never be able to achieve their sinister goals," Jazayeri maintained.

End Item

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Former President Khatami calls on Iranian voters to re-elect Rouhani

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 1:56AM

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has called on his supporters to vote for incumbent President Hassan Rouhani in the upcoming presidential election, slated for Friday, May 19.

Reformist Khatami called on voters to re-elect Rouhani via a video posted online on Sunday.

He praised achievements of the 11th administration, saying, "The current administration, despite facing limitations, problems, and high expectations, has managed to make great accomplishments."

"We will vote for Rouhani for freedom of thought, reasoning in dialog, abiding by law in practice, advocating civil rights, and implementation of social and economic justice," Khatami said in the video.

Khatami, who served as president for two consecutive terms from 1997 to 2005, is considered as the leader of Iran's reformists.

Iranians will go to the polls across the country on May 19 to elect the country's 12th president. The six candidates vying in the race are Tehran's current mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, member of the Expediency Council Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim, former deputy judiciary chief Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, former vice president Seyyed Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, incumbent first vice president Es'haq Jahangiri, and Rouhani.

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Here Are The Smears Marring Iran's Election(s)

Golnaz Esfandiari May 15, 2017

While elections in Iran look like slug-it-out campaigns, with many of the trappings of competition -- government critics, disagreement on high-profile issues, and televised public debates -- they are kept tightly in check by unelected officials under the country's clerically dominated system.

There is careful vetting by the Guardians Council, which routinely disqualifies all but a small fraction of reform-minded candidates. Entrenched hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its volunteer-based paramilitary, the Basij, and Friday Prayer leaders in pulpits throughout the country also combine to stake out no-go zones. Nevermind the supreme leader, who has the final say on political, military, and religious affairs, and his network of representatives at all levels of government.

But in addition to these hallmarks of political power struggles in postrevolutionary Iran, there is also a state-dominated media environment with a history of subtle attacks on candidates and sitting officials, including incumbent President Hassan Rohani.

Attacks and smears targeting elected officials -- in the past and so far in the run-up to this election-- have included crackdowns on supporters, intrigue around family members, and appeals to national security.

Rohani, who is allied with Iran's reformers and centrists, faces a potentially strong challenge in the May 19 election from hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi. But another conservative, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also waged harsh attacks on the incumbent before dropping out of the presidential race on May 15.

Here's a look at some of the issues that have emerged as hard-liners try to unseat a man they've criticized as being too friendly toward the West.

Targeting Close Aides, Associates, And Relatives

This tactic has been used by hard-line officials against politicians who oppose them, but also against perceived enemies from other walks of life.

Iranians whose close associates or family have been targeted in the past include Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi. She recounted in her 2016 autobiography from exile, Until We Are Free: My Fight For Human Rights In Iran, how Iranian security agents hauled her sister off to jail in the middle of the night or tricked her husband into cheating on and denouncing her in order to exert pressure on her.

Presidents whose allies have come under attack have been largely helpless to protect them.

This year, in the first of three televised presidential debates, Qalibaf accused Rohani of relying in part during his victorious 2013 campaign on an individual who has since been sentenced to death for economic corruption. Qalibaf did not name any names, but he appeared to be referring to Iranian billionaire and business magnate Babak Zanjani. His accusation echoed a statement in January by the head of the powerful judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, who said Zanjani had claimed that he had contributed to Rohani's election campaign.

Rohani denied the accusation as a "sheer lie."

"A corrupt individual who is sentenced to death has made a claim. One doesn't quote a corrupt individual," Rohani said in the April 28 debate.

Hard-line news sites published a photo of Rohani giving what appears to be an award to Zanjani. Rohani has countered that the image is from an event held several years ago to highlight Iran's top exporters. He said he was asked to present the awards, saying that he didn't know the recipients.

During the second presidential debate, on May 7, Qalibaf accused the daughter of Rohani's education minister of the "smuggling of imported goods." The allegations were also leveled by a spokesman of the judiciary, who said in late April that a large shipment of clothing had been discovered in a minister's home.

Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, who is one of the five men running against Rohani but who is seen as in the race to run cover for the president, dismissed the charges, saying that the minister's daughter had paid all custom duties.

Months before the presidential campaign, Rohani came under pressure over his brother, Hossein Feridun, who is a member of the president's inner circle. Feridun has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. In January, 46 lawmakers called on Rohani to present his brother, a former ambassador to Malaysia, to the powerful judiciary to face "financial corruption charges." Reports had swirled that Rohani might be getting "pressured to part ways with his younger brother," who was said to be a key contributor to Rohani's 2013 campaign and has been dubbed the president's "eyes and ears."

"Feridun's fate -- whatever it is -- will also affect the political fate of Rohani," the daily Arman predicted in April.

The opposition website Sahamnews.org in May quoted unnamed sources as saying that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned Rohani about Feridun and the president's chief of staff, Mohammad Nahavandian, and called for their dismissals.

During the third presidential debate, on May 12, Raisi and Qalibaf each tried to paint Rohani with the corruption brush.

"The head of the government is being told that the closest person to him is engaged in corruption," Raisi said, adding that Rohani has been resisting calls for action.

It's not just Rohani. Two of his presidential predecessors, hard-liner Mahmud Ahmadinejad and reformist Mohammad Khatami, experienced similar broadsides-by-association.

Ahmadinejad, a divisive hard-liner who served two terms as president from 2005 to 2013, was targeted over his inner circle. Close Ahmadinejad aide Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was once accused of being part of a "deviant current" straying from the principles of the Islamic establishment. Several individuals close to Mashaei were even arrested and charged with sorcery in 2011, at a time when the president was reportedly coming under increasing criticism from Khamenei. Mashaei also came under pressure when a $2.6 billion embezzlement scandal rocked the country, accused of ties to the mastermind of the massive fraud case.

Khatami, who campaigned on reform and held the presidency from 1997-2005, also witnessed attacks on his supporters and allies, including civil-society activists and journalists who were harassed, summoned, detained, or imprisoned. Two of Khatami's key associates -- former Tehran Mayor Gholam Hossein Karbaschi and leading reform voice and onetime Interior Minister Abdollah Nuri -- were eventually tried and jailed for corruption and political and religious dissent, respectively. Khatami political strategist and consultant Said Hajarian became the victim of an assassination attempt in 2000 that left him partially paralyzed and in need of constant medical care.

'Threat To The Islamic Republic'

Hard-liners often accuse their rivals of undermining the Islamic establishment and the values of the 1979 revolution, seemingly highlighting their concern that their dominance over the country's political landscape could diminish. Scores of intellectuals, journalists, activists, and human rights defenders have been harassed and jailed on vague charges that include "acting against national security" or "harming Iran's national interests."

Presidents have been also accused of undermining the clerical establishment.

Khatami -- who endorsed Rohani in a video released on May 14 -- was accused during his own presidency of being Westernized and of damaging the Islamic republic over his attempts at reform, although he served two terms.

Well to his right on the political spectrum, Ahmadinejad was made out by some to be a potential threat for repeatedly defying the aging supreme leader, Khamenei.

And Rohani has repeatedly been targeted over his attempts at engagement with the West, prompting warnings of alleged Western "infiltration" efforts aimed at undermining the Iranian establishment.

In the second presidential debate, Raisi accused Rohani's government of weakness during negotiations with world powers ahead of the landmark deal exchanging curbs on Tehran's nuclear program for relief from sanctions.

At a rally for Raisi in the capital, an organizer referred to Rohani's government as "the government of humiliation." "Mr. Rohani, how quickly you shook hands with the enemy," the organizer said, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Pictures posted by the Tasnim news agency showed some of Raisi's supporters holding handwritten signs that said: "We've come here to put an end to the green light to the enemy."

Rohani aides have also been accused of improper affiliations with Western countries, a claim the Iranian president has dismissed as a misuse of the term "infiltration" for their political goals.

The harassment and arrests of dual nationals -- including Iranian-Americans accused of espionage -- are seen as further evidence of efforts to bring Rohani's outreach efforts to heel.

Speaking on March 15, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jafari, warned against pro-Western and liberal tendencies among state officials.

"Today, many of the officials running the country have liberal, Western, and counterrevolutionary views," he said.

Jafari did not single out by name Rohani, who has a doctorate in constitutional law from Glasgow Caledonian University, or any of the members of his cabinet, some of whom are graduates of American universities. But he complained that some officials appeared proud of having obtained their degrees or doctorates from Western universities.

The Economy And The Nuclear Deal

Rohani came to power in 2013 promising Iranians a better economy, among other things. Many Iranians were hoping that ending their dispute with the international community over Tehran's nuclear program -- in the end, the deal with the United States and other major powers in 2015 to trade curbs for an end to sanctions -- would bring them significant economic benefits. Yet among other sticking points, including a new U.S. president who has vowed to renegotiate the nuclear deal, many firms still appear reluctant to do business with Iran. Supreme Leader Khamenei and hard-liners have complained publicly that Iranians have not seen tangible improvements in their daily lives.

Rohani confronted increased pressure during the current campaign to demonstrate any windfall from the nuclear agreement, primarily from Raisi and Qalibaf.

"Today, 30 percent of our young people are out of jobs and unemployment is over 12 percent," Raisi said during a recent rally in Tehran. "Does this situation have to continue? Do we have to wait for foreigners to fix our problems?"

Speaking on state television on May 1, Qalibaf played down Rohani's role in achieving the deal. He said that any other administration would have signed the nuclear accord because the green light for the nuclear talks came from "the entire establishment." But he also said Rohani's government has failed to translate the deal into benefits for Iranians.

"Have people benefited from the accord?" he asked, adding that "this is a serious weakness" of Rohani's government.

On a related note, Rohani has also come under pressure for allegedly doing too little to implement Khamenei's call for a "resistance economy" to make Iran more self-sufficient. His rivals have suggested that the president has been relying heavily on foreign investment while ignoring national resources and capabilities.

In fact, Khamenei personally called out Rohani on that subject in early March.

"Of course, the government has taken remarkable steps," Khamenei was quoted by state TV as saying, "but if the resistance economy had been implemented fully and widely, we could witness a tangible difference in people's lives."

The same week, Guardians Council head Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati called on Rohani to present evidence of the degree to which such a resistance economy has been put in place. "If some work has been done, let people know so that they can rejoice," Jannati said. "If not, apologize to the people and explain why nothing has been done."

Khamenei later criticized the government's economic policies in his Norouz message, when he repeated his call for more jobs and greater self-sufficiency.

Official Graft

Rohani has also come under pressure over leaked pay slips that suggested senior government employees received salaries that were as much as 200 times what more modestly paid government employees make. Several officials were reportedly dismissed over the scandal and the government said it is taking steps to regulate the salaries. Yet the president's rivals have used the issue repeatedly to pressure him.

Speaking on March 6, former Iranian nuclear negotiator and onetime presidential candidate Said Jalili blasted the government over what he described as "astronomical salaries." Jalili said that employees outside those privileged, highly paid few are being told to be patient in the face of economic problems.

Rohani's associates had said ahead of the presidential campaign that the leaks were aimed at diminishing his chances of reelection.

In another context, Ahmadinejad was criticized for reportedly taking large delegations, including family members, with him during his annual trips to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. His 2012 delegation reportedly included over 100 people.

In Iran, where officials and politicians frequently go to great lengths to demonstrate piety and modesty, signs of conspicuous consumption can do considerable damage.

In 2013, Guardians Council head Jannati said that the country's next president should lead a simple life and not drive around in a Mercedes. Jannati did not name names, but he appeared to be referring to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had arrived to register for the presidential vote in a Mercedes. Rafsanjani, who died earlier this year, was banned from running.

Preelection Crackdown

Ahead of voting, hard-liners frequently resort to crackdowns to tighten their grip on power and undermine a sitting president by demoralizing his supporters.

In recent months, at least three journalists, a well-known editor, and several administrators of pro-government and reformist Telegram channels have been arrested, prompting warnings over a crackdown.

On March 15, lawmaker Ali Motahari disclosed that 12 administrators of Telegram channels had been arrested by a "military intelligence body." He said the arrest created "doubts" about the upcoming vote.

Another outspoken lawmaker, Mahmud Sadeghi, also expressed concern in a letter to IRGC commander Jafari. He said that the arrests, which he said appeared to have been carried out by the IRGC's intelligence unit, had created worries in the Iranian society.

Iran's judiciary also blocked correspondence on the highly popular Telegram messaging app. Instagram Live was reportedly also blocked following an order from authorities within the judiciary.

Iranian authorities have stepped up their repressive measures in the run-up to past elections. In 2013, for instance, a number of activists were either arrested or summoned for questioning. Some journalists previously released on furlough were also recalled to prison in the month leading up to the voting.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-presidential-election-smears -campaigning-rohani-raisi/28489061.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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Qalibaf Quits Iran's Presidential Race, Backs Hard-Line Cleric Raisi

RFE/RL May 15, 2017

Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has withdrawn from Iran's presidential race to back hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, leaving only one prominent conservative in the contest.

In a May 15 statement published by Iranian media, Qalibaf said the decision was vital for the "preservation of the interests of the people, the revolution, and the country."

Qalibaf called on his supporters to vote for Raisi on May 19, potentially strengthening the main conservative candidate challenging incumbent President Hassan Rohani.

"I ask all my supporters around the country to use all their capacity to help my brother Raisi win the election," Qalibaf said in his statement.

But some observers said Rohani could end up benefitting from the move.

"Not all of Qalibaf's voters will shift to Raisi, as the former represents the modernist current in the principlist [conservative] camp, while the latter represents the [hard-line] ideological factions," said International Crisis Group Iran analyst Ali Vaez.

Qalibaf, 56, had been running for president for the third time after being defeated in the 2005 and 2013 votes.

"We and the people expect that this decision will pave the way for a new era of economic development," he said.

Raisi praised Qalibaf's decision as a "revolutionary move" in remarks at a campaign rally in the south-central city of Shiraz, where his supporters thanked Qalibaf for withdrawing from the race.

"Qalibaf, Thank you. Qalibaf, Thank you," Raisi's supporters chanted, according to a video clip posted by the hard-line Fars news agency.

Vaez believes Qalibaf probably perceived his withdrawal as a win-win.

"It allows him to avoid an embarrassing third-time defeat in a presidential race, which according to the polls seemed likely, while scoring important points with the establishment in case his withdrawal helps Raisi," Vaez said in comments e-mailed to RFE/RL.

Vaez added that Raisi, who manages one of Iran's wealthiest state charities, still faces an uphill battle, noting that the cleric lacks executive experience and charisma.

"His defeat would be a double-edged sword for his ambition to succeed the current supreme leader: The election would raise his profile and broaden his support-base, but it would be a setback -- albeit not a fatal one, as popularity is not the most determining factor for ascending to the pinnacle of power in the Islamic Republic," Vaez said.

Qalibaf has accused Rohani, a relative moderate, of mismanagement and of favoring rich Iranians at the expense of the poor.

Both Qalibaf and Raisi have said that Rohani has failed to translate the 2015 deal with global powers, which restricted Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions, into a better life for Iranians.

Both have promised to create millions of jobs if elected and increase cash handouts to the poorer segments of the society.

Rohani has accused them of making unrealistic promises.

In addition to Rohani and Raisi, Qalibaf's withdrawal leaves three other candidates in the race: Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri; who is seen as an ally of Rohani; centrist Mostafa Hashemitaba, who has said he will vote for Rohani; and conservative former Culture Minister Mostafa Mirsalim, who is far less prominent than Raisi.

In the past few days, the incumbent has received key endorsements from reformist former President Mohammad Khatami and opposition cleric Mehdi Karrubi, who has been under house arrest since 2011.

Khatami, who faces a media ban, issued a video on the Internet on May 14 urging Iranians to vote for Rohani.

"Mr. Rohani's government has been a successful one, despite all the limitations, problems, and the great expectations," Khatami said in the video.

"We should all go and vote for Rohani, for freedom in thought, logic in dialogue, law in action, securing the rights of citizens, and enforcing social and economic justice," Khatami added in the video, which was widely shared on social media.

"I urge the dear people of Iran to participate in the election and vote for their desired candidate in order to prevent inflicting more damage on the foundation of the republic," Karrubi was quoted as saying by the opposition Sahamnews website.

Karrubi was put under house arrest in February 2011 after challenging the Iranian establishment over the disputed 2009 vote and highlighting human rights abuses.

Opposition figure Mir Hossein Musavi and his wife, university professor Zahra Rahnavard, were placed under house arrest at the same time.

With reporting by RFE/RL Correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari, Fars, and ISNA

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-qalibaf -withdraws-supports-raisi- presidential-race/28488952.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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Iran's Ex-President Khatami Backs Rouhani's Reelection Bid Ahead of Friday Vote

Sputnik News

12:08 15.05.2017

Incumbent Iranian President Hasan Rouhani has received valuable support from one of the figureheads of the state's reformist movement, former President Mohammad Khatami, ahead of Friday's election of the leader of the country.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Khatami served two terms as Iranian president from 1997 to 2005. During the 2013 elections, Khatami advised Rouhani's rival, Mohammad Reza Aref, to withdraw the race, a move which helped Rouhani to win the presidency for the first time.

We will come and vote for Rouhani, for freedom of thought rule of law, human rights and implementation of social and economic justice," Khatami said a video published on social media Sunday, as quoted by the Financial Times newspaper.

Khatami was banned from publishing public statements in the media after he openly supported mass protests which occurred due to alleged fraud in votes' counting in the 2009 presidential election. For this reason, the ex-president had to use social networks to convey his messages, the newspaper said.

Rouhani's major hardline rivals in the presidential race are Ayatollah Ibrahim Raisi and Teheran's mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. The candidate who receives over 50 percent of the popular vote on May 19 will become the next Iranian president. However, in the case that no candidate crosses the threshold, Iran will have to hold another election round.

 Sputnik

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Iraqi police forces seize Daesh's main chemical plant in Mosul

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 3:41PM

Iraqi security forces have uncovered a major chemical plant belonging to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the western part of Mosul, as government forces, backed by fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, are battling to drive the extremists out of the country's second largest city.

Commander of Federal Police Forces Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said on Monday that they had found Daesh's main chemical plant in the 17 Tamuz district of the city, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad, English-language online newspaper Iraqi News reported.

He added that Iraqi security personnel had also defused chemical munitions and improvised explosive devices at the site.

Jawdat went on to say that 60 senior Daesh members, along with their families, had fled the neighborhood as Iraqi soldiers were advancing into the area.

The high-ranking Iraqi security official noted that police forces had also killed 173 Daesh terrorists during operations in the al-Oraibi and Rifa'i districts of western Mosul.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC), Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, said Daesh terrorists were now in control of only nine percent of the territories in western Mosul.

He added that army troops had invaded the northern flank of 17 Tamuz district, stressing that only small pockets of Takfiri terrorists were remaining in the area and they were short of foodstuff as well as munitions.

Additionally, the media bureau of Iraq's Badr Organization announced in a statement that the Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, had evacuated 62 families from the northern villages of Qirwan region.

The statement added that the Daesh terrorists had been using the families as human shields to slow the progress of Iraqi government forces.

Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters also reclaimed control over Northern Khazaneh village and Karkash region south of Qirwan.

Separately, the commander of al-Jazeera Liberation Operations, Major General Qassim al-Mohamadi, said security forces and tribal fighters had killed four Daesh bombers in the western city of Hadithah, located about 240 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.

Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units have made sweeping gains against the Takfiri elements since launching the Mosul operation on October 17, 2016.

The Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19.

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Iraq and the Road to Freedom: The Fight for Territory Goes On as Daesh Weakens

Sputnik News

16:10 15.05.2017

The conflict in Iraq has reached boiling point over recent months. According to US Joint Special Operations Command reports, elements of the Iraqi elite Counterterrorism Service overwhelmed the Ureibi and Rifaie districts of Mosul on May 13, bringing the battle to reclaim the Iraqi town from Daesh extremists close to the end.

As Iraqi forces, backed by the US military, have pushed into those final areas of Mosul still occupied by Daesh, the brutal seven-month urban battle for the city is seen to be nearing its close.

Currently, the front line is being held by Iraq's Hashd Al Shaabi forces, also known as People's Mobilization Forces, and runs alongside the main road from Baghdad to Mosul  a route which is a lifeline for Iraqi troops who are fighting in north Mosul.

One commander, fighting with the Iraqi Army said in a recent interview that they have two enemies and their position is under daily threat of attack.

"We are between two enemies here, with Daesh, (IS) on either side, and they attack our positions every single day," Saad Swar, commander of the 99 Brigade, told Middle-East Eye.

"They want to control this road because it forms a bridge that they can use to escape from their territory in Iraq to the Syria borders. We are here to prevent Daesh escaping to Syria."

Soldiers are constantly taking up positions and scanning the landscape to ensure Daesh are kept at bay.

Daesh fighters attacking the road from Makhoul Mountains are coming from Hawija  the second largest Iraqi town that the group has full control of.

But despite them still holding on to Hawija, times are hard for the terror group, which is increasingly getting desperate. The Iraqi Army is preparing for the countries next major offensive, which will involve regaining Hawija.

"Right now our forces are starting to surround Hawija, and the enemy has become desperate to escape," said Swar.

They believe that the daily attacks on their positions have two aims; the first is so that an escape route can be reopened, and the second is to regain control of the stretch of road that leads to Mosul.

Mohunnad Najim Al-Eqabi, media head of Hashd Al-Shaabi, said the road is a crucial supply line for Iraqi forces battling Daesh in the ongoing Mosul offensive. If this logistics route is severed, then the whole operation to the north will break down.

One former oil engineer turned soldier said that every night Daesh attack them and every morning they attempt to push them back.

"They are desperate to get this road, but our defense is strong. We have killed hundreds of Daesh here over the last month but still they just keep on coming," said former oil engineer Riad Konia Abu Salem.

According to sources, due to the ferocious attacks this only goes to show how desperate the Daesh militants have now become. And as time goes on and the group begins to retreat, Iraqis are looking towards the future.

Sources have said it will take months, if not years, to clear the unexploded ordnance and IEDs. The clean-up mission has already started with over 3,000 IEDs and mines being deactivated and removed.

 Sputnik

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'Last Dying Breath': Daesh Nearly Eliminated in Battle for Mosul

Sputnik News

03:13 15.05.2017(updated 10:48 15.05.2017)

According to US Joint Special Operations Command reports, elements of the Iraqi elite Counter Terrorism Service overwhelmed the Ureibi and Rifaie districts of Mosul in the early morning hours on Sunday, bringing the battle to reclaim the Iraqi town from Daesh extremists close to the end.

As Iraqi forces, backed by the US military, have pushed into those final areas of Mosul still occupied by Daesh, the brutal seven-month urban battle for the city is seen to be nearing its close.

Daesh fighters, according to Reuters, remain in only a few ever-shrinking districts on the western side of the town, including the historic district of the Old City, where it is expected that the extremists will be forced to surrender or die.

"Daesh is drawing its last dying breath," asserted Lieutenant General Qasim Nazzal, the commander of the ninth division, speaking with Iraqi state television on Sunday.

"Daesh fighters are broken and quickly retreating from fronts," he added, cited by Reuters.

A densely populated area of narrow streets, Mosul's Old City  like much of the rest of the town  has been devastated in the long battle, and remaining civilians that have not been able to escape have been reduced to eating grass, according to reports.

Iraqi Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul stated that Daesh elements are in control of no more than nine percent of the western area of the city.

"It's a very small area," Rasoul told Reuters. "God willing, this is the final phase."

The few Daesh fighters that remain alive are hugely outnumbered by the US-led coalition. Reports claim that the extremists are using suicide car bombs and inserting themselves as snipers, hiding among the hundreds of thousands civilians in the war-torn streets.

According to the Iraqi government, some 10,000 civilians are fleeing the city each day, but many more are incapable of flight, trapped within the shrinking confines of the ongoing battle.

 Sputnik

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Japan Reconnaissance Plane Crashes on Hokkaido Island

Sputnik News

10:16 15.05.2017(updated 10:38 15.05.2017)

A LR-2 reconnaissance aircraft from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) has crashed on the Hokkaido Island with 10 people suspected on board, local media reported Monday.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  The aircraft's debris were found near the dam in Assabu, a town in the island's southern region. The plane was flying to the nearby city of Hadodate from the island's Okadama airport in Sapporo with an ambulance patient before disappearing from the radars, the NHK broadcaster reported.

According to the broadcaster, the LR-2 aircraft is a turboprop plane with a crew of 10 people used for emergency transportation of patients as well as for the aerial observation and reconnaissance.

 Sputnik

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Iran, Pak officials conduct survey of border, agree to boost security

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, May 15, IRNA -- The Iranian and Pakistani senior border officials have agreed to boost security arrangements at their borders in order to block entry of terrorist elements and smugglers from one side to the other, Pakistan's local media reported on Monday.

The officials visited joint border area where nine Iranian border guards were martyred by militants on April 26.

The Pakistani delegation comprised Deputy Commissioner Mir Shyhak Baloch and Colonel Kashif Ijaz while the Iranian delegation was headed by Colonel Najaf Safari.

The high level officials from both sides paid visit to Chaghi's adjacent areas at Pak-Iran border near Rabat and Kachao where the Iranian security forces were attacked.

The survey of the sensitive areas was carried out on the orders of the ministers of the two countries after Iran's complaints that terrorists enter from the Pakistani side of the border and return after attacks on Iranian border guards.

On April 26 nine Iranian border guards were martyred and two others injured by terrorists near Pakistan border in southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, when they were patrolling at the zero border point. The terrorists fled to Pakistan's territories after the killings and abducting one Iranian border guard.

After the attack Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited Pakistan and met with Pakistani civil and military leadership to have better cooperation between the two countries on recent border incident.

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New South Korean President Tested by Latest North Korean Missile

By Brian Padden May 15, 2017

Just days after being elected, South Korean President Moon Jae-in faced his first North Korean provocation, putting an early test to his stated policy to pursue peaceful dialogue with his defiant nuclear neighbor.

The South Korean leader expressed solidarity with the United States and Japan by condemning North Korea for conducting what is believed to be the successful test of a new two-stage liquid fueled rocket on Sunday capable of flying up to 4,500 kilometers. The North Korean state news agency KCNA on Monday said the test was to verify the capability to carry a "large scale heavy nuclear warhead," and the missile flew 787 kilometers, reaching an altitude of 2,111 kilometers.

President Moon warned Pyongyang that provocations will be met with "stern responses." He also called for the development of the Korean Air and Missile Defense system to be used in addition to, or in lieu of, the controversial U.S. THAAD missile shield that China objects to as a threatening increase of American military capabilities in the region.

Conditional dialogue

As a candidate Moon promised to pursue negotiations and engagement with Pyongyang. But as the new commander in chief of the military, he stressed that "dialogue is possible only when North Korea changes its behavior."

Moon's clarified position on conditional talks seems fundamentally the same as that of U.S. President Donald Trump, and essentially the same as past American and South Korean administrations.

"Seoul and Washington remain on the same page that the ultimate goal, that cannot be compromised, is the dismantlement of North Korea's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capability and facilities," said political analyst Bong Young-shik with the Yonsei University Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul.

North Korea, in defiance of international sanctions, has openly declared itself a de facto nuclear state. The Kim Jong Un government considers its continued efforts to develop a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the U.S. mainland as essential to its survival.

Unless Pyongyang agrees to discuss its eventual disarmament for economic aid and security guarantees, Bong said, Moon will not make any progress to restart talks or reopen cooperative projects like the Kaesong industrial project which had employed 54,000 North Korean workers and provided about $100 million a year to the local economy and the government, before it was closed in 2016.

"The Moon Jae-in government is very well aware of how difficult it is for Seoul to start engaging Pyongyang, because any improvements to inter-Korean economic cooperation has to overcome the obstacle, or the international suspicion, that economic cooperation with North Korea may provide Pyongyang with the financial capacity to further develop WMDs," Bong said.

Chinese pressure

The Trump administration has made stopping the development of a North Korean ICBM a top priority and stressed the U.S. would consider military action to take out launching sites and nuclear facilities, if needed. To back up the threat of force, the U.S. Pacific Command recently sent increased military assets to the region, including the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier strike force.

More recently, Washington has emphasized increased cooperation from Beijing to more strictly implement U.N. sanctions against North Korea. But after enforcing a strict ban on North Korean coal and other measures in early April, there are indications China has eased some pressure on its economically dependent ally. There are reports the price of gasoline in North Korea returned to normal after the fear of a Chinese oil embargo dissipated. And the suspension of Air China flights to Pyongyang in April lasted only three weeks.

This week North Korea sent a delegation to the Belt and Road initiative in Beijing. The United States and South Korea also sent representatives to this international economic forum.

The U.S. embassy in Beijing reportedly complained to China's foreign ministry, saying that inviting North Korea sent the wrong message at a time when the world is trying to pressure Pyongyang to halt its nuclear and missile programs.

"The fact that China did not discriminate and invited North Korea to stand on the diplomatic stage shows North Korea's hardline strategy is diplomatically working. I think we have to consider what kind of (additional) sanctions will make North Korea give up its nuclear weapons," said North Korea analyst and defector Ahn Chan-il, with the World Institute for North Korean Studies.

South Korea diplomacy

South Korea said Monday it will send special envoys to the United States, China, Japan, Russia and Germany to discuss how to deal with the growing North Korean nuclear and missile threat.

Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan will head to China. Lee also served in the past as a special envoy to Beijing for former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who supported the Sunshine policy of unconditional inter-Korean aid and trade programs that was eventually halted due to the North's continued nuclear development efforts and other provocations.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.

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Russia's 1st Tank Army Receives New Batch of Modernized T-72B3 Tanks

Sputnik News

21:09 15.05.2017(updated 23:34 15.05.2017)

Russia's First Tank Army has received 20 T-72B3 tanks that have been modernized and tested, Russia's Western Military District said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The T-72B3 is a modernized version of the T-72 Soviet-era main battle tank developed in the 1960-1970s.

According to the district's press service, the new tanks have been equipped with more powerful engines and improved weapons systems, as well as with a new digitized targeting system and advanced armor protection.

"A new batch of modernized T-72B3 tanks has entered service with the Western Military District. Some 20 vehicles that have been modernized and passed control tests will join the ranks of a First Tank Army's motorized infantry division," the district's press service said in a statement.

According to the statement, one of the army's divisions has been fully equipped with the advanced vehicles, which has doubled its fire power.

The T-72B3M, also known as the T-72B4, is an upgraded version of the T-72B3 which is the latest modernized version of the Russian-made main battle tank T-72. The T-72B3M is protected with the new Relikt explosive reactive armor. A new gun was added including an upgraded stabilization system and auto loader. It was showcased during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9.

 Sputnik

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Evacuation of armed opposition from Damascus district complete: Syria TV

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 4:23PM

The Syrian military has established control over a district near the capital Damascus after the planned evacuation of foreign-backed armed opposition forces from the area was completed, state media say.

The Qaboun district, located some 6 kilometers northeast of the capital's center, "is empty of militants," the Damascus provincial governor was quoted as saying by state TV on Monday.

The news of total clearance of Qaboun was announced a few hours after some 1,300 armed opposition forces along with their families left the district following some two years of occupation. The evacuees, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headed for areas further east of the capital or to the northeastern province of Idlib.

On Sunday, more than 2,000 armed opposition forces and their families left the district, with their dream of capturing Damascus and toppling the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad totally shattered.

Syrian state TV said several hundred of the opposition members who laid down their arms had decided to stay in Qaboun under an accord reached between the two sides as the government forces took control.

The government has concluded a number of similar evacuation deals in the past few months to further bring back security and stability to the Arab country. Such agreements have already brought about the evacuation of nearby Barzeh and Tishrin districts earlier in the week.

The foreign-backed militancy began in 2011, featuring proxy fighting in Syria on behalf of regional and extra-regional countries, such as the United States, Qatar, and Turkey.

While the militancy has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives among civilians and forced million-strong internal and external displacements, the militants complain that Damascus is trying to bring about demographic changes in the Arab country by concluding evacuation or reconciliation deals. The authorities reject the claim.

"It's a turning point in the conflict. It's a victory for the Syrian state. Reconciliation is a defeat for those waging war against Syria," said Ahmad Munir Mohammed, a government adviser on national reconciliation.

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Syria deploys troops to border with Jordan, Iraq: Report

Iran Press TV

Mon May 15, 2017 7:29AM

Syria is reportedly moving troops to a desert region near its border with Iraq and Jordan amid reports that US and allied forces are consolidating positions in the area for a possible ground invasion.

Militant sources and commanders said Monday their intelligence showed that hundreds of Syrian troops and their allies with tanks and heavy equipment had moved in the last few days to the town of Saba'a Biyar.

The remote town near the strategic Damascus-Baghdad highway was captured by the army last week as they seek to prevent areas left by Takfiri terrorists from falling into the hands of Western-backed FSA militants.

"They have sent big reinforcements from artillery, to tanks and armored vehicles," FSA spokesman for the so-called Southern Front Issam al-Reis told Reuters.

US special forces operate and train FSA militants at the Tanf base near the Iraqi border in the area which is known as the Syrian Badia, meaning desert in Arabic.

The base is being expanded to become a launching pad for operations in the province of Dayr al-Zawr that straddles Iraq, Reuters cited regional intelligence sources as saying.

Syrian media on Sunday said government forces have made fresh gains against terrorists in Dayr al-Zawr.

Army units clashed with terrorist groups affiliated with Daesh in the province, leaving a number of terrorists killed and their fortifications and hideouts destroyed.

Last week, about 7,400 troops began conducting military exercises known as Exercise Eager Lion in Jordan, in what was described as the largest and most complex of their kind conducted jointly with the US.

The exercises prompted concerns that Washington and its allies were attempting to stage a major intervention to undermine recent gains made by the Syrian military against Daesh terrorists.

As the Syrian military began a new eastward push to drive out Daesh from Dawr al-Zawr, Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem warned Jordan against getting involved without Syria's permission.

"If the Jordanian forces entered without coordination with the Syrian government they will be considered as hostile forces," Muallem said.

In addition to the large US presence on the Jordanian side of the border, US special forces were also spotted inside Syria, training a group of militants called Mughawir al-Thowra, the Newsweek magazine reported.

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U.S. Accuses Syria Of Mass Executions, Burning The Bodies

RFE/RL May 15, 2017

The U.S. State Department has accused the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad of carrying out mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burning the dead bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital.

The accusations come a day before the start of a new round of UN-sponsored Syria peace talks in Geneva.

Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, said Washington's information came from credible humanitarian agencies and from the US "intelligence community" and it is thought that as many as 50 people per day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus.

The department released newly declassified photographs depicting what it says is a building in the prison complex that has been adapted to support the crematorium.

"We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison," said Jones, who presented the photographs.

He did not give an official estimate for the total number killed, but cited an Amnesty International report from February, which said that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died between 2011 and 2015 in the prison.

Jones said on May 15 that Assad's government had "sunk to a new level of depravity" with the support of Russia and Iran and called on both countries to use its influence with Syria to establish a credible cease-fire and begin political talks.

"The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Jones.

"And these atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran."

Jones told reporters that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had raised concerns about Assad's brutality with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his visit to Washington last week.

The declassified satellite pictures taken over several years, beginning in 2013, do not definitely prove the prison building is a crematorium, but they show construction consistent with such use.

As many as 70 prisoners are being held by the Syrian government in cells designed to hold just five, Jones said.

He also voiced reservations about a deal to set up four "de-escalation zones" inside Syria in an attempt to reduce violence and save lives. The deal was brokered by Russia with support from Iran and Turkey during talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, last week.

"In light of the failures of the past cease-fire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical," Jones said.

"The [Assad) regime must stop all attacks on civilian and opposition forces. And Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance."

Geneva Talks

On May 15, ahead of the Geneva peace talks aimed at trying to find a solution to the Syria conflict which has killed more than 320,000 people since it broke out more than six years ago, UN mediator Staffan de Mistura said that the discussions in Switzerland should benefit from a tighter format -- and the recent Astana agreement to create the de-escalation zone.

However, observers say the UN appears to be scrambling to match Astana's momentum after the deal.

Since the deal came into effect a week ago, fighting appeared to have slowed in parts of the country.

Previous rounds of talks in Geneva have resulted in agreement that the warring sides will discuss a four-part agenda -- a new constitution, reformed governance, new elections and the fight against terrorism. However, there has been no progress yet on any topic, as the two sides have sharp disagreements over the meaning of the four points on the agenda.

Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, is keen on discussing "terrorism," a term he uses broadly to describe all adversaries.

Opposition representatives have demanded Assad's removal.

Last week Assad told the Belarusian TV channel ONT that the Geneva talks were "merely a meeting for the media" and there had been "nothing substantial in all the Geneva meetings."

With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/syria-mass-killings- crematorium-saydnaya/28489597.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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US Releases New Declassified Info on Damascus' Alleged Actions Against Civilians

Sputnik News

18:59 15.05.2017(updated 19:56 15.05.2017)

The US Department of State has released newly declassified information regarding the alleged treatment of civilians by the Syrian government.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones claimed Syrian President Bashar Assad's government treated unarmed civilians the same as opposition militants.

"Today we are releasing newly declassified reporting and photos that underscore the depths to which the Syrian regime has gone with the continued support of its allies with Russia and Iran," Jones told reporters.

The US authorities have not shared the newly declassified evidence of the Syrian government's mistreatment of civilians with Russia, Stuart Jones said during a press conference.

"I have not presented this particular evidence to the Russians," Jones in a press conference.

Jones noted that the United States is bringing these documents to international community to put pressure on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In the report, the US State Department accused Damascus of installing a crematorium in the Sednaya prison to dispose of the detainees' bodies.

"Many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves," Jones claimed. "Syrian regime has installed the crematorium in Sednaya prison complex."

Jones continued, "The building of crematorium is an effort to cover up an extent of mass murders in Sednaya prison."

Moreover, Washington claimed Russia must bear responsibility to ensure Syria's compliance with the de-escalation zones agreement.

"It was agreed to create de-escalation zones that would reduce violence and save lives. In light of previous agreements, we have reasons to be skeptical," Jones stated. "Russia must bear responsibility to ensure Syria's compliance."

Representatives of the countries-guarantors of the truce in Syria (Russia, Iran, Turkey) signed on May 4 a memorandum on the creation of four zones of de-escalation in Syria, which include the province of Idlib and seven other regions. According to the memorandum, any clashes between the government forces and opposition armed groups must stop within the zones.

The memorandum on these de-escalation zones took effect on May 6.

The agreement between Moscow, Tehran and Ankara presumes the cessation of airstrikes and combat actions between the Syrian Army and militants who have already joined or will join the ceasefire regime, according to Chief of the Russian General Staff's Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy.

The deal was discussed earlier this week during talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi.

Interestingly, this is not the first time the US has been sidelined from Russian-backed efforts to help stop bloodshed in Syria after numerous failures of Syria ceasefire deals brokered previously by Moscow and the former US administration.

 Sputnik

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Kurdish Expansion Plans Risk Undermining Russia-Sponsored Safe Zones in Syria

Sputnik News

10:28 15.05.2017(updated 10:29 15.05.2017)

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) plan to significantly expand the de facto autonomous region they administer in northern Syria once they liberate Raqqa, raising questions as to whether these ambitions would undermine Russia's peacebuilding efforts in the war-torn country.

The Kurds are intent on creating a corridor between areas under their control and the Mediterranean Sea. They also want to push Daesh out of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, subsequently offering both cities a chance to become part of their federal system.

Kurdish post-Raqqa objectives were unveiled earlier this month by Hediya Yousef, co-chairperson of the executive committee of the Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria, administered by the Kurds. It consists of three self-governing cantons, namely Afrin, Jazira and Kobani.

The news came soon after Moscow, Ankara and Tehran reached an agreement aimed at establishing four so-called safe zones in Syria.

"The memorandum on de-escalation in Syria which Russian, Turkish and Iranian representatives signed in Astana on May 5 has de facto outlined the spheres of influence of these three nations. This has contributed to limiting hostilities in the country plagued by a six-year-long war. The Kurds are unhappy with the memorandum since the document does not reflect their interests," Gazeta.ru said. "Their key ally, the United States, is also not part of the agreement."

The Kurdish plans are likely to upset other stakeholders intent on bringing the devastating conflict to an end.

In addition, "clashes between [the Syrian Arab Army] and the People's Protection Units (YPG) could intensify at a time when government forces and radical groups supported by Turkey are less involved in fighting each other," the newspaper suggested.

This would be inevitable should the Syrian Kurds decide to move to the west. Hediya Yousef explained that Rojava needs access to international trade routes. In her view, the corridor to the Mediterranean is the only option since the self-administered region does not have economic relations with Turkey to the north, Iraqi Kurdistan to the east and radicals to the south.

Ankara maintains that the Syrian Kurds are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey views as a terrorist organization. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his supporters have also said that the Syrian Kurds are fighting for greater autonomy, if not independence, which could fuel unrest in southeastern Turkey, mostly populated by the Kurds.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has "hampered the free movement of people and goods to the Syrian Kurds," the media outlet said. "Although this has never been made official, the KDP has de facto introduced an embargo with regard to its western neighbor."

Relations between Damascus and the Syrian Kurds have largely remained neutral. But this is likely to change if the SDF decides to advance to the Mediterranean since they would move into territories in the provinces of Idlib and Latakia populated by the Arabs, not the Kurds.

Washington's ties with the SDF are also a major factor.

"The United States is not intent on cooperating with [President] Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, Yousef openly said that the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria would rely on Washington's assistance in its advance westward. The US is unlikely to agree to its allies cooperating with the Syrian government, even if the cooperation would be limited to economic issues," the newspaper said.

 Sputnik

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On-the-Record-Briefing: Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones on Syria

Special Briefing

Stuart Jones, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs

Washington, DC

May 15, 2017

MS NAUERT: Good morning, everyone.

QUESTION: Good morning.

MS NAUERT: It's great to see you. Thanks, everyone, for assembling here so quickly today. Welcome to the State Department. We asked you here to provide you with some new information on the six-year crisis in Syria. I'm joined today by Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Stuart Jones. Stuart recently returned from the talks in Astana. He'll give us an update and also provide you with some newly declassified information on Syria today.

Last week, Secretary Tillerson met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for more than an hour here in Washington. You've read the readout from that meeting, but I'd like to provide you with some additional context and details coming out of that meeting today.

Secretary Tillerson was firm and clear with Minister Lavrov: Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al-Assad. A key point that took place in that bilateral meeting was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime. Simply put, the killing and devastation has gone on for far too long in Syria. Minister Lavrov was clear as well that he shares the same goals as the United States does in Syria: a unified and stable nation. Both men agreed that the way to bring stability to Syria must come through diplomatic and political means.

We call upon Russia to use its influence with the Assad regime to get it to adhere to a lasting negotiated ceasefire. That ceasefire, we believe, will reduce violence and also ensure unhindered humanitarian access and stop the indiscriminate killings of civilians. These actions will help create the conditions on the ground for a political resolution of that conflict.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Acting Assistant Secretary Stuart Jones. He will take your questions at the end. Thank you.

Sir.

MR JONES: Thank you, Heather. Good morning. Thank you for being here this morning. Since Syria's civil conflict began in 2011, the Assad regime has treated opposition forces and unarmed civilians as one and the same, committing widespread violations of international law, including the Law of Armed Conflict and Human Rights law. Today, we are releasing newly declassified reporting and photos that underscore the depths to which the Syrian regime has gone with the continuing support of its allies Russia and Iran.

The facts we're presenting today are based on reporting from international and local nongovernmental organizations, press reporting, and also Intelligence Community assessments. The continued brutality of the Assad regime, including its use of chemical weapons, presents a clear threat to regional stability and security as well as to the national security interests of the United States and our allies.

According to the United Nations and credible human rights organizations, the Syrian civil war has claimed more than 400,000 lives, many of which were civilians. The Assad regime's actions include well-documented airstrikes and artillery strikes; chemical weapons attacks; arbitrary arrests; extrajudicial killings; starvation; sexual violence; and denial of essential services such as food, water, and medical care to the civilian population.

Since 2012, the regime has routinely conducted airstrikes and artillery strikes in dense urban centers, including with barrel bombs, improvised unguided bombs, which are sometimes described as air-dropped IEDs. The Assad regime systemically targeted eastern Aleppo's hospitals in multiple strikes, killing patients and medical professionals. (Coughs.) Excuse me.

In addition to airstrikes, the regime continues to systematically abduct and torture civilian detainees, often beating, electrocuting, and raping these victims. A former regime photo-documentarian working under the name Caesar has shared more than 10,000 photos of Assad's victims with the international community. According to numerous NGOs, the regime has abducted and detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people between 2011 and 2015[1].

Moreover, the regime has also authorized the extrajudicial killings of thousands of detainees using mass hangings at the Saydnaya military prison. Saydnaya is a 45-minute drive outside of Damascus and is one of Syria's largest and most secure prison complexes. Saydnaya is but one of many detention facilities where prisoners are being held and abused. Others include the Mezzeh airport detention facility and Military Security Branches 215, 227, 235, 248, and 291, which are all located throughout Syria.

The regime holds as many as 70 prisoners in Saydnaya in cells that have a five-person capacity. And according to multiple sources, the regime is responsible for killing as many as 50 detainees per day at Saydnaya. Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves. We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Saydnaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees' remains with little evidence.

Beginning in 2013, the Syrian regime modified a building within the Saydnaya complex to support what we believe is a crematorium, as shown in the photos that we have distributed to you. Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison.

The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime. And these atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran. Two weeks ago, as Heather said, I attended the Astana conference in Kazakhstan as the U.S. observer. At that meeting  led by Turkey, Russia, and Iran, the guarantors of the Astana process  it was agreed to create de-escalation zones that would reduce violence and save lives.

In light of the failures of the past ceasefire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical. The regime must stop all attacks on civilians and opposition forces, and Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance. Russia joined the unanimous UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which demands that all parties immediately cease any tacks  any attacks against civilians. Russia has either aided in or passively looked away as the regime has conducted an airstrike against a UN convoy, destroyed east Aleppo, and used chemical weapons, including sarin, against civilians in Idlib province on April 4th.

During his visit here last week, Foreign Minister Lavrov acknowledged that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. Russia must now with great urgency exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now.

So with that, I'll take your questions. Thank you very much.

MS NAUERT: And I'll help facilitate that.

QUESTION: Thank you. Two things. One, are you suggesting that Russia and/or Iran have anything to do with this crematorium?

MR JONES: No.

QUESTION: No, okay. And then secondly, do you have any idea how many  you said thousands, mass hangings  how many of the bodies are being disposed of in mass graves or  and how many are being burned?

MR JONES: No. So you're familiar with the Amnesty International report which projected that as many  between 5- and 11,000 people had been killed in Saydnaya between 2011 and 2015[2].

QUESTION: Right.

MR JONES: So that gives you some idea of what the --

QUESTION: Right.

MR JONES: And then there's other  other data which suggests as many as 50 murders a day coming out of the complex.

QUESTION: That's a lot. I mean, that's a lot. Do you  are all of those  do you think all of the 50 a day are being burned or are --

MR JONES: So I don't know. But so  but our  what we're project  what we're assessing is that if you have that level of production of mass murder, then using the crematorium would help  would allow the regime to manage that number of corpses coming out of the prison complex.

MS NAUERT: Margaret.

MR JONES: And without evidence.

QUESTION: Thank you very much for doing this. Two questions for you. One, do you have any status update on the Americans, Austin Tice or others, who may be held or believed to be held by the regime? And if there's any connection here, please tell me. And secondly, you talked about the conversations with Lavrov  again the case made that Russia is aiding and abetting here. Did the Secretary walk away with any kind of agreement from his meeting or any kind of achievement to have them say they're willing to step back? They've been telling multiple secretaries of state for some time they're not wedded to the Assad regime.

MR JONES: So on the issue of the U.S. hostages, no, we don't see a connection between U.S. hostages and what we're talking about what's going on here at Saydnaya prison.

On the issue of the conversation between the Secretary and Foreign Minister Lavrov, there was productive conversations between the Secretary and the foreign minister. They talked about a way forward on Syria. And the president  and sorry, the Secretary acknowledged that the state of the relationship between Russia and the United States is at a low point. Syria is one of the factors where we would like to see the relations improve, but I would not say that they mapped out a specific way forward on how to address the issue of Syrian atrocities or even how to move forward on the Geneva process. Though of course we're participating in the Geneva process, we support the Geneva process, we believe that in addition to achieving a ceasefire in Syria and cessation of hostilities that the political process needs to follow.

QUESTION: What made it productive, then?

MR JONES: I think --

MS NAUERT: (Inaudible) Nicole.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. Have you presented Russia with this visual evidence? Have you asked them to take any actions and/or gotten any response from them?

MR JONES: So we have a  we have not presented this particular  I have not presented this particular evidence to the Russians, but we have an ongoing conversation with the Russians talking about the problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created, and we have urged the regime  we have urged the Russian Government to hold the regime responsible for these atrocities.

QUESTION: Sir? Yeah, sir? (Inaudible.)

MS NAUERT: Rich Edson.

QUESTION: Doesn't this or does this make the case, or is there a consideration of military action to destroy crematorium, some of this apparatus here?

MR JONES: As the President said, we're not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on the regime to change its behavior.

QUESTION: Can I just  one very  extremely briefly? What makes you so sure that this is a crematorium and not just some other building? Is it this thing with the snowmelt? Because, I mean, people are going to look at this  the regime in particular or  and the Russians, who you're  are going to look at this and say: Well, all this proves is that there is a building there and that that part where there's  snow is melted is simply warmer than the rest of the building. It looks --

MR JONES: So if you look  so obviously, these photos date over several years from 2013 to 2017. If you look at the earliest photo, the August 13 photo, this is during the construction phase, and these HVAC facilities, the discharge stack, the probable firewall, the probable air intake, this is in the construction phase. This would be consistent if they were building a crematorium.

Then we look at the January 15 and we're looking at snowmelt on the roof that would be consistent with a crematorium. So --

QUESTION: Or just a warmer part of a building, right?

MR JONES: Possibly.

QUESTION: Sir --

MS NAUERT: Dave Clark.

QUESTION: -- could I ask you on --

MS NAUERT: Final question.

QUESTION: If Russia refuses to do anything about this, what's next?

MR JONES: Well, the Russians  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Russian Government have indicated to us that they are interested in finding a solution on Syria, and there is no solution on Syria without a political process and certainly an end to these atrocities. So we hope that the  we will now be able to work with the Russians in a constructive way to put pressure on the regime to end these atrocities, that the Russian Government will take responsibility for their partner, the Syrian regime, to end these atrocities and --

QUESTION: Can I just follow up briefly on that there? You said this evidence dates back  well, you had been built up over four years, 2013, 2017. Did this intelligence just become concrete recently and is that why you're releasing it today? Or are you releasing it today with the hope of a political effect?

MR JONES: I would say that this information has been developing, and with the meeting last week between the Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Secretary, this was an opportune time to remind people about the atrocities that are being carried out inside of Syria all the time, of which this is one discrete additive piece of evidence.

QUESTION: Sir, on ending --

MS NAUERT: Thank you, everyone.

QUESTION: -- on ending the attacks against the opposition, does that include ISIS and al-Nusrah?

MS NAUERT: Thank you.

QUESTION: Thank you.

# # #

[1] 2016

[2] 2016

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US Accuses Syria of Mass Killings, Use of Crematorium to Burn Bodies

By Ken Bredemeier, Nike Ching May 15, 2017

The United States accused Syria on Monday of carrying out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burning their bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital of Damascus.

The U.S. State Department said as many as 50 prisoners a day are being hanged at the Saydnaya prison. It alleged that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad then is using the crematorium to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said the Damascus regime "has sunk to a new level of depravity," with the continuing military assistance of Russia and Iran, two countries that have supported the Assad government's six-year fight against various rebel groups attempting to overthrow it. About 400,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Russia's role in question

Jones stopped short of accusing Moscow of involvement with the crematorium, saying the State Department had not presented evidence of the mass killings to Russian officials.

But he said the U.S. has "an ongoing conversation with the Russians, talking about the problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created. And we have urged ... the Russian government to hold the regime responsible for these atrocities."

U.S. President Donald Trump last month ordered a missile attack on Syria after the Damascus regime's alleged chemical weapons assault on civilians.

Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as Trump has said, the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior."

Soldiers, civilians treated same

The State Department official said that "since Syria's civil conflict began in 2011, the Assad regime has treated opposition forces and unarmed civilians as one and the same  committing widespread violations of international law, including the law of armed conflict and human rights law.

"Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented," Jones said, "we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya."

He said the U.S. claim is based on information from credible humanitarian groups and its intelligence community.

Amnesty International report

Jones did not give an official estimate for the total number killed at the Saydnaya facility. But he cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the prison between 2011 and 2015.

He alleged that the Assad regime had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period.

The State Department released newly declassified commercial satellite photos of what it said is a building at the prison used as the crematorium.

The latest photo dated to January 2015, more than two years ago, taken during the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was not immediately clear why the United States waited to present its evidence.

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Syria Denies US Accusation of Mass Killings, Use of Crematorium

By Ken Bredemeier, Nike Ching May 16, 2017

Syria's Foreign Ministry is denying U.S. allegations that the Assad government carries out mass killings of prisoners on a daily basis and then burns their bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital of Damascus.

The state-run SANA news agency quoted the ministry calling the U.S. accusation a "Hollywood story detached from reality."

The U.S. State Department said Monday as many as 50 prisoners a day are being hanged at the Saydnaya prison. It alleged that the government of President Bashar al-Assad then is using the crematorium to hide evidence of the extent of the mass killings.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Stuart Jones, said Syria "has sunk to a new level of depravity," with the continuing military assistance of Russia and Iran, two countries that have supported the Assad government's six-year fight against various rebel groups attempting to overthrow it. About 400,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Jones stopped short of accusing Moscow of involvement with the crematorium, saying the State Department had not presented evidence of the mass killings to Russian officials.

But he said the U.S. has "an ongoing conversation with the Russians, talking about the problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created. And we have urged the regimewe urged the Russian government to hold the regime responsible for these atrocities."

U.S. President Donald Trump last month ordered a missile attack on Syria after the Damascus regime's alleged chemical weapons assault on civilians.

Asked whether the U.S. is considering a new attack to destroy the crematorium, Jones said that as Trump has said the U.S. is "not going to signal what we are going to do and what we're not going to do. At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure on this regime to change its behavior."

The State Department official said that "since Syria's civil conflict began in 2011, the Assad regime has treated opposition forces and unarmed civilians as one and the same -- committing widespread violations of international law, including the law of armed conflict and human rights law.

"Although the regime's many atrocities are well documented," Jones said, "we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of the mass murders taking place in Saydnaya."

He said the U.S. claim is based on information from its intelligence community and credible humanitarian groups.

Jones did not give an official estimate for the total number killed at the Saydnaya facility. But he cited an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died at the prison between 2011 and 2015.

He alleged that the Syrian government had detained between 65,000 and 117,000 people over the same four-year period.

"The idea of a crematorium of course has dreadful connotations for those with a memory," Anthony Billingsley, a Mideast lecturer at the University of New South Wales, told VOA. "The idea of massacres in prisons  there was one in Iran, there was one in Libya  it doesn't surprise, and I suspect that the U.S. and Amnesty, who previously reported on this, have reasonably good intelligence about this facility."

The State Department released newly declassified commercial satellite photos of what it said is a building at the prison used as the crematorium.

But the latest photo dated to January 2015, more than two years ago, taken during the administration of former President Barack Obama. It was not immediately clear why the United States waited to present its evidence.

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Turkey Plans to Create Military Base in Syria's North

Sputnik News

20:03 15.05.2017(updated 22:56 15.05.2017)

The General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces plans to establish a military base near the town of al-Bab in the north of Syria, according to the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak.

On August 24, Turkey started the Euphrates Shield military operation to clear the Syrian border town of Jarabulus and the surrounding area from Daesh.

At the end of February, Chief of the Turkish General Staff Hulusi Akar said that the city of al-Bab was under control and the goals of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria had been achieved.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim talking about the successful completion of the operation added that in the event of a threat to the country's security, a new operation is possible.

"We already have one base in Chobani region [territory of Syria near Turkish border). Our General Staff plans to create a new military base in the area of strategic height Akil to the west of al-Bab, where the fiercest battles with Daesh took place. The international community has been notified about this," Kaynak said in an interview with the Hurriyet newspaper.

He added that the Turkish military contingent in Syria following the Euphrates Shield operation was reduced from 8,000 to 1,500 people.

During the operation to liberate al-Bab from Daesh, Russian and Turkish military aircraft had repeatedly jointly bombed Daesh targets for the first time. The joint campaign was approved by the Syrian authorities.

Al-Bab was one of Daesh's last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. It was captured by terrorists in 2013. Taking back the city was of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds from doing so and unifying it with their own territories.

 Sputnik

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Turkey considers establishing military base in Syria's Idlib

Iran Press TV

Tue May 16, 2017 12:48AM

The Turkish army is mulling the establishment of a military base close to the Syrian city of al-Bab, says deputy prime minister.

On Monday, Veysi Kaynak told reporters that Turkish General Staff is considering Aqil Hill, west of al-Bab, for the location of base.

After capturing the strategic location in February, the Turkish army has been using it as a temporary command post, but now seeks to establish something more permanent.

Kaynak, who was making the remarks following a trip from trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, noted that since announcing of the end of its Euphrates Shield operation the number of troops stationed in the area has been reduced from 8,000 to 1,500.

On March 29, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced the end of the country's Euphrates Shield operation on Syrian soil.

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.

The deputy premier also noted that Turkey is looking to establish an outpost in the province of Idlib, where a safe zone has been declared by Iran, Russia, and Turkey.

On May 5, an agreement to create four "de-escalation zones" aimed at ending the conflict in war-torn Syria has come into force a day after Iran, Russia and Turkey signed the agreement during the fourth round of the Syria peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, and two days after Moscow put forward the proposal.

Different foreign-backed terrorist groups have been wreaking havoc in Syria since 2011.

Over the past few months, Syrian forces have made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements who have lately increased their acts of violence across the country following a series of defeats on the ground.

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Trump Hosts Turkey's Erdogan For Expected Talks On Syria, Gulen

RFE/RL May 16, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump is holding talks at the White House with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan is expected to call on Trump to refrain from arming Syrian Kurdish rebels whom Ankara considers terrorists.

The White House meeting comes amid intense and complex international diplomacy over the war in Syria, where Turkey and the United States both support forces in opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's government.

But Ankara and Washington are at odds over some aspects of the conflict as well as other issues that may be in focus during the visit.

Erdogan is also expected to continue to pressure the United States to extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish president blames for an attempted coup last July, and to drop an Iran sanctions case against a wealthy Turkish-Iranian businessman.

Erdogan, who is scheduled to meet Trump at 12:30 p.m. local time, has expressed confidence that his U.S. visit will mark a "milestone" in what are now strained relations between the two NATO allies.

He told reporters on May 12 that he hopes that his talks with Trump will lead to a "breaking point" in a U.S. plan to arm a Syrian Kurdish militia.

The YPG militia is the most powerful element of an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters that has advanced to within a few kilometers of Raqqa, the last large Islamic State stronghold in Syria.

But Turkish officials say the YPG is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting a decades-long insurgency against Turkish forces for greater autonomy.

New Round Of Talks

A new round of Syria peace talks is opening in Geneva on May 16, but hopes for a major breakthrough remain dim.

Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations aimed at ending a six-year conflict that has killed more than 320,000 people have failed to yield concrete results.

Trump's meeting with Erdogan also comes after Russia, Iran, and Turkey agreed at separate talks in Kazakhstan on a plan to set up four "de-escalation zones" in Syria.

Rebels have criticized the plan and the United States has voiced reservations, citing concerns about Iran's role and pointing to the failure of past agreements whose stated intention was to decrease fighting.

Meanwhile, Erdogan, who pushed through a referendum strengthening his powers last month, also said he would pursue "to the end" Turkey's demand for Gulen's extradition.

The Turkish president blames the U.S.-based cleric's supporters for last year's failed coup, which was followed by a purge of tens of thousands of Turkish state employees accused of links to Gulen's network in a crackdown that has drawn criticism from Washington.

Gulen denies any involvement in the plot.

Ahead of the talks, rights activists and opponents of Erdogan urged Trump to raise the issue of human rights and democracy.

"Turkey is under a state of emergency since [the failed coup], during which human rights have been trampled on," said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a legislator from Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP. "The media and press freedoms have been placed under government control. Torture and ill-treatment have increased."

Trump congratulated Erdogan after the referendum, while the State Department urged his government to "protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all its citizens" regardless of how they voted.

Lobbying For Reza Zarrab

In addition to the extradition of Gulen, Erdogan has also been seeking the release of Reza Zarrab, who is charged with acting as a go-between to help Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other Tehran clients evade U.S. sanctions.

Court documents made public last month revealed that Zarrab's attorneys, led by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, met with Erdogan on the case in February and afterwards attempted to initiate Zarrab's release from jail through a diplomatic process. Erdogan has since openly called for Zarrab's release.

Giuliani's law firm is registered as a foreign agent for Turkey. A former prosecutor who advised Trump during his campaign, Giuliani appeared on a list of potential nominees for FBI director this week after Trump fired James Comey.

Guiliani's ties with both Trump and Turkey have been under intense scrutiny by the Manhattan judge in the Iran sanctions case, who asked at one point whether Giuliani was working for Erdogan or Zarrab. On May 15, the judge demanded to know more about Giuliani's ties to Trump.

'Political' Settlement?

Giuliani has spoken of trying to arrange a "political" settlement of the case between Washington and Ankara, using Zarrab's past associations with Erdogan as a bargaining chip.

In 2013, U.S. prosecutors say Erdogan pressured Turkish prosecutors to drop criminal charges in a high-level bribery case brought against Zarrab. Erdogan's pressure as then-prime minister resulted in the firing of the prosecutors who brought the charges against Zarrab.

U.S. prosecutors say the 2013 charges pertained to a massive bribery scheme executed by Zarrab involving the payment of tens of millions of dollars to cabinet-level Turkish officials and high-level bank officers in Turkey to facilitate Zarrab's transactions on behalf of Iran.

Ahmet S. Yayla, a professor at George Mason University in the United States and a former Turkish prosecutor, wrote in Modern Diplomacy this week that he believes Erdogan knows that "Zarrab is going to testify against him unless Turkey finds a way to save him from prison," Yayla said.

Yayla wrote that he believes Erdogan will use the U.S. lease on the vital Incirlik air base in southern Turkey as leverage to pressure Trump to accede to his demands.

With reporting by AP, Modern Diplomacy, and Deutsche Welle

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/turkish-president-erdogan-expected- ask-trump-drop-iran-sanctions-case-zarrab/28490437.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 Welcomes Erdogan to White House

By VOA News May 16, 2017

A week after U.S. President Donald Trump sparked anger in Turkey by authorizing the arming of Syrian Kurds, he welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on Tuesday.

Trump said the two leaders would hold "long and hard discussions" regarding the relationship between their countries.

"We've had a great relationship and we will make it even better. So we're going to have a very, very strong and solid discussion," he said.

The United States sees the Kurdish force, the YPG, as a key part in the fight against Islamic State and the effort to oust the militants from their de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria. Turkey considers the YPG terrorists because of their links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that has been waging a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey.

Erdogan called the decision to provide U.S. arms "contrary to our strategic relations to the U.S."

He reiterated his concerns Tuesday, telling reporters Turkey will never accept the use of YPG fighters in the battle against IS.

Erdogan, however, said last week ahead of the trip that he views his visit to Washington as "a new beginning in Turkish-American relations."

Erdogan said Tuesday that cooperation between the U.S. and Turkey is "very important for the world" and vowed to expand economic and military ties between the two countries.

"There is no place for the terrorist organizations in the future of our region," he said.

Protests

Prior to Erdogan's arrival at the White House, a brief scuffle broke out between pro-Erdogan demonstrators and a group of Kurdish advocates. The two sides were quickly separated by police and Secret Service agents stationed outside the White House gates.

Both Turkey and the United States have backed rebels in Syria during the six-year war against President Bashar al-Assad's forces and allies. And the NATO allies have been heavily involved in battling Islamic State since the group swept into large areas of northern and western Iraq and eastern Syria in mid-2014.

In comments to reporters, Erdogan brought up the status of Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric living in the United States. The Turkish president blames him for an attempted coup last year. Turkey has asked the U.S. to extradite Gulen, but that request has gone nowhere.

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Poroshenko Restricts Access To Russian Websites, Social Networks

RFE/RL May 16, 2017

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has imposed sanctions on several leading Russian social networks and search engines, ordering access to the sites to be restricted or blocked entirely in Ukraine.

Russia reacted angrily hours after Poroshenko's decree was published on May 16, calling it "unfriendly" and accusing Kyiv of censorship.

The Internet companies named in the decree included popular social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki as well as prominent search engine Yandex and the Mail.ru Group.

It ordered the "limitation or termination" of access to the sites, prohibiting Ukrainian web hosts from linking to them for a period of three years.

"The challenges of hybrid war demand adequate responses," Poroshenko wrote in a May 16 post on his own VKontakte page. "Massive Russian cyberattacks across the world -- particularly the interference in the French election campaign -- show it is time to act differently and more decisively."

He added that he would shut down both his VKontakte and Odnoklassniki accounts.

More Russia Sanctions

A Russian official said that users would get around the restrictions, and Mail.ru Group posted instructions on how to do so.

The decree adds to a list of mainly Russian companies and individuals subject to sanctions in connection with what Kyiv says is Russian aggression against Ukraine -- a reference to Russia's seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and involvement in a war that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine since April of that year.

With relations in tatters, Russian social networks have been used by President Vladimir Putin's government and pro-government groups to promote the Kremlin's position in its standoff with Kyiv and the West over Moscow's interference in Ukraine and other issues.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists that Poroshenko's decree was "another manifestation of unfriendly, short-sighted policy toward Russia," and said it "violates the rights of people in Ukraine to receive information."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it "politically motivated censorship."

Other entities named in the decree are Internet security companies Kaspersky Lab and DrWeb, as well the Russian media companies RBK, National Mediagroup, TNT, and Ren-TV.

'Freedom Of Speech' Vs. 'Enemy Propaganda'

The sweeping measures drew fire from journalists and rights activists, who called it an attack on free speech.

"Nothing can justify such a blanket ban! Blatant violation of freedom of expression," the Eastern Europe and Central Asian desk of media-rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said on Twitter.

Aric Toler of the open-source investigation unit Bellingcat, which has produced searingly critical investigations of Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict, said VKontakte groups "are often the best source of information for civilians living near the front lines" in eastern Ukraine.

"So, that's now gone. Great job Poroshenko," he wrote on Twitter.

The well-known Ukrainian journalist Maksim Eristavi noted that the ban places Ukraine in the same camp as several governments widely criticized for their record on human rights and media freedoms.

Meanwhile, influential Ukrainian journalist Yevhen Fedchenko, director of the Kyiv Mohyla School of Journalism and co-founder of the website StopFake.org, came to Poroshenko's defense. He said that banning VKontakte and Odnoklasniki "would be the greatest contribution to protection" of Ukraine's information "sovereignty."

Fedchenko called the social networks "instruments of war" that spread propaganda, hate speech, and "war mongering," adding that they should be "discontinued temporarily."

Peskov hinted that Russia could retaliate, saying that Moscow was "monitoring the situation quite carefully, and certainly we are keeping the principle of reciprocity in mind."

Adding a note of mockery, he said that there were "not so many major information resources in Ukraine that are popular in the Russian-language space."

Ukraine has imposed sanctions on a total of 468 organizations and companies as well as 1,228 individuals in Russia, Crimea, and the separatist-held parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

The decree was signed on May 15 and came into force upon its publication on May 16. Hours later, the websites remained accessible in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Ukrainian government official told RFE/RL that it would be tough to implement the access restrictions because there are ways to circumvent them.

Russian Deputy Communications Minister Aleksei Volin told journalists in Moscow on May 16 that the move "discredits Ukraine's leadership" and that Ukrainian users would "quickly find a way to bypass any block to access the sites."

Mail.ru Group posted instructions on bypassing the blockage.

But many Internet users mocked that move, saying the instructions would help Internet users in Russia gain access to foreign-based websites blocked by the Russian authorities.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, Current Time TV, TASS, Interfax, Reuters, AFP, dpa, and Dozhd TV

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-poroshenko-restricts- access-yandex-vkontakte/28490951.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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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - GT Gold Corp. ("GT Gold" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:GTT). With just a month to go, GT Gold is pleased to report that all permits are in place and all supplier contracts have been let in support of a June 15th start of camp construction at the Company's promising new Saddle gold target, located on the Tatogga property in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Camp construction is expected to take several days, following which ground based induced polarization (IP) geophysics, additional geochemical sampling, and reverse circulation (RC) drilling (up to 2,000 metres in 76 holes), will get underway. The results of this work, which is targeted for completion in the first half of July, will be used to guide immediate follow-on diamond drilling (2,600 metres in 22 holes). A second phase of core drilling of similar meterage, to be undertaken in August and September, has been fully financed.

Readers are invited to review the Company's press release dated March 1, 2017 for full details of the pending Saddle exploration program. An animated presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint of the Saddle Phase I drill program is also available for download as a .zip file from the Company's home page at www.gtgoldcorp.ca.

"We're excited to be the first to drill the impressive Saddle target," states Kevin Keough, GT Gold's president and CEO. "It's classic exploration, and we're at the point, we hope, of incipient discovery - the point where the value really gets added. We've done our homework and have the plan, and team, in place to execute."

Charles J. Greig, M.Sc., P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for GT Gold and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "plans", "expects', "estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing these forward-looking statements are reasonable based upon the information currently available to management as of the date hereof, actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Readers are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Sarama Resources Ltd. ("Sarama" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SWA) is pleased to advise that it has agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Botoro exploration property ("Botoro" or the "Property") in south-west Burkina Faso. Botoro complements Sarama's mineral property interests in the highly prospective southern HoundA Belt and increases the size of its 100%-owned4 ThreeBee Project to approximately 660km .

Highlights

Acquisition is consistent with Sarama's strategy to enhance, diversify and materially increase its position in the southern part of the prolific HoundA Belt

Botoro Property covers 224km  and is located within trucking distance of Sarama's 100%-owned Bamako, Djarkadougou and Bouni Properties, altogether forming the ThreeBee Project

Underlain by a diverse suite of volcanic and meta-sedimentary rocks known to host gold deposits of significant size in the region, with prospectivity further enhanced by district-scale faults and shear zones traversing the Property

Botoro shares geological similarities to Sarama's Djarkadougou Property, which hosts the Bondi Deposit (historical estimate mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au measured and indicated and 0.1Moz Au inferred 3 )

) Potential to build on existing gold occurrences within the ThreeBee Project which includes the Bondi Deposit and yet to be followed-up drill intersections at the Bamako Property which include 15m @ 6.17g/t Au from 9m and 6m @ 1.78g/t Au from surface

No systematic modern-day exploration has been conducted on Botoro

Substantial artisanal mining infrastructure previously established in several areas within the Property

ThreeBee Project is independent of, but complementary to other projects in the region including Sarama's South HoundA Project which hosts a gold mineral resources of 2.1Moz1 and also Teranga Gold Corp.'s ("Teranga") Golden Hill Project where encouraging new gold discoveries have recently been announced6

Sarama's President and CEO, Andrew Dinning, commented:

"We are excited about the acquisition and the exploration potential of the Botoro Property and also the strengthening of our position in the southern HoundA Belt. Importantly, Botoro complements our 100% owned ThreeBee Project and provides us with additional options outside our current joint ventures in the HoundA Belt.

Teranga's recently announced discoveries at their Golden Hill Project, situated less than 20km from Sarama's Bondi Deposit, further shows the potential on the eastern part of the belt and we look forward to the results from our generative exploration work on Botoro that has already commenced."

Botoro Property Location & Strategic Fit

The 224km  Botoro Property is located on the eastern margin of the HoundA Belt and is well positioned relative to Sarama's existing mineral property interests in the area. Apart from having untested exploration potential itself, the Property is a key component of the Company's 100%-owned ThreeBee Project, which also includes the prospective Djarkadougou, Bamako and Bouni Properties.

Botoro is located approximately 20km from the centroid of the Bondi Deposit (on the Djarakdougou Property) which has a historical estimate of mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au measured and indicated and 0.1Moz Au inferred3 and offers potential for the discovery of truckable feed to support eventual project development.

The ThreeBee Project is also complimented by the early-stage exploration properties of Bamako and Bouni upon which reconnaissance drilling programs by Sarama have returned encouraging historical5 drill intersections including:

15m @ 6.17g/t Au from 9m (FRC384, Bamako);

6m @ 1.78g/t Au from surface FRC384, Bamako);

3m @ 3.81g/t Au from 63m (FRC489, Bamako);

4m @ 1.94g/t Au from 48m (FRC385, Bamako);

3m @ 2.43g/t Au from 37m (FRC108, Bouni);

4m @ 1.40 g/t Au from 26m (FRC101, Bouni); and

5m @ 1.14g/t Au from 33m (FRC101, Bouni).

These intersections were returned in 2011/12, but have never been fully followed-up by Sarama given the Company's coincident discovery on the South HoundA Project which subsequently became the primary focus. When considered in the context of the demonstrated prospectivity of Sarama's other properties within the ThreeBee Project, these historical intersections demonstrate good potential for the discovery of exploitable gold mineralisation.

It is notable that the Botoro Property is underlain by the same geological sequence of rocks as Teranga's emerging Golden Hill Project to the north. Recent exploration by Teranga6 on the project has returned several higher grade intersections over mineable widths which reinforce the excellent historical drill results of previous operators6 on the Golden Hill Project.

Botoro Property Geology and Gold Occurrences

The geology of the Botoro Property is typical of other properties in the HoundA Belt where Sarama has had significant exploration success and broadly consists of a sequence of alternating volcanic and metasedimentary rocks oriented in an approximate north-south orientation (refer Figure 2). In addition to the presence of a regionally extensive granitic belt along the eastern and northern margins of the Property, several localised felsic intrusions are also present, all of which result in zones of deformation and contact metamorphism. A property-scale fold structure is interpreted, which is bounded on its eastern side by a district-scale north-north-east trending shear zone. The diversity of these geological units and their litho-structural contacts present areas of interest for gold exploration.

The Property is also interpreted to feature several regionally extensive first and second-order faults and shear zones, further adding to the Property's exploration potential.

Site visits conducted by Sarama have identified several areas of significant gold exploitation by artisanal miners. In general, these activities targeted gold-bearing quartz veins down to depths of approximately 40m (refer Plates 1 and 2). Gold was also noted in the weathered zones of both mafic and felsic rock units.

Sarama plans to focus initial exploration activities on artisanal mining areas and prospective zones located proximal to major structural features within the Property. Forward work programs include geological mapping, regolith mapping, soil geochemistry surveys and data collection from artisanal workings.

ABOUT SARAMA RESOURCES LTD

Sarama Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SWA) is a West African focused gold explorer with substantial landholdings in Burkina Faso. Sarama is focused on consolidating under-explored landholdings in Burkina Faso and other established mining jurisdictions.

Sarama's flagship properties are situated within the Company's South HoundA Project area in south-west Burkina Faso. Located within the prolific HoundA Greenstone Belt, Sarama's exploration programs have built on significant early success to deliver an inferred mineral resource estimate of 2.1 Moz gold1. Acacia Mining plc is earning up to a 70% interest in the South HoundA Project by satisfying certain conditions, including funding earn-in expenditures of up to US$14 million, over a 4-year earn-in period and may acquire an additional 5% interest, for an aggregate 75% interest in the Project, upon declaration of a minimum mineral reserve of 1.6 million ounces of gold.

Sarama holds a 31% participating interest in the Karankasso Project Joint Venture ("JV") which is situated adjacent to the Company's South HoundA Project in Burkina Faso and is a JV between Sarama and Savary Gold Corp. ("Savary"). Savary is the operator of the JV and in October 2015, declared a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 671,000 ounces of contained gold2 at the Karankasso Project JV.

Sarama has also agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Bondi Deposit from Orezone Gold Corp. (refer news release May 24, 2016). Bondi has a historical estimate of mineral resources of 0.3Moz Au (measured and indicated) and 0.1Moz Au (inferred)3.

Together, the South HoundA Project, Bondi Deposit and the Karankasso Project form a cluster of advanced gold deposits, within trucking distance of one another, which potentially offers a development option for a multi-source fed central processing facility in the southern HoundA Belt region of Burkina Faso.

Incorporated in 2010, the Company's Board and management team have a proven track record in Africa and a strong history in the discovery and development of large-scale gold deposits. Sarama is well positioned to build on its current success with a sound exploration strategy across its property portfolio.

South HoundA Project - 43.0 Mt @ 1.5 g/t Au (reported above cut-off grades ranging 0.3-2.2 g/t Au, reflecting the mining methods and processing flowsheets assumed to assess the likelihood of the inferred mineral resources having reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction). The effective date of the Company's inferred mineral resource estimate is February 4, 2016. For further information regarding the mineral resource estimate please refer to the technical report titled "NI 43-101 Independent Technical Report South HoundA Project Update, Bougouriba and Ioba Provinces, Burkina Faso", dated March 31, 2016. The technical report is available under Sarama Resources Ltd.'s profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Karankasso Project - 9.2 Mt @ 2.3 g/t Au (at a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off). The effective date of the Karankasso Project JV mineral resource estimate is October 7, 2015. For further information regarding the mineral resource estimate please refer to the technical report titled "Technical Report and Resource Estimate on the Karankasso Project, Burkina Faso", dated October 7, 2015. The technical report is available under Savary Gold Corp.'s profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Sarama has not independently verified Savary's mineral resource estimate and takes no responsibility for its accuracy. Savary is the operator of the Karankasso Project JV and Sarama is relying on their Qualified Persons' assurance of the validity of the mineral resource estimate.

Bondi Deposit - 4.1Mt @ 2.1g/t Au for 282,000 oz Au (measured and indicated) and 2.5Mt @ 1.8g/t Au for 149,700 oz Au (inferred), reported at a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off.

The historical estimate of the Bondi Deposit reflects a mineral resource estimate compiled by Orezone Gold Corp. ("Orezone") which has an effective date of February 20, 2009. The historical estimate is contained in a technical report titled "Technical Report on the Mineral Resource of the Bondigui Gold Project", dated date of February 20, 2009 (the "Bondi Technical Report") and is available under the profile of Orezone on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Sarama believes that the historical estimate is relevant to investors' understanding of the property, as it reflects the most recent technical work undertaken in respect of the Bondi Deposit.

The historical estimate was informed by 886 drillholes, assayed for gold by cyanidation methods, were used to interpret mineralised envelopes and geological zones over the area of the historical estimate. Gold grade interpolation was undertaken using ID  methodology based on input parameters derived from geostatistical and geological analyses assessments. Field measurements and geological logging of drillholes were used to determine weathering boundaries and bulk densities for modelled blocks.

The historical estimate uses the mineral resource reporting categories required under National Instrument 43-101.

No more recent estimates of the mineral resource or other data are available.

Sarama is currently undertaking the necessary verification work in the field and on the desktop that may support the future reclassification of the historical estimate to a mineral resource.

A qualified person engaged by Sarama has not undertaken sufficient work to verify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource and Sarama is therefore not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource.

Upon closing of the respective purchase agreements for Botoro and Djarkadougou, Sarama will have 100% interest in the Botoro, Djarkadougou, Bamako and Bouni Properties which together comprise the ThreeBee Project.

For further information regarding the drilling on the Bamako and Bouni Properties, please refer to the technical report titled "NI 43-101 Independent Technical Report South HoundA Project Update, Bougouriba and Ioba Provinces, Burkina Faso", dated October 28, 2013. The technical report is available under Sarama Resources Ltd.'s profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Results of exploration activities on the Golden Hill Project by Teranga Gold Corp. are sourced from Teranga Gold Corp.'s news release "Teranga Gold Announces Two New Gold Discoveries at Golden Hill Property in Burkina Faso", dated April 25, 2017. Results of exploration activities on the Golden Hill Project by operators prior to Teranga Gold Corp. are sourced from Gryphon Minerals Ltd.'s news release "Exploration Pipeline Update", dated March 5, 2014.

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information in this news release that is not a statement of historical fact constitutes forward-looking information. Such forward-looking information includes statements regarding the Company's intention to acquire the Botoro Property and its plans to explore and develop the Botoro Property and the ThreeBee Project, exploration activities at the South HoundA Project, the Earn-In Agreement with Acacia, including the amounts that may be spent on exploration and interests in the South HoundA Project that may be earned by Acacia upon making certain expenditures and estimating a minimum reserve, the potential to expand the present oxide component of the Company's existing estimated mineral resources, future exploration plans and the potential development of the Bondi, Karankasso and South HoundA Projects on a combined basis. Actual results, performance or achievements of the Company may vary from the results suggested by such forward-looking statements due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such factors include, among others, that the business of exploration for gold and other precious minerals involves a high degree of risk and is highly speculative in nature; Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves, they do not have demonstrated economic viability, and there is no certainty that they can be upgraded to Mineral Reserves through continued exploration; few properties that are explored are ultimately developed into producing mines; geological factors; the actual results of current and 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. There can be no assurance that any mineralisation that is discovered will be proven to be economic, or that future required regulatory licensing or approvals will be obtained. However, the Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, Acacia's continued funding of exploration activities, the Company's ability to carry on its exploration activities, the sufficiency of funding, the timely receipt of required approvals, the price of gold and other precious metals, that the Company will not be affected by adverse political events, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain further financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Sarama does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable laws.

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.

QUALIFIED PERSONS' STATEMENT

Scientific or technical information in this news release that relates to the Company's exploration activities in Burkina Faso is based on information compiled or approved by Guy Scherrer. Guy Scherrer is an employee of Sarama Resources Ltd. and is a member in good standing of the Ordre des GAologues du QuAbec and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the commodity, style of mineralisation under consideration and activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Guy Scherrer consents to the inclusion in this report of the information, in the form and context in which it appears.

Scientific or technical information in this news release that relates to the Company's references to the exploration activities of Teranga Gold Corp. and Gryphon Minerals Ltd. on the Golden Hill Project in Burkina Faso is based on information compiled or approved by Paul Schmiede. Paul Schmiede is an employee of Sarama Resources Ltd. and is a Fellow in good standing of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the commodity, style of mineralisation under consideration and activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Paul Schmiede consents to the inclusion in this report of the information, in the form and context in which it appears.

Scientific or technical information in this news release that relates to the preparation of the South HoundA Project's mineral resource estimate is based on information compiled or approved by Adrian Shepherd. Adrian Shepherd is an employee of Cube Consulting Pty Ltd and is considered to be independent of Sarama Resources Ltd. Adrian Shepherd is a Chartered Professional Member in good standing of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the commodity, style of mineralisation under consideration and activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Adrian Shepherd consents to the inclusion in this news release of the information, in the form and context in which it appears.

Scientific or technical information in this news release that relates to the preparation of the Karankasso Project's mineral resource estimate is based on information compiled or approved by Eugene Puritch and Antoine Yassa. Eugene Puritch and Antoine Yassa are employees of P&E Mining Consultants Inc. and are considered to be independent of Savary Gold Corp. and Sarama Resources Ltd. Antoine Yassa is a member in good standing of the Ordre des GAologues du QuAbec and Eugene Puritch is a member in good standing of Professional Engineers Ontario. Eugene Puritch and Antoine Yassa have sufficient experience which is relevant to the commodity, style of mineralisation under consideration and activity which they are undertaking to qualify as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Eugene Puritch and Antoine Yassa consent to the inclusion in this news release of the information, in the form and context in which it appears. Sarama has not independently verified Savary's mineral resource estimate and takes no responsibility for its accuracy.

Scientific or technical information in this news release, in respect of the Bondi Deposit relating to mineral resource and exploration information drawn from the Technical Report prepared for Orezone on that deposit has been approved by Guy Scherrer. Guy Scherrer is an employee of Sarama Resources Ltd. and is a member in good standing of the Ordre des GAologues du QuAbec and has sufficient experience which is relevant to the commodity, style of mineralisation under consideration and activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Guy Scherrer consents to the inclusion in this report of the information, in the form and context in which it appears.

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:ABN) (OTCBB:ABNAF) (FRANKFURT:E2L2) ("Aben" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an updated timeline and summary of the Company's exploration plans for its 100% held 23,000 hectare Forrest Kerr Gold Project, located in BC's Golden Triangle, for the 2017 field season.

B.C.'s Golden Triangle map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Golden_Triangle_map.jpg

The Aben exploration team will arrive to site in the third week of June to begin field work that will include drill target generation, ground truth exploration and surface sampling. Aben has applied for a Multi-Year Area Based permit from the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines, wherein three main zones have been defined as a focus for exploration activities and subsequent drill testing in 2017.

Historic drilling on the Forrest Kerr Project has encountered several high grade precious metal and base metal intercepts including:

North: Carcass Creek hole RG91-21 returned 9.87 g/t Gold over 29 meters including 91.69 g/t Gold over 1.95 meters;

Forrest Kerr Carcass Zone showing historical drill holes and sampling:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Carcass_Creek.jpg

Central: Boundary Zone hole RG91-16 returned 33.4 g/t Gold over 11 meters including 326 g/t Gold over 0.45 meters;

Forrest Kerr Boundary Zone showing historical drill holes and sampling:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Boundary_Zone.jpg

South: Forrest Creek hole A90-7 returned 2.28 g/t Gold, 0.3% Copper and 6.3 g/t Silver over 28 meters, while hole A90-13 encountered 2.5 g/t Gold, 0.3% Copper and 6.1 g/t Silver over 35 meters. These two holes were collared 50 meters apart and were interpreted to test the same shear zone.

Aben has not been able to independently verify the methodology and results from historical work programs within the property boundaries. However, management believes that the historical work programs have been conducted in a professional manner and the quality of data and information produced from them are relevant.

The areas of interest contain several precious and base metal occurrences within Hazelton Group rocks, which host several mineral deposits throughout the region. Widespread quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration zones indicate that a robust hydrothermal system was active and is likely related to early Jurassic intrusive bodies found in close proximity to the altered zones. The property has excellent potential to host both volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization similar to the historic Eskay Creek mine and transitional epithermal vein mineralization analogous to Pretivm Resources Brucejack gold mine. Exploration in 2017 will be guided with both of these depositional models in mind as Aben seeks to extend historically defined mineralization and probe for a new discovery.

The Forrest Kerr Gold Property has significant potential to host precious metal mineralization in the heart of the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. The Property is host to numerous mineralized occurrences that have been defined through systematic fieldwork conducted from the late 1980's to the mid 2000's. Only limited fieldwork has been completed on the Property in the last decade, during which the area has seen major infrastructure improvements including road access and hydro-electric facilities. In addition, rapid melting rates of glaciers on the property have provided new exposures in areas that were inaccessible during previous exploration campaigns.

The Golden Triangle is host to significant mineral deposits including Galore Creek, Copper Canyon, Schaft Creek, Brucejack, Snowfield, KSM, Snip, Granduc, and Red-Chris amongst others.

Aben's Forrest Kerr land package is located along the Forrest Kerr Fault, immediately north of the Iskut River and extends 6 kilometers north of More Creek. The project is road accessible to its northern portion via the Galore Creek road and to its southern end via the Coast Mountain Hydro road. The Forrest Kerr Hydroelectric Facility, which supplies 195 MW of energy to the BC power grid via the 287 kV Northwest transmission line, is located in the southern portion of the property. The claims span 40 kilometers in a north-south direction over Hazelton and Stuhini Group rocks, a complex assemblage of volcanic and sedimentary sequences which host numerous significant gold deposits in B.C.'s Golden Triangle area.

Forrest Kerr project, B.C., Golden Triangle claims map:

http://www.abenresources.com/i/maps/ABN_Forrest_Kerr_Project_map_small.jpg

Cornell McDowell, P.Geo., V.P. of Exploration of Aben Resources, has reviewed and approved the technical aspects of this news release and is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Aben Resources:

Aben Resources is a Canadian gold exploration company developing projects in British Columbia's Golden Triangle, the Yukon and Saskatchewan.

For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:ABN), visit our Company's web site at www.abenresources.com.

Aben Resources has approx. 31.5 million shares issued and outstanding.

Aben Resources Ltd.

JAMES G. PETTIT, President & CEO

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novo Resources Corp. (Novo or the Company) (TSX-V:NVO) (OTCQX:NSRPF) is pleased to announce that since closing its $15 million private placement on May 4, it has laid out aggressive plans to move its 100% controlled Beatons Creek gold project toward production.



Path Forward

Through the remainder of 2017, Novo plans to complete the following critical steps at Beatons Creek:

Undertake approximately 10,000 meters of reverse circulation (RC) drilling and collect approximately 800 trench (costean) samples with the aim of expanding and upgrading near-surface mineral resources. RC drilling and costean sampling have recently begun with targeted completion by mid June. Novo anticipates announcing a continual stream of assay results over the next two to three months.

Novo is targeting completion of a prefeasibility study for the Beatons Creek gold project by fourth quarter of 2017.

Advance production-related permitting at Beatons Creek. Novo has recently hired an in-house environmental scientist, Chris Goti, M.Sc. Environmental Management, Queens University Belfast. Mr. Goti was most recently at Millennium Minerals Ltd., an Australian gold producer active in the Nullagine region, where he oversaw all aspects of permitting activity.

Processing Scheme at Beatons Creek

As discussed in a news release dated March 7, 2017, Novo presented a case for conventional gravity + carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing at Beatons Creek based upon exceptionally high gold recoveries from cyanidation tests performed early this year.

Further data from recent cyanidation testwork conducted by ALS Global, Perth, supports Novos gravity + CIL processing concept (see nearby table). Even at a coarse grind size of 280 microns, gravity + CN leach recoveries exceed 96% with over 50% of gold recovered by gravity and the remainder by CN leach. CN and lime consumption is low.

These results are very promising for several reasons:

Coarser grinding translates to lower power requirements for milling, a potentially significant cost savings for the project.

Coarse tailings allows for consideration of dry stacking as a means of tailings disposal, a potentially cheaper alternative to conventional tailings ponds.

Water can be readily recovered from tailings for re-use in milling meaning lower overall water consumption, a potential cost savings.

Reagent consumption is low which translates to lower processing costs.

Novo is currently contemplating a scenario whereby material is processed at a mill to be constructed on the Blue Spec mining leases. While this adds a component of transport to the mining scenario, Novo anticipates complexities around permitting will be reduced since the Blue Spec mine is outside of the town of Nullagines watershed.

Cyanidation Test Results from Beatons Creek Sample Test Conditions Grind Size

(P80 m) Gravity

Gold

Recovery

(%) Gravity +

CN Gold

Recovery

(%) Calculated

Head Grade

(gpt Au) Lime

Consumption

(kg/tonne) CN

consumption

(kg/tonne) IGR

Gravity

Tailings 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 250 53.3 97.1 2.79 2.02 0.18 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 212 75.4 98.9 5.64 1.99 0.16 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 150 59.0 97.1 3.49 2.21 0.24 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 106 49.1 98.1 2.58 2.08 0.27 40% Solids - 0.75kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.0 280 66.1 98.6 5.05 1.83 0.21 40% Solids - 0.5kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.0 280 71.0 98.6 5.73 1.93 0.19 Edwards

Block Bulk

Sample 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 250 81.9 98.9 6.09 1.13 0.20 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 212 82.7 99.1 6.48 1.00 0.20 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 150 44.1 97.3 1.50 0.98 0.20 40% Solids - 1.0kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.5 106 88.0 99.4 6.62 1.00 0.19 40% Solids - 0.75kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.0 280 55.3 96.8 2.16 0.62 0.21 40% Solids - 0.5kg/t

NaCN - pH 10.0 280 66.2 98.3 2.89 0.74 0.25

Following our $15 million placement, we are in a strong position to advance Beatons Creek toward production, commented Dr. Quinton Hennigh, President, CEO and director of Novo Resources Corp. Our first goal is to expand and upgrade mineral resources in preparation for completion of a prefeasibility study later this year. Recent cyanidation results are very encouraging and indicate a gravity + CIL scenario for processing is ideally suited for the project and will form the basis of our prefeasibility study. With the addition of an in-house environmental scientist, Chris Goti, we are able to concurrently pursue production-related permits. We welcome him to the team as we prepare for a busy year.

Quinton Hennigh (Ph.D., P.Geo.) is the Qualified Person pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 responsible for, and having reviewed and approved, the technical information contained in this news release. Dr. Hennigh is President, CEO and a Director of Novo Resources Corp.

About Novo Resources Corp.

Novos focus is to evaluate, acquire and explore gold properties. Indirect subsidiaries of Novo hold a 100% interest in the Beatons Creek gold project, a 70% interest in properties surrounding Beatons Creek and Marble Bar, a 100% interest in the Blue Spec gold-antimony project, and options covering approximately 400 square km over the Mosquito Creek Basin, all in the Pilbara region, Western Australia. Novo also controls a 100% interest in approximately 2 sq km covering much of the Tuscarora Au-Ag vein district, Nevada. For more information, please contact Leo Karabelas at (416) 543-3120 or e-mail leo@novoresources.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors,

Novo Resources Corp.

Quinton Hennigh

Quinton Hennigh

CEO and President

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-looking information

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information (within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation) including, without limitation, statements as to the expected receipt of results from various exploration and testing activities. Forward-looking 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, without limitation, customary risks of the mineral resource exploration industry as well as Novo having sufficient cash to fund the planned drilling and other exploration activities.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 16, 2017) - Liberty Silver Corp. ("Liberty" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the Bunker Hill Mine Complex located in Kellogg, Idaho, in the Silver Valley from Placer Mining Corp. (the "Letter of Intent"). Pursuant to the terms and conditions of the Letter of Intent dated November 27, 2016 and amended on March 29, 2017, the acquisition is subject to due diligence, regulatory approval and definitive documentation, which the Company is required to complete by the close of business on June 29, 2017 (the "Closing Date").

The acquisition would include all mining rights and claims, surface rights, easements, existing infrastructure at Milo Gulch, and the majority of machinery and buildings at the Kellogg Tunnel portal level, as well as all equipment and infrastructure anywhere underground at the Bunker Hill Mine Complex. The acquisition would also include all current and historic data relating to the Bunker Hill Mine Complex, such as drill logs, reports, maps, and similar information located at the mine site or any other location.

The Bunker Hill Mine is one of the most storied base metal and silver mines in American history. Initial discovery and development of the property began in 1885, and from that time until the mine closed in 1981 it produced over 35.8 million tons of ore at an average mined grade of 8.76% lead, 4.52 ounces per ton silver, and 3.67% zinc (Bunker Limited Partnership,1985). Throughout its long history, over 40 different orebodies were discovered and mined at the Bunker Hill, primarily consisting of Zinc-Lead-Silver mineralization. The Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining Company had a strong history of regular dividend payments to shareholders from the time the Company went public in 1905 until it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Gulf Resources in 1968. When the mine closed in 1981, it was estimated to still contain significant resources. (Bunker Limited Partnership,1985)

The Mine and Smelter Complex were closed in 1981 after the then owner, Gulf Resources, was not able to continue to comply with the new regulatory structures brought on by the passage of environmental statutes and as then enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In summary, the reasons for the mine and smelter complex closures were primarily a result of compliance with stringent smelter emissions standards, not regulatory issues with the mine itself.

The Bunker Hill Lead Smelter, Electrolytic Zinc Plant and historic milling facilities were demolished about 25 years ago, and the area became part of the "National Priority List" for cleanup under EPA regulations, thereby pausing development of the Bunker Hill Mine for over 30 years. All of the cleanup of the old smelter, zinc plant, and associated sites has now been completed and the Mine is now poised for further development and an eventual return to production. The Company has been in contact with government officials who have expressed strong support and cooperation for the Company efforts to return the mine to being a productive mining asset.

The acquisition price, as described in the Letter of Intent, is a total of US$30,000,000. The initial US$15,000,000 of the total acquisition price shall be paid annually over the course of 5 years from the Closing Date, of which, US$150,000 has been paid upon execution of the Letter of Intent and US$3,350,000 will become due on the Closing Date, and US$3,500,000 on the first anniversary, US$3,000,000 on the second anniversary, US$2,000,000 on the third and fourth anniversaries and US$1,000,000 on the fifth anniversary. The balance of US$15,000,000 shall become due in 15 equal installments beginning on June 29, 2023 and on each anniversary of the Closing Date thereafter. The Letter of Intent provides for conditions under which the fifteen payments of US$1,000,000 may be accelerated and paid in shares based on prevailing market prices and share volumes. In addition, a net smelter return royalty with an aggregate maximum payment of US$60,000,000 shall be granted, at a rate of 2% for the first US$15,000,000, 1% for the next US$15,000,000 and 0.5% for the remaining US$30,000,000. The Company has also made payments totalling US$280,000 with respect to certain property carrying costs and, for up to two years after closing, the Company shall hire certain local managerial staff.

Further announcements will be made on the status of the acquisition of the Bunker Hill Mine Complex. Technical information in this press release was reviewed and approved by James Baughman, P.Geo., a consultant to Liberty, and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101.

About Liberty Silver Corp.

Liberty has the right to earn a joint venture interest in the 10,020-acre Trinity Silver Project pursuant to the terms of an earn-in agreement with Renaissance Exploration Inc. The Trinity Silver Project, located in Pershing County, Nevada, is Liberty's flagship project. Liberty has entered into the Letter of Intent to Acquire the Bunker Hill Mine Complex which is subject to due diligence and definitive documentation.

Information about Liberty is available on its website, www.libertysilvercorp.com, or in the SEDAR and EDGAR databases.

Cautionary Statements

Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are within the meaning of that term in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as well as within the meaning of the phrase 'forward-looking information' in the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations. The forward looking statements made herein are based on information currently available to the Company and the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations or assumptions with respect to, among other things, the ability of Liberty to successfully complete due diligence on the Bunker Hill Mine Complex, settle a definitive agreement on the terms as provided in the Letter of Intent or other satisfactory terms or at all, and fund the initial purchase payment for which Liberty does not have funds at this time, the ability of Liberty to preserve its interests in the Trinity Silver Project which is dependent on the completion of a feasibility study, the Company's present and future financial condition, the Company's ability to secure financing, the Company's ability to secure a public market for its securities, and the state of financial markets. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan", and may include statements regarding, among other things, the terms of the Letter of Intent to acquire the Bunker Hill Mine Complex, completion of the necessary due diligence and funding of the acquisition.

Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results relating to, among other things, results of exploration, project development, and the Company's financial condition and prospects, could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons such as: the inability of Liberty to successfully complete due diligence on the Bunker Hill Mine Complex, settle a definitive agreement on the terms as provided in the Letter of Intent or other satisfactory terms or at all, and fund the initial purchase payment for which Liberty does not have funds at this time; the inability of Liberty to complete a feasibility study pursuant to the terms of the Trinity Silver Project earn-in agreement; the inability of the Company to budget and manage its liquidity in light of the failure to obtain additional financing; the inability of the Company to secure a public market for its securities and whether an active public market can be developed or sustained; development of changes in general economic conditions and conditions in the financial markets; changes in demand and prices for precious metals; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; operational difficulties encountered in connection with the activities of the Company; and other matters discussed in this news release. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements. These and other factors made in public disclosures and filings by the Company should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by the Company or on its behalf, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
Testing their luck with the Trump administration, Texas officials are asking for federal money to help support the state's women's health program even though it has barred Planned Parenthood as a provider.Texas lost federal funding for its women's health program in 2013 after it kicked out the biggest provider of such care, Planned Parenthood, opting to fund the health program with state money. But facing a tight budget cycle, state officials are hoping President Donald Trump's administration, which has called for defunding Planned Parenthood, will restore federal money through a so-called Section 1115 Medicaid waiver."There is a new administration. Waivers take some time, and we're looking at what opportunities may exist for us," said Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. "This isn't about changing the provider or client experience or about changing the details of the program."The commission has asked for funding for the Healthy Texas Women program for five years starting September 2018.Williams said the agency does not know precisely how much money the state could save if the federal government greenlights money for the women's program. The Texas Senate in its early version of the state budget assumed the state could save $180 million over the next two years with the waiver.Planned Parenthood supporters fear if the federal government approves matching federal dollars for Healthy Texas Women, other states could kick Planned Parenthood out of their Medicaid programs without consequences."If the feds were going to allow this kind of waiver and it survives legal challenges, which is presumably what would happen immediately, then that would possibly open the door for other states to pursue defunding Planned Parenthood in their Medicaid program waiver," said Stacey Pogue with the left-leaning Austin think tank Center for Public Policy Priorities.In August, critics such as the center blasted Healthy Texas Women officials after they approved a $1.6 million contract with the anti-abortion Heidi Group to provide, among other things, family planning services.As a part of the waiver application, the health commission must hold meetings to take public input. The next one will be 1 p.m. Monday at 4900 North Lamar Blvd.The program, which officially launched in its newest form last July, provides pregnancy testing and counseling; family planning; breast and cervical cancer screenings; immunizations and screenings and treatment for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.In December, 114,026 women were receiving services through the program. The agency projects a monthly average of 231,480 women receiving services through the program in fiscal 2018 and a monthly average of 232,670 in fiscal 2019."We support (the state's women's program) and always have," Pogue said. "It could be a lot better and we could serve a lot more people ... if we let Planned Parenthood participate."
In South Carolina one political consulting firm represents more than 25 lawmakers, a couple of large state agencies and a quartet of the state's biggest corporations.The firm has amassed the kind of power that can steer legislation, push wish lists in the state budget, mold regulations or kill proposals even before they have a hearing. It's the kind of power that has built the perception that hiring this firm is necessary to getting business done in the state.Questions over the propriety of that kind of influence are facing Richard Quinn & Associates as the powerful Columbia-area consulting firm remains the focus of a Statehouse corruption investigation that is once again showing signs of life after a two-month public hiatus.The Quinn organization and the tentacles theyve got in respect to politics," said Neal Thigpen, one of South Carolina's foremost political scientists, "is nothing I have ever encountered before.Investigators have collected records from Quinn clients, including the state's flagship university (University of South Carolina), largest insurer (BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina) and biggest utility (SCANA). Former lawmakers who worked with Quinn have gone before the State Grand Jury. The State newspaper has reported that investigators raided the firm's offices and hauled away boxes of records. Soon after, a Quinn client, Sen. John Courson, was indicted on accusations of laundering $133,000 in campaign money through the consulting firm.
On Friday, in the morning, at Brisbane City Hall, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC attended the Queensland Volunteering Awards Presentation and Recognition Ceremony where the Governor addressed guests and presented awards.
On Saturday, in the morning, at the Allies Memorial, New Farm, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey attended the 72nd Anniversary Commemorative Service of the Victory in Europe Day and laid the first wreath.

In the afternoon, the Governor departed Brisbane for an official visit to Ipswich.

Following, at 88 Limestone Precinct, Ipswich, the Governor officially opened restored buildings at the Precinct and addressed guests, before returning to Brisbane.
On Sunday, in the morning, at St Andrews Anglican Church, Lutwyche, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC attended the memorial service for the 74th anniversary of the sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship (AHS) Centaur and laid the first wreath.
On Monday, in the morning, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC departed Brisbane for an official visit to Rockhampton.

Following, at the Rockhampton Police Complex, the Governor received a briefing on flood recovery efforts and met staff from the Queensland Police Service.

Following, at City Hall, Rockhampton, the Governor received a briefing on flood recovery efforts from Rockhampton Regional Council representatives.

In the afternoon, at the Rockhampton State Emergency Services (SES) Headquarters, Berserker, the Governor attended an afternoon tea with SES personnel and members of the Local Disaster Management Group involved in flood recovery efforts, before returning to Brisbane.
In the past year, OpenGov launched a new budget builder tool, started scooping up bigger customers and doubled its customer count.Now, its closed on a $30 million Series C funding round.That puts the companys fundraising total at more than $75 million, and more money in the Series C round may come in over the next couple of weeks. The newest rounds leader was Laurene Powell Jobs Emerson Collective, but in the past, the companys backers have included Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital.Zac Bookman, OpenGovs chief executive officer, said he wants to focus the new money on improving the software  including launching a new product or two later this year.Were loading up to invest in R&D and  go big, Bookman toldThe companys direction as of late has been adding new functionality to its software suite, primarily in the form of its budget builder. It now offers tools for open data portals, inter-agency reporting, budgeting and collaboration.The budget builder in particular has led to some hard return-on-investment numbers, he said. Customers have reported cutting months out of their budget planning process, saving real dollars in the process.Its all about ease of use, he said. Thats our No. 1 competitive differentiator and its something weve invested in competitively. Its that no customer is too small.The company has also been building out its customer portfolio. In the past, Bookman talked about his pride in serving smaller communities, but now OpenGov is pulling bigger names into the fold  states like Ohio and West Virginia, and increasingly, some of the larger counties.Were seeing a lot of the medium and large counties in the country come on, and were talking more and more with [chief information officers] in the country in cities, counties and school districts, Bookman said.He attributed both the growing county and CIO interest  as opposed to city and financial officer interest  to OpenGovs evolution in the direction of centralized collaboration.Our intelligence package serves as a single source of truth across the enterprise that can unite the data across disparate silos across the organization, Bookman said. So the business case is probably stronger for counties than for anywhere.In the future, the company will also be looking to start serving governments outside the U.S.We havent done any international business," he said, "but were building our strategy.
THE ORIGINS OF THE CITYWIDE ANALYTICS TEAM

Boston's Department of Innovation and Technology





FROM DASHBOARDS TO CITYSCORE

Screenshot of CityScore





At the end of the day, this is meaningless unless residents see a difference in how city services are delivered to them.

BUILDING INTELLIGENCE[1]

Screenshot of Building Intelligence





THE FUTURE OF THE TEAM

Boston's Vision Zero map





In Boston, when an ambulance arrives at an address in under six minutes, when a residents call to 311 is answered in less than 30 seconds, or when a restaurant inspector finds a health code violation before anyone gets sick, there is one common thread  Bostons Citywide Analytics Team. The team is on a mission to improve the way the City of Boston delivers services using the power of data. Now in its third year, the team has grown significantly, worked with nearly every department, and launched dozens of successful projects to improve life in the city.Managing Boston effectively using data has been a central focus for Mayor Marty Walsh since he took office in January of 2014. He hired Jascha Franklin-Hodge as Chief Information Officer (CIO) in June of 2014 and formally announced the creation of the Citywide Analytics Team in his 2015 State of the City address . According to Matt Mayrl, former Deputy CIO and Director of the Citywide Analytics Team, the concept for the team grew out of the mayors commitment to both get better data for him to make decisions, and the realization that he needed to start equipping the rest of the organization with data-driven, actionable information in order to realize the full range of organizational change he envisioned. The teams origins and growth hold lessons for other cities seeking to start their own analytics efforts.Mayor Walsh began moving the city toward his data-driven vision with the appointment of Franklin-Hodge as CIO, joined by Mayrl, previously the chief of staff of Bostons Department of Public Works. Franklin-Hodge and Mayrl were tasked with building out the team to develop the citys data capacity, which they undertook with thoughtful consideration. Franklin-Hodge wanted to assemble a team that had the skills to both do the technical heavy lifting and the organizational heavy lifting  building relationships, understanding need, and understanding where data could be an effective lever for empowerment and transformation. Because they were starting a new effort for a city with over 16,000 employees across 42 departments, they knew their team needed to be able to work with departments at very different levels in their data use and understanding. They hired business analysts, visualization experts, and data scientists in addition to bringing in the citys existing open data and performance management efforts. That January, the team  at the time only six people  moved physically to the same office.The analytics team built on several notable efforts of the prior administration under Mayor Tom Menino, which included the pioneering Citizens Connect app (now BOS:311), the Mayors Office of New Urban Mechanics (which still operates as the mayors civic innovation group), and the Boston About Results (BAR) performance system. Chris Dwelley, Director of Performance Management, said the impetus for the new structure was a realization that we were not going to be able to accomplish what we wanted to with a two- to- four person, fragmented team. We needed to leverage existing resources while developing our strategy and building out the team. The Citywide Analytics Team united different people and projects working to improve performance and leverage data and enabled them to streamline their efforts toward a common vision for a data-driven Boston.Many new hires in the first year were chosen because of experience working with customers, broadly defined, which the teams leaders viewed as the necessary experience for working with departmental clients of the analytics team. The Citywide Analytics Team was initially structured with project managers in specific verticals that the team was addressing, in addition to a group of business analysts working on any project that needed them and three purely technical staff members. The mix of positions has evolved over time based on the needs of the team.The Citywide Analytics Team is based in the Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT), a location chosen because of the resources available in the department as well as the existing relationship DoIT had with much of the citys data. Franklin-Hodge noted that the broader IT access lowers technical barriers to getting data and allows the team to surface cross-departmental possibilities. He called the DoIT location a natural fit for analytics because the department already had access to many of the systems producing data and could also guide broader technology procurement and use throughout the enterprise.The analytics team has a strong focus on serving departments collaboratively and helping them solve problems. They choose projects based on requests from departments in addition to ideas nominated by the team. Mayrl said the initial projects that the team took on in 2015 were selected with a few goals in mind  something that has a clearly visible public impact to begin the process of communicating how data is changing the city; something with a financial impact to demonstrate some financial returns; and something that demonstrates the data teams interest and willingness to work with all levels of the agency. The team sought to start with individual projects for departments and then build up to more strategic discussions about how they could help departments achieve their missions. From the beginning, the team has placed a strong emphasis on sustained, in-person engagement with department contacts, which has enabled the successes that they have achieved to date. They also put a high value on working with all levels of the department, from the executive level to front-line staff. Franklin-Hodge said that often, technologists are bringing an engineering mindset to problems, which is that if we build a better mousetrap, then people will use it. In reality, its always messier than that  technology alone rarely moves the needle on big problems. But technology coupled with a nuanced understanding of how it will be used, relationships that allow people to approach change with a sense of trust and partnership  that is the fundamental difference between success and failure. This customer-centric mentality has infused the teams work with departments.One of the first things the Citywide Analytics Team took on at the mayors request was the creation of a dashboard for Bostons performance. They pulled together an initial version within a week, and have been refining the Mayors Dashboard ever since. The dashboard displays daily data about city performance in areas ranging from potholes filled to homicides, with the metrics displayed based on Walshs current priorities. Once the mayor began asking questions based on the data on the dashboard, other department and cabinet heads requested similar dashboards to equip them to respond. The subsequent cabinet and departmental dashboards that the Citywide Analytics Team created are tied to the strategic goals of each, such as equity and customer experience. Some departments also use weekly team or individual reports to track their work. Franklin-Hodge said, the way we are approaching our work is to ask the question, what tools can we put in the hands of managers and employees that will fundamentally help them transform the effectiveness of their teams and deliver better quality of life outcomes for the people of Boston? He views dashboards as a good way to start a conversation around data  they can both be interesting and can create controversy  what are you measuring, why are you measuring it that way? Those discussions in the right environment can be valuable ways to engage people around issues of data literacy and priorities.As they developed dashboards and thought through the best data-driven ways to manage performance, the Citywide Analytics Team took on a new task  developing a high-level way to measure the citys progress. They launched CityScore last spring, a performance tool that rolls up standardized scores on key metrics from across city departments into an overall easy-to-understand dashboard that the mayor, department heads, city employees, and the public can all view.CityScore is distinguished from the citys prior efforts in two important ways: it is updated daily, enabling quick interventions, and it standardizes the scoring of all metrics to make them easy to understand. Dwelley noted, A lot of our early performance efforts were more focused on longer-term trends. With daily updates, we can get ahead of situations and prevent them from snowballing into something larger. For its scoring, CityScore uses 22 city metrics, each of which is based on performance divided by target for that metric, a method which enables them all to be viewed on the same scale. A score of one means the city has met the target, below one means its not meeting its target, and above one means the city is exceeding the target. Metrics without targets are scored using standard deviation and a three-year historical average to monitor overall increase or decrease in the metrics.A beta internal version went live in January 2016 and a public version launched in March 2016. In August, Boston announced an open-source toolkit for CityScore, which several cities are using to generate their own versions.The CityScore dashboard sits prominently in the office of the mayor as well as his chief of staff, Dan Koh. Koh was a driving force behind the CityScore concept, which he said has already had a profound effect on the way we do business. In one example, the mayor noticed that EMS response times were lagging in the CityScore. Upon investigation, he learned that Boston had not upgraded its ambulance fleet to account for a growing population. Now, ten new ambulances are in the budget for the next fiscal year. This discussion also led to a partnership between the Citywide Analytics Team and Emergency Medical Services to conduct in-depth analysis of 911 dispatch data to identify trends, hotspots, and opportunities for targeted improvements. This kind of concrete action is exactly the intention of CityScore. Said Koh, At the end of the day, this is meaningless unless residents see a difference in how city services are delivered to them.CityScore sits on top of all of the citys other data efforts and will guide future priorities and projects. According to Dwelley, CityScore ties it all together  if we are being successful in all of our projects, we will be moving the needle on CityScore. Although departments will naturally work to improve performance on the metrics included in CityScore, Koh said that the culture still emphasizes creativity in problem-solving, but through quantitative as well as qualitative lenses. Departments are working on creative multivariable ways of measuring their performance, which will improve CityScore over time. In addition to sparking these new conversations about performance, CityScore is also leading to skill-building in departments; the Citywide Analytics Team is working to train department staff in Tableau and other data analysis and visualization software to be able to answer questions and explore data beyond CityScore.The launch of CityScore brought new attention to the metrics included in the dashboard and sparked a larger conversation about performance measurement. As a result, the city is currently embarking on a more comprehensive change to its performance management system. Chris Dwelley is leading this effort, which began with a comprehensive review of all 3500 measures tracked in the city. A process of extensive analysis and review with departments has narrowed these measures down to 350. Dwelley said, the idea is to have fewer measures but have them be much more reflective of the administrations and the departments priorities. He pointed to the utility and participation benefits of fewer, more targeted metrics. Streamlining and unifying the metrics used will ensure that the mayor, cabinet chiefs, department heads, employees, and residents are all looking at the same priority measurements. Said Franklin-Hodge, By choosing to hold ourselves accountable from the mayor on down, we are creating the correct managerial incentives to make the changes that improve quality of life.As part of their ongoing work with departments, members of the Citywide Analytics Team began spending time with dispatchers in the Boston Fire Department (BFD) in 2015 to understand their operational challenges and identify ways that data could be leveraged as a tool for the BFD. They worked together to define the business need for a new hazard data tool that would enable firefighters responding to an emergency call about a building to assess the situation and plan a response. The result: the Building Intelligence System, a web app that integrates seven city data sources to provide a streamlined view of individual buildings in Boston. Firefighters and dispatchers can now easily view permitting, inspection, code violation, and hazard data, allowing them to make better decisions and improve firefighter safety.Franklin-Hodge noted that two keys to the projects success were partnership with the department  to ensure the team was solving a core operational problem in a useful way  and the citywide vantage point that enabled the team to integrate data across departments. He described Building Intelligence as an example of a glue layer that sits across multiple departmental IT systems and allows them to be linked together.The tool was built in-house in about six months using Google Maps and the ArcGIS REST API. Because it uses the ubiquitous Google Maps, the interface requires little training for users to understand it. Building Intelligence integrates seven sources of data  permits, inspectional violations, assessing building characteristics, building plans, hydrant and firebox locations, and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) data, which includes asbestos, biohazards, and other information collected by BFD. In the process of integrating this data, the team discovered data-quality issues with some sources that lacked Street Address Management (SAM) identifiers, a system developed by the citys GIS team to ensure uniform address data throughout the city. They were able to correct this while preparing the data sources for Building Intelligence, leading to an increase in data quality and uniformity across departments.The beta desktop version of Building Intelligence launched in 2016. When someone calls 911 about a fire, dispatchers enter the address into the web app, which generates a map of hydrant and fire box locations with a side panel showing hazard information like building date, land use type, and floors. The dispatcher relays the relevant information to firefighters by radio, but future phases will make this tool directly accessible to firefighters in the field on tablet and mobile devices.Firefighters in Boston can now respond to emergencies with far more information, helping them to effectively and safely battle fires in the city. In the future, the Citywide Analytics Team hopes to expand the tool to other departments that need full access to building-level information for front-line employees, including building inspectors and police officers. The successful development and implementation of Building Intelligence demonstrates the value of the Citywide Analytics Teams approach of engaging departments in data projects to ensure that the resulting tools will be used throughout the enterprise and change core daily operations.In May of 2016, Mayor Walsh appointed Andrew Therriault as the citys first Chief Data Officer (CDO), a role with responsibilities including leading the Citywide Analytics Team. With his appointment, the citys separate GIS and data integration teams became part of the Citywide Analytics Team, which Therriault reorganized into verticals including performance management, open data, GIS, data science, and project development. The team is currently working to hire a group of Analytics Project Managers who will specialize in specific areas like public safety, education, and housing to develop closer relationships with the relevant departments and programs. These specialists will bring in the expertise of the performance management team and data scientists on specific projects and work with departments to improve their own internal data management and analysis capabilities. Therriault is emphasizing full-team meetings, collaborative projects, and cross-training as the team expands to develop a unified data team for Boston.Therriault hopes to build on the teams prior successes with more predictive work, particularly in preventable risk. He said, Whether its someone getting sick at a restaurant, or dropping out of school, or having a drug overdose, if we can identify problems before they blow up it is much easier to handle them. The team is already working with the Inspectional Services Department to prioritize restaurant inspections based on predictive modeling, which has increased the rate of inspectors finding critical violations by 20-25% over previous years. Another current priority area is street safety, part of Bostons Vision Zero commitment to reducing crashes. A Vision Zero map allows residents to add text descriptions to any point in the city with traffic safety concerns. With data science volunteer group Data for Democracy, the Citywide Analytics Team is working on a way to automatically read these unstructured text reports and combine them with other data about road conditions, traffic, and past accidents to build a model to predict crashes on city streets. The team also recently launched a new open data hub, Analyze Boston , part of the citys Open Data to Open Knowledge project with the Boston Public Library. The Analyze Boston site was designed to not only provide a repository for Bostons open datasets, but to also facilitate collaborations between the analytics team, other city departments, and members of the community.As the teams successes build, demand for its services has started to exceed capacity. To promote the continued growth of analytics in the city, the team is working to more deeply embed data skills throughout the organization and manage the evolution and sustainability of existing projects. Even as the team has grown and the scope of Bostons data work has expanded, they havent lost sight of how their work contributes to the core mission of the city. Franklin-Hodge said, What Im consistently struck by is that when you actually get to talking with people who come in every day to do a job  to issue building permits, to fight fires, to pick up trash off the street, to manage a team of office workers  all of these people bring with them a sense of mission to the work that they do. When you can structure conversations about data around helping them deliver that mission more effectively  delivering cleaner streets, delivering a safer city, delivering a more efficient and friendlier face for businesses that are trying to invest in the town that we all call home  thats the basis for implementing data-driven change.
(TNS) - A cluster of men and women in suits and uniforms stood outside the Caroline County, Va., Community Services Center staring up at the sky.They were tracking a white, buzzing object hovering 60 feet in the air.It was a DJI Phantom 4an unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a drone. Its the beginning of the Caroline County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management drone program.Fire and Rescue Chief Jason Loftus and Deputy Chief Mark Garnett presented an update on the drone program at the Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday. The department first approached the board about developing a drone program in August 2016.Stafford County also has a drone program in development.Garnett said Caroline plans to use the drone for post-storm damage assessment, incident situation awareness, search and rescue, hazardous material response and other activities.If we wanted to get observation of tree damage, thats very hard to do without the aerial perspective, he said. Or to survey damage on a structure, this aircraft can get over something thats large. Wed certainly use it for search and rescue where we can, everything from looking for Amber Alerts, Senior Alerts or children or to help quickly find stranded boaters.Garnett said the drone could jump-start response to a hazardous material spill by flying in to assess damage while the response team gets ready and it could help arson investigations by getting into fire-damaged buildings that might be impassable to humans.I think the more we use it, the more well find situations where it can be a valuable tool, Garnett said.The county purchased its Phantom 4 for $1,300, Garnett said. The aircraft has been registered with the Federal Aviation Administration and the county has applied for a Certification of Authorization/Waiver, which the FAA issues to a public operator for a specific drone activity.Loftus said his department has also spoken with Fort A.P. Hill aviation section to ensure they are aware of Carolines UAV program.The Phantom 4 weighs 3 pounds and can fly up to 45 miles per hour at a maximum height of 400 feet, although Garnett said it will usually fly at about 150 to 200 feet. It can fly within a 3.1-mile range of its operator. It is battery-operated and can fly for 28 minutes before it needs to be recharged, which takes about an hour.Its a good-sized drone for us to learn on, Loftus said.The aircraft comes with a camera that can take still photos and video. Loftus said he hopes to eventually purchase a camera with heat-seeking capability that can be used to locate a missing person, for example.Garnett is the only member of the department so far who is certified to fly the drone. He obtained a Part 107 pilot certification from the FAA after attending a week-long course provided by Piedmont Community College and hosted by the City of Richmond.He spent three days in the classroom learning about the FAA regulations covering UAVs and basic flight technique. Course attendees then practiced flying drones, first inside and then outside.It was a little scary because none of the aspects of the pilot training have been covered in my fire and rescue career, Garnett said. You learn things like aviation weather, different issues of airspace and all the regulations associated with them. It was interesting but it took some study.He said that Carolines drone will always be flown by a team of at least twothe pilot working the controls and an observer keeping an eye on the aircraft in the air.Legislation enacted this year by the General Assembly makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor to use UAVs to trespass upon the property of another for the purpose of secretly or furtively peeping, spying, or attempting to peep or spy. The Code of Virginia also prevents state or local agencies from using a drone without a search warrant, except in the cases of Amber or Senior alerts or for the purposes of traffic, damage, flood or wildfire assessment.There will be no routine surveillance that we are allowing our Caroline aircraft to be used for, Garnett said. Were very mindful of that. The equipment were using is certainly not what one would see on TV in a foreign country. These dont stay aloft for hours and hours or have cameras that zoom miles and miles. Were mindful and respectful of privacy policies.At Tuesdays meeting, Loftus said other county departments can contract with Caroline for drone services. Already, King George has asked to use the drone to survey damage from the late-April storm that struck the county.Were very excited to see what comes of this program, Garnett said.2017 The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.)Visit The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) at www.fredericksburg.com/flshomeDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS) - The global ransomware attack that infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries over the weekend spread to thousands of additional computers Monday, mainly in Asia, as workers logged in at the start of a new workweek.Meanwhile, intelligence officials and private security experts say that new digital clues point to North Korean-linked hackers as likely suspects in the sweeping attacks.The indicators are far from conclusive, the researchers warned, and it could be weeks, if not months, before investigators are confident enough in their findings to officially point the finger at Pyongyang's increasingly bold corps of digital hackers.While there have been no reports of major ransomware attacks in central Ohio, Columbus-based organizations are on the alert for the next attack.In Europe, where the cyberattack first emerged, officials said it appeared that a much-feared second wave  based on copycat variants of the original malicious software  had not yet materialized.The new disruptions were most apparent in Asia, where many workers had already left for the day Friday when the attack broke out.China alone reported disruptions at nearly 40,000 organizations, including about 4,000 academic institutions, figures that experts say are most likely to be low estimates, given the prevalence of pirated software there.In central Ohio, the member companies of the Columbus Collaboratory  American Electric Power, Battelle, Cardinal Health, Huntington Bancshares, L Brands, Nationwide and OhioHealth  jumped on the phone Saturday morning to share information on what they learned about this latest wave of attacks. The companies talked again Monday to discuss new developments.The Columbus Collaboratory was formed in February 2014 by the member companies to help analyze data and combat the latest cyber threats.Sharing such intelligence is a key defensive strategy to ensure a rapid response, said Jeff Schmidt, the Collaboratory's head of cybersecurity."All companies need to be aware of defensive strategies and not just utilize the bare necessities to meet regulatory standards," Schmidt said.In addition, the Collaboratory is mining through WikiLeaks and data dumps to prepare for whatever comes next.The ransomware attacks are the latest wave in computer crime, experts say."Ransomware is the ... next development  after 'Denial of Service' and data breach theft  to not only enter computers, but inflict psychological and financial loss at the same time," said Mark Skilton, a professor who researches cybersecurity at Warwick Business School in England."The risk and impact of cyber weapons can do the same or more harm than physical weapons," Skilton added. "It can indirectly kill patients, change traffic controls, alter car onboard steering systems, change election outcomes and more."Pictures posted on social media showed screens of National Health Service computers in England with images demanding payment of $300 worth of the online currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"But the attackers are hardly using cutting-edge technology, said Columbus-based online security expert C. Matthew Curtin, founder of Interhack Corp."There's nothing new here, really," Curtin said. "The attackers used exploits that target old systems that can't be patched."If (affected companies and organizations) have still got these (old programming) things in place, it's a failure to plan."The so-called ransomware continued to ripple through politics and markets Monday. Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed the United States, noting that the malicious software used in the attack was originally developed by the National Security Agency. It was then stolen and released by an elite hacking group known as the Shadow Brokers.The attack was so widespread across the world that Microsoft has called for a "digital Geneva convention of rights," and Skilton called for a worldwide "cyber police force" to help manage these escalating threats with the right level of specialist skills, and not just vendors sorting it out for themselves."But Curtin dismissed the idea of a global police force for cyberattacks as "an absurd and even stupid idea. ... Let's not forget that it's an NSA and CIA work product that made this accessible to the attackers."To effectively battle ransomware and similar threats, companies and organizations should work together in the same way that Columbus-based organizations do with the Collaboratory, Schmidt said."To compete effectively in this environment, companies must start innovating and collaborating as effectively as the bad guys," he said. "The bad guys are dumping more data to share new tools and resources to execute increasingly sophisticated attacks."President Donald Trump's homeland security adviser said Monday that the malware is "in the wild," but so far has not infiltrated U.S. government systems.Tom Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said three variants of the malware have been discovered, and the U.S. government was closely monitoring the situation with officials in Britain."Overall, the U.S. infection rate has been lower than many parts of the world, but we may still see significant impacts in additional networks as these malware attacks morph and change," Bossert told reporters at the White House. "We had a small number of affected parties in the U.S., including FedEx. As of today, no federal systems are affected."Information from The New York Times and The Associated Press was used in this story.tferan@dispatch.com@timferan2017 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)Visit The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) at www.dispatch.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A top official working on innovation initiatives for the state of California is stepping down.Louis Stewart, the deputy director for innovation and entrepreneurship in the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), announced on Twitter he's leaving the post for another position in Sacramento."After 7 yrs of #innovation based #EconDev for the State from within @CAGoBiz ... It is with great humility that I say it's been an honor," Stewart wrote.He hinted at where he's headed beginning May 15:In his role at GO-Biz, Stewart travels the state to evangelize the iHubs program in Californias tech economy as a whole. He often speaks with government leaders, industry and academia about what can be done to move the needle on innovation, particularly in communities outside of Silicon Valley.The iHub program is composed of more than a dozen clusters in California officially designated by the state. The program was started by GO-Biz with the goal of fostering partnerships, economic development and job creation around specific regional areas of expertise.
County sheriffs are, by the very nature of their position, political animals. They fight for re-election, back what they see as important legislation and give their stamps of approval to other candidates for public office. But seldom are they seen swimming in the deep and fast-moving waters of technology legislation.But this is exactly what's happening in Cook County, Ill., where Sheriff Tom Dart is behind a push to give state residents a fighting chance when it comes to the constant exchange of their personal data for profit.Many Internet-savvy individuals dont blink at the idea of having their data stored by a privately held companies. After all, it is listed in the terms and conditions that everyone reads, right? But when the word that the companies are selling that data to others filters out, they feel betrayed. Who is buying the data? What are they using it for? How do I know if my data was sold?As Dart sees it, these questions need to be answered, and if his legislation has its way, they will be.Bills in both the Senate (passed) and House (still in progress) would impose the requirement that companies notify their customers when personal information is sold or shared with anyone other than the initial recipient.While he isnt going as far as to say that companies shouldnt be allowed to continue the seemingly unending exchange of personal information, Dart toldthat he believes any company participating in data transactions should be held accountable to the people behind the information. He likens the purpose of his proposal to educating the public on crime prevention techniques.We are always notoriously a year or two behind the latest scheme, the latest criminal act," he said. "So my thinking was if we are never going to be able to be on the cutting edge of trying to go after crime in this area, we need to start narrowing the pool of victims."Under the terms of the Right to Know Act , the exchange of sensitive personal information such as age, race, location, etc., must be disclosed to the owner before it's handed along to a third party.From where Dart sits as a law enforcement professional, there is a slight bit of irony in the fact that to get any amount of data to pursue a crime, he has to jump through a host of legal hoops. And though he firmly believes those legal hoops exist for good reason, he said there is an argument to be made in holding private companies to some measurable level of scrutiny.Whereas those in the law enforcement space might make multiple pleas before a judge to get the permission needed to obtain phone records or access data on a personal computer, companies are left unchecked to monetize data as they see fit.Unsurprisingly, critics and lobbyists took the position that the legislation could stand up unnecessary roadblocks to a legitimate business practice, which Dart largely characterized as disingenuous attempts to keep data trade unencumbered.As I sat there and heard from so many of the different lobbying groups, the bottom line is that they dont want any type of inhibition put on them just being able to do what they want with information to monetize it," he said. "Any type of hurdle may cause problems in monetizing individuals information.As it stands, the Senate version of the legislation has passed and the House is working through its version. When all is said and done, Dart believes the reconciled result will be one that ultimately benefits the people of Illinois.When asked where he thinks Gov. Bruce Rauner will fall on the spectrum of support for the proposal, Dart said that remains to be seen.
Wrangling over coverage areas and big data, including how long private medical information would be preserved online, doomed the latest and one of the longest-lived iterations of Missouris statewide Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP).State lawmakers have debated enacting a PDMP for around 12 years, differing before over privacy as well and continuing to leave Missouri the only state without a statewide version.Key developments this spring  chiefly, a push among cities and counties to enact their own versions, and a break in statehouse opposition from longtime critic Sen. Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph)  gave this years measure serious legs.Schaaf had filibustered against Rep. Holly Rehders (R-Sikeston) bill in previous years and put forth his own version. But he agreed in April to end his opposition provided her bill, House Bill 90, enacting the Narcotics Control Act, was amended with a provision that physicians be required to use the online database it would create.This looked like HB 90s year, until it wasnt.Among its provisions, the bill would have kept all prescription information confidential and not subject to public disclosure, with specified exceptions; made unlawfully and knowingly accessing or disclosing private information  regardless of whether a person was authorized to handle such information  a Class E felony; and kept dispensation information from being used to deny anyone the right to get or own a firearm.But after Rehders bill cleared the House, the state Senate amended it to include a mandatory data purge every 180 days to preserve privacy; a six-year sunset; and restricted its application from all Schedule 2 through Schedule 4 drugs to only opioids and benzodiazepine drugs like Xanax.On Wednesday, May 10, the House rejected the idea of approving the amended version simply to have a starting point from which to work, Rehder said.The amendments were sticking points for the Missouri State Medical Association as well, according to Jeff Howell, its director of government relations.Concerned that if the statewide PDMP passed as amended, county PDMPs  now set to cover more than half the states population  would be taken over by the state and subject to its less-stringent regulations, the association withdrew its support on Thursday, May 11.Also lining up in opposition were the Missouri Pharmacy Association and St. Louis County, a major force behind county PDMPs. The county's director of communications toldthe agency would have no comment on the statewide PDMP effort.Lawmakers, whose legislative session ended at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, May 12, ran out of time to discuss the Senate-amended version of Rehders bill  and on the session's final day, its legs buckled under the weight of those amendments.The overarching position was, we didnt want to jeopardize county programs that were robust and patient-friendly. The county doesnt have a purge at all. Someone might lapse after three years or two years. A physician or subscriber would have been better able to see that, Howell said, noting that the prescriber mandate Schaaf called for was not the breaking point.County PDMPs cover Schedule 2 through Schedule 4 substances and don't come with a data purge, Howell pointed out.You dont want to pass something just to put it in your trophy case and say Hey, were not the last state any more. You can pass that if you want but its not going to be a good tool for doctors, he added.Rehder, some of whose family members have grappled with addiction, pronounced them very disappointed by the bills failure and said: Its definitely something a lot of people are counting on me for. She called the 180-day data purge hugely problematic, but held out hope the Legislature, which does not reconvene until 2018, might be recalled sooner into a special session.Minutes after the regular session ended, Gov. Eric Greitens hinted at that possibility, telling reporters "for these politicians, round 2 begins sooner than they think according to The Associated Press Rehder said shell likely wait until December before deciding whether to bring forward a version of her bill for the 2018 legislative session  a choice largely informed by how county PDMPs are performing. No fan of the state Senates amendments, Rehder said one option might be to present a new version of the Narcotics Control Act that is more similar to the original, rather than pursue one closer to the failed amended version.I think that if it looks like we might be able to continue with the statewide path, then Ill introduce a bill similar to what I introduced this year with the hope  that maybe theyll look at the fact that the county program is functioning and more robust without these precautions, Rehder said.St. Louis County, which spans more than 500 square miles and is home to around 1 million people, went live on April 25, with the first phase of its PDMP, with second and third phases scheduled to be approved by local legislation and go live on July 1 and Oct. 1, respectively.A total of 26 other county and municipal agencies have signed on as subscribers and enacted their own legislation and user agreements to join. Combined, these cover more than 3 million Missourians, Howell said, or more than half the states 2015 population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
To Get ID, You Need ID

Municipal IDs

Real ID

Sleuthing Expedition

Nearly three years ago, when his fiancee died, Robert Giddings was abruptly evicted from their Flint, Michigan, home. His name wasnt on the lease, so he had no recourse  and his landlord threw out all his things, including his ID.Terrified, he stumbled through the wintry streets for a day, until police picked him up for public intoxication. Giddings says he wasnt drunk, but blind from untreated cataracts.Giddings was placed in a shelter, but without ID, he couldnt get the medical care he needed  or even gain entrance to government buildings so he could apply for a replacement ID.It was pretty hard, Giddings, now 58, said. You cant go to the doctor. I couldnt cash any checks. I couldnt apply for food stamps.As Giddings learned, not having ID can make it virtually impossible to escape homelessness. It means being shut out of federal, state and county buildings, where social services agencies that help the homeless are often located. It makes it much harder to get a job, find a place to live, open a bank account, get food stamps and disability benefits  or in some instances, even stay at a homeless shelter. In some states, no ID means not being able to vote . And federal regulations enacted after Sept. 11, 2001, are making it even harder to get ID.A handful of cities and states are trying to combat this. In January, New Jersey began waiving fees to replace birth certificates, and in July it will allow the homeless to get a state ID card for free. California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and South Carolina already waive fees for the homeless to obtain IDs.And this year, lawmakers in Hawaii Texas and West Virginia have introduced legislation that would make it easier for homeless individuals to obtain identification , such as eliminating some of the required paperwork.Later this year, Chicago will roll out a pilot ID program targeted at helping homeless people and undocumented immigrants. Detroit introduced a similar program last year; Newark, New York City, Oakland and San Francisco also offer municipal IDs designed to help people who dont have the documents required to get a state ID. Such municipal IDs are open to all, but many recent programs came about as cities sought to help undocumented immigrants.Meanwhile, in Genesee County, Michigan, where Giddings lives, a task force was created this year to streamline the ID process for the homeless population. Three other counties in the state have similar task forces.When youre experiencing homelessness, you get used to being invisible. And now you dont even have a piece of ID that says who you are, said Brent Downs, a formerly homeless man who now serves on the board of directors of the Phoenix-based Homeless ID Project, a nonprofit that helps the homeless in the city get identification.To get an ID card, most states require multiple proofs of identity or permanent residence, such as utility bills, Social Security cards or birth certificates. Some states require proof of homelessness, such as a letter from a social services agency.And most states charge a fee to get an identification card  not to mention fees of as much as $50 for a copy of a birth certificate. But even with waived fees, getting an ID can be an arduous process entailing multiple visits to a state office.The problem is [homeless people] were being turned around so many times, said Debra Hayes, executive director of My Brothers Keeper of Genesee County Inc., the homeless mens shelter where Giddings now lives. They need this document or that document, and they give up. Thats what we dont want to have happen. When they give up on having an ID, they give up on the resources available to them.According to a survey by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty , in a given month in 2004, 54 percent of homeless people without photo ID were denied access to shelters or housing services, 53 percent were denied food stamps, and 45 percent were denied access to Medicaid or other medical services.Eric Tars, senior attorney for center, said states should stop charging for ID cards for everyone. Even in states that waive fees for the homeless, he said, state workers often dont know about the waiver or the waiver requires proof, forcing homeless people to go through an extra step. States and counties also should provide replacement birth certificates and other documentation for free and make it generally easier for people to verify their identity, he said.That way you dont create a circular feedback of You need the ID to get the ID,  Tars said.Last month, the Chicago City Council voted to create a municipal ID program for the undocumented and the homeless. The city has earmarked $1 million from the 2017 budget to get the program going.The city ID cards, promoted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, will grant people access to city services and cultural institutions. Cardholders will also be able to load the card with fare for public transit, said City Clerk Anna Valencia.Chicagos program is modeled after New Yorks idNYC program, which launched this year and lets people use expired state IDs, high school transcripts, and letters from a homeless shelter to verify their identity.Valencia said she met with a young homeless woman who described the hurdles she faced to get state ID, to access a local food pantry and qualify for the federal nutrition program, WIC, so she could feed her baby. After returning to the DMV multiple times, she was finally able to get ID with the help of a local nonprofit.The citys legal team is still working out what documentation will be required for the chronically homeless to obtain IDs, because most of them dont have access to even the most basic records, Valencia said.One option city officials are exploring is creating a mobile service that goes to homeless shelters and agencies so people can get an ID card the same day, without having to wait in line at the DMV.This will really help people access services right away until they are back on their feet, Valencia said.But getting an ID card is becoming more difficult, as states move to meet more stringent document requirements that are part of the federal Real ID program. The idea was to make it tougher for would-be terrorists to get a drivers license.So far, 25 states and Washington, D.C. , have begun using Real ID drivers licenses. Under the law, to get a state-issued drivers license or identification card, applicants have to provide photo ID , proof of their Social Security number and date of birth, and proof of a permanent residence.For each of those categories, only certain documents are acceptable, such as a lease, a W-2 form or a paystub. For low-income or homeless people whove lost their identifying documents, such requirements create an insurmountable barrier, said Danielle Moise, a staff attorney with Bread for the City, a D.C.-based nonprofit that is working to help the homeless get ID.Its making it much more difficult for people to get an ID in the city, even if theyve lived here all their lives, Moise said.If someone had an ID but lost it, it can be relatively simple to get a replacement. But sometimes, helping the homeless obtain ID requires a sleuthing expedition.The chronically homeless often have trouble remembering when or where they were born, said Downs of the Homeless ID Project. And in some states, to get a copy of a birth certificate, you need to know your parents birthplace, too, he said. (Most states allow you to apply for a duplicate by mail.)Youre trying to walk them back through their life, Downs said.At his shelter, My Brothers Keeper, which is not affiliated with President Obamas initiative of the same name, Giddings worked closely with Debra Hayes, his caseworker, who helped him track down the needed paperwork: his birth certificate in Norfolk, Virginia, his adoption papers, everything.She worked her butt off trying to get me ID, Giddings said.It took almost a year. Finally, ID in hand, Giddings was able to sign up for Medicaid, see a doctor about his eyes and schedule some much-needed eye-surgery.Now I can see, said Giddings, who is planning to move in soon with his new girlfriend.Identification helped me get a lot of things. I can go to any doctor. I can apply for food stamps. I can get money out of a bank.
As with many state CIOs, cybersecurity is a top priority for Mississippi CIO Craig Orgeron. But thanks to new legislation, he's got some backup when it comes to these efforts.On Jan. 16, HB 999  which sought to establish an Enterprise Security Program that would provide coordinated oversight of cybersecurity efforts across state agencies, and give the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services centralized management and coordination of state policies around IT and data security  was introduced by Rep. Scott DeLano, R-District 117, and co-sponsored by Reps. Gary Staples, R-District 88, and Kathy Sykes, D-District 70.Less than two months later, on March 10, Gov. Phil Bryant signed the bill into law."Now we have an enterprise security program in statute," Orgeron toldat the NASCIO Midyear conference held in Virginia last month. "We think it does two things: We think it sort of validates where we've been, but [it also] gives us a framework to partner with our agencies that are providing services to make the state more secure, so I'm really happy about that."Cybersecurity also was top of mind for Orgeron around this time last year  not just as far as doing a good job with it, but also determining where to take the state's cyberprogram as threats and the marketplace continue to evolve."Bigger than particular cyberissues, I think its a question of governance," he toldat the time. "The governance of your state could greatly impact cyber. Are you a consolidated state  what kind of authority do you have? I think we are looking at a lot of those things."HB 999 appears to be action on what Mississippi was contemplating early last year."Our Legislature provided great leadership to pass House Bill 999," Orgeron said.
Lewis Hamilton says he trains "just as much" as his F1 rivals.

The triple world champion's comments come after Barcelona, where although Hamilton won he was also heard on the radio apparently struggling physically with the demands of the faster 2017 cars.

"Physically, yeah, I probably lost two kilos in that race. It's draining," said the Mercedes driver, who said he goes without a drink in 2017 to reduce car weight.

"I was a little bit tired after that one."

Some might surmise that Hamilton struggled in Barcelona more than some other drivers due to his high-profile lifestyle, as he has less time to work out.

But he told Men's Health Australia: "I'm no less focused than any of my peers. They live a different life. They go home and are not pictured at events.

"I train just as much as them -- maybe more. But I do this other stuff. I have so much energy," he added.

(GMM)
Jenson Button is not ruling out a full-time return to formula one.

Last year, despite the F1 veteran inking a new two-year contract with McLaren, the Briton said the 2016 Abu Dhabi race would be his last in F1.

But he is making a one-off return in Monaco next weekend to replace Fernando Alonso, who is doing the Indy 500.

And now, the 37-year-old said he might come back full time in 2018.

"I can't rule it out," Button is quoted by the Sun.

"I have a contract with the team to race next year so I would definitely not rule anything out," he added. Alonso's contract runs out at the end of the year.

Button, however, said he would not actively push to do more races this year, as he went into 2017 planning to have "a break".

"I had so many options to race this year it is hilarious," he revealed.

"That even went into this year with two different teams asking me to race. I have no interest in doing that."

As for his chances in Monaco, Button was criticised recently for not doing the Bahrain test to prepare, and now admits: "I don't know what is going to happen.

"I don't know if I am going to jump in the car that it feels so different that I won't be competitive."

(GMM)
Recognition

He said since promotion in the service was based on membership, it must also reflect in the highest position of the service, stressing that given the significant role teachers played in transforming the society, they should be given appropriate recognition for the value of service they render.

My candid opinion is that the time has come for us to move beyond best teacher award scheme. Lets think of a scheme that would benefit more teachers than just a select few, he indicated.

The continuous appointment of persons outside the service to head the institution, he said, was not in the interest of the service because it would take the person some time to study the system well before he or she could perform, arguing that it is only the owner of a room that knows where it leaks.

He blamed the Ghana Education Service Council, which has the duty to nominate a candidate, and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) for failing to nominate people within the service for the Presidents consideration.

The conference

The delegates conference, which saw the election of a new executive to steer the affairs of GNAT in Akatsi, was under the theme: Transforming society through education: The role of teacher education and the teacher in attainment of agenda 2030.

The acting President of GNAT, Ms Philippa Larsen, stated that the world was changing at a very fast pace, therefore, as teachers, there was the need for them to change the way they did things knowing that we are the pivot around which transformation and development evolve.

GNAT, she said, has prioritised the professional development of its members through capacity building.

The Akatsi District Director of Education, Mr Joseph Yoga, bemoaned the increasing cases of male teachers having sexual affairs with their female students and cautioned them to desist from such acts, as the service would not hesitate to hand them over to the police when caught.
The agreement will help improve forest governance, address illegal logging and promote trade in verified legal timber products from Vietnam to the EU, and other markets.

The two sides will now undertake a legal review of the negotiated text which will then be followed by translation of the Agreement into the EU's official languages and Vietnamese. Before the agreement can enter into force, each Party will have to complete the procedure for signature and ratification of the Agreement in line with its internal procedures.

Photo for illustration

To implement the VPA, Vietnam will develop a timber legality assurance system to ensure that its exports of timber and timber products come from legal sources, including systems to verify that imported timber has been legally harvested and traded in accordance with the relevant legislation in the country of harvest. The Agreement also provides for the establishment of complaints mechanisms and independent evaluations, as well as commitments to involve stakeholders in its implementation and on disclosure of information.

A Joint Implementation Committee will oversee implementation of the Agreement. Pending its entry into force, the Parties have also agreed on key elements for Interim governance arrangements and other measures to prepare for implementation of the Agreement.

Once the VPA is fully implemented, Vietnams shipments of timber and timber products to the EU will have to be accompanied by a FLEGT licence, demonstrating their legality. Before the start of FLEGT licensing, there will be a period of implementation and assessment to verify that all the commitments outlined in the VPA have been fulfilled and that the system put in place meets the criteria to operational readiness as set out in a dedicated Annex to the agreement.

In addition to the variety of social, economic and environmental benefits associated with better management of the forestry sector in Vietnam, FLEGT licensing will simplify business for timber traders, as FLEGT-licensed products automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation, which prohibits the placing of illegal timber on the EU market.

Therefore, EU operators can place FLEGT-licensed timber on the EU market without being subject to the due diligence provisions of the EU Timber Regulation./.
Members of the club (Photo: baotintuc.vn) This is the first operational model of this kind to gather, connect and mobilize the intellectual power of Vietnamese scientists in Australia, with the common desire to contribute to the development of science and technology of Vietnam.

The club has more than 30 members, including professors, doctors, researchers and lecturers working at many universities, research institutes, enterprises, organizations and administrative agencies of Queensland state in various fields, such as nanotechnology, building engineering, energy, minerals, information technology, biotechnology, agricultural applications, education and healthcare.

Speaking at the ceremony, Counsellor in charge of Science and Technology of the Vietnamese Embassy in Australia, Dr. Tran Cong Yen introduced policies and incentives offered by the Government of Vietnam to foreign scientists, as well as urgent needs of science and technology in Vietnam.

He said that in the current national renewal process, the Party and the State have always paid much attention to investing in science and technology development, determining this as a top national policy and an important driving force for socio-economic development.

Therefore, Vietnam has been actively expanding and developing cooperative relations in general, and cooperation in science and technology in particular, in order to shorten the time for new technology research and application to serve industrialization and modernization.

Particularly, the Government has issued a decree regulating a number of policies on attracting overseas Vietnamese and foreign experts in the field of science and technology to joint activities in Vietnam.

In addition, the two countries have signed an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation.

Dr. Yen hoped that the establishment of the Club in Queensland would be the first model, and create similar units in other states in Australia to form a network connecting Vietnamese scientists in this country.

He believed that the operation of the club would not only help well implement the above mentioned policies, but also promote the bilateral cooperation development in science and technology, contributing to the comprehensive cooperation and friendship development between Vietnam and Australia.

At the event, scientists discussed ideas and operational methods of the club, measures to connect and directly participate in scientific and technological activities in Vietnam, assist in technology transfer for Vietnam, seek funding sources, implement common research themes, and support to train and foster young Vietnamese scientists.

They expressed their enthusiasm, concerns and desires to contribute and devote their efforts to develop the homeland, especially support to take students and young researchers in Vietnam to be trained in Australia; or search, transfer, research specific advanced application technologies in agriculture, healthcare and education.

Professor Nguyen Anh, working for the University of Queensland, Head of the Liaison Team of the club, said that the establishment of the club met the long-standing aspiration of Vietnamese scientists and researchers who live and work far away from the homeland, but always look towards their origins.

He hoped that through the club, Vietnamese scientists and researchers, not only in Queensland but throughout Australia, would have an opportunity to connect and collaborate to contribute to Vietnams scientific and technological development./.
Honda intends to develop Cooperative Intelligence: AI that cooperates with people which will 1) empower: expanding the potential of people; 2) share experience: accommodating and growing together with people; and 3) empathize: be capable of understanding and relating to the emotions of people.

Honda Research Institute (HRI), a Honda R&D subsidiary, and Boston University have agreed to begin joint research in the area of data security and privacy for artificial intelligence (AI) research.

In order to enable AI to cooperate with people, personal information about the users must be collected and analyzed. This information must be protected. Honda noted. To accelerate its research in the area of information security, Honda has chosen the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering of Boston University as one strategic partner for joint research collaboration.

To coordinate and structure the collaboration, an oversight committee has been established, consisting of the members of Boston University and Honda, including Dr. Azer Bestavros, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Department at Boston University and Founding Director of Boston University Hariri Institute for Computing, and Dr. Bernhard Sendhoff, Head of Global Operations of HRI and President of HRI Europe.

A first research project will investigate data privacy control using a technology called secure multi-party computation (MPC).

In a paper presented at the 2017 Theory and Practice of Multi-Party Computation Workshop (TPMPC17) this past April, Dr. Bestavros and his colleagues wrote that:

Secure multi-party computation (MPC) can possess substantial social value: it enables companies, government agencies, and other organizations to benefit from collective data aggregation and analysis in contexts where the raw data are encumbered by legal and corporate policy restrictions on data sharing. Theoretical constructs for MPC have been known for decades, and the past few years have seen several successful deployments of MPC along with the development of a number of software framework that aim to deliver MPCs benefits to end-users.

However, MPCs social benefits cannot be realized unless we design MPC systems whose security and functionality can be comprehended by the executives, directors, and legal advisors of participating organizations, and we automate the secure compilation of legacy applications that were developed in well-known programming paradigms.

Currently, personalized services have become common in our daily lives. These systems typically share personal data of users, often without their knowledge and control. Hondas goal is to create data security technologies that enable users to control which data can be shared with systems and which cannot. This project officially started on 1 May 2017.

Resources
China's Skyrizon and Ukraine's Motor Sich are planning to build a plant in Chongqing (the central part of China) at which they will produce and service aircraft engines under Ukrainian technologies, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv has said.

"The company plans to invest $250 million in upgrading the Ukrainian production and design facilities of Motor Sich," he wrote on his Facebook page following a visit to China.

PJSC Motor Sich is one of the world's largest manufacturers of aircraft engines, as well as industrial gas turbines. It delivers products to more than 100 countries.

In January-March 2017 the consolidated net profit of Motor Sich, in accordance with IFRS, amounted to UAH 1.457 billion, which is 4.8 times more than in the same period in 2016 (UAH 304.67 million), net income grew by 63.4%, to UAH 3.431 billion.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has urged Israeli businessmen to invest in the Ukrainian economy.

According to the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Groysman held a meeting with representatives of Israeli business during his official visit to Israel.

"We are very interested in investing in Ukraine. But I also do not need investments that will not be successful. We need successful investments," the prime minister said.

According to Groysman, Ukraine is working to improve the business environment and stimulate the inflow of investments: the UkraineInvest office to attract and support investments, the National Committee for Industrial Development and the Office for Exports Promotion have been created.

"Business representatives noted that during the past year they felt that the situation in Ukraine began changing for the better," the report says.

The premier said the government of Ukraine and he personally are ready to do everything to make investments in the country successful.
Firefighter Andy Marchi is quoted by Susan Ladd (Ideas, May 14) on the deportation of Marchis father Nestor, describing his treatment as inhumane.

He is correct. And Nestor Marchi is not the only immigrant being treated inhumanely by ICE, under the free license given by Donald Trump despite his promise to focus deportation efforts on criminals.

It is inhumane to rip a working father in Greensboro from his wife and minor children at 6 a.m. to send him to detention in Georgia.

It is inhumane to cause a young child to plead aloud tearfully that she just wants to see her dad again.

It is inhumane for a mother who has contributed for years to this community to hear her honor-student son say he hopes he never wakes up again if he and his mom face the possibility of detention and deportation.

It is inhumane for families to live in such constant terror that they stay home, avoid police and keep their children from school.

Should we just let them all in? No.

But we desperately need immigration reform that protects those who are here, law-abiding, working and embedded in families.

How can America hope to be great if America cannot treat people humanely?

Melanie Rodenbough

Greensboro
The House that failed to urge James Comeys firing when he served its ends stands, now, by President Trumps considered, if poorly executed, decision to fire the director of the FBI.

So why did he do it when and in the fashion he chose?

We should remember this president, as a candidate, believed he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose voters.

My sainted mother used the expression crazy, like a fox to describe someone who had an ulterior motive unrelated to the crazy behavior in view.

Mom would suggest that we look to what else was happening early last week: the health care bill no one read, the new trade negotiations with China. What else might be afoot?

Such research might prove difficult while Youre terminated commands media attention, leaving other stories hiding in plain sight as reporters chase down one thread after another.

I believe the Fourth Estate strives to bring us the facts. It appears reporters are often misled by clever folks adept at pushing their buttons.

We need to look beyond the front page and for those reporters who are watching more than TV and Twitter.

Charles Senf

Lenoir
The last legal word on North Carolinas voting restrictions stands. It was the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals 2016 ruling that found election changes were enacted with discriminatory intent.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it wont review the case. This is good news for democracy in North Carolina.

More worrisome was President Donald Trumps order last week to create an advisory commission on election integrity. Its real mission is to back up his unsubstantiated claim that 3 million or more fraudulent votes were cast against him in the 2016 election.

Trump won a majority of electoral votes Nov. 8, giving him the presidential victory. He lost the popular vote by 3 million  except he alleged that was the result of illegal voting. When asked to provide evidence, he promised to launch a study led by Vice President Mike Pence. Here it is.

His commission wasnt fully formed when Trump launched it Thursday. Only six members were named, although its supposed to have 16. The vice chairman is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is the defendant in lawsuits challenging election law changes implemented in that state and who met with Trump in November proposing new federal election laws.

So, while one of the panels goals is to consider new laws, its vice chairman already has an agenda. Its one that North Carolina residents know very well because voting changes enacted here in 2013 follow the same pattern: reducing early voting days, requiring photo ID, eliminating same-day registration, straight-party voting, out-of-precinct provisional voting and preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds. Some of these measures were blocked by last years court decision. Judges said they were meant to target African Americans with almost surgical precision because black voters disproportionately use these conveniences.

A recent study from Wisconsin, which adopted similar laws, showed voter turnout decreased by 3.3 percent last year, while turnout increased in states without restrictive voting laws.

Restrictions are implemented on the pretense that voter fraud is rampant. Thats Trumps story, and its meant to undermine faith in the integrity of our elections. This runaway fraud narrative isnt supported by evidence.

North Carolinas intensive, months-long audit of the 2016 election, conducted by a Republican-led State Board of Elections, did find that about 500 fraudulent votes were cast. Most of those illegal voters were felons whose rights had not yet been restored. There were only two instances of voter impersonation, one by mail-in absentee ballot and one by in-person voting  which could have been detected with a photo ID requirement. One case.

North Carolina legislative leaders reacted to the Supreme Courts decision Monday by vowing to enact a new photo ID requirement. They said they will continue fighting to protect the integrity of our elections.

We have honest elections now. Some politicians want to erode public confidence to justify more voting restrictions. Its good that, legally, they dont have the last word.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has expanded the list of special economic sanctions to include a number of well-known IT companies and their Ukrainian affiliates, including Firma 1C, Parus, Softline Group, Galatiki Center and others.

According to Decree No. 133 signed May 15, 2017, which is based on the related decision of Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council on April 28, software companies LLC ABBYY and LLC ABBYY Ukraine Ltd have been added to the list.

The sanctions also impact limited liabily companies Intalev Ukraine (Kyiv), Documents Management (Moscow), System Integrator APO NVision Group, LLC Masterdata and JSC Ascon.

Pursuant to the decree, which will be in force for three years, the sanctions include blocking assets, temporary restrictions on the right of persons to use and distribute property, trading limitations, prevention of capital withdrawal from Ukraine, economic and financial obligation stoppages, limiting or stopping providing telecommunications services and using public telecommunications networks.

In addition, the sanctions prohibit the purchase of goods, work and services from the listed firms, suspension of permits issued to same, licenses to import to or export from Ukraine hard currency assets and limitations on card payments, a ban on technology transfer and on rights to intellectual property.

As earlier reported, Firma 1C software has dominated the market for use by small and medium-sized businesses. Firms which import 1C software deny active contacts with the Russian company and say the software has been localized. Similar statements have been made by Parus company representatives about IT systems, which are popular in Ukraine's government and commercial sector.
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The secret to a successful career is to ask for what you want, Greenwich resident Jill Granoff told attendees at Moffly Medias Women in Business conference Tuesday.

Granoffs professional background includes executive positions at Vince, Kellwood Company, Kenneth Cole Productions, Liz Claiborne and Victorias Secret Beauty. From those experiences, shes realized the power of asking for the positions and responsibility she wants, Granoff, the events keynote speaker, told a packed room at The Greenwich Country Club.

Its important to understand how I achieved those career milestones, Granoff said. I found success because I asked for what I wanted.

Hundreds of business women from around the region attended Mofflys annual conference, which included a full day of networking, educational panels and awards for female business leaders in the area.

We launched this event pre-recession, inspired by other regional magazines who hosted similar ones, Moffly Media President Jonathan Moffly said in an interview. Our role is to make the community better, and so many of our customers are women, so we asked ourselves, What could we do for them?

The format of the conference has changed over the years, Moffly said, and the last couple have included more educational workshop options. We want this to be a place for inspiration, education and connections on a foundation of fun, he said.

The workshops covered topics such as how to build a professional work wardrobe by the Creative Director of Hobbs London, which recently opened its United States flagship in Greenwich, advice for negotiating deals and tips for personalizing childrens education.

Granoff capped off the conference with her advice for women to ask for what they want in the workplace. I hate to generalize, but women are less likely to do this, she said. You need to be true to yourself about what youre good at, what makes you happy and what you want to do then muster the courage and go after it. The key is to learn how to ask.

Citing examples of how she obtained several of her executive positions, Granoff shared her tips for how to ask. When youre asking for what you want, you have to demonstrate with concrete examples why you can do it, she said.

Additionally, Granoff advised business women to view themselves as a brand when considering vying for a promotion. You have to create your elevator speech about what sets you apart in a competitive way, she said.

Granoff listed success factors that have guided her career achievements. Spend your time on things that move the needle, she said. This has been really helpful for me. She also emphasized the importance of choosing to maintain a positive attitude, focusing on solutions instead of problems and taking calculated risks.

Wrapping up the afternoon was Mofflys awards for the top corporate leader, entrepreneur of the year and womens business advocate, which went to Northeast Medical Groups president and CEO Prathibha Varkey, Greenwich-based Green & Tonic founder and owner Cai Pandolfino and Brigitte King who leads LOreal Luxe as its deputy general manager of strategy and acquisitions, respectively.

Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.com
GREENWICH  As part of an on-going campaign to limit the scope of a proposed electrical substation, First Selectman Peter Tesei is taking his case directly to the decision makers.

Tesei plans to attend the May 25 meeting of the Connecticut Siting Council, which has the ultimate authority over plans by Eversource Energy to put a substation in Greenwich it says is needed to provide enough electricity to the area especially during hot months, when electric use peaks.

His planned appearance follows formal letters of opposition sent out by both Town Director of Zoning Katie DeLuca and town Commissioner of Public Works Amy Siebert.

What town officials object to is a plan to build a substation at 290 Railroad Ave. and use an overhead transmission line between Interstate 95 and the Metro North Railroad tracks.

Eversource had proposed putting a substation at the address in 2016 to connect Central Greenwich to Cos Cob that was highly criticized by residents and town officials. The Siting Council denied Eversources application that year. The utility sent the Siting Council an amended plan with two options, asking the state agency to choose between them.

The hybrid option, as Eversource describes it, would cost the utility about $80 million.

Another option  one town officials prefer  puts the utilitys equipment underground, from 281 Railroad Ave. to Cos Cob with feeder lines sent underneath Bruce Park using roadways already cutting through the property.

That project would limit excavation and prohibit tree and vegetation removal. It comes with a $100 million price tag.

We have been working closely with town leaders over the last 11 months to develop a more acceptable alternative, said Frank Poirot, spokesman for Eversource. We have two viable options and are supportive of whichever plan the Siting Council approves. Both options address the critical need for improvements to the electric system in Greenwich, which is the ultimate goal.

Among the towns objection to the above ground option is that construction could have an impact on one of Greenwichs main sewer lines. The line carries wastewater from the major pump stations in Old Greenwich, Cos Cob and Chapel Lane on its way to Grass Island.

Siebert said the line serves close to half of the towns sewers and averages close to four million gallons per day.

In her letter to Kenneth Bowes, Eversources vice president of energy delivery services, Siebert noted the town remains under a 2011 federal Environmental Protection Agency consent decree after a 2008 failure in the sewer line resulted in untreated wastewater discharged into Long Island Sound.

The town has the responsibility to protect the line and prevent future failures, she said  which includes eliminating or at least minimizing utility conflicts as much as possible.

Tesei cited the consent decree last week while discussing the matter at the Board of Selectmen meeting.

This not just a question of being (not in my back yard), Tesei said last week. This is about truly ensuring the environmental integrity of our towns wastewater treatment system.

Of special concern is how town employees would access the sewer in case of an emergency if the poles and lines followed the underground line, she said.

Eversources proposal to place transmission in the (sewer main) corridor is neither a sustainable nor a feasible solution and it should be explained as such to the Connecticut Siting Council, Siebert wrote in her letter.

While force main lines are designed to be robust, pipes can fail for a variety of reasons, she wrote. When a force main fails, thousands of gallons of wastewater come out, under pressure, quickly. This has a potential to create a major hole and if not channeled quickly to an appropriate discharge location, it can threaten surrounding infrastructure.

Poirot said both options would avoid where the sewer main is located.

We are confident a solution can be reached through the siting process because we all agree that Greenwich needs a substation to reliably meet the electric need of all customers in town, Poirot said. We have made a good faith effort to work with the town on developing a solution to meet the needs of our customers.

Poirot said cost was a concern.

We take our obligation to provide reliable cost-effective service very seriously, Poirot said. Since the cost of any solution will be shared among all customers in the state, the cost of the solution must be prudent and fair for all customers. In the end, we will build whatever option the Siting Council approves.

Other town officials and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Greenwich resident, have also objected to the hybrid option.

Blumenthal also sent a letter to Bowes, urging the utility to work with the town around its preferred option even though it comes in at a higher cost.

Eversource should compare how the proposals currently impact all aspects of the project, including cost, environmental impact, public safety, threats to reliability by outside factors, potential for cost overruns and operation and maintenance of the rail line and find the solution that is acceptable to the town and meets those concerns, Blumenthal wrote.

I appreciate Eversource working with the town in a cooperative manner, but that effort would be wasted if there isnt a collaborative solution on which both parties agree, he wrote.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
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The sand, the surf, the sound of crashing wavesall available 24/7, right outside your door. Beach homes are the stuff of sun lovers dreams. Heck, even if you prefer the shade, a beach home can sound quite dreamy.

But all too often, people get swept away by the idea of owning oceanside property, then find out that owning one is no walk in the  sand.

For all the bliss, beachfront property comes with some potential problems that are wildly different from those of inland properties. Whether youre planning to live in your beach home full time or youre buying one as an investment property, there are some things you should know before you dive in.

1. Not sticking to a budget

Oftentimes buyers get caught up in the glitz and glam of living on the beach, overextending their

More Information This article, Don't Get Burned: 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Beach Home, appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice from realtor.com. See More Collapse

lines of credit and purchasing more house than they can actually afford, says Evan Harris, co-founder and CEO of SD Equity Partners, in San Diego.

Its not just the cost of the mortgage you have to consider, either. There are also the inevitable repairs and renovations that can come with owning any home, and particularly an oceanside property.

Beach town properties are exposed to a constant bombardment of the elements, such as salty sea air and hurricane-force winds that properties in the mainland are not required to withstand, Harris says.

He suggests that buyers look ahead and prepare financial outlooks for years 1, 5, and 10 of owning the property.

2. Counting on rental income to offset your costs

People often mortgage their primary residence to finance a beach home, assuming that renting out the latter will cover the mortgage payments, says Kay Walten, CEO/owner of Loco Gringo, a Houston-based company that specializes in real estate in Mexicos Riviera Maya.

But those assumptions can land you in hot water. From hurricanes to dips in the economy and other unforeseen circumstances that affect the flow of renters, you cant count on that income.

We see people look at their dream place on the sand  and theyre confident they can keep it full only to realize they cant, leaving them short on funds when it comes time to make the mortgage payment, Walten says.

Plus, dont forget that any rental income you do have will be slashed by the cost of upkeep: electricity, water, garbage, taxes, local licenses to rent (required in some cases), property management fees, and maintenance.

All of these items take dollars out of anyones nightly rental fee, Walten says.

3. Forgetting about the neighbors

Its easy to fall in love with beautiful beach vistas and forget about everything else, says Konnie Warburton, a real estate agent with Sereno Group in Santa Cruz, CA.

Before you buy, make sure you look beyond the stunning views and gorgeous houseas with any other home purchase, you should look into who your neighbors are and the zoning laws. Be sure to do your homework on the community. Is it a spring breakers paradise? A sleepy town for retirees? Will your kids have anyone to play with?

Take, for example, a couple Warburton recently helped to buy a beach home for their retirement. They were looking forward to meeting like-minded, beach-loving homeowners in a cohesive neighborhood. Instead, theyre one of only three permanent residents in their five-street enclave. At certain times of the year, their neighborhood is overrun by vacation renters; at other times, its deserted.

Buyers need to research public records carefully, Warburton says. Also, finding out the culture of the beach location is so important.

4. Not using a compass

We all know location is one of the most important aspects to consider when buying a home. And buying on the beach is kind of the ultimate location, isnt it? But having a fabulous oceanside home doesnt mean you have it made in the shade.

When youre buying a coastal property, you also need to become something of a meteorologist. You need to know which way the wind blows. You need to know which way your home faces. And you need to know if your west-facing home is more prone to storm damage than a south-facing home.

Kathryn Bishop, a real estate agent with Keller Williams in Studio City, CA, relates the story of her friends from Detroit, who moved west and bought a condo in Malibu, CA, with a gorgeous view of the water, perfect for viewing sunsetsor so they thought.

When the moving truck arrived, the first things unloaded was the outdoor furniture, which my friends quickly set up on the balcony, opened a good bottle of wine, and waited for their first view of the sunset, Bishop recalls. Then they found out that their condo did not face west, and they would never see a sunset from their balcony. Everyone assumes that the Pacific coast in Malibu faces west  not true.

5. Skipping out on the proper insurance

The No. 1 mistake people make when buying a beach home is using it as a short-term vacation rental without the proper insurance, says Hans Tonjes, a broker with Living Room Realty, in Manzanita, OR.

In his market on the Oregon coast, about 25% of the homes have some kind of rental activity going on at least part of the year, and most homeowners insurance doesnt cover that, Tonjes says. Its very important to speak with your agent about how youre using the property so that any losses are covered, he says

And, of course, theres disaster insurance. You already know youre going to pay a pretty penny on your homeowners insurance premiums. But depending on where you live, you might need to purchase homeowners insurance with supplemental hurricane coverage. And dont forget about separate windstorm and flood policies. We knowits going to strain your wallet in a big way, especially with skyrocketing flood insurance premiums. But youll consider it money well-spent when disaster strikes.

6. Not using a coastal home inspector

We hope youre using a local, licensed home inspector, or one who comes recommended by your real estate agent. But maybe you want to do a friend a solid, or youre inclined to tap the inspector you worked with when you bought your first home.

Unless that inspector is an expert in coastal properties, resist the temptation. Otherwise, you could be setting yourself up for big problems down the road.

"Beach homes are subject to a very corrosive environment that presents unique issues," Tonjes says. "An inspector from the city or out of the area might not necessarily be looking for these issues."

For example, a coastal environment can completely break down galvanized joist hangers in decks and flashing on buildings, Tonjes says.

"A coat of paint can hide some of these liabilities, but a coastal inspector is going to be searching for the unseen but likely issues our salt air and wind-driven water and sand can present," he says.

This isn't to throw a wet blanket on your beach dreams. But the more prepared you are before diving in, the sweeter the sound of those waves will be.
Ukraine has imposed sanctions against state-owned Crimea-based agricultural companies and vineyards in line with decree No. 133 dated May 15 signed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

According to a supplement to the decree, state companies that have re-registered under Russian law are subject to sanctions, including: Sevastopol Winery, the Crimean Agricultural Institute and its research fields, Magarach, the Sevastopol Geodesy Center, the Crimean Board of Geodesy, Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, Crimean Fish Farm, Pervomaisky Winery, Peredgorye State Farm, Agropromkombinat Vinogradny, Priberezhnaya Argo-industrial Firm, Novy Svet, Massandra, Livadiya, Tavrida, Gurzuf, Morskoye, Sudak, Malorechenskoye, Alushta and others.

Sanctions have been imposed for one year for the companies listed and involve the freezing of assets, a temporary restriction of the right to use property, restriction of trading operations, prohibition of moving capital outside of Ukraine, suspension of fulfillment of economic and financial obligations, annulment or suspension of licenses and other authorizations, a ban on state purchase of goods, labor and services from companies that are residents of a foreign state.

The sanctions will not affect Massandra financially or economically as the company has not been supplying wine to Ukraine for more than three years, its general director Yanina Pavlenko told reporters.

"We've been on the European Union's sanctions list for three years, yet we've been participating in all kinds of contests and exhibitions. We've been on the U.S. personal list for 18 months and today we're finally on the Ukrainian list. We marked this by launching production of the first champagne under the Massandra trademark," she said.

"We don't supply [Ukraine] and haven't done for three years, but we do supply wine to the [self-proclaimed] Donetsk and Luhansk republics," Pavlenko said.

Massandra, Crimea's biggest winemaker, has eight wine estates and owns 11,000 hectares of land, about 4,000 hectares of which are planted with vineyards. Crimea's Council of Ministers transferred Massandra to the Russian president's business affairs department in the fall of 2014.
Perfect for waking and baking.

To celebrate 4/20 last month, New Jersey narcotics agents least favorite restaurateur, Ed NJ Weedman Forchion, changed the name of his pot-themed cafe in downtown Trenton to Weedbukx. For the rebrand, the inside of the old spot, which was previously called NJ Weedmans Joint, was made to look more like a marijuana grow room, and the window got a new logo  a pretty massive drawing of Forchion as a siren smoking weed inside of a green circle.

Plenty of people probably thought it looked like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Starbuckss legal counsel at least sure did, which is why the chain sent Forchion and his partner Debi Madaio a cease-and-desist, telling them the name and logo had to go. As it happens, Forchion is now in jail  police arrested him last month in a raid he streamed on Facebook Live  so Madaio handles the day-to-day operations at Weedbukx by herself. She posted the letter from Starbuckss headquarters yesterday on Facebook:

I just wish Ed was home so could have enjoyed this .......His publicity stunt that he had always wanted to do from his Cali days .....#njcantget12 #FREENJWEEDMAN Posted by Edward Forchion on Monday, May 15, 2017

We recently received reports that one of your properties displays  signage identifying your establishment as Weedbukx, it reads, before adding: We trust that you will take care of having this problematic signage removed. Underneath, Madaio writes, I just wish Ed was home so could have enjoyed this. She explains it was a publicity stunt hed wanted to do for years, back since his time living in California. It took Starbucks several days to threaten legal action, which is impressive, given people like Snoop Dogg were promoting it, so Madaio feels they got their moneys worth. The restaurant has already taken the logo down, though  or rather, she says, [W]e moved it inside.
McNallys vision of New York is the city everyone seems to want. Photo: Gavin Thomas

Keith McNally had very little left to prove when he opened Schillers, on the corner of Rivington and Ludlow, in 2003. Hed already shown an oracles feel for the turning point of gritty downtown neighborhoods with the openings of the Odeon (Tribeca, 1980), Lucky Strike (Soho, 1989), Balthazar (Soho, again, 1997), and Pastis (Meatpacking District, 1999). Perhaps oracle is the wrong word, though: He didnt so much see the future of those neighborhoods as he did push them into hyperdrive, creating a shorter path between a block in transition to its inevitable appearance in guide books, everything lined in battered-white subway tile and tarnished mirrors. Even in 2003, McNallys touch was legendary.

Of course, as the story goes, McNally did have something to prove. Steve Wynn had come along and asked him to open a Balthazar in Las Vegas, an even glitzier version of the Soho celebrity magnet, and he reacted to the idea with such revulsion that he decided to do the opposite. Schillers would, for once, be more bar than restaurant. McNallys Francophilic instincts would still make appearances  the steak-frites, the onion soup  but this would be an homage to his working-class British roots, not a strivers leap away from them.

You know the rest of the story, and you probably also know by now that Schillers is closing, in August, when its lease runs out. Its probably time. Schillers is no longer the best bar or restaurant on the Lower East Side, and it hasnt been for years. The city will go on. But during its heyday, it pulled off something quite rare: It was accessible across income lines, an entry point into McNally Land  the same thing those Vegas investors were drooling over  designed expressly for walk-ins and neighbors.

When I first visited Schillers, the streets around it had already been fully gentrified, and the bar attracted a healthy evening crowd that was a mixture of locals and models and slumming uptowners. I was 22 and had just moved to New York, for an internship at New York Magazine. I would cut out of the office with another intern, Amber, at 6:15 and rush over to Schillers before happy hour ended at 7. At that point, and for another year or so afterward, the happy-hour special included $4 appetizers and half-priced drinks (that put their Manhattan, made Jerry Thomasstyle, with Grand Marnier, at $5.50). Can you imagine? We made peanuts, but could eat well and drink serious cocktails, like real adults, for less than 20 bucks.

Over time, Amber and I became regulars there, and our bill rounded down, regardless of what we ordered, to around $11. I was working two jobs, seven days a week, so this nod from the bartenders struck me as just about the kindest thing in the world. I now recognize it as the McNally special, an obsession with making regulars feel like regulars (and, yes, making itinerant celebrities also feel like regulars), regardless of the impact on the bottom line. One Saturday night, in 2010, I showed up with my father, who was visiting, and a few friends. The restaurant was packed to the brim, but Dean, the host (who now owns Jacks Wife Freda), pulled a table out from the back and wedged it into the center of the room for us, seating us immediately and plying us with drinks. I probably still owe Dean a kidney or something for helping me impress my dad that spectacularly.

That was what Schillers was to me. But it was a lot of things to a lot of people (and most of the appeal had nothing to do with the food, which tended to vary in quality). To late-night party kids, it was a place to find sustenance without having to go home. For locals who made it there during happy hour, it was a great, cheap place to grab a drink before heading elsewhere. For people who loved steak-frites while hating the Soho hordes and the Meatpackings B&T scene, Schillers was, well, a very good place to get steak-frites. For about six, maybe seven, years after it opened, it kept all those plates spinning at once, seemingly out of necessity, as if the split personality was also the only thing keeping the place together. But thats not the case anymore. If youre in the area and you want a good cocktail, youve got Bar Goto, or Attaboy. If you want those cocktails viewed through the prism of a working-class Brit theme, youve got Suffolk Arms. If you want nightlife, youve got Bushwick. And if you just want a bar steak or French onion soup, well, the New York McNally empire still runs restaurants all over downtown.

That Schillers is now a victim of the transformation it helped enact is not rare in New York. Frankly, its not even rare for Keith McNallys restaurants. And yet, Schillers impermanence may just become the most important thing about it: For 14 years, on a corner of the Lower East Side, Keith McNally had a very charming place to eat and drink. A lot of people loved it, and now it will close because the rent got too high, which feels like a fittingly understated ending for this no-frills bar.
Introduction

Just when we thought HTC was through with this generation's flagship announcement in the form of the U Ultra, the Taiwanese manufacturer decided it would squeeze one more release in. But before we get to explain the terrible pun we just made, let us introduce the HTC U11 - the company's true 2017 flagship offer.

Yes, it seems HTC is far from done with its new "liquid design" concept. In fact, it is now clear that the U Play and U Ultra were merely international ambassadors to the company's new style. According to HTC, we have at least three of four evolutions of it to look forward to, all presumably under the "U" moniker.

HTC U11 at a glance

Body: Glass back with a "liquid surface", IP67 waterproofing.

Glass back with a "liquid surface", IP67 waterproofing. Screen: 5.5" Super LCD5 with 1,440 x 2,560px resolution and Gorilla Glass 5.

5.5" Super LCD5 with 1,440 x 2,560px resolution and Gorilla Glass 5. Chipset: 2.45GHz Snapdragon 835 running Android 7.1 Nougat with HTC Sense and Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa (where supported).

2.45GHz Snapdragon 835 running Android 7.1 Nougat with HTC Sense and Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa (where supported). Camera: 12MP UltraPixel 3, UltraSpeed Autofocus, f/1.7, OIS, DualLED flash, RAW capture.

12MP UltraPixel 3, UltraSpeed Autofocus, f/1.7, OIS, DualLED flash, RAW capture. Video: 4K video recording with 3D Audio, Hi-Res audio, Acoustic Focus ; 1080p @ 120fps slow-mo.

4K video recording with 3D Audio, Hi-Res audio, Acoustic Focus ; 1080p @ 120fps slow-mo. Selfie: 16MP with Live Make-up; 1080p video recording

16MP with Live Make-up; 1080p video recording Memory: 4GB RAM (64GB version) and 6GB RAM (128GB version), microSD slot.

4GB RAM (64GB version) and 6GB RAM (128GB version), microSD slot. Connectivity: 1Gbps LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, Optional DualSIm model, USB-C port with USB 3.1 and DisplayPort support, no 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, GPS, GLONASSS, Beidou support.

1Gbps LTE, VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, Optional DualSIm model, USB-C port with USB 3.1 and DisplayPort support, no 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, GPS, GLONASSS, Beidou support. Battery: 3,000mAh, QuickCharge 3.0.

3,000mAh, QuickCharge 3.0. Audio: Active Noise Cancellation with supplied headphones, BoomSound stereo speakers, 3D Audio recording with 4 mics, High-res audio support.

Active Noise Cancellation with supplied headphones, BoomSound stereo speakers, 3D Audio recording with 4 mics, High-res audio support. Sensors: Edge squeeze sensor, fingerprint sensor.

But, without getting ahead of ourselves, let us first meet the new U11 flagship offer. The one intended to pick up where the HTC 10 left off, albeit with a few important twists on style and functionality.

Update 1: Camera samples added

Update 2: Benchmark results added
Nokia 3310 (2017) arriving in India on May 18 for less than $50

The Nokia 3310 (2017) is coming to make feature phones great again. HMD unveiled the device in February, and finally, the market release is near. The device will be released in India on Thursday for the price of INR3,310 or around $46.

The phone will be sold in India in all four colors - Warm Red and Bright Yellow with a gloss finish on the back, and Dark Blue and Grey with a matte back. It will be distributed in offline stores only.

Since the Nokia 3310 (2017) is made in India, its price is lower than in Europe. The feature phone appeared on a German retailers website Saturn.de for 59.95 or about 30% more expensive than in India.

According to previous info, Nokia 3310 (2017) will arrive in the UK on May 24, Germany on May 26 and other EU countries at the beginning of June.

Via
The Samsung Galaxy S8, which launched on April 21, has hit the 5 million global sales milestone. This was revealed by the South Korean tech giant today.

"Although we cannot provide detailed figures, the sales are going smoothly around the globe," a company official said. "The combined sales already are beyond 5 million units."

While the flagship is already available in several key markets around the globe, the company has confirmed that the number will grow to 120 by the end of May. The firm explicitly confirmed that China will also get the phone this month.

Source | Via
Investigators of Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) have not established facts proving the involvement of MP and leader of Opposition Bloc Yuriy Boiko in a scam to buy self-elevating floating drilling rigs for extraction of oil and gas on the Black Sea shelf at the high price. The lawmaker was not notified of being suspected of the fraud.

"Investigators have not established facts that Boiko signed documents (orders, letters, protocols and other documents) related to procurement of self-elevating floating drilling rigs. Witnesses did not say that he personally was involved in the rig procurement scam. Investigators have not received direct evidence of it and the draft notification was not drawn up," Head of the special investigation department of PGO Serhiy Horbatiuk said in a reporting notice in response to the request of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko published on Tuesday.

As reported, in 2011-2012 the opposition accused former energy and coal industry minister Yuriy Boiko of corruption when the rigs were bought.

In May 2011 mass media reported that Chornomornaftogaz via an intermediary bought the Petro Hodovanets drilling rig for $400 million, while the producer from Singapore sold it at the price of around $250 million.
Samsung Pay arrives in the UK, but only with three banks for now

After a long wait, Samsung Pay finally sets foot in the UK. The Korean company enabled the option after prolonged works with Visa and Mastercard and now customers of MBNA, Nationwide and Santander can take advantage of the service.

If Samsung Pay is not on your device, you can download it from Google Play. Then you just add your card, set up the security and confirm. Then your Samsung phone will work like a contactless payment card thanks to the NFC chip underneath the back panel.

The Samsung devices that currently support Samsung Pay are Galaxy S6/S6 edge/S6 edge+, the Galaxy S7/S7 edge, and the Galaxy S8/S8+. In the mid-range camp the new Galaxy A3 (2017) and the Galaxy A5 (2017) will support the payment method. Companies like American Express, HSBC, and M&S Bank are also expected to make the service available for their customers shortly.

Via




Haiti - Politics : The Mayor of Port-de-Paix on tour in the USA





Josue Josue Alusma, the mayor of the town of Port-de-Paix, has been in Florida for a few days as part of a tour aimed to sensitize the Haitian diaspora originating from his commune, to the major problems that constitute a handicap to the development of the city.



During his interventions, he stressed the involvement of his compatriots in the development process of Port-de-Paix, by bringing their experiences and expertise in key sectors such as sanitation and urbanization.



In addition, this Tuesday, May 16, Mayor Alusma will be in New York to attend a meeting with a group of American businessmen, about the potential of the Northwest department and particularly Port-de-Paix because of its key geographic location.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Agriculture : FAO, Belgian cooperation and the Ministry alongside fishermen from the Great South





The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Belgian Development Cooperation, which are particularly sensitive to the situation of fishermen and fish traders who ended up without livelihood after the passage of Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, decided in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, to help households living mainly on maritime resources in the Great South through the Project "Protection, Rehabilitation and Diversification of the Livelihoods of the People Affected by Hurricane Matthew"



he project, targeting 2,500 fishermen and women fish traders in 21 coastal communities in the South, began operations to distribute fishing gear to Saint Jean du Sud, one of the communes on the South Coast severely affected.



Jean Riviere Bartole, Director General of the Town Council of Saint Jean du Sud, thanked the Ministry of Agriculture and its partners for their assistance to the fishermen's groups of this commune. Jean Ernso Roger, Director of the Agricultural Bureau of the Commune (BAC) of Saint Jean du Sud welcomed this support and assured that his Office was willing to follow up this initiative in order to guarantee optimal management of the given materials " I would like to draw the attention of all fishermen who are present here that these materials should be used for collective purposes for the sustainable improvement of the situation of the whole fishing community. I invite them to make a rational management of these fishing equipments. The BAC will ensure thh follow up and accompany the groups of fishermen with a view to the development of the fishing industry in the commune."



Maria Rey de Arce, Project Coordinator for FAO, pointed out that this initiative targets the most vulnerable fishermen in the affected communes "Within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between the FAO and the organization 'Artisanal Fisheries and Integrated Development' (PADI), a technical assistance will be given to fishers for the proper use of the materials we are distributing, including engines, equipment for the construction of Fish Concentration Devices (FAD), lines and hooks . PADI will accompany the fishermen in the improvement of their fishing techniques with a view to strengthening the sector."



Nearly 60 fishermen and fish traders who were members of the "Coordination des Organizations des Pecheurs de Saint Jean du Sud" (COPESS) welcomed the launch of this project and the donation of equipment.



In the 21 coastal communes targeted by the project, training sessions for fishermen's groups will be carried out, in addition to the distribution of equipment, for the establishment, management and maintenance of Fish Concentration Devices (FADs), as well as the management and maintenance of engines, boats and fishing equipment. At the same time, boat and engine repair workshops will be organized for fishermen's groups, as well as training courses on Risk Management and Disasters at Sea.



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20681-icihaiti-agriculture-fao-response-to-hurricane-matthew.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















China's Sany interested in participating in modernization of Ukrainian coal companies

China's Sany Heavy Industry is interested in taking part in the modernization of Ukrainian coal enterprises, Ukraine's Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has reported.

"During a visit to China representatives of the ministry held talks with Sany and made an arrangement to cooperate in the modernization of the coal sector," the ministry said.

As reported, referring to the ministry, China's CNNC is ready to participate in construction of nuclear fuel production facilities in Ukraine.




Haiti - Politics : Odette Roy Fombrun proposes a revolution to the PM





Author of numerous instructional books, of a collection of good citizenship and several novels, sacred "living national treasure" in 2009, the former teacher and Haitian feminist activist widely known and respected, Odette Roy Fombrun, who will celebrate her 100th anniversary on June 13, following the dramatic situation drafted by Prime Minister Lafontant, addressed a letter to him in order to present him the revolution that must be made.



Extract from the letter of Odette Roy Fombrun to the Prime Minister :



"[...] It must be admitted that the country has been badly managed and especially that its wealth has never been exploited. Indeed, Haiti is rich and all its wealth is wasted inside the country: natural, cultural and especially historical wealth [...] It should be the country of the Caribbean to receive the most tourists. Now, here it is declared the only LDC (Least Advanced Country) of America



Whatever the options of the States-General, we must come to the exploitation of these wealth. I present to you the way I intend to exploit them: DYNAMISATION OF THE DEPARTMENTS



The revolution that must be done:



The exploitation of these wealth will allow to develop the interior of the country, called country outside. Without its development, there is no future for Haiti: their confined populations invade the cities that they transform into street markets, multiplying the slums, without any hope of well-being. At all costs, they must be taught how to exploit this wealth, so to go back home where the project will create work. Indeed: The dynamization of the departments is a great konite of the mayors of the department. The mayor of the chief town is responsible for creating the Wealth Production Commission (CPR), whose seat will be this town hall and its mayor, the president. The government delegate will represent it at the CPR.



The Commission will have the collaboration of government technicians and private sector volunteers, depending on the needs of the project. Indeed :



- Each communal administration will have to include to the files of the CPR the exhaustive list of the wealth of its commune: waterfalls, caves, ruins, customs, dances, historical sites, us and customs, patronal festivals, available arable land, etc...



- The Government Delegate will have to include in the files of the committee the list of the technicians of the State functioning in the department specifying their area of expertise and the ministry of which they are responsible. They are obviously technicians able to contribute as consultants or actors to the study and implementation of projects to exploit natural, cultural and, above all, historical resources, study tourism circuits or agricultural projects. These technicians will be part of the Technical Commission for Wealth Production (CTPR).



- The deputies of the department are invited to contribute to the research of wealth and the orientation for the development of their regions. They will study bills that are beneficial to the department. They will no longer have to present their problems to the PM but to work with them to resolve them. As the senators.



[...]



Of course, TOURIS LAKAY's vision for the endogenous development of the interior communities makes sense here because it is based on the konbite of three forces: the living forces of the community, its often dispersed youth, and its diaspora. All are invited to combine their efforts in projects of investments identified, by the community and the dynamism of its youth, realizable thanks to the interest, the know-how and the financial resources of the diaspora. Because the diaspora is interested in visiting its lakay provided that its lakay offer it certain amenities including: toilets and drinking water.



[...] In conclusion, my struggles concern here as elsewhere, the place that belongs to our country and that we must help it to occupy, by the union and the national konbites :



HAITI, HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CENTER OF THE CARIBBEAN."



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20609-haiti-politics-constructive-proposals-by-odette-roy-fombrun.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20356-haiti-social-odette-roy-fombrun-appeals-against-immorality.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19363-haiti-politics-odette-fombrun-launches-an-appeal-to-presidential-candidates.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19434-haiti-politics-odette-r-fombrun-s-2nd-message-to-the-presidential-candidates.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





TPS : Chancellor Rodrigue met John Kelly

On Monday, Antonio Rodrigue, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Haiti, accompanied by the Haitian Ambassador to Washington DC, Paul Altidor met with Secretary John Kelly of the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the extension of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20727-haiti-flash-us-immigration-service-recommends-the-end-of-tps.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20927-haiti-usa-renewal-of-the-tps-congress-maintains-pressure.html



Arrest of Gang Chief "Ti machan"

This weekend, the police in Saint-Marc has arrested the alleged gang leader Gracia Desormeaux aka "Ti machan" as well as several of his accomplices. They are accused of kidnapping, theft and robbery...



Some announcements of Head of State

La Grand-Anse, the Nippes and the South are the next destinations of the Caravan of Change, announced the Head of State who also informed of the upcoming construction of some roads in the South, including the section Laborde / Camp -Perrin.



Invitation diaspora Florida

The Consulate of the Republic of Haiti in Orlando invites the Haitian Community of Central Florida to a "Te deum" which will be sung on the occasion of the celebration of the 214th anniversary of our bicolor. This celebration will be held on Thursday, May 18, 2017 at 9:00 AM at St James's Cathedral located at 215 N Orange Ave, Orlando, FL 32801.



Education : Peaceful Demonstrations across the country

Wednesday, May 17, as part of the National Teachers' Day, the National Union of Haitian Normaliens (UNNOH) maintains peaceful protests announced across the country, including Port-au-Prince.



Project of Senatus

The Senator of West Jean Renel Senatus, Chairman of the Justice, Security and National Defense Commission, is working on a proposal for the creation of a Court of First Instance (TPI) in the district of La Gonave and two Peace Courts in the communal sections of "Gwo Mang" and "Grande Source", which depend respectively on Pointe a Raquette and Anse-a-Galets, which form the island.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By William Schwartz | Published on 2017/05/15

So apparently the last episode of "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" wasn't just climactic. It was, in fact, the climax of the entire drama. King Yeonsangun is in full on retreat. At first I thought he was just going to regroup and try again but nope, King Yeongsangun quickly regresses into a complete mental breakdown, terrifying his staff. In the end it's actually kind of refreshing that King yeonsangun just starts obsessing about art again, since there's no good way to whitewash the failure of the authority figures here to put down a rebellion.

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As for me, I feel...oddly kind of cheated, that all of this ended up getting resolved so easily. Part of this, though, is just that "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" was set up in such a way that a satisfying resolution wasn't really possible. The only character on King Yeonsangun's side who gets punished is the one who, aside from a fairly justified personal beef with Gil-dong, didn't really do anything all that villainous, and is really just being used as a scapegoat so that authority figures can avoid taking responsibility.

This is where the major separation in storylines in "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" becomes a big problem. It's hard to really revel in Gil-dong's victory that much when the bad guys are already gearing up to prepare sensible sounding compromises that aren't actually going to change anything substantial. There's always been this awkward disconnect between the system which causes the injustice Gil-dong fights against and the individual persons who become symbolic of that struggle.

As usual it's easy to be hyper-critical of "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" in ways even I don't necessarily think are all that fair. It's just that the characters are surprisingly difficult to connect to. Gil-dong's got a whole gang of bandits who are easier to describe in terms of their fighting style and clothing than their actual personalities. Other better developed characters, even when evil, end up being more interesting by definition.

This also goes for Gil-dong, whose political opinions are oddly perfunctory, and carry far less dramatic weight than his reunion with Ga-ryeong. Incidentally, Ga-ryeong too is a good example of how for all big points about fighting for justice, the fate of this one character ends up feeling a lot more important just because we understand her. As in, we understand that Gil-dong shot an arrow through Ga-ryeong's chest. That kind of stuff doesn't have to be deep to make an impact.

Review by William Schwartz

"Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" is directed by Jin Chang-gyoo, Kim Jin-man, written by Hwang Jin-yeong and features Kim Sang-joong, Yoon Kyun-sang, Kim Ji-suk, Lee Hanee and Chae Soo-bin.

Watch on Viki
By William Schwartz | Published on 2017/05/15

Romantic appearances are the main element at play in these two episodes of "Strong Family". First in the twenty-fifth episode we Ra-yeon ponder that all-important question- are you living with the person that you love? Then in the twenty-sixth episode we get the somewhat ominous implications of what happens when the answer to that question is no. And with that, another implication that these questions are constantly asked on a regular basis and never really go away.

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But these episodes aren't as dour as I make them sound. They're actually quite lively as they get into difficult questions of what love is and why it works, while still maintaing the cuteness that is the hallmark of "Strong Family"'s comedic style. The recurrence of sillier one-off jokes actually helps to reenforce the point that yes, sometimes love is existential angst, and other times it's just getting overly obsessed about dumb stuff like age differences and other times it involves meowing. That's all love.

Ra-yeon's obsession with appearing, for a time, to be in perfect marital bliss with Cheon-il also goes into appearances and how, for most people, the understanding that they are understood as being loved is just as important as feeling that love directly. That's how everything with the rumor mill works. Ik-hee even manages to get a good parallel here, because of course the rumor mill is a big thing in high school too, and Ik-hee being an idiot high school student, is not always the best at communicating with her boyfriend.

The only real major flaw I can pinpoint here is that the guest conflict in the twenty-sixth episode seems underexplained. Yes, I know that eventually we get the full story on why these two are on the outs all of a sudden, but even so, divorce seems harsh in that circumstance. For a housewife to want to work again, on its own merits, that seems like a big enough change on its own given without necessarily having to dive into more radical steps.

And if there was more of that negotiation ahead of time, then the apparent resolution of the ending just seems callous. Eh, maybe I'm just being oversensitive because there's a child involved. Overall, when it comes to the main characters we've been watching this entire time, there's an almost perfect synthesis of using the wide variety of character relationships to address the same basic questions of love and perception. I liked this pair of episodes very much.

Review by William Schwartz

"Strong Family" is directed by Choi Moon-seok, written by Jin Yeong and features Park Hyuk-kwon, Park Sun-young, Kim Ji-min, Uhm Hyo-sup, Park Hee-von, Kim Ki-ri and Lee Ho-won.
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Published on 2017/05/16 | Source

Added episodes 1 and 2 captures for the Korean drama "Bad Thief, Good Thief" (2017)

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Directed by Jang Joon-ho, Oh Kyeong-hoon

Written by Cha I-yeong, Son Yeong-mok

Network : MBC

With Ji Hyun-woo, Seohyun, Kim Ji-hoon-I, Lim Ju-eun, Ahn Kil-kang, Jung Kyung-soon,...

50 episodes - Sat, Sun 22:00

Synopsis

A story of thieves who affect the authorities that manipulate Korea. It serves to bring satisfaction to those who are frustrated at the reality of the world.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/05/13

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Ukraine has imposed sanctions against Anthracite Trade House LLC (Rostov region, Russia) and Russian Anthracite LLC (Rostov-on-Don, Russia).

The companies were placed to the list in an annex to the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine dated April 28, 2017 enacted by Ukrainian president decree No. 133 dated May 15, 2017.

The sanctions were also imposed on Eastern Donbass industrial and commercial firm (Rostov-on-Don, Russia). Its core business is wholesale trade with solid and liquid fuel.

Economic and financial liabilities are terminated for these companies for the period of three years. Trade is restricted on the territory of Ukraine and transit of their goods is also terminated.
From Hawaii Family Forum, May 15, 2017

Aloha

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend with your family!

As you may know, atheists Mitch Kahle and Holly Huber filed a False Claims Act law suit against local Hawai'i churches claiming the rental being paid for use of public school facilities was not the amount required by law and was not the proper amount based on the number of hours of actual use. The churches asked the court to dismiss the claim because neither Mitch Kahle nor Holly Huber qualified as a whistle blower to use the statute on which they based their claims because they are not insiders with information that is not publicly available. The trial court denied the motion. An appeal to that decision was filed by local Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Jim Hochberg.

The court will be hearing the Appeal THIS FRIDAY, and you are invited to sit in.

WHERE? Friday, May 19th, 9:00 a.m. (if you plan to be there in person in the court room, there is a security process so be there by 8:30.) The Supreme Court is in the building behind the King Kamehameha statue on King Street. The court room is up the stairs on the second floor to the left. Please note and adhere to the posted rules while in the court room. The three judges are not expected to issue any ruling after the argument. Typically that wont come for months.

Listen at this link as Jim Hochberg explains the current situation.

If you would like more information on this case, you can download a flyer at this link.

Mahalo for all your prayers and support!

Eva Andrade

President, Hawaii Family Forum

---30---

SA: Phony allegations against Hawaii churches dangerous for all


Drug Use by State: 2017s Problem Areas

From Wallet Hub, May 15, 2017

Drug abuse has a long and storied history in the United States. It progressed from a serious national threat in 1969 to public enemy No. 1 when President Richard Nixon declared war in 1971. That didnt quite work out, so Nancy Reagan told us to just say no in 1984. And her husband began to implement policies that would disproportionately criminalize crack cocaine and send prison populations skyrocketing.

Since then, George H.W. Bush tried to take a child by child approach. His son subsequently admitted to cocaine use. Bill Clinton experimented with marijuana a time or two but didnt inhale. Barack Obama inhaled frequently because that was the point. And from 2013 through 2016 alone, American taxpayers spent roughly $327 billion on drug-control efforts.

So where has all of that left us? President Trump says hes never done drugs, but America as a whole cant seem to quit. The number of people who admit to ever using an illicit drug actually rose from 1979 (31.3%) to 2015 (48.8%), according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Annual overdose deaths have more than tripled from 2000 (17,415) to 2015 (52,404). And over 11 times more people were in prisons and jails for drug offenses in 2015 (469,545) than in 1980 (40,900), according to The Sentencing Project.

Complicating matters, the current administration has sent mixed messages about how seriously it takes the problem. On the one hand, President Trump established a commission to study the opioid epidemic. On the other, the administration has proposed cutting the Office of National Drug Control Policys budget by 95% and classifying addiction as a preexisting condition.

Given the uncertain future and lack of significant progress to date, its fair to wonder where drug abuse is most pronounced and which areas are most at risk in the current political climate. This report attempts to answer those questions by comparing the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 15 key metrics, ranging from arrest and overdose rates to opioid prescriptions and meth-lab incidents per capita. Continue reading for the complete findings, commentary from a panel of researchers and a full description of the methodology used.

read  Entire Report

Hawaii
Allyson Carlile, head of people & culture at MetLife Australia, details her HR journey and the importance of following your passions.



1999  Ignites passion for people



In her final year of university, Carlile took a role at Rothschild Asset Management, initially on reception. Upon finishing her degree she quickly moved into a client services role.



Having a client-facing role during the first few years of my career gave me a fundamental understanding of asset management products and client needs. The role ignited my passion for people and while I always knew I wanted to move into HR, it prompted me to take a HR coordinator role.



2002  Finds her niche



Armed with a passion for financial services, Carlile spent her early years honing her craft, quickly gaining credibility and respect in a fast-paced, highly technical industry.



My biggest achievement has been gaining trust with leadership. I call myself a credible activist. Credible because I understand the business and add to its overall agenda, but an activist on the HR side. I can challenge constructively without damaging relationships, to help businesses shift the dial.



2003  Deepens interest in financial



Relocated to Perth with her husband, Carlile immersed herself in roles with Westpac and Bankwest, discovering a keen interest in the financial services sector.



Its the people in the financial services industry that have kept me there  they are a highly talented, professional and dynamic group. Coming from a financial services family, Ive always had a genuine interest in the sector. I enjoy linking HR initiatives to business strategic goals to drive change and strengthen credibility in the HR function.



2006  Takes on career-defining role



Carlile assumed the role of head of human resources Australia at Barclays Global Investors in Sydney, managing the transition to BlackRocks ownership.



This was a defining, milestone position. Running the HR function end-to-end within a highly successful global business during a period of enormous growth was very rewarding. Within three years, employee numbers more than doubled, requiring new recruitment and team management processes. Despite this, the Australian team was the most engaged globally and annual staff turnover was very low.



2013  Returns to Westpac



Carlile is lured back to Westpac for the role of co-head of human resources for the Australian financial services support division and partners in launching the Reach leadership program focused on leadership, diversity and wellbeing.



This was when I really started to see the HR discipline shift  businesses began to seriously invest in wellbeing and health to get the employee offer right. Its no longer a nice-to-have but should be a central pillar in every business strategy.



2015  Returns to roots



Carlile moved back into the asset management space when she re-joined NAB Asset Management as head of people; in this position she significantly contributed to doubling the divisions engagement score and delivered the new people strategy with a focus on leadership development, diversity & inclusion, and health & wellbeing.



Its encouraging to see a big move in the financial services industry towards employee health and wellbeing. Businesses are definitely starting to see the value in a holistic approach to engagement.



November 2016 Moves to MetLife



Determined to challenge herself, Carlile tackles a new industry as head of people & culture at MetLife Australia.



Its exciting to join such a dynamic sector that has a real and meaningful impact on the lives of every day Australians. As a leading global life insurer, creating a world-class working environment focused on mental health and wellbeing is a high priority for MetLife. I look forward to expanding on MetLifes great work and contributing to the firms strong people-focused culture.




The restrictive measures introduced by Ukraine will not affect Kaspersky Lab operations, a company spokesperson told Interfax on Tuesday.

"The new sanctions will have no significant effect on the situation. Kaspersky Lab's software products get regularly certified and verified for compliance with the standards established by the local laws. In particular, Kaspersky Lab solutions were certified in Ukraine," the spokesperson aid.

The certificates issued on the company's products mean that they can be used to provide IT security for government agencies and business, he said.

"Our aim is to provide security to individual users, companies and government organizations across the world. Kaspersky Lab has no political connections with any government or country whatsoever, nor does the company take anyone's side on geopolitical issues," the spokesperson said.

Kaspersky Lab has been present in the Ukrainian market since 2006, the spokesperson said.

"This whole time the company has been a bona fide taxpayer and used the most advanced cybersecurity technologies for its clients, including government agencies and business. However, in 2016 a decision was made to close our regional office in view of Ukrainian government restrictions on foreign-economic operations of Kaspersky Lab Ukraine. This factor did not affect in any way our clients and partners: Kaspersky Lab products are still available for sale in Ukraine via distribution channels," the spokesperson said.

It was reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko enacted the National Security and Defense Council resolution imposing sanctions against two social-networking sites, VK and Odnoklassniki, the Mail.ru and Yandex companies, their servers, and a number of other Russian IT companies.
Our Challenging Reality

A young woman shared her heart in Bible class:

We all prayed and asked for God's wisdom to know whether my dad should move to this new church, but we obviously misread the will of God. From the moment we arrived at that church, there were problems. People began spreading rumors and the whole time my family was there was very difficult for all of us. After two-an-a-half years, my dad felt called to another church  a significantly smaller congregation  and his ministry was blessed almost immediately. The church grew. Our family was blessed. My dad was a great blessing to them. It was obvious that it was God's will that he should be there.

These words poured out of the heart of a young adult who self-identified herself as a "PK"  a preacher's kid. Her words were heartfelt. Her pain, and the pain of her family, were evident from the obvious emotion in her voice and the teardrops glistening from the corners of her eyes. Her feelings testified to a challenging reality we face in most of our churches during times of minister transition.

At the same time, this young woman was proud of her father's ministry. She deeply respected the character that he displayed through difficult circumstances. She was not down on the church. She was delighted that her father had found his place with a church that he loved and people who loved him. She was proud of the growth and impact her father was having in the church where he was appreciated.

Paul's Challenging Example :

Despite many good things about this young woman's story, something nagged at my spirit as I listened to her testimony. My heart certainly empathized with her pain, yet something troubled me about her method of discerning what was and what wasn't the will of God. As her time of testimony ended, I felt drawn to Paul's second missionary journey. He accompanied at the time by Silas, Timothy, and Luke as he left Asia Minor to begin his ministry in Europe. I felt as if the Holy Spirit was trying to help me unlock a message that I needed to still the uneasy feeling I had in my heart.

"Come over to Macedonia and help us!" said the man in Paul's vision (Acts 16:9). Paul and his mission team had been prevented by the Spirit from going into Asia and Bithynia (Acts 16:6-7). They then proceeded to Troas, where Paul had his vision to go to Macedonia. Paul and his mission team concluded that God had called them to go into Macedonia to share the message of Jesus. They immediately left for Macedonia!

How much clearer could God make his call? Wow! Most of us would love such clear direction. However, Luke is clear that the team had to practice discernment. Luke reminds us that they "got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them" (Acts 16:10).

Surely, after such a clear call Paul's mission team were blessed by a smooth ministry, open hearts, great growth, and receptive welcomes everywhere they went in Macedonia. Right?

Not exactly! Remember what happened? Paul and his team were:

Beaten and thrown in jail in Philippi (Acts 16:19-24, 35-40). Run out of town because of a riot after only a few weeks in Thessalonica and a new believer having to post a bond ensuring they wouldn't return (Acts 17:1-10). Run out of the dumpy little backwater town of Berea (Acts 17:10-14). Laughed out of town and humiliated in Athens, so Paul went to his next town "in weakness with great fear and trembling" (Acts 17:15-18, 32-34; 1 Corinthians 2:3). Led to Corinth, where Paul planted what many feel may be the most messed up set of house churches known to church history (Acts 18:1; 1 Corinthians 3:1-5).

If we had been one of Paul's mission partners about half way through this mess, would we have wondered about the legitimacy of Paul's vision? That vision sure seemed more like a nightmare instead of a God-ordained call after all the hardship. Had the grizzled ol' apostle gotten ahold of a bad gyro or gotten some bad baklava that caused such a vision?

Using the logic of our preacher's daughter, Paul had certainly misread the will of God. His hard struggles and very difficult challenges were a sign that Paul misunderstood his vision. Surely if going to Macedonia had been God's will, things would have been much easier? Right? No! In this case, quite the opposite is true!

Shaping a church's vision, character, and missional effectiveness takes time.

God's Will Down a Long Road

A longer sample of Paul's ministry to Macedonia reveals that Paul's time in Macedonia was profoundly blessed. Thessalonica and Philippi became two of the very few churches that Paul allowed to support his ministry financially. As time passed, Paul made every effort on his journeys around the Mediterranean to visit the region of Macedonia. His letters to the Macedonian churches are full of emotion and personal connection. In addition, the churches of Macedonia became great examples of sacrificial giving and outreach to the early Christian brotherhood. Even the mess of the Corinthian house churches became an opportunity for Paul to grow and mature this immature bunch of rival groups into a vibrant testimony to Jesus.

So what's the point?

Walking in God's will and partnering with a congregation trying to do Jesus' work is not easy. We can face tough times along with challenging relationships and situations. These difficulties don't mean we've misread the will of God. With so many congregations in slow decline, challenging us out of our entrenched ruts, familiar apathy, and comfortable routines is going to be... well, uncomfortable. These disquieting challenges are not easily addressed in a short time. Spiritual depth takes time. Regaining a sense of God's calling to us as churches and ministers doesn't necessarily mean easy times and comfortable transitions. Ministry without an edge of discomfort doesn't bear much resemblance to the Savior we follow.

Shaping a church's vision, character, and missional effectiveness takes time. Partnering between a church and minister is NOT about getting the brightest bulb available to plug into our ministry role. It's about a deep partnership in the SPECIFIC work the Lord wants to be done in a specific community by a specific congregation. Yes, each congregation shares a similar set of macro-missional callings. However, as we look at the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, we encounter unique opportunities, challenges, communities, ministries, and focus in each congregation. Partnering between congregations and ministers needs to be about aligning a congregation and a minister to a congregation's specific ministry context.

For a healthy, God-ordained, partnership between a minister and a congregation to occur, they both must learn to wait, listen, and respond to the leading of the Lord. Our congregations are Jesus' blood-bought sheep. He must lead as head of his body and not just be their figurehead. Learning spiritual practices they work on together is essential. They need to be involved in spiritual practices that lead them to listen to God's word, call them to congregational prayer, challenge them to communal discernment, and encourage them to fast with a spiritual focus.

In an age of instant everything, congregations and ministers must learn to trust that faithfulness, proven over time, produces God's character and compassion as it refines God's mission for them. Paul's struggles in Macedonia and Achaia didn't lead him to give up. Instead, Paul kept praying for his congregations, kept passionately calling them to maturity, kept focusing them on God's mission, and kept loving them through their struggles. God produced an incredible harvest in Macedonia because both Paul and his churches hung in together in faith, trusting that God through the Spirit was at work to mature them (Philippians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Can we do less in our search for ministry partnership between a minister and a congregation and still honor the call of God?

Next week in our series on "Ancient Wisdom, Today's Grace" we will focus on "The Jesus Song" in Philippians 2:1-11 and what it teaches us about spiritual maturity and transitions.
Maenpaa published the results of his audit into the journalistic practices of the public broadcasting company on Monday.

YLE failed to live up to its journalistic responsibilities by adapting to an external attempt to influence its coverage of a possible conflict of interest involving Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) in 2016, says Olli Maenpaa, a professor of administrative law at the University of Helsinki.

YLE commissioned the independent audit in February, after coming under heavy criticism for suppressing its follow-up coverage of the possible conflict of interest arising from a 500,000-euro contract awarded to Katera Steel, an engineering company owned by the relatives of Sipila, by Terrafame, a state-owned nickel miner based in Sotkamo.

Sipila expressed his displeasure with the original report in a series of e-mails sent to YLE, a response he later admitted was emotional.

Maenpaa describes the e-mails as an exceptional attempt to influence the journalistic content of the public broadcaster. YLEs senior editorial staff, he highlights, reacted by resorting to micromanagement even though the original report contained no relevant factual errors, thus neglecting their journalistic duties.

This has dented confidence in the journalistic independence of YLE, he views.

Maenpaa recommends that the public broadcaster take action to both improve its editorial decision-making processes and reinforce its journalistic integrity. YLE should ensure its editorial decisions  especially those made by its news and current affairs team  are made based on its journalistic responsibilities rather than judicial concerns.

YLE should also adopt a greater role as a watchdog to prevent the abuse of power, according to Maenpaa.

Maenpaa estimates that the public broadcaster generally operates independently. He also reminds that external attempts to influence its editorial processes are problematic regardless of whether or not they succeed and that its neutral or tolerant approach to such attempts can undermine public confidence in its integrity.

He proposes that a visible and strong firewall be established to safeguard the journalistic integrity of YLE.

This will necessitate a change in the social and political operating culture, writes Maenpaa. A key element of [this change] is to reject the established way of tolerating or approving attempts to directly influence the journalistic decisions and contents of YLE.

YLE is also accused of responding arrogantly to and attempting to play down a ruling delivered by the Finnish Mass Media Council (JSN) in March. JSN ruled that the public broadcasting company violated two sections of the journalistic guidelines by toning down its coverage of the possible conflict of interest.

The case contains a number of features that can be interpreted as an indication that the editor-in-chief has succumbed to outside pressure, stated JSN.

YLEs board of directors yesterday reaffirmed its confidence in the senior editorial staff but also urged them to carry out the ongoing development projects and address the problems identified in the audit.

[The report] reminds that good management of journalism at YLE is not only about clear norms and regulations but also about the obligations arising from the duties and responsibilities of YLE. The management of journalism must constantly call attention to these [obligations], Ismo Silvo, the director of media at YLE, says in a press release.

YLE is to shed light on its measures to address the shortcomings by this summer.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa  Lehtikuva
The CERD published its comments on the countrys latest report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination on Monday.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has voiced its concerns about the growing incidence of racially motivated hate crimes and the relatively low prosecution rate for such crimes in Finland.

The Finnish government is commended in the report for taking action to discourage hate speech and for introducing legislative amendments to criminalise and prescribe punishments for ethnic agitation and aggravated ethnic agitation.

However, the committee remains concerned by the significant and increasing incidence of hate crimes motivated by racist bias and by the relatively small number of hate crimes that have been prosecuted [in Finland], the committee writes.

It draws attention to the increasingly hostile sentiment towards people of  at times only perceived  foreign background, including Roma, Muslims, Somalis, Russians and Swedish-speakers.

The occurrence of more than a dozen violent attacks against asylum seekers over the past two years is identified as another alarming development.

The CERD also expresses its grave concerns about the rise of anti-immigrant discourse amounting to racism and xenophobia by decision-makers that has occurred, despite the fact that all parliamentary parties signed the Charter of European Parties for a Non-Racist Society in 2015.

Finland is consequently urged to publicly condemn and distance itself from racist hate speech and xenophobic statements by public officials and politicians, and call upon politicians to ensure that their public statements do not contribute to intolerance, stigmatisation or incitement to hatred.

The CERD recommends that the country also take action to increase the effectiveness of criminal investigations into hate speech, incitement to racial hatred and racially motivated violence. It should also be ensured that the perpetrators are prosecuted and penalised accordingly, it adds.

Finland should also develop its practices in regards to compiling statistics on the incidence of, nature of and sentences handed down for hate crimes.

The CERD also calls attention to what has become a regular feature of the country reports of human rights watchdogs: the accommodation of asylum seekers in punitive settings. Amnesty International, for example, has reprimanded the country for accommodating asylum seekers in police detention facilities.

Other asylum seeker-related concerns set forth in the report include the limited access of asylum seekers to adequate social and health care services and reports suggesting that certain groups of asylum seekers are less likely to be granted asylum than others.

The committee invites the state party to examine whether discriminatory policies may be affecting its asylum grant rates, writes the CERD.

Finland is, on the other hand, commended for introducing a series of legislative and policy measures, including the adoption of a new action plan on integration and the prohibition of ethnic profiling.

The CERD also reiterates its concerns about the situation of the Sami people in Finland.

The Finnish government, it says, should pursue a satisfactory negotiated solution to the dispute regarding the land rights of the indigenous people and obtain the free, prior and informed consent of members of the indigenous community before proceeding with any project that affects their traditional lands and resources.

The CERD recommends that the government continue its efforts to revitalise the Sami languages and to ensure social and health care services are available in Sami languages.

Finland is expected to report to the committee on the implementation of the recommendations laid out in the report in one years time. The countrys next periodic report on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is due in 2021, according to a press release from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Jussi Nukari  Lehtikuva
The Ukrainian branch of the VKontakte (VK) social network will protect the interests of its users and partners, the social network's representative said.

"We, the VK team, have always avoided politics. We believe that the Internet has no borders. We have protected and will continue to protect the interests of all our users and partners," Vlad Legotkin, the Ukrainian VK branch's communications department head, said on social networks.

VK is the most popular social network in Ukraine; according to his information, 16 million people visit this website monthly, Legotkin said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree earlier on Tuesday enacting the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's resolution imposing sanctions on VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks, as well as Mail.ru and Yandex companies and their services. Access to all services provided by Yandex and Mail.ru has been restricted for three years.
Beaumont Hospital is hiring debt collectors to pursue millions of euro in treatment fees due from road traffic accident patients.

Hospitals treating these patients, who are compensated by insurance companies, are entitled to recover the cost of treatment.

The cash-strapped north Dublin hospital is now tendering for a debt collection service in a bid to pursue the money over the next four years.

The most recent annual report from Beaumont shows it is due around 17m in charges from patients, although it is unclear how much of this relates to road traffic fees.

Invoice

A spokeswoman for the hospital yesterday declined to comment on the background to the tender or elaborate on how much is due.

However, the tender states that debt management and recovery services for road traffic accidents include correspondence with a combination of stakeholders, including the patient, next of kin, the patient's solicitor , the Injuries Board and other relevant parties.

When the patient is discharged, an invoice is usually sent to them.

The debt collector will have to improve and increase the recovery of the cost of treatment, the tender said.

Under Department of Health guidelines, hospital charges apply unless an exemption is applied to the individual.

The charge for A&E for a road traffic patient who is pursuing compensation is 446, compared to the normal 100.

The cost of inpatient care is 1,442 a night, plus an 80 statutory charge for an overnight bed.

If the patient is in a private room, the cost is 1,000 a night, plus an additional 442 .

An outpatient charge for a road traffic accident patient is 223, an MRI scan is 626 and a physiotherapy charge is 111.

Beaumont Hospital treats a higher than normal number of road traffic accident patients because of its specialities, which include neurosurgery.

The hospital, which was in recent years one of the worst for trolley gridlock, has managed to bring overcrowding under better control.

On a number of occasions last winter, there was no patient on a trolley in the morning.

However, it continues to have long waiting lists in various areas because it has a catchment area with a high volume of older people, who are more likely to need to be admitted to hospital.

The hospital is part of the Royal College of Surgeons Hospital Group. The latest move is a bid to improve its funding income.
Ashtons gastro pub in Clonskeagh was raided at 2am

Gardai believe a criminal gang is carrying out raids on targeted pubs in well-to-do areas of Dublin's southside.

Officers said a botched armed raid on a pub at the weekend was probably the work of a gang that had carried out at least one similar robbery in Dublin 4 in recent weeks.

The latest attack happened at Ashtons Gastro Pub in Clonskeagh at 2am on Saturday.

The methods used bore striking similarities to an armed robbery earlier this month at Bar 51 on Haddington Road in Ballsbridge.

In the Clonskeagh raid, two thugs wearing balaclavas entered the premises after a busy night and restrained two staff members with cable ties.

Threatened

They appeared to be armed with a gun and a knife, and threatened staff and demanded money.

However, due to a sophisticated security system, no cash was available.

The frustrated raiders escaped with two bottles of vodka and two mobile phones owned by staff.

The raid on Bar 51, which took place at 1am on May 3, also involved two masked men armed with what appeared to be a gun and a knife.

No one was hurt, and the pair escaped with around 2,500.

"The similarities between these robberies have led investigators to conclude that the raids have been carried out by the same gang," a source told the Herald.

"Major investigations are in place, but there are serious concerns that this crew will target another pub in south Dublin before too long.

"They're clearly very hungry for cash."

In an unrelated incident, two south Dublin men were charged and remanded in custody over the weekend after a terrifying raid at the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, Killiney, late on Friday night.

Two masked men were reported to have entered the reception area at 10.50pm armed with a meat cleaver and a pick.

Gardai were told the raiders stole a cash register containing around 1,000 from reception but were then chased by staff before escaping in a getaway car driven by a third man in the direction of Shankill.

Gardai found the vehicle on fire at nearby River Close, Killiney, and three suspects from the Ballybrack and Loughlinstown areas, aged between 32 and 38, were arrested.

The cash register was recovered, along with a sum of money.

Two of the men arrested were remanded in custody after appearing before Dublin District Court on Saturday.

The third suspect was released without charge.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has again announced that he will initiate the extension of sanctions by the EU against Russia not for six, but for twelve months.

"I will raise the issue of extending the sanctions not for six but for twelve months, we will do everything to motivate Russia to come to the negotiating table, to comply with the Minsk agreements, to withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian territory and to stop the aggression," Poroshenko said during a TV linkup from Malta on the ICTV channel.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has terminated the powers of independent MP Andriy Artemenko.

A total of 244 lawmakers voted for this decision on Tuesday morning, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

Parliament resolution No. 6445 says Artemenko's people's deputy powers have been terminated "in connection with the termination of his Ukrainian citizenship."

As reported, in February 2017, The New York Times reported that Artemenko had handed a detailed plan for peace in eastern Ukraine that he said he authored over to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. The plan suggested holding a national referendum in Ukraine on 'leasing Crimea to Russia for a period of 50 to 100 years'.

Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating a criminal case against Artemenko opened on suspicion of anti-national actions in collaboration with Russia.

On February 20, Oleh Liashko's Radical Party decided to expel deputy Artemenko from its team.

Artemenko is also the initiator of the draft law on introducing amendments to the law on citizenship of Ukraine regarding dual citizenship.

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko said the PGO has enough evidence that Artemenko has Canadian citizenship, in addition to Ukrainian citizenship.

On April 21, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office requested Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov to initiate the procedure of stripping Artemenko of Ukrainian citizenship with the State Migration Service of Ukraine.

On May 4, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko signed decree on the termination of Ukrainian citizenship of a number of people, including MP Andriy Artemenko.
ABINGDON, Va.  Three sheriffs deputies, a motor vehicles division officer, and a federal agent died in the line of duty in modern times in Washington County.

We recognize our fallen officers as a way of remembering them for their service to their community, Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman said.

The job of a police officer is thankless, he added.

An officer's death affects the entire community in that the officer died as the result of most likely protecting another human being from possible death or injury, Newman said. Very few jobs in today's society require that type of dedication.

Newman said officers, including three fallen officers at the Sheriffs Office, should be recognized and remembered regardless of the time that has passed since their deaths.

They are heroes in their own right by the service that they provided to their communities, Newman said.

Deputy Lilburn Henderson Trigg, 37, who died on July 24, 1888, is the earliest known fallen officer in Washington County.

Trigg, whose name is listed on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C., was fatally wounded when he attempted to arrest an intoxicated man who was firing a revolver. The memorial states that Trigg, an officer on the force for five years, died of his injuries three days later.

The departments second fallen officer, Deputy Henry Marion Mumpower, 64, died of an on-duty related illness on Aug. 3, 1929.

The memorial states that Mumpower died from complications of a strangulation hernia after he located two stills hidden in the mountains near Abingdon. After locating the stills, Mumpower broke them down and carried them from the mountain to his patrol vehicle, the memorial states.

While traveling to police headquarters, Mumpower became ill and drove himself to the hospital, where he died four days later, the memorial states.

Washington County Deputy Orville McNish, a former Damascus police chief, was shot during a 10-hour hostage situation in Glade Spring. The standoff, which occurred in November 1960, resulted in the deaths of five individuals, including the shooting suspect and officer.

Fire broke out after police lobbed tear gas shells into a home, where police said Douglas Graham held his four young sons and mother-in-law hostage.

Video footage from WSLS-TV of Roanoke shows family members running through the yard to safety, then smoke billowing from the home. McNish  thinking Graham was dead  went onto the porch to fight the flames, and Graham shot him in the heart, WSLSs news script states. Then, Graham killed himself. The video footage shows the two men being carried from the scene.

Graham barricaded himself in the home after a triple shooting in Smyth County, where Graham's estranged wife, her aunt, and a man were killed.

McNish died later at Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon.

A Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles officer, Sgt. Clarence Maynard, 39, died of injuries suffered while responding to the assistance of a citizen near Abingdon on Sept. 9, 1939, according to the Virginia State Police.

Maynard suffered injuries in a crash, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks officers killed in the line of duty in the U.S.

In 1942, the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles was split into the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of State Police.

Earlier this year, officials gathered in Abingdon to recognize FBI Special Agent Hubert J. Treacy Jr., who was shot and killed in a cafe in 1942. A dedication ceremony was held outside the Historical Society of Washington County, where a memorial plaque telling Treacys story was unveiled.

The plaque tells a brief version of the events that unfolded that day: On March 13, 1942, Treacy and Special Agent Charlie Tignor were attempting to take into custody two Army deserters in Pats Cafe, which no longer stands. When the agents asked the men for identification, they opened fire, according to information compiled by retired Special Agent Robert Craig and the FBIs Richmond Division.

Treacy, who was 29, was killed almost instantly. Tignor suffered five gunshot wounds and survived, living to the age of 101.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree enacting a resolution by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) dated April 28, 2017 on the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).

The decree was signed on May 15 and published on the presidential website on May 16. It comes into force on the date of its publication.

The NSDC resolution dated April 28 extends and applies personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) introduced by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (resolution No. 288-r dated April 26, 2017), the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine.

Ukraine's sanctions list includes 1,228 individuals and 468 legal entities.

The sanctions are introduced in connection with Russia's aggression against Ukraine, its financing terrorism in Ukraine, which resulted in the occupation of a part of the country, numerous casualties, actual and potential threats to the national interests, national security and sovereignty of Ukraine.
Ukraine has imposed sanctions for a period of three years against a number of Russian media organizers.

The sanctions were imposed against TV companies TV Center, RBC, NTV Plus, Zvezda, TNT, Moscow Media, Rossiya Segodnya, REN TV and other media in line with a decree signed by President Petro Poroshenko, which enacted a resolution of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) dated April 28, 2017 on the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).

The decree was signed on May 15 and published on the presidential website on May 16. It comes into effect on the date of its publication.

The assets of these companies are blocked, their economic and financial obligations are suspended and telecommunications services or the use of public telecommunications networks are restricted, suspended or terminated.
Maryland election 2022: Dan Cox concedes governor race to Wes Moore

Republican Dan Cox conceded the election, calling Governor-elect Wes Moore. But throws jabs at Hogan, more.
Some 1,228 citizens of Ukraine, Russia and other countries have been put on the list of individuals who fall under sanctions by a resolution of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

This information was posted on the Ukrainian president's website on Tuesday in the annex to president decree No. 133/2017 dated May 15, 2017 on the enactment of the resolution by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine dated April 28, 2017 on the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions).

Previous time the president updated and extended the sanction lists approved by the NSDC on October 17, 2016. Then 682 individuals and 271 legal entities were put on the list.

In addition, sanctions against other 17 people, including the director general of the Channel One television company, Konstantin Ernst; the editor-in-chief of the Novorus.info website, Andrei Surkov; the owner of the Pravda.Ru holding company, Vadim Gorshenin; the general director of the TASS news agency, Sergei Mikhailov; a former general director of the LifeNews television channel, Ashot Gabrelyanov; and the editor-in-chief of the Russia Today television channel, Margarita Simonyan were introduced on May 27, 2016 for a year. These persons also appear on the current sanctions list.

Also, individuals who fall under sanctions include Russian citizens involved in the occupation of Crimea, financing and support of illegal armed formations operating in Donbas. These people include Russian lawmakers of various levels, including the State Duma, and officials of various ranks and categories, as well as public and political figures and businessmen.

In addition, the list include a number of citizens of foreign countries who visited the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine (Crimea, some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions) in violation of Ukrainian law, including some political and public figures, cultural figures and media representatives.

The list also includes members of illegal armed groups, including both foreigners and Ukrainian citizens.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has called on Israeli authorities to help Ukraine cover the needs of its security and defense sectors.

During his official visit to Israel, Groysman met with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to discuss opportunities for bolstering military and technical cooperation between the two countries, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Minister's press service said on Tuesday.

"The democratic world needs to demonstrate greater solidarity in light of the Russian hybrid war," the Ukrainian prime minister said.

He called on the Israeli government to extend assistance to Ukraine that is needed to cover the requirements of the country's security and defense sectors, the press service said.

Kyiv is interested in Israel's experience of medical treatment and rehabilitation of people who took part in hostilities, Groysman said.

"Ukraine is interested in developing mutually advantageous cooperation with Israel in military-technical issues," Groysman was quoted as saying by the press service.
The Ukrainian Security Service and the Cabinet have been instructed to work out a mechanism to implement special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) with regard to Russian legal entities whose operations pose a threat to Ukraine's information and cyber security.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko issued an executive order enacting the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's (NSDC) decision dated April 28 to impose sanctions on 468 legal entities, the NSDC press service said.

The legal entities facing Ukraine's sanctions include "legal entities of the Russian Federation whose activities pose a threat to Ukraine's information and cyber security."

"The Ukrainian Cabinet of ministers and Security Service have been instructed to develop a mechanism together with the National Bank of Ukraine to ensure the implementation of this decision," it said.
Malta could become big transport hub for Ukraine  Poroshenko

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said Malta could become a hub for Ukrainian agrarian businesses to supply northern Africa and open new opportunities for Ukrainian metallurgical products.

The president's website page expressed enthusiasm in a post about the possibilities following a joint press conference in Malta with Poroshenko on Tuesday.

The president also expressed Ukraine's willingness to open an office for the Antonov aircraft company, in order to develop Ukraine's aviation industry.

Attention during the visit was focused on possibilities of developing cooperation between Ukraine and Africa and using Malta as a big sea transportation hub.
Most of us have no idea how deeply American permeates the world until we go overseas.

Indeed everywhere my husband and I went in Scandinavia last month, we were reminded how American the world is.

Theres the expected Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and movies and popular music. You know that the minute you hear Harry Connick Jr. sing jazz in a Chinese restaurant in Bergen, Norway, which begs the question--what was I doing eating Chinese in Bergen on a blustery, chilly night?

We had a choice of Japanese with a menu we could not read, a McDonalds with $8 hamburgers, a Mexican taqueria or walking several blocks in the rain to something more Norwegian.

We chose the Chinese place with English subtitles on the menu. And Harry Connick sang One Fine Thing on the music system while we dined on Drunken Noodles and fried rice.

I dont go overseas to hang out with Americans or to dine like one, though what constitutes American these days is hard to decipher. Were all over the news, for instance, though Brexit and Frexit were getting a lot of airplay along with the standoff between President Trump and North Koreas Kim Jong-un.

Our strategy to keep quiet and observe didnt mark us as rank American tourists. If we looked the part, we fooled a few on the street who asked us directions in Norwegian or Danish.

It was not surprising, then, that as our train rolled into Copenhagen, a friendly young conductor asked for my ticket in Danish.

I showed him my Eurail pass.

You are from? he said.

The USA, I said.

Ah! The good place!

His comment startled me. The good place? Few places other than Normandy Beach consider the United States to be good these days. Or so I thought.

He asked what state I was from. North Carolina, in the South, I said.

I knew better than to try to explain how north can be south.

I have not been to the South. I will have to do that, he said.

He was all smiles. It happened that he had worked in Las Vegas, and had also visited Utah. That was the extent of his American experience, he said, but it had been a good one. He wanted to come back.

Of course Danish people are said to be the worlds happiest. With universal health care and free college tuition, subsidized child care, five weeks of vacation, great beer and a cushy retirement to look forward to, they have little to make them anxious. Not even the 56 percent income tax gets them riled.

With so much happiness, it stands to reason that the amiable conductor was only doing his jobmaking this visitor believe that Danes are truly joyful.

I believe the young man was genuine when he said my country was the good place. Hed been more than a tourist. He spoke the language and had worked here, lived the dream and paid half the income tax. Maybe it was running with the big dog321 million in America--versus 5.6 million in a country the size of Maryland plus Delaware.

Maybe it was the wide open spaces or the Vegas neon that impressed him or maybe the limitless sky.

I didn't speak with the conductor long--just a minute or two--but when I heard him call America the good place, I knew I wouldnt forget it.

Tammy Wilson is a writer who lives near Newton. You may contact her at tamra@tamrawilson.com.
NEWTON  Catawba County officials, along with law enforcement from Catawba, Burke and Lincoln counties, met with N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein to discuss the growing opioid crisis facing North Carolina.

The meeting is part of a series of similar meetings held across the state by Stein.

This crisis is affecting the entire state. It is in the coast, it is in the piedmont, it is in the mountains, Stein said. The nature may change, but the crisis is the same.

It is an addiction that is tearing apart families, that is ruining lives and taking them.

Medical information company Castlight Health listed Hickory as fifth in the nation for opioid abuse with an abuse rate of 9.9 percent in a 2016 report. In the same report, Hickory is No. 15 for the rate of prescription abuse, at 46.1 percent.

Stein said opioids are more addictive than methamphetamines or cocaine. Eighty percent of heroin users begin with an addiction to prescription drugs.

It is killing five times the number of people that the crack cocaine or meth epidemic, Stein said. It demands of us to take stronger action to address this crisis.

Opioid drugs include heroin, morphine and codine, according to the National Institute of Health.

One of the newest forms is the synthetic opioid fenanyl, which Stein said could kill at doses the size of a grain of salt.

It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and its not regulated at all, Stein said. If you look at what is causing deaths in North Carolina, it is heroin and fenanyl more than prescription drugs.

The meeting focused on possible proactive measures to counter the crisis and for attendees to provide input to Stein.

One of the points the room agreed on: We cant arrest our way out of this problem.

Look for more details about the meeting and the opioid crisis in an HDR edition later this week.
CLAREMONT  From aquaponics to welding to virtual reality, North Carolinas new State Superintendent of Schools Mark Johnson got a good look at the world of Career and Technical Education in the Catawba County Schools system during a recent visit to Bunker Hill High School.

He was equally eager to learn about the new K-64 (kindergarten to age 64) initiative.

The program is built off a partnership of all three public school systems (CCS, Hickory Public and Newton-Conover City) along with Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC), other higher education institutions, local government and area businesses.

The objective of the K-64 plan is to use these resources in a concerted effort to provide all students with equal opportunities to be college and career ready with a focus on connecting student to technology. The CVCC President Garrett Hinshaw attended the visit and explained the origins of K-64 and immediate plans to Johnson.

The connection between K-12 and the community college, to make sure that no matter where a student sees themselves being successful, we help them get there, Johnson said. I think K-64 is a great example of these different organizations coming together to make that a reality.

This is not just something that needs to be done in Catawba County. This is something that needs to be done in North Carolina.

He said one of his main priorities is to more seamlessly connect K-12 to all post-secondary opportunities, whether its in the community college system, at a college or with a training certification.

Johnson was impressed with what he saw the students in the new welding program at Bunker Hill were accomplishing. It is being done through a partnership between Catawba County Schools and Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC).

Those students if they wanted to, they could go out and get a job, making good money right out of high school because of the skills theyre getting right here and that happens because of the partnership between K-12 and local community colleges, Johnson said.

Catawba County Schools Superintendent Matt Stover said he was thankful Johnson was able to visit the district.

We wanted to model and show our CVCC partnership with CTE and then we also wanted him to see our virtual reality. We use a lot of that here at Bunker Hill High School, Stover said.

The Catawba County Schools superintendent touched on some positive things he wanted to share with Johnson, including the success the systems Chief Finance Officer Karla Miller has had working with the Department of Public Instruction during a time when DPI has had to deal with funding cuts at the state level.

Stover also prepared a list of some issues of concern he wanted to share with Johnson. He touched on the school construction bond legislation and licensure.

Bunker Hill High freshmen Alexander Xiong and Gavin Vixaysak got a chance to demonstrate a robotics project to Johnson. Its part of an engineering kit they work with in Ethan Goins robotics class. They were building a mechanical catapult with an automated firing switch.

Right now its still a work in progress but we did get the catapult working, Xiong said. Now were just trying to figure out how to connect and activate the switch.

He and Vixaysak said they were nervous at first when they met Johnson for their demonstration, but they appreciated the chance to show what theyve learned in the class. Both plan on working in some area of technology after they graduate.

I want to be a computer engineer so I decided to take an engineering class and started with robotics, Xiong said.

Johnson said one of his main priorities is making sure no matter where a student is coming from or what future they have in mind, the states public school systems help them be successful.

Its another reason he liked the idea of K-64 and the connections it creates throughout the county.

Were going to be checking in on how K-64 goes and would love to implement something like that for other counties around the state, Johnson said. If Catawba County has something that is successful we can take that model and spread it and scale it.
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has banned the production and public use of Saint George (Guards) ribbons and introduced administrative responsibility for this.

Bill No. 2987 on amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses on the ban on the production and propagation of Saint George (Guards) ribbons scored 238 votes from lawmakers at a plenary session on Tuesday.

According to the bill, public use, demonstration or wearing of such ribbons or their images entail a fine in the amount of from 50 to 150 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens with confiscation of Saint George (Guards) ribbons or objects with such images.

If these actions are carried out again within a year after being brought to administrative responsibility, they entail the imposition of a fine in the amount of from 150 to 300 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens or administrative arrest for up to 15 days with the confiscation of Saint George (Guards) ribbons or objects with such images.

According to the author of the amendments, lawmakers from the People's Front parliamentary faction Anton Gerashchenko, "the so-called St. George (Guards) ribbon has long been a symbol of Russian aggression." He said the ribbon is used by the Russian side "to split the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian people."

The non-taxable minimum income is now set at UAH 17.
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Just days after Jyoti Singhs killers were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, on May 11, a similar case of gang rape and murder was reported from Rohtak in Haryana. Within the same week, another 10-year-old from the same area was found repeatedly raped by her stepfather and is now five months pregnant. On May 14 (ironically on Mothers Day), a young girl from Sikkim living in a hostel in Delhi, was forced late night into a car and gang raped by several men and on the very same day another young girl who was kidnapped while going to her school to collect her certificates,was rescued from a farm house in Meerut where she was being held forcibly and gang raped repeatedly.

What is happening here, you ask. To what do we owe this spate in sexual crimes against women and even little girls some as young as two months old ? Why, despite the strengthening of our archaic rape laws , did it take the Supreme Court of India almost five years to confirm the death sentence for the rapists and killers of Jyoti Singh, of whom one being a minor then, is still in a remand home?

One needs to understand here how fundamental sexuality is to the basic concept of gender in Indian society. And in a semi feudal and genderised society like ours, sexuality remains central everywhere (from homes, schools and cinema screens to Parliament) to define males and females. Under this rubric, submissiveness and non assertion are female qualities while domineering and forceful behaviour is deemed proof of male power. Add to this the fact that nearly three quarters of our population is below 40 years of age, and even to a dimwit, rape begins to look like an indigenous, not an exceptional phenomena.

The relative silence over the Rohtak gang rape and murder of a young Dalit girl allegedly by a rejected suitor, surprises one after the dramatic scenes and nationwide protests that followed the Jyoti Singh case and finally led to amendments in our rape laws. The news of this equally horrific gang rape is already relegated to inside pages as the media agitates over the debacle of the AAP and the disappearance of a sofa set brought in for the UP Chief Minister.

This is proof, if any is needed, that Indians are fast developing callouses on the subject of rampant sexual violence against women. Predictably the Haryana police having constituted a special investigative team is looking into the matter, the NCW has sent a two member team to meet the victims family and the Haryana government has announced a fat compensation for the victims family, but it is obvious that despite all the publicity over stringent new anti rape laws and kadi se kadi saza pronouncements from the System, not much has changed on the ground for women . The power pack in civil society, the legislature, the judiciary and the executive (mostly men), still represents to women a system squarely based on gendered definitions of rape from a pre-democratic India where womens consent and silent support for every thing from personal laws to bigamy to marital rape was routinely obtained through threats of sexual terror and physical and social abasement. So our legislators and religious heads (often one and the same) still counsel women to touch their rapists feet and ask them to look upon her as a sister, or opine that if the society took to farming, and /or women did not go out after dark, or use mobiles or wore short dresses or have boy friends, rapes would stop.

Women continue to be raped daily, writes Justice Leila Seth, one of Indias finest judicial minds and member of the celebrated Verma commission that rewrote Indias rape laws, but adds that the normal approach, remains protectionist. Protectionism says women need protection as matter of right as a citizen, but because they are weaker and more subordinate than men. Despite the major legal amendments the Verma committee report helped usher in, even today this protectionist mindset among most members of the executive, the judiciary and the public continues to reinforce and validate a sexualised hierarchy in which eroticised dominance (as in Bahubali) defines masculinity and submission eroticised (as in Baji Rao Mastani) defines feminity. The State created largely from the male point of view combines coercion with authority. It counsels and supports moral policing women and khap panchayats that say whenever they step out of their homes, girls must be accompanied by a male chaperone. True, the law does not give men the right to kidnap and rape women or throw acid on their faces if they say no, but the Rohtak case shows this does not deter male predators seriously.

Some other details reveal the kind of world Indian men and women really inhabit socially and politically. Despite the recommendation of the Verma committee, the legislature chose to leave marital rape out of the list as a punishable crime. And more recently when the courts took up the triple talaq matter,the related issues of halala and polygamy had been neatly excised. It is obvious to women that at this point the State will not contradict the socially constructed and legally validated terms of mens entitlement and access to women, never mind how they affect the lives of millions of Indian women.

Real equality of sexes under the law can only be realised first by accepting that gender inequality is a shrewd socio-political construct of a society which determines that most victims of sexual crimes will be women and men the perpetrators . By first defining and then stigmatising the woman victim as an inferior (often loathsome) weakling, it pre-determines that female victims distress instead of appealing to his conscience, will arouse the perps even more . Most recently this mindset has begun to surface in the shape of graphic molestation threats from trolls . Many women victims of these feel they are set on them by political parties they have been criticising because they seem directed particularly against women journalists and liberal feminists. Be that as it may, one thing is certain. The trolls deem sexual assault as just punishment for females who according to them are acting above their station.

For all the above reasons our new rape law still deems sexual and forceful violation of a woman not a crime if the perp can successfully prove that he had not forced the woman (usually an adult girl friend or a sex worker) but had obtained her consent prior to the act . And when the victim appeals against this, in small town male dominant thanas, hospitals and court rooms, most victims of forcible rapes are forced to realize all over again how actual consent or non consent, (far less actual desire) remain almost totally irrelevant in the eyes of the examining authorities. Say what they will, the adjudicated line between rape and intercourse still commonly centres on someone elses assessment of the victims will. If you are such a good girl/woman, why did you agree to go to a pub with his friends? is a common question, leeringly asked.

Equality, it is obvious, requires genuine change and a new relation between life and law for Indian women before they can safely seek recourse and redressal in the new anti rape laws. Justice Leila Seth, in one of her last books (Talking of Justice) has quoted another equally perceptive and compassionate female judge, Justice Claire LHeureux Dube of Canada :

Equality is simply not about equal treatment...a mathematical equation waiting to be solved. It is about human dignity and a full membership in society. It is about promoting an equal sense of self-worth.

Mrinal Pande is former chairperson, Prasar Bharti and a senior journalist.

The views expressed are personal
Actor Rohit Roy, along with his 14-year-daughter Kiara, attended much-hyped Justin Biebers maiden India concert at Mumbais DY Patil Stadium on May 10. Though he accepts that it was quite evident that Bieber lip-synced for most of the songs during his gig, the actor also feels that this didnt bother Beliebers [fans of Justin Bieber] much.

A lot of people complained that Bieber was lip-syncing and not really singing. Yes, he wasnt singing. I mean he was chewing gum and drinking water while singing some songs, so it was pretty obvious! But he tends to do this in some songs, which are layered with his own voice as backup, says Rohit.

Talking about the people who were not happy with Biebers gig and criticised him, Rohid adds, These critics had to be people who are above 40. The teens didnt care about it [Bieber lip-syncing]. When he sat on the stage, across these young fans, and looked straight into their eyes, they were in seventh heaven, and that is the purpose of a concert of this kind, says Rohit.

The actor, took his daughter and her friends to the concert and was delighted to see them beaming with joy after coming out of the stadium.

Actor Rohit Roy with his daughter Kiara at DY Patil stadium.

Kiara and her friends came out of the venue with big smiles on their faces and they said that it was the best time of their lives. That was the highlight of the show for me, says Rohit.

There were plenty of reports suggesting that celebrities had security issues, but Rohit has a different story to tell. I do understand that as actors, we do need a certain amount of security. But I dont think that at a Justin Bieber concert, people would bother us too much. As soon as I got to the platinum section, Mumbai police personnel formed a ring [around us] and asked me to stand without any worry. One guard from the stage section said that he would keep an eye on the girls as well. I had zero issues and my kids had a fantastic time. The guard even gave the girls water bottles, so they wouldnt get dehydrated, recalls Rohit.

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Actor Harshvardhan Kapoor is rumoured to be in a relationship with Sara Ali Khan  actors Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singhs daughter. However, neither party has confirmed the news. Now, pictures of the two on a dinner date, at a restaurant in Bandra, Mumbai, have surfaced and its all the confirmation their fan clubs need.

Actor Harshvardhan Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan were spotted on a dinner date in Bandra, Mumbai. (Viral Bhayani)

Buzz about the relationship started in March when Harshvardhan Instagrammed a picture of a girl on a beach and captioned it : Find beauty in everyday life and let it inspire you. Dont forget to capture these frames and mark them as memories forever. You can always use your loved ones as subjects but keep them a mystery nonetheless. Soon enough fans started speculating that the girl is Sara, after which he deleted the picture.

First of many more to come from the @toranjkayvon series. I've been busy shooting but took time out to do new photos for you guys.@toranjkayvon_photographer #instagood #love #photoshoot #bhaveshjoshi #mirzya #model A post shared by Harshvardhan Kapoor (@harshvardhankapoor) on May 7, 2017 at 3:34am PDT

This is not the first time they have been spotted together. Two months back, the two were seen at a restaurant in Andheri, Mumbai. The two reportedly entered hand-in-hand. In fact, there were also rumours that they were addressing each other as baby.

A post shared by Sara Ali Khan (@officialsaraalikhan) on May 7, 2017 at 11:52am PDT

Harshvardhan, who is actor Anil Kapoors son, debuted with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehras Mirzya, and is now shooting for Vikramaditya Motwanes Bhavesh Joshi, while there are reports that Sara will make her debut alongside actor Salman Khans brother-in-law Ayush Sharma. There were also reports that Sara will be seen in Karan Johars Student of the Year 2.

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Priyanka Chopra is at it again. On Sunday, bikini photos of the actor surfaced online, where she was seen chilling at a beach in Miami, along with model Adriana Lima. And now, new pictures of her, clad in a green and white bikini, are once again breaking the internet. In a series of pictures shared by her Fanclub on Instagram, PeeCee is seen relaxing with her girlie gang.

The 34-year-old actor won accolades for her successful stint in American TV series, Quantico, which was followed by appearances on almost all popular American talk shows. Next, Priyanka is set for her Hollywood film, Baywatch, also starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron.

Just jump in  #priyankachopra #baywatch A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Fan Page (@pcourheartbeat) on May 15, 2017 at 7:31pm PDT

Priyanka is sure giving some major fitness goals to her fans across the world.

What did we do to deserve this everyday.  #priyankachopra #miami #baywatch A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Fan Page (@pcourheartbeat) on May 15, 2017 at 2:17pm PDT

After sporting a bikini, Priyanka soon covered herself up with a brown kaftan.

Credit @priyankadaily | #priyankachopra #miami #baywatch A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Fan Page (@pcourheartbeat) on May 15, 2017 at 7:57am PDT

The actor, who attended the Miami premier of Baywatch, posted a picture with producer Mubina Rattonsey.

Last few hours of chill.. poolside bummery with @mubinarattonsey #Miami A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on May 15, 2017 at 9:58am PDT

Earlier this week, her pictures with Adriana Lima at a Miami beach sent her fans into a tizzy.

Priyanka and Adriana Lima in Miami, her hair  #priyankachopra #adrianalima A post shared by Priyanka Chopra Fan Page (@pcourheartbeat) on May 12, 2017 at 2:49pm PDT

Surely, Priyankas fans are left asking for more.

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After a nationwide talent hunt , director Sabbir Khan finally found his leading lady for his next film , Munna Michael, starring Tiger Shroff. Niddhi who is a professional ballet dancer , was selected quite by accident but was immediately signed for the film, thanks to her screen presence and charisma.

The debutante may have received a warm welcome from the film industry but unfortunately was forced to move out of her flat in the suburbs. The housing society raised objections to her single actress status.

Sources reveal that society boards are generally wary of letting out flats to aspiring actors. This left Niddhi with no choice but to hunt for a new apartment.

Hunting for a new place seems an impossible task.Because I am single and an actress, I have been denied accommodation. This is the biggest hurdle that I am facing here, she says.

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The automotive parts and electronics maker Delphi is the latest company to partner with BMW, Intel and Mobileye in a joint bid to develop autonomous vehicles.

The companies announced Tuesday that Delphi will help to integrate autonomous driving systems. BMW, Intel and Mobileye joined forces in July of 2016. They plan to start producing automated vehicle systems by 2021.

The broadening coalition that includes Delphi is one of a growing number of partnerships between tech and auto giants.

The companies say Delphi already has provided a prototype computing platform that melds sensors, artificial intelligence and other computers. They plan to develop a system that can be used by other automakers.

More partners could be added to the group. Delphi Corporation is based in suburban Detroit.
All of Ukrainian president's official pages on Russian social media sites being closed

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced the closure of his official pages on Russian social media sites and urged Ukrainians to quit Russian servers for security reasons.

"Ukrainian internet providers should stop providing access to VK, Odnoklassniki, Yandex and other Russian servers. All of the president's official pages on these servers will be closed. I am urging all of my fellow citizens to immediately withdraw from Russian servers for security reasons," a statement posted on Poroshenko's VK page says.

"The hybrid war requires adequate responses to challenges," Poroshenko said. "So for the purpose of countering opponents and countering propaganda, my team used pages on several Russian social networking sites," Poroshenko said.

"Massive Russian cyber attacks worldwide, in particular, the recent interference in the French election campaign, show that the time has come to act differently and more decisively," Poroshenko said.

The VK pictogram has been removed from the Ukrainian president's official site.

All of his official pages and accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube remain in place, the Ukrainian president said.
Taiwan-based IT major Foxconn has sought 13 acre land at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trusts special economic zone (SEZ), Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

The contract manufacturer makes products for global device brands like Apple, BlackBerry, Amazon, Motorola, Xiaomi and Sony and has bulk of its factories in China.

Foxconn has sought a land parcel of 13 acres in special economic zone in JNPT and I have spoken to Maharashtra Chief Minister about the project, Gadkari told the media here.

However, the shipping, road transport and highways minister said the details of the project are not immediately available.

Foxconn Technology Group is one of the worlds largest electronic manufacturing contractors, headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan. It is the third largest information technology Company by revenue.

The Country Head and MD, Foxconn International Holding India, Josh Foulger had in March met Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to discuss support for exporting mobile phones from the country.

JNPT, Mumbai, is among to 12 major ports and handles over 40% of Indian volumes.

Gadkari said investors have evinced interest in other port SEZs for a variety of activities that include leather, wood and fertiliser.

Under the Sagarmnala initiative, Gadkari said, 14 SEZs are set up across the country at an estimated investment of Rs 12 lakh crore.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) was implemented on May 1 last year and state governments and Union territories (UTs) were required to establish a regulatory authority by May 1 this year. It stipulated deadlines to be met by governments of states and UTs. However, many states are behind schedule. A look at the deadlines that have passed and the ones that need to be met:

Notifying the rules

From the date of its implementation (May 1, 2016), RERA required all state governments to notify their rules within 6 months, i.e., October 31, 2016. However, till April 30, 2017, only a few states had notified the rules. The central government was required to notify rules for UTs. While 59 sections under the Act were notified on April 26 last year, the remaining 32 clauses were notified by the Centre as late as April 19 this year.

Establishing the authority

RERA stipulates that regulatory authorities had to be set up by April 30, 2017. However, till now, none of the state governments or UTs has established a permanent regulatory authority. The Act empowers the appropriate governments to designate any officer as an interim regulatory authority till a full-fledged authority is established. According to the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, as on May 1, 2017, 13 states and UTs have created interim regulatory authorities. These include Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Haryana, Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Chandigarh. Many others are in advanced stages of finalising such authorities. These include Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tripura, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu.

Appellate tribunal

The Act also mandates that states to establish a real estate appellate tribunal. The deadline for this was April 30, 2017. However, till now, it is not in place. The tribunal is important because in case homebuyers are not satisfied with the decision of an authority, they can approach the appellate tribunal.

Registration of projects

The central Act requires developers to get all ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate registered with the regulatory authorities before July 31, 2017. However, many states have diluted this. For instance, the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have excluded registration of ongoing projects where services have been handed over to the local authorities or to the residents welfare associations for maintenance. Maharashtra requires a developer to register only the phase of the project for which occupancy or completion certificate has not been received.

Registration of estate agents

Real estate agents are also required to get registered with the authority before July 31, 2017. According to the Act, a real estate agent is anyone who acts on behalf of one person in a transaction of plot, apartment or building and receives a remuneration as commission or otherwise.

Web-based system

According to Act, within a year of the establishment of a regulatory authority, there needs to be a web-based online system for various purposes. A few states like Maharashtra have set up these websites, but even here, all the required information is not available.
In the summer of 2000, I met Yasin Malik in the small study of his home in Srinagar. He was 32 then, and as chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front, the most prominent face of Kashmiri separatism. And it was a face that made many Indians uncomfortable, for it had been grotesquely disfigured by torture at the hands of the authorities. As we sat on the carpet, I noticed a small bookshelf behind him, and in it a collection of Mahatma Gandhis works. This was not what I expected to see in the home of a former militant who, in his conversation with me, defended the violence of the Kashmiri mujahedin.

When I asked him if he had read the books, he opened the glass door of the bookcase and pulled a well-thumbed volume. Of course, he said. He was a great revolutionary. But how, I asked, did he reconcile his admiration for the apostle of nonviolence with his support for the militants who killed not only Indian security forces but also ordinary Kashmiris? After all, Gandhi had defeated his enemy with peace. Yes, but Gandhis enemy was much gentler with him than mine have been with me, Malik said. They never did this to him, he added, pointing to his face, its youthful features frozen in an agonized rictus.

I didnt get to see Malik on my recent visit to Srinagar  I did meet other, prominent separatists of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, of which he is a member  but I was reminded of his stated admiration for Gandhi when, on the day before my arrival, militants killed seven men in Kulgam district. Five of them were policemen, guarding a van used to deliver money to bank branches; the two others were civilian bank employees.

All seven were Kashmiris, and the killing sent a shock through the Valley, even among those who had no love for the Indian state. In WhatsApp and Facebook groups, many Kashmiris agreed that this was beyond the pale. It was one thing for the militants to attack Indian security forces, but to kill civilians was another thing altogether.

But neither Malik nor the Hurriyat was heard from. The separatist group, so quick to call for Valley-wide protests and hartals when one Kashmiri is killed by the security forces, could not be moved to outrage over the murder of seven. The message it sent out was that the spilling of Kashmiri blood  civilian Kashmiri blood, at that  was okay if the militants did the spilling. (Hizbul Mujahedin claimed responsibility for the attack, adding, implausibly, that it had only killed the policemen, and not the two civilians.)

If Malik remembers his Gandhi reading, then he may recall the name of Chauri Chaura. This was the village in Gorakhpur district where, on 5 Feb, 1922, an angry group of protesters who were participating in Gandhis Non-Cooperation Movement, set fire to a police station, killing 23 men inside. The Mahatma could have remained silent, or dismissed the incident as an isolated spasm in an otherwise entirely nonviolent movement. Instead, he condemned the incident, and pressed the Indian National Congress to call off the movement, which it did on Feb 12.

If it is too much to expect the Hurriyat to call off its separatist agitation in response to the murder in Kulgam, the leadership could  should  have condemned the killings vociferously. The announcement of a Valley-wide expression of mourning would not have been untoward. But the Hurriyat did no such thing.

Nor was it able to muster any outrage last week, when another Kashmiri, Ummer Fayaz, was abducted from his cousins wedding in Shopian, and assassinated  again, police say, by Hizbul Mujahedin. The fact that Fayaz was a lieutenant in the Indian Army seems to have made him unworthy of the Hurriyats sympathy.

Condemnation of these killings would not have weakened the Hurriyat; indeed, it might have given more credibility to its claim to represent all Kashmiris. Not only to these omissions undermine the Hurriyats claim to the moral high ground in the Valley, the leaderships silence in the face of the militants excesses emboldens groups like the Hizbul Mujahedin to pursue their own agenda  leaving the Hurriyat with no credible voice. One manifestation of this was the threat by Hizb commander Zakir Rashid Bhat to behead Hurriyat leaders, for describing their movement as a political struggle, rather than a religious war for an Islamic state. On this occasion, Bhat was expelled from the militant group, but Malik and his fellow leaders of the Hurriyat will likely watch their backs, and their tongues, from now on.

The Hurriyat leadership often compares the condition of Kashmir to that of Palestine. Having spent time in both places, I can attest that there are few similarities. But the leadership of the Kashmiri separatists have one thing in common with their Palestinian counterparts: in the words of an Israeli statesman, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Already this month, theyve missed two.

Bobby Ghosh is editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times

@ghoshworld

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Soon, pilgrims en route to Char Dham will be able to view hourly updates on weather information to plan their journey ahead.

The state government has decided to set up digital screens at select places along the Char Dham Yatra route, where weather forecasts issued by the Dehradun Meteorological Center will be displayed.

In the first phase, the digital screens will be set up at a few places en route the holy shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. These digital screens, besides giving weather information to the pilgrims, will also alert them about the possibility of any extreme weather change and the precautions they should take in such a situation.

The decision was taken in a meeting between Uttarakhand chief secretary S Ramaswamy and a team of senior India Meteorological Department (IMD) officials, organised in Dehradun on Monday.

We will be writing to the district magistrates (DMs) concerned as well as the tourism department to identify places where the screens could be placed, preferably at locations which are major tourist halts. The state government wants to move swiftly on (doing) this, disaster management secretary Amit Negi told Hindustan Times on Tuesday.

Initially, around 10-15 screens will be put in place and the move will later be extended to other locations along the annual pilgrimage circuit eventually, he added.

Bikram Singh, director of the Dehradun Meteorological Centre, said, With the installation of such screens, information regarding any sudden changes in weather will reach the pilgrims directly.

At present, we (at the centre) are issuing special seven-day as well as hourly forecasts for the Char Dham Yatra on our website, besides generating weather forecasts for the Char Dham route, which has been divided into sectors, he added.

Two such screens had been placed  one each at Gaurikund and Kedarnath  during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the Kedarnath shrine on May 3.

In 2013, a massive rain-induced disaster had left around 5,000 dead and thousands displaced in Uttarakhand. Lack of an effective communication dissemination system - to relay weather related information to pilgrims in real-time - was said to be one of the reasons for the widespread damage suffered in the disaster.

Mussoorie to have Doppler radar

Dehradun: Mussoorie has been finalised as the location for installation of a Doppler radar  a highly specialized weather forecasting system  in Uttarakhand during the meeting between the state government and the IMD officials. Led by IMDs deputy director general D Pradhan, the team also gave its initial nod to a location in Nainital for the installation of another Doppler radar. Another site will soon be identified in Chamoli district for the installation of the third radar, disaster management secretary Amit Negi told HT. It was decided that the first radar will be set up in Uttarakhand within a year through mutual cooperation between the state and the IMD, and weather forecasting network will also be further strengthened. Notably, installation of radars has been pending in the hill state even four years after the 2013 disaster.

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Three assailants on motorcycle shot a businessman and left his wife and 18-year-old son injured right outside their home in east Delhis Mansarovar Park on Monday night.

The suspected robbers made away with a bag containing Rs 25,000 cash that they had been eyeing while following the father-son duo who run a soft drinks business in New Ashok Nagar. The police, however, are also probing other motives behind the crime.

The incident comes a little over a fortnight after another group of robbers had gunned down a man in a bid to rob Rs 3 lakh cash he was carrying home in north Delhis Sarai Rohilla on April 27.

In the latest crime, 42-year-old Mukesh Singhal and his son, Saurabh, had downed their shops shutters and were riding a scooter back home when the three bikers began trailing them.

The motorcycle rider was wearing a helmet. One of the pillion riders had covered his face with a cloth. The third suspect was wearing a cap, said Nupur Prasad, DCP (Shahdara).

The suspected robbers struck just as the father and son neared their home in a narrow street in Mansarovar Park around 10.30pm on Monday.

Mukesh and Saurabh were just about to enter their home when the robbers tried to snatch a bag that the boy was holding in his hand. But since Saurabh was holding onto the bag tightly, the robbers were unable to snatch it easily, the officer said.

To save the cash, Saurabh raised an alarm and tried to throw the bag inside his house. The commotion drew his mother, Sunita, out of her home.

Finding themselves in a desperate situation, the robbers allegedly began shooting at the family. Mukesh was hit in the chest and he died on the spot.

Sunita too received a bullet and is admitted to a hospital. Sunita is currently in a critical condition and is under observation. Her son was lucky to escape with a superficial injury as a bullet only brushed past him.

Even as neighbours rushed the victims to a hospital, the robbers managed to escape from the crime spot. No one was able to note down the registration number of the motorcycle, leaving police in the dark about their identities.

The crime, meanwhile, was followed by a demonstration by local businessmen in Mansarovar Park on Tuesday. They said they were afraid to transact in cash because of the frequency of such robberies.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has accused the Centre of paralysing the state government by allegedly holding back files related to the appointment of two new ministers in the Arvind Kejriwal cabinet.

Speaking to reporters at the Delhi secretariat on Tuesday, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said the central government was violating constitutional norms by sitting on the file for the past 10 days.

I want to know why the Centre is trying to paralyse the Delhi government by violating the Constitution. Why are they doing this? What is the Constitutional point the Centre has been considering for the last 10 days? he said.

The deputy CM said the government had sent the file to induct two MLAs - Rajender Pal Gautam and Kailash Gehlot - in the Delhi Cabinet on May 6.

According to sources in the union home ministry, the file is under process and is likely to be cleared by Wednesday.

Gautam will fill the vacancy created due to the ouster of Sandeep Kumar last year and Gehlot will replace Kapil Mishra, who was recently sacked by Kejriwal from his Cabinet.

Sandeep Kumar was in charge of social welfare and women and child welfare department. Mishra was minister for water, tourism, art and culture.

Kumar was sacked on September 1, 2016 after an objectionable video emerged last August. Sisodia has been taking care of his portfolios ever since.

The deputy CM said as Delhi was presently facing a water crisis, the water minister should be appointed at the earliest.

Earlier in the day, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal accused the Centre of stalling the Delhi governments activities.

The Centre is sitting on the files for the last 10 days. Many Delhi government activities are stalled due to this. Your enmity is against us, dont take revenge on the people of Delhi, Kejriwal said.

Leader of opposition Vijender Gupta asked how work was not affected for the past many months when the government had not decided on a replacement for Kumar but now it is getting worried in just 10 days.
Two buildings, three break-ins with similar modus operandi but the similarities end here.

The French diplomats house in south Delhis Shanti Niketan was not the only one that reported a break-in last week. On the same night, the flat above the diplomats house was also burgled similarly. The following night, a woman from an adjacent house also reported about a similar case. While others alleged theft of cash and valuables, not even a single item was reported stolen from the senior diplomats house.

Euro and Dollars were stolen in a house but in the diplomats house, the burglars opened the drawers but did not steal any foreign currency lying in it, according to the complaint filed by the diplomats husband.

Also, the landlady of the building, who resides on the first-floor, where the French diplomat lives alleged the burglars had ransacked her husbands official files and her sons certificates.

Were the burglars searching for anything specific on the night of May 5 at the diplomats house? Could the other two break-ins be a cover-up for what exactly happened inside the diplomats house?

Police are probing the case but are yet to gather any leads. The diplomat, currently posted in the Embassy of France, refused to comment and said it was her private matter.

Arti Mehra, who lives above the diplomats house said, I was alone that night. The burglars took my wallet containing cash and jewellery. They ransacked my husbands files. Even my sons swimming certificates were removed, checked and thrown on the ground. Why would anyone do this? Police have registered an FIR, she said.

According to the French diplomats husbands statement to the police, there was cash (foreign currency too) in the house but it was not stolen. The burglars did not steal any valuables despite laying their hands on the jewellery box  the drawer with valuables was opened but the jewels were left outside.

While police were informed of the two cases, the following night, a similar break-in was reported from an adjacent building. On May 7, burglars broke into Rupa Anands house. That night, Rupa was home with her daughter, while her husband was out of station.

I heard a sound at around 3am but did not get up to check. That morning I woke up and saw the cupboards in the bedroom and dining hall open. The drawers were open. I went upstairs and woke up my daughter. They did not enter my room but went to my husbands office in the house and took cash and foreign currency too, said Anand.

Anand said the burglars had also tried breaking the safe but were unsuccessful. It is scary. It looks like they had lots of time inside our homes. What if they had entered our rooms? she said.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (south) Chinmoy Biswal said police have received complaints of burglaries and are probing the cases. Police have collected forensic samples of the fingerprints found in the houses and are matching it with her database.

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The Delhi High Court on Tuesday transferred the case of missing student Najeeb Ahmad to the CBI after the crime branch of Delhi Police failed to trace the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student.

Najeeb, 27, a first year MSc student, had gone missing from the JNU hostel on the night of October 14-15 last year after an alleged row with members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

A bench of Justice GS Sistani and Justice Rekha Palli handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after Delhi Police said it had no objections if the court transferred the case to another probe agency.

Delhi Police has no objection if the matter is probed by any other investigating agency... We refer the matter to the CBI with immediate effect for further investigations, said the bench.

The bench directed that investigations in the case should be carried out by the CBI under the supervision of an officer not lower than the rank of DIG.

Last week, the high court had pulled up the Delhi Polices crime branch over the manner of its probe into the disappearance of the JNU student, saying it was giving an impresssion that investigation was not being done properly.

The court had said that the conduct of the police showed it was trying to sensationalise the matter or looking for a way out.

Contrary to a newspaper reports, which claimed Ahmad had been looking for information on Islamic State (IS) before his dissapearance, the police status report did not show that he (Ahmad) was accessing any fundamentalist website, the court had remarked.

The court had said that police should have carried out an internal inquiry as to find out the officer who had leaked or planted that information.

The court had also pulled up the police for not questioning the nine students suspected to be behind Najeebs disappearance on Day One and taken them into custody.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, appearing for the Delhi police, said the investigation was carried out in a fair manner, including a pan India search.

The courts direction came while hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Fatima Nafees, Ahmads mother, that her son be produced by police and the Delhi government before the court.

The ABVP has denied any involvement in his disappearance.

The nine students suspected to be behind Najeebs disappearance have neither given their consent nor refusal for a lie detector test in the case. The court had said that it can not force them to take the polygraph test but they themselves should come forward and give consent.

The court now posted the matter for July 17.

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This is the most curiously named dessert in Delhi. The decadent Hello to the Queen is available only in a few places in the capital. We ask you to try it at the backpacker-friendly Brown Bread Bakery in Paharganjs Ajay Guest House.

Served in a glass bowl, the dish consists of scoops of banana-studded vanilla ice cream resting on a mound of cookies, and the whole concoction generously smeared with hot chocolate sauce.

Hello to the Queen is a made-in-India delicacy that seems to appear only on menus designed for foreign tourists, who hang out in hotspots such as Pushkar, Manali and Goa. Its origin is mysterious. Even the all-knowing Wikipedia is silent on the Queen.

A discussion forum on a travel website traces the dishs creation to an Israeli tourist in a Pushkar cafe, who, on getting an upset stomach, asked the waiter to get him ice cream mixed with chocolate, whipped cream, bananas, coconut, marshmallow and cookies. Unlikely, but does it matter?

The slightly pared-down Queen at the Ajay looks grand, but dont expect any sophistication to its taste. You simply get the distinct flavours of vanilla ice cream, banana, chocolate sauce and delicious cookies. If you manage to finish the entire Queen, you feel full and sleepy, ready to crash on a nice warm bed. Not unlike a diligent backpacker who has returned after a long trek. It helps  the cafe has a nice, long sofa.

The cafe is a dimly lit world of wicker chairs and travellers from around the world. There is sometimes a Hindi film junkie from Haifa, an elderly Jane Austenite from Cambridge, a textile designer from Brooklyn, and a retired nurse from London.

The other day we saw a long-haired man performing a yoga aasan, perhaps to wash down the Queen in his belly.

WHERE: The hotel is on a street off the central road in the Main Bazaar. The galli is right opposite the now-closed Khanna cinema, the first of Paharganjs famous single-screens to shut down.

GET THERE: Ajay Guest House, Main Bazaar, Paharganj

TIME: 7am to 11pm

NEAREST METRO STATION: Metro Station Ramakrishna Ashram Marg
Sometimes the stuff you see in song-and-dance movies repeats itself in real life.

In 2011, Hindi film Rockstar depicted its hero  a young Delhi man played by actor Ranbir Kapoor  being forced to leave his home, along with his guitar, and finding shelter in the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. In the films chartbuster qawwali, the hard-luck protagonist is shown sleeping in the dargah during the late hours of the night.

Well, during the late hours of a recent night we saw exactly such a sight in Nizamuddins shrine. A young man was sleeping on one side of the dargahs courtyard, his head resting on what appeared to be a guitar case.

Suddenly a black cat (the shrine has many cats) leaped past and woke him up.

We asked him if that was indeed a guitar.

Im a guitarist, vocalist..., he told us in English, haltingly.

This was 19-year-old Arshad Alis fourth night in the dargah.

I left my home... Papa se meri banti nahi (I dont get along with papa.)

Arshad is from the nearby Dadri. His father, a businessman who runs a small hospital, was not happy about his only son taking up journalism studies at a college in Greater Noida. However, that was nothing against his disgust for Arshads passion for music.

But it was not easy to focus on Arshads story. His left arm was extremely distracting because of its oversized tattoo that says EDM. It stands for Electronic Dance Music, he said, adding he had got it done three years ago at a tattoo parlour in west Delhis Subhash Nagar.

A few days ago, Arshad told his father he was leaving the house for ever.

Papa did not say anything.

The young man picked up his guitar  but not his mobile phone  and rode off on his bike to a cousins place in Vaishali, a suburb just outside Delhis eastern limits.

The cousin handled Arshads delicate circumstances with a kind of sensitivity that only relatives are capable of showing. He mocked me in front of his friends... I was humiliated... I left his place too.

Arshad came straight to Nizamuddins shrine, a place he had often visited out of devotion to the 14th century Sufi mystic.

Besides his bike and guitar, the bearded runaways possessions included a torn pitthu bag, but its zip was not working. He was not worried. Its just four shirts, two pants and my bikes papers.

Arshad had only twenty rupees in his pocket.

How was he feeding himself?

I get the langar khana, he said, referring to the food that is served free in the dargah.

At a crucial point in his life, Arshads immediate agenda is to look for a job in some international call center. The long-term plan is to establish himself as a musician. He said he could perform qawwalis, Bollywood music and English rock.

Arshads quiet confidence was extraordinary, especially so because he had never performed in public.

He then went back to sleep, his eyes shutting down almost instantly.

In the film Rockstar, the hero goes on to become a rockstar. We wondered what would become of Arshad.

The following midnight, while walking aimlessly in the streets of Nizamuddin Basti, the village that circles the aforementioned Sufi shrine, we suddenly heard the soft strains of guitar music. Six young men of the basti-- one of them is a butcher we are friends withwere huddled beside Arshad. He was playing his guitar.

That was the future rockstars first public performance.
BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Monday that China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Britain and enhance communication and coordination on international affairs.

Li made the remarks in a meeting with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who is in Beijing as special envoy of Prime Minister Theresa May to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday.

Li expressed China's willingness to consolidate mutual trust with Britain, implement consensus of cooperation in nuclear power, finance and other major areas, and expand cooperative areas to lift bilateral ties to a new level.

He also called for joint efforts from the two countries to promote stability, opening-up, international trade and investment, sending a positive signal to the world.

As permanent members of the UN Security Council, Li said the two countries' communication and coordination on international affairs are important for both countries, the region and the world.

Hammond said Britain will endeavor to develop the UK-China comprehensive strategic partnership, maintain high-level exchanges, boost bilateral cooperation in trade and investment, and intensify communication and coordination on international affairs.
The water crisis in Delhi, that has mainly affected the citys north and central parts, including the VIP Lutyens zone, remained unresolved on Tuesday, but the shortage is likely to ease by Wednesday.

A late-evening Delhi government update said the supply will be normal by Wednesday afternoon.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted around 10:15 pm that the Haryana chief secretary has assured the city government that water supply in Yamuna would be back to normal.

Delhi Water Crisis: Chief Secretary Haryana has just assured that water supply in Yamuna would be back to normal by tomorrow afternoon.  Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) May 16, 2017

Earlier, staring at further deepening of the crisis, the Delhi government, which has been blaming Haryana for the shortage, sought the intervention of the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) and also threatened to file a contempt petition in the high court.

Delhi water crisis still not resolved. Water being stopped despite court order. I have directed DJB (Delhi Jal Board) to file contempt petition in HC (sic), Sisodia had tweeted.

Two water treatment plants at Wazirabad and Chandrawal which treat around 220 MGD (million gallons per day) out of the 900 MGD treated in Delhi, are running on their 60% capacity, a DJB official said.

The Lutyens Bungalow Zone, which comes under the New Delhi Municipal Council, houses the PMO, the Rashtrapati Bhawan and residences of several Union ministers, judges, Army officers and bureaucrats, among others.

Earlier on Tuesday, accusing the Haryana government of not giving the national capital its legal share of water, the Delhi government sought the PMOs intervention.

The DJB official said out of the 900 MGD, around 550 (almost 60%) comes from Haryana and the rest from Uttar Pradesh.

Almost every summer, Delhi and Haryana spar over water- sharing with each claiming that the others demand exceeds the stipulated quantity.

Sisodia told a press conference that around 80 MGD of Delhis water supply has been stopped by the Haryana government, despite the Supreme Courts order prohibiting any such move.

I have requested the lieutenant governor to seek the PMOs intervention to deal with the water crisis. This is a political issue and the PMO should intervene at the earliest. We should go beyond politics on this issue, he said.

Sisodia, who has been holding the additional charge of water minister since Kapil Mishras sacking from the Delhi cabinet last week, said chief secretary-level talks between Delhi and Haryana could not arrive at any conclusion.

I have also told the LG that there has been a talk on the water crisis at the level of officers, but there is still no solution. If the water shortage continues, we will have to cut down supply in the central Delhi, he said.

Delhis water requirement is 900 MGD, but it is falling short by about 50 MGD since May 8, according to a senior DJB official.

Sisodia also held a high-level meeting with the DJB officials this evening and directed them to take all necessary measures to ensure the city continued to get an uninterrupted water supply, so that no inconvenience was caused to the residents.

Sisodia asked the DJB to keep all its options ready.
Four swine flu-related (H1N1) deaths have been confirmed in one private hospital in Delhi since January this year, with three of the four deaths recorded in April. These are the first swine flu deaths reported from Delhi.

All four H1N1 deaths have been confirmed by laboratory tests at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. This years first swine flu death in the hospital was recorded in February and the patient was from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. The three other patients who succumbed to the flu were from Delhi and died in April, confirmed a doctor at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Five patients who have tested positive for H1N1 are being treated at Sir Ganga Ram. Since January, we have had 18 people who have tested positive for swine flu, said the doctor.

Read: Experts call for immediate study of new swine flu strain

Among Delhis busiest hospitals, Ram Manohar Lohia has had five cases, Safdarjung hospital recorded one case , while Lok Nayak has had none in 2017. There have been no deaths there.

ding to the Union health ministrys data, Delhi and NCR had 53 cases and no deaths till May 5 this year.

The doctors at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, however, said three of the four deceased had co-morbid conditions, which led to complications. Only one person from Delhi, a 35-year-old man, was absolutely healthy with no co-morbid conditions but succumbed to the H1N1, the official said

Read: Dont ignore that fever: Mumbai records its second swine flu death

A total of 8,648 cases of swine flu and 345 deaths have been reported from across the country. The worst affected state has been Maharastra, with 933 cases and 181 deaths.

H1N1 is a human respiratory flu, which is commonly known as swine flu and was declared a pandemic in 2009 by the World Health Organisation. Since then, Delhi and most of the country has been reporting swine flu cases, which is common during the winters.

H1N1 has all the signs of a conventional flu  fever, cough, sore throat, headache, runny or stuffy nose, fatigue and body ache  but, it also causes respiratory illness and pneumonia.

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Aam Aadmi Party legislators have extended full support to partys national convener Arvind Kejriwal, amidst the internal crisis following the corruption allegations levelled by sacked water minister Kapil Mishra against the Delhi chief minister and the party.

As part of an exercise to make himself more accessible, Kejriwal hosted a dinner for all party legislators and their family members at his residence on Sunday.

Sources said the event was an informal family gathering but the latest crisis in the party due to Kapil Mishras rebellion was the focus of discussion.

All MLAs, except those who were out of town, were present at the gathering and it was unanimously expressed that the party was united and there was no threat to the future of the government, or the party. The fact that not even one MLA has supported Mishra till now shows that the party is fully behind Kejriwal, an AAP legislator who attended the dinner said.

Delhi CM .@ArvindKejriwal hosted all AAP MLAs & their families at home at Sunday dinner,Could become weekly feature pic.twitter.com/sWHaeZhZOC  AAP In News (@AAPInNews) May 16, 2017

Since electoral debacle in municipal election, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has been making all efforts to be more accessible to the party legislators and take their feedback on governance, lack of which was identified as one of the mistakes in partys electoral strategy that led to the loss.

Chandni Chowk legislator Alka Lamba retweeted a video of the gathering on her Twitter handle. We AAP MLAs are firmly behind Arvind Kejriwal after allegations by Kapil Mishra. So much lust for power is not good, Lamba tweeted.

Lamba told HT that the gathering was not unusual as the CM has been hosting such events for family of legislators every six months, but he is likely to hold more such interactions with the party MLAs in future.

His accessibility has increased already. Earlier, he was also busy in assembly elections in other states. But after the MCD election, he started meeting MLAs both in batches and individually. Such meetings with elected representatives is likely to be more routine now, she said.

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Another student injured in the Honda City accident in west Delhis Punjabi Bagh died on Tuesday during treatment. This is the fourth death in the shocking car crash.

Twenty-year-old Garima was one of the seven students going to Narela in a Honda City car to write an exam when it crashed into a divider and toppled off a flyover on Monday. Two students succumbed to injuries before they could reach the hospital and another occupant breathed his last later in the evening.

Garima died at AIIMS trauma centre on Tuesday morning. Two others, Rishabh and Raja, continue to remain critical, Vijay Kumar, DCP (West), told HT. The seventh occupant, Pranav, is out of danger he continues to be under observation at BLK Hospital in Rajendra Nagar in Delhi.

Earlier on Monday, Ritu Singh and Sanchit Chhabra had died on the spot after the car broke through cement railings and an iron fence to fall almost 30 feet below, just next to railway tracks. Rajat, who was driving the car, passed away later in the day.

According to the police, Ritu and Garima were occupying the single seat next to the drivers while four men were in the back seat.

The police have registered a case of causing death by negligence, rash driving and causing hurt by negligent act. A tyre burst is suspected to have led to the accident.

Though the locals had arrived soon after the accident and tried to rescue the seven occupants, police said it took them more than 15 minutes to pull the students out as the car s roof and doors had been crushed. Police said Ritu and Sanchit, who died before they could be given medical help, sustained serious head injuries and died due to excessive bleeding. Report of their postmortem examination is awaited.

All the seven students were pursuing BBA. They were on their way to write an exam in Narela. Police later found their books, identity cards and admit cards for the exam in the mangled car.

Later in the day, families of Ritu and Sanchit donated their eyes to an NGO. Sanchits father Raj Kumar Chhabra said his son was a helpful person and he would be there for others even in his death. My son is gone, but at least two other people will be able to see the world through his eyes. Just thinking of this possibility makes me feel better, he said.

Raj Kumar Chhabra, father of Sanchit, who died in the car accident at Punjabi Bagh on Monday. ((Ravi Choudhary / HT Photo))

Ritus father, Malkhan Singh, too agreed to donate her daughters eyes without a second thought. The NGO has invited me to meet the two persons who will receive Ritus eyes. My daughter will live in those two persons forever. I will meet them and stay in touch with them my entire life, said her father fighting back tears.

The police said the students could have had a different fate if they were more careful about traffic rules. While seven people were travelling in a car meant for five, police said it was highly unlikely that those in the back seat had their seat belts on.
Responding to the car accident that left three dead in Punjabi Bagh on Monday, a group of slum dwellers showed the way to a city that is notorious for public apathy towards accident victims.

Santosh, who works odd jobs for a living, was seated outside his jhuggi located barely 50 metres from the accident spot when he heard a loud screeching sound.

I thought two cars had collided on the flyover above. I looked up to see a car crash through the railing and fall below. It had turned upside down after the fall, said Santosh, guessing that the car was travelling at a speed of 60-70 km/hr.

Calling out to his neighbours, he immediately rushed to the car to help its occupants. All the seven inside were unconscious and piled up on each other. I dont think anyone was moving or calling out for help, said Santosh.

When the locals tried to open the cars doors, they found them to be locked from inside. We first tried to remove the broken glass panes of the car, but that was not enough to pull out the victims, said Mithilesh Yadav, another local.

The slum dwellers then brought out hammers and bricks as they went about breaking open the doors even as one of them called the police. A few others climbed the cars bonnet to help with opening the cars doors.

Eyewitnesses said it took about 15 minutes to rescue all the occupants and an additional five minutes for the police to reach the spot.

We did not have any motor vehicles and it was not practically possible to drive any car down from the flyover. So, we decided to load the victims on our cycle carts and pedal them up the flyover so that they could be rushed to hospital, said Manish Kumar, another eyewitness in Delhi.

Fortunately, police vehicles arrived just as they were about to load the injured on the carts. The victims were taken away to different hospitals in three police vehicles.

Vijay Kumar, DCP (west), lauded the efforts of the slum dwellers. They did everything within their means to rescue the victims before the police could arrive at the spot. The damage could have been greater if not for the locals, said the DCP.

The rescuers knew soon after the accident that the victims they were dealing with were students. There were so many books in the car. When police arrived, they even found identity cards which confirmed they were students, said Santosh.

The locals said that the casualty count could possibly have been higher had the car landed on the railway tracks passing just a few feet from where the car had landed. One train passed by less than five minutes after the car fell, said Santosh.
The internal struggle in AAP and subsequent war of words just got bitter on Monday with Sunita, wife of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, taking potshots at former water minister Kapil Mishra.

Sunita, who usually recluses herself from making public statements, asked Mishra to reveal the time when he visited their house in Civil Lines on May 5. Mishra, MLA from Karawal Nagar, had alleged seeing Kejriwal taking R 2 crore bribe from transport minister Satyendar Jain at the CMs residence.

After calling Mishra a stupid man who she alleged was using a written script of another political party, Sunita taunted him and warned of consequences for levelling false allegations on her husband.

You used to call me sister, so if you saw Rs 2 crore in my house, you could have told me, she said in a tweet on Monday.

You are saying you came to our home on May 5. But when? I didnt get to know. Whenever you came, I asked for tea. Didnt I?

Replying to her tweet, Mishra suggested that Kejriwal was using his wifes account to tweet. Sir @ArvindKejriwal return Sunita jis phone to her, Mishra tweeted. On Sunday, he had accused Kejriwals Aam Aadmi Party of receiving illegal donations from shell companies.

Later, Sunita, a former income tax commissioner, posted another tweet saying, Law of nature never errs. Seeds of deceit, lies sown, so shall he @KapilMishra reap. Inevitable.

Mishra was quick to respond to the barb and said, Sunita ji is a very committed wife. She doesnt know what type of conspiracies are being hatched in her house. She is fulfilling her duties.

In another message, the sacked minister said he was not going to utter a single word against Sunita Kejriwal. Sunita ji is unaware of truth. She is upset with her husbands downfall. I respect every negative comment from her side. (But) I will not utter a single word against her, he tweeted.

Last week, Mishras mother, Annapurna Mishra, had fired a public salvo at Kejriwal, accusing him in an open letter of spreading falsehood against her son by saying he was associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. She had accused Kejriwals closest friends of circulating misleading photographs on the social media.

How many lies, Arvind? How many... Lies will not help you. Be afraid of God, she had said in the letter.

Though Sunita is not seen to be dabbling in politics, her attack on Mishra was the second in a week. She had called Mishra stupid without naming him in a tweet last week after the Anti-Corruption Branch registered an FIR against a company that belonged to Kejriwals late brother-in-law Surender Bansal in another scam.

My brother-in-law is no more n this stupid man is speaking all written script without any mind, Sunita had tweeted on May 8, a day after Bansals death.

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A Wall of Heroes with photos of 21 Param Vir Chakra awardees was inaugurated at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Tuesday.

Vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar along with army veterans inaugurated the wall on Tuesday at the university convention centre. JNU has become the first university to have such a wall.

Kumar said the wall will remind students of the sacrifices made by the countrys armed forces.

If we are simply peaceful and tolerant society, that is not enough because there are forces both from outside the country and inside the country that are trying to destabilise the country. It is in this context that our soldiers play a key role in ensuring the safety of the country, he said.

The V-C said it was because of sacrifices of the armed forces that people could debate and discuss in peace.

Today if we are able to sit in out laboratories and study. If students can discuss and debate peacefully, it is only because of their sacrifices, he said.

The JNU programme was part of a nationwide Vidya Veerta Abhiyan, an initiative of the Human Resource Ministry, said JNU registrar Pramod Kumar.

As part of the campaign, portraits of Param Vir Chakra (PVC) decorated soldiers will be displayed on educational campuses to instil nationalism in students.

For over one year, JNU has been facing unrest after the incident of February 9, 2016 when anti-national slogans were allegedly raised on the campus.

Last year, a group of veterans had suggested to the JNU V-C that portraits of martyrs and tanks used in wars should be displayed on the campus to instil nationalism in students.

Former BJP MP Tarun Vijay, who was present at the event said, JNU has become the first university to inaugurate the wall. Dedicate the evening to Lt Umar Fayyaz and his mother.

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A deficit of water supply from Haryana through the Yamuna on Tuesday resulted in supply shortage across several parts of the city, especially North and Central Delhi . The crisis, officials said, is likely to continue on Wednesday.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday said that he had a conversation with Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal over water shortage. Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Dels share. I just spoke to LG n requested him to seek PMOs intervention, Sisodia said in a tweet.

Delhi Jal Board officials say that the release of water to Delhi through the Yamuna has been decreased by Haryana since May 8, 2017. The city is getting 80 million gallons per day (MGD) water less than what it usually gets. While the Capital is supposed to get 820 MGD of water, as of Tuesday, it was receiving 740 MGD.

The supply shortage, if not plugged soon, may cause major water shortage in the city, a senior DJB official said.

Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Del's share. I just spoke to LG n requested him to seek PMO's intervention.  Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) May 16, 2017

The supply shortage has disrupted the Wazirabad treatment plants operations, with many areas in North Delhi receiving erratic supply on Tuesday.

The whole of north Delhi has been affected. People are getting very little water. Some are getting it on alternate days. The government needs to seriously introspect its water infrastructure, said Ashok Bhasin, president of the North Delhi Resident Welfare Association Federation.

The crisis has even touched the power corridors of the Capital. According to a New Delhi Municipal Council official, supply to areas like President Estate, Parliament House, North Block, RML Hospital, Lady Hardinge Hospital, Gole Market, North Avenue MP flats, bungalows at Pandit Pant Marg and adjoining areas was stopped on Tuesday afternoon. Even All India Radio, government buildings on Parliament Street, Palika Kendra, Palika Bazar, entire Connaught Place, Vinay Marg, Satya Marg, Chankayapuri, parts of Sarojini Nagar were impacted.

Water production at Chandrawal plant, which caters to NDMC area, was stopped at 11am. We couldnt supply water in the evening to many areas falling under NDMC. However, production has been started and things will be better by Wednesday morning, the official said.

A DJB official told HT that supply to Lutyens Delhi will resume but will be erratic and in low pressure. Tankers have been deployed to affected areas and people can call the helpline numbers and get water, he said.

The DJB distributes 900MGD of water in Delhi. Out of this, 543 MGD (almost 60 per cent) comes from Haryana and around 240 MGD from Uttar Pradesh through Upper Ganga Canal.

According to the official, Haryana is bound to send Delhis share of water as specified by a 1996 Supreme Court order.

Delhi Jal board officials have already met their counterparts in Haryana last week to discuss the issue but the stalemate continues.

Every summer, Delhi faces shortage of water and engages in a tussle with Haryana. Both states cite their annual requirements and claim the other was demanding water beyond the stipulated supply limit.

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The national capitals summer scourges have returned  power outages, a festering row over water with Haryana, and the Celsius almost touching the 45-degree mark.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia accused the Haryana government on Tuesday of releasing less water to the city  about 80 million gallons less than its share of 820 MGD.

Delhi water crisis still not resolved. Water being stopped despite court order. I have directed DJB to file contempt petition in HC, Sisodia tweeted .

Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Del's share. I just spoke to LG n requested him to seek PMO's intervention.  Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) May 16, 2017

Residents of north and central Delhi are likely to face water shortage on Wednesday because of the reduced supply, officials warned.

Sisodia said water supply would be regulated even in VIP areas such as the Lutyenss zone.

However, a late-evening Delhi government update said the supply will be normal by Wednesday afternoon.

To make matters more uncomfortable, people faced power cuts in several areas, including upscale neighbourhoods in south Delhi.

Blackouts are common during summers as air-conditioners and coolers increase the citys electricity load and trigger local faults in the supply network that has a history of breakdowns.

The demand for electricity touched 6,021MW on Tuesday, the highest this year.

Officials of power distribution companies said there was no supply deficit and arrangements have been made for 6,600MW of electricity. Last year, the peak demand was 6,261MW on June 30.

But the demand this summer has peaked early because of rising mercury.

Tuesday was a litter cooler at 41.4 degrees Celsius than the previous days 44.4  the hottest May day since 2015.
Remember how #iwearhandloom trended on Twitter back in August? In a similar celebration of the Indian weaver and craftsmen, minister of textiles, Smriti Irani, has brought #CottonIsCool to the fore. As the hashtag suggests, the online movement urges people to share their pictures wearing summer-perfect cotton, in celebration of India being a big producer, market and supporter of cotton. Since the past few days, the official Twitter handle of the Ministry of Textiles has been sharing various facts, anecdotes related to cotton, using #CottonKatha to bring into focus Indias historic connect with the cotton industry, and its evolution over the years.

Did you know the origin of the word Calico? #CottonKatha pic.twitter.com/nvvdT8xOeU  Ministry of Textiles (@TexMinIndia) May 14, 2017

Did you know that cotton was used by people in the Indus valley? #CottonKatha pic.twitter.com/siIh9tDdAP  Ministry of Textiles (@TexMinIndia) May 14, 2017

Irani too shared her thoughts on Twitter.

India's rendezvous with cotton predates the Indus Valley civilisation and has since evolved.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) May 16, 2017

Today, India is one of the largest cotton producing nations & cotton has become the ultimate summer fabric.  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) May 16, 2017

The minister then kicked of the #CottonIsCool campaign by sharing her own picture in a cotton sari, and asking others to do so, in support of the producers and the industry as a whole.

I celebrate Indian summers and cotton industry with my #CottonIsCool look. What is your #CottonIsCool look?! pic.twitter.com/wnLcE8jQrx  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) May 16, 2017



Soon, the hashtag got trending, and those who joined the campaign include actor Hema Malini, FDCI president Sunil Sethi, CM of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar, among others. Here are some of the posts:

Nothing like fresh cottons to beat the heat I believe in staying cool even on the hottest days #CottonIsCool pic.twitter.com/TOVqbD11Ke  Hema Malini (@dreamgirlhema) May 16, 2017

As a former Member of Khadi Commission I value cotton.

I join to celebrate Indian summers & cotton industry with my #CottonIsCool look. pic.twitter.com/Yo9cmNpZYH  Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) May 16, 2017

Like to be always Cool, but what you wear makes it much much easier to be cool.#CottonIsCool , really really cool. pic.twitter.com/ByZaC0icBE  Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) May 16, 2017

My #CottonIsCool look! In a handwoven cotton Paithani by an award winning weaver from Yeola, Maharashtra. pic.twitter.com/F4HQQCZ2CU  Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) May 16, 2017

Switch to cotton this summer because #CottonIsCool.

Haryana produces a significant amount of cotton in India & has 33 cotton markets. pic.twitter.com/y9hKjJs2GY  Manohar Lal (@mlkhattar) May 16, 2017

The #CottonIsCool look is perfect to beat the sultry summer heat in style. pic.twitter.com/u8bMOLsHMI  Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) May 16, 2017

Cotton,most comfortable fabric to wear in summers.It's my personal choice too.Lets wear cotton,support Indian Cotton Industry #CottonIsCool pic.twitter.com/3c7n8C0TWK  Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) May 16, 2017

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UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura gestures during a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 15, 2017. Staffan de Mistura told reporters here on Monday that the warring factions in Syria were ready for a new round of peace negotiations which will kick off Tuesday and most likely end before Saturday. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)

GENEVA, May 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura told reporters here on Monday that the warring factions in Syria were ready for a new round of peace negotiations which will kick off Tuesday and most likely end before Saturday.

He said that the 18-strong Syrian government delegation was already in Geneva, showing that the Syrian government was "empowered for serious discussions" and interested in the political process.

He stressed that there was no solution to Syria's devastating six-year civil war without a political settlement on the horizon, saying that "the alternative is no hope, no discussion, no political horizon and just waiting for the facts on the ground to take place."

According to De Mistura, the topic of the latest round of talks would still be those set by the previous talks, namely better governance, a new constitution, re-election, and the war on terrorism.

"We will choose some subjects to be focused on in order to get more movement," he said.

The UN official also said he was encouraged that the new U.S. administration was showing "increasing interest and engagement" in the Syria peace process.

"Everything is connected. There are big important meetings taking place. There are discussions taking place in capitals. They do have an impact on what we discuss," he said.

De Mistura told reporters that the upcoming new round of the Geneva talks would be shorter and more business-like, in order to achieve efficiency and make real progress.

"Even the rooms will be smaller, the type of meetings will be a little bit more interactive and proactive and more frequent," he said.

The upcoming next round of intra-Syrian peace talks will be the third to take place between warring factions since the start of this year.

While some progress on the humanitarian front has been achieved, opposing delegations remain at odds as to what a future, peaceful Syria, might look like.

De Mistura's job is to help bridge deep-seated gaps between rival delegations, while ensuring that any outcome is in line with UN Security Council resolutions.

While progress on the political track has been slow, the UN stands by its commitment to pursue peace through political negotiations to prevent further bloodshed in a country where as many as 400,000 people have died and millions more have fled their homes.
The Special Investigation Team constituted by Gurgaon police is scanning the CCTV footage and data dump of the area from where the 26-year old woman was abducted and later raped by three men in a car. The police are also trying to ascertain the route taken by the abductors, but are finding it difficult as the incident happened in the wee hours of Saturday and the victim isnt sure of the route that the abductors took.

Sumit Kuhar, DCP, crime, who is leading the SIT, however, said that they have questioned the victims friend, the driver of the Ola cab and the vendors in Gurgaon and Delhi to establish the sequence of events. A number of officers are working on the case and on all possible angles are being explored to ensure that the culprits are nabbed at the earliest, Kuhar said.

Earlier in the morning, a group of students from Sikkim along with Dilip Kumar, deputy resident commissioner, Delhi, called on police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar to press for early action in the case.

Sources in the police department, meanwhile, admitted that the investigation was slow to begin with as the time of commission of the crime quoted by the victim was found to be two hours ahead of the actual time. While the victim initially told the police that she had reached Sukhrali around 12.30am, the police, on investigation, learned that she had left Delhi around 2am and reached Gurgaon around 2.40 pm.

Read I 50 online banking fraud cases registered in Gurgaon after cyber crime cell nod

The incident also happened between 2 am and 2.45 am, police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar confirmed.

The investigators have obtained call detail records of victim and her friend and they are being scanned. The police have also learned that she made a number of calls late Friday evening and these are also being scanned. The statements of two vendors have also been recorded by the police.

On the basis of the information made available by the woman, the sketch of one of the victim was also released on Monday evening. The police team is also scanning the footage obtained from RWAs and other sources to gather more information about the car used in the incident.

Sources in police also said that the victims friend from Shahdara with whom she had spent the evening in Delhi had met her, in person, for the first time. Earlier, they were in touch with each other over phone and Whatsapp. After catching a movie with his friend, the victim went to a bar. Later, they headed to Hauz Khas village where they bought cigarettes and paan (Betel leaves).

The victim had been living in a rented accommodation in Sukhrali village for the last six years and was scouting for job opportunities through a placement agency run by a Delhi youth. The victim also refused to meet a delegation from the Northeast on Monday.

It was her friend who had booked an Ola cab on Saturday around 2am and dropped her off near her house half-an-hour later in Sukhrali. The woman was allegedly abducted by three men from this point, and later dumped in Delhi.

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The city residents had to suffer five to six hours of power outages during last two days even as the mercury to 44 degrees Celsius.

The power discom officials said the outages were a result of a technical fault in the distribution line and it affected many pockets of Sector 23 in Palam Vihar.

This comes a fortnight after a snag in the Sector 52 substation cut supply and two days after a similar fault was reported in the Sector 72 substation.

Areas such as Jalvayu Vihar, Sector 30, New Colony, and Model Town too saw outages over the last two nights.

Due to the high power consumption over the last few days, owing to rising temperature, power tripping has become a regular nuisance and they often lead to outages, residents said.

MS Joon, a resident Sector 23, said, The power went off at 4.30pm and resumed only by 10pm. The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam official told us that the a fault has developed at the substation.

Residents said power tripping due to snags has increased.

Sunil Yadav, a resident of Palam Vihar, said,  A major cause of power cut is tripping. This happens because the power distribution agency has not yet been able to improve infrastructure. The company is yet to replace ageing and under-capacity transformers, cables and conductors. We have appealed to the DHBVN, which is power distribution agency, repeatedly to remove all under-capacity transformers so that tripping can be checked.

Read I Gurgaon: City continues to reel under 4-5 hour power cuts

We suffer through a four-hour outage, on an average daily, for the past two to three weeks. We use just one fan that runs of the inverter supply. But recharging the inverter is a tough task due to frequent tripping of power and massive power fluctuations. The voltage is low most of the time, said Prakash Kumar, a resident Model Town.

The DHBVN has been facing flak for failing to check massive power theft across the city, resulting in excess consumption that damage the transformers and conductors.

We are trying to restore the electricity supply as our men repaired the fault at Sector 72 substation by Tuesday afternoon. The fault caused power cuts in many areas, said Sanjiv Chopra, chief engineer, smart grid project, DHBVN, Gurgaon.

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Leading private sector organisations, hospitals, civil societies, residents welfare associations and government agencies came together on National Dengue Day to draft a comprehensive action plan and constitute the Gurgaon Task Force to tackle the menace of vector-borne diseases.

Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman and managing director, Medanta, launched Mission Stop Dengue. The mission is aimed at the well-being of more than 75,000 students of Gurgaon, Lisana, Jhajjar, Manesar, Delhi-NCR and Faridabad. Also, kits to tackle dengue were distributed to dengue champions who will spread the message to the community.

The initiative was taken on the National Dengue Day as the monsoon is approaching and the rains bring with them vector-borne diseases every year.

Last year, the city recorded a three-year high in the number of dengue cases, with the district health department registering 401 cases. In 2012, 375 cases were reported, while 175 were reported in 2013 and 86 in 2014

The DLF Foundation, in collaboration with the health department, Gurgaon, Union ministry of health and family welfare and Synergie, organised an interactive session on vector-borne diseases.

National buildings construction corporation , Diwan Housing Finance Ltd, Max hospitals, Medanta, research scholars from Jawaharlal Nehru University and RWA representatives attended the session.

Read I Gurgaon: Doctors raise dengue alert in city

Dr Kanta Goel, chief medical officer, Gurgaon, said, Education and awareness can be crucial for tackling vector-borne diseases in Gurgaon. One needs to be proactive and try to educate oneself and the community.

Vector-borne diseases are a paradox of development. On one hand, we claim to be advanced and equipped with the latest technology, while, on the other hand, we are struggling to tackle these diseases which are absolutely curable and preventable, said Mohini Daljeet Singh, CEO, Max Foundation.

Stressing the role of folk media, she highlighted how puppet shows can be crucial in spreading health awareness.

The session also saw the outlining of the landscape of vector-borne diseases by three prominent doctors of the city  Dr SS Saroha, deputy civil surgeon (VBD), Saroj Deswal, biologist at the office of civil surgeon and Ram Prakash, epidemiologist at the office of civil surgeon.

The session on vector-borne diseases was informative and made us aware of the magnitude of the problem. We recognise our role in implementing the blueprint to tackle the menace, said Dr SN Misra, resident of Wellington DLF-5.

Col (retd) Tej Prakash Tewari, advisor, DLF Foundation, said, There is an urgent need to address the issue of vector-borne disease in Gurgaon and collaboration holds the key. We are trying to get all the corporates, hospitals, RWAs and other organisations who are working towards this aim under one umbrella.

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Brad Pitt and Gen Stanley McChrystal - the inspiration to Pitts four-star Afghanistan commander in the upcoming Netflix war satire War Machine - would seem to be worlds apart. One, an affable member of Hollywoods elite; the other a hard-charging lifetime military man. But Pitt found one connection with his character: a swollen ego, and the damage done.

Hubris is a trap and its the trap of every great nation that has been number one for too long. You start believing your own stink, Pitt says. Anytime Ive gotten in trouble, its because of my own hubris.

Pitt, at the moment, may be particularly empathetic to such a drastic swing as the one that sank McChrystal via an infamous Rolling Stone profile . Pitt is now, for the first time since Angelina Jolie Pitt filed for divorce from him last September, stepping back into the limelight. He hasnt been timid. In his first post-separation interview, to GQ , Pitt was unusually candid, speaking frankly about his struggles with alcohol and the pains of dividing their family.

Pitt was similarly forthright in a wide-ranging interview last week with The Associated Press. He called directly - Hey man, its Brad - and over the course of half an hour, discussed his present state of mind, his current attitude about acting and his alarm at the possibility of expanding the war in Afghanistan. Why the openness?

Ive got no secrets. Ive got nothing to hide, said Pitt. Were human and I find the human condition very interesting. If were not talking about it, then were not getting better.

Its undoubtedly a fraught period of transition for the 53-year-old actor. He said hes spending his time now keeping the ship afloat and figuring out the new configuration of our family. Kids are everything, he said, of their six children. Kids are your life. Theyre taking all the focus, as they should anyway.

Hes getting through it, he assured. Im not suicidal or something, Pitt said, laughing. Theres still much beauty in the world and a lot of love. And a lot of love to be given. Its all right. Its just life.

Pitt was most keen to discuss War Machine and the strong passions behind it. The film, written and directed by the Australian filmmaker David Michod (Animal Kingdom), is based on Michael Hastings 2012 book The Operators, which chronicled McChrystals tumultuous and short-lived stewardship of the war in Afghanistan.

War Machine, which debuts on Netflix May 26, takes a slightly fictionalized approach. Pitts character is named Gen Glen McMahon, but the events and personalities covered correspond accurately with McChrystals downfall. The switch, made after the project was announced, saved the film from some potentially thorny legal issues.

We had no interest in impugning General McChrystal or any of his guys, said Pitt. For me, the problem is more systematic.

The impetus for me was a visit to Walter Reed, added Pitt, who visited the military medical centre in 2014 . Those young men and women - who are absolutely heroic in a very harrowing situation - their lives are forever changed and so are their families. It just really made me question who is spending this currency of dedication. Whos writing the check? Whos making the order?

Brad Pitt arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of Allied. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Particularly galling to Pitt was the request last week by advisers to President Donald Trump and military officials for several thousand more American troops in Afghanistan, a war that has already spanned more than 15 years. Its time to rethink what winning means, he says.

Nothing that weve ever done has said that more troops are going to do anything but cause any more damage, more loss of life and limb, said Pitt. We talk a lot about supporting our troops but I think supporting our troops is much more than giving them money and a pat on the back. I think its being responsible to how we use that ultimate dedication.

Trumps top advisers have said the president has not made any final decision about adding more troops in Afghanistan.

In War Machine, Michod summons some of the spirit of war comedies like Catch 22 and M-A-S-H. The film captures an American military driven by politics, illusions and personal aspirations. Pitts general, with a deeper, gruffer voice than McChrystals, comes charging into Afghanistan with outlandish delusions of grandeur and departs amid self-inflicted scandal.

Brad Pitt in a still from War Machine.

We were tapping into a melding of war and comedy - two things that used to co-exist quite conformably, but in this day and age dont, said Michod. Its very interesting to see how the two coexist in the public sphere given how strangely earnest all conversation about war has gotten in a possibly warped way. But theres something almost truer in that kind of great comedy treatment of decades past than the nature of the discussion that goes on today.

Michod grants its an approach that makes for some wild swings of tone in War Machine, but he says a mix of absurdity and tragedy is ultimately more realistic.

At core, the thing to me thats most powerful about War Machine and what made it feel important to me was that it was about the way personalities can have an incredibly powerful and often a powerfully damaged ripple effect across the world, said Michod. The movie is called War Machine, but that machine is made up of individuals, individuals with their own strengths and ambitions.

Pitt said he discussed the film with McChrystal. I feel for him, said the actor. Hes a product of us. Hes us. McChrystal, who retired from the Army shortly after resigning command, has since launched a management consulting firm and penned a memoir. He declined to comment for this article.

Little about War Machine is typical for a Hollywood production. It would have never gotten made, Pitt said, without Netflix. The streaming service bankrolled the film for $60 million, making it one of Netflixs most ambitious projects yet.

The degree of difficulty on this one was ten, said Pitt, which is what makes it worth it for me to go get in front of the camera now.

Through his production company Plan B, Pitt has become a remarkably successful producer. He was behind two of the last three best-picture winners (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave) as well as other acclaimed releases like James Grays The Lost City of Z. At times, Pitt - though hes prepping numerous projects, including a possible World War Z sequel - sounded almost as though his movie star days are behind him.

I feel myself as Im older gravitating more to the producing side than being in front of the camera, said Pitt. Its a big commitment, a film, and it does take you away from your family. I just have to balance that. Its not less important, itself, its just not as important as family. (War Machine) I loved because its after something and we dont know where were going to end up. Its a delicate tightrope to walk.

Follow @htshowbiz for more


The Cannes Film Festival is known for courting controversy, and this years edition, that starts on May 17, has already been hit by a few of them. For starters, the festival has been accused of retouching an iconic image of Italian model Claudia Cardinale from 1959. Many believe that her waist and thighs have been slimmed down, thanks to airbrushing, and her feet appear to have shrunk too. While Cardinale, now 79, has brushed off the accusations, Twitterati doesnt agree. This is so depressing. Even Claudia Cardinale isnt ok? No wonder girls airbrush themselves invisible on Instagram, wrote user Jodie Chapman.

THE NETFLIX TIFF

Day 236. Congrats! Okja goes the Cannes! #cannes2017 # #bongjoonho #Okja A post shared by  UNA BECK (@unabeck) on Apr 13, 2017 at 2:53am PDT



In another controversy, an official press release by the festival, read: A rumor has recently spread about a possible exclusion of the Official Selection of Noah Baumbach and Bong Joon Ho whose films have been largely financed by Netflix. The Festival de Cannes does reiterate that, as announced on April 13th, these two films will be presented in Official Selection and in Competition. it stated, adding: Consequently, and after consulting its Members of the Board, the Festival de Cannes has decided to adapt its rules to this unseen situation until now: any film that wishes to compete in Competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theatres. This new measure will apply from the 2018 edition of the Festival. What does all this mean? If the movie does not release on the big screen, from next year, it is out of contention for Palme dOr  the biggest prize up for grabs at the festival.

THE YEAR OF THEFTS

The 2013 edition of the festival was overshadowed by the dark clouds of thefts. Jewellery worth $1m was stolen from the hotel room of an employee of Swiss jewellers Chopard. Reportedly, thieves ripped open the safe where it was kept on an early Friday morning. Along with that, a diamond necklace worth $2m disappeared during a

star-studded party.

OK, IM A NAZI

Director Lars von Trier drew flak at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

Danish director, Lars von Trier, told the press at a conference in 2011 that he was a Nazi, that he understood Hitler, and that his next movie could be The Final Solution. Not only did the festival officials condemn his statements, they also banned him from the event.

FLATGATE/HEELGATE

CannesWall Update: Posted by @nohangersbarred Step aside flatgate, Cannes 2016 is putting one (bare)foot in front o pic.twitter.com/48RkbHbi0X  AmazeWall (@AmazeWall) May 13, 2016

Numerous celebrities were stopped from entering the festival for not wearing high heels at the 2015 edition. One was reportedly turned away for wearing boots and tights, while another was refused entry for sporting platform sandals. British actor Emily Blunt deemed the whole incident disappointing. Actor Julia Roberts attended the event barefoot in the year 2016 in protest.

TOO MUCH ACTION ON THE RED CARPET

Mad respect for this couple having blatant sex on the #CannesLions red carpet just now. pic.twitter.com/JVgVYIsC8z  David Griner (@griner) 23 June 2015

The red carpet at the 2015 edition saw too much action  quite literally. David Griner, a British journalist, captured on his iPhone, a couple indulging in sexual intercourse at night, under the glowing Cannes signboard. Needless to say, the news went viral and the couple, though unidentified, gained celebrity status overnight.

ROYAL CONTROVERSY

The opening of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival brought royal disapproval (quite literally) for actor Nicole Kidman. The Monaco royal family dubbed the actors film, Grace of Monaco, a farce with no relation to reality, and boycotted the Cannes red carpet.

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At least 15 Maoist rebels were killed in five days by security forces in Chhattisgarh, the CRPF said on Tuesday but added not a single body has been recovered so far.

One CRPF jawan was also killed in the operations while two others were injured, a spokesperson of the central force said in Delhi.

Some of the slain rebels could have been involved in an ambush that killed 25 CRPF jawans in south Chhattisgarhs Sukma on April 24, one of the biggest losses faced by the central force engaged in anti-insurgency operations in the state, it said.

The number of Maoist casualties was based on information provided by villagers on the borders of Sukma and Bijapur districts besides the ground troops, the official added.

The operations were carried out between May 12 and 16 by state police and CRPFs Commando Batallion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), a special unit raised to tackle Maoist insurgency, identified as Indias biggest internal security threat.

As per teams (which took part in the operations) more than a dozen Maoists were killed in (three) encounters and it could be more as we dont know the exact number, said DM Awasthi, the state polices special director general in-charge of anti-Maoist operations told Hindustan Times.

Maoist rebels  who claim to be fighting for the poor and marginalised communities  are known to take away bodies of their fellow-militants from encounter sites.

The CRPF said around 150 Maoists were involved in these encounters and most of them are believed to be from Telangana, which is also battling Left-wing insurgency..

Since they (the rebels) were using automatic weapons including UBGL (under barrel grenade-launchers) and the distance from Burkapal, where Maoists killed 25 jawans on April 24, is not more than 20km, it can be said that the Maoists consisted most of those who participated in the Burkapal attack, another CRPF officer said.

In a related development, the CRPF and Chhattisgarh police claimed to have arrested eight Maoists who were allegedly involved in the April 24 ambush. Since the incident, 18 Maoists have been arrested in the case.

These Maoists were involved in the Burkapal attack and their quizzing will continue, said Sundararaj P, the deputy inspector general of southern Bastar range.

(With inputs from HT Correspondent in Delhi)

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Headmasters of 251 primary schools in Bihars Araria district, 322 km north east of Patna, have been fined after annual assessments detected that midday meal (MDM) was being served to about two lakh ghost students.

Admitting gross irregularities in the implementation of the MDM scheme, district programme officer (DPO) Subhash Gupta said fine of Rs 61.68 lakh had been slapped on 251 headmasters and 70% of them had already deposited amount. The fine amount per headmaster ranges from Rs 20, 000 to Rs 1 lakh, he said.

Stern action would be taken against those who had not deposited fine yet, said Gupta, who is in-charge of the MDM scheme in Araria.

Under MDM, a Central government programme designed to improve the nutritional status of school-age children nationwide, students of primary and upper primary classes in government and government aided schools are provided free lunch on working days.

READ| Served death: Bihar mid-day meal tragedy kills 22 kids

Regarding the allegations of block education officers involvement in the irregularities, Gupta said he had not received any written complaints against them.

The irregularities came to light recently when it was found during the annual assessment that out of 5.5 lakh students enrolled in 2080 primary schools of the district, two lakh were fake. The two lakh students, who were shown to being served midday meal , had never attended schools. Most of them either did not exist or were pursuing studies somewhere else, said an official of district education office.

READ| 85 students fall ill after eating midday meal in Bihar school

An erring headmaster said he had been made a scapegoat in the case. While the real culprits have been spared, I had to deposit the fine from my hard earned money, he said.

This is not the first case of irregularities in schemes related to the education department in Araria district.

Recently, a block education officer was suspended and an FIR was lodged against him and 14 other persons, including headmasters and middlemen, for their alleged irregularities in distribution of scholarships to scheduled caste and tribe students in Kursakanta block of the district.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad accused the BJP-led government of a political witch-hunt after taxmen raided 22 locations in New Delhi and nearby areas on Tuesday over property deals worth Rs 1,000 crore allegedly linked to him and his family.

The BJP last week accused Prasad, his parliamentarian-daughter Misa Bharti and his two sons, both Bihar government ministers, of benami deals and asked the Union government to probe one such transaction in the national capital.

In a benami transaction the real beneficiary uses a front, or another person, in whose name the property is purchased and registered. The practice is allegedly quite common among people with illegal cash trying to dodge the taxman.

A team of about 100 income tax officials and policemen conducted the raids at homes and offices of several prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon and Rewari since morning.

Properties of RJD parliamentarian PC Guptas son were searched too.

People and businessmen connected to the land deal involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched. There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion, a senior tax official said.

Former Bihar chief minister Prasad reacted sharply to the raids, saying he wont be cowed down by the BJPs political vendetta.

BJP ko naiye alliance partners mubarak ho. Lalu Prasad jhukney aur darney wala nahin. Jab tak aakhri saans hain fashiwaadi takhto ke saath lartha rahunga, he tweeted. (Congratulations to BJP on its new alliance partners. Lalu will continue to fight fascist forces till the last breath.)

His remarks on the alliance are viewed as a possibility of severing ties with chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U), which was earlier a BJP partner.

The RJD and Congress are part of the Kumar-led grand alliance that defeated the BJP in 2015.

Lalus two sons  Tez Pratap and Tejaswi  are ministers in the government.

The RJD clarified later that Prasad was referring to the income tax department and CBI as the BJPs new partners.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley defended the raids, saying the department and the CBI dont act unless there is a substantial basis and a reason to suspect that there is a tax evasion or a crime has been committed.

Jaitleys colleague in the ministry, Ravi Shankar Prasad, alleged the benami transactions were a case of quid pro quo as they date back to the period when the RJD chief was railway minister.

Several suspect land deals took place in Bihar, he said, and the RJD leaders official residence was the address of owners of firms allegedly floated by his family members.

The politics of Lalu Prasad has become politics of loot. Land worth crores of rupees was grabbed for a pittance, he said.

One such land deal involving Prasad and his family is in Bijwasan in Delhi, the BJP minister alleged.

Bihars biggest shopping mall spread over 7.5 lakh square feet is coming up in Patna as part of such dubious transactions, he said.

Prasad is facing a barrage of corruption charges of late. Last week, the Supreme Court revived criminal conspiracy charges against him in one of the five pending cases in the fodder scam, one of the biggest scams in Bihar.

The court ruling is seen as a setback for the regional leader who was disqualified from Parliament and banned from contesting elections after he was convicted of corruption in 2013 in the fodder scam.

(with inputs from HTC and agencies in New Delhi)

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KATIHAR: An impoverished man in Bihars Katihar district, 304 km east of Patna, allegedly strangled to death his eight-year-old daughter after being told that his estranged wife had married another person.

Police said the incident took place at Laliyahi in Katihar town police station area on Monday.

Mohammad Mustaque, 40, lost his cool when he came to know that his wife had married another man in New Delhi. In a fit of anger, Mustaque started beating up his daughter Suhani and finally strangled her to death, town police station SHO Anupam Kumar said.

Mustaque, a daily wager, had been arrested and sent to jail after his mother-in-law lodged a complaint with the police on Monday evening, the station house office (SHO) said.

READ| Bihar man strangles two-year-old crying baby for disturbing him in sleep

Kumar said Mustaques wife Dukhni Khatun, 35, left for New Delhi with a son and a daughter five months ago and had been living there with her sister since then. Their three other children  one son and two daughters  were staying at Katihar with Mustaque, he added.

Mustaque had been staying at the house of his in-laws after his marriage about 20 years ago. With the small earning as a daily wager, he was finding it difficult to support his family, resulting in frequent quarrel with his wife. Upset over this, Khatun left her husband five months ago and went to New Delhi, the SHO said.

READ| Drunk man pushes minor stepdaughter to death in dry Bihar

The SHO, however, could not confirm or deny the veracity of reports regarding Khatuns remarriage.

The post-mortem examination of the victim had been conducted and further probe was underway, he said.

In a similar incident recently, a man strangulated his two-year-old crying son for disturbing him in sleep and threw her body into a rivulet at Belawdan village in neighbouring Purnia district..
Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan on Tuesday said the BJP would welcome actor Rajinikanths entry into politics or into the party.

He said this while speaking to reporters here on the Tamil superstars remarks on joining politics.

The actor, who met his fans in Chennai on Monday, had said he had no desire to join politics, but if he did, he would show the door to all money-minded people.

Rajinikanth said he had no political ambition, but was often dragged into political debates despite stressing that he was neither an influential political leader nor a social activist.

My life is in the hands of God. Im not sure what he has in store for me. But Ill always perform the duty that he bestows on me. So, dont feel disappointed if I dont enter politics, he had told his fans.
Nabeel Ahmed Wani, a BSF commandant from Jammu, who wrote to Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday requesting her to help his sister get a hostel seat, clarified on Tuesday that it had nothing to do with any threat by militants.

His clarification came after the women and child development (WCD) ministry put the following tweets from its official handle: Nabeel Ahmed Wani is Commandant in BSF whose sister is an engineering student in Chandigarh.

Sh. Nabeel Ahmed Wani is Commandant in BSF whose sister is an engineering student in Chandigarh. 2  Ministry of WCD (@MinistryWCD) May 16, 2017

He requested Smt. @ManekaGandhiBJP to get hostel facility for his sister as she was being threatened by militants, said another tweet.

He requested Smt. @ManekaGandhiBJP to get hostel facility for his sister as she was being threatened by militants. 3  Ministry of WCD (@MinistryWCD) May 16, 2017

Wani, who topped the All India Examination for BSF Assistant Commandant (Works) last year, is currently undergoing training in BSF Training Academy in Tekanpur, Gwalior.

When contacted by HT on Tuesday evening, Wani said, My sister is doing her civil engineering from a college in Chandigarh. She was asked by the hostel authorities to vacate her room. Since I am undergoing training and cannot go I wrote to Maneka Gandhi ji seeking help in arranging hostel for my sister.

Gandhi responded promptly by speaking to the hostel authorities. Following the ministers intervention, the hostel authorities agreed to let my sister stay in the hostel, Wani said.

Wani reiterated that his sister has not received any threat from militants. She was just worried that being a Kashmiri she wont find a place to stay. Media should not unnecessarily sensationalise everything, he added.

The incident comes a week after lieutenant Ummer Fayaz was killed by militants in Kashmir when he gone to attend his cousins marriage.

The soldiers murder has cast a show over the BSF officer too.

I do get bothered by incident like the killing of Lt. Ummer Fayaz and worry for my family, Wani conceded.

Read more | Born in Kashmirs separatist hotbed, CRPF cop to fight Maoists in Chhattisgarh

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Patna Motorcycle-borne criminals shot dead a businessman near the railway station at Fatuha in rural Patna when he was taking morning stroll on Tuesday.

The incident has created a fear psychosis in the business community as well as the morning walkers.

Police said victim Pappu Yadav, 42, was an onion trader and the murder could be fallout of property-related disputes.

He was also a leader of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a partner in the ruling Grand Alliance in Bihar, and had contested election to the state legislative council in 2016, the police added.

The crime took place at a time when the police chief was issuing directives to all SHOs of Patna district, to check incidents of snatching by intensifying motorcycle checking and morning patrolling.

Superintendent of police (Patna rural) Lalan Mohan Prasad said Yadav was taking morning walk when the criminals, who had been waiting for him near the railway station, fired three shots into his head and fled away. He was immediately taken to the nearby government hospital where doctors pronounced him brought dead, the rural SP said, adding that police had not received any complaints regarding threat to the life of Yadav.

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said an FIR under section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code had been registered with Fatuha police station. The incident seemed to be a case of personal rivalry, Mahraaj said and added that police had gathered some vital clues against the assailants. He, however, declined to elaborate.

Maharaaj said Fatuha police station SHO Sujit Kumar had been suspended. There were complaints that early morning patrolling was not being done in the area, the SSP added.

Another police officer said some historysheeters of the area were being questioned in connection with the murder. The body of the deceased had been sent to Nalanda Medical College Hospital in Patna for post mortem examination, the officer said.

Meanwhile, local people and RJD supporters later blocked the Patna-Bakhtiarpur four-lane road and disrupted vehicular traffic for more than two hours. The agitators placed the body on the road and pelted stones on the police personnel. They also chased away Fatuha DSP Anoj Kumar from the spot alleging that the police were hand in gloves with criminals.

Family members claimed that Yadav had been killed by his business rivals. Apart from being an onion trader, he was also a successful property dealer, said Ranbir Singh, a relative of the deceased.

GRUESOME Criminals fired three shots into Pappu Yadavs head and fled from the spot

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CBI raids residences of former Union minister P Chidambaram, son Karti in Chennai

The Central Bureau of Investigation raided the residences of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Chennai early on Tuesday in connection with two cases where the father-son duo have been accused of corruption. News agencies said at least 14 locations in Chidambarams home city Chennai, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Delhi were searched by the CBI. Sources said the raids were in connection with foreign investment clearances given by the erstwhile UPA government, in which P Chidambaram was then the finance minister.

Read the story here.

3 years on, Modi remains peoples PM but key issues remain unaddressed: Survey

Three out of five Indians are satisfied with Prime Minister Narendra Modis performance though a majority feels his government is sliding on checking prices, generating jobs and preventing crime, an online poll has found. The Modi government has either met or exceeded expectations of 61% of the people surveyed while 59% felt it was on track to fulfil pre-poll promises. However, Modis signature Clean India campaign has not impressed as 57% of the people responded in the negative when asked if their cities were cleaner.

Read the story here.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet PM Modi

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, currently on a four-day visit to India, will hold delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi today. Ahead of Abbass visit, India reiterated its political support to the Palestinian cause and had said it continued to assist developmental projects there. The visit will provide an opportunity for reviewing the entire gamut of bilateral relations, the Middle East peace process, and regional and international issues, the ministry of external affairs said.

Report says Trump shared classified info with Russians; White House dismisses news as fake

US President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russias foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation during their meeting last week, two US officials with knowledge of the situation said on Monday. The White House said the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, were not correct. The story that came out tonight as reported is false, HR McMaster, Trumps national security adviser, told reporters.

Read the story here.

Indias shallow and stereotypical views led to boycott of Belt and Road Forum: Chinese state media

Indias shallow and stereotypical view that China is working against it through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) led New Delhi to boycott the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) and has the potential to destroy bilateral ties, a Global Times editorial warned on Tuesday. Calling the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) a military group, the editorial said the burden of the current problems  including New Delhis call to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar in the UN  in bilateral ties is entirely on India, and China has nothing to do with any of the issues troubling relations between the two neighbours, it said.

Read the story here.

Pak violates ceasefire again in Nowshera, over 1,600 people evacuated

Pakistan opened unprovoked fire yet again at forward villages along the Line of Control in Nowshera sector in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Monday night, an official said. However, there were no reports of any casualties. The number of villagers evacuated from the area who are now in various relief camps has gone up to 1,674.

Read the story here.

Rumours about vaccine for Japanese encephalitis creates panic in Assam schools

Students in several government-run schools in interior areas of Barpeta, Nalbari and Kamrup districts of lower Assam left school or were taken away by their parents on Monday after rumours about a vaccine that could lead to infertility spread on social media. The state health department has been carrying out a vaccination drive against Japanese Encephalitis (JE) since April 30.

Read the story here.

Two lakh ghost students served midday meal in Bihar, 251 headmasters fined

Headmasters of 251 primary schools in Bihars Araria district, 322 km north east of Patna, have been fined after annual assessments detected that midday meal (MDM) was being served to about two lakh ghost students. Admitting gross irregularities in the implementation of the MDM scheme, district programme officer (DPO) Subhash Gupta said fine of Rs 61.68 lakh had been slapped on 251 headmasters and 70% of them had already deposited amount. The fine amount per headmaster ranges from Rs 20, 000 to Rs 1 lakh, he said.

Read the story here.

Mumbai Indians meet Rising Pune Supergiant in Qualifier 1

After 41 days of gruelling travel and nerve-racking action, the Indian Premier Leagues 10th edition has reached its final stretch. Today Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiant meet at the Wankhede Stadium in Qualifier 1. While Mumbai Indians have clearly been the most dominant team of IPL-10 with 10 wins in 14 games, Rising Pune Supergiant are the only team to defeat Rohit Sharma & Co twice this season.

Read the story here.
The Meghalaya high court heard on Tuesday a PIL that has reopened a 23-year-old mystery  how a lunatic was made to impersonate a murder accused who vanished from jail.

Officials and guards of Shillong Jail had no clue how Deepcharan Kaipeng, the murder suspect, disappeared from behind the bars in 1994. He was never found, dead or alive, and there was no evidence of him having escaped to freedom.

A probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation years later revealed that the jail had covered up Kaipengs disappearance by installing Rusith Sangma in his place.

The court directed the state government to provide its records involving Sangma, including his case diary. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice VP Vaish also made Rusiths siblings, Thomas and Chomoni Sangma, a party to the case.

Sangma was originally picked up by the police in the mid-1980s. He had been abandoned by his wife, daughter, and siblings and was wandering the streets, say police, who classified Sangma as a non-criminal lunatic under the Indian Lunacy Act of 1912. This law was soon repealed by the Mental Health Act of 1987.

We hope to at least find out what happened to Sangma and where he is.

SP Mahanta, Shillong -based lawyer

Sangmas fate has become a mystery of its own: his family allegedly mishandled compensation money directed to Sangma in their care, and Sangma himself vanished without a trace.

The case might not throw light on how Kaipeng, the murderer, vanished. But, we hope to at least find out what happened to Sangma and where he is, Shillong-based lawyer SP Mahanta, who filed the PIL, told Hindustan Times. Mahanta added that the date of the next hearing would be determined after the court received the records it has requested.

Kaipeng stabbed to death his fellow tribesman Doyalian Kaipeng in 1992. The two, from Taidu village under Amarpur subdivision in Tripura, were students of St Anthonys College in Shillong.

The jail staff managed to keep Kaipengs disappearance under wraps until it was time to produce him in a lower court in 2001. The court called the bluff, rebuked the jail warders for making Sangma impersonate Kaipeng, and directed the government to pay Rs 2,500 per month to Sangma as compensation.

Mahanta had handled Sangmas case in 2001, helping him get out of jail that year. Sangma was handed over to his brother Thomas, who took him to their native Gulpani village in Meghalayas South Garo Hills district.

A year later, the CBIs report found 10 jail officials guilty in the Kaipeng-Sangma mix-up. Their only punishment was the suspension of a years raise for those who were still employed.

In 2005, the department stopped Sangmas monthly allowance after the Gauhati high court ordered a lump-sum compensation of Rs 2 lakh. Sangmas siblings were directed to place the money in a bank account intended for his welfare. On November 10 of last year, however, they admitted that Sangma had gone missing in January 2006. The South Garo Hills district police made them lodge a missing person complaint.

We carried out an investigation, but Sangma is yet to be found, said Anand Mishra, the districts superintendent of police.

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Jewellers have voiced concern after two traders were shot dead in Mathura by six people who escaped with gold worth Rs 4 crore, and another jeweller was shot at in Agra and valuables worth Rs 8 lakh looted.

Two traders, Vikas and Megh Agarwal - were gunned down by six armed persons who entered their shop Mayank Chain, in the Koylawali Gali, in the busy market area of Holi Gate on Monday night.

Director general of police (DGP) Sulkhan Singh is expected to reach Mathura on Wednesday to assess the law and order situation.

On Tuesday, traders came out on the streets in large numbers and demanded the arrest of the culprits.

The attackers opened fire and wounded four people in the incident. All the injured were rushed to the hospital where Megh (30) and Vikas (30) were declared brought dead. Their post-mortem examination report revealed that Megh was shot in the head while Vikas was hit by a bullet in the chest. Ashok, Mayank and a third victim are under treatment.

On receiving information of the attack, SSP Mathura Vinod Kumar Mishra rushed to the spot. The DGP will hold a meeting in Mathura at 1.30 pm on Wednesday, said Mishra.

In the other case, half a dozen armed bandits barged into a jewellers shop in the busy Holi Gate area in Agra on Monday night.

Read more | Ghaziabad trader injured in armed robbery by bike-borne men near NH-24

Around 8pm, as Dwarika Jewellers was about to close, two unidentified persons entered and opened fire, injuring the owner, who was rushed to a private nursing home.

The CCTV cameras showed five persons on two motorbikes. The shop owner Dinesh Agrawal is in a serious condition with a bullet injury on his thigh and another on his stomach, family members said. The armed bandits disappeared with a booty of around Rs 8 lakh in a bag, the police said.

With inputs from IANS
A 10-year-old girl pregnant with the child of her rapist stepfather will undergo an abortion this week, doctors at the leading government hospital in this Haryana city said on Tuesday.

The decision follows a city courts order asking doctors at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) to take a call on aborting the unwanted foetus that might have outgrown the 20-week legal ceiling for termination of pregnancy.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act prohibits abortion after 20 weeks, except when the mothers life is under risk.

A medical board of eight doctors had found the girls pregnancy could be anywhere between 18 and 22 weeks. Thus, her case was referred to a city court.

The court gave the doctors two choices. Consider the foetuss age to be less than 20 weeks and go ahead with the abortion. Or, wait for the pregnancy to complete its full term if they feel the unborn child has surpassed the age cap.

The medical board took a humanistic approach and decided to abort, said Ashok Chauhan, the medical superintendent at PGIMS.

She is too young to bear a child, and a full-term pregnancy and childbirth can put her life in grave danger, said doctors. But abortion will be less risky. In delivery, there could be complications such as excessive bleeding and post-operative complications, the doctor said.

The girl admitted to the PGIMS is under severe stress. She was raped by her stepfather several times and then threatened not to tell anyone about it.

When she complained of an aching leg, her mother took her to a doctor last Friday and tests revealed her pregnancy. She told the doctors her ordeal, after which the stepfather was arrested.

Her mother, a migrant labourer from Bihar, told the district child welfare committee that her daughter dropped out of school some years ago after suffering a head injury, which has made her a little unstable.

She requested police to set her rapist-husband free because she sees no life without a man in her life. And, according to her, his crime is pardonable.

The man is the younger brother of her first husband, an alcoholic who died of kidney failure.

Chauhan said the hospital has never dealt with such a young pregnant child.

The hospital gets two-three cases of pregnant rape survivors every year. In January, an 18-year-old girls baby was delivered here after the court rejected her abortion plea. She left the baby boy in our hospital.

India has a strict anti-abortion law aimed at preventing the practice of female foeticide, rampant in a patriarchal society obsessed with a male heir. But the law sometimes gets in the way of rape survivors seeking to abort their unwanted child.

A 14-year-old girl in Uttar Pradeshs Bareilly lost a legal battle to terminate her pregnancy and gave birth to a baby boy in an ambulance last October. She was repeatedly raped by a man in her western Uttar Pradesh village, promising to marry her. He abandoned her when she conceived.

The girl and her family campaigned unsuccessfully to abort the foetus in a case that highlighted administrative apathy. They were first declined permission for abortion by two courts in Bareilly.

When the Allahabad high court took up case in August and asked a medical officer to review the case, it was too late as the teenager has reached an advanced stage of pregnancy.

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As the NDA government readies to celebrate its third year in power on May 26, it will not only highlight its achievements of a winning streak in electoral politics or people-centric policies, but will also showcase India as a global economic powerhouse.

The government which had pitched demonetisation as proof of its crusade against corruption is patting itself on the back for India having climbed 16 spots to 39th rank in the world economic forums (WEF) global competitiveness index, indenting it as the highest leap by any country, with an improved ranking in Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index 2016.

India has also climbed to the 8th place on FDI confidence index.

Amid reports of job cuts and concerns about the growth of economy, the Narendra Modi-government is presenting India as a destination for investment with high GDP growth rate of over 7%, highest FDI ever and fiscal deficit in control.

Starting May 26, the government will launch a massive publicity exercise across 900 districts in the country for which all central ministers and state ministers of BJP-ruled states and members of Parliament have been roped in.

The governments third-year bash will start with Prime Minister Modis address in Guwahati.

Read more: NDA govt approved 17.73 lakh affordable houses in 2 years: Venkaiah Naidu

As in the previous two years, people-centric schemes such as the Ujjwala scheme that provides cooking gas connections free of cost to women from poor households and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana that promises affordable houses for the economically weaker sections will be the focal point of these publicity exercises.

A new feature this year will be 500 beneficiary sammelans (gatherings), where the spotlight will be on the impact of schemes on the common man. Cases will be presented on how government programmes and policies left a positive impact.

But the governments successes in foreign affairs will be equally highlighted.

Topping the list here is the historic land border agreement with Bangladesh, surgical strikes at several terrorist launch pads across the LoC in Kashmir and anti-terror operations across the border in Myanmar.

A mention will also be made of the bilateral visits by the PM and other heads of nations to India, some after decades of little engagement. Take for instance PM Modis visit to Nepal, which came after 17 years of the last Prime Ministers visit or his visit to Sri Lanka, which was 28 years after the last such visit.

India becoming the first country from the region to enter Missile Technology Control Regime is being touted as big diplomatic victory.

A senior official associated with the anniversary programme told HT that the focus was to reach every corner of the country and not leave out even single district to create awareness about the people-centric programmes designed in the past three years, since the BJP-led NDA government came to power with a thumping majority.

Ministers and MPs have been asked to gather feedback during these public meetings across the country. The idea is to have the governments ear to the ground so that in the upcoming assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the BJP is aware of the mood of the people and the work that needs to be carried out.

A team of four ministers, headed by human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar, has been given the charge of drafting the programme for the third-year celebrations.

The broadcast arms of the government - All India Radio and Doordarshan - will offer their platforms to relay interviews with ministers and run scheme-based programmes, with emphasis on the corruption-free administration.

The governments drive against black money stashed overseas, crackdown on benami properties, and shunning the VIP culture- scrapping red beacons for all except emergency services and accepting public nominations for Padma award - will also be highlighted.

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India has overtaken the US to become the second-most attractive country after China for renewable energy investment, according to a report by UK accountancy firm EY.

In an annual ranking of the top 40 renewable energy markets worldwide in terms of allure, China was ranked at the top, followed by India.

The US slipped to the third spot from first in last years ranking, EY said. The fall, the first for the US since 2015, to third in the ranking of the top 40 countries follows a marked shift in US policy under the new administration, it said.

India was ranked third on last years EY renewable energy country attractiveness index (RECAI) behind the US and China.

India continued its upward trend on the index to second position with the governments programme to build 175 gigawatts (gw) in renewable energy generation by 2022 and have renewable energy account for 40% of installed capacity by 2040, EY said in a statement.

The country, it said, has added more than 10 gw of solar capacity in the last three years, starting from a low base of 2.6 gw in 2014. Also, there was a record new wind capacity of 5.4 gw installed in 2016-17.

In the report, EY said: A combination of strong government support and increasingly attractive economics has helped push India into the second place.

In recent tenders, solar developers have offered to supply power at lower prices than newly-built coal plants, effectively blocking new coal capacity.

Indias 2022 target, set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, includes 100 gw of solar, 60 gw ground mounted and 40 gw rooftop. Wind is expected to deliver 60 gw, with biomass and small hydro accounting for the remaining 15 gw, EY said.

In 2016-17, India added 12.5 gw of renewable energy capacity, compared to 10.2 gw from conventional sources.

Solar power tariff has dropped further to hit a new low of Rs 2.44 per unit in the recent auction conducted for Bhadla solar park.

However, such low bids raise questions over whether developers are taking on excessive risk. On the one hand, falling bids track lower technology costs and cheaper capital, allowing developers to maintain margins. On the other hand, those margins are already squeezed by the competition that auctions tend to generate. Some projects may not be delivered or quality may be compromised, it said.

The EY report said the government needs to increase compliance with the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) programme as well as ensure distribution companies have the capacity to continue to purchase renewable electricity.

And the availability of capital remains a concern; the government could ease rules around tapping foreign debt, it said, adding that the government faces several other challenges, including land acquisition, in meeting the 175 gw target.
Indian diplomats in Kathmandu have told Nepals Tarai leadership to drop the demand of changes in constitution and participate in the second phase of local elections scheduled next month, a move being seen as a dramatic U-turn on a policy crafted over two years.

Delhi insists its old policy of broader constitutional accommodation is intact, but top Tarai political leaders, who expressed dismay and shock at what they said was a betrayal, told HT the advice came from the highest levels of the Indian embassy in Kathmandu.

It was a misreading, a misinterpretation of the message and there was no shift in Indias stand, sources in Delhi said.

After Nepal promulgated the constitution in September 2015, the country has witnessed a standoff between Kathmandu and parties of the Tarai, the plains which border India.

The Tarai parties argue that the constitution, promulgated by parties led by hill leaders, eroded political representation, affirmative action and created provinces in a way that would dilute political power of the plains.

For over a year and a half, India agreed with us on the need for an amendment and the impossibility of accepting elections under this constitutional framework as it exists. But ever since a new ambassador has come in, we are being told to give up the agenda, a senior leader of the newly unified Madhesi party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, told HT.

Manjeev Singh Puri was in March appointed Indias ambassador to Kathmandu.

Another Tarai leader said a top embassy official had categorically told him that they should contest elections or face marginalisation.

This will be an admission that that both our line and Indian line of the past two years was wrong. How can we do it? We will have no moral ground left, the leader, who refused to be identified, said. The pressure was generating resentment against India in the Tarai. People feel Delhi has let us down, he said.

India has maintained the need to bring in amendments to address the demands of all political stakeholders, including Madhesis of the Tarai plains.

Delhis strong stance saw ties take a hit with the previous KP Oli government. Protests by Madhesis led to the disruption of supplies across the border in 2015-2016, which many in Kathmandu blamed on India.

But a change in government, the election of Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda as the prime minister and an alliance between the Nepali Congress and Maoists, improved bilateral ties.

At the heart of it was a commitment by the new ruling parties to amend the constitution, a promise Prachanda made to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi during a visit to Delhi and at a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Goa in October.

An amendment was registered in the Nepali parliament but was withdrawn as it couldnt get the mandatory support of two-thirds of the members.

Another revised amendment, which dropped the controversial plan for redrawing provincial boundaries, was agreed upon by the government and the Madhesi parties. But the focus of the government was on holding local elections in two phases since the Madhesi parties said they would not participate in the polls without an amendment.

The first round of voting, in hill provinces, was held on May 14.

The rest of the international community in Nepal, which often looks to India for the lead, is also confused. A Western diplomat told HT from Kathmandu, India often conveyed to us that constitution amendment must come before constitution implementation, as a pre-requisite for stability. But we sense a shift. This linkage is no longer being drawn. It is not clear to us what has happened and whether there is a reversal.

Government sources in Delhi said there was no new line and the talk was stemming from misperceptions. Our continued position is that Nepal government should take along everyone in its constitutional journey. During Nepali President Bidya Bhandaris visit to India last month, too, we appreciated the efforts of the government to forge an agreement , which means we still would like to see broader consensus. So something is being lost in translation, a source said.

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Central trade unions will meet this month to chalk out a strategy as prospect of large-scale job cuts looms on Indias information technology sector.

Consultancy firm McKinsey & Company said in its latest report that 50% of Indias IT work force will be irrelevant in next 3 to 4 years.

The unions want to fish in troubled waters. They are desperate to open accounts in the sector that has so far been a no-go zone for union activities.

They expect the proposed massive job cuts may lay the ground for their entry in the sector. IT sector is an important gateway to reach out to a large section of urban youth, said a Left leader.

The Central trade unions will meet on May 30 to discuss the IT job scene and other issues, said Sanjeeva Reddy, president of the Congress-backed INTUC.

While they want their noises heard and presence felt as thousands of people are expected to lose jobs in the IT sector, the unions are also afraid to take the leap of faith.

The reason: so far, IT employees have not come forward to join unions.

We failed to find support in IT industry. Trade unions can only be formed when people want it. We cant set up unions and then ask people to come, said AK Padmanabhan, president of the CPI(M) affiliated CITU.

Union leaders claim that many IT employees in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata are frantically calling them amid fear of retrenchment. We are advising them to at least form their own association. To negotiate collectively with employers, said Padmanabhan.

BJPs trade union arm maintains a distance from the Left and Congress. BN Rai, president of the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) says that some of the proposed changes in the labour laws will help IT employees.

The proposed industrial relation code says no one can be punished to form union. This will help IT employees as they had been sacked earlier for trying to do so, says Rai.

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A 23-year-old man from Shopian, who escaped from police custody earlier this month, has released a video saying he has joined the militant ranks and that tyranny and illegal detention led him to become an insurgent.

District police authorities confirmed Zubair Ahmad Turray escaped from Keegam police station in Shopian on May 1 but did not take any weapon with him. Residents of the town called for a shutdown for three consecutive days last week to protest his disappearance.

We had information that he (Zubair) has joined militants after escaping from prison. It got confirmed by his video, director general of police, SP Vaid, said.

In the video, which surfaced on social media, Turray is seen in a military uniform with a cap and two rifles and two grenades can be seen on a table in front of him.

Turray begins his message with Quranic verses and says he is a victimised Kashmiri who escaped from a jail a few days earlier. He goes on to explain how slavery and the imperialist forces had led him to become a militant.

My journey has been very painful I had no other way, Turray says in the video.

He says he was in jail for the last four years and was charged under the controversial PSA 4 times. He was referring to the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978 that allows the state to detain a person without trial for at least 6 months. Activists say it is draconian and rights body Amnesty International has termed it a lawless law.

Turray says that even though his last PSA case was quashed by the high court, he was placed under illegal detention for 3 months, following which he escaped.

Habeel Iqbal, a lawyer who is Turrays counsel in 3 cases currently in Shopian court, said in February a PSA order on Turray was quashed and he was told by the police to report to the counter-insurgency wing of the police in Srinagar. He reported to the wing after 2 days of being set free from the prison, only to be detained and handed over to Shopian Police.

Senior Shopian Police officials had promised to let him free in a few days and the days kept on increasing. We did not file for a bail application because then there was the fear that the state might issue a fresh PSA order on him. Since February, Zubair was not produced before any magistrate and hence the custody was illegal, said Iqbal.

Iqbal added, This is a common practice of the state in Kashmir to keep charging people whom they consider a threat under a cycle of PSAs  one after the earlier one is quashed. Hence Zubair was scared that he might be a victim of the same and end up being jailed forever.

Iqbal added Turray has 20 FIRs against him till now.

If somebody is a chronic stone-pelter, what can we do? We had to arrest him, Vaid said reacting to the statements made by Turray regarding his continued illegal detention.

In the video, Turray also talks about the struggles of his father Bashir Ahmad Turray to get him released from jail as the state kept charging him under one offence or other. He also tells his father that he is fine and asks him not to worry.

Iqbal added that Bashir, a businessman dealing in textiles and a shop owner, holds the state responsible for forcing his son to pick up the gun and questions the disappearance of his son from custody.

Zubair Ahmad Turray is a classic example of how the Indian state and its local stooges are pushing Kashmiri youth to the wall and leaving no place for them but to join armed resistance, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik said in a statement.

Sources close to Turrays family say that he was a stone-pelter many years ago and attained a cult status in the district even as he became ideologically motivated towards the separatist cause.

Zubair was 10-12 years old when he was first arrested by the police and since then he has been continuously hounded by the police. He was, at the beginning, a part of protest demonstration in which protesters in some cases turned to stone-pelting. But the way he has been pressurised and pushed to the wall, that today he has joined militancy, prominent Srinagar-based rights activist Khurram Parvez said.

In fact, Zubair says it clearly in the video that he was forced to pick up the gun and militancy was the last option. This is similar to what we have heard in Burhan Wanis case also. Many youths who were part of 2008 and 2010 protests picked up the gun after facing tremendous brutalisation at the hands of the state, Parvez added.

Wani, a popular Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander who was killed in an encounter last year, is said to have taken to militancy after security forces allegedly thrashed him and his brother, Khalid in 2010, without any provocation.

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Patna The RJD on Tuesday called the income tax raids at party chief Lalu Prasads residences in Delhi an attempt to destroy the former Bihar chief minister as well as the party, while the BJP questioned chief minister Nitish Kumars silence in the matter.

The Income Tax department on Tuesday conducted raids and surveys on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad and others.

Officials said the department raided the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, and Rewari since early morning. The premises of the son of Rashtriya Janata Dal MP, PC Gupta and a few other businessmen were also searched.

Nitish Kumar was, however, unavailable for comment on the issue.

He was delivering a speech at the vice-chancellors meeting in Raj Bhawan and listening to experts on ways to turn around Bihars beleaguered universities and colleges.

The meeting to discuss academic issues started at 10am and Kumar, along with education minister Ashok Choudhary, who is also the Bihar Congress president, was there till around 2pm.

RJD leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh wasted no time in dubbing the raids an attempt to destroy Lalu Prasad and the RJD.

The BJP has been trying to do it for a long time. They attack all those considered a threat for them, but such actions cannot deter Lalu Prasad. He has faced such situations may a time in the past and another attempt would only strengthen RJD to united opposition against the BJP for the 2019 challenge, he added.

He said the BJP was acting out of desperation to prevent opposition unity. We were expecting such things, but they dont and cannot deter us, he added.

Nitish Kumar on Monday ruled out a probe into Sushil Kumar Modis allegations over land deals in the name of Lalu Prasad and his famly members, saying it was the Centres domain. He also refused to give his reaction on the matter.

Janata Dal (United) general secretary KC Tyagi said the raid appeared to be another extension of the way the Centre was treating opposition leaders.

We will react only when we come across what the Income Tax deprtment has discovered during the raids. But this is a fact that opposition leaders are in the BJPs target, he added.

Congress leader and former speaker Sadanand Singh said the raids on the RJD chief as well as P Chidambaram were out of sheer political vendetta.

It is clear from the way the BJP government is acting that it wants to destroy the opposition and it is working under a design, he added.

Former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, whose Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular is a ally of the NDA, said it was a raid against corruption and it should be viewed like that.

If there are accusations, they must be investigated. The Narendra Modi government is known for acting tough on corruption, he added.

MAKING A POINT Party leaders say such attempts will only strengthen RJD to form united opposition against the BJP for 2019 challenge

QUOTE

BJP has been trying to destroy Lalu Prasad and RJD for a long time. They attack all those considered a threat for them, but such actions cannot deter Prasad

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, RJD leader & former Union minister

QUOTE

Raid appears to be another extension of the way Centre is treating opposition leaders. We will react only when we come across what IT deprtment has discovered during raids. But this is a fact that opposition leaders are in BJPs target

KC Tyagi, JD(U) gen secy

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The Congress said on Tuesday its leaders or that of the opposition would not be cowed down by the politics of revenge and vendetta, which had become the DNA of this BJP government.

The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people.

The remarks came after government agencies searched Congress leader P Chidambarams premises and properties allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

The AICC in-charge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said: The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government.

We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta, he said.

Surjewala, instead, accused the BJP and its leaders of being corrupt as he highlighted the alleged scams involving top party leaders holding ministerial positions in this government.

May we ask the prime minister, that if the yardstick is morality, why is he shying away from ordering an inquiry into the Sahara-Birla excel sheets in which he himself has been named repeatedly about having taken bribes, he alleged.

Surjewala also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not take action on the Rs 20,000 crore loss caused to public exchequer in Gujarat State Petroleum scam when he himself was the chief minister.

The Congress leader wondered whether the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was corruption and asked why the Modi did not take action against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan whose name allegedly cropped up in the scam.

He claimed that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj allegedly helped people like Lalit Modi who escaped from the country and were wanted by investigative agencies for alleged money laundering.

Surjewala asked who were the people who helped fugitives like Vijay Mallya escape the country.

He said the Congress leaders would continue to tell the country how one autocratic ruler cannot suppress the voice of dissent and those who disagree with them.

Surjewala claimed that the truth was out there for everybody to judge and the government, blinded by revenge, was registering false cases against opposition leaders.

Chidambaram earlier said: The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The governments aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations.
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the homes of former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son on Tuesday.

Sources said the raids were in connection with foreign investment clearances given by the erstwhile UPA government, in which P Chidambaram was then the finance minister.

The cases include the deal between telecom players Aircel and Maxis, and investments received by INX News.

A total of at least 14 locations in Chidambarams home city of Chennai were searched by the CBI, Indias main federal crime-fighting agency, TV news channels reported.

Here are the live updates:

7pm: Finance minister Arun Jaitley defends searches at the homes of P Chidambaram, his son and RJD chief Lalu Prasad. He says the tax department or CBI do not act unless there is a substantial basis and a reason to suspect that there is a tax evasion or a crime has been committed.

3.20pm: CBI searches house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea in Mumbai as part of investigations over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to INX Media.

2:47pm: It is a day of accountability for the government and also the corrupt, says Union minister Piyush Goyal, attacking Lalu Prasad and Chidambaram: PTI

2:45pm: BJP leader and Union minister Piyush Goyal says the issue is why beneficiaries of FIPB approval gave money to firms owned by P Chidambarams son: PTI

1.45pm: Karti says the filing of cases against him and raids on his properties were being done out of political vendetta and to muzzle his fathers voice against the central government.

Have done nothing wrong. They could not prove allegations against me, they want to silence our voice: Karti Chidambaram on CBI raids pic.twitter.com/ptH5BnUOie  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

1pm: An FIR has been lodged against former Union minister P Chidambarams son Karti, Indrani Mukherjea, unknown officers of FIPB Unit of Ministry of Finance and others over alleged financial misappropriation over Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to Peter and Indranis media company INX Media in 2008.

12.10pm: CBI registered the case against INX Media through its director Indrani, Peter, Karti, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.

10.50am:

They just want to damage P Chidambaram's reputation because he is a voice against Modi Govt: Karate R. Thiagarajan,Congress pic.twitter.com/ov4OHtXwYN  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

10.10am: Strongly condemn raids against Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram . Political vendetta of the worst kind, Congress leader Digvijay Singh tweeted on Tuesday.

10am: The raids are a consequence of pressure from CBIs sister agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which said in a status report submitted to Supreme Court in April that it has included P Chidambaram as an accused in their investigation into Aircel-Maxis case.

Aircel was sold to Maxis, a Malaysian company, in a deal that allegedly contravened protocol for foreign investments.

9.50am: Should I stop writing against the government: P Chidambaram tells PTI after the raids.

Govt wants to stop me from writing,as it has tried to with leaders of Oppn parties,journalists,columnists,NGOs and civil society:Chidambaram  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

9.45am: Govt using CBI to target my son and his friends, wants to silence me: ANI quotes P Chidambaram

9.20am: Chidambaram has done nothing wrong, these raids are politically motivated: KR Ramasamy,Congress.

9am: TV reports said at least 14 locations in Chidambarams home city Chennai, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Delhi were searched by the CBI.

8.45pm: The raids are also taking place at the Nungambakkam residence of P Chidambaram in Chennai, a senior police official told PTI.

8.30am: CBI raid former union minister P Chidambarams residence in Chennai.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is believed to have supported another term for President Pranab Mukherjee during her meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday.

The Trinamool Congress chief is also open to the candidature of Mahatma Gandhis grandson, former bureaucrat Gopal Krishna Gandhi or former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, sources told HT.

It was a very important meeting. We discussed the Presidential election as well as the current political situation. Factors like caste, political issues will be considered while deciding the candidate, Banerjee said outside Sonias official residence at 10 Janpath.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi may call all Opposition parties for discussing a Presidential candidate in the next 7 to 10 days.

Congress sources maintain that if the government proposes Mukherjees name, the Opposition will lend their support. Banerjee, too, said that a consensus candidate would be good for the country but added, The government should come forward to build a consensus.

In her 45 minute-long meeting with the Congress president, Banerjee not only assured her partys support but also indicated that she will talk to parties like AAP. Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi joined the meeting mid-way.

Banerjee became the second chief minister from the Opposition camp, after Bihars Nitish Kumar, to support Mukherjees candidature for the Presidential poll in July.

Read more: 2017 presidential elections: Why the assembly tests matter for BJP

In the electoral college of 11 lakh votes, the Trinamool Congress with 64,000 votes is the third-largest after the BJP and the Congress in the election for the countrys top post.

The Trinamool Congress chief didnt publicly reveal her choices even as she slammed the Modi government for pursuing vendetta politics.

Some political vendetta is going on. Whatever is happening today is the same thing. Sometimes they (government) do with Akhilesh (Yadav), sometimes with (Odisha Chief Minister) Naveen Patnaik, sometimes with Laluji, Chidamabaram or (Delhi Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal, Banerjee quipped.
The Allahabad high court on Monday directed the Uttar Pradesh chief secretary to make an inquiry into the issue of medical students of other states not being permitted to appear for counselling in admission to post graduate medical courses in state universities.

A two-judge bench comprising justice Arun Tandon and justice Rekha Dixit has also directed that action be taken against the officers who passed the government order not permitting students from states other than UP to appear in counselling of post graduate medical courses in state universities. The petitioner said such a government order was in violation of guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India.

The court directed the chief secretary to submit his report on the matter by May 23.

The court passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Dr Ram Diwakar and others. The petitioner has challenged the restrictions put by the state government in medical courses.

The petition also alleged that preference to students from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) was given in the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test.

The director general, medical health and training, had issued a circular on March 31, 2017 on the basis of a government order dated March 10, 2017 that medical students of other states be not permitted to go for counselling for admission in government medical colleges in UP.
The Congress is set to spoil the Modi governments anniversary party.

The BJP-led NDA government, which completes three years on May 26, has an elaborate celebration planned. The Congress will open its 10-day counteroffensive with a news conference at its headquarters in Delhi on Tuesday afternoon.

Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi set the tone when he tweeted in the morning, Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide & soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the Govt celebrating?

Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide & soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the Govt celebrating? pic.twitter.com/327xm48Wgs  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) May 16, 2017

Partys chief whip in the Lok Sabha Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot, former union minister RPN Singh, Lok Sabha member Sushmita Dev, actor-turned-politician Divya Spandana, popularly known as Ramya, besides communications department head Randeep Singh Surjewala would share with media their assessment of the government, sources said.

They will look to corner the government on growing unrest in Kashmir, increase in Maoist violence, rising prices, farmer distress and its alleged failure to generate jobs.

Congress leaders and spokespersons will also fan out across India to highlight the governments failures on different fronts and expose its hollow claims.

Foreign policy vis-a-vis Pakistan and China, recent beheading of two Indian soldiers along the line of control, crime against women and leak of Aadhaar data will also be raised by the opposition party.

The Congress will not come out with a booklet this time but will put out a report card on its website on the performance of various ministries.

The party will take the BJPs on over slogan of acche din, a poll promise of better days. The economy was in a shambles and directionless and fuel was costly though global crude prices were low, party sources said. Indias fuel prices are aligned with global market.

The Modi government would have answering to do over the Prime Ministers promise to create 40 million jobs in the first two years of his government, sources said. The Congress says only 440,000 jobs have been delivered during the period.

The party says growth has been flat. It will demand that the government immediately publish the GDP figures of India from 2004 onwards until 2016-17 -- both as per the previous methodology and the new method. The party has accused the government of tinkering with the methodology to show higher growth.

Indias credit off-take was at its lowest since 1952, the Congress said, adding non-agriculture industry credit off-take was (-) 1.59% and the gross capital formation was in the negative.

The industrial capacity was not being used to the fullest. It was a matter of concern that there was an alarming dip in the national investment rate during Modis 35 months tenure, the party said.

The rate fell from 34% to 26.9%.

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Grief and pain choked Mohammed Hanief, a 46-year-old landless farmer from a Jammu and Kashmir frontier village, who is being treated for a Pakistani bullet in his left thigh.

His three little children sobbed near his hospital bed  crying aloud intermittently for their mother who died after a burst of Pakistani machine gun fire hit her abdomen on the night of May 11.

I am a shattered soul today. My world has turned upside down. Who will look after my three children? Hanief whispered in agony.

Haniefs wife Akhter Bi, 35, bled to death waiting two hours for a vehicle to ferry her to the nearest hospital from the couples village, Pukharni, barely 500m from the Line of Control (LoC) in the Nowshera sector.

People in villages along the LoC, the de facto border between the two nations, live under constant fear of mortar shelling and machine gun fire from the Pakistani side. Border skirmishes are common and attacks have increased over the past year.

Hanief narrated slowly how his world came crashing down on that fateful night.

It was 11.30pm on May 11. My wife and I were asleep in the verandah and my three children were sleeping inside. Suddenly I woke up to gunshots and saw bullets pierce my wifes abdomen, he said.

Before I could do anything, a bullet hit my left thigh.

Neighbours carried them to the nearest motor road dodging intense Pakistani shelling, but there was no car to take the wounded to a hospital. Hanief got help after a two-hour wait. It was too late.

He said he was never lucky, but his luck ran out completely that night.

My parents died long ago and my elder brother works in the UAE.

He had taken a loan from various people to go to the UAE about a year ago. But my hard luck didnt leave me. I am illiterate and didnt know that the agent gave me a fake passport. I was arrested on arrival in the UAE and deported. My money went down the drain.

Hanief is now saddled with a debt of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Besides, I owe a fee of Rs15,000 to my childrens school. I urge the administration to provide free education to my children and a small plot to me to eke out a living.

The district administration has given him an interim compensation of Rs1.1 lakh. No amount of money can compensate the loss of a human life, Haneif said.

I dont know how to carry on with my life. My wounds may heal but my heart will bleed till I die. I will have to live with this bitter truth that my wife is not with me anymore.

Hanief is originally from Mendhar in Poonch district. He settled down in Pukharni after his father-in-law gave him a house.

His daughters Naseem and Nasreen, 13 and seven, and 10-year-old son Asif had red eyes on Monday, reflecting the pain of losing their mother. They sat sobbing next to their father, who wondered what part his poor family played in the conflict over Kashmir between the two neighbouring countries.

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An Indian EVM manufacturer has denied it has been invited to participate in a challenge to hack the machines in Botswana.

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), one of the two manufacturers of electronic voting machines in India, said it has only been invited to demonstrate the functions of the machines.

There were media reports that the election commission of Botswana invited experts to hack into the India-made EVMs after the recent controversy over the reliability of the devices in India.

Several political parties in India had alleged that the EVMs were manipulated in the recently concluded assembly elections in five states to benefit the BJP, a charge Election Commission of India vehemently denied.

A report on the portal ITWEBAfrica set off speculation that in the wake of questions being raised in India about the tamperability of the EVMs, Botswana too has decided to hold a challenge, inviting hackers.

Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials have invited hackers to prove whether or not the countrys proposed electronic voting machine system can be manipulated. The new voting system is expected to be used for the countrys next general elections in 2019,the report, which was subsequently quoted by Indian media read.

In a statement BEL clarified that it neither sold EVMs to the African nation nor will be part of any challenge to tamper these machines.

It also clarified that it has only been called to demonstrate the functions of EVMs and paper trail machines or the VVPAT, which have been designed for Botswana and are different from the ones used in India.

BEL said the statement put out by the Botswana election commission is without our approval/consent and the facts stated therein are complete false and baseless.

The ITWEBAfrica report was tweeted by the supporters of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), which has levelled allegations that the EVMs used in the last round of assembly elections in February-March in five states including Uttar Pradesh were tampered.

The Party, despite the election commissions demonstration about the safeguards of the system has questioned the impartiality of the poll panel.

On Friday, the poll panel made yet another attempt to reach out to political parties to eradicate doubts about the functioning of the EVMs and their safeguards.

Barring the AAP, TMC, BSP and PMK most parties came out in support of the EVMs, provided they are used with paper trail machines.

The Commission has announced that elections, including the upcoming assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, will be conducted using paper trail machines or VVPATs.

It will hold an open challenge next week, inviting representatives of political parties to choose the EVMs used in the recently concluded elections and show how they can be manipulated.

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A day after opposition members led by the Samajwadi Party threw paper balls at him during the joint sitting of both houses of the state legislature, governor Ram Naik on Tuesday said their unruly conduct had shamed the House and hurt its prestige.

He said although the opposition had the constitutional right to air its views, disrupting the governors address was wrong. The governor also said the opposition should make full use of the opportunity that comes its way during discussion on the address. However, he said he was deeply saddened by the misguided aggression of the opposition benches. The governor said it presented a poor image of the state before the world.

Naik expressed his views while interacting with some media persons during his visit to Allahabad to attend a function organised by Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU). The session was the first after the Yogi Adityanath government came to power in March.

It was also the first time proceedings were being aired live on Doordarshan, which caught the unruly scenes as the legislators shouted slogans protesting what they described the worsening law and order situation in the state. They threw paper balls at Naik, some of which even hit him, despite marshals trying to shield the governor with the help of files.

Naik said that even the opposition knew that the address delivered by the governor was prepared by the government as those in the opposition now were themselves in power some time ago. I believe there should be a constructive debate between the opposition and the government on the address with focus on issues in place of creating unnecessary ruckus, he said.

On law and order in UP, the governor said the government was committed to enforcing law strictly across the state. Work of the state government cannot be assessed on the basis of few incidents taking place during the past 40-50 days, he said.

Earlier he inaugurated the memorial lecture series in the memory of Jana Sangh founder Pt Deendayal Upadhyay. Naik said Upadhyay was a great human being whose views should be spread among the people. The governor also released a book published by the North Central Zone Cultural Centre (NCZCC) Prayag Ke Pracheen Mandir..Ek Dharohar at the function presided over by UPRTOU vice chancellor MP Dube.

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More than 100,000 Chinese have poured at least 24 billion US dollars in the last decade into "golden visa" programs across the world that offer residence in exchange for investment. Nowhere is Chinese demand greater than in the US, which has taken in at least 7.7 billion dollars from more than 40,000 Chinese investors in the past decade.

"Investing 500,000 US Dollars, getting American green cards for the whole family" are the key words Henry Global Consulting Group (HGCG) is using to lure Chinese investors to put their money into American real estate projects funded through the US investor visa program which has become increasingly controversial.

HGCG is only one of the thousands of agencies operating in China to provide investment immigration consulting and facilitatory services. The US and Canada are by far the two most popular destinations, issuing 76,000 visas to investors and their families over the past decade.

The US EB-5 program gives green cards to anyone who invests 500,000 dollars in a business that creates or "saves" at least 10 jobs. By AP's count, it has drawn at least 7.7 billion dollars over the past decade from Chinese individuals.

Many investors said they don't want their children to struggle in China's rigid and intensely competitive education system, which critics say emphasizes rote learning and can stifle creativity. Other factors are thought to be that China's upper-middle-class families are becoming increasingly restless, as cities remain choked by smog, home prices multiply year-on-year, and schools impose ever-greater pressure on their children.

More than 100,000 Chinese in the last decade have chosen to become investors in "golden visa" programs around the world, with the number tripling between 2010 and 2015. The increase over this period saw an estimated 27 billion dollars pour into the United States, Canada, and a dozen other countries offering residence for investment, an Associated Press analysis has found.

The key to their spending power is China's real estate boom. Real estate prices in China's largest cities have more than tripled in the last decade, with prices in Beijing rising by an average of 25 percent a year during that time. A family that gained ownership of an ordinary apartment more than a decade ago can now sell it for the price of a "golden visa." As their dissatisfaction with China's problems grows, more families are choosing to do so.

"With the price appreciation, they now have the means to invest and there is growing dissatisfaction with other factors, including the pressures on education, pollution, foods safety," said Steven Hendryx, Senior Vice President at HGCG.

The challenge for China, which doesn't recognize dual nationality, is that if it can't keep entrepreneurs and middle-class families from leaving, consequently it will lose talent and capital that could have been focussed at home, said Chen Zhiwu, an economist at the University of Hong Kong.

"Those government interventions have made the expropriation of private assets and private resources relatively easy to do. So that's the scary part, which has made business owners feeling more insecure than before," said Chen.

The huge growth of Chinese demand has pushed some countries to toughen their investment requirements or, in Canada's case, cut off applications altogether. In the United States, federal investigators said in April they found at least three Chinese investors who obtained green cards through the program were fugitives wanted by Beijing.

Separately, more than a dozen separate multimillion-dollar fraud cases in the last five years have involved hundreds of Chinese investors, some of whom have had their residency in the US thrown into jeopardy after their projects failed.
Pakistan opened unprovoked fire yet again at forward villages along the Line of Control in Nowshera sector in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district on Monday night, an official said.

However, there were no reports of any casualties.

Ceasefire violation by Pakistan took place at Ans and Bhandaar at 10.55pm (Monday). Lam and Kalsian areas were also affected, Rajouri deputy commissioner Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary told Hindustan Times.

He said the number of villagers evacuated from the area who are now in various relief camps has gone up to 1,674.

Four villages - Sarya, Khamba , Anwas and Bhandar - in Nowshera had also come under fire from across the LoC around 4pm on Monday.

Villagers along the India-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir are suffering the brunt of cross-border firing, with the neighbouring country continuing to violate the ceasefire agreement.

In Rajouri district, intense shelling by the Pakistan Army has forced several families from Jhangar and Bhawani areas to move to temporary shelters set up at a government higher secondary school and other safer places on their own.

Over 50 schools in Nowshera have been closed for an indefinite period while 36 in Manjakote and Doongi zones have been closed for three days, affecting 4,600 students. At least two civilians, including a minor girl, were killed as Pakistan pounded 35 villages and Indian posts with mortars.

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After a brief lull, the Pakistan Army on Tuesday evening opened heavy fire and shot 120 mm mortars on forward Indian villages and posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir.

Defence spokesperson Lt Colonel Manish Mehta said the Pakistani army initiated indiscriminate firing of small arms, automatics, 82 mm and 120 mm mortars around 6.30 pm.

The Indian army posts are retaliating strongly and effectively. The firing is on, he added.

An intelligence source said the Pakistan Army was targetting Lam and Pukharni areas of the Nowshera sector.

Pakistan had opened unprovoked fire at forward villages in the same areas on Monday night too.

However, there were no reports of any casualties.

Ceasefire violation by Pakistan took place at Ans and Bhandaar at 10.55pm (Monday). Lam and Kalsian areas were also affected, Rajouri deputy commissioner Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary told Hindustan Times.

He also informed that the figures of villagers from Sarya, Khamba, Anwas Bhandar and Bhawani in various relief camps swelled to 1,720 from 1,674 on Tuesday.

Today, BJP MP Jugal Kishore along the local BJP MLA Ravinder Raina extensively toured the border area and also met villagers in various camps (after Monday nights firing), a police official said on Tuesday.

Intense Pakistani shelling in Nowshera sector since May 11 has left three civilians dead and 10 injured triggering ugly skirmishes between the two neighbours along the de-facto border.

Meanwhile, state Congress chief spokesperson and former MLC Ravinder Sharma urged the government to ensure adequate facilities to border migrants in the camps at Nowshera and take up the construction of bunkers in their localities on war footing to make their return possible in near future.

Sharma said the border residents of Nowshera areas had to repeatedly suffer and migrate time and again in view of the continued ceasefire violations by Pakistan.

He said Pakistan violated the ceasefire more than 1,345 times during the last three years.

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Actor Rishi Kapoor took to Twitter to troll centre-right thinker Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was among the handful of Indians, besides Beijing-based Indian journalists, present at the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) forum, which concluded on Monday.

Kulkarni, chairperson of the Mumbai-based Observer Research Foundation, had criticised Indias decision not to participate at the forum,Chinas grand show of economic might and growing strategic heft, following sovereignty concerns over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Whosoever has advised the PM, has given a very, very bad advice, Kulkarni had said, drawing the Bollywood actors attention.

Kapoor wrote from his Twitter handle: Sudheendra Kulkarni! Not Ink but all Paint manufactures await you arrival from Beijing. Await your arrival!.

Sudheendra Kulkarni! Not Ink but all Paint manufactures await you arrival from Beijing. Await your arrival! pic.twitter.com/gRjN9PwA1q  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) May 15, 2017

Major western countries did not send heads of states to the forum but were represented by high-level delegations.

The US, South Korea and Japan, not known for happy ties with China, too sent delegations; even a reclusive North Korean government dispatched two representatives though they remained suitably unobtrusive on the first day of the two-day forum.

Kulkarni had said that India could have used the forum to express its concerns.

India has isolated itself by not participating at any level in the BRF. India has concerns and reservations and these are legitimate ones. And it could have expressed many of the things it has put out in the official statement by coming here and making its point on the forum as some of the participants made in the morning in an oblique way of course, he said.

But by staying away, India has isolated itself because today at the BRF, practically the entire world is here. Including the US and Japan which have serious reservations of China, the actor said.
Hinting that India will strike back against Pakistan in response to beheading of its soldiers, Union home minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday it should not be presumed that nothing is happening.

The surgical strike took 10-15 days of preparations. Please do not presume that nothing is happening (from our side) on behalf of the government, Singh said.

He was speaking at the Samvaad conclave on India TV news channel.

I can say this much for now that we will not allow our countrymen to hang their heads in shame, Singh added.

Replying to a question on beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops earlier this month, Singh said that people in the government also feel the pain of the countrymen.

There is pain in our hearts, but we will not allow that pain to continue for a long time, he added.

When asked whether the army should again cross the border and retaliate against the terrorists, Singh said, I should not react (to this question). The one who brags too much, never does...we will not announce in advance, we will do it.

Speaking on the brutal killing of Kashmiri army officer Ummer Fayaz, the home minister said whatever happened to him has caused pain to all Indians, including Kashmiris.

Fayaz was a role model for youth in the Valley, he added.

Singh said there has been a 450 per cent spike in the number of Maoists who have surrendered in the last two years, and added that there has been a 40 to 45 per cent decline in Maoist activities.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Tuesday defended triple talaq in the Supreme Court, saying it was being practised for 1,400 years and was a matter of faith just like Ram Lallas birthplace.

The board brought up the long-pending dispute over building a temple to Lord Ram in Ayodhya, which Hindus believe is his birth place, before a five-judge constitution bench which is hearing petitions demanding scrapping of the controversial divorce practice.

Several Muslim women have told the court the custom was biased and against gender justice.

Triple talaq is not a question of equity and good conscience but of faith. Cant bring constitutional morality into it, boards lawyer and senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.

He also said while Hindu laws protected all customs in Muslim law they say customs violate Constitution. In a Hindu majority state, Muslims, who were a minority, should be protected.

Several Muslim women have told the court the custom was biased and against gender justice. The Centre backs the petitioners, saying the practice was unconstitutional and against equality.

Sharia was personal law and not subject to fundamental rights, Sibal said about the Islamic legal and moral code.

Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity, Sibal said.

If I have faith that Lord Ram was born at Ayodhya, then its a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality.

Sibal told the multi-faith bench led by Chief Justice JS Khehar that the source of triple talaq could be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The Centre told the court, which is holding day to day hearing in the case, on Monday it would bring a matrimony law for Muslims to fill a legal vacuum should it strike down triple talaq.

Triple talaq is the lone controversial way Sunni Muslim men in India can get a divorce. It allows a man to end a marriage by uttering the word talaq thrice in quick succession.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi said it wasnt the courts job to interpret the Quran and it should consider the constitutional validity of triple talaq and not restrict itself to examining whether the custom was fundamental to practicing the faith.

If the government brings in a new law it could mean the start of a process to overhaul Muslim personal laws in India that are now guided by a 1937 Sharia code. India has separate sets of personal laws for each religion governing marriage, divorce, succession, adoption and maintenance.

The countrys top law officer disagreed with the court that the government should first address whether triple talaq was essential to religion or not, saying the Supreme Court was not an ecclesiastical court.

(With agency inputs)

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Apprehending threat to their lives, two engineers of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Limited, posted in Bihars Muzaffarpur district, have left the state and said they would never return.

NHPC executive director Pradeep Jauhar said the two engineers left Bihar on Sunday after informing their seniors at Muzaffarpur and companys headquarter in New Delhi that they would never return to the state in future.

Jauhar, however, did not disclose the names of the engineers.

In a letter to their seniors, the two engineers, deputed at NHPCs Rahulnager camp office in sadar police station area of Muzaffarpur, 71 km north of Patna, expressed fear that they would be eliminated if they did not leave the place at the earliest, Jauhar said. Since then, all the employees posted at the camp office are feeling unsafe, he added.

Jauhar said he met Muzaffarpur divisional commissioner (in-charge) RK Khandelwal and Tirhut zone inspector general Sunil Kumar on Monday and sought protection for NHPC employees from outlaws.

READ|Two construction firm employees killed in Bihars Saran district

NHPC, a public sector hydropower generation company, has been assigned the task of constructing rural roads in six north Bihar districts . The company had earlier signed an agreement with the Union rural development ministry and the Bihar government for construction and upgradation of over 6,000 km of rural roads in north Bihar and its maintenance for five years.

The six ix districts are Vaishali, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, East Champaran and West Champaran.

Jauhar said the company had almost completed its task. Work on only six roads remains to be completed. Under the prevailing law and order condition, it will be difficult for us to continue our work, he said.

Meanwhile, an NHPC official said the two engineers had some dispute with a local contractor over payment against the work done. The contractor had threatened them with dire consequences if the payment was cleared, he said without naming the contractor.

READ|Construction firm staff hacked in Bihars Jamui district

The Tirhut zone IG said he had assured all possible steps to protect NHPC employees during their stay here. I would like to tell them that there was no need to panic. The police will provide full security to them, he said.

They had not sought security earlier. Now that they have come to us, their security will be beefed up, he added.
Heres a list of top stories to bring you up to date.

1) Kulbhushan Jadhav death penalty: ICJ defers ruling after India, Pakistan present case

The fate of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage, remained uncertain as the International Court of Justice on Monday deferred its ruling on Indias petition to stop his execution. The United Nations highest court in The Hague heard arguments by both sides and its president Ronny Abraham said the 12-judge tribunal would deliver its decision on whether to grant an emergency stay of execution as soon as possible on a date that would be communicated to the two parties.

Read the story here.

2) Harish Salve charged Re 1 to fight Kulbhushan Jadhav case at ICJ: Sushma Swaraj

Harish Salve, who fought Indias case at the International Court of Justice against the death penalty given to Kulbhushan Jadhav by Pakistan, has charged Re 1 as fee, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said. Not fair. #HarishSalve has charged us Rs. 1/- as his fee for this case, Swaraj tweeted.

Read the story here.

3) WannaCry ransomware attack: Your ATM is safe for now, say experts

Bank ATMs across India might escape the WannaCry worm global attack that locks computers and demands a ransom, cyber security experts said on Monday. At least 80% of Indian ATMs operate on Windows XP and uses a firmware that limits the machines activities to bare basics such as dispensing cash on request and checking the account balance.

Read the story here.

4) Kashmir man tied to jeep: Army denies reports of clean chit to officer, probe on

The army said on Monday that the court of inquiry (CoI) into allegations of a Major tying a man to a jeep and using him as a human shield in Kashmir was still on, rubbishing media reports that the army officer had been given a clean chit. The Court of Inquiry (CoI) concerned with the incident wherein a civilian was tied to an army jeep is still incomplete. Reports in some sections of the media suggesting that army Major has being given a clean chit are speculative, said armys Srinagar-based spokesperson Col Rajesh Kalia.

Read the story here.

5) BJP to ring in governments fourth year with Modi fest from May 26

The BJP will sell what sells the most  Narendra Modi. A fest named after the Prime Minister is planned across the country to showcase his achievements of the past three years. Modi completes three years in power on May 26 and the fest will be launched on the same day. It will continue till June 15. Modi fest will be organised in 120-odd cities, a BJP leader said. The event will highlight how he changed India and brought it out from a state of despair.

Read the story here.

6) Pakistan daily leaks plans for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Details of plan for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that were kept secret even from Pakistans provincial governments were leaked by the influential Dawn newspaper on Monday, causing many quarters to question the wisdom of the initiative. According to the report, thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased to Chinese enterprises to set up demonstration projects in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology, and a system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities from Peshawar to Karachi, with 24-hour video recording of roads and busy marketplaces for law and order. A national fibre-optic backbone will be built for Pakistan, not only for internet traffic but also for terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the dissemination of Chinese culture.

Read the story here.

7) Kashmir not relevant to China-Pakistan corridor, Beijing says as BRF summit ends

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not aimed at third parties and doesnt affect Beijings position on the Kashmir issue, the Chinas foreign ministry said on Monday. Referring to Indias decision to skip the two-day Belt and Road Forum (BRF), the ministry said: Regarding the issue of Kashmir which the Indian side is concerned about, we have been stressing that the issue was left over from history between India and Pakistan, and should be properly addressed by the two sides through consultation and negotiation. The CPEC is an initiative on economic cooperation. It is not directed at any third parties, not relevant to disputes over territorial sovereignty and does not affect Chinas position on the Kashmir issue, it said.

Read the story here.

8) India will ultimately prevail in Kashmir, says Amit Shah

The BJP-led NDA government is handling the Kashmir issue diplomatically and India will ultimately prevail there, BJP president Amit Shah said on Monday. I believe that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and security agencies intervention, India will ultimately prevail in Kashmir, he said at the Samvaad conclave organised by India TV. He said that the Kashmir problem cannot be solved by merely abrogating the Article 370 in the Constitution that provides for special provisions to Jammu and Kashmir. There are several issues and just abrogating the Article 370 will not solve the problem. BJP cannot do it all alone, we will discuss it at an opportune time with others, he said.

Read the story here.

9) Militant Zakir Musa calls for unity among Kashmir separatists in new video clip

A few days after breaking away from the Hizbul Mujahideen, radical militant leader Zakir Musa declared on Monday that he has put his differences with other separatists on the backburner for the cause of Kashmirs liberation. A fresh audio clip released by Musa alias Zakir Rashid Bhat has called for unity among all ranks of Kashmiri militants until Indias hold over the land is negated. However, that did not prevent him from reiterating his call for Islamic rule, and stating that he will always prefer fighting beside militants who believe in sharia or sahadat (establishing Islamic rule or attaining martyrdom).

Read the story here.

10) As White House races to name new FBI director, demand mounts for Comey tapes

Donald Trump set off a firestorm when he sought to prevent sacked FBI director James Comey from leaking information by threatening him with tapes of their conversations. The White House has since refused to confirm or deny the existence of said tapes. Lawmakers from both parties are demanding the release of the Comey tapes. If there are any tapes of this conversation, they need to be turned over, senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said.

Read the story here.
Water crisis in rural areas of Bharatpur district has been continuing for a long time now. People in many villages are forced to buy water from tankers.

Residents of Kasoda, a village with around 200 households, said that despite a water pipeline being laid in their village, they paid 500-550 for a tanker of water to meet their daily requirements.

They alleged water tapping through illegal connections from the main water pipeline laid in the village by the water resources department. Around 35 people in the village are illegally tapping water from the main line. We have complained to the concerned officials, but no legal action has been taken in the matter, said Rajendra Singh, one of the villagers.

As a result, 80% households are deprived of water from the pipeline forcing members of these households, including children, to fetch water on their heads from a well, situated a kilometer away.

When questioned over the issue, Uttam Singh, the executive engineer of water resources department, said that they had taken against the people illegally tapping water from the main line. He said the department does not sanction personal connections in rural areas.

The assistant executive engineer, Kalicharan, said, We will enquire into the matter. Water should be provided to all villagers. Legal action will be taken against the people stealing water.

Anipur, Shah, Bavain, Kanjoli, Addi, Bhandor, Gundawa are other villages located within 6km distance from the district headquarter and facing water crisis.

In Dhahra village under Nadbai sub-division on the Agra-Jaipur national highway-11, the water resources department had sanctioned a bore well worth 48 lakh in 1998, but there is no water supply from the bore well. The villagers accused BJP MLA and tourist minister Krishnendra Kaur Deepa of not paying heed to their problems. They have been demanding a water purifier plant.

Asha Kumari, one of the villagers, said that groundwater available in the village is saline. Local representatives often promise water supply, but they have not met their promises so far, she added.
A 22-year-old Dalit student, who committed suicide last week in Rajasthans Sirohi district, accused the principal of his college of harassing him and threatening to fail him in his second-year final examination in a three-page suicide note.

Ravindra, a second-year BSc student at Saroj Lalji Mehrotra Global Nursing College in Abu Road town, hanged himself on May 12 inside his room. I told maam she is harassing me and I would die  She said my death wont make any difference to her. Now, I just want to die, Ravindra wrote in the suicide note referring to Geetha Venugopal, principal of the college.

I will ruin you, she said to me, Ravindra, who repeated his second year and recently gave his exams, wrote. The college is affiliated to the Rajasthan Health Sciences University in Jaipur and is associated with the Brahma Kumaris spiritual movement.

College officials used casteist slurs

His father Muknaram Meghwal, a government school teacher from Jalore district, also accused college officials of torturing his son mentally and abusing him with casteist slurs. The college administration and principal pressurised us to deposit extra fees and threatened to fail him once again. He couldnt bear all that, Meghwal said.

Last year, the college administration failed Ravindra in his second year in 3 subjects by 4-5 marks. However, before the exam results came out, they had already taken money from us for the third year. After the results, they asked for more money, he alleged. This is the second instance of a student committing suicide in the college in the last five months. A 21-year-old student, Shivpratap Singh, had also committed suicide by hanging himself.

Police have registered a case of abetment to suicide and filed charges under the scheduled tribe/scheduled caste act against Venugopal and college director Pratap Midha at the Abu Road Sadar police station after Ravindras death.

Its about time that the administration understands the seriousness of the case.

We are investigating the matter and, so far, no one has been arrested, deputy superintendent of police (SC/ST cell) Bhuraram, who is the investigating officer in the case, told Hindustan Times.

When HT contacted the acting director of the college, Nikhil Patel, he said that an internal investigating committee has been constituted to probe into the matter. The principal has been relived from her duties ... We have also employed a permanent counsellor to engage with the students, Patel said.

Patel said depression could one of the possible reasons behind Ravindras suicide and that he wasnt aware of any pressure from the college administration. Dalit rights activists have strongly criticised the police and administration for its inaction on the matter.

A Dalit student has been forced to commit suicide after facing harassment and casteist abuses and its about time that the administration understands the seriousness of the case, Bhanwar Meghwanshi, founder of Dalit Adivasi Evam Ghumantu Ashikar Abhiyan, said.

Meghwanshi said the magnitude of the police inaction reflects from the fact that so far none of the accused has been arrested by the police. We demand immediate arrest of the accused in the matter, Meghwanshi told HT.

Students of the college went on a strike and also organised a candle march in Ravindras memory.

We are shocked by his death. Some of us had overheard his conversation with the principal and felt that he was worried but never thought that he will take this extreme step. All we want is justice for Ravindra, a first-year student of the college, who did not wish to be named, said.

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Syed Noor ur Rahman Barkati, the controversial Islamic cleric from Bengal who recently threatened jihad in India, will be sacked as head of Kolkatas Tipu Sultan mosque.

He is a blot on our community, Shahezada Anwar Ali Shah, the head of the mosques trustee board, said on Tuesday while confirming that Barkatis sacking will likely be announced on Wednesday evening.

Barkati headed the mosque for 28 years.

He fell out of favour with Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, one of his strongest backers once, last week after he warned of a jihad if India was declared a Hindu state and also refused to take off the red beacon from his car.

Read: Kolkatas maverick imam Barkati finally removes red beacon from his car

We are at the final stage of discussion with our advocates. The announcement of his termination may be made at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. Through his anti-national comments he has done disservice to the nation and the community, and we feel that he has no right to continue as imam of the mosque, Shah said.

Barkati also grabbed headlines in January when he issued a fatwa against the Prime Minister over the November decision to ban high-value currency notes.

He had then been given police protection by the state government.

But the relation soured last week after Barkatis jihad comments. Banerjee sent on May 13 urban development minister Firhad Hakim to chastise him.

On the same day the library minister in her cabinet, Siddiqullah Chowdhury, also held an agitation against the imam outside his mosque and called him an RSS agent.

Echoing the library minister, Shah said on Tuesday that Barkati encouraged fundamentalist forces like RSS through his anti-national comments.

He said the mosque received a flood of complaints against Barkati, prominent among which is the false claim of a shahi imam.

Read: Police complaint against Kolkatas fatwa imam Barkati for not giving up red beacon

According to Shah, a shahi imam is one who administers namaaz to the royal families, or is appointed by a royal family. Barkati is the second generation imam from his family after his father. He took over the charge as the Imam in 1989, he said.

If Barkati is finally removed on Wednesday, it will bring down curtains on the term of one of the most controversial clerics of the country. He regularly attracted attention for issuing fatwas against a number of persons including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin and Canadian columnist Tarek Fateh.

Read: Muslim clerics in Bengal demand ban on RSS, say Ram Navami processions with weapons illegal

The trustee board chief also said that a police complaint has been filed against Barkati for forcefully snatching away the keys of the rooms of the mosques including the record room.

There are also complaints against Barkati for misusing the mosque complex for press conferences and running personal businesses like conducting marriages.

The imam also faced police complaints for his anti-national remarks on May 9 when he took on both the Union government and the judiciary in front of TV cameras.

In another development on Monday, Farah Khan, wife of Nadimul Haque, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and executive editor of Urdu daily, Akhbar- E- Mashriq filed a police complaint saying that on May 15 (Monday) a group of about 30 men armed with deadly weapons entered their home and office shouting and abusing me and my husband and threatening our office staff of dire consequences if our newspaper keeps reporting against Noorur Rehman Barkai.

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Youths from Saint-Denis of France traveled a long distance to Taiyuan, North China's Shanxi province, to learn the art of drumming. The 13 students practiced authentic techniques on traditional Taiyuan Weifeng drums under a master from a local drumming troupe. These young French students can play out the power and essence of the Taiyuan folk art after just a week's time.

Taiyuan and Saint-Denis developed a sister city relationship in 2012. Traditional Chinese culture has influenced Saint-Denis and the city now hosts Chinese cultural festivals.
The arrest of suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militant Nasir Ahmad Wani (34) by Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) In Maharajganj has again shifted the focus to the porous India- Nepal border.

Superintendent of police (Maharajganj) Pramod Kumar said the district police sounded an alert on the India-Nepal border after one of the associates of Wani managed to flee.

The district police, in coordination with the SSB, have launched a manhunt for the militant who might be hiding in the border area. The district police are also in contact with the Nepal police to maintain vigil on the activities of anti-national forces in the Himalyan nation, he said.

A local court has sent Wani to judicial custody. The district police will move a petition in court on Tuesday for police custody of the militant who was assigned the task of making fresh recruitment for the terror group. A Jammu and Kashmir police team will visit Maharajganj to interrogate Wani who is wanted for unlawful activities, he said.

Deputy inspector general, SSB, DS Chauhan said the SSB had increased vigil on the border. The UP Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) would probe the Wani case, he said.

A police officer said security agencies were on alert after a former Pakistan army officer Lieutenat Colonel (retd) Mohammad Habib Zahir went missing after landing at Bhairahwa airport on way to Lumbini near India- Nepal border in April.

The mysterious disappearance of the senior army officer who worked for the Pakistan spy agency ISI has sent security agencies in a tizzy. Sources said Indian intelligence agencies were in contact with their counterparts in Nepal to know the whereabouts of the officer and his mission.

Taking advantage of the porous border, terror operatives slip into India to carry out their nefarious activities, the police officer said.

In 2015, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Mohammad Irfan (50) was arrested by a special cell of the Delhi Police in Bahraich near the international border.

A police officer said the arrest of Wani clearly indicated that terrorists were active on the India- Nepal border. They not only used Nepal as safe hideout but also entered India to carry out their nefarious activities, the officer said. Another police officer posted in east UP said, Last year, several Kashmiri militants, who wished to surrender, landed in Nepal and went to Jammu and Kashmir after crossing the border.

In August 2013, top Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Yasin Bhatkal and Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi were arrested near the India- Nepal border.

A police officer said according to the information provided by National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) Yasin and Asadullah were allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks at various spots in Uttar Pradesh. They were hiding in Nepal. The ISI had been using the porous border to pump fake Indian currency, arms and narcotics through its agents, he said.

Similarly, Abdul Karim Tunda of the Lashkar-e-Taiba was arrested on August 16, 2013 from the India Nepal border (Banwasa-Mehendarnagar area). On July 26 2013, the UP special task force had arrested a suspected ISI operative and fake currency racket kingpin Imran Ahmed Teli aka Aftab in Lucknow when he was trying to return to Nepal.

A home department officer said the superintendents of police of Maharajganj, Siddharthnagar, Balrampur, Shravasti, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit districts on the border were directed to monitor the activities of suspicious persons.

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Even if the opposition had not caused an uproar in the Vidhan Sabha Hall, governor Ram Naik probably would not have been able to read out his address in full before a joint sitting of two houses of the state legislature here on Monday as it was quite long.

The Yogi Adityanath government gave him 101 pages to read at the joint sitting. The governors address was scheduled from 11am to 12.30pm on the state assemblys agenda. He would have had to complete his address in 90 minutes.

The governor read out only excerpts from select pages in nearly 35-minutes. At a breakneck speed too, he would have been able to read out only half the address. The address given to him by the Yogi Adityanath government was only eight pages shorter than 109 pages that the Akhilesh Yadav government gave him to read out in the Vidhan Sabha Hall on January 28, 2016.

As the governor wanted to read out his complete address, he had asked chief minister Yogi Adityanath to reduce the number of pages of his speech to a readable length. The governor had made his wishes clear to the chief minister during a meeting with him at Raj Bhavan here on May 10.

Naiks keenness to readout his complete address became evident even on Monday. He tried to read out as many pages of his address as possible amid the ruckus that the opposition continued to create in house.

I felt a positive atmosphere was created by the Vidhan Sabhas decision to accord a new protocol and the discussions held at the two-day orientation programme organised for the new members. So, I thought the convention of causing disturbance during the governors address will end. I feel the members did not uphold the dignity of the House. I feel sad for the inconvenience caused to security staff of the Vidhan Sabha, said the governor on the phone.

A close scrutiny of the length of the governors address in the past few years indicates that the 101 page address given to Naik this year was considerably shorter than 152 pages that the Akhilesh Yadav government gave him to read out on February 18, 2015. The 152-page address was the longest in recent years.

Read more| First day of Uttar Pradesh assembly: Marshals sporting skills tested

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Lucknows iconic eating joint Tunday Kababi will be back with its signature dish  the buffalo meat galouti kebab  from Wednesday.

Tunday Kababi, a 112-year-old heritage restaurant chain, had discontinued buffalo kebabs on March 23 after a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses by the Yogi Adityanath government affected meat supply.

Since then, the eating joint  popularly known by the shortened named Tundays  had been serving chicken and mutton kebabs, which food connoisseurs say are not as tasty as the buffalo meat variety.

Sale of the buffalo meat kebabs would start from Wednesday onwards. I am happy as now we can cater to people belonging to the weaker section of the society, who could not afford chicken or mutton kebabs that are much expensive than buffalo meat kebabs, said owner Mohammed Usman, whose grandfather set up Tunday Kababi in 1905.

Tunday Kababi was even forced to shut shop for a day due to non-availability of meat in Lucknow, once known as the City of Nawabs, the aristrocatic food-loving class of the Mughal period.

Last week, the Allahabad high court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to issue licences and no-objection certificates to meat sellers in a major relief for sellers whose licences werent renewed after March.

Gradually, perhaps after the courts order directing the state government to find a way out and issue licenses to the butchers, the supply of the buffalo meat is being restored gradually, Usman said.

Hence, it is decided to restore the sale of buffalo meat galaouti kebabs that are not only in demand but also much affordable.

He said the sale of buffalo meat kebabs will be restored at both its outlets, in Chowk and in Nazirabad.

The cost of one plate of four buffalo meat kebabs is Rs 40.

One plate plus four parathas, costing Rs 80, is sufficient to satiate the hunger of two. But, the cost of one plate of mutton kebabs is Rs 80 and chicken kebab is Rs 60, he added.

On regular days, the Old Nazirabad outlet sells around 80 kg of meat products including mutton and buffalo.

Other than Tundays, other outlets in the city too are likely to follow suit and restart serving buffalo products that include nihari, a slow-cooked meat stew, and pasanda, a Mughal dish prepared with the juiciest meat chunks.

Beef kebabs and nihari were much in demand. Since the outlets were not preparing it, we were unable to deliver it to the people across the city. I am hopeful that now we can restore the supply and add to the smiles of the people, said Bilal Arshad of Online Kaka, an online delivery platform.

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The Uttar Pradesh assembly on Tuesday unanimously passed the Uttar Pradesh Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, 2017 with chief minister Yogi Adityanath assuring members that the new law would bring uniformity in taxes and that all their apprehensions were unfounded.

All the major political parties - Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress - supported the bill with a voice vote.

With the assembly passing the bill, the state government might not find it difficult to get the bill passed in the legislative council where the SP has a majority.

Yogi said the GST bill, based on one nation one tax concept, was a revolutionary step to bring about economic reforms in the country. He said the previous SP-led government had taken part in 11 out of 13 meetings of the GST Council that has two-third representatives of states and one third representation of the centre.

He said traders will not have to maintain different accounts to pay different taxes and the new law will be implemented through a mechanised system with minimum human interference.

Earlier, leader of opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary had demanded that the bill be referred to a select committee for wider scrutiny.

SP member Nitin Agarwal said the provisions about prosecuting traders should be removed from the bill. Traders could be penalised by imposing fine, he said.

Another SP member Sanjay Garg said though the bill was being passed in the state assembly, the members were not aware about the rate of tax on different items.

After passage of the bill from the state legislature, the power to fix the rate of tax would be with the centre, he said.

BSP member Uma Shankar Singh said traders would find it difficult to maintain the electronic credit ledger.

There is no need to be afraid of the GST...all non-BJP ruled states have also passed it. For redressing their problems, the GST council is going to hold its meeting soon, the chief minister said.

After the bill is passed by both Houses of the state legislature, Uttar Pradesh will join the likes of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Telangana, Bihar and Rajasthan whose legislatures have given their nod to the indirect tax regime.

Four key GST legislations - the Central GST Act, the Integrated GST Act, the GST (Compensation to States) Act and the Union Territory GST Act - were passed by Parliament in its last session.

The four legislations have since got the presidents assent.

(With agency inputs)
A 39-year-old villager from Barabanki has sued doctors of a premier government hospital in Lucknow for stealing one of his kidneys during treatment for a stone in the vital organ.

The Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) dismissed Sanjeev Kumars allegation, saying it was an attempt to tarnish the hospitals image. He was apparently told prior to the surgery that his damaged kidney has to be removed.

The Barabanki chief judicial magistrate (CJM) has asked police to investigate and file a report at the next hearing on May 17.

Kumar said in his lawsuit that he went to the hospital in April 2015 with a sharp pain in his abdomen.

Diagnosis revealed a kidney stone of 20mm and surgeon Anish Srivastava suggested surgery, which was done accordingly on August 23 that year.

He was discharged after a few days but he continued to suffer a gnawing pain in the abdomen, forcing him to visit the hospital repeatedly.

During one of his visits, he was referred to a gastroenterologist for investigation. An ultrasound test this February revealed that one of his kidneys was missing, the complainant alleged.

He named a team of doctors, including Srivastava, as responsible for removing his kidney without his knowledge during the surgery two years ago.

I went to court after the SGPIMS administration and the district magistrate failed to respond to my complaint, he said.

Hospital director Rakesh Kapoor countered that the patient was making a false allegation.

That man was told in advance that his kidney would be removed as it was non-functional. It would have out his life in danger.

Besides, Kumars relatives were shown the biopsy report of the kidney and they had signed papers before the surgery that mentioned clearly that the organ would be taken out, he said.

Its a shame that some people fail to appreciate the good work of doctors  if false allegations continue, doctors will have to think twice before surgery.

Doctors at King Georges Medical University, another leading hospital in the Uttar Pradesh capital, faced similar accusations recently of stealing a kidney from Prithviraj, a Barabanki resident.

He accused two doctors of removing one of his kidneys without telling him in February 2015.

The doctors denied the charge and went to court to quash a criminal case against them.

Fear of losing a kidney to illegal transplant rackets is rife among people, especially in the countryside, as there have been reports of hundreds of poor labourers being duped or forced into donating organs to wealthy clients, including foreigners.

A shortage of transplant organs has fuelled a black market that exploits needy donors. Such operations are confined mostly to backstreet clinics because of tight government regulations.

The fear has become so deeply ingrained that people sometimes suspect doctors from prominent hospitals who are genuinely trying to help.

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Governor Ram Naik on Monday said the Yogi Adityanath governments top priority was to establish the rule of law.

He also said women had begun moving outdoors freely at night after the state governments decision to set up anti-Romeo squads. Now, strong action is being taken against eve-teasers and criminals, so women are venturing out at night our also, the governor said in his 101-page written address before a joint sitting of two houses of the state legislature here on Monday.

Naik said the Yogi government had directed all the police stations to lodge all FIRs and take prompt action.

He said the state government was committed to fulfilling the aspirations of people, eradicating corruption and giving a transparent administration with emphasis on Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas to turn Uttar Pradesh into a frontline state on the path of development.

LUCKNOW METRO SERVICES About Lucknow Metro, he said trial run of the priority corridor of the project had started on December 1, 2016. After the sanction from Commissioner of Railway Safety and trial run, the services on the priority corridor will be provided to the commuters, said the governor.

The governor took a dig at previous regimes and said UP was lagging behind other states despite having a glorious past.

The past of Uttar Pradesh has been glorious. It has given several capable leaders to the country, who are revered by entire nation. Uttar Pradesh was once a leading state of the country. But in the past many years, it has lagged behind as compared to other states, said the governor.

Read more| First day of Uttar Pradesh assembly: Marshals sporting skills tested

He said the state government will provide good governance to bridge the gap between policies and their implementation.

My government will encourage officers and employees doing good work, but the corrupt and inefficient officers and employees will be punished.My government has made efforts to ensure the timely presence of officers/employees in offices. Gradually, biometric machines are being installed in offices to register the presence of officers/employees, said Naik.

He said the district magistrates and superintendents of police will remain present in their offices from 9am to 11am. He also referred to the state governments loan waiver scheme and said 86 lakh farmers will benefit from it. This will put an additional burden of Rs 36,000 crore on the state exchequer, he said.

The governor gave a detailed account of ongoing schemes and quoted the Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra 2017 (BJP manifesto) for the proposed schemes. He said the cost of projects escalated due to delay in their implementation.

With an objective to end cost and time overrun and ensure timely completion of projects, guidelines will will be issued for signing of MoUs for the projects, he said. Naik said a Mukhya Mantri Sichai Fund with Rs 20,000 crore will be set up to provide water to every field.

Read more: At 101 pages, address wouldnt have been completed even sans uproar
From retreating into a shell to becoming anxious, developing severe depression and even becoming sex offenders themselves  children who survived sex attacks are dealing with a range of issues that they may often not be able to talk about.

Worse still, these signs are not always obvious, which makes it difficult to prevent the sex abuse. But it can be stopped by noticing subtle signs that children who need help show, experts said (see box, above).

The effects on a child are directly related to how severe the attack was, how close the relative who attacked is and for how long the child has been abused. But you can pick up the immediate red flags  they stop being able to speak, they get dazed and confused easily, said Dr Vani Kulhahi, a psychiatrist.

READ: Mumbai parents, dont let your child suffer sexual abuse in silence. Report before its too late

Dr Sagar Mundada, another psychiatrist, said survivors of abuse are prone to depression and anxiety.

Such incidents obviously leave a scar and the trauma affects their behaviour. They panic over the smallest of things, he said.

In some extreme cases, the survivors develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They grow fearful of specific people, activities and places because these things remind them of the abuse, Dr Kulhahi said.

What could help? Supportive parents and a system that does not blame the children. This would encourage them to talk about what is happening to them, said experts.

If parents support instead of blaming and neglecting the child, it helps keep away the basic fear that stops them from confiding in someone, Dr Mundada said. In the absence of this, children can go on to develop dangerous syndromes. Social workers and psychologists said children who did not find the support they needed, grew up to become sexual offenders themselves.

Known as the act of mirroring, the child may abuse someone the way she was abused, because the offender made the assault seem normal to the child, said one social worker.

In some cases, children even grow close to the offender.

This is called the Stockholm Syndrome.

In one case, activists told HT of a 14-year-old girl who was rescued from her brother who sexually abused her.

The brother was arrested and sent to jail. But while the girl herself had come forward with the complaint, she soon started feeling guilty.

She requested to visit him in jail and told volunteers not to make him a villain.

A senior Mumbai police officer said it was important to notice changes in children, not only for their own safety but also to stop the attacker.

Prolonged abuse emboldens the attackers, as they start believing that they can get away with these crimes. So many more children could fall prey, the officer said.

Numbers are not telling the whole story: YP Singh, IPS officer-turned-lawyer

There are three types of child abuse taking place. The first is child prostitution. This goes on openly but rarely gets reported because there is often a nexus between brothel owners and the police.

Those involved in trafficking minor girls have a very tight grip over them and their families, so both the girls and their parents are not able to report the crime.

The second is the kind of abuse that happens every day to children, right under our noses. They get tormented by a perpetrator, but most of this goes unnoticed either because the child doesnt know what it happening or because they are threatened. Parents sometimes want to cover up the incident because of the widespread taboo over the issue or to avoid further trauma that may be caused by the probe and trial of a case.

The third type is when minors are involved in relationships. In such cases, while there is consent between the two minors, it is considered illegal and is an offence.

In all these categories, the one underlying issue is that the cases reported and the figures that show up in statistical reports by the police are only the tip of the iceberg. This means we may never be able to measure the exact magnitude of the problem.

Another issue is that investigations and prosecutions of criminal cases are based on information, not on complaints. In the realm of offences related to child abuse, it is the other way around. Only when the police receive a complaint do they act. While there is a problem with this, the solution is not straightforward. If the police start registering child abuse cases based on information, it could be termed as an intrusion of privacy. So, what we need is a strategy to develop cases based on information, even when there is no complaint. Beat staff could be trained to get information and develop a case with the help of the victims or their parents. There could be community awareness programmes. Social welfare departments and NGOs could help the police bring into the open cases of abuse.

Yes, this is a sensitive and tricky situation with no easy solution. But some action is better than none.

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A 72-year-old woman from Kurla has become the second person in the city to die of swine flu this year. As the toll from swine flu (H1N1) in Maharashtra nears 200, municipal health officers said six cases were reported this month from the city.

The second casualty from swine flu comes two weeks after an 18 month-old boy from Malad died of H1N1 on April 28. Municipal health officials said the Kurla resident died on May 12 at Kohinoor Hospital.

She was suffering from high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease [a condition that affects the supply of blood to the heart]. While she was rushed to the hospital at 3am, doctors pronounced her dead within six hours of treatment, said the officials.

Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), said they have screened more than 3,776 people and 750 families in the locality where the woman stayed. Six residents were diagnosed with fever in the same locality and they were immediately sent for treatment, said Keskar.

Public health officials from the state said as many as 196 deaths have been reported across the state till May 14. Through wide surveillance, we have screened suspected population of 7,62,489 and 13,524 patients underwent treatment. Pune, Nashik, Solapur and Aurangabad remain our focus areas because most of the cases are being reported from these vicinities, said the official. As many as 19 swine flu patients are currently on ventilator across the state.

Experts said fluctuations in temperatures and the wearing off of vaccines could be reasons for the spurt. As a precaution, we have intensified screening and surveillance for all viral infections and are vaccinating high-risk groups, such as diabetics and people with high blood pressure, Dr Pradeep Awate , head, state epidemiology department.
He came into my room in the middle of the night. I told him to go away, but he started molesting me. I told the police about it, but they refused to believe me when I said my father was my attacker.

For 17-year-old Esha (name changed), the fight had just begun. She wanted to talk about the abuse to stop it. But no one would listen to her. She told her brother, but he ignored her.

She went to the police to complain that her father, a construction businessman, had sexually assaulted her, repeatedly.

But even after weeks of trying, Esha alleged the Bangur Nagar police was suppressing the matter and had made no arrests.

This was after Esha had given the police details of her abuse, which she had regularly recorded in her personal diary. In one account, she said the family had gone to a farmhouse in Lonavla, when her father came into her room and sexually abused her.

My whole family was in the same bungalow.

READ: Watch over your kids, data shows one in five raped children is from Maharashtra

Eshas advocate told HT the girls father was known to a police inspector, who was deliberately slowing down the probe.

It was only after she took the complaint to the police commissioner did the case get transferred to a different police station, which began a probe.

What is the problem?

In several such cases HT came across, children already struggling to cope with being attacked and assaulted had to go on to face intimidating police officers who often did not take them seriously.

NGOs working with survivors of child sex abuse said one of the main reasons for this was poorly-staffed police stations.

The law says a woman police personnel should be there when the child is narrating the abuse. Most of the time, this does not happen. It says the child reporting the crime should be made comfortable. But the complaint is often recorded in the officers room and the child feels intimidated, said Gauri Ambavkar, a counsellor with SNEHA, an NGO that works with children coping with abuse.

Ambavkar pointed out that most male officers are sensitive to the issue. The problem was a much larger one  that there is no system in place to ensure the child feels safe talking about abuse.

READ: Mumbai parents, dont let your child suffer sexual abuse in silence. Report before its too late

Not the only problem

Why did you not complain earlier? Tell us again what he did to you? Give us more details... what exactly happened? Are you sure you are not making this up?

Experts said questions like these make children reporting the abuse shut down. The system is fundamentally not child-friendly, they said.

When a child comes forward with a complaint, different authorities start asking all sorts of questions not to help the child, but to satisfy their own curiosity. The attitude of those interviewing the child needs to change, said Priti Patkar, the co-founder of Prerana, an NGO that rescues sexually abused children.

Volunteers from SNEHA told HT about one case in which they rescued a child and took him to the police station to register a case.

After just one visit, the child stopped speaking to us volunteers because the police asked him questions that made him uncomfortable. If a child is asked questions like, Why did you not approach someone earlier?, he turns hostile and changes statements when appearing before the magistrate. This certainly does not help his case Ambavkar explained.

Activists also pointed out the need for a more sensitive legal system.

There are a lot of police stations that have specially-designed rooms. They are filled with paintings, toys and storybooks. But this change is tokenism. A child-friendly system does not just mean better infrastructure. If the tone of the police personnel does not change, if the body language of the interviewer is intimidating, you cannot call it a child-friendly system, Patkar said.

Post POCSO days

Several social organisations said the legal situation is much better today than it was five years ago, before the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, was implemented.

But the change is not consistent and the law is yet to act as a strong enough deterrent.

Patkar said children decide to talk about the abuse and name the attacker only because they want it to stop.

That is their idea of justice. But, they are forced to go through an unfriendly legal system and they are not ready for it. We need to minimise the trauma because the child is already reliving it at every step, said Patkar.

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An eight-year-old girl, who was in coma for more than a month after a wooden tava fell on her head from the 13th floor of a building, has shown great improvement since she emerged from coma a month ago. She is likely to be discharged in a week, said doctors.

The incident took place on March 31, when Hazequa Kapadia, a resident of Agarpada, was returning from her tuition class.

It happened a few metres away from our home. I heard a scream and looked out of a window to see Hazequa lying on the road, injured, said Nazma Kapadia, the girls aunt.

Hazequa was rushed to BYL Nair Hospital at Mumbai Central, where doctors said that her chances of survival were slim. She was shifted to Bombay Hospital at Marine Lines a day later.

On April 15, the doctors performed surgery to retrieve a part of her skull which had cracked and pierced her brain.

The nerves at the centre of her brain were damaged. It affected her movement, said Dr Keki Turel, a neurosurgeon who performed the surgery.

She is now conscious and can move her limbs.

Initially, the progress was slow but Hazequa has shown signs of making an unlikely recovery in the past two weeks, added the doctor.

Hazequa can understand and follow what we tell her. She needs some help to sit and can eat simple, mashed food, said Dr Terul.

She may get her voice back after we operate on her windpipe but she will need extensive therapy to walk again, said Dr Turel.

As Hazequas family waits for her to return home, the little girl smiles and blows flying kisses to all who visit her.

Every morning, she greets the nurses with either a flying kiss or by waving her hand. Sometimes, she also flares her nostrils and sticks her tongue out, said her aunt. According to doctors, these movements prove that Hazequa is healing quickly.

Her father, Faizan Kapadia, who runs an automobile repair shop, is praying for his daughters speedy recovery. She is just a little girl but has immense willpower to get better and be back on her feet, he said.

An official from Nagpada police station said, We suspect that the tawa fell from the 13th floor of the 22-storey building. We sent it to the lab to check for fingerprints and have questioned the servants on the floor but are yet to find a lead.
Chinas Belt and Road initiative will bring great chances for the Philippines to implement its Dutertenomics, an economic strategy unveiled by the Philippine government to transform its economy, Philippine officials attending a forum on Monday agreed.

The forum on Dutertenomics and the Belt and Road initiative was hosted by the Philippine delegation attending the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation started on May 14 in Beijing.

They believed that as the core of the Dutertenomics is to create jobs and stimulate economy through dozens of major infrastructure projects, the Belt and Road initiative put forward by China will offer tremendous opportunities for the Philippines in terms of infrastructure upgrading, poverty alleviation and job creation.

Government officials including Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Secretary Carlos Dominguez of the Department of Finance, Director-General Ernesto M. Pernia of National Economic and Development Authority, Secretary Benjamin Diokno of the Department of Budget and Management, Secretary Arthur Tugade of the Department of Transportation, and Chairperson of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority talked about their suggestions on how to align the two proposals.

On the forum, the Philippines' goal of economic growth in 2017 was declared to be 6.5% to 7.5%, and the goal for the period from 2018 to 2022 has been set at 7% to 8%.

To realize the target, the country has launched a large-scale infrastructure projects named "Build! Build! Build!", based on which an estimated 8.4 trillion pesos ($170 billion) would be invested on the construction of infrastructures.

About 20% of the capital will be raised through foreign loans. In addition, the Duterte administration's infrastructure spending would reach 7.4% of GDP by 2022.

Tugade introduced a batch of domestic infrastructure construction projects such as the Luzon Expressway, Mindanao Railway, Manila's Metro Rail, new terminal of Clark International Airport and Subic-Clark Railway, to the attendees.

He also announced a plan to build the city of Clark, 80 kilometers to the north of Manila, into a new urban center, in a bid to relieve the traffic burden of the capital city. So far, the country has kicked off the planning and construction of the new city.

Tugade said Chinese investment is welcomed in the Philippines, and he appreciated China's $75 million non-reimbursable assistance to build bridges spanning the Pasig River to help relief the traffic burden in Manila.

Improved relations with China have brought the Philippines a massive opportunity for development, said Ricardo L. Saludo, Managing Director of Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence.

The Philippines can connect its ongoing massive infrastructure planning with the Belt and Road initiative, which advocates integration and interconnectivity, to attain new impetus for the country's economic development, he added.

An international transportation pivot surrounding the Subic Port and the Clark Airport is being planned, Saludo disclosed. The sea-air transport system will serve as an international center for transportation and logistics abreast of Singapore and Chinas Hong Kong.

By then, the Philippines will benefit from the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road by shipping Chinese products to Indonesia, Australia and even the whole world, Saludo noted.
Maharashtras highways may soon get state-of-the-art toilets every 25km.

The public works department (PWD) will soon identify 300 spots to construct modern toilets with the help of oil companies that have their petrol pumps at these spots. The work on construction of 37 toilets will start immediately after the monsoon.

The companies will have to maintain the toilets as per international standards and dispose of human waste scientifically for 33 years.

The proposal will soon be sent for Cabinet nod, after which an agreement will be signed with the companies.

The land along the state highways is usually owned by the PWD. We are identifying spots along the highways where petrol pumps can come up. We will make it mandatory for the oil companies to build state-of-the-art toilets. We had a series of meetings with the companies, said an official from the PWD.

The scheme has been initiated under the Swachcha Maharashtra mission.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis recently announced a plan to construct toilets at regular intervals on Mumbais roads too. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, while participating in state governments Transform Maharashtra initiative, had expressed the need for more toilets in the city.

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The Maharashtra government is considering a proposal to reinstate former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma.

Senior officials of the Maharashtra police told HT the proposal is pending with the home department and a formal decision is yet to be taken.

Sharma is one of the famed encounter specialists, with more than 100 encounters, including those of three LeT suspects, in his name.

Sharma was accused of a nexus with gangster Dawood Ibrahim for allegedly grabbing a plot in Malad and carrying out a fake encounter of former gangster Ram Narayan Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiyya, a suspected aide of gangster Chhota Rajan, in November 2006 .

Read more: 5 encounter specialists of Mumbai Police you must know

In January 2010, Sharma was arrested with 21 others in the Lakhan Bhaiyya case. While 13 policemen were convicted in July 2013, Sharma was acquitted.

He was dismissed in August 2008 for his alleged links with the underworld, but was reinstated on appeal by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal in May 2009.

In 2016, the state reinstated police sub-inspector Daya Nayak, Sharmas aide who carried out 83 encounters. Nayak currently is with the Amboli police station in Mumbai.
Nearly 25 hectares of degraded forest near Film City at Borivlis Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) could be used for replantation of trees which will be uprooted for the Metro-3 (Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ) project, officials told HT.

HT reported in March that the tree authority of the BMC allowed the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) to cut 1,074 trees and transplant another 1,727 for the Metro line. For the 1,074 trees that will be chopped, the MMRC will have to plant a similar number of saplings.

Officials from MMRC and SGNP last week carried out a site visit to check if the plan was feasible. While no formal proposal has been received by park authorities, they are ready to allocate the area to increase forest cover.

The Metro-3 project  which will have 27 stations will lead to the destruction of more than 5,000 trees in Mumbai.

After the Bombay high court lifted its stay on cutting of trees two weeks ago, environmentalists in the city moved the Supreme Court.

The Apex Court imposed an interim stay on felling of trees until the matter is heard on Thursday.

There is no harm in allowing replantation and transplantation of trees as it will only help boost the green cover of this degraded site and the entire forest, said Anwar Ahmed, director and chief conservator of forest, SGNP. He said the location was on the fringes of the park near Matangad.

We have the space, they (MMRC) have the resources. Both parties will benefit from this, Ahmed added.

The MMRC is in discussions with the SGNP director to explore possibility of compensatory and additional plantation on degraded areas of SGNP, said a spokesperson for the MMRC.

Of 1,074 trees proposed to be axed, 136 , or 13%, already have been. However, not a single tree has been transplanted. The MMRC has not yet asked for permission from the BMC to cut trees at Aarey Colony, Goregaon.

Environmentalists said the talk of compensatory plantation or replantation was a farce. All compensatory afforestation and transplantation is mere paperwork. Before SGNP officials allocate the degraded forest land for transplantation, they need to first identify the exact boundary of the national park, said Stalin D, director, NGO Vanashakti.

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Your suggestions or objections can still be included in the citys 20-year vision document. Once the Development Plan (DP) 2034 is submitted to the Maharashtra government, the state will invite citizens suggestions and objections to the plan, prepared by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The draft plan is pending with the 227-member corporation, which has demanded another extension to study it. The changes made to the draft by the BMCs elected house will be open to citizens scrutiny for 30 days, government officials said.

A senior civic official from BMCs DP department said, The process of getting suggestions/objections on the plan was conducted by the BMC in 2016. Therefore, this round of objections will only concern the latest changes proposed in the plan. The government has six months to finalise and sanction the plan.

However, this means that finalising Mumbais vision document, which has already been delayed by three years, will take even longer. The DP was to be released in 2014 but went through many corrections, extensions and delays. Officials will now write to the state government asking for another extension of two months as demanded by the Shiv Sena, the party that runs the BMC.

Considering this scenario, officials said the government can also exclude the changes and pass the plan to hasten the process of implementing it. Apart from the confusion that a lack of plan has created in the city, officials said that there are many benefits in the new rules which are not being implemented. The DP will introduce affordable housing, many incentives for developers to build social amenities. The city has to benefit from the plan as soon as possible, the official said.

Meanwhile, BMC has also started finalising the proposed land-use maps for areas between LBS Marg and Mithi river in Kurla, the A block in Bandra-Kurla Complex and the Oshiwara district centre. These land parcels were handed over to BMC by the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) in September 2016. The plan for these areas is likely to be released by the end of this month.

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A playground in Charkop was opened for children on Monday, nine years after a school trust closed it.

The 2,251 sq m playground on the premises of Akshara High School was opened on May 15 in accordance with orders passed by the Lokayukta on June 2, 2016. Officials from the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) and the Mumbai police were at the site to ensure that the ground was opened.

In 2005, Mhada had allotted a 2,251-sq m plot to Vidya Shikshan Prasarak Mandal to construct a school and the playground in 2005. The playground was created in 2008. Residents complained that the school had enclosed land that was marked as a public playground in municipal documents. They complained that the school trust, run by two politicians  a former minister and an MLA  had encroached on the ground and prohibited children from playing there. The Lokayukta ordered that the ground be open to children of the locality and actions under the order were to be executed by the Mhada and police within 48 hours. However, it has been done almost a year later.

It took us time to go through all lease documents and understand the dimensions of the plot. It has been opened for the public and if children are stopped from playing here, action will be taken against the offenders, said Yogesh Deshmukh, estate manager, Mhada.

On Monday, two signboards were put up, one at the schools entrance and the other at the playground that read, As per orders of the Lokayukta Maharashtra state, the playground of the composite school will remain open between 6am and 7.30pm daily for children of the Charkop locality.

The encroachment of the public ground was first reported by Kandivli resident Reji Abraham in 2013. He had alleged that the schools trust had grabbed the land, constructed gates and made it into their own private property. The Lokayukta and Mhada issued notices to the school last year. However, the school did not respond to them and orders were issued to make the ground a public property.

The school is located less than 50m away from the mangroves. There was an environmental violation as debris had been dumped to make the ground. An FIR was filed by the Charkop police against the schools trust under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. However, no action has been taken against the school authorities, said Abraham. Our efforts have at least enabled children play on the ground.

Abraham also alleged that the school premises was constructed by reclaiming mangrove forests illegally. We are fighting the matter at the National Green Tribunal and will ensure that the illegal structures are removed and the mangroves restored, he said.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh, a school trustee, refused to comment on the matter.

What the Lokayukta had said

On June 2, 2016, the Lokayukta, Justice (retired) M L Tahaliyani directed the Charkop police station to deploy police personnel at the playground located within the premises of Akshara High School to ensure that no child is obstructed from playing.

This office has to pass interim orders to protect the ground and the make them available to children residing in the colonies of Charkop, said the Lokayukta, adding, The gates of the playground shall be kept open from 6am to 7pm.

Anyone trying to obstruct the entry of children should be criminally prosecuted under the Indian Penal Code.

Mangrove forests at Kandivli are falling prey to repeated cases of encroachments and mangrove destruction.

HT reported on May 5 that more than 20 acres (8 ha) of mangrove forests have been destroyed through debris dumping at Charkop, Kandivli, over the past seven years with 3,000 shanties and private properties constructed illegally on both reserved forest and private mangrove land.

The Law

The destruction of mangrove forests across the state and construction within 50m of mangrove areas was banned by the Bombay high court in 2005, after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by the NGO Bombay Environment Action Group. In 2014, after Vanashakti filed another PIL on the protection of wetlands, the HC banned all reclamation and construction on wetlands.

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Pune police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the wife of Marathi film producer Atul Tapkir, who committed suicide in a city hotel on Sunday. Two of Tapkirs brothers-in-law have also been booked for abetment of suicide.

The FIRs were registered on Monday after the police recorded statements of Tapkirs mother, father and other family members. Sources close to Tapkirs family said that his wife and two brothers-in law have decided to move court for bail on Tuesday.

READ: Marathi film producer Atul Tapkir commits suicide, last Facebook post claims he was depressed

In another development, Pune police commissioner Rashmi Shukla has ordered an inquiry into Tapkirs charge in his suicide note, that police took Rs10,000 from him to avoid his arrest. Tapkirs wife had registered a complaint against her husband and father-in-law for harassing her. In his suicide note that the actor posted on Facebook, Tapkir had said that he avoided his arrest after giving the police cash of Rs10,000.

Tapkirs body was found on the bed of his hotel room, after he killed himself by consuming poison. In his Facebook post, Tapkir had made serious allegations against his wife and brothers-in-law. He had separated from family six months ago, and admitted in his post that he had an alcohol problem.

He had cited depression and dispute with wife as the reasons behind his extreme step.

Tapkir had produced Marathi film, Dhol Tashe, which was released in 2015.

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RPI leader and deputy mayor of Pune, Navnath Kambale, 50, died of a cardiac arrest early this morning.

Kambale , who had stepped out for a morning walk, fainted and fell, according to his friends.

He was taken to a private hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

Kambale was known as a staunch Ambedkarite and was associated with Republican Party of India from college days.

He was a close aide of Union Minister Ramdas Athawale. A three-time corporator, Kambale, often raised issues pertaining to slum dwellers.

Kambale was elected as the deputy mayor of Pune in March this year.

RPI workers had forged an alliance with the BJP in Pune and Kambale was known for pushing for alliance.

While the BJP got absolute majority in Pune, it chose RPIs Kambale for the post of deputy mayor.

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I thought by now I had seen it all and nothing our politicians could do would ever surprise me. But I had barely got over Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwads selfie impersonation when another more serious act comes to light - this time a graver case of misrepresentation.

Gaikwad, after beating up an Air India employee, had become a hero overnight to his followers who wanted selfies with the man. But Gaikwad had little time to pose with the people. So he fished out a look-alike who willingly obliged to stand for the selfies. I do not know if the people were aware they were getting a photo with the duplicate instead of the original, but this act seems to follow a trend in the Shiv Sena as it now turns out that another MP, Gautam Chabukswar, has taken a leaf out of Gaikwads book and created an impostor for himself. But this time the offence has been more serious because it involves not just some selfie-obsessed individuals but the dying farmers of the state.

Both the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party have been rather bushed by the very successful Kisan Sangharsh Yatra undertaken by the combined opposition in the state who have been visiting different parts in phases since March this year. The yatra is being undertaken under the blazing sun of the hot Maharashtra summer, and many leaders from both the Congress and the NCP have suffered heat strokes. So after pledging not to travel in the comfort of their plush cars, they have had to take to the cool comfort of an air-conditioned luxury bus. Nevertheless, all certified original opposition leaders like former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Prithviraj Chavan and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar have been making contact with farmers and putting the government on the mat . In the early days of the yatra, many Shiv Sena legislators made it voluntarily to the villages where the opposition leaders were meeting with farmers. But the hot sun has been very punishing and has pushed them indoors.

Now when Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray asks them to formally make contact with the farmers, one would expect his party MPs would obey. But far from this, Chabukswar sent along another party functionary in his place. It would not have mattered so much if the alleged impersonator would have made it clear to the farmers that he was representing their local MP. The offence was compounded, however, when he tried to pass himself off as the original, though now both he and the MP have denied that they ever conspired to fool the voters.

However, apart from the seriousness of the impersonation, I think an equally important question such an act raises is how seriously do his party MPs take Uddhav Thackeray? Would such a brazen defiance of a party chiefs diktats ever have happened in the time of Bal Thackeray? Sadly, I must say the Thackerays have never led by example. Bal Thackeray was always ever afraid of taking to the streets while he ordered his Shiv Sainiks to go on rampage. However, there was a good deal of fear and respect for Bal Thackeray among his loyal army. Today, though Uddhav Thackeray is not calling upon his Shiv Sainks to lay down their lives for their party he, too, is not leading from the front. He is being called upon to venture not into the burning streets but only under the blazing sun, but even that he cannot undertake. It is this attitude and the ignorance that follows that had brought forth ridicule upon him from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar, who was quick to pounce upon the Shiv Senas lack of knowledge with regard to rural realities.

Travelling through the cotton districts of Vidarbha while the UPA was in power, Uddhav had not known how to distinguish between kapashi and parati -- which was no distinction at all. For the two words are rather like kapas and ruiee in Hindi which are both the correct words to describe cotton in different forms. Uddhav had rued that the government was offering minimum support price for parati but not for kapashi.

Now, as leader of his party, he must do better - unless he gets out of the cool comfort of his air conditioned home and grinds his heels in the heat and dust of Maharashtras villages, it is unlikely he will command the respect of his party MPs. Look-alike, anyone?

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A woman riding pillion on a motorcycle was killed in an apparent hit-and-run near the Sion flyover on the Eastern Express highway on Monday evening. It was the second such incident on the highway in 24 hours. Early on Monday morning, a 25-year-old riding pillion on a motorcycle died after being thrown off a flyover and falling 25 feet following a car pile-up at Ghatkopar.

The victim in the second accident, 47-year-old Prachi Prabhu, was riding pillion on a motorcycle with her husband Hemant on the south-bound stretch of the highway when the accident occurred near the Sion flyover around 8pm. Hemant escaped with minor injuries.

An officer at Chunabhatti police station said, The couple is from Chembur and had gone for a motorcycle ride at night. According to the husband, a speeding bus rammed into their motorcycle from behind. He said both of them fell off the motorcycle and his wifes head was crushed under the front wheels of the bus. Hemant told the police the bus driver did not stop to help them.

The officer added, Hemant took help from passers-by to take Prachi to Sion hospital, where she was declared dead. The police said they were checking whether there were any eyewitnesses. We are investigating whether the bus had any passengers and if so, why they seemingly didnt react to the incident. The police are also checking CCTV cameras in the area for leads on the absconding driver.

The Chunabhatti police registered a case against an unidentified person for rash driving and causing death by negligence under the Indian Penal Code, and for fleeing instead of helping the victims under the Motor Vehicles Act.

Unlike the Western Express Highway (WEH), which is flanked by many residential and commercial zones, there are fewer such areas on the eastern highway, which passes through large swathes of mangroves and salt pans in Mulund. It falls under the Coastal Regulation Zone as a protected area, which restricts construction. For this and other reasons, it is sees more dangerous driving than its western counterpart.

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Kylie Jenners rumoured boyfriend rapper Travis Scott was arrested at a concert in Arkansas for allegedly inciting a riot on May 13.

Police officials said during the concert, Scott, whose real name is Jacques Webster, encouraged people to rush the stage and bypass the security protocols to ensure concertgoer safety. He was arrested immediately after leaving the stage.

Several people were injured as the crowd rushed to the stage, including a security guard and a member of the police department. The injured people were treated at the scene by members of the Rogers Fire Department and Mercy Medical.

The star was released without bail at night, according to TMZ.

Scott was charged with inciting a riot, endangering the welfare of a minor and disorderly conduct, and was transported to the Benton County Sheriffs office. Scott was previously arrested for a similar incident in Chicago in August 2015.

This arrest has certainly complicated Kylie and Travis relationship. However, we know that Kylie has a knack for the complicated. Her ex-boyfriend Tyga has a child with his ex-fiance Blac Chyna. Blac Chyna is the mother of Rob Kardashians child. Rob Kardashian is Kylies step-brother.

With agency inputs

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Financial integration provides key support to Belt and Road construction: official

Chinas decision to inject capital into the Silk Road Fund is necessary, a senior official of China's central bank said Sunday, stressing the importance of financial integration to Belt and Road development.

The remarks of Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, came after Chinese President Xi Jinpings announcement that China will contribute an additional 100 billion RMB (about $14.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund, when he addressed the opening of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation last Sunday.

"It is very necessary to increase the capital of the Silk Road Fund at the current stage," Yi said, adding that financial integration is an important support to the Belt and Road construction.

The Belt and Road countries are mostly developing economies with an enormous funding demand to solve the capital shortage in infrastructure construction and other big projects, Yi explained, further pointed out that they are in need of support from the international community to secure economic and social development.

While funding the Belt and Road construction, the fund has demonstrated itsflexibility and efficiency. Having injected new capital to finance important projects, the fund guaranteed the medium- to long-term fiscal sustainability and got fair returns on its investment, Yi noted.

The official said the decision to inject capital into the Silk Road Fund stemmed from an enormous funding demand. The fund has had a large reserve of projects at the early stage, and the demand for funds will be greater in the future.

The capital boost will help the fund promote the Belt and Road construction while maximizing its advantage offlexibility and high efficiency, the official explained.

The fund with more capital will better play its leveraging role to mobilize resources of en-route countries and capital from international financial organizations, boost Chinas trade and investment cooperation with other en-route countries, the deputy governor noted, adding that fruits from Belt and Road development will benefit more as a result.

He stressed at the same time that the capital boost will not change the market-oriented operating principle of the fund, which means it will be a self-financing organization that shall independently bear risks and obligations.

It will get fair returns on its investment while funding Belt and Road construction, Yi said, adding that by this way, the goal to jointly build the all-shared routes through consultation will be realized.

Based on concept of openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit as well as the principle of internationalization, specialization, marketization since its founding, the fund has enhanced cooperation among Belt and Road countries in infrastructure construction, resource exploitation, industrial and financial sectors.

As of the first quarter of this year, the fund had signed 15 project agreements with promised investment amounting to $6 billion in aggregate. The investment covered en-route regions such as Russia, Mongolia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, North Africa and Europe.

The fund has additionally allocated $2 billion to establish the China-Kazakhstan capacity cooperation fund.

Xi also pledged at the opening ceremony that China will encourage financial institutions to conduct overseas RMB fund business with an estimated amount of about 300 billion RMB ($43.5 billion).

Designed to finance the Belt and Road initiative, the Silk Road Fund was founded in December 2014 and is jointly backed by China's foreign exchange reserves, China Investment Corp., The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank.
After two reported swine flu deaths and two more cases suspected in the district, the district health department has set up a four-bed isolation ward in the district hospital in Sector 30 for swine flu. It has also issued an advisory for residents asking them to take all precautions against the viral disease.

In the past week, a middle-aged woman from Ghaziabad and a senior citizen from Noida succumbed to the disease in Noida-based private hospitals. On Monday, two children were also suspected to be infected with the virus.

The reports of the two children were issued by a private pathological lab. We have sent their reports to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases laboratory in New Delhi for a confirmation. All precautionary measures have been taken regarding the two suspected cases, said Dr Anurag Bhargav, chief medical officer, district health department.

Since swine flu patients must be kept in isolation, an isolation ward with four beds has been set up in the district hospital. The number of beds will be increased according to the number of patients, said Dr Bhargav.

The district health department has also issued an advisory for all residents of Noida in the wake of new patients being diagnosed with the disease.

Swine flus symptoms are fever, cough and lethargy, which subsequently leads to chest muscle paralysis due to which the patient has difficulty in breathing. We advise that anyone who feels uneasiness in breathing must consult a doctor, said Dr Bhargav.

He added that anti-viral medicines must be given to patients of swine flu and their relatives as they are in constant contact with them.

Such patients must be kept in isolation. Like any other viral disease, swine flu also abates on its own. However, relatives must take all precautionary measures and stay at least one metre away from the patient. They should avoid shaking hands and also wear masks if needed, added the CMO.

Regarding vaccinations, Dr Bhargav said children between the age of 8 and 10 years must be given two vaccinations and anyone above 10 years can be given one.

One vaccination can ensure safety from swine flu for at least six to eight months. Diabetics and those suffering from chronic diseases must also get vaccinations, added Dr Bhargav.

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A group of around 70 homebuyers on Tuesday protested against the Greater Noida authority after its chief executive officer Amit Mohan Prasad refused to meet them at the Knowledge Park-IV office.

Homebuyers from various housing projects, including Value Infras Skywalk, Amrapalis Dream Valley, Supertechs Eco Village, Shubhkamna Buildtech and Gaursons, among others, wanted to meet the CEO to discuss several issues.

Homebuyers became agitated after some police constables allegedly pushed them out of the office. Homebuyers ended their protest after the CEO agreed to meet them.

Homebuyers from Supertechs Eco Village and Gaur City wanted to meet the CEO because they are facing problems of daily traffic jams at Kisan Chowk and near Crossings Republik. We discussed issues such as the need for foot overbridges, metro connectivity in Greater Noida west and ways to get back the investments made in projects, whose builders have fled, said Abhishek Kumar, president, Noida Extension flat owners welfare association.

Homebuyers said the CEO was angry with them as he did not wish to meet them.

We demanded that a tripartite meeting of buyers, builders and officials be started in Greater Noida as is being done in Noida. Let us see if the CEO will consider our demand or not, said Surendra Baranwal, a homebuyer.

Homebuyers have also asked Prasad not to scrap the proposed 15km Metro project, which was supposed to connect Noidas Sector 71/51 to Greater Noidas Knowledge Park-IV.

We asked the CEO why he has not started work on the project to provide metro connectivity to Greater Noida west. The CEO said he has not scrapped the project. He said the authority has put it on hold due to financial constraints, Kumar said.

Prasad told HT that he has assured the homebuyers that all their issues would be addressed at the earliest.

If they disturb peace, police will have to do their job. I did not refuse to meet them. I met around 100 homebuyers and told that I would try to address their issues, Prasad said.

The residents body has been complaining about traffic problems for a long time as they have demanded installation of traffic lights, construction of an underpass and foot overbridges at various important junctions outside the residential societies in Noida Extension and Greater Noida.

Installation of traffic signals will ensure that the residents of these societies are not affected by rash driving and traffic mismanagement. We have written to the Greater Noida authority on several occasions in the past but no action has been taken so far, said Amarjeet Rathore, a resident of Gaur City.

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Confusion prevailed at Sharda University campus on Tuesday over allegations of a question paper leaking during the semester examinations. It had the university management calling for the cancellation of six papers and then, withdrawing its decision.

Now, the university management has formed a probe committee and ordered an internal investigation to find out whether the question papers have been leaked or not.

A high-power inquiry committee will look into the alleged malpractices and unfair means used by some students in the ongoing semester examinations, said Amal Kumar, registrar, Sharda University.

We will be evaluating all the answer sheets and if we find a pattern that suggests the leak of question papers, the university administration will cancel the exams, said Ajit Kumar, spokesperson, Sharda University.

On Tuesday morning, chits were allegedly found during the frisking of students before the examination, at 8.30am. The students were then allowed to appear for the exam which was supposed to end today.

After checking the chits confiscated by security guards and flying squad members, the university administration found a clear pattern of answers in at least five chits.

According to sources, the university administration had taken a decision to call off the six papers  four of the School of Engineering and Technology and two of the School of Business Studies  fearing a leak in the question paper.

We received a call from our teachers who told us that we have to reappear for the exams which will be starting from May 19, said Sanju (who goes only by his first name), an engineering student of Sharda University.

However, by late evening, the university decided to change its decision to cancel six papers due to lack of evidence to suggest that the question papers had been leaked.

Of the several chits confiscated by us, only five showed some pattern. The university administration believes that a thorough probe is needed. Therefore, we have decided to withdraw our decision, Kumar said.

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The Noida authority has started framing guidelines for vending and non-vending zones to regulate the estimated 1,000 vendors operating on city roads. The authority on Monday asked its legal department to draft the guidelines.

Traffic crawls on many stretches across the city due to encroachments by vendors and hawkers, particularly on the Dadri-Surajpur-Chhalera (DSC) Road, the road dividing sectors 12 and 22, and the Sector 34, Sector 27 and Sector 24 roads. The weekly vegetable markets held in various parts of the city in the evening also cause a lot of traffic congestion.

The proposed vending policy is expected to provide relief to commuters from congestion and formulate proper vending regulations in the city.

The state government has so far failed to approve the street vendor policy for Noida and six other industrial towns.

The UP government has now directed us to form guidelines on vending and non-vending zones. We are likely to send them to the state government for approval. Once approved, the policy will be implemented in seven industrial towns, including Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway, said Saumya Srivastava, deputy chief executive officer, Noida authority.

Once the guidelines are approved, the authority will issue licences to vendors in vending zones and remove all unauthorised vendors, said officials.

Once the policy is approved, it will be clear how much penalty the authority can impose on an unauthorised vendor. The guidelines will also ascertain who will act against the guilty. The guidelines to regulate vendors are already in place in municipal bodies such as Ghaziabad. The UP government now wants the guidelines to be approved for seven industrial towns. Noidas guidelines will be implemented in six other industrial towns, said Srivastava.

The Noida authority had on August 12, 2014, approved the Uttar Pradesh Industrial (hawkers) Traffic Regulation Guidelines, 2014 in its 183rd board meeting. It had sent the same to the state government for further approval, but the authority is still awaiting notification of the guidelines from Lucknow.

We are now forming fresh guidelines. The state government will notify them at the earliest, said Srivastava.

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After a gap of around four years, the Gautam Budh Nagar district administration on Tuesday allotted contracts for sand mining in the Yamuna floodplains to three private agencies.

We have awarded tenders (contracts) to three private agencies  Nardan Infra Developers, Jatin Buildtech Private Limited and SN Construction Company  through an electronic tendering process, said BN Singh, district magistrate, Gautam Budh Nagar.

Nardan Infra Developers has got a mining site for Rs459 per cubic metre in Kindli Khadar, Jatin Buildtech Private Limited for Rs257 per cubic metre in Aurangabad village and SN Construction Company for Rs484 per cubic metre in Tilwada village along the Yamuna floodplain, said officials.

Read | Police, administration crack down on illegal sand mining around Noida

As per policy, the three agencies can mine sand only for a six-month period. There is also a limit to the amount of sand they can mine. Nardan Infra Developers has been given the limit of one lakh cubic metres of sand, Jatin Buildtech Private Limited 80,000 cubic metres and SN Construction Company 59,200 cubic metres, according to officials.

The government will earn around Rs12 crore in revenue from the contracts. Those who placed the highest bid in e-tendering got the tenders from the government at the three sites, said Kumar Vineet, additional district magistrate, Gautam Budh Nagar.

Read | Environment ministry confirms illegal sand mining in Greater Noida

On April 22, 2017, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had approved a new policy for awarding licences for sand mining. He had directed all district magistrates to award sand mining sites through e-tendering.

The Gautam Budh Nagar district administration had not issued licences for sand mining in the Yamuna floodplains since 2013. In November 2015, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had banned sand mining in the floodplains. It was hearing a plea alleging that private firms were involved in illegal activities and were even building a bridge across the river to transport the sand.

Read | Sand mafia builds bridge on Yamuna as link to Faridabad

Despite the ban, illegal sand mining continued to take place at some sites on the floodplains falling in the district. The district administration and police have in the past formed teams to fight illegal sand mining.

The Yamuna floodplains are spread over a vast area and it is not easy to check illegal sand mining completely. However, we take action as and when we get information, said an official of the district administration.

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A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ghaziabad on Tuesday ordered the framing of charges for murder, destruction of evidence and criminal conspiracy against MLA Aman Mani Tripathi, in connection with the alleged murder of his wife Sara Singh.

The accused was elected MLA from Nautanwa constituency and is the son of former UP minister Amar Mani Tripathi, who along with his wife is facing life imprisonment for the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla.

During the hearing on Tuesday, a special judge ordered that charges, including that of domestic violence, be filed against Tripathi.

Tripathi will now face trial in the alleged murder case. The trial proceedings will begin on May 19, said Naveen Tyagi, Tripathis counsel.

His mother-in-law, Seema Singh, had lodged the case after Sara was killed in a car accident under mysterious circumstances on July 9, 2015, in Firozabad. Her family suspected foul play as Tripathi escaped unhurt.

Tripathi and Sara met each other through a common friend and their courtship continued till July 27, 2013, when they got married at an Arya Samaj temple in Aliganj, Lucknow.

This was without the knowledge, consent and presence of their family members. After her marriage, Sara stayed with her mother except on four-five occasions when she intermittently visited Tripathis Laurance Terrace home. It is alleged that Tripathi and his family did not agree to socially accept the marriage.

The differences started cropping up months after marriage and Sara also complained to the Womens Helpline number in June 2014 about her husband.

The CBI investigation revealed that in order to get rid of Sara, Tripathi planned a visit from Lucknow to Leh on July 9, 2015, and opted to use a Swift Dzire despite his family possessing seven high-end luxury cars. As for the allegations of Saras murder in the car accident, the CBI also conducted a reconstruction of the crime with the help of experts.

The chargesheet says that the car was not driven at a speed of 120km-140km per hour as claimed by Tripathi, but the speed could have been 50km-70km per hour.

An eyewitness, Neelam Baghel, had told investigators that she stood at the corner of the road with her bicycle and not in the middle of the road as claimed by Tripathi. She also established that the car involved in the accident did not roll over.

According to the chargesheet, the CBI investigation concluded that Sara Singh was murdered by Tripathi and others in a premeditated conspiracy, which was projected as an accident with mala fide intention.

The CBI also maintains in their chargesheet that Sara was already dead and it was her body, and not an injured Sara, which was taken from the alleged incident site to the district hospital in Firozabad. The CBI is still continuing the investigation.

Tripathis lawyer maintains that the CBI has just build up a case against Tripathi, based on scientific tests.

I still say that I am innocent and respect the court. I have full faith in the judicial process and I believe that I will come out clean, Tripathi said.

His parents, former UP minister Amar Mani Tripathi and Madhumani were convicted of the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla and are serving a life sentence.

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The chief minister of Punjab, Amarinder Singh, formerly a Captain in the Indian Army, tried to come out in support of his former colleagues, by speaking about the vulnerability of Army men in border states such as Jammu and Kashmir. That would have been a responsible and mature stand to have taken. Instead, the former Captain ended up endorsing the gross violation of basic human rights that the army has been accused of perpetrating.

While expressing his admiration for the men in uniform, Amarinder Singh came down heavily on those criticising the official who was responsible for tying an innocent man to the front of an Army jeep and using him as a human shield. The official, a Major in the army, tied Farooq Ahmad Dar to the front of his jeep, and paraded him for several hours in the streets of Srinagar. Dar has claimed that he was tied to the jeep and paraded from 10 am to 5:30 pm. In a video of the incident that went viral on social media, a warning can be heard that stone pelters will all meet this same fate. Captain Singh defended the actions of the Major and even went so far as to say had I been in the same situation, I would have carried out the same action.

Here's the video as well. A warning can be heard saying stone pelters will meet this fate. This requires an urgent inquiry & follow up NOW!! pic.twitter.com/qj1rnCVazn  Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) April 14, 2017

There was absolutely no need for Captain Singh to make any comments regarding the incident, especially since the court of inquiry into the allegations has still not come to any conclusions. While hes allowed to have a personal opinion on any matter, here his statement becomes doubly irresponsible because he is the elected head of the state government of Punjab; and is directly responsible for the welfare and safety of the people of his state. His utter disregard for human rights and the rights of the individual, especially in areas of conflict and tension, does not inspire confidence. He has urged the central government to send out a strong signal to those opposing the State, and said that he supported the Indian armys warning of appropriate response for the despicable act of the mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistan army in Poonch.

The problem of Kashmir is a very complicated one, with no simple solutions, and as most observers have agreed, certainly not a solution that involves an extensive use of armed forces. To paint the problem in the simplistic binary terms of people versus the Army does nothing to help solve the problems of the state. At a time when goodwill towards government institutions in the Valley is at an all time low, the need of the hour is to de-escalate the conflict. By arguing that the actions of the Major are not only justified, but also worth emulating, the chief minister of Punjab is only making the rift between Kashmiris and the government wider. He would do well to be more mindful of his words and actions.

@vidyathinks

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The family members of Gurpreet Kaur, 26, have approached high commission of India in New Zealand to bring back the body here as soon as possible. The woman who hails from Balachaur town of Punjabs Nawanshahr district was found dead under mysterious circumstances at her workplace in Manurewa, South Auckland, on May 10.

Speaking to HT over phone, Kaurs younger brother Sukhbir,who is studying at Garhshankars Khalsa College, said, I have written an email to the commission requesting the officials to get the body back from the custody of New Zealand police at the earliest, as we have to perform her last rites.

We were informed on Tuesday that the New Zealand polices investigation might take few more days, he said. My father has arrived from Dubai and we are now waiting for the body, he said, adding that the family is still in a state of shock.

He said that his sister had not visited home since 2015 . She used to talk to me on Whatsapp after a gap of few days but she called our mother daily, said Sukhbir.

WENT TO AUCKLAND TWO YEARS AGO ON STUDY VISA

Gurpreet had gone to New Zealand two years ago on a student visa and completed her diploma from an industrial training institute in Auckland and lived with her husband Satwinder Singh, who works in an electrical firm, and mother-in-law. She was married in 2014, and her husband joined her in New Zealand only six months ago. Her husband and mother-in-law are in a state of shock and unable to talk to anyone, Daljeet Singh from NZ Sikh Society said.
The nine-month-old baby girl, who is suffering from obesity, might not get treatment as her family is unable to afford Rs 2 lakh. Chahats weight is 20 kg, while an ideal body weight of a 9-month-old baby girl, should be between 6.6 - 10.4 kg.

She can be cured, but her father is taking her back as he cannot afford to pay the money required for diagnosing the disease. The baby was born on July 24, 2016 via normal delivery. Her weight was normal, but she started gaining it when she was 4-month old.

When she was 4 months, her weight was 9 kg. It increased to 15 kg at 6 months. It further increased by two more kg in the next three months. Currently, she weighs 20kg and she is turning 10-month-old on May 24, said Suresh Kumar, father of the child, who works in a cable shop in Amritsar.

On May 11, she was referred to the PGIMER. Here, doctors have conducted some tests, but have not been able to diagnose the problem so far. They are planning to send the samples of tests to Bangalore.

Doctors have found that Chahats 14-year-old paternal uncle is also obese. He weighs 68 kg and is hardly 4 feet tall.

We have conducted general tests, but the disease could not be identified. So, now we want to send the samples to Bangalore for further diagnosis, said Dr Devi Dayal, examining the baby girl.

He said, Samples will be sent for sequencing to know any abnormality in genes. We want that samples of both children should be sent for examination and it will cost around Rs 2 lakh. The doctor added saying, When the funds will be arranged, the samples will be sent for examination.

On the other hand, Chahats father, Suraj Kumar, has lost hope related to the treatment of his child.

I dont have money and cannot afford the treatment. I dont have any relative who have give me this amount. We will take her (Chahat) back to Amritsar as I cannot afford Rs 2 lakh, said Suraj Kumar Chahat.
Post- critical alert against the WannaCry attack -- Ransomware virus has forced the city-based companies, government and law enforcement agencies to update their antivirus systems and upgrade their systems to protect the data from the virus.

No complaint with regard to the malware has so far been received, yet cyber cells of Chandigarh and Punjab have issued warnings to the departments concerned .

We are updating our anti-virus system and scanning is being done to ensure there is no threat, said a senior official, who did not wish to be named, of a law-enforcing agency in Chandigarh.

We have asked the organisations to educate their employees not to open any mail which has attachments .exe file, said Rashmi Sharma Yadav, deputy superintendent of police (DSP), cyber cell, Chandigarh police.

The malware affects severs and not individuals. Already, Indias cyber security agency, Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-In), has issued a red-coloured critical alert in connection with the WannaCry attack and not to pay ransom. The Ransomware virus had stopped car factories, hospitals, shops and schools in over 75 countries.

The Ransomware virus is a virus that affects computer systems and locks up the files on your computer and encrypts them in a way that you cannot access them anymore, said Harinder Singh Sekhon, in-charge, cyber cell.

He added, Ransomware is a programme that gets into your computer only by downloading and it will ask you to pay ransom in Bitcoins. However, paying the ransom is no guarantee that the files will be retrieved, thus a warning has been issued not to pay ransom.

For individuals, the only advice is do not open files from unknown sources, added Sekhon.

Precautions

Mails or messages carrying attachment .exe are not to be opened

Ensure the windows being used are licensed.

Update anti-virus

Download or open files only from authentic source.

Ensure that your antivirus is running and is updated

Do not download/run any attachment from sources that you do not know

In case there is a request for patching your system, please patch it immediately.

In case of restart request post-patch, please reboot your system

Backup your personal files over a secondary backup device.

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The Philippines said it welcomes the Belt and Road initiative to not only boost the country's infrastructure but also strengthen connectivity with other Asian countries, a Philippine presidential spokesman said during a briefing on the domestic economic plan of President Rodrigo Duterte in Beijing on Monday.

Philippine finance secretary Carlos Dominguez also said at the "Dutertenomics" forum that the government is focused on developing the country's infrastructure, including the building of roads and ports, and hopes to get help from countries like China.

"Dutertenomics" is a 10-point economic program Duterte had announced shortly after he took office, the newspaper The Philippine Star reported.

This is not the first time that the Philippine delegation to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation has stressed the country's willingness to cooperate with China under the initiative in an effort to develop the Philippine economy despite disputes between the two countries.

Philippine senator Alan Peter Cayetano told a press conference in Beijing on Sunday that "we don't want disputes to stop economic development."

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella revealed in an interview with Peoples Daily and Global Times on Monday that Duterte might meet with Poly Technologies Inc., one of China's top State-owned defense manufacturing and exporting firms.

Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the Philippine government is set to sign a letter of intent to purchase military equipment from Poly, and that the document is scheduled to be signed on Monday.

"We're in China to discuss projects like bridges and roads, and some Chinese contractors are already involved in the Philippines. We hope to work together with Chinese firms on more projects. We're looking forward to a very fruitful relationship," Philippine Public Works and Highways secretary Mark Villar said on Monday.

Villar furthered that the Chinese government has helped with feasibility studies for major projects and, eventually, many Chinese companies will participate in these projects, including major bridges and roads in the Philippines.

"Some Philippine companies have already partnered with Chinese counterparts willing to get involved in major infrastructure projects. China has been very supportive and we're very thankful for their support," Villar said.

As for preferential treatment for Chinese investments, it will be decided on a case-by-case basis, Villar said, adding that "Chinese companies who will invest in the Philippines can definitely expect the Philippines to be very welcoming and supportive."
Ranchi: A ruling coalition legislator in Jharkhand has locked horns with a surrendered Maoist daring him to confront with him once out of jail threatening the rebel that he would not hesitate taking the law into his hands to avenge his fathers murder.

Tamar legislator Vikas Munda, one of the four legislators of All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) Party that shares the ruling benches in the state assembly with the BJP, is agitated against his own governments police for according a warm welcome to dreaded Maoist leader, Kundan Pahan, who officially laid down arms before senior police functionaries in Ranchi on Sunday. Accused of 128 criminal cases, 37-year-old, Pahan had voluntarily walked into police custody around 10 days back.

After thoroughly interrogating him and raiding few of his hideouts, the police eventually produced him before media announcing his surrender on Sunday. At the Ranchi DIG office, Pahan was allowed to deliver a long lecture from a podium where he ridiculed police for fearing him for years, announced his decision to contest elections once out of jail sooner and justified his decision of severing ties with the rebel group as it had lost the ideology and principles it once stood for.

The moment he completed his parroted speech, Pahan was immediately given a cheque for Rs 15 lakh as reward for the surrender and for his rehabilitation.

Among the 77 people Pahan has allegedly killed during the last 15 years of his association with the Left insurgent group CPI (Maoist), included the AJSU legislators father and ex-minister Ramesh Singh Munda.

In an audacious act, Pahan and his guerilla squad members sprayed bullets on the ex-minister while he was speaking at a function in a school in Bundu on July 9, 2008. His crime: The ex-minister was vocal against the Maoists wanton killing of innocent and gullible villagers.

Vikas was barely 24 years old then while his two other siblings were minors. A year later, pushed by his fathers followers and local populace, Vikas contested his maiden poll but Pahan spoiled his chances of victory by threatening his die-hard followers to abstain from polling. He allegedly went on to support the rivals in fray.

Vikas did not give up and successfully contested the next two elections from the seat. He got every person in my constituency, who raised voice against his torments, killed. But I never feared him as the people were by my side. Of late, he had to flee the area as the people were up in arms against him.

Vikas smells a greater conspiracy hatched by some politician-police nexus behind Pahans planned surrender and the heros welcome he got. He said, The police had been entertaining the fugitive criminal for the last one month giving him joyrides in their vehicle. The serial killer he is, Pahan should have been arrested and hanged for eliminating 77 people. Instead, the police-politician nexus made him surrender in style and seemed to be helping him to further his political ambitions.

The young legislator has demanded a CBI probe into Pahans stage-managed surrender. He deserves no less than capital punishment. If the government fails to prosecute the criminal sincerely and if he comes out of the jail to bully us, I will lead the charge to tame him, said Vikas.
Ranchi: The Jharkhand high court on Tuesday rejected the state governments request to ban media from publishing Maoist surrender events.

The government is charged with according heroic reception to surrendered ultras and misutilising public money doled out to these hardcore criminals under the provisions of the state surrender and rehabilitation (S&R) policy. A courts direction has been sought to scrap the S&R policy.

The matter pertains to a public interest litigation (PIL) initiated by the court on media reports highlighting how the dreaded Maoist Kundan Pahan, infamous for serial killings, was given a heroic treatment after he officially surrendered on Sunday and Rs 15 lakh paid to him through cheque.

A division bench of chief justice PK Mohanty and justice Ananda Sen asked the government to clarify its stand by filing a detailed reply in the matter. The bench fixed the case for next hearing after vacation.

Earlier, advocate general Binod Poddar argued that the instant PIL was nothing but a publicity interest litigation which ought to be rejected. He contended that the media should be gagged to publish reports of Maoist surrender events.

The bench, however, observed that media could not be suppressed for publishing such news. It said it was the court which had initiated suo moto PIL on media reports and appointed lawyer Hemant Sikarwar as amicus curie to assist the court on its behalf. Therefore, this PIL cant be termed as publicity interest litigation, the bench said.

Lawyer Sikarwar alleged that Pahan, who owns 2,600 acres of land, was an accused in as many as 128 criminal cases, 77 of them being murders. Besides others, he was involved in the killings of a DSP, an ex-minister and a special branch inspector and looted Rs 5.5 crore cash from a bank van, he alleged.

Sikarwar said instead of punishing this hardcore criminal, the government treated the rebel like a Robin Hood and provided him red carpet welcome to pay Rs 15 lakh to him.

Its surprising that the government is glorifying these ultras, who showed no respect to the rule of the land, the lawyer contended, adding, This system will motivate the existing criminals and youths to join rebel groups.

He urged the court to declare the states S&R policy null and void and instruct the authorities to stop encashment of the cheque given to Pahan.

Over the last one year, at least six top Maoists have laid down arms before the police and availed benefits in crores. Family members of the people killed by these Maoists have been denouncing the states friendly approach towards the killers and have been seeking legal justification of the acts.

Observations

HC directs govt to file reply in response to PIL challenging Maoist surrender policy which advocates payment of hefty public money to surrendered rebels

HC rejects govts suggestion to gag the media from publishing surrender events

It was alleged that the existing system of glorifying ultras would inspire youths and criminals to join the rebel outfits

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Hyderabad police have arrested six persons for allegedly trying to extort money from Karan Johar and other producers of the blockbuster film Bahubali 2: The Conclusion, by threatening to circulate a pirated copy.

Among the arrested is the owner of a theatre in Bihar. The gang demanded Rs 15 lakh from the producers for not uploading a copy on the internet, said deputy commissioner of police Avinash Mohanty. Johar is co-producer of Hindi version of the film.

As per the complaint lodged on April 29, a man called Rahul Mehta, who said he represented an anti-piracy agency, approached the producers and told them that a pirated high definition print of the film was available. Mehta showed them a sample video...and informed that release of pirated copy would be withheld for a few days and demanded money, Mohanty said.

The producers kept up talking with him while informing the police. Mehta was arrested on May 11 from Jubilee Hills area of Hyderabad.

He named Jitender Mehta, Taufiq and Mohammad Ali as accomplices. The three were arrested in Delhi the next day. Jitender and Taufiq have past criminal record and were arrested by Jabalpur police in Madhya Pradesh for piracy of the Bahubali-The Beginning in 2015.

Divakar Kumar, owner of a theatre in Begusarai district of Bihar, and one Chandan were arrested from Patna. Monu, who is absconding, and Divakar made digital copy of the film, the DCP said.

For digital distribution of a film, theatre owners get encryption key. The accused used this key to make a pirated copy, DCP Mohanty said. The gang regularly made pirated copies of Bollywood films, he added. Further probe is on.

ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop
Actor Avika Gor, who became popular with television shows Balika Vadhu and Sasural Simar Ka, is now focussing on short films and web series. The actors first short film I, Me, Myself will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins on May 17. Before heading to the prestigious film festival, Avika plans to shoot for her second short film in France and Switzerland.

In her second short film, too, Avika shares screen space with co-star Manish Raisinghan, whom she met on the sets of their daily show Sasural Simar Ka. The two are even rumoured to be dating, but have vehemently denied the reports.

We are shooting a short film there and thats probably for the first time ever that someone is travelling to Europe to shoot for a short film. Yash Raj Films set an example by taking Hindi cinema to the Alps and others followed suit, says Avika, who took a hiatus after Sasural Simar Ka to figure out what she wanted to do in life. During the break, the actor did a screenplay writing course, and says that she wants to learn direction too. The actor says that she is also keen on doing web series.

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Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan is ready for to host the Tamil version of Bigg Boss. With his mass popularity, Haasan will take the popular reality show to every Tamil household and he hinted that when he unveiled the promo of the show on Monday on his Twitter page. Through the television medium, he said he will be reaching a wider audience and that he cant live without his fans.

Reaching more of those I love. Can't live without people.https://t.co/BS9jtWP8Ys

Soon with you on Vijay TV  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) May 15, 2017

In a recent interview to Times of India, he said he chose to be part of the show because of its reach. I would say that it is the demography of the audience and the number of people you can reach that made me take this. And, of course, the money you get also matters. I am in this business for the money, and I wont be doing films for free. What also matters is that televisions reach is fantastic because in the case of movies, you have to sell tickets, etc. So, for me, the more the merrier. Both the audience and the money is good.

According to sources, the Tamil version of the show will be made on a much bigger scale. As many as 15 participants will be a part of the shows first season and will live in the house for 100 days. A palatial house with all the facilities is currently being constructed in Chennais EVP theme park. The show will be aired from next month.

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Actor Keiynan Lonsdale, who came out as a bisexual after his post on Instagram on Saturday, has received an overwhelming support from his fans.

The 25-year-old Aussie who plays the role of Wally West/Kid Flash in the American TV series, The Flash, took to Instagram, where he talked about his sexual orientation, and said that he couldnt fake it anymore.

Following his Instagram post, many fans took to Twitter and other social media platforms to congratulate the actor on coming out in the open about it.

#WeLoveYouKeiy @KeiynanLonsdale thank you for being so real w us and spreading so much love and positivity everywhere u are  pic.twitter.com/ts1XVuYhMq  izzy (@irjswest) May 13, 2017

Huge respect to @KeiynanLonsdale for his coming out post, so proud of you, really touched me as a bisexual guy, the truth is in love   Shay Lonsdale (@ShayLonsdale) May 15, 2017

Even Hollywood celebrities congratulated the Dance Academy star.

Beautifully said and what freedom you just gave to so many who may have feared acceptance. Dope shit @KeiynanLonsdale https://t.co/lk5GBxpAY5  Gina Rodriguez (@HereIsGina) May 13, 2017

@KeiynanLonsdale xoxoxo  you hair twin  Caity Lotz (@caitylotz) May 14, 2017

Following the support on social media, Keiynan thanked everyone for their support.

Nothing better than happy tears. The love is beyond measurable, thank you. Don't forget to give that same love back to yourselves x  Keiynan Lonsdale (@KeiynanLonsdale) May 13, 2017

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An Afghan pilot hoping to become the youngest woman in history to complete a solo round-the-world flight was preparing Monday to start the Transatlantic leg of her journey.

Shaesta Waiz, 29, was born in a refugee camp at the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan before immigrating with her family to the United States in 1987.

There, she discovered a passion for flying and obtained her pilots license -- becoming the youngest certified civilian female pilot from Afghanistan.

Now she wants to share that sense of freedom of soaring high above ground with other young women.

When I found my passion -- flying -- thats when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently, Waiz said as she made a stopover in Montreal.

Whats important is finding your passion and going after it.

Waiz took off from Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday and has mapped out a route that will take her aboard her Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft approximately 25,800 kilometers (16,000 miles) to more than 18 countries, including Spain, Egypt, India, Singapore and Australia, before ending the trip back in Florida in August.

During her 30 stopovers, the engineering graduate and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is backing her trip, will host events to try to get schoolchildren interested in science -- notably aeronautics.

According to ICAO figures, less than five percent of commercial pilots are women.

If you really break it down into science, technology, engineering and math and explore what those career fields offer, its very exciting, Waiz said.

We hope to present to the young kids at these events what those careers are... and hopefully get them to pursue these careers that are in need of more talent.

On the website of her non-profit Dreams Soar, she commented: Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me.
Javier Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialised in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was killed on Monday in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in Mexico.

Valdez is at least the sixth journalist to be murdered in Mexico since early March, an unusually high number even for one of the worlds deadliest countries for media professionals.

Valdez was shot to death in the state capital of Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he co-founded, Riodoce. State prosecutor Juan Jose Rios visited the scene and said authorities were investigating all possible motives, including that the killing could have been due to Valdezs work, though he gave no details.

Riodoce reported that Valdez was driving about a block from its offices when he was intercepted by gunmen. Valdez was also a correspondent for the national newspaper La Jornada, which reported that he was pulled from his car and shot multiple times.

Images in Mexican media showed a body lying in a street covered by a blue blanket and surrounded by 12 yellow markers of the kind typically used to flag evidence such as bullet casings.

President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned what he called an outrageous crime.

I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, fundamental for our democracy, he tweeted.

The federal attorney generals office said it was investigating.

Sinaloa state has long been a drug trafficking hotbed and is home to the Sinaloa Cartel headed by notorious kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who is in a New York prison awaiting trial on multiple charges. Experts say Guzmans arrest last year and extradition in January have led to upheaval in the area as rival factions war for control of the gang.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 40 journalists have been killed in Mexico for reasons confirmed as related to their work since 1992. An additional 50 were slain during the same period under circumstances that have not been clarified.
Indias shallow and stereotypical view that China is working against it through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) led New Delhi to boycott the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) and has the potential to destroy bilateral ties, a Chinese state media editorial warned on Tuesday.

Calling the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) a military group, the editorial said the burden of the current problems  including New Delhis call to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar in the UN  in bilateral ties is entirely on India, and China has nothing to do with any of the issues troubling relations between the two neighbours, it said.

In recent years, old problems have remained in Sino-Indian relations while some new problems have surfaced. For instance, New Delhi hopes Beijing will support the UN Security Council blacklist on the leader of the Army of Mohammed (JeM) a Pakistan-based military group, and support Indias bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the state-run nationalistic tabloid Global Times said on Monday.

Overall, these new problems are caused by Indias requirements for China. However, China does not do as it wants, it said, explaining Indias decision to skip the BRF, a summit organised to showcase President Xi Jinpings Belt and Road Initiative that aims to link Asia, African and Europe through infrastructure and transport networks.

It should be pointed out that some people in India, with the ability to influence public opinion, have a shallow analysis of state interests, and an outdated understanding of geopolitics. Their stereotyped view of China continues to spread to the whole of Indian society, which may have destructive power. India and China should be vigilant about this, it added.

New Delhi skipped BRF primarily because CPEC, a flagship project in the BRI, passed through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The editorial, toeing the line dominant in Chinas diplomatic narrative, dismissed Indias concerns, saying CPEC is an economic project with no political objectives.

India appears to be the only country that has expressed disapproval of the initiative in recent days, it said.

China insists the Kashmir dispute is between India and Pakistan and it has no intention of intervening. The CPEC is a cooperation project in a purely economic sense with no aim to stir up political trouble, the editorial said.

Rising nationalism has made Indian public opinion extremely sensitive on China-related issues. Indians are keen to compare themselves with China on development and international status, but meanwhile strongly object to China developing friendly cooperation with Pakistan, for fear that Sino-Pakistani ties are targeting India, it said.

But overall, Sino-India relations have not seen a serious downturn, the daily said, adding that specific frictions between Beijing and New Delhi should not be regarded as a signal for intense geopolitical competition.
The UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen says a cholera outbreak has killed 124 people over the past two weeks.

Jamie McGoldrick told reporters Monday that another 11,100 people were believed to have been infected, and that medicine was arriving. But he also urged donor countries to fulfil more than $1 billion in aid pledges made in Geneva last month.

A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015, in a war that has killed more than 10,000 civilians.

The World Health Organization said last month that fewer than 45 percent of health facilities in Yemen are now fully functioning, and that the flow of essential medicines has fallen by nearly 70 percent.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen was announced by Yemens Ministry of Public Health and Population on Oct. 6, 2016.

Yemen, the impoverished Arab country in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has been involved in a civil war since two years ago. The war pits Iranian-allied dominant Houthi movement, backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against their foe of Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Xi Jinping (R), general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese president, meets with Bounnhang Vorachit, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Laotian People's Revolutionary Party and Laotian president, in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2017. Bounnhang Vorachit was in Beijing to attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which ended on Monday. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for deepening cooperation with Laos and creating better future for bilateral ties by taking the opportunity of jointly promoting the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP).

The two countries constitute a community of shared future with strategic significance, Xi said, urging both sides to continue the positive direction of bilateral relations and ensure the long-term, healthy and stable development of their comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation.

The two parties and two countries should maintain frequent high-level communication, exchange views on major issues in bilateral ties in a timely manner and strengthen the top-level design of bilateral ties, Xi said, adding he is willing to maintain the tradition of annually meeting with Bounnhang.

Xi called for deepening party-to-party cooperation, stressing mutual learning of party and state governance, so as to enhance ruling capacity together.

He stressed the importance of advancing comprehensive cooperation, aligning development strategies, and strengthening coordination in international affairs to jointly safeguard China-ASEAN ties and regional peace and stability.

Bounnhang applauded the fruitful results of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, saying it will significantly promote Asian connectivity and economic growth and bring more development opportunities to his country.

Bounnhang said that leaders of the two parties should maintain close communication and strengthen exchanges on state governance experience, as well as personnel training.

After the meeting, the two leaders witnessed the exchange of cooperation documents concerning economy, education and technology.
Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from the Islamic State group after retaking the citys eastern side earlier this year, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

IS still controls 10.5 per cent of... the right bank, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in Baghdad, referring to west Mosul.

Mosul is split by the Tigris River, and its western side is referred to as the right bank, while the east is known as the left bank.

Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul from IS nearly seven months ago, fighting their way to the jihadist-held city, retaking its eastern side and then attacking the west.

The drive to retake Mosul has been supported by US-led air strikes that have aided the Iraqi advance but which have also reportedly caused hundreds of civilian casualties in the city.

More than 300 vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (car bombs) have been destroyed by coalition strikes in Mosul, coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian told the news conference.

IS now controls just a handful of neighbourhoods around the Old City, one of the countrys heritage jewels.

The areas narrow streets and closely spaced buildings make it difficult for federal forces to take on the jihadists, requiring them to fight on foot instead of from vehicles as they have previously done.

Half a million people are currently displaced as a result of the battle for Mosul, and some 250,000 civilians are estimated to be still trapped inside the citys west.

Thursday saw what the Norwegian Refugee Council said was the biggest single-day displacement since the start of the operation, with around 20,000 people fleeing west Mosul.

The presence of a large civilian population, which either chose not to leave or was prevented from doing so by IS, complicates any final assault to seal victory in Mosul.

Human shields have become a central feature of the vastly outnumbered jihadists defences, and IS has stopped at nothing to deter people from escaping the city, including killing people who seek to flee.

But that is not the only threat: trapped residents reached by AFP inside IS-held areas have recently warned that hunger was starting to kill more people than the fighting.

In eastern Mosul, life returned to a semblance of normality fairly quickly after Iraqi forces drove the jihadists back neighbourhood by neighbourhood until the area was fully recaptured earlier this year.

The citys first post-IS liquor store has since been opened in east Mosul, and is doing brisk business among people who were denied easy access to alcohol for more than two years.
Ontario legislator Jagmeet Singh has become the first Sikh to mount a credible campaign for the leadership of a national party in Canada, announcing his candidature for taking command of the New Democratic Party.

The 38-years-old member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament representing Bramalea-Gore-Malton, made the announcement on Monday at an event hosted at the restaurant, Bombay Palace, in Brampton, a suburb of Toronto.

The NDP is one of the three major national parties in Canada and had emerged as the principal Opposition party in the House of Commons in the 2011 federal elections.

Im proud to announce that I am running to be the leader of the new Dem Party of Canada, he said, as shouts of Bole so nihal, Sat Sri Akal resonated through the venue.

The announcement was preceded by a number of leaders of the party, including elected representatives from Canadian provinces taking the stage to voice their support for Singhs campaign for NDP leadership.

People are hungry for new leadership in this country, they are hungry for new leadership in our party, said Singh, a lawyer by training, as he took the stage wearing an orange turban to match the colour of the NDP, in an event that was also live-streamed on Facebook, pointing towards a campaign that will take social media outreach seriously.

Singh, who was born in Scarborough in Ontario, outlined a vision that included building a Canada that is inclusive and where everyone can realise their dreams.

He also attacked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying, Weve had enough of empty promises and were ready to get the job done.

Singh has the dubious distinction of being possibly the only elected representative in the Western world to have been denied a visa to India, when in December 2013 his request was turned down by the Indian consulate in Toronto.

Indian officials will monitor his progress in the leadership race, and further, if he were to win it. Singh, of course, also moved a motion in the Ontario Assembly last year to have the 1984 anti-Sikh riots termed genocide, though that was defeated.

While the NDP has formed governments in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia in the past, and is the ruling party in Alberta, it has never been in power in Ottawa. But Singh told his cheering supporters that while people may say the NDP will never win federal government, and you know what, they are wrong.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday the issue of US President Donald Trump allegedly divulging state secrets to Russia is not worth confirming or denying, calling it nonsense.

For us it is not an issue, its more nonsense, Peskov said when asked about the Washington Post report that Trump shared highly classified information during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

We want nothing to do with this nonsense, he said. Its not an issue for confirming or denying, its complete nonsense, Peskov added.

Citing unnamed officials, the Monday report said Trump went off script during a meeting with Lavrov and Russian envoy to Washington Sergei Kislyak and described details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes.

Trumps National Security Advisor HR McMaster denied the incident happened, but the president on Tuesday defended himself.

Trump on Twitter insisted he had the absolute right to share information with Russia, adding that he was motivated by humanitarian reasons.
The Labour Partys manifesto for the June 8 election released on Tuesday promises an independent inquiry into Britains role in Operation Bluestar at Amritsars Golden Temple in 1984 , when British special forces were allegedly involved.

The manifesto did not specifically mention India but promised to remove international students from overall migration statistics  a major demand of higher education stakeholders, who believe students are not immigrants since most return after completing studies.

Including them in the statistics has prompted new curbs, leading to a sharp fall in the number of Indian students coming to the UK in recent years.

The controversy over UKs role in Operation Bluestar arose when some British documents declassified in January 2014 led to an inquiry by the cabinet secretary. There have since been demands by UK-based Sikh groups for an independent inquiry, since other documents were allegedly not released.

The cabinet secretarys inquiry report had said military advice was given to the Indira Gandhi government at an early stage (in February 1984, Operation Bluestar was carried out in June), that it had a limited impact, and that it was anyway not followed by the Indian Army that eventually planned and carried out the operation.

The manifesto said: Labour remains committed to an independent inquiry into Britains military role in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Bhai Amrik Singh of the Sikh Federation UK told HT: We are delighted with the commitment shown by the Labour Party by making the pledge of an independent public inquiry in the manifesto. This puts real pressure on the Conservatives to revisit the issue.

We will be increasing legal pressure before June 8 and the British government will want to avoid the truth being dragged out in the courts.

Community sources said the mention had more to do with Labours bid to consolidate the Sikh vote in some constituencies, particularly in the Midlands. The manifesto also briefly mentioned the Kashmir issue.

We will also urge negotiations towards a political resolution in all other regions currently experiencing conflict, including Kashmir, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, the manifesto said.

Releasing the manifesto that focused on the many rather than the few allegedly favoured by the Conservatives, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his government will always welcome and hail the contribution of immigrants to Britain, including Indian professionals in different sectors.

The party said if it won the elections, its government would frame new immigration rules that will be informed by negotiations with the EU and other partners, including the Commonwealth.

The manifesto added: We will continue to mark the ongoing centenary of the First World War, and the sacrifice of all those who died during it. Labour remains committed to honouring the role of all who have served our country, including the Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish soldiers who fought for Britain.

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North Korea continues to threaten the United States and its allies, the White House has said, urging countries like China and Russia to do everything they can in terms of sanctions, to help resolve the situation.

There is no question that North Korea continues to threaten the United States and our allies, Japan, South Korea, and its neighbours, including both China and Russia, the White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.

We are calling on all of those folks in the region, particularly China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve the situation and bring stability to the Peninsula, Spicer said, responding to a question regarding the threat posed by North Korea, which has been carrying out a series of missile tests in the last few weeks, in violation of the UN Security Council resolution.

Spicer said Donald Trump looks forward to having a conversation with the new South Korean President and discussing the way forward.

But Im not going to get ahead of that discussion at this point, he said. Over the weekend, North Korea carried out yet another missile test.

The department of defense is still carrying out an assessment of the nature of the missile test, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters at a Washington Foreign Press Center news conference.

It was launched from a place called Kusung, and landed in the Sea of Japan. The type of missile is still being assessed, and the flight was not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile, he said.

We continue to call on North Korea to refrain from provocative destabilising actions, rhetoric, and to make the strategic choice to fulfil its international obligations and commitments to return to serious talks, he said.

Davis said this weapons program that they have is unlawful, and represents a clear grave threat to US national security.

North Korea openly states that its ballistic missiles are intended to deliver nuclear weapons, to strike cities in the United States, the Republic of Korea, and Japan, he said.

As weve spoken about with regards to China, North Korea is a liability for China, not an asset, and China will partner with us to demonstrate to North Korea that it stands alone in its pursuit of illegal weapons of mass destruction.

We remain steadfast and ironclad in our commitment to our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, Davis said.

As part of its effort to ramp up the defence against North Koreans, the United States has deployed THAAD  Theater High-Altitude Air Defence System  which has the ability to defeat North Korean missiles.

The US recently completed the deployment of the first battery there. It achieved initial operating capability. Thats not the full-up, operational seamless capability that we want, but it has an initial ability to be able to defeat North Korean missiles, he said.

Acknowledging that there is concern about this in China, Davis noted its perplexing why that is.

This is a system that is 100-percent defensive in nature. It does not have an offensive capability. It is meant to defend against North Korean missiles. That should be considered a destabilising act by others is curious and incomprehensible, in my view, he said.

We have to maintain the capabilities there that we need to defend the Republic of Korea. Everything that we do there, every soldier on the ground, every base thats there, every mission that we conduct, is conducted with that in mind; that the US forces are there to defend the Republic of Korea against aggression from the North, and thats true with this, he argued.
Pakistan's planning minister Ahsan Iqbal has slammed a report in the influential Dawn newspaper revealing what it claimed to be the original plan of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Claiming the documents were being made public for the first time, the English language daily said the plan revealed Chinese intentions and priorities in Pakistan for the next decade-and-a-half. The report gave details about large-scale agricultural projects, a massive surveillance system for cities and fibre-optic connectivity.

Iqbal, who plays a central role in CPEC, described the article as Dawn Leaks II, a reference to the earlier leak by the newspaper about differences on tackling terror groups that had led to a fallout between the army and the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, before they eventually patched up a few days ago.

I am appalled by Dawn Leaks II. CPEC long-term plan story based on working documents to distort final draft taken up with NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission, the state planning body of China) yesterday in Beijing, he posted on Twitter.

He added Dawn had not approached him or his ministry for fact-checking. Definite angling in story to malign CPEC by promoting fears, he tweeted.

Iqbal said the long-term plan could not have been disclosed by the Pakistan government without consulting the Chinese.

He described the Dawn report as half cooked in a race to break the news first.

Dawn had published the plan for CPEC with high amount of detail.

Two versions of the plan, one running to 231 pages, are with the government, it reported. A shortened version, which has 30 pages with only broad descriptions of the plan, was circulated to Pakistans provincial governments to obtain their assent.

According to the details, thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased to Chinese enterprises to set up demonstration projects in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology, and a system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities from Peshawar to Karachi, with 24-hour video recording of roads and busy markets for law and order.

A national fibre-optic backbone will be built for Pakistan, not only for internet traffic but also for terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the dissemination of Chinese culture.

The Dawn reported the plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistans economy and society by Chinese enterprises and culture.

Its scope has no precedent in Pakistans history, in terms of how far it opens up Pakistans economy to participation by foreign enterprises.
British authorities detained 14 crew members of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight and the aircraft was thoroughly searched over security threats after it landed at Londons Heathrow Airport.

Flight PK-785, plying between Islamabad and London, arrived at Heathrow on Monday afternoon. Upon landing, as passengers disembarked, the flight crew was detained and the aircraft was searched by the authorities, PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar said.

The crew was released after two hours of interrogation pertaining to security concerns, Geo News reported on Tuesday.

We have not been informed as to why the crew was detained, Tajwar said. The crew members passports were also taken away, and PIA said it is seeking to lodge a protest against the alleged misconduct by the police.

According to the British police, the crew was taken under custody over security concerns but was released later as nothing was found during the search operation.

The flight, meanwhile, was later cleared to take off from Heathrow Airport with replacement crew members.

Earlier this year, Pakistans state-run flag carrier was hit by reports that seven passengers were allowed to travel standing in the aisle on a Pakistan to Saudi Arabia flight. The pilot of another flight allegedly took a two-and-a-half hour nap in business class during an Islamabad to London flight, while the pilot of a flight plying between Tokyo and Beijing allowed a Chinese woman to remain in the cockpit for almost the entire duration of the journey.
After complaining bitterly about leaks and calling for prosecuting those responsible, President Donald Trump has been found to have himself disclosed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

The Washington Post, which first reported this alleged breach by the president when the three met at the White House last week, said it was not revealing details at the request of US officials who feared such public disclosure could jeopardise the intelligence gathering operation which was being run by a US ally who had not authorised its sharing.

In his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the president said, I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, reported the Post, citing an official with knowledge of the conversation.

And then he discussed it in some detail, according to the report.

Though Trump did not get into specifics, nor did he describe intelligence collections measures, the president went on to describe, the Post said, how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances.

Most alarmingly, the report said, citing an official, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic States territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat.

The White House went into damage control mode as soon as it realised the misstep, calling the CIA and the NSA, and rolled out National Security Adviser HR McMaster to deal with the blowback that had taken epic proportions on domestic media within just a few hours.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation, McMaster, who was present at the meeting, said in a statement.

At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

The NSA reiterated much of this in a brief appearance before the press, at which he called the Post story false, and, as newspaper pointed out in an obvious defence of its expose, he did not take questions.

The optics were troubling enough of the US president meeting the Russians just the day after he had fired FBI director James Comey who was overseeing an investigation on the reported meddling by Moscow in US elections with alleged collusion of Trump campaign aides.

Ambassador Kislyaks interactions  meetings and phone conversations  with Trumps first NSA Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions already cost them their job and role in the Russia investigation respectively.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, who said the Washington Post story was false.

The Senates No. 2 Democrat Dick Durbin, called Trumps conduct dangerous and reckless. The Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, called the allegations very, very troubling if true.
The upcoming June 8 election in the United Kingdom has been referred to as the most boring in recent years  no standout quote or image so far  but as the cut-and-thrust quickens with Labours manifesto on Tuesday, the Indian contingent is showing more diversity.

Many Indian-origin candidates in the Conservative and Labour parties are professionals  doctors, lecturers, businessmen. Most of them are born in Britain, such as Navendu Mishra, whose parents hail from Uttar Pradesh. Others were born in India and moved to the UK for work.

The Conservative party has nominated 13 Indian-origin candidates, down from 17 in the 2015 election, while Labour has named 14, the same number as in 2015.

Both parties had five Indian-origin MPs in the last Parliament.

Mishra, the Labour candidate from Hazel Grove, Greater Manchester, told HT: My mother was born in Gorakhpur; my father in Kanpur. I originally got involved in the Labour party after the 2010 general election and have been active in the party ever since.

I served as the election agent for Hazel Grove Labour party in the 2015 general election and learnt a lot about the political process. I have lived in Hazel Grove for many years. In addition, I am a known Labour activist in our constituency as well as Greater Manchester and the wider North West region.

Another Indian-origin candidate is Neeraj Patil, a doctor in the National Health Service who gained his medical qualifications in 1993 from Gulbarga, Karnataka. He was in the forefront of installing a statue of 12th century philosopher Basaveshwara near the Houses of Parliament in 2015.

The 10 MPs elected in the last parliament may be comfortably placed, but most of the candidates face a stiff challenge given the large margin of victories of rivals in their constituencies. However, Paul Uppal, who lost in Wolverhampton South West in 2015 by 801 votes, is expected to win.

Sunder Katwala, director of identity think-tank British Future, told HT: The 2017 election appears a much more one-sided contest than the much closer contest in 2015, when David Camerons Conservatives placed significant emphasis on British Indian voters.

A strong national poll lead puts less short-term pressure on the party to reach out. The Conservative party continues to see itself as having a long-term interest in breaking down the historic allegiance of Indian voters to the Labour party.

Voters from the Indian community, Katwala said, wanted to see EU free movement rules change after Brexit, but were worried about the ratcheting up of anti-immigration rhetoric during the rise of UK Independent Party and want to see firm action from all parties on challenging racism and hate crime.

He said: Progress on Indian and British Asian representation in the House of Commons is set to be steady rather than spectacular, after the surge in ethnic minority MPs in 2010 and 2015. The Conservatives may overtake the Labour party in having more ethnic minority and British Asian MPs.

Yet with such a strong poll lead, this could have been a time for the Tories to double-down and select more black and Asian candidates. That may be a missed opportunity and there is pressure inside the party to step up the pace of progress next time.

There is some concern in Conservative ranks that Indian-origin candidates in constituencies where they have little chance of winning have been told to direct their energies in other constituencies, particularly to canvas among community members.

Indian-origin candidates were among the first non-whites to be elected to Parliament  Dadabhai Naoroji was elected from Finsbury Central in 1892, followed by Mancherjee Bhownagree (1895) and Shapurji Shaklatvala (1922).

It was only after 1987 that the parliament saw a substantial number of non-whites being elected. The number spiked since the 2010 election  from 27 in 2010 to 41 in 2015.

The June 8 election is expected to return a similar number of MPs from the black and minority ethnic communities (including the Indian-origin contingent)  41 in the 2015 election  but the number reveals consolidation of minority representation in Britains parliament.

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The UN Security Council has strongly condemned North Koreas latest ballistic missile test and vowed strong measures, including sanctions, to derail Pyongyangs nuclear weapons programme.

North Koreas long-term bid to develop a credible nuclear attack threat to the US mainland saw it launch Sunday what appeared to be its longest-range missile yet.

Pyongyang said the new weapon -- called the Hwasong-12 -- was capable of carrying a heavy nuclear warhead.

In a unanimous statement backed by the Norths main ally China, the council on Monday vowed to punish Pyongyangs highly destabilizing behaviour and demanded a halt to any further nuclear or missile tests.

Pyongyang carried out two atomic tests last year, and has accelerated its missile launch programme, despite tough UN sanctions aimed at denying leader Kim Jong-Un the hard currency needed to fund his weapons ambitions.

Theres a lot of sanctions left that we can start to do, whether its with oil, whether its with energy, whether its with their maritime ships, exports, US Ambassador Nikki Haley told ABC televisions This Week.

We can do a lot of different things that we havent done yet. So our options are there.

The United States is in talks with China -- Pyongyangs main trading partner -- on a possible new sanctions resolution and the Security Council is expected to hold a closed-door emergency meeting starting around 2000 GMT Tuesday.

A substantial advance

Kim personally oversaw Sundays test, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and pictures by state media showed him gazing at the missile in a hangar before the launch.

The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, before splashing down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

Analysts said the test suggested an actual range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) or more if flown for maximum distance.

This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US told AFP.

On the respected 38 North website, aerospace engineering specialist John Schilling said it appeared to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could reliably strike the US base at Guam in the Pacific, 3,400 kilometres away.

More importantly, he added, it may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The North has made no secret of its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed wont happen.

KCNA cited Kim as saying the North would never succumb to what it called the highly ridiculous US strategy of militarily browbeating only weak countries and nations which have no nukes.

If the US dares opt for a military provocation against the DPRK, we are ready to counter it, it said.

Reckless provocation

In April Pyongyang put dozens of missiles on show at a giant military parade through the capital, including one that appeared to be the type launched on Sunday.

There are doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon sufficiently to fit it onto a missile nose cone, and no proof it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to ensure it survives returning into Earths atmosphere.

Sundays test came less than a week after South Korea elected a new president, Moon Jae-In, who advocates reconciliation with Pyongyang and had expressed a willingness to visit the North to ease tensions.

But Moon slammed the latest launch as a reckless provocation and said dialogue would be possible only if the North changes its attitude.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the test was dangerous, but warned against attempts to intimidate Pyongyang.

Pyongyang could find itself the target of further global censure after security researchers reported Monday signs of a potential North Korean link to cyberattacks that have wreaked havoc on computer networks around the world.

In the first clues of the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the WannaCry malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang.

Other experts quickly jumped on this as sign -- although not conclusive -- that North Korea may have been behind the outbreak.
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping met with his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev in Beijing on Tuesday, vowing to push forward the two countries' strategic partnership.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Kyrgyzstan 25 years ago, both sides have advanced bilateral ties while upholding the principle of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, said Xi.

The two countries have built a comprehensive cooperation pattern featuring strong mutual political trust, close economic cooperation, mutual reliance in security, mutual exchange and learning in culture, and mutual support in international affairs, said Xi.

China is willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to promote the spirit of good-neighborliness and friendliness, enhance strategic coordination, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and push forward the China- Kyrgyzstan strategic partnership, he added.

China supports Kyrgyzstan's efforts to safeguard independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supports its development path and domestic and foreign policies in accordance with its own national conditions, said Xi.

As important forces in maintaining regional security and stability, China and Kyrgyzstan should enhance anti-terror and law enforcement cooperation, said Xi.

Remarkable progress has been achieved since China and Kyrgyzstan carried out cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative more than three years ago, said Xi, expressing the hope that the people of the two nations will benefit more from the initiative.

Atambayev, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held Sunday and Monday in the Chinese capital, congratulated China on the success of the event.

The great Belt and Road Initiative will help strengthen international cooperation and mutual understanding and trust for all parties, said Atambayev.

China is a good neighbor, a good partner and a good friend of Kyrgyzstan. The strategic partnership is developing on a high level, he said.

Kyrgyzstan thanks China for its long-time support and help and will firmly back China's stance on issues regarding core interests and major concerns, said Atambayev.

Kyrgyzstan is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in various fields such as the economy, trade and security, and actively advance the construction of key infrastructure projects, he added.
US President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday he had the right to share facts with Russia, saying he acted to help Moscow in its fight against ISIS and terrorism.

His Twitter message came one day after news broke that he allegedly divulged classified information to Russias foreign minister and ambassador to Washington during their visit last week to the Oval Office.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

In his tweet Trump wrote that he was motivated by humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed officials, had reported that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster had denied the president had revealed intelligence sources or methods but acknowledged that Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dubbed the news nonsense, saying it was not an issue for confirming or denying.

The revelations are the latest in a wave of crises to hit the White House, coming just one week after Trump shocked Washington by sacking his FBI director James Comey.

Comey had been overseeing investigations into links between Trumps campaign and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Trumps meeting with top Russian diplomats came one day after Comeys firing.
US President Donald Trump will urge unity between the worlds major faiths on an ambitious first foreign trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Jerusalem, the White House said Tuesday.

National Security Advisor HR McMaster laid out a detailed itinerary for the historic trip, due to start late this week, and confirmed that Trump would address a gathering of Muslim leaders on his hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam.

Previous US leaders have generally chosen a US neighbour such as Canada or Mexico for their first presidential voyage, but Trump intends to plunge right into some of the worlds most difficult spiritual and political conflicts.

In Saudi Arabia, after a day of talks with King Salman and his crown prince, Trump will attend a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world.

The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate Americas commitment to our Muslim partners, McMaster said, adding that Trump will help open a center to de-radicalize extremists.

Trump campaigned for office vowing to destroy radical Islamic terrorism and impose a total ban on all Muslim immigration to the United States, raising concerns that his election would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world.

In office since January 20, he has already attempted to impose a ban on travellers from a group of mainly-Muslim countries, before his order fell foul of the US courts.

But McMaster stressed that Trump would be visiting sites associated with the worlds great religions to stress that we all have to be united and we have to be joined together with an agenda of tolerance and moderation.

Western Wall

After Saudi Arabia, Trumps voyage will take him to Jerusalem, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the Vad Yashem memorial to the Holocaust. The next day he will pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaisms holiest sites.

On the same day, he will meet President Mahmud Abbas of the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem on the West Bank where he will convey his administrations eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinian officials have put their hopes in Trump to revive the moribund peace process, but -- after early enthusiasm for the Republican billionaires rise gave way to concerns -- Israeli officials have been on edge in the run-up to the visit.

McMaster failed to answer a direct question as to whether the US government considers the Western Wall to be within Israeli territory, and he said Israeli leaders would not accompany him on his visit to the site in Jerusalems Old City.

Hes going to the Western Wall mainly in connection with the theme to connect with three of the worlds great religions, McMaster said.

After Jerusalem, Trump will head to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis. The US leader will celebrate the contributions of Catholics to America and the world, discuss diplomatic issues with the pontiff and tour St Peters Basilica.

After the Vatican, the trip takes a secular turn with a visit to Belgium to meet European Union officials and attend the NATO summit on May 24-25. He then heads to Italy and the island of Sicily for the G7 summit on May 26 and 27.
A long-time critic of leaks and advocate of prosecuting those responsible, US President Donald Trump has been found to have himself disclosed highly classified information to the Russia foreign minister and ambassador at the White House. Except, he didnt call it a leak.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining, Trump tweeted on Tuesday, to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

According to him, it was legitimate information sharing which he is legally empowered to do as the countrys classifier-in-chief, agreed experts. But as has become the pattern, Trump contradicted his surrogates fielded by the White House the previous day  national security adviser HR McMaster, for instance, called the report on the leak false.

The Washington Post, which first reported the alleged breach by the president, said it was not disclosing details at the request of US officials who feared public disclosure could jeopardize the operation that yielded the operation which was being run by an ally who had not authorized its sharing.

And that has worried allies and other partners who share intelligence with the United States. An European official told the Associated Press their country might cease sharing intelligence with the US because of Trumps disclosure to the Russians.

At his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trump had said, according to the Post, I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day. And then he discussed it in some details.

Though he did not get into specifics nor did describe intelligence collections measures, the president went on to describe, the Post said, how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. And the report said, citing an official, Most alarmingly, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic States territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat.

As other media outlets picked up the story, the White House tried to push back calling the CIA and the NSA, and rolling out McMaster and secretary of state Rex Tillerson to defend Trump.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, McMaster said in a statement. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly, he added, calling the Post story false.

The optics were troubling enough of the US president meeting the Russians just the day after he had fired FBI director James Comey who was overseeing an investigation into Moscow meddling with US elections with alleged collusion of Trump campaign aides.

Ambassador Kislyaks interactions  meetings and phone conversations  with Trumps first NSA Michael Flynn and attorney general Jeff Sessions and already cost them their job and role in the Russia investigation respectively.

And now this bombshell revelation.
At ITB Berlin in March 2017, Google announced that it now considers itself an "AI-first" company, moving away from its mobile-first position. This fascinating shift in focus reveals how Google expects artificial intelligence to infiltrate our lives in the coming years, and it comes with some significant implications for the travel sector.

Google is already shaping a world where artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding beyond our desktops and smartphones into our workplaces, homes, cars and public transport systems.

The evolution of AI is also changing how we interact online. In the years ahead, voice-based interactions and natural language inquiries will take over as the dominant interface. And as more and more people "talk" to the internet, intelligent algorithms will redefine how they find information and make choices.

All of these changes will have a profound impact on every business and the way they communicate with consumers, and the travel industry will be no exception.

Google's expanding travel plans

Following a flurry of releases in recent years, Google's ever-expanding travel portfolio now includes Google Flights, Google Hotel Ads, Book on Google, Google Destinations, and the recently launched Google Trips.

This has fueled debate about the company's potential ambitions to become a full-blown online travel agency. But the amount they receive in ad revenue from the major OTAs means this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Instead, Google sees itself as an "answer engine" and "connector" that helps consumers find the best possible matches when they're planning a trip. And this is where its announcement as an AI-first company will really impact travel brands and hotels.

AI in action

The deceptive thing about artificial intelligence is that it largely remains invisible, operating beneath the surface of our attention. Yet it's driving pretty much every interaction you have with Google.

For instance, Google Flights uses AI to deliver a range of impressive features that help with planning and decision-making. If you plan a journey in Google Maps, it can alert you to a traffic jam that might cause heavy delays and suggest real-time flight options for a speedier way to reach your destination.

Google has also integrated AI directly into travel search, and one of the most impressive aspects of this integration is that it remembers the context of a query.

If you have the Google app, you can make a request like, "Look up flights to London." Then if you ask, "What hotels are there?" it will show you London hotelsyou don't have to say or type London because it already understands the context of the conversation.

Source: Pegasus

You can then continue to refine requests such as asking, "Show me only the five star ones." Again, it will know that you mentioned "London" and "hotels" in your previous two questions and automatically filter five-star London hotels.

Source: Pegasus

This growing development in context-aware search means that Google can predict needs and offer intelligent suggestions based on likely intent.

But alongside a handy predictive search function, AI is also changing the nature of how people search and ultimately book their travel plans.

Voice search and the move away from desktop

Voice search already accounts for 20% of all search queries, and that number will only grow as Google rolls out its new wave of voice-based platforms. This in turn will free up users from the desktop, leading to more spontaneous sessions that happen alongside other tasks and activities.

For instance, while cooking dinner, a person might ask their Google Home to research destinations for an upcoming trip. At a later point in their research, they could "ask" their smartphone to recommend hotels while they drive home from work.

Staring at a screen of text will be replaced by a spoken list of curated selections, reshaping the way information is presented and consumed.

As searching and booking inevitably becomes even more mobile-centric, last-minute bookings will almost certainly increase. A business traveler could ask Google to search for a hotel while packing for a flight. A few simple requests could refine the results for options with free Wi-Fi or a location near the city center, all without touching a screen.

While Google doesn't offer a direct booking function, it does offer the option to call the hotel, so searching and booking could still be easily conducted in one hands-free session.

For hotels, this all means that offering a great mobile user experience will become more important than ever as voice search and AI combine to make on-the-move search and booking far easier.

Adjusting for voice-based search

The nature of voice search will also change the type of phrases people use to request information when looking for accommodation.

When tapping on a device, search requests are typically simplified to phrases like "boutique hotels in Barcelona." But the language we use when we talk is far more complex and specific. So a voice search might involve a more detailed request such as, "Find me the best boutique hotels in Barcelona for this summer."

These conversational terms will mean hotels need to adjust PPC ads, landing pages and web pages so that they're optimized for natural language. As spoken long-tailed queries become more common, consumers will be looking for more specific information to specific requests. A generic offer or ad simply won't have the same impact.

There are a variety of other ways you can optimize for voice search, such as publishing blog posts or creating Q&A pages that feature the kind of terminology people use when they're talking.

How Google Trips is changing travel planning

Last year, we discussed the launch of Destinations on Google and its impact on hotels. Since then, Google has released Tripsarguably its most impressive travel app yet.

Source: Pegasus

The app serves as a trip planner and travel guide for 200 cities, offering users a wealth of local information including activities, sights, tours, restaurants and transport options. In addition, reservations, flights and hotel bookings can all be pulled from Gmail and Inbox to be accessed in one place, and Trips also has a handy offline mode.

As for the potential opportunities for hotel marketers? While there aren't any paid ad opportunities, there are still plenty of ways to boost overall visibility, including making sure that your Google Business Listing is up to date and that you have employed all possible local SEO strategies.

Because the app relies on user reviews, nurturing positive guest feedback will be crucial. It'll also be important to focus on traditional strategies around building a strong mobile presence. A mobile-friendly site, being registered in local listings and a diversified marketing strategy are all ways to place yourself on Google Trips radar.

Preparing for the future of AI

The far-flung future that artificial intelligence once seemed to inhabit is here. Driven by Google, it's already changing how we travel.

Today, you can "ask" your smartphone to find you a hotel and rely on an algorithm to plan your entire vacation. As the company's AI platforms get better at understanding preferences and infiltrate everyday life, it'll become even more influential in guiding consumer choices and the brands they connect with.

It's not easy to grasp the full extent of the change that lies ahead, but there are steps every hotel can take now to ensure their online presence is optimized for Google's new AI-first mindset.

About Pegasus

Pegasus combines high-tech innovation with high-touch service to give hoteliers more control over their revenue and distribution strategy than ever before. Following their merger with Travel Tripper, Pegasus enables hoteliers to better connect with their guests through an innovative and flexible platform of Reservations, E-commerce, Global Sales, and Business Intelligence solutions that help hotels drive demand and increase revenue and profitability, including the Pegasus CRS, named Best CRS 2022 by Hotel Tech Report. With more than 30 years of experience in global distribution, Pegasus serves hotels across 120 countries from eight offices worldwide in New York, Scottsdale, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Hyderabad. For more information, visit www.pegs.com.

Lindsey Salas

North 6th Agency, Inc. - Senior Account Executive

212.334.9753, ext. 110

Pegasus
The 12th China Hotel Investment Conference (CHIC) that successfully concluded in May 2016, brought together close to

300 distinguished delegates from across 15 nations, who exchanged strategic thoughts and discussed significant trends prevailing in the industry.

CHIC 2017 will take place in the historical landmark hotel situated at the famous Bund promenade and shopping area in

Shanghai, on 17 and 18 May. The conference will feature a series of master class sessions on topics related to existing and proposed hotels.

The CHIC Organizing Committee thanks all sponsors, exhibitors, supporters and delegates for their continued support.

For more information please contact China Hotel Investment Conference (CHIC)

+86 (21) 6888 9801
The Russian hotel industry is full of optimism, with an increase in domestic trips, high occupancy rates and

increasing investments from industry giants such as Hilton, the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group and IHG. Meanwhile, many Russian hoteliers are considering upgrading the exsiting infrastructure of their hotels, and investing in improving standards to meet consumers' expectations, in order to be successful and stay ahead of the competition.

Mykar's Russia Hotel Upgrading & Development Forum gathers high level executives

Topic Highlights:

Updated 2017 Outlook And Market Trends

Understanding plans for stimulating the growth in Russia

Exploring and investing in Russia

Luxury, Mid-Market And Budget Segment Outlook

Boutique, Lifestyle, Luxury Serviced Hotel Apartments

Hotel Properties Within Mixed-Use Developments

Finance Availability And Return On Investment

Facility Management

Customer Experience & Loyalty

Architectural Innovations And Design Company Showcases

Energy and operational efficiency in hotels

Trends in hospitality technology

from hospitality industry developers, Investors, Government, Developers, Regulators,Construction Companies, Archeticts, Solution providers, Financial Institutes and Associations in a focused 2-day program. Panel discussions and presentations will elaborate investment strategies, commercial challenges, operational efficiency and updated technologies required for guaranteeing customer satisfaction and success.

This event is organized by Mykar Events

For more information please contact Penny Sue

85281990962
The poster of the experimental Peking opera "Faust" (file photo)

WIESBADEN, Germany, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Experimental Peking opera "Faust" was staged Monday evening in the western city of Wiesbaden, starting its premiere tour in Germany.

Co-produced by China National Peking Opera Company and Italy's Emilia Romagna Theater Foundation, the play was performed as part of the International May Festival, a world-known traditional theater festival.

The story was based on a breakthrough adaptation of the Western masterpiece "Faust," written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe more than 200 years ago. The play combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance, and acrobatics.

Since its debut in 2015, the opera has been staged over 70 times,triggering warm responses from audience as it offers a creative blend of Western classic with oriental culture as well as presents a perfect cooperation between Chinese artists and performers from Italy and Germany.

"We have come to the homeland of 'Faust' to examine our three years' efforts," said Xu Mengke, co-director of the opera.

"It was a great performance during which I was touched by the actors' and actresses' deep emotion," a German audience told Xinhua after the play, adding that he could well understand the performers' body language although the Chinese dialogue was difficult to catch.

The opera has been added to this year's German-Chinese cultural program, a national event in Germany featuring the theme "China Today" to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The play will be staged in other cities including Duisburg, Kassel and Saarlouis till the end of May.
More than 60 industry professionals will attend the invitation-only business breakfast, which will be presented on Wednesday, 17th May, at the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management from 08:00am to 10:00am.

It marks the second business breakfast hosted by TFG Asset Management in recent months, reinforcing the company's growing reputation as an industry authority.

This reputation is bolstered by the support of established industry entities such as HSMAI, a global organisation of sales, marketing and revenue management professionals, and Emirates Academy, the Middle East's leading hotel school, which provided data and other input for the research paper.

"Dubai's hotel industry has long been affected by significant staff turnover," said Head of TFG Asset Management, Mariano Faz. "This research paper is the first of its kind to investigate the tangible financial impact of this trend.

"We look forward to showcasing the report's findings at the TFG Asset Management business breakfast, co-hosted with HSMAI in collaboration with Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, both of whom I'd like to thank for their support and expertise."

The Impact of Staff Turnover on a Hotel's Income Statement surveyed industry stakeholders including global hotel management firms with a significant presence in Dubai. It found that staff turnover in Dubai's hotel sector currently averages 25-30 percent per annum.

The report reveals that an annual turnover rate of 30 percent could potentially reduce a hotel operator's gross operating profit (GOP) by AED6 million ($1.63 million) per annum.

Dubai's hotel inventory surpassed 104,500 rooms across 680 establishments in the first quarter of 2017. There are more than 42,000 rooms under contract, according to STR, representing the largest pipeline of any city in the world.

Given this influx of new hotel supply, which will increase competition for experienced staff, the issue of high staff turnover will become an even greater concern for the emirate's hoteliers.

"Hotel management and HR teams are under immense pressure to retain staff in the face of rising competition, particularly as new hotel operators and brands enter the market," said Faz.

"Our research suggests the industry must find new ways to incentivise staff if they are to breed a culture of loyalty and retain their best talent.

"The TFG Asset Management business breakfast will provide a unique platform that brings fresh ideas and new strategies to light, encouraging hoteliers to share examples of best practice for the overall benefit of the industry."

The research paper presents a range of strategies designed to help hoteliers mitigate the staff turnover challenges they face.

It calls on the industry to rethink its approach to recruitment and staff retention and urges HR employees to "adopt a more dynamic approach to their work".

"They should consider themselves change agents who are able to manage market shifts and propose strategies that are in the best interests of the workforce," said Faz.

"Senior management should also consider if their strategies are really meeting the demands of their workforce."

The Impact of Staff Turnover on a Hotel's Income Statement can be downloaded by qualified industry professionals here: http://www.tfgassetmanagement.com/news/tfg-asset-management-library/the-impact-of-staff-turnover-on-a-hotel%E2%80%99s-income-statement.aspx

For more information and RSVP, please send email with your name, and designation to [email protected]

ABOUT HSMAI

HSMAI is a global organisation of sales, marketing and revenue management professionals representing all segments of the hospitality industry. HSMAI is committed to growing business for hotels and their partners, and is the industrys leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable hotel revenue growth. The association provides hotel professionals and their partners with tools, insights and expertise to fuel sales, inspire marketing and optimize revenue. With a strong focus on education, HSMAI has become the industry champion in identifying and communicating trends in the hospitality industry while operating as a leading voice for both hospitality and sales, marketing, and revenue management disciplines, as well as connecting its members with customers. Founded in the United States in 1927, HSMAI is an individual membership organisation comprising nearly 7,000 members from 35 countries and chapters worldwide. The HSMAI Foundation was established in 1983 to serve as the research and educational arm of HSMAI. HSMAI operates regionally around the globe via regional boards of directors and staff. HSMAI is geographically divided into four regions: the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. Each region has geographic chapters and signature programmes and services for association members.
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he St. Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort has announced that Alexander Blair has been appointed as General Manager of the island resort. Blair joins The St. Regis Maldives having been the Complex General Manager of Al Faisaliah Hotel in Saudi Arabia since 2014. Prior to this, he held managerial roles at Oriental Residence Bangkok and HPL Hotels & Resorts, Maldives. He brings 25 years of experience in luxury hospitality across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, having begun his career in the UK with Marriott International and progressing through the company over 14 successful years. Alexander was born in the UK and gained a National Certificate in Hotel Catering whilst studying in Scotland, before embarking upon the Management Trainee programme with Marriott in 1991.
Brad Smith, Microsofts President and Chief Legal Officer, blasted the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in a recent blog post, which is said to have lost control of its hacking tools, for the WannaCrypt exploits used in the massive cyberattack that crippled hospitals, businesses, governments, and personal computers around the world. He called on governments to report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than stockpile, sell, or exploit them.

In his blog post, Smith wrote that governments should treat this attack as a wake-up call. They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world.

The NSA-powered WannaCry exploit is a type of computer malware known as ransomware, which is software that demands a ransom after gaining control of the affected computer. The malware exploits a previously unknown vulnerability in the Windows operating system.

The unprecedented attack, which began infecting computers on Friday, May 12, has hit more than 200,000 computers in at least 150 countries, and the threat is escalating. Check Point Software said on Monday that a new variant is now infecting computers at rate of about one per second, or about 3,600 per hour, according to a report by Reuters.

There are a lot of theories about who is behind the attack, but no definitive evidence. Researchers at Kaspersky and Symantec both said on Monday that they found similarities between WannaCry and previous code used by a North Korean hacking group known as Lazarus. But shared code doesnt necessarily mean that the same group is responsible. Hackers often use false flags to confuse security experts. In March, for example, Wikileaks revealed documents that it says show the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) runs secret false-flag hacking operations to falsely attribute attacks to other actors, such as Russia and China.

Security experts have yet to identify who was behind the attack, but China was hit particularly hard. There has been some speculation on Chinese social media that the attack was meant to target the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which was held in Beijing on May 14 and 15, though there has not been any solid evidence to back up this claim and no Chinese officials have made such comments. But if true, that might suggest that the NSA-powered cyberattack was carried out to derail Chinas efforts at creating a new type of international relations with its Belt and Road Initiative.

Regardless of who was behind the attack, the latest global incident has created urgency for enhancing cybersecurity and global cooperation. On the day of the attack, U.S. Representative Ted Lieu said it was deeply distributing that the NSA likely wrote the original malware in a written statement, adding that the attack shows what can happen when the NSA or CIA write malware instead of disclosing the vulnerability to the software manufacturer.

Xiakedao, a WeChat news account run by the Peoples Daily, urged the NSA to draw lessons from the attack, and called the black box decision-making process within the U.S. government about whether to disclose a software vulnerability worthy of criticism and problematic, because the whole world is put at risk by an internal decision within the U.S. government.

China has long called for enhanced cybersecurity and the establishment of a rules-based order in cyberspace. Like the real world, China wants governments to work together to formulate universally accepted international rules and norms of state behavior.
Brett Coomer/Staff

NEW YORK - Anheuser-Busch is upgrading its U.S. breweries and plans to build two new distribution centers as it adapts to an increasingly fragmented beer market.

The maker of Budweiser, Bud Light and Stella Artois says the upgrades and distribution centers in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, will allow it to store a greater variety of products and get them to customers faster. The measures are part of the $500 million that the company said Monday it will invest in its U.S. operations this year, marking an increase compared with recent years. It's a portion of the $3.7 billion in global capital expenditures that the Belgian company had already budgeted for 2017.
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NEW YORK - The global cyberattack that took computer files hostage appeared to slow Monday as authorities worked to catch the extortionists behind it - a difficult task that involves searching for digital clues and following the money.

Among their findings: The first suggestions of a possible link between the "ransomware" known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Those findings remain quite tentative; one firm advancing them described them as intriguing but "weak."

Experts had warned that WannaCry might wreak renewed havoc Monday, particularly in Asia, which was closed for business Friday when the malware scrambled data at hospitals, government agencies, banks and other businesses.

Precautions work

But while there were thousands of additional infections there, the expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize, in part because security researchers had defanged it.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for the Finnish security company F-Secure, said the perpetrators of WannaCry made one crucial mistake.

More Information Japan hit, but reports minimal impact The global "ransomware" cyberattack hit computers at 600 locations in Japan, but appeared to cause no major problems as Japanese started their workday Monday. Nissan Motor Co. confirmed some units had been targeted, but there was no major impact on its business. Hitachi spokeswoman Yuko Tainiuchi said emails were slow or not being delivered, and files could not be opened. They were installing software to fix the problems. The Japan Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, a nonprofit providing support for computer attacks, said 2,000 computers at 600 locations in Japan were reported affected. Associated Press See More Collapse

"The malware became too successful," Hypponen said. "When you are a cybercriminal gang and your mission is to make money, you don't want to infect 200,000 work stations. You don't want to end up on the covers of magazines. There will be no shortage of investigation."

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users' computer files and displayed a message demanding $300 to $600 worth of the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data likely beyond repair.

The Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab said Monday that portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack blamed on North Korea.

But it's possible the code was copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection. Kaspersky said "further research can be crucial to connecting the dots."

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, and said it's "continuing to investigate for stronger connections."

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments.

There have been three accounts identified, and there's no indication the criminals have touched the funds.

Possible hidden link

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCry's "kill switch." That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message "hey, I'm infected" to the hidden address, said Nicholas Weaver, who teaches networking and security at the University of California, Berkeley.

That means the first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to "patient zero" - the first computer infected with WannaCry.

That, in turn, might narrow the focus on possible suspects.
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The ransomware attack that has spread worldwide in recent days exploits a weakness in outdated versions of Windows, the same systems that still run many U.S. refineries, offshore platforms and other energy facilities.

On Friday, unidentified hackers unleashed a torrent of malicious software on hundreds of thousands of computers, using phishing emails and a file-sharing vulnerability in Windows to lock personal files and demand Bitcoin payments.

The so-called WannaCry assault, which fused commodity malware and stolen cyber weaponry developed by the National Security Agency, crippled European hospitals and auto plants, suggesting it had quickly spread from everyday personal computers to critical industrial devices.

The stunning attack revealed the fragility of the technology that keeps the economy running, and security professionals warned U.S. oil companies could be among the potential targets of sweeping online assaults that attempt to disrupt global order.

In many ways, cybersecurity experts said, the oil industry would make an easy target for these hackers because oil companies often go years without patching the computer controls of refineries and offshore platforms, which almost never stop producing the nation's fuel. That provides little time or incentive for computer upgrades.

"It takes an act of God to patch some of those systems," said Patrick McBride, a consultant at New York security firm Claroty.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Phillips 66, which owns refineries and pipelines, said it is investing in ways to harden its cyber defenses and works with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security on cybersecurity mitigation and response measures.

Unlike the power, chemical and nuclear industries, the oil industry has no specific cybersecurity regulations, and oil companies are not required to disclose cyberattacks to federal authorities.

The public may never know the full extent of the attack, or whether oil company operations had been caught up in the flurry of ransomware, said Chris Sistrunk, a consultant at Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm based in Alexandria, Va.

"It's the policy of these companies to not say anything," Sistrunk said.

Cybersecurity professionals said ransomware attacks have become more frequent in the oil industry over the past year, though it's impossible to quantify how many such attacks occurred because the U.S. government only tracks cybersecurity data volunteered by oil companies. While some of these intrusions were easily dealt with, some proved more serious.

Yet even now, consultants still find malware nearly a decade old inside oil industry control systems, even though the consequences of malfunctioning oil equipment could be catastrophic.

Over the weekend, Microsoft issued an emergency patch for operating systems it had long stopped upgrading, including Windows XP, a 2003 operating system still prevalent in U.S. oil industry facilities, according to federal cybersecurity officials and private security professionals.

In recent months, more U.S. oil company boards have demanded IT managers prove refineries and drilling rigs are protected against cyberattacks, consultants said.

Rising oil prices, fatter profits and increased awareness of industrial cyber threats seem to have spurred new corporate-level maneuvers this year to secure computer controls that run energy facilities, said Barak Perelman, chief executive of Israeli cybersecurity firm Indegy.

At some oil companies, he said, chief information security officers now spend a quarter of their monthly security committee meetings discussing so-called industrial control systems, the computerized devices, often connected by networks, that control oil and gas equipment.

"They're being given budgets for industrial cybersecurity," Perelman said on Friday. "In all my conversations, nobody has said 'Yes, but oil prices.' I heard that a lot last year."

Perelman, who moved from Israel to New York this year because of increasing demand for industrial cybersecurity in the United States, said he spends most of his time teaching IT professionals how to tackle the security of devices manufactured by Siemens, Honeywell and Emerson - so different from the Microsoft and Apple computers they know well.

Before 2017, "when we talked to oil companies in Texas, we were mainly talking with control systems engineers who understood the ins and outs of everything, but they didn't care much about security," Perelman said. "They didn't have the budgets for it. It wasn't their role. In the last few months, we've seen more IT corporate security get demands for proof the facilities are protected."
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China is filling a void left by the United States, defining the new rules of global trade at America's expense.

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a major trade summit in Beijing on Sunday with a promise to create a modern-day Silk Road that would connect more than 4 billion people in what China's calls the Belt and Road Initiative. Using roads and seaways, the goal is to build economic interdependence from Africa to Hong Kong.

Representatives from more than 100 countries attended the summit, and 68 nations and international organizations signed a cooperation agreement with China. Heads of state in attendance included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The meeting comes just months after President Donald Trump blew up the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP was a revolutionary agreement that would have set terms for global trade that included the elimination of tariffs, promotion of democracy and expansive labor and environmental protections.

RELATED: China has an answer for Trump

After Trump's election, Xi promised at the World Economic Forum to promote free global trade even if the United States, long its most powerful proponent, abandons the project. As Trump cuts foreign aid and trade, China is stepping up.

Xi pledged $78 billion in financing, including $14.5 billion for China's Silk Road Fund, $56 billion in new lending for participating nations, and $8.7 billion in coming years to developing countries and international organizations that join the program.

That kind of money, and promised access to what will soon be the world's largest economy, will win China many allies. China is expert at using trade to win support for its geopolitical priorities, and those priorities include challenging U.S. global dominance.

Trump probably does not realize it yet, but he is playing perfectly into Xi's plans. By declaring that he will renegotiate all trade agreements to benefit the U.S., and to the detriment of our trading partners, Trump is sending our allies directly into Xi's arms.

Trump has also agreed to give China favorable treatment in return for cooperation on North Korea, ending his constant criticism of Chinese trade policies. Trump and Xi then cut several small-scale trade deals that give China exactly what it wants, more trade that benefits China.

"China has made a few modest concessions that cost it very little, in areas strategically picked to maximize the political benefit to Trump," Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Beijing-based research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, told the Washington Post. "But the substantive impact on US-China trade and investment flows is pretty minimal."

This, by the way, is what losing looks like. Trump's nationalist policies, based on factually-incorrect political propaganda, are diminishing our standing in the world.

China, meanwhile, is filling the void. With growing economic and military power, China appears more and more like the next major superpower. By turning America inward, Trump gives the appearance of beating a retreat.

Xi has a very different vision for global trade than the United States. He supports old-fashioned deals where trade is merely commerce, and no nation gets involved in another's internal affairs. Where China leads the negotiations, there is no mention of labor or environmental concerns.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would have transformed world trade by creating the global gold standard for trade, politics and human rights. To participate in trade with TPP members, other nations would have had to conform to American values, not China's.

RELATED: Trans-Pacific Partnership good for U.S. strength, improves NAFTA

When America fails to lead, we cede the field to leaders like Xi and Putin. They want to diminish U.S. power and influence around the globe.

Unless Trump changes course quickly, the U.S. will no longer be the world's sole, undisputed superpower.
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Bouncy al dente spaghetti, cloaked in earthy Italian cheese and textured with abundant coarse ground pepper - is there anything more simple and delicious than cacio e pepe?

For me, the answer is no. I never tire of the classic "cheese and pepper" pasta dish, whether it's cooked by a professional chef or homemade. But not all cacio e pepe is created equal. Some use Pecorino, others Parmesan. Some involve butter, some do not. The nuances are endless and depend on personal preference.

My favorite happens to reside at an extremely popular Houston restaurant that doesn't take reservations: Coltivare in the Heights, No. 11 on Chronicle critic Alison Cook's Top 100 restaurants list.

I like it so much that sometimes I can't wait for my fix - so I asked Coltivare chef Ryan Pera for his recipe to see if I could re-create the pasta magic at home. I could, and resoundingly so.

There are a few crucial elements to Pera's terrific cacio e pepe. Tellicherry peppercorns are a must - regular black pepper will bring a noticeable decline in punch. Fresh Parmesan Reggiano is essential. To avoid clumpy sauce, use a fine-paddle grater or microplane. As you grate (and grate some more), you may be stunned by how much cheese goes into two servings of pasta. Go with it.

Finally, stirring constantly after the pasta is combined with the butter/pepper mixture, then the cheese and olive oil, prevents the sauce from becoming thin and greasy. The silky result has a complex zing that blooms with each bite.

Cacio e Pepe

From Ryan Pera, Coltivare

Time: 15 minutes

Makes 2 large portions

12 ounces, or about 350 grams, dried spaghetti (Pera recommends De Cecco)

 cup coarsely ground Tellicherry peppercorns (see note)

4 tablespoons butter

8 ounces (about 2 cups) finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt, to taste

Instructions: In large Dutch oven, bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil. (Using as little boiling water as possible will give a thick, starchy liquid that will enhance and bind the sauce.)

Once boiling, drop in pasta and give one initial stir after pasta is submerged.

While pasta is cooking, set a large saute pan over medium heat and add ground peppercorns. Toast until fragrant, then add butter. Let butter melt and bubble with pepper, adjusting the flame so that butter is bubbling right when pasta hits al dente.

When pasta is al dente (consult package for cooking time), remove from water with tongs and drop into saute pan. Ladle another 2 ounces pasta water into saute pan and stir with tongs.

Add cheese and olive oil, stirring vigorously until a silky sauce forms between butter, starch water and cheese. Taste for salt and add if necessary. Divide into 2 warmed bowls and serve immediately.

Note: Tellicherry peppercorns can be purchased at gourmet cooking stores or online, though we also found them at Kroger.
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WASHINGTON - White House Curator William Allman is retiring soon, after a 40-year career, according to several people with knowledge of his plans.

The news of Allman's impending departure, which was first reported by CNN, comes on the heels of the dismissal of Chief White House Usher Angella Reid and leaves vacant two senior positions on the White House's permanent staff.

Allman is responsible for preserving and protecting thousands of pieces of art, furniture and decorative objects in the White House's collection. He began as a curatorial assistant in 1976 and was named White House curator by President George W. Bush in 2002.

The curator's office is for first families, helping them and their designers navigate the White House's permanent collection of art and furnishings.

Allman also helped the Trumps navigate their first months in the executive mansion.

In Allman's work with L.A.-based interior designer Michael S. Smith on the Obamas' family quarters, the two worked with first lady Michelle Obama to bring in updated artwork and furnishings by artists and designers whose work had not been in the White House before. Smith credited Allman with managing the traditions and history of the building while adding more contemporary touches.

For example, in the redesign of the State Floor's Old Family Dining Room, abstract works by Josef Albers, Robert Rauschenberg and Alma Thomas reside alongside an early-19th-century table and sideboard once owned by Daniel Webster.

Allman's work with Michelle Obama in the makeover of the White House State Dining Room added new side and armchairs modeled after chairs acquired by President James Monroe in 1818. The new chairs were covered in fabric with a brown, gridlike pattern and finished with brass nail heads. Blue and ecru striped silk curtains now hang from carved and gilded poles, and the floor is covered with a blue-green rug inspired by ornamental wreath elements in the room's ceiling.

He also worked closely with the two previous first ladies, who both sought to put their imprint on the house. Laura Bush collaborated with Allman on the restoration of the Lincoln Bedroom - where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation- combing through historic details to restore it.

Over time, the Lincoln Bedroom had become cluttered with furniture that was historically inappropriate. Earlier renovations left the room with yellow walls, celery-green curtains and a pale floral carpet.

A return to Civil War-era Victorian decor meant returning a gilded corona and draping to the top of the rosewood bed originally bought by Mary Todd Lincoln, and a change of furniture, new wallpaper, bedding, carpet and curtains.

Laura Bush and Allman and his team redecorated the family's personal quarters, bedrooms and sitting rooms for the Bushes and their daughters, Jenna and Barbara, then moved on to several state rooms and two guest rooms on the family floor.

In the Vermeil Room - which has portraits of six first ladies - Allman and Bush chose an understated neutral rug to avoid competing with the colors of the dresses in the paintings. Colors in the Queens' Bedroom had started to fade and upholstery on chairs had thinned. Their fix was a stronger pink for the walls and new draperies installed higher to be in proportion with the room.

Part of Allman's role is to vet - with the Committee for the Preservation of the White House - the White House permanent collection, from which each president and first lady make personal selections.

Allman, who could not be reached for an interview, had always planned to stay on long enough to help the Trump family through their first days in the White House before stepping away from the job, said one associate. He has held the top job in the curator's office since 2002 and became well known in D.C. circles.

His friends and associates said he has been planning to step down for a while, and his departure is not connected to Reid's dismissal by the Trumps.

"He has been thinking about this for a long time," said Michael Smith, who worked as interior designer to the Obamas and collaborated with Allman on many projects, including the refurbishment of the State Dining Room. "It's an incredibly intense job. You are dealing with a family that is living in a building that is part private house and requires privacy and solitude. So you are trying to protect that family while you are operating an active museum and tours and dealing with people at Christmas parties where they can sit on the furniture and have food and drinks in these historic rooms."

He is a native of Bethesda, Md., and holds degrees in history and American Studies from the University of Maryland and George Washington University.

"His departure means the White House is losing its institutional memory, in terms of the history of the house," said Betty Monkman, who served as White House curator from 1997 to 2002 and worked with Allman for many years.

The White House has not yet officially announced Allman's plan to leave, and officials in the first lady's office, which works closely with the curator, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Trumps will now be tasked with appointing Allman's replacement.
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The Trump administration recently notched two wins for its international trade strategy, hailing both as big gains for U.S. workers.

The first was the confirmation of Robert Lighthizer on May 11 as U.S. trade representative (USTR). This was a key step toward President Donald Trumps vow to renegotiate NAFTA.

That same day, the White House announced progress in opening up the Chinese market for U.S. card payment service companies, such as Visa, as well as American beef producers.

While both of these events represent positive if small steps forward, they also symbolize the administrations problematic approach to trade: The U.S. will pursue bilateral deals, like the one with China, at the expense of multilateral pacts such as NAFTA.

As an economist studying international trade, Im skeptical that incremental, bilateral negotiations will reap significant rewards for American workers, particularly the kind Trump has promised.

A push for bilateralism

One of Lighthizers first duties as USTR will be to renegotiate NAFTA with the aim of delivering the presidents better deal.

Senators confirmed Lighthizer by an 82-14 vote, suggesting that there is bipartisan support for Trumps preference for bilateral deals over multilateral ones. And Lighthizer is in many ways the ideal candidate for the job.

As deputy U.S. trade representative under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, he helped negotiate bilateral agreements to restrict Japanese imports and open up their markets to U.S. businesses. These deals were seen at the time as important victories for U.S. manufacturers, demonstrating the value of a USTR committed to bilateral negotiations in order to secure strong protections for American businesses.

Today, China is the new Japan: a rapidly growing, manufacturing-oriented economy that threatens the global economic status quo. As a battle-tested free-trade skeptic, Lighthizer should be an effective advocate for the protectionist policies that the Trump administration has championed and is likely to do so following the bilateral blueprint he used under Reagan.

Reasons for skepticism

But whether a revised NAFTA or any new bilateral agreement negotiated by Lighthizer ends up being good for U.S. workers remains to be seen, and we should be skeptical.

The China deal consisted of a reaffirmation of a September agreement to allow U.S. beef producers access to Chinese markets, which Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross hailed as very big news.

But while the news was big in terms of how much beef may be sold to China in coming years, it is unlikely to do much for U.S. workers. U.S. beef production directly employs fewer than 4,000 workers and indirectly employs perhaps upward of 65,000, numbers so small as to be irrelevant.

In addition, the administration completed a deal that will allow U.S. payment transaction companies to operate in China. But again, these companies employ merely 130,000 U.S. workers. To put that into perspective, the net number of jobs created every month in the U.S. (the difference between jobs created and jobs destroyed) is around 200,000.

Not an ideal negotiating strategy

The irony is that, despite the Trump administrations focus on the jobs impact of trade agreements, bilateral deals are less likely to have a big impact on workers. This is because these agreements tend to be a boon for some businesses  those for whom the new market is important  while having only indirect effects on others.

As a result, powerful companies with influential lobbying arms are better able to promote their interests within this type of setting, and the limited scale of the negotiations means that these businesses interests often come at the expense of others. Thus, less influential industries, and their workers, lose out. For instance, the U.S. still faces high Chinese trade barriers on insurance products, a sector that employs over 2.3 million U.S. workers.

In fact, this is one of the primary arguments for wide-ranging, multilateral trade negotiations of the type that the Trump administration dislikes. Though such negotiations also have downsides, when deal-making involves multiple countries and many industries, it becomes less likely that any single interest group will prevail at the expense of others.

In other words, agreements such as those that led to the World Trade Organization, which Trump derides, were specifically designed to overcome this kind of corruption of the political process that allows narrow, powerful corporate interests to buy their way into the negotiation process.

Eye on the ball

There is also a large cost to abandoning or significantly revising multilateral trade accords like NAFTA.

While NAFTA has undoubtedly led to the availability of cheaper products for U.S. consumers, it has simultaneously been bad for many U.S. workers. However, in this case the harm has already been done and any significant disruption of the existing agreement would be costly, both economically and politically.

For instance, about 60 percent of NAFTA trade goes by truck, a sector that employs 3.5 million U.S. workers. So a disruption to NAFTA supply chains would clearly have severe economic consequences for truck drivers.

It is undeniably good for the U.S. to sell more beef and payment transaction services to the Chinese. And renegotiating NAFTA could be welfare improving for all involved if done right. But attempts to negotiate specific deals that impact narrow interest groups rarely lead to large overall gains for workers.

The key will be whether this populist president can keep his eye on the ball and what really matters  the American worker  and not get distracted by the lure of corporate rent-seekers.

***

Greg Wright is and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Merced. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

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Rays of Texas sunlight peeked through the riparian forest and reflected off the river current, guarded by sandy banks and high cliffs. A blue heron seemed to be following us as it soared overhead, releasing its echoing call through the clear skies. An alligator gar splashed in the water as it sensed our approach. We saw evidence of recent beaver activity: Footprints in the sand and chew marks on the tree stumps.

As our journey continued along Buffalo Bayou, the 18,000-year-old waterway, I was awed by the abundance of wildlife, the scenery that surrounded us.

I live in a subdivision in the southwest part of the city, and we were in the middle of Houston, the fourth-largest in the U.S., with a population over two and a quarter million people. And here I was floating down a dreamlike river in what seemed like a faraway land.

I had been preparing for this expedition for months. My mission was to inventory the wildlife along the bayou. This was my public service project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Eleven of my fellow Boy Scouts in Troop 55 had volunteered to help. Our plan was to photograph the animal tracks we found and carefully catalog them with their GPS coordinates. The weather conditions had to be just right, and today was the perfect Saturday to explore  sunny and clear.

We needed good weather, because we were going to canoe down the bayou, and the water level had to be low enough so that we could see the animal tracks on the sandy banks. The Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the two federal dams upstream, had assured us that the water level in the bayou would stay low throughout the weekend.

This would be the first of four trips documenting wildlife tracks on the bayou as it flows past Memorial Park. These expeditions spanned a year. In the end, more than 30 volunteers documented 225 animal tracks and logged 327 conservation hours towards this project. I published a guide that summarizes our discoveries and illustrates some of the most common tracks. But this is what we saw that day.

I MET my crew at the boat launch in the park at Woodway, just yards from Loop 610. Each Scout had been selected for his merit in canoeing. The adult leaders were certified in safety and first aid.

Susan Chadwick

Susan Chadwick, the executive director of Save Buffalo Bayou, the nonprofit organization that was the beneficiary of my Eagle Scout project, accompanied our crew of trackers. It was founded to oppose a Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) plan, called the Memorial Park Demonstration Project, to strip the forest, level the banks and rechannel the bayou as it flows past the eastern edge of Memorial Park, the most thickly forested section of the river.

It was in this stretch that we would find some of the most abundant wildlife.

I briefed the volunteers and passed out clipboards and data sheets. Our excitement began to build as we loaded the six canoes in. We had two Scouts in each canoe, one to photograph and the other to take notes. Many of us had never paddled down the bayou before and had no idea what to expect.

As we floated downstream, the otherworldliness of Buffalo Bayou revealed itself. Birds of various species replaced airplanes in the sky. Towering buildings changed into learning trees. The sounds of the freeway became rustling wind and rippling currents. The only vehicles were our silent canoes. My mind was bewildered that this seemingly remote place could exist in the middle of our city.

Our first stop was a soft sandy bank. I noticed the track of an animal that had scurried across it  a raccoon. I had studied tracks and knew these were fresh. Just a few days earlier, there was a light rain that had washed away previous tracks, giving the animals a new canvas. Raccoons were the most prevalent tracks we would find. They were scattered throughout the undeveloped sections of the bayou. This was a great start for my inventory.

We put in again. Turtles taking in the warm sunlight relaxed on fallen branches. Around a few bends of the river, we found the most exciting, but sad discovery: The body of a beaver lay on the sand. Our whole group was stunned that beavers lived on the bayou. We had to remind ourselves that we were still in the middle of a busy metropolitan city. The cause of the beaver's death would remain a mystery.

Bill Heins

As we paddled along the southern border of Memorial Park, we found several domestic dog tracks. This was an expected finding, as there are several access points and trails through the park that lead to the water's edge.

But just past these trails we found something much more interesting. Coyote tracks! Coyotes have a distinctive footprint with sharp inward claws, which distinguishes them from domestic dog tracks. Initially, I was skeptical about coyotes in Houston, but my doubts faded after identifying scat nearby.

We were now approaching the largest sandy bend. This wide meander, known as the Middle Meander, is to be filled, essentially obliterated by the HCFCD, along with the ancient high banks nearby.

THE BANKS WE COULD LOSE: Susan Chadwick challenges the need for the Memorial Park Demonstration Project

Another alligator gar splashed as we drew closer to shore. We found the shallow water very clean, proved by the river mussels we discovered.

My canoe teams documented the tracks of many other animals. There were sporadic findings of nutria, which are not native to the bayou. We could tell that it was a nutria track because of its distinctly webbed print in the sand, but also because it was much longer and narrower than a beaver track. Another team found a pair of wild boar tracks that stirred up a lively conversation among the Scouts. We also documented bobcat tracks.

Jim Olive

Elsewhere, we found a small beaver den underneath the roots of a tree on the south bank of the bayou just before the eastern border of the River Oaks Country Club. We discovered a cluster of stumps with teeth marks. Trees that were not cut down had been stripped of bark. We could see the claw marks. Following a trail of tracks, we were amazed to find that it led to a stockpile of freshly cut branches. The amount of evidence we saw in this area was a true testament to the vibrant wildlife that lives along the bayou.

But there along the northern section of the wide sandy beach, our group found a busy cluster of blue heron and white egret tracks. We would document numerous bird tracks downstream all the way to the Hogg Bird Sanctuary.

And after experiencing this part of the bayou, I understood why so many Houstonians want to preserve this historic nature area.

I fear for the future of this river of life flowing through the center of our concrete city. I fear for the future of the tall trees and the creatures large and small of the bayou. I hope that by raising awareness about the abundant wildlife and the beauty of Buffalo Bayou, I can help save the longest and one of the last public stretches of forested river running through our city for others to enjoy, particularly those who have few other opportunities to experience nature.

We allowed ourselves a moment of exploration, peace and reflection, gazing upstream and down, and continued our journey. Eventually, the rising Houston skyline greeted us back into the city.

Paul Hung is a junior at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School in Houston. He has been a Boy Scout for eight years and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in April 2017.





Bookmark Gray Matters. Your doubts will fade after identifying scat nearby.


The never-ending race to stay ahead of the terrorists and their obsession with aviation has turned to laptops and other electronic devices.

First it was shoes, after a failed attempt to blow up a jetliner in 2001 with explosives-laden black hightops. Then liquids were banned in 2006 following the discovery of a U.K.-based plot. The nearly successful detonation of a bomb hidden in a passenger's underwear in 2009 prompted body scanners and aggressive patdowns.

Now, airlines and travelers are girding for one of the most disruptive new security restrictions since Sept. 11, 2001, as the U.S. appears close to expanding a ban on laptops and other large electronics from cabins on flights leaving Europe for America.

New restrictions on electronics, if they happen, would be the latest escalation in the cat-and-mouse game of security forces defending against increasingly sophisticated terrorists, said Jeffrey Price an aerospace professor at Metropolitan State University in Denver who specializes in aviation security. It's the culmination of years of growing signs that groups including Islamic State and al-Qaida are becoming more adept at building and concealing explosives, Price said.

"There's been, for about four years now, an articulated threat that people will try to smuggle bombs in laptops," he said.

Also driving the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are two successful bombings of aircraft in the past two years linked to smuggled explosives: a Russian charter plane in Egypt in 2015 that killed all 224 people aboard and a Somali airliner in 2016 that was able to land with a gaping hole in its side from a device hidden in a laptop.

The U.S. decreed March 21 that electronic devices larger than mobile phones -- including tablets, laptops and DVD players -- couldn't be carried in airliner cabins on flights originating from 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa. Those devices need to be placed in checked bags.

Now the U.S. is considering applying restrictions to flights originating in Europe. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is meeting with European Commission officials on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

There have been growing indications that groups targeting aviation have a better sense of what the technology at airport screening portals can and can't detect, said John Halinski, a former deputy administrator at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration who is now a security consultant. Halinski said he was speaking generally and wasn't privy to the latest intelligence.

"They've been building very thin explosives," Halinski said. "They are so thin the X-ray machines can't see them."

While the actual intelligence hasn't been publicly released, officials say it has convinced them they have to act.

"It's real," Kelly said April 5 in testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "I think it's getting realer so to speak. We may take measures in the not too distant future to expand the number of airports."

The intelligence behind the ban became the subject of controversy on Monday. The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump described details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft in his Oval Office meeting last week with Russian officials. The revelation of highly classified intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak raised alarms among U.S. intelligence officials who feared the disclosure of a secret source.

H.R. McMaster, the U.S. national security adviser, said in a statement that Trump merely reviewed threats to aviation with the Russians but didn't reveal intelligence sources or methods.

Information on how much explosive is required to bring down an airliner is classified, but a device placed next to the fuselage or a potentially volatile fuel tank would require a less powerful charge to be catastrophic. If detonated at cruising altitude, even a small amount of explosive could blow a hole in the side of a plane, causing a violent decompression that could rip the aircraft apart.

On Feb. 2, 2016, a laptop smuggled aboard a Daallo Airlines Airbus SE A321 flying from Mogadishu to Djibouti exploded at a window seat on the right side of the plane, blasting open a hole several feet high and ejecting the man authorities believe brought the bomb aboard. The plane was at about 12,000 feet (3,658 meters), well below the cruising altitude where a sudden decompression would have been more violent, and pilots were able to return to Mogadishu safely.

Both the Daallo bombing and the Metrojet attack over Egypt on Oct. 21, 2015, which tore the plane apart, were done with the assistance of airport insiders, according to accounts in London-based Aviation Security International Magazine.

If terrorist groups can infiltrate an airport and bypass security, that creates yet another reason to prevent larger electronics in aircraft cabins, Price said.

Moving a bomb into the cargo area instead of the cabin isn't a fool-proof method of protecting a plane. Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down in 1988 over Scotland by a bomb hidden in a radio, investigators concluded.

But there are multiple factors that make a small explosive device less risky if it's routed to the cargo area, Price and Halinski said.

Explosive-detection machines used for checked bags are better able to detect bombs, they said. And terrorists wouldn't be able to ensure a bomb is placed next to the fuselage where it would do the most damage. Luggage surrounding a device that explodes would mute the blast's impact, possibly limiting damage to the plane, they said.
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China sees Belarus as an important partner in Belt and Road development, President Xi Jinping said Tuesday, urging more efforts to deepen trade and investment cooperation.

Xi made the remarks when meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on Sunday and Monday in Beijing.

China is ready to further tap the potential of cooperation with Belarus for development, Xi said.

The two countries should strengthen policy communication and integrate their development strategies to create new sources of growth, he noted.

The Chinese president called for deepened economic and investment cooperation with Belarus and more balanced and sustainable two-way trade.

The construction of the China-Belarus Industrial Park should be accelerated and local-level cooperation should become a new driver of bilateral cooperation, Xi said.

He also urged closer people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in such areas as education, culture and tourism.

Reviewing China-Belarus relations, Xi said the two countries have firmly supported each other on issues related to their core interests and major concerns, with practical cooperation and close coordination in international and regional issues.

Lukashenko said Belarus and China are sincere partners, noting that his country is ready to expand cooperation with China in trade, investment, industrial capacity, culture, sports, tourism, and science and technology.

He said Belarus welcomes Chinese businesses to participate in major projects in his country, including the China-Belarus Industrial Park.

Lukashenko also praised the "immense success" of the Belt and Road forum.

After the meeting, the two presidents witnessed the signing of several documents on cooperation in Belt and Road development as well as economic and technological areas.
MOSCOW - Russia's foreign ministry spokesman denied Tuesday that President Donald Trump revealed classified information during an Oval Office meeting, but Trump suggested that intelligence details were shared for "humanitarian reasons."

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, posted a comment on Facebook that described the reports of Trump's disclosures as "yet another fake." But such a denial from Moscow was expected as a way to potentially deflect demands for further details.
A woman has been charged with robbing two Woodlands-area pharmacies and two others in Harris County.

Melinda Cathleen Jakstas, 39, was arrested Saturday at a strip center at the intersection of Lake Woodlands Drive and Pinecroft Drive. She faces four first-degree felony aggravated robbery charges, each carrying a possible life sentence if she's convicted.

Montgomery County Sheriff's detectives believe Jakstas first robbed a pharmacy inside CHI St. Luke's Health-The Woodlands Hospital at 17200 St. Luke's Way Feb. 3, using a firearm in the process to steal drugs from a pharmacy technician. A little over a week later, Harris County Sheriff's officials stated in court documents that Jakstas robbed the Rayford Pharmacy in the 7600 block of Louetta Road, which is about seven miles west of Interstate 45 North in Harris County.

During that robbery, Jakstas allegedly walked into the pharmacy claiming to be a new customer there to pick up a prescription. The pharmacy employee met with a person believed to be Jakstas in the lobby, at which time she allegedly pointed a gun at the employee and handed him a note demanding different types of drugs.

Officials stated in court documents that she made the man take her into the back of the store where she threatened to shoot him and two other employees if they pressed the pharmacy's panic button, which would have alerted police to the robbery. She handed the employees a pillow case, detectives said, and allegedly made off with about $20,000 worth of drugs.

Court documents seem to show it was a month before she allegedly robbed another pharmacy, this time at Assurance Consolidated Pharmacy in the 400 block of Rayford Road in Montgomery County April 9.

Officials said her latest robbery happened May 4 at the Saddlebrook Pharmacy in the 25200 block of Kuykendahl Road in Harris County. The employee handed over the drugs they had on-hand, after Jakstas allegedly told the employee she would open fire if the employees called police.

Officials believe, in each of the robberies, Jakstas used the same method as the Rayford Pharmacy robbery  producing a weapon and handing a note to the pharmacy employee demanding drugs.

Jakstas then drove to a home in the 25200 block of Butterwick Drive, where she allegedly told a resident there she was having car troubles and needed a ride, court documents show. One of the neighbors in the area knew Jakstas and gave her a ride home, so Jakstas left her car in the driveway of another residence.

When that resident came home, detectives stated, she called police because Jakstas' car was in her driveway blocking her garage. The responding officers checked out the car and found it to be registered to Jakstas and contained the drugs she allegedly stole from the Saddlebrook Pharmacy.

Jakstas has misdemeanor convictions in Montgomery County for criminal mischief, driving while intoxicated and possession of a controlled substance, all stemming from arrests dating back to 1997.

She also has a felony criminal history in Harris County, court documents show. In 1998, she spent 15 months in jail after pleading guilty to pretending to be a doctor on the phone in order to get prescription drugs. She also spent a year in jail in 2010 after pleading guilty to possessing a dangerous drug.

For the two Montgomery County robberies, Jakstas is being charged in Judge Patty Maginnis' 435th state District Court. She is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on all four charges with $170,000 worth of bonds.
Faulty procedures and subpar medical care contributed to at least two deaths at a for-profit Houston immigration detention center that is among those with the most reported immigrant deaths in the country, according to a new human rights report.

In one case, Clemente Mponda, a 27-year-old asylum-seeker from Africa who'd repeatedly threatened suicide was left in an isolation cell with more than enough hoarded psychiatric medications to kill himself - which he promptly did, according to Immigration and Custom Enforcement's own records.

In the other case, no one administered CPR or called 911 immediately after a 46-year-old Canadian detainee, Peter Rockwell, who suffered from high blood pressure, collapsed in a crowded lunchroom in the Houston Contract Detention Center.

The detention center's handling of both fatalities is criticized in the new report, issued jointly last week by Human Rights Watch and the California-based Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC).

Related: Systemic Indifference report by Human Rights Watch and Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement

Medical experts reviewed ICE investigations into 18 deaths in immigration detention nationwide and found subpar medical care or other problems contributed to 10 deaths from 2013-2015 - including those of Mponda and Rockwell.

The Houston detention facility in a sprawling complex near the city's international airport, has reported eight detainee deaths since 2003. Nationwide, only two other immigrant detention centers have reported more - Eloy Detention Center in Arizona with 15 and the Columbia Regional Care Center in South Carolina, which doubles as a mental hospital, with nine, according to a Chronicle analysis of ICE data on detainee deaths at 80 facilities since 2003.

The detention of immigrants has taken on new urgency since President Donald Trump ordered stepped-up efforts to round up and deport those in the country illegally and revealed plans for the construction of more centers.

Related: ICE ignores claims of sexual assault in custody, human rights groups complain

Both Eloy and the Houston CDF are run by a for-profit company called CoreCivic (formerly known as CCA). In response to questions, Jonathan Burns, director of Public Affairs for CoreCivic, emphasized that other contractors provide medical care at their facilities and that ICE employees have unfettered access and provide extensive oversight.

The numbers of deaths are small given that nationwide, more than 40,000 immigrants are held at any one time by ICE - 75 percent in privately owned facilities like Houston's. But most detainees are relatively young and spend only months locked up. ICE has discretion to release the sick or dying and ICE generally defended the level of care provided to detainees in a statement issued this week.

ICE itself found multiple problems in its own investigations of both Mponda's 2013 suicide and Rockwell's 2014 death. Houston ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore declined comment.

In both cases, ICE's own death reports weren't released until 2016. Because ICE keeps most of its death reports under wraps for years or forever, some relatives are only now learning troubling details.

"I would agree that there is cause for concern regarding Peter's treatment while in custody," said Peter Rockwell's brother Kris in a phone interview from his home in Canada. "There's a lot of indications of incompetence and borderline abuse."

Wants accountability

Christina Fialho, co-founder and executive director of the immigrants rights group CIVIC, argued that ICE itself should stop placing immigrants at facilities that repeatedly report deaths and should hold facilities more accountable especially when ICE's own death investigations find violations of government standards.

"The Houston Detention Center  is one of the deadliest immigration detention facilities in the country," Fialho said. "CIVIC believes it is past time to shut down Houston Detention Center."

Burns said it was important to look at the deaths at the facility "in context."

"The Houston Processing Center is one of the largest detention facilities used by ICE in the country," he said. "The number of deaths on a per-capita basis would indicate that it is on a comparable level to other ICE facilities."

Mponda emigrated to the United States legally as a student from Mozambique in 2007, but suffered a mental breakdown and ended up homeless here, according to ICE records. He was placed in deportation proceedings after a misdemeanor conviction.

He filed an asylum claim, but was improperly classified among the most dangerous offenders in detention and repeatedly locked in an isolation cell, ICE's own investigation shows.

As he waited 15 months for courts to review his case, he repeatedly threatened suicide before he successfully overdosed on hoarded medications. He left behind extra doses of the drugs with his suicide note.

In the Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report, Dr. Marc Stern, a physician at the University of Washington's School of Public Health and a correctional care expert, described Mponda as "the poster child for misuse of isolation for mental health patients." Both he and another expert also found Mponda's ability to repeatedly hoard potentially lethal medications without detection represented a "dangerous failure of the facility's security system."

ICE's investigation of Mpdona's death - released in 2016 - uncovered more than a dozen violations of government detention standards, including improper documentation of the use of isolation cells; failure to perform an adequate search as well as failure to follow guidelines for medical care, suicide prevention, facility security and contraband. But the report includes no record of improvements made in Houston CDF procedures after that death.

Had health problems

Rockwell had lived in the United States for more than a 20 years when he was arrested in Beaumont on a Canadian criminal arrest warrant. He landed in Houston CDF in February 2014 and was immediately flagged by a medical team for high blood pressure and a family history of heart problems, ICE records say.

But the staff failed to follow up on orders for daily blood pressure checks and an EKG. They did little to investigate when Rockwell complained of blurred vision, which can be a symptom of a cranial bleed, Stern said.

After two weeks, Rockwell collapsed while heating food at a microwave. An emergency response team arrived, but no one brought oxygen, a defibrillator or other emergency equipment required by ICE. Nor did anyone immediately administer CPR, though Rockwell lost consciousness, foamed at the mouth and had no measurable blood oxygen level. Instead, a team hauled him through a hallway on a stretcher that they could not raise. It took eight minutes before anyone called 911.

Both Stern and another medical expert quoted in last week's Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report found substandard care contributed to Rockwell's early death.

In an email to the Chronicle, Dr. Dwayne Wolf, who performed Rockwell's autopsy at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, separately confirmed the brain lesion that killed Rockwell was an "intracerebral hemorrhage  a direct consequence of small vessel damage in the brain caused from high blood pressure (hypertension). It's a complication of high blood pressure."

Medical team assailed

ICE's own death investigation cited problems with emergency equipment, medical response, facility record-keeping and follow-up. The report faulted the medical team, which ICE directly oversees. It also found detention center staff failed to render aid, keep adequate supplies, fill out required reports, review the incident with staff and retain videos.

Rockwell's stepmother and brother who live in Canada had never seen the ICE death investigation until it was sent to them by the Houston Chronicle.

"We could never find out what happened," said Sandra Rockwell, Peter's stepmother. "I really felt the whole thing was very suspicious. We received no death report, no paperwork. Nothing to my knowledge."

In another case, Nho Thi Nguyen, 61, originally from Vietnam, collapsed in a shower and died after only three days in Houston CDF in 2015, according to a Harris County autopsy records and an ICE news release. Her death was not evaluated by experts in the Human Rights Watch/CIVIC report because ICE has never released its death investigation. Palmore declined comment.

The Houston Chronicle asked Stern, one of the experts who reviewed other immigrant death records, to review Nguyen's autopsy and a death investigation report - and he identified troubling potential signs that Nguyen too may have received inadequate care for high blood pressure before her death.

Arrested upon return

Nguyen emigrated to the United States legally in 2000, according to federal court records. She lived with her husband in a two-story townhome near a section of Bellaire Boulevard where the street signs are posted in Vietnamese. Nguyen had traveled to Vietnam and was returning home when she was detained at the Houston airport in 2015. She was placed in deportation proceedings based on a five-year-old misdemeanor conviction. Court records show she had lied to an immigration official to help a 14-year-old sister, who used false immigration papers.

Her husband later told investigators that Nguyen was not getting medication for high blood pressure while in custody. Before her death, she'd been identified as a "fall risk" and her blood pressure readings had skyrocketed to 230/110 - a life-threatening level generally considered the highest risk category for heart attack, stroke or other crisis, county records show.

She collapsed in a shower and died in a hospital of an aneurysm, an autopsy record shows.

Based on county records, Stern said that if the detention center officials had identified Nguyen as a fall risk - as indicated by a bracelet she wore - they should have investigated and not allowed her to shower alone. He also said untreated high blood pressure could have contributed to her death from an aneurysm, though limited public records do not provide a complete picture.
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Mayor Sylvester Turner on Thursday heartily endorsed a proposal to build a data science institute in Houston on the 300-plus acres that the University of Texas System purchased last year.

In his lunchtime State of the City address, Turner asked local universities, UT and Texas A&M University to take up recommendations from a UT task force, which said that an institute for data science would bolster the citys energy and health sectors. The group envisioned collaborations with industry and national laboratories, according to a report obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

"We cannot let this opportunity slip through our fingers because the initial approach was wrong," he said at the speech, referencing UT Chancellor William McRaven's surprise rollout of the land purchase in late 2015. Then, McRaven had no public plans for how to use the property.

University of Houston Board of Regents chairman Tilman Fertitta said Thursday that the university was "excited to sit down and collaborate" with Rice University, Texas Southern University, Texas A&M University and UT. Turner called on those schools to come to the table and "make it happen." He urged business and science interests to join, too.

Turner said to UH, "If we are going to become Tier One, and we are, we must not be scared of competition. We must take them on and make it happen."

Fertitta's stance marked a reversal from UH's position in early 2016, when it declined to participate on UT's task force. "If all these other universities are involved, we have no problem with being a part of it," he said. "We don't want any one university to come in and dictate."

McRaven called off the project in March, before the idea for the center was ever presented, amid intense political pressure and opposition from UT regents and the University of Houston.

Turner, a University of Houston alumnus, said in an interview that he was approached by developer David Wolff to support the project. Wolff has tried to rally lawmakers, UT alumni and other Houston leaders to favor the idea.

Supporters of the proposal say cutting-edge data science would keep Houston at the forefront of energy and health industries. The proposals authors imagined the institutes work leading to more efficient and sustainable energy distribution and smarter health care delivery.

Paul Hobby, co-chair of the task force and founding partner of Genesis Park, called Turner's statements "good news for Houston" in an email. "I appreciate the Mayor's leadership," he said, declining to comment further.

Resurrecting the proposal, however, may prove logistically and politically challenging, analysts said Thursday. Texas lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have been critical of UTs $215 million land purchase, which occurred without consulting them. Gov. Greg Abbott never gave his support for the project.

Meanwhile, state universities this session are preparing for steep financial cuts in a tight budget cycle overall.

McRaven, when cancelling the project in March, said it was taking away from UTs existing universities and health institutions, echoing concerns raised by UTs own regents. McRavens failed venture cost him political capital among several state lawmakers and Abbotts office, according to various state officials.

And UH boosters have not eased off of their criticism of the purchase.

They call UTs purchase an invasion that would present unfair competition for faculty, students and research funding. Unlike UH, UT can access the lucrative Permanent University Fund, a state-owned investment fund that funnels billions to A&M and the UT exclusively.

UH Board of Regents chairman Tilman Fertitta slammed the purchase as UTs arrogance in April. What happened there is the case of someone having PUF funds and too much money, he said.

"You've got a fired-up alumni base that continues to look at the project as a potential UT in Houston campus, which they see as an existential threat to the viability of UH," said Jay Kumar Aiyer, a Texas Southern University public policy professor.

The project hinges on participation from UT and UH -- and more state revenue benefiting public universities, said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science professor.

"If UH balks at this idea, it's effectively a no-go, (and) the same with UT," he said. "In theory, it could be done, but there are a host of barriers that stand in the way of it actually coming to fruition, ranging from the political opposition from UH to the tight revenue situation that the state finds itself in right now."

Turner said Thursday that he had spoken with Fertitta and UH Chancellor and President Renu Khator about the project. Representatives for Fertitta and Khator did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the University of Texas System declined comment.

Reporter Rebecca Elliott contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON - Even before he announces his choice for a new FBI director, President Donald Trump is getting pushback from the Senate, which will need to approve his pick to replace the fired James Comey.

Democrats say they may try to block Trump's nominee, whomever it might be; a leading Republican and many Democrats say the appointee shouldn't be a political figure.

At least eight candidates have been interviewed for the post, which was vacated when Trump fired Comey last week. Trump, who leaves the U.S. Friday on his first international trip as president, said it was possible he might make a "fast decision" and announce a choice before he departs.

One leading contender is Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, but a senior Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, warned against picking an elected official because the issues surrounding the appointment are so highly charged.

"John Cornyn under normal circumstances would be a superb choice to be FBI director, but these are not normal circumstances," Graham said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"The president has a chance to clean up the mess that he mostly created," Graham said, referring to the many explanations offered by Trump and his staff for Comey's firing.

The Republicans, with 52 seats, control the 100-member Senate. But if three of them defect, the nomination would fail.

Democrats have raised an outcry over the dismissal of Comey, who as FBI director was in charge of the investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Critics say Comey's ouster could be an effort to impede the FBI investigation.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, on CNN's "State of the Union," said Democrats might seek to block approval of Trump's nominee to express strong disapproval over the circumstances of Comey's removal.

Democrats continued to demand clarity from the White House on whether Trump recorded conversations he had with Comey.

The president, in a Twitter post Friday, wrote that Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations." White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday declined to say whether such recordings exist.

"If there are tapes, the president should turn them over immediately" to congressional investigators," Schumer said. "To destroy them would be a violation of law."

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WASHINGTON (AP)  Raging against a political firestorm, President Donald Trump on Friday shot a sharp warning at his ousted FBI director about possible "tapes" of their disputed private conversations, raising the provocative possibility that recording devices have been installed in the White House.

Trump's top spokesman refused to comment on whether listening devices are active in the Oval Office or elsewhere, a non-denial that recalled the secretly taped conversations and telephone calls that ultimately led to President Richard Nixon's downfall in the Watergate scandal. Trump's warning to fired FBI Director James Comey prompted new accusations of interference in an investigation into allegations of collaboration between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign last year.

It also escalated a potentially damaging standoff between a fuming, undisciplined president and the unorthodox lawman he dismissed three days earlier. Not to mention Congress, which is also investigating.

Democrats quickly seized on the dispute, demanding the White House turn over any tapes that might exist of the president's conversations with Comey.

Trump's behavior raises "the specter of possible intimidation and obstruction of justice," wrote Reps. John Conyers and Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, in a letter to White House Counsel Don McGahn. "The president's actions also risk undermining the ongoing criminal and counterintelligence investigations and the independence of federal law enforcement agencies."

In an interview with Fox News Friday, Trump declined to comment on whether he has listening devices in the White House.

"Well that I can't talk about. I won't talk about that. All I want is for Comey to be honest. And I hope he will be," Trump said.

For a president whose tweets frequently rattle Washington  and foreign capitals  Trump's message early Friday morning was particularly jarring: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" the president wrote.

The White House refusal to elaborate left open several questions: Was Trump, as his predecessor had in the 1970s, been covertly taping conversations? Was he trying to intimidate Comey? Was he suggesting Comey had recordings? Or was it merely a button-pushing claim launched over frustration at news coverage of the controversy.

The tweet appeared to refer to a series of three conversations in which, Trump claims, Comey assured him he was not under FBI investigation as part of the bureau's probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Comey has not explicitly denied the account. But sources close to him have cast doubt on the president's account, noting it would be extraordinary for an FBI director to discuss an open investigation.

On Friday, a person close to the former director recounted a different version. At a one-on-one dinner at the White House in January, Trump asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to the president and Comey declined, instead offering to be honest with him, according the person, who requested anonymity to discuss private conservations.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer denied that account, insisting that the president simply "wants loyalty to this country and the rule of law." Details of the dinner were first reported by The New York Times.

The firing of Comey already has left Trump with the dubious distinction of being the first president since Nixon to dismiss a law enforcement official overseeing an investigation tied to the White House. He also, like Nixon, has grown increasingly isolated in the White House, recently relying on only a small circle of family members and loyal advisers while livid about the West Wing's failing efforts to get ahead of the damaging Russia story, according to several people close to Trump. They also commented only condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Those people also describe him as deeply frustrated by what he views as unfair media coverage  irritation that emerged in a separate tweet in which he suggested he may shut down the regular press briefings at the White House.

Trump was widely known to record some phone conversations at his office in Trump Tower during his business career, sometimes remarking to aides after a call as to whether or not he had taped it.

"I would note that New York is a one-party consent state, and President Trump has always abided by the law," said Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide. Federal law and the law in New York State do not require both parties on a call to be aware that it was being recorded. In Florida, where the president frequently spends weekends, both parties must consent to recording.

Spicer, who kept his answers short during Friday's briefing and largely dodged specific questions about Trump's meeting with Comey, said he was not aware that any recording of the Trump-Comey meeting exists. Associates of the former FBI director, who remained out of sight Friday at his suburban Virginia home, said they believed any tapes would validate Comey's side of the story.

It was not clear when Comey would speak for himself. He declined an invitation to appear at a closed meeting of the Senate intelligence committee next week.

The face-to-face meeting between the president and the director raised other concerns. It came just days after the FBI interviewed Trump's then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn about his conversations with the Russian ambassador and a day after acting Attorney General Sally Yates first alerted the White House that she believed Flynn had lied about the conversations and could be blackmailed by Moscow.

Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Friday that Comey was uneasy about attending the dinner due to the "appearance of compromising the independence of the FBI which is a hallowed tenet in our system."

Clapper also told MSNBC that he didn't know if there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, contradicting the president's assertion that the former director had cleared him of wrongdoing.

The swirling controversy has obliterated any momentum from the House passage of the Republican health care bill last week and threatens to overshadow Trump's first international trip, beginning next week, in which the president will meet with leaders in both the Middle East and Europe.

Trump, in an NBC interview Thursday, said that he had been intending to fire Comey  whom he derided as a "showboat" and "grandstander"  for months and that it had nothing to do with the Russia investigation. But he also said, "In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won."

Even before Trump's provocative tweets, the White House was scrambling to clarify why Comey was fired. It initially cited a Justice Department memo criticizing Comey's handling of last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails as the impetus, only to have that version undercut by Trump himself.

Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr said he doesn't think the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation was the reason for the firing. But he called Trump's tweet "inappropriate."

White House officials said Trump is considering nearly a dozen candidates to replace Comey, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn, South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers and former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Four candidates  Cornyn, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, attorney Alice Fisher and judge Michael Garcia  have interviews scheduled Saturday.

___

Pearson and Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire , Pearson at http://twitter.com/@JakePearsonAP and Pace at http://twitter.com/@JPaceDC
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The ACLU of Texas has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to toss out Houston's latest restrictions on panhandling and camping in public, arguing they limit free speech and violate other constitutional protections.

The suit names as plaintiffs three homeless Houstonians who seek class-action status, meaning a ruling in the case would affect all of Houston's homeless.

Mayor Sylvester Turner said Monday that the rules were meant to carefully balance constitutional rights with "the legitimate public health, safety and welfare of all citizens in the public space."

"Based on my reading of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU, they would have us do nothing," he said. "This is a public safety issue and we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it does not exist. The question is what is the best way or ways to transition people from living on the street  to a better place."

Legal experts said the claims against the panhandling ordinance could succeed in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2015, but at least one lawyer predicted the plaintiffs would have a harder time challenging the camping regulations.

READ MORE: City moves to crack down on homeless, panhandling

City Council last month passed the rules, which the mayor proposed in response to increased complaints about aggressive panhandling and homeless camps. The complaints came even as the region enjoyed a nearly 60 percent decline in homelessness since 2012, when an integrated approach started to focus on immediately housing the homeless rather than imposing other requirements first. Turner has said the new rules strike a "delicate balance" between helping the homeless and ensuring public safety.

The panhandling ordinance - which went into effect April 12 - bars individuals from impeding roadways, sidewalks or entryways.

The encampment ordinance, which took effect Friday, bans tents and other habitation structures on public property, and requires that personal belongings kept on public property fit inside a three-foot cube.

READ MORE: Houston's homeless adapt to city's ban on camping

Police have not yet issued any citations or made any arrests under the encampment rules as of Monday, Houston Police Capt. William Staney said.

Plaintiff Tammy Kohr said she had depended on panhandling income after losing her job when she left the state to testify at a parole hearing for her abusive ex-husband. She also said she relied on her tent for privacy for changing, as well as protection from weather, insects and other pests.

"The main thing these laws take from us is our dignity," Kohr said in an ACLU statement. "We're not bad people. We're just trying to survive."

Local faith leaders and homeless-service nonprofits largely have lined up behind the mayor in recent weeks. Dozens of clergy and other religious leaders stood with Turner last week to introduce a campaign encouraging residents to donate money through MeaningfulChange.org rather than give to panhandlers.

Karen Warren/Staff

Some legal advocates and homeless people complained the ordinances effectively criminalize homelessness and make difficult lives even more difficult.

The ACLU staff attorney Trisha Trigilio agreed that Houston has become a national model for reducing homelessness but questioned the new ordinances.

"Houston has already figured out how to handle it," she said. "They have halved the homeless population in recent years. Trading their constitutional rights to hide that we're not quite done yet is not something the city can do."

The ACLU suit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, contends the panhandling ordinance illegally regulates speech based on its content. That First Amendment claim, like others across the country, draws on a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that governments must face strict scrutiny when they restrict the time, manner or place of speech, said David Coale, a Dallas lawyer not connected to the case.

The ruling in Reed v. Town of Gilbert requires that regulators narrowly tailor speech limits to fit a problem. That means city lawyers may have to prove there was a major issue with people impeding entryways, for example.

"These kind of challenges are occurring across the country," said Charles W. "Rocky" Rhodes, a constitutional scholar at South Texas College of Law Houston. "Many have succeeded, some by (settling) and getting the cities to adopt new policies."

The mayor said Houston's rules differ from other cities because they don't limit behavior in a specific place, like some cities that tried to push the homeless away from commercial centers.

The ACLU argues that the encampment ban also violates Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches and seizures and the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

"The Supreme Court has said for decades that it's cruel to punish someone just for a status that might be acquired involuntarily," Trigilio said. "When (the homeless are) trying to meet the need for shelter and they have no other way to do it, courts have agreed that it's cruel to punish them."

While the city and police say homeless people can enter a shelter, Trigilio said that is not always the case.

"There are close to a thousand unsheltered homeless people in the city of Houston, and from the reports that we've heard from inside the shelters, they're already so full that people barely have room to crawl over others to go to the bathroom at night."

The mayor's special assistant for homeless initiatives said Monday that shelter space would be available.

"We've worked with these shelters to make sure that even if a bed is not available that there's still room for them to get out from the elements, inside where there's additional services," said the assistant, Marc Eichenbaum.

Coale and Rhodes said the encampment ban may be less vulnerable to a legal challenge.

"The Constitution gives enormous discretion to cities and states on how to run themselves," Coale said. "The standard basically is, is it rational?  If it's not loopy, it will likely pass that level of scrutiny."

Mike Morris and Gabrielle Banks contributed to this report.
(Photo/CGTN)

South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House late next month amid increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula, reported AP.

South Korean officials made the announcement to local media without further details.

The announcement came after the DPRK fired a ballistic missile from an area in the vicinity of Kusong on Sunday. This launch is the first since the new South Korean president took office.

Moon is seen as a "moderate" and has previously stated that he is willing to engage diplomatically with the DPRK through dialogue.
Oh for the days when Donald Trump wasn't taking the presidential daily brief -- and didn't know highly classified information that he could give to the Russians. But a bit bizarrely, Trump's reported disclosure of Islamic State plans to two Russian officials during an Oval Office visit last week wasn't illegal.

If anyone else in the government, except possibly the vice president, had revealed such classified information that person would be going to prison. The president, however, has inherent constitutional authority to declassify information at will. And that means the federal laws that criminalize the disclosure of classified secrets don't apply to him.

If this doesn't make much sense to you, I feel your pain. To understand the legal structure of classification and declassification requires a brief journey into the constitutional law of separation of powers. That's not always especially fun. But at this juncture in U.S. history, it's essential. Not since Richard Nixon's administration has separation of powers been so central to the fate of the republic.

The authority to label facts or documents as classified rests with the president in his capacity as a commander in chief. Or at least that's what the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan.

Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the opinion, said that the executive's "authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security  flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."

Blackmun's idea that the president has an inherent right to decide who gets access to classified information seems to imply the converse: that the president has the inherent authority to declassify information, too. Although there's no case on this point, scholars took that view during the years of the George W. Bush administration, when the president was thought to have declassified some information that was leaked to the news media by White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

It makes sense. If it is up to the president to decide what can't be disclosed, it should be up to him to decide what can be.

That still leaves the question of whether the president would need to issue a formal order of declassification before revealing the information. According to the report in The Washington Post, Trump pretty clearly didn't do that: He just made a judgment that he wanted to pass on the information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Indeed, it seems altogether conceivable that he made the decision in the moment, without thinking through its practical consequences, much less the classification status of the information. (White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster denied The Post's report Monday night, saying, "At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.")

It would be nice to say that, just as the president authorizes classification through a formal executive order, he should have to issue a similar statement to declassify. But that's probably too formalistic. In constitutional terms, an executive order is just a presidential order reduced to writing for the benefit of the rest of the executive branch. The president likely can't be bound by an executive order, whether his or an order from the proceeding president.

If you're following closely, you'll have noticed an anomaly: The president can classify and declassify. But the president can't send people to prison for disobeying his order. That requires a federal law passed by Congress, and a conviction before a judge. Thus, under the separation of powers, the president has inherent authority to fire his own employees for disclosing classified information, but lacks the power to punish them criminally without Congress and the courts.

That law exists: 18 U.S. Code Section 798, if you care to look it up. It makes it a federal crime to communicate "classified information" to an "unauthorized person." The catch is that the law defines classified information as information determined classified by a U.S. government agency, and similarly defines an unauthorized person as someone not determined authorized by the executive branch.

That puts Trump in the clear insofar as he has an inherent authority to declare information unclassified.

The law goes on to criminalize any disclosure of classified information that's "prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States." At first blush that language would seem arguably to apply to Trump's disclosure. But once again, the clause depends on disclosure of classified information -- and Trump can simply say he declassified the information when he gave it to the Russians.

A twist with potential legal relevance might arise if someone else -- like the leaker of this story -- repeated classified information after Trump effectively declassified it. That person would have a compelling claim to be exempt from criminal prosecution also. This might matter if Trump decides to go after the leaker criminally.

So go ahead, be shocked by Trump's disclosure. I know I am. Whether it reflects a studied or instinctive pro-Russian position or simply unthinking bad judgment, it seems to be a highly unusual and poor presidential move. But it's protected by the constitutional power that comes with getting elected president of the United States.

- Feldman is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. His seven books include "The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President" and "Cool War: The Future of Global Competition."

For more columns from Bloomberg View, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/view.
Two hundred years ago this year, British economist David Ricardo outlined a theory of international trade based on the notion of comparative advantage. The idea is that each country does something relatively well, and can therefore specialize and trade with others to their mutual benefit. Economics has since gone well beyond Ricardo's analysis. But it remains instructive when it comes to agricultural products. That brings me to strawberries.

The red fruit is primarily produced for U.S. markets in two states: California and Florida. In my part of the country, the Southern California coast, I admire the strawberry fields and think, "There is Ricardo's comparative advantage." Southern California has a mild climate, moist sea breezes and fertile soil: perfect for strawberry production.

The climate that makes Ventura County ideal strawberry territory does not end at the Mexican border. On the Baja California Coast near San Quintin, you also find strawberries. With the expansion of cultivation in Baja, Guanajuato and Michoacan, Mexican production and Mexican exports have been increasing in recent years.

Both countries are major exporters of the crop. According to the California Strawberry Export Report, farmers in the Golden State exported about $400 million of fresh and frozen strawberries in 2016. Mexico exported approximately the same amount as California.

Here's where things get interesting. Mexican exports tend to be to the U.S.; the U.S. exports to Canada and other countries. Why does the U.S. both export and import strawberries? One reason is the different harvesting season in Mexico, and the perishability of fresh berries.

But there's another defining quality of strawberries: They are hard to harvest. You have to stoop down and remove each fruit one by one. Machines would damage the delicate berry and fail to separate ripe from budding fruits. So it is up to people, typically immigrants, to pick strawberries.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a good strawberry picker in Southern California can earn $150 per day during the harvest season. That translates to $18.75 per hour. According to the California Legislative Analyst's Office, between 25 and 30 percent of all non-strawberry pickers in the same region earn less than $12.50 per hour. So why are these less well-paid folks not clamoring for jobs in the strawberry fields? Strawberry picking is hard, seasonal labor and must be pieced together with other fieldwork.

Down in Baja, strawberry harvest workers make much less than they do in Southern California: about $11 per day. So why doesn't more of the strawberry business move south across the border? The labor price differential isn't yet so much as to force the move south. Strawberry farms here can still find people to work in the fields. But there is an issue: The people willing to pick strawberries in Ventura County for $18.75 per hour are not Americans. They are Mexicans willing to brave the hazards of living in the U.S. undocumented.

But the delicate balance that allows both Californian and Mexican strawberry operations to prosper is under pressure. The Trump administration has vowed to deport undocumented residents. And where more effectively to deploy the limited resources of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency than where there is a concentration of the undocumented: in the strawberry fields?

The immediate impact of deportations will be a shortage of labor. In the short run, California and the U.S. will have fewer strawberries picked and the berries in the market will command higher prices. In the longer run, farmers will either pay pickers more, or plant crops that can be harvested by machines. The result: even fewer strawberries and even higher prices. And the same people who have been picking strawberries in California will still be picking our strawberries. They just will be doing it south of the border.

The shift of the strawberry business farther south should be a boon to Mexican agriculture, food processing and trucking. For the agriculture here in the U.S., profits will be lower as land ideally suited for strawberries will be used for feed corn. And, while President Donald Trump campaigned on closing the trade deficit with Mexico, the deportation policy will expand it, as more profits from the strawberry trade accrue to Mexican land barons.

So it is a policy of "choose your poison." You can engage in mass deportations with consequent lower income for American farmers and their Mexican farmworkers, and increase the trade deficit. Or you can forgo mass deportations, increasing the income of American farmers and their Mexican farm workers, and keeping the trade deficit with Mexico no greater than it is today. But you can't do both.

And this is just strawberries. In 2015 Mexico exported almost $22 billion of agricultural produce to the U.S. Strawberries are just the topping on the iceberg.

Nickelsburg, an economist at UCLA Anderson School of Management, writes the Pacific Economist column. Write to him at Jerry.Nickelsburg@Anderson.UCLA.edu or via Twitter @jnickelsburg. This was written for Zocalo Public Square.
Tourism has lately been increasing between China and other "Belt and Road" countries, thanks to enhanced cooperation between the involved nations.

In 2017, an estimated 25 million trips will be made from China to countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, according to China's largest online travel agency, Ctrip.com. Meanwhile, more and more tour guides are learning Chinese in order to meet the increased demand for Chinese-speaking tour guides.

In a report summarizing "Belt and Road" tourism in 2016, Ctrip noted that Chinese tourists were able to travel to over 20 "Belt and Road" countries visa-free or with only entry visas upon arrival.

The company said it provided service to over 7 million inbound visitors in 2016, up 40 percent from 2015. About 3 million trips were made to China from countries along the "Belt and Road" route, a 50 percent rise from 2015. Some 150 million trips are expected to be made from China to those countries between 2016 and 2020, with spending likely to top $200 billion, according to China National Tourism Administration.

Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia were the top three destinations in the "Belt and Road" region for Chinese travelers, the report stated.
Having a client-facing role during the first few years of my career gave me a fundamental understanding of asset management products and client needs. The role ignited my passion for people and while I always knew I wanted to move into HR, it prompted me to take a HR coordinator role.

2002  Finds her niche

Armed with a passion for financial services, Carlile spent her early years honing her craft, quickly gaining credibility and respect in a fast-paced, highly technical industry.

My biggest achievement has been gaining trust with leadership. I call myself a credible activist. Credible because I understand the business and add to its overall agenda, but an activist on the HR side. I can challenge constructively without damaging relationships, to help businesses shift the dial.

2003  Deepens interest in financial
Most of the time, a mosquito bite is annoying but not serious. But once in a while bites become a problem  and thats especially a concern when your baby is the one suffering.

In most cases, mosquito bites on even the youngest kids are very mild and resolve on their own, says Dr. Tsippora Shainhouse, who teaches pediatric dermatology at USC. She notes, however, that some children have a strong reaction to the insects' saliva, and those bites can last anywhere from weeks to months.

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But even bites that dont become a longstanding issue are irritating, and worth preventing  or treating, if its too late to keep those mosquitoes from having a feast on your little one. Fortunately, there are a lot of great ways to prevent bug bites.

Put repellent on after sunscreen has dried, Shainhouse recommends, and continue to reapply sunscreen on top over the course of the day. Physical barriers like a net or long sleeves and pants can also be a good idea.

And of course, preventing mosquito bites also means preventing the West Nile virus, which has been found in mosquitoes throughout Canada. The Government of Canada website has important information on the virus, including the risks for different people and in different areas.

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Read these twelve tips on preventing and treating mosquito bites safely for babies.

Try calamine lotion: The over-the-counter medication contains zinc oxide, which has a soothing effect, Shainhouse says. If thats not doing the trick, she suggests giving a topical hydrocortisone cream a try.

Use natural scents: Lavender, peppermint, basil, garlic, and eucalyptus smell great in their own right and also help repel mosquitoes, says Amy Lawhorne, vice president of Mosquito Squad. "Many of these scents can be worn as an essential oil on your skin to help keep these pesky pests from biting."

Choose colours wisely: Mosquitoes tend to be attracted to dark colours like black and navy, Lawhorne says, so wearing light-coloured clothing and accessories could help keep them away. "They are also attracted to ultraviolet, fluorescent, and blue light, she says. Its best to avoid these as well."

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Consider DEET: "DEET is used as the active ingredient in many insect repellents and offers the best protection against mosquito bites, Lawhorne says. But be careful with younger babies. "The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not using stronger than 30-per-cent DEET on children, and to avoid using it on children under two months of age, Shainhouse notes.

Also look at Picaridin: Also known as KBR 3023 or Icaridin, this repellent smells much better than DEET and can also be effective, Shainhouse says  its what youll find in Avon Skin-So-Soft. It also is safe for infants ages two months or older.

More from HuffPost Parents: Expert Tips For Buying The Best Sunscreen For Your Kids

Avoid sunscreen/repellent combos: Products that combine sunscreen and bug repellent arent recommended for children, Lawhorne says. You have to reapply the sunscreen every two hours, whereas the insect repellent should not be reapplied, she says.

Use netting for babies: If you live in an area with a high mosquito population, use netting to protect infants younger than two months old, Lawhorne says. "Mosquito netting is also beneficial if you like to sleep with the windows or doors open at night, providing mosquitoes access."

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Watch for allergies: "If your child is allergic to mosquito bites, they may develop severe redness and swelling around the bite site, Shainhouse says. Oral antihistamines can help for children who are old enough to use them  talk to your doctor about appropriate ages and dosages first. "If the redness and swelling persists or progresses for more than 24 hours or becomes painful, contact your pediatrician, she says. "It is unlikely to be infected, but it could be a strong hypersensitivity reaction."

Save that tea bag: To soothe a bug bite, brew a cup of green tea, and put the bag in the fridge or freezer until its cooled all the way through. "Hold a refrigerated, damp green tea bag on the bite, Lawhorne says. "The tea compounds help with inflammation and the cold assists in soothing the itch."

Get fresh basil: Basil can help soothe bug bites safety. "Studies suggest this common herb contains compounds that can relieve itchy skin, Lawhorne says. "Either crush some up and apply directly or buy the essential oil."

Try Preparation H: You might associate Preparation H with a different kind of irritation, but a dab of it can help soothe a bug bite. "The active ingredient (phenylephrine) in the cream is known to reduce swelling and irritation, Lawhorne says.

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When its an emergency: "If you observe any signs of lip, tongue, or eyelid swelling or if you notice any difficulty speaking or breathing, call 911 immediately, as this may be a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction, Shainhouse says. If you know your child has an allergy to mosquito or other bug bites or has had an anaphylactic reaction to one in the past, you or any adult accompanying them should carry and EpiPen and know how to use it, she says.

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Twin sisters Deanna and Mya Cook are being punished by Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Boston.

And it's not because of bad behaviour, being tardy or even skipping classes  it's because of their hair.

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According to Essence, since last week, the 15-year-olds have served multiple detentions and now face possible suspension for wearing box braids in school.

On top of that, Deanna was also banned from a school track competition for rocking the style  where hair extensions are braided into the natural hair to create a long plait  and was even removed from the team's bus by the school's athletic director before a meet.

The mother of the pair, Colleen Cook, spoke to the Boston Globe on Sunday regarding her disappointment with Mystic Valley's lack of inclusivity.

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"They teach them at a very high academic level and I appreciate that, and thats why they go to the school," she explained. "But, unfortunately, they dont have any sensitivity to diversity at all."

The paper also reports the pair are both exceptional students, and Mya is even part of the National Honour Society.

Annette Namuddu, another mother whose daughter, Lauren Kayondo, is enrolled at the school, also came forward to share that her child was suspended after she refused to remove her braids.

"I see white kids with coloured hair and you are not supposed to colour your hair, and they walk around like its nothing."

"Its discrimination," the mom said. "I see white kids with coloured hair and you are not supposed to colour your hair, and they walk around like its nothing."

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"My daughter is a good student. Never gets in trouble," Namuddu added. "Lauren was having difficulty in mathematics, but they should be helping her out instead of putting her in detention."

She also said Kayondo feels as is the school is "picking on black children."

But while this case is certainly troubling, it's unfortunately not anything new.

Back in early April 2016, Canadian Zara employee, Cree Ballah, was asked to take out her braids during a shift because the company was going for a "clean professional look" and they said the sales associate's hair was "not the look for Zara."

Ballah later told CBC News that the experience was "humiliating" and at the time planned to file a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

As for Mystic Valley, these allegations against the school are not only troubling, it sends a negative message that black hair is somehow unruly and has no place at an institution of higher learning. It also totally undermines the cultural significance of this style.

A post shared by Fluffy Puffs (@myfluffypuffs) on May 13, 2017 at 12:34am PDT

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According to U.S. News and World Report, more than 40 percent of students at the charter school are people of colour, 17 per cent of whom are black. With such a large population of diverse teens, one would think the school would be more accommodating to these types of hairstyles. But it seems as though they're remaining steadfast.

In a statement, officials told Boston 25 News, "Our policies ... foster a culture that emphasizes education rather than style, fashion or materialism. Our policy on hair extensions, which tend to be very expensive, is consistent with ... the educational environment that we believe is so important to our students success."

But it doesn't seem as though dad Aaron Cook is convinced. He even told the Daily Mail that the policy "specifically discriminates against African American children as it relates to hair extensions."

"You typically do not see Caucasian children with hair extensions," he said. "The fact that it's in the handbook does not make it a non-discriminatory policy."

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Vending machines typically bring to mind a place to get your afternoon pop and chip fix  but a new type of dispenser in Singapore is offering up Bentleys, Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

Used car seller Autobahn Motors is now selling high-end vehicles from a 15-storey showroom that houses 60 cars.

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It's being called the "world's largest luxury car vending machine," according to a video on the company's website. (Watch above.)

Gary Hong, general manager at Autobahn Motors, told Reuters the innovative selling space was built out of necessity in land-scare Singapore.

"We needed to meet our requirement of storing a lot of cars. At the same time, we wanted to be creative and innovative."

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With the touch of a button, customers can select a vehicle, and automated technology will retrieve the car and bring it down to ground level within a matter of minutes.

Around the world, cities and companies have been toying with automated, multi-level parking systems to cut down on space and the need for parking attendants.

"We needed to meet our requirement of storing a lot of cars."

Last November, U.S. company Carvana opened a car vending machine in Nashville, Tenn. The five-storey tower holds up to 20 cars, and customers have to insert a special coin in order to begin the dispensing process.

The future: where buying a car is like buying a chocolate bar. Crazy.

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Hours after she confirmed she was beginning her departure from political life, interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose stood in the House of Commons for what she said was "likely" her last question to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Ambrose, who announced Tuesday she will be resigning as an MP shortly after handing over the reins to the new Tory leader later this month, made Trudeau an offer.

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If he answers a question the opposition has been peppering him with for months, she would "call off the attack dogs and nobody on this side will ask the question 18 more times."

"I think it sounds like a pretty fair deal," she said.

The query Ambrose was referring to is one Trudeau dodged repeatedly in the House last week: how many times has he met with the federal ethics watchdog?

Tories have pressed the PM for details on ethics commissioner Mary Dawson's probe into his vacation at the Aga Khan's Bahamas island, as well as the use of a private helicopter. Trudeau has responded to inquiries about the investigation by saying he is happy to answer whatever questions the ethics watchdog has for him.

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Ambrose hoped her last attempt would yield a different response from Trudeau  and it did, to a certain extent.

Canadians expect every member of this House to cooperate with the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner," Trudeau began, as the Tories started shouting across the aisle.

"The commissioner has stated at committee and to my office that she does not want us discussing the process in place," echoing a statement Dawson's office sent to HuffPost Canada last week. A spokesperson said subjects being examined by the office are asked to keep "any information" related to the probe confidential.

Trudeau continued: "But I can answer the member and say that in all my years as a parliamentarian, I have met a number of times with the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner on both formal and informal occasions

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The prime minister was cut off after a chorus of Conservatives began yelling "How many times!" before being gently reminded by House Speaker Geoff Regan to take any unified chanting outside.

Later in the day, the House embraced a much warmer tone as MPs and leaders from all parties stood to pay tribute to Ambrose, who will resign her seat when MPs break for the summer in June.

The Conservatives choose their new leader on May 27.

With files from Althia Raj and Ryan Maloney

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For anyone who grew up in the '80s in Canada, this should look very familiar.

It doesn't? Perhaps this was more your time.

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It's one of the great traditions of childhood  convincing your parents to go to McDonald's pretty much just to complete your Happy Meal toy collection.

And now, it seems, McDonald's Canada wants to up the ante on what's on offer in those red and yellow boxes, and we have to say, we're just as excited as we think our kids will be.

Starting May 16, the fast food restaurant is giving the option of books for the "prize" that comes with Happy Meals  though kids can choose to still get a toy if they want (no judgment, because those DC Comics superhero cars last year were pretty fantastic). There will be a choice of two books, and the options will change every two months.

Even better, they've joined with children's publisher Kids Can Press to do this, which means the featured books will be Canadian, including Franklin the Turtle by Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark, Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt, the beloved Life in the Wild series by Nicholas Oldland and the Dragon Safety Series from Jean E. Pendziwol and Martine Gourbault.

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While this isn't the first time McDonald's has given away books with its Happy Meals  a two-week run in the States last year proved immensely popular, and various tie-ins have happened over the years  it is pretty innovative in its scope.

The chain is also starting a charitable initiative with #OwnaBookGiveaBook, asking young readers to take a "shelfie" (that's a picture of your bookshelf, turned into a hashtag) and post it on social media. For every use of the hashtag, up to 20,000, a book will be donated via First Book Canada, an organization that combats literacy issues by giving kids in need access to books.

In honour of #ownabookgiveabook - a fairytale #shelfie A post shared by Mere Joyce (@merejoyce) on May 16, 2017 at 7:35am PDT

While the benefits of reading to and with your kids are somewhat obvious, like improving literacy rates and getting them interested in a variety of topics, parenting website Raising Children Australia also notes it can help them understand change or new events better, as well as their own and others' emotions.

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Reading with your kids can help them understand change or new events better, as well as their own and others' emotions.

It's no secret McDonald's has been trying to up its parent-friendly game in Happy Meals over the years (hello, apples and yogurt in lieu of cookies), but it's also no secret that there are probably healthier options if we just made food for our kids at home.

So if they think we're going to be tricked into eating there more often because they're now giving away books ... well, they're probably right.

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Xiangyanghong 09, the mother ship of China's manned submersible Jiaolong, is ready to depart from a port in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, May 16, 2017. Jiaolong returned to Shenzhen Saturday after the second stage of China's 38th ocean scientific expedition. The 38th oceanic scientific expedition started on Feb. 6. Jiaolong completed a dive in the northwestern Indian Ocean earlier this year in the mission's first stage. It will also conduct surveys in the Yap Trench and the Mariana Trench in the third stage. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)

ABOARD SHIP XIANGYANGHONG 09, May 16 (Xinhua) -- China's manned submersible Jiaolong departed from south China's Shenzhen for deep-sea dives in northwestern Pacific Ocean Tuesday.

The ship Xiangyanghong 09 set sail for the Yap and Mariana trenches, with Jiaolong and 96 scientists aboard, marking the beginning of the third stage of China's 38th oceanic expedition.

During the mission, which runs until June 18, the submersible is expected to conduct nine deep dives in the two trenches.

"Ocean trenches are the deepest parts of the sea floor," said Wu Changbin, general commander of the third stage of the expedition. "The Yap Trench has a depth of 8,527 meters, and Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in the Earth's oceans, has a depth of 11,034 meters."

The scientists plan to conduct five dives in the Yap Trench to study deep-sea biotic communities and gene resources.

In addition, Jiaolong will conduct manned deep dives in the Mariana Trench to investigate the deep-sea environment.

The 38th oceanic scientific expedition started on Feb. 6. Jiaolong completed a dive in the northwestern Indian Ocean earlier this year during the mission's first stage.

Jiaolong will be examined and upgraded after the mission, and a new mother ship is expected to be put into use in 2019, according to Wu.
Many little girls grow up admiring their mother's makeup routines.

Whether it's the application of red lipstick, the flick of a mascara wand or the swirl of a blush brush, a fascination and desire to play with makeup can start in childhood, and stick around well past becoming a teenager.

But besides leaving behind a mess of eyeshadows and nail polish stains, what would it look like if a little girl decided to turn into a makeup artist for one day?

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The women behind BuzzFeed's Ladylike got that experience firsthand and the results are both hilarious and glorious.

In the video above, three adorable little girls gave three skeptical adult women not only the makeover of a lifetime, but a lesson in confidence, too.

"I'm going to make Devin look like Taylor Swift," Ellie said of her vision.

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"I'm going to make Chantal look young," Emmersyn noted, saying it would take eight or more hours to create that particular "pretty and young" look.

The adult women all agreed that sometimes, little girls are so confident, it makes them brutally honest. But what BuzzFeed's Devin, Freddie and Chantel were left with (besides over-the-top makeovers) was a whole lot of infectious girl power gifted to them by these little beauticians.

"I'm strong and I believe in myself," Olivia said as she performed her glammifying duties.

So. Freakin'. Cute.

To see more of the little girls and their makeup madness, check out the video above!

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An Afghan pilot hoping to become the youngest woman in history to complete a solo round-the-world flight was preparing Monday to start the Transatlantic leg of her journey.

Shaesta Waiz, 29, was born in a refugee camp at the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan before immigrating with her family to the United States in 1987.

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There, she discovered a passion for flying and obtained her pilot's license  becoming the youngest certified civilian female pilot from Afghanistan.

Now she wants to share that sense of freedom of soaring high above ground with other young women.

"When I found my passion  flying  that's when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently," Waiz said as she made a stopover in Montreal.

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"What's important is finding your passion and going after it."

Waiz took off from Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday and has mapped out a route that will take her aboard her Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft approximately 25,800 kilometers (16,000 miles) to more than 18 countries, including Spain, Egypt, India, Singapore and Australia, before ending the trip back in Florida in August.

During her 30 stopovers, the engineering graduate and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is backing her trip, will host events to try to get schoolchildren interested in science  notably aeronautics.

According to ICAO figures, less than five per cent of commercial pilots are women.

"If you really break it down into science, technology, engineering and math and explore what those career fields offer, it's very exciting," Waiz said.

"We hope to present to the young kids at these events what those careers are ... and hopefully get them to pursue these careers that are in need of more talent."

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"Youre the bravest woman we've ever met. We're so proud of you!" -Daimely, Jess, Veronica, and Oriole pic.twitter.com/kp0hDoDSzN  Dreams Soar (@DreamsSoarSTEM) May 13, 2017

On the website of her non-profit Dreams Soar, she commented: "Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, 'How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me.'"

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Canada is one of the most highly-educated countries in the world.

Fifty one per cent of 25- to 64-year-olds have a tertiary (university or college) qualification, up from 41 per cent in 2001 -- the highest proportion among developed countries. That translates to almost 4 million people with a college diploma and five million with a university degree. The number holding doctorates has especially soared, doubling to more than 160,000 over the past ten years. Immigrants hold half of these degrees.

At the same time, tuition fees have increased by 40 per cent. Completion times remain long: a PhD, for example, takes on average five to six years to earn. Further, crossing that finish line doesn't happen without a lot of hard work -- and stress. Whether buried in books or working late in the lab, loneliness and isolation are all too common in academia. And the higher you go, the worse it gets. Thirty seven per cent of master's students and 47 per cent of PhD students experience depression.

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So, is higher education a good investment? Do the hoped-for benefits actually outweigh the money, time, and enormous effort (intellectually and emotionally) it takes to finish a degree?

A new report by Statistics Canada provides some answers for students and policymakers.

The study released this month was conducted among more than 30,000 Canadians aged 25 to 64 years who were university graduates and currently employed. Nineteen per cent were immigrants from over 160 countries.

The researchers found that only 64 per cent of Canadian-born university-educated workers had jobs that required a university degree. For immigrants, that figure was even lower (46 per cent).

Moreover, over-education -- defined in the study as working in occupations that required high school education or less -- was more than twice as prevalent in immigrants (30 per cent) than non-immigrants (12 per cent).

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Visible minorities were also disproportionately represented among those who were over-educated for their jobs. Compared to their education-occupation matched counterparts, over-educated workers reported lower incomes and a lower sense of community belonging.

"Much of the literature examining over-education concentrates on its economic consequences," the authors wrote in the article. Thus, they instead sought to investigate what effect, if any, over-education had on Canadians' psychological well-being, particularly their overall life satisfaction.

After accounting for differences in age, race, income, and other factors, the study found that over-education was negatively associated with life satisfaction. However, the effects were statistically significant for Canadian-born workers only, while the consequences of over-education for immigrant workers depended on two factors: home country economic status and length of residency in Canada. Those emigrating from developing countries and living in Canada for longer were less likely to experience the negative effects of over-education on life satisfaction.

The role of expectations remained unmeasured in the study, but may underpin the findings. For example, theories of satisfaction suggest social and political disadvantage can shrink expectations, and, in turn, heighten feelings of satisfaction.

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"This study provides policymakers with information about the consequences of an education-occupation mismatch on the subjective well-being of Canadian workers," says Kristyn Frank, senior researcher at Statistics Canada and co-author of the study. "The results indicate that immigrants and non-immigrants experience over-education differently and may have different needs in terms of resources related to employment and health and well-being."

So, neither a job nor happiness is guaranteed upon graduation, which is perhaps not so surprising. Also unsurprising are the ways in which race, class, and immigration status organize the possibilities of life after university.

The question then is how can we create enabling conditions that make both career prospects and life satisfaction possible for all, not just the privileged few?

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Sixty years ago, most people in the so-called developed world didn't think twice about testing poisonous chemicals on nonhuman animals.

But it's now 2017, and where are we?

The United States still allows extensive animal testing (and therefore cruelty) for cosmetic products, and Canada has not gone nearly as far as it can. People still wander store aisles and buy from companies that either directly test chemicals on animals -- or companies that favour such practices by operating in markets (like China) where animal testing is largely required by law.

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It's 2017, and where are we? Animal testing and cruelty cannot be defended on any rational, well-thought-out grounds (not that it ever could have been), but it's still routinely done even in supposedly advanced countries. Cosmetic corporations of the profit-above-all-else persuasion are simply exploiting the public's ignorance while nonhuman animals are tortured and killed. Every day.

Brands are all about sex appeal and never show the dark-and-depraved side of the cosmetics industry.

In short, many people throughout the world are simply not aware of the sheer extent of animal cruelty in the cosmetics industry. Big-name brands like MAC and Avon skillfully use PR tactics to push a corporate image that seems animal-friendly; and, of course, advertisements run by these brands are all about sex appeal -- and never show the dark-and-depraved side of the cosmetics industry. So the public continues to buy from companies that support cruelty-towards-animals largely because of the very deft misinformation campaigns that these companies have created.

But what is animal testing, exactly, and why do I refer to it as "cruelty"? One test that is still in use is the infamous Draize test. Created in the 1940s as an eye irritant test, it still has not been banned in the United States. Here's how this test works, as explained in "Animal Testing in Cosmetics: Recent Developments in the European Union and the United States," p. 271:

"Draize and his co-workers developed a technique whereby a beauty or household product is applied to a rabbit's eye, skin, or penis over a twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hour period. In some cases, the observations last from seven to twenty-one days. Rabbits are placed in a holding device which only exposes their heads so that they cannot claw out their eyes or escape. The subject is usually an albino New Zealand white rabbit. The test is carried out to see whether signs of blindness, hemorrhaging, bleeding, swelling, ulceration, and/or discharge occur...In most cases, the rabbit is not anaesthetized during the process,and is killed after the test has ended. Such tests are difficult to justify, considering that most of these cosmetic products have already been tested and this duplication is both superfluous and cruel. Interestingly, because rabbits have a different cornea structure and produce a smaller amount of tears than humans, a substance placed in the eye of a rabbit will stay there longer and consequently, the irritancy test may produce different results in comparison to humans."

In virtually any other context, such treatment of an animal would be deemed animal cruelty. Perpetrators of this kind of cruelty might find themselves diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. But since corporate interests have prevailed decade after decade, this test -- and a long list of other cruel tests -- have continued into the 21st century.

The world is slowly-but-surely waking up to the reality -- and horror -- of using chemicals to burn out the eyes of nonhuman animals, of using poisonous substances to scald the skin of these animals, of subjecting countless animals to what is nothing more than ruthless chemical warfare. All of this is justified by major makeup brands as somehow necessary sacrifices on the altar of human beauty.

In March 2013, the EU banned animal testing for cosmetic purposes and prohibited the selling of makeup products containing any ingredients which had been tested on animals. Nonetheless, dozens upon dozens of countries are lagging behind -- including the United States and Canada. A 2014 bill proposed in the United States -- which would have banned such animal testing -- didn't get far and was rather quickly shot down.

That's the bad news.

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Here's the good news. No matter what happens on a legislative level, you as a consumer wield considerable power. Corporations have a tendency to listen to people when their bottom line is hurting, so if ever there was a time to switch to cruelty-free makeup and beauty products -- that time is now.

There are simply no more excuses one could muster to continue purchasing makeup and beauty products that are not cruelty-free.

For starters, effective alternatives to animal testing exist. So even those who cling to the bizarre notion that torturing helpless animals is OK -- so long as human safety is ensured -- no longer have a basis for their belief.

Furthermore, you as a consumer -- and the general public -- now have a wide range of vegan, cruelty-free makeup options. As more and more people are becoming aware of what's going on and what's happening to animals, so too are more and more cruelty-free and eco-conscious products coming to the fore (consider my own company, which produces completely organic, vegan products like lash glues, mascaras, eyeliners and more). Such a range of options were not available 30 years ago, but they are easily available now.

Corporations will continue to endorse animal cruelty and torture until consumers decide that enough is enough.

And now with immediate access to a treasure trove of information, consumers can actively choose to avoid cosmetic products created, sold and distributed by companies that could care less about what happens to nonhuman animals (their evasive corporatespeak notwithstanding). Here, for example, one can find a list of some all-too common brand names that put the profit motive ahead of any duty to social consciousness. Among these brand names you will find those brands that fill the aisles of innumerable department stores across the world: Avon, Chanel, Chapstick, L'Oreal, Revlon -- to name but a few.

These corporations will continue to endorse animal cruelty and torture until consumers decide -- en masse -- that enough is enough and that they will not be a part of these practices. That they will no longer support this anti-animal behaviour with their dollars. That instead they will look to products that do not involve cruelty against animals.

Only then will nonhuman animals be treated more fairly, instead of being strapped down, helpless, as toxic chemicals sear away eyes, skin and organs.

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In the Black, a new autobiography by activist businessman and radio pioneer B. Denham Jolly, is going to have members of Toronto's white community seeing red. It might have Black Lives Matter taking notes too.

"To the white readers of this book, I have to stress that for Black people the basic and continuing infringements of our rights are not mere distractions. Canadians like to congratulate themselves over our diversity, but ... " Denham Jolly told me when we talked about his early days. Quoting from his just published book, he says discriminatory policing (from carding to DWB) "remain part of our day-to-day life and casts a long shadow."

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B. Denham Jolly

Over the years Jolly and I have occasional crossed paths. He doesn't remember me, but I'll never forget how strongly opinionated he is (for example: Mayor John Tory should be impeached for reneging on his campaign promise to end carding). When we first met I had come to FLOW (first Black owned FM station) to pick up a donation for the Caribana festival. Before my coat was off, he told me what was wrong with the annual parade.

I can't recall his exact words, but it was about how Canada's establishment was "fucking over" Caribana. "Tons of cash is handed over to the Art Gallery of Ontario and to the National Ballet, which generates 1/84th the amount of economic activity that Caribana brings. Government support to Caribana continues to be minuscule compared to what is given to the National Ballet. It (Caribana) is the greatest cultural event."

I have supplied PR support to Carnival for 19 years and his Toronto radio station FLOW FM supported us for as long as he owned FLOW.

I also lived steps from him in Cabbagetown and often passed him in the street. If he hadn't sold them off, I might one day soon move into one of his nursing homes.

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Jolly is a highly successful man. Born in Jamaica he came to Canada 60 years ago to study at three schools, the final being McGill. He believed that there were more opportunities and less cultural striation in Canada in the Fifties than in colonial Jamaica.

He reluctantly left Canada when his student visa expired. He returned to Jamaica just long enough to save enough money to return to Canada! A chance encounter with a Canadian High Commissioner at a Jamaican rum party got him the paperwork he needed!

His first day job was teaching in the richest Toronto neighbourhood. At night he managed his first boarding house in the 'hood'. He acquired property, lived frugally and his fortunes grew!

He moved briefly to Sault St Marie to teach science and meet his future wife, a white nurse. Together, back in Toronto, they acquired rooming houses and branched out into nursing homes and medical testing facilities in Ontario and Texas.

Jolly soon became the publisher of the iconic Black Contrast Newspaper. Almost everything he touched did well, except for his time as a Fuller Brush salesman ("I ended up with a closet full of brushes").

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His passion to own a radio station that would be the voice of the Caribbean Canadian people was a 12-year struggle. He blames political interference for the setbacks he had to overcome before FLOW went on the air in 2001.

According to In The Black, Liberal politicians were publicly supportive of Jolly's dream, but behind closed doors worked against him to help other stations get the licenses he sought. "Liberal politicians are dishonest, they told me I was going to get a license but gave it away to a C&W radio station," explained Jolly. "Campaign left and rule to the right - they made Mulroney look good"

In the Black: My Life. ECW Press

His business smarts came from his Father Cappy (short for Capital) who gave him Duddy-Kravitz-like advice which Jolly still follows - "Don't work for anyone but yourself. Buy property."

The book frustrates in that Cappy makes only a brief appearance. We don't learn much about his Jamaican roots, nor his wife Carol and their three children. His divorce is a single paragraph and there is scant reference to his new love.

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Odd for a man involved in the communication business to say so little about himself. It is an autobiography with all the juicy parts of his 80+ years left out. The curtain lifts when Jolly talks about issues of race and equality and the people he fought the good fight with - former Minister of State Jean Augustine, Caribana's Charles Roach and Dudley Laws.

It makes for interesting reading to see just the activist causes Jolly joined. He started the Black Business and Professional Association and was a vocal member of an endless string of action groups.

He talks about demonstrating when a mentally disturbed Black man, Lester Donaldson is shot by police. "After the demonstration, a number of us, including Charlie Roach and Jean Augustine, went to a meeting called by Dudley Laws to launch the Black Action Defense Committee. BADC was formed to fight against this sort of police killing. I was named as part of the founding group, but in this case the moving force really was Dudley Laws."

"There probably is a file with my name on it," said Jolly. "In 1991 the police were clearly obsessed with nailing the hides of uppity Blacks to the wall."

As he aged he spent more time in keeping FLOW afloat than in demonstrating. He was cited for his cultural contributions - he won the Black Media Pioneer Award and the African/Canadian Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Two months ago, as ECW Press was publishing In the Black, the city honoured him by naming a new road Jolly Way in Scarborough. It is s a tribute to a man who hasn't always been happy in Canada but has always been loud, proud and uniquely Jolly!
Chris Wattie/Andrew Francis Wallace

So, Jagmeet Singh is in. The Brampton, Ont. MPP held a raucous, well-attended rally last night to announce his intention to run for the federal NDP leadership.

Singh will now give the Dippers' leadership contest what it has entirely lacked: sizzle. Interest. Charisma. Media attention.

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And over on Team Blue, Mad Max Bernier still looks like the guy to beat. Tories I know say he's going to win. That may be conjecture and whatnot -- that may be based upon impressions, and not actual data -- but the conventional wisdom, presently, is the Quebec Conservative MP has got big mo.

So, how will both stack up against Trudeau? If we were to do some polling -- and if we were to conduct focus groups, from sea to sea to sea, as it were -- what would voters say are the key attributes of (a) Trudeau and then (b) Bernier and (c) Jagmeet?

Well, let's see.

Trudeau Attributes

Young and youthful

Unconventional

Not-bad-looking

Bilingual

Passionate

Idealistic

Bernier Attributes

Young and youthful

Unconventional

Not-bad-looking

Bilingual

Passionate

Idealistic

Jagmeet Attributes

Young and youthful

Unconventional

Not-bad-looking

Bilingual

Passionate

Idealistic

Hmm.

See the problem? In politics, as in commerce, you need a "unique selling proposition." That is, you need to have something -- a brand, an ingredient, a magic healing power -- that your opponents do not. You need to have something, anything, that is uniquely and indisputably yours.

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Trudeau better get going on all three fronts.

I hereby and herewith, ipso facto, predict Trudeau is going to be facing off in 2018 with two guys who have the very positives that propelled Trudeau himself to power in 2015. The two angry old guys he defeated in that contest are gone, baby, gone. It's a new day, etc.

What does this all mean? Well, it means this: when leadership attributes are a wash, all that you have are (a) ideas (b) achievements and (c) ground game.

Trudeau better get going on all three fronts. There's two youthful, unconventional, handsome, bilingual, passionate and idealistic guys in his rear-view mirror.

And they're getting closer.

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The five things you need to know on Tuesday, May 16

This morning's 'radical' and 'responsible' Waugh Zone is by Ned Simons. Paul is away.

1) TAKE TWO

Jeremy Corbyn releases his manifesto this morning. Again. Only this time on purpose. It is described by Labour as both "radical" and "responsible".

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Ahead of the formal launch at 11am in Bradford, some policies have been handed out to the papers. The Guardian reports the manifesto will include a fat-cat tax on big businesses as well as plans for a federal United Kingdom. The Daily Mirror says Labour will pledge 5bn a year to create a universal childcare service. The Daily Telegraph says Labour will start the 45p tax bracket at 80,000. And the BBC has the line that a Labour government would nationalise the water industry.

Speaking in Leeds yesterday, Corbyn joked about last week's leak of the draft policy agenda and promised that, unlike like this email, "all the spelling mistakes have been removed" from the final draft. Which is a brave boast.

Launching his manifesto today, the Labour leader will brand his policy agenda a "programme of hope" as compared to a Tory campaign built on "fear". Corbyn will resurrect the phrase used by Theresa May to describe the Conservatives back in 2002 and say the party run by the prime minister is "still the nasty party". The Tories, he will say, are "the party of prejudice, the party of the rich, the party of the tight-fisted and the mean-spirited". Hitting back, the chief secretary of the Treasury, David Gauke, has said Labour's plans are "nonsensical" and a "shambles".

2) RAGE AGAINST THE MAYCHINE

The prime minister inexplicably ran into a voter in the street yesterday (someone is getting fired for that) and was taken to task over cuts to disability benefits. Cathy, who has learning difficulties, confronted May over how the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance in favour of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) had affected her. In her reply, the PM also appeared to conflate having learning difficulties with mental health issues.

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It wasn't just on her walkabout that May was greeted with an unhappy face. Angry emojis flew across the screen during her Facebook Live interview with ITV's Robert Peston. The folks at Labour HQ no doubt all have some serious RSI this morning after hammering their keyboards for 45-minutes. In her appearance on the One show, Philip May revealed his wife had designs on becoming prime minister as far back as 1998. And speaking to Peston yesterday, she promised she was not about to ditch the job if things got tough during the Brexit talks. "A new parliament will take us through to 2022," she said. "I will be around." It's a good thing she has a track record of not changing her mind about elections.

May and Corbyn have both agreed to subject themselves to a grilling by Jeremy Paxman in a joint Sky News-Channel 4 election programme on May 29. However while the pair will face Paxo and a live studio audience, they will not debate each other head-to-head.

3) A NEW HOPE?

Clive Lewis has said it would be "quite destabilising" for the party if Jeremy Corbyn quit as Labour leader immediately after an election defeat. Speaking to reporters ahead of a speech at the launch of the Progressive Alliance in central London last night, the former shadow cabinet minister said it was important Corbyn "hands the Labour party over in good order". In his speech, which you can watch here, Lewis said Labour could not "thrive" without the help of the Greens and the Lib Dems.

In an interview with HuffPost UK, Vince Cable says the formation of any new political party will depend on how the Lib Dems perform on June 8. And with a Tory victory assumed to be in the bag, Cable argues the general election campaign result is merely the start, not the end, of the excitement. "Politics after the election may be more interesting than before it," he tells me.

BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR And because maps are fun, YouGov data shows the "rising Tory tide" across the regions of the UK.

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4) SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT

Labour has criticised a Conservative who claimed he is fighting against cuts to school funding, despite being a minister in the Department for Education. Edward Timpson, who is standing to be MP for Crewe and Nantwich again, says he lobbied Theresa May over a reform of education funding which stands to see local schools lose nearly 2m. Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, mocked Timpson for proudly battling against his own cuts.

5) TRUMPILEAKS

The Washington Post reported Monday that Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week. The material reportedly came from a source who knows about the inner workings of Isis and was so sensitive it hadnt even been shared with US allies and many people within the US government. National Security Adviser HR McMaster dismissed the reporting as "false".

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We're having an election here in the UK. News broke, well, where else? Within a minute of the announcement, the web was alive with the sound of politics. And with the first tweets, the first e-petitions, the first Facebook posts imploring people to vote, we were quickly reminded that digital politics is a strange old thing.

A new political culture is emerging. Perhaps it already has emerged. It is based on 140 character inanity, on infectious memes and viral messages, a politics measured in the currency of clicks and shares and comments.

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It's the politics of the Spectacular Own Goal, of the Evisceration and of the Crying-Laughing and the Fire Emojis, as if PMQs had its own 24-hour cable channel to be pored over by a press lobby of millions. We bay for televised combat and scream derision at our political enemies from our sofas.

It's a decentralised politics, where party lines are stretched and broken by rogue voices who capture the imagination. Central control over a party's 'message' is weaker than ever, assuming party politics even matters in an age where a single political Facebook group can reach millions of people without its body ever really participating in the electoral process.

It's a politics that happens at a thousand miles an hour: prolonged debate or discussion are impossible at this speed. Refresh the page of your favourite platform, and there are new things to object to, a never-ending stream of people to try to win round (at first, maybe), then rebuke (second), then abuse and hold up for ridicule (when it's getting late). Or there aren't, and the walls of your echo chamber are closing in.

We were promised a marketplace of ideas, but we've ended up with a strange, conspiratorial coliseum of Facts, where conflict is inevitable but actually fighting or winning an argument is impossible. The web sustains as many ecosystems of knowledge as there are people who want to believe them, and they live comfortably side-by-side, untroubled by their opposition.

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Politics on social media today is a politics of certainty, a politics of knowing things. There is almost no greater shame, nothing more deserving of a good social media pillorying, than not knowing something. The politician who won't answer the question, who doesn't know, who hesitates, is not a politician for this new digital culture where everybody knows, everybody chips in and everybody will answer the question, whether asked to or not. In a world of easy answers - "just Google it!" - it is little wonder established politicians look timid or neutered when compared with your mate on Twitter ("Sixteen retweets yesterday!") who just says it as it is.

The future belongs to a new politician. What they might look like is still a mystery. They might be the ones who've seized the initiative in the present chaos: Donald Trump's stream of consciousness in the States, Beppe Grillo's digitally-coordinated "fuck off" days in Italy, even brutal fascists backed up by an army of automated propaganda machines, trolls and bedroom propagandists like Duterte in the Philippenes.

Or perhaps that's too myopic: they might look like cyberpunks harnessing the power of the web to reinvent democracy like the Pirate Party in Iceland or Audrey Tang in Taiwan, whose platform is already responsible for turning digital deliberation into law. Who knows, maybe we'll even live to see an AI running for Enfield North 2050.

Who cares? Tweets aren't votes. We still don't know whether ploughing millions into Facebook ads wins elections (Facebook claim it doesn't. Or maybe it does). But it matters because digital politics is a thing, and it brings with it new activities, norms and expectations, all of which map poorly to the structures of politics as we know it.

There will only be one winner. As more of our lives move online, our politics will too, and the structures and traditions that underpin offline politics will creak, then crumble away. An obvious example is in decision-making. Digital channels will make referenda cheaper, quicker and easier, and with that demand will grow. What's the point in electing representatives, the argument will go, when we can easily make decisions ourselves?

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This election will provide more evidence. Many who will take to the web to do their politics won't head to the ballot box. In 2015 just 43 percent of 18-24 year olds turned out to vote. A paltry 36 percent cast their ballot for the EU referendum. "I'm disappointed in my peers", wrote one journalist in the wake of Brexit, describing politically-active non-voting millennials as "curious and infuriating". "Do they care enough one way or the other?", lamented another. "I don't think so."

I'm willing to bet they do care. My colleagues at Demos worked with Ipsos Mori to survey UK social media users in July 2015. Young people were more likely than anyone else to feel politically engaged online, as well as highly likely to use the web to do politics. 20 percent of young people paradoxically claimed to have no interest in politics, but had still sent messages with political content online.
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The Commonwealth promotes democracy by deploying election observers, offering practical assistance to electoral commissions, and providing hands-on training to junior election officials, writes Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland.

Most of us remember the first time we voted. It is a rite of passage which marks political empowerment and passing into adulthood. With a pencil and a ballot paper, we help shape the future of our nation.

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Few among us, however, will remember the hard-working officials who make an election happen.

Those charged with educating and registering voters, managing polling stations and overseeing the counting of votes and declarations of results are in the frontline as custodians of democracy. The integrity of an election is often judged according to how they perform and discharge their duties.

At the Commonwealth Secretariat, we provide practical technical assistance, peer-learning and hands-on training for the staff of election commissions. We do so as part of our mandate to deliver on the first article of the Commonwealth Charter, which recognises: "the inalienable right of individuals to participate in democratic processes, in particular through free and fair elections in shaping the society in which they live."

One of our flagship electoral programmes is the Commonwealth Election Professionals Initiative, which is working alongside leaders of election officials throughout the member countries of the Commonwealth.

Launched in 2013, the initiative is delivered through the Commonwealth Electoral Network which connects electoral commissions in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Americas, Europe and the Pacific. It is an exemplar of multilateral Commonwealth cooperation, with global reach and influence, which has been made possible through the financial support of the Australian government.

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Already nearly a hundred junior election officers in more than 40 countries have benefitted from the regional training and professional development events, peer-to-peer learning and online networking made available through the programme. Ninety percent of those who have participated say it increased their knowledge of good electoral practices, and almost half say their commission has since made changes to procedures and practices based on their recommendations.

The initiative is supporting people like Abdul Qayyum Khan of the Election Commission of Pakistan, who has gone on to promote training on women's inclusion in elections. It is aiding officials such as Vishnu Persaud of Guyana's Elections Commission, who attended the inaugural training in 2013 and is now his country's deputy chief election officer. It is helping officials like Dorcas Crentsil from the Electoral Commission of Ghana, who says it taught her to "aspire to be the best".

I am delighted therefore that the government of Australia has announced an AU$1.5 million extension in funding, which will mean the initiative will continue for at least another three years. Small island states in the Caribbean and the Pacific will be among those to gain with targeted training for small and non-permanent election commissions.

Australia's renewed commitment is a testament to the Commonwealth's success in developing the next generation of electoral administrators. It also complements the direct assistance the Commonwealth Secretariat provides to electoral commissions. In the Pacific, for example, our experts have been working closely with the island nation of Nauru first to establish, and then strengthen, the national election commission. We have also assisted Vanuatu's elections office to reform its voter registration system.

Our work here builds on decades of Commonwealth experience in observing elections, stretching back 50 years to a referendum we observed in Gibraltar in 1967. However, it was not until the early 1990s that our elections programme began in earnest. The spark was the 1991 Harare Declaration, agreed by Commonwealth heads of government, which committed our member countries collectively to "work with renewed vigour" on promoting democracy and democratic institutions. More than thirty elections in countries as diverse as Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea were observed in that decade.

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We have now observed close to 150 elections in nearly 40 countries. Commonwealth observers offer straightforward and unbiased recommendations on how to improve the credibility and transparency of the electoral process. Composed of former heads of state, electoral commissioners and parliamentarians, and gender, human rights, civil society and media specialists drawn from all regions, these independent experts provide valuable scrutiny, and their status and integrity brings positive pressure to bear when they make recommendations for electoral improvements.

Our experience in observing elections tells us that even countries with a successful track record of holding them can encounter challenges. Whether through planning and logistical challenges or malfeasance, such challenges can shake the confidence of voters. Strengthening the capacity of the staff of electoral commissions to uphold and defend national and international electoral standards therefore has to be a shared priority.

Nelson Mandela, who became President of South Africa in an historic multi-racial election in 1994 observed by Commonwealth election observers, reflected years later that "the commitment to democracy, principled and unflinching, had been the foundation of all the Commonwealth's achievements since 1990".

"It remains the basis of its potential for the future," he added. These words still speak true today when describing the Commonwealth's mission to promote democracy.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) will meet on July 5-9 in Minsk for its 26th Annual Session, says a message posted on the OSCE PA website May 16.

With some 300 parliamentarians from North America, Europe and Asia expected to participate, the theme of this years Annual Session is Enhancing mutual trust and co-operation for peace and prosperity in the OSCE region, according to the message.

The largest event on the Assemblys calendar, the Annual Session consists of several days of meetings featuring high-level speeches and debates, and will culminate in the adoption of the Minsk Declaration. This political document will contain recommendations to national governments, parliaments and the international community in the fields of political affairs, security, economics, environment and human rights, according to the message.

The report, titled Enhancing Mutual Trust and Co-operation for Peace and Prosperity in the OSCE Region, of Swedish rapporteur Margareta Cederfelt that touches upon the issues of solving conflicts in the OSCE region, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, will also be read out and discussed during the Annual Session.

According to the report, the OSCE PA regrets the lack of progress towards the settlement of the conflict.

A return to the negotiation table by all parties is needed to avoid further military confrontation and de-escalate the situation. Participating States should refrain from using unilateral decision-making and violence that would hinder diplomatic negotiations and dialogue initiatives, says the report.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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Giving employees time off to "care" is exactly the right thing for the Government to be doing. Brave as well.

There will be plenty of people that think a new "right to care" represents yet more mollycoddling from an interfering Government that will simply make life more difficult for businesses everywhere. They couldn't be more wrong. Here's why.

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Firstly, more and more of us combine a career with a commitment for one, or often both, of our ageing parents. And let's not mention our in-laws. The world of work has changed immeasurably in the last 30 years. We work more flexibly; we're often in touch even when we are not in the office; and combining work and family is what most of us have to do on a day to day basis, with or without the help of employers or the Government.

Demographics have changed as well. People have children later; our parents are living longer; and the prospect of retiring happily ever after at 60 is a pipedream. The consequence is that the number of working carers is growing exponentially and is set to double in the next six years. Taking care of your family doesn't mean that you want to leave their careers behind for good. But knowing that they can, without penalty, is a bonus.

I am generally a fan of small Government and civil servants only getting involved in our increasingly complicated lives when they have to. But acknowledging the everyday reality is exactly where Government should take a lead. It's the same way the Government approached things with the introduction of Shared Parental Leave. They recognised the reality of shared parenting. They put in place light touch legislation. And they let the business world worry about how to implement it.

In part, the proposed legislation is a reflection of just how broken the UK's social care system is. When you become "dependent" and need somewhere between a little and a lot of support to carry on living a normal life, there is an expectation that the state will help. You've spent all your life working and paying taxes, surely there is some support in place. The answer, sadly, is that virtually nothing exists. It all comes down to your family members. Forcing employers to give employees time off the best way, and perhaps the only way, to fix the system.

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The serious illness of a family member isn't something you can always plan around. Sometimes you don't get any notice. This unpaid time off will allow individuals the time and space they need to find long term solutions or simply give back to a family member in need.

Will businesses be able to cope with the new rights? Yes. It might be painful, but eventually businesses will get their heads round it all. Not everyone will take the option immediately, and businesses will have time to figure out how to make it work.

Remember there are unlikely to be any direct financial consequences of the new right to care. Instead business will have to find ways to allow people to take time off and come back into the workforce later. Exactly what they have had to do with maternity for the last 30 years.

The best businesses already recognise that employees need the flexibility to combine work and life. And good employers are already finding ways for their employees combine their work and family commitments, some are just further along than others.

New carers legislation will simply force more businesses to realise that flexible working can mean better working - for employer and employee alike. Employers who are already helping individuals to combine work and family are reaping the rewards, with more loyalty and more engagement.

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'Is that Dhaka?', I wondered as a film taking us on a tour through a rabbit warren of a damp, dark textile workshop played on the backdrop of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit stage. It's actually Gujarat in India - Machines by Rahul Jain opened the summit and reminded us of why we we're here.

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Sustainability is at the top of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit agenda, in an effort to discuss the damage done by our industry - fashion - the second most polluting in the world after oil and gas. The garment industry has depleted the world's natural resources to an extent that our planet can no longer support. Underpinning the Copenhagen Fashion Summit was a report called the Pulse of the Fashion Industry, created by Boston Consulting Group in conjunction with the Global Fashion Agenda. The findings, summarised by Javier Seara of Boston Consulting Group and Caroline Chalmer of Global Fashion Agenda, were presented as both a challenge and opportunity. The main challenge being to change the entire supply chain from a linear 'take, make, dispose of in landfill (in 80% of cases*)' model, to a circular 'collect (used textiles or garments), disassemble (and chemically/mechanically separate the fibres), make new textiles from the recycled fibres, make new garments, repeat' model.

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The Copenhagen Fashion Summit Agenda and the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report

Current demands on the planet are predicted to lead to serious ethical crises if they continue - such as a situation where there will not be enough water for drinking and cotton growth in some countries - leading to a choice between one or the other. Population growth at its current rate will lead to consumption of clothing at 62% higher levels than today by 2030, when 8.5 billion people will inhabit earth. The impact of this on natural resources will be catastrophic if alternatives to current resource depleting practices are not invented, designed and implemented. I say invented, because the outcome of these claims, from the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report, is a need for collaboration and innovation. These two words were, by my judgement, the most used of the summit. Repeatedly, collaboration between the largest fashion brands to combine resources and exert their influence, and innovation in the supply chain by manufacturers, were hailed as key requirements to make leaps forward, away from linear manufacturing models and towards circular ones. Shedding light on this, Jason Kibbey of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition stated that "leaders of innovation are factory owners - they are (innovating) in the supply chain". He added "(this innovation) doesn't come from Europe, or Silicon Valley - it comes from Asia". Considering the demographic in the audience, mostly western and white, I realise that a critical voice of this discussion is missing. Jason later explained to me in an interview that he was heading to Bangalore, India, next week for a summit on sustainable benchmarks for the garment industry, to work with manufacturers in Asia on how to put sustainability initiatives and certifications in place.

It is important to note that the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report's deductions were based on the responses from sustainability officers in 90 fashion companies, providing a rather skewed set of data, and collated and reported according to the Higg Index. The limitations of the report were acknowledged by the Boston Consulting Group, and given that the report's data was subjective and unverified by any third party, the report was delivered as a starting point for a discussion on sustainability, rather than a final solution.

Hard-hitting and sobering facts were delivered by Dame Ellen MacArthur of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) during a panel discussion entitled 'For a World Beyond Next Season', from a report the EMF compiled with McKinsey in 2010. The report's express purpose was to analyse the merits of incremental improvements in a linear economy - which are finite - versus a circular economy model. Dame Ellen explained that we would need 1.7 planets to keep up with our current demands on the planet, therefore making a circular model imperative, where we would work in a restorative way instead of a wasteful way.

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Dame Ellen MacArthur speaks at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit

Wading into the ethical and environmental argument was Livia Firth of Eco-Age, citing her co-panellist, independent barrister Jessica Simor QC's report Fashion Focus: The Fundamental Right to a Living Wage as holding the answers to current questions and misconceptions about barriers to fair pay to those working in the garment industry. Describing it as the 'elephant in the room' at this summit, and the last summit one year ago, she warned brands that they were in big trouble, given the findings of Simor's report. Simor pulled no punches in explaining articulately and succinctly that minutiae in legal documents were clouding the path to finding solutions to paying the living wage to all in the supply chain. She stated very simply that workers in 14 countries were being paid 50% less (at best) than the living wage. All companies engaged in this business are in breach of UN law, she stated. "See, I told you you were all in trouble" added Livia Firth. Refreshingly clear, Simor added a powerful reminder that the slave trade was not abolished "through transparency and consumer choice", but by law. "Current laws protect consumers here in Europe, not makers in the far East", she said. Providing full clarity, she also stated that the right to a minimum wage is the right to a living wage - highlighting how semantics has got in the way of people being allowed to live in accordance with their human rights in a safe and dignified manner. The report is downloadable from thecircle.ngo and I look forward to reading it in full once my coverage of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit event is wrapped. The second stage of the report is being crowdfunded now and to support this initiative you can donate here and follow The Circle's work on Instagram and Twitter.

Livia Firth (centre) and Jessica Simor QC (right) speak at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit

Stand by for part two of my summit overview.

Follow Techstyler on Twitter and Instagram

*source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Originally posted on Techstyler.fashion
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chelsea Manning has said that when she's released this week she's looking forward to "breathing the warm spring air again".

In fact, the weather in Leavenworth County in Kansas is topping 30 degrees Celsius this week, so after seven years in military detention, this now famous whistleblower will finally step out of the Disciplinary Barracks at the US Army's Fort Leavenworth base on a rather hot and sultry day.

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Twenty-nine-year-old Manning will be free at last, closing one painful chapter on what has been an extraordinary and thoroughly disturbing saga. This brave, principled - but also vulnerable - person has been put through the ringer. While Manning is "fortunate" enough to have received a commutation of her crushing 35-year jail sentence, she has still spent seven long years behind bars, with extended periods of solitary confinement so harsh that the UN's torture expert Juan Mendez considered it tantamount to torture.

Manning has been branded a traitor (not least by current president Donald Trump). There were calls for her to receive a death sentence. As it was, she was charged with numerous serious offences, including the extremely grave "aiding the enemy" (of which she was acquitted).

Yet, despite all of the vitriol poured over her by members of the US military and political establishments, Manning is nothing less than an honourable whistleblower who felt compelled to tell the world about apparent US wrongdoing in its military conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Working as a US Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning began to see documents that convinced her that the US military was committing war crimes overseas and doing nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice. Worse, it may well have been deliberately covering up such conduct. The best-known example was the attack by two US Apache helicopters on a group of civilians in the Al-Amin al-Thaniyah district of Baghdad on 12 July 2007. At least 12 people were killed, including two Reuters reporters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. While it was far from the only occasion when US military conduct in Iraq was highly dubious, here was vivid cockpit video and audio laying bare the callous behaviour of the US pilots (some of their cockpit commentary includes language like "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards ... nice. Nice. Good shoot'n").

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Was this disclosure in the public interest? Like the Abu Ghraib torture photos or the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam war, it's hard to see how it wouldn't be. Reuters had previously tried - and failed - to obtain the helicopter footage through a freedom of information request. Manning - via WikiLeaks - provided the material.

What happened to Manning as a result of her whistleblowing is well-known. The revelations over wrongdoing (including the Baghdad helicopter attack) went uninvestigated, while Manning herself was court-martialled and given the longest sentence in US history for leaking information. This low-ranking 20-something was punished in such a way as to send an unmistakable message to other would-be whistle-blowers. Ahead of Manning's court martial in the summer of 2013, Edward Snowden had exposed a previously unknown global apparatus of surveillance being run by the USA's National Security Agency. If the US authorities couldn't get Snowden (granted asylum in Russia), they could certainly punish Manning.

You might think the US military authorities wouldn't stoop to vindictiveness when punishing one of their own, but you'd be wrong. During eight months of pre-trial solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, Manning was kept in a window-less 12-feet-by-six-feet cell containing only a bed, a toilet and a sink. After putting Manning on suicide watch, the Quantico authorities subjected her to a regime of draconian and demeaning rules: clothing and glasses confiscated, required to observe strict verbal commands and replies, even at one point having to sleep and stand to attention completely naked.

In an Amnesty podcast from last year, Manning recounts how: "The conditions in my cell were far beyond what is normally associated with solitary confinement. I needed permission to do anything in my cell. I was not allowed to move around the cell to exercise. I was not allowed to sit down with my back against the wall." It was all clearly designed to break Manning down ahead of her court martial, and the UN believed it was part of an "an effort to coerce her into 'cooperation' with the authorities", possibly to pressure her into implicating others.

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Post-conviction the vindictiveness continued. Having announced immediately after receiving her swingeing sentence an intention to transition to a female identity, Manning has had to fight a long and arduous battle for recognition of her right to do this. On top of being an embattled military whistleblower, she's had to become an embattled trans campaigner struggling within a rigid and deeply unsympathetic environment.
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Social media has enriched our lives in many ways, from connecting us with loved ones and providing access to real-time news to enabling large-scale campaigns for important causes.

Even so, there are some downsides to social media, and recent studies have found that excessive social media usage can impact our mental health and lead to feelings of isolation and anxiety. Research also shows that if it's not kept in check, social media can lead to behavioural addiction, which is why so many of us experience that irresistible urge to check our phones throughout the day.

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Of course, this doesn't mean that if we use social media we're doomed to be depressed and lonely, and considering that the number of social media users is expected to rise to 2.65 billion by 2020, it's clearly not going away any time soon.

However, for the sake of our mental wellbeing, it's important to keep it in its proper place, so here are a few tips for maintaining a healthy relationship with social media.

1. Keep things in perspective

Research shows that one reason social media has the potential to affect us negatively is that we tend to draw unfair comparisons between our own lives and what we see others sharing on social media.

After all, it's easy to see photos of your friends on holiday while you're stuck at the office or video clips of people enjoying a crazy night out while you're at home with the kids and feel like everyone else is having a lot more fun than you are.

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In reality, though, what you're seeing are other people's highlights, not their boring routines or daily struggles. So it's important to keep things in perspective and remember that what people share on social media isn't necessarily an accurate portrayal of their lives - we all have ups and downs.

2. Schedule your social media time

The study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that people who visited social media platforms more frequently (58 visits per week or more) were three times more likely to feel socially isolated than those who visited social media less than nine times a week.

Of course, it isn't clear whether this is because lonely people tend to visit social media more often or because social media increases feelings of isolation. But if you constantly find yourself reaching for your phone, whether you're at work or sitting down to dinner with your family, it might be a good idea to think about limiting your social media time.

One way to do this is to schedule certain times throughout the day for checking your social media, responding to messages and sharing updates. This will help you spend less time staring at your phone and more time connecting with those around you, whether it's your significant other, kids or friends.

3. Disable your notifications

It can be incredibly difficult to focus on the moment when you're constantly being interrupted by notifications that make you feel like you're missing out on something important. So if you've already taken the step of scheduling certain times of day for checking social media, why not enforce this by disabling the notifications on your phone?

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You'll still be able to see all your notifications when you actually sign in to social media during your scheduled visits, but you'll no longer be interrupted by messages telling you someone "liked" your status or commented on the same photo you did.

4. Be an active rather than passive user

A study conducted by University of Michigan researchers found that one possible explanation for the fact that social media seems to increase feelings of loneliness and isolation is that some people "lurk" on social media while others actively participate.

The researchers found that when people used Facebook to share photos or talk to their friends; their moods didn't change much over the course of the day. However, when they merely browsed content without contributing anything themselves, they felt significantly worse by the end of the day.

So if you're not actively participating and primarily use social media to keep tabs on what other people are up to, it might be doing you more harm than good.

5. Be honest with yourself

If you want to avoid the negative side of social media, you need to be honest with yourself about how it's affecting you. Start by reflecting on how you feel after one of your social media visits. Do you notice feelings of dissatisfaction or loneliness creeping in or do you feel happy and connected?

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Learning to recognise the symptoms of depression can also be helpful. Research shows that many cases of depression are left untreated simply because people aren't aware of what depression can look like, which means that symptoms like low self-esteem, fatigue or indecisiveness are often chalked up to other things.

Of course, social media use is unlikely to be the sole cause of your depression or anxiety, but it can aggravate an existing condition, so it's important to tune in to your emotions and pay attention to how your daily routine might be affecting your overall mood and mental wellbeing.

________________
When I was due to go on work experience at school, I missed out because of my spinal fusion surgery. Not to be deterred, a year later I found my own placement in the school holidays. It took a bit of research and rejection. I found something in the end.

I helped run the leisure centre kids club, and worked on reception for the local gym. With my skeletal frame (the operation had hit me hard for a few years) and my train track braces - I was every bit an awkward teenager.

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Each day I went into work feeling nervous. What if I couldn't reach the phone, or I needed the toilet (this was before I had full time care support)? What if I said something stupid? What if the kids asked questions about my disability? Oh the anxiety rained down hard.

However every time I went home, I felt so happy. Full of pride. Nothing bad had happened. The staff and customers were great to be around. Most of all I was participating in my local community. It felt amazing.

Recently I was lucky enough to interview Liz Sayce. Currently transitioning as CEO of Disability Rights UK to new adventures. It was a great time to look both back and forwards at the disability rights movement.

In this podcast Liz talks about the early battles. The hard campaigns fought just for disabled people to be heard. Let alone to win political and legal gains. It wasn't easy, quick or simple. But the original activists did it. Disabled people eventually got their legislative protection - the Equalities Act 2012 as it is now.

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As CEO of Disability Rights UK, Liz oversaw a difficult merger of 3 different but complimentary charities. Alongside launching great projects like the Leadership Academy Programme (LAP). The charity has grown lots. You can also watch a short video of the mentors and delegates who previously attended the LAP here.

In this great interview we agree on two very fundamental points. Two points for disabled people's rights to be upheld and improved. All people (whether disabled or not actually), should have both community participation (as in my work experience example), and universal design.

Briefly touching upon universal design too. Have you noticed when there is a ramp or steps, most people take the ramps? It's the same with digital design, public spaces, service delivery and beyond. Solutions that consider disabled people often benefit everybody else.

Inclusion is possible. We just have to open our minds.

I really hope you enjoy listening to our discussion. Liz really inspired me to encourage inclusive design, and to keep fighting the recent political regression.

With the General Election coming up, make sure you register to vote. It's important disabled people and their allies use their vote. Look for the parties wanting to invest in disabled people. Definitely not the parties looking to cut our means to live independently with choice and control.

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See you soon,

Martyn

World Changing Blogger and Author

Captain of Inclusion

CEO and Co-Founder Disability Horizons
Yuri Gripas / Reuters

Today all of us in Britain wake up to the news that Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States has given classified information regarding ISIS and allied intelligence sources within it to the Russian foreign minister at a meeting in the Oval Office. I'm sure many people will wonder what this has to do with us in the UK. After all several times a week we hear of some bizarre piece of news from the White House so one might ask why does this affect us more than all the other shambles emanating from the Trump administration?

The fact is Trump's actions in this case have put innocent lives in jeopardy, perhaps even in the UK. According to the Washington Poststory he told the Russians: "how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances... Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat." That agent under the control of an American ally that could possibly be the UK, is probably dead by now. The Russians although they have their own issues with Isis, would have no qualms leaking this info to them as long as no Russian lives were at threat in order to undermine the intelligence alliance in the West. Indeed both Russia and its ally, the Assad regime in Syria have been accused of aiding the Islamic State as much as they fight it, depending on the circumstances. For Putin's Russia, the West will always be the primary enemy and any chance of weakening Western intelligence cooperation will be a chance not to be passed up on.

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If as likely, Isis are informed, they will not only know how to alter the current plan they are working on to make it successful (doing so might be as simple as simply switching the city it's targeting) and will be able to continue working on both this plot (knowing how much it frightened the West in the first place) and other ones without being watched. Future Western information on ISIS and their plots will be much diminished due to this blabbermouth in the Oval Office (literally in the Oval Office, as that's where he told the Russian Foreign minister this information!).
The malicious ransomware attacks that affected computers in at least 150 countries on Friday could spread further as employees return to work this week, according to several cyber-security experts.

"They're going to turn on their computers in the morning and find out if they were protected or not" said James Barnett, a security expert at Venable. Moreover, the risk of getting affected is still high as employees might come back to work and click on infected links or email attachments that might further spread the ransomware software.

The ransomware has affected at least 200,000 computers worldwide since Friday. According to Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, Europe's policing agency: "The numbers are still going up. We've seen that the slowdown of the infection rate over Friday night, after a temporary fix around it, has now been overcome by a second variation the criminals have released."

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The initial attack on Friday - called "WannaCry" - first infected computers that run the UK's hospital network, Germany's national railway and several other companies and government agencies worldwide in what is being called the "the biggest ransomware attack ever." The software held the victims' computers hostage and threatened to delete their files unless they paid $300.

A 22-year old British security researcher who goes by the Twitter name MalwareTech is credited with slowing the spread of the ransomware by discovering a "kill switch" in the software that could disable the malware.

A global network of cyber-security experts are urging companies and organizations to update older Microsoft operating systems immediately to ensure they don't fall prey to a more powerful and future versions of the ransomware. The malware primarily targeted users of Windows XP, which was launched by Microsoft in 2001. The company mainly ended support for the aging operating system in 2014.

Microsoft has blamed the US government for creating the software code that was used by hackers to launch the cyber-attacks. Brad Smith, the company's lawyer wrote on Microsoft's official blog: "An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen." He further added that "repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage."

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The source of the attack is a worrisome issue for the US government because the software is based on cyber-tools developed by the National Security Agency (NSA). A group called the Shadow Brokers were able to steal the tools last summer and started publishing them online. An investigation is on-going regarding how the codes got out.

Several cyber security experts now warn that copycat variants of the ransomware software might be making its way on the internet. "We are in the second wave," said Matthieu Suiche of Comae Technologies. "As expected, the attackers have released new variants of the malware. We can surely expect more."

The effects of the ransomware attack were felt around the world, affecting computers that run factories, banks, government agencies and transport systems in several countries. Chinese media reported that more than 29,000 institutions in the country were infected by the attack, while the Japanese media has claimed that more than 600 companies were hit. However, the full extent of the attack won't be known until employees head back to work.
Nets officially name Jacque Vaughn head coach

Vaughn replaces Steve Nash, who was fired after a 2-5 start and amid franchise chaos that included Kyrie Irvings promotion of an antisemitic film.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has signed an order providing funding for the construction of Mehdiabad-Fatmayi-Goradil highway.

Under the presidential order, 1.8 million manats will be allocated from the State Budget to Azeravtoyol for the building of the highway, which connects three residential areas with a total population of 16,000 people.
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art will light up the city's famed steeples and turn the entire north side of the museum into an outdoor arts canvas. Illustration of how the lights will look. An example of Jenny Holzer's 'Projections' at Mass MoCA in 2007. PreviousNext

North Adams a Canvas for Mass MoCA Art This Summer



Ramona Fabregas explains her idea for a dense prayer flag installation. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art will light up the city's famed steeples and turn the entire north side of the museum into an outdoor arts canvas.

The use of sound, light and text are designed to tie the city into the museum's summer season, part of an ongoing initiative to get visitors to wander beyond the massive arts complex.

The Public Arts Commission on Wednesday approved elements of two of the installations that will be partially placed on municipal property.

The first, a short-term installation by Jenny Holzer, includes five projectors projecting large-scale text selected by Holzer along the north side of the museum parallel to River Street, from Sunshine Pool to the end of Building 6. The exterior work public work will kick off the opening of the Building 6 over Memorial Day weekend  adding some 120,000 square feet of gallery space  through the Solid Sound Festival in June.

Holzer was first featured at Mass MoCA in 2007 with her first indoor projection in the United States. She's best known for doing large, exterior projections, signs and illuminated displays.

Mass MoCA Executive Director Joseph Thompson told the board, at its meeting in the Eclipse Gallery, that he did not know what the Holzer's topic would be but that it should be PG-rated.

"She's best known for a series of works called truisms, in some ways short poems," he said. "Lately she's been turning her attention to poems. ... She's also expressed interest in Syrian refugee kids so I wouldn't be suprised if some of the text chosen is by poets who are influenced by children refugees."

Holzer's exhibit will also include 22 carved stone benches scattered around the Mass MoCa camps along with some of her early posters. Holzer is one of the featured artists who will have rotating exhibitions in the newly renovated Building 6 as well.

The museum was asking permission to install three 10-by-8 foot projector boxes that will be on the greenway along River Street. Two other projectors will be set on Mass MoCA Foundation land on the other side of River. Deputy Director Larry Smallwood said the projectors would sit on the grass and not need any posts or pads. They also will be manned by staff while in operation.

The exterior work will run Wednesday through Sunday from dusk to 11 p.m. beginning with the opening celebration May 27 through the final day of Solid Sound Festival on June 23-25. If the weekend crowds are larger, the display could run to midnight. Smallwood said the Porches Inn, which faces the wall, is aware of the projections and that a test drive will occur on May 26.

The second exhibit will have the four existing steeples and Mass MoCA's Clocktower Building "talking" to each other in the words of Henry David Thoreau.

Luftwerk's "Cloudland" involved LED lights placed on the tower and the steeples of Notre Dame, First Congregational, First Baptist and All Saints churches. The lights are in echo of the relighted memorial tower atop the mountain and will blink out Thoreau's description of his awakening on the mountain in  Morse code.

"The most powerful thing is a pure white light," Thompson said. "Sometimes one reads a line and sometimes they read together so it looks like they're talking to each other."

Luftwerk is known for its massive light and color displays, including creating a "Luminous Field" at Chicago's Millennium Park, a light show to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Waters, and most recently, using those elements on bridges along new The 606 bike trail in Chicago.

"It should be a really beautiful installation," Smallwood said.

A test on the clocktower building will be done on Tuesday, May 15; the museum will have the steeples inspected prior to and after the lighting displays.

Smallwood anticipates the light installation running from Memorial Day to Labor Day, or possibly through fall foliage "if everyone loves it."

The text will come from Thoreau's "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," published in 1867. One of his digressions on that trip was a solitary hike to the top of the state's highest summit and a passage of his time in "cloudland" is carved into stone on the summit.

The commission was asked to approve the use of Notre Dame on East Main Street that the city owns.

"Churches mean a whole lot to the people who live in this city so seeing it as a beacon is more powerful for me," Commissioner Julia Dixon said. "It could instill even more pride in them."

Commissioner Nancy Ziter noted that the church property is for sale and should a buyer appear, there would be a need to ensure the lighting stays in place. She and the other commissioners also cautioned that installation and removal should be done with nearby Colegrove Park Elementary School in mind so it doesn't affect traffic or children walking home.

The commissioners also saw opportunity for the school's summer programming to use the installation for studies on art, Morse code, local and natural history, and literature.

Smallwood also updated the commission on the North Adams Exchange events being planned as another way to get museum patrons downtown.

Fencing below the Memorial Bridge will be removed and a path created to entice visitors to the parking lot of the Leu building (former Mohawk Center) where several colorful tents will be set up for the city to schedule pop-up eateries and retail during the summer to create "a little hubbub of activity there at the corner of Marshall and Main," Thompson said.

"The idea is to increase foot traffic," he said, with the expectation the museum will see a rise in attendance with the opening of Building 6. "We really hope that we can attract a higher percentage of those people to explore North Adams."

The museum is already planning wayfaring signs and brochures to direct visitors off-campus, including a route to visit nine sound installations.

In other business, artist Ramona Fabregas approached the commission with the idea of doing a dense prayer flag display. She would gather 100 percent cotton muslin and invite people to write their hopes and dreams on them.

"What I like about people living here participating in this is it would be a very tangible, literal interpretation of their hopes and dreams," she said.

Fabregas offered several location where the display could go, including the footbridge at Phelps Avenue and Route 2 or across the Hoosic River along Mass MoCA's overflow parking lot.

The commission was interested in her idea and offered some suggestions, asking her to come back with a specific location and plan.
Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito met with various business owners, including Bob and Mary Thibeault, on Tuesday to discuss broadband. Joseph P. Roy, of the family-owned Floor Store, greets Lt. Gov. Polito. Gov. Baker is told by Jim and Jennifer Hallock that the system is more reliable and less expensive. Baker spent nearly two hours touring the downtown. A large group of people, from MBI and MassTech officials, to state lawmakers and administrative staff, to Charter Communications, join in the tour. The tour concludes back on Main Street after a stop at a half-dozen businesses. PreviousNext

Baker, Polito Highlight Broadband Expansion in West Stockbridge



Lt. Gov. Polito greets MBI Chairman Peter Larkin in West Stockbridge. WEST STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.  Jim and Jennifer Hallock took ownership of the Shaker Mill Tavern Family Smoke House almost a year ago. They envisioned more of a family restaurant than the bar operations of the previous owners and even built out a children's area.

But being snuggled in the rural town of West Stockbridge, they had limited access to the internet.

"My whole computer system works on the internet. DSL was so random," Jim Hallock said.

Workers would scan a credit card for payment and the system would lag, slowing the business down. And then seemingly randomly, with a restaurant filled with customers, the entire system would fail. Orders couldn't get placed, checks couldn't get printed.

Next door, Bob and Mary Thibeault have owned The Shaker Mill Inn for a decade. They remember when having any type of internet was a luxury, helping to attract visitors to the bed and breakfast. Now, patrons expect it. They need it for their tech-savvy children to download videos and games. They it for those traveling for work. And the Thibeaults would have the same issues with delays and the system crashing.

"If they don't have good access to connectivity, they'll go somewhere else," Bob Thibeault said.

Those are just a couple of the stories Gov. Charlie Baker heard on Tuesday when he toured a half-dozen West Stockbridge businesses. Last summer, he released a $1.6 million grant to incentivize Charter Communication's rollout of high-speed internet to West Stockbridge, Lanesborough, and Hinsdale. Now, he wants to know if those problems are still present.

"We've been working for the past year or so to really kick the last mile project into overdrive. I know people have done a lot of work since last summer and I was curious and wanted to talk to some of the folks who were the primary customers for this," Baker said. "I know a number of folks here were particularly excited about it and I wanted to hear what they had to say."

The Hallocks say their headaches have gone away and they're paying a whole lot less. Previously, they were paying for television, the internet, and phone services separately and that cost upward of $700 and now they have a bundled price for all three at around $350.

"It's been working beautifully. It makes all of the difference," said Lisa Landry, who co-owns the No. Six Depot coffee shop. "I think more businesses will come here if they know they can rely on it."

Joseph P. Roy runs the Floor Store and internet access has given him a greater ability to meet with clients. The store handles most of its sales online and Charter's rollout has created the ability to send contracts back and forth with clients and send large files.

And it isn't just about businesses. Sheila and Randy Thunfors of Stone Hill Properties told Baker a story of a client who had purchased a home years ago for some $800,000 but because the residence doesn't have internet access,had to sell it for a half-million dollars less.

Deputy Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Carolyn Kirk said high-speed internet access is no longer a luxury.

"The transformative nature of having high-speed internet access is just unquestioned in today's day and age," Kirk said, adding that over and over again citizens were "crying out" for it.

"Having broadband is the equivalent to having electricity 100 years ago."

Bringing broadband to the rural towns of Western Massachusetts has been a long and drawn-out process. It began more than 10 years ago. In 2007, the state government created the Massachusetts Broadband Initiative, which was coupled with a $40 million grant to connect all corners of the commonwealth.

Throughout the year's more and more money was added as MBI worked through three concepts  the first mile, middle mile, and last mile, bringing connections across the state. Then came the middle mile, in which the MBI brought high-speed internet to town halls and other public buildings through the unserved towns.

But then the wheels began spinning when trying to find ways to complete the last mile, bringing broadband internet to homes. When Baker took office, he put a temporary halt on the program to rethink it. He rolled out a plan loosening some of the restrictions on the program to allow for additional options  such as a Charter or Comcast expansion. It lifted a restriction requiring fiber wire to every individual home.



Lisa Landry told the governor that high-speed internet made a significant different in her business. "We've found some good partners to work with in the private sector and found a variety of alternatives, depending on which community you are from what you can pursue, and our goal at this point is to get everybody wired," Baker said.

Kirk said 85 percent of the households in the 53 unserved and underserved towns now have a path to high-speed internet. Comcast expanded in nine towns and Charter expanded in West Stockbridge, Lanesborough and Hinsdale.

A proposal is before Egremont, Hancock, Monterey, New Salem, Princeton, and Shutesbury as one large project to connect all of those through Charter and debate in each town is ongoing whether or not to pursue it.

Six others, including Otis and Mount Washington, have grants to build out their own networks.

"In total, we have about 27,000 premises and we have a path for 85 percent. We need to find a path for another 5,000 premises sprinkled in different towns," Kirk said. "We are not finished yet but we have made a lot of progress in the past year."

Otis and Mount Washington are expected to be lit up this fall and Kirk says every few months from then on more and more towns will be connected.

"We believe that every citizen in every town that wants it, should have it," Kirk said.

Baker said there is no specific timeline on when the expansion will be complete because many of the decisions are outside of the administration's realm. The towns still have to choose and there has to be willing partners and programs in place. But, he said he is being "very aggressive" in finishing the long-awaited broadband project.

"The goal at this point is to get everybody connected as quickly as we can," Baker said.




iciHaiti - Prison : Deplorable health condition





As part of a medical assistance program for detainees, the Hospital of Leogane "Help Hospital And School" took stock of its interventions in prisons in Haiti from May 2016 to May 2017.



Eloi Berius, the institution's President and CEO, revealed that during this period, 3,828 detainees were taken into custody in the prisons of Hinche, Arcahaie, Petion-vill and the national penitentiary, pointing out that the most recurring pathologies in the Penitentiary centers in Haiti are tuberculosis, vaginal infection and syphilis. It also deplores the significant increase in cases of contagious diseases in prisons due to poor sanitary conditions in prison facilities and hygiene conditions.



The second phase of this program will start on 5 June in the towns of Les Cayes and Petit-Goave.



PI/ iciHaiti


















Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

Fazil Gurbanov, the president of the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress, has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to pay special attention to the situation that has emerged regarding the Congress.

We completely reject the decision of the [Russian] Supreme Court! Gurbanov said in an appeal posted on the website of the Congress. We express hope that the highest judicial authorities of the Russian Federation will treat our arguments and concerns with understanding.

On May 15, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made an unprecedented decision to liquidate Azerbaijans largest diaspora organization, the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress, reads the statement.

The Congress, which unites more than 2 million Azerbaijanis living almost in all regions of Russia, was established in 2001 on the initiative of the late President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, the statement said.

Throughout 16 years of its activity, the organization has played a huge role in strengthening of civil peace and interethnic harmony in Russia, development and deepening of socio-economic and cultural cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan, according to the statement.

Gurbanov noted that mistakes were made in the Congresss activity in past years in the records and documents management, at times there was no prompt reaction to the letters of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, the meetings of the Central Council of the Congress were not held in due time, etc.

The most important thing is that the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation has not put forward any accusations regarding the organizations activity, Gurbanov noted, adding this means that the ministry fully approves of the organizations positive activity aimed at strengthening of relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, as well as the great work on integration of Azerbaijanis into Russias legal environment.

In fact, all the charges  grounded and ungrounded ones  are of purely technical nature and are not at all correlated to the fundamental tasks of the organization, which successfully solves them, the statement said.

At a trial, we stated that the new leadership of the organization had already done a lot of work to eliminate the mistakes made earlier, developed a set of measures preventing the repetition of such faults in the future, Gurbanov said. However, the earlier adopted decision was executed through the court.

I think the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is flawed and counterproductive! Gurbanov said in his statement. In fact, it is infringing the civil rights of Azerbaijanis in Russia.

But, unfortunately, we were not heard, Gurbanov added. The decision of the Supreme Court can have far-reaching consequences.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to King of Norway Harald V.

It is my pleasure to extend my most sincere congratulations to you and through you to all the people of your country on the occasion of the national holiday of the Kingdom of Norway  Constitution Day, Ilham Aliyev told King of Norway in his letter. On this remarkable day, I wish you robust health and happiness, and the friendly people of Norway lasting peace and prosperity.
Staff members of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) participated in a charitable blood-donation action held at the Higher School.

It was organized upon joint initiative of SOCAR and Central Blood Bank of the Research Institute of Hematology and Transfusion named after B.Eyvazov of the Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan.

Specialist of the Department on Providing Medical Services to SOCAR employees doctor Jamshid Shahverdiyev supervised the blood donation process with support from an outreach brigade of highly qualified doctors of the Central Blood bank of the Research Institute of Hematology and Transfusion. The blood donated during the action, which was conducted among SOCAR units and subdivisions, will be used during blood transfusion for children with thalassemia.
Applicants who earned 700 points at the exam held by the State Exam Center on II major group, a student of the school-lyceum 3 of Aghjabadi region Arzu Mammadzade and a student of Baku Turkish lyceum of Turkish Dayanat Foundation Javad Aliyev, have visited UNEC.

Expressing their desire to study in English, the applicants met with the Director of UNECs International School of Economics Anar Rzayev. A. Rzayev congratulated the young people with the highest results they achieved and said the interactive classes taught in the International School of Economics of UNEC are conducted by the alumni of the leading world universities. Undergraduate Programs in World Economy, Finance, Accounting, Economics and Business are implemented here. Students also attend international Exchange Programs of UNEC.

Meeting with US Professor Bulent Aybar who perform at UNEC for one term was very memorable for the applicants. B. Aybar provided the students with recommendations about the major choice and revealed the requirements of the world labor market. The professor highlighted that UNEC is developing professional cadres to meet the requirements of the global labor market.

The applicants were very interested in cooperation held between UNEC and the worlds leading universities the University of London/ London School of Economics and Montpellier University of France. They were informed that UNEC creates the opportunity to receive a Bachelors Degree from both prestigious universities of the Europe. Every student who enters UNEC with more than 600 scores is granted 100 AZN of scholarship at the universitys expense. In addition, UNEC grants excellent students scholarship to 15 students on each course who get the highest result from the exams.

The applicants appreciated the opportunities created by UNEC for educated and talented students. They also met with successful start-ups of the Innovative Business Incubator. The start-ups answered their questions about the establishment of an idea, its implementation and incubation period in detail.

The Electronic University Model was of great interest for the young people. They were provided with the advantages of the Electronic University Model. Visiting UNECs library, the applicants were interested in the books on the majors they would choose. UNEC students introduced them textbooks of the leading world universities they use.

Applicants also highly evaluated the fact that the classes are held open to public at UNEC. Getting acquainted with the schedule of the International School of Economics, they expressed their desire to attend classes before the major choice.
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The term populism has been much in vogue recently amid the surge of discontent, the political upheavals which gave us Brexit, Donald Trump and a future of uncertainty. But there is another, noble, tradition of popular protest, of people standing up against repressive regimes, often against overwhelming odds, often with great sacrifice, to strive for freedom and the right to dissent.

The drive for change, for reform and justice, can take different forms. For Ai Weiwei, creative art is the way to escape the straitjacket of totalitarianism. It is like ice meeting fire. Authoritarian rule is serious and incapable of humour, it exercises strict control over thoughts, to prevent the rise of ideas other than its own he says. There is no room for communication or negotiation, because otherwise it would lose ground.

But Ai Weiwei, the artist who became a champion of people wronged by a brutalised system, wants to stress that Change is not a matter of belief. It is as inevitable as evolution. The question is not whether changes will happen or not. Change can happen at any time, anywhere, it is happening now.

But the struggle for change comes at a cost. Ai Weiwei was severely beaten and hospitalised after daring to expose the construction scandal which contributed to the thousands of deaths in the Sichuan earthquakes. Those opposing state suppression face the threat of being assaulted, jailed, even killed. The rulers subvert the rule of law, shut down the schools and colleges, persecute trades union and the media.

Ai Weiwei was writing in the foreword to a new book, Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief, which charts the voices of protests in the many forms they take. They range from marching for black civil rights in the American south to the Arab Spring and Maidan protests in Ukraine to insubordination through eating sandwiches in Thailand, and the breaking of womens driving bans in Saudi Arabia.

Ai Weiwei posted a picture of himself on Instagram with the caption: Today, I got my passport (EPA)

Street Spirit is a wonderfully crafted work, written lucidly and sympathetically  but never cloyingly  about the activism which is shaping our world. It benefits greatly from having as author Steve Crawshaw, an acclaimed former foreign correspondent who is now a senior official at Amnesty International. It is lavishly filled with photographs, some of them well-known, capturing the passion of protest. There are reminders in the pictures of how the struggle needs to continue. The image of Leshia Evans standing in front of riot police during a Black Lives Matter rally in Baton Rouge mirrors 17-year-old Jan Rose Kassmir standing with a flower in her hand in front of a soldiers with bayonets 39 years earlier.

Working for The Independent, Crawshaw covered the collapse of the Soviet Union, the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Balkan wars which followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. He brings the hard-earned experience of observing history and putting matters in perspective in confusing scenarios.

Umbrellas are opened as tens of thousands come to the main protest site one month after the Hong Kong police used tear gas to disperse protesters (Getty)

Crawshaw points out how governments and officials and, indeed, the media, often failed to gauge the mood of society in transition. The US ambassador to Egypt, for instance, advised her colleagues in Washington in December 2008 that there was no chance of Hosni Mubarak being removed from power by non-violent protests. Margaret Scobey was wrong: that is precisely what happened two years later.

While Crawshaw was reporting on the strikes in Poland  which would eventually lead to the country breaking free from Moscow - there were journalists sitting back in London pouring cold water on the prospect of anything much changing. The dockyard workers had demanded the creation of a free trade union: The Times declared that the authorities clearly would not accept this as  the Russians would not agree. It concluded floridly and patronisingly that the  romantic and volatile Pole of tradition was now  less in evidence.

A demonstrator holds up George Orwell's book 1984 during a rally outside the Art and Cultural centre in Bangkok (Getty)

As eastern Europe transformed, and the Berlin Wall fell, Crawshaw noticed the sense of surprise among politicians. He came to believe that they were startled because it never occurred to them that citizens could achieve so much by themselves. That reluctance to take individual courage seriously remains relevant today.

There is, however, another aspect to this. Western politicians, having failed to see what was coming, compensated by encouraging people to rise up, by calling for regime change - but then did nothing when regimes lashed back with brutal violence. Or, when regime change did take place, did nothing to stabilise the volatile situation.

Red Square, Moscow, 2012: eight women in home-made balaclavas, now famously known as the band Pussy Riot, challenge President Putin with their music

Fellow journalists and I witnessed this when covering the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Nato intervention in Libya, after David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy demanded that Gaddafi must go, led to the downfall and death of the dictator. But Britain and France, along with other Western countries, then abandoned Libya as it disintegrated between warring militias and Isis arrived and set up bases in the security vacuum.

In Syria the cry was Assad must go, with Cameron yet again among the chorus leaders. When the Assad regime reacted with ferocious repression there was next to no help from the West. In the following years going into Syria with rebels I saw what was left of the moderate opposition getting killed or driven out, by both Assads forces and Isis and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. There is no end to this war, one of the most pitiless and destructive in recent history, in sight.

The assembled puppets of Top Goon and the chief villain 'Beeshu' with Assad's distinctive features

But, away from the missteps of geopolitics, Street Spirit reminds us of the extraordinary resilience of people, men and women, young and old, who have shown extraordinary determination, a refusal to be cowed by intimidation and violence.

The most effective answer to force at times, the book points out, is humour  the  Power of Mischief. The photographs of protestors dressed as clowns lined up beside the riot police during a G-8 summit in Rostov; of a police officer taking down the particulars of subversive fluffy toys in Putins Russia; the activist dressed as a donkey giving a press conference in Azerbaijan (he was jailed as a result); giant plastic ducks used to represent the tanks being faced by the lone protestor in Tiananmen Square show the absurdity of brute force.

Sarah McBride posted this defiant selfie after North Carolina passed a bill making it illegal for her to enter a women's bathroom

There are plenty of reminders of the continuing threat to the values of decency and tolerance, to civil liberties, some of this due to the rise of populism. The book is dedicated to the MP Jo Cox, murdered during the Brexit campaign. But Street Protest is about hope, not despair, a tonic for our times. There are, it points out, many ways to fight back  marches, debates, petitions, giant plastic ducks, and, of course, social media. In the words of Ai Weiwei: Never retreat. Retweet''.

Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief by Steve Crawshaw, forword by Ai Weiei (Michael O'Mara/ LOM Art, 16.99)
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The Secret Scripture (12A)



Jim Sheridan, 108 mins, starring: Rooney Mara, Jack Reynor, Theo James, Aidan Turner, Eric Bana, Vanessa Redgrave

Melodramas dont come more overwrought than Jim Sheridans version of Sebastian Barrys Booker prize winning novel. Unfolding to the accompaniment of a piano-based soundtrack (with Moonlight Sonata to the fore), this is the story of the benighted Rose McNulty.

She is played as a young woman by Rooney Mara - and as a very old one by Vanessa Redgrave. She is an innocent woman who has been made to suffer like Job because her beauty brought out sexual jealousy and malice in those around her.

As first encountered, Rose is the venerable, long-term patient in a psychiatric hospital. She had been locked up many years before for brutally killing her own newborn child. The hospital is about to be closed to make way for a luxury hotel and its main doctor (Adrian Dunbar) is keen to hurry on Rose somewhere else as soon as possible.

Another doctor, Stephen Greene (Eric Bana), has come to the hospital to look at Roses case and rubber-stamp her removal. Its at this point the heart-tugging begins in earnest. Stephen has issues in his own life that heighten his curiosity about this elderly woman living in her own little purgatory and who just cant function in the real world. Rose has a Bible on the pages of which she has secretly scrawled her reminiscences.

There are shades of Stephen Frears Philomena and Peter Mullans The Magdalena Sisters here. This is yet another drama which exposes the cruelty of the Irish state toward fallen women. Rose is being punished because of the hypocrisy, misogyny and anti-British feeling of others.

Her diary entries prompt the flashbacks to the 1940s, when she was a young woman during the Second World War. She was a Protestant. The Catholics, and especially the local branch of the IRA, had no interest at all in supporting the British war effort. Rose wasn't remotely political herself but her actions - and her very presence - exposed her to extreme danger.

The most ambiguous figure here is the young and good looking priest Father Gaunt (played by Theo James in a febrile way that rekindles memories of an equally anguished Montgomery Clift in I, Confess.) He is widely respected but cant deal with his own sexual attraction toward Rose.

It doesnt help her cause, either, that she has fallen in love with a young man. Michael McNulty (Jack Reynor) who has become an RAF pilot - and who is therefore regarded with loathing by the many who want the Brits to lose the war.

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Sheridan does an effective job of showing the backbiting and feuding in the small town where Rose is spending the war years. Mara is very striking as the beautiful, stubborn heroine who wont give in to intimidation or apologise for loving the RAF man.

In the scenes in which the young couple hide away in a cottage in the woods, the film takes on a fairytale aspect. Redgrave impresses, too, playing Rose as a frail but still very steely old woman who has endured incarceration for 50 years or more and knows the injustice of her own situation. I did not kill my child, she repeats again and again.

Its the construction, not the performances, which undermines The Secret Scripture. The flashbacks are handled in a clunky fashion. Elements which might have seemed convincing on the page in a literary novel feel very contrived in a movie.

Rose will be walking through the woods when the RAF man just happens to be hanging from the trees by his parachute. The links between Banas character, psychiatrist Stephen Greene, who never knew his real mother, and the venerable Rose, who has spent over half her lifetime pining for a lost child, seem just a little glib and convenient.

If The Secret Scripture had been made as a full blown Hollywood weepie, the sudden plot reversals and heavily telegraphed final reel revelations would have been easier to take. Instead, the film at least flirts with realism. It has brutal moments - assassinations during wartime, shock treatment and forced feeding in the asylum.

There are competing and contradictory accounts about what happened to Roses child and Sheridan deliberately obfuscates matters in flashbacks which seem to be showing us the truth but may, in fact, be lies. The lachrymose music has a deadening effect.

Occasionally, it does tug at the heartstrings in the way that was surely intended. Its impact, though, is dulled by the shifts in time, lurches in tone and its very tricksy and contrived plotting.

Snatched (15)



Jonathan Levine, 90 mins, starring: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz, Christopher Meloni, Oscar Jaenada

You can tell this is a very base comedy from the scene early on in which Emily Middleton (Amy Schumer) and her mother Linda (Goldie Hawn) are offered a welcome drink at the expensive hotel in Ecuador where theyve arrived on holiday together.

The drink in question is a suspicious looking concoction, white, viscous and so disgusting that Hawn instantly spits it out. The joke here, so crude and mindless that even raunchy, end of the pier entertainers like Roy Chubby Brown would be embarrassed by it, is that this is whale cum.

Your heart sinks when you see comedians as talented as Schumer and Hawn being fed such low-grade gags. There are moments here which are genuinely funny but Snatched feels overall like a very botched job. This is Hawns first movie in 14 years and one of her least distinguished. It doesnt have anything like the momentum or charm of Trainwreck, Schumers abrasive but witty and sweet-natured romantic comedy from 2015.

The film has barely started when Schumers character Emily is told by her hipster musician boyfriend Michael (Randall Park) that he is splitting up with her on the grounds that he wants hundreds of pussies and she only has one. This means that Emily has no one to take with her on her already paid for, non-refundable holiday to South America.

 Snatched - Trailer 2

Shes single. So is her cat-loving mum (Hawn). After discovering an old photo album which reveals that the mum used to be quite a party gal, Emily decides to take her on the holiday.

Hawns an old trooper and still has some of that quirky charm she first displayed in Rowan and Martins Laugh-In half a century ago. Whether shes smearing her daughters body with suntan lotion or trying to calm herself at a moment of crisis by reading a pornographic magazine, she can squeeze the comedy out of the most unpromising situations.

Schumer has a nice line in self-deprecation too. At first, shell seem to be the butt of the joke but invariably somebody else ends up looking even more stupid than she does. Here, she is charmed by James (Tom Bateman), a good looking but very smarmy Englishman in the Colin Firth mould.

Her relationship with him leads to the key event in the movie, the kidnapping of Emily and her mum by hardened gangster/drug-dealer type Morgado (Oscar Jaenada), who looks and behaves as if he is on leave from an episode of Narcos. He does point out, quite accurately, that Emily and her mother have no interest at all in South America or its people.

Much of the rest of the movie consists of mother and daughter trying to flee from their captors. They run through the jungle, head down river in an African Queen-like boat piloted by a hapless American adventurer and Emily stops at one stage for an impromptu medical examination. This prompts the most grotesque scene in the entire movie - the doctor trying to coax out a gigantic tapeworm from deep in Schumers gut.

 Snatched Clip - Poofy Face

While mother and daughter are getting into more and more trouble, back home in the US Emilys brother Jeffrey (Ike Barinholtz) is contemplating how best to rescue them. He is a determinedly nerdy character who hates to leave home but hes the one Morgado contacts to demand a ransom.

Between scenes of Schumer and Hawn desperately trying to escape their captors, there are scenes of Jeffrey having tetchy conversations with a state department official (Bashir Salahuddin) who makes it very clear the American government has little interest in rescuing the two women. Jeffrey is crestfallen to discover that the government doesnt even have an A-Team like a squad of hardened veterans to send into South America in search of them.

The third comic double act in the movie, after the mum and daughter and Jeffrey and the agent, is Wanda Sykess motor-mouthed Ruth and her silent friend Barb (Joan Cusack), guests at the same hotel who seem to moonlight as vigilantes.

Katie Dippolds screenplay is episodic and haphazard. Amid all the jokes about incontinence and snoring, the film can become very vicious. There are torture scenes. Baddies get their heads smashed with spades or are savaged by dogs.

Whats most disappointing about the film is that the relationship between mother and daughter simply doesnt change. The film begins with an inter-title promising us violence, mayhem and a reckless disregard for life and then adds the kidnappers did bad stuff too. This promises a war of attrition between Schumer and Hawns characters.

In fact, Emily and her mom get on just fine. Each embarrasses the other from time to time but theres no hostility between them. Its clear from the outset that theyre far too much for the villainous Morgado to handle. This means there is no dramatic tension whatsoever. This isnt so much a coherent movie as a lot of comedy sketches strung together. While Schumer turns out to be a dead-eyed shot, the film itself has a very wayward aim.

Colossal (15)



Nacho Vigalondo, 109 mins, starring: Anne Hathaway, , Dan Stevens, Jason Sudeikis, Tim Blake Nelson, Austin Stowell, Agam Darshi

Writer-director Nacho Vigalondos Colossal is a bizarre affair, a US indie drama set in a small town that keeps on turning into a Godzilla-style Asian monster movie. Its an ugly mish-mash of a film in which the two storytelling styles continually chafe against each other.

Anne Hathaway (who also executive produced) plays Gloria, a young woman living in New York with her censorious English boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) and drinking and partying to make up for the fact that she cant find a job. Tim claims to love her but that doesnt stop him booting her out of their shared apartment. She is therefore forced back to the town where she grew up. Her old home is empty, stripped of furniture and with nobody living there.

She moves back in and sleeps on the floor. She also picks up on an old friendship with Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), someone she has known since childhood. Oscar has never left the town. He runs a dead-end bar where he hangs out with his friends, the waspish, drug-addled Garth (Tim Blake Nelson) and the good looking but very dull Joel (Austin Stokewell.)

 Colossal - Trailer 2

For a while, it seems as if were back in the realm of early Tom DiCillo or Jim Jarmusch films in which listless characters sit around in bars, mulling what might have been. The difference here is that as Gloria and her friends drink their days away, a monster is on the loose in Seoul. TV carries live transmissions of this giant creature, roaming the city and leaving devastation in its wake.

Its here that the film becomes very absurd indeed. Hathaway realises that the monster is mimicking her movements. If she dances around in the towns old playground, the monster will perform exactly the same moves at exactly the same time. It is her mirror image.

The most impressive aspect of Colossal is its willingness to deal with the disappointments and burning resentments of its main characters. At first, Sudeikis Oscar seems laid-back and genial. Gradually, we discover that he is hugely frustrated with his life and has strong feelings for Gloria.

The film suffers from credibility problems - and thats not just because of the gigantic creature wreaking havoc in South Korea. Hathaway seems strangely cast as Gloria. She is supposed to be a self-pitying near alcoholic who cant take control of her own life. Hathaway, though, is such a strong screen presence that its hard to believe in her as such a weak and needy type.

Vigalondo certainly surprises us and defies expectations. Colossal seems at times to be shaping up as a low-key, character-based comedy but then will suddenly head off in a far bleaker direction. By depicting the monster, he is giving a literal form to ideas that would more normally be dealt with in metaphorical fashion. The strategy, though, is flaky and distracting. The film would surely have worked far better with the monster left in the box and the Korean scenes excised altogether.

Machines (12A)



Rahul Jain, 71 mins

A kid can barely keep his eyes open as he works at the machines. An adult chews tobacco in his moments off, the only small luxury he can afford. Everyone works 12 hour days. Jains brilliant documentary about life inside a vast Indian textile factory both conforms to our preconceptions and sometimes turns them on their head.

As we might expect, the conditions are hellish. The machines move at an unrelenting pace and the humans have to keep up with them. What is surprising is the beauty of the film. There are long held shots in which the camera glides all around the vast factory floor, showing exhausted workers asleep on the bundles of textiles theyve been so busy producing and sudden explosions of colour.

Much of the film is fly on the wall observation but there are selected interviews with workers and their foremen. The factory employees, many of them extremely skilled, have few rights. If they do try to form unions, they face intimidation from their bosses.

Theyre both resilient and fatalistic - half resigned to their own exploitation. They want to fight back but are very aware of what it might cost them and their families. Jain doesn't editorialise or include a didactic John Pilger-style commentary pointing out the injustice of it all or explaining just where and how all those garments westerners wear are made. Even so, the film has a quietly devastating charge.
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Jeremy Corbyn has appeared on the Boy Better Know Wikipedia page following the launch of a 'Grime4Corbyn' campaign.

The Labour leader was listed as a founder member of the grime collective alongside Skepta and Jme, and as a "current artist".

The Labour manifesto also appeared on the BBK discography alongside Wiley's album Godfather and Skepta's Mercury Prize-winning Konnichiwa.

The 'Grime 4 Corbyn' website urges people to register to vote and features a Soundcloud embed for the track 'Corbyn Riddim', which was produced by DA.

People who register to vote will apparently be eligible to win a pair of tickets to a secret party in London - with a date and venue TBC.

Following the launch of the campaign, the hashtag #grime4corbyn was one of the top trends on Twitter in the UK at the time of writing.

Corbyn recently met with Jme to discuss the forthcoming general election, where the BBK co-founder (Jme, not Corbyn), urged young people to register to vote.

Taking over Corbyn's Snapchat he said: "Hi, it's Jme, Boy Better Know. I'm on Jeremy's Snapchat to make sure you register to vote."

The pair spoke about music, education and art, and Jme explained why he felt that "bare of us don't vote" in UK politics.

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Jme is one of several artists who have urged their fans to get involved in the general election - others include Stormzy, AJ Tracey, Akala and Novelist.

Akala wrote a detailed post on his Facebook page where he admitted that, while he had never voted in a general election before, he would be voting Labour in support of Corbyn.

Recommended Jeremy Corbyn responds to Jme tweets encouraging people to vote

"I am not a Labour supporter," he wrote. "I do not share the romanticism of many that the Labour party was ever as radical an alternative as some would like to think.

"Labour  despite building the welfare state/NHS - has been an imperialist party from Atlee to Wilson to Blair, thus for a third world internationalist such as myself I have never been able to cast a vote for them. In truth my politics are closer at present to the Green party, of the options available."

"So why will I be voting now?" he continued. "The answer will surprise none of you, Jeremy Corbyn. Its not that I am naive enough to believe that one man (who is of course powerless without the people that support him) can fundamentally alter the nature of British politics, or that I think that if he/Labour win that the UK will suddenly reflect his personal political convictions, or even that I believe that the prime minister actually runs the country.

"I also recognize that Mr. Corbyn is a human and as such is an imperfect leader. He was abysmal during the Brexit campaign for example and this whole sense that a left wing exit from the EU was possible via a campaign led by anti-immigrant fervor is to my mind ridiculous. It seems around this issue Corbyn was more committed to an ideology than reality and how that reality would affect real people. He is a politician, he will make more mistakes, or at least what I deem to be mistakes."

You can read the full post by Akala here.

Voter registration closes at midnight on 22 May - click here to register.
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Late yesterday (15 May), The Washington Post revealed how Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information about the Islamic State to Russian diplomats.

One of the major talking points during the election campaign  which the Presidents team leveraged  was the Clinton email scandal, Republicans criticising the candidate for being carless with sensitive data.

For instance, Trump Tweeted in July last year: Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. Not fit!

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

The Daily Shows social media team has decided to bring up these Tweets once more, asking: "How many times will we find Republicans criticising the exact thing Trump is doing?

Tweets include those by Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Sean Spicer. See the entire thread below.

Daily Show host Trevor Noah joked about the incident during the show, starting off by discussing the firing of FBI director James Comey. We were all, like, 'Man, it can't get any worse,'" Noah said. "We were wrong.

I knew something was up when we saw President Trump with the Russians  and they were smiling," he joked. "There's only two times a Russian man smiles: the day he dies, and this. Watch below.

When the original Comey news was announced, Noah lambasted the President, joking: You cant just fire the FBI director. If hes gone, whos going to investigate Russias ties to  oooooh. Watch here.
Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

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Reductions in carbon emissions by India and China will eclipse any rise in the US as a result of Donald Trumps efforts to boost the coal industry, according to a new analysis.

The Climate Action Tracker (CAT) found that recent developments in China and India, where there has been a marked shift away from coal, would reduce the projected growth in emissions by some three billion tonnes compared to a forecast made just a year ago.

By contrast, Mr Trumps sweeping policy rollbacks were unlikely to have a major impact on global emissions by 2030, the project said on its website.

Dr Yvonne Deng, a consultant scientist at Ecofys, which contributes to the CAT project, said: In the last 10 years, the energy market has transformed.

The price of renewable energy from wind and solar has dropped drastically.

Renewables are now cost-competitive and being built at a much faster rate than coal-fired power plants.

Bill Hare, of Climate Analytics, said the turnaround had been dramatic from the days when rapidly developing countries were powering their economies largely on coal.

Five years ago, the idea of either China or India stopping  or even slowing  coal use was considered an insurmountable hurdle, as coal-fired power plants were thought by many to be necessary to satisfy the energy demands of these countries, he said.

Recent observations show they are now on the way toward overcoming this challenge.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

The CAT analysis found that if the Trump administration rescinded Barack Obamas flagship Clean Power Plan, and US states, cities or others did not compensate for this, carbon dioxide emissions would be up to 200 million tonnes higher in 2025.

However, the overall impact of his policies would see American emissions plateau, rather than falling as had been projected under the Obama administration.
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One of the worlds rarest animals could be extinct within months unless the president of Mexico takes action, conservation group WWF has warned.

There are believed to be fewer than 30 vaquitas  a type of porpoise compared to the panda because of the black circles around its eyes  left alive with the last ones found in Mexico's Gulf of California.

Some 90 per cent of the population has been lost in just six years, largely because they are caught in banned gillnets used to catch another endangered animal, the totoaba, for its swim bladders, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

However Mexicos two-year ban on gillnets is set to expire at the end of this month, removing a vital safeguard.

Chris Gee, head of campaigns at WWF-UK, said: Time is rapidly running out for the vaquita, we could tragically lose the panda of the sea in a matter of months.

We need the publics help now to motivate the Mexican government to act to protect the species and the World Heritage site that provides home to the vaquita.

The last hope for the species is the Mexican government immediately putting in place and properly enforcing a permanent ban on gillnets.

This will also help safeguard this precious World Heritage site and the livelihoods of the local people who depend on it.

The conservation group is asking people to sign a letter to the Mexican president, Enrique Pena Nieto, on its website at www.wwf.org.uk/vaquita.

I encourage you to take immediate action to secure long-term protection of the Gulf of California World Heritage site, home of the last 30 vaquitas, as a positive legacy of your leadership for Mexicans and the world, the letter says.

The Upper Gulf of California is the only place where the vaquita lives. You have been a champion of the species in the past.

To prevent its extinction, a permanent gillnet ban is urgently needed, together with the development of fishing alternatives and effective enforcement to halt illegal totoaba fishing and end its trade from Mexico to China.

The plea came as an undercover investigation by the Elephant Action League (EAL) found totoaba swim bladders, known as maws, for sale at $20,000 (about 15,500) per kilogram, which is comparable to the price of gold or illicit drugs.

The illegal wildlife trade worldwide is thought to be worth about 15bn a year, making it the fourth largest international criminal trade after drugs, guns and human trafficking.

Animals in decline Show all 8 1 /8 Animals in decline Animals in decline Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) Where: Orkney Islands. What: Between 2001-2006, numbers in Orkney declined by 40 per cent. Why: epidemics of the phocine distemper virus are thought to have caused major declines, but the killing of seals in the Moray Firth to protect salmon farms may have an impact. Alamy Animals in decline African lion (Panthera leo) Where: Ghana. What: In Ghanas Mole National Park, lion numbers have declined by more than 90 per cent in 40 years. Why: local conflicts are thought to have contributed to the slaughter of lions and are a worrying example of the status of the animal in Western and Central Africa. Animals in decline Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Where: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Costa Rica. What: Numbers are down in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It declined by 95 per cent between 1989-2002 in Costa Rica. Why: mainly due to them being caught as bycatch, but theyve also been affected by local developments. Alamy Animals in decline Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) Where: South Atlantic. What: A rapid decline. One population, from Bird Island, South Georgia, declined by 50 per cent between 1972-2010, according to the British Antarctic Survey. Why: being caught in various commercial longline fisheries. Alamy Animals in decline Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) Where: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. What: fall in populations has been dramatic. In the early 1990s numbers were over a million, but are now estimated to be around 50,000. Why: the break up of the former USSR led to uncontrolled hunting. Increased rural poverty means the species is hunted for its meat Animals in decline Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) Where: found worldwide in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas. Why: at risk from overfishing and as a target in recreational fishing. A significant number of swordfish are also caught by illegal driftnet fisheries in the Mediterranean Animals in decline Argali Sheep (Ovis mammon) Where: Central and Southern Asian mountains,usually at 3,000-5,000 metres altitude. Why: domesticated herds of sheep competing for grazing grounds. Over-hunting and poaching. Animals in decline Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) Where: the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands (Polynesia), north to the Ryukyu Islands (south-west Japan), and south to New Caledonia. Why: Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and trading of the species

EALs executive director, Andrea Crosta, said: Given the dire circumstances surrounding vaquitas and the issues associated with the totoaba swim bladder trade in Mexico, including possible corruption and involvement of drug cartels, it is vital to fully research, investigate, and map all aspects of the totoaba supply chain, including the players that need to be neutralized.

She said EAL would make details of its Operation Fake Gold investigation available to all the countries involved.
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New Zealands iconic yellow-eyed penguins  displayed on billboards greeting people arriving at the countrys main airports  could become extinct from the mainland in 25 years, scientists have warned.

Once-busy breeding grounds are now overgrown and silent with just a few pairs trying to carry on as birds are caught in fishing nets, are killed by unidentified toxins in the sea and suffer because of the general degradation of the marine environment by humans.

Global warming is also thought to be playing a part in the animals demise, according for about a third of the population decline.

The penguins decline comes despite its use as a means to attract tourists to the country.

New Zealands other famous bird, the kiwi, is also in trouble with the northern brown kiwi and the Okarito brown kiwi both classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In a new study, researchers developed a model to predict what will happen to the yellow-eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula over the next few decades.

Published in the journal PeerJ, the results produced by one model found the birds would become locally extinct by 2060 as rising ocean temperatures impact their ability to breed successfully.

However, when mass adult die-off events  such as the deaths of more than 60 in 2013  were factored in, this brought the extinction date much further forward.

Dr Ursula Ellenberg, of La Trobe University, who has researched yellow-eyed penguins for the past 14 years, said: It is sobering to see the previously busy penguin-breeding areas now overgrown and silent, with only the odd lonely pair hanging on.

The lead author of the research paper, Dr Thomas Mattern, pointed out the birds status in New Zealand. In addition to being used to promote the country as a tourist destination, they also appear on the countrys $5 note.

Yet despite being celebrated in this way, the species has been slowly slipping towards local extinction, he said.

The problem is that we lack data to examine the extent of human impacts, ranging from fisheries interactions, introduced predators to human disturbance, all of which contribute to the penguins' demise.

However, considering that climate change explains only around a third of the variation in penguin numbers, clearly those other factors play a significant role.

Unlike climate change, these factors could be managed on a regional scale.

Animals in decline Show all 8 1 /8 Animals in decline Animals in decline Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) Where: Orkney Islands. What: Between 2001-2006, numbers in Orkney declined by 40 per cent. Why: epidemics of the phocine distemper virus are thought to have caused major declines, but the killing of seals in the Moray Firth to protect salmon farms may have an impact. Alamy Animals in decline African lion (Panthera leo) Where: Ghana. What: In Ghanas Mole National Park, lion numbers have declined by more than 90 per cent in 40 years. Why: local conflicts are thought to have contributed to the slaughter of lions and are a worrying example of the status of the animal in Western and Central Africa. Animals in decline Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Where: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Costa Rica. What: Numbers are down in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It declined by 95 per cent between 1989-2002 in Costa Rica. Why: mainly due to them being caught as bycatch, but theyve also been affected by local developments. Alamy Animals in decline Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) Where: South Atlantic. What: A rapid decline. One population, from Bird Island, South Georgia, declined by 50 per cent between 1972-2010, according to the British Antarctic Survey. Why: being caught in various commercial longline fisheries. Alamy Animals in decline Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) Where: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. What: fall in populations has been dramatic. In the early 1990s numbers were over a million, but are now estimated to be around 50,000. Why: the break up of the former USSR led to uncontrolled hunting. Increased rural poverty means the species is hunted for its meat Animals in decline Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) Where: found worldwide in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas. Why: at risk from overfishing and as a target in recreational fishing. A significant number of swordfish are also caught by illegal driftnet fisheries in the Mediterranean Animals in decline Argali Sheep (Ovis mammon) Where: Central and Southern Asian mountains,usually at 3,000-5,000 metres altitude. Why: domesticated herds of sheep competing for grazing grounds. Over-hunting and poaching. Animals in decline Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) Where: the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands (Polynesia), north to the Ryukyu Islands (south-west Japan), and south to New Caledonia. Why: Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and trading of the species

The researchers urged the Government to take steps to save the animal.

In the paper, they wrote: Now we all know that yellow-eyed penguins are quietly slipping away we need to make a choice.

Without immediate, bold and effective conservation measures we will lose these penguins from our coasts within our lifetime.
On May 15, the first stage of a large-scale campaign of Azerbaijan Airlines to plant a tree for each flight ticket sold, was held at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport.

From May 3 to 10, about 25,000 tickets have been sold in total through the airline's website and at the AZALs official sales agencies.

Employees of all units of CJSC Azerbaijan Airlines, including pilots, flight attendants, employees of the Aviation Security Department and others joined the campaign to plant seedlings at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport.

Azerbaijan Airlines carries out similar campaigns at all airports of the republic.

We once again draw attention to the urgent problem of felling of forests and green plantings, which in turn adversely affects the ecology of our country and the planet as a whole.

Azerbaijans national air carrier will continue similar initiatives aimed at increasing forest resources and taking care of the environment.
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HTC has just launched one of the most unusual smartphones weve ever seen.

The HTC U11 is the Taiwanese companys answer to the Samsung Galaxy S8, and its very different to anything thats come before it.

Its designed to be squeezed by users, a new type of interaction that HTC rather ambitiously hopes will find a place in history somewhere alongside the likes of the computer mouse and the touchscreen.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

The U11 has a number of sensors embedded into the lower half of its metal frame.

By applying pressure to them with a squeeze of your thumb and fingers, you can complete all manner of tasks, including launching an app, taking a picture and recording audio.

The company calls the feature Edge Sense and, once youve got over how odd it seems to squeeze a mobile phone, it works reliably and feels surprisingly natural.

At some point, weve all struggled to reach the soft camera shutter key on a smartphone while trying to use it one-handed. The squeeze functionality solves this problem brilliantly well, and makes you wonder why we havent seen anything like it before.

In my opinion, it's already proved to be more useful than the Galaxy S8's curved edge screen.

The squeezable parts of the frame provide haptic feedback to reassure you that youre pressing the right bits of the frame, and you can enable on-screen visual effects for added peace of mind.

Squeeze pressure can also be altered, and HTC says algorithms will detect and ignore false squeezes, triggered by pockets, for instance.

One of the things you can use Edge Sense for is launching Google Assistant from the lock screen. HTC, rightly in my opinion, believes that saying Okay Google to your phone in public is showy and a little embarrassing, and a squeeze is a much more subtle alternative.

However, this is where things get confusing.

Like Samsung, HTC thinks were heading towards a hands-free future. As such, the U11 also offers Alexa, Amazons voice assistant, with HTC describing it as an equal-class citizen on the phone.

Both AI assistants are always-listening, and customers can choose to use one of them, both of them or neither of them.

The company believes Google Assistant is the better option for when youre out and about, and Alexa is superior in the home. However, while Google Assistant will come pre-loaded on the U11, Alexa will arrive via Google Play in July.

The Huawei Mate 9 also offers both assistants, but the U11 goes a step further.

HTC has also decided to include its own voice assistant, Sense Companion, on the U11. Its similar to Google Assistant, and will manage things like notifications and your daily schedule.

In China, the U11 will also come with Baidu DuerOS, yet another voice-based virtual assistant.

While its nice to have so much choice, this scatter-gun approach will almost certainly lead to confusion. It also reflects HTCs current situation, where its fallen well behind competitors such as Samsung, OnePlus and Apple, and feels like it needs to go the extra mile to rebuild its once-excellent reputation.

In terms of design, the U11 looks good, but wont concern the design teams at Samsung or Apple. Its smart rather than stunning, and comes encased in an extremely glossy shell that picks up ugly fingerprint marks and is likely to divide consumers.

HTC has struggled to compete with Samsung and Apple in recent years

The colour schemes available are Amazing Silver, Solar Red (which looks red or gold depending on your viewing angle), Sapphire Blue, Ice White and Brilliant Black.

It features a 5.5-inch, 2,560 x 1,440 display, IP67-rated dust- and water- resistance and a Snapdragon 835 processor, and comes with either 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Both versions offer a microSD slot for up to 2TB of extra storage, so wed recommend the 64GB model unless you really need the performance boost from the extra 2GB of RAM.

The batterys 3,000mAh capacity is disappointingly stingy, and while HTC promises that improved efficiency will help it last a day, we wont know for sure until weve tested it properly. The S8, for context, also uses a 3,000mAh battery, and poor stamina is one of its biggest issues.

It also features Android 7.1, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 16-megapixel front-facing camera, and front-firing BoomSound speakers that the company claims to be the loudest, most powerful it's made to date.

The HTC U11 is available for 649, and will begin shipping next month.
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Three members of the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Islam were recently indicted on charges of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the US state of Michigan. In Norway, meanwhile, one of the major political parties has backed a measure to ban childhood male circumcision.

Fearing that objections to female forms of genital cutting will be applied to male forms, some commentators have rushed to draw a clear distinction between them. Others, however, have highlighted the similarities.

In fact, childhood genital cutting is usually divided not just into two, but three separate categories: FGM for females; circumcision for males; and genital normalisation surgery for intersex children  those born with ambiguous genitals or mixed-sex characteristics.

In Western countries, popular attitudes towards these procedures differ sharply depending on the childs sex. In females, any medically unnecessary genital cutting, no matter how minor or sterilised, is seen as an intolerable violation of her bodily integrity and human rights. Most Westerners believe that such cutting must be legally prohibited.

In intersex children, while it is still common for doctors to surgically modify their genitals without a strict medical justification, there is growing opposition to non-essential cosmetic surgeries, designed to mould ambiguous genitalia into a binary male or female appearance.

Belgian model Hanne Gaby Odiele, for example, has spoken openly about the negative impact of the irreversible, unconsented and unnecessary intersex surgeries she was subjected to growing up.

FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Show all 12 1 /12 FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot girl cries after being circumcised REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM The traditional practice of circumcision within the Pokot tribe is a rite of passage that marks the transition to womanhood and is a requirement for all girls before they marry Reuters FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM Pokot girls are encouraged to leave their hut and make their way to a place where they will take off their clothes and wash during their circumcision ceremony REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot girl, covered in animal skins, walks to a place where she will rest after being circumcised in a tribal ritual in a village about 80 kilometres from the town of Marigat in Baringo County REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM Pokot girls, draped in animal skins, sit on rocks during their circumcision ceremony REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot woman performs a circumcision on a girl REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot woman holds a razor blade after performing a circumcision on four girls REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot girl bleeds onto a rock after being circumcised REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot girl is smeared with a white paint after being circumcised REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM More than a quarter of girls and women in Kenya have undergone genital cutting, according to United Nations data REUTERS FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM A Pokot girl, covered in animal skins, walks to a place where she will rest after being circumcised Reuters FGM tribal circumcision ceremony in Baringo County Kenya FGM Pokot girls covered with animal skins squat on rocks after being stripped naked and washed during their circumcision rite in a village about 80 kilometres from the town of Marigat in Baringo County REUTERS

In male children, by contrast, the dominant view is that boys are not significantly harmed by being circumcised, despite the loss of sensitive tissue. Some even point to potential health benefits, although most doctors agree that these benefits are not enough to outweigh the risks and harms. Even so, many people believe that parents should be allowed to choose circumcision for their sons, whether for cultural or religious reasons.

But these attitudes are starting to change. Over the past few decades, and even more strongly in recent years, scholars of genital cutting have argued that there is too much overlap in the physical effects, motivations, and symbolic meanings of these three practices  when their full range across societies is considered  for categorical distinctions based on sex or gender to hold up.

Take the Dawoodi Bohra case. The defendants claim that, like male circumcision, female circumcision is required by their religion. In the Western popular media, this claim is usually dismissed as mistaken, because neither male nor female circumcision is mentioned in the Quran, the central scripture of Islam.

But both practices are mentioned in the Hadith (the sayings of the prophet Mohammed), which is another important source of Islamic law.

Based on their reading of the Hadith, some Muslim authorities state that circumcision of both sexes is recommended or even obligatory, while others draw a different conclusion. But there is no pope in Islam to make the final call: whether a practice counts as religious, therefore, depends on the local community and its interpretation of scripture.

Motivations for genital cutting and associated symbolic meanings differ widely from group to group. The claim that female genital cutting is always about sexual control, while male genital cutting never is, is an oversimplification based on stereotypes  most anthropologists who study these practices regard this claim as false.

As they emphasise, nearly every society that practices female genital cutting also practices male genital cutting, often in parallel and for similar reasons. When the cutting is part of a rite of passage into adulthood, for example, diminishing sexual experience is not typically the intention for either the boys or the girls. Instead, the goal is to ceremoniously transform the youths into mature adults, in part by having them show courage in the face of discomfort.

What about the physical effects? These range widely, too. Some groups practice a female ritual nick, which involves cutting part of the foreskin or hood of the external clitoris. Although this procedure does not usually remove tissue, it may certainly be painful and traumatic, and we have argued elsewhere that it should not be done on non-consenting minors.

Nevertheless, despite being federally prohibited in the US, this form of FGM is actually less invasive than either male circumcision or cosmetic intersex normalisation surgeries  both of which are also painful and can be traumatic, and neither of which is medically necessary.

Based on these and other points of overlap, the emerging consensus among some scholars is that the ethics of genital cutting should not be based on the apparent sex of the child (as judged by their external genitalia). Instead, it should be based on their age and ability to give informed consent.

Fighting back: the practice has become increasingly difficult to justify in recent years (Shutterstock)

Now that binary conceptions of both sex and gender are generally understood to be too limited to capture the full reality, judgements based on perceived maleness or femaleness will be increasingly hard to defend. For example, at what point along the intersex spectrum does a small penis (legal to cut) become a large clitoris (illegal to cut)? Any such distinction would be subjective and arbitrary.

In a recent paper for the European Parliament, we spelled out these arguments in greater detail. We encourage you to give it a read. In it, we ask: what are the policy implications of taking a gender-neutral approach to genital cutting?

In other words, what happens when moral considerations centre around medical necessity, autonomy, and respect for the bodily integrity of all children  regardless of their sex or gender? We see three practical advantages to this approach:

1. It deflects accusations of sexism by recognising that boys and intersex children  just like girls  are vulnerable to genital alterations that they may later come to seriously resent.

2. It reduces the moral confusion that stems from Western-led efforts to eliminate only the female half of genital cutting rites in communities that practice both male and female forms in parallel.

3. It neutralises accusations of cultural imperialism and anti-Muslim bias by avoiding racially tinged double standards.

This is because the same moral concern would apply to medically unnecessary genital cutting practices that primarily affect white children in North America, Australasia and Europe, as to those affecting children of colour (and immigrants) from Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Adopting such an approach does not necessarily mean banning all pre-consensual forms of non-therapeutic genital alteration. History shows that attempting to pass strict legal prohibitions before cultural readiness can backfire, creating intense resistance among those who are dedicated to modifying childrens genitals for whatever reason, and often driving such practices further underground.

Prohibition of female genital cutting, for example, has been largely unsuccessful in many countries where it is customary and deeply culturally embedded (rates are higher than 90 per cent in Egypt, for example, where it has been illegal since 2008); and recent attempts to criminalise circumcision of boys, for example in Germany in 2012, have been blocked, overturned or ignored.

There are many levers that societies can pull to discourage unethical practices: the law is only one among them, and not necessarily the most desirable or effective. Some authors have proposed step-wise regulation of medically unnecessary childhood genital cutting, along with community engagement and education, as alternatives and/or supplements to formal prohibition.

Whatever specific policies are implemented, it is clear that fundamentally different treatment of female, male and intersex children, in terms of their protection from non-therapeutic genital alteration, will become increasingly difficult to justify in the years to come.

Rebecca Steinfeld is a visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London; Brian D Earp is an associate director of the Yale-Hastings Programme in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University. This article was originally published on The Conversation (www.conversation.com)
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The Labour general election manifesto talks of a land value tax.

We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business rates and consider new options such as a land value tax, to ensure local government has sustainable funding for the long term. (p86)

But what is a land value tax? How would it work? And who would pay it?

What is a land value tax?

It would do what it says: impose an annual tax on land based on its market value.

So for residential property, home owners would pay a tax based on the market value of the house (since this would generally reflect the value of the underlying land). This would replace the council tax.

Meanwhile, firms would pay an annual tax based on the value of the business premises, including the land. This would replace business rates.

Wouldnt it be a bureaucratic nightmare to value all the land in the country every year?

Not really. Business properties are already valued regularly (although not as frequently as they ought to be) by the Valuation Office Agency to determine business rate liabilities.

There is no reason why this could not be tweaked to cover business land values and also why the same could not be done by the VOA for residential properties. A wealth of online data from estate agents should make it easier for assessors to get it right.

How is this different from council tax?

Council tax is a regressive tax system which (for historic political reasons) means that those with lower value properties pay a larger share of the value of their property in tax each year than those in higher value properties.

Presuming a new tax were levied as a flat percentage of the value of the land, then those with property in the most expensive areas (or the largest amounts of land) would pay more because the market value of their asset would be higher.

Would this mean landlords would have to pay the tax, rather than residential renters?

It might if the levy was designed in that way. But one would expect landlords to fully factor the tax into rents, meaning that renters would not really be any better off in the end.

And business tenants?

As with a residential land tax, if the landlord was liable to pay it, business tenants could expect to see their rents rise commensurately.

There would also be an important difference from the existing business rates system: a land value tax would be based on the full value of the commercial land, not just the buildings.

What do economists say about the tax?

It has a lot of support. Taxing land is seen as practical and non-distortionary because land is an immobile asset. A wealthy person cant move his or her land offshore to avoid the tax inspectors in the way that they can with stocks and shares.

It is also seen as efficient because it encourages landowners to use the land as productively as possible. The Institute for Fiscal Studies is pushing for business rates (on property) to be replaced with a full land value tax since this should encourage landowners to develop their land.

Land value taxes are also widely seen as fair, since urban land and residential property market values usually rise due to improvements in local infrastructure, which are paid for by all taxpayers. Under a land value tax, some of this uplift in wealth flows to the local community rather than accruing entirely to the lucky landlord.

Where does the idea come from?

It is commonly associated with the 19th century American economist Henry George, who recommended that taxes on land should replace all other taxes.

In Britain the Liberal government in the early 20th century came close to establishing a form of land value tax. Winston Churchill (who was then a Liberal) made a famous speech in Parliament in favour of a land value tax in 1909 in which he stressed the socially equitable nature of the levy:

Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains - and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.
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Fast food chain McDonalds has treated connoisseurs of the humble chip by adding curly fries to some of its menus.

Twister Fries were reportedly first unveiled in 2015 and proved so popular with customers that the company brought them back for a limited time in its outlets in Japan earlier this year.

The curly fries have now appeared on menus in Singapore and Philippines.

A spokesperson for McDonalds told The Independent, however, that there were no plans to extend the offer to UK customers.

The company has over the last two years experimented with different products and made changes to how it serves and sources food in an effort to turn around its US business and modernise its image while taking on upmarket rivals like Five Guys and Shake Shack.

In Hong Kong, last year, restaurant owners installed futuristic interiors and sold salads and other healthier items in a bid to cater to changing consumer tastes. In the US, franchise-owners have been testing bigger and smaller Big Macs and all-you-can-eat fries.

In March, the fast food giant announced that it will soon be serving fresh, rather than frozen beef, in all quarter pounders served at its restaurants in the US.

It also committed to only using eggs from cage-free chickens by 2025, and it now only serves chicken not treated with antibiotics.

In January, McDonalds reported that global same-store sales increased by 2.7 per cent year-over-year in 2016, beating analysts estimates.

Food and drink news Show all 35 1 /35 Food and drink news Food and drink news Healthy living makes us more inclined to binge, research suggests Gluten-free breads, dairy-free milks and other plant-based products have been some of the most favoured foods in British supermarkets this year. However, while were busy filling our shopping trolleys with gluten-free goodness, were also jamming it with junk food and alcohol, new research suggests Getty/iStock Food and drink news Growing list of Vegan celebs Making the switch to veganism is a major lifestyle choice, one that many claim can improve energy levels, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and clear up any skin issues. Beyonce, Natalie Portman and Jessica Chastain are among the growing list of Hollywood stars who have eschewed animal products from their diets in recent years. Theres also been an increasing number of professional athletes who have gone vegan, such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and David Haye, thus debunking the myth that following a plant-based diet will leave you feeling weak and malnourished. AFP/Getty/NARAS/iHeartMedia Food and drink news McDonald's has announced the launch of a new vegan burger on its menu in Germany This will mark the first time the German franchise of the fast food chain has offered a vegan burger to its customers. The Big Vegan TS burger consists of a patty made from soy and wheat. It is served in a classic sesame seed bun, and contains salad, tomato, pickles and red onion. McDonald's Germany Food and drink news Drinking too many protein shakes could lead to an increased risk of obesity and a reduced lifespan, a new study has claimed Researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre carried out an investigation to determine the impact excessive consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) has on the body. BCAA supplements are often consumed in the form of powder, which is then added to water to make a shake. Published in journal Nature Metabolism, the study found that while BCAAs help to build muscle, they can also negatively impact an individual's temperament, cause weight gain and lead to a shortened lifespan Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Britain consumes more chocolate than any other country Most people love chocolate but it turns out no one does more than the Brits  with the average Brit found to have consumed 8.4 kg of chocolate in 2017, according to new data. Chocolate consumption around the world is on the rise, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), which found that in the past year alone, Easter chocolate production has risen by 23 per cent Food and drink news 'Easter eggs should be banned for children under four' Dr Becky Spelman, chief psychologist at Harley Streets Private Therapy Clinic, is calling for Easter eggs to be banned for consumption for children under the age of four, claiming that giving them the opportunity to binge on chocolate so young will give them an unhealthy relationship with food later on. "This is a nightmare situation for parents of this generation as they have no idea how to teach their children to delay their response to cravings, she said, explaining that too many young kids binge on these chocolates because their parents dont know how to stop them. "Once a child starts overeating behaviour at a young age its very hard to turn things around for them in terms of food and their eating habits moving forward, leading to obesity from at very young age," she added PA Food and drink news Pineapple overtakes avocado as the UK's fastest-selling fruit According to Tesco, pineapple has overtaken avocado as the UKs fastest-selling fruit, with sales increasing by 15 per cent in 2017. In comparison, avocado sales rose by just under 10 per cent last year. The popular supermarket says the surge in popularity comes as shoppers buying the versatile fruit are beginning to use it as a main ingredient in everything from curries and barbecues, to juices and cocktails Getty Food and drink news Marks & Spencers launches stoneless avocados Rather than the result of genetic modification, the avocados are formed by an unpollinated avocado blossom. The fruit develops without a seed which in turns stops the growth, creating a small, seedless fruit. Whats more, the skin is actually edible, unlike a regular avocado. The flesh is much like that of a normal avocado - smooth and creamy, pale in colour and rich in flavour M&S Food and drink news Office teabags contain 17 times more germs than a toilet seat, reveals study The average bacterial reading of an office teabag was 3,785, in comparison to only 220 for a toilet seat. Other pieces of kitchen equipment also stacked up highly in their findings, with the bacterial readings averaging at 2,483 on kettle handles, 1,746 on the rim of a used mug and 1,592 on a fridge door handle Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New study shows drinking more coffee leads to a longer life There is good news and a final hope for coffee addicts and lovers. You will now be able to drink coffee for longer as new study shows its can lead to a prolonged life. Scientists showed that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 18% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers. PA Food and drink news Coke Zero is replaced with Coke Zero Sugar Coca-Cola is pulling the plug on its Coke Zero. The much loved drink will be replaced with a new improved taste. The move, backed with a 10 million campaign, is said to come from Coca-Cola supporting people to reduce their sugar intake. Coca-Cola want people make this move while not sacrificing sugary taste of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Food and drink news Starbucks introduce new avocado spread The avocado craze has grown from hipster brunch restaurants to Starbucks. Starbucks have introduced their new avocado spread earlier this year and it has the internet in debate. Some argue that it not a spread but guacamole while others question if there is any avocado in there at all. When buying the new spread you can also buy an optional toasted bagel. It is a must try for all avocado connoisseurs. Starbucks Food and drink news New Mars chocolate bar The iconic British chocolate bar is about to get its partner in crime. The new bar, named Goodness Knows, will replace the gooey caramel goodness of the mars bar with oats. It is said to be more like a Florentine biscuit with a thin dark chocolate bottom. While being moderately healthy Mars says that is has good intentions. One pack has 154 calories and will sell for about 90p. Mars Food and drink news Wine prices could increase because of Brexit Wine lovers across the UK might soon have to shell out close to a quarter more for their favourite tipple after Brexit, as a weaker pound and sluggish economy takes its toll, a new study shows Rex Food and drink news Chocolate may be good for the heart A new study, published in the British Medical Journal: Heart, found that moderate chocolate intake can be positively associated with lessening the risk of the heart arrhythmia condition Atrial Fibrillation Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Brits throw away 1.4 million bananas each year British families are throwing away 1.4 million bananas that are perfectly good to eat every day at cost of 80m a year, new figures have shown PA/Armin Weigel Food and drink news Rosemary sales spike over exam time There has been a surge a surge in sales of the herb rosemary after a recent study found it helps improve memory. According to high street health food chain Holland & Barrett, sales of the herb have increased by 187 per cent compared to the same time last year Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Gluten-free diets 'not recommended' for people without coeliac disease Avoiding wheat, barley and rye in the belief that a gluten-free diet brings health benefits may do more harm than good, according to a team of US nutrition and medicine experts Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Starbucks launches two new coffee-based drinks Starbucks is launching two new coffee-based drinks in the UK, as it strives to tap into consumers growing appetite for healthy beverages. The Cold Brew Vanilla sweet cream and the Cappuccino Freddo, will both be available in stores throughout the UK from the start of May Twitter/@SbuxCountyHall Food and drink news Cadburys Dairy Milk Tiffin is making a permanent comeback after 80 years The Cadbury Dairy Milk Tiffin, first produced in 1937, is making a permanent comeback to the UK. The raisin and biscuit-filled chocolate bar is being launched after a successful trial last summer saw 3 million chocolate treats  at the cost of 1.49 for each 95g bar- purchased by nostalgic customers Cadburys Food and drink news Pizza restaurant makes worlds cheesiest 'Scottie's Pizza Parlor' in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Facebook/Scottie's Pizza Parlor Food and drink news A pizza joint in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Why not eating before a workout could be better for your health A study published in the American Journal of Physiology by researchers at the University of Bath found you might be likely to burn more fat if you have not eaten first Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New York restaurant named best in the world A New York restaurant where an average meal for two will cost $700 has been named the best in the world. Eleven Madison Park won the accolade for the first time after debuting on the list at number 50 in 2010. The restaurant was praised for a fun sense of fine-dining, blurring the line between the kitchen and the dining room Getty Images Food and drink news Why you crave bad food when youre tired Researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago recently presented their results of a study looking into the effects of sleep deprivation upon high-calorific food consumption. Researchers found that those who were sleep-deprived had specifically enhanced brain activity to the food smells compared to when they had a good nights sleep Shutterstock Food and drink news Drinking wine engages more of your brain than solving maths problems Drinking wine is the ideal workout for your brain, engaging more parts of our grey matter than any other human behaviour, according to a leading neuroscientist. Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine, said sniffing and analysing a wine before drinking it requires exquisite control of one of the biggest muscles in the body Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news British dessert eating surges after people ditch healthy eating in February : In heartening news for anyone feeling guilty about quitting their New Year diet, it seems lots of us have given in to our sweet tooths once again. New data from nationwide food-delivery service Deliveroo reveals there was a surge in Brits ordering desserts in February compared to the first month of 2017 Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news US congress debates definition of milk alternatives A new bill has been created that seeks to ban dairy alternatives from using the term milk. Titled the DAIRY PRIDE Act, the name is a tenuous acronym for defending against imitations and replacements of yogurt, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day. It argues that the dairy industry is struggling as a result of all the dairy-free alternatives on the market and the public are being duped too Getty Images Food and drink news Cadburys launches two new chocolate bars UK confectionary giant Cadbury has launched two new chocolate bars, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and perhaps help combat some of the challenges it faces from rising commodity prices and a post-Brexit slump in the value of the pound.The companys new products will be peanut butter and mint flavoured. They will be available in most major super markets as 120g bars, priced at 1.49, according to the company Cadburys Food and drink news You can now get a job as a professional chocolate eater The company responsible for some of your favourite chocolate brands  think Cadbury, Milks, Prince and Oreo  have officially announced an opening to join their team as a professional chocolate taster. The successful candidate will help them to test, perfect and launch new products all over the world. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news MSG additive used in Chinese food is actually good for you, scientist claims For years, weve been told MSG (the sodium salt of glutamic acid) - often associated with cheap Chinese takeaways - is awful for our health and to be avoided at all costs. But one scientist argues it should be used as a supersalt and encourages adding it to food. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Lettuce prices are rising Not only are lettuces becoming an increasingly rare commodity in supermarkets, but prices for the leafy vegetables seem to be rising too. According to the weekly report from the Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a pair of Little Gem lettuces had an average market price of 0.86 in the week that ended on Friday, up from an average of 0.56 in the previous week  thats an almost 54 per cent increase. Getty Images Food and drink news Do-It-Yourself restaurant To encourage more people to cook and eat together, IKEA has launched The Dining Club in Shoreditch  a fully immersive Do-It-Yourself restaurant . Members of the public can book to host a brunch, lunch or dinner party for up to 20 friends and family. Supported by their very own sous chef and maitre de, the host and their guests will orchestrate an intimate dining experience where cooking together is celebrated and eating together is inspirational Mikael Buck / IKEA Food and drink news Ping Pong menu with a twist Gatwick Airport has teamed up with London dim sum restaurant Ping Pong to create a limited edition menu with a distinctly British twist; including a Full English Bao and Beef Wellington Puff, to celebrate the launch of the airports new route to Hong Kong Food and drink news Zizzi unveil the Maamgharita Unique pizza art has been created by Zizzi in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday. The pizza features the queen in an iconic pose illustrated with fresh and tasty Italian ingredients on a backdrop of the Union Jack Food and drink news Blue potatoes make a comeback Blue potatoes, once a staple part of British potato crops, are back on the menu thanks to a Cambridge scientist turned-organic farmer and Farmdrop, an online marketplace that lets people buy direct from local farms. Cambridge PhD graduate-turned farmer, Adrian Izzard has used traditional growing techniques at Wild Country Organics to produce the colourful spuds, packed with healthy cell-protecting anthocyanin, which had previously disappeared from UK plates when post-war farmers were pushed towards higher-yielding varieties

The fast food chain reported better-than-expected profits in the first quarter ending 31 March 2017. Profits grew by 8 per cent to $1.2bn (950m), helped by cost cuts, a new variety of Big Macs and an expansion of its All-Day Breakfast offer.
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The United Nations human rights office on Tuesday welcomed a $5m (3.8m) donation from Microsoft and called on the rest of the private sector, which makes up only a tiny proportion of its donors, to step up to the plate.

Microsoft's funds will go towards helping the U.N. agency develop and make better use of technology in its human rights work as part of a five-year partnership, the parties said at a news conference in Geneva.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, who has called his agency dramatically and chronically underfunded, said he hoped the donation would encourage others in the private sector to contribute. On top of funding from the U.N. budget, Zeid has called for voluntary donations of $253m in 2017.

Almost all such donations come from governments.

We're receiving close to zero form the private sector, Laurent Sauveur, head of external relations at the U.N. human rights office, said at a separate briefing.

We feel the private sector has a tremendous role to play. We do believe that it needs to step up to the plate.

Sauveur said the agency had tried to form partnerships with the private sector but lacked capacity.

The U.N. Office for Human Rights has a far smaller budget than the humanitarian arms of the U.N. such as the refugee agency UNHCR, the children's agency UNICEF and the World Food Programme, which are experienced at raising private donations.

Countries that did not make voluntary donations to the human rights office last year include China, Syria, Israel, Iran and North Korea.

Peggy Hicks, the U.N. human rights office's head of thematic engagement, said $5 million would go a long way in the human rights sector, despite a $100 million funding gap.

The U.N. human rights office is going to be able to harness the potential of technology to tackle human rights abuse more effectively, and at the same time will be better placed to respond to the new human rights challenges that may be posed by technology, she said.

Microsoft will also give technological support to the agency, according to Hicks.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said the partnership was an opportunity to grow the role of technology in the safeguarding and defence of human rights.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

In many ways we look at the human rights situation around the world and we see a still untapped opportunity for technology to help, Smith told reporters in Geneva via videolink.

One way technology could contribute to the agency would be in the collection and analysis of large amounts of data that is now required for it to carry out its work, he said.

Technology giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook are under scrutiny for their privacy policies as governments want to raid their vast stores of data to conduct surveillance on their own populations.

Hicks said the U.N. had done extensive due diligence before accepting Microsoft's donation, and Smith said that any company making a donation should respect the mission and the needs of the organisation, and get involved only if you're comfortable.

Last year it received only $129 million in donations, ranging from $17 million from the United States to $1,816 from Mauritius.

Reuters
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A slightly sore throat and a bit of a sniffle wont keep Brits out of work, new research suggests.

According to a report published by insurance company Aviva on Tuesday, millions of people in the UK have gone to work when they were ill instead of taking the day off, driven by heavy workloads and employers promoting a culture of face-time.

The report shows that seven out of 10 employees in private firms  the equivalent of 18 million nationally  have at some point come into the office despite being unwell. More than two in five of 2,000 employees surveyed for the report said that they feel their employer prioritises the performance of the company over the workforces health and wellbeing.

Recommended UK workers take fewest sick days since records began

In fact, more than 40 per cent of those surveyed said they were afraid work would pile up if they were to stay off sick, even though Aviva said that employees who continue to work while feeling unwell are likely to be less productive and could also affect the health of their colleagues.

Dr Doug Wright, medical director at Aviva UK Health, said having employees who are unwell at work is a false economy.

Businesses need to ensure they create a working culture whereby people do not feel pressurised into coming to work when they are unwell, safe in the knowledge their absence can be effectively managed, he said.

"Presenteeism, driven in part by an increased 'always-on' culture, poses a genuine threat to overall business performance through the adverse impact on productivity and morale in the workplace," he added.

The worst jobs for your health Show all 10 1 /10 The worst jobs for your health The worst jobs for your health 10. Surgical and medical assistants, technologists, and technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 57.3 What they do: Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel and perform medical laboratory tests. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 69 The worst jobs for your health 9. Stationary engineers and boiler operators Overall unhealthiness score: 57.7 What they do: Operate or maintain stationary engines, boilers, or other mechanical equipment to provide utilities for buildings or industrial processes. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 99 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 89 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 84 The worst jobs for your health 8. Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators Overall unhealthiness score: 58.2 What they do: Operate or control an entire process or system of machines, often through the use of control boards, to transfer or treat water or wastewater. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 97 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 80 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 74 The worst jobs for your health 7. Histotechnologists and histologic technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 59.0 What they do: Prepare histologic slides from tissue sections for microscopic examination and diagnosis by pathologists. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 76 3. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 The worst jobs for your health 6. Immigration and customs inspectors Overall unhealthiness score: 59.3 What they do: Investigate and inspect people, common carriers, goods, and merchandise, arriving in or departing from the US or between states to detect violations of immigration and customs laws and regulations. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 78 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 63 3. Exposure to radiation: 62 The worst jobs for your health 5. Podiatrists Overall unhealthiness score: 60.2 What they do: Diagnose and treat diseases and deformities of the human foot. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 87 2. Exposure to radiation: 69 3. Exposure to contaminants: 67 The worst jobs for your health 4. Veterinarians, veterinary assistants, and laboratory animal caretakers and veterinary technologists and technicians What they do: Diagnose, treat, or research diseases and injuries of animals and perform medical tests in a laboratory environment for use in the treatment and diagnosis of diseases in animals. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 81 2. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 75 3. Exposure to contaminants: 74 The worst jobs for your health 3. Anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and anesthesiologist assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 62.3 What they do: Administer anesthetics or sedatives during medical procedures, and help patients in recovering from anesthesia. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 94 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to radiation: 74 The worst jobs for your health 2. Flight attendants What they do: Provide personal services to ensure the safety, security, and comfort of airline passengers during flight. Greet passengers, verify tickets, explain use of safety equipment, and serve food or beverages. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 88 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 77 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 69 The worst jobs for your health 1. Dentists, dental surgeons, and dental assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 65.4 What they do: Examine, diagnose, and treat diseases, injuries, and malformations of teeth and gums. May treat diseases of nerve, pulp, and other dental tissues affecting oral hygiene and retention of teeth. May fit dental appliances or provide preventive care. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 84 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 3. Time spent sitting: 67

Last year, the number of sick days taken annually by British employees fell to its lowest level since records began almost 25 years ago.

Workers in 2016 took an average of just 4.3 days off work because of illness, down from the 7.2 chalked up in 1993, according to the Office for National Statistics.

In total, around 137 million working days were lost from injuries and illnesses last year - down from a peak of 185 million in 1999, despite an increase in the number of people in the workforce since then.
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Donald Trump is said to have revealed highly classified information during a meeting with Russian officials, just a day after making the unusual and contentious decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey.

The news about Mr Trump giving sensitive intelligence to Russian officials, first reported by the Washington Post, quickly spread across the Internet and drew record-breaking readership to that papers website.

Heres everything we know so far.

He told the Russian officials intelligence about Isis

Mr Trump reportedly bragged about knowing of an Isis threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. Specific details haven't been published as they could have further damaged the integrity of the information.

 Harvard professor: Trump regards himself as above the law

He also shared intelligence that wasnt even widely shared within the US intelligence community

The information had been given to the US through an agreement with a US partnership and wasnt supposed to be shared with Russian officials. The intelligence-sharing arrangement was considered to be so sensitive that the info was withheld from many US allies and even many within the US intelligence community.

We're not sure where the intelligence came from

Its unclear exactly where the intelligence came from but the Post reported that the country sharing the information has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

It was very highly classified

A US official familiar with the matter told the Post that it was code-word information, meaning that it was one of the highest classification levels used by US spy agencies. Mr Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies, that source said.

It was not illegal for him to share it

After all, he is the president. Technically, the US president has the power to declassify anything and everything he wants to in his position at the top of the government. Its less clear what international laws or agreements he may have broken, if any.

 'He's a showboat, he's a grandstander': Trump lays into Comey during NBC interview

A day after Comey's firing, the timing is noteworthy

Mr Comeys firing had several reported reasons but one of the most damning  which Mr Trump seemed to have recognised during an interview  was that he fired the former FBI director because his bureau was investigating his campaigns ties to Russian officials (which critics say amounts to obstruction of justice). News that the president disclosed highly classified information to Russians the day after firing someone investigating his campaigns ties to Russia raised some eyebrows, to say the least.

Trump leaking the information is very serious

The intelligence in question regards Isis and could potentially damage the ability of the United States and its allies abilities to identify future threats. The information could also help Russia figure out who the ally was that provided the information, or help Russia to understand American intelligence gathering techniques.

He leaked it to two very senior Russian officials

Mr Trump was reportedly boasting about his inside knowledge when he told Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov about the intelligence. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, he said, an official with knowledge of their exchange told the Post.
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A nanny "dangerously and excessively" shook a 10-month-old baby boy to death after she lost her tempter, a court has heard.

Joshua Paul was being looked after by child minder Viktoria Tautz, 34, who asked paramedics: "What am I going to tell his parents?"

Joshua was rushed to North Middlesex Hospital before being transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital but died on 1 September in his parents' arms, the Old Bailey heard.

Tautz, who will be assisted during her trial by a Hungarian translator, denies manslaughter.

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Prosecuting, Zoe Johnson QC said Joshua died "because of a head injury that caused bleeding in his brain, bleeding in his eyes and other brain and spinal injuries".

Opening the trial, Ms Johnson said: "On that day, for whatever reason... something snapped in the defendant and for a short while she lost her temper with Joshua and assaulted him, causing all those injuries.

"Her account of what happened whilst she was looking after Joshua does not explain Joshua's various injuries and therefore something else occurred - we suggest a dangerous and excessive shaking of Joshua - which the defendant has not revealed."

Joshua, who was born around 10 weeks early, was said to have a large head for his age, which was being monitored and a scan showed slightly dilated ventricles, Ms Johnson said.

Tautz, who the court heard "clearly loved" baby Joshua, began working for the family on after his mother returned to work.

Pearl Paul left her son in the one-bedroom flat with Tautz on 29 August at 8.40am and said Joshua was "happy and playing".

Tautz said in interviews that she had played a horse-riding game with Joshua but he had not had any accidents and she denied shaking him.

London Ambulance Service was called at 9.07am by a neighbour after Tautz emerged from the flat shouting for help and holding Joshua, who was unconscious and not breathing.

Paramedics arrived at 9.11am and found him lying on his back on the hallway floor while Tautz, who was "extremely distressed", was performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

She told medics he had been crying in his cot, and that he "shook twice" when she picked him up, before he went floppy and stopped breathing.

Medical tests were later conducted at Great Ormond Street.

Doctors told Joshua's parents he had suffered "a devastating and irrecoverable brain injury from which he simply would not survive", his brain was not showing signs of activity, and his heart could stop at any time.

He suffered three cardiac arrests at Great Ormond Street and died at 10.55pm on 1 September.

In a statement read in court, Ms Paul said she paid Tautz 3.60 an hour, her son was "happy with her", and that she "never saw her lose her temper".

She said her son suffered from fluid on the soft spot of his head, had a large head, and that at an outpatient appointment on 22 July, 2014, doctors told her both of these had increased.

Joshua's parents were told to look out for three conditions related to the fluid on his brain.

Ms Paul said she was told that if he vomited, stopped eating or fell unconscious, he should be taken straight to hospital. She said this information had been passed to Tautz.

Describing the relationship Tautz had with her son, Ms Paul said if Joshua cried, she would hold him, adding: "She was good with him, so I was happy."

Joshua's father, Nirmal Vijayan, told the court that from the beginning doctors told them their son had fluid on his brain.

He said this was being "reviewed and monitored" and Joshua had not had any treatment.

Mr Vijayan said he never had to tell Tautz off for anything and she was a good nanny.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by Press Association
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More Britons say they have no religion than profess to be Christian, according to a new report.

According to the British Social Attitudes Survey and the European Social Survey, the "major factor" in the development is that people who are brought up to be religious are losing their faith. More than two-thirds of non-religious people were raised as Christians or in another faith.

Nearly half - 48.6 per cent - of UK adults say they are not religious, compared to just 43 per cent who are Christian. The proportion of Christians in the UK has dropped from two-thirds of adults in 1983.

Professor Stephen Bullivant, of St Mary's University in Twickenham, analysed the data and said the "rise of the nonreligous" was "arguably the story of British religious history of the past half-century".

Scotland, Wales and the south-east of England were the least religious parts of the UK, where more than half of people said they had no personal faith.

Inner London, where more than a quarter said they followed a non-Christian religion, was the most pious part of the country, where only 31 per cent of adults were atheists or otherwise nonreligious.

The Anglican Church has suffered a "heavy" decline since 1983, Prof Bullivant said. And "the age profile of Anglicans, especially, is very heavily skewed towards the older generations".

Prof Bullivant wrote: "No religion has been Britains largest religious grouping for over two decades: 1993 was the first year to record more Nones than Anglicans, and this has remained the case ever since.

"Looking at the long-term pattern, the nonreligious share of the population has shown strong growth over our whole period, with a mean increase of 0.5 percentage points per year from 1983 to 2015.

"The year 2009 was the first in which Nones outnumbered all Christians put together. With the single exception of 2011, this pattern has held ever after. In two years, 2009 and 2013, Nones formed a majority of the adult British population."

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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

At Easter it was revealed about a quarter of people who did say they were Christian did not believe in a central article of the faith - that Christ was resurrected from the dead.

A ComRes survey even found that 5 per cent of people who described themselves as "active" Christians did not believe in Jesus' resurrection.
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The man who saved the world from the hack that took down the NHS didn't pass his IT GCSE.

Marcus Hutchins, who accidentally discovered a kill switch that helped shut down the WannaCry virus as it spread around the world, doesn't have the most basic IT qualification. And it's all because his teachers thought he was a hacker.

The accidental hero's problems began when he was hauled into the head teacher's office at school and told to explain why the network was down. He couldn't and so was blamed for having hacked into the network  something that despite his claims not to have done anything, led to him being suspended.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

That in turn meant that he had to work with pen and paper rather than computers  as NHS doctors did during the hack  and as a result he failed the course in his IT GCSE.

He said that he had become sick with school after the incident and that he had decided to take the non-academic route. That is what led to him working for a US security firm from a room in his parents' house  and helping save hospitals and the rest of the world from the virus.

Recommended Accidental hero who saved NHS revealed

Mr Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic but is from Ilfracombe in north Devon, said that he didn't recognise the "accidental hero" label that has been applied to him since he helped foil the attack.

He told the Associated Press: "I'm definitely not a hero. I'm just someone doing my bit to stop botnets."

It came as the former head of Britain's eavesdropping service has hit out at Microsoft for failing to protect vulnerable computer systems affected by the crippling ransomware attack.

Sir David Omand, the former head of GCHQ who was once homeland security adviser to Number 10, said the tech giant knew public bodies around the world were at risk from hackers.

In a letter to The Times, Sir David said: "Should Microsoft have stopped supporting Windows XP so soon, knowing that institutions had invested heavily in it (at the urging of the company at the time)?"

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the NHS was "open for business", with only a handful of hospitals still suffering disruption caused by Friday's hack.

Following a meeting of the Government's Cobra contingencies committee, Ms Rudd said more than a million patients had been treated in the course of Monday.

"All GPs surgeries did open, though some of them had to use pen and paper," she said.

"The vast majority of patients have noticed no difference. It has been a very strong response."

Earlier on Monday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed there had not been a second wave of attacks on NHS trusts and said it was "encouraging" that the level of criminal activity was at "the lower end of the range" anticipated.

Mr Hunt has come under fire for failing to appear in public since the attack, which hit 47 trusts in England and 13 Scottish health boards.

In his first public comments since the attack, Mr Hunt told Sky News: "Although we have never seen anything on this scale when it comes to ransomware attacks, they are relatively common and there are things that you can do, that everyone can do, all of us can do, to protect ourselves against them.

"In particular, making sure that our data is properly backed up and making sure that we are using the software patches, the anti-virus patches, that are sent out regularly by manufacturers."

NHS Digital said health trusts across England were sent details of an IT security patch that would have protected them from the attack.

The health service has been criticised for using the outdated Windows XP operating system to store digital information, despite security updates for the software having been discontinued by Microsoft.

NHS Digital said it had made health trusts aware last month of IT protection that could have prevented the damage.

Additional reporting by agencies
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Azerbaijan and China discussed the expansion of cooperation in the ICT sphere, said Azerbaijans Economy Ministry in a message on May 16.

According to the message, the discussions were held as part of the meeting of Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev with Huaweis President for Central Asia and Caucasus Region James Chen that took place during the Azerbaijani delegations visit to China.

At the meeting, during which the two countries cooperation in the ICT sphere was discussed, it was also noted that economic relations between Azerbaijan and China continue to develop. This was also stated that Azerbaijan attaches great attention to the development of non-oil sector, particularly to the ICT sphere.

As part of the visit, the Azerbaijani minister also met with Vice-President of CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd Chen Yufang, where the sides discussed the prospects of development of cooperation.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and China amounted to $395.56 million in January-April 2017, some $183.79 million of which accounted for the export to China.

China is one of Azerbaijans main trade partners. The country ranked fourth among Azerbaijans foreign trade partners in terms of the trade turnover in January-April 2017.
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North Korea may be behind the huge global hack that took down the NHS, experts have said.

The hack took down important computers across the world and might even be responsible for deaths in affected hospitals. But an international manhunt for the people behind it is still ongoing  with very few clues about who was responsible.

Those behind the attack asked for money to unlock the computers that were caught up in it. But some have speculated that the code might have got out by mistake  and that it was never really meant to be used to hold computers to ransom at all.

Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Show all 30 1 /30 Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Farmer works in a field Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Women soldier walk on the street Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A female soldier guards railway Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of platform of Pyongyang Railway Station Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Students stage a protest against South Korea and the US in Pyongyang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Students rehearsal for celebrating the 70th birthday of Workers' Party of Korea Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone People enjoy the cool at the carriage door Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of countryside Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Korean People's Army soldier rest on the rail 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A little boy begs food on the platform in Hamhung Railway Station in Hamhung 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Children swim in a river in noon Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone People cross a railway crossing 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A boy collects corn cob beside a railway Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officer is seen on the train No.100 from Moscow to Pyongyang at Tumangang railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officer checks a passenger's mobile device on the train to Pyongyang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of the railway station in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Kids pass by Tumanggang railway station in Tumanggang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A general view of Tumangang - a small town located at North Korea and Russia border Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A train carriage on it's way to Pyongyang is delayed for a day and half due to military transportation in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A customs officers talks to a passenger at Tumanggang railway station in Tumanggang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone A little girl walks on the street in Tumanggang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone An elderly man is seen in Tumangang Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Kids go to school in morning in Tumangang 2015 Getty Images Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone Life in North Korea captured with a mobile phone

Cyber security experts are now pointing to North Korea as the source of the hack  just the latest in globally disruptive cyber attacks that the country has been blamed for.

Experts said that the code used as well as the way that the hackers took computers hostage were similar to the way that North Korea has worked in the past.

Simon Choi, a director at anti-virus software company Hauri Inc, said Tuesday that North Korea is no newcomer in the world of Bitcoin and it has been mining Bitcoin using malicious computer programs as early as 2013.

Last year, Choi accidentally spoke to a hacker traced to a Pyongyang internet address about development of ransomware and he alerted South Korean authorities.

The security company Kaspersky Lab said portions of the "WannaCry" ransomware use the same code as malware previously distributed by Lazarus, a group behind the 2014 Sony hack blamed on North Korea.

But it is possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection.

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, but said "they so far only represent weak connections. We are continuing to investigate for stronger connections."

Later Taiwanese state media said the WannaCry cyber attack infected computers in 10 schools, the national power company, a hospital and at least one private business.

However, the Central News Agency said the ransomware program caused no damage to the schools' core database systems.

The news agency said WannaCry also infected computers at an office of the Taiwan Power Company, a hospital and a business in the central city of Taichung. The business, whose name was not given, reported paying 1,000 dollars in bitcoin to unlock files held hostage by the program. It was not clear whether the files had been recovered.

The news agency said there have been no reported incidents of the ransomware affecting government agencies.

Additional reporting by agencies
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The European Unions 27 remaining national parliaments are unlikely to have the power of veto over a future Brexit trade deal with Britain, a new court judgment has indicated.

Ruling on an investment and trade deal between the EU and Singapore, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said the EU maintains exclusive competence over areas ranging from foreign investment to intellectual property rights and environmental standards.

The ruling, which strips national parliaments of their assumed say on large parts of trade deals, could mean there are fewer chances for EU member states to hold up a trade deal between the EU and UK.

Recommended Almost half of EU businesses looking to cut ties with UK suppliers

The European Commission has said it wants to settle the Article 50 Brexit deal and separation terms before doing a trade deal, which would govern the relationship going into the future.

The case went to the ECJ after the commission asked the court to test its authority on negotiating trade deals with Singapore.

Judges said that ratification is still required by national parliaments in specific areas such as investment and dispute resolution, but the ruling gives the commission a freer hand to negotiate than had previously been expected.

Business groups welcomed the ruling and said the centralisation of decision making could help Britain secure a better trade deal more quickly.

This ruling will likely make it easier for the EU to conclude trade deals without fear of as many hold-ups from national and sub-national legislatures, said Allie Renison, head of EU and trade policy at the Institute of Directors.

While the court confirmed that member states do have a role over aspects of investment, it parted with the earlier advocate generals opinion on a raft of important policy areas such as transport, labour and environmental standards, which it said are reserved for the EU executive when negotiating free trade agreements.

Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

She continued: This may mean a separation between trade and investment in future agreements. How this affects Brexit negotiations will depend on whether the final trade agreement includes investment provisions or not, although neither the UK or EU has expressed much interest in this to date.

The EU has 34 trade agreements covering 60 different countries.
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A "powerful" progressive uprising against Donald Trump in the US is being mirrored among voters in the UK ahead of the general election, a senior member of the Bernie Sanders campaign team has said.

Claire Sandberg, who was digital organising director for the Democratic presidential nominee, told The Independent that a grassroots movement was taking place in the US to offer a different kind of politics and a meaningful alternative to Mr Trump.

A "similar wave" is beginning to take hold in the UK, she said.

Ms Sandberg, who is currently in the UK assisting the Progressive Alliance campaign group in its drive towards tactical voting and cross-party alliances, described the Sanders campaign as a movement that sent "shockwaves through the political establishment in the US".

She said there was "appetite for a different type of politics" in both countries to resist against unfair systems.

Mr Sanders campaign "revealed that people are hungry for an alternative to a failed status quo, and that people are outraged with an economy that consolidates wealth in the hands of a small few, and makes life increasingly difficult and precarious for everyone else," she said.

"Theres this powerful grassroots energy in the US to offer a different kind of politics  a meaningful alternative to forcefully reject the politics of hatred and division and offer a political agenda that will materially improve peoples lives  in recognition that establishment Democratic Party politics failed to stop Donald Trump.

 Jeremy Corbyn and Labour: All you need to know

Obviously its different in the UK because the election gets called very suddenly and theres hardly any time, but Im seeing the beginnings of what could be a similar progressive wave. It does feel like theres the appetite for a different type of politics, and people realise that the stakes are extremely high.

Ms Sandberg said progressive politics was the only way to prevent right-wing nationalist voices from gaining power.

The progressive movement was beginning to become a global phenomenon, with the world working together to prevent the rise of right-wing nationalists, she said.

I think progressive politics is the only way out. Long-term, only progressive politics can actually defeat the rise of right-wing nationalists, she added.

We saw in the US that the mainstream Democratic Party was to say America is already great and that really fell flat with people who feel like the economy hasnt been working for them. They do feel like the system is rigged and they feel increasingly left behind in a world that changes and is in many ways scary to them.

 Theresa May and the Conservatives: All you need to know

This was not just playing out in the US and UK, but around the world, she said, adding: "I think there is a recognition with the threat of Le Pen becoming the president of France, we all have to work together to prevent the rise of right-wing nationalists from getting into power.

Over the next week, Ms Sandberg is helping Progressive Alliance organise half a dozen barnstorm events - an innovation from the Bernie campaign - focused in and around marginal constituencies across the UK.

It comes as progressive alliances have been agreed in 31 constituencies in the past few weeks. The Greens have stood down in 29 seats to give Labour or the Lib Dems a higher chance of winning, while the Lib Dems have stood down in two seats for the Greens.

Speaking at a packed London rally organised by the campaign group Progressive Alliance, Ms Sandberg said: On the Bernie campaign, we realised we had to quickly get people place by place with no staff on the ground.

 Tim Farron and the Lib Dems: All you need to know

We knew we had to just jump in, get everyone together in a room and get them organised from just one event and we ended up calling this a barnstorm. Everyone leaves the barnstorm with a concrete plan for how theyre going to organise and knock on doors in their community."

In the UK, she said that they had "trialled this in Brighton and Lewes, with more than half the attendees at each one committing to organising doorknocking sessions in their constituency and were now going to be barnstorming across the country.

At the same event, Clive Lewis, who is also championing the Progressive Alliance, told the near 1,000 strong crowd: Im proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone from any party who shares my values.

To my friends and comrades in the Labour Party, I urge you to be true to our history - we must embrace a readiness to cooperate.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

On the prospects for future collaboration between progressive forces, Mr Lewis added: The future is not inevitable, the future is what we collectively make it. We have fought and overcome bigger obstacles in our history.

But we are only strong when we stand together and offer a vision that says we stand for something bigger, something bolder, something better.

"When we acknowledge our collective potential to not just be less bad than our potential opponents but when we offer something materially different and better we know that we are on the right path.
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Union leader and Jeremy Corbyn supporter Len McCluskey said it would constitute a successful campaign if Labour win 200 seats at the general election, down from the 232 it currently holds.

Mr McCluskey, who recently won another five year term as general secretary of Unite, the countrys largest trade union, blamed Mr Corbyns woes on bias against him in the media and party infighting, in an interview with Politico magazine.

The scale of the task is immense. People like me are always optimistic  things can happen. But I dont see Labour winning. I think it would be extraordinary, Mr McCluskey said.

I believe that if Labour can hold on to 200 seats or so it will be a successful campaign, he said. It will mean that Theresa May will have had an election, will have increased her majority but not dramatically.

Mr McCluskey added that traditional Labour voters considering voting Conservative for the first time were having their mind turned by the constant attack of the media on Jeremy Corbyn and the image that theyve pinned on Jeremy.

He said his support for the Labour leader remained rock solid". If Labour lose the election next month by a large margin, Mr Corbyn will need to maintain that support if he wishes to carry on leading the party.
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Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to introduce a swingeing fat cat tax on big businesses to punish them for awarding sky-high salaries.

Labour would slap a levy of 2.5 per cent on earnings above 330,000 and of five per cent on pay above 500,000, with the cash raised used to rescue public services.

Todays election manifesto also vows a dramatic expansion of childcare, which would be made available to all two-year-olds until they start school, for 30 hours a week.

As expected, the 45 per cent income tax rate would kick in at salaries above 80,000  not 150,000  and people earning above 123,000 would pay 50 per cent.

And Labour is saying it would consider the option of a more federalised country, in response to growing devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Answering questions about the strikingly different offering to past Labour manifestos, Mr Corbyn said: What we are proposing is a rebalancing of the economy.

Every other country in the world asks why does Britain invest so little and pay itself so little, while it allows such grotesque levels of inequality to get worse.

The most eye-catching policy added since last weeks leak of the draft manifesto is the proposal for a fat cat tax aimed at big businesses, city banks and Premier League clubs.

Labour says it would discourage excessive pay and is needed to reduce rising inequality which is damaging society.

The party stressed it would hit employers - rather than workers - and be calculated by adding together salary, shares, bonuses and pensions.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

Companies are expected to have to pay 4,250 extra for every worker receiving 500,000 in pay and perks. For a person earning 1m a year, that could rise to 29,250.

On childcare, Labour will pledge 5bn a year to create a universal service, extending the 30 hours-a-week - currently only promised to working parents - to every family, even if neither parent is in work.

Labour said an additional 1.3m kids across Britain will benefit from the policy if the party wins the election on June 8.

A further 2.7bn of capital spending will be invested into nurseries over the course of the Parliament to ensure the places exist to meet demand.

The manifesto attempts to tackle the thorny issue of immigration, proposing  when free movement of EU citizens ends  a mix of employer sponsorship, work permits, visa regulations.

It calls for water privatisation to be reversed through a system of regional public ownership  although John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, stumbled badly on the cost of the policy earlier.

One other surprise was a hint that Labour would review council tax, and consider new options, such as a land value tax.

The manifesto stated Labours commitment to renewing Trident, but a line that the party would be extremely cautious about using nuclear weapons has been dropped.

As expected, Labour would build one million new homes, end the scandal of zero hours contracts and recruit 10,000 extra police officers, as well as 3,0000 more fire officers

And the document pledges to work with the Northern Ireland Assembly to extend right to legal abortion

Labour would also consider wealth taxes and employer care tax to fund social care, the manifesto says.

Both the pledges that Labour will scrap tuition fees and put passengers first by renationalising the railways were met with huge cheers and applause.

Mr Corbyn also attempted to set out Labours different approach to Brexit as one which puts jobs first  while arguing the EU exit was inevitable, because that is what the British people voted for.

It would be very different to the Tory approach which was in the interests of the City of London and risks making Britain a low-wage tax haven, he said.
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Jeremy Corbyn should remain leader of the Labour Party whatever happens in the general election, according to Clive Lewis, a former member of his shadow cabinet.

In the event of a Labour loss Mr Corbyn should avoid immediately standing down in order to maintain stability, he said.

However, Mr Lewis indicated however that Mr Corbyn should ultimately pass on the leadership, saying he should hand down the party in good order.

One of the things we've learnt after Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown is that when leaders of the party leave immediately after it can be quite destabilising, said the former shadow Business Secretary.

So I think there's an argument that whatever happens, Jeremy Corbyn stays on and makes sure that he hands the Labour Party on in good order.

Asked if he could see himself as party leader in the future, he declined to answer.

Mr Lewis stood down from the party's frontbench in February, following its decision to trigger Article 50.

He denied his support for the Progressive Alliance, a campaign group which is spearheading a tactical voting movement towards cross-party alliances, was an act of defiance, despite the Labour Party's refusal to cooperate with it.

Speaking at a rally organised by the group earlier this week, he said: It's not an act of defiance. It's about understanding that there are lots of people, hundreds and thousands of people, who actually want to see politics done differently. Jeremy Corbin came in on a platform of doing politics differently.

 Labour's general election manifesto launch in 90 seconds

This is about doing politics differently in a constructive way and I think that's a good thing. It's about people working together for the common good and for better politics in this country, reaching out to millions of people who feel disenfranchised with politics in our country. And I don't anyone should really have a problem with that.

Mr Lewis, who is defending a majority of more than 8,000 in his Norwich South seat, said Labour must work alongside other parties to "speak to many parts of the electorate", he added.

What we're seeing now is that the electorate has changed. It's no longer the same electorate it was in 1945. There are no longer four million manual workers, a million coal miners. And now many parties speak to many different parts of the electorate, he said.

You can either say we are the wave of light and we will absorb all of them or you can actually say well we want to be a strong Labour Party. We understand that we're perhaps the biggest tent but on a campsite of others, because what we have st the moment is a electoral system that is shoehorning a multi-party system into a two-party electoral system.

And that's wrong. We can see that politics is broken, and I think Brexit is a symptom of that. And I think people want to see a change and this is part of that.

He later told the near 1,000 strong crowd: Im proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone from any party who shares my values.

To my friends and comrades in the Labour Party, I urge you to be true to our history - we must embrace a readiness to cooperate.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

On the prospects for future collaboration between progressive forces, Mr Lewis added: The future is not inevitable, the future is what we collectively make it. We have fought and overcome bigger obstacles in our history.

But we are only strong when we stand together and offer a vision that says we stand for something bigger, something bolder, something better.

When we acknowledge our collective potential to not just be less bad than our potential opponents but when we offer something materially different and better we know that we are on the right path.
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A pro-EU campaign group has criticised Labours stance on trade after withdrawal as unachievable, after the party tilted towards a hard Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyns manifesto made no mention of trying to keep Britain in the customs union, stating instead that Labour would focus on retaining the benefits of membership.

Last month, Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit Secretary, suggested Labour was seeking reformed membership. Last autumn, he insisted staying in the customs union was crucial.

Recommended David Davis praised single market and EU customs union in 2012 speech

Most business leaders are desperate not to lose membership, to allow exporters to sell into the single market without the huge inconvenience of having to fill in forms or go through customs checks.

Now the Open Britain group  which is campaigning against a hard destructive Brexit, including by pushing for tactical voting in the general election  has said Labours aims are unattainable.

Whilst the manifesto calls for a retention of the benefits of the single market and the customs union, it does not advocate membership of either, despite advocating unrestricted access for goods and services, the group said.

Open Britain believes that only membership of both will allow the UK to enjoy the current benefits which it enjoys through EU membership today.

Labour had previously said it would leave the single market, voting against an amendment to the Article 50 Bill which sought to keep Britain in that trading arrangement.

The Liberal Democrats seized on the manifesto as fresh evidence that Labour was committed to May's Brexit agenda.

In the biggest fight for the future of our country in a generation, Jeremy Corbyns Labour let you down by voting with Theresa May on Brexit  not against her, said Alistair Carmichael, a former Lib Dem cabinet minister.

Now they are failing to stand up for our membership of the single market and customs union, as well as refusing to give you the final say over the Brexit deal.

At the weekend, 29 Labour MPs joined forces to criticise Mr Corbyn for failing to fight the terms of Brexit, demanding that he back continued full membership of the single market.

The Labour manifesto said: We will scrap the Conservatives Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union.

It went on to acknowledge that those benefits are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain.

The manifesto also said: Freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union  without saying that might be achieved as part of a negotiation with other EU countries.

However, Open Britain did offer support for other strands of Labours Brexit policy, including:

* Refusing to leave the EU with no deal  which would mean falling back on harsh World Trading Organisation rules on tariffs and other barriers

* A demand for Parliament to have a truly meaningful vote on any final Brexit deal, sending the Government back to the negotiating table if necessary

* Seeking to maintain membership of agencies such as Euratom, the European Medicines Agency and Europol

* Guaranteeing immediately the existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain

* Axing the Conservatives Great Repeal Bill, to prevent any watering-down of EU-derived legislation during the Brexit process
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Labour is to examine proposals for a Land Value Tax (LVT) as a possible replacement for council tax and business rates, the partys manifesto says.

Land value taxes are paid by landowners on the unimproved rental value of their land. They are recommended by many economists  ranging from Adam Smith to the Institute for Fiscal Studies  because they are considered to be economically efficient.

Land ownership is highly concentrated in Britain, with 432 people owning half of all private rural land. One man, the Duke of Westminster, owns 133,199 acres, including 300 acres in central London.

Recommended House prices hit new record high as market recovers from Brexit blip

As a result, a move to LVT could see a dramatic shift in property taxation towards wealthy property barons, with most people getting a cut.

The Independent understands that the party are also interested in LVT as a means of encouraging developers to bring vacant or undeveloped land into use to address Britains housing crisis.

Taxing land does not discourage any desirable activity  such as work  and increases in its value accrue through not effort of the owner.

Land is also in fixed supply, meaning taxing is does not make it more scarce. It is almost impossible to avoid such taxes, which are also thought to be difficult to pass on to tenants.

The Labour manifesto says: We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business rates and consider new options such as a land value tax, to ensure local government has sustainable funding for the long term.

Large part of Central London are owned by a small number of people and institutions (DANIEL LYNCH)

Dave Wetzel, president of the Labour Land Campaign, said: This is an example of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party not only listening to us but also other economists across the political spectrum such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, The Adam Smith Institute and the Institute for Fiscal Studies that have all advocated Land Value Tax.

If Land Value Tax were to replace business rates all productive businesses would benefit, land speculators keeping homes and premises empty would transfer their wealth to productive investments that create jobs and house builders would release their land banks for building new homes at reasonable prices.

In 2011 the respected think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies backed scrapping business rates and replacing it with a Land Value Tax.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

We are proposing to abolish the current system of business rates and replace it with a system of land value taxation, thereby replacing one of the more distortionary taxes in the current system with a neutral and efficient tax, the institutes Mirrlees Review said.

Business rates are not a good tax  they discriminate between different sorts of business and disincentivise development of business property.

In the most recent parliament Green MP Caroline Lucas brought forward a bill calling for a commission to look at replacing local government taxes with LVT.
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Labour manifesto will include plans to take the water industry back under public ownership, the partys shadow chancellor has confirmed.

Water was privatised by the Margaret Thatcher government in 1989, moving from the ten public regional water authorities to a system of private companies.

The pledge comes just over a month after Thames Water was fined 20 million for pumping 1.9 billion litres of raw sewage into the River Thames.

John McDonnell said the party would consult on the best way to proceed with nationalisation, suggesting a bond swap for shares or an outright purchase might be considered.

Mr McDonnell would not be drawn on costings and said a "significant intervention" was needed to tackle sharp rises in water rates and "tax avoidance" in the industry.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: It's a significant intervention by the government, the Labour government that will be elected in June.

It's a significant intervention because that's what is needed. That's what's needed in terms of our infrastructure investment - because if we are going to compete in the global economy, we will have to invest in road and rail and new technology.

Economists expressed exasperation at questioning of the chancellor suggesting that public ownership would impact the deficit.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics at King's College London, said the policy would have no impact on deficit, capital or current. He however suggested the policy might be dumb for other reasons.

Labour says it would create nine new public bodies to run the water system in England and Wales. The existing workforce would be retained.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. 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The party says ending the payment of dividends to shareholders and reducing interest payments on debt would allow bills to be cut by 100 a year per household  around a quarter.

Labour is to unveil its full manifesto today at an event in Bradford. A draft version of the document was leaked to the press last week; the party says it does not comment on leaks.
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Labour and the Conservatives have stolen the Scottish National Partys proposals for the upcoming election in a bid to win votes, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Speaking on the campaign trail, Scotlands First Minister said: Many of the policies in Labours manifesto will seem very familiar in Scotland. Free tuition, and end to the bedroom tax, climate change targets, getting rid of NHS parking charges. They seem familiar policies in Scotland for a very good reason.

Jeremy Corbyn described the Labour manifesto as a "programme of hope".

But many of Labour's pledges have already been carried out north of the border during the 10 years of SNP government, including proposing to lower the voting age to 16 years old and offering free school meals to primary school students.

Ms Sturgeon added that the Conservatives, who were long against free prescriptions, made a U-turn at the weekend to propose free prescriptions in Scotland.

Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson explained that the policy was very popular and their party had listened to the voters.

Prescription fees would remain unchanged in England.

Ms Davidson had previously proposed that people pay 8.40 to pick up their prescriptions. In 2012 she protested against the 130 million free prescription giveaway in Scotland.

Ms Davidson maintained this week, however, that the Tories would still examine low value prescriptions and claimed the NHS was wasting millions of pounds by prescribing items such as sun cream and shampoo.

Ms Sturgeon said that the Tory U-turn on a policy which was implemented by the SNP in April 2011, was done with little credibility, adding that her party was "leading the UK in progressive policies."

A new YouGov poll found that the Tories are on track to win eight seats in Scotland at the election, a rise of seven from the one MP they currently have.

The Tories have 28 per cent support, behind the SNPs 41 per cent, but the SNP could still lose nine seats in Westminster.

The figures prompted Ms Davidson to claim that Theresa May was more in touch with people in Scotland than Nicola Sturgeon.

 Nicola Sturgeon: Legs-it and her desicion to speak out about her miscarriage

The Conservatives have nonetheless refused to budge on the two-child family cap on tax credits, implemented in January.

A hotly debated subject in Holyrood, SNP, Green and Labour Member's of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) called the policy "disgusting" and "shameful".

The new tax credit reforms include what has been branded by critics as the rape clause, an eight-page form which requires a woman to prove she has been sexually assaulted or conceived her third child in a coercive relationship to receive about 13 a week in tax credits.

Ms Davidson said the policy was designed to incentivise people back into work and to carry out family planning, part of a Tory move to cut 12 billion from welfare.

Although polls are predicting Ms Sturgeon's party will once again do well in Scotland her ability to deliver on her party's main manifesto promise - to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence between 2018 and 2019 - remains uncertain.

Prime Minister Theresa May told Ms Sturgeon before calling the snap election that it was "not the time for a second referendum.

Scotland must seek Westminsters approval to push for a second referendum in four years, she said.

Labour is also against a second referendum, describing it as "unwarranted and unnecessary" in its manifesto.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project will mean a more sustainable supply of energy, in line with the European Unions objectives, a source in Spains Enagas company, which is one of the projects shareholders, told Trend.

"Enagas is committed to the TAP project as a key infrastructure for Europe," said the source. "It is a part of the larger Southern Gas Corridor project and will offer connections to multiple North European and Europes South East region markets."

Regarding the companys future activities, the source said that in the coming months, Enagas will continue supporting and cooperating in the implementation of the project.

Furthermore, the company supports and assists in the promotion of benefits of TAP from stakeholder and governmental relationship issues, according to the source.

"Enagas has positioned itself as an active shareholder in TAP by leveraging on its ample experience in the midstream sector," said the source. "Together with its fellow shareholders at TAP, it has supported the company [TAP AG] in defining and executing its strategy, and on tackling TAPs main challenges."

As for the possibilities of further expanding the scope of the companys activities, the source noted that Enagas is focused nowadays on consolidating the position in regions where it already operates.

TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

The pipeline will connect to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south.

TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers).

TAPs shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will face questions from a live studio audience on 29 May.

The leaders will also be interviewed during the 90-minute joint Sky News and Channel 4 programme.

Sky News Political Editor Faisal Islam will host the audience Q&A and Jeremy Paxman, the former BBC Newsnight presenter, will then interview both leaders.

The programme will air four days before Ms May and Mr Corbyn face audience questions during Question Time specials on the BBC.

A poll for The Independent found that a majority of the public want the leaders to directly debate each other in live televised debates.

Ms May had been criticised after refusing to take part in a head-to-head contest, with rivals accusing her of "running scared", but Mr Corbyn had also signalled he will not take part if the Tory leader did not.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA 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 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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

There have been calls for broadcasters to "empty chair" any political leader who chooses not to participate.

May v Corbyn Live: The Battle For Number 10 airs on 29 May at 8.30pm.
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The Government is facing a legal challenge over its policy of forcing landlords to conduct immigration checks on their tenants.

The so-called Right to Rent scheme was piloted in parts of the UK from December 2014 and came into force across England in February 2016.

The aim of the scheme is to deny undocumented migrants housing and thus encourage them to leave the UK. It does this by requiring landlords to check whether someone has the right to be in the UK. It was introduced while Theresa May was Home Secretary.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is on Tuesday writing to the Home Office to call for a halt to the rollout of the scheme and for a full evaluation of its effects.

The challenge, which JCWI says it will take to court if the Government fails to comply, comes after research from February found the policy appeared to be encouraging racial discrimination by landlords.

One mystery shopping exercise conducted by the JCWI found that a British BME (black and minority ethnic) person enquiring about a house without a passport was turned down by 26 per cent more likely to be turned down by landlords than a British BME person with a passport. Meanwhile a white British person without a passport was only 11 per cent more likely to be turned down than a white British person with a passport.

And 42 per cent of surveyed landlords also said they would be less likely to rent to someone without a British passport as a result of the scheme, while 51 per cent said the scheme would make them less likely to consider renting to foreign nationals.

The Council is crowdfunding its legal fees for the challenge against the policy.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. 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Saira Grant, Chief Executive of JCWI, said: In the face of clear evidence of discrimination under Right to Rent, the Government must show it is not acting illegally before it presses ahead with a rollout to the rest of the UK.

This is a scheme that not only discriminates against BME Britons, foreign nationals and British nationals without passports  it imposes costs on landlords, agents and tenants too.

In the absence of any clear plan to monitor its effects the Government must carry out a thorough review  until then, any extension to other parts of the UK would be premature, dangerous, and potentially illegal.
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Barron Trump has taken his entire class to Washington DC to meet his father President Donald Trump and take part in a tour of the White House.

Around 80 children from Barrons school, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School which is on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, travelled to Washington on a bus escorted by both their teachers and Secret Service agents.

Barron, the Presidents youngest child who is just 11-years-old, and the group of school pupils are said to have embarked on a tour of Washington last week and stayed at a hotel overnight before heading back to New York the next day.

All the kids got dressed up: The girls were in dresses and the boys wore khaki pants and button-downs. It was so cute, a source told the New York Post.

They had a buffet lunch and a tour of the White House and met the president and the First Lady, Melania Trump. President Trump gave them all a rousing speech about living up to your potential and being the best you could be for your country.

Barron was really sweet. He was so excited to show his classmates around the White House.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

It has recently been announced that Barron, who is Donald and Melania Trumps only child, will attend an elite private school outside Washington when he moves to the White House this summer. He will start St Andrews Episcopal School in Maryland, where school fees cost almost $40,000 (31,000) per year, at the beginning of the academic year.

The White House initially intended to postpone making the announcement until summer - partly because they were worried St Andrews could be plagued by protests while school was still in session.

However Ms Trump has now been forced to issue a statement about Barron attending the school after school leaders informed parents of the decision in a newsletter on Monday.

Recommended Chelsea Clinton defends Barron Trump after torrent of memes mock him

The First Lady and Barron, who was subject to a barrage of memes mocking his facial expressions and accusing him of being bored during inauguration day, are expected to leave Trump Tower in New York after the end of the current school year. They have stayed in their New York penthouse since President Trumps inauguration in January.

In a statement, Ms Trump said she chose St Andrews Episcopal school because it is known for its diverse community and commitment to academic excellence.

The mission of St Andrews is to know and inspire each child in an inclusive community dedicated to exceptional teaching, learning, and service, all of which appealed to our family. We look forward to the coming school years at St Andrews, she said in a statement.

A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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Donald Trump will give a speech on combatting radical Islam to a group of Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia during his first trip abroad as US President.

Mr Trump will speak to around 50 Muslim leaders and will take part in opening a centre there which is dedicated to promote moderate Islam, said national security adviser H R McMaster.

The President will will deliver an inspiring but direct speech on the need to confront radical ideology and the presidents hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam to dominate across the world, Mr McMaster said.

The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate Americas commitment to our Muslim partners, Mr McMaster added.

Saudi Arabia will be the first country Mr Trump will visit since his Inauguration.

Although Mr Trumps itinerary might mirror that of former President Barack Obamas speech in Cairo in 2009, where he spoke of violent extremism and tensions between the communities, it is likely the style and substance of Mr Trumps speech will be significantly different.

The week-long trip abroad will include discussing selling $100 billion worth of weapons to the Saudis, followed by a visit with the Pope.

The address to Muslim leaders comes after a rise in the number of terrorist bombings and deadly attacks across Europe, including in Turkey, the UK, France and Germany.

Saudi Arabia was accused of producing the terrorists who flew into Manhattans Twin Towers in 2001 and killed close to 3,000 people, but it was not on the list of seven Muslim-majority countries affected by the Presidents immigration and refugee suspension.

His executive order was later struck down by federal courts.

There has also been a rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and bias incidents, particularly in the US. The FBI reported a spike in such incidents of 67 per cent in 2015.

Mr Trump was accused by critics of stoking this wave of attacks by engaging in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In December 2015 he proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the US and claimed that he saw Muslim people clapping and cheering as the Twin Towers fell.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also recorded unprecedented levels of anti-Muslim incidents and attacks against mosques across the US.
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The hosts of MSNBCs Morning Joe said on Monday that the White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway complained extensively about President Trump in private conversations with them before he was elected.

Mika Brzezinski said during Mondays broadcast that she heard Ms. Conway denounce the candidate in private after promoting him on television.

She would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off, and she would say Blech, I need to take a shower, because she disliked her candidate so much, Ms. Brzezinski said of Ms. Conway.

Joe Scarborough, Ms. Brzezinskis co-host and fiance, echoed the statements, saying that Ms. Conway said after being interviewed that she had only taken the job for money and that she would soon be done defending Mr. Trump.

But first I have to take a shower, because it feels so dirty to be saying what Im saying, Ms. Brzezinski added, mocking what the hosts said was Ms. Conways attitude at the time. I guess shes just used to it now.

A White House spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Conway began the 2016 election working for a super PAC that supported Senator Ted Cruzs presidential campaign, but she joined the Trump campaign after Mr. Cruz dropped out of the race. She became Mr. Trumps campaign manager in August, appearing frequently on television in support of him.

Ms. Brzezinski said in February that she would no longer book Ms. Conway on the show, because she and Mr. Scarborough had come to believe that the White House counsellor was prone to spreading falsehoods. On the air last week, she renewed that criticism, calling Ms. Conway not credible and chiding CNN for featuring Ms. Conway.

Your hosts look pained when they interview her because they know theyre just doing politics porn, Ms. Brzezinski said, addressing the rival network.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Ms. Conway has been a frequent target of media critics since she justified the White Houses reports about the size of Mr. Trumps inauguration crowd by calling them alternative facts in January. A clip of Anderson Cooper, the CNN anchor, rolling his eyes at her during an interview drew attention last week, and Ms. Conway later called the reaction possibly sexist, and saying that it was typical of an anti-Trump bias in the media.

The hosts of Morning Joe, fixtures of the same Washington punditry scene that Ms. Conway has frequented since the 1990s, have in the past enjoyed a congenial relationship with Mr. Trump, who reportedly offered to officiate their wedding. But they have criticized him more harshly in recent months, and Mr. Trump has said in interviews that he has stopped watching the network.

Copyright New York Times
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Nato will reportedly put a time limit on speeches at an upcoming summit with Donald Trump, in an attempt to maintain the US Presidents attention span.

Speakers will be limited to between two and four minutes, sources within the organisation told Foreign Policy magazine. The summit of Natos 28 member countries will be held at the end of the month and the Belgian capital, Brussels.

Its kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump, one source said. Its like theyre preparing to deal with a child  someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of Nato, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing. Theyre freaking out.

Mr Trump repeatedly criticised the alliance during his presidential election campaign, claiming it had outlived its usefulness and calling it obsolete.

His stance appeared to soften after he took office in January.

But while he has expressed support for Nato, he has repeated his view that European members are not pulling their weight in terms of defence spending.

As a result, he has repeatedly called for other member states to meet a 2014 agreement, which committed them to spending 2 per cent of their GDP within a decade.

Only the US and a handful of other countries - including the UK, Poland, Estonia and Greece - are currently meeting the target.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Despite Mr Trumps more moderate tone, experts are concerned how he will react to the important but painfully dull diplomatic meetings.

Even a brief Nato summit is way too stiff, too formal, and too policy heavy for Trump. Trump is not going to like that, Jorge Benitez, a Nato expert with the Atlantic Council think tank, told Foreign Policy.

Another former official said: People are scared of his unpredictability, intimidated by how he might react knowing the president might speak his mind  or tweet his mind."
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In July 2016, few in Washington, DC, were more incredulous that the FBI decided not to charge Hillary Clinton with a crime for sending and receiving classified information on her private email server than House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican-Wisconsin.

Ryan issued one of the Republicans' irate statements:

No one should be above the law. But based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions.

And then he held a news conference, where he asked the Obama administration to stop giving Clinton, who was the Democrats' newly minted presidential nominee, classified briefings. Individuals who are 'extremely careless,' close quote, Ryan said, using the term then-FBI Director James Comey used to describe Clinton's email practices, should be denied further access to information. (That proposal never got anywhere).

The message was clear: Ryan thought the FBI should have charged Clinton for a crime for sending and receiving classified information on a private email server she used exclusively as secretary of state.

Ryan piped up again about this 11 days before the election, when Comey told Congress his team had found new emails related to Clinton that they were looking into. The FBI did not describe it as a reopening of an investigation, but Ryan sure did:

Here's a statement he tweeted on 28 October.

Yet again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame. She was entrusted with some of our nation's most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information. This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators. I renew my call for the Director of National Intelligence to suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved.

We're spending so much parsing Ryan's words about a candidate in an election that is now over because suddenly, it's not Clinton who is on the receiving end of criticism about the way she handled classified information. It's President Donald Trump.

The Washington Post's ace national security team reported Monday that while in an Oval Office meeting last week with top Russian officials, Trump told them highly classified information about the Islamic State. The information he told to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister is so secret it's not even relayed to some US allies, let alone a country that most intelligence officials think meddled in the US election.

It is all kind of shocking, a former senior US official who is close to current administration officials told The Post. Trump seems to be very reckless and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.

Reckless. That's exactly the word Ryan used in another statement, issued in September, after the FBI released its report of its interview with Clinton. The FBI's investigation demonstrates, Ryan said, Hillary Clinton's reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state.

It's also the exact word that at least one former intelligence official used to describe the fact Trump shared information so secret it requires a code word just to talk about it among US officials.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

The Post rounded up some of the comments:

Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. - a former senior US official close to current administration officials

Russia could identify our sources or techniques. - a senior US official

I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out. - a former intelligence official who worked on Russia-related issues

He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it - and that has big downsides. Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me. - a former US official

Perhaps reckless is in the eye of the beholder. But it's going to take a lot of explaining from Ryan - and all the other Republicans who bashed Clinton, including Trump - why this situation is somehow less careless and less reckless and less dangerous than the one they lambasted Democrats for just a few months ago.

Copyright The Washington Post
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Donald Trumps hotel in downtown Washington DC has been emblazoned with the words Pay Trump bribes here.

Robin Bell, the multimedia artist who says he is responsible for the large light projections on Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday night, said it took around ten minutes for security to come and block the projector.

The constitutions emoluments clause was also projected on President Trumps hotel which is just blocks away from the White House.

The emoluments clause prohibits federal officials from taking payments from foreign governments. Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the constitution states that no American officeholder shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

People shared photos of the light projections on Twitter and commended the artist for his apparent act of protest.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

Loving the new look at Trump hotel in DC, said one onlooker. While another said: I want to marry whoever did this to Trump hotel.

Taking responsible for the artwork, Mr Bell said: Had a lot of fun projecting Emoluments Welcome on Trump hotel.

President Trump is faced with a lawsuit filed by watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which alleges he violated the emoluments clause. The complaint accuses him of violating the US constitution by letting his hotels accept payments from foreign governments.

The protest against the billionaire property developer appeared just hours after the Washington Post reported that Mr Trump has revealed highly classified information about Isis to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week.

According to current and former US officials, the information relayed by the President while in the Oval Office was provided to the US by an American ally via a sensitive intelligence sharing arrangement.

President Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies, a US official told the Post.


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Former Playboy playmate Dani Mathers is officially facing jail time for secretly Snapchatting a photo of a naked woman from the locker room at LA Fitness.

The former centrefold attempted to evade trial by claiming the California privacy law shes accused of breaking is too vague to be constitutional.

Judge Gustavo Sztraicher disagreed and scheduled her trial for 26 May, the New York Daily News reports.

Asked if Ms Mathers would be testifying at her trial, her lawyer responded, Oh yeah, definitely.

Last summer, Ms Mathers posted the photo of a naked, 70-year-old woman to her public Snapchat story with the caption "If I can't unsee this then you can't either.

Activists quickly accused the model of body-shaming. Prosecutors charged her with misdemeanour invasion of privacy.

She should face the consequences of her cruel and criminal act," the Los Angeles City attorney's office said at the time.

Inspiring body positivity quotes Show all 12 1 /12 Inspiring body positivity quotes Inspiring body positivity quotes Ashley Graham "And cellulite, I have not forgotten about you. I'm going to choose to love you even though you want to take over my whole bottom half. You're a part of me and I love you." Inspiring body positivity quotes Danielle Brooks "Sometimes I don't like what I see, but I have the power to change the way in which I relate to my body both physically and mentally." Inspiring body positivity quotes Iskra Lawrence "Stop comparing yourself to anybody else. The [pictures of] movie stars, even the Disney characters, thats not real. Thats not attainable. You cant be anybody else. You are you. You cant be them. So you really just have to start embracing yourself and accepting so-called flaws that society has given the name flaws. Its just our body, our patchwork quilt. Inspiring body positivity quotes Beyonce "The most alluring thing a woman can have is confidence." Getty Images Inspiring body positivity quotes Kate Winslet "Nobody is perfect. I just don't believe in perfection. But I do believe in saying, 'This is who I am and look at me not being perfect.' I'm proud of that." Getty Images Inspiring body positivity quotes Rihanna "You just want something that someone else has, but that doesn't mean what you have isn't beautiful, because people always want what you have and you always want what they have - no one is ever 100 per cent like, 'Yes, I'm the bomb-dot-com - from head-to-toe!" REUTERS Inspiring body positivity quotes Tess Holliday "Never compare yourself with others and celebrate what makes you, you." Inspiring body positivity quotes Demi Lovato "Instead of looking in the mirror and focusing on your flaws, look in the mirror and appreciate your best features... everyone has them." Inspiring body positivity quotes Kim Kardashian-West "See this little dimple of cellulite here? It was so worth it for that cookies 'n' cream ice cream!" Inspiring body positivity quotes Jennifer Lawrence "It should be illegal to call someone fat." Inspiring body positivity quotes Mindy Kaling "Insults about the way I look cant be the thing that harms me and my heart the most. It has to harm me the least. If I have a daughter, Im going to tell her that. Far too many women are much more hurt by being called fat or ugly than they are by being called not smart, or not a leader." Rex Features Inspiring body positivity quotes Selena Gomez "Im learning that you can be comfortable and still look beautiful. AFP/Getty Images

Under California law, it is illegal to secretly photograph another identifiable person in a changing room without their consent. Charges can result in up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Ms Mathers previously attempted to avoid jail time by offering to apologise to the victim, undergo counselling, and take an anti-bullying course. The judge declined, citing lack of remorse.

Ms Mathers was also banned from all LA Fitness gyms.

The model apologised for the Snapchat shortly after posting in last summer, claiming the posting was an accident.

It was absolutely wrong and not what I meant to do, she said. I chose to do what I do for a living because I love the female body, and I know body shaming is wrong.

Just this month, however, Ms Mathers tweeted that she had never body shamed a person in my life.

But Im glad you believe everything the tabloids tell you, she added.
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A private passenger plane carrying two adults and two children has gone missing in the Bahamas.

Authorities lost contact with the aircraft as it was flying from Puerto Rico to Titusville on Floridas east coast on Monday.

Efforts to find the four people on board, identified as Jennifer Blumin, Nathan Ulrich and Ms Blumin's four-year-old and 10-year-old sons, are being concentrated close to where the plane last made contact - in the Bermuda Triangle.

Air traffic control in Miami lost contact with the MU-2B plane as it was flying to the east of Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas archipelago.

The communication was lost at 24,000 feet as the plane travelled at 300 knots, officials said.

Search and rescue aircrafts from the US coastguard, Customs and Border Patrol and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force were scouring the seas for any sign of the aircraft roughly 40 miles east of the island.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

OPEC crude production rose by 65,000 barrels per day in April to 31.78 million barrels per day, as higher output from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia more than offset lower flows from Libya and Iran, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its May Oil Market Report.

Crude production was down 535,000 barrels per day compared to April 2016. Year-to-date compliance with production cuts remained robust at 96 percent, said the report.

This is while global oil supply fell by 140,000 barrels per day in April as non-OPEC, and especially Canada, pumped less, according to the IEA estimates.

At 96.17 million barrels per day, output stood 90,000 barrels per day below a year ago, even as non-OPEC returned to growth, said the report.

IEA estimates that in the second quarter of 2017, global refining activity slows down seasonally, lower by 370,000 barrels per day from the first quarter of 2017, but is set to ramp up by 2.4 million barrels per day by July-August.

Global demand growth is, however, still forecast at 1.3 million barrels per day in 2017, with demand at 97.9 million barrels per day, said the report.

Growth was weaker than expected in the first quarter of 2017, however, with notable downward revisions seen in the US (where demand is essentially flat), Germany, Turkey and India (where the effect of the currency reform lingers on), said the IEA.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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A 16-year-old boy who died in his classroom at a South Carolina school suffered heart failure after drinking too much caffeine, a coroner has ruled.

Davis Cripe had drunk a large Mountain Dew, a McDonalds latte and an energy drink two hours before he collapsed.

Ingesting such a large amount of caffeine over such a short period of time caused a condition known as cardiac arrhythmia, where the heart stops beating properly.

In his judgment, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts drew attention to the dangers of drinking too much caffeine.

Stressing that it was the speed at which Mr Cripe drank the caffeinated drinks rather than the actual amount, the coroner said "the same amount of caffeine on another day may have been right".

"You can have five people line up and all of them do the exact same thing with him that day, or even drink more, and it may not have any type of effect on them at all. That is whats so dangerous.

A healthy adult can consume up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, or around four cups of coffee, without any adverse effects, according to the online caffeine encyclopedia Caffeine Informer.

Figures from the sites database would suggest that Mr Cripe consumed just under 500 milligrams of caffeine before collapsing.

The caffeine content of energy drinks varies hugely depending on the brand. The 10 Hour Energy Shot drink, manufactured by Eternal Energy, contains 422 mg - exceeding the safe daily limit.

Energy drinks have also been linked to caffeine intoxication, according to research published in the International Journal of Health Sciences in 2015.

Symptoms include anxiety, insomnia, gastrointestinal irritation, muscle twitching, restlessness and periods of inexhaustibility

David Cripes father, Sean, said he hoped his sons death would instruct other parents to be more vigilant about their childrens caffeine intake.

"I stand before you as a brokenhearted father and hope that something good can come from this," he said.

"Parents, please, talk to your kids about the dangers of these energy drinks. And teenagers and students, please stop buying them. There's no reason to consume them they can be very dangerous."
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Donald Trump's impeachment is a matter of "when", a former Clinton administration official has claimed, saying "the question is not whether there are grounds to impeach".

Robert Reich, the Democrat President's Labor Secretary, said on Twitter Mr Trump would be brought down when Republicans "put loyalty to America ahead of loyalty to their party".

In a column for Newsweek, the political commentator claimed the President could be guilty of "obstruction of justice" over his handling of James Comey's firing.

The White House had said the FBI director was sacked because of the way he conducted the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails, and on the advice of Mr Trump's deputy attorney general.

Mr Trump himself later said, however, that Mr Comey's investigation into alleged Russia ties among his associates, and of claims of Russian meddling in the election, was a factor in the decision - which he had already made.

"The law is reasonably clear. If Trump removed Comey to avoid being investigated, thats an obstruction of justice - an impeachable offense," Mr Reich wrote.

The President's tweet last Friday - "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" - could be seen in the same way, Mr Reich said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

He added: "As a practical matter, though, nothing will happen until a majority of the House decides on bringing a bill of impeachment. Which means, under the present congress, 22 Republicans would have to join with House Democrats to put enough pressure on the Speaker of the House to allow such a bill to be considered.

"The odds of this occurring in this Congress, under present circumstances, are approximately zero."

The White House has been contacted for comment.
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Donald Trumps reported disclosure of highly classified information to high-ranking Russian officials may be a violation of the Presidents oath of office that could lead to his impeachment, national security lawyers have said.

The President reportedly divulged highly sensitive information about a planned Isis operation during a meeting in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The intelligence was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, two officials with knowledge of the situation said.

Questions of criminality aside ... If the President gave this information away through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office, the experts said in a post on the legal blog Lawfare.

At his inauguration, the President pledged to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States" and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The authors added: Its very hard to argue that carelessly giving away highly sensitive material to an adversary foreign power constitutes a faithful execution of the office of President."

They go on to cite occasions on which oath violations were used or seriously considered as grounds to impeach previous Presidents including Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

"Theres thus no reason why Congress couldnt consider a grotesque violation of the Presidents oath as a standalone basis for impeachmenta high crime and misdemeanor in and of itself," the authors, who include a Harvard Law School professor, said.

Mr Trumps administration was plunged into fresh controversy on Monday after The Washington Post reported the leak.

One official said the intelligence discussed by Mr Trump was classified top secret and only known by a handful of intelligence officials.

After Mr Trump reportedly disclosed the information in a manner described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the President has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

 Congressman Al Green calls for impeachment of Donald Trump

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Mr Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on great intel every day, an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to the Post.

One of the officials with knowledge of Mr Trump's meeting with the Russian told Reuters the timing of the disclosure was particularly unfortunate, as the was President preparing for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Isis.

The White House said the allegations were incorrect.

The story that came out tonight as reported is false, HR McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known... I was in the room. It didn't happen, he said.

The initial story by the Post, however, did not report that Mr Trump shared intelligence sources or methods with Russian officials, but rather the contents of the information gathered.

Bob Corker, the Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the allegations very, very troubling if true.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and they've got to come to grips with all thats happening, he said of the White House.

The latest controversy came as Mr Trump's administration reels from the fallout over his abrupt dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey and amid congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Isis operation, US officials have said.

Citing current and former US officials, the Washington Post said Mr Trump shared details about an Isis terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

The anonymous officials told the Washington Post the information the President relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

A separate official told Buzzfeed news that the extent of classified intelligence information disclosed was "far worse than what has already been reported".

The White House denounced the allegations as incorrect.

 White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H R McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known... I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the Oval Office meeting focused on counterterrorism, and from Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, who called the Washington Post story false.

The Washington Post story - which was later confirmed by The New York Times and BuzzFeed News - does not claim that Mr Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered.

Still, it will only heighten Mr Trump's strained relations with intelligence workers and former officials, who view Russia as an adversary.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

If true, the breach was ill-timed, coming a day after Mr Trump fired former FBI director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election.

Mr Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after he misled vice president Mike Pence about conversations he had with Mr Kisylak.

It is unlikely Mr Trump has broken any law. As president, he has the broad authority to declassify government secrets.

The Washington Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials.

 Congressman Al Green calls for impeachment of Donald Trump

By doing so, Mr Trump would have jeopardised cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of Isis, and make other allies - or even US intelligence officials - wary about sharing future top secret details with the President.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Donald Trump has insisted he has the "absolute right" to share selected information with Russia amid allegations he passed on classified intelligence.

The President made his first statement on Twitter following a series of denials from White House officials.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining...to terrorism and airline flight safety," he wrote.

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against Isis & terrorism."

The Washington Post reported that the President shared intelligence from a US ally in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

It cited current and former US officials saying Mr Trump had divulged information provided through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.

The information concerned plans by the Department of Homeland Security to ban laptops and other electronic devices from hand luggage on flights between Europe and the US.

 White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

Britain and the US imposed a similar prohibition in March affecting departures from airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries, following a terror threat.

HR McMaster, the national security adviser, dismissed allegations the President had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign agency - a move that allegedly put cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis at risk.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said. The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

But Mr Trump's tweets implied that the "facts" he relayed to Russia were new, apparently contradicting Mr McMaster's statement.

The President was accused of hypocrisy in light of his repeated attacks on "leakers" following a series of embarrassing disclosures, and targeting of Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for classified information.

"I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community..." he tweeted later on Tuesday. The message was not immediately completed.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

Officials have refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong.

Sources speaking to the New York Times and Buzzfeed News also confirmed the claims, while the Russian foreign ministry also dismissed the allegations as "fake news".

Dozens of reporters crowded into the West Wing as the story broke on Monday evening, reportedly overhearing the President's press secretary and top aides "yelling" at each other as they attempted to manage the chaos.

It came just days after the furore over Mr Trump's sacking of FBI director James Comey, shortly before Mr Lavrov's visit.

White House statements said he was dismissed over the Clinton email investigation, which was widely credited with swinging the election in Mr Trumps favour and saw him label his rival crooked Hillary and lead chants of lock her up at rallies.

(Statista) (stat)

After recommending no charges be brought over her handling of classified information, the FBI director was leading a probe into alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia.

Support for an independent investigation into ties between Mr Trump's campaign team and the Kremlin has been rising to stand at around 60 per cent, according to a chart for The Independent by Statista.

The President and the Kremlin have rejected a report by US intelligence agencies concluding that Vladimir Putin had ordered an effort to disrupt the 2016 election including the Democratic National Committee email hack to damage Ms Clinton.

There were concerns that Mr Trump's discussions with Russian officials may further damage his relationship with American and foreign intelligence agencies, ahead of his first overseas trip.

White House officials reportedly took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency. Both have declined to comment.

Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern about the reports amid mounting fears for the Trump administration's international credibility.

Bob Corker, a Republican Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order", describing it as on a downward spiral".

Chuck Schumer, the Democrats' Senate minority leader, called the story disturbing, adding: Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Allegations Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian officials are "the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president", former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has said.

The legal scholar said people should not minimise the gravity of claims the President revealed the top-secret information about Isis to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador at a White House meeting.

The information is said to have been provided to Mr Trump by an American ally through a sensitive intelligence sharing arrangement, reported The Washington Post.

"This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president. Lets not minimize it. Comey affair now in the wastebasket of history," wrote the professor on Twitter.

Professor Dershowitz, 78, spent more than 50 years at Harvard, becoming the college's youngest ever professor of law in 1967 at the age of 28.

According to the Post, the source of the information had not given permission for the information to be shared with Russia.

After the meeting, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency. It has not been reported which third country was involved.

The British Embassy in Washington declined to comment when contacted by The Independent.

The White House has denied that the President leaked the classified information to Sergei LAvrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In a brief appearance outside the White House, HR McMaster, the president's national security advisor, said: The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false."

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, Mr McMaster said. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

"Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remembered the meeting the same way and said so. The on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources.

He said he had been present at the meeting.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

The development was the latest incident to shake Washington, still stunned by the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The White House has been scrambling to project a sense of order, after Mr Trump himself created mayhem by contradicting his own officials explanation for the firing.

The report on Monday evening said one the most concerning aspects of the slip, was that Mr Trump revealed the city in Isis territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat.

There were claims that Russia could use the information to undermine the US, or its ally.
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The White House has been engulfed by fresh chaos over allegations Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials, sparking bizarre scenes as aides reportedly turned up televisions to drown out shouting between top aides.

Dozens of reporters crowded into the hallway outside Sean Spicers office after the Washington Post published its report on Mr Trumps discussions with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Press officers walked through the pack in silence as journalists asked for more information, while televisions in the press area picked up on the story, just days after the furore over the sacking of FBI director James Comey.

This is the last place in the world I wanted to be, said national security adviser HR McMaster, as he stumbled into the crowd of waiting journalists in the West Wing. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

He was dispatched to deliver a 45-second statement to waiting television cameras, without answering questions.

Mr McMaster dismissed claims Mr Trump had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign intelligence agency - a move that allegedly put cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis at risk.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said.

National Security Adviser HR McMaster makes a statement outside the West Wing of the White House. (AP)

The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

Meanwhile, Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, White House communications director Michael Dubke, Mr Spicer and deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders held an emergency meeting.

Buzzfeeds White House correspondent Adrian Carrasquillo said journalists in the hallway could soon hear yelling coming from the room where officials are.

Minutes later, televisions were turned up super loud in an apparent attempt to drown out the shouting and prevent reporters overhearing the heated discussions.

At around 7.30pm local time (12.30am BST), Ms Sanders emerged to announce that White House officials would not be answering any more questions for the evening.

We've said all we're going to say, she said, asking reporters to clear the hallway.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

None of the statements specifically denied that Mr Trump had revealed classified information, sparking allegations that aides were playing word games.

Officials refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong, ensuring it would dominate a week that White House officials hoped would be quiet in advance of the President's first foreign trip.

The newspaper cited current and former US officials said Mr Trump had divulged information provided by an ally through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.

It did not claim that the President revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered, as Mr McMaster's denial suggested.

The Russian foreign ministry has also dismissed the allegations as fake news.

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

The allegations are particularly damaging given Mr Trumps repeated attacks on Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server to handle classified information.

The scandal, which was the subject of an FBI investigation widely credited with swinging the election in Mr Trumps favour, saw him label his rival crooked Hillary and lead chants of lock her up at rallies.

Mr Comey, who led that investigation, was abruptly fired from his post last week.

White House statements said he was dismissed over the Clinton email investigation, although the FBI director was also leading a probe into alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia.

Additional reporting by AP
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The Russian foreign ministry has dismissed reports that Donald Trump revealed classified information during a meeting as "fake news".

Maria Zakharova, the ministry's spokeswoman, described the reports as yet another false story while attacking the US media.

Guys, have you been reading American newspapers again? she wrote on her Facebook page. You shouldn't read them. You can put them to various uses, but you shouldn't read them.

"Lately it's become not only harmful, but dangerous too."

 White House statement on Russia 'intelligence leak'

The Washington Post, New York Times and Buzzfeed News reported that the President passed on intelligence from a US ally to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The White House has denied the claims, which have caused a fresh crisis days after the furore over Mr Trump's sacking of FBI director James Comey.

HR McMaster, the national security adviser, dismissed allegations the President had relayed sensitive information to the Russians from a foreign intelligence agency - a move that allegedly endangered cooperation with a partner that has access to the inner workings of Isis.

I was in the room, it didn't happen, he said.

The President and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.

At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

US media outlets were barred from Wednesday's meeting between Mr Trump, Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak, although a Russian state media photographer was allowed inside after the White House was apparently misled over his role, sparking security fears.

A series of short statements were released denying the story, including one from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which said Mr Trump discussed counter-terror operations with Mr Lavrov but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

This story is false, said Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced.

But officials refused to answer specific questions, including what precisely the Washington Post report had got wrong.

It cited current and former US officials said Mr Trump had divulged information provided by an ally through an intelligence-sharing arrangement, which was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the American government.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden would beat President Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2020 presidential race, a new poll from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling says.

Mr Biden  who was active on the 2016 campaign trail supporting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  would blow Mr Trump out of the water, beating him by 14 points in a hypothetical head-to-head race, the poll shows.

Hes not the only one, either. Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran a strong campaign against Ms Clinton for the Democratic nomination, would be the President by 13 points. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, and Cory Booker would also beat Mr Trump in hypothetical matchups, according to the poll.

The former vice president has been somewhat coy on the potential for a 2020 run since leaving office, but he has already paid a visit to the key primary state New Hampshire. That move  visiting the state that will kick off the 2020 primaries  fueled rumors that he was feeling out the possibility of one last run for the White House.

Mr Biden has already made it clear why he thinks Mr Trump was able to pull off his upset victory in November. Democrats, he has said, failed to tell and convince Americans that they understand the hopelessness that is plaguing disadvantaged parts of the country.

Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal, Mr Biden said when he visited New Hampshire. Ms Clinton could have won, but too many Democrats weren't enthused and stayed home, he said.

Im positive they wanted to be with us. But we have to prove again we understand that hopelessness, he continued.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Biden has insisted hes not running (he told the audience in New Hampshire, Guys, Im not running!) but his long tenure in public office has been praised and his particular narrative could help him with voters in rural areas that ditched Democrats in 2016. Mr Biden, who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania - a working class industrial town that has come on hard times - was frequently dispatched on the 2016 campaign trail to talk to those types of voters. His brand  an authentic guy with working class roots  has led many to speculate that he would be a good choice to take on Mr Trump in 2020.
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Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn during an Oval Office visit in February, the New York Times has reported.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," the President said to Mr Comey during that meeting, according to the memo. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

The existence of the memo, which was reportedly written by Mr Comey himself, is the latest piece of evidence to suggest that Mr Trump had attempted to squash investigations into his campaign's associates and their interactions with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Mr Comey wrote the memo detailing the conversation immediately after the meeting, which took place just one day before Mr Flynn resigned from his post, sources told the New York Times.

Mr Comey, according to his account of the interaction with the President, did not say anything about stopping the investigation into Mr Flynn and his Russian ties. He instead agreed that Mr Flynn "is a good guy."

The White House, in a statement, denied that the memo's description of the meeting was accurate.

"While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn, the White House said.

The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Flynn was forced to step down from his White House post in February after it was learned that he had misrepresented to Vice President Mike Pence conversations he had with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.

That resignation, however, came nearly three weeks after former acting attorney general Sally Yates warned the Trump administration that Mr Flynn might be compromised by Russians. Ms Yates was later fired from her post.

It was later found that Mr Flynn had neglected to report income coming from Russian and other foreign sources when he applied for security clearances in the White House.

The memo seems to contradict statements made just last week to the Senate by acting FBI director Andrew G McCabe. Mr McCabe told senators then that "there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date."

Mr Comey was fired suddenly from his post as the FBI director last week, a move that drew bipartisan criticism and concern that the President made the decision in order to stop or impede investigations into his campaign's connection to the Russian government.

The White House initially said that Mr Trump made his decision based up on the counsel of the Justice Department but the President later said on national television that he had considered the Russia investigation when deciding if he wanted to fire Mr Comey and that he would have fired him with or without the advice of the Justice Department to do so.

 Kellyanne Conway 'secretly hates Donald Trump and said she had to shower after defending him'

The former FBI director reportedly made similar memos - some of which are classified  after every single phone call and meeting he had with the President. Mr Comey shared the memos with close associates and senior FBI officials.

The memos bring back into light a Twitter posting by Mr Trump, who tweeted last week that Mr Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

It is unclear if tapes like those exist and the White House has refused to confirm or deny their existence since.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary since construction started on the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), said the message from TAP AG consortium.

Activity in each of the three host countries is on time, on track and on budget, according to the message.

As of early-May 2017 TAPs contractors cleared approximately 49 percent of the project route in Greece and Albania (371km out of 765km). Also, 22.6 percent of welded steel pipes are already in the ground (backfilled).

In Italy, work is ongoing with the first batch of olive trees temporarily stored, so that construction of the 1.5km micro-tunnel can start later in the year.

Moreover, 68.5 percent of the total 55,000 pipes to be used for the construction of the pipeline have been received in Greece, Albania and Italy.

More than 5,200 people have been working for the project across TAPs host countries, over 85 percent of which have been employed locally.

TAP implemented a wide range of social and environmental investment (SEI) programs in the communities along its route. Seventy additional projects with a total value of approximately 15 million euros are due to be rolled out in the upcoming months. In total, TAP will invest over 55 million euros in SEI in Greece, Albania and Italy.

In terms of overall project progress, we are approximately 41 percent complete, including all engineering, procurement and construction scope. We are on track to deliver first gas from Shah Deniz II in 2020, becoming an active part of the European energy network, enabling more competitive and secure energy to reach homes and businesses, said TAP Managing Director Ian Bradshaw.



I am particularly pleased that today, approximately 173km of welded steel pipes  around 21 times our project length in Italy  have been put in the ground in Greece and Albania. TAP remains fully committed to reinstate land to its original condition or better. A project of this scale and magnitude will face daily challenges, however, we are well positioned to address and manage them by working closely with our teams, our supply network and alongside communities. Bradshaw added.



By this time next year, TAP plans to have completed the clearing and grading of the route across Greece and Albania and have approximately 67 percent of welded pipes placed in the ground (backfilled).

TAP is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

The pipeline will connect to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south.

TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers).

TAPs shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
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Revelations that President Donald Trump gave Russian officials highly classified intelligence during a recent Oval Office visit and that he allegedly encouraged former FBI Director James Comey to drop an investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia have pushed Washington into a frenzy, and some have been uttering a term that is never pleasant for a president to hear: impeachment.

Mr Trump may never face impeachment proceedings, but a growing body of US officials  notably, this group is almost exclusively composed of Democrats  have been calling for the House of Representatives to seriously consider impeachment.

Heres what you need to know about impeachment, what Mr Trump may need to worry about, and what weve seen with past presidents.

What is impeachment?

Impeachment does not guarantee removal from office, but it is a serious situation for the president (or other high government official) to find themselves in, and it is the first step toward removal from office.

Technically speaking, impeachment is a formal charge of misconduct levied against a public official by Congress. It is not in any way a verdict or finding of criminality in and of itself.

How does impeachment work?

In the United States, the House of Representatives has the sole right to initiate impeachment charges against a high official in government.

Recommended 6 times Trump attacked Clinton for mishandling classified information

The process begins with an independent investigation  this could come from the Department of Justice, from Congress itself, or from an appointed special council  which findings for the basis of charges. That evidence is then handed over to the House Judiciary Committee, which reviews evidence and writes up the Articles of Impeachment.

After debate in the House, the legislative body will vote on the Articles of Impeachment. If a simple majority votes in favour of impeachment then the president is considered impeached.

What happens next?

From there, the Articles of Impeachment are sent over to the Senate for consideration and a trial. The accused mounts their defence and the House Judiciary Committee acts as the prosecution. During the proceedings, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court acts as the judge and the Senate acts as the jury.

If a two-thirds majority in the Senate votes against the President, thats it. The President is removed from office.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Why are people calling for Mr Trumps impeachment?

The Trump administration has been a focal point for scandal, but most calls for impeachment or suggestion that an investigation be started revolve around potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Theres a lot to unpack on that front: The US government has openly claimed that Russia worked to influence the 2016 election, close associates of Mr Trump had repeated contact with Russian officials during the campaign and transition period (mostly notably with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak), and Mr Trump himself cited investigations into his campaign as a reason he decided to fire Mr Comey on national television (and memos written by Mr Comey about his interactions with the President reportedly indicate that Mr Trump asked him to stop the Russia investigation). That the president happened to convey highly classified information to Russian officials of all people (including Mr Kislyak) has only raised eyebrows further, even if it may not be at all relevant to those investigations.

The officials calling for impeachment generally cite a concern that Mr Trump is trying to squash or hinder investigations into his campaign's ties (the White House and Mr Trump have denied those accusations).

Could Trump be impeached for 'leaking' classified information to Russia?

Mr Trumps decision to discuss highly classified intelligence with Russian officials appears to be technically within the law. As the president, he has the constitutional power to decide whether or not the US government considers information classified and he can discuss US intelligence with whomever he wants. Thats in contrast to other US officials who would likely be facing prison time if they had done what the President did.

But thats not the only concern, as the legal blog Lawfare points out. Mr Trumps decision to divulge highly classified information could theoretically put American lives at risk or seriously risk intelligence sharing relationships with other countries. Cooperation with other nations is an important part of US intelligence gathering  the US simply doesnt have enough resources to compile all of the intelligence needed to operate.

Depending on why he decided to do so, Mr Trump may have violated his oath of office when he gave the intelligence to the Russians (and its not a criminal act to violate the oath). There are important caveats here: Mr Trump may have had a strategic reason in mind when he spoke with the Russians, for instance. Reports, though, have noted that Mr Trump seemed to be bragging to the Russians about the intelligence he has access to. If thats the sole reason he gave up the information  an act of simple carelessness or negligence  his detractors may argue that giving up the intelligence was a gross violation of his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.

Could violating his oath of office be enough for impeachment charges?

Absolutely. Three US presidents have faced impeachment or have been impeached in the history of the US. All three faced alleged oath violations in their Articles of Impeachment.

President Andrew Johnson, who became president after Abraham Lincolns assassination, surprised many of his allies by offering amnesty to Confederate officials and by vetoing civil rights protections for former slaves. That led to a wave of anger toward him in Congress that resulted in his impeachment on grounds that included being unmindful of the high duties of his oath of office.

President Richard Nixon, who faced impeachment proceedings after his connection to the Watergate scandal were discovered, was said to have acted contrary to his oath.

President Bill Clinton, who faced impeachment after lying under oath about an affair he had with a White House intern, was said to have acted in violation of his constitutional oath in his Articles of Impeachment.

Has impeachment ever led to removal from office?

No. The two presidents who were impeached, Mr Clinton and Mr Johnson, were later exonerated in the Senate. Mr Nixon was not impeached because he resigned from office before the House could complete the process (though it is widely believed that he would have been impeached and removed from office had he fought the charges).

Is impeachment likely for Mr Trump?

It seems unlikely right now since the President enjoys a Congress controlled by his party, but there appears to be growing momentum behind the effort. Following the revelation that Mr Trump allegedly asked Mr Comey to stop the FBI's Russia investigation, talk of impeachment is reportedly spreading in Congress. At least one prominent Republican senator, John McCain, has compared the scandal surrounding the White House to the one that ultimately led to Mr Nixon's resignation.

But that's not to say that Republicans are going to rally around the idea of impeaching a president of their own party. Should Republicans in the House face a wave of opposition in the 2018 midterms, leading Democrats to regain control of the House, the voices currently calling for impeachment may have more sway.
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Donald Trump's administration is in "a downward spiral" after allegedly leaking classified information to Russian officials, a Republican senator has claimed, joining a chorus of condemnation in Washington.

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order," Republican Senator Bob Corker said. "Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening."

The Washington Post first reported that Mr Trump had released highly classified information about Isis to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week. Sources later confirmed the report to BuzzFeed News, adding that the disclosure was far worse than what has already been reported".

The information was reportedly obtained from an American ally through a highly sensitive intelligence-sharing arrangement.

Politicians on either side of the aisle quickly deemed the reports disturbing, damning, and almost inconceivable.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told CNNs Wolf Blitzer that so-called code-word information is one of the most highly classified forms of intel available.

It would be almost inconceivable that any president would let something of that nature out, Mr Leahy said.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, echoed this sentiment, calling the disclosure a slap in the face to the intel community.

Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians, he tweeted.

Democratic Whip Dick Durbin called the reports "dangerous and reckless". Fellow Democrat Joe Manchin added that they appear "very damning, very damaging.

Several other Republicans cautiously denounced the leaks, while adding the disclaimer if true.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent critic of Mr Trump, called the reports troubling. Fellow national security hawk Senator John McCain called the allegations disturbing, but later couched his remarks, adding: We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information but the president does have the right to do that."

Meanwhile, David Kochel, a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, has compared Mr Trump's alleged indiscretion with Senator McCain's time as a prisoner of war. "John McCain probably revealed less to the KGB in 5+ years of torture at the Hanoi Hilton than Trump did in 5 minutes in the Oval," he tweeted.

US law permits the president to de-classify information at his or her own discretion.
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Donald Trump has sought to turn the controversy over his leaking of material to Russia on its head, by issuing a warning to leakers in his intelligence community.

In a flurry of early morning tweets that appeared to confirm elements of the Washington Post story that said he had given highly classified material to the Russian foreign minister, the president turned his anger on those who provided the story to the media. He claimed he had been asked former FBI Director James Comey to address the issue.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community, he said.

The Post said that Mr Trump had mentioned to Sergei Lavrov and Russias US Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, information from a third country, relating to an Isis threat.

The third country, an ally of the US, had shared the information on the express condition it be closely guarded. The paper said he had mentioned the city in Isis territory in which a threat had been detected.

 Kellyanne Conway 'secretly hates Donald Trump and said she had to shower after defending him'

Mr Trump insisted that he had the right to share with Russia, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.

He added: Plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against Isis.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Some will see Mr Trumps as standing in contrast to the efforts by three of his officials to deny the report. The White House produced three officials - National Security Adviser HR McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - to deny the report.

The story that came out tonight as reported is false, said Mr McMasters. Many saw it as a non-denial denial.

For instance, Mr McMasters said that the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known, even though the report made no such mention of military operations.
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A European country has reportedly said it may stop sharing intelligence with the US, if it transpires Donald Trump provided classified information to Russia.

In a warning that will further add to concerns about the US intelligence community amid the fallout of Mr Trumps actions, the senior official said they may take that step, despite the Presidents claim that he had the right to share the details with Russia.

The Associated Press did not identify which country the official came from, but the official said sharing intelligence with Washington, could be a risk for our sources.

The warning came as Mr Trump and the White House sought both to deny some of the claims initially made by the Washington Post in its article about the presidents leaking of information to Russia, and defend his actions.

In a series of tweets, Mr Trump sought to defend his actions and issue a warning to those who had leaked the information to the media.

I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled WH meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining ... to terrorism and airline flight safety, he wrote. Plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

 Stephen Colbert: 'Donald Trump, youre a bad president, please resign'

The Post said that Mr Trump shared details about an Isis terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. The information had come from a third country, apparently in the Middle East, that had asked that it be closely held.

Indeed, so sensitive was the information that it was considered code word classified, one of the highest levels of classification used by the US intelligence community.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Reports said that Mr Trump later was informed he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA in move to try and minimise any damage.

The White House has pushed back against those reports, but not denied that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting between Mr Trump and Russian diplomats. The Kremlin dismissed the reports as complete nonsense.

Recommended

Senior Republican John McCain, a senator from Arizona, said the report of Mr Trump sharing the information with Russia was deeply disturbing.

Regrettably, the time President Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians, was time he did not spend focussing on Russias aggressive behaviour, including its interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, he said.
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CNN political commentator Ana Navarro took to Twitter to say that if Hillary Clinton had leaked information to Russia while in the Oval Office, Republican members of Congressional would begin the process to impeach her immediately.

The Washington Post has reported Donald Trump allegedly leaked classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak while the group met in the Oval Office last week.

"If Hillary Clinton leaked classified info to a Russian spook/diplomat, Republicans would rightly be drafting Articles of Impeachment N-O-W," she wrote.

The meeting took place just one day after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into the alleged ties between Russia and Mr Trump's campaign team.

Ms Navarro's outrage at her own party stems from Republicans' consistent and continued criticism of Ms Clinton's purported use of a private email server to send classified emails while she was Secretary of State and on the campaign trail.

She has also been vocal about her opposition to what she feels is Mr Trump's anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric throughout the campaign and his presidency.

There has been a legal debate on whether Mr Trump was allowed to declassify the information he leaked in order to share it with Russian officials, but Ms Navarro mocked the "enablers" for using that as an excuse for Mr Trump being "clueless" or "incompetent".

Another Republican strategist who worked on Senator John McCain's presidential campaign in 2012, Steve Schmidt, echoed Ms Navarro's statements. He said on MSNBC, that Mr Trump's leak of information to Russia in the middle of the FBI, Senate, and House investigations into the country's role in tampering with the US election was a "dereliction of duty" and "shocking".
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A senior advisor to Donald Trump has said the president himself decided to share highly sensitive information with Russia - effectively a spontaneous decision made on the spur of the moment.

National security advisor HR McMaster insisted to reporters that the President had done nothing wrong by speaking to the Russian foreign minister. He also said Mr Trump had not shared anything that was inappropriate.

Yet, he suggested that the decision to share the details of intelligence about details of an Isis plot, originally provided by a third country, was that of Mr Trump alone.

"In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged," he said.

I stand by my statement that I made yesterday, Mr McMaster told a White House briefing.

What I'm saying is really the premise of that article was false, that in any way the president had a conversation that was inappropriate or resulted in any kind of lapse in national security.

 Stephen Colbert: 'Donald Trump, youre a bad president, please resign'

Asked directly if Mr Trump had handed over classified information, Mr McMaster refused to answer.

We dont say what is classified, what it not classified, he said. What the president shared was wholly appropriate.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. 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The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr McMaster was asked when the decision was made to present the details with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. Did the president spontaneously, on the spot, decided to share it?

As you know, its wholly appropriate for the president to share information he decides is needed to advance the security of the American people, he said.

When he was pressed about when the decision was made to share the information - reportedly details of an Isis threat to use explosives in laptops - he said: He made the decision in the context of the conversation, which was wholly appropriate.
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Donald Trump and the White House have sought to brush off the controversy over his sharing of highly sensitive material with Russia, as concerns grew that nations may decide to stop their intelligence cooperation.

As it was reported that Israel was the source of the information about an Isis terror plot that Mr Trump passed to the Russian Foreign Minister, the White House tried to insist the President had every right to act as he did.

Mr Trump, who had apparently spontaneously decided to share the information with Russia, said he believed his actions would help in the fight against terrorism.

 National Security Advisor HR McMaster says Trump's conversations with Russian officials were 'wholly appropriate'

We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia, Mr Trump said of his meeting in the Oval Office last week, with Sergei Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador to Washington.

We want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible. And thats one of the beautiful things that's happening with Turkey.

Yet few people shared Mr Trumps view. While much of of the public criticism was muted, in private there appeared to widespread concern about the potential damage the President had done. One senior European official, told the Associated Press, they may decide to stop intelligence sharing with the US, if it transpired Mr Trump had passed on classified information.

There could be a risk for our sources, said the official.

Legal experts, along with the White House, said that in his position as president, Mr Trump had it in his executive powers to declassify material, and to share it, in a way that would represent a breach of the law if it was done by anyone else.

National security advisor HR McMaster told reporters in Washington he had been as the meeting with the Russian officials and had witnessed anything amiss.

Asked directly if Mr Trump had handed over classified information, Mr McMaster refused to answer.

We dont say what is classified, what it not classified, he said. What the president shared was wholly appropriate.

As you know, its wholly appropriate for the president to share information he decides is needed to advance the security of the American people.

When he was pressed about when the decision was made to share the information - reportedly details of an Isis threat to use explosives in laptops - he said: He made the decision in the context of the conversation, which was wholly appropriate.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. 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The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. 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He also said that Mr Trump had not been briefed on the source of the material.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats sought to seize on Mr Trumps actions. The Senate Intelligence Committee asked the White House for more information about what information was passed on.

Senior Republican John McCain, a senator from Arizona, said the report of Mr Trump sharing the information with Russia was deeply disturbing.

Regrettably, the time President Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians, was time he did not spend focussing on Russias aggressive behaviour, including its interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, he said.

The fact that Israel - one of Americas closest allies - was the source of the information passed on to Russia, will complicate Mr Trumps first trip, on which he is due to embark this week. The first two stops are due to be Saudi Arabia and Israel.

In January, Israeli media reported that American officials had warned their Israeli counterparts to be careful what they told Mr Trump, as they feared it could be passed on to Russia. Israel will be particularity concerned that the details could make their way to Iran, a regional ally of Russia, but the nation Israel considers its main threat.

Israel has declined to confirm it was the source source of the information that Mr. Trump shared. In a statement published by the New York Times, Ron Dermer, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, said: Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.

Yet, Mr Trump will struggle to throw off the impression of amateurism and his unwillingness or inability to deal with sensitive information, or difficult circumstances.

John Pike, a strategic and military analyst with the Washington-based GlobalSecurity.org, told The Independent, Mr Trump appeared unable not to blurt out information. The main damage is to functioning of the American government, and its statecraft, he said.
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Japanese school lunches aren't synonymous with mystery meat, but rather, shokuiku. It means food and nutrition education, and it's a vital part of the Japanese child's early education.

Beginning in elementary school, kids come to understand that what you put into your body matters a great deal in how you think and feel throughout the day  and how you go about your life.

As a country, Japan prioritises school lunch. If parents can't front the $2.50 cost of a meal, free and reduced lunch programs help kids stay full.

Japan's standpoint is that school lunches are a part of education, Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education, told the Washington Post in 2013, not a break from it.

Here's what it looks like to be one of the global leaders in lunchtime.

Lunchtime in Japanese primary schools is almost sacred. It isn't hurried or hasty  kids get the time just to sit and eat.

Kids serve one another in an effort to reinforce a culture of self-sufficiency. In many schools, there is no janitor. Kids learn to pick up after themselves.

Rice has been a staple for decades, but it wasn't until the 1970s that school lunches began to look mostly like what they do today.

(Yuriko Nakao/Reuters (Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)

Lunch often comes with a main dish, rice, and a side soup. This lunch has miso soup, a small packet of dried fish, milk, rice, and pork fried with vegetables.

Another option might include tofu with meat sauce on rice, paired with a salad, apple, and carton of milk.

(Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons)

At Jinego Elementary School, in Akita Prefecture, a typical lunch includes chicken, rice, miso wakame soup, vegetable salad, milk, and a tangerine.

Jinego Elementary will occasionally offer curry and rice, which comes with milk and fruit salad. Many other schools will offer Korean or Italian food at least once a week.

About 25 miles away, Yashima Junior High School offers students rice, pork, and egg; lemon yogurt; tofu seaweed soup; and milk.

(Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons)

The end result isn't just a satisfied student body, but one that learns responsibility and healthy eating habits. Japan's life expectancy is among the highest in the world, while it's rate of obesity is well below the global average.

With the end of any good meal comes one inevitability: naptime.

 Analyst predictions: The future of the pound looks bleak

 The 33 richest people on earth

 These are the 25 richest people in Britain

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has acknowledged that allegations he induced extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs could be raised to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after an impeachment case failed in the House of Representatives.

Yeah, he can go ahead. He is free to do it. This is a democracy, Duterte said in reaction to a lawmaker saying he was considering bringing a case against the Philippine leader to the court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The impeachment complaint killed by a House committee Monday accused Duterte of multiple murders and crimes against humanity for adopting a state policy of inducing police and vigilantes into killing more than 8,000 suspected drug users and dealers outside the rule of law. The complaint also accused him of corruption, unexplained wealth, and taking a defeatist stand against China's in the territorial row in the South China Sea.

It is true that there are deaths  is there a drug war where no one is killed? Duterte said. But not in the character and kind that I was dished out, including ordering the killing of a child.

The dismissal of Rep. Gary Alejano's complaint was widely expected since the House is dominated by Duterte allies. But the president's critics hope the procedure could bolster a lawsuit filed against him by a Filipino lawyer before the ICC for alleged extrajudicial killings by showing that domestic efforts to stop Duterte have failed.

Recommended Philippines hears impeachment complaint against Rodrigo Duterte

The dismissal of the complaint, filed in March, bars any new impeachment case against Duterte until next March.

Since taking office in June, Duterte's war on drugs has killed 7,000 to 9,000 suspected drug dealers and addicts, according to human rights groups. The government refutes that, releasing data on May 2 showing nearly 4,600 people have been killed in police anti-drug operations and homicides found to be drug-related.

During Monday's hearing, Rep. Rodolfo Farinas, the majority floor leader, asked Alejano repeatedly if he had personal knowledge of allegations he made in his complaint.

Alejano said he had no personal knowledge as a witness, but that he had personal knowledge as a complainant based on official records, affidavits of witnesses and Duterte's public pronouncements. Several lawmakers pointed to that distinction to say Alejano's allegations were hearsay.

Forty-two of 49 committee members then voted to declare the complaint insufficient in substance.

The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Show all 9 1 /9 The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On killing drug addicts These sons of whores are destroying our children. I warn you, dont go into that, even if youre a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Message to China I will go there on my own with a Jet Ski, bringing along with me a [Phillipino] flag and a pole, and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, Kill me  AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Christmas message to law-breakers If you do not want to stop, and just continue committing crimes, then this would be your last Merry Christmas AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On sex life I was separated from my wife. Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On the drugs trade None of my children are into illegal drugs. But my order is, even if it is a member of my family, kill him'" AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting the Pope We were affected by the traffic. It took us five hours. I asked why, they said it was closed. I asked who is coming. They answered, the pope. I wanted to call him: Pope, son of a wh**e, go home. Do not visit us again AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Joke about rape I saw her face and I thought, 'What a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first AFP/Getty The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting Barack Obama "Mr Obama should be respectful and refrain from throwing questions at me about the killings, or son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum" REUTERS The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants "If I have to face them, you know I can eat humans. I will really open up your body. Just give me vinegar and salt, and I will eat you. If you annoy me to the fullest... I will eat you alive. Raw" EPA

A frustrated Alejano told reporters that he'll discuss with his colleagues from the Magdalo party whether they should file their own complaint before the ICC.

He said it was clear that the impeachment procedure was railroaded and that the House is not independent.

Copyright Associated Press
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Thailand has no immediate plan to block access to Facebook, the telecoms regulator said on Tuesday, as it expects the social media giant to comply with court orders for the removal of content deemed to threaten national security.

In a move to censor criticism in the junta-run country, the telecoms regulator had set Facebook a Tuesday deadline to take down 131 web addresses with content it saw as threatening security or violating strict lese majeste laws.

Last week's threat prompted a flurry of concern in the South East Asian country - one of Asia's most active on Facebook - that the site would be blocked.

However, there would be no immediate measures to block Facebook, Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of Thailand's telecoms commission, told reporters, adding that bureaucracy had held up the process of removing the 131 impugned content items.

We have the necessary documents from the court to block 34 URLs now, Takorn said, following a visit to the head office of a grouping of internet providers in Thailand to check if Facebook had complied with the authorities' removal request.

Facebook has cooperated well in terms of taking steps to block the URLs that we asked them to in the past, he added.

If they cooperate, then there will be 97 URLs left which we have asked the court to issue warrants to block.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the matter.

The head of the service providers' association, which groups 19 landline and mobile ISPs and international gateway operators covering 90 per cent of Thailand, also told reporters there was no plan to block access yet.

We haven't discussed that action to shut down Facebook, said Morakot Kulthamyothin, president of the Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA).

All 131 sites were still accessible after the deadline expired on Tuesday, the provider added.

Since the military took power in a coup in 2014, Thailand's government has ramped up online censorship, particularly against material perceived to insult the monarchy.

Last month, Thailand also banned citizens from any contact online with three vocal critics of the monarchy.

The junta's latest attempt to block content would not achieve much, said Pavin Chachavalpongpun of Kyoto University, one of the three critics.

The government will achieve little from the current ban, Pavin told Reuters.

If Facebook complies, it will be condemned by the international community. If Facebook ignores the request, then I guess the government will prove to the public that it is serious about this - expect more arrests of those who follow me.

Facebook has said its general guideline on receiving government requests to remove content is to determine whether the material violates local laws before restricting access.

In 2016, Facebook blocked 50 pieces of content found to have violated the lese majeste law, following government requests.

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

Since taking power, the military government has made increasing use of the royal insult law, which can carry a penalty of up to 15 years for each offence, against critics.

Days after the May 2014 coup, the ministry of information and communications technology blocked access to Facebook temporarily, saying the military had ordered suspension of content critical of its actions.

The junta denied ordering the step.

Copyright Reuters
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 16

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat organized a study visit to Vienna for representatives of the Turkmen State Energy Institute in Mary (TSEI) in order to show them international best practices in the field of renewable energy sources usage, said the OSCE in a message posted on its website.

During the visit, the Turkmen delegation visited the Agricultural College Tulln and the Energiepark Bruck/Leitha complex, which generates electricity from wind and solar energy, as well as a biogas plant at the same location, says the message.

The visit participants discussed the curriculum and teaching methods of the vocational school and were acquainted with the work of a fully operational renewable energy plant.

On the last day of their visit, participants attended the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Sustainable Energy Conference, which addressed key issues of the sustainable energy debate, linkages between climate and development and the global implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement, according to the message.

Provision of sustainable, innovative and reliable energy supplies represents a cornerstone of energy security, stability and economic growth. While the number of countries turning to renewable energy sources is steadily increasing, ensuring a cost-effective transition to clean and sustainable energy is vital, said Natalya Drozd, head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat.

Our Centre welcomes the efforts of the government of Turkmenistan to diversify its energy sources. Facilitating the exchange of sustainable energy solutions contributes towards achieving this goal.

The aim of the three-day study visit was to familiarize the teaching staff of the Mary State Energy Institute with the experience of Austria in implementing renewable energy projects, as well as to support the exchange of knowledge in the field between Austrian experts and their Turkmen counterparts, according to the message.

The field study visit is part of the Centres long-term support to the Mary State Energy Institute, which includes assistance in the establishment of a Centre of Excellence on Renewable Energy as a knowledge-sharing network of academics and specialists in the renewable energy field, says the message.

The study visit was organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in co-operation with the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities.
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A woman in Pakistan has reportedly been set on fire by her husband and his parents for failing to conceive after three years of marriage.

Aasia Bibi told police that her husband, Ameer Islam and his parents doused her in petrol and set her on fire in their house in Okara, a small city in the country's north east.

The womans neighbours heard her screaming and rushed to her house, according to a local police report.

She was then taken to the District Headquarters Hospital in Okara, according to the Dawn newspaper..

Ms Bibi is reportedly in a critical condition in hospital, which could have been worse were she not immediately taken to hospital by her neighbours, the Express Tribune reports.

She is said to have been admonished on a daily basis by her husbands parents for not conceiving throughout her marriage.

Police have arrested Ms Bibis in-laws and two other accomplices in connection with the crime.

District police officer Hasan Asad Alvi told the newspaper Ms Bibis husband was not at home at the time of the crime but that he will be questioned as part of the investigation.
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Neighbours have described hearing screams before a wife was murdered, dismembered and cooked by her husband.

An inquest into the 2014 murder-suicide has heard the smell coming from the apartment of chef-turned-sex worker Marcus Volke, 27, was so bad that building managers started using air freshener in the hallways.

Volke murdered his wife Mayang Prasetyo after an argument and blamed the smell on cooking, Brisbane Coroners Court heard.

Police were alerted after Volke called an electrician to deal with a power outage caused by cooking his wife's remains.

Ms Prasetyo, a trans sex worker from Indonesia, married Volke in 2013. The couple had an unorthodox relationship which Volke kept secret from his family, the Courier Mail reported, travelling the world and working as escorts on cruise ships and in brothels.

Marcus Volke and Mayang Prasetyo (Channel 7)

The next year, on 2 October, Volke had an argument with her on the phone when he was with a client, then left abruptly.

That evening, neighbours of the couple in the apartment complex in Teneriffe, Brisbane, described hearing the sounds of an argument coming from their flat.

It lasted about 30 to 40 minutes and started to escalate to a point where the person later identified to be Ms Prasetyo was noted to be screaming, Emily Cooper, counsel assisting the coroner, told the court.

The male person, later identified to be Mr Volke, was seen to be sitting on the couch inside the unit just staring straight ahead, not reacting at all to the screaming.

After another round of arguing in the early hours of 3 October, police believe Ms Prasetyo was murdered. Detectives do not think it was premeditated.

Later the day, a smell was noticed by the buildings manager, who used air freshener in the hallway, the Mail reported. The manager told the court the smell was like dog food.

The court was told Volke left the apartment and bought gloves, bleach, wipes, rubbish bags, a laundry tub and a scrubbing brush. He was suffering a wound to his hand but gave a taxi driver and hospital staff different causes for the injury.

Volke also called an electrician, telling him a stock pot had boiled over and cut out power to his electric stove. But on arrival the tradesman noticed blood on the floor, in addition to the smell, and raised the alarm.

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

Police visited soon after, discovering Ms Prasetyos feet in a kitchen pot and her dismembered remains in a rubbish bag in the washing machine. Volke fled the scene when police arrived, cutting his throat and hiding in a bin outside the back of the apartment block, where he was later found dead.

Ms Cooper said the officers actions were legally authorised, justified and supported and found no evidence of misconduct. The hearing will conclude on Friday.
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Rejected asylum seekers have been beaten by Afghan police in front of Danish officers on a deportation flight following repeated warnings over the risk of torture for migrants sent back to Afghanistan.

Denmark is among European countries, including the UK, that have re-started deportations to the war-torn country, despite concerns over ill-treatment in custody and the ongoing war being waged by Taliban militants and Isis.

A confidential report detailing the deportation of 16 rejected Afghan asylum seekers from Denmark has now detailed brazen abuse by the countrys authorities.

An official account seen by Politiken newspaper said Danish police officers were on board the flight to Kabul when two men refused to disembark after landing on 1 March.

A Danish officer sat immediately behind the men testified that an Afghan officer dealt four to six powerful blows to the head and several to the torso of one man  who was then dragged out of his seat by the hair - while the second man was punched several times in the face.

In this context, he [the Afghan police officer] used force that would not have been deemed justifiable had Danish police acted similarly in the course of their duties in Denmark, said the report.

 US drops 'Mother Of All Bombs' on Islamic State cave system in Afghanistan

The deportation had been followed closely by Danish media amid protests by human rights organisations and activists.

It was unclear whether Danish police intervened, but two officers helped their Afghan counterparts by restraining one of the mens hands with plastic ties.

Analysts said the incident constituted a clear breach of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provisions on torture and degrading treatment, with Danish authorities sharing jurisdiction on board the Demark-chartered plane.

There is no professional justification for police to use that kind of force, said Peter Vedel Kessing of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, according to a translation by The Local.

A lawyer representing the two deported Afghan men has contacted the government ombudsman with an official complaint over the case.

A UN report released last month warned that people detained in Afghanistans ongoing war face torture and ill-treatment in custody, despite pledges from the countrys government to eliminate abuse.

Kabul has been declared 'safe' for returns despite a series of terror attacks (EPA)

It found 45 per cent of interviewed prisoners gave credible accounts of being subjected to torture or ill-treatment by the Afghan National Police force and another 26 per cent by the National Directorate of Security.

The majority of those detained in relation to the ongoing conflict said they had been tortured to force them to confess, the report said, adding: Many of those interviewed stated that they did not understand or could not read what was written on the confession which they signed or thumb-printed.

Afghanistans National Plan on the Elimination of Torture was drawn up in February 2015 but has not yet been implemented, promising recognition for the UN Committee against Torture and increased accountability and prevention work.

More than 15 years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban continues to control swathes of territory as part of a bloody campaign to establish an Islamic emirate in the country.

Battles between the group and government forces led thousands dead last year, amid increasing terror attacks by the Taliban and rival groups affiliated with Isis, which has gained a foothold in the country.

At least four people were killed in fresh Taliban rocket attacks in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, while government forces pushed militants back in northern Kunduz province and a dozen Isis fighters in Nangarhar handed over their weapons in a peace agreement.

The Afghan government has expanded its use of militias accused of civilian killings and assaults, while national security forces have also been responsible for indiscriminate attacks and using civilian infrastructure for military purposes.

War artists in Afghanistan Show all 6 1 /6 War artists in Afghanistan War artists in Afghanistan Work by Matthew Cook Matthew Cook War artists in Afghanistan War artists in Afghanistan Work by Jules George Jules George War artists in Afghanistan Embedded: Jules George War artists in Afghanistan Work by Jules George Jules George War artists in Afghanistan Trooping the colours: Jules George was inspired by his father and grandfather to witness and document war, if not to wage it Jules George

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been internally displaced by fighting, while more than 2.7 million have become refugees worldwide and at least 62,000 have reached Europe, constituting one of the largest groups crossing the Mediterranean.

Those reaching overcrowded refugee camps in Greece and Italy have long complained of being discriminated against and shunted to the back of the queue behind Syrians and Iraqis, despite long-standing European involvement in the war at home.

Among them are countless interpreters who were promised protection in exchange for risking their lives working with Nato forces but found themselves stranded in the crosshairs of Islamist insurgents hunting collaborators down.

Donald Trump is considering sending more American troops to the country, while Theresa May has agreed to a Nato request for 100 British soldiers  despite fighting a legal battle as Home Secretary to re-start deportations to supposedly safe provinces.

The Court of Appeal controversially ruled that returns could resume in March 2016, overturning a blanket ban imposed amid increased fighting and terror attacks.

Similar cases have been heard across Europe, with Germany, Austria, Sweden and Finland among the countries deporting Afghans on charter flights to Kabul, which has been designated a safe area despite a series of deadly bombings and shootings.

At least 248 people were deported from the EU to Afghanistan in the first quarter of this year, according to the countrys ministry of refugees, while thousands more returned voluntarily.


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The EUs plan to resettle up to 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece throughout member states is failing amid waning political will to help those risking their lives to reach Europe.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for migration, said some countries have failed to relocate a single person in breach of their obligations as legal action is considered.

Relocation is vital to the success of our migration and asylum policies based on solidarity and responsibility, he told the European Parliament on Tuesday.

This is why it is so essential that relocation works in all its aspects, and is implemented by everyone.

For this, one element remains critical for the success of the scheme: the political will and the mutual cooperation and trust between member states.

Mr Avramopoulos argued that the scheme benefits the entire EU and integrity of the Schengen area, calling for fresh efforts to move all eligible asylum seekers.

Refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugee crisis - in pictures A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea Refugee crisis - in pictures Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia. Refugee crisis - in pictures A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece. Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees Refugee crisis - in pictures A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast. Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said Refugee crisis - in pictures Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year Refugee crisis - in pictures The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos Refugee crisis - in pictures Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos Reuters Refugee crisis - in pictures An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija AP Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea EPA Refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey Getty Images Refugee crisis - in pictures Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

This cannot be the responsibility of just a few member states  this must be shared be all, he added.

It cannot be that while the majority of member states are making real efforts in a real European spirit, others continue to show no solidarity.

While more than 18,400 migrants have so far been taken from overwhelmed camps, 12,500 people in Greece and 4,000 in Italy remain stranded despite being found eligible for transfer under UN guidelines.

In September 2015, EU states committed to relocating up to 160,000 refugees from the two countries within two years, later revising the figure down to 98,000 after finding that fewer people than expected were eligible.

The total is on track to hit less than 40,000 by its deadline in September.

Asylum seekers trapped in squalid camps have killed themselves amid increasing desperation, as charities warn of attempted suicide, rape, sexual abuse and prostitution in Greece.

 Refugees in Greece: Every day you die many times

Hungary and Poland voted against the resettlement quotas, while they and Austria remain the only EU countries not to have relocated a single refugee, in breach of their legal obligations and commitments.

The UK chose not to take part in the EUs quotas while carrying out its own resettlement schemes mainly targeting camps surrounding Syria.

The EU called on Italy to ensure all refugees eligible for relocation are properly registered, amid record arrivals over the Mediterranean Sea from Libya  a journey that has killed a record 1,300 people so far this year.

The European Commission will decide next month on any infringement cases against countries failing to resettle asylum seekers under the agreed scheme.

As well as Poland and Hungary, officials have singled out the Czech Republic, saying it has not been active for a year, while Austria has now pledged to take in people from Italy.

The ongoing crisis has increasingly pitted rising populists and right-wing governments against the EU, with Denmark vowing on Tuesday to defy a directive to lift temporary border restrictions within six months unless the EU miraculously stops irregular migration.

The European Commission previously announced member states should be able to send asylum seekers back to Greece from March (AP)

More than 1.6 million asylum seekers have arrived in Europe since the start of the refugee crisis in 2014.

While crossings to Greece have plummeted since the controversial EU-Turkey deal, the number of migrants arriving in Italy has continued to rise, seeing almost 13,000 people disembark last month alone.

The Italian government delivered four patrol boats to the Libyan government on Monday to bolster its capacity to combat people smuggling, despite allegations of widespread torture and human rights abuses.

EU states have backed an agreement drawn up by Italy to spend millions of euros helping the fragile Libyan Government of National Accord upgrade its capability with equipment and training.

Italian interior minister Marco Minniti said the boats would be followed by another six vessels in the coming weeks to contribute to the security of the central Mediterranean, with a capacity to intervene against human traffickers and with preventative action against terrorism.

Even centres nominally controlled by the government hold migrants captive in inhumane conditions, while gangs profiting from widespread lawlessness extort asylum seekers who are frequently abused, murdered and even sold in slave markets.

UN figures show 55,215 asylum seekers have made it across the Mediterranean Sea so far this year, mostly from Guinea, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Syria, while more than 1,300 have died in the attempt.
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The United Nations has called on Hungary to withdraw a proposed law targeting humanitarian agencies and charities that would have a chilling effect on legitimate scrutiny of the government.

Two special rapporteurs said the draft Bill on the Transparency of Organisations Financed from Abroad would severely curtail freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association if made law.

It would force NGOs that receive more than 24,000 (21,000) annually from a foreign source to register as a foreign-supported organisation and adopt the label on websites and publications, while giving the names, countries and cities of supporters abroad.

Experts Michel Forst and David Kaye said financial transparency was already ensured under existing legislation, adding: The current bill would only discriminate against, delegitimise and stigmatise NGOs that receive all or part of their funding from abroad.

If adopted, it would have a chilling effect not only on expressions of peaceful dissent but also on the legitimate work of NGOs and individual human rights defenders scrutinising government and exposing human rights violations.

The law was submitted to the Hungarian parliament following a series of damning reports by human rights organisations on the actions of Viktor Orbans government, which stands accused of clamping down on civil society and liberal values.

How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Refugees protest as Hungarian riot police fires tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border A refugee throws a bottle of water towards Hungarian riot police after they used water cannon to push back refugees at the Hungarian border with Serbia near the town of Horgos How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Refugees protest as Hungarian riot police fires tear gas and water cannon at the border crossing with Serbia in Roszke How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Hungarian armoured personnel carriers are deployed at the border crossing with Serbia in Roszke How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Hungarian riot policemen are deployed at the border crossing with Serbia in Roszke How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Hungarian police spray water cannon on migrants at the "Horgos 2" border crossing into Hungary, Serbia How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border A refugee reacts after Hungarian riot police use water cannon to push back refugees at the Hungarian border with Serbia near the town of Horgos How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border A refugee gestures as Hungarian riot police use water cannon to push back refugees at the Hungarian border with Serbia near the town of Horgos How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border A refugee throws a stone towards Hungarian riot police after they used water cannon and pepper spray to push back refugees at the Hungarian border with Serbia near the town of Horgos How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Refugees protest as Hungarian riot police fires tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Migrants shout slogans as they stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Hungarian riot policemen run as they are deployed at the border crossing with Serbia in Roszke Reuters How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Hungarian riot policemen are deployed at the border crossing with Serbia in Roszke Reuters How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Refugees stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia Reuters How Hungary welcomes its refugees - in pictures Serbia-Hungary border Refugees wait at the Horgos 2 border crossing EPA

The Prime Minister has repeatedly attacked NGOs receiving foreign funding in public speeches, particularly those funded by philanthropist George Soros or the Open Society Foundations.

In Februarys state of the nation address, Mr Orban said: In 2017 we will need to take up the struggle against international organisations increasingly strong activists.

It is a problem that foreign funding is being secretly used to influence Hungarian politics.

We are talking about paid activists and their branch offices in Hungary.

The Prime Minister accused organisations linked to Mr Soros, who supports initiatives aiding refugees, of working tirelessly to bring hundreds of thousands of migrants in Europe, echoing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The Hungarian parliament previously passed another law specifically targeting the Central European University, an independent university founded over 25 years ago by Mr Soros.

 Hungary votes on EU refugee quota referendum

His Open Society Foundations have given more than $400m (300m) to Hungary since first funding organisations in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, now supporting 45 different groups working on transparency, independent media, minority rights, civic engagement and human rights issues.

Hungary has refused to accept EU quotas to resettle migrants, while bringing in a new law allowing all asylum seekers to be detained and forced back into neighbouring Serbia, with refugees reporting severe beatings and humiliation by border guards.

Certain public remarks by Prime Minister Orban and other high ranking government officials on the activities of civil society raise serious concerns about the governments commitment to basic freedoms in a democratic society, the UN experts warned.

We urge the government to withdraw the bill and to provide a safe and enabling environment for civil society organisations both in practice and rhetoric, in line with their international human rights obligations.

Amnesty International said that direct support from the EU would count as foreign funding under the prohibition, which it compared to Russias widely-condemned foreign agents law.

John Dalhuisen, the groups Europe director, said the bill was an ominous blueprint for the oncoming assault on Hungarian civil society, adding: Thinly disguised as an attempt to protect Hungarian interests, this law would have the opposite effect, discrediting and intimidating NGOs and undermining their capacity to protect human rights and provide valuable services to Hungarian people.

The government has characterised the law bid to fight against money laundering and international terrorism but opponents claim the real goal is to weaken groups holding it account.
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Silvio Berlusconi has said Emmanuel Macron is a nice lad with a good-looking mum, seemingly mocking the newly elected President of France.

The former Italian Prime Minister, 80, was apparently referring to Mr Macrons marriage to Brigitte Trogneux, who is 24 years his senior.

Mr Macron, 39, first met Ms Trogneux, 64, when he was a teenager and she his drama teacher. They married in 2007 and their relationship has attracted substantial international attention, including that of Mr Berlusconi.

Speaking at a campaign event for a Forza Italia mayoral candidate in the northern town of Monza, Mr Berlusconi said the newly elected President was a nice 39-year-old lad, the Telegraph reported.

He continued: [He has] good work experience under him and most of all with a good looking mom who has carried him under her arm when he was still a child."

But observers pointed out that Mr Berlusconi is himself involved in a relationship with someone 49 years younger than him.

His partner, Francesca Pascale, is just 31 years old.

Mr Berlusconi, a billionaire tycoon whose populist style has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump, is renowned for his gaffes. He was banned from public office after being convicted of tax fraud in 2013.

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

In contrast, Mr Macron is France's youngest ever post-war President. He beat far right leader Marine Le Pen to the country's most senior political post in a tense election, vowing to modernise France.

He must now deal with a looming terrorist threat, mass unemployment and a strong nationalist challenge.
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US intelligence agents reportedly warned Israeli officials against giving classified information to Donald Trump's administration because it could be leaked to Russia.

Intelligence concerns, discussed in private meetings, were based on suspected ties between the President's close associates and the Kremlin, a report in January said.

The article, by Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, has received renewed attention after reports that Mr Trump allegedly disclosed highly classified information to two senior Russian officials.

Israeli intelligence agents were said to be concerned that information given to Russia could be passed on to Iran.

Moscow and Tehran have formed alliances in conflicts such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria, while Iran severed all diplomatic ties with Israel following the 1979 revolution in the country.

American intelligence officials had expressed despair at the election of Mr Trump in a meeting with Israel, according to the January report,

They said they believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had "leverages of pressure" over the then-President-elect and urged Israel to "be careful" when handing the White House sensitive information.

Mr Trumps administration was plunged into fresh controversy this week, after The Washington Post reported the President had divulged highly sensitive information about an attack planned by Isis to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The intelligence was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, two officials with knowledge of the situation said.

One official said the intelligence discussed by Mr Trump was classified top secret and only known by a handful of intelligence officials.

After Mr Trump reportedly disclosed the information in a manner described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.

While the President has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information, in this instance he did so without asking the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise a long-standing intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

The White House said the allegations were incorrect.

The story that came out tonight as reported is false, HR McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House.

He added that the leaders reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed," he said. "The President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known... I was in the room. It didn't happen."

The latest controversy came shortly after Mr Trump was heavily criticised for the controversial sacking of FBI Director James Comey.

The President has since been accused by Democrats and others of firing him because he was heading the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias alleged efforts to influence the presidential election.

The White Houses official reasoning for the dismissal is Mr Comeys handling of the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server.

However, the US leader has stated that he fired him after growing tired of hearing about the FBI investigation into his campaign's possible ties to Russia.

This has led to congressional calls for an independent investigation into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
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The rally for Hassan Rouhani at the Shobada Centre in Imam Khomeini Square was vibrant. There were banners and placards, songs and chants in a show of passionate belief that the President must be allowed to finish his mission to bring about an open, free and prosperous society.

The presidential election campaign in Iran is tense and the outcome increasingly tight. Mr Rouhanis hardline opponent is making gains. The great fear of the liberals is that Ebrahim Raisi, once a judge in the death commissions which sent thousands of political prisoners to the gallows and firing squads, may win. And, with that, the country would slide back into harsh theocratic rule at home and isolation abroad.

The man who may help bring this about is Donald Trump, whose baleful shadow hangs over this vitally important election. The US President has threatened to tear up the nuclear deal under which Iran has begun to be free of crippling punitive sanctions, and started to re-establish relations with the international community.

This plays into the hands of the reactionaries here who have always held that the West, and America in particular, cannot be trusted. President Rouhani, they charge, has been naive and irresponsible and betrayed the security of the nation with an agreement which was going to fail.

Recommended Trump administration orders review on lifting Iran sanctions deal

Since his unexpected victory last November, Mr Trump had softened his stance on a number of issues. He says he no longer feels Nato is useless; he no longer says China is a currency manipulator; he is no longer threatening to pull US forces out of Japan and South Korea or to pull America out of the North American Free Trade Agreement unless Canada and Mexico acquiesce to his demands.

But the US President continues to be overtly hostile on Iran. During the election campaign he declared that the nuclear agreement -- widely viewed by other Western states including Britain as a landmark achievement -- was the worst deal in history and that he would dismantle this disastrous mistake.

Since then the Trump administration has sent dangerous mixed signals based, at times, on false assertions. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson grudgingly acknowledged to Congress that Tehran was fulfilling its obligations under the agreement, But then, at a press conference, he claimed that the deal fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran and only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state. He broadened his attack: I would like to address Irans alarming and ongoing provocations that export terror and violence, destabilising more than one country at a time.

Mr Trump, who appointed Mr Tillerson as the Iran pointman, has charged that the Iranians are not living up to the spirit of the agreement while failing to explain what this actually means. His administration, he says, is carrying out a comprehensive review of Iran policy.

Mr Raisis campaign received a boost on Monday when Mohammed Baghar Ghalibaf, the hardline mayor of Tehran, a former police chief, dropped out as candidate, saying: I call upon all my supporters across the country to come out in support of my esteemed brother Ebrahim Raisi and make him succeed in forming the government of work and dignity.

Mr Trump will meanwhile be embarking on Friday on his first presidential foreign trip, taking him to Saudi Arabia and Israel, two states which view Iran as the enemy. Israel considers Tehran as an existential threat and the Sunni Saudis are fighting proxy wars against Shia Iran across the region, including in Yemen where the Saudis are carrying out a devastating bombing campaign in which thousands have been killed and schools and hospitals destroyed.

Belligerent statements by Mr Trump on his trip about the nuclear deal and sanctions, egged on by his hosts, cannot fail to have an impact on voting in Iran. There is already frustration that the nuclear agreement has not been followed by the expected quick economic gains. This is partly due to wariness of international banks of possible American sanctions if they work with Iran. The effect on the ground is reflected on opinion polls showing the number of those who strongly approved of the deal has fallen from 43 per cent two years ago to 21 per cent; although those who somewhat approved have remained the same at 33 per cent.

The conservatives have seized on this issue. Mr Raisi pointed out in a televised debate that Mr Rouhani promised all sanctions will be lifted after Barjam [the Persian term for the agreement] but where was change on peoples tables? Did it solve the issue of recession and unemployment? Mr Qalibaf added in his criticism a tree that has not borne any fruit for four years will not yield anything positive in the future.

Majid Jafarzadeh Najar, an adviser to Mr Raisi, said: Given the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I would take Donald Trump, at least with him you know what you are getting. But really it is about US policy towards Iran, we dont think they will ever keep their word. America had a lot of influence over this country when it was under the Shah and they have never forgiven us for getting rid of him.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

The mistake Mr Rouhani made was making promises to the people about how good the economy was going to be after the nuclear agreement. And this did not happen. We dont think Trump can tear up the agreement by himself even if he wants to, because there are other international states involved. But we think he will slow down the lifting of sanctions and cause other problems.

Mr Rouhanis supporters are hoping that an expected withdrawal from the race of Eshaq Jahangari, the vice-president, who is a liberal, will add to the Presidents votes and calm the jitters.

Many are aware of the pitfalls of the nuclear deal and the Trump effect. I think Trump is a radical, an extremist, and what he is saying and doing is frightening. We are very surprised that the Americans elected someone like him, I do not know what it shows about America, was the view of Siavash Sharivar, a civic society worker who has been helping the Rouhani campaign, speaking at the rally for the President in Shobada Centre.

 Russia and Iran have threatened the US over Syria

The Iranian public is cultured and civilised and we want to live in cooperation with the rest of the world. Most people support the agreement, and political figures in Iran would be wrong to use Trump to weaken it. Mr Rouhani is a pioneer; this agreement is good for Iran and it is good for the world.

The rally was one of solidarity and celebration rather than aggressive political drumbeating. Around three-quarters of those present were young and half of these were women. An orchestra, a fusion of East and West, with violins and cellos alongside Iranian string instruments like the setar and tanburs, played traditional and modern music.

The crowd chanted lustily we are building a new Iran. Whether Irans hardliners, aided by Donald Trump, allow that to happen still remains to be seen.
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An Israeli cabinet minister has called for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad following new allegations over his governments treatment of political prisoners.

The reality of the situation in Syria is that they are executing people, using directed chemical attacks against them, and the latest extreme - burning their corpses, something we havent seen in 70 years, Yoav Galant, currently Housing and Construction Minister, told an audience at a conference near Jerusalem on Tuesday.

 Israeli rocket hits major air base in Damascus, says Syrian army

In my view, we are crossing a red line. And in my view, the time has come to assassinate Assad. Its as simple as that, the former Israel Defence Force (IDF) Southern Command General said, referencing the Holocaust.

When asked about his speech by the Times of Israel, Mr Galant - who oversaw the 2008 war with Hamas in Gaza - said that while political assassination is both illegal and impractical, Anyone who murders people and burns their corpses does not have a place in this world.

Mr Galant's comments come in the wake of accusations from the US State Department of mass executions at the regimes notorious Sadnaya prison, after which the buries were burned or deposed of in mass graves. Up to 50 people a day are believed to be routinely subject to extrajudicial killings, the intelligence found.

We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place, Stuart Jones, the US acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, told reporters in Washington DC.

The findings showed the Syrian government has sunk to a new level of depravity, he said.

Israel: From independence to intifada Show all 7 1 /7 Israel: From independence to intifada Israel: From independence to intifada 26973.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26974.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26975.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26976.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26977.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26985.bin Robert Capa/Magnum Israel: From independence to intifada 26986.bin Robert Capa/Magnum

The Assad governments actions - included the alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians in rebel-held areas - have killed hundreds of thousands and amount to a genocide, Mr Galant continued, in the strongest comments to date on the Syrian president from a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government.

On Tuesday a spokesperson for Syrias Foreign Ministry denied the US allegations regarding Sadnaya, a huge prison complex outside Damascus.

A January Amnesty International report into Syrias prisons also concluded that torture and mass execution by hanging were commonplace in the six-year-old civil war.

Up to 13,000 people had been killed in Sadnaya alone, the rights watchdog said.

While Israel largely stays out of the complicated conflict next door, the border region is restive and authorities have retaliated to occasional stray rockets with reprisals.

Intermittent Israeli air strikes in Syrian territory in the last few years have aimed to prevent weapons smuggling to Iranian-allied Lebanese group Hezbollah, which fights alongside Bashar al-Assads government against Syrias rebels, although the IDF does not comment on the nature of the missions. Hezbollah, like Iran, is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israel is expected to pressure the US to do more to combat Iranian influence in the region during President Donald Trumps visit to the region next week.

Syrias war entered its seventh year in March. The fighting has driven 11 million people from their homes and left almost 500,000 dead, the UN says.

A sixth round of UN-mediated peace talks began in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday, but hopes of a major breakthrough in the peace process are not high.
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After years of setbacks, a collaborative cutting edge new research centre which will see scientists from countries with tense histories work together has officially been opened in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East - or Sesame - is a particle accelerator to be used as a powerful microscope for medical and scientific research.

It is the first of its kind in the region and has been funded by Jordan, Israel, The Palestinian Authority, Turkey, Iran, Cyprus, Egypt and Pakistan.

 Jordan's Syrian refugees scrape by a living

Delegations from all eight governments were present at the opening ceremony near Amman on Tuesday, as well as representatives from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Cern and Unesco.

It is hoped that Sesame will provide opportunities for the Middle Easts young scientists and stem brain drain emigration to US and European academic centres.

The project was first suggested 20 years ago but has had difficulty getting off the ground for myriad political, security and financial reasons.

48 Hours In: Tehran, Iran Show all 2 1 /2 48 Hours In: Tehran, Iran 48 Hours In: Tehran, Iran 48 Hours In: Tehran, Iran

For a start, Israel and Iran do not have diplomatic relations with each other. In 2010 the Iranian government accused Israel of assassinating two nuclear scientists who were supposed to work on the project.

Relations between Turkey and Cyprus are also very tense.

Many countries struggled to provide the funding needed for the huge $100 million (75 million) project - but when Egypt, Iran, Israel and Jordan each pledged $5 million (3.9 million) in 2012, money which was supplemented by the EU and UN, Sesame finally seemed to be heading towards completion.

Leading Israeli physicist and longtime supporter of the project Professor Eliezer Rabinovici told attendees on Tuesday that the opening was a very moving moment.

People and scientists from all over the region as well as many parts of the world have demonstrated that one can work together over decades for a common goal benefitting humanity, he said.

Science is like water - it flows between the countries but it never runs out. So it is better to share with each other, Iranian professor Mahmoud Tabrizchi told the BBC.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 16

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of Hungary Janos Ader sent a letter to Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Turkmen government said in a message.

Thanks to the joint efforts, the past 25 years have seen deepening of the Hungary-Turkmenistan cooperation, said the letter.

Hungary reaffirms its commitment to the further development of the interstate cooperation, according to the Janos Aders letter.

The Hungarian president also expressed confidence that the friendly relations between the countries can be expanded in new areas, interesting for both sides.
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Palestinians commemorating the creation of Israel have clashed with Israeli security forces across the occupied West Bank, leaving several people wounded.

Marches are held across the Palestinian Territories every 15 May to mark the creation of the Israeli state, an event known as the Nakba or catastrophe to Palestinians and much of the Arab world.

Thousands joined the march route through the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday carrying flags and keys to symbolise the homes lost when around 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes during the exodus of 1948.

 Netanyahu blames Palestinians for lack of peace in Israel

5 June 2017 also marks 50 years since the Six-Day War, in which Israel annexed parts of the West Bank, in a move never recognised by the international community. It is feared the anniversary could lead to further tensions next month.

Dozens of young people threw rocks at Israeli security forces at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city, to which the soldiers responded with rubber bullets and riot control spray. A Palestinian medic told AFP news agency that 11 people had been hospitalised after being hit with rubber bullets but the extend of their injuries was not known.

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For the sake of my future and to return to my family's land, I don't want any more useless negotiations but the path of resistance and the rifle, Ahmed al-Bedu, a gangly 15-year-old Palestinian who holds Jordanian citizenship, told Reuters in Ramallah.

In Bethlehem, hundreds of people threw rocks at soldiers guarding Rachels Tomb, a site venerated by both Jews and Muslims, and were met with tear gas and stun grenades.

There were also clashes causing an unknown number of injuries and arrests outside a refugee camp near Hebron and in Jerusalem.

In other developments, a shell fired from Gaza exploded in an unpopulated area of Israel, causing no damage or injuries, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) said. The Gaza Strip is ruled by militant group Hamas, but no immediate claim of responsibility was made.

While former US Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting the region later this week to resurrect long-stalled peace talks, the Palestinian insistence on the right to return to homes their families fled 65 years ago remains a stumbling block in any deal to end the conflict.

Israel has consistently rejected the Palestinian demand, maintaining it would mean the end of the Jewish nature of the state.

Israel declared its independence from British rule over Palestine on 14 May 1948, which led to a sharp increase in the fighting already raging between local Jews and Arabs which forced many to abandon their homes and seek asylum in neighbouring countries.

Today there are an estimated 5.3 million Palestinian refugees outside the Territories, most of whom reside in countries in the region which refuse to grant them citizenship.
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Israel was reportedly the source of highly sensitive information that Donald Trump gave to Russia.

In a meeting at the White House last week, according to the Washington Post, Mr Trump disclosed intelligence about an Isis terrorist plot to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Some of the information that the US has about the plot came from the Israelis, the New York Times reported, citing a current and a former American official.

There is now question over whether Mr Trump's disclosure of Israel's sensitive information could damage diplomatic relations between the two countries. Mr Trump departs on Friday for his first trip abroad as president, during which he is expected to visit Israel.

In a statement to the New York Times, Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer reaffirmed that Israel has full confidence in its intelligence-sharing relationship with the US.

During a White House press briefing, US National Security Adviser HR McMaster said that the president "wasnt even aware where this information came from" and "wasnt briefed on the sources and methods".

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

The revelation that Mr Trump revealed classified details to the Russians has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, but Mr McMaster defended the president.

What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom hes engaged, Mr McMaster said.

In an early morning tweet, Mr Trump said he had the "absolute right" to share facts pertaining to terrorism.

Under current US law, the president has the power to declassify information as he or she sees fit.
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The chance of a bag being lost or re-routed by your airline fell to a record low last year, according to the latest figures from the travel communications provider SITA.

But the average worldwide still means that, on average, one passenger aboard an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 will learn their bag has not travelled with them. For the largest plane, the Airbus A380, the average is three passengers.

Recommended Why the White House is wrong about airline baggage fees

The rate of mishandled bags per thousand passengers reached a record low of 5.73 in 2016, said Barbara Dalibard, chief executive of SITA. The percentage has halved in the past decade. But it means one bag is lost for every 174 passengers  the typical capacity for a short-haul jet.

The chances of luggage going astray are greatly increased on connecting flights, such as Air France via Paris, Emirates via Dubai or Lufthansa via Frankfurt. Almost half (47 per cent) of the cases of mishandling last year occurred during the transfer process.

Starting in June 2018, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will oblige its member airlines to keep tabs on luggage: IATA members shall maintain an accurate inventory of baggage by monitoring the acquisition and delivery of baggage.

Five out of six flights worldwide are operated by IATA members.

Under the new regime, the airline must record the bag's progress at four key points: at check-in, when it is loaded on the aircraft, when it is transferred from one airline to another, and when it is delivered back to the passenger.

The cost to the airline industry of recovering and delivering lost bags is immense; The Independent calculates from SITA estimates that spending due to lost bags is an average 50 per second. It is also a frequent cause of passenger unhappiness.

Costs will increase still further if the US Department of Transportation carries out its proposal to force airlines to refund baggage fees when luggage is substantially delayed.
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A touch of gold flake and a drizzling of truffle oil is all it seems to take for a restaurant to advertise a new luxury dish, but these seven sumptuous foods found around the world are over the over-the-top both in creativity and price.

The 1,500 pizza: Industry Kitchen, New York

Assuming it takes you 40 bites to consume the entire, $2,000 (1,540) pizza at Industry Kitchen in Manhattans South Street Seaport neighbourhood, youll be paying $50 per bite. Chew through a wood-fired, thin-crust pizza topped with white Stilton, foie gras, French truffles, Osetra caviar, and sheets of gold flake garnished with edible flower petals. Introduced at the end of last year, the pizza requires a two-day advance reservation and, to help you cut your losses, we recommend a posse of four more friends to split the price among the $400 slices.

The most outrageously expensive food on the planet Show all 8 1 /8 The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The 15 cappuccino Emirates Palace Hotel The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The $2000 pizza Industry Kitchen The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The 1500 cronut Dum Dum Donutterie The most outrageously expensive food on the planet One false move and it's 1500 down the drain Dum Dum Donutterie The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The $1000 ice cream Serendipity 3 The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The $169 hot dog Tokyo Dog The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The $777 burger Burger Brasserie The most outrageously expensive food on the planet The $25k taco Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort

The 15 cappuccino: Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi

The hotel promises a superior blend of aromatic coffee below the foam, and 24-karat gold flakes and chocolate drizzle above. Presented on a silver tray with side bites of dark chocolate and date, this Instagrammable caffeine fantasy may be outrageous in design, but its not as bad as you might think when it comes to price. Each cup costs 60 dirhams (12.60) but, with service charge, tourism tax, and a municipality fee added in, guests will pay a total of 72 dirhams (15.15) for the posh sip.

The 600 burger: Burger Brasserie, Las Vegas

Although the Guinness World Record for most expensive burger goes to a 3,800 meat monster created by Juicys Outlaw Grill in Corvallis, Oregon, its 350-kilo weight makes it suitable only for the likes of Godzilla. So to enjoy the priciest burger that can comfortably be consumed by one person, head to Las Vegas Le Burger Brasserie for the $777 (600) burger (triple seven is the luckiest number combination in Sin City). Wannabe high rollers are in for a burger of Kobe beef and Maine lobster topped with prosciutto, caramelised sweet onion, triple-cream brie straight from France, and a drizzle of 100-year balsamic vinegar between fresh-baked buns crusted with aged parmesan cheese. A bottle of Dom Perignon Rose (included) helps to wash down such a big burger (and the big bill).

Wagyu beef, foie gras,truffles and caviar: a bargain at 130 (Tokyo Dog)

The 130 hot dog: Tokyo Dog, Seattle

Available by pre-ordering a minimum of two weeks in advance, Tokyo Dogs $169 (130) Juuni Ban dog furthers the restaurants focus on Japanese flavours by topping a foot-long smoked cheese bratwurst on a brioche bun with slices of wagyu beef, teriyaki-grilled onions, maitake mushrooms, foie gras, shaved black truffles, caviar, and Japanese mayonnaise. After two weeks of waiting, diners shouldnt feel too bad for not being able to finish it during the five-minute meal; all proceeds from the sale of the Juuni Ban go to the American Red Cross.

The 775 ice cream: Serendipity 3, New York

Its a dessert so infamous that it gets its own Wikipedia entry. Youll need to pre-order at least 48 hours in advance for the Golden Opulence Sundae: a $1,000 treat of Tahitian vanilla ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla, blanketed in 24-karat (edible) gold leaf, and topped by Amedei Porcelana chocolate syrup and chunks of Chuao chocolate from Venezuela. Parisian candied fruits, gilded almonds, truffles, and marzipan cherries decorate the sundae, and it all sits in a Baccarat crystal bowl goblet that you can take home after. Oh, and dont forget the caviar! A dainty glass bowl of American Golden caviar is topped with yet more gold leaf and added to the ensemble.

And if that wasnt bad enough, in 2007 the restaurant upped the ante by briefly adding a $25,000 (19,300) dessert to their menu. The Frozen Haute Chocolate came complete with a gold bracelet encrusted with white diamonds wrapped around the base of the bowl. Excessively expensive eats have become a hallmark of Serendipity 3; the restaurant also lays claim to the worlds most expensive sandwich  a 165 grilled cheese whose bread is baked with Dom Perignon champagne and brushed with truffle oil before it hits the grill.

Gold flakes, caviar, civet coffee and gold flakes can all be yours for just 19,000 (Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort)

The 19,000 taco: Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort, Mexico

Its not a headline-making dish unless gold flakes and caviar are involved, and the worlds most expensive taco doesnt disappoint. Available from the Frida restaurant at this five-star resort on Mexicos Pacific coast, the $25,000 (19,300) taco features Kobe beef, langoustine, Almas beluga caviar (the most expensive in the world), black truffle brie cheese, and a salsa of dried Morita chile peppers, civet coffee, and Ley .925 anejo tequila. Gold flakes infuse both the corn tortilla and garnish the finished taco and yes, that five-figure price tag is for a single taco. Not even a night in a room at the resort is included.

The 1,500 cronut: Dum Dum Donutterie, London

Is it a doughnut or a croissant? Its both, kind of, and costs 1,500. This luxury version of the Cronut, called a Cro by Dum Dum Donutterie in London, is made of saffron-infused black-and-white croissant dough created with Tahitian gold vanilla beans and Amedei Porcelana chocolate. Fresh out of the oven, its then topped with more chocolate, gold flakes, and Cristal rose champagne caviar. Dum Dum has hinted that more secret projects are on the way, but until they debut a platinum-dusted paczki, well settle for one of their other signature pastries: a 55 giant doughnut with a 10-inch diameter.
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Should the opposition parties be making political capital about the cyber hack of the NHS? The answer to that is undoubtedly yes, if their attacks  admittedly opportunist and only to be expected in the middle of a general election campaign  actually yield some answers and some understanding about what has gone wrong. That is the point of democratic accountability. The answers we have received so far have been unsatisfactory, and it is little wonder that the NHS has suddenly shot up the chart of voter concerns.

What went wrong is that some health authorities did not spend a relatively trivial sum of money on protecting their outdated IT systems. Fragile as they were, Microsoft were offering a patch that would remove some of the more obvious vulnerabilities some months ago. That the money was not spent is the central question. Was it because of a failure of central government to fund such expenditure, indeed to withdraw funding for it? Was it the incompetence of the trust authorities in not taking action swiftly enough? Or some combination of the two?

This is what is not clear and, when the new Parliament meets at Westminster, it will need to find out as a matter of urgent priority. That is a matter for Jeremy Hunt at the Department of Health as much as for Amber Rudd at the Home Office; it is not purely a question of criminality, but also of our own contributory negligence.

We can assume that a thorough review is taking place of all our security systems. The Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, has sought to reassure us that the nuclear deterrent and other defence systems are proofed against interference, and yet we also know that the hacker will always get through. It is in the nature of this crime, no different to the bank robbers or highwaymen of the past, that it is a game where the authorities and the criminals are in a constant race to outflank each other, and an unending race at that. We should place these latest attacks  and they are only the latest and most disruptive of a trend that has been rising for many years  in that context.

Yet, from what we know of what happened with the NHS Microsoft systems, we also know that it was far from inevitable that the hackers should have succeeded this time round. That stands even though many other private and public sector systems around the world were affected. If this successful ransomware assault on the NHS proves anything, it is that our defence structure  in the widest sense of the word  needs to be focused and revised to meet some very modern challenges.

We still seem to be stuck in a Cold War mentality where, as ministers keep telling us, the nuclear deterrent has protected us for more than half a century. Indeed it has  but mostly against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Dangerous as Russia may be once again, we need also to think about the threats that are demonstrably upon us today.

Should we not devote ever more resources to terrorism in all its asymmetric and domestic forms, where a car or a knife or a single smuggled firearm is all that is needed to inflict casualties and cause chaos and fear. Should we not  as Jeremy Corbyn has suggested  consider where the next global conflicts are going to arise as the effects of climate change and water shortages make themselves known? Should we not also renew our defences in outposts such as the Falklands? And should we also not do far more than we evidently have to maintain the resilience of our IT systems, public and private, against malicious attack, either from criminals, terrorists or unfriendly foreign governments? Who can say, for example, that our general election is or will be free from hacking or disruption, when the evidence that that happened in the US and France appears so strong? British nuclear weaponry was no use to us in countless modern conflicts, from Northern Ireland to the South Atlantic to Kosovo to Sierra Leone through to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

In the end, setting the priorities for defence spending, whatever its level, is about the correct analysis of the risks. The Russians are certainly one such, but if we devote too many of our scarce defence resources to that admittedly real threat, then in a finite world, we necessarily neglect making sure that patients records, the banking system or the way we elect a government are free from attack. It is rather as if Sir Michael and his colleagues are still telling the generals to plan for Napoleons next move, or what Rommel might next have planned. History is full of nations that made the error of fighting the last war, or the one before that, rather than the one looming ahead. The NHS cyber attack seems another rather embarrassing example.
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The details were horrific. Outside the besieged city of Mosul, 13,000 wounded civilians are today waiting for reconstructive surgery  from just this one seven-month battle. Another 5,000 Iraqi police militiamen are waiting for the same surgery from recent military offensives, in their case to be cared for by the Iraqi ministry of interior. But the health infrastructure that exists in the whole of Iraq cannot look after these wounded. As a result, some are turning up in Damascus  amid the frightfulness of the Syrian war  for the surgery they cannot obtain at home. A new graft in Damascus costs $200.

In the balmy early summer of Beirut this week came these detailed new horrors of Middle East war. For beside the state-of-the-art American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in the city, doctors from across the region, from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Palestine  along with the International Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres  came to discuss their fears for the wounded and the sick and their conviction that drug-resistant bacteria are growing in hospitals in the Middle East. Just how to deal with this may be within the knowledge of the military medical authorities  but not within the hands of civilian doctors.

Did this start in Bosnia, as one doctor suspects, where civilian and military casualties merged into each other  it was, after all, a war where a civilian turned into a soldier and then re-emerged as a civilian the moment he entered a hospital? Or do the clues lie much further back, in the vicious sanctions which the UN imposed on Saddams Iraq, at Americas urging, in the aftermath of the dictators invasion of Kuwait in 1990? The first Global Conflict Medicine Congress, arranged by Glasgow-trained Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at AUBMC, raised these questions in stark and painful ways.

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. 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Drug resistance, he said, did not exist in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war  when 150 Iraqi soldiers were wounded each day during the Fao peninsula battles alone  so what happened during the post-1990 sanctions period? Iraqis were allowed to use only three antibiotics for 12 years, he says. These were the only ones allowed in by the UN. Heavy metals had been used in the 1991 [liberation of Kuwait] war. You found celinium [present in the smashed concrete of destroyed houses], tungsten and mercury in the casing of penetrating bombs. What are the long-term effects of these metals on the human body?

A Medecins Sans Frontieres analysis  presented at the conference by Abu-Sitta and Dr Omar Dewachi who co-direct a newly created Conflict Medicine Programme at the AUB supported by Jonathan Whittall of Medecins sans Frontieres  said that multidrug resistant [MDR] bacteria now accounts for most war wound infections across the Middle East, yet most medical facilities in the region do not even have the laboratory capacity to diagnose MDR, leading to significant delays and clinical mismanagement of festering wounds. Beyond the physical damage caused by weaponry, Whittall added, destroyed or degraded sanitation facilitates the microbiological seeding of wounds. The body, weakened by the wound, is reinjured when it interacts with the harsh, physically degraded environment.

Iraqi-trained and Harvard-educated Dewachi, the American University of Beiruts assistant professor of medical anthropology, spoke at length of Iraqs cavalry of war victims and quotes an Iraqi patient waiting for treatment in Beirut. Most of the good doctors have left the country, the man told Dewachi, and those who remain have lost their humanity. Dewachis forthcoming book, Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq, which traces Iraqs medical history from the First World War to 2003, will reveal that successive post-2003 Iraqi governments have been sending civilians, military and security forces personnel, parliamentarians  and even militia and political party members  to hospitals in Beirut.

So dangerous is life for physicians in Iraq itself  where the families of wounded patients often want revenge for perceived poor treatment by doctors  that the Baghdad government recently allowed doctors to carry guns to their hospitals and surgeries. About half the medical force in Iraq has fled over the past 20 Saddam and post-Saddam years and the British National Health Service, where many Iraqis were trained, hosts one of the largest populations of Iraqi medical doctors outside Iraq, according to Dewachi. The post-World War One British mandate created UK medical training and standards in Iraq and this cooperation continued long after independence.

The MSF analysis not only raised questions about the long-term effects of the 1990 UN sanctions regime, but also the reversal of medical advances in the treatment of cancer and diabetes. This is often due to the inability of healthcare systems and technology to provide the same level of care in harsh and complex war environments. Kidney failure patients can no longer access dialysis units and the delivery of chemotherapy to cancer patients is severely compromised

Dewachi is fearful of the way in which the nature of illness has changed in Middle East wars, where the change in the base line of cancers has become very aggressive. As he puts it, when a young woman of 30, with no family history of cancer, has two different primary cancers  in the breast and in the oesophagus  you have to ask what is happening. You have to know what is happening. Dewachi is overwhelmed by the sheer number of wounded patients in the Middle East. There was a nine-year old girl with shrapnel wounds to the face. She was wounded in Baghdad in a 2007 car bombing. Her mother who was caring for her had a glass eye from a wound. Her father had a prosthetic arm after amputation surgery in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. We found an Iraqi policeman injured in a car bombing who was being looked after by his brother who had lost three fingers in the Iran-Iraq war.

In Iraq, patients wounded in Saddams wars were initially treated as heroes  they had fought for their country against non-Arab Iran. But after the US invasion of 2003, they became an embarrassment. The value of their wounds capital changes from hero to zero, Abu-Sitta says. And this means that their ability to access medical care also changes. We are now reading the history of the region through the wounds. Wars wounds carry with them the narrative of the wounding which becomes political capital. Abu Sitta believes that the building  and deconstruction  of medical care goes hand-in-hand with state-building and state-destruction. Today, its about dismembering nations rather than building them.

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For Abu-Sittah, there is no such thing as wars that end  we call all this in medicine as a chronic condition with acute flare-ups! In other words, war wounds continue to cause pain  and kill  long after wars have ended and restarted. A wounded body ages differently, he says. In Gaza, for example, a bullet wound affects a patient for decades after the wound is inflicted. We have found that Israeli snipers fire at the back of the knee of the person they are shooting at  the back of the knee and the lower third of the thigh. This does not necessarily kill  but it almost always requires amputation. This is the junction of the sciatic nerve, the popliteal artery and the knee joint  with one bullet you manage to do all three. Thats why the IRA used to do knee-capping in Northern Ireland.

An Italian professor of genetics says that tissue samples from the three-week 2008-2009 Israeli-Hamas Gaza war shows remnants of heavy metals in the wounds of Palestinians, both carcinogenic and teratogenic  which, she said, can lead to cancers and deformed children. Other physicians noted that Hezbollahs medical corps had transformed the treatment of its wounded in the Syrian war. Speakers in Beirut included even those foreign doctors who witnessed the 1982 Sabra and Chatila Palestinian camps massacre at the hands of Israels Lebanese Christian militia allies.

All of the horrific developments in the medical history of the Middle Easts wars has prompted both the American University of Beirut Medical Centre and MSF to create a research and training partnership in conflict medicine  Abu-Sitta, Dewachi and Whittall are on its steering committee  which means that no-one expects the five major wars in the region to end soon. All in all, I guess, a sobering reflection on all the wars on "terror" which the West and Russia and its friendly dictators claim to be fighting in the Middle East  where the cancer of national and international power is just as fatal as the cancers which afflict the bodies of the victims.
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The build-up to elections has changed in recent years. A generation ago, the EU bus scandal wouldnt have exploded in the way it did. Twitter and Facebook did not exist to virally spread the news so quickly. Maybe Donald Trump wouldnt have been elected as President of the United States if social media hadnt widely spread the Clinton allegations in the days leading to the election.

Facebook Live is another way party leaders and potential MPs can reach out to their voters quickly and easily and yesterday the Prime Minister appeared on ITVs general election series.

During the interview, a Jeremy Corbyn from Islington asked if Theresa May would appear in a live debate with him. She responded saying, I dont think people get much out of seeing politicians having a go at each other; I think people want to hear directly.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

Again, Theresa May has it spot on. Theres zero need for her to enter a public mudslinging match. Anyone with a keen political eye who tunes into PMQs every Wednesday will know too well this is what happens when they go up against each other. Usually it ends with Corbyn cowering with his tail between his legs.

A Corbyn versus May head-to-head on primetime television (or on Facebook Live) cannot bring anything good to your average voter. What use is Jeremy Corbyn wailing about Brexit and Theresa May laughing off his anti-austerity measures going to do for actual voters? The resulting compromise, of allowing questions from an audience to each candidate separately followed by a good grilling by rottweiler Jeremy Paxman is much more productive and informative for voters.

Television debates work for the US presidential elections. In 2016, Donald Trump went head-to-head with his presidential rival Hilary Clinton three times running up to the election. That was so entertaining many from the UK were awake in the small hours wondering what was going to come next.

They work in the US because those debating are going to be named on the ballot paper come election day. Unless you reside in Maidenhead or Islington North, neither Theresa May nor Jeremy Corbyn will appear on your ballot paper.

 General Election polls and projections: May 16

On 8 June, we will be electing individuals from our local constituencies who will form a government. Of course, the party we support impacts our vote as well as the individual candidate, but the debate is not one to have nationally.

Neither candidate has the expert knowledge on the regional issues that matter to voters. They wont be discussing the closure of a specific hospital or the perfect location to build a new school.

A debate with both candidates could quickly descend into car crash television with each insult being prepared meticulously and each dig making easy headlines. It will provide minimal insight to thoughtful voters and instead provide the Twitterati something to hashtag and moan about.

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Of course, Theresa May doesnt need to have a televised debate. Broken down regionally, the Labour vote share is down according to YouGov in all but the South East and South West (both predominately Tory areas) since 2015.

The Prime Minister is leagues ahead of Corbyn in the opinion polls; levels unseen since Margaret Thatchers day. Why would she risk this potentially landslide win to have a few digs at her rival live on TV when she could slip up and cut the percentage?

Corbyn is clutching at straws  he has many people within his party who undermine him. His election manifesto was leaked; hardly a sign of a party in this together. Even Labours deputy leader Tom Watson believes the election will be disastrous for the party.

Theresa May is coasting to a memorable victory on 8 June  taking the time out of a hectic pre-election schedule to debate Jeremy Corbyn live will not benefit her, or any of us.
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Treasonous, amateurish, boastful or plain hapless?

As Washington was sent spinning from the latest Donald Trump controversy  the revelation that the President reportedly leaked classified information from a US ally to Russia  reaction was swift. Some claimed Trump had broken the law, some said he had slapped the intelligence services in the face.

But amid the predictable accusations that Trump had gone out of his way to help Russia  a country many have accused him of colluding with to interfere in the 2016 presidential election  one overwhelming view of the New York tycoon stuck true: the braggart.

I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, Trump is said to have said, according to the Washington Post. He then went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the US only learned from its partner. At that point, Trump went off script and began describing details about an Isis threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, the newspaper said.

Trump has spent much of career bragging about how wonderful he is, how amazing his companies are, how hot his daughter is, how big and beautiful his hands are. Nobody likes to show off more than him.

During the election campaign, the prospect of running for the White House only appeared to encourage him further. His replacement for Obamacare would be fantastic, his wall on the US-Mexico border would be beautiful, his plan for military veterans would be marvellous.

 Congressman Al Green calls for impeachment of Donald Trump

Now Trump is in the White House, he cant seem to help himself. Earlier this month, hosting Republicans at the White House to celebrate the passage of the American Health Care Act by the House, Trump acted like a child with a shiny new toy.

Coming from a different world and only being a politician for a short period of time - How am I doing? Am I doing okay? Im President! Hey! Im President! Can you believe it, right, he said.

That, surely, was what happened last week when Trump met with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Wow, look were in the Oval Office. Can you believe it.

Wow, my intelligence services are so amazing, so beautiful. Can you believe it.

Wow, Ive got an amazing story to tell you about Isis. Can you believe it?

The most damning thing about the entire shoddy episode, may be Donald Trump, true to form, was simply showing off.
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When Donald Trump won I argued that the Democrats should consider working with him in a limited number of areas, like spending more money on Americas roads and railways, to advance their own interests and help sow strife among Republicans. If that seems quaint now, it is because I was overestimating Trumps ability to govern sensibly. By just a little.

No longer need we wonder what path Democrats will take. Resist, frustrate and foul up as comprehensively as possible would sum it up. Trump has earned their unflinching disdain by now. Moreover, the passion of grassroots opposition evidenced in huge marches all across the country  women, scientists, immigrants among them  means they can hardly do otherwise.

The far more urgent question now is about the intentions of top Republicans. What does Trump have to do to persuade them that the time has come to cut the cord. To put country before party. To realise that their own place in history might come not from trying to save a president who may already be beyond saving but from showing some guts and saying enough is enough.

Their reluctance to go there is appalling and also not hard to understand. Nowhere is the pressure more uncomfortable than for Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the upper chamber. So far, at least, these two have failed to show the slightest backbone in the face of Trumps blunder machine. Lame, limp, craven.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things, McConnell told Bloomberg News in response to Trump Sin #152. I am not actually counting, but we are getting up there. This would be his Isis aviation-plot mouth fart in the company of, no less, Russias foreign minister and ambassador to the US in the Oval Office.

Look, none of this is easy on Republicans. They believe still that it is in their interest that this president succeeds. For that to happen, he has to have strength. That will require a long stretch without drama, as McConnell intimates. Only if the notion of Trump gradually making headway on his agenda takes hold will his approval ratings begin to tick up and his credibility recover.

Their power is now immense. Trump evinces swashbuckling independence that allegedly allows him not to care very much about anyone on Capitol Hill, the likes of McConnell and Ryan included. But that is now an illusion. The day they or any of the Republicans, particularly in the Senate, turn their backs on him is the day his presidency starts to come undone.

So how close are we to that point? How frightened of them should Trump be right now? In less than a week, we have had the bungled firing of FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russias efforts to subvert last years presidential election. And now we have this: a sitting president blabbing secrets to Russia, committing an act of treason, possibly. Committing an act of egregious foolishness, certainly.

First, the polls. Yes, he is burdened with an historically low approval rating, around the 40 per cent mark. But there is, as yet, little to indicate that the core base of Trump voters is fracturing. There are signs that some independent voters who were once willing to give him the benefit of the doubt are starting to drift away. That is a red flag for Republicans but not a storm warning.

The bomb dropped by The Washington Post of Trump blurting a vital intelligence secret to Sergei Lavrov last week triggered a quick pushback from the White House. But as was widely noted, those statements, notably one offered by HR McMaster, the National Security Adviser, to reporters outside, denied things that were never in the Post story in the first place. By morning time, Trump had, via Twitter, confirmed the main substance of the report. He had shared secret intelligence (but he didnt think hed done anything wrong).

With each new Trump debacle, so new levels of Republican disquiet reveal themselves. Inappropriate, was the word chosen (carefully) by Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the day that Trump suggested on Twitter that Comey better hope there wasnt any tape of the conversation the two of them had had over a dinner in January. The release by the Post of the intelligence-leak story earned a strikingly blunt critique of this White House from Republican Senator Bob Corker who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all thats happening, he said.

Whether you call it a blunder or something more sinister, Trumps loose-lip moment with the Russians threatens to sound the sirens like never before among Republicans who had been nurturing the hope that at least on the national security front the White House had its act together. This is particularly the case for Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain, the former presidential candidate and now chair of the Armed Services Committee. Especially alarming to them will have been the sad spectacle of McMaster being thrown out to the press wolves to defend what looks like the indefensible.

McCain, like Graham, has so far been carefully calibrated in his criticisms of Trump. But he seemed like a man who had partially lost his footing when reporters caught him unawares within hours of The Washington Post report coming out. I cant comment on every breaking news story, he was quoted as saying, before reflecting a little more on what information Trump may or may not have leaked. Thats why its classified. They have a reason to classify it, OK? And when they say its classified, if it was public knowledge, then it could hurt the national security of the United States. Thats why we classify. If the report was true it would be disturbing, he offered.

McCain is not always so measured and nothing is likely to infuriate him more than McMaster being forced to endanger his own reputation and effectiveness at the behest of a boss undeserving of such loyalty.

To imagine that he and his Republican colleagues are twiddling their thumbs as Trump careens from one calamity to another would be wrong. In private, they are letting the White House know full well of their despair. But standing up to Trump  really standing up to him, for country, never mind party  means doing it in public. And so far they have been unwilling to do that.
Enda Kenny said firms are finding new trading avenues in the face of economic uncertainty

Irish exports to the UK endured a significant slowdown during the year Britain voted to leave the European Union , an industry report has found.

Export growth slipped to 2% in 2016 after expanding by 12% a year earlier, with the lion's share of the fall coming from a drop in food exports, according to figures based on Enterprise Ireland's clients.

The value of exports from Ireland into the UK stood at 7.5 billion euro last year, the report said.

Marina Donohoe, Enterprise Ireland's director for the UK and Northern Ireland, said: "Trade between the UK and Ireland stands at one billion euros per week, supporting over 200,000 jobs in each country.

"We are determined to uphold these strong trade relations going forward, helping Irish companies deepen their collaboration with the UK."

Despite the UK decline, global exports from Ireland rose by 6% to 21.6 billion euro last year, with sales to the US and Canada climbing 19% to 3.7 billion euro over the period.

Enterprise Ireland said it was targeting a 50% rise in exports to the eurozone by 2020.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the country's firms were finding new trading avenues in the face of economic uncertainty.

He said: "Following the UK's decision to leave the EU, the Government immediately acted to ensure our enterprise agencies had additional resources in order to offer all available assistance to our exporters to prepare for the challenges posed by Brexit."
Baku, Azerbaijan, May. 16



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Export Guarantee Fund of Iran (EGFI) will protect exporters against foreign currency fluctuations, an Iranian official said.



Mohammad Lahouti, the head of Iran Exports Confederation, has said that the EGFI will hedge foreign exchange depreciation of 3-35 percent for export commodities, Ibena (Iranian banks and economy news agency) reported.



Speaking about the recent decision by the government to cover the fluctuation risks, he said that foreign exchange fluctuations over the past several years have challenged the countrys economy, leaving negative impact on its exports and imports.



Iran-based Financial Tribune news website earlier reported that the currency market volatility in the final months of 2016, which saw the rial hit record lows against the greenback (reaching 41,500 rials to the dollar in the free market in late December), put the kibosh on the Central Bank of Irans plans to scrap the countrys dual exchange rate by the yearend.



According to the report, the business community and independent observers have made strong demands that the government unify the exchange rates and stop its forex market intervention for propping up the rial.



Forex hedging is similar to an insurance policy covering currency fluctuations for exporters. A foreign exchange hedge transfers the foreign exchange risk from the trading or investing company to a business that carries the risk, such as a bank.
The promise to stop using the hospitality sector for long-term stays for parents and their children was made last July by Housing Minister Simon Coveney

About 600 homeless families remain in emergency hotel or B&B accommodation six weeks out from a deadline to end the practice.

The promise to stop using the hospitality sector for long-term stays for parents and their children was made last July by Housing Minister Simon Coveney.

About 39 million euro was spent booking bedrooms for the homeless in guest houses, B&Bs and hotels in Dublin in 2016 - more than double the cost of the previous year.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said it is a challenge to meet the looming deadline.

But he added: "My information from the Housing Department is that you will see a very substantial drop in that by the end of June.

"It's always a very difficult challenge to meet because it's been exceptionally ambitious, but they are really focused on moving this along here now."

The Dail was also told that there are 28,000 vacant homes in the Dublin suburbs, including 750 in the Finglas area alone.

Mr Coveney recommitted last month to meet his July deadline to end the use of hotels for the homeless as official figures revealed that 3,299 adults and 2,134 children were homeless.

He said the practice would stop unless the circumstances are exceptional.

Joan Collins, Independents 4 Change TD, dismissed the Government's claims.

"This target will not be reached despite the minister's most recent assurances," she said.

Ms Collins said the Government's initiative to create 10 hubs in Dublin to deal with the homeless crisis would not be ready by July 1, and she claimed they are a form of "temporary emergency accommodation".

"Moving families from one form of temporary emergency to another form of temporary emergency accommodation often miles away from schools their children attend is not a solution," she said.

Focus Ireland said it was concerned the Government's plans for "family hubs" for homeless parents and their children will become a long-term accommodation.

Spokesman for the charity Roughan Mac Namara said: "Focus Ireland does not believe whether the minister meets the deadline to end the use of commercial hotels is the key issue in terms of tackling and ending this crisis.

"The deadline we are most interested in is for the minister, and the Government as a whole, to set a clear deadline that no family will be allowed to remain homeless for longer than six month after losing their homes.

"We need to make sure the drive and focus is firmly on securing long-term homes for families and any individuals who are homeless."

Focus Ireland pointed to the most recent Government figures on homelessness which recorded 7,472 people homeless in Ireland.
The panel will set out reforms for An Garda Siochana

A dozen policing, justice, law and management experts are to sit on the Patten-style review of the Garda over the next 15 months.

The commission, headed by Seattle police chief and former head of the Garda Inspectorate Kathleen O'Toole, has also been given the power to order changes to practices in the force at any stage before it finishes its work.

The panel includes Sir Peter Fahy, a former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police and Cheshire Police, Conor Brady, former member of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission and editor of The Irish Times and Tonita Murray who has 40 years experience in police reform including during her time as a civilian in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Others are Noeline Blackwell, a human rights lawyer and chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Dr Antonio Oftelie from Harvard University, Tim Dalton, retired secretary general in the Department of Justice and Equality and management consultant Eddie Molloy.

A number of academics were also selected including Donncha O'Connell, Professor of Law at NUI Galway, Johnny Connolly from the School of Law in the University of Limerick and Dr Vicky Conway from the School of Law and Governance in Dublin City University.

The Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is being set up after a catalogue of controversies dogged the reputation of the force and its senior management amid suggestions a Patten-style review was needed.

It will report back by September 2018 but can make recommendations while the review is ongoing.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said: "Issues which have arisen, many historic, some contemporary, mean the time is right for a fundamental examination of all aspects of policing in this state.

"This is an opportunity to stand back and examine how we are to be policed as we approach the centenary of the establishment of An Garda Siochana.

"At the same time the crucial work of day-to-day policing and oversight continues."

The Tanaiste added: "I am determined to continue shining a light to uncover bad practices and issues that must be resolved."

Chairman of the review Ms O'Toole said: "I am fully aware of the very serious controversies that have surfaced, and look forward to leading the most ambitious review of policing in Ireland since the foundation of the State.

"It will provide an opportunity to address major systemic weaknesses in An Garda Siochana, to identify best practices, and ultimately to recommend to Government a model fit for 21st century Irish policing."

Ms O'Toole vowed to consult the public and all ranks of the force.

Antoinette Cunningham, president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, questioned why no serving or retired gardai had been picked to work on the review.

"Our association welcomes the commission and are heartened to see the level of collective national and international expertise among the 12 members, however we question the exclusion of a current or a former member of An Garda Siochana," she said.

Ms Cunningham said her association wants to see "real reform".

She added: "When the media activity dies down and the real work begins, we need to see the same level of enthusiasm from Government to support the Commission in their work.

"We are particularly anxious to see progress on supervision and technology as both of these pillars are vital for effective policing."
A Co. Down farmer was this week convicted of a host of animal welfare charges following inspections of his farm by authorities.

Derek James Trimble (50), Spelga Park, Hilltown, pleaded guilty to the charges and was fined 1,400 plus 15 offender levy.

Trimble was convicted of two charges, of failure to comply with an animal by-product requirement in that he failed to hold bodies or body parts of farmed animals that had not been slaughtered for human consumption, pending consignment or disposal in such a manner as to ensure that any animal or bird would not have access to them.

It would be regarded as good practice to remove without delay an animal carcase from a farm to prevent spread of disease and protect public health and avoid detrimental effects to the environment.

He was also convicted of two charges, of failure to take such steps as were reasonable to ensure the needs of animals, namely sheep, for which he was responsible, were met to the extent required by good practice.

Trimble was convicted of one charge, of by reason or an act or failure to act by him, caused unnecessary suffering to a ram.

Trimble was also convicted of two charges, of failure to record details concerning the purchase or acquisition and administration of veterinary medicinal products.

Everyone is aware of the risks to human health from the improper use of medicines in animals, the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland said.

It said this is of particular relevance when it comes to observing withdrawal times of medicines administered to animals which are subsequently slaughtered for human consumption. The main areas for concern are:

i) the slaughter for human consumption of an animal before the recommended withdrawal period has been observed for drugs which may themselves have direct side effects in humans.

ii) the slaughter of animals entering the food chain containing a drug to which human pathogens are capable of developing a resistance to. This reduces the effectiveness with which human diseases can be controlled by a drug.

Authorities said if proper medicine records are not kept there is a risk of animals which have been treated, but whose withdrawal periods have not been observed being slaughtered for human consumption, or sold on to another herd from which they will be slaughtered for human consumption without withdrawal times being observed.

This case arose from a number of welfare inspections carried out on Mr Trimbles farm during March 2016.
With the countdown underway to Glanbia Co-ops latest vote for a share spin-out and agri-business purchase, the pros and cons of the proposed deal are again under the spotlight.

From Carlow to Clonmel shareholder meetings have heard their fair share of concerns raised about the low-margin Dairy Ireland division, the dilution of farmers power in the boardroom and whether taking a slice of the Brexit-exposed cheddar cheese division really is timely.

Many farmers have been in favour of the cash injection, while dry shareholders have been particularly vocal as they question what is in it for those whove retired from the business.

Glanbia chairman Henry Corbally has urged over 7,500 voting co-op shareholders to turn out this Thursday at Punchestown event centre.

The proposal is to create Glanbia Ireland which will combine Glanbia Ingredients Ireland (GII) and Dairy Irelands agri-business, with a network of 50 stores, and consumer foods division. Farmers will vote on paying 112m to take a 60pc stake, with the plc owning 40pc.

This would mean cashing in on 3pc of the co-ops valuable shareholding in the plc.

It is seven years since farmers voted against purchasing 100pc of the businesses, a deal that would have cost them a significant chunk of their plc shareholding.

Now, the parameters have changed as they have to part with only a 3pc slice of their plc shareholding as the shares have soared in value.

A further 2pc will be spun out directly to members, for every 1,000 co-op shares theyll receive 27 plc shares.

IFA president Joe Healy said the proposals recognise the need for a more sustainable mechanism to support farmers through volatile product prices, while funding important milk processing investments.

He said the key issue was that Glanbia paid leading base prices for milk and grain into the future.

The ICMSAs president John Comer said they were adamant there can be no link between the price being paid for milk to suppliers and purchasing feed from Glanbia agribusiness.

The Pros

 It is money or shares in the pocket. Around 5.9 million shares in Glanbia plc estimated at 100m based on a share price of 17.13 will be shared out to all members of the co-op. The cash in of shares means the average supplier stands to receive around 10,791, and the average member 6,637. It will also create a 40m fund for supporting milk and grain suppliers in times of low price.

 The soaring value of the plc means the co-op will have to part with a smaller stake  this time 3pc to fund the 60pc purchase.

 The new Glanbia Ireland business valued at 1.5bn will be able to fund a 250-300m investment programme over the next three years without looking for supplier funding. It will pay out dividends providing the co-op with cashflow.

The Cons

 It marks another parting of the ways between the plc and the co-op. Theyre relinquishing another seat on the board by 2022, when six of the co-op board will sit on the plc. The holding in the plc drops to 31.5pc down from its current 36.5pc stake

 Is it the best time for farmers to take a major slice of Glanbias cheese business? Major concerns have been raised over the impact on cheddar post-Brexit as the UK is the main market. The new majority farmer owned Glanbia Ireland will have brands such as Avonmore, Countrylife, Kilmeaden Cheese, Premier Milk and Wexford cheese.

 The Dairy Ireland division has been a lower margin entity compared with the valuable performance nutrition and nutritional business. It delivered a 5pc profit margin on sales of 616m last year, however it stands closer to 3pc on a five-year average.

 Dry shareholders may feel they are hard done by, as the 40m will be funded by the sale of plc shares and from co-op resources. The active members will receive 75pc patronage, with a 25pc special dividend to all members. Dry shareholders received a 52c dividend per co-op share last year.
Anti-forestry campaigners deliberately started wildfires that devastated thousands of acres of land in the west in recent weeks, a farmers' organisation has claimed.

The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) says "anti- forestry sentiment" is building in some parts of the country.

"There is a fear developing in the west that some areas are going to be planted over, especially areas where the land wouldn't be as good," INHFA spokesman Vincent Roddy told the Farming Independent. "There is a malicious element there, possibly a rebellious element.

"Whoever is lighting [wildfires] shouldn't be doing it, but the worry is that it shows a siege mentality is building against forestry. There is genuine concern here that when you start to put in trees, you start to move out people."

Since the beginning of the month, more than 100 gorse and forest fires have burned at locations across the country, partly due to the prolonged spell of dry, windy weather since the beginning of April.

The largest blaze was at Cloosh Valley, Co Galway where 1,500 hectares of Coillte forestry and 2,000 hectares of bogland were destroyed, resulting in multi-million euro losses for the national forestry company.

Padraig Egan, general manager of SWS Forestry, said his company lost 30 hectares of forestry in the north west, with a replanting value alone in the region of 300,000.

Suspicious

"The gardai are suspicious and they are investigating. There were a number of forests burned in the region, some of ours, some of Coillte."

He said the situation was "a big wake-up call" for landowners in relation to insuring their properties and protecting their forests.

John O'Reilly, CEO of the Green Belt forestry company, claims "careless burning of neighbouring vegetation" was the cause of the wildfires at their forests in Roscommon and Wicklow last week.

"It's either burning of heather or burning of gorse to clear vegetation on agricultural land.

"I don't believe anyone has gone out specifically to target a forest, but the fires did not start in the forest, nor did they start because someone threw away a cigarette," said Mr O'Reilly.

"It's like a criminal footprint - you can track the fire to where it started and where it ended, and you can track the fact it started in neighbouring vegetation," he said.

Gerry O'Malley, chief fire officer with Sligo County Council, was involved in battling three wildfires in Sligo in recent weeks.

When asked if he believes forestry was maliciously targeted, he said: "To be honest, I have my suspicions, but you have to take into consideration that we attend when the fire is going - we're not there when it started."
The IFA has confirmed that it will not pay back any levies paid by malting barley farmers through a compulsory levy collection system it has in operation with Boortmalt

IFA Deputy President Richard Kennedy told FarmIreland.ie today that the agreement between malting barley producer Boortmalt and IFA, which was agreed when Boortmalt set up operations in Ireland, includes a compulsory levy on tillage farmers.

The 39c/t levy is part of all contracts Boortmalt has with tillage farmers and means that farmers must agree to allow Boortmalt collect the levy for IFA.

Boortmalt confirmed that it bought over 125,000t of malting barley from Irish farmers last year, which would account for approximately 48,750 in levies collected for IFA. The levy is applied to all Boortmalt suppliers, whether they are IFA members or not.

IFA previously said that any farmer looking to recoup levies could do so.

Now, however, Kennedy has said that tillage farmers supplying Boortmalt cannot claim back these levies.

"Farmers can not claim back the levy. A contract was agreed between Boortmalt and IFA when Boortmalt was set up in Ireland and part of that is a compulsory levy. The money can not be got back now."

He said IFA was 'entitled' to collect the levy and keep it because of the work it has done to improve the tillage sector in Ireland. "IFA has grown the industry and farmers have benefited from the work IFA has done.

"Every tillage farmer benefited from the work IFA has done in tillage."

Kennedy said the levies could not be recouped by these farmers.

Further the farmers have documents that show they are entitled to claim back the levy which is collected.

The documentation states that: "Should you not want to contribute to this valuable work on your behalf, please forward your original purchase dockets showing the levy deductions..."

However, a number of tillage farmers say they have written to IFA HQ in recent years, looking to claim back their levies, but that they received no response.

The 39c/t levy comprises a 19c/t contribution towards IFA representation; a 12c/t levy for UCD and Teagasc research; and a 7c/t levy to promote farm-to-farm trade through IFA.

Earlier this year, IFA President Joe Healy had said that any farmer who was not happy with paying levies could reclaim them.

There is a process there and there is a time period on it, which has always been there, of a yearbut there is a lot of people out there who want to pay a levy.

The new structure will give everyone the opportunity to pay the levy or opt out of paying the levy.

The process to reclaim levies, he said, was to get in touch with IFA HQ," he said at the time.

According to IFA, the collection of the Boortmalt levy is part of the terms and conditions of the Boortmalt contract. "Every grower is made aware of the levy."

Fianna Fail's Eamon O Cuiv said he was "very disappointed" that the IFA does not seem to accept that these levies are not their right, but they should be given by farmers of their own volition. "It may be in a contract but it is a human principal that a voluntary organisation should operate on voluntary subscriptions, not on compulsory levies."

IFA has collected nearly 5m in levies, including a European Involvement Fund (EIF) levy, that is collected on produce sales to co-ops, meat factories, and livestock throughput at marts, etc at 15 cents per 100 by deduction from farmer payments.

Earlier this year the IFA admitted that it had suffered a 1.4m hit in overall revenue.
The Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) will sell Harold's Cross Stadium to the Department of Education for a 23m price tag.

According to a statement from the IGB, the sum offered for the six-acre site in Dublin was "in line with the market valuation".

The IGB closed the stadium in February of this year as it struggled with large debts related to the construction of Limerick Greyhound Stadium.

The agreed deal was revealed earlier this month - but the amount agreed upon was not mentioned at the time.

The proposed sale is part of the implementation of the Indecon Report, which was commissioned by the Government and published in 2014.

The 23m offer is subject to the approval of both the Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

It is understood the site will now be available for new schools in the area.

A protest by the Dublin Greyhound Owners and Breeders Association at Shelbourne Park Stadium has meant no racing in the capital city for the last three months.

The Irish Greyhound Board has said the dispute was costing the company 30,000 a week while greyhound owners have lost 200,000 in lost prize money.

The windfall from the Harolds Cross sale will help cut debt at the semi-state and is expected to signal the end of the dispute.
DCC, the Irish-based international sales, marketing and business support services group, has today announced annual operating profit growth of 20.9pc to 345m (406.5m).

Approximately one-third of the operating profit growth was organic, with the remaining growth mainly due to the contribution of acquisitions in DCC Energy.

The company, which operates through the divisions of energy, healthcare, technology, and environmental, saw revenue from continuing operations increased by 17.4pc over the twelve months to 12.3bn.

DCC owns Flow Gas and EMO in Ireland.

The year ended 31 March 2017 has been a strong year of growth and development for DCC. The results reflect the continued successful execution of our strategy in significantly growing our operating profits, converting those profits into cash and re-deploying capital into our energy, healthcare and technology businesses, Tommy Breen, ceo of DCC, said.

Over the twelve months the company enjoyed an excellent cash flow performance, with free cash flow conversion of 114pc and a return on total capital employed of 20.3pc.

The increase in the price of oil through the year would have been a contributory factor to the better working capital.

Read more: DCC buys Norwegian Esso chain for 273m

The company ended the year with net debt of 122m, an increase of 68.4m from the year-ended 31 March 2016, and average net debt during the year was 301m compared to 185m during the year ended 31 March 2016.

However the debt levels reflect the full year impact of the completion of the acquisitions of Butagaz and Esso Retail France during the prior year and the aggregate spend of 394m on acquisitions and net capital expenditure in the current year.

The company pledged to commit at least another 550m to acquisitions, including the agreed acquisition of Essos retail network in Norway, the agreed acquisition of Shells LPG business in Hong Kong & Macau, DCCs first material step beyond Europe, and further acquisition activity across DCC Energy, DCC Healthcare and DCC Technology.

Speaking on Rte Radio One, Breen said he hoped that Hong Kong can provide an LPG business base for DCC outside of Europe.

The company has agreed on the disposal of its environmental division for an enterprise value of 219m which it says brings increased strategic focus to the Group.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has arrested members of a terrorist group that stormed a police station in southwestern city of Ahwaz on Monday.

Brigadier-General Hassan Shahvarpour, an IRGC provincial commander, has said that his forces gathered intelligence and arrested the terrorists following an armed clash this morning when they attempted to leave the country, IRIB news agency reported.

According to local media, two officers were killed on May 15 after gunmen attacked the police station in Ahwaz city.

No further information has been released on the identity and affiliation of the assailants.
Accumulated profits at the design management firm owned by renowned designer Paul Costelloe soared to 312,806 in 2015, accounts show.

According to accounts filed with the Companies Office by Paul Costelloe Design Management Ltd, the firm's accumulated profits jumped by 127,660 from 185,146 to 312,806 in the 12 months to the end of August 2015.

During the same period, the firm's cash pile more than doubled - going from 198,265 to 441,201.

In a bumper year, pay to the firm's three directors, Mr Costelloe, Ann Costelloe and Gerald Mescal increased sharply - going from 258,712 to 456,264.

The figures show that the Co Meath registered firm paid out 581,618 to four members of staff, with two engaged in management and two in advertising and promotion.

Mr Costelloe has been a feature on the Irish design landscape for decades, but was criticised on social media at the weekend over his comments on The Late Late Show concerning a number of women.

Mr Costelloe's career highs include designing a uniform for British Airways staff in 1992 that remained in service for a record 12 years; designing the Irish Olympic team uniform for the 2004 Athens Olympics and designing the uniforms for the wives of the European Ryder Cup team from 2006 to 2011.

He has also benefited from his link up with Dunnes Stores with his Paul Costelloe Living range.

Mr Costelloe recently revealed how he first worked as a Bible salesman before going on to become a fashion designer.
Citi bank has announced the appointment of Gulru Atak as Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) Dublin lab and innovation head.

Reporting to Ebru Pakcan, EMEA head TTS, Atak will head up the innovation lab in Dublin, as well as leading and growing the innovation programme for Citis TTS business.

To ensure we are continuing to improve our overall client experience, it is essential that we have a clear focus on building and growing our innovation footprint. We are a technology driven business. This is why we put so much emphasis in to the work we do in our lab. Gulrus experience, combined with her in-depth knowledge of our business, makes her the perfect candidate to drive our innovation agenda forward, Ebru Pakcan, EMEA Head TTS said.

The Citi innovation lab in Dublin opened in 2009 and was the first of the labs now established across Citi globally.

It is one of two labs, the second based in Singapore, that focuses entirely on driving innovation in Citis global transaction banking business.

Im extremely excited about taking on this new role and working with an incredibly talented team on shaping the innovation agenda for the business. Through the projects we are working on in the lab, we are able to lead and support our clients with new innovative solutions for their businesses, which is becoming more important as we look to the future, Atak said.

Prior to this role, Atak was TTS head for Turkey and non-presence countries in central Asia and the Caucasus in April 2014.

She joined Citi Turkey in 2002 and has 15 years of experience in banking.

After completing different assignments within internal audit and finance, Atak joined Citi transaction services in 2006 and assumed various responsibilites in product and business management.

Atak is a graduate of Management from Bogazici University. She is also an alumni of the 2015 Citi Womens leadership development program and the 2012 ICG VP development program.
Global banking giant JPMorgan Chase has agreed to buy a Dublin office building large enough for 1,000 staff for a reported 125m, in the first significant financial services expansion in Ireland since Brexit.

The deal is the most concrete move into Ireland by any large international finance house looking to shift operations from London into the EU as a result of the British vote last June.

Ireland lost out when insurers AIG and Lloyd's of London opted for Brussels and Luxembourg over Dublin for their post-Brexit relocation plans.

But Taoiseach Enda Kenny said more companies have made the decision to make significant investment in Ireland as a result of Brexit, but the extent of the investment hasn't yet been pinned down.

"Quite a number of companies have confirmed their location of preference is for Ireland. The scale is not detailed yet," he said following the JP Morgan news.

Yesterday, property developers Kennedy Wilson, along with its partners Fairfax Financial and Nama, said JPMorgan Chase had agreed to forward fund, or buy off the plans, the 130,000 sq ft 200 Capital Dock building. The funds will finance development of the building and a wider campus.

The property, on the Liffey close to the IFSC, can house 1,000 workers - double JP Morgan's current staff here. Construction is due to be finished in the third quarter of next year.

The bank's head of investor relations had confirmed at the weekend that it was planning to increase the number of staff in Dublin. The agreement will "coincide with completion of the building, expected in Q3 2018".

"This new building gives us room to grow and some flexibility within the European Union," senior country officer for JP Morgan in Ireland Carin Bryans said in the statement.

Extending over 4.8 acres, the Capital Dock development will run over 660,000 sq ft of new mixed-use space, including a 23-storey tower.

The campus-style scheme was designed by award-winning Irish architecture firm O'Mahony Pike and will include 345,000 sq ft of office space across 100, 200 and 300 Capital Dock as well as 190 apartments with waterfront views.
The latest figures from Dublin-based Statcounter show that at least 5pc of our internet-connected computers are putting their owners and colleagues at great risk. Stock picture

Leave aside the security risks of putting so much of our lives into databases and machines.

In Ireland, we face a particular problem - hundreds of thousands of our PCs are hopelessly out of date to fight off serious attacks.

The latest figures from Dublin-based Statcounter show that at least 5pc of our internet-connected computers are putting their owners and colleagues at great risk.

That's because Windows XP, Vista and Windows 8.0 don't come with security patches any more.

To put this into context, there are hundreds of patches issued by Microsoft every year aimed at deflecting or suppressing destructive viruses.

As it happens, Microsoft has issued a patch for Windows XP to fight off the WannaCry ransomware strain. But the company has made clear that it's a one-off. Furthermore, it's doubtful whether many of those who use an old Windows XP machine will go and seek out the patch (which is available at Microsoft.com).

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So it can only be a matter of time before many of these computers pick up some variant of preventable malware. What may surprise ordinary people is just how many Windows XP machines are still in use across industry and the public sector. Many banking ATM machines still use Windows XP. So do large numbers of industrial and medical devices, which is a contributing factor to why British NHS hospitals were in the frontline of the WannaCry ransomware virus.

"We have individual customers with tens of thousands of XP devices," said Dermot Williams, managing director of Threatscape, a large IT security company. "In certain industries and for certain applications it becomes inevitable. You're talking about ticketing machines, CCTVs, ATMs and public signage. The cost to update it all can run into millions."

This is exactly the problem facing the HSE. It still has 1,500 systems using Windows XP because the specialist equipment such systems drive are single-purpose machines that can cost millions. But it's a different story for some small businesses and home users, who simply have not updated their machines.

"I really worry about those small companies," said Hugh O'Callaghan of Ernst & Young. "They don't have a lot of resources for IT for patching, but a lot of them now have technology that is very vulnerable."

Irish companies have rarely been incentivised to take IT security seriously. This is starkly illustrated in the realm of data protection, with half of Irish companies suffering at least one data breach in the last 12 months, according to the Irish Computer Society. The majority of data breaches are due to employee negligence or errors. But in almost all cases, there is no disciplinary effect. Losing a laptop or releasing a virus into the company network by opening an infected email are traditionally regarded as things that 'can happen to anyone'.

There is traditionally little or no regulatory sanction for companies who are remiss in this respect, with penalties limited to advisory notices or tiny fines from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

This is about to change, however. New powers given to the Data Protection Commissioner will allow her to issue fines of up to 20m, or 4pc of a company's turnover. In a recent interview with this newspaper, Commissioner Helen Dixon said she intended to use these powers.

It may be that such sanctions will force Irish companies to think very carefully about making their computers safe.
Vodafones mobile customer slide in Ireland continues even as the company improves its profitability and margins.

Its latest financial results show that it has fallen below 2m mobile customers in Ireland. Five years ago, it had 2.24m mobile customers here, compared to 1.95m today.

The operators loss of almost 300,000 mobile customers in Ireland is explained by Vodafone as an industry shift from prepaid to contract deals.

However, recent figures from the telecoms regulator Comreg show that the overall number of mobile customers in Ireland has increased over the last five years.

Vodafones revenue decreased by 25m to 996m over the last year but its adjusted operating profit more than doubled, from 25m to 55m. It also increased it margins by 1.8pc.

The company now has 260,000 fixed broadband customers, most of which are on a telephone service using Eir landlines. The company declined to say how many television customers it has.

It has recently passed 70,000 homes and businesses for a fibre-to-the-home broadband service in large regional towns. The service, rolled out by Vodafone and the ESB under the Siro joint venture, aims to have 500,000 premises passed by the end of 2018.

However, Vodafone is currently considering whether or not to pull the pull the plug on Siros bid for the state-subsidised National Broadband Plan. It has already spent upwards of 2m on preparations for the national tender, due to be released later this year. However, it is unhappy at a recent deal between the government and Eir to reduce the number of homes and businesses that will be serviced under the rural broadband rollout.

The company also announced that over 1.2 m 4G-enabled devices are used on Vodafone Irelands network, a 42pc increase on the same period last year. Mobile data usage increased by 37pc year-on-year.

Vodafone Ireland announced in March 2017 that it is committing an additional 500m investment over the next three years as it looks to further improve services to customers. It is not clear, however, whether that includes investment in the Siro fibre broadband rollout.
Major US multinationals are pushing the Trump administration to deepen the tax break it has already tentatively proposed on $2.6 trillion in corporate profits being held offshore, a key piece in Washington's intricate tax reform puzzle.

As President Donald Trump tries to deliver on his campaign promise to overhaul the tax code, lobbyists for technology, drug and other manufacturers are working with officials behind closed doors, six lobbyists working with various industries told Reuters.

The lobbyists said they are telling the White House and Treasury Department that if companies are forced to bring home, or repatriate, foreign earnings, they want a sharply reduced tax rate.

The lobbyists are making an aggressive case that cutting the tax rate on offshore profits to 10pc from 35pc, as the administration has indicated it may favour, is not enough.

Rather, the lobbyists said they want a lower, bifurcated rate of 3.5pc on earnings already invested abroad in illiquid assets, such as factories, and 8.75pc on cash and liquid assets.

That would favour Ireland where firms have real, working assets rather than just cash.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump proposed setting the rate at 10pc, and argued it could be used to raise tax revenue to pay for tax cuts or infrastructure.

Discussion of hard numbers in the long-running repatriation debate may indicate tax reform is advancing on Trump's slow-moving domestic policy agenda. Or it may just be lobbyists trying to set the early framework for a long slog ahead.

"For us, it's how you create a tax environment where you give business long-term certainty," one lobbyist said.

The changes being discussed are part of larger tax reform, another lobbyist said: "Our international tax system is out of whack with the rest of the world. This system is not sustainable."

Repatriation and comprehensive tax reform are important to the economy, Apple CEO Tim Cook said earlier this month on CNBC. "The administration ... they're really getting this and want to bring this back and I hope that that comes to pass," he said.

US-based corporations are supposed to pay 35pc income tax on profits worldwide. But companies can defer that tax on active profits left outside the country.

That incentivises multinationals to park profits offshore. About $2.6 trillion is being held overseas by more than 500 US companies, according to research firm Audit Analytics.

Nearly a third of that is held by just 10 companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer and General Electric, the firm said. (Reuters)
From rocking out iconic London venues to strolling down the Grammys red carpet, Cape Cod trio Highly Suspect have come a long way since their days as a cover band putting their own spin on Sublime, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd tracks.

After their first EP of original music, First Offense, became a huge success in 2010, the band  made up of twin brothers Rich and Ryan Meyer and their best friend Jonny Stevens  decided to relocate to Brooklyn, New York, and just five years later their debut album received two Grammy nominations.

A second album, The Boy Who Died Wolf, followed and the band are enjoying fame across the pond.

2017 has been a whirlwind of fun as they hit the road and played their biggest ever UK show at Koko in London.

Elliott Beddoe and Joe Nerssessian caught up with the Jonny and Ryan and learned a little more about their rising fame. So heres a little bit more about the band you need to know about.

Their popularity in the UK is rising and rising

Highlys UK audience has rocketed since their first gig at The Old Blue Last in Camden and they are really happy about it.

We always had fun playing at small, dirty, grey, London venues. Everything is sweaty and its dripping off the ceilings, says drummer Ryan Meyer. Front man Johnny Stevens adds: We love UK crowds. They interact. They sing along. They cheer. They push each other around in a playful manner. They lose their s***!

And they didnt hold back at Koko either. Queues around the historic venue began growing more than two hours before the gig and there was little to be disappointed with as hundreds of fans moshed themselves happy through an emphatic performance by the trio.

They are coming back to the UK this summer

Video of the Day

Following the success of the Koko gig, Highly are returning for a British Summer Time gig in Hyde Park. The boys will return on July 6 alongside a line-up which includes Kings Of Leon and The Pixies.

We bet theyre pretty stoked about the news. Heres what Jonny thought about their UK festival debut at Reading and Leeds last year.

It was one of the best festivals weve played at. There was a circle pit that was so dry; there was this cloud of dust in a shape of a doughnut rising above the pit. There were kids screaming, girls crying. What are we? The f****** Beatles. I loved it. It was awesome.

They are no fans of Donald Trump

The boys are not afraid to hold back on saying what they really think and have vehemently opposed the US President. And Jonny even had the word Impeach imprinted on his Grammy 2016 outfit. But theyre more thoughtful than just that.

Even if you love music but hate the politics we stand for, thats fine by me, says Jonny.

My problem is with the type of people hes attracting. Whether they are through actions or words, theyre going to hurt people.

Ryan adds: Some of my family members are Trump supporters. I know them well. I love them and I care for them. If you are a Trump supporter, it gives the connotation that you believe what he believes in. He is clearly misogynistic a******.

They lost a Grammy to Bowie

Having received three Grammy nominations across their first two albums, the rockers have certainly made their mark. Battling against the late David Bowie as well as Radiohead was always going tough but they didnt take it too badly.

It was an honour to lose to Bowie, says Ryan. That opportunity will never present itself again. I got to walk the red carpet twice and was in a category amongst legends. I sat almost 60ft away from Lady Gaga and Metallica. Those memories will be kept.

Highly come from humble beginnings

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Stardom never comes without hard work.

Highly had their own story to share. Growing up we all played music because we loved it. Johnny was in theatre. He knows how to portray his emotions and people can feel that, explains Ryan, adding: I played in the school band. We used to do landscape construction, working as plumbers. We all had callus on our hands throughout our mid-twenties. When the cover band we did on the side started getting big, we were able to quit our jobs.

A third album is almost definitely on its way

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Their second studio album, The Boy Who Died Wolf, was released last year and has spent over 22 weeks on the Billboard charts. More good news, album number three will most certainly happen, according to Ryan.

We will see what happens after touring the s*** out of this album. I think if we put a little elbow grease in there, we can get the people another album as long as its good.

I want to like the music we put out. I want to make sure what were putting out is high quality.

Highly Suspect play British Summer Time on July 6.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, a pro-conservative candidate in Irans May 19 presidential election, has criticized incumbent President Hassan Rouhanis government over the countrys growing imports from China.

Addressing a crowd of his supporters in southern city of Bushehr, Raeisi said that the volume of the countrys imports from China during President Rouhanis term has doubled.

Beijing was among Tehrans main trade partners over the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017) as its exports to Iran amounted to $10.753 billion.

In the meantime, Iran exported $8.377 billion worth of goods to China during the 12-month period.

Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi further touched upon the unemployment issue in the country and implicitly accused Rouhanis government of failing to address the countrys economic problems.

According to the World Bank, Iranian economy bounced back sharply in 2016 at an estimated 6.4 percent, compared to the previous year.

However, the unemployment rate returned to the three-year high of 12.7 percent (or 3.3 million unemployed) in the second quarter of 2016 despite the high growth rate in this period.

The government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said on May 9 that in order to reduce the rising unemployment rate in the country, Iran needs over $233 billion worth of investments annually to create 950,000 new jobs.
This Irish school's stunning performance of their Britain's Got Talent audition will send shivers down your spine.

St Patricks Primary School, Drumgreenagh, is a small rural school with 80 pupils, situated just outside the town of Rathfriland, Co. Down.

St Patricks Junior Choir secured a Judges Audition on Britains Got Talent, where they performed Lily Allen's cover version of Keane's Somewhere Only We Know.

Their performance was very well received by both the audience and the judges, receiving a standing ovation from both.

"After receiving four yes votes from the judges, we are through to the next round where we await word on whether we have made it through to the live semi-finals," said principal Mrs Sorcha Lyness.

"We are remaining very hopefully as the judges' comments were so incredibly positive. We are keeping everything crossed!"

Ahead the next round, Mrs Lyness is urging everyone to vote and support St Patrick's Junior Choir.

Watch the full video of their performance below.
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher of the band Royal Blood performs for fans during Splendour in the Grass on July 26, 2015 in Byron Bay, Australia. (Photo by Cassandra Hannagan/Getty Images)

Royal Blood have announced their biggest Irish headline show to date.

The British rock band will take to the stage at the 3Arena, Dublin on Sunday, November 26.

Following the success of their self-titled 2014 debut album, which is the fastest-selling British rock debut in three years, Royal Blood will release their eagerly anticipated second album How Did We Get So Dark on June 16.

The albums first single Lights Out is out now.

Royal Blood will support Guns 'N' Roses at Slane Castle on Saturday May 27th.

Tickets priced from 32.50 inclusive of booking and facility fees go on sale at 9am on Friday, May 26 from Ticketmaster outlets and www.ticketmaster.ie.
The 'hipster priest' who became the talking point of Sunday night's episode of 'Redwater' has defended criticism the programme panders to 'Oirish' stereotypes.

The first episode of the 'EastEnders' spin off series pulled in impressive ratings with an average of 495,000 viewers tuning in. However, some viewers thought the drama was filled with cliched caricatures of Irish life.

The opening episode featured scenes of people downing Guinness and whiskey chasers in crowded bars, while Ian McElhinney, who plays 'Redwater' old timer Lance, rides a horse to the beach every day for a dip in the ocean.

Some viewers noted that even Irish actors like Fionnula Flanagan - who was born and raised in Dublin - sounded like they were putting on a faux Irish brogue.

But actor Oisin Stack, aka orange juice hating Father Dermott Dolan, says the show was never meant to be a realistic depiction of Irish life.

"This is not a social commentary," he told the Irish Independent.

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"It's a psychological thriller that is meant to have a sense of suspense. Everything is meant to be heightened.

"I think if people are giving out about the realism they are missing the point of the genre. It is meant to be stylised and filled with dramatic suspense."

Speaking about the scenes in which people are drinking heavily in pubs, Stack jokingly replied: "I don't know about you but most of the time I go to a pub there tends to be a few people drinking alcohol."

It's not the first time some of Albert Square's finest have hopped across the Irish Sea.

In 1997, Pauline Fowler, played by Wendy Richard, came to Ireland to find her long-lost half-sister (sounds familiar). The three episodes based in Ireland caused uproar with viewers, due to the less-than-flattering depiction of Irish life.

Livestock wandered the streets of Dublin and everyone appeared to be hostile and half jarred. In one scene, a man poured a pint over Pauline's head. Then he demanded she paid for it.

Video of the Day

The BBC later apologised for the representation of Irish life. Before shooting commenced on 'Redwater', Shane Richie assured fans history would not repeat itself and no one would play "the dopey card".

Arklow man Stack says being part of the series is a huge honour. "My mum is a big 'EastEnders' fan," he said.

"When I told her I was going to be in the series the decibel level in the room definitely increased. The reaction I've got from friends has been great."

Soap fans certainly seem happy to follow Alfie and Kat to 'Redwater' (Dunmore East) and why wouldn't they?

Viewers have gone through a lot with this fictional couple. A few dodgy accents isn't going to undermine that loyalty.
The "hipster priest" who became the talking point of the opening episode of Redwater has defended the show in the face of criticism that it was full of "Oirish" stereotypes.

Actor Oisin Stack, who plays orange juice-hating Fr Dermott Dolan, said the show was never meant to be a realistic depiction of Irish life.

"This is not a social commentary," he said. "It's a psychological thriller that's meant to have a sense of suspense. Everything is meant to be heightened.

"I think if people are giving out about the realism, they're missing the point of the genre.

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"It's meant to be stylised and filled with dramatic suspense."

Speaking about the scenes in which people are drinking heavily in pubs, Stack said: "I don't know about you, but most of the time I go to a pub there tends to be a few people drinking alcohol."

The debut of the East- Enders spin-off, which stars Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie as Kat and Alfie Moon, pulled in impressive ratings on RTE, with an average of 495,000 viewers tuning in.

However, some thought it was filled with cliched caricatures of Irish life.

It featured scenes of people downing Guinness and whiskey chasers in crowded bars, while Ian McIlhinney, who plays Redwater old-timer Lance, rides a horse to the beach every day for a nip in the ocean.

Some viewers noted that even Irish actors such as Fionnuala Flanagan, who was born and raised in Dublin, sounded like they were putting on an over-the-top Irish brogue.

It is not the first time that some of Albert Square's finest have hopped across the Irish Sea.

In 1997, Pauline Fowler, played by Wendy Richard, came to Ireland for a storyline in which she tried to find a long-lost half-sister.

Video of the Day

The three episodes caused uproar with Irish viewers due to the less than flattering depiction of life here.

Livestock wandered the streets of Dublin and everyone appeared to be hostile and half-jarred.

In one scene, a man poured a pint over Pauline's head. He then demanded that she pay for it.

The BBC later apologised for its representation of Irish life.
A child may have witnessed the suspected violent death of a 29-year-old woman who was found with fatal injuries at her home.

Gardai were continuing to question a 30-year-old man last night in relation to the murder of Rita Apine, who was found at the property in Freshford, Co Kilkenny, shortly before 1pm on Sunday.

Sources say that Latvian national Ms Apine was "in fear of this man" and gardai have been investigating if she previously suffered violence. Officers are also considering involving specialist child interviewers to establish if the child had witnessed the events that led to Ms Apine's death.

The suspect, who was arrested on Sunday evening, continued to be detained at Kilkenny garda station last night. Officers are probing whether the fatal injuries suffered by Ms Apine (pictured) happened as a result of being thrown down the stairs of her home or if the tragic mum may have been "struck with an object" which caused her to fall down the stairs at the apartment on Bridge Street.

Ms Apine moved into a rented house on Bridge Street in Freshford last December having lived for some time in Kilkenny city before that.

The suspected murder victim and her daughter moved into the private rented house in Freshford late last year, having initially sought housing from Kilkenny County Council, and previously lived at St Teresa's Terrace in the city.

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Ms Apine was not working but was hoping to learn to drive later this year and seek work when her daughter started pre-school.

"She came to my clinic, looking for help for housing and with a social welfare application," Cllr Andrew McGuinness said yesterday. "That would have been in June of last year. I don't know how long she was in Ireland."

The 29-year-old mother had just come out of a relationship at the time and was looking for accommodation as a single mother.

Ms Apine always brought her daughter to a nearby public park anytime she called to the councillor's office. He said: "It's so sad, for the child and for the family."

The house where Ms Apine lived in Freshford, on a three-house terrace just off the village's main square, was yesterday sealed off by gardai and members of the Garda Technical Bureau carried out a forensic examination.

Bouquets of flowers were left by local people.

Gardai made an appeal for anybody who visited the Costcutter shop, just across the road from the victim's home, or was on Bridge Street between 8am and 1pm on Sunday "and who may have heard or noticed anything out of the ordinary" to contact them.
A children's hospital and a maternity hospital in Dublin were targets of the cyber attack that infected government and healthcare systems around the world.

The Irish Independent has learned that Our Lady's Hospital in Crumlin and the Rotunda Maternity Hospital were among facilities where hackers tried to infect computer systems with the WannaCry ransomware.

Richard Corbridge, HSE chief operations officer, confirmed the attempts to attack computer systems across the health service in Ireland have been as "virulent" as in other countries.

Mr Corbridge declined to provide the names of hospitals which were targeted since Friday but said some of the major centres were assaulted. But sources have said that the children's hospital and maternity hospital were both targeted.

However, the HSE said the current ransomware virus, which is capable of spreading across a computer network, has not infected any device.

Experts believe that over 150,000 home, government and business PCs in Ireland are unprotected against ransomware. New figures show that up to 5pc of Irish PCs are running out-of-date Windows software, such as Windows XP, that is defenceless against cyber attacks.
MAYO County Council have apologised to mourners after they allowed comedian Tommy Tiernan to dress up as a priest and parade around a grave yard with a fake coffin as part of an RTE comedy show.

Individuals paying respects to their loved ones were horrified when they visited Toomore burial grounds in Foxford Co Mayo and found Tiernan dressed as a priest and filming a sequence for upcoming RTE comedy show The Hardy Bucks.

Several members of the parish contacted local priest Fr Padraig Costello to complain about the behaviour which they felt was disrespectful.

Fr. Costello stressed to parishioners at weekend Masses that the local cemetery committee had not given permission for filming.

Only Mayo County Council has the authority to allow filming, Fr Costello explained.

Local Fine Gael councillor Neil Cruise had told parishioners that he did not believe the film crew had permission from the council to use the cemetery to the extent they had done.

However, last night the county council confirmed that production company Hardy Films had secured clearance from Mayo County Council and had worked within guidelines provided.

Marie Crowley, Head of Ballina Municipal District, said; The County Council did give permission for the filming subject to certain conditions all of which were met by the production company or their agents.

We regret any upset felt by the local community and acknowledge the sensitivities around this type of activity particularly in a graveyard setting.

Producer with Hardy Films said that the crew had acted with sensitivity.

We went through the correct protocol and everything was above board, producer Michael Caine said.

The crew made sure not to feature any headstones or graves in the shots. We treated the graveyard with care and respect.

Martin Maloney who plays Eddie Durkan in the series said he was deeply sorry any offence had been caused.

The last thing we wanted to do was upset people, he said. Our show is all about making people laugh. It would never be out intention to deliberately upset anyone. Its unfortunate that this happened.

Tommy Tiernan was not available for comment.
A murder accused told a doctor he suffered an "out-of-body experience" when he strangled his ex-girlfriend to death, a jury has heard.

Eric Locke (35) wasn't able to process the ending of his relationship with mum-of-one Sonia Blount, and was "obsessed" with telling her how he suffered after their breakup.

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A psychiatrist told the Central Criminal Court it was his belief that Mr Locke went to the Plaza Hotel in Tallaght with the intention of "tying Ms Blount to a chair and forcing her to listen to him".

Dr Sean O'Domhnaill, consultant psychiatrist, said he believes Mr Locke "panicked when Ms Blount panicked and started to scream" when she saw the cable ties and duct tape fall out of the bag he was carrying.

The doctor said Mr Locke told him, "I can't believe I did that".

He said Mr Locke was in an "extremely high state of anxious arousal" at the time of the killing and later told him it was "almost like watch- ing someone else do it".

Expand Close Fateful decision: Sonia Blount had briefly dated the accused but their relationship ended in January 2014 - five weeks before her death - after he called her a 'slut' and 'mad' in a row / Facebook

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Whatsapp Fateful decision: Sonia Blount had briefly dated the accused but their relationship ended in January 2014 - five weeks before her death - after he called her a 'slut' and 'mad' in a row

Dr O'Domhnaill said it was his opinion that Mr Locke was "mentally unwell" at the time.

In cross examination, he admitted he has never watched the DVDs of the five interviews which gardai conducted with the accused.

Mr Locke has admitted he caused the death of Ms Blount, but said he did not mean to kill her and is pleading the defence of diminished responsibility.

It is the prosecution case that Mr Locke, of St John's Park East, Clondalkin, Dublin, posed as another man on Facebook and arranged a meeting in the Plaza Hotel where he strangled her to death.

Her body was found in a room in the hotel on February 16, 2014.

The pair had briefly dated but the relationship ended on January 11, 2014, after he called her a "slut" during a row.

The State case closed on Friday and the defence case has now opened.

It was his opinion, Dr O'Domhnaill said, that Mr Locke has a pervasive developmental disorder, and displays some, but not all, the features of autism spectrum disorder, as well as ADHD.

He also suffers from a very severe generalised anxiety disorder.

Dr O'Domhnaill said these conditions would have rendered Mr Locke incapable of being fully responsible for his actions, and his mental state was such that he would be described as having diminished responsibility at the time of Ms Blount's death.

He met Mr Locke and his family, and he said it was obvious from his family that from an early age he showed clear manifestations of autistic behaviour as well as ADHD.

Dr O'Domhnaill said these manifestations were hand flapping and a high-pitched scream or screech.

Dr O'Domhnaill said that Mr Locke was socially awkward and there were notebooks in his family home where he planned out everything he did.

When he had thoughts of being inferior and worthless, he would write out a list of items he would need to commit suicide and go to a hardware shop and pick them out.

Dr O'Domhnaill said Mr Locke showed a hyper sensitivity to light as a youngster, wanted his bedroom walls painted black and had black out curtains taped together.

The jury was told that if light did break into the room, Mr Locke would have a tantrum and would hit or kick the wall.

His school reports highlighted Mr Locke's difficulties concentrating in class, again a classic sign of attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), the psychiatrist said.

Dr O'Domhnaill said Mr Locke has suffered generalised anxiety and quite severe depressive episodes throughout his life.

One of these lasted for two years in his mid-teens and he "retreated into his dark cave" - his bedroom - and disengaged from social activities.

The jury was told that Mr Locke was born with hypospadias, when the urethra opens on the underside of the penis instead of at the end.

Dr O'Domhnaill said the accused was left with surgical scars and a deformity of the penis, after unsuccessful surgery, and as a result had an "awful fear of being different to others".

"He had a physical manifestation of being different, of being inferior, less of a man and this deformity was noted in changing rooms and he was taunted about it," he said.

As a result, most of Mr Locke's relationships were "drink-fuelled one-night stands".

The psychiatrist said it appears Mr Locke wooed Mr Blount over social media, but he was awkward in social situations, and was not the same person as he was online.

He said Mr Locke wasn't able to process the breakdown of his relationship with Ms Blount.

There were a lot of texts between the pair at the start of their relationship.

"For Eric, there was this intense back and forth communication and all of a sudden it ended. He wasn't able to process this.

"One day he was in a serious relationship and the next day he was being blanked. He didn't get it and became extremely frustrated", said Dr O'Domhnaill.

The trial continues.
A victims' rights charity has demanded a full investigation into how a teacher who abused young girls in one national school was allowed to transfer to another school where he went on to abuse a young boy.

One In Four warned it was "beyond belief" how Leo Hickey (77) was allowed to move from Dunderrow National School to Scoil Eoin in Ballincollig, both in Co Cork.

This was despite parents of young girls at Dunderrow threatening to withdraw their children from the school over Hickey's behaviour in the early 1970s.

One In Four chief executive Maeve Lewis said it was clear that "questions need to be answered".

"We 100pc support the call for an investigation by Louise O'Keeffe and Daniel Kelleher," Ms Lewis said.

"We also urge the State to stop hiding behind regulations and red tape so as to treat victims of abuse in national schools with respect and fairness in light of the Louise O'Keeffe ruling before the European Court of Human Rights."

Hickey was jailed for three years in June 1998 after he pleaded guilty to abusing girls at the Dunderrow school between 1964 and 1973.

One of those he abused was Louise O'Keeffe who became an outspoken campaigner for victims' rights.

She successfully took the State to the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week, Hickey was jailed for a year after being convicted by a Cork Circuit Criminal Court jury of sexually assaulting then-nine-year-old student Daniel Kelleher.

Those charges referred to dates at the Ballincollig school in 1991 and 1992.

Ms O'Keeffe has demanded an investigation into Hickey's school transfer.

Mr Kelleher has now also demanded an investigation into what happened.

"I want to know why Leo Hickey was left to operate - he was a principal in Dunderrow and he was (effectively) demoted. He was moved to Ballincollig.

"I want to know who was responsible for his movements, why he was allowed to operate - I feel they are responsible for what happened to me.

"I will not stop until I have an apology and I have the people responsible for his movements held accountable."
Dr Salah Aziz: I look forward to my name being cleared Picture: Collins

An initial ruling in a long-running inquiry into a doctor who provided care to three mothers - including two whose babies died - was yesterday delayed.

Consultant obstetrician Dr Salah Aziz Ahmed, who worked at Cavan General Hospital for a number of years, is the subject of the hearing, which has sat for 22 days since November 2016.

Dr Aziz faces allegations in relation to the care he provided to three birthing women between 2012 and 2014: a mother referred to as Patient A, patient Deirdre Clarke - who waived her right to anonymity - and Patient C.

On foot of these factual claims, he faces allegations of poor professional performance and professional misconduct.

Patient A's and Patient C's baby boys died, while Ms Clarke's baby boy was born in a critical condition.

It was indicated at the start of yesterday's sitting, held at the Medical Council in Dublin, that any factual findings in relation to the allegations would be announced by the afternoon.

But cross-examination of Dr Noirin Russell, as well as closing submissions by Lorna Lynch, BL, for the CEO of the Medical Council, and Eileen Barrington, SC, for Dr Aziz, meant any findings were delayed.

Any factual findings are now due to be announced on Thursday, and any findings in relation to poor professional performance and/or professional misconduct are expected on May 30.

Yesterday, consultant obstetrician Dr Russell, expert witness for Dr Aziz, gave evidence in relation to Patient C.

Patient C's baby boy was delivered stillborn after an emergency caesarean section on April 26, 2014.

During surgery, it was found Patient C had suffered from her third placental abruption, a condition in which the placenta separates from the uterus, depriving the baby of blood and oxygen.

But Dr Russell, from Cork University Maternity Hospital, said a diagnosis of placental abruption for Patient C is clear only in hindsight.

"It's very clear retrospectively this was placental abruption, but it wasn't clear at the time," Dr Russell said.

She said she wasn't sure whether an earlier delivery of Patient C's baby would have made a difference.

The inquiry previously heard that Patient A's baby boy was born by emergency caesarean section on November 22, 2012, but he died when he was 32 hours old. A coroner's court later found the infant suffered extensive meconium aspiration as a result of hypoxic brain injury.

Ms Clarke's baby boy was born in very poor condition on June 5, 2013, after her uterus ruptured. The paediatric team resuscitated him, and he made an eventual recovery.

On March 22, Patient C told the inquiry that on April 26, 2014, she attended Cavan Hospital, arriving at 12.40pm.

At 4.45pm, she met with Dr Aziz and told him about her poor obstetric history. He said he would return at 7pm to perform a caesarean section.

But shortly after 6pm "all hell broke loose", said Patient C, after a midwife could not find the baby's heartbeat. Patient C was rushed to theatre and given a general anaesthetic.

"When I woke up, I knew something terrible had happened because [the nurse] was crying," she said.

The inquiry resumes on Thursday.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Sesame  Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, a project which has brought Iran and Israel together, was unveiled on May 16 in Jordan.

Two representatives from Iran were present in unveiling ceremony of the projects first phase, Vahid Ahmadi, deputy minister of science, research and technology, said, ISNA news agency reported.

Iran, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Palestine and Pakistan were the founders of the Sesame, and Bahrain, Egypt and Cyprus joined it later. Switzerland, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Russia, Portugal, the UK and the US are observer members.

Researchers from the aforementioned countries, including Iranians and Israelis have worked on the project together.

At one point, Iran was unable to pay its share because of international sanctions on banking system, however Ahmadi told ISNA that Tehran has so far settled some part of its debt.

He added that Tehran will continue cooperation with the Sesame project.

The opening ceremony was attended by senior officials from the Jordanian, Cypriot, Egyptian, Iranian, Israeli, Pakistani, Palestinian and Turkish delegations, and by the heads of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, UNESCO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

BBC quoted Mahmoud Tabrizchi, a senior Iranian scientist, who contributes to the project, as saying that science is different from politics.

Tabrizchi described Sesame as the greatest event in science in the Middle East.

There are some 60 synchrotrons in use around the world, but Sesame will be the first in the Middle East.
A murder trial jury has begun considering its verdict in the trial of two men accused of murdering a man in front of his girlfriend at a house party.

Ger Hogan (34) of Raheen Square, Ballinacurra Weston and Dylan Hayes (22) of The Crescent, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle, Co Limerick have both pleaded not guilty to the murder of Shane Murphy at The Grove, Pallasgreen, Co Limerick on April 30, 2015. Mr Murphy died after suffering 23 stab wounds, one that pierced his heart. It is the prosecution's case that the two accused men acted together with the intention to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Murphy.

Justice Patrick McCarthy yesterday told the jury that there are three verdicts open to them in respect of each accused man. They can be found guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty.

Having spent over two hours considering their verdict this morning, the five women and seven men will return this afternoon.
A garda has been accused of lying "in a dishonest and disreputable fashion" about Solidarity TD Paul Murphy's actions on the day of the water protest.

Sean Guerin SC, defending Mr Murphy, suggested to Garda Gavin Cooke that he had deliberately toned down his "false" evidence in a "cowardly" way, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today.

Garda Cooke rejected the claims while giving evidence on day 13 of the trial of Mr Murphy (34).

Mr Murphy along with South Dublin Councillors Michael Murphy (53) and Kieran Mahon (39) and four other men have pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning Ms Burton and her advisor Karen O'Connell by restricting their personal liberty without their consent at Fortunestown Road, Jobstown, Tallaght on November 15, 2014.

The two women were attending a graduation ceremony at An Cosan adult education centre in Jobstown when anti-water charges protestors began demonstrating around them. They were trapped in cars for about three hours, the trial has heard.

Gda Cooke was on duty on the day and the driver of the first car Ms Burton and Ms O'Connell remained in at a local church for about an hour, the trial heard. At one point, Gda Cooke described seeing Paul Murphy on a microphone "doing different things".

Under cross-examination from Mr Guerin, he said he saw Mr Murphy directing people where to stand.

The court was then shown CCTV footage from the relevant period, which Mr Guerin said to Gda Cooke gives the lie to your evidence.

You weren't even in the church grounds for most of the time Mr Murphy was there, Mr Guerin said.

Gda Cooke said he didn't see Mr Murphy in the CCTV footage, but said: "I'm clear as to seeing Mr Murphy that day."

"What you're telling the jury is that you saw something that couldn't have happened," Mr Guerin said.

He put it to Gda Cooke that as well as saying in his statement that Mr Murphy was directing people, he also gave evidence to that effect in another case in the District Court when Mr Murphy was not on trial.

Mr Guerin said Gda Cooke then tried to "tone down" his evidence in this trial by initially saying he saw Mr Murphy doing "different things".

"I suggest to you not only did you deliberately falsify your account of what happened, you gave false evidence in the District Court and (moved) away from your falsehood in a dishonest and disreputable fashion because you knew your statement was false," Mr Guerin said.

"That's not true," Gda Cooke replied. He said he gave a true statement and has always spoken the truth in court.

Mr Guerin said: "The reason you gave a false statement was you wanted to establish Paul Murphy was guilty of an offence. You knew his peaceful actions on the day would not be sufficient. You wanted to make him responsible for the behaviour of other people."

Gda Cooke denied this was the case.

Under questioning from prosecution barrister Tony McGillicuddy BL, Gda Cooke described how the protesters were shouting "vile" language as they surrounded the car. He said after helping to move Ms Burton and Ms O'Connell from the car to the jeep, he saw two gardai being assaulted by protesters.

He said he received "two boxes in the back of the head".

Paul Murphy of Kingswood Heights, Tallaght; Kieran Mahon of Holbrook Grove, Tallaght; Michael Murphy of Whitechurch Way, Ballyboden, Dublin; Frank Donaghy (71) of Alpine Rise, Tallaght; Ken Purcell (50) of Kiltalown Green, Tallaght; Michael Banks (46) of Brookview Green, Tallaght and Scott Masterson (34) of Carrigmore Drive, Tallaght have denied the charges.

The trial continues before Judge Melanie Greally and a jury.

Earlier, the trial heard that gardai investigating the case did not take any statements from protester witnesses and cancelled house-to-house enquiries.

Defence barrister, Michael O'Higgins SC, cross-examined Inspector Garda Derek Maguire about the investigation. The court heard there were 57 civilian witness statements in the case, as well as 180 garda statements.

Civilian witnesses included staff from An Cosan, where the graduation ceremony was taking place, graduates and guests at the ceremony, political staff from Ms Burton's office and journalists who were at the scene.

Everyone in An Cosan, "from the CEO down to the cleaner" was spoken to by gardai, Mr O'Higgins, representing Ken Purcell, said.

But there were no statements from any protesters who were there, the court heard.

When asked why there were no statements from protesters, Insp Maguire said We don't know who they all are. He added that he didn't believe any protester witnesses came forward.

Mr O'Higgins put it to Insp Maguire that this was a significant investigation. He said it was nonsensical to suggest that gardai wouldn't have been able to identify protesters. This is 2017, he said, adding there are cameras everywhere.

The idea that in this day and age, people couldn't be identified...in a small local community like Tallaght is nonsensical, he said.

Insp Maguire responded that it was not nonsensical. Their name doesn't pop up on the camera, he said. You still have to identify them.

The court heard that according to garda case notes from the day of the protest, 'house-to-house enquiries' was listed as the fourth job on the list. However, it was then marked as 'cancelled'.

Insp Maguire said he didn't know why house-to-house inquiries were cancelled or why some statements weren't taken. It was possible some people were approached and refused to give statements, he said.

Mr O'Higgins said there was a record of six people who refused to give statements. One of these, a local councillor, was described in garda notes as having sat down on the ground momentarily during the protest.

Garda notes went on to say the man was advised if he was to make a statement it would be a cautioned statement, the court heard.

There was no documented instances of any protester being invited to make an uncautioned statement, Mr O'Higgins said.

"Would they have complained about the way the guards treated then?" Mr O'Higgins said. "Would they have complained they were manhandled by guards? That they were being bullied by guards, that the guards started it?"

Insp Maguire said he could not speculate on what witnesses may have said.
A MOTORIST who claimed a clone of her car was responsible for more than 300 unpaid journeys on the M50 has been fined 7,000.

Lyndsey Morgan from Brookhaven Park, Dublin 15, had pleaded not guilty to five sample counts of failing to pay the 3.10 motorway charge on dates in September last year.

However, a witness from eFlow, the company that operates the system, said Morgans 01-reg Peugeot made 339 passages on the barrier-free motorway but only 29 toll payments were made.

Judge John Brennan at Dublin District Court did not accept her claims that a replica of her car was responsible and he said he was satisfied that the mother-of-one had attempted to mislead the court. However, he spared her a jail sentence and maximum fines that could have run to 25,000.

The court heard about 800 letters were sent to her in relation to the unpaid tolls but she claimed she did not get them.

The prosecution was brought by the National Roads Authority (NRA).

Downloaded images of the car passing the toll were brought to court and she was prosecuted because she was the registered owner, the judge was told. She claimed she asked an NRA representative if it was possible that someone had "cloned" her car registration number and put it on the exact same type of car.

She was shown the images but denied it was her driving the car as one picture was taken at 3am when she said she is normally in bed.

In cross-examination she agreed with Thomas Rice BL (instructed by Pierse Fitzgibbon Solicitors) that she had a red Peugeot. When questioned by the judge she replied: I asked can a car be cloned, every day it happens.

Counsel asked her who was driving and she answered nobody is driving my car.

The barrister suggested to her that if her car had been cloned she would be going to the gardai. I will go to the police now, someone is driving a car that is the exact same as mine, she replied.

In relation to the approximately 800 letters eFlow sent her about the unpaid tolls she claimed she did not receive any of them. The judge heard she was eventually served with the court summons by a private investigator after she allegedly refused to accept a registered letter.

She also said that she found the case stressful and she had offered to settle with the NRA.

Convicting her, Judge Brennan said he should be giving her a more severe fine but he had to take into consideration the circumstances of the woman who is in receipt of the one parent family social welfare payment. In addition to fines totalling 7,000, he also ordered her to pay 750 in prosecution costs.

The judge also stipulated that she would have 12 months to pay.

The standard M50 toll for an unregistered car is 3.10 and must be paid before 8pm the following day or else there is a 3.00 penalty for having missed the deadline. Motorists have 14 days from the date of issue to pay for the journey and the initial penalty; otherwise a further penalty of 41 is applied. After a further 56 days there is an additional penalty charge of 103 and if it remains unpaid legal proceedings follow with the possibility of a court fine of up to 5,000 as well as a jail term of six-months, or both, per offence.

The registered owner of a vehicle is responsible even if they were not driving the vehicle.
A project promoting water conservation has scooped the top prize at a national competition which tasks primary and secondary school children with forming creative solutions to climate change.

Students from St Patricks NS in Bruree, Co Limerick were awarded for their work on the project Saighdiuiri Uisce at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Irelands (SEAI) One Good Idea final today. They were one of seven teams to reach the final at the Croke Park Conference Centre.

The St Patricks students focused on educating people on water waste and impressed the judges with creative, but simple ways of conserving water.

Over 350 campaigns were submitted to this years competition, with just 20 selected to go forward to the national final. Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Dennis Naughton praised the students inspiring projects.

He said: At the heart of the SEAI One Good Idea programme is the development of the engaged, active and creative citizen. Its extremely encouraging to see the work, dedication and passion these students have shown in raising awareness of the issue of climate change and getting their classmates, teachers, families and communities to make small changes to their behaviour.

Small changes can make a huge difference so it is exciting to see so many inspiring ideas here today.

The Fooderinos from Rahara NS, Co Roscommon picked up the second place prize, performing a rap encouraging people to eat locally produced food.

SEAI Chief Executive Jim Gannon said the competitions participants were some of the brightest and most creative minds in the country.

He said: What this programme shows is that we have some of the brightest and most creative minds in the country. The campaigns were of an exceptional standard this year and demonstrated the creativity and determination of our countrys young people in contributing to a better, more sustainable future.

That is what One Good Idea is all about  empowering young people and encouraging small changes that collectively make a big difference.
Thousands of Garda man hours were wasted tapping the phones of innocent people as part of investigations into crimes as serious as drug dealing, the Irish Independent can reveal.

Some of the taps were left active on the phones of innocent third parties for weeks - and were cancelled only when officers flagged their concern about their legitimacy.

An Irish Independent investigation has detailed how for almost a decade officers routinely bypassed the force's protocols to listen in on private conversations.

It was further reported that an election worker for a serving politician is alleged to have had his mobile phone tapped by gardai - and the bugging stopped only when a detective raised concerns it was serving "political purposes".

The detective who challenged the activity feared gardai were acting for the benefit of the influential minister with or without his knowledge. He was transferred out of the force's intelligence department within two weeks of flagging his fears the force was being used for "political purposes".

But after fresh developments yesterday, it can be revealed that some gardai who encouraged their junior counterparts to bypass the procedures surrounding phone tapping were promoted to senior ranks within the force.

Major concern was also expressed by officers after it emerged phone taps applied as part of investigations into suspected drug dealing were instead placed on phones belonging to innocent citizens living in different parts of the county.

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These individuals weren't informed by gardai that internal blunders had led to their calls being listened to.

Now with the issue set to be raised in the Dail, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar described this newspaper's revelations as issues of "great concern".

He said he expected Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald to brief Cabinet on the matter, but added the matters date to before Fine Gael was in office.

"Nonetheless, it's a matter of real concern that such a strong power, the power to engage in surveillance, could be abused in any way that any individual citizens could have their privacy breached or their rights infringed," Mr Varadkar said.

The Dublin West TD said he wanted to hear what Ms Fitzgerald had to say before considering whether there should be a public inquiry into phone tapping.

Sinn Fein has called on Ms Fitzgerald to come before the Dail to answer questions over the allegations. Labour and Fianna Fail too say the matters have caused grave concern.

Much of the revelations surrounding the phone tapping are contained in court documents that relate to a High Court action taken by a retired detective.

The documents show how the decorated officer felt intimidated and bullied before being moved aside after he raised concerns about the shoddy practices within Garda intelligence.

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The now retired detective even sought legal clarity in writing - but never had his request fulfilled. The officer says he came under so much pressure to tap phones without having a court order that it took a toll on his health.

The State avoided the full extent of the phone tapping scandal being made public after agreeing an out-of-court settlement with the officer, who repeatedly raised concerns about the legality of the surveillance.

The settlement was made just days after the force was rocked by the Tusla sex abuse file scandal. It is understood the State also agreed to pay off a number of other gardai and other plaintiffs within the space of a few hours on the same day last February.

An Garda Siochana has since said the procedures surrounding the tapping of mobile phone calls had been strengthened.

The Department of Justice insisted there were "very strong safeguards" to ensure the telecommunications interceptions system provided for by law was "operated properly".
The LE Aisling was sold last year to a Dutch ship broker at auction

A patrol vessel disposed of by the Naval Service for 110,000 just seven weeks ago is now on sale in the Netherlands for more than six times the price.

The LE Aisling, one of the most famous ships in modern Naval Service history, was sold at public auction to a Dutch ship broker in March.

Now, the vessel is being offered for sale from a Rotterdam shipyard for 685,000 - with the new owners warning that, as improvements and upgrades are made to the vessel, the price will inevitably go up.

However, Naval Service sources warned there was no guarantee the former Irish flagship would sell for the specified amount.

The LE Aisling was decommissioned from fleet service last year after steaming 600,000 nautical miles over a 36-year service career.

The vessel was sold by public auction in Carrigaline, Co Cork.

Auctioneer Dominic Daly said the LE Aisling represented a unique purchase despite the recent difficulties in the global shipping sector.

Netherlands ship broker Dick van der Kamp bought the ship for 110,000 with just the second bid at the auction. There was only one other bidder.

The vessel sold for roughly one-third the 320,000 the LE Emer made at public auction almost four years ago.

Mr van der Kamp acknowledged at the time that the purchase was a gamble and that the market for specific types of ships was quite depressed.

"I don't know yet [what will happen to it]. It might be converted as a private yacht; it might be used as a guard ship," he said. The vessel is berthed in Rotterdam and is sold as being: "In very good condition. Price will go up as owners will spend money on further improvements. Better be quick!"
The Department of Defence was irresponsible to sell the LE Aisling for 110,000, a leading member of the Permanent Defence Forces has claimed.

Just seven weeks after the former patrol vessel of the Irish Naval Service was sold at auction for 110, it's now on sale in Rotterdam for 685,000.

Mark Keane, vice president of Permanent Defence Force Other Ranks Representative Association, has expressed his disbelief this morning into how the ship was sold.

A member of the Naval Service for 26 years, Keane has said that the defence forces are worried about the process in which one of their most famous ships was sold at auction.

Speaking on The Opinion Line on Cork's 96FM, he said: "We would have concerns about this whole issue.

"110,000 for that ship is such a minuscule payment. The Aisling definitely should have had a higher price."

Referring to the LE Aisling as the "prize of our fleet", Keane explained how the boat would have been in excellent condition and that it was only sold due to the Naval Services process of retiring ships after 35 years of service.

"The ship was in excellent condition. I dont think it would have even needed a lick of paint," Keane said.

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The LE Aisling was originally considered to become a tourist attraction and museum in Galway when it was commissioned in June 2016.

This plan was ultimately abandoned though after the vessel was deemend "unsuitable for conversion to use as museums or visitor attractions", according to Paul Kehoe TD.

Keane has now questioned how the Department of Defence could sell it for such a low amount.

He said: "The Department (of Defence) clearly didnt take a responsible approach to the sale. Why wasnt a resolve price placed?"

Auctioneer Dominic Daly described the sale as disappointing at the time of its purchase, while the ships buyer Dick Van Der Kemp referred to the purchase as a gamble.

Independent.ie has contacted the Department of Defence for comment.
Left: Danielle McLaughlin was murdered at Indian tourist destination. Centre: Vigil held in memory of victim. Right: Vikat Bhagat (23) has been arrested in connection with the murder

A man accused of the rape and murder of Irish backpacker Danielle McLaughlin has now claimed three friends killed her in front of him.

Vikat Bhagat, who is currently in custody awaiting trial, has written a 29-page letter to his sister detailing the events which he claims led up to her death in Canacona, India in March.

According to the Herald Goa, Bhagat claims he was in a relationship with Ms McLaughlin but denies that he raped or murdered her.

The 24-year-old claims that three of his friends attacked and raped her on March 13. And that these men smashed bottles and rocks off her head when she tried to fight back.

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However a solicitor for Ms McLaughlin's Donegal-based family has questioned the claims and argued that the reports are unhelpful for the case.

Derry based lawyer Des Doherty said: "We do genuinely find this all highly dubious, spurious and lacking in evidential substance."

According the Herald Goa, Bhagat repeatedly writes in his letter that he was in a physical relationship with Ms McLaughlin. He says that on the night he and Ms McLaughlin were with others in a restaurant where they were drunk and smoking cannabis.

He claims that they left to travel to Leopard Valley in Agonda and on the way they decided to smoke one more cannabis joint at the place, which they frequented regularly. This was where Ms McLaughlin (28) was later murdered.

"While sipping beer I received a call from (a friend) that they are in Leopard Valley and asked us to join them, to which I replied we will do in sometime and informed them of our location," he wrote in the letter.

Bhagat reportedly writes: "I saw two bikes coming towards us switching off the headlights. They came to me, when I questioned why they were here, (friend) asked me to tell Danielle to have sex with them.

He claims Ms McLaughlin slapped one of the men who then stripped her and raped her.

Bhagat, who said that he was also attacked by the men, claimed: "I tried to save her, but since I had undergone shoulder surgery, I could not help her."

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According to the letter Ms McLaughlin started weeping and she slapped another man when he too demanded "sexual favours". Bhagat said this man smashed two bottles of beer on her head and she fell to the ground.

According to the account two of the men held her hands while the third hit a heavy stone twice on her head after which she died.

Bhagat, who was arrested just 24 hours after the murder, claimed he didn't inform police because he feared he would be blamed for the murder.

Bhagat said, he was scared by the turn of events and did not inform the police fearing he would be blamed for the murder.

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"A day after the crime I spoke to (friend) on phone questioning why they did this to which he apologised saying it was a mistake and requested me not to spill their names if the police come to know," Bhagat alleged.

Des Doherty, solicitor for Ms McLaughlin's family, said they were aware of the report and said they have heard these allegations before.

"There is nothing new in them. We have to put faith in the appropriate authorities in India to investigate this fully.

"If what is being alleged has any substance it should be brought to the attention of the police in India.

"From our latest dealings with the police we know that a file is being sent to the director of public prosecutions over there. It is important not to confirm or accept anything that is reported in the media because it has all sorts of evidential and legal problems. This is clearly made up of hearsay."

The Derry-based solicitor said: "We do genuinely find this all highly dubious, spurious and lacking in evidential substance."

He said his clients found it unhelpful and upsetting to learn of this in the media and they do not want anything to prejudice a trial.
As he pulled into Blair House, the crowd chanted Erdogans name and "red and white" -- the colors of the Turkish flag, Anadolu reported.

"Here today, we are beyond party lines," said Gunay Ovunc, a second generation Turkish-American who co-chairs the Turkish-American National Steering Committee. "We have transcended those divisions."

Ozlem Timucin, a provincial vice president of the ruling AK Party, felt she needed to be present for Erdogan's arrival said it was "an honor" to witness it.

Following Erdogans arrival, Turkey's Washington envoy thanked supporterx, some of whom he said traveled to Washington, D.C. from as far away as California on the west coast.

"This unity and solidarity, especially in these days is very important," Serdar Kilic said. "Especially after the July 15 heinous coup attempt, your presence here, holding and waving Turkish flags while our president arrives -- it is vital," he added. "Our honorable president also salutes all of you guys."

Erdogan will meet Trump at the White House on Tuesday for a bilateral Oval Office meeting followed by a press conference.

A meeting with Turkish-American business and religious leaders at the Turkish ambassadors residence in northwest Washington, D.C. is also scheduled.
Ireland took some of the fewest numbers of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the EU last year.

Just 5.9 per cent (35 out of the 63,300), of unaccompanied minors that were seeking asylum in the EU were registered in Ireland last year, according to Eurostat.

35 unaccompanied minors were also registered in Ireland in 2015 when the figure was five times higher than the annual average at almost 96,500.

Six in ten applied for asylum in Germany, the highest number of minor asylum applications which was 57pc of all those registered in the EU Member States.

This was closely followed by Italy with 10pc, Austria with 6pc and the United Kingdom with 5pc.

In contrast, the largest decreases were recorded in Sweden with -94pc, Hungary -86pc, Belgium - 64pc, the Netherlands -56pc and Austria -53pc

Over half of those who applied were Afghans and Syrians. Four out of 10 unaccompanied minors registered were Afghans, they made up 38pc of the total numbers and unaccompanied minors that were Syrians made up 19pc.

The data also reveals that 89pc of them were boys. Over two thirds of all unaccompanied minors were aged 16 to 17 years old. Those aged 14 to 15 accounted for 21pc and those aged less than 14 years old accounted for 10pc.

Other unaccompanied minors seeking asylum were from Iraq, Eritrea, Somalia, Gambia and Pakistan.
Nearly 90 per cent of rental properties available are out of reach to people on housing supports, the Simon Community has revealed.

The leading housing charity did an examination of our rental market over three days and found that of the 600 properties available, just 12pc were affordable within the Rent Supplement/HAP payments limits.

Their research found that just two of these were affordable to a single person within RS/HAP limits and seven for a couple who receive those payments.

The Simon Community has declared that "Irelands private rented market is not working."

They were speaking today as they launched their Locked Out of the Market campaign which calls for the Government to act urgently to tackle the problem.

They highlighted that rents soared by 13.4pc in the year to March and that there are now 48pc less homes available to let than there were in May 2015.

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National Spokeswoman for the Simon Communities in Ireland Niamh Randall said: "Irelands private rented market is not working. People who rent have very little security and can face increases in rent that they cannot meet.

"Many people who are becoming homeless are coming from the private rental sector. They have lost their home and cannot afford to put a roof over their heads. Some stay with extended family and, when that fails, they enter homelessness.

"Nearly 7,500 people remain trapped in emergency accommodation; they are locked out of the private rented market because rents are too high and supply is too low.

"It is often their only option of finding a home. The gap between housing benefit payments and market rents is just too wide for people who are struggling, people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

"The Simon Communities Locked Out of the Market campaign highlights the urgent need for three common sense solutions; full rent certainty by linking rents to the Consumer Price Index, provide people with greater security of tenure and increase, monitor and adjust Rent Supplement/HAP payments regularly.

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"These must keep pace with market rents or they become ineffective, as is currently the case. Any measures put in place must impact all tenancies and limit rent increases within all tenancies."

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She also said that the Government must act faster to help those who need it.

Ms Randall said: "The Governments plan for Rebuilding Ireland is welcome but moving far too slowly. In the absence of sufficient supply of social housing, the private rented sector is not capable of delivering the housing needed to respond given the sheer scale of the problem.

"Housing should not be a commodity. Everyone is entitled to a safe, secure and affordable home and renting must not be a barrier to this."

The full report "Locked Out of the Market VII: The Gap between Rent Supplement/HAP Limits and Market Rents" is available to read here.
Three Irish men have been acquitted in the Netherlands of killing fellow Irish criminal Keith Ennis.

However a Dutch court did convict them of dismembering Ennis body with a chainsaw and dumping the body parts in a lake in Amsterdam.

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Philip County (28), Barry McArdle (30) and Kenneth Brunell (29) were sentenced to two years in prison for hiding a dead body - a felony under Dutch law.

The judges said in their verdict that the outcome of the investigation into Ennis violent death is "highly unsatisfactory, especially for Ennis next of kin, who do not know who murdered him."

The court decided that there was insufficient evidence that the three men killed Ennis.

Ennis (29) was stabbed to death in February 2009 in an apartment in Rotterdam, the second biggest city of the Netherlands.

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He had been lying low in Holland, after he allegedly fell out with former criminal associates. Shortly before traveling to Amsterdam Ennis had been arrested by the Gardai, who subsequently raided a warehouse in Dublin where a large supply of drugs was found.

Shortly after Ennis arrived in Holland on Februray 24, his body was found dismembered in Het IJ, a lake in the heart of Amsterdam. Several body parts were found in plastic bags and although it was clear his death had been violent, the police had trouble identifying the body.

Only after his fingerprints were sent to gardai were the Dutch detectives able to identify Ennis.

According to court proceedings, the Dutch police found after a long investigation, that Ennis had been in touch with his fellow Irishman Philip County while he was in Holland, although the nature of their acquaintance remained somewhat vague.

County is the only suspect who has given a statement to police about the death of Ennis. He claims his fellow suspects Barry McArdle and Kenneth Brunell were responsible for the murder. County and McArdle, who have each been convicted in Ireland on drug related offences, had allegedly travelled to Holland to lie low as well.

The Dutch public prosecutor deemed Countys statement as trustworthy and asked the court in April for 11 years imprisonment for McArdle and Brunell. For County the public prosecutor demanded a year long prison sentence, for helping to hide the body.

According to County, Ennis was murdered in an apartment in Rotterdam, where he came to socialise with County, McArdle and Brunell. County told the police he stepped out to get liquor and when he came back, he found Ennis had been stabbed to death. According to County, a heated discussion while they played PlayStation had turned violent.

After that happened County, McArdle and Brunell worked together to dismember Ennis corpse and to dump him in the water.

But the Dutch court ruled that although some parts of Countys statement are clearly supported by other available evidence, County most likely did not tell the whole truth. Because of this, it can not be determined without doubt that it were McArdle and Brunell who killed Ennis.

Quite the opposite: the court thinks it is possible County himself played a bigger role in Ennis death than he claimed. Brunell and McArdle have denied any wrongdoing, saying County had dropped them off at a local stripclub, hours before the murder took place. They say they never even met Ennis.

Because murder could not be proven, the men were sentenced only because of their "gruesome and shameless treatment" of Ennis body. The Dutch judge ruled that "as long as there is a real possibility that a suspect is innocent, he needs to be acquitted, even if there are indications of wrongdoing."

Brunell has served his time while awaiting trial and is expected to return to Ireland shortly. McArdle is also expected to return to Ireland as he awaits his appeal.
Social Democrat leader,Roisin Shortall, today warned that the Justice Minister is keeping the Garda Commissioner in office to protect her own job.

Ms Shortall cited a range of controversies surrounding An Garda Siochana  including reports of improper phone-tapping. These issues have been reported in the Irish Independent.

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The Dublin North-West TD said it was clear that when the previous Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan, was forced from office  he was followed by the then-Justice Minister, Alan Shatter.

It looks like history will repeat itself, Minister, she said referring directly to Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Ms Shortall said she was not seeking a head but the removal of all senior garda management. There was now an urgent need to implement reforms which could not await another Commission of Inquiry.

The former Labour junior health minister also referred to a more recent controversy where a garda has been accused of posting footage of a young woman on line. The young woman later took her own life.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny again defended the Garda Commissioner, Noirin O'Sullivan, and the Government. He said all the matters mentioned by Ms Shortall were the subject of various investigations and he expressed sympathy with the bereaved family of the young woman who had died.
Social Protection Minister and frontrunner for the Fine Gael leadership contest Leo Varadkar at Mallinckrodts new global medical device engineering centre at its campus at the College Business and Technology Park in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, yesterday. Photo: Maxwellphotography.ie

A beefing up of the powers of the Department of Taoiseach is to form a major plank of Leo Varadkar's bid for the Fine Gael leadership, the Irish Independent has learned.

Mr Varadkar wants to give the department more influence over the scandal-hit areas of justice and health in a move that is likely to attract support from within the Fine Gael parliamentary party.

The vast majority of the controversies that have dogged this minority Government have emerged under the watch of Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Health Minister Simon Harris.

Justice, in particular, is now being likened to the "new Angola" as a result of the series of damaging scandals that have engulfed the crisis-ridden An Garda Siochana.

Senior sources in the Varadkar camp confirmed he will seek to ensure the Department of An Taoiseach is given more influence over the areas of health and justice, if he is elected.

"There needs to be more interest and engagement," said one source.

Mr Varadkar yesterday said he doesn't know what Taoiseach Enda Kenny will say when he addresses the parliamentary party tomorrow in relation to the leadership issue.

"I've always said that the timeframe is a matter for the Taoiseach and that remains the case. Certainly whenever the vacancy does arise I'm ready for that but until he makes that decision obviously I'm happy to stay busy doing my job," the Dublin West TD said at an event in Blanchardstown.

The remarks were made just hours after Education Minister Richard Bruton refused to rule out joining Mr Varadkar and Housing Minister Simon Coveney in declaring an interest in the leadership.

The Dublin Bay North TD said he will make his position known once Mr Kenny announces his intentions.

"I've said consistently that until Enda makes a decision as to what he's doing I'm going to continue to work as part of his team delivering in my area," Mr Bruton told RTE's 'Morning Ireland'.

"When he makes his decision I will make my position clear.

"I'm not either ruling myself in or ruling myself out."

Mr Bruton is understood to have gauged the views of some colleagues over whether they believe there should be a third candidate in the contest.

Meanwhile, Mr Coveney yesterday urged Fine Gael to pay due respect to Mr Kenny as he signals the end of his 17 years at the helm of the party.

He is expected to outline the timeline for his stepping down as Taoiseach and party leader tomorrow night - immediately triggering a leadership battle.

Mr Coveney repeated his prediction that he expects the party and country to have a new leader in place before the Dail summer break.

He said he will not be launching a campaign until there is a vacancy.

"Obviously, from my perspective, I am excited by the potential opportunities that might come from that (leadership battle)," the Cork South Central TD said.

"But more importantly we need to respect the fact and recognise the fact that Fine Gael has had the same leader for nearly 17 years.

"We have a Taoiseach, we have a party leader. He is a strong, effective and successful party leader and until he decides that there is a leadership process under way, I will not be launching any campaign."
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald with Mountjoy governor Brian Murphy at the launch of the Irish Prison Services and Probation Service 2016 annual reports. Photo: Damien Eagers

The number of people being committed to prison has plummeted after measures requiring judges to consider community services as an alternative to a jail term.

Legislation making it easier to pay fines has also contributed to the 11pc drop in people being sent to jail.

Despite these moves, the number of prisoners in jail for terms of three months or less, while down, still represents almost three-quarters of all committals.

Figures in the Irish Prison Service annual report for 2016, published yesterday, reveal 12,579 people were sent to jail last year, compared with 14,182 in 2015.

Some people were sent to prison more than once, with total committals for 2016 standing at 15,099, compared to 17,206 the previous year.

The figures show prisoner numbers are now back at around 2009 levels after increasing significantly in the intervening years.

Part of the slump is thought to relate to a 7pc increase in the use of community-service orders last year, with some 2,067 issued.

Under the Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Amendment) Act 2011, judges are required to consider the imposition of community service where a custodial sentence of 12 months or less is being considered. The numbers of people being jailed for not paying fines fell by 15pc year on year, but remains high at 8,439 committals.

The decrease is being attributed to the introduction of the Fines Act 2014 last year. This allows for all fines over 100 to be paid in instalments. Courts can also place attachment orders on a person's income, other than social welfare, if they don't pay voluntarily.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said further decreases were expected this year in the numbers jailed for non-payment of fines.

"Provisional figures for the first quarter of 2017 are showing decreases of up to 50pc on the same period in 2016," she said.

Fiona Ni Chinneide, acting executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said the fall in prison committals was very positive.

Meanwhile, Prison Service director general Michael Donnellan has insisted it has an effective policy for dealing with gangs.

His remarks came after the Prison Officers Association said gangs had too much influence inside jails.

"We have a strategy of separating people who are gang leaders. Our strategy is also to disperse people. So we don't at the moment put all our gang leaders in one area," he said.
The husband of murdered Michaela McAreavey has said that his new wife Tara Brennan "supports him so much" in his fight to get justice for Michaela.

John McAreavey married Tara last September, an accountant from Co Kildare.

Mr McAreavey said that his new wife understands and supports his new fight to get justice for Michaela, as he returned to Mauritius earlier this year.

In a new programme, BBC Newsline followed Mr McAreavey for five days in Mauritius as police launched a fresh investigation.

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He talked about his new wife saying: "She supports me so much in this.

"Anyone who loves you, and loves you the right way, will support you in anything that's important in your life."

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Earlier this year, the McAreavey and Harte families announced that they are offering a 50,000 reward for information leading to a successful prosecution and conviction of her killers.

Accompanied by his sister Claire McAreavey and Mark Harte, brother of the late Michaela, Mr McAreavey announced that the cash would be given for any fresh information which may lead to a successful prosecution and conviction of whomever is responsible for her murder.

Ms McAreavey (27) was killed in January 2011, just 12 days after marrying her husband John. The newly-weds were honeymooning in Mauritius when she was discovered dead at their luxury hotel.

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The young woman, who is the daughter of Tyrone GAA boss Mickey Harte, was strangled. Nobody has ever been prosecuted for the murder.
A priest at the scene of the tragedy in Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh

A priest at the scene of the tragedy in Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh Inset: Concepta Leonard

Tributes have been paid to the "amazing mother" Concepta Leonard, who was killed as part of a apparent murder-suicide in Co Fermanagh.

Detectives are investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a 51-year-old woman and 55-year-old man at a house in Abbey Road on the edge of Maguiresbridge in Co Fermanagh.

At this stage detectives have confirmed they are not looking for anyone in relation to the incident.

The female victim has been named locally as Concepta Leonard, a former businesswoman and daughter of traditional Irish musician Dinny Leonard.

Online tributes have been made to the woman who was popular among traditional music circles in the tight-knit community.

"We will always remember Connie with great fondness for her affection, dedication and energetic outlook shown in all areas of her life; as an amazing mother, daughter, sister, music teacher and friend," said traditional music group Newtownbutler CCE in a Facebook post.

It is understood that a third victim, believed to be Concepta's 30-year-old son Conor, was taken by ambulance to the South West Acute Hospital in Enniskillen.

He is believed to be in a stable condition in hospital.

The man whose body was found in the house has been named locally as Peadar Phair.

The PSNI have released a statement saying they are treating the death of the woman as a murder.

Detective Chief Inspector Eamon Corrigan said: "Post mortem examinations will be carried out in due course and at this stage we are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident. Although our enquiries are at an early stage, we are threating the death of the woman as murder.

"The injuries to a man, aged in his 30s, who was also in the house at the time of the incident and who suffered stab wounds to his abdomen, is being treated as attempted murder. He is currently in hospital in a stable condition."

Former Fermanagh and South Tyrone SDLP MLA Richie McPhillips, who knows the Leonard family, said there was a sense of shock and sadness in the community over the tragedy.

"This is a tragic case for all involved and I want to send my condolences and sympathies to Concepta's family," he said.

"Concepta was a businesswoman in the south Fermanagh region, she was involved in catering and had a business in Lisnaskea in recent years.

"She was also a musician and played traditional Irish music like her father.

"She had a good sense of humour; they are very solid, salt-of-the-earth people - good community people.

"She had a son with Downs Syndrome, and when you saw Concepta you saw him.

"He also was involved in traditional music.

"Concepta's father has been involved in the promotion of traditional Irish music for many, many years - he teaches classes all over the community and has given his talent to young people.

"Reports are sketchy as to the circumstances but it was a tragic case for those involved.

"Thanks be to God it's rare in this part of the world, but for someone from your own area to be involved makes it all the more poignant."

Sinn Fein MLA Michelle Gildernew also spoke of her shock at the deaths. Ms Gildernew told the Irish Independent: "The deaths of the woman and man in Maguiresbride is a tragedy.

"This is a quite a tight knit community and the news has upset many.

"It is too early to say what happened but the police are investigating.

"I have spoken to family members who are quite obviously shocked and devastated.

"I would appeal for anyone with information surrounding this incident to bring it to the PSNI."

For anyone affected by the issues raises in this article, contact Pieta House on 1800 247 247 or the Samaritans on 116 123
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday stressed continued cooperation with the U.S. against terrorism during his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the Oval Office, Anadolu reported.

"We are committed to fighting all kinds of terrorism, without any discrimination whatsoever, that impose a clear and present threat upon our future," Erdogan said.

"There is no place for terrorist organizations in the future of our region," the president said.

Engaging PYD and YPG as partners, "no matter which country does it, certainly does not fall in line with the global agreement that has been reached" on terrorism, according to the Turkish leader.

Ankara views the PYD and its armed wing YPG as the Syrian offshoots of the terrorist PKK organization. The Pentagon said last week the U.S. would begin directly arming the YPG.

Erdogan also stressed Turkey's efforts against the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) that Ankara accuses of mounting a defeated coup attempt last summer. The Turkish government is seeking FETO leader Fetullah Gulen's extradition from the U.S.

"I have been very frankly communicating our expectations with regards to Fetullah Terrorist Organization which we have notified our friends of their involvement in the failed coup of July 15 in Turkey," Erdogan said.

During the news conference, Trump voiced support for Ankara in its fight against Daesh and the PKK, saying the U.S. would work to ensure that terror groups have no safe quarter.

The Turkish people have faced horrible terrorist attacks in recent years, and even recently, he said. The relationship that we have together will be unbeatable, Trump said of joint anti-terror efforts.

He also voiced appreciation for Turkeys leadership in seeking an end to the horrific killing in Syria.

Among the issues the men will discuss are a mutual effort to reinvigorate our trade and commercial ties, Trump said.

The meeting comes amid strong disagreements between the U.S. and Turkey regarding Washington's support for the YPG to combat Daesh in northern Syria, as Turkey's view of the PYD/YPG is not shared by Washington.

Prior to the meeting, Trump said the discussions would be long and hard but fruitful.

We've had a great relationship and we will make it even better," he said.
After years of driving past Da Mimmo, in both its current and former locations in Dublin 3, we finally got our act together and booked a table for an early dinner on a bank holiday Monday. It's the first gloriously sunny day of the year and it feels absolutely right to be eating Italian food in a noisy room full of happy customers who know that summer has officially begun. Every time a bus passes outside, obliterating the sun, the room is plunged into momentary shadow, and there's an amount of manipulating the blinds to ensure that none of the customers facing out to the street are dazzled by its rays. It's not a problem to which I reckon many Irish restaurant designers have to give much thought.

I remember an earlier incarnation of Da Mimmo, almost a decade ago, on the southside, and the novel thrill of being able to order a proper pizza at a time when the only alternatives were the chains. The quality of the pizza offering in the city has increased exponentially since then, of course, and great pizza is no longer as hard to come by as it was back then, praise be.

Tino Fusciardi opened Da Mimmo on the northside in 2010; the restaurant moved to its current premises last year. And although excellent pizza is central to its offering - with a great big humdinger of a wood-fired oven to prove it - to put Da Mimmo into the pizzeria category would be to do it a disservice.

What it is, is a proper Italian restaurant without pretension, serving generous-hearted food that puts flavour to the fore.

Because Da Mimmo is open 10 hours a day, seven days a week, the kitchen is manned by two head chefs, both called Angelo. Angelo Scarso is from Sicily, while Angelo Paneduce is from Capua near Naples. Each brings his own different ideas and techniques, heritage and experience to the restaurant. The combination makes for a menu that is way more interesting than the modest premises and casual ambience would lead one to expect. The menu is also very long, stretching to half a dozen pages, although the bulk of it is made up of pizza and pasta variations.

We start with calamari fritti that are spiced with paprika and served with a punchy caper mayonnaise - the batter is good, the squid tender, the portion enormous. Anywhere else this would be a main course, and it's priced at just 10. The bread in the crostone di caponata may be indifferent, but the sweet/sour caponata itself pretty delicious: the combination of aubergine, peppers, onions, olives, celery and mint, with pine nuts for texture, dressed with good balsamic vinegar, and topped with sharp Caciocavallo cheese feels classic for a reason. The bruschetta al pomodoro, on the other hand, fails because the tomatoes taste of nothing, which is a pity, because there are flavoursome tomatoes around at the moment, although pricey. I'd prefer a smaller portion, made with better tomatoes.

In addition to the long menu, there's a separate list of specials. The orecchiette with sausage, friarielli (wild broccoli), smoked buffalo mozzarella and white wine sauce turns out to be the best pasta dish that I've had since I was last in Italy, or maybe even ever. Again, the portion is enormous but somehow we manage to finish it - the combination of ingredients is just perfect, and the soupy broth that's left after all the pasta is finished cries out not to be wasted.

We order two pizzas - a simple bufala topped with tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and basil, to which we add some Italian sausage, and a funghi with smoked scamorza, wild mushrooms, meaty porcini, garlic, truffle oil and parsley. Anthony Bourdain went off on an anti-truffle oil rant recently on The Tonight Show, and it can be horrible, as he says, but both these pizzas are a success, with fine, crisp dough and a great-tasting char from the wood-burning oven, which I'll wager must be among the biggest in the country.

Not that we really need them, after all that, but we try two desserts as well. The tiramisu, served in a coupe with a strawberry on top, is pleasant without being exceptional (I'd have preferred more marsala and general sogginess), and the cannoli siciliani - two tubes of pastry filled with sweet buffalo ricotta cheese, pistachio and little nibs of chocolate - hit a sweet spot that we didn't even realise needed hitting. Our bill for three, including a bottle of Il Ruspo Sangiovese (29) and a couple of soft drinks, comes to 111.45 before service. That's great value as it is, but you could eat well here for far less, as the portions are more than generous.

"It's a family business," Tino Fusciardi tells me, when I ring him a few days later. "My brother sends local cheese and salami and cured meats from the butcher in Casalattico, our village in Italy, and my wife does the books. We work long hours and we have really good staff [this is true - the floor staff are excellent] and we try to look after them as well as we can. We all work together, to keep making the food better, and make it good for our customers."

On the evidence of our visit, Fusciardi and his team are making a more than decent fist of things. It's a busy spot, so plan ahead and make a booking.

THE RATING

8/10 food

9/10 ambience

9/10 value for money

26/30

ON A BUDGET

Penne all'arrabbiata - pasta with a tomato sauce with garlic and fresh chilli - is 10.

ON A BLOW-OUT

Straccetti alla romana - rib-eye steak with rocket, balsamic and Parmesan, - followed by risotto with scampi and tiramisu would cost 70 for two before wine or service.

THE HIGH POINT

The orecchiette with sausage, friarielli (wild broccoli), smoked buffalo mozzarella and white wine is a triumph of a dish.

THE LOW POINT

We were not offered the opportunity to sample the wine.
Sorcha Lavelle was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 22 and has undergone a mastectomy.

As a rule Snapchat, Instagram and blogging are employed for selfies and shallow pursuits, like following your favourite beauty mogul or fashion icon. But for Sorcha Lavelle, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, social media has become an altogether more meaningful platform, where she shared her journey to educate young women about the disease.

Sorcha Lavelle (23), Rathfarnham

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Instagram: @sorchalavelle

Snapchat: soorchaaxo

Blog: The Big C Sorcha Lavelle

Bubbly Sorcha Lavelle was just 22 years of age when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Determined to create awareness, the customer service agent from Dublin decided to share her journey, filter free.

"On the August 17, I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. I had noticed that I had a lump in the side of my left breast but I didnt think much of it, I just thought it was fatty tissue or a cyst. My mum had had cysts too, so I just assumed it was a genetic thing.

When I found the lump, I said it to my friends and cancer didnt cross anyones mind because I was so young.

It was only when I went to the GP for a general check-up that I said I may as well mention it to my doctor.

My doctor said: Just for protocol, I am going to send you to Jamess to get checked.

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When I went to St Jamess Hospital, the consultant came in and said he wanted to bring me back the next day to do a biopsy and mammogram, just to make sure that everything was okay.

I remember waiting on my biopsy and people asked me, Are you worried that it is cancer? And I said no because I genuinely wasnt worried.

Two weeks later, the results came back and I was told that I had an aggressive form of breast cancer and it had spread into my lymph nodes. I remember laughing in my consultants face and I just said, You are joking, right?

My mam just said: It should be me, it should be me. It shouldnt be a 22-year-old.

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It was all so surreal.

From the day I was diagnosed, everything happened very quickly. Two weeks later, I started my chemotherapy and pretty much every day consisted of my mum and I in and out of the hospital for tests: MRIs, CT scans, bone scans, the lot.

Everyone we encountered at the beginning could not believe how young I was.

I had chemo for 20 weeks and I lost my hair, my eyebrows, my eyelashes and I lost some of my finger nails and my toe nails.

My first chemo session was delayed because I had to get a drug to protect my fertility. I could be infertile, but at this stage, they dont know until further testing.

As tough as that was, I then had a mastectomy on my left breast, which involved lengthy hospital stays, infections and a number of complications.

I started radiotherapy last Wednesday and that will last for 28 days, but I am cancer free as of now.

In August or September, I am getting a mastectomy on my right breast  that is more so my choice. Because I am so young, they cant tell me if the cancer will ever reoccur again.

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I have been blogging since I was diagnosed but I have only started to Snapchat lately because I have come off chemo and I dont have all the drugs in my system. My hair is growing and I am just feeling more like myself.

My blog starts from when I was first diagnosed. So many women have gotten in touch and thanked me for sharing my story.

All I wanted to do was create awareness and show people that you can get through it. It is hard, but you will get there in the end.

There were days when I was sick and I went into the hospital and I would not talk to anybody. And when I lost my hair and I had this chemo face because I was on steroids, I just was not myself.

Even my nurses would say, Sorcha is sick when she is not talking to anyone.

But there are more good days then there are bad. If I can even encourage one person to check their breasts then that is good enough for me."
Aoibhin Garrihy has said that she is "so proud" of her husband John Burke for being the first Clare man to summit Mount Everest.

John, who Aoibhin travelled with to Everest Base Camp at the beginning of April, reached the summit of the earth's highest mountain at 9:45am local time.

Taking to Instagram, the former Fair City actress said: "At 9:45am local time John Burke became the first Clare man to successfully summit Mt Everest...so so proud of him and now hoping for a safe descent."

Since tying the knot last year, the couple have had a busy start to their marriage, with Aoibhin reaching the final of RTE's Dancing with the Stars in March before travelling to Nepal.

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After leaving Base Camp four weeks ago, Aoibhin says she's trying to keep herself busy on days when there's little communication and not focus on the level of risk undertaking the challenge brings.

"I stayed a night at Base Camp with John and all through the night you could hear the avalanches," she told Irish Tatler.

"It's a really strange place to be honest, it doesn't feel like humans should be there! But you can't hold back the tide - if someone wants to do something you have to let them do it."

"I'm not going to be the witchy wife that says no, but at the same time, I'm sure he knows!"

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Tommy Bowe walking down the aisle with his wife Lucy Whitehouse

Ireland's wing Tommy Bowe runs with the ball during a Pool D match of the 2015 Rugby World Cup between Ireland and Romania at Wembley stadium, north London, on September 27, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNIS (Photo credit: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)

Irish rugby star Tommy Bowe has shared a heart-melting photo with his daughter.

The Ulster wing and his wife of two years Lucy Whitehouse welcomed their daughter Emma in April, and the youngster has already taken a trip abroad.

Bowe (33) shared a photo to Instagram on Monday of the one-month-old resting on his chest.

"Back from her first trip to Wales, so happy to be back with my girls," he wrote.

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Bowe and Whitehouse, a former Miss Wales who now works as a nurse, live together in Belfast.

While the couple prefer to keep their relationship out of the spotlight, the former British and Irish Lion has never been shy about praising his other half, whom he first met in 2011 when he was playing for Ospreys in Wales.

"Marriage didnt change anything between us. We have remained the same people. And Lucy is from near Cardiff, so shes settled in to Belfast very well because its very similar," he explained.

"People are very friendly up here and shes made lots of friends at work, which is what you have to do when you move away."

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Earlier this week, Bowe returned from Ibiza after spending a week filming the next season of RTE travel show Getaways alongside Vogue Williams and Mairead Ronan.
Jeremy Corbyn has unveiled the Labour General Election manifesto at Bradford University, a week after a draft was leaked to the press.

Some pledges remain the same, some have changed. Heres what we learned.

1. Jeremy Corbyn says its not Labour taking the country back to the 1970s

After the draft manifesto was leaked last week, some critics said Corbyn was taking Labour backwards instead of forwards with policies such as nationalisation.

Corbyn addressed those accusations, saying: The other major party contending this election is really, really forward-looking: they are going to bring back fox hunting and grammar schools.

That sounds really 21st century, doesnt it?

2. The Labour leader is a member of the National Union of Journalists

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As Labour supporters booed a question from Channel 5s Andy Bell on immigration, Corbyn admonished them, telling them he is a member of the UKs biggest journalists union.

3. The Labour Party is not a cult of personality

When a question from Jack Blanchard from the Mirror, about Corbyns popularity with the public, was booed by some in the audience, Corbyn murmured: Its not a cult of personality, dont worry about it.

He went on to say that personal attacks are not the way forward, rather debating on policy is.

4. Corbyn still wants a TV debate with Theresa May



Following on from gatecrashing a Facebook Live event with Theresa May on Monday, Corbyn challenged May to come out of hiding and debate him on television.

Now, lets get on to policy

5. Labour will support the renewal of Trident

The manifesto pledge reads: As a nuclear-armed power, our country has a responsibility to fulfil our obligations under the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. Labour will lead multilateral efforts with international partners and the UN to create a nuclear-free world.

6. Water added to rail, mail and energy to be nationalised

Most of Labours nationalisation plans were leaked last week, but Corbyn threw water into the mix on Tuesday, pledging to replace the dysfunctional water utilities system with a network of regional, publicly owned companies.

The party claims prices have risen by 40% since privatisation in 1989.

7. Tax rate rise for the rich

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Labour will lower the threshold for the 45p rate of income tax from 150,000 to 80,000 and introduce a new 50p rate on earnings over 123,000. The party thinks these and other measures will raise 6.4 billion from income tax and 19.4 billion from corporation tax.

However, there will be no rise in personal national insurance contributions or the rate of VAT. The partys tax avoidance programme will also raise 6.5 billion, according to the manifesto.

8. The beginnings of a Brexit plan

Labour has pledged to get rid of the Tories Brexit white paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities, with strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union.

The manifesto says a Labour government would immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals in Britain and would reject no deal as a viable option.
From the former chancellor making his views clear via a newspaper splash to the shadow chancellor getting his numbers muddled up  here are some of the key moments from Tuesdays General Election campaign.

Quote of the day

You could say that 1983 was the longest suicide note in history, this time theres no point  theyre already dead.  Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron on the Labour Partys manifesto launch.

Good day?

Its been a good day for students, as Jeremy Corbyn said he would scrap university tuition fees as prime minister.

The Labour leader set out his plans at the partys manifesto launch in Bradford.

Bad day?

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But its a bad day for those who earn more than 80,000 a year. They have been told they face a tax rise under a Labour government.

Picture of the day

Theresa May crosses an obligatory campaign trail visit off the bingo card  a primary school.

In this picture the Prime Minister meets eight-year-old Akaal Singh, a pupil at Nishkam Primary School in Birmingham.

What do the polls say?

The Conservatives have gained one percentage point in the Press Associations poll of polls and moved from 47% to 48%. The other parties remain consistent  Labour is on 31%, the Lib Dems 9%, Ukip 5% and the Green Party 2%.

Tweet of the day

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Former Tory chancellor and new editor of the London Evening Standard George Osborne makes his opinion of the Labour manifesto clear.

He tweeted the front page of the days edition, with the headline: Comrade Corbyn flies the red flag.

Gaffe of the day

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell came under fire as he appeared unsure of the size of Britains deficit during a radio interview.

Quizzed by BBC presenter Nick Robinson on the figure, Mr McDonnell paused before saying 68 to 70 billion instead of the correct figure of around 52 billion.

During the pause, the radio presenter thought he heard the rustle of paper and asked if someone had passed Mr McDonnell a note, which he denied.

Foreign election news of the day

French president Emmanuel Macron has delayed announcing his cabinet until Wednesday, while authorities check the tax records and backgrounds of potential ministers.

The new government is expected to be half women, with a balance of left-wing and right-wing ministers, new faces and more experienced political heavyweights.
A university student who went viral after being filmed finishing an essay in a nightclub has revealed he got a first for the assignment.

Lawrence Kemp, 21, a second year business management student at the University of Gloucestershire, had been trying to finish the 2,000-word project hours before the deadline last week while his friends prepared for a night out.

Footage filmed by his friend Danny Cotter, 22, showed Lawrence trying to write the essay while others partied around him before eventually tempting him to get involved.

After some time, he was convinced to take his laptop to a popular student night in Cheltenham, where he was shown on camera armed with his laptop and attempting to finish his work in time.

The clip then showed him submitting it one minute before the midnight deadline, to big cheers from his friends.

Another friend, Eddy Hedley, 23, then edited the footage and uploaded it to Facebook, where it has since been viewed more than 100,000 times on his page, while also receiving millions more views elsewhere.

Several days later, after receiving his results, Lawrence, described by friends as a good and professional student, told the Press Association: Ive only gone and got a first.

Admitting he was delighted with his score of 81, he added: To be perfectly honest, I had started a few days prior, but I left my last 750 words and editing to last minute.

I fully intended on going out as I hadnt been out in a while, but the assignment took longer than I thought.

So I was reluctant to join my mates until I finished, but I knew I was capable of editing work and enjoying the night, he said.

Danny, a film student, explained the nights events: As you can see in the video, we persisted to pester poor Lawrence until he cracked, until he joined in. A few drinks later and it wasnt too hard for us to convince him the club had WiFi and he could complete it there which of course, it didnt.

He got the laptop into the club through one of our friends working there.

Once in, he discovered there was no WiFi and had to hotspot his laptop through his mobile.

Needless to say, were all taken back with the success of the video, he said.

Its nice to see so many students relating to Lawrence, and giving them something to laugh at amidst all the deadline stress theyre under.
An Indian woman was gang-raped and then brutally murdered by men who hit here in the head with bricks after she had threatened to inform authorities, said police in the northern state of Haryana.

Police have arrested two men for rape and murder in Sonipat town, and six more were being investigated after the victim's mother accused them of involvement, according to superintendent of police Ashwin Shenvi.

The 23-year old woman, a labourer, was taken by the men  at least one of whom knew her  by car from near her home in Sonipat to the nearby city of Rohtak, where they raped her, Mr Shenvi said.

The woman's body was found in an open field on Thursday, where it had been partially eaten by stray dogs, the Times of India reported.

When she said to them she would complain, they hammered her skull in with bricks, Mr Shenvi said. The way that they brutalised her is horrific.

The mother of the victim had previously registered a complaint against one of the accused for pressuring her daughter into marrying him, but the disagreement was settled between the two parties, Shenvi said.

Sonipat is 44 kilometres (27 miles) north of New Delhi.

Sexual violence against women is a highly-charged issue in India, where the horrific, fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 sparked nationwide protests about entrenched violence against women and the failure of authorities to protect them.

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India has enacted tougher jail sentences for rapists and promised to try those accused through fast-track courts but rape, acid attacks and domestic violence remain common.

Indian media also reported a gang-rape in the city of Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi over the weekend.

On average, 50 crimes against women are registered every day by police in Delhi, including at least four cases of rape, according to a senior official in the federal home ministry.

Additional reporting by Reuters
China's sea level obtained a record-high increase because of climate change. (Photo : Getty Images)

China and the European Union are set to hold a climate-centered summit in Brussels, which comes on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.



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Scheduled on June 2, the summit is expected to make a strong statement from China and the EU that supports the Paris climate agreement, U.S. News reported. The event is also seen to send a message of disavowal for trade protectionism, especially amid Trump's proposed trade policies.



China had asked for the summit to be held earlier than its usual schedule in July to "press home President Xi Jinping's defense of open trade" at the World Economic Forum in January as an answer to Trump's "protective" position, U.S. News wrote.



The date was reportedly agreed upon when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with the EU top diplomat Federica Mogherini in April.



"The EU and China will send a very, very clear message that we will stick to the Paris climate agreement regardless of what the United States does," an EU official was quoted as saying by U.S News. "Climate is a big part of the summit. It is very high on the agenda."



The two economic superpowers are expected to support the climate agreement regardless of Trump's opposition.



In 2012, the U.S. president posted on his Twitter account that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."



Trump later backtracked on this statement and said that it was only a joke.



China is trying a more open approach to trading as the U.S. takes a protective stance against foreign businesses under Trump's administration.



Beijing said that it is looking forward to a "strong and united" Europe and remains concerned over Brexit's impact on the EU, its biggest trading partner.


A woman walks by a TV news program showing images of North Korean missile launch, published in the country's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, at Seoul Railway station in Seoul (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

North Korea's missile programme is progressing faster than expected, a South Korean minister said on Tuesday, hours after the UN Security Council demanded the North halt all nuclear and ballistic missile tests and condemned Sunday's test-launch.

The reclusive North, which has defied all calls to rein in its weapons programmes, even from its lone major ally, China, has been working on a missile, mounted with a nuclear warhead, capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

US President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes and has warned that the "era of strategic patience" with North Korea under previous presidents was at an end.

South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-koo told parliament Sunday's test-launch was "successful in flight".

"It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced calibre compared to Musudan missiles that have continually failed," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km (1,860 to 2,485 miles).

Asked if North Korea's missile programme was developing faster than the South had expected, he said: "Yes."

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The North's KCNA news agency said on Monday the launch tested its capability to carry a "large-size heavy nuclear warhead". Its ambassador to China said in Beijing on Monday it would continue such test launches "any time, any place".

The missile flew 787 km (489 miles) on a trajectory reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 km (1,312 miles), KCNA said.

Pyongyang has regularly threatened to destroy the United States, which it accuses of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war by conducting recent military drills with South Korea and Japan.

In a unanimously agreed statement, the 15-member UN Security Council said it was of vital importance that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearisation through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions".

"To that end, the Security Council demanded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea conduct no further nuclear and ballistic missile tests," the council said, adding that it was ready to impose further sanctions on the country.

The statement also condemned an April 28 ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang.

Following that launch, Washington began talks with China on possible new U.N. sanctions. Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated new measures before involving remaining council members.

The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has strengthened the measures in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters this month that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible. In a show of force, the United States sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Beijing on Monday Moscow was opposed to any new countries acquiring nuclear weapons, but that the world should talk to North Korea rather than threaten it.

Apart from worries about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programmes used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a North Korea-run hacking operation.
The Australian prime minister has indicated that his country may follow the lead of the US and UK and ban passengers from bringing laptop computers into the cabin on certain international flights.

Malcolm Turnbull said on Tuesday that he is looking "very closely" at following the lead of Britain and the United states and ban devices larger than a mobile phone on some commercial flights.

"We are looking at it very closely, taking into account all the information and advice we are receiving internationally, and we are working very closely with our partners," he told reporters in Adelaide.

In March, the United States banned laptops and other electronic devices in carry-on luggage on flight routes from several Muslim-majority countries and was quickly followed by Britain which imposed restrictions on a slightly different set of routes.

The policy was introduced in response to intelligence that al-Qaeda is trying to plant explosives inside electronic devices.

At the time, the Australian Government said it had no intention of imposing a similar ban, but Mr Turnbull suggested on Tuesday that the issue is still under consideration.

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Mr Turnbull's comments come after reports emerged claiming that US president Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting at the White House last week.

US officials told the Washington Post that during the controversial meeting the US president began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircrafts.

The Trump administration immediately rejected the claims as "false".

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Mr Turnbull would not comment on the reports but said he maintained "great confidence" in Australia's alliance with the US.

"It is the bedrock of our national security and it was reinforced yet again when Mr Trump and I met in New York just a few days ago," he said.

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Mr Turnbull did not disclose whether the same information had been shared with Australia.

According to the Post source Mr Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.

Australia is one of the largest contributors to the US-led mission against IS in the Middle East and shares highly classified intelligence material with the country as part of the Five Eyes agreement.

The comments also came amid reports that electronic devices restrictions could be extended to transatlantic flights to the US.

European aviation security experts are meeting this week in Brussels to consider possible responses to the reportedly imminent escalation.

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Margaritis Schinas, an European Commission spokesman, said on Monday that the high-level talks are "to jointly assess any new threats and work toward a common approach to address them."

Elaine Duke, the department of homeland security deputy secretary, is expected to lead the US delegation.

The extended ban would affect trans-Atlantic routes that carry as many as 65 million people a year on over 400 daily flights, including business travelers who use laptops to work in-flight.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The mother of a 26-year-old woman who "accidentally hanged" herself after an argument with her boyfriend while on holiday in Thailand has warned of the dangers of visiting countries where alcohol is sold "cheaply and unregulated".

Abi Brown, from Waterlooville, Hampshire, described as "gregarious and with a zest for life", had been on a night out with her partner James Brum in Phuket when she returned to their apartment following an argument.

When Mr Brum (30) returned to the apartment he found her unconscious.

A post-mortem examination found the PA, who had given up her job to go travelling, had died of asphyxiation, an inquest in Portsmouth has heard.

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Coroner Samantha Marsh recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.

Miss Brown's mother, Jane Rowland, said she believed her daughter's actions were a moment of "folly" and she had not intended to end her life.

The 50-year-old said in a statement released through the Red Lipstick Foundation, which supports families bereaved by suicide or the sudden death of young people: "We will always be saddened by the death of our beautiful daughter Abi. There is no-one to blame for this moment of folly.

"But there is a lesson to be learnt. When young people travel to these hot exciting places with cheap unregulated alcohol, they need to look out for each other and always stay safe.

"I can only come to the conclusion that on that night she had too much to drink, was upset and only meant to make James aware how upset she was. I truly believe that Abi never meant the outcome to be fatal."

She added: "Abi was a gregarious, fun-loving girl with a zest for life. She could be in a moment and take you with her.

"She was thoughtful and generous and had wanderlust.

"She had a wide network of friends and kept in close contact with them. We had a close relationship, she always told me everything."

After Miss Brown's death, her brother Will Rowland posted on Facebook: "i honesty couldnt of asked for a better older sis she always excelled in everything and allways kept me and everyone around her so so proud! words cant describe how much she will be missed and how much she meant to us all, i have lost a big part of me and my life, abi was honesty one of a kind still cant believe it, iloveyou big sis allways!"

After her funeral, Mr Brum posted: "It was clear how much she was loved by the sheer number of people that attended her Celebration of Life today. This is just a testament to how bright she shined and how many lives she touched."

For anyone affected by the issues raises in this article, contact Pieta House on 1800 247 247 or the Samaritans on 116 123
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron talk as they arrive at a ceremony at the Chancellery in Berlin yesterday. Photo: Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have pledged to work closely together to draw up a "road map" of reforms for the European Union.

The pair said they are both prepared even to implement treaty changes if needed.

The two met in Berlin on Mr Macron's first full day in office, which started with him naming 46-year-old Edouard Philippe as his new prime minister.

Mrs Merkel called Mr Macron's visit an honour and a sign of the deep friendship between the two European powerhouses. "We each represent the interests of our own countries, but the interests of Germany are naturally closely tied to the interests of France," Mrs Merkel said.

She added that she hoped for a "new dynamism" in German-French relations, saying that, "Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that".

Mr Macron said that he would work with Mrs Merkel on a "road map", and that they needed to work on "deep reforms that are necessary and need common work".

Both leaders suggested they were prepared to change European treaties if needed, but Mrs Merkel stressed that such measures were not immediately on the table.

"First we need to work on what we want to change, and then if it turns out it needs a treaty change, then we're prepared to do that," she said.

The visit to Berlin continued a tradition of French presidents making their first foreign trip to Germany.

A large group of onlookers, some carrying European flags, stood outside the chancellery as Mr Macron arrived.

Germany and France have traditionally been the motor of European integration, but the relationship has become increasingly lopsided over recent years as France struggled economically.

The visit signalled Mr Macron's intentions to move rapidly on campaign promises to revive support for the beleaguered EU by reforming and strengthening it.

In a nod to German concerns, Mr Macron said at the news conference with Mrs Merkel that he had never pushed for jointly issued eurobonds and does not favour European countries taking joint responsibility for old debts.

Germany, which has Europe's biggest economy, has vehemently opposed taking direct responsibility for weaker eurozone countries' debts. Mr Macron added, however, that "what I know is that we have investments to make [in Europe], and so we have to work on investment mechanisms for the future".

Earlier, the appointment of Mr Philippe to the top job in his government ticked several boxes for Mr Macron, at 39 France's youngest president, who took power on Sunday.

Mr Philippe's age reinforced the generational shift in France's corridors of power and the image of youthful vigour that Mr Macron is cultivating.

He is also relatively unknown to voters, fulfilling Mr Macron's campaign promise to repopulate French politics with new faces.

Mr Philippe is the mayor of the Normandy port of Le Havre, a trained lawyer and an author of political thrillers.

His appointment marks a milestone in the rebuilding of France's political landscape, which has been ignited by the election of Mr Macron - the first president of modern France not from the country's mainstream left or right parties.

Mr Philippe is a member of the mainstream-right Republicans party and could possibly attract other Republicans to Mr Macron's cause, as the centrist president works to piece together a majority in parliament to pass his promised economic reforms.
Moors Murderer Ian Brady died yesterday evening at the age of 79.

His death came just hours after he was urged to "do the right thing" and reveal where the last of his child victims is buried.

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A Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: "We can confirm a 79-year-old patient in long term care at Ashworth High Secure Hospital has died after becoming physically unwell."

The serial killer, who used the name Ian Stewart-Brady before his death, was a patient at Ashworth Hospital on Merseyside where he was reportedly receiving palliative care.

At a court hearing in February lawyers said he had been bedridden for the last couple of years and it was "fair to say" he was terminally ill, with emphysema among his ailments.

Brady and Myra Hindley, who died in prison in 2002, tortured and murdered five children in the 1960s.

Four of the victims were buried on Saddleworth Moor in the south Pennines.

Brady was jailed for three murders in 1966 and had been at Ashworth since 1985.

He and Hindley later confessed to another two murders.

In 2013, he asked to be moved to a Scottish prison so he could not be force fed, as he could be in hospital, and where he could be allowed to die if he wished.

His request was rejected after Ashworth medical experts said he had chronic mental illness and needed continued care in hospital.

In February he was refused permission to launch a High Court fight to have the lawyer of his choice representing him at a tribunal where the decision would be reviewed.

Terry Kilbride, whose brother John (12) was also murdered by Brady, begged him to tell police where he dumped the body of Keith Bennett, who went missing aged 12 in 1964.

He told 'The Sun': "I would beg him to do the right thing on his deathbed and tell us where Keith is.

"Now is the time for him to stop playing tricks and come clean. If he takes it to the grave, I will feel so sorry for Keith's family.

"There will only ever be another search if there's fresh evidence. That has to come from him."

Mr Kilbride said he hopes the killer "rots in hell".

"We'll certainly celebrate his death when it comes. Good riddance," he said.

Even before his evil and sadistic crimes shocked and appalled Britain, Brady was a grim character.

As a young boy fascinated by horror movies, he was nicknamed Dracula by neighbours in Glasgow and later, locals who watched the young man slouch around the Hattersley Estate in Greater Manchester in his long trenchcoat dubbed him the Undertaker.

In May 1966 Brady, then 28, was convicted, along with lover Myra Hindley, of murdering 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and 17-year-old Edward Evans.

Brady was also convicted of the murder of 12-year-old John Kilbride. He received three life sentences to run concurrently.

Brady escaped the hangman's noose as the death penalty was abolished just months earlier.

The evidence seen and heard at the Chester Assizes chilled the hearts of those who sat through the trial.

It included pictures of Lesley Ann Downey, naked, bound and gagged, and a tape recording of her begging for help and asking to be allowed home to her mother, as she was repeatedly tortured and sexually assaulted by Brady and Hindley before being murdered.

The little girl had fallen into the clutches of the sick pair on December 26, 1964, after they snatched her from a fairground.

They recorded her at their home in Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley and her cries reduced the judge, jury, spectators and even hardened police officers to tears.

Lesley Ann and John, who was murdered in November 1963, were later found buried in unmarked graves on the desolate Saddleworth Moors in Lancashire.

The evil lovers kept a trophy of the killings, with Hindley holding her pet dog and posing for pictures on the edge of John's grave.

The brutal murder of Edward Evans on October 7, 1965, finally led the police to the killers. Brady made the fatal mistake of involving a third person in the killings.

Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith was present when Brady hacked the homosexual teenager to death with an axe.

He asked Smith to help him carry the body upstairs but Smith was so horrified by the murder that he reported Brady to the police and he was arrested the following day.
Vladimir Putin has blamed the US for the global cyber attack that has crippled computer systems around the world since Friday.

Mr Putin said Russia had "nothing to do" with the attack and blamed the US for creating the hacking software that affects Microsoft computers.

"Malware created by intelligence agencies can backfire on its creators," said the Russian president, speaking to media in Beijing.

He added that global leaders needed to discuss cyber security at a "serious political level" and said the US has backed away from signing a cyber security agreement with Russia.

Authorities fear a second wave of the "WannaCry" ransomware could hit systems.

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It has now emerged that criminal hacking groups have repurposed a second classified cyber weapon stolen from US spies and have made it available on the so-called dark web after the success of the WannaCry attack.

The 'Financial Times' reported that the hacking tool, developed by the US National Security Agency and codenamed 'EsteemAudit', has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, according to security analysts.

Latest evidence suggests "phishing" emails are unlikely to have caused the global cyber attack that wreaked havoc at dozens of British NHS hospitals and hit more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries.

Security experts have disputed claims the virus was spread through suspicious emails, saying computers were vulnerable to the bug regardless of how vigilant users were.

Experts said that unless IT departments patched the virus and backed up their files they could be hit by the attacks.

Affected UK hospitals were criticised for not adding the patch despite warnings from NHS Digital a month ago that they were vulnerable to a possible attack.

NHS systems appeared to be largely up and running yesterday, although seven out of the 47 hospital trusts hit by last week's attack are still seeking emergency support, according to NHS Digital.

Japanese computer experts said around 2,000 PCs had been affected while the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that almost 30,000 had been hit.
President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed Vladimir Putin's top diplomat to the White House for Trump's highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since he took office in January. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP

Donald Trump has defended sharing classified information with Russian officials, saying he had the "absolute right" to do so for "humanitarian reasons" and because he wants Russia to step up its fight against Isil.

The US president revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting at the White House last week, it was reported on Monday night.

The US president's actions jeopardised a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terror group, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials.

If confirmed, it would also call into question the ability of the US to protect its intelligence sources.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

The Trump administration immediately rejected the claims as "false", while several Republicans and Democrats expressed alarm that a US president could share high-level intelligence with Russia.

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late on Monday.

On Tuesday Mr Trump took to Twitter to defend his actions:

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. metting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," he wrote.

"Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

Mr Trump met Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador in the US in the Oval Office last Wednesday, the day after he fired James Comey, the FBI director who was leading an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

The move reportedly threw into doubt the future cooperation of the source of the intelligence, which has inside information on Isil.

What was the intelligence?

The information Mr Trump is said to have shared was among the highest classification level.

During the meeting, Mr Trump went off-script and began describing details about an Isil threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, the officials reportedly said.

Mr Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies, the official told the newspaper.

I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, the president apparently told his Russian guests.

The source of the intelligence had not given Washington authorisation to share it with Moscow. Officials told the New York Times, the fear was that Russia will be able to identify how the information was collected.

If true, it is unlikely that Mr Trump has broken any law. As president, he has broad authority to declassify government secrets.

Republicans and Democrats react with shock

Dick Durbin, a leading Democratic senator, said Mr Trump's conduct was "dangerous" and "reckless".

"This conduct by the president is not only dangerous, it's reckless. It is reckless for him to disclose to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, sensitive, top secret information," Mr Durbin told reporters outside the Senate.

Classified information cannot be kept from a US president, Mr Durbin added, but he hoped Republicans would make it clear to Mr Trump that his conduct "jeopardises our national security".

Some Republicans expressed shock at the development, with Senator Bob Corker stating that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order".

"Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," he said.

Mr Corker said the national security team was solid and doing good work, but "the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline - it's creating an environment that I think makes - it creates a worrisome environment".

Trump administration slams reports as 'false'

The Trump administration moved quickly to deny that any intelligence sources were discussed during Wednesday's meeting.

"This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, who attended the meeting.

Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, said Mr Trump discussed "the nature of specific threats" during the meeting, "but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations".

Mr McMaster said: The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation.

At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

The controversy engulfed the White House. Reporters spent much of the evening camped out outside of Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office, hoping for answers.

At one point, a reporter spotted a handful of staffers, including Mr Spicer and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, walking into the Cabinet Room.

Muffled yelling was heard coming from the area near the room, but after a reporter tweeted about the noise, press staffers quickly turned up their television volume, blasting the sound to drown out everything else.

US officials have told Reuters they have long been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Mr Trump.

One official said last month: "He has no filter; it's in one ear and out the mouth."

One of the officials with knowledge of Mr Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure "particularly unfortunate," as the president prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

The president's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 Nato meeting in Brussels attended by other important US allies.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Alibaba founder Jack Ma (R) is facing criticism from Capitol Hill for the acquisition of MoneyGram by Ant Financial, an Alibaba subsidiary. (Photo : Getty Images)

Ant Financial is facing backlash for its $1.2 billion buyout of MoneyGram as U.S. lawmakers accuse the acquisition of the U.S. cash-transfer group by a subsidiary of China's Alibaba and the Chinese government as a security threat.



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In letters addressed to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Republican senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran said that Ant Financial's takeover of MoneyGram could hurt America's financial infrastructure.



Mounting opposition in Washington against Chinese acquisitions of U.S. assets puts increasing pressure on Jack Ma, the e-commerce magnate behind Alibaba, who has been positioning himself as a close friend of U.S. President Donald Trump.



Last week, Ma promised to bring a million small U.S. businesses on to Alibaba's platform in an effort to boost U.S. exports to the Chinese market. He has previously pledged to generate 1 million jobs in the U.S., a move hailed by Trump.



Despite Ma's efforts to gain favor in the White House, several U.S. lawmakers across party lines are pushing for an exhaustive review of the deal by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S. (CFIUS).



The committee, led by the U.S. Treasury and has the power to veto deals, is expected to issue a verdict on the transaction by midsummer, according to the Financial Times citing insider sources.



Roberts said that Moneygram's acquisition by Alibaba "should trigger no less concern than if a Chinese company were seeking to take control of a large, well-known bank."



He added that the deal sheds light on the inequity between U.S. and Chinese companies when it comes to international acquisitions.



"There is virtually no chance that a U.S. financial services company would be permitted to acquire a Chinese [rival]," he said.



Moran said that handing over financial data of U.S. citizens, including a large number of American military personnel, to a Chinese company partly owned by the Chinese government merits careful evaluation.



Both senators are from Kansas, the headquarters of Euronet, a rival money transfer company that failed to outbid Ant over MoneyGram. Last month, Euronet said that its proposed offer for MoneyGram had greater certainty of completion as it did not require CFIUS approval.



Both MoneyGram and Ant have strongly rejected such criticisms numerous times.



Alex Holmes, chief executive of MoneyGram, dismissed fears that Ant's takeover posed a national security threat to the US, noting Beijing's promise to allow access for rating agencies and credit card companies in the recently concluded trade deal between U.S. and China.



"Investment reciprocity between China and the U.S. is not an issue in this transaction. The money transfer industry in China is open to foreign competition, and MoneyGram already has a robust business in China as do other money transfer companies," he said.



Holmes added that the Trump administration's support toward Chinese investment in the U.S. will lead to a stronger relationship between the U.S. and China and help the economy.



"Investments in the U.S., like the one Ant will make in our company, are critical to creating new jobs and increasing economic growth in our country," he added.



MoneyGram shareholders will vote on the deal on Tuesday.


EsteemAudit is now available for criminal use. Stock picture

Hackers have adapted a second cyber weapon stolen from US spies and released it on the internet to be picked up by criminals, it was reported last night.

The new hacking tool also exploits weaknesses in older versions of Microsoft Windows software and was stolen from the US National Security Agency, like the stolen tool that formed the basis of last week's WannaCry attack.

The tool, called EsteemAudit, has been adapted and is now available for criminal use, analysts told the 'Financial Times'.

The leak raises the prospect of another wave of cyber attacks like the one that struck more than 150 countries and crippled parts of the NHS on Friday.

In response, cyber spies around the world are calling on the skills of bedroom computer prodigies such as the 22-year-old surfer credited with helping to stop Friday's attack. Government intelligence agencies want them to work alongside their own in-house experts.

Security sources said they were working with Marcus Hutchins, who uses the name Malware Tech, and others to try to stop the spread of the WannaCry ransomware attack.

Security sources said spy agencies such as GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre in Britain had long had a policy of reaching out to leaders in the cyber security field who may be working alone.

One source said: "We work with a lot of different people. Some of those are people that you wouldn't necessarily expect us, or large organisations, to work with. We need to reach out to these bright young things and get their expertise."

Gifted

Conor McKenna, a computer security expert at the University of Birmingham, said that many of the most gifted people in the field preferred to work alone, or in the private sector, rather than for government.

He said most computer hackers were wrongly portrayed as criminals, when in fact many of them just wanted to test their skills against computer systems to expose flaws and weaknesses.

Mr Hutchins, from Devon, has been credited with stopping the WannaCry attack from spreading across the globe by accidentally triggering a "kill switch".

The self-taught expert is understood to have stopped the incident escalating from a small bedroom in his parents' house.

In a blog, he described how he stopped the spread of the virus by purchasing a web domain for pounds 8 and by redirecting it elsewhere.

He reportedly shouted "eureka" when he realised he had halted the spread of the criminal software.

Last night, his mother said she was ''very proud'' of her son and that he was in London "at a meeting".
A man has been charged with murder after walking into a shop carrying his mother's head, before stabbing the shop worker.

According to police in Oregon, US, Joshua Webb murdered his mum Tina Marie Webb (59) at her home on Mother's Day.

After he allegedly killed his mother, he then traveled a Thriftway store carrying a human head.

Webb is then accused of stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued and arrested.

Police identified the man stabbed as 66-year-old Estacada resident Michael Wagner. He is expected to survive.
A satellite image of what the US State Department described as a building in a prison complex modified to support a crematorium (State Department/DigitalGlobe/AP)

The Syrian government has "categorically" denied US accusations of mass killings at a prison near Damascus, including executing political opponents and burning the victims in a crematorium at the site.

The Foreign Ministry said the allegations are a "new Hollywood plot" to justify US intervention in Syria.

It described the allegations as "lies" and "fabrications", noting what it called a US track record of using false claims as a pretext for military aggression.

The State Department said it believes about 50 detainees are being hanged each day at the Saydnaya military prison, a 45-minute drive north of Damascus.

Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place", said Stuart Jones, the senior US diplomat for the Middle East, accusing President Bashar Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity".

The allegation came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the US launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent.

The latest accusations have cast a shadow over peace talks in Geneva, where Syrian government and opposition representatives sat down separately with the UN envoy as talks got under way.

The meetings were the sixth round of talks brokered by special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said: "The US administration's accusations against the Syrian government of a so-called crematorium in Saydnaya prison, in addition to the broken record about the use of barrel bombs and chemical weapons, are categorically false."

The allegation could test the Trump administration's willingness to respond to alleged atrocities other than chemical weapons attacks, which Washington blames on Assad's government.

Western monitors and watchdog groups say they have evidence of mass killings in Syrian government prisons, although there have been no substantiated allegations on the use of a crematorium.

Syrian opposition spokesman Salem Meslet said the US allegations were "credible" and not surprising.

Mr Meslet, in Geneva for the UN-mediated talks, told Saudi-owned TV station al-Hadath that the government was known to move prisoners from site to site for interrogations and, in some instances, executions.

The US State Department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

Meanwhile, Syrian activists said government forces were escalating attacks on opposition-held areas protected under a recently brokered ceasefire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had recorded the first fatalities inside the country's four "de-escalation zones" since the agreement came into effect 10 days ago. The deal was brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

The Observatory said two women were killed by rocket fire in a Damascus suburb and another was killed in aerial bombardment in central Homs province.

Local activists reported higher death tolls. Wael Abou Rayan, a media activist in the Homs countryside, said the bombardment of Homs had eased since the agreement came into force, but never completely stopped.

Two children were killed by government artillery fire in the rural town of Rastan two days ago, while another woman was killed in an air strike in the village of Kafrlaha on Tuesday, according to Mr Abou Rayan.

Outside Damascus, the Syrian Civil Defence search and rescue group said three surface-to-surface rockets struck the Hamouriya area, killing six people and wounding dozens of others, including women and children.

Video from the group showed rescuers pulling children from the rubble of a multi-storey building.

AP
Christopher Hackett of Concord has been awarded the NCNG Soldiers and Airmens Fund (SAAF) Scholarship in the amount of $1,000 by the North Carolina National Guard Association Educational Foundation.
India second most attractive renewables market

A recent Ernst & Young (EY) report showcases Indias move up to the second spot in the Renewable energy country attractiveness index 2017 from the third position held in the last two years. China tops the index and the US comes third.

The new standings reflect changing priorities in India and the US. While India is invested in improving its renewable energy capabilities, the US has rolled back its stand on climate change and revived its focus on the domestic coal industry.

Among areas of concern for the Indian renewables market are: the management of intermittent renewables when solar availability declines in the evening during peak usage, the cost and availability of energy storage technology, promotion of rooftop solar installations, and compliance with the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO).

Capital infusion and ease of foreign investment and purchasing rules in the sector are also key to ensuring its economic stability.

RELATED: Pre-Investment, Market Entry Strategy Advisory

Huge job cuts anticipated in Indias IT industry

Seven of the biggest companies in the Indian IT sector plan to lay off 4.5 percent of their workforce in 2017. That translates to roughly 56,000 engineers, according to broad estimates.

The bleak forecast comes at a time when the Indian IT industry is undergoing a critical stage of transition. Newer technologies  automation, robotics, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT)  have dramatically changed job profiles and expertise required as well as reshaped the need for a much leaner workforce.

A concerted re-skilling effort will need to be addressed by the countrys education sector. The IT sector is a big contributor to Indias GDP, and the impending layoffs will have serious implications for the governments job creation drive.

RELATED: Has the AI and IoT Revolution Hit India?

Demonetization and the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data

The latest Index of Industrial Production (IIP) series shows decline in manufacturing growth in India from December 2016 to March 2017, with the base year revised to 2011-12. Growth in manufacturing slowed down to its lowest levels as compared to the same time period in 2011-12.

Demonetization is largely responsible for this decline as 2016-17 overall registered a 1.9 percent rise in growth over the previous fiscal year. Thus, growth momentum from earlier months was derailed after November.

Since IIP data only covers the formal, organized sector, the real impact of demonetization on the larger informal manufacturing sector is yet to be fully captured.

RELATED: Information Technology Solutions

WannaCry ransomware attack exposes vulnerabilities for businesses

Fridays WannaCry ransomware attack targeting the Microsoft Windows operating system infected more than 230,000 computers in 150 countries, with the software demanding ransom payments in the cryptocurrency bitcoin in 28 languages. It is labelled as unprecedented in scale by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol).

India has been the third worst hit nation by the ransomware attack with over 45,000 computers affected. Cyber security experts say the most vulnerable are organizations who do not have security hygiene in place. This is mostly in the case of remote branches of large corporates, telecom companies, and banks, as well as small and medium sized businesses.

In India, an advisory was issued through the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In). Overseeing the cyber security effort to patch systems is the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for all central and state government systems; Reserve Bank of India, National Payments Corporation of India, and Unique Identification Authority of India for protection of the digital payments ecosystem; the Department of Telecommunications to alert Internet service providers; and the Data Security Council of India and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing to safeguard the industry and private sector users in India.
New York, May 16(Just Earth News): Although global understanding of sexual violence in conflict is shifting, there remains the need to tackle the root causes of such violations that lie in fundamental inequality and discrimination against women, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the United Nations Security Council on Monday.

Sexual violence in conflict is no longer seen as merely a womens issue or as a lesser evil in a false hierarchy of human rights violations, she said during an open debate on the subject, in which some 70 speakers shared their views.

The debate, on sexual violence in conflict as a tactic of war and terrorism, heard briefings from Adama Dieng, Under-Secretary-General, Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, as well as Mina Jaf, Founder and Executive Director of Women's Refugee Route.

Instead, it is rightly viewed as legitimate threat to security and durable peace that requires an operational security and justice response, in addition to ensuring multi-dimensional services for survivors of such crimes, Mohammed added.

She said that a robust legislative framework is now in place, including a series of precise Security Council resolutions with new tools to drive change and progress.

As for accountability at the international and national level, there is a gradual shift from a reality in which it is cost-free to rape a woman, child or man in conflict, to one where there are consequences for anyone who commits, commands or condones such crimes, the deputy UN chief said.

However, too many women live with the spectre of violence in their daily lives, in their household and families, she noted.

Sexual violence is increasingly used as a tactic of terrorism, employed by extremist groups in places like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria and Mali to advance their military, economic and ideological ends.

It is therefore essential that considerations of the protection and empowerment of women and girls feature in the UNs architecture for countering terrorism and violent extremism, she stressed.

The mass migration crisis and massive displacement of populations due to protracted conflicts worldwide has also heightened the risk of sexual violence.

Let us also acknowledge that the response of the United Nations is undermined by unacceptable allegations and incidents of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers, she said, highlighting the Organizations focus on its zero-tolerance policy.

She pointed out that those who commit these heinous crimes often escape justice while their victims are often forced to live with the shame of having been raped, rejected by their families and communities.

Mental health issues such as depression, flashbacks, challenges in re-establishing intimate relationships, and fear are some of the long-term psychological consequences victims experience. Worst still, children born of rape experience discrimination, exclusion and stigma.

All our words, and laws, and resolutions, will mean absolutely nothing if violations go unpunished in practice, and if we fail in our sacred duty of care to survivors, she said, adding: In word and deed, let us commit to stand in solidarity with survivors and vulnerable communities, and replace horror with hope.

This is a litmus test of our commitment and responsibility to protect the most vulnerable populations from the most egregious human rights violations, Mohammed told the meeting.

Photo: UNICEF/Kate Holt

Source: www.justearthnews.com

Keyword:
Actors Chris Pratt (L) and Yondu (Michael Rooker) from Marvel Studios 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 attend the San Diego Comic-Con International 2016 Marvel Panel in Hall H on July 23, 2016 in San Diego, California (Photo : Getty Images/Alberto E. Rodriguez)

Elizabeth Debicki made her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as the villain Ayesha in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2." Failing to exact her revenge against Star-Lord and the rest of the Guardians, Ayesha will definitely be back for more in "Guardians of the Galaxy 3."



"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" brought in a lot of new interesting characters, many of which are now considered absolutely fan favorites. Among those are Pom Klementieff's Mantis and Debicki's Ayesha, and director James Gunn himself has confirmed that he looks forward to working with them again.



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"I absolutely plan on bringing Elizabeth Debicki back. She's actually one of my favorite actors I've ever worked with. I think on this movie between her, Pom Klementieff who plays Mantis, and Chris Sullivan who plays Taserface, they really were three of the best actors I've ever worked with," Gunn tells IGN.



Ayesha is the gold-plated High Priestess of a genetically-perfect alien race called The Sovereign. With her return in "Guardians of the Galaxy 3," she will be one of the few villains to make multiple movie appearances in the MCU. Tom Hiddleston's Loki currently holds the record. Interestingly, Hiddleston and Debicki both worked together on the Emmy-winning BBC mini-series "The Night Manager."



To those who've seen "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," Ayesha's return is more than expected especially since she's responsible for the creation of Adam Warlock, one of the most powerful superheroes in Marvel's repertoire.



In the comic books, Adam Warlock plays for the good side. He also frequently possessed and protected the Soul Stone (a.k.a the only Infinity Stone that has yet to be unveiled in the MCU). Since it is presumed that he is Ayesha secret weapon in defeating the Guardians, it is likely he will start as a big bad in the MCU before transitioning into a good guy. Nevertheless, having Adam Warlock on her side definitely gives Ayesha a more prominent role in "Guardians of the Galaxy."



Meanwhile, USA Today reported that Gunn has begun working on "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. It is said that Gunn has discussed the story with Chris Pratt and has had "some pretty intense conversations" with Zoe Saldana about a particular role in the third film.


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The movie is too violent for the audiences, the board says.

And you thought only Indian Censor Board has bizarre demands? Get acquainted with the censor board of Singapore, which has given an A certificate to Baahubali: The Conclusion, the film which is shattering all the records in its home country.

And, this is not the first time that Singapore censor boards decision has not gone down well with the audiences. It has happened in the past as well, the recent example being  Beauty and The Beast! The Disney film was also given an A rating owing to the gay scenes in the movie. (Fun Fact: India gave the film a U/A certificate without any cuts.)

Wondering why the audience under the age of 16 years wont get to watch Baahubali 2 in Singapore? Because the movie is too violent for them, the board says.

wallpapersite.com

Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani didnt spare this opportunity to laud CBFC at this incident.

We granted Baahubali 2: The Conclusion a UA with virtually no cuts. In Singapore, they found Baahubali too violent. The war scenes, specially of soldiers being beheaded, were taken to be excessively gruesome by their censor board. In many countries of Asia and Europe more Bollywood films get A certificate than we do in India, he told DNA.

cgfrog.com

Furthermore, he reasoned their decision by citing cultural discrepancy. He said that our religious scriptures have violent images of Rakshasas beheaded and that they have grown up hearing such tales. But that might not be the case in the other countries?

Does Pahlaj Nilhani have a point? What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.
Arguably one of the highest paid lawyers in India, Harish Salve is fighting the case of Kulbhushan Jadav an Indian national sentenced to death in Pakistan.

BCCL/ File

Salve many believe has put forward a strong case at the ICJ to show that the trial by the Pakistani military court was far from being called fair. But how much did Salve charge to defend Jadav in the high profile case which has international ramification?

BCCL/File

According to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Salve just took Re.1 as his fees!

Mrs Swaraj made the disclosure after a twitter user suggested that India could have got any good lawyer with much less fee than what Salve must have charged for fighting the case.

Not fair. #HarishSalve has charged us Rs.1/- as his fee for this case. https://t.co/Eyl3vQScrs  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) May 15, 2017

India had moved the ICJ last week alleging that the death sentence awarded to Jadav was in violation of the Vienna Convention.

BCCL

Pakistan claims, Jadav, a former Navy officer was a RAW agent who had ties with separatists in Balochistan. India however rejecting the claims said Jadav was a businessman in Iran and he was abducted from there by the Pakistani agencies.
A 29-year-old Afghan origin female pilot is on a mission to becoming the youngest woman to complete a solo flight around the world.

Shaesta Waiz began her flight from Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday and currently is on the transatlantic leg of her journey.

AFP

She aims to fly 25,800 kilometers covering more than 18 countries, including Spain, Egypt, India, Singapore and Australia, on her Beechcraft Bonanza A36 aircraft before ending the trip back in Florida in August.

AFP

Waiz, was born in a refugee camp at the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan before immigrating with her family to the United States.

Waiz who admits of being painfully shy and afraid of airplanes when she was in the refugee camp however had gone on to become the first female certified civilian pilot from Afghanistan.

AFP

Now she wants to share that sense of freedom of soaring high above ground with other young women.

When I found my passion -- flying -- thats when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently.

AFP

During her 30 stopovers, the engineering graduate and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is backing her trip, will host events to try to get schoolchildren interested in science, notably aeronautics.

According to ICAO figures, less than five percent of commercial pilots are women.

If you really break it down into science, technology, engineering and math and explore what those career fields offer, its very exciting, Waiz said.
James Bond 25: Heres proof that Christopher Nolan may be directing the next film; Tom Hardy wants to play Bond

Actor Tom Hardy attends the UK Premiere of 'The Revenant' at the Empire Leicester Square on January 14, 2016 in London, England. (Photo : Getty Images/John Phillips)

The 25th "James Bond" film is still stuck in development limbo with no confirmed leading man and director to take on the film. The industry is abuzz with rumors that incumbent Agent 007 Daniel Craig still hasn't confirmed his return to the franchise; however, recent reports suggest that "James Bond 25" may have found its director and a new Bond too.



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A new report claims that Christopher Nolan's Syncopy Films has been chosen as the production company for "James Bond 25." According to ScreenRant, Birth.Movies.Death editor-at-large Phil Noble Jr. claims that IMDb Pro has listed Nolan's production company to work on "Bond 25." When contacted to verify the listing's authenticity, IMDb Pro reportedly said the listing was accurate.



It's no secret that Nolan has always wanted to work on a "James Bond" movie. In a past interview, Nolan said that he's loved the "Bond" movies ever since he was a kid and he would "love to do a 'Bond' film."



Having Nolan produce the hotly anticipated "Bond 25" film is not the only "Bond"-related news that's getting people talking. With Nolan presumed to be the top contender to direct the next film, many are speculating that Tom Hardy would be brought in to succeed Craig as James Bond.



Hardy is a frequent Nolan collaborator. They have worked together on "Inception," "The Dark Knight Rises" and the upcoming World War II film "Dunkirk." The 39-year-old actor has also spoken about the "Bond" films before and made it very clear that he wanted to be a part of it.



"I wonder what the next instalment of ['James Bond'] would become, and I think when you mention someone like Christopher Nolan, that's a very powerful figure to bring into that world," Hardy said, as quoted by Express UK.



Interestingly, Hardy's name consistently been on the list of punters' bets to play the next James Bond. A Landbrokes spokesperson said that a lot of people have been putting their money on Hardy due to his "have-a-go heroics."



Meanwhile, Nolan and Hardy's film, "Dunkirk," hits theaters on July 21.






Al Jazeeras Fall From Grace  How A News Outlet Became A Tool Of The State





Though viewed by many as one of few unbiased news sources in the Middle East, Al Jazeeras stripes are showing as it expands into social media. The networks subservience to the government of Qatar has become unmistakably obvious as it tries to expand its audience.



By Whitney Webb

May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Long a prominent voice in the Arabic-speaking world, Al Jazeera has more recently become a notable force in Western media. Despite receiving all of its funding from the government of Qatar, Al Jazeera English  in contrast to other Western media outlets  has enjoyed a reputation for unbiased and in-depth reporting with a focus on hard news, one that continues to persist in the minds of many of its English-speaking viewers.

As Middle East geopolitical analyst and former Al Jazeera contributing writer Sharmine Narwani told MintPress News:

Al Jazeera [English] was largely successful because it was viewed as an alternative network that challenged the stale narratives of mainstream corporate media. [] This was a huge departure from major satellite news networks that were barely differentiable from each other. And I think that altered the news industry and drew in more discerning viewers.

However, in the last few years, the basis for the networks supposedly unbiased reputation has melted away.

Beginning in 2008 and culminating in 2011-2012, Al Jazeera began seeing mass resignations , with many of its journalists citing loss of editorial control and subservience to Qatari political interests as their main reason for leaving.

But many Western readers continue to remain unaware of the dramatic shift that took place at the network less than five years ago, still trusting the network to deliver unbiased reporting, despite documented and often drastic instances of bias and factual inaccuracy. As Narwani noted, Western AJ viewers may not have noticed this shift in bias, but it was glaringly obvious to those watching events unfold from inside the region.

Nowhere has this bias been more evident than in Al Jazeeras coverage of the six-year-long conflict in Syria, a conflict in which the Qatari government has a definite stake . Not surprisingly, Al Jazeera has worked to normalize extremist elements in the Syrian opposition, particularly regarding those groups that have been confirmed to have received funding from Qatar  groups that include the terror group Daesh . Al Jazeeras reputation has allowed these instances of bias to largely go undetected by Western viewers, a trend exacerbated by the viral success of Al Jazeeras newest addition: the online news and video service AJ+.

Qatars Chilling of Journalistic Freedom

Launched in 1996 with the help of the BBC, Al Jazeera has since grown into the largest and perhaps most controversial Arabic-language news channel in the Middle East. Though a fixture in the Arabic-speaking world, Al Jazeera is also the most well-known Middle Eastern news channel outside of the region, owing to its massive budget of 650 million dollars  all of which comes directly from Qatars government.

A constitutional monarchy ruled by the House of al-Thani since the 19th century, the wealthy nation of Qatar has a tendency to prosecute journalists or writers who criticize its government, its ruling family or its political Wahhabi ideology. One of the most famous cases involved the imprisonment of poet Mohammed Rashid al-Ajami, who was originally sentenced to life in prison for allegedly insulting Qatars emir, though he was later pardoned after serving five years in prison.

More recently, foreign journalists reporting from within Qatar have been targeted, including a BBC journalist who was arrested for covering the deplorable conditions under which migrant laborers have worked while building infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup, which will be hosted in Qatar.

While censorship of the press has long been legal within Qatar, the nations 2014 cybercrime law took things to the next level by criminalizing the distribution of false news, as well as disseminating information that violates social values or principles or any type of online behavior that could jeopardize state security.

Based on Qatars past and recent treatment of dissident writers and journalists, the chilling effect of this law on freedom of expression and freedom of the press is clear. A leaked U.S. government cable noted that such intimidation  more than overt persecution or censorship  has created a lack of overall freedom in Qatar.

This, of course, makes the Qatari governments commitment to funding an ostensibly independent media organization seem quite unusual, considering its treatment of journalists working within its borders.

Al Jazeera Devolves  Mass Staff Exodus, Move To Social Media

Though Al Jazeera may have initially gained a reputation for providing unbiased reporting on issues in the Middle East and abroad, it soon became clear that it was a matter of time before the Qatari governments penchant for silencing dissent against it and allied regimes would make itself known throughout the network.

While accusations of bias have existed as long as the network itself, the influence of Qatars government on Al Jazeeras editorial freedom became decidedly more pronounced a little over a decade ago, when resignations due to allegations of bias began to take place en masse.

One of the first and most notable resignations was that of David Marash, a former ABC correspondent who later worked as an anchor for Al Jazeera English from 2006 up until his resignation in 2008. As the New York Times reported at the time , Marash directly cited an increased level of editorial control by Qatar as his reason for leaving the network. [Al Jazeera] started covering the whole world very well, but from the point of view and the interests of Doha and the surrounding region, Marash told the Times.

Just a few years later, resignations at Al Jazeera became increasingly regular. Sharmine Narwani told MintPress that Al Jazeeras former reputation for neutral reporting drastically changed in 2011 when AJ became a mouthpiece for Qatari military and political adventurism, backing Muslim Brotherhood revolutions throughout the Mideast and working closely with the old colonials to do it.

It was around this time that long-time Al Jazeera contributors started to find their submissions being rejected on a regular basis. For a long time I ascribed it to incompetence on their part because they werent very good at getting back very quickly, but over time I came to learn through various people there that the politics of the channel were changing, former Al Jazeera English contributor Ted Rall told RT .

The resignations were by no means exclusive to Al Jazeera English, with many resignations also taking place at their Beirut and Cairo bureaus among others. Many of these resignations were related to Qatars insistence that Al Jazeeras coverage remain aligned with the governments official stances on key regional conflicts. As Narwani noted regarding her time as an Al Jazeera contributor: We could see for ourselves how AJ discriminated in its coverage of events in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, etc, a bias that divided AJ from inside and caused the departure of several key journalists.

Though it has still clung to its reputation as a counter to corporate media narratives in the minds of many Westerners  particularly Europeans  Al Jazeera has been unable to establish loyal viewership in key English-speaking markets. In the U.S., the Qatari government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. distribution and publicity  only to be met with dismal results.

Not content to lose more ground  or money  in the United States, Al Jazeera has turned its attention to social media and begun to develop its online video and news service AJ+, a service that would soon become the networks real success story, as well as its most successful attempt thus far to rebrand itself for a Western audience.

Targeting younger viewers and social media users, AJ+s success has become the envy of the industry. Officially launching in 2014, AJ+ boasted 7.4 billion views just a year later, with Facebook alone representing half of AJ+s viewership. It now ranks within the top 10 most popular and most viewed publishers of Facebook video content worldwide, indicating that its influence and reach has grown substantially. This is particularly true of its influence in the United States, where 44 percent of the adult population receive their news from Facebook alone.

The success of Al Jazeeras social media outreach should be particularly worrisome for those who value accurate and unbiased reporting, as its massive reach and influence can no longer be ignored. But for the government of Qatar, AJ+s reach has given them precisely the platform they need to advance their agenda, particularly on issues where the geopolitical goals of Western governments and Qatars government conveniently overlap.

Al Jazeera Advancing A Pro-Opposition Agenda

Nowhere has this overlap been more clear than in Al Jazeeras coverage of the six-year-long conflict in Syria. The mass resignation of the companys reporters has largely stemmed from Al Jazeeras coverage of Syria, as it has largely supported any and all elements committed to the removal of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

According to Narwani, Al Jazeeras coverage has involved literally manufacturing information about events in the country, and burying data points that contradicted its narrative in order to create the perception among its readers that opposition forces were peaceful, despite the fact that they were armed and funded largely by foreign governments, including Qatar. While even U.S. lawmakers have admitted that there are no moderate rebels in Syria, Al Jazeera continues to push what Narwani called a widespread corporate media exercise to market the Syrian conflict to a global audience in order to frame [the rebels] as liberators and justify foreign humanitarian intervention.

For instance, while the opposition against the Syrian government has been confirmed to be largely violent and chiefly funded by foreign entities, Al Jazeera reporting still continues to maintain that the conflict began as a result of peaceful uprisings  even following the emergence of terrorist groups such Al Qaeda and Daesh.

In an Al Jazeera article published earlier this month, the outlet continued to assert that the conflict began as a peaceful uprising demanding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, additionally stating that the only solution to the conflict is achieving political transition in the country, or, in other words, the replacement of Assad with a leader from the opposition forces. While the article claims that this is the most challenging part of ongoing diplomatic efforts, they fail to mention that ousting Assad is a coup and not a form of diplomacy.

But what is worse is Al Jazeeras normalization of opposition groups that have been confirmed to have slaughtered innocent Syrians and committed egregious war crimes. Though this facet of Al Jazeeras Syria coverage is long-standing, one recent example stands out. Earlier this month, Al Jazeera published an interview with the official spokesperson of Ahrar al-Sham, a group that it referred to as moderate opposition and a key player in the latest political and military developments in Northern Syria. The interview discussed the armed groups vision for the future of Syria, painting them as a potential future leader in determining Syrias post-Assad future.

But what the Al Jazeera interview neglected to mention was Ahrar al-Shams documented connections to Al Qaeda and its reputation as a violent Salafist group. Even mainstream Western news outlets have recognized Ahrar al-Shams dangerous connections, with publications such as Foreign Policy calling them a key node in the [Syrian] Al Qaeda network and the largest and most powerful recipient of Al Qaeda tutelage after Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. In addition, Ahrar al-Sham worked directly with the Islamic State until 2014, only breaking ties because the Islamic State killed an Ahrar al-Sham fighter in retaliation for criticism of Islamic State commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The UN envoy to Syria also reported in 2016 that Ahrar al-Sham had made plans to use white phosphorus in an attack on civilians  a use of chemical weapons that constitutes a war crime  and then blame it on pro-Assad forces.

In addition to the blatant normalization of terrorist groups in Syria, Al Jazeera has also sought to misdirect blame for the massive death toll in the six-year conflict on the Syrian government and their Russian allies. For instance, another recent Al Jazeera article detailing the massive human suffering resulting from the Syrian conflict chose to largely skip over the civilian casualties caused by Daesh, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, instead choosing only to discuss allegations of civilian deaths caused by Syrian and Russian forces.

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Mouthpiece Of The Qatari State

Why would Al Jazeera distort the facts and misdirect narratives so egregiously? What does it stand to gain? While Al Jazeera gains little from distorting the facts about the Syrian conflict, the Qatari government that funds it is a major beneficiary in the networks portrayal of Assad as a villain and terrorist groups as liberators and moderate rebels.

Qatars interest in Syria  as recognized by the Syrian government and numerous geopolitical analysts  is related to Assads rejection of a Qatari gas pipeline proposal in 2009. As the Guardian reported in 2013: Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar and Turkey that would run a pipeline from the latters North Field , contiguous with Irans South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets  albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assads rationale was to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europes top supplier of natural gas.

The proposed gas pipeline from Qatar via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey to Europe.

This, combined with long-standing attempts by the United States and Israel to destabilize the Assad regime, created the perfect opportunity to create an international alliance aimed at opposing Assad, whose removal would economically benefit Qatar.

Qatar has also been proven to financially support many of the rebel groups that Al Jazeeras coverage seeks to normalize. For example, Ahrar al-Sham, the Al Qaeda affiliate positively portrayed in the aforementioned Al Jazeera article, are directly supported by the Qatari regime. However, it isnt just moderate rebels that Qatar supports, as leaked emails from Hillary Clintons campaign chair have revealed that the Qatari government also directly funds Daesh due to its determination to remove Assad from power at any cost.

However, Qatar is also interested in the Syrian situation for other reasons. Sharmine Narwani explained to MintPress that Qatar has a region-wide interest in subverting the domestic political systems of several Arab states to install Ikhwan-majority governments  a move that would allow tiny little Qatar to project power in key Arab nations from the Levant to North Africa.

She continued

The Qataris have always sought to punch above their weight  now imagine their ability to puppeteer the Arab world with proxies installed in important regional countries like Egypt and Syria. Doha would not only extend its strategic depth this way, but would also be able to humble its much bigger neighbor Saudi Arabia  a goal Doha has actively pursued since it invited the US military to establish its biggest regional base in Qatar.

Indeed, Al Jazeeras wide reach  particularly following the ascendancy of AJ+ and its viral success on social media  has certainly allowed Qatar to reach greater audiences. Leaked U.S. embassy cables from 2009 revealed that the U.S. government has long considered Al Jazeera t be an instrument of Qatari influence and that the Qatari government continues to use Al Jazeera as a bargaining tool to repair relationships with other countries, particularly those soured by Al Jazeeras broadcasts, including the United States.

However, Al Jazeeras  and thus Qatars  influence in the United States seems to reach beyond its biased coverage of international events. In 2013, Al Jazeera paid National Public Radio (NPR) significant amounts of money for sponsorship ads, an arrangement that went unmentioned in NPR stories. This cast NPR in a positive light and lent it legitimacy with listeners who trust the broadcaster.

Al Jazeera has been using this falsified reputation to justify the goals set by its sponsor  namely, the government of Qatar. The countrys interest in removing Assad from power is manifest in Al Jazeeras reporting. The network has demonstrated its commitment to supporting Qatars geopolitical goals, including the unimpeded expansion of Qatars gas routes and the installation of friendly Wahhabist proxies in key regional states  both of which allow Qatar to act as a major player in global politics. Yet, as Sharmine Narwani concluded: there is a limit to what a country of 300,000 people can do without tripping over itself.

This article was first published by Mint Press
How Israeli schools help sabotage peace prospects



By Jonathan Cook



May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - A display of Israeli-style community policing before an audience of hundreds of young schoolchildren was captured on video last week. Were the 10-year-olds offered road safety tips, advice on what to do if they got lost or how to report someone suspicious hanging around the school?



No. In Israel, they do things differently. The video shows four officers staging a mock antiterror operation in a park close to Tel Aviv. The team roar in on motorbikes, firing their rifles at the "terrorist".



As he lies badly wounded, the officers empty their magazines into him from close range. In Israel it is known as "confirming the kill". Everywhere else it is called an extrajudicial execution or murder. The children can be heard clapping.



It was an uncomfortable reminder of a near-identical execution captured on film last year. A young army medic, Elor Azaria, fired a bullet into the head of an incapacitated Palestinian in Hebron. A military court sentenced him to 18 months for manslaughter in February.



There has been little sign of soul-searching since. Most Israelis, including government officials, call Azaria a hero. In the recent religious festival of Purim, dressing up as Azaria was a favourite among children.



There is plenty of evidence that Israels security services are still regularly executing real Palestinians. The Israeli human rights group BTselem denounced the killing last week of a 16-year-old Jerusalem schoolgirl, Fatima Hjeiji, in a hail of bullets. She had frozen to the spot after pulling out a knife some distance from a police checkpoint. She posed no threat, concluded BTselem, and did not need to be killed.



The police were unrepentant about their staged execution, calling it "a positive, empowering" demonstration for the youngsters. The event was hardly exceptional. In communities across Israel this month, the army celebrated Israels Independence Day by bringing along its usual "attractions"  tanks, guns and grenades  for children to play with, while families watched army dogs sicking yet more "terrorists".



In a West Bank settlement, meanwhile, the army painted youngsters arms and legs with shrapnel wounds. Blood-like liquid dripped convincingly from dummies with amputated limbs. The army said the event was a standard one that "many families enjoyed".



The purpose of exposing children at an impressionable age to so much gore and killing is not hard to divine. It creates traumatised children, distrustful and fearful of anyone outside their tribe. That way they become more pliant soldiers, trigger-happy as they rule over Palestinians in the occupied territories. A few educators have started to sense they are complicit in this emotional and mental abuse. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter

Holocaust Memorial Day, marked in Israeli schools last month, largely avoids universal messages, such as that we must recognise the humanity of others and stand up for the oppressed. Instead, pupils as young as three are told the Holocaust serves as a warning to be eternally vigilant  that Israel and its strong army are the only things preventing another genocide by non-Jews.



Last year Zeev Degani, principal of one Israels most prestigious schools, caused a furore when he announced his school would no longer send pupils on annual trips to Auschwitz. This is a rite of passage for Israeli pupils. He called the misuse of the Holocaust "pathological" and intended to "generate fear and hatred" to inculcate extreme nationalism.



It is not by accident that these trips  imparting the message that a strong army is vital to Israels survival  take place just before teenagers begin a three-year military draft.Increasingly, they receive no alternative messages in school. Mr Degani was among the few principals who had been inviting Breaking the Silence, a group of whistle-blowing soldiers, to discuss their part in committing war crimes. In response, the education minister, Naftali Bennett, leader of the settlers party, has barred dissident groups such as Breaking the Silence. He has also banned books and theatre trips that might encourage greater empathy with those outside the tribe.



Polls show this is paying off. Schoolchildren are even more ultra-nationalist than their parents. More than four-fifths think there is no hope of peace with the Palestinians.



But these cultivated attitudes dont just sabotage peacemaking. They also damage any chance of Israeli Jews living peacefully with the large minority of Palestinian citizens in their midst.Half of Jewish schoolchildren believe these Palestinians, one in five of the population, should not be allowed to vote in elections. This month the defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called the minoritys representatives in parliament "Nazis" and suggested they should share a similar fate.



This extreme chauvinism was translated last week into legislation that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people around the world, not its citizens. The Palestinian minority are effectively turned into little more than resident aliens in their own homeland.Mr Degani and others are losing the battle to educate for peace and reconciliation. If a societys future lies with its children, the outlook for Israelis and Palestinians is bleak indeed.



Jonathan Cook is an independent journalist in Nazareth. - http://www.jonathan-cook.net/
Gorbachev Warns of Growing Danger



A group of Americans visiting Russia heard dire warnings from ex-Soviet President Gorbachev that the tensions between the U.S. and Russia are creating a dangerous situation for the world, reports Rick Sterling, who is on the trip.



By Rick Sterling

May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, is 87 years old but still sharp . He told a delegation of 30 Americans in a two-week visit to Russia organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives, This is a time to be concerned. We should worry about relations between our two countries.  Things cannot continue as they are.

President Gorbachev recalled his initial meetings with President Reagan, which came after six years of poor relations and hostility. In the first summit meeting, Reagan issued a long list of accusations against the Soviet Union; Gorbachev responded with his own accusations against the U.S. After that meeting Gorbachev said Hes not a hawk; hes a dinosaur while Reagan said about Gorbachev Hes a die-hard communist.

At the next summit meeting, Reagan continued lecturing Gorbachev. After listening for 15 minutes. Gorbachev stopped Reagan saying, Thats enough. If you want to talk as equals we can go very far. Differences can be bridged. Problems can be resolved. But as equals.

Reagan asked how the Soviet Union would respond if the United States was at risk because of some kind of natural calamity. When Gorbachev said his people would want to help, not take advantage, the mood changed.

Gorbachev recalled his own friendly experience talking with average Americans. He suggested that perhaps the U.S. needs its own perestroika. He reminded us that it was President John F Kennedy who said We need peace but not a Pax Americana .. not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women.

Gorbachev continued saying, The current situation is not right. We need to change that. Let us stop provoking each other. Let us stop trying to tear up other countries. . Our two countries are still central to world peace. We need peace in order to resolve other world problems. One percent of the world controls 90 percent of the wealth. The ruling class is happy with this but things cannot continue as they are.  Budgets smell of gunpowder.  Fear is being cultivated. This is resulting in a new arms race.

Gorbachev asked, Does the USA want Russia to just submit? Referring to Russias history with invasions by France in the early 1800s and Germany in the 1940s, he explained This is a country that can never submit. There will be no winners in a nuclear war.

The Ukraine Crisis

The 30-member delegation has been having informative meetings with numerous people to gain a better understanding of modern Russia and its relations with the United States and the world. Another especially interesting meeting was held with Vladimir Kozin, member of the Russian Academy of Military Science.

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Vladimir Kozin is an arms control specialist and member of the Russian Academy of Military Science who has worked on arms control issues since the 1970s. Kozin says that Russians see themselves being encircled by NATO. Of the 16 countries bordering Russia, eight have anti-Russia sentiments. He notes that the U.S. military budget is 12 times greater than that of Russia and increasing.

Kozin said it is a fairy tale that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. What is NOT a fairy tale, he said, is that the U.S. has spent a huge amount of money to influence Russian elections in the past and funded 400 Non-Governmental Organizations (or NGOs), which were part of the destabilization campaign in Ukraine leading to the 2014 coup .

Regarding key conflict points emerging from the Ukraine crisis, Kozin noted that Crimea was part of Russia since 1783. He added that the despite the presence of 16,000 Russian troops (who were in Crimea as part of the Sevastopol naval base agreement) and 18,000 Ukrainian troops, the Crimea plebiscite to re-unify with Russia was handled without violence, with huge turnout and overwhelming vote in favor.

As for hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Kozin asked why this fighting has happened just because the largely ethnic Russian population resisted the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and demanded some form of autonomy from Kiev.

If Scotland can consider secession from the United Kingdom and Catalonia from Spain, he argued, whats wrong with Donbass (eastern Ukraine) wanting more autonomy within Ukraine? Why has Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko turned to military conflict instead of negotiating with the dissidents in eastern Ukraine?

Kozin believes it is vital to have an arms control summit meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin. He thinks we should work toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons by 2045. In the meantime, the easiest way to reduce tension and the risk of war would be an agreement on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons, he said.

In a sober assessment of Trumps first 100 days as President, Kozin concluded, Aggravating these facts of life is the deep degree of mistrust between Washington and Moscow, which the Americans spawned and have continued to nurse. A vicious circle has emerged in the interrelationship between weapons and trust  Clearly such an irrational phenomenon cannot go on indefinitely.

From both Kozin and Gorbachev the message was clear: We need to do something to restore discussion and stop the slide toward ever greater tension and danger.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com
One Day, Three Serious News Stories That Turn Out To Be False By Moon Of Alabama May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - It is a fakenews day. Three stories are making the rounds through the media that are each based on false or widely exaggerated interpretation of claims. North Korea, Syria and the U.S. President are the targets. 1. The Wall Street Journal asserts with a #fakenews headline that bits of computer-code in the recent WannaCry ransom virus are identical with bits of computer code that was allegedly used in a 2014 hack of Sony. (The Sony attack was falsely attributed to North Korea.) Researchers Identify Clue Connecting Ransomware Assault to Group Tied to North Korea Neel Mehta, a security researcher at Alphabet Inc.s Google unit, on Monday pointed out similarities between that earlier WannaCry variant and code used in a series of attacks that security specialists have attributed to the Lazarus group. The "Lazerus group" (which probably does not exist at all) was attributed to North Korean state agencies. Six paragraphs later we learn that the "similarities" were found in often reused code: The findings dont necessarily demonstrate that Lazarus or North Korea was involved in the WannaCry attack, researchers said. The culprits in the latest attack, who havent been identified, could have copied the code in question, for example.

...

The connection found in the old version lies in software that both programs use to securely connect to other systems over the internet, said Kurt Baumgartner, a Kaspersky Lab researcher. Common code is found in nearly all software that sets up an internet connection. The reason for that is quite simple. No longer does anyone ever write such code. There are well tested examples of such program snippets widely available in open-source software on Github and elsewhere. "Copy and paste" is done faster than re-inventing the wheel. Even worse - the code snippet in question here is so trivial that any decent programmer would likely write it the very same way (a call to the Time() function to get a seed value for a following call to the Random() function). There are only X reasonable ways to add 1 to 1. Two people doing it the same way proves nothing at all. People copying publicly available code proves nothing either. It certainly does not prove that code for two different hacks was written by the same people. It does not provided that these bugs have anything at all to do with North Korea. The bits of similarities are of zero factual news value. 2. Back in February Amnesty International (which promotes NATO interventions ) issued a sensational report about alleged killings in Syrian prisons. As we wrote at that time: A new Amnesty International report claims that the Syrian government hanged between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners in a military prison in Syria. The evidence for that claim is flimsy, based on hearsay of anonymous people outside of Syria. The numbers themselves are extrapolations that no scientist or court would ever accept. It is tabloid reporting and fiction style writing from its title "Human Slaughterhouse" down to the last paragraph. The U.S. State Department now reused that fake report and adds wrongly interpreted satellite pics to further slander the Syrian government: US: Syria is burning bodies to hide proof of mass killings In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity." The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use. If there was a crematorium being build in the Saydnaya prison how is it that none of the Amnesty witness said so in the recent Amnesty report? These witnesses, Amnesty claims, have been in that prison and observed all kind of details. They claim that any dead were buried in mass graves. A Dutch military expert looks at the commercial satellite pictures and the interpretation State provided and asks : Ian Grant @Gjoene - 6:02 PM - 15 May 2017 Is this a joke @StateDept? Even before 27 Aug '13 these "vents" were present. See included Terraserver footage (03 april '13) #Sednaya Another reconnaissance specialist expands on that: Aldin Abazovic @CT_operative - 5:33 PM - 15 May 2017 Pictures that allegedly show crematorium of Saidnaya prison, #Damascus #Syria. As much as I hate to get involved into this matter, these #1

#2 images prove nothing at all. This building could be simple boiler/heating room for the prison compound. Unless you visit there is no

#3 way to prove anything. Its easy to manipulate with satellite imagery. You just put the right label on thing and there you have it

#4 I can't confirm what the particular part of prison is nor for what it's used. The State Department has no evidence for its "crematorium claim" but the Amnesty report which says nothing about a crematorium at the prison and some satellite pictures that do not show what the State Department claims. It is throwing dirt at the Syria government in the hope that some of it will stick. This release of nothing will create some headlines in "western" outrage publications. It may be in propaganda preparation for a wider war on Syria. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter 3. The deep state is out to get U.S. President Trump impeached. Yesterday a new, well prepared and coordinated campaign against Trump was launched. Anonymous claims to the Washington Post were "confirmed" by similar claims from (likely) the same sources to Buzzfeed. The claims may have some grounds in reality but the actual facts, even as described in shrill words, are harmless. WaPo: Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trumps disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. (Hmm - how would "former U.S. officials" know what was said in the Oval Office and to what consequences?) It takes six paragraphs of such slander to learn what Trump actually disclosed: Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. "Terrorist threat[s] related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft" are a well known method of Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. If ISIS in Syria has copied that modus operandi it is interesting, but nothing sensational. The details, where ISIS is preparing these operations, may be somewhat relevant, but over how many cites does ISIS actually rule? National Security Advisor McMaster, who was in the room with Trump and Lavrov, is on the record (down in paragraph eight!) denying that any sources or methods were revealed. The only real claim here is that Trump gave Lavrov a tip-off with regard to a terrorist threat. If Putin would learn of a potential ISIS attack on a U.S. passenger jet would you want him to share that secret information with the U.S. government? Of course you would. But Buzzfeed and other anti-Trump organs blow the claims up to high heavens, The Lawfare writers go off their meds: If the President gave this information away through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office. Utter bullshit. Trump would have offered such intelligence out of courtesy as part of his deal-making with the Russian government. Exchange of threat intelligence is regular business even between parties who otherwise dislike each other. It is in the interests of all to do such. That such an exchange happened is not newsworthy. even it touched some details. Even worse - it is the publishing about the Oval office talk that can only help the terrorists. As Emptywheel says : these very outraged sources are [..] sharing the information that it is so outrageous to share. If Trump's information sharing is outrageous why did the sources offer that same information to the global media? Why did WaPo and others publish on it? Trump was elected with the support of the U.S. military. Clinton was supported by the corporate and intelligence sides of the power triangle . Trump won. Now the deep-state intelligence side, together with the moneyed part of the Democratic party, is out to impeach him . The constant sensationalized dribble of false or irrelevant claims against him prepares the ground for that. The three fake-news examples above contain no news at all. The bits exposed in them have no information value. Their only purpose is to influence the readers by exaggerating outlandish claims based on little, if any, real facts of minor importance. This full-throated propagandizing on all channels, without any critical voices challenging the basic facts, is endangering the functioning of democracy. The fourth estate is now just a tool to influence. It can no longer claim to have any inherent value. For the average person one way out of this onslaught is to search for, use and foster alternative and discerning sources of news. The other is to give up. This article was first published by Moon Of Alabama The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. See also - Propaganda alert: Impeach Trump? Transcript Will Tell Whether President Blabbed Secrets To Russians: The president has put the nation at risk, not for the first time, and his apparent disdain for normal security and intelligence protocols represents an ongoing national emergency.
Home May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - More than four decades ago I went to lunch with a diplomatic historian who, like me, was going through Korea-related documents at the National Archives in Washington. He happened to remark that he sometimes wondered whether the Korean Demilitarised Zone might be ground zero for the end of the world. This April, Kim In-ryong, a North Korean diplomat at the UN, warned of a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment. A few days later, President Trump told Reuters that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. American atmospheric scientists have shown that even a relatively contained nuclear war would throw up enough soot and debris to threaten the global population: A regional war between India and Pakistan, for instance, has the potential to dramatically damage Europe, the US and other regions through global ozone loss and climate change. How is it possible that we have come to this? How does a puffed-up, vainglorious narcissist, whose every other word may well be a lie (that applies to both of them, Trump and Kim Jong-un), come not only to hold the peace of the world in his hands but perhaps the future of the planet? We have arrived at this point because of an inveterate unwillingness on the part of Americans to look history in the face and a laser-like focus on that same history by the leaders of North Korea. North Korea celebrated the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean Peoples Army on 25 April, amid round-the-clock television coverage of parades in Pyongyang and enormous global tension. No journalist seemed interested in asking why it was the 85th anniversary when the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea was only founded in 1948. What was really being celebrated was the beginning of the Korean guerrilla struggle against the Japanese in north-east China, officially dated to 25 April 1932. After Japan annexed Korea in 1910, many Koreans fled across the border, among them the parents of Kim Il-sung, but it wasnt until Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo in March 1932 that the independence movement turned to armed resistance. Kim and his comrades launched a campaign that lasted 13 difficult years, until Japan finally relinquished control of Korea as part of the 1945 terms of surrender. This is the source of the North Korean leaderships legitimacy in the eyes of its people: they are revolutionary nationalists who resisted their countrys coloniser; they resisted again when a massive onslaught by the US air force during the Korean War razed all their cities, driving the population to live, work and study in subterranean shelters; they have continued to resist the US ever since; and they even resisted the collapse of Western communism  as of this September, the DPRK will have been in existence for as long as the Soviet Union. But it is less a communist country than a garrison state, unlike any the world has seen. Drawn from a population of just 25 million, the North Korean army is the fourth largest in the world, with 1.3 million soldiers  just behind the third largest army, with 1.4 million soldiers, which happens to be the American one. Most of the adult Korean population, men and women, have spent many years in this army: its reserves are limited only by the size of the population. The story of Kim Il-sungs resistance against the Japanese is surrounded by legend and exaggeration in the North, and general denial in the South. But he was recognisably a hero: he fought for a decade in the harshest winter environment imaginable, with temperatures sometimes falling to 50 below zero. Recent scholarship has shown that Koreans made up the vast majority of guerrillas in Manchukuo, even though many of them were commanded by Chinese officers (Kim was a member of the Chinese Communist Party). Other Korean guerrillas led detachments too  among them Choe Yong-gon, Kim Chaek and Choe Hyon  and when they returned to Pyongyang in 1945 they formed the core of the new regime. Their offspring now constitute a multitudinous elite  the number two man in the government today, Choe Ryong-hae, is Choe Hyons son. Kims reputation was inadvertently enhanced by the Japanese, whose newspapers made a splash of the battle between him and the Korean quislings whom the Japanese employed to track down and kill him, all operating under the command of General Nozoe Shotoku, who ran the Imperial Armys Special Kim Division. In April 1940 Nozoes forces captured Kim Hye-sun, thought to be Kims first wife; the Japanese tried in vain to use her to lure Kim out of hiding, and then murdered her. Maeda Takashi headed another Japanese Special Police unit, with many Koreans in it; in March 1940 his forces came under attack from Kims guerrillas, with both sides suffering heavy casualties. Maeda pursued Kim for nearly two weeks, before stumbling into a trap. Kim threw 250 guerrillas at 150 soldiers in Maedas unit, killing Maeda, 58 Japanese, 17 others attached to the force, and taking 13 prisoners and large quantities of weapons and ammunition. In September 1939, when Hitler was invading Poland, the Japanese mobilised what the scholar Dae-Sook Suh has described as a massive punitive expedition consisting of six battalions of the Japanese Kwantung Army and twenty thousand men of the Manchurian Army and police force in a six-month suppression campaign against the guerrillas led by Kim and Choe Hyon. In September 1940 an even larger force embarked on a counterinsurgency campaign against Chinese and Korean guerrillas: The punitive operation was conducted for one year and eight months until the end of March 1941, Suh writes, and the bandits, excluding those led by Kim Il-sung, were completely annihilated. The bandit leaders were shot to death or forced to submit. A vital figure in the long Japanese counterinsurgency effort was Kishi Nobusuke, who made a name for himself running munitions factories. Labelled a Class A war criminal during the US occupation, Kishi avoided incarceration and became one of the founding fathers of postwar Japan and its longtime ruling organ, the Liberal Democratic Party; he was prime minister twice between 1957 and 1960. The current Japanese prime minister, Abe Shinzo, is Kishis grandson and reveres him above all other Japanese leaders. Trump was having dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Abe on 11 February when a pointed message arrived mid-meal, courtesy of Pyongyang: it had just successfully tested a new, solid-fuel missile, fired from a mobile launcher. Kim Il-sung and Kishi are meeting again through their grandsons. Eight decades have passed, and the baleful, irreconcilable hostility between North Korea and Japan still hangs in the air. In the West, treatment of North Korea is one-sided and ahistorical. No one even gets the names straight. During Abes Florida visit, Trump referred to him as Prime Minister Shinzo. On 29 April, Ana Navarro, a prominent commentator on CNN, said: Little boy Un is a maniac. The demonisation of North Korea transcends party lines, drawing on a host of subliminal racist and Orientalist imagery; no one is willing to accept that North Koreans may have valid reasons for not accepting the American definition of reality. Their rejection of the American worldview  generally perceived as indifference, even insolence in the face of overwhelming US power  makes North Korea appear irrational, impossible to control, and therefore fundamentally dangerous. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter But if American commentators and politicians are ignorant of Koreas history, they ought at least to be aware of their own. US involvement in Korea began towards the end of the Second World War, when State Department planners feared that Soviet soldiers, who were entering the northern part of the peninsula, would bring with them as many as thirty thousand Korean guerrillas who had been fighting the Japanese in north-east China. They began to consider a full military occupation that would assure America had the strongest voice in postwar Korean affairs. It might be a short occupation or, as a briefing paper put it, it might be one of considerable duration; the main point was that no other power should have a role in Korea such that the proportionate strength of the US would be reduced to a point where its effectiveness would be weakened. Congress and the American people knew nothing about this. Several of the planners were Japanophiles who had never challenged Japans colonial claims in Korea and now hoped to reconstruct a peaceable and amenable postwar Japan. They worried that a Soviet occupation of Korea would thwart that goal and harm the postwar security of the Pacific. Following this logic, on the day after Nagasaki was obliterated, John J. McCloy of the War Department asked Dean Rusk and a colleague to go into a spare office and think about how to divide Korea. They chose the 38th parallel, and three weeks later 25,000 American combat troops entered southern Korea to establish a military government. It lasted three years. To shore up their occupation, the Americans employed every last hireling of the Japanese they could find, including former officers in the Japanese military like Park Chung Hee and Kim Chae-gyu, both of whom graduated from the American military academy in Seoul in 1946. (After a military takeover in 1961 Park became president of South Korea, lasting a decade and a half until his ex-classmate Kim, by then head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, shot him dead over dinner one night.) After the Americans left in 1948 the border area around the 38th parallel was under the command of Kim Sok-won, another ex-officer of the Imperial Army, and it was no surprise that after a series of South Korean incursions into the North, full-scale civil war broke out on 25 June 1950. Inside the South itself  whose leaders felt insecure and conscious of the threat from what they called the north wind  there was an orgy of state violence against anyone who might somehow be associated with the left or with communism. The historian Hun Joon Kim found that at least 300,000 people were detained and executed or simply disappeared by the South Korean government in the first few months after conventional war began. My own work and that of John Merrill indicates that somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people died as a result of political violence before June 1950, at the hands either of the South Korean government or the US occupation forces. In her recent book Koreas Grievous War, which combines archival research, records of mass graves and interviews with relatives of the dead and escapees who fled to Osaka, Su-kyoung Hwang documents the mass killings in villages around the southern coast.   In short, the Republic of Korea was one of the bloodiest dictatorships of the early Cold War period; many of the perpetrators of the massacres had served the Japanese in their dirty work  and were then put back into power by the Americans. Americans like to see themselves as mere bystanders in postwar Korean history. Its always described in the passive voice: Korea was divided in 1945, with no mention of the fact that McCloy and Rusk, two of the most influential men in postwar foreign policy, drew their line without consulting anyone. There were two military coups in the South while the US had operational control of the Korean army, in 1961 and 1980; the Americans stood idly by lest they be accused of interfering in Korean politics. South Koreas stable democracy and vibrant economy from 1988 onwards seem to have overridden any need to acknowledge the previous forty years of history, during which the North could reasonably claim that its own autocracy was necessary to counter military rule in Seoul. Its only in the present context that the North looks at best like a walking anachronism, at worst like a vicious tyranny. For 25 years now the world has been treated to scaremongering about North Korean nuclear weapons, but hardly anyone points out that it was the US that introduced nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula, in 1958; hundreds were kept there until a worldwide pullback of tactical nukes occurred under George H.W. Bush. But every US administration since 1991 has challenged North Korea with frequent flights of nuclear-capable bombers in South Korean airspace, and any day of the week an Ohio-class submarine could demolish the North in a few hours. Today there are 28,000 US troops stationed in Korea, perpetuating an unwinnable stand-off with the nuclear-capable North. The occupation did indeed turn out to be one of considerable duration, but its also the result of a colossal strategic failure, now entering its eighth decade. Its common for pundits to say that Washington just cant take North Korea seriously, but North Korea has taken its measure more than once. And it doesnt know how to respond. To hear Trump and his national security team tell it, the current crisis has come about because North Korea is on the verge of developing an ICBM that can hit the American heartland. Most experts think that it will take four or five years to become operational  but really, what difference does it make? North Korea tested its first long-range rocket in 1998, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the DPRKs founding. The first medium-range missile was tested in 1992: it flew several hundred miles down range and banged the target right on the nose. North Korea now has more sophisticated mobile medium-range missiles that use solid fuel, making them hard to locate and easy to fire. Some two hundred million people in Korea and Japan are within range of these missiles, not to mention hundreds of millions of Chinese, not to mention the only US Marine division permanently stationed abroad, in Okinawa. It isnt clear that North Korea can actually fit a nuclear warhead to any of its missiles  but if it happened, and if it was fired in anger, the country would immediately be turned into what Colin Powell memorably called a charcoal briquette. But then, as General Powell well knew, we had already turned North Korea into a charcoal briquette. The filmmaker Chris Marker visited the country in 1957, four years after US carpet-bombing ended, and wrote: Extermination passed over this land. Who could count what burned with the houses?  When a country is split in two by an artificial border and irreconcilable propaganda is exercised on each side, its naive to ask where the war comes from: the border is the war. Having recognised the primary truth of that war, one still alien to the American telling of it (even though Americans drew the border), he remarked: The idea that North Koreans generally have of Americans may be strange, but I must say, having lived in the USA around the end of the Korean War, that nothing can equal the stupidity and sadism of the combat imagery that went into circulation at the time. The Reds burn, roast and toast. Since the very beginning, American policy has cycled through a menu of options to try and control the DPRK: sanctions, in place since 1950, with no evidence of positive results; non-recognition, in place since 1948, again with no positive results; regime change, attempted late in 1950 when US forces invaded the North, only to end up in a war with China; and direct talks, the only method that has ever worked, which produced an eight-year freeze  between 1994 and 2002  on all the Norths plutonium facilities, and nearly succeeded in retiring their missiles. On 1 May, Donald Trump told Bloomberg News: If it would be appropriate for me to meet with [Kim Jong-un], I would absolutely; I would be honoured to do it. Theres no telling whether this was serious, or just another Trump attempt to grab headlines. But whatever else he might be, he is unquestionably a maverick, the first president since 1945 not beholden to the Beltway. Maybe he can sit down with Mr Kim and save the planet. This article was first published by London Review Of Books  LRB Limited 2017 The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

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In Case You Missed it

Truth Commission Reveals History of Korean War

U.S.-South Korea carried out massacres of civilians

By Eric Struch

May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - June 29, 2008 - As told by most history textbooks in the U.S., the Korean War started with a June 25, 1950, invasion from the communist north and the freedom-loving U.S. came to the aid of the besieged democratic Republic of Korea in the south. The reality was very different.



Not only did the RoKs dictatorial, fascist-like regime of U.S. puppet Syngman Rhee make the first move, it had prepared for it for more than a year in advance. These preparations included using paramilitary fascist organizations and the regular army for cross-border raids on northern villages to test the defenses of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).



Domestically, the preparation meant carrying out large-scale executions of suspected communists, leftists and anyone who opposed the neo-colonial rule of the U.S. in the south. The majority of these massacres took place throughout the summer of 1950, but thousands of civilians were executed by RoK military and police throughout the war.



The U.S. militarywhich had operational command of the RoK armynot only was aware of the massacres, but assisted and even directed many of the executions.



That these massacres had occurred was common knowledge among people both north and south. Due to the repressive anti-communist National Security Law, which threatened penalties of decades in prison, no one in the south dared to speak up until recently.



A half century of official silence finally began to end after the hard struggle of the pro-democracy movement in the 1980s created a political space. Even those who fled to the U.S. to escape the repression couldnt speak up. They were dependent on established Korean-Americans for jobs, housing and loans, and these privileged elements often had ties to the right-wing Grand National Party or the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.



One voice through the decades spoke the truth to the world about the mass murders. The press in the DPRK constantly tried to bring these crimes to the attention of the world. Because Washingtons racist anti-DPRK propaganda was all-pervasive, the truth never gained any traction in the corporate mass media around the world.



Truth and Reconciliation Commission



Today in the RoK, a government-funded Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Ahn Byung-ook is investigating 1,200 incidents of mass executions in addition to 215 cases in which the U.S. military was directly involved in the executions. Of the more than 150 mass graves unearthed so far, the commission has the physical evidence, documentation and eyewitnesses to officially confirm two mass executions at Ulsan and Cheongwon.



The RoK government now acknowledges that its military, national police and fascist paramilitaries killed over 100,000 civilians at that time, when Koreas population was 20 million. Kim Dong-choon of the TRC called these government estimates of the human cost of this bloody anti-communist paroxysm very conservative.



The numbers may be as high as 200,000 people, with some sources putting it as high as 300,000. These numbers do not even include the extra-judicial executions during the war of those RoK puppet troops deemed to be sympathetic to the liberation forces from the DPRK.



Rightist ideologues, both in Seoul and Washington, point to alleged massacres carried out by the Korean Peoples Army, while denying that the actual proven murders perpetrated by the southern puppet forces even took place. In reality, according to a CIA study dated July 19, 1950, cited by Korea scholar Bruce Cumings, during the occupation of the south by the KPA North Korean officials ran a tight ship but without a lot of bloodshed.



In another CIA report from 1950, a large percentage of trade unionists and union leaders joined the KPA only 10 days into the war. DPRK President Kim Il Sung had given a radio address calling on people in the RoK to organize themselves. Peoples Committees were formed and went about seizing Japanese and RoK government property as well as that of the rich. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter

KPA units in the south distributed rice to the people and emptied the jails of political prisoners, who then turned on the cops and the fascist youth groups. KPA troops, in alliance with the poor peasantry, carried out democratic land reform as they swept southwards. Even in the chaos of war, the KPA maintained its discipline. Cumings says that captured North Korean documents continued to show that high-level officials warned against executing people.



The same cannot be said of the RoK puppet forces. Before the war even began, the RoK government created the National Guidance League, a fascist-inspired re-education corps for people the Rhee dictatorship claimed were communists. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were forced to join the League.



Kim Dong-choon says the police or the military executed many of the Leagues forced inductees. National Police under Korean Military Advisory Group supervision executed 7,000 people in Yangwol (near Taejon) from July 2-6, 1950.



U.S. oversaw exterminations



Alan Winnington of the British Daily Worker in an article entitled U.S. Belsen in Korea reported that 20 witnesses observed that truckloads of cops arrived on July 2 and immediately made people dig six pits of about 200 yards each. Executions went on for three days, by both machinegun and, when the bullets ran out, decapitation by sword. According to eyewitnesses, U.S. officers oversaw everything while sitting in their Jeeps. The U.S. Embassy in London then had the chutzpah to call Winningtons findings a fabrication.



The U.S. military, through its operational command over the RoK army, was involved at the highest level in the executions. New York Times correspondent Charles Grutzner talked about the slaughter of hundreds of South Korean civilians, women as well as men, by some U.S. troops and police of the Republic.



Keyes Beech, in a July 23, 1950, Newark Star-Ledger article wrote: It is not the time to be a Korean, for the Yankees are shooting them all.



Donald Nichols, a former Air Force intelligence officer, wrote in his 1981 memoir of witnessing an unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon during the war.



In addition, an investigation made by RoK lawmaker Park Chan-hyun in 1960 during the (relatively) democratic interlude of Chang Myons Second Republic revealed that an estimated 10,000 people were executed in Busan.



RoK dictatorship was shaky



What these horrible, inhuman atrocities reveal is that the puppet RoK dictatorship knew its power rested upon a profoundly shaky foundation. As another quite frank CIA report cited by Cumings noted, the rightist RoK leadership is provided by that numerically small class which virtually monopolizes the native wealth and education of the country.... Since this class could not have acquired and maintained its favored position under Japanese rule without a certain minimum of collaboration, it has experienced difficulty in finding acceptable candidates for political office and has been forced to support imported expatriate politicians such as Rhee Syngman and Kim Koo. These, while they have no pro-Japanese taint, are essentially demagogues bent on autocratic rule.



Rhees venal clique knew that his planned drive north depended upon drowning the patriotic and communist elements in the south in blood. Pockets of communist guerrillas who had fought the Japanese occupation were still active in the south as late as 1950.



According to KMAG commander Gen. W.L. Roberts, the RoK puppet army killed 6,000 communist guerrillas from November 1949 to March 1950. Of the attacks on northern border villages carried out by the army and the fascist Northwest Youth paramilitaries that took pace in 1949, Gen. Roberts said that each was in our opinion brought on by the presence of a small South Korean salient north of the (38th) parallel.... The South Koreans wish to invade the North.



Despite the staggering scale of the mass murders carried out by the Rhee puppet regime, patriotic feeling still ran so deep among the Korean people that even in the RoK National Assembly, 48 members declared their allegiance to the DPRK at the end of July 1950.



The issue of the mass execution of civilians still divides those who are subservient to U.S. neo-colonialism and those who want an independent Korea. Former RoK president Roh Moo-hyun apologized in an official capacity for the 870 confirmed murders at Ulsan, calling them illegal acts. In stark contrast, current president Lee Myung-bak, already deeply unpopular, has threatened to cut funding for the TRC.



Seven years ago, the U.S. government finally admitted part of its own guilt, that its soldiers had killed hundreds of innocent civilians in the South Korean township of Nogun-ri shortly after the start of the Korean War in 1950. President Bill Clinton himself expressed deep regret in a public statement on Jan. 11, 2001.
Germany and NATO: Preparing for a Fascist Repression in Europe?

By Peter Koenig

May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - While Washington is in turmoil, Trumps firing of FBIs Director Comey being hailed by some, condemned by others and questioned with innuendo by yet another group of critics, it looks like the U-turn The Donald has supposedly made a few weeks ago, is fizzling out  into a cloud of confusion and chaos. And who are the beneficiaries of this chaos?  The Neocon-Zion-Democrats, who else?

Is Trump becoming, or has already become a Banana Republic dictator? Should he be tried as war criminal along with Obama, Bush, Clinton and their illustrious predecessors, including those who instigated world wars and conflicts around the globe for the last 200 years? Sadly, there is no justice left in so-called international courts of justice today. They have all been coopted by the hidden bloody fingers, pulling the strings in Washington and Brussels.

Is Trumps government about to collapse from the pressure of the Neocons of the Deep State? Speculations no end, with emerging suggestion that the controversial President had already committed enough unconventional deeds to be impeached; and Russia-gate, one of them, is just not going away, despite all logic to the contrary.

It is another reflection of the idiocy of the Western media. A measured and purposeful idiocy, that is. They get away with it, as long as brainwashed masses still swallow the mass-medias lies and deceptions in their comfortable armchairs. The swamp in Washington is steaming  and about to swallow politicians from all walks.

Will there be a nuclear war? Who will strike first? Western war-mongering Pentagon and NATO generals hope  that the US will launch a pre-emptive strike against Russia and /or China. It would most likely be triggered by a false flag. For example, North Korea is made believe to having launched a (nuclear) attack on Japan. Speculations to this effect have already circulated.

But what if Russias early warning system which is based on top-notch technology, detects such an intended first strike and reacts instantly? An atomic WWIII  with full destruction and almost no survivors? All these realistic ideas are tossed up and down  leaving a public on either side of the Atlantic in fear. And we know that fear and confusion are the best weapons to panic and stalemate a population.

Who will survive?  Who will be next? And some even go as far as speculating, who may replace President Trump?  Most obviously, his Vice President, Mike Pence, who fits the neocons gambit very well. After all, they were the ones who chose him on Trumps behalf.

Thats the state of things according to the mainstream media. The US is crumbling and the West along with it. The crumbling is very loud. The softer noises are becoming undetectable.

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On the European Continent, hidden from the common ear and eye, clandestine warfare against European cities and citizens is planned by  the German Bundeswehr, NATO and other European armed forces. They are preparing for subjugating possible social upheavals, if necessary killing their own citizens  thats what NATO-inspired Brussels is up to. And the leader, who else, is NATO-inspired Germany  the front runner of European puppets, a position for which France is now competing with Macron  and perhaps winning.

As reported by Susan Bonath, independent investigative journalist, working as a regular contributor for the German Die Junge Welt (The Youth World)  something horrendous is emerging in a small north-eastern town of Germanys landlocked Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt.

In one of Europes most modern military training camps, an entire ghost town is being built at the tune of millions of euros. Most of the German (or European) tax-payers have never heard of it. By 2018 the facility will be ready for troop training to fight European citizens in European cities, should they dare to go on the barricades against the atrocities of their leaders and oligarchs. See Susan Bonaths report (in German) at kenfm.de entitled Trainieren fur Angriffskriege Training for Aggressive Wars .

The concept is only new to Europe. The US, for years, has been building hidden garrisons around vulnerable agglomerations  New York, Detroit, Chicago  and many more  ready to strike if massive protests should break out. For last Novembers US Presidential election, they have been put on high alert. In fact, intensive troop movements could be observed from the air.

With Macrons election to President of France  or rather the Rothschild shoe-in  to protect the financial oligarchs of France and Europe, to shield unfettered capitalism from social disturbances, Europe is fast moving towards a state of fascist repression, accompanied by a fascist economy, a double whammy for the rich, and a double barrier aimed at eliminating peoples freedom to live decent and happy lives.

In his victory speech, Macron said as a priority that France will be first in fighting terrorism. This is unconstrained support to the continuation of the false flag approach, killing a few of your own citizens or policemen, to justify further and further clamp-downs on civil liberties. France, under Hollande, Washingtons ultra-puppet, has Europes most solid track record for false flag attacks. France may become the first country in Europe to put a permanent State of Emergency  akin to Martial Law  into her Constitution. Where Hollande so far had failed, Macron may succeed. Such an example would most like make school throughout vassal Europe. The training facilities in northern Germany, supported by Madame Merkel, to oppress and kill protesting Europeans fall right in line with Macrons Machiavellian philosophy.

On the other hand, Greece is the epitome of the killing of a nation by financial instruments. The Greek allow it for reasons beyond logic. Maybe for fear not obeying and choosing the only way out, GREXIT, might be worse than financial strangulation?  These are apparently the arguments voiced, but unsubstantiated, by former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis, who is ever so much interested in staying in the limelight, influencing public opinion by his self-styled stardom. Is this caviar leftist supporting his countrys demise as a deterrent for others who might want to regain sovereignty from the bulldozers of Washington and Brussels?

George Orwell comes to mind, when he says, referring to James Burnhams The Machiavellians 

a democratic society has never existed and, so far as we can see, never will exist. Society is of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud Power can sometimes be won and maintained without violence, but never without fraud.

This extends well to Globalizations declaration of Justice:

All thats yours is mine, and all thats mine is mine.

Wake up and beware, whats brewing at the NATO-German urban training camp ground is a defense mechanism to assure the ruling class privileges will never be lost. Europeans  on the barricades now, before its too late!
Trump Is Fighting For His Life

By Philip Giraldi

May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - President Donald Trump is not exactly known for his self-restraint. The recent firing of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey was not handled with any delicacy and has unleashed a firestorm of criticism coming from across the political spectrum. And since Comeys abrupt dismissal the backstabbing has become even worse, with many coming around to the view that Trump is actually crudely threatening Comey over the issue of what might or might not have been said at dinners and meetings between the two men.

What exactly drove the firing at this time remains somewhat of a mystery though the media has been quick to link it directly to Trumps reported anger at the seemingly endless investigation into his Administrations possible ties to Russia, an investigation that nominally Comey headed as FBI Director. But that explanation somehow makes no sense as even a white-hot Trump would have realized that getting rid of Comey would only make the Russiagate problem worse as everyone would assume cover-up and would come after the White House with even greater intensity, which is precisely what has happened. Was Trump dumb enough to dig himself into a deeper hole? Possibly, but it seems unlikely.

What is real, however, is that constant innuendo means that anti-Russian hysteria has been mounting, including completely speculative pieces wondering whether the entourage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had sought to sneak a recording device into the White House during last weeks visit.

And what if there really is a conspiracy against Donald Trump being orchestrated within the various national security agencies that are part of the United States government? The president has been complaining for months about damaging leaks emanating from the intelligence community and the failure of Congress to pay any attention to the illegal dissemination of classified information. It is quite possible that Trump has become aware that there is actually something going on and that something just might be a conspiracy to delegitimize and somehow remove him from office.

President Trump has also been insisting that the Russian thing is a made-up story, a view that I happen to agree with. I recently produced my own analysis of the possibility that there is in progress a soft, or stealth or silent coup, call it what you will, underway directed against the president and that, if it exists, it is being directed by former senior officials from the Obama White House. Indeed, it is quite plausible to suggest that it was orchestrated within the Obama White House itself before the government changed hands at the inauguration on January 20th. In line with that thinking, some observers are now suggesting that Comey might well have been party to the conspiracy and his dismissal would have been perfectly justified based on his demonstrated interference in both the electoral process and in his broadening of the acceptable role of his own Bureau, which Trump has described as showboating.

Two well-informed observers of the situation have recently joined in the discussion, Robert Parry of Consortiumnews and former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. McGovern has noted, as have I, that there is one individual who has been curiously absent from the list of former officials who have been called in to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is ex-CIA Director John Brennan, who many have long considered an extreme Obama/Hillary Clinton loyalist long rumored to be at the center of the information damaging to Team Trump sent to Washington by friendly intelligence services, including the British.

Ray suggests that Brennan and also Comey may been at the center of a Deep State combined CIA-NSA-FBI cabal working to discredit the Trump candidacy and delegitimize his presidency. Brennan in particular was uniquely well placed to fabricate the Russian hacker narrative that has been fully embraced by Congress and the media even though no actual evidence supporting that claim has yet been produced. As WikiLeaks has now revealed that the CIA had the technical ability to hack into sites surreptitiously while leaving behind footprints that would attribute the hack to someone else, including the Russians, it does not take much imagination to consider that the alleged trail to Moscow might have been fabricated. If that is so, this false intelligence has in turn proven to be of immense value to those seeking to present proof that the Russian government handed the presidency to Donald Trump.

Robert Parry asked in an article on May 10th whether we are seeing is Watergate redux or Deep State coup? and then followed up with a second Piece The Soft Coup of Russia-gate on the 13th. In other words, is this all a cover-up of wrongdoing by the White House akin to President Richard Nixons firing of Watergate independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of both the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General or is it something quite different, an undermining of an elected president who has not actually committed any high crimes and misdemeanors to force his removal from office. Like Parry, I am reluctant to embrace conspiracy theories, in my case largely because I believe a conspiracy is awfully hard to sustain. The federal government leaks like a sieve and if more than two conspirators ever meet in the CIA basement it would seem to me their discussion would become public knowledge within forty-eight hours, but perhaps what we are seeing here is less a formal arrangement than a group of individuals who are loosely connected while driven by a common objective.

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Parry sees the three key players in the scheme as John Brennan of CIA, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and James Comey of the FBI. Comeys role in the coup was key as it consisted of using his office to undercut both Hillary Clinton and Trump, neither of whom was seen as a truly suitable candidate by the Deep State. He speculates that a broken election might well have resulted in a vote in the House of Representatives to elect the new president, a process that might have produced a Colin Powell presidency as Powell actually received three votes in the Electoral College and therefore was an acceptable candidate under the rules governing the electoral process.

Yes, the scheme is bizarre, but Parry carefully documents how Russiagate has developed and how the national security and intelligence organs have been key players as it moved along, often working by leaking classified information. And President Barack Obama was likely the initiator, notably so when he de facto authorized the wide distribution of raw intelligence on Trump and the Russians through executive order. Parry notes, as would I, that to date no actual evidence has been presented to support allegations that Russia sought to influence the U.S. election and/or that Trump associates were somehow coopted by Moscows intelligence services as part of the process. Nevertheless, anyone even vaguely connected with Trump who also had contact with Russia or Russians has been regarded as a potential traitor. Carter Page, for example, who was investigated under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, was under suspicion because he made a speech in Moscow which was mildly critical of the wests interaction with Russia after the fall of communism.

Parrys point is that there is a growing Washington consensus that consists of traditional liberals and progressives as well as Democratic globalist interventionists and neoconservatives who believe that Donald Trump must be removed from office no matter what it takes. The interventionists and neocons in particular already control most of the foreign policy mechanisms but they continue to see Trump as a possible impediment to their plans for aggressive action against a host of enemies, most particularly Russia. As they are desirous of bringing down Trump legally through either impeachment or Article 25 of the Constitution which permits removal for incapacity, it might be termed a constitutional coup, though the other labels cited above also fit.

The rationale Trump haters have fabricated is simple: the president and his team colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor, which, if true, would provide grounds for impeachment. The driving force, in terms of the argument being made, is that removing Trump must be done for the good of the country and to correct a mistake made by the American voters. The mainstream media is completely on board of the process, including the outlets that flatter themselves by describing their national stature, most notably the New York Times and Washington Post.

So what is to be done? For starters, until Donald Trump has unambiguously broken a law the critics should take a valium and relax. He is an elected president and his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama certainly did plenty of things that in retrospect do not bear much scrutiny. Folks like Ray McGovern and Robert Parry should be listened to even when they are being provocative in their views. They are not, to be sure, friends of the White House in any conventional way and are not apologists for those in power, quite the contrary. Ray has been strongly critical of the current foreign policy, most particularly of the expansion of various wars, claims of Damascuss use of chemical weapons, and the cruise missile attack on Syria. Robert in his latest article describes Trump as narcissistic and politically incompetent. But their legitimate concerns are that we are moving in a direction that is far more dangerous than Trump. A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do.
May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Russia's President Vladimir Putin spoke at the opening of the One Belt, One Road international forum in Beijing on Sunday. The two-day summit will focus on China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

In his address, Putin welcomed Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative and stressed that Russia is committed to working with its regional partners to forge a new " political and economic landscape of the continent and bring peace, stability, prosperity and a new quality of life to Eurasia ... Greater Eurasia is not an abstract geopolitical arrangement but, without exaggeration, a truly civilisation-wide project looking toward the future".

Highlights from his speech:

Let us not forget about those threats that stem from regional conflicts. Areas of smouldering disagreements still exist across Eurasia. In order to eliminate those conflicts, first of all, we need to abandon hostile rhetoric, mutual accusations and rebukes that only aggravate the situation. Altogether, none of the old approaches to conflict resolution should be used to solve modern problems. We need fresh and stereotype-free ideas.

I believe Eurasia can work out and propose a constructive and positive agenda on issues relating to security, improving relations between states, economic development, social change, better administration and the search for new forces capable of driving growth.

For the global community, we must be an example of a collective, innovative and constructive future based on justice, equality and respect for national sovereignty, international law and the unwavering principles of the United Nations.

However, desire and will alone are not enough to follow through on this agenda. Efficient tools for this type of cooperation are required. These can be created through integration. Today there are many thriving integration projects in Eurasia. We support them and are vested in their further development.

Many are aware of the fact that Russia and its partners are building the Eurasian Economic Union. The parties of the EAEU have similar views on Eurasian integration and it is very important to us that the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are participating in this forum.

We welcome Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative. By proposing this initiative, President Xi Jinping has demonstrated an example of a creative approach toward fostering integration in energy, infrastructure, transport, industry and humanitarian collaboration, about which I have just talked at length.

I believe that by adding together the potential of all the integration formats like the EAEU, the OBOR, the SCO and the ASEAN, we can build the foundation for a larger Eurasian partnership. This is the approach that, we believe, should be applied to the agenda proposed today by the Peoples Republic of China.

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We would welcome the involvement of our European colleagues from the EU states in this partnership. This would make it truly concordant, balanced and all encompassing, and will allow us to realise a unique opportunity to create a common cooperation framework from the Atlantic to the Pacific  for the first time in history.

It is necessary that already today, we start acting upon the development strategy of the large Eurasian partnership. Thus, we can set an ambitious goal of making the flow of goods across as expedient, convenient and unhindered as possible . Just now, in his address, President Xi Jinping spoke about lifting bureaucratic barriers for trade flows between China and Kazakhstan. We can see it happening along other routes.

Additionally, I would like to stress that Russia is not only willing to be a reliable trading partner but also seeks to invest in the creation of joint ventures and new production capacities in partnering states, to invest in industrial facilities, sales and services.

Furthermore, it is necessary to eliminate infrastructure restrictions for integration  mainly by creating a system of modern and well-connected transport corridors. Russia with its unique geographic location is willing to engage in this joint activity.

We are consistently upgrading our maritime, railway and road infrastructure, expanding the capacity of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, investing significant resources into improvements to the Northeast Passage in order for it to become a global competitive transport artery.

If we look at the bigger picture, the infrastructure projects within the EAEU and the One Belt, One Road initiative in conjunction with the Northeast Passage can completely reconfigure transportation on the Eurasian continent, which is the key to exploring new territory and intensifying economic and investment activity . Let us pave these roads to development and prosperity together.

We expect newly established financial institutions like New Development Bank (BRICS Development Bank) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to offer a supporting hand to private investors . And of course, quality integration is only possible with the support of strong human capital, qualified professionals, advanced technology and research.

On a final note, I would like to stress that Russia does not simply view the future of the Eurasian partnership as the mere establishment of new ties between states and economies. This partnership must shift the political and economic landscape of the continent and bring peace, stability, prosperity and a new quality of life to Eurasia.

Understandably our citizens need security, confidence in the future and the opportunity to be productive and improve the wealth and well-being of their families. It is our common duty and responsibility to ensure they have these opportunities.

In this respect, the greater Eurasia is not an abstract geopolitical arrangement but, without exaggeration, a truly civilisation-wide project looking toward the future.

I believe that by maintaining the spirit of cooperation, we can achieve that future.
China Deals With Aftermath Of Earthquake (Photo : Getty Images/China Photos)

With 200 million Chinese students who have used How Are You as their English textbook while in junior high school from 1990 to 2000, producers of a movie which used fictional characters from the textbook see the former students as the potential audience.



English-speaking Parrot



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The fictional characters such as Ha Meime, Jim, Lucy, Miss Gao, Li Lei, Lily, and Polly, the parrot that speaks English, are also the characters in the movie that would premiere across China on June 9. The upcoming film sourced their interactions and dialogues from the textbook and an oral English cassette tape that came with How Are You.



Because the textbook led to the development of a pop culture as the students remembered their school days, How Are You had become a topic of discussion on the Internet since 2005, China.org reported. Han Meimei and Li Lei became the basis of a lot of cultural creations such as a comic strip, books, stage play, mini movie, a music group, a TV series, merchandise and amateur music video.



The film, which offers a puppy love-romantic storyline, stars young actors Zhang Yijie and Zhang Zifeng and is directed by Yang Yongchun.



LGBT Victory



Meanwhile, Qiu Bai, a lesbian activist from Guangzhou City who filed a lawsuit in 2016 to change the way that college textbooks discuss homosexuality as a disease, announced on Saturday a victory in her campaign. She said that the China Renmin University Press, one of the biggest and most respected educational publishing houses in the country, promised to revise its psychology textbook, Sixth Tone reported.



Besides apologizing to the LGBT advocate and its readers, the publishing house said it would strive to produce material that conveys scientific knowledge and respects the values of diversity. Qiu Bai sent letters to 10 educational publishers in China because their textbooks still consider homosexuality as an ailment even it was removed by Chinese authorities in 2001 as a mental disease.


Leak Came From Within Democratic National Committee

By Ray Mc Govern

Tuesday on The Alan Colmes Show, Alan spoke with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, one of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity who believes the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign were not hacked by the Russians, but victims of a leak from within the DNC.

McGovern said that when President Obama wanted an investigation into the possible hacking, he was doing so at the behest of the director of the CIA, John Brennan. McGovern also said the email leak was probably done by a disgruntled DNC staffer who was upset by Sen. Bernie Sanders treatment by Democrats and President-Elect Trump should not focus on the intelligence briefings of the CIA since its director only wants to bring him down.

If audio is not working please click here

Alan Colmes Show McGovern: A Disgruntled Bernie Supporter Probably Leaked DNC Emails McGovern: A Disgruntled Bernie Supporter Probably Leaked DNC Emails
Fact or Fiction?

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation



By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT May 16, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - WASHINGTON  President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting. I hope you can let this go, the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. The existence of Mr. Trumps request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trumps associates and Russia. Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned , according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the presidents improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agents contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations. Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comeys associates read parts of the memo to a Times reporter. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo. Mr. Comey did not say anything to Mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying: I agree he is a good guy. In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo. While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn, the statement said. The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey. In testimony to the Senate last week, the acting F.B.I. director, Andrew G. McCabe, said, There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Mr. McCabe was referring to the broad investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The investigation into Mr. Flynn is separate. A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. Mr. Comey created similar memos  including some that are classified  about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last week. Trump administration officials have provided multiple, conflicting accounts of the reasoning behind Mr. Comeys dismissal. Mr. Trump said in a television interview that one of the reasons was because he believed this Russia thing was a made-up story. The Feb. 14 meeting took place just a day after Mr. Flynn was forced out of his job after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of phone conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Despite the conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey, the investigation of Mr. Flynn has proceeded. In Virginia, a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas in recent weeks for records related to Mr. Flynn. Part of the Flynn investigation is centered on his financial ties to Russia and Turkey. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter Mr. Comey had been in the Oval Office that day with other senior national security officials for a terrorism threat briefing. When the meeting ended, Mr. Trump told those present  including Mr. Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions  to leave the room except for Mr. Comey. Alone in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump began the discussion by condemning leaks to the news media, saying that Mr. Comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information, according to one of Mr. Comeys associates. Mr. Trump then turned the discussion to Mr. Flynn. After writing up a memo that outlined the meeting, Mr. Comey shared it with senior F.B.I. officials. Mr. Comey and his aides perceived Mr. Trumps comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret  even from the F.B.I. agents working on the Russia investigation  so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation. Mr. Comey was known among his closest advisers to document conversations that he believed would later be called into question, according to two former confidants, who said Mr. Comey was uncomfortable at times with his relationship with Mr. Trump . Mr. Comeys recollection has been bolstered in the past by F.B.I. notes. In 2007, he told Congress about a now-famous showdown with senior White House officials over the Bush administrations warrantless wiretapping program. The White House disputed Mr. Comeys account, but the F.B.I. director at the time, Robert S. Mueller III, kept notes that backed up Mr. Comeys story. The White House has repeatedly crossed lines that other administrations have been reluctant to cross when discussing politically charged criminal investigations. Mr. Trump has disparaged the continuing F.B.I. investigation as a hoax and called for an inquiry into his political rivals. His representatives have taken the unusual step of declaring no need for a special prosecutor to investigate the presidents associates. The Oval Office meeting occurred a little more than two weeks after Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Comey to the White House for a lengthy, one-on-one dinner at the residence . At that dinner, on Jan. 27, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Comey at least two times for a pledge of loyalty  which Mr. Comey declined, according to one of Mr. Comeys associates. In a Twitter post on Friday , Mr. Trump said that James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! After the meeting, Mr. Comeys associates did not believe there was any way to corroborate Mr. Trumps statements. But Mr. Trumps suggestion last week that he was keeping tapes has made them wonder whether there are tapes that back up Mr. Comeys account. The Jan. 27 dinner came a day after White House officials learned that Mr. Flynn had been interviewed by F.B.I. agents about his phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. On Jan. 26, Acting Attorney General Sally Q. Yates told the White House counsel about the interview, and said Mr. Flynn could be subject to blackmail by the Russians because they knew he had lied about the content of the calls.  2017 The New York Times Company This article was first published by New York Times The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. In case you missed it; Ray McGovern: A Disgruntled Bernie Supporter Probably Leaked DNC Emails : McGovern said that when President Obama wanted an investigation into the possible hacking, he was doing so at the behest of the director of the CIA, John Brennan.
A member of the House of Representatives, Mr Kehinde Odeneye, says the 2017 N7.28tn budget will be monitored to ensure the release of funds and its implementation to the letter once it is assented to by the President.

Odeneye, who represents Ijebu Central Federal Constituency in Ogun on the platform of APC, also ruled out padding in the budget.

He told newsmen in Ijebu-Ode on Monday, We have done our own bit and part of the job as lawmakers saddled with the responsibility of approving the nations budget and also ensuring national spread.

After passing the budget and it is assented to by the President, we will monitor its implementation by ensuring that money is released and projects executed, he said.

The National Assembly had on May 11 passed the 2017 Appropriations Bill, raising the budget from N7.28 tn earlier proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year, to N7.44tn.

The Appropriations Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives separately presented their harmonised reports of the budget for consideration and subsequent passage on Thursday.

According to the report, N434.4bn was appropriated for statutory transfers to the National Judicial Council (N100 billion); Niger Delta Development Commission (N64.02 billion); Universal Basic Education (N95.2 billion); National Assembly (N125 billion); Public Complaints Commission (N4 billion); INEC (N45 billion); and National Human Rights Commission (N1.2 billion).

Odeneye, however, called for a synergy between the executive and legislative arms for a successful budget implementation and for the oversight functions of National Assembly members.

The lawmaker said he was sponsoring a bill to amend the Education Tax Act of 2004 for an upward review of the penalties for non-compliance with the Act.

The bill has been submitted but not yet listed, said Odeneye, a chartered accountant and House Committee member on Public Accounts.

On pressure from the electorate, he appealed to the people not to demand or collect money from politicians to vote them into office.

Describing demands for money from elected public officers as corruption, Odeneye said: I appeal to the electorate not to demand money from politicians for voting them into office.

If you do not collect money from them and they do not perform, you can curse them. But if you have collected money, the curse will have no effect, he said on the sidelines of his skills acquisition and empowerment programme for another batch of 447 youths and women.

Sewing machines, computers, tools for hairdressers, vulcanizers, cobblers and welders were distributed free after training by Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria.

Gov. Ibikunle Amosun and Odeneye gave out the items at the event held at Dipo Dina Stadium, Ijebu-Ode.

In his speech, Amosun said the empowerment programme complemented his administrations effort at creating more jobs and alleviating poverty.

It is giving back to the society; creating jobs will ensure wealth creation.

I commend the effective representation of Odeneye of the Ijebu people in the National Assembly, said Amosun, who was represented by the Speaker, State House of Assembly, Mr Suraj Adekumbi.

Source: (NAN)
She is a model and stands at 6ft plus, outspokenness and uncanny knack for roles interpretation, The movie industry in Nigeria, no doubt, is being run and made lively by female actors.

While those who have rocked the industry in the past are getting tired due to old age and request for fresh faces keep increasing, new faces are taking over to fill the vacant spaces left by their seniors in the game AKINTOLA CHRISTIANA KEHINDE who hails from (Ekiti state) is indeed a star to watch out for as she is currently dazzling Nollywood.I have a passion for acting, and I believe I have a lot to offer the industry, soft-spoken and fast rising actress who is also a model debuted with a movie produced and directed by Uche Akwari, aka Zeemoney, CHRISTIANA is also into fashion and has done several high profile exhibitons fashion shows.

The tall and elegant looking CHRISTIANA is one of the first actresses in Nollywood to invest in fashion business. Her fashion outfit is called CASSYLOT, The store sells Unisex Shirts, Ties, Pocket squares, Cufflinks Boxes and so on. Apart from that, she also has a shop called CASSY AFFAIRS, which is meant for selling of Shoes,

Bags and different kinds of fashion accessories.The fashion business for her started out of her passion for fashion and she has always been in the business. This especially reflects in her production and that was why she decided to have her own production outfit.
A Federal Capital Territory, FCT, high court sitting in Maitama, yesterday, nullified a four-year-old marriage between Mr. Ugochukwu Eke and Uchenna Eke because the wife concealed her HIV status before marriage.The judge, Justice Jude Okeke, in his judgment, held that the petitioners evidence had been accepted since the woman did not file any protest contradicting the facts.

He ruled:

Quote

The court holds the view that by undeniable evidence the respondent is suffering from HIV prior and during the marriage.

In the circumstance, the court holds the view that the petitioner has fulfilled the provisions of Section 5 (1) (a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 2004 to grant the prayers sought.

Quote

In the light of this, a decree of nullity of the marriage between the petitioner and the respondent contracted on February 12, 2013 at marriage registry of Kaduna South District is hereby nullified.

He recalled that Eke, on June 15, 2016, filed a petition seeking the nullification of his marriage with his wife, Uchenna.

The judge said that the petitioner pleaded for voiding of the marriage because his wife was suffering from a terminal disease, and in a communicable form before the consummation of the marriage. He held that the woman concealed the information about her health condition from her husband and they got married after which she relocated from Kaduna to Abuja on November 29, 2013 to join the man. Okeke held that there was no pre-marital dating and no medical laboratory test to ascertain their HIV status.

He said that Eke, on December 2, 2015, discovered that his wife was HIV positive after observing that she was sick and frequenting Kaduna to visit a doctor. According to the judge, the petitioner stopped having sexual intercourse with the respondent and on February 15, 2016 she packed out of the house.

He, therefore, dissolved the marriage on grounds that the woman did not contradict the prayer of her husband and the facts presented by him to end the union.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has called on Nigerians to curse looters of national treasury, three times daily. In a statement released on Monday, Ishaq Akintola, director of the group, also asked on jobless graduates to rain curses on  their oppressors.

Akintola advised the federal government to adopt an unconventional method in its fight against corruption, citing some techniques that have failed in various countries.

Looters have the elephant while FG has the ant. South Africa used the truth commission when it had a national crisis but it did not work when Nigeria adopted it because many powerful people refused to appear before the commission, he said in a statement.

A drastic problem requires a drastic solution. So what else is the panacea to corruption in Nigeria?

We believe that it is time to adopt something unconventional; something we have never adopted before; something that costs government no money or effort at all; something revolutionary and mass-oriented; something local and scary and, above all, something in which every Nigerian has an emotional attachment.

MURIC charges the Nigerian masses to seize their destiny with their hands by mobilising their individual and collective prayer power.

Greatest Nigerian People! We must curse our oppressors three times daily.

Curse them in the morning as you rise from bed or from under the bridge if you are homeless. Curse them under the scorching sun as you trek up and down on empty stomachs. Curse them before you go to bed at night.

Curse them as you roll sleeplessly in bed. Curse them as you sweat profusely in bed when your fan is useless because they have stolen the money meant for electricity supply.

Curse them as your vehicle crawls on bad roads where you spend hours instead of minutes because they stole all the money allocated to the repair of roads.

Curse them as you wonder why you are still jobless despite graduating years ago.

Let us introduce self-curse mechanism at swearing-in ceremonies. We must suspend swearing by simply holding the Bible or the Quran. It has no effect on them. They are hardened thieves and die hard kleptomaniacs.

Let an appointee hold the Quran or Bible or anything he believes in and curse himself saying, for example, I, Lagbaja the son of akasegbe, if I betray the peoples trust, if I steal in this position, if I abuse my office or if I am unfair to others on ground of religion or ethnicity, let me be put to shame.

Let my children end up in the streets like the children of the poor. Let all the known and unknown diseases of this world afflict me and my children, like meningitis, ebola, lassa fever, cholera, etc. Let me sweat without reaping the fruit of my labourIn Allahs Mighty Name I swear

It also accused the national assembly of being the stumbling block in the fight against corruption.

Knowing the slow nature of judicial cases in Nigeria and over-loaded with stolen money, the foot soldiers of corruption have calculated that corruption cases will continue to drag for the next eight years even if Buhari wins a second term. this is why they are feeling comfortable and laughing at the masses.

Who will misbehave after this kind of swearing-in? Who is the son of a killer of elephants in the presence of a licensed killer of men? the group asked.

Politicians will become sober. In fact many of them will retire and only the serious ones will remain in the political arena.

The vultures in the NASS will go back to their various private businesses, leaving the seats open for young, patriotic and visionary Nigerians.

Source: Naijaloaded
Two men have landed in really serious trouble after allegedly defiling underage girls in an Abia State community.

Two men who have been identified as Chibueze Agunwa and Ugochukwu Oleka, have been arrested by the Aba personnel of Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Aba Central Police Station (CPS) for defiling two underage girls.

According to The Nation, Agunwa, a resident of Osunkwo Triangle road, Aba was said to have forcefully r*ped a 5-year-old girl on April 22, he was arrested on May 8 when police arrested him through a tip off.

Report has it that Oleka of Iroanusi road was arrested after the family of the 13year-old victim reported to the police that their daughter was raped in their house by him (Oleka).

According to police, pregnancy test carried on the victim shows that she is two months pregnant.

The suspects would soon be arraigned before the court as soon as possible.

In another development, the police in Aba have smashed a gang of robbers that specialized in snatching exotic cars.

It was gathered that a Toyota Highlander with registration number Abia SSM 631 TP and a Lexus RX300 SUV with registration number Abuja ABC 472 LK were also recovered from the gangs hideout while the gang members were being trailed by the police.

The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) DSP Geoffrey Ogbonna told reporters that the police have launched manhunt on the fleeing gang and urged members of the public to provide the police with useful information on the activities of hoodlums in their area.

Ogbonna added that the police in the state were committed in riding criminal out of the state and warned those who are thinking of going into crime to have a rethink and look for a legitimate work to do, stressing that the police would not fold their arms to watch unscrupulous elements come to disrupt the peace the state is experiencing at the moment.
A Ghanaian actress, Afia Schwarzenegger has mocked Nigerians and Nigeria, after watching a video of Bobrisky dancing as he is being sprayed dollars in Chicago.

Then later posted this after she received backlash for mocking Nigerians because of Bobriskys dollar video.

Woow i slept for only 9 hrs..And this what happened in that 9hrs

1.Someone couldnt stand my sense of humor so they reported my video

2.I had all the yahoo yahoo people insulting themselves on my page so at least i saved europe some cash

3.i woke up to the fact that i still have a president who cares since i slept with electricity

4.Thought 9ja had sharp tongue guess i was fooling myself

Thank you all for participating in that exercise

Good Morning Africai am laughing in capital letters to my office!!!

#Queenoffilla

#queenofcomedygh

#Onyamekala

Have a great day..


It was a lucky day for the parents of two new born babies as they were given birth to at the launching of the Free Medical Mission, programme of Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo state, on Monday, received cash gifts of N100,000 each from the governor.

The babies were born within fifteen minutes interval from each other.

The first baby, a female, was given birth to by Mrs Odunyemi Akinwale, immediately the governor began his keynote address.

However, the second baby, a male, was given birth to by Mrs Monsurat Kamorudeen, as the governor was rounding off his speech.

Dr Adeyanji Alaruru, Chief Consultant of Adeoyo Maternity Hospital, Ibadan, received the cash donation on behalf of the two mothers who were still at the lying-in ward.

Alaruru thanked the governor on behalf of the parents of the two babies, adding that they were truly double bundles of joy to the Ajimobi administration.

Todays ceremony is two-pronged; we have the flag-off of the Free Health Mission, and the Unveiling of Medical Equipment and Consumables by the governor.

This is a double blessing to the people of the state and to health care service delivery in Oyo as a whole,  he said.

Source:( PM News )
Some faceless gunmen have successfully kidnapped a Permanent Secretary in the Sunshine State of Ondo with huge financial demands made.

Some armed men have kidnapped the Permanent Secretary of the Ondo State Hospital Management Board, Dr. Niran Ikuomola and his driver on Sunday evening.

According to a source, the incident occurred on Lokoja/Abuja Expressway when the Perm Sec was on his way to Abuja for an official assignment.

The source said the hoodlums stopped his vehicle on the way, dragged him and his driver out of the vehicle and whisked them away to an unknown destination.

Speaking with newsmen in Akure on Monday, the Secretary of the Nigerian Medical Association in Ondo State, Dr. Roland Arohunmolase, said one of the kidnappers called the family on the telephone.

He said, Dr. Ikuomola was abducted yesterday (Sunday) with his driver on the Lokoja -Abuja road while on his way to Abuja for an official function.

The kidnappers have contacted us this morning (Monday) by demanding for the sum of N70m before he could be released to his family.

The Police Public Relations Officer in Ondo State, Femi Joseph, when contacted could not confirm the incident, saying it did not happen in his jurisdiction.

Im not yet aware, although, it is outside our jurisdiction but am sure some of our colleagues (police) in Kogi State would have taken prompt action on it Joseph explained.
Katheryn Winnick pulls on actor Travis Fimmel's beard as they joke around during a panel for the History series 'Vikings' during Comic-Con International 2015 at the San Diego Convention Center on July 10, 2015 in San Diego, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Ethan Miller)

"Vikings" Season 5 is going to completely change the course of the show, now that its main hero Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) is dead. In the upcoming season, actress Katheryn Winnick teases the rises of a new king who will be integral to the story of brothers Bjorn, Ubbe, Hvitsek and Ivar.



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In recall, "Vikings" Season 4B saw the death of Ragnar Lothbrok. Under King Aelle's command, Ragnar was thrown into a pit of snakes where he died a slow and painful death. Although Ragnar's sons were able to avenge him by executing King Aelle, Ragnar's rain has come to pass and now it's time to usher in a new king.



Ragnar's sons will be hit hard by his death, but it will motivate them and give them a "new purpose in life," creator Michael Hirst tells Variety. Hirst, however, says that Ragnar is still very much a part of the story in some way or form.



"Ragnar never goes away. We've shot nearly 25 episodes after the death of Ragnar, and we're following the sons still. But Ragnar never goes away, because his presence is still there, as long as Lagertha and Floki and Bjorn are alive," Hirst explains. He adds that Ragnar lives on through his ambitions for his people, and his sons will pick up on his legacy.



While the question as to who will succeed Ragnar is still up for discussion, Katheryn Winnick recently revealed that a new key player will emerge in "Vikings" Season 5 and it looks like one of his brothers will portray the role.



According to Den of Geek, Winnick shared a photo of her and her brothers on Instagram. The siblings are all on the set of "Vikings" Season 5, where they filmed a scene together. Interestingly, the actress also used King Angantyr as a hashtag.



The character may be based on Angantyr Heidreksson, which in history is known as the first Swedish ruler of the House of Munso. King Angantyr will likely go head to head with Aethelwulf of Wessex and Harald Finehair as the first King of Norway.



"Viking" Season 5 is expected to premiere on History this fall.


The Lagos State Government on Monday announced that it has paid the sum of N11.75 billion to 2,886 retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme, CPS, in the last one year.

Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke disclosed this at a ministerial press conference in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, adding that governments funding of employees pension rights under the CPS since inception stood at N138.4 billion.

According to Oke, the state government, through the Lagos State Pension Commission (LASPEC) had paid the sum of N11.75 into the Retirement Saving Account (RSA) of 2,886 retirees, out of which 1,291 of the retirees were from the local government and State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB; 697 from Teachers Establishment Pension Office, TEPO; 887 from the mainstream service and 11 from parastatals.

Oke added that there had been regular deductions of 7.5 per cent from the salaries of staff and corresponding 7.5 per cent by the state government into the RSA maintained by them with their appointed PFAs.

As at March 2017, these deductions have cumulatively risen to N78.592 billion since the inception of the scheme in 2007. This administration has not relented in the bailout of the local government and State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) retirees. The Governor magnanimously gave instructions for state government funds to be utilised to pay retirees from local government, he said.

In essence, Lagos State Governments funding of employees pension rights under the Contributory Pension Scheme in a period of10 years is approximately N138, 413.560 billion, he added.

He revealed that the state government, through the commission had paid to beneficiaries of deceased employees Insurance benefit worth N170 million.

Oke added that the insured death was by law to be paid to named beneficiaries to alleviate the immediate needs of the family members of a deceased person, saying that the Estate of a deceased staff is also entitled to receive the balance in the retirement account and accrued rights due, if the employee had joined service before the commencement of the CPS.

On training, the commissioner disclosed that over 5,000 employees had been trained in the last one year and that 3,160 officers benefitted from 72 in-plant/tailored made workshops and training programme; 1650 officers benefited from 25 turnkey/bespoke training programme; 84 officers were sponsored to federal training centre for career enhancing programme, among others.

Source: ( PM News )
A 22-year-old woman along with six other suspects have been arrested by the Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos Police Command over the sale of a day old baby for the sum of N250,000.

Policemen who had been working on a two-month intelligence gathering arrested Miss Onyinyechi Osoneye who sold the baby to Mr. and Mrs. John Chukwu of 34, Odeleye Aina Street, Okota, Lagos.

Onyinyechi confirmed the baby was sold in connivance with one Mrs. Joy Osoneye who helped her conceal the pregnancy from her parents.

According to the police, Onyinyechi was admitted to a Hospital in Ikota, Lekki-Ajah Expressway, where Mrs. Glory Ehinmi, 35, delivered her of a baby boy on March 1, 2017.

Ehinmi then took the baby from her at the point of delivery and gave it to Mrs. Prisca Okocha, 45, her sister and the owner of Peculiar Hospital, Orile, who offered Onyinyechis mother N250,000.

The police also learnt that Mrs. Okocha, in turn, sold out the baby to one 59-year-old Mrs. Regina Anyanwu who brought the eventual buyers, Mr. and Mrs. Ike Nwata.

Okocha confessed she sold the baby for N850, 000 but gave the mother N250, 000.

It was further learnt that the buying couples who were desperately in need of a child organised a huge party to celebrate the babys arrival.

The baby has been handed over to the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs while five suspects have been transferred to Gender Office, State Headquarters, Ikeja, for further investigations.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A drug dealer was caught posing for pictures with large amounts of cash and expensive watches after supplying a city with heroin and crack cocaine.

Kenechi Ochereobia controlled the drugs operation using a central mobile, but ran a network of drug couriers around Cardiff with his brother Oluchi.

Read via Mirror Online;

Officers searching his home found around 23,000 in cash at Kenechis home in Cardiff, along with pictures of him posing with wads of notes.

He tried to hide his involvement by pretending to be a legitimate clothes distributor, whilst in reality he was getting younger gang members to run drugs across the country, reports Wales Online .

Kenechi and his brother contacted hundreds of numbers via text when they had supplies of drugs available, the Metropolitan Police said.

The brothers would receive orders back, and then instruct others to supply the users in Norwich. Their couriers would then collect the money in exchange for the drugs in Norwich.

The operation was uncovered following an investigation by the Mets Trident and Area Crime Command, with support from colleagues from South Wales Police and Norfolk Constabulary.

Kenechi Ochereobia, 25, from Penylan, Cardiff, was found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs alongside his brother Oluchi, 22, from Hackney, at Blackfriars Crown Court .

Officers also searched a nearby address the pair had just visited and found Elliot Murawski along with 6,000 in cash hidden inside an oven at the house. Murawski, 26, of Riverside Road, Norwich, was also arrested but was released from custody while enquiries continued.

Further enquiries led officers to identify Calvyn Green, 25, of Keyworth Close, Hackney, as being linked to the network and he was arrested on September 6 at Ipswich Railway Station on a London-bound train from Norwich.

The men were all subsequently charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs  namely heroin and crack cocaine.

Murawski and Prince both pleaded guilty to the conspiracy. The other four were all found guilty following a trial.

All are due to be sentenced on May 26.

Source: Naijaloaded
A man and his sister who had the nerve to attack a police officer in a Lagos community are being made to pay for it.

Two siblings identified as Patrick Asemokhne, 24, and Rebecca Asemokhne, 21, on Monday appeared in a Yaba Chief Magistrates Court, Lagos, for allegedly slapping a police officer on duty and tearing his uniform.

Vanguard reports that the duo, of no fixed address, are also accused of dispossessing the officer of some of his valuables.

They, however, pleaded not guilty to the three-count-charge of affray, assault and stealing brought against them.

The prosecutor, Insp. Romanus Unuigbe, told the court that the duo committed the offences on May 4, at Kiniun-Ifa Street, Ifako, in Gbagada, Lagos.

He said that the siblings got into a fight with one Iyoha Ohireme, a police officer on duty, who waved them down on a commercial motorcycle.

Unuigbe said the duo, in the scuffle with the police officer, slapped him on the face, tore his uniform and dispossessed him of valuables worth N205,000.

According to Unuigbe, the offences contravene Sections 54, 172 and 258 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The Chief Magistrate, Mr P.A. Ojo, granted the accused bail in the sum of N250,000 each, with two responsible sureties each in like sum.

He said that one of the sureties must be from the fathers side, and adjourned the case until June 26, for trial.
Policemen on Monday rescued two suspected thieves from being lynched by a mob in Minna, Niger State.

The suspected burglars were caught by neighbours who came to the rescue of a man and his girlfriend who had earlier been robbed by the duo.

The robbers who were said to be four in number attacked a student in Entrepreneur and Business Studies Department with a machete leaving cuts on him after stabbing him. They took his phones and laptop, witnesses said.

The incident happened in Sound City Lodge, Gidan Kwano Minna as the victim came out to put off his generator. They accompanied him into his apartment and asked for his gadgets. The girlfriend locked away in the bathroom alerted neighbours.

Two of the gang members were caught while others escaped.

The thieves were then beaten to a pulp and were about to be set ablaze before policemen attached to the Kpakungu Division, Niger State arrived to salvage situation.

See the photos below.


The Ondo State Police Command said it would not prosecute the 14-year-old housemaid, Mary Akinnifesi, who allegedly put poison into the food of her boss, Alhaji Nasiru Akinlosotu, in Ondo town Ondo State last week.

Akinnifesi was alleged to have added some rat-killer powder to Akinlosotus food as revenge for the alleged maltreatment she suffered from her boss.

The 63-year-old boss was reported to have noticed the poison in the food as he discovered that the food had a strange taste and an unpleasant odour when he was eating it.

It was gathered that he quickly vomited the little he had swallowed from the food and asked the maid about the content of the food but she denied adding poison to it.

She later confessed to having committed the offence during an interrogation by the neighbour of the boss and thereafter she was handed over to the police.

Speaking with our correspondent on Tuesday, the Public Relations Officer of the Ondo State Police Command declared that the command would not prosecute the teenager following the instruction of her boss.

He said, We are not going to prosecute the girl again because the complainant (Akinlosotu) has written to us to withdraw the case. So in that sense, there is nothing the police can do other than to obey the instruction of the complainant.

We intend to do our job but we dont want a situation whereby we will get to the court and the court will say we are crying more than the bereaved, that is why we leave the case like that. 

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Mrs Mgbechi Enyinnaya estranged nanny of Tony Dikehs son, has accused the Nollywood actress of subjecting her to all forms of emotional and psychological abuse while working for her.

The 56-year-old native of Imo State, who opened up on what really transpired between them in a chat with journalists in Lagos on Sunday after a video showing her being questioned by Dikeh in company of others went viral on the internet over the weekend, said that contrary to claims by the actress of showing her love by regularly gifting her money for her children, she had never done so.

Though Enyinnaya acknowledged that Dikeh had on a number of occasions given her clothes for two of her children, she dismissed most of what Tonto said, in a disclaimer over the weekend, as false.

She said, Throughout the period I worked for Tonto, she always assaulted me verbally. At the slightest opportunity, she would rain abuses on me and tell that she would scatter me if I wasnt careful.

I lived in that house with her despite all the constant harassment because of her son, King. I loved the boy like my own child and it was because of him that I stayed long with her. She has never given me money to give to my children.

The only thing she did was to give me some of the clothes she wanted to distribute to motherless babies homes to give to my children. Tonto said that she had taken me to 15 countries, let her show the world my passport and the copy of the visas she claimed to had obtained for me.

The only place we went outside Nigeria together was Ghana and it was her husband, Churchill, that took us there. The video she posted online was not the complete version. All the things I said, they did not show it. .

She only showed where she and others were intimidating me; they never allowed me to talk. Let her tell the world the truth because I worked for her diligently and had never conspired with anyone to tarnish her image.

Source: News Cantell
A South African man has been caught in a shoot-out with the police after he tried to hijack a car.

A South African man has been shot while allegedly trying to hijack a police vehicle in Alberton, South Africa on Monday afternoon. He was shot in the head as he tried to drive away with the car on the N3, police sources told News24.

In the process, he lost control as the car veered off the road.

ER24 spokesperson, Russel Meiring said the car veered off the road during a shoot-out between police and the would-be hijacker. He was later attended to by paramedics.
The ongoing University Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) on Monday in Yenagoa did not go well for some candidate as there were complains about the system failure they experienced during the examination.

A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who went round some centres, reported that the first session of the examination on Monday started at 9.00 a.m. instead of 7.00 a.m. as scheduled.

The candidates described the Computer Based Testing (CBT) mode as hectic.

They said they were not happy over the system failure and difficulty they experienced in logging into the JAMB website.

CBT centres visited were Linnet Paul Innovation Institute in Etegwe, Kings and Queens College Centre 1 and 2, Yenagoa Local Government Area and Imiringi Centre in Ogbia area, among others.

Paul Izibeloko, a candidate at the Kings and Queens College Centre 1 told NAN shortly after his examination that the major challenge was system failure and poor internet connection.

Izibeloko, who participated in the first session, said it was difficult for him to log-in into the website due to the system hanging.

At Linnet Innovation Institute centre, Miss Mary Perezi said the examination process was stressful as she waited too long for her batch to take turn.

The examination processes are worrisome starting from the day one when you buy the form, up to the time of writing the examination.

It has not been easy waiting for ones turn since morning.

The JAMB officer said that I will be going for the third session.

The third session is fixed for 4.00 p.m. So it is hectic indeed, she said.

Mr Lemo Suleiman, the Supervisor at Linnet Innovation Institute centre told NAN that there were 250 computers for the examination in the centre.

System malfunctions can happen due to one reason or another.

Those faults are not from JAMB officers; we have engineers on ground; they have been helping us to fix some of the system immediately any fault is discovered.

The examination has been smooth and hitch-free here; no security threat and the candidates well behaved.

We conducts three sections daily, that is 7.00 a.m., 12.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m., Suleiman said.
As more groups get into the denial-of-service attack business they're starting to get in each other's way, according to a report released this morning.

That translates into a smaller average attack size, said Martin McKeay, senior security advocate at Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai Technologies.

There are only so many devices around that have the kind of vulnerabilities that make them potential targets for a botnet. "And other people can come in and take over the device, and take those resources to feed their own botnet," he said. "I'm seeing that over and over."

McKeay said that Akamai is seeing evidence of the contention in the threat intelligence it gathers, as well as in the size of the attacks. The median attack size has been decreasing over the last year and a half, he said. At the start of 2015, the median DDoS attack size was 4 gigabits per second, and it went down to just over 500 megabits per second during the first quarter of this year.

The number of very large attacks has also gone down over the past year, from 19 attacks greater than 100 gigabits per second over the course of the first quarter of 2016, to just two attacks of that size during the first quarter of this year. That could be due to the fact that several large DDoS crews were arrested at the end of last year.

"Because of the high publicity of some of these attacks, we have Interpol and U.S. government agencies going after the owners and authors of those botnets," McKeay said. "Those people are getting jailed, and that portion of the attack traffic goes away."

But that doesn't mean that companies can get complacent about their defenses, since other groups may step in to take their place. "DDoS in general is a cyclic phenomenon," he said. "About three years ago, it really took off and we saw a big increase. It's been trending down for about a year but we suspect that that's just a temporary change, and it's going to start back up again."

Meanwhile, even smaller-sized attacks can still do a great deal of damage. According to the Akamai report, many businesses lease Internet uplinks of between 1 and 10 gigabits per second, so any attack bigger than 10 gigabits per second could take an unprotected business offline.

And the capabilities of attackers keep expanding, McKeay added. "Within two to three years, we might see a 5- to 10-terabit attack," he said.

With more criminal groups competing for access to vulnerable devices for their botnets, does that mean that we might see less ransomware such as the WannaCry attack?

No such luck.

"It's a different group of resources that are being used," said McKeay. "When we're talking about the ransomware like that which we've been seeing since Friday, that's a completely different breed than DDoS."

This story, "Cybercrooks fight over DDoS attack resources" was originally published by CSO .
***Market Wrap-up Nov 9 RJO Futures - 29 minutes ago Summary of today's events, Stocks/Bonds (Sorry no election talk)

Hogs Mixed Mostly Lower Barchart - 1 hour ago Hogs close with a 30 cent loss in the Dec contract, but 2 to 65 cent gains in the other nearbys. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price for Wednesday was $0.48 higher to $87.70. The CME Lean Hog Index... HEZ22 : 85.275s (-0.35%) HEJ23 : 94.625s (+0.45%) KMZ22 : 95.450s (-0.55%)

Cotton Ends Red on Wednesday Barchart - 1 hour ago Cotton futures faded on report day with losses of 36 to 118 points. USDA reduced their average farm price for cotton by a nickel to 85 cents/lb. Monthly USDA projections had a 13 lb/acre cotton yield... CTZ22 : 86.50s (-1.35%) CTH23 : 84.73s (-1.18%) CTK23 : 83.79s (-1.24%)

Soybeans Close Higher on Strong Soy Oil Barchart - 1 hour ago Soybean futures had a wild roller coaster day for the midweek trade, leading the Jan contract back and forth within an impressive 24 1/4 cents (from +11 to -13 cents). Ultimately the board ended the session... ZSX22 : 1459-6s (+1.09%) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.2141 (+0.53%) ZSF23 : 1452-0s (+0.38%) ZSH23 : 1457-2s (+0.28%)

Cattle Futures Fade on Wednesday Barchart - 1 hour ago Live cattle futures ended the day with 25 cent losses in the August 23 contract to 62 cent losses in the Feb. Dec cattle dropped by $1.47 on the day to close at $151.57. USDA confirmed some moderate... LEZ22 : 151.575s (-0.96%) LEG23 : 154.150s (-0.40%) LEJ23 : 157.775s (-0.30%) GFX22 : 177.725s (-0.31%) GFF23 : 179.650s (-0.14%)

Wheats Drop on Report Day Barchart - 1 hour ago Wheat futures ended the session with some double digit losses. Notably, Dec SRW was down 2.5% to the lowest print since Sep 6th, the $8 mark did hold at the low. KC HRW futures traded 1.3% to 1.7% lower... ZWZ22 : 806-4s (-2.57%) ZWH23 : 827-6s (-2.33%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.3919 (-2.76%) KEZ22 : 930-0s (-1.67%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.8808 (-1.74%) MWZ22 : 938-2s (-1.29%)

Lower Close for Midweek Corn Market Barchart - 1 hour ago Corn futures printed a volatile intra day chart, leading to a 14c range from +5 to -9 1/2. Ultimately, corn futures closed the day 3 to 5 cents in the red. New crop December weakened by more, leaving the... ZCZ22 : 664-4s (-0.45%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.6266 (-0.41%) ZCH23 : 670-4s (-0.48%) ZCK23 : 670-4s (-0.48%)

Shootin' the Bull about things remaining the same Swift Trading Company - Wed Nov 9, 3:17PM CST Election results lead me to believe nothing will change. My belief, not to be confused with fact, is that action taken by the Fed, to increase interest rates will impact businesses and then the consumer. ...
INNISFIL, Ontario (May 17, 2017)  Despite battling some adversity, Jordan Latmer was able to put together another solid performance on Saturday night at Sunset Speedway.

Latimer kicked off the night on a solid note, putting in another impressive time trial effort with the third quickest lap time at 15.140 seconds. Surrounded by veterans and past feature winners, the third generation racer dropped back in the beginning stages, eventually dropping back to ninth by Lap 27. Hed then hold off Billy Zardo in the final laps to cross the finish line in ninth.

With hopes of a stronger run for the second feature, Latimer drew the eighth starting spot in the re-draw. Hed keep himself solidly in contention, battling side-by-side with last years division champion Gord Shepherd for ninth at Lap 7. Hed fair well, remaining there till the first caution at Lap 13.

Hed get a solid restart, though fell back two spots to 11th as of the next caution of the event at Lap 23. With a tire going down, hed continue to fight hard but ultimately crossed the finish line just outside of the top-10.

With a seventh and third on opening night, Latimer knows his team can get the job done if given the chance. Hell try and make it happen in the next NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Sauble Falls Tent and Trailer Park Late Model event on Sunday, May 28. Set to begin at 3pm EST, it will serve as the make-up for the rain-out on May 6.

JL Motorsports is proud to be supported by KICX 106, The Dock 104.1, Tax Smart, Kitchen Tire, RIM Mechanical, Gambridge Go Karts, Krueger Electric, and Creechers Design for the 2017 season.

Be sure to follow Jordan on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/LatimerJordan, and like the JL Motorsports facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/JLMotorsports/304091730527.

Press Release by Ashley McCubbin/AM Marketing  ashleymccubbin17@gmail.com
Halton Hills, ON (May 15, 2017)- Pioneer Family Pools is very excited to be involved with Gary and his team for the second year. Gary and his team share Pioneer Family Pools core values of fun, family and togetherness. In our commitment to encouraging family and togetherness we have teamed up with the Canadian Cancer Society and the Spas for a Cause campaign. Our primary goal is to create awareness and financial support for the Canadian Cancer Society. This is another excellent opportunity to continue supporting a great group of people, enjoy an exciting NASCAR series, and get involved with a worthwhile cause.

I am thrilled to have support again from Pioneer Family Pools, and excited to see how much money and awareness we can raise for the Canadian Cancer Society through the Spas for a Cause Campaign

Klutts first on track appearance will be at Canadian Tire Motorsports park on May 21st for the Pintys series season opener, the Can-Am 250. We tested really well there earlier this spring and we are looking for a strong showing at our home track  Plus, I think the Pink numbers on the car have got to be worth some speed, laughed Klutt.

Visit spasforacause.ca or pioneerfamilypools.ca, and for every $5 donation, youll receive a ballot to win a pink hot tub that will be raffled off at the Pioneer Family Pools Burlington location on November 1st, 2017. We also have a special incentive for those who want to donate more than $5.

Fans can stay up to date with Gary throughout his 2017 campaign by following him @GaryKlutt, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter & Snapchat

ABOUT PIONEER FAMILY POOLS:

Since opening its first location in Oakville in 1965 Pioneer Family Pools has grown to 19 locations in southern Ontario. In addition to their inground, onground and above ground pools, Pioneer Family Pools also carries a complete selection of outdoor patio furniture, as well as hot tubs, swim spas and Endless pools. For more information on Pioneer Family Pools please visit your nearest showroom or visit our website at pioneerfamilypools.ca
Molly Murphy will take over a $14 billion portfolio  more than double the assets of her prior role  as chief investment officer of the California public fund.

The Orange County Employees Retirement System has hired veteran healthcare chief investment officer Molly Murphy to lead its $14 billion portfolio.

Murphy, previously CIO at Mercy Health in Cincinnati, will relocate to Southern California for a June 23 start at the defined benefit retirement system in Santa Ana, according to a statement Tuesday from the Orange County pension fund. She spent a dozen years managing assets for Mercy Health, a $5 billion healthcare system formally known as Catholic Health Partners, leaving in June 2016 after the groups longtime Chief Executive Officer Michael Connelly announced his resignation.

Based on Orange County Employees Retirement System documents, Murphy is moving into one of Californias best-paid public pension CIO roles. The fund paid its prior CIO, Girard Miller, $528,889 in total compensation for 2016, including pension benefits worth $92,756.

Her successful investment experience, in-depth knowledge of the market, as well as years of team leadership impressed the search committee, Orange County Employees Retirement Systems CEO Steve Delaney said in the announcement of her hiring.

The Orange County pension fund has been without a dedicated portfolio head since Miller resigned in January, following a four-year tenure marked by bold initiatives and eccentric public statements. Last year, for example, Miller authored a request for proposals from consulting firms that asked, Do you host or sponsor pay-to-play or clients4free but managers pay conferences? and required that firms force-rank their competitors.

Murphy rose to senior investment positions in the private sector before managing institutional money in-house. Murphy began her career at Fidelity Investments in 1989 and then became a fixed-income portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in 1993, according to her LinkedIn bio page. She co-founded bond boutique Seasongood Asset Management in 2000, serving as CIO until 2004.

Mercy Health, now led by John Starcher, has not hired another CIO to replace Murphy, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. A spokesperson for Mercy Health didnt immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
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The online used car dealer has hit a new low, making it the most profitable short of the year.
A grieving mother who lost her son to diabetes faced further heartache when she was not only burglarised but was also treated callously by her insurance companys fraud investigator, it has been alleged.Violet, not the claimants real name, lodged a home contents claim after a thief broke into a back shed containing her deceased sons belongings and got away with $20,000 worth of items.The third-party investigator allegedly accused Violet of being a liar and of stealing the items herself, pelted her with irrelevant questions including about her plans for the weekend and the death of her son; and even told her: No wonder you dont have a husband, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.Violets story is one of many cases that have prompted the general insurance industrys monitor, the Code of Governance Committee, to look into how external investigators are being used by the industry to detect and avoid paying out fraudulent claims.While there is a need to crack down on fraud, which costs insurers $2 billion a year and subjects honest policyholders to higher premiums, consumer advocates said the lack of rules for investigators has seen them bully, threaten, and intimidate claimants, SMH said.A new committee report has revealed that when insurers outsource claims-related functions to service suppliers, including investigators, compliance with the Code of Practice was unpredictable and the degree of oversight in some cases was inadequate.As well, there is not enough guidance provided to external investigators when interviewing consumers, committee chair Lynelle Briggs told the publication.We also found that some respondents have authorised [investigators] to handle complaints when [insurance companies] are required to perform this function [and] some respondents contracts with [investigators] do not align with the codes requirements.The committee urged the industry to develop a set of best practice standards, and made 30 recommendations, including that interviews do not exceed two hours; that questions be relevant, fair, and transparent; that investigators assess whether claimants have special needs and provide them with additional support; and that guidelines be set up for interviewing minors.Drew MacRae from consumer advocacy group Financial Right Legal Centre (FRLC), said there was indeed a systemic problem with insurance investigations and that this problem should be quickly addressed.We believe the recommendations should be implemented straight away because we think the industry has been on notice for enough time, he said.One of the key recommendations is communication, because we found that most people had no clue that they were being investigated, and if they did, they had very little information about what the process involved and their rights.
Insurers have reiterated their commitment to pass on savings related to the abolition of the emergency services levy (ESL) to clients.Five of the largest insurers in New South Wales  IAG Allianz and CommInsure  gave evidence at a public inquiry held in Sydney yesterday and explained how they are preparing for the removal of the levy in six weeks time.Rob Whelan, CEO of the ICA, said that the removal of the ESL will help lower premiums and insurers will pass on all savings attributable to the removal of ESL to their customers.Normal commercial factors remain that may affect final premium prices next financial year, Whelan said.For many decades this unfair and inequitable tax has added about 20% to household premiums and 30% to commercial premiums, and has penalised those property owners who have chosen to insure their assets despite the entire community being protected by firefighting and emergency services.Through 2016-17, approximately $785 million will go to the government from more than 100 insurance firms and brands collecting ESL from household and commercial customers.During the inquiry, insurers explained that between 2004 and 2016, premium pricing in the NSW home and contents market rose by an average of 5.5%. The same time frame has seen an average rise in annual claims of 7.1% and a 4.5% rise in average sum insured.The industry asked the state government to mandate a transition rate for the removal of ESL, which was not implemented leaving insurers in the predicament of having to estimate the amount of ESL they collect over the year.The ICA provided a submission to the inquiry but was not asked to provide evidence.
Industry heavyweight Generali is shaking up the management of its operations in France, announcing the departure of its country president and CEO and naming the incoming successor.The company revealed that General France chief Eric Lombard will step down on May 31 and will leave the business group at the end of the year.Until his departure, Lombard will continue to assist group CEO Philippe Donnet on strategic and institutional affairs.Donnet said Lombard provided outstanding leadership and contributed to the financial improvement of Generali France amid a very competitive and challenging market.Together with our outstanding team at Generali France, we managed to successfully turn around this company, which is now solid and profitable. Today we are a business well positioned to capitalize on the opportunities ahead, Lombard said.Lombard will be replaced by Jean-Laurent Granier, an industry veteran who joins from AXA . With his appointment taking effect from June 01, Granier will also become part of Generalis group management committee.I am sure that with the support of all Generalis people, we will continue the growth and the expansion of the company in France, Granier said.Granier has been part of AXA since 1997, working in various positions at the French division of the insurance giant. In 2010, he was named CEO of the Mediterranean and Latin America region, encompassing 23 countries, and a member of the AXA executive committee.From 2012 to 2016, Granier served as chairman and CEO of AXA Global P&C and as a member of the AXA management committee.He brings extensive experience in the global insurance sector and a deep knowledge of the French market, which represents a key market for us, Donnet said of Granier.Im convinced that Jean-Laurent is the right choice to lead the acceleration of the industrial turnaround of our business.
The road to reauthorization is proving thorny as lawmakers argue on how best to rehabilitate the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).The program is buried under $25 billion in debt and if it lapses without a replacement by September 30, the disruption could have great implications for the real estate industry, especially in flood prone areas across the country.If Congress does not adopt a reauthorization plan when the NFIP lapses, the five million policies under it will remain in effect - however, it cannot issue new ones, which could potentially disrupt home sales in flood-prone areas across the US because flood coverage is a mandatory requirement for properties in high risk zones purchased through federally backed mortgages.Major media outlet USA Today reported that Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, have together proposed provisions that are not included in the draft submitted by Republicans to the House Financial Services Committee. These provisions are aimed at making premiums, which have been skyrocketing in recent years, affordable to a broader base of policyholders. They include the provision of vouchers to help low income households with their premium payments.However, many other issues abound as the legislature tries to find a viable alternative to the current system, which has proven unviable over the years.Disputes also remain over how to address wrongdoing by insurance companies and affiliated contractors in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and last years floods in Louisiana, and whether older properties that flood repeatedly should still receive discounts, the report said. Many in Congress also want to encourage more private insurers to enter the market, but some warn the government could be left with only the riskiest properties.Furthermore, the question remains over what to do with properties that are subject to repeated flooding. The NFIP granted deep discounts to owners of such properties in the past to encourage them to enroll in the program; however, they have now become an onerous burden for the federal government.Pew Charitable Trusts estimate that these properties represent 1% of policies but account for 25% to 30% of overall losses.According to the report, Five states  Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and Texas  each have more than 10,000 properties with repeated flood claims, and many of them are older properties that got discounts intended to encourage communities to enter the national program.
The large-scale global ransomware cyber-attack over the weekend should serve as a wake-up call to many small and medium-sized businesses.While the market for large corporations cyber insurance needs has significant penetration, small and medium-sized businesses take out far fewer cyber policies. But as the global ransomware attack illustrated: every business is potentially at risk from cyber criminals.I think this demonstrates the need for being insured, whether youre a small or a large company, NAS chief underwriter Mike Palotay said.This has been an indiscriminate attack. Its not targeted, he explained. You dont have a hacker behind each attack on each company  its really more of an automated thing. Its basically just spray and pray, really. So youve got small companies who are experiencing outages and disruptions and having to pay extortions. And then youve got FedEx and the National Health Service [in the UK] and a bunch of much larger organizations experiencing problems.Small and medium-sized business are very, very underinsured. The last figures I saw for small businesses that buy cyber insurance were in the single digits. This might be a wake-up call.The number of companies attacked who have paid out  or claimed with insurers  is low. A UK company tracking ransom payments through Bitcoin (the cyber criminals payment choice in this attack) was only about $50,000 yesterday. The attack was launched on Friday.However, the widespread attack also brought to the fore a potential problem in the way insurance is priced, Palotay said.It does speak to why underwriting large books of cyber insurance is so challenging, he said. The aggregation potential is certainly there, and theres been a big focus on that in the last few years. And rightly so. There are big, big aggregate numbers out there for the leading insurers and when something like this happens I think its a big wake-up call to everyone that maybe rates are getting too low and maybe we should be more careful. Hopefully its a kind of come-to-Jesus moment.The market has been growing fast and rate pressures are getting pretty significant. I dont think the rates are really taking into account the substantial aggregation exposure from something like this, where youve got an automated malicious-code attack that targets a widespread vulnerability. This is not about a hacker using a specific tool to attack a company, this is about a self-replicating virus that spreads throughout the internet targeting millions of computers. That kind of thing is what keeps me up at night.
Aetna Inc. has informed the Delaware Department of Insurance that it will not participate in the health insurance marketplace in Delaware for 2018.

As a main reason for its exit, Aetna cited an approximate $700 million loss for individual policies between 2014 and 2016 and an estimated loss of $200 million for 2017 throughout the U.S.

There are currently 11,854 Delawareans insured through Aetnas exchange plans. Coverage will last through the end of 2017. After that period, anyone with a pre-existing condition for which they were being treated may be able to continue having that treatment covered with that provider.

Consumers who have questions regarding Aetnas departure are encouraged to contact the Delaware Department of Insurance.

Source: Delaware Department of Insurance
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has affirmed a lower courts decision to charge the defendant in a case involving a Boston car accident with motor vehicle insurance fraud. However, the Appeals Court reversed the lower courts decision to also charge the defendant with attempted larceny of property with a value greater than $250.

The ruling in the case, Commonwealth vs. Bryan Driscoll, comes after the defendant obtained compulsory and comprehensive insurance coverage from Commerce Insurance Company for his vehicle in August 2012. In November of that year, a Boston police officer responded to a report of an accident on a country road near Allandale Farm in which the defendants car had been abandoned on the sidewalk after appearing to have crashed into a stone wall.

The defendant filed a single-vehicle accident report with Commerce. Joshua Tucker, a claims adjuster with Commerce, explained that a single-vehicle accident means that a vehicle is damaged and no other vehicles are involved, according to the Appeals Court document.

If that is the case, an insured with collision coverage would be compensated by Commerce for the loss, but a person with only comprehensive coverage, like the defendant, would not be entitled to recover for the loss. However, if the driver strikes an animal and comes to a stop or swerves and goes off the road, the loss would be covered under comprehensive coverage because it involved an animal strike, the Appeals Court document said.

That said, the defendant claimed in his motor vehicle accident report that he hit a bison or moose, which caused him to swerve into a stone wall, and the animal then ran away. No animal was found at the scene, and no hair, fur or blood was found during the inspection of the defendants vehicle, the Appeals Court document stated.

At the time of the accident, Allandale Farm did not have any bison, moose or buffalo, the court document added. The farm had two large Scottish Highland steers, but they did not go missing on the day of the collision. The animals were also examined by a veterinarian who found no evidence that they had been injured. An accident reconstruction expert examined the defendants vehicle and concluded there was no evidence of an animal strike, and the event had not occurred in the way described by the defendant. An appraiser deemed the vehicle a total loss with a value of $5,700.

The Appeals Court determined the lower court jury were warranted in finding the defendant was aware he had comprehensive insurance coverage and not collision coverage on his vehicle, and that he was aware of the differences between these coverages. The Appeals Court ruled it was also reasonable for the jury to infer that prior to the event, the defendant understood if he lost control of his vehicle and struck a wall, his insurance would not cover the loss unless an animal strike was involved.

The defendant was charged by the lower court with one count of motor vehicle insurance fraud and one count of attempted larceny over $250, and the jury found the defendant guilty on both counts. The defendant then appealed.

In order to find a defendant guilty of motor vehicle insurance fraud in Massachusetts, the Commonwealth is required to present evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, in connection with a claim under a motor vehicle insurance policy issued by an insurer, with the intent to injure, defraud, or deceive such insurer, did knowingly present to it, or aid or abet in or procure the presentation to it, a notice, statement, or proof of loss, knowing that such notice, statement, or proof of loss contained a false or fraudulent statement or representation, of any fact or thing material to such claim, according to Massachusetts law.

The Appeals Court ruled there was sufficient evidence for the jury to prove all of those elements. However, the Commonwealth conceded that the lower court judges instruction on the issue of attempted larceny was insufficient, the Appeals Court document stated. This is because the complaint did not specify the type of attempted larceny charged, and the Commonwealth presented no evidence the defendant took and carried away property.

With that in mind, the Appeals Court affirmed the conviction of insurance fraud but reversed the attempted larceny conviction in the case.

Topics Auto Fraud Massachusetts
New York businesses could soon see some slight relief in workers compensation premiums, according to an announcement from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The governors office released a statement Monday saying that the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board, a non-governmental rate service organization, has submitted an overall workers compensation rate decrease of approximately 4.5 percent for rates beginning Oct. 1, 2017. If approved, the premium decrease equates to a savings New York employers about $400 million this year in workers compensation premiums.

In its rate filing, CIRB attributed the reduction in premium rates to certain cost savings measures passed as part of the 2018 budget and general system savings spearheaded by the New York State Workers Compensation Board, according to the governors statement.

The reforms to the Workers Compensation system in this years budget will help New York businesses cut costs  enabling them to further reinvest, grow and create more jobs across the state, Cuomo said. With this rate decrease, New York is providing real savings to businesses helping to make them more competitive while strengthening protections for injured workers at companies across the state.

The rate submission must still be reviewed and approved by the Department of Financial Services. If approved it would become effective October 1, 2017.

New York Senate Majority Leader John J. Flanagan said workers compensation reforms were part of the budget negotiations earlier this year.

Workers compensation premium rates are determined on an annual basis and take into account recent claims experience as well as implementation of any new policies and procedures. The 2018 New York Budget specifically addresses cost by applying limits to temporary disability payments prior to a permanency award, while providing an exemption process for the most seriously injured.

Governor Cuomo and the Legislature have successfully managed to rebalance the workers compensation system to provide better protections for injured workers and provide much needed relief to New Yorks businesses, said Kenneth J. Munnelly, chair of the Workers Compensation Board.

The budget also includes better protections for injured workers by:

Expanding the safety net for seriously injured workers, so more are eligible to apply for reconsideration for lifetime benefits when their benefit caps are set to expire.

Ensuring injured workers who are out-of-work and not receiving benefits will get a hearing within 45 days.

Providing relief for first responders exposed to extraordinary stress in emergency situations.

Strengthening the administrative tools available to the Board in its efforts to provide swift and appropriate delivery of benefits to injured workers.

The budget requires the Workers Compensation Board to publicize new permanent impairment guidelines to reflect advances in modern medicine that result in better outcomes. Additionally, to ensure that injured workers receive high quality, cost effective medications, the board will establish a prescription drug formulary.

According to the governors office, the reforms build on his continued commitment to improve New Yorks workers compensation system to more effectively serve the needs of injured workers and employers.

Signed by the Cuomo as part of the 2013-14 budget, the Business Relief Act provided hundreds of millions in savings for New York businesses by fundamentally restructuring the way that workers compensation assessments were made.

Cuomo also launched a comprehensive business process re-engineering to re-imagine the workers compensation system. As part of that effort, the Workers Compensation Board is close to launching virtual hearings, which will modernize and virtualize the Boards present hearing environment and allow injured workers to participate in a hearing at a location that is most convenient for them, even their home, the statement said.

In addition, the Workers Compensation Board has developed new processes to ensure benefits are delivered more timely by utilizing alternative means to resolve disputes. This allows the board to preserve hearing time for more complex cases with legal disputes. The board has also generated a dramatic decline in inventory of pending workers compensation appeals and the length of time it takes for those appeals to be resolved. The prompt processing of appealed claims aids both workers and employers, by making benefits and treatments available more quickly and lowers litigation costs.

Source: New York Office of the Governor

Topics Trends Workers' Compensation New York Pricing Trends Talent
It has been decades since anyone thought of Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc., or even its insurance operations, as very, very small.

But thats how a senior executive describes biBERK, a unit that lets owners of small businesses shop online for commercial vehicle, general liability, property, workers compensation and eventually professional liability insurance.

The biBERK chief operating officer, Rakesh Gupta, said the year-old operation, known as Cover Your Business until a March name change that could benefit from Berkshires cachet, was the brainchild of Ajit Jain, Berkshires top insurance executive.

Jain wanted a hassle-free way for small business owners to bypass insurance agents, often getting quotes within five minutes after completing short questionnaires.

Amazon.com can deliver something to you in four hours, Gupta, who grew up in New Delhi and specialized in big data before joining biBERK, said in a recent interview. If people can buy paper towels on the internet, why not insurance?

Sales data are confidential, but Gupta said biBERK, or Business Insurance Berkshire Hathaway, is signing up twice as many customers as a year ago.

The business reflects none of Omaha-based Berkshires appetite for assuming huge insurance risks, such as major catastrophes or American International Group property and casualty claims, in exchange for upfront payments Buffett can invest.

Gupta said business insurance could follow the trajectory of auto insurance, where Berkshires Geico unit, as well as rivals Progressive and USAA, won market share from State Farm and Allstate by driving underwriting costs, and premiums, down.

If that happens, we want to be at the forefront, he said.

In workers compensation, biBERK typically provides instant quotes to 60 percent of applicants, denies 20 percent, and asks 20 percent to speak with representatives.

Improvements to the sign-up process now permit 50 percent of customers to buy without human help, up from 10 percent a year ago.

Gupta said biBERK sometimes holds what it calls hatchet meetings to assess risks and red flags the questionnaires might not address.

Still, biBERK can afford the occasional mistake.

Its parent Berkshire Hathaway Direct Insurance Co. has $118 million of surplus capital, plus reinsurance support from Berkshires National Indemnity Co. unit.

Gupta said insurers have been slow to adopt online technology in part because of state regulatory burdens.

He hopes biBERK will attract more younger, more technology-savvy people going into business for themselves.

Its still very, very small, he said. In the scheme of Berkshire, its an interesting experiment.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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Topics Commercial Lines Training Development
The collapse of a tunnel used to store radioactive waste at one of the most contaminated U.S. nuclear sites has raised concerns among watchdog groups and others who study the countrys nuclear facilities because many are aging and fraught with problems.

Theyre fighting a losing battle to keep these plants from falling apart, said Robert Alvarez, a former policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy who was charged with making an inventory of nuclear sites under President Bill Clinton.

The longer you wait to deal with this problem, the more dangerous it becomes, said Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he focuses on nuclear energy and disarmament.

The Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.

No radiation was released during Tuesdays incident at a plutonium-handling facility in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but thousands of workers were ordered to take cover and some were evacuated as a precaution.

The state of facilities in the U.S. nuclear network has been detailed by the Department of Energy, Government Accountability Office and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. They have noted eroding walls, leaking roofs, and risks of electrical fires and groundwater contamination.

In 2016, Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department agency overseeing maintenance of nuclear warheads, warned Congress about risks posed by aging facilities.

Decontaminating and demolishing the Energy Departments shuttered facilities will cost $32 billion, it said in a 2016 report. It also noted a $6 billion maintenance backlog.

In the 1940s the U.S. government built Hanford and other complexes to produce plutonium and uranium for atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project. That was an era when the defense mission took priority over everything else, said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Were dealing with the legacy of that.

RISKS DOCUMENTED

Many of those sites are now vacant but contaminated.

A 2009 Energy Department survey found nearly 300 shuttered, contaminated and deteriorating sites. Six years later it found that fewer than 60 had been cleaned up.

A 2015 Energy Department audit said delays in cleaning contaminated facilities expose the Department, its employees and the public to ever-increasing levels of risk.

Risks identified at the sites included leaking roofs carrying radioactivity into groundwater, roof collapses and electrical fires that could release radioactive particles.

A 2014 Energy Department audit noted a high risk of fire and groundwater contamination at the shuttered Heavy Element Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is surrounded by homes and businesses near Californias Bay Area.

Problems have also been identified at active facilities including the Savannah River Site, a nuclear reservation in South Carolina. A 2015 report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities SafetyBoard found severe erosion in concrete walls of an exhaust tunnel used to prevent release of radioactive air.

A 2016 Energy Department audit of one of the United States main uranium handling facilities, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, warned that intense precipitation or snow could collapse parts its roof, possibly causing an accident involving radioactivity. It sounds crazy, but its true, said Don Hancock, who has studied the Tennessee facility in his work at the Southwest Information and Research Center, an Albuquerque nonprofit that monitors nuclear sites.

In Hanfords case, risk of a tunnel collapse was known in 2015, when the Energy Department noted wooden beams in one tunnel had lost 40 percent of their strength and were being weakened by gamma radiation.

Energy Department spokesman Mark Heeter in nearby Richland said in an email that the agency saw Tuesdays prompt discovery of the collapse as a success.

The maintenance and improvement of aging infrastructure across the Hanford site  remains a top priority, he said.

Nationwide, part of the risk comes from having to maintain and safeguard so many sites with different types of nuclear waste, said Frank Wolak, head of Stanford Universitys Program on Energy and Sustainable Development.

Youre asking for trouble with the fact that youve got it spread all over the country, he said. The right answer is to consolidate the stuff that is highly contaminated, and apply the best technology to it.

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Ben Klayman)

Topics USA Pollution
Since its 2008 bailout, American International Group Inc. has delivered paydays for investment bankers, Warren Buffett and even departing executives.

Shareholders? Not so much.

AIG shares have lost 1.6 percent since the day of the U.S. government rescue, compared with a 98 percent gain in the S&P 500 Index. In the same period, Wall Street banks led by Morgan Stanley have collected an estimated $740 million in fees for helping the insurer sell assets, according to consulting firm Freeman & Co. AIG doled out about $10 billion to the conglomerate owned by Buffett to offset insurance risks, and the insurers executive merry-go-round has cost tens of millions of dollars in exit packages for departing top employees.

Its been a trying time to be an AIG shareholder for a number of reasons, said Rob Haines, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. in New York. AIG has made some really tough choices, which have been painful in the near term.

More recently, AIGs shares have dropped 3.2 percent since Carl Icahn announced his AIG stake in October 2015 and began pushing the idea of breaking the company into three parts. The S&P 500 has gained nearly 15 percent in the same period. Representatives for Icahn didnt return calls seeking comment.

Buying Recommended

Even so, only one of the analysts surveyed by Bloomberg advocated selling AIG stock, while 13 of 19 recommended buying. Wells Fargo & Co.s Elyse Greenspan said Monday in a note to clients that she expected the company to rise as return on equity improves under the newest chief executive officer, Brian Duperreault, who started this week. Ryan Tunis of Credit Suisse Group AG said he believes Duperreault can attract talent. Shares rose 1.4 percent in New York on Monday, closing at $61.82.

Still, AIG has come a long way. Investors who bought shares in 2011 when the U.S. Treasury Department sold them for $29 have seen their money double. Citigroup Inc. said in 2009 that there would be no value left once the insurer repaid the government.

AIG didnt comment for this story.

AIG has been on the hook for higher-than-expected claims on policies written in prior years. To limit risk, it struck one of the largest-ever reinsurance deals with Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

AIG paid Berkshire $10 billion. In return, Buffetts firm will pay for some claims in the future. Speaking at Berkshires annual meeting this month, Buffett said it was a good deal for his company.

Well do well by getting $10.2 billion today, with a maximum payout of $20 billion between now and Judgment Day, Buffett said. The question is how fast we pay out the money.

Wall Street is betting that Duperreault, AIGs fourth top man since 2008, may be able to improve returns. Hiring him meant spending $12 million in cash to cover equity awards from his former firm, plus an annual pay package of about $16 million  23 percent more than his predecessors. It will also pay Hamilton Insurance Group, the company Duperreault helped create, as much as $40 million over two years to waive non-compete agreements.

Equity Awards

Former CEO Peter Hancock, whose departure this month has been classified as termination without cause, will collect more than $9 million in exit pay. In coming years, he could also get more than $38 million tied to unvested stock awards. Hancocks predecessor, the late Bob Benmosche, held stock awards worth about $23.4 million when he retired in 2014. They vested ahead of schedule at his death in 2015. Edward Liddy, who took over when AIG hit bottom in 2008 and left after less than a year, didnt get a severance.

Three executives who never led the company were recently paid a combined $20 million in exit packages, AIG said earlier this year.

The insurer is still liable for tens of millions of dollars worth of equity awards previously given to departed executives that havent yet vested. Whether those awards will pay out largely depends on the companys results.

AIG has shed about $100 billion in assets since 2008. The goal at first was to repay a U.S. government rescue that swelled to $182.3 billion. Morgan Stanley collected an estimated $150 million from AIG since the crisis, followed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. at about $90 million, according to a Freeman & Co. analysis with data from Thomson Reuters Corp. Spokesmen for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

More recently, AIG has sold assets in Brazil, Turkey, Chile and Japan.

Theyve let shareholders down, Tunis said last week in an interview. Still, he rates the stock as buy and sees a chance for Duperreault to reinvigorate an underwriting culture that you havent seen, maybe ever.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics USA
Two former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees have filed a lawsuit accusing the retailer of treating thousands of pregnant workers as second-class citizens by rejecting their requests to limit heavy lifting, climbing on ladders and other potentially dangerous tasks.

The proposed class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois on Friday by Talisa Borders and Otisha Woolbright, who say that until 2014, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart had a companywide policy that denied pregnant women the same accommodations as workers with other disabilities.

The class could include at least 20,000 women and possibly up to 50,000 who worked at Wal-Mart while pregnant before the policy change, according to the lawsuit.

The company in a statement provided by spokesman Randy Hargrove denied the womens claims and said Wal-Marts pregnancy policies have always fully met or exceeded both state and federal law. The company said a separate anti-discrimination policy it maintains has long listed pregnancy as a protected status.

Walmart is a great place for women to work, the company said.

Borders and Woolbright say that Wal-Marts old policy violated a federal law requiring employers to treat pregnancy as a temporary disability and provide work accommodations to pregnant women. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2015 case involving United Parcel Service, said employers cannot treat pregnant workers differently from those with other disabilities or medical conditions.

Wal-Mart, the largest private U.S. employer, changed its policy in 2014 to treat pregnancy as a disability. But lawyers for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit say the changes did not go far enough, and they were planning a separate lawsuit involving the new policy.

Woolbright says her manager at a Florida Wal-Mart told her pregnancy was no excuse for not doing heavy lifting. She says she was fired from her job in the deli department after injuring herself lifting trays that weighed up to 50 pounds and inquiring further about the companys pregnancy policies.

Borders, who worked at an Illinois Wal-Mart, says she was reprimanded for asking coworkers to climb ladders and lift heavy boxes while she was pregnant, and forced to go on unpaid leave. When she returned, she says, she was paid $2.00 less per hour.

The case is Borders v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, No. 3:17-cv-00506.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Dan Grebler and Jonathan Oatis)

Topics USA Claims Illinois
During the Egyptian president's visit to Washington in April, Trump gave his firm backing to Egypt and vowed to cooperate on fighting Islamist terrorism

US President Donald Trump has told President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi that he plans to visit Cairo "at the earliest opportunity" to discuss ways of fighting terrorism in the Middle East, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement on Monday.

Trump's remarks came during a phone conversation with El-Sisi late on Monday in which he stressed the importance of strategic relations between their two countries, the statement added.

The statement did not indicate, however, when the visit is scheduled to take place, nor whether it will precede a likely meeting in Saudi Arabia later this month.

El-Sisi went to Washington last month for talks with Trump in which the US president gave him firm backing and vowed to work together to fight Islamist militants. The visit was aimed at mending ties strained under the administration of President Barack Obama.

El-Sisi and Trump are due to meet at an Arab-Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia scheduled for 21 May. It will be the first stop of Trump's first international trip as president, and will include stops in Israel and the Vatican.

Trump and El-Sisi had demonstrated a certain rapport, exchanging phone calls in the past months, often vowing support and trading praise. El-Sisi was the first foreign leader to congratulate Trump on his election victory.

Egypt has long been one of Washington's closest allies in the region, although relations have been strained since the Arab Spring in 2011.

Egypt has been receiving $1.3 billion in US military aid yearly since signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The military aid is accompanied by an annual economic assistance package, amounting to $150 million in 2016.

Among the key common areas of interest between the two nations is Egypt's battle against an Islamist insurgency centred in the North Sinai governorate, with hundereds of police and military personnel killed in roadside bombs and insurgent attacks. Egyptian authorities frequently announce successful raids to kill and capture Islamists in North Sinai and elsewhere in the country.

Since taking office, Trump has asserted his determination to work with Egypt in battling Islamist terrorist groups, both in Egypt and the region. Any meeting between the two presidents is likely to involve discussion on how to press ahead with counter-terrorism operations.

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LevelFirst, the Dallas-based wholesale broker and MGA binding facility owned by IIAT Services Co., has appointed Mary Travis as vice president.

Travis is based in Houston. She will service new and existing clients in the surrounding region.

Travis comes to LevelFirst with more than 25 years in the insurance industry as an excess and surplus lines underwriter. Her experience includes work with IMS/London American and RPS/Leicht General Agency.

She is a member of Houston Insurance Professionals, Insurance Professional of Galveston County, Houston Association of Insurance Professionals and serves on the Membership Committee for the Independent Insurance Agents of Houston.

IIAT Services Co. is affiliated with the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas.

Source: LevelFirst

Topics Agencies Texas
Another bill that would ban texting and driving has been taken up by the Senate State Affairs committee.

The committee approved the Senate version, SB 31 by Laredo Sen. Judith Zaffirini in March, but the measure never made it to the floor for a vote. A similar measure, by Midland Rep. Tom Craddick, cleared the House floor just a few days after the hearing on the Senate bill. The State Affairs committee on May 15 took up that version of the legislation, House Bill 62.

Under HB 62, sponsored in the Senate by Zaffirini, drivers who are caught using a phone to text, send email or post to social media while driving would face a fine of up to $99 for a first offense and $200 for subsequent offenses.

The bill only penalizes texting while driving a moving car; drivers in an idle or parked car could still use their phones to send texts. The ban would not apply to using ones phone as a GPS or music device.

Some of the differences between the version that cleared the House and the version before State Affairs include a provision that would enhance the penalty for texting and driving to a class A misdemeanor if it leads to a crash that kills or seriously injures another person. It also requires that an officer directly witness the offense before they can issue a citation. Finally, it would preempt any city ordinance relating to texting and driving.

More than 100 cities in Texas have ordinances on the books restricting texting and driving, but this bill would supersede city codes.

There is growing evidence to indicate that distracted driving, which includes use of a phone to text, post to social media or check email, is becoming one of the most significant driving risks. A 2011 survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that more than two-thirds of Americans aged 18-64 admitted to texting while driving in the last 30 days. According to the CDC, in 2013, 18 percent of injury accidents involved a distracted driver, and distracted driving accounted for more than 3000 road fatalities that year. The Texas Department of Transportation estimates that more than 100,000 car accidents are caused by distracted driving every year in the state.

This idea has had a long road thus far in the Senate, with Zaffirini working on the idea for the past five sessions. Ive been working on this ten years. Ten years, and eight years with Representative Craddick. We have tried so hard, picking up one vote at a time, she said.  We have come a long way, and we have the votes, we simply just need to pass it.

State Affairs Committee Chair and Houston Senator Joan Huffman said she once opposed the measure, but now she believes the state needs this legislation. The time has come for the state of Texas to pass this law, she told committee members. Our social behavior has changed, this is going to save our kids lives. Huffman cited recent polling numbers showing that nearly eighty percent of Texans agree that texting and driving should be against the law.

The bill remains pending before the committee, but could see a vote later in the week.

Texas is one of only four states without some sort of statewide restriction on texting while driving. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a similar bill that passed the legislature in 2011.

Source: Texas Senate

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Topics Texas Politics
Residents of Holmes and Montgomery counties in Mississippi could get federal help following April 30 tornadoes, if Gov. Phil Bryant gets his way.

Bryant on Thursday officially asked that President Donald Trump declare a disaster. The Republican governor also asks Trump to approve assistance to governments and nonprofit utilities in Adams, Calhoun, Carroll, Claiborne, Holmes, Jefferson, Montgomery, Webster and Yazoo counties. That could pay to repair government property, remove debris, and cover emergency worker overtime.

Other counties could be added later if Trump approves.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency says 112 homes without insurance were destroyed or severely damaged in Holmes and Montgomery counties. MEMA and federal officials have been conducting joint assessments.

The National Weather Service counted 29 tornadoes in Mississippi, the fourth-largest outbreak on record. One man died in Durant.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Mississippi
A Washington man has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Eastern State Hospital staff after his brother died under their care.

The Spokesman-Review reported that Kenneth Peters has accused doctors of not rendering medical aid when his brother Allen Peters fell at the hospital and broke his neck in May 2014. Allen Peters had become paralyzed and died about 20 hours after the fall.

Kenneth Peters claims staff lifted his brother into a bed and left him untreated from the time of the fall until his death.

The lawsuit states Allen Peters had been gravely disabled and was prone to falling.

He had suffered a severe head injury in 1974 during a motorcycle crash. Peters had been diagnosed with psychotic disorder, progressive dementia, seizure disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder after the crash.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Washington
Atlanta, GA, May 16, 2017  OSC, an established lender-placed insurance and tracking company and part of Breckenridge Insurance Group, announces Brian Reid, director of Escrow & Call Center Operations, was a recent international finalist for an inContact Contact Center Leader of the Year 6th annual Mojo Award. This Mojo award recognizes the contact center leader whose achievements and passion infuse his or her workforce and who implements new ideas that significantly improve contact center operations.

Brians leadership of our complex call center operations and his overall collaborative approach are admired within OSC. To have his hard work recognized by the worldwide leading provider of technology in this space across all industries, is a huge endorsement of his contributions to our team and the clients we serve, stated Keith Gilroy, president of OSC.

As noted by inContact judges, Reid was chosen as a finalist as he diligently guided each new phase of OSCs contact center transformation. He not only implemented inContact, he created a new training program for his agents, improved service level agreements (SLAs) and reduced turnover. Agents now have visibility into their performance, collaboration with their team members and the tools they need to deliver excellent service.

Reid was among three finalists for this award among those nominated. He has more than 15 years of call center experience in the mortgage banking and insurance sector having worked for select major banks and service providers. Previously, he spent nearly ten years in the Air Force last as a Noncommissioned Officer in Charge, 607th Air Support Squadron Information Management in the United States Air Force last stationed at the Osan Air Base in the Republic of Korea.

Brian has been a significant presence at OSC and we thank him for his commitment to serving our clients and serving our country with great honor. I couldnt be more proud to have his efforts recognized on this international stage, added Tracey Carragher, CEO of Breckenridge Insurance Group.

About OSC: OSC is a leading and longstanding financial risk management, compliance and tracking technology provider of lender-placed and specialty insurance products from a range of top-rated carriers. OSCs proprietary IrisX tracking technology is designed to meet the complex compliance and multi-collateral tracking demands of the 21st century residential and commercial lenders, mortgage servicers and property investors. Full outsourcing capabilities include document management and processing, bilingual call center services, and tax, flood and escrow integration. For more information, please visit www.oscis.com or call 800.432.1258.

About Breckenridge Insurance Group:Breckenridge Insurance Group, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., is an international specialty wholesale insurance broker, program manager, managing general agent (MGA) and insurance services provider. The company offers access to diverse range of commercial insurance and financial services products to businesses and professional services firms in a variety of industries. The company serves independent insurance agents, brokers, and legal and financial institutions throughout North America by way of Blue River Underwriters, OSC, Breckenridge Insurance Services, Breckenridge Elevation Authorities contract binding group and InSpecialty innovative insurance solutions. For more information, please visit www.breckgrp.com or call 855.728.8822. CA Insurance License #0G13592

Topics Agencies Leadership
On May 12 2017, the law to decrease administrative burdens (Burokratieentlastungsgesetz II) introduced an increase in the threshold for so-called invoices for small amounts from 150 ($165) to 250 (gross). This has been done with a view to simplifying, in particular, cash transactions, the trade in everyday consumer goods and billing through automatic machines.

Simplification for input VAT deduction from invoices for small amounts

The provisions on invoices for small amounts pursuant to section 33 of the German VAT Implementation Code (UStDV) contribute to simplifying input VAT deduction in daily business. According to section 15 of German VAT Act, input VAT can only be deducted where the recipient is in receipt of an invoice that meets the standard invoice requirements of section 14 paragraph 4 of the German VAT Act. As regards to input VAT deduction from so-called invoices for small amounts, the provisions of section 33 of the UStDV provides for only very basic requirements concerning the information stated in an invoice. Contrary to the information provided on regular invoices in accordance with section 14 paragraph 4 of the German VAT Act, it is, in particular, not necessary to state the recipient and the separate VAT amount. The provisions on small amounts do not apply in cases of distance selling, intra-Community supplies of goods or, as regards the reverse-charge mechanism.

Retroactive effect

The amendments have retroactive effect from January 1 2017. However, taxable persons who have received invoices for the amount of 150-250 (gross) since this date can claim input VAT deduction even if the invoices merely contain the information of section 33 of the UStDV.

Practical problems for application remain

The practical problems associated with the application of the new law continue to exist. Information, which is not required but yet stated in invoices, might jeopardise the input VAT deduction, in particular, incomplete or incorrect information concerning the recipient appearing in the invoice. The fiscal authorities may basically deny input VAT deduction on the grounds that the invoice does not meet the requirements of section 33 of the UStDV. This then leads to the paradoxical conclusion that where the address field is empty input VAT can be deducted. However, where the address field is incompletely or incorrectly filled out, the deduction will be denied.

Recommendations

Invoices for small amounts should merely contain the invoice details required in accordance with section 33 of the UStDV. Any additional information carries with it the risk of being incomplete or incorrect and may consequently jeopardise the recipients input VAT deduction.

This article was written by Dr Matthias Oldiges, lawyer at Kuffner Maunz Langer Zugmaier in Munich.
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Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) Facial and Body Recognition Patent Application Received a Notice of Allowance

San Diego, CA - November 9, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) with GBT Tokenize Corp. ("GBT/Tokenize") received a notice of allowance for its facial and body recognition non-provisional patent application.

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Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) Enters into Agreement with Newgate Motor Group, one of Ireland's most Recognized Auto Groups, to Distribute the Mullen I-GOTM in Ireland and United Kingdom

BREA, Calif. - November 9, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle manufacturer, announces today that it has entered into an agreement to appoint Newgate Motor Group, one of Ireland's most recognized dealership groups, as marketing, sales, distribution and servicing agent for the Mullen I-GO in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

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Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) AI Driven Financial Technology Patent Application Received a Notice of Publication

San Diego, CA - November 3, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) received a notice of publication for its financial software patent application.

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Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer

NEW YORK, NY - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, announces the hiring of Euan King, an experienced and respected Insurtech industry leader as Chief Revenue Officer for insurance technology-focused subsidiary Intellagents.

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Interpretation of sharia law must take into account developments in technology and society as a whole, said Shawky Allam

Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawky Allam said on Tuesday that Muslim scholars need to engage in a reform of religious discourse, adapting their interpretations of Islamic law in line with changes in society, according to state-run news agency MENA.

Allam said the issue of reforming religious discourse is one of the key issues facing Egyptian society, and scholars must respond realistically to the way society changes over time.

"There are ongoing changes resulting from technological development," said Allam, "and it's necessary to have a disciplined mind that deals with those changes in the framework of sharia. So we can start from the approved sharia text, but must also take into account this development."

The grand mufti made the comments in an interview conducted in Algeria, where he arrived on Monday for the 13th forum on the doctrine of the Malikis. The event is being attended by a large number of clerics and religious jurists from different parts from the Arab and Islamic world.

Allam also commented on strange fatwas that are occasionally issued, saying they are an attack on Egyptian society and its unity. He said that Egypt is firm in rejecting "these failed and desperate attempts at division."

He continued: "These fatwas do not help society to settle down, and that violates the Prophet's methodology. Because in history, at the beginning of Islam, the circle [of inclusion] of Muslims and Christians was wider."

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What are the choices before the Iranian people and what do they expect?

Mohaddessin: Very interesting question. If you walk on the streets of Tehran or go on social media in Iran, you will find your answer. You will see so many posters which read: No to the executioner Raisi; No to the demagogue Rouhani, my vote is regimes overthrow. That is how the people of Iran see the choices before them. They are talking about choosing between worse and even worse. The Iranian people, after 38 years of clerical regime, do not expect anything from the election. They have seen so many of these sham elections. They know in their soul that elections do not mean anything in Iran. It is only a show trying to justify the absolute rule of Velayat-e Faqih. It is time for the West to rid itself of this misguided perception, fomented by Tehrans lobby, that the people of Iran consider serious differences between the candidates. The only difference is that one is an executioner who loudly confirms it and the other one who talks moderate but acts exactly the same.

Rouhani has recently said people of Iran do not support those who in the past 38 years only know execution and prison, who was he referring to? Ebrahim Raisi? Has there been any reaction to his remarks? How do you analyze his remarks?

Mohaddessin: Rouhanis remark is a clear admission that over the past 38 years the clerical regime has entirely relied on execution and prison to stay in power and all regimes officials including Rouhani who has been one of the decision makers in the regime during this period are directly responsible for the crimes committed. Of course Rouhani was referring to Raisi who was appointed by Khomeini as a member of the Death Commission in the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners.

But inadvertently he confirmed that 38 years of the clerical rule has brought the Iranian people nothing but execution and prison. That is why the other faction has strongly reacted to his remarks saying his remarks undermine the entire regime, and reminding him that right from the beginning he was one of the decision makers of the regime. They have, for example, referred to Rouhanis remarks in the past when he demanded that conspirators must be brought to the Friday prayer and hanged there in public so that it would have more impact.

In his remarks Rouhani also revealed that in private discussion, members of the other faction have suggested to set up walls on pavements for gender segregation. In response, the other faction revealed that indeed, some close allies of Rouhani who are now either ministers in his cabinet or leading his election campaign were advocating gender segregation, but Khamenei prevented them!! They have also reproduced parts of Rouhanis memoir in which he admits that he was the lead official to impose compulsory hijab on women. As part of the internal feuding, each faction is making new revelations about the other faction on their role in suppression, execution, embezzlement, corruption and etc. This power struggle, which essential stems from the regimes failure to address the most basic needs of the people, has shaken the entire regime and has made the regime more vulnerable and weak. On the other hand, the Resistance has been vindicated. For years the regime used every suppressive means to suppress the Iranian people, to deny the new generation to know about so many crimes committed in the past and also to silence the democratic opposition. But now, they are admitting to what we have been saying for years. Therefore, we have seen a surge of support for our movement and our message is today being resonated in Iran more than at any other time.

Can you make any prediction as who might be the next president? How do you see it?

Mohaddessin: First, I must reiterate that in Iran the outcome of election is not decided by the people but by the balance of power within the regime. It is truly time for the western policy makers to come out of their boxes and see the reality.

Second, all candidates have been approved not only by the Guardian Council but personally by the Supreme Leader before entering the race. In an election without genuine opposition, where the choices given to the people are representing nothing but more misery for the Iranian people, an election does make any difference. Therefore, all candidates fall within the acceptable scope for Khamenei.

All indications are that Khamenei prefers to have Raisi as the next figure-head of his dictatorship, but the red line for him is that engineering the election should not lead to an uprising as a result of intensification of internal feuding. Indeed, Rouhanis new remarks is also aimed to convey this message to Khamenei that opting for Raisi might cost him more. While on everything Khamenei has the final say, nevertheless, the vulnerable position of the entire regime and the fear of a massive uprising coupled with the fact that he has, to some extent, lost his clout within the regime and his grip over a discontent population, has tightened his hand.

However, in either case, the outcome would be a much weaker and more vulnerable regime. This is Khameneis dilemma and the stalemate the regime is facing.
In the article that followed on May 12, 2017, students who study Persian language and Iranian culture at the university level said they worried over what the benefit of this presence is for their society, and to what end they can profit from studying this culture.

Meissa Diop said, We have been studying Persian language since our high school diploma. And we are still waiting for a lot, me, as the president of the students collective, and a student in this department, I have always tried to expose the multiple ways we can create greater ties between Iran and Senegal, because they, the Iranians, adore Senegal, but unfortunately, we dont know very much about their culture, aside from what we learn in school.

In Senegals capital Dakar, there are numerous foreign cultural and educative structures meant to function as bridges from one culture to another, and are similar format to those set up by Iran. These initiatives were put in place to encourage a partnership and cultural exchange between the two countries. But future generations of managers and policy makers, like Meissa Diop, find that most doors for collaboration are closed, in the case of Iran.

President Cherif Mballo of the Superior Counsel of Ahlul Bayt(as) Shiites of Senegal says the problem is in the objectives, and perhaps even the budget of Iran. Unfortunately the chair Hassane doesnt have a budget and hes not competent. The students there told you that hes not competent, and to make matters worse the Iranians dont put a lot of emphasis on that part of their relationship. Thats why when they [the students] go to the embassy the doors are closed to them, same with the cultural center. But I know that the mentality is generally like that. They [the embassy] asked a lot for financing but they were unable to have those means. I know that until presently Senegal was looking to close the chair because its not at all what they wanted to do.

Mballo continued, mentioning the chair and ambassador Hassan Alibashi Bakhshi, The chair was created in 2005-2006 to have better cultural relations in Senegal. Its normal for a country that wants their language and their culture to have more cultural and historical visibility and appreciation, to come to other countries to share for a large distribution in other countries.

The cultural attache to Iran in Senegal, and president of the Cultural Center of Dakar, Dr. Hassan Esmati, said in an interview with a local newspaper, Le Soleil, For 15 years, University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar hosts a Persian language and literature department. A number of students are learning Persian language and more than ten university students are currently in Iran for their doctorates or masters degrees.

However, the students are wondering what, if any, opportunities are open to them after they conclude their studies. Meissa Diop said, I dream to go to Iran, especially to set up economic opportunities between the two countries. And as a student, there is no one better placed than me to do it. But my difficulty is really just opportunity. Trying to gain friends and gain support from actors in Iran is hard. I am calling on Iran to help us out, and when I say help I mean come to Senegal, see what we, as students, have to offer, we are studying your culture. Note what we need, assist us financially, provide scholarship opportunities to go there to study and learn and work.

If both parties showed an interest, a sort of cultural change would be simple to construct, according to student leaders. Meissa Diop explained, I follow the cultural center of Irans activities in France. They support engagement and culture exchange. Why cant they do that here? They say they do, or want to, but it just doesnt exist. It would be simple for them to say, we are hosting a film, come watch it with us, or host a translation challenge

Meanwhile, Senegalese students fear that their time spent learning a language and culture will result in unemployment. Irans embassy and Cultural center did not comment on the report.
While everyone was left in shock about the revelation that Phaedra Parks was responsible for spreading the rumor that Kandi Burruss wanted to drug and take advantage of Porsha Williams during Season 9 reunion of, Kenya Moore says she wasn't surprised and explains her reasons why.The former Miss USA said she knew that bombshell was about to come out at this season's reunion during a recent interview with. "I knew it was all gonna come out because I think first of all Porsha didn't have another play because she got all the heat for repeating it, even though we learned Phaedra made it up," Kenya explained. "But you said it. So you have to be responsible for the things that come out of your mouth."Kenya went on to say that she felt like Phaedra wasn't being genuine in her trying to comfort Porsha when she felt betrayed by her bestie. "I just feel like Phaedra was acting that she was concerned about Porsha, but she just threw her under the bus," she said. "So how can you be concerned about her, really?"However, Kenya said she couldn't feel sympathy for Porsha in this situation, and it's not just because of their own past drama. "I wouldn't for anyone. You could put anyone in that situation. It could be Cynthia [Bailey]. If you had a loaded gun and somebody gave it to you, you chose to shoot that gun," Kenya said. "So, to me, I can't have sympathy for you because you knew what you were doing."Phaedra noticeably did not say much after the truth came to light at the reunion, which Kenya said didn't bother her. "No, I feel like she got what she deserved. I just feel like your lies will catch up with you, and I don't believe in revenge and all that stuff. I just believe in karma," she said. "She started off telling lies about me. When we fell out about a workout video, all of a sudden I became an alcoholic, I became bipolar, I became all of those things."But Kenya said that if Phaedra asked her to join her at her camp for the children affected by the Flint water crisis, as she did earlier this season of RHOA, she would be able to put their past differences aside for the greater good. "Honestly, I would," Kenya shared. "I would put my differences aside with her because it's for the kids, so they matter more than she does to me. And it's for a good cause."Source/Photo Credit: Bravo
Update 8.40pm: A member of the Public Accounts Committee has said an inquiry may be held into the sale of a Naval Service boat - which is already back on the market at six times the price.

The L.E. Aisling is already back for sale in the Netherlands, less than two months after it was sold at an auction in Cork. Its new asking price is six times higher.

Fine Gael's Alan Farrell says the matter is now likely to be looked into at some level.

But Deputy Farrell says the market for former Naval vessels is limited - and the value would always fall as a result: The costs of changing it into a civilian yacht would be quite significant therefore the price of the vessel is limited.

If it was to be sold in Ireland again, clearly a decision was made about how much the vessel should reach as opposed to how much it cost to maintain it here in Cork.

Update 4pm: The group representing Defence Forces personnel has voiced concern, after an Irish naval service boat was put back on the market - for six times its selling price.

The L.E. Aisling was put on the market in March and sold to a Dutch shipbroker for 110,000.

But without any refurbishment work being done on it, the vessel is back up for sale again - with an asking price of close to 700,000.

Gerard Guinan of PDFORRA says a higher reserve price should have been set - and the Naval Service may have lost out on money: I cant say with any degree of certainty that the price realised was far less than what it should have been because I dont know the condition of the ship.

But yet, you know if the price released in excess of or less than what it should have been, we would have concerns.

Earlier: A naval vessel sold by the Government two months ago is back on the market - at six times its sale price.

The L.E. Aisling is now back on sale in the Netherlands as a fisheries patrol vessel, despite its new owners confirming that no extra work has been done on the vessel.

The boat now carries an asking price of more than 650,000. The Government sold it for 110,000 to Dutch ship broker Dick van der Kamp just seven weeks ago.

Fine Gael TD and member of the Public Accounts Committee Alan Farrell said the PAC is now likely to hear more about the sale.

"The difference between the value being sought at the moment on the open market versus the value achieved at a public auction a number of weeks ago presents a difficulty to me as a member of the Public Accounts Committee and as a former member for five years of the Defence Committee," he said.
Former interior minister Habib El-Adly has lost an appeal against a seven-year prison sentence that he was handed in the "interior ministry corruption" case.



On Tuesday, Cairo Criminal Court ruled against El-Adly, who was appealing a prison sentence handed to him for eliciting and facilitating the seizure of public funds and harming public funds.



On April 15, a Cairo criminal court found the Mubarak-era minister guilty of illicit gains from the interior ministry totalling EGP 2 billion between the years 2000 and 2011.



The defendant has also lodged an appeal before a court of cassation, but a final verdict has not yet been reached.



On Tuesday, the court ruled against El-Adly due to his failure to appear in court in person. El-Adly's lawyer Fareed El-Deeb submitted a medical report to the court, justifying his absence on the grounds that he is undergoing treatment at a Cairo hospital due to deteriortating health.



Since the April 15 ruling, both the ministry and the prosecution have made efforts to arrest El-Adly so that he can begin his sentence. However, their efforts were unsuccessful and the ministry has notified the central Cairo prosecution office that he is now considered a fugitive.



El-Adly was tried along with 12 former interior ministry officials, who received prison sentences of between three and seven years. Charges were dropped against two defendants who died during the period of the trial.



Those convicted were also ordered to repay millions of pounds in illegally obtained funds, in addition to a large fine.



The former minister was released from detention in March 2015 after being acquitted on charges of using his political influence to acquire illicit gains amounting to LE181 million.



In 2014, he was acquitted along with six of his aides and former president Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the January 2011 uprising.



In a separate case in 2011, El-Adly received a 12-year sentence and EGP 15 million worth of fines on charges of corruption and money laundering, but both sentences were dropped in 2014.



El-Adly served as President Hosni Mubarak's interior minister from 1997 to 2011.

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Enterprise Ireland unveiled its eurozone strategy yesterday, dividing 600 of its clients into two groups that will provide grants, marketing, training, and support for UK market-reliant companies to target new trade markets in the EU.

Half of the companies are designated as eurozone start, which are relatively new to the market and who are heavily reliant on the UK, while the remainder are eurozone scale, which are already exporting to Europe.

Enterprise Irelands annual report showed export growth to the UK, which accounted for 7.5bn of exports, slowed from 12% in 2015 to 2% in 2016. The fall was largely due to a decline in food exports, it said.

Despite the UK slowdown, Enterprise Ireland client company exports rose to 21.6bn globally, a 6% rise on 2015.

Enterprise Ireland CEO Julie Sinnamon said: Companies cannot afford to wait until the Brexit negotiations conclude. They must act now. While diversifying from the UK might have been a desirable objective for Irish companies in the past, Brexit means that it is now an urgent imperative.

On the new eurozone strategy, she said: We have to work on the basis that Brexit will create new barriers to Irish trade with the UK. On the other hand, eurozone markets can provide currency stability, proximity and potential for growth and opportunities for Irish companies.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association (ISME) said it was a welcome measure but that it should be replicated as Government policy.

ISME CEO Neil McDonnell said: From our point of view  and this is far from being a criticism of Enterprise Ireland, who only represent their own client companies  there are 100,000 companies in Ireland with 200 employees or less.

What we are saying is the Government has focused on foreign direct investment despite the face that SMEs are facing a huge threat from Brexit in the east and uncertain US policy in the west. Ireland Inc is worthy of focus on a macro level.

Mr McDonnell said Revenues own figures pointed to the value of the SME sector in Ireland, adding: The country would be really hurt if the SME sector was hit by a big case of the flu.

Enterprise Irelands said its new eurozone strategy to assist companies was aiming to increase trade in the EU by 50% before 2020.
It comes as the regulator has sought the views via a discussion paper of market participants about the best ways of regulating the burgeoning industry to protect investors.

The Central Bank believes it is essential that it is well placed to contribute to these kinds of discussions in a meaningful and impactful way, the regulator said.

Information and opinions gathered from respondents to this discussion paper will also support the Central Bank in continuing to authorise and effectively supervise ETFs in both the current environment and as the ETF industry develops further.

It has established that the 688 of the Irish-based traded funds were worth more than 287bn and is the largest single concentration in Europe.

ETFs have exploded in popularity since the financial crisis.

There were now $3.4trn (3.1trn) in ETF assets around the world, of which more than $542bn were regulated, including in Ireland.

The first focus is on the unique primary dealing and secondary trading arrangements which are an inherent part of the design of ETFs, the Central Bank said. The discussion paper elaborates on a number of potential discussion points relating to this key feature of ETFs. It discusses the extent to which reliance can be placed on disclosure of facts concerning the ETFs arrangements to provide appropriate degrees of protection for investors and discusses how these dealing and trading arrangements are likely to operate in stressed market conditions.

The second focus in on pushing forward the discussion on the assessment of the risks inherent in the ETF structure. The discussion paper looks at connectedness between authorised participants and other interested parties. It also looks at synthetic ETFs and, in particular at counterparty and collateral risk issues. As ETFs grow in popularity, the range of different types of ETFs is growing.

The third focus of the paper is on some of these types of ETFs, notably leveraged and inverse ETFs, and active ETFs. The discussion of active ETFs highlights the debate on how to achieve the right level of transparency in relation to active ETFs.
Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are now heavily tipped to move at least some jobs out of London into Dublin, according to market sources.

After multiple reports over several weeks, Wall Street giant JPMorgan confirmed it was setting up at least part of its home in Ireland and is buying a 130,000 sq ftbuilding, which is under construction in the Dublin docklands.

For regulatory purposes, global investment banks must find new European homes inside the EU when the UK formally leaves the bloc in less than two years time.

JPMorgan already has 500 employees in Ireland and the new building will likely help it accommodate up to 500 more posts which would otherwise be based in London

The Irish authorities are courting the largest Wall Street investment giants at an early stage because the big banks have to make contingency plans earlier than other financial firms because of the scale of their activities and regulatory oversight spanning the US, the eurozone, and the UK.

In time, all London-based international banks which currently can freely sell their services across the EU through so-called passport-ing rights will have to decide which EU financial centre to call their home after Brexit is completed.

Though talks have yet to start, the UK has said it will not opt to stay in the single market at this stage.

The authorities here are for the moist part competing against Frankfurt and Luxembourg. They hope that the confirmation by JPMorgan will help to encourage other investment banks as they weigh their decisions in the coming weeks.

However, that does not mean that Ireland would secure all the jobs that the investment banks would likely shift out of London into other European centres.

Morgan Stanley is reportedly also casting an eye over Frankfurt. Goldman Sachs has reportedly opted for Frankfurt, while Barclays may yet decide on Dublin.

Nonetheless, securing some of the jobs from two more investment banking giants could help encourage other banking and asset management firms to locate in Ireland.

According to estimates, about 9,000 jobs could be up for grabs in the first wave of decisions by the largest global banks this autumn.

Thousands more jobs may move out of London but most likely to Frankfurt or Paris if the massive euro payments clearing operations were to shift from the UK.

IDA chief executive Martin Shanahan said JPMorgans decision to expand here was a strong vote of confidence in Ireland and its expanding international financial services sector, and shows that our track record, pro-business environment, highly skilled talented workforce and an unwavering commitment to the European single market continues to appeal to investors.

IDA has been constantly engaged with JPMorgan over the past number of months, he said.

We are delighted that the company has selected Dublin to grow some of its businesses and confirmed in recent weeks that our capital city will be one of the anchors for their post-Brexit European operations.
The dramatic reduction follows a 15% fall last year and comes on the back of a new system allowing defaulters to pay their court fines by instalment.

Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald welcomed the development and said it represented a sea change in penal policy.

Official figures show that 1,178 people were committed to prison for failing to pay fines in the first three months of 2017, compared to 2,324 in the same period in 2016 (-49%).

Figures for the whole of 2016, show that 8,439 fine defaulters were jailed, compared to 9,883 in 2015 (-15%).

Launching the Irish Prison Service and Probation Service annual reports for 2016, the justice minister said the vast majority of these individuals should not be jailed.

Ms Fitzgerald said people had been waiting a long time for the Fines Act 2014 to become fully operational, which happened in January 2016 when a system was put in place allowing offenders to pay fines by instalment.

The instalment system was the final piece in a range of measures introduced by the act, which lays out a series of options the court must consider before sending an offender to prison.

Ms Fitzgerald said: Thats a sea change, an absolute sea change. The vast majority of these people should not be in prison.

Of the 8,439 fine committals in 2016, 2,177 (26%) were female.

The fall in fine-related imprisonment contributed to a major drop in the total number of people being jailed, from 17,206 in 2015 to 15,099 in 2016, the lowest number in eight years.

IPS director general Michael Donnellan said the reduction was across most prison terms, including those serving less than three months and 12 months.

He said there were other developments last year, including the opening of the new Cork Prison, at a cost of 44m, and the refurbishment of Mountjoy Prison, which was now all single cell with modern in-cell sanitation.

He said Mountjoy West (the old St Patricks Institution) was now becoming an enhanced regime and would be drug free and could house up to 180 inmates.

He also pointed out that the recruitment of prison officers restarted in 2016, the first time in eight years.

In relation to prison officer calls to house all gang bosses in one facility, he said the strategy was to separate and disperse them  not to put them all together.

The report showed that female committals fell last year after 12 years of increases. However, while the number fell (from 2,918 to 2,546), females still accounted for 20% of all committals in both years.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust welcomed the ending of slopping out and the imprisonment of children, but said other acute issues persisted including inadequate healthcare, the detention of people with serious mental health issues, violence and over-reliance on prolonged solitary confinement to ensure prisoner safety.

Acting executive director Fiona Ni Chinneide called on the minister to publish existing prison inspector reports and also called for an increase in open prisons.
West Cork historian Michelle OMahony, who played a key role in the repatriation from the US of the treasure trove of material contained in the Daniel MacCarthy Glas archive, praised Susan MacCarthy, of Salem, Oregon, for her generous and sincere decision to donate her great-great-grandfathers collection to the State.

Daniel MacCarthy Glass family was directly descended from the princes of Carbery, the MacCarthy Reaghs and the MacCarthy Glas, based at Togher Castle near Dunmanway in Co Cork.

His archive of material, dating from the 1700s and 1800s, has been in safekeeping in two trunks in the US for over a century. It comprises an estimated 1,500 unique items and is of major historical importance, containing personal letters, manuscripts, photographs and drawings from Daniel and other family members.

The scope of the collection is immense, documenting a range of topics, from the MacCarthy aristocratic lineage to 19th-century poetry and historiography, the history of early modern Ireland, and the British Empire in India and South Africa. It also contains various manuscripts relating to Daniels historical and literary research and publications.

Cork city and county archivist Brian McGee said work is ongoing to preserve and catalogue the material.

Daniel MacCarthys son Florence drawings from the 1860s in South Africa from the MacCarthy Glas archive repatriated to Cork city and county archives in Blackpool. Picture: Eddie OHare

But researchers, including Neil Buttimer at the School of Modern Irish History at UCC, have already identified one document of immense cultural and historical significance  a 1784 family pedigree of the Gaelic prince Jeremiah MacCarthy (Diarmuid an Duna) compiled by the famous poet-schoolmaster John Collins of Myross, known as the last bard of Munster.

It was said that Collins could recite much of the ancient history and genealogies of the region.

Written on parchment, the pedigree bears the wax seal of John Butler, Catholic Bishop of Cork, later Baron Dunboyne, who was a controversial figure.

This unique document, written in a combination of both Irish and English, is one of very few original manuscripts that we know of in existence from Collins or indeed any other Gaelic scholar from the period, Mr McGee said.

The pedigree will be subject to a detailed process of transcription and interpretation by historians, linguists and archivists for years to come, he said.

The archive was repatriated to Ireland thanks to years of dedicated work by Ms OMahony, Mervyn ODriscoll of UCCs School of History, Nigel McCarthy of the McCarthy DNA project, with support and assistance from the staff of the Cork City and County Archives Service.

Ms OMahony said it was only discovered after Susan MacCarthys brother, Don, had his DNA tested as part of Nigel McCarthys DNA project.

She said the MacCarthys were anxious to engage with historians in Ireland to see if the material they held was of historical value or significance.

Once initial contact was made with the donating family, it has been a journey of friendship and discovery, Ms OMahony said.

We have spent almost two years talking, emailing and studying letters before we acquired the collection.

Cork Archives were approached last summer to see if they would like to acquire it, and the rest as they say is history  or will be history.

Jeremiah MacCarthys pedigree 1784 by Sean OCoilean (John Collins), last bard of gaelic in Munster, in the MacCarthy Glas archive repatriated to Cork city and county archives in Blackpool. Picture: Eddie OHare

Mr McGee said it is rare to get a personal collection of such quality.

Thanks to the kind generosity of Susan MacCarthy and her family, the archive is now a permanent public resource in Cork, which will be available to researchers once it has been preserved, and catalogued in detail, he said.

Daniel MacCarthy Glass grandfather emigrated from Cork to England in 1763, and Daniel was born to a wealthy Irish Catholic merchant family in London in 1807. He died in 1884. Educated to a high standard, he was very well read, was a fluent Irish speaker, and took a major interest in his ancestry and in Irish history, writing two important books: The Life and Letters of Florence MacCarthy Reagh (1867) and A Historical Pedigree of the Sliochd Feidhlimidh, the MacCarthys of Gleannacroim (1875).

He contributed historical articles to The Nation newspaper and various journals during the Irish historical awakening of the 19th century.

Many of his works involved painstaking research through State papers and other records, and he was in regular and detailed correspondence with celebrated Cork historian Richard Caulfield, the first librarian at UCC, and a large circle of other Irish antiquarians and archaeologists.

A noted philanthropist, he sponsored the education of students in Dunmanway, helped Catholic institutions and helped to preserve historic buildings and monuments, including Togher Castle and St Patricks Church in Dunmanway.

James Coleman MRAI, wrote: A more interesting personality or a better type of Irishman could hardly be found than this English-born scion of the ancient sept of MacCarthys whose name is seldom absent from the annals of our country.

Some of Daniels family were poets and writers, and some held important positions in English society, reflecting the fact that they intermarried with the British elite.

Daniel himself was married in Italy to Lady Harriet Popham, a daughter of Admiral Popham who fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and who died 15 years later.

Their daughter, Elizabeth, died from TB aged around 14 or 15, and a son, Henry, died in Madras, where Daniel erected a monument to him in the 1860s. But it is another son, Florence, from whom Susan MacCarthy and her family are descended.

Another of Florence MacCarthys drawings from the 1860s in South Africa from the MacCarthy Glas archive. Picture: Eddie OHare

Florence had three daughters who all became nuns and one of the last letters in the archive, dated 1915, is from one of Daniels granddaughters in which she makes reference to German Zeppelins and blimps, giving a fascinating insight into life in England during the First World War.

Daniel was very close to his daughter-in-law, Alice, who kept all his letters, writings, notes and notebooks. The archive then made its way to Oregon over a century ago where it was kept safe by later generations, finally ending up with Susan MacCarthy.

Ms OMahony said Daniel always wanted to live and set up a permanent residence in the Dunmanway area, especially the townland of his ancestral Glas sept of the MacCarthys, and that he would be proud to know that his archive has finally made it home.

To celebrate the donation of the archive to the state, a major MacCarthy Glas Cultural and Historical weekend will take place in Dunmanway from May 26-28.

Susan MacCarthy and her brother Don will be among several family members who will travel from the US to attend the event.
In the latest collaboration between the Irish Examiner and University College Cork to highlight the history of the period, Corks War of Independence Fatality Register gives the circumstances of each episode, including the stories behind 166 civilian killings between 1919 and 1921.

It is the latest addition to the free historical resources available on The Irish Revolution website set up last year by the newspaper and university. The database was compiled by UCC school of history senior lecturer Andy Bielenberg and University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor of history James S Donnelly Jr.

Cork's significance in the War of Independence has long been established, with at least one-fifth of all violent deaths happening in the county. This latest research also offers analysis of the trends and timelines around different types of fatal incidents.

But Bielenberg and Donnelly have gone beyond the comprehensive work of other historians on Corks violent deaths almost a century ago, like the controversial late Peter Hart, to enumerate War of Independence deaths. The register uses official death registrations to expand on previous research.

Cork IRA commander and Lord Mayor Tomas MacCurtain with his family, soon before he was shot dead by police at his Blackpool home in March 1920. Picture: Irish Examiner photographic archive

The descriptions of each episode take account of the likely exaggerations in, for example, republican accounts of Crown Forces losses. The register also offers objective findings, after considering the likely biases or contradictory perspectives of different official and unofficial reports, whether they were produced in the weeks immediately following the events or decades later.

The names are listed chronologically, beginning with the death of 35-year-old former Cork GAA County Board member James Down after an assault by four ex-soldiers on St Patricks Street in February 1919. The final entries give details of two young suspected spies, abducted and killed by the IRA on the day of the Truce in July 1921.

But visitors to the research collection can also group deaths by category, or search the files for names, locations or organisations.

A novel aspect of the project is that it brings together details in one place for the first time of all known civilian deaths, often overlooked or given little attention by comparison to the more famous episodes in which Irish revolutionaries killed police or military targets, or were killed themselves.

In February 1921, for example, the 93 deaths recorded made it the worst month of the conflict for deaths. But the 39 IRA deaths were almost matched by 30 civilians who died, including eight killed on February 15 in the IRAs disastrous Upton train ambush.

Upton train station in west Cork, where three IRA volunteers and eight civilians were killed on February 15, 1921. Picture: Irish Examiner photographic archive

Its one of the most egregious examples of commemoration, where three IRA volunteers who were killed are regularly remembered. Eight civilians died when the train carrying British personnel was attacked, but hardly anything is ever mentioned of that, said Mr Bielenberg.

Up to July 1921, civilians were more likely to be killed by the IRA than by British police or military forces. This controversial aspect of the Irish revolution has already been well explored by the work of Bielenberg and Donnelly in the Cork Spy Files, an examination of known or alleged informers killed by the IRA and published last year on The Irish Revolution website.

Corks War of Independence Fatality Register is online at theirishrevolution.ie.

Andy Bielenberg will give a free public lecture on the project at UCCs civil engineering building this Wednesday, May 17, at 6pm
In a statement yesterday, Indaver Ireland said a rigorous review undertaken on foot of concerns raised by the Department of Defence had concluded their planned build would not compromise helicopter safety. It said it had consulted a number of experts as part of the review.

At an oral hearing into the project last year, the department said the incinerator stacks proximity to the approach paths of the naval base was a matter of concern.

They cited an example of a previous air accident in which a helicopter suffered engine failure after flying through an invisible exhaust plume.

Commandant David Browne of the Irish Air Corps told the hearing that having an incinerator so close to Haulbowline would create a flight safety hazard to Air Corps helicopter operations.

In March, An Bord Pleanala announced it had deferred, for the fourth time, a decision on whether to give the 160m incinerator the go-ahead, because it wanted to hear from Indaver how it intended to comprehensively address all matters relating to the navigation and safety of helicopters using the naval base including the possible requirement for an exclusion zone. Indaver was given until March 15 to respond.

The request for additional information extended to clarification of possible discrepancies in two appendices supplied by Indaver to the hearing relating to dioxin emissions.

In meeting the boards deadline yesterday, Indaver said it has submitted correct copies of the appendices in question together with an explanation of how the administrative error occurred.

However CHASE, the environmental lobby group opposed to the 240,000 tonnes-per-annum incinerator, said Indaver had been engaged with An Bord Pleanala since August 2012, which is adequate time to submit a comprehensive and correct submission.

Spokesperson Linda Fitzpatrick said the fact Indavers application was not true enough to be considered by the bord without correction should in our opinion have merited rejection.

In relation to Indavers claims that an incinerator would not impact helicopter safety, Ms Fitzpatrick said the Department of Defence are the sole expert in matters of strategic importance to Ireland and that Indaver and their hired exports have no jurisdiction in this area.

PDForra, the permanent Defence Forces representative body, which is opposed to the incinerator, re-iterated that safety of members and their families was paramount.

A planning decision was originally due on July 12 2016.
In Ireland, there was one isolated case of a WannaCry2 ransomware attack in a HSE-funded facility in Wexford on Saturday, according to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

Last night, the HSE advised patient care would continue to be unaffected despite blocking access to external emails.

In response to Fridays global ransomware attack, the HSEs eHealth Ireland function worked throughout the weekend to ensure that the health system was prepared for the return of large numbers of staff to work this morning, a statement yesterday said.

Due to this preparatory work, patient care has been protected and continues as planned.

Apart from an isolated incident in Co Wexford, there were three suspected cases within the HSE network of a WannaCry2 malware attack.

In each of the cases, the virus discovered was proven not to be the WannaCry virus, but an older virus for which protection was available, the HSE statement said.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten will today brief the Cabinet with an update on the situation.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), based in the ministers department, has brought in staff from the Defence Forces.

Mr Naughten said: We have an incidence response team, we are strengthening the legislation in this area, we have the National Cyber Security Centre which is based within my own department, headed up by Dr Richard Brown, that is relocating to UCD in the coming months.

Were ramping up the staffing level in that centre. At the moment, we have staff seconded in from the Defence Forces and An Garda Siochana but that will continually ramp up.

Mr Naughten described the attacks as significant and said Ireland was lucky.

It is very significant, this particular attack. The big litmus test for us here in Ireland was whether we could rebuff this attack and we seem to have done it on this occasion, said Mr Naughten.

The systems we have in place, the protocols we have in place were tested, tested very robustly over the last number of days and we seem to have been quite lucky.

There is a certain amount of luck involved in this because you can prepare yourself as much as you can but, until you actually receive an attack, its very hard to know whether the systems are robust and ours seem to have been on this occasion. But you dont know what sort of vehicle is going to be used in the next attack.

Yesterday, his department confirmed there had been no more reports of WannaCry2 ransomware attacks in Ireland, bar the case in the South-East.

Industry experts said there were many pragmatic steps businesses could take to reduce their risk in the event of a ransomware attack.

A customer walks by the notice about "ransomware" at CGV theater in Seoul, South Korea today. The letters read "Due to ransomware infection, we are unable to screen advertisement. The movie is going to start 10 minutes after the ticket time." Picture: AP

Pat Moran, the cyber leader at professional services firm PwC, outlined some of the steps organisations could take, such as effective backups of systems.

Ensuring that individual user systems and key servers can be restored rapidly from backups and that the frequency of backups aligns to the timeframe of data your organisation is prepared to lose in the event of any system being rendered unusable, is one such step, advised the cyber security expert.

Ensuring that there are formal procedures in which employees and those responsible for the management of high priority incidents are well versed to streamline the organisations reaction to ransomware events, is another step that can be taken according to Mr Moran.

PwC advised that businesses and organisations should not pay the ransom, unless there is a threat to life.
Private businesses by Syrian refugees in Egypt have contributed nearly $800 million to the Egyptian economy since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, a UN report revealed on Monday.

The report, which was conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), explores economic opportunities for Syrian refugees in MENA countries.

The report explores the challenges faced in accessing and creating economic opportunities, and identifies approaches likely to expand economic opportunities for Syrian refugees, IDPs and their host communities, drawing on recent successes and ongoing efforts across these countries.

The report argues that Syrian refugees offer a unique opportunity to bolster and invigorate the Egyptian private sector.

Supporting Syrian business activity will provide the Egyptian private sector access to new technical expertise, financing and business networks. This will create jobs for Egyptians and Syrian refugees alike, the report said.

Egypt, which has a population of 92 million, hosts 120,000 registered Syrian refugees, though the Egyptian government estimates the total number to be between 300,000 and 500,000.

The vast majority of working refugees operate within the informal economy.

The research cited in the report suggests that around 88 percent of Syrian refugees residing in Egypt are "very vulnerable" in terms of their economic situation.

Syrian refugees are integrated into urban areas, the report highlights, as there are no refugee camps in Egypt.

To facilitate Syrian business activity, the report recommends removing barriers faced by Syrian businesses, as they have proven capable of creating jobs for both Syrians and Egyptians.

It also calls on the Egyptian government, through limited intervention, to establish clear systems for Syrian-Egyptian business partnerships.

The report says that with a number of new labour law initiatives underway in Egypt, the aid community and Syrian representatives should represent refugee interests in labour law negotiations.

The report also recommends that Syrian refugees enter formal employment, saying this would trickle down positively on the Egyptian economy and would not threaten work opportunities for Egyptians.

There are opportunities within Egypts legal framework for Syrians The law allows the hiring and recognition of the professional credentials of foreigners, under certain conditions. Supporting Syrian refugees to navigate these processes would enable them to work legally, and bring their skills to the Egyptian labour market, the reports.

Syrias civil war has driven half of the country's population to flee their homes. More than 11 million Syrians have been displaced, with more than five million Syrian refugees now in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and more than 6 million people are internally displaced within Syria.

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Bishop of Kerry Ray Browne has informed the dioceses pastoral councils of his decision which was not unexpected.

Currently, five of the 53 parishes in the diocese, which also encompasses parts of west and north Cork, have no resident priests.

Only 48 priests below the age of retirement, 75, are involved in parish ministry, a spokeswoman confirmed.

Eleven priests are in their 70s, five are under 50, and one is under 40. There are also four non-diocesan priests involved in parish ministry.

The new regulation will, however, permit the removal of remains on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

The new regulation with regard to funeral Masses, which comes into effect in September  removals will be allowed on Saturday and Sunday evenings  are because of the shortage of priests and individual parish factors, Bishop Browne said.

For several years, the diocese has been preparing for a situation where there will be fewer priests involved in parish ministry.

A key priority is the resourcing the laity to take up roles of responsibility, a spokeswoman said recently.

Courses are delivered each year in the area of pastoral ministry and youth ministry.

Five parishes no longer have a resident priest and they are Duagh, Tarbert, Ballyheigue, Valentia Island, and Allihies.

The parishes in the diocese are divided into 12 pastoral areas.

The reason for this is to encourage cooperation and communication between parishes, a spokesperson said.

In the situation where a parish no longer has a resident priest, the clergy within the pastoral area take responsibility for ministry in that parish.
Scoil Aoife in Citywest, Co Dublin, now has more than 60 pupils but expects to pass the 115 figure on its roll book in September at its 5.5m new home.

The Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Education and Training Board community national school has come a long way from September 2014, when just one girl was being taught by principal Stacey McAuley at Brookfield Community Centre.

Despite early questions about its viability, with a second pupil enrolling during its second week, the Department of Education was confident that demand registered for a third multi-denominational school in the area would materialise.

At the start, the department kept saying the numbers were there to make the school viable, but I believed they were making a mistake, said Ms McAuley.

Other schools in the area said their numbers were dropping, but I think a lot of people were sending kids to schools in other areas because they didnt have a choice around the question of ethos.

By Christmas 2014, Scoil Aoife had grown to nine junior infants, and that group is now a 10-strong first class. Along with more than a dozen senior infants and two junior infant classes with 37 pupils, they sang for Education Minister Richard Bruton and Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone at the schools official opening yesterday.

Things have come full circle for us, said Ms McAuley. A lot of families are moving into rental accommodation and people working in Citywest are also bringing their children.

The 16-classroom school was occupied last August but the corridors will soon be much busier. With 40 junior infants expected in September and more set to join older classes, the number of class teachers will reach five. It also has a teacher to help the 70% of pupils whose home language is not English.

Scoil Aoife shares a learning support teacher with another school and will welcome six children with autism to a special unit in the autumn. As a community national school, it offers a multi-denominational ethos that caters for children of all faiths and none. However, parents have an option to have their children prepared for faith-specific rites of passage, such as Catholic sacraments, within school time.

Mr Bruton said yesterday that he will hold a forum on May 29 to hear further details from some of the 900-plus people and groups who responded to his proposals for new approaches to the role of religion in primary school admissions.

The minister has concerns about preference being given to children of the schools religion who are not from the area getting preference over locals, but minority faiths are worried about the impact of any rules banning such practices.
The decision was taken, not because the devices were dangerous, but because children in the school could not put them down in the classroom.

A fidget spinner, which is not just used by children but also by adults who are waiting in queues or commuting, is a two or three-pronged, palm-sized piece of plastic or metal that spins around a centrally weighted disc.

It is being described as the modern version of the old spinning top with some parents giving them to their children to keep fidgety fingers occupied.

A spokeswoman for the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) said the body was aware of the craze when asked about schools taking the step to ban them.

We are aware that fidget spinners are currently very popular. Its a matter for individual schools to decide if, how, and when fidget spinners are to be used in school.

Each school has its own code of behaviour and makes decisions at a local level within the parameters of that code, the spokeswoman said.

The devices had sold out in several toy shops in Ireland while some stores only had a limited number of colours available.

Smyths Toys told the Irish Examiner it had experienced a phenomenal demand for the product.

The fidget spinners arrived in all of our stores last weekend in both Ireland and the UK and we have since seen a phenomenal demand for this product, a spokeswoman for the toy chain said.

Following their popularity, we are set to receive thousands more across all of our stores to facilitate this demand, she added.

A chemical engineer living in Orlando, Florida, Catherine Hettinger, is being widely credited with having invented the fidget spinner.

However, Ms Hettinger is not involved in any of the companies that are making the popular toys.

In 1993, the engineer filed a patent covering a circular device moulded from a single piece of plastic that spins on the tip of a finger.

She called it a spinning toy, and the patent was granted in 1997, which then lapsed in 2005.

Aside from the spinning aspect, her device and the current one have nothing else in common.

In Britain, various schools have also taken steps to ban the products.

In Ireland, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has issued a warning over the safety of some fidget spinners.

The CCPC has found the following issues with some fidget spinners: having no CE (European Conformity) mark, having non-compliant CE marks, not having the required small parts warning, no information provided about the manufacturer and containing parts that easily detach and pose a serious choking hazard, read a statement by the commission.
Independent Alliance minister Finian McGraths criticism comes as Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is facing a Dail questioning over the ongoing Garda crisis, the Irish Examiner has learned.

Opposition parties are demanding Ms Fitzgerald attends an emergency Dail debate on the scandal today.

Mr McGrath, who is minister of state for disabilities, was speaking after it emerged that lawyers for Ms OSullivan told her to inform the Tanaiste in July 2015 of the scandal, but Ms Fitzgerald only learnt of the situation in October 2016.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr McGrath said that while he retains confidence in both Ms Fitzgerald and Ms OSullivan, he is awaiting the findings of the Public Accounts Committee and Garda Authority investigations into the scandal to fully make up his mind.

Mr McGraths comments come as other members of the Independent Alliance have expressed concern at Ms OSullivans ability to lead the force, but said they will not seek her head.

Our confidence is at best lukewarm, but we are not prepared to force her sacking or risk collapsing the Government, one minister told the Irish Examiner. But to say we are not happy is an understatement.

Ms Fitzgerald yesterday hit back at opposition criticism of her handling of Garda disputes by calling on them not to put political expediency ahead of policing.

She said that she had no objective evidence that Ms OSullivan had done anything wrong and said the two inquiries under way  the Charleton tribunal and the Public Accounts Committee hearings  should be allowed to continue their work.

Everybody says take politics out of policing, said the Tanaiste.

Asked what were the specific wrongdoings of Ms OSullivan, she said: I have no objective evidence that the Garda commissioner has done anything wrong. Ive no evidence in relation to that.

Of course, the opposition are going to ramp up the pressure on the commissioner, and, indeed, on me. I would say politics and political expediency arent going to sort out the very deep-seated issues in relation to An Garda Siochana.

In a letter to Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail, Sinn Fein whip Aengus O Snodaigh said that Ms Fitzgerald must be grilled over the latest Garda crisis.

I believe it is of such seriousness that all business on Tuesday after order of business be set aside to facilitate a frank and honest exchange, Mr O Snodaigh wrote.

Mr O Fearghail, who did not respond to calls on the issue last night, will decide on the potential plan during a Dail business committee meeting this morning.

However, while the debate request is likely to be backed by some other opposition parties keen to keep the spotlight on the justice minister, the Government members of the committee are likely to oppose the call.

Despite growing criticism of Ms Fitzgeralds handling of events, she is also set to avoid a mooted no-confidence motion in her.

Fianna Fail officials said the confidence and supply deal with Fine Gael means the party must abstain or vote against any no-confidence motion in the Government unless in extreme circumstances.

Similarly, although Sinn Feins Mr O Snodaigh and justice spokesman Jonathan OBrien last night said they are still considering a motion, sources said that there is little point in tabling one if it is not supported by others.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin also warned Ms Fitzgerald her position will become increasingly untenable if that leadership [to remove Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan] does not manifest in the coming days.

Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday expressed his confidence in both Ms Fitzgerald and Ms OSullivan.
Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have not yet resolved points of contention over studies evaluating the potential impact of the Grand Ethiopian Rennassaince Dam (GERD) after a tripartite committee meeting to discuss the dam concluded on Tuesday, Egypt's irrigation ministry said.

The ministry said that the committee of experts tasked by the three countries to oversee the studies, which concluded its 14th meeting in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, will discuss "outstanding technical points" about the impact studies in a future meeting.

The three-day meeting between experts and specialists from the three countries saw a discussion of the terms under which the studies are to be carried out, the data the two French firms commissioned with conducting the studies need to provide, and the mechanism of sharing and verifying information presented by the firms, the statement said.

The current, "initial" phase of the discussions involves the technical methodology of the studies, according to the ministry's statement.

The meeting in Addis Ababa also addressed points of concern by the three countries on an initial report delivered in late March by French firms BRL and Artelia about the technical studies, which assess the hydrological, environmental and economic impact of the mega project on downstream countries.

BRL said last year that the studies were scheduled to start in late 2016 and should take 11 months, but the process has since been lingering.

The 6,000-megawatt Grand Renaissance Dam, which is slated for completion in 2017, is situated close to Ethiopia's border with Sudan. Ethiopia hopes it will be able to export energy generated by the dam.

Egypt, however, has expressed concerns that the dam might reduce its share of Nile water.

Ethiopia maintains that the dam will not have any negative impact on Egypt or Sudan.

This week's meeting came almost one month after a visit to Egypt by Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu, who reiterated that the dam would never harm Egypt's interests.

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Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 (4:31 pm) - Score 1,576

Utility infrastructure builder GTC (Brookfield Utilities UK / IFNL) has announced that the initial phase of 880 new homes being constructed in Tornagrain, which is the Highlands newest town near Inverness (Scotland), will benefit from their 300Mbps Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) broadband network.

Once complete the new town of Tornagrain, which is located just off the A96 (halfway between Nairn and Inverness) and is being built by Zero C and A&J Stephen for Tornagrain Ltd (part of Moray Estates), should create 5,000 homes as well as various local parks, schools, shops and offices. Apparently the first homes have already started to go live on GTCs Ultrastream300 FTTH network.

Customers can get access to the ultrafast network by subscribing via any one of five different ISPs (Seethelight, VFast, Direct Save Telecom, Pure Broadband and Love Your Broadband), which all have fairly similar packages. Prices tend to start at around 25 inc. VAT per month for an unlimited 30Mbps (5Mbps upload) service and rise to around 60+ if you want the full 300Mbps (30Mbps upload).

A 70 one-off activation fee for new connections may also apply.

Alastair Struthers, Sales Manager of Zero C, said: Working with GTC has been a great experience. Their team have been exceptionally helpful in the delivery of the FTTH packages into our homes. The high speeds are unparalleled in the area and so have proved enticing to many of our customers, adding real value to their homes. The new residents have been thrilled with the consistent high speeds they are receiving and ease of getting up and running as soon as they move into their home.

Lesley Campbell, GTCs Commercial Director for Scotland, said: We are delighted that the first homes on our FTTH network at Tornagrain in Scotland have gone live. The team in our Scottish office has been working closely with Zero C and A&J Stephen, as we do with all our housebuilder customers, and it is very satisfying to see the new community beginning to emerge.

On top of that GTCs existing agreement with Sky means that the new homes can also benefit from premium TV services, which are delivered via a Fibre Integrated Reception System (FIRS). The FIRS system delivers TV services via GTCs fibre optic cables and thus only needs to utilise a single central satellite receiver and aerial array to cover a whole site, which is better than putting a dish on every roof. On the other hand any problem with the centralised distribution can affect a wide area.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is instilling senses of both anticipation and trepidation in the enterprise. On the one hand, it has the potential to vastly improve efficiency and performance of data options, while on the other it is seen as a threat to jobs and the ability to exert adequate control over the data environment when necessary.

One thing is certain: The investment community is starting to wake up to the promise of RPA and its ability to disrupt a number of markets in the transition to a digital services-based economy.

Much of the activity surrounding RPAs is coming from start-ups. Companies like UiPath are developing tools like intelligent assistants, bots and smart voice technologies as means to remove the repetitive tasks that drive up costs and degrade performance in the enterprise. The company got its start in Romania but is now based in the U.S. where it is drawing venture capital from Earlybird, Credo and Accel. Its technology integrates with the user interface of leading CRM and ERP platforms to learn the processes that are currently handled manually and then perform them automatically, starting with basic repetitive functions and gradually moving up to higher-order operations.

Another newcomer is Automate Work, which is leveraging its experience in IT outsourcing to provide a more efficient means of taking on key enterprise functions. The company offers a mix of RPA and cognitive technologies and a suite of managed services that includes strategy development, road-mapping and productivity metrics, all aimed at guiding organizations through the transition to a digital work environment. Company executives say they are buoyed by recent surveys that RPA could become an $8 billion industry by 2022 and there is so far a distinct lack of pure-play providers in North America.

Over in Europe, much of the emphasis is on educating executives and IT workers about the benefits of tools like RPA. In Manchester, UK this week, the Shared Services Week conference will feature a workshop on RPA sponsored by Softomotive and tech services company DXC Technology. The event will highlight DXCs experiences with RPA and its ability to optimize internal processes and revenue. The companies will also discuss implementation best practices, including which processes are most amenable to automation and how the technology can be integrated and scaled within legacy IT environments.

Nevertheless, RPA, and automation in general, still suffers from the impression that it will wipe away countless jobs in the tech sector. But according to a new study, this will only happen to employees who fail to embrace automations ability to boost their own productivity. Information Services Group says RPA is expected to execute business processes five to 10 times faster than manual systems, and use 37 percent fewer resources. So far, however, this is not leading to higher unemployment but a redeployment of employee responsibilities to more intuitive, higher-value functions. In other words, automation will not replace people, just the repetitive tasks they do.

The prospect of robots running the enterprise is certainly unsettling, but it is also wildly inaccurate in describing what is really going on. Technologies like RPA have a marked propensity to do many things for themselves, unlike current systems that require humans to actively initiate virtually every step of a complicated, or even simple, process.

If anything, this leads to a situation in which humans have to work, and work hard, to make their digital environments more productive. In the very near future, however, it will be the environment that works hard for the betterment of human productivity.

Arthur Cole writes about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor of TV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet and as web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata and Carpathia. Follow Art on Twitter @acole602.
Independent MP Mostafa Bakri demanded an explanation for the apparent disappearance of Habib El-Adly, calling on Interior Minister Magdi Abdel-Ghaffar to take steps to find the fugitive

Independent MP and journalist Mostafa Bakri told reporters on Tuesday that he believes Mubarak-era interior minister Habib El-Adly has fled house arrest in order to avoid a seven-year jail sentence and that he had help in making his escape.

Speaking to journalists at the parliament building, Bakri said that the interior ministry has not taken any serious steps to arrest El-Adly, who was convicted of embezzling funds from the ministry, adding that the facts point to "someone" helping with the escape.

"El-Adly was allowed to go free by the interior ministry, even though the court sentenced him to seven years in prison on 15 April, or one month ago," said Bakri.

"Despite the seven-year prison sentence against him and despite tight security measures that have been imposed on his house in Sixth of October City since 15 April, El-Adly was allowed to flee his house before arrest," continued Bakri.

On April 15, Cairo Criminal Court sentenced El-Adly to seven years in jail for embezzling LE2 billion from the interior ministry between 2000 and 2011. He has yet to begin his sentence and was recently declared a fugitive by the ministry.

After the prison sentence was issued, El-Adly filed an appeal. However, he lost the appeal on Tuesday due to his failure to appear at the Cairo Criminal Court, with his lawyer claiming he is receiving treatment in a Cairo hospital. According to the lawyer, the former minister's health is deteriorating.

On Monday, the interior ministry notified the Central Cairo Prosecution Authority in an official letter that "security forces were not able to arrest El-Adly to serve the seven-year sentence against him because he was not at his house in Sixth of October City."

According to Bakri, "the Interior Ministry's failure to arrest El-Adly leaves no doubt that someone has helped him to flee."

"It seems that El-Adly fled his house a long time ago and the fact that he did not show up in the Criminal Court today [Tuesday] to discuss his appeal against the seven-year verdict leaves no doubt that someone had helped him flee his house," said Bakri.

Bakri said that he has filed a request with Ali Abdel-Aal, the speaker of parliament, seeking an explanation from current Interior Minister Magdi Abdel-Ghaffar. The MP said that he has asked Abdel-Ghaffar to take all necessary steps to arrest El-Adly as soon as possible.

Bakri told journalists that he has also demanded that parliament's Defence and National Security Committee hold an urgent meeting to discuss how El-Adly was able to flee his house and "who might have helped him escape arrest."

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THE Fight for the Wight campaign, which called for a fair financial deal for the Island, has been shortlisted for a newspaper industry award.

The Making a Difference award, run by Local Media Works, Local Newspaper Week and the Making a Difference campaign, celebrates the role played by local newspapers in communities across the UK and the importance of highly trusted local journalism and campaigning.

It has shortlisted the Fight for the Wight campaign, launched by the County Press last year, which brought together business leaders, politicians and thousands of everyday Islanders, to demand the government recognise challenges faced by the Island.

The awards will be decided by a public vote, with the winner due to be announced at Friday's Regional Press Awards.

County Press deputy editor Rachael Rosewell said: "We are delighted all the hard work Islanders put into the year-long Fight for the Wight campaign has been recognised.

"As the Island's newspaper, the County Press is the mouthpiece of residents, who are all calling for fairer funding for the Isle of Wight.

"The CP has always been committed to representing the views of the Island and fighting for a better deal."

The County Press is also in the running to be named the UK's best regional newspaper.

Together with five other titles, the County Press has been shortlisted as best weekly newspaper with a circulation above 15,000 at the Society of Editors' Regional Press Awards.

The County Press' youth website, yoppul, has been shortlisted for the digital award, and chief reporter Emily Pearce as education journalist of the year for her articles on school funding cuts, the dangers of sexting among Island schoolchildren and former Ofsted chair David Hoare's comments branding the Isle of Wight an inbred ghetto.

An awards ceremony will be held at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, London.

Click here to vote for Fight for the Wight.
February 8, 2001 14:31: A SHORTAGE of equipment has led to tonsillectomy operations being cancelled at Farnborough Hospital.

Staff in the ear, nose and throat department have had to put off operations for two weeks due to a shortage of disposable theatre instruments.

The problem can be traced to a new Government directive which advised surgeons not to perform tonsillectomies until disposable instrumentation is available to reduce the risk of infection.

But the manufacturers have been unable to keep up with demand, leaving the hospital short of equipment.

Dozens of youngsters have had operations cancelled and hospital bosses say they will have to wait for at least another three to four weeks until the sets arrive.

Rose Gibb, operations director for the trust said: When we got the Government guidance, we immediately approached manufacturers to provide the trust with the equipment we sorely need.

Demand for these instruments has been so great nationally, that all manufacturers are having problems.

As the instruments arrive, the trust produces disposable tonsillectomy sets, which enables priority tonsillectomies to be undertaken.

The national body representing ENT doctors gave us additional guidance, strongly advising surgeons not to perform tonsillectomies until they receive disposable instrumentation.

Mike Addelman
THE Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has issued a stern warning against making hoax calls after last night's (Monday) major search operation off the Isle of Wight.

COWES RNLI Lifeboat and others, police and the UK Coastguard Search and Rescue Helicopter based at Lee on the Solent were involved in the operation after receiving a mayday call said to be from a 70ft yacht which said it was taking on water in the Solent.

However, after a four hour search, the huge operation was stood down at around 1am today (Tuesday).

An MCA spokesman said: "We never put a price on human life. If we get a 999 call we treat it as real. We encourage people to call us if they see someone in trouble, even if they're not sure whether they are or not. Calling 999 in these cases is always the right thing to do. Search and rescue resources will always be used rather than risk loss of life. If we think someone's in danger or in trouble we will always search for them and rescue them if it's needed.

"Making deliberate, false or misleading calls is against the law and we treat it very seriously. We keep a record of these calls and hold those records as evidence for future prosecutions. Have no doubt, if you make a hoax call and we catch you, you will be prosecuted under the full force of the law. Not only is it wasting the valuable time of our Coastguard officers, volunteers and resources such as the RNLI and our aircraft while searching; it also may be putting other lives at risk by diverting our resources away from genuine emergencies."

The mayday call at 9.45pm told the UK Coastguard that there were seven on board with lifejackets and their pumps were not coping.

Hill Head Coastguard Rescue Team, two Gosport Inshore Lifeboats, Calshot and Cowes RNLI inshore Lifeboats and the UK Coastguard search and rescue helicopter carried out an extensive search of the area. The Hampshire Police Vessel also helped and South Central Ambulance were notified and were on standby.

The UK Coastguard also issued a Mayday relay broadcast to all vessels in the area to maintain a lookout and assist the rescue operation if necessary.




A judge in Ethiopia's capital on Tuesday found a former opposition spokesman guilty of encouraging terrorism with a series of anti-government Facebook posts.

Yonatan Tesfaye was arrested in December 2015 after writing on the social media platform that the government had used "force against the people instead of using peaceful discussion with the public."

While Yonatan's lawyer and defence witnesses argued the former spokesman of the opposition Blue Party was exercising his right to free speech, judge Belayhun Awol ruled the comments "exceeded freedom of expression" and amounted to encouraging terrorism.

"I think the government's intent and what it seeks is this: to restrict others from speaking freely," Yonatan's lawyer Shebru Belete Birru told AFP after the verdict.

The guilty verdict for "encouragement of terrorism" means Yonatan faces a possible sentence of between 10 and 20 years under the country's anti-terrorism laws, which have been criticised by rights groups and Ethiopia's allies, such as the United States, for being used to stifle dissent.

Yonatan's comments came shortly after protesters belonging to the country's largest ethnic group, the Oromos, took to the streets in towns outside the capital Addis Ababa, claiming a plan to expand the city's boundaries into their region amounted to a land-grab.

The protests led Ethiopia's government to declare a state of emergency last October, which was extended for another four months in March.

Yonatan was originally charged with being a member of the banned separatist Oromo Liberation Front, but prosecutors changed the charges against him last year.

Shebru said he plans to appeal the verdict.

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Related US says Syrians built crematorium at prison complex

US claims that Syria's regime is using a prison crematorium to destroy the remains of thousands of murdered detainees are unfounded and disconnected from reality, Damascus said on Tuesday.

"These allegations are totally unfounded, they are nothing but the product of the imagination of this administration and its agents," state news agency SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

It called the accusation a "Hollywood screenplay disconnected from reality".

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Forwarders are expecting Shanghai's Yangshan terminal congestion to be cleared by mid-May.

Bottlenecks at the port of Shanghais Yangshan terminals have continued to ease since peaking in mid-April, with vessel arrival delays in the last week of the month improving by 15 percent on the previous week.



The latest available data provided by CargoSmart shows that vessel arrival delays in the April 23 to 29 period dropped to 43.4 hours per ship compared with 51.2 hours between April 16 and 22.



Adverse weather in northern China, service and terminal changes following the alliance reshuffle on April 1, as well as large volumes of containers in yards, are the source of delays, which primarily relate to shipments on the Asia-Europe, trans-Pacific, and Asia-Australia routes.



Forwarders have confirmed that berthing delays have been steadily improving at the worlds busiest container port.



In Shanghai we have seen a noteworthy easing off of congestion, especially within the terminals due to significant improvements in how fast laden containers can now actually move from gate to ship over the past days, said Joerg Hoppe, DB Schenker director and head of ocean freight for North and Central China.



Markus Johannsen, Kuehne + Nagel senior vice president sea freight for North Asia Pacific, said berthing delays were down to maximum one day and the situation was still improving.



A number of factors coincided to create the bottlenecks, Hoppe said, such as foggy weather, bunched up barge traffic coming down the Yangtze River, alliance services and vessel re-alignments, strong export and import volumes, and empty Hanjin boxes still piling up, which was driving the current congestion that was happening mainly in Shanghai's Yangshan port.



We do not see a substantial impact of congestion on our traffic flows in both Qingdao and Ningbo, he said.



Chinas container volumes have indeed been rising, with Chinas top 10 ports collectively experiencing a 6 percent year-over-year growth in throughput in the first quarter of 2017, Drewry said in its Container Insight Weekly. The biggest gains were being recorded at Qingdao (12 percent); Shanghai (10 percent); and Ningbo (9 percent). According to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, the port of Shanghai in March saw volumes growing 14.2 percent to 3.4 million TEU.



But in its analysis of the Shanghai congestion, Drewry said that for the first time, data showed that imports to greater China had outpaced exports in 2016. The inbound trade from a sample of trades grew by 2.3 percent year-over-year versus 0.5 percent for the outbound market, in the process lowering the export-to-import ratio.



Closer inspection of the numbers revealed that the transition began to really gather pace in the second half of last year. As of February, greater Chinas 12-month moving average for imports had gained about five index points since August, more than twice as fast as seen into either North Asia or Southeast Asia. Greater China exports over the same period increased by around two index points, Drewry said.



Having been such an export driven economy for so long, Chinas ports have tended not to be over-taxed by long dwell times in terminal yards as boxes tend to be swiftly loaded onto ships for export, the analyst said.



However, the fast growing intake of imports could well be putting hitherto unseen pressure on yards in China that as yet they have not adapted to. This has the hallmarks of a longer-term trend that unless remedied by more capacity  to both terminals and yards  will continue to put pressure on ports that are already close, if not beyond, their realistic maximum utilisation levels.



Forwarders, however, are not convinced that the congestion will become a long-term problem. Hoppe said that while he had no crystal ball, he still believed the main congestion issues would pass within a couple of weeks. Talks about an extended or permanent Chinese port congestion crisis are, in our view, pre-mature at this point."



Johannsen agreed. I doubt that congestion will become a regular issue, he said.



Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@ihsmarkit.com and follow him on Twitter: @greg_knowler.
A Saudi Arabian police officer was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade on Tuesday in a Shia town, the interior ministry said, as deadly fighting escalated.

A member of the special police emergency forces died when "a rocket-propelled grenade (was) launched from inside the neighbourhood" and hit his patrol unit in the Almosara area of Awamiya, the ministry said in a statement.

"Five others were injured and taken to hospital," it said.

Awamiya is a town of 30,000 in Qatif district of Eastern Province, where most of the Sunni-ruled kingdom's shias live.

The town, in a region where Shias have long complained of marginalisation, has been the scene of repeated security incidents.

The police officer is at least the third person killed in the Gulf coast town of Awamiya since Wednesday.

The unrest centres on Awamiya's old Almosara district, which is the site of a redevelopment project.

"It's really war," said an area resident who reported his home has been shaken by explosions in the past two days.

On Friday the ministry said a two-year-old boy and a Pakistani died when gunmen from within Almosara opened fire on passersby, security officers and workers on the project.

Residents gave a higher toll.

Criminals engaged in the drug and arms trade tried "to jeopardise the project and protect their terrorist activities that they launch from the abandoned houses in the neighbourhood", the ministry said at the time.

Images purportedly from the area and circulating on social media Tuesday showed a wasteland of buildings apparently pockmarked heavily by gunfire and with some showing signs of burning.

Rubble and damaged cars lay in the narrow streets.

Residents first reported gunfire on Wednesday in Awamiya, as authorities moved on the Almosara district.

On Saturday residents told AFP that people from the Almosara area had been asked to leave, and some sought shelter with people in adjacent districts.

In March the ministry said a teenage suspect died from wounds after Saudi police "responded" under fire while looking for suspects hiding among abandoned homes in Almosara.

A resident at that time told AFP people had been living for more than a month in Almosara resisting the urban renewal project.

They had no water and their electricity came only from generators, the resident said, adding they wanted to be given new houses and the area kept as a historical district.

Awamiya was the home of Nimr al-Nimr, a Shia cleric put to death in January last year for "terrorism".

Nimr was a driving force behind protests by Shias that began in 2011 and developed into a call for equality in the Sunni-majority kingdom.

But residents in the Awamiya area have also complained about the presence of people involved in criminal activity including the drug trade.

Shias in eastern Saudi Arabia live just across from Shia majority Bahrain where authorities have accused Iran of trying to spark unrest.

Riyadh's Sunni rulers regularly accuses Shia-dominated Iran of interference throughout the Middle East.

Iran is expected to be a focus this weekend when US President Donald Trump, on his first overseas trip, holds summits in Riyadh with Muslim leaders from the Gulf and around the world.

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Iran's reformist first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, on Tuesday pulled out of this week's presidential election and endorsed the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, ISNA news agency reported.

"I will vote for Mr Rouhani in the presidential election," Jahangiri said as he announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.

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US President Donald Trump will meet Palestinian officials in the West Bank town of Bethlehem next week, after talks with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, National Security advisor HR McMaster said Tuesday.

McMaster told reporters that, while in the Palestinian territories, Trump "will convey the eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends the conflict and he will urge leaders to take steps that will help lead to peace."

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Since Adam's fall in Eden, we humans find it easy to fall for lies. Especially in the absence of a moral filter which helps us differentiate between and navigate around what is right and wrong.

Apparently, moral filters were in short supply in Germany in the 1930s when Nazism was on the rise. Adolf Hitler and his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, launched an insidious campaign against the Jews. They spread their evil telling despicable lies blaming Jews for every malady on the planet.

Hitler's "big lie" campaign included the idea that if a big lie is repeated frequently enough, it will be believed.

Concentration camps, gas chambers and mass graves across Germany spoke to how effectively their "big lie" propaganda technique worked. That presumably preventable and disturbingly dark stain etched on the annals of history should give all thoughtful humans reason for pause.

America, it seems, has recently become home for, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, "a special kind of stupid." Democrats and their media cohorts understand their lies will eventually be considered "truth" if they hammer away at it long enough.

Their goal is to normalize abnormality to the point our brains begin convincing us that the Star Wars Cantina scene is as regular and ordinary as a Mayberry R.F.D. soda shop. Switch on your flat screen to hear the cacophony of wild accusations, zany insinuations, and hare-brained inferences of untruth- tellers, thrashing in the throes of post-election temper tantrums.

Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, just like George W. Bush who "stole the election" they incessantly regurgitate. The only difference in their rhetoric now is that hanging chads have become Russian hackers.

In 2000, recounts reflected Bush won, even in the four Florida counties Al Gore cherry-picked for recount because they leaned heavily Democrat. Gore was such a pathetic loser, he couldn't win his home state of Tennessee. Even so, Bush stole the election. In its majority opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court described the cheating by Democrat Party counters who continuously changed the counting rules during recounts to rig the election in favor of Al Gore.

The one thing I know with certainty: There is a God...and he rescued us from what would have been sure and certain disaster if Gore was president on September 11, 2001.

Nevertheless, Bush was illegitimate...illegitimate...illegitimate...just like Donald Trump, they ceaselessly reiterate.

Although the fresh air of truth floats just above their noses, they remain content hog-scratching through the mud piles of innuendoes, overtones and implications in search of a mouthwatering morsel of mistruth they can twist into something else. The Devil deals in counterfeits, you know.

On May 11 during a meeting of the Judiciary Committee which had nothing to do with Russia, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Democrat Dianne Feinstein addressed the subject of Russia. Grassley said both he and Feinstein were briefed by former FBI director Comey regarding the individuals the current FBI investigation targeted.

Grassley said, "Mr. Comey testified before the Judiciary Committee last week... Shortly after Director Comey briefed us, I tweeted that he should be transparent. I said he should tell the public what he told Sen. Feinstein and me about whether the FBI is or is not investigating the president. On Tuesday, the president's letter said that Director Comey told him he was not under investigation. Sen. Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the president's statement."

Grassley also said the FBI should "confirm to the public whether it is or is not investigating the president. Because it has failed to make this clear, speculation has run rampant" tempering "some of the unsubstantiated statements that have been made."

Later, Grassley told Fox News' Neil Cavuto: "There's no evidence whatsoever now that they [Russia] changed one vote, but that suspicion is out there."

Sure is. Ask the hog-scratchers.
Iraqi forces have recaptured nearly 90 percent of west Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) militant group and other Islamist militants in the city are on the "brink of total defeat", officers said Tuesday.

Iraqi forces launched the massive operation to retake Mosul from IS nearly seven months ago, fighting their way to the city held by Islamist militants, retaking its eastern side and then attacking the west.

Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in Baghdad that IS now controls just over 10 percent of west Mosul.

Both Staff Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, a senior Iraqi special forces commander, and Colonel John Dorrian, the spokesman for the US-led international coalition against IS, said that the end was near for Islamist militants in the city.

"They have two options: die and go to hell or raise the white flag. They have no third option," Saadi told AFP at his headquarters in Mosul.

"The enemy is completely surrounded," Dorrian told the news conference in Baghdad. "The enemy is on the brink of total defeat in Mosul."

The drive to retake Mosul has been supported by a campaign of coalition air strikes in and around the city.

Dorrian said that coalition strikes have destroyed more than 300 explosives-rigged vehicles in Mosul, as well as over 200 IS tunnels and more than a thousand Islamist militant fighting positions.

IS now controls just a handful of neighbourhoods around the Old City, one of the country's heritage jewels.

The area's narrow streets and closely spaced buildings make it difficult for federal forces to take on the Islamist militants, requiring them to fight on foot instead of from vehicles as they have previously done.

Half a million people are currently displaced as a result of the battle for Mosul, and some 250,000 civilians are estimated to still be trapped inside the city's west.

The number of those fleeing has been on the rise, with Thursday seeing around 20,000 people fleeing west Mosul, the Norwegian Refugee Council said, in the biggest single-day displacement since the operation began.

The presence of a large civilian population, which either chose not to leave or was prevented from doing so by IS, complicates any final assault to seal victory in Mosul.

While coalition air strikes have aided the advance of Iraqi forces, they have also reportedly caused hundreds of civilian casualties in the city.

Human shields have become a central feature of the vastly outnumbered Islamist militant' defences, and IS has stopped at nothing to deter people from escaping the city, including killing people who seek to flee.

Trapped residents reached by AFP inside IS-held areas have also recently warned that hunger was starting to kill more people than the fighting.

In eastern Mosul, life returned to a semblance of normality fairly quickly after Iraqi forces drove the Islamist militants back neighbourhood by neighbourhood until the area was fully recaptured earlier this year.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since retaken much of the territory they lost to the Islamist militants .

But while the battle for Mosul is moving ever closer to its conclusion, the city's recapture will not mark the end of the war against IS in Iraq.

Losing Mosul would remove from Islamist militants' hands the largest Iraqi population centre still under IS control, and would be a major blow to their narrative that they have established a cross-border Islamic "state".

But IS also holds other territory in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, as well as in Kirkuk and Anbar, while Syria's Raqa is also controlled by the jihadists.

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Fresh from securing his grip on Turkey with a referendum to centralize power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan met US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday on a mission to restore frayed ties.

Trump was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Erdogan on winning the April 16 vote to strengthen his office, despite concern in some other capitals that Turkey has taken a dangerous turn towards authoritarianism.

But Washington and Ankara are still bitterly at odds over US support for the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), a faction that the Pentagon sees as a vital ally against the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria but that Turkey brands a front for the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

And Erdogan remains angry that the United States continues to host Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, a former ally who chose exile in Pennsylvania and who has now been accused of masterminding last year's bloody attempted coup in his homeland.

Both issues poisoned ties between Erdogan and former US president Barack Obama, but there now appears to be an opening for Trump to rebuild bridges.

"We look forward to having a long and productive discussion," Trump said as he welcomed Erdogan to the Oval Office. "We've had a great relationship and we will make it even better."

Trump hopes to secure at least grudging Turkish agreement not to oppose the US-led drive by YPG-led fighters to oust IS from their Syrian stronghold of Raqa.

In return, Trump will have to give Erdogan assurances that Gulen will be closely monitored while the US courts examine a Turkish extradition request and that -- once the IS has been driven out of the Iraqi city of Mosul -- Washington will endorse a Turkish offensive against PKK bases in Sinjar, northern Iraq.

"That's the main ask," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish research program at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy and recent author of "The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey."

"He's going to want US support for a Turkish operation against Sinjar. In this case, the stars are a little bit aligned in Erdogan's favor," he added.

"I think what we will tell the Turks is 'Yes, we can do this, but let's focus on Mosul first'."

Erdogan and Trump are scheduled to give joint press statements after talks at the White House, a platform that will allow the Turkish leader to demonstrate to supporters at home and critics abroad that his referendum win has the support of the leader of his most powerful NATO ally.

Trump, meanwhile, may be distracted by the ongoing controversy over intelligence leaks and the alleged ties between his campaign and Russia, and not seek to put Erdogan on the spot over his government's often strident anti-American rhetoric or his clampdown on opposition media and purge of alleged Gulenists in government jobs.

"To the extent that Erdogan looks like he's being flattered, he's going to love that ... to confirm to the Turks that his referendum victory was free and fair, and he's getting a pat on the back from the US president. That's number one," said Cagaptay.

"Look for any deals on Sinjar and the PKK, and for any deals on Gulen or any new wording on that, coming from behind closed doors."

Turkish officials have spoken enthusiastically about Trump's election as a chance to turn a new page, but hopes could have been dashed last week when the Pentagon confirmed that it has increased its support for the YPG by directly arming its fighters ahead of the battle to oust the IS from its de facto capital in Syria.

Ankara regards the YPG as simply the Syrian arm of the "terrorist" PKK, which has waged a deadly insurgency inside Turkey since 1984, and Erdogan is worried the war against the IS group will leave his deadly enemy in charge of a US-armed statelet on his southern frontier.

But he is also concerned about the PKK's growing presence in Sinjar, and would have the support of local Kurdish authorities if he were to launch a cross-border operation to destroy the group's highland bases. Erdogan may be persuaded not to act as a spoiler in Syria if Trump gives him a green light in Iraq.

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The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard [video; materials] arguments Monday on the Trump administrations revised ban on travelers from some majority Muslim countries. State of Hawaii, et al. v. Trump [materials] was brought before the court on appeal after the travel ban was previously struck down [JURIST report]. At issue is the alleged discriminatory intent [JURIST op-ed] of the executive order that was designed to prevent individuals from specified countries from coming into the country. Due to statements made during the campaign, the plaintiffs allege the travel ban was in fact a Muslim ban and therefore unconstitutional. However, the administration argued the comments were campaign rhetoric that has no basis on an executive order that is facially neutral in wording. The administration also argued the ban is targeted at countries where terrorist organizations have safe havens, even though the previous statements about Muslims were not explicitly disavowed.

The travel ban [text] continues to create mounting legal issues. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan last week ordered [JURIST report] the Trump administration to disclose the draft of the order. Also last week the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments [JURIST report] regarding the order.
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh [official website] on Monday upheld the conviction [text, PDF] of Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, an Islamist preacher sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the 1971 liberation war [JURIST backgrounder] in the country. Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha [official profile] delivered the judgment of the court, rejecting pleas [AFP report] from both sides to change the verdict. The state was seeking a death sentence while the defense was looking for an acquittal. Sayeedi was charged for a variety of crimes in connection to his role supporting the Pakistani army during the war, ranging from kidnapping and rape to forced religious conversion.

The International Crimes Tribunal, established in 2009 under the International Crimes Act [text], is charged with detaining, prosecuting and punishing persons responsible for committing genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law committed during the 1971 conflict. Rights groups such as Amnesty International [advocacy website] have criticized [JURIST report] death sentences imposed by the ICTB, stating that trials of war criminals have, in the past, failed to meet international standards. Last year the Supreme Court of Bangladesh upheld a death sentence [JURIST report] for Islamist leader Motiur Rahman Nizami. Earlier last year the Supreme Court upheld [JURIST report] the death sentence of a former opposition politician for allegedly committing war crimes during the 1971 war of independence. In February of last year the tribunal sentenced [JURIST report] two men to death for crimes against humanity.
[JURIST] The European Union (EU) [official website] Council on Monday urged [official statement] Venezuelan officials to release political prisoners and hold elections in hopes of ending the violent protests against President Nicolas Maduro [official profile, in Spanish]. The EU called for peace saying that:

Violence and the use of force will not solve the countrys crisis. The fundamental rights of the Venezuelan people, including the right to demonstrate peacefully, must be respected. It is essential that all parties refrain from violent acts. In this context, the announcement of the extension and reinforcement of armed civil groups is disturbing, as it can fuel a resurgence of violence and contribute to no solution.

EU officials said they hope that Venezuelan authorities can work constructively toward a solution to the countrys crisis that not only affects Venezuelans, but also more than 600,000 Europeans whose security is a concern for the EU. The council also said it is willing to cooperate with Venezuelan authorities to assist with security and to protect all European citizens in Venezuela during these protests that have injured hundreds and killed at least 39 people since they began [Reuters report].

Venezuela has had significant political unrest since the December 2015 election. In October of 2016, the National Assembly voted to open criminal impeachment [JURIST report] proceedings against Maduro, alleging that he manipulated the constitution to remain in power. That same month the Assembly also declared [JURIST report] that there was a breakdown of constitutional order and that the government had staged a coup by blocking an attempt to remove Maduro from power. Instability peaked on March 30 when the Supreme Court of Venezuela dissolved [JURIST report] the opposition-controlled National Assembly and assumed all legislative powers. In January 2016, Venezuelas National Assembly swore in [press release, in Spanish] three opposition deputies despite a Supreme Court ruling that barred [JURIST report] the induction of the elected lawmakers. The ruling also suspended four elected lawmakers for alleged election fraud in the December sixth elections.
The US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ordered [opinion] Uber [corporate website] engineer removed from the self-driving division of the company in a ruling made public Monday. The case Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies Inc. [materials, law360] centers on engineer Anthony Levandowski [Guardian report] who may have stolen information from self-driving technology company Waymo [corporate website] before becoming employed at Uber. The two transportation companies are in a race to bring self-driving capabilities using Lidar technology [Scientific American backgrounder] to the market. The court ordered the engineer to not work for the driving program and be relocated elsewhere in the company.

By way of summary, this order finds plaintiff Waymo LLC has shown compelling evidence that its former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 confidential files from Waymo immediately before leaving his employment there. The evidence shows that, both before and after his departure, Levandowski and defendant Uber Technologies,Inc., planned for Uber to acquire Levandowskis new companies, defendants Ottomotto LLC and Otto Trucking LLC, and to hire Levandowski as the head of its self-driving car efforts. Moreover, defendants and Levandowski anticipated and took steps to defend against litigation with Waymo in connection with his move to Uber.

The court also ordered all communication between Levadowski and Uber as well as compliance communications to be turned over in discovery by May 31st.

Uber continues to have legal battles over its technology and organization. Last week the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued [JURIST report] a non-binding opinion finding that Uber is a transportation company subject to additional regulations and fines. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it has launched [JURIST report] a criminal investigation into Uber for the use of a software tool that helped drivers evade local transport regulators. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced [JURIST report] in January that Uber Technologies agreed to pay $20 million to settle a claim that the ride-hailing company had engaged in misleading tactics to recruit new drivers
The Iranian judiciary news service Mizan reported [text, in Arabic] Tuesday that there have been over 60 violations of election law and two arrests leading up to planned presidential elections in the country later this week. The election, which is scheduled for Friday, is among current President Hassan Rouhani [BBC profile] and a handful of challengers. Rouhani is favored to win the election after he was able to negotiate a deal over the nuclear sanctions. The infractions [DailyMail report] leading up to the elections were committed by governors, county chiefs, district chiefs and the heads of government offices as reported by Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei. The two arrests were in connection with an attempt to steal rival campaign documents. The government has not released information about any of the other violations, only saying that they are being pursued by the courts. The tensions building in the nation are between the moderate and hardline political factions.

The main political challenger Ebrahim Raisi, who was a former member of the often criticized hardline judiciary, has been criticized for executions of jailed dissidents during his time as prosecutor in the 1980s. The choice the nation is faced is with the more conservative Raisi who might follow the hardline policy that many of the courts follow. In April the Supreme Court of Iran upheld [JURIST report] the conviction and five-year prison sentence of a British-Iranian woman, but did not disclose the crime she is accused of committing. Conditions in the Iranian prison system has led to the US Department of the Treasury to implement sanctions [JURIST report] against the Iranian prison company Tehran Prisons Organization and one of its senior officials over conditions and treatment of prisoners, many of which are political opponents.
[JURIST] South Africas highest court [official website] heard arguments on Monday from opposition parties [press release] who demanded that the motion of no-confidence [application, PDF] against President Jacob Zuma be voted on using a secret ballot. Zuma, who has been implicated in a series of corruption scandals, has survived similar past impeachment efforts and is also the leader of the African National Congress [official website] (ANC), which holds a majority in parliament. Mmusi Maimane, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party [official website], told protesters that a secret ballot would force ANC members of parliament to choose between what is best for the themselves and what is best for South Africa.

This is not the first time that Zuma has faced controversy in South Africa politics. Zuma was ousted [JURIST report] as the countrys deputy president in 2005 after an aide was convicted of corruption. He was also charged with rape, but was ultimately acquitted and reinstated [JURIST report] as African National Congress deputy vice president. In July 2008 the South African Constitutional Court rejected a motion [JURIST report] by Zuma to exclude evidence from the corruption trial. Zuma had argued [JURIST report] that evidence seized in 2005 raids by the Directorate of Special Investigations should be thrown out because the raids violated his rights to privacy and a fair trial. The court upheld the warrants used in the raids, confirming a November 2007 decision [JURIST report] by the Supreme Court of Appeal. He was first charged with corruption in 2005, but those charges were later dismissed [JURIST report] because prosecutors failed to follow proper procedures.
The US State Department [official website] said Monday that it has evidence [official transcript] showing the Syrian government has been using crematoriums to dispose of inmates bodies in the Saydnaya prison [AI backgrounder]. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Stuart Jones [official profile] asserted that about 70 people are held in each five-person capacity prison cell and approximately 50 inmates are killed each day. During his briefing, Jones presented photographs showing some evidence of the building believed to be a crematorium. He highlighted the melting snow on top of the roof as proof that the building is kept at a higher temperature than the other buildings. Jones cited the regimes various acts of violence to support his premise:

Since 2012, the regime has routinely conducted airstrikes and artillery strikes in dense urban centers, including with barrel bombs, improvised unguided bombs, which are sometimes described as air-dropped IEDs. . . In addition to airstrikes, the regime continues to systematically abduct and torture civilian detainees, often beating, electrocuting, and raping these victims. . . Moreover, the regime has also authorized the extrajudicial killings of thousands of detainees using mass hangings at the Saydnaya military prison. . . Although the regimes many atrocities are well-documented, we believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison.

The war in Syria [JURIST backgrounder] continues to insight violence on civilians, prisoners and opposition forces. Earlier in May Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported new evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in at least four recent attacks [JURIST report] targeting civilians. In February, according to HRW, the Syrian government conducted [JURIST report] coordinated chemical attacks on rebel controlled portions of Aleppo. The same month, Amnesty International reported that more than 13,000 prisoners were hanged [JURIST report] in extrajudicial executions over a 5-year period at the prison.
The Supreme Court of the United States [official website] issued an opinion [text, PDF] on Monday for Howell v. Howell [SCOTUSBlog materials] ruling that a veteran does not need to pay a divorced spouse for retirement benefits that have been waived in favor of service-related disability benefits. In Mansell v. Mansell [text] the court held that while the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act (USFSPA) [CRS backgrounder, PDF] allows for a state to treat a veterans disposable retired pay as divisible property, the act expressly excludes from its definition of disposable retired pay amounts deducted from that pay as a result of a waiver . . . required by law in order to receive disability benefits. The court also stated that reimbursement or indemnification displace the federal rule and as a result are also preempted by USFSPA.

When John and Sandra Howell divorced in 1991 the Arizona Superior Court [official website] in anticipation of Johns retirement granted Sandra half of his Military Retirement Plan funds, treating them like community property. In 2005 the Department of Veterans Affairs found that John was about 20% disabled due to a service-related injury to his shoulder. In order to receive disability benefits, he was required to waive some of his retirement funds in order to prevent double counting. In doing so, Sandras portion of retirement pay was reduced by about $250 per month. The Arizona family court enforced the original decree holding that it had given Sandra a vested interest in the prewaiver amount of that pay. The Supreme Court held that although the waiver in Mansell took place before the divorce proceeding, unlike the waiver in Howell that came many years after the divorce, the state court still did not have the power to extinguish the future contingency that Sandras share of military retirement pay would be worth less due to Johns waiver.
The Ukrainian Security and Defense Council imposed [materials] sanctions on a series of Russian tech companies Tuesday, citing security concerns over possible cyber attacks. The council said that the sanctions were imposed to protect against companies whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine. The sanctions froze any assets [Reuters report] held by the Russian companies still in Ukraine as of Tuesday morning. These new sanctions have increased to 400 the total number of blacklisted Russian firms in Ukraine since 2014. The action will have an effect on Vkontakte [corporate website], which is the Russian version of Facebook, and is widely popular in the country.

Russia has been subject to a variety of economic sanctions from many different nations over recent years. In March the European Court of Justice ruled that sanctions [JURIST report] placed on Russia by the European Union were valid. These sanctions were targeting Russias involvement in Ukraine, in an attempt to slow the Russian involvement on the border crisis between the two countries. Also in March Ukraine asked the International Courtof Justice [JURIST report] to bar any Russian action in supporting separatists. In January the US Senate introduced legislation [JURIST report] aimed at implementing sanctions against Russia for its involvement in hacking during the 2016 presidential election.
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Egypts Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology Yasser El-Kadi and president of Visa International Ryan McInerney signed an agreement of cooperation in Cairo on Tuesday to implement a project to develop infrastructure in the country for financial transactions, Al-Ahram Arabic new website reported.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail attended the signing of the agreement at the cabinet headquarters in Cairo.

McInerney also met with Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Tuesday, where he told the leader that his company would continue to cooperate with the Egyptian government to increase the efficiency of the e-government payment programmes.

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Nordic food group Orkla has made another acquisition, attempting to boost its business in organic and vegetarian foods by buying Danish sales and distribution firm SR Food.

Orkla has acquired SR Food through its majority-owned Danish subsidiary Dragsbk, in which it owns a 66% stake. The terms of the deal, announced today (16 May), were not disclosed but Orkla claimed its business in the categories would complement SR Foods operations.

Orklas portfolio includes Danish vegan brand Naturli and the recently-launched soy-based meals line Funky Fields.

SR Food markets products including pizza dough and sausages and under its namesake brand. It also acts as a distributor for other companies.

With the acquisition of SR Food, Orkla is developing its platform for growth in organic and vegetarian foods, and in addition strengthening its position in fresh doughs. SR Food and Orkla Food Ingredients share many customers, so it will be possible to broaden distribution and expand product range. The acquisition also creates a potential for synergies between the businesses, Pal Eikeland, the CEO of Orkla Food Ingredients, said.

Two weeks ago, Orkla announced the acquisition of German ice cream sales and distribution company Eis Ludwig Graebner.

Orkla, which has a range of consumer-facing brands on sale in the Nordic region, including Grandiosa pizza and Toro sauces, has made a series of business-to-business acquisitions in recent quarters.

In April, Orkla bought 85% of UK firm Orchard Valley Foods, which supplies ingredients and accessories to bakery, chocolate and ice cream companies in the UK and in continental Europe.

A month earlier, Orkla struck a deal to acquire Dutch ice cream industry supplier Laan Heiloo.

In September, Orkla agreed to buy a 70% stake in Broer Bakkerijgrondstoffen, a Dutch manufacturer of almond paste, bakery ingredients and ice cream powder.

In March 2016, Orkla snapped up UK-based ice cream cone and wafer maker The Waverley Bakery Ltd. Waverley primarily sold ice cream cones and wafers to the grocery sector in the UK. The company also offers ice cream cones, ingredients and accessories to ice cream parlours and small-scale ice cream manufacturers.
Turkish wholesaler Anatolia has acquired Whitworths, the UKs largest supplier of dried fruit, nut and seed products, for an undisclosed sum.

Free Whitepaper What is the impact of historically high inflation on the UK consumer landscape? Inflation in the UK: The Impact of Historically High Inflation on the UK Consumer Landscape, to better understand shifts in consumer behavior and their impact on spending patterns, as well as the implications for UK businesses. This whitepaper covers: Why has global inflation returned with a vengeance?

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It was reported by just-food last month that Whitworths had been put up for sale by UK private-equity group Equistone.

Anatolia, a processor, supplier and packer of dried fruits and nuts, has bought Whitworths entire share capital, according to a statement issued by the UK business today (16 May).

The statement said the companies will merge to form one of Europes biggest dried fruit, nut and seeds businesses. The deal will provide a platform for long-term growth, leveraging the capability of Whitworths, as the UKs leading supplier of dried fruit, nuts and seeds, with the sourcing and packing capability of Anatolia on Turkish-grown product.

The new business will create the opportunity to invest in the growth of the Whitworths brand both in the UK and internationally, as well as investing in the appropriate packing facilities to meet the long-term needs of our key retail customers and their brands, the statement said.

The deal provides the joint business with a unique position in the market to deliver supply chain integrity from producer to consumer on key areas of dried fruit, according to the statement.

Whitworths current management will continue to lead the UK business, the statement said. The merger is the final step in a trading relationship dating back 38 years, which includes a successful working partnership over the last 27 years.

The company said there would be no further comment.

Equistone purchased a majority stake in Whitworths in 2013 from European Capital in a transaction then valuing the business at GBP90m (US$116m).

The private-equity firm had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

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A worker makes a test for new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in s workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

The main body of new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in Omar's workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

A worker sprays paint on the body of the new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in a workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

Workers carry the main body of new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in a workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

A worker welds the main body of new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car is seen in a workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

A worker welds the main chassis of new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in Omar's workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

Workers are seen near the main body of new "Mini-Car-Egypt" car in a workshop, near Egypt's pyramids of Giza, in Kerdasa, Egypt Reuters

In his workshop near Cairo's pyramids, Ahmed Saeed Omar has manufactured a mini four-wheeled vehicle that he hopes will fill a gap in the market.

Omar's "mini car", a rectangular vehicle made of a solid steel body which seats up to six people, is cheaper than the widely-used imported auto rickshaw -- not much more than a covered three-wheel scooter with a passenger bench -- because it is almost entirely locally produced.

Prices of imported products have soared since Egypt devalued its currency in November as part of measures to stimulate the economy.

A rickshaw can cost around 38,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,105)and has a 175 horse-power engine, while Omar's mini car costs 34,000 pounds and has 300 horse-power engine.

"This is a better alternative to the (rickshaw), more cost-efficient and more spacious," Omar, 35, told Reuters.

Three-wheeled rickshaws are widespread in many Egyptian cities, usually in neighborhoods with narrow alleyways, and are mostly imported from India.



Since the cost of imports has soared, Omar thinks there may be market for his design.

"The cars are in some showrooms and people have bought them," he said. "There is demand."
KEARNEY  Residents of Kearney want smaller, more affordable homes and have an appetite for greater housing variety.

Those are among the conclusions of a six-month housing study that tapped the opinions of more than 1,600 people in Kearney and the immediate area.

What is amazing about this study is more than 1,600 people participated in the survey, City Planner Coelette Gruber said. Im most excited because the study tells us a path forward. It establishes a tool kit of programs, policies and financial tools.

Conducted at the request of the Kearney Planning Commission by RDG Consulting, the study will be presented Friday morning at the planning commissions regular monthly meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. in council chambers at city hall at 18 E. 22nd St.

Fifty-one percent of people who answered the survey were owners, and 49 percent were renters. Many responded online, but RDG also gathered comments during face-to-face sessions with realtors, lenders, builders, students, seniors, major employers, nonprofits and others, Gruber said.

Whether they were young and just getting started or established higher earners, survey respondents cited affordability as a top issue with Kearneys housing.

Construction has kept pace with demand for large, high-end houses, while less attention has been paid to the market for units priced between $175,000 and $250,000. Respondents said achieving affordability might mean pursuing more modest options such as small- and mid-size single-family homes, townhomes and duplexes.

Respondents also believe Kearney needs more affordable, higher-quality rental units and greater variety.

Because Kearney is a university town, the study compared the situation here with similar cities  Cedar Falls, Iowa; Maryville, Mo.; and Hays and Emporia, Kan.  and discovered Kearneys costs are about equal with those communities costs.

The study also compared Kearney to Grand Island, Hastings and North Platte and learned homes in Kearney are generally newer. The median build year in Kearney is 1978; Grand Island, 1969; North Platte, 1967; and Hastings, 1965.

Gruber said older homes are generally less expensive and have smaller rooms, but they require more upkeep.

The study estimates Kearneys population will increase by 7,000 residents to about 40,000 by 2030, and that 200 housing units per year must be built to keep pace.

While Kearney has many assets for continued growth, the RDG study said the city has a number of housing challenges that must be addressed through policy, investment and workforce development.

Most significant, the study said, is the imbalance in the type of construction that continues to occur  especially for owner-occupied units  that favors higher-end lot development and home construction. ... To achieve a healthy balance of housing opportunities, the greatest number of owner-occupied units should target the middle-income price-points between $125,000 and $250,000 with 42 percent of all new units.

The study stated there is a need for additional contractors, subcontractors, builders, developers and laborers.

Development of more entry-level housing  both owner and renter units  would allow for Kearney to create more lifelong residents, would allow for expansion of Kearney employers, and would support a balanced and robust economy.

RDG provided several concluding recommendations for Kearney:

- Housing Partnership: A not-for-profit housing developer would lead the cooperative effort to balance and diversify Kearneys housing stock.

- Funding Mechanisms: An array of options should be assembled and applied, individually and in concert, to support housing projects and programs.

- Demonstration Projects: Concepts and products could be tested in the open market to encourage developers to generate affordable lots and homes or to incorporate innovative practices.

- Affordable Lots: Programs could assist with affordable lot development, unit development, owner and rental unit rehabilitation, and infill redevelopment projects.

- Builder Aptitude: Programs would increase the capacity of builders and developers and their aptitude to operate in different price points and housing products.

- Remove Barriers: Adopt a thoughtful review of emerging development trends and the removal of barriers for affordable housing and neighborhood development.
KEARNEY  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is coordinating with the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program to release environmental account water stored in Lake McConaughy from mid-May to mid-June.

Goals include maintaining Platte River flows of at least 3,000 cubic feet per second at the Grand Island gauge from May 20 to as late as June 20, while remaining near the 5.5-foot National Weather Service action stage at the North Platte gauge.

The target pulse flow is intended to maintain and enhance the rivers wide, open, vegetation-free and braided channel; rehabilitate aquatic habitats in the Lower Platte; and benefit habitat for threatened and endangered target species by replicating historic river rises from spring runoff.

USFWS, PRRIP, and staff of Nebraska Public Power District and Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District will monitor flows and scale back or terminate lake releases if required to minimize flooding risks.

PRRIP has liability insurance if there is any damage related to the water releases.
AMHERST  Flames shot out of the roof of a rural Amherst home Monday afternoon as Amherst and Kearney volunteer fire departments worked to fight the fire.

At about 12:40 p.m., AVFD was called to the fire at the home of Ron and Sue Hadwiger near 190th and Sartoria roads. By the time the crew arrived, Amherst Fire Chief Glen Brown said, the home was engulfed in flames.

The fire, which was mostly in the roof, was caused by an unattended gas grill on the back deck of the home, Brown said.

He said nobody was in the house at the time of the fire.

Amherst firefighters worked to contain the fire until about a little after 2 p.m., Brown said, and they were on scene until about 4:30 p.m. KVFD was called in for mutual aid and brought a water tanker.

Brown estimated damage to be about $250,000.

Its got some pretty substantial damage, he said.

The Red Cross was also called in to assist the Hadwigers, a family of three, according to an American Red Cross news release.
In this photo taken March 17, 2017, Barron Trump, with his father President Donald Trump and mother, first lady Melania Trump, disembark from Air Force One upon arrival at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Fla. First lady Melania Trump has announced that her son, Barron, will attend a private Episcopal school in Maryland beginning this fall. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
In this photo released by Riodoce, journalist Javier Valdez poses for a photo an unknown location in Mexico. Valdez, a veteran reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday, May 15 2017, in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa, the latest in a wave of journalist killings in one of the world's most dangerous countries for media workers. A Sinaloa state government official said Valdez was shot dead in the early afternoon in the state capital, Culiacan, near the offices of the publication he co-founded, Riodoce. (Riodoce via AP)
The Trump administration has tapped the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before President Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.

Trump will nominate Callista Gingrich for the post, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said Monday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement. Trump's foreign trip this month includes a stop at the Vatican.

Callista Gingrich is president of Gingrich Productions and has produced a number of documentaries, including one about Pope John Paul II. She also served on the House Committee on Agriculture, where she worked as chief clerk until 2007. She was a key figure in her husband's 2012 bid for the Republican nomination.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's vision for foreign relations and diplomacy has been starkly different to that promoted by the vastly popular Pope Francis. Francis has spoken of the need for bridges between nations, while Trump has advocated for walls and travel restrictions as a means of national security.


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Nokia 3310 launched in India at Rs. 3,310



Nokia 3310, the iconic feature phone, has finally been announced for the Indian market. HMD Global, the company that owns the rights to Nokia brand, has confirmed that the Nokia 3310 (2017) will be available in India at a "recommended best buy price" of Rs. 3,310 from Thursday.



The company has confirmed that the legendary feature phone will be going on sale via offline channels in four colours Warm Red and Yellow, both with a gloss finish, and Dark Blue and Grey, both with a matte finish. Read More...


This was the second year in a row that the representative of the nation's capital won the Miss USA title. Last year, District of Columbia resident Deshauna Barber became the first-ever military member to win Miss USA.

McCullough bested 50 other contestants and will represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe contest.

"I love science," McCullough said after the Sunday event. "I look at this as a great opportunity to... get to experience worldwide culture, as well as just having the opportunity to be impacted by so many children, hopefully in the math and sciences."

McCullough, who represented the District of Columbia in the decades-old pageant, was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She said she wants to inspire children to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This year's top five finalists were asked questions that touched on the pros and cons of social media, women's rights and issues affecting teenagers. McCullough was asked whether she thinks that affordable health care for all U.S. citizens is a right or a privilege. She said it is a privilege.

"As a government employee, I'm granted health care and I see firsthand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs," she said.

McCullough said she will be discussing with her supervisor whether she will take a leave of absence from her job at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during her one-year reign.

Miss New Jersey Chhavi Verg, who studies marketing and Spanish at Rutgers University, was the runner-up at the event held at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip.

Verg was one of five women who participated in the pageant who told The Associated Press they immigrated to the U.S. with their families at a young age. Verg and the women representing Florida, North Dakota, Hawaii and Connecticut described the challenges and opportunities they faced as immigrants.

Verg told The AP that she and her parents immigrated from India to the U.S. with only $500 in their pockets when she was 4 years old. Her first winter she did not have a winter coat and the family struggled to adjust.

"I want to show Americans that the definition of what it means to be American is changing," the 20-year-old said. "It's not just one face. There are many different people who are Americans, and I feel like Asian-Americans often times are left out of the conversation."

The contestants' remarks contrast with the controversy that surrounded the pageant in 2015, when then-part owner and now U.S. President Donald Trump offended Hispanics when he made anti-immigrant remarks in announcing his bid for the White House.

Trump co-owned The Miss Universe Organization with NBCUniversal, but the network and the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision quickly cut ties with him, refusing to air the show. Trump sued both networks, eventually settling and selling the pageant to talent management company WME/IMG.
Major cyber security firms Symantec Corp (SYMC.O) and Kaspersky Lab said on Monday they were looking into clues that may connect the global "ransomware" attack known as WannaCry with programs previously attributed to North Korea.

The two companies said some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry ransomware, which has encrypted data on hundreds of thousands of computers since Friday, and demanded users pay money to regain control of their machines, had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies said is run by North Korea.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Joseph Menn and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bill Rigby)
Iamgold Corp. (TSX: IMG; NYSE: IAG) has offered an upbeat assessment on its 2017 infill drilling program at the Saramacca project, which is southwest of its Rosebel Gold Mine in Suriname. The current phase of the drilling program is now complete with 113 diamond drill holes totaling approximately 19,600 meters. Assay results have been received from 78 drill holes totaling 14,166 meters, the company says. Assay results from the remaining drill holes are expected in June. Highlights of the most recent results include 43.5 meters grading 12.26 grams of gold per tonne, 76.6 meters grading 7.74 g/t, 46.5 meters grading 3.07 g/t, 45.4 meters grading 2.38 g/t, 45 meters grading 2.70 g/t and 31 meters grading 3.81 g/t. The results to date support our belief that Saramacca has the potential to be a transformational asset for the company, says Steve Letwin, president and chief executive officer. This exemplifies our strategy of seeking short-cycle capacity, which can add tremendous value for our shareholders at minimal incremental cost, since the deposit is only 25 kilometers away from our current infrastructure.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Banro Reports 1Q Net Loss; Gold Output Rises

Banro Corp. (NYSE MKT, TSX: BAA) reports a net loss in the first quarter of $15.9 million, or 5 cents per shares, although the bulk of this was financing expenses of $12.1 million and other non-cash items totaling $2.4 million. Still, the net loss was down from a $23.1 million loss in the same period of 2016. Otherwise, quarterly revenue was up 19% year-on-year to $55 million. Gold production rose to 46,215 ounces from 44,192 in the year-ago period, while the average realized price increased to $1,158 from $1,109. For 2017, the company expects annual gold production from both Twangiza and Namoya to total between 210,000 and 230,000 ounces. At this production level, the company expects site all-in sustaining costs to be in the range of $925 to $1,025 per ounce, with consolidated all-in sustaining costs in the range of $1,000 to $1,075..

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Gran Colombia 1Q Adjusted Profit Up From Year Ago

Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX: GCM) lists adjusted net income for the first quarter of $3.1 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $0.3 million, or 5 cents, in the same period of last year. Revenue rose 33% year-on-year to $45.7 million, which the company says was largely due to increased output and sales. The net loss was $0.8 million, or 4 cents, compared with net income of $10.8 million, or $2.23, in the first quarter of last year. The year-ago period included $14.5 million of non-recurring after-tax gains related to the company's gold and silver notes. Gold production in the first quarter totaled 39,008 ounces, up 24% year-on-year, led by the at the Segovia operations, the company says. Gran Colombia says it remains on track with its 2017 production guidance of 150,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold. All-in sustaining costs in the first quarter were $941 an ounce.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Roxgold Reports Profit In First Quarter

Roxgold Inc. (TSX: ROXG), which achieved commercial gold production at the Yaramoko mine on Oct. 1, reports first-quarter net income of $3.8 million, or a penny per share. The company produced 35,594 ounces of gold, up from 29,688 in the fourth quarter. The operational success of the first quarter of 2017 poises us to deliver on our production guidance for 2017, says John Dorward, president and chief executive officer of Roxgold. The company projects 2017 output at between 105,000 and 115,000 ounces, with all-in sustaining costs of $740 to $790 an ounce.
By Christine Kim and Tom Miles | SEOUL/GENEVA

North Korea's missile program is progressing faster than expected, South Korea's defense minister said on Tuesday, after the U.N. Security Council condemned the weekend launch of a new long-range missile and demanded Pyongyang halt weapons tests.

Han Min-koo told South Korea's parliament that Sunday's test had been detected by the controversial U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, which was deployed in South Korea last month, infuriating China.

North Korea has defied all calls to rein in its nuclear and missile programs, even from China, its lone major ally, calling them legitimate self-defense.

It has been working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland, and experts say Sunday's test was another step toward that aim.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has called for an immediate halt to North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, and U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood said on Tuesday that China's leverage was key and Beijing could do more.

The U.S. ambassador the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the United States believed it could persuade China to impose new U.N. sanctions on North Korea and warned that Washington would "call out" states supporting Pyongyang and target them with sanctions too.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a closed-door meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council on the missile launch, Haley made clear that Washington would only talk to North Korea once it halted its nuclear program.

The United States has been discussing possible new U.N. sanctions with China since North Korea's previous missile test about two weeks ago.

"The conversations that I have had ... in dealing with Beijing is that if (North Korea) did something else and if it looked to be long-range, which this does, and if it looks like it is proactively leaning toward an ICBM, which it does, then we would take action," Haley said.

"I believe that China will stay true to that and we will come together on how we're going to do that," she said. "We have not seen anything from them in the past week but we are encouraging them to continue moving forward."

South Korea's Han said Sunday's test was "successful in flight."

"It is considered an IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) of enhanced caliber," he said, referring to a class of missile designed to travel up to 3,000 to 4,000 km (1,860 to 2,485 miles).

Asked whether North Korea's missile program was developing faster than expected, he said: "Yes."

Han said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system detected the missile, marking the first time it had been put to use since its deployment.

China has strongly opposed THAAD, saying it can spy into its territory, and South Korean companies have been hit in China by a nationalist backlash over the deployment.

North Korea says Sunday's launch tested the capability to carry a "large-size heavy nuclear warhead" and its ambassador in Beijing said on Monday that Pyongyang would continue such test launches "any time, any place."

A North Korean diplomat, Ju Yong Choi, told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Tuesday that North Korea would "bolster its self-defense capabilities as long as the United States continues its hostile policies ... and imposes nuclear threats and makes blackmail."

New South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Matt Pottinger, overseeing Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, on Tuesday and afterwards South Korea's presidential Blue House announced that Moon would meet Trump in Washington next month.

"FURTHER SANCTIONS POSSIBLE"

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council said it was vital that North Korea show "sincere commitment to denuclearization through concrete action and stressed the importance of working to reduce tensions".

The council demanded North Korea halt its tests and said it was ready to impose further sanctions.

North Korea's foreign ministry rejected the statement, saying it infringed on its right to self-defense, particularly as the missile was fired at a sharp angle to ensure the safety of neighboring countries.

U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Wood said China was key given that 90 percent of North Korea's trade was with that country. "Clearly, there is a lot more leverage that China has, and we would like China to use," he said.

The Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 and has stiffened them in response to its five nuclear tests and two long-range rocket launches. Pyongyang is threatening a sixth nuclear test.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters this month that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, and in a show of force, sent the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group to Korean waters to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.

Another carrier, the Ronald Reagan, left Yokosuka in Japan on Tuesday on its regular spring patrol, which would last three to four months, a spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet said.

Besides worries about North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs, cyber security researchers have found technical evidence they said could link Pyongyang with the WannaCry "ransomware" cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers in 150 countries since Friday.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park in SEOUL, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Kiyoshi Takenaka and Minami Funakoshi in TOKYO; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
(Kitco News) - If you find a giant gold nugget at an active mine site, dont use social media to brag about or try to sell it. That is the expensive lesson that three Australian men have learned.

According to a recent media reports, Andrew Mark Warren, Stephen Lindsay Rowe and Michael James Forward pleaded guilty to stealing more than one kilogram of gold valued at almost A$60,000 from a mining pit near Kunanalling, a deserted town in Western Australia.

According to the reports, the men  who were having a barbecue - found the gold while doing a little surface prospecting. In their defense, the men said, in court that they didnt know the area was part of an active mine site. The tenement is owned by Evolution Mining.

Despite the lack of criminal intent, Magistrate John O'Sullivan fined each man A$5,000 and the gold was forfeited to the state.

"Clearly, if you were planning to steal this gold, you wouldn't post it on Facebook," O'Sullivan said. "People can't just wander where they like and take what they find."

The police said the only reason they learned about the theft is because the men posted pictures of themselves with the gold on Facebook in an attempt to sell it.

There is also a second lesson the men learned: dont break up a giant nugget. According to police testimony, the group broke their largest discovery  a rare gold leaf-type nugget  into three pieces to allow them to divide it into equal shares.

If the nugget was left intact, it would have been worth more than A$170,000.

A fourth man was also charge but he has plead not guilty and is expected to stand trial later this year.
(Adds quotes)

By Robert Hogg

LONDON, May 16 (IFR) - Senegal has opened books on its first US dollar deal since 2014.

The sovereign has released price guidance for a bond due May 2033 at 6.50% area.

"I think at 6.50% it is fair relative to Nigeria, for example," said Uday Patnaik, head of emerging market debt at LGIM. "Frankly, it makes credits like Angola look cheap. I suspect it will be tightened modestly, and in the context of this market, there will likely be strong demand."

Nigeria (B1/B/B+) has 2032 bonds trading at a bid yield of 6.81%, while Angola (B1/B+/B) has 2025 bonds, which are its longest dated, quoted at 8.46%, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Senegal is rated Ba3 by Moody's and B+ by S&P, both with stable outlooks.

A banker away from the deal said the backdrop is supportive and expects it "to do just fine." He thinks Senegal will try and price the bond inside a spread of 400bp over mid-swaps - at initial guidance the spread is about 408bp over 15-year mid-swaps.

The bond has a weighted average life of 15 years.

The deal is today's business via Citigroup, JP Morgan, Natixis, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered.

(Reporting by Robert Hogg; editing by Sudip Roy)
European Union and U.S. transport and security officials will meet in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss U.S. plans to broaden an in-flight ban on laptops and tablets to include planes from Europe.

European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said Monday that the high-level talks are "to jointly assess any new threats and work toward a common approach to address them."

Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke is expected to lead the U.S. delegation.


Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Mostly cloudy early then partly cloudy and windy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early then partly cloudy and windy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph.
One in five employees in Korea is having to work extra-long hours.

According to Statistics Korea, some 5.3 million people work more than 54 hours a week, up more than half a million from just a year ago.They make up a whopping 20 percent or so of the country's entire workforce.

In 2000 the proportion was more than 42 percent because most employees worked six-day weeks, and it fell sharply thanks to the adoption of a five-day workweek in 2004.

The legal limit is currently at a maximum of 68 hours a week, but President Moon Jae-in has pledged to cut it to 52. Moon says that means companies will have to hire more workers, which would create an estimated 300,000 jobs.


The Rodong Sinmun daily called the new missile "Hwasong-12" and claimed it is "capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead" to the U.S. mainland.

The official [North] Korean Central News Agency said Kim "warned the U.S. not to disregard or misjudge the reality that its mainland and Pacific region operations are in [North Korea's] sighting range for a strike and that it has all powerful means for a retaliatory strike."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Sunday observed the test launch of a new ballistic missile that can carry a large nuclear warhead and has the U.S. mainland within striking range, state media claimed Monday.

Some experts said the missile, which was launched at a high angle, would have the same reach as an intercontinental ballistic missile if it were fired at a 30 to 45-degree angle.

One source said if two or three booster engines are combined, the maximum range would increase to more than 10,000 km. "If the U.S. awkwardly attempts to provoke [North Korea], it will not escape from the biggest disaster in the history," Kim was quoted as saying.

The Rodong Sinmun said the issue of nuclear weapons is a matter of concern between the North and the U.S. and warned against South Korean interference, accusing the South of being a "puppet" of Washington.

That is a slap in the face for South Korea's new president, Moon Jae-in, who has promised greater engagement with the North, and suggests that the missile launch was an attempt to improve Pyongyang's negotiating position with a more hardline U.S. under President Donald Trump.

The missile seems to have been equipped with a new, high-powered engine that was tested at a launch site in Tongchang-ri in remote North Pyongan Province in mid-March. Kim was photographed giving a cheerful piggyback to the scientist who is believed to have designed the booster.

Clustering two to four of the boosters could result in enough power to deliver a 500 kg to one-ton nuclear warhead not only to targets in the west coast of the U.S., but even the east coast, some pundits speculate.
The South Korean military is stunned not only by North Korea's missile technology but also by the short time it took to test and actually deploy a new high-powered engine.

A Defense Ministry official said Monday, "The pressure South Korea and the U.S. are feeling is incomparable to the past."

The speed of North Korea's missile development far surpassed their expectations. On March 18, the North successfully tested a new high-thrust engine at a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province.

Leader Kim Jong-un hailed the achievement as a "new birth" for the country's rocket industry. And on Monday the North Korean state media featured Kim giving a scientist on a piggyback, so elated was he when the missile equipped with the new engine actually worked. It is unprecedented for the leader, who is seen as a demigod, to carry someone on his back.

A military source here said, "Kim was so elated because the North has succeeded in developing a thrust engine to replace the booster of the faulty Musudan missile, which failed in seven out of eight launches last year."


By Yoon Ja-young



The nation's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) levied 176 million won penalties on branches of Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas here for colluding in foreign exchange forward biddings. It levied a 71 million won penalty on the former and 105 million won on the latter.



According to the FTC, staff at the two foreign banks' offices in Seoul participated in biddings requested by a company which wished to purchase foreign exchange forwards. In such trades, the foreign exchange rate for the future is set at the beginning of the contract. Exporters and importers often use the deals to hedge risks of the volatile foreign exchange rates.



The victim company had 44 auctions, worth $224 million to purchase foreign exchange forwards from 2011 April to 2014 November. The company invited only Germany's Deutsche Bank and France's BNP Paribas.



The two banks, however, colluded to maximize their profits, knowing that there would be no bidders other than themselves.



They agreed that they would take turns in winning the bidding. They also colluded on prices of the foreign exchange futures, agreeing to levy at least two won per dollar as their sales margin. Prior to collusion, BNP Paribas used to levy only 0.9 won per dollar on average as sales margin.



The staff in charge of the affair at each bank colluded, communicating through messenger or by phone. As a result, each of the two banks won in 22 biddings, and the victim company ended up spending more in foreign exchange forward transactions due to their price rigging.



The two banks also colluded that BNP Paribas will win a 6.61 million euro foreign exchange forward auction by another customer company in 2011 November. Deutsche Bank helped the French bank win the order by offering a higher bidding price.



"Following the penalties levied on foreign banks for collusion in the currency swap deals last year, we penalized collusion in the foreign exchange forwards market as well. The measure is expected to tackle collusion in the foreign exchange derivatives market," an FTC official noted. Last year, it slapped a 13 million won fine on Deutsche Bank for colluding in foreign currency swap deals, along with HSBC which faced 46 million won in fines.



Between January 2011 and February 2012, a manufacturing firm had Deutsche Bank and HSBC bid for $88 million in foreign exchange swaps, which was to be rolled over every few months.

The staff at the two banks agreed through messenger that they would avoid price competition. They agreed to take turns to win the bids, with the one bank offering a higher price than the other that was set to win. For instance, in the bidding for June 2011, Deutsche Bank offered a slightly higher bid than the bid offered by HSBC, so that HSBC could win. They continued colluding in four bids until December 2011.




Korea Nuclear Energy Agency (KNEA) communication director Kim Seung-kyeom, second from left, poses with Namira El Sayed, third from left, a chief engineer at the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plants Authority, and other participants during a workshop at the KNEA headquarters in Seoul, April 24. / Courtesy of KNEA



By Lee Hyo-sik

The Korea Nuclear Energy Agency (KNEA) has been sharing its communication knowhow and expertise with Egypt, the Philippines and other developing countries. The move is aimed at helping them more effectively deal with any possible social conflict arising from building and running nuclear power plants.

In cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the state agency has invited government officials from the developing world, and organized workshops and other learning programs for them.

Through the program, the KNEA has been passing on its expertise on introducing pro-nuclear energy campaigns and other communication strategies to form favorable public opinions toward the use of nuclear energy.

From April 24 to 28, KNEA, affiliated with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, held a workshop session for officials from the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA).

During the five-day program, the Egyptian participants attended workshops to learn about Korea's nuclear energy policies, communication skills, risk management and other knowhow the KNEA has accumulated since its foundation in 1992.

In addition, the Egyptian officials toured Kori nuclear power plant near Busan, and visited a radioactive waste disposal facility and the headquarters of the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province.

"At the request of the IAEA, we have been organizing workshops for nuclear officials from developing countries and shared our communication knowhow with them," KNEA Chairman Kim Ho-sung said. "It is important for the countries starting to use nuclear energy to have effective communications strategies to minimize any possible social conflict. It is also a must to provide information in a transparent and objective manner."

These exchanges will improve the image of Korea's nuclear industry in the developing world, according to the chairman. He added it will create a favorable environment for the Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power to expand their overseas businesses.

"We will continue to increase training programs for developing countries, while working harder to hone our expertise and build a more extensive overseas network," Kim said.

NPPA's chief engineer Namira El Sayed said that she and her colleagues learned more about the importance of the right communication concerning nuclear energy.

"It is more important than anything else for Egypt to reach a public consensus prior to building nuclear power plants," she said "We will make the best use of KNEA's communications skills to form social unity about nuclear power."

Last December, the KNEA organized a workshop for government officials from the Philippines, which is set to restart a stalled nuclear power plant project. The agency has also signed cooperation agreements with its counterparts in China, Finland and other countries.
Group aims to foster 1,000 digital leaders in 3 years

By Kim Jae-kyoung

Cho Yong-byoung

SINGAPORE  Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung has vowed to revamp his firm's business model and create an innovative platform to win a "digital battle" triggered by fintech and other technologies.

He believes that a digital strategy  putting services "online and mobile"  will be key to the fate of Shinhan because it will not only help the group protect its leadership in the Korean market but also provide an impetus for its expansion drive in Asia.

"Digitalization won't bring tangible results in the short term but it is crucial to ensure sustainable growth in the future," Cho said in an interview during a recent visit to Singapore as part of his first Asian tour to meet with global investors since his inauguration March 23.

"We aim to speed up a shift to full digitalization this year by building a strong digital culture, undertaking a customer experience-driven digitization of core banking processes and embracing fintech startups as collaborators," he added.

Cho, who led the group's flagship Shinhan Bank for two years before taking the helm of the group, said that digitalization was one of the key interests among global investors he met in Singapore.

"Their prime interest was our dividend policy but they also showed great interest in our digitalization and globalization strategy," he said.

"They wanted to know whether new investments in these areas can bring stable results to the group, which they believe could affect dividend payouts," he said.

In order to embrace full-blown digitalization, Cho said that he will place top priority on building digital DNA in the company's corporate culture by bringing in more digital experts.

"Securing digital talent is crucial to adapt to the rapidly-changing market environment," he said. "We are aggressively hunting for outside experts while educating staff to become digital leaders."

In early April, he hired Bain & Company's digital expert Cho Young-suh to head Shinhan's Digital Strategy Team. He is in charge of planning digital strategy, creating a new business model and advancing into overseas markets with digital tech and networks.

In late April, the group formed an alliance with Korea University to open a digital financial engineering course to improve the digital capabilities of its executives and staff.

"We plan to secure a total of 1,000 digital talents across the group, including 100 core experts with a digital financial engineering degree, in three years," he said.

"In particular, we plan to expand investment in fostering talents with capabilities to harness new technologies such as artificial intelligence, an open API (application programming interface), big data and blockchain."

The head of the nation's most profitable financial group is also seeking to build a new platform to meet consumers' needs in more effective and cost-efficient ways.

"We aim to build a digital platform providing differentiated experiences that enable consumers to take advantage of simpler, faster and more convenient services," he said.

"Digitalization will help raise productivity by improving efficiency and making our staff focus on more value-added work," he added.

Cho, who also served as the CEO of Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management, said the ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive financial service under a single digital platform by pushing for a "One-App, One-Portal" strategy.

"Equipped with unique skills of UX (user experience) and UI (user interface), we are seeking to bring innovative changes to consumer services and a paradigm shift to the industry," he said.

Digital supports globalization

According to Cho, Shinhan's digital strategy is also designed to support its expansion drive in Asia.

He believes that by harnessing the power of technology and the prevalence of smart mobile devices, the group can expand its customer base abroad without the need for an extensive physical branch network.

"The group's digital transformation will provide an opportunity to develop new markets abroad," he said.

"We will pursue global expansion using a domestic digital business model based on ties with ICT companies. This will reduce the time and resources that have been used to extend the physical branch network," he added.

Sunny Bank in Vietnam, a mobile banking service launched in December 2015, is a good example. More than 40,000 Vietnamese have signed up for the mobile service since its debut.

In Vietnam, Shinhan has become the largest foreign lender with the highest number of branches after recently acquiring the retail banking arm of ANZ.

According to Cho, the best strategy to be better off in the digital era is to create a win-win ecosystem with ICT companies by embracing fintech start-ups and non-bank players.

"I don't see the entry of fintech firms and other ICT players into the financial industry as a threat or the emergence of new competitors," he said.

"Combining banking with technologies will provide an opportunity for Korea's financial industry to offer better services and take a leap forward," he added.

Shinhan is currently cooperating with over 40 technology companies through the Shinhan Future's Lab introduced in May 2015 to promote business ties between its affiliates and firms. In 2016, it also opened the Future's Lab in Vietnam as the first step to build a fintech belt in Asia.
By Yun Suh-young

Chef Sung Park

New York is a place with a myriad of choices. On the food scene, that means it offers a diverse range of cuisines for foodies, and for chefs, plenty of opportunities to experiment with the market.

Many of the Korean chefs who are active in New York are second or third generation Korean-Americans and they pursue Korean cuisine cooked fusion-style to cater to the American market. Only a handful of Korean chefs cook other types of cuisine _ such as French.

Chef Sung Park, who has a small restaurant in Brooklyn, New York, is one of the few exceptions. His restaurant, Bistro Petit, is a tiny place which can be easily overlooked when walking down the street. At the 14-seat restaurant, Park cooks his own unique French-Korean cuisine, which is mostly French with touches of Korean elements.

"It's basically French cuisine. The reason people say it's French-Korean is because of the Korean touches I add to the dishes. But visibly, the Korean element is minimal," said Park.

"Yet, the dishes are inspired by my Korean background. All of my dishes have a story. Each of the dishes on the menu is reminiscent of my memories in life."

Chef Park is not a second or third generation Korean-American. He was born and raised in Korea and relocated to the United States in his late 20s. He worked in the fashion retail business at a young age. He didn't go to college and started working immediately. Park said, "When I was young, I was not a good kid." But he knew how to make money. Despite his success in business though, there was something in his heart that was longing to pursue another dream.

He loved food and cooking, possibly because of his family background _ his grandmother and mother were both restaurateurs. Somewhere in his heart, he had a passion and longing for food. His potential blossomed only years later. He got a job at a small Italian restaurant in Queens, New York. There, the owner chef advised him to get proper education and training because he had talent. Park enrolled at the Art Institute of NYC's Culinary Arts department and worked and studied at the same time. Later, he worked as chef de partie at the famous Jean-Georges' restaurant and as sous chef under chef Didier Virot.

Twenty years had passed since he moved to the U.S. and it's been nine years since he last visited his home country. During those years, he established his own restaurant, got married to an Israeli woman, and had a child.

"I had no time to go back. Time flew by. I was so busy with settling this restaurant which I started five years ago. So many nights I spent sleepless, but even though it's tiring, it's exciting and fun. I love cooking which keeps me going," said the chef.

Some of his dishes include oyster pancakes, truffle ttuck and cheese (similar to tteokbokki), kimchi bouillabaisse inspired by the Korean kimchi jjigae (soup), and boeuf bourguignon a la Coreenne (Korean beef bourguignon) which is inspired by the Korean galbijjim (beef stew). Other popular dishes include pan seared foie gras and farro mushroom risotto.

"The foie gras is unlike any other foie gras. After tasting my first foie gras at a French restaurant during a trip to Shanghai, I was so blown away that I decided this is the cuisine I wanted to cook. I had to cook foie gras like this and I wanted to do it better. I wanted to cook the best foie gras that no one had tasted," he said. "That's why I cook French cuisine."
Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) Chairman Sung Yung-hoon, second from right, attends the 15th general assembly of the Asian Ombudsman Association with other participants at Alpensia Convention Center in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, Tuesday.

/ Courtesy of ACRC





By Yi Whan-woo

Officials at Asia's ombudsman organizations have been sharing their experiences and discussing ways to bolster cooperation in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) and Gangwon Provincial Government are co-hosting the four-day international meeting from Tuesday.

The term "ombudsman" refers to an official, usually appointed by the government or parliament, to address complaints raised by citizens against the government or affiliated organizations.

The 15th general assembly of the Asian Ombudsman Association (AOA) is being held together with the 20th AOA Board of Directors Meeting and the International Ombudsman Institute's (IOI) meeting of its Asian members.

Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, the IOI is comprised of over 160 anti-corruption watchdogs in 90 countries worldwide. The ACRC, which operates under the Prime Minister's Office, became an IOI member in 1996.

The AOA was founded in 1996 upon the IOI's suggestion to establish a separate regional body in Asia. It has 22 member organizations from 18 countries, and the ACRC is its founding member.

Beginning Wednesday, representatives from the organizations will participate in the 2017 PyeongChang Global Ombudsman Conference which will continue through Friday.

According to the ACRC, this is the first time that an AOA conference has taken place in a city other than the hosting country's capital.

In four sessions of the conference, more than 400 people are expected to participate, including government officials, lawmakers, scholars and ambassadors in Korea.

Among them are ACRC Chairman Sung Yung-hoon and his predecessor Lee Sung-bo, Gangwon Governor Choi Moon-soon, National Assembly National Policy Committee Chairman Rep. Lee Jin-bok of the Liberty Korea Party and Shin Chul-young who spearheads the province's ombudsman commission.

All meetings are taking place at Alpensia Convention Center, which is a part of Alpensia PyeongChang Resort, the main venue for the Winter Olympics to be held next year.

"I'd say an ombudsman is a bastion to protect people's rights when their rights are infringed upon by a public organization's unfair administrative activities," Sung said.

Rep. Lee Jin-bok said people's trust and expectation toward the ACRC is growing. "It is serving as a bridge between administrative institutions and citizens," he said.

Choi said he hopes the PyeongChang conference will help strengthen the alliance of ombudsman agencies in Asia, adding "I'm so proud to see PyeongChang, the host of the upcoming Winter Games, host the ombudsman meetings as well."

Gangwon was Korea's first local government to adopt the ombudsman system in September 2012.

Since then, it has dealt with over 4,100 complaints filed by citizens.

It also became the country's second member to join the AOA in November 2015 following the ACRC. It separately joined the IOI in November 2016 as well.

IOI Secretary General Gunter Krauter will join the first session Wednesday to discuss how to develop the ombudsman system.

Sung will talk about how to better handle citizens' complaints during a session Thursday.
A U.S. Navy strike group headed by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Carl Vinson will remain in the East Sea and western Pacific for the time being after North Korea's latest missile test, a Navy source here said Monday.

The strike group, dubbed an "armada" by U.S. President Donald Trump, was scheduled to leave this week. It is engaged in exercises with the South Korean Navy right now.
President Moon Jae-in looks on as Hong Seok-hyun, right, presidential special envoy to the United States, makes remarks during a luncheon meeting with other envoys at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Tuesday. Third from right is Rep. Moon Hee-sang of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who will be sent to Japan. / Korea Times photo by Koh Young-kwon



Special envoys will leave for 4 nations as early as Wednesday

By Jun Ji-hye

President Moon Jae-in will hold his first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in late June, Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday.

Senior officials of the two countries reached an agreement in principle during a meeting at the presidential office in Seoul.

Chung Eui-yong, the former permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, who now leads Cheong Wa Dae' security team, met with Matt Pottinger, the senior director for East Asia at the National Security Council (NSC).

"The two agreed to hold additional discussions through diplomatic channels to fine-tune the details of the summit," said Moon's chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan at a press briefing. "The two sides will prepare to make the upcoming summit at a venue in which the two heads can tighten their bond."

Chung and Pottinger also discussed other challenging issues including North Korea's nuclear threats, the presidential office said. In the latest in a series of provocations Sunday, the Kim Jong-un regime test-fired a new type of ballistic missile, and later claimed the missile was "capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead" and reaching the U.S. mainland.

Yoon said the two officials agreed that their ultimate goal was the complete disposal of North Korean nuclear weapons.

"They also agreed to mobilize all available means, including sanctions and dialogue," he said, adding that the U.S. official reaffirmed Washington's strong commitment to the security and defense of South Korea.

Before holding talks with Chung, Pottinger paid a courtesy call on President Moon and had talks for about seven minutes during which he delivered a congratulatory message from Trump.
Elmira Suleymanova, the commissioner for human rights of Azerbaijan contributed the below article on the occasion of the country's 25th anniversary of occupation of Shusha.  ED.







The purpose of genocide, ethnic cleansing and deportation policy of the Armenian nationalists and their supporters against the Azerbaijanis, lasted over two centuries, was banishing them from their historical native lands and establishing "Great Armenia" state on those territories. From the beginning of XIX C., thousands of the Armenian families were moved from Iran and Turkey to historical territories of Azerbaijan such as Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Zengezur, also ravan and other provinces.



As a result of the next aggression policy started since 1988, Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh which is an integral part of Azerbaijan, as well as seven surrounding rayons.



Thus 20 percent of the country territories were occupied, more than 20 thousands Azerbaijanis were killed, 50,000 of persons were injured, thousands of persons went missing, women, the elderly, children, were taken hostages and captives and subjected to severe tortures, one million of the Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), their rights were grossly violated.



In the course of this occupation, the Armenian nationalists and terrorists committed genocides in Khojaly city, Karkichahan, Malibeyli, Gushchular, Garadagli, Agdaban villages and in other settlements of Azerbaijan.



Twenty five years have passed since the occupation of Shusha city-the historical cradle of culture of Azerbaijan, which was rich with historical monuments, and presented numerous well-known persons, writers, poets, musicians who introduced cultural heritage of our nation to the world, that was a part of the aggression policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan and resulted in gross violation of the norms and principles of the international law and human rights.



The Armenian armed forces occupied Shusha city on May 8, 1992.



In the battles for the defense of Shusha, 195 Azerbaijanis were killed, more than 165 were injured, and 68 were taken captives and hostages.



The Armenian vandals plundered museums that had thousands exponents during the occupation, destroyed hundreds of historical-cultural monuments, outraged holy mosques and temples, ruined numerous manuscripts, destroyed education and health facilities.



It should be noted that 249,000 persons living in Shusha city with an area of 300 square kilometers became internally displaced persons after the occupation.



However, the tragic results of this aggression are not limited only to occupation of the Azerbaijani lands.



We call international organizations to support the just position of Azerbaijan for the Sake of restoration of justice, return of occupied lands, including Shusha, restoration of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and violated rights of one million refugees and IDPs, release of Captives and hostages and punishment of perpetrators.



We hope all well-known international organizations and peacemakers will join efforts for the restoration of peace and security in Azerbaijan which is a land of tolerance, long lasting occupation policy against Azerbaijan will be stopped, the necessary condition will be achieved for Sustainable development in our country and cooperation in the region.



Real opportunities will be created for ensuring the universally recognized fundamental human rights and freedoms of each person without discrimination on any ground.








By John Redmond





Brian Aylward

Brian Aylward will return to Korea to share his comedic insights in a series of shows across the country beginning in Bundang, south of Seoul, tomorrow.

The tour is themed "Rice Kimchi Laugh Comedy Tour" and will cover six cities across the country.

Aylward, a former EFL teacher from Newfoundland in Canada, first arrived in Korea in December 2005 and took to stand-up comedy following a bet with his then-girlfriend, if she would quit smoking.

"It was at an open mic on Nov. 11, 2005, at Rockssin Bar in Anyang. I had a bet with my girlfriend. We bet if she quit smoking for a month, I would give stand-up a go, since I always wanted to do it but never did. That girlfriend is now my ex-wife," Aylward said.

The Korea Times spoke with Aylward about the expat comedy scene.

Q: How was Korea's expat live comedy scene back in 2005?

A: The Korean expat stand-up comedy scene back then was me. So, it was not good. Then, I started Stand Up Seoul in March 2009. Since then comedy gigs have sprouted up all over Korea and it is now a legitimate international comedy destination for world-class headliners. It's great to see.

Q: You have toured here since then. What changes have you noticed?

A: Yes, I have toured Korea in 2012 and 2015. Changes I have noticed is Itaewon is now hipsterville, plastic surgery adverts are everywhere and English-speaking abilities of random strangers has been raised to Konglish level.

Q: What can audiences expect from your current tour?

A: Stuff about Korea and Asia. I get personal and talk about my life too. It's all relatable. People can expect a great night out.

Q: Any advice for up-and-coming talent trying to break into the market?

A: Be nice. Be funny. Work hard.

In Korea, Aylward was a regular contributing writer to Groove Magazine. Some of his comedy pieces have been heard on TBS eFM radio. He was also runner-up in the 2008 Hong Kong International Comedy Festival.

He was also named "Best Standup Comic" at 2016 Canadian Comedy Awards and nominated for "Best Comedy" at 2017 Fringe World in Perth, Australia.

The tour kicks off at PUB210 in Bundang on May 18 at 10 p.m.

Other dates include HQ in Busan on May 19, Tilt in Pohang on May 20, Speakeasy in Gwangju on May 25, The Royal Anchor in Ulsan on May 26, Rocky Mountain Tavern in Seoul on May 27 and BearPaw in Pyeongtaek on May 28.

For more information, search for "Rice Kimchi Laugh Comedy Tour" on Facebook.
Employees watch an electronic board to monitor possible ransomware cyberattacks at the Korea Internet and Security Agency in Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap



By Lee Han-soo

Is North Korea behind the devastating globe-spanning cyberattack that has crippled countless of computer systems in recent days?

Two major software security firms, Kaspersky and Symantec, claim they have evidence linking the Wannacry ransomware attack to North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group.

The worldwide cyber ransomware extortion attack, which started on May 12, has crippled tens of thousands of computer systems in nearly 100 countries, including South Korea.

Both security firms claim the technical details within an early version of the ransomware are similar to those used by the North Korean hacking organization, suspected of being behind the 2015 attack on Sony Pictures and the $81 million heist from a Bangladeshi bank in 2016.












Choi Soon-sil is escorted in Seoul Central District Court, Seocho-gu, on May 15 for questioning about an alleged bribe from Samsung. / Yonhap



By Ko Dong-hwan

Impeached Korean President Park Geun-hye's confidant Choi Soon-sil, now standing trial, demanded on Tuesday that President Moon Jae-in's administration "uncover the truth."

In Seoul Central District Court, where she faces charges of accepting a corporate bribe and abusing her relationship with Park, Choi said she was innocent and that prosecutors' investigations were "unfair."

"The new president of the nation established on justice and democracy must not condone publicizing rumor-based investigation reports," said Choi, 61.

"I cannot live in this country if the investigators keep tarnishing my name unfairly."

Choi is at the center of the presidential corruption scandal that swept the nation last October arousing nationwide protests that led to Park's impeachment.

The court is dealing with allegations that she accepted some 43 billion won ($38.5 million) from Korean giant conglomerate Samsung as a bribe to fund her daughter's dressage training in Germany.

Choi denies the allegation, disputing the Independent Counsel's conclusion that she controlled Samsung for her daughter.

She said the counsel "never checked factual proof but only relied on witnesses."

She also defended Park, whose trial is scheduled to start on May 23. Choi said she still respected Park, who was "not a person to amass personal benefits" and that prosecutors had "exaggerated" charges against Park.

The counsel said the charges against Park had been based not only on witnesses but also objective evidence.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae is facing mounting pressure to disclose the truth behind the "blacklist of judges," which was allegedly used for unjust personnel actions.

Judges at the Seoul Central District Court, the largest in Korea, held a special meeting, Monday, to urge Yang to reopen the investigation into the blacklist, which allegedly contains judges' personal information such as their political inclinations.

The Office of Court Administration (OCA) is accused of using the list to make decisions over personnel matters, which many judges call a "serious abuse of power" if it is true.

After the issue came to the fore, the Supreme Court formed a fact-finding committee, which closed the case in April without checking the computer suspected of having the blacklist file.

The Seoul Central District Court is the latest court to demand the truth. So far, judges at 12 out of 18 district courts across the country have asked Yang to reinvestigate the case thoroughly and to discuss the issue at a National Judges' Congress.

"Given the seriousness of the matter, there should be a national meeting to collect opinions from all judges," the judges at the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement. "As the person in charge, Yang needs to speak outon the suspicions and make every effort to reveal the truth behind it."

The affair began with a survey to collect judges' opinions over judicial independence in Korea and its court personnel management system. The results were to be revealed at the symposium for judicial reform, which was scheduled for March 25.

But Lim Chong-heon, who was the No. 2 official at the OCA, pressured a symposium director to scale down the event for unclear reasons. The director was unhappy about the request and offered his resignation in protest. After the issue came to light, the Supreme Court ordered an investigation.

Fresh suspicions over the blacklist started to emerge when a judge, surnamed Lee, told the fact-finding committee that he was told "don't be surprised when you find the files of a secret investigation into judges, which was done for a good cause" by a high-ranking official at the Supreme Court.

Yet, without checking the computer suspected of having the file, the committee concluded that such a list doesn't exist. Lim denied all the allegations, but nevertheless stepped down to take responsibility for "a loss of trust."

But few judges were convinced. They have urged Yang, who has kept mum on the issue, to explain.

The minor opposition Justice Party also released a statement Tuesday to urge him to speak the truth, saying that judicial reform seems inevitable and imminent.

Creating such a blacklist is not something unimaginable for Koreans, who have already seen one. Former President Park Geun-hye, who was ousted over a massive corruption scandal, and her aides were accused of creating a blacklist of people to selectively support artists based on their political orientation.

Former president Lee Myung-bak appointed Yang as the chief justice in 2011. His term will end in September after six years.
By Kim Se-jeong



The Seoul Metropolitan Government is seeking to recruit 150 middle- and high-school students interested in mingling with their peers from different cultural backgrounds.



Applicants should be residents of the Gwanak, Guro and Geumcheon districts, and each local council will choose 50 students.



They will be paired with immigrant students of the same age and do activities with them in a project to help them feel at home and overcome challenges facing them in a new culture.



The number of immigrant children is on the rise, as Korean society becomes more diverse. Challenges for those who arrive in Korea as a teenager are particularly high due to pronounced language and cultural barriers. Statistics show their school drop-out rates are higher than that of other immigrant children who were born here or arrived very early.



According to statistics, the population of such immigrant children is 4,200 in Seoul. Most children came from China at 55 percent, followed by Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines.



The opportunity is open to an student at middle and high schools in the three districts, and the application deadline is May 23.



For more information, call (02) 879-6130 for Gwangak, (02) 860-2573 for Guro and (02) 2627-2881 for Geumcheon.








President Moon Jae-in is moving to hold a meeting with the floor leaders of four major political parties here, informed sources said Tuesday.



The meeting, however, has not yet been set as most of the parties, including the ruling Democratic Party, were in the process of electing new floor leaders in a post-election shake-up.



"Nothing has been decided," Kwun Hyuk-ki, a spokesman for the presidential office, told reporters.



The meeting, if held, will be the first of its kind since the president came into office last week, following his victory in an early presidential election caused by the March 10 ouster of his conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye.



Moon has often vowed to work closely with the National Assembly and political parties, possibly out of a necessity to have his government's new policies approved.



The ruling party currently controls 120 seats in the 299-seat National Assembly, far less than a majority required to legislate bills.



The main opposition Liberty Korea Party has 107 Assembly seats while the splinter conservative Bareun Party controls 20 seats.



The center-left People's Party controls 40 seats, but is considered rather critical of the ruling party and its liberal government. (Yonhap)




By Park Si-soo



South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit Washington in late June for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, media reports said on Tuesday, the presidential office said Tuesday.

It was announced after Moon's foreign policy adviser met with Trump's national security advisers in Seoul on Tuesday. During the meeting, they agreed to work for North Korea's "complete" denuclearization.



New bold' ways for denuclearization



South Korea and the United States agreed Tuesday to work toward the "complete" denuclearization of North Korea, also vowing to seek new and practical ways to rid the communist North of its nuclear weapons, Seoul officials said.
Three longtime associates keep distance from power

By Choi Ha-young





Yang Jung-chul

President Moon Jae-in's longtime associates vowed to keep their distance from power in a bid to dismiss concerns they might control state affairs behind the scenes as "secret confidants."

After former President Park Geun-hye was ousted following the influence-peddling and corruption scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil, there were concerns that Moon also had a lineup of secret key aides who could pull the strings if Moon was elected.

The key aides are Lee Ho-chul, Yang Jung-chul and Rep. Jeon Hae-cheol of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). They have been longtime associates of Moon and the late former President Roh Moo-hyun. The three served in Cheong Wa Dae during the Roh administration (2003-2008) along with Moon who was senior secretary for civil affairs and chief of staff.

While Moon has so far appointed people who are not labeled "Moon Jae-in's men" to key positions, two close aides of Moon  Yang and former three-term lawmaker Choi Jae-sung  declared Tuesday they would leave politics to pave the way for the new leader's success, in an apparent effort to calm any lingering concerns.












DRCSC provides intellectual support for the intl coop. along the Belt and Road

By:Jiang Wenran | From:english.eastday.com | 2017-05-14 16:43

The Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation opens in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2017. During a press conference held yesterday, Zhang Junkuo, Deputy Director of Development Research Center of the State Council (DRCSC), affirmed the important role of the center in providing intellectual support for the international cooperation along the Belt and Road.

According to Zhang, the center gives full play to its think-tank advantages and provides intellectual support for the international cooperation along the Belt and Road through conducting in-depth researches on the Belt and Road related subjects and strengthening the cooperation with relevant international organizations.

The current think-tank network for the Belt and Road international cooperation will be strengthened in the coming days, Zhang noted that a normalized mechanism for think-tank dialogue, personnel exchanges and research cooperation will be established.

The center will take an active part in creating the Belt and Road theoretical system and discourse system in order to continuously build confidence and expand consensus among all countries and regions along the Belt and Road.

Zhang also noted that the decision-making, consultation and research level should be comprehensively improved so as to provide scientific advice for all parties in the aspect of project docking, policy coordination and mechanism design.
By Kim Bo-eun

Attention is growing about how President Moon Jae-in will push for his drive to remove irregular working positions from the public sector. This came into question after he pledged to give regular status to 10,000 irregular workers at Incheon International Airport last week.

Moon has vowed to provide the irregular workers with regular status as they are discriminated against in pay, pension, bonuses and welfare. The government plans to overhaul the practice of companies indirectly hiring workers under service contracts.

Many workplaces hire cleaning and security staff this way _ they hire from another agency which recruits the workers.












By Lee Seong-hyon





"On first day in office, South Korean president talks about going to North," read the headline of a Washington Post report. It was a prominent report about Moon Jae-in's first speech at the National Assembly after he was just sworn in as the new president. In the craft of journalism, it is the headline that carries monumental importance. It is the "summary" of the news in one sentence. It sets the tenor of the news. It "frames" the entire article that follows. Moreover, busy readers often only skim this and move on, forming a quick idea of the matter at stake. In a nutshell, a title in journalism is like a first kiss. It is well remembered.



The Post's arresting headline was successful in grabbing the attention of readers. But it also has opened up a useful debate about its fairness, because it insinuated a very important judgment about the new leader in South Korea and his emerging North Korea policy.



President Moon's opponents have long marketed a public narrative that he was a "sympathizer" towards North Korea and would be "soft" on Pyongyang. They expressed fear that he would undermine the current U.N. sanctions on the North by unconditionally engaging Pyongyang. They used this assertion, importantly, to argue why Moon shouldn't be elected commander-in-chief for the nation, which is under increasing nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. They also highlighted the fact that Moon formerly served as chief of staff and close aide to the late liberal president Roh Moo-hyun, who declared he would not "kowtow to the Americans."



Against the backdrop, the Post's headline perfectly feeds into the conservative narrative and reinforces the preconceived notion about President Moon and his policy on North Korea.



The problem is that in his speech, Moon talked about visiting the United States first; Beijing and Tokyo second; and then, lastly North Korea. Even then, on North Korea, he added that he would do so "under conducive conditions."



The Post's headline therefore could have been: "On first day in office, South Korean president talks about going to Washington." It chose not to. The Post's headline characterized Moon's speech as if it was his manifesto to embrace North Korea instead.



Journalism students learn about "framing theory." News is about "showing." Framing is about "telling." The motto of journalism is to show, not tell. The Post article could serve as a good example for classroom debates on whether it abandoned the practice of separating "news" from "opinion" in its stories.



Political journalism has long been criticized for strength in reinforcing conventional frames and weak in breaking them. In today's commercialized journalism, the primary reason for doing so is due to marketing strategy based on the readers' psychology. Simply put, readers read the newspaper to "confirm" what they already believe, rather than being challenged by something different.



When opening the newspaper in the morning with a cup of coffee, people want to confirm their political view is correct and move on with life. Nice and simple. A holy morning ritual. It gives one a sense of security and coherence to one's world view. They don't want to be challenged by encountering something "different" in the newspaper that would force them to "correct" their world view. Life is already busy.



The situation sometimes creates tension between the reporter and the editor. Often it is the editor at the desk who doesn't welcome the "new" discovery by the reporter on the scene. Going with the old flow is a safe bet. Readers don't want a complicated story. Newspaper space is limited too. Unfortunately, this also deprives Moon of a chance to be second guessed.



During the presidential campaign, Moon said he would use both "carrots and the stick" toward North Korea. He also repeatedly emphasized the importance of the Seoul-Washington alliance structure. Skeptics largely brushed it aside as mere campaign rhetoric. Hong Jun-pyo, a conservative contender even claimed that Moon's election would speed up "North-Koreanization" of South Korea.



North Korea's latest missile test was certainly a test for Moon in this regard, but also an opportunity. Moon declared that there won't be any "unconditional dialogue" with North Korea, brushing aside skepticism that he may be "soft" on North Korea. He also publicly affirmed his commitment to Seoul's traditional alliance with Washington. Yet, the framing war against Moon may not be over yet.





Lee Seong-hyon, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Sejong Institute. Reach him at sunnybbsfs@gmail.com
This is the sixth in a series of suggestions for new President Moon Jae-in.  ED.



By Chang Se-moon





Suppose that South Korea offers Kim Jong-un of North Korea the presidency of South Korea as well as all the rights to control everything South Korea has in return for Kim reversing his nuclear program and dismantling all his nuclear weapons. I have no doubt that Kim will gladly accept the deal.



Now, suppose that South Korea offers Kim Jong-un one dollar in exchange for Kim terminating all his nuclear programs and destroying all his nuclear weapons. My guess is that Kim will accuse South Korea of acting crazy.



The two examples clearly suggestthat there isa range of prices between the two extremes which likely will force Kim to consider seriously for further negotiation. President Moon Jae-in will become true peace maker if he can articulate the range of prices that could bring both sides to the negotiating table. In coming up the range of prices, we need to consider the following.



First of all, the price has to be large, to the extent of being enormous. This is because the current price has to account for all the past policies that failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. All previous presidents of South Korea had neither vision nor will to take care of the long-term development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.



We can get a glimpse of how expensive the price could be. When President Trump asked China to take care of the nuclear weapons of North Korea, President Trump suspended his campaign promise to fix the annual trade deficit of over $300 billion against China. The nuclear weapons issue is more imminent to South Korea than to the United States.



Secondly, benefits from the payment should be spread over all areas of North Korea, not to the personal account of Kim Jong-un. Although the payment can be very costly to South Korea, the payment should not be all in cash. It can be, for instance, development of industrial complex similar to Gaesong Industrial Complex in every state within North Korea, creating hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs to ordinary people in North Korea.



In other words, South Korea needs to develop a comprehensive plan for developing the North Korean economy, financed by funds from South Korea.If the plan is huge enough to benefit millions of ordinary North Koreans, rejection of such plan by Kim would place him in a very precarious position. If he cares only about himself, he may reject the plans, moving his doomsday clock closer toward the midnight.



The third and final component of such plans is the speedy resolution. South Korea cannot afford to give North Korea more than six months to consider the proposal. Any appearance of prolonged peace talk will simply assist North Korea to complete their nuclear weapons program.



The main advantage of this approach is that South Korea will no longer be a bystander to the U.S. and China over the North Korean issue, and take an initiative to determine its own destiny.



This approach is not an easy one to carry out, however. Clearly, there is a risk for North Korea not to accept the proposal. Just as risky is the level of support among South Koreans for such ambitious and expensive proposal.



One task for President Moon Jae-in is to prepare the proposal in such way that it would be very difficult for Kim Jong-un to reject it without risking mass revolt among North Koreans. The other task for President Moon is to generate enough support among South Koreans for the proposal. The price will not be cheap, but there should a price that just might work.





Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies. Write to him at: changsemoon@yahoo.com.
Global sales of the Galaxy S8 smartphones reached 5 million units in less than a month after their official release, Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday, casting a brighter outlook over its mobile business for 2017.



"Although we cannot provide a detailed figure, the sales are going smoothly around the globe," a Samsung Electronics official said. "The combined sales already are beyond 5 million units."



Samsung released the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus in South Korea, the United States and Canada on April 21. The sales gradually expanded to other regions, covering most major countries in Europe.



The South Korean tech giant said the flagship smartphones will reach some 120 countries by the end of this month, including China.



The Galaxy S8 smartphones feature high resolution displays that bend on both sides and come with various innovative technologies, such as iris and face recognition scanners, and a smart voice assistance program named Bixby.



Since its release, however, the Galaxy S8 has faced various criticisms, including claims that some of the devices come with excessively red-tinted displays. Samsung ruled out speculation that devices have faulty displays, claiming the controversial red tint can be corrected by users through the settings.



While there were also claims over connection problems to the WiFi network and some devices restarting abnormally, the Galaxy S8 continues to post steady sales.



Samsung has been keeping a watchful eye on such issues, especially as the production of the Galaxy Note 7 phablet was suspended last year over safety issues with its battery.



Industry watchers said Samsung is expected to sell 20 million units of the Galaxy S8 by the end of the second quarter. Annual sales are estimated to be between 50 million and 60 million units.



Accordingly, analysts are also casting a brighter outlook over Samsung's performance for the April-June period, with some expecting its operating profit in the mobile business to jump twofold on-quarter.



Samsung's IT-mobile division posted an operating profit of 2.07 trillion won ($1.84 billion) in the first quarter, down 1.83 percent on-year. (Yonhap)




Screen captures of Naver's Clova artificial intelligence-based voice assistant application are seen above. When a user activates the app, he or she will see the left and center images in sequence. In the right image, the user asks Naver Clova to recommend a coffee shop in Hannam-dong, southern Seoul. / Courtesy of Naver



By Park Jae-hyuk

Naver started offering its newly released artificial intelligence (AI) based voice assistant application to iPhone users this week after the new app's beta version became available for Android users late last week.

The nation's internet portal giant said that its app, Naver Clova, has an advantage in embracing for both Android and iPhone devices unlike Samsung's Bixby and Apple's Siri. The former is only for Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy smartphones, while the latter is exclusively for Apple iPhones.

Naver is seeking to improve the functions of the new app by accumulating user data and receiving feedback during the test period.

"AI can learn and grow itself as user data increases," a Naver official said. "Users of Naver Clova will experience differentiated services which will gradually provide personalized information and content."

Naver Clova runs on the AI-powered voice assistant platform Clova, which stands for "cloud virtual assistance." Naver and its Japan-based mobile service subsidiary LINE jointly developed Clova.












By Kang Seung-woo



Sales of Samsung Electronics' latest Galaxy S8 smartphone have topped 10 million in less than a month after its official release April 21, according to the Seoul-based tech giant, Tuesday.



Market analysts expect that the strong sales performance will boost Samsung's second-quarter earnings in the mobile business that has remained sluggish due to the recall of the Galaxy Note 7 late last year.



"The global sales of the Galaxy S8 series have already surpassed the 10 million mark," said a Samsung official. "Although we cannot specify the number, the smartphone is doing well globally."



After unveiling the device filled with such cutting-edge technologies as the digital assistant Bixby, March 29, Samsung officially released it in the United States and Canada as well as in Korea, followed by Britain, France, Germany and Italy a week later.



In order to keep up the momentum, Samsung plans to expand sales to 120 countries, including China, by the end of this month.



Samsung is the world's largest smartphone maker, but it has struggled in China, with Chinese handset makers fast stealing away Samsung's market share on their home turf.



In March, Samsung's mobile chief Koh Dong-jin said that the firm is seeking to rebound in the world's largest smartphone market.



The Galaxy S8 series features two models: a standard-size with a 5.8-inch display and a larger S8 Plus with a 6.2-inch screen.



The high-end phone features a bezel-less, edge-to-edge curved display with a unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio. In addition, it offers various innovative biometric authentication features -- fingerprint, iris and facial recognition -- as well as Bixby.



However, the Galaxy S8 encountered a few technical glitches, including complaints about a red tint to the screen, but those have been solved through software updates.



In addition, Bixby whose service has been available since May 1 has eased concerns that it may still need some time to accumulate enough datasets before offering a decent-level of service. It has drawn positive reviews for its highly-accurate voice recognition for various practical purposes.



Analysts forecast that 20 million Galaxy S8s will be sold during the second quarter and 60 million this year, which would be a new record for Samsung.



Samsung's current best-selling smartphone is the Galaxy S7. According to Strategic Analytics this month, the gadget's combined sales reached 55 million as of the first quarter of the year.



The strong estimate is tipped to double the firm's operating earnings in the following quarter.



"The Galaxy S8 will lead Samsung's very positive earnings in the second quarter," said Lee Soon-hak, an analyst at Hanwha Investment and Securities.



"Amid continuous strong demand for the Galaxy S8, the operating profit of the IT and mobile communications division is expected to top 4 trillion won."



Its first-quarter earnings in the IT and mobile division stood at 2.07 trillion won.
















By Lee Hyo-sik



Kumho Tire sales have plunged on increasingly reluctant foreign buyers as Double Star Tires is poised to acquire Korea's second-largest tire maker, industry analysts said Tuesday.



Automakers and tire dealers abroad, particularly those in North America and Europe, are concerned that the quality of Kumho tires will deteriorate under Double Star's management due to the latter's lack of managerial knowhow and technological prowess. Double Star is the world's 34th largest by sales, while Kumho is the 14th largest.



Buyers also expect the prices of Kumho tires will decline after the mid-tier Chinese player acquires the company.



If Kumho Tire cannot use the Kumho brand after being sold to Double Star, this could further devastate the struggling Korean company, the analysts said.



In the first three months of 2017, Kumho Tire sales declined 4.6 percent to 669.3 billion won ($598 million) from a year earlier. It posted a 28.2 billion won operating loss, compared with a 15.1 billion won operating profit a year earlier. It was the first time for the company to incur the quarterly operating loss since the third quarter of 2015.



Kumho's domestic sales jumped 11.7 percent but overseas sales, which accounts for 65 percent of its revenue, fell 10.9 percent as foreign buyers reduce the purchase.



"We fared relatively well at home in the first quarter, despite the increasingly competitive local tire market," a Kumho Tire official said. "But we suffered a steep sales decline in North America, Europe, China and other major overseas markets. Rising prices of rubber and other raw materials also weighed down on our bottom line."



To bolster faltering sales and profitability, Kumho will implement a range of cost-cutting measures, launch aggressive marketing campaigns and find new foreign customers, the official said. "Unless we revive the sluggish overseas sales, it will be difficult for us to meet market expectations."



The analysts attributed Kumho Tire's poor performance to the ongoing sales talks between Double Star and the Korea Development Bank, which owns a 42.01 percent stake in the company.



The two are currently engaged in sales negotiations to iron out their differences on the detailed terms of a stock purchase agreement (SPA) to finalize the deal over the next four months. In early March, both sides signed the SPA under which the Chinese company would acquire the 42.01 percent stake for 955 billion won.



"Since Double Star has emerged as the most likely buyer of Kumho Tire early this year, the latter's business partners abroad have become less willing to buy tires from it," said an analyst, who declined to be named. "I heard that foreign buyers are concerned about a fall in the quality and brand image of Kumho tires when the second-tier Chinese firm acquires the Korean company."



Expecting a fall in tire prices after the acquisition, global automakers and tire dealers have reduced Kumho tire inventories, which also hurt the firm's first-quarter performance, he said.



"Many express concerns that Double Star's takeover will undermine the global competitiveness of Kumho Tire," the official said. "If the tire maker cannot use the Kumho brand, this will make things go from bad to worse."



Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo, who wants to take back control of Kumho Tire, has hinted at not allowing Double Star to use the Kumho trademark. Kumho Industrial owns the trademark rights and is controlled by the Kumho chief.




By Park Jae-hyuk





CJ Chairman Lee Jay-hyun

CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun will return to his office on Wednesday after four years of absence.

A company official said Tuesday that the chairman will attend the Only One Conference at CJ Blossom Park in Suwon, Wednesday morning.

The conglomerate had held the conference every May from 2005 to 2012 but suspended it since 2012 when the chairman faced investigations over alleged embezzlement and malpractice.

Lee was indicted in 2013 over alleged embezzlement and tax evasion. He was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in December 2015, but got a presidential pardon last August.

He has remained reluctant to come back to the office so far, for reasons of health and the indictment of his aide over alleged tax evasion.

Although the chairman reportedly ordered some tasks which were completed when he was in the United States and at home, he did not attend any official events, leading to the longest leadership vacuum ever for CJ.

According to industry officials, CJ seems to have started boosting the group's investment plans, as the new administration is in place.

In 2010, Lee declared that the group will post 100 trillion won ($89 billion) in sales by 2020.

During the chairman's absence, however, the group has suffered failures in lucrative M&A deals. Also, the amount of annual investment substantially decreased to just 1 trillion won between 2014 and 2016.

So, industry officials initially expected that the chairman would unveil some of the group's business strategies, such as aggressive M&A plans, during this year's conference. However, he may not disclose detailed business plans at the event, according to the group officials.

Plus, Lee is not likely to assume the registered director's job for a while. He had been the registered director of seven major CJ subsidiaries for two decades but resigned from the positions in 2014.

More than 300 executives and employees will attend the conference including Lee Kyeong-hoo  the chairman's oldest daughter and a deputy president of CJ's Los Angeles office  and her younger brother Lee Sun-ho who is a manager of CJ CheilJedang.

CJ subsidiaries and employees who performed well during the previous year are expected to receive awards at the event.
By Lee Han-soo





Daniel Yoo

Daniel Yoo, the first Korean-American general in the United States Marine Corps, has been appointed major general of the Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC), a sub-unit under the U.S. Pacific Command.

SOCPAC's area of operations typically includes 36 countries, including South Korea.

A change-of-command ceremony was held at Camp Smith, Hawaii, on Friday to honor Major General Yoo, who was previously commander of the 1st Marine Division.

A career infantry officer, Yoo most recently commanded the 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division and Camp Schwab in Okinawa, Japan.

He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal last July for outstanding performance as commander of a U.S. unit in Afghanistan between July 2009 and April 2010.

Yoo earned his undergraduate degree from Arizona State University and received a master's degree from the Naval War College.
Premier Li Keqiang on May 15 met with UKs Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, personal envoy of Prime Minister Theresa May, who came to Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation from May 14 to 15.

The Premier said China pays great attention to China-UK relations, and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the two countries enhanced bilateral cooperation and coordination in international affairs are important not only for both nations but also for the region and the world.

China is willing to work with UK to consolidate mutual trust, implement cooperation in key areas such as nuclear power and finance, develop new highlights for more cooperation to promote the bilateral relations and cooperation to a new stage, said Premier Li.

He also added that China and UK should join hands to release signals that both countries are dedicated to stability, opening-up and prosperity by promoting a free and convenient trade and investment.

Hammond delivered a signed letter from May to Premier Li, saying that UK is devoted to developing an all-around strategic partnership between the two countries.

UK is willing to maintain high-level contacts, further advance bilateral investment and trade, and strengthen communication in international affairs with China, according to Hammond.
Girls' Generation's Seohyun, has finally put an end to her silence as she answers back to all of the negative feedbacks that she get from her critics that question her acting skills. Just recently, Seohyun took the opportunity to voice out her thoughts and opinions regarding the criticisms that she is facing because of the new role that she landed for"Bad Thief, Good Thief".

This is because her critics keep on saying that she doesn't deserve her role for the upcoming drama series. It is worth noting that almost all South Korean K-pop idols have transitioned from the music industry into the acting industry, in hopes of getting more popularity and success in their respective careers.

And with this, Seoyhun of the hit girl group Girls Generation is now a part of those K-pop idols that have now become actresses, as she has just landed a role in MBC's upcoming drama series entitled, "Bad Thief, Good Thief". But despite her success in finally entering the acting industry, she is still criticized by netizens and haters.

These people say that she doesn't have the right acting skills to effectively portray the role. According to Korea Portal, Seohyun finally spoke out her true feelings during the recently held press conference for the series.

In her statement, she says that she perfectly understands why she is getting all the negative comments. She says that it is probably because of her lack of experience in the acting industry.

But surprisingly, she takes all of the negative comments positively and says that she will use it to better herself in the new acting career that she has chosen. According to All K-pop, Seohyun firmly believes that she got the guts to do it.

She also promises all of her fans that she worked hard for it which is why "Bad Thief, Good Thief" would surely be a good watch.
Premier Li Keqiang met with Brigitte Zypries, the German chancellors special representative and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, in Beijing on May 15.

Zypries came to Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Premier Li hailed China-Germany relations, saying that Germany is an important partner in Europe, and the comprehensive and in-depth development of bilateral relations is in the fundamental interest for both countries and their people.

China is willing to strengthen high-level exchanges with Germany and have in-depth communication on a broad range of issues of common concern, bringing bilateral relations and cooperation to a new level, the Premier said.

China supports Germany in hosting the G20 summit and hopes Germany will keep playing a constructive role to promote healthy and stable development of relations and cooperation between China and Europe, he added.

Zypries conveyed Chancellor Angela Merkels cordial greetings and said that relations between China and Germany are stable and strong, and Germany is willing to enhance communication, strengthen cooperation in all sectors, and promote the development of bilateral relations.
Premier Li Keqiang met on May 15 with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was in Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

As a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent UN Security Council member, China staunchly safeguards the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, firmly supporting authorities of the UN and UN Security Council and its key role in safeguarding world peace and security, as well as promoting development, said the Premier.

China hopes to play a responsible role through platforms such as the UN and make relentless efforts in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and boosting world peace, stability and development.

Premier Li said that peace, development and cooperation have been the consensus of mankind, and globalization is an irreversible trend, adding that issues in globalization must be solved in the development process.

He said China supports globalization, trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and believed that humans have intelligence and all countries have the ability to push globalization on to a path that is a more open, inclusive, shared and mutually beneficial.

Guterres said China is an important pillar for promoting multilateralism, free trade and globalization, and it has given great support for all of UNs work, including its peacekeeping operations.

UN will strengthen cooperation with China to better link the 2030 sustainable development agenda with Chinas development strategy and initiatives, advancing world peace and stability through sustainable development, said Guterres.
Premier Li Keqiang met with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on May 15, who was in Beijing to attend the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Premier Li said that China and the Philippines are friendly neighbors, and the development of bilateral ties is in line with the common interests of both countries and their people, and is important to peace and stability of the region.

Based on integration between development strategies of both sides, China is willing to expand trade, promote cooperation in capacity, infrastructure, finance, agriculture and fishing industry, and enhance people-to-people exchanges and strengthen efforts in poverty alleviation, he said.

The Premier praised the contributions made by ASEAN for the region over the past 50 years since its establishment, saying that China is supportive of its development and key role in the region. China is ready to make joint efforts with the Philippines, which took up the rotating presidency of the organization this year, in promoting regional cooperation and China-ASEAN relations, he added.

Duterte said that bilateral ties are striding forward in the right direction, and cooperation between the two countries has achieved fruitful results. His country is willing to learn from Chinas experience in economic development, and enhance cooperation in sectors such as infrastructure, agriculture, fishing, food processing, e-commerce, science and technology, small and medium enterprises and tourism.

The Philippines will support the Made in China 2025 strategy, by expanding capacity cooperation and providing convenience for investment from China, he said.
Premier Li Keqiang vowed further cooperation with Cambodia during a meeting with visiting Prime Minister Hun Sen in Beijing on May 16.

Hun Sen was in Beijing for an official visit to China and for the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held on May 14 and 15.

Premier Li said China and Cambodia have a long and enduring friendship, which was established through the joint efforts of the two countries older generation of leaders, and has been further cemented under the new international circumstances after President Xi Jinpings official visit last year.

He added that China is willing to maintain high-level exchanges and strategic communications, expand pragmatic cooperation and increase people-to-people exchanges with Cambodia, and enhance coordination with the country on international and regional affairs, in order to benefit the people of the region and the world.

The Chinese government is endeavoring to upgrade the China-Cambodia cooperation in an all-around way, and hopes to accelerate coordination between their development strategies to promote bilateral trade, said the Premier.

He said China hopes to work with Cambodia to promote key cooperative projects in the fields of production capacity, investment and agriculture, in order to boost Cambodian economic and social development and improve peoples lives there.

The two sides can also enhance defense and law enforcement cooperation, and increase exchanges in education, tourism, preservation of cultural relics, and medical care, Premier Li said.

Next year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of China-ASEAN strategic partnership, when Cambodia will host the second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders Meeting.

China supports Cambodia to play an active role through regional and subregional platforms, and hopes to make joint efforts with the nation and other parties concerned to promote cooperation for common development, and to build a community of common destiny with shared stability and prosperity, Premier Li said.

Hun Sen said Cambodia cherishes the traditional friendship with China, and hopes to implement the consensus reached by the two sides, maintain high-level exchanges, and strengthen cooperation in areas such as trade and investment, infrastructure, agriculture and water facilities, science and technology, tourism, and law enforcement security.

Cambodia is also willing to strengthen coordination with China on regional and international affairs, to lift the bilateral friendship to a higher level, he added.

Hun Sen then delivered Cambodias congratulations on a successful Belt and Road Forum, saying it will continue to promote China-ASEAN ties and Lancang-Mekong cooperation, and maintain regional stability and development.

After the meeting, the two leaders witnessed the signing of a series of agreements involving coordination of development strategies, economy, technology, infrastructure and other areas.

Before the meeting, Premier Li held a welcoming ceremony for Hun Sen in front of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Hun Sen laid flower baskets at the Monument to the Peoples Heroes on the morning of May 16.
Premier Li Keqiang on May 16 met with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing on May 14-15.

He said that China and Myanmar are friendly neighbors, and the country always has friendly policies toward Myanmar. China is willing to align development strategies, enhance high-level contacts, mutually beneficial cooperation and people-to-people and cultural exchanges with Myanmar to bring more benefits to people of the two countries, said Premier Li.

He called on the two sides to steadily promote cooperation on special economic zones, oil and gas pipelines and ports, and properly deal with the Myitsone Dam project.

Premier Li also expressed the hope for a cease-fire in northern Myanmar to ensure security and stability in border areas between China and Myanmar. China supports Myanmar in hosting the second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference, and is willing to play a constructive role in promoting the peace process in Myanmar.

Aung San Suu Kyi said friendship between China and Myanmar has a long tradition. Seeing China as a friend of Myanmar, she said her country attaches great importance to the development of ties with China, and holds high expectations for bilateral cooperation and is willing to further strengthen economic and trade cooperation as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges, she said.

She thanked Chinas support and help in promoting the peace process in her country, and welcomed Chinas further efforts in this aspect.

After the meeting, they witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in areas such as connection of development strategies, economy, technology, healthcare, and cultural relics preservation.
PRESS RELEASE

Rail Advocate Frank Murkowski to Explore Alaska/Canada/(Lower 48) Link

May 15, 2017 (EIRNS)Alaska now has an official state-level effort to explore the options for linking its rail network with that of Canada, a blog posting from April 3 reveals. Rail advocate Frank Murkowski has been officially hired as "special envoy" to Governor Bill Walkers office, to "research on the states behalf the viability of this potential project, and report his findings back to Governor Walker and his team."

Murkowski, who spent 20 years (1981-2002) as U.S. Senator before becoming governor of the state (2002-2006), and whose daughter is now a U.S. Senator, has "been looking on this conceptually for 25 to 30 years," he said.

"Its something that comes up continually. Its an opportunity to compile the existing information, look at the potential for new traffic, and see what it looks like."

A main motivation is hauling out the mineral wealth of the north, but the potential corridor link up to the Lower 48 and southward is obvious.

A link at the end of the article goes to a 2016 post on expansion of the "Silk Road," reporting on China and Russias cooperation in opening the Arctic to rail transport. Several American companies are also making their own separate investigations.
Ford Motor Co. is reportedly planning substantial job cuts in order to boost profits and raise its stock price.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the cuts would target salaried employees and would reduce Fords global head count by about 10%.

The cuts are said to largely target salaried employees. Its unclear whether hourly factory workers are included, the newspaper said.

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Ford did not confirm the report.

In a statement, the Dearborn, Mich., automaker said it is focused on reducing costs and improving efficiency. But Ford said it hasnt announced any job cuts and wont comment on speculation.

Investors are concerned that U.S. auto sales are peaking and Fords market share is slipping.

Fords shares have lost more than a third of their value since Mark Fields became chief executive in 2014. Electric car maker Tesla Inc., led by Elon Musk and based in Palo Alto, recently surpassed Ford in market value even though Tesla sells far fewer vehicles.

Michelle Krebs, an analyst with Autotrader, said Ford may be taking a prudent action to prepare for declining U.S. industry sales.

Belt tightening comes as no surprise with sales softening and profits squeezed, Krebs said. Ford has been under particular pressure to take action to boost its stock price. The board meeting last week likely added pressure to get specific about cost cuts.

During the companys annual meeting last week, a number of shareholders pressed Fords management about the companys stock.

Look, were as frustrated as you are by the stock price, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford said. And a couple of people have said, Well, does the Ford family care about the stock price? The short answer is yes, a lot. Much of our  most of our net worth is tied up in the company. And the stock price matters a lot to us.

Shares of Ford rose 2 cents, or 0.2%, to $10.94 on Tuesdayt $10.94.

The Associated Press and the Detroit Free Press/McClatchy contributed to this report.

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Its big. Its nasty. Its the fight for dominance in the burgeoning market for driverless cars  and the service theyll provide.

Alliances are forming. Competitors are bulking up. The gloves are coming off.

There are accusations of subterfuge. On Monday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup slapped restrictions on ride-hailing giant Ubers driverless car research in a trade secrets civil lawsuit filed by archfoe Waymo, Googles autonomous car project.

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There are hints of criminality. Last week, the same judge referred Waymos allegations that Uber stole its proprietary technology to the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation.

There are questions of commitment. Even as nearly every automaker positions itself for a future of self-driving cars, the board of Ford is putting pressure on Chief Executive Mark Fields to justify his big bet on the driverless future, implying some think it might not be worth the financial risk.

The driverless economy is one few economic sectors with huge growth potential, now that the bloom is fading on consumer electronics.

Tens of billions of dollars are at stake, maybe hundreds of billions, according to market analysts.

Its a huge market, but there are a lot of people who feel they have a right to compete  the tech companies, the automakers, the suppliers, said Mark Wakefield, head of the auto practice at consulting firm AlixPartners.

Its a huge market, but there are a lot of people who feel they have a right to compete  the tech companies, the automakers, the suppliers.  Mark Wakefield, head of auto practice at consulting firm AlixPartners.

Add in driverless ride-hailing services, and the total could reach a trillion dollars or more, Tasha Keeney of ARK Invest said.

The most powerful weapon, along with the cash to make use of it, is intellectual property.

When you own the I.P. for autonomous technology, thats a huge asset, Keeney said. Thats whos going to own the economics of this market.

And who stands to gain the most? Whoever is first to market, Keeney said. Thats because data collection is crucial to perfecting robot car technology, and the sooner technology hits the road, the more data stream back to improve the systems.

Which explains the bare-knuckles nature of the Waymo-Uber battle.

Waymos suit, filed in February, accuses Uber of knowingly using stolen trade secrets to cheat its way into the market.

The judge on Monday ordered Uber to keep Anthony Levandowski, the alleged thief, away from any work on lidar, a light-beam technology considered key to the development of autonomous vehicles.

Levandowski was considered a star in the self-driving industry and key to Ubers effort to replace human drivers with robot cars. Levandowski left Waymo last year and started Otto, a driverless truck company, where he soon grabbed headlines for testing driverless big rigs in Nevada. In August, Uber bought his company for $680 million and made him head of driverless cars.

Before he left Waymo, Levandowski downloaded 14,000 documents  an action that doesnt appear to be in dispute. While Waymo claimed 121 trade secrets were stolen, Alsup said in his order Monday that only some of them might have been used by Uber. He cited two examples but most of the detail was blacked out in the public document.

Uber likely knew or should have known that Levandowski had taken and retained possession of Waymos confidential files, the judge wrote.

The judge rejected Waymos request to block Ubers work on lidar technology  but said it must continue without Levandowski, or any purloined data.

A court-appointed special master will inspect Uber work sites to ensure compliance.

Uber was also ordered to conduct a thorough investigation of the case, including interviews with anyone who might have been involved, and report back to the court June 23.

Alsup dismissed the patent claims and said only some of the trade secret claims hold merit.

Uber positioned the order as a victory. We are pleased with the courts ruling that Uber can continue building and utilizing all of its self-driving technology, including our innovation around lidar, a spokeswoman said.

Anything short of shutting down its research could be considered a win for Uber, which has been hammered this year on controversies including a lawsuit claiming workplace harassment and the revelation that it used a program called Grayball to deceive local authorities about how its service was being used.

Replacing its drivers with robots is existential to Ubers future, founder and Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said last year.

The entity thats in first, then rolls out a ride-sharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Ubers, then Uber is no longer a thing, he said last year.

Kalanick, meanwhile, will have to prove that he can guide Uber into that driverless future.

Uber will survive, said Evan Rawley, a professor at Columbia Business School. People want a clean, safe, cheap ride that comes quickly and gets them where theyre going.

But Kalanick? The capital markets are not going to be quite as forgiving, Rawley said. Investors, he said, may demand a change in strategy and perhaps a change in the executive ranks.

The private company, valued at $68 billion, is burning cash as it keeps fares low to put pressure on Lyft and other competitors.

Some investors are already growing impatient with Kalanick, who is under pressure to bring in a strong No. 2. After a viral video that showed Kalanick insulting an Uber driver from the back seat of the car, the executive publicly admitted he needs to fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.

A criminal investigation in the Waymo case will only darken the clouds hanging over Kalanick. The judges Justice Department referral is not a good sign for Uber, said Robert Milligan, an attorney at Seyfarth Shaw in Los Angeles. You dont normally see a judge make a criminal referral in a trade secrets case.

Travis and the Uber board have to come out and own this problem, said Grayson Brulte, a autonomous vehicle consultant in Beverly Hills.

Kalanick couldnt have been happy to learn Sunday that archfoes Waymo and Lyft had signed a deal to collaborate on autonomous technology through pilot projects and product development. Already, Lyft and General Motors are using the new Bolt EV as a test vehicle for driverless cars.

Waymo is a leader in driverless technology. Lyft is the No. 2 ride-hailing company in the U.S. GM, which owns a major stake in Lyft, is an automobile manufacturing behemoth.

The partnership underlines the need for Uber to survive the trade-secrets case unscathed. Without an automobile fleet of its own and without competitive driverless technology, all Uber has in the long run is its name recognition  for better or worse  and the passenger data behind its app.

russ.mitchell@latimes.com

Twitter: @russ1mitchell

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Hackers have once again struck at Hollywood, this time claiming one of the summers biggest blockbuster releases  Disneys Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment in the highly profitable swashbuckling franchise, starring Johnny Depp.

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger told ABC employees in New York on Monday that hackers have claimed to have stolen a movie and are threatening to release it in segments until their demands, which include a pirate-like ransom paid with Bitcoin, are met.

Iger didnt identify the movie, and the Burbank-based Disney declined to comment. But a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to comment said the movie that was hacked was the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.

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Pirates is set to open nationwide on May 26. The last four installments in the franchise have been huge successes for Disney, collectively grossing nearly $3.73 billion worldwide.

The theft comes a few weeks after hackers stole the latest season of Netflixs Orange is the New Black. Hackers leaked episodes of the new season after Netflix refused to meet their demands.

Disney is currently working with federal authorities to investigate the attack, according to another source not authorized to speak to the media.

News of the Pirates hack was earlier reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.

The hack is believed to be unrelated to a massive ransomware attack that has spread across the globe. Ransom-style computer attacks have grown in popularity in the last few years as banks and other institutions make it harder for hackers to infiltrate their systems.

Hacking isnt a new problem in Hollywood but recent cyberattacks have proved to be damaging. The 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment hack was devastating to the Culver City-based studio, revealing email communications of the companys top executives.

Hollywood talent agencies also face regular cyberattacks. Last month, hackers targeted United Talent Agency, causing widespread email problems throughout the company.

david.ng@latimes.com

@DavidNgLAT

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6:27 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details, including a federal investigation into the hack.

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
Fox News tamped down speculation that its prime-time personality Kimberly Guilfoyle is in talks with the Trump White House about joining its communications team.

Guilfoyle, who is a co-host on Fox News Channels The Five, told the San Jose Mercury News she has had conversations with the administration about joining the White Houses communications team.

For the record: An earlier version of this article erroneously referred to Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom as former lieutenant governor.

But late Tuesday, Fox News issued a statement that indicated a move to Washington is not imminent.

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Kimberly is a valued member of the Fox News prime-time lineup, and is under a long-term contract with the network, a Fox News representative said in a statement.

Through a spokesperson, Kimberly Guilfoyle said, As I stated in the interview, I really love what I do and my job co-hosting The Five is tough to beat.

The surfacing of her name comes after numerous reports that President Trump is unhappy with the performance of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and is looking to make a change.

Im a patriot, and it would be an honor to serve the country, Guilfoyle told the Mercury News when asked about her interest in the position. I think itd be a fascinating job. Its a challenging job, and you need someone really determined and focused, a great communicator in there with deep knowledge to be able to handle that position.

Fox News typically requires its commentators to leave the air once they are in negotiations to join an active political campaign or take a government position. But Guilfoyle will be on the Tuesday edition of The Five.

Guilfoyle has been with Fox News since 2005 as part of its daily talk show, which was moved into a prime-time slot following the April 19 firing of the networks longtime anchor Bill OReilly.

She is a former San Francisco and Los Angeles prosecutor. She is the ex-wife of California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a prominent liberal Democrat who is running for governor. The couple divorced in 2005.

Fox News is the preferred network of Republican and conservative viewers as its commentators  including Guilfoyle  are largely positive in their assessments of Trump.

In tweets last week, Trump appeared to express unhappiness with how his communications team handled the uproar he created with his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey.

...Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Spicer, whose combative approach with the news media has been lampooned on Saturday Night Live, last month faced a barrage of criticism after he compared Hitler with Syrian President Bashar Assad in a televised briefing with reporters. He attempted to clarify his comments but his statements only drew further criticism that he was being insensitive to Holocaust survivors. Spicer later apologized on CNN and called his remarks a mistake and a blunder.

stephen.battaglio@latimes.com

Twitter: @SteveBattaglio

UPDATES:

3:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional reaction from Fox News.

This article was originally published at 1:15 p.m.
The U.S. Department of Labor is accusing an Arizona farm of housing about 70 Mexican farmworkers in dangerous and unsanitary conditions and paying them illegally low wages, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court last week.

Santiago Gonzalez, the owner of G Farms in El Mirage, Ariz., housed workers in school buses and trailers without any windows, in violation of federal safety regulations, officials said.

The workers were brought in under the federally supervised H-2A visa program, which allows U.S. growers to import seasonal laborers from abroad. Employers who use the program are required to pay a minimum wage set by the government and provide the guest workers free transportation and housing, which must include 50 square feet of sleeping space per person.

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Regulators have ratcheted up scrutiny of the agricultural guest worker program in recent years, as employers increasingly rely on it to fill a labor shortage caused in part by a dramatic drop in immigration from Mexico. But federal investigators have uncovered cases of employers shorting wages, soliciting kickbacks, illegally deducting rent and holding workers hostage to their visas.

After investigators confronted Gonzalez, he moved the workers into two hotels. But one of his employees called the Labor Department last week and reported that Gonzalez was charging the workers to stay in the rooms, and for their food and transportation.

The department has asked for a temporary restraining order to force Gonzalez to pay workers what they are owed and to ensure that these workers are kept safe from life threatening conditions.

Stephen Barr, a spokesman for the Labor Department, declined to comment. Gonzalez did not respond to requests for comment.

Kristina Espinoza, a labor department investigator who recently visited the farm, described a makeshift labor camp that was dangerous and unsanitary, according to court documents.

When Gonzalez applied for H-2A workers this year, he pledged to house them in a nearby hotel. Instead, he had them living in four yellow school buses and two trailers, where they had less than a foot of space between each bed, Espinoza said. Federal standards require three to four feet.

The trailers didnt have windows, and workers in the buses had nowhere to put their belongings, so their items were strewn across the trash-filled sleeping quarters, Espinoza said.

Gonzalez had workers shower in nine stalls inside a cargo container; there was no functional sewage system, so wastewater accumulated underneath the container, Espinoza said. The electrical cord used to light the facility was exposed to standing water, posing a risk of electrocution, according to court documents.

The workers shared one toilet in the trailer and had access to port-a-potties.

Each of those conditions is an apparent violation Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations for labor camps, which apply to H-2A workers.

Growers in Arizona last year recruited 6,205 guest workers, up from 2,091 in 2011. The vast majority of them were employed around Yuma, where many of Californias produce companies operate during winter months. Arizona ranks eighth nationwide in recruitment of H-2A workers, according to the data; California ranks fifth.

G Farms was approved to hire 70 laborers to cultivate and harvest potatoes, watermelon and onions for standard 40-hour workweeks, from April 2 through July 31, according to federal records. Gonzalezs application, dated Jan. 31, was approved at a $10.95 minimum hourly rate.

Instead, Gonzalez paid $0.13 to $0.70 per bag, Espinoza said.

natalie.kitroeff@latimes.com

geoffrey.mohan@latimes.com
Tesla Inc. executive Lyndon Rive announced his departure Monday from the business he led with his cousin and company Chief Executive Elon Musk.

Rive, 40, was CEO of SolarCity before the rooftop solar giant merged with its sister company, Tesla Motors, in November. Rive created SolarCity in 2006. His most recent role was vice president of Teslas energy division.



For the record: An earlier version of this story inaccurately described Elon Musk as co-founder of SolarCity.

The announcement of Rives departure comes just days after Tesla began taking orders for its new solar product  solar shingles that will replace the boxy panels that attach to roofs.

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Rive told Reuters he plans to start another company.

Palo Alto-based Tesla said in a statement: Lyndon Rive co-founded SolarCity eleven years ago, and built it into the number one solar provider in the nation. Thanks in large part to the foundation Lyndon helped create, Tesla has now built the worlds first integrated sustainable energy company, from generation to storage to transportation.

Because of his leadership and dedication to our mission, Lyndon has helped position Tesla for an amazing future. We know hes an entrepreneur at heart, and we wish him the very best on his next venture.

Musk and Rive together unveiled the line of high-design, solar power-generating roof tiles last fall in an event at Universal Studios Hollywood. Their goal has been to target consumers who have shown an aversion to traditional solar panels.

Although more solar power was brought online nationwide last year than any other source of electricity, the number of rooftop solar installations  the focus of residential and business customers  grew 19% compared with 2015. Rooftop solar installations had grown 63% on average year-over-year from 2012 to 2015.

The rooftop solar industry has been working to retool its operations by coupling solar panels with battery storage to offer consumers increased independence from their utility companies.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn
Five years of progress reducing the number of Americans without health insurance has come to a halt, according to a government report out Tuesday, showing the stakes in the Republican drive to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 28.6 million people in the U.S. were uninsured in 2016, unchanged from 2015. It was the first year since passage of the healthcare overhaul in 2010 that the number of uninsured did not budge.

The uninsured rate for 2016 was 9%, an insignificant difference from 9.1% the previous year. When then-President Obama signed the ACA in 2010, the uninsured rate had been 16%.

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Tuesdays report suggests that the ACA, also known as Obamacare, was running low on gas in Obamas final year as president. Premiums for private insurance were about to jump, and 19 states continued to refuse the laws Medicaid expansion.

Now, the number of uninsured could start climbing again under policies being considered by President Trump and congressional Republicans.

The politically unpopular GOP bill passed narrowly by the House would limit Medicaid financing and curtail subsidies for many consumers buying their own private policies. The Republican bill also would repeal the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance or risk fines, a much-disliked nudge to get healthy people covered.

The legislation would lead to an estimated increase of 24 million uninsured people within 10 years, according to congressional analysts. Under the Affordable Care Act, there are 20 million fewer uninsured since 2010.

Its disappointing that its stalled out, said health economist Gail Wilensky, a Republican. The real question is: Will we be able to keep the gains that we have made? Critical of the ACA and co-author of an alternative plan by GOP policy experts, Wilensky nonetheless supports the goal of expanding coverage. Shes concerned about the effect of the House bill on Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income and disabled people.

The new numbers come from the CDCs National Health Interview Survey, which is considered an authoritative source and publishes findings earlier than the Census Bureau. Estimates for 2016 were based on data for nearly 97,500 people.

It looks like we are kind of sticking a landing and holding on to the gains, said Katherine Hempstead, who directs research on health insurance at the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To increase coverage, you would have to see more states take up the Medicaid expansion, and some reforms to increase take-up in the individual [private] market.

Could the number of uninsured start rising again? Absolutely, Wilensky and Hempstead said.

This release is really timely because it just helps everybody focus on whats at stake, Hempstead said.

The report found a significant increase in the percentage of people under age 65 covered last year through government-sponsored insurance markets such as HealthCare.gov. About 11.6 million (4.3%) had marketplace insurance in the last three months of 2016, up from 9.1 million (3.4%) in the same period a year earlier.

The report presented state-specific information for 45 states, leaving out five with low populations because estimates for those states would not be reliable.

States that expanded Medicaid were more effective at reducing the number of uninsured. Of the 16 states with adult uninsured rates significantly lower than the nation as a whole, 15  including California  expanded Medicaid. In that group, only Wisconsin had not extended coverage for low-income people.

Conversely, of the nine states that had significantly higher uninsured rates, only New Mexico expanded Medicaid.

California alone had a significant decrease in the percentage of adults under age 65 who were uninsured: It fell to 9.5% last year from 11.1% in 2015. The national average was 12.4%.

The CDC numbers do not reflect any changes directly attributable to Trump, who took office Jan. 20 of this year.

During the campaign and since, Trump has made some big promises about health insurance, talking of coverage for everybody and much more affordable premiums and deductibles. But Trump has also embraced a GOP bill that would make more people uninsured, even if it delivers on his campaign pledge to repeal Obamacare. And he has threatened to stop paying subsidies that reduce out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles for people with modest incomes.

Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in Novembers presidential election, had promised to increase government assistance for private insurance costs and work to convince holdout states to expand their Medicaid programs.

This is really pre-election activity reflected in the CDC survey, Wilensky said. Its news because people need to know we seem to have reached a plateau.

What the situation will look like a year from now, she said, is unclear.
By the end of December, a lethal bacterium had swept through UC Irvine Medical Centers intensive care unit, sickening seven infants. Dr. Susan Huang, the hospitals infection control expert, had a plan.

The strategy  which she had promoted so successfully that most U.S. hospitals now use it  included bathing all infants in the ICU with a powerful disinfectant, and swabbing inside their noses with an antibiotic.

But this time, the plan failed. Despite also isolating infected babies and ensuring nurses washed their hands, in February and March three more babies tested positive for the same strain of the superbug MRSA.

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The outbreak is a reminder that scientists are still struggling to gain the upper hand against hospital-acquired infections. It has also amplified an already heated debate about whether the strategy that Huang helped develop is the best way to halt MRSA, a pernicious pathogen that kills at least 9,000 Americans a year.

We want the strategies we employ to work 100% of the time, but thats not always possible, Huang said in a written statement to The Times. She declined to be interviewed.

We want the strategies we employ to work 100% of the time, but thats not always possible  Dr. Susan Huang, UC Irvine Medical Centers infection control expert

Even before the MRSA outbreak at UC Irvine, experts worried that the strategy of treating all patients with the disinfectant and antibiotic could do more harm than good by making bacteria more dangerous and resistant to drugs.

Broad use of antiseptic strategies deployed over many days or weeks may only partially help, and may in turn induce unintended consequences, said Dr. Derek Angus, a professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

The disinfectant chlorhexidine and antibiotic mupirocin can also have adverse effects on patients  especially premature babies in the ICU, whose skin and neurological systems are still developing.

In February, the Food and Drug Administration warned hospitals that it was seeing a greater number of rare but serious allergic reactions to chlorhexidine.

The biocide is sold over-the-counter to disinfect small areas of skin before surgery. It is not approved for bathing patients entire bodies. Its label warns against using in infants under 2 months of age because it can cause chemical burns.

Mupirocin, the antibiotic, is not approved for children under 12. Its label specifically cautions against use in premature infants.

John Murray, a UC Irvine spokesman, said no infants suffered adverse reactions from the treatment.

Although the hospital has not yet found the source of the outbreak, he said, all current patients in the neonatal intensive care unit have tested negative for MRSA, which stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

One national healthcare provider has sharply reduced MRSA infections by using a practice much different from the one advocated by Huang and her colleagues.

Huang recommends against testing new patients for MRSA, and instead relies on treating every patient in the ICU with daily disinfectant baths and the antibiotic nasal swipes  a practice called universal decolonization.

In contrast, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tests every patient being admitted. If patients tests positive, they are isolated and treated, making it harder for the bacteria to spread.

The VA reported in January that testing and isolating patients had helped reduced MRSA infections by 80% since 2007.

That practice is costly, though. It requires single hospital rooms. Nurses and doctors must put on gowns and gloves when entering the isolated patients room and take them off when leaving. Often more staff must be hired. Isolating a single patient can add hundreds of dollars to the hospitals tab.

Huangs protocol is far less expensive. The study she led in 2013 found that it cost just $40 to treat each patient with the daily disinfectant baths and antibiotic nasal swipes.

The idea for the study, Huang explained at a 2014 presentation, came from a conversation between an executive at the Hospital Corp. of America, the nations biggest hospital company, and Richard Platt, the director of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. The institute is a partnership between Harvard and Massachusetts largest health insurer. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helped pay for the trial.

Platt said the group wasnt motivated by the economics. We did this to answer the question, Can we reduce the number of infections? he said. It wasnt, Can we lower the cost?

Forty-three hospitals owned by HCA joined Huangs study. It concluded that bathing all ICU patients in cloths soaked in the biocide, and treating them with the antibiotic, led to fewer infections than when patients were screened for MRSA and isolated.

The rate of MRSA bloodstream infections did not change significantly. But when the group looked at bloodstream infections from all types of pathogens, the rate dropped by 44%.

Before the study, HCAs more than 150 hospitals were using an approach similar to the VAs. The company eventually switched to the approach outlined in Huangs study, said Ed Fishbough, an HCA spokesman, and has continued to see a decline in infections.

Some scientists quickly challenged the results of the study after it was published in 2013 by the New England Journal of Medicine. In letters, the scientists questioned whether the mixed results justified the treatments use. They also said doctors could make the bacteria more dangerous by treating all patients.

Great caution should be exercised in transferring the studys results into clinical practice, wrote doctors from the Medical University of Graz in Austria.

The concerns did not stop hospitals from adopting it. In a talk in January, Huang said that 65% to 80% of U.S. hospitals were now using decolonization in their ICUs.

So far, though, its widespread use has not cut the nations rate of MRSA infections. Between 2014 and 2015, a national estimate based on MRSA bloodstream infections reported by hospitals rose by 10%, according to data from the CDCs National Healthcare Safety Network.

Asked to explain the increase, Melissa Brower, a CDC spokeswoman, said the agency had changed its method of calculating the national statistic, which skewed the numbers. The actual rate of MRSA bloodstream infections did not rise between 2014 and 2015, she said.

Already, scientists have discovered bacteria becoming more resistant to both chlorhexidine and mupirocin.

A team led by Dr. Ajita Prabhu at the Cleveland Clinic expected to see infections decline when it began a study in which hernia patients were treated with wipes of chlorhexidine before surgery. Instead those patients suffered more surgical site infections than those not treated, the team reported last year.

Indiscriminate use of the disinfectant, the doctors concluded, should be discouraged.

Huang and her colleagues were so comfortable with the treatments safety that they instruct hospitals that there is no need to ask patients for permission. Instead patients should be told the treatment is routinely used in this ICU, according to their published toolkit.

The outbreak in UC Irvines neonatal intensive care unit began in August.

Hospital officials told the state in a Jan. 6 letter that they had begun to decolonize all infants who were current patients and those coming from other hospitals with chlorhexidine and mupirocin on Dec. 22.

Murray said that 220 staff working in the intensive care unit were tested for MRSA in January and February and decolonized with the disinfectant and antibiotic if they tested positive.

The staff also continued to clean the intensive care units equipment and surfaces.

But three more babies later tested positive for the same MRSA strain. In all, nine infants were sickened. Anothers skin was colonized. None of them died.

Briana Walker of Mission Viejo said that her son tested positive for MRSA on March 6 about a week after staff moved a baby who had been infected into a room next to her sons.

It is not clear how extensively the units staff used the disinfectant baths and antibiotic treatment. Walker said the staff did not not treat her son until after he tested positive for MRSA. By then he had been in the ICU for a month.

The staff also did not tell her about the outbreak, she said. I wonder how many other patients were not told what was going on.

Murray declined to answer more questions about the babies treatment.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

melody.petersen@latimes.com

Follow @melodypetersen on Twitter

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Despite efforts on equal pay, the gender salary gap in California government jobs persists
The city of Philadelphia has sued Wells Fargo, accusing the bank of discriminating against minority home buyers.

The complaint, filed Monday in a federal court in Pennsylvania, alleges that Wells Fargo violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by steering minority borrowers into mortgages that were more expensive and riskier than those offered to white borrowers, according to court documents.

The lawsuit says Wells Fargo is among the major banks with a history of redlining in Philadelphia, a practice traced back to the 1930s that involves denying credit to borrowers in certain communities because of their race or ethnicity.

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The complaint says that between 2004 and 2014, African American borrowers were twice as likely to receive high-cost loans when compared with white borrowers with similar credit backgrounds. Latino borrowers were 1.7 times as likely to receive costly loans when compared with white borrowers, the lawsuit claims.

Wells Fargo spokesman Tom Goyda denied the allegations.

The citys unsubstantiated accusations against Wells Fargo do not reflect how we operate in Philadelphia and all of the communities we serve, said Goyda, in a statement. Wells Fargo has been a part of the Philadelphia community for more than 140 years and we will vigorously defend our record as a fair and responsible lender.

The filing comes as the bank is still recovering from a sales scandal in which bank employees opened millions of unauthorized accounts in customers names.

The complaint draws parallels between the accused predatory lending and the problematic sales targets by saying there was a lack of internal controls that could have prevented both issues.

Many borrowers also were rejected later when they applied for credit that would have allowed them to refinance those more-expensive loans, according to the complaint. As a result, minority borrowers faced higher rates of foreclosure  a pattern that also hurt the city by leading to lower property taxes and more frequent incidents of vandalism and crime, the lawsuit claims.

Mondays lawsuit comes just two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities have standing to sue banks for predatory lending practices, on the grounds that the cities also can incur financial damages, such as reduced tax revenue.

In that case, Miami sued Bank of America and Wells Fargo, arguing that discriminatory lending practices led to higher rates of default for minority borrowers.

Miami, represented by the same lawyers handling the Philadelphia case, claimed that the banks in turn caused financial harm to the city by leading to lower property taxes and requiring the city to provide services to struggling borrowers.

Although the Philadelphia investigation has been underway for more than a year, the city waited until after the Supreme Court decision to ensure that it would have legal standing to sue, according to Benjamin Field, deputy city solicitor for Philadelphia.

Wells Fargo has faced similar claims of mortgage discrimination from bank regulators and federal prosecutors.

In 2012, the bank agreed to pay $175 million to settle a case bought by the Department of Justice, which alleged the bank steered thousands of African American and Latino borrowers into loans that were more expensive than those offered to similarly qualified white borrowers.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nations main bank regulator, said at the time it had found evidence of discriminatory lending.

The bank did not admit wrongdoing in that case and said it settled the matter to avoid costly litigation.

News of the Philadelphia lawsuit against Wells Fargo was first reported by Reuters.

Marte writes for the Washington Post. Times staff writer James Rufus Koren contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

10:45 a.m.: This article was updated with information about a case settled in 2012.

This article was originally published at 9:35 a.m.
After voting to radically overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, House Republicans will vote in coming weeks on rolling back financial reforms put in place to prevent big banks from once again driving the world to the brink of global catastrophe.

The banking industry couldnt be more pleased.

The American Bankers Assn. hailed it as a very important step after the House Financial Services Committee voted the other day to send the whimsically titled Financial CHOICE Act to the House floor. (Thats CHOICE as in Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs.)

The legislation would provide much-needed regulatory relief for beleaguered banks, said Rob Nichols, the industry groups president and chief executive. He said banks only want to better serve their customers and communities.

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The industry can put away its hankies and violins. U.S. banks, especially the big ones, are doing just fine, thank you very much.

Here are the facts:

U.S. banks reported record annual profit of $171.3 billion last year, up 5% from a year before, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Only 4.2% of the nations almost 6,000 banks lost money in 2016  the lowest percentage since 1995.

FDIC-insured institutions reported total profit of $43.7 billion in the fourth quarter alone, up nearly 8% from a year earlier. Almost 60% reported year-over-year growth in quarterly earnings.

In the first three months of this year, Bank of America reported a 40% increase in earnings from a year earlier. Both JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup posted 17% gains in profit.

Wells Fargo, which went out of its way to alienate customers with its bogus-accounts scandal, nevertheless saw its first-quarter profit hold steady at $5.5 billion.

Banks need regulatory relief like a bald man needs a comb, said Linda Sherry, a spokeswoman for the advocacy group Consumer Action.

On Friday, I wrote about my interview with the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, whose job would be as expendable as his watchdog agency if the Financial CHOICE Act became law. Weakening the CFPB to the point of uselessness is a major goal of the legislation.

But the bill aspires to do a lot more damage than that.

Its intended to undo the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was signed into law by former President Obama in 2010. Dodd-Frank included a variety of measures aimed at lowering the risk of a too-big-to-fail financial institution endangering the economy or requiring a taxpayer-funded bailout.

Banks have steadfastly insisted since the law was enacted that its rules are too costly and troublesome for them to comply with. Theyve said Dodd-Frank is a classic example of government overreach.

The banking industry has clothed much of its anti-regulatory propaganda in declarations that Dodd-Frank, no matter how well intended, is an albatross around the necks of smaller, nicer institutions. Think George Baileys building and loan firm in Its a Wonderful Life.

The regulatory relief that ABA is pursuing on behalf of our members will allow banks to better serve their customers and communities, and ultimately help the U.S. economy, Jeff Sigmund, a spokesman for the bankers association, told me.

He said Dodd-Frank included changes that went too far and are holding back economic growth, and that the banking industry favors revisiting the law and putting in place sensible rules.

To be sure, Dodd-Frank would benefit from some tweaks. For example, the regulatory burden on smaller banks easily could be remedied by raising the laws compliance threshold to $100 billion in assets. At the moment, the rules apply to any bank with more than $50 billion in assets.

Republican lawmakers, however, prodded by their backers in the business community, are determined to give all banks the benefit of the doubt, as if the mortgage meltdown that began in 2007 and the financial chaos and recession that followed were ancient history.

Our plan replaces Dodd-Franks growth-strangling regulations on small banks and credit unions with reforms that expand access to capital so small businesses on Main Street can grow and create jobs, said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), author of the Financial CHOICE Act and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Actually, small businesses and Main Street appear to have plenty of access to capital. Lending by commercial banks has grown by more than 6% annually since 2014, according to the Federal Reserve  much faster than the growth rate of the overall economy.

As Ive previously reported, Hensarling is the Oliver Twist of donations from financial firms (Please, sir, I want some more). Since he was first elected to Congress in 2003, he has received $1.3 million in contributions from commercial banks, $1.4 million from securities and investment firms, and $1.4 million from insurers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee who voted to approve Hensarlings bill received almost 80% more money during the 2016 election cycle from commercial banks and holding companies than Democrats who voted against it, according to the nonpartisan research organization MapLight.

Lawmakers supporting the measure received an average of $72,191 last year from commercial banks and holding companies. Those opposing it received an average of $40,437.

For consumers, perhaps the single greatest insult of the Financial CHOICE Act is the harm it would do to the CFPB. As I noted Friday, the act would allow the president to sack the bureaus director at any time for any reason.

It also would greatly limit the bureaus ability to oversee and enforce rules pertaining to financial firms, even though the bill cynically would rename the bureau the Consumer Law Enforcement Agency.

Youll be hearing more from the banking industry about the unbearable regulatory burden of misunderstood, underappreciated financial institutions as a vote by the full House approaches.

What the industry wont tell you is that bank stocks are up nearly 30% since the November election and that earnings growth of almost 11% is forecast for this year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Much-needed regulatory relief?

All businesses should have it so bad.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Instagram continued to play copycat to Snapchat, launching on Tuesday its own version of face filters  a feature popularized on Snap Inc.s app.

The new Instagram tool superimposes adornments such as animal ears, hats, makeup and masks over a persons face on the app. The decorations include a gold crown and a pair of bunny ears reminiscent of Snapchats offerings, as well as thick-rimmed glasses.

The company also added features such as the ability to play videos in reverse, hashtag stickers that link to a hashtag page, and an eraser brush when using drawing tools.

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Instagram originally launched in 2010 as a photo-sharing platform with stylish filters. Facebook bought the company in 2012 for $1 billion. Over the last year, the company has launched features that bear striking resemblance to Snapchat, including Instagram Stories, which lets users share videos that disappear after 24 hours; drawing tools, which allow users to doodle over their photos and videos; and geo-filters, which create a range of location-specific stickers that can be placed on photos and videos.

When asked during Snap Inc.s first earnings call about copycat competitors, Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said: At the end of the day, just because Yahoo has a search box doesnt mean theyre Google.

Which would be a sick burn, were it not for the fact that Instagram Stories has already surpassed Snapchat usage. Snapchat has 166 million people who use the app every day. Instagram Stories alone has more than 200 million.

The Los Angeles-based Snap Inc. has said its best strategy to stay ahead of imitators is to continue launching new features for users and advertisers. Its latest offerings, announced Monday, include geo-filters that add information such as ZIP Codes, cities, colleges and airports. The company also said it will give advertisers the ability to sponsor world lenses, an augmented reality feature that superimposes three-dimensional digital objects onto phone screens.

tracey.lien@latimes.com

Twitter: @traceylien

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A celebratory sun shone brightly. The sky revealed the carefree transparent blue of an unpolluted tropical ocean. The rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park glistened like crystals. The soundtrack for all this Sunday morning splendor was the jovial banging of percussion instruments and jingle-jangle of ankle bells as a motley party marched uphill to the straw-bale house that composer Lou Harrison had built toward the end of his life.

The merrymakers sang an off-key Happy Birthday as they reached the imposing yet capricious new gate in front of Harrison House. Made of girders from the Oakland Bay Bridge by Bay Area sculptor Mark Bulwinkle, the gate had its dedication just that morning, becoming an instant landmark.

What is wrong with this idyllic picture of a community heartily commemorating the 100th birthday of a great late American composer whom most of America inexplicably continues to ignore? Could the takeaway be that the neglect isnt inexplicable? Lovable Lou he unquestionably was, and when people finally come across his music well presented, so does much of it prove.

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1 / 11 A new gate, created of girders from the Oakland Bay Bridge by a Bay Area sculptor, greets visitors to the Lou Harrison House that was recently dedicated. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 A motley band makes its way to Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif., to mark the centennial of the outsider composers birth. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 11 A musical procession heads to Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif., to mark the outsider composers 100th birthday with music, art and dance. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 11 Melanie DeMore leads a rhythm and voice workshop at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 11 Melanie DeMore leads a rhythm and voice workshop during Sundays festivities at the Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 11 Miri Hunter, right, of Wonder Valley, Calif., listens to a rhythm and voice workshop at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 11 The audience sits back and takes in a performance at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 11 Emil Miland plays the cello and Meredith Clark is on the harp during a performance at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 11 Meredith Clark plays the harp during a performance at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 11 Charlton Lee with the Del Sol string quartet performs at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 11 The Del Sol string quartet (Ben Kreith, from left, Rick Shinozaki, Charlton Lee and Kathryn Bates) takes a bow following a performance at Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Calif. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

But Harrison, who died in 2003, remains on the edge of the musical establishment not simply because he challenged norms. Thats the definition of an important artist. What he cant escape is the lovable part.

In his later years, portly and white bearded, bedecked in his overflowing red shirt and bolo tie, Harrison had the reputation of being the Santa Claus of new music. Often pictured at his side was his partner, Bill Colvig, whose full white beard and red shirt doubled the image. You might have found them seated at the gongs of one of the versions of an Indonesian gamelan he and Colvig made.

Harrison was a student of Elizabethan court music, Korean court music, Japanese court music. He was a poet, calligrapher, illustrator, portrait painter, music theoretician (particularly of alternate tuning systems), environmentalist and craftsman. He practiced sign language and espoused the universal language of Esperanto.

Im probably forgetting something. But this should be more than enough to suggest how easily it is to see Harrison  who wrote music in dozens of styles, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern (and, for that matter, Northern and Southern) as having been a protean amateur. He adored outsider artists and has been treated as one himself by the music establishment.

But what if he were neither amateur nor any more outsider than Beethoven, who railed against the establishment with every new symphony, sonata or string quartet? An illuminating and engrossing new biography by Bill Alves and Brett Campbell is titled Lou Harrison: American Musical Maverick. They could have just as easily called it Lou Harrison: Mother of Us All, given the extent of his influence.

JOSHUA TREE, CA MAY 14, 2017: A musical procession to Lou Harrisonas House in Joshua Tree, CA May 14, 2017. This is a 24-hour event celebrating Lou Harrisonas 100th birthday with music, art, and dance. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times )

Lets begin with that out-of-tune Happy Birthday. Im not sure it really was out of tune. There was a sense of enchantment in the chant this time that, while helped by the setting, wasnt because of the setting. No, the revelers were channeling, whether intentionally or not, Harrisons interest in pure intervals, not the kind that are compromised by the piano.

The Happy Birthday came around halfway through the 24-hour Lou Harrison 100: A Global Day of Art and Conservation at Harrison House, which was turned into a center for arts and ecology after his death. The celebration was the main event for the centennial, which has gotten only occasional attention.

Because of his interest in microtones, the annual MicroFest this spring is concentrating on Harrison in concerts throughout the Los Angeles area; there was a splendid one at Boston Court in Pasadena, offering revelatory early pieces not heard since they were written and a preview of alluring interludes to Young Caesar, Harrisons neglected opera that the Los Angeles Philharmonic will mount on June 13 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The Bay Area is the other place where Harrison programs are taking place, with small concerts held over the weekend in Santa Cruz, Harrison having lived from the early 1950s in nearby Aptos. But Joshua Tree on Sunday was ground zero.

And sky zero. When I arrived a little after midnight, local engineer, ecologist and astronomer Tom OKey had set up a large telescope and was regaling night owls about the sky. The telescope was aimed at Saturn, and its rings could be seen with startling vividness.

Night and day, indoors and out, an irregular mix of music and message followed. Trees were planted, and they became a symbol of a composer who planted musical seeds, such as providing both impetus and know-how for the world music movement we now take for granted. Balinese gamelan Burat Wangi (Fragrant Offering) from the California Institute of the Arts ended its evening of traditional music and dance with Harrisons Main Bersama-Sama, mixing jazz saxophone with gamelan. (It works better with the original French horn.) Harrisonian melodic inspiration in this instance became a kind of offering to the fragrant gongs and bells in the cold night air on a stage behind the house.

But the essence of the composer happened to be distilled into an afternoon hour inside Harrison House. The living room  a narrow shoebox shape with a high domed ceiling  has unique acoustical properties that give sound an embracing fleshiness.

In a gorgeous performance of Harrisons 1949 Suite for Cello and Harp, Emil Milands cello sounded 10 times its size and caused the walls to feel elastic, while Meredith Clarks harp made the skin tingle. The String Quartet Set from three decades later was given a luminous yet corporeal performance by the Del Sol String Quartet in a room where luminous and corporeal were not antithetic  nor were the evocations of a 12th century troubadour in the first movement or danceable Turkish percussion music implied by the last movement.

It is actually not all that difficult to celebrate Lou Harrison. You need only follow his example. He loved nothing better than celebrating himself, but he always did so by wanting to bring the whole world along with him. To feel better about Harrison, you had to also feel better about yourself and your surroundings, which is precisely the quality of his music.

mark.swed@latimes.com

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The characters in Nicky Silvers plays tend to be laugh-out-loud funny but also  how shall we put this?  icky.

Utterly devoid of impulse control, they unload their resentments in fusillades of shockingly cruel one-liners, leaving destruction, usually to their loved ones, in their wake.

Yet, truth be told, these flawed creatures are just exaggerated versions of ourselves. If we can laugh at them, perhaps we can learn to laugh at ourselves.

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The Pennsylvania-raised New Yorker was prominently produced at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa and the Old Globe in San Diego in the mid-90s and early 00s when he wrote Pterodactyls, Raised in Captivity and The Food Chain, but since then sightings on Southern California stages have been infrequent. So its a treat to see the Road Theatre Company presenting the Los Angeles premiere of his 2011 comedy, The Lyons, which was on Broadway with Linda Lavin in an uproarious performance.

The story has a structural problem, and the play is certainly not everyones taste, but the Road populates it with crackling actors and stages it with panache.

Ever fond of dysfunctional families, Silver dreams up a doozy here. The story begins in a Manhattan hospital room where Rita Lyon (Judith Scarpone)  impeccably coiffed and wearing a smart Chanel knockoff  talks a mile a minute while husband Ben (James Handy), bed-tethered with end-stage cancer, fumes through these last hours of marital agony.

Rita is so eager to move on with her life that she doesnt bother to mask her giddiness. Ben, facing a liberation of his own, snarls four-letter words as though purging a lifetimes bitter disappointments.

You didnt used to swear, Rita chides him, you just shot icy glares.

The products of their unhappiness  their adult children  arrive in due course: single-mom Lisa (Verity Branco), struggling mightily to control her jangled nerves and raw need, and gay son Curtis (Chad Coe), too tranquil and refined to be quite real.

Beneath the glib brutality, the characters harbor genuine affection, and Silver uses his sharp humor to pierce through to deeper truths, such as the double-edged qualities of want (selfish yet restorative) and isolation (protective yet lonely).

Similarly, Sarah B Browns set belies its appearance by opening like a pop-up card to reveal the gleaming hospital room.

Telling details abound as director Scott Alan Smith organically shapes the storys surges and eddies. Mary Jane Millers costumes speak volumes.

Frustratingly, though, a terrifically cohesive Act 1 is followed by an Act 2 that, as it begins, feels like a different play. The tone wholly changes as the son meets with a real estate agent (Kris Frost) in a studio apartment for sale, and by the time the audience figures out what Silver is up to, the storys momentum is lost.

Still, this is a bracing piece of theater. Just think carefully about whether you want to see it with a loved one. Your laughs might give you away.

         

The Lyons

Where: The Road Theatre Company, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; ends July 1

Tickets: $34

Information: (818) 761-8838 or www.roadtheatre.org

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

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daryl.miller@latimes.com

Twitter: @darylhmiller

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For a short period on Monday night, a large projection appeared on the facade of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., that read Emoluments Welcome, along with an animation of the flags of nations where President Trump has business projects.

This was followed by a message that read Pay Trump Bribes Here, with an arrow that pointed to the front door of the hotel. Yet another featured an excerpt of the emoluments clause from the U.S. Constitution, which restricts members of the U.S. government from receiving gifts from foreign powers. (Trump is being sued by one watchdog group for potentially violating this clause.)

The projections were all part of an act of protest by artist, filmmaker and video editor Robin Bell, who has been creating these types of guerrilla light protests for more than half a dozen years. His latest action, however, began to go viral on social media almost as it was happening.

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We had a really great moment tonight with this projection, Bell says. This double-decker tour bus pulls up to the Trump hotel and everyone starts taking photos and clapping and people are cheering us.

Bell has been working with projections in one form or another since 2001  first for musical acts, then as a form of activism. This has included, for example, elaborate messages projected onto the facade of the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters, in collaboration with Defend Our Future, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund, in protest of the nomination of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA.

And there isnt all that much the authorities can do about it.

When we first started doing it, we were concerned and we reached out for legal advice, Bell says. But from the research we did, it was legal. The one thing we cant do is block traffic. We cant create an impediment on the sidewalk.

Bell even has a specially outfitted van that can do mobile projections.

Tonight we got really lucky and we had a great parking spot, he says  one that allowed him and a team of friends who regularly pitch in on the actions to perfectly align a series of images against Trumps hotel.

Bell says he enjoys doing these guerrilla projects since they can transform a random government building into a wild conversation piece. People will hang out and start to talk about things, he says. The whole thing is that youre trying to create this space.

He also says it serves as a way of reminding others who disagree with Trumps policies that they are not alone.

I was reading this thing about when you deal with authoritarian governments, you have to create your own story, he says. If were reacting to these people all the time, they can just play us. So, part of the thing is making things that you can laugh at, that you can share, that arent just reacting to them.

Mondays projections didnt last long  just 10 minutes, until a pair of security guards walked over and blocked out the light  but the photos live on in social media. Plus, this has only inspired Bell to develop new ideas for future protests.

Says the artist: Were not going to slow down any time soon.

To view more of Bells projections, visit bellvisuals.com.

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

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A Star Is Born: Morgan Freeman turns 80 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) I like to play characters who are the absolute opposite of me. I think the farther you get from yourself, the more fun you have because the real you is hidden away. Those are the kind of parts where you can become totally empty and let the character fill you up. Thats what I look for -- a role that gives me a chance to be someone completely different.  Morgan Freeman, 1993 FROM THE ARCHIVES: No Sweat: Morgan Freeman Slides Into the Directors Chair Facebook

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Chloe Grace Moretz addresses body-shaming controversy over Snow White movie By Josh Rottenberg (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Actress Chloe Grace Moretz has long been known as a strong voice when it comes to issues of feminism, whether its over-sexualization of female characters or equal pay for women. Now shes speaking out against the marketing campaign behind one of her own projects. Moretz went on social media Wednesday to address criticism that marketing for the animated film Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs  an updated tweak on the Snow White story, with Moretz as the voice of the classic fairy-tale character  engages in body-shaming. I have now fully reviewed the [marketing] for Red Shoes, I am just as appalled and angry as everyone else, this wasnt approved by me or my team, the actress wrote. According to the website of the South Korean animation studio behind the film, its story centers on a Princess who doesnt fit into the celebrity world of Princesses  or their dress size. When she puts on a pair of magical red shoes, she instantly becomes skinnier. The films synopsis promises an empowering message in which Snow White learns not only to accept herself, but to celebrate who she is, inside and out. But the films trailer and other marketing materials have been blasted as fat-shaming. Plus-size model Tess Holliday took to Twitter to criticize a billboard for the film that appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, where Red Shoes was seeking distribution, that suggested that the less svelte Snow White was no longer beautiful. How did this get approved by an entire marketing team? Why is it okay to tell young kids being fat = ugly? @ChloeGMoretz pic.twitter.com/PVhgwluGTM  Tess Holliday  (@Tess_Holliday) May 30, 2017 Hearing the complaints about the films tone-deaf marketing, Moretz agreed  and told her more than 3 million followers so in a pair of tweets. I have now fully reviewed the mkting for Red Shoes, I am just as appalled and angry as everyone else, this wasn't approved by me or my team  Chloe Grace Moretz (@ChloeGMoretz) May 31, 2017 Pls know I have let the producers of the film know. I lent my voice to a beautiful script that I hope you will all see in its entirety https://t.co/IOIXYZTc3g  Chloe Grace Moretz (@ChloeGMoretz) May 31, 2017 Even as she apologized, she promised that the marketing doesnt represent the complete picture and the films ultimate message is a far more positive one than initial impressions may suggest. The actual story is powerful for young women and resonated with me. I am sorry for the offense that was beyond my creative control https://t.co/HZP2ydPCAX  Chloe Grace Moretz (@ChloeGMoretz) May 31, 2017 Facebook

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Singing tween ventriloquist from Americas Got Talent is the cure for what ails you By Christie DZurilla Had enough outrage? Heres the cure for what ails you, courtesy of Americas Got Talent. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly and witness one Darci Lynne Farmer, a 12-year-old singing ventriloquist from Oklahoma City, who on Tuesday night got the Golden Buzzer from AGT judge Mel B for a performance that exuded unadulterated joy. Armed with bunny-puppet pal Petunia on lead vocals, Darci Lynne delivered a surprising version of Summertime for her audition. She ended up earning a ticket straight to the competitions live shows. You made my heart melt, said Mel B, who Darci Lynne later dubbed the best Spice Girl. I believe that that rabbit is a real separate person, judge Howie Mandel said. I love you. I believe youre gonna go far. You just changed your life tonight, young lady. https://t.co/VZmgRXv4PZ  Darci Lynne (@ItsDarciLynne) May 31, 2017 Facebook

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John Legend makes case to take canceled drama Underground elsewhere By Nardine Saad (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times) John Legend is making a case for the recently canceled TV drama Underground to be picked up by other content providers. The Oscar-winning musician, who is an executive producer and played abolitionist Frederick Douglass on the Underground Railroad-centered show, rallied fans to give it a second life when cable broadcaster WGN America announced Tuesday it would be canceling the series after two seasons. The network has been scaling down its investment in original programming as part of a deal that its parent company, Tribune Media, made with conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. Sinclairs purchase of Tribune gives it control of more than 200 local TV stations and WGN America. The shift was not lost on Legend, who fired off a series of tweets to promote the content brought forth by Underground and its creators, Misha Green and Joe Pokaski. WGN America has been bought and is going a different direction strategically. We will find a new home for Underground! he tweeted, adding, Content wins. Were not reliant on a particular network to make great content. Were so proud of our show and the audience that supported! Legend, who has made no secret about his liberal politics, cautioned fans to be wary of Sinclair and claimed that theyre trying to make local stations mini Fox Newses that lean even further to the right. He completed his plea by asking followers to feel free to drop some hints to the network/streaming services you want to pick up #Underground. Show them who will be watching! View Instagram post Despite Underground being a terrific and important series, it no longer fits with our new direction and we have reached the difficult decision not to renew it for a third season, Peter Kern, president and CEO of Tribune Media, said in a statement. It is our hope that this remarkable show finds another home and continues its stories of courage, determination and freedom. Sony Pictures Television, the studio that produces Underground, is said to be trying to find it a new home. See The Times roster of new, returning and canceled series here. Facebook

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Liam Gallagher plays new music at Manchester benefit show By August Brown In the wake of the terrorist attack outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, scores of artists joined forces to raise money for the victims. Among them was Liam Gallagher, the former singer and frontman for the citys most beloved rock band, Oasis. Gallagher played a benefit show for the bombing victims on Tuesday at the O2 Ritz Manchester. At the show, his first as a solo artist, he played several new songs, including the single Wall of Glass, which you can watch above. It was a preview of his forthcoming solo LP, As You Were. (Previously, Gallagher fronted the post-Oasis rock band Beady Eye.) For Oasis fans, he played several classic tracks, including Be Here Now with Oasis guitarist Paul Bonehead Arthurs and an a cappella take on Live Forever. Facebook

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CNN fires Kathy Griffin from New Years Eve show over controversial Trump picture By Christie DZurilla (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) Kathy Griffin is out of a job at CNN. The cable network on Wednesday terminated its agreement with the comic, who for years has co-hosted its New Years Eve program with Anderson Cooper, after a photo of Griffin holding a bloody, severed head in the likeness of President Trump went viral on social media. The image, taken by photographer Tyler Shields, elicited strong criticism from liberals and conservatives alike. Griffin apologized for the gory image in a 30-second video posted online Tuesday night. I beg for your forgiveness, Griffin said in the video. I went too far. Trump denounced the image Wednesday, calling it Sick! and saying Griffin should be ashamed. CNN has terminated our agreement with Kathy Griffin to appear on our New Year's Eve program.  CNN Communications (@CNNPR) May 31, 2017 Facebook

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Lebanon officially bans Wonder Woman from theaters By Josh Rottenberg If you live in Lebanon, Wonder Woman wont be coming to a theater near you anytime soon. On Wednesday, the country officially banned the superhero film just hours before it was set to arrive in theaters. The ban followed an effort by a group called Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel, which urged the Lebanese governments Ministry of Economy and Trade to block the film because its star, Gal Gadot, is Israeli. News of the ban, which had been the subject of speculation since Monday, was announced on social media by Lebanons Grand Cinemas and Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel. Lebanon has had a contentious relationship with the state of Israel for decades and has an official law on the books that encourages boycotts of products from its neighbor to the south. Israeli citizens and anyone whose passport shows theyve traveled to Israel are prohibited from entering Lebanon. Earlier films featuring Gadot, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Furious 7, have successfully screened in theaters in Lebanon, however. Batman v Superman, which introduced Gadots Wonder Woman, was the third biggest hit at the box office in Lebanon last year. And, as has been pointed out, Wonder Woman was, in fact, made by three companies based in America and two based in China, so calling it an Israeli product is debatable. But, on its Facebook page, the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel complained that Gadot had served two years in the Israeli Defense Forces (national military service is mandatory for Israeli citizens over 18) and boasted about the army training her for Hollywood. Wonder Woman lands in American theaters on Friday and, fueled by overwhelmingly positive reviews, is expected to perform strongly. Read our recent profile of director Patty Jenkins, in which she explains why the world needs Wonder Woman, right here. Facebook

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If President Trumps got the whole world in his hands, Trevor Noah says were in trouble By Robert Lloyd Having caught fire too late Tuesday for late-night TV, and with several hosts extending their Memorial Day weekend, the #covfefe hashtag would have to wait at least until Wednesday for its monologue moment. There were, however, some late-night-related tweets reacting to Twitter addict @realdonaldtrumps since-deleted mistyping of what is assumed to be the word covering or coverage. What makes me saddest, wrote Jimmy Kimmel, is that I know Ill never write anything funnier than #covfefe. The account for CBS Late Late Show poked some fun at Trumps gaffe, too. who do you want to see on the next covfefe karaoke  The Late Late Show with James Corden (@latelateshow) May 31, 2017 Meanwhile, Trevor Noah and Comedy Centrals The Daily Show were back after a week off, above, catching up with President Trumps whole first trip abroad. International Hand Stuff was the name of the segment, which framed the excursion in terms of the presidents mitts. There were references to Trump touching the glowing white orb and Jerusalems Western Wall (they build one wall 2,000 years ago, Noah said in his Trump voice, zero Mexicans in their whole country); the question of whether First Lady Melania Trump swatted away her husbands hand on the tarmac in Tel Aviv (leave it to Fox News not to recognize what rejection from a woman looks like); and Trumps power handshake from new French President Emmanuel Macron (the first time that President Trump was on the receiving end of an unwelcome hand grab). The last manual metaphor was given to the German chancellor, who, after her visit with the American president, said, We Europeans must take our fate into our own hands. Yeah, said Noah, clearly Angela Merkel got one look at Trump and was like, All right, our fate is in our own hands, because his clearly ruin everything they touch. Jimmy Kimmel also looked at Trumps trip abroad, which he described, with probable irony, as spreading joy and optimism all over the world. Titled Drunk Donald Trump: Sicily, the segment replayed a portion of Trumps speech at half-speed. The effect is uncanny. Later, sitting outside on some steps -- urine-stained steps, apparently -- Kimmel asked a series of kids, who really do say the darnedest things, about the state of the union. If we measure a late-night host solely by an ability to engage with children in a way thats friendly, direct, deadpan and mostly honest, Kimmel is in a league with David Letterman, nearly. How did he think Donald Trump was doing, Kimmel asked one boy. Not really well, the child replied. My sister told me that Donald Trump is against another state. Which state? Is it  Nebraska? Yeah, Nebraska. A lot of people are happy that he is bombing Nebraska, said Kimmel. (I did say mostly honest.) Do you think it was a good idea? No, replied the boy, cause they have, like, better bombs. I think theyre going to be OK, though, I really do, the host said. Once football season starts, theyre usually pretty solid. Facebook

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Kathy Griffin apologized for that bloody severed-head stunt. But few are forgiving her By Nardine Saad (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times) First Lady Melania Trump is the latest detractor of Kathy Griffins bloody depiction of the presidents decapitation. As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing, FLOTUS said in a statement to NBC News. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it. Griffins photographs and video by photographer Tyler Shields showed the comic straight-faced, holding up a blood-splattered severed head that appeared to be Trumps. The president denounced Griffins stunt, saying that she should be ashamed of herself and that the piece greatly disturbed his 11-year-old son, Barron. Griffins apology wasnt accepted by some on Twitter either, which spewed a variety of reactions, including several right-wing jabs that Griffin had been radicalized by Islamic State, the terror group that frequently beheads its victims. Several also sympathized with the presidents family, citing TMZs story about Barron believing that something horrible had happened to his father when he saw the images on the news. CNN subsequently fired Griffin from her co-hosting duties for its New Years Eve broadcast, and she has also been dropped as a spokesperson for Squatty Potty. Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was delighted by the bathroom footstool makers response but criticized CNN for not immediately doing the same. So Squatty Potty pulls the plug on Kathy Griffin, but CNN still evaluating and weighing their options, the presidents eldest son tweeted. Insane whats going on there!!! He then added, Apologies for my last tweet. I didnt mean to group Squatty Potty with CNN. Obviously one of them has moral/ethical standards. Griffins CNN compatriot, Anderson Cooper, who co-hosts the giggle-filled New Years Eve show for the cable news channel, did not come to his pals defense. For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate, Cooper tweeted. CNN host Jake Tapper also said on the air that he thought the beheading imagery by Griffin about the president was disgusting and inappropriate. For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.  Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) May 31, 2017 For those asking, I said on air that I thought the beheading imagery by Griffin about the president was disgusting and inappropriate.  Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 30, 2017 Meanwhile, others believed that Griffins apology was a step in the right direction. Kathy Griffin did the right thing by apologizing. That sort of behavior, that sort of message, isn't acceptable in any setting.  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 31, 2017 I think she did the right thing asking for forgiveness and acknowledging that this was a horrible mistake, so I think she can, Minnesota Democrat and former Saturday Night Live writer Sen. Al Franken told CNN on Wednesday. Kathys a friend and shes a terrific comedian, but this had no business being in our public discourse..., Franken said. And I talked to her. She has apologized  a real, fulsome apology. Shes actually begged for forgiveness, and I believe in forgiveness. Still, there was more snark to be had. Kathy Griffin's stupid photo was gross & offensive. She should lose her leadership role in the DNC and no longer be a candidate for office.  Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 31, 2017 Update, 10:55 a.m.: Story added news that CNN has fired Griffin from its New Years Eve broadcast. Facebook

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Melania Trump questions Kathy Griffins mental health after inflammatory photo shoot By James Reed President Trump and Melania Trump (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) As a mother, a wife, and a human being, that photo is very disturbing. When you consider some of the atrocities happening in the world today, a photo opportunity like this is simply wrong and makes you wonder about the mental health of the person who did it.  Melania Trump, responding to Kathy Griffins controversial stunt involving a severed head in the likeness of President Trump Read More Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Clint Eastwood turns 87 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) If you want to be in for the long haul, you just have to trust your judgment about the material. ... If you go whoring for the money, the audiences will figure you out. They know when youre being a jerk, when youre just trying to get them in a room and show them a movie you dont even care about.  Clint Eastwood, 1993 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Clint, closing in on El Dorado Facebook

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This Is Us not moving to Thursdays, after all By Yvonne Villarreal Consider it a flash-forward flashback: Poised to help NBC reclaim its Must See TV glory on Thursday nights, This Is Us is now staying put in its Tuesday time slot before the switch even happened. The breakout drama from last season will keep hold of the 9 p.m. hour on Tuesdays where it performed mightily in its debut season, the network announced Tuesday. Itll retain its lead-in, The Voice. The move means some rejiggering for Thursdays. The revival of Will & Grace, which was slated to open the night, will now kick off the 9 p.m. hour. It will be surrounded by comedies Superstore, The Good Place and Great News to create a two-hour comedy block. Chicago Fire will take up the 10 p.m. hour instead of Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders. That drama will keep its This Is Us lead-in by moving to Tuesdays. Heres NBCs revised schedule: Tuesdays 8 p.m.  The Voice 9 p.m.  This Is Us 10 p.m.  Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders Thursdays 8 p.m.  Superstore 8:30 p.m.  The Good Place 9 p.m.  Will & Grace 9:30 p.m.  Great News 10 p.m.  Chicago Fire Facebook

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Erin Moran died of cancer, autopsy report confirms By Christie DZurilla Erin Moran is shown in 1992. (Wally Fong / Associated Press ) The coroner reportedly says Happy Days actress Erin Moran died of complications from cancer and cancer alone. Thats in line with what her husband said in an open letter written shortly after her death on April 22 at age 56. Tests showed no illegal narcotics were involved in her death, according to an autopsy report obtained by TMZ on Tuesday from the coroners office in Harrison County, Ind. Moran struggled with substance abuse earlier in her life, and media assumptions about her cause of death were amplified by a comment from Scott Baio during an early morning radio interview April 24. When Baio learned his former costar had been battling cancer, he fell all over himself trying to set the record straight. I was asked ONLY about Erins troubled past due to drug & alcohol abuse. I was still upset and said I felt that living that kind of a lifestyle will catch up with you and nothing good would come of it, he said on Facebook. THIS WAS BEFORE THE CAUSE OF DEATH WAS ANNOUNCED STATING STAGE 4 CANCER. One of the former child stars brothers, Tony Moran, told the Sun on May 30: My first thoughts were she must have had a heart attack caused by years of substance abuse. She has always battled demons and in recent years things have gone from bad to worse. In reality, as described by her husband, Moran had discovered last December that she had squamous cell carcinoma of the throat. After undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, by April she could no longer speak, eat or drink. She had a feeding tube. Baio posted the open letter from Steve Fleischmann, Morans husband of nearly 24 years, on his own Facebook page April 25. It got so bad so fast, Fleischmann said. The coroner told me it was really really bad. It had spread to her spleen, she had alot of fluid in her lungs and part of her brain was infected, Fleischmann wrote. The coroner said even if she was in the hospital being pumped full of antibiotics she still would not of made it. He said it was the best that she was with me and went in her sleep. Facebook

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WGN America cancels Underground, but will it really be the end? By Yvonne Villarreal  A chat with Aisha Hinds and Jurnee Smollett-Bell, the badass women from Underground. WGN America has canceled slavery-era-set drama Underground. The fate of the series, which centered around the Underground Railroad, seemed doomed given how the network has been scaling back its investment in original programming. Until now, the drama, from creators Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, had stood as the lone original scripted series on the network following the recent cancellation of Outsiders. The shift away from original programming comes after Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., the conservative-leaning Baltimore-based company, announced it had agreed to buy Tribune Media in a deal that would give it control of more than 200 local TV stations and WGN America. As WGN America evolves and broadens the scope and scale of its portfolio of series, we recently announced that resources will be reallocated to a new strategy to increase our relevance within the rapidly changing television landscape, Peter Kern, president and CEO of Tribune Media, said in a statement. Despite Underground being a terrific and important series, it no longer fits with our new direction and we have reached the difficult decision not to renew it for a third season. Kern added: It is our hope that this remarkable show finds another home and continues its stories of courage, determination and freedom. Sony Pictures Television, the studio that produces Underground, is said to be trying to find it a new home. When Underground stars Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Aisha Hinds stopped by the Los Angeles Times video studio last week, both seemed hopeful that Undergrounds story wasnt over. We havent heard anything yet on the status of Season 3, said Hinds, who joined Season 2 portraying Underground Railroad icon Harriet Tubman. But I do know there is quite a bit more of this story to tell. And I know that we have engaged viewers waiting to see the story. If WGN is not our home, well find a home. Facebook

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Lebanon might ban new Wonder Woman because of stars Israeli heritage By Libby Hill A new foe has arisen to oppose Wonder Woman at the box office: Lebanon. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Lebanon is seeking to ban Warner Bros.'s new Wonder Woman movie because lead actress Gal Gadot is an Israeli. On Monday, Lebanons National News Agency reported that the Ministry of Economy and Trade was adopting measures necessary to ban the film from screening. Relations between Israel and Lebanon have been strained since Israels independence in 1948, with Lebanon still abiding by the Arab League boycott of Israel adopted in 1945. Lebanon does not recognize the State of Israel and does not accept Israeli passports or passports indicating a person has entered Israel. But is Wonder Woman an Israeli product? The film is produced by five production companies DC Films, Atlas Entertainment, Cruel and Unusual Films, Tencent Pictures and Wanda Pictures  three companies based in the United States and two in China. Gadot, however, is proud of her heritage. She served two years in the Israel Defense Force as required by the countrys conscription requirements and has posted in the past in support of IDF during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. The ban of the film would have to move quickly, as screenings are scheduled to begin in Beirut on Wednesday. But such action would require approval from a six-member committee from the Ministry of Economy, a process that had yet to begin, according to the Associated Press. Wonder Woman debuts in U.S. theaters Friday. 4:10 p.m.: This article was updated with information from Lebanons National News Agency. Facebook

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Olivia Newton-John has a new cancer diagnosis; her June shows are postponed By Christie DZurilla (Esteban Felix / Associated Press) Olivia-Newton John has reluctantly postponed her June concert dates after learning that the back pain shes been waylaid by recently is caused by breast cancer that has metastasized to her sacrum. I decided on my direction of therapies after consultation with my doctors and natural therapists and the medical team at my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia, the 68-year-old singer said Tuesday in a statement on social media. Those therapies include a short course of photon radiation therapy in addition to natural wellness therapies, the statement said. Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, at which time she underwent chemotherapy after a modified radical mastectomy with reconstruction. Her treatment also included acupuncture, which she said helped her with nausea, as well as yoga, meditation and massage. Three weeks ago, Newton-John postponed her May shows, with her team citing a bad issue with Olivias sciatica. Now, her June shows in the U.S. and Canada have been put off. Ticket-holders are being directed to venues for refunds, and any rescheduled dates will be posted on Newton-Johns official website. Olivia ... is confident she will be back later in the year, better than ever, to celebrate her shows, the Tuesday statement said. Facebook

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After Cannes delay, Victoria & Abdul trailer debuts By Amy Kaufman One week after Focus Features scrapped plans to unveil the trailer for Victoria & Abdul during the Cannes Film Festival, a preview of the upcoming British drama has debuted online. Set in 1887, the film stars Judi Dench as Queen Victoria and follows the monarch as she strikes up an unlikely friendship with a Muslim Indian (Ali Fazal) who has traveled to the U.K. to deliver a ceremonial coin to her majesty. Focus, which is owned by Universal Pictures, was set to debut the trailer last Wednesday but postponed the release after the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on May 22. A source told The Times the decision was made in part because a big piece of marketing right after the attack could seem insensitive. Directed by Stephen Frears, Victoria & Abdul is set for release at the start of awards season in September. The trailer centers on the real-life relationship that blossomed between the two, with Abdul going from servant to teacher while informing the queen about everything from the Koran to the joys of Indian mangoes. Facebook

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Ready for Alanis Morissettes Jagged Little Pill as a musical? Its happening By August Brown (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) Alanis Morissettes angsty, groundbreaking 1995 album, Jagged Little Pill, always seemed like it had enough melodrama to make it into a theatrical production. Now its coming to a stage in Massachusetts. The new production of Jagged Little Pill, helmed by Juno writer Diablo Cody and director Diane Paulus, will debut at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge next May. The musical will feature songs from the LP  famed for its unsparing look at relationships  along with other music from Morissettes catalog and Pill producer Glen Ballard. This team that has come together for this Jagged Little Pill musical is my musical theater dream come true, Morissette said in a statement. The chemistry between all of us is crackling and I feel honored to be diving into these songs again, surrounded by all of this searing talent. Facebook

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Reunited Brady Bunch kids fondly remember Florence Henderson on Today By Nardine Saad It was a very Brady reunion on Tuesday. The Brady Bunch kids Barry Williams (Greg), Christopher Knight (Peter), Mike Lookinland (Bobby) and Susan Olsen (Cindy) came together on NBCs Today show to reflect on the iconic family sitcom and pay tribute to its late matriarch, Florence Henderson, nearly 50 years after the show debuted in 1969. The syndicated series about a blended family of six children and their housekeeper has permeated the pop culture zeitgeist with its unmistakable style and earworm theme song. With numerous parodies and attempted reboots in its wake, the comedy has endured because of its wholesome values, the cast members said. What you have on The Brady Bunch is something youre not going to see these days, which is a family where the parents and the kids respect each other today the formula is get the parents out of the show for the kids shows, said Olsen, a.ka. the youngest one in curls. You know how you dont grow old for yourself until you see yourself in a photo? Somehow you just dont see it, Knight explained. Its as though the show keeps us young in everyones mind, but were really this old. Added Williams: Everyone always refers to us as kids. No matter how we mature, were still the kids. After acknowledging that they would always be best known for The Brady Bunch, the actors said, they realized early on that they would never be able to walk away from the series at different stages of their careers. For Williams it was when a teenage girl asked him to sign an autograph for her mother and for Lookinland it was when he realized that his fans now had grandchildren. Knight said the show was always going to be in the room before me and it was always going to be in the room after me. Olsen, who claimed that she had written some off-color lyrics attached to the theme song, added that you spend a little while trying to run away from it, but you cant. Its like having a hunchback. You cant disguise it, so you might as well dress it up. As for their TV mom, Henderson, who died in 2016, the kids remembered her fondly. Everyone she met felt better about themselves and about the world around them after having spent a moment with Florence, Knight said. She was a mentor, a friend. We learned from her, added Williams. We learned how to interact with the public. She was so gracious with her fans, and we all learned how to do that graciously. Mostly she loved to make people laugh. You probably know that if youve been in her space. Facebook

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Prince William talks about taboo of mental illness and death of Diana in new interview By Libby Hill As the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales approaches, her son Prince William has opened up to British GQ about the loss. I would like to have had her advice, William told the magazine. I would love her to have met Catherine and to have seen the children grow up. It makes me sad that she wont, that they will never know her. The prince was just 15 when his mother was killed in a high-speed car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, and he and younger brother Harry were left to deal with their grief under great public scrutiny. While Prince William has of late found the words to speak publicly about his mother, the journey to that place has not always been easy. It has taken me almost 20 years to get to that stage, William said. I still find it difficult now because at the time it was so raw. And also it is not like most peoples grief, because everyone else knows about it, everyone knows the story, everyone knows her. View Instagram post It may have taken years, but William and Harry have found a way to honor their mother in a fashion that she would likely greatly appreciate: charitable work. Known as the Peoples Princess, Diana was a tireless advocate for those in need and worked to destigmatize AIDS in the 1980s, to fight the use of landmines and to better the lives of the underprivileged. In the last year, William and his brother, alongside Williams wife, Kate, have expanded their involvement in Heads Together, a mental health campaign led by the Royal Foundation, which aims to start a productive conversation about the reality of mental illness. Smashing the taboo is our biggest aim. We cannot go anywhere much until that is done. People cant access services till they feel less ashamed, so we must tackle the taboo, the stigma, William said. The Heads Together campaign has sparked several headlines for the royal family in recent months. In April, Prince Harry admitted that the death of his mother left him very close to a complete breakdown for which he finally sought professional help three years ago. The experience that Ive had is once you start talking about [mental health], you suddenly realized, actually, youre part of a big club ... and everybodys gagging to talk about it, Harry said during the Mad World podcast with Bryony Gordon. The GQ interview is not the only conversation that Prince William has had recently about mental health, either. He participated in a highly publicized FaceTime chat with Lady Gaga on the matter. In the interview, Prince William acknowledged that his public persona might suggest otherwise, but privately, he is impassioned about the issue. I cannot understand how families, even behind closed doors, still find it so hard to talk about it. I am shocked we are so worried about saying anything about the true feelings we have, the prince said. Prince Williams full interview with British GQ is available in its July issue, on newsstands June 1. Facebook

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Ariana Grandes mom has a message for Manchester bombing victims By Christie DZurilla Joan Grande, left, and Ariana Grande in September 2015. (Kevin Mazur / Getty Images) Days after daughter Ariana Grande issued a statement about last weeks post-concert bombing in Manchester, England, mom Joan Grande posted her own thoughts about the incident that left 22 dead and scores more injured. I join my daughter in extending my help & services to all those affected by the diabolical act of terror which occurred in Manchester! she wrote on Twitter as a Memorial Day message that also thanked U.S. servicemen and women. My heart goes out to all the victims: those who lost their lives, those injured, those recovering & all survivors of that night, along with the families and friends whose grief knows no bounds. The elder Grande was still in her front-row seat at the show, about to go see her daughter backstage, when the suicide bomb went off, TMZ reported. Mama Grande took about 10 kids who were seated around her to safety backstage, the website said. Ariana Grande similarly offered her assistance to those in need on Friday in a statement declaring her intention to return to the incredibly brave city of Manchester for a benefit concert. We will never be able to understand why events like this take place because it is not in our nature, which is why we shouldnt recoil, the Bang Bang singer said. We will not quit or operate in fear. We wont let this divide us. We wont let hate win. #MemorialDay pic.twitter.com/oUDmB7VD6x  Joan Grande (@joangrande) May 29, 2017 Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Annette Bening turns 59 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) "[W]hen they teach you to act, they teach you about objectives. You have a need -- a kind of emotional imbalance -- its not neurotic, but you want something. I try to consciously beef up that motivation in order to intensify what Im doing. You get an image in your head of what you want and then you find a way of expressing that.  Annette Bening, 1991 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Regarding Annette Facebook

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Swedens The Square wins Palme dOr and Sofia Coppola wins best director at Cannes By Los Angeles Times Swedish director Ruben Ostlund reacts on stage after he was awarded with the Palme dOr for the film The Square during the closing ceremony of the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. (Alberto Pizzoli / AFP / Getty Images) Ruben Ostlunds The Square, a ferocious drama of conscience, according to Times critic Justin Chang, about how a single lapse in judgment can cause a mans entire life to unravel, won the Cannes top prize, the Palme dOr on Sunday. The Grand Prix award went to Robin Campillos 120 Beats per Minute. Sofia Coppola won best director for her film The Beguiled, which stars Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. Kidman also won the festivals 70th anniversary prize. Joaquin Phoenix won best actor for Lynne Ramsays You Were Never Really Here and Diane Kruger won best actress award for Faith Akins In the Fade. More coverage to come. Meanwhile... Here is what Justin Chang wrote about Ostlunds The Square, and Steven Zeitchiks interview with the director, who talked about the element of surprise in his movies: I really like scenes that when they end where you dont know 100% where to put them. It starts funny or it starts sad and then it becomes something else. When you get that shift, you know youve succeeded. Read More Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Kylie Minogue turns 49 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Axel Koester / For The Times) I have this following  mainly young girls. This album had to appeal to those fans. If the singing was too R&B, they wouldnt like it, I guess. These producers think pop music is candy music. Theyre saying: Here, kids, have a piece of candy.  Kylie Minogue, 1988 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Fame, fortune, but no respect Facebook

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Gregg Allman, pioneer of Southern rock, dies at 69 By Nardine Saad Gregg Allman performs with the Allman Brothers Band in 1979. (George Rose / Los Angeles Times) Gregg Allman, the gravel-voiced singer who helped lift the Allman Brothers Band to prominence with a hard-churning brand of soulful rock that became part of the soundtrack of the 1960s and 70s and set the coordinates for a musical genre known as Southern rock, died Saturday at the age of 69. According to a statement posted on his official website, Allman, who had canceled concerts and entire tours in recent years as he battled a variety of health issues, passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah, Ga. Read More Facebook

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70 years of Cannes in 17 seconds: The art of the yacht deal, from Steven Spielberg to Steve Bannon By Steven Zeitchik  Steven Zeitchik, Justin Chang and Kenneth Turan are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Zeitchik, with Chang behind the camera, recalls the time he wound Steven Zeitchik, Justin Chang and Kenneth Turan are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Zeitchik, with Chang behind the camera, recalls the time he wound up on a yacht with a future member of the Trump administration. Facebook

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70 years of Cannes in 17 seconds: The time Sofia Coppolas Marie Antoinette was booed By Justin Chang Steven Zeitchik, Justin Chang and Kenneth Turan are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Chang, with Zeitchik behind the camera, recalls the year Sofia Coppolas Marie Antoinette played in competition and was booed by certain members of the media audience.  Steven Zeitchik, Justin Chang and Kenneth Turan are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Chang, with Zeitchik behind the camera, recalls the year Sofia Cop That same year, when the film debuted in theaters, Times critic Kenneth Turan looked back on the boos at Cannes and concluded the reaction wasnt just about the filmmaking. Here is the essay he wrote on Oct. 13, 2006: -------------------- WHO OWNS HISTORY? And, more to the point, who owns Marie Antoinette? Though theyre not usually phrased that way, those questions have swirled around Sofia Coppolas quietly exuberant new film about the doomed young French queen (only 18 when she ascended the throne, 37 when she was executed) since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year to some scattered  and widely misunderstood  boos. For the displeasure came not, as might be expected, from the French critics -- whod already seen the film and whose generally positive notices were already on record in Le Film Francais, the French trade paper -- but from political types who had an ax to grind about the films portrait of the woman in question. Read More Facebook

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Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor split after 17 years of marriage By Christie DZurilla (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor have split up after 18 years together, 17 of them as husband and wife. With tremendous love and respect for each other, and the 18 years we spent together as a couple, we have made the decision to separate, they said Friday in a joint statement. Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends. We kindly ask that the media respect our privacy at this time. The Zoolander director and the Brady Bunch Movie actress met in L.A. in 1999, while he was developing a pilot in which she was going to star. They started dating that April and by November were engaged. They got married in May 2000. Stiller, 51, who proposed to Taylor while he was doing Meet the Parents, told Parade in 2013 that art imitated life when he was about to pop the question. I asked her father for permission before I did it, he said. It was like Meet the Parents in real life, because Christines father is an intimidating guy who owns a security company; were good friends now, but at the time I was in the basement rec room saying, I really would like to marry your daughter... Why the basement? " He was trying to find a place to sort of secretly ask my dad if it was OK to ask my hand in marriage, Taylor told New York magazine in 2008. The Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story costars have two kids together, daughter Emma, 15, and son Quinlan, 11. Facebook

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70 years of Cannes in 17 seconds: The home away from home for luminaries By Kenneth Turan  Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and Steven Zeitchik are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Turan, with Chang behind the camera, brings us to the historic Hot Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and Steven Zeitchik are bringing us Cannes moments from the 70 years of the international film festival -- in 17-second increments (or thereabouts). Here, Turan, with Chang behind the camera, brings us to the historic Hotel Splendid, which over the last 146 years has been a home away from home for luminaries ranging from the French composer Jacques Offenbach to the late critic Roger Ebert. Facebook

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L.A. music fixture Rodney Bingenheimer will leave KROQ next month By Mikael Wood Rodney Bingenheimer, the veteran radio DJ and rock-scene insider familiar to several generations of Los Angeles music fans, is ending his long-running show on L.A.'s KROQ-FM (106.7) after more than 40 years. Rodney on the ROQ will air for the final time on June 4 at midnight, Bingenheimer, 69, wrote on Facebook Thursday. It has been an amazing run, and I will be thanking all of you when I say goodbye to KROQ next week, he said in the post. I am planning on some special callers and special music as I say a proper goodbye. In a statement to The Times, KROQ program director Kevin Weatherly called Bingenheimer one of the most influential voices on the radio and said he and his staff will forever be grateful for the indelible mark that Rodney on the ROQ has left on this station, our listeners and the alt-rock music scene. Bingenheimer launched his show on the influential modern-rock station in 1976, four years after he opened Rodneys English Disco, a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard popular among the decades glam acts. On the radio, Bingenheimer quickly became known for championing new artists including the Sex Pistols and Blondie; he continued playing music by up-and-coming talent over the years, throwing his considerable enthusiasm behind the likes of Oasis and Coldplay. In his Facebook post, Bingenheimer  the subject of a 2003 documentary called Mayor of the Sunset Strip  didnt say why he was leaving KROQ. But he noted that hes not retiring from music. As this chapter closes, he wrote, I will be opening another chapter of my rock life soon. Heres his full statement on Facebook: Facebook

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Ariana Grande to hold benefit concert in incredibly brave city of Manchester By Christie DZurilla (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) Ariana Grande on Friday announced her intention to return to the incredibly brave city of Manchester to spend time with fans and play a benefit concert to assist victims of the suicide bomb attack launched after her show in the British city earlier this week. I have been thinking of my fans, and of you all, non stop over the past week. The way you have handled all of this has been more inspiring and made me more proud than youll ever know, the 23-year-old singer said in a statement on social media. The compassion, kindness, love, strength and oneness that youve shown one another this past week is the exact opposite of the heinous intentions it must take to pull off something as evil as what happened Monday. YOU are the opposite. Grande gave no details about when she would return other than to say theyd be coming as soon as things were confirmed. The statement was her first since a brief tweet after the bombing saying she was broken and so so sorry. That day, Grande and her mother left Britain for Florida. She acknowledged her own reaction to the incident in saying she was sorry for the pain and fear you must be feeling and the trauma that you, too, must be feeling. She also talked about not wanting to go the rest of the year without being out there for her fans; at this point, her tour has been suspended only until June 5. There is nothing I or anyone can do to take away the pain you are feeling or to make this better, she said to the victims of the attack and their loved ones. However, I extend my hand and heart and everything I can possibly give to you and yours, should you want or need my help in any way. Those who were most tragically affected, Grande said, will be on my mind and in my heart everyday and I will think of them with everything I do for the rest of my life. View Instagram post Facebook

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Equality, not feminism, is the watchword at Wonder Woman premiere By Sonaiya Kelley Victoria Ikerd from San Diego, left, and Sylvia Vale from Culver City strike their best Wonder Woman pose. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The stars of Warner Bros. Wonder Woman took to the red carpet outside Hollywoods Pantages Theatre Thursday night to celebrate the films premiere with a unified message. It just wasnt the message some people might expect. I think the world needs all types of superheroes, director Patty Jenkins said when asked why we need Wonder Woman. What a beautiful message right now because were in a dark place, and thats the only way were going to get to the other side, if everyone becomes a hero. (Warner Bros. canceled the films London premiere after Mondays attack in Manchester.) Despite the obvious girl power on display, many of the films stars and creators shied away from identifying it as a feminist film, hoping not to isolate the male fans in attendance. SEE PHOTOS FROM THE WONDER WOMAN PREMIERE  I think that the film just takes a great character and tells a great story about how that character came to be, Charles Roven, the films producer, told the Los Angeles Times. Obviously the character wouldnt be who she is if she wasnt a woman, but shes a very specific woman, Roven added. Theres no other superhero character in the DC Universe who embraced their legacy and knew what they wanted to be and became [it]. And thats completely inspirational to everyone, not just women. Read More Facebook

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Bella Thorne and Scott Disick together in Cannes? Legit nothing By Christie DZurilla (Joshua Blanchard / Getty Images, left; Lars Niki / Getty Images) In whats been called a battle of strategic hookups between exes Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick, Bella Thorne has put up a white flag and flown away. Disick, 34, and Thorne, 19, were seen Monday at LAX on their way to the Cannes Film Festival, where  surprise!  Kardashian, 38, was already hanging out and getting handsy with Younes Bendjima, a 24-year-old boxer-turned-model. According to E! News, the latter twosome is for real but keeping it light. The Kardashian ex and the actress from The DUFF? Perhaps not so much. Thorne and Disick raised eyebrows Wednesday with a high-profile cuddle-fest by a pool in Cannes. Alas, by Thursday, word has it via TMZ, Thorne wasnt comfortable with her party-boy travel partner when he got his drink on: After tweeting Thursday that Yo this #cannes fancy life isnt for me, she told one person that she had been doing Legit nothing trolololo with Scott and another, Hahahah Im not talking to scott or anyone else. Scott is partially using Bella and a few other girls as a crutch to make Kourtney upset and feel jealous, a Keeping Up With the Kardashians"-related source told People on Thursday, sounding like a description of an upcoming episode of the show. They are both playing this game with each other and at the moment neither one of them are backing down. Around 3 a.m. Friday, Cannes time, Disick was paying attention to another lady, putting this pic of his and Kardashians 4-year-old daughter, Penelope, up on Facebook: Um, hashtag #supersad? Bye Cannes you were boring Thorne said Friday on Snapchat, posting video from the seat of what appeared to be a private plane. Kardashian, Bendjima and half-sis Kendall Jenner left Cannes on Friday as well. Yo this #cannes fancy life isn't for me  BITCHIMBELLATHORNE (@bellathorne) May 25, 2017 @bellathorne bells, what were you doing with Scott?  chrystal (@justintheslayer) May 25, 2017 Legit nothing trolololo https://t.co/t9eW4B17oI  BITCHIMBELLATHORNE (@bellathorne) May 26, 2017 Facebook

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Netflix cancels London premieres of Orange Is the New Black and GLOW By Libby Hill The fatal terrorist incident at an Ariana Grande concert Monday in Manchester, England, continues to resonate throughout the entertainment industry. Netflix canceled its plans for a London premiere for Season 5 of Orange Is the New Black and the pilot for GLOW, the latest series from Orange creator Jenji Kohan. Following the terrible events in Manchester on Monday night, we have decided to cancel our special screening of Orange Is the New Black and GLOW on Tuesday [May 30], a Netflix spokesperson told The Times on Friday. Our thoughts are with all of those affected by this tragedy. According to those knowledgeable about the decision, the streaming services choice to forgo its screenings comes from internal discussions only, not from any pressure from local authorities. This is just the latest cancellation in the wake of Mondays tragedy, which took the lives of 22 individuals, including victims as young as 8 years old. On Wednesday, Warner Bros. scuttled plans for a London Wonder Woman premiere, originally scheduled for May 31. Similarly, Universal Pictures announced Thursday that it had canceled its London premiere for The Mummy originally slated for June 1. Facebook

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Oasis Liam Gallagher schedules Manchester benefit show By Mikael Wood (Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times) Former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher will play a hometown concert next week in Manchester, England, to benefit the families of Mondays bombing at the Manchester Arena. Its outrageous, the singer told the Manchester Evening News regarding the terrorist attack that killed 22 people following a concert by Ariana Grande. There are kids and people dying all over the world. And for what? He went on to say, I want to try and help pick people up. People like me, doing what we do, its our duty to give people a good time. The show, scheduled for Tuesday night at the O2 Ritz, will serve as Gallaghers first solo gig and comes ahead of the release of his debut solo single, Wall of Glass, from an album expected in October. Facebook

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Body-slamming? Late-night hosts remind us that Donald Trump once did that on TV By Yvonne Villarreal Lest America forget the nations history of political candidates with body-slamming tendencies, the late-night circuit offered a refresher course Thursday night. Playing catchup to Wednesdays news that Greg Gianforte, the billionaire Republican candidate in Montanas special congressional election, had allegedly body-slammed a Guardian reporter after the journalist asked him about the Republican healthcare bill, TV hosts weighed in on the matter. Think about that, Late Night host Seth Meyers said. The GOP healthcare plan is so bad, Republicans would rather body-slam reporters than answer a question about it. His response to the question, Meyers continued, was to give the reporter a preexisting condition. Late Show host Stephen Colbert expressed faux skepticism about Gianfortes ability to move past the incident and win the election. That happened the night before the election, Colbert said. I just dont know how anyone could vote for a candidate who body-slams people. Cue a clip of Donald Trump performing such a move in 2007 when he appeared on WrestleMania 23" and tackled WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to the ground before shaving his head. I forgot, Colbert said after playing the clip. Nothing matters. During his A Closer Look segment, Meyers also played the Trump clip. That was a thing, a real thing that happened. and we still said Yeah, he should be president. For the record: Gianforte won Montanas special election Thursday. Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Stevie Nicks turns 69 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times) I think if people like to dress like a gypsy and they get a little inspiration from me to do it, then its great. Its definitely something everyone should try at least once in their lives. Dress like a gypsy!  Stevie Nicks, 1997 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Airy Godmother Facebook

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For the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, see how fans packed L.A. theaters in 1977 By Los Angeles Times Staff When the original Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, only about 40 theaters across the country initially screened the movie. In Los Angeles, fans packed showings in ways theater managers and moviegoers had never seen. For the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, we revisit this story examining the earliest stages of the Star Wars phenomenon. The Times originally published this story on June 4, 1977. Read More Facebook

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George Lucas predicted Star Wars Disney future in 1977 interview with The Times By L.A. Times staff Happy 40th anniversary, Star Wars! Before the first-ever Star Wars premiered on screens across America on May 25, 1977, Los Angeles Times writer Paul Rosenfield sat down with the creator of a galaxy far, far away. Then 33, George Lucas was just a few days shy from the release of his space opera, prophetically claiming that Star Wars was the movie he thinks Disney would have made when Walt Disney was alive. Who knew decades later that the droids and the mouse would reside in the same castle? This story was originally published on June 5, 1977, and titled, Lucas: Film-Maker With the Force. (Also from our archives, read The Times original Star Wars review here.) I think of this as a movie Disney would have made when Walt Disney was alive ... I call it space opera. Thats a genre thats been around a long time, in the books of Burroughs and Heinlein, but never really done on film.  George Lucas in 1977 Read More Facebook

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Guns N Roses is playing Los Angeles again By Mikael Wood Guns N Roses will play two hometown concerts this fall, the reunited Los Angeles hard-rock band announced Thursday, one Nov. 24 at Staples Center and another Nov. 25 at the Forum. The dates are part of a new extension of GNRs Not in This Lifetime Tour, which launched in April 2016 with a show at the Troubadour that marked the first time in decades that frontman Axl Rose had performed in public with guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan. The tour went on to hit Coachella and Dodger Stadium. Opening acts for the L.A. shows werent announced, but GNR revealed that country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson will warm up crowds at stadium shows in August in Denver; Little Rock, Ark.; and Miami. Other acts with opening slots on the tour include ZZ Top, Deftones and Royal Blood. Tickets for the newly scheduled concerts go on sale June 3. Facebook

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Claire Foy shoots down Lisbeth Salander rumors: I dont know about any of this By Glenn Whipp Claire Foy (Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times) Claire Foys sister called her last week, none too pleased that her sibling hadnt told her that shed be playing Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spiders Web, the long-delayed follow-up to the 2011 David Fincher film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. My sisters like, Oh, what are you doing? and I was like, Im not doing anything! I dont t know about any of this! Foy told The Times Wednesday in an interview before an Emmy season promotional event for the actress Netflix series, The Crown. Its really weird, Foy added. Ive never experienced that before where theres a rumor about a possible job like this. Its very surreal. News broke last week that Foy was either in talks, eyeing or had been all but cast to play Lisbeth in the reboot of the Stieg Larsson book series. So is Foy, who plays Queen Elizabeth on The Crown, even in the running? No. Im not even in the same arena, Foy said. I cant even contemplate doing anything at all, to be honest, at this present time. The 33-year-old British actress just finished shooting Season 2 of The Crown last week. The ambitious series requires a nine-month commitment, meaning that Foy hasnt had much down time the last two years. She also has a 2-year-old daughter with her husband, actor Stephen Campbell Moore. So you can understand why, when asked about her immediate future, she emphatically states: Good God, no. I have got no plans to do anything. Those sentiments would seem to preclude her from The Girl in the Spiders Web, which is scheduled to begin filming in September to make an Oct. 15, 2018, release date. Then again, when asked what kind of role shed like to do after playing the reserved Elizabeth, a woman nicknamed Shirley Temple, Foy replied: I think I need to play somebody who expresses themselves and is able to communicate on a more open level, something really different. Like the avenging anti-heroine Lisbeth? Well ... Foy answered, with a hint of a smile. Well just have to wait and see. Facebook

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Sony taps Gina Prince-Bythewood to direct Spider-Man spinoff Silver & Black By Libby Hill (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) Sony continues to get its superhero ducks in a row, with Deadline reporting Thursday that the studio had tapped Gina Prince-Bythewood to direct Silver & Black, a film centered around comic book characters Silver Sable and Black Cat. Prince-Bythewood also will rewrite the script for the film, originally written by Christopher Yost, screenwriter of Thor: The Dark World. Silver Sable and Black Cat are characters that originated in correlation to Spider-Man and have served as both allies and antagonists to the web-slinging superhero over the years. Silver & Black is the latest Spidey-related endeavor for Sony, with Spider-Man: Homecoming, starring Tom Holland, premiering July 7, and Venom, starring Tom Hardy as the sometimes villain, sometimes anti-hero, hitting theaters Oct. 5, 2018. The film will not be Prince-Bythewoods first dalliance with superheroes. She directed the pilot for Freeforms upcoming series Marvels Cloak & Dagger, about two teenagers learning to deal with both superpowers and love. Prince-Bythewood is an experienced director of critically acclaimed films including Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights, and she is well-versed in the world of television, where Foxs Shots Fired, the show she created and produced with husband Reggie Rock Bythewood, just concluded its first season. The director becomes the latest woman tapped to helm a superhero film, with Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman debuting in theaters June 2. Facebook

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Happy puking: Baywatch is the summer blockbuster critics love to hate By Christie DZurilla  Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron and Priyanka Chopra star in Baywatch. Whats more fun than seeing the new Baywatch movie? Having movie reviewers see it for you! Los Angeles Times critic Jen Yamato was in the Enjoy It for What It Is camp, describing the film thusly: "[I]t not only owns its dumbness but hurtles itself all the way back around through a flurry of genitalia jokes and F-bombs to splash unapologetically in an R-rated surf of winking postmodernism, led by the charismatic Dwayne Johnson, Hollywoods most unsinkable movie star. But although not everyone hates it  64% of audiences dug it, according to Rotten Tomatoes  a lot of reviewers put the bouncing-beach-bodies flick firmly in its place, damning it, and then damning it with faint praise. That said, here are a few snacks, both bad and (relatively) good, from the Baywatch snark buffet. Over at the Chicago Tribune, they took the Yeah, and ...? approach to the review. The Bad: The movies comic instincts... are consistently coarse and frequently scrotal. The Good: The bodies on screen are pretty, which I seem to remember was a selling point of the 1989-2001 TV series. As we said, yeah, and ...? The Roger Ebert website perhaps cut closest to the bone, pulling few punches. The Bad: "[T]his is another one of those raunchy comedies thats barely a movie, that looks like it was edited by dumping a bunch of footage into whatever movie-cutting software theyre using and hitting randomize. The Good: "[T]he movie has a pervading air of crass amiability about it  its almost like a two-hour end-credits gag reel. (Nevertheless, it contains an end credits gag reel.) Now could you tell us what you really think?: Rolling Stone painted a vivid picture of the Baywatch experience. The Bad: Think of yourself sitting down for a big two-hour wallow in instant stupid with a vat of popcorn, slathered in fake butter and possibly a mound of melted M&Ms on top. It feels great chugging it down, then your stomach hurts, your head aches and you puke the whole thing up so you can forget about it in the morning. Thats Baywatch in a nutshell. Happy puking. The Good: Of the recent spate of moldy TV material morphing into movies, with 21 Jump Street on top and CHIPs bringing up the rear, Baywatch barely escapes the basement. One reason it does: The Rock. Helpful! Turns out if you liked 21 Jump Street and CHiPs, this flick is for you! The New York Times loosened up its necktie for this one. The Bad: The digital effects  fire and water, mostly  are lackluster, and the whole thing has a crummy, overcast, second-rate-theme-park look to it. The Good: Like its source material, Baywatch is sleazy and wholesome, silly and earnest, dumb as a box of sand and slyly self-aware. Its soft-serve ice cream. Crinkle-cut fries. A hot car and a skin rash. Tacky and phony and nasty and also kind of fun. Tacky? Phony? Nasty? We didnt know it was a date movie. The Washington Post, of course, just couldnt leave politics out of it. The Bad: Its no shock that the women in Baywatch dont have much to do beyond look good. ... Maybe dodging bad lines was a relief for the actresses. Its not like the screenplay, by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, gives performers a lot to work with. The Good: If, indeed, Dwayne the Rock Johnson ditches Hollywood to become our next commander in chief, Baywatch may be singled out as the low point of his pre-political career. Well, at least Johnson has that out of the way. The Tampa Bay Times went deadpan. The Bad: Imagining Johnson and genetically gifted co-stars in swimsuits is all it took to pitch Baywatch. Director Seth Gordon and six writers didnt come up with much beyond that. The Good: What Baywatch has in its favor is Dwayne Johnson fireman-carrying a dead weight comedy to safety. We think thats a compliment. Maybe. Variety noted the films nods to current market and societal trends. The Bad: Baywatch ... is a stupidly entertaining trash folly, the kind that could only be made today: an obscenity-and-insult-laced, aggressively competent adaptation of a 25-year-old TV show that manages to repackage every aspect of the series except, perhaps, the reason it was popular in the first place. The Good: They wear their butt-hugging red bathing suits with dignity and pride, which makes this a highly sexually responsible Baywatch. The reviewer at the New York Post appeared to be familiar with the TV series global success. The Bad: Even the action scenes need CPR, often undermined by effects so chintzy, you wonder if the money intended for them was instead eaten up by the productions seven-figure waxing budget. The Good: On the bright side, itll probably do killer business in Germany. Wait, were they just dissing the Hoff? Finally, one need go no further than the AV Club to understand Rotten Tomatoes 19% positive critics rating. The Bad: "[N]obody not even the filmmakers cares about Baywatch all that much. Yet the jokes on them: In spoofing something so forgettable, theyve made something even less memorable. The Good: Nobody cares about Baywatch. Nuff said. Facebook

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Seth Meyers says Trumps cruel budget cuts would harm the presidents supporters most By Chris Barton After a number of weeks filled with late-breaking developments on the Trump administrations apparent ties to Russia, Wednesday night was a chance for late-night hosts to sort of catch their breath and essentially choose their own adventure. Jimmy Kimmel focused on the seemingly less-than-happy photos of the pope with President Trump that circulated on Wednesday, while Stephen Colbert took a brief swipe at the $2-trillion double-counting error in Trumps budget. Seth Meyers, however, took advantage of his shows A Closer Look segment to make time for all of the above. After addressing the photo of the stone-faced pope with Trump, Meyers recapped the latest developments in the investigations into whether, among other things, the president engaged in obstruction of justice by firing FBI Director James Comey. But then Meyers took on the administrations proposed federal budget, which could cause harm to many. While noting the budget amounts to a wish list that Congress will battle over, Meyers said the proposals harshness was not to be discounted. What someone wishes for tells you a lot about that person, Meyers said before recounting the many cuts the budget proposes to Social Security and Medicaid. The show then rolled a number of clips in which Trump the candidate promised not to do just that. This budget lays bare just how much of a fraud Trumps campaign was, Meyers added, noting how hard many of these cuts to the social safety net would hit Trump supporters. He then squared off the pointed words of Trump the candidate versus his actions as president to underscore his point. Maybe its better those two never meet, Meyers said. I think they would hate each other. Watch the clip above. Facebook

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Universal Pictures cancels London premiere of The Mummy in wake of Manchester bombing By Libby Hill  Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis and Sofia Boutella star in The Mummy. The specter of Mondays terrorist attack in Manchester, England, continues to loom large. Universal Pictures announced Thursday morning the cancellation of next weeks London premiere of The Mummy, the second such development this week. All of us at Universal have been devastated by the terror attack in Manchester and continue to stand with the community and country as it recovers, the statement from the studio read. Out of respect to those affected by this tragedy we have decided not to move forward with the London premiere for The Mummy scheduled to take place next week. The film, starring Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe, serves as the launch of Universal Pictures Dark Universe, an extended universe that will see the reboot of several classic monsters from the Universal vault, including the Invisible Man and Frankensteins Monster. Cancellation of the June 1 London premiere for The Mummy comes just a day after Warner Bros. nixed its May 31 Wonder Woman London premiere. Ariana Grande, whose concert was targeted in the Manchester attack that killed 22 people, similarly suspended her tour through June 5 on Wednesday. A statement from the artists representatives said the suspension comes until we can further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost. Facebook

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Al Gore on the French Riviera: Why he was reluctant to make An Inconvenient Sequel By Kenneth Turan Former Vice President Al Gore arrives on the red carpet for the screening of The Killing of a Sacred Deer at the Cannes Film Festival. (Alberto Pizzoli / AFP / Getty Images) It has not been a very good year for those concerned with climate change. The U.S. is considering leaving the landmark Paris climate pact, a hostile appointee leads the Environmental Protection Agency, and right-wing websites chortle, Trumps Latest Move Will Make Al Gore Fry. But is Al Gore himself despondent or depressed about it all? Not in the slightest. Ive been inoculated in the year 2000, he says, combining a burst of genial good humor with a reference to his presidential election loss to George W. Bush. I now have a resistance to being disheartened, the antibodies are still thriving in my bloodstream. As we all learn, one of the hidden secrets of the human condition is we learn the most from our most painful experiences. Former Vice President Al Gore at the Carlton hotel for the Cannes Film Festival, which is screening his documentary An Inconvenient Sequel. (Stephanie Cornfield / For The Times) To spend time with Al Gore is to meet a man enough at ease with himself to dress as if for a Senate hearing in white shirt, suit and tie even though hes in the south of France; a warm, engaged, surprisingly funny individual whose innate courtesy has him personally hang a reporters sports coat on a nearby hotel room hanger. Yes, he does tend to stay on message when he talks (how could he not) and he likes to draw graphs in the air with his hands (Im going to get a little geeky for a moment, he apologizes with a smile, Im sorry, its a failing). But he combines this with good-humored self-awareness and a fiercely committed intelligence. If you think Im earnest now, you should have seen me earlier, he says. You cant change who you are. At times Ive tried, but Im old enough to stop worrying. Gore is in Cannes to promote the worldwide release of an impassioned and involving new documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel. Due in U.S. theaters on July 28, it brings us up to speed on where the battle against climate change stands more than a decade after the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Im here for a lot of to-ing and fro-ing is how Gore puts it. I think Ive done 75 seven-minute interviews  Japan, Russia, Brazil, everywhere. The day before yesterday I was live on [the French cable channel] Canal Plus when the interpreter talking in my earpiece was evacuated from his building because of a bomb scare. The questioner was going a mile a minute in French, but because of those 75 seven-minute interviews, I picked up enough key words to fight my way through it. Gore has been concerned with climate change since he took a class with pioneering global warming theorist Roger Revelle as a college student in the 1960s. Not only did Gore never imagine when I was a young man that this would become an all-consuming body of work for me, he also never anticipated that the work would involve the movies. More than that, he was frankly dubious about both of his films. Read More Facebook

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Ellen DeGeneres says shes in for a Netflix stand-up comedy special By Christie DZurilla Ellen DeGeneres is working on a new comedy special  for the first time in a very long time  and this time shes working with Netflix. Looks like its been 15 years since you did a stand-up special. ... How about one for Netflix? the streaming service asked her Wednesday on Twitter. Minutes later, DeGeneres replied, Let me think about it. Ok Im in. Heres how in she is: Im writing it now, I cant wait, DeGeneres said in a statement confirming the upcoming gig. Ill keep you posted when and where Im gonna shoot my Netflix special. Im excited to do it; Im excited for you to see it. Previously, HBO was home for DeGeneres comedy specials: her One Night Stand in 1992, Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning in 2000 and Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now. The second and third shows notched two Emmy nominations each. In March, the former sitcom star announced shed be returning to prime time with Ellens Game of Games, which shes hosting for six episodes on NBC. No air dates have been set. Its going to be like a combination of American Ninja Warrior, RuPauls Drag Race and a water park, DeGeneres said in a statement. OK, its nothing like that, but you should still watch. Looks like it's been 15 years since you did a stand-up special, @TheEllenShow. How about one for Netflix?  Netflix US (@netflix) May 24, 2017 Let me think about it. Ok I'm in. https://t.co/kUAdHyXAjS  Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 24, 2017 UPDATES 2:30 p.m.: This article was updated with confirmation from Netflix and a statement from DeGeneres. Facebook

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Chris Cornells body has been cremated, report says; funeral set for Friday By Christie DZurilla Chris Cornell in 1991. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) The body of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, who died last week in Detroit, was reportedly cremated Tuesday in Hollywood, and a funeral is planned for later this week. Widow Vicky Cornell, brother Peter Boyle and friends Linda Ramone and singer J.D. King were at Hollywood Forever Cemetery for the cremation, sources familiar with the service told TMZ. Cornells body was flown to Los Angeles from Detroit on Sunday, family attorney Kirk Pasich told Rolling Stone on Monday, and a private funeral will be held Friday. Pasich told Variety on Sunday that public memorials will be held when its decided. The short time between the end of Soundgardens May 17 show and 52-year-old Cornells death was chronicled in a police report obtained by the Detroit News. He and the band walked offstage around 11:15 p.m. May 17. Fifteen minutes later Cornell was in his hotel room, the report said, where bodyguard Martin Kirsten (who used to work for and date Heidi Klum) helped him fix his computer and gave him two Ativan. At 11:35 p.m. Cornell was talking to his wife, Vicky, who said Friday through her attorney that she had been concerned because her husband was slurring his words and told her he might have taken a few too many anxiety pills. She called Kirsten at 12:15 a.m. Thursday and asked him to check on the singer, the report said; the bodyguard kicked in the hotel room door, then the locked bathroom door, and found Cornell. At his final show, Cornell seemed high and was out of character from note 1, lead sound engineer Ted Keedick told TMZ in an interview published Wednesday. He said the Soundgarden frontman did not appear depressed. However, Keedick said: Id never heard his voice that way before. He was having serious control problems. One concert-goer told the Detroit News last week that as far as she could tell, Cornells final show was honestly great. Nothing seemed off. Tuesday at Detroits Fox Theatre, the site of that last performance, Norah Jones played a tribute to Cornell: an acoustic version of Black Hole Sun. Facebook

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Ariana Grande suspends tour through June 5 By Christie DZurilla Ariana Grandes tour has been suspended through June 5, her management team said Wednesday. That includes the cancellation of concerts planned for Thursday and Friday at Londons O2 Arena. Twenty-two people died and at least 59 were injured in a suicide attack Monday night outside Manchester Arena, where Grande had just concluded a stop on her Dangerous Woman Tour. We ask at this time that we all continue to support the city of Manchester and all those families affected by this cowardice and senseless act of violence, the singers reps said in a statement. Our way of life has once again been threatened but we will overcome this together. The dates that have been put on hold until we can further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost, the statement said, are: London, May 25-26

Antwerp, Belgium, May 28

Lodz, Poland, May 31-June 1

Frankfurt, Germany, June 3

Zurich, Switzerland, June 5 The next tour stop after that is a June 7 concert in Paris. Speculation that the tour would be put on hold has been rife since the day after the bomb went off  actually, immediately afterward and before the number of casualties was known, many on social media were already worried that shows would be axed  but the situation had been in limbo until now. An exhausted"-looking Grande returned home Tuesday to Florida, where she and her mother were met at the airport by Mac Miller, who hugged and kissed his girlfriend in an emotional reunion. Facebook

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Warner Bros. cancels London Wonder Woman premiere following Manchester attack By Josh Rottenberg In the wake of Mondays deadly terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, Warner Bros. has announced it is canceling a planned premiere in London next week for its superhero film Wonder Woman. Our thoughts are with those affected by the recent tragedy in the UK, the studio said in a statement. In light of the current situation, we will not be proceeding with our plans for the premiere and junket activities in London. Starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins, the highly anticipated film  which is set in Europe during World War I  will hold its U.S. premiere on Thursday in Los Angeles. It arrives in theaters June 2. The studio faced a similar situation last year when its European premiere of Batman v. Superman was scheduled to be held in London just hours after terrorist attacks struck Brussels, killing 32 people and injuring many others. In that case, the studio said in a statement that it had decided to go ahead with the event rather than yield to terror. But as Britain mourns the 22 people killed in the Manchester bombing, with scores more wounded, and with the countrys security threat level raised to its highest, signaling the possibility of another imminent attack, Warner Bros. clearly determined that the circumstances called for a different course of action. Facebook

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New Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer shows off Spideys tricked-out, Iron Man-style super-suit By Josh Rottenberg Spider-Man has a few new tricks up his spandex sleeve, with the latest trailer for Sonys upcoming franchise reboot Spider-Man: Homecoming offering a deeper look at Spideys newfangled, tech-enhanced super-suit. Courtesy of billionaire inventor/playboy Tony Stark, the suit is embedded with Iron Man-style technology. A Jarvis-like computer assistant informs Peter Parker (Tom Holland) of the 576 possible web shooter combinations he has at his command. A parachute can also be deployed out of the back of the suit when needed, and the chest piece can detach and turn into a drone. For those who prefer their Spidey old-school, though, the trailer also promises a return to Parkers teenage roots  though with a decidedly cockier spin than the shy, alienated high school nerd weve often seen depicted in the comics and onscreen. Hollands Parker is clearly feeling his superhero oats, boasting to Stark of taking down a petty bike thief and raring for bigger challenges, Spanish quiz or no Spanish quiz. (Cue Michael Keatons villainous Vulture.) Informed by his best friend Ned that Stark has installed a training-wheels protocol on his super-suit to disable some of its abilities, Parker gripes, Im sick of Mr. Stark treating me like a kid. But you are a kid, Ned reminds him. Yeah, Parker says, a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands! Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters July 7. Watch the trailer below. Facebook

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Performers move U.K. concerts after Manchester bombing, but for some, the show goes on By Christie DZurilla Floral tributes in Manchesters St. Anns Square on May 24, 2017. (Jeff J. Mitchell / Getty Images) Manchester Arena has postponed concerts by Take That, an English pop group from the city that was to play there Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But its working to see that a KISS show proceeds next week. Unfortunately, due to the tragic events that unfolded on Monday night, it is not possible for the concerts to take place, the arena said in a statement. These have now been postponed and more information will follow. In another statement, the arena cited the ongoing police investigation. Take That had previously postponed a show at another location, saying Tuesday on its website, Out of respect to all of the people and their families that were affected by the horrific incident last night at the Manchester Arena, we have decided to postpone our show tonight in Liverpool. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all. KISS is scheduled to play Manchester Arena on Tuesday, and the venue said it is working on that show with promoters and police. pic.twitter.com/HkR9ilSTSt  Manchester Arena (@ManchesterArena) May 23, 2017 As far as the Ariana Grande concerts set for Londons O2 arena on Thursday and Friday, as of Wednesday morning no decision had been made. Were still in contact with the tour promoters regarding a final decision, the O2 team said on Twitter Wednesday morning. As yet the tour is not officially postponed or canceled, despite media reports. Katy Perry, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Imagine Dragons, Shawn Mendes and the Chainsmokers will all go ahead with performances this Saturday and Sunday in Hull, England, at BBC Radio 1s Big Weekend, according to TMZ. Hull is about two hours from Manchester. Blondie postponed a Tuesday-night show at the Round Chapel in London, saying in a series of tweets the day of the show that the move was out of respect for the victims of the terrible attack at the Manchester Arena, and noting that plans to reschedule the show were in the works. The Afghan Whigs have moved their Friday show to the O2 Ritz Manchester from Manchester Cathedral, which, as of Wednesday morning, was still cordoned off by police. The Ritz said Tuesday that it would stay silent on social media for two days in sympathy with those who lost their lives or were injured, physically or mentally, but that it would have news Thursday about any rescheduled shows. Other acts that had been scheduled to perform in the Manchester area but not in the arena in coming days, including Colour of Noise, Damien Dempsey, Shriekback and the Cranberries, canceled their shows for reasons unrelated to the suicide attack. Most announced those plans well before Monday. Facebook

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A Star Is Born: Bob Dylan turns 76 today By Los Angeles Times Staff (Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times) When people think of me, they are not necessarily going to buy the latest record anyway. They may buy a record from years ago. Besides, I dont think interviews sell records.  Bob Dylan, 1985 FROM THE ARCHIVES: Bob Dylan -- Still A-Changin Facebook

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Late-night TV hosts, U2 plead for love after Manchester bombing By Robert Lloyd After the news, late-night talk shows are televisions most topical forum. We turn there for the satirical distance and perspective that might allow us to process the day and get to sleep  for laughs when laughter is appropriate, but also for a thoughtful response when events go beyond ordinary human folly to the terrible and unthinkable. Mondays suicide bombing after an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, was on the minds of some late-night hosts Tuesday night. Theres really nothing you can say that can approach the shock and the grief of the victims and their families, said Stephen Colbert on Late Show, asking his audience to go online to hear what his CBS colleague James Corden, who follows him on The Late Late Show, had to say the night before. All we can add here, said Colbert, is that following acts of senseless violence like this, its all the more important not to be controlled by fear, but instead to be reminded by the action of people of Manchester who rushed to the aid of their friends and strangers alike. It is just more proof that evil cannot succeed as long as good people are willing to love each other. On NBCs Late Night, host Seth Meyers had similar thoughts. At its best, being at a concert is an incredible collective experience, he said. Its a chance through a shared love of music to connect with, to sing with and to dance with people you dont know.... And so this comes down to the way we treat strangers, and while some cowards chose to treat strangers with hate, from everything I read, Manchester was filled with people last night who provided aid and comfort to help victims who were total strangers to them. He ended with a plea for all of us to not need a tragedy to remind us of the importance of treating those we do not know with love instead of hate. The Irish band U2, in Los Angeles to perform concerts of their own, were among Jimmy Kimmels guests on ABCs Jimmy Kimmel Live. Kimmel brought up Manchester. I imagine that is something you guys have been thinking about, he said. They hate music, they hate women, they even hate little girls  they hate everything that we love, lead singer Bono replied. The worst of humanity was on view in Manchester last night  but so was the best, as people took perfect strangers into their houses and queued up for blood banks. Manchester has an undefeatable spirit, I can assure you. Kimmel wondered how growing up in Northern Ireland in an era of political and sectarian violence had affected their music. It was so commonplace for a number of years, answered the Edge, the bands guitarist, that it just became a constant background to life. And occasionally something particularly awful would happen and it would really affect you  but that was almost the worst of it. You got to the place where [it was] just ongoing every week, every month. Punk rock helped, added Bono. It made us suspicious of partisanship, it made us up suspicious of sectarian ideas. Facebook

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Elisabeth Moss and BBC America join forces for Typhoid Mary limited series By Libby Hill (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times) The Handmaids Tale star Elisabeth Moss is wasting no time in lining up new projects. BBC America announced Tuesday its partnership with Moss and Annapurna Television in developing Fever, a limited series focused on the tale of Typhoid Mary. The series will adapt the novel of the same name, written by Mary Beth Keane and set in early 20th century New York, where Mary Mallon is unknowingly transmitting typhus to those around her. She was an immigrant in turn-of-the-century New York, a time of huge change and progress in America, Moss said of the character in a statement released by the network. She was incredibly unique, stubborn, ambitious and in fierce denial of any wrongdoing until her death where she lived out her days imprisoned on an island just off of the Bronx in N.Y. She is incredibly complicated, something I seem to enjoy playing, said Moss. Moss will star in the series and serve as executive producer alongside director Phil Morrison (Enlightened, Junebug) and writer Robin Veith (The Expanse, True Blood). Annapurnas Sue Naegle and Megan Ellison will also serve as executive producers. Facebook

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Universal Music Group CEO on Manchester attack: A level of evil beyond comprehension By Christie DZurilla Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group, in November 2016. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images) Lucian Grainge of Universal Music Group sent a company-wide memo Tuesday, calling it a day of remembrance of victims of the suicide attack in Manchester, England, and acknowledging that emotions were raw. "[W]e grieve for all of those lost there, offering our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones, said the chief executive of UMG, parent company of Ariana Grandes recording label Republic, in a note obtained by Variety. Twenty-two people, one only 8 years old, were killed Monday night and at least 59 were hurt when a bomb exploded as Grandes concert at the Manchester Arena was ending. This hits home for us as a music company, Grainge said, because so many of us, myself included, spend so much time out seeing our artists perform, let alone attending concerts as fans. Thats why weve chosen music as our career  or rather music has chosen us. No UMG employees, including Grande and her crew, were injured in the blast, he confirmed, and help from human resources and security was offered to those with questions or concerns. That said, Grainge continued, the fact that such an unspeakable act can be committed at a place where innocent people  including so many young people  come together peacefully to enjoy music reflects a level of evil beyond comprehension. READ MORE: Suspected Manchester suicide bomber identified as U.K. son of Libyan immigrants>> Facebook

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Ariana Grande returns home to Florida after Manchester attack By Christie DZurilla People attending a vigil for Mondays suicide-attack victims brought flowers to St. Ann Square in Manchester, England, on Tuesday. (Jeff J. Mitchell / Getty Images) Ariana Grande reportedly returned home to Florida on Tuesday after the bombing outside her Manchester, England, concert that left 22 dead and at least 59 injured. As they exited a private plane, Grande, her mom and her dog were met on the tarmac in Boca Raton, E! News said, by family members and rapper Mac Miller, whom the 23-year-old has been dating since last summer. Miller gave Grande a long hug and a kiss, a source told E! It was a very emotional reunion and they stood talking for a minute before getting into the car, t
Now that Frances presidential election is over and 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, dubbed Le Kid by local media, has been inaugurated, this country can turn to whats really important: celebrating the 70th edition of Cannes, the worlds preeminent film festival.

Thats something of an exaggeration, of course, but not as much as you might think. The French take enormous pride in Cannes, spending more than 20 million euros of taxpayer money every year to put on an event that in 2015 attracted 30,421 film professionals, including a whopping 4,038 journalists.

Mindful of the April terror attack in Paris and an especially deadly one last year in Nice, just 18 miles away, millions in additional money is being spent on safety.

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Security certainly feels more intense and visible this year, especially around hotels, where plainclothes operatives scrutinize visitors with more than the usual care, and lines to get into the Palais reflect added time for searching.

To mark Cannes 70th anniversary, the festival has gone all out, starting Wednesday night with a screening of French favorite Arnaud Desplechins Ismaels Ghosts.

Also planned are gala dinners, concerts, special guests (Clint Eastwood, David Lynch, Jane Campion and Alfonso Cuaron), a virtual reality short by Alejandro Inarritu, even a celebrity tournament of petanque, a much-loved local game.

Because this is the 70th, photographs from Cannes past have been blown up and put on the sides of buildings. Especially striking is one of Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren literally freeing caged birds to bang the drum for (what else but) The Birds. They knew about publicity back in the day.

And there is not one but two official posters gracing local shop windows, including a photograph of Claudia Cardinale circa 1959 that caused a minor scandal recently when it was revealed that her figure had been airbrushed. A typical Twitter response: If even Claudia Cardinale cannot represent beauty without being retouched, we really are in trouble.

Experiencing the billboards for forthcoming movies is one of Cannes perennial pleasures, with displays for the animated summer movies The Emoji Movie and Animal Crackers (tagline: You are what you eat) sharing space with the Michael Keaton-Taylor Kitsch American Assassin, which insists, It takes one to make one. It takes one to betray one.

One of the most unusual billboards this year was a first-ever display promoting a country, not a film. Vietnam is advertising itself as The New Destination of Blockbusters and promoting Ho Chi Minh City as An Attractive, Friendly and Safe Destination. Good to know.

Two of the biggest billboards in town are for the two highly anticipated films distributed by Netflix: Noah Baumbachs Adam Sandler-Ben Stiller-Dustin Hoffman The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and Korean director Bong Joon-hos Okja.

Because Netflix eschews theatrical distribution, and because theater owners are a powerful force here, the festivals decision to play these two projects became controversial, so much so that an announcement was made that in the future, films without extended theatrical runs would not be selected.

With so much else going on, the actual films chosen for the festivals numerous sections can get a bit overshadowed, but they seem to be a promising lot.

The American contingent, anchored by several major independent directors, looks to be especially strong.

Besides Baumbach and Meyerowitz, top names in competition include Todd Haynes and Wonderstruck, from the Brian Selznick novel; Sofia Coppola and Beguiled, from the same novel that inspired the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood film, and Josh and Benny Safdies Good Time. Big studio films are noticeable for their absence this year  except, of course, on billboards.

Also in competition is the U.K.s Lynn Ramsay, returning to Cannes with the Joaquin Phoenix-starring You Were Never Really Here, while over in the rival Directors Fortnight section, Sean Baker, who caused a splash at Sundance with his iPhone-shot Tangerine, debuts The Florida Project.

As far as foreign-language directors go, Cannes once again rounds up many of the usual suspects: Andrey Zvyagintsev (Loveless), Michel Hazanavicius (Redoubtable), Yorgos Lanthimos (The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and Palme dOr winner Michael Haneke (Happy End).

Also notable are The Square from Swedens Ruben Ostlund, whose Force Majeure was a Cannes breakout in 2014, and, over at the Directors Fortnight, a new film by Claire Denis, Un Beau Soleil Interieur, starring Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu.

With all this frantic activity as backdrop, perhaps the festivals most unexpected sight so far was a billboard for the French perfumerie the Harmonist. Harmony, the sign read, Is The Source of Beauty. Maybe thats true in other towns, but youd be hard-pressed to prove it in the madhouse that is Cannes.

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American Epic, a new musical documentary series beginning Tuesday on PBS, comes with some big names attached: much-advertised executive producers Jack White, T Bone Burnett and Robert Redford, who also narrates.

Its helpful in the documentary world to have celebrity endorsements  writer-director Bernard MacMahon is not a name to reckon with  but they are not the point, and happily they do not get underfoot. The series strength lies with less starry legends.

MacMahons subject is the moment, in the mid-1920s, when the record business turned its attention to the countrys regional music  poor peoples music mostly, passed from player to player and then from generation to generation. (Some of the inheritors, like Robert Lockwood Jr., who learned from his uncle, Robert Johnson, are onscreen.)

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Along with the people who made the music, MacMahon is interested in the figures, representatives of big-city record companies, who traveled the country to find them, set up shop where convenient and recorded them. In doing so, they created a kind of audio bible, an encyclopedia of American vernacular self-expression and, for its audience, self-perception.

That this was a commercial and not merely a musicological enterprise is not incidental; musicians got paid, and some got famous, and in getting famous carved new paths for the music to take, reaching an audience otherwise out of earshot. Find the music, says White, and the next step is to figure out how can we  make money off of it.  Then happy accidents start happening.

The Carter Family and their date with destiny in Bristol, Tenn., is where MacMahons story begins, but his structure is loose and he lets the music make his points. (There are no critical voices here; musicians and family members, alongside Redfords narration, carry the tale.)

Although the episodes, called The Big Bang, Blood and Soil and Out of Many, One have some vaguely discernible structure, the overall effect is, not unpleasantly, of a random ramble through the overlapping patchwork of American roots music, from artist to artist and culture to culture, from hollow to field, from street to church, from desert to bayou.

Along the way we meet  through records, photos, sometimes video clips  Lydia Mendoza, MIssissippi John Hurt, the Memphis Jug Band, Big Chief Henrys Indian String Band, steel guitar inventor Joseph Kekuku and influential Cajun accordionist Amedee Breaux, who once won a competition by playing while strolling overhead among the buildings rafters.

Technology and art have always gone together  you cant paint a picture before you figure out how to make paint  and what we hear is inextricably a product of the machines that have been invented to record it. With each new technology, of course, something is lost as something is gained, which spurs new generations to go in search of it.

Thats the animating principle behind the series companion piece, or culmination, The American Epic Sessions, in which contemporary artists  including producers White and Burnett, Nas, Beck, Elton John, Taj Mahal, Los Lobos and Alabama Shakes  record direct-to-disc on the sort of machine that would have been used 90 years ago. (It runs by pendulum.)

Its a bit of a stunt, if not uninteresting or unenjoyable. But the series is more valuable for showing history than it is for re-creating it and for the useful reminder that there is more to life than the noise coming from our capitals and cable news. Music may not save the world, but it unites us anyway. It can still knock holes in our prejudices, making way for open hearts and willing spirits. I dont mind telling you I got a little emotional watching this series, and you might too.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd

American Epic documentary on birth of recorded music to premiere May 16

Jack White bridges the genres at Coachella
In June 2014, comedian Tracy Morgan, formerly of Saturday Night Live and lately late of 30 Rock, was returning to New York from a show in Delaware when the minibus in which he was riding was struck from behind by a Wal-Mart truck. Fellow comic James Jimmy Mack McNair was killed; Morgan was hospitalized with broken bones and a brain injury. He was briefly in a coma.

Almost two years later, Morgan made his return to the stage with his Picking Up the Pieces tour; an October appearance in Red Bank, N.J., not far from where the accident happened, was filmed for Netflix, which has been investing in high-profile stand-up specials by comics including Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Amy Schumer, Maria Bamford and Jim Gaffigan. Morgans premieres Tuesday for streaming, under the title Tracy Morgan: Staying Alive.

The special begins with a filmed opening, with nods to Saturday Night Fever, as Morgan cruises Brooklyn with a Wal-Mart bag full of settlement money; he buys three slices of pizza instead of two, and he eats them piled one on top of another. A gag transports him into a John Travolta white suit and onto the stage of the theater, which is set with a table and armchair into which he occasionally collapses. One suspects this may be a matter of necessity, but mostly, he is on his feet and moving, encouragingly, and carrying an hour of material in his head.

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There is a shape to it; with a few video projections and lighting cues, you could call it a theater piece. Jokes and digressions are threaded on the story of his accident and recovery  in the coma, coming out of the coma, after the coma, on Earth and in heaven: When I was in that coma, yall, I saw that white light, but I didnt go to it, because I thought it was police. I got warrants, man. You cant get into heaven with priors. Donna Summers On the Radio makes a motif.

To be sure, the hour is rife with F words, B words, P words and other words I cant write in this paper and would avoid even if I could. Morgan has provoked controversy for his jokes before, including editorial chastisement from this paper over remarks about homosexuality (for which he apologized). As with all comedy, mileage varies, from listener to listener, and for any given listener, from joke to joke; you dont decide what to laugh at, after all, you just laugh, or you dont.

I laughed at times, winced at others. But Morgan stays mostly within bounds here; not everyone will like his impression of a joint-rolling Jesus, or his sexual meditations on Caitlyn Jenner, or his taste for breast milk (and Splenda). Apart from taking shots at members of his own family (Because of my settlement, they think Im supposed to pay for everybodys funeral. They think Im supposed to put all their kids in college), he stays largely positive.

His recovery is not only physical but also spiritual  a pitch for self-acceptance, self-improvement and maturity, relatively speaking. He argues for fidelity, restraint and age-appropriate dancing: When you get to a certain age, this is dancing, he says demonstrating. Two-stepping, thats all you got to do, just one move  stomach out, stomach in, stomach out, stomach in.

Morgan allows himself a smile now and again, but mostly, he is intent and intense  which is not to say angry. (I forgave that driver, he says of the man who hit him. Im not even mad at him, and notes, When I was in a wheelchair I still shopped at Wal-Mart  you still cant beat their prices.)

If comedy concerts dont always translate well to the screen  its an art best experienced in the room, surrounded by laughter  there are moments, between lines, when the camera does its work. Moving in close, it gives us a glimpse of the comic as human, even more intimate than his altogether unembarrassed prepared remarks.

Tracy Morgan: Staying Alive

Where: Netflix

When: Anytime, starting Tuesday

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloyd

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Anna Sui is next up in Macys powered-up program of collaborating with designers on capsule collections.

The Anna Sui x INC collection, which will be available exclusively at 25 Macys stores and on macys.com in early September, is the latest in an ongoing series of capsule collections, a strategy that is now considered by Macys chief executive officer Jeff Gennette as a third bucket in the pursuit of exclusive merchandise. Macys also has a well-developed stable of private brands such as INC, Hotel and Alfani, and sells exclusively brands such as Tommy Hilfiger sportswear and soon DKNY.

Were going to be growing exclusivity, Gennette said during a conference call with investors last Thursday. Expect us to have aggressive growth there. We can control it. Our customers expect it of us. It gives us the opportunity to get into a third bucket of growth in exclusivity, which is capsule collections. Weve had good success with that.

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These capsule collections, also referred to as temporary or guest collections, link to the good name of a designer or celebrity and, like private or exclusive brands, help Macys exude newness, seize upon a trend faster and hopefully get a sales lift.

Citing Anna Sui, DKNY and Azrouel as examples, Gennette said, We believe all of these [collaborations] cement Macys as a place to get great fashion  where we can kind of flex our fashion chops.

Macys currently sells the CR by Cynthia Rowley capsule collection and past ones have included Karl Lagerfeld, Kinder Aggugini, Matthew Williamson, Yigal Azrouel and Giambattista Valli. INC has also collaborated with celebrities and fashion stylists over the years, but more so as models for image/ad campaigns and product curations including Heidi Klum, Camila Alves, Kate Young, Max Irons, Tom Stubbs and Gabriel Aubry. Macys does not currently carry Anna Suis own brand.

Gennette, who became ceo in March and was chief merchandising officer before that, believes Macys could do a better job of presenting fashion and new ideas to customers. We need to own that lane again, he said. Vendors and brands, he said, tell us to go faster. Our brand partners want us to come with them with great ideas and insights. Theyre ready to lock arms with us. We need to push them to be more creative and them with us, and to share combined opportunities through data and innovation.

He said Macys is working to amplify the products that [customers] love and can only get at Macys and has strengthened the caliber of its private brand teams. He said they have been working closer with suppliers on the DNA of each of the brands that they create and that apparel sales have lately showed improvement, in no small part because of the efforts of private brand teams. Theyve also taken out weeks in the supply cycle and getting faster introducing product, leading to higher AURs, Gennette said.

Tim Reid, group vice president of Macys private brand marketing strategy, told WWD that Macys overarching fall fashion message this year is western vibrations, and no other designer embodies that Americana trend as well as Anna Sui. He said the designer will bring her signature whimsy and eclectic edge to INC for this very special collaboration. Shes known for a romantic rock n roll style, fantasy and some darker sides and a signature often associated with black.

The Sui capsule of clothing and accessories is designed by Sui and developed by the INC team. Macys said it draws inspiration from Western romance and features feminine prairie accents and hints of glamour with lace details, fringe and embroidered florals. The assortment includes womens and mens apparel as well as womens shoes, jewelry and handbags. Sui has also selected her favorite pieces from the wider INC collection pulling together an Anna Loves INC line, which will be sold at all Macys stores and on macys.com in early September.

On May 26, Sui will be honored with an exhibition showcasing over 20 years of her work at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. According to Macys, The World of Anna Sui will be the first ever retrospective of an American designer to be held in the U.K.

She characterized her collaboration with Macys as a perfect fit, nostalgically noting, They were the first department store to pick up my very first collection.

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Brigitte Trogneux, Frances newest First Lady, wore for her husbands inauguration on Sunday morning a Louis Vuitton sky-blue wool crepe dress falling above the knee and a jacket with a military edge and metallic button details, which were especially designed for the occasion. Looking feminine, sharp and sexy, she also sported beige heels and a matching bag from the house as she made her solo entry into the Elysee Palace in Paris.

The event took place in the ballroom of the presidential palace, where her husband, Emmanuel Macron, wore a dark blue suit from Jonas & Cie, according to a source, who said it cost approximately 450 euros, or $592 at current exchange.

The selections for the inauguration were loyal and consistent with the pairs sartorial track record. As reported, Jonas & Cie is Macrons go-to tailor, with navy suits by the house having been his uniform throughout the presidential campaign. Trogneux wore a Vuitton coat the day he won the election.

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From their choice of outfits on Sunday, it is clear that neither was looking to distract from the event.

Just after Trogneuxs arrival at the Elysee Palace, the Internet was abuzz with people comparing her outfit with Melania Trumps inaugural look in the U.S., which many found to be Jackie O in essence.

According to a source, Trogneux is very close to Nicolas Ghesquiere, Vuittons artistic director of womens collections, to the point of being in contact most days. The pair is thought to have been introduced by Delphine Arnault, executive vice president of Louis Vuitton and daughter of luxury titan Bernard Arnault. Macron is said to be close friends with her partner, entrepreneur and tech billionaire Xavier Niel.

As reported, it is believed that Delphine Arnault offered Trogneux style advice during her husbands time as Frances finance minister. Trogneux has also been spotted in the front row at Dior, another brand within the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton fold, and Karl Lagerfeld is a prominent fan.

We are all so happy, he told WWD after Macron had been declared the victor. I know him and his wife very well. They are great people.

During Macrons meteoric rise, Trogneuxs style was raked over by the press, not forgetting her age: 64 versus Macrons 39. The pair met when he was a 15-year-old student and she a drama teacher at his school  married with three children, one of whom was in Macrons class. Trogneux, known as Bibi to her friends, went on to marry Macron in 2007.

He is the eighth, and youngest, French president since the start of the Fifth Republic. Macrons center-left party, En Marche (or On the Move), is just one year old, and he had never before run for elected office. In the second round of Frances presidential election on May 8, Macron garnered 66.1 percent of the votes, decisively defeating far-right party leader Marine Le Pen.

On the day of Macrons win, Trogneux joined him on stage in the same navy Vuitton coat with a raised silver collar that she wore earlier that day to cast her vote  though she had traded her jeans for more sophisticated dark pants. It was a move that expressed self-confidence, and all eyes were on the inauguration on Sunday to see how the choice of outfit of the First Lady  whose penchant for above-the-knee skirts and skinny pants has raised eyebrows in conservative political circles  would read as an indicator of the tone of Macrons five-year term.

She will be watched as closely as, if not more than, Emmanuel Macron in terms of image, Elizabeth Pineau, coauthor with Gaetane Morin of The Political Wardrobe, which examines the symbolic weight of clothes in the history of French politics, told WWD.

In terms of past first lady dressing, Cecilia Sarkozy memorably wore an ivory duchess Prada dress to the inauguration of her then-husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2007. That set tongues wagging at the time because her outfit was not made in France, and at the same time she was very elegant  both things were duly noted, said Pineau.

Valerie Trierweiler, the former partner of Frances last president Francois Hollande, pointedly paired an off-the-rack black dress from French brand Apostrophe with a white coat from Tara Jarmon. She wanted to send a message of simplicity from the first day, Pineau said.

Macron has indicated that unlike previous French first ladies, his wife will have an official role, though it wont be paid. With Trogneuxs teaching experience, she is expected to inform her husbands education policy, and also wants to help people with disabilities and autism.

During the campaign, some questioned Trogneuxs habit of wearing designer outfits in light of public outrage over conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon accepting a gift of two suits from luxury tailor Arnys worth 13,000 euros, or $14,210, from a lawyer with close links to African leaders during the election campaign.

Candice Nedelec, coauthor with Caroline Derrien of The Macrons, published by Fayard, raised the subject with Trogneux in a lengthy interview on the campaign trail. She said that designers loaned her the clothes and that she always returns them, and that it was her way of honoring French design. But she added that if [it] became damaging to her husband, she would stop wearing them, reported Nedelec.

The Vuitton outfit was loaned to Frances new First Lady for the inauguration, according to sources.

Jennifer Weil also contributed to this article.

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The annual Museo del Barrio gala held Thursday at The Plaza Hotel in New York was definitely a party. Before, during and after the dinner  which featured a filet mignon paired with asparagus and mashed potatoes  the soigne supporters of the Upper East Side museum filled the dance floor as a live band played a variety of salsa numbers.

Jean Shafiroff commanded attention in a taxicab yellow ball gown that widely surrounded her delicate frame. This is a Spanish moment thats a little architectural, but a little flamenco, said Venezuelan-born designer Victor de Souza of the dramatic couture gown he made for Shafiroff specifically for the event. It took two months.

During the evening, El Museo honored artist Carmen Herrera, who is still creating art just shy of her 102nd birthday. The Cuban-born centenarian  who thought it too cold to venture out for the gala  accepted her award with a video filmed in her studio. Its about time, she quipped when asked her feelings on the Whitneys recent retrospective of her abstract works.

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Luxury handbag designer Nancy Gonzalez was also honored, and she dedicated the award to her son and collaborator Santiago Barberi Gonzalez, who died earlier this year at age 40. We had a lot of dreams for the future, explained Gonzalez, who serves as president and creative director of the brand founded by her son nearly two decades ago. This is an incredible industry and it is a business, but in this moment I feel it is more than that: its humanity, its feeling, its love, its loyalty, its support.

Linda Fargo, who was among the brands earliest supporters, was on hand to celebrate the Columbian born creative. Bergdorf is like family to us, continued Gonzalez.

I really feel very blessed to be [Santiagos] mother because hes been such a unique person. Hes going to stay alive forever, she added as the lively Latin band struck up a tune and the jubilant crowd flooded the dance floor.

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LOreal Paris has an ethereal new ambassador: Elle Fanning, WWD has learned.The 19-year-old star  whose breakout role was in Super 8  will walk the red carpet for the brand at the Cannes Film Festival, where LOreal Paris has been the official beauty partner for 20 years.

The actress stars in two movies being screened at the festival, which starts Wednesday. These are Sofia Coppolas The Beguiled, which is in competition, and John Cameron Mitchells How to Talk to Girls at Parties, part of the events out-of-competition screenings.

Fanning grew up knowing all about LOreal Paris, since her grandmother uses its lipstick. When I was little, it was always so comforting  I just remember that LOreal lipstick smell, she said during an exclusive telephone interview with WWD from Los Angeles. The actress explained she admires how the brand celebrates women as a whole.

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To Fanning, beauty is not only about taking care of ones skin, hair and body, but also having freedom to express ones self and be really creative.

She joins LOreal Paris star-studded lineup of spokespeople that also includes Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Andie MacDowell, Naomi Watts, Eva Longoria and Blake Lively. As one of its youngest faces, Fanning hopes to chime particularly loudly with Millennials.

She has already discussed with LOreal Paris executives various ways to send positive messages out, especially via social media. To have little beauty anecdotes or confidence-boosters, or something along those lines shared by LOreal, I think is a really crucial thing, she said.

Elle is a natural choice for the brand, as it highlights our love for beauty and cinema, said Pierre Emmanuel Angeloglou, LOreal Paris global president, in a statement. Indeed, she is the face for the new generation as an accomplished actress, but also an inspiring canvas for makeup artists.

Fanning deems herself to be at a pivotal age, where she is just discovering who you are. Youre still even discovering your style and what type of woman you want to be. Its a crucial part of growing up. So to play into that area for [young girls] is what I am most looking forward to.

She recently wrapped her first shoot for LOreal Paris, in a castle in France. I got to say Because youre worth it. I was like, That is so cool, she said with a laugh.

Her first advertisement for LOreal Paris will be for Paradise mascara.

Fanning also spoke about the experience of working with Coppola on The Beguiled, a Civil War-themed movie based on a novel by Thomas Cullinan told from a female perspective.

The first thing I did with Sofia, I was 11. I just love her, she said. On Somewhere, I felt like she was a big sister to me  or more motherly. But, then, for The Beguiled, I was 18so I got to go alone. I felt like my mom was comfortable because she was like  we know Sofia, and so it was a safe environment.

It was on that set that their relationship bloomed into a close friendship, which was that neat kind of transition, said Fanning.

Her sets are unlike anything else. Everyone just cares so much and is very inclusive, and everyone respects each other, continued the actress. She cares about each thing, and so you just feel like youre completely working together.

Fanning lauded the directors attention to detail. Thats what makes a Sofia Coppola film  the acting and the script and the story, of course, but its also like the costumes and the design and the lighting. Its hair and makeup, she said. We had many hair and makeup tests. And she has such great taste. There is nobody more classy than Sofia.

The powerful female cast of The Beguiled, which also stars Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman, marked Fanning, too. Its filming took place in one house.

Its at this all-girls school, and its just all these ladies, said the actress. Nicole Kidman is the headmistress, and Kirsten is the teacher. Then there are students. It was all girl power on set, and Sofia [was] our leader  that was really fun.

Colin Farrell plays the leading man.

The roles were kind of reversed, in a way, because on other films normally youre objectifying the woman or whatever, but our film  we were kind of objectifying him, said Fanning. Its a great take and a very modern film, definitely, for the times that were living in now.

A drawback was that the women all had to wear corsets. Im like, OK, Im glad that I dont live back then, giggled Fanning.

She got serious, though, when talking about the need for more gender equality in Hollywood and beyond. I think its the most important to break down all those barriers in the world were living in, in real life, for everybody, said Fanning. One step at a time.

On How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which also stars Kidman, Fanning, who had looked up to her for a long time, joked: I was like oh, shes also kind of tall like me. But meeting her was really special. I remember she gave me a piece of advice. She was like: Find your tribe.

Fanning experienced the festival for the first time last year, representing the film The Neon Demon.

It was so glamorous, she said. I love picking out dresses for the red carpet and figuring out the whole look for that. It was the craziest red carpet Id ever seen  with those stairs. Theres really nothing like it.

Since Fanning had to miss her senior prom for the event her date (and best friend) flew to Cannes to hold it, in their own way, there. It was just the best; he brought his tux that he was going to wear and then I had this beautiful dress, she said, adding her mother took prom photos and supplied the roses and corsages. We did the whole thing before going on the red carpet.

But this year, Im excited for the movies Im getting to go with, and for LOreal, she continued. Ill be there for a lot longer period this time, so Ill really get to make more memories.

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In advance of this falls exhibition of her work at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Guo Pei has been busy shooting some of her creations for the companion book, working on a secondary label and crafting a special project with Apple.

SCAD president Paula Wallace has written the foreword for Guo Pei, which Rizzoli will publish in mid-October. About a year ago SCAD contacted Guo Pei about doing an exhibition dedicated to her work, attended one of her shows in Paris and later invited her to visit the schools Savannah and Atlanta campuses, the designers husband Jack Tsao said. This falls Atlanta show will be her first in the U.S.

The designer and her team will be involved with the installation of the mannequins with Guo Pei dresses and the show, which her husband said will be quite substantial. The couple will also be on hand for the September 7 opening ceremony of the exhibition at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film.

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The designer is still looking for a location for a store in New York though her husband described it as difficult. The company is also scouting for a partner for the U.S. market. The designer is also working on a secondary line that is meant to give more people a better understanding of her designs. It will also be more affordable, he said.

Always open to potential collaborations with partners who share a similar creative vision, the designer wants to build a cultural bridge and create a common language with the U.S., as well as in other countries around the world through her couture creations, Tsao said. Two grand opening events have been scheduled for this year, but he declined to elaborate due to confidentiality issues.

In addition, Guo Peis luxury ready-to-wear collection is still under development. Expect to see beautiful, wearable pieces for the modern woman which maintain the spirit of couture and distinct Guo Pei touches. The plan is to sell the collection in select high-end retailers in the U.S., Europe and Asia, he said.

Furthering her experience designing costumes, Guo Pei is working on costumes for three Chinese TV series and two feature films. He added, in recent years, Guo Pei has been focusing her attention on the Chinese wedding culture and reviving the art of the traditional wedding gown. In recent years, we have seen the younger generation, especially the elite, pay more and more attention to traditional weddings. From 2015 onward, some of Chinas top celebrities have begun to choose Chinese traditional gowns for their weddings. We are also seeing a wave of a return to tradition.

The designer also remains in contact with Apple ceo Tim Cook, who visited her studio in Beijing last summer. Guo Pei is working on developing an iWatch and a marketing partnership, according to her husband.

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After selling loved items from their wardrobes in a London car boot sale earlier this month, the citys designers have come together to support the charity Women for Women once again.

A host of names  ranging from designers Nicholas Kirkwood, Charlotte Olympia, Manolo Blahnik, Mary Katrantzou and Simone Rocha to the model Arizona Muse and milliner Stephen Jones  teamed with Havaianas and Women for Women to customize pairs of flip-flops from the Brazilian brand. The one-off pieces will be displayed at Somerset House and auctioned on July 1 to raise funds for the charity.

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Having been given carte blanche, designers went all-out with their interpretations of the Havaianas they were given. Rocha added her signature pearl details all over a classic black pair, Jones used a Swarovski-embellished pair to create a headpiece and Charlotte Dellal elevated her pair with a gold platform and gold spiderwebs on the straps.

There really was no brief, thats what was so fun about it. So I wanted to add my signature elements  a lot of gold and high platforms, which I always tend to add on to shoes, said Dellal. I love everyones designs, it all comes together and you can tell who designed what without even seeing the name. Id definitely wear Simones pair. Then again, I love everything she does.

Other highlights included Blahniks interpretation, which featured romantic red rose appliques, and Swarovskis series of glitter-finished pairs with the soles spelling out the word sisters to capture the spirit of female empowerment that Women for Women is known for.

Our design embodies the idea that together we are stronger, said Nadja Swarovski.

Katrantzou said she wanted to embrace as much color as possible in her design, stacking three bright yellow, pink and blue pairs of flip-flops and layering them with Swarovski crystals.

The project was spearheaded by fashion entrepreneur Maria Kastani, an ambassador for Havaianas who works on yearly events to bring attention to the brand.

I wanted to invite my friends and creatives to take part and create works of art. We gave them Havaianas and set them free and my brief for them was to be as creative as possible, no one had any boundaries, said Kastani, who represents up-and-coming labels such as Alice Archer and Istanbul-based handbag label Mehry Mu.

I must admit a lot of them surprised me. Arizona exposed her family in the most beautiful way, Manolo channeled the rose of Sicily and the colors and smells of the island, Dsquared was all about partying and fun. It was a beautiful way to celebrate color and fun with solid works that people will want to spend their money on.

Brita Fernandez Schmidt, the charitys executive director, said the designers creations were aligned with the message that Women for Women wants to communicate.

We support women in areas of conflict who have gone through traumatic situations, but if we are not positive, we wont be able to change anything. The designers really got it and went for that spirit of positivity and sisterhood. There are so many different designers, which is great because our aim is not to put women in boxes, to show that they can be anything, said Fernandez Schmidt.

She added that the proceeds from the auction will allow more women to join the charitys yearlong support program and the exposure at Somerset House will also raise awareness about the charity.

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From a new supper club in Koreatown to a sandbox full of rainbow sprinkles, heres whats happening in the Los Angeles food and drink world:

Feeling fancy: Mama Lion, a new supper club helmed by owner Robert Kim and partner-chef Michael Hung (formerly of Jardiniere, La Folie and, in L.A., Viviane and Faith & Flower), is now open in Koreatown. The name Mama Lion is actually the name of the nightclub that once occupied the same space. Hung is behind the food, which is a mix of elevated finger food (crispy avocado samosas, Santa Barbara uni tostaditas) and larger plates of plancha Mediterranean bass and fresh bucatini pasta. The cocktail program was created by head barman Todd Eames and includes a take on the Rusty Nail, made with Johnny Walker Black, Atholl Brose and pecan bitters. Then theres the -ounce Osetra caviar service, with buckwheat blinis, a hard cooked egg, parsley, lemon and shallots. 601 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 377-5277, www.mamalion.com.

For the record: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said a location of Cafe Gratitude will open in Beverly Hills. Gratitude, a new concept by the Cafe Gratitude team, will open. Also, the story said Botinca serves cocoa-coconut granola, its cacao.

Ice cream for everyone: The Museum of Ice Cream in downtown L.A. has released a new round of tickets. The museum, which celebrates all things colorful and sweet (sprinkles, scratch-n-sniff wallpaper, etc.), opened for a limited time in New York City last year. The L.A. run, in the Arts District, was supposed to last through May, but has been extended to mid-August due to popular demand. Tickets can be purchased here. 2018 E. 7th Place, Los Angeles, www.museumoficecream.com.

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Magazine business: Botanica, a new restaurant, bar, market and magazine (yes, magazine) is now open in Silver Lake. Its run by chef-owners and partners Emily Fiffer and Heather Sperling, who used to work as editors of food- and culture-focused media. The restaurant features items such as cacao-coconut granola; and lamb skewers with herb salad. The digital magazine, at BotanicaMag.com, is set up as a destination for home cooks to find recipes and content built around the restaurant and surrounding community. And at the market, youll find produce, Bub & Grandmas bread, smoked labneh and dukkah, beer, wine and more. As for the name, its a reference to both botanicals and the the plant-focused menu. The restaurant plans to extend its hours in a month or so. 1620 Silver Lake Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 522-6106, botanicarestaurant.com.

Phoenix transplant: Sam Fox Restaurants, the Phoenix-based group behind 55 restaurants, including the True Food Kitchens in SoCal and the Henry in Phoenix, will open a location of the Henry, at the Robertson Plaza in West Hollywood, as part of the 100,000-square-foot plazas multimillion-dollar renovation. The 6,490-square-foot restaurant is expected to open in early 2018 and will include a coffee bar and indoor-outdoor cocktail bar. The menu will feature items such as a quinoa breakfast burrito, short rib pot stickers and Korean-style skirt steak. The plazas renovation will also include a new Blue Bottle Coffee location and a cocktail bar called Bibo. 116-164 N. Robertson Blvd., West Hollywood, www.foxrc.com.

Still hungry? Mirko Paderno of Culina at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles is taking over chef Dakota Weiss kitchen at Estrella on Tuesday night for a pop-up dinner to benefit No Kid Hungry. Chef Ludo Lefebvres Trois Mec has launched a new reservation system that will allow diners to make reservations for the restaurant one month in advance. Gratitude, a new restaurant by the team behind the plant-based Cafe Gratitude, is scheduled to open in Beverly Hills later this month. Jinya Ramen Bar in Studio City and the original Robata Jinya in Beverly Grove are now serving the Wagyu Lagoon, a bowl of ramen with Wagyu beef. Iluggy Recinos is now the bar manager at downtown L.A. restaurant Bestia. Taco Maria chef Carlos Salgado will collaborate on a dinner with chef Eric Samaniego at Michaels on Naples in Long Beach on May 24. As part of Food Bowl, The Times month-long food festival, Michael Cimarusti will cook a special dinner at Providence with chef Dan Hunter of Brae in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday. Citizen in Beverly Hills has started serving brunch.

Jenn.Harris@latimes.com

@Jenn_Harris_

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Wildlife biologists say an alarming number of female desert tortoise carcasses found earlier this year just outside the southern edge of Joshua Tree National Park may be the result of mothers fighting extinction by exhausting their water and energy to lay eggs, even under stress.

U.S. Geological Survey biologist Jeffrey Lovich, who has monitored tortoises in and around the park for two decades, said the potentially lethal response to prolonged drought may become more common throughout the Southern California desert as temperatures rise and forage diminishes.

This is still a hypothesis, Lovich said on Monday, but I believe these tortoises died after continuing to lay clutches of four eggs the size of ping pong balls year after year, using up vital resources they need to survive.

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It was an evolutionary gamble, he said. If it pays off, their genetic information will be passed on to a new generation of hatchlings in conditions more suitable for survival of the species.

Single female seeks relationship with strong male... Must enjoy flowers, long slow walks and cuddling up in desert caves.  Kristen Lalumiere, biologist

Biologist Kristen Lalumiere scans to detect a signal emitted from a transmitter attached to a desert tortoise in Joshua Tree National Park. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

A research team led by Lovich was surveying a study area of several square miles on the northern flanks of the Orocopia Mountains when it discovered the remains of 14 female and three male tortoises, and 15 live animals, most of them males.

Judging from the deterioration of the carcasses and chalkiness of the bones, Lovich concluded the animals perished over the last five to 10 years, a period including five consecutive years of drought regarded as the most severe in recorded history.

The find has stepped up concerns over the fate of tortoises within the nearly 800,000-acre national park, which recent rains made into a showcase of habitat, lush with plants and flowers for the lumbering reptiles to fatten up on.

But vast swaths of terrain carpeted with daisies can only do so much, biologists say, in the face of longer droughts and climate change.

Despite its name, scruffy body armor and status as a symbol of the desert conservation movement, the tortoise is not well adapted to arid landscapes. It evolved thousands of years ago, when the region was cooler and dominated by lakes and marshes fringed with Joshua trees and junipers, Lovich said.

Over the past three decades, the parks tortoise population has plummeted from roughly 30,000 to an all-time low of about 3,000, Michael Vamstad, a wildlife ecologist at the park, said.

A federal analysis determined that a viable population of tortoises must maintain an average minimum density of about 10 adults per square mile. The average density within the park today is about nine adults per square mile, Vamstad said.

Were at a point now where we expect tortoises to disappear in certain areas because there arent enough of them around to find a mate, he said. But we believe there will also be pockets with the right combinations of air temperature, moisture and forage to sustain tortoises for years to come.

I believe these tortoises died after continuing to lay clutches of four eggs the size of ping pong balls year after year.  Jeffrey Lovich, biologist

A desert tortoise with radio transmitters installed on his back. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Over the past century, desert tortoises have been decimated by habitat loss, trampling by cows and sheep, shootings, vehicle strikes, disease, collecting, relocation efforts on military bases and predation by ravens, coyotes and dogs.

Now their deadliest foe is climate change, which is upsetting the delicate balance of life and death conditions for the species in an otherwise intensely managed expanse of habitat within a national park.

The recent five-year drought is a window into the future of what climate change may look like across the Southwestern United States, Cameron Barrows, a UC Riverside ecologist who specializes in the parks wildlife, said. In certain study plots where we found lots of tortoises even two years ago, we didnt find any this year.

Improving the odds of survival for tortoises hasnt been easy at a time when record numbers of tourists are straining park roads, campsites and services, officials said. The park had 2.5 million visitors in 2016, twice the number seen five years ago, officials said.

In the midst of a spectacular wildflower bloom in March that attracted both hungry tortoises and a crush of camera-toting tourists, three tortoises were struck and killed by cars in a single week.

Officials are considering roadside fencing, which is effective in reducing mortalities of tortoises and other reptiles. It is also controversial, however, because it is expensive to install and maintain, fragments habitat and is an eyesore on federal lands set aside for their natural beauty.

Climate change has no regard for traffic signs, speed limits, roadside barriers or national park boundaries, said Debra Hughson, a research biologist at the Mojave National Preserve, about 50 miles northwest of the park.

Wildlife ecologist Michael Vamstad, left, and biologists Kristen Lalumiere and Jeff Rangitsch stand by a desert tortoise burrow in Joshua Tree National Park. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Its not all bad news.

Under a hot morning sun on a recent weekday, park biologist Kristen Lalumiere followed telemetry pings across a desolate arroyo edged with cholla cactus to a radio-collared female desert tortoise the size of a volleyball emerging from a burrow to bask in the sunshine, dine on flowers and, perhaps, find a mate.

Lalumiere peered inside, then smiled and said, Youre looking good, girl -- clear eyes, clean nose and flower stains all over your mouth.

Adding a hopeful dose of anthropomorphism, she said, Single female seeks relationship with strong male willing to fight to protect her. Must enjoy flowers, long slow walks and cuddling up in desert caves.

The tortoise biologists dubbed Salsa Verde stared back at her, then retreated into her burrow.

In a nearby burrow, a male tortoise known as Scuter was taking a siesta.

Whether or not they produce a new generation of tortoises will not be known for 15 to 20 years because that is how long it takes hatchlings to reach maturity, even in the best of times.

Louis.Sahagun@latimes.com

@LouisSahagun

Click here for a Spanish version of this story

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The controversial beach in La Jolla known as Childrens Pool has reopened this week after being closed since December for harbor seal pupping season.

A decades-long disagreement over how to prioritize use of the site has generated legal battles, as well as some violent encounters, between opposing parties.

Childrens Pool beach was created using a 330-foot, crescent-shaped concrete seawall. The area was deeded to the city by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1931, with the express wish that it remain available as a swimming area for children.

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In the 1990s, harbor seals began gathering there and establishing a rookery. Their waste on the beach and in the surrounding waters made it unsanitary for swimming  and set off what has become an intractable conflict between residents who believe people should get top priority for using the beach and others who say wildlife protection laws give precedence to the seals.

Over the years, various groups have proposed a range of potential solutions. Those have included barring humans from accessing the beach year-round (visitors would only be allowed to stand on the seawall and look down at the beach), stringing a rope barrier on the beach to keep people away from the seals, and using dogs and bullhorns to disperse the seal colony.

The dispute hasnt ended despite the state Legislature changing the Scripps agreement to give the city of San Diego greater latitude in managing the site.

Its a federal violation to harass or disturb the marine mammals, so San Diego lifeguards and park rangers monitor the area for violators. In response to concerns that people were bothering the seals  and causing some mothers to abandon their pups  the City Council voted in 2014 to shutter Childrens Pool each Dec. 15 to May 15, which is pupping season. For the rest of the year, theres a thin rope separating the seals from areas where visitors can move around on the beach.

These measures have frustrated some residents, who contend the city is unfairly prioritizing wildlife protection over the sites long history as a popular swimming spot.

After years of lawsuits brought by various parties, a group called Friends of the Childrens Pool scored a legal victory in 2015 when an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that closing the beach during much of winter and spring violated state and federal laws.

The city, with the support of animal-rights activists, appealed the ruling and a three-judge panel has allowed the annual pupping-season beach closure to continue while the legal fight plays out. A decision in the case is expected later this year.

joshua. smith@sduniontribune.com

Smith writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune
A former Kern County sheriffs deputy who pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to steal marijuana seized during criminal investigations apologized in a recorded video message for his misdeeds, saying Satan was playing games with him.

In a May 7 video entitled I am sorry! Logan August appeared seated with his wife as he apologized to Kern County residents, law enforcement officials and anybody I had ever worked with that wears the badge that I disgraced.

I made a horrible decision, the 30-year-old Bakersfield resident said in the YouTube video. It was nobody elses fault. Nobody influenced me to do it. I made that decision based on Satan playing games with me and making me feel like I was prideful and unable to go to family members for help.

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August and Derrick Penney, another former Kern County sheriffs deputy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute marijuana, according to U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert. They have agreed to forfeit any money they earned from the trafficking operation. August and Penney face up to five years in prison.

The former deputies were accused of working with former Bakersfield police detective Patrick Mara and others to steal marijuana from the Kern County Sheriffs Office storage unit, according federal court documents. The plot transpired between June 2014 and October 2014, according to the documents.

Federal authorities said the group planned to sell the cannabis, which had been previously seized by police during drug operations on private and public properties.

August was assigned to the Sheriffs Major Vendor Narcotics Unit and participated in drug busts.

After August and Penney, 34, of Star, Idaho, stole the marijuana, they had it trimmed, so it could be sold, according to the U.S. attorneys office. August then handed the eight pounds of marijuana to a confidential informant who sold it for him, federal authorities said.

August shared his earnings with Penney, each receiving about $1,200, according to federal prosecutors. August also gave a portion of the proceeds to Mara, who is about to begin a five-year federal prison sentence in a separate case, authorities said. Mara, a 13-year Bakersfield police veteran, admitted to stealing methamphetamine from drug dealers during traffic stops.

Federal authorities said August took the marijuana from drug busts on 10 separate occasions and gave his informant about 25 pounds of cannabis. After the marijuana was sold, he received $15,000, according to federal prosecutors.

In his video, August thanked people for leaving negative comments on his social media.

I am deserving of everything you said, August said. I am despicable and I am a piece of crap and that is me in this world.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
The Oklahoma man accused in the fatal shootings of a Long Beach woman and her 4-year-old daughter will not face the death penalty if convicted, prosecutors announced Monday.

Brandon Colbert, 23, who appeared in court Monday for a hearing on whether he was competent to stand trial, collapsed after the proceeding, according to Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. The competency hearing was postponed to May 30.

Prosecutors say Colbert, of Tulsa, Okla., hid behind a concrete sign before leveling a shotgun at Carina Mancera, 26, and Jennabel Anaya, 4, as they returned home from grocery shopping on Aug. 6, 2016. Colbert is accused of firing the blasts that killed the mother and daughter, before firing an additional shot at Manceras longtime boyfriend, Luis Anaya.

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The last shot missed, and Anaya was not injured.

The killings mystified Long Beach investigators for months. But late last year, DNA from a spent shotgun shell found at the crime scene was matched to Colbert, who had been arrested by Los Angeles police in an unrelated car theft case.

Prosecutors have repeatedly declined to comment on a motive in the slayings, or say whether Colbert knew the victims.

In 2014, Colbert was diagnosed with schizophreniform disorder, meaning he was presenting symptoms of schizophrenia but not for the six-month period necessary for a formal diagnosis, according to medical records reviewed by The Times. He has insisted on representing himself at trial over the objections of both a defense attorney retained by his family and a court-appointed attorney who attended his pretrial hearings.

During a series of hearings, Colbert has appeared confused and unnerved at various points in the courtroom. He has largely trafficked in conspiracy theories, repeatedly insisting that his arrest is part of a larger scheme to frame him for the killings.

During a March preliminary hearing, Colbert insisted that Mancera and her daughter were still alive.

I dont believe these people are actually dead because I said this is like a Hollywood movie and Im not an actor and I dont want to play this game, he said, according to a court transcript.

Colberts trial was scheduled to open this month, but Superior Court Judge Jesse Rodriguez ordered him to undergo a competency hearing.

Colbert had never been to California and did not know anyone here, according to his family. He boarded a California-bound Greyhound bus from Tulsa on Aug. 3, and arrived in Los Angeles the next day, police said.

Mancera and her daughter were killed two days later.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

james.queally@latimes.com

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

For more news on crime in Southern California, follow @JamesQueallyLAT and @marisagerber on Twitter.
Authorities have arrested a brain surgeon and a nurse in Northern California on multiple charges involving child sexual abuse.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that Dr. James Kohut was arrested Sunday at his home in Santa Cruz in cases involving a child under the age of 10 and a child under 14. He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail and is being held without bail.

Watsonville Police Capt. Jorge Zamora said nurse Rashel Brandon was arrested May 10 and charged with 11 felonies involving child sexual abuse as well as multiple charges related to the production of child pornography.

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Both Kohut and Brandon worked at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.

Zamora said a third, unidentified suspect is in custody outside California.

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Twenty-three years ago, Alison Sommer-Castellanos was told her older brother had been shot to death in Huntington Beach.

Now authorities have arrested a Colorado man, who once taught high school in California, on suspicion of killing Kenny Paul Sommer and his friend Chen Cosmo Maui Blanchard.

Lamberto Ricci Castillo, 64, is charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Sommer and Blanchard, both 23, on the evening of March 31, 1994. He also faces possible sentencing enhancements for use of a firearm. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in state prison.

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He is being held at Orange County Jail in Santa Ana. He did not enter a plea at an arraignment hearing Monday.

The Huntington Beach Police Department said it reopened the case last year and reached out to the Orange County Cold Case Homicide Task Force to help in the investigation.

Castillo was arrested April 27 in Alamosa, Colo., according to a news release from police and the Orange County district attorneys office that cited newly developed evidence.

Authorities did not elaborate on what that evidence was during a news conference at Huntington Beach City Hall, where family members of the victims described their deaths as senseless.

Sommer-Castellanos said her brother was a loving and family-oriented man who was engaged to be married.

He was robbed at too young an age, she said.

Gina Vercnocke, who had a son with Blanchard and was Sommers cousin, said that when she learned Castillo had been arrested, it took awhile for me to process my feelings.

Both she and Sommer-Castellanos thanked police for bringing what they hope is an end to the search for the killer.

Its been a long 23 years, Vercnocke said. Its been really difficult. Its been something we have dealt with on a daily basis. Theres been a lot of hardships and heartache.

According to authorities, Sommer and Blanchard were in downtown Huntington Beach when Castillo confronted them.

According to Huntington Beach Police Chief Robert Handy, Castillo had been on a walk with his wife and may have challenged Sommer and Blanchard for urinating on the street. The three argued and Castillo walked away.

He returned 45 minutes later with a handgun, authorities said.

Sommer and Blanchard were shot multiple times. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

An off-duty police officer witnessed the confrontation but not the shootings, authorities said.

Perhaps well never understand why Castillo senselessly took the lives of Sommer and Blanchard, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Monday. But when we prosecute him for the crimes that he committed, hes going to understand a little something about the justice system.

ben.brazil@latimes.com

Brazil writes for Times Community News
Russian actor Oleg Vidov, the matinee idol who famously defected from the former Soviet Union for a crossover career in Hollywood during the Cold War, has died at the age of 73.

Vidov, who appeared in Red Heat, Wild Orchid and Love Affair, died Monday in Westlake Village of cancer-related complications, according to his spokesperson, Kathy Jura.

The actors blond hair, blue eyes and striking good looks earned him the moniker the Robert Redford of Soviet cinema and made him a top box-office draw back home in the 1970s.

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Vidov caught the attention of international filmmakers with Gabriel Axels medieval Viking epic The Red Mantle, which was nominated for the Cannes Film Festivals top prize in 1967. He then traveled to Yugoslavia to co-star in 1971s Battle of Neretva and was cast by Dino De Laurentiis to work on 1970s Waterloo, which also starred Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer and Orson Welles.

He returned to the USSR to study directing but fell out of favor with the government soon after that. He divorced his wife  a close family friend of prominent Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev  and then made a picture that criticized the Soviet transport system, which was a far cry from his romantic epics and fairy tales starring vehicles.

The son of a schoolteacher and a finance ministry deputy fell in love with films as a boy living with an aunt on the Chinese border and was always drawn to American films, which he told The Times in 1985 always transported me to a world that was nice and beautiful.

He was discovered in Moscow by someone casting a childrens movie, then beat out 400 youngsters for a spot to study acting at the state film school. Vidov graduated from both the acting and directing departments of the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and appeared in more than 50 films in his homeland.

Despite being ordered to return to Moscow and disappointing fans, Vidov moved to the United States by way of Austria, Yugoslavia and Italy in 1985. He was effectively excommunicated from Soviet cinema, and state-owned TV stations dropped his movies. However, popular demand put them back on the air  without using his name. His credits were restored in 1987 following Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevs perestroika reform policies.

I feel very much comfortable in Los Angeles because around me are my colleagues, cinema makers, Vidov told The Times in 1985 when he arrived. When I saw beautiful American films, they led me by their example  to make me proud of my profession and happy that Im a film actor.

Vidov went on to appear in 1988s Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1990s Wild Orchid with Mickey Rourke and 1994s Love Affair with Warren Beatty. He also appeared on TV in HBOs The Immortals as well as The West Wing and Alias. He also formed the film production and distribution company Films by Jove Inc. with his second wife, Joan Borsten, in 1988. Together they obtained international distribution rights to the Soyuzmultfilm animation studio library.

Vidov is survived by his wife; his sons, Viacheslav and Sergei; and a grandson.

His family will hold a memorial service Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

nardine.saad@latimes.com

Follow me: @NardineSaad
Some people call Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera a hero and a freedom fighter. Others call him a terrorist.

Regardless of how people perceive him, after serving more than 35 years in custody for his role in a violent struggle for independence from the U.S., Lopez Rivera is expected to be a free man Wednesday. His 70-year sentence was commuted in January by President Obama.

Many Lopez Rivera supporters have been looking forward to his release, including organizers of New York Citys Puerto Rican Day Parade. In early May, event organizers announced that they would honor him at the June 11 parade with the title of National Freedom Hero.

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Iris Dipini, treasurer of New York Citys Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, said Tuesday that she planned to celebrate the day Lopez Riveras sentence ends.

Its a jubilant day for all us, Dipini, 41, said in a phone interview. A man that was going to die in prison [is about to be] released. Its a victory for Puerto Ricans who believe in freedom and anti-colonialism. This could be anyones father or grandfather.

Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. Spain ceded the island to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and Congress made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens in 1917. The commonwealth status, which provides some autonomy, began in 1952.

Puerto Rican militant Oscar Lopez Rivera during a 1998 interview at the Marion Federal Penitentiary in Illinois. (Beth A. Keiser / Associated Press)

Lopez Rivera, who moved to Chicago from Puerto Rico as a child with his family, was a member of the leftist group Armed Forces of National Liberation, also known by its Spanish acronym FALN, which sought Puerto Rican independence.

Authorities in the 1970s and 1980s considered the group a terrorist organization linked to more than 100 bombings across New York, Chicago, Washington and Puerto Rico.

The violence associated with the group makes it difficult for some observers to understand why a man who was convicted in 1981 of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States in Puerto Rico by force would be praised.

One of the groups bombings took place in 1975 at New Yorks Fraunces Tavern, killing four people and injuring scores more.

Joseph F. Connors dad, Frank, was one of those killed. It was four days after Connors 9th birthday, which his parents had planned to celebrate that evening. His dad, who was 33, worked at J.P. Morgan and was having lunch with his colleague, who also died in the attack.

My dad deserved better than what he got, Connor said in a phone interview. I try to teach my kids that there are certain things worth fighting for and my dad is one of them. We didnt ask for this.

Lopez Rivera was not charged in the Fraunces Tavern bombing but faced other charges including the interstate transportation of firearms with the intent to commit violent crimes. He was never convicted of hurting anyone and was never tied to specific bombings, said his lawyer, Jan Susler.

Connor began to publicly speak out against Lopez Rivera after President Clinton offered clemency to several jailed FALN members, including Lopez Rivera in 1999, which would have left him eligible for release in 2009. Lopez Rivera refused, and made a decision to stay in prison until other members were released, Susler said.

Obama in January commuted Lopez Riveras sentence along with those of more than 200 other people.

Shortly after, Lopez Rivera was allowed to move to his daughters house in Puerto Rico, where he has been under house arrest. After his release, Lopez Rivera, 74, has a packed schedule; he has speeches and appearances planned in Chicago, San Francisco and Puerto Rico.

Meanwhile, the island is struggling to overcome a more than $70-billion debt. And a nonbinding referendum on whether Puerto Ricos voters favor statehood, independence or the current status is planned for June 11.

The New York parade organizers emphasized the push for positive change.

Our parade has a pioneering history and legacy of championing the peoples voice and providing a platform that prompts healthy discussions and leads to positive change, organizers said in an online statement. We will continue to celebrate the rich cultural pride, heritage, identity and tradition that bind us together.

UPDATES:

8:20 p.m.: This story was updated throughout with Times reporting.

This story was originally published at 9:15 a.m.
When Californians approved Proposition 64 to legalize marijuana in California last November, it was no secret that the drug would remain illegal under federal law. But that fundamental contradiction seemed manageable at the moment because the federal government had largely taken a hands-off approach to states that had already allowed the recreational sale and use of marijuana, and candidate Donald Trump had said he would let states decide on legalization.

The risk of a clash with the federal government seemed low compared with the benefit of replacing the states quasi-legal medical marijuana regime and its underground market for recreational pot with a regulated and controlled system for adults. Thats one reason The Times endorsed the proposition last year.

Now, however, we have President Trump, who seems to have forgotten his laissez faire stance on marijuana, and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who comes from the Reefer Madness school of law enforcement. Proponents of Proposition 64  both the advocates of legalization and the businesses preparing to come out of the shadows into a legalized market  rightly worry that the federal government may decide to crack down on cannabis operators even if they fully comply with state rules.

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Its understandable that state lawmakers want to resist potential federal intervention. But a proposal to make California a so-called sanctuary state for marijuana is not the way to go.

There are notable differences between immigration laws and drug laws.

Assembly Bill 1578 would prohibit state and local agencies from using public resources to assist the federal government in investigating or arresting someone for marijuana activity that is allowed in California, unless the federal government has a court order. The author, Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), said the bill would ensure that police departments and other agencies dont use taxpayer dollars to help undermine the will of the voters.

Hes modeled the legislation on Senate Pro-Tem Kevin de Leons Senate Bill 54, the sanctuary state bill, which would limit state and local agencies cooperation in immigration enforcement.

Like SB 54, AB 1578 has raised concerns among law enforcement groups, which argue that local and federal authorities need to work together for public safety and shouldnt be overly restrained in their communications.

There are notable differences, however, between immigration laws and drug laws. Immigration is a strictly federal issue, and state and local governments should not be involved in enforcement  its not their job.

On drug enforcement, however, there is considerable overlap. Local authorities often work with federal agencies on investigations that may uncover both state and federal violations, such as money laundering, diverting marijuana out of state for sales, and environmental damage from outdoor pot farms. The Jones-Sawyer bill would likely bar such cooperation if the target of the investigation is a licensed cannabis business in California. But just because an entity is licensed doesnt mean it is following the law.

State lawmakers in Washington and Colorado also considered sanctuary-like bills this year that would have barred local law enforcement and other public employees from assisting in federal crackdowns on people engaging in the marijuana activities the state had authorized. Colorados bill died amid concerns that it could make it too difficult to conduct joint investigations into marijuana operations that were suspected of violating state laws in addition to federal ones. Washingtons bill was spiked because of worries that it might antagonize and provoke the federal government  a fear echoed by the California League of Cities and other groups.

Oregon, meanwhile, passed a law that bars pot shops from keeping customer data, lest the federal government attempt to subpoena that information.

The federal government has certainly exercised ham-handed enforcement in the past, including targeting medical marijuana businesses that were authorized by their states. California lawmakers are right to be wary, and if Trump and Sessions do try to wreak havoc on cannabis users and businesses that abide by state law, legislators may ultimately have to respond. But rather than pick a fight now with the Trump administration that they may lose, legislators would do better to partner with other anti-prohibition states to lobby for a revision of federal marijuana laws or at least for a permanent federal policy shielding states with responsible cannabis regulatory regimes from federal enforcement.

Congress just approved a four-month extension of an amendment that has successfully prohibited the Department of Justice from spending federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana businesses that comply with their states laws. That amendment should be extended further and could be broadened to include recreational marijuana. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) has introduced the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2017 that would protect individuals from federal prosecution if they are adhering to state cannabis laws.

The number of states trying to end the prohibition on marijuana in favor of regulating it is growing, with Vermont, New Jersey and Delaware, among others, advancing proposals to legalize adult recreational use. And so far the Trump administration has not attempted to impede those efforts. It may be too much to expect Washington to stay this enlightened course, but Californians knew they were taking that risk when they voted for Proposition 64.

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President Trumps Tuesday morning tweets are correct: As president, he has the legal authority to share intelligence with pretty much whomever he wants. But that doesnt make it right or smart to do so. Consider what happened last week, when he apparently gave top Russian diplomats highly classified information gathered by an ally about possible Islamic State terrorism strategies.

That apparently spontaneous decision, security officials later told reporters, endangered the source of the intelligence and may have compromised relations with the ally  reportedly Israel  that first acquired the details. Assuming it happened as described, first by the Washington Post and then by other news organizations, it was an irresponsible move by the president, wholly in keeping with both his inexperience and his stubborn refusal to learn. At worst, such a breach could lead to the exposure  or, conceivably, the death  of an intelligence source; even if that doesnt happen, it could harm the U.S. governments rapport with crucial allies who now have reason to not trust the U.S. with sensitive intelligence details  a chill that could have disastrous effects on counter-terrorism efforts.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

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...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Putting aside the national security implications, this episode, and how it played out at breakneck speed Monday, proved once again that the administration is in a spiral of dysfunction, careening from one controversy to the next and never managing to get out of damage-control mode. That, obviously, makes it difficult to move forward with an agenda of any sort. Even Republicans are sounding nervous: The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control, said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

This weeks mini-scandal raises a series of interrelated questions and concerns. One is whether Trumps aides told the truth about what happened. After the Washington Post story was published, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, strode down the White House driveway on Monday afternoon to tell reporters that the story that came out tonight as reported is false  I was in the room. It didnt happen. But on Tuesday morning, Trump himself seemed to acknowledge that at least some portion of the story was true when he tweeted: As president I wanted to share with Russia...which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. (This contradiction follows a familiar pattern. A week ago, the president fired FBI director James B. Comey, supposedly because of his handling of the Hillary Clinton probe last year  but then Trump acknowledged in an NBC interview that that was not in fact why Comey was fired at all.)

Theres also reason to worry that Trump is not doing what it takes to understand the subjects that face him. Perhaps he blurted out sensitive secrets to the Russian ambassador not because he lacks self-discipline but because he honestly didnt know he shouldnt  because hes not doing his homework. It has been repeatedly reported that he is unwilling to read long, complicated briefing papers and that he wants his information short, simple and on a single page. Maybe that approach works in reality television or in the hotel business, but its not what most Americans expect of their president.

A further concern is hypocrisy. This is a president, after all, who came to power at least in part on the much-exaggerated and highly sensationalized assertion that his opponent had so badly mishandled classified information that she deserved to go to jail. What are we now to think when the president himself is accused of revealing critical state secrets, leaving national security officials in and out of government deeply concerned that he has undercut the nations efforts to fight terrorism?

The chaos in the White House has gone public for all to see. Recriminations and finger-pointing have begun; Republicans are suddenly distancing themselves from the president. On Tuesday the melodrama entered a new stage when it was reported that Trump had asked Comey in February to close an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

As Trump prepares for his first overseas trip as president later this week, observers around the world are wondering whether he can rise to the occasion, pull his administration together and assert control over his administration and its agenda. If he intends to do so, the time is now.

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UPDATES:

3:35 p.m.: This editorial was updated to reflect new developments.

This editorial was originally published at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday.
Dear Vice President Pence,

I hope you dont mind me writing to you like this, but as one of those conservatives who was somewhat reassured by Donald Trumps decision to put you on the ticket, I feel compelled to ask: Whats the endgame here?

Retired Gen. Michael Flynn, the presidents first national security advisor, was reportedly fired for misleading you about his conversations with the Russians. But last week, you were apparently misled about the presidents reasons for firing the FBI director.

In four different instances you said James Comey was terminated on the recommendation of the deputy attorney general, who criticized how Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation during last years election campaign. Then the president told NBCs Lester Holt that the recommendation had nothing to do with it. It was all about the Russia investigation.

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Maybe you werent misled. Maybe you were part of the deception. But Id like to think thats not the case.

Either way, is this really what you had in mind when you took the job?

The Comey fiasco doesnt help the president, and your apparent willingness to abet his misbehavior doesnt help you.

I wouldnt dare appeal to you as a man of devout Christian faith, thats not my job. (Its also particularly awkward for a guy named Goldberg.) Nor do I see much point in blathering on about patriotism. I know youre a patriot with an abiding love for your country.

So lets talk about your ambition.

Ambition is not necessarily a dirty word. The founders thought that ambition more than almost anything else would preserve our system of checks and balances.

I have to assume you accepted your position at least partly for the same reason most of your predecessors did: to get you closer to the top job.

But theres a reason only two vice presidents (Martin Van Buren and George H.W. Bush) have been elected straight to the Oval Office since the passage of the 12th Amendment in 1804: The electorate tends to get antsy. Voters want to stay the course if they have great confidence in the administration.

Its early yet, but may I ask: Hows that going? Im not privy to whats happening behind the scenes, but from where Im sitting, it doesnt look like its going too well.

The Comey fiasco doesnt help the president, and your apparent willingness to abet his misbehavior doesnt help you.

I understand that the vice presidency is an awkward position under the best of circumstances. Its a bit like the Newark Airport of constitutional offices, mostly famous for the bad things people say about it. John Nance Garner, Franklin D. Roosevelts first vice president, said it wasnt worth a warm bucket of, well, historians debate which bodily byproduct he mentioned. Harry Truman, FDRs third vice president, said the office was about as useful as a cows fifth teat.

If that was once true, it isnt any longer. As you like to say, Trump threw away the old playbook. You have a role to play beyond acting like a campaign flunky, praising the president at every turn as a man of action displaying his broad-shouldered leadership.

Theres room to do more on your own shoulders.

Much of the presidents power is derived from what Teddy Roosevelt called the bully pulpit, or what legendary political scientist Richard Neustadt called the power to persuade. In todays media landscape, you have an especially potent bully pulpit, because youre the one person the president cannot fire.

Lets assume Trump played you for a patsy. I dont think you should resign, but threatening to do so if he does it again might  just might  help the president get his act together, which would be good for you, the party and the country. You are also the tie-breaker in the Senate, which means something given the GOPs precariously thin majority.

The president claims to value loyalty, but we know he respects strength. For your sake and the country, maybe its time to show some.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

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MORE OP-EDS:

Trumps dangerous credibility gap

The warning signs L.A. County missed when voters reelected Sheriff Lee Baca

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According to the most recent public reports, hate crimes increased in California in 2015 by more than 10%, faster than the national average. Hate crimes involving religious bias increased by almost 50%. As Americas racial, religious and other fault lines deepen, we should remain vigilant about hate crimes. But our approach to prosecuting them is neither effective nor fair.

All violent crimes are bad. Violence and vandalism aimed at strangers for their race, religion or other characteristics, however, dont just harm the individual victims, they also spread fear to anyone who can see themselves in the shoes of the target.

Most hate crime laws are written to define the crime by whether the perpetrator intentionally selected the victim because of some named characteristic. Californias law, for example, lists race or ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability as prohibited motivations that trigger enhanced penalties. Some have called for expanding that list to include crimes targeting police.

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Hate crimes are damaging because they look like hate crimes  thats how the crime sends the message of fear.

Laws that attack the perpetrators motives are why hate crime prosecutions carry an air of thought crime, as the jury hears evidence of what books the defendant reads, what emails he writes and what groups he belongs to, in search of evidence of racial or other hatred. Defense lawyers, for their part, sometimes end up trying to convince the jury that their client had some other violent motive not disfavored by the law.

But the perpetrators innermost thoughts shouldnt really matter.

Hate crimes are damaging because they look like hate crimes  thats how the crime sends the message of fear. A better-designed law would simply ask the jury to consider the objective facts  such as how the defendant encountered the victim or the use of racial epithets  and determine whether a reasonable observer would consider it a hate crime. If people witnessing an incident wouldnt recognize it as a hate crime, scouring the defendants browsing history adds nothing to public safety.

An objective observer test would also eliminate the need to list particular forbidden motivations, a sticking point in parts of the country where legislatures resist providing explicit protection for sexual orientation. If it looks like a hate crime, it is, even if the hate in question is a controversial or unusual one.

Focusing on the social nature of the harm addresses another common conservative objection: that hate crimes statutes provide unequal protection of law by treating similar acts of violence differently based on who the victims are. By limiting prosecution to those acts that are publicly visible as hate crimes when they are committed, heightened penalties apply only to truly different acts.

Removing motivation from the picture would also prevent defendants from claiming that their acts were a hoax or a joke. Hoaxes are something of a trend  in two sensational cases this year, an Israeli teenager and a left-wing journalist were each arrested for making multiple bomb threats to Jewish community centers. Hoaxes are just as harmful as the real thing, and they should be subjected to the same punishment.

A second reform would protect defendants from politically motivated overreach by prosecutors: eliminate retrying failed state hate crimes prosecutions in federal court (or vice versa). The Constitutions ban on double jeopardy technically doesnt prevent this  you can be tried twice for the same crime, so long as its by different governments. But it still offends the spirit of the double jeopardy clause, and Congress can provide protections that the Constitution does not.

If federal prosecutors believe that a legitimate hate crime prosecution wont be taken seriously by local authorities, they can jump to the head of the line. But allowing them to take a second bite at the same apple simply because the first jury didnt get the result they wanted invites abuse and encourages the public to view these prosecutions as political.

These nuts-and-bolts improvements to the criminal process offer a more practical way to identify and punish hate crimes than a recent proposal in the California Legislature to create a hate crime registry of offenders modeled on those currently used for sex offenses, which would encourage an ever-expanding use of scarlet letter punishments.

With these two reforms  refocusing hate crimes laws on crimes that have the public characteristics of a hate crime and preventing hate crime prosecutions from being routinely tried twice  prosecutors can focus on effective and uniform punishment instead of political grandstanding. Thats a win for everyone who wants to draw a clear line between a broad free-speech society and one where violence and intimidation can terrorize innocent people.

Dan McLaughlin is a lawyer in New York and a contributing columnist to National Review Online.

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Sen. Kamala Harris says she hasnt considered running for president By Phil Willon U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Despite swirling speculation, Californias U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said shes not giving any consideration to running for president in 2020. Harris was appearing at the annual Code Conference hosted by the tech news site Recode in Rancho Palos Verdes on Wednesday night when site co-founder Kara Swisher asked if she had eyes on the White House. Im not giving that any consideration. Ive got to stay focused, said Harris, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate in November after serving as Californias attorney general. After she won the seat vacated by former Sen. Barbara Boxer, Harris quickly gained a reputation as a potential presidential candidate in 2020. Harris took questions from Swisher alongside Laurene Powell Jobs, a philanthropist and the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Though she brushed off the presidential rumors, Harris urged Democrats to try harder to make convincing arguments on issues such as climate change instead of just criticizing those who disagree with them. She told the audience at the posh Terranea Resort where the conference is being held that it would be a mistake to dismiss the concerns of Americans who supported Trump in the November election. She said the issues that concern them  good jobs and the future of their families  are the concerns of all working-class Americans. There is a healthy number of people in our country who are feeling displaced, rightly, Harris said. I think we have to deal with that. Still, Harris dished out plenty of jabs at the Trump administration. She criticized Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions for resuscitating the war on drugs and told him to leave Grandmas medical marijuana alone. Harris also criticized the Trump administrations more hard-line immigration policies, and said she was concerned about allegations of collusion between Trumps campaign and the Russian government. These are serious times. These are not issues we can just sit around with a glass of Chardonnay debating and philosophizing about, Harris said. The decisions that are being made right now are impacting real human beings. Watch the entire interview: Facebook

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Trump wouldnt release his tax returns, so lawmakers move to make it mandatory for Californias primary By John Myers (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Legislation to require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to gain a spot on Californias presidential primary ballot won passage in the state Senate on Wednesday, but only after a tense debate that largely centered on President Trump. Senate Bill 149 was approved on a strict party-line vote, 27-13. The bill now moves to the state Assembly, and was one of the last bills debated during a marathon session at the state Capitol to consider bills before a Friday deadline for action. The bill would require presidential candidates to file copies of their income tax returns with state elections officials for the five most recent taxable years. Failure to do so would mean their name wouldnt appear on Californias presidential primary ballot. The legislation was introduced in December, in the wake of Trumps refusal to disclose his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. The president has continued to reject calls for the information. Hes shaping international policy which could enrich himself, and the American public has no way to know, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said of Trump during Wednesday nights floor debate. This legislation will help make transparency great again. Republicans denounced the bill as another in a long line of efforts by Democrats in the Legislature to lash out at the election of Trump and the defeat of Hillary Clinton. I get it that some people hate Trump, state Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) said. Weve got to move ahead. Weve got to get over it. Tensions flared after Anderson tried to amend the bill on the floor  first, to require statewide and legislative candidates to also release their tax returns, and then to require a birth certificate from candidates who want access to the states primary ballot. Both were rejected by Democrats. A legislative analysis of SB 149 said some legal scholars believe the plan, which would be the first of its kind in the nation, would pass muster with the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, the analysis concluded that it would probably be challenged in court if signed into law. Facebook

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California Senate moves forward with bill that would overhaul Los Angeles County MTA By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) proposed to revamp the Los Angeles County MTA. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The state Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would expand and reshape the agency that oversees mass transit in Los Angeles County. Opponents of the measure include Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the city and county of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The bill by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) was sent to the Assembly for consideration after squeaking by with a 22-11 vote in the Senate. The measure would expand the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board from 12 to 15 members. It would also reduce the number of county supervisors on the board from five to two, remove the appointment of two public members and increase Los Angeles City Council member appointments by the mayor from two to five. This will allow for proportional and fair representation, Mendoza told his colleagues, adding that the board currently is made up of haves and have-nots fighting to get their share. Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) opposed the measure because he said he saw it as Sacramento meddling in local policymaking. But Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Palmdale) supported SB 268. Too much power is concentrated in too few people, he said of the current board. Facebook

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Single-payer healthcare is popular with Californians  unless it raises their taxes By John Myers (Rich Pedoncelli / Associated Press) Almost two of every three Californians in a new statewide poll said they like the idea of a single-payer, government healthcare system, but far fewer support the idea if it includes a tax increase. The poll released Wednesday night by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 65% of adults surveyed support the creation of a single-payer state healthcare program to cover all of the states residents, and 56% of likely voters approved of the idea. Opinion was sharply divided between Democrats (75% support) and Republicans (66% oppose) who were surveyed. The single-payer proposal under consideration in the state Capitol, Senate Bill 562, assumes at least $50 billion in new taxes to fund the healthcare system. Asked about taxes, support drops to 42% of the adults surveyed and 43% of likely voters. While a majority of Democrats in the PPIC poll continued to support the idea if it means more taxes, support drops substantially among unaffiliated independent voters. The state Senate is expected to consider the single-payer bill before the end of the week. A legislative analysis put the estimated total cost of a new healthcare system that covers all Californians at $400 billion, while an analysis released on Wednesday by supporters provided a $331-billion estimate. The pending legislation by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) does not identify what taxes would be raised but makes the enactment of the plan contingent on a full funding proposal. Facebook

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Knowingly exposing others to HIV should no longer be a felony, state Senate says By Patrick McGreevy The Senate voted to no longer make it a felony for HIV-positive people to donate blood or semen without telling the blood bank they are infected. ( (Toby Talbot / Associated Press)) The state Senate on Wednesday voted to no longer make it a felony for someone infected with HIV to knowingly expose others to the disease by having unprotected sex without telling his or her partner about the infection. The crime would be downgraded to a misdemeanor, and the bill would also apply to people who donate blood or semen without telling the blood or semen bank that they have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, or have tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the precursor to AIDS. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, was introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who said it is unfair to make HIV/AIDS the only communicable disease given such harsh treatment by prosecutors. These laws are irrational and discriminatory, Wiener told the Senate, adding that the current felony status is creating an incentive not to be tested, because if you dont know your status you cant be guilty of a felony. The measure was widely opposed by Republican lawmakers including Sen. Joel Anderson of San Diego. If you intentionally transmit something that is fundamentally life-threatening to the victim, you should be charged and go to jail, he said. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta) said, My friends, its not a gay issue. Its a public health issue. We shouldnt allow someone to play Russian roulette with other peoples lives. Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a physician, voted for the bill and argued that it undermines public health to imprison those with HIV under the current law. Facebook

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Hillary Clinton: I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win By Seema Mehta Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that she has no plans to run for office again, but she plans to remain involved in civic life, particularly helping the Democrats efforts to regain control of the House in 2018. Im not going anywhere, Clinton said at the annual Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes. I have a big stake in what happens in this country. I am very unbowed and unbroken about what happened because I dont want it to happen to anybody else. I dont want it to happen to the values and the institutions I care about in America. And I think were at a really pivotal point, she said. And therefore Im going to keep writing and keep talking and keep supporting people who are on the front lines of the resistance. The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said she woke up on election day expecting to win. Clinton told the gathering that she was responsible for every decision the campaign made, though she did not believe they caused her surprise loss. She attributed that to several things, including alleged Russian interference in the election and weaponizing stolen information and fake news. She also pointed a finger at the Democrats for falling behind the GOP in using technology and data to target voters, the media for covering her e-mail controversy like it was Pearl Harbor, misogyny and the high expectations many had for her candidacy. I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win, she said, adding that she always expected the race to be close. Trump responded on Twitter, saying that Clinton still refused to accept that she lost because she was a terrible candidate. Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2017 Clinton, who has increasingly jabbed President Trump, including at last weeks commencement address at Wellesley College, blasted his reported plan to pull out of the Paris climate accord as really stupid because of the economic implications. She described his personality as impulsive and reactive. And she joked about his peculiar overnight tweet about constant negative press covfefe, saying she thought it was a hidden message to the Russians to laughter from the audience. Going forward, Clinton said that she believes that it was realistic for Democrats to retake the House in 2018, notably by focusing on Republican congressional districts she won  including seven in California. She sounded less optimistic about the Senate. Updated at 6:06 p.m.: This post was updated to add President Trumps response to Clintons remarks. This post was first published at 5:41 p.m. Facebook

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California lawmakers take aim again at establishing statewide rules for drones By Jazmine Ulloa A state senator from Santa Barbara is taking another shot at establishing statewide regulations for the use of drones after the budding industry thwarted her efforts to pass similar legislation last year. Senate Bill 347, introduced by Democratic Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, would limit disruptive drone use near private property and prohibit the weaponization and reckless operation of the unmanned aerial vehicles. It also would require pilots to obtain insurance and to license, register and mark the aircrafts per federal regulations. The bill moved out of the Senate on Wednesday with a 26-13 vote. It heads to the Assembly for consideration. Speaking on the Senate floor, Jackson urged support for what she called comprehensive drone legislation, saying California needs common-sense rules that provide certainty for everyone and keep the public safe. Washington is not going to be acting on this issue very soon, she said, citing a federal appeals court decision that this month found the Federal Aviation Administration doesnt have the authority to regulate the use of drones by hobbyists. Debate has raged in recent years over just where federal authority begins and ends. And Jacksons attempts at drone legislation last year were blocked amid opposition from lobbyists who argued against creating a patchwork of laws that varied by state. Under Jacksons new proposal, violations would be punishable by a fine of up to $250 or a misdemeanor, and the California Department of Transportation would be tasked with developing liability insurance requirements. It has the support of the California State Assn. of Counties, the League of California Cities and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Assn, but it once again faces tough industry opposition. Facebook

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School districts would be prohibited from shaming students whose parents havent paid for school lunches By Patrick McGreevy Students eat lunch at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles. (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times) Students whose parents have not kept their school lunch bills current would no longer go through shaming that includes marking their hand so they cannot be served, under legislation approved Wednesday by the state Senate. The measure by Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) would require school districts to ensure that any student whose parent has unpaid school meal fees is not treated differently, or delayed or denied a nutritiously adequate meal. Hertzberg introduced the legislation after hearing of school districts taking lunch trays from students whose accounts were not current and throwing the food in the trash, embarrassing the students in front of their friends. No more shaming, Herzberg told his colleagues. Dont visit the failures of the parents on their kids. The measure passed on a 39-0 vote and was sent to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook

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Emilio Huerta, undaunted by 2016 loss, is back to challenge Rep. David Valadao By Sarah D. Wire (Sarah D. Wire / Los Angeles Times) Bakersfield lawyer Emilio Huerta came more than 13 percentage points short of winning Californias 21st Congressional District seat in 2016, but he plans to try again in 2018. Huerta, 59, blames his loss to Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) on inexperience and a rash of negative ads at the end of the campaign. We learned a lot in the last campaign. As a first-time candidate there was certainly a lot to learn and I think we did a good job, Huerta said Wednesday. The son of labor icon Dolores Huerta, he has worked for the United Farm Workers union  which his mother co-founded  throughout the Central Valley district. Huerta said Valadaos vote for the Republican healthcare plan shows hes ignoring Valley residents needs because it would end the expansion of the MediCal program, which many of the districts residents use for healthcare. Its going to be a pretty significant issue, he said. He is the first Democrat to announce a bid for the seat. Democrats are heartened by the fact that, while Valadao won the seat with 56.74% of the vote, the district has continued to trend Democratic in voter registration and chose Hillary Clinton for president with 54.72% of the vote. That tells me that there were die-hard Democrats, committed Democrats that vote, Democrats that were not convinced that my campaign should be supported and I think a lot of that has to do with me being a first-time candidate, Huerta said. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made the seat a target for 2018. The majority-Latino district includes parts of Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats say Trump is going backwards if he pulls out of Paris climate pact By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown warned Wednesday that a decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from a 2015 global climate change agreement could be tragic, and vowed to keep Californias ambitious efforts in place and on track. Here we are, in 2017, going backwards, Brown said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. It cannot stand, its not right and California will do everything it can to not only stay the course, but to build more support  in other states, in other provinces, in other countries. The governor also criticized efforts to the president to dismantle climate change initiatives launched by former President Barack Obama. Trump is going against science. Hes going against reality, the governor said. We cant stand by and give aid and comfort to that. News that the president had either made the decision to pull the country out of the Paris Accord on climate change or was on the verge of doing so drew swift condemnation from California leaders. Brown and other top lawmakers attended the talks in late 2015 that resulted in the international agreement, and insisted on Wednesday that it would not hurt the states own efforts to sharply curtail greenhouse gas emissions. As with so many other matters, from human rights to healthcare, the Trump administration has continued to surrender our nations longstanding role as a global leader, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said. Others pointed out that a decision to remove the United States from the agreement would leave it in rare company among other nations. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that such a decision by Trump would be more than just dumb + destructive. Brown, who leaves Friday for a weeklong visit to China to encourage more climate-change cooperation, predicted any decision to step away would suggest the countrys priorities arent clear. It sends a very muddled message, the governor said during an interview in his state Capitol office. Is the message [that] we like dirty cars and gas guzzlers? And were going to have a coal future? That cant happen. And Brown again suggested that Californias experience on the issue offers a road map for others. If we want to retain and enhance manufacturing, we have to do what California is doing, in clean energy and clean technology, he said. Thats the future of jobs, the future of sustainability. And we better get on board. And California will be right there with the best of them. Facebook

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This Orange County congressmans immigration town hall turned chaotic and led to three arrests By Sarah D. Wire The majority of calls into Rep. Lou Correas Orange County congressional office are about immigration worries and what the Trump administrations enforcement policies mean for Correas many Latino constituents. Theres a lot of fear in my district, he said. So the freshman Democrat has held seven town halls, all focused on immigration and explaining immigrants rights. Theyve been peaceful, with representatives from groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the Mexican Consulate invited to help Correa answer questions. But as the crowd of about 100 people gathered at Santa Anas Delhi Center on Tuesday evening, Correa knew this time would be different. We had some people there, probably a dozen of them, that immediately had signs that were not complimentary to yours truly, he said. Two women arguing about immigration issues had already gotten into an altercation outside the town hall. They were cited for assault and battery, and barred by police from going inside. Correa told the crowd inside he would give a short presentation about immigration policy coming out of Washington and then have a question-and-answer session. About a dozen people were having none of it. Some of the most tense moments came when Correa started talking about green card holders who served in the U.S. military and have since been deported. Maam, Im trying to be courteous here, he said as a woman kept speaking over him. As soon as I started speaking, it became very clear they were not going to let me speak, Correa said Wednesday. They just got louder and louder. Video of the town hall posted on social media shows people in the crowd yelling Americans first and Illegals have no rights. Correa repeatedly asks them to let him speak. Are you guys going to cooperate, or am I going to have to ask you to leave? he said. About 15 minutes in, as some in the crowd continued to shout and their attention turned to berating a group of counter-protesters, Correa declared the meeting over. A handful of people circled around Correa as he tried to leave, yelling Shame, shame and You guys all want welfare. One womans voice can be heard repeatedly yelling Coward! Police emptied the room amid chants of USA. The crowd streamed into the parking lot, where confrontations quickly started between supporters of President Trump and others who appeared to be focused on Native American rights. Videos posted on social media show men shouting at one another, their faces so close their noses are practically touching. Police officers kept trying to separate the groups. (Warning: The video below includes language that some readers might find offensive.) Santa Ana Police Department spokesman Anthony Bertagna said a man struck a Trump supporter on the head with a pole bearing an anti-fascism flag. He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Bertagna said. The man was brought to police headquarters, and a group of about 10 people followed along to protest, he said. Shortly after, the town hall peacefully resumed in a different room with a much smaller crowd, Correa said. Several California members of Congress have held similar immigration-specific town halls or workshops in the last few months as questions swirl about changes to federal immigration policies and enforcement. The purpose of the town halls is to let people know how to follow the law, let them know their legal rights and responsibilities, Correa said. Protesters have characterized it as teaching people who are in the country illegally how to avoid deportation and get federal benefits. Facebook

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California plan for 100% renewable energy by 2045 clears key hurdle By Liam Dillon California will receive all of its power from renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, by 2045 under legislation that passed the state Senate on Wednesday. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) touted his bill, Senate Bill 100, as the most ambitious program in the world. Clean energy is the future, De Leon said. SB 100 ensures that California leads into the future. The measure would also speed up the states goal of reaching 50% renewable energy, changing the deadline from 2030 to 2026. SB 100 passed over objections from Republican senators. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Temecula) criticized the measure as government getting ahead of technological capacity. What if we cant make that mandate that were putting into law today? Stone said. What its going to do is drive up electricity bills for our businesses. De Leons bill now moves to the Assembly. Facebook

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A new proposal on Californias cap-and-trade program emerges as vote is delayed By Chris Megerian Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced), left. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A coalition of business-friendly Democrats is detailing their own ideas for cap and trade, a centerpiece of Californias fight against global warming, the latest bid in a crowded field of efforts to extend the program. Cap and trade requires polluting companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions, and lawmakers have been considering a push from Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the program beyond 2020. The new plan would force the program to sunset in 2025, earlier than previous proposals from other lawmakers. It would also direct revenue from the program toward improving air quality and helping agricultural and trucking companies lower their emissions by replacing aging equipment. The plan is also aimed at keeping costs down for industries regulated by cap and trade, allowing them to support green projects known as offsets instead of reducing their own emissions. California must continue to lead the world by implementing a strong climate policy that ensures both a healthy environment for future Californians and growth in all sectors of our economy, Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) said in a statement. The pro-business Democrats plan is the fourth such effort announced by various factions within the states ruling Democratic Party this year with two others emerging from the Assembly and one from the Senate. The plans offer varying degrees of changes to the existing program, either to prioritize pollution reductions in disadvantaged communities or eliminate offsets. Republican lawmakers also have said they want to be part of the cap-and-trade debate. Brown has pushed for a two-thirds supermajority vote of the Legislature to extend the program by the state budget deadline next month. But Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said at a Wednesday news conference that that wasnt going to happen. Cap-and-trade is a very complex issue, De Leon said. Its very arcane. We want to make sure we get it right. De Leon said he hoped for a deal by the end of the year. Read More Facebook

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Senate fails to back bill to delay the Aliso Canyon reopening, but lawmaker will try again Facebook

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California state Senate advances bill to ban smoking and use of e-cigarettes in government housing By Patrick McGreevy Californians would no longer be able to use tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, in public housing and within 25 of those buildings under a measure approved Tuesday by the state Assembly. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) said the measure builds on a smoking ban approved last year for federal public housing projects by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition to applying the smoking ban to state housing, expansion to include e-cigarettes makes sure the law cover new technology in tobacco use. The bill takes effect by July 30, 2018. Wood said tobacco-related diseases cost taxpayers significant funds each year. This bill will save money but will more importantly save lives, Wood told his colleagues before the vote. The measure is opposed by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which worries it will lead to more evictions. Facebook

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Californians would not be able to buy more than one rifle a month under bill approved by state senators By Patrick McGreevy Terry McGuire, owner of Get Loaded in Grand Terrace, shows a customer a Cobalt Kinetics BAMF rifle about a week after the 2015 shooting rampage in nearby San Bernardino. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times) Californians would be prohibited from buying more than one firearm in any 30-day period under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate to reduce straw purchasing and circumvention of gun laws. California already bars people from buying more than one handgun a month. The bill by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) expands the limit to also cover long guns, including rifles and shotguns. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, seeks to address concerns that some people buy large quantities of guns and then sell them on the underground market to criminals and others not eligible to own guns. There is no need or reason why a person would need to purchase more than one gun a month, Portantino said during the floor debate. Republicans, including Jeff Stone of Murrieta, opposed the legislation. This is yet another example of the government trying to infringe on the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, Stone said. Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Chico) said he has seen no proof that past gun-control measures approved by the state have made the state safer. Its more of the same that will not decrease violent crime, Nielsen said. Facebook

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California state senators want to stop the public from smoking at California beaches and parks By Patrick McGreevy Californians would be barred from smoking or using electronic cigarettes in state parks and at beaches under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Concord) said his bill would address the health problems caused by smoking but also the harm done to the environment by discarded cigarette butts and the fire danger posed by the practice. Cigarette butts contain more than 150 toxic chemicals and although small in size, have a huge negative impact on the environment and the animals that live in them, Glazer told his colleagues. A legislative analysis said the bill does not address the concerns raised by Gov. Jerry Brown when he vetoed a similar bill last year. The veto message read, in part, The complete prohibition in all parks and beaches is too broad. A more measured  and less punitive  approach might be warranted. Facebook

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School day wouldnt begin before 8:30 a.m. in California under bill that clears the state Senate By John Myers (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) California teenagers wouldnt be required to start their school day before 8:30 am under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. The legislation by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) would not fully take effect until 2020, and sparked a lively floor debate over the science on the sleep patterns of middle and high school students, and whether they simply need to go to bed earlier. I expect this would only dispose them to stay up later, said state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Another Republican lawmaker, Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield), said students need to learn what its like in the workforce. Job preparation is what schooling is all about, Fuller said. Unless youre a musician or someone who works nights, you probably did not start in the later morning. Opponents also said the later start time could affect collective bargaining agreements with teachers and other school employees. Supporters, however, pointed to a recommendation for later start times from the American Academy of Pediatrics. A University of Minnesota study linked school start times to sleep deprivation and the rate of car crashes among teenage drivers. The morning sleep time is the most valuable for student health, said Portantino. Their test scores go up, their attendance goes up, their graduation rates go up. The bill would allow rural school districts to obtain a waiver if they couldnt make the change. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) ended the debate with a simple request of the senators on behalf of teenage students. "Lets just let them sleep in a little bit, he said with a smile. Facebook

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More transparency proposed for prescription drug price increases under bill passed by California Senate By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), shown speaking in March, won Senate approval Tuesday on a bill that would require more transparency on drug prices. (Melanie Mason / Los Angeles Times) Alarmed by skyrocketing prices for some prescription drugs, the California Senate on Tuesday approved a measure aimed at increasing pressure to hold down costs to consumers by requiring more public reporting of price hikes. The lawmakers approved a bill that would require drug manufacturers to notify health plans and state purchasers such as the prison department of increases in the wholesale cost of drugs in writing at least 90 days before the new costs were to take effect. The measure also requires that health plans and insurers notify state regulators of pricing information for the most costly drugs. Were not saying that they cant raise the price. Were just saying notify us, Hernandez said during the floor debate. And if [the price] goes up a significant amount, we should be able to question why. The measure passed by a 26-10 vote with some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Gaines of El Dorado Hills, opposed. Gaines said the pharmaceutical industrys pricing of drugs helps it pay for development of new medications. It funds their research, Gaines said during the debate. The measure next goes to the Assembly, where a similar bill last year failed to win passage. Hernandez said more opponents are talking to him this year about possible compromises, although the bill is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Hernandez said the bill is needed, adding that current regulations allow pharmaceutical companies to reap obscene profits at the expense of the entire healthcare system. Facebook

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California Senate advances bill to make pot use in cars an infraction By Patrick McGreevy San Bruno police officers stop cars at a DUI checkpoint. State officials are proposing to make it an infraction to use marijuana in motor vehicles. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Just months after state voters legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the state Senate on Tuesday voted to prohibit its use in automobiles because of concerns over drugged driving. A bill by Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) makes it an infraction for drivers and passengers to use marijuana in motor vehicles. Stiffer penalties already exist for motorists found to be driving while impaired by drugs. California voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in November although the state does not plan to begin issuing licenses for its legal sale until January. In Washington state, which previously legalized pot, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that the number of drivers who had recently used marijuana before fatal accidents doubled from 2013 to 2014, Hill told his colleagues. Washington serves as an eye-opening case study for what other states may experience with road safety after legalizing the drug, Hill told his colleagues before the unanimous vote to approve the measure and send it to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook

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California lawmakers want to give parents at smaller companies 12 weeks of protected family leave By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California lawmakers are once again seeking to expand the states paid family leave program to smaller businesses after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar measure last year. SB 63, authored by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), on Tuesday moved out of the state Senate with a 25-13 vote. It now heads to the Assembly for consideration. The legislation, a priority bill for the California Legislative Womens Caucus, would allow parents at companies with 20 to 49 employees to take 12 weeks of leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child  without fear of losing their jobs. Under the current state law, only workers at businesses with 50 or more workers can take advantage of program. On the Senate floor Tuesday, the debate on the issue echoed that of last year. Republican lawmakers argued the bill would kill jobs and hurt small businesses already struggling in California. Those in favor argued progressive family leave policies attracted a strong and healthy workforce. Jackson said her bill would impact only 6.3% of California companies, while helping 16% of its workforce, a population of 2.7 million residents across the state. With so many women in the workforce than ever before, and with so many struggling, two-income families, this is a critical moment in time, she said. Facebook

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Kimberly Ellis files formal challenge over result of state Democratic Party chairperson election By Seema Mehta (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) The candidate who narrowly lost the race to be the next leader of the California Democratic Party on Tuesday filed a formal challenge of the election result. Kimberly Ellis campaign, which was already in the process of reviewing the ballots cast during the state partys convention two weekends ago, said they were filing the challenge to meet a requirement in the party bylaws that such an action must be taken within seven days of the contested act. Our review process is ongoing. Its critical that all formal processes outlined by the CDPs bylaws are followed at this time so that there can be no concern about raising issues in the manner prescribed by our party, said Hilary Crosby, immediate past controller for the state party and an Ellis supporter. Ellis campaign said challenges were also being filed in races for a vice chair, secretary and multiple regional directors. Chris Masami Myers, state party executive director, acknowledged receiving the challenges and said in a statement that they would be reviewed in accordance with the standard practices described in the bylaws. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members who were appointed during former Chairman John Burtons tenure, will review the evidence and take oral or written testimony before issuing a ruling in mid- to late June. The state party chair race was the most heated and contentious. Longtime party leader Eric Bauman entered the race with advantages, but Ellis made the contest competitive. In the election, held this month at the state party convention in Sacramento, Bauman beat Ellis by just over 60 votes. But amid allegations levied by her supporters of ballot-box stuffing and ripped-up ballots, she refused to concede the race. Her campaign has been reviewing individual ballots for a week. Bauman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Updated at 4:57 p.m.: This post was updated to add additional information about how the review will be conducted. Updated at 3:35 p.m.: This post was updated to add a comment from a state party official. This post was originally published at 2:37 p.m. Facebook

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Darrell Issa gets on his office roof to take a picture of protesters. A mild hubbub ensues By Sarah D. Wire Yes, this is really @DarrellIssa on the roof of his district office building. Too afraid to come speak with assembled constituents below. pic.twitter.com/wCYRjO8Ev8  Mike Levin (@MikeLevinCA) May 30, 2017 It began when one of Rep. Darrell Issas 2018 opponents, Mike Levin, posted an image on Twitter, saying the Vista congressman was hiding on his office roof from hundreds of protesters on the street below. The photo of Issa standing on the roof ricocheted around Twitter, with many comparing it to a scene from the popular television show The Office, and left-leaning media outlets quickly publishing headlines like Darrell Issa Appears to Flee to Building Roof to Avoid Protesters. Like most things, what happened at Issas office appears to have been a bit more nuanced. Issa soon tweeted that he had spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic!. Multiple images, including one from Levins account and from Issas account, show the congressman on the street with protesters. Spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic! pic.twitter.com/K2CFdenOIj  Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 30, 2017 I just received an unprompted call from @DarrellIssa who said he tried, unsuccessfully to speak with protesters outside his district office.  Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 .@DarrellIssa said the protesters wouldnt' speak with him, so he went up to the roof and took pictures.  Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 The protests occur weekly outside Issas Vista district office, and the congressman has come out to speak with the group at least twice since President Trumps inauguration. Issa narrowly won reelection in 2016 over a novice opponent, and Democrats are targeting his seat in 2018. Issas staff said he tried to speak with all the protesters using their sound system, but was rebuffed. Rally organizer Ellen Montanari said she decided not to hand over the protesters microphone so Issa could take questions from the crowd because he refused to shake her hand before the protest began. He refused to do that, and he said, Step away, you are a protester. And I said I am a constituent,  Montanari said. She said he also made disparaging remarks about the protesters and the signs they carry. Issas spokesman, Calvin Moore, said Montanari cant simultaneously organize people to stand outside our office with Where is Darrell? signs and feign outrage how he wont answer her questions  and then deny him the ability to answer his constituents questions, he said. Facebook

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State Senate Democrats pass bills designed to protect against Trumps possible changes Facebook

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Rep. Adam Schiff says alleged Russian meddling in election was an effort to destroy American democracy By Seema Mehta U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, left, discusses Russias threat to liberal democracies around the world at discussion discussion hosted by Erwin Chemerinsky at UCI. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said Tuesday that the alleged Russian meddling in last years presidential election was about far more than favoring one candidate over another. He said it was an effort to undermine the foundation of American democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian regime in Moscow. Now if you look at this as just a one-off intervention, you might be inclined to dismiss the greater significance of it, or if you listen to the president, you might be inclined to dismiss this as simply efforts to relitigate a lost election, Schiff told several hundred people at UC Irvine. But the significance is really far greater. Quite separate and apart from the desire of the Russians to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton was a more fundamental objective, and that was really to tear down at our democracy. Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating allegations of Russian intervention in the presidential election, including the leaking of hacked Democratic emails and contacts between Trump associates and Russians. Trump has declared the investigation the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history on Twitter. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the former chairman of the committee, recently told hundreds of Republicans at a fundraiser that the investigation is about nothing more than Democrats trying to justify Clintons loss. Nunes stepped down from his position after allegations arose that he mishandled classified information. Schiff said Russian President Vladimir Putin would have reasons for wanting to see Clinton fail and Trump succeed  he believed that the CIA and Clinton were secretly behind mass demonstrations in Russia in 2011, and because Trumps positions on issues such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were more favorable to Russia than Clintons. But Schiff argued the larger point was sowing discord in the U.S., so Putin could argue that American democracy is no better than his government. Talk of rigged elections and surveillance, questioning the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the press  as Trump has done  boost Putins message, Schiff said. And the efforts are not limited to the United States, he added, pointing to allegations that the Russians made an effort to interfere in Frances recent election. The reality is there is new ideological struggle. Its not communism versus capitalism anymore. It is authoritarian versus democracy, he said. This is the broader challenge we are facing. Schiff also warned that there is no way to prevent Russian cyber-spying and that future attempts to interfere with American elections will only be more sophisticated, so voters must be educated. One of the most important conclusions the intelligence agencies have reached is the Russians will do this again, he said. The only real defense is to inoculate ourselves, to educate ourselves about what the Russians have done, why they are doing [it and] what they may do in the future and somehow we have to develop a consensus regardless of which party it helps and which party it hurts  that we will reject it. Facebook

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Rep. Devin Nunes: Democrats are using Russia investigation to justify Clintons loss By Sarah D. Wire (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA) House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told hundreds of local Republicans at a recent private fundraiser that congressional investigations into Russias interference in the 2016 election are about Democrats trying to justify Hillary Clintons loss. The Democrats dont want an investigation on Russia. They want an independent commission. Why do they want an independent commission? Because they want to continue the narrative that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are best friends, and thats the reason that he won, because Hillary Clinton would have never lost on her own; it had to be someone elses fault, Nunes told Republicans the day after he stepped away from leading the House investigation. His remarks were recorded on video and provided to The Times. Read More Facebook

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Californias embattled tax board would lose power over staff and funding under lawmakers plan By John Myers Following months of accusations about mistakes and improper use of power by its elected members, the state Board of Equalization could lose substantial power and gain an independent overseer under legislation introduced in the state Assembly. The bill by Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) would shift much of the power over staff and spending authority away from the independent tax board and create a new inspector general to watch over its actions. What were trying to do is make sure that the reform is transparent, Ridley-Thomas said. Thats what I think the moment demands. The plan, introduced as an amended bill just before the Memorial Day holiday, comes in the wake of audits alleging the tax agency made multimillion dollar miscalculations on revenue allocations and that some of its elected members improperly used staff members who were supposed to be focused on tax collection. Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown called the situation a mess and in April asked for an investigation by the state Department of Justice. Four members of the Board of Equalization are directly elected by voters. The fifth, state Controller Betty Yee, serves in an ex officio capacity. The Assembly bill would transfer significant staff decisions to the agencys executive director and would require the Board of Equalizations members to have their operations funded in detailed line items included in the state budget. It would also create an inspector general office and would require the boards members to disclose all ex parte communications with those seeking action by the agency. I think that these issues can be addressed if we keep them in the sunlight, said Ridley-Thomas. Facebook

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New advertising campaign targets lawmakers over votes for climate change policies By Chris Megerian A coalition of California businesses launched a new advertising campaign on Saturday to pressure lawmakers against enacting tighter policies on climate change and air pollution. The campaign includes online videos and television advertising that warn of higher costs for business and residents. It arrives as Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are debating whether to extend the cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, and how restrictive the system should be. The first lawmaker being targeted is Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova), accusing him of allowing unelected state employees to raise hidden taxes on gasoline and electricity because he voted last year for a tougher target to reduce emissions by 2030. Other lawmakers could face similar advertisements. Were locked, loaded and ready to go statewide, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which is funding the campaign through an advocacy group called Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy. The roundtable represents the states largest corporations, including oil refineries and manufacturers who have been critical of climate policies. A dollar figure was not disclosed for the advertising campaign, which will represent a balancing act for the roundtable. It supports the cap-and-trade program as an alternative to more restrictive regulations, but it opposes some of the current proposals to extend it. One measure would tie the program to air quality, targeting a wider range of pollutants than just greenhouse gases, and another would make it function more like a tax and charge higher prices for emission permits. Were at a tipping point here, Lapsley said. We need to get this information out into the public in order to try and create balanced policies. Although polls show broad support for fighting global warming in California, concerns about higher costs for constituents could be influential with some lawmakers who recently passed legislation to raise gas taxes to fund road repairs. Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) is facing a recall campaign over his vote. Nonpartisan legislative analysts have said cap and trade could boost the price of gasoline by 24 cents to 73 cents by 2030. Environmentalists have said its inaccurate to tie any single policy to fluctuations in gas prices. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: The debate among Democrats didnt end at their convention By John Myers The official gathering of California Democrats lasted only three days, but the lingering debate and simmering tensions could keep going well into next years elections. On this weeks California Politics Podcast episode, we look back at the line in the sand drawn at last weeks California Democratic Party convention by some of the partys most passionate progressive activists -- including the blunt speech delivered by an influential labor union leader last weekend. We also discuss big new developments this week on the topic that energized those Democratic activists: a single-payer healthcare system for California. On Monday, a fiscal analysis put a large price tag on legislation to enact that sweeping healthcare change. Im joined this week by Times staff writer Melanie Mason. Facebook

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California lawmakers quietly refuse to stop unlimited cash flowing from political parties to their campaigns By John Myers (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) An ambitious effort to close a widely used loophole that allows large donations from political parties to be funneled into California races was rejected on Friday. The bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) would have made political party money donated to statewide and legislative candidates subject to the same contribution limits as individuals. Under the language of a voter-approved initiative, Proposition 34, money from political parties is exempt from those existing limits. Its a money-laundering scheme that has completely duped voters, Levine said last fall when he first promised to introduce the bill. The proposal was quietly killed, without a formal vote, by the Assembly Appropriations Committee during its biannual session to act on bills placed on the so-called suspense file due to their estimated costs. Committee staff estimated that Levines AB 1234 would have six-figure costs both for enforcement and for placing the issue before voters in 2018. Facebook

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Veteran Democratic operative criticizes Kimberly Ellis for refusing to concede party chair race By Seema Mehta Supporters of Kimberly Ellis make signs, refusing to accept her loss to Eric Bauman for the California Democratic chair post. (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Veteran Democratic operative Bob Mulholland slammed infighting among California Democrats, and urged Kimberly Ellis, who came up short in a nasty party chair election, to work to unify the party. I  and others did not understand some of your supporters  attacks on those of us who have spent decades or years building the Democrats in California as the most successful political Party in the country, he wrote in an open letter to Ellis on Thursday. He sent the email in the aftermath of the partys rancorous convention last weekend that featured a bitter leadership battle between Ellis, a favorite of newer members including the backers of Bernie Sanders failed presidential bid, and longtime party leader Eric Bauman. After Bauman was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin of just over 60 votes, Ellis refused to concede and demanded an audit of the vote as some of her backers floated rumors of ballot-box stuffing and discarded ballots. Ellis demurred when asked about Mulhollands scathing letter. While our review continues, we are refraining from making any statement that might cause further division, Ellis said. If we hope to truly unify this party, it will require patience by all. Officials with the Ellis campaign have been reviewing ballots this week. A spokesman said they had looked at about two-thirds by the end of Friday and hope to be done by the middle of next week. Joe Macaluso, Ellis strategist, declined to discuss the results and said her team needed to review additional documentation beyond the ballots. Were trying to stay true to our process and not release anything, but were in it, he said. Its an extensive process. Mulholland argued in his public letter that the convention should have showcased the partys message, not intraparty spats. Our annual Conventions should take care of internal business (Platforms, election of Officers, Resolutions, etc.), but more importantly a communication to voters, especially moderate Democrats and Independents about their concerns and issues, Mulholland wrote. If such busy people had a minute to read some news about our Convention, they saw Democrats yelling and arguing about ballots being stuffed, sounding like a Trump event. This Convention failed them. Mulholland listed the partys successes in the state, including Democrats lopsided voter registration edge, its nearly three-decade record of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, its election of female senators since 1992 and its hold of every statewide office, supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature and nearly three-quarters of the congressional delegation. Over the last 29 years, thats a [1.000] batting record, he wrote. Mulholland called on Ellis to hold a news conference with Bauman once she is satisfied with her audit of the vote. Then, he wrote, lets move on. Facebook

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California lawmakers block proposals meant to make it easier to track and report hate crimes By Jazmine Ulloa Graffiti mars the steeple on the Greater Holy Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Compton in January. Cases of vandalism make up close to one-third of reported hate crimes, according to a new report. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) California lawmakers Friday stalled measures meant to help report and track hate crimes across the state, proposals filed amid a wave of incidents reported after the 2016 presidential election. The state Assembly Appropriations Committee shelved bills that would have created new hate-crime reporting requirements for police and a hotline under the attorney generals office for victims wishing to report an attack. Of those bills, a proposal filed by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) initially sought to develop a state government database with the names of felons convicted of hate crimes related to race, religion and sexual orientation. That proposal was amended to instead require every law enforcement agency to forward a summary of a reported hate crime, upon conclusion of an investigation, to the human relations commission within its jurisdiction. But a committee analysis found it could cost the state more than $150,000 to help agencies redact personal information from their records. The committee also shut down bills that would have required police to update policies to address hate crimes and include a checkbox on the front pages of reports that would prominently provide an option to indicate whether a crime was bias-related. Local law enforcement officials have reported a recent rise in reported hate crime incidents. Existing state laws require local and state law enforcement officials to compile hate crime information. California jurisdictions reported a 10.4% statewide increase in those incidents last year. Facebook

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Here were the top six moments from last nights L.A. congressional race debate By Christine Mai-Duc Robert Lee Ahn, left, and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred in a debate Thursday night ahead of the runoff for the 34th Congressional District seat. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times) Attorney Robert Lee Ahn and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred Thursday night at the first and only debate in the runoff race for the 34th Congressional District seat. The candidates, both Democrats, offered little in the way of policy differences. Both agreed President Trump has racist tendencies, that keeping the Affordable Care Act is a top priority, and that they would fight to protect immigrants rights. Ahn came out swinging, repeatedly calling Gomez an insider whos sponsored by special interests, while Gomez pointed to his work supporting progressive policies in the Legislature and endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. Here are the top six exchanges: The numbers problem: Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side.

Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side. Gomez fact-checks Ahns name-check: Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me.

Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me. Getting more personal: In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream.

In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream. Ahn on the attack: Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents.

Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents. A litmus test: Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo.

Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo. Gomez gets skewered on gas tax: As part of his argument that he has fought for the little guy, Ahn expressed outrage that Californias gas taxes will increase July 1, saying theres nothing progressive about the gas tax hike Gomez voted for. We already paid 38 cents per gallon. Where is that money going? Ahn said, echoing a line many legislative Republicans have used. Sacramento politicians, this is what they do, they take our money and they spend it and theres no accountability. Gomez responded by saying public safety was at stake and that fixing roads was the responsible thing to do. If you missed it, you can watch the entire thing here. The election is set for June 6. Facebook

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Rob Reiner, Hollywood bigwigs and Netflix co-founder team up to give Villaraigosas campaign a major cash boost By Seema Mehta (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Hollywood heavyweights are set to host a major fundraiser for Antonio Villaraigosas gubernatorial campaign on June 15, ensuring an infusion of large contributions shortly before a key fundraising deadline. Donors are being asked to contribute up to $29,200 to attend a summer reception at the home of media executive Peter Chernin and his wife Megan, the site of a celebrity-studded fundraiser for President Obama in 2013. Co-hosts include Paramount Pictures chief Jim Gianopulos, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, video game honcho Robert Kotick, comedian George Lopez, Sony chief Michael Lynton, NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer, producer Rob Reiner, super-agent Rick Rosen, producer Orly Adelson, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos, former White House decorator Michael Smith and attorney Michael Tuchin. Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, entered the governors race in November. Through the end of 2016, he raised $2.7 million, a respectable haul in a short time period when Democratic donors were reeling from the presidential election and distracted by the holidays. But his fundraising lags behind that of his top rivals, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang. So political observers will be scrutinizing his next financial disclosure report, which will cover the first six months of 2017. The fundraiser occurs 15 days before the fundraising period closes on June 30. Read More Facebook

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A delay on cap-and-trade vote would be a victory for Donald Trump, Gov. Jerry Browns office says By Chris Megerian (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Despite hesitance and resistance from state lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown is refusing to budge from his goal of reaching a deal next month to extend Californias cap-and-trade program. The latest tug-of-war on the issue came this week in an email exchange circulated among Capitol staff members and advocates working on climate change policies. Kip Lipper, an environmental advisor for Senate leadership, wrote in a Thursday email that there were no plans to take up a cap and trade reauthorization bill anytime soon. Echoing concerns that have percolated among lawmakers, Lipper said senators were gas tax weary about the possibility of another difficult vote after deciding to raise gas taxes to pay for road repairs earlier this year. The cap-and-trade program, which is a cornerstone of Californias fight against global warming, requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions and could boost the price of gasoline. With votes hard to come by, Lipper wrote, the issue should not be rushed. Camille Wagner, Browns legislative secretary, responded on Friday saying there was no reason to delay. Weve all been meeting for months on this issue, she wrote. We know the areas of agreement and disagreement  now is the time to work through those. She added that NOTHING is more important than getting a deal as soon as possible. This is not a time for retreat or a time to give aid and comfort to Donald Trump by undermining a pillar of Californias bold program to arrest climate change, Wagner wrote. If Californias Cap and Trade falls because we fail to act, climate denial wins. Brown had already faced resistance to his push to reach a deal on cap and trade in June, when the state budget is due. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) previously said we dont have to extend it this year. The disagreement over the timeline for reaching a deal is only one of the disputes surrounding cap and trade. Assembly leaders have raised the possibility of pushing legislation with only a majority vote, an idea the governors office rejected. Brown wants a two-thirds vote to insulate cap and trade from legal challenges. There are also varied ideas about how the program should function in the future. Assembly legislation would modify cap and trade so it also targets local pollution, rather than just greenhouse gases. Senate legislation would make the program function more like a carbon tax. Facebook

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The effort to make tampons tax free in California has been delayed until 2018 By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Legislation to eliminate California sales taxes on the purchase of tampons was delayed Friday by the Assemblys fiscal committee until 2018, a blow to advocates who say the tax is an unfair burden on low-income women and families. The delay imposed on AB 9 is the second setback this month for efforts to eliminate taxes on products for women and children. A separate bill that included a tax-free provision for diapers was killed in a legislative committee on May 8. The bill that was held back on Friday, written by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), would have excluded tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products from sales taxes. A legislative committee analysis estimated the proposal would reduce state general fund revenues by $10.5 million a year. Dozens of other bills with a cost to state government were killed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, while AB 9 was instead reclassified as a two-year bill, meaning it is eligible to be heard again in the second year of the legislative session. Gov. Jerry Brown last year rejected a similar measure that sought to make tampons tax-free, writing in his veto message that tax breaks are the same as new spending  they both cost the general fund money. Facebook

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Outside money spills into L.A. congressional race as election day nears By Christine Mai-Duc Spending by outside groups hoping to influence Los Angeles congressional race is picking up, with less than two weeks to go before the runoff for the 34th Congressional District. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez and attorney Robert Lee Ahn, both Democrats, are competing to fill the former seat of Xavier Becerra in the June 6 election. Becerra stepped down months ago to become the states attorney general. Spending separate from the candidates campaigns is reaching into the six-figure range, with most of the outside money going to support Gomez, the heavy favorite of establishment Democrats. One group funded primarily by an Ahn donor, Citizens for a Better Government, has spent $40,264 on data, printing and postage for mailers, and $8,000 on treasury services to support Ahns bid. The Latino Victory Fund, which has endorsed Gomez, recently spent $29,640 on direct mail and $30,000 on phone banking and voter canvassing for the candidate. Billboard company Outfront Media LLC has spent $1,973 on billboards for him. Also backing Gomez is a group called Middle Class Values PAC. The group spent $19,653 on mailers supporting Gomez despite not having reported receiving any major contributions so far this year. The groups biggest donors last year were a handful of Nevada casino owners and developers, but most of that money appears to have been spent on Democrats running for Congress in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Outside spending in the 34th Congressional District race has been dwarfed by candidate spending. As of March 31, Gomez had spent $446,455 and Ahn had dropped about $767,315 on his run. New campaign finance figures from both candidates are due at midnight Friday. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Browns budget team drops its hotly debated plans to redefine the states spending limit By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) With questions mounting about the legal justification for omitting some $22 billion in expenses from Californias long-standing spending cap, Gov. Jerry Browns administration dropped the plan Thursday while promising to work on the issue again later this year. Browns advisors told the Assembly Budget Committee that this could include some changes in state law to clarify the rules surrounding whats known as the Gann limit, a cap on state spending growth imposed by voters in 1979. The cap has rarely come into play in state budgeting in recent years, as it was loosened by a subsequent ballot measure in 1990. The governors administration said it continues to worry about how the law interacts with other mandates related to school funding. School financing has changed significantly since the limit was first established in 1979, said H.D. Palmer, Browns budget spokesman. Because of that, we continue to believe we need statutory clarifications related to these school funding changes. Legislative analysts warned lawmakers in April that the governor may have been overestimating how much room for spending was left under the cap, a dispute that continued for weeks while lawmakers began drafting plans for formal budget negotiations next month. Earlier this week, state senators again raised concerns about the complex estimates used to determine how much spending the Gann law would allow in the budget year that begins July 1. And they provided an analysis by the Legislatures lawyers that suggested Browns proposal could be unconstitutional. The spending limit is enforced over two fiscal years, which means Brown and lawmakers have time to reconcile different estimates. But absent changes similar to those advocated by the governor, a portion of future tax revenues would have to be split between schools and rebates to taxpayers. Facebook

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California Senate, Assembly advance their own plans on how to spend tobacco tax revenue By Melanie Mason (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Perhaps the biggest budget skirmish that remains unsolved this year is how California should spend revenue from the tobacco tax voters approved last fall. Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put that money to expand overall spending on Medi-Cal, which provides subsidized healthcare for the poor. But the some of initiatives backers, namely doctor and dental groups, have cried foul, arguing that money is meant to go to increasing payments for providers. Now, the Senate and Assembly are weighing in. In plans approved in their respective budget committees this week, both houses stray from Browns proposal to put the money toward general Medi-Cal costs and lay out their own ideas on how to divvy up the revenue. But while both houses reject Browns approach, there are key differences between their proposals. Most significantly, the Assembly would allocate all $1.1 billion in projected tax revenue in the next budget year. The Senate, meanwhile, would spend just under $350 million next year, gradually ramping up spending to $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2020-21. Both houses also would increase provider payments, but in different ways. The Assembly would put around $857 million toward once-yearly incentive payments to physicians and dentists that would be tied to their Medi-Cal and Denti-Cal caseloads. The Senate proposed putting $150 million next year to physician rate increases that would be targeted for those working in high-need areas and specialties. That number would increase in successive years, topping out at $700 million by 2020. The Senate also would put $130 million toward higher rates for dentists. The California Medical Assn., which has been pushing for higher reimbursement rates, praised both houses for including the higher rates, but group spokeswoman Joanne Adams noted that the current Legislature cannot tie the hands of a future governor or Legislature, indicating a preference toward the Assembly approach. Each house would allocate $50 million for reimbursement rates for family planning providers, a priority of Planned Parenthood. And both houses put money toward expanding Medi-Cal to cover young adults up to age 26 who are in the country illegally. The proposal builds on Californias policy of making children without legal status younger than 19 eligible for Medi-Cal, which went into effect last year. Anthony Wright, of the advocacy group Health Access, noted that by expanding coverage for those up to age 26, it would align with Obamacares policy of letting children stay on their parents health insurance until that age. This is a concrete and tangible way to show we are actually taking steps forward in expanding coverage, Wright said. The Brown administration estimates that around 130,000 people would be eligible for Medi-Cal under such a proposal, and such an expansion would cost the state just under $230 million. The Senate proposal would put around $63 million toward that expansion in the upcoming budget year and around $85 million in subsequent years. The Assembly would put $54 million toward the plan. The Brown administration did not take a position on the Medi-Cal expansion proposal, but H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Browns Department of Finance, noted that the Senate was using higher revenue projections than Browns plan, which allows legislators to propose more funding. Palmer said the administration was sticking with its original proposal to use tobacco tax dollars for general Medi-Cal spending. The budgets proposal for Prop. 56 will provide increased funding for healthcare programs and services in a way thats consistent with the measure that voters approved last fall, Palmer said. ------------ FOR THE RECORD May 25, 2017, 4:58 p.m.: A previous version of this article reported that both houses were using higher revenue projections than Gov. Browns budget proposal. The Senate is using higher projections; the Assembly is using the same estimates as the Brown administration. Facebook

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California chief justice says she stands by her decision to speak out against Trumps immigration actions By Jazmine Ulloa California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Thursday said she stands by her position that courthouses should be areas where immigration arrests should not occur. Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who rose through the judicial ranks as an appointee of Republican governors, drew national attention in March after she blasted the federal governments expanded immigration actions, among which she said included stalking immigrants at courthouses. Speaking at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon on Thursday, she said the Supreme Court chambers fielded an outpouring of calls and letters after her comments. Some were profane and angry, from residents living outside the state. Others came from supporters. At Sac Press Club luncheon, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye said she fielded lots of anger, support after courthouse enforcement remarks. pic.twitter.com/6OBrZOfI45  Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) May 25, 2017 Many said that as a judge, she should not wade into politics. U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly admonished her in a letter, spurring California state leaders to respond in defense of state policies. On Thursday, Cantil-Sakauye stood by her decision to denounce the actions, saying, If I couldnt speak out as chief justice, I dont know who could. Courthouses in California have numerous programs to encourage people to come forward and ask questions, seek services and mediate issues, Cantil-Sakauye said. If we have a segment [of the population] that is afraid to come, then we are looking at no access to justice, [and] potentially public safety issues, which is antithetical to what the justice system exists for, she said. To me, it is a safe zone, and I ask that courthouses be placed on par with school districts and hospitals and churches. Facebook

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Rep. Darrell Issa says the federal employee insurance program should be expanded to all Americans By Sarah D. Wire Though it wasnt included in the House Republicans healthcare bill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) still believes Americans should have access to the same insurance plans federal employees pick from, and hes hoping the Senate will embrace the idea. In a letter Thursday, Issa asked the Senate Health Care Working Group to consider opening the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to more, or all, Americans. Its a national insurance idea thats persisted since the program began in 1960, and a proposal Issa has pitched before. The program allows more than 8 million current and retired federal employees across the country to shop among hundreds of health insurance plans and then apply their employer contribution to whatever plan they choose. Private insurance companies have pulled out of several state insurance marketplaces, where people whose employers dont offer insurance can purchase insurance using a federal subsidy. That leaves people with fewer health insurance choices, a common complaint cited by Republicans as a reason to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Its choice. If the government can maximize choice to you and then subsidize where appropriate based on need, then weve met the two bases for government involvement, Issa said. Issa voted for the American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to roll back much of Obamacare that passed May 4 without Democratic support, but he stresses that he did so just to keep momentum. One of the reasons I voted for this in the House was to keep the process alive so we could do reform, Issa said. Leveraging business models that work is the goal that somebody like me wants to do. Find out what works and invest in it, find out what doesnt work and fix it or abandon it. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office said the bill as passed by the House would cause 23 million fewer people to have health insurance by 2026. The budget office, which Congress relies on to analyze the complex legislation, projected that many additional consumers would see skimpier health coverage and higher deductibles. The Senate has essentially said it will write its own version of the bill. Issas letter to his Senate colleagues also urges members to protect people with preexisting conditions, safeguard coverage for people with mental illnesses and protect people near retirement age from a spike in their premiums. Theres still more to be done. This bill is going to be about compromise, and a down payment on change, Issa said. Facebook

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Senate President Kevin de Leon is busy raising campaign funds  but for what office? By Phil Willon Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) stirred up speculation about a possible run for governor or U.S. Senate when he released a slickly produced video just before the California Democratic Partys convention last weekend, but he has remained coy about his future political plans. That doesnt mean he isnt padding his campaign war chest, though. De Leon has two fundraisers lined up in Los Angeles in June, presumably for his 2018 campaign for California lieutenant governor. The question is whether De Leon actually will run for lieutenant governor. In the past, he has said he hasnt made a decision. He has also given his supporters the go-ahead to endorse state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), a longtime political ally, in the race. De Leons campaign account for lieutenant governor had $1.7 million in the bank at the end of last year. He raised close to a half-million this year, according to state political financial disclosure reports. The first fundraiser in June is being hosted by veteran Hollywood executive Peter Guber and his wife, Tara, in Bel Air on June 8, with suggested contributions ranging from $500 to $2,500. The second is in late June at the Palm in Los Angeles. The fundraiser is hosted by Craig Darian, CEO of the Occidental Entertainment Group, and his wife, Kimberly, as well as Albert Sweet, the founder of the company. The suggested donations are the same as for the earlier fundraiser. De Leon made history in 2014 when he was selected by his colleagues as the first Latino to lead the California Senate. The tenure has been marked by significant action on climate change, immigration and gun control. Facebook

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Volkswagens clean car plan falls short in low-income neighborhoods, California regulators say By Chris Megerian (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press) State regulators have asked Volkswagen to revise its plan to invest in zero emission technology in California, a victory for critics who said the automaker wasnt doing enough in disadvantaged communities. The investment plan, which will total $800 million over 10 years, is part of Volkswagens obligation under a multi-billion settlement for evading pollution rules. California, which is struggling to get enough zero emission vehicles on the road to meet its goals, is eager to move forward, wrote Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey in a Wednesday letter to Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary. However, Corey wrote, we need more information on how the company will meet its target of spending 35% of its investment in disadvantaged communities, a target set by state regulators in hopes of broadening the adoption of electric vehicles. Corey also asked Electrify America to consider supporting hydrogen fueling stations, rather than just electric chargers. Once the company submits an updated version of its plan, state regulators will consider whether to approve it. Electrify America said it is reviewing the letter. Dean Florez, a member of the Air Resources Board, said the original investment plan had significant holes and included no real investment in disadvantaged communities. He praised the decision to request revisions and said the board should hold VWs feet to the fire. This story has been updated with additional comments. Facebook

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Lawmakers scrap effort to make it easier to pass local transportation taxes By John Myers An effort to boost the chances of local ballot measures raising taxes for transportation needs was quietly killed Thursday in the state Capitol. The proposal, which would have ultimately required changing the California Constitution through a statewide vote, was in response to the high hurdle set decades ago for local taxes earmarked for specific projects. Those kinds of taxes in cities and counties require two-thirds of the vote. The constitutional amendment by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would have lowered the vote threshold to 55% of ballots cast for any transportation proposal. Wiener argued the long list of local transportation projects lacking funds wont completely be erased by the $52-billion transportation plan signed into law last month. And he pointed specifically to examples like a transportation tax plan in the Bay Area last year that garnered 62% of the vote  still slightly shy of the two-thirds mandate. While the effort can be brought back before lawmakers adjourn the current session in the summer of 2018, Thursdays action represented a major setback for transportation groups and labor unions that supported it. The measure was opposed by business and anti-tax advocates. Wiener said he intends to re-introduce the measure in the coming weeks. We must improve and expand transportation throughout our state, which has suffered from decades of underfunding, he said in a written statement. Update 1:29 p.m. This story was modified with additional information regarding constitutional amendments and the legislative process. Update 4:10 p.m. This story was updated with comment from Sen. Wiener. Facebook

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Sex offenders will not be banned without exception from school grounds after state bill is shelved By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Connie M. Leyva, right. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The state Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday shelved a bill that would have banned all registered sex offenders from school campuses without exception. Senate Bill 26 by Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) would have made it a misdemeanor for a registered sex offender to enter any school building or grounds without lawful business. State laws keep registered sex offenders from living near schools. But those who have not been convicted of having sex with a minor under age 16 can visit or volunteer with groups or organizations that work with children if they give proper notice, and are granted permission. They cannot work directly with children. The committee advanced another bill by Leyva that would extend benefits under the Safe at Home initiative to former victims of forced prostitution or labor. Senate Bill 597, introduced with Secretary of State Alex Padilla, passed with a unanimous 7-0 vote. Read More Facebook

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Measure to help California students refinance private loans is shelved By Melanie Mason State Treasurer John Chiang, a candidate for governor, is behind a new effort to help people with student debt refinance their loans. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A measure to help Californians saddled with student debt refinance their student loans was shelved in a key fiscal committee on Thursday. The measure by state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) was touted as a way for the state to coax private lenders to offer more favorable interest. The proposal would have carried a $25-million price tag. We will continue to push for sensible solutions to the student loan crisis that provide real relief to the millions of Californians saddled with too much debt, Allen said in a statement. State Treasurer John Chiang, a 2018 gubernatorial candidate, had championed the bill, SB 674, as a way to try to get [Californians] out of debt as quickly as possible. College graduation is supposed to be synonymous with opportunity and prosperity and not a detour into a modern-day debtors prison, Chiang said in a statement. Although I am disappointed SB 674 will not be moving forward, I will continue to use my position as the states banker to invest in Californias young people and its future with innovative solutions that will make it more financially feasible to obtain a higher education, he added. 3:58 p.m.: This article was updated to add comments from Sen. Benjamin Allen and Treasurer John Chiang. This article was originally published at 11:17 a.m. Read More Facebook

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Where bills go to die: Lawmakers begin clearing the suspense file with hundreds of measures in limbo By John Myers (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) From a sales tax exemption on tampons to healthcare rules and marijuana regulation, a massive stack of proposed laws faces a major deadline Friday morning at the state Capitol. To survive, they must clear whats known as the suspense file -- the place where bills that would cost taxpayers money are held in legislative limbo. By law, bills with a fiscal impact must be sent to the floor of the Assembly and Senate by the close of business on Friday. That means its decision time for more than 800 pieces of legislation. The Senates fiscal committee will decide the fate of bills on Thursday; the Assembly will do so on Friday. Bills are generally sent to the suspense file if their projected cost to the state is $150,000 or more. The procedural move was widely used during Californias deficit years as a way for lawmakers to weigh the pros and cons of proposals in light of limited resources. But government watchdog groups have long pointed out that the clearing of the suspense file ends up hiding some of the legislative sausage-making from public view. Thats because bills that dont clear Fridays hurdle are essentially killed without a recorded vote. And neither chamber offers any explanation for why those bills were killed. Decisions on the fate of the suspense file are made in private, hours or days before the public hearing. In the Assembly, the appropriations committee chairperson will simply tell the public that a decision has been made to hold the bill. In the Senate committee, killed legislation wont even be mentioned during Thursdays hearing. That means that no one will know for sure whether a bill is really killed because of its price tag or its politics. Facebook

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Formal apology sought after U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters was cut off during state convention speech By Jazmine Ulloa (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) In my 20 years as a Democratic Party leader, I have never experienced such the type of behavior as I did at the Sacramento Convention hall on Saturday evening.  Darren Parker, longtime chairman of the African American Caucus The California Democratic Party African American Caucus is asking the state party for a formal apology to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and its members for what it called disrespect by a private subcontractor at its weekend state convention. Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat known for her comments on President Trump, had been speaking at a caucus meeting during the event Saturday night when the sound to her microphone was cut off. SEE THE VIDEO OF WATERS SPEECH> Read More Facebook

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California sees a rebound in cap-and-trade auction, bolstering key climate change program By Chris Megerian (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) State regulators announced strong results from Californias cap-and-trade program on Wednesday, spurring analysts and supporters to say the system remains solid despite questions about its political future. The program requires oil refineries, food processors, power plants and other facilities to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly all of the permits offered by the state in its latest auction were purchased, generating an estimated $500 million in revenue. Thats a shift from other recent auctions, where most of the permits went unsold, reducing revenue that state leaders have counted on for 
A pivotal election is underway in California that could push this Democratic stronghold even further left and recalibrate the direction of arguably the most influential state political party in the nation.

Staunchly liberal and pro-union, the top two contenders for chair of the California Democratic Party offer a sharp contrast in style and strategy. Eric Bauman is a bullish, Bronx-born union organizer and the consummate party insider. Democratic organizer Kimberly Ellis is a provocative Bay Area progressive, embraced as the outsider by a wave of Bernie Sanders supporters leading an insurgency against the party establishment.

The race  and last years divisive Democratic presidential primary  have created a rift among the delegates who will choose a new chair as the state leans into its emerging role as the epicenter of liberal resistance to the nascent Trump administration.

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Initially, Baumans bid for the post possessed an air of inevitability, fed by endorsements from most of Californias top Democrats and the political allegiances hes forged since becoming Los Angeles County party chair in 2000 and a state party vice chair in 2009. But controversy surrounding Baumans ties to the pharmaceutical industry, in part, opened the door for Ellis.

Ellis is the former director of a nonprofit devoted to electing more women to office, and she would be the first woman of color to lead the state party. She has accused Californias top Democrats of being so beholden to special interests and corporate donors that theyve lost sight of their liberal ideals  echoing Sanders populist bid for president.

This is not an infomercial with a predetermined outcome, said Christine Pelosi of San Francisco, chair of the partys powerful Womens Caucus and daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Its hot because [of] new people, its hot because of Donald Trump, its hot because when youre out of power, the political party means more. California is the... cash ATM of presidential politics and every presidential candidate will pass through the new chairs office. Its, as Joe Biden would say, a BFD.

Silicon Valley is officially a retirement community for D.C. political vets >>

The decision now rests in the hands of the state partys 3,300 delegates, an amalgam of elected officials, activists, union leaders and other loyalists who will elect the new chair during the partys convention in Sacramento this weekend. The current chairman, former Senate President John Burton, is retiring after an eight-year term.

Bauman and Ellis are closely aligned on most of the state partys liberal platform, including support for single-payer healthcare, a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally, abortion rights and stronger protections for the LGBTQ community.

Both also promised to rebuild the partys bench by helping Democrats running for local office.

This is not a lesser of two evils. We have two highly qualified candidates who have different work histories and experience, said state Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles, who has endorsed Ellis.

Kimberly Ellis, a candidate for stateDemocratic Party chair, at a campaign event in Oakland with Buffy Wicks, who ran campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in California, and her daughter. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

What the race comes down to, Mitchell said, is old school versus new school.

That contrast was clear when the candidates debated in front of a San Diego union hall packed with party delegates last week. Bauman called for the party to expand on its successes, while Ellis said it had lost its way.

Im running not just to bring a new vision to the party. Im running not just to bring new perspective, not just to change the tone, tenor and culture of our politics, said Ellis, who received the warmest reception of the three candidates. Im running to be chair of the California Democratic Party to redefine what it means to be a Democrat and get this party back to basics.

Bauman, who has spent nearly 25 years in leadership positions at various Democratic groups, held up California as one of the partys greatest success stories.

Democrats hold every statewide office and an iron-grip on the Legislature and congressional delegation. California drives efforts to combat climate change and protect immigrants and on issues such as same-sex marriage.

Were the only state party in the country that actually knows how to do it right, Bauman said.

The son of an Army dentist, Bauman, 58, moved to Hollywood from New York when he was 18, eventually becoming a registered nurse. In the early 1980s, he met his future husband, also a nurse, at a hospital coffee shop.

He later organized labor at hospitals and became active with the Los Angeles County Stonewall Democratic Club, alarmed as the AIDS crisis unfolded. After serving as the groups president, he was elected to lead the Los Angeles County Democratic Party.

Baumans earned a reputation as a gruff and bullying East Coast-style party boss, which he does not deny.

I am, in appropriate circumstances, very aggressive. But on the natural, because of my Bronx demeanor, I always come off like a tough guy, he said. People come up to me on the street all the time and think I am Joe Pesci. I try to work with that.

Bauman shocked Democrats last week when he sent out an email to party members denying what he said were circulating rumors that he had inappropriate relationships with teenage boys. Ellis immediately denounced the allegations. Bauman called the innuendo the latest tactic in the politics of personal destruction that have infected this race for CDP Chair.

Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman, right, a front-runner in the race to lead the state party, receives a hug of support at partys monthly meeting. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Californias restive Sanders faction feel the party establishment failed to deliver on issues such as universal healthcare and remains addicted to contributions from corporate America.

Democrats are a supermajority and weve got a speaker of the Assembly who doesnt think now is the time for a Medicare-for-all system. You have a governor ridiculing the idea. And we still havent banned fracking, said Joey Aszterbaum of Hemet, a Sanders supporter. Its the party of Arnold Schwarzenegger Democrats.

Earlier this year, activists such as Aszterbaum overwhelmed the state partys elections for more than 1,100 delegate spots, a coordinated effort to influence the party from the inside. Those elections, held in each state Assembly district, have traditionally been staid and predictable, attracting a handful of votes from the party faithful. This time, some were swamped by hundreds of progressive voters.

While estimates vary, they likely captured more than half the slots in contention, with many now backing Ellis even though she  like Bauman  supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.

Kimberly Ellis is that sort of change agent. Shes no Bernie Sanders, but were with her, Aszterbaum said.

Ellis, 43, lives in the East Bay city of Richmond with her husband and two children. She was born in Tennessee and hopscotched from base to base with her Army officer father. She earned a law degree but said she opted not to take the bar exam because she wanted to go into public service.

Ellis worked at Emerge America, an organization that trains women to run for office, before becoming director of its California affiliate seven years ago.

Shes a true outsider, said Don Nielsen, director of government relations for the California Nurses Assn., an Ellis supporter and a pivotal player in the delegate strategy. She seems to have embraced the progressive issues Ive been talking about. She wants to get the control of the party back at the base level.

Ellis wants to see Democrats in Sacramento flex their muscles more, especially when it comes to addressing poverty and adopting single-payer healthcare.

Quite honestly, I dont think enough of our Democratic elected officials, our constitutional officers or our governor, have spent enough time with people who live in poverty, with our homeless communities, to really understand it at a deep level, Ellis said. Id like to see more of that. Theres a lot of work to do.

But Jason McDaniel, a political scientist at San Francisco State, questions whether the wave of new delegates will be enough to reshape the party leadership. The other two-thirds of delegates are longtime party loyalists, Democratic elected officials or appointees of those politicians.

These are people who are happy with the Democratic Party, McDaniel said. They want a chair to help raise money and elect candidates.

But Bauman raised the ire of many party stalwarts last year when his political consulting firm Victoryland Partners took more than $100,000 from the pharmaceutical industry to oppose Proposition 61, a ballot measure championed by Sanders that sought to lower drug prices. Voters rejected the measure on Nov. 8.

At the time, Bauman was vice chair of the state party, which was neutral on the measure. He insisted the campaign work was handled by his business partners, including his husband, and that he never lobbied any Democrat on the measure.

In hindsight, would it have been better  if my partners hadnt done four months of work for PhRMA? Yes, it would have been better, Bauman said. It has been incredibly costly to me politically and has had a huge personal toll on me.

Along with Ellis and Bauman, the race includes Orange County attorney Lenore Albert-Sheridan, considered a long shot.

The chair serves a four-year term and, unlike the head of the state GOP who is not paid, receives a salary just shy of $120,000 a year.

Ellis and Bauman both claim to have enough support to win.

Democratic strategist Darry Sragow views the difficult-to-predict contest as a Rorschach test for the California Democratic Party.

phil.willon@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon @LATSeema

Updates on California politics

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Boy Scouts: Top leaders didnt call Trump to praise speech as the president said By Associated Press The Boy Scouts denied Wednesday that the head of the youth organization called President Donald Trump to praise his recent politically aggressive speech to its national jamboree. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Wednesday, I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. Politico published the transcript of the interview. We are unaware of any such call, the Boy Scouts responded in a statement. It specified that neither of the organizations two top leaders  President Randall Stephenson and Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh  had placed such a call. The White House had no immediate response to the Boy Scouts denial. Surbaugh apologized last week to members of the scouting community who were offended by the political rhetoric in Trumps July 24 speech in West Virginia. Other U.S. presidents have delivered nonpolitical speeches at past jamborees. To the dismay of many parents and former scouts, Trump promoted his political agenda and derided his rivals, inducing some of the scouts in attendance to boo at the mention of former President Obama. I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree, Surbaugh said. That was never our intent. Surbaugh noted that every sitting president since 1937 has been invited to visit the jamboree. Stephenson told the Associated Press two days after the speech that Boy Scout leaders anticipated Trump would spark controversy with politically tinged remarks, yet felt obliged to invite him out of respect for his office. Hoping to minimize friction, the Boy Scouts issued guidelines to adult staff members for how the audience should react to the speech. Any type of political chanting was specifically discouraged. Stephenson, who did not attend Trumps speech, said the guidance wasnt followed impeccably. Facebook

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Mayor of London again calls on Trump to cancel state visit By Christina Boyle (AFP/Getty Images) The mayor of London has reiterated his calls for President Trumps state visit to Britain to be canceled in the wake of the citys terrorist incident, saying his policies go against everything we stand for. The war of words between the two leaders intensified further Monday evening after Trump criticized Mayor Sadiq Khans response to the London Bridge terrorist attack in two tweets, and the mayor said Trump should not be welcomed in the capital. Since Saturday Ive been working with the police, with the emergency services, with the government and others to deal with the horrific attack on Saturday, Khan said Monday evening. I just havent got the time to deal with tweets from Donald Trump. But when pressed on whether he thinks a state visit for later this year should go ahead as planned, Khan was unequivocal. My position remains the same. I dont think we should be rolling out the carpet to the president of the United States in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for, Khan told Channel 4 news. When you have a special relationship, it is no different to when you have a close mate: You stand with them in times of adversity, but you call them out when theyre wrong. And there are many things about which Donald Trump is wrong. Trump initially criticized Khan hours after the London attack posting on Twitter: At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is no reason to be alarmed! Khans office soon pointed out that the president had, in fact, misquoted Khan, who actually said that Londoners should not be alarmed by the increased armed police presence on the streets. Trump took to Twitter again on Monday to slam the London mayor once more. Pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. MSM [Mainstream media] is working hard to sell it! the president wrote. This is not the first time Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital city, has called for Trumps state visit to be banned. He previously branded Trumps policies on immigration and proposed travel ban on people entering the U.S. from predominantly Muslim countries cruel. An online government petition calling for the invitation to be withdrawn also gathered more than 1.8 million votes. The visit was first announced during Prime Minister Theresa Mays trip to Washington, where she became the first foreign leader to meet the newly-inaugurated president. State visits are personal invites from the British monarch and involve a significant amount of pomp and ceremony, and usually a state banquet. Facebook

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He helped bring down President Nixon. He thinks President Trump is even worse. By Mark Z. Barabak (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) John Dean is a connoisseur of coverups, a savant of scandal, so he can more than imagine what its like inside the Trump White House right now. Its a nightmare, he said, presiding in a high-backed leather wing chair off the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Not just for those in the headlines  political strategist Steve Bannon, jack-of-many-duties Jared Kushner  but for their unsung assistants and secretaries as well. They dont know what their jeopardy is. They dont know what theyre looking at. They dont know if theyre a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. They dont know whether to hire lawyers or not, how theyre going to pay for them if they do, Dean said in a crisp law-counsel cadence. Its an unpleasant place. Dean was a central figure in Watergate, the 1970s political scandal against which all others are measured, serving at the tender age of 32 as President Nixons White House attorney. In that capacity Dean worked to thwart investigators after the clumsy break-in at Democratic Party headquarters, then flipped and helped sink Nixon by revealing the presidents involvement in the coverup. Read More Facebook

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Two decades ago, Washington state Republicans repealed and replaced a healthcare overhaul there. It didnt end well By Noam N. Levey Republicans in the state of Washington didnt wait long in the spring of 1995 to fulfill their pledge to roll back a sweeping law expanding health coverage in the state. Coming off historic electoral gains, the GOP legislators scrapped much of the law while pledging to make health insurance affordable and to free state residents from onerous government mandates. It didnt work out that way: The repeal left the states insurance market in shambles, sent premiums skyrocketing and drove health insurers from the state. It took nearly five years to repair the damage. Two decades later, the ill-fated experiment, largely relegated to academic journals, offers a caution to lawmakers at the national level as Republicans in the U.S. Senate race to write a bill to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act. Its much easier to break something, said Pam MacEwan, who led a Washington state commission charged with implementing the law in the mid-1990s and now oversees the state insurance market there. Its more difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  And thats when people get hurt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office echoed that warning last week, when it concluded that the healthcare bill passed by the House last month would destabilize insurance markets in a sixth of the country and nearly double the number of people without health insurance over the next decade. Read More Facebook

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Companies accelerate hiring, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs, ADP says By Jim Puzzanghera A now hiring sign is seen in Baton Rouge, La., on May 5. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Companies accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs in a sign the labor market remains healthy and the economy is strengthening after a weak winter. The private-sector job creation figures reported Thursday by payroll firm Automatic Data Processing far exceeded analyst expectations and was well above the downwardly revised 174,000 net new positions added in April. Job growth is rip-roaring, declared Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing its report. Read More Facebook

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All jokes aside, Trumps covfefe tweet sparks questions too By Brian Bennett President Trump sparked a global kerfuffle over covfefe with his bizarrely truncated tweet just minutes into Wednesday, spawning countless jokes across Twitter but also more serious questions for which the White House gave no answers. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, during an unusually short 11-minute briefing in which he insisted he not be on camera, declined to give any explanation for Trumps tweet posted just after midnight. Nor would he translate what the president was trying to say in the garbled message that broke off midsentence. But Spicer told reporters that the public should not be concerned that the president sent what the questioner called somewhat of an incoherent tweet. The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant, Spicer said. Read More Facebook

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Biden launches new PAC, keeping the 2020 door open By David Lauter (Steven Senne / Associated Press) Former Vice President Joe Biden is launching a new political action committee, a platform that will allow him to provide help to favored candidates and, inevitably, boost speculation about a possible run for the Democratic nomination in 2020. The organization, which Biden is calling American Possibilities, will be staffed by a former top political aide to the vice president, Greg Schultz, who is also a veteran of President Obamas reelection campaign. The PAC will allow Biden to raise money that he can use to travel the country, contribute to candidates in governors races this year and congressional and state races in 2018 and generally do the sorts of things that aspiring politicians do to keep their names in the headlines. All that cant help but nurture questions about whether Biden, 74, will try yet again to attain the office he first started running for in 1987. In public appearances, which have taken him to electorally important states, and interviews since the 2016 election, Biden has been sharply critical of the Trump administration, but has also pointed to flaws in his own party. In one interview, he pointed to a bit of elitism thats crept in to the partys approach to working-class voters. At the same time, he has given carefully ambiguous answers when asked about his plans. At a conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, he responded to the question about a presidential run by saying: Could I? Yes. Would I? Probably not. In the announcement for the new group, Biden said that the negativity, the pettiness, the small-mindedness of our politics drives me crazy. Its not who we are. Its time for big dreams and American possibilities, he said. Facebook

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U.S., regions foreign ministers debate Venezuela By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The United States and foreign ministers from across the hemisphere met in Washington on Wednesday to attempt to force Venezuelas leftist government and its angry opposition into talks. Hunger and violence have pushed Venezuela to the brink of humanitarian disaster, diplomats say. But Wednesdays meeting of the Organization of American States faced unlikely prospects for success: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not trust the organization and has said his nation will withdraw its membership. Some OAS nations, including several U.S. allies in the Caribbean, have criticized the regional bodys efforts as intervention promoted by Washington. But U.S. officials are hoping the sheer weight of the crisis will unite the region to put pressure on Venezuela. Theres more and more concern about what were seeing, and so more and more countries have gotten over their reluctance to question or go against the wishes of the Venezuelan government, a senior State Department official said in a briefing for reporters. Its really hard to stand by and do nothing in the face of the kinds of institutional steps weve seen in Venezuela, and the increasing humanitarian suffering, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with frequent administration practice. Although the OAS periodically brings its members foreign ministers together, this is the first time a meeting has been convened to deal with a single topic, U.S. officials said. At the conclusion of Wednesdays session, diplomats said they had discussed two resolutions. One, promoted by Caribbean nations, called on Venezuela to reconsider withdrawing from the OAS. A second more pointed resolution authored by the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Panama and Peru urged the Maduro administration not to go ahead with a constituent assembly that would rewrite the Venezuelan constitution. Many fear it would dissolve the few democratic institutions that remain and favor the ruling Socialist Party. Separately, the Venezuela opposition, emboldened by a string of increasingly massive street demonstrations, sharply criticized Wall Street for extending what it called a lifeline to the Maduro government. At issue is the purchase by Goldman Sachs of Venezuelan government bonds for a reported $865 million, a major discount for paper originally worth $2.8 billion. Goldman Sachs confirmed the purchase of the bonds, issued in 2014 by the state oil company PDVSA, after it was reported in the Wall Street Journal. We are invested in PDVSA bonds because, like many in the asset management industry, we believe the situation in the country must improve over time, Goldman said in a statement. The firm added that it made the purchase through a secondary dealer to avoid direct interaction with the Venezuelan government. That distinction meant nothing to the Venezuelan opposition, which accused Goldman of making a buck off the suffering of the Venezuelan people. The Trump administration previously has targeted the Maduro government, slapping economic sanctions on its vice president and pro-Maduro Supreme Court justices. Facebook

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Former FBI director spoke with new special counsel and is cleared to testify before Senate panel By Joseph Tanfani The special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign has cleared former FBI Director James Comey to testify before a congressional committee about his contacts with President Trump, according to an associate close to Comey. Comey met with Robert S. Mueller III, whom the Justice Department appointed on May 17 to investigate any Russian ties to the Trump campaign, and Mueller said he had no problems with Comeys testifying, the associate said. Trump abruptly fired Comey as head of the FBI on May 9. The president later said in an interview on NBC News that he was concerned about the FBI investigation into what he called the Russia thing. Comey reportedly wrote internal memos after his meetings with Trump. In one, he wrote that the president had requested he ease up on the FBI probe of Michael Flynn, who served as Trumps national security advisor until he was ousted in February for lying about his contacts with Russian officials. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced on May 19 that Comey had agreed to testify after the Memorial Day holiday. The hearing has not been scheduled. The FBI separately declined a request from the House Oversight Committee to turn over Comeys memos. The bureau said it would need to consult with Mueller before making any decisions. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman, said in response that he would not push the matter. The focus of the committees investigation is the independence of the FBI and the events leading to Comeys firing, he wrote. In a separate development, a senior Justice Department lawyer with experience in complex financial fraud investigations has agreed to join Muellers investigation. Andrew Weissman has led the fraud section at Justice, where he oversaw probes into corporate wrongdoing at Volkswagen and Takata. Weissman also is a veteran of the FBI. Weissman is the highest-ranking Justice Department official to join the special counsel office being set up a few blocks from the main Justice building in downtown Washington. Mueller also hired two colleagues from the WilmerHale law firm, where he worked, and brought on a former Justice Department spokesman, Peter Carr, to handle media inquiries. Facebook

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Analysis: In President Trumps wake, divisions mark both Democratic and Republican parties By Cathleen Decker Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez address a crowd at the California party convention in May. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Six months after President Trump breached long-standing political boundaries to win the White House, the nations major political parties still muddle in his wake. On the sun-swept lawn of the Hotel del Coronado two weeks ago, national Republican leaders sipped cocktails and listened to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, one of the partys brightest lights in the most populous state, praise a brand of moderate Republicanism that looks nothing like the versions coming out of Washington  either the populism of the president or the more orthodox conservatism of congressional leaders. A week later, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez talked in a Sacramento interview of the remarkably constructive debate underway in his party, characterizing its divisions as largely in the past. Within hours, he and other party leaders were booed as they welcomed delegates to a state convention that would be filled with persistent internal warfare on healthcare and other issues. No political party is immune to disagreement; indeed the path to power often relies on combustible ideological diversity. But Democrats and Republicans alike seem particularly adrift and quarrelsome these days. Read More Facebook

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Trump preparing to pull U.S. from Paris climate accord, amid last-minute lobbying By Evan Halper President Trump hasnt made a final decision on whether the U.S. will quit the Paris Accord on climate change, but White House officials indicated Wednesday that he was headed in that direction, setting off a worldwide reaction. A flurry of leaks, counter-leaks and public statements thrust back into the spotlight a decision that has been agonized and untidy even by the standards of a White House known for internal drama. Wednesday morning, when officials told some news organizations that Trump had settled on pulling out of the climate agreement, seemingly everyone in the world jumped in to try to influence or spin his decision, from the Chinese government to the coal industry to the state of California. That offered a foretaste of the reaction Trump likely will receive if he does follow through on his vow to pull the United States out of the 195-nation pact, which President Obama hailed in 2015 as one of his major achievements. Other nations have swiftly moved to take over the leadership role on climate that the United States would be abandoning. Some states have followed suit, promising they would break with Washington to work with other countries in their efforts to contain global warming. During Trumps recent overseas trip, U.S. allies warned him that Americas broader diplomatic influence would be undercut if the administration gave up its seat at the climate negotiating table. All the public lobbying on Wednesday moved Trump to weigh in himself. He knocked down reports that he had decided to withdraw with a tweet announcing that he was still making up his mind. The mixed messages coming out of the White House left open the possibility that the original news reports reflected the views of officials who were aiming to steer the final outcome by presenting withdrawal as a done deal. Trumps schedule for the day includes meetings with advisors hoping to talk him into staying in the agreement, at least to some extent. If Trump does withdraw the U.S. fully from the Paris pact, scientists warn it will be a tremendous setback to the worldwide effort to contain temperatures from rising an average of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The consequences for the United States would extend beyond global warming. It will be a very big deal all over the world, said Todd Stern, the lead U.S. climate negotiator during the Obama administration. There will be consequential blowback with respect to our diplomatic position across the board. UPDATES 9:27 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with staff reporting and additional details. 6:23 a.m.: This post was updated with Trumps tweet. 6:04 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with additional details. Facebook

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U.S. Supreme Court makes it harder to sue police for barging into homes By David Savage The U.S. Supreme Court made it harder to sue police for barging into a home and provoking a shooting, setting aside a $4-million verdict against two Los Angeles County deputies on Tuesday. The money was awarded to a homeless couple who were startled and then shot when the two sheriffs deputies entered the shack where they were sleeping. The unanimous ruling rejected the so-called provocation rule that some lower courts have used. Under that rule, police can be sued for violating a victims constitutional rights against unreasonable searches if they provoked a confrontation that resulted in violence. Read More Facebook

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Trump lashes out at Germany over NATO spending and trade after Merkel questions the U.S. commitment to its allies By Brian Bennett (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump took aim at German trade practices and defense spending Tuesday following pointed criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel that Germany may not be able to rely on its allies. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change, Trump wrote in a tweet. Last week, White House spokespeople had denied that Trump criticized German trade practices after the German newspaper Der Spiegel quoted him as having done so. Trump unsettled Merkel and other allies during the recent NATO summit when, during his remarks, he did not mention the central commitment members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization make to defend each other. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017 Trumps policy toward climate change is another point of contention with many European countries. Trump promised during the election to tear up the landmark Paris climate accord. Merkel said the conversation with the U.S. on climate change last week during the G-7 meetings in Sicily, which followed the NATO summit, was extremely difficult. During a campaign speech in Munich on Sunday, Merkel said Germany must rethink how much it can rely on its allies. The era in which we could rely completely on others is gone, at least partially, Merkel said. I have experienced that over the last several days. In a 2014 meeting, NATO defense ministers agreed that each state would move toward a goal of raising military spending to 2% of its annual economic output by the year 2024. German defense spending is below that goal. The U.S. trade deficit with Germany shrank to $65 billion in 2016 from $75 billion the year before. Facebook

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Consumers spend at fastest pace in four months in a sign of spring economic rebound By Jim Puzzanghera (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Americans ratcheted up their spending in April at the fastest pace in four months, in a sign the economy has rebounded this spring after a lackluster winter. The new data also could help push Federal Reserve officials to hike a key interest rate again when they meet in two weeks. Personal consumption expenditures increased 0.4% in April, up from 0.3% the previous month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Americans had more money to spend, with personal incomes also rising 0.4%  twice the pace of growth in March. Read More Facebook

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White House communications director Michael Dubke resigns By Associated Press White House Communications Director Mike Dubke listens as a reporter asks a question during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on April 20. (Shawn Thew / EPA) White House communications director Michael Dubke has resigned. Kellyanne Conway, White House counselor, told The Associated Press that Dubke handed in his resignation before President Donald Trump left for his international trip earlier this month. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Conway said Dubke made very clear that he would see through the presidents international trip, and come to work every day and work hard even through that trip because there was much to do here back at the White House. Dubke issued a statement Tuesday morning: It has been my great honor to serve President Trump and this administration. It has also been my distinct pleasure to work side-by-side, day-by-day with the staff of the communications and press departments. A Republican consultant, Dubke joined the White House team in February after campaign aide Jason Miller  Trumps original choice for communications director  withdrew from consideration. Dubke founded Crossroads Media, a GOP firm that specializes in political advertising. -- 6:03 a.m.: Updated with Dubkes statement Facebook

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Should Jared Kushner keep his security clearance? Adam Schiff isnt sure By Laura King The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), says hes not sure that President Trumps son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, should retain his security clearance. The California Democrat, who has been a sharp critic of Trump, also said in an interview aired Sunday that national security advisor H.R. McMaster, a highly respected military officer, had been tarnished by his association with the White House. Schiffs comments, on ABCs This Week, came amid growing questions about Kushners contacts with Russian officials before Trump took office. Trump has denounced the latest round of news reports, saying that some of them could be based on fabricated sources. Top Trump aides, including John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, pushed back Sunday against the suggestion that there was anything untoward about establishing back channel communications with the Russians during the presidential transition. Schiff said he regretted that McMaster had done so as well, saying he believed the White House used the solid reputations of people like him to back up dubious actions. Sadly, I think this is an administration that takes in people with good credibility and chews them out and spits out their credibility at the same time, said Schiff, who acknowledged that what McMaster said about back channel communications was true in the abstract. I think anyone within the Trump orbit is at risk of being used, he said. Kelly, in separate talk-show appearances on Sunday, said there was nothing untoward about an incoming administration establishing communications with a foreign power in order to lay the groundwork for better relations. Schiff declined to discuss the substance of the allegations regarding Kushners contact with Russian officials during the transition and whether Kushner had been forthcoming about them, but said enough questions had been raised that his access to top-secret intelligence should be scrutinized. I think we need to get to the bottom of these allegations, Schiff said. But I do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful, whether he was candid. If not, then theres no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance. Schiff was also critical of continuing involvement in aspects of the Russia probe by fellow Californian Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who stepped aside from the probe earlier this year after the House Ethics Committee began investigating whether he had improperly revealed classified information. Nunes remains involved in decision-making about the issuance of subpoenas, Schiff said, adding: I dont think that he should, given that he has stepped aside or recused himself. The committee is investigating Russian entanglements by figures in Trumps circle, including fired national security advisor Michael Flynn, who has been the target of multiple subpoenas. Facebook

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Trump still wide open on climate change, Pentagon chief says By Laura King With President Trump set to make a decision this week about whether the U.S. should remain part of the landmark Paris climate accord, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Trump remains wide open on the issue. During a visit to Europe that ended Saturday, Trump dismayed European allies by refusing to commit to remaining in the 2015 accord during talks with European Union officials in Brussels and at the Group of Seven gathering in Sicily. The president said in a tweet that he will make a decision this week. Mattis, who was present at some of the Brussels talks, said that Trump is still making up his mind, and that he has been inquisitive about other leaders opinions. The president was open  he was curious about why others were in the position they were in, his counterparts in other nations, the Defense secretary said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS Face the Nation. And Im quite certain the president is wide open on this issue as he takes in the pros and cons of that accord. During his European trip, Trump met privately at the Vatican with Pope Francis, who presented him with a copy of his papal encyclical on environment and climate change. French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Trump in Brussels, also said he had pressed the issue with the U.S. president, though the White House did not mention that appeal in a summary of their meeting. Facebook

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Homeland Security secretary defends Jared Kushner, blasts Manchester intelligence leaks By Laura King There is nothing inherently wrong with an incoming presidential administration establishing back channel communications with a foreign power such as Russia, Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly said Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Kelly was asked about reports by the Washington Post and other outlets that President Trumps son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, sought to set up secret lines of communication with Russian officials prior to Trump being sworn in. The retired general did not confirm the reports, but said the principle of establishing secretive contacts during a presidential transition doesnt bother me and is a legitimate means of building relationships. I think that any channel of communication, back or otherwise, with a country like Russia is a good thing, he said. Kelly did not address a central element of the reports  that Kushner discussed the possibility of using Russian communications channels from a Russia diplomatic outpost to shield from U.S. intelligence surveillance whatever discussions Trump transition officials wanted to have with Moscow. The FBI, a special counsel and multiple congressional committees are probing Russian interference in the presidential campaign and whether the Trump camp colluded in it. The U.S. intelligence community says Russian cyberattacks were meant to boost Trump and harm his opponent, Hillary Clinton. In a separate interview on NBCs Meet the Press, Kelly defended the integrity of Kushner, whose involvement in communications with Russia has brought the investigation closer to Trump personally than has previous scrutiny of others in his campaign circle or the White House. Calling Kushner a great guy, a decent guy, the Homeland Security secretary said the presidents son-in-laws No. 1 interest, really, is the nation. Also in the NBC interview, Kelly excoriated intelligence leaks in the wake of last weeks deadly bombing in Manchester, England. British officials including Prime Minister Theresa May were angered by disclosures about details of the investigation, including the release of the dead attackers name and detailed photos from the bomb scene that were published by the New York Times. Several outlets cited unnamed U.S. officials as the source of the information including the bombers identity. The Times did not say how it obtained the photos. Britain routinely shares intelligence with close allies like the United States with the expectation that it will be kept confidential. Kelly said that failing to keep such secrets could seriously damage intelligence-sharing arrangements with other nations. I believe when you leak the kind of information that seems to be routinely leaked - high, high level of classification I think its darn close to treason, Kelly said. It is not clear what level of classification, if any, the information about the British investigation would have had. Trump himself, who recently caused controversy when he passed sensitive intelligence on Islamic State to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and discussed the location of U.S. nuclear submarines with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has denounced the Manchester leaks and vowed to track down the source or sources. Facebook

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In tweets, Trump says stories based on White House leaks are fabricated By Laura King President Trump is back  and tweeting. In a Sunday morning series of posts on Twitter, the president repeated his denunciations of the fake media, celebrated the Republican victory in a Montana special election and declared his overseas trip a success. Trump returned to the White House late Saturday after a swing through the Middle East and Europe, the first foreign trip of his presidency. During it, he tweeted only sparingly. While Trump was away, controversy continued to swirl around his White House, with media reports focusing on son-in-law Jared Kushners role in Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. The GOP healthcare plan and Trumps budget also came under withering scrutiny during the presidents absence. In Sundays tweets, Trump said cascading leaks from within his administration were in fact fabricated lies by news organizations based on sources that did not exist. One tweet was corrected to fix the spelling of exist. It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2017 Trump also complained that the special congressional election in Montana, called to fill the seat vacated when Ryan Zinke became his Interior secretary, was such a big deal to Dems & Fake News until the Republican won. The V was poorly covered, he said, referring to the Republican victory. The victory by Republican candidate Greg Gianforte received extensive coverage. It was widely expected, given Montanas significant Republican edge, but made more suspenseful on the eve of the election when Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault for an incident in which he struck a reporter who had asked him a question. The president received mixed reviews for his inaugural overseas venture. He was praised by some for his outreach to Sunni Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, but continued his administrations practice of making no public criticism of serious human rights violations. In Europe, he rattled allies by declining to explicitly endorse the NATO alliances bedrock common defense pledge or pledge to adhere to the Paris climate accord. Whatever the commentary surrounding the trip, Trump counted it a success. Hard work but big results, he wrote. Facebook

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Trumps international trip underscored what America First looks like on the world stage By Michael Memoli Donald Trump made no secret during the presidential campaign of his disdain for Americas trading partners, his skepticism of longtime alliances and his eagerness to refocus U.S. foreign policy on the single-minded pursuit of American security. That was the largely the president the world got as Trump made his way through the Middle East and Western Europe over the last nine days, Trumps first foreign trip may have produced memorable, and at time cringe-inducing, images of the new president, whether grasping a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia or shoving the prime minister of Montenegro at a NATO meeting in Brussels. But perhaps most profoundly, the trip underscored what America First, as Trump has branded his governing philosophy, looks like on the world stage. Read More Facebook

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Trump says hell decide on Paris climate deal next week By Associated Press Seven wealthy democracies ended their summit Saturday in Italy without unanimous agreement on climate change, as the Trump administration plans to take more time to say whether the U.S. is going to remain in the Paris accord on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The other six nations in the Group of Seven agreed to stick with their commitment to implement the 2015 Paris deal that aims to slow down global warming. The final G-7 statement, issued after two days of talks in the seaside town of Taormina, said the U.S. is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics. Trump tweeted he would decide his stance on the Paris agreement next week. The announcement on the final day of the U.S. presidents first international trip comes after he declined to commit to staying in the sweeping climate deal, resisting intense international pressure from his peers at the summit. I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2017 Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who chaired the meeting, said the other six wont change our position on climate change one millimeter. The U.S. hasnt decided yet. I hope they decide in the right way. Gentiloni said climate was not a minor point and that he hoped the United States would decide soon and well because the Paris accords need the contribution of the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron also chimed in on the climate issue, praising Trumps capacity to listen. Macron said he told Trump it is indispensable for the reputation of the United States and the interest of the Americans themselves that the United States remain committed to the Paris climate agreement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more downbeat, calling the G-7 climate talks very unsatisfactory. Facebook

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Everyones a winner! Or what to take away from that special congressional race in Montana By Mark Z. Barabak Republicans were celebrating Friday, and relieved, and it was easy to see why: The party hung on to Montanas sole congressional seat even though its candidate faced a freshly lodged criminal charge for physically assaulting a reporter on election eve. Though they fell short in yet another special election  Greg Gianforte won handily, 50% to 44%  Democrats also found reason to be pleased: Their candidate, flawed as he was, continued a pattern of polling better than might be expected  over-performing, to use the political parlance, and that could hold future promise. Its possible, as elections analyst Nathan Gonzales put it, to lose and still have momentum. Read More Facebook

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In commencement address, Hillary Clinton remembers fallout from Nixon, makes subtle jab at President Trump By Kurtis Lee Hillary Clinton delivers the commencement address at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., on Friday. (Josh Reynolds / Associated Press) Hillary Clinton delivered a subtle dig at President Trump on Friday, offering some parallels between his presidency and that of former President Nixon. While delivering a commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, a private womens liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Clinton, without naming Trump, recalled how many young people in the 1970s reacted to Nixons reelection and later battles with the Justice Department. We were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice, she said, pausing to note she was referring to Nixon. Actually, Nixon was not impeached, though many in Congress, including members of his own party, called for it. Clinton said Nixons resignation came after he fired the person heading the investigation into him at the Department of Justice. In 1973, Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire a special prosecutor who was looking into taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office as part of the Watergate investigation. A year later, in August 1974, Nixon resigned. Some political observers  mostly Democrats -- have compared Trumps recent firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, who was overseeing an investigation of possible collusion between Russians and Trumps campaign, to Nixons actions. Last week, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) called for Trump to be impeached. Clinton, who has made few public appearances since Trump defeated her in last years presidential election, also assailed the Republicans new budget proposal. She called the budget, which proposes cuts to education and Medicaid, an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us  the youngest, the oldest, the poorest and hard-working people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent, middle-class life. In a statement, the Republican National Committee said Clinton was lashing out after her election loss. Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969 and last delivered a commencement address at the school in 1992. Facebook

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At G-7 Summit, a day of clarification for the White House By Michael A. Memoli (Sean Gallup / Getty Images) As President Trump met with leaders of the worlds leading economies here Friday within miles of an active volcano, the White House was working to ease a pair of diplomatic eruptions. Trump was due to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in this coastal Sicilian resort town, amid tensions between their countries, longtime allies, following leaks to U.S. media outlets involving Britains investigation of the Manchester terrorist bombing. Separately, a top White House adviser partially confirmed reports that Trump had said Germany is very bad during Thursdays NATO meetings in Brussels, but clarified that the president was referring only to German trade policies. Trump said, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, acknowledged that Trump made the remark but added that the president doesnt have a problem with Germany. He said his dad is from Germany. He said I dont have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade, Cohn said. Press access to the G-7 meetings has been extremely limited, though the surrounding setting has produced abundant compelling visuals. Editorial press access extremely limited for G7 meetings. But man, pretty pictures & good times for Taormina Chamber of Commerce (via AP) pic.twitter.com/WT2EdKrwJ5  Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 26, 2017 Trump tweeted that he expected to spend the day focused on economic growth, terrorism and security. The summit, and Trumps eight-day inaugural foreign trip, ends Saturday. Other allies here were likely to press Trump on another issue: climate change, specifically whether Trump will carry out his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate deal. Trump was hoping to better understand the European position, Cohn said. White House officials have said the president will make a decision once he is back in the United States. He knows that in the U.S. theres very strong opinions on both sides but he also knows that Paris has important meaning to many of the European leaders. And he wants to clearly hear what the European leaders have to say, Cohn said. Facebook

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As Trump wavers over Paris climate accord, European leaders give him an earful By Evan Halper Mining operation near Grevenbroich, Germany. (Martin Meissner / Associated Press) With President Trump balking on his vow to shred the Obama-negotiated Paris agreement on climate change, the last place the pacts staunch opponents wanted to see the president is where he will be this weekend  meeting other world leaders unanimous in their warnings that withdrawal from the accord would seriously damage Americas economy and world stature. Trump has repeatedly delayed fulfilling his campaign pledge to move against the agreement. The longer the White House deliberates over Paris, the more Trump seems to be searching for a face-saving excuse to walk back his previous position. The White House indecision over the climate accord  which has the support of every nation except Syria and Nicaragua  reflects a deeply divided worldview in a Trump inner circle now packed with establishment Republicans. The issue also presents yet another policy reckoning for Trump. On the campaign trail, he vowed to strike blows against the existing world order. But on the Paris agreement, as on other matters, he is finding that political backup for such pledges can fade quickly when the moves lack robust support from major U.S. companies or majority voting blocs. Read More Facebook

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Overcoming assault charge, Republican Greg Gianforte wins Montana congressional seat By Mark Z. Barabak Republican Greg Gianforte overcame a last-minute assault charge to win Montanas special congressional election Thursday, keeping its lone House seat in GOP hands and dealing Democrats a setback in their bid to gain a red-state toehold ahead of the 2018 midterm election. Gianforte, 56, a wealthy businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor in November, had long been the front-runner against Democrat Rob Quist, a professional bluegrass musician making his first run for public office. With more than 90% of the votes counted, Gianforte was holding a healthy lead with just over 50% support. Appearing at an exuberant victory rally in Bozeman, the congressman-elect hushed the crowd and apologized to the reporter with whom he tangled on election eve, reversing his campaigns initial assertion that the journalist was to blame. Read More Facebook

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FBI investigating Kushner meetings, report says; House leader seeks more Comey documents By Associated Press (Andrew Harrer / Getty Images) The chairman of the House Oversight Committee asked the FBI on Thursday to turn over more documents about former FBI Director James B. Comeys interactions with the White House and Justice Department, including materials dating back nearly four years to the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that the FBI is investigating meetings that President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had in December with Russian officials. The FBI and the Oversight Committee  as well as several other congressional panels  are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump fired Comey on May 9 amid questions about the FBIs investigation, which is now being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a former FBI director. Kushner, a key White House advisor, had meetings late last year with Russias ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov. The Post story cited anonymous people familiar with the investigation, who said the FBI investigation does not mean that Kushner is suspected of a crime. Kushners attorney, Jamie Gorelick, released a statement saying: Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry. Earlier Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants records of Comeys contacts with the White House and Justice Department dating to September 2013, when Comey was sworn in as FBI director under President Obama. In a letter to McCabe, Chaffetz said he is seeking to review Comeys memos and other written materials so he can better understand Comeys communications with the White House and attorney generals office. Facebook

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Banks want higher debit-card swipe fees, but an effort to allow them has crumbled By Jim Puzzanghera Banks had hoped Congress would let them charge merchants higher fees to process debit card purchases, but an effort to allow that has crumbled  a victory for retailers and, possibly, shoppers who might have had to shoulder those costs. In the latest chapter of a long-running fight, a repeal of federal limits on so-called swipe fees no longer will be part of a House financial regulation bill, said the legislations author, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he decided to strip the provision from the bill because many lawmakers are balking at removing the limits. Read More Facebook

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Appeals court rules against Trump travel ban By David Lauter A federal appeals court has ruled against President Trumps travel ban, upholding a nationwide injunction barring the administration from enforcing the executive order. The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump on the travel issue and, like several previous court rulings, the outcome rested heavily on his own words. Trumps order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim countries speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in his ruling. Read the 4th Circuits decision to uphold the block on Trumps travel ban The 10-3 ruling included numerous citations to campaign statements in which Trump called for a ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States. The plaintiffs who have challenged the travel order have argued that it is a disguised version of the Muslim ban that he called for during the campaign. Trumps statements provide direct, specific evidence of what motivated both EO-1 and EO-2, the court said, referring to ther first and second versions of the travel order: President Trumps desire to exclude Muslims from the United States. The 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., is one of two appeals courts that have recently heard arguments on the travel ban. A similar case is pending before the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco. Read More Facebook

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Obama, in Berlin with Merkel, says world cant hide behind a wall By Erik Kirschbaum Hours before German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew to Brussels to meet with President Trump and other NATO heads of state, she rekindled an old acquaintance with Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama. About 70,000 people packed an avenue by Berlins landmark Brandenburg Gate on Thursday to hear the two leaders speak, with cheers and chants of Barack, Barack! breaking out when the former president took the stage. Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama spoke of the need for universal healthcare and a nuanced approach to immigration in response to security threats. This is a new world we live in  we cant isolate ourselves, the former president declared, with Merkel looking on. We cant hide behind a wall. Obama spoke of this weeks deadly bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, saying leaders had to find ways to balance security fears and fundamental rights. One of the biggest challenges is how do you protect your country and your citizens from the kinds of things that we just saw in Manchester, he said. And how do you do it in a way that is consistent with your values and your ideals? Making his first European speech since his presidential term ended, Obama told the crowd he had spent the last four months trying to catch up with my sleep and devoting more time to his family. Im very proud of the work I did as president, he said to more cheers, adding that he considered healthcare reform a signature achievement. Republicans are now in the midst of trying to dismantle his Affordable Care Act. My hope was to get 100% of people healthcare, he said. We didnt quite achieve that, but we were able to get 20 million people healthcare who didnt have it before. Obamas speech was not timed to coincide with Trumps first visit to Europe as president, aides said. The invitation was extended before Trumps trip to Brussels  the fourth leg on multi-stop tour  was scheduled. Facebook

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Macron says he pressed Trump on climate accord By Catherine Stupp French President Emmanuel Macron, who met President Trump for the first time on Thursday, said he urged the U.S. leader to respect the Paris climate accord. The White House, however, did not mention the issue in its readout on Trumps working lunch in Brussels with the newly elected French president. Macron told reporters as he headed into the meeting that climate change would be one of the issues he raised, along with concerns about terrorism and the economy. Afterward, at a news conference, the French president said that in his talk with Trump, he reiterated the importance of the landmark climate accord. No hasty decision on this subject should be taken by the U.S., Macron said. Our collective responsibility is to make sure this commitment remains a global commitment. Referring to the agreement, he added: Its one of a kind. In its readout, the White House said Trump urged Macron to meet NATO commitments on French defense spending and help ensure that the alliance is focused on counter-terrorism. It also said the two leaders talked about the importance of defeating Islamic State and other vital issues. Facebook

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Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to reject 2nd Amendment claim by men who lost gun rights over nonviolent crimes By David Savage President Trump speaks at an NRA event in Atlanta in April. ( Scott Olson / Getty Images) Trump administration lawyers are urging the Supreme Court to reject a 2nd Amendment claim that would restore the right to own a gun for two Pennsylvania men who were convicted more than 20 years ago of nonviolent crimes. The case of Sessions vs. Binderup puts the new administration in a potentially awkward spot, considering President Trumps repeated assurances during the campaign that he would protect gun ownership rights under the 2nd Amendment. But the Justice Department under Trump has embraced the same position in this case that was adopted under President Obama: to defend strict enforcement of a long-standing federal law that bars convicted criminals from ever owning a gun, even when their crimes did not involve violence. Read More Facebook

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Former Sen. Joe Lieberman withdraws from FBI director search By Associated Press (AFP/Getty Images) Former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut has withdrawn his name from consideration for the role of FBI director. Lieberman interviewed last week with President Trump, who publicly identified him as a leading candidate. But in a letter sent to the White House, Lieberman says hes pulling out. He says he wants to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, given Trumps hiring of one of Liebermans law partners to represent him in the investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The White House declined to comment. Several other people interviewed for the job have also withdrawn from consideration. Trump fired former FBI Director James B. Comey earlier this month. Facebook

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At NATO celebration, Trump tells allies to spend more on defense By Michael A. Memoli (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump used his first NATO meeting to rebuke member nations who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliances defense spending target, saying American taxpayers unfairly are left to pick up the slack. Speaking at dedication ceremonies for NATOs new headquarters, Trump noted that the defense budgets of 23 of the 28 members dont meet a target equal to 2% of each respective nations economic output, while the United States has spent more on defense in eight years than the other 27 combined. Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years, he said. We have to make up for the many years lost. By his scolding, Trump was directly delivering to NATO allies the criticism that was a staple of his nationalist campaign for president. But his lecture came at an event intended to be celebratory, showcasing unity and resolve for the nearly 70-year-old alliance: the dedication of its shining, glass-enclosed new headquarters in Belgiums capital. The ceremony also was meant to call attention to the fact that the only time NATO has invoked its collective defense agreement was on behalf of the United States, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Trump stood beside a section of wrenched steel from the downed World Trade Center Towers, a relic NATO calls the Article V artifact, to signify that post-9/11 invocation of the NATO charters article holding that an attack on any one member would be considered an attack on all. Speaking to reporters before the president arrived, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance had a long way to go to meet its goals. But its much better than it was just two years ago, he said. The reality is that when we decrease defense spending when tensions are going down, as we did after the end of the Cold War, we have to be able to increase defense spending when tensions are going up. And now we see that tensions are going up. Facebook

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Watch: Trump lectures NATO leaders on defense spending By L.A. Times staff  As NATO leaders looked on, President Trump told NATO members that they must finally contribute their fair share of defense payments. President Trump lectured members of the NATO alliance on Thursday, urging them to pay their fair share on defense. As NATO leaders looked on during a ceremony at the alliances new headquarters, Trump said that member nations must finally contribute their fair share and meet their obligations. The president has been urging NATO leaders to live up to a 2011 decision to increase spending on defense to 2% of GDP by 2024. Trump said 23 of the 28 member nations are not paying what they should and that the situation is not fair to the people of the United States. Facebook

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President Trump promises to review Manchester investigation leaks after anger from Britain By Noah Bierman Trying to head off a diplomatic rift with Britain, President Trump on Thursday issued a statement promising a complete review of possible intelligence leaks related to this weeks deadly terrorist attack at a Manchester concert. Some British officials have suggested that U.S. officials are leaking sensitive information to American media outlets about the investigation into the attack. The New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing, which upset British officials. Whether the photographs were provided by U.S. officials or came from some other source is not publicly known. Trump avoided questions earlier Thursday about the possible leaks. His statement came just before he was set to address NATO at its new headquarters in a speech considered pivotal to his first trip abroad as president. British Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to confront Trump over the issue when they meet later in the day. May told reporters as she entered the NATO gathering that she would make clear to Trump that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. We have a special relationship with the USA. Its our deepest defense and security partnership that we have, she said. Of course that partnership is built on trust, and part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently, and I will be making clear to President Trump today that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. In his statement, Trump said that the alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. These leaks have been going on for a long time, and my Administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security. The statement continued with a promise to request the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to

launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the

culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Trump also reiterated said there is no relationship we cherish more than the special relationship between the two countries. Separate leaks within his own administration and related to investigations of his campaign ties to Russia have also been a source of anger to Trump. Facebook

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Montanas congressional election: that assault charge, the Trump factor, and why is it on a weird day (Thursday)? By Mark Z. Barabak Its election day in Montana after a wild 24 hours, with voters deciding who will fill the House seat vacated when Republican Ryan Zinke left to head the Interior Department under President Trump. The contest Thursday has drawn nationwide attention and an extraordinary amount of money  and that was before the GOP front-runner was accused of attacking a national political reporter. The events have turned the contest into one of the strangest in memory. Read More Facebook

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Trump ignores questions about intelligence sharing ahead of NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Peter Dejoing / Associated Press) President Trump refused to answer questions Thursday about concerns among key allies on intelligence sharing with the United States, just as he prepares to join many of them here to inaugurate the new NATO headquarters. During a brief photo opportunity at his first meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Frances newly elected president, Trump for a second time remained silent as a reporter asked about a potential breakdown in the U.S.-United Kingdom intelligence-sharing relationship. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to press Trump on the issue when they meet later Thursday, after the New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing. The acting U.S. ambassador to Britain told the BBC that the leaks were deeply distressing. Speaking to reporters at the site of a NATO leaders meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also deflected questions about whether the incident has led him to reevaluate his nations intelligence-sharing arrangements. We will continue to work with all our allies to keep Canadians and all citizens around the world safe, he said. Ahead of a working lunch with Macron, Trump said terrorism was at the top of the agenda, while also offering his congratulations to the 39-year-old for his tremendous victory. All over the world, theyre talking about it, he said. In addition to terrorism and the economy, Macron said he planned to discuss climate change and energy. His nation hosted the climate summit that produced the agreement under which countries pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, of which the Trump administration is considering dropping out. Trump also ignored a question about whether former national security advisor Michael Flynn should cooperate with the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has no news conference scheduled with reporters for the entirety of his eight-day foreign trip, which ends Saturday. Facebook

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Trump visits European Union headquarters; EU leaders cite some differences By Catherine Stupp Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said Thursday that differences remain between the Trump administration and the European Union on Russia, energy and trade. I am not 100 percent sure that we can say today that we have a common opinion about Russia, Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who is sometimes called the other Donald, said after a meeting with President Trump at EU headquarters. Tusk added that while some issues remain open, like climate and trade, the leaders agreed first and foremost on the need to combat terrorism. EU officials were skeptical in advance of Trumps visit. Their concerns were driven in part by the U.S. leaders positive stance on Britains vote last year to leave the bloc. Trump at the time called it a great idea. However, he has since spoken of the importance of European unity. European officials are also concerned that the Trump administration might withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming, and turn away from trade arrangements with the EU. Trumps visit to Brussels marked the fourth leg of his first overseas trip. Before heading into the talks with Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, he spoke enthusiastically about his earlier stops in Saudi Arabia and at the Vatican. His ceremonial welcome last week in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Trump told the European officials, was beyond anything anyones seen. The Saudis staged elaborate festivities including a traditional sword dance. And the president called his private encounter with Pope Francis on Wednesday very impressive. The president and the pontiff met privately for half an hour, and Francis presented Trump with gifts including a copy of a papal encyclical on climate change. The pope was terrific, Trump said. After the visit to the EUs sprawling new headquarters, Trump headed to a luncheon with the newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron. The two men were meeting for the first time. During the French presidential campaign, Trump had praised Macrons far-right opponent Marine Le Pen for her tough positions on immigration and borders, but he had stopped short of endorsing her. Facebook

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Manchester attack makes terrorism the focus of Trumps NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images) The deadly suicide bombing in Britain and threats of more attacks thrust counter-terrorism to the top of President Trumps agenda for talks with NATO leaders here on Thursday, buttressing his bid to enlist the alliance he had called obsolete to join the fight against Islamic State. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, anticipating the alliance meetings, told reporters flying with the president to Brussels from Rome, where Trump met Pope Francis earlier Wednesday, that Mondays attack in Britain is going to strengthen the resolve in this fight against terrorism. Tillerson stopped short of predicting that NATO would agree to formally join the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but said it would be a really important step if the alliance did so. The attack, which killed 22 people at a pop concert and was said to be the work of a 22-year-old British man whose family is from Libya, also figured in Trumps brief meeting with the pope at the Vatican. Read More Facebook

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Analysis says 23 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 under GOP healthcare bill By Noam N. Levey (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) An analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Republican healthcare bill that passed the House earlier this month would nearly double the number of Americans without health insurance over the next decade. The report likely will complicate Republican efforts to get the controversial bill through the Senate. Read More Facebook

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By throwing Americas lot in with Sunni Arabs, does Trump miss opportunities with Iran? By Tracy Wilkinson On his first official trip to the Middle East, President Trump has resoundingly thrown Americas lot in with Sunni Arab states and cast Shiite Iran as a global pariah, even as Iranians reelected a president who has offered to work with the West. During his two days in Riyadh, Trumps full-throated support for the autocratic monarchies in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, as well as his fierce denunciation of Iran, allowed him to claim an historic new coalition of interests. In the next two days, in Jerusalem, he doubled down and argued that Israel and the Arabs should join forces against Iran and along the way, resolve Israels conflict with Palestinians in a grand bargain that has eluded diplomats for decades. But as he departed for Rome on Tuesday, Trump had little to show beyond lofty rhetoric, symbolic visits and a shower of flattery from kings, potentates and a prime minister. Read More Facebook

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Fed officials appear ready for another interest rate hike and are considering how to reduce assets By Jim Puzzanghera Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen (Michael Dwyer / Associated Press) Most Federal Reserve monetary policymakers indicated they were ready for another small interest rate hike -- perhaps as soon as next month -- if economic data strengthened as expected following a weak winter, according to an account released Wednesday of their most recent meeting. Fed officials also considered a plan to start reducing the $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage securities and other assets the central bank has purchased since 2008 in an attempt to stimulate the economy. The plan, which they said likely would begin later this year, would involve slowly allowing some of the maturing securities to be cashed in instead of reinvesting the money in new securities, the meeting minutes showed. The goal would be to avoid roiling financial markets and causing interest rates to jump. Read More Facebook

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So whats with the president and Melania Trump holding, or not holding, hands? By Tom Kington First Lady Melania Trump does not say much in public, but her actions seemed to speak louder than words  or at least sent tongues wagging  when she appeared to rebuff the presidents proffered hand as the couple descended from their plane in Rome late Tuesday. As President Trump looked to take her hand on the steps of Air Force One, Melania Trump quickly moved it out of reach, raising it to her head to adjust her hair. That made for two such episodes in two days. She had appeared to brush Trumps hand away at the airport in Tel Aviv during the previous stop in the presidents foreign tour. Video of that scene, often accompanied by snarky commentary, quickly went viral. Compare that to Melania Trumps positively hands-on visit on Wednesday to a Rome childrens hospital, Bambino Gesu, following the couples visit with Pope Francis. After praying to a statue of the Madonna at the entrance to the hospital, the Catholic first lady smiled cheerfully and chatted to children, posing for selfies and providing a very happy, maternal presence, according to one onlooker. Great visiting you! Stay strong and positive! Much love, Melania Trump, she wrote in the visitors book. Staff at the hospital said Melania Trump had been buoyed by her meeting with Pope Francis, and further proof came when photos emerged of the Trumps quick visit to the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. As the president and first lady stood together to admire Michelangelos 16th century fresco, the Last Judgment, they held hands. Facebook

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House Intelligence Committee will subpoena Michael Flynn, Schiff says By Sarah D. Wire The House Intelligence Committee is preparing to issue subpoenas to President Trumps former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, according to the committees ranking Democrat, following the lead of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said the House subpoenas will be designed to maximize our chance of getting the information we need for the committees investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. I think we need to use whatever compulsory [processes] necessary to get the information that he possesses, Schiff said. Earlier this week, Flynns lawyers said he would refuse separate Senate subpoenas for any records about his former business dealings with Russia, citing his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. The Senate committee then issued separate subpoenas to two of Flynns businesses, which the panel said were not entitled to 5th Amendment protections. A federal grand jury in Virginia also has issued subpoenas regarding Flynns business dealings with Turkey and Russia, and the newly appointed special counsel investigating the Russia matter, Robert Mueller III, is expected to focus on Flynns role as well. Given the criminal investigations, Schiff said the House panel is highly unlikely to grant Flynns earlier request, through his lawyers, for immunity in exchange for his testimony. He said the panel would need more information about what Flynn would say and whether the testimony would be truthful. It also would need to ensure that granting immunity wouldnt affect the special counsels ongoing investigation, he said. Thats not somthinge I think we would entertain until far later, if at all, said Schiff, a former prosecutor. Certainly count me as very skeptical that we would get to that point. Trump forced Flynn to resign as national security advisor in February after news accounts revealed Flynn had misled White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Russian officials. Schiff spoke to reporters at a breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Facebook

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Watch live: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testifies on Trumps budget Follow live coverage from Times education reporter Joy Resmovits: Facebook

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Israel acknowledges pinpoint change needed after Trump intelligence disclosure By Joshua Mitnick After a week of silence, Israel publicly acknowledged for the first time, though in oblique terms, that it was the source of sensitive intelligence that President Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week in a White House meeting. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israels army radio on Wednesday that Israeli officials had carried out an internal pinpoint correction after discussing and reviewing the episode. Lieberman did not elaborate, and declined to confirm or deny whether Trumps remarks had endangered an agent of Israel. But he said his government considered the matter resolved. Everything that needed to be clarified with the friends in the U.S. was done, he said. All of the conclusions we had to draw  it was all done. The Israeli defense ministers comments came the day after Trump wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank. When word of Trumps disclosure to Lavrov emerged in U.S. news reports last week, the defense minister and other Israeli leaders confined themselves to expressing public confidence in the two countries intelligence cooperation. Israel did not comment more directly, presumably to avoid embarrassing the U.S. president just before his visit. But Trump himself mentioned the controversy anyway, in an awkward on-camera moment during the trip. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu biting his lip alongside, Trump volunteered to reporters being hustled out of a news appearance: Just so you know, I never mentioned the word or name Israel. Never mentioned it during the conversation. News reports, however, had not said the president mentioned Israel in connection with the intelligence, only that the specificity of his remarks to Lavrov would in all likelihood have allowed the Russians to determine the source. The White House at first denied Trumps disclosure to Lavrov had occurred as reported, but then the president himself tweeted about it, saying he had the right to share information as he deemed fit. Facebook

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Trump calls meeting with Pope Francis an honor By Michael A. Memoli "A very great honor," Trump says to the pope when they began their meeting in the pope's private study pic.twitter.com/NGsbsahAyT  Carol Lee (@carolelee) May 24, 2017 President Trump held a half-hour private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, declaring it a great honor despite their past public dissension. The unconventional Republican and the first Jesuit pontiff made for an unlikely pair in the Vaticans Apostolic Palace, where Catholic leaders have presided or centuries and American presidents have come or decades. Francis was silent as the two sat across one another at the popes wooden desk to begin the audience at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. Exactly a half-hour later, the ringing of a bell signified the end of the private encounter. For the White House, the Vatican stop caps a tour through key sites of the worlds three major religions, following stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, designed to promote tolerance and a united approach to terrorism. When you put it all together, youre really showing that this problem of radical extremism is one of the great problems of our time, a senior Trump aide told reporters Tuesday en route from Israel to Rome, briefing anonymously as is common White House practice. By putting everybody together you can really build a coalition and show that its not a Muslim problem, its not a Jewish problem, its not a Catholic problem, its not a Christian problem, it really is a world problem. In an exchange of gifts after their private meeting, Francis offered the president a medal by a Roman artist of an olive, a symbol of peace. We can use peace, Trump responded. Where Trumps and Francis interests may align on peace and combating terrorism, they disagree sharply on issues like immigration and poverty. Like Trump, the Argentine pope has shown a predilection for unscripted comments that have shaken the staid Vatican bureaucracy, as when he criticized candidate Trumps proposed stricter immigration policies including a border wall as not Christian. Trump fired back, calling the popes remarks disgraceful. Any animosity was not apparent Wednesday, as a meeting between Francis and a larger U.S. delegation ended. Thank you. I wont forget what you said, Trump said. Facebook

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Proposed budget would deeply cut State Department and its programs By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The State Department leadership voiced support for President Trumps proposed budget, which would impose deep cuts on spending for diplomacy and foreign aid, but critics vowed to fight to restore the funds in Congress. In a statement, the department said the presidents $37.6-billion request for it and for the U.S. Agency for International Development would support a leaner, more efficient government in line with Trumps America first mantra. If approved by Congress, that would represent a reduction of roughly 30% from the current fiscal year. Nongovernmental agencies that receive State Department support to carry out humanitarian and other work around the globe expressed deep alarm. The State Department statement said its new priorities would include efforts to counter terrorism, support Israel, promote border security and battle transnational crime and the spread of infectious diseases. The statement makes no mention of women-empowerment programs or efforts to fight climate change, issues that rose to prominence under the Obama administration. The proposed budget would allow the United States to remain engaged in the United Nations, but officials would seek a more fair distribution of the funding burden, the statement said. And it would eliminate direct funding for quasi- and non-governmental organizations that serve niche missions. The American Jewish World Service, which fights poverty all over the world through 450 local organizations, said much of its work would be jeopardized. At a time when poverty, human rights abuses, famines and conflicts are wreaking havoc globally, said the groups president, Robert Bank, the United States must not abdicate its long bipartisan tradition of providing development assistance and diplomatic support to the most vulnerable people around the world. Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based development and advocacy organization that works in 40 countries, said gutting development programs was short-sighted and absolutely shameful and could put millions of lives at risk. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called the budget cruel and mean-spirited and said it would force the United States to abandon our global role as a champion for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. If President Trump thinks the United States can shrink into a defensive crouch without long-term repercussions, hes sorely mistaken, Engel said. Facebook

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Sessions first proposed budget: A crackdown on immigration and violent crime By Joseph Tanfani Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) In the first budget proposal under President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department is seeking hundreds of millions in new funding to pay for an immigration crackdown on the border and a surge in resources to fight violent crime. Like the Department of Homeland Security budget, which includes billions for expanded immigration detention, more border agents and technology to catch those crossing the border illegally, the Justice Department budget is a reflection of the new get-tough policies promised by Sessions. The budget asks for another 300 federal prosecutors  230 to focus on violent criminals and gangs, and another 70 to concentrate on filing criminal charges on those crossing the border illegally. The shift in the spending priorities are in line with other policy changes ordered by Sessions, including a renewed focus on seeking stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drugs and other crimes. The $27.7-billion budget seeks 450 new attorneys and support workers for the immigration courts, which are now clogged with a backlog of 560,000 cases. There would also be another $50 million for increased immigration detention, plus 40 new U.S. marshal jobs to help take care of the expected increase in immigrants heading to federal court. With Trumps immigration initiatives tied up in federal court, the budget seeks another 15 lawyers to handle that litigation, plus 12 more to help handle property acquisition needed for Trumps promised Southwestern border wall. Violent-crime enforcement would get another $198 million, with the largest amount, $70 million, going toward setting up more anti-violence and gang task forces. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod J. Rosenstein said more resources are needed because of what he called an alarming increase in the rates of murder and other violent crimes. The department is also asking for another $40 million for more drug enforcement to combat the opioid epidemic, which he said is spreading havoc throughout the United States. Sessions new policies should lead to an increase in prison population, so the budget contains funding to fully open a new supermax prison in Thomson, Ill., with room for 1,500 to 2,000 inmates. The department also wants to put more resources behind the FBIs efforts to counter cyber attacks and to figure out ways around encryption technology, along with another 50 agents to counter foreign intelligence and threats from homegrown terrorists. Facebook

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Economists say Trumps budget proposal doesnt add up By Don Lee President Trumps inaugural budget proposal claims to eliminate the nations deficit in 10 years, thanks largely to faster economic growth that it projects will come from the presidents sweeping tax cuts. Never mind the overly optimistic projections on economic growth. Or that Trumps tax overhaul has not happened yet. Even allowing for both, economists say Trumps budget still does not add up. The administration is counting on generating $2.1 trillion in additional revenue over 10 years from better economic growth. But Trumps budget proposal leaves out the cost, or the revenue lost, from the massive tax cuts. In other words, the economic gains that the administration has said it would use to pay for tax reform is apparently also being counted on to pay for deficit reduction. Some people call that double-counting. You cant use the same money twice, said Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that advocates keeping government budgets under control. Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and top economic advisor to President Obama, called it an elementary but egregious accounting error. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the proposal did not necessarily mean there was an outright omission or a double-counting. Its possible that the administration is looking for such strong economic growth to drive significantly extra revenue from payroll taxes, he said, or it could be that Trump officials were using different base lines from which they were drawing their results. But on the face of it, he said, the budget and tax-plan numbers dont seem to match. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that Trumps plan to cut corporate and individual taxes would cost the federal government about $5.5 trillion over 10 years, adding more than $6 trillion to the national debt. Details of Trumps tax overhaul, however, are still being developed, and its possible that the administration is assuming a revenue-neutral tax plan  although experts say big tax cuts never pay for themselves. On Tuesday, Mick Mulvaney, Trumps budget chief, did not provide a direct answer or explanation to questions about double-counting. Instead, he told reporters that you have to make assumptions about a budget. He went on to say that one of the assumptions that was not made was to take into account the uncollected taxes every year, which he said amounted to $486 billion last year. And we dont assume an additional penny of that being closed as part of our tax reform, said Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Of the 3% annual economic growth assumption, Mulvaney responded that the Obama administration in its first couple of years had based its budget on growth of 4.5%. In fact, Obamas first budget proposal as president, in May 2009, assumed economic growth of between 4% and 4.6% for the budget years 2011 to 2013. Since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009, the U.S. economy has been growing on average about 2% a year, and the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve and most private economists see the economy advancing at about 2% annually over the next 10 years. Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chair and director of the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton, said its true that the Obama administrations growth assumptions proved too optimistic. But she noted that those projections were not unreasonable for that time and period in the economic cycle. Then, there was greater potential for growth with unemployment high and many more people than today available for work. Today, the economy is nearing its eighth year of expansion, and the jobless rate is 4.4%, at or near full employment. With the aging of baby boomers, labor force growth slowing, and lackluster productivity gains, economists see the current moderate growth persisting for the foreseeable future. This has been a very long period of growth and were at the high end already, Rivlin said. If we are so lucky to have continuous, steady growth, its not likely to be at 3% or 4% or 5%. Facebook

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Who wins and who loses in Trumps budget The White House Office of Management and Budget sent Congress the presidents inaugural budget today, projecting spending and revenues over the next 10 years. The fiscal package, which include a partial skinny budget from March, reflects President Trumps priorities for the nation, but lawmakers are sure to reject many of the deep cuts in domestic and foreign affairs programs. The departments of State, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education and Housing, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, are the biggest losers. The winners are the Pentagon and Homeland Security programs. Even with the increases in defense spending and large tax cuts, the administration projects that economic growth spurred by tax cuts will erase annual deficits by 2027. Take a look at some of the numbers released today. Read More Facebook

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What that Montana special congressional race will  and wont  tell us about Trump and his political problems By Mark Z. Barabak Democrat Rob Quist is a quintessential cowboy who doesnt seem to relish campaigning in Montanas special congressional election. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) On Thursday, the political world will eagerly look to Montana and a closely fought congressional race for the latest test of Democratic strength and Republican resilience in the turbulent age of Trump. The major candidates and outside groups have sunk more than $8 million into the contest, a huge sum in a state where $250,000 pays for a robust week of television advertising. But for all that money and all the outside interest, the election will turn less on national trends than circumstances close to home: on the personalities and histories of the main contestants, their different campaign styles and, perhaps most of all, on who is regarded as the more authentic Montanan. Read More Facebook

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Terrorist attack in England has conservative media focused on safety of allies By Kurtis Lee (Dave Thompson/Getty images ) Its a sight witnessed all too often: an explosion, screams, people sprinting to safety. Late Monday night, this was the scene at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, after a man with possible ties to Islamic State militants set off a suicide bomb, killing 22 people and, once again, setting in motion a global discourse on how to fight terrorism. President Trump, while visiting Bethlehem, said the attack was committed by evil losers in life. Throughout the campaign and early in his presidency, Trump has said defeating the Islamic State is a top priority. (He reiterated that point in a speech Sunday in Saudi Arabia, urging Muslim leaders to plot their own course in combating terrorism.) In recent months, with attacks in Berlin, Paris and London, conservative media have questioned the safety of Europe and warned that the United States could face similar attacks. With the latest attack, some on the right are again homing in on the safety of our allies. Here are some of todays headlines: 2017 has seen a terror attack attempted in Europe every nine days (Breitbart) The attack in Manchester blankets the home page of the right-wing website. Europe has indeed been the location of high-profile attacks this year. In Paris last month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on the Champs-Elysees in which a man fired an automatic weapon, killing a police officer. And in March, a man plowed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, near the British Parliament in London, and then fatally stabbed a police officer. In all, four people were killed and dozens injured in what police called a terrorist attack. The Breitbart piece is an analysis of different terrorist attacks attempted and carried out in Europe since January. Attacks and attempted attacks have taken place in Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Germany, on average every nine days, the piece says. Pences message of civility and open debate lost on those who most needed to hear it (Weekly Standard) The debate over free speech on colleges campuses continues. In recent months, conservative speakers have canceled speeches on college campuses in the face of anticipated protests. And others, who have opted to speak, have faced vocal backlash. On Sunday, as Vice President Mike Pence began to address students at the University of Notre Dame commencement, several dozen stood and walked out of the ceremony. In his speech, Pence talked about civility and open debate, and this piece argues that the m
Two men were hospitalized Tuesday after a crash on Bayside Drive in Newport Beach.

Newport Beach police were called to the 1600 block of Bayside near El Paseo Drive at about 8:30 a.m. following a report of a collision.

Police said a Honda Accord traveling east on Bayside collided with a Chevrolet Avalanche that was pulling out of a driveway into the road.

Both drivers were taken to a hospital with complaints of pain.

Police said they are continuing to investigate the crash.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
Letter writer Juli Hayden criticizes the well-reasoned May 4 commentary by a UC Irvine medical student concerning the implications of the American Health Care Act for the health of Americans and the political futures of our local U.S. representatives (Opponents to House healthcare bill are uninformed, should wait for Senate to weigh in, May 8). Ms. Hayden suggests that student is both ill-informed and engaging in hysterics, yet she is unable to identify a single error in the students commentary.

I know that student. She is my daughter. She is not ill-informed. She has a masters degree in public health from Harvard University and is about to commence her fourth year of medical school. She has dedicated her life to providing primary healthcare to the underserved of this country as well as advocating for change to improve the delivery of such care. In furtherance of those efforts, she will continue to point out the devastating consequences that Republicans zeal to carve a notch on their presidents political belt will have for the health of millions at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

She is not engaging in hysterics. She is merely telling the truth (something President Trump seems incapable of doing). And if enough constituents of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) and Mimi Waters (R-Irvine) learn that truth, perhaps in 2018 they will choose new representatives who will vote for sound public policy that helps those in need, not just the moneyed interests whose bidding the Republicans have done for so many years.

James R. Percival

Newport Coast

Laguna historic regulations are too restrictive

Johanna Felders plea to keep Lagunas historic rating system perpetuates our unpopular command and control system where City Hall dictates what homeowners can do with their homes (The importance of Laguna Beachs historic rating system, May 8). Cities with far more successful historic preservation programs do not use this CKE system with contracts that forever encumber their property.

The time has long passed for Laguna Beach to move into the 21st century and adopt a historical preservation policy that relies upon voluntary actions motivated by a love of city history and architecture. Other cities  such as Fullerton, Orange, Anaheim, Pasadena and Palm Springs  put Laguna Beach to shame when it comes to preserving historical structures.

Unlike Laguna Beach, these cities have active, tax-deductible, private preservation charities that raise millions from residents who love their history and culture. They encourage preservation through private investment and recognition. They assist the city in gaining national and state recognition.

Village Laguna Inc. is not a preservation society. It is a political advocacy group with a political action committee (PAC) that funds local candidates for office.

These cities also have local ordinances that exempt their programs from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) control. A revised historical preservation ordinance is now being developed in Laguna. It perpetuates the unpopular, bureaucratic, taxpayer-funded, outdated system, which relies on government dictates instead of the volunteer spirit. We can get there by starting with a clean sheet of paper.

Doug Cortez

Laguna Beach

Desalination will harm H.B. life

The only people who will benefit from the proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach are the politicians using the open checkbook of Poseidon.

Southeast Huntington Beach will be stuck with the noise and loss of suburban life. The ratepayers may end up paying for water we do not need. Then the Orange County Water District (OCWD) will pump it out of the ground and distribute the desalinated water to water districts that do not want it, let alone have to pay extra for it.

Meanwhile, the Carson water plant will be sending its excess capacity to the OCWD at a cheaper rate than Poseidon desalinated water. Possibly former Sen. Barbara Boxer should have done due diligence that she prides herself on instead of reading Poseidon handouts.

Milt Dardis

Huntington Beach

How to get published: Email us at dailypilot@latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, hometown and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.
For the first time in about 100 years, a total solar eclipse will cross the country in August. On Monday, an astronomer told local students what they can expect to see during a celestial event called the Great American Eclipse.

Jay Pasachoff, director of Hopkins Observatory at Williams College in Massachusetts, is a visiting scientist at Caltech. He visited Monte Vista Elementary School in La Crescenta, where his granddaughter Lily Kezsbom is in the first grade.

Pasachoff said he was glad he could drum up excitement about the eclipse, which will take a path of totality from Oregon to South Carolina on Aug. 21, when the moon will completely obscure the sun over portions of those two states as well as Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina.

Locally, students can expect to see a partial eclipse, Pasachoff said.

Seeing an eclipse can just be inspiration, he said. Its so special. It can make kids pay attention to their studies of all kinds, realizing that they can understand the universe.

He advised Monte Vista students that they should protect their eyes during the event. The schools PTA plans to give each student a pair of filtered glasses to see the moon obscure the sun.

Pasachoff himself plans to view the eclipse in Salem, Ore., where clear weather is forecasted in August. Lily plans to join him on the expedition.

He told students that, seven years from now, theyll have a chance to see another total solar eclipse when it passes through Texas and northeastward to Maine in 2024.

Pasachoff said he is not sure where hell view it then; it depends on weather forecasts.

Before then, he may travel to Chile to view the next total solar eclipse in 2019.

kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
Rocky Mountain National Park is 102 years old this year, and REI Adventures turned 30.

The outdoor travel company is celebrating by offering a $500 discount on six-day hiking and rafting trips this summer to the Colorado park.

The deal: This trip is all about the natural wow factors: alpine lakes, waterfalls and peaks in the Rocky Mountains. Participants hike daily, camp by night (gear provided) and spend a day rafting the Cache la Poudre and trekking to the top of Deer Mountain.

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Group size is limited to four to 12.

When: The sale is on from May 19 until May 29. Trips depart June 18 and 25; July 9, 16, 23 and 30; Aug. 13 and 27; and Sept. 3.

Tested: Theres still availability on these summer trips. REI members pay $2,299 (instead of $2,799) and non-members pay $2,599. (Lifetime memberships cost $20.)

The price includes campsite and gear (including cushy thick sleeping pads), guides, round-trip transportation from Denver, some meals and park fees. Airfare to and from Colorado is extra.

Info: REI Adventures Rocky Mountain National Park Adventure, (800) 622-2236

travel@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimestravel

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New South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House next month for a summit with President Trump amid worries over North Koreas progress in building a nuclear and missile arsenal, Seouls presidential office said Tuesday.

The agreement for the leaders to meet in late June followed a meeting in Seoul between Chung Eui-yong, Moons foreign policy advisor, and Matt Pottinger, the Asia director on Trumps National Security Council, said Moons spokesman, Yoon Young-chan.

The announcement came days after North Korea successfully tested a new missile that some analysts believe could reach Alaska when perfected.

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Under the leadership of third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been speeding up its pursuit of a decades-long goal of developing nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

North Korea last year conducted two nuclear tests that likely improved its know-how in making nuclear weapons small enough to fit on long-range missiles. Experts say the medium-long-range Hwasong-12 missile the North fired on Sunday achieved a higher altitude and longer flight time than any other missile the country has tested.

Also Tuesday, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the top American military officer in the Pacific, met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo to discuss the North Korean missile launch. They said the Norths unacceptable action underscored the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

We now need to apply pressure on North Korea, and Japan and the United States need to coordinate closely so as to apply pressure, Abe told reporters.

Yoon said Chung and Pottinger in their meeting reaffirmed that Seoul and Washington share a common goal in the complete discarding of North Korean nuclear weapons and will pursue all methods, including sanctions and dialogue to reach the goal. The allies agreed that dialogue with North Korea could happen under the right conditions, Yoon said.

There was a basic exchange of opinions about North Koreas nuclear and missile provocations, Yoon said about the meeting between Chung and Pottinger. The United States reconfirmed its firm commitment to defend South Korea and both sides also agreed to strengthen collaborative efforts to deter North Korean provocations.

A date and other specifics of the summit are still to be decided, Yoon said. He said the countries will prepare for the summit so that it serves as an opportunity for both leaders to develop their personal bond and friendship. Pottinger later told reporters that the countries reaffirmed desires to get the two leaders together quickly following a telephone conversation last week that Trump used to invite Moon to the White House.

The state of the alliance is strong and I am fully confident that it will only grow stronger between our two administrations, Pottinger said.

Moon, a liberal, favors a softer approach to North Korea than his conservative predecessors and has offered to visit Pyongyang if the circumstances are right. He has shown a willingness to challenge the United States, saying that Seoul should reconsider its deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system to better cope with North Korean threats. However, Washington remains Seouls closest ally and military protector.

Moon took office last week after winning an election triggered by the ouster of his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office and jailed in March over corruption allegations. Moon has criticized Parks hard line against the North, saying the approach did nothing to prevent the North from expanding its nuclear weapons and missiles arsenal and only reduced Seouls voice in international efforts to deal with its rival.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia  THE hem of my heavy Islamic cloak trailed over floors that glistened like ice. I walked faster, my eyes fixed on a familiar, green icon. I hadnt seen a Starbucks in months, but there it was, tucked into a corner of a fancy shopping mall in the Saudi capital. After all those bitter little cups of sludgy Arabic coffee, here at last was an improbable snippet of home  caffeinated, comforting, American.

I wandered into the shop, filling my lungs with the rich wafts of coffee. The man behind the counter gave me a bemused look; his eyes flickered. I asked for a latte. He shrugged, the milk steamer whined, and he handed over the brimming paper cup. I turned my back on his uneasy face.

Crossing the cafe, I felt the hard stares of Saudi men. A few of them stopped talking as I walked by and watched me pass. Them, too, I ignored. Finally, coffee in hand, I sank into the sumptuous lap of an overstuffed armchair.

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Excuse me, hissed the voice in my ear. You cant sit here. The man from the counter had appeared at my elbow. He was glaring.

Excuse me? I blinked a few times.

Emmm, he drew his discomfort into a long syllable, his brows knitted. You cannot stay here.

What? Uh why?

Then he said it: Men only.

He didnt tell me what I would learn later: Starbucks had another, unmarked door around back that led to a smaller espresso bar, and a handful of tables smothered by curtains. That was the family section. As a woman, thats where I belonged. I had no right to mix with male customers or sit in plain view of passing shoppers. Like the segregated South of a bygone United States, todays Saudi Arabia shunts half the population into separate, inferior and usually invisible spaces.

At that moment, there was only one thing to do. I stood up. From the depths of armchairs, men in their white robes and red-checked kaffiyehs stared impassively over their mugs. I felt blood rushing to my face. I dropped my eyes, and immediately wished I hadnt. Snatching up the skirts of my robe to keep from stumbling, I walked out of the store and into the clatter of the shopping mall.

--

THAT was nearly four years ago, a lesson learned on one of my first trips to the kingdom. Until that day, I thought I knew what I was doing: Id heard about Saudi Arabia, that the sexes are wholly segregated. From museums to university campuses to restaurants, the genders live corralled existences. One young, hip, U.S.-educated Saudi friend told me that he arranges to meet his female friends in other Arab cities. Its easier to fly to Damascus or Dubai, he shrugged, than to chill out coeducationally at home.

I was ready to cope, or so I thought. I arrived with a protective smirk in tow, planning to thicken the walls around myself. Id report a few stories, and go home. I had no inkling that Saudi Arabia, the experience of being a woman there, would stick to me, follow me home on the plane and shadow me through my days, tainting the way I perceived men and women everywhere.

Im leaving the Middle East now, closing up years spent covering the fighting and fallout that have swept the region since Sept. 11. Of all the strange, scary and joyful experiences of the past years, my time covering Saudi Arabia remains among the most jarring.

I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being. I tried to draw parallels: If I went to South Africa during apartheid, would I feel compelled to be polite?

I would find that I still saw scraps of Saudi Arabia everywhere I went. Back home in Cairo, the usual cacophony of whistles and lewd coos on the streets sent me into blind rage. I slammed doors in the faces of deliverymen; cursed at Egyptian soldiers in a language they didnt speak; kept a resentful mental tally of the Western men, especially fellow reporters, who seemed to condone, even relish, the relegation of women in the Arab world.

In the West, theres a tendency to treat Saudi Arabia as a remote land, utterly removed from our lives. But its not very far from us, nor are we as different as we might like to think. Saudi Arabia is a center of ideas and commerce, an important ally to the United States, the heartland of a major world religion. It is a highly industrialized, ultramodern home to expatriates from all over the world, including Americans who live in lush gated compounds with swimming pools, drink illegal glasses of bathtub gin and speak glowingly of the glorious desert and the famous hospitality of Saudis.

The rules are different here. The same U.S. government that heightened public outrage against the Taliban by decrying the mistreatment of Afghan women prizes the oil-slicked Saudi friendship and even offers wan praise for Saudi elections in which women are banned from voting. All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels dont let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay; women checking into hotels alone have long been regarded as prostitutes.

As I roamed in and out of Saudi Arabia, the abaya, or Islamic robe, eventually became the symbol of those shifting rules.

I always delayed until the last minute. When I felt the plane dip low over Riyadh, Id reach furtively into my computer bag to fish out the black robe and scarf crumpled inside. Id slip my arms into the sleeves without standing up. If I caught the eyes of any male passengers as my fingers fumbled with the snaps, Id glare. Was I imagining the smug looks on their faces?

The sleeves, the length of it, always felt foreign, at first. But it never took long to work its alchemy, to plant the insecurity. After a day or two, the notion of appearing without the robe felt shocking. Stripped of the layers of curve-smothering cloth, my ordinary clothes suddenly felt revealing, even garish. To me, the abaya implied that a womans body is a distraction and an interruption, a thing that must be hidden from view lest it haul the society into vice and disarray. The simple act of wearing the robe implanted that self-consciousness by osmosis.

In the depths of the robe, my posture suffered. Id draw myself in and bumble along like those adolescent girls who seem to think they can roll their breasts back into their bodies if they curve their spines far enough. That was why, it hit me one day, I always seemed to come back from Saudi Arabia with a backache.

The kingdom made me slouch.

--

SAUDI men often raised the question of women with me; they seemed to hope that I would tell them, either out of courtesy or conviction, that I endorsed their way of life. Some blamed all manner of Western ills, from gun violence to alcoholism, on womens liberation. Do you think you could ever live here? many of them asked. It sounded absurd every time, and every time I would repeat the obvious: No.

Early in 2005, I covered the kingdoms much-touted municipal elections, which excluded women not only from running for office, but also from voting. True to their tribal roots, candidates pitched tents in vacant lots and played host to voters for long nights of coffee, bull sessions and poetry recitations. I accepted an invitation to visit one of the tents, but the sight of a woman in their midst so badly ruffled the would-be voters that the campaign manager hustled over and asked me, with lavish apologies, to make myself scarce before I cost his man the election.

A few days later, a female U.S. official, visiting from Washington, gave a press appearance in a hotel lobby in Riyadh. Sporting pearls, a business suit and a bare, blond head, she praised the Saudi elections.

The election is a departure from their culture and their history, she said. It offers to the citizens of Saudi Arabia hope . Its modest, but its dramatic.

The American ambassador, a bespectacled Texan named James C. Oberwetter, also praised the voting from his nearby seat.

When I got here a year ago, there were no political tents, he said. Its like a backyard political barbecue in the U.S.

One afternoon, a candidate invited me to meet his daughter. She spoke fluent English and was not much younger than me. I cannot remember whether she was wearing hijab, the Islamic head scarf, inside her home, but I have a memory of pink. I asked her about the elections.

Very good, she said.

So you really think so, I said gently, even though you cant vote?

Of course, she said. Why do I need to vote?

Her father chimed in. He urged her, speaking English for my benefit, to speak candidly. But she insisted: What good was voting? She looked at me as if she felt sorry for me, a woman cast adrift on the rough seas of the world, no male protector in sight.

Maybe you dont want to vote, I said. But wouldnt you like to make that choice yourself?

I dont need to, she said calmly, blinking slowly and deliberately. If I have a father or a husband, why do I need to vote? Why should I need to work? They will take care of everything.

Through the years I have met many Saudi women. Some are rebels; some are proudly defensive of Saudi ways, convinced that any discussion of womens rights is a disguised attack on Islam from a hostile Westerner. There was the young dental student who came home from the university and sat up half the night, writing a groundbreaking novel exploring the internal lives and romances of young Saudi women. The oil expert who scolded me for asking about female drivers, pointing out the pitfalls of divorce and custody laws and snapping: Driving is the least of our problems. I have met women who work as doctors and business consultants. Many of them seem content.

Whatever their thoughts on the matter, they have been assigned a central, symbolic role in what seems to be one of the greatest existential questions in contemporary Saudi Arabia: Can the country opt to develop in some ways and stay frozen in others? Can the kingdom evolve economically and technologically in a global society without relinquishing its particular culture of extreme religious piety and ancient tribal code?

The men are stuck, too. Over coffee one afternoon, an economist told me wistfully of the days when he and his wife had studied overseas, how shed hopped behind the wheel and did her own thing. Shes an independent, outspoken woman, he said. Coming back home to Riyadh had depressed both of them.

Here, I got another dependent: my wife, he said. He found himself driving her around, chaperoning her as if she were a child. When they see a woman walking alone here, its like a wolf watching a sheep. Let me take whats unattended.  He told me that both he and his wife hoped, desperately, that social and political reform would finally dawn in the kingdom. He thought foreign academics were too easy on Saudi Arabia, that they urged only minor changes instead of all-out democracy because they secretly regarded Saudis as savages incapable of handling too much freedom.

I call them propaganda papers, he said of the foreign analysis. They come up with all these lame excuses. He and his wife had already lost hope for themselves, he said.

For ourselves, the train has left the station. We are trapped, he said. I think about my kids. At least when I look at myself in the mirror Ill say: At least I said this. At least I wrote this. 

--

WHEN Saudi officials chat with an American reporter, they go to great lengths to depict a moderate, misunderstood kingdom. They complain about stereotypes in the Western press: Women banned from driving? Well, they dont want to drive anyway. They all have drivers, and why would a lady want to mess with parking?

The religious police who stalk the streets and shopping centers, forcing Islamic values onto the populace? Oh, Saudi officials say, they really arent important, or strict, or powerful. You hear stories to the contrary? Mere exaggerations, perpetuated by people who dont understand Saudi Arabia.

I had an interview one afternoon with a relatively high-ranking Saudi official. Since I cant drive anywhere or meet a man in a cafe, I usually end up inviting sources for coffee in the lobby of my hotel, where the staff turns a blind eye to whether those in the family section are really family.

As the elevator touched down and the shiny doors swung open onto the lobby, the official rushed toward me.

Do you think we could talk in your room? he blurted out.

I stepped back. What was this, some crazy come-on?

No, why? I stammered, stepping wide around him. We can sit right over here. I wanted to get to the coffee shop  no dice. He swung himself around, blocking my path and my view.

Its not a good idea, he said. Lets just go to your room.

I really dont think I mean, I said, stuttering in embarrassment.

Then, peering over his shoulder, I saw them: two beefy men in robes. Great bushes of beards sprang from their chins, they swung canes in their hands and scanned the hotel lobby through squinted eyes.

Is that the religious police? I said. It is! I was a little mesmerized. Id always wanted to see them in action.

The ministry official seemed to shrink a little, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Theyre not supposed to be here, he muttered despondently. What are they doing here?

Well, why dont we go to the mall next door? I said, eyes fixed on the menacing men. Theres a coffee shop there, we could try that.

No, they will go there next. While he wrung his hands nervously, I stepped back a little and considered the irony of our predicament. To avoid running afoul of what may be the worlds most stringent public moral code, I was being asked to entertain a strange, older man in my hotel room, something I would never agree to back home.

I had to do something. He was about to walk away and cancel the meeting, and I couldnt afford to lose it. Then I remembered a couple of armchairs near the elevator, up on my floor. We rode up and ordered room-service coffee. We talked as the elevators chimed up and down the spine of the skyscraper and the roar of vacuum cleaners echoed in the hallway.

--

ONE glaring spring day, when the hot winds raced in off the plains and the sun blotted everything to white, I stood outside a Riyadh bank, sweating in my black cloak while I waited for a friend. The sidewalk was simmering, but I had nowhere else to go. As a woman, I was forbidden to enter the mens half of the bank to fetch him. Traffic screamed past on a nearby highway. The winds tugged at the layers of black polyester. My sunglasses began to slip down my glistening nose.

The door clattered open, and I looked up hopefully. But no, it was a security guard. And he was stomping straight at me, yelling in Arabic. I knew enough vocabulary to glean his message: He didnt want me standing there. I took off my shades, fixed my blue eyes on him blankly and finally turned away as if puzzled. I think of this as playing possum.

He disappeared again, only to reemerge with another security guard. This man was of indistinct South Asian origin and had an English vocabulary. He looked like a pit bull  short, stocky and teeth flashing as he barked: Go! Go! You cant stand here! The men can SEE! The men can SEE!

I looked down at him and sighed. I was tired. Where do you want me to go? I have to wait for my friend. Hes inside. But he was still snarling and flashing those teeth, arms akimbo. He wasnt interested in discussions.

Not here. NOT HERE! The men can SEE you! He flailed one arm toward the bank.

I lost my temper.

Im just standing here! I snapped. Leave me alone! This was a slip. I had already learned that if youre a woman in a sexist country, yelling at a man only makes a crisis worse.

The pit bull advanced toward me, making little shooing motions with his hands, lips curled back. Involuntarily, I stepped back a few paces and found myself in the shrubbery. I guess that, from the bushes, I was hidden from the view of the window, thereby protecting the virtue of all those innocent male bankers. At any rate, it satisfied the pit bull, who climbed back onto the sidewalk and stood guard over me. I glared at him. He showed his teeth. The minutes passed. Finally, my friend reemerged.

A liberal, U.S.-educated professor at King Saud University, he was sure to share my outrage, I thought. Maybe hed even call up the bank  his friend was the manager  and get the pit bull in trouble. I told him my story, words hot as the pavement.

He hardly blinked. Yes, he said. Oh. He put the car in reverse, and off we drove.

--

DRIVING to the airport, I felt the kingdom slipping off behind me, the flat emptiness of its deserts, the buildings that rear toward the sky, encased in mirrored glass, blank under a blaring sun. All the hints of a private life I have never seen. Saudis are bred from the desert; they find life in what looks empty to me.

Even if I were Saudi, would I understand it? I remember the government spokesman, Mansour Turki, who said to me: Being a Saudi doesnt mean you see every face of Saudi society. Saudi men dont understand how Saudi women think. They have no idea, actually. Even my own family, my own mother or sister, she wont talk to me honestly.

I slipped my iPod headphones into my ears. I wanted to hear something thumping and American. It began the way it always does: an itch, an impatience, like a wrinkle in the sock, something that is felt, but not yet registered. The discomfort always starts when I leave.

By the time I boarded the plane, I was in a temper. I yanked at the clasps, shrugged off the abaya like a rejected embrace. I crumpled it up and tossed it childishly into the airplane seat.

Then I was just standing there, feeling stripped in my jeans and blouse. My limbs felt light, and modesty flashed through me. I was aware of the skin of my wrists and forearms, the triangle of naked neck. I scanned the eyes behind me, looking for a challenge. But none came. The Saudi passengers had watched my tantrum impassively.

I sat down, leaned back and breathed. This moment, it seems, is always the same. I take the abaya off, expecting to feel liberated. But somehow, it always feels like defeat.

--

megan.stack@latimes.com

Stack reported in Saudi Arabia repeatedly during her tenure as The Times Cairo Bureau chief from September 2003 until last month.
Several prominent Mexican news outlets went dark Tuesday to protest the murder of journalists across the country, including Mondays brazen midday killing of veteran crime reporter Javier Valdez.

The Day Without Journalism protests were staged by publications across Mexico, where at least five journalists have been gunned down this year and where few perpetrators are ever brought to justice.

On Tuesday, reports emerged of yet another attack, this time against a magazine executive in the state of Jalisco.

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Sonia Cordova, an executive at the weekly Semanario Costeno and the wife of the magazines publisher, was wounded and her 26-year-old son killed Monday night when a gunman besieged them in the city of Autlan, the state prosecutors office said. Cordova remained hospitalized, the office said.

In Mexico, journalists are killed because they can be, because nothing happens, read the text Tuesday on the home page of Animal Politico, one of Mexicos most influential online news publications. Instead of its normal content, the site published a black Web page featuring photos of Valdez and other journalists killed this year. Several other major news outlets did the same.

Journalists hold up photos of Javier Valdez and other slain colleagues at the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City on May 16, 2017, to call attention to the latest wave of killings of journalists. (Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

In Mexico City on Monday night, journalists marched in the streets and scrawled In Mexico they are killing us in front of the Angel of Independence monument. Vigils were planned in several states on Tuesday evening.

Since 2000, at least 125 journalists have been killed in Mexico, according to the National Human Rights Commission, the governments independent watchdog.

The deadly risks of reporting on drug cartels or government corruption have led many publications to self-censor and others to shut down. Reporters who continue to pursue hard-hitting stories often must employ bodyguards or take other extraordinary security measures.

The death of Valdez, who had been internationally recognized for his work and who last year published a book about the challenges of practicing what he called narco-journalism, sent shock waves through Mexicos media community.

Valdez, a correspondent for the Mexico City-based daily La Jornada and a co-founder of the regional weekly Riodoce, was shot dead on a busy road in broad daylight in the city of Culiacan.

Alejandro Sicairos, a co-founder of Riodoce, said in a radio interview Tuesday that he is sure that organized crime ordered the attack, dismissing a suggestion by a local prosecutor that Valdez may have been killed in an attempted carjacking.

We dont know who ordered it and who carried it out, but we do know that organized crime is directly responsible for this, Sicairos said.

He said Valdez died because he had tirelessly documented rising violence in the state of Sinaloa, where the sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman have been fighting other groups for control of the Sinaloa drug cartel in the months since Guzman, the cartels founder, was extradited to the United States.

The bloody conflict has helped drive violence across Mexico, which is on track to record more homicides in 2017 than any year since the government began releasing such statistics in 1997.

There is unstoppable violence in Sinaloa. Journalism is in the middle of this crossfire.  Alejandro Sicairos, co-founder of Riodoce

There is unstoppable violence in Sinaloa, Sicairos said. Journalism is in the middle of this crossfire.

In the interview, Sicairos pleaded with the leaders of organized crime to respect journalists role as messengers of information. We give accounts of events, but we have nothing to do with them, he said.

Tania Montalvo, the editor of Animal Politico, said journalists in her newsroom decided Monday afternoon to stage a Day Without Journalism protest after they learned of Valdezs death.

It was a moment to do something, to say, Enough is enough, she said.

Montalvo said Tuesdays protest was a call to our readers to act and an attempt to pressure authorities to do more to protect the media. An attack against a journalist, she said, is also an attack against citizens and their rights to free information.

Every time a journalist is killed there are tweets condemning the attack, but nothing happens, she said.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has been criticized for not speaking out more forcefully after other journalists were slain, sent a Twitter message Monday denouncing the killing of Valdez: I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and press, fundamental to our democracy.

An illustration of slain Mexican journalist Javier Valdez appears on the cover of El Heraldo newspaper in Mexico City on Tuesday. (Alfredo Estrella / AFP/Getty Images)

But media advocates say authorities are not doing nearly enough to protect freedom of expression in Mexico, which last year was named by Reporters Without Borders as the third-most deadly country in the world for journalists, after Syria and Afghanistan.

Although there is a special prosecutor devoted to investigating crimes against journalists as well as a program established in 2012 that provides emergency evacuations and police protection to members of the media who have come under threat, violence against journalists is getting worse, advocates say.

Article 19, a nonprofit that advocates for media protections in Mexico, recorded a record 426 threats or attacks against the press last year, including beatings and torture, said Luis Knapp, an attorney with the group.

In more than 99% of those cases, he said, the perpetrators were never prosecuted.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

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For years, David Friedman, a controversial New York bankruptcy lawyer who has worked for Donald Trump, helped from afar to build up an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Friedman has run a nonprofit that raises millions of dollars for a yeshiva that also funds several schools and news organizations in Beit El, a town of 7,000 people north of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Photographs show him arm in arm with one of Beit Els founders. A plaque in the Beit El Yeshiva pays tribute to Friedmans father as a founding trustee.

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As Friedman prepares to take up his post Tuesday as U.S. ambassador to Israel on the eve of President Trumps visit to the region, residents of Beit El are hoping that he can help soften the U.S. policy against Israels settlements in the occupied West Bank.

All Israeli building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is considered illegal by Palestinians and much of the international community. Many countries, including the U.S., have warned that settlement expansion was endangering prospects for peace through a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

Many observers wonder how diplomatic Friedman, 57, can be, considering some of his past inflammatory comments. In addition to promoting West Bank settlements, he has called former President Obama and others anti-Semitic because of their criticism of Israel and compared liberal American Jews to Holocaust-era kapos, Jews who collaborated with Nazis in concentration camps. He later said he regretted using hurtful words.

Settlement officials say they hope Friedman can help get a green light for hundreds of new homes at Beit El. They were also optimistic that the ambassador would break with years of U.S. diplomatic protocol and pay a public visit to Beit El and other Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Palestinians claim as the site of a future state.

And if peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians are revived, residents look forward to their views being relayed to negotiators.

Ive got a lot to tell him. The important thing is: I want to build, said Shai Alon, the head of the Beit Els local council, as he checked an invitation to a reception Sunday in Jerusalem in honor of the new ambassador. Ill say: Come here and see whats going on.

Located near a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Ramallah, Beit El boasts palm-tree-lined streets, traffic circles adorned with passages from the Bible, and colorful plastic street ornaments. Muezzin calls to Muslim prayer echo off the surrounding hills.

At the Beit El Yeshiva, a religious seminary that relies on donations raised from the U.S. charity Friedman once headed, worshipers swayed in silence last week in a new study hall decorated with ornate silver and woodcarved colonnades.

It is near a hilltop spot that residents believe is the site of Jacobs vision of angels on a ladder in the biblical book of Genesis. Beit El was established 40 years ago by the founders of Israels Gush Emunim settlement movement.

Beit El gained notoriety as an ideological leader among Israels religious Zionists for its well-respected yeshiva, schools and media. The multiple educational institutions run by the yeshiva and its American supporters make the religious seminary the settlements largest employer.

Beit El is also known for the yeshivas hard-line rabbi, Zalman Melamed, who has supported soldiers refusing an order to evacuate settlements, and was a staunch critic of the left-wing governments that concluded peace accords with the Palestinians in the 1990s.

Every community has a sugar daddy that helps to give a little bit more than the government gives  that makes the place look nicer and more pleasant to live. We hope that he will continue  as his family has been very positive to Beit El, said Avi Dobuler, a 27-year resident of Beit El.

Friedman arrived in Israel on Monday and is slated to present his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin on Tuesday. President Trump is expected to arrive in Israel next week as part of the middle segment of his first trip abroad since his inauguration.

Friedman on Monday visited the Western Wall in Jerusalems Old City, the site holy to Jews as one of the remnants of the ancient temples. Friedman said he said a prayer for Trump and his upcoming visit.

When Trump first designated Friedman as the ambassador to Israel, settler leaders in Beit El and elsewhere welcomed what they believed was a sign that the United States decades-old policies supporting a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians was about to change.

The Palestinian leadership, however, has worried about the influence of an advocate for the settlers whom many considered to be to the right of conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

From the people [Trump] appointed you would assume there are settlers in the White House, Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian official, said in a February interview.

Recently, Trump has talked of seeking the ultimate agreement between Israelis and Palestinians and hesitated to make good on a campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. His visit to Israel and a planned speech Tuesday have fueled swirling speculation that he is working on a new U.S. peace initiative.

Chaim Silberstein, a member of the Beit El council who was a student at the yeshiva in the 1980s, said that when Beit El founder Yaakov Katz came to the U.S. to raise money for the settlement, Friedmans father, Rabbi Morris Friedman, was one of several individuals in the New York City area who showed the settlement activist around.

Friedman followed in his fathers footsteps, becoming president of the American Friends of Beit El Institutions, which holds an annual gala fundraiser.

As a columnist for the Arutz 7 news website funded by the yeshiva, Friedman wrote during the election campaign that the two-state solution was an illusion which serves the worst intentions of the United States and Palestinian Arabs. And during the election campaign he echoed Trumps promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

During his Senate confirmation hearings this year, he backed off controversial rhetoric about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and vowed to represent U.S. policy.

David Friedman will have difficult choices to make. I dont expect policy to change because the ambassador is a friend. If he cant do his job, hell lose his job, said Yehuda HaKohen, a former broadcaster at the yeshiva-funded radio station who lives on a hilltop overlooking Beit El. I dont think American interests in the Middle East can coexist with his personal feelings about Judea and Samaria  the West Bank.

Worshipers take part in an afternoon prayer service at the Beit El Yeshiva. (Joshua Mitnick / For The Times)

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

Twitter: @joshmitnick
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
President Trump defended his "absolute right" to share "highly classified" information with Russians. He tweeted this morning:

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

The now usual morning tweet rant didn't stop there. He also blamed former FBI Director James Comey for the "leakers in the intelligence community":

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

The response comes out as a reaction after The Washington Post reported the president shared sensitive information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in their visit to the Oval Office last week.

The information revealed discloses a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, according with the report. The White House has labeled it as false news. National security adviser H. R. McMcaster said yesterday night that the president did not discussed any military operations that were not already publicly known.

What's the harm?

If this is true, the country that shared classified information is likely to stop doing so, our allies will think twice before sharing any sensitive information with the U.S., and as media reports keep focusing on internal problems, we are giving an important advantage to other countries that might want to find weaknesses.

BREAKING: European official to AP: Country might stop sharing intel with US if Trump gave classified info to Russian diplomats.  The Associated Press (@AP) May 16, 2017
Meanwhile, staff of the corporation told the Crime Branch that the letter pad issued in the name of the mayor was fake.
May 16, 2017, 1:48pm ET

Ford to slash North America workforce as market stagnates?

Sources suggest the Blue Oval could trim its North American and Asian workforces by around 10 percent.

Ford is reportedly preparing for significant workforce reductions as demand for automobiles appears to plateau in the US market.

The Blue Oval could slash its global employee count by around 10 percent, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed insiders. The company is said to have around 200,000 workers spread across the globe, suggesting the cuts could affect tens of thousands of employees.

Separately, a Reuters source suggests the rumored payroll reductions are part of Ford's plan to reduce costs by $3 billion. The adjustment is expected to mostly affect salaried workers, some of whom may be offered incentives for voluntary early retirement.

Ford's April sales slid by 7.2 percent in the US as a slight rise in SUV sales failed to offset a steep 21.2-percent falloff for cars. The company managed to post an 11-percent gain in China during the same period, however.

"We have not announced any new people efficiency actions, nor do we comment on speculation," the automaker said in a statement.
May 16, 2017, 6:07am ET

Hyundai previews i30 N hot hatch

Hyundai\'s answer to the Volkswagen GTI is taking shape.

Hyundai has published yet another teaser video to preview the upcoming i30 N.

Shot in England, the video sheds a little bit more insight into what we can expect from the South Korean brand's first true hot hatch. We already know the model will receive a deeper front bumper inspired by Hyundai's WRC racer, a new grille accented by two pieces of arch-shaped trim, a roof-mounted spoiler, and larger alloy wheels. The i30 N is expected to usher in the design language that will influence every upcoming N-badged Hyundai, so odds are we'll see more of the double-arched grille in the years to come.

The i30 N is envisioned as a rival for the Volkswagen GTI and the Ford Focus ST, two of the best hot hatches on the planet, so it needs to pack a significant punch to be taken seriously.

Rumors indicate it will use a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine tuned to deliver about 250 horsepower to the front wheels via a six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip differential. We hear that a quick-shifting eight-speed dual-clutch transmission will be added to the lineup a little later in the production run, but nothing is official at this point.

The Hyundai i30 N will likely debut this fall at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Whether or not it will be sold in the United States -- where the standard i30 is known as the Elantra GT -- is still up in the air.
Allentown police have made an arrest in connection with the shooting of a man over the weekend, but the gunman is still at large.

Police say Rashawn Harrigan, 19, owed the shooting victim money and they planned to meet Saturday night in the 400 block of Law Street.

A woman drove the debtee to meet Harrigan, and they arrived at about 9:30 p.m., police said.

Harrigan and the alleged gunman got in the backseat of the Chevy Equinox, and the SUV was parked in the 400 block of Law Street, according to police.

Harrigan's accomplice put a gun to the man's head and reportedly said, "You're getting stuck."

The woman heard a gunshot as she fled the SUV, and called 911. Harrigan got out of the SUV, tracked down the woman, grabbed her phone and ended the call, police said.

Harrigan allegedly dragged the woman by her hair back to the SUV. Harrigan forced the woman to open the rear hatch of the SUV, where he took a safe and then ran away, police said.

Police arrived and found the victim bleeding heavily from his groin area.

The victim was driven by police to nearby Sacred Heart Hospital, then rushed from there by ambulance to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township.

Police said the shooting victim is being treated for life-threatening injuries.

Harrigan, who lives in the 400 block of Law Street in Allentown, was arraigned Tuesday on charges of aggravated assault, robbery and simple assault.

He was sent to Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $125,000 bail.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Bethlehem gambler is accused of repeatedly calling the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem and wrongly claiming he is owed a jackpot, authorities said.

Charged is Nathaniel Anthony Sanborn, 25, of the 1900 block of West Broad Street.

Sands security investigator Sandra Brotzman on May 4 reported to city police that Sanborn kept calling the casino even after being told to stop. The calls began on Dec. 12 when Sanborn asked to speak with the Pennsylvania Gaming Board, claiming he never received his winnings, police said.

The gaming board investigated the matter and concluded Sanborn was not owed any money. Sanborn then became disorderly at the gaming board's office and had to be escorted off the property, police said.

Sanborn later was evicted from the casino grounds. On Dec. 16, he allegedly called the casino's executive offices, demanding to speak with the chief executive officer.

Brotzman advised Sanborn he was banned from the property and needed to stop calling. But court records show Sanborn continued calling the executive offices on Dec. 21 and Brotzman warned if he called again, she would notify city police.

On Jan. 3, Brotzman learned Sanborn allegedly called the CEO again, and security officials notified police. Police on Jan. 4 warned Sanborn to cease calling the casino.

Court records show Sanborn on May 2 called the casino's executive offices six times demanding to speak with the CEO and claimed he would be coming to the property.

Police didn't specify how much Sanborn claims he is owed.

He was charged with harassment and was arraigned Monday before Senior District Judge Joseph Barner, who set bail at 10 percent of $2,000. In lieu of bail, Sanborn was sent to Northampton County Prison.

Court records show Sanborn has since posted bail.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Bethlehem Township man is accused of assaulting police officers who went to his home Sunday afternoon for a report of a domestic disturbance.

Sidney Marques Miranda

Charged is Sidney Marques Miranda, 42, of the 3900 block of Washington Street.

A victim reported to police when they arrived at 2:19 p.m. that Miranda was "out of control," throwing items around the house and acting hostile. Officers called to Miranda, who was in the basement, to come upstairs. He then allegedly replied he would "shoot officers in the face," shouted expletives and became agitated.

Officers tried to handcuff Miranda for safety reasons and he resisted, threatening to head-butt them and kicking his legs, police said. One officer was kicked during the scuffle, according to police.

Miranda was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem Township for a mental health evaluation. But shortly after, medical workers called for police to come to the hospital because Miranda allegedly was being "uncooperative" and "verbally combative."

"Do what you have to do," Miranda allegedly said when emergency room workers asked him to get onto a bed to help restrain him. Officers and hospital staff struggled with Miranda to get him onto the bed and in doing so, he punched another officer in the face, according to police.

Eventually, police said Miranda was able to be restrained.

In lieu of bail, Miranda was sent to Northampton County Prison, where he remained Tuesday.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
While the Bethlehem Area School Board is proposing one of its smallest tax hikes in recent years, the news isn't good for taxpayers in the Lehigh County section of the district.

On Monday night, the board voted 7-1 to approve a $268.4 million proposed final budget that would increase taxes by 2.31 percent on average. Director Tom Thomasik voted against the plan and Director Shannon L. Patrick was absent due to a personal emergency.

But the average is a bit misleading as Lehigh County taxpayers will see a much larger tax hike due to a change in a state calculation.

"That is not due to any actions of the school district," Superintendent Joseph Roy said.

The median Northampton County homeowner's tax bill would rise by $72 under the proposal. In neighboring Lehigh County, the median bill would rise by almost $154.

The proposed tax increase is below the district's Act 1 Index of 3.1 percent and lower than the 2.95 percent hike in the spending plan floated last month.

Northampon Lehigh BASD average Proposed budget tax impact 2.20% 2.82% 2.31% Multi-county rebalancing impact 0 3.57% Overall proposed tax change 2.20% 6.39%

Roy said the administration further scaled back the budget since Lehigh County homeowners were seeing such a larger increase.

Because the district spans two counties, it needs the state to determine each county's share of the tax burden to set its annual tax millage rate. That is done by coming up with common level ratios of assessed value to market value.

This year, the State Equalization Tax Board stopped counting the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem and other properties lying within a South Bethlehem tax incremental financing district as part of Northampton's market value.

The board argued the new market values of the TIF properties had been improperly included for the past 15 years. The district argued that Bethlehem's TIF is unique because the district does get some of the new money the properties generate.

In the end, the state agreed to count a portion of the properties, but it still resulted in a major shift of the tax burden to Lehigh County.

The budget continues to push the district's major educational initiative such as reading on grade level by third grade while controlling spending, Roy said. He noted many worthwhile initiatives didn't make it into the budget because of cost concerns.

The district began the budget process with a $12.56 million deficit, which has been closed by tapping $4 million from its savings and cutting spending. The budget cuts include six teaching positions, two guidance counselors and four instructional aides through attrition. It also reduces social workers the district hires as contractors in the two high schools.

Director Dean Donaher said Bethlehem wouldn't have had to raise taxes the last five years if it wasn't funding skyrocketing pension and charter school costs. He said he's not anti-charter but wants a level playing field, like cyber charter tuition reimbursement at actual cost.

Donaher urged state lawmakers to tackle those issues and take a strong look at properly funding public education at the state level.

"Kids are getting the education they need because the local taxpayer picks up the tab year after year," said Michael Faccinetto, school board president.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A woman suing the Easton Police Department over the death of her son has 60 days to find a new lawyer after the one who filed the lawsuit declined to proceed with the case.

If Lois Spaziani can't find a new lawyer in 60 days, she'll have to represent herself, according to U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl.

"The court will also entertain a motion by the defendants to dismiss at that time," Schmehl wrote in the case's online docket on Monday, May 15.

Attorney Patrick Geckle of Philadelphia filed the lawsuit on Oct. 20, 2016, against the city.

The lawsuit accuses Easton police Sgt. Dominick Marraccini of allowing Richard Scheuermann III to bleed to death and accuses the city police department of condoning the excessive use of force.

Scheuermann was fatally shot by Marraccini on Oct. 24, 2014, after a multi-jurisdictional chase. Marraccini was cleared of criminal wrongdoing after an investigation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.

Geckle cites two federal rules of civil procedure as reasons to leave the case. The rules say a case can only proceed if it's "warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law."

He also cited a rule that a case must have evidence in order to proceed, or at least such evidence will likely be uncovered after further investigation.

Geckle had no comment last month on his request to leave the case. Schmehl granted him permission to leave the case on Monday.

It's unclear what Spaziani will do now. She did not return a phone message Tuesday.

The lawsuit says Scheuermann's driving posed no danger to anyone -- a stark contrast to police descriptions of a wild chase that culminated in a tense crash scene where Scheuermann ignored police commands and stabbed himself in the neck with a pocket knife.

State investigators at the time said video and audio recordings of the chase and shooting supported witness accounts that police believed their lives were in danger.

The lawsuit says Marraccini told an ambulance not to bother coming even though Scheuermann needed immediate medical attention. It claims the city failed to discipline, train or provide counseling to Marrraccini, sending a message to him that his conduct was acceptable.

The case was initially taken up by Allentown attorney Joshua Karoly. He withdrew shortly before Geckle took over and filed the lawsuit.

Named as defendants are the city, Easton Mayor Sal Panto Jr., Marraccini and Easton police officer John Doe, although the unidentified officer's role isn't specified in the paperwork. The city mayor and police chief have maintained that the lawsuit has no merit.

Scheuermann died three months after he was released from state prison in New Jersey.

In 2012, a Superior Court Judge in New Jersey sentenced Scheuermann to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and criminal restraint charges.

Authorities said in December 2010, Scheuermann detained his ex-girlfriend in Lopatcong Township, forced her to drive him to his home at the time in Sciota, Pa., and held her against her will for nearly a day.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Easton's mayor wants to scatter license plate-reading cameras throughout the city to help police catch criminals.

Mayor Sal Panto Jr. said he recommends taking $400,000 from the bond issue used to build the new police station to purchase 26 plate-reading cameras.

"They will make criminals think twice about doing something in Easton," he said Friday.

If a witness sees a black SUV speed away from a robbery or a drug deal, police can use the cameras to read the plates on every black SUV driving somewhere in the city. Not only will police know the suspect's plate number, they'll know exactly where the SUV is and where it's heading.

The Genetec AutoVu cameras are about the size of a 64-count box of Crayola crayons, much smaller than the surveillance cameras police already have around the city.

Police already have two plate-reading cameras. They're mounted on either side of a police cruiser and are used to find drivers who haven't paid their parking tickets. They've been in service about 18 months.

The new cameras will be stationary, the mayor said. The plate-reading cameras could eliminate the need for stick-on parking permits. Residents could register for a city parking permit online. Unregistered cars would be ticketed for parking overnight in permit-only neighborhoods based on their plate numbers.

The plan to buy the cameras will probably be ready for introduction to city council by July, Panto said. Council members Jim Edinger and Peter Melan said Friday they both support the camera purchase.

He said some of the police station bond funds could pay for new LED street lights on Lehigh Street, from the 800 block to the 1300 block.

"It's all part of the 'clean and safe' initiative," Panto said.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
With Portlaoise lad Robert Sheehan already paving the way in Hollywood, is there another Laois acting star ready to take on the world?

The search is now on for a young Irish boy to take on a major literary fantasy role, and no experience is required.

MovieExtras.ie is now casting for boys aged 9 to 12 for the lead role in the upcoming Artemis Fowl film.

"We're looking for Irish Actors, aged 9-12 of any ethnicity for the role," the company says.

They describe Artemis' character.

"Artemis should be inquisitive and possessing both academic and emotional intelligence, Artemis is highly perceptive and good at reading people. Most importantly, Artemis is warm-hearted and has a great sense of humour; he has fun in whatever situation he is in and loves life".

"No acting experience required but would be advantageous," the casting company says.

The castings are taking place in Cork from May 24 to 26. To apply for this or many other acting roles, see the Notices section on www.MovieExtras.ie or click here

The Artemis Fowl series of books by Irish writer Eoin Colfer is a worldwide bestseller.
Bank of Ireland has donated a defibrillator to the Community First Responders (CFR) scheme in Kildare.

The donation was made as part of Bank of Irelands, Be at Your Best programme.

At present, local communities around Kildare are forming Community First Responders schemes (CFRs) which will be linked to the National Ambulance Service.

Joanne Pender from CFR Kildare said that having a defibrillator for CFR groups in the community enhances the ability of local teams to make a real difference when called upon by the National Ambulance Service.

"We are extremely grateful to the staff of Bank of Ireland for their support, she said.

Defibrillators are small devices that are placed on the chest or abdomen and use electrical pulses or shocks to help control life-threatening arrhythmias, especially those that can cause sudden cardiac arrest. CFR schemes are community groups who work in conjunction with the National Ambulance Service as a first response unit for 999 calls for cardiac instances in the area.

Speaking about the donation, Amanda McDermott, Branch Manager at Bank of Ireland, Kildare said it was a vital initiative.

We are delighted to be involved in this vital initiative. It has not only created greater awareness among our staff of how simply a life can be saved, but has also given us a chance to give something back to the community who support us constantly in our business. We are thrilled to be in a position to help them provide such an essential service.

As part of the BOI programme staff hosted a number of fundraising activities including a Couch to 5k Run, and Treks across Mountains in Dublin, Sligo, Galway, Kerry and Belfast , and various other health related activities. Across the different events hundreds of employees took part and arising from the fundraising success, the Bank made the decision to continue their support of the Community First Responders schemes, given the valuable, life-saving role played by CFR trained volunteers with access to defibrillators in their local communities.

At present, local communities around Kildare are forming Community First Responders schemes (CFRs) which will be linked to the National Ambulance Service.
Kildare County Council has unveiled plans for an exciting event  A Taste of Africa on Saturday May 20 at Newbridge Town Hall.

The local authority pointed out Africa Day falls on May 25 each year, with events taking place around the country during the month to mark this African Union initiative.

Kildare is playing its part and aims to celebrate African diversity, success and the cultural and economic potential of the continent.

Events to mark Africa Day are supported by Irish Aid (the Governments programme for overseas development) and Kildare County Council.

A Taste of Africa is being organised in conjunction with the Kildare Integration Strategy Steering Group and Kildare Integration Network.

It will run from 2pm until 5pm and will comprise a taste of the food, music and dance of Africa.

Minister of State for the Diaspora and International Development, Joe McHugh said Irish Aids Africa Day events are a great occasion for families and friends to celebrate African culture and the strong bonds that exist between Ireland and Africa.

Irish Aid has been working in Africa on behalf of the people of Ireland over several decades to deliver improvements in the areas of nutrition, education, poverty eradication, gender equality and the environment and also in response to humanitarian emergencies, he said.

This work is built on the contributions of Irish missionary nuns and priests who were the bedrock of relations between Ireland and Africa in the first instance. Their footprint has enabled relations to continue to grow in an authentic manner, underpinned by trust and respect.

Trading relationships between Ireland and countries throughout Africa are also developing steadily and many exciting new opportunities for economic growth are emerging.
A new play by Kildare man John MacKenna featuring the songs, music and writings of his friend, the late Leonard Cohen, will open in a matter of weeks.

President Michael D Higgins and the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin Vickers will attend the premiere on June 15, of Between Your Love and Mine which Mr MacKenna describes as a requiem for young people.

Last summer, Mr MacKenna approached his long-time friend Leonard Cohen with the idea of staging a requiem in memory of young people who had died and in honour of those who mourn their loss.

Leonard was immediately supportive of the idea, MacKenna says, and told me I was free to use whatever material I found suitable. The requiem is not for Leonard.

Rather its a work by him, shaped from his songs, poems and writings from his Book of Mercy.

Mr MacKenna worked on arranging the requiem last summer and by late October the script was in place.

I last spoke with Leonard about the project in late October and he gave me the go-ahead. Little did either of us imagine that two weeks later he would be gone.

Between Your Love and Mine draws on the songs, lyrics, writing and a late unpublished poem of Leonard Cohen and will premiere in Carlow on June 15th before touring to 11 other theatres across the country over the following three weeks.

Musical director for Between Your Love and Mine is Aisling Carter and it features the voices of Eric Butler, Katie Jacques and Shane Sullivan. The band features Lucy Deegan and Meadbh Farrell on cello; Annie Rose Deegan on violin; Aisling Carter on piano and David Day on percussion.

Spoken word for the requiem is by Angela Keogh and John MacKenna, who also directs.

Kildare audiences can see the new production on Friday June 30 when it comes to the Moat Theatre for one night only.

Tickets at the Moat are already selling fast.

Read Mac Kenna's tribute to his late friend, Leonard Cohen.

Read more on the work of John MacKenna here.
A man who was caught by Gardai after a brief chase, and assaulted two of them, has been jailed.

Naas District Court heard on Thursday last, May 11, that Patrick Mongan (28), with an address at 4 St Philomenas Park, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15, was seen by Gardai driving erratically at the Applegreen Service station in Newbridge on September 24, 2015.

He took off but was stopped after what was described by Garda Inspector John Costello as a brief pursuit of 500 metres.

There were neither injuries nor a collision but Mr Mongan was charged with dangerous driving at two locations. He was found to have no driving licence and no insurance.

His car was seized under Section 41 of the Road Traffic Act.

Judge Desmond Zaidan was told that after arrest, he became aggressive and struck Garda Seamus Doyle. He also attempted to bite another Garda.

Judge Zaidan asked if the two Gardai wanted to make a victim impact statement.

Inspector Costello said they were asked but were happy not to do so.

The court heard Mr Mongan had 75 previous convictions. The vast majority were driving offences, and included eight for dangerous driving. One was for a hit and run incident and another for careless driving.

There was a non-driving related offence for intimidation of a witness.

The court was told that the defendant was currently serving a five months sentence and had been disqualified from driving for 15 years.

Judge Zaidan asked: Why does he behave like this? Why, why, why, why  does he know?

Sarah Connolly, BL, representing Mr Mongan, responded: a chaotic lifestyle. But, she said, he was not too old to teach new tricks and he was working in the bakery and learning the basic skills of reading and writing.

Judge Zaidan jailed him for a total of 18 months, including six months for dangerous driving, six for the assault on Garda Doyle and six for driving without insurance. He was also disqualified from driving for 15 years.
A 20-year-old man has been banned for driving for four years after he was found in control of a car with cannabis in his system.

At Kilcock District Court, sitting in Naas today, Tuesday, May 16, Christopher Byrne, with an address at Derrinstown Stud, Maynooth, was fined 500 for the offence which occurred at Dublin Road, Maynooth on September 7, 2015.

Judge Desmond Zaidan advised Mr Byrne and other drivers that cannabis stayed in the system longer than alcohol.

Garda Gerard Guinan said he stopped the car driven by Mr Byrne and found his voice slurred. He arrested him and took him to Leixlip Garda Station.

Mr Byrne was very cooperative, and while tests done showed the defendant had no alcohol in his system, another test proved positive for cannabis.

A question arose as to whether Mr Byrne was handcuffed at the time of his arrest in Maynooth.

David Powderly, solicitor representing Mr Byrne, said there was a legal point if the handcuffs were used, on the basis that they should be only used if strictly necessary.

He said that Mr Byrne, who was with three others in the car on the occasion, would say he was handcuffed and that the handcuffs were removed at Leixlip Garda Station.

Mr Powderly said there was no suggestion Garda Guinan used force.

Garda Guinan, both in his written statement, did not say he used handcuffs or refer to them

When the Garda took to the stand, he said he could not recall if he used them.

Mr Byrne said in evidence that Garda Guinan was courteous. I was never arrested before, Mr Byrne told Judge Desmond Zaidan.

Cross examined by Garda Inspector Mel Smith, Mr Byrne said that he just had a few drags of cannabis earlier that day.

Inspector Smith said there had to be doubt about Mr Byrnes memory of the events regarding the handcuffs.

Judge Zaidan put it to him that he was stoned.

Mr Byrne responded: Not really.

The defendant said he felt calmer after smoking.

Judge Zaidan asked him if he remembered everything. Mr Byrne said he did.

Mr Byrne said that the cannabis drag was a once off. I only done it once or twice before that. I dont really like alcohol, he said.

Judge Zaidan said that the longer cannabis stayed in the system, the stronger it got.

The judge noted that Mr Byrne, by his own evidence, had taken the weed at 4pm that day and it was still in his system at 12 midnight. If the Gardai stopped you three days later, the weed would still be in your system. If it was alcohol it would be gone.

He also said that in the long term, cannabis destroys the brain cells.

Mr Powderly said that his client, who was said to earn 350 per week, had no previous convictions

After considering the evidence, including the issue of the handcuffs, Judge Zaidan opted to convict Mr Byrne.
Kildare firefighters showed off their new high-tech, top-of-the-range firefighting gear this afternoon at Naas Fire Station.

The Kildare crews have changed from a traditional blue kit to a new gold-coloured outfit, which represents more than a change in colour.

The new kit provides higher performance in heat and flame protection, added durability and abrasion protection, has more safety features and highlights dirt more obviously so that firefighters know when to have the kit cleaned. It is made by Hunter Apparel Solutions, based in Derry.

Kildare is just the second Fire Service to migrate to this high performance kit after Dublin Fire Brigade

The safety of our staff is of paramount importance and this new PPE gives our crews top of the range protection in the difficult environment in which they work, said Celina Barrett, Chief Fire Officer.

RELATED: Appeal for end to deliberate fires in Sallins

A new roll of honour of all the former crew members at the station today was also launched this afternoon.

Kildare Fire Service has recently purchased a drone to assist with fireground operations. During large incidents the Incident Commander can benefit from getting pictures from a birds eye perspective.

Eye In The Sky: The new Kildare Fire Service drone in action today
Eilis Hession, originally from Crucklahan, Drumreilly, Co. Leitrim, has been announced as the winner of the European Kate Granger Award for Compassionate Care 2017.

Eilis, who maintains very strong links to Leitrim with a house there and many of her family still living there, received the award at the eHealth Week Awards Plenary in Malta last Thursday, May 11. The Award recognises outstanding patient care by individuals currently engaged in the healthcare system.

She has worked as a public health nurse for many years delivering a quality and humane service to all her patients and their families. She leads the Living With Dementia programme in Stillorgan, Dublin, a three year community-based pilot project to support people with dementia to continue to live at home and be an active part of the community.

Her team comprises of patients, their primary carers and representative from community groups. The pilot will influence national policy on the care of people with dementia, improving the lives of tens of thousands of people throughout Ireland.

I am a great admirer of Kate. In her darker days, while she was undergoing treatment for her illness, Kate still had the energy to try to change the way patients were being treated. She experienced that patients are not listened to and cared for as they deserve so she worked to transform that. I am very honoured to receive this important award, Eilis said.

Eilis was the candidate that obtained the highest number of nominations for the European Kate Granger Awards 2017. The jury highlighted her solid track record and accomplishment of compassionate care.

The professionals that nominated Eilis for the award, said, Through her passion, tenacity and leadership skills, Eilis secured three year funding for this project and her approach to patient care has been inspirational to the staff working with her.

Eilis work demonstrates an ambitious and innovative way of delivering patient care. She is described as a motivational leader with all the human, physical and clinical skills required to lead a whole community in creating a changed environment that is actively supporting and including people with dementia, enabling them to live their lives to the full in the community.

The jury of the Kate Granger Awards was composed of several health IT personalities from European hospitals, HIMSS President Stephen Lieber and Kate Grangers widower Chris Pointon.
Todays big Lib Dem policy is an extra 300m a year for the police over the next Parliament.

Under Theresa May at the Home Office, and now as Prime Minister, the police have suffered over 2.2 billion worth of cuts in real terms. This represents a 22% real terms reduction.

As of 31 March 2016 the total strength of the 43 police forces in England & Wales reached just over 124,000 FTE officers. This is the lowest number of police officers recorded under the current strength measure.

Commenting on the announcement Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson, and former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Brian Paddick said:

This commitment, to an extra 300m a year over the next Parliament for the police, is essential. Our police officers work tirelessly to keep us safe but under Theresa May theyve had their hands tied behind their backs. Police visibility on our streets is key to reassuring communities, preventing crime and gathering intelligence. Conservative cuts meant that last year violent crimes actually increased, reversing a normally declining trend. For example, 13 people have been killed on Londons streets in the past three weeks as the capital faces a deadly knife crime epidemic. This money can support community policing, which reassures young people that they dont need to carry knives, deters them from carrying knives and with the help of communities, can take knives off our streets. Only the Liberal Democrats have a plan to reverse the increase in violent crime, boost community confidence and increase the flow of community intelligence.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
So, for long enough, the Brexiteers have been telling us that the EU would be pretty much begging us for a trade deal and wed easily get one within two years.

Theresa May said last month that the deal could be done in two years , despite all sorts of evidence to the contrary.

Paul Nuttall said that it would all be so easy.

Well, in a sobering reality check, the European Court of Justice, who make the rules on this stuff, said today that all EU governments and national parliaments would have to agree such a deal. Remember how the Canadian EU deal was held up by a regional parliament in Belgium?

Tom Brake said:

Theresa May and Nigel Farages claims of an easy trade deal with the EU after Brexit have been left in tatters. People dont have to accept a bad Brexit deal that will mean fewer jobs, higher prices and less money for public services. The Liberal Democrats want you to have your choice over your future. You should have your say on the Brexit deal in a referendum, and if you dont like the deal you should be able to reject it and choose to remain in Europe.

None of this is a surprise to the Liberal Democrat team. Their competent, credible and authoratitve statements have proven time and time again to be correct and Nick Cleggs Brexit Challenge papers provide a comprehensive and accurate analysis of the complexities of all aspects of the risky course we are being dragged on by an incompetent government that hasnt got a clue what its doing.

My big worry is that after 8 June, we end up with Theresa May being given a coronation of chaos, untrammelled authority to do what she likes. That would be very dangerous and what we need is competent, fair voices who wont let the Conservatives have it all their own way. To be honest, government with massive majorities are never a good idea, but when we are facing the biggest risks we have faced in almost a century, the last thing we need is this lot being given a free hand.

This is why every Liberal Democrat needs to get out and about in their nearest target seats to ensure that, come 9th June, the Conservatives have credible, competent opposition to rein them in.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Theresa May was confronted over disability benefit cuts yesterday, during a rare encounter with ordinary people. Cathy Mohan, who lives in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, berated the Prime Minister over cuts to service and social security for people with learning disabilities.

Watch the encounter here.

Tim Farron said:

Theresa May has shown she just doesnt care about people like Cathy who are seeing their benefits slashed and prices rise.

Instead of addressing concerns over learning disabilities  she tried to change the subject to mental health.

Theresa May isnt listening and is taking people for granted.

People dont have to settle for this cold, mean-spirited vision of Britain.

A better future is available. The Liberal Democrats will stand up against a bad Brexit deal that will cost jobs and push up prices, and we will reverse Conservative cuts to benefits for people not fit for work.
Last night, a rally attended by over 900 people launched the Progressive Alliances campaign to support single anti-Tory candidates in a number of seats around the country.

The event was addressed by Labours Clive Lewis, Greens leader Caroline Lucas, Zoe Williams, Paul Mason and Make Votes matter. The Liberal Democrat speaker was former Social Liberal Forum Chair Naomi Smith. She has sent us her speech. Here it is:

Im Naomi Smith, former Liberal Democrat PPC for this constituency (Cities of London and Westminster), former chair of the Social Liberal Forum and very proud Remoaner!

Im not standing this time round, but am campaigning in St Albans where with a 63% remain vote, weve got a good chance of taking the seat from the Brexiteer, Anne Main.

Of course, wed have a much better change if an electoral pact between the progressive parties have been brokered. Im pleased, of course, that the Lib Dems have stood aside in two seats, but am disappointed it wasnt more. I commend, as we all should, The Green Party, for having done so in a great number of seats. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

What has happened in South West Surrey, where the Labour Party and my own, failed to step down for the doctor running against Jeremy Hunt, tells us all we need to know about the culture changes needed in our parties.

SW Surrey, could have been the new Tatton, where if you remember in 1997, both Labour and the Lib Dems stood aside for the anti-corruption candidate, Martin Bell. This helped to highlight Tory sleaze and bring it under the spotlight during a general election campaign. How differently our parties behaved then. Had we not done that, Neil Hamilton may be restanding as the MP for Tatton in June. If wed make like Tatton in SW Surrey this time, we couldve made Tory under funding of the NHS a greater feature of the 2017 General Election.

To change those cultures in our parties is a longer term project. We need to engage in a process of building and reciprocating goodwill and trust. Milestones along that journey in my opinion, should include Labour moving its position on Brexit quite markedly, and for the Lib Dems to rule out working with the Conservatives.

Given the lack of leadership in our both our parties on this, it is now very much down to us, as progressive activists. But before I get on to what Liberal Democrat local parties can now do, let me just put in to context the vision and leadership shown by some:

On the other side of the debate, the organisation has been ruthless. The Regressive Alliance is real. UKIP are giving the Conservatives a free run in 41% of the seats the Tories are contesting. In 2015, UKIP stood 624 candidates. This time, theyre contesting just 377 seats. By comparison, our parties have managed to stand down for each other in around 40 seats. And while I highly commend those local parties that have managed to strike a deal, I sincerely wish it could have been more.

Lets not fight fire, with dire.

It matters, because we know when we work together, we all benefit. The greatest periods of success for progressive over the last 100 years all involved some degree of cross party collaboration (1906, 1945 and 1997). Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. As long as progressive parties are estranged from one another, the Tories will always be able to present themselves as the providers of secure and stable government.

So what can we do now, right now, to help reduce Theresa Mays majority? Well, we have to try and offset the ill effects of the Regressive Alliance. Im encouraging all Liberal Democrat supporters in marginal Labour/Tory seats to critically engage their candidates on the key issues of Brexit and that most progressive of issues, Equal Votes.

The reality for Lib Dem supporters is that the Conservatives are generally terrible on the things we care most about, from LGBT issues to internationalism and democratic equality. While we still have this horrendous first past the post system, we have to vote tactically and encourage others to do so as well.

Tactical votes and non-aggression pacts are what we have left between now and 8 June. And its so important that we employ them. As the American philosopher Carl Friedrich said, Democratic order is built, not on agreement of the fundamentals, but on the organising of its dissent. Or in other words, what distinguishes the health of a democracy , is the vitality of its opposition. If Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders wont yet collaborate, then we must. And itll be no coalition of chaos, but a rebel alliance, and I look forward to working with you all  tactical voting is now our key message, as we begin to build our progressive future. Thank you.
I will not have it. said Tim, saying that the Tories treat nurses like dirt.

He was talking to the Royal College of Nursing conference.

Watch this clip here:

He told them:

The Governments decision to abandon bursaries for nursing students was clearly wrong. The evidence has shown a drastic fall in the number of people applying to study nursing following this dangerously short-sighted cut. We should be supporting more people into these vital professions  but instead this Government are putting up greater barriers. The Liberal Democrats are proud that we are committing to support nurses, midwives and other NHS professionals, not only by reinstating the bursary but by ending the cap on public sector pay rises and giving our NHS the extra money it needs over the next Parliament, which will reduce pressures on our hardworking staff.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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THE environmental regulator has formally found Irish Cement to be in non-compliance over dust emissions from its Mungret plant.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has opened a formal probe into the firm after identifying a number of other issues at its vast plant on the citys edge.

It comes after residents in neighbouring estates woke up on consecutive weekends recently to find a thick dust coating their cars and windows.

Irish Cement apologised recently for any inconvenience caused after the EPA said samples of dust deposited on cars and homes in the Mungret and Raheen area contained Irish Cement plant material along with ambient dusts due to the extended dry weather.

Local Fine Gael councillor Daniel Butler said of this latest EPA report: Its a clear indication of the breaches we have been speaking about for the last weeks.

As well as confirming it has opened a compliance investigation into Irish Cement, the EPA has also made observations in relation to a number of other areas of the plant.

These related to shift reports, bi-weekly fugitive reports, maintenance reports and haulier movements, the regulator stated in the report which has been obtained by the Limerick Chronicle. Irish Cement say this information was not made available to the regulator at the time of the inspection, and it is given as standard procedure.

The company has been ordered to respond to these matters in a set timeframe.

Individually these issues are small, but collectively they are a cause for concern in regard of Irish Cements attention to detail and the quality of its work, Cllr Butler claimed.

The councillor also welcomed the comprehensiveness of the EPAs testing.

The report also re-affirmed that samples taken from Irish Cements site in Mungret were a good match to what was found on residents cars.

This came after the samples were taken to the Centre for Microscopy and Analysis at Trinity College in Dublin.

Asked for a response to the latest findings, Irish Cement said in a statement: EPA site visit reports are published after each visit by EPA enforcement inspectors to licensees sites.

They are a formal mechanism of communicating any findings, actions required or non-compliances to the licensees and they set out the timelines for follow-up actions and reporting.

They are now routinely published on the EPA website and are available to all interested parties.

Irish Cement at all times cooperates fully with any such investigations and as is required by its Industrial Emission Licence is bound by any findings or sanctions that may arise.

This development comes amid concern over Irish Cements 10m plans for the Mungret facility, with the company planning to phase out the use of petroleum coke at its plant and instead use solid recovered waste and used tyres.

The proposals have sparked a backlash in the local area, with residents concerned about the impact on the environment and public health of burning these materials.

Bosses in Mungret have also said that it is crucial the reforms are waved through for the company to remain competitive in Limerick.
A LIMERICK man faces a 12-year driving ban and 200 hours of community service in lieu of five months in prison for dangerous driving and failure to present driving documents, after gardai chased him in the city.

Mark Moloney, 27, of South Claughaun Road, denied driving dangerously through Garryowen on January 2, 2016.

Gda Dermot Cummins told the court that after he signalled the blue flashing lights to signal the driver to stop after Claughaun Court at 6.45pm, he observed the vehicle failing to stop at stop signs and not yielding to ongoing traffic. He was joined by Gda Aled Harken on mobile patrol.

The driver then proceeded at speed as gardai pursued him, the court heard. The driver braked suddenly at Kilmurry Road and came to an abrupt stop.

He then exited the vehicle, fleeing on foot, Gda Cummins said. He added that he chased the accused on foot towards Garryowen, but he soon disappeared.

When the gardai inspected his vehicle, the keys were still in the car and there was a warm Chinese takeaway on the passenger seat.

Gardai called to the defendants house at South Claughaun Road on March 14, 2016. He was asked to present his drivers insurance and licence, but failed to do so, the court heard.

When questioned by defending solicitor Tom Kiely about the lighting that evening, Gda Cummins said that it was dark but that there was good street lighting.

He said that he did not have clear view of Moloney until he left the vehicle at Kilmurry Road. Mr Kiely argued that his client denies driving the vehicle that day.

When asked if fingerprints were taken after the incident, Gda Cummins responded: I dont recall.

Gda Cummins said that Moloneys mother called the gardai earlier that day to say that the car had been stolen. She told the gardai that Moloney was in Newcastle West at a family christening. The court heard the vehicle belonged to Moloneys mother.

Gda Cummins said, at the time, that that could not be possible, as he had seen the accused outside Hong Kong restaurant, on William Street, 15 minutes before the incident.

Mr Kiely said that it would have been pretty easy to get forensic investigators to assess the scene, adding: That wouldnt have been overly-burdensome.

Mr Kiely said that it was alleged that Moloneys cousin was seen driving the vehicle earlier that day. Gda Cummins said: That is correct.

Did you ever think of asking that cousin if he was driving the car? Gda Cummins said: Judge, I observed the defendant driving.

When Mark Moloney, entered the witness box, he said: I wasnt driving it [the car].

Insp Oliver Kennedy asked whom did he visit at the christening in Newcastle West. He said that he was visiting his cousin, but he did not know the name of the child.

The court was told that the mother rang the defendant to notify him that the car had been stolen. He said that he was driving on his way home.

Insp Kennedy asked Mark Moloney what he thought about the gardai identifying him in the vehicle. He replied: I really dont know why they have mistaken me. It is absolutely absurd.

After Judge Mary Larkin found the defendant, who had 94 previous convictions, guilty, Mr Kiely asked the judge to not to impose a prison sentence as the defendant was the only responsible adult in the household, looking after two younger siblings.

Judge Larkin ordered a suitability report on Moloney for 200 hours community service in lieu of five months prison, on which there will be a decision this September.
ACTRESS Jacinta Whyte, described as one of Irelands greatest theatrical exports, has been cast in the role of Angela in the upcoming Angelas Ashes The Musical.

The Dublin born thespian took to the stage at an early age, chosen as a child to play the lead role in Annie at the Victoria Palace Theatre in Londons West End and subsequently at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. Her film credits include My Left Foot, The Commitments, The Lilac Bus and A Green Journey.

While the full cast has yet to be announced, Limerick actress Amanda Minihan will play the role of Frank McCourts grandmother in the upcoming production, which takes to the stage in the Lime Tree theatre from July 6.

She has previously starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act the musical at the Palladium Theatre in Londons West End, amongst other notable roles on stage and screen.

One of the biggest productions ever to be staged in the Lime Tree theatre, it is expected to be a sell-out success, with 11 performances over two weeks, before it moves to the Bord Gais Energy theatre in Dublin for a further 11 performances.

Acclaimed director Pat Moylan, one of Irelands most successful theatre producers, has produced a string of hits on stage, including Stones in his Pockets, I, Keano, The Shawshank Redemption and The Field.

I'm thrilled that Irish audiences will be the first to experience this enthralling musical version of Angela's Ashes, before we take it to the world stage, she said.

I know that they are in for a very special evening of music and song featuring Frank McCourt's iconic characters live on stage  a project that has been so close to my heart for a long time.
THE new president of the University of Limerick Dr Desmond Fitzgerald has called for the 150m Northern Distributor Road to be delivered as a matter of urgency.

Dr Fitzgerald, who took up duties on campus earlier this month, says the proposed interconnector is an essential part of both the continued growth of the regional economy and the university itself.

His intervention comes as councillors prepare for a vote on whether to vary local development plans to allow the road proceed. This vote takes place on Monday week.

According to proposals, the link will start at Coonagh on the citys northside, open up Moyross, before heading over the river Shannon and linking up with the motorway.

It has been opposed in some quarters by local residents who are concerned as to the impact the road will have on flooding.

But Dr Fitzgerald said: As we know, economies are cyclical, there are upturns and there are inevitably downturns. Limerick and the Mid-West must ensure that it capitalises on this upturn and if the right decision is not taken now, this key infrastructural development may not be achieved.

UL is conscious that any large-scale infrastructure development must be delivered in a manner that is sensitive to the local community and to the environment. The UL campus is one of the university's greatest assets and so UL wishes to see a Northern Distributor Road that fits with and complements the local environment and that of our campus, he added.

Dr Fitzgerald warned that without the road, there is a risk the UL campus could by stymied by traffic congestion, and this could continue to spill into the local area.

Separately, the university has also confirmed Dr Fitzgerald is commissioning a campus masterplan to ensure the future expansion and development of UL is delivered in a planned and complementary manner.

"The campus at UL is exceptional; it is a pleasure to work here. I know it will need to grow and I want to ensure that it does so in a sensitive and appropriate manner through a unified plan, Dr Fitzgerald concluded.
The jury in the trial of two Limerick men who are accused of murdering another man in front of his girlfriend at a house party has failed to reach a verdict following several hours if deliberations this Tuesday.

Ger Hogan, aged 34, of Raheen Square, Ballinacurra Weston and Dylan Hayes, aged 22, of The Crescent, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle have both pleaded not guilty to the murder of Shane Murphy at The Grove, Pallasgreen on April 30, 2015.

The 26-year-old, who was from Lee Estate in the city, died after sustained 23 stab wounds including one that pierced his heart.

It is the prosecution case that the two accused men acted together with the intention to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Murphy.

After returning to court this Tuesday afternoon, the jurors asked the trial judge several questions including if they could see the report of Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Linda Mulligan, who carried out a post mortem on Mr Murphys body.

However, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy told the jurors they could not get the report but that he would be happy to read out the evidence given by the Dr Mulligan in the witness box.

The jurors also inquired if there was a lesser verdict than manslaughter available to them.

In reply, Mr Justice McCarthy said the only possible verdicts are guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty.

The judge had already told the jurors they should find either man guilty of manslaughter if they believe the accused had an intention to kill or cause serious injury but was provoked by the deceased to the point where they suffered a complete loss of self control.

He told them if either or both of the accused did not "intend to kill or cause serious injury", but only to cause injury, then the appropriate verdict would be manslaughter.

The jury ceased deliberations at 4.23pm and is due back in court in the morning.
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Italian researchers are about to reveal whether a volcanic lake in central Italy hides one of the legendary "orgy ships" of Roman Emperor Caligula.

If successful, the archaeological feat would produce one of the most extraordinary discoveries of recent times.

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (A.D. 12 to A.D. 41), best known by his nickname Caligula (Little Boots), was the third emperor of the Roman Empire.

Although there have been attempts to rehabilitate him, many historians believe he was the most lunatic, sadistic, and tyrannical emperor in Rome's history. During his brief but wild reign from A.D. 37 to A.D. 41, he is said to have committed incest with each of his three sisters, not to mention making his favorite horse Incitatus a consul and proclaiming himself a living god.

One of his capricious whims was to have monumental ships built so that he could indulge his sexual proclivities on the scenic Lake Nemi, some 20 miles outside Rome.

The ships were most likely scuttled in a "damnatio memoriae" (an action aimed at erasing someone from history) 2,000 years ago, after the 28-year-old emperor was murdered in his palace on Rome's Palatine Hill by members of the Praetorian Guard who were enraged by his cruelty and excess.

The luxury ships disappeared from history, but their legend has persisted throughout the centuries.

Indeed, two wooden ships, one measuring 230 feet in length, the other 240 feet, were first spotted at the bottom of the lake in the 15th century. They were finally brought to light in the late 1920s under Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who ordered the lake to be partially drained.

Unfortunately, nothing remains of the ships, as they were torched under mysterious circumstances.

But Caligula's ships are difficult to forget: Rumors persisted about Mussolini leaving behind a third, 400-foot-long pleasure vessel.

To solve the boat mystery once and for all, authorities in Italy have mounted an in-depth search, which involves researchers from the Environmental Protection Agency of Calabria, Carabinieri divers of Rome, Port authorities of Fiumicino, Rome, and ISPRA, the Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research.

"The survey actually began as a search for illegal dumping," said Luigi Dattola, at the Environmental Protection Agency of Calabria.

"It was then decided to dive further and search for the mysterious ship," he added. "Although it might seem bizzarre that three huge ships would float upon such a small lake, the fact the vessels belonged to Caligula makes the scene likely."

RELATED: Artifacts Revealed in Tomb of King Henry VII: Photos

Dattola scoured last month the 100-foot-deep lake with high-tech scanners. The equipment was necessary as the condition of the lake doesn't allow divers to search for submerged wrecks.

"It takes several hours for the mud particles to deposit as divers move their fins down there. And even then, the visibility is really low, less than three feet," Dattola said.

Dattola's team used side-scan sonar to scour the waters of the lake and sub-bottom profiling systems, which are able to detect objects buried up to 9 feet below the muddy bottom.

Overall, the two-week survey produced enough material to keep the researchers busy with analysis until the end of June.

"We have already noticed some anomalies," Dattola said. "They will be investigated by the Carabinieri divers in the next days."

He stressed these preliminary dives are unlikely to reveal the presence of the legendary ship, but might unveil other archaeological features.

Today Nemi is synonymous with strawberries, but in Roman times this tiny village in the Alban Hills was the center of one of antiquity's cruelest religious rites: a regular human sacrifice performed in honor of the local divinity, Diana Nemorensis, also known as Diana of the Woods.

As the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess Artemis, Diana had a sanctuary on the northern shore of the lake managed by a high-priest known as Rex Nemorensis, the "King of the Sacred Grove."

The priest-king could be displaced only by a slave who had managed to cull a branch from a sacred oak tree in the grove, which earned him the right to fight the reigning leader to the death, and step straight into his place.

This violent rite of succession dominated Nemi's grove at Caligula's time.

According to historic accounts, the megalomaniac emperor dedicated himself to religious rites  and orgies  while on the ships.

RELATED: Christ's Tomb at Risk of Catastrophic' Collapse

As they emerged from the muddy depths in the late 1920s, the ships looked like two great barges, but some details, such as exquisite wolf heads adorning the end of the beams and decks covered with marble and mosaics, clearly indicated the galley was a triumph of luxury and grandeur.

Indeed, the Roman historian Suetonius wrote the vessels had "sterns studded with gems and ample space for baths, porticoes, and dining rooms, and a great variety of vines and fruit-bearing trees."

Reclining on these ships all day long, Caligula "would sail amid choral dancing and singing."

Floating upon the small volcanic lake, the gigantic ships were clearly stationary. Nevertheless, lead pipes, piston pumps, and other sophisticated mechanisms in the wrecks recovered during Mussolini's time showed advanced nautical engineering.

Finding the third ship, which according to the local mayor Alberto Bertucci would be the "world's first luxury cruise ship" will add useful information about the naval construction techniques of the Romans.

Hope for the existence of the fabled vessel lies in a 16th century account by military engineer Francesco de Marchi who descended to the lake bottom using a kind of diving bell.

Bertucci told reporters de Marchi brought up relics "on the far side of the lake from where the two other boats were found, and talked of a boat measuring up to 400 feet long."

De Marchi's account appeared to be confirmed by local fishermen who caught Roman artifacts in their nets as they fished in that area of the lake.

"According to rumors, the third boat would lean by the west coast of the lake below the town of Genzano," Dattola said.

Intriguingly, that area of the lake wasn't drained by Mussolini.

Dattola found evidence of several landslides there, which occurred in antiquity and after the lake draining.

"We focused our survey particularly on that area," Dattola said. "If the ship is there, we should be able to see it."

RELATED: Huns and Farmers Swapped Cultures in Harmony as the Roman Empire Crumbled

Original article on Seeker.
Time-lapse images recently captured an incredible sight  a "tide" of clouds rolling into Arizona's Grand Canyon, in a rare phenomenon known as a total cloud inversion.

Thick, white clouds roil and churn in footage that was shot and edited into a video by filmmaker Harun Mehmedinovic. Titled "Kaibab Elegy," the film was published on Vimeo (opens in new tab) on May 14 and is part of the Skyglow video series and book project, documenting the impact of light pollution on the visibility of the night sky, and contrasting bright urban landscapes with wild spaces untouched by the shine of electric illumination. [Image Gallery: See Photos of Wild Cloud Formations]

Air temperature typically cools as it moves higher into Earth's atmosphere. But during an inversion event, a layer of warm air traps cool air and moisture closer to the ground, preventing it from dissipating as it normally would, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

The phenomenon, also called a surface inversion, is most likely to form during winter months when the air near the ground cools quickly at night, while the air just above the surface stays warm. If winds are calm, the warm air can't mix with the cooler air below it, and the cooler air  which is already denser than the warm air  persists close to the ground; that cool air is particularly likely to get stuck if there are also high-pressure conditions in the area or topographical features such as mountains that can trap the cool air, the NWS explained.

A total cloud inversion can form when there are sudden changes in air temperature close to Earth's surface, which can trap cool air under a "lid" of warmer air. (Image credit: Harun Mehmedinovic)

When an inversion happens at the Grand Canyon, dense clouds can take shape, rolling through the basin like ocean waves. Seen in Mehmedinovic's time-lapse footage, the fast-moving clouds are so thick that they obscure all but the very lip of the vast canyon, as the sun sets and the sky fills with brilliant colors.

Skyglowproject.com: 'Kaibab Elegy' (opens in new tab) from Harun Mehmedinovic (opens in new tab) on Vimeo (opens in new tab).

The National Park Service (NPS) documented a similar episode at the Grand Canyon on Dec. 11, 2014, sharing it on YouTube; in its video, a minute of time-lapse footage captures about 15 minutes of clouds advancing up the canyon walls and then retreating.

And that's a lot of space to fill  the Grand Canyon extends for 277 miles (433 kilometers) in length, is 10 miles (16 km) wide and has a depth of about 1 mile (1.6 km), according to the NPS.

But inversions don't just create dramatic cloud displays  in populated areas, they can also dramatically affect air quality by trapping pollution. When a "lid" of warm air covers a region, particularly in a valley, airborne pollutants from industry, traffic and furnaces can collect in a miasma of smog, the NWS explained.

Original article on Live Science.
MESA, Arizona  Since the dawn of the space age NASA and other agencies have spent billions of dollars to reconnoiter Mars  assailing it with spacecraft flybys, photo-snapping orbiters and landers nose-diving onto its surface. The odds are good, many scientists say, for the Red Planet being an extraterrestrial address for alien life  good enough to sustain decades' worth of landing very expensive robots to ping it with radar, zap it with lasers, trundle across its terrain and scoop up its dirt. Yet against all odds (and researchers' hopes for a watershed discovery), Mars remains a poker-faced world that holds its cards tight. No convincing signs of life have emerged. But astrobiologists continue to, quite literally, chip away at finding the truth.

As the search becomes more heated (some would say more desperate), scientists are entertaining an ever-increasing number of possible explanations for Martian biology as a no-show. For example, could there be a "cover up" whereby the harsh Martian environment somehow obliterates all biosignaturesall signs of past or present life? Or perhaps life there is just so alien its biosignatures are simply unrecognizable to us, hidden in plain view.

Of course, the perplexing quest to find life on Mars may have a simple solution: It's not there, and never was. But as the proceedings of this year's Astrobiology Science Conference held here in April made clear, life-seeking scientists are not giving up yet. Instead, they are getting more creative, proposing new strategies and technologies to shape the next generation of Mars exploration.

A SLUMBERING BIOSPHERE?

Talk about looking for Martians and you inevitably talk about water, the almost-magical liquid that sustains all life on Earth and seems to have served as an indispensable kick-starter for biology in our planet's deepest past. "It all started out with follow the water;' not necessarily follow the life'but follow one of the basic requirements for living systems,'" says Arizona State University geologist Jack Farmer, referring to NASA's oft-repeated mantra for Martian exploration. "There are many indications of water on Mars in the past, perhaps reservoirs of water in the near subsurface as well," he says. "But what is the quality of that water? Is it really saltytoo salty for life?"

Without liquid water, Farmer points out, one would naively think organisms cannot function. The reality may be more complex: on Earth, some resilient organisms such as tardigrades can enter a profound, almost indefinite state of hibernation when deprived of moisture, preserving their desiccated tissues but neither growing nor reproducing. It is possible, Farmer says, that Martian microbes could spend most of their time as inert spores "waiting for something good to happen," only springing to life given the right and very rare conditions. Certain varieties of Earthly "extremophiles"microbes that live at extremes of temperature, pressure, salinity and so onexhibit similar behavior.

Farmer says there is as yet no general consensus about the best way to go about life detection on the Red Planet. This is due in no small part to the runaway pace of progress in biotechnology, which has led to innovations such as chemistry labs shrunken down to fit on a computer chip. These technologies "have been revolutionizing the medical field, and have now started to enter into concepts for life detection on Mars," he explains. Things move so fast that today's best technology for finding Martian biology may be tomorrow's laughably obsolete dead-end.

But no matter how sophisticated a lab on a chip might be, it won't deliver results if it is not sent to the right place. Farmer suspects that seriously seeking traces of life requires deep drilling on Mars. "I basically think we're going to have to gain access to the subsurface and look for the fossil record," he explains. But discovering a clear, unambiguous fossil biosignature on Mars would also raise a red flag. "We probably would approach the future of Mars explorationparticularly accessing habitable zones of liquid water in the deep subsurfacemore cautiously, because life could still be there. So planetary protection would be taken very seriously," he says. ("Planetary protection" is the term scientists commonly use for precautions to minimize the chance of biological contamination between worlds. Think of it not so much in terms of bug-eyed aliens running rampant on Earth but of billion-dollar robots finding "Martians" that prove to only be hardy bacterial hitchhikers imported from our own world).

THE MARTIAN UNDERGROUND

Like-minded about deep diving on Mars is Penelope Boston, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center. "That's my bias," she says. "Given Mars' current state, with all the challenging surface manifestations of dryness, radiation and little atmosphere, the best hope for life still extant on Mars is subsurface." The subsurface, she says, might also offer better chances of preserving past lifethat is, of fossils, even if only of single-celled organisms.

The planet's depths hold the potential for harboring liquid water under certain circumstances, Boston thinks. But how far down might that water be? "I suspect it's pretty farand how we get to it, that's a whole other kettle of fish," she says. Over the years scientists have estimated the average depth of the planet's possible liquid reservoirs as anywhere between tens of meters to kilometers. Then again, recent observations from orbiters have revealed mysterious dark streaks that seasonally flow down the sunlit sides of some Martian hillsides and craters. These "recurring slope lineae" could conceivably be brines of liquid water fed by aquifers very close to the surface, some researchers say.

Such lingering uncertainties emerge from the indirect and scattered nature of our studies of Mars, and ensure that any argument for life there is based solely on circumstantial information, Boston notes. "Each individual piece of evidence is, on its own merits, weak," she says. Only by amassing a diverse suite of independent measurements can a well-built case for life on Mars be made, she says: "In my opinion, we can't make that strong case unless we push to do all of those measurements on exactly the same precise spot. We don't do that because it's very difficult, but it's something to aspire to." Despite decades of sending costly hardware to Mars, Boston believes that what is still missing is a sense of harmony between instruments, allowing them to work together to support a search for alien life. "I think that the precise requirements of a really robust claim of life at the microscopic scale require us to push on further," she notes.

Attendees at the astrobiology meeting in Arizona showcased an assortment of high-tech devices for next-generation exploration, ranging from microfluidic "life analyzers" and integrated nucleic acid extractors for studying "Martian metagenomics" to exquisitely sensitive, miniaturized organic chemistry labs for spotting tantalizing carbon compounds and minerals at microscopic scales. Missing from the mix, however, was any solid consensus on how these and other tools could all work together to provide a slam-dunk detection of life on Mars.

WHAT'S THE WEATHER?

Some scientists contend a new kind of focus is sorely needed. Perhaps the pathway to finding any Martians lurking in the planet's nooks and crannies is to learn where exactly on Mars those potentially life-nurturing niches exist, and how they change over the course of days, months and years rather than over eons of geologic time. That is, to find homes for extant life on Mars today, researchers should probably not just be studying the planet's long-term climate but also its day-to-day weather.

"Right now we're sort of shifting gears. Once you've found out that a planet is habitable, then the next question is, Was there life?'so it's a completely different ball game," says Nathalie Cabrol, director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute. "On Mars you cannot look for life with the tools that have been looking for habitability of that planet," she argues. "We should be looking for habitats and not habitable environments. You are dealing on Mars with what I call extremophile extreme environments on steroids," she says, "and you don't look for microbial life with telescopes from Mars orbit."

Cabrol advocates making an unprecedentedly robust, high-resolution study of environmental variability on Mars by peppering its surface with weather stations. Sooner or later telltale signs of the possible whereabouts of extant life may emerge from the resulting torrents of data. "Today's environment on that planet is a reflection of something in the past," she says, and planting numbers of automated stations on Mars does not need to be expensive. "This is of interest not only to astrobiology but to human exploration. The first thing you want to know is what the weather is like," she says, adding, "Right now we're not equipped to do this and I'm not saying it's going to be easy to look for extant life. I'm not saying what we're doing now is wrong. Whatever we put on the ground we are learning. But there is variability on Mars. You go up or down one meter, things change. Habitats at a microscopic level can happen at the scale of a slope. It can happen at the scale of a rock!"

MIGHT WE BE MARTIANS?

"I think Mars offers us the highest chance of finding life" somewhere beyond Earth, says Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a planetary scientist at Technical University of Berlin in Germany. But, like Boston and others, he maintains confirmation of life will only come from multiple "layers of proof" that have to be consistent with one another. "We really need at least four different kinds of methods," he says. "My point is that there's no slam-dunk. We need several instruments. You have to build a case, and right now we can do betterunless the biosignature through a microscope is waving hello." The trouble, he adds, is that too-stringent planetary protection rules may preclude getting the evidence necessary for that proof. "We have the technology to go to places where there could be life," he says. "But we can't go to certain areas on Mars, like recurring slope lineae orunder patches of ice. It seems to be ridiculous."

Indeed, Schulze-Makuch speculates planetary protection may be a lost cause for Marsor at least a misguided endeavor. It may even be that any Martian microbes are actually Earth's long-lost cousins. Or, conversely, Mars rather than Earth is really the sole site of biogenesis in our solar system. Both scenarios are possible, considering that single-celled organisms can likely survive world-shattering impacts and the subsequent interplanetary voyages if embedded in ejected shards of rock that could fall elsewhere as meteorites. Innumerable impacts of this scale battered the solar system billions of years ago, potentially blasting biological material between neighboring worlds. On balance, Schulze-Makuch says, "the chances are higher that we are Martians."

This article was first published at ScientificAmerican.com.  ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

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Nine critically endangered royal turtles successfully hatched in Cambodia recently. Until 2000, the freshwater turtle was thought to be extinct in Cambodia.

Cambodia's national reptile is on the brink of extinction, but there may be new hope for the reptiles after nine Cambodian Royal Turtle babies were successfully hatched, conservationists recently announced.

The Royal Turtle, also known as the southern river terrapin (Batagur affinis), is one of the world's most endangered freshwater turtles, conservationists said. The turtle is listed as critically endangered by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and was thought to be extinct in Cambodia. After a small population was discovered in the Sre Ambel River in 2000, a protection program was launched and community members were encouraged to find and protect turtle nests.

A villager found a nest containing 14 eggs in February, and with assistance from the Royal Turtle Conservation Team from the Fisheries Administration (FiA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the nest was fenced in and protected for three months until the turtles hatched. [Photos: Thousands of Baby Turtles Hatch in Brazil]

"I am delighted to see those eggs have successfully hatched, and that the hatchlings have been taken to the conservation center in Koh Kong Province," Long Sman, who guarded the Royal Turtle nest for three months, said in a statement. "I am proud of the result, and especially to be part of conserving Cambodia's Royal Turtles from extinction."

Nine critically endangered royal turtles successfully hatched in Cambodia recently. Until 2000, the freshwater turtle was thought to be extinct in Cambodia. (Image credit: Wildlife Conservation Society)

The nine turtles that successfully hatched were relocated to the Koh Kong Reptile Conservation Center. The hatchlings will be raised at the center and may be part of a breeding program in the future, according to the WCS.

Very few Royal Turtles are left in the wild, and only one nest was found this year, according to Som Sitha, WCS's technical advisor for the conservation project. Two nests were found in 2016, and three nests were found in 2015, the WCS said.

"This is a big concern for Royal Turtle conservation," Sitha added. "If sand dredging, illegal clearance of flooded forests and illegal fishing continues, then our national reptile species faces a high risk of extinction."

Original article on Live Science.
Tyrannomyrmex rex is a timid, finicky eater, new research finds. The ants can, however, turn to cannibalism in times of need.

Until now, these Asian ants were a complete mystery to science, despite being discovered more than 20 years ago. No one had ever collected more than a single specimen, and no one had ever observed a T. rex ant alive for an extended period of time. So when biologist Mark Wong stumbled across a colony of T. rex ants while conducting an ant diversity survey in Singapore, he knew he had something important.

He and his colleague Gordon Yong from the National University of Singapore carefully collected the colony, which consisted of 13 workers, as well as eggs, larvae and pupae (the liminal stage between larva and adulthood). They then observed the ants in an attempt to figure out what makes them tick. Because the study is the first of its kind, everything the researchers discovered is new, Wong told Live Science. [See Stunning Mug Shots of Ants Across the Globe]

Chance discovery

The T. rex ant was first discovered in Malaysia in 1994. It's part of the rare group of ants in the Tyrannomyrmex genus; there are only two other identified species. (T. dux from India and T. legatus from Sri Lanka.) The ants have pointed snouts, which may explain the T. rex namesake, Wong said.

In March 2016, Wong found the first known live colony of T. rex ants in a piece of rotting wood stuck in the ground in Singapore's Mandai area, just south of Malaysia and north of the Singapore Zoo. The ants were nesting in a second-growth forest that was once the home of 20th-century orchards and rubber plantations, Wong and Yong reported April 27 in the journal Asian Myrmecology.

In the field, it was apparent why the T. rex ant is so little-known. The colony was small, subterranean and unobtrusive. Ant collection methods rarely involve careful underground surveys, Wong said.

"Our finding of T. rex below the ground surface highlights the need for more focused exploration of the ant communities within this environment," he said.

Timid T. rex

In captivity, the colony further exhibited the retiring manner that has made these ants so elusive. They were more active at night than during the day, suggesting that they are probably nocturnal in the wild, Wong said. They are not aggressive. When exposed to a potential threat, like a millipede, the ants curled up and froze, likely hoping to be overlooked so they could run away when the immediate danger passed.

Despite offering the ants an absolute smorgasbord of food, Wong and Yong could not determine what the ant version of T. rex eats. They rejected termites, smaller ants, mites, millipedes and even honey, Wong said. When shown a drop of honey, they kept their distance, except for a tentative poke at the sticky substance with their antennae. [In Photos: Trap-Jaw Ant Babies Grow Up]

Besides the 13 adult workers, the T. rex colony consisted of two worker pupae, one male pupa, nine larvae and five eggs. The male pupa emerged as an adult two days into captivity, but the other ants immediately ate him. It was "unfortunate," Wong said, but not unheard of.

"The colony is one big organism," he said, "and this is one way in which it channels resources from some biological functions [in this case, reproduction] to others, based on which are deemed important in the prevailing environmental conditions."

After 10 days of observation, the researchers euthanized the ants and preserved their bodies for study. Wong and his colleagues returned to Mandai to search for more T. rex ants, but they have had no luck, he said. He plans to keep looking.

"Increasingly, we're finding that many ants which live underground have unique life histories and ecological relationships that are poorly understood," he said. "There's this amazing world right beneath our feet, which we've hardly explored, and I'm excited to get started."

Original article on Live Science.
Did your husband really like your bridesmaids? The answer could be linked to how long your marriage may last.

Researchers studying marriage and friendships found that among white couples, when husbands disapproved of their wives' friends during the first year of marriage, the couples were more likely to end up divorced than when husbands were fine with their wives' friendships. The results did not hold true for black couples, the only other race surveyed in this study.

However, in both black and white couples, when the husband felt the wife's friends interfered with the relationship, their chance of divorce was nearly doubled.

"Ours was one of the first studies to look at the effect of merging friend networks and how those might affect the marital relationship," said Katherine Fiori, a psychologist at Adelphi University in New York and a co-author of the new research published May 3 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Merging friends

A lot of research has looked into how married couples navigate their relationships with in-laws, Fiori told Live Science, but there has been less of a focus on post-marital friendships. The role of merging friends for relationship satisfaction may be increasingly important, Fiori said, because people are now less likely to meet their significant others through friends and more likely to find them online.

"We are now having people who are coming from two very different sets of families and friends who are now trying to merge these networks," Fiori said. [I Don't: 5 Myths About Marriage]

The researchers used data from 355 black and white heterosexual couples who were surveyed through the Early Years of Marriage project, a study that has followed the same couples who married in Detroit since as early as 1986. About 36 percent of the white couples and 55 percent of the black couples divorced within the first 16 years of marriage. (All of the marriages in the study were between people of the same race.)

Predicting divorce

Using that 16-year time frame, Fiori and her colleagues compared couples' likelihood of divorce with the answers that the men and women gave separately to several questions during their first few years of marriage. In year one, each person was asked about how many friends they and their spouse could call on for help and advice. They were also asked, "Does your (wife/husband) have friends that you would rather (she/he) not spend time with?"

In year two of marriage, couples were asked whether their spouses' friends interfered with their married life.

Husbands' perceptions of their spouses' friends turned out to matter the most for whether a couple would divorce. For example, 70 percent of white couples in which the husband was fine with his wife's friends during year one of marriage were still married 16 years later. But among those couples in which the husbands disapproved of the wife's friends, just over 50 percent were still married, according to the study. Women's attitudes toward their husbands' friends didn't matter for the likelihood of divorce.

In black couples, neither spouses' feelings about the husband or wife's friends predicted divorce. If a husband viewed his wife's friends as interfering, though, the chance of divorce almost doubled regardless of race. The findings held true regardless of other factors that can influence divorce rates, including education levels, income, age, whether the study participants' parents were divorced, whether they'd had a child before marriage and their own reports of marital quality in the first year after the wedding. [The Science of Breakups: 7 Facts About Splitsville]

Why friends matter

Traditionally, social psychologists have seen an expanded friend network as a boon of marriage, Fiori said. But at the same time, married couples report spending less time with friends than single people do. Some of that may have to do with the couples turning to each other for their social needs, but friction between spouses and friends may be another issue, Fiori said.

The study can't, on its own, explain why only husbands' opinions matter or why there is a racial difference in how friendships affect couples.

Previous research, however, might provide some clues. Studies have suggested that black couples may rely on family networks for support more than white couples, who turn to friends more frequently, Fiori said.

"It may just not matter as much that they disapprove of each other's friends, because their focus is so much on family," Fiori said of the black couples in the study.

There are many reasons that a husband's opinion on his wife's friends might matter more than vice versa, Fiori said. Wives are known to be more likely to share emotional intimacy with friends than husbands. They talk about their marital problems more with friends, which may exacerbate those problems in some cases. And because men focus more on doing activities with their friends rather than sharing feelings, women may more easily take over for men's friendships. That means men may be more likely than women to simply drop a friend their spouse has a problem with.

But it also may be that men are be more willing to seek a divorce over these issues than women, Fiori said.

Previous studies have also found that when friends disapprove of a relationship, that relationship is more likely to eventually break up than if the social network gives it the nod of approval. Husbands who reported that they disapproved of their wives' friends may have been picking up on the friends' disapproval of them.

"It's kind of like, which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Fiori said.

Couples struggling with dislike of their spouses' friends might try reframing the relationship and considering the benefits their spouse gets from that friendship  and how those benefits might trickle down to the marriage, Fiori said.

"We often hear about problems that can come up with in-laws," she said. "We don't usually think about how difficult it can be to get along with a partner's friends."

Original article on Live Science.
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A GOP attack ad in a cutthroat Georgia congressional race features an unauthorized cameo from a San Francisco star: a Powell-Hyde Street cable car.

Officials from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency say they were surprised to see the cable car featured prominently in a commercial that sniped at Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, portraying him as a torchbearer for San Francisco liberals.

The ad was funded by a Republican Super PAC called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has ties to House Speaker Paul Ryan. It was first broadcast May 9 on TV in Atlanta and quickly went viral after Bay Area news outlets picked up the story.

This is a misrepresentation, SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose said, noting that the SFMTA has a policy against political advertisements. The SFMTA will send a cease-and-desist request to the PAC, he added.

The race for the House seat to represent Georgias Sixth District  a traditionally conservative swath of the northern Atlanta suburbs  has pitted Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional aide, against 55-year-old Republican Karen Handel. They are locked in a fierce fight to succeed Tom Price, who in February was confirmed as health and human services secretary in the Trump administration.

With the two candidates neck-and-neck ahead of a runoff election June 20, the race has become a critical test of President Trumps appeal in a district that has long voted Republican but suddenly appears to be up for grabs. Ossoff has raised much of his funding from donors outside the state who want to chip away at the Republicans House majority.

Among those donors are San Franciscans who are satirized in the ad. It includes a woman sporting a Nancy Pelosi/Jon Ossoff T-shirt in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, a hippie with braids at Fishermans Wharf, and a hipster with a ridiculous floppy hat on Broadway in the Russian Hill neighborhood, along with other caricatures. They thank Ossoff for pushing a West Coast agenda, saying he would raise taxes and cut military spending.

ISIS? Theyre overrated, scoffs the hipster, who wears a Cut the Military Now! button on her lapel.

In the final shot, a cable car rattles down Hyde Street with an Ossoff peace-sign banner Photoshopped to its side. That image struck Rose as a particularly brazen form of exploitation.

The cable car is an iconic landmark that attracts people and attention from all over the world, Rose said. And I think we can all agree that it is best left un-Photoshopped.

The Congressional Leadership Fund is dedicated to keeping a Republican hold on the House. The PAC hired District of Columbia public affairs company FP1 Strategies to shoot the ad in San Francisco on May 3. It paid $200 for a permit from the San Francisco Film Commission  the standard fee for anyone shooting a commercial, music video or Web content.

One day before the ad was broadcast, FP1 Strategies requested paperwork for permission to use an image of a cable car. Rose said he received FP1 Strategies request on Monday  a week later  but the agency has yet to respond.

The San Francisco Film Commission occasionally grants retroactive permits to use images of cable cars or Muni buses, said commission Executive Director Susannah Greason Robbins, but shes unsure whether MTA would sign off in this case.

A spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund said the PAC had signed its portion of the paperwork and sent a check for $623 to the MTA. Neither Robbins nor Rose had received a check as of Tuesday.

It is no surprise that Jon Ossoffs favorite city is rushing to his defense to hide his connections to Nancy Pelosi and Bay Area liberals, the Congressional Leadership Fund spokeswoman said in a statement Tuesday.

We welcome the extra attention on our ad and Jon Ossoffs liberal record, the statement read. We worked with the San Francisco Film Commission to obtain proper permits, submit appropriate paperwork, sent a check for the full amount of the invoice, and followed all guidelines in producing our widely praised commercial.

Representatives from Handels campaign did not answer requests for comment.

Ossoff campaign spokeswoman Sacha Haworth dismissed the ad as a tired stock partisan attack, devoid of substance and offering no solutions for metro Atlanta.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
The IT department at a small college in Lake Jackson, Texas, worked day and night Friday to check computers throughout its campus for signs of the WannaCry ransomware that has paralyzed businesses, hospitals and other organizations across the globe since Friday.

Brazosport College staff found two computers infected with the ransomware on Friday, and five more on Monday, said the colleges Director of information technology Ron Parker on Tuesday. The ransomware, dubbed WannaCry, is a form of cyberattack that essentially locks users out of their machines and threatens to delete all of its files unless a ransom is paid.

While few companies in Texas have publicly reported a problem, WannaCry has infected more than 300,000 computers in about 150 countries across the globe so far, Tom Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said on Monday. The malwares full impact is not yet known and cyber security researchers say the problem could spread even farther as hackers create other forms of the ransomware.

Brazosport, located just outside of Houston, isnt going to pay the ransom except in some extreme case where there was some truly irreplaceable file on that computer, Parker said. He said they tell users to store all critical files on network file storage.

The computers that were compromised were all wiped clean and will be reinstalled from scratch except for one that we are keeping for analysis temporarily, Parker said.

But while Brazosport had to deal with the ransomware, other reports of infections in the U.S. have been scarce.

We havent really seen much here, not only in San Antonio but in the United States, just because its still relatively new of an attack, said Jacob Stauffer, vice president of operations for Coherent Cyber. With that being said, a lot of chief information security officers of major corporations, when they saw everything going on in Europe and Asia, they immediately put some of those countermeasures at work to prevent these types of attacks in our area.

Coherent Cyber, housed in San Antonio co-working space Geekdom, is focused on cyber threat hunting, incident response and forensics. The company has not had any clients attacked by WannaCry, Stauffer said Tuesday, but they have dealt in the past with clients who have had machines infected with costly ransomware.

San Antonio insurer Argo Group covers this type of attack and the industry is has paid out ransomware-related claims in the past, said William Kelly, senior vice president for underwriting at U.S. division Argo Pro.

For the industry, this type of breach resulted in claims activity and loss payment; however, not on a large scale, he said via email. If anything this breach has forced insurers to incorporate the cyber activities of the past 5 days into their underwriting practices.

He said the industry will more carefully screen companies technology practices before offering this type of coverage in the future.

Even before WannaCry began spreading Friday, one San Antonio-based business had already been taking precautions to make sure it would not be a victim.

Preparations at Rackspace Hosting to combat WannaCry started much, much earlier when hacking tools reportedly developed by the National Security Agency were leaked in April on the internet, said its Chief Information Security Officer Dave Neuman.

The WannaCry ransomware leverages some of that code to spread more quickly. So when it was leaked on the internet, Rackspace staff prioritized patching the associated vulnerability.

I feel like we were better-prepared, and certainly more proactive for something like this to happen, Neuman said, adding that the company was already prepared for a ransomware attack. But this particular exploit and the way it worked, and its lineage back to the NSA tools that were leaked earlier this year, was really what allowed us to take a more proactive stance in what was about to unfold in the last few days.

Although Microsoft released in March a software update fixing the vulnerability, the alleged NSA leak in April kicked things into high gear at Rackspace, Neuman said.

We made sure that we made internal production decisions to prioritize patching those systems one, that are most vulnerable, and making sure that if there were systems that couldnt be patched in that time frame, what else we could do to protect them, he said.

Neuman said, too, that they have been getting a lot of questions from customers on the issue.

Because we had a really good understanding of what this exploit was about, and what it was doing and how it was proliferating, we were able to have a very informed conversation with our customers, he said.

While Texas has seemed relatively lucky so far, others were less so. FedEx in the U.S. was impacted, Homeland Security advisor Bossert said Monday. FedEx said in an email Tuesday it resumed normal operations and systems are performing as designed.

Several hospitals systems in the United Kingdom were also hit with WannaCry.

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said he thought Texas hospital systems appeared untouched because they had put procedures in place following ransomware attacks last year on California hospitals.

I think that was a wakeup call to the U.S, Hurd said.

Hurd said on Monday that he had not received feedback that anyone in his district had been affected.

Dallas-based AT&T wasnt hit, but it is getting questions from business customers, said Senior Vice President of Advanced Solutions Mo Katibeh.

Obviously we help serve a lot of business customers so were getting questions from them on how they can protect themselves, and so we have advice that we provide to our business customers whether theyre small, medium, enterprise, all the way up, Katibeh said.

Customers are told to make sure they have a system in place for running patches and software updates on a regular basis, Katibeh said. AT&T also encourages them to use a firewall when connecting to the internet, and to use an email protection system that scans incoming emails, he said.

A lot of ransomware is triggered by an email with a malicious attachement, Katibeh said.

Experts say small businesses in particular may be vulnerable to WannaCry, since they may not have the resources to make sure they are regularly patching software, or upgrading their operating systems.

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to attack because they often dont have enough money for software upgrades or spend it on other projects, Bret Piatt, CEO of San Antonio-based Jungle Disk which provides data security for businesses with up to 250 employees.

Its like, do you spend $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 refreshing all of your computer systems for your office, or do you take a vacation this summer with your family? Piatt said.

Parker of Brazosport College, urged people to be very, very serious about making sure your Windows Updates are set to install automatically, and the same for antivirus. He also advised upgrading to Windows 10 if possible.

The schools problems started with a single computer that did not have current antivirus definitions or patches on it, he said. And that computer tried to infect others nearby. Thankfully, those machines had patches installed and generated alerts that helped the staff learn what was happening, he said.

At the same time, he said a user told them she was seeing a ransomware screen on a computer as well.

It appears that the other five computers happened in a similar manner. Some of the computers were in a lab that was supposed to be segregated from the college network but was inadvertently connected. These computers were not receiving automatic updates so they were vulnerable, Parker said.

Staff Writer Patrick Danner contributed to this report.

sehlinger@express-news.net

Twitter: @samehlinger
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Before Laura Bush became the first lady and moved into the most glamorous house in Washington, DC, she lived in a modest brick ranch in West Texas.

Now that three-bedroom, three-bath house in Midland is on the market for $425,000, listed with Caroline Earles with Trudy Thomason Realty in Odessa. Bushthe only child of Harold and Jenna Welchlived in the home as a teenager, from 1961 to 1963.

Her father, a real estate developer and homebuilder, commissioned the home's construction in the '60s. In her 2010 memoir, "Spoken From the Heart," Bush describes Midland as "a place of ice cream sundaes ... and Saturday morning pony rides."

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Compared with other properties in Midland (population 132,950)where the median list price is $215,000this 2,547-square-foot ranch has a listing price on the higher end.

What sets it apart?

"Most of the properties [in Midland] are three-bedroom, two-bath," Earles says, adding that few have a carport as this one does. Other updates include granite countertops and an island in the kitchen. The open layout features a fireplace in the living room. The spacious dining room is ideal for entertaining.

The true perk is that the four owners since Bush lived there "have maintained the integrity of Laura's bedroom and bath," says Earles. Those details include original built-ins in the bedroom and the pink tile in the bath. "It adds to the historical value," says Earles.

Also on the property is a one-bedroom guesthouse, which the current owner rented out for $900 a month. It could also be used as a studio, workshop, or storage space.

This article, Former First Lady Laura Bush's Childhood Home for Sale in Texas, originally appeared on Celebrity Real Estate News from Realtor.com.

Based in Milwaukee, Kristine Hansen writes about food, design, drink, and travel for publications ranging from Travel + Leisure's website to a restaurant trade magazine. She lives in a 1924 bungalow and loves DIY projects. Follow @kristineahansen
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Power is back on in Dickinson, after an outage Monday evening that affected about 12,100 area residents and reached as far as Texas City and League City.

Dickinson ISD schools are open and will be holding classes at normal times, according to the district. School buses will be running normally.
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When an Austin couple first moved into their house almost five years ago, they heard a rumbling coming from the roof.

Maybe it was a raccoon, Justin Lindenmuth told his wife Allie.

When he went outside to inspect the matter, he didn't find a raccoon and instead saw the couple's golden retriever Huckleberry hanging out on top of the house.

"He's figured it out," Justin Lindenmuth yelled out to his wife.

READ ALSO: New list shows the most popular dog breeds in the U.S.

Since that fateful day, Huckleberry has bewildered passersby and more recently, the internet. Justin Lindenmuth posted a photo of Huckleberry on the roof to Reddit and has since gone a bit viral for his antics.

Allie Lindenmuth said the 5-year-old golden retriever runs and jumps up onto the roof "pretty easily," because the couple's garage goes into a hill, leaving about 3-feet for the pup to clear.

Justin Lindenmuth will join Huckleberry on the roof when he cleans the gutters, she said.

"Huck is very excited when he has his human join him!" she said.

Since Huckleberry likes hanging out on the roof so much, the couple has had to put up a sign that tells neighbors not to worry.

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"Huckleberry is living up to his name and learned how to jump onto our roof from the backyard," reads the sign. "He will not jump off unless you entice him with food or a ball! We appreciate your concern, but please do not knock on our door. We know he's up there!"

Since putting up the sign, the Lindenmuths have received less concerned visitors people were knocking on the couple's door six to eight times a week.

"Answering the same question, 'Yes, we know he's up there,' got tiresome so we put up that sign," she said. "It's dropped to a couple per week of people who miss it when they are walking up. Usually people will just snap a few pictures without knocking on the door."

If you happen to be strolling Lindenmuth's neighborhood in South Austin during the day, don't be surprised if you see Huck hanging out roofside. The couple encourages people to snap a photo and share it using #hucktheroofdog.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Albany

Fatima Salih, a refugee who arrived in Albany last year, waited more than a decade to be reunited with her husband, who left their native Sudan in 2004 and made it to the United States via Libya, Italy, France and Malta in 2014.

Relatively speaking, adjusting to life in America has been a breeze, Salih said, in part due to a collaboration between Whitney Young Health and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Albany. Through it, the 30-year-old has learned how to shop for and cook vegetables she's never seen before, how to use the WIC checks she is allotted to buy them, how to use health insurance, and what services she is legally entitled to receive.

"They make life easy for me," Salih said through Rana Bader, a peer educator at St. Peter's Hospital who speaks Arabic and English and was at Whitney Young Health Center on Monday to translate.

On the last day of the new program's first eight-week session, a half-dozen women learned about eating healthy through pregnancy, the benefits of breast-feeding for both mother and child and breast cancer screenings. They were encouraged to get a primary care doctor and OB/GYN, to get annual physicals and mammograms. Afterward, they celebrated with a meal of tofu and vegetables over curried rice  all ingredients they can purchase through WIC, or the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. The program is targeted at women who, like Salih, are pregnant or have children under 5 years old.

Katie Palmer and Kelsey Munn of Whitney Young and Amy Pabbi of USCRI structured the program with an emphasis on encouraging the women to care for themselves. Most attendees were from Syria, where the culture does not stress self-care for women, Pabbi said.

Rateba Afara, an older woman visiting the class on Monday  she was the mother-in-law of one of the students  said she only went to the doctor for two reasons: when she learned she was pregnant, and when she delivered a baby.

The program was hatched by Palmer and Pabbi, each newcomers to their organizations last year. Pabbi, who oversees medical case management for USCRI, realized her clients often did not use their WIC checks to full advantage because they didn't know how to. When she started talking to Palmer, the WIC director at Whitney Young, they realized the women needed help with even more.

"It went from, 'We have to be able to help them use their WIC checks' to 'We need to help them live here,'" Palmer said.

USCRI helped about 600 refugees resettle in Albany last year, Pabbi said. She did not have numbers yet for this year, but recent news analyses shows that refugee admissions have decreased nationally in the wake of President Trump's threats to bar immigration from seven majority Muslim countries. Federal courts have blocked the president's attempted ban, and in fact Albany and other cities continue to receive some refugees from those areas.

Pabbi and Palmer started the program with an Arabic-speaking group, because they had a ready translator, Bader's sister. (Bader filled in on Monday.) Other groups who may be targeted for future programs are those who speak Burmese, Farsi or Dari, and Swahili. Whitney Young Health may also consider a Spanish-language program, though USCRI would not participate, as it does not have refugees from Spanish-speaking countries.

The first program seemed to go further even than its creators hoped, serving as an extended welcome mat to the refugee women.

Lubna al Shirfi, a 32-year-old woman from Syria, was already very informed about the health topics on Monday's agenda. But the program has made her more confident, she said, because she got information directly from WIC, she said.

She praised New York for the way it has accepted her family.

"When I came here, I feel really that I am safe," al Shirfi said through Bader. She has felt more comfortable in Albany than in Jordan, where she lived for four years and where her family was attacked, as it had been in Syria.

She sometimes has nightmares that she is no longer in the United States.

Fairouz Atwah, who also came here from Syria, echoed her sentiments: "We are living with good people here," she said.

chughes@timesunion.com  518-454-5417  @hughesclaire
Albany

An imbroglio over cash stipends for state senators with committee leadership positions veered into the legal weeds Monday as attorneys for mainline Democrats and the Senate's top Republican offered differing opinions on the legality of the payments.

At the same time, rank-and-file Republican and Independent Democratic Conference lawmakers scampered for political cover, with one Republican now saying she won't take the money, another refusing to comment, and still others saying that the state comptroller has allowed the payments so they must be OK.

"I believe everything we've done in the past and right now is in full accordance with not only the Constitution but the legislative law," Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-Long Island, told reporters.

The payments were revealed last week by The New York Times, which reported that IDC members have received committee leadership stipends, often called lulus, even though they were vice chairs, not chairs, of the committees they serve on. The senators were reported to the state comptroller's office, which approves payroll, as chairs of the committees.

It subsequently was reported that some Republicans also have received the chair's stipend even though they are vice chairs.

The payments technically were given up by Republican chairmen of those committees who were getting larger payments for other duties.

"Based on what the comptroller has said, the bottom line here is ... the Senate has the discretion ... to assign stipends, and that's what happened in this case," said Sen. Jose Peralta, a member of the Independent Democratic Conference who gets an extra $12,500 atop his $79,500 base pay for serving as vice chair of the Energy and Telecommunications Commission.

In addition to Peralta, IDC members Diane Savino of Staten Island and David Valesky of the Syracuse area, have received stipends for their vice chairmanships of the Codes and Health committees, respectively. What's more, GOP senators Patrick Gallivan, Pam Helming, Tom O'Mara and Patty Ritche also have received pay for their vice chairmanships.

Over the weekend, Senate Republican counsel David Lewis issued a memo asserting the payments are legal, constitutional and consistent with past practices.

Flanagan concurred on Monday. He told reporters that "there's been litigation to uphold the ability of the Senate to run its own house." He later added: "The practice with stipends has been in statute for years."

But the mainline Democrats, who have derided the power sharing agreement between the 32-member Republican conference and the eight-member IDC, said that was nonsense. Democratic counsel Shontell Smith issued a memo contending the lulus are not legal, arguing that the state Constitution does not envision the payments given to those who aren't committee chairs.

As counsels battled through legal memos, lawmakers offered a range of responses to the flurry of questions about their taxpayer-funded stipends.

Shortly before the start of their afternoon session, Valesky briskly strode into the Senate chamber attempting to ignore questions as cameras whirred away.

Gallivan, who chairs the Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections committee and is vice chair of the Education Committee, at first referred questions to Flanagan. He later issued a statement saying that he has been assured that all Senate stipends were paid out in accordance with the law and the state Constitution.

Helming, a freshman from the Finger Lakes, said in a statement that she will refuse her $12,500 stipend as vice-chair on Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections.

"I have not, and will not, accept any payment for my work as Vice Chair of the Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections committee," she said. She added that she plans to return uncashed checks for the position, though she did not say why the checks hadn't been cashed.

O'Mara, who chairs the Environmental Conservation Committee and is vice-chair of Transportation, said in a statement he receives a stipend for the Transportation job, but not the other. Like Peralta, he noted that state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli approved the payments, with that office saying the Senate can determine who gets paid.

Ritchie said she was asked by leadership if she wanted to be deputy vice chair of the Health Committee, a position that comes with a stipend, and agreed.

Asked by reporters Monday if she was aware she was being designated falsely to the comptroller's office as a committee chair, she responded, "I'm not going to say I was designated falsely. I absolutely have not filled out any paperwork."

Though the kerfuffle is a thick legal squabble between competing factions of the Senate, it could also be politically tricky. Yet Flanagan said the situation has not created an appearance problem.

"All of this is transparent; all of this has been disclosed," he said. "The Senate has been putting out a full expenditure report twice a year for almost 10 years. Everything we do is out there for the public to see. I'm very comfortable with what role I play, how we operate the internal workings of the Senate, and the law is on our side and so is case law."

Chris Bragg contributed. rkarlin@timesunion.com  518-454-5758  @RickKarlinTU
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City Manager Jesus Olivares announced late Monday that he was retiring effective immediately.

After meeting in executive session for about an hour with City Council, Olivares made the announcement and then walked out of council chambers.

Council went back into executive session to discuss whether to appoint an interim city manager. When they reconvened in open session, they named Assistant City Manager Horacio De Leon as the interim.

Mayor Pete Saenz wanted to discuss the possibility of placing Olivares on administrative leave with pay since he was one of 17 people identified as target subjects in the search and seizure warrant executed by the FBI at City Hall in late April. The warrant was executed as part of a public corruption probe.

Click through the gallery above to see the things to know about the raids in Texas, as well as photos from the raids.

The FBI has not made any arrests and no charges have been filed in connection with the investigation.

In public comment, seven members of the public came forward to ask City Council to relieve the city manager of his duties. One person spoke out to say that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

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Everyone has something in their closets, citizen Juan Avila said, after going down the line of council members and bringing up each of their past foibles.

Four council members were also listed as target subjects: Councilmen Rudy Gonzalez, Alex Perez, Alberto Torres and Roberto Balli. In an interview Friday, Saenz said he was not asking for their resignation because he has no control over them.

Many members of the public said they would be watching this vote closely to see who wants to keep Olivares in power.

You all have a responsibility to the citizens, citizen Vish Viswanath said. We are watching your work.

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Citizen David Cardwell said it is not only the public who is watching this decision, but also the FBI and God.

We hope today you will find courage and do whats right, Cardwell said. Today is an inflection point.

Citizen Polly Sue Stabile said Olivares is not the right person to handle multi-million dollar contracts under the city, and that he should take a leave of absence. One member of the public said Donald Trumps White House has nothing on this chamber.

In an interview Friday, Olivares said placing this item on the agenda under these circumstances was totally unreasonable. Saenz said he was doing so to be cautious and prudent.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, issued a statement Tuesday morning in regards to the Washington Post's story on President Donald Trump revealing highly classified information to Russian authorities:

"The allegations in the Washington Post that President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russians, possibly putting an intelligence source in danger, are disturbing but sadly not surprising."
The temperature rose during a Tuesday House committee debate on a bill to circumvent high-stakes testing, when the chairman lost his temper with the sole witness testifying in opposition.

Drew Scheberle, senior vice president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, told the House Public Education Committee that he did not support allowing students who fail standardized tests, including those with disabilities, to take an alternative route to graduation. That got the panel's Chairman Dan Huberty, R-Houston, angry - because his son is dyslexic.

"I'm not going to argue with you about this. You're completely wrong on this," Huberty told Scheberle.

Huberty sponsored Senate Bill 463, which would extend an existing program letting high school students who fail required state tests and end-of-course exams graduate, as long as they go through a special committee that agrees they are academically prepared. Huberty later apologized for his outburst, explaining that the piece of legislation has personal relevance for his son, who might need to use the alternative route to graduate.

"I got a little heated there, and I apologize for that," he said. "But this is very very personal to me. I'm a parent that has a special needs child. ... This is a lifeline."

The House versions of the legislation, House Bill 77 and House Bill 966, died without being heard. SB 463 was left pending in the House committee Tuesday.

Committee members - the student's teachers, guardians and administrators - use related classwork and projects to determine whether that student is ready to graduate. About 70 percent of the students eligible to use these committees as an alternate route in 2015-16 actually passed and graduated, according to state data released last month.

Legislators established these committees in 2015, riding a wave of fervor against high-stakes standardized testing. The 2015 law included a clause causing it to expire in September.

Advocates wanted legislators to extend the use of the committees indefinitely. SB 463, authored by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, started off that way, passing unanimously in the Senate Education Committee. But just before the full Senate vote, Seliger changed the bill to cap the use of the committees to 2019, meaning advocates will probably need to prepare for another fight next session.

Theresa Trevino, president of anti-testing group Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment, asked legislators Tuesday to either remove the new cap or extend it past 2019. "We need to have some sort of safety net for our kids," she said.

Critics argue that making graduation requirements more flexible for some lowers the bar for all Texas students.

Scheberle, an outspoken critic of the graduation committees, said he was happy that the bill now has more restrictions. He praised the amendments to cap them to 2019, and to study how well students do when they graduate without passing one or more required exams. But, he said, he is still opposed to the bill, even for students with disabilities.

"Candidly, this pisses me off," Huberty said. "You know how personal this is. The fact that you came up here to do this really irritates me."

Several parents and advocates testified in favor of the bill Tuesday.

J.W. Lively drove from Denton early in the morning to explain that his daughter only graduated from high school because of the alternate route offered by the graduation committees. Struggling with dyslexia, she took a required English exam six times before she was able to pass it - but was on the verge of succumbing to a failed history test, he said. She only graduated by going before an individual graduation committee, which determined she was ready to graduate, despite the failed exam.

Lively said his three children are all succeeding despite being dyslexic. "They struggle greatly but they work their tails off," he said.

Disclosure: The Austin Chamber of Commerce has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available at www.texastribune.org/support-us/donors-and-members.

This article originally appreared at www.texastribune.org/2017/05/16/house-panel-alternative-graduation-route.
As the backlash for President Donald Trump's various controversial decisions escalates - firing FBI Director James Comey and giving away classified secrets to Russian officials, just to name two - Democrats are starting to use the "i" word more and more.

"It is a looming constitutional crisis because it involves a potential confrontation as did Watergate between the president and other branches of government," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said last week, after Trump fired Comey. "It may well produce impeachment proceedings."

"On the issue of impeachment, I am doing my homework," Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said at a town hall event in April. "I will just say I understand the calls for impeachment, but what I am being cautious about and what I give you food for thought about is that if President Trump is impeached, the problems don't go away, because then you have a Vice President Pence who becomes President Pence."

"We're actually pretty close to considering impeachment," Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., told a Kentucky television station on Thursday.

But while Democrats, and Trump's opponents in general, might be clamoring for an impeachment, it isn't as simple as Democrats deciding they don't like Trump. There are two big reasons for that.

First, impeachment is actually a relatively lengthy legal process - and no president has ever been removed from office. Second, removal from office requires a vote from two-thirds of the Senate, and Republicans - who still publicly back Trump, although some have criticized some of his recent decisions - still broadly support him.

Let's be clear: Trump hasn't been accused of any specific crimes. His opponents say he's unfit for office, but that's a judgment call, not a standard by which presidents can be impeached. The Constitution states that "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

But how those high crimes and misdemeanors are defined is largely up to House members themselves.

Actually removing a president from office is a three-step process. First, a majority of the House of Representatives would have to vote in favor of impeachment. That means 218 out of 435 members of the House would need to cast ballots to impeach the president. As of today, Republicans hold 238 seats while Democrats hold 193, and four seats are vacant. That means Democrats would need to persuade 25 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump, which doesn't seem likely.

Second, the president would face trial in the Senate. Chief Justice John Roberts would preside over the trial.

Third, the Senate would vote on whether to convict or acquit Trump. Two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote in favor of conviction for Trump to be removed from office - a pretty high bar, given that it's hard for either party to get even the 60 votes needed to overcome a legislative filibuster these days.

And history is on Trump's side. Just two presidents have been impeached, and none has ever been removed from office.

Andrew Johnson became the first president to be impeached in 1868. In the wake of the Civil War, Johnson clashed with Republicans who wanted Southern states to pay a higher price to rejoin the union. They eventually impeached him for attempting to replace his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, without congressional permission, a contravention of the Tenure of Office Act, which stated that the president couldn't relieve members of his Cabinet without consulting the Senate. Johnson's impeachment went to trial in the Senate, and he escaped being removed from office by a one-vote margin.

Bill Clinton became the second president to be impeached in 1998, as the Monica Lewinsky scandal unfolded. He was charged with four counts, two of which he was impeached for: perjury and obstruction of justice. When it came to the Senate trial, all 45 Democrats voted to acquit him on both charges; they were joined by 10 Republicans in acquitting Clinton of the perjury charge, and five in acquitting him of the obstruction of justice charge.

In perhaps the most famous presidential scandal in American history, the president wasn't impeached. When Richard Nixon left office in 1974, he faced almost certain impeachment, and likewise almost certain removal from office. But he chose to resign instead, handing the presidency to Gerald Ford.

Johnson, Nixon and Clinton were all publicly accused of transgressions for which there was publicly revealed evidence. While scandal swirled around all three, and their political opponents howled for their removal from office, none was actually removed by the political process laid out in the Constitution.

And as long as Trump retains the backing of Congress, he's very unlikely to be removed either.

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VIDEO:

Democrats are openly suggesting President Trump could be impeached. Here's how it would actually happen. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

--URL: http://wapo.st/2pTnRT4

--Embed code: <iframe width='480' height='290' scrolling='no' src='//www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/b9d50648-3a63-11e7-a59b-26e0451a96fd' frameborder='0' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
BEIRUT - The Syrian government has built a crematorium to burn the bodies of prisoners killed within its most notorious prison, the State Department said Monday.

At least 50 prisoners a day are executed inside the Sednaya complex, some in mass hangings, said Stuart Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, citing declassified intelligence assessments and a recent Amnesty International report describing the prison as a "human slaughterhouse."

More than 100,000 people have been arrested or forcibly disappeared in Syria since the country's revolt against President Bashar Assad began, according to a list compiled by the Syrian Network for Human Rights monitoring group.

In reporting a story about the horrors experienced by inmates inside one Syrian military hospital, I spoke with dozens of former prisoners and guards. They described conditions so atrocious that inmates routinely died of torture, starvation and neglect. They shared the terror and trauma that followed release, spending waking hours wracked with survivors' guilt and nighttime in the grip of dreams that took them back to their dark and filthy cells.

Their stories below offer but a glimpse of what the survivors told us.

Mazen Hamada, an oil engineer from the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, was arrested in 2013 in the Damascus suburbs after attempting to smuggle baby formula to a rebel-held neighborhood under siege by government forces. He was held in at least three different detention facilities, including Sednaya:

---

I still remember the room. It was very small. The interrogators came and went, there were different men, different faces. I don't remember all of them because I was so weak by that point. It's not easy to describe the pain and humiliation of torture.

First they asked for the names of the people I was working with. Then they asked me to confess that I'd been carrying heavy weapons and that I'd murdered a military officer. I was screaming that I didn't. I was shouting that I just wanted freedom for them, for myself, for everyone. I just wanted to live in freedom. They looked at me blankly. It was like I was speaking to them from another world. So they continued, and they were merciless.

I was still holding out when they hung me from the ceiling by my wrists for an hour, feeling like my body weight was going to break my wrists. When they brought me down, they pulled out a chair and asked me to sit. That was when they pulled down my trousers and held up a sharpened metal pole and a clamp for my penis. When they started to turn the screw, I confessed everything they asked.

---

Mohamed Abdullah served in the Syrian army until he was arrested in 2015, accused of planning to defect. He was held in Sednaya prison for a year:

---

As Syrians, you grow up hearing a lot about torture. You hear things you cannot imagine even a psychopath doing. They did all those things to us and more. But in Sednaya they didn't even bother with an interrogation. It was sadism. Our cell was meant for seven men but it held almost 60. We took it in turns to lie down and if too many of us were too weak to stand, we lay on each other. There was no bathroom, only a hole in the floor that every man had to share. The smell has never left me.

I was one of the "service" guys. It meant we had to work for our jailers. Sometimes it was just cleaning, other times it was carrying away the bodies. They made us beat people, too. By the end, I didn't even question it. We'd get beaten for not attacking the inmates hard enough. I saw one man kicked to death because our guards didn't think he had done a good job.

---

Salma, an arts student from Damascus, last saw her three brothers on a late summer night in 2014. She spoke on the condition that her surname be withheld to protect the security of her jailed relatives, if they are still alive:

---

The police came in the middle of the night to take my three brothers. Two of them were silent as it happened, but Abdulsalam fought like a wild cat. He thought they were going to try to take me, too, but they left me behind in the destruction of my home and all our possessions.

We asked everyone where the boys had been taken. My mother stood outside every prison, sometimes waiting so long that the sun was too much for her and we had to come and collect her. She did that outside a different place every day, just in case someone would tell her something. My father spent so much of our money, hoping the bribes would bring news from inside. A lot of people tricked us and said they had information. The wait made me empty, it was like there was a hole inside of me. We waited three years.

One day we got a call. They told us were all dead. They were killed days after they were taken and all that waiting was for nothing. Abdulsalam was my best friend. I still have nightmares about what they did to him. But you know what? Part of me still doesn't believe it. We haven't seen the bodies, we haven't had a death certificate. I still pray for them when I go to sleep, just in case.
The family of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich refuted Fox News reports that he had leaked work e-mails to WikiLeaks before he was fatally shot last year in Washington, D.C.

The reports, which gained traction on social media, said an FBI forensics examination showed Rich transferred 44,053 DNC e-mails and 17,761 attachments to a now-deceased WikiLeaks director.

Rich's parents, Joel and Mary Ann, said Tuesday through a spokesman that they do not believe their son gave any information to WikiLeaks. Rich was shot on July 10, 2016 near his home.

D.C. police have repeatedly said they believe Rich was killed in a random robbery attempt, but several conspiracy theories have emerged about his death. No arrests have been made.

"As we've seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press," Rich's family said in a statement. "We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seth's murderers."

Several federal and local law enforcement authorities also said Tuesday they were not aware that Rich sent any DNC information to WikiLeaks.

"There is nothing that we can find that any of this is accurate," said Dustin Sternbeck, the chief spokesman for D.C police, which is leading the investigation into Rich's death.

FBI spokespeople declined to comment, saying the agency is not involved in the case, and referred questions to D.C. police.

Law enforcement officials have said for months that Rich's computer and e-mail activity have been examined and suggest nothing that would connect him to WikiLeaks, which, twelve days after Rich's death, published 20,000 emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton and the DNC and forced the ouster of its chairwoman. "We've seen nothing that would change that,'' said one law enforcement official.

The DNC said in a statement: "We know of no evidence that supports these allegations. We are continuing to cooperate with investigators and have no further comment."

The allegations were reported by Fox News, including WTTG-TV, the District's Fox News affiliate. The reports cited a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, who Fox said was hired by the family and had previously worked for D.C. police. He also has been an on-air contributor to the Fox-5 news station.

Fox also cited an unnamed federal official who said Rich had transferred thousands of emails to a WikiLeaks director. Fox's source asserts those emails were transferred between January 2015 and May 2016.

Rich's killing has been the subject of intrigue, with speculation centered on Russia, the DNC and the bitter presidential campaign. WikiLeaks has added $20,000 to a reward to find Rich's killer but has not said whether he had been working with or in contact with the group. Rich worked on a computer program to help people get more easily to the polls.

The Rich family spokesman, Brad Bauman, also said Wheeler had not been hired by the family but by a "third-party" who Bauman says has a political agenda. He declined to identify the person citing legal concerns. He said Wheeler offered his services to the family "claiming he wanted to help." Bauman said Wheeler and the family had an agreement that Wheeler not talk to the media.

"This is devastating to the family," Bauman said. "They have confidence in the police investigation and believe that every single one of these fake news stories actually harms the ability of the police department to get to the bottom of what actually happened."

Wheeler said he worked for D.C. police from 1989 to 1998 and was at one time a detective in the homicide unit. He said in an interview that he was told by a D.C. police detective involved in the investigation that there is evidence that DNC files were possibly transferred from Rich's computer to a WikiLeaks representative. He declined to identify his source, and he did not return phone calls seeking comment after Rich's family had publicly criticized him.

D.C. police said Wheeler worked as an officer from 1990 to 1995 and they were checking records to determine if he served in homicide. Sternbeck, the police spokesman, said Wheeler was fired from the agency.

---

The Washington Post's Ann E. Marimow, Devlin Barrett and Keith L. Alexander contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - Two key GOP lawmakers are crafting a multi-billion dollar bill that would punish sanctuary cities, force parents of undocumented teens to wear electronic ankle monitors so their children don't skip deportation hearings, and establish five-year minimum prison sentences for immigrants who illegally reenter the United States after having been deported, according to a congressional aide and a draft of the legislation obtained by The Washington Post.

The bill by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, which was still being reworked on Monday, also would increase detention space and boost the number of immigration judges on the border to speed deportations.

It calls for increased criminal prosecutions of immigrants who cross the border illegally, and would reimburse governors who deploy their state's National Guard to help patrol the U.S. border, according to a congressional aide with direct knowledge of the bill.

The White House declined to comment on the bill late Monday.

The wide-ranging proposal, which is being refined with input from the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security, aims to boost border security and immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States.

But hardline anti-immigration groups who have seen drafts of the legislation say it falls short by failing to provide for Trump's long-promised border wall, sanctions against businesses that hire illegal immigrants, or E-verify, the employment-verification system that has been a staple of previous immigration talks on Capitol Hill.

These critics say that even if the bill passed the House, it is unlikely to pass the Senate, where Democrats have signaled that they would be unwilling to compromise on legislation unless it includes a path to legal residency for the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants.

"There's not a single thing about worksite enforcement or anything at all against employers," said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, who has seen a draft of the bill. "It's tinkering around the margins."

The proposal comes after a string of court challenges by Democrats and civil-liberties groups that have temporarily paralyzed many of President Donald Trump's efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants and sanctuary cities, among other provisions.

Trump has also run into trouble securing financing from Congress for a bigger wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Regardless of whether it advances in Congress, the legislation could have implications for Cornyn and McCaul, who reportedly have ambitions of their own that extend beyond their current jobs.

Cornyn is in the running to succeed fired FBI director James Comey, while McCaul is a long-rumored future U.S. Senate candidate who might run for Cornyn's seat if it came open.

Cornyn chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on border security and immigration, while McCaul heads the House Homeland Security Committee. Both lawmakers have questioned proposals to build a border wall, especially as border apprehensions have declined, resistance that has earned the congressman the nickname "No wall-McCaul."

The most recent draft of their bill seeks to punish sanctuary jurisdictions by dramatically expanding the pool of federal grant money that could be denied to cities and towns that prohibit or limit cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's deportation agents.

A federal judge in California last month temporarily blocked Trump's plans to strip a more limited amount of grant funding from sanctuary cities. But the reasoning the judge gave was that only Congress can impose conditions on federal funds.

There are currently more than 100 sanctuary cities that refuse to turn over immigrants they have arrested for state or local crimes to ICE for civil deportation proceedings.

Vaughan said the Cornyn-McCaul measure combines separate proposals that could perhaps pass on their own, including a bill known as "Kate's Law," named for Kathryn Steinle, who was shot and killed in 2015 in San Francisco, allegedly by a Mexican national who had been deported several times, but returned to the United States. There is also a proposal that mirrors legislation from Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would prod sanctuary cities to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Earlier this year, Cornyn said he was working with other members of Congress and the Trump administration on legislation that would secure the border.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again that border security is really a question of political will," he said. "The last administration did not have it, and I know this administration does have the political will to get it done, so we are trying to work together to demonstrate to them what we think the means to achieve that goal should look like."

Robert Law, director of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the draft proposals contain some useful tools for enforcing immigration law, but in general, "still keeps missing the mark."

"It's the same failed attempt every single Congress," said Law, whose group favors slashing legal immigration in addition to stepping up deportations. "New Congress, and nothing changes in actually securing the border."
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WASHINGTON - For a few minutes Monday night, projection artist Robin Bell tried to bring attention to the issue by shining light on it - a big, blue light.

Bell parked his van about 9:15 p.m. across the street from the west entrance of the Trump International Hotel. Bell and two friends then turned on a projector in the van and displayed animated anti-Trump messages about the president's alleged conflicts of interest onto the upscale hotel's facade.

Hotel security ordered him to shut off the projections after only a few minutes, but it was enough time for the messages to go viral on social media, garnering thousands of posts on Twitter and Facebook.

"That is one of the big things that I'm trying to do - using our artwork to explain these stories that are tricky," said Bell, an artist and filmmaker based in the District of Columbia. "If someone can laugh and look at something, and then talk about it."

The projections focused on the Constitution's emoluments clause, which says that no person holding a federal office shall "accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Others read "emoluments welcome here" and "pay Trump bribes here."

Bell said the projections lasted about six minutes, and he was able to keep the projections going while a security guard talked to him about taking them down. His favorite part of the night came, he said, when an open-top tour bus drove by and riders started to cheer.

His stunt was performed hours after a Washington Post story revealed that Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russian diplomats, although Bell said the projections were planned for Monday night long before the news broke. He had been working on the idea and designing the images for more than a month.

"The timing was awesome because it gave us something to look at and enjoy," Bell said. "We did it at the right time because everyone is just so utterly depressed and bummed out with what's going on."

The projections come at an inopportune time for the Trump Organization, which manages the hotel and recently began inviting guests to a new sidewalk cafe.

Earlier that night, about 7:30 p.m., the hotel's general manager pulled guests inside from the cafe to avoid protesters advocating for the rights of those with disabilities. That demonstration traveled along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the hotel.

Since Trump's election and continued ownership of his stake in the project, the hotel has been dogged by criticism from ethics experts suggesting that he unfairly benefits financially from it. They argue that accepting payments from foreign governments, who rent hotel rooms and meeting spaces, amounts to a violation of the Constitution.

The Trump Organization has pledged to donate profits from foreign leaders to the Treasury at the end of the year. It didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Leading Democrats have joined ethics experts in questioning why the General Services Administration, which oversees the lease, did not move to terminate the agreement once Trump was elected, because the deal includes a clause barring any "elected official of the government of the United States" from deriving "any benefit" from the project.

In March, the GSA's contracting officer wrote to Eric Trump, the president's son, to say that the lease remained in full compliance, in part, because the president would not benefit from it financially until he left office.

Vandals have repeatedly targeted the hotel. According to police reports, they defaced or damaged the property six times from Election Day through January.

Bell has said that projections are an effective form of protest because they send a message without vandalizing property.

A few weeks ago, he said, he projected an animated version of Attorney General Jeff Sessions's face outside Justice Department headquarters with a magnifying glass, saying "investigate Trump, investigate Russia," in English and Russian.

He also traveled to Harrisburg, Pa., in April to project protest messages against the president as he delivered a speech marking his 100th day in office.

- - -

Video: Watch: 'Pay Trump Bribes Here' sign projected onto Trump Hotel in D.C.

The words "Pay Trump Bribes Here" onto a wall above the12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW entrance to the Trump International Hotel in downtown D.C. (Bell Visuals via Storyful)

Short URL: http://wapo.st/2rcbs1k

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If there was one thing that threatened to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President Trump, it was his temperament. And if there was one issue about which Americans on both sides remained concerned about Trump, it was his relationship with Russia.

A new Washington Post report that Trump shared highly classified information with two senior Russian officials in the Oval Office last week lends legitimacy to both of those concerns. To many, it would seem a pair of their worst fears come true, all at once.

As The Post's Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe report, Trump provided classified details of an Islamic State plot gleaned from an intelligence-gathering alliance in the Middle East that is secretive even among allies and within the U.S. government. And he did so in a way that officials believe Russia, whose goals in Syria are often at odds with the United States', might be able to figure out who the partner is, jeopardizing a key source of intelligence.

The White House isn't really denying it, with national security adviser H.R. McMaster saying, "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly." The Post's report didn't say these things were discussed.

Back during the 2016 campaign, as many as two-thirds of Americans questioned whether Trump had the temperament to be president. And that concern seemed to seep well into his early months as president, with Trump still tweeting erratically and spewing falsehoods. As I wrote last month:

"President Trump's biggest liability on the 2016 campaign trail was almost always his temperament. An October Washington Post-ABC News poll showed 64 percent overall - and 3 in 10 Republicans - said Trump didn't have the right personality and temperament to be president.

"The first three months of the Trump administration have done nothing to disabuse them of this belief. A new Pew Research Center poll shows 63 percent of registered voters say Trump is "too impulsive" in making important decisions. And that includes 30 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents."

A Fox News poll conducted at the tail end of the 2016 election also drilled down on this issue in a way that I think is telling. It asked two questions: whom people trusted to defeat ISIS, and whom people trusted more on making decisions with nuclear weapons.

Trump led by 9 points on the ISIS question, 51 percnet to 42 percent for Clinton. But when it came to nukes, Hillary Clinton led by 22, 56 percent to 34 percent. Again, it seemed to come down to Trump's temperament -- and the worst-case scenario when it came to Trump's temperament.

And if there was one foreign policy issue that concerned people when it came to Trump, it was Russia. As his Syria strikes have received a thumbs-up from voters and his posture toward North Korea takes shape, polls have shown Americans are still pretty worried about Trump's relationship with Moscow and want to know more.

A Quinnipiac University poll a couple weeks back showed seven in 10 Americans were either "very concerned" (46 percent) or "somewhat concerned" (24 percent) about Trump's relationship with Russia. Even 40 percent of Republicans were at least "somewhat concerned."

Those concerns -- on both Russia and Trump's temperament -- don't seem to be going anywhere.
WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans on Tuesday showed growing concern over the controversies enveloping the Trump administration, with a key House committee asking the FBI for records of communications between President Donald Trump and the agency's former director James Comey, following reports that the president sought to shut down a federal investigation into former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, requested the documentation be delivered by May 24 and said he would subpoena the information if necessary.

His request came in response to media reports disclosing the existence of a memo written by Comey, who Trump fired last week, alleging that Trump asked him to end the Flynn investigation during a meeting at the White House in February.

"@GOPoversight is going to get the Comey memo, if it exists," Chaffetz wrote on Twitter. "I need to see it sooner rather than later. I have my subpoena pen ready."

Chaffetz, in a letter to FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, cited a report from the New York Times stating that Comey's memo "describes a conversation in which the President referenced the FBI investigation . . . and said to Comey, 'I hope you can let this go.' " He asked the FBI to provide "all memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings" related to Comey's communication with Trump.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., directed the Oversight Committee to track down the Comey memo.

"We need to have all the facts, and it is appropriate for the House Oversight Committee to request this memo," Ryan spokeswoman Ashlee Strong said in a statement.

The pressure on congressional Republicans to step up their oversight of the Trump administration intensified this week when The Washington Post on Monday reported that the president shared classified information related to the Islamic State with Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week.

The White House on Tuesday sought to tamp down the controversy with national security adviser H.R. McMaster telling reporters that what the president shared with the Russian officials "was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged."

But Democrats and a growing number of Republicans called on Trump to provide a transcript of the meeting to the congressional intelligence committees as a way to check the White House's claim that what Trump disclosed was appropriate.

Trump last week suggested that he records his conversations while defending Comey's firing - a controversy many lawmakers were still dealing with when the latest developments began to cascade this week.

"Memos, transcripts, tapes - our list keeps getting longer," Mark Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

"I keep using 'troubling,' but troubling is an understatement," he said.

Nearly 24 hours after news of Trump's disclosure to the Russians first broke, none of the leaders of the Senate or House Intelligence committees had spoken to White House officials who were in the Oval Office and could say what happened.

"We'd like to understand what was said," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., told reporters Tuesday. When it comes to Trump's ability to handle classified information, "that will either confirm our confidence or possibly shake our confidence," he said.

"We owe the White House the chance to present us with the information, present us with the truth," Warner said. "We also want to see if there are, again, these supposed transcripts [and] get a copy of them."

White House aides have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility that Trump records his conversations.

The collision of the two stories escalated the sense of chaos that has permeated Capitol Hill since Trump was inaugurated and increased the sense of frustration with the president that emerged among some Republican lawmakers and aides in the past week.

Following news of Comey's memo, Democrats railed against the president with charges that some had previously shied away from using, including obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense.

"If these reports are true, the President's brazen attempt to shut down the FBI's investigation of Michael Flynn is an assault on the rule of law that is fundamental to our democracy," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.

Many Republicans remained silent or took a wait-and-see approach.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chair of the Republican Study Committee, said it was "disappointing" if Trump moved to curtail the Russia probe with "intentionality," although he said it could have been just a "casual conversation."

Asked whether Congress needs to see the Comey memo, he said, "Instinctively, that's where we're going to want to go." But he stopped short of calling for subpoenas, saying that Congress needs to pursue a "unified response."

"It's been frustrating, no question," he said of the recent revelations, adding that he wished the Republican agenda could be "moving forward."

Above all, he was critical of Trump's tone. "Reverence - we want to see more of that," Walker said.

Frustration has been a theme in some private conversations among Republican lawmakers, according to one GOP senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They worry that their ambitious agenda is grinding to a halt because of Trump's controversies.

Publicly - and even in large but private group settings - GOP senators have almost tried to pretend the problem isn't there. Trump's disclosure of classified information to Russia was not a focal point of a weekly lunch Tuesday, after which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave terse answers to reporters' questions about Trump.

"We've talked about health care more often. I hate to be flippant - we really have," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.

At the same time, they say they want to learn more.

"I think everyone, Republicans and some - many - Democrats need to know more about exactly what transpired," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Both lawmakers and aides within the GOP described feeling a sense of weariness as they stare down the latest Trump-related controversy.

"It's just a very surreal environment where you have a president who is self-destructing," said one Senate Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. Another GOP staffer described the situation as "constant chaos."

There is a worry that questions about Trump's credibility have diminished his ability to lead the party.

"It never helps. It never helps," said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., repeating himself for emphasis.

McConnell declined to offer specific critiques of Trump when speaking with reporters midday Tuesday, saying only that it would be "helpful to have less drama emanating from the White House."

Asked whether he had concerns about the president's ability to properly handle classified information, McConnell paused, let out a short laugh and said simply, "No."

"Are you starting to lose confidence in President Trump?" a reporter asked. "No," McConnell said.

Across Capitol Hill, a varied coalition of Republicans began to coalesce around the demand that the White House brief lawmakers about Trump's disclosure to the Russians. Its members included Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., whose Northern Virginia district went for Hillary Clinton in November by 10 percentage points, and Reps. Frank A. LoBiondo, R-N.J., and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., whose districts swung heavily for Trump.

Lawmakers' requests will probably be complicated by the sensitivity of the information that Trump shared. One White House aide called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients - efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

Trump tried to explain away the situation in a series of tweets Tuesday morning, writing that he had the "absolute right" to share "facts pertaining to terrorism" with the Russian officials. Later, McMaster defended Trump's conversations as "wholly appropriate" but declined to discuss whether the information shared by the president was classified.

- - -

The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian, Paul Kane, Ed O'Keefe, Jenna Portnoy and Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.
Jay Janner/MBO

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will stop in Conroe on Wednesday to announce "planned legal action" in support of Montgomery County Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace Wayne Mack's controversial pre-docket opening prayer.

The practice came under scrutiny most recently in March when the Freedom from Religion Foundation and three anonymous lawyers filed a federal lawsuit against Mack, saying he is violating the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state by holding a prayer meeting before court each day. Paxton previously filed a formal opinion stating Mack's prayer is constitutional, and the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct dismissed a complaint against the justice in 2015.
The hacking group that helped enable last week's global ransomware attack is threatening to make public even more computer vulnerabilities in the coming weeks - including "compromised network data" pertaining to the nuclear missile programs of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea, as well as secret exploits affecting Windows 10, which is run by millions of computers around the world.

A spokesperson for the group, which calls itself the Shadow Brokers, claimed in a blog post Tuesday that some of those computer bugs may be released on a monthly basis as part of a new subscription-based business model that attempts to mimic what has proven successful for companies such as Spotify, Netflix, Blue Apron and many more.

"Is being like wine of month club," said the blog post, which is written in broken English. "Each month peoples can be paying membership fee, then getting members only data dump each month."

The move highlights the growing commercial sophistication of groups such as the Shadow Brokers, which has already demonstrated a fearsome technical ability to compromise the world's top intelligence agencies. And it underscores the way much of the underground trade for computer bugs resembles a real-world commercial market.

Security experts have been analyzing the blog post for clues about the Shadow Brokers' intentions and capabilities.

Marcy Wheeler, a longtime independent researcher, said in a blog post of her own Tuesday that the Shadow Brokers' post "brings the hammer" down both on Microsoft, whose products could be affected by any further leaks, and the National Security Agency, whose information the Shadow Brokers leaked in April. That leak led indirectly to the creation of WannaCry and the subsequent crisis, security experts say.

"Simply by threatening another leak after leaking two sets of Microsoft exploits, Shadow Brokers will ratchet up the hostility between Microsoft and the government," Wheeler wrote.

Microsoft didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In a blog post Sunday, the company criticized the NSA for stockpiling digital weapons. The tech industry writ large opposes efforts by the government to weaken the security of its products, while national security advocates say it could help combat terrorism.

Although experts say the Shadow Brokers do not appear to have been directly involved in the WannaCry crisis, leaking the exploit in the first place was a major step toward facilitating the attack.

The group's new claim that it possesses information on the nuclear programs of state governments is extremely worrisome, said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington think-tank.

"While they don't seem to have the most amazing PR department," he said, "they've already proved that they had some pretty serious access. The nuke facility stuff is particularly concerning, [speaking] as a former physicist."

The tactic of distributing computer vulnerabilities for a monthly fee reflects a change in approach that could result in those bugs being spread far and wide, he added.

Previously, the group had merely sought to sell its hacking tools to the highest bidder. Few buyers came forward, the group said in its blog post. But now, the monthly subscription model might mean the bugs will find their way into the hands of more people, said Hall.
San Antonio Independent School District trustees Monday night approved a partnership that allows the John H. Wood Jr. charter school district to manage SAISDs alternative school for students with emotional or behavioral disorders.

I think we have the potential to develop a model that really could grow and be used in other districts, said Bruce Rockstroh, superintendent of the charter school district. I hope this becomes the future of charter-ISD partnerships.

The charter district has eight schools in Texas, from the Fort Worth area to Karnes City to Crockett, north of Houston. Aside from the Anne Frank Inspire Academy, a high-performing school in Northwest San Antonio, the charter district runs alternative schools located in residential treatment or juvenile justice facilities. One such school is located at the Afton Oaks facility in San Antonio.

But this is the John H. Wood Jr. districts first partnership with a traditional school system. Such an agreement is also unprecedented in Bexar County.

Under the agreement, the charter district will provide the academic curriculum, faculty and administration starting next school year for what is now Pickett Academy, the alternative school enrolling about 40 students from grades six to 12. The school will move to the former Brewer Elementary, which closed two years ago but has more space for amenities such as therapy rooms, a gym and outdoor activities.

The charter school district  run by Braination Inc.  will also provide support staff including paraprofessionals, nurses, behavior specialists and mental health assistants.

SAISD will continue to fund the schools facilities, technology, transportation and food services. Brewer Academy will remain a SAISD school, enrolling only students from within the traditional school district. As such, SAISDs special education department will monitor the school and the SAISD will be ultimately responsible for oversight.

SAISD agreed to reimburse the charter district for personnel expenses and pay the charter school district a 15 percent administrative fee to manage the school, which has an overall budget that is not to exceed $2.5 million. SAISD spokeswoman Leslie Price says the management fee is expected to no higher than $250,000.

The charter districts board approved the agreement two months ago, Rockstroh said.

After the alternative school moves to the Brewer facility, it could expand to enroll as many as 60 students, according to the agreement. Beth Jones, SAISDs senior executive director of special education, said she doesnt think the demand will grow that high.

To qualify for the alternative school, students have to have mental health disabilities including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis or sometimes high-functioning autism, to the extent that they must be removed from their home campus, Jones said. The alternative school provides individualized academic and behavioral plans, with the goal that students make enough progress to return to mainstream campuses, Jones said.

The John H. Wood Jr. charter district uses a guided inquiry academic model that challenges students to answer real-world questions based on the state curriculum. The charter districts model also includes a Life College that will teach skills such as finding a job, managing money, eating nutritiously and forming healthy relationships. A social-emotional learning component aims to teach internal motivation to make healthy choices, Rockstroh said.

Rockstroh said the curriculum has changed the lives of students in the charter district. Jones said it could boost academic engagement and reduce behavioral problems among the students who are sent to what will be Brewer Academy.

Theyve been doing it a long time, and theyve had good success with it, Jones said of the charter district.

Trustees also approved a partnership with the Culinary Institute of America on Monday night. The partnership will lead to the creation of a fellowship for CIA students to teach culinary classes in SAISD schools. The program will be supported by a grant from the Goldsbury Fund.

amalik@express-news.net

Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
A proposal by District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg to beef up the citys inspections of mobile home parks was approved by the City Council Neighborhoods and Livability Committee on Monday.

The city will now hold public meetings with stakeholders to determine exactly how to amend the municipal code that regulates mobile home parks. Additional changes could include enabling the city to levy higher fines or pursue civil penalties against mobile home park owners who repeatedly violate the code, said Michael Shannon, the citys interim director of development services. Currently, the city can only press criminal charges against mobile home park owners.

This is an effort to address what I think is a gap in policy, to make sure we have some proactive inspections, Nirenberg said.

City officials will bring a refined proposal back to the committee and, eventually, the entire City Council, by late summer or early fall.

Nirenberg proposed the measure months after the city ordered the relocation of 12 families living in the Oak Hollow Mobile Home Park in the councilman's district because of overflowing septic tanks and other poor conditions.

Nirenberg, near the end of his second term on City Council, is hoping to unseat Mayor Ivy Taylor in a June 10 runoff.

Taylor does not sit on the committee and wasnt at Mondays meeting. In a written statement, she said, In light of events where the conditions of mobile home parks have caused the re-location of residents, Im certainly supportive of any policy that seeks to address the problem before it gets to that point. Nirenberg is also not a member of the Neighborhoods and Livability Committee but attended the meeting.

Currently, mobile home parks must register with the city's Department of Health and are subject to inspection but, according to Nirenberg, the sites are not routinely inspected. The city often only goes to the parks after receiving a complaint.

My concern was that we prevent the kind of issue we saw at Oak Hollow, Nirenberg said, prior to Mondays meeting. We know if mobile home parks fly under the radar, theres really no guarantee of that.

Nirenbergs proposal includes dedicating Code Enforcement staff to do the routine inspections, to ensure more mobile homes arent being too tightly packed into the parks and also to monitor the electrical, sewer and water connections. Shannon said its not yet clear how often the inspections would occur.

Changes to the code would likely mean an increase in the registration fee that property owners must annually pay to the city. The current fee is $35 per lot per year.

There are 103 registered mobile home parks in San Antonio and nearly 7,000 lots scattered across the city, according to the citys Metropolitan Health District.

Two-thirds of them had some kind of code violation in the last couple of years, Shannon said. About half of them had more than one such violation.

In the case of Oak Hollow, located in the 6300 block of Prue Road, the city ordered the dozen families to leave in October because the conditions at the site had become so poor. The city noted multiple code violations at the property, and raw sewage was running over the ground. Soil in that area later tested positive for E. coli, though none was found in the water. E. coli found in food or water is considered more dangerous than when the bacteria is found in soil.

Shannon called Oak Hollow one of the worst (mobile home parks) wed all seen.

Nirenberg hopes that increasing inspections is part of a larger package of reforms to the city code that regulates mobile home parks. He wants to establish city communication and assistance protocols for how to handle such a situation should it happen again.

In the case of Oak Hollow, there was an extended displacement, where the residents were placed in hotels, and there was only a short period of assistance for them to do so, Nirenberg said.

Six of the families moved into other mobile home parks; four moved into apartments or rental homes; and two moved within Oak Hollow, to areas that werent affected by the sewage spill, said Edward Gonzales, assistant director for the citys Department of Human Services.

The one person that refused to move was the property manager who was related to the park owner, Gonzales said.

Twenty-six families still remain in Oak Hollow, Gonzales said, and the city is helping nine of them with relocation assistance. The human services department can help with first months rent and utility assistance for families that are income eligible.

The city filed a lawsuit against the owners of Oak Hollow in December and is trying to work out a settlement with the property owner, said Deputy City Attorney Joe Nino. The Bexar County District Attorneys Office is also investigating the owners.

A For Sale sign is posted on the property, Nino said.
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REYNOSA - In parts of his hometown, Francisco Paco Rojas makes certain his hands are in plain view.

A hand slunk behind the back or below the steering wheel has a tendency to invite the attention of nervous drug gangs fighting for control of Reynosas lucrative smuggling corridor.

If there is a row, keep down, Rojas explained, and do not run. They will shoot you, even if youre innocent.

RELATED: Psychic toll of almost daily gunbattles marks the new 'normal' in Reynosa

After years of navigating the violent clashes that at times grip this sprawling factory town, residents have adopted techniques to mitigate the danger. These are a few of the measures that Rojas, a 50-year-old radio journalist, uses to keep safe as he reports. And they have served him well these past few weeks as the city has come under siege.

The violence had been slowly building earlier this year. Then, in the early hours of April 22, federal forces killed Juan Julian Loisa Salinas, known as Comandante Toro the local Gulf Cartel boss. Cars and buildings were set ablaze in that confrontation. Since then, clashes between rival factions of the cartel spill into the streets nearly every day, leaving behind a trail of 28 dead so far, and there will almost certainly be more in the days to come.

It wasnt supposed to be like this. Three years ago, Mexico launched Plan Tamaulipas, an ambitious effort to quell violence. Instead, insecurity has deepened. In one of the worlds deadliest countries, Tamaulipas is one of its most troubled states, and Reynosa among its most dangerous cities, especially for journalists, who are compelled to self-censor or avoid coverage of organized crime and public corruption altogether. Amid the bullets and reporting limitations, some local journalists have taken on the role of war correspondents in their backyard.

RELATED: Photos show death and destruction from 10 years of Mexican Drug War

Narco trafficking and corruption have expanded like a weed through society, Rojas said. Your neighbor could be one of them, you never know.

One recent afternoon, Rojas called on colleagues at La Raza, the radio station where he works, to pore over social media to help him navigate clear of possible gun battles. Over a career that spans three decades, Rojas longevity in the trade might be attributed, in part, to his capacity to adapt to ever-changing security threats.

But when violent clashes erupt even these precautions seem inadequate. Wide swaths on the citys periphery are extremely volatile, and the fractured cells of the Gulf cartel fighting for control of the Reynosa plaza are unpredictable, lashing out indiscriminately at bystanders and local businesses.

Terrible, Rojas said of the current state of the city. Despite the years of violence weve never seen this before.

To advise residents of gun battles, the city issues code red alerts, often several at once as the violence spreads, leading Reynosa Mayor Maki Ortiz Dominguez to make a desperate call for peace. For his part, Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, the Tamaulipas governor, delivered a 7-minute message to citizens, pledging to aggressively pursue crime and reestablish trust in a state reeling from a string of public corruption scandals.

Authorities over the weekend found a tunnel connecting the state jail in Reynosa to a wooden house outside the prison, and two others storing weapons and drugs. The tunnel was 16 feet deep, 45 feet long and 4 feet wide. Seemingly improbable discoveries such as these occur with such regularity that they are considered almost routine.

RELATED: Tunnel connects Mexican prison to home near Texas border

Yet in a series of raids on casinos, junk yards and bars, Mexican authorities this past week sought to undercut the illicit cash flowing drug gangs. At one junk yard raid, surrounded by tense men carrying assault rifles, Miguel Dominguez, a veteran newspaper correspondent, hinted at the inherent danger of writing about the crackdown.

During the war between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, six of his colleagues disappeared, a fate he narrowly escaped, said Dominguez, 51. After those harrowing days, journalists insulated themselves from criminal groups and corrupt officials, choosing to tailor coverage to avoid scrutiny and publishing stories without bylines.

Social media rushed in to fill the void left by trained journalists, a consequence fraught with problems. While vital, the social media regularly distort events. Besides, anonymity on social media is no certainty of security. In late 2014, Dr. Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, a prolific member of #reynosafollow was kidnapped and disappeared.

We take measures that affect the quality of the journalism, Dominguez said. Its a instinct that each of us has taken to survive.

In May 2014, with security reaching a crisis point, security officials unveiled Plan Tamaulipas. The state had the highest rate of kidnapping in the country, and state and local level law enforcement institutions and governance were weak. By surging resources to Tamaulipas, the federal government has backed efforts to restore public security in the state.

With Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, Mexicos secretary of the Interior, visiting Reynosa on Monday, Cabeza de Vaca called for financial resources to increase the state police force from about 2,500 to 9,000, but Chong said that Tamaulipas has all it needs to take on organized crime, adding that the government strategy is not just about making arrests.

Its to go further, Chong told a room packed with journalists. Its to ensure the bosses down to the lookouts face justice.

But Mexicos drug war ranked as the second deadliest conflict in the world in 2016, claiming 23,000 lives, according to a recent survey by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Only Syria was worse off.

Drug-fueled organized crime has made Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with the National Human Rights Commission reporting 125 killed since 2000. Javier Valdez, veteran journalist, was killed Monday in Sinaloa near the offices of his newspaper. Although shocking, these incidents against journalists these attacks are carried out with near total impunity.

His loss is a blow to Mexican journalism and to the Mexican public, who see a shadow of silence spreading across the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

Earlier this month, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto pledged to prioritize the safety of journalists for the remainder of his term in office, which ends next year. Pena Nieto also guaranteed to fund a federal protection mechanism that would have run out of money in October.

Safety of any sort is difficult to discern on streets crawling with men armed with assault rifles. For journalists, every day is a frenetic search for the next battle, and how to best inform the community.

Rojas is careful not to utter certain names on his radio program, and he decided long ago that some investigations were not worth the risk, he said, as a caravan of heavily armed state police sped past his studio that overlooks a city plaza.

Rojas received word that there would be more fighting in the evening, and he was preparing for the long night ahead.

Its tough, Rojas said. Now I have to file.

anelsen@express-news.net

Twitter: @amnelsen
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Three Central Texas teens arrested this month are accused of drugging a 15-year-old girl and sexually assaulting her, according to police.

Harker Heights Police spokesman Sgt. Steven Miller said in a news release that Ryan Lane Culley, 18, Marco Saddler, 17, and Jacob Ryan Wilson, 17, were arrested earlier this month on first-degree felony charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
A 31-year-old woman was arrested Sunday in connection with the "violent" shaking of a 4-month-old baby boy that caused "devastating" brain injury, according to her arrest affidavit.

Tomasa Mercedez Guerra now faces a charge of intentional injury to a child, a first-degree felony. She remains in the Bexar County Jail.

According to Guerra's affidavit, paramedics transported the child to University Hospital in critical condition around 11:40 a.m. on April 27.

RELATED: SAFD: Residents escape after explosion as water heater flame ignites fumes from nearby gas canisters

Guerra claimed the child had fallen from a couch onto a carpeted floor, but doctors determined the child was suffering from injures far more severe than those expected from falling off a couch.

The doctors told police that the injuries were "highly concerning for at least two episodes of abusive head trauma" and that they were considering the injuries nearly fatal.

On May 6, investigators interviewed Guerra and her husband, who performed CPR on the child before paramedics arrived on scene the day of the injury. The two gave police conflicting time frames, though Guerra's time frame was found to be "impossible."

Police say she was also caught in other lies, saying the child had fallen onto concrete and not a carpeted floor, and that she hadn't sent the baby's father a video of the child when she actually had.

RELATED: Man hospitalized after being shot in hip at South Side house party

Guerra's affidavit says she stuck to her story "for a while," but eventually admitted to shaking the child. She told police it was in a "playful" manner and didn't think it would hurt the baby.

Police checked back with doctors at the Children's Hospital of San Antonio on May 12. The doctors said the baby can open his eyes, but they can't track anything. He also doesn't make any "purposeful" movements but does respond to painful stimuli.

Such symptoms are "consistent with being violently shaken" and that the child is now considered to have "devastating brain injuries."

Police obtained a warrant for Guerra's arrest the following day and arrested her Sunday.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
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The Greater San Antonio Builders Association (GSABA) in conjunction with Southerland Communities, one of Texas premier land developers, has announced that The Canyons at Scenic Loop is the site of the 2017 Parade of Homes running May 20-29.

The Canyons at Scenic Loop is located close to The Rim, The Shops at La Cantera, South Texas Medical Center and the San Antonio International Airport.

The 2017 Parade of Homes will present exquisitely crafted luxury homes from eight of San Antonios most prestigious custom homebuilders. This years parade will feature 11 days of events.

GSABA is pleased to feature the home at 10105 Carter Canyon, built by Japhet Builders, a highly respected veteran-owned custom builder. Japhet Builders has built a one-of-a-kind luxury home, and this transitional multi-level home of approximately 5,108 square feet offers four bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, a three-car garage and breathtaking, panoramic views.

Jeff and Paige Japhet created this one-of-a-kind design that takes full advantage of the topography, views and trees offered by the homesite. Every room has a spectacular, unobstructed view of the Texas Hill Country.

The formal dining room has a 300-bottle wine cellar by the head of the table. The main level features the master bedroom, in-law suite, study, outdoor kitchen and wet bar, just to name a few. The spacious gourmet kitchen opens into the great room.

The Japhets create homes for families, and the true Texas basement represents just that. The Texas-sized walk-out basement boasts two secondary bedrooms with full baths, game room and an entertaining space for not only kids but adults, too. You will never miss a game on the three-flat screen wall while playing pool.

The encased metal door opening out to the courtyard and back patio lead you to an oasis of living space. The fluidity of indoor/outdoor living is evident in each of the special touches and designs to embrace the spectacular views of the Hill Country. You can walk right up to the negative-edge pool that features a hot tub and waterfall.

The backyard also has an inground pool with a deck, landscaping and exterior lighting. This home truly is an entertainers delight and is available for sale. Call (210) 378-5532 for more details.

There are seven luxury homebuilders being showcased in this years Parade of Homes in addition to Japhet Builders. They are Ashton Custom Homes, Broll Homes, Dale Sauer Homes, Genesis Custom Homes, John Merritt Homes, Partners in Building and UrbanLUX Builders. All have gorgeous homes open during the event, offering incredible views and elegant features.

The Parade of Homes will open at 10 a.m. May 20 and close at 6 p.m. May 29. Parade discount tickets can be purchased for $11 each at 16 participating Home Depot stores. Tickets are available onsite for $13 per person (cash only).

Visitors can vote for their favorite home for the Peoples Choice Award.

Attendees age 18 and older also can register to win a new 2017 Volkswagen from the North Park family of dealerships. The drawing for the Volkswagen will take place at 4 p.m. May 29. (The lucky winner will have to pay tax, title and license.)

Parking is available at UTSA on May 20-21 and May 26-29. Parade parking on May 22-25 will be at the San Antonio Rose Palace, and buses will run approximately every 20 minutes.

Media partners for the event are the San Antonio Express-News and KSAT 12. CPS Energy is the Parade Presenting Partner along with Home Depot and North Park family of dealerships. Gold Partner is Security Service Federal Credit Union. Silver Partners are Hollywood Crawford Garage Doors and Openers, and Jones Carter Engineering. Additional member partners supporting the Parade of Homes include Wells Fargo, Parrish & Co., StrucSure Home Warranty, Builders FirstSource and USAA.

For details, visit the Associations website at www.sabuilders.com. Times for the Parade of Homes vary each day, so check the online calendar.

Editors Note: This content is made possible by Greater San Antonio Builders Association. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
Microsoft accused, yesterday, the US National Security Agency (NSA), in the hands of Donald Trumps government, of having let the flight and further expansion of the "WannaCry" virus which continues crawling halfway across the world and which has already infected the computers of 179 countries, 1,200 of them in Spain. The head of the legal department of the technological company, producer of the Windows OS through which the infection has spread, Brad Smith, explained that hackers had stolen the malware to the NSA by the beginning of this year. And confirmed that the first attacks had been registered in Spain and the UK. Moreover, Russia and China accused the USA of having something to do in the expansion of the haemorrhage.

To add fuel to the fire and warn of the vulnerability of the system, Microsoft spokesperson granted that this is the equivalent of stealing a Tomahawk missile to the US army. It was also reminded that the CIA had also used a software in some iPhone mobile phones and in Samsung televisions to spy on their users and turn them into "undercover microphones", as Wikileaks revealed. "This type of programme which is in the hands of Governments has been repeatedly filtered to the public domain and suffering from widespread damage", assured Smith in an article published in the companys corporate blog. And he adds: "this attack should be taken as a warning call. We need to adopt a different approach and have the cyberspace abiding by the same regulations as the arms market in the physical world". According to some Chinese experts the virus "WannaCry" is based on the app called "EternalBlue", which was developed by the US National Security Agency "to attack computers".

In a very similar direction aimed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. "I think that Microsoft directive board has already pointed to the US secret services as the main source of the virus. Russia has nothing to do with this", assured. Although the majority of cyberattacks took place in Russia, Putin claimed that the national public institutions "have not suffered from severe damages, nor the banks or health system, although, in general, there is nothing positive in this and it is worrisome".

Although Spain was the origin of the cyberhackers, the country only counted 1,200 computers infected, as reported yesterday by the National Cybersecurity Institute (Incibe). This agency claims that "in a worldwide scale more than 230,000 computer systems have been detected as affected by the different versions of the virus in a total of 179 countries, Spain is number 16 in the ranking of the most hit ones". In Asturias, however, the regional government as well as the Asturias businessmen Federation (FADE) pointed that there is no news of any incident.

The regional business organisation disclosed yesterday a tutorial among its members, developed by its IT technicians, about how to act when you are victim to one of these attacks. "In case of detecting an infection it is very important to turn off the system which has been attacked to clean it" recommends FADE. And it adds: "Under no circumstances it is recommended to pay for the rescue of the information as we would be funding a criminal organisation which would increasingly spread".

The Chinese government has warned that the virus mutated in the last few hours, and some experts point that the programmed launched by the cybercriminals is able to skip the first containment measures put into effect. The head of the Chinese Cyberspace Strategies Institute, Qin An, showed that the "virtual weapons developed by the USA remind the world of the great damage which the US network haemorrhage can cause". As some calculations, the "WannaCry" would have infected computer systems in 30,000 companies or public institutions, especially schools, in this Asian country. The head of the Spanish government, Mariano Rajoy, who was visiting China indeed, refused to make unfounded speculations about the origin of the cyberattack and dismissed any commentary on the event.
Shoppers in the Iceland store in Longford, and in Iceland stores across the country, will have the opportunity to help the fundraising efforts The Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI).

The ASI which helps to provide supports and services for the 55,000 people with dementia and their carers in Ireland has entered into a new partnership agreement with the supermarket chain Iceland.





As part of the corporate partnership agreement with the ASI, Iceland will provide fundraising collection points at the end of shopping tills in their stores in the heart of local communities across Ireland.

Support from corporate partners is a vital part of ASIs fundraising and helps the organisation to provide dementia-specific services and supports and to advocate for the rights and needs of all people living with dementia and their carers across Ireland.

The ASI is the national leader in advocating for and providing dementia-specific supports and services and each year the organisation provides more than one million hours of community-based dementia-specific care throughout Ireland.

The ASI provides a number of support and services to people with dementia and their carers across Ireland including Day Care, Home Care, Family Carer Training and Dementia Advisers.

The Alzheimer Society of Ireland CEO Pat McLoughlin commented, The Alzheimer Society of Ireland is delighted that Iceland has decided to come on board as a corporate partner. We are delighted that Iceland will be providing fundraising collection points for our organisation at the end of shopping tills in all of their stores across Ireland. The money that will be generated will make a real and lasting difference to the lives of people in local communities living with dementia around Ireland. The money raised will also help to support vital lifelines across our range of services including Day Care, Home Care, Family Carer Training and Dementia Advisers. One in two of us will know someone who has been diagnosed with dementia that could be your mother, father, uncle, aunt, sibling or friend.

Managing Director of Iceland Ireland Ron Metcalfe said, Iceland Ireland is thrilled to partner with The Alzheimer Society of Ireland and help to not only raise vital funds, but also to bring awareness to the community. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland serves many people across Ireland in similar geographical areas to our stores and many of our customers and employees have friends or relatives who, at some time, have been supported by this charity.
A.G. Schneiderman Announces Indictment Of Former Health Care Worker Charged With Endangering The Welfare Of Two Disabled Residents

Local News, Crime, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2017

Defendant Allegedly Neglected Two Disabled Residents Under His Care, Tying One Up In Her Bed.

New York, NY - May 16, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that Andrew Hatcher, of Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that Andrew Hatcher, of Ridge , New York, a former Direct Support Assistant was arraigned on an indictment charging the defendant with endangering the welfare of two developmentally disabled residents under his care at a state-run group home Centereach Intermediate Care Facility. Hatcher, 28, was arraigned before Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice John B. Collins in Riverhead and, if convicted, will face up to one and one-third to four years in state prison.

When a New Yorker requires the help of a group home caregiver, they expect the health care professional to act as such, said Attorney General Schneiderman. At the very least they expect to be treated with dignity and respectthats a human right. My office has zero tolerance for those who trample upon that right, and well continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute those individuals who prey upon our vulnerable and defenseless citizens.

The indictment charges Hatcher with two counts of Endangering the Welfare of an Incompetent or Physically Disabled Person in the First Degree, a class E Felony. According to the indictment, Hatcher, knowing that he was the only caregiver on the night shift responsible for two severely physically impaired and intellectually disabled residents, failed to care for them and failed to perform required 15-minute bed checks to ensure their safety.

In addition, Hatcher allegedly tied one of the residents up in her bed. The residenta 59-year-old woman diagnosed with profound intellectual and developmental disabilitieswas found the next morning, tied up in her bed, soaked in urine and having suffered injuries to the skin on her feet and right leg.

Attorney General Schneiderman would like to thank the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) for its assistance in conducting the investigation.

The investigation was conducted by Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) Special Investigator Stephen Clarke with assistance from Supervising Special Investigator Greg Muroff and Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorneys General Megan Gallagher and Veronica Bindrim-MacDevitt with the assistance of Regional Director Jane Zwirn-Turkin. Thomas OHanlon is MFCUs Chief of Criminal Investigations  Downstate. MFCU is led by Director Amy Held and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul Mahoney.
Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2017

Martins: "Disclosure, Transparency, Independence, and Accountability."

Mineola, NY - May 16, 2017 - Standing in front of a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt, Standing in front of a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt, Nassau County Executive candidate Jack Martins today unveiled a comprehensive ethics reform package to fight corruption and restore the publics trust in county government. The Martins plan is built on the four core principles of disclosure, transparency, independence, and accountability. The plan features a removal provision for the county executive, independent enforcement of the county's ethics laws and enhanced scrutiny to prevent conflicts of interest. When announcing his plan, Martins invoked Roosevelts legacy as a corruption-fighter and champion of the middle class.

As we begin a new chapter for Nassau County, enacting comprehensive ethics reform must be the first thing that we do, said Jack Martins. Because reforming the way government functions affects everything that will occur after, enacting this reform package will be the first thing I do as County Executive. Nassau County families have a right to honest government and we will ensure they have it."

"There is not a not a democratic or republican way to restore public confidence in government. There is the right way and that begins my first day in office," continued Martins.

Currently, the Nassau County Charter enables the Governor to remove the Nassau County Executive for cause. To return that authority to Nassau County, the Martins plan amends the charter to allow for the County Executive's removal, following the vote of a bipartisan special legislative committee, and by super majority vote of the County Legislature.

It makes no sense that theres a legislative process for removing the President of the United States but not the County Executive in Nassau County, said Martins. More than six months ago, I called for a change in county leadership to restore the publics trust in county government. A recall provision gives Nassaus residents the tools they need to keep government in check between elections when circumstances arise, said Martins.

To provide independent ethics enforcement and ensure the integrity of county contracts, the Martins Ethics Reform plan would require both the Nassau County Commissioner of Investigations and the Nassau County Procurement Director to be confirmed by a majority of the County Legislature. These offices will provide quarterly reports to the County Executive and Legislature. In addition, both the offices of the Commissioner of Investigations and the Procurement Director would have independent allocations within the county budget. This is independent budgeting authority would ensure these offices are properly staffed with experienced professionals and unencumbered by political considerations.

The Nassau County Board of Ethics would be restructured. Martins proposed strengthening the Board of Ethics changing its composition to make it bipartisan and include the County Legislature. Members would serve five-year staggered terms, be appointed by the County Executive and confirmed by the legislature. Not more than two members would be from the same political party. The commissioner of investigations would serve as the investigatory arm of the Board of Ethics providing the investigatory tools to perform the proper independent oversight.

We must have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to public corruption , Martins said. To do that, we need stronger policies and structural change in county government to prevent impropriety from occurring, discover when it does and hold bad actors accountable to the fullest extent of the law. This comprehensive package provides the reforms needed to do just that, concluded Martins.

Martins proposed a new Nassau County Code of Ethics that includes:

Enhanced vetting to prevent nepotism and improper instances of simultaneous employment with multiple governmental entities or county contractors. Rigorous review of all county contracts and vendors to prevent conflicts of interest. More expansive financial disclosure requirements for elected officials and policymakers. Creation of a new electronic filing system to facilitate the enforcement of these requirements. Subject elected officials and county employees to enhance disclosure requirements and independent review process if they seek to simultaneously work for or receive other compensation from any entity that receives county funds.

Martins plan would ensure the effective implementation of the new Code of Ethics and provide the tools necessary for the independent offices of the Commissioner of Investigations and the Procurement Director to conduct investigations and make both civil and criminal referrals.

Beyond the disclosure and review process performed by the Board of Ethics and the independent offices of the Commissioner of Investigations and the Procurement Director, the Martins plan provides unprecedented public access to county information. This includes:

Implementing an Open Data policy and creating an online portal for the public to receive and use information regularly disclosed by county agencies as a means of monitoring the effectiveness of county government, Making county personnel and procurement information available online Televising proceedings of the County Legislature.

As Mayor of Mineola Martins ran on a message of honesty, integrity and accountability. In 8 Years as Mayor he added unprecedented transparency and accountability to village government.
Nature & Weather, Local News, Health & Wellness, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2017

Bills Would Continue Efforts to Raises Awareness, Prevention, and Treat Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases.

Albany, NY - May 16, 2017 - Senator Ken LaValle announced that the NY State Senate yesterday approved a package of bills that strengthen the states efforts to combat Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Senator LaValle, a member of the Senates Task Force on Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases, noted that the bills will be instrumental in implementing the goals of improving prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to better protect the health of New Yorkers.

Its critically important that we continue to work towards increasing awareness and prevention of Lyme and Tick-borne diseases. The legislation we approved will build upon measures that we have taken over the past. The first piece of legislation would assist homeowners by providing information on how to safeguard their yard against ticks. The second bill would assist in our fight for greater insurance coverage for those suffering from the diseases. Another measure would help educate the medical community so they can properly treat patients. I will continue to work diligently to bring as many resources to combat Lymes and other tick-borne diseases.

According to reports by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), New York State has the third highest number of confirmed cases of Lyme disease in the entire country. While this problem has historically been concentrated on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, the DOH reports that its quickly migrating to other counties across New York. Since Lymes disease reporting became available in 1986, 95,000 cases of Lyme have reported to the state.

While the Northeast United States remains one of the hardest-hit regions for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, the Senate has been actively working to reverse this trend. Its Task Force was created in 2013 to engage stakeholders and develop legislation to address Lyme disease.

This year alone, the Task Force successfully secured $400,000 in the newly adopted state budget for research, education, and prevention efforts. It will continue to build upon past legislative successes, including two new laws passed last year that requires the Department of Health to design a Lyme and tick-borne disease prevention program, and requires the state to create age-appropriate educational materials that would be readily available to schools. Students will learn how to identify ticks, the procedures for safe removal, and the best practices for protection from ticks.

The measures approved today by the Senate help address issues include:

Bill S2588 , which Senator LaValle co-sponsored, provides homeowners with vital and reliable information on the best way to protect their property from ticks. People should be aware of the EPAs approved pesticides that are recommended for tick prevention and the best methods to use pesticides to better protect both people and pets from exposure to ticks on their property. The bill directs the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation to develop guidelines for best practices in treating residential properties to reduce exposure to ticks.

Bill S2168 takes the first major step towards addressing the lack of insurance coverage available to those diagnosed with Lyme disease. Currently, health insurance companies are not required to cover long-term treatment from chronic Lyme or other related diseases, which is devastating for many New Yorkers. People suffering from chronic Lyme disease can experience extreme fatigue, nausea, depression, joint pain and many other symptoms. The bill requires the State Health Care Quality and Cost Containment Commission to meet annually and to submit a report on the impact of providing insurance coverage for Lyme and Tick-Borne disease.

Bill S2621 helps ensure medical professionals are properly trained to treat patients with Lyme or other tick-borne diseases. The bill authorizes the Department of Health (DOH) to award grants for graduate medical education in Lyme and tick-borne diseases, designate organizations as centers of excellence for Lyme and tick-borne diseases, and designate Lyme and tick-borne-disease resource centers.
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 16 2017

Nsikak Anietie Ekong of Boy Scout Troop 300 was honored by Mayor Don Ryan and the Board of Trustees.

(L-R) Village of Hempstead Trustee LaMont Johnson takes a picture with Nsikak Anietie Ekong following his recognition as an Eagle Scout. The Village of Hempstead is proud of Ekong for his accomplishment and his work as a role model for local youth.

Hempstead, NY - May 16, 2017 - Village of Village of Hempstead Mayor Don Ryan and the Board of Trustees recently congratulated Village resident and Boy Scout Troop 300 scout Nsikak Anietie Ekongs completion of the Boy Scouts program and designation as an Eagle Scout.

Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts, recognizing young men of considerable distinction, discipline, leadership and service.

The Village, Legislators Kevan Abrahams and Celia Bynoe and the Nassau County District Attorney each officially honored Ekong for his achievement. The Village of Hempstead is proud of Ekong for his accomplishment and his work as a role model for local youth.
Culture / Art Republik

May 16, 2017 | By AFP Relaxnews

The Asia Society Museum presents traditional, modern, and contemporary exhibitions of Asian and Asian-American art, by both known and under-recognized artists. Founded in 1956, it is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational institution headquartered in New York, with additional gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Houston. For their 70th anniversary, the Asia Society Museum will shine the spotlight on the works of 19 South Asian contemporary artists in Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in Diaspora, opening on June 27.

Timed with the 70th anniversary of the Indian Subcontinents independence from the British Empire, this exhibitionproposed by the founder of the South Asian Womens Creative Collective, Jaishri Abichandanicelebrates diversity in theme and in media. In the context of a globally-occurring rise in nationalism and xenophobia, these artists wrestle with stereotypes and cultural assumptions, across photography, sculpture, and video to address issues in the current socio-political climate.

The work of diasporic artists working and living between worlds has taken on a new urgency in counterbalancing the retreat into simplistic identity politics, said Boon Hui Tan, Asia Society Vice President for Global Arts & Cultural Programs and Director of Asia Society Museum, in a statement.

The artists, all living within the United States, represent a slice of the American experience while also drawing from non-American cultural tropes. The selection of artists reflects South Asias diverse demographics. The exhibition includes Pakistani-born artists (Khalil Chishtee, Shahzia Sikander, Ruby Chishti, Anila Quayyum Agha); Indian-born artists (Jaishri Abichandani, Rina Banerjee, Kanishka Raja, Zarina); as well as artists born in Kenya and Nepal. Each work engages with the specificities of these native and regularly travelled to regions.

A two-day symposium titled  Fatal Love: Where Are We Now organised in conjunction with the exhibition will gather South Asian American artists, curators, and academics for discussions and strategies about visibility, to be held at the Queens Museum on July 1 and 2.

Lucid Dreams and Distant Visions: South Asian Art in the Diaspora will be on view from June 27 to August 6 2017. For more information, do visit the Asia Society Museum.
Style / Fashion

Louis Vuitton paid homage to the Land of The Rising Sun with a scenic show on May 14 and we take a look at the show and collection

May 16, 2017 | By Teri Chong

On May 14, luxury fashion magnate Louis Vuitton lifted the veil off their stunning 2018 Cruise Collection  at a venue that was just as breathtaking. Helmed by the brands creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere, the collection was shown at the Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan atop a metal bridge overlooking the Shingaraki Mountains. The shift to the I.M Pei designed venue comes after previous cruise collections being unveiled in Monaco, Palm Springs and Rio de Janeiro. Lauded as a venue that encapsulates the fusion of urban and natural, the beautiful scenery made the event truly one to not be missed. The star-studded event saw celebrities such as Michelle Williams, Sophie Turner, Fan Bing Bing and Jennifer Connelly in the front row.

The collaboration between Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto and Louis Vuitton saw pieces infused with classic Japanese art and Kabuki-inspired designs. Japanese actress Rila Fukushima opened the show dressed in a belted fur jacket, along with a striped cotton shirt. Models took to the long catwalk in sequined t-shirt dresses alongside bold Kabuki prints, as well as garments resembling samurai armour and Japanese traditional dress. Sheer evening dresses shimmering with gold and silver sequins dazzled in the sunlight.



















Accessories included Louis Vuittons iconic monogrammed bags and mini-trunks, but with an added twist by Kansai Yamamoto. The designer created symbols and icons resembling Kabuki masks for the accessories line, injecting another splash of vibrancy.

Japanese influences were prevalent even in the models makeup. Bold colours were blended seamlessly into the face, highlighted with the use of eyeliner and dramatic brows; referencing the Kabuki. The look played perfectly into the theme of fusing modernity and the traditional, standing out in the largely minimalist backdrop of the museum.

I visited the Miho Museum a few years ago and was fascinated by I.M. Peis concept of the harmony between architecture and nature. Japan is a country I know well. It was one of the first places I travelled to when I was seeking inspiration, some 20 years ago, and Ive been a regular visitor ever since. This collection is the culmination of what Japan has given to me for a very long time, said Louis Vuitton creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere in a statement.

Since the end of the 19th century, Louis Vuitton has always maintained strong ties with Japan: the mon (family crest) inspirations of the Monogram canvas; the long list of renowned Japanese clients; Louis Vuittons first store in Tokyo in 1978; and the collaborations with Japanese contemporary artists such as Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, Rei Kawabuko and today Hiroshi Fujiwara.

For more information, visit Louis Vuitton.
Brilliant Corners Spring 2017 Download Image: Web

The jazz circles in England are peppered by evenings where sax, drums and horns punctuate poetry read by author John Harvey, best known for his crime novels. In a recent interview for Brilliant Corners, Harvey discusses the influence of jazz on him as a writer and his most famous character, detective Charlie Resnik.

Sascha Feinstein, Ph.D., professor of English and creative writing at Lycoming College, conducted the interview in London and coaxes Harvey to reveal the parallels between his personal jazz preferences and those of his character. Harvey also discusses jazz artists and movements that inspired his love for the genre.

Along with the interview, poetry shines as the main focus of the Summer 2017 issue of Brilliant Corners, including two pieces by Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate of the United States, and a lengthy excerpt from a book-length poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, a founding board member for Brilliant Corners and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Bill Tremblay, whose book Shooting Script: Door of Fire earned the ForeWard Magazine Silver Award and the Colorado Book Award for Poetry, shares a memoir about the influence of jazz on his formative years into adulthood.

Founded in 1996, Brilliant Corners is a biannual journal with a unique blend of literature about jazz, edited by Feinstein. A subscription costs $12 per year ($18 for international orders). Send check or money to Brilliant Corners, Lycoming College, 700 College Place, Williamsport, PA 17701. More information can be found at www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners. Learn more about jazz in America by following Brilliant Corners on Facebook.

Published at Lycoming College, Brilliant Corners is funded in part by Lycoming College, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and private endowments.
Move aside, France-you aren't the only country with a new president! Last Tuesday, South Korean voters chose Moon Jae-in of the center-left Democratic Party (Minjoo Party) to replace the recently ousted Park Geun-hye. As observers speculate on the implications, from domestic issues like chaebol reform to renewing relations with its neighbors to the north, the immediate impact for markets is falling uncertainty. This is the latest example in a fully global trend.

Moon's win caps a turbulent stretch in Korean politics. A shocking[i]influence peddling scandal involving one of Park's personal associates and a Rasputin-like figure led to the now-former president's impeachment last December-which Korea's Constitutional Court upheld in March. Three candidates emerged to replace Park: Moon, software entrepreneur Ahn Cheol-soo of the centrist People's Party and Hong Jun-pyo of Park's conservative Liberty Korea Party. However, ideology wasn't the dominant issue this election. Rather, many pundits saw this race as an indictment of the status quo, exemplified by Park and the corrupt political culture she represented. Polls had Moon as the favorite since early April, so his winning with 41% of the vote wasn't shocking. Hong did surprise though, finishing second at 24%, while Ahn-who enjoyed some brief bursts of popularity-fell to third at 21%. With Moon now in power and promising big changes, what can investors expect?

While Moon made standard campaign pledges-e.g., creating new jobs-gridlock will make it difficult for him to make any big, sweeping changes. For one, Moon won the lowest share of the vote of any Korean president since 1987, indicating the election was more anti status-quo than pro-Moon-perhaps limiting his mandate and political capital. More importantly, the Democratic Party holds only 120 of 300 seats (40%) in the National Assembly. Even with total support from the People's Party, a center-left coalition would only manage about 53%: short of the 60% super-majority required to pass any non-budget bills. The opposition could block legislation, promoting gridlock.

While we have frequently highlighted some of gridlock's underappreciated positives,[ii] this could also hamper chaebol reform plans, which many foreign observers are hopeful for. Chaebol are the huge, family-run mega conglomerates that dominate Korea's political and economic realms-think of them as corporate feudal empires. These vested interests, which are generally governed opaquely and unaccountable to outside shareholders, are at the heart of the corruption culture prevalent in Korea. The government (Park included) has made numerous attempts to reform the chaebol to help free up the economy and allow greater market influence and competition, but those efforts have largely failed.

Today, pundits are more optimistic about reform prospects. Public opinion seems in favor of it, and some major chaebol heads have even been arrested for corruption and are awaiting trial-perhaps a sign the appetite for change is real. However, the chaebol still wield significant power in Korean politics, and considering they account for nearly 60% of South Korean GDP, it will be a tall order to implement significant change-even if the president had a broad mandate.

That said, chaebol reform would be a long-term benefit if it comes to pass. In the here and now, the removal of political uncertainty has benefited South Korean markets. When the scandal first broke, Korean stocks fell -8.5% in a month,[iii] likely driven by the surprise hit to sentiment. However, year to date, Korean stocks are up 24.7%, outpacing the MSCI Emerging Markets' 16.6% return.[iv] While hope for chaebol reform may be driving some of those returns, Korean stocks have been rallying ever since bottoming in November, when Park's days in office looked numbered. (Exhibit 1)

Exhibit 1: Korean Stocks Rise During Park Impeachment

Source: FactSet, as of 4/21/2017. MSCI Korea Index with net dividends from 9/30/2016 - 3/31/2017.

The low coincided with opposition leaders agreeing to pursue the formal impeachment process, evidence of forward-looking markets pricing in what was likely to come. After each subsequent step-the motion passing, the trial beginning and the Constitutional Court finally affirming the impeachment-Korean stocks kept climbing.

Falling uncertainty is a powerful force, and Korea hasn't been alone in experiencing it recently. In Brazil, markets rallied well before President Dilma Rousseff was impeached last September, indicating investors thought anyone would be an improvement over her. This has also been the case following different European elections this year, too (e.g., the Netherlands and France). Once markets and investors see the likely outcome-whatever it may be-they can start pricing it in and getting on with life.

With Moon now in the Blue House,[v] one new uncertainty is South Korea's approach to North Korea. Moon has expressed desire to reopen talks with North Korea and restart the "Sunshine Policy"-an effort to engage with Pyongyang on economic and political issues-in contrast to the conservatives' hardline approach. However, the Sunshine Policy has been dormant since 2008, and it could set up some contentious points with the US. Considering North Korea's recent saber-rattling and ongoing hot war against fish, some analysts have questioned the potential broader geopolitical fallout. However, Korean tensions aren't new. They may grab headlines from time to time-as they have over the past few years-but hot rhetoric and potential regional strife lack the power to derail a global bull market or expansion. Unless the situation mushrooms into a broader global conflict, don't let the noise and speculation spook you out of your investment plan. Besides, if tensions now were really different than they've been for decades, Korean stocks probably wouldn't be rising.[vi]

Korea's presidential election is a prime example of the power of falling uncertainty. We expect this phenomenon to continue this year-specifically in Europe-and it's a reason for global investors to be bullish this year.
Vietnamese online advertising market bought by Norwegian giant Telenor

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnams Cho Tot and ImSold, the largest online marketplace, will be officially taken over by Telenor, the telecom group from Norway, in June.









Vietnams Cho Tot and ImSold, the largest online marketplace, will be officially taken over by Telenor, the telecom group from Norway, in June.



Telenor on May 11 announced it had reached an agreement with Schibsted, an international media group, under which it would take over Schibsteds stake in joint ventures in Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam.Telenor will also withdraw from SnT, a joint venture with Schibsted in Latin America. Telenor expects net profit of $406 million from the deal.Telenor has also reached an agreement with Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) on buying SPHs stake in the joint venture in Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam for $110 million.The transactions are expected to be completed by the end of June.After wrapping up the deals, Telenor will hold a 100 percent stake in Cho Tot (Vietnam), Mudah (Malaysia), OneKyat (Myanmar) and ImSold (Malaysia and Vietnam).Telenor, Schibsted and SPH will still be the co-owners of Kaidee in Thailand and Berniaga in Indonesia.Bryan Teo, managing director of Cho Tot, said on Nhip Cau Dau Tu that there would not be any changes in key personnel and business strategy for Cho Tot.Telenors representatives have been on the board of directors of 701 Search, the holding company for Cho Tot, since 2013 and they have been actively contributing to the business strategy pursued by the company.Telenor believes that 701 is proceeding in the right direction and wants to maintain business as usual.When asked about the recent appearance of ImSold, the website with the same owner as Cho Tot, a knowledgeable source said the two websites were targeting different groups of customers and they would cooperate to exchange content.The source said the co-existence of Cho Tot and ImSold was similar to Lazada and Zalora, which both belonged to Rocket Internet.Bryan answered similarly to the question from Nhip Cau Dau Tu, saying that ImSold and Cho Tot have different target customers.Regarding the performance of Cho Tot since the beginning of the year, he said the number of visitors increased by 10 percent a month in the last four months, while the number of classified ads rose by 20 percent a month.In the latest deal, Telenor bought a 66.7 percent stake in joint ventures in Malaysia and Vietnam.Bryan explained that Telenor paid $110 million to SPH to acquire a one-third stake in all of Cho Tot, Mudah, OneKyat and ImSold, with no clear price for the websites.As one of the worlds largest telecom groups with revenue of $15.3 billion in 2016, Telenor, owned by the Norwegian government, has the third largest capitalization value in the country.

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Kim Chi
Published in Pravda No. 47, May 16 (3), 1917.

That is what the proclamation of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet to the socialists of the world, published in todays papers, amounts to. It has a lot to say against imperialism, but all these words are nullified by a single little phrase which reads:

The Provisional Government of revolutionary Russia has adopted this platform (i.e., peace without annexations and indemnities on the basis of self-determination of nations).

The gist of the matter is summed up in this one phrase. This phrase is a defence of Russian imperialism, which it cloaks and whitewashes. As a matter of fact, our Provisional Government, far from adopting a platform of peace without annexations, is trampling upon it daily and hourly.

Our Provisional Government has diplomatically renounced annexations, just as the government of the German capitalists, those brigands Wilhelm and Bethmann-Hollweg, have done. In words, both governments have renounced annexations. In practice, both continue the policy of annexations. The German capitalist government forcibly holds Belgium, a part of France, Serbia, Montenegro, Rumania, Poland, Danish provinces, Alsace, etc.; the Russian capitalist government holds part of Galicia, Turkish Armenia, Finland, Ukraine, etc. The British capitalist government is the most annexationist government in the world, for it forcibly keeps the greatest number of nationalities within the British Empire: India (three hundred million), Ireland, Turkish Mesopotamia, the German colonies in Africa, etc.

The Executive Committees proclamation covers up its lies about annexations with deceptive phrases, and thereby does great harm to the cause of the proletariat and the revolution. First of all, the proclamation does not differentiate between the renunciation of annexations in words (in this sense, all capitalist governments, without exception, have adopted the platform of peace without annexations) and renunciation of annexations in deeds (in this sense, not one capitalist government in the world has renounced annexations). Secondly, the proclamationwithout any justification, without any basis, contrary to the truthwhitewashes the Russian Provisional Government of the capitalists, which is not a bit better (and, probably, not worse) than any other capitalist government.

To cloak an unpleasant truth with a deceptive phrase is most harmful and most dangerous to the cause of the proletariat, to the cause of the toiling masses. The truth, however bitter, must be faced squarely. A policy that does not meet this requirement is a ruinous policy.

And the truth about annexations is that all capitalist governments, the Russian Provisional Government included, are deceiving the people with promisesthey renounce the policy of annexations in words, but continue it in deeds. Any intelligent person can prove this truth for himself by simply making up a full list of the annexations of, say, only three countries: Germany, Russia, and Britain.

Just try it, gentlemen!

By refusing to do this, by whitewashing ones own government and blackening others, one becomes in effect a defender of imperialism.

In conclusion we would remark that at the end of the proclamation we have another fly in the ointment, namely, the assurance that whatever the differences that have been rending socialism during the three years of war, no faction of the proletariat should decline to participate in the general struggle for peace.

This, too, we regret to say, is a deceptive phrase, an utterly empty and meaningless one. Plekhanov and Scheidemann both assert that they are fighting for peace, a peace with out annexations at that. But it is clear to everyone that they are both fighting to defend each his own imperialist government of the capitalists. What good do we do the cause of the working classes by uttering sugar-coated lies, by playing down the fact that the Plekhanovs and the Scheidemauns have gone over to the side of their respective capitalists? Is it not obvious that such glossing over of the truth amounts to whitewashing imperialism and its defenders?

Source: Marxist Internet Archive
SPRINGFIELD -- Residents of the Forest Park neighborhood are about six months away from seeing new designs for a revamped "X" intersection.

But construction on the traffic-clogged and complicated intersection is at least two years away, said Christopher Cignoli, city Department of Public Works director. He promised this week that there will be a public hearing to go over proposed changes once designs are in hand.

The city completed a final planning study about a year ago after presenting six potential reconstruction scenarios for the intersection. One idea that was strongly opposed by residents and the City Council was a new loop road through Forest Park.

Engineering firm Fuss & O'Neill, which has a local branch in West Springfield, has been hired to do detailed design work for a revamp of the intersection of Sumner and Belmont avenues and Dickinson Street. The firm is doing a field survey and collecting traffic and pedestrian data, Cignoli said.

The city will pay $400,000 for design work.

Ideas include building overhead traffic signals to replace the lights that are grounded on the street where they are in the way and hard to see. Forest Park may get a new pedestrian entrance, and engineers will look at bike paths and better walkways.

The overall project will be funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The MassDOT website lists it as a potential $6 million project.

The goals are safety and efficiency.

"Number one, we want to get traffic flow through The X better and make things better for pedestrians. We want to add bike accommodations," he said.

The intersection, with its many entrance and exit points and weird jug handle turns, is frequently the site of crashes, Cignoli said, noting the collisions rarely involve injuries because the speeds are so low.

"A lot of sideswipes as people try and change lanes," he said. "A lot of rear-end collisions happen."

Pedestrians have been fatally hit on Sumner Avenue near the intersection, so Cignoli said he'd like to address pedestrian safety in the whole of the neighborhood.

James A. Heath, 52, of Hastings Street was struck and killed in May 2016 while crossing near 700 Sumner Ave.

Nineteen-year-old Ashley Ballester was struck and killed on the same block in 2012.

The intersection hasn't been substantially renovated in 40 or 50 years, Cignoli said. The traffic lights have out-of-date technology.

Ashley Ballester, 19-year-old Springfield mother, killed in hit-and-run accident, remembered as great mother, great daughter

The neighborhood also has changed. Decades ago, it was full of retail that folks waked to. Today, there are large parking lots and more people drive, Cignoli said. Commuters use The X as a way to get and to and from East Longmeadow and Hampden, and it's a major route for intra-city traffic.

Fuss & O'Neill said Stephen J. Savaria, who has over 25 years of experience with transportation assignments, will direct the project.
pirates_of_the_caribbean_dead_men_tell_no_tales_by_mintmovi3-db23j4w.jpg

(Walt Disney Studios artwork)

Disney's upcoming "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" has been copied by hackers seeking payment from the studio.

The hackers have demanded that an enormous amount of money be paid to Bitcoin, but Disney insiders told Deadline the studio is working with the FBI and will not pay.

Disney CEO Bob Iger told ABC employees during a town hall meeting in New York on Monday that a hacking had occurred, but he did not identify the film.

The fifth installment in the "Pirates" franchise starring Johnny Depp is set to open nationwide on May 26.

The last four installments in the franchise have been huge successes for Disney, collectively grossing nearly $3.73 billion worldwide, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Last month, a hacker uploaded Season 5 of "Orange Is the New Black" to the Pirate Bay file sharing site after Netflix refused to pay ransom.
While Memorial Day is widely considered the "unofficial" start to the summer season, Longmeadow residents can expect summer to come one week earlier.

Long Meddowe Days returns to Longmeadow's town green this Saturday and Sunday, promising to deliver a mix of new attractions and old favorites at the 37 year-old festival.

Sponsored by the Longmeadow Historical Society, this year's edition of Long Meddowe Days will feature many of the elements that make the weekend one of the town's most beloved events, including live music, food, family-friendly activities and a number of history-themed exhibits.

The weekend-long festival will kick off Saturday morning with the Tim Paige 5K Memorial Road Race/Walk at 7:30 a.m. and be followed with a parade featuring local schools and community organizations at 9:30 a.m. in the St. Mary's Church parking lot.

Both Saturday and Sunday afternoon will see the town green populated with countless activities geared towards the entire family, from photographers and artists to crafters selling their work. For children in attendance, events will include the festival's popular miniature train, a bounce house and a climbing wall.

On Saturday night at 6 p.m., upon the conclusion of the day's activities, free food will be served as part of a community campfire featuring live music and sing-alongs at sunset.

Local history will take center stage at Long Meddowe Days, too, with the Storrs House Museum, located at 697 Longmeadow St., open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and noon through 4 p.m. Sunday and featuring "period" exhibits bringing Longmeadow's history and regional history to life.

On Sunday at noon, a memorial service will be held on the town green commemorate Longmeadow residents who served in the United States armed forces.

In addition, the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery Civil War re-enactors will return to the town green to shoot their cannon periodically and make special presentations about Longmeadow's own Civil War hero, Lieutenant Howard Burnham and the role the town played in that conflict.

Long Meddowe Days will take place Saturday and Sunday on the Longmeadow town green. For a full schedule of events, visit LongMeddoweDays.org and LongmeadowHistoricalSociety.org.
The annual Swim for Life charity event in Provincetown attracts hundreds of eager swimmers to the tip of the Cape each September. The 1.4-mile swim across Provincetown Harbor has raised more than $4 million to support HIV/AIDS research, women's health and community health. But as the fundraiser celebrates its 30th anniversary, the growing number of sharks in Cape Cod waters are raising concerns.

The Cape has seen a rise in great white sharks in its shallow waters due to an increase in large gray seals. Though the sharks normally prefer deep waters, there have been reports of white sharks attacking seals closer to shore.

Last year, 147 sharks were spotted off Cape Cod last summer, an amount that more than doubles the 80 sharks reported in the summer of 2014. The Cape Cod Times reports only three shark attacks off the Massachusetts coasts in the last 170 years - though two of the three occurred in the last five years. Those attacks were reported from a swimmer off Truro, a small town in Barnstable county, and kayakers on the Plymouth coast.

Some swimmers have voiced concern to charity event organizers regarding the uptick in shark reports, according to the Cape Cod Times. Concerns have prompted organizers to find new safety measures, like sonar-equipped buoys from Australian company Clever Buoy.

But the technologically-driven buoys are not cheap - organizers reportedly hope the company will reduce the cost of the $80,000 buoys for the sake of the event's charitable cause.
A senior bank executive, her husband and a third suspect are accused of defrauding $2.7 million from Bank of America after they allegedly authorized donations to non-profits and then intimidated them into returning the funds shortly after.

The U.S. Attorney Office of Massachusetts released a statement Tuesday of the indictment of Palestine Ace, Jonathan Ace, both of Rockland, and Brianna Alexis Ford, of Boston, who are charged with several counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, the alleged scheme was spearheaded by Palestine Ace, aka Pam Ace, a former senior vice president of Bank of America's Global Wealth & Investment Management Division. Ace is accused of abusing her senior position to enact a embezzlement/kickback scheme to defraud Bank of America and several non-profit organizations.

According to the indictment, from October 2010 to April 2015, Ace allegedly took funds from the bank's marketing budget and "donated" the money to non-profit organizations. She's accused of authorizing 75 transactions, each under $50,000, to groups in Boston and Atlanta, Georgia.

Shortly after sending the money over, Ace, or her husband, would request the non-profit return a substantial portion of the money to ensure the bank would continue to fund the group.

When the money was "returned," the checks were often made to Jonathan Ace, Forde or a Bank of America account to which the defendants had access to.

Jonathan Ace is accused of using threats of public humiliation and intimidation to pressure the non-profits into returning more money than was initially "donated."

The Ace couple allegedly used the money to support a lavish lifestyle of expensive birthday parties and extravagant purchases. According to a press release, the couple spent $17,000 on a Kawasaki motorcycle.

In addition to the conspiracy charges, Palestine Ace is also charged with 12 counts of bank fraud and four counts of wire fraud.

Jonathan Ace was charged with two counts of wire fraud and one count of engaging in an unlawful monetary transaction.

Forde faces two counts of wire fraud.
Maura Healey

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey takes questions from reporters during a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

(Steven Senne)

Citing "incredibly haunting" figures that show rising opioid-related overdose deaths linked to fentanyl, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is tapping $1 million in federal money to set up a "strike force" focused on the deadly synthetic opioid.

Healey, who made the announcement in a speech to Boston area business leaders, also called for a steeper drop in opioid prescriptions.

Her office joined Massachusetts State Police in applying for a nationwide US Department of Justice grant that will help federal, state and local authorities break up "deadly operations that are bringing fentanyl into our state and killing people," Healey said.

Drug cartels manufacture fentanyl, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, according to Healey.

Healey pointed to figures released last week by the state Department of Public Health that showed 2,000 people in Massachusetts died in 2016 from an opioid overdose. That number is three times larger than five years ago.

Roughly 70 percent of the opioid overdoses involved fentanyl, she said.

The strike force will take advantage of the expertise of the attorney general's office in handling fentanyl trafficking cases, and become a central place for intelligence and coordination of trafficking investigations at all levels.

"I've got to tell you, this is still the issue of our time and we need to, as I say, act with a renewed sense of urgency if we're really going to be able to combat this in the way that our residents and our state so desperately need," Healey told attendees of a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

More needs to be done to cut back on prescription painkillers, she added. "The fact of the matter is, there are simply too many pills out there."

Heroin and fentanyl are leading to the majority of opioid-related deaths, but people often start through prescription painkillers, Healey noted.

While prescribers are checking the state's revamped prescription monitoring program, which collects dispensing information, opioid prescriptions only dropped 10 percent since Beacon Hill lawmakers passed legislation aimed at getting a handle on the opioid epidemic, she said.

"We are still on track to issue more than 2.5 million - and I did say 2.5 million - prescriptions for opioids in Massachusetts this year alone," she said, calling the numbers "staggering."

Directing her message to prescribers in hospitals and dentists' offices, she said, "Look, I'm not here to suggest we replace our judgment for yours but we certainly need your help in bringing down the number to a much lower point. Because those pills particularly are, we know, a driver of addiction."

This post was updated at 1:31 p.m. with additional details on the strike force.
As they say, theres nothing so certain as change, and as with most mountain towns in the west, change has altered the original landscape. While that trend is no different here, downtown Bozeman has done a great job of mixing its authentic western charm with a contemporary culture giving it both an upbeat vibe and a down home feel.

Posted by Visit Bozeman

Full Story: http://blog.bozemancvb.com/blog/what-makes-downtown-bozeman-the-best-downtown-in-the-northwest
Larry Pages dream of using technology to fix cities may come to Canada first.

The urban tech moonshot born at Google wants to reinvent cities `from the internet up

by Mark Bergen

Full Story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-08/alphabet-s-sidewalk-labs-eyes-toronto-for-its-digital-city
Imagine losing control of your car and waking up in the hospital paralysed from the neck down. This is the story of Kristopher Boesen, who experienced a life-changing moment where his car spiralled out of control on a slippy road surface, slamming into a tree and lamp post. Doctors warned Kriss parents that he might never be able to function from the neck down again.

Dr. Rowan Molnar

Full Story: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/first-paralysed-human-treated-stem-cells-has-now-regained-molnar?trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BMx2FEErrJWsTW6KDH8uoMw%3D%3D
Five years ago if you showed up in the emergency room for a hospital visit, you were in for a wait. But today, that has changed. Patients who show up in the emergency have dramatically reduced waiting times, and sometimes no waiting time at all.

That is just one of the many ongoing changes in Williston as it continues to build through surges and downturns in the oil and gas industry.

While some were calling it a bust in Williston, the figures Mayor Howard Klug shared at the citys first State of the City address, tell a different story, and it is one the mayor believes can have that happily-ever-after ending.

By Renee Jean [email protected]

Full Story: http://www.willistonherald.com/news/no-longer-a-small-town-mayor-runs-down-city-s/article_15c622ac-39d8-11e7-bdae-b31015a207a7.html
Trailhead, a Boise-based nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs start and scale businesses and high-impact projects, is pleased to announce the receipt of a grant from the Idaho STEM Action Center to launch an apprentice program to help aspiring software developers gain the skills and experience required to fill entry level software development positions. The apprentice program will be located at Trailhead North in downtown Boise.

Full Story: http://trailheadboise.org/trailhead-apprentice-program/
After patients at St. Peters Hospital https://www.stpetes.org/ said they were struggling to access physicians and ongoing medical care, the hospital is joining a pilot program to improve primary care and will hire 30 doctors over the next two years.

The two initiatives are separate, but will both work toward the hospitals goal to remedy a lack of patient access identified in a community survey last year.

ERIN LORANGER [email protected]

Full Story: http://helenair.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/st-peter-s-starts-program-to-improve-primary-care-hires/article_213df288-be16-5de6-a49f-c6bf60cf18ae.html

Career Opportunities at St. Peters: http://sph.jobscience.com/JsrApp/index.cfm?prodApp=cc153c84-af0b-4f17-a32a-75aec3b65159
A new report from a childrens advocacy group shows that 4.4 percent of McDowell Countys children lack health insurance.

NC Child released Wednesday some new data regarding the number of children in North Carolina that lack health insurance. Based in Raleigh, NC Child builds a strong North Carolina by advancing public policies to ensure all children  regardless of race, ethnicity, or place of birth  have the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Good health provides a strong foundation for childrens success in all areas of life, and health insurance coverage is a critical resource that supports health and wellness, reads a news release from NC Child. Ninety-six percent of children in McDowell have health insurance thanks in large part to expansions in coverage created by the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and NC Health Choice.

But, new data released on Wednesday says federal health care reform could significantly affect McDowell childrens access to health insurance, particularly for the 6,028 children covered by public health insurance programs.

The gains we have made in childrens health insurance coverage are largely a result of investing in and strengthening public health insurance programs, like Medicaid and CHIP, said Laila A. Bell, director of research and data at NC Child, in the news release. If we want to build on our past progress, the U.S. Senate must reject the cuts to Medicaid and consumer protections in the American Health Care Act.

NC Child recently released a statement condemning the American Health Care Act.

The data cards present local snapshot of key data points regarding childrens well-being. These data points, including the childrens health insurance rate, have the potential to worsen if the Senate approves the American Health Care Act (AHCA) or similar legislation, or if Congress fails to fund the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), reads the news release. The AHCA rolls back key provisions of the Affordable Care Act and caps the Medicaid program, which would have a profound impact on McDowell childrens coverage and the benefits that are available to them. CHIP provides health insurance to over 100,000 children in North Carolina  488 of who live in McDowell. Its unclear how these children would maintain insurance coverage with the loss of federal funding.

The county-by-county data also show that not every child in McDowell County enjoys the same opportunities for good health.

McDowell has reached an all-time high in its childrens health insurance coverage, mirroring the state and national trend, said Bell. While we should celebrate this achievement, we should also look closely at the data regarding other factors that shape child health.

Bell says social and economic circumstance play a big role in childrens health. In McDowell County:

 The life expectancy for a newborn at birth is 76 years, -5.9 years shorter than in Chatham County which has the highest life expectancy for babies in the state.

 8 percent of babies are born at a low birth weight placing them at greater risk for lifelong health challenges.

 27.8 percent of children live in households that are food insecure and struggle to provide consistent and adequate nutrition.

 59.1 of children live in poor or low-income homes, a significant risk factor for childrens academic and health success.

If left unaddressed these preventable obstacles can turn into permanent roadblocks that result in dead ends for McDowell childrens education, development, social and emotional outcomes, reads the news release.

These health challenges are avoidable, Bell said. We know that smart public policy decisions can help enhance local efforts to ensure all children in McDowell live in homes and communities that support their health and development.

The county data identify three investments leaders and policymakers in McDowell and North Carolina can make to significantly improve the health of its children and families:

 Increase health insurance access for low-income adults of reproductive age.

 Ensure childrens access to health insurance.

 Strengthen public policies to promote health equity.

To download the county data cards, or to access supplementary materials including data notes and sources, visit http://www.ncchild.org/publication/2017-county-data-c/.
Although great strides have been made in the treatment of breast cancer, relapse is still a major issue that has defied investigation. A new study might pave the way to reducing relapse rates by identifying rogue cells earlier. Share on Pinterest New research may eventually help to prevent cancer relapse. Cancer is no longer a death sentence; it is now possible to successfully treat a range of cancer types and, consequently, survival rates are on the up. In breast cancer, for instance, the 5-year survival rate is 89 percent, and the 10-year survival rate is 83 percent. In fact, according to one study, the 10-year survival rate for breast cancer has tripled in the past 60 years. As primary care improves and our knowledge of the disease grows, rates are likely to improve steadily. However, breast cancer is still the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women. Although advances in treating breast cancer are constantly being made, one particular facet of the disease is particularly difficult to understand and prevent: relapse.

Understanding breast cancer relapse Although improved cancer treatments mean that many patients survive the initial tumor, relapse is now the leading cause of death among breast cancer patients. Surgical removal of malignant tissue and chemotherapy both aim to destroy cancerous cells but, often, some residual cells will survive. These surviving cells can lead to a regrowth further down the line. The difficulty is that these cells do not seem untoward until they reinitiate growth. This makes preempting relapse incredibly difficult and, because the cells appear normal, isolating them and studying the process is also challenging. A paper, published this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, gives new insight into this process and promises to make identifying these cells a possibility. The team used a mouse model, alongside a relatively new technique involving so-called organoids, or organotypic structures. Organoids are small collections of cells that are cultured outside of the body. They mimic the structure and function of organs and have proven useful for testing drugs, examining organ development, and investigating personalized treatments. Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, led by Martin Jechlinger, examined the gene transcription profiles and metabolism pathways in these residual cells. We found that residual cells have molecular traits that clearly distinguish them from normal breast tissue, and seem to cause relapse.
#S Korea-lending rules S. Korea to begin eased lending rules next month South Korea will carry out eased lending rules for first-time homebuyers and owners of one home next month as the once red-hot housing market appears to be entering a downturn amid...

#football Son Heung-min says ready to play at World Cup with protective mask As he recovers from a recent facial surgery, South Korean football icon Son Heung-min said Wednesday he will play at the upcoming FIFA World Cup with a protective mask. The Tott...
In a new study, researchers use 3-D printing to make a porous ovary scaffold and seed it with immature egg-producing cells. They show that infertile mice implanted with the engineered ovary are able to ovulate, mate, and give birth to and nurse healthy pups in the normal way. The study is the first to achieve such a result with the help of 3-D printing, and it shows how using the technology to fine-tune the pore architecture of the scaffold is key to success. Share on Pinterest Researchers have enabled infertile mice to give birth to healthy offspring by 3-D printing functioning ovaries. The research, published in Nature Communications, is the work of a team that includes members from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and Northwesterns McCormick School of Engineering in Evanston, both in Illinois. Healthy ovaries are not only important for fertility; they also produce hormones that trigger puberty and menopause. The researchers undertook the study because they want to find a way to help patients of all ages who undergo treatments (such as for cancer) that impair their ovary function. Young patients who lose ovary function often need hormone replacement therapy to trigger puberty. In their study paper, the authors note that current approaches  including in vitro fertilization (IVF) and ovarian transplants  do not provide long-term solutions and leave pediatric patients with metastatic disease without options. There have been various attempts to engineer ovaries using a range of biomaterials combined with follicles  the spherical pockets inside ovaries that contain immature egg cells and produce hormones  but these have had limited success. The authors explain that one of the challenges to tissue engineering a replacement ovary  which they term a bioprosthetic ovary  is ensuring that the follicles survive in the artificial environment.

Follicles need to be held just right in 3-D To survive, the follicles need to be held in a particular way in the 3-D environment. They need to stay in place in order to reach maturity, maintain contact with other cells, and produce hormones. If they move too freely and spread, this will not happen. Mouse studies using bioprosthetic ovaries made from hydrogel scaffolds have succeeded in producing live births. So, this was the starting point for the new study. Recent advances in 3-D printing  also known as additive manufacturing  are enabling researchers to make living, functioning tissue using biocompatible structures that can hold cells and various supporting parts in 3-D. This so-called 3-D bioprinting has already been used to tissue engineer new skin, bone, heart tissue, cartilage, and other body parts. The researchers found that 3-D bioprinting offered them a way to vary the pore architecture of the scaffold and use this to control the extent to which the follicles are held in place in 3-D. They showed that the more interaction there was with the scaffolding, the less the follicles spread and the higher were their chances of survival. When the researchers transplanted the bioprosthetic ovaries into surgically sterilized mice, the mice ovulated, mated successfully, and gave birth to healthy litters. They were even able to breast-feed their pups.
Hasnt your bucket list always had Wales aka the Book Village in UK on it? Well, the good news is, you dont have to go that far; what with Brexit and all. Closer to home, we have a goldmine when it comes to books, fellow bibliophilesone that not many know about.

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Situated close to Berry land that is Mahabaleshwar  Bhilar, in Sitara, will now be called Pustakanche Gao, that is, the Book Village. Prominent writers, poets and artistes are expected to host events to promote culture and literature in the newly discovered location, which was formally inaugurated by Devendra Fadnavis, the Chief Minister of Maharshtra, on May 04th 2017.

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With a population of only 10,000 people, out of which 90% are farmers, the ratio of books to villagers is going to be 1:1.

Currently, the books are only in Marathi, however English and Hindi books will be added gradually.

 Twitter

Artists have voluntarily hopped on to a bus to the village and added their own art to the village. Over 75 of them turned around 25 locations into beautiful designs from everything such as poetry, history, literature, autobiographies, festivals and so on.

There are spaces through the village, in homes, in streets, and these artists have turned them into beautiful libraries. So basically, you can read anywhere. Have fun!
Are you looking for a healthy summer salad? One of my favorite salad recipes I have tried since moving to the states is this corn salad with avocado and cherry tomatoes. The corn gives the dish some much-needed crunch, while the avocados add a healthy dose of fat and creaminess. Add in the cherry tomatoes for a pop of flavor and you have a delicious salad! This recipe takes less than 15 minutes to make and it's perfect for summer!

I'm very excited to share today's recipe is for a delicious corn salad with avocados and cherry tomatoes!

In Mexico, we love avocados. We even have some jokes about how disappointed we feel after eating a meal and realizing that we forgot about that perfectly ripe avocado that we had in the kitchen! Meals are just so much better with a few slices of avocado.

We even call it the Mexican butter.

Are Avocados Good For You?

Avocados have good fats and nutrients, plus you cant deny theyre delicious. They are the perfect spring and summer addition to your meals and salads, even though we eat them year-round.

One of my favorite ways is to add it to fresh red salsa to make red molcajete salsa. So delicious!

Sometimes I wish I could have an avocado tree like my mom does in Mexico and be able to just go outside and cut a ripe and nutritious avocado!

Lucky for me, I can find avocados from Mexico at my local grocery store and enjoy avocados with all of my meals, especially in this summer salad.

This corn salad is simple and easy to make, especially if you're in a hurry.

This recipe can easily be made in advance for lunch tomorrow or as part of your Sunday meal prep if you have time. It will keep well refrigerated for 2 days so it's perfect for workday lunches or weekend picnics with friends!

Frequently Asked Questions About Corn and Avocado Salad

Before I share this recipe, here are a few questions I've been asked and wanted to answer.

How do I know if an avocado is ripe and ready to eat?

An avocado is ripe when it has dark skin. This means that the sugar content inside of the avocado has increased and the avocado is ready to eat.

You could also feel it and give the avocado a squeeze. If the avocado is too soft or feels mushy, that means it's way past ripe. It's perfect for guacamole, though!

I recommend checking out this resource for more info!

What should I do if my corn becomes too soft?

If you are using fresh corn (like we are in this recipe) and it starts to become too soft after cooking, just place it in an ice bath or throw it into the fridge for 15 minutes before continuing with your recipe. This will help make sure everything stays firm enough to stay on top of your salad!

Can I use regular tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes?

Absolutely! Just be mindful as they may not provide as much flavor without being paired with other ingredients. Cherry tomatoes are just packed full of flavor, which is why I like to use them.

Can I use dried herbs instead of fresh ones?

You can but I would not recommend dried herbs for this salad recipe. Dried herbs tend to release their flavor too quickly and make your dish taste bitter if used too much.

Summer Corn Salad With Avocado and Cherry Tomatoes

This fresh summer salad is so delicious and perfect for your next summer BBQ or family together.

Here is what you need to make it:

Cherry Tomatoes

Ears Of Corn

Avocados From Mexico

Radishes

Cucumber

Fresh Mint

Fresh Cilantro

Vegetable or Olive Oil

Lime Juice

Salt and Pepper

Please note: For exact measurements of the ingredients listed above, scroll down to the recipe card located at the bottom of this post!

Cooking Notes:

This corn salad is not a traditional Mexican recipe, but it uses several ingredients that are commonly used in Mexican dishes.

During the summertime, I like to add purslane or watercress. If you can find them in your area, try adding them to this salad! They give it an extra rich, earthy flavor.

JUMP TO FULL INSTRUCTIONS

How To Make Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad: Step By Step Tutorial

To make things easier for you, I am going to break down the directions to this recipe into sections.

Cook The Corn

Cut off the kernels from the corn cobs, slicing from the top of the cob.

Place them in a saucepan with 2 cups of boiling water and cook for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat, place the corn in a colander, and immerse in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain the corn and place it in a large bowl.

Prep The Rest Of The Vegetables

Cut the cherry tomatoes in half (it is easier if you slice them from the top instead of horizontally).

Thinly slice the radishes and the cucumbers, and place them in the bowl with the corn.

Remove the leaves from the sprigs of mint and cilantro. I like to add them whole, but you can also finely chop them.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the salad bowl.

Make The Salad Dressing

To prepare the dressing, whisk together the oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper and set to the side until the salad is done.

Cut The Avocado

Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Slice or dice the avocado, according to your preference.

Set it aside.

Serve and Enjoy!

Just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad ingredients and stir.

Taste to check if it needs more salt or pepper.

Finally, add the sliced (or diced) avocado and gently toss it into the salad.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

What To Serve With Summer Corn Salad

This summer corn salad with avocado and tomatoes is great to serve as the main dish.

It also makes a perfect side item for grilled meat or seafood, such as carne asada or roasted salmon! Serve it with some cold beer (or wine!) if you want something light but flavorful this summer.

More Authentic Mexican Recipes To Enjoy

If you enjoyed this recipe for corn salad, take a look at some of these other authentic Mexican recipes:

I hope you make this summer salad! If this recipe was of any help to you, come back to let me know your experience. Please leave us a comment done below and tell us all about it!

Buen provecho!

Mely

 Recipe
The greatest challenge the world is facing today is the inequality between states  and within them  which is increasing poverty and depriving millions of people of a decent life, Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos stressed, speaking at the 17th International Doha Forum, in Qatar (14-15 May).

Bearing in mind the increase in global population and falling prices of oil and basic goods, it is obvious, Mr. Katrougalos added, that we need to adopt policies that bolster salaried employment and the social state, promote diversification of sources of income in the mid- and long term, reform public finances and increase sources of income from investments in infrastructure and a trained, specialized labour force.

Within the framework of the 2017 Doha Forum, entitled "Development, Stability and the Refugee Crisis", Mr. Katrougalos had bilateral meetings with Qatari officials and with representatives of the major companies interested in investments in Greece and the promotion of bilateral economic relations.

Specifically, Mr. Katrougalos met with his Qatari counterpart, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. al Muraikhi, with whom, in a very positive and constructive atmosphere, he agreed on the further promotion of bilateral economic relations and discussed the possibility of an exchange of visits on the highest political and state levels.

During his meeting with the Qatari Education Minister, Mr. al Hammadi, there was a discussion of ways to further strengthen cultural and educational exchanges between Qatar and Greece, particularly in view of the convening of the first Greece-Qatar Joint Interministerial Committee.

With Economy and Trade Minister Mohammed al Thani, Mr. Katrougalos exchanged views on the prospects unfolding for bilateral economic relations, with emphasis on specific sectors of the economy with potential for attracting investments from Qatar.

Within the framework of promoting bilateral economic relations, the Alternate Foreign Minister met, at his request, with the CEO of Qatar Airways, Mr. al Baker.

Mr. Katrougalos also had a courtesy meeting with the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Jaber al Thani.

Finally, during his stay in Doha, Mr. Katrougalos met with the CEO of the international television station Al Jazeera.
VAERNES GARRISON, NORWAY -- Maj. Gen. Niel Nelson uses three words to describe the purpose of the 285-Marine contingent deployed here: Ready. Relevant. Responsive. Citing the recent remarks of Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of U.S. European Command, the head of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa adds a fourth: Resolve.

But even when pressed, Nelson won't directly address the two other "R" words featured in Scaparrotti's recent speeches: resurgent Russia.

The announcement late last year that the Marine Corps was beginning a new rotational deployment to Norway brought with it speculation that the move came in response to an increasingly powerful Russia and the threat it poses to Western Europe.

Russia, too, seemed to perceive the deployment as a threat, with prominent Russian defense official Frants Klintsevitsj telling national television station TV2 that the Marines were "dangerous for Norway and Norwegians" and a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman saying in a January interview with Norwegian broadcasting station NRK that the move would not improve relations between the two nations.

But while American tanks and helicopters arrive elsewhere in Europe as part of new and beefed-up rotations explicitly designed to deter Russian aggression, Marines in Norway are keeping their heads down and finding other things to talk about.

"For us, it's all, more or less, just working with our NATO allies," said 1st Lt. Aidan Frombach, commanding officer of 2nd platoon, Bravo company for 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, the Corps' infantry element in Norway. "It's something that we've been doing for a long time, so it's not anything necessarily new."

The commander of 1st platoon, 2nd Lt. David Calves, shrugged when asked whether Russia came up when the Marines trained side-by-side with troops from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries during a March exercise in Romania.

"We just talk about the weather and where you get a beer," he said.

While it's true that the Marine Corps has long had a close working relationship with Norway -- the Corps stores thousands of vehicles and other pieces of military equipment in carefully maintained caves in the country's Trondelag region -- it's also well apparent that Marines are mindful of regional sensitivities where Russia is concerned.

Troops with the Norway deployment were even advised not to repeat the word "Russia" in interviews with the media, according to a source with knowledge of the briefings.

Regional Marine Corps leaders are cognizant of the complex relationship between Russia and Norway, which share a 120-mile border to the north, and also of their own status as an invited guest in country.

"If you look at Norway today what kind of relationship do they have with their neighbor in the north," said Nelson. "A great relationship, right, because they have an economic relationship. That type of relationship has to be recognized. So ... I'll tell you that for us, we have to be ready and relevant across the globe. And so I'm not coming here for one pinpoint focus."

Norway and Russia were foes during the Cold War, their short border heavily patrolled on both sides, one of two land borders between the Soviet Union and a NATO nation. Norway has since maintained a pragmatic relationship with Russia, although economic and trade interactions were broken off after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. That relationship was formally re-established last November.

Norwegian Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Sreide has emphasized military exercises and training between the Marines and Norwegian troops as a key value of the new deployment, saying in public statements there was no reason for Russia to react negatively to the Marines' presence.

The commanding officer of the Norwegian element headquartered at Vaernes, Home Guard District 12, Col. Haakon Waroe, told Military.com strategic questions about Russia were outside his purview.

"It's for my political masters to respond to whatever communication is going on between two sovereign states," he said. "For us, it's business as usual. We're having Marines around, we're training with Marines, we're supporting the Marine Corps. We're not looking at those higher, strategic aspects of what we're doing. That is for our headquarters to decide."

The Marine Corps presence in Norway is tied to the United States' obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires all partner nations to respond if one is attacked. But potential threats do not reside in just one nation or region, said Nelson.

"A lot of people like to focus on a particular adversary. We look at responsiveness across ... we look south, we look to the sea, we look to the Mediterranean," Nelson said. "But we're regionally focused here, because the Norwegians have offered us an opportunity to go anywhere in Europe from one single location."

In addition to its value as a strategic launching pad, the Norway location offers Marines near access to their pre-staged equipment and weapons, allowing them to arm and mobilize quickly should a contingency arise. In a first this month, the Marines executed a strategic mobility exercise in which they laid out all the vehicles and gear needed to equip a robust ground combat element, working against the clock. Nelson told Military.com that, pending the approval of the Norwegian Parliament, the Corps may make Norway its primary location in Europe, more than doubling the size of the force here.

"An evaluation of the limited rotational presence is ongoing, and the United States has not made a final decision on requesting an extended presence," Air Force Lt. Col. David Faggard, a spokesman for U.S. European Command, said in a statement. "We must let the evaluation-process run its due course without speculating on an outcome on the future U.S. Marine rotational presence in Norway."

And while local forces remain reticent about the relevance of the Marines' position in the context of a resurgent Russia, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller connected the dots in a speech last year during a discussion of Marines' participation in Norwegian cold-weather exercise Operation Cold Response. Russian President Vladimir Putin had no doubt taken notice, he said.

"It's the biggest exercise we've done in Norway in some time," he said. "We were working to repopulate our [pre-positioning equipment] in the caves, and the Norwegians were happy to see us and I'm sure our Russian friends were paying attention. Mr. Putin has done us a great favor."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
An officer with the Marine Corps Tactics and Operations Group will be awarded the Silver Star for risking his life to save his Iraqi linguist during a 2003 battle, the Marine Corps announced Monday.

Capt. Andrew Kim was initially awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth-highest combat award, for his bravery while serving as a counterintelligence specialist in Iraq. But a Department of Defense initiative initiated last year to review all valor awards presented after Sept. 11, 2001, determined that Kim's actions merited an upgrade, according to the announcement.

According to excerpts from Kim's award citation, his quick actions after his Iraqi team chief and linguist was attacked by a local civilian helped save the lives of his team.

On Aug. 6, 2003, Kim was a sergeant assigned to 1st Marine Division's Task Force Scorpion. He had been conducting operations with his team chief when another Iraqi man approached, pulled out a pistol, and shot the team chief in the neck, according to the release. Kim responded immediately, killing the attacker.

After that, Kim was hit and wounded by small-arms fire coming from the rear, the announcement states.

Despite his wounds, he made his way to the fallen team chief, loading him into a vehicle, and began to drive him away from the fight. Although five Iraqis in a white pickup truck chased Kim's vehicle and subjected it to "intense volleys of enemy fire," he was able to join a light armored reconnaissance security force and direct a counterattack, with deadly results.

"Kim's gallantry and effectiveness under fire saved the lives of all those conducting the mission," the announcement states. "By his bold initiative, undaunted courage and complete dedication to duty, Kim reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

Kim will be presented the award, the third-highest for combat valor, by Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Glenn Walters on Thursday. The ceremony will take place at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, where Kim is currently stationed.

He is the fifth Marine to receive an upgraded combat award as a result of the Pentagon's review.

In January, outgoing Navy Secretary Ray Mabus presented one Marine, Sgt. Michael Mendoza, with the prestigious Navy Cross for leading five Marines in a bold charge across an open field after his vehicle was disabled by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq. Mendoza had previously received the Silver Star.

Three other Marines, Sgt. Nicholas Brandau, Master Sgt. Steven Davis and Lance Cpl. Edward Huth, all received Silver Stars for combat heroism, having previously been presented with Bronze Stars. A Navy corpsman, Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Atkinson, was also presented with a Silver Star at the time.

In all, the Department of the Navy approved more than 30 awards upgrades, Navy officials have said. At least 23 have been presented or announced to date.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
President Donald Trump's national security adviser on Tuesday pushed back against reports that the commander-in-chief shared classified intelligence with Russian officials.

Army Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster during a press briefing at the White House defended as "wholly appropriate" Trump's decision to share information about an Islamic State threat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a May 11 meeting in the Oval Office.

"What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and -- and any leaders with whom he's engaged," McMaster said.

The Washington Post on Monday reported Trump shared "highly classified" information with the Russians during the meeting -- information obtained from an ally through a secret intelligence-sharing program -- and that the disclosure "jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State." The New York Times on Tuesday reported the ally was Israel.

Afterward, McMaster, who attended the meeting, said The Washington Post story was untrue.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," he said. "The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

The general said other senior officials present, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy Dina Powell, "remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. And I was in the room. It didn't happen."

On Tuesday, Trump confirmed sharing information with the Russian officials.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining ... to terrorism and airline flight safety," he tweeted. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

The president added, "I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community," referring to FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired the day before meeting with the Russian officials.

On Tuesday, McMaster shifted how he characterized the Washington Post story.

While he said, "I stand by my statement that I made yesterday," McMaster also said, "What I'm saying is really the premise of that article is false, that in any way the president had a conversation that was inappropriate or that resulted in any kind of lapse in -- in national security."

The general also echoed Trump's criticism of officials who leak national-security information to the media.

"The real issue, and I think what I'd like to see really debated more, is that our national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality, and those releasing information to the press that -- that could be used, connected with other information available, to make American citizens and others more vulnerable."

It wasn't immediately clear what type of threats to civil aviation were mentioned during the meeting.

The Homeland Security Department recently banned laptops and other electronics on inbound flights from several countries in the Middle East -- Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates -- and is now considering doing the same on flights from European countries.

McMaster wouldn't confirm whether the information Trump raised in the meeting was classified.

"We don't say what's classified, what's not classified," he said.

But McMaster did say, "it had all to do with operations that are already ongoing, had been made public for months," and that "the president wasn't even aware, you know, where this information came from. He wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either."

During a swearing-in ceremony Tuesday afternoon at the Pentagon for new Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general, was asked whether he was concerned classified intelligence was compromised during the president's meeting with Russian officials.

"Not at this time, no, but I don't know any more than what I read in news, and  from what I heard of [McMaster's] briefing," he said. "From what I heard of it, there was none."

Mattis said the meeting "never even came up" during in-person or telephone discussions with two NATO partners and another ally.

Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called news reports about the matter "deeply disturbing."

"Reports that this information was provided by a U.S. ally and shared without its knowledge sends a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future," he said in a statement.

"Regrettably, the time President Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians was time he did not spend focusing on Russia's aggressive behavior, including its interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, its other destabilizing activities across Europe, and the slaughter of innocent civilians and targeting of hospitals in Syria," McCain said.

The senator added, "I continue to believe that we need a select congressional committee to fully investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Sanctions -- not intelligence-sharing -- should be our course of action."

McMaster said that the U.S. and Russia share a common enemy in ISIS, which took responsibility for the Oct. 31, 2015, bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 from Egypt to Russia that killed all 224 people on board, he said.

He said the president also raised "difficult issues" during the meeting with Russian officials and said he expected "different behavior" from Russian involvement in countries like Ukraine, where Russia supports pro-Russian separatists, and Syria, where Russia supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the six-year-old civil war.

-- Oriana Pawlyk contributed to this report.

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.

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Following the Marine Corps' lead, the Navy on Tuesday announced a new policy requiring sailors found guilty of sharing "intimate images" without consent to be processed for separation from the service.

The policy is an update to a regulation created by the Navy last month that formally made nonconsensual nude photo-sharing a prosecutable violation. That regulation also prohibited sharing of intimate photos with intent to intimidate, humiliate or harass the subject.

The new rules come in the wake of a scandal involving a Facebook page, Marines United, in which dozens of active-duty service members, primarily Marines, were found to have circulated a drive containing nude and compromising photos of female troops.

"There is no room in our Navy for this toxic behavior," Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke said in a statement released Tuesday. "This new policy shows that we are committed to eradicating this behavior from our force."

According to a Navy-wide administrative message, the Navy Military Personnel Manual has been updated to require enlisted personnel who violate the new rule to be processed for administrative separation. Officers found to be in violation must also be reported by their command for administrative separation proceedings.

While mandatory processing does not mean that all sailors who engaged in nonconsensual photo-sharing will be kicked out of the Navy, it does mean that they must be evaluated by senior authorities to determine if their actions warrant separation.

Similar requirements are already tied to other "zero-tolerance" offenses, including sexual misconduct and assault; violent conduct causing death or bodily injury; and supremacist or extremist conduct, among others.

The Marine Corps moved May 10 to make non-consensual photo-sharing an offense warranting separation, updating its Separation and Retirement Manual to that effect.

Military.com was first to report in March that the two services were considering this step after the Marines United scandal resulted in a flurry of congressional hearings and investigations into the extent of the abusive behavior.

Investigations into the specifics of the scandal continue as officials with the Marine Corps and Naval Criminal Investigative Service determine how many troops are guilty of sharing the drive. The Marine Corps has also activated a task force to determine the extent of the misogynistic online behavior and eradicate its roots in the service.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
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...
Have you ever been suprised by a no pay due? Or, imagine this, two years after a military move and you receive a bill for going over your weight allowance.

Yes, you knew you were over the allowance, but you figured even with the painfully slow way things get processed you would have heard about it before the two year mark. But yes, this happens, and its legal.

It's one of the terrible things about dealing with the government. When they owe you money, you may never see it. But if you owe them money, they'll get you in the end.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no time cap on how long after your military move the government has to collect additional charges, according to officials at Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC), which manages the military move and PCS system.

A previous 10-year limit was removed in 2008 thanks to a law change, they said.

That means they can charge you at any time. And if they can't track you down the old-fashioned and (you might say) polite way by mail, they eventually could simply garnish your tax return. In short, you're going to pay whether you like it or not.

So how much could you owe? It's too late for you now, but others who read this should pay close attention to their weight limits and transportation office during their move.

There's no specific formula for how much going over your military move weight allowance costs, but if you think you'll be going over, SDDC officials strongly recommend you ask for a re-weigh.

"We would highly encourage them to request a re-weigh through their Transportation Service Provider (TSP) or Installation Transportation Office (ITO). This can be done [on Move.mil] or by contacting the TSP or ITO directly," SDDC officials told us. "It's important to note that service members do not incur cost for re-weighs, so if they are close, it's best to err on the side of caution and request a re-weigh."

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WASHINGTON DC: Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), the premier global strategy and commercial diplomacy firm, is pleased to announce that Glyn Davies, May Loh and Mosharraf Zaidi have joined as Senior Advisors, bringing expanded expertise and on-the-ground insights to the firms East Asia & Pacific and South Asia practices.



Ambassador Glyn Davies joins ASG after a distinguished 38-year career in the US Foreign Service, serving most recently as the US Ambassador to Thailand. May Loh brings decades of experience in the public and social sectors in Singapore, and Mosharraf Zaidi has held a variety of positions across South Asia including as the principal advisor to Pakistans Foreign Minister.



We are very pleased to welcome Glyn Davies and May Loh to our team, said Meredith Miller, ASG Principal and co-lead of the firms East Asia & Pacific practice. Glyn offers clients a perspective shaped by decades of experience as a senior diplomat, and May is uniquely positioned at the center of Singapores private, public, and social sectors. Both will be tremendous resources to anyone seeking to understand the region.



As a leader of development and reform efforts in Pakistan and across South Asia, Mosharraf Zaidi brings clients unparalleled knowledge of the risks and opportunities in these immensely significant and growing markets, said ASG South Asia practice lead Sukanti Ghosh. We are delighted to welcome him to ASG.



Ambassador Glyn Davies served as US Ambassador to Thailand from 2015 to 2018. During his distinguished Foreign Service career, he held a range of senior diplomatic roles including Special Representative for North Korean Affairs, US Permanent Representative to the UN in Vienna, and Executive Secretary of the White House National Security Council, among others.



May Loh, based in Singapore, served with the Singapore Legal Service for two decades. She began her career as a law clerk to the Chief Justice and moved on to senior roles in several ministries, including Singapores Ministry of Manpower, where she worked on foreign manpower policy and free trade agreements. Her current advisory work focuses on public policy, corporate governance, and sustainability issues in the region.



Mosharraf Zaidi, based in Islamabad, served as the principal advisor to Pakistans Foreign Minister. He has helped lead a number of aid and development programmes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including with the UN, the European Union, and the UKs Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. He also served as CEO of the Alif Ailaan campaign to address Pakistans education crisis and is a senior fellow at the research and advisory firm Tabadlab.PR




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The Lions have built their offensive line around Taylor Decker since taking him 16th overall in last year's draft.

(AP File Photo)

ALLEN PARK -- Lions GM Bob Quinn didn't like the offensive line he inherited. Not one bit. So he went into his first draft determined to add to the position group, and didn't waste any time rushing to the podium when Taylor Decker was still there at 16th overall.

But he wasn't done yet. Far from it.

First there was Graham Glasgow in the third round, who wound up moving into the starting lineup alongside Decker in Year 1. And then there was Joe Dahl in the fifth round, who is pushing for a job in Year 2.

And then there was free agency this year, where Quinn really pushed his chips into the pot. He inked Rick Wagner to the No. 1 right tackle contract in the league, then T.J. Lang to the No. 3 right guard contract.

Throw in the rise of Travis Swanson in the middle last year, and just like that, Detroit has installed an entirely new offensive line in a matter of months under Quinn. And Decker certainly appreciates the effort.

"It's really cool to see this organization putting an emphasis on the offensive line," Decker said. "They drafted three of us (last year) with me, Graham and Joe. And they're bringing obviously well-documented very good players (this year). So that's cool to see."

The Lions did make an effort to upgrade their offensive line under the previous regime, including spending first-round picks on Riley Reiff and Laken Tomlinson. But Reiff never lived up to the billing -- and never had a season like the one Decker had last year -- while Tomlinson has already lost his grip on a starting job.

With Dahl, Lang and Glasgow all coming aboard in the last calendar year, Tomlinson will face a battle just to make the team in Year 3.

Detroit is particularly keen on the experience Lang and Wagner will bring to the group. Lang, an eight-year veteran of the perennially contending Green Bay Packers, is coming off a Pro Bowl season in which he didn't allow Aaron Rodgers to be hit. Not even once.

Wagner is a four-year vet who has made 47 starts for the perennially competitive Ravens.

"I think it's going to help get a different perspective on things," Decker said. "Guys have played in different systems, so maybe they can help me with a little thing here or there. And a bunch of little things here or there make you a lot better player."
Can your creativity and sense of humor pay off your student loan debt? What about your gratitude?

Saddled with about $92,000 in outstanding college loans, those are questions Katie Curnow aims to answer.



Katie Thanks You, the project Curnow recently started, has a simple premise: you donate money to help pay off Curnow's debt and she will express her gratitude.

"I want to be able to have this debt paid off and thank people in creative ways," said the 33-year-old Grand Blanc resident.

Launched in late March, the Katie Thanks You website offers up a variety of intriguing, clever rewards (or as Curnow calls them, "packages") for donors at various monetary levels.

Looking for ways to help reduce the debt she owes on loans that financed her two degrees, Curnow discovered crowdfunding websites, where friends and family members can chip in to reduce the outstanding tab on your education. It didn't exactly feel like the right approach for her, Curnow explained.

"I felt uncomfortable soliciting donations for my debt," she said.

Instead, Curnow came up with an idea she hopes will qualify as mutually-beneficial for herself and donors.

For a $1 donation, Curnow will thank you with the "solicited advice package," offering brief advice on a topic of your choosing. At the $2 level, the "dilemma solutions package" will help you answer an either/or conundrum such as "pancakes or waffles." If you have $50 to spare, Curnow will create a surprise craft and send it to your home.

Of course, there are levels and packages in-between and beyond, up to the $1,000 "un-package." On the website, Curnow declares, "Don't be silly. Don't do that! I have nothing to offer as a gift at this level."

Curnow, when explaining the project, refers to herself as "silly" and "kind of weird." Reading the website, it comes off more accurately as funny and charming. While the website is lighthearted, the reality of the debt is not.

Explaining how she would like to make life decisions "with her heart," Curnow said she can't when she is saddled with the nearly $100k bill.

That bill puts Curnow at a higher level of debt than most student loan recipients. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the average debt for a 2015 graduate with outstanding loans is $30,100. Of course, every student takes a different path.

As she exited high school, Curnow was aware of the reality of student debt and decided to spend her first two years of higher education attending Mott Community College before diving into the increased tuition she would face at the University of Michigan-Flint. There, she received a bachelor's degree in English and a master's in English language and literature.

According to newamerica.org, 2012 graduates who completed a Masters of Arts degree left college with an average of $58,539 in student loan debt.

Curnow had a scholarship during her first year of college but then pretty much depended on loans.

"I knew going into college that the financial situation would be on me. My family, at the time, didn't have the resources to say, 'Here you go, here's room and board," Curnow said.

She worked full-time pretty much her entire college career, in a retail capacity for minimum wage. Ultimately, the debt was the way to the degrees.

"When I first graduated, looking at my debt, it was about $900 per month," Curnow said.

That was back in 2012 and, unable to shell out nearly a grand a month, she looked for options. She learned of income-based student loan payments and still ended up with a monthly bill of between $400 and $500.

Curnow, who works full-time as a marketing coordinator, has evolved from being filled with stress to coming to terms with this financial reality.

"I have to accept this is a part of my life," she said.

Despite the need to stay on top of bills that go along with having kids and a mortgage, Curnow said she is ready to get aggressive with her repayment. She hopes to get rid of all $92,000 worth of debt within a decade.

"Even just having people help a little will make it more manageable," Curnow said.

So far, Curnow has received three donations through the website. Two of the donors offered up funds and told her not to worry about a gratitude gift.

The third, however, picked the $25 donation package. It means Katie will be the donor's pen pal for a year, sending a monthly correspondence and a card on the donor's birthday.

It's an option that begged the question -- what if too many people jump on board and ask for a somewhat time-consuming expression of gratitude?

"It would be one of those happy problems, I guess," Curnow said.

Besides visiting the Katie Thanks You website, you can find out more about Curnow, her debt (and her gratitude) on her project-focused Twitter page.
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Backyard chickens in Ann Arbor's Old West Side neighborhood in 2015.

(Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News)

ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor's backyard chicken ordinance is being expanded to allow keeping small flocks of hens at schools.

The City Council voted 11-0 Monday night, May 15, to give final approval to the ordinance changes proposed by Council Member Zachary Ackerman.

Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, has been working with a class at Summers-Knoll School that wants to build a coop this fall and start raising chickens by next spring.

Teacher Chris Swinko and his third- and fourth-grade students have lobbied the City Council to approve the ordinance changes.

A private school for grades K-8, Summers-Knoll is located at 2203 Platt Road, directly across from County Farm Park.

Until now, the city's backyard chicken ordinance has permitted up to six hens to be raised on single-family and two-family residential properties. The changes expand that to allow chickens at primary and secondary schools.

From 2008 to 2015, the city's ordinance allowed keeping up to four hens. The City Council increased it to allow up to six hens two years ago.

There are two types of permits that can be sought: a five-year permit allowing up to six hens and a one-year permit allowing up to two hens.

For the six-hen permit, neighbors are notified via mail of permit requests and they get 21 days to object. If there are no objections, a permit is granted. For the two-hen permit, neighbors do not have an opportunity to object.

Ackerman said it will continue to be the case that all adjacent property owners are advised of a neighbor's intent to raise chickens, including schools.

"No more than two chickens can be kept if any adjacent property owner objects, no roosters can be kept, and no chickens can be slaughtered," he said when the City Council gave initial approval to the ordinance changes two weeks ago.

"Chickens must be housed in an enclosed structure built in a backyard and in compliance with our fence ordinance, but also can be no less than 10 feet from a property line or 40 feet from a residence. Enclosures must be adequately maintained, and permits must be reapplied for and reissued every year for two-bird permits and every five years for six-bird permits."
DETROIT, MI - Once again, Jose Luis Sanchez-Ronquillo has been granted a delay on his deportation just hours before he was scheduled to be sent to Mexico.

Sanchez-Ronquillo - who entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico and has lived in Ann Arbor for nearly 20 years - was scheduled to be deported on Wednesday, May 17, according to a motion filed on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement with U.S. District Court of Michigan's Eastern District.

Federal judge David M. Lawson, who had previously granted an emergency stay on Sanchez-Ronquillo's deportation, held a hearing at noon Tuesday on ICE's request to move forward with the deportation.

Lawson announced he would not make a decision Tuesday, said Shanta Driver, an attorney representing Sanchez-Ronquillo. So Lawson's previous order to postpone the deportation until Sanchez-Ronquillo's case is revisited still stands.

"Right now, it can't go forward," Driver said after Tuesday's hearing. "We're hoping that Judge Lawson will use the power that he has to at least say, 'Until this is resolved and the Sixth Circuit (Court of Appeals) has had a chance to look at it, we're going to keep Jose here.'"

Approximately 150 people attended a rally outside the federal courthouse Tuesday in support of Sanchez-Ronquillo, and as many people as could fit in the courtroom attended the hearing, Driver said. Supporters included members of St. Mary Student Parish at the University of Michigan, where Sanchez-Ronquillo and his family attend church; and Ann Arbor Public Schools students who go to school with Sanchez-Ronquillo's two sons, who are U.S. citizens.

Driver said the crowd and numerous letters of support for Sanchez-Ronquillo that will be filed as part of the case made a "huge difference."

"I think it did show the judge, wow, this is not the ordinary case," she said.

After the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed a request to re-open Sanchez-Ronquillo's case on May 1, his attorneys filed a motion asking Lawson for an emergency stay on the deportation while they appealed the decision to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. At that time, Sanchez-Ronquillo was scheduled to be deported May 2.

He was detained by ICE on April 19 and originally set to be deported on April 25. Supporters held a rally outside the ICE offices in Detroit on April 24, and Sanchez-Ronquillo was transported to an ICE facility in Louisiana after that.

Lawson granted a stay on Sanchez-Ronquillo's deportation on May 1, saying it would not be appropriate to dismiss the case without reviewing new information related to the medical needs of Sanchez-Ronquillo's sons.

Sanchez-Ronquillo is the primary financial supporter and provider of health insurance for his family, which allows them to provide their oldest son with the medical services he needs.

Sanchez-Ronquillo does not have a criminal record, and his deportation would cause "exceptional hardship" for his family, his attorneys say.

On May 9, the acting U.S. District Attorney representing ICE filed a motion asking that Sanchez-Ronquillo's deportation move forward because officials already scheduled a May 17 flight to take him to Mexico. His deportation is imminent, ICE's motion says.

In a response filed May 12, Sanchez-Ronquillo's attorneys argued that there is no urgency to deport him. Lawson's decision on the motion is still pending.

"That's been this case. Every single time they've tried to deport him, we've managed to pull him back and keep him," Driver said. "For him and for the family, it's just torture. It's up and down and up and down. Of course, we're so happy that he's still here. But we really would like this resolved in a more definitive way as quickly as possible."

In 2012, Sanchez-Ronquillo was ordered removed by an immigration judge, and that ruling was subsequently upheld after an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, according to Khaalid Walls, regional director of communications for ICE.

"In an exercise of discretion, ICE allowed Mr. Sanchez-Ronquillo to remain free from custody in order to finalize his departure plans," Walls previously told The Ann Arbor News/MLive. "After Mr. Sanchez-Ronquillo failed to do so in a timely manner, ICE arrested Mr. Sanchez-Ronquillo April 19. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the U.S."

Sanchez-Ronquillo was slated for deportation in February 2014, but he was granted a reprieve from being removed from the U.S. at that time thanks to an outpouring of community support and public attention.

In court documents, Sanchez-Ronquillo's attorneys say he has been in compliance with ICE supervision requirements since the reprieve from the 2012 removal order.

"He's kept his part of that contract, and now the government has decided that they're going to break their part of the contract and try to railroad him out of here before he has a chance to do anything to stop it," Driver said after Tuesday's hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Carty, one of the attorneys representing ICE in the case, referred The Ann Arbor News to court documents and declined to comment further on the case on Monday.

MLive photographer Tanya Moutzalias contributed to this report.
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An estimate of the extent of the Gelman dioxane plume. Plume boundaries shown here are based on a map created by Washtenaw County in February 2016.

(MLive)

ANN ARBOR, MI - An emergency rule setting stricter exposure standards for dioxane in Michigan drinking water has been extended six more months.

But the state Department of Environmental Quality has chosen not to extend an emergency rule protecting residents against the toxic chemical in vapor form.

For the time being, there's no longer a vapor-intrusion screening level for 1,4-dioxane in Michigan, and a new rule package in the works could allow 65 times more dioxane in shallow groundwater before the DEQ considers it a concern.

That's a concern for local officials and residents in Ann Arbor, where an underground plume of dioxane has been spreading through the area's groundwater for decades, coming from the former Gelman Sciences property on Wagner Road on the city's western border with Scio Township.

The plume is now more than three miles wide and is continuing to spread east through neighborhoods just west of downtown Ann Arbor where the groundwater is only a handful of feet below the surface in some cases and seeps from the ground in some areas, such as in West Park and near Waterworks Park.

If dioxane in high enough concentrations comes into contact with a building foundation, there's a risk of vapor intrusion, according to the DEQ.

But the DEQ is now thinking it's going to take a lot more dioxane than previously believed to make that a real threat.

The DEQ is still working through a formal rule-making process that is expected to result in a new vapor-intrusion screening level, but the threshold for when the DEQ becomes concerned about dioxane in shallow groundwater potentially intruding into homes as toxic vapor is now expected to jump from 29 parts per billion to 1,900 ppb, according to new information from the DEQ.

Mayor Christopher Taylor said that's concerning. He said the city wants to work with the DEQ make sure residents in the path of the plume are kept safe.

DEQ officials say they want to do the same, and they say the 1,900 ppb number under consideration now is backed by scientific data.

After the discovery of trace amounts of dioxane in shallow groundwater near homes on Ann Arbor's west side last year, with much higher concentrations in deeper waters not far off, the DEQ and Gov. Rick Snyder signed emergency rules on Oct. 27 to establish stricter exposure standards for dioxane across the state, something local officials and citizen activists had requested for years.

The emergency rules enacted on Oct. 27 set the allowable level of dioxane in residential drinking water at 7.2 parts per billion -- down from 85 ppb, a level that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data from 2010 showed was not protective of public health. After years of lobbying by local officials and citizen activists who called for a single-digit standard, the DEQ acknowledged the state's longstanding 85-ppb standard was outdated and not protective of public health.

The Oct. 27 emergency rules also established a vapor-intrusion screening level of 29 ppb for dioxane to protect residents against volatilization to indoor air.

Dioxane is classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as likely to be carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure. It also can cause kidney and liver damage, and respiratory problems. Short-term exposure to high levels of dioxane in the air can cause eye, nose and throat irritation.

Just a few parts per billion in drinking water, with long-term exposure, poses a 1 in 100,000 cancer risk, according to the EPA.

The DEQ's emergency rules from October were good for six months. On April 27, Snyder and DEQ Director Heidi Grether extended the 7.2-ppb limit for drinking water another six months, but the vapor-intrusion rule was scrapped.

The DEQ says it received public comments on a separate rule package that led the agency to conclude the dioxane vapor-intrusion screening level of 29 ppb was not based on the best-available science.

Mitch Adelman, acting section manager for the DEQ's Remediation and Redevelopment Division, said the best-available information has led the DEQ to calculate 1,900 ppb as an appropriate vapor-intrusion screening level for dioxane in shallow groundwater that may be in contact with a building foundation. He said the 1,900-ppb is consistent with the EPA's default assumptions as well.

"Information received during the public comment period on proposed rules in late 2016 led us to recognize that the 1,900-ppb screening level reflects the best science based on the chemical and physical parameters of 1,4-dioxane," Adelman said. "It's important to get these numbers right, and the 29 ppb number in the original rule was erroneous based on what we now know."

The DEQ plans to finalize the new vapor-intrusion screening level through a rule-making process that has been in the works for years.

Snyder's administration was required by law to update the state's standards for dioxane and 300-plus other chemicals to reflect current science more than three years ago, but there have been numerous delays and missed deadlines as the DEQ has taken on the task of updating all the standards at once.

Only after years of delay were the dioxane standards broken out separately last fall and put through as temporary emergency rules.

Adelman said the DEQ now expects the rule-making process to conclude sometime this year, with a vapor-intrusion screening level for dioxane established again, along with continuation of the new 7.2 ppb drinking water standard.

City Council Member Chuck Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, said he and other local officials received a briefing from the DEQ on Monday, May 15, on the emergency rule extension and why the vapor-intrusion rule wasn't extended.

Giving an update on the situation at Monday night's council meeting, Warpehoski said the state has been "taking a long time to get through what we had been promised would be a fairly rapid process, and so they've needed to issue an emergency rule and then extend that emergency rule for another six months."

Warpehoski said he's grateful the drinking-water rule has been extended, but he still has concerns about what's happening with regard to vapor intrusion and he wants to better understand the science behind the DEQ's revised thinking.

He said he understands dioxane, unlike some other volatile organic compounds that readily evaporate into the air, wants to stay bound to water.

"So in many cases, there's a legitimate difference," he said. "But what about situations where there's water in a basement that's below the water table that's contaminated with dioxane? The water evaporates; what happens with the dioxane that's left? Does it evaporate with the water?

"Does it adhere to the dust and become an inhalation pathway? There still are some important questions."

An April 27 briefing memo from the DEQ explains how the department decided the screening level for dioxane should be 65 times higher.

The rules package originally put forth by the DEQ last April included screening levels for dioxane based on equations that assumed groundwater had entered a building and was directly volatilizing into indoor air. The DEQ maintains it did not identify adequate chemical-physical information to develop the values.

Based on comments received, the DEQ introduced a new rules package in September containing revised screening values, and the equations were revised to assume some direct volatilization to indoor air from cracks and sump waters, while adding a significant component of diffusion from the groundwater in contact with the structure through the concrete.

The DEQ maintains it still did not identify that there was sufficient chemical-physical inputs to develop the portion of the "groundwater-in-contact" value that represented diffusion through concrete. Therefore, the screening value for dioxane remained unchanged at 29 ppb.

Then as part of the public comment on the September rules package, the DEQ received a comment questioning the significant difference between EPA's vapor-intrusion screening-level calculator value and the DEQ's value.

Upon further review, the DEQ decided there were sufficient chemical-physical input values to develop screening levels and criteria for dioxane and other volatiles based on vapor pressure. Using a revised equation, the DEQ calculates there should be a 1,900-ppb vapor-intrusion screening level for dioxane.

Vapor intrusion into homes is one of the concerns being considered as attorneys for the city of Ann Arbor, Scio Township, Washtenaw County, Huron River Watershed Council and DEQ try to negotiate a revised strategy with Gelman Sciences for addressing the expanding dioxane plume.

Gelman Sciences used dioxane in its processes for the manufacture of medical filters and discharged large amounts of the toxic chemical into the environment at its property on Wagner Road from the 1960s into the 1980s.

Monitoring well data shows the underground plume is now more than three miles long and a mile wide and has polluted local lakes, creeks, residential drinking water wells and a city municipal water supply well that has been shut down.

The state initially sued the company in 1988, leading to a consent judgment in 1992 that has been amended multiple times, most recently in 2011.

Under the consent judgment, the company has done limited pump-and-treat remediation to gradually remove dioxane from the ground over a period of many years, though the current strategy allows the plume to continue spreading east through Ann Arbor toward the Huron River at high concentrations.

If the plume reaches Barton Pond in high concentrations, it could poison the city's municipal water supply.

Gelman Sciences was acquired in 1997 by Pall Corp., which was acquired in 2015 by Danaher Corp., a multibillion-dollar corporation that some local officials and residents argue has the financial resources to do a better cleanup.

As part of the litigation in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, the various parties are engaged in ongoing legal talks, trying to work out a new consent judgment, though Gelman is appealing to the Michigan Court of Appeals to try to get the local parties removed so it only has to deal with the DEQ.

In a recent court filing, Gelman complained about the county's "cleanup or bust" attitude, saying it could detail negotiations and force the case to go to trial.

Ann Arbor isn't the only place in Michigan where there's dioxane contamination posing potential threats to public health.

"The Department of Environmental Quality finds that releases of 1,4-dioxane have occurred throughout Michigan that pose a threat to public health, safety or welfare of its citizens and the environment," states the April 27 emergency rule extension signed by the governor and DEQ director, calling special attention to the dioxane contamination spreading through Ann Arbor.
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Jackson Foster (left) and Amos Mixon (right)

(Courtest WCSO)

ANN ARBOR, MI - A 26-year-old Ypsilanti man who helped set up an armed robbery of a Saline Wendy's was sentenced Monday, May 15 to serve a year in jail.

Jackson Vontez Foster was also sentenced to two years of probation by Judge David Swartz in the Washtenaw County Trial Court.

"I apologize for my actions," Foster told the judge when given a chance to speak.

Foster pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit unarmed robbery in March.

Counts of armed robbery and unarmed robbery were dismissed in the plea deal.

Foster was employed at Wendy's, located 760 E. Michigan Ave. in Saline, when it was robbed on Dec. 14, 2015.

He was accused of conspiring to rob the manager as she headed to the bank to drop off money, according to police.

His accomplice, 52-year-old Amos Mixon, was said to have approached the woman with a gun, demanded her purse, then fled. He was arrested after a chase that led to Ann Arbor. Mixon had an airsoft gun, the manager's purse and the money in his possession when he was arrested, according to police.

Foster didn't participate in the robbery, but he helped set it up.

"You were the person who helped that person by telling them when to do it," Swartz said.

Mixon pleaded no contest to one count of armed robbery in December 2016. He was sentenced 7-20 years in prison on March 20, court records show.

Foster has credit for 10 days served.
PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, MI - A Plymouth Township girl's attempt to throw a party while family was out of town left one person unconscious, a home so full of marijuana smoke that officers had to take breaks for fresh air and a family home destroyed, according to a report by HometownLife.com.

Nearly 300 party-goers fled the home when police arrived about 12:30 a.m. Saturday, May 13 at the Plymouth Country Club Village home, near Ann Arbor Road and Napier Road, according to HometownLife.com, part of the USA Today Network. Another 100 people were found in the basement.

Police will follow up with parents and determine citations, according to the report.
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The Board of Directors of the Company have at their meeting held on May 16,2017 recommended a dividend of Rs.3.00 ( Rupees three only) per equity share of Rs.10/- each for the financial year ended March 31,2017.Source : BSE
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Maharashtra Scooters Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on May 16, 2017, inter alia, has recommended a dividend of Rs. 30/- per equity share of Rs. 10 each (300%). The dividend, if approved by the Shareholders in their ensuing 42nd Annual General Meeting, would be paid to the Members entitled thereto, from July 24, 2017 to July 25, 2017.Source : BSE
Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com told CNBC-TV18, "The word accumulate refers to investors. If you want to accumulate, all times are good. We are going to go much higher in the next few years. I am talking about trading ideas, so, starting with Havells India, it is a buying opportunity for the short-term trader. It is just coming out of a congestion and looking towards increased momentum on the upside."

"Second is Infosys. I have been upbeat on IT stocks for the last 10 days. The chart patterns were bullish and that is working out. So, Infosys is a second buy that I am suggesting," he said.

"The third is M&M Financial Services. The stock has seen a handsome rally and it is now outperforming almost all the other NBFCs. That outperformance is likely to continue. So, for the day, there are three ideas, all for buying."

"JK Tyre is at best an avoid. Numbers were disappointing, sometimes stocks go up just because they are in upside momentum but it is likely to face strong resistance. The tyre stock that should be looked into is Apollo Tyres . It has had a very minor correction and that would be a buying opportunity."
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Muthoot Finance is a buy with a stop of Rs 395 and target of Rs 420. Reliance Industries is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,350 and target of Rs 1,375. Yes Bank is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 1,490 and target of Rs 1,440."

"Cement and telecom seem to be doing well. Bharti Airtel appears to be breaking out above Rs 375-380. We could get past Rs 400, so, telecom at lower levels is finding support," he said.

"Borosil Glass Works is that sort of stock where you just hold it in your portfolio and hold it for many years. I dont think it is a great trading stock, but it came out with good numbers, etc. Low volume, very few people get into it, so, liquidity is a risk but often these four digit stocks tend to become five digit and it is a strong brand so it has that mote, etc. that people talk about. So, definitely one that interested parties could keep hanging on to," he added.

"Oracle Financial has had a fairly large bar today. I think you could get follow through here. Particularly on days when IT does very well, this one tends to move up. Also, SRF appears to be showing upside. So, today when banks are not participating, these non-banking F&O stocks are tending to do well. So both these stocks can head on the upside."

: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Punjab National Bank is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 164 and target of Rs 178. Ceat is also a buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,600 and target of Rs 1,665."

"Engineers India is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 170 and target of Rs 181."

"With the caveat that the understanding of the news is correct, plus the news is correct, etc. Adani Power has bumped off its 200 day moving average. It declined from Rs 46 down to Rs 30. So, easily a 50 percent retracement closer to Rs 37-38 is possible. So, you would tend to buy this large bar that has been made today. However, be clear on the news and its implications, etc."
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Electronic voting machines (EVMs) are not just creating a stir in India, but kicking up a controversy in faraway Botswana, too.

After news portals reported Indian EVMs would be tested at a hackathon in the southern African country, Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) -- makers of the EVMs -- said there were no such plans.

It denied reports that its EVMs would figure in a hackathon organised on Friday by the Independent Election Commission of Botswana, a government body.

The portals reported that BEL had been invited to the hackathon to demonstrate how the EVMs worked.

The reports prompted BEL to issue a statement saying it had not sold any EVMs or paper trail machines to Botswana's Election Commission. "The Botswana Election Commission has invited a team of BEL to show only the functionality of EVMs and VVPATS designed to meet the specific requirements of the Botswana government. These EVMs and VVPATS are different from the ones which are used by the Election Commission of India," it said.

Bel said there were no plans for holding a hackathon event with BEL's EVMs.

The reference to EVMs in the press note issued by the Botswana Election Commission were "completely false and incorrect," it said.

According to a report published in www.itwebafrica.com, Botswana's President Ian Khama had last year signed the Electoral Amendment Bill, 2016, a revision of the existing Electoral Act, paving the way for the introduction of EVMs.

The portal said the Botswana government believed this technology would improve several election-related processes such as registration of voters, preparation of rolls and deleting provisions for supplementary rolls.

Opposition parties, however, were concerned about the development and claimed EVMs were open to security breaches, it said. BEL, which is a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Defence, and the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy, are the two producers of EVMs and VVPATs for the Election Commission of India.

The Election Commission of India has challenged political parties to prove EVMs used in the recent assembly polls were tampered with, after several Opposition parties questioned their reliability and demanded a return to the paper ballot system.

The planned challenge could take place later this month.
Shilpi Cable Technologies share price continued to hit lower circuit for the 14th consecutive session on Tuesday, especially after overseas lender filed a petition against the company under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

The trading in the stock was frozen at Rs 60.90 today, down 5 percent and there were pending sell orders of 2,715,845 shares, with no buyers available.

The share price lost nearly 74 percent in last one month from Rs 231.80 on April 13.

The company in its filing to exchanges, on April 30, said, "An overseas bank has filed a petition against Shilpi Cable before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), under Section 8 & 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016."

Below is the verbatim transcript of Manish Goel, MD, Shilpi Cable Technologies' interview to CNBC-TV18.

Varinder: We want to know what is going on in terms of all the creditors filing bankruptcy proceedings against the company. Who are these creditors? What is the amount they have against you? How much do you owe to these creditors?

A: I was just hearing about the company growth and all. You mentioned about 2013 our company called Shilpi Cabletronics, that was our parental company which was doing automotive trade. So, what happened, when we got listed, we had two companies, one was Shilpi Cable Technologies and other was Shilpi Cabletronics. So, the board at that time decided that we have two companies doing same business.

Varinder: No, we will come to that point later because that is also important, but first of all, in terms of the creditors. Who are these creditors? How much do you owe to these creditors? What is the status of that bankruptcy filing on the company?

A: The creditors based out of Singapore where we had some credit lines against which we used to get credits. So, it was a USD 10 million line which got pulled up and we were settling our account. So, we have already addressed this matter in the arbitration court where we have been discussing this part.

Varinder: So you are saying that the creditors who have filed case, the quantum is limited to USD 10 million?

A: Yes, approximately USD 10 million.

Reema: What is the total debt on your book and if you could give us an update on the receivables and the short-term debt? Just give us the whole picture  long-term debt, receivables as well short-term debt.

A: Exact figures, I do not have at the moment.

Reema: Even approximately, that would also do. Give us a rough idea.

A: We do not have long-term debt at the moment.

Varinder: No, there is a huge long-term debt which is nearly Rs 255 crore on the books of the company on a consolidated basis.

A: That is again working capital.

Varinder: No, I think short-term capital is Rs 295 crore which I am seeing on your balance sheet.

A: And the long-term debt which you are talking about, we say it is just a small number. It is not at Rs 225 crore.

Varinder: Rs 254 crore compared to Rs 92 crore. That is a consolidated balance sheet as of March, 2016. Before we come into that, as they say, they are making it clear that the bankruptcy proceeding is USD 10 million, but as a status they say it is still going on, please help me understand one small thing. Why there was huge surge in terms of sales which was only Rs 530 crore in March, 2012 to nearly Rs 4,000 crore right now? How much did Shilpi Cabletronics contributed to these sales?

A: I will just brief you. Again, we are not comparing apple to apple. Rs 530 crore was India's standalone sales and when you talk about, you talk about a consolidated sale which contributes from my trading offices in Singapore and Dubai. So, we have to compare standalone with standalone.

Varinder: No, but both are consolidated sales. These both are taken as consolidated sales for the years I have mentioned.

A: Prior to that we were doing only telecom business. We were quite pioneer in the telecom business, but when we got amalgamated, we had a lot of revenues.

Varinder: How much revenue did you have? I really want to know how much contribution of Shilpi Cabletronics is in this Rs 4,000 crore of sales which you threw up.

A: Shilpi Cabletronics was amalgamated in 2013. Prior to that, there was a small revenue company but we had a very good business stream, we were approved in a lot of automotive customers. They had dealer network sales. It was a small number.

Varinder: No, I want to know out of Rs 4,000 crore how much is contributed by Shipli Cabletronics.

A: Exact number, I need to go back.

Varinder: A rough idea, Rs 1,000 crore, Rs 1,200 crore or Rs 1,500 crore?

A: It was not that big a number, but I need to go back and check.

Varinder: I just want an idea - 10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, between 20 and 30 percent? How much is it?

A: Shilpi Cabletronics was a company amalgamated in 2013. The company existed from a long. The understanding was that the topline was not so big, but they had a good customer base, they had a good business line. When we got amalgamated, it went off.

Varinder: What was the reason in terms of you? The sales went up five times in the last five years. It is a complete trading business as you said your company Shilpi Cable Technologies. Who are your top five customers?

A: All telecom operators like Ericsson and Nokia, Idea.

Varinder: And how much they contribute?

A: Again, it is revenue. You have to understand the business revenues, what multiple business revenues. We have a dealer network, we have got automotive customers, we have got customers for wires, we have customers from telecom side.

Varinder: Correct me one small thing. The difference between the standalone and the consolidated was only the amalgamation of Shilpi Cabletronics? Am I right?

A: No.

Varinder: So, what all merged? Before 2013, if it is a standalone entity and post 2013, if it is a consolidated?

A: I will tell you what. When we got public, we had two business companies.

Varinder: 2010, you went public.

A: Yes, 2011 we went public, so there were two business companies. We amalgamated the companies because we wanted to add more of the production baselines, more of the business to the main company, to give wealth to the investors and after 2011, we went overseas. So, we had operations coming up from Dubai, we had operations coming out of Singapore which got reflected into the consolidated balance sheet. So, the numbers went up.

Varinder: I am with you on that. Why I am stemming out this point again and again is that in your draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) which I read, you clearly mention that you bought 51 percent of Shilpi Cabletronics for only Rs 3.8 crore as per the data on the DRHP. I am just surprised that from 2012, as the numbers are stating, how come a small amalgamation which the total cost, in 2010 was roughly Rs 8-9 crore as a full company, why the sales could jump from Rs 530 crore to Rs 4,000 crore in the last five years.

A: You have to understand. It is not the number. It is not Rs 3.8 crore or Rs 9 crore you bought out a company. It was a business stream which can be expanded.

Varinder: So, please help us understand how much the sales for those Rs 8-9 crore company, Shilpi Cabletronics.

A: On the number front, because the company got amalgamated, I am not handy. If you send me the questions, I will reply you back, but I am not handy at the moment.

Nigel: How much stake do you have in your own company? What is the promoter stake in the company? The last time we have, that is March, 2017 that is put on the exchanges, it is showing that you have 41 percent stake in the company and more than 70 percent is pledged. Is this fall because the pledged shares are getting sold in the market? Can you tell us that? Where are the shares pledged?

A: Not exactly.

Nigel: Not exactly, but some pledged shares are being sold?

A: I do not know if pledged shares are being sold because the pledge is given to the financial institute who has given the working capital.

Nigel: So, your promoter holding is that 41 percent?

A: The promoter holding entire 41 percent.

Nigel: What about the board? Has the board met? The last couple of times, you said you were meeting on April 'x', April 'y' and then you did not meet at all. Have you met? When is the last time did the board meet if you could tell us? And why so many resignations in the last one month? Something is going wrong?

A: No, nothing is going wrong. It is just again a strategy move to overall, to get more new talent on the company side, so it is part of our strategy. It is not like something is going wrong.

Reema: You fired these people as a part of your strategy or these were voluntary resignations?

A: No, it was part of the strategy. It was not voluntary resignations.

Reema: So, you fired these people?

A: You cannot use that word because they are quite senior people. It is a part of the strategy and regarding the board, people are travelling.

Varinder: Please help us to understand why are the receivables so high for the company? Nearly 40 percent of your sales is into the trade receivables, why is that?

A: That is a cycle what we have justified with our working capital.

Varinder: But you are dealing with companies like Nokia and Ericsson, right? You are not talking in terms of the public sector companies.

A: I will tell you what. It is one of the part of Nokia and Ericsson. We work with a lot of corporate where we extend credit lines, we extend credit period to them.

Varinder: How much Nokia and Ericsson are, could they form 10-20 percent of your sales?

A: Exact numbers I cannot tell you, but yes, telecom, I work with Idea also. So, everybody has a trade cycle.

Varinder: As I understand, most of the earnings of this company are export oriented. I read in your balance sheet and please correct me because if you export things that means that you do something to earn money in any business. So, the foreign exchange outgo in 2016 was Rs 952 crore but foreign exchange earnings was only Rs 200 crore. So, the exchange outgo is Rs 1,000 crore, but income is only Rs 200 crore. Why is that?

A: These numbers cannot be verified.

Varinder: I am reading from your balance sheet.

A: I agree with you. But the number that you are talking about, how you calculated it, I have to see it.

Varinder: I am reading the same number on your balance sheet. I am surprised that how come the exchange outgo could be five times of your income.

A: Again, this is import against export right? We used to import a lot of materials, so it might be the import is more because we manufacturing is in India. We used to import copper from the Middle East market, which is used in manufacturing in India. So maybe the import numbers are higher than export numbers.

Varinder: But if you import something, you will process it and send it back so that you earn money right?

A: No, suppose I have got five plant in India, so I import copper, I will convert into a cable and sell because we get price advantage when we import. So, definitely my import numbers are higher.

Varinder: But it cannot be five times of your outgo, but one more thing there was a board meeting where it was postponed or it did not held up. Tell us about these warrants. There are still 70 lakh warrants which are up for conversion, right? What was the price of conversion of these warrants and when were they issued? I believe some 1-1.5 years back?

A: Almost 18 months back.

Varinder: And what was the price of conversion of these warrants?

A: Rs 70.

Varinder: I am failing to understand this promoter shareholding pattern since the last 5-6 years. In 5-6 years, the promoter shareholding was only 3.2 crore share with 75 percent promoter holding. It went to as low as 38 percent and now 11 crore shares. It seems like promoters are every stage, at every point, have been putting in lesser money and allocating more and more equity to them.

A: No, it is not like that because 11 crore shares is comprising of 1:1 bonus also.

Varinder: This change from 4.4 crore shares in March, 2014 to 10.26 crore shares happened in March, 2014 to March, 2015 and that only happened when you amalgamated Shilpi Cabletronics with yourself right?

A: No. the numbers is not what you see. We have got capital given to the foreign institutional investors (FII) who are still holding stocks and they have been intact. So, that also came in. Then we had bonus.

Nigel: You are going to be meeting on the 20th of this month; can you tell us that at least?

A: 28th of this month.

Nigel: But you are meeting for sure?

A: Yes, we are meeting for sure.

Nigel: And you are going to do another bonus shares is what we understand.

A: That was just a suggestion by one of my board members. We are meeting on May 28 with a new board. Let them see about it.
Steel major, Tata Steel, could post a net profit of Rs 1,000 crore for the March quarter against a net loss of Rs 3,213 crore reported during the corresponding quarter last year, according to a CNBC-TV18 poll. One must note that the March 2016 quarter had an exceptional item of Rs 2,857 crore.

Meanwhile, the companys revenue is expected to come in 8 percent higher at Rs 31,850 crore against Rs 29,507 crore.

The operating profit for the firm is seen at Rs 4,400 against Rs 2,204 crore posted during the corresponding quarter last year. The margin for the company is seen at 13.8 percent against 7.5 percent.

In its India business, the companys sales volumes are seen rising 17 percent at 3.18 million tonnes against 2.72 million tonnes year on year. Strong volumes in India are likely due to a ramp up at Kalinganagar.

Its European operations, on the other hand, could surprise on the upside, given the sharp rise in spot spreads.

Besides the financials, the key things to watch out for the stock includes clarity on restructuring of European business, pension liability and high debt.
Investors in China and India increasingly dominate ownership of coal reserves amid campaigns for divestment in many rich nations to limit the risks from climate change, a study showed on Tuesday.

The report, by British-based research group InfluenceMap, identified thousands of shareholders in 117 listed companies producing 3 billion tonnes a year of thermal coal with 150 billion tonnes of reserves.

It said that ownership of thermal coal, used in power plants, was dominated by "strategic investors in China and India (governments, individuals, power companies, special purpose companies)."

Ownership had shifted towards Asia from Europe and North America in recent years, Dylan Tanner, executive director of InfluenceMap, told Reuters.

"Coal has been pushed into a corner, stigmatized by the divestment community ... the overwhelming majority is held by strategic investors who have an interest in using the asset a the power companies or governments," said Tanner.

Almost 200 governments pledged at a summit in Paris in 2015 to shift this century from fossil fuels towards renewable energies to curb climate change, and more than 500 major investors have pledged to limit coal investments.

China and India say they will need coal for decades to bolster economic growth even as they try to curb emissions blamed for warming the planet.

As part of the divestment in coal, Norway's sovereign wealth fund and California's CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds, representing about $1.4 trillion in assets, had sharply cut their ownership of coal since 2010, the study said.

Some investors, however, now see opportunities in coal because U.S. President Donald Trump doubts climate change is man-made and wants to promote fossil fuels from the United States as a cheap source of energy.

Even before Trump's election, some mid-size U.S. and other asset managers "have been bulking up on coal in the last five years in anticipation of a resurgence of some of the remnants of the U.S. coal bankruptcies and growth in Asia," the study said.

The report said that if all the coal reserves identified in the report are consumed, it would release greenhouse gases equivalent to 45 percent of the gases needed to raise average surface temperatures above an agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
Palm oil import rose 2.25 per cent to 7,52,632 tonnes in April on higher shipment of crude palm oil (CPO), industry body Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said today.

India, the world's leading vegetable oil buyer, had imported 7,36,036 tonnes palm oil in April 2016. The country's total vegetable oil import grew by 7 per cent to 13,39,489 tonnes in April this year, from 12,48,887 tonnes in the year-ago period.

Palm oils comprise 62 per cent of the total vegetable oil import. However, import of vegetable oils in the first six months of the ongoing 2016-17 oil year ending October has dropped to 43,02,135 tonnes, from 43,40,890 tonnes in the year ago.

According to SEA, the difference between the landed price of two palm oils -- RBD palmolein and CPO -- has narrowed, encouraging the shipment of CPO this month. Also, strengthening of the rupee in the last three months supported the import of vegetable oils.

Among palm oil products, import of CPO went up to 5,11,139 tonnes in April this year, from 3,98,606 tonnes in the year- ago period. However, the shipment of RBD palmolein fell to 2,32,243 tonnes, from 3,25,902 tonnes, while that of import of crude palm kernel oil (CPKO) fell to 9,250 tonnes, from 11,528 tonnes in the said period, the SEA said in a statement.

Among soft oils, import of sunflower oil increased sharply to 2,34,516 tonnes in April this year, from 1,00,750 tonnes in the year earlier. The shipment of soyabean oil, however, dropped to 3,04,942 tonnes from the earlier 3,48,195 tonnes while that of rapeseed-mustard oil too declined to 31,924 tonnes, from 51,087 tonnes.

"Importers continue to make larger import of sunflower oil, taking advantage of attractive price vis-a-vis soyabean oil," the SEA said. As on May 1, the stock of edible oils at various ports was estimated to be over 21.20 lakh tonnes, that is equal to meeting 39 days requirements.

India's monthly requirement is about 16.50 lakh tonnes, it added. India imports palm oil, mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, and a small quantity of crude soft oils, including soyabean oil from Latin America. Sunflower oil is imported from Ukraine and Russia.
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Moneycontrol Research

There is no denying the fact that bad assets are one of the biggest challenges confronting the Indian economy. Looking at the gravity of the problem, the government undertook a radical step by issuing an Ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act to empower the RBI to play a more active and decisive role in the resolution process.

However, the key question that beckons our attention is how valuable are these assets. Will they find takers and at what price and, more importantly, what value will the banks get out of liquidation?

Poor interest coverage ratio

Our research into the leverage profile of India Inc throws up numbers that are difficult to digest at first glance. The study of listed Indian companies suggests that outstanding debt of close to Rs 12.6 lakh crore belongs to companies that have interest coverage ratio of less than one.

The interest coverage ratio is a financial ratio that measures a companys ability to make interest payments on its debt in a timely manner. Creditors use this formula to calculate the risk involved in lending - if a company cant afford to pay the interest on its debt, it certainly can't afford to meet principle payments. A bad interest coverage ratio is any number below 1, as this translates to the company's current earnings being insufficient to service the company's current outstanding debt.

This number assumes importance because the quantum of outstanding debt belonging to corporates that are not generating enough earnings is close to 16.9 percent of the countrys outstanding credit. If we delve deeper, and try to figure out how many of these companies are breaking even at the operating level, the finding isnt reassuring either.

The total debt outstanding of companies that are not breaking even at the operating level is close to Rs 5.6 lakh crore  7.5 percent of outstanding non-food credit.

However, in order to appreciate the extent of the pain we also need to look at companies that have an interest coverage ratio of less than 1.5. If the same gets included then the outstanding stress in the system stands at a whooping Rs 15.6 lakh crore or close to 21 percent of outstanding non-food credit.

Cumulative net loss in the last decade

We first focus on companies that owe more than Rs 5,000 crore each to the Indian banks and have debt service coverage ratio of less than one. There are 45 such companies with outstanding debt of close to Rs 8 lakh crore or 10.8 percent of outstanding credit. In this group, only one out of the 45 companies has outstanding debt which is lower than the cumulative after-tax-profit of last twelve years.

About 75 percent of the companies (underlying outstanding debt of Rs 5.5 lakh crore) in this set have reported a cumulative net loss in the last decade i.e. the sum total of profits in the last twelve years is negative.

Hence, close to 44 percent of the highly indebted companies have either negative networth or have eroded their networth in the last decade.

Jaiprakash Associates, Adani Power, Videocon Industries, Reliance Communications, Jindal Steel & Power, Lanco Infratech, Bhushan Steel, GVK Power, Jaiprakash Power, Alok Industries, KSK Energy, Aban Offshore, Amtek Auto, Monnet Ispat, Essar Steel, Essar Oil, Gammon India, Jindal Stainless, Electro Steel, IVRCL, Era Engineering, Jaypee Infratech, Kingfisher Airlines, ABG Shipyard, Shree Renuka, Ballarpur Industries, Punj Lloyd, Bharati Defense, Bajaj Hindustan, REI Agro, Castex Technologies, Ruchi Soya, Essar Shipping, Jyoti Structures etc are some of the more predictable names that will be taken up at the earliest. But the resolution is not going to be an easy task.

Book value of assets lower than outstanding debt

As indicated, a majority of these companies have a poor track record of profitability. If we try to figure out how much can be realised if the business gets liquidated, the study shows that only a dozen companies from this sub-set have value of assets in excess of their outstanding debt. That gives an initial idea of the kind of haircut that is likely to befall the banking sector as resolution kicks into high gear.

In addition to these much talked-about names, there are another 122 companies, each of these with outstanding debt in excess of Rs 1,000 crore but have interest coverage ratio less than one. The underlying debt of this category is a meaningful Rs 2.7 lakh crore or 3.7 percent of outstanding bank credit. The number of cases being much larger, the bandwidth to resolve these cases are going to be perhaps more difficult. Bankers and the RBI are clearly staring at a very bumpy ride ahead.
Taiwan-based IT major Foxconn has sought 13 acre land at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trusts special economic zone (SEZ), Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

The contract manufacturer makes products for global device brands like Apple, BlackBerry, Amazon, Motorola, Xiaomi and Sony and has bulk of its factories in China.

"Foxconn has sought a land parcel of 13 acres in special economic zone in JNPT and I have spoken to Maharashtra Chief Minister about the project, Gadkari told the media here.

However, the shipping, road transport and highways minister said the details of the project are not immediately available.

Foxconn Technology Group is one of the worlds largest electronic manufacturing contractors, headquartered in New Taipei City, Taiwan. It is the third largest information technology Company by revenue.

The Country Head and MD, Foxconn International Holding India, Josh Foulger had in March met Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to discuss support for exporting mobile phones from the country.

JNPT, Mumbai, is among to 12 major ports and handles over 40 per cent of Indian volumes.

Gadkari said investors have evinced interest in other port SEZs for a variety of activities that include leather, wood and fertiliser.

Under the Sagarmnala initiative, Gadkari said, 14 SEZs are set up across the country at an estimated investment of Rs 12 lakh crore.
Attendees view the new HTC U Ultra at the HTC stand at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paul Hanna - RTS110G0

Premium smartphone maker HTC is readying plans to launch its water- and dust-proof flagship 4G handset U11 by mid-June in India, which was unveiled here today at around 750 euros for the European market.

"HTC U11 will be launched in India by mid-June. Global launch is in the first week of June. We are still negotiating the price at which we can sell HTC U11 in India. There will be differences between India and the European market. It will be competitive on global pricing," Faisal Siddiqui, HTC President for South Asia, told reporters here.

HTC has introduced a device operation technology in U11 with HTC edge sense that will allow users to control its function by applying different pressures of their grip on the edge of the phone. The sense-based control can be customised by the users.

U11 will start selling in some regions from the next week and the rest of the market, starting June. In Europe, it will sell for around 750 euros, that is about Rs 53,000 a unit, from the first week of June, a company official said.

The pricing of the phone will vary across countries due to tax structures and operational cost, Siddiqui said.

"HTC will focus on only high-end segment because it is difficult to sell innovations at low price. In India, we are looking at the best ways to ease buying of HTC phones. For HTC U11, we plan to provide sales through easy monthly instalments in partnership with companies like Bajaj Finance, Home Credit and banks," Siddiqui added.

The company has launched variants of U11 with different storage capacity and colours that have reflection feature similar to that of liquid surface.

It plans to sell a high-end variant in India that will have 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage expandable up to 2 TB or above 2000 gigabyte with the help of an external memory card.

The phone comes with 12 megapixel main camera with HDR boost technology.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset, HTC U11 has 3000 mAh battery that the company claims can be completely charged in 90 minutes and support up to 24.5 hours for voice calls.

HTC, Siddiqui said, will focus on the mid- and premium- range segment.

"In India, we are planning to launch various models of 4G VoLTE-enabled Desire series smartphones that will be priced between Rs 10,000-30,000 a unit. We don't plan to sell smartphones below Rs 10,000," Siddiqui clarified.

HTC has a retail reach across 400 cities in India. But the company plans to focus on top 200 cities and branding in top 100.

The company makes Desire series phones in India, but is still to start manufacturing of its high-end segment.
Infosys

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Encouraged by Infosys' decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high- powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies.

I'm looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter, Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol.

Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so.

Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indianas presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India.

The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, Indiana's become the best place in the country to create and innovate.

And that's why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and it's exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil, Holcomb told PTI.

He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event.

The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago. But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project, he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had.

The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting.

We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way."

Looking at strengthening Indianas partnership with Infosys in the coming years, Holcomb said he wants to attracts other Indian IT companies.

Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now, he said.

... we're always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys.

Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, with low tax rates and a "reasonable predictable regulatory environment so there's real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people".

"And we do as well in the companies that come here and that's why we're still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average, he said.

Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. Indiana is on a roll and has momentum."

Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcomb's India visit later this year.

Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations.

India ranks number 18 for Indianas exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totaled USD 266.6 million.

Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals.

India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totaled USD 348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines ransmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel.
Representative image

3:30 pm Market at Close: Benchmark indices had a fantastic session on Tuesday, with indices closing at fresh all-time highs. The Nifty closed above 9500 for the first time ever.

The Sensex ended up 260.48 points at 30582.60, while the Nifty closed higher by 66.85 points at 9512.25. The market breadth, however, was narrow as 1,426 shares advanced against a decline of 1,361 shares, while 178 shares were unchanged.

Hero MotoCorp, TCS and ACC were the top gainers on both indices, while BHEL, ONGC and Kotak Mahindra Bank lost the most.

Auto, FMCG and IT indices gained the most on Nifty, while metals saw some profit booking.

3:19 pm Buzzing: Shilpi Cable Technologies share price continued to hit lower circuit for the 14th consecutive session, especially after overseas lender filed a petition against the company under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

The trading in the stock was frozen at Rs 60.90 today, down 5 percent and there were pending sell orders of 2,715,845 shares, with no buyers available.

The share price lost nearly 74 percent in last one month from Rs 231.80 on April 13.

The company in its filing to exchanges, on April 30, said, "An overseas bank has filed a petition against Shilpi Cable before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), under Section 8 & 9 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016."

3:10 pm JPMorgan initiates coverage on TVS: TVS Motors caught the investors eye on Tuesday after JPMorgan initiated coverage on the stock. The shares traded over 2 percent higher intraday.

Leading global research firm, JPMorgan initiated coverage on the stock with an overweight rating and a target price of Rs 590.

Earnings growth for the company, in our view, will be higher than peers led by volumes, portfolio premiumization and margin expansion, it said in its report.

2:25 pm Nifty at 9600 soon?: The Nifty continued its upward momentum even in the May series and moved above 9400 after spending some time consolidating around 9200 in the April series. The Nifty has not moved much below its April settlement level of 9350.

In days to come, ICICI Securities believes the consolidation with a positive bias may continue and the Nifty may move towards 9600.

"On the options front, since the inception of the May series the highest Put base was placed at the 9200 strike, which has gradually moved higher to 9300 Put strike. The current open interest in 9300 Put is higher than any of the Call open interest, which makes it a crucial support for the Nifty in the near term. On the higher side, Call option position seems vulnerable vulnerable at 9500 strike. It may be breached breached if the Nifty sustains sustains above 9400. Thus, closure closure of these short Call positions may move the Nifty towards 9600," it explains.

2:00 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks rallied further in afternoon, with the Nifty hitting 9,500 level for the first time and the Sensex firmly above 30,500.

The 30-share BSE Sensex surged 212.35 points to 30,534.47 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 55.60 points at 9,501.

ITC (up 2.15 percent), Reliance Industries (up 1.32 percent) and TCS (up 2.24 percent) contributed almost 45 percent to index gain.

SBI, Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel and Dr Reddy's Labs gained 2-3 percent.

1:45 pm Results: Country's second largest telecom company Vodafone India today reported a 10.2 percent dip in its FY17 operating profit at Rs 11,784 crore, hurt by aggressive competition.

The company, which is set to be merged with Idea Cellular to create the country's largest telecom player, had reported an EBITDA profit of Rs 13,115 crore on a standalone basis in the year ago period.

The British telecom major's overall revenue on a standalone basis slipped 0.6 per cent to Rs 43,095 crore, while the margin contracted by nearly three percentage points to 27.2 per cent.

1:30 pm New launch: The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) today launched an all new version of its compact sedan Dzire, priced between Rs 5.45 lakh and Rs 9.41 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

The petrol variants with manual powertrains are priced between Rs 5.45 lakh and Rs 7.94 lakh while the diesel trims are tagged between Rs 6.45 lakh and Rs 8.94 lakh.

The petrol automatic variants are priced between Rs 6.76 lakh and Rs 8.41 lakh while the diesel trims with automatic transmission are in the range of Rs 7.76 lakh and Rs 9.41 lakh (all prices ex-showroom Delhi).

1:15 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices advanced their gains from the morning session, with the Nifty around one third of a percent higher.

The Sensex was up 142.04 points at 30464.16, while the Nifty rose by 34.20 points at 9479.60. The market breadth was narrow as 1,340 shares advanced against a decline of 1,227 shares declined, while 176 shares are unchanged.

Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddys and ACC continued to gain, while ONGC, Asian Paints, Zee Entertainment and Indiabulls Housing lost the most.

1:05 pm Earnings: Public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) turned black in the quarter ended March 2017, with profit at Rs 261.9 crore against loss of Rs 5,367.1 crore in corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Gross non-performing assets as a percentage of gross advances fell to 12.53 percent from 13.7 percent and net NPAs fell to 7.81 percent from 9.09 percent on sequential basis.

12:42 pm Interview: Chennai Petroleum Corporation (CPCL) reported a weak set of fourth quarter earnings. The margins were hit due to higher employee expenses and impairment of its non-current assets.

CPCL is a group company of IOC.

B Ashok, Chairman of the company said the company saw an improvement in its gross refining margins (GRMs) for the full years FY17. The GRMs came stood at USD 6.05 per barrel as compared to USD 5.27 in FY16. For the quarter they were USD 7.05/bbl compared to USD 5.02/bbl for the same quarter last fiscal.

The throughput increased 6.34 percent to 10.256 million tonnes for FY17 compared to 9.644 million tonnes in FY16.

12:32 pm Europe opens: European markets opened slightly lower as investors continued to weigh global security concerns and awaited the latest batch of corporate earnings.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 moved 0.16 percent lower with almost all sectors and major bourses in negative territory.

12:15 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices were trading steady, with the Nifty well above 9450-mark.

The Sensex was up 106.62 points at 30428.74, while the Nifty was up 23.00 points at 9468.40. The market breadth was narrow as 1,292 shares advanced against a decline of 1,182 shares, while 172 shares were unchanged.

Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddys Laboratories and ACC gained the most, while ONGC, BHEL, Zee Entertainment and Indiabulls Housing were the top losers.

11:36 am Monsoon: India's monsoon rains are expected to arrive on the southern Kerala coast on May 30, two days ahead of schedule, a weather office source said on Tuesday.

India looks likely to receive higher monsoon rainfall than previously forecast as concern over the El Nino weather condition has eased, K.J. Ramesh, director general of the state-run India Meteorological Department, told Reuters last week.

11:15 am Oil Update: Oil prices rose today, extending gains after a joint announcement by top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia to push for an extension of supply cuts until the end of March 2018.

Brent crude futures were at USD 51.96 per barrel, up 14 cents, or 0.27 percent, from their last close.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at USD 49.01 a barrel, up 16 cents, or 0.33 percent from their last settlement.

10:55 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks were off day's high in morning as investors preferred some profit booking after indices hit record highs. Banks and infra stocks were under pressure while technology and FMCG stocks gained.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 84.02 points at 30,406.14 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 18.05 points to 9,463.45 while the BSE Midcap index was flat with negative bias.

Gold prices rose for a fourth day as the dollar eased on signs of slower economic activity in the United States that dented expectations of an aggressive string of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.

10:31 am Buzzing: Shares of Skipper touched 52-week high of Rs 214, gains 9 percent intraday on new orders worth Rs 500 crore and strong fourth quarter results.

The company has secured new orders worth Rs 376.48 crore from national & Rs 123.73 crore from international markets for supply of power transmission towers & telecom poles.

The company's Q4FY17 net profit jumped 46.3 percent at Rs 52.8 crore versus Rs 36.1 crore, in the same quarter last fiscal.

Also read - Top 5 stocks ideas which can give up to 7% return in a week

10:15 am PNB in focus: Public sector lender Punjab National Bank is expected to turn profitable with fourth quarter net income at Rs 378.5 crore against net loss of Rs 5,367.1 crore in same quarter last fiscal.

According to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18, net interest income during the quarter is seen rising 37.3 percent to Rs 3,800.8 crore compared with Rs 2,767.7 crore in corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Key things to watch out for would be management commentary on FY18 slippages and credit cost. Loan growth is expected to remain muted.

Any improvement in net interest margin and lower slippages trend will be considered positive by the Street.

9:55 am Market Check: Benchmark indices extended gains in morning to trade around record highs, aided by Reliance Industries, ITC and Infosys.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 150.61 points or 0.50 percent at 30,472.73 while the 50-share NSE Nifty inched towards 9500 level, up 36.20 points at 9,481.60.

The broader markets underperformed benchmarks despite positive breadth. The BSE Midcap index was up 0.2 percent and Smallcap gained 0.39 percent. About 1146 shares advanced against 702 declining shares on the BSE.

Dr Reddy's Labs rallied further, up 2 percent on top of 3.5 percent rally in previous session on hopes of recovery in US business.

9:49 am Earnings Estimates: Steel major, Tata Steel, could post a net profit of Rs 1,000 crore for the March quarter against a net loss of Rs 3,213 crore reported during the corresponding quarter last year, according to a CNBC-TV18 poll. One must note that the March 2016 quarter had an exceptional item of Rs 2,857 crore.

Meanwhile, the companys revenue is expected to come in 8 percent higher at Rs 31,850 crore against Rs 29,507 crore.

The operating profit for the firm is seen at Rs 4,400 against Rs 2,204 crore posted during the corresponding quarter last year. The margin for the company is seen at 13.8 percent against 7.5 percent.

In its India business, the companys sales volumes are seen rising 17 percent at 3.18 million tonnes against 2.72 million tonnes year on year. Strong volumes in India are likely due to a ramp up at Kalinganagar.

9:35 am FII View: The government recently passed new reform to solve asset quality problem that has been hitting banks' balance sheet for more than two years. It wants to clean this mess as early as possible.

"Meetings with senior bureaucrats and industry experts give us confidence that the government is serious about resolving the NPL mess. A few cases might be resolved in the next 2-3 months itself," Mahesh Nandurkar of CLSA said.

He further said the common scepticism is that several government/RBI attempts in the past haven't worked out. But this time the back is against the wall and if a resolution is not found soon enough, both the banks and the government will have to pay a financial price in FY18 itself, he feels.

A resolution would be positive for corporate banks in general and PSU banks in particular, Nandurkar believes.

In addition, "We were assured that 'Housing for all' remains a key focus area for the government and its funding will not be a constraint, especially for the 'housing loan subsidy' component," he said.

More monies will be made available if demand surges, which is likely, according to him.

Also read - Buy, Sell, Hold: 2 stocks and 1 sector are on analysts radar today

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened at fresh record high on Tuesday, continuing upside despite mixed Asian cues.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 63.33 points at 30,385.45 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 12.55 points to 9,457.95. About 643 shares advanced against 258 declining shares on the BSE.

Bharti Airtel was the biggest gainer among largecaps, up nearly 3 percent followed by Tata Steel, TCS, Dr Reddy's Labs, IOC, ACC and ICICI Bank.

Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, BHEL, HDFC, Adani Ports, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Cipla and Bank of Baroda were early losers.

The Indian rupee was flat at 64.06 per dollar in opening against previous day's close of 64.06.

Bhaskar Panda of HDFC Bank says the rupee has been supported by global cues as well as firm flows from FIIs and FDI. Today, he expects the USD-INR pair to trade in a range of 63.95-64.20/dollar range.

Dollar weakened against a major basket of currencies after a weaker than expected US economic data dampened the outlook for the pace of further tightening by the Federal Reserve this year.

Asian markets were mixed, following the bounce in oil prices after the energy ministers of Russia and Saudi Arabia announced output cuts should be extended till March 2018 and as investors largely shrugged off US political news on President Donald Trump.
Clicktable, a Delhi-based online table reservation startup, is close to raising at least USD 4 million in the first round of funding to battle the giant in the sector  Zomato.

The startup also plans to use the funds to expand geographically into other cities  Pune, Hyderabad, Calcutta, and Chennai. The funds will also be used to layer its existing technology with advanced data analytics and predictive algorithms.

I have funded the startup on my own till now. But now we need funds. We will announce something soon, Varun Gupta, founder of Clicktable told Moneycontrol. Gupta did not divulge the investor names due to non-disclosure clauses.

Gupta launched Clicktable as a front desk management portal for restaurants in September 2015 and soon added the table reservation feature for consumers.

Before launching the startup, he managed the operations for his family business  Kent RO Systems.

The company is currently present in three biggest metros  Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore  with over 1,500 restaurant partners, including 700 in Delhi. Zomato, on the other hand, offers table reservation service across 24,000 restaurants in 12 cities.

In the month of March, Zomato said it has seated over 600,000 guests through its table booking feature.

Zomato launched its table reservation service in July 2016, after it acquired US-based Nextable in 2015.

But Gupta claims that his company has a lot more to offer.

Zomatos main business is restaurant discovery. For reservations Zomato acts as an intermediary, says Gupta.

Clicktable instead works on a contract basis wherein the startups table management and customer analysis web portal is placed inside the restaurant. This web portal helps restaurant managers keep track of the number of tables available for reservation in real-time, manages the inventory, and also categorises new and repeat customers.

This real-time information of available tables helps them confirm the reservation in real-time. Zomato, on the other hand, transports a lead generated on its platform to the restaurant, which is then confirmed or declined.

Our reservation conversion rate is 99 percent, Gupta claims. There are other values adds that Clicktable offers to its users. The consumer-facing portal lists all the events scheduled at a restaurant, special dine-in offers, and discount offers currently available.

Zomato is the giant in the sector, but our USP is a bit different. We dive in deeper. Plus the addressable market is huge, about 1 million reservations per month, he said.

Clicktable charges a fixed cost of Rs 30  40 from a restaurant for each seat reserved. In addition, the startup takes home a commission of 8-10 percent. For the front desk management, the company charges a subscription of Rs 4,000.

The startup targets standalone restaurants with cost-for-two of above Rs 500. It is now branching out to tie up with restaurant chains and has signed pan-India contracts with Mainland China, Hoppipola, Chillies, and TGIF.

durba.ghosh@nw18.com
May 16, 2017 / 08:38 AM IST

Bull's Eye, CNBC-TV18's popular game show, where market experts come together to dish out trading strategies for you to make your week more exciting and compete with each other to see whose portfolio is the strongest.

Remember these are midcap ideas not just for the day, but stocks that look attractive in the medium-term as well.

This week, Kunal Saraogi, Sumeet Jain and Vishvesh Chauhan battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Kunal Saraogi of Equityrush

Buy Adani Transmission with a stoploss at Rs 94 and target of Rs 98

Buy Bharat Financial Inclusion with a stoploss at Rs 805 and target of Rs 830

Buy India Cements with a stoploss at Rs 217 and target of Rs 227

Buy Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) with a stoploss at Rs 98 and target of Rs 102

Sumeet Jain of Destimoney Securities

Buy Adani Transmission with a stoploss at Rs 92.20 and target of Rs 103

Buy Carborundum Universal with a stoploss at Rs 302 and target of Rs 332

Buy India Cements with a stoploss at Rs 217.50 and target of Rs 234

Buy Jubilant Foodworks with a stoploss at Rs 1012 and target of Rs 1077

Vishvesh Chauhan of Monarch Networth Capital

Buy Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) with a stoploss at Rs 96 and target of Rs 106

Buy Page Industries with a stoploss at Rs 15000 and target of Rs 16350

Buy GMR Infrastructure with a stoploss at Rs 17 and target of Rs 18.4

Buy Jubilant Foodworks with a stoploss at Rs 1000 and target of Rs 1095
Sharmila Joshi of sharmilajoshi.com told CNBC-TV18, "My advice would be to hold Tata Steel. The results coming out today, but my overall feeling on the sector is that global cues seem to be supporting as well as domestically there have been some moves that support steel as a sector and I think both play out in favour of Tata Steel going ahead."

"One could look at a target of closer to Rs 550 or so and maybe at that price one can revisit the stock and take a call because commodity stocks do follow a cycle. However, I do think that there is still more upside left in Tata Steel," she added.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Tuesday said Air India's books are "bad", and "business as usual" is not going to help it, but the Government wants the airline to survive.

AI is grappling with "legacy" issues, he added.

The minister's remarks came against the backdrop of Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani stating in a Facebook post earlier this week that the massive debt on Air India's books is the root-cause of all its woes.

Lohani termed the over Rs 48,000 crore debt as "insurmountable" and blamed the policies of the erstwhile UPA government for its precarious finances.

"Air India is a lovely airline. It has all legacy issues. Its finances are very bad...The books are so bad that the business as usual is not going to help it," Raju told reporters here, after inaugurating Integrated Operational Office Complex building of the AAI, DGCA and the BCAS.

"It is a nice airline, and I would like it to survive," he said, adding that he is "open" to suggestions from any quarters for the airline's turnaround.

"Of course there are people who praise it, there are people who bash it. I am not one of the bashers. But I am also not a blind praiser," he added.

Air India, which is surviving on a Rs 30,000 crore bail-out package spread over 10 years announced by the Manmohan Singh government in 2012, is working on ways to improve its financial position.

In the 2015-16, the airline posted operational profit of Rs 105 crore on account of low fuel prices and increased passenger numbers.

Currently, its debt is estimated to be a little over 48,000 crore, with nearly a third of borrowings on account of the aircraft acquisition. A consortium of 19 lenders have extended loans to the national carrier.

It is looking to re-jig debt of Rs 10,000 crore under the scheme for sustainable restructuring of bad assets floated by the Reserve Bank.


RSS-BJP               ,            

 Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) May 16, 2017

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday sought to put up a brave front amid Income Tax department's raids at 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to him and others, saying he was "not scared at all" and will continue to fight against the "fascist forces".

"BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake...Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge...Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice...If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats)," he said in a series of tweets.

Prasad rapped the BJP in yet another tweet for "sensing an opportunity to destabilise the Grand Alliance government in Bihar" and asserted that the coalition was "intact".

"Do not be tempted, the alliance is intact. Many more parties with a common ideology are going to join hands with us. I am not scared of the BJP letting loose the government machinery on me," he wrote on the microblogging website.

In another tweet, he said, "RSS-BJP ko Lalu ke naam se kampkapi chhuti hai...Inko pata hai ki Lalu inke jhoot, loot aur jumlon ke kaarobar ko dhwast kar raha hai, to dabab banao (The RSS-BJP shivers at the very name of Lalu...They know that Lalu is destroying their trade based on lies, loot and gimmicks and that is why they are putting pressure on me)."

The RJD chief took a dig at the BJP by congratulating the saffron party on "forging a new alliance" and asserted that he will keep fighting against the "fascist forces" till the last breath.

He also slammed mediapersons by branding them as "learned illiterates" and asked them to disclose the 22 locations raided by IT sleuths.

"Are padhe-likhe anpadhon, ye to batao kaun se 22 thikano par chhapemari hui...BJP-samarthit media aur uske sahyogi ghatakon (sarkari toton) se Lalu nahi darta (You learned illiterates, please disclose the 22 locations which are being raided...Lalu is not scared of the BJP-backed media and central agencies (state-owned parrots)," he said.

RJD national spokesperson Manoj Jha clarified Prasad's "new alliance" jibe at the BJP by claiming that the NDA government was "using" the IT department, CBI and other central agencies as its "alliance partners" against its adversaries, including the RJD chief.

He added that Prasad's "state-owned parrots" remark too was aimed at the central agencies.

Jha alleged that the BJP was "muzzling the voice of the opposition" and said, "We will fight in the court and on the ground. The battle against the BJP will be fought from Kashmir to Kanyakumari."

Jha also played down the speculation of strains in the Grand Alliance government in Bihar with the allies speaking in different voices on the "expose" against Prasad and his family and asserted that the coalition was "rock solid".

"Our alliance is a natural one...it will not break so easily," he said.

Earlier in the day, even as the IT raids were on in Delhi and adjoining areas, Prasad's colleagues Jha, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Prabhunath Singh, Bihar RJD chief Ramchandra Purve, Prasad's trusted lawyer Chittaranjan Sinha and others visited his wife Rabri Devi's 10, Circular Road residence here.
Supporters of Congress party are framed by the party's symbols installed at the venue where Rahul Gandhi is addressing a rally at Bardoli

The Congress today announced the launch of a nation-wide public campaign along with other like-minded forces in the next 24 months to expose the BJP-led government.

Stating this at a press conference here, AICC incharge of communications Randeep Surjewala said the party led by Rahul Gandhi would expose the "failures" of the government before the public in every nook and corner of the country.

To mark the completion of three years of the Modi government, the Congress young brigade today highlighted its "failures" on various counts including issues of dealing with the Pakistan and Kashmir policy, internal security, women safety and rising cases of rapes, atrocities on dalits, high petrol and diesel prices, besides generation of jobs.

A power-point presentation was also made during the press conference that besides other things highlighted the "failures" of this government on bringing back black money, GST, Aadhaar, renaming of UPA schemes, Digital and Skill India and not addressing the problem of farm debt.

"To expose the falsehood of the BJP, the Congress party in the next 24 months will launch an extensive country-wide public campaign after bringing all such like-minded and those forces troubled by this government," Surjewala told reporters.

Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev and Divya Spandana also raised the issues of rising cases of intolerance in the country and of attempts being made to change the narrative rather than focusing on resolving public problems.

Scindia said when this government came to power they kindled a lot of hope by selling the dream of bringing "achhe din" in the country, but in the last three years it "shattered people's dreams".

"There is an environment of intolerance prevailing in the country. If anybody discusses it, they are termed as anti- national.

"This government decides what the people should eat, learn and wear. It tries to push its policies based on a regimented 'soch vichar' (ideological approach)," he said.

Pilot said the Congress would present a better alternative model of governance before the people of the country and will expose the BJP on its "failure to fulfil the lofty promises made before coming to power".

"We will prepare a blueprint of an alternative model of governance and not by selling lies to the people," he said.

The Congress screened a video entitled "Teen saal barbaad, lipapoti sarkar" during the press conference.

The Congress leaders also raised the issue of senior functionaries of the government trying to help fugitives like Vijaya Mallya and Lalit Modi escape the country.
On a day it was voted to power three years ago, the BJP today said this was the day of accountability for the corrupt after government agencies searched Congress leader P Chidambaram's premises and properties allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal rejected Chidambaram's charge that he was being targeted for his columns critical of the government and claimed that the issue was why beneficiaries of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) gave "money to the firms owned by his son".

The former Union finance minister's columns "did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire", Goyal told reporters and took a dig at Chidambaram, saying that he will be accountable for his "son stroke."

In its three years in power the BJP has given an honest, scam-free government, a decisive leader and pro-poor thrust on governance, he said, adding, for the first time ever, India "is the fastest growing large economy".

Rejecting allegations of political vendetta levelled by Prasad and Chidambaram, Goyal claimed that the BJP government never comes in the way of law and that investigation agencies work independently.

"After all, it is not us who demanded reopening of fodder scam cases. The Supreme Court gave the verdict," he said.

Hitting out at the Congress, Goyal said the opposition party was feeling "helpless" in the face of Modi's "massive popularity" and instead of introspecting, it was raising wrong issues.

The Income Tax department conducted raids on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and others.

Attacking the BJP, Prasad said he would not be cowed down by the use of investigation agencies against him and continue to fight it.

Also, the CBI today launched searches at multiple premises linked to former Union Finance Minister Chidambaram and his son Karti in connection with alleged favours granted in FIPB clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.

Chidambaram alleged, "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations.
The Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax department on Tuesday raided firms linked to former Union Minister P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram in Chennai.

The raids were conducted by the agencies on Vasan Eye Care and Advantage Strategic, a company that is also involved in the Aircel-Maxis deal.



Searches were conducted mainly in Chennai as part of a joint operation by the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax department.

In August, the Enforcement Directorate had summoned two directors from Karti Chidambaram's company in connection with Aircel Maxis scam.

ED was probing the financial transaction between Karti and Aircel just before the company was given approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
Congress leader and son of former union minister P Chidambaram, Karti, today said he has not done anything wrong and alleged a political vendetta behind the CBI raids against him in connection with the INX Media case.

"They have not seized any documents and cannot prove any charges against me. I have not done anything wrong," Karti told reporters here, reacting to the CBI raids at several places linked to his father and him.

Claiming that the central government was acting out a "poltical vendetta", he said the raid was being held to "silence the voice" of his father.

Ruling out a vendetta, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Pon Radhakrishnan, said in Madurai that searches being carried out by CBI were as part of its investigation into the INX media case.

DMK working president M K Stalin accused the Centre of "misusing" agencies like CBI and said the former union minister and his son would face the matter legally.

The CBI yesterday registered a case in connection with alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media, run by its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea, in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the finance minister.
Ahead of his upcoming visit to Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today conveyed to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas India's "unwavering support" to the Palestinian cause.

After holding extensive talks with Abbas, Modi said India hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

The two countries also inked five agreements following talks between Modi and Abbas.

"India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause," the Prime Minister said in his media statement.

Modi also saids that India hopes for an early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides so as to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today held extensive talks on key bilateral, regional and international issues, including the Middle East peace process.

The focus of the talks was to further deepen bilateral cooperation between India and the Palestine.

"A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on Abbas and reiterated India's support to the Palestinian cause.

In the morning, Abbas was warmly welcomed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi at Rashtrapati Bhawan. He was also given a ceremonial guard of honour there.

The visit of the Palestinian President comes ahead of Modi's visit to Israel which is likely to take place in July.

Ahead of Abbas' visit, India reiterated its "political support" to the Palestinian cause and had said that it continued to assist developmental projects there.

The Palestinian president arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit.
Maharashtras Ratnagiri has beaten the metros to become the top Aadhaar covered district in the state with 100 percent enrollment. Mumbai, at 94 percent, falls short.

Among other metros, Thane has 92 percent coverage and Pune with 92 percent. Maharashtra, as a state, has 94.5 percent Aadhaar coverage, according to a report in the Times of India.

After Ratnagiri, Dhule has the second highest Aadhaar coverage with 99 percent, followed by Wardha in Vidarbha (98 percent).

The weakest coverage group is under five years with coverage below 50 percent. On the contrary, between 5-18 years age group has he highest coverage at 90 percent.

The government now wants to improve enrollments in the under-five group. "In rural areas, we register children in anganwadis but in urban areas, many of them don't come to anganwadis," State Information Technology Chief VK Gautam told ToI.

For this, the Maharashtra is planning to set up Aadhaar tablets at nearly 500 government hospitals by July. Aadhaar will be assigned on the basis of a childs photograph and parents biometric and know your customer details.

Another 3,200 tablets will be given to anganwadi supervisors.

In recent times, the government has suggested making Aadhaar mandatory for important activities like filing tax returns, scholarship schemes and travelling.

Maharashtra is also one of the few states to set up an Act called The Maharashtra Aadhaar, 2016 that links the identification card to various state schemes.

However, lack of privacy and data theft continue to be big concerns for Aadhaar.
The global ransomware attack has affected several computers of a state power distribution company in West Bengal but the central government computer system has largely escaped, officials said.

State agencies that manage government websites and build supercomputers have installed security patches issued by Microsoft Corp.

Federal Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that there was no serious impact on India, with only isolated incidents in parts of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh states, and the government was monitoring the situation.

However, West Bengal Power Minister Sovandev Chattopadhyay told Reuters that several billing centres of the state's Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL) had been infected by the ransomware worm.

"The full extent and magnitude of the problem will be realised by tomorrow," he said, the situation will be very serious if household electricity consumption data from the central server of the utility could not be retrieved beforehand.

A power department official who did not want to be named said billing for around 800,000 households was affected when the ransomware blocked access to files in the computers.

A senior official at the Federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said its Computer Emergency Response Team was gathering all possible information about the ransomware.

The cyber attack, which shut car factories, hospitals, shops and schools over the weekend, has proved less severe than anticipated in Asia, but industry professionals have flagged potential risks in the future.

Aruna Sundararajan, secretary of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, told Reuters the government was constantly monitoring the situation and that a few stand-alone computers at a police department were "back in action" after being infected over the weekend.

It was not immediately clear what the police department did to secure its systems.

India's National Informatics Centre, which builds and manages almost all government websites, and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a premier research institute that has built supercomputers, have actively installed patches to immunise their Windows systems, Sundararajan said.

Her ministry has also asked chief information security officers of all organisations run by provincial governments to follow guidelines issued by New Delhi to tackle the issue.
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,
An anonymous internet blogger, who asked to be known only by his online alias Malware Tech, stumbled on the "off switch" that halted an attack by a ransomware virus that affected computer systems in over 100 countries, the BBC reported, citing an interview with the man.

His discovery halted the virus, which freezes computer systems and access to files unless a cash ransom is paid, but will not repair any damage already done, he said.

The blogger, who works for a UK Internet security company, was on a week's holiday when he heard about the virus and decided to check it out.

He told the BBC he saw that each time the virus entered a new computer system, it would try and contact a specific web address, which he discovered was unregistered. He immediately acquired it for eight pounds.

His ownership of the site meant his investigations accidentally triggered the "off switch" and halted the further spread of the virus, which hit Britain's National Health Service, Nissan's car plant in northern England, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, Spanish energy company Iberdrola and Russian government ministries, the BBC reported.

MalwareTech now thinks the code was originally designed to thwart researchers trying to investigate the ransomware, but it backfired by letting them remotely disable it.

"It was actually partly accidental," he told the BBC, after spending the night investigating. "I have not slept a wink."

He added that his boss had given him an extra week off to recover from what he called "a train wreck of a holiday."

Security experts said that new variants of the malware that ignore the "kill switch" will appear.

"This variant shouldn't be spreading any further, however there'll almost certainly be copycats," said security researcher Troy Hunt, according to the BBC.

MalwareTech warned: "We have stopped this one, but there will be another one coming and it will not be stoppable by us.

"There's a lot of money in this, there is no reason for them to stop. It's not much effort for them to change the code and start over."

To contact the reporter: chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com
"I wasn't for the sale of it in the beginning, we voted against it, and raised our voices and made the calls. It's like anything else, I'm tired of everything going up: heating oil, fuel, food, and now the sewer," said voter Lowell Delp.
Ex-choir director in Bucks County pleads no contest to molesting two students, secretly filming another
May 16, 2017 One Day, Three Serious News Stories That Turn Out To Be False It is a fakenews day. Three stories are making the rounds through the media that are each based on false or widely exaggerated interpretation of claims. North Korea, Syria and the U.S. President are the targets. 1. The Wall Street Journal asserts with a #fakenews headline that bits of computer-code in the recent WannaCry ransom virus are identical with bits of computer code that was allegedly used in a 2014 hack of Sony. (The Sony attack was falsely attributed to North Korea.) Researchers Identify Clue Connecting Ransomware Assault to Group Tied to North Korea Neel Mehta, a security researcher at Alphabet Inc.s Google unit, on Monday pointed out similarities between that earlier WannaCry variant and code used in a series of attacks that security specialists have attributed to the Lazarus group. The "Lazerus group" (which probably does not exist at all) was attributed to North Korean state agencies. Six paragraphs later we learn that the "similarities" were found in often reused code: The findings dont necessarily demonstrate that Lazarus or North Korea was involved in the WannaCry attack, researchers said. The culprits in the latest attack, who havent been identified, could have copied the code in question, for example.

...

The connection found in the old version lies in software that both programs use to securely connect to other systems over the internet, said Kurt Baumgartner, a Kaspersky Lab researcher. Common code is found in nearly all software that sets up an internet connection. The reason for that is quite simple. No longer does anyone ever write such code. There are well tested examples of such program snippets widely available in open-source software on Github and elsewhere. "Copy and paste" is done faster than re-inventing the wheel. Even worse - the code snippet in question here is so trivial that any decent programmer would likely write it the very same way (a call to the Time() function to get a seed value for a following call to the Random() function). There are only X reasonable ways to add 1 to 1. Two people doing it the same way proves nothing at all. People copying publicly available code proves nothing either. It certainly does not prove that code for two different hacks was written by the same people. It does not provided that these bugs have anything at all to do with North Korea. The bits of similarities are of zero factual news value. 2. Back in February Amnesty International (which promotes NATO interventions) issued a sensational report about alleged killings in Syrian prisons. As we wrote at that time: A new Amnesty International report claims that the Syrian government hanged between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners in a military prison in Syria. The evidence for that claim is flimsy, based on hearsay of anonymous people outside of Syria. The numbers themselves are extrapolations that no scientist or court would ever accept. It is tabloid reporting and fiction style writing from its title "Human Slaughterhouse" down to the last paragraph. The U.S. State Department now reused that fake report and adds wrongly interpreted satellite pics to further slander the Syrian government: US: Syria is burning bodies to hide proof of mass killings In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity." The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use. If there was a crematorium being build in the Saydnaya prison how is it that none of the Amnesty witness said so in the recent Amnesty report? These witnesses, Amnesty claims, have been in that prison and observed all kind of details. They claim that any dead were buried in mass graves. A Dutch military expert looks at the commercial satellite pictures and the interpretation State provided and asks: Ian Grant @Gjoene - 6:02 PM - 15 May 2017 Is this a joke @StateDept? Even before 27 Aug '13 these "vents" were present. See included Terraserver footage (03 april '13) #Sednaya Another reconnaissance specialist expands on that: Aldin Abazovic @CT_operative - 5:33 PM - 15 May 2017 Pictures that allegedly show crematorium of Saidnaya prison, #Damascus #Syria. As much as I hate to get involved into this matter, these #1

#2 images prove nothing at all. This building could be simple boiler/heating room for the prison compound. Unless you visit there is no

#3 way to prove anything. Its easy to manipulate with satellite imagery. You just put the right label on thing and there you have it

#4 I can't confirm what the particular part of prison is nor for what it's used. The State Department has no evidence for its "crematorium claim" but the Amnesty report which says nothing about a crematorium at the prison and some satellite pictures that do not show what the State Department claims. It is throwing dirt at the Syria government in the hope that some of it will stick. This release of nothing will create some headlines in "western" outrage publications. It may be in propaganda preparation for a wider war on Syria. 3. The deep state is out to get U.S. President Trump impeached. Yesterday a new, well prepared and coordinated campaign against Trump was launched. Anonymous claims to the Washington Post were "confirmed" by similar claims from (likely) the same sources to Buzzfeed. The claims may have some grounds in reality but the actual facts, even as described in shrill words, are harmless. WaPo: Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trumps disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. (Hmm - how would "former U.S. officials" know what was said in the Oval Office and to what consequences?) It takes six paragraphs of such slander to learn what Trump actually disclosed: Trump went off script and began describing details of an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. "Terrorist threat[s] related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft" are a well known method of Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. If ISIS in Syria has copied that modus operandi it is interesting, but nothing sensational. The details, where ISIS is preparing these operations, may be somewhat relevant, but over how many cites does ISIS actually rule? National Security Advisor McMaster, who was in the room with Trump and Lavrov, is on the record (down in paragraph eight!) denying that any sources or methods were revealed. The only real claim here is that Trump gave Lavrov a tip-off with regard to a terrorist threat. If Putin would learn of a potential ISIS attack on a U.S. passenger jet would you want him to share that secret information with the U.S. government? Of course you would. But Buzzfeed and other anti-Trump organs blow the claims up to high heavens, The Lawfare writers go off their meds: If the President gave this information away through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office. Utter bullshit. Trump would have offered such intelligence out of courtesy as part of his deal-making with the Russian government. Exchange of threat intelligence is regular business even between parties who otherwise dislike each other. It is in the interests of all to do such. That such an exchange happened is not newsworthy. even it touched some details. Even worse - it is the publishing about the Oval office talk that can only help the terrorists. As Emptywheel says: these very outraged sources are [..] sharing the information that it is so outrageous to share. If Trump's information sharing is outrageous why did the sources offer that same information to the global media? Why did WaPo and others publish on it? Trump was elected with the support of the U.S. military. Clinton was supported by the corporate and intelligence sides of the power triangle. Trump won. Now the deep-state intelligence side, together with the moneyed part of the Democratic party, is out to impeach him. The constant sensationalized dribble of false or irrelevant claims against him prepares the ground for that. The three fake-news examples above contain no news at all. The bits exposed in them have no information value. Their only purpose is to influence the readers by exaggerating outlandish claims based on little, if any, real facts of minor importance. This full-throated propagandizing on all channels, without any critical voices challenging the basic facts, is endangering the functioning of democracy. The fourth estate is now just a tool to influence. It can no longer claim to have any inherent value. For the average person one way out of this onslaught is to search for, use and foster alternative and discerning sources of news. The other is to give up. Posted by b on May 16, 2017 at 7:25 UTC | Permalink Comments
Theres a lot to celebrate about the life of longtime Morgan Hill resident Willie Wilkinson, and his friends and family will memorialize him with a May 20 blowout complete with some of his favorite pastimesmusic, dancing and time spent with hundreds of those who knew and loved him best.

Wilkinson died unexpectedly April 28 at the age of 68, at his girlfriends home in San Juan Bautista. He grew up in Sunnyvale, and has lived in Morgan Hill since 1994, according to his daughter Adrianne Wilkinson.

Adrianne was backstage at the Morgan Hill Community Playhouse preparing for the South Valley Civic Theaters production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, when she heard about her fathers death. The crew told her they could delay the show that evening, but she insisted on performing as scheduled, for her father.

He wouldnt want that, Adrianne said a few days after Willies death.

Its hard to keep up with all the stories and memories about Willie Wilkinsona legendshared recently by Adrianne and Willies son Cody, along with a handful of local friends who were drawn to his natural ability to find and enjoy good company.

Almost everywhere he went, Willie was likely to run into someone he knew, from all walks of life and of all ages, according to Cody.

One thing that made my father such a great person (is) every interaction a person would have with him would leave (them) with a great memory, Cody, who now lives in Carlsbad, said in an email. My dad would do anything for my sister and myself, and that really flowed over to his friends as well. That is why you hear all of his friends refer to each other as a family.

Willie Wilkinson was a U.S. Army veteran who was proud of his service, which included two tours in Vietnam in 1968 as a flight engineer on a Chinook helicopter. After returning to the states, he enjoyed a variety of livelihoods, including as a dance teacher, bouncer, bodyguard, rodeo performer, ski instructor and mechanic. At the time of his death, Willie was retired from his most recent career as a precision machinist.

In his later years, perhaps his favorite thing to doother than spend time with old friends and make new oneswas to ride his motorcycle. Many of his friends in Morgan Hill enjoyed riding with him, and the group often traveled hundreds of miles to attend regional and national motorcycle gatherings.

Willie rode in the front on every ride, said Will Anderson, a Morgan Hill resident who has been riding with Willie since he met him a few years ago.

Hes our Biker Buddha, added Twyla Sulesky, also of Morgan Hill. She was referencing Willies penchant for dispensing with profound advice and observations about life and the universea wisdom he shared with his own brood and complete strangers alike.

Everybody loves him, Twyla said. Willie was such a people person.

He was a fixture at some of downtown Morgan Hills most popular establishments, and at the summertime Friday Night Music Series at the Community and Cultural Center, where the May 20 celebration of his life will take place.

He had a way about him that would just draw people in, Cody added.

Willie and his girlfriend, Shawn Lovering of San Juan Bautista, were together for about a year before he died, Lovering said. She described how generous he was in taking her to doctors appointments and treatment sessions during her recent bout with cancer.

Its like were kindred spirits. We immediately had a connection when they first met, Lovering said.

The most important part of Willies life were his two children, Anderson noted. Willie was a devoted follower of Adriannes theater productions, and even made lasting impressions on some of her young students. Cody said whenever he said goodbye at the end of any conversationon the phone or in personhis father never failed to say, I love you.

We talked every morning on the phone, added Adrianne, who teaches at a school in Gilroy. This is really hard for us, but I feel lucky in a way because this is my dad. How many people can say (their) dad touched so many lives?

Anderson said, and other friends agreed, Willie died on top of the world, after recent years recovering from cancer, back surgery and heart complications seemed only to strengthen his spirits.

He was walking tall (and) he was in love, Anderson said.

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Friends and family of Willie Wilkinson, who died April 28 at the age of 68, invite the community to a celebration of his life 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 20, at the Morgan Hill Downtown Amphitheater, at the Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road.
School district and local charter school leaders will be on opposing ends of a debate regarding a possible grant application for available construction funds through the state Office of Public School Construction when the board of education convenes May 16.

Charter School of Morgan Hill officials want to apply for funding of an $11,577,416 project that includes modernization of four restrooms and nine permanent classrooms as well as modernization or replacement of 11 portable classrooms, according to the May 16 agenda. CSMH officials are seeking a 50 percent match from the state at $5,788,708 with the additional funds coming via a loan from the California School Finance Authority, according to district staff.

However, CSMH needs the support of its authorizer, which is Morgan Hill Unified School District board of education, to be able to apply as part of the conditions of Proposition 51. There is no guarantee they will be granted those funds if they do submit an application.

MHUSD officials outlined a detailed list of reasons why it is not in the districts best interest to support the application, most notably they could be on the hook for up to $7,807,259 in debt obligations if CSMH vacates the site.

Although the projected state entitlement of $5,788,708 in funds is enticing, upon careful consideration of the long-term implications and commitments, the receipt of these grant funds do not outweigh the potential long-term challenges tied to the funding, the district concludes. Providing support to CSMHs application for Proposition 51 funds would be detrimental long-term to the districts facilities and finances potentially negatively impacting future generations of students.

The seven-member board, consisting of Board President Donna Ruebusch, Vice President Ron Woolf and Trustees Tom Arnett, Mary Patterson, Teresa Murillo, David Gerard and Gino Borgioli, will hear from both sides and are expected to vote on the matter at the May 16 meeting.

CSMH, located at 9350 Monterey Road in the northern outskirts of Morgan Hill, is housed at the districts former Encinal School site. They recently received a five-year renewal from MHUSD as well as $5 million in Measure G funds to build its newly constructed multi-purpose facility on the aging campus.

Another item on the same agenda dealing with the same parties is a Memorandum of Understanding for 2017-18 in accordance with Proposition 39, which mandates allocation of facilities to charter schools by the district. In that agreement, which is supported by both sides, the district receives a 3 percent oversight fee for providing rent-free facilities that adds up to about $130,000 annually.

Other general business items include:

 Action on the board policy subcommittee; and

 Proposed revisions to board policies on updates from the California School Boards Association Policy Maintenance Services.

Recognitions

The 2017 Teachers of the Year will be recognized at the May 16 school board meeting with one top educator being selected from each school site and one chosen as the Morgan Hill Unified School District Teacher of the Year.

This years top teacher honors go to: Jennifer Klem-Myers (Barrett); Kristina Peterson Carr (Britton); Eddie Yoon (Central); Jodie Wylie (Adult School); Kathy Corcoran (El Toro); Ellyn Perez (JAMM); Martha Stawarz (Live Oak); Kate Parsons (Los Paseos); Dan Scudero (Martin Murphy); Lisa Carr (Nordstrom); Johanna Miller (Paradise Valley); Terri Muscatell (PA Walsh); Jose Anaya (San Martin/Gwinn); and Heather Rottenborn (Sobrato).

Taking district-wide honors as MHUSDs 2017 Teacher of Year is Klem-Myers, according to the May 16 agenda.

District officials are expected to read highlights from each educators career and what has warranted the honors the honors at Tuesdays meeting.

Consent calendar

Items listed under consent are considered routine and trustees consolidate them into one single vote. However, a trustee or member of the public can pull an item out into general discussion if they feel more discussion is necessary.

 $294,800 contract (1999 bond sale interest earned) with Condor Inc. for the replaster of Sobrato High School swimming pool;

 $217,063 contract (Measure G) with Guerra Construction Group for the installation of new water and sewer lines at PA Walsh Elementary School;

 $17,000 contract (general fund) with Agron Consulting for Schools and Libraries E-Rate consulting;

 $5,000 contract (Measure G) with KNN Public Finance, a financial advisor, for work with Measure G capital improvements bond;

 Tax levy resolution for Measure G Series B. The request is for the Board of Supervisors of the County adopt a tax rate and levy a tax for the Bonds. The tax rate will be based upon an estimated debt service schedule prepared by the District, the agenda reads.

Personnel Order

Two teacher retirements (Lucia Bonnaud at San Martin/Gwinn and George Flores at Britton) and one classified employee retirement (Deadra Campi, office assistant, at Britton), as well as four resignations and three approved leaves among certificated staff are part of the personnel order for the May 16 school board meeting.
More than 300 college degrees were handed out at the City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium on Saturday during two separate graduation ceremonies for Western Piedmont Community College.

Crowds of family members and friends made their way into the auditorium to watch their loved ones reach their goal. The excitement rose when the traditional Pomp and Circumstance began playing as graduates arrived.

Bruce Hawkins Sr., chair of the Trustees of WPCC, welcomed those in attendance to the commencement ceremony and introduced Mao Lo, student government association president, to speak to the class of 2017.

Both Lo and James Williamson, president of The North Carolina Community College System and the ceremonys commencement speaker, made a reference to Dr. Seuss book " Oh the Places Youll Go " in saying that You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

Graduates of 2017 , as you walk across the stage and accept you degrees, I urge you to stand tall and smile and remember all the good times, Lo said.

WPCC President Dr. Michael Helmick stepped up to the podium to introduce the commencement speaker, but first thanked the schools Board of Trustees, administration, the department deans, senior administration, faculty and staff and the student services staff.

I'll be brief today (because) I know that the only thing standing in the way of you receiving your diploma is me, Williamson said. Remember that today is not only a graduation  an ending, it is also a commencement  a new beginning.

he told students that r egardless of what their next steps may be after graduation , there will be opposition and challenges that arise in your path.

It is how you handle those obstacles that matter the most, Williamson said.

In Williamsons own career, he says that he had moments where his future was not so clear , such as when he was an undergraduate and th ought he would never be working for students every day helping them succeed.

Ive even had some opportunities, like changing careers in mid - life that I had never imagined, he said. Youll have those moments as well. They are disguised often as a pesky little voice that encourages you to reach beyond where you are today.

Opportunities never present themselves and say Hey, Im that great opportunity youve been waiting for, Williamson said.

He spoke of a graduate in the crowd named Raymundo Gonzalez- Gonzalez who like all the graduates has a success story.

Gonzalez came to the United States when he was 16 years old and had no experience with the English language, Williamson said.

When he graduated from Patton High, his English proficiency was still holding him back, although he enrolled at Western Piedmont, he said. With the help of his adviser, he was exposed to a variety of subjects. Raymundo is eager to gain knowledge and he is very inquisitive.

His graduation is a very important moment in his family because his parents do not have more than two to three years of elementary education, he said.

He has inspired his younger brother Mateo to pursue post-secondary education , and after Mateo graduates from Patton, he will attend NC State University this fall, Williamson said. This is what can happen when one individual declares that the challenge before him will not define his future. "

Williamson told graduates this is just one example of what happens when people see an opportunity in a challenge and decide to not let the challenge define them.

He also encouraged students to, even though they have graduated, to live life with the curiosity of a child.

That childlike imagination is a wonderful gift, one which we must foster daily, he said. I would urge you to stay connected to that inner child so that you will never lose your curiosity. We must all be lifelong learners because the career path that you have today, may differ than the one you find yourself in 10 or 15 years from now.

After the commencement speech was made , Jonathan Crumpler, the 2016 Excellence in Teaching Award recipient, announced this years faculty member who was chosen for the award.

Rachel Bradshaw, coordinator for the Medical Assisting Program at WPCC , was g i ven this years Excellence in Teaching Award .

She is known for creating a rich environment and having a passion for instruction, said Crumpler.

She is greatly admired by students and faculty  and the nomination letters from students were written from the heart, Crumpler said.

Students were then asked to come forward to the stage row by row to receive their degree and take a photo with Helmick.

Western Piedmont Community College has prepared you well for whatever path you choose, but I urge you to remember that your education is not ending, it is just beginning, said Helmick. Make a commitment at this ceremony to become life-long learners and continually hone the skills that you have obtained in your time here.

For more information about WPCC, visit www.wpcc.edu or call 828-448-3500.

Staff Writer Jonelle Bobak can be reached at jbobak@morganton.com or 828-432-8907.
We share Gov. Roy Coopers shock and disappointment at the tiny amount of federal disaster assistance offered to help recover from the Hurricane Matthew flooding that devastated Eastern North Carolina last year. We urge our members of Congress to twist a few arms, if thats what it takes, to open the coffers and get the state the assistance needed to rebuild our vulnerable and valuable communities.

Cooper expressed his reaction on May 10 after receiving the news that the Trump administration and Congress had authorized less than 1 percent of the $900 million that the state requested. We realize the Trump administration is into budget cutting, but that amount is ridiculous, an insult to all the taxpaying flood victims who still struggle to build back their lives, home and businesses.

After consulting with members of the states congressional delegation that included U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., U.S. Rep. David Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill and U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Johnston County, the governor hoped for more than the $900 million, an amount the governor says was a conservative request, The Associated Press reported. Just $6.1 million in federal money was approved.

Families across Eastern North Carolina need help to rebuild and recover, and it is an incredible failure by the Trump Administration and Congressional leaders to turn their backs, Cooper said in a statement released Wednesday. Matthew was a historic storm and we are still working every day to help families return home and rebuild their communities.

North Carolinians affected by this storm cannot be ignored by the Trump Administration and Congressional leadership, and I will continue to work with our Congressional delegation to get North Carolina residents affected by the storm the help they deserve.

Hurricane Matthew, which hit Eastern North Carolina on Oct. 8, was devastating. At the peak of the storm, about 900,000 homes and businesses were without power. The flooding was catastrophic, and families were left scrambling for food, clean clothes and drinking water.

The storm caused an estimated $4.8 billion in damage, Cooper has said. The state has received $1.4 billion in federal and state money, so theres a long way to go.

North Carolina pays its fair share in federal taxes for assistance at times like this. A generous people, most of us have not begrudged our contributions going to help others in times of similar crisis.

Cooper expressed his dismay in a letter to President Trump, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Iinvite you to visit North Carolina and see the devastating impacts of this disaster first hand, Cooper wrote in the letter. Our citizens and communities are struggling, and will only be able to make a full recovery with the aid of much needed federal assistance.

Were happy to repeat that invitation: Come see for yourself, Mr. President. We think youll realize the need.
Literature lovers, publishers and distributors wan the UK book industry to bring in more translated and bilingual books from China.

During a seminar at the China Context event in London's Chinatown on Friday, leading experts, Sinolo-gists and academics explored ways to develop opportunities for literary exchanges between China and the UK.

In 2013, Britain licensed 574 titles from China, while the world's second largest economy licensed 2,521 from the UK.

Angus Phillips, director at Oxford International Center for Publishing Studies said: "The ratio of Chinese exports and imports have shifted over the last few years but partly that has been China exporting into their own region in Asia. Certainly there has been more interest in the UK in taking Chinese copyrights but I think it is a niche market compared to some of the best sellers that are going from the west into China."

He said more needs to be done to get people in the UK to read more Chinese literature trabslated into English.

"Translated literature remains at a very low percentage of only about 3 percent," Phillips added.

To boost sales of Chinese literature, Phillips suggested growing the pool of translators and agents in Britain for this market and also more dialogue between industry experts from both countries.

The seminar was part the first Chinese book festival at the China Exchange, which celebrates the best of Chinese writers and writing during three days of activities.

As China tries to raise its profile as a global publishing powerhouse the festival aims to not only engage and inspire audiences with the country's rich literary tradition, but provide a platform for conversations that will shape the future of the industry.

The book fair covered everything relating to China from history and biographies, to classical and con-temporary literation to Chinese learning materials and children's books.

Activities over the weekend included a creative writing panel discussion, open mic storytelling and poetry workshops.

Helena Zhang, program and venue manager at China Exchange, said she hopes to run the festival as an annual event "to enrich the culture diversity in the UK".

To contact reporter: boleung@mail.chinadailyuk.com

Editor: Chris Peterson
In its latest statement, the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board (GMREB) implored provincial officials to adopt a more thoughtful approach towards the possible implementation of a foreign buyers tax similar to that of B.C. and Ontario.This is because the Montreal market is nowhere near being overheated, and because the proportion of foreign buyers is quite different in Montreal compared to Toronto and Vancouver.Looking at the dwelling vacancy rate, the pace of price growth, the number of months of inventory, as well as the available data on the percentage of foreign buyers, there is nothing to suggest that there is a situation in Montreal that requires a quick response, GMREB board of directors chairperson Mathieu Cousineau said.Fresh data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimated that the share of foreign buyers in the entire Montreal metropolitan area across all property types is only 1.5 per cent, compared to the 9.7 per cent proportion in Vancouver and 4.9 per cent in Toronto.Overall, foreign buyers still have little impact on property prices in Greater Montreal. According to our brokers in the field, foreign buyers are present primarily in more well-off markets such as Ville Mont-Royal and Westmount, according to the GMREB statement.Cousineau added, however, that we do believe that there is an urgent need to put in place the means to effectively identify property purchases by foreign nationals. This will enable us to monitor the evolving situation and make informed decisions.It is important not to lump all foreign buyers together. A distinction must be made between foreign investors who buy properties for speculation and foreign buyers who establish their principal residence here, the GMREB concluded.The full statement can be read here
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Cloudy skies with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Contributed photo

The Texas Tech University School of Law Energy Law program will host a screening of the documentary FrackNation Wednesday, May 17 at Cinergy Cinema, 8250 E. State Highway 191 in Odessa.

Co-producers and directors Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney will be at the event and conduct a Q&A afterward.
The story of an Australian man's romantic proposal to his girlfriend has gone viral after he managed to hide the engagement ring under her nose for over a year.

Literally.

Terry and Ann (who asked to be identified by only their first names) are from Tasmania, Australia.

Terry explained it all started when he made Ann a wooden necklace as a gift for their one-year anniversary, which she wore practically every day for a year and a half.

"I had always loved the idea of giving someone a gift where they didn't know its true value until years later," Terry wrote in a statement sent to SFGATE.

Terry revealed the necklace's hidden surprise during a trip to Smoo Cave in Scotland. He asked to borrow Ann's necklace to photograph it separately near the cave. That's when he snuck away and carefully cut a seal on the necklace with a small knife.

"Once we got to the cave, I set up my camera on a timer and ran into the frame for the nice photo of the two of us, then said 'Oh, I'd better give you the necklace back.'"

Terry got down on one knee and broke open the necklace to reveal the ring inside.

Ann's reaction was caught on camera, as she jumped into her new fiance's arms. But after the initial shock and excitement wore off, Ann told Terry what we're all thinking: "Wait ... it's been in there the entire time? I could have lost it you f---ing idiot!"

And in fact, Terry said that nearly happened. Not once, but twice.

"There were some occasions where I was really worried," Terry said. "At one point, I thought she was going to trade it with a blacksmith at a market (the blacksmith loved the necklace, and she loved the blacksmith's work), but luckily I didn't need to crash tackle her."

There was another close call at the airport when the necklace set off a warning at security.

"I hadn't thought about the fact that she might be asked to put it through the X-ray, which could have very quickly turned into an airport security proposal!"

Fortunately, the surprise wasn't spoiled and everything went as Terry planned at Smoo Cave. The cave is thought to be named after the Norse word for "hiding place," which Terry believes he should get "extra points for."

Terry posted the story of their engagement to YouTube. As of Sunday evening, the video had racked up nearly 1.5 million views.
AUSTIN  Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that Hispanics and frankly anybody from any other country wont be stopped and asked to show their papers under the sanctuary cities law unless they are suspected of committing a serious crime.

Obviously, with my wife being the first Hispanic first lady of the state of Texas, I care very much about the Hispanic community, Abbott said. My message to the Hispanic community is, dont fall for all the fear-mongering thats going on around there, because if you look at the details of what Senate Bill 4 does, it does not pose any concern for anybody whos not a criminal.
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The White House is denying a report by The New York Times that President Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to end an investigation into national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump asked Comey to end Flynn investigation, NY Times reports

Michael Flynn was a national security adviser fired over Russian contacts

Newspaper: Comey wrote memo detailing his conversation with Trump

In a statement from its press office, the White House said Tuesday that "the President has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn."

On Tuesday, The Times published a story on its website saying that Trump asked Comey to end an FBI investigation into Flynn during a February meeting in the Oval Office. The newspaper cited a memo Comey wrote shortly after the meeting, which The Times said could be held up in court as credible evidence of a conversation.

I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Trump told Comey, according to the memo, the newspaper reported.

Flynn was fired in February after it was determined he misled officials about his contacts with Russia.

The Times report comes just one day after the Washington Post reported that Trump had revealed highly classified information to Russian officials during a meeting last week.


AUSTIN -- The Senate State Affairs committee on Monday took another look at a bill banning texting and driving. The committee approved the Senate version, SB 31 by Laredo Sen. Judith Zaffirini back in March, but the measure never made it to the floor for a vote. A similar measure, by Midland Rep. Tom Craddick, cleared the House floor just a few days after the hearing on the Senate bill. Monday, the committee took up that version of the legislation, House Bill 62.

Under HB 62, sponsored in the Senate by Zaffirini, drivers who are caught using a phone to text, send email or post to social media while driving would face a fine of up to $99 for a first offense and $200 for subsequent offenses. The bill only penalizes texting while driving a moving car; drivers in an idle or parked car could still use their phones to send texts. The ban would not apply to using one's phone as a GPS or music device. Some of the differences between the version that cleared the House and the version before State Affairs include a provision that would enhance the penalty for texting and driving to a class A misdemeanor if it leads to a crash that kills or seriously injures another person. It also requires that an officer directly witness the offense before they can issue a citation. Finally, it would preempt any city ordinance relating to texting and driving. More than 100 cities in Texas have ordinances on the books restricting texting and driving, but this bill would supersede city codes.
Brian Keith Bowie, 24, was held in Hale County jail Sunday without bond after being arrested about 8 p.m. Saturday in the 1800 block of Walter Jackson. He was hold on a felony Texas Pardon and Parole warrant for manufacture/deliver controlled substance Penalty Group 1 from 1 to 4 grams.

--A 35-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday on $2,500 bond for assault causing bodily injury family violence. He was arrested about 8:10 p.m. Sunday in the 700 block of Amarillo in connection with a reported disturbance involving domestic violence.

--A vehicle was burglarized Sunday while parked in the 1500 block of North I-27.

--A shoplifting incident reportedly occurred about 9 p.m. Sunday in the 400 block of West 24th Street.

--Between $100 and $750 damage results in a criminal mischief incident in the 1000 block of North I-27 between 2-7 p.m. Saturday.

--A sexual assault reportedly occurred between 1-9:50 a.m. Saturday in the 600 block of West Fifth Street.

--A 40-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday on outstanding warrants for possession of drug paraphernalia and driving while license invalid. Bond had not been set on either charge Monday morning. He was arrested about 12:10 a.m. Sunday in the 700 block of West Fifth Street following a traffic stop.

--A 22-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Monday on $200 bond for public intoxication. He was arrested about 2:10 a.m. Sunday in the 1500 block of Yonkers.

--A firearm was stolen from the 1200 block of Lexington between 6 p.m. Saturday, May 6, and noon Sunday.

--A 19-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Saturday on $1,500 bond for possession of marijuana under 2 oz. A 22-year-old man was held in Hale County jail Saturday for possession of a controlled substance Penalty Group 1 under 1 gram (bond not set), possession of marijuana under 2 oz. ($1,500 bond), outstanding warrant for valid drivers license (no bond set) and outstanding warrant for failure to appear (no bond set). Both were arrested about 4:40 p.m. Friday in the 1000 block of Yonkers.

--A minor traffic accident about 6:20 a.m. Saturday in the 700 block of North Date resulted in a driving while intoxicated investigation. It could not be immediately determined if an arrested resulted from the incident.

(Anyone with information on crime in Plainview and Hale County may contact the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 293-8477 or 293-TIPS.)
Imagine a world where you could get H-E-B groceries delivered to your home. Its perhaps the dream of many Texas shoppers before they head out into the busy streets, but this week its slated to become reality.

Grocery delivery service Instacart will launch its Instacart Express membership program Thursday in Midland and Odessa, according to a company press release. Instacart Express offers unlimited same-day, one-hour grocery deliveries on orders of $35 or more.

The company has looked to enter the Midland-Odessa market for quite a while. Weve been interested in the area for a couple years now, General Manager Chad Shepler said via email. What changed is earlier this year we saw zip code signups increase. A good sign that potential customers are gaining general awareness of Instacart and online delivery service.

And the company is growing nationwide. Instacart currently serves 30 percent of the households in America, but we plan to bring our service to over 100 more markets this year and to serve 80 percent of American households by 2018, Shepler said.

The delivery company has partnered with stores such as H-E-B, Natural Grocers and Petco in Midland-Odessa and will serve more than 99,000 residents.

Customers can use the Instacart app or website to place their orders and schedule deliveries. Instacart personal shoppers, who work as independent contractors, fill orders and deliver the goods to customers homes. The company said it plans create more than 50 new jobs in the area.

Instacart is offering a free trial for the first year, with no strings attached, the release said. The cost the following year is $99 annually or $14.99 per month. The free trial is a limited-time promotion. The minimum order is $35.

Instacart will serve the following zip codes:

 In Midland: 79701, 79703, 79705, 79706, 79707 and 79708.

 In Odessa: 79760, 79761, 79762, 79763, 79764, 79765, 79766, 79768 and 79769.
Senate Bill 28, which creates a revolving loan fund to help ports deepen and widen their ship channels, was passed by the Texas House of Representatives on Tuesday.

It passed the Texas Senate in late March and will now be sent to Gov. Greg Abbott.
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STAMFORD  An affiliate of Waypoint Residential that is focused on the firms existing student housing business launched publicly Tuesday, after already making a nine-figure deal.

In the first and second quarters of 2017, the new Waypoint Campus Housing LLC acquired from Blue Vista Capital Management properties serving the University of Texas campuses in Arlington and San Antonio, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

A fifth property in the portfolio is scheduled to close in June. The acquisitions total $102 million, covering 2,638 beds.

In 2016, Waypoint entered the student-housing market when it purchased three properties for about $58 million. With the completion of the five latest deals, Waypoint will have acquired assets holding 3,760 beds.

Jeremy Pemberton, who previously focused on acquisitions and sourcing capital for Waypoint, will lead Waypoint Campus Housing.

The student housing sector continues to demonstrate strong fundamentals, notably enrollment growth and continued strong occupancy, Pemberton said in a statement. As a result, student housing has matured into a more discernible asset class with an ever-growing investor demand.

Waypoint plans to make capital improvements to its new properties that would cover interiors, exteriors and common-area amenities.

The addition of student housing aligns with our overall strategy to diversify our product offerings within the rental housing market, and we believe it provides terrific risk-adjusted opportunities, Waypoint CEO Scott Lawlor said in a statement.

During the past five years, Waypoints investment activity has totaled approximately $2 billion, according to company data.

Last month, Waypoint announced its signing of a lease to take about 11,500 square feet on the eighth floor of the 9 W. Broad St. office building on the edge of the downtown. Executives of Waypoint are planning a relocation by mid-July from their current Stamford offices, which cover some 5,000 square feet at 2200 Atlantic St., in the South End.

Waypoints new offices will unite the firms 15 operations-focused employees who already work in Stamford and nine colleagues from Waypoints accounting department now working in Manhattan.

The firm also maintains offices in Boca Raton, Fla.  the base of Lawlor  and hubs in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Denver.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
Home Depot Inc. dodged the woes of the struggling U.S. retail industry, helped by Americans plowing more money into fixing up their houses.

Earnings handily topped analysts estimates rising by about 12 percent to $2.01 billion in the first quarter. The company also boosted its forecast, sending the stock up as much as 2.2 percent in New York. The retailer also said sales so far this quarter have been very good.

Home Depot, the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, is profiting from the rebound in housing prices, which has made property owners more willing to revamp their properties because they see them as a sound investment. Thats helped Home Depot avoid a broader retail malaise, in which falling mall traffic and online shopping has weighed on the industrys results.

While forecasts for U.S. gross domestic product are mixed, housing continues to be a growing asset class and our sales thus far in May have been very good, Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome said on a call with analysts.

Profit rose to $1.67 a share in the period that ended April 30, the company said Tuesday. Analysts projected $1.61, on average. Home Depot also increased its full-year earnings outlook by 2 cents a share.

Home Depot shares rose as high as $160.86 on Tuesday, the biggest intraday advance in more than five months. They had already gained 17 percent this year through Mondays close.

Revenue rose 4.9 percent to $23.9 billion in the first quarter, surpassing analysts $23.7 billion prediction. Online sales surged 23 percent. Roofing, flooring and appliances were the best-performing divisions -- each growing more than 10 percent -- in a sign that homeowners are taking on big projects. That helped purchases above $900 gain 16 percent. The companys sales to contractors and builders grew twice as fast as those to do-it-yourself customers.

Sales at stores open for more than a year -- a key benchmark for investors -- rose 5.5 percent. That beat analysts 3.9 percent prediction, according to Consensus Metrix. In the U.S., revenue by this measure rose 6 percent.

The Atlanta-based company raised its full-year outlook for earnings per share by two cents to $7.15 and reaffirmed its guidance for sales growth of about 4.6 percent.

The rosy results followed a raft of disappointing earnings from department-store chains last week. Macys, the leader of that industry, suffered its worst stock decline since the recession after posting lower sales than Wall Street predicted. Kohls Corp., J.C. Penney Co., Nordstrom Inc. and Dillards Inc. also disappointed investors.
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Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise were the first to fall, then Bealls, then Mervyn's. Smaller merchants toppled in their wake, one by one hollowing out the sprawling San Jacinto Mall.

The long corridors are today mostly vacant. Sears, Macy's and J.C. Penney stand as the only remaining department stores, vestiges of last century's retail boom.

Now, an ambitious plan to transform the aging mall into an open-air shopping center has slowed as the property's oldest tenants struggle in a rapidly changing retail environment. A decades-old contract gave the stores the power to determine the fate of the redevelopment, and each has held out on approving it during months of negotiations interrupted by turmoil across the sector.

The arrangement puts the developer, Fidelis Realty Partners, in a bind. Its effort to make San Jacinto more competitive has been hindered by the very problems that led to the mall's downward spiral.

Houston-based Fidelis bought the property two years ago and has for months sought deals with each of the retailers as required under contracts signed in the early 1980s, when department stores lorded over a retail landscape dominated by enclosed malls. Facing steep challenges in a hyper-competitive industry, none has yet agreed to terms that would require wholesale renovations and new operating requirements.

"It's been slow and tedious," Fidelis CEO Alan Hassenflu said. "We didn't count on the myriad problems all the traditional mall department stores are having."

Department stores have for years lost customers to rising e-commerce sales and discount competitors, creating substantial challenges for mall developers. An anchor store closure often triggers a domino effect within a mall, toppling smaller retailers that relied on the bigger ones to generate foot traffic.

That dynamic has deepened the division between the nation's highest- and lowest-performing malls. The most successful, such as the Houston Galleria, have the financial means to evolve and expand. Beleaguered properties such as Greenspoint Mall, on the other hand, have become targets for redevelopment after years of steep losses.

The sluggish negotiations at San Jacinto illustrate some of the many complications faced in rejuvenating a dying mall. It's common for developers, retailers and investors to own different pieces of the same property, creating potential conflicts during the redevelopment process.

Covenants remain

Midcentury mall developers gave retailers land and money to build department stores in exchange for operating agreements that typically lasted 20 years or less, Hassenflu said. Many also negotiated so-called "restrictive covenants" that required the developers to seek approval from the anchors before making changes to the mall, contracts that often lasted decades longer.

In the case of San Jacinto, the three remaining department stores have occupied their buildings for far longer than required under the operating agreements. But the restrictive covenants remain in place, giving them the some control over the mall's future.

Department stores have long played hardball during redevelopment negotiations, leveraging their bargaining power to score cheaper rent or more favorable operating terms. Ed Wulfe, CEO and founder of commercial real estate firm Wulfe & Co., said that commonly occurred prior to the sector's steep decline, when such retailers were critical to a shopping center's success.

He recalled his effort to redevelop Meyerland Plaza in the early 1990s, when J.C. Penney was still a "1,000-pound gorilla." Negotiating with the retailer, one of several anchor stores there at the time, took several years and included many trips to the company's Plano headquarters, he said.

"It's high-stakes poker," he said. "Cold, hard business."

Such tension has at times led to court battles. In 2013, for example, Lord & Taylor sued the owner of the White Flint Shopping Center, an enclosed mall in suburban Maryland, in opposition to the developer's plan to raze most of the property and build a mixed-used center around the department store building without the retailer's consent.

Lord & Taylor argued the developer had breached its contract and sought compensation for profits lost during the construction period and the costs of reconfiguring its store to fit the new shopping center. A jury awarded the retailer $31 million in damages.

Such impasses are rare, said Rick LaTella, executive managing director for commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. Many department stores, he added, have acknowledged the need for renovation as the retail industry changes.

"The department store companies have had to become more flexible," he said. "They recognize they don't carry that big club anymore."

Mall's long decline

San Jacinto Mall opened in 1981 with nine department stores anchoring 1.2 million square feet of retail space. It was one of the region's largest shopping centers, a rainbow-colored destination with tangles of green plastic plants reaching for a painted blue skyscape.

Since then, decades of sunlight have bleached the entrance's bright colors, plants have been uprooted and parts of the painted sky have peeled away. Never updated or renovated, the mall lost many shoppers to big-box stores and other retailers that rose to prominence in the 1990s.

The property is now about half-occupied with 60 tenants hawking discount apparel and quick manicures. On a recent weekday afternoon, Duran Duran's "Sound of Thunder" reverberated in the empty corridors, harkening to the year the mall opened.

Baytown officials long ago prioritized the mall's redevelopment as they watched it edge toward obsolescence. Mayor Stephen DonCarlos spent years soliciting developers to undertake the massive project before at last finding a partner in Fidelis, which purchased the mall from Triyar Cos. in 2015.

"It has gone from a point of pride to frankly something of an embarrassment," DonCarlos said. "It's highly visible, a real target for us."

The city of Baytown is banking on the $100 million-plus renovation project to boost the property's tax value and satisfy consumer demand in a city that has grown about 10 percent since 2010, per state estimates. Census data shows it added only a handful of retail establishments during that period.

The city agreed to a package of sales and property tax rebates for the developer and committed to funding certain demolition and transition costs, incentives worth about $26 million.

DonCarlos, determined to see the project through, has participated in much of the negotiations process with the retailers, at times flying to Cincinnati for meetings with Macy's executives. He hopes to schedule meetings in Las Vegas this month at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention, an enormous trade conference where retailers, brokers and developers network and make deals.

"We'll get there," he said. "I've learned patience."

Demolition delayed

Fidelis has proposed demolishing the entire mall and building in its place a million-square-foot shopping center with green spaces and a new roster of retailers and restaurants. Premiere Cinema, which now occupies 20,000 square feet, would expand to an 80,000-square-foot standalone complex with bowling and an IMAX theater.

Meanwhile, Macy's and Sears would remain in their buildings, while J.C. Penney would occupy a new space built by Fidelis. None of the anchors opposes the idea, Hassenflu said, but the growing turmoil in the department store sector has impeded negotiations.

Macy's did not respond to a request for comment, and J.C. Penney declined the opportunity to do so. A Sears spokesman said only that the company will "continue to monitor developments" at the mall while serving customers there.

Each of the department stores has for years been closing stores nationwide and investing more heavily in e-commerce, playing catch-up in an industry that has become increasingly centered on technology and discounting.

Most recently, Macy's closed three Houston-area stores at West Oaks Mall, Greenspoint Mall and Pasadena Town Square.

Fidelis has crafted a contingency plan for department store vacancies as the project moves forward, but for now, the retailers are committed to keeping their stores. Each is holding out for the best possible deal, Hassenflu said, but he's optimistic they'll come to terms this year and allow demolition and construction to start in early 2018.

"I'm sympathetic to them," he said. "They're in the throes of a battle themselves."
The regional chicken chain Slim Chickens has made its first landing near San Antonio, opening this week in Helotes on Bandera Road.

The chain, which specializes in fried chicken tenders, started in Arkansas in 2002 and now has 45 locations, including 24 in Texas. A spokesperson for SSCP Management Inc., the company that owns Central Texas development rights for the restaurant, said the company plans to open 10 locations in the San Antonio area in the next three years.
Saratoga Springs

The city ended 2016 with a $1.05 million deficit.

The budget shortfall, for the most part, was a result of a $750,000 legal payout to The Anderson Group, which sued the city in 2005 claiming discrimination based on race and income after the city thwarted its plans to build affordable housing.

The remainder, $306,000, was attributed to various cost overruns in the five city departments and the settling of union employee contracts.

Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan said the deficit in the $44 million enacted budget is good news  she was expecting a $2 million gap.

"Actually this small deficit ... was much better than expected," she said.

Madigan said the city will pay off the deficit, as planned, with its $9 million unassigned and unappropriated fund balance.

"This is exactly why I maintain a fund balance of 10 to 25 percent (of the general operating fund) each and every year, to ensure we can cover almost any unknown and necessary expenditure," Madigan said.

Madigan said she did not anticipate The Anderson Group settlement because the insurance company was handling the case. The insurance company already paid out $1 million in the suit, which involved a 156-acre parcel of land between routes 9P and 29, east of the Northway. The project never got off the ground because the city changed the zoning of that area, it was reported, to comply with its master plan to preserve open space.

"We had many unknowns," Madigan said. "When, how much, and how much would insurance cover. It is considered bad budgeting practice to budget for this type of expense in a general operating fund with so many unknowns."

While Madigan is pleased that the unaudited 2016 budget was better than anticipated, a recent position paper on city finances warns that the city is open to fraud. Written by Jeff Altamari, a retired financial officer with a Fortune 500 company, the paper argues that leaving the collection and disbursement of city funds to one office is "highly dysfunctional and a risky institutional flaw." Altamari recommends an independent, internal audit of the city's finances.

Madigan said that for the past 100 years, the city's commissioner of finance, who collects and disburses all funds, also conducts all internal audits, and that is sufficient and not unusual.

"We have a sound accounting system. This can be found in all our reports with proper internal controls."

Meanwhile, the $750,000 renovation of Madigan's finance department at City Hall is on hold.

Madigan confirmed that the finance department is considering leaving City Hall completely and moving into the building that now houses the Saratogian, which is across Lake Avenue from City Hall. That leaves open the possibility of placing the city's second state-mandated courtroom on the first floor. That could preserve the third floor Music Hall, the original site of the second courtroom, as a social dance venue.

wliberatore@timesunion.com  518-454-5445  @wendyliberatore
A crowded race of six candidates saw Dalia Kasseb and Woody Owens as the only two contenders for Pearland City Council Position No. 7 left standing following the May 6 election.

The two are now readying their campaign teams to meet again on June 10 for the general runoff election.

It was a tight race, but Kasseb cleared a comfortable lead over Owens with 40.78 percent of the vote to his 21.05 percent in an election where more than 7,200 residents showed up at the polls.

"We're just going to continue doing what we we're doing," Kasseb said. "This is a people-powered campaign and we're going to continue working hard to hear the voices of the people of Pearland and asking what they want to bring to the table if I'm elected.

The focus for both candidates, they said, was remaining positive.

"I ran a very positive campaign and I plan to run a positive runoff as well," said Owens. "There's no need to say anything negative about one another. I wish her all the best. Of course, I wish me all the best, too," he laughed.

No east-west divide

Both agree that any perceived divide between east and west Pearland was largely manufactured in an attempt to split the city.

"We are one city," he said. "We are one of the most diverse cities in the area  we're more diverse than Houston, Pasadena, Galveston, Missouri City, Sugarland  I think that says a lot about our area. And the median age of our residents is 33. That along with the population growth says a lot about Pearland too. It says that they're moving here from other areas because Pearland has the diversity and amenities young families are looking for, and, like Mayor Reid says, we're better when they get here."

Kasseb said that where she lives shouldn't matter; she sees Pearland as one community.

"Something I want to relate to the people of Pearland is that lot of people try to push this notion of divide, but there is none," she said. "People (on the east and west side Pearland) want the same things and when I ask to be the voice of the people of Pearland I want to be the voice of all the people of Pearland."

One issue Kasseb would like to address, which she campaigned heavily on during the general election, is the Blue Ridge landfill, where residents of Shadow Creek Ranch, a master planned community in west Pearland, report a pungent odor emanating from the site.

"As a healthcare professional and resident of Shadow Creek Ranch, I understand the impact that 'volatile organic compounds' can have on our health and I also want to bring in more parks and recreational spaces," Kasseb said. "In order to do that, we have to have a healthy outdoors. With increased risk of breathing problems, skin irritation, cancer...I want to make sure that is not part of our community in Pearland."

Kasseb is also concerned that the landfill and its potential environmental ramifications could have a detrimental effect in the development of more green spaces in Pearland as well as property values.

"I want to see the landfill situation work out in a way that is decisive," she said. "We have this issue, and we're not being heard. It's time for our voices to be heard because this is a real issue here in Shadow Creek Ranch and on the west side of Pearland."

If elected to represent her district, Kasseb would bring in a "zero-waste policy", making sure the city utilizes the organic substances that come from homes to create jobs.

"It's a whole other field of job creation, the utilization of energies, reusing our resources and not sending anything to any landfill," she said.

While Owens said that correctly handling the landfill is an issue that he would like to see addressed, his main focus is on mobility and traffic issues in the city.

"It's not a secret that traffic in Pearland is hectic, especially on (F.M.) 518. There are some projects in the works that might alleviate some of that congestion, but it probably won't be enough," he said.

Owens served on the Pearland council for 12 years and retired from his position after reaching his term limit. He's been working in transportation since the early 70s. One of the things he believes he brings to the table for the City of Pearland is his relationship with and understanding of Texas Department of Transportation practices. Owens said he believes he can leverage this experience, his degree in public administration and his previous council experience, to benefit Pearland and positively impact traffic and mobility in the city.

"If we want to improve mobility issues and traffic around the city," said Owens, "it's going to be important for us to seek funding. Whether that's from TxDOT or other avenues, whoever gets elected is going to have to know how to go about getting that. I personally have been working in transportation since 1971, so I feel like I'm in a good position help the city move forward in the right direction."

Owens said another facet of the community he intends to keep supporting is the police department.

"We need to make sure the police are protecting our residents, and we also need to make sure that we're supporting police," he said. I've always supported our police department  I believe they're one of the finest in the state."

Both candidates remain firm on running a positive election.

Kasseb's religion entered into the campaign discussion by way of a Facebook post from a Pearland ISD trustee, who suggested her run was a signal of an encroaching Muslim political presence in Pearland, a claim many interpreted as insensitive.

But the Shadow Creek Ranch resident stayed on point throughout, keeping her campaign focused on her core platform issues and if she can hold onto her lead heading into the runoff, Kasseb, 30, would be that much closer to making history as the first openly Muslim candidate to win public office in Pearland.

She is "humbled" by the 40 percent she received on election day and believes it reflects a Pearland that is inclusive.

"It says that our Pearland community is a diverse community and we're willing to look beyond our culture or religion and look toward the issues and vote on the issues and not vote on whether someone is of another race, background," Kasseb said. "It's time for us to focus on what really matters and stop looking at what's on the outside."

The runoff election is scheduled for June 10. Early voting begins May 30.
WASHINGTON - Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, removed himself from consideration to be the next FBI director on Tuesday, becoming the latest high-profile possibility to bow out.

The second-ranking Republican senator announced his decision following two days of resistance from his own Republican colleagues to the idea of him filling the post.

"Now more than ever the country needs a well-credentialed, independent FBI director. I've informed the administration that I'm committed to helping them find such an individual, and that the best way I can serve is continuing to fight for a conservative agenda in the U.S. Senate," Cornyn said in a statement.

Cornyn's announcement came the day after Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., took himself out of the running. And the Texas senator released the statement not long after reports that Judge Merrick Garland, who some Republicans had touted for the job, is not interested.

Cornyn met with top Justice Department officials over the weekend about filling the job. Among those who did not want Cornyn to leave the Senate was Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. While Cornyn is well-liked on Capitol Hill, he is seen as a partisan whose confirmation hearing would have been expected to be highly contentious.

Cornyn is close to Attorney General Jeff Sessions from their days as colleagues in the upper chamber of Congress. One Republican familiar with Cornyn's thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he felt obligated to consider the job because Sessions asked him to and out of a desire to restore stability at the the FBI and Justice Department.

McConnell said Tuesday that he told President Donald Trump that he ought to pick Garland, whose nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama was blocked by Senate Republicans. But Garland has no interest in the job according to associates.

Still, the top Senate Republican leader said he remained "optimistic" that Trump would pick someone in the mold of Garland.

"That illustrates the kind of person I hope and expect will come next," said McConnell. "Somebody deeply credentialed in criminal justice and criminal justice enforcement, completely apolitical, in line with the tradition of prior FBI directors."

At least eight candidates, including Cornyn, interviewed for the position over the weekend.

The opening was created when Trump fired James Comey. Shifting explanations by Trump and his aides about why Comey was fired have prompted concerns by Democrats and some Republicans.

Comey had been leading an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election, including possible ties between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Democrats are expected to raise fierce concerns about any nominee seen as a partisan defender of Trump and Senate Republican leaders are hoping to avoid such a conflict.

Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, had been promoted for the job by some of the same Senate Republicans who blocked his nomination and refused to give him a Senate hearing.

He has declined to comment on the reports, but friends contacted reporters Tuesday morning to say speculation about Garland was groundless.

"He loves his job and is not interested in leaving the judiciary," said one, who spoke on condition of not being named.

Some Democrats seethed that Republicans were promoting Garland for the FBI job after refusing to act on his Supreme Court nomination. They said sudden interest was a GOP strategy to open a seat on the circuit court for a Trump administration nominee. Federal judges have lifetime appointments.
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency put out a call for comments about what regulations are in need of repeal, replacement or modification. The effort stemmed from an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier this year instructing agencies to reexamine regulations that "eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation" and/or "impose costs that exceed benefits."

More than 55,100 responses rolled in by the time the comment period closed on Monday - but they were full of Americans sharing their experiences of growing up with dirty air and water, and with pleas for the agency not to undo safeguards that could return the country to more a more polluted era.

"Know your history or you'll be doomed to repeat it," one person wrote. "Environmental regulations came about for a reason. There is scientific reasoning behind the need for it. It is not a conspiracy to harm corporations. It's an attempt to make the people's lives better."

"Have we failed to learn from history, and forgotten the harm done to our air, water, and wetlands?" wrote Karen Sonnessa from New York. "If anything, regulations need to be more stringent. I remember the days of smog, pollution, and rivers spontaneously combusting. EPA is for the people."

Some respondents made moral and religious arguments.

"Reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and limiting the effects of climate change is one of the greatest moral challenges of our time," the Rev. John D. Paarlberg wrote, defending the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, an effort to regulate carbon emissions from power plants that the Trump administration has vowed to roll back. "For the sake of the most vulnerable among us, for the sake of future generations, for the sake of the planet, please do not undermine the Clean Power Plan and other critical environmental protections."

Some folks resorted to all caps.

"Regulations are PROTECTIONS. Please enforce all existing clean air and water protections and consider creating more," wrote Kristine Anstine.

"So here are my thoughts on doing away with existing EPA regulations, or doing away with the EPA itself: ARE YOU BLOODY CRAZY?????" wrote another.

One commenter simply wrote the word "No" over and over, 1,665 times.

The thousands of comments echoed those at a three-hour "virtual listening session" that the EPA held earlier this month, in which a litany of callers - some representing environmental groups, others who identified themselves as concerned citizens - urged the agency not to jettison protections for clean water and clean air in the name of reducing burdens on corporations.

Both the call-in session and the written comments included some input from those who argued that some EPA regulations are unnecessary or overly restrictive.

A paper mill operator in Washington state said rules lowering the allowed amount of a harmful chemical into rivers endangered his company, according to an Associated Press account of the call, which also noted that a municipal water plant manager asked that the agency start accepting required reports electronically, rather than by fax.

The written comments also include submissions from business leaders and industry groups, suggesting technical changes to certain rules or asking EPA to streamline reporting requirements. The Biotechnology Innovation Organization, for instance, urged the EPA to make changes to the way it implements the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and the development of biofuels. The Renewable Fuels Association wrote about regulations it argued "are stifling growth in ethanol production and demand, inhibiting job creation, imposing unnecessary costs on both industry and consumers, and preventing renewable fuels from reaching their full potential."

But the vast majority of comments, thousands upon thousands, echoed the sentiments of Jeff Baker, an investment strategist in Huntsville, Alabama.

"I'm well aware that excessive regulation can impose an undue burden on businesses both small and large. However, what is less discussed these days are the economic and societal costs already avoided and prevented by current rules," he wrote.

"I implore you, as defenders of our nation's health and security, to avoid shortsighted steps that might create prosperity for a few in the short term, at the expense of the many in the long term. The importance of clean air and water supplies, and of sustainable sources of energy and industrial raw materials, cannot be overemphasized in this day and age. These things are not, as many would claim, in conflict with mankind's economic prosperity, quality of life, and freedom; rather, they are critically important to them, and integrally tied to them over a long enough timeline."

The EPA has been among the main targets of the Trump administration, which has proposed cutting the agency's budget by 31 percent. Trump and the EPA's new leader, former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, also have taken aim at Obama-era environmental regulations that they have called unnecessary, overly burdensome or unlawful. Among them: the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States rule, which sought to define what waterways the federal government could regulate.

Pruitt himself also has shown an inclination to revisit existing regulations at the request of industry. The EPA agreed to reopen a review of the fuel economy standards that car companies must meet in the coming years, based on a request earlier this year from the nation's automakers. In March, the agency announced it was withdrawing a request that operators of existing oil and gas wells provide extensive information about their equipment and its emissions of methane, citing a letter sent by the attorneys general of several conservative and oil-producing states that the request was burdensome and costly. And Pruitt recently refused to ban a commonly used pesticide that the Obama administration had sought to outlaw based on mounting concerns about its risks to human health.

So what will come of the more than 55,100 comments that the agency received about its regulatory reforms?

The agency said the findings will be given to a task force that has been assembled. The group is required to submit a progress report to Pruitt about regulations it has identified in need of altering or replacing altogether.
Four fraternity brothers have pleaded guilty to lesser charges in the 2013 hazing death of Chun "Michael" Deng, an 18-year-old Baruch College student who died after suffering major brain trauma during a group ritual at a Poconos retreat.

The Monroe County (Pa.) district attorney's office said late Monday that Kenny Kwan, Charles Lai, Raymond Lam and Sheldon Wong pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter as accomplices and hindering apprehension for concealing evidence. Authorities said Deng, who was pledging Pi Delta Psi, was knocked unconscious during a ritual in December 2013.

"It's a long time coming," Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Metzger told NBC affiliate WBRE. "We've had this case now for almost three full years."

Attorneys for the four men could not immediately be reached for comment.

The fraternity brothers were taking part in an outdoor ritual they called the "glass ceiling," during which Deng was blindfolded and forced to wear a 30-pound backpack while others tackled him, causing blunt-force trauma to his head and chest, according to a statement from the district attorney's office.

"The object of the ritual is to get through a line of brothers while fraternity members shove and take the pledges down and resist the pledge from getting through the line," the Pocono Mountain Regional Police said in a statement in 2015. Police said that during the "brutal" game, Deng was beaten and "speared" during one tackle, and was eventually knocked to the ground, hitting his head and losing consciousness.

Metzger recently said in court that Kwan was the last to tackle Deng. "Mr. Deng did not stand up after that moment," Metzger said, according to the Associated Press.

Police said that after Deng passed out, members called the national fraternity president, who told them to hide fraternity items.

Deng was carried inside, where members changed his clothes and researched his symptoms on the Internet to try to determine his condition, police said. After more than an hour, Deng was still unconscious, police said. Fraternity members then took him to a hospital.

"Once police were contacted after an unresponsive Deng was brought to the hospital with significant injuries, brothers lied to police and concealed their knowledge of the function and the Fraternity link," according to the prosecutor's office.

Deng was put on life support, police said, and died of his injuries the next day.

Autopsy results showed that Deng suffered numerous blows to the body and blunt-force trauma to the head. There were "at least three clear impacts to the head" and a "massive bruise to the back" that caused "traumatic asphyxia," police said in 2015. "The delay in treatment of 1-2 hours significantly contributed to the death of Mr. Deng," police added.

After months of investigation, in 2015 a grand jury in Pennsylvania charged 37 people in connection with Deng's death. Four of them - Kwan, Lai, Lam and Wong, who now range in age from 24 to 28 - were charged with third-degree murder but have pleaded guilty to the lesser charges. Their sentencing is set for Dec. 4.

More than 30 other fraternity members, as well as the fraternity itself, are still awaiting trial.

"The family has waited a long time for this important development; nevertheless, nothing that happens will ever bring Michael back," Doug Fierberg, an attorney for the Deng family, said Tuesday morning. "They will continue to pursue justice until each and every one of these young men and the fraternity are held responsible for this tragedy."

The family said in a statement that "Michael was a devoted, bright and loving son, and nothing can undo or lessen the crushing heartbreak of losing our only child to fraternity hazing."

"Michael's death was absolutely preventable, and our family will, now and forever, do everything in our power to hold these men and their fraternity responsible," the family said. "We hope our work will contribute to ending hazing and save another family from suffering."
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With Independence Day seven weeks way, Plainview Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Linda Morris told Chamber directors $10,000 is still needed for this years 4th of July fireworks show.

To date we have about $4,000 in donations, she said at Tuesdays board meeting. Thats toward a total cost of $14,000. This is a community effort, and fully funded by donations from businesses and individuals. This years show will be the night of July 4.

The day will begin with the Fourth of July Freedom Parade at 10 a.m., forming at Centennial Bank before traveling north on Austin to Ninth, east to Broadway, and south to the courthouse.

When the parade ends, the Red, White and Moo Festival will begin outside the courthouse. Hosted by Hale County dairy families, it features free dairy products including milk, ice cream and cheese, music by the Plainview Symphony, games and food vendors. It runs 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The fireworks show begins at 9:45 p.m. in Runningwater Draw Regional Park. The community fireworks show has been a local tradition for more than 40 years, with the Chamber sponsoring it for the past two decades. Since 2014, Pyrotex, Inc., has staged the computerized pyrotechnics.

To help fund the show, tip jars decorated by residents of Westridge Manor will be placed at Amigos and United Supermarkets. We really need everyone to put in extra change because the Chamber cant do it alone, Morris said. Everyone needs to pitch in.

Brandon Ahrens reported the Chamber is planning a fall membership drive. It will be a friendly competition between the Chamber Board and Chamber. We need to grow our membership to have the resources to better serve the community.

Morris noted that the Chamber recently awarded 10 educational mini-grants to local educators. Some already have been implemented while others will be used this fall. The Chamber already has received several thank you notes from recipients.

Reporting on the second annual Lemonade Day on Saturday, Morris said 19 groups registered their booth with many others selling on their own. One booth has more than $600 in $600.

Hari Kotaiya, Ambassadors Committee chair, reminded the board of the upcoming Business After Hours June 22 at Rocket Aviation and Plainview/Hale County Airport. It will be held in conjunction with the Air Race Classic, an all-female air race from Frederick, Md., to Santa Fe, N.M. Plainview is the final stop before the finish line at Santa Fe.

Upcoming Ambassador Committee events include ribbon cuttings for the Royal Splash restaurant, arcade and beer and wine bar, 4000 N. I-27, 4 p.m. Friday, May 19; Radar Supports (student support and tutoring), 2807 W. Seventh, 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 24; Dr. Raja (Paresh K. Rajajoshiwala, M.D.), general surgeon, Covenant Hospital, 11 a.m. Friday, June 2; and Prairie View, rental venue behind Bartley Funeral Home, at 4 p.m. Thursday, June 30.

In her Main Street Update, Melinda Brown, director, reported that the recent Mark Barley Go Big or Go Home Barbecue weekend was successful and Regional Park has been reserved for 2018, when the American Cancer Society benefit will again be held the first weekend in May. A skating party to benefit the Blondes vs. Brunettes effort to raise funds for Alzheimers research will be at Crazy Skates, 921 Ash, 7 p.m. Friday. Cost is $8. RSVP will honor volunteers with a Fair movie night 6 p.m. Thursday, featuring Driving Miss Daisy. The Fairs summer childrens movie series begins 10 a.m. June 14, and continues each Wednesday. Plainview will host the annual Texas Plains Trail Tourism & Preservation Roundup on July 19-21. Operation Serve is Saturday, July 22. Finally, the city will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Leap of Faith Aug. 12.

Mike Fox, executive director of the Plainview/Hale County Economic Development Corp., reported on his recent activity. That includes a $10,000 grant to Plainview ISD to enhance career and technology programs at Plainview High and Ash High, including culinary arts, welding and Microsoft Office training. He said activity at the BNSF Logistics Center has increased in recent weeks and the Conrad Arms project is moving forward.

Bob Copeland, CEO of Covenant Health Plainview, reported that Mondays gas leak at Walmart Supercenter resulted in 16 patients being brought to the hospital for emergency treatment. The rapid influx of patients to the Emergency Room illustrated how well the entire hospital staff reacted to an external disaster situation. That process included transforming the Max Gabriel Room from classroom training into a treatment area complete with cots in just 10 minutes.

Copeland said physician recruitment continues. I probably spend 40 percent of my time recruiting doctors. Copeland is now recruiting one and possibly two pediatricians and an internist.
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers expressed shock and concern after learning that President Donald Trump had revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office last week, according to current and former U.S. officials.

"Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said of the Trump administration.

"The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes - it creates a worrisome environment," he said.

Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, according to the officials. The information Trump relayed, officials said, had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

The news created a sensation as it spread through Washington and up to Capitol Hill Monday, where senators were returning for evening votes.

"If the report is true, it is very disturbing," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement. "Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country. The President owes the intelligence community, the American people, and Congress a full explanation."

A spokesman for Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., emphasized the importance of safeguarding sensitive intelligence.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount. The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration," Ryan spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement.

The revelation came at a sensitive time for the president, who less than a week ago cited "this Russia thing with Trump" in explaining why he fired FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russia's interference with the 2016 election. Investigators are already probing possible coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, and the president has struggled to shake the issue as he tries to advance his legislative agenda.

The news is likely to raise questions on Capitol Hill about Trump's handling of classified information. It could also increase pressure on investigators looking into Trump's possible ties to the Kremlin.

And it could pull attention from Republicans' policy priorities this week. The Senate GOP is working to hammer out the details of a health-care plan, and the House is returning from a one-week break.

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee called the news a "slap in the face to the intel community."

"Risking sources and methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote on Twitter around 6 p.m.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the panel, said the report was of the "gravest possible concern."

"This kind of disclosure could harm national security by jeopardizing important sources of information needed to disrupt terrorist attacks," Wyden said in a statement.

As senators gathered for their first vote of the week, both Republicans and Democrats said they were worried about the developing story. The House was not in session Monday evening.

"Pretty terrifying," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. "If true, it is astonishing, appalling and should be investigated. It was astonishing and absolutely surprising. I would never have imagined the chief executive of our great nation would undertake that kind of disclosure."

"I would be concerned anytime we're discussing sensitive subjects with the Russians," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Thune reacted after an initial briefing on the news report and said he had not reviewed details.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a member of the Intelligence Committee, said he'd only heard the basics of the report but called them "very serious." He noted fewer than 25 senators are ever given access to the nation's most sensitive secrets and he learns things he "can't even talk about with other senators."

If the reports are true, "it's very damning, very damaging," Manchin said, adding that such disclosures "would be extremely dangerous and concerning to all."

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said had he just read the Post story and, "if true, that would be genuinely shocking."

"It's disturbing if true," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said.

Several senators said they did not know the details of the Post report, but called the news troubling nonetheless.

"This is not the appropriate move on his part, and I just think it's part of a pattern of recklessness that we've got to get a handle on," said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

"We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that. ... I think any president needs to be careful," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

About a dozen reporters continued to stake out a bipartisan health care meeting around 7 p.m., intent on asking questions about Trump. The scene was reminiscent of the prior week, when Capitol Hill was consumed by news of Comey's firing.

McCain, clearly flustered by reporters pressing for answers, walked off the Senate floor and said he hadn't read the reports, adding, "I can't comment on every breaking news story."

Later, he commented: "That's why it's classified. They have a reason to classify it, okay? And when they say its classified, if it was public knowledge, then it could hurt the national security of the United States. That's why we classify."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was silent as he walked from his office to the Senate floor. Asked how concerned he was about Trump sharing information with Russian officials, he looked straight ahead, offering no reaction.

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas, the Republican whip and a candidate to replace Comey as FBI director, said he didn't have "any information about that at all."

"I'm just not going to answer a hypothetical question," he told reporters.

---

The Washington Post's Sean Sullivan and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
A Marine Corps task force newly deployed to Afghanistan's most violent province could need additional troops or other resources, depending on what policy decisions that Washington and Kabul make for Afghanistan, said the top officer in the task force.

Brig. Gen. Roger Turner, asked in an interview whether he needs additional troops, said that his unit has enough "capabilities, capacities and authorities" for its mission but that if the mission grows, "then we're not going to have enough to do what we need to do." His terminology describes not only the number of troops his unit has but the kinds of operations they are trained to do and what rules they must follow.

The comments come as the Trump administration weighs adding several thousand U.S. troops across Afghanistan to the 8,400 present to boost the abilities of Afghan security forces, which have suffered thousands of fatalities in each of the past few years. President Trump is expected to make a decision on the plan this month, U.S. officials said.

Turner's unit, known as Task Force Southwest, numbers about 300 service members and replaced an Army unit named Task Force Forge on April 29. The new mission returns Marines to a part of Afghanistan where more than 20,000 were based in 2010 and 2011 at the height of a troop surge that included more than 100,000 U.S. troops across the country.

Helmand province has long been considered Afghanistan's most violent province and was the site of hundreds of Marine deaths between 2008 and 2014. Security across Helmand has continued to deteriorate on the whole since the Marines left - a point illustrated recently in March, when Afghan soldiers in Helmand's hotly contested Sangin district moved their base of operations out of the district's center after months of conflict with Taliban fighters.

The Marine task force's headquarters is at Camp Shorab, an Afghan base that was once the site of a sprawling Marine installation known as Camp Leatherneck. Thousands of Marines worked from there as combat troops fanned out across Helmand province in small formations, patrolling on a daily basis.

Turner, speaking from his headquarters Friday, said that none of his troops have seen any combat in their first few weeks deployed, but they are traveling from Camp Shorab regularly. Task force advisers also are based in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, and have already visited the headquarters of each brigade of Afghan troops with which the unit partnered.

"We're still seeing a lot of the same activity that we were seeing years ago from the Taliban. They are still scattering IEDs everywhere," the general said, referring to improvised explosive devices. "They still kind of indiscriminately target people. They arrest people, they put them in jails, and they extort their families and they extort the farmers for their poppy production and tax them. ... It's more of the same."

The task force assists the Afghan army's 215th Corps and Afghan police from the 505th Zone, which combine to provide security in Helmand. U.S. military officials say the advising comes at the "corps level," meaning it focuses primarily on advising upper echelons of Afghan leaders in the region. The Trump administration and the Afghan government are mulling the placement of more U.S. advisers alongside Afghan officers who lead smaller battalion-size formations.

Turner said the Marines returned to Helmand to find that some of the same Afghan military and police officials they worked with during the surge, which occurred from late 2009 to late 2014, are still influential. Significant territory in Helmand province was lost to the Taliban in 2016, but Turner said that his advisers have found that past work the U.S. military put into training Afghan forces has not been lost.

"I think maybe that's a narrative that's out there," he said. "That these forces have been completely degradated, and that's just not true. Some of their combat capability might be degraded, but everything is still there and if some of these issues are fixed, they can be back up to where they were in 2012, '13, '14."

Turner said that he has found that there are places where Afghan brigades are already capable and that adding U.S. advisers to the mix actually would be "step backwards." In other places, he said, it could be helpful. He cited issues such as paying soldiers and maintaining vehicles, both of which require coordination with the central government.

"It's really about understanding what tasks are coming down the Afghan chain," he said. "What are they being tasked to do by the [Interior Ministry] or [Defense Ministry] and the president of Afghanistan, what is their capability and capacity to accomplish those missions, and how can we support them in that?"
The first flight of NASA's expensive new deep-space rocket is going to be delayed again, and it won't have any astronauts aboard, the agency announced Friday. That decision comes after NASA and White House officials pondered an alternative plan to add two astronauts to the test flight in an attempt to do something dramatic in space during the current term of President Donald Trump.

Going without crew in that first test flight has been NASA's plan all along. The agency wanted to do a rigorous test flight of the new rocket, called the Space Launch System, and the new crew capsule, Orion, that pushed the hardware to its limits during a three-week lunar orbit. The agency had hoped to launch in 2018, with a crewed mission in 2021.

The election of Trump scrambled the picture. Soon after the inauguration, Trump political appointees showed up at NASA headquarters and met with the veteran civil servants running the agency and reviewed NASA's human spaceflight program. NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot soon announced that the agency would conduct a thorough review of the program to see if it would be possible to add two astronauts to the first test flight, then scheduled for late 2018.

On Friday, Lightfoot said the staffers doing the feasibility study had concluded that NASA should stick to its original idea.

"While it's technically feasible, they really reaffirmed that the baseline plan we had in place was the best way to go," Lightfoot said in a teleconference with reporters.

William Gerstenmaier, the top NASA official for human spaceflight, repeatedly emphasized that NASA wants a steady, sustainable program that involves building the infrastructure for decades of deep-space ventures not only for NASA but for the private sector.

"We're essentially building a multi-decadal infrastructure that allows us to move the human presence into the solar system," Gerstenmaier said.

This is not happening quickly. NASA does not operate with the kind of budgets available during the Apollo era. The agency has had some setbacks, including a tornado that seriously damaged the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in February. Earlier this month, as first reported by the blog NASA Watch, workers at Michoud accidentally damaged beyond repair a large dome that was to be part of a liquid oxygen fuel tank. "This was a significant event for us," Gerstenmaier said.

The first flight of the SLS was originally envisioned by Congress for 2016. On Friday, Lightfoot said that various delays in the program have pushed the first mission to 2019, with the exact timing still uncertain. Gerstenmaier noted that, after the first uncrewed mission, NASA will need about 33 months to revamp a mobile launcher at the NASA Kennedy Space Center to handle the second SLS mission, which will have additional hardware and stand 40 feet taller on the launchpad. That means it is very unlikely NASA will launch astronauts on the SLS before 2022.

Phil Larson, the space policy adviser in the Obama White House, said of this new delay in the rocket schedule, "This is something that I think a lot of people saw coming. I don't think too many people within NASA are shocked."

The commercial space sector - including SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, and Blue Origin, owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post) - is racing to develop its own rockets that are comparable in scale to the SLS.

"This really isn't about NASA vs. SpaceX, or NASA vs. Blue Origin, it's more about the past way of doing business vs. how do we run the government more like a business," Larson said.

The agency had considered adding two astronauts to the first SLS flight in an effort to respond to the clear desire of President Donald Trump and his aides for some kind of dramatic space mission, with astronauts, that could be achieved in the first term. Trump has made allusions to space exploration in speeches but has never spelled out exactly what he wants.

During a conversation recently with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Trump said he wanted to send astronauts to Mars in his first term, or by the end of his second term "at worst" - but the manner of his comment suggested that he was either joking or simply was speaking off the cuff with minimal grasp of the technical challenges of a Mars mission.

Lightfoot, asked about that comment, said of the White House, "They have not asked us to go to Mars by 2024."
NORWALK  Nathaniel Ely School was briefly placed on lockout Tuesday following a report of shots fired behind the building.

Multiple units responded to the school; however, officers found no evidence of a shooting, Lt. Terrence Blake, a police department spokesperson, said.
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NORWALK  From behind the shroud of smoke, 10 bodies donning bright orange space suits made their way into view.

Each crawled out of a large white space capsule, moved forward toward a mission control crew and stood proudly on stage with space helmet by their side.

The audience erupted in applause. The 10 returning astronauts faces lit up with smiles.

It had been 24 hours since 17 fifth-graders at Columbus Magnet School embarked on a simulated space mission A New Alliance to help a stranded space captain return home to her time and galaxy.

The mission, the team declared, had been a success.

So was the scene Friday morning at Columbus Magnet School, as a gym packed full of students, faculty, staff, community members and city and state dignitaries awaited the annual landing of the simulated Young Astronauts mission.

The event marked the 22nd year for the extracurricular program that uses a space exploration theme to expose students to STEM disciplines as well as build leadership and teamwork skills.

Students can opt to sign up for the program as first-graders at Columbus Magnet School and then spend the next five years completing activities to help them reach their ultimate goal of a successful mission in the fifth grade.

This years mission celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Star Wars franchise.

The Young Astronauts were called to help Capt. Jaira Anaro, a Rebel Alliance X-Winger fighter, who had passed through a wormhole and made an emergency landing on the Earths moon with a damaged R2-unit that disabled her from returning home.

Throughout the school year, the Young Astronauts performed scientific inquiries through a series of experiments and activities. They underwent team-based STEAM lessons, including aerodynamics, payload delivery, re-entry, structural engineering, robotics, encryption, decoding and weekly physical training.

They sent Anaro life-support and supplies while they developed plans to send a capsule into the moons orbit and eventually stage a moon landing to replace the damaged R2-unit.

At Fridays landing ceremony, Norwalk Mayor Harry W. Rilling gave opening remarks.

This is a program unlike any other program I can imagine in any school anyplace, Rilling said.

State dignitaries gave remarks about the importance of the event, including statements from state Reps. Terrie Wood, R-Norwalk, Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, Fred Wilms, R-Norwalk, along with State Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.

Priyanka Cholleti was the final speaker. Cholleti was a Young Astronaut 17 years ago and said her experience inspired her to go on to work at NASA.

I remember when I was in your shoes 17 years ago. It changed my life, she said. After the program I remember telling my mom, I dont care if Im a janitor at NASA, I want to work at NASA. The program really inspired me to do things that I never knew I could or wanted to do. ...

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049;

@kevinedschultz
In honor of Senior Corps Week on May 15-19, 2017, we salute our many volunteers who give of their time, talents, wisdom and experience. Each of our communities are grateful for the positive difference that you make throughout our region. In one year throughout the nation, 245,000 Senior Corps volunteers served 74 million hours making a difference for generations.

Last year, Texas Senior Corps volunteers provided 4,332,244 hours to improve our communities. The independent sector values volunteer time at the rate of $25.11 per hour. Texas Senior Corps volunteers contributed more than $107,782,646 of service throughout the State of Texas.
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PIGEON  Police were involved in a standoff into the early morning hours Tuesday in the village of Pigeon.

The incident began around 6:30 p.m. Monday, when police were called to the scene on South Main Street near the VFW hall for a report of a man pulling a gun on a neighbor before going back into his own home.

"By the time we got there, he was inside the house," said Pigeon Police Chief Eric Wissner. "We knew he had the gun inside the house, so that's where the standoff started."

Jessica McBride, a Pigeon resident and next door neighbor of where the standoff occurred, referred to the incident as "scary."

"We couldn't see too much because we couldn't get close enough," McBride told the Tribune. "... The cops were using my porch as a shield."

McBride said she was on her way home from a youth softball game and a family member informed her of police surrounding her house.

"We didn't know what was going on," she said, adding the roads were blocked off at 8 p.m. so she wasn't able to get near the scene.

McBride and her family were able to stay at her in-laws house, which was nearby, until they could gain access to their home at 2 a.m.

"From what we saw, they (police) had it under control," McBride said.

At this time, police are unsure why the man pulled the gun on his neighbor. Wissner said he doesn't believe the neighbor had ever talked to the suspect before.

After clearing the nearby scene, officers attempted to get the suspect to exit his home. He eventually surrendered himself around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. No shots were fired and no injuries were sustained in the standoff.

Wissner said the suspect was taken to Scheurer Hospital for evaluation and is waiting to be medically cleared. Charges will be sought through the Huron County Prosecutor's Office.

Pigeon police were assisted by the Huron County Sheriff's Office, Michigan State Police, Elkton Police Department and Winsor Township Fire Department.
WASHINGTON - House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., has learned he can't alienate powerful conservative groups if he ultimately wants to help enact an Obamacare overhaul.

And that's a key lesson that Senate Republicans would do well to learn as they craft their own version of a health-care measure in the coming weeks. And it's a mistake that Ryan won't likely make if and when a new bill comes back to the lower chamber for House Republicans to approve.

Betrayed is probably a good word to describe how conservative activist organizations like FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity and Heritage Action felt earlier this year. As Ryan guided the writing of a health-care revamp they'd demanded for years, they say he didn't check in to see how they felt about it.

To be fair, lower-level staff for Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., -- Ryan's third-in-command -- did host a half dozen meetings for leaders of such groups between the November election and when the House GOP leadership rolled out its bill in early March, where leadership explained the policies being crafted. But attendees say the discussions were one-sided, and that they never got many real details on exactly what the final bill would say.

Furthermore, efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act were taking much longer than activist groups wanted. They'd pinned their hopes for quick action against Obamacare on Trump's promise to sign a bill his first day in office. It was their top issue, a part of President Barack Obama's legacy they'd hammered for years and targeted with millions of dollars in advertising.

Still, these powerful outside groups mostly held their fire through January and then February, as the weeks passed with no health-care bill from House leadership. They didn't hold news conferences demanding Ryan and company hurry up, or run ads pressuring Congress to vote on health care. The intention was to give Ryan some space and time to get legislation written.

But when Ryan and his leadership team rolled out their bill on March 6, all bets were off.

All four groups sharply criticized the American Health Care Act for retaining many of the Obamacare provisions they hated. Heritage Action President Mike Needham called it "bad politics" and "bad policy." FreedomWorks accused Republicans of crafting their own individual mandate (by allowing insurers to charge more to people not continuously covered). Americans for Prosperity said Ryan should try again. Club for Growth threatened a downgrade to members who voted for it on their scorecards, which rate voting records.

FreedomWorks tweeted: Section 133 of @HouseCommerce version of leadership's #ObamaCare bill contains the Republican Individual Mandate.

---

Opposition to the measure surged in the ensuing weeks, culminating on a dramatic Friday at the end of March, when House leadership abruptly canceled a planned vote on their bill amid eroding support. It turns out that the House leadership had not obtained buy-in from the activist groups their most conservative members fear, and that was a crucial error.

"Up until the bill was pulled from the floor and they realized they didn't have the votes for it, there was really not substantial contact at all from the leadership office or different committee offices," David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth, told me.

But things seem to have changed since then. FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon and his legislative affairs director, Jason Pye, met one-on-one with the speaker in his Capitol Hill office on April 26. A week later, Pye says he received a handwritten note from Ryan himself.

"It was a very nice note saying he's glad we opened the lines of communication," Pye told me.

Tim Phillips, president of the powerful Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, said communication with Ryan's office has been "far better" in recent weeks. He too met with the speaker and his policy team after the March meltdown, as did McIntosh.

The groups are generally still wary of the House bill. But they switched their positions to neutral after it was amended to give states waivers for opting out of many of the ACAs insurer regulations. McIntosh says that was a key moment because leadership reached out during the negotiation process to gauge how his group felt about it.

"When they were working out the waivers, we communicated to them we were able to support that compromise," McIntosh said. "I think that developed some better channels of communication."

Within days, House leaders had finally gathered enough votes to pass their American Health Care Act. Now the ball's in the Senate's court, where conservative groups are pressing for a harder line measure that eliminates Obamacare's Medicaid expansion faster or allows insurance to be sold across state lines.

Phillips told me that if Senate Republicans wrote a bill ending extra federal dollars for Medicaid expansion two years earlier than in the House bill -- moving it up from 2018 to 2020 -- AFP would view that as a "major improvement."

"That's a big one, and we think it's a reasonable request," Phillips said.

But Ryan and his leadership lieutenants are hardly off the hook. They will have to depend on Republicans to muscle through any health-care measure and the clout of outside conservative groups could make a big difference in whether that happens.

If the Senate manages to pass its own health bill, a compromise would then have to be hammered out with the House. So there will still be pressure for House GOP leaders to get conservative activists on board and to avoid another backlash like the one they just weathered. They seem to be going a different route this time -- the groups say Ryan staffers have scheduled three meetings this month and the next with them. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said she's "not familiar" with those meetings but added "we meet with conservative groups regularly and this wouldn't be anything new if there are meetings."

"I think they learned their lesson that they need to have everybody on board," McIntosh said. The lesson could also be applied to other big legislative fights coming down the pike -- the groups say House leadership has told him they want to engage the groups "early on" as they approach a tax rewrite.

"It's a smart thing for them to do when they want to pass it with only Republican votes," said McIntosh. "They need to make sure the whole coalition comes together."
WASHINGTON - The White House offered shifting explanations for President Donald Trump's disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian diplomats last week, a scattered defense that began with an early-morning Trump tweet that he had the "absolute right" to share "facts."

Administration officials went from denouncing the Washington Post article as "false" to either confirming or declining to challenge nearly every key aspect of the account, which described how Trump's sharing of sensitive details about a terrorist plot jeopardized access to a stream of intelligence from a critical U.S. ally.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia . . . which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety," Trump said in two postings to his Twitter account, the first at 7 a.m. He then shifted the focus from his conduct to prod the FBI "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community."

Trump also enlisted his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, to help contain the fallout from the latest damaging revelations about the administration's relationship with Russia. Trump revealed the classified intelligence in a White House meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador one day after firing FBI Director James Comey over frustration with the bureau's investigation of any ties between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, McMaster refused to say whether Trump had shared classified information with the representatives from Moscow, falling back on a refrain that Trump's disclosures were "wholly appropriate."

"What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged," McMaster said. "It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. That's what he did."

McMaster did not explain how sharing classified information with Russian officials advanced U.S. interests. The long-standing adversaries sometimes alert one another to security threats, but otherwise engage in little if any intelligence cooperation. Indeed, U.S. spy agencies earlier this year concluded that their Russian counterparts engaged in an unprecedented covert influence campaign to upend the 2016 presidential election.

Current and former U.S. officials said that Trump went well beyond outlining basic threat information in his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump described steps the Islamic State was taking to pursue a plot involving the use of laptop computers on civilian aircraft, officials said. He discussed measures the United States has taken to suppress the threat, including military operations in Syria. Trump also identified the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. ally had been monitoring the plot through a valuable and ongoing stream of intelligence.

Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," according to one current U.S. official.

Trump did not identify the particular method of intelligence gathering employed in the operation or the partner nation. But officials cited concern that Moscow emerged from the meeting with clues that Russian spy agencies could use to zero in on the U.S. ally's sources and methods.

The Washington Post withheld details about the intelligence-sharing arrangement and plot at the request of White House officials, who cited concern over national security. By Tuesday, however, the New York Times and other news organizations identified the partner country as Israel.

Israel has in the past complained about the United States' inability to safeguard secrets. In a statement, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said that despite the disclosures, "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump."

The disclosures about the Oval Office meeting came as Trump prepares for his first foreign trip - a multi-stop itinerary that will take him to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bethlehem in the West Bank, and the Vatican, as well as Brussels for European Union and NATO meetings and back to Italy for a gathering of the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies. White House officials had hoped the trip would distract from some of the political turmoil in Washington, but it is now likely to be dogged by close scrutiny of Trump's performance in multiple foreign settings and how allies react to him.

On Capitol Hill, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressed concern and alarm about the president's sensitive disclosures to the Russians.

"As an intelligence officer by training, I know firsthand the life and death implications of safeguarding classified information," Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., a freshman lawmaker and former Marine intelligence officer, tweeted Tuesday. "Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed," he wrote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pleaded for "less drama" from the White House.

Democrats, who had been demanding that Trump turn over any tapes of his conversations with Comey, broadened their requests to include transcripts of his meeting with the Russians.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump should release the alleged transcript "if [he] has nothing to hide."

"Until the administration fully explains the facts of this case, the American people will rightly doubt if their president can handle our nation's most closely kept secrets," Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

McMaster sought to play down the significance of Trump's disclosures during a briefing at the White House. But when pressed on specifics, McMaster confirmed certain essential aspects of the story and refused to address others.

He retreated from his initial assertion Monday evening that the Post article was "false," saying that his remark applied only to its "premise."

He refused to answer whether Trump had revealed classified information, saying that "we don't say what's classified"; acknowledged that Trump had wandered off script during the meeting; and confirmed that Trump had mentioned the city where the U.S. intelligence partner saw the threat emerging.

At one point, McMaster said that the information Trump revealed "was nothing that you would not know from open-source reporting." But that raised the question of why his own aides had felt it necessary to place calls to the leaders of the CIA and National Security Agency to alert them to what Trump had disclosed.

At first McMaster said that his subordinates may have done so "from an overabundance of precaution," but he then said he couldn't be sure because he had not spoken with the subordinate who had made the calls, Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Finally, McMaster said that Trump "wasn't even aware of where this information came from," a comment intended to reinforce that the president couldn't have revealed the source but one that left open the question of why Trump had been kept in the dark on that detail.

Later in the day, following a meeting with the Turkish president, Trump responded to a shouted question about his interaction with the Russians last week, casting a rosier picture of the potential partnership between the two nations than even many of his own advisers think is realistic.

"We had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia - our fight is against ISIS," the president said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. "So we're going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years, and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible, and that's one of the beautiful things that's happening with Turkey. The relationship that we have together, we'll be unbeatable."

---

The Washington Post's William Booth, David Nakamura and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump defended wanting to share terrorism intelligence with Russian officials in a White House meeting last week, saying he has the "absolute right" to do so.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," he said in a series of tweets on Tuesday. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

Trump's messages came after his top foreign policy advisers raced to contain political damage from a Washington Post report that the president revealed to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador highly classified information from a U.S. intelligence partner about an Islamic State plot. Trump was already fending off questions about his firing of FBI Director James Comey amid an investigation of possible collusion by Trump associates in Russian interference with the U.S. election.

The "story that came out tonight as reported is false," White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said at a hastily arranged appearance outside the White House on Monday. "At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

"I was in the room. It didn't happen," McMaster said in a statement that lasted less than a minute. He left without taking questions.

According to the Post, the intelligence involved information about an Islamic State plot to use laptop computers as possible weapons aboard commercial aircraft and had been provided by a U.S. ally with access to the inner workings of the terrorist group. Trump's admission that he shared information with the Russians raised questions about the right of the president to release sensitive intelligence, even classified information.

"Presidents have often revealed, on their own authority (and sometimes inadvertently), secrets about collection capabilities that the Intelligence Community would have preferred to have kept secret, because such exposure tends to make such collection more difficult," Nicholas Dujmovic, a Catholic University professor who spent more than 25 years at the CIA, said in an email.

U.S. presidents including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan have either intentionally or inadvertently released classified information about surveillance capabilities and information that was captured, he said.

"Presidents can do this; in a sense, they 'own' US secrets," he said. "But in a larger sense, they are the custodians of the secrets that need to be kept for the sake of U.S. national security."

The Post cited unnamed current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the exchange, who said they recognized that it jeopardized intelligence capabilities. The Post said homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Thomas Bossert called the directors of the CIA and the National Security Agency afterward. One of his subordinates called for that portion of the discussion stricken from internal memos and circulation of a transcript limited to prevent sensitive details from being further distributed, the newspaper said.

The intelligence was held by the U.S. at one of the highest classification levels that would typically prevent it from being shared even with allies, according to the Post. While Trump didn't reveal the specific methods that developed the information or sources, he described elements of a specific plot and the city in Islamic State's territory where the threat was detected, the Post said.

That specific information could be enough to let the Russians identify the source and method, according to one intelligence official cited by the Post.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova ridiculed the Post report Tuesday, writing on Facebook that American newspapers "can be used for other things but there's no need to read them -- in recent times it's not only harmful but dangerous."

The revelation may have additional peril for Trump because during his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton last year, he repeatedly assailed her "careless" use of a private email system while she was secretary of state, a practice he argued could have exposed classified information. He claimed it made her unfit for the presidency. Surrogates at his campaign rallies led chants of "lock her up!"

Top lawmakers of both parties, while saying they weren't able to comment on the substance of the report, said it raised new questions about the administration.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

"The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order," Republican Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters at the Capitol. "Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening."

Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services panel, said sharing information without the permission of a foreign intelligence partner "violates a cardinal rule" of dealing with friendly agencies.

"If it's accurate, it's disturbing because it's divulging information about operations in Syria which could be exploited not only by the Russians to interrupt intelligence operations that they feel are threatening to them," Reed said.

The intelligence involved may be behind the U.S. announcement on March 21 that electronic devices larger than smartphones would be banned from cabins on flights originating from 10 airports in the Middle East and Africa. The Department of Homeland Security has been considering expanding the restriction to flights from Europe.

The president has broad authority to declassify information so it's not likely he broke the law, according to the Post, even though he shared it with a U.S. adversary.

Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak one day after firing Comey, who was leading an investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russian agents trying to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.

Trump has denied any connection to Russia while also questioning the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that the government in Moscow directed a campaign of hacking and disinformation to disrupt the election.

---

Bloomberg's Laura Litvan, Steven T. Dennis, Jennifer Epstein, Stepan Kravchenko and Nafeesa Syeed contributed.
Facing escalating civil unrest, the government of Venezuela has finally come up with a response: a call for a constituent assembly. For President Nicolas Maduro, this is the way to restore peace. Most likely, it will produce the opposite: more unrest.

A constituent assembly is the name given to a body of individuals charged with drafting a new constitution. The key question is: What kind of constitutions do these assemblies produce?

Constitutions regulate a number of issues in public life, and they differ in the variety of subjects they treat (the general rule is that the more recent, the larger the number of issues treated). But a universal aspect of all constitutions - in democracies and non-democracies - is codifying the powers of the president.

Some constituent assemblies are strict: They produce constitutions with more checks and balances on the executive branch than those they replace. Others are lax: They yield more concentration of power in the presidency.

Maduro's call for a constituent assembly is expressly designed to minimize representation outside of the ruling party. This reason alone will inevitably lead to a final text with far fewer checks and balances.

A constituent assembly is one of several ways of changing constitutions. Other forms include acts of parliament, amendments, special commissions or presidential fiat. Constituent assemblies typically consist of bodies selected to ensure representation, and receive ample powers to change the entire text. The most famous example is, of course, the French National Assembly of 1789; some would argue that another is the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.

In contemporary times, representative constituent assemblies are not that frequent. Only 19 of the 119 constitutions that have emerged since the 1980s were born through representative constituent assemblies.

Latin America is an exception. Representative constituent assemblies have actually been quite common, accounting for 10 of the 19 constituent assemblies worldwide since 1980. Scholars (and supporters) describe them as "participatory," because all relied not just on universal suffrage to elect delegates, but also because the resulting texts offered new rights to new constituencies, such as minorities, indigenous groups and women.

Where these Latin American constitutions differ is in terms of presidential powers. Three Latin American constituent assemblies expanded presidential powers relative to their predecessor: Peru in 1993, Venezuela in 1999 and Ecuador in 2008. Three hardly changed powers: Brazil in 1988, Argentina in 1994 and Bolivia in 2009. And the others reduced presidential powers significantly: Nicaragua in 1987, Colombia in 1991, Paraguay in 1992 and Ecuador in 1998.

My research on these constitutions shows that the variable that most predicts this difference is the power advantage enjoyed by the ruling party. Under greater power asymmetry - in which the incumbent president's allies hold far more seats than the opposition - total presidential powers expand. Where power is less asymmetrical - i.e., the incumbent's delegates have equal or fewer seats than the opposition - net presidential powers stay stable or even shrink.

The reason for this outcome has to do with self-dealing, the theory that actors will seek to maximize the power of the offices that they control. Incumbent presidents generally approach constitution-making with the idea of expanding powers of the presidency. They might grant powers to other institutions and actors, but only if forced to yield. The one set of actors most likely to force yielding are opposition parties.

What we know so far suggests that the opposition's presence in his dreamed assembly will be minimal. He has said that half the 500 delegates will be elected indirectly, by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) officially recognized by the state. The government will not allow political parties to participate. The other half will be elected through a system, still to be determined, based on granting equal representation to Venezuela's 23 states and one federal district, despite major differences in population size.

This selection rule undermines representativeness in several ways. First, the "groups" entitled to vote are all loyalists - in Venezuela, the state only recognizes NGOs that are loyalist - whose leaders are seldom elected democratically. Second, a ban on opposition parties constitutes a serious violation of the concept of free elections. Third, the system to determine seats by states will give greater representation to rural, underpopulated areas, which is where Chavismo - the movement named after the late Hugo Chavez and behind Maduro - is stronger.

Overall, this plan will inevitably give the president a power advantage at the assembly, and will give the opposition almost no capacity to organize the vote due to restrictions on the activities of political parties.

To compound this advantage, it's not clear whether Maduro will seek voter approval to convoke and ratify the process via referendums, as the constitution mandates. Most likely, Maduro will use the constituent assembly to avoid holding elections for state office. He is desperate to avoid elections because polls indicate that he and his party, with approval

Power asymmetry is of course not the only factor that shapes constitutional texts. One element is context, or triggering factors. When constitutions are designed during economic crises, for instance, the constitution is likely to deliver more formal powers to the presidency. Another factor is the structure of the ruling party: Where the ruling party depends entirely on its leader (or has a short history of holding presidents accountable), it is unlikely to check the president's desire to accumulate power.

Venezuela has both these risks. It is in the midst of the gravest economic crisis in the world, and Maduro's ruling party, the PSUV, is already so leader-dependent that some have called it sovietized.

But if Maduro already holds so much de facto autocratic power, why bother with a new constitution? Political scientists Michael Albertus and Victor Menaldo help answer this question. They argue that dictators create constitutions ("act as founding fathers") not only to give powers to themselves, but to give power to "launching organizations." These are the groups responsible for ensuring a dictator's survival, such as the military or cronies. When there is uncertainty about the dictator's future, both the autocrat and the launching organizations will seek a constitution to grant protections to one another - and not necessarily to citizens at large.

Overall, Venezuela meets four conditions for a constitutional process that will lead to greater autocracy: a pro-incumbent selection rule; an economic crisis; a rubber-stamp ruling party; and a dictator facing uncertain prospects in office.

Why does this matter? Constitutions hold the promise of lessening conflict, which Venezuela badly needs, but only if they expand power-sharing. As John Carey showed, more "inclusive" constitution-making can even yield more democracy. Maduro's plan for a constituent assembly will do the opposite. The opposition knows it and for that reason, it has responded by rejecting the proposal and calling for more street protests, now in their second month.

Maduro may still go ahead with his plans. If he does, the resulting constitution is unlikely to restore democracy or abate the worst civil strife Latin America has seen in decades.

---

Corrales is Dwight W. Morrow 1895 professor of political science at Amherst College. His book "Fixing Democracy: Constituent Assemblies and Presidential Powers in Latin America" is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Find him on Twitter @jcorrales2011.
In response to a Ku Klux Klan-like protest over plans to remove a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello wrote on Twitter, "Get your white supremacist hate out of my hometown."

The Democrat's denunciation was commendable. But his response makes the protesters seem like bothersome gnats that can easily be swatted away.

That doesn't come close. White supremacy in America is an all-encompassing system designed to keep economic and political power in the hands of those at the top. The Confederate sympathizers were merely pawns, useful idiots manipulated into blaming blacks and immigrants of color for their woes. Their use of torches only added to the theatrics.

Here's what white supremacy really looks like:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions gearing up for another "war on crime." But first, he has to manufacture enough fear of people of color. He recently tried by declaring, falsely, that New York "continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the city's 'soft on crime' stance."

Sessions threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal grants from the city's police department if the city didn't start turning in undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.

In other words, if New York doesn't have a crime problem now, Sessions would cut police funding until it did have one.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, citing the city's low crime rate, called Sessions's remarks "outrageous" and "pitiful." Sessions later conceded that New York police had created "some of the best" techniques for fighting crime.

But that's not the end of it.

Under the Trump administration, local police departments are slated to get more powerful weaponry and expanded powers to use them. Corporate prison complexes could see an increase in profits if Sessions's push to bring back mandatory minimum sentences moves forward. Rural communities in majority white areas will get new prisons - along with jobs overseeing a veritable plantation of mostly black and Hispanic inmates.

The judiciary is a key component in the maintenance of this system. Police are rarely charged for fatally shooting someone while on duty. According to an analysis by The Washington Post and researchers at Bowling Green State University, 54 officers faced charges for such shootings between 2005 and 2015, a fraction of the fatal police shootings that occurred across the country in that time. The majority of the officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted, The Post found.

The Post also reported: "Among the officers charged since 2005 for fatal shootings, more than three-quarters were white. Two-thirds of their victims were minorities, all but two of them black."

It is as if the vision of Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who recently declared that white "culture and demographics are our destiny," are coming true. In effect, black and brown lives do not matter.

And with voting rights under attack, the chances of getting elected officials who might take a stronger stance for justice becomes slimmer by the year.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that North Carolina legislators had acted "with almost surgical precision" to blunt the influence of black voters. But Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. made clear in a separate opinion that the ruling did not mean that court was taking a stand for or against the actions. Encouraged by the high court's statement, the legislators have vowed to keep at their obstructionist ways.

President Trump, having fermented fears of "Mexican rapists" during his campaign, announced Monday that he was cracking down on a Mexican gang. "MS-13 is going to be gone from our streets very soon, believe me," he said, during a ceremony for slain police officers. "When policing is reduced, it's often the poorest and most vulnerable Americans who are the first to suffer. We have all seen the tragic rise in violence and crimes in many of our disadvantaged communities."

But Trump offered no plan for dealing with that disadvantage. Nothing about more jobs or affordable housing. Not better health care - just more police officers with bigger guns.

No need for the white protesters to wave Confederate flags and chant "white power." Trump and Sessions know how to placate them by attacking black freedoms.

As for Perriello's desire to banish the bigots: Sorry, Tom. You might be able to get the white supremacists out of your home town, but you can't get your hometown out of America.
WASHINGTON - It's hard to imagine describing Senate majority whip as a dead-end job. You're the No. 2 member of Republican leadership, so important that you get a security detail, an office suite just off the Senate floor and invitations to top meetings at the White House.

Yet increasingly, that position has become the last stop on the leadership ladder because of a quirk in the internal rules of Senate Republicans. It's a small but critical distinction now echoing through Washington as President Donald Trump seeks to find a new director of the FBI who will oversee the counterintelligence investigation into Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the only person in GOP leadership not to face a limit on the number of terms he can serve in that top post. From the least powerful committee chairmen's gavel to the highly influential majority whip post, Republicans otherwise impose on their leaders a limit of three two-year terms .

So now, faced with his own limit at the end of next year, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is considering leaving behind his whip job to become director of the FBI, having interviewed with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the weekend for the position.

The former Texas attorney general, a member of the Judiciary Committee since winning a Senate seat in 2002, is not merely looking for another top perch because he is effectively topped out in the Senate. Those who know him point to his close friendship with Sessions and a genuine wish to try to calm the ranks at the FBI following Trump's firing last week of James Comey.

On Monday, Cornyn declined to comment on speculation, even as colleagues rushed to his side during a vote to chat him up about the prospect. "I'm not really talking about that today," Cornyn told reporters.

But Cornyn's long-term ambition is no secret: majority leader.

For more than a decade Cornyn has taken the tough jobs that other senators don't want, the sorts of tasks that earn credit with colleagues and help line up support for internal leadership races in the future. Cornyn served a stint atop the ethics committee, he served four years in the grueling job of campaign chairman and, since January 2013, he has been Republican whip - a sometimes tedious job that requires plenty of time on the Senate floor, jousting with Democrats.

Less than two weeks ago, Cornyn acknowledged to Politico that succeeding McConnell was a long-time goal, calling it "something I would be interested in doing."

But he also has no plans to challenge McConnell, who remains popular among Republicans. "He enjoys the broad support of our conference. And so I think a lot depends on what his decision is going to be," Cornyn told Politico.

An additional factor is that a number of Republicans - including McConnell - have hinted that they would like to see someone else, perhaps someone out of politics, succeed Comey at the FBI. Whether that sentiment plays a role probably depends on how much Cornyn wants the job - and how much Trump wants him for it.

If Cornyn does leave the Senate, it should not come as much of a surprise.

Three of the last four Republican whips have surveyed the Senate scenery and decided to retire, heading for lobbying riches on K Street rather than returning to life among the rank-and-file. The most recent example was Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a popular policy wonk among conservatives who, after five years as whip, retired from the Senate at the end of 2012.

Kyl could have served two more years as whip, but that would have required running for another six-year term to represent Arizona, leaving him out of leadership for the final four years of another term. He instead retired and joined Covington & Burling as a lobbyist.

Over the last 20 years, McConnell is the only Republican whip who ascended to the top leadership post. That's because he had the good fortune of taking that job when Bill Frist, R-Tenn., became majority leader and announced he would only serve four years atop the GOP caucus, then retire at the end of 2006.

Now, after more than a decade as Republican leader, McConnell is sending signals that he will run for re-election in 2020, when he will turn 78. Next year McConnell will become the longest serving Republican leader; if Kentucky voters and his colleagues kept re-electing him, he would surpass Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., in 2023 as the longest-serving leader ever.

No one knows if McConnell would willingly step aside at some point, allowing Cornyn and other junior Republicans to run for the position. McConnell's autobiography, after all, is titled "The Long Game."

Mitch McConnell likes what President Trump is doing - but not what he's tweeting

That Cornyn faces a term limit, and McConnell does not, is almost an accident of history. Back in 1995, after winning the majority, a group of young turks challenged the seniority of the committee chairmen after one of them, moderate Republican Mark Hatfield, Ore., bucked the party by voting against the constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.

A task force, led by then-Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., recommended imposing term limits of six years as committee chairman. The "old bulls" fought back and said if they had to face a limit, then leadership posts should also. "This is jamming us into a pup tent," Sen. John Chafee, R-R.I., a leading moderate, told The Washington Post at the time.

Republicans later voted to impose limits on every post - except leader, given that their majority leader at that point,Bob Dole, R-Kan., had already been running the caucus for almost 10 years.

On Bloomberg TV Tuesday morning, McConnell said that he has recommended Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, be the new FBI director. This is a signal that he believes Trump needs to pick a non-politician for such a sensitive post, not Cornyn.

If Trump takes McConnell's advice, that would close off another door for Cornyn, leaving him with no soft landing in 2019. It wouldn't be the first time a Republican whip was left off the leadership ladder.
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Midland Christian School senior Austin Hunter has been honored by the Midland Downtown Lions Club. He is the son of Terry and Debra Hunter.

He student body president and is a member of the Apologetics Club .

He attends Stonegate Fellowship and is on the youth leadership team.

Hunter plans to attend Midland College and then transfer to University of Texas and major in government and economics.

* * *

Lee High School senior Brady Richardson has been honored by the Midland Downtown Lions Club. She is the daughter of Cindy Richardson and Jamie and Rose Richardson.

She is a member of the National Honor Society and volleyball team, is president of PALs and the volleyball team and is a member of All-District and All-State academic teams.

She attends Stonegate Fellowship.

Richardson plans to attend the University of Missouri and major in education and psychology.

* * *

Midland Classical Academy senior Ally Scott has been honored by the Midland Downtown Lions Club. She is the daughter of Tom and Cathy Scott.

She is a member of the volleyball team and participates in Round Table Leadership.

She attends First Baptist Church.

Scott plans to attend Texas A&M University and major in chemical/biochemical engineering.

* * *

Midland High School senior Abigail Thacher has been honored by the Midland Downtown Lions Club. She is the daughter of Daniel and Priscilla Thacher.

She is a member of the Student Council and academic decathlon team, is vice president of the National Honor Society and president of the Latin Club. She is an AP Scholar.

She attends Redeemer Church.

Thacher plans to attend the University of Texas and study anthropology and linguistics.

* * *

SEARCY, Ark. -- Midlanders Maxwell Humphries and Bailey Warpula were named to the Deans List for the spring semester at Harding University.

To be eligible, students must maintain a GPA of at least 3.65.
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Two Texas cities are alleged to be the "most dangerous" cities in Texas, according to a ranking of the top 30 cities in America with the highest rates of violent crime and property crime.

The ranking, based on FBI data, was compiled by home security website SafeWise.com.

RELATED: Report: 2 San Antonio-area suburbs ranked among top 25 safest in Texas

Bellmead, Texas, which is located northeast of Waco, was No. 10, with 10.15 violent crimes per 1,000 people and 110.55 property crimes per 1,000.

Humble is No. 12 on the list, with 9.53 violent crimes per 1,000 in population, and 107.54 property crimes per 1,000.

PACKING HEAT: Texas is so heavily armed, people even try to carry guns on planes

And the most dangerous city in America? That dubious title goes to Emeryville, California, with 13.25 violent crimes per 1,000 and 172.92 property crimes per 1,000.

How do these numbers compare to other places in Texas? Click through the slideshow for violent crime rates in 19 other Texas cities.

SafeWise says cities with fewer than 10,000 people are not included in this report.

Those who live in Bellmead and Humble need not worry a great deal, the website says.

"Our ranking of the most dangerous cities in America are based on both violent and property crime per capita. For the most part, the chances of you being the victim of a crime are not high in most communities, even the ones on this list."
A 44-year-old Air Force colonel arrested in Panama City Beach for allegedly trying to have sex with a teen boy was wearing a San Antonio CrossFit shirt at the time of his arrest.

Michael Shawn Garrett was charged with traveling to meet a minor for sex, solicitation of a minor for sex and unlawful use of a two-way communication device, the Panama City Beach Police Department announced on Facebook Monday.
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The search of Fredericksburg High School concluded without any type of explosive device being discovered, Police Chief Steve Wetz said shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Right now we dont know what the reason was for it, he said of the apparent hoax.

No suspect was immediately identified.

Classes will resume Wednesday as police continue their investigation into the incident.

San Antonio Police officers with bomb-sniffing dogs assisted Fredericksburg police, firefighters and school personnel in checking the campus.

RELATED: NEISD: Johnson HS freshman arrested for making 'terroristic threat' on Snapchat

We didnt find anything, Wetz said.

Fredericksburg police received the call at 10:41 a.m. Tuesday after a student received a text message from an unknown suspect stating that a device was in the school.

A school official said the bomb threat came via Snapchat.

The entire study body of Fredericksburg High School, along with faculty, staff and administrators, were promptly evacuated and the nearby elementary school was put on lockdown.

There are nearly 1,000 students enrolled at the high school in grades nine-12 as of October, according to the Texas Education Agency.

RELATED: Second bomb threat at UTSA main campus

Area residents said heavily armed police wearing body armor and helmets were around the school, closing off all streets leading to the campus as well as Texas 16, which runs right in front of the school.

One resident, who asked not to be identified, said he had passed by the school at about 11:30 a.m.

I didnt know what was going on, but they had it sealed up pretty tight, the man said. It was obvious they were taking it very seriously.

Construction workers that were on site for a campus building project also were evacuated.

High school students were taken to the Gillespie County Fairgrounds, where they werepicked up by parents.

zeke@express-news.net.net
San Antonio is bracing for a growing weather pattern that could bring severe thunder and hailstorms to the area Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to National Weather Service reports.

NWS meteorologist Steve Smart said the pattern  which has been rapidly growing and approaching South Texas from the west for the past 48 hours  could cross the Interstate 35 corridor by Tuesday night.
SAN ANTONIO  Police and Crime Stoppers need help in tracking down this man, who allegedly robbed a credit union off Loop 1604 earlier this month.

The incident occurred May 5 at the First Mark Credit Union at 2600 N. Loop 1604 West, where the male suspect entered the building and stood around the waiting area.
A Johnson High School student was arrested Monday morning after he posted a threat against the school on Snapchat.

Aubrey Chancellor, the executive director of communications for Northeast ISD, said the student posted a photo of the school and a vague, but threatening message to students warning them not to go to school.
A 16-year-old girl was hospitalized early Tuesday after she was shot in the chest by a suspected gang member in an elementary school parking lot.

Officers and paramedics responded to the shooting call around midnight at a home in the 7400 block of Weybridge in the far West Side, where they found the victim suffering from a gunshot wound.
Eric Gay/STF

AUSTIN -- Attorney General Ken Paxton's legal defense team took their attempt to remove the judge overseeing his case to the court of appeals in a late Monday night filing, asking the court to officially remove the judge and cancel a Thursday hearing in Houston.

In a filing with the 5th Court of Appeals based in Dallas, Paxton's defense team argued Tarrant County Judge George Gallagher no longer has authority to oversee the case.
With no plan in mind after graduating from Harlandale High School in 1978, Elizabeth Fatima Montana was faced with a decision.

The only daughter of a Marine, Montana grew up with plenty of discipline, but had not previously considered joining the military.

We encouraged her to think about it, her cousin Verna Blackwell Hilario said. All of us were in the military at one time.

Consulting with a Navy recruiter without telling anyone, Montana enlisted at age 26, serving 20 years active duty and another 10 in the reserves.

We knew she would do well in the military, but never expected her to make it her career, Hilario said.

Montana, 56, died May 9 after a long illness.

The only daughter among four children raised on the South Side, Montana grew up immersed in military culture.

In addition to her father and brothers who were in the Marine Corps, Montana had many other family members who served.

It began with my great-great-grandfather  and his children all served, Hilario said. And it was not unusual for the females to join; my mother joined the military in 1949  I joined in 1970.

Attending San Antonio College after graduating from Harlandale, Montana also worked at JCPenney.

She wanted to have a job and make money and buy a car, Hilario said. She was disciplined ever since she was a little girl.

More Information Elizabeth Fatima Montana Born: Sept. 21, 1960, San Antonio Died: May 9, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Father Pedro Montana Sr. Survived by: Mother Ninfa Quintero Montana; brothers Pete Montana and sister-in-law Audrey, Patrick Montana, and Paul Montana. Services: Mass at 9 a.m. May 17 at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church, 1214 Stonewall St., followed by burial at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, 1520 Harry Wurzbach Road. See More Collapse

Encouraged by her aunt and cousin, Montana joined the Navy in 1986 and became a cryptology technician assigned to the USS Nimitz.

She would call me all the time while at sea, Hilario said. When I asked where she was, shed say, I cant tell you, Im on a mission.

Although her cousin suspected her of exaggerating at times, Montanas job called for a top-secret security clearance.

After she died, I realized she was telling the truth, Hilario said. When I was going through all of her awards, I realized she wasnt kidding; she was on assignment  she could not discuss her mission.

Hilario, who speaks to high school students about their future, considers Montana an excellent role model for young women.

In the Latino culture, the parents, the fathers, dont want their daughters to go into the military and they discourage them, Hilario said. She set an example for a lot of Latina girls to follow.

mheidbrink@express-news.net
Politicians speak for a living. So they should be especially careful with their words.

When elected officials make inflammatory statements that exploit fears and drive people apart, they need to be called out and told to pipe down.

As one of the few Latino columnists with a national soapbox, I have a special duty to speak up when the loudmouth elected official is one of ours.

And so, Kevin de Leon, this pummeling is for you.

The president pro tempore of the California Senate is vying to be the states chief antagonist to President Donald Trump.

Since Trump often uses Latino immigrants as his foil, who better to shepherd the resistance on the Left Coast than the first Latino to lead the California Senate in more than 130 years?

De Leons bid to be the anti-Trump began the morning after the election when he released  with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon  a joint statement calling the election results clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California.

De Leon then authored a bill, SB 54, that would make California a sanctuary state for people in the country illegally. The legislation would bar state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources  including police  to help with immigration enforcement.

No matter what conservatives say, this isnt sanctuary. Federal immigration agents would still apprehend illegal immigrants in California.

But the de Leon bill does foolishly play into the hands of Republicans who want to portray both Democrats and Latinos as supporting open borders.

When the bill passed the state Senate last month, de Leon called the vote a rejection of President Trumps false and cynical portrayal of undocumented residents as a lawless community.

Right. Why would anyone consider illegal immigrants a lawless community?

When the president threatened to withhold funds from those fabled sanctuary cities, de Leon called the threat morally repugnant and said that Trumps immigration enforcement was fueled by white supremacy.

It warms the heart to see a unifier in action.

Heres what Ive learned after many years of writing about immigration: Much of white America is skittish about the changing demographics of our country, and California is no exception. So, if youre part of the Latino community  which makes up 39 percent of the states population  why kick white folks in the teeth? Youll only create more Trump voters.

I dont remember de Leon kicking up a ruckus when Barack Obama deported nearly 3 million people, divided hundreds of thousands of families, and dumped tens of thousands of U.S.-born children into foster care after kicking their parents out of the country.

I do remember what the lawmaker said in the summer of 2014. Thats when the Obama administration gave a rude reception to more than 80,000 Central American refugees, mostly women and children.

About 575 children between 13 and 17 were held in spartan quarters and without legal counsel, in a detention facility in Southern California. A group of Latino legislators, including de Leon, toured the compound.

Then-state Sen. Norma Torres, a Democrat who hails from Guatemala and now serves in Congress, declared the situation a humanitarian crisis.

De Leon also appeared to have been moved  by the political expediency of not criticizing a Democratic president. After the visit, in a conference call with reporters, de Leon played the good soldier. Collectively, we came to the conclusion that we are quite satisfied with the conditions, he said.

You see, in the Trump era, if de Leon seems clumsy in defending immigrants and refugees, you should cut him some slack. Its all new to him.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com
You have seen them on high, scurrying with great urgency between columns of marble, the clicks of Armani-heeled favor seekers never far behind. You have heard them in the past few days, saying they are troubled or disappointed about the latest assault on democracy from the White House.

They know enough history to get this: Donald Trump is the first president in history whose campaign has come under FBI-initiated investigation for collusion with a hostile foreign power. And now the person heading that investigation, the FBI director, has been fired.

Were looking for a few good men and women in Congress to understand the gravity of this debasement. We dont need more parsing about the bad optics or timing of Trump firing the man who could have ended his presidency. We need a Republican in power to call it what it is: a bungled attempt to obstruct justice.

And the tragic part is that Trump is likely to succeed, at least in the short term. The person he chooses for FBI director will never assemble a prosecutable case of treason that leads to the doorstep of this White House.

The courts can do only so much. They can block orders that violate the Constitution. But they cant be real-time truth seekers in a moment of real urgency.

Thus, it falls to a half-dozen or so Republicans to heed the words of a man whose statue they pass every day in the Capitol. Even if youre on the right track, said Will Rogers, Oklahomas gift to American gab, youll get run over if you just sit there.

As it is, theyre getting run over. Things that never happened before now happen with such regularity that the numbing and the dumbing down can make a rational human inert. Here is a man who doesnt share basic democratic values, who uttered nearly 500 lies or misleading statements in his first three months in office.

The civilized world was recently appalled at Trumps outreach to tyrants from North Korea, the Philippines and Turkey. Last week, we found out the the family of the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, offered Chinese business owners a path to U. S. citizenship if they invested in a Kushner property. And a White House visit of Russian political operatives was closed to the American press. We needed Tass, which is to Vladimir Putin what Fox News is to Trump, to provide official documentation for that meeting.

With Trump, as with most outsize characters in fiction or real life, character drives action. Hes a lifelong charlatan, a con man, a habitue of bankruptcy courts. He thinks this will blow over  everything always does. Hes off to Europe soon, the rogue man out. And that photo with Pope Francis will surely make people forget the chaos back home.

But the truth will come out. The journalism of the past few days  those labeled enemies of the people by Trump now doing the peoples work, as envisioned by the founders  has been extraordinary.

Its obvious that Trump fired James Comey because he was getting closer to the truth of what happened with Russian manipulation of the American election.

So, we turn to a handful of people in Trumps own party to do something courageous  to do the job they were sworn to do.

The Irish Undertaker, Paul Ryan, is a lost cause  and increasingly looks like a bystander to the multiple-car wreck happening before him. The Senate leader, Mitch McConnell  whose wife, dont forget, is in Trumps Cabinet  is also sitting this one out.

Call out the names: Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, Richard Burr and Bob Corker, Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski. They have committees and investigators at their disposal. Their party impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex. The least they can do is demand some accountability of a man whose entire presidency is a lie.

Timothy Egan writes a column for the New York Times.
Texas women should have better access to three-dimensional mammography.

Legislation filed by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, a breast cancer survivor, would require Texas health insurance companies to cover 3-D mammography for breast cancer screening.

The improved technology used in 3-D screenings can spot tumors faster, identify up to 53 percent more breast cancers than traditional 2-D mammograms and significantly reduce false positives.

False positive tests, which identify abnormal areas that turn out to be cancer free often, result in high costs for those who must undergo further testing. They also have a psychological impact on the patient.

The procedure is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Advanced technology used for the screening produce multiple images, or X-rays, to create a digital 3-D picture of the breast.

Federal law mandates coverage of traditional 2-D mammograms, but some insurers still consider 3-D mammograms to be experimental and dont cover them. The out-of-pocket cost for women whose insurance wont pay for the latest technology in breast cancer testing is usually $50 to $100, and that is simply unaffordable for some women.

In recent years, several states have adopted legislation mandating insurance coverage for three-dimensional mammography. They include New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania. A handful of state legislatures are currently considering similar legislation.

Three-dimensional mammography is quickly becoming the standard and is especially beneficial for women with denser breast tissue.

The bill, which has the potential of saving many lives, merits bipartisan support. Early detection decreases treatment costs and improves patient outcomes.

It is regrettable that state legislation is being required to get Texas insurance companies to do the right thing on this significant womens health issue.
They number relatively few among the many murdered in Mexico every year and yet they deserve special attention. Thats because their deaths are clearly part of a campaign to stifle freedom of the press  one of Mexicos remaining hopes for propping up its democracy, cleansing its institutions and restoring the rule of law.

The dead are journalists.

Mexicos drug war claims many, including too many journalists. But its evident that the police and government are also substantially culpable in their deaths, either having a hand in the murders to shut them up  and to discourage others from reporting  or by failing to properly investigate the cases and bring the killers to justice. One apparent reason: pursuing local and state government officials and police as needed will be admission of widespread corruption. Embarrassment. But another possibility exists. The Mexican government is not serious about press freedom.

The Committee to Protect Journalists recently released a report on the culture of impunity that allows these crimes to go unpunished. And the New York Times Azam Ahmed recently reported on the deadly phenomenon. Its provocative headline read: In Mexico, Its easy to kill a journalist.

The New York Times reported that since 2000, at least 104 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, 11 last year.

In these types of killings, Mexico falls between the war-torn nation of Afghanistan and the failed state of Somalia, Ahmed wrote.

Among CPJs recommendations:

For Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto: commit to addressing impunity in crimes against freedom of expression; ensure that federal law enforcement takes responsibility for all attacks on the press (it too routinely dismisses the crimes as having nothing to do with the journalists work); and more resources to the federal special prosecutor tasked with protecting journalists and more resources in prosecuting killers.

For the Mexican Attorney General: hold the special prosecutor accountable for failure to pursue these criminals. For Veracruz state officials (a state particularly dangerous for journalists): require state prosecutors to cooperate with federal authorities.

As here, a free press is a bulwark for democracy. If Mexican democracy falters, the effects ripple northward. This is not just a Mexican problem.
Re: Official: Flynn risked being blackmailed, front page, May 9:

I had to shake my head and chuckle because it was so obvious that the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee (like Ted Cruz and John Cornyn) continued to look after Trumps interests. This I deduced from the questions they asked of the witnesses.

Instead of being Americans first, Republicans second, and focusing on the relationship between Russian officials and Flynn, they continued their questions on unmasking, and on grilling former prosecutor Sally Yates on her refusal to defend the presidents executive order banning Muslims from Muslim-majority countries.

Why dont they want to determine the facts about our last election, and correct the situation so it doesnt happen again?

Jesse Ortiz

Credibility

The governor in Austin is in favor of the sanctuary cities bill.

The chief of police in San Antonio is against it.

Whom do you trust?

Star Carey, Canyon Lake

Dismissing science

Re: Academic scientists removed as EPA panelists, Nation & World, May 8:

The Trump administration has proposed reducing the main scientific research board budget by 40 percent, replacing academic scientists with industry representatives the EPA is supposed to regulate, and changing the composition of the scientific review board to include more corporate representation. We may as well change the EPA to the EDA (Environmental Destruction Agency). Just a reminder to us all: the EPA was founded in 1970 because of the Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969. It wasnt the only river to catch fire; the Buffalo and Chicago rivers also caught fire as a result of indiscriminate dumping of industrial waste into waterways.

In 1972, the Clean Water Act was passed by the Nixon administration. Recently, there has been a concerted effort to refute and dismiss the effect humans have on the environment, disavowing indisputable scientific evidence so that industry can exploit our natural resources at their pleasure. Heres my question: Would you allow drug addicts to make the laws governing the access and distribution of drugs?

Ross Smith

A real threat

Texas Sen. John Cornyn believes in the need for a strong military. If Sen. Cornyn cares about our troops and national security, why isnt he fighting to address climate change? The Pentagon lists climate change as one of the biggest threats they face. High-ranking officials agree. Adm. Frank Skip Bowman, Rear Adm. David Titley, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former secretaries of state George Schultz and James Baker, and countless others are concerned.

Our military leaders tell us sea levels will rise and put bases under water. They tell us climate change will multiply threats in vulnerable countries. They tell us clean energy will make us more independent. If Cornyn wants to protect our military, he must listen to them. I urge our senator to join the growing bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and start fighting for our safety.

Sasha West, Austin

Revisionist history

Re: Free pass, Your Turn, May 10:

First off, Im a Republican, but I hate it when people distort or lie about history. The letter writer wrote that there was no accountability concerning President Bill Clinton when he had sex with a young woman in the White House. The letter writer wrote that Clinton was given a free pass for it. I would not describe impeachment proceedings as a free pass.

Walter Cardwell

Who benefits?

It seems surprising to me that Obamacares tax penalty for those who choose not to have health insurance has been replaced, in the Republican bill, with a 30 percent surcharge in rates if an applicant hasnt had insurance for two months.

Instead of the government collecting a tax penalty, it now goes to the insurance companies.

Reagin McAllister

More bleating

Re: Trumps border wall defies common sense, Michael Taylor, Business, May 7:

This column is misplaced, useless and senseless. Its a weak opinion piece consisting of the authors politically-based disapproval of Donald Trump, who won the election partly because voters agreed with the urgent need for the wall. Loser rhetoric rightly belongs in the opinion section. The voters have spoken about the wall and the Donald. Hes our president. Mr. Taylors unabashed, pouty bleating about his president serves no business purpose.

The column is factually senseless, too. His unsupported figures are mere speculative guesswork. You might say it holds nada regarding economics, finance, or commerce. The column is devoid of anything at all business related. Taylor badly needs a re-focus, a replacement, or at least a reminder that his own meager but oft-unfulfilled contribution is to write a column for and about business. Editor, if Taylor cant do that, please find someone who will.

Yes, I miss Scott Burns.

David Morris

Motivated by fear

Oh, come on, Greg Abbott. You dont worry about the safety of Texans. You signed the sanctuary cities ban to gain control of local law enforcement. This law is all about taking control of local jurisdictions. The state wants to take local rights bit by bit.

When someone tells me with words, not actions, that they are devout Christians, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Abbott and his lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, are cut from the same cloth. Hatred and fear. We must fight for human decency and democracy.

Dianne Lavake, Zapata

Still waiting

I am sure Joaquin Castro appreciates the publicity and praise the Express-News heaps on him from time to time. If you really want to do your readers a favor, you will publish the important things he has accomplished since his election to Congress in 2012. We are eagerly looking forward to this important information.

Randol Gilmore
Out-of-state buyers recently acquired four local apartment complexes valued at a total of nearly $150 million, adding to a surge of investment activity in the local multifamily housing market.

Sherman Residential, a real estate firm based in Chicago, bought the 384-unit Pecos Flats apartment complex on the West Side on May 2, according to county property records. The complex, which was built last year, was assessed at $46.3 million this year by the Bexar Appraisal District.

Sherman is re-entering the San Antonio market after it sold the apartment complexes it previously owned here in 2007, said Scott Gould, the firms senior vice president. He declined to say how much was paid for the complex.

San Antonio we have always liked, and now we feel its an even stronger market than it was in the day  more diverse employment and strong, steady population and job growth, he said. He added, I think in the eyes of the world, San Antonio is becoming more of a grown-up city.

Partnerships affiliated with the Starwood Capital Group of Connecticut bought two apartment complexes late last month: Walker Ranch, on Blanco Road on the North Side, and Hidden Lake, near the crossing of Loop 1604 and Bandera Road on the Northwest Side, records show. Walker Ranch was assessed at $42.9 million and Hidden Lake at $41.2 million this year.

Also in late April, a company linked to MBP Capital of Denver bought the $18.2 million Latitude apartment complex on the Northwest Side, near the crossing of Wurzbach and Evers roads.

Representatives of Starwood and MBP didnt respond to requests for comment.

San Antonios population growth and its increasingly diverse economy are attracting more real estate investors, said Ernest Brown, an investment broker with Rohde, Ottmers & Siegel Realty Services. Investors are more comfortable putting their money in large markets because they are perceived as being less subject to market variations, he said.

A lot of it is that the city is growing to the size where its attractive to them  Were viewed as somewhat recession-proof, and were very diversified, more so than most people realize now, he said. I would expect (the trend) to continue as San Antonio continues to grow.

Investors have purchased 22 apartment complexes in Bexar County since the beginning of the year, property records show. Some of the investors focus on buying distressed properties, fixing them up and selling them at a profit.

Sherman typically holds onto properties for between three to seven years before finding a good time to sell them, Gould said. The company wants to acquire at least three complexes in the local area, he said. Hes a big fan of the West Side, thanks to its improving infrastructure and good job base, as well as the area around the Rim.

San Antonio is becoming a little more competitive, but its not quite at the level of a Dallas or an Austin, he said. Theres still good opportunities there for that reason.

rwebner@express-news.net

@rwebner
NEW YORK  Most folks know and recognize Got Milk? ads. Now, starting May 15, the dairy industry is refocusing its efforts on more than just one category with a new, national campaign, Undeniably Dairy, that covers all dairy products, including milk, cheese, yogurt and whey. Ad Age reports that the new campaign also showcases farming, as people want to know more about where their food comes from.

"This is not a generic advertising campaign or a generic communications campaign," Beth Engelmann, chief marketing communications officer at Dairy Management Inc., told the news source. "It's really designed to actually engage the entire chain."

Ad Age writes that the campaign comes as the dairy industry faces a number of challenges, such as more consumers switching to non-dairy alternatives like soy and almond milk. Even those who stick with dairy are eating less cereal for breakfast, cutting lots of potential consumption out of what used to be a tried and true daily ritual, notes the news source.

Recent studies also say that milk does not do a body as good as years of industry research and promotion have found, which creates confusion among consumers in the dairy aisle. Engelmann told Ad Age that such disparate information might not tell a full story, asking, "Who better to really answer the questions of the consumer than the dairy industry and the leaders of the dairy industry? We want to really just tell our story and then ultimately it is the consumer's choice."

While dairy industry sales rose about 3% in the United States last year, milks capita consumption has declined annually from 1995-2015, per data from the USDA's Economic Research Service. The bright spot in dairy is yogurt, with per capita consumption more than doubling over the same period.

Theres also the issue of consumers increasingly wanting to know where their food comes from. Hopefully milk is synonymous with a cow, but even so the dairy industry is prepared to showcase farming and agricultural practices by hosting events at farms this summer. Ad Age notes that farmers have even sent in photos of their cows for use in what it is calling "Moo Memes," which include captions like, "When you got a salad but BAE got nachos."
This weeks Convenience Matters podcast looks at how retailers can use study groups to help each other grow stronger.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.  One of the most innovative ideas in the convenience store industrystudy groups to help make each other better operatorsactually came from another industry.

Following on the success of study groups in the auto industry, a group of smart convenience retailers collaborated more than two decades ago to create the first study group. Since then, several of these groups have formed to share best practices, ideas and build camaraderie with the help of Professor David Nelson and his team.

In the Convenience Matters podcast Share and Compare, cohosts Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and John Eichberger, Fuels Institute executive director, talk with David Nelson, Ph.D. professor of economics at Western Washington University and founder and CEO of Finance & Resource Management Consultants Inc., about sharing best practices within study groups all while improving bottom lines.

Professor Nelson talks about how retailers can learn from each otherin study groups and during networking opportunitiesregardless of their region, size and competition. As a result of industry consolidation, rapidly changing consumer trends and channel blurring, operators need to roll up their sleeves, dig in and sharpen their game by sharing, comparing and being smart.

We are a people business, and bringing people together to make each other better really exemplifies why we exist and why we are wildly successful, said Lenard.

A new Convenience Matters podcast will be released every week, focusing on topics related to convenience stores. Episodes of Convenience Matters can be downloaded on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and at www.convenience-matters.com. Since its launch in February 2016, it has been downloaded in more than 70 countries, and total downloads per week have doubled over the past year.
Greatest growth is coming from convenience stores, as new and current franchisees expand.

LEXINGTON, Ky.  A&W Root Beer will make summer more refreshing for guests at the seven A&W restaurants that have opened so far in 2017. A&W, back in growth mode under franchisee ownership, has 11 more locations in development.

So far this year, A&W has opened traditional outlets in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, and Fowlerville, Michigan. Five more shops have opened in gas and convenience store developments, including ones in Barron, Wisconsin; Tonkawa, Oklahoma; Dinuba, California; Sigourney, Iowa; and Orbisonia, Pennsylvania.

Future convenience store locations include Freemont, Nebraska; Bemidji, Minnesota; Berkeley and Hayward, California; Salome, Arizona; and Mount Pleasant, Iowa. All are scheduled to open their doors this year.

Current and new franchisees are expressing their confidence in the A&W brand by signing development agreements, opening restaurants across the country and participating in our system remodeling program, said Kevin Bazner, president and CEO. It is gratifying that many of our new restaurants are being opened by current franchise partners.

Currently, there are 30 remodeling projects underway. More than 100 A&W restaurants co-branded with KFC locations are scheduled for remodeling in 2017. A&W locations are consistently experiencing double-digit sales increases following renovations.

A group of long-time franchisees acquired A&W from YUM! Brands in 2011. There are currently 634 U.S. restaurants and 328 international restaurants. So far this year, 22 international A&W locations have opened, primarily in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
By Jeff Bryant, director of the Education Opportunity Network, a partnership effort of the Institute for Americas Future and the Opportunity to Learn Campaign. He has written extensively about public education policy. Originally published at Education Opportunity Network

Another week, another round of evidence that providing parents with more school choice, especially the kind that lets them opt out of public schools, is not a very effective vehicle for ensuring students improve academically or that taxpayer dollars are spent more wisely.

The latest evidence comes from a study of the voucher program in Washington, DC that allows parents to transfer their children from public to private schools at taxpayer expense. The study found that students who attended a private school through the program performed worse on standardized tests than their public school counterparts who did not use the vouchers, reports the New York Times.

This study adds to others  from Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana  finding that school vouchers have negative impacts on students.

Despite these results, many proponents of school choice contend the purpose of school choice was never about generating better results. Its about choice for choices sake.

Results Dont Matter?

That seems to be what US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos argues in her reaction to the news about the apparent failure of the DC voucher program. As the Washington Post reports, the report prompted her to say, When school choice policies are fully implemented, there should not be differences in achievement among the various types of schools.

That reaction struck education historian Diane Ravitch as an implication that results dont matter. She writes on her personal blog, If you parse this sentence, what she is saying is that when everyone chooses, none of the schools will be better than any others. They will all get the same results, even if they are dismal. The purpose of choice is choice.

Ravitch points to an op-ed in a local DC paper that argues the while point of choice is for parents to pick schools they believe to be best for their children, regardless of the nature of the school or the results of its program.

The writer compares education to breakfast cereal, arguing that some parents may prefer Cheerios while some prefer other brands. Whats the big deal?

This line of reasoning aligns with DeVoss recent comments comparing schools to all sorts of consumer goods. As the Associated Press reports, in a recent address she made at an education technology conference, DeVos compared school choice to switching phone carriers. If you cant get cell phone service in your living room, she says, you should have the option to find a network that does work.

In another of her pronouncements about school choice, she compared education options to ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft.

For anyone whos been paying attention, DeVoss remarks arent surprising.

Seven years ago, when a study of the school voucher program in Milwaukee came to a disappointing conclusion similar to the more recent studies mentioned above, it prompted Charles Murray co-author of the eugenics-inspired treatise The Bell Curve  to respond, basically, So what!

Writing in the New York Times, he argued that results from the study of the Milwaukee program didnt much matter. Our childrens education is extremely important to us, he wrote, and the greater good doesnt much enter into it. (Point of irony: Murray argues against using test scores as meaningful measures of school performance, yet the title of his infamous book is a direct reference to how test scores are distributed on a graph.)

More recently, editors of The Economist ruminated over the DC voucher study and concluded the negative results meant, A parent with a voucher may increasingly think twice about using it. That is a good choice to have.

The Ultimate Choice

All of this sounds just so sensible until you take into consideration that individuals dont pay for public education; the taxpayers do. And the choices parents make about their childrens education dont just affect their children; they have an impact on the whole community.

Businesses are free to create whatever demand they want in the marketplace, whether its for better-tasting food or for more convenient service, and how individuals choose to respond to those demands is of no concern to the greater public unless it endangers lives or infringes on freedoms. But the demand for education is a given, its universal, and its ultimately of interest to our whole society.

And no one has a right to Cheerios, interruption-free cellphone service, or a ride home from the bar. But everyone does have a right to an education.

Further, when you extend the argument of choice for choices sake out to its logical conclusion, youre led to the conclusion parents should have the option to skip educating their children altogether. Dont laugh. A newly elected Representative in the Arizona legislature recently told a local news reporter, The number one thing I would like to repeal is the law on compulsory education.

Education used to be a privilege, he laments. Now we basically force it down everybodys throats.

His comments prompted education journalist Valerie Strauss to write on her blog at the Washington Post, Compulsory education has a long history in this country, actually predating it  Education has long been seen not only as a personal ticket to a better life in this country but also as essential for the health of the democratic enterprise.

Strauss quotes a columnist for the Arizona paper who, after reading the views of her state lawmaker, responded Oh the horror, of trying to create an educated citizenry. Of forcing kids to actually learn something  Much better, I suppose, to let them stay home, ignorant and hungry and so not our problem. Until someday, when they are.

Too Important For Choice

None of this is to say parents should have no education choices for their children at all.

But Carol Burris, a former award-winning New York school principal who now leads the Network for Public Education, makes an important distinction about choice in education in her recent commentary at the Washington Post. Public school choice programs, if carefully managed, can serve students well and/or promote a social good, she writes. Privatized school choice, in contrast, is quite different. Privatized school choice is the public financing of private alternatives to public schools. (emphasis original)

Burris goes on to explain that privatized school choice in many instances has led to negative consequences for the community, including crippling the funding of its local schools while enriching wealthy individuals and adding additional layers of administration and bureaucracy.

We supported education with our tax dollars not to give individual children advantage, she writes, but to build a nation by teaching our children about the blessings of democracy in a publicly governed community school.

Some things are just too important for choice.

In my recent conversation with progressive radio talk show host Rick Smith, he makes that interesting point in saying, I dont want choice.

He argues that when he gets sick, he wants access to a qualified doctor with up-to-date facilities, and for his childrens education, he wants to know theres going to be a school nearby with qualified teachers who have the resources they need.

Why would I want a bad choice? he asks.

Why indeed.
Yves here. This Real News Network interview discusses one of the few campaign promises that Trump hanst yet abandoned, that of reviving Glass-Steagall.

SHARMINI PERIES: Its the Real News Network. Im Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.

Earlier this month, President Trump reiterated his commitment to a campaign promise that he made last year during the presidential campaign to break up large banks and to reinstate a new version of the so-called Glass-Steagall Act. This is the law that for over 60 years separated investment banks from commercial banks. The law was repealed in 1999 under President Bill Clinton. Some economists say that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. Others say that other forms of banking deregulation was far more important for having caused the crisis.

As the case may be, progressive senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have also proposed reintroducing a new Glass-Steagall Act, arguing it would be better to protect savings accounts of ordinary citizens. Joining us now to examine this issue is Gerald Epstein. Gerald is professor of economics at UMass Amherst, and he is the co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass Amherst. Thanks for joining me today, Gerry.

GERALD EPSTEIN: Thanks for having me, Sharmini.

SHARMINI PERIES: Gerry, not only did Trump mention reinstating Glass-Steagall during his campaign, but the Republican Party even included it in a statement in their campaign documents. However, Trump is also proposing to significantly deregulate the banking sector. How do you explain Trumps positions on the financial industry and is this a contradictory approach?

GERALD EPSTEIN: Yeah, it is a contradictory approach at one level, but in fact, Trump is doing this kind of thing all over the place. Hes talking about renegotiating NAFTA but promoting trade at the same time with China. Its just one thing after another. I think part of it reflects these divisions within his administration and within his coalition, between on the one hand capitalist, Wall Street big business, and on the other hand trying to act as if hes still going to do something for the working-class voters who voted for him. Part of it is trying to negotiate this division between part of his base, who dont like the big banks, who want them broken up, and his money coalition, which is going to feed him the power that he needs and the money that he needs at the top, the bankers and the business people.

Part of it I think is a strategy to keep people guessing. This keeps the bankers on their toes, and it keeps them wanting to placate Trump, and hoping that they have him in their back pocket, so keep them guessing. Part of it is to get more campaign contributions for himself from bankers, to make sure that he doesnt do this. Part of it is a strategy, part of it is a divided coalition, and I think part of it is just this chaos that is the Trump administration.

SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Its interesting that, as you know, the Trump administration has decided not to make public, at least the records public, of who comes and goes from the White House. Anyone whos lobbying him, whos there from the banking industry, we wouldnt even know. In your opinion, who in the Trump administration would stand to benefit from the reinstatement of the separation between financial and commercial banking?

GERALD EPSTEIN: Theres been some interesting arguments made by Dennis Kelleher at Better Markets, who was on the Hill for a long time and understands these processes quite well. He makes an interesting point that Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn used to be the head of Goldman Sachs, is an example of an investment bank that would actually possibly benefit from this. That is, if the Glass-Steagall Act that Trump is proposing is a complete substitute for the Dodd-Frank and any other financial regulations, what it would do would be to free up Goldman Sachs and all the other investment banks that decided to go to that side of the divide and have very little regulations on them, and let them do whatever they want. At this point, after having been bailed out by the taxpayer in 2008, theyre in pretty good shape, so they could go off to the races doing what they were doing before with very little regulation. The Goldman Sachses of the world wouldnt actually be hurt by this, and it could actually benefit from it, especially if this is a cover for getting rid of all of Dodd-Frank and all the other regulation.

SHARMINI PERIES: Right. What about on the political side? Wall Street more generally is quite opposed to a reinstatement of this law, but given that Republicans are close to Wall Street and they now have control over Congress, and as you say, Wall Street might be open to all of this, but these guys are the ones that are lining the pockets of Congress members as well. Something like this, do you think that its likely to happen given all of these interests?

GERALD EPSTEIN: No, I dont think it is. I think its a lot of smoke and mirrors. I think whats likely to happen is the massive deregulation of Wall Street and the banks. Theres the Choice Act. Theres other deregulatory acts that are being proposed to make it almost impossible to regulate anything, including Wall Street. I think thats the major thrust of whats coming down the pipe. I think most of this talk about breaking up the banks on the Trump side is throwing some red meat to the base, but its not going to get much further than that.

SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Do you think that reinstating Glass-Steagall would be a good idea in general? I know that in the past, people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have supported reinstating it as well, at least in reintroducing a Glass-Steagall-type act. Do you think its a good idea?

GERALD EPSTEIN: As you said, Senator Warren along with McCain, Cantwell, and King have introduced this 21st-century Glass-Steagall Act, which is an updated version of Glass-Steagall, which is designed to separate investment and commercial banking. The idea is to not let commercial banks that have the support of the taxpayer, access to the Federal Reserve liquidity and safety net, etc., make it so that they cannot engage in really speculative and dangerous activities to reduce the chances that theyll have to be bailed out in the future. On the other hand, the idea is to have investment banks not be able to engage in accepting deposits and the like, and they can perhaps take a riskier position.

I think the key thing is we have to break up the big banks. We have to break up the big banks both for economic and political reasons. The economic reasons is that theyre able to blackmail the economy. They take on risk. They do speculative and dangerous activities, and then when they get in trouble, they tell the government and the taxpayer, Either you bail us out or well destroy your economy. This has got to stop.

The second reason we have to break up the big banks is because of the political power the big banks have, as we just talked about, in organizing Congress, organizing Washington. I think a 21st-century Glass-Steagall Act is one way to start breaking up the big banks, and it has to be done in combination with reinforcing the regulations that are already on the books, so leverage requirements, capital requirements, etc., not as a substitute for these.

I think theres a lot to be said for working with the kinds of proposals that Warren and Bernie Sanders and so forth have proposed, and try to make sure that theyre done in such a way that they end up actually in breaking up the political behemoths and the economic behemoths that are these big banks.

SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Lastly, Gerry, if you believe that this is all somewhat smoke and mirrors, and this isnt actually going to be implemented, how close are we? Given whats going on in the economy, theres various bubbles again blowing up, and the economy is supposedly growing, the stock market is certainly growing. How close are we to another financial collapse of the kind we saw in 2008?

GERALD EPSTEIN: Its really hard to say. The banks are sitting on a lot of liquidity. They have huge safety nets and cushions right now, because they got bailed out by all of us. I dont think that the amount of leverage in the system, the amount of risky debt, is near what it was in 2007-2008. I also dont think that theres an obvious one bubble out there like the real estate markets we saw then.

On the other hand, the next crisis is not going to look exactly, maybe not much, like the previous one. These indicators that I just told you about, which would suggest were not going to have exactly the same kind of crisis, doesnt mean were not going to have one. I just dont think that this is the major problem that were going to face in the next year or so.

More likely is going to be some constitutional crisis, a major military adventure by the Trump administration, something of that nature. Of course, thatll interact with the financial markets and possibly lead to serious financial instability, which could in turn engender some kind of financial crisis. I think things are very dangerous looking forward, but its unlikely were going to see something quite like what we saw in 2007-2008 any time soon.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Gerry. I thank you so much for joining us today, and we look forward to having you back.

GERALD EPSTEIN: Thanks a lot.

SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you for joining us here on the Real News Network.
The impact of electrochemistry on micro- and nanorobot design

(Nanowerk Spotlight) Micro- and nanorobots are micro- and nanoscale devices capable of autonomous motion in their environment. The catalytic conversion of chemical to mechanical energy  an ubiquitous process in biological systems  also is the basis for many of the nanoscale engine systems that nanotechnology researchers are developing. These nanomachines can convert chemical energy from the environment (fuel, food) to kinetic motion.

Even the nanoscale equivalent of conventional internal heat engines has been fabricated with graphene.

Additionally, these nanorobots are able to capture and release a target object, ranging from cells, DNA to proteins and release them at the given place. They can perform useful actions, from environmental decontamination with nanobots to penetrating cell membranes and targeted drug delivery on demand. And researchers have demonstrated nanovoyagers that can be successfully maneuvered in human blood.

A recent review article in Advanced Functional Materials ("Nano/Microrobots Meet Electrochemistry") highlights the role of electrochemistry in synthesizing materials for self-powered micro- and nanodevices; the aspect of charge transfer and changes in electrochemical potentials for locomotion; control of self-propelled motion using electrochemistry and electric fields; and possible applications in electrochemical sensing and energy generation using micro- and nanoscale motion.

The authors, from School of Physical Mathematical Science Nanyang Technological University, discuss various electrochemical techniques, which allow for the fabrication of large amounts of micro/nanorobots from diverse materials, with and without the use of templates.

Schematics of electrochemical control of micromotors. A) Electrophoresis of a particle moving towards an oppositely charged electrode ( Royal Society of Chemistry). B) Bipolar electrochemistry of a conducting particle moving by bubble emission. C) Dielectrophoresis of a particle experiencing either attraction or repulsion in an AC/DC electric field: Particles more polarizable than the media moves into the gradient of higher electric field intensities, positive dielectrophoresis (pDEP); Less polarizable particles move away from these regions, negative dielectrophoresis (nDEP) ( Royal Society of Chemistry). D) Induced-charge electrophoresis in an anisotropic Janus particle, resulting in unequal electroosmotic flows, culminating in the particle motion orthogonal to the applied electric field ( American Physical Society). E) Diode rectification of an AC field converted to localized DC electrophoresis, with the diode propelling with the direction of the cathode(-) facing front  Nature Publishing Group). (click on image to enlarge)

The review covers four main areas:

Fabrication of nano/microrobot by electrochemical methods; Electrochemically powered nano/microrobots based on self-electrophoresis; Control of nano/microrobot motion through electrochemistry and electric fields; and Applications of nano/microrobots in electrochemical sensing, mixing and energy generation.

To illustrate guidance and control over these artificially fabricated nanorobots, the authors showcase that electrochemistry and electric fields can aid the navigation of these devices.

For an intrinsic look at locomotion, they also describe how the electrochemistry can be used as a tool for the detection of the motion of these tiny devices, which is especially useful in occluded solutions.

Finally, they describe how the micro and nanorobots can dramatically increase efficiencies of electrochemical sensors and energy generation devices.

An insight to how electrochemistry influences the use of nano/microrobot in biomedical usage is also provided.

"The impact of electrochemistry on micro- and nanorobot design and their utility is significant," the authors conclude. "Coupling this understanding with the application of these self-propelled devices will serve to better our craft at using them to accomplishing complex missions."
Welcome to the Narco News Archives

Narco News published original investigative journalism & analysis for 19 years (2000 - 2019) on the "war on drugs" from Latin America, and on social movements, community organizing, nonviolent resistance and election campaigns throughout the world.

In 2001, Narco News won the landmark New York Supreme Court case, Banco Nacional de Mexico vs. Al Giordano, Mario Menendez and Narco News; this case extended First Amendment rights to the Internet and journalists who publish on it.

The independent online newspaper did not accept advertising but cut a wide swath (Boston Globe), with "hard-hitting reporting" (Fairness & Accuracy in Media), that "broke a string of scoops" (The Guardian), that were "on the mark and well documented" (Washington Post).

"The new, independent journalists of the Internet, as personified by Al Giordano" (Electronic Frontier Foundation), who "actually makes things happen" (Gary Webb, 1955 - 2004), invented "the platinum standard in Authentic Journalism" (Barry Crimmins, 1953-2018).

You can read more of what the critics have said at www.narconews.com/mediacritics1.html.

Here, free to the public, you will find two decades of reports in seven languages, including major drug war scoops by Bill Conroy, the censored San Jose Mercury-News "Dark Alliance" series by Gary Webb, early viral videos from Narco News TV, translations to English of Latin American and other international news stories otherwise unreported in the United States, in-depth reporting on the Obama presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 by Al Giordano, "the prophet of the Obama paradigm shift" (Vanity Fair), and original reporting by hundreds of journalists from almost every corner of the planet.

The nonprofit Fund for Authentic Journalism is currently rebuilding the Narco News site to fix broken links and graphics that too often on the Internet get disappeared forever as the technology of web platforms becomes regularly replaced and must be updated to preserve the history of early online journalism.

We beg your patience as we complete this kind of archeological dig and repair of these vital reports and stories.

Please consider supporting the preservation of real reporting through the nonprofit Fund for Authentic Journalism, via the donate links at our website: authenticjournalism.org.

If you have tech skills and can volunteer to help repair and update this important historical record, please contact Al Giordano at al@organizeandwin.com.

Thank you for your readership and participation in 19 years of journalism history  and for your support as we continue to support authentic journalism in the present and future.

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
Gardai have arrested two Latvian men based in Cashel and Tipperary Town in connection with the labour exploitation of a fellow country man, who has alleged he was forced to work for them against his will.

The 32 year-old Latvian man was found wandering in a field in the New Inn area by a local person on Thursday, April 18.

The gardai were contacted and the immigrant reported that he had been living in Cashel with other Latvian nationals and was the victim of "labour exploitation" and was being forced to work against his will.

Gardai launched an investigation and on Saturday, April 27 officers from Cashel and Cahir Garda Stations arrested and detained two Latvian men, under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act for questioning.

Both men are aged in their 20s. One resides in Cashel and the other lives in Tipperary town.

A Cahir Garda Station spokesman said the two men were subsequently released without charge and a file on the case is now being prepared for submission to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Garda Siochana's Human Trafficking Section and Garda National Immigration Bureau have been contacted by gardai investigating the man's complaint.

The Garda spokesman told The Nationalist the alleged victim was currently in "the care of the State".

More news...

Tipperary TD calls for electronic tagging of people on bail
Clonmel native Anne O'Gorman is calling on artists and those working with young people from around Tipperary to take part in the prestigious National Youth Council of Ireland's (NYCI) Youth Arts programme this summer.

Anne leading the charge to get the county involved in the annual summer school run by the NYCI  which represents organisations working with over 380,000 young people nationwide.

The theme for this years event is Conquer Your Fear: Creative Digital Technology and Youth Work! and takes place from May 30th to June 1st in Kippure, near Blessington, County Wicklow.

At this year's youth arts summer school we're bringing together youth workers, volunteers and youth arts practitioners from around the county to look at new skills for delivering creative activities using new technologies  and the confidence to use them, Anne explains.

Originally from Clonmel myself, I'd love to see a good representation from Tipperary at the event, which is set to be one of our most exciting summer schools to date, she continues.

Anne says no previous experience necessary is take part.

If you think you need to know more about all things digital, and would like to bring technology-enhanced activities spanning electronics, robotics and digital filmmaking into your work with young people then we would encourage you to book your place and join us in Kippure, Anne adds.

Places remaining are limited. For more information see youtharts.ie, contact anneog@nyci.ie or call 01-4784122.

Participants can choose from two areas to focus on over the three days and the subsided cost (including accommodation) for each is:

Overcoming Obstacles in Digital Film - 300 non-members/250 members;

Makers Gonna Make - 350 non-members/300 members (includes 'maker-kit' worth 250).
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg praised Bulgarias contributions to NATO in talks with the Deputy Prime Minister for Judicial Reform and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ekaterina Zaharieva, on Tuesday (16 May 2017).

Welcoming Minister Zaharieva to NATO headquarters for the first time since her appointment, the Secretary General thanked her for Bulgarias strong contributions to NATO missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, as well as its support to partners, including Ukraine. Calling Bulgaria a highly valued Ally, the Secretary General welcomed Sofias plans for increased investments in defence.

Mr. Stoltenberg and Ms. Zaharieva also discussed Black Sea security and the importance of cooperation between NATO and the European Union. They discussed preparations for the meeting of NATO leaders on 25 May, where burden sharing and NATOs role in the fight against terrorism will top the agenda.
(Natural News) Azure Standard, a beautiful 2,000-acre organic farm in Oregon, which has been providing competitively priced beef, field peas, Einkorn and organic wheat to consumers around the country for nearly two decades, is under attack.

Oregon state law mandates that farmers control certain noxious weeds, including Canadian Thistle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) explains that Canadian Thistle, or Cirsium arvense, was likely introduced into the United States in the 1600s by shipments of farming seed brought in from Europe. The plant is considered a threat, as it crowds out native species and reduces crop yields.

Sherman County alleges that Azure Standard is not controlling this weed to their satisfaction, and has decided to take steps to do so personally by spraying the farm with dangerous herbicides, including Roundup, Milestone and Escort. [RELATED: Find out why Monsantos Roundup herbicide is so dangerous at Glyphosate.news]

Now, presumably Azure Standard is not finding that Canadian Thistle is reducing its crop yields, or crowding out what theyre trying to plant. And, while its true that by not spraying herbicides on their farm the weed could possibly spread to nearby farms, if those farmers are not farming organically they are likely spraying poisonous herbicides anyway, which would theoretically halt the spread. It is, therefore, illogical to insist that Azure should lose their organic certification by forcing the spraying of herbicides on their farm.

And that certification is really hard to obtain. Its not as if Azure could just spray their fields and then carry on where they left off. Mother Earth News explains that obtaining USDA organic certification is a costly, lengthy and complicated process.

For one thing, its not just about not spraying herbicides or chemical fertilizers. It involves making the soil itself so healthy that it supports strong plants that naturally repel pests. Spraying the fields with toxic herbicides will undermine that process.

Also, even many natural products are not permitted on organically certified farms, e.g. though tobacco dust is natural, it is not permitted because it is toxic.

In addition, a grower must have an organic system plan that describes the practices that will be performed to ensure the stewardship of the soil, lists of every substance that will be used as an input, where it will be used and how often, and anything else the certifying agency thinks necessary to make sure the farmer is in compliance with the law.

And heres the kicker: No prohibited substance (obviously including cancer-causing herbicides like Roundup) may be used on the land for three years before the harvesting of the first organic crop. This forced-spraying would therefore essentially put Azure out of business for three years. [RELATED: Read about the organic and water-rich fertilizer that will help drought-stricken farmers.]

Thats not the only cost they will incur, either. To add insult to injury, the county will put a lien on the farm to cover the labor and chemical costs of this forced spraying; they will essentially bill Azure for the privilege of destroying them.

We are calling on all Natural News readers to get involved and try to prevent this travesty. We have to move quickly though, because the deadline for contacting Sherman county is the May 22  just one week away. The next court discussion will be held on May 17, so it would be even better to let your voice be heard before then.

To do that, please contact:

[email protected] or Call Lauren at 541-565-3416 or Send a polite, non-threatening letter to county commissioners Tom McCoy or Joe Dabulskis at [email protected] or [email protected]

This affects every American consumer. The fact is, if the government is allowed to force-spray organic farms, pretty soon we wont have the option to choose non-GMO, organic produce anymore.

Sources:

TheOrganicPrepper.ca

AzureStandard.com

InvasiveSpeciesInfo.gov

MotherEarthNews.com
(Natural News) Most people agree that female genital mutilation is an abhorrent and disturbing practice. In addition to being extremely painful, the practice serves no medical or health benefits, and often precipitates a host of other medical issues: Painful intercourse, difficulty urinating, cysts, infections, complications with childbirth  and even it bears an increased risk of infant death. Yet, female genital mutilation (FGM) remains ubiquitous in cultures across the world, and it has even been practiced in the United States, despite being illegal.

The fact that FGM is a violation of human rights perpetrated against young girls is virtually unquestionable: Even the World Health Organization describes it as such: FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a persons rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

But, there are still those who refuse to admit that the practice of FGM is inhumane. However, you might not expect such a person to have been a member of the United Nations  especially as a consultant for the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF). And yet, Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu was a lead consultant for UNICEF, as well as a former health specialist for the National Institute of Child Health. Ahmadu reportedly underwent the FGM procedure voluntarily and believes that the procedure is nothing more than a nick.

To be clear, in the process of FGM, most of or all of a womens genitalia is removed  hardly a nick. The recent victim of Michigans Dr. Jumana Nagarwalas FGM practice reportedly suffered such pain that the girl screamed and could barely walk afterwards. But not to worry, as according to Ahmadu the practice of FGM is simply part of what people are supposedly calling gender-inclusive genital surgeries. This statement is basically a farce: If gender equality and inclusiveness were important in the countries where they were performed, women would not be treated as inferior to men.

One of the countries with the highest concentrations of FGM is Somalia, as this infographic from UNICEF shows. Almost 95 percent of the women in Somalia can expect to be subjected to the devastating procedure, and in general, bear the brunt of the countrys hardships. As the UN explains, The women of Somalia bear an unequal brunt of the hardships occasioned by poverty, conflict and clan-based culture which promotes strict male hierarchy and authority. This is further exacerbated by religious and cultural limitations on the role and status of women in Somali society. Women in Somalia are prohibited from formal decision-making as well as owning assets and property, and are primary victims of violence and rape. Where is that inclusiveness Ahmadu so fervently believes in?

While Ahmadu tries to liken FGM to male circumcision, the two practices couldnt be more different: Male circumcision, for example, is not associated with a myriad of deleterious medical conditions and risks to health  unlike FGM, which carries a risk of death, among other things.

Calling FGM a gender-egalitarian surgery, as Ahmadu referred to it, is a slap in the face to women and the fact that this person has been on multiple boards alleging to be for childrens health is a disgrace. Sadly, Ahmadu is just one of many people who try to pretend that FGM is a right  and not a violation of womens rights. The Left-wing media has also been caught playing down the barbaric nature of this savage procedure.

Sources:

FreeBeacon.com

WHO.int

Telegraph.co.uk

Africa.UNWomen.org

UNICEF.org
(Natural News) Councilman Billy OConnell of Huntington Beach, Orange County, California, has proposed a year-long pilot study to have portions of Central Park West use organic pesticides instead of synthetic ones. This move by the seaside city is meant to address the growing concern its citizens have with the many recorded adverse health effects synthetic pesticides provide. These recommendations were unanimously approved by the City Council during the first week of May, making Huntington Beach the third in Orange County to move to a more natural method of pest and weed management.

In an official interview with the OCRegister.com, OConnel said, Many agencies are now considering moving away from the reliance on synthetic pesticides in order to limit exposure to the general public, including children and pets. I propose that the City investigate the use of organic herbicides. In OConnells draft, he recommended that Public Works give updates every six months, with the end of the year signaling either the success or failure of the transition. If the Council finds positive improvement in the safety of its crops, OConnell hopes to make the policy part of their Integrated Pest Management Program. Councilwoman Jill Hardy has, however, further suggested that updates be made every three months instead of six for better tracking and improved transparency. To this suggestion, OConnell has been recorded as saying, Im open to expanding this. I feel its important to our children.

Californias battle against Monsanto

These initiatives made by Orange County are seen to be part of the ongoing battle California is having with synthetic pesticides. Only recently was the state involved in a legal argument with Roundup manufacturer, Monsanto, after members of the Californian government announced their intention to list the main active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, as a known carcinogen. Monsanto retaliated by suing the state over the designation as it would force them to place a warning label on its products. After a few months of deliberation, a California judged ruled against the company, and allowed a cancer warning to be placed on each container of Roundup.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. praised the ruling, saying on EcoWatch.com, Its great to see democracy is alive and well in California where judges are still willing to stand up for science, even against the most powerful corporate polluters. This decision gives Californians the right to protect themselves and their families from chemical trespass.

Sources include:

OCRegister.com

SCPR.org

EcoWatch.com

Toxnet.NLM.NIH.gov 1

Toxnet.NLM.NIH.gov 2
(Natural News) A stuffy nose, rattling cough, and fever are the typical symptoms of a common cold. While rest and strengthening the immune system are the best medicines to fight an army of sick-making viruses, many doctors unnecessarily prescribe antibiotics to treat the symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections such as acute bronchitis and the common cold.

Though antibiotics are potent medicines that may save your life one day, antibiotics fight bacteria, not viruses. In fact, antibiotics can do more harm than good. Prescribing antibiotics when they are not needed can lead to antibiotic resistance issues, turning treatable infections into potential killers.

Canadian researchers who aim to prevent harm caused by such overuse to protect public health found that nearly half of the Canadian seniors who go to a family doctor leave with a prescription for an unnecessary antibiotic, reported CBC News.

Antibiotic overuse, a growing health concern

For their study, published in the scientific journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers looked at data of over 185,000 people aged 66 or older who went to a primary care physician in 2012 in Ontario. Dr. Michael Silverman, author of the study and chair of infectious diseases at Western, and his team found that even though most doctors felt that the infection was nonbacterial, nearly half of people still got an antibiotic.

He added that they believe that this overprescribing phenomenon applies to other age groups too and is not only happening in Canada. Its also occurring in the United States. Silverman was encouraged to study the effects of antibiotic overuse as a part of his research regarding potential severe side-effects of antibiotics. Previous studies have shown that antibiotics used in the treatment of diarrhea from C. difficile, a major health concern in Canada and around the world, can have serious side-effects.

We also now realize these drugs can lead to irregular heartbeats and sudden death. Some of them can lead to tendon rupture. Some of them can lead to drug interactions and have people end up in the emergency room, Silverman explained.

According to the study, the most common infections flagged for unnecessary antibiotic use are the common cold (53 percent), acute bronchitis (31 percent), acute sinusitis (14 percent), and acute laryngitis (two percent).

Though the researchers do not want to put all the blame on the physicians, they said they wanted to see whats triggering these doctors to prescribe antibiotics when they are not needed to target the issue and provide better education.

Doctors do not spend enough time with their patients

Previously, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland found that physicians, especially the new doctors-in-training, only devote about eight minutes of their time to each patient. In the same line, the Canadian researchers noted that antibiotic overprescribing tended to be more common among family physicians who were in a hurry to see more patients.

Furthermore, the authors of the study also stressed the possibility of decision fatigue. Silverman explained that doctors constantly have to say no to patients who demand a prescription for antibiotics. U.S. research has shown that physicians tend to prescribe more antibiotics later in the day, or when they no longer find the energy to explain to patients that they dont need antibiotics to treat their illness.

Since 70 percent of the antibiotic prescription for nonbacterial respiratory infections were for broad-spectrum antibiotics  or the ones that are often associated with patient harm and antibiotic resistance issues  this behavior is strongly suggestive of inappropriate prescribing, the studys authors concluded.

Sources include:

CBC.ca

Annals.org

Well.Blogs.NYTimes.com
(Natural News) One way or another, global warming is going to get you; at least thats what the journo-terrorists want you to believe.

Their latest scare tactic is to terrify the public with the prediction that all that melting ice is going to result in a global pandemic when supposedly eradicated killers like smallpox, preserved for millennia in soil under the permafrost, once again see the light of day.

In fact, these scaremongers warn, there are signs that its already happening  Can you hear the Twilight Zone music?

Now, it should be noted that experts are warning about two causes of this potential problem:

Melting permafrost caused by global warming; and Industrial drilling.

While evidence of man-made global warming leading to catastrophic level melting of the ice caps is dubious at best (and faked at worst), industrial drilling is a threat that is probably well worth considering. [RELATED: Discover the truth about global warming at ClimateScienceNews.com]

Jean-Michel Claverie, a professor of microbiology at Aix-Marseille University in France, explains that while microbial diseases cannot normally survive for very long outside their hosts, the soil under permafrost offers a unique environment for their long-term survival: its really, really cold; its dark, and theres no oxygen.

Pathogenic viruses that can infect humans or animals might be preserved in old permafrost layers, including some that have caused global epidemics in the past, said Claverie. At the moment, these regions are deserted and the deep permafrost layers are left alone. However, these ancient layers could be exposed by the digging involved in mining and drilling operations. If viable virions are still there, this could spell disaster.

Okay, so Twilight Zone references aside, that actually does sound scary  and possible.

Dr. Claverie and his team have already discovered a number of these giant viruses right in the top layers of the Arctic ice, and they warn that many of these are located in the same areas that are particularly sought after for their mineral wealth, particularly for their oil.

The team discovered and reanimated a particularly nasty giant in northeastern Russia in 2015. Called Mollivirus sibericum, it is the fourth such virus to have been discovered since 2003, and the scientists estimate it to be around 30,000 years old. Scientists are eagerly researching these viruses to better understand them and their potential impact on humanity.

While this all sounds quite terrifying, it is important to note that these types of articles always need to be taken with bucket loads of salt. They are often nothing more than weaponized journalism, designed to scare people into obediently following a set agenda or adopting a particular belief system  in this case, stories like these terrify the public, making them all the more willing to back any and all means put forward by politicians to end global warming.

While this study is useful in highlighting the potential dangers of arctic drilling, it would be dangerous to take it a step further and just accept the alarming predictions regarding the melting of the polar caps.

The truth is, to a large extent we are being bullied by celebrities, scientists and the mainstream media into believing without truly sound scientific evidence that global warming is settled science. People like former Vice-President Al Gore have amassed fortunes in perpetuating this belief, but we all need to remain calm and look at the evidence with open minds.

One of the medias favorite ways to push their agenda is the hottest year on record headline that we see every year. But, in 2014, one of the years to claim that title, there were actually record amounts of ice reported in Antarctica, an increase in Arctic ice, and record snowfalls around the globe.

The other old favorite is the 97 percent of scientists agree that global warming is settled science nonsense. However, a vast number of scientists do not accept this hypothesis. In fact, more than 31,000 American scientists  9,020 of whom hold a Ph.D.  signed a petition challenging the climate change narrative.

The takeaway message is this: Stay calm, evaluate the evidence for yourself with an open mind, and dont be swayed by the antics of journo-terrorists.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

PNAS.org

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
The world reacted to the news that North Korea conducted another missiles test. The test was reportedly a successful mid-to-long range launch. The hauntingly successful missile test redeemed North Korea from its failed test earlier this year.

The test heightened North Korea's apparent advancement when it comes to intercontinental ballistic missile. The launch is perceived to be a threat to South Korea, the U.S. and even most nations around the globe.

Reports say that the missile test was conducted on Sunday, May 14 as supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The test is a prelude to verifying the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.

Kim Jung On has been very vocal towards his issues against the United States. He even once sited that Washington's moves may cause "sighting range for a strike". The U.S. military Pacific Command confirmed that there was indeed a missiles test. However, South Korea downplayed the progress.

"We believe the possibility of that is low," Roh Jae-Cheon, a spokesman for South Korea's office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

New South Korean President Moon Jae-In sent his envoy to China, Germany, States, Japan and Russia to discuss his policies when it comes to North Korea. Despite being downplayed, expert say that the successful test is a testament to North Korea's missile capabilities.

"North Korea's latest successful missile test represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Koran missile," John Schilling, an aerospace engineer dealing with rockets said in an interview.

Reports say that North Korea is also working on a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. This means, anyone is vulnerable if a nuclear weapon is launched by North Korea. Despite that, President Trump already expressed his intent to keep the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea "diplomatic" to prevent the latter from using nuclear missiles.

Based on local reports. The missile called Hwasong-12 was fired and flew at 787 kilometers (489 miles). But the thing that worries experts the most is the fact that by 2020, Pyongyang may have successfully developed a nuclear missile that can reach the U.S.
Californians are being urged to get rid of any standing water near their homes and businesses to help reduce the mosquito populations.

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued the mosquito warning Monday, just ahead of the summer.

Removing water will help reduce overall mosquito numbers and protect family members and neighbors from mosquito bites and mosquito-borne diseases," said CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith.

Pet watering dishes, water-filled containers outside, potted plants can all become breeding ground for mosquitoes, according to the CDPH.

Mosquitoes carrying Zika and West Nile virus infections can spread them to humans through bites.

Zika, which can be sexually transmitted between humans, can cause miscarriage, stillbirth and severe neurological birth defects in newborns.

You can get more information about mosquito prevention here.
Fox News host and former first lady of San Francisco Kimberly Guilfoyle is reportedly in talks with President Donald Trump's camp about taking over as White House press secretary, according to the Bay Area News Group.

Guilfoyle, who used to be married to current Lt. Gov. of California Gavin Newsom, told the newspaper that assuming a role with Trump's press team has been "raised by a number of people" within his administration.

The former prosecutor said "it would be an honor to serve the country."

"I think itd be a fascinating job, its a challenging job, and you need someone really determined and focused, a great communicator in there with deep knowledge to be able to handle that position," Guilfoyle told the Bay Area News group.

According to a statement provided to NBC Bay Area by FOX News, it doesn't appear Guilfoyle is going anywhere.

"Kimberly is a valued member of the FOX News primetime lineup, and is under a long term contract with the network," according to a FOX News spokesperson.

Guilfoyle followed that up with her own statement, which was released by a spokesperson after the report was published.

"As I stated in the interview, I really love what I do and my job co-hosting 'The Five' is tough to beat," she said.



Current White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's first five months at the helm of the White House press podium has been stained by some instances of controversial statements and blunders. White House officials recently told the New York Times that Trump was considering a restructuring involving his top officials, including Spicer.



NBC Bay Area has reached out to the White House press team for comment.
The actor who played rap mogul Suge Knight in the 2015 movie "Straight Outta Compton" was arrested early Monday for allegedly assaulting a security guard at a Sunny Isles Beach hotel, Florida police said.

According to a police report, a uniformed security guard at the Marenas Beach Resort on Collins Ave. approached 40-year-old Richard Taylor and asked him to take his feet off of a table in the hotel's lobby.



When Taylor refused, the guard asked front desk staffers to call the police. A few minutes later Taylor allegedly approached the guard, shoved him several times and a fight ensued.

Responding officers arrived at the hotel just before 11:30 p.m. Sunday night and, according to the report, witnessed Taylor "pick the victim up and slam him to the ground."

Taylor was arrested and charged with battery. He appeared in court Monday was given a reduced bond of $750.

Taylor played the role of Death Row Records co-founder Marion "Suge" Knight in the story of the 1980s hip-hop group N.W.A., which included such members as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Easy-E. Knight is currently in jail awaiting trail on a murder charge.

Taylor lists himself as an actor, stuntman, fitness trainer and martial arts instructor, according to his IMDB page.


As the nations heroin epidemic continues to claim lives at a rapid rate, the search for the heroin high is creating a dangerous situation for pharmacies. Police have responded to more than 500 pharmacy robberies in Illinois and Indiana since 2012, according to statistics compiled by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In many security camera videos, pharmacists and their staff members can be seen being threatened, pushed or held at gunpoint by robbers who are demanding opioids and anti-anxiety medications. Opioid painkillers are known to ease heroin withdrawal while anti-anxiety pills can be used to mellow a high.

Glenn Kosirog was working at his family-owned pharmacy in Chicago in February when an alleged robber displayed a gun and forced him to hand-over thousands of prescription pills. Most of the incident was captured by Kosirogs security cameras.

He had ripped the narcotic cabinet off the wall, Kosirog said. He didnt take everything. He just took the Xanax and hydrocodone.

Chicago police said no offenders are in custody and the investigation is still ongoing.

Prescriptions for hydrocodone dropped by 350,000 in Illinois, as tighter controls on painkillers are putting fewer pills in the hands of users. The resulting street value of the drugs increases because they are in more demand.

If you cant get your painkiller any more, youre either going to move to heroin or in some cases youre going to rob a pharmacy to get those drugs thats harder to get from your medical provider, said DEA Chicago Special Agent in Charge Dennis Wichern.

According to Mt. Prospect-based National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), violent pharmacy robberies may end up having the harshest effect on the real patients who need prescription painkillers.

One of the unintended consequences of all of this is they will simply quit carrying these products and when they do, these patients dont have access to the medication they need, said NABP executive director Carmen Catizone.

The number of opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. skyrocketed to more than 33,000 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The February robbery wasnt the first targeting Kosirogs pharmacy.

Youre always taken by surprise, Kosirog said. You try to hope and pray that they leave quickly.

Police continue to investigate a violent robbery at a Wauwatosa, Wisconsin pharmacy that occurred in December. Security video of the incident, which was reported by NBC 5, showed robbers knocking down pharmacy staff members and threatening them at gunpoint. A spokesperson for the Wauwatosa Police Department said suspects in the case have been identified, but criminal charges have not yet been issued in the case.

Wichern said in some cases children under 17 are given shopping lists by an older person to rob pharmacies of prescription pills. He said children are used to conduct the robberies because it makes it more difficult to prosecute the cases.
More than a dozen cars on a 77-car freight train derailed late Monday night in central Illinois and officials expect it could take days to clear the scene.

About 18 cars were overturned or off the tracks and two power lines were reported down by 10:30 p.m., Logan County officials said.

The train was traveling from East St. Louis to Proviso, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and was hauling mixed freight at the time.

No injuries were immediately reported involving the train crew or the public, according to Union Pacific.

There were initial reports that a car had been struck by the train but authorities later revealed that new automobiles were being carried in one of the train cars and some were damaged in the derailment.

Two of the trains cars were carrying hazardous material but authorities said those cars remained upright and did not immediately show signs of leakage.

We apologize for the inconvenience to the community, and are working to safely and quickly clear the site and restore normal operations, Union Pacific said in a statement.

The downed power lines caused a railroad crossing in the area to go out, which authorities expect will take some time to fix.

If you are not a resident theres no reason for you to be down here, said Logan County EMA Director Dan Fulscher. There could be other items on the cars that have come off them and we wont know until daylight hours."

Amtrak said it was awaiting word from Union Pacific on temporary track closures in the area. It was not immediately known if Amtrak service would be impacted, but the rail agency said it had already planned reduced service Tuesday because of scheduled improvement work elsewhere in the corridor.

"This is going to take days," Fulscher said. "The other bigger issues is once they get the train cars removed, there will be a repairing of the tracks themselves."


The U.S. Coast Guard said it has located a debris field believed to be the wreckage of a Florida-bound plane with four people on board, including a prominent New York businesswoman and her two children, that went missing in the Bahamas after leaving Puerto Rico.

The Coast Guard tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the agency's Southeast helicopter crew found a debris field about 15 miles east of Eleuthera, and were continuing to search for survivors.

#BreakingNews @USCG helo crew locates debris field approx. 15 mi E of Eleuthera, Bahamas. Search for survivors continues, more to follow.  USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) May 16, 2017

The debris appeared to be from a plane and an oil slick was spotted in the search area but authorities were still trying to determine whether it came from the missing plane, said Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Kelly, a Coast Guard spokesman.

"We are still searching and that search is going to go on through the night and into tomorrow," Kelly said.

The twin-engine MU-2B was about 37 miles east of the island of Eleuthera on Monday when air traffic control in Miami lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 2:10 p.m., the Coast Guard said. It was was en route to Titusville, along the northeastern coast of Florida, but never made it to its destination.

The passengers on board the plane were identified as Jennifer Blumin, 40, of New York, and her 3-year-old and 4-year-old sons. Kelly confirmed Nathan Ulrich, 52, of Lee, New Hampshire, was listed as the pilot but it was not known who was flying the plane when it disappeared.

#BreakingNews @USCG searching for overdue airplane 37 mi E of Eleuthera, Bahamas. Read more https://t.co/hA5TaVUgr4  USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) May 16, 2017

Blumin is the founder and CEO of Skylight Group, a New York-based event space company specializing in the fashion industry. Skylight confirmed Blumin and members of her family were on the plane in a statement.

"Her family is working with investigators and we politely ask that you respect their privacy at this time," the company said.

Blumin is married to architect James Ramsey. The couple was featured in an Open House New York video in 2015.

Officers arrived at the scene near Northwest 67th Street and 12th Avenue around 3 a.m., where the 5-year-old was found and rushed to the operating room at Ryder Trauma Center in stable condition.

Their plane was at about 24,000 feet when air traffic control lost contact. Officials said it's unknown why the plane never made it to its destination.

"There's no indication of significant adverse weather at the time," Kelly said.



Blumin owned the plane through a consulting company she owned, according to New York State and aviation records.

Karl Ulrich, Nathan's brother, released a statement on behalf of the family Tuesday evening saying they were "devastated and shocked to learn that Nathan, Jennifer and her children have been missing." The family said Ulrich is a "beloved son, brother and uncle," and they hope for a resolution to this disappearance.

Ulrich was a Coast Guard Auxiliarist out of Air Station Cape Cod from 2005 to 2014.

Customs and Border Patrol and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force are assisting the Coast Guard in the search.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The United States accused Syria on Monday of executing thousands of imprisoned political opponents and burning their bodies in a crematorium to hide the evidence.

The allegation could test the Trump administration's willingness to respond to atrocities, other than chemical weapons attacks, that it blames on President Bashar Assad's government.

The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the U.S. launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent. Trump on Monday kicked off a week of meetings with Middle East leaders, sitting down with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi a day before he hosts Turkey's president. Trump flies to Saudi Arabia later this week.

All are governments that have pressed the United States over six years of civil war in Syria to intervene more forcefully. Trump had backed away from President Barack Obama's calls for regime change in the Arab country, with the new president's officials pointedly saying leadership questions should be left to Syria's citizens, until his intervention last month. His administration now says Assad cannot bring long-term stability to Syria.

In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity."

The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

Although the State Department cast its unusual news conference as an effort to press Assad's key backers, Russia and Iran, it also underscored Trump's lack of a strategy for stopping Syria's violence. The war has killed as many as 400,000 people since 2011, contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II and enabled the Islamic State group to emerge as a global terrorism threat.

Trump had been highly critical of Obama for failing to respond to earlier chemical weapons attacks in 2013 after setting a "red line" against such usage. After last month's attack in northern Syria, Trump said the Syrians crossed "a lot of lines" for his administration. Beyond authorizing cruise missiles in response, however, he didn't outline a strategy to eliminate the threat.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday reiterated the administration's line that Syria's future "should be decided by Syrians in a free credibly and transparent process." But he called such a future "unimaginable" if Assad is propped up with help from the "seemingly unconditional support from Russia and Iran." He didn't outline how such a future might become imaginable.

Russia has shown no inclination to drop its support for Assad. It is now pushing the idea of "de-escalation zones" that would be designed to reduce violence, while not challenging Assad's authority over almost all of Syria's major cities.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been "firm and clear" in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week that "Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al-Assad."

A main point of that meeting "was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime," she said. "Simply put, the killing, the devastation has gone on for far too long in Syria."

Syrian human rights groups and opposition activists have long reported on mass killings inside Syrian prisons, though not on bodies being burned to cover up evidence.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated the U.S. accounts of mass killings but said it lacked sufficient information about the crematorium.

Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

US accuses Syria of mass executions and burning the bodies

By MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Trump administration on Monday accused the Syrian government of carrying out mass killings of thousands of prisoners and burning the bodies in a large crematorium outside the capital.

The State Department said it believed that about 50 detainees a day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes from Damascus. Many of the bodies, it said, are then being burned in the crematorium.

"We believe that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place in Saydnaya prison," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomatic for the Middle East.

The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it said is a building in the prison complex that has been modified to support the crematorium. The photographs taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not definitely prove the building is a crematorium, but they show construction consistent with such use. One photograph taken in January 2015 shows one area of the building's roof cleared of snow due to melt.

In presenting the photographs, Jones said Syrian President Bashar Assad's government "has sunk to a new level of depravity" with the support of Russia and Iran and called on both countries to use its influence with Syria to establish a credible ceasefire and begin political talk
After nearly ten months serving as acting and interim chief, Anthony Campbell has been selected by Mayor Toni Harp to become the permanent New Haven Chief of Police.

It had been an incredible job interview because weve had everything in the last 10 months, Campbell said in a sit down interview with NBC Connecticut on Monday.

Since former Chief Dean Essermans departure, Campbell said he has focused on improving the morale of the men and women in the New Haven Police Department.

And I stand behind my cops, Campbell said. Cops have to make really difficult decisions sometimes within a split second and you have to support your cops.

One of the most difficult decisions for a police officer to make is when to discharge a service weapon.

People get upset any time an officer has to use deadly force and thats understandable, Campbell said, who has been following the fallout from the deadly police shooting in Bridgeport of a 15-year-old boy behind the wheel of a stolen car.

I think that if they had body cameras it would be extremely helpful, he said.

Now that hes dropping interim form his title, one of Campbells top priorities to take community policing to the next level is outfitting the officers in the New Haven police force with body cameras by the end of the year. He plans to attend the Board of Alders Public Safety Committee public hearing Tuesday about police body cameras.

Campbell said body camera video would have been helpful to the Connecticut State Police investigation of the Bridgeport shooting.

It stops the void from being filled in with speculation and conjecture, he said.

Mayor Harp said she would like to submit a proposal to the state by June 30 to have the purchase of the body cameras reimbursed.

I believe that this department needs to make sure that it is as forefront of accountability and transparency, Campbell said.

Another top priority now that Campbell is dropping interim from his title is address the issue of domestic violence.

While violent crime is on the decline, the latest homicide investigation  the Jennings Way murder of 52-year-old Sherri Ruffin  is the result of domestic violence, Campbell said.

When I look at the murders that occurred last year, over a third of them were because of domestic violence, Harp said.

Campbells plan to start a New Haven Family Justice Center focused on helping domestic violence victims is one reason the mayor said she chose him to be the full-time chief of police.

Instead of people being referred to this organization or to the victim advocate or having to go meet prosecutors here, it would be one stop shopping at the Family Justice Center, Campbell explained, citing examples of this in both Bridgeport and Brooklyn.

The opioid epidemic is another serious reality in the city of New Haven, according to Campbell.

Anytime they experience an overdose, Campbell said. We will now dispatch an officer.

The goal is to gather any evidence that could lead police to the supplier of something that is potentially lethal, Campbell said.

We want to be able to track this back to who in our community is pumping this garbage and I mean thats exactly what it is, garbage, Campbell said. To sell something to community members that not only addicts them, but literally leads to their deaths.

Campbell is becoming the next permanent chief at a time when he understands the fears from within the citys immigrant population over potential action by federal authorities.

I can assure them that the New Haven Police Department is not going to be participating with ICE in raids, Campbell said. That our general order which talks about this is alive and well.

A Yale graduate who thought he was going to become a Jesuit priest, Campbell rose within the ranks of the police department since becoming an officer in 1998.

During the upcoming police recruitment in June, Campbell said an emphasis will be put on candidates who are from the New Haven community.
The first round of layoff notices were sent to 113 people in state government across three departments.

The notices were announced the same day Gov. Dannel Malloy revised the state budget proposal to cut spending by nearly $400 million annually.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will lay off 22 workers, the Department of Social Services will lay off 88 and the Office of Policy and Management will lay off 3 employees.

Last Friday, layoff notices started going out to Connecticut state employees, but the state had not specified to which departments.

The governor previously said layoff notices could go to as many as 1,100 state employees. Even though notices are distributed, some employees have "bumping rights," allowing them a limited ability to move into another position.


A Hamden bar that did not have its liquor license renewed by the state is now encouraging customers to bring their own alcohol.

Town officials lobbied for the Department of Consumer Protection Liquor Control to revoke Slyce Pizza Bars liquor license because neighbors raised concerns about violent crime in the surrounding area.

This is a restaurant, not a club, said David Casanova who lives near 141 Arch St. It wound up being a club, thats why they lost their liquor license.

After about 9 or 10 oclock at night, we just knew not to come by here because there were a lot of people and it seemed like a dangerous area, Casanova added.

Hamden Police Chief Thomas Wydra said he learned Slyce is now advertising itself as BYOB almost immediately after we found out that the liquor control commission had denied the renewal permit at the end of April, he said.

The Hamden Town Planner and Town Attorney are reviewing what they can do to regulate Bring Your Own Booze businesses at the local level, Wydra said.

As far as I know, theyre not in violation of any local laws or any state laws, Wydra told NBC Connecticut. We did check with liquor control at the state level and they informed us nothing they would get involved with once the renewal permit was denied that means theres no regulatory authority involved.

Regular Slyce customer Kwamaine McCarter said Slyce has been unfairly punished and that the business is not responsible for crime plaguing the surrounding area.

Everywhere you go is drama, McCarter said. You cant run from drama. Anywhere you put liquor and people it can be drama.

Chief Wydra stands by the DCPs decision that Slyce lost its privilege to sell liquor based on the testimony from 16 witnesses.

This particular establishment causes concern because for a long time we believed that alcohol in some ways was at least fueling the violence that was occurring in the parking lot and around the neighborhood, Wydra said.

While he is a concerned neighbor, Casanova said he doesnt want to see Slyce go out of business.

Im hoping they can survive on their pizza its a good pie, he said. Id recommend people stop here and eat the pizza. I hope the bar disappears and this BYOB is not something that lasts.

NBC Connecticut reached out to the attorney for Slyces owner but did not hear back. In the past, the owner has told NBC Connecticut hes unsure if his business can survive without serving alcohol.
More cuts are coming to Connecticut state police to save millions of dollars, according to state police sources, and that means a new class of state troopers will not be hired.

Last week, the union that represents state police said five state troopers could be laid off.

Sources within Gov. Dannel Malloy's administration confirmed two more layoff notices have been sent to state police, bringing the number to seven.

State police were expecting around 80 recruits coming in, going through training and eventually joining the force, but the Malloy administration cut the class.

The new plan not to bring in new state troopers is expected to save $3 million.

Multiple sources told NBC Connecticut that the final number of state police layoffs isn't clear, but it could include both police and civilian personnel.

In all, 120 state employees have received notice that their jobs are going away.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort took out a $3.5 million mortgage through a shell company just after leaving the campaign, but the mortgage document that explains how he would pay it back was never filed  and Manafort's company never paid $36,000 in taxes that would be due on the loan, NBC News reported.

In addition, despite telling NBC News previously that all his real estate transactions are transparent and include his name and signature, Manafort's name and signature do not appear on any of the loan documents that are publicly available. A Manafort spokesperson said the $3.5 million loan was repaid in December, but also said paperwork showing the repayment was not filed until he was asked about the loan by NBC News.

News of the missing documents comes as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is taking a "preliminary look" at his real estate transactions, including the $3.5 million loan, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Real estate experts contacted by NBC News called the omission "highly unusual," though not illegal.


The Trump administration has approached the wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, days before President Donald Trump embarks on his first foreign trip.

Trump will nominate Callista Gingrich for the post, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said Monday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before an official announcement.

Trump's foreign trip this month includes a stop at the Vatican.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Callista Gingrich is president of Gingrich Productions and has produced a number of documentaries, including one about Pope John Paul II.

She worked for the House Committee on Agriculture as chief clerk until 2007. She was a key figure in her husband's 2012 bid for the Republican nomination.

She was a congressional aide when she began a six-year affair with Newt Gingrich, then a married Republican congressman.

In 2012, Gingrich's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, told ABC News that he had proposed an "open marriage" so he could continue to see Callista Gingrich without divorcing.

The former House speaker denied the charge.

He converted to Catholicism in 2009, after years of attending mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., where Callista Gingrich has performed in the choir.

Trump's vision for foreign relations and diplomacy has been starkly different to that promoted by the vastly popular Pope Francis. Francis has spoken of the need for bridges between nations, while Trump has advocated for walls and travel restrictions as a means of national security.

Francis has previously remarked that anyone who wants to build walls to keep migrants out is "not Christian."

Francis also has called for an end to the use of fossil fuels, while Trump has pledged to cancel payments to U.N. climate change programs and pull out of the Paris climate accord.

But both share a populist appeal and speak with a down-to-earth simplicity that has endeared them to their bases of supporters. And both share a common concern about the plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic militants.

Speaking to reporters while traveling home Saturday from a trip to Portugal, Francis said he would listen respectfully to what Trump has to say when the two meet. Trump will call on Francis mid-way through his first foreign trip, after visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel and before attending a NATO summit in Brussels and a G-7 summit in Italy.

"I never make a judgment about a person without hearing him out," the pope said.
After intervention from the Los Angeles city attorney, a company will have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution to LA residents.

California Restoration, a water damage restoration company, must pay $500,000 in a settlement after being accused of using unfair, deceptive practices to scam hundreds of customers.

LA City Attorney Mike Feuer's office examined some 200 cases of claims such as people not being allowed to cancel their contracts or the company giving people blank contracts only to later fill them in, among others. "We're talking basic consumer rights," Feuer said.

One of the victims, Tony Tubbs, said his ordeal began three years ago when he hired California Restoration to fix a water and sewage leak at his South LA home.

Tubbs said he asked the company to ask his insurance company if it would cover the repairs. Instead of hearing back, though, Tubbs says he received a $12,000 bill.

"There's a signature on the paperwork, and we still don't know who's it is, but it's not mine," Tubbs said.

An attorney for the company said California Restoration "has made many improvements" and addressed issues like Tubbs' and those raised by Feuer, but the company still has to pay Tubbs $4,500.

In total, California Restoration must pay nearly $100,000 to 23 specific users mentioned in the case, $150,000 in fines and $250,000 to be put into a restitution account set up for additional claims.

"We're calling on consumers to reach out to us if they've been victimized, allegedly, by these practices," Feuer said.

People who think they might be victims can email the city attorney at mike.n.feuer@lacity.org.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of restitution the company California Restoration owes Tony Tubbs.


The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors doubled a reward to $20,000 Tuesday in hopes of generating tips that help authorities locate a 5-year-old South Pasadena boy who has been missing since April 22.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger recommended the increase at the request of detectives working the case and urged the public to come forward with any "information (about) any person who may be concealing the child or who mayhave information about the child's disappearance or whereabouts."

The search for Aramazd Andressian Jr. has spanned several Southern California counties, including Santa Barbara, where authorities searched in the Lake Cachuma Recreation Area where the boy may have been with his father on April 21.

Aramazd Andressian Sr. was arrested April 22 and released from jail three days later. He was initially held in lieu of $10 million bail after he was found unconscious at South Pasadena's Arroyo Seco Park and could not account for his son's whereabouts. The search started that day.

On April 28, the day a search warrant was served at his South Pasadena home, Andressian released a statement through his attorney about his son's disappearance.

"I hope and pray for the safe return of my only child, my namesake, who has been missing since last Saturday morning, April 22nd," he said.

Andressian said his son wanted to go to the park that morning before they met with his mother for a custody exchange.

"In one moment, I was at the park with my son, and then I found myself waking up in Huntington Memorial Hospital hours later. I was told that a good Samaritan found me unconscious on the ground near my car, with young Aramazd nowhere in sight. I can only speculate that I must have been attacked in the park, given my unresponsive state and subsequent physical condition," the statement said.

He said he and his family "are heartbroken and grief-stricken that Aramazd Jr. is missing and may be in harm's way. I am pleading with the public to come forward with any knowledge of Aramazd Jr.'s whereabouts or information regarding the circumstances leading up to his disappearance."

When Andressian was released from custody, the sheriff's department said it had decided "not to present the case to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office for filing consideration at this time. The matter remains under investigation."

Sheriff's Capt. Chris Bergner said the weekend the child disappeared that his father's statements had "been convoluted and not consistent."

The boy's mother contacted police at 9 a.m. April 22 to report her son missing. She said her estranged husband, with whom she shares custody of their son, had failed to drop off the child at a pre-arranged meeting place.

The boy was last seen by his mother on April 18, via a Skype video call from an unknown location, South Pasadena police said.

Bloodhounds combed Arroyo Seco Park at least twice, and Sierra Madre's search-and-rescue team and the San Gabriel and San Marino police departments joined the search.

Authorities also searched in Orange County, where a gray 2004 four-door BMW owned by Andressian was seen on the morning of April 21 at Disneyland in Anaheim, where he and the boy apparently spent the day on April 20, officials said.

The child is white, 4 feet 1 and 55 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a plaid shirt and plaid shorts and has a small mole on the bottom of his right shoulder.

South Pasadena police asked anyone with information about the boy to call them at (626) 403-7297. Sheriff's detectives can be reached at (323) 890-5500.
A man was fatally shot by police after a suspected stolen van pursuit ended in the Long Beach area Monday.

The man was shot when running from South Gate police.

The pursuit began in the South Gate area before 1 p.m.

The driver of the van pulled into a store parking lot, and two occupants -- appearing to be a man and a woman -- got out and ran.

The driver and passenger, toting backpacks, ran along railroad tracks near the area of Cherry and Artesia avenues next to the 91 Freeway.

As the pair fled, man pulled something out of his pack and appeared to point it at police. Police opened fire. The man fell to the ground and was eventually pronounced dead at the scene.



The van was abandoned on the back side of a Target store in the 6700 block of Cherry Avenue in Long Beach.

The woman was initially thought to be holed up in a small building near the shooting scene, starting a standoff.

One report indicated that a third person had been in the van, but got out early in the chase and surrendered to police.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was assisting the South Gate Police Department in investigating the shooting.

Refresh this page for updates.
The presidents of the United States and Turkey vowed Tuesday to repair a relationship battered by years of disputes over Syria's civil war and its various fighting groups, even as they broached a new disagreement over U.S. plans to arm Kurdish fighters.

Delivering a statement alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would re-establish its military and economic partnership with Turkey. He committed to backing Turkey's fight against the Islamic State group and a Kurdish insurgency known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization.

Such groups will "have no safe quarter," Trump said in the White House's historic Roosevelt Room, where he also commended Turkey's "leadership in seeking an end to the horrific killing in Syria."

Erdogan issued a statement afterward, congratulated Trump for his "legendary triumph" in the election. While Erdogan called for the extradition of a Pennsylvania-based cleric he blames for a failed coup in Turkey last summer, there was little tension.

The biggest dispute between the two NATO allies in recent days has been the U.S. plans to arm Kurdish Syrian militants to help them fight IS. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the militants and doesn't want them spearheading an operation to retake IS' self-declared capital of Raqqa.

Turkey believes the Kurds in Syria are linked to the PKK. The U.S. sees the Syrian Kurds as their best battlefield partner on the ground in northern Syria.

Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about six miles (10 kilometers) away. Erdogan's government also has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

In his statement to reporters, Trump did not directly address his decision to arm the Kurds. But he asserted the U.S. and Turkey's mutual commitment to ending Syria's conflict.

The meeting took place with a White House still responding to what a senior U.S. official said was Trump's disclosure of classified information about an Islamic State terror threat involving laptop computers on aircraft.

Trump shared the threat in a meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office last week, according to the official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

The U.S. is relying on regional allies including Turkey for intelligence-sharing and military assistance as it crafts a Syria policy, particularly as Iran and Russia work to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

Trump launched cruise missiles last month at a Syrian air base after accusing Assad of using chemical weapons. But the president hasn't outlined a strategy to quell the six-year civil war or usher Assad out of power, which his administration says will be needed to stabilize the Arab country.

Trump has gone out of his way to foster a good relationship with Erdogan. After a national referendum last month that strengthened Erdogan's presidential powers, European leaders and rights advocates criticized Turkey for moving closer toward autocratic rule. Trump congratulated Erdogan.
A Miami-Dade police officer is accused of smuggling guns through Miami International Airport, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Officer Michael Freshko was charged with conspiracy to unlawfully export firearms from the United States to the Dominican Republic. The 48-year-old made his first appearance in federal court Tuesday.

The FBI teamed up with Miami-Dade Police Department to investigate Freshko.

The officer received firearms from a co-conspirator, then used his position as an officer to get the guns through the TSA checkpoint, federal officials said.

Freshko would go to the departure gate to return the guns to the co-conspirator, who in turn would place the firearms in a carry-on baggage and travel to the DR. The alleged smuggling occurred on Oct. 5, 2012 and on Dec. 7, 2012.

Federal officials accuse Freshko of smuggling six guns to the DR, including four Glock .9 mm pistols, one Sig Sauer .9 mm pistol and one Sig Sauer 5.56 rifle.

Freshko has worked for the department since 2004 and was promoted to sergeant in 2010. During his tenure, he was assigned to the airport district. Freshko also worked as an actor on the side and appeared in several local productions, including "The Last Supper" and "Truth is Stranger" Than Florida, according to IMDb.

Miami-Dade Police Department Director Juan Perez released a statement regarding Freshko's arrest:

Integrity is the hallmark of the Miami-Dade Police Department as evidenced by our collaboration in this investigation. We are committed to the highest performance standards and ethical conduct, thus anyone who blemishes our badge will be held accountable for their actions.
Curtis Bostic is an attorney, a politician and  for a few weeks in 2016  an accused horse thief.

On a cold December day in the rugged hilltops of Breathitt County, Bostic was trying to rescue some horses he said had been abandoned and were malnourished. But he was arrested by a sheriff's deputy, who said the horses belonged to two men who follow the local custom of setting them free in the winter to wander the wilderness of the county's abandoned coal fields.

The charges were later dismissed after the sheriff's department said it didn't have probable cause to make the arrest. But during the night Bostic spent in jail, he came up with an idea: A few weeks later, he leased the land where he had been arrested. He sent a letter to the two men who had pressed charges against him. Now, they were the trespassers, and Bostic ordered them to come get their horses before he put them up for adoption.

"I can't change the full county. But I can say you are not going to come to my property and drop your horse off in the cold winter," Bostic said.

Bostic wants to turn 4,000 acres of former coal mines into a horse sanctuary. It's the latest idea on how to tackle the growing horse population in the mountains of Kentucky, a state known more for pampered thoroughbreds on pristine farms than bony horses roaming free.

Bostic's descriptions of thousands of horses suffering at the hands of cruel owners have offended the locals who say he doesn't understand their culture.

Clifton Hudson, 30, owns five horses that he sets free to wander land he doesn't own near his home in Breathitt County. He said he provides 600 pounds of salt each month for the horses. He stopped hauling hay bales to the land because the horses were not eating them, a sign he says means they have plenty of grass to graze. The locals often bring their children to the mountains on the weekends to pet and feed the horses.

"It's just really it's more of a pastime than anything else with the people of the county," Hudson said. "So far the only person really had an issue with it has been Mr. Bostic."

Wild horses have been a familiar sight in the Kentucky mountains for decades. But following the Great Recession and the thousands of jobs lost because of the disappearing coal industry, more horses have been set loose.

Just how many and whether they have enough food is up for debate.

Dumas Rescue, a local animal rescue organization, told a legislative committee last fall that Floyd County alone had 1,000 horses. Owner Tonya Conn said they took in 22 horses last year but had to turn away requests for 100 others.

"Some of them have never been touched by human hands," she said.

Debby Spencer, a board member for the Appalachian Horse Center, said Floyd County has just 44 free-roaming horses, based on a census she conducted in 2014 across nine eastern Kentucky counties. She found 440 horses in eight of them, a number she said has since grown to 584.

"There is more than enough food up there," Spencer said.

Bostic lives in South Carolina, where he's a former member of the Charleston County Council and once ran for Congress, losing to former Gov. Mark Sanford in a 2013 primary. He's the general counsel for Kinzer Drilling Co., which owns the land Bostic has leased. He and his wife run an orphanage in Burma and own a private retreat in Charleston that has horses.

"We kind of enjoy being saviors of the world," he said.

But some don't see it that way. Hudson said a lot of owners will breed their horses in the wild, collecting and selling the offspring for side income. Bostic's lease threatens to disrupt that practice.

Breeding of free-roaming horses is tricky. Male horses, once banned from free-ranging based on an unwritten rule among local owners, are running free and mating with female horses without owners' knowledge. In September, Johnson County sheriff's deputies discovered 20 to 30 horses at a former coal mine. Three of the horses, all males, had been shot in the head.

"It looked like they were trying to thin the herd by killing the males," Deputy Terry Tussey said. "It's still an open case. We never found out anything."

Animal aid groups have hosted free gelding clinics in eastern Kentucky, but they depend on owners bringing their horses  and many lack resources to do so.

Local government leaders see the herds of wild horses galloping through the mountains and dream of tourists flocking to watch them. Such efforts have worked elsewhere, including ponies on Assateague Island in Virginia and mustangs at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in South Dakota. But in Kentucky, a group trying to build the Appalachian Horse Center in Breathitt County has struggled to raise money.

The group has land not far from where Bostic was arrested. It plans to build a visitor center, offer guided tours and treat people with equine-assisted therapy. Local leaders hoped the group would partner with Bostic. But Bostic isn't interested in tourism.

"I don't know how that would ever work," he said. "What I want to do is help the animals that are here."
As Seen On
What to Know A plane crashed into an industrial neighborhood in Carlstadt Monday and on Tuesday investigators will work to determine why it went down

Two crew members on the plane died; there were no passengers, officials said, and no injuries or fatalities were reported on the ground

Investigators said Tuesday that a voice recorder has been recovered; the crew members didn't report any problems before the crash

A plane that crashed near a small airport outside New York City, killing two crew members, didn't report any problems to air traffic controllers a minute before it nosedived, a federal investigator said Tuesday.

The Learjet crash Monday afternoon in an industrial area near Teterboro Airport damaged two buildings and caused a fire that burned 16 cars in a parking lot. No one on the ground was injured.

Jim Silliman, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said Tuesday it appeared from air traffic control audio tapes that the plane's approach was going smoothly right before the crash.

"It seemed they were talking to the aircraft while it was on approach and the pilots didn't give any sense of an extreme situation or identify any problem with the aircraft at the time," he said.

Silliman said the voice recorder had been recovered and was being shipped to NTSB headquarters. He said the flight wasn't required to have a data recorder.

He said the wind at the time of the crash "was a concern." Winds were gusting at more than 30 mph and controllers would have tried to have the plane head into the wind to avoid crosswind.

The plane was listing to the right with its nose down at the time of impact, indicating it was out of control, Silliman added, referring to video that shows the plane crashing into the ground nose-first. "Why it got there is of course the subject of the investigation," he said.

A spokesman for the Hawaii company where the pilots of a jet that crashed near a small airport outside New York City worked said the captain had more than 15 years of experience and had flown the plane "quite a bit."

Honolulu-based Trans-Pacific Jets spokesman Ryan Frost said that the pilots were returning to Teterboro Monday to stay in a hotel after earlier flying from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, and then onto Philadelphia.

Frost said that the other pilot had about three or four years of experience.

Monday's crash has dredged up dormant fears among residents who live within yards of where corporate jets take off and land.

The airport sits in a densely populated area just north of MetLife Stadium, home to the NFL's Jets and Giants, and has been a battleground over the years over the types and number of planes that should be allowed to land there.

Residents of a community of trailer homes that sits across a street from the end of one of Teterboro's runways are accustomed to the sound of planes taking off and landing.

John Falbo, who has lived in the New Jersey community for four years, said he can even smell the jet fuel as the planes pass by. Planes skirt one side of the development, but helicopters pass right over, he said.

Monday's crash "hit so close," Falbo said. "If it had hit here, this place would have gone up like a Roman candle."

New Jersey lawmakers, most notably former Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, have successfully fought off attempts by the Federal Aviation Administration to allow business jets weighing more than 100,000 pounds to use Teterboro. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez recently wrote a federal budget measure to continue that restriction.

Over the years, air carriers have agreed to a nighttime curfew and a ban on the noisiest planes at the airport. That hasn't altered the fundamental equation for people who live nearby, said Mark Pfeifle, who also lives across the road from the runway.

Pfeifle said Monday's crash reminded him of the potential dangers.

"It could have hit us and could have took our homes out," he said. "A lot of people in here don't exactly have a lot of money, and it could have done a lot of damage."

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. A man can be seen running across a parking lot toward the crash site as thick, black smoke spews into the air.

The plane was registered in Billings, Montana, to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address. The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There was no answer at their home Monday night.

The jet had flown from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, early Monday. It then flew to Philadelphia later Monday morning before leaving for Teterboro in the afternoon. Silliman didn't release the names of the crew.

Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area.
What to Know A plane crashed into an industrial neighborhood in Carlstadt on Monday afternoon

Officials said buildings and cars were on fire; thick, black smoke could be seen rising above the crash site

Two crew members on the plane were killed; there were no passengers, officials said

UPDATE: Federal Investigators Head to Deadly Plane Crash Site



A small plane crashed into a busy industrial neighborhood in Carlstadt, New Jersey, while attempting to land at Teterboro Airport on Monday afternoon, killing two pilots on board and creating a large fireball, officials and witnesses said.

The impact of the crash set three buildings, more than a dozen cars and a number of power lines ablaze, Carlstadt Police Chief Tom Berta said. Thick, black smoke was seen rising high above the crash site, and was visible as far away as New York City. Witnesses described a surreal scene of melting cars and exploding tires.

"There's nothing really left of the plane at all - you just see the two engines that are burnt up and stuff," one man told News 4.



Firefighters from multiple departments responded to building fires at United Group, Manhattan Door Company and the Carlstadt Dept. of Public Works, Berta said. There were 13 vehicle fires.

Dramatic Images: Plane Crashes Near Teterboro Airport

Members of the FAA and NTSB were en route to the scene as part of an ongoing investigation into the cause of the crash. The Bergen County medical examiner was identifying those who died.

The NTSB said it would initiate its investigation into the crash Tuesday. The FAA said it would join them as it continues its probe.

The Learjet 35 twin-jet, which departed from Philadelphia International Airport, was approaching Runway 1 at Teterboro just before 3:30 p.m. when it went down near Kero Road about 1/4 mile from the airport, the FAA said.

Two crew members were killed in the crash, officials said. There were no passengers aboard.

The plane's tail number is N452DA. It was built in 1981 and is registered to A&C Big Sky Aviation in Billings, Montana. It wasn't immediately clear who was operating the plane at the time of the crash, and News 4 wasn't immediately able to reach the company Monday evening.

Among the many factors investigators from the FAA and NTSB will probe is the plane's maintenance records, which is routine in all plane crashes.

Officials said the plane crashed into a parking lot near the buildings that caught fire. One of its wings was lodged into the roof of the Manhattan Door Company.

Surveillance video shows the red plane right before impact. It appears to be nose-down and on its side as it hits.

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"Tower, that Learjet just crashed," the pilot of another plane told air traffic controllers moments later.

"Airport's closed! Airport's closed!" an air traffic controller said moments later.

Witnesses said the plane was flying upside down before it crashed into the parking lot, and a Carlstadt Police Dept. spokesman said the plane appeared to be listing to its side before the crash.

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn and crashed a few hundred yards from the airport. He was aboard another plane at the airport at the time.



Meteorologists forecasted strong winds, including gusts up to 45 mph, for northern New Jersey at the time of the crash.

No one on the ground was reported injured, according to officials, but people familiar with the area said if the plane had crashed just 15 minutes earlier dozens of people would have been in the parking lot. The neighborhood is a densely populated residential and industrial area.

A witness describes what he saw just moments after a plane plummeted into the ground in a neighborhood in New Jersey Monday afternoon.

One witness said she was working at the Manhattan Door Company when the plane came down right outside her office window.

"Everything was shaking in my building, everything turned black all of the sudden," she said. "It landed in the parking lot and then we heard the explosion."

Another man said he was in the car with his girlfriend when the out-of-control aircraft passed overhead.

"I saw the plane come over, in front of us, completely on its side, flying erratically," he said.

Another witness said people rushed to the wreckage to see if they could help, but "unfortunately it was all engulfed in flames and we could do nothing but stand by and watch  really horrific."

Christopher Pastor said he ran from his car to help but the intensity of the fire kept him back.

"All the fuel got all over," Pastor said. "There's cars that are on fire, a building caught on fire, the poles started getting on fire."

Raw footage shows scenes from the aftermath of a fatal plane crash in Carlstadt, New Jersey, Monday.

Spokesperson for Boro of Carlstadt Joe Orlando was at the scene as the plane came down. He said explosions were going off, cars were burning and pieces of the plane, including wheels and part of the fuselage, were scattered at the Dept. of Public Works facility near 99 Kero Road.

Right now theyre trying to put the fires out on the building just next to us... we just keep having little explosions, its a crazy situation here, Orlando said shortly after the crash.

The explosions were the sound of car tires popping due to the heat of the flames, officials later said.

Parts of the plane are laying in the garage, I can see the engines, part of the fuselage. Theres just melted cars all over the place in our yard, Orlando said.

The last crash at or near Teterboro Airport was in 2005, and the last deadly crash was in Nov. 1985, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a well regarded database of international flight incidents. Multiple people died in the 1985 crash.

Dramatic footage shows buildings on fire following a plane crash at Teteboro Airport, New Jersey, Monday.
Commuters, especially those coming from northern New Jersey and Rockland County, have a reason to cheer Tuesday.

Two years behind schedule, and $17 million over budget, the newly renovated George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal opens up.

Despite the setbacks, the now open terminal will make a huge difference for commuters as more than 13,000 people are expected to use the hub any given weekday.

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez will arrive at 7 a.m. to greet commuters.

Although, a hub for commuters is its main purpose, it offers other features as well.

A new waiting room seats 125 people that comes equipped with air conditioning and heat, along with a new gym, restaurants, shopping, and even a dentist office. Gates will also comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

There is cashless ticketing now. Commuters can't buy tickets from a bus driver and all riders must have tickets or monthly passes with them when boarding buses.

Meanwhile, commuters all morning long Tuesday have been giving good reviews.

"I love it," Israel Jimenez, of Howard Beach, Queens, said. "It's really convenient and I'm sure everybody else will be happy about this."

The tunnel between the bus terminal and the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority's A Line station at 175th Street will reopen at a later date.


An armed robber sexually assaulted a 7-Eleven clerk in Delaware and then tried to steal from a woman who was walking inside the store, according to police.

Police say the unidentified man entered the 7-Eleven on the 200 block of Christiana Road in New Castle Monday around 12:30 a.m., approached the sales counter and confronted a female clerk while holding a knife. The suspect then demanded money and cigarettes from the clerk, according to officials. After the clerk gave him money and cigarettes the suspect physically and sexually assaulted her, investigators said.

The suspect then approached a woman who was entering the store and tried to rob her, according to police. The woman refused to comply to his demands however and the suspect fled the scene in a westbound direction through the parking lot, investigators said.

The clerk was taken to the hospital where she was treated for non-life threatening injuries. The other woman was not hurt.

The suspect is described as a black male between 5-foot-10 and 6-feet with a large build and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a black hooded jacket or sweatshirt, black pants, black boots and a black ski mask.

If you have any information on the incident, please call Detective J. Paul Doherty at 302-365-8438. You can also call Delaware Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIP-3333, visit the Crime Stoppers website or text an anonymous tip to 274637 (CRIMES) by using the keyword DSP.


A bill expanding the permissible uses for medical marijuana in Delaware has stalled in the state Senate.

The bill failed to win Senate passage Tuesday after several lawmakers noted that they were told after a committee hearing last month that it would be amended to address concerns from the medical industry about some of its provisions. No amendment was added, however.

The bill adds debilitating anxiety to the list of conditions and illnesses for which medical marijuana can be prescribed. The anxiety definition includes generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety.

The bill also removes the requirement for a psychiatrist to sign an application for someone seeking to use medical marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, any physician would be allowed to verify the application.

Despite the setback, Delaware lawmakers are still rolling out legislation that could make recreational cannabis legal for adults over the age of 21. The House Revenue and Finance Committee overwhelmingly approved a plan last week to legalize adult-use marijuana. House Bill 110 will likely move to a full house vote sometime next month.

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Gov. John Carney has remained silent on the issue, but invited advocates and patients to a roundtable discussion in April. He told those present that he was "there to listen" and will carefully consider all perspectives before making any decision on pursuing recreational cannabis legislation.



All of this could be in question, however, after President Donald Trump appeared to backpedal on his support for medical marijuana, which he touted during the presidential campaign season.

In a signing statement issued earlier this month, Trump objected to a provision that prohibits the federal government from interfering in state-run medicinal cannabis programs.

States were essentially given autonomy to enforce their own pot laws in a memorandum issued by former Deputy Attorney General James Cole in 2013. The memo shifted enforcement priorities from the federal level to local law enforcement.

But current Attorney General Jeff Sessions is already taking the opposite approach. He instructed federal prosecutors to crack down on drug offenses and created a task force to toughen up on enforcement.
The White House on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump's disclosure of classified information to senior Russian officials as "wholly appropriate," as officials tried to beat back criticism from fellow Republicans and concerns from international allies.

One day after officials declared that reports about Trump's discussions with the Russians were false, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the president had been engaging in "routine sharing of information" with foreign leaders.

Trump himself claimed the authority to share "facts pertaining to terrorism" and airline safety with Russia, saying in a pair of tweets he has "an absolute right" as president to do so. Trump's tweets did not say whether he revealed classified information about the Islamic State, as published reports have said and as a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

The revelations sent a White House accustomed to chaos reeling anew and drew rare serious criticism of the president from some Republicans. His action raised fresh questions about his handling of classified information and his dealings with Russia, which is widely considered an adversary by many U.S. officials and Western allies.

A senior U.S. official told the AP that Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Sharing classified information from the ally violates the confidentiality of an intelligence-sharing agreement with that country, the official said.

The information was provided to the U.S. by Israel, NBC News reported.

The official said that Trump boasted about his access to classified intelligence in last week's meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak. An excerpt from an official transcript of the meeting reveals that Trump told them, "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day."

Trump later was informed that he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA looking to minimize any damage. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly, would not say which country's intelligence was divulged.

As president, Trump has the ability to disclose classified information largely as he chooses. Yet his decision to discuss an ally's information on the Islamic State with other countries could damage his standing with world leaders and lead some countries to start second-guessing their own intelligence-sharing agreements with the U.S.

A senior European intelligence official told the AP his country might stop sharing information with the United States if it confirms that Trump shared classified details with Russian officials. Such sharing "could be a risk for our sources," the official said. The official spoke only on condition that neither he nor his country be identified, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

McMaster, in a White House briefing, said: "In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged."

He cast some of Trump's revelations as information that was available from publicly available "open-source reporting" and added that the president did not know the precise source of the intelligence he had shared, suggesting that Trump could not have compromised confidential sources.

The Kremlin dismissed the reports of Trump's actions as "complete nonsense."

On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans alike expressed concern. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the reports "deeply disturbing" and said they could affect the willingness of U.S. allies and partners to share intelligence with the U.S.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the intelligence uproar a distraction from GOP priorities such as tax reform and replacing the health care law.

"I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda," he told Bloomberg Business.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Congress to have immediate access to a transcript of Trump's meeting with the Russians, saying that if Trump refuses, Americans will doubt that their president is capable of safeguarding critical secrets.

Trump ignored reporters' questions about whether he disclosed classified information. Following a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump said only that his meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was "very, very successful."

Asked why the NSA and CIA were put on notice if the revelations were not problematic, McMaster cast the notification as being provided "from an overabundance of caution."

The disclosure put a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the disclosure on Monday.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo was to brief members of the House intelligence committee later Tuesday.

On Monday, McMaster told reporters: "The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer cast the problem as unauthorized leaking of sensitive or classified information about the meeting as "frankly dangerous." He drew a distinction between leaks and Trump's conversation with the Russians, saying the discussion with the Russian officials involved shared threats to the U.S. and Russia.

Trump also tweeted Tuesday about wanting "to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community."

The revelations could further damage Trump's already fraught relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies. He's openly questioned the competency of intelligence officials and challenged their high-confidence assessment that Russia meddled in last year's presidential election to help him win. His criticism has been followed by a steady stream of leaks to the media that have been damaging to Trump and exposed an FBI investigation into his associates' possible ties to Russia.

The disclosure also risks harming his credibility with U.S. partners around the world ahead of his first overseas trip. The White House was already reeling from its botched handling of Trump's decision last week to fire James Comey, the FBI director who was overseeing the Russia investigation.

The revelation also prompted cries of hypocrisy. Trump spent the campaign arguing that his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should be locked up for careless handling of classified information.

And the way in which Trump's tweets contradicted his administration's initial explanation for echoed Trump's firing of Comey. In that case, the administration told the media that Comey was let go after seeking the recommendation of top Justice Department officials, but Trump eventually told NBC News' Lester Holt that he planned to fire Comey all along.

NBC's Asher Klein and Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Julie Pace, Catherine Lucey, Jill Colvin, Ken Thomas, Paisley Dodds and Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report.
Taipei, May 16 (CNA) A draft amendment to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act, which is scheduled to be sent to the Executive Yuan by the end of May, is likely to allow the continued existence of smoking lounges in hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs, health officials said on Tuesday.
A man who killed three women and two children in a drunken driving crash and failed to appear for his sentencing hearing was captured Monday night, the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office said.

Kenneth Kelley was apprehended about 8:30 p.m. at a hotel on Allentown Road, in Suitland, the sherriff's office said in a statement.

Wanted posters were distributed in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. On Monday, police received an anonymous tip that Kelley had been spotted at the hotel. He was found inside a room.

They had reason to believe Kelley was planning to leave the D.C. area.

Prince George's County officials said Monday morning that they were trying to figure out who removed a GPS monitor from Kelley after he failed to show up for sentencing Friday, but they said Monday evening his file showed no order for him to get the device.

"According to the case file, there was not an order for a GPS monitoring device," Prince George's County Circuit Court spokeswoman Tia Lewis said Monday.

Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office spokesman John Erzen clarified on Tuesday that something went wrong.

"We took a look back at the transcripts from the plea hearing, and there is mention of monitoring pending sentencing there, and the judge does say [Kelley will] remain on monitoring pending the disposition. And we had no reason to believe that that was not going to be followed," he said.



Erzen said Monday that officials are looking into whether Kelley may have been wearing a GPS monitoring device connected to an unrelated case in Virginia.

Kelley was due to be sentenced Friday for causing the 2014 crash in Oxon Hill that killed sisters Tameika Curtis, 34, and Typhani Wilkerson, 32, and young siblings Hassan Boykin, 1, and Khadiua Ba, 13. Dominique Green, 21, who was a passenger in Kelley's car, also was killed in the crash. Curtis was a mother of eight; Wilkerson had two toddlers.

Erzen told News4 on Friday and again on Monday that Kelley had been wearing a court-ordered GPS anklet that had been removed. Officials had been trying to figure out which private company was responsible for monitoring it.

"Everybody is scratching their heads," Erzen said. "It's an unusual situation."

The Prince George's County Department of Corrections did not know which company was responsible for tracking the device on Kelley, a spokeswoman said Monday morning.



Later Monday, court officials said Kelley never was made to wear the device.

The court assigns a private company to monitor a GPS device when the person wearing it lives outside the county, the spokeswoman said. Kelley lives in D.C.

Kelley's lawyer, Antoini M. Jones, declined to say whether he had had any contact with Kelley since he failed to appear for sentencing.

The families of the crash victims were outraged on Friday when Kelley failed to show up.

"He took away five lives. Five. I'm not sure why the judge released him in the first place. You know, he shouldn't have been out on the street," Lloyd Hardy said. He's the father of Curtis' two eldest children.



Kelley pleaded guilty in March to all 28 charges, including five counts of negligent manslaughter.

A judge released Kelley on $100,000 bond after his plea, though the state's attorney's office had argued to keep him in jail.

He never appeared in court Friday.

"We fully expected him to be here, but he did not show," Erzen said.

A warrant for his arrest was issued.

Hardy, the victims' family member, pleaded for help.

"If you know Kenneth Kelley, if you've seen this guy, please encourage him to turn himself in," Hardy said.

The Crash: 'I Just Felt Like I Was in a Nightmare'

Kelley was driving more than 70 mph when he crashed his Mercedes into an Acura stopped at Livingston Road and Livingston Terrace about 9:40 p.m. Oct. 10, 2014.

The 1-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl inside were rushed to a hospital, where they died.

Only Kelley and the children's mother, Dossa Boykin, survived the crash. She had been driving the Acura.

"I just felt like I was in a nightmare," Boykin previously told News4. "I wish I would have died, too. My daughter was in the backseat, singing some silly song. We were all laughing. Next thing I know, I saw cracks in the windshield. We never knew what hit us."

Relatives of Curtis and Wilkerson said the sisters had agreed to take care of each other's kids if anything ever happened to one of them.

"Nobody ever thought, you know, what happens if they both go at the same time?" said Hardy. "Something like that was inconceivable. There was no plan for that."

Kelley was driving on a suspended license at the time of the crash. Prosecutors said his blood alcohol level was 0.14, nearly twice the legal limit in Maryland.

Mother's Day without Curtis is always painful, Hardy said. This year, the family could not bring themselves to go to the cemetery. They're looking for a measure of closure after the 34-year-old mother's death.

"She was killed in October 2014. Here it is 2017. So, you can imagine how long we've been waiting for some type of closure, some type of ending to the story," Hardy said.

Kelley faces a maximum of 50 years in prison: 10 years for each life taken.
Nine people were hurt and two were arrested at a protest outside the Turkish ambassador's residence in Northwest D.C. Tuesday, and streets in the area were shut down, authorities said.

A scuffle broke out Tuesday afternoon on the 1600 block of 23rd Street NW, on Sheridan Circle, about a half-mile northwest of Dupont Circle, police said.

Two people were taken to a hospital with serious injuries, a D.C. fire department representative said. The others were taken to a hospital in a bus for minor injuries.

Video from the chaotic scene showed people shouting and being punched. People demonstrating for and against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were present.

D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said the altercation broke out between two groups, but he didn't elaborate on the circumstances. He said two people were arrested, including one who was charged with assaulting a police officer.

The protest occurred the same day Erdogan met with President Donald Trump at the White House.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel was the key American partner who provided ISIS-related intelligence that President Donald Trump shared with Russian diplomats at a meeting last week, NBC News reported.

Israel's involvement, first reported by The New York Times, was confirmed by three government officials with knowledge of the matter.

"Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Israel's Ambassador Ron Dermer said in a statement.



On Tuesday, the White House defended Trump's discussing information, reported to be highly classified and involving an ISIS plot on airplanes, with Russia. But the disclosure ignited a firestorm of controversy in Washington.

Trump did not know the source of the information, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said at a news briefing Tuesday.
Gold Star father Khizr Khan was in Boston on Monday to serve as the featured speaker at the annual Bill of Rights Dinner for the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union.

Khan drew international attention for his speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention when he criticized then Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump for attacking Muslims and targeting immigrants.

Monday's ACLU speech is his 111th since the DNC and he dismisses any notion that the Trump administration doesn't discriminate in its travel ban.

"When he spoke after becoming President to Rudy Giuliani, he said, 'I want to ban all Muslims.' So let's call it what it is. It's a Muslim ban," said Khan on Monday.

Since the DNC, Khan says his life has changed for the better.

"It has given me an opportunity to show my gratefulness for the dignities that this country, this nation bestowed upon me by allowing me to be a citizen of the United States," said Khan.

The ACLU says thanks to advocates like Khan, it's membership has quadrupled since the election.
Authorities say a man who may have been hit by a brick during an assault in Lynn, Massachusetts, has died from his injuries.

The Essex district attorney's office said two men were assaulted by two other men as they walked down Blake Street around 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

One of the victims, only identified as a 39-year-old Reading man, was taken to a Boston hospital with life-threatening injuries after apparently being hit with a brick in the attack. He died Monday morning.

The other victim was taken to a local hospital. He's expected to survive.

No one has been arrested in connection with the assault.

The investigation is ongoing.
An off-duty police officer has been arrested in connection with a hit-and-run accident involving a pedestrian over the weekend in New Hampshire.

Manchester police said Officer Steven Cornacchia, also a Manchester resident, was behind the wheel of a black Ford Mustang on Sunday around 1:20 a.m. when he hit a 22-year-old woman as he turned onto West Merrimack Street from Elm Street.

He turned himself in on Tuesday morning and was charged with conduct after an accident based on the fact that he left the scene without notifying authorities.

Police said the victim was hit on her right side, which caused her to fall to the ground with minor injuries to her leg and minor abrasions. Cornacchia allegedly stopped to check on the victim before fleeing the area. The victim's friend recorded his license plate.

Cornacchia, 31, was immediately placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of both a criminal and internal investigation. However, following his arrest he was suspended without pay. He's been with the Manchester Police Department since 2013.

He was released on $1,000 personal recognizance bail and is due in court again on June 20. It isn't immediately clear if he has an attorney.
A plane made a stop in Massachusetts hours before crashing in New Jersey and killing two crew members.

NBC Boston Investigators have learned the small private jet left Teterboro Airport in New Jersey for Hancom Field in Bedford Monday morning. It stayed there for almost two hours before flying to Philadelphia International Airport.

During a 28-minute flight from Philadelphia back to New Jersey, it crashed into an industrial neighborhood in Carlstadt, about a quarter mile away from Teterboro.

Witnesses say cars melted away in the fire, with heavy smoke billowing from the crash.

Two crew members were killed, but no passengers were on board at the time.

The Learjet 35 is registered to A & C Big Sky Aviation of Billings, Montana. NBC Boston spoke briefly to a manager there, who said the pilot was not a direct employee, but a subcontractor who came from a pool of pilots they use. She did not have any details on the charter flight itself and didn't know why it had stopped at Hanscom.
Search teams expanded their range from Franklin, Massachusetts, to nearby Bellingham on Tuesday as they continued to look for any sign of a 20-year-old Duke University student who never made it home from a party over the weekend.

Michael Doherty, a 2015 Xaverian Brothers High School graduate, was last seen leaving a gathering of about 25 childhood friends on Phyllis Lane in Franklin around 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

His parents reported him missing after he didn't return home. A friend said Doherty texted his brothers asking for a ride, but it was late and they were already asleep. Doherty ultimately decided to walk roughly a mile to his home.

Tuesday evening, hundreds of people gathered at Franklin Commons for a candlelight vigil, showing support to Doherty's family. Those in attendance were asked to wear blue and white for Duke University, or their jerseys if they played a sport with Doherty.

Police in Maine say a dog that got into its owner's oxycodone perked right up after police administered the opioid-overdose antidote naloxone.

Police searched a wooded area and stream nearby on Monday. On Tuesday, police dispatched additional resources to the search, with K9 units on land and dive teams in Mine Brook. Helicopters and drones are also participating in the search. Aerial footage showed a diver searching the marshy area behind where Doherty went missing.

Authorities also announced Tuesday that they found a shirt and shoe on one side of the water and another shoe on the opposite embankment. They said it does not appear they washed up there, based on their condition.

Police have been interviewing people who were at the party and are asking anyone who lives nearby to check their properties.

Residents in Belligham's Maple Street area received reverse 911 calls Tuesday afternoon asking them to check their sheds after a bloodhound followed Doherty's scent through the woods at the end of Oak Street Extension in Franklin.

"Unfortunately, we don't have any news to report," Deputy Franklin police Chief James Mill said at a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon.

So far, he said a 1-mile radius from the place where Doherty was last seen has been searched.

"In several places out there it's like walking in cement," Mill said. "It's just very, very difficult terrain. It's exhausting."

MSP Special Emergency Response tprs returning from deployment in woods in search for missing man in Franklin. Will re-hydrate and re-deploy. pic.twitter.com/bE7qxaOZxz  Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) May 16, 2017

He said two additional bloodhounds are being called in to assist in the search.

Doherty was wearing a blue shirt with a Nike symbol along with black pants and sneakers when he disappeared. He is described as about 5'10" tall, with brown hair and eyes. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact Franklin police at 508-528-1212.

There is no indication of foul play at this point.



Neighbors in the area say they remain hopeful but are growing increasingly concerned.

"This is not a good area to be lost in if you're lost, but they've combed it very well," said neighbor Elden Boyd.

"You just hope that nothing happened," added Brie Hall, a concerned resident. "Just a terrible, terrible tragedy."

Police said they will most likely suspend the ground and air search overnight, but plan to resume in the morning.
A Massachusetts woman is facing a number of charges after Brockton Police say she went on a crime spree on Monday.

Anisha Johnson, 28, was for a number of incident after police say her spree started at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

Authorities say a light brown, 2005 Chevy Trailblazer was first blocking a woman in her driveway with her vehicle, who was attempting to leave from work.

The suspect, Johnson, is then believed to have exited her vehicle before punching her first victim in the face and driving away.

The victim had to visit an area hospital and her dentist. The description she gave to police matched another incident, in which the victim reported a similar car striking her own vehicle before fleeing the scene.

Police said the second incident happened at 8:24 a.m. at the Speedway Gas Station on North Main Street in Brockton.

At around 3:30 p.m., Brockton Police responded to Coburn Street for a reported robbery. As police arrived and prepared to arrest the suspect an officer walked up to her vehicle but the suspect took off in her vehicle missing an officer by inches.

Police perused the suspect onto Route 24. The chase lasted for an hour, finally ending just before 4:30 p.m., when Johnson was apprehended at the exit 17A off-ramp.

For the first incident, Johnson has been charged with assault and battery, disorderly conduct, and operating a vehicle to endanger.

The second incident brought charges of leaving the scene of an accident with property damage; the third, unarmed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon for attempting to hit the victim, and operating to endanger.

Johnson is currently being held at the Brockton Hospital for unspecified medical issues. She is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Brockton District Court.


The Well  Gorleston Baptist Church The Well  Gorleston Baptist Church

The Well is an outreach of Gorleston Baptist Church offering a place of welcome and community to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the borough of Great Yarmouth. They welcome on average sixty people every Monday and Thursday for a three course meal.

The Well in Gorleston is a caring community which aims to be a place where people in need feel accepted, loved and valued. They work with partners to support people with different needs  including addictions, mental health problems, debt or homelessness. The work reflects their Christian beliefs and everyone is welcome, whoever they are.



The services are all free to use and include a foodbank (part of the Great Yarmouth foodbank), a biweekly community lunch, mental health support, and a group to help with addiction.



Manager Liz Townson says The Well is part of Gorleston Baptists Drop in initiative; a place where our local community can receive support, compassion and a free meal. The Well aims to help and encourage the most hard-to-reach and disadvantaged members of our local area by being witnesses of Gods love and demonstrating this through acts of service and compassion.



"In this way church can be experienced by those who might not otherwise attend a traditional Sunday service. The Well is a place of refuge and friendship to those who have perhaps fallen on hard times or who are struggling through a variety of reasons to support themselves. Many are in want of practical help, encouragement and advice to signpost them in the right direction. Others might need someone simply willing to listen to any concerns they might have.



There are opportunities to share the gospel and to pray according to each individuals needs and an allotment area has been cultivated at the back of the church which is tended by visitors of The Well, providing a source of dignity as well as self-sufficiency.



Factfile
The Shadow Brokers are back once again, offering buyers not just exploits, but also compromised network data from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean nukes and missile programs.

Seemingly capitalizing on the success of WannaCry ransomware, which used EternalBlue and DoublePulsartools developed by the NSAs Equation Groupthe Shadow Brokers want to sell new exploits every month to people who pay a membership fee.

The hacking group dubbed its new monthly subscription model TheShadowBrokers Data Dump of the Month; the service kicks off in June. The Shadow Brokers claim not to care what Data Dump of the Month service members do with the exploits. The group teased:

TheShadowBrokers Monthly Data Dump could be being:

web browser, router, handset exploits and tools

select items from newer Ops Disks, including newer exploits for Windows 10

compromised network data from more SWIFT providers and Central banks

compromised network data from Russian, Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean nukes and missile programs

The group followed that with a statement in all capital letters, which is likely aimed at the NSA, claiming there would be no dump of the month and the group would permanently go dark if a responsible party buys all the stolen data before it is sold.

After all, the group claims that every failed attempt at making money has really always being about theshadowbrokers vs theequationgroup.

The latest Shadow Brokers' post criticizes global tech corporations, as well as governments, for not buying exploits in the past and thereby saving the public from an attack such as WannaCry. In particular, the group called out the following for not caring about security and public safety by buying the Equation Groups lost warez:

But theequationgroup didn't buy back lost warez. The Five Eyes, Russia, China, Iran, Korea, Japan, Israel, Saudi, the UN, NATO, no government or countries didn't buy lost warez. Cisco, Juniper, Intel, Microsoft, Symantec, Google, Apple, FireEye, any other bullshit security companies didn't buy lost warez.

Conspiracies: NSA paying U.S. tech companies not to patch?

Conspiracy plays a central theme in the post, as the Shadow Brokers claim the NSA is paying U.S. tech companies not to patch. Except the Equation Group didnt let Microsoft know about all the zero days, the group claims. At least not until the Shadow Brokers released screenshots of the Equation Groups stolen 2013 Windows Ops Disk. That holding back of exploits, in theory, is the reason why Microsofts Chief Legal Officer, Brad Smith, was so mad about WannaCry and the U.S. government stockpiling vulnerabilities.

The Shadow Brokers used several colorful insults for Microsofts top attorney, accusing Microsoft of being BFFs with the Equation Group and having huge contracts that result in Microsoft getting paid millions or billions each year.

The Shadow Brokers made the screenshots available in January. The NSA supposedly realized what the Shadow Brokers had and told Microsoft. Microsoft took the unprecedented step of skipping Patch Tuesday in February and then released the SMB (Server Message Block) fix in March that was used by WannaCry and not dumped by the Shadow Brokers until April.

A similar situation happened with Oracle, the group claims, but it didnt list the timeline of Oracle patching a huge number of vulnerabilities after purportedly being given a heads-up by the NSA about the Shadow Brokers-held exploits.

The group wrote:

In April, 90 days from theequationgroup show and tell, 30 days from Microsoft patch, theshadowbrokers dumps old Linux (auction file) and windows ops disks. Because why not? TheShadowBrokers is having many more where coming from? 75% of U.S. cyber arsenal TheShadowBrokers dumped 2013 OddJob from ROCTOOLS and 2013 JEEPFLEAMARKET from /TARGETS. This is theshadowbrokers way of telling theequationgroup all your bases are belong to us. TheShadowBrokers is not being interested in stealing grandmothers' retirement money. This is always being about theshadowbrokers vs theequationgroup.

(emphasis mine)

NSA allegedly has 'spies' inside U.S. tech corporations

But wait, theres more, as the group claims the Equation Group has spies inside Microsoft and other U.S. tech corporations. The NSAs hacking group also supposedly has former employees working in high up security jobs at those top tech companies.

The Shadow Brokers added:

TheShadowBrokers is thinking Google Project Zero is having some former TheEquationGroup member. Project Zero recently releasing Wormable Zero-Day Microsoft patching in record time, knowing it was coming? coincidence?

Last but not least, before announcing its monthly data dump club, the Shadow Brokers pointed out how odd WannaCry is for crimeware. Is being very strange behavior for crimeware? Killswitch? Crimeware is caring about target country?

Its unknown if the Shadow Brokers actually have more NSA-linked Equation Group exploits to start selling off every month to members in its latest attempt to get the NSA to pay up make money. The threat to release monthly data dumps, like a wine of the month club, starts in June.
Even though larger cloud providers offer security and implementation guidelines, companies still face significant risks and challenges when deploying secure applications to the cloud. A new class of security-focused cloud platforms promises to bridge this gap, bringing best-practices and regulatory compliance with the convenience of platform as a service (PaaS).

Notable examples of this type of company include Datica, Healthcare Blocks and Aptible, all founded in 2013 and all container-based. These companies boast elite security and DevOps teams that work to secure their products and write new features.

Their services are available at low price points and provide a convenient security framework that allows their customers to focus their development efforts on function rather than security.

For example, startups with limited resources can use these platforms to become more capable to demonstrate their unique value to customers. Small hospitals that cannot afford in-house information security or development teams have a far better chance of success using the standard features of these services and the support of season IT professionals that comes with them. Large enterprises and government organizations could benefit from the modern DevOps tooling such as continuous integration and containers built into the products to increase business agility.

Datica, Healthcare Blocks and Aptible, have already served a wide range of customers, including large government organizations, medical practices, hospitals and health/financial tech startups:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs partnered with Datica to deploy new tools more quickly and gain new insights to patient behavior.

The Greater Colorado Anesthesia medical practice used Healthcare Blocks to migrate several on-premises clinical applications to the cloud.

Retail telepharmacy software provider TelePharm credits Aptible with extending its development team.

[Related: -->The business case for telepharmacy]

What do security cloud platforms do?

The following technical features found in security cloud platforms have become table stakes:

"Push to deploy" git-based automation that is now standard in continuous integration workflows

Ease of scaling to many application instances

Wide support for different technologies from the rising Go programming language to traditional J2EE setups

Secret management services for API keys and passwords

Detailed performance metrics and alerts for servers and databases

Setup and management of Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) to reduce network exposure risks

VPN tunnel support for secure integrations to partners and on-premise installations

Load-balancing across multiple application instances

Host-level isolation

SSL termination

Compliant handling of application logs

At-rest database encryption with automated backups

Intrusion detection systems (IDS) integrations, available or built-in

Operating system hardening

Disaster recovery

Emergency 24/7 support

Customer experience

Modern deployment infrastructures are notoriously complex, consisting of hundreds of services that must all be maintained, updated, reconfigured and patched. This is an especially important activity in secure environments, as neglect of their upkeep often results in critical security vulnerabilities. These new platforms promise to simplify management and vastly reduce such risks by providing secure deployment defaults and aggressively refining their technology and policies across all customers.

[Related: -->Rugged devops: Build security into software development]

For example, when the POODLE, Shellshock and Heartbleed vulnerabilities hit, customers using secure PaaS had to do little more than await updates from their vendors, which came within just hours. This was made possible by the underlying container technologies and managed components such as load balancers, reverse proxies and data stores. The reduction in DevOps responsibilities allow teams to move forward on application development instead of dropping everything to put out new fires.

The platforms typically include access management schemes and policy controls for a customer's organization. These settings allow administrators to dictate "who can see or change what," and are important for audits, risk assessments and compliance. Customers are given tools and documentation made to be helpful in passing security checks by regulators and prospective clients.

However, blind trust in these platforms is not advised, as data security is a very delicate matter. For example, few if any protections are provided at the application layer. A page containing sensitive data without password protection would still constitute a data breach, even on these services. As always, understanding the gamut of what these systems do or don't provide is essential to using them effectively. Security through transparency is an industry best practice, and many of these vendors readily provide their security architectures on their websites for review.

These companies offer several different plans, ranging from monthly billing based on resource usage to bespoke enterprise contracts for complex requirements. The industry is new enough that standardization is still actively emerging, and the companies will often offer consulting services to onboard new customers. In fact, the platforms mentioned above are all members of the AWS Partner Network.

[Related: -->5 biggest cybersecurity concerns facing CIOs, CISOs in 2016]

While self-serve options are offered for standard application configurations, secure PaaS vendors will readily take meetings to discuss the intricacies of securely deploying their services for new customers. The customer's development teams can then explore the product offerings via inexpensive trials, having their questions and concerns further addressed by the vendor's technical support staff.

These technologies have great potential to lower the barrier to entry for tech companies in regulated environments such as healthcare and fintech, allowing more progress with far fewer resources. Likewise, they could grant enterprises an edge to their internal teams, unlocking the sort of innovation and problem-solving that is enabled with autonomy and lean thinking.

This story, "Secure platforms as a service allow you to focus on function" was originally published by CIO .
The reports came swiftly on Friday morning, May 12the first I saw were that dozens of hospitals in England were affected by ransomware, denying physicians access to patient medical records and causing surgery and other treatments to be delayed. Said the BBC:

The malware spread quickly on Friday, with medical staff in the UK reportedly seeing computers go down "one by one". NHS staff shared screenshots of the WannaCry programme, which demanded a payment of $300 (230) in virtual currency Bitcoin to unlock the files for each computer. Throughout the day other, mainly European countries, reported infections. Some reports said Russia had seen more infections than any other single country. Domestic banks, the interior and health ministries, the state-owned Russian railway firm and the second largest mobile phone network were all reported to have been hit.

The infections spread quickly, reportedly hitting as many as 100 countries, with Russian systems affected apparently more than others. What was going on? The details came out quickly: This was a relatively unknown ransomware variant, dubbed WannaCry or WCry. WannaCry had been "discovered" by hackers who stole information from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA); affected machines were Windows desktops, notebooks and servers that were not up to date on security patches.

Most alarming, WannaCry did not spread across networks in the usual way, through people clicking on email attachments. Rather, once one Windows system was affected on a Windows network, WannaCry managed to propagate itself and infect other unpatched machines without any human interaction. The industry term for this type of super-vigorous ransomware: Ransomworm.

Ransomworms spread quickly

Knowing this was a ransomworm, rather than a normal ransomware, I turned to one of the experts on malware that can spread across Windows networks, Roi Abutbul. A former cybersecurity researcher with the Israeli Air Forces famous OFEK Unit, he is founder and CEO of Javelin Networks, a security company that uses artificial intelligence to fight against malware.

Abutbul told me, The WannaCry/Wcry ransomwarethe largest ransomware infection in historyis a next-gen ransomware. Opposed to the regular ransomware that encrypts just the local machine it lands on, this type spreads throughout the organizations network from within, without having users open an email or malicious attachment. This is why they call it ransomworm.

He continued, This ransomworm moves laterally inside the network and encrypts every PC and server, including the organization's backup.

The good news is that Javelins software was able to prevent the spread of WannaCry on their customers computers, right out of the gate, explained Abutbul.

Javelins solution is specifically designed to automatically detect, respond and contain such spreading in a corporate network in real time," he said. "This ransomworm specifically used Microsoft SMB vulnerability MS17-010 to spread internally," which is the same vulnerability the NSA utilized for a couple years and was recently exposed via the January NSA tools leak.

WannaCry leverages a Windows vulnerability that the NSA knew about, and which was disclosed in January 2017. Microsoft, like other vendors whose vulnerabilities were in that NSA data dump, moved quickly to verify the defect and offer a patch. The problem is that not all customers installed the patch.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010, published on March 14, 2017, describes:

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sends specially crafted messages to a Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) server.

The bulletin goes on to say,

An information disclosure vulnerability exists in the way that the Microsoft Server Message Block 1.0 (SMBv1) server handles certain requests. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could craft a special packet, which could lead to information disclosure from the server. To exploit the vulnerability, in most situations, an unauthenticated attacker could send a specially crafted packet to a targeted SMBv1 server.

Affected Windows systems include everything from Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8.x, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016.

Safe for now, but maybe not for long

The good news is that by Monday morning, WannaCry was a known quantity and already no longer a serious threat, though China appears to be really messed up because so many copies of Windows there are allegedly piratedand Microsofts patch wont install systems without a valid Windows license. Still, beyond the piracy issue, we will no doubt hear for weeks about WannaCry infections because some organizations will be slow to install the patches.

However, other ransomworms like this are probably out there, and already were seeing variants on WannaCry that can evade signature-based detection systems, though its unclear if they can work on systems that are protected by Microsofts patch.

Roi Abutbul warned me, This time, the attackers used an unpatched rare vulnerability, but there are many other ways to move laterally and spread inside the network. Javelin specifically focuses on the malicious lateral movement in its early phases and has the ability to stop every spread attempt regardless of methodology and help the organization recover automatically.

My advice:

First, keep up to date on patches to Windows and all your other platforms. Too many organizations, particularly those in the public sector or with limited IT resource like hospitals, defer the installation of patches.

Second, use state-of-the-art tools to protect the network against known and unknown malware and attacks.

Third, dont be complacent with the usual ways that malware spreads. As weve seen with WannaCry, ransomware (and other malicious software) can spread virally, without user interaction. That means you cant train your way out of this.

If youre not patching, if youre not using tools like this, and if youre not being somewhat paranoid, there is zero doubt: You are vulnerable.
Just watching the evening news, I never had the impression that she was that effective as an opposition leader, but everyone else seems to think she was great, go figure.



Maybe the Lefties were saying she was good just so they could walk all over the opposition???
Holocaust survivor holds seminar at West Berkshire school

YEAR 9 students at Theale Green were able to hear a harrowing first-hand account of the Holocaust during a recent seminar at the school.

Holocaust survivor Rudi Oppenheimer returned to the West Berkshire school to give a thought-provoking and moving talk to the youngsters.

He spoke about his experiences as a Jewish child living in Germany, Britain and Holland during the 1930s and 40s.

Mr Oppenheimer is now 85 years old and still visits many schools throughout the year.

He, his brother Paul and sister Eve were deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when he was just 12 years old and, although all three survived the ordeal, their parents and grandparents did not.

Speaking of his experience, Mr Oppenheimer said: I am the little boy who stood at the barbed wire fence and saw. Ive made it one of my lifes missions to ensure that people dont forget  we must learn the lesson so that others dont have to suffer.

He added: I find it so rewarding and important to share my experiences with young people who might not otherwise know what went on.

Pupil Sean Dyer said: Rudi is a gifted presenter that made us both laugh and cry at his recollections of the Holocaust.

The journey that he took us on was powerful and was further amplified by its depth and specific details.

Another pupil said: Rudi came to Theale Green to share his harrowing experiences of the Holocaust, and, even though such memories must be extremely hard to share, he relived them for us in vivid detail.

He was incredibly inspiring and has encouraged me to stand up for my own rights.
Fort Report Column: Graduation

By Congressman Jeff Fortenberry

In his book, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World, retired Admiral William McRaven walks through 10 Life Lessons that he learned during his Navy SEAL training. The book flowed from a commencement address he gave at the University of Texas, Austin, where he now serves as chancellor. During this happy time of graduation ceremonies, if you want to hear a practical message of good cheer that stares right at the reality of life's issues, this is worth a little time, especially if you are young and beginning your adult journey.

In Lesson Number One, Admiral McRaven says, "Make Your Bed." A simple task to begin the day, making your bed gives you a first sense of accomplishment. It sets the right conditions for other achievements. It is an easy first step that begins a series of orderly steps throughout the day.

Rising through the ranks to lead the United States Special Operations Command, Admiral McRaven started his military career making his bed at 5:00 a.m. each morning. His Navy SEAL trainers, all of whom were Vietnam War veterans, inspected the bed. The sheets and blanket had to be tucked so tightly that a quarter would bounce off. The extra blanket had to be perfectly folded at the feet and the pillow precisely centered under the headboard. As the Admiral explains, at first he didn't get the point, but he came to understandeven after a grueling, discouraging day, when you come home at night, at least you can see that your bed is made.

The Admiral's speech draws from multiple other experiences during training, one of which is the sugar cookie. If you didn't pass dress inspection, you were forced to enter the surf, roll in the sand, and remain that way all day long from head to toe. The lesson: no matter how hard you try to get it right and as unfair as it seems, some days you are going to be a sugar cookie.

The graduation address came about after a conversation the Admiral had with his wife. After a first draft, something didn't seem right. He had spent multiple days at the task, used a lot of intellectual rigor, but he couldn't close the circle. Finally, his wife wisely intervened and advised him to move beyond lofty constructs and write something that he knew about. So, he did. Herein lies the power of the Admiral's words. They are drawn from his own experience, learned at a peak formative age, and applied to life's multiple and unknown challenges.

In Lesson 10, the Admiral concludes by saying, if you want to change the world, "Don't Ring the Bell." In the center of SEAL training exercises stands a bell. If you can't take it anymore, you can get up and ring the bell. After months of grinding training, ceaseless calisthenics, and sleepless nights, one of the final aspects of training is the mud flats endurance. The remaining SEALs are immersed up to their necks in frigid mud, the biting wind howling about them throughout the dark night. The temptation to get out, to be freed from the ordeal, to return to a warm bed, to never have to live with cold wet sand, to be liberated from the psychological darkness for goodit's all within your grasp, if you just ring the bell.

At this point of near brokenness, one SEAL broke through the sound of chattering teeth and began to sing. The trainers demanded silence, but then another SEAL joined in, and another. The team all began to sing. Suddenly, it wasn't quite as cold, and the dawn seemed a bit nearer, and the desire to ring the bell a little less tempting.

Due to one person's leadership, the rest had hope. On entering the world upon graduation or at any other part of your life, dont quit, dont give in, turn to others. If you want to change the world, don't ring the bell.
By IANS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to promote the country's worldwide exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce.



The agreement was signed by Pakistan's Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and Alibaba's President Michael Evans along with Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial, on behalf of Alibaba, Dawn newspaper reported.



Alibaba Group's Executive Chairman Jack Ma and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif witnessed the signing ceremony during the PM's visit to the headquarters of the company.



"I am glad my meeting with Jack Ma at the World Economic Forum in January has come to fruition in the shape of the MoU we have just signed," Sharif said.



"My appreciation of Ma's dynamism and performance of (the Alibaba) group comes not only from its success as a e-commerce giant but more so from the focus of the group on job creation and livelihood generation," he added.



Under the terms of the MoU, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP agreed to foster growth of worldwide exports of products by SMEs in Pakistan through e-commerce.



Online and offline training programmes for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist the enterprises with on-boarding on to Alibaba's platforms and optimising exports through e-commerce.



In addition, the three parties have agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services, according to the report.



The parties also agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to promote the country's worldwide exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce. The agreement was signed by Pakistan's Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and Alibaba's President Michael Evans along with Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial, on behalf of Alibaba, Dawn newspaper reported. Alibaba Group's Executive Chairman Jack Ma and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif witnessed the signing ceremony during the PM's visit to the headquarters of the company. "I am glad my meeting with Jack Ma at the World Economic Forum in January has come to fruition in the shape of the MoU we have just signed," Sharif said. "My appreciation of Ma's dynamism and performance of (the Alibaba) group comes not only from its success as a e-commerce giant but more so from the focus of the group on job creation and livelihood generation," he added. Under the terms of the MoU, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP agreed to foster growth of worldwide exports of products by SMEs in Pakistan through e-commerce. Online and offline training programmes for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist the enterprises with on-boarding on to Alibaba's platforms and optimising exports through e-commerce. In addition, the three parties have agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services, according to the report. The parties also agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in Pakistan.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Though late, the Bellandur Lake cleanup got some boost with the launch of Koramangala-Challaghatta Valley Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) on Monday.

The launch of the STP came just three days before the expiry of the National Green Tribunals one-month deadline to clean up the lake.

Chief Minister Siddaramiah who inspected the lake before reaching the venue said there are plans to construct nine more STPs, after which the total sewage treatment capacity of the city will reach about 1,500 MLD.It would take care of all of the citys sewage, he said.

The STP has a capacity of 60 MLD and with this, the total sewage treatment capacity in the city has gone up to 721 MLD. The plant can generate 1 MW of electricity using biogas, which will take care of half of the plants requirements, according to a press release issued at the event. It also stated that STPs at Sarakki and Agara, and an international standard sewage pumping station are in the pipeline and when completed, they would reduce sewage flow into the lake by 120 MLD. The treated sewage would be used to fill lakes in Kolar and Chikkaballapur and it will be used for irrigation.

The STP is built with financial and technical supports from JICA (Japan International Corporation Agency).

The CM said talks are on with JICA on providing financial aid to the government the tune of Rs 5,052 crore. Of this Rs 4,500 crore will be utilised for drinking water supply projects and the rest for purification purposes.

Civic bodies yet to file affidavits

With the NGTs one-month deadline looming, none of the civic agencies has filed affidavits on progress of Bellandur lake cleanup. Additional chief secretary Mahendra Jain said reports would be filed within a couple of days. The agencies are working on it and are in the process of finalising it, he said.

Political banter

The event also saw some political banter. Mahadevpura MLA Aravind Limbavali said taxation issues are making IT firms leave the city. However, the Chief Minister dismissed his observation and hailed the city as the countrys Silicon Valley.

BENGALURU: Though late, the Bellandur Lake cleanup got some boost with the launch of Koramangala-Challaghatta Valley Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) on Monday. The launch of the STP came just three days before the expiry of the National Green Tribunals one-month deadline to clean up the lake. Chief Minister Siddaramiah who inspected the lake before reaching the venue said there are plans to construct nine more STPs, after which the total sewage treatment capacity of the city will reach about 1,500 MLD.It would take care of all of the citys sewage, he said. The STP has a capacity of 60 MLD and with this, the total sewage treatment capacity in the city has gone up to 721 MLD. The plant can generate 1 MW of electricity using biogas, which will take care of half of the plants requirements, according to a press release issued at the event. It also stated that STPs at Sarakki and Agara, and an international standard sewage pumping station are in the pipeline and when completed, they would reduce sewage flow into the lake by 120 MLD. The treated sewage would be used to fill lakes in Kolar and Chikkaballapur and it will be used for irrigation. The STP is built with financial and technical supports from JICA (Japan International Corporation Agency). The CM said talks are on with JICA on providing financial aid to the government the tune of Rs 5,052 crore. Of this Rs 4,500 crore will be utilised for drinking water supply projects and the rest for purification purposes. Civic bodies yet to file affidavits With the NGTs one-month deadline looming, none of the civic agencies has filed affidavits on progress of Bellandur lake cleanup. Additional chief secretary Mahendra Jain said reports would be filed within a couple of days. The agencies are working on it and are in the process of finalising it, he said. Political banter The event also saw some political banter. Mahadevpura MLA Aravind Limbavali said taxation issues are making IT firms leave the city. However, the Chief Minister dismissed his observation and hailed the city as the countrys Silicon Valley.
By Online Desk

The CBI has launched multiple raids in former Union minister P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram's residence at Nungambakkam in Chennai. In all, 14 locations, including in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai and Chennai, connected to the senior Congress leader and his son are being searched by the CBI. The case has been registered under section 120-B r/w, section 420, section 8 and sextion 13(2) r/w and 13 (1) (d) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram's residence at Jor Bagh in New Delhi. | EPS- Shekhar Yadav

The CBI team began the raids at his house early in the morning under the supervision from the Delhi headquarters.

According to reports, the raids are part of the Aircel-Maxis case. It is also being said that the raids are linked to clearances given to INX media, which was once owned by Peter Mukerjea. The charges include criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by corrupt or illegal means to influence public servant and criminal misconduct.

ALSO READ GURMURTHY'S COLUMNS:

Karti Chidambaram Holds Global Empire Through Benamis

P Chidambaram, Vasan Eye Care and Rs 223 Crore Black Money

BI raids P Chidambaram's residence at Nungambakkam.

A CBI spokesman in New Delhi confirmed a raid was taking place at the home of Chidambaram's son, Karti, but gave no further details. Chidambaram, who served in the Congress government that was voted out of office in 2014, declined to comment when asked about the raids by Reuters.

Local reporters said the raids may relate to investment clearances given to a company called INX Media and that the deal was linked to Indrani Mukherjee and her company INX Media. INX Media operated channels like NewsX, 9X and 9X Music.

WATCH VIDEO: CBI Raids Congress leader P Chidambaram and son Karti's residences

It is alleged that while the clearance was only for Rs. 4 crore, the actual foreign investment was much higher, and this was allowed because Karti allegedly facilitated the deal. The CBI is also investigating a money trail and the bribe allegedly given to Karti.

According to reports, on Sept 22, 2008, Kartis Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL) allegedly received Rs. 35 Lakhs from INX Media, on the same day another Rs.60 lakh was allegedly paid from INX Media to Northstar Software Solutions Pvt Ltd. On September 24, 2008, another tranche of 20,000 Dollars were allegedly paid to ASCPLs Singapore subsidiary by INX Media.

A first information request, or police report, was filed in the matter on Monday, the Indian Express reported.

Chidambaram has been an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. He has also been the target of litigation brought by Subramanian Swamy, a prominent lawmaker in Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging corruption in a 2006 telecoms merger.

Alleging that the government wanted to silence his voice, the former union minister said, "Government is targeting my son and his friends by using CBI and other agencies".

"The government wants to stop me from writing, as it has tried to do with leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society", he further added.

The raids are also being conducted at their offices and may follow at Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also.

Karti, who is facing money laundering charges in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal, has been raided at his offices in the past as well.

CBI raid at former union minister P Chidambaram's residence in Chennai pic.twitter.com/1oGxTjVDXF  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

Tom Vadakkan, a Congress party spokesman, said the raids were an attempt to malign Chidambaram's reputation and that they had found no incriminating evidence.

"This is clearly a fishing expedition launched by the Modi government against Chidambaram," Vadakkan told Reuters.

(Inputs from agencies)

The CBI has launched multiple raids in former Union minister P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram's residence at Nungambakkam in Chennai. In all, 14 locations, including in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai and Chennai, connected to the senior Congress leader and his son are being searched by the CBI. The case has been registered under section 120-B r/w, section 420, section 8 and sextion 13(2) r/w and 13 (1) (d) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram's residence at Jor Bagh in New Delhi. | EPS- Shekhar YadavThe CBI team began the raids at his house early in the morning under the supervision from the Delhi headquarters. According to reports, the raids are part of the Aircel-Maxis case. It is also being said that the raids are linked to clearances given to INX media, which was once owned by Peter Mukerjea. The charges include criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by corrupt or illegal means to influence public servant and criminal misconduct. ALSO READ GURMURTHY'S COLUMNS: Karti Chidambaram Holds Global Empire Through Benamis P Chidambaram, Vasan Eye Care and Rs 223 Crore Black Money BI raids P Chidambaram's residence at Nungambakkam.A CBI spokesman in New Delhi confirmed a raid was taking place at the home of Chidambaram's son, Karti, but gave no further details. Chidambaram, who served in the Congress government that was voted out of office in 2014, declined to comment when asked about the raids by Reuters. Local reporters said the raids may relate to investment clearances given to a company called INX Media and that the deal was linked to Indrani Mukherjee and her company INX Media. INX Media operated channels like NewsX, 9X and 9X Music. WATCH VIDEO: CBI Raids Congress leader P Chidambaram and son Karti's residences It is alleged that while the clearance was only for Rs. 4 crore, the actual foreign investment was much higher, and this was allowed because Karti allegedly facilitated the deal. The CBI is also investigating a money trail and the bribe allegedly given to Karti. According to reports, on Sept 22, 2008, Kartis Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL) allegedly received Rs. 35 Lakhs from INX Media, on the same day another Rs.60 lakh was allegedly paid from INX Media to Northstar Software Solutions Pvt Ltd. On September 24, 2008, another tranche of 20,000 Dollars were allegedly paid to ASCPLs Singapore subsidiary by INX Media. A first information request, or police report, was filed in the matter on Monday, the Indian Express reported. Chidambaram has been an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. He has also been the target of litigation brought by Subramanian Swamy, a prominent lawmaker in Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging corruption in a 2006 telecoms merger. Alleging that the government wanted to silence his voice, the former union minister said, "Government is targeting my son and his friends by using CBI and other agencies". "The government wants to stop me from writing, as it has tried to do with leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society", he further added. The raids are also being conducted at their offices and may follow at Chidambaram's native place in Karaikudi also. Karti, who is facing money laundering charges in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal, has been raided at his offices in the past as well. CBI raid at former union minister P Chidambaram's residence in Chennai pic.twitter.com/1oGxTjVDXF  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017 Tom Vadakkan, a Congress party spokesman, said the raids were an attempt to malign Chidambaram's reputation and that they had found no incriminating evidence. "This is clearly a fishing expedition launched by the Modi government against Chidambaram," Vadakkan told Reuters. (Inputs from agencies)
By PTI

MUMBAI: The CBI today carried out searches at the house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea here as part of investigations into a case linked to P Chidambaram and his son Karti over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007.

The search was among the raids carried out at multiple locations across the country, including at the homes of the former finance minister and his son, CBI sources said.

A team of CBI sleuths are conducting searches at Peter's bungalow in the posh Worli area in south Mumbai, agency sources said.

Both Peter and his wife Indrani Mukerjea, founders of INX Media, are accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and are lodged in jail here.

The CBI has been conducting searches at 17 locations across the country, including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai and Chidambaram's hometown of Karaikudi, as part of a probe into the alleged criminal misconduct in approval of foreign investments in India.

P Chidambaram has been named in a police complaint in the INX deal, which accuses his son Karti of receiving 'consultation charges' after the INX Media won government approval to receive foreign investments.

The agency had yesterday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media in 2007 when Chidambaram was the finance minister.

The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Peter, Indrani, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan.

Indrani was arrested in August 2015 after chilling details of the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora came to light that year. Peter was arrested and made an accused later in November 2015.

According to CBI, which investigated the murder case and filed the chargesheet, that both Peter and Indrani had siphoned off money from INX Media.

MUMBAI: The CBI today carried out searches at the house of former media baron Peter Mukerjea here as part of investigations into a case linked to P Chidambaram and his son Karti over alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to a firm, INX Media, in 2007. The search was among the raids carried out at multiple locations across the country, including at the homes of the former finance minister and his son, CBI sources said. A team of CBI sleuths are conducting searches at Peter's bungalow in the posh Worli area in south Mumbai, agency sources said. Both Peter and his wife Indrani Mukerjea, founders of INX Media, are accused in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case and are lodged in jail here. The CBI has been conducting searches at 17 locations across the country, including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai and Chidambaram's hometown of Karaikudi, as part of a probe into the alleged criminal misconduct in approval of foreign investments in India. P Chidambaram has been named in a police complaint in the INX deal, which accuses his son Karti of receiving 'consultation charges' after the INX Media won government approval to receive foreign investments. The agency had yesterday registered a case regarding alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media in 2007 when Chidambaram was the finance minister. The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Peter, Indrani, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its director Padma Vishwanathan. Indrani was arrested in August 2015 after chilling details of the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora came to light that year. Peter was arrested and made an accused later in November 2015. According to CBI, which investigated the murder case and filed the chargesheet, that both Peter and Indrani had siphoned off money from INX Media.
Gopinath Rajendran By

Express News Service

Regina has been busy shuffling back and forth from Telangana to Tamil Nadu for shooting and promotions. With quite a few Tamil films lined up, including the one shes very excited aboutNenjam Marappathillai-her career is on a definite upswing. Excerpts from the interview below:

From doing a cameo in Kanda Naal Mudhal, youve come a long way.

Its been a roller coaster ride, but an amazing one. Ive learned a lot over the years and I can see the difference in my ability. Who I am today isnt who I was then.

Though you started with Tamil films, it was in Telugu cinema that you first became popular.

Even I find that fascinating. Even though I speak English at home, I consider myself to be a Chennai ponnu. But that said, even in Chennai, these days, I find myself talking more in Telugu! (laughs).

Telugu cinema has given me my big breaks, but Tamil cinema has been good to me too. Both industries are special in their own ways.

How different are they?

In Telugu films, the heroine has to look a certain way. Even if I played a girl from an underprivileged background, Id have to wear jewels and expensive designer clothes.

Thats not the case in Tamil. For the xerox-kadai ponnu look in Kedi Billa..., I was able to wear simply clothes and the audience here related to the character.

Managaram, for instance, did so well in Tamil, but the reception to the Telugu version, Nagaram, was fairly muted in comparison. I was actually asked why I looked like a regular girl instead of a heroine!

After experimenting with other genres, you have returned to comedy territory with Saravanan

Irruka Bayamaen.

I want to pull off commercial films as well as story-driven films. Ive always wanted to balance the two, and Im glad that its happening. Its a film in which Ill be seen as a proper Tamil heroine. I really loved working with the team. Udhay is an amazing co-star and a great person as well. Despite also being the producer, he doesnt get stressed out easily.

We havent heard a lot about your next, Nenjam Marapathillai.

Its my first horror film. I prepared for it by staying alone in a beach house in ECR. On the day of the films poster release on Twitter, we were sent e-mails of the pictures just some two minutes ahead of the unveiling. Selva(raghavan) prefers to maintain the mystery like that. He knows what he wants, and how to get it. Were all eager for the film to hit the screens.

The delay is not his fault. He finished the film on time. But due to unfortunate circumstances, it is getting delayed. Im sure itll be out soon.

What is like to work with senior directors like Selvaraghavan, as opposed to newbies?

I know what it feels like to be a newcomer and not be given an opportunity to showcase my talent. If I trust a new filmmaker and have confidence in the script, I will work with him. In fact, Im doing a Telugu film with a new director, new hero and a new production house, for this very reason. I want to be a part of new age cinema.

The only difference I feel is that veterans know what they want and have it all figured out. New directors improvise a lot. In todays industry, youre only as good as your last film anyway. So it doesnt matter.

Any dreams of doing women-centric roles?

Sure, and Ive been approached with such films from both Tamil and Telugu cinema. To shoulder an entire film isnt yet what I can do now. Whatever a films outcome, I have to first learn to deal withit. It all comes down to experience. I dont feel like Im there yet.

What projects are you working on?

Im doing Silukkuvarupatti Singam and Gemini Ganeshanum Suruli Raajanum with Vishnu Vishal and Atharvaa, respectively. Ive also got Madai Thiranthu (1945 in Telugu) with Rana Daggubati which is in mid-shoot. Im also working on a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, Hare Rama Hare Krishna.

You were also supposed to get into Bollywood with Aankhen 2?

The film is on hold as of now. But theres another big news about my Bollywood debut that I will reveal in July.

Regina has been busy shuffling back and forth from Telangana to Tamil Nadu for shooting and promotions. With quite a few Tamil films lined up, including the one shes very excited aboutNenjam Marappathillai-her career is on a definite upswing. Excerpts from the interview below: From doing a cameo in Kanda Naal Mudhal, youve come a long way. Its been a roller coaster ride, but an amazing one. Ive learned a lot over the years and I can see the difference in my ability. Who I am today isnt who I was then. Though you started with Tamil films, it was in Telugu cinema that you first became popular. Even I find that fascinating. Even though I speak English at home, I consider myself to be a Chennai ponnu. But that said, even in Chennai, these days, I find myself talking more in Telugu! (laughs). Telugu cinema has given me my big breaks, but Tamil cinema has been good to me too. Both industries are special in their own ways. How different are they? In Telugu films, the heroine has to look a certain way. Even if I played a girl from an underprivileged background, Id have to wear jewels and expensive designer clothes. Thats not the case in Tamil. For the xerox-kadai ponnu look in Kedi Billa..., I was able to wear simply clothes and the audience here related to the character. Managaram, for instance, did so well in Tamil, but the reception to the Telugu version, Nagaram, was fairly muted in comparison. I was actually asked why I looked like a regular girl instead of a heroine! After experimenting with other genres, you have returned to comedy territory with Saravanan Irruka Bayamaen. I want to pull off commercial films as well as story-driven films. Ive always wanted to balance the two, and Im glad that its happening. Its a film in which Ill be seen as a proper Tamil heroine. I really loved working with the team. Udhay is an amazing co-star and a great person as well. Despite also being the producer, he doesnt get stressed out easily. We havent heard a lot about your next, Nenjam Marapathillai. Its my first horror film. I prepared for it by staying alone in a beach house in ECR. On the day of the films poster release on Twitter, we were sent e-mails of the pictures just some two minutes ahead of the unveiling. Selva(raghavan) prefers to maintain the mystery like that. He knows what he wants, and how to get it. Were all eager for the film to hit the screens. The delay is not his fault. He finished the film on time. But due to unfortunate circumstances, it is getting delayed. Im sure itll be out soon. What is like to work with senior directors like Selvaraghavan, as opposed to newbies? I know what it feels like to be a newcomer and not be given an opportunity to showcase my talent. If I trust a new filmmaker and have confidence in the script, I will work with him. In fact, Im doing a Telugu film with a new director, new hero and a new production house, for this very reason. I want to be a part of new age cinema. The only difference I feel is that veterans know what they want and have it all figured out. New directors improvise a lot. In todays industry, youre only as good as your last film anyway. So it doesnt matter. Any dreams of doing women-centric roles? Sure, and Ive been approached with such films from both Tamil and Telugu cinema. To shoulder an entire film isnt yet what I can do now. Whatever a films outcome, I have to first learn to deal withit. It all comes down to experience. I dont feel like Im there yet. What projects are you working on? Im doing Silukkuvarupatti Singam and Gemini Ganeshanum Suruli Raajanum with Vishnu Vishal and Atharvaa, respectively. Ive also got Madai Thiranthu (1945 in Telugu) with Rana Daggubati which is in mid-shoot. Im also working on a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, Hare Rama Hare Krishna. You were also supposed to get into Bollywood with Aankhen 2? The film is on hold as of now. But theres another big news about my Bollywood debut that I will reveal in July.
By Reuters

BONN, Germany: Investors in China and India increasingly dominate ownership of coal reserves amid campaigns for divestment in many rich nations to limit the risks from climate change, a study showed on Tuesday.

The report, by British-based research group InfluenceMap, identified thousands of shareholders in 117 listed companies producing 3 billion tonnes a year of thermal coal with 150 billion tonnes of reserves.

It said that ownership of thermal coal, used in power plants, was dominated by "strategic investors in China and India (governments, individuals, power companies, special purpose companies)."

Ownership had shifted towards Asia from Europe and North America in recent years, Dylan Tanner, executive director of InfluenceMap, told Reuters.

"Coal has been pushed into a corner, stigmatized by the divestment community ... the overwhelming majority is held by strategic investors who have an interest in using the asset  the power companies or governments," said Tanner.

Almost 200 governments pledged at a summit in Paris in 2015 to shift this century from fossil fuels towards renewable energies to curb climate change, and more than 500 major investors have pledged to limit coal investments.

China and India say they will need coal for decades to bolster economic growth even as they try to curb emissions blamed for warming the planet.

As part of the divestment in coal, Norway's sovereign wealth fund and California's CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds, representing about $1.4 trillion in assets, had sharply cut their ownership of coal since 2010, the study said.

Some investors, however, now see opportunities in coal because U.S. President Donald Trump doubts climate change is man-made and wants to promote fossil fuels from the United States as a cheap source of energy.

Even before Trump's election, some mid-size U.S. and other asset managers "have been bulking up on coal in the last five years in anticipation of a resurgence of some of the remnants of the U.S. coal bankruptcies and growth in Asia," the study said.

The report said that if all the coal reserves identified in the report are consumed, it would release greenhouse gases equivalent to 45 percent of the gases needed to raise average surface temperatures above an agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

BONN, Germany: Investors in China and India increasingly dominate ownership of coal reserves amid campaigns for divestment in many rich nations to limit the risks from climate change, a study showed on Tuesday. The report, by British-based research group InfluenceMap, identified thousands of shareholders in 117 listed companies producing 3 billion tonnes a year of thermal coal with 150 billion tonnes of reserves. It said that ownership of thermal coal, used in power plants, was dominated by "strategic investors in China and India (governments, individuals, power companies, special purpose companies)." Ownership had shifted towards Asia from Europe and North America in recent years, Dylan Tanner, executive director of InfluenceMap, told Reuters. "Coal has been pushed into a corner, stigmatized by the divestment community ... the overwhelming majority is held by strategic investors who have an interest in using the asset  the power companies or governments," said Tanner. Almost 200 governments pledged at a summit in Paris in 2015 to shift this century from fossil fuels towards renewable energies to curb climate change, and more than 500 major investors have pledged to limit coal investments. China and India say they will need coal for decades to bolster economic growth even as they try to curb emissions blamed for warming the planet. As part of the divestment in coal, Norway's sovereign wealth fund and California's CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds, representing about $1.4 trillion in assets, had sharply cut their ownership of coal since 2010, the study said. Some investors, however, now see opportunities in coal because U.S. President Donald Trump doubts climate change is man-made and wants to promote fossil fuels from the United States as a cheap source of energy. Even before Trump's election, some mid-size U.S. and other asset managers "have been bulking up on coal in the last five years in anticipation of a resurgence of some of the remnants of the U.S. coal bankruptcies and growth in Asia," the study said. The report said that if all the coal reserves identified in the report are consumed, it would release greenhouse gases equivalent to 45 percent of the gases needed to raise average surface temperatures above an agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
By Express News Service

CHANDIGARH: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday got three-day police remand of Jagjit Singh Chahal, one of the main accused in the Rs 6,000 crore synthetic drug case. The agency has already attached property worth Rs 65 crore belonging to Chahal.

The ED, which had on Monday arrested Chahal from Mohali court premises, produced him in a special court in Patiala on Tuesday and got his police remand till May 18.

He was arrested by the ED under Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He had come to Mohali court to appear for the case already registered against him by the Punjab Police in this multi-crore drug racket.

Chahal, a businessman hailing from Amritsar, had got bail in the police case from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

We are investigating the trail of money within the country and from abroad, especially Canada, said an officer, adding that Chahal would be questioned by the sleuths of the agency as he had been summoned many times before but he did not turn up, forcing them to arrest him.

Chahal owns three pharmaceutical companies in Himachal Pradesh, which include MBP Pharmaceuticals and Montek Bio Pharma in Baddi and Tulip Formulations in Damtal. It is alleged that in his units ephedrine meant for

making medicines was diverted to manufacture Ice (synthetic drug). During his interrogation by the police earlier he had reportedly told the police and ED that he had paid Rs 35 lakh to Bikram Majithia, a former cabinet minister, as election fund.

Four years back, Chahal was arrested by the Punjab Police along with Manjinder Singh alias Bittu Aulakh, the other main accused in Jagdish Bhola drug case. Drugs worth Rs 5.3 crores were then seized from them.

The ED had already attached the properties of more than a dozen accused worth Rs 182 crore in this case.

CHANDIGARH: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday got three-day police remand of Jagjit Singh Chahal, one of the main accused in the Rs 6,000 crore synthetic drug case. The agency has already attached property worth Rs 65 crore belonging to Chahal. The ED, which had on Monday arrested Chahal from Mohali court premises, produced him in a special court in Patiala on Tuesday and got his police remand till May 18. He was arrested by the ED under Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He had come to Mohali court to appear for the case already registered against him by the Punjab Police in this multi-crore drug racket. Chahal, a businessman hailing from Amritsar, had got bail in the police case from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. We are investigating the trail of money within the country and from abroad, especially Canada, said an officer, adding that Chahal would be questioned by the sleuths of the agency as he had been summoned many times before but he did not turn up, forcing them to arrest him. Chahal owns three pharmaceutical companies in Himachal Pradesh, which include MBP Pharmaceuticals and Montek Bio Pharma in Baddi and Tulip Formulations in Damtal. It is alleged that in his units ephedrine meant for making medicines was diverted to manufacture Ice (synthetic drug). During his interrogation by the police earlier he had reportedly told the police and ED that he had paid Rs 35 lakh to Bikram Majithia, a former cabinet minister, as election fund. Four years back, Chahal was arrested by the Punjab Police along with Manjinder Singh alias Bittu Aulakh, the other main accused in Jagdish Bhola drug case. Drugs worth Rs 5.3 crores were then seized from them. The ED had already attached the properties of more than a dozen accused worth Rs 182 crore in this case.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Spelling more trouble for Lalu Prasad, Income Tax department today conducted raids and surveys at about 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in connection with alleged benami deals of Rs 1,000 crore by the RJD supremo members of his family.

Reacting sharply, the Bihar strongman alleged the BJP had "let loose the government machinery on him".

The BJP, meanwhile, demanded that the Nitish Kumar government, in which RJD is a coalition partner, probe the allegations of "shady land deals" of Lalu and some of his children. The Congress is also a constituent of the ruling alliance in Bihar.

The raids came days after the Supreme Court order of May 8 restoring the charge of criminal conspiracy against the RJD leader in all the four fodder scam cases against him in which he would now stand trial. Lalu has been barred from contesting an election after his conviction and sentencing in one of the fodder scam cases.

According to IT officials, raids were conducted at the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, Rewari and few others.

The searches were conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP and former union minister Prem Chand Gupta, and few other businessmen.

While raids were conducted at a dozen locations, ten other premises were surveyed, IT sources said.

"People and businessmen connected to the land deals involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched.

There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion," a senior official said.

WATCH VIDEO:

The BJP had last week accused Prasad, his MP daughter Misa Bharti and his two sons, both ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, of being involved in "corrupt" land deals worth over Rs 1,000 crore, and asked the Centre to probe one such transaction in Delhi. Lalus younger son Tejashwi Yadav is the deputy chief minister of Bihar.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had alleged that these transactions were a case of quid pro quo as they dated to the period when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister, and dared Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take action against him.

Prasad had claimed one such land deal involving Lalu and his family members was in Bijwasan in Delhi.

Meanwhile, in Patna, Lalu put up a brave face, saying he was "not scared at all" and will continue to fight against "fascist forces", his often repeated expression while making a reference to BJP.

"BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake...Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge...Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice...If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats)," he said in a series of tweets.

In another tweet, the RJD boss alleged the BJP was "sensing an opportunity to desstabilise the Grand Alliance government in Bihar" but asserted the coalition was "intact".

"Do not be tempted, the alliance is intact. Many more parties with a common ideology are going to join hands with us. I am not scared of the BJP letting loose the government machinery on me," he wrote on the microblogging website.

In another tweet, he said, "RSS-BJP ko Lalu ke naam se kampkapi chhuti hai...Inko pata hai ki Lalu inke jhooth, loot aur jumlon ke kaarobar ko dhwast kar raha hai, to dabav banao (The RSS-BJP shiver after hearing the very name of Lalu...They know that Lalu is destroying their trade based on lies, loot and gimmicks and that is why they are putting pressure on me)."

He spoke of the BJP having forged a "new alliance", which RJD spokesman Manoj Jha later clarified was a reference to central government agencies like Income Tax department and the CBI.

As raids and surveys continued, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi demanded in Patna that the Nitish Kumar government order investigation of alleged "shady deals".

Modi said Income Tax department had acted on the basis of information that was in public domain for the last 40 days and that now the Nitish Kumar government should take action against Lalu and his sons who, he alleged, had engaged in benami deals in Bihar.

Modi, who was deputy CM under Nitish Kumar when the JD(U) and BJP ran a coalition government in Bihar, demanded that the benami properties be seized. Benami transactions are those in which the real beneficiary is not the one in whose name the property is purchased.

The BJP leader had earlier alleged that Lalu's daughter Misa Bharti had laundered money through a shell company to buy a farmhouse in Delhi's Bijwasan at a throwaway price and its market value was estimated at Rs 50 crore.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had claimed the companies owned by Lalu Prasads family for the purpose of land transactions had no employees, no business activity and no turnover.

He had alleged Bihar's biggest shopping mall spread over 7.5 lakh square feet which was coming up in Patna was part of such "dubious" transactions.

NEW DELHI: Spelling more trouble for Lalu Prasad, Income Tax department today conducted raids and surveys at about 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in connection with alleged benami deals of Rs 1,000 crore by the RJD supremo members of his family. Reacting sharply, the Bihar strongman alleged the BJP had "let loose the government machinery on him". The BJP, meanwhile, demanded that the Nitish Kumar government, in which RJD is a coalition partner, probe the allegations of "shady land deals" of Lalu and some of his children. The Congress is also a constituent of the ruling alliance in Bihar. The raids came days after the Supreme Court order of May 8 restoring the charge of criminal conspiracy against the RJD leader in all the four fodder scam cases against him in which he would now stand trial. Lalu has been barred from contesting an election after his conviction and sentencing in one of the fodder scam cases. According to IT officials, raids were conducted at the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, Rewari and few others. The searches were conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP and former union minister Prem Chand Gupta, and few other businessmen. While raids were conducted at a dozen locations, ten other premises were surveyed, IT sources said. "People and businessmen connected to the land deals involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched. There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion," a senior official said. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[]; window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTM1NTkzfHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'100%', ratio:'4:3'}); The BJP had last week accused Prasad, his MP daughter Misa Bharti and his two sons, both ministers in the Nitish Kumar government, of being involved in "corrupt" land deals worth over Rs 1,000 crore, and asked the Centre to probe one such transaction in Delhi. Lalus younger son Tejashwi Yadav is the deputy chief minister of Bihar. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had alleged that these transactions were a case of quid pro quo as they dated to the period when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister, and dared Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to take action against him. Prasad had claimed one such land deal involving Lalu and his family members was in Bijwasan in Delhi. Meanwhile, in Patna, Lalu put up a brave face, saying he was "not scared at all" and will continue to fight against "fascist forces", his often repeated expression while making a reference to BJP. "BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake...Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge...Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice...If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats)," he said in a series of tweets. In another tweet, the RJD boss alleged the BJP was "sensing an opportunity to desstabilise the Grand Alliance government in Bihar" but asserted the coalition was "intact". "Do not be tempted, the alliance is intact. Many more parties with a common ideology are going to join hands with us. I am not scared of the BJP letting loose the government machinery on me," he wrote on the microblogging website. In another tweet, he said, "RSS-BJP ko Lalu ke naam se kampkapi chhuti hai...Inko pata hai ki Lalu inke jhooth, loot aur jumlon ke kaarobar ko dhwast kar raha hai, to dabav banao (The RSS-BJP shiver after hearing the very name of Lalu...They know that Lalu is destroying their trade based on lies, loot and gimmicks and that is why they are putting pressure on me)." He spoke of the BJP having forged a "new alliance", which RJD spokesman Manoj Jha later clarified was a reference to central government agencies like Income Tax department and the CBI. As raids and surveys continued, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi demanded in Patna that the Nitish Kumar government order investigation of alleged "shady deals". Modi said Income Tax department had acted on the basis of information that was in public domain for the last 40 days and that now the Nitish Kumar government should take action against Lalu and his sons who, he alleged, had engaged in benami deals in Bihar. Modi, who was deputy CM under Nitish Kumar when the JD(U) and BJP ran a coalition government in Bihar, demanded that the benami properties be seized. Benami transactions are those in which the real beneficiary is not the one in whose name the property is purchased. The BJP leader had earlier alleged that Lalu's daughter Misa Bharti had laundered money through a shell company to buy a farmhouse in Delhi's Bijwasan at a throwaway price and its market value was estimated at Rs 50 crore. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had claimed the companies owned by Lalu Prasads family for the purpose of land transactions had no employees, no business activity and no turnover. He had alleged Bihar's biggest shopping mall spread over 7.5 lakh square feet which was coming up in Patna was part of such "dubious" transactions.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: With a new President and a government in France, bilateral relations between India and France will see new dynamics, said Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France to India. Emmanuel Macron was elected as the President of France last week and a new government is likely to be in office by Tuesday.

Bilateral relations have always been good and it will be even better, Ziegler said when asked about the election of the new president. He was in Bengaluru on Monday to inaugurate the new visa facilitation service centre and Atout France tourism kiosk.

Ziegier said India and France are working together on many issues, including cooperation in dealing with terrorism. Terrorism is a global challenge and it has to be dealt with the spirit of cooperation. That is what we are doing with India, he said.

The Atout France tourism kiosk that was inaugurated at the newly relocated France Visa Facilitation Service Centre at Langford Town in Bengaluru will disseminate information about Frances wide-ranging tourism opportunities. It will also enable travellers to book tickets and passes in advance for concerts, museums and monuments in France while applying for a visa.

Similar centres will come up soon in Mumbai and New Delhi. Dedicated staff trained by Atout France will man the kiosks to guide travellers.

According to the Ambassador, France is the preferred tourism and business destination globally, receiving around 83 million tourists in 2016. It is a favourite outbound destination in India - in 2015 alone, a record 5 lakh Indian travellers visited France.

BENGALURU: With a new President and a government in France, bilateral relations between India and France will see new dynamics, said Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France to India. Emmanuel Macron was elected as the President of France last week and a new government is likely to be in office by Tuesday. Bilateral relations have always been good and it will be even better, Ziegler said when asked about the election of the new president. He was in Bengaluru on Monday to inaugurate the new visa facilitation service centre and Atout France tourism kiosk. Ziegier said India and France are working together on many issues, including cooperation in dealing with terrorism. Terrorism is a global challenge and it has to be dealt with the spirit of cooperation. That is what we are doing with India, he said. The Atout France tourism kiosk that was inaugurated at the newly relocated France Visa Facilitation Service Centre at Langford Town in Bengaluru will disseminate information about Frances wide-ranging tourism opportunities. It will also enable travellers to book tickets and passes in advance for concerts, museums and monuments in France while applying for a visa. Similar centres will come up soon in Mumbai and New Delhi. Dedicated staff trained by Atout France will man the kiosks to guide travellers. According to the Ambassador, France is the preferred tourism and business destination globally, receiving around 83 million tourists in 2016. It is a favourite outbound destination in India - in 2015 alone, a record 5 lakh Indian travellers visited France.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi could not withdraw money from an ATM in Rajasthan after some of the machines were shut down as a precautionary measure due to the global cyber attack by ransomware.

Mehrishi, a 1978-batch IAS officer from Rajasthan, had gone to his hometown in Jodhpur during the weekend on a private visit.

I could not withdraw money as some ATMs were shut down as a precaution against the cyber attack, Mehrishi said at his North Block office here.

Ransomware is a computer malware that has spread across 150 countries and India is reportedly among the affected countries.

Home Ministry sources said some ATMs, mostly in remote areas in the country and those operating on the MS Windows software, were shut down as a precautionary measure following apprehension that assets can be targeted.

We reviewed the situation this morning. There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are closely monitoring the situation, a senior Home Ministry official said.

Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there was no major impact of the cyber attack in India, barring isolated instances in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

On Friday, a global cyber attack was launched using ransomware, a malicious software that infects computer systems and restricts users access to the machine until a ransom is paid online to unlock it.

NEW DELHI: Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi could not withdraw money from an ATM in Rajasthan after some of the machines were shut down as a precautionary measure due to the global cyber attack by ransomware. Mehrishi, a 1978-batch IAS officer from Rajasthan, had gone to his hometown in Jodhpur during the weekend on a private visit. I could not withdraw money as some ATMs were shut down as a precaution against the cyber attack, Mehrishi said at his North Block office here. Ransomware is a computer malware that has spread across 150 countries and India is reportedly among the affected countries. Home Ministry sources said some ATMs, mostly in remote areas in the country and those operating on the MS Windows software, were shut down as a precautionary measure following apprehension that assets can be targeted. We reviewed the situation this morning. There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are closely monitoring the situation, a senior Home Ministry official said. Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said there was no major impact of the cyber attack in India, barring isolated instances in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. On Friday, a global cyber attack was launched using ransomware, a malicious software that infects computer systems and restricts users access to the machine until a ransom is paid online to unlock it.
Protecting the Taxpayer

For many months, Nebraska has experienced declining tax revenues. Since last year, I have been working to constrain spending in my agencies in preparation for budget cuts. In the first part of this year, the Legislature and I worked together to make cuts for the current fiscal year.

Since then, the Legislature has continued to work on the next two-year budget. As they worked on the budget, I urged spending restraint because state revenues have continued to deteriorate.

Just a few weeks ago, the board responsible for predicting state revenues lowered projections, and last week the Revenue Department announced that tax receipts fell short $55 million in April. And thats just in one month! Nebraskas revenues have come in below what forecasts predicted 14 of the last 22 months.

Because tax revenues continue to worsen, we must take new, responsible steps to tighten our belts. Last week, the Legislature sent over the next two-year, $8.9 billion general fund budget for my consideration. The budget I received from the Legislature did not constrain spending enough in light of declining revenues, and included a gas tax increase and a risky budget gimmick.

Rather than constraining state spending, the Legislature attempted to raise the gas tax and take the money out of the Roads Department to spend on other parts of state government. Over the past two years, I have been clear that I oppose increasing the gas tax because it hurts working families who can least afford a tax hike. We are already one of the highest taxed states in the country. As of January, our gas tax was 27th highest in the nation with more increases coming in future years under current law. Increasing it more would only worsen our tax climate which has the fifth highest property taxes and 14th highest income taxes. Tax hikes make it more difficult to grow Nebraska.

Additionally, the Legislature decided to lower the minimum reserve in the states checking account, rather than making needed cuts. The minimum reserve provides the cushion in our checking account critical to protecting the financial integrity of the state. Lowering the minimum reserve would be similar to a family spending the cushion in their checking account on non-emergency spending. It should be avoided at all cost.

To prevent a tax increase and protect the budget, I have vetoed a total of $56.5 million over two years. These are thoughtful and measured reductions, which protect important priorities. Here are a few key facts you should know about my vetoes:

 They reduce various state agency appropriations by a half of a percent (0.5%).

 They include an $11 million line-item reduction to State Capitol renovation funding that is not immediately needed.

 Some programs and agencies are excluded, including those already reduced by 3 percent or more.

 The budget, after line-item vetoes, protects the property tax credit relief fund, Corrections reform, public safety, and state aid to K-12 schools.

While $56.5 million over two years may not seem significant in the scope of an $8.9 billion budget, senators will be lobbied hard in the coming days by special interests. State agencies and special interests with state contracts will spend significant effort and time to persuade your senator not to make these modest and responsible cuts to the budget.

If you want to see senators sustain my vetoes, make these cuts, and put the budget on firmer financial footing, they need to hear from you. I have already been meeting with senators to urge them to sustain my vetoes, but the voices of working Nebraska taxpayers like you need to be heard in this discussion. You can make a difference. Visit www.NebraskaLegislature.gov to find your senators phone number and email address.

Last week, Unicameral Speaker Jim Scheer announced that the Legislature plans to adjourn on May 23. The budget is the last major issue the Legislature has to consider for this legislative session. I will continue to work with senators in these final days to constrain spending and balance the budget without raising taxes. As always, I hope you will contact me if you would like to share your thoughts on this issue or any other. My office can be reached at pete.ricketts@nebraska.gov or 402-471-2244.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today told the Supreme Court that triple talaq is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years and hence the question of constitutional morality and equity did not arise.

The Muslim body also equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya. "Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said.

"If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar. He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.

NEW DELHI: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) today told the Supreme Court that triple talaq is a matter of faith being practiced by Muslims for the last 1,400 years and hence the question of constitutional morality and equity did not arise. The Muslim body also equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya. "Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said. "If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality," Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar. He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad. The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer. Yesterday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down. Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.
Asha Menon By

Express News Service

RAJOLI (RAICHUR): When matches are made in Rajoli, Hulligeamma Budeappa is the first to know. She is in her early 60s and her family has been doing the laundry for 15 families for generations. As is the tradition for rural dhobis, she is paid at wedding time in cash and new clothes. Or she is paid in paddy every year, 50 seru (one seru is a little over a kg) per person in her household.

Hulligeammas life depends on water. She makes a living from it and gets paid in produce that needs it. So the current drought has hit her harder and Hulligeamma is crying hoarse about it.

Rajoli is a village in the drought-prone district of Raichur (rainfall less than 650 mm) in Karnataka. It has seen six consecutive seasons of deficient rainfall. In the past monsoon year, two cycles of rain (the southwest monsoon from June to September and the northeast from October to December) were short by 15 per cent and 71 per cent respectively in Karnataka.

Farmers in Rajoli suffered losses on their cotton crop last season with high temperatures causing a pink bollworm attack, and switched to red chilli. But too many people planted chilli and prices crashed this year.

It was a bitter harvest. Standing chilli crops have been burnt to avoid the reaping expenses. Many fields are dotted with abandoned heaps of chilli, like hot blisters.

With little money to go around and barely enough water, tempers are short and generosity scarce.

All of Rajolis drinking water sources have dried up and its people have to go to a tap in Irapuram village, 3 km away. Hulligeamma says, You will have to go without drinking water if you dont have a two-wheeler.

The gram panchayat has tried to ease the villagers hardship by renting a tap from a farmer for Rs 8,000 a month but it rarely serves all the families.

There are 11 people in Hulligeammas family: three sons, three daughters-in-law, three grandchildren, Hulligeamma and her paralysed husband. Her youngest son brings drinking water, four pots every two days, for the entire family on a borrowed motorcycle.

He gets up at 6 am and spends an hour at the tap, she says. Often there are people from Irapuram too. Then he has to wait till they are done, which means he has to spend nearly two hours at the tap.

If the boy falls ill, then the family simply has to make do with what is left because none of the others knows how to ride a two-wheeler. Should that happen, the good water is reserved for the older people and the younger ones drink salt water. Salt water gives us diarrhea, Hulligeamma explains. At least the young people have the health to withstand it.

Sometimes, she begs the neighbours to fetch her a pot too. They can be insulting, she says. They dont have enough to be generous.

The dhobi community of Rajoli live along a three feet wide canal. Theres a tap that gives salt water for a few hours in the evening and each family might get five to eight pots on a good day. If the children have any play time after school, they are handed water pots to go look for a tap.

Food is cooked in salt water so the dal ends up rare. We have to pour oil and even then it is only half cooked, says Hulligeammas daughter-in-law. Better-off neighbours with fewer mouths to feed, like Yeramma Iraimatti, have switched to vegetables like ladies finger and tomatoes. Yeramma is also one of the rare few who orders water cans from a store.

Last week there was a wedding in the wealthier part of the Rajoli. Barely in their twenties, Nagesh and Saraswati wed in the presence of over 500 guests and nearly a hundred stayed over in the neem-shaded house. The young groom says, We had to hire tankers for the water: Rs 500 for the tanker and Rs 800 for a tractor to pull it... I drove it myself. We need two such tankers a day. I wish I hadnt married.

Hulligeamma has been called in to do the laundry. Normally my daughters-in-law and I would take the clothes to the canal nearby, she says, but that has dried up. Her regular customers send her a lesser load once a week. Earlier the upper-caste households used to send a bundle twice a week.

There is the water stored in a drum (500 litres). We may need four of that for the wedding, but I'll make do with one.

But how? Hulligeamma breaks into a wide smile.

RAJOLI (RAICHUR): When matches are made in Rajoli, Hulligeamma Budeappa is the first to know. She is in her early 60s and her family has been doing the laundry for 15 families for generations. As is the tradition for rural dhobis, she is paid at wedding time in cash and new clothes. Or she is paid in paddy every year, 50 seru (one seru is a little over a kg) per person in her household. Hulligeammas life depends on water. She makes a living from it and gets paid in produce that needs it. So the current drought has hit her harder and Hulligeamma is crying hoarse about it. Rajoli is a village in the drought-prone district of Raichur (rainfall less than 650 mm) in Karnataka. It has seen six consecutive seasons of deficient rainfall. In the past monsoon year, two cycles of rain (the southwest monsoon from June to September and the northeast from October to December) were short by 15 per cent and 71 per cent respectively in Karnataka. Farmers in Rajoli suffered losses on their cotton crop last season with high temperatures causing a pink bollworm attack, and switched to red chilli. But too many people planted chilli and prices crashed this year. It was a bitter harvest. Standing chilli crops have been burnt to avoid the reaping expenses. Many fields are dotted with abandoned heaps of chilli, like hot blisters. With little money to go around and barely enough water, tempers are short and generosity scarce. All of Rajolis drinking water sources have dried up and its people have to go to a tap in Irapuram village, 3 km away. Hulligeamma says, You will have to go without drinking water if you dont have a two-wheeler. The gram panchayat has tried to ease the villagers hardship by renting a tap from a farmer for Rs 8,000 a month but it rarely serves all the families. There are 11 people in Hulligeammas family: three sons, three daughters-in-law, three grandchildren, Hulligeamma and her paralysed husband. Her youngest son brings drinking water, four pots every two days, for the entire family on a borrowed motorcycle. He gets up at 6 am and spends an hour at the tap, she says. Often there are people from Irapuram too. Then he has to wait till they are done, which means he has to spend nearly two hours at the tap. If the boy falls ill, then the family simply has to make do with what is left because none of the others knows how to ride a two-wheeler. Should that happen, the good water is reserved for the older people and the younger ones drink salt water. Salt water gives us diarrhea, Hulligeamma explains. At least the young people have the health to withstand it. Sometimes, she begs the neighbours to fetch her a pot too. They can be insulting, she says. They dont have enough to be generous. The dhobi community of Rajoli live along a three feet wide canal. Theres a tap that gives salt water for a few hours in the evening and each family might get five to eight pots on a good day. If the children have any play time after school, they are handed water pots to go look for a tap. Food is cooked in salt water so the dal ends up rare. We have to pour oil and even then it is only half cooked, says Hulligeammas daughter-in-law. Better-off neighbours with fewer mouths to feed, like Yeramma Iraimatti, have switched to vegetables like ladies finger and tomatoes. Yeramma is also one of the rare few who orders water cans from a store. Last week there was a wedding in the wealthier part of the Rajoli. Barely in their twenties, Nagesh and Saraswati wed in the presence of over 500 guests and nearly a hundred stayed over in the neem-shaded house. The young groom says, We had to hire tankers for the water: Rs 500 for the tanker and Rs 800 for a tractor to pull it... I drove it myself. We need two such tankers a day. I wish I hadnt married. Hulligeamma has been called in to do the laundry. Normally my daughters-in-law and I would take the clothes to the canal nearby, she says, but that has dried up. Her regular customers send her a lesser load once a week. Earlier the upper-caste households used to send a bundle twice a week. There is the water stored in a drum (500 litres). We may need four of that for the wedding, but I'll make do with one. But how? Hulligeamma breaks into a wide smile.
By Express News Service

KANNUR: The CPM will not protect party workers involved in the murder of RSS leader Choorakadu Biju, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has said.

We will initiate action against the party workers, if they were involved in the murder. Im not saying this for the sake of saying something. The party will conduct a probe at the local level and action will be taken if needed, he said, adding we would like to know whether the BJP is also prepared to act against its workers involved in violence.

Kodiyeri hit out at the BJP for demanding imposition of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Kannur. By demanding imposition of AFSPA, the Sangh Parivar is trying to destroy the CPM using armed forces. The RSS had killed 27 CPM workers, but they never demanded imposition of AFSPA during that time.

There is no need for AFSPA. Political and administrative action is needed to bring an end to the political violence in the district. The CPM is committed to maintaining peace in the district and implementing the decisions taken at the all-party meeting chaired by the Chief Minister in February, he said.

Kodiyeri said BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan was circulating a fake video purportedly showing CPM men celebrating the murder of the RSS leader.

DGPs action sought against Kummanam



Nationalist Youth Congress state president Mujeeb Rahuman has approached State Police Chief T P Senkumar seeking action against BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan for posting a fake video. In the complaint, he alleged Kummanam posted a fake video through his Twitter account on May 13. In reality, there is no connection between the murder and the visuals in the video. The video of some other celebration has been posted through Twitter with an intention to create tension, he said.

Pro-CPM advocate appears for accused

On a day when the CPM promised stern action against the party workers involved in the murder of RSS leader Choorakadu Biju, the two accused in the murder case were represented by CPM-led All India Lawyers Union state vice-president Vijayakumar in the court on Tuesday. Two persons so far arrested in the case are local CPM workers.

Kannur SP to probe Kummanam video clip

State Police Chief T P Senkumar on Tuesday ordered a probe into the controversial video clip posted by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan pertaining to the Biju murder case in Kannur.

The probe was ordered on a complaint filed by SFI Kannur district president Mohammed Siraj. Kannur SP will probe the issue. The officer will verify the veracity of the clip.

On Monday, Kummanam posted a video which showed some CPM activists allegedly celebrating the murder of an RSS activist in Kannur. Kummanam said he had not posted an altered video clip and was ready to undergo trial if proven wrong.

KANNUR: The CPM will not protect party workers involved in the murder of RSS leader Choorakadu Biju, CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has said. We will initiate action against the party workers, if they were involved in the murder. Im not saying this for the sake of saying something. The party will conduct a probe at the local level and action will be taken if needed, he said, adding we would like to know whether the BJP is also prepared to act against its workers involved in violence. Kodiyeri hit out at the BJP for demanding imposition of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Kannur. By demanding imposition of AFSPA, the Sangh Parivar is trying to destroy the CPM using armed forces. The RSS had killed 27 CPM workers, but they never demanded imposition of AFSPA during that time. There is no need for AFSPA. Political and administrative action is needed to bring an end to the political violence in the district. The CPM is committed to maintaining peace in the district and implementing the decisions taken at the all-party meeting chaired by the Chief Minister in February, he said. Kodiyeri said BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan was circulating a fake video purportedly showing CPM men celebrating the murder of the RSS leader. DGPs action sought against Kummanam Nationalist Youth Congress state president Mujeeb Rahuman has approached State Police Chief T P Senkumar seeking action against BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan for posting a fake video. In the complaint, he alleged Kummanam posted a fake video through his Twitter account on May 13. In reality, there is no connection between the murder and the visuals in the video. The video of some other celebration has been posted through Twitter with an intention to create tension, he said. Pro-CPM advocate appears for accused On a day when the CPM promised stern action against the party workers involved in the murder of RSS leader Choorakadu Biju, the two accused in the murder case were represented by CPM-led All India Lawyers Union state vice-president Vijayakumar in the court on Tuesday. Two persons so far arrested in the case are local CPM workers. Kannur SP to probe Kummanam video clip State Police Chief T P Senkumar on Tuesday ordered a probe into the controversial video clip posted by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan pertaining to the Biju murder case in Kannur. The probe was ordered on a complaint filed by SFI Kannur district president Mohammed Siraj. Kannur SP will probe the issue. The officer will verify the veracity of the clip. On Monday, Kummanam posted a video which showed some CPM activists allegedly celebrating the murder of an RSS activist in Kannur. Kummanam said he had not posted an altered video clip and was ready to undergo trial if proven wrong.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the proposed visit of national BJP president Amit Shah to Odisha in June, a delegation of partys State functionaries will meet him in Delhi on May 19 to chalk out plans for his contact programmes with booth level workers.



Shahs tour to the State will be from June 22 to 24 when he will spend three days with party workers at booth level. This will be part of his 95-day tour across the country that will end on September 23, 2017.



On the invitation of Shah, a 14-member delegation including BJP MLA Pradeep Purohit is going to Delhi on May 18. A meeting with Shah has been scheduled on May 19 when details of his visit will be finalised, State BJP vice-president Sameer Mohanty said.



Mohanty, a member of the delegation, said Shah had laid out plans for expansion of BJP in States (including Odisha) where the partys presence is very weak in the national executive committee meeting held here last month.



As per the plans, all BJP leaders of the State will reach out to party cadres by spending at least three days in polling booths in areas outside their home districts and explain to them major programmes of the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government at the Centre.



As per the tentative tour programme, Shah will spend one day each at a booth level in Jajpur and Ganjam districts. He will meet BJP MLAs, State functionaries, presidents of partys frontal organisations and district pravaris (in-charge of organisation) on the third day of his visit in the State party office here.

Shah is likely to discuss the political situation in the State with the delegation, Mohanty said.



Since the national executive committee meeting has decided to make Odisha the laboratory for pro-poor initiatives of Modi Government, Mohanty said a workshop will be held here on Tuesday to discuss the issue and prepare plans for successful implementation of Central programmes.



The delegation will discuss the New Odisha Vision of the party to fulfil the New India vision of the Prime Minister to empower the poor, he added.

BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the proposed visit of national BJP president Amit Shah to Odisha in June, a delegation of partys State functionaries will meet him in Delhi on May 19 to chalk out plans for his contact programmes with booth level workers. Shahs tour to the State will be from June 22 to 24 when he will spend three days with party workers at booth level. This will be part of his 95-day tour across the country that will end on September 23, 2017. On the invitation of Shah, a 14-member delegation including BJP MLA Pradeep Purohit is going to Delhi on May 18. A meeting with Shah has been scheduled on May 19 when details of his visit will be finalised, State BJP vice-president Sameer Mohanty said. Mohanty, a member of the delegation, said Shah had laid out plans for expansion of BJP in States (including Odisha) where the partys presence is very weak in the national executive committee meeting held here last month. As per the plans, all BJP leaders of the State will reach out to party cadres by spending at least three days in polling booths in areas outside their home districts and explain to them major programmes of the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government at the Centre. As per the tentative tour programme, Shah will spend one day each at a booth level in Jajpur and Ganjam districts. He will meet BJP MLAs, State functionaries, presidents of partys frontal organisations and district pravaris (in-charge of organisation) on the third day of his visit in the State party office here. Shah is likely to discuss the political situation in the State with the delegation, Mohanty said. Since the national executive committee meeting has decided to make Odisha the laboratory for pro-poor initiatives of Modi Government, Mohanty said a workshop will be held here on Tuesday to discuss the issue and prepare plans for successful implementation of Central programmes. The delegation will discuss the New Odisha Vision of the party to fulfil the New India vision of the Prime Minister to empower the poor, he added.
By PTI

CANBERRA: Australia's immigration minister today urged tougher refugee rules that would deport refugees who took vacations in countries where they claimed to fear persecution.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton last year canceled the protection visas of six Iranians after discovering that they had returned to the homeland where they claimed to fear for their lives.

But all six were allowed to stay in Australia after they successfully appealed to a court that hears public complaints about government decisions, News Corp. newspapers reported. Rulings from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal can also be appealed in civil courts in what Dutton described as a "legal roundabout" and an "endless cycle of decision reviews."

The Australian system was "too generous" to asylum seekers and needed to be tightened with new laws, Dutton said.

"If you're claiming that you've got on a boat and come to our country to flee persecution from country-X, and then you're heading back there to get married or heading back there for a family vacation, then really there is no validity to your claim," Dutton told Adelaide Radio FiveAA.

One Iranian claimed to have been on an Iranian wanted list and fled that country on a fake passport, newspapers reported.

After Australia accepted his refugee claim, he applied for an Iranian passport and used it to fly back to his homeland.

Another Iranian returned to Iran three times after becoming a refugee in Australia, once to marry, newspapers reported.

Two family members claimed to be stateless when they were accepted as refugees. Their story unraveled when a relative who wanted to join them in Australia provided evidence that all three were Iranian citizens.

An Iranian couple claimed in their protection visa application that they had no identity documents, but later returned to Iran on Iranian passports.

Dutton's office confirmed that the newspaper reports of the six Iranians' circumstances were accurate. Their names cannot be published under Australian law.

The six paid smugglers to bring them from Indonesia to Australia before the government introduced a tough policy in 2013 that prevents any refugees who arrive by boat from ever settling in Australia.

The United States has agreed to accept up to 1,250 of these refugees who are languishing in camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

But US officials are doing their own background checks to ensure that only genuine refugees are accepted by the United States.

The Refugee Council of Australia, an advocacy group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment today.

CANBERRA: Australia's immigration minister today urged tougher refugee rules that would deport refugees who took vacations in countries where they claimed to fear persecution. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton last year canceled the protection visas of six Iranians after discovering that they had returned to the homeland where they claimed to fear for their lives. But all six were allowed to stay in Australia after they successfully appealed to a court that hears public complaints about government decisions, News Corp. newspapers reported. Rulings from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal can also be appealed in civil courts in what Dutton described as a "legal roundabout" and an "endless cycle of decision reviews." The Australian system was "too generous" to asylum seekers and needed to be tightened with new laws, Dutton said. "If you're claiming that you've got on a boat and come to our country to flee persecution from country-X, and then you're heading back there to get married or heading back there for a family vacation, then really there is no validity to your claim," Dutton told Adelaide Radio FiveAA. One Iranian claimed to have been on an Iranian wanted list and fled that country on a fake passport, newspapers reported. After Australia accepted his refugee claim, he applied for an Iranian passport and used it to fly back to his homeland. Another Iranian returned to Iran three times after becoming a refugee in Australia, once to marry, newspapers reported. Two family members claimed to be stateless when they were accepted as refugees. Their story unraveled when a relative who wanted to join them in Australia provided evidence that all three were Iranian citizens. An Iranian couple claimed in their protection visa application that they had no identity documents, but later returned to Iran on Iranian passports. Dutton's office confirmed that the newspaper reports of the six Iranians' circumstances were accurate. Their names cannot be published under Australian law. The six paid smugglers to bring them from Indonesia to Australia before the government introduced a tough policy in 2013 that prevents any refugees who arrive by boat from ever settling in Australia. The United States has agreed to accept up to 1,250 of these refugees who are languishing in camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. But US officials are doing their own background checks to ensure that only genuine refugees are accepted by the United States. The Refugee Council of Australia, an advocacy group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment today.
By Associated Press

BERLIN: French President Emmanuel Macron hit the ground running Monday on his first full day in office by naming a prime minister from the center-right and then flying to Germany, where he and Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to work together to undertake European reforms.

At home, Macron started to shape his government by appointing relatively little-known lawmaker Edouard Philippe, 46, as his prime minister. That made good on a promise to repopulate French politics with new faces and reinforced the generational shift under Macron, who at 39 is France's youngest president.

Then, a large crowd outside the chancellery welcomed Macron to Berlin, with some waving European Union flags. Macron and Merkel were all smiles inside, and the German leader declared that "Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that."

Germany and France have traditionally been the motor of European integration, but the relationship has become increasingly lopsided in recent years as France struggled economically.

German leaders were hugely relieved by the independent centrist's rout of far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the May 7 presidential runoff, and now they hope that Macron can deliver the economic upturn that his predecessors couldn't.

Macron is the conservative Merkel's fourth French president in nearly 12 years as chancellor. Some media have dubbed the pair "Merkron"  a reference to the "Merkozy" moniker used for Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, France's conservative leader from 2007-12.

Merkel called for "new dynamism" in the countries' relationship. She said she was "aware of the responsibility, at a very critical moment for the European Union, to take the right decisions together."

The 28-nation EU faces complex divorce proceedings with Britain, its current No. 2 economy. When Britain leaves the bloc in 2019, France will be the EU's only member with nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Macron made clear his determination to tackle his country's problems.

"The French agenda will be an agenda of reform in the coming months, in economic, social and educational terms," he said. "Not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it."

France, he said, "is today the only big country in the European Union that, for more than 30 years, has not succeeded in beating the problem of mass unemployment."

Macron also declared there needs to be "a Europe that protects our citizens better." Together with Germany, he said, he wants to work on "a common road map for the European Union and the eurozone."

Macron faces his first big test next month in legislative elections that will determine how far he is able to advance his reform agenda. He is the first president of modern France to come neither from the mainstream left nor the right parties.

Philippe, the mayor of the Normandy port of Le Havre, is a trained lawyer and an author of political thrillers. He is a member of the Republicans, a mainstream-right party whose candidate Macron beat in the first round of the election.

Philippe could possibly attract other Republicans to Macron's cause. Alain Juppe, a former prime minister, called Philippe "a man of great talent" with "all the qualities to handle the difficult job."

Macron also is siphoning off support from lawmakers on the left. At least 24 Socialists are now campaigning for re-election under the banner of Macron's Republic on the Move party.

Merkel wished Macron luck in the legislative elections.

She held out the possibility of deep reform to the 19-nation eurozone if it is deemed necessary, saying she's prepared to talk about changes to the EU treaties  a cumbersome and politically risky process.

"First we need to work on what we want to do, and then if it turns out it needs treaty changes, then we  or at least I  will be prepared to do that," she said. European countries must not dig in their heels and say changes can never be made, she added, as "a European Union that behaves this way would be vulnerable from every corner of the world."

Macron, for his part, reassured Germany that he wouldn't revive the idea of jointly issued eurobonds, which divided Europe at the height of the eurozone debt crisis.

"I have never ... advocated what people call eurobonds," the former investment banker and finance minister said. "I am not a promoter of mutualizing past debts."

But he added: "what I know is that we have investments to make (in Europe), and so we have to work on investment mechanisms for the future." He said that the eurozone to find ways to "inject new money" via public and private investment.

"I will always be a frank, direct and constructive partner, because I think the success of our two countries is deeply linked, and that the whole success of Europe depends on that," Macron said.

Merkel, quoting German writer Hermann Hesse, said that "a magic dwells in each beginning."

"Of course, this magic only remains if there are results," she added. "We both know that."

BERLIN: French President Emmanuel Macron hit the ground running Monday on his first full day in office by naming a prime minister from the center-right and then flying to Germany, where he and Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to work together to undertake European reforms. At home, Macron started to shape his government by appointing relatively little-known lawmaker Edouard Philippe, 46, as his prime minister. That made good on a promise to repopulate French politics with new faces and reinforced the generational shift under Macron, who at 39 is France's youngest president. Then, a large crowd outside the chancellery welcomed Macron to Berlin, with some waving European Union flags. Macron and Merkel were all smiles inside, and the German leader declared that "Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that." Germany and France have traditionally been the motor of European integration, but the relationship has become increasingly lopsided in recent years as France struggled economically. German leaders were hugely relieved by the independent centrist's rout of far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the May 7 presidential runoff, and now they hope that Macron can deliver the economic upturn that his predecessors couldn't. Macron is the conservative Merkel's fourth French president in nearly 12 years as chancellor. Some media have dubbed the pair "Merkron"  a reference to the "Merkozy" moniker used for Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, France's conservative leader from 2007-12. Merkel called for "new dynamism" in the countries' relationship. She said she was "aware of the responsibility, at a very critical moment for the European Union, to take the right decisions together." The 28-nation EU faces complex divorce proceedings with Britain, its current No. 2 economy. When Britain leaves the bloc in 2019, France will be the EU's only member with nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Macron made clear his determination to tackle his country's problems. "The French agenda will be an agenda of reform in the coming months, in economic, social and educational terms," he said. "Not because Europe requests it, but because France needs it." France, he said, "is today the only big country in the European Union that, for more than 30 years, has not succeeded in beating the problem of mass unemployment." Macron also declared there needs to be "a Europe that protects our citizens better." Together with Germany, he said, he wants to work on "a common road map for the European Union and the eurozone." Macron faces his first big test next month in legislative elections that will determine how far he is able to advance his reform agenda. He is the first president of modern France to come neither from the mainstream left nor the right parties. Philippe, the mayor of the Normandy port of Le Havre, is a trained lawyer and an author of political thrillers. He is a member of the Republicans, a mainstream-right party whose candidate Macron beat in the first round of the election. Philippe could possibly attract other Republicans to Macron's cause. Alain Juppe, a former prime minister, called Philippe "a man of great talent" with "all the qualities to handle the difficult job." Macron also is siphoning off support from lawmakers on the left. At least 24 Socialists are now campaigning for re-election under the banner of Macron's Republic on the Move party. Merkel wished Macron luck in the legislative elections. She held out the possibility of deep reform to the 19-nation eurozone if it is deemed necessary, saying she's prepared to talk about changes to the EU treaties  a cumbersome and politically risky process. "First we need to work on what we want to do, and then if it turns out it needs treaty changes, then we  or at least I  will be prepared to do that," she said. European countries must not dig in their heels and say changes can never be made, she added, as "a European Union that behaves this way would be vulnerable from every corner of the world." Macron, for his part, reassured Germany that he wouldn't revive the idea of jointly issued eurobonds, which divided Europe at the height of the eurozone debt crisis. "I have never ... advocated what people call eurobonds," the former investment banker and finance minister said. "I am not a promoter of mutualizing past debts." But he added: "what I know is that we have investments to make (in Europe), and so we have to work on investment mechanisms for the future." He said that the eurozone to find ways to "inject new money" via public and private investment. "I will always be a frank, direct and constructive partner, because I think the success of our two countries is deeply linked, and that the whole success of Europe depends on that," Macron said. Merkel, quoting German writer Hermann Hesse, said that "a magic dwells in each beginning." "Of course, this magic only remains if there are results," she added. "We both know that."
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: For months, US allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets.

Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry, and potentially putting crucial intelligence-sharing agreements at risk.

Revelations that Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week prompted one European official to tell The Associated Press that his country might stop sharing intelligence with the US as a result.

A second official, senior German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka, called Trump's disclosures "highly worrying."

The information Trump revealed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak centered on an Islamic State plot and was based on intelligence provided by an American partner, according to a USofficial.

The disclosure  which appeared to verify the disclosure in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning  is certain to shadow the president as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, he'll meet with important Arab allies working with the US on the fight against the Islamic State. He'll also huddle with some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily.

Some of the leaders Trump will meet come from countries the US has intelligence-sharing agreements with.

At least one Republican says the president is putting those agreements at risk by divulging classified information to Russia, a country many in the US and in the West view as an adversary. Arizona Senator John McCain said Trump's actions send "a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future."

Trump declared on Twitter Tuesday that it was his "absolute right" to share information with other countries. National Security Adviser H R McMaster said it was "wholly appropriate" and argued that it was based on publicly available information. And indeed, presidents are legally authorized to disclose classified information.

Yet Trump's decision is all the more confounding given his tense relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates.

The leaks have only continued to flow, undermining Trump and exposing details of the investigations into whether his campaign played a role in Russia's election meddling.

According to the US official, Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Washington Post first reported the disclosure.

White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting. Trump later said he did share information about "terrorism and airline flight safety" with Russia."

The US and Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information.

The White House has looked to Trump's trip abroad as a moment to draw the president out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favourable to his interests than former President Barack Obama.

But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by US courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine.

The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the US leader's standing.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's "actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party."

"Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas," Cordesman said.

WASHINGTON: For months, US allies have anxiously wondered if President Donald Trump could be trusted with some of the world's most sensitive national security secrets. Now, just a few days before Trump's debut on the international stage, he's giving allies new reasons to worry, and potentially putting crucial intelligence-sharing agreements at risk. Revelations that Trump revealed highly classified information to senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting last week prompted one European official to tell The Associated Press that his country might stop sharing intelligence with the US as a result. A second official, senior German lawmaker Burkhard Lischka, called Trump's disclosures "highly worrying." The information Trump revealed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak centered on an Islamic State plot and was based on intelligence provided by an American partner, according to a USofficial. The disclosure  which appeared to verify the disclosure in a pair of tweets Tuesday morning  is certain to shadow the president as he embarks Friday on his first overseas trip as president. During a stop in Saudi Arabia, he'll meet with important Arab allies working with the US on the fight against the Islamic State. He'll also huddle with some of Washington's strongest European partners at a NATO summit in Brussels and the Group of 7 meeting in Sicily. Some of the leaders Trump will meet come from countries the US has intelligence-sharing agreements with. At least one Republican says the president is putting those agreements at risk by divulging classified information to Russia, a country many in the US and in the West view as an adversary. Arizona Senator John McCain said Trump's actions send "a troubling signal to America's allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future." Trump declared on Twitter Tuesday that it was his "absolute right" to share information with other countries. National Security Adviser H R McMaster said it was "wholly appropriate" and argued that it was based on publicly available information. And indeed, presidents are legally authorized to disclose classified information. Yet Trump's decision is all the more confounding given his tense relationship with American spy agencies. He's questioned the competence of intelligence officials, challenged their assessment that Russia meddled in last year's election to help him win, and accused them of leaking information about him and his associates. The leaks have only continued to flow, undermining Trump and exposing details of the investigations into whether his campaign played a role in Russia's election meddling. According to the US official, Trump shared details with top Russian officials about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Washington Post first reported the disclosure. White House officials disputed the report, saying Trump did not disclose intelligence sources or methods with the Russians, though they did not deny that classified information was disclosed in the May 10 meeting. Trump later said he did share information about "terrorism and airline flight safety" with Russia." The US and Western officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive information. The White House has looked to Trump's trip abroad as a moment to draw the president out of Washington's hyper-partisan hothouse and put him in a more statesman-like setting. He's expected to be warmly received by Arab allies in Saudi Arabia, who welcomed his decision to launch missiles against a Syrian air base following a chemical weapons attack, and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu views Trump as more favourable to his interests than former President Barack Obama. But some of the European partners Trump will meet later in his trip have been more skeptical about his policies, including a controversial travel and immigration ban that's been blocked by US courts. Western allies, including Britain and Germany, have also been wary of Trump's warmness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was kicked out of the summit of leading economic powers after Moscow's annexation of territory from Ukraine. The White House's botched handling of Trump's firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the bureau's Russia probe, and the president's own volatile statements about his actions are also likely to raise questions among allies about the US leader's standing. Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said allies will be trying to size up Trump's "actual political strength relative to the divisions with Congress, the problems within his own party." "Can he move forward with his own agenda? That will certainly be a question as he visits any country overseas," Cordesman said.
By PTI

NAIROBI: At least four people died today when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device in a small Kenyan town near the border with Somalia, police said.

The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists.

Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks.

Today's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians.

"Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device."

Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected.

Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident.

The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers.

Notable encroachments into Kenya included the 2013 Westgate mall and 2015 Garissa University attacks, while the group also attacked the Ugandan capital Kampala in 2010.

NAIROBI: At least four people died today when their vehicle set off an improvised explosive device in a small Kenyan town near the border with Somalia, police said. The blast was the second in two days to hit border towns after suspected Shabaab militants attacked Mandera, a village some 500 kilometres further north, killing a local chief and abducting two police reservists. Last October, the Kenyan government decreed a curfew, extended for three months in April, in Mandera county, and also beefed up security in the region to counter such attacks. Today's attack came in the central eastern town of Liboi, which is some 60 kilometres from Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp, the world's largest and which shelters mainly Somalians. "Those killed are locals," a senior Liboi police officer said. "They all died on the spot when their vehicle ran over the explosive device." Another officer said Shabaab militants were suspected. Police headquarters declined to comment on the incident. The Islamist Shabaab have spent a decade fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally backed government, attacking official, military and civilian targets, often using suicide bombers. Notable encroachments into Kenya included the 2013 Westgate mall and 2015 Garissa University attacks, while the group also attacked the Ugandan capital Kampala in 2010.
By PTI

INDIANOPOLIS: Encouraged by Infosys' decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high- powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies.

I'm looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter, Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol.

Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so.

Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indianas presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India.

The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, Indiana's become the best place in the country to create and innovate.

And that's why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and it's exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil, Holcomb told PTI.

He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event.

The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago. But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project, he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had.

The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting.

We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way."

Looking at strengthening Indianas partnership with Infosys in the coming years, Holcomb said he wants to attracts other Indian IT companies.

Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now, he said.

... we're always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys.

Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, with low tax rates and a "reasonable predictable regulatory environment so there's real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people".

"And we do as well in the companies that come here and that's why we're still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average, he said.

Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. Indiana is on a roll and has momentum."

Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcomb's India visit later this year.

Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations.

India ranks number 18 for Indianas exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totaled USD 266.6 million.

Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals.

India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totaled USD 348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines ransmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel.

INDIANOPOLIS: Encouraged by Infosys' decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high- powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies. I'm looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter, Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol. Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so. Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indianas presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India. The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, Indiana's become the best place in the country to create and innovate. And that's why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and it's exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil, Holcomb told PTI. He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event. The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago. But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project, he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had. The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting. We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way." Looking at strengthening Indianas partnership with Infosys in the coming years, Holcomb said he wants to attracts other Indian IT companies. Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now, he said. ... we're always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys. Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, with low tax rates and a "reasonable predictable regulatory environment so there's real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people". "And we do as well in the companies that come here and that's why we're still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average, he said. Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. Indiana is on a roll and has momentum." Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcomb's India visit later this year. Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations. India ranks number 18 for Indianas exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totaled USD 266.6 million. Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals. India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totaled USD 348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines ransmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel.
By PTI

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has decided that the stalemate between Sudan and South Sudan over the status of the oil-rich region of Abyei has gone on for too long and is given the countries a final six months to implement joint border monitoring.

A UN peacekeeping mission has been in Abyei since June 2011 and the US-drafted resolution adopted unanimously late yesterday by the council also decreases its troop ceiling.

The council's action reflects the Trump administration's determination to reform the UN's far-flung peacekeeping operations and take action when missions aren't able to carry out their mandates.

US Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison told the council that five years of obstacles to deploying the joint border operation "is enough" and the parties have six months to make it operational.

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has decided that the stalemate between Sudan and South Sudan over the status of the oil-rich region of Abyei has gone on for too long and is given the countries a final six months to implement joint border monitoring. A UN peacekeeping mission has been in Abyei since June 2011 and the US-drafted resolution adopted unanimously late yesterday by the council also decreases its troop ceiling. The council's action reflects the Trump administration's determination to reform the UN's far-flung peacekeeping operations and take action when missions aren't able to carry out their mandates. US Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison told the council that five years of obstacles to deploying the joint border operation "is enough" and the parties have six months to make it operational.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: The United States accused Syria on Monday of executing thousands of imprisoned political opponents and burning their bodies in a crematorium to hide the evidence, testing the Trump administration's willingness to respond to atrocities, other than chemical weapons attacks, that it blames on President Bashar Assad's government.

The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the U.S. launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent. Trump on Monday kicked off a week of meetings with Middle East leaders, sitting down with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi a day before he hosts Turkey's president. Trump flies to Saudi Arabia later this week.

All are governments that have pressed the United States over six years of civil war in Syria to intervene more forcefully. Trump had backed away from President Barack Obama's calls for regime change in the Arab country, with the new president's officials pointedly saying leadership questions should be left to Syria's citizens, until his intervention last month. His administration now says Assad cannot bring long-term stability to Syria.

In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity."

The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use.

The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves.

Although the State Department cast its unusual news conference as an effort to press Assad's key backers, Russia and Iran, it also underscored Trump's lack of a strategy for stopping Syria's violence. The war has killed as many as 400,000 people since 2011, contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II and enabled the Islamic State group to emerge as a global terrorism threat.

Trump had been highly critical of Obama for failing to respond to earlier chemical weapons attacks in 2013 after setting a "red line" against such usage. After last month's attack in northern Syria, Trump said the Syrians crossed "a lot of lines" for his administration. Beyond authorizing cruise missiles in response, however, he didn't outline a strategy to eliminate the threat.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday reiterated the administration's line that Syria's future "should be decided by Syrians in a free credibly and transparent process." But he called such a future "unimaginable" if Assad is propped up with help from the "seemingly unconditional support from Russia and Iran." He didn't outline how such a future might become imaginable.

Russia has shown no inclination to drop its support for Assad. It is now pushing the idea of "de-escalation zones" that would be designed to reduce violence, while not challenging Assad's authority over almost all of Syria's major cities.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been "firm and clear" in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week that "Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al-Assad."

A main point of that meeting "was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime," she said. "Simply put, the killing, the devastation has gone on for far too long in Syria."

Syrian human rights groups and opposition activists have long reported on mass killings inside Syrian prisons, though not on bodies being burned to cover up evidence.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated the U.S. accounts of mass killings but said it lacked sufficient information about the crematorium.

WASHINGTON: The United States accused Syria on Monday of executing thousands of imprisoned political opponents and burning their bodies in a crematorium to hide the evidence, testing the Trump administration's willingness to respond to atrocities, other than chemical weapons attacks, that it blames on President Bashar Assad's government. The allegation of mass killings came as President Donald Trump weighs options in Syria, where the U.S. launched cruise missiles on a government air base last month after accusing Assad's military of killing scores of civilians with a sarin-like nerve agent. Trump on Monday kicked off a week of meetings with Middle East leaders, sitting down with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi a day before he hosts Turkey's president. Trump flies to Saudi Arabia later this week. All are governments that have pressed the United States over six years of civil war in Syria to intervene more forcefully. Trump had backed away from President Barack Obama's calls for regime change in the Arab country, with the new president's officials pointedly saying leadership questions should be left to Syria's citizens, until his intervention last month. His administration now says Assad cannot bring long-term stability to Syria. In its latest accusations of Syrian abuses, the State Department said it believed about 50 detainees each day are being hanged at Saydnaya military prison, about 45 minutes north of Damascus. Many of the bodies are then burned in the crematorium "to cover up the extent of mass murders taking place," said Stuart Jones, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, accusing Assad's government of sinking "to a new level of depravity." The department released commercial satellite photographs showing what it described as a building in the prison complex that was modified to support the crematorium. The photographs, taken over the course of several years, beginning in 2013, do not prove the building is a crematorium, but show construction consistent with such use. The revelations echoed a February report by Amnesty International that said Syria's military police hanged as many as 13,000 people in four years before carting out bodies by the truckload for burial in mass graves. Although the State Department cast its unusual news conference as an effort to press Assad's key backers, Russia and Iran, it also underscored Trump's lack of a strategy for stopping Syria's violence. The war has killed as many as 400,000 people since 2011, contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II and enabled the Islamic State group to emerge as a global terrorism threat. Trump had been highly critical of Obama for failing to respond to earlier chemical weapons attacks in 2013 after setting a "red line" against such usage. After last month's attack in northern Syria, Trump said the Syrians crossed "a lot of lines" for his administration. Beyond authorizing cruise missiles in response, however, he didn't outline a strategy to eliminate the threat. White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday reiterated the administration's line that Syria's future "should be decided by Syrians in a free credibly and transparent process." But he called such a future "unimaginable" if Assad is propped up with help from the "seemingly unconditional support from Russia and Iran." He didn't outline how such a future might become imaginable. Russia has shown no inclination to drop its support for Assad. It is now pushing the idea of "de-escalation zones" that would be designed to reduce violence, while not challenging Assad's authority over almost all of Syria's major cities. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had been "firm and clear" in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week that "Russia holds tremendous influence over Bashar al-Assad." A main point of that meeting "was telling Russia to use its power to rein in the regime," she said. "Simply put, the killing, the devastation has gone on for far too long in Syria." Syrian human rights groups and opposition activists have long reported on mass killings inside Syrian prisons, though not on bodies being burned to cover up evidence. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated the U.S. accounts of mass killings but said it lacked sufficient information about the crematorium.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Texas Sen. John Cornyn has told the Trump administration he isn't interested in serving as FBI director, the second member of Congress to take himself out of the running this week.

Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and judge on the state supreme court, was interviewed for the position after President Donald Trump abruptly fired James Comey last week. Trump himself called and urged Cornyn to take the job, but the senator said in a statement Tuesday that he would rather remain in the Senate.

"Now more than ever the country needs a well-credentialed, independent FBI director," Cornyn said. "I've informed the administration that I'm committed to helping them find such an individual, and that the best way I can serve is continuing to fight for a conservative agenda in the U.S. Senate."

Another Republican whose name had been mentioned as a possible candidate, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, said Monday that he had taken himself out of the running. A friend of federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland, someone recommended by several senators, also said Tuesday that Garland is happy in his job and has no interest in leaving the judiciary to head the FBI. The friend spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The administration has interviewed at least eight candidates to replace Comey, of more than a dozen being considered. Trump has said a decision could come before he leaves Friday for a trip to the Mideast and Europe. In addition to members of Congress, the list includes current and former FBI and Justice Department leaders and federal judges.

A source familiar with Cornyn's thinking said the senator felt "obligated" to consider the job because a friend, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asked him to, and Trump called and asked him to think about it. The source declined to be named because the decision was private.

Cornyn is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said Tuesday that he'd recommended that Trump nominate Garland for the post.

Garland's name began to surface as a possible replacement last week when GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah suggested it on Twitter. McConnell later agreed that he would be a good choice.

President Barack Obama nominated Garland to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court last year after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but McConnell declined even to hold a hearing. Senate Republicans insisted at the time that the next president should replace Scalia, and the strategy paid off when Trump won the election. The high court vacancy was filled last month by Neil Gorsuch.

Questioned about Garland later in the day, McConnell said he "illustrates the kind of person I hope and expect will come next, somebody with deep credentials in criminal justice and criminal justice enforcement, completely apolitical and in line with prior FBI directors."

FBI directors have predominantly been drawn from the ranks of prosecutors and judges. Comey, for instance, was a former United States attorney in Manhattan before being appointed deputy attorney general by George W. Bush. His predecessor, Robert Mueller, was a U.S. attorney in San Francisco.

WASHINGTON: Texas Sen. John Cornyn has told the Trump administration he isn't interested in serving as FBI director, the second member of Congress to take himself out of the running this week. Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and judge on the state supreme court, was interviewed for the position after President Donald Trump abruptly fired James Comey last week. Trump himself called and urged Cornyn to take the job, but the senator said in a statement Tuesday that he would rather remain in the Senate. "Now more than ever the country needs a well-credentialed, independent FBI director," Cornyn said. "I've informed the administration that I'm committed to helping them find such an individual, and that the best way I can serve is continuing to fight for a conservative agenda in the U.S. Senate." Another Republican whose name had been mentioned as a possible candidate, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, said Monday that he had taken himself out of the running. A friend of federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland, someone recommended by several senators, also said Tuesday that Garland is happy in his job and has no interest in leaving the judiciary to head the FBI. The friend spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The administration has interviewed at least eight candidates to replace Comey, of more than a dozen being considered. Trump has said a decision could come before he leaves Friday for a trip to the Mideast and Europe. In addition to members of Congress, the list includes current and former FBI and Justice Department leaders and federal judges. A source familiar with Cornyn's thinking said the senator felt "obligated" to consider the job because a friend, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asked him to, and Trump called and asked him to think about it. The source declined to be named because the decision was private. Cornyn is the No. 2 Republican in the Senate behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said Tuesday that he'd recommended that Trump nominate Garland for the post. Garland's name began to surface as a possible replacement last week when GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah suggested it on Twitter. McConnell later agreed that he would be a good choice. President Barack Obama nominated Garland to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court last year after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but McConnell declined even to hold a hearing. Senate Republicans insisted at the time that the next president should replace Scalia, and the strategy paid off when Trump won the election. The high court vacancy was filled last month by Neil Gorsuch. Questioned about Garland later in the day, McConnell said he "illustrates the kind of person I hope and expect will come next, somebody with deep credentials in criminal justice and criminal justice enforcement, completely apolitical and in line with prior FBI directors." FBI directors have predominantly been drawn from the ranks of prosecutors and judges. Comey, for instance, was a former United States attorney in Manhattan before being appointed deputy attorney general by George W. Bush. His predecessor, Robert Mueller, was a U.S. attorney in San Francisco.
By AFP

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will today meet EU Council President Donald Tusk in Paris, the new leader's office said.

The two will have lunch at the Elysee Palace before Macron is expected to announce his cabinet appointments.

Tusk was one of the first prominent European voices to congratulate Macron on his May 7 presidential election runoff victory over French far-right and anti-EU politician Marine Le Pen.

In picking Macron, Tusk said the French people had chosen "liberty, equality and fraternity" and "said no to the tyranny of fake news".

Macron, who ran a pro-European election campaign, kept with tradition by visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday in his first trip abroad after taking office.

The pair now at the centre of the European project vowed to give it new impetus, saying they were ready to change treaties if necessary.

Macron has urged a reconstruction of the EU to fight off a recent surge of populism on the continent.

The French president yesterday hosted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the first foreign dignitary to visit since he took office on Sunday.

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron will today meet EU Council President Donald Tusk in Paris, the new leader's office said. The two will have lunch at the Elysee Palace before Macron is expected to announce his cabinet appointments. Tusk was one of the first prominent European voices to congratulate Macron on his May 7 presidential election runoff victory over French far-right and anti-EU politician Marine Le Pen. In picking Macron, Tusk said the French people had chosen "liberty, equality and fraternity" and "said no to the tyranny of fake news". Macron, who ran a pro-European election campaign, kept with tradition by visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday in his first trip abroad after taking office. The pair now at the centre of the European project vowed to give it new impetus, saying they were ready to change treaties if necessary. Macron has urged a reconstruction of the EU to fight off a recent surge of populism on the continent. The French president yesterday hosted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the first foreign dignitary to visit since he took office on Sunday.
By AFP

GENEVA: A new round of Syria peace talks got under way Tuesday in Geneva as the Damascus regime fiercely denied it used a prison crematorium to hide evidence of thousands of murdered detainees.

Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations have failed to yield a solution to the six-year conflict.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura met twice on Tuesday with both the Syrian government delegation and the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), with meetings at the UN headquarters running late into the evening.

De Mistura also met with deputy Russian foreign minister Gennady Gatilov earlier in the day, Moscow's foreign ministry said. Syrian state news agency SANA said Gatilov sat down with lead government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari as well.

But hopes for a breakthrough remain dim, with tensions raised further by US claims of new regime atrocities at the notorious Saydnaya prison near Damascus.

The US State Department on Monday accused Bashar al-Assad's government of using a crematorium to cover up the deaths of thousands of prisoners at Saydnaya -- a claim Damascus swiftly denied.

"These allegations are totally unfounded, they are nothing but the product of the imagination of this administration and its agents," SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet, speaking to AFP ahead of his delegation's first meeting, said the fresh accusations demanded a response.

"The Americans know what's going on in Syria now... To save the lives of Syrian people it needs some action from the (United) States, from our friends, and I hope they will do it very soon," he said.

- 'Working in tandem' -

The negotiations set to run to the weekend are the latest effort to end a war that has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions.

They are expected to focus on four separate "baskets": governance, a new constitution, elections and combating "terrorism" in the war-ravaged country.

But one issue -- Assad's fate -- remains a daunting roadblock.

The HNC has insisted the president's ouster must be part of any political transition, a demand unacceptable to the Syrian regime.

The HNC's first session with de Mistura focused on releasing detainees and a new constitution, Meslet told AFP after the meeting.

The Geneva talks have been overshadowed by a string of rebel evacuations from the Syrian capital and rival negotiations in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

Sponsored by rebel supporter Turkey and regime backers Russia and Iran, that track produced a May 4 deal to create four "de-escalation" zones across some of Syria's bloodiest battlegrounds.

De Mistura has dismissed suggestions that the Astana negotiations were competing with the Geneva track, saying they were "working in tandem."

The HNC insisted that UN-backed talks are by far the most critical.

"We only believe in deals that are agreed upon here in Geneva -- not in Astana," Meslet said.

- Russia 'must act' -

Assad, however, has given more credit to Astana and has blasted the Geneva process as "merely a meeting for the media."

The talks have also been impacted by the shifting role of the US, an erstwhile opposition supporter that largely withdrew from the process under President Donald Trump.

De Mistura said Monday he was "encouraged by the increasing engagement, the increasing interest" by Trump's administration.

Washington appeared to turn up the heat on Monday, warning Russia not to turn a blind eye to Assad's alleged crimes at Saydnaya.

"The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East.

"Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now."

One newly released image, a commercial satellite photograph dating back to January 2015, shows snow melting on the roof of a building attached to the Saydnaya military complex north of Damascus.

This, along with an earlier picture allegedly showing heavy-duty ventilation systems on the structure, appears to support earlier claims by rights groups that Saydnaya is an execution centre.

GENEVA: A new round of Syria peace talks got under way Tuesday in Geneva as the Damascus regime fiercely denied it used a prison crematorium to hide evidence of thousands of murdered detainees. Five previous rounds of UN-backed negotiations have failed to yield a solution to the six-year conflict. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura met twice on Tuesday with both the Syrian government delegation and the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), with meetings at the UN headquarters running late into the evening. De Mistura also met with deputy Russian foreign minister Gennady Gatilov earlier in the day, Moscow's foreign ministry said. Syrian state news agency SANA said Gatilov sat down with lead government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari as well. But hopes for a breakthrough remain dim, with tensions raised further by US claims of new regime atrocities at the notorious Saydnaya prison near Damascus. The US State Department on Monday accused Bashar al-Assad's government of using a crematorium to cover up the deaths of thousands of prisoners at Saydnaya -- a claim Damascus swiftly denied. "These allegations are totally unfounded, they are nothing but the product of the imagination of this administration and its agents," SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying. HNC spokesman Salem al-Meslet, speaking to AFP ahead of his delegation's first meeting, said the fresh accusations demanded a response. "The Americans know what's going on in Syria now... To save the lives of Syrian people it needs some action from the (United) States, from our friends, and I hope they will do it very soon," he said. - 'Working in tandem' - The negotiations set to run to the weekend are the latest effort to end a war that has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions. They are expected to focus on four separate "baskets": governance, a new constitution, elections and combating "terrorism" in the war-ravaged country. But one issue -- Assad's fate -- remains a daunting roadblock. The HNC has insisted the president's ouster must be part of any political transition, a demand unacceptable to the Syrian regime. The HNC's first session with de Mistura focused on releasing detainees and a new constitution, Meslet told AFP after the meeting. The Geneva talks have been overshadowed by a string of rebel evacuations from the Syrian capital and rival negotiations in the Kazakh capital, Astana. Sponsored by rebel supporter Turkey and regime backers Russia and Iran, that track produced a May 4 deal to create four "de-escalation" zones across some of Syria's bloodiest battlegrounds. De Mistura has dismissed suggestions that the Astana negotiations were competing with the Geneva track, saying they were "working in tandem." The HNC insisted that UN-backed talks are by far the most critical. "We only believe in deals that are agreed upon here in Geneva -- not in Astana," Meslet said. - Russia 'must act' - Assad, however, has given more credit to Astana and has blasted the Geneva process as "merely a meeting for the media." The talks have also been impacted by the shifting role of the US, an erstwhile opposition supporter that largely withdrew from the process under President Donald Trump. De Mistura said Monday he was "encouraged by the increasing engagement, the increasing interest" by Trump's administration. Washington appeared to turn up the heat on Monday, warning Russia not to turn a blind eye to Assad's alleged crimes at Saydnaya. "The United States is on record, has stated many times, that we are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime," said Stuart Jones, the top US diplomat for the Middle East. "Russia must now, with great urgency, exercise its influence over the Syrian regime to guarantee that horrific violations stop now." One newly released image, a commercial satellite photograph dating back to January 2015, shows snow melting on the roof of a building attached to the Saydnaya military complex north of Damascus. This, along with an earlier picture allegedly showing heavy-duty ventilation systems on the structure, appears to support earlier claims by rights groups that Saydnaya is an execution centre.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump didn't appear to break any law by sharing highly classified information with Russia, but that doesn't make it any less problematic for America's intelligence agencies and their overseas partners.

Even as Trump's national security adviser insisted the Oval Office disclosure to visiting Russian diplomats was "wholly appropriate" and routine, few people outside of the White House saw it that way. Especially troubling was that a foreign country provided the intelligence confidentially to the U.S.

A look at the legal and national security issues at stake:

WHAT DID TRUMP TELL THE RUSSIANS?

Trump shared information about a threat from the Islamic State group while hosting Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. The threat related to laptops carried on airplanes, according to a senior U.S. official.

The information appears to be related to the basis for a U.S. and British decision in March to bar laptops and tablets from being carried on board international flights from cities in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. U.S. and European Union officials more recently have discussed expanding the ban to include flights from Europe.

WHERE DID TRUMP GET THE INFORMATION?

A U.S. ally provided the information, the official said, meaning it wasn't necessarily Trump's to share with anyone else.

The New York Times reported that Israel was the provider, though administration officials wouldn't confirm that was true.

The White House said Trump wasn't briefed on the source of the intelligence and didn't know where it came from when he passed it along to the Russians.

WAS WHAT TRUMP DID LEGAL?

Probably.

The system for how U.S. secrets are classified and the rules for how they're handled derive from an executive order.

That means secrets are governed by the president and not by laws passed by Congress. The president's authority to make the classification rules comes from his constitutional powers as the commander in chief and head of the executive branch.

Typically, that has been interpreted to mean that the president has the ultimate authority to classify and to declassify information. Put another way, classified information becomes unclassified by default the moment the president chooses to disclose it.

But there are other laws that could come into play when sensitive information is disclosed to harm the U.S., according to David Pozen, who teaches national security law at Columbia Law School. These include the Espionage Act and Identities Protection Act.

Still, it's hard to imagine the president being prosecuted under those laws given that it's his constitutional power to make national security decisions.

SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

The disclosure to Russia appeared to violate an intelligence-sharing agreement that provides the U.S. critical information about threats to the nation.

A breach of trust raises the possibility that U.S. friends might curtail such intelligence partnerships out of concern their secrets  and their sources and methods  could end up in the wrong hands.

The fact that the secrets went to Russia, an adversary of the U.S. and many of its allies, was especially alarming.

U.S. intelligence-sharing agreements include the Five Eyes program with Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. These countries share vast amounts of information and promise not to spy on each other. The U.S. also shares intelligence with countries like Germany that broadly share U.S. national security goals.

Russia, a top espionage concern for the U.S., is different. Even sharing limited amounts of intelligence about terrorist targets with Russia, in Syria for example, has been the source of major controversy in the past.

And Russia's allies and partners include Syria, Iran, China and other American rivals.

HOW HAVE PAST PRESIDENTS HANDLED THESE ISSUES?

Other American leaders routinely authorized disclosing certain secrets to other countries  but not the way Trump did it.

Typically, before disclosing intelligence to another country, there would be an evaluation of costs and benefits, close consultation with the U.S. intelligence community, and detailed consideration of how much to say and in what words so as to mitigate risks.

"That way, they can take steps to protect sources and methods," said Steven Pike, a former State Department official who teaches at Syracuse University.

The White House acknowledged Trump made the decision essentially on the spot. In fact, it was so unexpected that officials later called the National Security Agency and the CIA to inform them of the breach of protocol and try to limit any damage.

WHAT'S ALL THIS TALK ABOUT "SOURCES AND METHODS?"

Intelligence agencies use the phrase "sources and methods" to describe secrets about how intelligence is gathered.

Even when intelligence is declassified, the government typically keeps secret the ways it acquired the intelligence. This way, it preserves its ability to collect more intelligence in the future. When the U.S. this week released details about prisoner killings in Syria, it didn't outline exactly how it knew what it claimed to know.

Trump and his aides insist he did not reveal sources and methods to the Russians, and thus didn't put intelligence-gathering at risk.

But intelligence experts say it's not that simple.

Adversaries can often look at intelligence that has been disclosed and reverse-engineer where it came using a process of elimination.

That raises concerns the Islamic State group might be able to identify a vulnerability that spies have been exploiting and cut it off.



WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump didn't appear to break any law by sharing highly classified information with Russia, but that doesn't make it any less problematic for America's intelligence agencies and their overseas partners. Even as Trump's national security adviser insisted the Oval Office disclosure to visiting Russian diplomats was "wholly appropriate" and routine, few people outside of the White House saw it that way. Especially troubling was that a foreign country provided the intelligence confidentially to the U.S. A look at the legal and national security issues at stake: WHAT DID TRUMP TELL THE RUSSIANS? Trump shared information about a threat from the Islamic State group while hosting Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. The threat related to laptops carried on airplanes, according to a senior U.S. official. The information appears to be related to the basis for a U.S. and British decision in March to bar laptops and tablets from being carried on board international flights from cities in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries. U.S. and European Union officials more recently have discussed expanding the ban to include flights from Europe. WHERE DID TRUMP GET THE INFORMATION? A U.S. ally provided the information, the official said, meaning it wasn't necessarily Trump's to share with anyone else. The New York Times reported that Israel was the provider, though administration officials wouldn't confirm that was true. The White House said Trump wasn't briefed on the source of the intelligence and didn't know where it came from when he passed it along to the Russians. WAS WHAT TRUMP DID LEGAL? Probably. The system for how U.S. secrets are classified and the rules for how they're handled derive from an executive order. That means secrets are governed by the president and not by laws passed by Congress. The president's authority to make the classification rules comes from his constitutional powers as the commander in chief and head of the executive branch. Typically, that has been interpreted to mean that the president has the ultimate authority to classify and to declassify information. Put another way, classified information becomes unclassified by default the moment the president chooses to disclose it. But there are other laws that could come into play when sensitive information is disclosed to harm the U.S., according to David Pozen, who teaches national security law at Columbia Law School. These include the Espionage Act and Identities Protection Act. Still, it's hard to imagine the president being prosecuted under those laws given that it's his constitutional power to make national security decisions. SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? The disclosure to Russia appeared to violate an intelligence-sharing agreement that provides the U.S. critical information about threats to the nation. A breach of trust raises the possibility that U.S. friends might curtail such intelligence partnerships out of concern their secrets  and their sources and methods  could end up in the wrong hands. The fact that the secrets went to Russia, an adversary of the U.S. and many of its allies, was especially alarming. U.S. intelligence-sharing agreements include the Five Eyes program with Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. These countries share vast amounts of information and promise not to spy on each other. The U.S. also shares intelligence with countries like Germany that broadly share U.S. national security goals. Russia, a top espionage concern for the U.S., is different. Even sharing limited amounts of intelligence about terrorist targets with Russia, in Syria for example, has been the source of major controversy in the past. And Russia's allies and partners include Syria, Iran, China and other American rivals. HOW HAVE PAST PRESIDENTS HANDLED THESE ISSUES? Other American leaders routinely authorized disclosing certain secrets to other countries  but not the way Trump did it. Typically, before disclosing intelligence to another country, there would be an evaluation of costs and benefits, close consultation with the U.S. intelligence community, and detailed consideration of how much to say and in what words so as to mitigate risks. "That way, they can take steps to protect sources and methods," said Steven Pike, a former State Department official who teaches at Syracuse University. The White House acknowledged Trump made the decision essentially on the spot. In fact, it was so unexpected that officials later called the National Security Agency and the CIA to inform them of the breach of protocol and try to limit any damage. WHAT'S ALL THIS TALK ABOUT "SOURCES AND METHODS?" Intelligence agencies use the phrase "sources and methods" to describe secrets about how intelligence is gathered. Even when intelligence is declassified, the government typically keeps secret the ways it acquired the intelligence. This way, it preserves its ability to collect more intelligence in the future. When the U.S. this week released details about prisoner killings in Syria, it didn't outline exactly how it knew what it claimed to know. Trump and his aides insist he did not reveal sources and methods to the Russians, and thus didn't put intelligence-gathering at risk. But intelligence experts say it's not that simple. Adversaries can often look at intelligence that has been disclosed and reverse-engineer where it came using a process of elimination. That raises concerns the Islamic State group might be able to identify a vulnerability that spies have been exploiting and cut it off.
Food Scene: Newport County options that have Thanksgiving covered

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Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).
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Champaign, IL (61820)

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A few passing clouds. Low around 55F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

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A few passing clouds. Low around 55F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
Metformin, the most widely used drug to treat type 2 diabetes, could potentially be used to treat symptoms of Fragile X syndrome, an inherited form of intellectual disability and a cause of some forms of autism.

A new study led by researchers at Universite de Montreal, McGill University and the University of Edinburgh and has found that metformin improves social, behavioural and morphological defects in Fragile X mice.

Fragile X syndrome is a genetic disease caused by defects in the Fragile X Mental Retardation 1 gene (FMR1), which triggers excess production of protein in the brain, as well as dysregulated connections between neurons and changes in behaviour. The condition leads to impairments in speech and language, behaviour and social interaction. It affects about 1 in 5,000 boys and 1 in 6,000 girls and is often co-diagnosed with autism, anxiety disorders and seizures.

Fragile X mice  animals that display symptoms associated with the disease such as increased grooming and decreased socialization  showed normal brain connections and behavioural patterns after 10 days of injection with metformin.

Nahum Sonenberg, James McGill Professor at McGill's Biochemistry Department and co-senior author of the new study published in Nature Medicine, said the findings offer hope for patients with Fragile X syndrome. "This is some of the most exciting research work in my career, as it offers great promise in treating a pernicious genetic disease for which there is no cure," he said.

Christos Gkogkas, Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Patrick Wild Centre explained that "metformin has been extensively used as a therapy for type 2 diabetes for more than 30 years, and its safety and tolerability are well documented."

"This makes the drug an ideal candidate for fast-tracked clinical trials and, if all goes well, a readily available drug for the treatment of Fragile X syndrome," added Jean-Claude Lacaille, Canada Research Chair in Cellular and Molecular Neurophysiology and professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Universite de Montreal and a major collaborator on the study.

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In the past few years, metformin has generated extensive interest for its potential in treating numerous health problems such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases and aging.

"Basically, it's something like a wonder drug," Sonenberg said.

The study suggests that metformin might also be used to treat other autism spectrum disorders, said Ilse Gantois, a research associate in Sonenberg's lab at McGill.

"We mostly looked at the autistic form of behaviour in the Fragile X mouse model," explained Gantois, who is co-lead author with McGill researchers Arkady Khoutorsky and Jelena Popic. "We want to start testing other mouse models to see if the drug could also have benefits for other types of autism."

The study also established that metformin restores some of the molecular pathways disrupted in the absence of the FMR1. The next step will be to understand the drug's exact role in these pathways.

"It is a simple story in terms of the description of the corrections allowed by the drug," Sonenberg said. "What is more complicated is the molecular mechanism, how exactly it works. We need to study, in the lab, what molecules metformin interacts with and what cellular functions are affected."

Moreover, the drug could be tweaked "to be more efficient than metformin" and repurposed, for example, for other disorders, he added.
By combining a conventional laboratory measurement of blood clotting time (known as the International Normalized Ratio or INR) with a new test of blood clot strength, based upon thrombelastography (TEG), researchers at the University of Colorado's Department of Surgery, Denver, are able to quickly and efficiently assess the overall ability of blood to clot and identify trauma patients who were most in need of a massive blood transfusion. The investigators believe that in the not too distant future these tests, when used in combination, will be able to personalize trauma care, help surgeons save lives, and make better use of scarce blood bank resources. The ability of the tests to predict the need for massive transfusion was described in an "article in press" published on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication.

More than 80 percent of deaths in the operating room and 50 percent of deaths in the first 24 hours after injury are due to massive blood loss and impaired coagulation. While only 3 percent of civilian trauma patients receive a massive transfusion in the first day of treatment after trauma, these patients account for 70 percent of all blood transfused in a trauma center.1

"When someone is massively bleeding, you need to give certain blood products early, and the blood bank has to mobilize blood products that are resource scarce, such as platelets, which have only a five-day shelf life. You want to quickly identify patients who will require a large quantity of blood products to save lives and mobilize the blood bank only when you need it," according to lead study author, Hunter B. Moore, MD.

However, clinical scoring systems for predicting the need for massive transfusion are problematic. Some rely on vital signs, such as blood pressure and heart rate, which are subjective and highly variable; others require multiple diagnostic imaging and laboratory tests.2

Dr. Moore and his colleagues at the University of Colorado's Department of Surgery developed a new test to predict which patients would require massive transfusion. This test modifies a currently available test of blood clot strength, thrombelastography (TEG), by adding tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) to a patient's blood sample. Thrombelastography is a point-of-care assay of coagulation that measures the viscoelastic properties of whole blood and determines the ability of blood to clot. Tissue plasminogen activator is a protein involved in the breakdown of blood clots.

"When patients go into hemorrhagic shock, they activate the blood's fibrinolysis or clot degradation system at the local or organ level so organs continue to be perfused with blood. At the systemic level, there are backup inhibitors--platelets and proteins--that prevent clot degradation from affecting the whole body. Activators of fibrinolysis include tissue plasminogen activator. As patients progress toward hemorrhagic shock, clot degradation intensifies, and their tPA levels increase. We can unmask this process in the early stages by giving extra tPA to blood samples and forecast if the patient is at high risk of progression to hyperfibrinolysis," Dr. Moore said.

Dr. Moore and associates studied more than 300 patients who were treated for trauma between 2014 and 2016. Seventeen percent of the patients required a massive transfusion, and one third of deaths were due to uncontrolled hemorrhage. The investigators assessed how effectively each clinical score could determine the need for massive transfusion, and compared their effectiveness to their new developed test.

The analysis showed that this tPA-challenged TEG assay was highly sensitive and specific and took only a few minutes to provide results--up to 30 minutes faster than existing tests. Moreover, when the tPA-challenged TEG assay, was used in combination with the INR, it improved the predictive value of identifying patients who needed transfusion by roughly 40 percent. Additionally, the two-test combination identified 97 percent of patients who did not require blood products, thereby preventing unnecessary transfusions. The researchers therefore propose that trauma teams use the INR as a screening test to determine if someone is at risk for bleeding and then follow up with tPA-challenged TEG to ensure that this result is accurate.

The tPA-challenged TEG assays currently require trained technicians to conduct the testing. However, newly available fully automated TEG instruments will streamline this process, according to Dr. Moore.

"The fully automated assays will have a standardized methodology for obtaining samples and may be used as a point-of-care test by prehospital providers to screen for the risk of massive transfusion before patients enter the trauma center. These assays will help us move one step closer to the time when the trauma team can tailor or personalize resuscitation to each patient," Dr. Moore said.
As of this year, kids under the age of 15 only need 2 doses of HPV vaccine. New research out of Boston Medical Center, published online in the STD Journal, is the first published clinical evidence to support new recommendations by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for a two-dose HPV vaccine to prevent genital warts. BMC researchers found that the two-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine provides the same level of protection against genital warts as three doses, when given as directed.

The study looked at nearly 400,000 girls from around the country to find the rate of genital warts based on the number of vaccine doses received. Researchers found that receiving two or three doses of the vaccine was effective. Both provided significantly more protection against genital warts than one dose or not receiving the vaccine at all.

The vaccine is recommended to prevent HPV infections and its associated diseases, including cancers and genital warts. Recently, the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) updated their recommendations from a three to two dose vaccine schedule for girls and boys ages 9 to 14.

"The CDC and WHO based the new two dose schedule primarily on immunogenicity results, but there was very little research on how effective that recommendation has been," said Rebecca Perkins, MD, obstetrician at BMC and the study's lead author. "This study validates the new recommendations and allows us to confidently move forward with the 2 dose schedule for the prevention of genital warts." Researchers did note that the rate of genital warts for all girls dropped significantly from 2007 to 2013 and attribute the trend to the wide distribution of the HPV vaccine in recent years.

"The data supporting a two dose schedule is encouraging, but it only reports on genital warts, not cervical dysplasia or cancer outcomes.

Collecting that long term data is paramount," said Perkins, who is also an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine. "This study will be a stepping stone for future research into the effectiveness of the two dose schedule of the HPV vaccine for other symptoms of the disease."
A new suite of phone apps developed at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) uses Android smartphones to monitor the physical mobility and stability of older people.

That's important because research has shown that small changes in the time required and the intensity of common everyday motions can be early indicators of health issues such as stroke or falls.

The applications were developed by Dr. Emil Jovanov, the 2014 Alabama Inventor of the Year, Dr. Aleksandar Milenkovic and doctoral students Mladen Milosevic (now at Philips Research, Boston, Mass.) and Priyanka Madhushri from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UAH.

An Android phone loaded with the software developed at UAH, is worn in a chest-level harness. The patented software interfaces use sensors already built into the smart phone to create a device that is a sensor, recorder and communicator of mobility and stability data. All records are sent automatically to the personal medical record of the user on the mHealth server at UAH.

Over time, personalized data points could indicate trends that can inform a physician's diagnoses and create the opportunity for early intervention. The apps also can track the progress of older people who are taking part in strength, stability and mobility improvement programs.

"We wanted to have something everyone could use in the comfort of their own home," says Dr. Jovanov, who in 2000 was the first researcher to propose a system to wirelessly integrate sensors on or in bodies and communicate through the Internet for ubiquitous health monitoring. "The data automatically goes to your personal records, so it makes the jobs of nurses easier, and doctors could easily access these records and monitor progress between visits."

The new software uses as a framework the standardized Centers for Disease Control tests for mobility. The Time Up and Go (TUG) test measures the time it takes for someone to rise from a seated position and walk a measured distance. The 30-second chair stand test measures the number of times a person can rise and be seated in the allotted time, and four-stage balance tests evaluate balance during standing. The application suite supports all tests recommended by the CDC.

The personalized assessment of mobility and stability can inform healthcare workers about a variety of health conditions, including the possibility of future falls.

"The reason we especially want to prevent falls is because in the elderly, a fall often triggers a downward spiral of declining health," says Dr. Jovanov. Falls in some elderly patients may be due to prescribed drugs that can cause instability, or that interact with other drugs to do so. The monitor could provide early warning and a simple change of the drug might prevent falls.

Development of the apps started five years ago, initially focused on achieving a mobile operation that could perform the TUG test with a higher degree of precision than a human tester.

"Then we discovered that we can also use the app to isolate the phases of the TUG process," Dr. Jovanov says. "It turns out that some of those unused parameters provide very good assessment of mobility and indicate possible future falls."

For example, how far a person leans forward when getting up from a seated position is a measurement that directly correlates with the potential for falls. The sTUG app uses the phone worn in the chest harness to monitor angles and angular velocities at the chest.

A personalized model is currently under development by doctoral student Madhushri to assess the forces involved and energy used during the transition. The next generation of the software will allow the personalized assessment of performance versus a personal optimal transition, and will indicate the overall strength and wellness state of the user.

"Now we have a much greater set of parameters that physicians can use in their diagnoses, using height and weight to make a personal model to assess the forces and torques in the hip, knee and ankle during transition from sitting to standing," says Dr. Jovanov. That allows doctors to assess how smoothly patients are accomplishing basic movements.

"We can run the test at home on the smart phone, and analyze changes to assess possible indications of change of health status," Dr. Jovanov says.

For example, the monitor can be valuable in flagging the small changes in mobility and stability that research shows immediately follow mini-strokes.

"In the case of strokes, you have changes in both speed and stability," Dr. Jovanov says. "Very often, a sequence of small strokes signals that a big stroke is coming. If you detect early the effects of the smaller strokes, then the physician may be able to prevent the big stroke."

UAH researchers collaborated with Huntsville's Center for Aging and Dr. Karen Frith from UAH's College of Nursing to test the monitoring device in an elderly population aged 70 to 90-plus. During the successful testing, they found the monitor could play a vital role in a Center for Aging program that educates older adults about how to improve their mobility and stability.

"This device can give you immediate feedback about your progress in the program," says Dr. Jovanov. "We had test subjects who needed 38 seconds to complete the TUG test at the beginning of the program, and they improved to just 19 seconds."

Testing led to other developments, including using the data to create a personalized, optimal stand up metric for a given patient's weight that can be used to measure improvements.

"A computer model shows how much force is needed for the personalized optimum transition and assesses forces in each transition during monitoring, which allows us to see exactly, based on specific transition data, how much force you have and how much progress you have made," Dr. Jovanov says.

The new apps are either patented or patent pending, and are part of Dr. Jovanov's mHealth suite of personalized medical monitoring projects, a 16-year endeavor that explores and has patented technology innovations that can improve people's health and lives.

In addition to the new apps, a smart pill bottle that reminds and records when users take medication and when supply is getting low, a smart water bottle that reminds and records times of hydration, a mobility application for wheelchair-bound patients and enabling technologies for wearable personalized medical monitoring systems are among the products produced by the mHealth laboratory in UAH's Engineering Building led by Dr. Milenkovic and Dr. Jovanov.

With increasing numbers of aging Baby Boomers and a limited supply of physicians and healthcare workers, the mHealth mobile health monitoring systems are considered to be architecture of choice for a new generation of personalized and predictive healthcare.

"The idea is that one day, you will be able to walk into your local Walgreens or CVS and purchase these devices inexpensively, or install the application on your smartphone," he says. "They will help you to become proactive and more engaged and work with your physician to create a personalized medical monitoring and recording program that will help you to assess and improve your health and wellbeing."
Faced with a serious disease, patients want to know the answer to a difficult question: "How long will I live?"

A new Mayo Clinic study in today's JAMA Neurology has some answers for patients with Parkinson's disease, Lewy body dementia, multiple system atrophy with parkinsonism and Parkinson's disease dementia.

The population-based study found that patients with these diseases died about two years earlier than the general population. The highest risk of death was seen among patients with multiple system atrophy with parkinsonism at six years earlier. This high-risk group was followed by patients with Lewy body dementia, four years earlier; Parkinson disease dementia, 3 years earlier; and Parkinson disease, one year earlier.

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"As doctors, we want to be able to counsel our patients appropriately when they ask, 'What will happen to me?'" says Rodolfo Savica, M.D., Ph.D., lead author and a neurologist at Mayo Clinic. "Understanding long-term outcomes can help clinicians better inform patients and their caregivers about what to expect."

The study used data from the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a collaboration of medical facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin involving community members who have agreed to share their medical records for research. The researchers reviewed data from 1991 through 2010. They compared 461 patients with these diseases to 452 patients in the general population -- all in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Sixty percent of each group was men.

Patients who had synucleinopathies -- diseases in which the brain accumulates abnormal amounts of the alpha-synuclein protein -- included 309 with Parkinson's disease, 81 with Lewy body dementia, 55 with Parkinson's disease dementia, and 16 with multiple system atrophy with parkinsonism. Parkinsonism was defined as having at least two of four signs: resting tremor, slowed movement, rigidity, and impaired reflexes to maintain posture and balance.

Of the 461 patients with synucleinopathies, 316 or 68.6 percent died during follow-up. Of the 452 general population participants, 220 or 48.7 percent died during follow-up.

Cause of death also was compared. Among patients with synucleinopathies, neurodegenerative disease was the most frequent cause of death at 31.5 percent. Cardiovascular disease was the second most common cause of death at 15.7 percent. For the general population, cardiovascular disease was the most common cause of death at 25.5 percent.

"This helps understanding on how these diseases work," Dr. Savica says, noting that the paper is among the first comprehensive studies of the survival and cause of death of people with synucleinopathies, compared with the general population.
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have identified a strategy that doubled screening rates for colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States, among patient groups who historically have had lower rates.

The researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine that providing one-on-one support and customized tools for decision-making increased screening rates for patients at two community health centers in North Carolina and New Mexico. They were able to boost screening rates to 68 percent, which was 41 percentage points higher than the group who did not receive the intervention.

"We know colon cancer screening is effective, but we also know we're losing opportunities to prevent deaths from colon cancer because screening rates aren't as high as they should be. This is particularly true in vulnerable patient populations," said the study's lead author, Daniel S. Reuland, MD, MPH, a UNC Lineberger member and professor in the UNC School of Medicine. "We've shown that if we structure care such that we catch patients right when they are seeing their doctor, systematically provide them with clear and compelling information about screening and what their choices are, and then give them personal support they need to get screening test they prefer, we can substantially improve rates."

Screening has been proven to be effective in reducing colorectal cancer deaths in the United States, and regular screening is recommended for people between 50 and 75 years. But researchers report screening rates are low in some groups, particularly for people who are low-income, on Medicaid, have limited English proficiency, and some minority groups.

"While colorectal cancer screening rates have improved nationally, low-income, and some minority populations tend to be screened at lower rates than the national average," said Alison Brenner, PhD, MPH, associate program director of the Decision Support Lab at UNC's Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. "Further, Latino populations typically have the lowest screening rates."

In their new study, the researchers tested a strategy to improve screening rates for 265 patients at community health clinics in North Carolina and New Mexico. The majority of patients were Latino, low income, on Medicaid or lacking insurance.

Before their appointments, study participants watched an "decision aid" video in English or in Spanish about their colon cancer screening options, which included colonoscopy as well as a home test that allows patients to mail in a sample of their stool. The participants met one-on-one with a patient navigator who followed up about their plans for a colonoscopy appointment or home test.

Overall, 68 percent of study participants who watched the video and met with a patient navigator were screened for colorectal cancer within 6 months, compared to 27 percent of patients who did not receive the intervention.

"This study gives us one model for effective health interventions in vulnerable populations," said Michael Pignone, MD, MPH, chair of internal medicine at Dell Medical School and a former UNC Lineberger researcher. "Providing patients with personal follow-up and customized tools for making decisions about their health are two beneficial tactics."

The researchers said giving study participants a choice in the type of test they received helped to boost screening uptake. And using the evideo helped them have an informed discussion and share the decision with their physician, who might not otherwise have elicited the patients' preference regarding screening tests.

"Colonoscopy is just one of several screening tests recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force," Brenner said. "Studies have shown that offering only colonoscopy results in lower adherence to screening than offering a choice, and our study appears to confirm that."

They also concluded that combining the video with patient meetings with a navigator also contributed to the intervention's success. Navigators helped to make sure patients received a stool test kit if they wanted it, did not lose or forget to complete mailed test, to access financial assistance programs, and to schedule a colonoscopy.

"We think that these two interventions are working synergistically, they were delivered systematically by non-physician members of the care team, and the system was set up so that it should work even if the doctor doesn't have time to address this particular issue during the visit," Reuland said. "That's part of the 'secret sauce.'"

Their systematic, team-based approach also helped improve rates, he said.

"Doctors sometimes have 12 to 15 minutes to address multiple important health issues and concerns, and colon cancer screening can fall off the list because it's not urgent, and sometimes people don't want to deal with it," Reuland said. "But really putting a system in place that says everyone who is due for screening should get clear and consistent decision support, and navigation help if they need it, increases screening rates."

Reuland added that the findings have policy implications because community health centers often don't have the resources they need to do this systematically. "Resources need to be allocated to do what needs to be done to deliver high-value, evidence-based care like colon cancer screening," he said. "We are seeing that if we design and resource primary care appropriately, we can deliver evidence-based care, and improve the value of care we deliver to individual patients and to society."
An international study of older adults has found that mass, untargeted provision of vitamin D supplements provides little clinical benefit to many when it comes to the common bone disease, osteoporosis. Instead, the study recommends targeting vitamin D supplements at individuals whose levels of this vitamin are markedly reduced.

The results of the study - carried out by researchers at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA - were announced today by Professor Ian R. Reid at ECTS 2017, the 44th European Calcified Tissue Society Congress being held in Salzburg, Austria.

Professor Reid said:

We know that severe vitamin D deficiency causes osteomalacia, yet trials in the community have not consistently shown that vitamin D supplements improve older adults' bone density or reduce the risk of fracture. So we set out to determine whether a higher dose of vitamin D influences bone density or whether benefit is dependent on the level of vitamin D already present in the individual. The study was part of a bigger trial among community-resident adults aged 50-84 years and followed 418 participants for two years, who were randomized to receive, monthly, either high oral doses of vitamin D or a placebo. We were looking at changes over time to bone density in their lower spines, primarily, and in other commonly tested sites on the body. We were also testing thresholds in the levels of vitamin D already present in the participants and found that that level was significant when it came to the effect of the vitamin D treatment. There was a certain threshold (of 30 nmol 25-hydroxyvitamin D per litre) where, for those above the threshold, there was no real change in bone density for those receiving the treatment, compared to those receiving the placebo, while for those at or below the threshold, the change in bone density was around 2%.

Professor Reid concluded:

It was clear to us that future trials of vitamin D supplements in older adults should focus on those who have baseline vitamin D levels equal to or below 30 nmol per litre and that the findings represent a significant step towards defining vitamin D deficiency for bone health in older adults.

Source: http://www.ectsoc.org
Before dawn in the Indian Himalayas, scores of patients clutching small vials of urine queue patiently to see Yeshi Dhonden, a Tibetan monk who became a legend as personal healer to the Dalai Lama.



Tibetan medicine, known as Sowa-Rigpa, draws on centuries-old techniques such as blood-letting, cupping, and moxibustion -- burning herbs on energy points of the body -- to try to heal ailments.



The practise draws on aspects of traditional Chinese medicine and India's Ayurvedic system as well as its own unique theories and treatments. It also features spiritual practises including meditation and Buddhist prayer.



Today it attracts devotees from all over the globe, hoping for help with conditions from back pain to cancer and degenerative diseases.



"If the sick come to me I will take care of them," Dhonden said at his private clinic in McLeodganj, surrounded by Tibetan scrolls and beaming images of his most famous client.



Dhonden -- who spent three decades tending the health of Tibet's spiritual leader -- relies on his senses to divine what ails patients.



"I don't go for tests like X-ray and all. I trust myself. I just test the pulse and the urine," he explained.



A touch at the wrist is how he ascertains the health of vital organs and blood pressure.



The urine, held in a white porcelain cup, is stirred with two small bamboo sticks. Colour, bubble formation, sediment and smell can all shape the diagnosis.



Devotees swear Tibetan medicine works, though few scientific studies have been conducted into its efficacy.



'Imbalanced energies'



The teachings -- contained in some 2,000 textbooks and the messages of the Buddha, considered the guardian deity for all spiritual healers -- are believed to have originated in Tibet.



But as it features elements of both ancient Chinese and Indian healing practises, and is rapidly evolving from a niche tradition into popular alternative treatment, both nations have scrambled to claim it as their own.



In April, the Asian giants nominated Tibetan medicine for inclusion on a UNESCO list for "intangible culture". China and India have engaged in countless spats over the Tibetan community since New Delhi granted sanctuary to the Dalai Lama in 1959.



Beijing took control of Tibet eight years earlier and was furious when India granted the Dalai Lama permission to headquarter a government-in-exile in McLeodganj.



The traditions of Tibetan medicine are based on four root texts known as the 'tantras' that evolved in two medical colleges, Chakpori and Men-Tsee-Khang, in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.



These tantras classify thousands of diseases into separate categories, with unique mixtures of herbs and minerals -- mostly sourced from the upper reaches of the Himalayas -- listed as remedies for each ailment.



"We believe diseases are caused when our inner energies are imbalanced," said Tsewang Tam Din, a medical practitioner at the McLeodganj branch of the Men-Tsee Khang school, one of many across India.



Taking a delicate golden hammer, Din demonstrated how healers heat the instrument over fire and place it against the body to offset pain and other common malaises.



"The idea behind our medicine system is that one should not have to take medication all his life for chronic problems like arthritis and diabetes," Din said in McLeodganj, nicknamed "Little Lhasa" for the large Tibetan community residing there.



Science of healing



The increasing popularity of Buddhism in the west, as well as a global Tibetan diaspora has helped spread awareness about its unique alternative medicine.



But like other Eastern health treatments, it is viewed with scepticism among the conventional medical fraternity.



A lack of standardisation and clinical trials means it will be some time before Tibetan medicine can go mainstream, said cardiologist D. Prabhakaran from the Public Health Foundation of India.



But even doubters acknowledge the natural treatment appears to assist some patients in certain cases.



"I know of anecdotal examples where people with terminal diseases have lived much longer than predicted after taking Tibetan medicine," Prabhakaran said.



"I think there's a lot of empathy towards the patient in Tibetan medicine. Basically it comes from the thinking of Buddhism and that may be one of the reasons why it's becoming more popular," he added.



In 2010, India officially recognised Tibetan medicine as a "science of healing" and enshrined it within the nation's healthcare system, paving the way for future research and investment into the spiritual discipline.



It's good news for devotees like 60-year-old Abdul Rehman, who has eschewed mainstream medicine his entire life in favour of Tibetan alternatives.



"I suffered from a recurrent cold which was cured in one year," said Rehman as he collected herbal pills at a clinic in a posh Delhi suburb.



He added: "Now I have some back and neck pain and I think it will also be cured soon."
Kolkata: Maulana Syed Noorur Rahman Barkati, the Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque, is likely to be removed from his post, thanks to his recent remarks made against India.



Speaking to News18, Co-trustee of Prince Ghulam Mohammed Shah Waqf Estate, Muhammad Shahid Alam said, We condemn his (Barkatis) recent statements. Those remarks were highly objectionable. We have decided to remove him.



We are in the process of drafting a letter and soon he will be served with a notice regarding his removal as Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque for his anti-national comments, he added, while alleging that Barkatis supporters had forcibly taken the keys to the Imams office and are now refusing to vacate the premises.



We have informed the Kolkata police and lodged a complaint against his supporters, he added.



Hours after the drama, Barkati addressed a press meet and said, I am the victim of media manipulation. Certain national media organisations distorted my statement and therefore the whole controversy started.



Barkati had rejected the Centres April 19 directive against the use of lal battis on non-emergency vehicles from May 1 and threatened to launch jihad if one tries to make the country a Hindu rashtra.



On May 12, Barkati had said he would take off the red beacon from his vehicle if the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues were ready to live without security guards. There have been at least three police complaints registered against him in West Bengal



The other Imams and Maulanas however refused to buy his justification and demanded an immediate apology from him.

Speaking to News18, Maulana Qari Fazlur Rahman, who leads the Id prayer on Red Road in Kolkata, said, The damage has already been done. Whatever he said was wrong and I would like to warn him to not make such comments in the future.



Instead of dragging the issue, he should apologise publicly or else we would have to take some legal action. If required we will even issue a fatwa against him as he tried to disturb the communal harmony of Bengal, he said.



Maulana of Nakhoda mosque Muhammad Shafiq Qasemi said, Mera Bharat Mahan (My India is great) and anyone who will try to defame it will not be spared. Barkatis statement has disturbed the entire community. It is unfortunate that he praised Pakistan. For me its not Pakistan but Papistan (land of sin).



A few days ago he had called me and I categorically told him to stay within limits so that there is no communal disharmony in the state. A person can take a political stand but insulting India will not be tolerated. This is where we were born, this is the place where we live. It is very sad to hear such words from a person like him. The most unfortunate part is that he is not even apologizing for his comments, Qasemi said.



Though he claims that he has already apologised for his comments but I have not seen. I have doubts about what he claims, he added.



Dr N Sabah Ismail Nadvi, Chief Administrator of Jibreel International School, said, I am surprised that he (Barkati) actually made those comments. India taught us to live together and that is what I am teaching to my students. One should not indulge in such things, we all should concentrate on building the nation for a better tomorrow. Such comments is the big hurdle in the developmental path of the nation.



Bengal Imams Association and Welfare Trust had also condemned Barkatis statement. Recently the Trusts chairman Mohammad Yahya said, We are Indians first. Muslims in Kolkata will never allow anyone to insult our country.

Several Imams across the state are condemning the way he insulted our motherland, he had said in a recent media interaction.



With Muslims scholars, Imams and Maulanas joining hands, the days ahead for Barkati should become uncomfortable.



Senior ministers in Bengal have already decided to clip his wings to save the partys image ahead of the crucial panchayat elections next year and Lok Sabha elections in 2019.



Recently, state minister and secretary of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, Siddiqullah Chowdhury, slammed Barkati and said, Let him stay in Pakistan.



I came to know that he declared Jihad against India and threatened to create another Pakistan. Such statements are against the law and there should not be any leniency in dealing with such persons in terms of legal action, Chowdhury had said.
New Delhi: BSF Exam topper Nabeel Ahmed Wani has approached the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, claiming that the militants were threatening him and his sister.



Wani, sometimes referred to as the other Wani of Kashmir, is a resident of Udhampur district and had hit the headlines last year after topping the Border Security Force's Assistant Commandant (Works) Examination.



Home Minister Rajnath Singh had also met Wani last year and expressed happiness. "I am immensely happy to meet Nabeel Ahmad Wani, a young man from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir, who topped the BSF assistant commandant examination recently," Rajanath had written on twitter.



Wani had urged the youth of the Valley to pick up the pen instead of stones. "The more we get the education the better and more jobs we will get. We cannot get the education by taking to stones but by holding a pen," he had said.



The 26-year-old youth always dreamt of joining the defence forces. "My dream to join the defence forces and serve the country has now been fulfilled," Wani had said, after topping the BSF exam.




CBI raid at former union minister P Chidambaram's residence in Chennai pic.twitter.com/1oGxTjVDXF  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

The government, by using CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. Govts aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations I shall continue to speak and write, said a statement issued by P Chidambaram.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy attacked P Chidambaram over the CBI raids. "His name is involved in many cases... there have been a lot of violation that has happened. Process has begun and I hope Chidambaram will be sent where he belongs", he said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday raided the house of former Union minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti.The raids are being conducted in 14 places. CBI is conducting searches at locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram and Chennai including the residence of Karti Chidambaram in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of FIPB approval, said an official statement. CBI also raided Peter Mukerjea's residence in Mumbai.This came after an FIR was registered against Karti Chidambaram over the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals for INX media then owned by Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani in 2007-2008. The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Indrani Mukerjea, Peter Mukerjea, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its Director Padma Vishwanathan.Chidambaram alleged that the government was trying to silence his voice.The Congress leader said every case in FIPB was processed according to the law. FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me. Approval or refusal to a case was in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP.Karti Chidambaram said the charges are baseless. "I am being targeted politically and personally.Will give a detailed statement after the raids, said Karti Chidambaram.Congress leader Tom Vadakkan termed the investigation as a political vendetta. "There is no evidence... entire investigation is source based..what kind of investigation is this".
Hyderabad: A special cyber crime team in Hyderabad has busted a gang, allegedly involved in producing pirated version of the latest blockbuster -'Baahubali- the conclusion'. The group also blackmailed the producers that they will release it on the internet.



Police have arrested 6 members of this group from Delhi and Bihar. They seized mobile, laptops, hard disks, tabs, HDMI video capture, HDMI to RCA converter, along with other accessories.



The same gang was booked for piracy of the first instalment of the film - Baahubali - too.



Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, deputy Commissioner of Police, CCS, Avinash Mohanty said, "The hi-tech gang operated film piracy syndicate in a very organised manner. One of the accused, Divaker, is the owner of Veena Cinema theatre in Bibusarai district of Bihar. The accused copied the digital HD copy of the movie and created a pirated version of the same to illegally upload it on the internet and make easy money."



On April 29, 2017, producer Prasad Devineni filed a complaint with police, stating, "On the first day of the release, a pirated HD quality version of Baahubali was copied and we were blackmailed to pay lakhs of rupees to stop pirated version from being uploaded on the internet.



However, investigations into the case revealed a very concerning trend. This is the first reported case in India, where pirates were found blackmailing the big producers. One of the accused, Rahul Mehta from Delhi, in the garb of the fake anti-piracy agency, negotiated the deals of the pirates with the producers. He is claiming to have been in touch with big production houses in Bollywood as well.



Speaking to CNN-News18, Rajkumar Akella, chairman Anti-video piracy cell said, "In Hollywood, reports say pirates are holding big studio like Walt Disney to ransom and demanding millions of dollars, even threatening to release their upcoming film "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the internet, if not paid. Similar things are happening here, but the amount is lesser. There is urgent need to take bigger measures to secure our content."
New Delhi: Ahead of his upcoming visit to Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conveyed to Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas India's "unwavering support" to the Palestinian cause.



After holding extensive talks with Abbas, Modi said India hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.



The two countries also inked five agreements following talks between Modi and Abbas.



"India has been unwavering in supporting the Palestinian cause," the Prime Minister said in his media statement.



Modi also said that India hopes for an early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides so as to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution to the Palestinian issue.
Court is asking a lot of questions to understand the issue and we think the court is making observations. The court will be discussing concept of religion, personal law, and also the difference between religious faith and religious practice. Essentially, what they are and how to determine them. I hope the judgment comes by July as the CJI will retire in August, said the Law Commission Chairman.

At a time when the country is following the historic Supreme Court proceedings on Triple Talaq, which could have wider ramifications on personal laws and minorities, Law Commission Chairman Justice BS Chauhan told News18 that the proposed draft on Uniform Civil Code will not be prepared till the apex court delivers its verdict in the case, which is expected in July.In an exclusive interview to News18, Justice Chauhan said the Commission will wait for the Supreme Court verdict as it is likely to make observations which will be binding for all.Justice Chauhan said there were multiple issues which require clarification by the apex court. SC will have to now determine what personal law is. Personal law was first interpreted as Hindu law and not Muslim law. If you see Article 25, there are words which are tricky like public order, health and morality. Now this article has to be read subject to Article 21 and that is why we have kept quiet and want to see the SC verdict on this, he said.On a hypothetical question around UCCs role assuming a situation where the court strikes down Triple Talaq and upholds Talaq-e-Hasan or Talaq-e-Ahsan, Justice Chauhan said, UCC includes right to succession, inheritance, property and other aspects marriage and divorce may be a part of it.Suppose SC comes to the conclusion that Triple Talaq is a practice and it is not essential to the religion then UCC can include divorce. There are also people who believe that Triple Talaq and other two (forms of talaq) are unconstitutional, said Justice Chauhan.When asked about his personal views on the subject, Justice Chauhan said the practice of instant divorce needs to change. Polygamy is not a big issue among Muslims as the percentage is very less among them. Its difficult to sustain a single wife now, who would take care of two. The problem is with instantaneous divorce and the court is looking into. Its a very absurd thing for the wife and children. There was a recent instance when the wife did not have milk to feed the child and when she had asked the husband for some money, he pronounced Triple Talaq. Now this is something which needs to change, said Justice Chauhan.He said that the commission has received a large number of replies from across the country and was hopeful that a reform is on the anvil.Justice Chauhan had first spoken about the questionnaire that the commission was going to circulate to gauge public opinion on the subject of Uniform Civil Code in an exclusive interview with News18 in October last year.The UP elections came along with other elections and we wanted to wait and discuss the issue with religious and political parties. Now as Triple Talaq issue is going on in the court, a lot of things will be argued in the case. Even if the court rules only on Triple Talaq, it will make many observations which will be helpful to us. Women have come forward whatever they have to say, at least debate has started and if there is a healthy debate, then they will definitely ask for a certain form of reform and the demand will be from their own community, said Justice Chauhan.According to Justice Chauhan, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which had boycotted the commission in November last year, has now attempted to reach out.There have been cases when one person sent us replies in different names and submitted a large number of forms to us. Even the AIMPLB which had boycotted us during last November came to us on April 13 this year with a delegation of 12 people, including four women. In the meeting, they told us that they had garnered about five crore signatures saying there should be no interference in Sharia. They claim there are almost two crore women (among the signatories). But we cannot accept this argument now because we need to see what is Sharia and this verdict will help us in making it clear, said Justice Chauhan.Justice Chauhan said UCC will indeed be a herculean task as there is immense diversity in the country with regards to the norms being followed and practiced. The North East still has murder trials which are conducted by the Panchayats. Judiciary has not been separated there. Criminal procedure code does not apply in the North East. It only applies in Shillong, and that too in four wards and not the entire city, said Justice Chauhan.
Patna: A group of unidentified criminals shot Rashtriya Janata Dal RJD leader Pappu Gop in Bihar's Patna district on Tuesday morning.



According to initial reports, Pappu was attacked by the bike-borne criminals near Station Road while he was out for the morning walk. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died during treatment.



The incident took place under the limits of Fatuha police station.



Meanwhile, police have begun investigation in this connection but the reason behind the murder is not yet clear.
We the data protection authority here. You can't violate Indian laws only to widen the language of your policy...will protect rights of our citizens to communicate freely," said the Bench.

"So why shouldn't we also do it here?", asked the Bench, adding it would consider passing an interim order asking WhatsApp not to share any data until the case ia decided by the apex court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed WhatsApp on its privacy policy, saying that the court was the authority on data protection here.A Constitution Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra questioned the tenor of the 2016 user license policy by WhatsApp, wondering if the company was trying to belittle right of free communication for Indian users.Notably, there is no specific law on data protection or right to privacy in India.The court further observed: "It is our constitutional duty to protect citizens' rights. We don't think any person would want all his data shared with others. You can't apply different standards of data protection in India."It then asked the counsel for WhatsApp whether it had given an undertaking before a court in the European Union for not sharing users' data with anyone. The lawyer replied that there has, indeed, been an interim order of this nature by an international tribunal and the company has filed an appeal against this order."Interim orders are not usually passed by Constitution Benches but we will consider doing it in this case," added the court.The petitioner in the case had contended that under the new policy of WhatsApp, the online messaging service could access, read, share and use the contents for commercial purposes.
#priyankachopra A post shared by bollybuzzactress (@bollybuzzforuh) on May 15, 2017 at 10:28pm PDT

#priyankachopra A post shared by bollybuzzactress (@bollybuzzforuh) on May 15, 2017 at 10:28pm PDT

Priyanka Chopra is soaring high with her Hollywood release Baywatch and is busy promoting the film in Miami. She has been hogging the limelight for a while now and we wouldn't like it otherwise. The other day the 'Desi' girl turned global icon turned heads in a shimmery blue gown at the Miami premiere of her Hollywood debut Baywatch.Today she is in the news for completely different reasons. The 'Quantico' star was seen spilling out of the low-cut two-piece that she had donned to soak up the sun in Miami. Check out her pictures here:The actress dialled up the oomph quotient as she showed off her curves in a gorgeous bikini. However, it was her pierced belly button which raised the temperature further.After Dwayne Johnson surprisingly planted a kiss on Priyanka's cheek and the way she fluttered her eyelashes at Dwayne, her recent beach day out with Adriana Lima and now these pictures from Miami, we must say Priyanka knows how to pull the audience to the theatres on May 25 when her Hollywood debut releases.
Mumbai: Nitesh Tiwari, who helmed the blockbuster Dangal, is working on a screen adaptation of Varun Agarwal's 2012 bestseller How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company.



The film will be jointly produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur under their banners RSVP and Roy Kapur Films respectively.



Spokesperson of Roy Kapur Films said in a statement: "We are excited to be collaborating with Nitesh on adapting Varun's incredibly relevant and hilarious book to the screen."



"We look forward to making a film that humorously explores the challenges of growing up in today's India, where the traditional medicine-MBA-engineering templates of the earlier generation are competing with the excitement of 'starting-up' on your own."



The book is a true story set in Bengaluru about pursuing your dreams, or as its author puts it, "Take the leap and then think".



Varun, like his namesake and 20-something protagonist, wanted to set up his own company after getting himself an engineering degree in telecommunications, much to the dismay of his mother who enlisted the help of her friend to dissuade him.



However, despite Anu aunty's constant monitoring and mockery, Varun after several alcohol-induced conversations with his school friend and partner, Rohan Malhotra, founded a merchandising company that creates customized clothing and accessories for the alumni of schools and colleges across India.



Varun chronicled his adventure in Facebook blogs which found him a publisher. In eight days, when he was ill and unable to leave the house, he dashed off a 50,000 word which went on to become a bestseller.



Today, the reluctant engineer is a successful entrepreneur with three start-ups. Besides the first, there's also a social media marketing company and a film production house.



Varun is now thinking of a sequel to his debut novel as also a book that chronicles his filmmaking journey, from making short films and music videos with a handycam to making films.



The upcoming film will feature "one of the top stars from the younger set". They are currently evaluating who would be best suited to play the lead role.



It is also rumoured that RSVP and Roy Kapur Films will be co-producing "Saare Jahaan Se Achcha", a biopic on Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, that will star Aamir Khan.




The first song of Salman Khan's much-awaited war drama Tubelight is finally out and instead of giving the expected 60s nostalgia, the song plays more on the peppy side. Featuring Salman Khan, the song gives the first glimpse into his character in the film.Sung by Kamaal Khan and Amit Mishra, The Radio Song has been composed by Pritam and written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The beauty of the song is its extensive choreography which has been directed by Remo D'Souza. The song has been released on Youtube with subtitles in 14 languages including Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, German and even Traditional Chinese.The song was launched at an event held in Dubai which was attended by film's cast members including actress Zhu Zhu and young Matin Rey Tangu sans Salman Khan who is busy shooting for Tiger Zinda Hai right now.Tubelight, a historical war drama, revolves around the life of an Indian man who falls in love with a Chinese woman. The film is set during the 1962 Sino-Indian war and explores a cross border love story. With an interesting plot, it is expected that the film will ride high on various elements including emotions, romance, and war.The third collaboration between director Kabir Khan and actor Salman Khan, Tubelight, is all set to release on Eid this year.
National vice-president of RJD Raghuvansh Prasad Singh accused the BJP-led Union government of misusing central agencies against secular forces. Lalu Prasad Yadav had just announced to form a grand alliance of Opposition parties against Narendra Modi. This did not go well with the BJP and fearing Opposition unity, they have acted against our leader, he said.



Hours after the raids, Lalu Yadav tweeted, BJP doesnt have guts to suppress my voice. If they try to do so, millions of Lalus will rise across the country. I am not scared of their threats.



Interestingly, JD (U) has once again declined to comment over the reported raids by the I-T department on properties related to Lalu Yadav. We have been told not to speak on this matter, a party spokesman said on the condition of anonymity.



Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has reacted strongly over Income Tax raids on properties of Lalu Prasad Yadavs family, terming it a conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Exuding confidence in the party leadership, Raghuvansh Prasad said Lalu Prasad would emerge as winner in his fight against communalism.On the other hand, BJP leadership sharpened its attack on Lalu Yadav. Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Sushil Kumar Modi said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar himself had hinted that law enforcing agencies would take action against the RJD leader.Challenging Nitish Kumar to break his alliance with RJD, Sushil Modi accused the chief minister of ignoring corrupt practices of Lalu Yadav and his family. He demanded immediate removal of Lalus sons, Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap, from the Cabinet as their names have appeared in various alleged Benami transactions.Reiterating his tirade against the Lalu family, he once again furnished papers of the alleged shell companies whose ownerships were transferred to the members of Lalu Yadav family.Nitish Kumar, in his press conference on Monday, had said that the concerned agencies were free to take cognisance of charges levelled against Lalu Yadav. Distancing himself from RJD chief, Nitish had said that despite being a coalition partner his ideology was different.The BJP has levelled a number of corruption charges against Lalu Yadav and his family. It all started about a month ago when the BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi alleged that Lalu Yadavs family was involved in soil scam. He showed papers and claimed that a company owned by Lalu Yadav family was contracted to supply soil to a zoo in Patna.
Lucknow: Naseemuddin Siddiqui's ouster from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) may pave the way for the comeback of Babu Singh Kushwaha, who is facing corruption charges in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) scam.



Last week, Siddiqui launched a scathing attack on BSP supremo Mayawati, hours after he and his son were expelled from BSP for anti-party activities.



Sources say if Kushwaha does indeed come back to the party, it will be Mayas strongest move against Siddiqui, who, interestingly, was the person who got Kushwaha a job as a telephone operator in the BSP office years ago.



Kushwaha, who like Siddiqui, hails from Banda, joined the BSP in 1995. His meteoric rise included cabinet positions when Mayawati came to power, but his dream run ended when he was named as an accused in the NHRM scam, following which he was shown door by Mayawati.



Kushwaha went on to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2012. His induction was however marred by dissent from many within the saffron party regarding his involvement in the NHRM scam, post which he wrote to the top brass to suspend his membership till proven innocent. Undeterred, Kushwaha, floated a new party before the UP assembly elections, Jan Adhikar Manch, but failed to make a mark there too.



Now, with Siddiqui's ouster, sources say Mayawati might think of bringing back one of her most trusted lieutenants.



She needs someone she can trust. There is a big chance that Kushwaha might be brought back to the party. But the NHRM taint is a big impediment, a source told News18.



The NHRM scam was one of the biggest scams to have hit Uttar Pradesh during the BSP regime. Nearly 50 people had died under mysterious circumstances in the scam. The state government had received Rs 8,657 crore under NRHM between 2007 and 2012, but a major chunk of this money was allegedly siphoned by ministers and some officials.



The CBI filed a chargesheet naming Kushwaha in this connection and in 2015 the Enforcement Directorate attached his assets worth Rs 196 crores.



Additionally, an FIR was lodged against Kushwaha in Jhansi last month in an alleged forgery case. The investigation reportedly found that Kushwahas educational certificates, including his intermediate and undergraduate marksheets, were forged and he had changed his name in the certificates to contest elections.



Kushwahas comeback may raise eyebrows but only few will deny the fact that Mayawati was dependent only on a few people and he was among them. How this will pan out for the party is a pure wait-and-watch game.
Lalu had announced to hold a mega rally against the saffron party in Patna to bring all regional parties together to take on the ruling BJP. BJP says dey wil jail me asap so our proposed 27th Aug Maha-Rally can't tk place.Haha.My name is Lalu & I pity 4 such intimidators (Sic)," his tweet read.

Income Tax raids on Lalu came after Bihar BJP leader Sushil Modi accused him of misusing his official positions when he was the Railway Minister and chief minister of Bihar.

: In a significant political move, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday extended her support to RJD Chief Lalu Yadavs mega anti-BJP rally in Patna on August 27.Mamata confirmed her participation at Lalus rally through a tweet, reading, Lalu Ji we accepted your invitation to be there on Aug 27. We will be there. Her tweet was in response to Lalus tweets on May 14 when he accused the BJP of conspiring against him.Mamatas tweet - hours after the Income Tax officials raid on Lalus proxy land deals worth Rs. 1000 crore, searching nearly 20 locations in Delhi and Gurgaon on Tuesday - shows her attempt to intensify her move for a federal front to prevent BJP from making further inroads in 2019 general election.TMC insiders claimed Sonia may discuss the current political situation with Mamata and on how to deal with the BJP - politically on a national front. There are high chances of discussion on a federal front or you call it united front. This is the reason why Bengal Congress leaders are annoyed with the central leadership for meeting Mamata, he said.After demonetisation, Mamata has intensified her call for a unified opposition and favoured a federal structure to fight against the BJP.Meanwhile, soon after her meeting with Sonia on Tuesday, Mamata said, Name of next president of India is yet to be decided. My support for the next president will be based on consensus.She said, It is evident that there is political vendetta all around the country. I have discussed the issue with Sonia Ji in detail. There is nothing new if two political parties talk to each other, political discussions usually come up. I am again going to meet her next week to decide the next president of India.
In an official statement, the CBI said that it was conducting raids in 14 places across the country in connection with the criminal misconduct in grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval by INX media.

Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union Minister P Chidambaram, has termed Tuesday's CBI raids as political vendetta.This is political vendetta. The government and CBI have no evidence against me or my father. They are targeting us because my father is writing against the government, said Karti, after the raids at his residence in Chennai.I am ready for a probe. This entire incident has nothing to do with INX media, added Karti.The raid at the Chidambaram household took place after an FIR was registered against Karti over the FIPB approvals for INX media then owned by Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani in 2007-2008. The agency has registered the case against INX Media through its director Indrani Mukerjea, Peter Mukerjea, Karti Chidambaram, Chess Management Services (a company of Karti), Advantage Strategic Consulting Limited through its Director Padma Vishwanathan.ALSO READ | P Chidambaram, Son Karti's Chennai Residence Raided By CBI In response to the raids, P Chidambaram issued a written statement, wherein he said, The government, by using CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. Governments aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations I shall continue to speak and write.The Congress leader said every case in FIPB was processed according to the law. FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me. Approval or refusal to a case was in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP.
New Delhi: Amid the unrest in Kashmir, the RSS will hold its annual review meeting for the first time in Jammu in July, looking to send out a message to separatists that the valley is an integral part of the country.



Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP president Amit Shah and leaders from VHP will attend the three-day meeting which is scheduled from July 18-20, sources in the Sangh said.



"The time and place of meeting was decided to send out a clear message to separatists in the Kashmir valley that the region is integral part of India and the Sangh is committed to its unity," they added.



The sources also indicated that incidents of stone- pelting and the attack on CRPF jawans could come up for discussion during the meeting.



When contacted, RSSs Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh of RSS, Manmohan Vaidya confirmed the meeting.



"This is an annual review meeting of the prant parcharks (state publicity officers) to take stock of events and activities of the year gone by, and at the same time, draft out a plan of action for the coming days," Vaidya told PTI.



He said the meeting will review the summer training camps which RSS organises every year.

Vaidya said it was decided to hold the meeting in Jammu after the regional office there came forward to organise the event.



"Earlier we had a small office in Jammu but in the last few years it has been expanded.



Now they have volunteered to organise this meeting.



This will be the first major meeting of the Sangh in Jammu and Kashmir," he added.



Vaidya said there would be no major decisions in the meeting but various issues facing the country may be taken up for discussion.




HTC took the veils off its flagship - the U11 at a special event in Taiwan. The phone was originally code-named Ocean and comes with a unibody design with aluminium rear and fuesed front glass.A major highlight of the U11 is the Edge Sense: a user can interact with it through a squeeze. Opening applications and the camera can be done by squeezing the U11. However, different levels of pressure can be used for opening different functions of the device.Also, the HTC U11 has both Google Assistant and Alexa support for the United States, the UK and Germany, which both work with the Edge Sense functionality.In terms of design, the U11 bears looks on the same line as the rest of the U series. It uses the same 'liquid surface' glass on the rear with colours embedded into the glass, which make it highly glossy and render a unique look from various angles.The U11 will come in five different colours, including Sapphire Blue, Amazing Silver, Solar Red, Brilliant Black, Ice white. However, only three colours will be available at launch.In terms of specifications, the U11 features a 5.5-inch Quad HD 2K display. The design also includes 3D glass on both front and rear to essentially make the device feel more secure and comfortable to hold.The latest and one of the fastest chips currently on the market - Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC powers the device.HTC has also introduced what it calls the UltraSpeed focus along with a 12-megapixel rear camera with dual-pixel autofocus, f/1.7 aperture, OIS and electronic stabilisation. HTC is also introducing Auto HDR Boost which will provide the benefits of a HDR camera sans the lag. The 16-megapixel selfie camera has been optimised for taking snaps in low light and comes with a wide-angle lens. It also has a Selfie Panorama mode.HTC U11 has ditched the standard 3.5-mm jack and features a USB Type-C port, Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou on board.HTC U11 also comes with USonic Boomsound Hi-Fi Edition speakers. The company is also bundling a pair of noise cancelling headphones in the box.The U11 has a water resistant design with 64GB or 128GB of internal storage that can be expanded. The phone packs a 3,000 mAh battery, which supports Qualcomms Quick Charge 3.0.The U11 will be available in some regions from next week and early June for the rest of the world.
Xiaomi Mi Router 3C. (Image: News18.com/ Sarthak Dogra)

Xiaomi at the Redmi 4 launch event today, had a surprise in store for the Mi fans. Along with the Redmi 4 smartphone, the Chinese smartphone company also launched its new Mi Router 3C.The Wi-Fi Router by Xiaomi comes as the latest addition to their smart products apart from their regular line-up of smartphones. As the company declared itself as more than just a smartphone company, it claimed the Wi-Fi router to be more advanced than all the traditional routers used.Xiaomi mentions 3 key components upon which the router has been designed  Smart Features, Range and Speed.The Mi Router 3C comes with an integrated app that helps to make the installation process for the router easier. The installation can be summed up in 3 steps as follows:- Detect the new Mi Router on your Mi Wi-Fi App.- Plug in the Ethernet cable to the router.- Automatically import existing settings on to the router. Other smart features of the Mi Router 3C include real-time monitoring, parental control and Guest Wi-Fi sharing. While the parental control allows parents to whitelist or blacklist certain IP addresses, Guest Wi-Fi sharing enables the creation of a temporary password for your guests using the Wi-Fi, so you dont have to share the master-password with them every time.Xiaomi also introduces a Wi-Fi Boost feature with the new Mi Router 3C. Wi-Fi Boost automatically selects the best channel available for the router. This, in turn, enhances the internet experience of the user.The Mi Router 3C will be available on Flipkart, Amazon and Mi Home, starting from 12 noon of May 23. The Router is priced at Rs 1,199.
Lahore: Four Taliban terrorists, including the two alleged kidnappers of slain governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer's son, have been killed in an encounter with security personnel in Pakistan's Punjab province, officials said on Tuesday.



The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police received a tip-off that two suspected terrorists -- Usman Basra and Abdul Rehman -- of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were hiding at a house in Khanewal's Jahanian area, some 350 km from Lahore, on Monday.



A team raided the hideout after which the terrorists opened fire and lobbed hand grenades.



In the encounter, four terrorists including Basra and Rehman were killed while four others managed to flee taking the advantage of darkness.



Officials have seized 10 kg explosives, a hand grenade, two rifles, a pistol and ammunition from the hideout.



Usman and Rehman were involved in the kidnapping of Taseer's son Shahbaz Taseer who was abducted a few months after his father was assassinated by his guard in January 2011 for alleged blasphemy.



Shahbaz was rescued from Balochistan province last year.
Indianopolis: Encouraged by Infosys' decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high-powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies.



I'm looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter, Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol.



Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so.



Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indianas presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India.



The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, Indiana's become the best place in the country to create and innovate. And that's why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and it's exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil, Holcomb told PTI.



He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event.



The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago. But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project, he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had.



The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting. We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way. Looking at strengthening Indianas partnership with Infosys in the coming years.



Holcomb added that he wants to attract other Indian IT companies. Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now, he said.



...We're always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys. Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, while adding that with low tax rates and a "reasonable predictable regulatory environment so there's real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people."



And we do as well in the companies that come here and that's why we're still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average, he said.



Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. Indiana is on a roll and has momentum."



Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcomb's India visit later this year.



Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations. India ranks number 18 for Indianas exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totalled USD 266.6 million.



Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals. India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totalled USD 348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines transmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel.
"The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America's commitment to our Muslim partners," McMaster said, adding that Trump will help open a center to de-radicalize extremists.

After Saudi Arabia, Trump's voyage will take him to Jerusalem, where he will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit the Vad Yashem memorial to the Holocaust.

: US President Donald Trump will urge unity between the world's major faiths on an ambitious first foreign trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Jerusalem, the White House said on Tuesday.National Security Advisor HR McMaster laid out a detailed itinerary for the "historic trip," due to start late this week, and confirmed that Trump would address a gathering of Muslim leaders on his "hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam."Previous US leaders have generally chosen a US neighbor such as Canada or Mexico for their first presidential voyage, but Trump intends to plunge right into some of the world's most difficult spiritual and political conflicts.In Saudi Arabia, after a day of talks with King Salman and his crown prince, Trump will attend a gathering of dozens of leaders from across the Muslim world.Trump campaigned for office vowing to destroy "radical Islamic terrorism" and impose "a total ban on all Muslim immigration" to the United States, raising concerns that his election would only deepen distrust between America and the Muslim world.In office since January 20, he has already attempted to impose a ban on travellers from a group of mainly-Muslim countries, before his order fell foul of the US courts.But McMaster stressed that Trump would be visiting sites associated with the world's great religions to stress "that we all have to be united and we have to be joined together with an agenda of tolerance and moderation."The next day he will pray at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.On the same day, he will meet President Mahmud Abbas of the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem on the West Bank "where he will convey his administration's eagerness to facilitate an agreement that ends" the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Washington: Syria will never be stable and secure as long as President Bashar al-Assad is in power, the US said, underlining that his regime has sunk to a "new level of depravity".



"The Trump administration believes that Syria's political future should be decided by Syrians in a free, credible and transparent process. However, we also believe that in a free process it's unimaginable that Syrians would choose to continue under the Assad leadership," the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.



"Syria will never be stable and secure as long as Assad is in power. The Assad regime has sunk to a new level of depravity, and it has done so with seemingly unconditional support from Russia and Iran," he said.



For these reasons, the United States continue to support the political transition process contained in UN security resolution 2254, and support the political process taking place under UN oversight in Geneva, he said.



The United States remains open to working together with both Russia and Iran to find a solution that leads to a stable and united Syria, he said.



"But in order for us to work together to bring an end to the violence in Syria, Russia and Iran need to acknowledge the atrocities of the Assad regime and use their influence to stop them," he added.



Meanwhile, the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that northern Syria, US and coalition advisers are continuing their operations to defeat ISIS.



The Syrian Democratic Forces is a multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian force that's fighting ISIS, often to liberate their own hometowns in northern Syria, and were providing training and equipment to the Syrian Arab Coalition, which is a predominantly Arab component of the SDF.



"To date, we've trained more than 6,000 members of the Syrian Arab Coalition. Since the SDF began beating back ISIS in northern Syria, they have liberated more than 35,700 square kilometers from ISIS in Syria," he added.



"That's why when you hear us talk about the SDF being the most effective force in fighting ISIS since Syria, the numbers prove.



"They have not been matched by any other partner, any other party or player on the ground in terms of their ability to defeat ISIS and reclaim territory and liberate it," he said.



"This retaking of Tabqa and the liberation of the Tabqa Dam, a very strategic dam, the largest hydroelectric plant in Syria, is an important operation that we're doing in preparation for isolating Raqqa, the Raqqa isolation," Davis said, adding that Raqqa is the capital of the caliphate for ISIS and taking Tabqa back is a critical part of that.
London: Britain's Opposition Labour party has included the demand by some British Sikh groups for an independent inquiry into UK's alleged involvement in the Operation Bluestar in 1984 as a manifesto pledge.



The manifesto for the June 8 general election, released by party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday, also makes a reference to working towards political negotiations in Kashmir.



Labour remains committed to an independent inquiry into Britain's military role in the 1984 raid on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the "Diplomacy" section of the manifesto states.



"A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine. We will also urge negotiations towards a political resolution in all other regions currently experiencing conflict, including Kashmir, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, and give our strong support to those countries already working to end decades of division, including Colombia, Cyprus and the Democratic Republic of Congo," the section notes.



The Sikh Federation UK, which has been lobbying for a public inquiry into Britain's alleged involvement in the military action on Golden Temple in 1984, welcomed the party's stand on the issue.



"We are delighted with the commitment shown by the Labour Party by making the pledge of an independent public inquiry in the manifesto. This puts real pressure on the Conservatives to revisit the issue and acknowledge the need for a fresh independent investigation.



"We will be increasing legal pressure before the 8 June and the British government will want to avoid the truth being dragged out in the courts," said Bhai Amrik Singh, the chair of the Sikh Federation UK.



The group had made a written submission to the Labour party earlier this year on the issue.



Corbyn had then written to British Prime Minister Theresa May calling for a "fresh, independent investigation" into

Britain's exact role in the Indian Army operation on Golden Temple in 1984.



Corbyn's letter to Downing Street, dated January 4, read: "Given concerns regarding the effectiveness and integrity of the January 2014 review, I believe we must consider a fresh, independent investigation into this episode in British history.



"It is clear to me from my discussions with Sikh groups in the UK that there remains significant resentment that over the 30 years since this most appalling event, questions remain about the role which the United Kingdom played."



In 2014, then Prime Minister David Cameron had ordered the Heywood Review into the exact nature of British involvement after documents released previously under the 30-year declassification rule had implied British SAS commanders had advised the Indian government as it drew up plans for the removal of militants from the Sikh shrine.



The report concluded that the nature of the UK's assistance was "purely advisory" and provided to the Indian government at an early stage of planning.



The Sikh Federation UK has since been pursuing the matter with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and await a hearing on its Freedom of Information request for four Cabinet Office files they believe contain more details on the exact nature of Britain's alleged involvement in Operation Bluestar.
BEDFORD  When Virginia Tech student and Roanoke resident Morgan Harrington went missing in 2009 and her remains were found in 2010, Bedford mother Shannon Jurkus says she was captivated by her story.

She did nothing wrong. She went to a concert with her friends, said Jurkus, the leader of Bedford Middle Schools chapter of Help Save the Next Girl, a national nonprofit founded by Harringtons mother, Gil.

 It captivated me that something this simple turned into her being taken and murdered.

Harrington disappeared in Charlottesville during a Metallica concert, and her remains were found three months later. In March 2016, Jesse Matthew pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder and abduction of Harrington and received four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole or release.

Later in 2010, Gil Harrington founded Help Save the Next Girl (HSTNG) to promote personal safety and responsibility for young women from grade school to college through education, family/victim outreach and legislative advocacy.

This all occurred organically, Harrington said in a phone interview May 3. Our gut instinct was to make sure other girls are not killed, and how do we do that? We need to talk to them and educate them.

Personal safety, especially for women, is an issue of our time, Harrington added. It is a local, national and global issue.

I think we have learned along the course of this is to be the change, she said. Through determination and passion, and Shannon certainly embodies all of that.

There are now 55 chapters of HSTNG, mostly in Virginia but also all over the nation, Vice President Jane Lillian Vance said.

Jurkus, mother to an 8-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, said she was amazed by how the Harringtons handled the tragedy of their daughters death and began HSTNG.

You start thinking, when you have your own kids, if that was me, she said. It could happen to someone else.

The more Jurkus began to pay attention, she said, she heard of more girls going missing all over the world.

In 2015, Jurkus founded the very first HSTNG chapter in Bedford at Bedford Middle School. She now has about 30 active members.

Harrington said Jurkus is a force to be reckoned with and that the crux of the organization is having great leadership with enthusiasm.

She has infused the students with enthusiasm, and they have been creative and dynamic, she said.

Though most chapters are in colleges and high schools, Jurkus saw a need for middle school students.

Why wait until [high school]? Middle school years are some of the hardest years and having a daughter approaching that age, I wanted to do something, Jurkus said.

At the middle school, things are done a little differently because the girls are younger and they dont want to scare them, Jurkus said.

Rhetta Watkins, principal at Bedford Middle School, said she is appreciative of Jurkus bringing the program to the school.

Its very important that young ladies have strategies to implement in case they are put in a situation that would be dangerous for them, she said.

The girls have been very receptive to the program and are much more aware of what they should do if they are contacted by someone who may be trying to cause harm in person or through the internet, she said.

It has become a need to understand that danger doesnt just happen in big cities. They are in our neighborhoods and right now the highway, Watkins said.

Kaycie Bird, a sixth grader at Bedford Middle School, said she is part of the organization because its important to know how to protect herself.

Being a part of Help Save the Next Girl has also helped me to meet new friends and be active in my community, she said. It is important that we have Help Save the Next Girl because it helps more and more kids every day be safe from danger.

Jurkus hope is for all of the middle and high schools in Bedford to join the organization so they can come together as a single chapter.

She said Forest Middle School and Liberty High School are in the process of starting their own chapters.

Jurkus has gotten the girls involved in community service projects, trash pickups, self-defense courses, fostering relationships with younger children and attending presentations from speakers like Falon Smith, a Stuarts Draft High School student who almost was a victim of human trafficking, as well a presentation from an officer with the Bedford County Sheriffs Office.

The officer, from the Internet Crimes Against Children department, shared with the girls the dangers of social media and talking to strangers who might want to meet up.

It scared them, Jurkus said. You wanted to come home and turn off your internet.

She said the goal is to give the girls a different way of thinking and to make them more aware.

Im trying to change their mindset so they are more positive and there for each other, she said. Its a whole different world now and if we can catch them in middle school, maybe we can make them more aware.

She added that though the organizations name is Help Save the Next Girl, the group is also offered for parents and boys as well.

Watkins said social media is always an area where parents need to be cautious.

Parents should be watching and paying attention to who is contacting their children online and who they think may be contacting them, she said. They could be someone trying to impose danger.

Jurkus said she has never been so passionate about anything before in her life.

It could be anybody in this town that tomorrow is the next person, she said.

Jurkus said she is seeking out more speakers, for the community to come to their events and show support as well as spaces for events and group meetings that are free of charge.

Its really about getting the whole community involved, she said.

Bedford Police Chief Todd Foreman said the program is extremely important for girls and confirmed that the department will be adding a Help Save the Next Girl logo to the hood of one of its police cars.

The importance is the education for these young girls and not believing everything you read from people on the internet, he said. We see on a regular basis where people try to contact kids, and family and friends believe it.

This March, Jurkus was nominated for the Bedford County Chamber of Commerces Citizen of the Year. She said this was a great chance to get the word out to more people about the organization.

Vance said Jurkus is the organizations powerhouse and seeks out every positive event in Bedford and puts the kids there.

She said she is building positive girls who love, care and support one another.

When you help build community, you help save everyone, Vance said. Its remarkable. Thats the deep thing she does for us. Shes done it so beautifully.
A home-school Christian ministry leader in Campbell County has filed a nearly $1 million defamation suit against a Lynchburg woman, her husband and a law professor over an internet blog post alleging he made inappropriate contact with her years ago.

Rickey G. Boyer also seeks millions of dollars in damages for alleged conspiracy against his home-school business Character Concepts by the woman, Ashley Easter, along with Robert William Easter.

The defamation claim names a Liberty University professor, Basyle Tchividjian, as one of the defendants.

Boyer filed the suit April 14 in Lynchburg Circuit Court, but the complaint had not been served on the three defendants as of Monday. Once served, they will have 21 days to respond.

According to the lawsuit, Ashley Easter defamed him by publishing a blog article titled Rick Boyer Sr. and Sexual Boundary Crossing: My Story, which she put on her blog in April 2016.

Boyer is the founder of The Learning Parent, later renamed Character Concepts, a home-based business that provides a Christian curriculum.

According to the lawsuit, Ashley Easters husband Will Easter first approached Boyer in November 2015 with a recorded video of her making a less-specific recitation of the allegations she eventually would publish in the blog.

Boyer denied to Will Easter her allegations of incidents of contact including kisses on the cheek, according to the lawsuit. The complaint also quotes Ashley Easters blog as relating an alleged incident in Boyers basement office in which she said he pulled her in tightly for a hug. That claim is false and defamatory, the suit says.

A number for Ashley Easter was not listed, and attempts to reach Will Easter at his business were not successful.

Boyers lawsuit rejects the allegations in the blog as defamatory.

The suit says Ashley Easters extended family and the Boyers have a very close personal relationship, that he watched her and her siblings grow up and he considered her almost as a daughter.

Boyer engaged in appropriate displays of affection toward his daughters when in public and at church [and] would receive hugs and kisses on the cheek from them, the court papers say. Ashley Easter at the time would give hugs to Boyer at church with his wife and her parents present, the suit says.

Neither [Easter] or her parents ever stated to [Boyer] any objection to the affectionate contact, which sometimes was initiated by him and frequently by her, the lawsuit adds.

The suit points out that even after one alleged event, Easter continued driving to Boyers residence to spend time with his daughters.

Boyers action claims not only did Easter defame him in her own blog, but the story was picked up by other blogs in April 2016.

It also says the law professor, Tchividjian, immediately upon Ashley Easters blog publication tweeted the link to her article from his social media account with the comment: A sobering account of a spiritual leaders predatory behavior and the brave young woman he targeted. The suit claims Tchividjian made no effort to verify her story or to investigate whether it was true or false.

Tchividjians biography on the LU School of Law website names him as the founder and executive director of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), an organization that educates and equips faith communities to correctly respond to sexual abuse disclosures, while also providing practical guidance on how to protect children and serve survivors.

Tchividjian could not be reached for comment Monday.

Boyers lawsuit  spanning 57 pages not including exhibits  seeks against all three a judgment of about $790,000 in compensatory damages for economic losses and $200,000 in punitive damages for alleged defamation.

Separately the lawsuit seeks, against the Easters, $2.37 million for alleged business conspiracy, or one-third of that if the judge only finds common-law conspiracy.

The action also seeks three more judgments against the Easters: $400,000 for a tortious interference claim; $50,000 for an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim; and $200,000 for allegedly misappropriating Boyers name for commercial purposes.

Boyer also wants an injunction to stop any further such use of his name.

His son Rick Boyer, a Campbell County attorney serving as the plaintiffs lawyer, said the lawsuit was filed by April 14 to avoid triggering a one-year statute of limitations on a civil action. Legal claims also will be pursued against other blogs that posted Easters allegedly defamatory content, he said.

The fact is the charges are unequivocally false, and we intend to demonstrate that to the satisfaction of a court of law, he said.
I think it was over Thanksgiving dinner. My mothers best friend, a dear woman who has been nothing but good to me, decided to poke some gentle fun, Dayton Ohio-style, at me.

Actually, let me be more specific. It wasnt Dayton. The conversation took place in Kettering. Its a suburb of Dayton. A small suburb called Oakwood separates Dayton and Kettering.

Ted, my moms friend began, whats with these terrible descriptions of our city? The way you write, youd think this was some bleak post-industrial wasteland. She motioned out the window to her manicured lawn, punctuated by a set of perfect flowers. As were those of her neighbors. As if to drive home her point, a bird chirped.

I held my ground. What about down by Route 4? Rusted-out factories, meth houses. Its like a war zone.

But thats  she searched for the word  downtown. Thats not here.

Its five or six miles, at most, I pointed out. You can walk there!

And you can, if you dont much care about personal safety.

Dayton is a mess. Once a booming manufacturing city, its population is plunging, having shrunk by half in 50 years. Its housing stock, including historical buildings, have been gutted. After decades of factory and corporate closures accelerated by free trade deals like NAFTA, the local economy sucks. Crime, driven by my hometowns status as Ground Zero of the national opioid epidemic that has turned so many young men into corpses that the morgue ran out of room, has made Dayton even more dangerous than Chicago. The 2008-09 housing crisis left countless homes abandoned (but cheap! you can buy one for four figures). Fearing eviction in 2009 but receiving no help from a government who instead gave $7.77 trillion to the banks with no strings attached, one poor guy hanged himself; a kid found his mummified body five years later. He should have stuck around. The banksters never bothered to foreclose on his modest house.

So much misery, so little help from the government. Four out of five Ohioans who lost their jobs receive zero unemployment benefits.

Downtown Dayton, and its residents, were dead to my moms friend. But not to me. I used to take the bus there to look at record stores and attend meetings at Democratic headquarters. Sometimes, yes, I walked. After I left Dayton for New York, the road from the Dayton airport to my moms house sometimes took me through downtown. Downtown was real. Downtown existed.

If downtown Dayton was less than an afterthought to suburbanites a hop, skip and jump away, it was a black hole as far as the national media and the political strategists were concerned. Daytonians didnt donate to presidential campaigns. (They couldnt afford to.) Downtown was reliably Democratic. Republicans didnt bother; Democrats took Dayton for granted.

Youve probably already figured out that this essay is a parable about the Rise of Trump. Downtown Dayton was far from unique. There were downtown Daytons all over the post-industrial Midwest: ignored, forgotten, taken for granted. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin  states Hillary Clinton ought to have won and was so sure she was going to win that she hardly showed up, but went Republican in 2016.

Dayton Congressman Tony Hall (disclosure: I worked for one of his campaigns) watched the growing chasm between his working-class  and unemployed poor  constituents and the national Democratic Party, in thrall to the Clintons, free trade and Wall Street contributors. A lot of Democrats in the Midwest feel that they didnt leave the Democratic Party  they feel like the Democratic Party left them, Hall says. That was me, for sure. As long as we had our 10 or 12 auto plants, we were pretty good, but we felt that the NAFTA deal made it a lot easier for companies to go to Mexico  and they did. They shut down our factories, remembers Hall. Young adult voters saw their moms and dads lose their jobs and they didnt think anyone did anything for them.

Day after day, the citizens of Dayton and Flint and Milwaukee opened their newspapers and flipped the cable news channels. Never, ever was there anyone talking about, much less interested in solving, their problems. As far as the elites  and that included Democratic politicians like Clinton  were considered, victims of rapacious global capitalism didnt exist and didnt matter.

Until Trump.

Trump didnt offer credible solutions. He hasnt lifted a finger to help Rust Belters as president. What he did do was acknowledge their existence.

Writing about the French election, Edouard Louis wrote that a similar cri de Coeur motivated many Marine Le Pen voters. Louis grew up poor: In the minds of the bourgeoisie ... our existence didnt count and wasnt real. That was the message of many Trump voters to the op-ed writers of The New York Times: we know he isnt perfect, but at least he knows we exist.

Despite Bernie Sanders (and Trump), the Hillary Clinton Democrats still dont get it. When Trump mentioned mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation in his inaugural address, my liberal New York friends shook their heads. Like my moms friend, they had no idea what Trump was talking about.

The misery is real.

They exist  sometimes they exist five or six miles away.

They are us.

Rall the is author of Trump: A Graphic Biography, an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. Follow him on Twitter @tedrall.
DC's Batman spotlight is expanding to his sidekicks more and more

Members of Batman's family will seemingly play huge roles in the DCU in 2023
Lovely orchids

Displays were of a high standard and featured many spectacular, high quality plants.

Three TT OS awards of quality were awarded. Awards of Merit were given to Wilmotteara Hamlyns Glory Sara Rehana 83 points; Dendrobium antennatum Gran Couva, 82 points. This plant also captured the Best in Show trophy, Best Cultural Award and a Gold Medal. A Highly Commended Certificate was awarded to Vanda lamellate var boxialli Reza HCC/TT OS, 79 pts.

The TT OSs second biannual show will be held in Port-of- Spain in October
Policeman caught lying

The magazine and ammunition11was found earlier on11the floor in the PSB offices.

Last Friday, Assistant Commissioner11of Police (ACP) Irwin11Hackshaw ordered the investigation11which is being led11by PSB head Ag ACP Anthony11Bucchan.

According to police sources,11last week Monday, an officer11spotted the magazine filled11with ammunition on the floor11of the PSB office and handed11it over to Bureau head, ACP11John Clarke for safe-keeping.

ACP Clarke, who incidentally11retired from the Police Service11on that said day, handed over11the items to new PSB head, Ag11ACP Bucchan.

Late on Wednesday evening,11the officer who was not made11aware that the magazine and11ammunition were found back11at his office, went to a police11station in the South Western11Division and reported to Sgt11George and Cpl Gajadhar that11at 9 pm, while walking along a11road in Woodlands, San Francique11in Penal, his pouch accidentally11fell into a river. He said11his pouch contained his cellular11phone and the magazine11and ammunition.

The officers took the PSB officer11to the river and a search11was conducted for the missing11items.

On Thursday, when the officer11showed up for duty at the11PSB, he reported to Ag ACP11Bucchan that he lodged a report11to South Western Division11police on the missing items.

Ag ACP ordered the officer to11write a written and signed report.

Contacted for comment,11ACP (Crime) Hackshaw yesterday11confirmed the incident11saying, If a police officer or11anyone makes a false report11and causes police to investigate11that which is later discovered11to an untruth, this amounts to11wasteful employment of the11police time and that is something11that should be investigated,11in this case, by the head11of the Professional Standards11Bureau.11Hackshaw said he will be11closely monitoring the matter11and assured that there will be11no cover-up.

He said that Acting ACP Bucchan11had given the assurance11that the matter is being thoroughly11investigated. Up until11yesterday, the officer in question11was still on active duty.

11
Elias: $700M too much for CWC

While CWC must sell its TSTT stake in order prevent a conflict of interest in CWC buying TSTTs rival telecom firm Flow, Elias said CWCs inability to get a buyer after 18 months of offering the shares for sale meant the asking-price was too high. He said the price of CWCs shares is affected by the fact that anyone buying a minority stake in TSTT will be subjected to the majority shareholder National Enterprises Limited (NEL). That affects the price, he reasoned. He suggested, Maybe patriotic citizens could buy it as an investment. Elias scoffed at a conspiracy theory that Massy would use its $255 million to try to buy the CWCs stake, saying Massy wants to leave the telecom sector and return to its core business. He nonetheless quipped, $255 million would be a steal. Elias used the opportunity to urge listeners to come home to TSTT, saying that an anticipated award of a 750 mega hertz licence to TSTT would boost the mobility, speed and geographical accessibility of their services.

I hope the people saying they have a stake are also our customers and are not running to the competition.

I hope they come home. Elias defended the companys $255 million purchase of Massy Communications amid TSTTs planned expenditure of $3.8 billion but was unable to state the companys debt.

He justified buying Massy Communications by saying that such acquisitions are for TSTTs growth.

He said TSTTs Managements Five Year Strategic Plan was accepted by the board, Cabinet and the bank(s) that had loaned the company $1.9 billion. Elias justified TSTTs non-disclosure to Cabinet of the Massy deal beforehand by saying that any such disclosure to a single shareholder would be a violation of the Securities Act that could have seen him jailed for seven years and fined $5 million. TSTT was also bound by a non-disclosure agreement signed with Massy.

Further, asked about a duty to notify Cabinet under the State Companies Operations Manual, Elias said TSTT is not a State enterprise, but a company governed by the Companies Act and Securities Act. Asked if Finance Minister Colm Imberts nod was needed for the Massy deal, Elias said if such had happened this would have brought allegations of political interference.

Asked about Opposition claims that the Massy deal was $30 million above a $225 million ceiling approved by the board, Elias said , Managements judgement was that the business was worth a lot more than $225 million. We think we got an excellent deal. He said the purchase had included some US$20 million (about $130 million) in fibre- optics laid down by Massy in some areas. Further this acquisition saved TSTT having to find US$20 million in foreign exchange to buy its own fibre optics for installation, in addition to him previously saying it speeded up TSTTs rollout process.

Further TSTT gains thousands of existing Massy clients. He said the board and management think the Massy buy was a fantastic deal.

Elias said TSTT last year had a $300 million net loss, comprised of a combination of a $200 million profit and a $500 million write down of old equipment. This year will be a profit, he vowed.

He described TSTTs debt as healthy, at a debt-servicing obligation of 2.5 percent times its cashflow (known as EBITDA) compared to a telecom rivals ratio of five times their EDBTDA.

Replying to a phone-in query by activist Harvey Borris, Elias said TSTT has proper documents to show the Massy purchase was a good deal. Accountability will be provided. Well account with auditted accounts, one per year. People will feel good once they understand it.
There Was No Red Wave,

'That's for Darn Sure'
Results from latest Healthy Youth Survey (HYS), taken in the fall of 2016 by tweens and teens in Washington, shows that one in five high school students seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months.

During the past decade, there has been a 6 percentage point rise in 8th and 10th graders in our state who have contemplated suicide and an 8 percentage point increase in 12th graders.

This is an alarming trend, said Gov. Jay Inslee. Suicide can be prevented if we know what signs to look for. We must educate ourselves as parents, grandparents and neighbors on ways to let our kids know that they have support and encouragement they need and that we believe, care and support them in every way.

The survey results show a higher percentage of girls (26 percent) think about suicide, with 13 percent attempting it, compared to 14 percent of boys who contemplate suicide and 7 percent who attempt it.

The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) supports mental health treatment for youth and adults. As part of this effort, the agency funds the 24-hour Washington Recovery Help Line for emotional support and referrals. Nearly 60,000 Washington youth received state-funded mental health care from July 2015 to June 2016.

Having been through adolescence, as adults, we know growing up is hard, said acting secretary, Patricia Lashway, We can help teens during challenging times by listening and talking to them about their feelings and providing advice on how to cope with stress, relationship problems and challenging life events. We can let them know they are not alone and they have support.

A promising part of the survey showed that most high schoolers report that they had support and education related to mental health and suicide available to them, In fact, among 10th graders who said they had ever felt sad or hopeless, 63 percent said there were adults whom they could turn to. However, 11 percent of youth who have felt sad or hopeless for at least two weeks in a row said they dont have anyone they would talk to.

Parents and other adults can help by understanding the risks for teen depression and suicide and recognizing the factors that could put a young person at risk, such as a history of suicide attempts, family history of suicide, history of depression or other mental illness or alcohol or drug abuse.

Know how to recognize suicide warning signs in tweens and teens such as:

Talk of suicide, being a burden to others, or saying they have no reason to live or feel trapped;

Showing symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. Being irritable, showing signs of rage, humiliation or a sudden loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy;

Exhibiting behaviors such as increased use of alcohol or drugs, acting recklessly, sleeping too much or too little, giving away prized possessions, visiting or calling people to say goodbye.

If your teen is in crisis, you dont have to handle the situation alone. In an emergency, dial 911. You can get information, emotional support and referrals by calling the Washington Recovery Help Line at 866-789-1511, the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK or get information from TeenLink at 866-833-6546.

Washington State is recognized nationally as a leader in supporting evidence-based prevention practices and collaborating with community-based prevention organizations. More survey results on nutrition, physical activity and school engagement will be analyzed and released over the next few months. Survey results about substance use and other topics are available at http://www.askhys.net/.
It may seem like a harmless souvenir, tucking a lava rock from the Big Island into your pocket. But many tourists apparently believe that Hawaiian memento comes with weighty baggage: a curse warning that Pele, the volcano goddess, will have her revenge. The Wall Street Journal reports that hundreds of visitors mail back their pilfered keepsakes each year, after learning of the legend. Some even hand deliver the mineral chunks back to the slopes of the Kilauea volcano. The deluge of returned rocks is driving National Park Service workers "insane," Motherboard reported in December. "There is NO 'Curse of the Rocks,'" one rep wrote to colleagues. Another called the widespread myth "deeply offensive" to native inhabitants.

The legend's origins are unclear, but the best guess is that it has nothing do with the local religion and more to do with park rangers fabricating the story decades ago in a bid to halt the thefts. (It is, in fact, illegal, to take artifacts from national parks.) Since then, thousands of hunks of red and black rock of all sizes have come flooding back from all corners of the globe, and are now sitting in a pile in Volcanoes National Park. One "not typically superstitious" 52-year-old says he ferried his black rock back 10 years after he took it, after his marriage collapsed and his mother died. After the return, he says his luck began to turn around. "I feel kind of silly," he says, "but seeing is believing." A similar legend surrounds Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, and visitors have been returning contraband for decades. (This "cursed" gem could be priceless, or not.)
One of Britains most notorious killers died Monday, taking a secret thats haunted the family of one of his victims with him to the grave. The Telegraph reports that Ian Brady, 79, died in a hospital of causes not yet released to the public. Along with Myra Hindley, who passed away in prison in 2002, Brady sexually tortured and murdered five children ages 10 through 17 in the mid-1960s. After burying four of the bodies in the Saddleworth Moor, the pair became known as the Moors Murderers. But Brady never revealed where 12-year-old victim Keith Bennett's body was buried, and the boys elderly mother passed away without ever knowing his final resting place.

As his health began failing, Brady continued to deny requests to reveal the whereabouts of the body. "I would beg him to do the right thing on his deathbed and tell us where Keith is," Terry Kilbride, whose brother John was also murdered by Brady, told the Sun hours before Brady's death. The head of the local cold case unit tells the BBC Brady's death will "not change" the effort to find Keith's remains. Prior to his death, Brady was in poor health, with chest and lung problems. He recently made headlines for demanding his right to die. His multiple appeals to be removed from a hospital and placed in prison in his native Scotland, where he wouldnt be force-fed through a feeding tube, were refused. (This serial killer's true toll may never be known.)
The Washington Post is out with what it's calling a bombshell Monday night: According to anonymous officials, President Trump revealed highly classified information during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak last week. The officials say the information had to do with an ISIS terrorist threat involving laptop computers on airplanes, and that Trump revealed details that came from an intelligence partner without that partner's permission. Such a revelation could threaten the US' relationship with said partner, the sources say. Most worryingly, they say, is the fact that Trump allegedly revealed the specific city in ISIS territory where the intelligence partner detected the threat, which could allow Russia to uncover which US ally was involved.

Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," according to one source. "It is all kind of shocking," says another. "Trump seems to be very reckless and doesnt grasp the gravity of the things hes dealing with." Even so, the Post explains that the alleged leak likely isn't illegal, since as president Trump has broad power to declassify information. At a press conference responding to the Post article, national security adviser HR McMaster said the story as reported is "false." "The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known." The Post's full story is here. (Read more President Trump stories.)
Conan O'Brien might soon find himself in court over allegations that are nightmarish for any comedian: He's accused of stealing jokes. As USA Today reports, a judge has allowed a federal civil suit to go forward in which Robert "Alex" Kaseberg accuses O'Brien and his writers of stealing jokes he posted online in 2014 and 2015. It's possible, perhaps even likely, the case will be settled before it goes to trial, given how tricky intellectual property cases can be. "Accusing a comedian of stealing a joke is the worst thing you can accuse them of, in my opinion, short of murder," said O'Brien himself in a deposition. Kaseberg makes his case in a blog post here. The judge said three jokes in particular are in question. Here they are, via the Washington Post:

Kaseberg: "Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll."

"Tom Brady said he wants to give his MVP truck to the man who won the game for the Patriots. So enjoy that truck, Pete Carroll." OBrien: "Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP  to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think thats nice. I do. Yes. So Bradys giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll."

"Tom Brady said he wants to give the truck that he was given as Super Bowl MVP  to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Which is very nice. I think thats nice. I do. Yes. So Bradys giving his truck to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll." Kaseberg: "Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless."

"Three towns, two in Texas, one in Tennessee, have streets named after Bruce Jenner and now they have to consider changing them to Caitlyn. And one will have to change from a Cul-De-Sac to a Cul-De-Sackless." OBrien: "Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack."

"Some cities that have streets named after Bruce Jenner are trying to change the streets names to Caitlyn Jenner. If you live on Bruce Jenner Cul-de-sac it will now be Cul-de-no-sack." Kaseberg: "The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage."

"The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage." OBrien: "Yesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than whats been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather."

(Read more Conan O'Brien stories.)
In April, the UN Population Fund was one of the first under the "Mexico City policy" to lose US funds for allegedly participating in or supporting "coercive" abortions in China. Now that policy is being extended, with an announcement Monday from the State Department that more US funds will be withdrawn worldwide, affecting around $8.8 billion in health funding and pulling resources away from clinics that combat AIDS and malaria (among other issues), especially in Africa, the New York Times reports. Any international nongovermental groups wanting US financial assistance will now have to sign off on the "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" mandate, per NBC News. The State Department says any funds that are taken away from one group will be redistributed to others that agree to the terms, keeping the foreign aid level relatively the same.

The expanded mandate means groups who want US money must not "promote abortion as a method of family planning." The gag rule ups the amount being affected from between $520 million and $600 million under former President George W. Bush to about $8.8 billion, with public health advocates noting funding will be severed in places that need it most, such as West Africa. "Whole communities could be cut off," one advocate tells the Times. In a tweet Monday, National Right to Life applauded the move "to apply pro-life conditions to a broad range of health-related US foreign aid." But in a statement, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen says Trump's "dangerous obsession" against reproductive rights will now have "severe consequences for millions of vulnerable women and children." The State Department says the policy will be eyed over the next six months. (Read more abortion stories.)
Security researchers say a leading suspect in the massive ransomware attack is a familiar one: North Korea. Researchers at Google, Symantec, Kaspersky Lab, and Comae Technologies say an early version of the WannaCry software contains code similar to that used by the Pyongyang-linked Lazarus group in a 2015 cyberattack, the Wall Street Journal reports. Researchers say it could be the case that the attackers simply copied the code, or included it so that North Korea would be blamed for the attack, though the fact that it was removed from the final version of the software, which has hit at least 200,000 computers worldwide, seems to rule out the latter theory, the Guardian reports.

The copied code isn't proof on its own, but "this is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kaspersky researcher Kurt Baumgartner tells Reuters. Whoever the culprits are, they made some amateurish mistakes that severely limited their take from the scheme, experts tell Wired. The errors include a "kill switch" that a British security researcher was able to activate for $11, and flaws that experts believe make it impossible for the criminals to know who has paid the ransom. "From a ransom perspective, its a catastrophic failure," says Cisco security researcher Craig Williams. The attack is believed to have brought in just $55,000, a fraction of the millions that smaller attacks have netted. (Read more cyberattack stories.)
An Oregon man is accused of decapitating his mother on Mother's Day and bringing her head to a grocery store. The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office says Joshua Lee Webb, 36, killed his mother at their rural home Sunday. He then allegedly showed up at a grocery store in nearby Estacada carrying a human head and began stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued, the AP reports. "He didn't say anything after he was subdued," says Ernie Roberts, interim police chief in nearby Sandy, Ore. "He was in like a catatonic state, wasn't speaking to anybody." The grocery store checkout clerk was hospitalized and was expected to survive.

Authorities say Webb was covered in blood and was carrying a severed head and a large knife when he entered the Thriftway store. David Webb told the AP that his son had vision problems and received Social Security payments. He said he doesn't understand what happened. "I never foresaw a problem. If I had I would have stopped it," he said, sobbing. "I just can't believe I lost my wife and son in one day. ... I wish I had some answers, but I don't. I waited all my life to retire with my wife, and now I can't. That's all I know." The son has been charged with murder and attempted murder. (Read more Oregon stories.)
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President Trump on Tuesday defended his decision to share information with two visiting Russian diplomats, asserting that he has the "absolute right" to do so. Trump did not address allegations that the information he shared was classified, though as president he has the power to declassify anything he wants. His two-tweet defense, when combined: "As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

In his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak last week, Trump reportedly spoke of an Islamic State threat to planes through the use of laptops. Stories suggest that he revealed sensitive information that had been withheld even from allies, reports the AP, a move that critics say could jeopardize a US intelligence source. By an account in the New York Times, it was only after the meeting that aides realized Trump has passed along such sensitive information, perhaps unaware of the magnitude. (The story has caused consternation on Capitol Hill.)
Chelsea Manning will be released from prison on Wednesday, thanks to former President Obama's decision to commute the bulk of her 35-year sentence for leaking government secrets. If you were surprised by that decision, you're not alone: As a story in Mother Jones explains, her legal team was, too. "We didn't really think it would work," says Nancy Hollander, one of her lawyers. The team, however, felt it had no choice but to try, casting it quite literally as a matter of life or death. The push for commutation came after Manning, who has been in prison about six years, attempted suicide in July. "I was feeling that her life was in jeopardy and she wasn't going to survive much longer," says another attorney, Chase Strangio of the ACLU. "The years of trauma that were building up was such that another year seemed difficult to imagine."

The story runs through that trauma, detailing Manning's ongoing fight to transition to a female while behind bars. She won the right for hormone therapy, along with a promise of sex-reassignment surgery (which she hasn't had yet), but lost other battles such as the right to grow her hair long. A UN investigator, meanwhile, called her solitary confinement "cruel, inhuman, and degrading," and Manning went on a hunger strike. "I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss, and depression," she wrote Obama in her commutation plea. Much to everyone's surprise, it worked. (A White House spokesman noted that she had apologized, unlike Edward Snowden.) When Manning is out, she'll move to Maryland and is expected to be an activist for transgender rights. A crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $130,000 for her. (Read the full story.)
When Alex Tizon's family moved to the US from the Philippines in 1964, they were seen as "model immigrants." It's unclear whether their new neighbors would have felt that way had they known Tizon's family was keeping a slave. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's final storyhe died in Marchwas published Tuesday in the Atlantic and tells the story of Eudocia Tomas Pulido, known to the family as Lola. An 18-year-old Lola was given to Tizon's mother as a gift by her father when she was a child in the Philippines. For the next 56 years, Lola would be a slave in the Tizon household. When the family moved to the US, they told friends and neighbors Lola was a relative from back home.

Lola cooked, cleaned, and cared for five children, working from morning to night. She wasn't paid or even given her own room, often sleeping next to the laundry. Lola was constantly berated and often brought to tears by Tizon's parents. They shamed Lola when she asked for money to send to her sick mother and refused to let her travel to the Philippines when her parents died. Tizonwith the help of John Wayne's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valancebegan to realize the truth about Lola's relationship to his family when he was 11 or 12. "Having a slave gave me grave doubts about what kind of people we were, what kind of place we came from," he writes. Tizon tried to help Lola but became her owner in 1999 after the death of his mother. Read the full, complex story here. (Read more slave stories.)
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The Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau or TCEB, today unveiled the latest strategic marketing initiatives to attract business events travelers from Europe at IMEX Frankfurt 2017. TCEB launched Thailands brand campaign entitled Thailand CONNECT: Your Vibrant Journey to Business Success, together with a strategic collaborative campaign, Thailands MICE United IV.

The two campaigns target the countrys long-haul markets, and aim to draw more business events from Europe. The campaign is being launched at IMEX Frankfurt 2017 to international MICE delegates and media representatives from all over the world.

Ms Vichaya Soonthornsaratoon, TCEBs Director of Convention, said, During fiscal year 2016, Thailand welcomed 106,501 business events visitors from Europe with earnings reaching 251 million euros. Top European source markets are Germany, France and United Kingdom respectively. Globally, Thailands business events sector enjoyed an impressive performance, welcoming 1,273,465 business events travelers that generated 102,936 million baht in revenue (3.85 million euros).

Throughout this year, all of TCEBs marketing activities will be implemented under the new Thailand brand campaign, entitled Thailand CONNECT: Your Vibrant Journey to Business Success The campaign showcases the legacy of three fundamental pillars of Thailand's MICE industry which are Diverse Destinations, Myriad Business Opportunities, and the People of Thailand. These key elements are the highlights which differentiate Thailand from other MICE destinations.

Furthermore, TCEB is the catalyst building cooperation between government and private sectors. Together, they make up Thailands team promoting the country as a premier business events destination in the international arena. The partnership is highlighted by the strategic collaborative campaign, THAILAND MICE UNITED IV, which will be unveiled in Europe before expanding to other regions in the world.

The campaign involves a partnership between 10 alliances including two newcomers, namely Airport of Thailand Public Company Limited (AOT) and King Power International Company Limited. The wider partnership brings a great variety of benefits for MICE delegates making their business trips in the kingdom even more pleasurable. Partners deliver value added features for MICE delegates attending international events that are supported by TCEB in Thailand. They include generous discounts on airport limousine transfers, airport lounges and transit hotel, duty-free airport and downtown complex shopping, airport restaurants and hotel accommodation. In addition, MICE delegates receive stored value cards for use on Bangkoks Sky train and seven days free unlimited Wi-Fi.

With all these efforts and initiatives to promote Thailand as a global MICE destination, Thailand through TCEB has been endorsed by the 100-year old Union of International Associations to host the prestigious UIA Associations Round Table Asia Pacific 2017 for the second time in Thailand in Chiang Mai, 21-22 September. It was previously hosted in Bangkok in 2015.

Over 100 representatives from international professional associations and MICE suppliers will meet and experience the culture, beauty in the positive business environment of Chiang Mai, Thailands second largest city, during the global round table.

Ms Vichaya Soonthornsaratoon, TCEBs Director of Convention said that Chiang Mai has been identified as one of the countrys MICE cities by TCEB, We are delighted that UIA is endorsing our confidence again by hosting its esteemed round table in this emerging global convention hub for the industry in Thailands northern regionHosting a global convention in Chiang Mai is in line with TCEBs MICE development plan 2017, which aims to raise opportunities for local communities throughout the country to develop MICE business sustainably. Moreover, it will be a good knowledge platform to learn from key invited speakers from around the world, who will share their experiences and network within the professional associations community in the APAC region.

Commenting on the upcoming round table, Ms Clara Fernandez Lopez, UIA External Relations Manager said The Round Table in Bangkok in 2015 was memorable for all participants; Thailand was a most wonderful host. Participants praised and remembered the beauty of the country, the world class venue, the professional hospitality and the friendliness of the people of Thailand, the fantastic organization of the conference and the tasty food.

With pleasure, we will return to Thailand this year in September for the UIA Associations Round Table Asia-Pacific 2017; this time to the beautiful city of Chiang Mai.

Many associations representatives will join our Round Table attracted by the educational programme and the opportunity to network with colleagues worldwide. But we strongly believe that participants will come at least in equal part persuaded by the beauty of the destination and the hospitality of the people of Thailand.

UIA wants to support and underline the impressive rate of activity which Thailand shows in the world of international associations: 224 international associations have their headquarters in Thailand, an additional 27 have an office in the country and 4,109 international associations have members in Thailand.

TCEB forecasts the country will welcome 1,109,000 international business events travelers, earning 101 billion baht (3.73 million euros) in revenue this year. concluded Ms Vichaya.
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New Delhi:

Two jewellers shot dead by unknown assailants in Mathura on Monday. Two others are critically injured. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed disappointment on the incident and ordered DGP to conduct serious probe in the matter.

Cabinet Minister and MLA from Mathura, Shrikant Sharma has tweeted that UP CM Yogi Adityanath has expressed disappointment and ordered DGP to launch probe into it.

Shrikant said that security of businessmen is on priority and to restore fearless situation, strong measures will be taken against criminals.

With an intention to carry out robbery, six criminals attacked jewellery shop in Holi gate area of Mathura. Criminals fired bullets at four people including two businessmen. Two of them have died. Criminals fled with money and jewellery kept in the shop. Injured have been admitted to hospital.

After the incident, police came into action. IG M Ashok Jain, Agra range, rushed to the spot. Jain said that criminals will be arrested soon.

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New Delhi:

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has waived off the reqirement of Aadhaar number for students in its schools located in foreign shores. Further, it has instead asked such students to upload their number for registration.

There are 211 CBSE schools in 25 foreign countries. In 2016, the board had asked its schools to provide Aadhaar number of their students and encourage those who did not have it to get one.

However, the CBSE schools situated in foreign countries had approached the board while expressing their inability to follow the directive. In a letter to such schools, the Board acknowledged that it received several communications from affiliated schools expressing their inability to provide Aadhaar number to their students as these schools are on foreign land.

ALSO READ: CBSE UGC NET Results 2017 likely to be declared today at official website; check here

"It has been decided to waive the requirement of Aadhaar number in respect of students of foreign schools. Alternatively the foreign candidates/schools may use Passport number in place of Aadhaar number while submitting candidates for online registration of class IX/XI and list of Candidates for class X/XII," it added.

READ: Aadhaar not mandatory for NRI's and residents of J&K, Meghalaya, Assam

The Board had last week asked its schools to set up Aadhaar enrolment centres on their premises and encourage students, staff members and their families to enrol.

With PTI inputs

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New Delhi:

Law enforcement agencies on Tuesday raided the residences and properties of two top opposition leaders P Chidambaram of the Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD as well as businessmen in a multi-city crackdown on alleged corruption and benami properties.

The searches by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (IT) department were condemned by the opposition as political vendetta by the Centre with the Congress saying it will not be cowed down by the politics of revenge which was the DNA of the government.

But the NDA government hit back, saying today was the day of accountability for the corrupt. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stoutly defended the searches, asserting that the day of reckoning has come for many and they will be held accountable for their misdeeds.

ALSO READ: Karti Chidambaram says 'I have not done anything wrong'

The CBI searched the homes and offices of Karti Chidambaram, son of P Chidambaram, a former finance minister, across four cities including Chennai for allegedly receiving money from a media firm INX owned by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea to allegedly manipulate a tax probe.

Separately, the Income Tax department conducted raids and surveys on at least 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas in connection with alleged benami deals stated to be worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to Lalu Prasad, who is the chief of Rashtriya Janata Dal, and some of his family members. RJD is a partner of the ruling alliance in Bihar that also comprised the JD(U) and the Congress.

CBI sleuths fanned out across the Chidambarams properties in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram early in the morning, a day after the agency filed an FIR against Karti, his company Chess Management Services, the Mukerjeas (currently in jail on charges of murdering their daughter Sheena Bora), INX Media, Advantage Strategic Consulting Services and its Director Padma Vishwanathan.

The FIR related to charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, receiving illegal gratification, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct. The CBI, which searched Chidambarams home in Nugambakkam in Chennai, also carried out searches at the house of Peter Mukerjea, a former media baron, in Mumbai, sources said.

ALSO READ: BJP's politics of 'revenge and vendetta' would not cow down opposition leaders: Congress after govt raids at Chidambaram premises

It is alleged that Karti received money from INX Media, which was promoted by the Mukherjeas, for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.

P Chidambaram came out with a strong statement in response to the searches, saying the government was using the CBI and other agencies to target his son to silence his voice.

The FIPB approval was granted in hundreds of cases, the senior Congress leader said.

The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends...The governments aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations, he said.

But he would continue to speak and write, he declared.

The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB secretariat and the competent authority in each case are public officials, Chidambaram said, adding that there was no allegation against any of them.

There is no allegation against me, he added. Karti said he has not done anything wrong and alleged a political vendetta behind the CBI raids against him in connection with the INX Media case.

They have not seized any documents and cannot prove any charges against me. I have not done anything wrong, Karti told reporters in Chennai.

The Congress for its part said that none of its leaders or that of the opposition would be cowed down by the politics of revenge and vendetta which had become the DNA of this BJP government.

The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people.

The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government.

We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta, the AICC incharge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said. West Bengal chief minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee also accused the Centre of unleashing political vendetta.

Union Minister and BJP leader Piyush Goyal rejected Chidambarams charge that he was being targeted for his columns critical of the government and claimed that the issue was why beneficiarie of the FIPB gave money to the firms owned by his son.

The former union finance ministers columns did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire, Goyal told reporters and took a dig at Chidambaram, saying that he will be accountable for his son stroke.

Rejecting allegations of political vendetta levelled by Prasad and Chidambaram, Goyal claimed that the BJP government never comes in the way of law and that investigation agencies work independently.

IT officials said the department began raiding the premises of some prominent businessmen and real estate agents in Delhi, Gurgaon, Rewari and few others since early morning in connection with alleged benami deals linked to Lalu Prasad.

In the national capital, tax department teams visited posh localities in New Friends Colony, Sainik Farms and few farmhouses in Bijwasan and south Delhi areas.

Tax department officials said some of the properties allegedly belong to the kin of Lalu Prasad in a benami way.

Prasad, however, sought to put up a brave face, saying he was not scared at all and will continue to fight against the fascist forces.

The IT officials said the searches are also being conducted at the premises of the son of RJD MP P C Gupta and few other businessmen involved in the purchase and sale of real estate assets.

People and businessmen connected to the land deal involving Lalu Prasad and his family are being searched. There are allegations of benami deals worth about Rs 1,000 crore and subsequent tax evasion, an IT official claimed.

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New Delhi:

The politics of "revenge and vendetta" which had "become the DNA of this BJP government" would not cow down none of Congress's leaders or that of the opposition, said the Congress on Tuesday.

The party accused the BJP of being blinded by revenge to target its opponents and said that it would continue to expose the saffron party before the people.

The remarks came after government agencies searched Congress leader P Chidambaram's premises and properties allegedly linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

The AICC in charge of communications, Randeep Surjewala said, "The truth is that revenge has become the DNA of the BJP government".

"We want to reiterate that neither P Chidambaram, nor any Congress leader or any other leader of opposition, would be deterred or cowed down from fear of the politics of revenge and vendetta," he said.

Surjewala, instead, accused the BJP and its leaders of being corrupt as he highlighted the alleged scams involving top party leaders holding ministerial positions in this government.

Also read: Centre 'stalling' the Delhi government's activities: Arvind Kejriwal

"May we ask the prime minister, that if the yard stick ismorality, why is he shying away from ordering an inquiry into the Sahara-Birla excel sheets in which he himself has been named repeatedly about having taken bribes," he alleged.

Surjewala also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi didnot take action on the Rs 20,000 crore loss caused to public exchequer in Gujarat State Petroleum scam when he himself was the chief minister.

The Congress leader wondered whether the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was corruption and asked why the Modi did nottake action against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan whose name allegedly cropped up in the scam.

He claimed that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Rajeand External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj allegedly helped people like Lalit Modi who escaped from the country and were wanted by investigative agencies for alleged money laundering.

Surjewala asked who were the people who helped fugitives like Vijay Mallya escape the country.

He said the Congress leaders would continue to tell thecountry how one autocratic ruler cannot suppress the voice ofdissent and those who disagree with them.

Also Read: Modi Govt completes 3 years: A look back, details of policy decisions taken by Centre and BJP's rising dominance

Surjewala claimed that the truth was out there for everybody to judge and the government, blinded by revenge, was registering false cases against opposition leaders.

Chidambaram earlier today said, "The government, usingthe CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends.

The government's aim is to silence my voice and stopme from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations."

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In 2016, around 52,000 guests visited the BMW Group Event Forum within the framework of award ceremonies, congresses and festive occasions. In 2017, the success story will continue. The BMW Welt, which in addition to the BMW Museum and the BMW Group Classic is the largest location of the BMW Group Event Forum, announced the opening of the Premium Lounge as well as with an award-winning upgrade of existing technical media.

The Premium Lounge offers guests and organizers alike an exclusive event area with a unique flair at the heart of the BMW Welt. Comfortable leather couches and a dining area designed in stylish brown and cream tones provide up to 100 guests with a sense of well-being  whether during a dinner, an exclusive get-together or in a club atmosphere with DJ and dance floor. The Premium Lounge presents itself laid-back, modern and classy high up amidst the award-winning architecture of the BMW Welt building. The panoramic glass frontage provides a view of the premiere, the central exhibition area and heart of the BMW Welt building, as well as of the city and its landmarks. High-class catering offered by the in-house catering partner Kafer and excellent service provide the exquisite framework for an unforgettable evening. During the day, the Premium Lounge is reserved for international customers collecting their new vehicles and can be booked for evening events.

BMW Welt - Premium Lounge

The BMW Welt is starting the new event year 2017 with an upgrade of its event area media technology. In collaboration with the engineering company macom GmbH and the experts for AV systems Kraftwerk Living Technologies, it was possible through state-of-the-art IT and media technology to raise the brand experience at the BMW Welt to a new level. The renewal also offers organizers new and surprising possibilities with enhanced acoustic systems for example, as well as through numerous LED visualization areas. To crown all, the project was even honored in February 2017 with the InAVation Award in the category Visitor Attraction.

Individual services for individual events

Event planners and customers alike can choose from a comprehensive package of event services for all three locations. If they wish, organizers are assisted by an experienced project manager. Right from the start, this person advises and assists each customer individually not only with content-related, technical and organizational requirements, but also coordinates, if desired, all services necessary to ensure that the event runs smoothly. Specialists take individual care of the required technical equipment for the stage, video, sound and light. The all-round customer support includes respective staffing, from the hostess service to the cloakroom attendant. The medical service ensures fast help in an emergency and trained security personnel safeguard all event areas.

BMW Welt - Auditorium

Thanks to individually organized incentive programmes, each event becomes a total experience, whereby it is possible to choose from a wide variety of programmes, from guided tours of the BMW Welt, the BMW Museum, the BMW Group Classic, the BMW Group plant or active driver training. What is more, with BMW on Demand, organizers can offer specific driving experiences in various BMW models  for example in the sporty BMW M3 or the innovative BMW i8, if the customer so wishes. The vehicles can be rented on a daily or hourly basis directly at the BMW Welt. Furthermore, highlights such as product presentations, driving experiences with the all-electric BMW i3 or the BMW Isetta from the fifties can be integrated into a planners own events. Moreover, the BMW Group Classic offers exclusive guided tours of the historic collection, the Centennial Room and the workshop, as well as discussions with BMW Group Classic employees. If desired, excursions in classic Group brand vehicles or a shuttle service can be made possible. Those wishing to offer their guests even greater driving pleasure close up will be making the right decision with the BMW Driving Experience in Maisach: Safety or snow and ice training complement any event with multi-faceted action. Catering at the BMW Welt is carried out by the exclusive catering partner Feinkost Kafer and by Kofler & Kompanie at the BMW Group Classic and the BMW Museum.

Event locations

Auditorium, BMW Welt

The multipurpose auditorium is the heart of the BMW Welt Event Forum. The flexible room installations and state-of-the-art equipment make anything possible in this 945 m2 space, which can host up to 700 people. The floor of the auditorium is divided into segments, which can be raised or lowered according to requirements  allowing the room to be transformed into a congress or banquet hall, a stage for live performance, an exhibition space or even a cinema with banked seating. The wall at the back of the hall is a vertical gate that can be lowered into the floor, allowing the auditorium to be linked to the foyer. The resulting 450 m2 space can provide an atmospheric backdrop for receptions or exhibitions.

Business Club, BMW Welt

Guests in the 100 m2 Business Club can expect an exclusive atmosphere. Whether it be a private round table or an intimate meeting, product presentation or press conference for selected journalists, the Business Club provides the perfect ambience for relaxed and focused events. Two all-glass side walls offer a breathtaking view over the BMW Welt Square and Olympiapark Nord.

Business Center, BMW Welt

Whether it be large-scale conferences or smaller seminars, the Business Centers two conference rooms are the perfect solution. The rooms are flexible and functional and can be divided into two smaller rooms if necessary. The Business Center Foyer is a primary meeting point and place to relax. The comfortable lounge furniture offers space for short breaks between seminars or a small snack to keep participants going.

Indoor/Outdoor Terraces, BMW Welt

The terraces at the BMW Welt Event Forum can offer an exceptional backdrop for catering events, receptions, gala dinners, after-work events and casual get-togethers. Measuring 200 m2 and 300 m2, the terraces can host between 110 and 130 people in an informal reception. With banquet seating, the indoor terrace holds 90 people, while the outdoor terrace can host some 100 if the weather is pleasant.

Double Cone, BMW Welt

The Double Cone offers incomparable architecture and atmospheric lighting. Suitable for gala receptions, dinners or private exhibitions, some 400 guests can experience events like no other in the Double Cone.

The BMW Group Classic

The event location on the former BMW Group industrial site offers premises for workshops each for up to 30 persons as well as a hall with sufficient room for almost 400 persons. In the listed industrial buildings, guests will gain insights into the historic collection, the Centennial Room and the workshop.

Premium Lounge

The Premium Lounge offers guests and organizers an exclusive event area with a unique flair at the heart of the BMW Welt. Comfortable leather couches and a dining area designed in stylish brown and cream tones provide up to 100 guests with a sense of well-being  whether during a dinner, an exclusive get-together or in a club atmosphere with DJ and dance floor. The Premium Lounge presents itself laid-back, modern and classy high up amidst the award-winning architecture of the BMW Welt building. The panoramic glass frontage provides a view of the premiere, the central exhibition area and heart of the BMW Welt building, as well as of the city and its landmarks. High-class catering from the in-house catering partner Kafer and excellent service provide the exquisite framework for an unforgettable evening. During the day, the Premium Lounge is reserved for international customers collecting their new vehicles and can be booked for evening events.

The BMW Group Event Forum welcomes all visitors of the IMEX 2017 Frankfurt in Hall 8 at exhibition stand G 160 in cooperation with the Munich convention office.
New Delhi:

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday transferred case of disappearance of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Najeeb Ahmad to Central Bureau of Investigation.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli transferred the matter to the CBI on a plea by the students mother after the Delhi Police said it has no problem with such a direction.

The court said the probe by the CBI would be supervised by an officer, not less than the rank of a DIG.

While transferring the matter, the court noted that the Delhi Police had implemented all directions and suggestions given by the court.

The matter will be taken up next on July 17.

The student had gone missing a day after an altercation with some ABVP students on the night of October 14, 2016. The RSS students wing in JNU has denied any involvement in his disappearance.

The high court had on May 12 rapped the police over the manner of its probe into the disappearance of Ahmad, saying it appeared to be looking for an escape route and was beating around the bush.

Earlier on March 30, a Delhi court asked all nine students to appear before the court to give their consent or refusal for lie detector test in missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed case.

The chief metropolitan magistrate fixed April 6 as next date of hearing and asked all nine students to appear on the date.

The court had said it will decide on Thursday whether nine JNU students can be asked by Delhi Police to give their consent for lie detector test in a case relating to the varsity's missing student Najeeb Ahmed.

Also read: Delhi Police denies any links of missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed with ISIS

Also read: Only paperwork, no answer by cops in probe to trace JNU student Najeeb: Delhi HC



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New Delhi:

Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday exchanged Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries.

MoUs were signed on visa exemption for diplomatic passport holders, agricultural cooperation, cooperation in field of IT and electronics, cooperation in health sector and cooperation in field of youth affairs and sports.

"Will continue to support development and capacity building efforts of Palestine. We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas said that they condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

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Chennai:

Congress leader and son of former union minister P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram on Tuesday affirmed that he has not done anything wrong and blamed a political vendetta behind the CBI raids against him in connection with the INX Media case.

They have not seized any documents and cannot prove any charges against me. I have not done anything wrong, Karti told reporters here, reacting to the CBI raids at several places linked to his father and him.

Claiming that the central government was acting out a poltical vendetta, he said the raid was being held to silence the voice of his father. Ruling out a vendetta, Union Minister of State for Shipping, Pon Radhakrishnan, said in Madurai that searches being carried out by CBI were as part of its investigation into the INX media case.

Also Read: P Chidambaram, son Karti's homes raided in Chennai, Ex-FM says BJP govt using CBI, ED against Congress

DMK working president M K Stalin accused the Centre of misusing agencies like CBI and said the former union minister and his son would face the matter legally.

The CBI on Monday registered a case in connection with alleged irregularities in granting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media, run by its directors Indrani Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea, in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the finance minister.

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New Delhi:

India presented its arguments in the Kulbhushan Jadhav death sentence case against Pakistan in the International Court of Justice on Monday and leading the charge for the Indian front was Indias most expensive lawyer  Harish Salve.



Salve is most expensive because he is also considered best by the richest and most powerful Indians across the board. But you will not believe the amount fees he charged the Republic of India to fight the case of an Indian trapped in Pakistan!



Indias most expensive lawyer Harish Salve charged only Re 1 to fight the case in the highest judicial body on earth.



Salves powerful arguments and presentation not only made an international buzz but also won the Twitter over. Throughout the proceedings, Indian Twiterrati couldnt help but be impressed by his skills. But all are not same, one of the social media users questioned Indias choice of using such an expensive lawyer for the case and argued that any Indian lawyer could have done the same job.



To this, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj responded, Not fair. #HarishSalve has charged us Rs.1/- as his fee for this case.

Not fair. #HarishSalve has charged us Rs.1/- as his fee for this case. https://t.co/Eyl3vQScrs  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) May 15, 2017

Salve won Indian hearts by representing the whole country at ICJ, but the fact that he did so entirely out of his love for the nation will definitely win him millions of additional fans.

Read | Full arguments presented by Harish Salve in Kulbhushan Jadhav case against Pakistan in ICJ



Who is Harish Salve?



54-year-old Harish Salve is a Supreme Court advocate with specialisation in constitutional, commercial and taxation laws. Started off as a Charted Accountant, Salve has held the post of Solicitor General of India between 1999 and 2002.



Salve is, arguably, today's most expensive lawyer in India. India Today magazine ranked him 43th in India's 50 most powerful people of 2017 list, which reflects on his powerful client list.



He has represented high-profile cases like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Prakash Singh Badal and Lalit Modi but his reputation and legal fees started sky-rocketing after he won Mukesh Ambani's gas dispute against brother Anil who was represented by Ram Jethmalani.



Hiring Harish Salve as a lawyer does not come cheap. He charges a massive fee of Rs 30 lakhs per day. His fees alone is supposed to have cost Mukesh Ambani a whopping Rs 15 crore. Even this pales into insignificance when you compare it with the Rs 60 crore which he is supposed to have collected in the Forest Case of TN Godavarman Thirumulpad.

In addition, he has to be provided overnight five-star suites and first class air tickets. A dinner for him and his team at a five-star hotel can cost over Rs 2 lakh.



There are times to make money and there are times to serve the country, India is glad that Salve chose wisely.

Read | Kulbhushan Jadhav hearing at ICJ: Indias charges and Pakistans defence in 10 points

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New Delhi :

Giving a snub to China over One Belt One Road (OBOR) project, India and Japan are together planning to start several infrastructure projects across Africa, Iran, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

According to reports in The Economic Times, Japan, India and East Africa are mulling to fund several infrastructure projects. Japan may join hands with India in the expansion of Irans Chabahar port. The two countries are expected to come together to develop Trincomalee port in Easter Sri- Lanka.

India had boycotted the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) held from May 14-15. The meeting was attended by 29 world leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

India had skipped so called New Silk Road meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

China took strong exception to India's stand on its Belt and Road initiative, saying it was welcome to participate in the mega project but New Delhi should explain what kind of "meaningful dialogue" it wantsBeijing to hold with it.

"Over the past four years since the project was initiated we have been holding the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits" for the Belt and Road initiative, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

China Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said, "President Xi Jinping also said that we should build the Belt and Road into a road for peace. All countries should respect each other's sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each other's development paths and social systems, and each other's cores interests and major concerns."

He further said, "Regarding the issue of Kashmir which the Indian side is concerned about, we have been stressing that the Belt and Road is a cooperation initiative for the common development and prosperity of the region. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as an important part of the Belt and Road, is not directed at any third parties, not relevant to disputes over territorial sovereignty and does not affect China's position on the Kashmir issue. We keep saying that the Belt and Road is an open and inclusive initiative. We welcome participation from all countries to share the development opportunities."

Also Read: China invites India to OBOR summit, says CPEC has 'no direct link' with Kashmir issue

On the other hand, Sri Lanka, which attended the just concluded Belt and Road Forum, has backed Indias concern over Kashmir issue, saying that it is difficult for New Delhi to accept the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it goes through the heart of Indian interests.

India would have joined very happily in the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative of China, said Sarath Amanugama, Sri Lankas Minister on Special Assignment.

As per media reports, a few European countries have also expressed their reservations and refused to sign on the agreement under New Silk road. China is trying to convince those nations to make its project a grand success.

Also Read: China takes strong exception to India's stand on OBOR, asks 'what kind of meaningful dialogue India wants on Belt and Road initiative'

On the conditions of anonymity, a diplomat informed that France, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Portugal and Britain are the countries which have refused to sign the project.

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New Delhi:

India has boycotted China's dream project One Belt One Road (OBOR) and registered its protest over the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) traversing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) despite Beijing's pressure to ensure New Delhi's participation in the high-profile plan.



The Belt and Road Forum (BRF) initiative includes a maze of roads and port projects that include the CPEC, the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, New Eurasian Land Bridge, China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and 21st century Maritime Silk Road.

Read | India skips China's BRF summit ceremony following sovereignty concerns over CPEC



India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion CPEC, which passes through PoK. No Indian official of any level was present at the elaborate opening ceremony attended by 29 heads of state and government along with top officials of the world bodies like the UN, the World Bank and the IMF.

#MEA response to a query on participation of India in #OBOR forum in China pic.twitter.com/FzqjsrpCQZ

 Pratyush Ranjan (@pratyush_ranjan) May 15, 2017

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sri Lankan Premier Ranil Wickramasinge, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were among the world leaders who attended the meeting inaugurated by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.







Skirting any references to India's absence at the meeting, Xi Jinping, in his address after inaugurating the Summit, said all countries should respect sovereignty.



Xi said the Belt and Road initiative is "a project of the century" that will benefit people across the world.



Dismissing assertions that the initiative was aimed at forming a "small group" of nations taking part in the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) venture, Xi said China plans to build it as a road to peace and link his country to much of Asia, Europe and Africa.

Read | China invites India to OBOR summit, says CPEC has 'no direct link' with Kashmir issue



Let's understand why China is desperate for OBOR, and what are the challenges it faces at present (With inputs from a report published in Indian Express) -



1. China has recently reduced its GDP growth target to 6.5%. It's the lowest GDP growth projection in the last 25 years. With a global slowdown in 2017 and similar pedictions for world economy in the coming years, China desperately needs a new model of development to maintain its economic success story.



2. The OBOR project has plans to create largescale infrastructure opportunities in China and other countries involved, and all member countries have high hopes that the project will keep theie economy booming.



3. The main three reasosns behind China's OBOR launch are -



(a). Slowdown in China's exports, its investments and consumption in domestic markets,



(b). A change in US policy after Donald Trumps victory,



(c). Rise of protectionist trends in the West, which has resulted in shrinking markets.



4. Investments in China have gradually reduced due to increasing labour costs, massive traffic on roads, and dangerous air pollution and environment concerns.



5. The consumption rates in China have decreased with slower growth of the middle class income group.



6. With OBOR, China thinks there will be a tactonic shift from developed markets in the West to developing economies in Asia. China has also changed its development strategy and started concentrating on provinces in Central and Western China instead of the developed east coast region.



7. China has plans to establish trade-links from its eastern (developed) parts with the US and other developed countries, while the central and western provinces, which have witnessed minimal growth, will feed Asias developing countries.



8. A major hurdle for OBOR at present is the lack of infrastructure in South and Southeast Asia to push trade.



9. India, one of the fastest growing economies of the world, has refused to join OBOR due to its objections over the geographical location of the CPEC projcet involving Pakistan and China.



10. OBOR also requires the construction of international trunk passageways and an infrastructure network connecting all sub-regions in Asia, and between Asia, Europe and Africa.



11. The Biggest roadblock in OBOR is that several countries along the Silk Road have not yet established a market economic system, and that their domestic markets need more regulation and infrastructure.



12. With OBOR, Chinas experience and expertise in building infrastructure and connectivity will be given access to many developing countries in South Asia, which it needs badly.



13. There are many infrastructure companies in China and there is a sort of over-capacity as well. China wants to use this resource in many developing countries.



14. China desperately needs OBOR project in place to go for much-needed 'domestic readjustment' to shift the focus from the developed east coast provinces to less developed regions of the central and western provinces.



China's stand on India's concerns



India has been severely critical of the CPEC, saying the project violates its sovereignty as it runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.



Seeking to allay India's concerns, China has offered to rename the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through PoK, insisting it was an economic cooperation and connectivity enhancement project devoid of "sovereignty issues".



Chinese ambassador to New Delhi Luo Zhaohui, while referring to frosty Indo-Pakistan ties, said China was willing to mediate to resolve the differences between the two countries if it was acceptable to both sides.

Read | CPEC master plan revealed: China to make in roads in Pakistani economy and culture like never before



(i) On CPEC

Referring to the CPEC, which is part of OBOR, he said China has no intention to get involved in the sovereignty and territorial disputes between India and Pakistan and that the project is for promoting economic cooperation and connectivity in the region.



"It has no connections to or impacts on sovereignty issues. Even we can think about renaming the CPEC. China and India have had successful experience of delinking sovereignty disputes from bilateral relations before," he said in closed-door address to a think-tank.



(ii) Bigger economy

Luo said China is sincere in its intention to cooperate with India on the OBOR as it is "good for both of us."



Maintaining that China and India could be natural partners in connectivity and the OBOR, the Chinese ambassador said Indian economy was behind China by at least 13 years, suggesting New Delhi should grab economic opportunities offered by Beijing.



"Now the GDP of India is roughly that of China in 2004, some 13 years ago. China leads India by 13 years mainly because we started reform and opening up 13 years earlier," he said.



(iii) Pro-Pakistan Policy

Referring to the view in India that China always puts Pakistan first when handling its relations with South Asian countries, he said the government always follows "China first" policy and that problems are dealt on merit.



"I want to tell you this is not true. Simply put, we always put China first and we deal with problems based on their own merits. Take Kashmir issue for example, we supported the relevant UN resolutions before 1990s. Then we supported a settlement through bilateral negotiation in line with the Simla Agreement. This is an example of China taking care of India's concern," he said.



On India's bid for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), he said, "We do not oppose any country's membership, believing that a standard for admission should be agreed upon first."



(iv) India's 'Act East Policy'

The envoy also proposed a four-point initiative to improve ties between India and China which includes aligning its 'OBOR' project with India's 'Act East Policy', and restarting negotiations on a free trade pact.



(v) Other Bilateral issues

China has put forward proposals which include starting negotiations on a 'China-India Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation' and prioritising finding an early solution to the border dispute between the two countries.



- Negotiation on a China-India Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation



- Restarting negotiation of China-India Free Trade Agreement



- Strive for an early harvest on the border issue



- Actively explore the feasibility of aligning China's 'One Belt One Road Initiative' (OBOR) and India's 'Act East Policy'





India toughens its stand against China on many issues







1. Despite China's presence in PoK, India actively participated in the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS Development Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). All these initiatives are led by China.



The SCO is a multilateral institution and members have an important say in its policies.



But, the OBOR initiative does not fit into this structure. India had conveyed to China that a similar consultative process was even more important for such an ambitious undertaking.



2. China wanted India to first sign on to the initiative before getting into the specifics of Indias role, the choice of projects and financing matter.



3. Indias refusal to attend the Chinese-organised OBOR conference is just one instance in recent months where Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have adopted a 'less tolerant' approach towards China.



- Prior to this, the BJP-led Government allowed a visit to Arunachal Pradesh by then American Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, in October 2016.



- The Modi government also allowed the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh in April. Beijing vehemently protested against India's decision ahead of the Dalai lama's visit to Arunachal.



- President Pranab Mukherjee also met the Dalai Lama at an event hosted to honour him at Rashtrapati Bhavan in December last year.



- India is also upset with Beijing creating hurdles for Indias entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group at least twice in 2016.



For a major economy like India, it would be difficult to play No.2 to China in South Asia. And even if it decides to join OBOR, it cannot afford to be a junior partner in its own region.



India has taken a principled as well as a strategic call on OBOR, and it should stick to it.



To tackle China's OBOR challenge, India needs to speed up its own infrastructure projects and find ways to strengthen its influence in South Asia region by increasing internal connectivity, modernising connectivity across its land and maritime borders with neighbouring countries and working with multilateral institutions to develop regional connectivity in the Indian Subcontinent and beyond.



In the process, India is trying to use energy as a means of diplomacy in a very different way in South Asia region. From Indonesia to Mauritius, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mauritius and Nepal, India is working on a web of energy relationships that seeks to leverage India's position as a big source of petroleum products, sharing of technology and building inter-dependencies.



For the Narendra Modi Government, the task ahead is not easy but its well within the realms of possibility for India with well-timed strategic decisions to emerge as a stable economic counterweight to China.



Here are two videos about the strategic decisions India has already taken to counter rising Chinese influence in the region.



Video: How India, Iran & Afghanistan are countering Pak-China CPEC











Video: While China is still planning OBOR, India completes India Eurasia road









(With inputs from PTI and various reports on OBOR published in different news website)





This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial team of News Nation.

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New Delhi:

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and Onion trader Pappu Yadav shot dead during broad daylight in Patna. Unknown assailants fired bullets at Pappu Yadav near Fatuha Railway crossing. Pappu died on the spot.

According to reports, criminals attacked Pappu while he was on morning walk on Tuesday morning. He was shot by criminals at few distance from his home near the Railway station. Criminals fired bullets at the neck of Pappu.

However, the reason for the attack is yet to be ascertained. Police is investigating the matter. There is anger among people living in the vicinity.

Also read: 2 Jewellers shot dead by criminals in Mathura; UP CM orders DGP to launch probe

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New Delhi:

The constitution bench of Supreme Court to resume hearing of pleas challenging triple talaq on Tuesday. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi likely to argue to clarify Centres stand on whole issue.

The Supreme Court on Monday said it would examine whether triple talaq was an essential part of religion under Article 25 of Constitution.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said We have to see the test of essentiality and the government has to prove that triple talaq is not an essential part of Islam as this will amount to tinkering with religion.

The bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer, asked the government why it had not brought in a law to bring about reforms if it had found the practice of triple talaq as wrong.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that all the three forms of divorce among the Muslim community - talaq-e-biddat, talaq hasan and talaq ahsan, were unilateral and extra-judicial.

Yes, we can bring law. There is no law for past 60 years. It has not been done. But the court should first strike down these practices which are not in confirmity with the Constitution, he said.

Also read: If triple talaq goes, Centre will bring new divorce law: Attorney General to Supreme Court bench

Rohatgi said that since the court is dealing with only one form of talaq, therefore he was restricting itself to one form only although he considered all forms as wrong and unconstitutional.

The attorney general said the issues of Muslim marriage and divorce were separated from religion in Shariat Act of 1937 itself and have been codified as personal law under Section 2 of the Act.

He said the apex court has to test them on the touch-stone of the fundamental rights of gender equality, justice, dignity, gender discrimination and human rights under the constitutional provisions, including Articles 14, 15, 21 and 51A.

Muslim women must have equal rights to property, succession, marriage and it should be non-discriminatory among the women of same class and other communities, Rohatgi said.

Rohatgi said when half the population of a particular community is not empowered, no equal opportunity is given, they are devoid of gender equality, then it does not pass the test of constitutional morality.

He said even if triple talaq is considered as an essential part of religion and falls under Article 25, the practice still has to be constitutionally moral.

Even if talaq is considered under Article 25, it has to be related to the fundamental rights and should abide by the principles of gender equality, non-discrimination and justice, the AG said, adding that all personal laws have to be in confirmatory with the Constitution.

To this, the bench insisted that the government has to first prove that this practice of triple talaq was not essential to Islam and only then can it delve further into other aspects.

Rohatgi pointed out that it was not the apex courts job to interpret a religion and said You cannot go into essential principle because it is not an ecclesiastical court

To buttress his argument that practices or customs were not an essential part of religion, he said that in the Hindu religion, women used to practice Sati till the law termed it as illegal and obsolete.

As far as Hindu laws are considered, various reformatory steps were taken but with regard to Muslim laws no such steps were taken, he said.

Also read: What? Ranveer Singh is the real 'Half Girlfriend' of Arjun Kapoor?

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New Delhi:

Twitter is buzzing with news alerts from India and rest of the world. Here are the latest updates from the micro-blogging site in one scroll:

#01:05 PM

Greater Noida: Two people arrested for transporting liquor in an ambulance pic.twitter.com/r0FO3YN3fI a ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 18, 2017

#01:03 PM

Online restaurant guide and food ordering app #Zomato says about 17 million user records stolen from its database.-PTI

#12:57 PM

Ghaziabad: 2 people arrested for changing International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of mobile phones; 93 mobiles seized-ANI

#12:50 PM

Aircel-Maxis case: Court refuses to initiate proceedings on #CBI plea to declare accused Ralph Marshall & T Ananda Krishnan as absconders.-ANI

#12:47 PM

#10:30 PM

Uttarakhand: 2 killed as car falls into gorge in Pithoragarh-ANI

#9:14 PM

President Pranab Mukherjee meets Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas- ANI

#8:54 PM

Earthquake of magnitude 4.4 occurred in Andaman Islands at 7:35 PM today. No loss of life/damage reported so far.- ANI

#8:48 PM

Fire broke out in luggage compartment of Khopoli-CST up train at Ghatkopar railway station, now under control.- ANI

#8:44 PM

Austria snap elections set for October 15- AFP

#8:35 PM

CBI registers a case against two media companies based in Mumbai, Director of Chennai based pvt co,officials of Ministry of Finance & others- ANI

#8:20 PM

15-year-old girl allegedly raped in Hyderabad's Sanath Nagar, case registered, accused taken into police custody-ANI

#8:05 PM

Hyderabad: 22-yr-old dies after head injuries during a friendly cricket match in Bahadurpura, was accidentally hit with a bat by a fellow player-ANI

#7:45 PM

J&K: Ceasefire violation by #Pakistan in #Naushera sector, army retaliates

#6:31 PM

Chhattisgarh: 8 naxals arrested in Sukma district's Chintalnar & Chintagufa area, in a joint operation by COBRA Bn (CRPF) and District Force-ANI

#6:05 PM

Arun Jaitley launched a website 'Operation Clean Money', in campaign against black money

#5:54 PM 350 jawans saw Maoists wearing COBRA uniform, 20 Maoists killed in operation, says IG, CRPF on encounter of Naxals inA Bijapur-ANI

#5:44 PM

Italian SC upholds ban on Sikhs from carrying kirpan in public: Italian media

#5:37 PM

There's no role for govt with respect to IT raids /CBI cases against either Chidambaram's son/Lalu Yadav/Mayawati/Mulayam Singh says V Naidu-ANI

#5:36 PM

We haven't used/misused agencies, we have allowed them to function independently, whether it is CBI, IT dept, or ED: Venkaiah Naidu-ANI

#5:20 PM

P Chidambaram evades question after CBI conducted raids at his residence in Chennai, and locations of Karti Chidambaram- ANI

#5:12 PM

Delhi HC raps GoI, Delhi govt & civic agencies for failing to take appropriate steps to stop spreading of vector-borne diseases like dengue.- ANI

#5:06 PM

Trump tweets that he shared 'facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety' with Russian officials-AFP

#5:05 PM

Centre & HM are monitoring situation closely, we are dealing with it & situation will get better: Dy Cm J&K on ceasefire violation by Pakistan-ANI

#4:44 PM

Malkangiri (Odisha): Sirisa Kurami, daughter of a former woman Maoist cadre has been selected for the under-18 national volleyball team

#4:39 PM

Pipe bomb planted by naxals, recovered and diffused by bomb disposal squad from Kanker district, #Chhattisgarh

#4:30 PM

P Chidambaram outside Karnataka High Court. CBI is today conducting raids at his residence in Chennai, and locations of Karti Chidambaram pic.twitter.com/2MFjZEU3MZ a ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

#4:16 PM

Delhi HC rejects petition seeking probe into accounts of India Against Corruption, terming the petition as a misuse of the legal process

#3:58 PM

Fire broke out in Terminal building of Mumbai domestic airport, 2nd floor; now under control.Smoke detected in office premises, SOP followed

#3:11 PM

#CBI searches house of Peter Mukerjea in Mumbai as part of probe into alleged favours granted in foreign investment clearance to INX Media. - PTI

#3:09 PM

Turkey PM says Germany must choose between Ankara and alleged coup plotters - AFP

#3:04 PM

Uttar Pradesh Assembly passes GST bill - ANI

#3:01 PM

Central Bureau of Investigation summons Mathew Samuel, asking him to appear on May 19, in Narada sting probe - ANI

#3:00 PM

We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations: Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas - ANI

#2:53 PM

We hope to see the realization of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel: PM Modi - ANI

#2:53 PM

Will continue to support development and capacity building efforts of Palestine: PM Modi in Delhi - ANI

#2:49 PM

Court granted Delhi Govt a week's time to file status report on filling up of over 33000 vacancies of teaching staff in Delhi Govt & 3 MCDs - ANI

#2:45 PM

Delhi High Court rejects petitions filed by Dilli Athithi Shikshak Sangh; Court says, petitions not maintainable. - ANI

#2:33 PM

Jammu and Kashmir government bans sale of pesticide #Ethephon used for ripening of fruits, citing harmful effect on health. - PTI

#2:29 PM

Haryana: Girl students of Govt High School in Rewari continue hunger strike,demanding up-gradation of their institution to senior sec school - ANI

#2:29 PM

Most buses still off roads as transport unions' #strike enters third day. - PTI

#2:24 PM

#Nifty breaches 9,500-mark for first time; #Sensex at new high of 30,567.09 in afternoon trade. - PTI

#2:11 PM

In 3 yrs,we've given nation honest scam free govt,decisive leader,pro poor thrust on governance&fastest growing large economy:P Goyal,BJP - ANI

#1:26 PM

South Korea, US to hold Washington summit in June: Seoul - AFP

#1:24 PM

Ukraine blocks popular Russian social networks - AFP

#1:22 PM

Army conducted operational manoeuvre exercise'Thar Shakti' in Rajasthan with 20,000 troops,tanks,ICVs,artillery guns&adv surveillance sensor - ANI

#1:07 PM

Nitish Kumar should re-think,because how can he run govt along with ppl who are embroiled in scams&corruption:Sushil Modi,BJP on Lalu Yadav - ANI

#12:43 PM

Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi - ANI

#12:46 PM

Kochi (Kerala): Fire breaks out at Oberon mall, people being evacuated; more details awaited - ANI

#12:44 PM

Delhi HC transfers case of JNU missing student Najeeb Ahmad to CBI - ANI

#12:43 PM

If someone speaks about intolerance today, then he is declared anti-natioanl: Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress - ANI

#12:36 PM

38 Central universities to be WiFi enabled from July 2017: HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar - ANI

#12:11 AM

We want the TN assembly to be convened immediately, to discuss many serious issues including workers strike and NEET: MK Stalin - ANI

#11:42 AM

Delhi: Fire breaks out in slums near Nizamuddin circle, 8 fire tenders at the spot - ANI

#11:40 AM

Sibal told SC 'if Hindus faith abt Rama's birth at Ayodhya can't be questioned,thn #TripleTalaq ,a matter of faith for Muslims shouldn't be' - ANI

#11:32 AM

More than twenty people admitted to hospital after leakage of Chlorine gas from a pump house in Karnataka's Hassan districtA - ANI

#11:08 AM

Kapil Sibal told the SC that 'triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional?' - ANi

#11:06 AM

Stray dog feeds on infant's corpse inside premises of the sub-divisional hospital of #Jeypore in Koraput district, #Odisha. - PTI

#11:05 AM

Senior IAS officer arrested by Lokayukta Special Investigating Team (SIT) probing the Janthakal mining case. - PTI

#11:03 AM

#Muslims are practicing #TripleTalaq for last 1,400 yrs & it's a matter of faith : All India Muslim Personal Law Board to SC. - PTI

#10:53 AM

Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly passes the #GSTBillA - ANI

#10:15 AM

Condemn murder of BJP & Sangh workers. Clear that Left Front govt wants to suppress growing support for BJP in Kerala by violence: Amit Shah - ANI

#10:02 AM

I-T dept conducts raids, surveys at 22 locations in Delhi, Gurgaon on charges of #benami land deals worth Rs 1,000 cr involving #LaluPrasad.- PTI

#9:47 AM

Pending payments doesn't reflect UN's peacekeeping commitment: India. - PTI

#9:42 AM

North Korea continues to threaten US and its allies: White House. - PTI

#9:40 AM

#Sensex hits fresh all-time intra-day high of 30,424.33 in opening trade, #Nifty at new peak of 9,461. - PTI

#9:34 AM

Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed by President Mukherjee and PM Modi at Rashtrapati Bhawan - ANI

#8:43 AM

Assam Police ASI, Korno Longpotia, committed suicide by shooting himself with his service pistol in Assam's Tinsukia, yesterday - ANI

#8:42 AM

J&K: Blast in a car parked at Kishtwar's mini bus stand. One person injured; more details awaited. - ANI

#8:41 AM

CBI raid at former union minister P Chidambaram's residence in Chennai - ANI

#8:19 AM

It was a disappointing one. We have to actually look to rebound & use it as a learning experience: Chris Gayle on RCB's performance in IPL - ANI

#8:02 AM

Haryana: Five dead, four injured in a collision between a car and a tractor near Rewari's Siha Village. All injured admitted to hospital - ANI

#7:56 AM

Gujarat: Fake Indian currency worth Rs 72,000 seized by Police in Surat, yesterday. Two persons arrested - ANI

#7:31 AM

Home Minister Rajnath Singh to chair a meeting to review law and order situation in the north-eastern states - ANI

#7:19 AM

Haryana: Fire broke out at Faridabad's Sarvodaya Hospital last night, now doused. No casualties reported. - ANI

#7:14 AM

One-day special session of Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly to be held today for discussion on GST bill - ANI

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New Delhi:

The constitution bench of Supreme Court on Tuesday resumed hearing of triple talaq case. Arguing for All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Kapil Sibal said that triple talaq is going on since 1400 years, how can you say it is unconstitutional.

"The issue is not triple talaq, the issue is patriarchy and it is there in every religion. All patriarchal societies are discriminatory, even many of the Hindu laws are discriminatory. There is no question of constitutional morality & equity in matters of faith," said Kapil Sibal.

"if Hindus faith about Rama's birth at Ayodhya can't be questioned then triple talaq which is a matter of faith for Muslims shouldn't be," said Kapil Sibal.

Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity, former Union Law Minister and senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, said.

If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then its a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality, Sibal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar.

He also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

The AIMPLB is advancing arguments before the bench which also comprises Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

Earlier on Monday, The Supreme Court on Monday said it would examine whether triple talaq was an essential part of religion under Article 25 of Constitution.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said We have to see the test of essentiality and the government has to prove that triple talaq is not an essential part of Islam as this will amount to tinkering with religion.

The bench, also comprising Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer, asked the government why it had not brought in a law to bring about reforms if it had found the practice of triple talaq as wrong.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that all the three forms of divorce among the Muslim community - talaq-e-biddat, talaq hasan and talaq ahsan, were unilateral and extra-judicial.

Yes, we can bring law. There is no law for past 60 years. It has not been done. But the court should first strike down these practices which are not in confirmity with the Constitution, he said.

Also read: Triple talaq case: Supreme Court asks Centre to prove it is not essential in Islam

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New Delhi:

Senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Pravin Togadia has said India will become a "Hindu nation" only when the word "secular" is removed from the Constitution.

"This will ensure that only Hindus become prime ministers, chief ministers, judges and police chiefs," he said on Wednesday night at a Bajrang Dal programme in Bhadohi.

Togadia, known for his controversial remarks, added that the stone pelters of Kashmir were "Pakistanis who just live in India". "Pelting security forces with stones is an act of war,"he said.

ALSO READ: Vishwa Hindu Parishad's president Pravin Togadia asks Centre to follow US bombing example of Islamic state

Moreover, he suggested that Hindus should also have a day for gathering just as Muslims pray at mosques on Fridays and Christians in churches on Sundays.

READ: IPL 2017 | Qualifier 1, MI vs RPS: Mumbai Indians, Rising Pune Supergiants to lock horns at Wankhede for place in title clash

With PTI inputs

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New Delhi:

Congress on Tuesday held a press conference to target Narendra Modi government at the Centre. The party has come up with a video titled '3 saal mein 30 tikdam' (30 schemes in 3 years). The video, played in the beginning of the press conference, lists 30 promises/schemes by the Modi Government and the data corresponding them to prove their failures.A

Here are the highlights of the press conference:

#1:00 PM: It is time for the government to stop engaging in 'Jumlabazi' and focus on fulfilling promises made to poor people: Pilot

#1:00 PM: The govt is using brute force to establish itself in all field: Pilot

#12:55 PM: The cost to produce a quintal of Toor daal, by govt records, is between Rs 5,500 and Rs 8,500 but the MSP set by Modi Govt is Rs 5000: Sachin Pilot, Congress

#12:50 PM: They say we will show 56-inch chest to Pakistan, but on the ground they indulge in Saree-shawl diplomacy: Scindia



#12:50 PM:A There have been at least 600 cases of ceasefire violations, what is India doing: Scindia



#12:50 PM:A With BJP, its is either my way or highway: Scindia



#12:50 PM:A RBI has been reduced to be an architecture of bumper lotteries: ScindiaA

#12:48 PM; Even when media dares to rasie an issue if threatened with black out: Scindia

#12:47 PM: Modi Govt has not even left Bapu Gandhi, he has been taken out of pictures of Khadi stationary: Scindia

#12:45 PM: Modi Govt wants a Dalit free, tribal free country: Scindia

#12:43 PM: This government is trying to stifle the voices of 1.25 billion people, it's like they are running a camp: Scindia

#12:40 PM: Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress: If nation has to go forward it needs to follow secularist path

#12:30 PM:A Congress plays videoA '3A saalA meinA 30A tikdam' showcasing 'failures' of Modi Govt

Before the press conference, the Congress party's official twitter handle shared a series of allegations against the government.A

#What a fall in the manufacturing sector, thanks to poor policies and Demonetisation blunder of Narendra Modi: INC India

#3 years of broken promises, non-performance & betrayal of a mandate

#Youth are struggling to find jobs, farmers are committing suicide & soldiers are dying at the border. What exactly is the Govt celebrating?: Rahul Gandhi

#Narendra Modi promised 4 crore jobs between 2014-16. This is the status of jobs created as of today: INC India

.@narendramodi promised 4 crore jobs between 2014-16. This is the status of jobs created as of today. #UnemploymentCRISIS pic.twitter.com/8kS1hiVwki a INC India (@INCIndia) May 15, 2017

A

A

3 years of broken promises, non performance & betrayal of a mandate a Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) May 16, 2017

A

What a fall in the manufacturing sector, thanks to poor policies and Demonetisation blunder of @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/1BKCB9Mypn a INC India (@INCIndia) May 16, 2017

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New Delhi:

Second swine flu death has been reported in Mumbai taking the toll 196, reports have said. A 72-year-old woman died of the disease in Maharashtras Kurla among 6 cases reported by municipal health officers this month from Mumbai. overall, the toll from swine flu (H1N1) in Maharashtra is nearing 200.

The 72-year-old from Kurla, died at the Kohinoor Hospital on May 12. On April 28, an 18-month-old boy from Malad died of H1N1.

She was suffering from high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease [a condition that affects the supply of blood to the heart]. While she was rushed to the hospital at 3am, doctors pronounced her dead within six hours of treatment, said the officials.



Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), said that they have screened the locality of the womans residence, checking up on more than 3, 776 people and 750 families. Six residents were diagnosed with fever in the same locality and they were immediately sent for treatment, said Keskar.



Maharashtra public health officials state that till May 14, 196 deaths have been reported from the state. Through wide surveillance, we have screened suspected population of 7,62,489 and 13,524 patients underwent treatment. Pune, Nashik, Solapur and Aurangabad remain our focus areas because most of the cases are being reported from these vicinities, said the official. As of now, 19 people suffering from swine flu are on ventilator support throughout Maharashtra.

ALSO READ | Telangana reports 27 fresh cases of swine flu

According to experts, the wearing off the effect of vaccines and changes in temperature could be the some of the reasons for the spike in number of swine flu cases As a precaution, we have intensified screening and surveillance for all viral infections and are vaccinating high-risk groups, such as diabetics and people with high blood pressure, Dr Pradeep Awate, head, state epidemiology department.

ALSO READ | Andhra Pradesh: 10-month-old baby dies of swine flu, number of positive cases reach 100
New Delhi:

Chinese tech giant Alibaba on Tuesday signed a deal with Pakistan to promote the export of products by small and medium enterprises through its e-commerce platform globally.

Alibaba will also conduct online and offline training programmes for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in a move to assist them with the companys platforms.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Alibaba and Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) was signed by Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and President of Alibaba Group Michael Evans and Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial.

ALSO READ: Alibaba's UCWeb to pay minimum Rs 50,000 monthly salary to top 1,000 We-Media platform content bloggers

According to reports, the development took place during the visit of Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to companys headquarters in China, where Sharif with Alibaba Groups Executive Chairman Jack Ma witnessed the signing ceremony.

Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP agreed to foster growth of worldwide export of products by SMEs in Pakistan through e-commerce.

TDAP will help identify suitable SMEs to participate in the training programmes while Alibaba will be responsible for providing industry analysis to TDAP to assist them in their selection process.

In addition, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP have also agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services. The parties have agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in the country.

(With PTI Inputs)

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Washington:

US President Donald Trump shared sensitive information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting at the White House last week, The Washington Post has alleged. Both the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the National Security Advisor immediately rubbished the report saying there was no discussion of specific threats with the Russians.

This is code-word information, an unnamed US official familiar with the matter, was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.



Code-word information is a terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies, the daily reported.



Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies, the newspaper said, adding that following this, US officials have gone into damage control mode.



The sensitive classified information was given to the US by one of its allies, which had not given it permission to share this with the Russians, according to the daily. The Trump Administration has also denied the allegations.

ALSO READ | US President Donald Trump fires FBI director James Comey



During President Trumps meeting with Foreign Minister Lavrov, a broad range of subjects were discussed among which were common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. During that exchange, the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations, Tillerson said.



The President and the (Russian) foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organisations to include threats to aviation, said HR McMaster, the National Security Adviser, who participated in the meeting.



At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly, McMaster said.



This story is false. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced, said Dina Powell, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, who also attended the meeting.



But The Washington Post said the information the President relayed had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government, officials said.

ALSO READ | Donald Trump nominates Indian-American Neil Chatterjee for key position in FERC



Talking to reporters, McMaster described the story as false.

The President and the Foreign Minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation.



At no time, at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known, McMaster said.



Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. I was in the room. It didnt happen. Thanks, everybody, McMaster said without taking any questions.



In a statement, the Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said if news reports are true, Trump has compromised a key source of intelligence collection against ISIS and jeopardised the security of the American people.



Even if President Trump unwittingly blew a highly classified code-word source to the Russians, that would be dangerous enough.

ALSO READ | Donald Trump signs USD 1 trillion spending bill to keep the government operating



If the President outed a highly classified code-word source intentionally, that would be even more dangerous, Pelosi said.



She demanded that Congress must be given a full briefing on the extent of the damage President Trump has done in compromising highly classified code-word intelligence to the Russians.

(With inputs from PTI)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

India and Pakistan should engage in direct dialogue to reduce tension, the US urged both the nations as they are facing each other at the International Court of Justice over the death penalty given to Kulbhushan Jadhav.



A State Department spokesperson said, "We believe India and Pakistan stand to benefit from practical cooperation".



"We encourage India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue aimed at reducing tension," the spokesperson said when asked about the United States' stand on the case of Jadhav.



A Pakistani military court had sentenced death penalty to Jadhav in March last year on charges of espionage and subversive activities.

ALSO READ: Kulbhushan Jadhav hearing at ICJ: Indias charges and Pakistans defence in 10 points



Consular access to Jadhav has been denied by Pakistan to India 16 times, claiming that he was a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) agent. The ICJ had stayed his execution last week.



India has petitioned the ICJ, urging it immediately suspend Jadhav's death sentence, expressing fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at ICJ.



India moved the ICJ against Jadhav's execution on May 8 alleging that Pakistan has violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying consular access to Jadhav repeatedly.



India, in its appeal, has asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing business after he retired from the Indian Navy. India has denied that he has any connection with the government.



With inputs from PTI.

ALSO READ: Immediately suspend Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence: India at International Court of Justice

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Washington:

The White House on Tuesday said that North Korea continues to threaten the United States and its allies. To help resolve the situation, it has urged countries like China and Russia to do everything they can in terms of sanctions.



"There is no question that North Korea continues to threaten the United States and our allies, Japan, South Korea, and its neighbours, including both China and Russia," the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily news conference.



"We are calling on all of those folks in the region, particularly China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve the situation and bring stability to the Peninsula," Spicer said, responding to a question regarding the threat posed by North Korea, which has been carrying out a series of missile tests in the last few weeks, in violation of the UN Security Council resolution.



Spicer said President Donald Trump looks forward to having a conversation with the new South Korean President and discussing the way forward. "But I'm not going to get ahead of that discussion at this point," he said. Over the weekend, North Korea carried out yet another missile test.



The Department of Defense is still carrying out an assessment of the nature of the missile test, the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters at a Washington Foreign Press Center news conference.



"It was launched from a place called Kusung, and landed in the Sea of Japan. The type of missile is still being assessed, and the flight was not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile," he said.

ALSO READ: North Korea successfully test fires new long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12: Reports



"We continue to call on North Korea to refrain from provocative destabilising actions, rhetoric, and to make the strategic choice to fulfil its international obligations and commitments to return to serious talks," he said.



Davis said this weapons program that they have is unlawful, and it represents a clear grave threat to US national security. "North Korea openly states that its ballistic missiles are intended to deliver nuclear weapons, to strike cities in the United States, the Republic of Korea, and Japan," he said.



"As we've spoken about with regards to China, North Korea is a liability for China, not an asset, and China will partner with us to demonstrate to North Korea that it stands alone in its pursuit of illegal weapons of mass destruction. We remain steadfast and ironclad in our commitment to our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan," Davis said.



As part of its effort to ramp up the defence against North Koreans, the United States has deployed THAAD or Theater High-Altitude Air Defence System which has the ability to defeat North Korean missiles. The US recently completed the deployment of the first battery there.



"It achieved initial operating capability. That's not the full-up, operational seamless capability that we want, but it has an initial ability to be able to defeat North Korean missiles," he said.



Acknowledging that there is concern about this in China, Davis noted it's perplexing why that is. "This is a system that is 100-percent defensive in nature. It does not have an offensive capability. It is meant to defend against North Korean missiles. That should be considered a destabilising act by others is curious and incomprehensible, in my view," he said.



"We have to maintain the capabilities there that we need to defend the Republic of Korea. Everything that we do there, every soldier on the ground, every base that's there, every mission that we conduct, is conducted with that in mind; that the US forces are there to defend the Republic of Korea against aggression from the North, and that's true with this," he argued.

ALSO READ: Rising tensions over North Korea matter of concern for Russia China

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If only the R after Erin Stewarts name doubled as a registered trademark symbol.

The New Britain mayor called out fellow 30-something Republican Tim Herbst on Facebook recently over the gubernatorial hopefuls choice of campaign slogan: A New Generation of Leadership.

Stealing my slogan? Nice, Stewart posted on Herbsts wall last Wednesday night.

During Stewarts first run for mayor of the Hardware City in 2013, her slogan was a a new generation of leadership. The second-generation mayor referenced it in January, when she announced she was seeking a third term. Stewarts name has also been linked to statewide office.

Herbst, 36, who is forgoing a re-election bid as Trumbulls first selectman to concentrate on the governors race, apparently didnt get the memo.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery I suppose. But its still a cheap shot, Herbst responded, along with a thinking face emoji. Erin (Stewart), I honestly didnt know it was your slogan. I guess youre going to have to get in (the race) so I get a new one.

Herbst signed his response with a wink and a kiss emojis, eliciting this comeback from Stewart.

Your worst nightmare.

Fallout between one-time running mates

There will be no John McKinney-Dave Walker reunion tour.

Not after Walkers exploratory committee for governor sent out a recent fundraising appeal to McKinneys entire contributor list from 2014, when the GOP duo unsuccessfully joined forces as running mates for governor (McKinney) and lieutenant governor (Walker).

No, its shades of Simon and Garfunkel.

McKinney, the former state Senate minority leader from Fairfield, is entertaining a bid for governor, too.

Ive been in Connecticut politics most of my life, McKinney said Monday. I know Dave hasnt lived in Connecticut very long. I think he only lives heres part-time now. To solicit my donors without any approval on my part, although it may be legal, it certainly is not good decorum. Quite frankly, Im quite shocked and disappointed that he did that.

Walker, the former U.S. comptroller general under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who has made Bridgeport his adopted home, said he tried to give McKinney a heads-up.

Ive been trying to reach John for three weeks without success, Walker said. Theres nothing in it that (letter) he would object to. I think Johns a very good man, but hes better positioned for federal office than governor. I dont expect for John to run.

In 2014, the pair qualified for $1.4 million in public financing for the GOP primaries for governor and lieutenant governor after pooling their contributions to get to $250,000. McKinney lost to Tom Foley in governor primary, while Walker finished third in a tight primary for lieutenant governor.

Murphy uses same fundraising guru as Bernie

Chris Murphy is attempting to pick right up where Bernie Sanders left off.

Murphys Senate colleague wrote the book last year on bundling small campaign contributions into a vaunted war chest, with funnyman Larry David immortalizing the $27 average donation during his Saturday Night Live impersonations of the curmudgeonly Hillary Clinton rival.

Murphy, who is up for re-election in 2018 and whose name is being bandied about as a 2020 presidential dark horse, is using the same D.C. fundraising powerhouse that helped Sanders.

Murphys campaign paid $391,000 to Revolution Messaging during the first three months of this year, filings with the Federal Election Commission show. The return on investment was $3 million in contributions for the quarter, with the average being less than $100. Murphys association with the firm actually predates that of Sanders.

Sanders former digital fundraising director, Tim Tagaris, is a partner in the firm and former Connecticut political operative. He ran the digital operation of Ned Lamonts 2006 insurgency campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman, when the Greenwich upstart upset Lieberman in the Democratic primary, but lost the general election to the independent Lieberman. He was digital director of then-Sen. Chris Dodds 2008 presidential campaign and has worked for Murphy in the past.

nvigdor@hearstmediact.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy

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REDDING  Three options for resolving the financial problems surrounding the old Gilbert and Bennett wire mill were presented to residents at a community forum Monday night.

The options include the foreclosure proceedings with the town and the fire district assuming control of the property and either selling it to a private developer or a second option: maintaining it for public use. The third option would have the town assume ownership of the property and all of the junior holders would write off their debts in exchange for part of the sale and future tax revenues.

This is something very much in flux and will change based on what we get back from you, First Selectwoman Julia Pemberton told the 125 residents at Mondays forum.

Many in the area said they have wanted to revitalize the old wire mill for years. Plans were drafted by the property owner, Georgetown Land Development Co. more than a decade ago, which would have added housing, commercial uses and a railroad piece. That plan expires in 2018 and cannot be extended but can be altered.

The town is owed $3.5 million in back taxes and $2.2 million sewer costs. The fire district is owed $180,000.

The town initiated foreclosure proceedings on the mill in fall 2014 and filed in 2015. Last fall, a bankruptcy judge ruled the town was first among creditors to get its money.

Georgetown Land Development Co., owes millions of dollars to a variety of creditors, including the town, the Georgetown fire district and a special tax district created in 2005 that allowed the project to float government-backed bonds. Nearly $14.5 million in bonds were issued. The tax district is overseen by the same company that owns the site.

The only way the tax district can be dissolved is if there is no debt or the town agrees to take the district on, Pemberton said.

One resident suggested selling the debt to the other lien holders, who are wealthy companies and can pursue the debt. He said this would allow the town to get the money back and not have to continue the legal actions and associated costs.

Pemberton said the other bondholders are involved in the mediations and have discussed selling the debts. She said it could be an option as long as the terms were agreeable.

Another suggestion was to divide the 55-acre site for public and private uses.

In March, Jane Philbrick, who led a team of brownfield-remediation experts and college students, presented a proposal to remediate the site, and add artist studios, commercial space and intergenerational housing. Philbrick, a 22-year Redding resident, received a state grant in 2013 to create a plan for the property.

All of the options presented Monday have challenges.

Pemberton said the debt and associated environmental cleanup costs make the site unattractive for a private developer to buy and develop under the first option.

The second option would be public use, which would mean no tax revenue would be generated from the site but the bonds would not have to be paid.

The other holders are likely to appeal the foreclosure in the first two options, which could draw out the process for another two to three years.

Under the third option, concerns were raised about overdevelopment. It also means the town would have to share tax revenue for the next 30 to 50 years.

Philbrick disagreed with forgiving debts.

These vanquished debts are debts owed to our town and these are the private debts where the risk was known, she said.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345
Want a glimpse into the psyche of a startup founder? A survey by Silicon Valley Business Journal found that 25 percent of early-stage founders surveyed believed that if their businesses failed, that outcome would most likely be because of one factor: no cash flow.

Related: Seven Rules To Keep Startup Costs In Order

That suspicion isn't unfounded: According to Smallbiztrends.com, more than 50 percent of small businesses fail within the first four years, due mostly to cash-flow problems. Entrepreneurs aren't just irrationally afraid their funding will dry up -- they're seeing it affect their colleagues in droves.

Look, ideas on their own are great, right? They're business in its purest form -- unsullied by compromise, unnecessary input or cynicism. But they still need lots of things, chief among them money, to prosper. Funding keeps the dream alive, and the act of budgeting that seed money is the key to helping that pure idea blossom into everything you want it to be.

I've worked with entrepreneurs and have been one myself for more than a decade, but there's one lesson that even the most nascent business owner knows: The economics of starting a business get complicated quickly. However, once you understand your cash requirements, you can confidently take the leap and turn your big idea into something viable -- without breaking the bank.

Keep pace.

The best surprise is no surprise. You'll want to map out your business in as much detail as possible, thoroughly uncovering all revenue streams and costs, to produce a forward-looking cash-flow statement and balance sheet. A good plan will be comprehensive and strike the right balance between optimism and pessimism.

The more research you do, the more prepared you'll be when, invariably, something changes that positively or negatively affects your cash requirements. A good business model includes estimates of how much money you'll need at various stages and helps you avoid landmines, especially if you keep it updated with current market realities. If you've already started a business but never undertaken this exercise, don't wait.

Unsecured money is harder to raise, and investors will be interested in opportunities for which the risk has been mitigated. Convert as many unknowns into knowns as quickly as possible, with real-world representative data. After developing your business model, create a working prototype or minimum viable product to confirm product-market fit and knock down a few barriers in the process.

Stay afloat.

The availability of cash and the level of operational risk will have a dramatic impact on every level of your business, whether that level means an everyday task or a long-term prospect. Don't spend yourself out of startup survival. Try these cost-cutting practices to keep your small business above the surface:

Related: How to Best Manage Your Cash Flow Statement

1. Figure out funding choices.

Once you've established solvency, know that timing is everything. Friends, family, crowdfunding, angel investors and venture capital are just a few means founders use to raise dough; knowing when and how much of an investment you'll need is key to launching your business successfully.

Your ability to raise funds when you need them will be dependent on risk versus market opportunity. When you secure an investment against an asset, there is obviously less risk for the investor.

Properly explore all scenarios -- positive and negative -- and set clear KPIs within your model. This keeps you ahead of your cash without needing investors, which improves your leverage when it comes time to raise money.

2. Look outside.

A Businessweek magazine study found that by using contractors, employers can cut costs by 30 percent; this practice helps companies avoid expenses like benefits, payroll tax and vacation time, and using contractors makes it much easier for you to scale or scale back the amount of time that those people work.

Hiring contractors also gives you flexibility that you'd lose by committing to a full-time team member. New hires further require time to develop their talents and probably won't add value until they've been around for six months or more. Contractors, on the other hand, will be experts in their niches and can get to work right away.

3. Offer something extra.

Wanting to decorate Facebook's walls in its fiscally tight early days, Mark Zuckerberg asked muralist David Choe to work on good faith. Instead of a traditional salary, Zuckerberg offered Choe equity in the company, which Choe was free to cash at any time. In 2012, Choe did just that -- gaining $200 million in the process.

Though Choe wasn't a full-time worker at Facebook, an equity plan is a strategy that startup founders shouldn't dismiss. "Paying" team members in this way preserves cash on payroll and shares the upside. It's essentially the same as someone making an investment into the company for cash, but instead investing in the form of a decrease in salary.

4. Listen to the market.

As big a proponent as I am for having a plan and sticking to it, the market couldn't care less about that when it's ready to move elsewhere. I started a business called Roozt.com, which aimed to become the Amazon for socially conscious brands looking to sell their wares.

As we built the platform, our yoga vertical's growth became noteworthy and accounted for 90 percent of all revenue -- so much so that we were approached about dealing exclusively in that segment. After talking it out, my investors and I declined to go exclusive on yoga because that had not been the original plan of the business. Needless to say, Roozt didn't become what we wanted it to be, and not pivoting was a big factor in our having to sell the company prematurely.

So, learn the lesson implied here: Based on the money you've raised, change your pro forma projections (projected cash flow) and growth to fit this financing. With a new strategy, you may find a quicker way to profitability, which many businesses today undervalue.

5. Do more with less.

Consider this: Startups that share a co-working space are four times more likely to succeed than those that don't.

If money is tight, look at your office rent expense. Reducing it can involve moving or downsizing, or evening adopting a virtual office or shared space. The latter not only reduces operating costs, but also helps you interact with other small business owners and employees with various talents and specialties. Remote work, which is another option, affords a business tax deduction if part of that home is used primarily for running a business.

Even if you have a detailed financial business model and have an eye toward reducing costs, it's important to have a solid "Plan B." Some planning against negative scenarios goes a long way in mentally preparing you before you're forced to face the circumstances head-on. Options typically include boosting revenue at a lesser margin, followed by various degrees of cost-cutting and, finally, "doomsday" planning to pivot, sell or liquidate.

Related: 5 Tasks Entrepreneurs Are Better Off Outsourcing

The more time you put into creating a comprehensive business model, the easier it will be to react and adjust your course, as needed. Moreover, moving quickly and decisively with a well-thought-out plan B could make all the difference in your eventual business success.

Related:

5 Steps to Stop Spending Yourself out of Survival

It Always Takes More Time and Money Than You Think to Start a Business

How One Former Google Exec Is Driving More Funding to Female Entrepreneurs



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Hubris and rank amateurism are killing President Donald Trump when it comes to his Russia problem. And that's the most charitable explanation.

First, Trump made the very questionable decision to meet with top Russian officials a day after making the very questionable decision to fire the man leading the FBI's Russia investigation, James Comey. And now The Washington Post is reporting that, in that very same meeting, Trump shared highly classified information about the Islamic State with the Russians.

This is information that current and former U.S. officials say could jeopardize a valuable source of intelligence in the fight against ISIS and give an adversarial Russia a strategic advantage in Syria, where its goals are different from ours. If there is something worse Trump could have done in that meeting, I'm not sure what it would be.

The details of what exactly Trump discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Wednesday are sketchy, and The Washington Post is withholding some of them for national security reasons. But according to the officials, Trump relayed information from an intelligence-sharing arrangement that is so sensitive that some details aren't even shared with U.S. allies or broadly within the U.S. government. Trump cited the specifics of an ISIS plot and, most problematically, named the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S.' partner detected the threat.

More News Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian...

Needless to say, sharing information with the Russian government that isn't even being shared with allies is a big blunder. Trump has broad authority to declassify information, so he was probably within his rights to talk about it. But this is something that can credibly be described as Trump doing damage to the fight against the Islamic State with his loose lips.

The officials The Post spoke with are clearly exasperated. Here's a sampling of their reactions:

--"Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security." - a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials

--"Russia could identify our sources or techniques." - a senior U.S. official

--"I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out." - a former intelligence official who worked on Russia-related issues

--"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it - and that has big downsides. Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me." - a former U.S. official

Given how unusual a politician Trump is and how shocked most of us were that he was elected president, we're always in a constant search for alternate explanations for the off-kilter things he does. Maybe the tweets work! Maybe his offensive comments were calculated! Maybe he's just trying to distract us! Maybe he's really a secret political genius, despite his 36 percent approval rating!

But the Comey firing last week, its badly bungled aftermath and now Trump's disclosure of highly classified information to Russia in the Oval Office paint a pretty clear picture. This is a president who shoots from the hip. Sometimes he shoots from the hip and hits the target, but it's also causing him major, major problems now that he's President Trump and not Candidate Trump. It's one thing to say something offensive during the New Hampshire primary; it's quite another to jeopardize tools for fighting terrorism because you speak before you think.

Conspiracy theorists who are fond of the claims in that dossier will believe that this is Trump deliberately feeding valuable information to his buddies in Russia as payback for their help in the 2016 election. But sharing it out in the open during a meeting with other national security officials in the room would seem to be a very curious move. As The Post report notes, Trump's flub was quickly recognized and the damage control began almost immediately.

On a much more basic level, this appears to be Trump being careless and completely unaware of how the things he's saying may create problems - both perception problems for himself, and real-world problems for the fight against terrorism. He lets his hubris get the better of him and starts bragging about the power and information at his fingertips - just like he did at Mar-a-Lago back in February. "I get great intel," Trump reportedly told the Russians on Wednesday. "I have people brief me on great intel every day."

Trump badly miscalculated the public reaction to his firing of Comey and bungled the explanations; then he went ahead with the Russia meeting anyway; then he did something in that Russia meeting that is only going to feed the narratives that he's (a) in the tank for Moscow and/or (b) totally in over his head as president in ways that are dangerous.

It's a series of tightly packed-together errors that can only be accomplished with an extraordinary amount of ego and a lack of a better angel.
My work takes me all over the world, and every time someone tells me how lucky I am to travel I want to smack them square in the mouth.

On the other hand, when people grouse about how awful air travel has become I want to smack them in the mouth. One could infer that I enjoy smacking people in the mouth, but thats not the case; heck Ive seen travel turn nuns into maniacs, but as torturous as air travel has become, it beats swinging a pickaxe for a living. At the risk of sounding like Hobo, the character in Slaughter House Five who, after being stuffed into an overcrowded boxcar headed for the prison camp, keeps repeating, this aint so bad until he arrives at the slaughterhouse dead. As bad as travel can be, a lot of it can be readily avoided.

Travel can be an enjoyable way to spend your time or it can be a Kafkaesque nightmare. To a large degree we can control which of these extreme our trip will be. Surprised? Dont be; not only is it possible to greatly reduce your risk of travel hassles, its relatively easy to do.

Avoiding travel hassles starts with understanding what you are buying and the conditions placed on it.

Be nice.

No one is going to go above and beyond to help you -- whether at the airport or a hotel or on a reservation line -- if you start off making demands and snotty remarks. You are asking for help. Ask in a professional and polite manner most people associated with your travel plans will do their best to help you out.

Related: 11 Qualities of Nice People Who Get Ahead

Recognize the risk of bargain travel sites.

Years ago, I and a friend of mine I worked with were going to the same trade show in Dallas. She called me and suggested that I stay at the same hotel in downtown Dallas where she and her boss were staying. She had procured, through a travel cheap site, a room for an amazing $35.

I bought in and arrived (too late to get another hotel) at a skid row hotel populated by ex-cons and prostitutes. The room was so filthy that I took out the trash bag that I routinely pack (long story) and placed my bags in it to prevent leaving with bed bugs. The bathroom was so filthy I wouldnt enter it for ANY purpose, and the bed...well lets just say that Im pretty sure that Jack Ruby slept on those sheets.

Most bargain sites dont lead to that kind of catastrophe, in fact most have terrific deals, but you need to understand that if you want a price break theres always a catch - a less than desirable flight, a longer layover, a disappointing room or something else that makes the deal so cheap.

There is always a trade off between price and quality and only a fool ignores that. Sites that offer a deal that seems too good to be true might just be that.

Related: Screaming Babies on a Plane? This Couple's Solution is a Poignant Lesson in Travel Etiquette.

Understand your fare and room rates.

Weve seen the ugly videos of passengers being removed from planes. The people who bought the ticket traded a guaranteed seat for a reduced price. When you see a ridiculously low price on a major airline with some restrictions apply in small print, for the love of all thats holy READ the small print.

If you paid for a bargain seat theres a good chance that you may have agreed to give up your seat should the airline require you to do so. Most of us dont read that small print and while they probably wont, airlines could add things like, passenger agrees to clean the bathroom before deplaning or passenger agrees to allow the airline to harvest the passengers organs and sell them on Craigslist.

The point is, whether it be an airline ticket or a trombone, you had better understand the whats and wherefores of the deal.

Related: United Airlines Passenger Dragged Off Plane by Airport Employees

Know what youre buying

From airlines, to rental cars, to hotels, one of the most important things you can do to save yourself from hassle is to know terms and conditions and the change and refund policies of the company you are dealing with.

For example, you might be better served buying a more expensive ticket that doesnt explicitly say that airport thugs are allowed to punch you repeatedly in the head before dragging you off the plane. If you are too lazy (as I am) to read all the small print than ask the company representatives flat out, about the things that most concern you.

Related: 'Dear Mr. Human': United Airlines Suffers Another Embarrassing Customer Service Blunder

Do your due diligence.

There are a host of resources at your disposal online from Yelp to the Better Business Bureau to the bedbug registry (no Im not joking). Before booking with an unfamiliar hotel, airline, car rental, or cruise-line spend some time researching them. Understand that all companies have a small percentage of disgruntled and unreasonable customers who will gripe about anything, but researching your travel plans is the strongest way of avoiding a hassle.

Related: Considering Escaping the U.S.? Here Are Some Deals You Can't Miss.

Use website, behave like a grown up and check-in online.

Most airlines and hotels not only allow you to check-in up to 24 in advance, in general they allow you to choose your seat and your room. If you are worried about missing out on a potential upgrade, don't be; most hotels and airlines put you on the upgrade list irrespective of when you check-in and if you are eligible you will be upgraded even if you have an assigned seat or room.

No one is going to go above and beyond to help you whether at the airport or a hotel or on a reservation lineif start off making demands and snotty remarks. You are asking for help, and if you ask in a professional and polite manner most people associated with your travel plans will do their best to help you out.

Sites that offer a deal that seems too good to be true might just be that. Years ago a friend of mine who used to work with me and I were going to the same trade show in Dallas. She called me and suggested that I stay at the same hotel in downtown Dallas where she and her boss. She had procured, through a travel cheap site, a room for an amazing $35. I bought in and arrived (too late to get another hotel) at a skid row hotel populated by ex-cons and prostitutes. The room was so filthy that I took out the trash bag that I routinely pack (long story) and placed my bags in it to prevent leaving with bed bugs. The bathroom was so filthy I wouldnt enter it for ANY purpose, and the bed...well lets just that Im pretty sure that Jack Ruby slept on those sheets. Most bargain sites dont lead to that kind of catastrophe, in fact most have terrific deals, but you need to understand that if you want a price break theres always a catcha less than desirable flight, a longer layover, a disappointing room, or something else that makes the deal so cheap. There is always a trade off between price and quality and only a fool ignores that.

Weve seen the videos of passengers being removed from planes and theyre ugly (the video, I leave it to you to judge the attractiveness of the passengers), but the people who bought the ticket traded a guaranteed seat for a reduced price. When you see a ridiculously low price on a major airline with some restrictions apply in small print, for the love of all thats holy READ the small print. If you paid for a bargain seat theres a good chance that you may have agreed to give up your seat should the airline require you to do so. Most of us dont read that small print and at some while they probably wont, airlines could add things like, passenger agrees to clean the bathroom before deplaning or passenger agrees to allow the airline to harvest the passengers organs and sell them on Craigslist and within some limits the law will uphold the airlines right to do so. The point is, whether it be an airline ticket or a trombone, you had better understand the whats and wherefores of the deal.

From airlines, to rental cars, to hotels, one of the most important things you can do to save yourself from hassle is to know terms and conditions and the change and refund policies of the company you are dealing with. For example, you might be better served buying a more expensive ticket that doesnt explicitly say that airport thugs are allowed to punch you repeatedly in the head before dragging you off the plane. If you are too lazy (as I am) to read all the small print than ask the company representatives flat out, about the things that most concern you. Signing up for customer loyalty programs is a good way to ensure a positive encourage

There are a host of resources at your disposal online from Yelp to the Better Business Bureau to the bedbug registry (no Im not joking). Before booking with an unfamiliar hotel, airline, car rental, or cruise-line spend some time researching them. Understand that all companies have a small percentage of disgruntled and unreasonable customers who will gripe about anything, but researching your travel plans is the strongest way of avoiding a hassle.

Check-in onlineMost airlines and hotels not only allow you to check-in up to 24 in advance in general they allow you to choose your seat and your room. If you are worried about missing out on a potential upgrade, don't be; most hotels and airlines put you on the upgrade list irrespective of when you check-in and if you are eligible you will be upgraded even if you have an assigned seat or room.

Related:

Business Travel Really Doesn't Have to be Awful

These 10 Countries Will See the Most Business Travelers in the Next Decade

3 Ways to Bootstrap Your Startup's Business Travel Budget



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Building long-term relationships and retaining top talent is an ongoing challenge for many organizations, and especially for tech companies, which see some of the highest turnover rates among industries. Its not because tech companies are undesirable employers -- in fact, many offer extraordinary benefits packages. While generational changes and evolving expectations in the workforce play an important role, another major factor influencing this trend is actually an industry-wide talent shortage. Companies are looking to attract and keep high performers, who, at the same time, are being recruited to join competing organizations.

The 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report found that 78 percent of todays business leaders rate employee engagement and retention as one of their top concerns. Because, as business of all sizes and industries know, turnover can be costly (the Society for Human Resource Management finds the total cost of replacing employees can range from 90 percent to 200 percent of their annual income).

Related: Staff Turnover Is Draining Your Business

Whether youre a company with four employees or 400, turnover can have a huge impact on your bottom line. But, there are meaningful steps you can take today to ensure your people will want to stay with your organization for years to come -- focused on developing their careers from within, while supporting your customers and growing your business.

Hire people you want to have dinner with.

Cultivating a positive and productive workplace culture relies on hiring people who care about others, share your company values, and support your mission. Having the necessary job experience is important, but possessing cultural fit is vital. When interviewing a candidate, ask yourself, Would I like to have dinner with this person? If not, then theyre probably not the one to lead your sales team over the next thirty years. Taking both skill set and personality into account can make a lasting difference on your hiring decisions.

Related: Think Perks Are an Incentive? Your Team Doesn't.

Invest in meaningful, long-term benefits.

If you want employees to stay with you until retirement, show them youre wholly invested in their retirement. Catered lunches and company outings are impactful in the short term, but 401(k) matching is a worthy investment that can (literally) impact employees for a lifetime. Think about ways you can restructure benefits to accommodate employees of all ages, throughout all stages of their lives -- and dream big: If I want this hire to still be here in thirty years, what will she need?

Maternity leave might not be what a recent graduate utilizes today, but a generous benefits package shows youre thinking about keeping that employee happy 10-plus years from now. Not every benefit will fit into every companys budget, but taking a closer look at your current offerings might uncover new opportunities. Years ago at Ultimate, we replaced our companywide holiday party with a more generous 401(k) company match, and we continue to receive positive feedback from employees.

Related: The 5 Touchpoints When You Can Boost Retention Through Training

Protect your family as you scale.

Employees at smaller companies often describe their coworkers as family, though the same isnt always true for companies with thousands of employees. However, sustaining your family-like culture should remain a top priority for your organization. Weve seen Ultimate grow from four employees in 1990 to nearly 4,000 employees today. Throughout our growth, weve focused on preserving the little things, the special touches -- from birthday cake celebrations to community service outings -- that made us family from the beginning, and continue to make a big difference for our employees. Break-room cupcakes and team lunches shouldnt disappear as you scale. Think about what made your company special when you started, and what you can continue to hold onto (or bring back) in order to preserve that close-knit family culture.

Related: 5 Questions You Must Ask to Keep Your Best and Brightest Talent

Empower people to embody your culture.

Culture starts at the top, but its preserved from the bottom. As a business leader, you can set the tone by walking the talk. But, the more discretion you give employees, the greater connection theyll feel to your company, and to your culture. Work-life balance is a key example. The CEO can leave at the end of every day at a reasonable time, but that doesnt have to be the companywide definition of balance. Its even more empowering to let employees define what balance means to them. An employee may want to come in later, so he can drop off his daughter at preschool every morning. That workplace flexibility, and the ability to define balance in his own way, means hes personally contributing to the culture -- not just following suit.

Fostering an employee-centric culture in which people will want to grow their careers takes commitment, but theres no one-size-fits-all approach to success. At Ultimate, weve built a caring, trusting and supportive workplace -- with a 95 percent employee retention rate -- by putting people first and always doing the right thing for our employees. If you establish the right culture for your company, and protect that culture as you bring new hires onboard, you can continue to build a successful workplace. Ultimately, when employees know youre fully invested in them, theyll be more invested in your products, your services, your customers, and -- most importantly -- one another.

Related:



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As President Donald Trump's approval ratings hit historic lows, the betting odds against him are high.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week shows 58 percent of voters surveyed disapprove of the job Trump's doing so far.

Sportsbook Bovada's recently released odds on the likelihood Trump will resign or get impeached during his first term in office paint another picture of how his time in office is going so far.

RELATED: A poll asked people the first word that came to mind with Trump  and the results were brutal

The odds Trump will be impeached are 5-to-4 compared to the 7-to-5 odds he will resign in his first term.

Here are the odds on what year Trump will exit his presidency:

2017: 7-to-2

2018: 4-to-1

2019: 9-to-2

2020 or later: 5-to-6

Additionally, the Quinnipiac poll shows that 61 percent of voters polled do not believe the president is honest and 56 percent think he is intelligent.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Fast-growing Canadian commercial real estate services firm opens first office in Romania; David Canta becomes Managing Director, four members join

TORONTO, May 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Mark E. Rose, Chair and CEO of Avison Young, the world's fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm, announced today that the company has opened a new office in Bucharest, Romania.

The new Bucharest office represents Avison Young's first office in Romania, 10th office in Europe, 80th office globally, and an additional step in the firm's ongoing aggressive global growth and expansion strategy.

Over the past eight and a half years, Avison Young has grown from 11 to, now, 80 offices in 72 markets and from 300 to more than 2,400 real estate professionals in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and Europe.

Effective immediately, David Canta becomes Principal of Avison Young's Bucharest operations and Managing Director of the new office. He will focus on overseeing the growth and development of Avison Young's presence in Romania, servicing new and existing clients, and managing the day-to-day operations of the office. Canta was most recently associate director and co-founder of commercial real estate brokerage firm Momentum Consulting in Bucharest. Before that, he was a broker with CBRE in Bucharest.

Also joining Avison Young from Momentum Consulting are: Gabriel Munteanu, Director of Valuation and Advisory; Alina Mocanu, Senior Associate; and Emanuel Romanu, Associate. Munteanu will be responsible for commercial real estate advisory and valuation work throughout Romania, while Mocanu and Romanu will focus on office leasing.

"The opening in Bucharest represents another milestone in our European expansion strategy," comments Rose. "We are thrilled to be launching our first office in Romania and our 80th location overall. Furthermore, we're delighted to have David Canta, who is a highly regarded commercial real estate professional, guiding our expansion program in Bucharest. He and his team have strong capabilities covering office, industrial and valuation assignments, and their experience and expertise will benefit our clients and company alike as we expand our footprint in the dynamic Bucharest marketplace. We couldn't be more pleased to have David, Gabriel, Alina and Emanuel on board."

Rose continues: "We believe that Bucharest is an underserved market, offering great potential for increased local, national and international investment. Bucharest, which has a young, educated workforce, is a gateway to Eastern and Central Europe and aligns well with our other European operations. The new Bucharest office will also enhance our ability to facilitate multi-market transactions on both sides of the Atlantic."

Canta specializes in landlord and tenant representation in the office and industrial property sectors, serving corporate clients and institutional landlords. During his career, he has served a wide variety of clients, ranging from landlords of office buildings and logistics space to entrepreneurs and corporations. While developing his practice, he has helped facilitate leasing transactions worth in excess of 100 million on behalf of leading fast-moving commercial goods (FMCG) companies as well as IT, advertising, finance, outsourcing and logistics firms. He has also gained expertise in commercial real estate company management.

At Avison Young, Canta will work closely with Hiren Thakar, a Principal of Avison Young and the firm's Senior Vice-President of Corporate Strategy.

"We were impressed by David's professional manner in meeting client needs," states Thakar. "A rising young industry leader, he is mature beyond his years and will fit well in our client-centric culture. We are already working on client assignments together. Furthermore, Romania is a stable, rapidly growing EU country that has become a destination for outsourcing and has a growing industrial base. David and his team are experienced in working with international clients and have been successful at completing assignments throughout Romania and Europe. He will continue to expand his team in the very near future here at Avison Young."

Effective immediately, Avison Young's new Bucharest office is located in GlobalWorth Plaza at 42 Pipera Road, Sector 2, Floor 2, within Bucharest's new central business district.

"On behalf of the team, we are delighted to join the Avison Young family and become part of the world's fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm," says Canta. "Avison Young's entrepreneurial and collaborative culture resonates well with the way we conduct business in Romania. We believe that our clients will be better served by tapping into Avison Young's global resources. I look forward to working with my new colleagues in Europe and across North America."

Bucharest is the capital of Romania and its largest city, with a population of more than 2.2 million. The region's strategic sectors include ICT, automotive, aerospace, media and creative, retail, energy and environmental technology. A highly skilled, multicultural workforce makes Romania a very attractive destination for international service and production outsourcing. Several leading international technology companies, such as Oracle, HP, IBM and Microsoft, are located in Bucharest. Romania's post-recession economic stability has had a positive impact on all asset classes, positioning the country as one of the most vibrant commercial real estate markets in the Central and Eastern European region.

Today's announcement comes on the heels of Avison Young acquiring Raleigh, NC-based Hunter & Associates, LLC on March 20, 2017, and Rutherford, NJ-based Cresa NJ-North/Central, LLC (CNJ) on March 6, 2017.

***

Biographies

David Canta

David Canta was most recently associate director and co-founder of Bucharest-based Momentum Consulting, a commercial real estate brokerage and valuation services firm specializing in the office and logistics sectors. During his career, Canta has focussed on landlord and tenant representation in the office and industrial property sectors. While developing his practice, he has helped facilitate transactions worth in excess of 100 million on behalf of leading FMCG companies as well as IT, advertising, finance, outsourcing and logistics firms. In addition to serving corporate clients and institutional landlords, Canta has gained expertise in commercial real estate company management. Before co-founding Momentum Consulting in 2015, Canta was a broker with CBRE in Bucharest, where he specialized in office agency leasing (2013-2015). He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Griffiths School of Management, where he graduated first in his class.

Gabriel Munteanu

Gabriel Munteanu is a chartered valuation surveyor and member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Throughout his 16-year career in the real estate industry, he has held different roles, including head of valuation at Cushman & Wakefield and senior valuation analyst within the Real Estate Advisory Group (REAG) Bucharest office of American Appraisal (currently Duff & Phelps).

Avison Young is the world's fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Avison Young is a collaborative, global firm owned and operated by its principals. Founded in 1978, the company comprises 2,400 real estate professionals in 80 offices, providing value-added, client-centric investment sales, leasing, advisory, management, financing and mortgage placement services to owners and occupiers of office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality properties.

For further information/comment/photos:

Sherry Quan , Principal, Global Director of Communications & Media Relations, Avison Young: 604.647.5098; cell: 604.726.0959

, Principal, Global Director of Communications & Media Relations, Avison Young: cell: Mark Rose , Chair and CEO, Avison Young: 416.673.4028

Chair and CEO, Avison Young: Hiren Thakar , Principal, Senior Vice-President of Corporate Strategy, Avison Young: 312.273.4500

Principal, Senior Vice-President of Corporate Strategy, Avison Young: David Canta , Principal of Bucharest operations and Managing Director, Bucharest , Avison Young: +40 727 737 894

Avison Young's new Bucharest office is located at: GlobalWorth Plaza, 42 Pipera Road, Sector 2, Floor 2, Bucharest

www.avisonyoung.com

Avison Young was a winner of Canada's Best Managed Companies program in 2011 and requalified in 2017 to maintain its status as a Best Managed Gold Standard company

Follow Avison Young on Twitter:

For industry news, press releases and market reports: www.twitter.com/avisonyoung

For Avison Young listings and deals: www.twitter.com/AYListingsDeals

Follow Avison Young Bloggers: http://blog.avisonyoung.com

Follow Avison Young on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/avison-young-commercial-real-estate

Follow Avison Young on YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/AvisonYoungRE

Follow Avison Young on Instagram: www.instagram.com/avison_young_global

Editors/Reporters

Please click on link to view and download photo of David Canta:

http://www.avisonyoung.com/sites/default/files/content-files/Media_Room/Temp/David_Canta.jpg

SOURCE Avison Young Commercial Real Estate (BC)

For further information: Media Relations: Sherry Quan, 604.647.5098 or 604.726.0959, [email protected]

Related Links

www.avisonyoung.com


Canada to assist group building a third-generation synchrotron in Jordan

OTTAWA, May 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is committed to fostering international scientific collaboration. By working together, scientists build upon each other's work and make discoveries that might not otherwise be possible.

That's why the Government of Canada is pleased to announce that Canada has joined the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) as an observer state. Officially opening in Jordan on May 16, 2017, SESAME is a co-operative venture designed on the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) model and is the Middle East's first major international research centre.

Synchrotrons use high-energy electrons to produce extremely bright light that can be separated out into different wavelengths for researchers to use, like a giant microscope, to study the structure and chemistry of materials. Synchrotrons have numerous research applications, including developing new materials and new drugs, improving crop yields and preserving cultural artifacts.

The SESAME project promises to be an important hub of innovation in the Middle East that will generate economic opportunities and promote regional prosperity. The Government of Canada is committed to engaging with regional partners in a range of sectors to promote enhanced dialogue and sustained peace.

As an observer state, Canada will contribute its globally recognized expertise, participate in SESAME's governance and help build SESAME's research capabilities.

Quotes

"International collaboration between scientists and researchers is critically important to any scientific study. I am proud that the Government of Canada is doing its part to foster scientific partnerships that transcend national borders."

 The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science

"In addition to being a catalyst for scientific innovation, the SESAME project demonstrates that countries in the Middle East can work together to advance science through cooperation in multilateral institutions."

 The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Quick facts

SESAME will foster scientific and technological excellence in the Middle East and neighbouring countries by enabling world-class scientific research. In the process it will build scientific and cultural bridges and contribute to a culture of peace through international cooperation in science.

and neighbouring countries by enabling world-class scientific research. In the process it will build scientific and cultural bridges and contribute to a culture of peace through international cooperation in science. Full members of SESAME include Cyprus , Egypt , Iran , Israel , Jordan , Pakistan , the Palestinian Authority and Turkey . There are 16 observer states, including China , the European Union, the United States and now Canada .

, , , , , , the Palestinian Authority and . There are 16 observer states, including , the European Union, and now . The Government of Canada has committed $1.6 billion over three years to support partners in the Middle East as they respond to the impacts of the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq .

Follow Minister Duncan on social media.

Twitter: @ScienceMin

Instagram: sciencemin

SOURCE Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

For further information: Stefanie Power, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Science, 343-291-2600; Media Relations, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 343-291-1777, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/icgc.nsf/eng/home


CHARLES CITY | Iowa Rep. Todd Prichard, an Iraq War veteran and rural lawyer, will announce his candidacy for governor Tuesday in Charles City, saying he intends to fight for economic prosperity for all and appeal to places in the state that have not always been hospitable to Democrats.

Prichard, who was elected to the legislature in 2013, will join a growing field of Democrats seeking their party's nomination.

The 42-year-old, who grew up in Davenport, has been exploring a campaign for weeks, and after his announcement he plans to embark on a tour through the state.

"I love Iowa and I'm concerned about the direction that the state has taken over the last few years under the Branstad administration and during my time in the legislature," he told the Quad City Times on Monday. "I know that we can do better. We've left a lot of Iowans behind."

He said working for higher wages and an expanding middle class will guide his efforts.

Prichard said he would focus on improving educational opportunities in the state, including a state program to pay for community college costs that aren't covered by other financial assistance programs.

He also says he would push for a higher minimum wage and redirect state incentives to parts of the state he says haven't received enough.

He cited an $18 million state incentive to help move a corporate headquarters two years ago from West Des Moines to Des Moines.

"We're not investing resources into the rest of Iowa," he said.

Even with 13 months to go before the primary, the Democratic field is growing.

Former Iowa Democratic Party Chair Andy McGuire, former Iowa DNR Director Rich Leopold, Sen. Nate Boulton and former Des Moines School Board President Jon Neiderbach have all launched campaigns.

John Norris, who was a top aide to former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, and Des Moines businessman Fred Hubbell also are considering running. There are others said to be thinking about it, too.

Prichard hopes to set himself from the others with his military record and his rural background. "I'm not from Polk County," he says. Others in the race all hail from the Des Moines area.

Prichard says that his upbringing and familiarity with the west side of Davenport and Charles City (which has a population of about 7,500 people) give him a broad understanding of Iowa others will find hard to match.

Politically, that could be helpful to Democrats. The party has acknowledged it needs to do better in rural parts of the state.

Prichard is married with three children.

He won the House seat in a special election in 2013 after the previous officeholder, also a Democrat, resigned to take another job.

He is the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee.
OTTAWA, May 16, 2017 /CNW/ - The Global Centre for Pluralism, a major international institution for research and dialogue about the value of diversity, has officially opened its permanent headquarters in a historic building in Ottawa at a ceremony with His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, and His Highness the Aga Khan.

"The Centre is inspired by Canada's experience as a multi-ethnic country that is committed to valuing diversity as a strength. It is fitting that only weeks away from celebrating 150 years since Confederation, the Global Centre for Pluralism opens its doors in the heart of Canada's capital," said John McNee, Secretary General of the Global Centre for Pluralism. "At a time of rising populism and exclusion, the Centre serves as a positive voice in the global conversation about living with differences."

In the beautifully restored heritage building at 330 Sussex Drive, formerly the Public Archives of Canada (1905-1967) and the Canadian War Museum (1967-2005), the Centre will continue to expand its work as a global platform for comparative analysis, learning and dialogue about the importance of valuing diversity both in Canada and around the world.

The Centre's work includes research examining how countries have changed their approaches to diversity; seminars with experts to deepen understanding of pluralism; educational tools to help teach the values underpinning pluralism; the Annual Pluralism Lecture, featuring international leaders who have dedicated their lives to advancing respect for diversity; and the Global Pluralism Award, a bi-annual award that celebrates extraordinary examples of pluralism in action.

A unique public-private partnership, His Highness the Aga Khan founded the Centre jointly with the Government of Canada. Both partners made considerable investments to form an endowment fund and carry out a major revitalization of 330 Sussex Drive. His Highness the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Shia Ismaili Muslims around the world, was in Ottawa to welcome over 200 guests to the official opening and to chair a meeting of the Centre's Board of Directors.

To learn more about the Global Centre of Pluralism, visit: pluralism.ca

Twitter: @GlobalPluralism 

About Global Centre for Pluralism

Founded in Ottawa by His Highness the Aga Khan in partnership with the Government of Canada, the Global Centre for Pluralism is an independent, charitable organization. Inspired by Canada's experience as a diverse and inclusive country, the Centre was created to advance positive responses to the challenge of living peacefully and productively together in diverse societies.

It is governed by a Board of Directors composed of distinguished Canadian and international leaders:

His Highness the Aga Khan (Chair)

Princess Zahra Aga Khan

Kofi Annan

Iain T. Benson

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson

Rudyard Griffiths

Huguette Labelle

Marwan Muasher

Azim Nanji

Margaret Ogilvie

Khalil Shariff

Eduardo Stein

SOURCE Global Centre for Pluralism

For further information: Calina Ellwand, cell: 613-862-5484 / work: 613-688-0137, [email protected]
TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /CNW/ - A provincial report released yesterday to reduce violence in health care facilities represents a good start at eliminating the problem but its long-term success will depend on implementing its recommendations, says the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

The Workplace Violence Prevention in Health Care report, a joint effort by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, made 23 recommendations, some of which, had they been tabled earlier, may have prevented recent attacks on health care workers and clients inside Ontario's mental health facilities, said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas.

"This report makes clear Ontario has adopted a zero tolerance for workplace violence inside health care institutions," said Thomas, who represented OPSEU as a member of the study's Leadership Table, comprised of hospital executives, senior government officials, local health officers and other union leaders. "But zero tolerance will only be achieved if the report's recommendations are implemented in their entirety and with strict enforcement measures."

Among the key recommendations are calls for improved communications among hospitals and external care centres so that the receiving facility is better prepared to handle incoming patients for psychiatric assessment which, in turn, limits the risk of violence to healthcare workers and patients.

The report also recommends that the province develop and implement a consistent, minimum training standard for those providing security in hospitals.

Mandatory security training measures  long demanded by organized labour  could have prevented recent high-profile incidents of violence that resulted in serious injuries to health care workers.

"For years, employees have said better security training will result in fewer injuries," said Thomas. "I'm pleased the report recognizes this relationship. Let's get on with doing something about it."

The OPSEU president said the fact that the study was organized by the two ministries working together, was a positive sign. "Too often in the past they've worked in siloes, one not knowing what the other's been up to. This marks a fresh start in fighting a grave problem."

SOURCE Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)

For further information: Warren (Smokey) Thomas, 613-329-1931

Related Links

http://www.opseu.org


Licence renewals of large television groups

OTTAWA-GATINEAU, May 15, 2017 /CNW/ - As part of the licence renewals of the large television groups today, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is supporting the creation of diverse, compelling and original Canadian content.

The CRTC ensures on stable funding for Canadian production in all program categories, by focusing especially on dramas, documentaries, and musical and variety shows. As such, broadcasters have the tools they need to stay competitive in an on-demand environment, and consumers have access to a wide range of programming.

With respect to the underrepresentation of certain groups, the CRTC has put in place credits that give an incentive to Indigenous producers and producers from official language minority communities to create programming.

In addition, as part of the licence renewals, the CRTC is implementing the local television policy to ensure that Canadians have access to local news and programming that reflect them and inform them about their communities.

Finally, the CRTC recognizes that women face a number of challenges with respect to key positions in the production and creative sectors. To promote women's access to leadership positions, the CRTC will organize an event on women in production.

Quick Facts

The licences of the large French-language television groups Groupe TVA, Groupe V, Bell and Corus and the large English-language television groups Bell, Rogers and Corus have been renewed for a new five-year term effective September 2017 .

. In Rogers's case, the CRTC has renewed the licences of OMNI's local stations for an interim period of three years, to coincide with the decision taken today to grant mandatory distribution to OMNI Regional in small basic packages until 2020.

in small basic packages until 2020. In accordance with the conclusions of Let's Talk TV, the CRTC is maintaining its support for the creation of Canadian content, while giving the groups flexibility so that they can adapt to new digital realities and compete with online services.

In the event of a local station's closure, the licensee must inform the CRTC 120 days prior to ceasing operations. This gives Canadians an opportunity to express their opinions, if need be.

Quote

"We continue to require the large groups to make an important contribution not only to Canadian programming, but also to the broadcast of original programming. The measures we are taking as part of these licence renewals also promote the creation of programming that reflects the linguistic duality and diversity of Canadian society, including the special place of Indigenous peoples in our society. Moreover, Canadians will have access to local information and news."

 Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman and CEO, CRTC

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Stay Connected

Follow us on Twitter @CRTCeng

Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/crtceng

Related Document 1: Summary of Determinations  French-Language Groups

Issue Determination Canadian program expenditures (CPE)  Approach Case-by-case approach for each group. CPE  Calculation structure Calculation of CPE as a percentage of the previous year's revenues. CPE  Minimum levels Groupe TVA: 45% of the previous year's revenues Groupe V: 35% of the previous year's revenues Bell  French: 35% of the previous year's revenues Corus  French: 26% of the previous year's revenues CPE  25% limit Impose a 25% limit on the flexibility between conventional television and discretionary services. Programs of national interest (PNI)  Minimum levels Groupe TVA: 15% of the previous year's revenues Groupe V: 10% of the previous year's revenues Bell  French: 18% of the previous year's revenues Corus  French: 15% of the previous year's revenues Independent production At least 75% of PNI requirements. According to financial projections, this would represent $69.1 million each year, or $345.6 million over five years. Original French-language programs No requirement, but monitoring by means of reports Local programming (local relevance)  Minimum levels Groupe TVA Montreal: Quebec City: Saguenay, Sherbrooke,

Trois-Rivieres, Rimouski: Groupe V All stations 25 hrs/week 18 hrs/week and maintenance of special conditions



5 hrs/week 5 hrs/week Hours of locally reflective news and information programming  Minimum levels Groupe TVA Montreal: Quebec City: Saguenay, Sherbrooke,

Trois-Rivieres, Rimouski: Groupe V All stations: 6 hrs/week 3.5 hrs/week 2.5 hrs/week 2.5 hrs/week Level of locally reflective news and information programming expenditures (LNE) Base the LNE requirements on the previous year's revenues of each conventional station, for all stations being renewed.

Impose a new standardized LNE requirement of 5% of previous year's revenues for all of the designated groups' stations.

Allow flexibility among stations to meet LNE requirements in order to permit large or innovative projects (e.g. investigative journalism).

The same rules governing year to year overspending and underspending for CPE will be applied to LNE. Monitoring of compliance with requirements related to locally reflective news and information programming Local programming: By means of program logs

Hours of local news programming: By means of ad hoc reports / sampling

Local news expenditures: In annual financial reports Consideration of amounts transferred by broadcasting distribution undertakings in keeping with the flexibility to transfer part of their contribution to local expression Allow amounts received as a result of the flexibility that BDUs have to transfer a portion of their contribution to local expression to be counted as LNE without incremental requirements. Process in the event of the closure of a conventional television station Impose condition of licence on all services within a same licensing group that would require those stations to notify the Commission of their intention to cease operations 120 days prior to ceasing operations which would trigger a public process. Expectations with respect to regional reflection official languages minority communities Express an expectation to the effect that all discretionary services ensure that broadcasts adequately reflect all of Quebec's regions, including those outside Montreal, as well as all regions of Canada, and that licensees provide producers in these regions with an opportunity to produce programming for their services. Support for under-represented groups  OLMC Incentive measure: 125% CPE credit when designated licensee groups do business with OLMC producers up to the total expenditures credited (expenditures + amount credited for the OLMC and Indigenous credit) equal to 10% of the group's CPE. Add questions in the annual reports submitted by each designated licensee group in order to obtain the following information: the number of OLMC producers they meet with each year, the list of projects in development and in production that were commissioned from OLMC producers, as well as the budget and the CPE allocated to these projects. Support for under-represented groups  Indigenous Incentive measures: 150% CPE credit when dealing with Indigenous producers, up to a total amount of credited expenditures (expenditures + credited amount for the OLMC and Indigenous credit) equal to 10% of the group's CPEs. Add questions in the annual reports submitted by each designated licensee group in order to obtain the following information: the number of Indigenous producers they meet with each year, the list of projects in development and in production that were commissioned from Indigenous producers, as well as the budget and the CPE allocated to these projects. Support for under-represented groups  Women in key production positions Use the Commission's convening powers to initiate a summit on women in production with particular emphasis on women in leadership positions. Add a question in the annual reports submitted by each designated licensee group in order to obtain the following information: the appointment of women in key creative positions in productions (producer, director, writer, director of the photography and image editor).

Related Document 2: Summary of Determinations  English-Language Groups

Issue Determination Canadian programming expenditures (CPEs) Standard requirement of 30% for all groups, conventional stations and discretionary services. 25% limit on flexibility with respect to conventional television stations' expenditures on discretionary services Maintain the limit. Programs of National Interest (PNIs) + independent productions Standard requirement of 5% for all groups, conventional stations and discretionary services.

Maintain the requirement of 75% PNIs directed to independent producers.

According to financial projections, this would represent $111 million each year, or $554.9 million over five years. Local Programming: Establishment of exhibition COLs for locally reflective news For non-metropolitan markets, maintain the current standard requirement to broadcast 7 hours of local programming.

For metropolitan markets, maintain the current standard requirement to broadcast 14 hours of local programming.

For non-metropolitan markets, impose a new standard requirement to broadcast three hours of locally reflective news and information programming.

For metropolitan markets, impose a new standard requirement to broadcast six hours of locally reflective news and information programming. Local programming: establishment of conditions of licence for expenditures on locally reflective news and information programming (LNEs) Base the LNE requirements on the previous year's revenues of each conventional station, for all stations being renewed.

Impose a new standardized LNE requirement of 11% of previous year's revenues for all of the designated groups' stations.

Allow flexibility among stations to meet LNE requirements in order to permit large or innovative projects (e.g. investigative journalism).

The same rules governing year to year overspending and underspending for CPE will be applied to LNE. Local programming: monitoring of compliance with requirements related to the monitoring of exhibition and expenditures for locally reflective news Local programming: By means of program logs

Hours of local news programming: By means of ad hoc reports / sampling

Local news programming expenses: In annual financial reports Local programming: Consideration, in the calculation of a station's revenues and the CPEs determined on the basis of those revenues, amounts received due to the flexibility granted to BDUs allowing them to transfer a portion of their contribution to local expression Allow amounts received to be taken into account to meet LNE requirements, without an additional requirement. Conditions of licence to address the closure of local over-the-air television stations Impose on each service included in the designated group a condition of licence requiring that the licensee notify the Commission of its intention to close the service at least 120 days prior to ceasing operations, which would trigger a public process. Compliance  Audit of compliance with CPE and PNI requirements at the end of a licence term Impose a condition of licence requiring that a licensee be required to report and respond, at any time until August 31, 2019, to any request for information regarding expenditures incurred by itself and by the group, on Canadian programming and on programs of national interest, during the previous licence term.

Impose a condition of licence stipulating that the licensee is responsible for any failure to meet the CPE and PNI requirements imposed in its previous licence term.

Indicate in the decision that the Commission could use the information gathered from the licensee to verify the licensee's compliance with its CPE and PNI expenditure requirements during its previous licence term. Issues related to production and reporting requirements Create new forms, staff to informally consult with broadcasters to get industry feedback and issue an information bulletin in order to ensure uniform reporting by all broadcasters. Support for under-represented groups  official languages minority communities (OLMC), Indigenous peoples and women OLMC



Incentive: 125% CPE credit when designated groups do business with OLMC producers, up to a total amount of expenditures credited (expenditures + amount credited for the OLMC and Indigenous peoples credit) equivalent to 10% of the group's CPEs.



Addition of questions in annual reports concerning the use of OLMC producers so that designated groups indicate the number of OLMC producers met with and provide a list of projects commissioned, in production or completed, as well as the budget and the CPEs allocated to these projects.



Indigenous peoples



Incentive: 150% CPE credit when designated groups do business with Indigenous producers, up to a total amount of expenditures credited (expenditures + amount credited, for the OLMC and Indigenous peoples credit) equivalent to 10% of the group's CPEs.



Addition of questions in annual reports concerning the use of Indigenous producers so that designated groups indicate the number of Indigenous peoples met with and provide a list of projects commissioned, in production or completed, as well as the budget and the CPEs allocated to those projects.



NOTE: Both credits (OLMC and Indigenous peoples) would be limited to the same maximum amount, i.e., 10% of CPEs.



Women



Use the Commission's convening authority to hold a summit on women in the production industry, while emphasizing women's access to key positions.



Addition of issues in annual reports concerning the access of women to key production positions (producer, director, script writer, director of photography and picture editor).

SOURCE Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

For further information: Media Relations, 819-997-9403; General Inquiries, 819-997-0313, Toll-free number: 1-877-249-CRTC (2782), TTY: 819-994-0423

Related Links

http://www.crtc.gc.ca


TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /CNW/ - VersaPay Corporation (TSXV: VPY) ("VersaPay" or the "Company"), will release its first quarter results for 2017 on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 after market close. The Company will subsequently hold a conference call on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time hosted by Craig O'Neill, Chief Executive Officer, and Harp Gahunia, Chief Financial Officer. A question and answer session will follow the corporate update.

Conference Call Details:

Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Time: 9:00 AM Eastern Time

Participant Dial-in Numbers:

Local  Toronto (+1) 416 764 8609

Toll Free  North America (+1) 888 390 0605

Conference ID: 01894928

Recording Playback Numbers:

Toronto (+1) 416 764 8677

Toll Free  North America (+1) 888 390 0541

Passcode: 894928 #

Expiry Date: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 9:00 AM

A live audio webcast and archive of the conference call will be available by visiting the Company's website at http://www.versapay.com/company/investor-relations/. Please connect at least 15 minutes prior to the conference call to ensure time for any software download that may be needed to hear the webcast.

About VersaPay

VersaPay is a leading cloud-based invoice presentment and payment provider for businesses of all sizes. VersaPay's ARC software-as-a-service offering allows businesses to easily deliver customized electronic invoices to their customers, to accept credit card and EFT payments and automatically reconcile payments to their ERP and accounting software.

More information about VersaPay can be found on the Company's website at www.versapay.com or under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward Looking and Other Cautionary Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Such forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words and phrases such as "plans," "expects," "is expected," "budget," "scheduled," "estimates," "forecasts," "intends," "anticipates," or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

These forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable. 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 future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the speculative nature of the Company's business, the Company's formative stage of development and the Company's financial position.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information 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 information.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE VersaPay Corporation

For further information: John McLeod, Vice President, Marketing, VersaPay Corporation, 647-258-9406, [email protected]; Babak Pedram, Investor Relations, Virtus Advisory Group Inc., 416-644-5081, [email protected]

Related Links

www.versapay.com


ISRAEL IS THE AIRLINE'S FIRST DESTINATION OUTSIDE OF EUROPE AND

NORTH AMERICA, WITH FLIGHTS STARTING AT C$199

TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /CNW/ - WOW air, Iceland's only ultra low-fare airline, will connect Tel Aviv with Montreal and Toronto, offering four flights each week starting September 12, 2017. One of the lowest fares ever from North America to the modern, cosmopolitan city of Tel Aviv, Israel, will be available for booking starting on May 16, 2017 starting as low as C$199.

"We are thrilled to add Tel Aviv to our growing list of overseas destinations for Canadians," says Skuli Mogensen, CEO of WOW air. "By adding a third continent to our ever-expanding roster of destinations, we can continue connecting Canadians with their dream destinations at the best possible prices."

Passengers will still be able to take advantage of the WOW Stopover and make the most of their layover time by staying in Iceland for as long as they wish. It gives travellers the flexibility to break up a long-haul journey while taking in everything Iceland has to offer, all on the same trip. Relax in the geothermal spa at the famous Blue Lagoon in Iceland, and then make sure to have a mud bath and float in the Dead Sea once in Israel.

Located on Israel's Mediterranean coastline, Tel Aviv was rated by National Geographic as one of the top 10 best beach cities in the world! Take a walk in the sand at your choice of any of the city's sixteen beaches.

After basking in the sun, there is no shortage of things to do in this vibrant, young and sophisticated city. Consider

Tel Aviv's White City : Take in an architectural tour of the Bauhaus buildings around town, part of UNESCO's world heritage sites.

: Take in an architectural tour of the Bauhaus buildings around town, part of UNESCO's world heritage sites. Jaffa : Explore one of the world's oldest ports and make your way through the alleyways at the popular flea market that has been operating for over 100 years.

: Explore one of the world's oldest ports and make your way through the alleyways at the popular flea market that has been operating for over 100 years. Carmel Market : Indulge in local specialities at one of the many food stalls at the biggest marketplace in the city.

: Indulge in local specialities at one of the many food stalls at the biggest marketplace in the city. Clubs, Bars, Discos : Stay up till dawn and watch the sun risethere is no shortage of nightlife in Tel Aviv !

: Stay up till dawn and watch the sun risethere is no shortage of nightlife in ! A day at the Dead Sea : Float in the Dead Sea and take a therapeutic mud bath.

Float in the Dead Sea and take a therapeutic mud bath. Day Trips: Explore Jerusalem and Bethlehema walk through biblical times, which is sure to be an unforgettable experience.

"We set a goal to bring new airlines to Israel, so I'm happy and congratulate WOW air, which is known for its long haul low cost flights, on its entry into Israel in cooperation with the Israeli tourism ministry," says Yariv Levin, Israel Minister of Tourism. "I'm confident the launching of this new historic route will significantly increase the number of tourists traveling to Israel from Iceland, Canada and the US, and will also contribute to the unprecedented trend of growth in the number of tourists visiting Israel over the last number of months."

It takes just about six hours to drive from one end of Israel to the other, so no need to limit your visit to Tel Aviv and the south of the country. Hike the Masada at sunrise, eat some falafel, check out a kibbutz or just stop for a kibbutz.

About WOW air

WOW air offers the lowest fares, a modern fleet with the lowest emissions and the biggest smile; this is the WOW air promise to its valuable customers.

The airline services 32 destinations across Europe and North America including Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Montreal and Toronto.

Established in November 2011 by Icelandic entrepreneur Skuli Mogensen, the purple airline flies with Airbus A320 aircrafts and Airbus A321/A330 models. WOW air boasts one of the world's youngest fleets, with an average aircraft age of just 2.5 years. By the end of 2018 the fleet will consist of 24 aircraft.

WOW air was ranked as the 5th best low-cost, long-haul airline in the world at 2016 Skytrax World Airline Awards. WOW air was also ranked as the 7th best low-cost airline in Europe at the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Skytrax World Airline Awards and was the youngest airline in the top ten.

For more information: wowair.ca

SOURCE WOW air

For further information: For further media information, please contact: Dana Frank, 514 447 3938, 514 501 5615, [email protected]
newbornand momacog.jpg

A mother and newborn

(American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Crouse Hospital has the lowest cesarean section rate for low-risk deliveries of any big U.S. hospital, according to an investigation by Consumer Reports.

The Syracuse hospital performed C-section surgeries on 6.6 percent of first-time low-risk moms in 2016. That's significantly lower than the national average C-section rate of 26 percent.

Consumer Reports found 38 of 57 New York hospitals for which it obtained data have C-section rates that exceed 24 percent, the federal government's recommended limit. Some hospitals in the state, including Eastern Niagara Hospital in Lockport and Mount St. Mary's in Lewiston, are doing C-sections on more than half of low-risk first-time moms.

Here are C-section rates for other Central New York hospitals:

Cortland Regional Medical Center: 13.7 percent

Upstate University Hospital Community campus: 20.5 percent

St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center: 22.8 percent

Oswego Hospital: 30.1 percent

Auburn Community Hospital: 35.4 percent

Half of C-sections nationwide unnecessary

As many as 50 percent of C-sections nationwide are unnecessary, according to Consumer Reports. These surgical births can be harmful and even deadly for mothers and babies.

A C-section is an operation in which the mother's abdomen is cut open to remove the baby. At many hospitals it is the most commonly performed major surgery.

There are situations when a C-section is necessary to safely deliver a baby. An emergency C-section can be lifesaving if the placenta blocks the cervix, a condition called placenta previa. C-sections also may be necessary if the baby is not properly positioned for birth, the mother has uncontrolled high blood pressure or diabetes, or is pregnant with twins, triplets or other multiples.

C-sections can be deadly in low-risk pregnancies

But women with low-risk pregnancies undergoing their first C-section were three time more likely to die or suffer complications such as blood clots, heart attack and major infections than women delivering vaginally, according to a study of more than 2 million women in Canada published in 2007.

C-sections also drive up costs. The average cost of a C-section in the U.S. is $16,038 versus $12,560 for a vaginal birth.

Whether a woman gets a C-section can be determined by the hospital where she has her baby, according to Consumer Reports.

There's always a high likelihood the obstetrician-gynecologist a woman chooses won't be available when she goes into labor, according to Doris Peter, who runs Consumer Report's health ratings center.

"If you end up at a high C-section rate hospital and your doctor is not there, women can get a C-section when they didn't want one," Peter said.

That's why it's important to know a hospital's C-section rate, she said.

Many hospitals do not report C-section rates for low-risk births

Consumer Reports analyzed C-section rates voluntarily reported by hospitals to the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit group that publishes hospital quality and safety data. About half of New York hospitals that deliver babies, and more than half of hospitals nationwide, do not report their C-section rates for low-risk deliveries.

New York requires hospitals to report C-section rates as a percentage of all births, but not as a percentage of low-risk deliveries, Peter said. Hospitals report these rates to the Joint Commission, but the hospital accrediting agency does not make the information public.

Nationally the average C-section rate as a percentage of all births rose from 4.5 percent in 1965 to about 32 percent today. The dramatic rise has alarmed public health officials and physician groups who have called on hospitals and doctors to reduce the rate.

Consumer Reports says continuous fetal heart monitoring is a key factor behind the rise in C-section rates.

Heart rate monitors only accurately identify real problems 15 percent of the time and can prompt some doctors to do C-sections with low-risk births.

Outdated assumptions about how long labor should last have also fueled the increase in C-sections.

Women not clamoring for C-sections

"Physicians feel pressured if patients are piling up and it's a busy time," Peter said. "They may be pressured to move things along through the pipeline."

Women are not clamoring for C-sections, according to the magazine. It cited a survey of 1,314 new mothers by the National Partnership for Women and Families which showed less than 1 percent asked for C-sections.

While some hospitals have significantly cut C-section rates, the improvement has not been widespread, Peter said.

She blames that in part on the lack of C-section data from hospitals. "If you don't have the data, how do you know if there is a problem?" she said.

Crouse doctors, nurses, midwives and administrators have worked together to reduce C-sections, according to Dr. Robert Silverman, the head of obstetrics and gynecology at Crouse.

They give women more time to give birth. Silverman said the old guidelines said first time moms should be able to deliver within three hours. "It takes people a little longer than we used to think to get into the active phase of labor," he said. "We take our time."

Oswego Hospital, which reported a 30.1 percent rate, said it is reviewing its C-section data.

"We review every C-section birth to ensure it was necessary and that we provided the birthing mother every opportunity to experience a safe vaginal birth before a C-section is considered," said Dr. Raj Mahajan, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the hospital.

He said Oswego's rate of first-time low-risk C-sections has been decreasing this year.

When asked by syracuse.com about its 35.4 percent C-section rate, Auburn Community Hospital reviewed the data it submitted to the Leapfrog Group and said it discovered it made a "substantial reporting error" that inflated its rate. Tom Filiak, a hospital spokesman, said the hospital's true rate is 11.2 percent.

Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245
05-02-best-ice-cream-stand.jpg

What is the best ice cream stand in Upstate New York? Decide in our poll!

Money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure buys ice cream. We're trying to find the best ice cream stand in Upstate New York and we need your help!

We closed the semifinalist polls and determined the six finalists. We put the stands that received the most votes in a final poll. Check out who is in the running and cast your last vote!

Please note: We are only counting votes coming from within the United States.

The final poll will be open until 11:59 p.m. on May 25, and you can select one place and only vote one time.

Our judges will visit the six finalists to see what they have to offer. Be sure to follow along on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #BestOfUpstateNY as the judges make their way around the region. You can also follow the judges' tour on Snapchat and Instagram with the username: newyorkupstate.

On May 26, we'll crown two winners -- the judges' choice and readers' choice.

Who will get the title? Vote in our poll to decide the winner in Upstate New York!
autcenter2.jpg

An artist's rendering of the Golisano Autism Center in Rochester

Tom Golisano

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Billionaire philanthropist Tom Golisano, who helped bankroll construction of the Golisano Children's Hospital in Syracuse, is donating $2.5 million to help build a new autism center in Rochester.

The Golisano Autism Center will include shared program spaces, a sensory gym, classrooms and therapy rooms. The center will bring together under one roof services for people of all ages with autism currently provided by several community agencies.

The total cost of construction of the 25,000-square-foot building on South Avenue near Science Parkway on the outskirts of downtown Rochester is $5 million. The building is expected to open in the fall of 2018.

"The center will represent a significant improvement in how people with autism and their families can get the services they need over the course of their lifetimes," Golisano said in a prepared statement issued today announcing the project.

Autism, which affects one in 68 people, is a lifelong development disability that affects communication, interaction, behavior and learning.

The center will be built by Al Sigl Community of Agencies, Autism Up and CP Rochester.

Golisano, the founder of Paychex, a publicly-traded Rochester-based payroll processing company, donated $6 million in 2005 to help create the Golisano Children's Hospital at Upstate University Hospital.

His foundation has awarded more than $21 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, many of which serve people with intellectual disabilities.

Forbes estimates Golisano's net worth at $2.9 billion. He ran for governor three times as part of the Independence Party of New York.

Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245
For Jaclyn Aubin, the most exciting part of Sunday was supposed to earning her degree in psychology from Siena College.

That is, until her brother showed up to surprise her at graduation.

After making her way across the podium in the Times Union Center in Albany and posing for a photo, Jaclyn spun around to see her brother, Airman 1st Class Kyle Aubin, waiting to embrace her.

Kyle had been stationed at Pope Air Force Base at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and Jaclyn was not expecting him on her big day, The Albany Times Union reported. He last saw his sister in December.

The happy reunion was caught on video. Take a look:

According to The Daily Gazette, the surprise was months in the making. First, Kyle had to convince his superiors in the Air Force to allow him leave for the ceremony. Then he had to orchestrate the surprise with Siena's Academic Affairs office.

During the ceremony, Kyle hid behind a curtain, and Jaclyn's parents got special seating in the front row so they could see the surprise play out.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
MASON CITY | Two Mason City men apprehended after an SUV drove through muddy farm fields on Tuesday while fleeing authorities face criminal charges.

Nicholas Wilmarth, 28, was charged with misdemeanor eluding, possession of drug paraphernalia and a parole or probation violation.

David Freie, 53, was jailed for failure to appear for a trespassing charge.

Authorities say the driver wheeled a Ford Expedition through the sticky, rain-slicked fields while trying to get away from state troopers and the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Office.

"He cut through the field a couple of times," said Trooper Justin Kane.

The incident began about 1:10 p.m. when the SUV sped off from a state trooper trying to conduct a traffic stop at Thrush Avenue and 210th Street.

The vehicle eventually went west into a field at Raven Avenue and 195th Street.

Authorities say the driver continued west to a set of railroad tracks and then drove in the railroad right-of-way south to 190th Street.

Wilmarth and Freie were apprehended at the railroad crossing at 190th Street, about a half-mile east of Highway 65 in rural Rockwell.
MASON CITY | A Mason City man who was facing a possible term of up to 20 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine has been given a suspended sentence and probation.

Donald J. Reuter, 54, must graduate from the Cerro Gordo County Drug Court program as a condition of his probation, according to court documents.

Reuter pleaded guilty earlier this year to two felony counts of a controlled substance violation.

When officers entered his room at the Ashley Inn Hotel to arrest him on a warrant on Sept. 16, they found a scale, small plastic bags including three with a white crystal substance in them and $500 all in $20 bills, according to a Mason City Police Department criminal complaint.

A second criminal complaint states he was in possession of marijuana with intent to deliver on Jan. 1 in the 800 block of North Taylor Avenue in Mason City.

This week Reuter was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison on each count, with both sentences suspended. He was put on probation for four years on each count.

Two $1,000 fines were suspended. He was ordered to pay two surcharges of $125 each.

Reuter also was given a suspended two-year prison sentence this week on a driving while barred conviction. That sentence is to be served concurrently with the drug sentences. A $625 fine was suspended and he was put on probation for two years.






The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Tuesday, arraigned former governor of Niger, Babangida Aliyu in a Federal High Court, Abuja, on an eight-count charge of money laundering.Aliyu was arraigned alongside his former Chief of Staff, Umar Nasko, while both were admitted to bail in the sum of N200 million each, with two sureties each in like sum.The judge, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, ordered that the two sureties could be business men or public servants; and where in the public service, must not be below a director.The sureties must also own landed property in Abuja excluding the satellite towns.Aliyu and Nasko are to also deposit their international passports with the court and must not travel without the permission of the court.The judge, however, ruled that where the defendants could not perfect their bail conditions within 48 hours, they would be remanded in Kuje Prison until bail was perfected.He adjourned the matter until July 6 and 7 to hear the preliminary objection and for trial.The two defendants were accused of conspiring to launder ecological funds amounting to over N1 billion, released by the Federal Government to Niger government in 2014.The offence according to the EFCC, contravened Section 18 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011 and is punishable under Section 15 of the same Act.Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the offence.Mr Mamman Osuman (SAN), counsel to Aliyu filed a preliminary objection, challenging the hearing of the suit in Abuja, on the ground that there is a Federal High Court in Minna.Osuman maintained that the defendants were already on trial on a six-count charge of breach of trust in Minna, and since the ingredients of both cases were the same, it was in the interest of justice to conduct both cases in Minna.Counsel to the EFCC, Mr Ben Ikani, however, said that the case in Minna was different from the one in Abuja.








Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Monday spoke on the fight against corruption in Nigeria.Saraki said the war under President Muhammadu Buhari had recorded successes and that all Nigerians must play their part to help government and anti-corruption agencies.In a release by his media office, Monday evening, Saraki answered some questions on what the legislature was doing to curb corruption and highlighted a few things Nigerians must know.Excerpts:What got me thinking was the chicken and egg puzzle that that statement immediately raises. Do countries become more corrupt because the people are poor or are the people poor because their country is corrupt? We may never be able to answer this question to everybodys satisfaction.If the purpose of government is to improve the quality of lives of its people, then any conversation about corruption must focus primarily on how it affects human development, whether it is health, wealth or education.one area I believe we have made remarkable progress in the past two years of the President Buhari-led administration is that corruption has been forced back to the top of our national political agenda. Every single day, you read the newspapers, you listen to the radio, you go on the internet, you watch the television, the people are talking about it. The people are demanding more openness, more accountability and more convictions. Those of us in government are also responding, joining the conversation and accepting that the basis of our legitimacy as government is our manifest accountability to the people.We acknowledge that if we want Nigerians to trust their government again, then government at all levels must demonstrate that we are not in office for the pursuit of private gains, but to make our people happier by helping them to meet their legitimate aspirations and achieve a higher quality of lifeNigeria and Nigerians have not accepted corruption as normal; we recognize it as a problem; that we are determined to make a break with our past and live by different rules.I am convinced that we must return to that very basic medical axiom that prevention is better than cure. Perhaps, the reason our fight against corruption has met with rather limited success is that we appeared to have favoured punishment over deterrence We must review our approaches in favour of building systems that make it a lot more difficult to carry out corrupt acts or to find a safe haven for corruption proceeds within our borders. In doing this, we must continue to strengthen accountability, significantly limit discretion in public spending, and promote greater openness.We in the National Assembly last week took the first major step in this direction towards greater openness. For the first time in our political history, the budget of the National Assembly changed from a one-line item to a 34-page document that shows details of how we plan to utilize the public funds that we appropriate to ourselves.At the moment, we are considering for passage into law the following bills:The Whistleblower Protection bill, which I am confident will be passed not later than July 2017.The Proceeds of Crime billThe Special Anti-Corruption Court, which would be done through constitutional amendment and;The Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill. the National Assembly is driven by the saying that whoever comes to equity must come with clean hands. Having demonstrated our commitment to transparency and a more open legislature, we will be operating on a higher moral ground in carrying out our oversight duties as prescribed by the constitution.We need to simplify our bureaucracy and administrative procedures. Because it is in the complexity and red-tapes that corrupt officials profit. However, I also strongly suspect, while not justifying anything, that majority of these low level corruption are largely powered more by need even more than greed.If we are able to build a quality public education system, especially at the basic and secondary level, which would not require parent to pay through their nose for their childrens education; if we are able to build an efficient public health system that provide insurance covers to ordinary citizens so that when they fall sick, they can access quality healthcare without running from pillar to post looking for money; if we are able to build a system that guarantees food and shelter to everyone; if we are able to do all these, we would have gone a long way in removing much of the driving force for corruption at this level.On the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. It is important to note that the year-on-year report does not fully reflect or account for the progress being made in the fight against corruption. I believe the key challenge here is also because perception is largely subjective while relying on perception, I think it is important for TI and other such organisations to improve on their methodology by developing more robust parameters that reflect the progress that some countries are making in respect to corruption.
The Chief Medical Director, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Prof Akeem Lasisi, has testified that the late senator representing Osun-West senatorial district, Chief Isiaka Adeleke, died of an overdose of banned injections.Testifying before a coroner, Mr Olusegun Ayilara, in Osogbo, on Monday, Lasisi, who spoke from the witness box, said the Chief Medical Director of Biket Hospital, Osogbo, Dr Adebisi Adenle, called him on the telephone on April 23 to tell him that Adeleke had died.Lasisi, who said he saw Adelekes corpse on a table at LAUTECHs morgue, added that a pathologist, one Dr Solaja; two resident doctors, who are also pathologists; the Officer in Charge of Homicide, Osun State Police Command; Divisional Police Officer, Dugbe Police Station, Osogbo; and the Consultant Pathologist, LAUTECH, were all present when an autopsy was carried out on Adeleke.The CMD told the court that one of the aides of the late senator told him that the deceased complained of leg pain and somebody treated him.Lasisi said the aide told him that the person, who treated Adeleke was not a doctor but could not say if he was a nurse.The CMD stated that the aide mentioned the names of the various injections administered on him before his death and the aide (in company with other aides) was asked to go and bring them.The CMD stated that he did not ask for the name of the person who treated Adeleke but he wanted to know what was administered and the competence of the person that administered the drugs.He said among the injections given to Adeleke was Analgin, which he said was outlawed when the late Prof Dora Akunyili was the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.He said, I saw the corpse. Before any process of examination of any diagnosis in medicine, there is what we call history before examination. So, we asked for the person who knew the conditions surrounding the death of the senator. So, the family pointed to one of the aides and the aide said he (Adeleke) was active the previous day and he came at midnight and started complaining of leg pain. So, they sent for somebody who came to give him injections.I asked clearly the medical status of the person that administered the injections. I asked, Is the person a doctor? but he said no. Is he a nurse?, he said he didnt know but the person was a face they were used to.He mentioned various injections, so at that point I asked him if could lay his hands on the empty ampoules of the injections. The family members went home to get them. The injections were five per cent dextrose. We saw empty sachets; it was like a fluid and with it, we saw an intravenous fluid-giving set and scalp vein needle. We saw that empty. We saw two ampoules of Analgin, four ampoules of valium (diazepam)  10ml each making 40 milligrammes, one ampoule of pentazocine, one ampoule of gentamicin and two ampoules of hydrocortisone.All of these were empty and his aide said these were what he was given. He also added that after he had been given, he (Adeleke) called him that he doesnt want to entertain any visitor and he went to sleep. He (the aide) said he later went back to check him and saw that the senators eyes were wide open but he wasnt breathing.The CMD added that diazepam sedates and tranquilises when given in moderate dosage but said it could knock off reflexes if given in the type of dosage Adeleke was given and could eventually lead to death.He explained that pentazocine was capable of killing bad pain but it was usually advised not to be given to patients intravenously but through intra-muscular injection.He stated that if the injection would be given intravenously at all, it should be given at a facility where the patient could be resuscitated with artificial oxygen in case his breathing stopped.Analgin has been outlawed since the days of Dora Akunyili in NAFDAC. So, I dont know where they got it from. They were given in excess dosage, he said.Also the Osun State Deputy Governor, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori, in her testimony before the coroner, said Adeleke hesitated before he ate three spoonfuls of rice at a funeral ceremony in Osun State, a day before he died.Adeleke and the deputy governor were among the dignitaries, who attended the funeral of the mother of the Chairman, All Progressives Congress in Osun-West senatorial district, Mr Yinusa Amobi, at Kuta, Osun State, on April 22. The senator died the following morning.She told the coroner that she waived her immunity to personally appear before the coroner because of the importance she attached to the probe and to state what she knew about the moment she spent together with Adeleke and others at a social function on Saturday, April 22.Laoye-Tomori stated that she shunned the special chair prepared for her and chose to sit close to Adeleke because the deceased demonstrated an uncommon humility by coming to welcome her beside her vehicle when she arrived at the venue of the ceremony.The deputy governor told the coroner that Adeleke was served rice in an uncovered plate and the rice had no fish or meat and he was hesitant to eat.She said, A woman brought a plate of rice. There was fried rice, a mixture of jollof and white rice. There was no protein in it, that is, there was neither meat nor fish and the food was not covered. I was wondering why a man of his status would be served food not covered but I dont know whether he was already eating the food before I arrived there or not.The senator was using his spoon to turn the rice and he was hesitant to eat it. I said jokingly,  Your Excellency, why dont you ask them to take the food away if you dont want to eat it? And he said, Se tori wipe kosi eran lori e? (Is it because there is no meat on it?).He said that woman brought a bowl of fish but these people you are seeing ate everything and left nothing for me. He then took his fork and stretched his hand to take a piece of fried fish from someone sitting close to him but his fork couldnt pick it because the fish was fried.He took just three spoons and pushed the food aside. He was full of life and was cracking jokes. A gentleman seating on his right side brought out a drink from his pouch.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Tuesday commended the immediate past administration of ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan f...

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Tuesday commended the immediate past administration of ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan for embarking on massive projects that have been beneficial to Nigerians.

Speaking at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja, the former Rivers State governor said his Ministry did not meet any comatose project on assumption of office.





He said the President Muhammadu Buharis administration continued the projects of the previous administration because We realised the impact of the recession.





Amaechi noted that the Kaduna-Abuja railway was nearly 80% completed by the Jonathans administration.





He said, In the ministry of transportation, we did not meet anything comatose. We met an attempt to bring back our rail services.

The Kaduna-Abuja railway was nearly 80% completed which we commissioned and commercial services have commenced.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Tuesday said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has a goo...

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Tuesday said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has a good story to tell on anti-corruption war and other agenda.Mohammed said the government had taken on corruption at its core in the last two years.He also said more treasury looters would be prosecuted and convicted very soon.The minister made the disclosures at the Special (10th) Edition of the Town Hall Meeting in Abuja following swipes from the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara on the governments anti-graft crusade.He said the present administration has a good story to tell on its agenda, especially the fight against corruption.He said: Let me say straightaway that in giving this mid-term report, I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this administration has a story to tell, a story of achievements that  if we are able to continue along this path  will stand the test of time and put our dear nation on the path of sustainable growth and development.We have taken on corruption at its core. There are more prosecutions and there will be more convictions for public sector corruption than Nigeria has ever seen.We have acted to address the leakages in government spending that make corruption possible. Through the zero- based budgeting and the Treasury Singles Account (TSA), the governments efficiency unit and the hugely successful whistle-blower policy.The minister said the government is waging the war against corruption because of its interest in the future prosperity of NigeriansHe added: At the same time, corruption levels in our society had become completely unacceptable. The brazenness and impunity of those involved, and the lack of accountability at all levels of society had to be addressed if we were to create the foundations for future prosperity.That future prosperity, for all Nigerians, was the overriding objective of the administration. We were, and remain, 100 per cent committed to delivering an economy that enables all Nigerians to achieve their ambitions, no matter how big, or small.Mohammed spoke on other achievements of the administration of President Buhari.He said: When President Buhari was inaugurated on May 29th 2015, he set out an ambitious agenda to take on the most pressing challenges our nation faces. It is important to remember the context of that speech, and the situation that we faced at that time.As he was speaking, Boko Haram was in control of a significant part of Nigerias North-East. In Borno State alone, Boko Haram occupied 24 out of the States 27 local councils. The territorial integrity of Nigeria was threatened. Our first and most pressing assignment, therefore, was to restore security to the nation.We have restored security to the North-East and ended the scourge of Boko Haram.We are addressing comprehensively the issues in the Niger Delta that make the production of our oil resources so vulnerable. We are restoring the sanctity of our judicial system and we are implementing an economic recovery and growth plan designed to reset our economy and remove our reliance on oil production, and oil revenues, forever.
President Muhammadu Buharis bid to get the National Assembly approval for the proposed $5.815 billion loan from China Exim Bank suffere...

President Muhammadu Buharis bid to get the National Assembly approval for the proposed $5.815 billion loan from China Exim Bank suffered setback in the Senate on Tuesday.The Federal Government plans to use the loan to execute several rail projects in the country.Following a motion by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South), the Senate resolved to invite the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to explain why Southeast corridor rail line was omitted from the areas covered by the proposed loan.The upper chamber, however, rejected a motion, urging the lawmakers to suspend consideration of the loan request pending correction of the oversight.The motion entitled: Outright Omission of Eastern Corridor Rail Line in the request for approval of Federal Governments 2016-2015 External Borrowing (Rolling Plan) was hotly debated on the floor of the Senate.Abaribe, in his lead debate, recalled that on April 26 the Federal Government laid before the National Assembly a request seeking an approval for a loan of $5,851 billion from China Exim Bank to execute the modernisation of Lagos-Kano, Kano-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Calabar rail segment.He observed with dismay that the project covers only the western corridor of the country.The Abia South lawmaker noted that the eastern section of the rail segment linking the Southeast to Northeast parts of the rail line is completely excluded from the request.Abaribe urged the Senate to invite Amaechi to come and explain the reasons for the exclusion of the Eastern corridor from the proposed loan from the Chinese bank.
MASON CITY | A Mason City woman allegedly caught with methamphetamine in her purse has been charged with felony possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

Mallorie E. Wolcott, 29, was riding a bicycle on South Monroe Avenue near West State Street shortly after 4 p.m. Friday when a Mason City police officer activated his siren and lights, according to the criminal complaint.

Wolcott allegedly refused to stop initially. When she did so, the officer found 9 grams of suspected meth in her purse, as well as a glass pipe with burnt residue inside, the complaint states.

Wolcott also was charged with misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and interference with official acts.

She was booked into the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $50,000 cash-only bond.

Wolcott was given a 10-year suspended prison sentence and put on probation for five years in May 2016 on a Cerro Gordo County conviction of methamphetamine delivery.

Nora Springs woman gets suspended sentence for meth MASON CITY | A Nora Springs woman was given a suspended 10-year prison sentence in Cerro Gor

A probation violation report was filed May 1 of this year and a warrant was issued for Wolcott.

She has a probation revocation hearing set for June 5.

-- Mary Pieper
The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, on Monday urged Nigerians to curse those looting Nigerias treasury three times daily. MURIC, in a stat...

The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, on Monday urged Nigerians to curse those looting Nigerias treasury three times daily.

MURIC, in a statement by its Director, Ishaq Akintola, likened looters to elephants while the Federal Government are ants and as such unemployed youths should rain curses on their oppressors.





The group urged the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government to adopt an unconventional method in its fight against corruption.

MURIC said, Looters have the elephant while FG has the ant. South Africa used the truth commission when it had a national crisis but it did not work when Nigeria adopted it because many powerful people refused to appear before the commission.

A drastic problem requires a drastic solution. So what else is the panacea to corruption in Nigeria?

We believe that it is time to adopt something unconventional; something we have never adopted before; something that costs government no money or effort at all; something revolutionary and mass-oriented; something local and scary and, above all, something in which every Nigerian has an emotional attachment.

MURIC charges the Nigerian masses to seize their destiny with their hands by mobilising their individual and collective prayer power.

Greatest Nigerian People! We must curse our oppressors three times daily.

Curse them in the morning as you rise from bed or from under the bridge if you are homeless. Curse them under the scorching sun as you trek up and down on empty stomachs. Curse them before you go to bed at night.

Curse them as you roll sleeplessly in bed. Curse them as you sweat profusely in bed when your fan is useless because they have stolen the money meant for electricity supply.

Curse them as your vehicle crawls on bad roads where you spend hours instead of minutes because they stole all the money allocated to the repair of roads.

Curse them as you wonder why you are still jobless despite graduating years ago.

Let us introduce self-curse mechanism at swearing-in ceremonies. We must suspend swearing by simply holding the Bible or the Quran. It has no effect on them. They are hardened thieves and die hard kleptomaniacs.

Let an appointee hold the Quran or Bible or anything he believes in and curse himself saying, for example, I, Lagbaja the son of akasegbe, if I betray the peoples trust, if I steal in this position, if I abuse my office or if I am unfair to others on ground of religion or ethnicity, let me be put to shame.

Let my children end up in the streets like the children of the poor. Let all the known and unknown diseases of this world afflict me and my children, like meningitis, ebola, lassa fever, cholera, etc. Let me sweat without reaping the fruit of my labourIn Allahs Mighty Name I swear

It also accused the National Assembly of being the stumbling block in the fight against corruption.

Knowing the slow nature of judicial cases in Nigeria and over-loaded with stolen money, the foot soldiers of corruption have calculated that corruption cases will continue to drag for the next eight years even if Buhari wins a second term. this is why they are feeling comfortable and laughing at the masses.

Who will misbehave after this kind of swearing-in? Who is the son of a killer of elephants in the presence of a licensed killer of men? the group asked.

Politicians will become sober. In fact many of them will retire and only the serious ones will remain in the political arena.

The vultures in the NASS will go back to their various private businesses, leaving the seats open for young, patriotic and visionary Nigerians.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday urged Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos to withdra...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday urged Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos to withdraw from the trial of two Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) employees accused of receiving bribe.Christian Nwosu and Tijani Inda Bashir were accused of receiving N30 million bribe from former Petroleum Minister Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke to rig the 2015 general election results.They were arraigned along with Yisa Adedoyin, who pleaded guilty to receiving cash payment of N70,050,000.00 from Mrs. Alison-Madueke.Mrs. Alison-Madueke is also named in the charge, but is said to be at large.Adedoyin was convicted following a plea bargain with EFCC in which he agreed to pay a fine of N10 million and forfeit his illicitly-acquired assets.Nwosu pleaded guilty at first and entered a plea bargain with EFCC. But Justice Idris rejected the agreement on the basis that it was not severe enough.It was agreed that Nwosu would forfeit the assets he acquired with the bribe money and pay N500,000 fine.After rejecting the plea bargain agreement, Justice Idris gave Nwosu the option of changing his plea to not guilty or accepting a heavier sentence, including N10 million fine as provided in the law.When the defendants were re-arraigned, Nwosu changed his plea to not guilty.Yesterday, EFCCs lawyer Rotimi Oyedepo said based on Section 270 (15) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, the judge ought to return the case-file for re-assignment.The section reads: Where the defendant has been informed of the heavier sentence, the defendant maywithdraw from his plea agreement, in which event the trial shall proceed de novo before another judge or magistrate, as the case may be.Oyedepo said should the trial continue before Justice Idris, the judge could later be accused of bias and violating the law.I urge my lord to remit the case to the Chief Judge for re-assignment to another judge, the prosecutor said.But, Nwosus lawyer, Victor Opara, said since the judge had rejected the plea bargain agreement, it amounts to there being no plea bargain.Besides, he said Nwosu had pleaded not guilty to a new charge, adding that transferring the case to a new judge would be a waste of time.Opara undertook not to raise the issue of bias at any point in the proceedings, including on appeal.Justice Idris adjourned till May 24 for ruling.
Three female suicide bombers have attacked a herding community in northeast Nigeria, killing two people and injuring seven others, according to a village elder and a civilian militia member.Ali Musa said the trio, believed to have been sent by Boko Haram jihadists, struck at Shuwari Buri village, 38 kilometres from Maiduguri at around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Monday.Two of them rushed into a thatched hut and detonated their explosives, killing two brothers who had retired for the night, he added.The third bomber detonated her explosives among residents who had gathered  injuring seven.The three bombers had earlier told villagers they were travellers and asked them for accommodation for the night. But they were refused on security grounds.Ibrahim Liman, a member of the civilian militia assisting the military with security, gave an identical account.Shuwari Buri is in the Konduga area, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) south-east of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings and gun attacks.Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets including mosques, schools, markets and bus stations.Many of the bombers have been women and young girls.The phenomenon has increased as the Islamist militants lost captured territory to the military due to a sustained counter-insurgency that began in early 2015.The rebels push for a hardline Islamic state in the region has left at least 20,000 people dead in Nigeria alone and displaced more than 2.6 million others.Civilians are still facing the fall-out from the conflict: 5.1 million people are severely food insecure and dependent on handouts from aid agencies.
Following the raid carried out by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on the farmland belonging to former Chief of Defence ...

Following the raid carried out by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on the farmland belonging to former Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, Air Chief Marshal, Alex Badeh, in Kugwuru village, Karu, Nasarawa state, here is the detail and images of how the raid was carried out.

It was gathered that operatives of the anti-graft agency, following a tip-off, broke into Badehs room, ransacked the ceiling of the farmhouse and even went into underground septic tanks in search of money they claimed he had hidden on the farm.

It was gathered that in the process of the raid, an operative got stuck in the septic tank but was rescued by the former CDS domestic staff.

In a letter addressed to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Abubakar Malami, Counsel to Badeh, Akin Olujimi alleged that the operatives even threatened to shoot some of Badehs domestic staff if they refused to cooperate by revealing to them where the ex CDS hid the money.

Olujimi, in the letter urged the AGF to address the continuous harassment, threat to life and vandalization of property by security operatives.

According to the letter, the search was carried out by a set of plain clothes operatives who cut open the wired fence, entered through it with their Hilux van and forced the farm manager to open the gate for their bus to gain access.

They were said to have lined up everybody in the farm and threatened to shoot them if they do not cooperate by telling them where the ex CDS hid the money.

They said they came with information that money was hidden near the underground sewage tank. They later identified themselves to be EFCC operatives but failed to provide any search warrants.

It is on the back of these events that our client has considered it pertinent that we bring the matter to your notice the actions of the operatives which we do not believe were authorized by you. Their actions are patently illegal and they constitute a breach of our clients constitutionally guaranteed human rights.

May whatever arm of the security operatives involved in these nocturnal invasions, be directed to put a stop to the harassments of our client. They had done it on some occasions in the past.

This renewal of the harassment has alerted our client to the need to cry out for protection. Let nobody plant anything illegal on our clients farm or his house and then turn around to claim that they found any such thing in his farm or house.
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said that he will dump the Peoples Democratic Party if the Supreme Court ruling does not fav...

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said that he will dump the Peoples Democratic Party if the Supreme Court ruling does not favour the Makarfi-led caretakercommittee in the leadership face-off with Sherrif.According to a media report by Channels TV, Fayose said this to newsmen on Tuesday while reacting to media reports that he had removed the name and logo of the PDP from his campaign office and mini signposts mounted on Ado and Ikere-Ekiti roads.Fayose, however, stated that he remains a bona fide member of the PDP until the outcome of the court ruling.Despite reconciliation efforts, the governor has stated several times that he does not recognise Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the partys leader.On February 17, a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt had ruled that the caretaker committee headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi was illegal and could not act on behalf of the PDP.Meanwhile, the governor also met with youths in the state where he called for more support for his administration and enjoined them to come out en masse on May 19 to honor the late former Governor of the Southwest region, Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo.
Candidates seeking to sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, on Monday were disappointed as students of the school prevented them from gaining access to the two centres located within the university.According to reports, these were the only centres in Ogbomoso.This is just as the Head, Public Affairs, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Mr. Fabian Benjamin, said that the candidates were likely to sit for the examination in Ilorin, Kwara State.It was learnt that students of the institution had, as early as 7am, barricaded the gates of the university, vowing that the UTME would not hold until academic activities in the school resumed. The students also prevented teaching and non-teaching staff of the institution from entering the schoolEfforts to speak to the school registrar, Jacob Agboola, was not successful but a member of staff of the school, who did not want his name in print because he is not authorised to speak on behalf of the management, said the authority of the school had a meeting with JAMB officials where an alternative was decided.He said, After the students refused to open the gates, the school authority had a meeting with JAMB officials for a long time. Several alternatives were weighed before it was decided that todays (Monday) batches of candidates will have to be joined with Tuesdays batches. However, they have to use an alternative venue because we do not want anything to happen to the candidates. We want to try as much as possible to manage this situation so that it will not degenerate into violence.Speaking to one of our correspondents, Benjamin, however, said that JAMB did not cancel the centres.He said, We did not cancel the centres. Students of the university blocked the road and said they would not allow candidates to write the examination. There is no other centre in the town.We are rescheduling because this is not the fault of the candidates. Again we want to reiterate that we did not post any candidate outside his or her town of choice as expressed in their application, contrary to reports in some quarters. Candidates are always allowed to make a choice of examination town while we allocate centres within the town chosen by a candidate.Benjamin also denied the report that there were no closed-circuit televisions in centres. We deployed CCTV in all our centres. These are not so visible equipment but we deployed CCTV in all our centres, he said.One of the LAUTECH students, who preferred anonymity, told newsmen on the telephone that the students embarked on the action to draw attention of the two owner states to its poor condition.She said, The school was closed for several months and it took the bold step of the students who staged a protest at the Oyo State secretariat in Ibadan before the state government took an action. After resumption of activities in the school, the condition has remained the same.Locking the gate today against JAMB candidate was an opportunity to call on the two states to pay attention to the school. We have nothing against the candidates because we were in a similar position some years ago. Perhaps, what we are agitating for will one day benefit them and those who will come after them.
Lagos State Government yesterday disclosed that it has commenced installation of 13, 000 Closed Circuit Television, CCTV, cameras, aimed...

Lagos State Government yesterday disclosed that it has commenced installation of 13, 000 Closed Circuit Television, CCTV, cameras, aimed at boosting security in the state.The government explained that the installation would be in phases, saying, we have commenced installation of 300 in the first phase.Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr Olufemi Odubiyi, disclosed the number of CCTV cameras installed at the 2017 Ministerial Press briefing to mark the state governor, Akinwunmi Ambodes second year in office.He lamented that the government was forced to review the strategy for the installation of the CCTV cameras across the state, following scarcity and fluctuation of forex in the country. The government last year unveiled plans to install the CCTV cameras across the state.
The failure of the Department of State Services (DSS) to bring former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki to court today for his ongoing trial at the FCT High Court sitting in Maitama is a worrying development, his lawyer, Joseph Daudu (SAN) has said.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned Dasuki on a 19-counts charge bordering on money laundering and criminal breach of trust. He is accused alongside a former Director of Finance at the office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu, former Executive Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Aminu Baba-Kusa for alleged diversion of N13.6 billion.At the last sitting, the court ordered that irregularities discovered on the list of witnesses be corrected. The case was thus scheduled for the prosecution to call its second witness today.At the resumed hearing, EFCCs counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) told the court he was acting under the impression that Dasuki was within the court premises only for him to find out he was not even in court. He applied for the case to be stood down for one hour so he can make contact to ascertain the reason for Dasukis absence.Daudu while reacting to this application said he is not objecting because he is anxious to know why Dasuki was not brought to the court.However, the 2nd defendant's counsel, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) applied that the matter be adjourned till tomorrow since there is no certainty that Dasuki would be produced within the one hour requested by the prosecution. He said since the matter had already been fixed for today and tomorrow, it is better for the case to be adjourned.The trial judge, Justice Husseini Baba-Yusuf thereafter adjourned the matter till tomorrow.
The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has created 193, 469 jobs, with 40,429 direct and 153,040 indirect jobs, within the two years of President Muhammadu Buharis administration.The Minister, Mr Babatunde Fashola disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the Town Hall Meeting to celebrate the mid-term of President Buharis implementation of the economy recovery and road plan.According to him, the construction of roads, power project, housing project and macro impact on jobs is gradually increasing the purchasing power and money in the economy.In his accounts, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi said that the ministry has been able to save N53 billion from the ship building fund and through the rebranding of NIMASA. We believed that more fund can be gotten for the government, from the maritime sector and the president has approved a performance audit of the maritime sector. Part of the problem of the maritime is the fact that we have had issues with insecurity on our waterways and the president has approved a new security infrastructure that will reduce piracy, robbery in that sector.They were so many faculties of the maritime in universities when we came, we went about rebranding it and stop that contract award, that money was gotten from the ship `building fund, that fund are meant for Nigerians who built shipMaritime transportation are the one to access the fund to buy more vessels, we kept that money, we are saving it now, the last we had about it, we had saved N53 billion, he said.According to him, there is the need to save the country from corruption.Amaechi said that the ministry would introduce the single window which is between Nigerian Customs and Nigeria Ports Authority to move goods within 48 hours.He said that the ministry has awarded three contracts which are Lagos  Ibadan rail, Kano  Kaduna rail and Port Harcourt  Calabar, which were based on the loan collected from the China EXIM bank.The minister stated that China EXIM bank has approved $1.2 billion dollars, while the Federal Government has released its own counterpart funding for Lagos  Ibadan rail, which be completed in December 2018.Amaechi stated that work has started on Itakpe-Warri rail but the N60 billion allocated for the project was removed by the National Assembly, stating that if that was resolved, the work would be completed.
For the second year in a row, Nigeria is ranked the 13th least stable country in the world on the Fragile States Index, FSI, released by...

For the second year in a row, Nigeria is ranked the 13th least stable country in the world on the Fragile States Index, FSI, released by the Washington DC-based think-tank, Fund for Peace, FFP.The Index measures levels of stability in 178 countries and ranks them according to their vulnerability to threats from social, political, economic and demographic pressures.The 2017 FSI, released on Monday, is the 13th from FFP. Nigeria has been measured on the Index since it was first published in 2005 when the country was ranked 54, its highest position yet.This year, Nigeria outranks seven African countries viz South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Guinea, who are all considered less stable than Nigeria.Zimbabwe is co-ranked 13th with Nigeria and Ethiopia follows both countries as the 14th least stable country ion the world.
Nigerian state governors eager to have the $3.45 Billion second tranche of the London-Paris Club loan refund may have to wait longer tha...

The Federal Government is withholding the cash  no thanks to what is believed to be the mismanagement of the first tranche.The delay follows the ongoing probe of N19billion and $86.5million deducted by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) from the first tranche of N522.74billion.The Presidency is awaiting the outcome of the investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on the first release.The government is believed to have tactically attributed the delay in remitting the second tranche to the cash squeeze the country has been undergoing.But the governors are angry that some Presidency forces have influenced President Muhammadu Buhari to have a rethink on the second tranche.The President had on April 2, May 24 and May 31, 2016 met with the leadership of the NGF on the financial crisis affecting most of the states, especially non-payment of salaries and pensions.The governors demanded $6.9billion refund from the Federal Government to states and local governments for alleged over deduction for loans servicing.They also asked for refund of the money spent by the states on Federal Government projects.The President conceded to the governors on five conditions:The presidency is said to have realised that most of the governors have defaulted in the conditions attached to the release of the refund.The government is worried about the diversion of N19billion and $86million deducted for payment to consultants and legal advisers engaged by the NGF and some states.A government source, who spoke in confidence, said: The Buhari administration meant well. To show its commitment, it raised a Refund Committee comprising the Acting President, who is also Chairman of the Board of DMO and the Economic Council; Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari(the chief driver of the Refund Movement; The NGF chairman, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari (Co-Chief Driver of the Refund Movement); the DG of NGF, Mr. Asishana Okaru (Co-odinator of states); Suraj Yakubu (GSCL Consulting Limited) as consultant-in-Chief; Bizplus Consulting Limited, another Consultant, and Alhaji Sani Anani, the refund marketer.The committee came up with a template for the release of the first tranche of N522.74billion.But the security reports on how some governors misapplied the money have shocked the Presidency.Many states still owe workers unpaid salaries for as many as 10 months. In some states, pensions have accumulated for about 12 to 15 months. Instead, some governors have diverted the refunds to private use.The discovery of EFCC on how some of the loan refunds got into private hands made the government uncomfortable.According to the source, this is why the Federal Government has withheld the second tranche to the states.At a meeting with Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, the governors were said to have been angry that the second tranche was yet to be released.Asked why the government was keeping the governors in suspense on the second tranche of $3.45billion, the source said: most of the states did not meet the conditions for the release of the first tranche as they still owe some salary arrears.As I am talking to you, the reconciliation of claims by the Federal Government and the states is yet to be concluded. The government is being cautious to avoid overpayment to states, the source said, adding:More importantly, the EFCC is currently looking into some allegations on the mismanagement of N19billion and $86.5million paid into the accounts of the NGF for payment to consultants and legal advisers. Some consultants who were not hired have been paid while those who did the reconciliation jobs are denied their rights.The NGF said it will cooperate with the EFCC. We are awaiting the outcome of the investigation before remitting more refunds.We are delaying in effecting more refunds because we need to be circumspect. The governors are angry no doubt but there is no point allowing public funds to go into wrong hands.Some of the infractions noticeable in the management of the first tranche of the London-Paris Club loan refunds are as follows:
The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has dissociated himself and the group, from a certain Radio Biafra based in the United States.In a statement issued on Kanus behalf by his lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, he made it clear that Radio Biafra in London, remains the official voice of IPOB.He also said a reorganisation has been effected in the leadership of the group and urged IPOB members to observe the sit-at-home planned for May 30 this year peacefully.Part of the letter reads: Nnamdi Kanu remains the founder, and director of Radio Biafra London and accordingly Deputized by Mazi Uche Mefor. Radio Biafra London is the officially sanctioned channel of communication of IPOB, through which every information concerning the affairs of IPOB are disseminated. At the same time, all members of IPOB and the general public are hereby duly informed that the position of C.O.C (Coordinator of all Coordinators) overall, has been abolished following the recent reorganisation carried out by the leadership of IPOB worldwide.Henceforth any person parading himself with the title C.O.C should be regarded and treated as a criminal.Following this radical change in the structural setup of IPOB, the world Administrative Headquarters of IPOB is now situated in London and Germany respectively.The officers with the mandate of the leadership of IPOB and through whom the supreme leader Nnamdi Kanu speaks remains Radio Biafra London with satellite stations in South Africa, Malaysia, Germany and soon to be opened United State of America.The two persons appointed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as being responsible for communicating his thoughts and views to IPOB membership and the rest of the world remains Uche Mefor (the Deputy Leader of IPOB) and Mazi Chika Edoziem (the Head of the Directorate of State of the IPOB).All authority to issue directives rests with the Deputy Leader, Uche Mefor and Mazi Chika Edoziem. Any press release, announcement or communication purportedly issued by any other person other than the above-named principal officers or officers acting on their instruction are to be discountenanced and ignored by the general public.Above named officers of (IPOB) are the authorized representatives, appointed by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, at the helm of affairs of IPOB.Anybody transacting or relating with any other person, other than Uche Mefor and Chika Edoziem or those appointed by them are doing so at their own risk.
Former Central Bank of Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, and Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness, Muhammadu Sanusi II has said that there is not...

Former Central Bank of Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, and Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness, Muhammadu Sanusi II has said that there is nothing like Muslim North as those from Northern part of Nigeria could be called.





The Emir also noted that former President, Olusegun Obasanjo and a former INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu rigged the 2007 general election.

He said, We talk ethnicity when it pleases us. It is hypocrisy. You said elections were rigged in 1959, Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu rigged election in 2007. Was it a Southern thing? It was not. The problem is: everywhere in this country, there is one Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba and Itshekiri man whose concern is how to get his hands on the pile and how much he can steal.

Let me start by saying that I am Fulani (laughter). My grandfather was an Emir also Fulani my uncle and guardian who was also the immediate late Emir of kano Alhaji Ado Bayero and therefore I represent all that has been talked about this afternoon. Sir Ajayi has written a book. And like all Nigerians of his generation, he has written in the language of his generation.

My grandfather was a Northerner, I am a Nigerian. The problem with this country is that in 2009, we speak in the language of 1953. Sir Olaniwun can be forgiven for the way he spoke, but I cannot forgive people of my generation speaking in that language.

Let us go into this issue because there are so many myths that are being bandied around. Before colonialism, there was nothing like Northern Nigeria, Before the Sokoto Jihad, there was nothing like the Sokoto caliphate. The man from Kano regards himself as bakane. The man from Zaria was bazazzage. The man from Katsina was bakatsine. The kingdoms were at war with each other. They were Hausas, they were Muslims, they were killing each other.

The Yoruba were Ijebu, Owo, Ijesha, Akoko, Egba. When did they become one? When did the North become one? You have the Sokoto Caliphate that brought every person from Adamawa to Sokoto and said it is one kingdom. They now said it was a Muslim North.

The Colonialists came, put that together and said it is now called the Northern Nigeria. Do you know what happened? Our grandfathers were able to transform to being Northerners. We have not been able to transform to being Nigerians. The fault is ours.

Tell me, how many governors has South West produced after Awolowo that are role models of leadership? How many governors has the East produced like Nnamdi Azikiwe that can be role models of leadership? How Many governors in the Niger Delta are role models of leadership? Tell me. There is no evidence statistically that any part of this country has produced good leaders.

You talk about Babangida and the problems of our economy. Who were the people in charge of the economy during Babangida era? Olu Falae, Kalu Idika Kalu. What state are they from in the North?

We started the banking reform; the first thing I heard was that in Urhobo land, there will be a curse of the ancestors. I said they (ancestors) would not answer. They said why? I said how many factories did Ibru build in Urhobo land? So, why will the ancestors of the Urhobo people support her?

Whether it is in the military or in the civilian government, they sit down, they eat together. In fact, the constitution says there must be a minister from every state.

So, anybody that is still preaching that the problem of Nigeria is Yoruba or Hausa or Fulani, he does not love Nigeria. The problem with Nigeria is that a group of people from each and every ethnic tribe is very selfish. The poverty that is found in Maiduguri is even worse than any poverty that you find in any part of the South.

The British came for 60 years and Sir Ajayi talked about few numbers of graduates in the North (two as at independence). What he did not say was that there was a documented policy of the British when they came that the Northerner should not be educated. It was documented. It was British colonial policy. I have the document. I have published articles on it. That if you educate the Northerner you will produce progressive Muslim intellectuals of the type we have in Egypt and India. So, do not educate them. It was documented. And you say they love us (North) more than the south.

I have spent the better part of my life to fight and Dr. (Reuben) Abati knows it. Yes, my grandfather was an Emir. Why was I in the pro-democracy movement fighting for June 12? Is (Moshood) Abiola from Kano? Why am I a founding director of the Kudirat Initiative for Nigerian Development (KIND)?

There are good Yoruba people, good Igbo people, good Fulani people, good Nigerians and there are bad people everywhere. That is the truth. Stop talking about dividing Nigeria because we are not the most populous country in the world. We have all the resources that make it easy to make one united great Nigeria. It is better if we are united than to divide it.

Every time you talk about division when you restructure, do you know what will happen? In Delta Area, the people in Warri will say Agbor, you dont have oil. When was the Niger Delta constructed as a political entity? Ten years ago, the Itshekiris were fighting the Urhobos. Isnt that what was happening? Now they have become Niger Delta because they have found oil. After it will be, if you do not have oil in your village then you cannot share our resources.

There is no country in the world where resources are found in everybodys hamlet. But people have leaders and they said if you have this geography and if we are one state, then we have a responsibility for making sure that the people who belong to this country have a good nature.

So, why dont you talk about; we dont have the infrastructure, we dont have education, we dont have health. We are still talking about Fulani. Is it the Fulani cattle rearer or is anybody saying there is no poverty among the Fulani? he said.
On Sunday 14th May, troops of 233 Battalion, 27 Task Force Brigade, Nigerian Army, stationed at Forward Operation Base Potiskum in conjunct...

On Sunday 14th May, troops of 233 Battalion, 27 Task Force Brigade, Nigerian Army, stationed at Forward Operation Base Potiskum in conjunction with vigilantes, arrested a suspected notorious Boko Haram terrorist, Abubakar Adamu, aged 35 years, popularly called "Pepper" around New Prison area, Potiskum, Potiskum Local Government Area (LGA) of Yobe State.





Preliminary investigation shows that the suspected terrorist hailed from Yerimara village, Potiskum LGA and that he has participated in carrying out attacks and other terrorists activities in the north east.

Investigation is still ongoing.




Veteran Republican Senator John McCain on Tuesday slammed as deeply disturbing allegations that US President Donald Trump had shared t...

Veteran Republican Senator John McCain on Tuesday slammed as deeply disturbing allegations that US President Donald Trump had shared top secret intelligence about the Islamic State group with Russian officials.McCain  one of the presidents most outspoken critics in his own party and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee  added his voice to a growing chorus of alarm triggered by Mondays report in the Washington Post.The reports that the president shared sensitive intelligence with Russian officials are deeply disturbing, McCain said in a statement.Reports that this information was provided by a US ally and shared without its knowledge sends a troubling signal to Americas allies and partners around the world and may impair their willingness to share intelligence with us in the future.The Republican senator, who takes a hawkish line towards Moscow, regretted that the time president Trump spent sharing sensitive information with the Russians was time he did not spend focusing on Russias aggressive behaviour.McCain said that behaviour included interference in American and European elections, its illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, its other destabilising activities across Europe, and the slaughter of innocent civilians and targeting of hospitals in Syria.According to the Post, Trump revealed highly classified details of an IS terror threat during a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscows ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak.The information reportedly came from a US ally who had not authorised Washington to share it with Moscow.Trump hit back on Twitter early Tuesday, claiming the absolute right to share facts with Russia.But on Capitol Hill, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle voiced astonishment at the allegations.If the report is true, it is very disturbing, warned the top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.Revealing classified information at this level is extremely dangerous and puts at risk the lives of Americans and those who gather intelligence for our country.AFP
The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, has given a stern warning to army officials to stay off politics and politically related activ...

Mr. Buratai gave the order on Tuesday via a statement issued by the Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, a brigadier general.This is to inform the public that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Nigerian Army, has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts.Although Mr. Usman did not disclose the political reasons, military sources had revealed however that the Army hierarchy was disturbed by rumours of a coup being planned by junior officers.The concern may have informed Mr. Buratais decision to reshuffle the postings of top military generals last week.The rumours worsened following President Muhammadu Buharis recent sickness that saw him travelling to London for further treatment, weeks after he spent over 50 days in London for medical reasons. Like in his previous trip, the president wrote the National Assembly transferring powers to his deputy, Mr. Osinbajo.On Tuesday, the army chief warned all officers and soldiers interested in politics to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith.Any officer or soldier of Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conducts such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame, the army spokesperson said.Nigeria has witnessed 18 years of interrupted democracy after the last military government relinquished power in 1999. The country in 2015 also witnessed its first ever opposition victory which saw the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party losing presidential and parliamentary elections to the incumbent All Progressives Congress.Mr. Usman on Tuesday reiterated that the Nigerian Army will remain apolitical and respect the Nigerian constitution at all times.
The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN); and two civil society organisations  the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders and the Social-Economic Accountability Rights Project  have knocked Saraki for criticising the governments anti-corruption fight, describing it as inappropriate.The groups pointed out that Saraki was also part of the Federal Government that he criticised.The Chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran, on Monday, noted that Saraki was involved in several allegations of corruption, adding that it was not surprising that he had chosen to attack the anti-corruption agencies.He said, You have three arms of government and Saraki is the head of one of them. All the laws under which the Federal Government operates, emanate from the National Assembly. If any department of the government is failing, the Senate has oversight functions. If Saraki accuses the government of being sensational, he is part of the sensationalism.Also, because Saraki is psychologically involved in all the accusations, especially levelled by the EFCC, and the Code of Conduct Tribunal, you will expect that he will discredit the agencies bringing him to the fore. Also, because the executive has not risen to cover up the Senate members undergoing investigations, the Senate President will not be in good terms with the executive.The Senate President should be ashamed to say that a government, where he is number three, is sensational.Also, the Executive Director, SERAP, Adetokunbo Mumuni, said, The Senate President is entitled to his opinions, but he should concentrate on matters of legislation that will help the anti-corruption agencies to do better; not to deride them.What Saraki is saying is that the legislative arm of government is not on the same page with the executive as far as war against corruption is concerned. But Nigerians can judge; they know that the war against corruption has been different from what it used to be.Sagay faulted Saraki over his claims that the anti-graft agencies were involved in more of showmanship than investigation.Sagay said his committee had effectively advised the anti-graft agencies on how to gather evidence that would be acceptable in court.He said the main problem was that high-profile individuals had amassed satanic sums of money which could pervert the course of justice.Sagay added, My reaction to that is that in every endeavour being mounted against very powerful people, who have accumulated enough money, even more than the states, it is always going to be very tough. So, we will lose some (cases), learn from that and then improve.So, it is not showmanship. It is a tough struggle against the dark satanic forces that have run down the countrys economy and they are very powerful; so, it is a very tough struggle and we will carry on and we will get better and better with time.The PACAC chairman said following the advice of his committee, anti-graft agencies had begun to change their strategies which would yield positive results soon.Sagay added, We are teaching them not to have a sole investigator but a team who will work with the prosecutors so that the prosecutors can advise the investigator exactly what to look out for in terms of the ingredients constituting the offence; so, he doesnt just go on a wild goose chase and bring irrelevant evidence.The spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said the Senate President was entitled to his opinion.He is entitled to his opinion; so, there is nothing to respond to, Uwujaren said.
The Chairman, Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission, Mr. Muhuyi Magaji, says the agency has achieved 80 per cent success into the investigation of alleged misapplication of N6bn by the Kano Emirate Council.Magaji told the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in Abuja that the commission had also recorded a water-tight case against the emirate council over the allegations of financial misappropriation.We have also identified our primary suspect in the course of the investigation, he said, but declined to name the suspect, he said.However, he said that the commission suspended the probe to avoid a crisis of concurrent investigation with the state House of Assembly and possible litigation by interested parties.The chairman explained that the state legislature had taken over the case by constituting an eight-man committee to conduct a similar probe when the commission was on top of the situation.According to him, Section 16 of the law establishing the commission barred it from conducting further investigation into any matter pending before the state House of Assembly and the courts.Magaji cited the case of Rabiu Salisu and others before the Federal Court of Appeal in suit No: K/37/2016, and suit No: K/M/728/2015, involving Rabiu Ibrahim & Co financial institutions Vs the anti-graft agency to buttress the need for the suspension.He added that the commission had found out that all the monies allegedly spent were not appropriated for contrary to the Kano State Emirate Council Law 2004.The law required the council to prepare annual budgets and submit same for appropriation by the legislature.But our findings from the Ministry of Budget and Planning confirmed that the emirate council has annual overhead of N15m and no capital allocation even under Emir Sanusi, said the chairman.Meanwhile, he said that the commission had written the House of Assembly on the matter and would stay further action pending the response of the legislature.He, therefore, urged the public to appreciate the legal and extraneous constraints of the commission in suspending investigation into the alleged financial irregularities committed by the emirate council.
The Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) may be making history as first varsity workers in the country to hold elaborate ...

The Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB) may be making history as first varsity workers in the country to hold elaborate party following the suspension of their embattled Vice chancellor, Prof. Olusola Oyewole.The Federal Government last week suspended the Vice chancellor over series of petitions bothering on alleged maladministration and financial malpractices.Daily Trust reports that as at 11.00am the open grounds available have been occupied by both the Non-Academic union, the senior civil workers arm of the university and the association of technologists ready to throw the elaborate party separately.It was gathered that the reception party was jointly organized by the Joint Action Congress (JAC).The workers who appeared in gorgeous attire described the exit of the VC as a big relief to both students and staff, submitted that the suspension was worth celebrating.The chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU FUNAAB), Rotimi Fasuwon said Oyewoles exist is end to tyranny in FUNAAB. Honestly, we have every course to have this party. We experienced a period of authoritarian leadership that has never been in the over 20 years existence of this university.Part of this symbolic activity going on at the venue is the frying of akara which in Yoruba culture is done to celebrate the passage of a dead one.
CARLSTADT -- Driving through an industrial are of Carlstadt on Tuesday afternoon, one might not realize that a jet had crashed nearby less than a day ago.

Trucks continued their routes and the smell of smoke, so prominent a day earlier, was absent from the air.

And the wreckage of a Learjet that crashed into a parking lot, killing its pilot and co-pilot, about a quarter of a mile from Teterboro Airport, was largely hidden from public view.

On Tuesday, police blocked off Kero Road, where the crash occurred, to incoming cars, with a single police officer directing traffic.

The borough confirmed building inspectors were on-scene all day Tuesday and the inspectors did not immediately return a request for comment. The National Transportation Safety Board was also on-scene Tuesday leading the investigation.

The jet departed from Philadelphia International Airport and crashed at 3:30 p.m. as it was making its final approach to Teterboro Airport.

Officials have said that no injuries were reported on the ground.

The crash damaged 13 cars and three buildings at 99, 105 and 109 Kero Road, including the borough's public works building, which didn't sustain fire damage. The other two buildings sustained only exterior damage.

Records show 99 and 109 Kero Road contain a warehouse, a door supplier, a door manufacturer and a real estate agency. None immediately returned calls requesting comment.

A pre-recorded message from the door companies told customers to leave a message.

"We are closed today due to the recent plane accident in our neighborhood."

The area where the plane crashed is industrial, and is densely packed with businesses that need space for storage, or a large truck for transportation.

The area is so densely packed that buildings sit perfectly beside one another like puzzle pieces. And a business located on Kero Road, where the plane crashed, can abut a business that sits a short drive over on Commercial Avenue.

The arrangement proved convenient on Tuesday when officials used a lot on Commercial Avenue, undamaged by the crash and fire thereafter, to stage crews working the scene.

Rich Wolfin, 59, who owns a business near the crash site, heard what he sounded like two explosions on Monday. He says he assumed they were gas tanks from cars that were caught on fire.

When he walked outside, he could see a building and two poles on fire.

On Tuesday, as Wolfin pointed to where he said he saw flames, paces from his own business, he said he couldn't believe he didn't lose power or water -- not even the Internet went down.

Along Commercial Avenue, businesses are so close together, the plane could've easily crashed into a building -- or several of them, Wolfin said.

"It's horrible that two people died, but it really could've been much, much worse," Wolfin said.

The crash on Monday was the sixth major accident to take place at the Bergen County airport since 2005.

Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
Tanya Charlesworth thought Tuesday about how lucky she is -- and about the luck of many others.

A Learjet that crashed in Carlstadt on Monday as it approached a runway at nearby Teterboro Airport plummeted into the parking lot of the building next to where she works, erupting in a fireball that destroyed cars and damaged buildings.

"It's just fate that it didn't land on a building," she said.

The drowning sound of low-flying aircraft is a part of life for those who live and work in the area. But Monday's accident, which killed the pilot and co-pilot, was a reality-check that the nuisance could turn devastating in a flash.

"I always hear the planes going overhead, but I never thought about one crashing -- until now," Charlesworth said.

Many said they are frustrated that their complaints about the bourgeoning airport have been fruitless.

"Sure you're fearful, but what can you do," said Antonio Berardi of Little Ferry. "They're not going to do anything."

The airport's proximity to New York City makes it an attractive airfield for celebrities, jet setters and businesses.

"It just gets bigger and bigger," Berardi said.

Bryan Watson of Lodi, who works at a small hand tool company off Moonachie Road, said he has a constant fear of the planes that whiz by.

"They sound so low sometimes," he said. "The building vibrates."

Steve, a PSE&G worker who declined to give his last name, said he sat on the tailgate of his truck Monday and noticed that the approaching planes were "banking hard because of the wind."

He said he's worked in the area for six months and has observed that strong winds affect the landing route.

"They were all jockeying in the wind," he said, using his hand to show a side to side movement.

The frustration about the increased traffic and larger planes coming in and out of Teterboro Airport is a big issue for those who live in its shadow.

On Union Street, amidst a collection of well-cared for homes in Moonachie, homeowners find themselves at the end of a runway.

Janeede Salameh has been trying to sell her home of 30 years for about six months. She's lowered the price, but still has no takers.

"I watch a movie and I can't hear as the plane passes," she said. "But I'm used to it."

One newlywed couple, who loved the house, backed out on the advice of their parents, Salameh said.

"I'm scared, of course," she said of living in the flight path. "Everybody complains but nobody listens."

Marianne Mastbeth stopped Tuesday morning at the unoccupied rental home her family owns, across from Salameh on Union Street. The modest three-bedroom, with its master bedroom on the top floor, is where her mother-in-law grew up.

It has been empty since January. And they've all but given up on the idea of finding a renter.

"When the planes go by, you can look up and wave at the pilot," she said. They can sometimes smell the jet fuel during a flyover, she said.

Every time the Mastbeths show the home to a potential renter, they pray it's not a high-traffic hour for planes.

"They ask how many times a day does that happen," Mastbeth said, a question she just can't answer.

Since they can't find a renter, Mastbeth's daughter will likely live there, and her concerns have now gone from the noise to what if a crash happens.

"You put it out of your mind until it happens," she said. "It's kinda scary.

Closer to the crash site, employees returned to their jobs on Tuesday, some still shaken by the prospect of a plane falling out of the sky.

Jeremy Seol, 37, was taking a break from work Monday when he looked up and saw a plane flying too low and turning in the air.

He said he saw the plane turn belly-up before it crashed, which ended with a "boom, a big boom."

"I do worry, because I have kids. I will definitely think of this the next time I am on a plane," Seol said.

The crash on Monday was the sixth major accident to take place at the Bergen County airport since 2005.

Just last week, a colleague joked to Christian Rodriguez, 38, who works nearby, about whether he had ever considered whether a plane could fall out of the sky.

"'A plane falling out of the sky, are you crazy?'" Rodriguez recalled saying. "It was pretty crazy. It is so close to the airport, but then again, what are your odds of getting in a car crash?"

Rich Wolfin, 59, who owns a business near the crash site, also saw smoke after he walked outside.

"It's horrible that two people died, but it really could've been much, much worse," Wolfin said.

Officials said the fire damaged 13 cars and three buildings at 99, 105 and 109 Kero Road, including the public works building, which didn't sustain fire damage. The other two have exterior damage.

The NTSB was at the scene of the crash on Tuesday, and were expected to release more information at a 4 p.m. news conference.

Staff Writer Sara Jerde contributed to this story.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
MOONACHIE - A senior investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board says a plane preparing to land at Teterboro Airport Monday was on a routine flight from Philadelphia until the last few moments, when it inexplicably went "out of control" and crashed, killing two people.

"There wasn't anything out of the ordinary up until then," said Jim Silliman, an NTSB investigator. "But it would appear that the aircraft, at that last moment, was out of control. Why it got there is the subject of our investigation."

The Learjet 35, a twin-engine jet often used for business or personal travel, glanced off a building and crashed at 3:30 p.m. into a parking lot near the Carlstadt Department of Public Works on Kero Road. The plane exploded, setting fire to three buildings and more than a dozen vehicles.

There were no injuries on the ground.

The accident scene is about one-quarter mile from the airport.

Silliman said during a press conference in Moonachie the plane was on a final approach to land on Runway 1 at Teterboro Airport and that communications between the pilot and air-traffic controllers was normal.

But security video obtained by the NTSB from businesses show the plane turning sharp right with its wing low and nose down as it explodes into the ground in a parking lot on Kero Road.

Jim Silliman, a senior investigator with the NTSB, speaks with reporters on Tuesday about the fatal crash of a Learjet. (Anthony G. Attrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Wreckage scattered over an area 440-feet by 100-feet, Silliman said. An entire block was cordoned off to the public Tuesday.

A cockpit voice recorder was recovered from the wreckage and is being shipped to NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C., Silliman said.

"This aircraft was not required to have a flight data recorder, so we do not have that," Silliman said. "We are fortunate that the aircraft did have a cockpit voice recorder."

Silliman said the remains of the aircraft and its engines will soon be moved to a "secure location for further examination."

"We will also gather information on the pilots' records, the aircraft maintenance records and the weather at the time of the accident," he said.

Silliman said winds on Monday afternoon were at 16 knots with gusts of more than 30 mph.

"The air traffic controllers tried to get the aircraft into the wind as much as possible so there's no crosswind and that the gusts would not be a problem," Silliman said. "However, there's only so much they can do."

Silliman pointed out that other pilots navigated Monday's winds without a problem.

"Pilots in the area were dealing with the same winds - not just this airport, but at all airports in this Northeast region," he said.

The names of the pilot and co-pilot were not released because a medical examiner is attempting to confirm their identities, Silliman said.

The aircraft was built in 1981. It is registered to A&C Big Sky Aviation LLC in Billings, Montana, according to FAA records.

The aircraft was being flown by Trans-Pacific Jets, a charter aircraft company based in Honolulu, the jet's owner said in an interview with Bloomberg. Chandra Hanson of Billings, Montana, told Bloomberg she owns the plane with her husband Brad. The Hansons fly on the aircraft, which is based in Salt Lake City, and allow it to be flown for hire when it's not in use, according to Bloomberg.

The initial investigation is expected to last three or four days, Silliman said.

The NTSB could take 12-18 months to determine a cause for the accident.

"There are numerous things we'll be looking at and that's why we have to take a very step-by-step approach," Silliman said. "We can't overlook anything because there are a lot of possibilities."

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
TETERBORO -- Officials at a press conference Monday night confirmed that the two occupants of a small jet aircraft were killed when it crashed as it was coming in for a landing at Teterboro Airport earlier that day.

The victims had yet to be identified, authorities also said.

"Our hearts and prayers go out to the families," Mayor Craig J. Lahullier said.

The Learjet 35, bound for Teterboro from Philadelphia, crashed into an industrial area of Carlstadt on Kero Road around 3:30 p.m. while making its final approach to the airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Monday's crash is the most serious since 2009, when a twin-engine plane carrying blood specimens crashed in a parking lot on approach to the airport, fatally injuring the pilot. Four years prior, 13 passengers were injured when a Chicago-bound jet skidded off a runway into a warehouse as it tried to take off.

Asked about safety at the airport, Bergen County Executive James Tedesco said "I will say this is one of the safest airports in the country and hundreds of flights go into and out of there."

"There's risks with everything," he later said.

Members of a local activist group, however, said Monday's crash underscores their own concerns about the planes constantly buzzing over the densely populated towns of south Bergen County.

"It confirms the fears we live with on a daily basis," said Kristen Frendak, a member of Concerned Residents Along Flight Path of Teterboro (CRAFT).

Frendak said the planes using Teterboro have increased in frequency, have grown larger and are flying lower.

"That's ultimately the biggest fear -- that something like this could have happened in our homes, in our towns, in our downtowns," said Maggie McGill, another CRAFT member.

Deputy Chief of Police Tom Berta said three buildings -- 109, 105 and 99 Kero Road -- were damaged by the crash, including the public works building, which did not sustain any fire damage. The other two buildings suffered exterior damage but the interiors were "unscathed." Thirteen vehicles were also damaged.

Authorities said investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will be arriving Tuesday to take over the investigation, and will control all further releases of information.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CAMDEN -- What is said to be the world's largest indoor farm is expected to open its doors in Camden next year, thanks to a tax break from the state.

Aerofarms LLC, a Newark-headquartered company that builds sustainable, efficient farms around the globe, plans to open its 10th facility, a 78,000-square-foot vertical farm, at 1535 Broadway in Camden.

The addition comes after the state Economic Development Authority announced Thursday that Aerofarms will receive $11.14 million in tax incentives over 10 years to build the farm in Camden. The facility is expected to create 56 new jobs in the area, according to documents from the agency.

That makes Aerofarms just one of several companies, including Subaru and Holtec, that have received incentives to relocate to the city as authorities look for ways to revitalize the area.

"We probably would not have made the move to Camden -- at least not now -- without the [Grow New Jersey] tax grant," David Rosenberg, the company's founder and CEO, told Philly.com.

Aerofarm's vertical spaces and aeroponics growing technologies allow them to grow produce efficiently, using up to 95 percent less water than traditional agriculture methods while still seeing yields that are 130 times higher per square foot each year, according to the company's site. The hydroponic method uses a mist to provide plants with nutrients and water they need to grow in the smaller urban spaces.

But starting and maintaining the spaces often proves pricey. Aerofarms has yet to make a profit, and relies on investors, including Goldman Sachs and Prudential, to continue its operations. Rosenberg told The Wall Street Journal that he believes the Newark farm, which boasts 70,000 square feet of growing space, will help the company turn that corner in coming months.

The farms, which supply produce to stores from Delaware to Connecticut, will become increasingly important as urban areas become more dense and the population continues to grow, urban farming advocates say. Rosenberg told The Wall Street Journal he hopes to see the farms in cities around the world as the company expands.

But for now, New Jersey officials are glad to see the future of farming take off across the state.

"By 2050 there will be 9 billion people who need to eat every day," Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno said during the 2015 groundbreaking of the Newark farm. "And the solution is right here on the property you're standing on."

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amahoover. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NEW BRUNSWICK -- A Rutgers University professor accused of using public resources to wage a personal smear campaign against charter schools has been cleared of wrongdoing following a university ethics probe.

Rutgers's office of ethics found no evidence to support allegations against Julia Sass Rubin, an associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, according to university documents obtained by NJ Advance Media.

An outspoken education activist, Sass Rubin was accused by the New Jersey Charter Schools Association of publishing her personal views as Rutgers' research in a 2015 report. That analysis, which Sass Rubin co-authored, found some charter schools enroll a lower percentage of low-income and special education students than the school districts in which they are located.

Sass Rubin, a professor of public policy, was also accused of using her title as a Rutgers professor when speaking out at public events as a member of Save Our School NJ, an influential parent group that has been critical of charter schools.

The charter schools association, a nonprofit that advocates for the state's charter schools, filed its initial complaint with The State Ethics Commission in Trenton.The SEC transferred the complaint to Rutgers.

A university ethics violation occurs only if Rutgers research is used for "inappropriate private advantage," which Sass Rubin's research was not, the university's ethics office found.

Sass Rubin called the complaint an attack on her academic freedom and freedom of speech.

The New Jersey Charter Schools Association has not yet seen results of the probe and declined to comment on the results.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
BLOOMFIELD -- Add Bloomfield College to the list of New Jersey schools questioning the value of standardized tests.

The small, private college will no longer require prospective freshmen to submit SAT or ACT scores with their applications, school officials announced Tuesday.

"Rather than continue to insist that all applicants take one or more standardized tests, we will evaluate students on the other criteria. Our goal is to identify those capable of having a successful college career, rather than place barriers to admission in their path," said Richard Levao, Bloomfield College's president.

Applicants will be evaluated based on their high school grade point average, recommendations, writing skills and other achievements, college administrators said. Some applicants may be asked to submit other materials or come in for an interview.

Bloomfield College joins a growing list of colleges and universities around the nation going SAT-optional. Drew and Montclair State universities are among the New Jersey schools that have no longer require SAT scores with applications.

The SAT has been criticized for being biased against low-income and minority students who can not afford prep classes to prepare for the test. That was one of the factors officials at Bloomfield College considered when making the test optional.

Bloomfield College has long had a reputation for welcoming low-income and minority students who might not be able to afford or get into other area colleges.

"By going test-optional, we can expand our access mission to exceptional students with limitless academic potential but maybe without the means to afford pricey test preparation courses," said Adam Castro, Bloomfield College's vice president for enrollment management.

The College Board, which oversees the SAT, recently began offering free SAT prep through the Khan Academy to help students of all incomes do better on the test.

"On the new SAT, it's easier than ever for students to show their best work. Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy is free and personalized, and we see students achieving substantial score gains," College Board President David Coleman said last month.

At Bloomfield College, the SAT-optional policy will start with students applying for the Fall 2018 freshman class. Some students may still be required to submit SAT or ACT scores for scholarships and other programs, college officials said.

The 2,000-student college currently charges $29,300 tuition annually for undergraduates before room and board are added to the bill. However, nearly all of the school's incoming freshmen receive financial aid, according to campus statistics.

In 2015, Bloomfield College accepted 60 percent of those who applied, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The average SAT score of enrolled first-time students ranged from 770 to 950 (out of a possible 1,600).

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.
(Matt Rainey | Star-Ledger file photo)

By Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Education is not cheap. There are teacher salaries and benefits, classroom support, books and supplies, administrative salaries and building construction and maintenance.

New Jersey school districts last year spent on average $20,385 per student to educate their students. Statewide, per-pupil costs ranged from a high of $60,129 in one small district, to $10,181 for a Jersey City charter school with 310 students.

In some of the state's regional vocational schools, per pupil spending last year was as high as $35,568. New Jersey's 21 vocational-technical districts are county-run districts with schools teaching traditional vocational subjects, including auto repair and cosmetology. Many of the vo-tech districts, including Bergen, Union and Middlesex, also include specialized high schools that require entrance exams for admission and are designed for the county's highest-achieving students.

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(Star-Ledger file photo)

The statewide picture

While charter schools, which receive funding on a per-student basis from the districts students leave, dominate the list of schools that spend the least, they were not uniformly cheaper. A New Brunswick charter school with 386 students reported per-pupil costs of $35,981.

The numbers come from the state's annual Taxpayers's Guide to Education Spending, which is intended to provide a comparison of all money spent on the students enrolled in the public school system, including transportation, equipment, total food services, judgments against the school district, and tuition/costs for students sent out of district (except payments to charter schools).

Also included in the total cost are pension payments the state makes on behalf of school districts and tuition and fees districts paid to send students to other schools.

Here are the 50 most expensive school districts in New Jersey:

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50: Tewksbury | $25,779

Grades: K-8

County: Hunterdon

Average daily enrollment: 602

Revenue Sources: State: 18.3% | Local Taxes: 80.6% | Federal: 1% | Tuition: 0.2%

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49: South Hackensack | $25,830

Grades: K-8

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 357

Revenue Sources: State: 11.3% | Local Taxes: 87.1% | Federal: 1.5% | Tuition: 0.1%

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48: Passaic County Vocational | $25,892

Grades: County Vocational



County: Passaic

Average daily enrollment: 3,331

Revenue Sources: State: 31.9% | Local Taxes: 13% | Federal: 4.1% | Tuition: 43.9% | Use of Fund Balance: 4.8% | Other: 2.3%

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47: Princeton | $25,902

Grades: K-12

County: Mercer

Average daily enrollment: 3,590

Revenue Sources: State: 16.1% | Local Taxes: 75.3% | Federal: 1.5% | Tuition: 5.5% | Use of Fund Balance: 0.1% | Other: 1.5%

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46: Neptune Township | $25,920

Grades: K-12

County : Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 4,395

Revenue Sources: State: 60.7% | Local Taxes: 32.1% | Federal: 2.4% | Tuition: 4.8%

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(Star-Ledger file photo)

45: Deal | $26,080

Grades: K-8

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 167

Revenue Sources: State: 53.8% | Local Taxes: 44.5% | Federal: 1.7%

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44: Red Bank Regional | $26,120

Grades: 9-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 1,205

Revenue Sources: State: 15.6% | Taxes: 70.6% | Federal: 1.7% | Tuition: 12.1%

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43: Pascack Valley Regional | $26,143

Grades: 9-12

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 2,093

Revenue Sources: State: 13.9% | Local Taxes: 84% | Federal: 0.9% | Tuition: 1.1% | Other: 0.1%

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42: Brigantine | $26,176

Grades: K-8

County: Atlantic

Average daily enrollment: 811

Revenue Sources: State: 21.2% | Local Taxes: 75.6% | Federal: 2.5% | Other: 0.7%

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41: Mountain Lakes | $26,265

Grades: K-12

County: Morris

Average daily enrollment: 1,548

Revenue Sources: State: 14.9% | Local Taxes: 52.2% | Federal: 0.8% | Tuition: 32.2%

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(Star-Ledger file photo)

40: Morris Hills Regional | $26,415

Grades: 9-12

County: Morris

Average daily enrollment: 2,786

Revenue Sources: State: 22% | Local Taxes: 76.8% | Federal: 1% | Tuition: 0.3%

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39: Califon | $26,452

Grades: K-8

County: Hunterdon

Average daily enrollment: 110

Revenue Sources: State: 20.1% | Local Taxes: 77.5% | Federal: 1.6% | Tuition: 0.8%

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38: Lakewood | $26,477

Grades: K-12

County: Ocean

Average daily enrollment: 6,262

Revenue Sources: State: 32.8% | Local Taxes: 51.9% | Federal: 12.7% | Other: 2.6%

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37: Teaneck | $26,486

Grades: K-12

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 3,717

Revenue Sources: State: 15.6% | Local Taxes: 82.6% | Federal: 1.7% | Tuition: 0.1%

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36: Wildwood Crest | $26,627

Grades: K-8

County: Cape May

Average daily enrollment: 300

Revenue Sources: State: 17.2% | Local Taxes: 80.4% | Federal: 2.3% | Other: 0.1%

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(Jerry McCrea | Star-Ledger file photo)

35: High Point Regional | $26,737

Grades: 9-12

County: Sussex

Average daily enrollment: 1,000

Revenue Sources: State: 34.5% | Local Taxes: 60.3% | Federal: 1.4% | Tuition: 3.8%

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34: Bethlehem | $26,831

Grades: K-8

County: Hunterdon

Average daily enrollment: 389

Revenue Sources: State: 18.6% | Local Taxes: 50% | Federal: 1% | Tuition: 0.2% | 30.2%

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33: Hudson County Vocational | $26,915

Grades: County Vocational

County: Hudson

Average daily enrollment: 2,142

Revenue Sources: State: 43.4% | Local Taxes: 48.5% | Federal: 6.8% | Tuition: 1.3%

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32: Harding | $26,988

Grades: K-8

County: Morris

Average daily enrollment: 433

Revenue Sources: State: 10.5% | Local Taxes: 87.7% | Federal: 1% | Tuition: 0.9%

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31: New Hanover | $27,189

Grades: K-8

County: Burlington

Average daily enrollment: 245

Revenue Sources: State: 55% | Local Taxes: 29.3% | Federal: 15.5% | Other: 0.2%

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P.J. Ciccone, the principal of Mendham Township Middle School, Gov. Chris Christie and Superintendent Sal Constantino at 2014 ceremony marking the school as a National Blue Ribbon Award winner. (Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

30: Mendham Township | $27,205

Grades: K-8

County: Morris

Average daily enrollment: 717

Revenue Sources: State: 14.6% | Local Taxes: 84% | Federal: 1.1% | Tuition: 0.3%

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29: Spring Lake | $27,298

Grades: K-8

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 276

Revenue Sources: State: 13.9% | Local Taxes: 83.3% | Tuition: 1.3% | Use of Fund Balance: 1.5%

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28: Franklin Lakes | $27,484

Grades: K-8

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 1,190

Revenue Sources: State: 13.9% | Local Taxes: 78.9% | Federal: 1% | Tuition: 6.2%

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27: Colts Neck | $27,571

Grades: K-8

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 957

Revenue Sources: State: 15.9% | Local Taxes: 80.6% | Federal: 3.5%

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26: East Orange | $27,699

Grades: K-12

County: Essex

Average daily enrollment: 10,145

Revenue Sources: State: 89% | Local Taxes: 7.7% | Federal: 3.1% | Other: 0.2%

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(Amanda Brown | Star-Ledger file photo)

25: New Horizons Charter School | $27,701

Grades: Charter School

County: Essex

Average daily enrollment: 432

Revenue Sources: State: 80.3% | Local Taxes: 12.4% | Federal: 7.2% | Other: 0.1%

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24: Burlington City | $28,165

Grades: K-12

County: Burlington

Average daily enrollment: 1,776

Revenue Sources: State: 67.2% | Local Taxes: 23.4% | Federal: 3.1% | Tuition: 6% | Other: 0.3%

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23: Hoboken | $28,217

Grades: K-12

County: Hudson

Average daily enrollment: 2,396

Revenue Sources: State: 41.5% | Local Taxes: 54.5% | Federal: 3.5% | Tuition: 0.1% | Other: 0.4%

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22: Montague | $28,407

Grades: K-8

County: Sussex

Average daily enrollment: 338

Revenue Sources: State: 34.9% | Local Taxes: 60.2% | Federal: 4.8% | Other: 0.1%

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21: Hampton | $28,411

Grades: K-8

County: Hunterdon

Average daily enrollment: 121

Revenue Sources: State: 41.1% | Local Taxes: 53.6% | Federal: 2.6% | Tuition: 2.2% | Other: 0.5%

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NJ Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) with Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes at the Mercer County Technical School. (Jenna Pizzi | Times of Trenton file photo)

20: Mercer County Vocational | $28,522

Grades: County Vocational

County: Mercer

Average daily enrollment: 478

Revenue Sources: State: 24.4% | Local Taxes: 56.2% | Federal: 3.2% | Tuition: 16.1% | Other: 0.1%

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19: Shore Regional | $28,920

Grades: 9-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 631

Revenue Sources: State: 13% | Local Taxes: 80.1% | Federal: 1.5% | Tuition: 0.7% | Other: 4.7%

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18: Monmouth Regional | $29,229

Grades: 9-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 1,018

Revenue Sources: State: 20.9% | Local Taxes: 75.2% | Federal: 1.2% | Tuition: 0.1% | Other: 2.6

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17: North Wildwood | $29,411

Grades: K-8

County: Cape May

Average daily enrollment: 322

Revenue Sources: State: 18.8% | Local Taxes: 69.4% | Federal: 3.7% | Tuition: 8.1%

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16: Camden | $29,455

Grades: K-12

County: Camden

Average daily enrollment: 10,758

Revenue Sources: State: 91.7% | Local Taxes: 3.1% | Federal: 4.7% | Tuition: 0.1% | Other: 0.4%

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(Ed Murray | Star-Ledger file photo)

15: Lakeland Regional | $29,531

Grades: 9-12

County: Passaic

Average daily enrollment: 1,025

Revenue Sources: State: 25% | Local Taxes: 55.6% | Federal: 1.1% | Tuition: 3.4% | Use of Fund Balance: 1.4% | Other: 13.5%

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14: Cumberland County Vocational : $30,310

Grades: County Vocational

County: Cumberland

Average daily enrollment: 370

Revenue Sources: State: 58.4% | Local Taxes: 29.1% | Federal: 3.7% | Tuition: 8.8%

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13: Alpine | $30,765

Grades: K-8

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 221

Revenue Sources: State: 9.8% | Local Taxes: 89% | Federal: 1.2%

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12: Henry Hudson Regional | $31,378

Grades: 7-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 302

Revenue Sources: State: 20% | Local Taxes: 77.6% | Federal: 2% | Tuition: 0.5%

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11: Keansburg | $31,436

Grades: K-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 1,559

Revenue Sources: State: 84.7% | Local Taxes: 11% | Federal: 4.3% | Tuition: 0.1%

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A master class for Gifted and Talented students at Somerset County Vocational and Technical High School. (Photo courtesy of Somerset County Vocational and Technical High School)

10: Somerset County Vocational | $31,485

Grades: County Vocational

County: Somerset

Average daily enrollment: 512

Revenue Sources: State: 19.8% | Local Taxes: 69% | Federal: 2.5% | Tuition: 8.6% | Other: 0.1%

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9: Margate | $32,129

Grades: K-8

County: Atlantic

Average daily enrollment: 492

Revenue Sources: State: 16% | Local Taxes: 77.2% | Federal: 1.5% | Tuition: 5.3%

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8: Long Beach Island | $32,913

Grades: K-6

County: Ocean

Average daily enrollment: 236

Revenue Sources: State: 20.6% | Local Taxes: 75.8% | Federal: 2.2% | Tuition: 1.4%

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7: Carlstadt- East Rutherford | $33,000

Grades: 9-12

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 496

Revenue Sources: State: 14.9% | Local Taxes: 83.8% | Federal: 1.3%

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6: Beach Haven | $33,533

Grades: K-6

County: Ocean

Average daily enrollment: 63

Revenue Sources: State: 15.8% | Local Taxes: 82.9% | Federal: 1.3%

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(Richard Raska | Star-Ledger file photo)

5: Bergen County Vocational | $35,568

Grades: County Vocational

County: Bergen

Average daily enrollment: 2,159

Revenue Sources: State: 17.5% | Local Taxes: 46.5% | Federal: 2.2% | Tuition: 33.7% | Other: 0.1%

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4: Asbury Park | $35,636

Grades: K-12

County: Monmouth

Average daily enrollment: 2,380

Revenue Sources: State: 86.3% | Local Taxes: 8.6% | Federal: 4.4%

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3: Greater Brunswick Charter School | $35,981

Grades: Charter School

County: Middlesex

Average daily enrollment: 387

Revenue Sources: State: 63.7% | Local Taxes: 23.6% | Federal: 5.1% | Other: 7.6%

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2: Stone Harbor | $38,451

Grades: K-8*

County: Cape May

Average daily enrollment: 84

Revenue Sources: State: 10.5% | Local Taxes: 73.8% | Federal: 0.9% | Tuition: 14.8%

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1: Avalon | $60,129

Grades: K-8*

County: Cape May

Average daily enrollment: 75

Revenue Sources: State: 12% | Local Taxes: 65.6% | Federal: 0.7% | Tuition: 9.7% | Other: 12%

*Stone Harbor and Avalon are two distinct districts in a send-receive relationship, said the state Department of Education. Stone Harbor educates all the K-4 students from both districts, and Avalon educates all the students in grades 5-8. (They both send to Middle Twp for high school.)

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Statewide average spending for instruction, support services, administration and books and supplies. (Pixabay stock photo)

District spending

All of the state's school districts except for its eight special services districts were included in the per-pupil ranking.

A Department of Education spokesman, meanwhile, noted the data is all self-reported by the districts.

"The School Performance Reports are designed to be conversation starters by informing parents, educators and communities about how well a school is performing and preparing its students for college and careers," said David Saenz. "The department compiles and releases the data, but we don't analyze the data. If the public thinks that the data submitted by the district is questionable, they should reach out to the district to have a conversation about that data."

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(Patti Sapone | Star Ledger file photo)

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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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NEWARK -- A former member of Sacred Heart Parish who attended Seton Hall Preparatory School is suing both institutions and the Archdiocese of Newark, claiming they failed to protect him from repeated sexual abuse by two priests in the 1960s.

The plaintiff, whose representatives asked that he be identified only as "John Doe," claims Revs. Robert Gibney -- who was a priest at the now-closed Vailsburg church -- and William Giblin, the former headmaster of Seton Hall Prep, both sexually abused him in the 1960s.

Gibney, who died in 2012, is alleged to have abused the boy on several occasions. Giblin, who died in 2011, is alleged to have abused the boy at the prep school, according to John Doe's lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston.

In addition to the priests' alleged injuries to him in violation of New Jersey law, Doe's two complaints in state Superior Court seek punitive damages for what the lawsuits claim were gross negligence and intentional misconduct by the institutions, whose officials he says should have known of the abuse and prevented it.

"In each of the two cases, one has to question where the supervisors were and why they were they not properly supervising the Catholic priest, whether that priest was Rev. Robert Gibney or Rev. William Giblin," Garabedian, who was portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the 2015 film "Spotlight," said.

Jim Goodness, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese -- which oversees the church and schools -- declined to comment Tuesday when reached by email.

Garabedian said he has settled one prior claim for an amount "well into the five figures" regarding alleged abuse by Gibney at Sacred Heart. In that case, Garabedian said, his client was 10 to 12 years old at the time of the abuse.

The attorney, who expects to be filing an appearance in state Superior Court, told NJ Advance Media his client should be proud of himself for reporting the abuse.

"In doing so, he has empowered himself, other sexual abuse victims and made the world a safer place for children," he said. "The allegations raise a red flag to parents everywhere to watch their children diligently when in the presence of adults."

Giblin served as a professor at Seton Hall University -- also named as a defendant -- until the late 1960s, when he took over as headmaster at Seton Hall Prep, a role he served in until the 1980s, The Star-Ledger previously reported. He later served at St. Joseph's in East Orange until 2001.

He was charged by authorities in Canada in 2002 with soliciting sex from minors, allegations prosecutors said stemmed from the discovery of a teenage prostitution ring in Montreal.

Authorities alleged Giblin had negotiated sex between another New Jersey priest, Rev. Eugene Heyndricks, and a 16-year-old male prostitute, the paper reported at the time.

The charges against Giblin were later dropped, while Heyndricks pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

Garabedian said the litigation was initiated with two separate complaints filed in March.

As both Gibney and Giblin are deceased, Garabedian said he intends to seek damages from their estates "if possible."

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A short walk from the rear entrance of Newark Penn Station, residential lofts, condominiums and apartment buildings rise to four stories above an Ironbound neighborhood prime for continuing development.

While the city's master plan permits buildings up to eight stories tall, special permission (a variance) from the zoning board of adjustment is needed to exceed the height limit.

McWhorter LLC, which is owned by Jose Lopez Jr., needs a slew of variances to build its proposed 12-story, 384-unit building that includes ground-floor townhouses and commercial space. It is these ambitious plans that worry the nearby residents in PLANewark, a community group with architects and planners.

Newark residents in the Ironbound section are opposed to a 12-story, 384 unit residential development. They say the project is too big and would overwhelm the neighborhood.

Bordered by McWhorter, Hamilton and Union streets, the project is so big it overwhelms the neighborhood, they argue.

"It's sort of like creating a wall, not to mention that the building will be towering over all of the adjoining structures and will ruin the feel of the Ironbound,'' said Lisa Sanders, who lives a block from the proposed site.

MORE: Recent Barry Carter columns

Residents and community organizations argue the project increases density, meaning too many people would live in the neighborhood. That notion is supported in a report by a planner the city hires to review proposals for the zoning board. Gerard Haizel, of the Nishuane Group, said the proposed 384 units are more than double what city zoning laws permit.

Lopez, in a statement, said he wants to build on the diversity of the area to offer an exciting living option.

"We are here for the long-run, and want to see this vibrant community build on its past and thrive in the future,'' he said.

Lopez has the support of the Ironbound Business Improvement District, which believes the residential building is good for the neighborhood. Executive Director Seth Grossman admits that the proposal needs to be tweaked, but he believes both sides can come to an understanding for the benefit of a neighborhood in transition. People are relocating to Newark, he said, and want to live downtown.

"We can work this out,'' Grossman said.

Residents who live near the proposed building want development, too. They just want it done responsibly and in line with the master plan. Residents fear an approval of this project could open the door to other developers who will want buildings similar to, or even larger than, McWhorter's proposal.

"This is a test case,'' said Michael Panzer, who lives across the street from the site of the proposed builing. "It's worrisome. Given what the zoning allows, it (the building) is above and beyond what's suitable for the neighborhood.''

Residents say McWhorter is seeking too many accommodations. Among them, McWhorter LLC wants the project to cover 100 percent of the land, while city zoning laws limit coverage to 60 percent of the property.

Setbacks, the distance between the building and the street line, poses another dilemma for the developer. Newark's guidelines require a 10-foot setback, but McWhorter LLC wants zero setback, meaning the building would sit along the sidewalk, leaving no room for landscaping on Hamilton and Union streets.

If the name McWhorter LLC sounds familiar, you're right. This is the same company that has been operating a controversial surface parking lot, J&L Parking, on the same land since 2013.

Newark residents in the Ironbound section have been trying to stop J&L Parking from operating in the Ironbound. The owner, McWhorter LLC, now wants to use the land to build a 12-story, 384 unit building that residents oppose.

Residents have been fighting McWhorter LLC on the parking lot for years, saying it should not be operating.

At last week's zoning board meeting, residents were prepared again to oppose McWhorter LLC on the parking lot and its argument that the property is part of Mulberry Commons.

MORE CARTER: Debate duo from Rutgers University -Newark nabs two national d championship tournaments

Instead, residents found themselves cringing over McWhorter LLC's massive residential proposal, which calls for the first two floors of the 12-story building to be used for 198 parking spaces. As part of the application, McWhorter also requested a temporary variance to continue operating the existing parking lot until it submits a construction plan on the residential development.

Lisa Scorsolini, an attorney with New Jersey Appleseed, a nonprofit legal advocacy center representing PLANewark residents, said McWhorter LLC shouldn't receive an interim variance because of an appellate division ruling on the parking lot that supports the residents.

"I look at it as a runaround to keep their parking,'' Scorsolini said.

She'll make that point and chronicle flaws in McWhorter's latest proposal when the zoning board meets Aug. 10.

Both sides should have presented their case last Thursday, but the city of Newark didn't submit an engineering report, and McWhorter LLC turned in a traffic study late. McWhorter LLC, however, was willing to proceed with the hearing but zoning board members said they did not want to discuss the application until they had time to review all the required information.

The 67 people who raised their hand last week to oppose the developer will have to return in force this summer. The project is two big for them to ignore.

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or http://connect.nj.com/user/bcarter/posts.html

or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
WOOLWICH TWP. -- A local business owner says the electric company's plan to trim portions of a 150-year-old sycamore tree on his property could doom the giant.

Don Dryden, owner of Dryden Diving Co. on Russell Mill Road, is fighting to save the 100-foot-tall tree that grows next to the roadway and has contacted a lawyer and the township to challenge Atlantic City Electric's proposal.

Utilities routinely trims trees growing near power lines. That effort has expanded in recent years in response to major storms that brought down trees and power lines in South Jersey.

An ACE company spokesman said the company is trying to work with Dryden.

While he understands the need to protect power lines, Dryden feels ACE's plan regarding this sycamore goes too far.

"They're talking about cutting half to three quarters of the canopy," he said. "What's going to happen to this tree? ... They just want to get it out of the way so there's no need to come back and trim it."

Dryden said he was originally told a few limbs had to be removed.

"I think if it was done properly the tree would survive," he said.

Then he was told limbs growing within 10 feet of the power line would be cut.

Now ACE wants to trim 20 feet from the utility pole, which puts a sizable chunk of the tree's canopy in danger, Dryden said. Most of the tree's branches extend over the roadway.

"As previously discussed, we need to remove/trim 20 feet on each side of the centerline (pole) and blue sky above the line. We will then be replacing the existing poles," according to an email an ACE official sent to Dryden.

With temperatures expected to reach into the 90s this week, such drastic trimming could kill the tree, Dryden fears.

The sycamore stands in front of the last remaining building from the old Russell Mill, which dates to the 1800s. Dryden fixed up the building and made it the office for his diving business.

"It's a magnificent sycamore," Dryden said. "The tree goes way back to the time of the mill."

Dryden received help from the township on Tuesday, when Matt Blake, director of community development for Woolwich, sent a message to ACE seeking "special accommodation" for the tree.

"The township wishes to see as much of this highly aesthetic specimen tree preserved as possible," Blake said in an email shared by Dryden. He also asks that no cutting take place during the coming heatwave, "which could harm or kill the tree."

An ACE spokesman said the utility is working with Dryden to resolve the issue, but must abide by state regulations.

"We have been and will continue to work with the customer to address his concerns around the trimming of this particular tree," the utility said in a statement. "Under clearance regulations put forth by the Board of Public Utilities, we are required to clear all overhanging limbs from the wire zone."

"Vegetation management" is part of the utility's responsibility to safely keep the power flowing, the statement noted.

"The work our licensed, professional foresters and contract tree trimming experts do is for public safety and enhanced reliability. Our Vegetation Management program has helped reduce the number of outages for our customers over the past few years."

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
Several major hospitals in the northeastern New Jersey are forming a new company to provide in-home nursing and hospice care to patients in Bergen, Passaic and parts of Morris County.

Taking care of patients in their own homes fulfills two goals: It usually makes the patients happier, and it saves money.

"We are like a hospital in that we don't have hours of operation. We basically take care of our patients 24/7," said Michelle Mendelson, vice president of Hackensack Meridian Health At Home. "Patients like to be at home."

That's why no one in Washington is considering tossing the provisions of Obamacare that encourage it.

The new company, announced Tuesday, is a partnership between the Paterson-based St. Joseph's Healthcare System and Hackensack Meridian Health, headquartered in Hackensack.

For St. Joe's, which is the smaller hospital, the joint venture will allow it to discharge some of its patients sooner than before. While the hospital offered home health care, its services were geared to the elderly and post-surgical patients.

Now it will be able to let its pediatric patients leave the hospital sooner by providing treatments like IV infusions at home, courtesy of Hackensack's expertise in that area, said Kevin Slavin, CEO of St. Joseph's Healthcare System.

Called Visiting Health Services of New Jersey, it will be available at all the hospitals owned by the two chains: St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center (Paterson); St. Joseph's Wayne Hospital; Hackensack University Medical Center; Pascack Valley Medical Center (Westwood) and Mountainside Medical Center.

Under Medicare rules, the new agency can provide home health and hospice services to patients in these Morris County towns: Montville, Riverdale, Kinnelon, Butler, Pequannock, Jefferson Township and Lincoln Park.

The growth in home health care has been encouraged by the Affordable Care Act, which has gradually moved from having Medicare pay doctors and hospitals for every service they provide to paying them based on how the patient fares.

Although the fate of the ACA, or Obamacare, is being hotly debated on a weekly basis in Washington, that approach by Medicare is unlikely to change, said Robert Garrett, co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health.

Roughly three-quarters of most patients receiving hip and knee replacements used to be discharged from the hospital to a rehab center, Garrett said.

That has changed dramatically in the last year or so, so that now three-quarters of patients go directly home and receive rehab services there.

Hackensack will also work with St. Joe's to make sure more doctors and patients know about what hospice services are available. New Jersey has a low rate of hospice use relative to other states, Garrett said.

The families of patients become quick converts. In satisfaction surveys afterward, Mendelson said the most frequent comment is, "I wish we had started earlier."

Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- A 23-year-old man has been charged with murdering a teen in broad daylight on Woodlawn Avenue last week, authorities announced.

Dominique Green, of Jersey City, was arrested Friday afternoon for fatally shooting Rasheed Raysor on May 9, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said in a release.

Green was charged with murder, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon, Suarez said.

Raysor suffered more than one gunshot wound to his upper body and was pronounced dead at the scene. Tensions boiled in the hours after his death, as friends and family gathered just feet away from where Raysor was gunned down.

"Where the (expletive) were you when this happened?" one woman yelled to the authorities. "You're always out here busting for the wrong (expletive)."

Authorities went to arrest Green inside his home on Bidwell Avenue last March on an open warrant. Seven other people were also arrested when police found guns, drugs, and cash in the apartment. Green was in the bathroom when police entered his apartment and told the cops they had to wait because he was "taking a ---."

Then in October, Green was arrested by the Violent Crimes Task Force on multiple drug charges. He was among seven people arrested in a sweep by the Prosecutor's Office and Jersey City Police Department.

The 23-year-old made his first court appearance on Saturday and was ordered to be held without bail. A detention hearing is expected later this week.

Homicide detectives continue to investigate Raysor's death. Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to contact the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office at by calling 201-915-1345 or leaving an anonymous tip online.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- It was a sunny morning in May 2014 and Steve Fulop and Jared Kushner were all smiles.

The two men - Fulop, then the recently elected mayor of Jersey City and presumed candidate for New Jersey governor, and Kushner, the hot-shot real estate developer and CEO for the company he took over from his father - were showering each other with praise at the groundbreaking for Trump Bay Street, a Waterfront high-rise Kushner was developing with KABR Group.

"We've really been able to develop a terrific friendship," Fulop said about Kushner, who called Fulop "a big advocate for development and growth and for doing what's really right for the city."

Three years and one stunning presidential race later, Fulop, a Democrat seeking re-election in this liberal bastion where President Trump's name is nearly an expletive, is sprinting from his connection to Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser.

The mayor last week said he will not support a critical tax break Kushner's family requested for their One Journal Square project; denied knowledge of a $10,000 donation to the Hudson County Democratic Organization that Kushner's sister and her husband made three months before that project was announced; and responded to inquiries about the Kushners with statements stressing his opposition to Trump.

Experts say they are not surprised Fulop is distancing himself from Kushner. In this city of 136,000 registered voters, Trump received 11,705 votes in November. A Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll from March found Trump's disapproval among New Jersey Democrats was 88 percent.

"If Fulop has political ambitions beyond where he is today, it probably is not going to hurt him too much, trying to create some daylight between himself and the Kushners," said Krista Jenkins, a professor of political science at FDU and director of the school's poll.

Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, far right, and Jared Kushner, far left, with members of the City Council at the May 14, 2014 groundbreaking for Kushner's Trump Bay Street. (Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal)

NOVEMBER RACE

Fulop's critics have seized on his relationship with Kushner, sensing a vulnerability they can exploit as Fulop attempts to win a second term.

November's municipal race, when the mayoralty and all nine council seats are up for grabs, is nonpartisan, but Democrats in past campaigns have tried to distinguish themselves by painting rivals as closet Republicans. Fliers distributed during the 2013 mayor's race compared Fulop to Mitt Romney.

Fulop challenger and attorney Bill Matsikoudis has focused on Fulop's connection to Kushner to tie the mayor to Trump. Matsikoudis, 45, a Democrat, called the Kushners Fulop's "political patrons."

"He's backing away from them because he's smart enough to realize that this is a huge political liability in the upcoming election," Matsikoudis said.

Fulop chief of staff Mark Albiez responded: "I think our record has been very clear, during the year, opposing the president's agenda."

A White House spokesman declined to comment. A Kushner Companies spokesman repeated his earlier statement that One Journal Square would provide "meaningful investment in the long-term future of Journal Square" and that it wants to move forward with the plan.

Questions about Trump will not be confined to the mayor's race. James Solomon, 33, an activist who plans to seek the Downtown council seat, has hammered the administration over Kushner. Solomon said he wants intense scrutiny of any Jersey City deal involving Trump's son-in-law.

"In Jersey City politicians and developers have this extraordinarily cozy relationship. And that's troubling," he said.

Matt Hale, a Seton Hall University political science professor, said New Jersey Democrats are in "an odd place" with the Kushners, longtime Democratic donors.

"Any connection to Trump is toxic, but ... the Kushner family has long and deep ties all over the state," Hale said. "That makes me think Fulop and Jersey City will get a pass for past dealings as long as they stay away from future ones."

He added: "It is kind of like, 'We knew cousin Jared before he went crazy.'"

KUSHNER TIES

Fulop has been friendly with one branch of the Kushner family tree for decades, while it appears his relationship with the other began around when he was elected mayor in May 2013.

Brothers Murray and Charles Kushner are real-estate developers locked in a feud for more than 10 years. Murray Kushner, of KRE Group, is Jonathan's father. Charles Kushner, of Kushner Companies, is Jared's father.

Fulop, 40, is childhood friends with Jonathan Kushner. The two attended Solomon Schechter Day School in West Orange together.

It's not clear how long Fulop has known Jared Kushner. One of Fulop's first big hires as mayor in 2013 was former Kushner Companies publicist Bob Sommer. Fulop, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump -- Jared's wife and Trump's oldest daughter -- met privately after Fulop's election, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. A Fulop political operative was an expediter for One Journal Square.

Jared Kushner's interest in Jersey City began soon before Fulop was elected mayor. Kushner Companies -- where Jared Kushner was CEO from 2008 until January -- and KABR Group acquired the Trump Bay Street lot in 2011 after a sheriff's sale (the property received a five-year tax break from the city in 2014). The two companies have bought four more Jersey City properties since then, including the old Jersey Journal building.

Kushner Companies expressed interest in developing the massive Bayfront development, but said last week it will not pursue that project.

A review of Fulop's campaign records do not show donations from Jared Kushner. Kushner Companies and KABR Group gave $100,000 to a nonprofit that then gave $400,000 to a super PAC linked to Fulop's now abandoned gubernatorial run, according to two people with knowledge of the contribution, which was later returned. Jared Kushner's sister, Nicole Meyer, and her husband gave two donations totaling $10,000 to the HCDO in October 2014. Meyer's comments about the One Journal Square project at a Beijing conference on May 6 caused a furor, with critics saying she was trading on her brother's influence with Trump to enrich the family business (Kushner Companies later apologized for her comments).

A source with knowledge of the contributions said they were made at Fulop's behest, which Albiez denied.

"We didn't know about it," Albiez said. "We have nothing to do with the HCDO's finances."

A Kushner Companies spokesman declined to comment on the Meyers' donations.

Brigid Callahan-Harrison, who teaches political science at Montclair State University, is not surprised by Fulop cutting off his ties with the Kushner family. She doesn't think Jared Kushner would be surprised, either.

"I think Mr. Kushner has been around long enough and is sophisticated enough to realize that many of the individuals with whom he had close relationships prior to his father-in-law getting elected now have to distance themselves from him," Harrison said.

Fulop, appearing at a Downtown farmers market today, initially walked away from this reporter in response to questions about the alleged meeting between himself, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

"Who told you that?" the mayor asked. "No. They've never hosted a fundraiser, they've never done a meet-and-greet. None of that stuff."

Fulop later emailed requesting all questions go through his spokeswoman.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
The parents of a New Jersey teen who died after an alcohol-fueled fraternity hazing at Penn State University say they are hoping to see changes made at the university and at other campuses across the nation.

That was the message James Piazza and Evelyn Piazza shared on Monday in interviews on ABC, CBS and NBC, and with other national media, including CNN. They said they are speaking out because hazing, as well as binge and underage drinking among college-age youth, is a national problem.

"We've received cards and letters from hundreds of people we don't know asking us to stick with this, hold people accountable and be the advocate of change," James Piazza said Monday on ABC's Good Morning America. "That's what we are going to do."

A Pennsylvania grand jury decided there was enough evidence to bring charges against the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and 18 of its members because, in part, surveillance cameras captured the nearly 12 hours that Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old from a rural part of New Jersey, struggled after falling head-first down a set of basement stairs at the fraternity house.

Those charges include involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and providing alcohol to minors.

The Piazza's appearances came the same day four men pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter for their roles in a Pi Delta Psi fraternity hazing death, according to the Associated Press. Chun "Michael" Deng, 19, a Baruch College (N.Y.) student, died in 2013 after the incident in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. Prosecutors say the students also tried to cover up what happened.

Piazza had just started pledging at the fraternity, and was there on Feb. 2, being told to take part in The Gauntlet, a hazing ritual involving the fast consumption of vodka, wine and other alcohol. His blood alcohol level reached approximately .36, according to a grand jury report.

The fraternity, suspended in 2009 for alcohol-related violations, had reopened as a "dry" house in 2010, with the cameras installed as a condition of the resumption of its charter.

Those cameras record the reactions as he falls down the stairs, records Piazza being brought back up, and the hours that pass as members hold him down on a couch, slap him and throw liquid in his face in an apparent attempt to revive him, before leaving him alone late in the night.

An investigation, according to the grand jury report, also revealed members discussed what to do and discussed ways to cover up what happened before calling 9-1-1 on the morning of Feb 3.

"This was murder of our son," James told CBS on Monday. "They tortured him for twelve hours. They let him suffer for twelve hours. He died a slow and painful death at the hands of these men of principle as they call it."

Evelyn Piazza called said it was terrible to think about her son being left at the bottom of the stairs for hours without getting help.

Attorneys representing some of the fraternity members have said the students should not be held accountable because they could not have known the difference between a person who was intoxicated and a person with serious injuries.

Some of the changes the Piazza family is calling for include universities finding ways to eliminate minors being provided alcohol on college campuses, harsher penalties for those who organize hazing rituals and requiring fraternities and sororities to have an adult chaperone at all times.

"The world is watching," James said. "I think things are going to change. People, families, want things to change. We're here to be the advocates.

"Tim Piazza is not just our son anymore. He represents everyone's son and daughter who is looking to go to college and potentially looking to get involved with Greek life."

Michael Piazza, Tim's brother, said on Good Morning America he hopes others at Penn State understand what happened to Tim can happen to anyone. "I hope so," Michael said when asked if he felt they had heard that message. "I really do. That's all I can really do, is hope."

Penn State released a statement on Monday saying top administrators have been in "frequent communication" with the Piazza family, giving "careful consideration to the family's needs and wishes throughout this deeply troubling time as the search for answers to this national problem continues."

The university said it has "one of the most aggressive student misconduct policies in the country, and its off-campus policy pertaining to misconduct remains the most vigorous in the Big Ten."

But, it said, because fraternities are independent organizations, solutions must come from both academic institutions and the Greek community working together.

"All parents and families, and Penn State want students to have a safe college experience, and we will not rest in our efforts until this problem is curbed," the statement continued.

The family's attorney, Tom Kline of Philadelphia, said the family plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the fraternity, its members and Penn State.
TRENTON -- One of the candidates under consideration to be interim head the FBI is William "Bill" Evanina, who held several top roles with the agency in New Jersey before heading to Washington.

William Evanina, AP photo.

Evanina is currently the national counterintelligence executive in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a post he's held since 2014. Before that, he held a counterintelligence post at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) following similar posts at the FBI in Washington.

Multiple news reports put him on a list of several candidates being interviewed last week to be the interim FBI director after President Donald Trump fired James Comey.

Evanina started his federal law enforcement career with the FBI's New Jersey field office, in Newark in 1996. He was the spokesman for the office in the years after the 9/11 and Anthrax terrorists attacks, and later led a joint terrorism task force for the office.

From 2006 to 2008, he led the FBI's Trenton office, which is now located in Hamilton. Evanina, from his media role, spoke for the office himself, regularly updating reporters on cases and investigations.

At the time, many Trenton-based agents were partnered with or working on gang investigations with Trenton police and Mercer County prosecutor's detectives.

Evanina was promoted to the national security branch of the agency's Washington field office in 2009.

NCIX Evanina speaking this morning at the NSI's Impact 2017 conference on the challenges for security in a world of transition. pic.twitter.com/vVDQ4a49rQ  NCSC (@NCSCgov) April 24, 2017

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
TRENTON - A man who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a crash that killed his three friends in 2013, was sentenced to prison Tuesday.

Luis Delcid-Cardona, 22, of Trenton, received a five-year sentence for each of the three counts of vehicular manslaughter Tuesday. He previously pleaded guilty to the charges in March.

Delcid-Cardona, who was 19 years old at the time of the crash in December, 2013, drank three or four beers before he got in the driver's seat that night, Mercer County Prosecutors have said.

He then drove down Interstate 95 in Lawrence and slammed into the back of a tractor-trailer, killing his three friends, Samantha Belliveau, 18, and Nicole Rodriguez, 20, both of Hamilton, and Jonathan Rivas, 19, of Princeton, who were all passengers in his car, prosecutors have said.

Delcid-Cardona's attorney, Robin Lord said Tuesday that she was disappointed that her client pleaded guilty, adding that she believes a jury would have found him not guilty in a trial.

She said the decision to plead was ultimately up to Delcid-Cardona.

Delcid-Cardona, who is in the country illegally, will face deportation to Guatemala once his sentence is up, according to officials. He has been held on a federal immigration detainer since the arrest in 2013.

He will have to serve 85 percent or just over four years in prison before he is eligible for parole, Lord said.

Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman
SOUTH BRUNSWICK -- A 22-year-old was allegedly drunk and driving with a suspended license when he crashed into two mailboxes, two utility poles and ended up in a township home early Saturday morning, police said.

South Brunswick Capt. James Ryan said Akhil Uppuluri, of Dayton, was driving 80 mph in a 35-zone on New Road when he lost control of a 2016 Acura he was driving just after 1 a.m.

Uppuluri ended up in the intersection of Route 522 after smashing through the front of the house, Ryan said. New Road was closed for more than two hours.

Paramedics took Uppuluri to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where he was released after being treated for minor injuries.

Uppuluri was charged with DWI, reckless driving and careless driving, among other moving violations.

The family member who owned the Acura was issued summonses for allowing Uppuluri to drive the car with a suspended license, according to Ryan.

Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig and on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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OLD BRIDGE -- Students at three local schools were temporarily ordered to shelter-in-place Tuesday as police looked into a shooting incident near Route 9, officials said.

Old Bridge police referred all questions on the shooting to Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, but when contacted via email, spokesman James O'Neill said Old Bridge police was handling all inquiries.

As of noon, no details on the shooting were available.

Investigators with the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office were on the scene on the southbound side of Route 9, just before the intersection of Fairway Lane.

Police had the parking lot to a local business taped off and officers could be seen inside the building.

Alan B. Shepard Elementary, James McDivitt Elementary and Carl Sandburg Middle schools were affected by the police investigation.

An Old Bridge police officer who answered the phone Tuesday morning said there was an ongoing investigation in the area.

As of 10:45 a.m., the shelter-in-place was lifted, according to an email sent to parents.

"The shelter in place has been lifted and this was just a safety precaution as there was no indication of danger to the schools identified or any Old Bridge Public Schools," the email said. "As always we will be extra cautious to protect our students and staff."

Superintendent of schools David Cittadino said the district was notified of the incident shortly after it occurred and was given updates on the investigation throughout the day.

Reporter Alex Napoliello contributed to this report.

Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig and on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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EAST BRUNSWICK -- A 40-year-old Parlin woman botched a parking attempt at a hotel early Tuesday and crashed her SUV into an unoccupied room on the first floor of the Days Inn, police said.

The driver was not hurt after driving a black 2008 Dodge Nitro into the hotel on Route 18 south while trying to maneuver into a parking spot, according to East Brunswick police.

Police said they are still investigating.

Car crashes into East Brunswick Days Inn https://t.co/xAbl23vfpM  Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) May 16, 2017

The hotel is just south of where Route 18 crosses over the New Jersey Turnpike.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11th Dist.) is facing more heat after a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against him over a fundraising letter outing a local bank executive's activism to her employer.

The complaint was filed by the Campaign for Accountability, some of whose advisory board members have ties to the Democratic Party.

The group, in its complaint, requested an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics into whether Frelinghuysen violated House ethics rules by singling out Saily Avelenda in the postscript of a letter to a board member of the bank.

"The House ethics committee requires members to act in a way that 'reflects creditably on the House,'" Campaign for Accountability executive director Daniel E. Stevens said in a statement. "If trying to get someone fired for exercising her constitutional right to engage in political activity doesn't reflect poorly on the House, what does?"

The OCE investigates alleged ethical violations by members of Congress, and, based on an investigation's findings, the office then refers cases to the House ethics committee for further review. The House committee, which could take several actions against a member, including censure, is now headed by a Republican.

Avelenda was a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at Lakeland Bank in March when Frelinghuysen sent the letter to the board member saying she was one of the "ringleaders" of NJ 11th for Change.

"There's only one reason he did that," Avelenda told NJ Advance Media. "It wasn't innocuous. It was done to cause me trouble."

NJ 11th for Change has been pressuring Frelinghuysen for months to hold an in-person town hall with his constituents in his district, which he hasn't done since 2013, and has criticized him over his support of President Donald Trump's agenda and the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Avelenda said she was forced to write a statement explaining her actions to her CEO, and that the letter "was a factor" in her decision to resign from her position.

The fundraising letter -- and an attached newspaper article about Avelenda -- was sent to Joseph O'Dowd, a Lakeland Bank board member. According to Federal Election Commission records, O'Dowd donated $700 to Frelinghuysen in previous elections, and, days after the March letter, another $250.

Frelinghuysen's letter spurred outrage over social media on Monday as news of the story went viral.

Assemblyman John F. McKeon, who is also being wooed by Democrats to challenge Frelinghuysen, said he has "significant concerns" about Frelinghuysen's statement.

"Referencing this note as innocuous is troubling," he said. "It can well be interpreted as a direct attempt to intimidate through inappropriate means a thoughtful individual exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights. The specter of using ones position in such a manner has serious implications and should be considered by the Office of Congressional Ethics."

Mikie Sherrill, who has announced her intention to seek the Democratic nomination in next year's race for the 11th district, said the complaint was "a step in the right direction."

"As a former federal prosecutor, I am appalled that Rep. Frelinghuysen used the power of his office to intimidate and target one of his own constituents," she said. "It is frankly chilling, and clearly deserves further scrutiny. This abuse of power demonstrates why he needs to go next November."

Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
CHARLES CITY | State Rep. Todd Prichard, D-Charles City, has spent a lot of time among forgotten Iowans.

Prichard, 42, who announced his campaign Tuesday in his hometown, pledged to fight for those forgotten in his first speech before embarking on a statewide tour to spread his message.

We need to fight for an Iowa that works for everyone; it doesnt matter who you are, Prichard said to about 100 people at Aromas Coffee in downtown. Iowa should be a place where everyone has a chance to succeed. We need to fight for the forgotten Iowans.

Prichard will bring his campaign to Waterloo at 6 p.m. Friday at the Black Hawk County Democratic headquarters, 307 E. Fourth St.

Prichard is one of about a half-dozen Democrats who are running for governor or considering doing so. While there could be a primary on the Republican side, its expected the winner of the Democratic primary in June 2018 would take on Kim Reynolds, who is set to become governor once Gov. Terry Branstad is confirmed to serve as ambassador to China.

Prichard did not waste time in making his announcement. Once he announced he was running and offered some background about growing up poor in Davenport and enlisting in the U.S. Army before completing college and law school, Prichard got to the meat of his platform.

He offered two proposals during his speech: free community college for Iowans and an executive order to restore collective bargaining rights that were taken during this past legislative session.

That was on top of a message to restore Iowas education system, reverse the privatization of Medicaid, cease tax breaks for large corporations and grow the economy across Iowa, but particularly in rural settings.

Im worried about the path that were on, and I know that we can do better to make Iowa a great place to live and raise a family, Prichard said. For years, weve watched now as the Branstad-Reynolds administration has taken the side of big corporations and the wealthy and leaving Iowas working families and people behind.

He said nowhere is that more evident and more deeply felt than in places like Charles City and other small towns, as well as in working-class neighborhoods across the state.

He said hes seen those forgotten Iowans first-hand, both in his work, where hes helped people with mental health commitments but the closest bed was across the state, as well as growing up, where his family couldnt afford to visit the doctor when he was in pain.

Weve really created a situation where we have kind of the haves and the have-nots in society in this state, and were not providing the opportunities for all Iowans, Prichard said.

He said it was the events of this past legislative session  where Democrats were in the minority in both the House and Senate and the executive branch  that caused him to decide to run for governor. He said the agenda Republicans worked to enact has been hard on working Iowans and women, and said the budget is in shambles.

The event had the feel of a community affair, as people packed the local coffee shop in the mid-morning on a weekday to hear their local representative announce his bid. His wife Ann, a local school teacher, teased the students who came to the event that she would talk as slowly as I can so you can miss as much class as possible.

Its humbling to have so many of you turn out on a work day, Ann Prichard said. I dont have to say anything about Todd because you already know him.  You know how hard he works, and you know how much he cares, and you know that hes creative in finding solutions.

Family friend Renee Boss, who is also a teacher, said shes excited that Prichard is running.

I truly dont think you could find a more suitable candidate for governor for the state of Iowa. He genuinely has our best interests at heart and wants nothing but success for everyone in our state, Boss said.
MORRISTOWN -- Social media was abuzz with outrage Monday over U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen's handwritten postscript outing a member of an activist group opposing him to her employer.

Saily Avelenda was a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at Lakeland Bank in March when Frelinghuysen (R-11th Dist.) sent a fundraising letter to a member of the bank's board of directors informing him that Avelenda was one of the "ringleaders" of NJ 11th for Change.

"There's only one reason he did that," Avelenda said. "It wasn't innocuous. It was done to cause me trouble."

NJ 11th for Change has been pressuring Frelinghuysen for months to hold an in-person town hall with his constituents in his district, which he hasn't done since 2013, and has criticized him over his support of President Donald Trump's agenda and the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Avelenda said she was forced to write a statement explaining her actions to her CEO, and that the letter "was a factor" in her decision to resign from her position.

Numerous commenters took their ire to Frelinghuysen's Facebook page. A post about his visit on Monday with fifth graders at Central Avenue School in Madison instead became a sounding board for comments such as these:

What an unAmerican act, to complain to someone's employer that you don't like their stand on issues. You don't deserve the position you have attained.

You should be ashamed of yourself writing to the employer of one of your constituents complaining about her political views and use of her right to FREE SPEECH. The fall out caused her to leave her job. This is America, Rodney, but that move was right out of the Dictator's Guide for Dummies. This story is going viral and you can keep visiting all the classrooms you want and avoiding your constituents but we will not forget come next November!!

Careful kids. Best not stick your tongue out or raspberry at the poor congressional snowflake. He may write a letter demanding your suspension.

After your capitulation on healthcare I knew I would never be able to support you. But after your constituent bullying and attack on free speech and free association, I think you should consider resignation.

So, you do or don't believe in free speech or the right to assemble and protest? Please clarify, as you seem to think it is appropriate to target an individual exercising their right to gather and protest, a constitutional right. A right that you supposedly have sworn to uphold and protect? You forced someone to resign because of your actions? How is that appropriate? Do you plan on targeting all your constituents in this manner who oppose you?

Plenty of time for photo ops and letter writing to undermine a constituent, but not enough time to meet with us face to face. You're a disgrace and I'm never voting for you again!

Frelinhuysen wasn't the only one to find himself at the center of the Internet's wrath.

In response to numerous comments following news of the congressman's letter, Lakeland Bank posted a statement on its Facebook page on Monday saying it promotes "our employees' full awareness and interest in civic and political responsibility."

A number of commenters apparently remained unconvinced:

You may have said code of ethics but it doesn't excuse the fact that the employee experienced an untenable working environment after being 'outed' by the congressman. Had you followed your own invisible (imo) ethics, this wouldn't be a discussion to have had. Clearly, her outside interests DID in fact, affect her employment. Shame on you,

I sent this email to the entire Lakeland Bank executive team earlier today. No reply yet. By the way, Lakeland Bank folks --the fact you have only one woman on your senior executive team of 11 people makes this look even worse for you, particularly given that Saily Avelenda was promoted to Senior Vice President just three months before no longer being employed there. I also want to add that I find your choice of wording here -- "an individual who identified herself as a former employee" -- particularly problematic, as if you're trying to make people wonder whether or not Avelenda was ever really an employee there. Very shady. Are you aware that two former high ranking Lakeland employees have endorsed Avelenda on LinkedIn?

Anything short of an unequivocal statement that the bank believes Frelinghuysen's actions were an abuse of his authority AND refusal to contribute ANYTHING to his campaign heretofore is just empty talk. Lakeland Bank had a chance to do the right thing, but apparently their "Code of Ethics" profides that they should assist a corrupt politician instead.

Democrats, too, have pounced on Frelinghuysen's letter.

Morris County Democratic Committee chairman Chip Robinson said in a statement the congressman's actions were "an affront to the society we have all spent over 200 years building."

"Shame on Congressman Frelinghuysen for using his powerful perch against an average citizen," he said. "And shame on all of us if we fail to hold the Congressman accountable for actions that fly in the face of our societal norms and constitutional protections."

Mikie Sherrill, who plans to seek the Democratic nomination in next year's race for the 11th district, called Frelinghuysen's actions "wrong, unethical and immoral."

"This shameful abuse of power by Representative Frelinghuysen is exactly why we need new representation in Congress," she said. "Frelinghuysen has gone from simply refusing to meet with his constituents and telling them to 'back off,' to threatening constituents who are exercising their freedom of speech."

Assemblyman John McKeon, who is also being wooed by Democrats to challenge Frelinghuysen, said he was going "to reserve judgment until I hear from the congressman."

"Our stark policy differences aside, I've always thought of him as a person of integrity," McKeon said. "On its face, this certainly crosses the line."

Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
TRENTON -- Counselor to the president and New Jersey native Kellyanne Conway denied Tuesday claims by the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that she complained to them about her boss, Donald Trump, during last year's presidential campaign.

Conway's response came after the show's hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, said on the air Monday that she privately complained about Trump. According to the hosts, Conway told them she would "need to take a shower" after propping up Trump in TV interviews.

But Conway took to Twitter to bat down the claims.

Taking a moment from more important matters to respond .... pic.twitter.com/B0uL0ME0Bi  Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 16, 2017

"My beliefs, commitments and loyalties are plain to see," she wrote in her tweeted statement. "The notion that I am serving for 'the money' or a 'paycheck' is absurd. As campaign manager, I made a fraction of what other consultants have made on unsuccessful presidential campaigns."

Conway joined the Trump campaign in August of last year, after the candidate she originally worked for, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race.

She rapidly brought messaging discipline to campaign that had been plagued by public gaffes and became a fixture on morning newscasts throughout the campaign.

However, after Conway appeared on CNN in January to defend demonstrably false claims about the size of Trump's inaugural crowd, Brzezinski announced she would no longer book Conway on the show, citing doubts about her credibility.

On air last week, Brzezinski again assailed CNN for featuring Conway, who continues to serve as a counselor to the president, and accused the news network of "just doing politics porn."

NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Claude Brodesser-Akner contributed to this report.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or on Facebook.
TRENTON -- The co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" said on Monday that President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and New Jersey native Kellyanne Conway complained that she needed to "take a shower" after speaking about her candidate's plans and policies on television.

"She would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off, and she would say 'Blech, I need to take a shower,' because she disliked her candidate so much," co-host Mika Brzezinski said of Conway.

Host Joe Scarborough agreed, adding that Conway, a resident of Alpine, told him that she had only taken the job for money and would soon stop serving as his apologist.

"'But first I have to take a shower, because it feels so dirty to be saying what I'm saying'," Brzezinski said, adding, "I guess she's just used to it now."

Conway had joined the Trump campaign in August of last year, after the candidate she originally worked for, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race a year ago.

She rapidly brought messaging discipline to campaign that had been plagued by public gaffes and became a fixture on morning newscasts throughout the campaign.

However, after Conway appeared on CNN in January to defend demonstrably false claims about the size of Trump's inaugural crowd, Brzezinski announced she would no longer book Conway on the show, citing doubts about her credibility.

On air last week, Brzezinski again assailed CNN for featuring Conway, who continues to serve as a counselor to the president, and accused the news network of "just doing politics porn."

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
Raymond Lesniak Aristide Economopoulos.JPG

Sen. Raymond Lesniak waits to vote on a bill. He and Sens. Mike Doherty and Christopher "Kip" Bateman have filed a lawsuit to stop a $300 million Statehouse renovation. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

TRENTON --Three state senators on Monday said they've sued Gov. Chris Christie's administration seeking to slam the brakes on the governor's $300 million renovation of the historic Statehouse.

The lawmakers -- two Republicans and a Democrat -- say the Christie administration violated the state constitution by cheating the Legislature and the public out of their say in the project. They are seeking an injunction on the project, which is set to begin in early summer.

The lawsuit, filed by state Sens. Ray Lesniak (D-Union), Christopher "Kip" Bateman (R-Somerset) and Mike Doherty (R-Warren), accuses the administration of disregarding constitutional protections for taxpayers in routing the renovation of the Statehouse executive suite and building exterior through unelected panels.

Lesniak said the lawsuit was filed in state Superior Court on Monday.

The Economic Development Agency and New Jersey Building Authority last week approved financing for the four-year project, following a vote of the State Capitol Joint Management Commission clearing the renovation.

"It's a multi-faceted attack that can be summed up by saying that Gov. Christie has jumped through hoops to get this $300 million to $500 million or more without legislative approval," Lesniak said.

The state treasurer said that with long-term financing the final cost could be $500 million to $750 million.

In the lawsuit, the senators said the approval process strikes at the separation of powers.

The Legislature had approved a $38 million project before Christie yanked it from their auspices and the price tag jumped to nearly $287 million, according to the complaint.

The financing strategy also is a clear circumvention of restrictions on state appropriations and debt, the lawsuit said.

"The means selected by the executive branch ... for the greatly enhanced project described as a comprehensive reconstruction and renovation of the Statehouse Complex was chosen by the executive branch for the sole purpose of bypassing the Legislature and the taxpaying public," it states.

That arrangement involves the Joint Management Committee leasing the Statehouse to the EDA, which will bond for the $287 million renovation and sublease the Statehouse back to the commission. The EDA will pay off the debt with rent payments from the state.

It's a borrowing strategy also used by school districts to finance improvements.

The treasurer's office has said the financing does not require voter approval, despite a 2008 constitutional amendment that demands that input before the "creation of a debt or liability of an autonomous public corporate entity."

The EDA's authorization precedes that so-called Lance Amendment, spokesman Willem Rijksen has said.

Lesniak, who is running for governor, said he believes the lawsuit alone will cast a pall on the bond issuance and delay its hitting the market.

"If they do put out a prospectus, then we'll go in for the order to show cause and preliminary injunctions. But I didn't find that to be necessary right now because I found the complaint to be enough," Lesniak said.

The state Attorney General's Office did not respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time Lesniak has gone after the Christie administration through the courts, but he noted that he shares billing with perhaps the most conservative and most moderate Republicans in the Senate.

"Our lawsuit seeks to hold the governor accountable and halt this boondoggle of a project," Doherty said in a statement. "We're fighting to ensure that New Jersey taxpayers have both transparency and choice as to how their money is spent."

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said on Twitter Tuesday that he had the "absolute right" to share information about terrorism with Russian officials, as he did at the White House last week.

The Washington Post reported that Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about a possible Islamic State plot using laptops brought aboard airplanes.

The information was so highly classified that it wasn't even shared with U.S. allies and some government officials, and could jeopardize an important source of intelligence, the Post said, quoting unnamed current and former officials.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, said the Post story was "false." Powell, who was at the meeting, said Trump "only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

No U.S. journalists were allowed to see any part of the meeting, but a Russian photographer's pictures were distributed by Russian state-owned media.

The White House issued a statement after the meeting that said the attendees discussed Syria, Iran and the Ukraine.

In addition, Trump "raised the possibility of broader cooperation on resolving conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere," and emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia," the statement said.

The FBI and two congressional committees are looking at possible Russian involvement in the U.S. elections. U.S. intelligence agencies have said that Russian officials intervened in the presidential election on behalf of Trump.

The president last week fired FBI Director James Comey, who said the agency was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials during the campaign.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd Dist.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee that is looking at the Russian intervention, called the Post reports "deeply concerning" and said he would raise it at the next meeting of the panel.

Media reports are deeply concerning & I will raise issue surrounding disclosure of classified info in @HouseIntelComm when we meet this week  Frank LoBiondo (@FrankLoBiondoNJ) May 15, 2017

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
BRANCHBURG - A township woman who allegedly engaged in prostitution and used a teen girl as a prostitute has been arrested following a sting operation, Somerset County Prosecutor Michael H. Robertson announced in a news release Tuesday.

Danielle Belford (Somerset County Prosecutor's Office)

Danielle Belford, 20, is accused of prostituting out a 16-year-old female, as well as engaging in prostitution herself, according to the release.

On May 12, an undercover detective from the county's prosecutor's office contacted Belford through her online advertisement and set up a meeting, authorities said.

During their meeting, Belford negotiated with the detective a sexual act involving herself and the 16-year-old victim, it was stated in the release.

At that point, Belford was placed under arrest.

Belford was charged with third-degree endangering the welfare of a child and fourth-degree promoting prostitution by procuring a prostitute for a patron. She was released on her own recognizance.

The 16-year-old victim was placed in the care of the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency, authorities said.

Detectives are continuing the investigation.

The arrest is the second in the past week involving a teen being used for prostitution.

On May 11, a New York pair were arrested in Elkton, Maryland and charged with using a 16-year-old Somerset County teen as a prostitute.

Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com.Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
SPARTA -- The Hopatcong police officer who slapped a bunny-suited, airhorn-toting prankster last fall cut a deal Monday in which he pleaded guilty to harassment and was allowed to keep his job.

Officer Nicholas Maresca Jr. was fined $500 during a 10-minute appearance during Municipal Court Judge John E. Mulhern.

The same fine was meted out April 20 to Kevin Hemmerich, 29, who admitted to disorderly conduct for his role in a bizarre confrontation at police headquarters Nov. 17 that was caught on video.

Before accepting the plea, Mulhern briefly addressed Maresca.

"Did you at that time and in that place subject another to 'offensive touching,'" Mulhern said, referring to the phrasing in the harassment statute.

"Yes, your honor," Maresca replied.

As part of the agreement, Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller dropped a simple assault charge and requested a waiver -- granted by the judge -- from the state law mandating job forfeiture for a public employee convicted of a work-related, petty disorderly persons offense.

Maresca, 45, has been a police officer for 20 years and receives a $103,609 salary, according to public records.

Afterward, Mueller said he was satisfied with the outcome.

"It is no small thing for a police officer to admit to a criminal offense in such a public way, which is what he did," Mueller told NJ Advance Media.

Maresca mingled with about two dozen police supporters after exiting the courtroom but declined comment to reporters.

His attorney, Anthony Iacullo, said, "This resolution provides prompt closure and finality which is something Officer Maresca feels is necessary for those who matter most to him."

A trial had been scheduled for July 6.

Hemmerich was in court Monday, sitting apart from the police officers gathered to support Maresca.

Mueller told the judge that Hemmerich, who had been slated to testify against Maresca, was "in agreement" with the officer's guilty plea.

Nearly six months had passed since Hemmerich, turning himself in on an outstanding warrant, showed up at police headquarters wearing a bunny suit and blaring an air horn.

His brother was videotaping nearby and captured the moment when Maresca, entering the lobby, slapped Hemmerich in the face with an open hand and took him into custody.

The encounter drew widespread attention upon being uploaded to YouTube and Facebook.

Maresca was charged two weeks later with simple assault and placed on administrative duty.

Mueller added a second, lesser charge of harassment, which required only a finding of offensive touching, on March 17, one day after the first of Maresca's two court appearances leading up to his plea.

Following Monday's 6 p.m. hearing, Mueller said that while Hemmerich was not seriously injured, that not prosecuting Maresca -- who remains subject to possible administrative discipline -- would have sent the wrong message.

"The public would lose faith and lose trust that the laws are applied equally and fairly," Mueller said.

"The police and the citizenry owe each other mutual and reciprocal respect, Mueller said, adding, "Kevin Hemmerich and Officer Maresca were wrong that night."

Iacullo said Maresca appreciates the support he received.

"He thanks all those who have supported him throughout this process as their actions have touched him and his family greatly," Iacullo said.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook
TOKYO (AP)  The scenario has become pretty familiar by now. Sometime in the early morning, a missile roars off its launcher in North Korea and flies off  to a splash zone somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. But what if Pyongyang wasn't just testing its hardware or drilling its troops? How long would it take to hit its real-world, primary targets?

Below, two experts talk to The Associated Press about what would happen if North Korea fired at targets near and far. They are David Wright, senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics, an independent space technology and rocketry consulting company based in Germany.

The takeaway: It would get very messy, very fast.

SEOUL: FROM ESSENTIALLY ZERO TO 6 MINUTES

Well before North Korea had a nuclear program, it realized it could hold the 10 million people of greater Seoul, the capital of South Korea, hostage with the threat of a massive, conventional artillery strike from its dug-in gun batteries concentrated just north of the Demilitarized Zone.

If it were to launch such a strike first, the first wave of shells could land with essentially no warning. Estimates vary as to how much damage such an attack could actually wreak  Pyongyang can't, as it has claimed, reduce Seoul to a sea of ashes before a pulverizing counterattack  but it would be considerable.

Seoul's defenses are porous.

It has Patriot missile-defense batteries, but they are intended to protect against short-range Scud missiles. They would not help against an artillery attack. The much-talked-about, state-of-the-art THAAD missile defense system deployed in South Korea this month also cannot protect Seoul from either artillery or incoming missiles  it isn't designed to do that from its current site.

To make things uglier, the North could hit the South with chemical or biological warheads.

One nuclear scenario that has been raised is an attack on the city of Busan, a major port sometimes used by the U.S. Navy. That's an option Pyongyang might consider if it believed it was under immediate threat of attack and wanted to make a show of overwhelming force to keep Washington from committing further.

TOKYO: 10-11 MINUTES

Japan also has Patriot missiles it deploys, among other places, on the grounds of its Defense Ministry in downtown Tokyo.

It helped develop with the U.S. the ship-based Aegis system, which is designed to intercept medium-range missiles and potentially intermediate-range ones  that means missiles with a range of less than about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

The Patriots are designed to intercept an incoming missile at its "terminal stage"  just before it hits  if the Aegis' ship-based SM-3 missiles fail to intercept them farther out and higher up, at mid-course.

Serious questions have been raised over whether this multilayer strategy, even when augmented by the THAAD system, would be a reliable missile shield.

One problem is whether it could be overwhelmed by a "swarm" attack  several incoming missiles at the same time.

North Korea, likely aware of that fear, simultaneously launched four medium-range Scud ER missiles into the Sea of Japan in March.

Recognizing the current shield's weaknesses, some Japanese ruling party lawmakers are pushing for a first-strike plan of Japan's own, using ballistic or cruise missiles, or F-35 stealth fighters.

SAN FRANCISCO: 30-34 MINUTES

To be classified as an ICBM  intercontinental ballistic missile  the missile must have a minimum range of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles). North Korea demonstrated this capability during two separate missile launches in July.

Schiller explains that the time it takes for an ICBM to cover its first 5,500 kilometers is usually a little more than 20 minutes. If you fire at something 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, however, he says it will still reach it in less than 30 minutes.

So while Wright suggests 33-34 minutes to San Francisco, Schiller predicts a faster trip to the West Coast  saying a missile could hit Seattle (8,000 kilometers, or 5,000 miles away) and Los Angeles (9,000 kilometers, or 5,600 miles) away in under 30 minutes from launch.

But that's assuming a North Korean launch from within its own territory.

To get around the distance problem, and to bolster its stealth, North Korea is already developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Experts believe it will take years for the North to have a sub-based missile it could actually use in an attack, but it successfully tested its first one  named Polaris, the same name as the first U.S. missile of that kind  last year.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: 30-39 MINUTES

New York and Washington are less than 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) away. That translates into about 30 minutes according to Schiller, or 38-39 minutes by Wright's estimate.

The United States relies in large part on its Ground-based Missile Defense system, with bases in Vandenberg Air Base in California and Fort Greely, Alaska, to intercept incoming ICBMs.

According to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which estimates that North Korea now "fields hundreds of missiles that can reach U.S. forces forward deployed to the Republic of Korea and Japan," U.S. missile defense systems like the GMD and THAAD "discourage adversaries from believing they can use ballistic missiles to coerce or intimidate the U.S. or its allies."

But critics point out the GMD, which has cost $40 billion, had six out of its nine test intercepts fail between 2002 and 2016. They claim the strategy has "no credible plan for defeating countermeasures" such as decoys.

"In its current form, strategic missile defense is a waste of resources at best and dangerous at worst," the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a report published last year. "It is not a reliable defense under real-world conditions; by promoting it as a solution to nuclear conflict, U.S. officials complicate diplomatic efforts abroad, and perpetuate a false sense of security that could harm the U.S. public."

Wright said that aside from stopping an incoming missile, another big question is what would  or should  a U.S. president do in response.

"The timelines are short," he said. "Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike."

What if the president does decide to hit back hard?

Land-based ICBMs could be in the air within five minutes. Submarine-based missiles in 15.

And once launched, they can't be recalled.

This story was originally published May 17, 2017.
Once elected, members of the Public Service Commission typically have an easy time hanging onto their jobs. Voters dont know much about them or their work, and the only real money in the campaigns has traditionally come from utilities and others 
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Imperial Metals Corporation (the Company) (TSX:III) reports comparative financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and 2016, as summarized in this release and discussed in detail in the Managements Discussion & Analysis. The Companys financial results are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards. The reporting currency of the Company is the Canadian (CDN) Dollar.

Select Quarter Financial Information

expressed in thousands, except share and per share amounts Three Months Ended March 31 2017 2016 Total revenues $ 115,749 $ 136,785 Net (loss) income $ (18,752 ) $ 17,729 Net (loss) income per share $ (0.20 ) $ 0.22 Diluted (loss) income per share $ (0.20 ) $ 0.22 Adjusted net (loss) income (1) $ (22,296 ) $ 1,199 Adjusted net (loss) income per share (1) $ (0.24 ) $ 0.01 Adjusted EBITDA(1) $ 15,187 $ 49,851 Working capital deficiency (2) $ 214,646 $ 173,918 Total assets $ 1,511,120 $ 1,450,277 Total long term debt (including current portion) $ 846,067 $ 863,712 Cash flow (1)(3) $ 15,065 $ 49,425 Cash flow per share (1)(3) $ 0.16 $ 0.60 (1) Refer to table under heading Non-IFRS Financial Measures for further details.

(2) Defined as current assets less current liabilities. (3) Cash flow is defined as the cash flow from operations before the net change in non-cash working capital balances, income and mining taxes, and interest paid. Cash flow per share is defined as Cash flow divided by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the year.





Revenues decreased to $115.7 million in the March 2017 quarter compared to $136.8 million in the 2016 comparative quarter, a decrease of $21.1 million or 15%.

Revenue from the Red Chris mine in the March 2017 quarter was $54.6 million compared to $84.9 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. This decrease was attributable to lower shipment volumes due to processing lower grade ore in the 2017 quarter compared to the 2016 quarter.

Revenue from the Mount Polley mine in the March 2017 quarter was $61.0 million compared to $51.6 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. This increase was primarily due to higher gold grade ore processed and sold in the 2017 quarter compared to the 2016 quarter.

In the March 2017 quarter there were three concentrate shipments from Red Chris mine (2016-five concentrate shipments) and two concentrate shipments from Mount Polley mine (2016two concentrate shipments). Variations in revenue are impacted by the timing and quantity of concentrate shipments, metal prices and exchange rates, and period end revaluations of revenue attributed to concentrate shipments where copper and gold prices will settle at a future date.

Revenue revaluations in the March 2017 quarter added $5.1 million to revenue compared to $5.2 million of revenue added due to revenue revaluations in the 2016 comparative quarter. Positive revenue revaluations are the result of the copper price on the settlement date and/or the current period balance sheet date being higher than when the revenue was initially recorded or the copper price at the last balance sheet date and vice versa for negative revenue revaluations.

Net loss for the March 2017 quarter was $18.8 million ($0.20 per share) compared to net income of $17.7 million ($0.22 per share) in the 2016 comparative quarter. The increase in net loss of $36.5 million was primarily due to the following factors:

Income/loss from mine operations went from income of $20.3 million in March 2016 to loss of $5.7 million in March 2017, an increase in net loss of $26.0 million.

Foreign exchange gains/losses on current and non-current debt went from a gain of $30.7 million in March 2016 to a gain of $3.4 million in March 2017, an increase in net loss of $27.3 million.

Gains/losses on derivative instruments went from a loss of $7.3 million in March 2016 to $nil in March 2017, a decrease in net loss of $7.3 million.

The Companys equity loss in Huckleberry went from loss of $4.0 million in March 2016 to a loss of $1.6 million in March 2017, a decrease in net loss of $2.4 million.

Tax recovery went from an expense of $3.0 million in March 2016 to a recovery of $5.0 million in March 2017, a decrease in net loss of $8.0 million.

The March 2017 quarter net loss included foreign exchange gain related to changes in CDN/US Dollar exchange rate of $3.4 million compared to foreign exchange gain of $30.5 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. The $3.4 million foreign exchange gain is comprised of a $3.4 million gain on the senior notes, a $0.2 million loss on long term equipment loans, and a $0.2 million gain on short-term debt and operational items. The average CDN/US Dollar exchange rate in the March 2017 quarter was 1.323 compared to an average of 1.375 in the 2016 comparative quarter.

Cash flow was $15.1 million in the March 2017 quarter compared to cash flow of $49.4 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. Cash flow is a measure used by the Company to evaluate its performance, however, it is not a term recognized under IFRS. The Company believes Cash flow is useful to investors and it is one of the measures used by management to assess the financial performance of the Company.

Capital expenditures were $24.0 million in the March 2017 quarter, up from $10.5 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. The March 2017 expenditures included $6.2 million for tailings dam construction, $5.0 million for component changes on mobile equipment and $7.2 million of mobile equipment at Mount Polley.

At March 31, 2017, the Company had $7.2 million in cash (December 31, 2016-$14.3 million). The Company had $5.7 million of short-term debt at March 31, 2017 (December 31, 2016-$13.3 million) and has classified $158.1 million of its non-current debt as current at March 31, 2017 (December 31, 2016-$18.7 million).

The London Metals Exchange cash settlement copper price per pound averaged US$2.65 in the March 2017 quarter compared to US$2.12 in the 2016 comparative quarter. The London Metals Exchange cash settlement gold price per troy ounce averaged US$1,219 in the March 2017 quarter compared to US$1,181 in the March 2016 quarter. The average CDN/US$ Dollar exchange rate was 1.323 in the March 2017 quarter, 3.78% lower than in the March 2016 quarter. In CDN Dollar terms the average copper price in the March 2017 quarter was CDN$3.51 per pound compared to CDN$2.92 per pound in the 2016 comparative quarter and the average gold price in the March 2017 quarter was CDN$1,613 per ounce compared to CDN$1,624 per ounce in the 2016 comparative quarter.

Liquidity & Capital Resources

At March 31, 2017, the Company had cash of $7.2 million, available capacity of $20.3 million for future draws under the senior secured revolving credit facility, and a working capital deficiency of $214.6 million compared to cash of $14.3 million and a working capital deficiency of $89.1 million at December 31, 2016. The working capital deficiency at March 31, 2017 included $134.1 million related to the senior secured revolving credit facility which matures on March 15, 2018.

Non-IFRS Financial Measures

The Company reports four non-IFRS financial measures: Adjusted net income, Adjusted EBITDA, Cash flow and Cash cost per pound of copper produced which are described in detail below. The Company believes these measures are useful to investors because they are included in the measures that are used by management in assessing the financial performance of the Company.

Adjusted net income, Adjusted EBITDA, and Cash flow are not generally accepted earnings measures and should not be considered as an alternative to net income (loss) and cash flows as determined in accordance with IFRS. As there is no standardized method of calculating these measures, these measures may not be directly comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies.



expressed in thousands, except share and per share amounts Three Months Ended March 31 2017 2016 Adjusted net (loss) income $ (22,296 ) $ 1,199 Adjusted net (loss) income per share $ (0.24 ) $ 0.01 Adjusted EBITDA $ 15,187 $ 49,851 Cash flow $ 15,065 $ 49,425 Cash flow per share $ 0.16 $ 0.60





Adjusted Net Loss and Adjusted Net Loss per Share



Adjusted net loss in the March 2017 quarter was $22.3 million ($0.24 per share) compared to an adjusted net income of $1.2 million ($0.01 per share) in the 2016 comparative quarter. Adjusted net income or loss shows the financial results excluding the effect of items not settling in the current period and non-recurring items. Adjusted net income or loss is calculated by removing the gains or losses, resulting from mark to market revaluation of derivative instruments not related to the current period, net of tax, unrealized foreign exchange gains or losses on non-current debt, net of tax.

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA in the March 2017 quarter was $15.2 million compared to $49.9 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before interest expense, taxes, depletion and depreciation, and as adjusted for certain other items.

Cash Flow and Cash Flow Per Share

Cash flow in the March 2017 quarter was $15.1 million compared to $49.4 million in the 2016 comparative quarter. Cash flow per share was $0.16 in the March 2017 quarter compared to $0.60 in the 2016 comparative quarter.

Cash flow and cash flow per share are measures used by the Company to evaluate its performance however they are not terms recognized under IFRS. Cash flow is defined as cash flow from operations before the net change in non-cash working capital balances, income and mining taxes, and interest paid and cash flow per share is the same measure divided by the weighted average number of common shares outstanding during the year.

Cash Cost Per Pound of Copper Produced

The cash cost per pound of copper produced is a non-IFRS financial measure that does not have a standardized meaning under IFRS, and as a result may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. Management uses this non-IFRS financial measure to monitor operating costs and profitability. The Company is primarily a copper producer and therefore calculates this non-IFRS financial measure individually for its three copper mines, Red Chris, Mount Polley and Huckleberry, and on a composite basis for these mines. Management uses this non-IFRS financial measure to monitor operating costs and profitability.

The cash cost per pound of copper produced is derived from the sum of cash production costs, transportation and offsite costs, treatment and refining costs, royalties, net of by-product and other revenues, divided by the number of pounds of copper produced during the period.

Variations from period to period in the cash cost per pound of copper produced are the result of many factors including: grade, metal recoveries, amount of stripping charged to operations, mine and mill operating conditions, labour and other cost inputs, transportation and warehousing costs, treatment and refining costs, the amount of by-product and other revenues, the US$ to CDN$ exchange rate and the amount of copper produced. Idle mine costs during the periods when the Huckleberry mine was not in operation have been excluded from the cash cost per pound of copper produced.

Calculation of Cash Cost Per Pound of Copper Produced

expressed in thousands, except cash cost per pound of copper produced Three Months Ended March 31, 2017 Huckleberry Huckleberry 100 % 50 % Red Chris Mount Polley Composite Cash cost of copper produced in US$ $ - $ - $ 39,695 $ 10,852 $ 50,547 Copper produced  pounds - - 16,328 5,461 21,789 Cash cost per lb copper produced in US$ $ - $ - $ 2.43 $ 1.99 $ 2.32 Three Months Ended March 31, 2016 Huckleberry Huckleberry 100 % 50 % Red Chris Mount Polley Composite Cash cost of copper produced in US$ $ 14,613 $ 7,306 $ 23,297 $ 8,720 $ 39,323 Copper produced  pounds 8,277 4,139 23,505 8,179 35,823 Cash cost per lb copper produced in US$ $ 1.77 $ 1.77 $ 0.99 $ 1.07 $ 1.10





OPERATIONS



Red Chris Mine

Metal production for the March 2017 quarter was 16.3 million pounds copper and 5,811 ounces gold with all mill feed coming from the Main Zone pit. Copper recovery for this quarter was 79.5%, up slightly from the 79.1% achieved in the March 2016 quarter, while treating substantially lower copper grades of 0.39% compared to 0.63% treated in the March 2016 quarter.

During this first quarter, the best weekly average recovery for Red Chris was achieved. From January 19-25 copper recovery was 84.3% with a daily record recovery of 86.2% on January 24, 2017. These recoveries were achieved on low clay ore from the lower benches.

The mill achieved average throughput of 26,706 tonnes per calendar day for the March 2017 quarter, up 13% from the comparable quarter in 2016.

Mining the upper benches of the Phase 3 pushback is still yielding significant volumes of high clay ore. To offset the lower recoveries achieved while treating this ore, throughput is being pushed and recently 34,000 tonnes per day throughput was averaged for a week - a new record for Red Chris.

Construction work on installation of an additional rougher cell is nearing completion. Major piping connections are planned for mid-May during a scheduled shut down for maintenance, and commissioning is planned to begin by the end of May.

Three Months Ended March 31 2017 2016 Ore milled - tonnes 2,403,501 2,143,797 Ore milled per calendar day - tonnes 26,706 23,558 Grade % - copper 0.39 0.63 Grade g/t - gold 0.20 0.38 Recovery % - copper 79.5 79.1 Recovery % - gold 37.4 55.4 Copper  000s pounds 16,328 23,505 Gold  ounces 5,811 14,558 Silver  ounces 27,952 56,380





Production at Red Chris for the first quarter was about 7% less than expected for copper and on budget for gold. Production for the year is expected to be at the lower end of the target range for both metals, with production of copper heavily weighted to the 2017 second half, as copper grades are expected to be about 20% higher compared to the 2017 first half.

Red Chris 2017 production targets are 85-90 million pounds copper and 40-44 thousand ounces gold.

Exploration, development and capital expenditures were $11.0 million in the March 2017 quarter compared to $6.9 million in the comparative 2016 quarter.

Mount Polley Mine

Metal production for the March 31, 2017 quarter was 5.5 million pounds copper and 13,811 ounces gold with virtually all ore coming from the Cariboo pit. Copper recovery was 71.3% and gold recovery was 71.6%, similar to those achieved in the March 2016 quarter.

The tonnage of higher grade ores delivered from the Cariboo pit have been lower than predicted by the exploration block model, down about 7%. This has been offset by significant increased tonnages low-grade ores, up over 100%. This does result in lower production as head grades delivered to the mill are lower. To help offset this, mill throughput will be pushed during the summer months to help offset the lower volumes of higher grade available from the Cariboo pit.

Three Months Ended March 31 2017 2016 Ore milled - tonnes 1,692,762 1,709,148 Ore milled per calendar day - tonnes 18,808 18,782 Grade % - copper 0.21 0.31 Grade g/t - gold 0.36 0.33 Recovery % - copper 71.3 70.3 Recovery % - gold 71.6 71.5 Copper  000s pounds 5,461 8,179 Gold  ounces 13,811 12,914 Silver  ounces 10,877 35,031





First quarter production at Mount Polley was down due to lower than planned copper grades and reduced mill throughput resulting from unexpected repair work.

Mount Polley 2017 production targets are 25-28 million pounds copper and 55-60 thousand ounces gold, however copper production is likely to be at the lower end of the guidance.

Exploration, development and capital expenditures were $13.0 million in the March 2017 quarter compared to $3.5 million in the comparative 2016 quarter.

Huckleberry Mine

The Huckleberry mine remains on care and maintenance.

On April 7, 2017, Huckleberry Mines Ltd. (Huckleberry") exercised its right of first refusal to purchase for cancellation all the shares of Huckleberry held by a syndicate of Japanese companies in exchange for cash consideration of $2.0 million. The transaction closed on April 28, 2017 and Imperial now holds 100% of the shares of Huckleberry through HML Mining Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Imperial.

Sterling Mine

On February 14, 2017, the Company announced it entered into a Letter of Intent to sell its interest in the Sterling gold mine property and related assets and as a result these assets and liabilities have been reclassified to assets held for sale. The closing is subject to completion of a formal agreement, board and regulatory approvals, completion of due diligence and conventional conditions for such a transaction.

OUTLOOK FOR 2017

Executive Appointments

Imperial welcomes Darb S. Dhillon, CA, CPA, as Vice President Finance effective April 24, 2017.

The Company is also pleased to announce the additional appointments of General Counsel Sophie Hsia as Vice President Risk, and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Carolyn Anglin as Vice President Environmental Affairs.

Operations, Earnings and Cash Flow

The copper and gold production targets for 2017 from the Red Chris and Mount Polley mines remains within the range previously provided (110-118 million pounds copper and 95-104 thousand ounces gold) but at the lower end of the range, given the first quarter production. Higher copper production is targeted for the second half of 2017 when grades are expected to be higher at Red Chris.

For detailed financial information, refer to Imperials 2017 First Quarter Report available on imperialmetals.com and sedar.com.



An Earnings Announcement Conference Call

is scheduled for May 16, 2017 at 10:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT



Management will discuss the Companys 2017 First Quarter Report. To participate in the earnings announcement conference call, select the phone number applicable to your location:



778.383.7413 Vancouver

416.764.8688 Toronto

587.880.2171 Calgary

888.390.0546 North America  toll free



Conference call will be available for playback until 11:59pm on May 23, 2017 by dialing 888.390.0541 or 416.764.8677 | playback passcode 920759#



About Imperial

Imperial is a Vancouver based exploration, mine development and operating company. The Company, through its subsidiaries, owns the Red Chris, Mount Polley and Huckleberry copper mines in British Columbia, and the Sterling gold mine in Nevada. Imperial also holds a 50% interest in the Ruddock Creek lead|zinc property in British Columbia.

Forward-Looking Information and Risks Notice



The information in this news release provides a summary review of the Companys operations and financial position as at and for the period ended March 31, 2017, and plans for the future based on facts and circumstances as of May 15, 2017.

Except for statements of historical fact relating to the Company, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking information which is prospective in nature and reflects the current views and/or expectations of Imperial. Often, but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of statements such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "projects", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such information in this MD&A includes, without limitation, statements regarding: use of proceeds from financings and credit; the 2017 production targets for the Red Chris and Mount Polley mines and the expected weighting of production to the second half of the year; construction progress and planned installation of an additional Red Chris flotation cell; the expected closing of the sale of the Companys interest in the Sterling gold mine property; mine plans; costs and timing of current and proposed exploration and development; production and marketing; capital expenditures; adequacy of funds for projects and liabilities; the receipt of necessary regulatory permits, approvals or other consents; cash flow; working capital requirements; the requirement for additional capital; results of operations, production, revenue, margins and earnings; future prices of copper and gold; future foreign currency exchange rates and impact; future accounting changes; and future prices for marketable securities.

Forward-looking information is not based on historical facts, but rather on then current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about the business and the industry and markets in which the Company operates, including, but not limited to, assumptions that: the Company will be able to advance and complete remaining planned rehabilitation activities within expected timeframes; there will be no significant delay or other material impact on the expected timeframes or costs for completion of rehabilitation of the Mount Polley mine and implementation of Mount Polleys long term water management plan; the Companys initial rehabilitation activities at Mount Polley will be successful in the long term; all required permits, approvals and arrangements to proceed with planned rehabilitation and Mount Polleys long term water management plan will be obtained in a timely manner; there will be no material operational delays at the Red Chris or Mount Polley mines; equipment will operate as expected; there will not be significant power outages; the Companys use of derivative instruments will enable the Company to achieve expected pricing protection; there will be no material adverse change in the market price of commodities and exchange rates; the Red Chris and Mount Polley mines will achieve expected production outcomes (including with respect to mined grades and mill recoveries); and Imperial will have access to capital as required and satisfy financial covenants contained in its credit facilities and other loan documents. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. We can give 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 Imperials actual results, revenues, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements constituting forward-looking information.

Important risks that could cause Imperials actual results, revenues, performance or achievements to differ materially from Imperials expectations include, among other things: that additional financing that may be required may not be available to Imperial on terms acceptable to Imperial or at all; that Imperial may be unable to satisfy financial covenants contained in its credit facilities and other loan documents; uncertainty regarding the outcome of sample testing and analysis being conducted on the area affected by the Mount Polley Breach; risks relating to the timely receipt of necessary approvals and consents to proceed with the rehabilitation plan and Mount Polleys long term water management plan; risks relating to the remaining costs and liabilities and any unforeseen longer-term environmental consequences arising from the Mount Polley Breach; uncertainty as to actual timing of completion of rehabilitation activities and the implementation of Mount Polleys long term water management plan; risks relating to the impact of the Mount Polley Breach on Imperials reputation; the quantum of claims, fines and penalties that may become payable by Imperial and the risk that current sources of funds are insufficient to fund liabilities; risks that Imperial will be unsuccessful in defending against any legal claims or potential litigation; risks of protesting activity and other civil disobedience restricting access to the Companys properties; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations; cost escalation, unavailability of materials and equipment, labour unrest, power outages or shortages, and natural phenomena such as weather conditions negatively impacting the operation of the Red Chris mine or the Mount Polley mine; changes in commodity and power prices; changes in market demand for our concentrate; inaccurate geological and metallurgical assumptions (including with respect to the size, grade and recoverability of mineral reserves and resources); and other hazards and risks disclosed within the Managements Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2016 and other public filings which are available on sedar.com and imperialmetals.com. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Imperial does not undertake to update any forward looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
Carol Forristall has announced she'll run for her late husband's Iowa House seat.

In a statement Tuesday, Carol Forristall said she'd seek the seat vacated by her husband Greg, who died on May 10 after a battle with cancer after serving in the state House from 2007 to this year.

"As a legislator, Ill focus on providing Iowans the best schools in the nation, protecting our most important commodity  agriculture and providing tax relief for hardworking, middle-class families, Carol Forristall said in a statement. Before Greg passed, he asked me to run for his seat, and I intend to do so.

Carol Forristall taught music for 35 years in the Glenwood, Carson-Macedonia and Riverside districts. The Forristalls farmed their land in Macedonia for 25 years, Carol Forristall said in a release. Carol Forristall clerked for her husband in the House the last nine years.

A special election is planned for June 27 for Iowa House District 22, which is composed of the majority of Pottawattamie County, including the eastern portion of Council Bluffs.

The county Republican and Democratic parties will host a nominating convention for candidates for the seat.
There is a chance of thunderstorms every day this week across western Iowa and eastern Nebraska, forecasters said, and winds could gust as high as 30 mph through Wednesday.

John Walsh, a meteorologist with KMTV, said the region generally can expect successive chances for rain and storms this week.

The real threat for severe weather moves in this evening, Walsh said, as a more powerful system digs into the region from the north.

If rainy weather develops as expected today, it could linger into Wednesday. In its wake, cooler weather is forecast late Wednesday into Thursday. The highs on Wednesday and Thursday are forecast in the 70s and overnight lows are expected in the 50s the rest of the week.

A break in the chance for rain is possible Thursday morning, but the chance of rain returns to the forecast on Thursday afternoon and lasts into Sunday.

According to the National Weather Services precipitation outlook for the next week, its possible the Iowa-Nebraska border region could receive up to 4 inches of rain. The weather service advises that long-term rainfall projections be viewed with caution, given that the timing of clashing weather systems and paths that storms take are subject to change.

The latest Council Bluffs-Omaha forecast, according to the National Weather Service office in Valley, Nebraska:

Today: Mostly sunny with a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m. Look for a high in the upper 80s and south winds gusting as high as 30 mph.

Tonight: Showers and thunderstorms likely (70 percent), mainly before 1 a.m., with a low around 65 and south winds gusting as high as 25 mph.

Wednesday: Showers and thunderstorms likely (80 percent) with a high around 75 and south-southeast winds gusting as high as 30 mph.

Wednesday night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1 a.m. with a low around 55.

Thursday: Partly sunny with a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m. and a high around 70.

Thursday night: Showers likely with a possible thunderstorm and a low in the lower 50s.

Friday: Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers and a high around 66.

Friday night: A chance of showers with a low around 50.

Saturday: Mostly cloudy with a slight chance of showers and a high around 65.

Saturday night: A slight chance of showers with a low in the upper 40s.

Sunday: Mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers and a high in the upper 60s.
OMAHA  Anna Hutt shed tears on Mothers Day as she listened to the beat of her teenage sons heart inside the chest of the man he saved through organ donation.

The Clarinda woman used a stethoscope to monitor what she described as the peaceful heartbeat of Gary Flint, 64, at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Hutt and Flint met for the first time since he received the heart of 16-year-old Payton Casteel three years ago. Payton died in a dirt bike crash.

This has been a long time coming, said Flint of Lexington, Nebraska. We talked on the phone, but I didnt think we were ever going to get to meet.

Hutt, Flint and cardiologist Dr. Ronald Zolty answered questions about the importance of organ donation at a press conference. Hutt said her sons decision to become a donor taught me that the gift of life is very special.

She admitted to being surprised when Payton checked the organ donor box while applying for a learners permit at the Iowa Department of Motor Vehicles. A short argument ensued.

I will never forget that conversation, Hutt said. I told Payton What you come into this world with you should leave with.

But Payton didnt believe that.

He told me Mom, theyre my organs, not yours. Are you telling me that if something happens to me youd let my organs rot in the ground? No. I want to be a donor and help people.

Paytons decision saved seven lives in all.

After getting to know Flint, the teens mother thinks the match of donor and recipient couldnt have come out any better. Her son was a jokester who liked to play a lot of pranks, ride all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes and work on cars.

When Payton was little he would go and go and go. It would make me tired just watching him, Hutt said. I just want Gary to be healthy and happy. Im excited to meet his family and listen to his heart.

Flint loves to joke, too, and found it hard to answer questions without adding a quip.

I never smoked or drank in my life, but now Im thinking of taking it up, he joked. When you talk about Payton, its like youre talking about me. I usually like to exceed the fun meter.

Flint had been diagnosed with nonischemic cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the heart that can be caused by several factors, including high blood pressure, a virus or genetics.

Despite his condition, Flint continued to exercise and treat lawns with chemicals for a local business.

On May 21, 2014, Payton was riding his dirt bike about a half block from his house in Coin when he collided with a van. Payton wasnt wearing his helmet and suffered severe head trauma.

Flints condition deteriorated the same month Payton died.

In May 2014, my heart function got worse, Flint said. I wasnt feeling well and had trouble breathing. I remember (transplant surgeon) Dr. John Um telling me Gary, youre a very sick man. Im not sure if we will get you a heart in time. After hearing that, I made peace with dying.

Zolty said Flint wouldnt have lasted much longer. Only about 4 percent of his heart was still working  he needed the transplant.

Patients get used to feeling bad, Zolty said. Until they get their new heart they dont understand how bad it really was.

Six days after Flint was placed on the transplant waiting list, a nurse came into his hospital room at midnight and told him a match had been found. On May 23, two days after Paytons fatal accident, his heart was transplanted into Flint.

I have two birthdays now, Flint said. I always tell people that Im 64 going on 18. My first birthday is Feb. 27  the day I was actually born. The other birthday is May 23  the day I received Paytons heart. That birthday means much more to me.

One year after his heart transplant, Flint and Hutt started communicating via letters and phone calls.

The correspondence culminated Sunday, when Hutt not only got to hear her sons heart beating again but also received a recording of it inside a stuffed bear. She hugged the gift from Flint and his family tightly.

I couldnt think of a better man for the heart, she said. I want him to live. I want him to smile, and I want him to be happy.

Flint said he will never be able to thank Hutt and her son enough for his second chance at life.

He assured Hutt that he wants to stay in touch and meet again.

I got to see my grandson be born and then my granddaughter, he said. I mean, its a miracle, giving life again.
WASHINGTON  This years health care debate in Congress has been dominated by talk about pre-existing conditions and private insurance premiums.

But that discussion overlooks the fundamental Medicaid overhaul on the table that could shift significant burdens onto states, said Robin Rudowitz, a Medicaid expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

States, I think, maybe havent been paying that close attention but could be left facing a lot of risk related to financing, Rudowitz said.

Governors from both parties have started raising concerns about the proposal  including Republicans in Ohio, Massachusetts and Illinois.

Medicaid represents a federal-state partnership that provides coverage to eligible low-income adults, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities. Many states opted to expand their Medicaid programs with additional federal support under the Affordable Care Act.

The House-approved American Health Care Act would roll back the federal support for expansion states and impose per-capita caps on the program. States also could opt to switch to a block grant.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that such changes would cut a total of $880 billion nationwide from the program over the next 10 years. That figure doesnt account for last-minute changes to the bill; the House passed it before the CBO could issue a new analysis.

Opponents said reduced federal support for Medicaid will force states into tough decisions to address the resulting shortfalls: raise taxes, cut other programs such as education or offer less in the way of health benefits. In particular, a state like Nebraska that has offered optional Medicaid benefits, such as dental coverage, could move to pare those back.

The U.S. Senate has started its work on health care, and how the final legislation handles Medicaid could end up determining whether a bill ever makes it to President Donald Trumps desk. Senate moderates have balked at the cuts sent over from the House, even as some conservatives push to pare the program even further.

Members of the Iowa and Nebraska congressional delegations, meanwhile, reported no cries of alarm yet from their state officials.

The spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican, reiterated Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds opposition to the Affordable Care Act as unsustainable and said Congress needs to fix health care, but did not offer thoughts on the impact of the Medicaid cuts.

We simply do not know at this point how efforts in the House will affect our state, spokesman Ben Hammes said. It appears the Senate will be making substantial changes or even introduce their own bill. Before we have a final solution, we will wait and see how these changes will impact our state.

Iowa faces a bigger challenge than Nebraska, as it opted to expand its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.

Nearly 150,000 Iowans are covered under the expansion, with the state receiving $1.1 billion in federal funds to cover them from January 2014 to September 2015, according to Kaiser figures.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a senior member of the Finance Committee, said his grandson, who is a member of the Iowa House of Representatives, has warned him that the Medicaid cuts could mean quite a hit to Iowas state budget. Still, Grassley said, resources are limited.

From 1965 until now weve had an open checking account for states, and when you have an open checking account for states, you see a lot of states have expanded Medicaid way beyond whats reasonable, because the federal governments going to pick up a big part of the tab, Grassley said. Weve got to have some more fiscal responsibility at the federal level.

A spokesman for Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, provided a statement criticizing the Affordable Care Act and calling for its repeal and replacement.

The statement did not specifically address the House Medicaid proposals other than to note that the legislation is likely to evolve as it goes through the Senate.

But Nebraska health and insurance officials sent a lengthy letter to House Republicans earlier this year in which they addressed general and technical issues with Medicaid.

Finance reform should promote flexibility and efficiency, not shift risk to states without authority to effectively manage costs, the officials wrote.

Nebraska officials, in the letter, specifically cited the prospect of going to a per-capita model or block grant approach and said that any methodology should take into account unique approaches by states.

Simply basing funding levels on historical spending doesnt take into account fiscally prudent decisions made in many states, they wrote.

States should have the opportunity to work directly with federal authorities to negotiate the terms of financing and programmatic changes, they wrote.

Many opponents of the Medicaid cuts have noted that the House-passed bill comes with tax cuts that particularly benefit wealthier Americans.

Thats very concerning to us  that tax reform would happen on the backs of Americas most vulnerable people, said Linda Timmons, president and CEO of Mosaic, a nonprofit organization that provides services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Timmons said she is worried that limited funding would cause Nebraska to slide backward toward providing a more institutional rather than community-based approach to those with disabilities.

Already many people fail to get timely access to services, she said.

If we see flat funding or cuts in funding, I dont know how were going to be able to competitively pay our staff, she said.

All five House members who represent Nebraska and western Iowa are Republicans and all five supported the legislation.

Rep. Don Bacon, who represents the Omaha-based 2nd District, said he has talked to state officials and to Childrens Hospital & Medical Center, which is largely dependent on Medicaid.

Bacon said its certainly compelling to visit a place like Childrens and see the babies who are relying on Medicaid to cover their care.

But he also said he has talked to House Speaker Paul Ryan and those who crafted the legislation and been assured that Nebraska wont see a reduction in funding.

Weve got to keep our eyes on future years, obviously, but right now there shouldnt be a reduction for Nebraska, Bacon said.

Those on the front lines arent so sure about that.

In fact, Childrens remains opposed to the legislation, Dr. Richard Azizkhan, president and CEO, said in a statement.

As an advocate and champion for all children, Childrens cannot support any bill that does not safeguard Medicaid funding, coverage and benefits for children, Azizkhan said. Children are not driving the cost of Medicaid, but will suffer the greatest under the recent proposal in Washington.

He called for Congress to make changes to the legislation that would shield children from the financial repercussions of implementing a block grant or per-capita model, as well as maintaining their coverage and essential benefits structure.

Bacon repeatedly noted that if Congress adopts legislation and the funding proves to be inadequate, it can revisit the issue down the road.

Whether you did this or not, costs could go up or down and weve got to keep our eyes on it, Bacon said.
AIM: MARL

TSX-V: MARL







16 May 2017



Granite House, La Grande Rue,

St. Martin, Guernsey, GY1 3RS

Channel Islands





TR-1-Notice of Significant Shareholder

Mariana Resources Ltd ("Mariana" or the "Company"), the AIM ("MARL") and TSXV ("MARL") listed exploration and development company with projects in Turkey, Cote d'Ivoire and South America, announces that the MMCAP International Inc. SPC has reached a direct holding of 7.16% in the Company. This threshold has been achieved over a period from the 5 May to the 12 May within a closing trading range of 87.50p to 95p . MMCAP currently holds 9,358,663 ordinary shares in the Company.

Mariana Resources Limited

"Glen Parsons"

Glen Parsons, CEO

**ENDS**

Glen Parsons (CEO) Mariana Resources Ltd +61 2 9437 4588 Eric Roth (COO) Mariana Resources Ltd +56 9 8818 1243 Karen Davies (IR) Mariana Resources Ltd (Canada) +1 604 314 6270 Rob Adamson RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0041 Will Souter RFC Ambrian Limited (Nomad) +61 2 9250 0050 In U.K. Oliver Stansfield Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5061 Jonathan Evans Brandon Hill Capital (UK Broker) +44 20 3463 5016 Camilla Horsfall Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3224 Megan Ray Blytheweigh (Financial PR) +44 20 7138 3203

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.

About Mariana Resources

Mariana Resources Ltd is a TSX.V and AIM (MARL) quoted exploration and development company with an extensive portfolio of gold, silver, and copper projects in South America, Turkey, and Ivory Coast.

Mariana's most advanced asset is the Hot Maden gold-copper project in northeast Turkey, which is a joint venture with Turkish partner Lidya Madencilik (30% Mariana and 70% Lidya) and which is rapidly advancing to development. On January 17, 2017, Mariana released the results of a Preliminary Economic Study ("PEA") which demonstrated exceptional potential economics for the Hot Maden Project (after-tax NPV and IRR of USD 1.37B and 153%, respectively) based on a development scenario incorporating a 1Mtpa underground mining / processing operation and the production of two saleable concentrates (a copper-gold concentrate and a gold-pyrite concentrate). This PEA was based on the updated (July 25, 2016) mineral resource estimate of 3.43 Moz gold equivalent (Indicated Category) and 0.09 Moz gold equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) in the Main Zone, as well as a maiden 351,000 Moz gold equivalent (Inferred Category) (100% basis) resource in the New Southern Discovery. Elsewhere in Turkey, Mariana holds a 100% interest in the Ergama gold-copper project.

On October 7, 2016, Mariana announced the signing of a binding Term Sheet to acquire an indirect 80% interest in Ivory Coast-focused private exploration company Awale Resources SARL ("Awale"). Through the transaction Mariana will gain an immediate foothold in an established exploration portfolio with known gold mineralisation and artisanal gold workings, and which comprises i) 3 granted contiguous licenses (1,191 km2) in the Bondoukou area, and ii) 4 licenses under application (1,593 km2) in both the Bondoukou and Abengourou areas. The Boundoukou concessions lie along the southwestern extension of the Birimian Bole-Nangodi greenstone belt in adjacent Ghana, host to a number of high grade orogenic gold deposits.

In southern Argentina, the Company's core gold-silver projects are Las Calandrias (100%), Sierra Blanca (100%), Los Cisnes (100%), and Bozal (100%). These projects are part of a 100,000+ Ha land package in the Deseado Massif epithermal gold-silver district in mining-friendly Santa Cruz Province.

In Suriname, Mariana has a direct holding of 10.2% of the Nassau Gold project. The Nassau Gold Project is a 28,000 Ha exploration concession located approximately 125 km south east of the capital Paramaribo and immediately adjacent to Newmont Mining's 4.2Moz gold Merian project. In Peru and Chile, Mariana is focusing on acquiring new opportunities which complement its current portfolio.

Hot Maden Mineral Resource Estimate - Main Gold-Copper Zone (2 g/t AuEq Cut-off) Indicated Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** Main Zone LG 463,000 1.1 1.1 0.3 2.4 17,000 5,000 36,000 Main Zone HG 4,501,000 3.9 1.9 0.2 6.3 570,000 87,000 908,000 Main Zone UHG 2,086,000 32.7 3.5 0.1 36.9 2,195,000 73,000 2,476,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 17,000 7.5 3.1 3.6 11.2 4,000 1,000 6,000 Peripheral Lodes 60,000 2.1 0.4 0.4 2.5 4,000 5,000 Total 7,127,000 12.2 2.3 0.2 15.0 2,790,000 166,000 3,431,000 Inferred Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** Main Zone LG 395,000 1.7 0.9 0.03 2.8 21,000 4,000 35,000 Main Zone HG 31,000 3.9 1.6 0.1 5.8 4,000 6,000 Main Zone UHG 6,000 39.1 2.1 0.01 41.6 7,000 8,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 4,000 1.7 0.4 2.4 2.2 Peripheral Lodes 282,000 3.2 0.9 0.1 4.3 29,000 2,000 38,000 Total 718,000 2.7 0.9 0.1 3.8 62,000 7,000 88,000



Hot Maden - Southern Gold-Copper Zone (2 g/t AuEq Cut-off) Inferred Mineral Resource Domain Tonnes Au Cu Zn AuEq Au Cu AuEq t g/t % % g/t* Ounces Tonnes Ounces** South Zone LG 396,000 2.8 0.7 0.0 3.6 35,000 3,000 46,000 South Zone HG 583,000 5.3 0.7 0.0 6.1 98,000 4,000 114,000 Main Zone UHG 224,000 22.2 1.0 0.0 23.4 160,000 2,000 169,000 Mixed Gold-Zinc 44,000 9.0 1.0 3.2 10.2 13,000 15,000 Peripheral Lodes 104,000 1.9 0.3 0.0 2.2 6,000 7,000 Total 1,352,000 7.2 0.7 0.1 8.1 313,000 10,000 351,000

*Au Equivalence (AuEq) calculated using a 100 day moving average of $US1,215/ounce for Au and $US2.13/pound for Cu as of May 29, 2016. No adjustment has been made for metallurgical recovery or net smelter return as these remain uncertain at this time. Based on grades and contained metal for Au and Cu, it is assumed that both commodities have reasonable potential to be economically extractable.

*-The formula used for Au equivalent grade is: AuEq g/t = Au + [(Cu % x 22.0462 x 2.13)/(1215/31.1035)] and assumes 100 % metallurgical recovery. **-Au equivalent ounces are calculated by mulitplying Mineral Resource tonnage by Au equivalent grade and converting for ounces. The formula used for Au equivalent ounces is: AuEq Oz = [Tonnage x AuEq grade (g/t)]/31.1035

Safe Harbour

This press release contains certain statements which may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as at the date of this press release and include, without limitation, statements regarding discussions of future plans, the realization, cost, timing and extent of mineral resource estimates, estimated future exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, success of exploration activities, permitting time lines, and requirements for additional capital. The words "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimate", "forecasts", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "may", "will", or similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the effects of general economic conditions; the price of gold, silver and copper; misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements; risks associated with international operations; the need for additional financing; risks inherent in exploration results; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters; currency and commodity price fluctuations; title matters; environmental liability claims; unanticipated operational risks; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or in the completion of development or construction activities; political risk; and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's annual financial statements for the most recently completed financial year which is available on the Company's website at www.marianaresources.com . Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions and have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
In a move that pretty much stretches credibility to the limit, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad approved a roughly $7.2 billion state budget on Friday that will allow a longtime research center to remain open, though he still plans to remove its funding.

Branstad, who is expected to be confirmed in a matter of days as the U.S. Ambassador to China, used his veto power to remove language in the budget that would have eliminated the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. At the same time, he left in place plans to redirect a tax worth roughly $1.5 million that helps pay for the center. That funding source will be shifted to a separate ISU center that studies water quality.

Last month, a Republican-led budget committee voted to approve an education bill that included cutting all state funding from ISUs Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. The Legislature decided against cutting funding to the Iowa Flood Center, which is housed at the University of Iowa and monitors river and stream levels. Lawmakers originally eliminated the flood centers total annual funding of $1.5 million, but eventually reinstated $1.2 million.

As we stated in this space last month, Iowa is an agriculture state. Efforts to make farm practices more sustainable and better for the environment are more important now than ever.

As Mark Rasmussen, director of the Leopold Center, told the AP last month, cutting state funding could jeopardize federal funding.

A combination of a stagnant agriculture economy, a high amount of tax incentives and other factors have left the state in a budget crunch. We understand that. But in a state so dependent on the agricultural segment of its economy, we dont see cutting funding to agricultural research as a prudent move.

The Leopold Center, this year commemorating its 30th anniversary, is known for its research on sustainable farming practices. Republicans with majorities in the Legislature indicated during the session that the decision to close the center was based on the belief that its work was complete.

Knowledge in all areas, including agricultural practices, is expanding exponentially. To say that research into improving sustainable farming practices is not needed is, in our view, foolish.

Branstads decision to allow the Leopold Center to remain open but without funding is a prime example of cutting off the nose to spite the face.
CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) data from the end of March 2017 suggest, the consumer credit market is as complex as ever. Mortgage delinquency rates: continuing to drop. Auto loan delinquency rates: rising. Personal loan market: growing, but slowing. Access to credit cards: highest since 2005.



Maneuvering through this ever-changing credit landscape is difficult for lenders of all sizes, ranging from credit unions to regional banks to the largest financial institutions. To help navigate through this complex maze, TransUnion today introduced the newest modules in its PramaSM environment  Benchmarking and Data Extract.

"The future of lending is here; advanced analytics and tools are readily available to help all lenders make smarter decisions, said Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnions financial services business unit. The latest Prama modules give our customers a significant advantage  the ability to gain deeper insights into their own portfolios while comparing their books of business to peers at speeds that were unfathomable as recently as last year.

Prama Benchmarking provides advanced data analytics and visualization capabilities specific to the auto loan, credit card, mortgage and personal loan marketsto deliver relevant insights for each line of business. Lenders will now be able to measure their performance across numerous metrics and filters, and compare it to the industry and their peers. This information can be used to improve how financial services companies segment, target, acquire, cross-sell and retain customers. The Data Extract module provides self-service access to query against 100 percent of TransUnion depersonalized archive credit data, allowing customers to receive faster delivery of data to support their own analyticsin their own environment with their preferred tools.

The Benchmarking and Data Extract modules are the latest additions to the Prama environment, which already includes Market Insights, Vintage Analysis and Attribute Manager. Prama offers a uniform user experience that allows customers to easily navigate key elements of the holistic suite such as self-service on-demand access, unprecedented quantities of data and industry/peer benchmarking.

Measuring Business Performance Against Peers

The Prama Benchmarking module goes beyond industry-only views and vintage curves to allow lenders to view 60 months of their performance data at the MSA level. Information is available across a wide range of granular metrics and dimensions, allowing customers to compare performance to the industry and peers.

Benchmarking provides performance data on metrics such as delinquencies, charge-offs, bankruptcy, average balance and utilization. It offers views of market share in terms of number of accounts, total limit or total balance. The module also lets lenders analyze depersonalized data using dimensions such as APR, origination vintage, credit tier, state or MSA region, account status and consumer credit age.

For instance, a regional bank in Western Pennsylvania interested in growing its credit card portfolio is now able to observe five years of its own data versus other similar banks in their region. The information is accessed in minutes instead of weeks or months, allowing the bank to determine how its performance stacks up against the rest of the industry and its peers. Prama Benchmarking allows the bank to uncover opportunities within certain consumer risk segments such as subprime or prime and see if they should consider expansion into nearby geographies. By digging deeper into other readily available depersonalized data such as accounts, balances and delinquency performance, the bank can use this information to make insightful decisions to grow its credit card business.

The breadth of data available today in Prama is light-years ahead of what we have had at our disposal to date, said Steve Miller, president of Twenty Twenty Analytics, a premier loan portfolio analytic service provider for credit unions. We can now spend time analyzing localized or national data, as close to real-time as practical, instead of analyzing aged data or trying to get our hands on a narrow, but current data set for management decisioning. As a result, Prama helps us quickly evaluate and understand changes in the consumer credit market and provides our clients the opportunity to be more nimble in risk management and loan pricing.

Extracting Data Faster  From a Month or More to Hours

Prama Data Extract gives TransUnion customers self-service access to obtain depersonalized archive credit data, giving the customer control over how quickly they can obtain the data they need.

To thrive in a dynamic business environment, organizations need easy access to data to help them better understand the market and make faster, more informed decisions, said Ginny Gomez, senior vice president in TransUnions innovative solutions group. The pace of the market continues to quicken, requiring businesses to increase the speed at which they make decisions and implement strategies. To support this pace, they need real-time access to datafaster than conventional processes available today.

A traditional archive request process  from customer order to product delivery  typically takes 30 days or more. This includes time spent defining and iterating on the customers data requirements. With Data Extract, the process will take less than 24 hours  an enormous time savings, said Gomez.

With Data Extract, customers gain the following advantages:

Self-service  On-demand, point-and-click access to query TU depersonalized archive credit data.

Speed  Secure overnight delivery of the dataset.

Confidence  Quick access to depersonalized data to support a customers own analytics, so they can make faster decisions with more confidence.

Control  Create queries according to their data requirements, avoiding the back and forth that is often typical of an archive request process.

Flexibility  Quickly obtain depersonalized data for use within their own analytics environment and processes.

To learn more about TransUnions newest Prama modules, please visit https://www.transunion.com/prama.



A PDF accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/bcfbc24f-d2b3-4e8c-80c2-9dc52b3d9c79



About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)

Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point, using historical information as well as alternative data sources. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion has a global presence in more than 30 countries and a leading presence in several international markets across North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide.

We call this Information for Good. http://www.transunion.com/business
English Norwegian

The nomination committee of SalMar ASA has nominated Atle Eide to the position as new chair of the board. Atle Eide has previously served as CEO of Marine Harvest, and has held a number of top executive and board positions in aquaculture and other globally-oriented Norwegian industries. Eide is a senior partner in the private equity investment company HitecVision.



SalMar ASA's board comprises seven directors, two of whom are elected by employees. In addition to Atle Eide, Therese Log Bergjord, Margrethe Hauge, and Helge Moen are nominated as new board directors. The board of directors also includes Kjell A. Storeide (reelected for two additional years in 2016).



The incumbent chairman, Bjrn Flatgard, who has served on SalMar's board for 15 years, announced in March that he was not seeking reelection (see stock exchange release 2 March 2017). The board directors Bente Rathe and Tove Nedreberg have also announced that they are stepping down from their positions on SalMar's board. Nedreberg was reelected for additional two years in 2016, but has communicated her desire to resign as board director due to other work-related obligations.



SalMar's main shareholder, Gustav Witze, has also announced his intent to step down as board member. As director of processing and sales, Witze is a member of SalMar's management group. Witze served as the company's acting CEO over the past winter.



"We are extremely pleased that Atle Eide has accepted the nomination to become chair of SalMar's board of directors. He brings on board considerable industry experience - and competence - and is also well acquainted with the company. Along with the other board director candidates, he will provide SalMar with a highly competent board, with broad industry development experience from the aquaculture business, as well as from other sectors", said Helge Moen, chair of the nomination committee.



Helge Moen, who is the CEO of Kverva, SalMar's main shareholder, will step down from his current position as chair of the nomination committee.



The election of new board chair and directors takes place at SalMar's annual general meeting 6 June 2017.



For further information:

Helge Moen, chair, nomination committee of SalMar ASA

+ 47 957 76 826



Web: www.salmar.no



This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
Hamilton, Bermuda, May 16, 2017

For the interest it may have, below is a press release from Nordic American Offshore Ltd. that was announced today.

-------------------------------------

Nordic American Offshore Ltd. (NYSE:NAO) - the Executive Chairman and his family increase its holding in NAO.

Hamilton, Bermuda, May 16, 2017

A company owned by the NAO Executive Chairman, Herbjorn Hansson and his son, Alexander, today bought 500,000 shares in NAO at an average price of $1.25 per share.

Over the last week, as from Tuesday May 9, the Hansson family has acquired 2,481,007 NAO shares in aggregate at an average price of $1.15 per share. In addition to the holdings of the past, following today's transaction, the Hansson family holds shares equivalent to 7.7% of NAO. Relevant filing will be undertaken.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts.



The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, our management's examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although we believe that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Important factors that, in our view, could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include the strength of world economies and currencies, general market conditions, including fluctuations in charter rates and vessel values, changes in demand in the PSV market, as a result of changes in the general market conditions of the oil and natural gas industry which influence charter hire rates and vessel values, demand in platform supply vessels, our operating expenses, including bunker prices, dry docking and insurance costs, governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities as well as potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, the availability of financing and refinancing, vessel breakdowns and instances of off-hire and other important factors described from time to time in the reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contacts:

Herbjrn Hansson, Executive Chairman

Nordic American Offshore Ltd.

Tel: +1 866 805 9504 or + 47 90 14 62 91

Web-site: www.nao.bm
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Southern Lithium Corp. (TSX-V:SNL) (FSE:SL5) ("Southern" or "the Company") is aware of a significant increase in the volume of trading in the Companys stock on the FSE as a result of unauthorized German newsletters, Pennystocks.de, Profitableaktien.de., and Boersennews.de being disseminated. These newsletters were not issued by, on behalf of, or at the request of the Company, and the Company disclaims any involvement with the newsletters or any connection or relationship to Profitableaktien.de., and Boersennews.de or any of these newsletters associates. These newsletters were released without the Companys knowledge. Any statements and or comments made in the newsletters should not be construed as investment advice. The Company does not take any responsibility for comments made by the newsletters. The Company became aware of the newsletter only after a warning was issued by BAFIN (German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority).



All material developments concerning the Company of which its officers and directors are aware have been disclosed in the Company's filings with SEDAR.com and on the Company website at southernlithium.com.

The Company and or its officers and directors did not participate in, or benefit from, trading in the Company's shares during this recent increase in trading volume.

About the Cruz Property

Through our partner Millennial Lithium Corp. (TSX.V:ML) (FSE:A3N2) (OTCQB:MLNLF), the Company has executed a formal option agreement with Proyecto Pastos Grandes S.A. (PPG SA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Millennial, for the right to earn up to an eighty percent (80%) interest in the PPG SAs Cruz Property in the Pocitos Salar Basin in Salta Province, Argentina.

The Cruz Property is located in the heart of South Americas Lithium Triangle (northern Chile, northwestern Argentina and southwest Bolivia). The property encompasses 9,027 hectares (22,306 acres) in the Pocitos Salar Basin in Salta Province, Argentina, and is contiguous with and immediately south of ADY Resources Limiteds lithium brine resource in the Salar del Rincon Basin.

The Cruz Property includes the central portion of the Rincon volcanic center which forms the northern limit of the Pocitos Salar Basin and the southern limit of the Rincon Salar Basin, where ADY Resources Limited is extracting lithium brine. Both properties lie along the structural belt that hosts the favorable lithium resources of the region, and at the junction of a large north-south fault system and the northwest-southeast megastructure along which lies the Rincon volcano, the possible source of the lithium brine in both salar basins.

The 60-kilometre long Pocitos salar basin has previously been drill tested with only a shallow 12-hole program in the 1970s by an Argentinean government agency Direccion General de Fabricaciones Militares. To date, this is the only confirmed exploration drilling conducted in the Pocitos basin. The hole that produced the best results is near the southeast edge of the Cruz property boundary, and averaged 417 parts per million lithium. Although these results are considered historical and have not been verified by the Company's QP, the Company considers these results relevant to the future exploration of the property.

About Southern Lithium Corp (TSX-V:SNL) (FSE:SL5)

Southern Lithium Corp. is a resource exploration company engaged in the business of acquiring and exploring mineral properties. Southern Lithium Corp. has assembled an experienced management team with a growth strategy to develop a portfolio of Lithium projects. The Companys main objective is to add shareholder value through exploration and development of high quality resources through strategic acquisitions, joint ventures, and marketing while maintaining a lower risk profile through project diversification and sound, cost-effective financial management. With the potential acquisition of the Cruz property, Southern Lithium intends to establish its presence in the Pocitos basin and further deliver on its mission to secure technically superior lithium projects. The Company is only focusing on projects of the highest technical merit in favorable geopolitical jurisdictions.

Qualified Persons

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Larry Segerstrom, M.Sc. (Geology), P.Geo., a Director of the Company, who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Clive H. Massey

Chief Executive Officer

Further information about the Company is available on our website at www.southernlithiumcorp.com or under our profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within it, 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, exploitation and exploration successes, 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, other than as required pursuant to applicable securities laws.
A man was arrested Sunday after items that were stolen from a North Platte residence appeared on Facebook for-sale pages.

Just after 5 p.m. Saturday, a North Platte police officer took a burglary report from the 300 block of Glen Rose Avenue. After being away, the homeowner had returned to find the front door open and a window broken out, Investigator John Deal said. Tools, fishing items and clothes were missing.

The items began appearing on area for-sale sites through the evening, Deal said. Police determined that the address where items were being sold was in the 2100 block of West Third. Just before noon Sunday, police served a search warrant at that residence and found most of the stolen items.

The residents told police they had been contacted by a 36-year-old man about items he was selling. They said the man told them he had obtained a foreclosed home and its contents in the block where the theft had been reported, Deal said. He then invited the residents to view the items and sold them a bunch of things, Deal said.

Police learned that the man lived in the same block where the burglary was reported. The homeowner who reported the burglary did not have a foreclosed home, Deal said.

Police executed a second search warrant at the mans residence, where they found him and other stolen items.

Police also found a toddler in the home with the man, along with some suspected drug-related items, which will be tested.

The man was arrested on suspicion of burglary and child abuse.
SAN RAMON, Calif., May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Armanino LLP, one of the top 25 largest accounting and business consulting firms in the U.S., today announced it is partnering with BlackLine, Inc., provider of a best of breed cloud-based financial controls and automation platform. Armanino clients now have an end-to-end solution for financial close, adopting BlackLines Continuous Accounting model to help eliminate time-consuming, traditional period-end accounting processes and replace them with ongoing, real-time data input.



Our partnership with BlackLine presents great value by simplifying the period-end accounting process for our clients saving both time and money, said Ryan Prindiville, director at Armanino. Our team can use BlackLine to automate data from multiple ERP sources such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, Intacct and Adaptive Insights, creating a fully modern finance suite and providing clients with peace of mind.

Armaninos BlackLine solution offers complete capabilities in account reconciliations, task management, transaction matching, journals, variance analysis, consolidation integrity management and an intercompany transaction hub.

To learn more about how BlackLine can add value to financial reporting, visit: http://www.armaninollp.com/software-solution/software-products/blackline

About BlackLine

BlackLine is a provider of cloud-based solutions that transform Finance and Accounting (F&A) by automating, centralizing and streamlining financial close operations, intercompany accounting processes and other key F&A processes for large and midsize organizations. Designed to complement ERP and other financial systems, BlackLines cloud platform increases operational efficiency, real-time visibility, control and compliance to ensure end-to-end financial close management and accounting automation. For more information, please visit www.blackline.com.

About ArmaninoLLP

Armanino LLP (www.armaninollp.com) is the largest independent accounting and business consulting firm based in California and one of the largest in the United States. Armanino provides an integrated set of audit, tax, business management, consulting and technology solutions to companies in the U.S. and globally. The firm helps clients adapt and change in every stage of business from start-up through rapid growth to the sale of a company. Armanino emphasizes smart technology; leading a cloud revolution of financial, operational, sales and compliance tools that are transforming the way companies do business. Armanino extends its global services to more than 100 countries through its membership in Moore Stephens International Limited  one of the world's major accounting and consulting membership organizations. In addition to its core consulting and accounting practices, Armanino operates its division  AMF Media Group (www.amfmediagroup.com) a media and communications services agency. Its affiliate, Intersect Capital (www.intersectcapitalllc.com), is an independent financial planning, wealth and lifestyle management firm.
EAST CHICAGO  One man was killed and another was wounded Monday night in a shooting on the city's north side, officials said.

Thomas Richardson was shot about 5:30 p.m. in the 4100 block of Tod Avenue in East Chicago and later died at Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus, according to police and the Lake County coroner's office.

Police said Richardson was a 25-year-old East Chicago resident. A coroner's release said he was a 24-year-old Harvey, Illinois, resident.

East Chicago police were called to an alley behind Tod Avenue, where officers found Richardson lying on the ground with apparent gunshot wounds to the body, Lt. Marguerite Wilder said.

Richardson was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m., a coroner's release said. His death was ruled a homicide.

A 27-year-old East Chicago man was taken to St. Catherine Hospital with a gunshot to the leg, Wilder said.

Police continue to investigate the motive for the shooting, but there was no evidence Tuesday it was gang-related, Wilder said.

Anyone who witnessed the shooting or has related video footage is asked to call Detective Issac Washington at 219-391-8318. To remain anonymous, call 219-391-8500.
HAMMOND  When Eric Garner returned home from four years of military service in 2010, including three deployments into combat zones, he was eager to distance himself from the ugliness of war and transition into a more satisfying chapter of life with help from a college education.

The Hobart resident enrolled at what is now Purdue University Northwest, because it was convenient and affordable, he said. Years later, he also would acknowledge satisfaction about the quality of education he has received there in mechanical engineering, as he graduates with a bachelor's degree.

Despite admitting not being the best of high school students, he was determined to pursue and succeed at engineering after walking into a local library one day, pulling a calculus book from a shelf, perusing it and concluding, if someday I can understand whats on these pages, I can be successful.

Chalk up such bold, ambitious thinking in part to the experience and determination his military years of combat provided him.

Less than three months after graduating from Hobart High School in 2006, he became a U.S. Marine. Eventually, he would be deployed to two of the worlds hot beds of international conflict  Iraq and Afghanistan  where as an infantryman and team leader his missions were matters of life and death.

Back home in Northwest Indiana, he took advantage of GI Bill financial support to enroll at Purdue Northwest.

Garner returned to PNW, attacked his studies with a vengeance, got involved with a team of classmates who have been fabricating a solar-powered vehicle and now looks forward to his future.


Live Webcast

Mr. Espeland's presentation will be webcast live on www.investors.eastman.com.

Slides used by Mr. Espeland will be available at the time of the presentation and can also be accessed at www.investors.eastman.com.
Reno, NV, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Associa Sierra North team has partnered with LoKa Cares to help fight hunger by providing food to the local homeless population in Reno, Nevada. LoKa Cares has been serving the Reno community since being founded by LoKa Tile Group in 2011.



Every Friday night at 5PM PT you will find dedicated volunteers serving hot meals to the homeless in downtown Reno. The volunteers purchase and prepare the food and provide each and every guest with a meal and a smile. A few extra hungry visitors even come back for seconds.



We love helping our community, and LoKa Cares is an amazing group that not only helps the people of Reno by providing them meals, but also provides them with a safe and welcoming place to come and share their experiences, stated Debora Costa, president Associa Sierra North. We encourage everyone to donate their time and help provide a meal to someone in need."



The Sierra North team continues to exude the core family spirit that is at the heart of Associa.



Delivering unsurpassed association management services to communities since 1979, Associa leads the industry operating more than 180 branch offices across North America and employing 10,000 team members dedicated to serving nearly five million residents who are part of the Associa family. With unrivaled industry expertise, safeguarded finances and trailblazing innovation, Associa provides solutions designed to help communities achieve their vision. To learn more go to www.associaonline.com.



Stay Connected:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/associa

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aee30ced-66a5-4933-b0ea-ad963ad2d03f

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ff43d41a-7e7a-4293-8954-233c15a719d2
Tennessee Police Officer Pulls Gun On Woman Changing License Plate Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

A Tennessee police officer is under investigation for allegedly pulling out his gun on a black woman who was changing a license plate on an SUV she recently purchased.

The incident stems back to April when Tonya Jameson, who resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, saw a Craigslist ad for an SUV in Jefferson City, Tennessee, on April 25. Three days later, Jameson went to the female owners home and test-drove the vehicle, with Jameson purchasing the car that same day and receiving the title for it.

On May 3, Jameson returned to Tennessee to pick up the car, driving a one-way rental car to Morristown, Tennessee and then taking an unmarked taxi to the womans home in Jefferson City. While unscrewing the original license plate that was on the car and replacing it with a new one, police officer Matthew Janish came up behind her with his gun already trained on her. Janish was off-duty at the time of the incident.

Janish proceeded to report a suspected auto theft to Jefferson County 911 while asking Jameson about the taxi that dropped her off as well as when and from whom she bought the SUV. Jameson tried to convince Janish she was not a thief by talking about the woman who sold her the SUV (that woman happened to be Janishs mother-in-law) and telling him that she had the vehicles registration in her bag, but Janish did not let her move.

Another police officer appeared, which led to Janish putting away his gun. Still, the two officers did not allow Jameson to show them the vehicles registration. The 911 call was finally closed when Janish heard from his wife, who said her mother had sold the SUV to Jameson.

Following the incident, Jameson filed a complaint with the Police Department and also called Jefferson County Sheriff Bud McCoig. McCoig reportedly told her that he had spoken to the deputy and said that it was a case of no harm, no foul.

Still, Jameson believes her skin color was a factor in how Janish treated her.

It wasnt protecting someones life or his own life. It was a truck. It blows my mind, Jameson said.

Via the Knoxville News Sentinel
Agricultural News

Start Identifying Problem Patterns in Your Herd Today and Be Prepared for Calving Issues Next Spring

Dr. Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, offers herd health advice as part of the weekly series known as the "Cow Calf Corner" published electronically by Dr. Peel and Dr. Glenn Selk. Today, Dr. Selk encourages producers to start thinking now about calving season for next spring.







"Only 1 to 2 months ago the spring calving cows were calving, the temperatures were colder and the calving pastures were covered with muck and manure. Experience would say that you do not want to ask cow calf operators how calving is then, because the response would be less than objective, reflecting bone-chilling cold and not enough sleep.







"If you wait too long, perhaps until this fall, time will have mellowed most of the events and one soon has difficulty matching a calving season with particular problems. Plus it may be too late to make the necessary changes to reduce calving losses. Now is perhaps a better time to make a few notes on what to change for next year.







"The first step is to list the dead calves. Hopefully, your cattle are in a record system that will provide that information. If not, grab a piece of paper and pencil and list the calves. Your calving notebook should have the dead calves checked off and a brief notation on what happened to each. Until all the calves are listed, the shock of lost opportunities has not had its full impact.







"Can you identify a pattern of problems?







"Was most of the death loss right at delivery and involved two-year old heifers? This could indicate that sire selection needs to be done more carefully, with attention being paid to low birth weight EPD sires for heifers. It may be too late to change sire selection for this year, however, putting more emphasis on calving ease sires can be helpful for future calf crops. Perhaps the heifers were underdeveloped. This could contribute to more calving difficulty than necessary. Do you provide assistance to heifers after they have been in stage II of labor for one hour?







"Was the death loss more prevalent after the calves had reached 5 days to 2 weeks of age? This of course often means that calf diarrhea (or scours) is a major concern. Calf scours will be more likely to occur to calves from first calf heifers. Calves that receive inadequate amounts of colostrum within the first 6 hours of life are 5 to 6 times more likely to die from calf scours. Calves that are born to thin heifers are weakened at birth and receive less colostrum which compounds their likelihood of scours. Often, these same calves were born via a difficult delivery and adds to the chances of getting sick and dying. All of this means that we need to reassess the bred heifer growing program to assure that the heifers were in a body condition score of 6 (moderate flesh) at calving time. If calf diarrhea is a significant cause of loss and expense, visit with your large animal veterinarian about other management changes that may help. Pre-calving vaccinations of the cows may be recommended in some cases.







"Do you use the same trap or pasture each year for calving? There may be a buildup of bacteria or viruses that contribute to calf diarrhea in that pasture. This particular calving pasture may need a rest for the upcoming calving season. Plus it is always a good idea to get new calves and their mothers out of the calving pasture as soon as they can be moved comfortably to a new pasture to get them away from other potential calf scour organisms. An excellent discussion of a method used to reduce calf diarrhea is available from the University of Nebraska website. Go online and learn more about the Nebraska Sandhill method of reducing calf scours.







"Thanks to Dr. Kris Ringwall of North Dakota State University for this excellent suggestion to study the calf records now and start to make adjustments."













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The Historic Magruder Wheat Plots to be Featured as the Centerpiece of OSU's Field Day May 19th

Wheat growers will be descending on Stillwater for Oklahoma State University's May 19 Magruder Plots Field Day, picking up the latest research-based information while also honoring one of the great achievements of agriculture in the Southern Plains states.







The event is free and open to the public. It will take place at the OSU Agronomy Research Farm just west of the main Stillwater campus, long a landmark for people traveling eastward into the community on Highway 51. Participants are asked to RSVP if staying for the sponsored lunch by contacting the OSU department of plant and soil sciences online.







"Named for and begun by A.C. Magruder, the first professor of agriculture at then Oklahoma A&M College, the wheat plots are the third-longest running field trial in the United States," said Brian Arnall, OSU Cooperative Extension precision nutrient management specialist.







Originally planted in the fall of 1892, the plots were established to obtain information on the ability of the soil to continue to produce good yields of wheat without fertilization.







"Researchers have conducted hundreds of experiments comparing various fertilizer treatments, with and without such treatments," Arnall said. "The plots quickly became the center for wheat soil research in the region and have provided constant data through the decades that has helped farmers get maximum yield from their wheat crops."







The field day will begin at 8 a.m. with coffee and doughnuts being served. Opening comments will be provided by OSU President Burns Hargis; Tom Coon, OSU vice president of agricultural programs and leader of the university's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources; and Robert L. Westerman, DASNR emeritus assistant vice president and retired agronomist.







Station tours will begin at approximately 9 a.m. Topics and session leaders will include:





- Agricultural engineering and agronomy projects, led by Randy Taylor, OSU Cooperative Extension assistant director and agricultural engineer;





- Long-term studies in understanding soil health, led by Jason Warren, OSU Cooperative Extension soil and water conservation specialist;





- Improving Oklahoma forage systems, led by Alex Rocateli, OSU Cooperative Extension forage systems specialist;





- Mitigating drift and spray tank contamination, led by OSU Cooperative Extension small grains weed specialist Misha Manuchehri, OSU Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist, and John Long, DASNR biosystems and agricultural engineer;





- History of the Magruder Plots and data gathered over 125 years of research, led by Bill Raun, OSU Regent's professor and holder of the university's Walter R. Sitlington Chair in Agriculture; and





- The future of soil fertility management driven by past knowledge, led by Arnall.







The OSU Agronomy Research Farm is part of the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station system, one of two state agencies administered by DASNR.







Source - Oklahoma State University













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USDA-NASS Prepares to Survey Producers in Oklahoma to Better Understand Stocker Operations

Oklahoma cattle producers who received the Oklahoma State University Stocker Survey from the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service recently but who have not returned it will soon be receiving a call from NASS to help them complete the survey.







OSU's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, in cooperation with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and USDA-NASS is conducting the first-of-its kind survey to gather previously unavailable information on the procurement and assembly of stocker cattle, production and management practices and variability, and marketing practices of stocker producers.







DASNR agricultural economists Derrell Peel and Kellie Raper have reported a sample of responses thus far has been "very encouraging and will provide unprecedented information about the vital stocker industry in Oklahoma."







"We are excited about the possibilities this data will open up for us to understand and provide help and insight for Oklahoma cattle producers," said Peel, who is the state's OSU Cooperative Extension livestock marketing specialist. "We're very grateful to producers who take the time to provide this information on a sector of the cattle industry that is not well understood."







The importance of stocker producers in Oklahoma's economy is known to be significant, but just how significant?







"Nobody really likes filling out a survey but this one is pretty important in regards to what it means to Oklahoma's stocker cattle industry," Peel said. "Not only will it provide detailed information to help researchers and industry analysts understand the vital economic role of the stocker industry, it will provide insight into such things as the disease threats associated with cattle movement into and out of stocker production."







As stocker cattle operators can readily attest, stocker or backgrounding provides vital production and marketing system values to the beef industry. Stocker production happens in a wide variety of different situations and environments in many regions of the country.







"This illustrates the critical role of the stocker sector in providing flexibility to enhance beef industry competitiveness, including adjusting production in response to feed and forage market changes, enhancing the quality of feeder cattle by adding weight and age to stocker cattle, and regulating the flow of cattle from cow-calf production to the feedlots," Peel said.







In essence, the stocker cattle sector acts in part as an essential shock absorber for the beef industry. Unfortunately, to date little data exists to fully understand and analyze the varied activities and actions that make up the stocker sector. Stocker production occurs year around in Oklahoma, utilizing a wide variety of native and introduced pastures.







"An inventory snapshot once or maybe twice a year does not capture the flow of animals through stocker production systems," Raper said. "Additionally, we have only very coarse estimates of the movement of cattle around the country before and after stocker production."







The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service is one of two state agencies administered by DASNR, and one of the three equal parts in OSU's state and federally mandated teaching, research and Extension land-grant mission.







Oklahoma is the nation's fifth-leading producer of cattle and calves, according to USDA-NASS statistics.







Source - Oklahoma State University















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Access to Asia's Largest Market Worth All the Tea in China to US Cattlemen - $2.6 Billion to be Exact







Since 2004, when a case of BSE was discovered in Washington state, no US beef has officially entered China's market. However, the Trump administration has made it priority to broker a deal to reestablish the beef industry's relationship with China. This year, they have been successful in doing that and July 16 of this year marks the deadline to get the formalities ironed out. According the North American Meat Institute , access to China's market, which represents 12 percent of the world's global export business for beef, could potentially put up to $2.6 billion in the pockets of US cattlemen. Kent Bacus, director of international trade and market access for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association says China offers boundless opportunity.





"China has seen exponential growth in imports in about the last five years," Bacus said. "We think there's a lot of unmet demand in the Chinese market."





Bacus says that like many Asian markets, rounds, chuck rolls, tongues and offal cuts are very popular in China and the opportunity to market these products, generally underutilized here in the US, offers the chance to add significant value to beef carcasses.





"We see more competition for those cuts that have been selling very well in Asia," Bacus said. "We could see just the buying power of China is going to hopefully improve the profit margins on those cuts themselves."





Listen to Bacus describe the magnitude of added value that access to China's market will bring to the US with Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays, on today's Beef Buzz.





The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.























Listen to Bacus and Hays discuss the value access to China's market will add to the US beef industry

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LAFAYETTE, Ind., May 16, 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 Kroger-Pay Less to donate more than 80,000 pounds of protein to Food Finders Food Bank. The donation, equivalent to more than 320,000 servings, will help families fight hunger across Tippecanoe and 15 surrounding counties where one in seven individuals are food insecure.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/23f019d9-3809-4ee5-8bce-c1b8923a2dec

"Protein is a vital element to a well-balanced meal, but is often a limited resource for many food banks," said Katy Bunder, president and CEO of Food Finders Food Bank. "We are grateful to Smithfield for this donation, which will help us provide many meals to our member agencies and neighbors in need throughout our area.

Smithfield and Kroger representatives presented the donation to Food Finders at the event this morning. Members from all three organizations discussed food insecurity in the local community and the significance of this donation in helping the more than 79,000 individuals who face hunger each day in the food banks service area.

"Fighting hunger is the primary philanthropic mission of The Kroger Co. That's why in the past four years we have donated one billion meals to feed the needy, Eric Halvorson, public affairs manager for Kroger. That mission received a tremendous boost through our partnership with Smithfield. It's an honor to work with a company that shares our ideals and is putting food on the table for our hungry neighbors."

Smithfields donation to Food Finders 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.

We are proud to support Food Finders and our northeastern Indiana communitya place hundreds of Smithfield employees call home, said Dennis Pittman, senior director of hunger relief for Smithfield Foods. "Although this donation will positively impact many individuals in Lafayette and the surrounding area, hunger is a national issue, and we encourage others to join our fight and volunteer at their local food bank."

Following todays event, Helping Hungry Homes will visit Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday, May 18. 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 Food Finders Food Bank

Since 1981, Food Finders Food Bank, a member of Feeding America, has worked to provide full service programs that meet the nutritional needs of thousands of hungry families in North Central Indiana. The food bank operates programs to cost-effectively secure donated and purchased food, provide food to families in need, and educate the community about the efficient use of food resources. Food Finders distributes more than seven million pounds of food annually; throughout the 16 counties it serves. For more information or to make a donation, contact Food Finders Food Bank, Inc. at 765.471.0062 or visit www.food-finders.org.

About Kroger

The Kroger Co. has been serving communities large and small for 134 years. The Central Division of Kroger has 137 food stores, 115 pharmacies and 97 fuel centers. Most of those locations operate in Indiana and Illinois under the Kroger, Owens and Pay Less banners. The division also has three stores in Missouri, one in Michigan and one in Ohio. In 2016, Kroger donated nearly $15 million to causes from hunger relief to breast cancer awareness and veterans issues. At Kroger we value: honesty, respect, inclusion, diversity, safety and integrity.
Ford Motor Co. plans to trim about 10 percent of its global salaried workforce while retaining the tech talent its recruited to develop driverless and electric cars, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

Jobs are being cut as Fords directors pressure Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields to boost profit and a lagging stock price. The reductions are expected to target salaried employees mostly in North America and Asia, said the person, who asked not to be identified disclosing internal discussions. Some are also expected in Europe, where Ford already has retrenched.

Fields is working to cut costs by about $3 billion this year. With Fords stock down about 37 percent since he became CEO in 2014, Fields is caught between pleasing a board pressuring him to boost fading profits while placating President Donald Trump, who is pushing automakers to add U.S. jobs. Ford also is pouring billions into electric, self-driving cars and ride-sharing as its struggles more than General Motors Co. with a slowing U.S. market.

This has to be done surgically rather than randomly or otherwise you lose the talent you need the most, said Maryann Keller, an industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut. This will be offered to the traditional automotive staff.

Ford fell 0.3 percent to $10.91 as of 12:06 p.m. in New York trading. The shares have declined 10 percent this year, compared with a 3.6 percent drop for GM and 23 percent gain by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Reducing costs and becoming as lean and efficient as possible is a priority, Ford said in an emailed statement. We have not announced any new people efficiency actions, nor do we comment on speculation.

Retrenching in the U.S. risks reopening Ford to criticism from Trump. Fields and Executive Chairman Bill Ford have curried favor with the president this year, giving him advance notice of hiring and investment at American plants and canceling a small-car factory in Mexico. Trump has pointed to carmakers plans and claimed theyre restoring American manufacturing because of him.

Ford temporarily laid off 130 workers at an Ohio truck plant earlier this month to match lagging output with slower customer demand. Automakers have widespread shutdowns planned for the summer to adjust to the U.S. car markets recent slowdown following seven years of gains, conflicting with Trumps more upbeat portrayal of the state of the industry.

Fields, 56, discussed the cost cuts that Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford plans for this year in a call with analysts last month when the company posted a 42 percent plunge in first quarter adjusted earnings.

We are continuing our intense focus on cost and the reason for that is not only mindful of the current environment that were in, but also I think preparing us even more for a downturn scenario, Fields said April 27.

Ford earlier this year hired 400 employees from BlackBerry Ltd. to help develop wireless technology, deepening an ongoing partnership between the two companies involving in-car connectivity. Its also investing $1 billion in a Pittsburgh-based artificial intelligence company Argo AI, which will develop the virtual driver system for fully autonomous vehicles scheduled to arrive in 2021. Founders Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander are former leaders of the self-driving car teams at Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google.

In the U.S., Ford has about 30,000 salaried workers. The company employed a total of about 201,000 workers as of the end of last year, including about 101,000 in North America, according to a regulatory filing. Hourly workers wont be targeted in this round of cuts, according to the person familiar with the plan.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Fords job-reduction plans late Monday.
NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Snap, Inc. (Snap or the Company) (NYSE:SNAP) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Central District of California, and docketed under 17-cv-03679, is on behalf of a class consisting of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Snap securities, seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Snap securities or otherwise acquired Snap securities: (1) pursuant and/or traceable to Snaps false and misleading Registration Statement and Prospectus, issued in connection with the Companys initial public offering on or about March 2, 2017 (the IPO or the Offering); and/or (2) on the open market between March 2, 2017 and May 15, 2017, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), you have until July 17, 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]

Snap Inc. is a camera company that provides technology and social media services. The Company develops mobile camera application products and services that allow users to send and receive photos, drawings, text, and videos. Snap serves customers worldwide.

On or about March 3, 2017, the Company completed its IPO, issuing 200,000,000 shares and raising net proceeds of approximately $3.91 billion.

Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Snaps reported user growth was materially false and misleading; and (ii) as a result, Snaps public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On May 10, 2017, post-market, Snap issued its first quarterly report as a public company, disclosing disappointing user growth at the Companys Snapchat messaging platform. For the quarter, Snap reported 166 million daily users, only 8 million more than in the previous period and only 44 million more than the same period in the prior yearSnapchats slowest year-to-year growth rate in at least two years.

On this news, Snaps share price fell $4.93, or 21.45%, to close at $18.05 on May 11, 2017.

On May 16, 2017, Bloomberg reported that a former Snap employee, Anthony Pompliano, had filed a lawsuit against Snap, claim[ing] he was fired after three weeks on the job for raising questions about allegedly false growth metrics [and] seeking whistleblower protection against retaliation by [the] company.

On this news, Snaps share price fell $0.02, or 0.1%, to close at $20.72 on May 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
Two people were injured Monday night when their pickup truck and trailer overturned on Interstate 80 northeast of Council Bluffs.

The crash on westbound I-80 near Neola occurred around 7:20 p.m., according to the Iowa State Patrol.

Louis and Almeda Damico, both 66, of Saegertown, Pennsylvania, sustained serious injuries. They were taken by a Neola rescue squad to Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs.

The patrol said Louis Damico lost control of his 2015 Chevrolet Silverado pickup when the trailer began to fishtail, possibly due to strong winds.

The pickup left the roadway, Damico overcorrected and the truck crossed both lanes of westbound I-80. The truck rolled onto its top and the trailer rolled onto its side in the north ditch.
LINCOLN  Could President Donald Trump be declared unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office under the U.S. Constitution?

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha wants federal officials to start answering that question, using the process laid out in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

The legislative veteran with a penchant for controversy introduced a resolution on the subject Tuesday.

Legislative Resolution 257 says Trump has behaved in a dangerously problematic and erratic manner that puts the safety and welfare of the nation and its residents at ongoing grave risk.

It calls for the Nebraska Legislature to petition appropriate federal officials for the 25th Amendment process to be launched.

The amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1967, provides for the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to declare that the president is unfit to serve.

The vice president would then become acting president.

The amendment also provides for Congress to decide whether the president is unfit if the president disputes his ability to serve with the vice president and Cabinet majority.

The resolution will be referred to a legislative committee. It was not immediately clear whether it will be debated yet this year.
Editor's note: Fox News on May 23 retracted its story saying Seth Rich made contact with WikiLeaks before his death.

WASHINGTON  The family of Seth Rich and D.C. police rejected fresh claims Tuesday that the slain Democratic National Committee staffer provided thousands of emails to the organization WikiLeaks before he was killed.

And a key source for the new report recanted most of his story Tuesday evening.

Fox News reported the claims and attributed them to an unidentified federal investigator and to Rod Wheeler, identified as a retired homicide detective hired by a third party to investigate what happened to Rich, an Omaha native.

My investigation up to this point shows there was some degree of email exchange between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks, Wheeler was quoted by Fox News. I do believe that the answers to who murdered Seth Rich sits on his computer on a shelf at the D.C. police or FBI headquarters.

Tuesday evening, however, Wheeler told CNN he had no proof that Rich was ever in contact with WikiLeaks. I only got that (information) from the reporter at Fox News, he told CNN.

In response to World-Herald inquiries, D.C. police flatly rejected Wheelers initial claims.

The assertions put forward by Mr. Wheeler are unfounded, according to a police statement.

The Rich family also rebuked Wheeler for speaking to the press when he was not authorized to do so, according to a statement provided by a family spokesman.

Wheeler was contractually barred from speaking to the press or anyone outside of law enforcement without the familys authorization, the family said.

As weve seen through the past year of unsubstantiated claims, we see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press, according to the familys statement.

Even if emails did surface, according to the statement, email interactions can be altered, and weve seen that those interested in pushing conspiracies will stop at nothing to do so.

Rich, 27, was shot at 4:19 a.m. on July 10 near his home in northwest Washington. Police have suggested the possibility of a botched robbery, pointing to a spike in robberies in that neighborhood, but the case remains unsolved with no arrests or suspects announced.

D.C. police said Tuesday that investigators were still pursuing Richs killer or killers and urged those with information to come forward.

We continue to work with the family to bring closure to this case as we do with all homicide investigations, the police said in a statement.

Rich was a graduate of Central High School and Creighton University. His parents, Joel and Mary Rich, live in Omaha.

His death quickly spawned Internet conspiracy theories centered on the idea that Rich was the one who slipped WikiLeaks the DNC emails that helped force the resignation of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida as DNC chairwoman.

Those pushing such theories were emboldened a month after the killing when WikiLeaks announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in Richs death  even as WikiLeaks itself stressed the reward should not be seen as an indication that Rich was its source.

Police are offering up to $25,000 for information in the case and can be contacted at 202-727-9099. A lobbyist has offered an additional $105,000 reward.

Since the killing, Richs family has tried to keep the focus on celebrating his life, as well as the effort to chase down concrete leads that could help identify a suspect. The family reiterated that sentiment in Tuesdays statement.

We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seths murderers.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump's national security adviser said Tuesday that the president's decision to reveal highly classified information during a meeting with Russian officials last week was "wholly appropriate"  the latest attempt by the White House to contain the explosive disclosure that Trump had potentially jeopardize a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State.

H.R. McMaster, the president's top security adviser, repeatedly described the president's actions as "wholly appropriate" in a press briefing with reporters just a day after a Washington Post story revealed that Trump had shared deeply sensitive information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during an Oval Office meeting last week.

"In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged," McMaster said. "It is wholly appropriate for the president to share whatever information he thinks is necessary to advance the security of the American people. That's what he did."

McMaster refused to confirm if the information the president shared with the Russians was highly classified. However, because the president has broad authority to declassify information, it is unlikely that his disclosures to the Russians were illegal  as they would have been had just about anyone else in government shared the same secrets. But the classified information he shared with a geopolitical foe was nonetheless explosive, having been provided by a critical U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so delicate that some details were withheld even from top allies and other government officials.

McMaster added that Trump made a spur-of-the moment decision to share the information in the context of the conversation he was having with the Russian officials and that "the president wasn't even aware of where this information came from" and had not been briefed on the source.

"I wanted to make clear to everybody that the president in no way compromised any sources or methods in the course of this conversation," the national security adviser said.

McMaster's push-back came just hours after Trump himself acknowledged in a pair of Tweets Tuesday morning that he had indeed revealed highly classified information to Russia  a stunning confirmation of the Washington Post story and a move that seemed to contradict his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report.

Trump's tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late Monday, that he had shared sensitive, "code-word" information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week.

Trump described his talks with the Russians as "an openly scheduled" meeting at the White House. In fact, the gathering was closed to all U.S. media, although a photographer for the Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office, prompting national security concerns.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump wrote Tuesday morning. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Trump's tweets undercut his administration's frantic effort Monday night to contain the damaging report. The White House trotted out three senior administration officials  McMaster, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  to attack the reports, though they never quite said the initial report was incorrect. Instead, they insisted, as McMaster again did Tuesday, that the president had never revealed sensitive sources and methods.

The president's admission follows a familiar pattern. Last week, after firing FBI Director James Comey, the White House originally claimed that the president was acting in response to a memo provided by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

But in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump later admitted that he had made the decision to fire Comey well before Rosenstein's memo, in part because he was frustrated by the director's investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and the Russian government.

At the time, Trump was surprised by the almost universal bipartisan backlash to his decision, and he raged at his staff, threatening to shake up his already tumultuous West Wing. His communications team  Communications Director Mike Dubke and press secretary Sean Spicer  bore the brunt of the president's ire.

On Monday night, after the Washington Post story broke, the president again was frustrated with Dubke and Spicer, according to someone with knowledge of the situation.

But his decision Tuesday to undermine his own West Wing staff in a series of tweets is unlikely to help him bring stability to his chaotic administration, just days before he leaves on a 10-day trip abroad.

In a later tweet, Trump returned to one of his favorite topics when accused of wrongdoing  leaks.

"I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community," Trump wrote.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

The irony seemed to be lost on Trump that  at least in the case of sharing classified intelligence with the Russians  he was, in fact, the original leaker.
A powerful sense of connection traditionally linked native tribes to their home areas in the Great Plains, scholar David Wishart observes in his book, Great Plains Indians.

Tribes felt a strong attachment to sites where famous victories had been achieved, or where loved ones had been lost, or visions received, writes Wishart, a professor of geography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

This helps explain the significance and poignancy of the recent dedication to transfer ownership to the Poncas of a nearly 20-mile stretch of recreational trail in southeastern Nebraska.

The Chief Standing Bear Trail, deeded to the Ponca by the Nebraska Trails Foundation, is named after the Ponca leader who was arrested in the winter of 1879 after he and others were making an arduous trek from Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where the tribe had been forceable relocated, to his homeland in northeastern Nebraska to bury his son.

Chief Standing Bear sued to assert his rights, and his landmark 1879 court case in Omaha won legal recognition of Native Americans as people.

The dedication of the Chief Standing Bear Trail provided an occasion for remembrance and solidarity. As The World-Heralds Joe Duggan wrote, the trail will forever exist as a place where anyone can walk in the footsteps of the Poncas.
Of Dazzling Jewellery And Benefits, Kalyan Jewellers Is Here To Make Your Festive Season More Special

2 jewellers shot dead on the night of Uttar Pradesh assembly's first session

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

In a shocking incident, two jewellers were shot dead and two others critically injured in an attack by unknown assailants on Monday in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, the assailants attacked the jewellers around 8 pm and sped away with Rs one crore jewellry. The police has not yet traced the killers.

Uttar Pradesh: Two jewellers shot dead by unknown assailants in Mathura, yesterday; two other people critically injured pic.twitter.com/Auriq31hmW  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 16, 2017

The attack on jewellers occurred on the night after the Uttar Pradesh assembly's first session was disrupted by opposition parties over deteriorating law and order situation in the state. In fact, on May 12, Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma had said that a special cell to monitor crime will be set up in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's office and would be personally overseen by him. He also boasted that the Adityanath-led BJP government had ensured the security of the common man and checked crime in 50 days.

(With agency inputs)
In pictures, grandeur of Terminal 2 of Kempegowda International Airport which PM Modi will inaugurate

Congress can never give stable govt to Himachal; it is guarantee of instability, corruption, scam: PM Modi

Achhe din: 61 per cent Indians happy with Modi sarkar, says survey

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, May 16: Good news for the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government at the Centre. Just days before the National Democratic Alliance is set to celebrate its three years in power at the Centre on May 26, a survey report reveals that around 61 per cent of Indians are happy with the government's performance.

The expectations from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government are huge. Such a high approval rating of the Modi government after three years of governance is a great news for PM Modi and his cabinet colleagues.

The Modi government came to power on the slogan of Achhe din aane waale hain (Good days are coming). Thus a huge amount of responsibility lies on the ruling government to bring overall development in the country.

The survey conducted by citizen engagement platform, LocalCirles, is based on over 2,00,000 votes collated from over 200 places, which included tier-I, II and III cities as well as rural areas.

The survey report adds that the number of those dissatisfied with the Modi government has increased by three per cent.

Some of the key points highlighted in the report are:

1. 61 per cent people said the government has met their expectations in the last three years.

2. About 17 per cent people said that the government has exceeded their expectations in the three years.

3. Around 44 per cent citizens said that the government performed on the expected lines.

4. 39 per cent said that the PM Modi government's performance was below expectation.

5. 59 per cent of the citizens polled believe that the government would fulfill the promises made in the election manifesto.

6. About 65 per cent of people felt that the government handled Parliament effectively and took Opposition along to deliver the key bills like the GST.

7. Around 66 per cent of citizens believe that the prices of essential commodities and cost of living have gone up in the three years of the Modi government.

8. About 60 per cent of participants in the survey felt that crime against women and children has not come down.

9. Approximately 69 per cent people said that they didn't feel threatened in the country.

10. 35 per cent gave credit to the Swachh Bharat campaign for bringing cleanliness

11. Only 21 per cent people thought that the government was doing okay on the job creation front.

12. Around 65 per cent of citizens believe that infrastructure development in the fields of irrigation, roads and telecom has become faster in the last three years.

13. 51 per cent of people believe that demonetisation was a decision in right direction.

14. About 64 per cent of people supported the Modi government's Pakistan policy in the backdrop of last year's surgical strikes.

OneIndia News
Assurance by central government

The central government employees had fixed May 23 as the date to protest and had even called for a strike. However the government had assured that their demands on allowances as per the pay panel would be fulfilled.

Update sought

The employees had said that they would go on strike seeking fulfilling of their demands including a hike in allowances as per the pay panel. The central government employees would now seek an update from the government officials on the assurances that were made to them. Sources said that if they do not find the answers suitable and in case there is an indication of a delay they would be forced to protest.

Delay tactics

The employees had protested against the recommendations of the pay panel following which the Narendra Modi government had formed a committee under Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa. The committee was put in charge of reviewing the suggestions.

Regret the delay

The central government employees had expressed regret that the government was delaying the hike in allowances. After the government implemented the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission from January 1, 2016 in respect of basic pay and dearness allowances, the Committee on Allowances, headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa was constituted in June last year.

Abolition or subsuming

The pay commission it may be recalled had recommended abolition of or subsuming of allowances like acting, assisting cashier, cycle, condiment, flying squad, haircutting, rajbhasha, rajdhani, robe, shoe, shorthand, soap, spectacle, uniform, vigilance and washing.

The Seventh Pay Commission had recommended abolishing 53 of the 196 allowances, and subsuming 36 other allowances. It also recommended slashing the House Rent Allowance (HRA)--for metros, commission recommended bringing down the HRA from 30 per cent to 24 per cent. The Seventh Pay Commission had recommended the rate of House Rent Allowance (HRA) be kept at 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively.
Army officer lands in CBI net for Rs 500 crore scam

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

An Army official along with some officers of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) were booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation in an illegal land transfer case. It is alleged that the officials and a private person had illegally transferred land worth around Rs 500 crore to the private person against the decision of the MoD between 2004 and 2006.

"The CBI has registered a case against Lt Col, M.G. Thimmaiah, the then estate manager, Estate Management Unit (EMU), C.V. Raman Nagar, DRDO Township, Bengaluru, some unknown officers of the DRDO and N H Rustumji under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) r/w 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 13 (2) (punishment for criminal misconduct by a public servant) r/w 13 (1 (d) (abuse of office by a public servant for obtaining a valuable thing or pecuniary advantage for self or any other person without any public interest) of Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988.

In 1989 based on a request by the DRDO the State government had notified 97 acres of land in Benniganhalli, K.R. Puram hobli in Bengaluru East taluk. However between 1994 and 1996 the State government denotified 44 acres of the land without informing the Central government.

The Centre had challenged the denotification in the Karnataka High Court, which had upheld the DRDO's contention. The case was later contested in the Supreme Court by private land owners in various civil appeals.

Criminal conspiracy:

CBI officials said that the accused officials had allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy between 2004 and 2016. They allegedly cheated the Union of India by transferring 12 acres and one gunta of land in favour of the private person against the decision taken by the Ministry of Defence.

The Lt Col had abused his official position in as much as that, when the matter (related to the land in question) was sub judice before the Supreme Court he had submitted a joint memo to be filed before the SC, which was different from the joint memo approved by the competent authority, the complaint also read.

The CBI on Monday conducted searches at seven places including the residential and official premises of the accused persons at Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kodagu district. CBI officials say that they have recovered some incriminating documents relating to the case.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 7:46 [IST]
Pakistan funded Rs 80 crore to Hizbul to further terror activities in J&K

Arrested Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist sent to 12 day police custody

India

oi-Madhuri

Naseer Ahmed alias Sadiq, a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was arrested on Sunday by Sashastra Seema Bal has been sent to 12 day police custody. He had tried to sneak into India from Nepal.

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorist arrested by Sashastra Seema Bal, sent to 12 day police custody. He had tried sneaking into India from Nepal. pic.twitter.com/WHzpNh3IM1  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

According to reports, Naseer Ahmed alias Sadiq, who is 34-year old, was residing in Pakistan since 2003. Sadiq was involved in many violent crimes against civilians, including an attack on the STF camp. He was sent to India by his handler, for a specific mission.

Disguised as a vendor selling carpets and Kashmiri shawls, Sadiq had attempted to sneak into Indian from Nepal but was later nabbed by SSB. Sadiq is well trained in weapons such as AK-47, Ak-56, SLR, Rocket Launcher (RPG7), Assault Rifle (G3 and G2) and grenades.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 16:22 [IST]
BEL says Bostwana hackathon challenge can't tamper India-made EVMs

India

oi-Madhuri

The raging debate in India over the possible tampering of Electronic Voting Machines has spilled over to the African continent as well. The African nation has reportedly decided to organise an hackathon event which has decided to use the devices manufactured by Bharat Electronics Ltd in its 2019 election.

But Indian Electronic Voting Machine manufacturer, Bharat Electronics Limited, has denied its invitation to participate in any kind of challenge to tamper these machines.

BEL said that the Botswana government has only invited experts to demonstrate the functions of the EVM machines. According to the written statement, BEL said that Botswana election commission has only been called to demonstrate the functions of EVMs and paper trail machines or the VVPAT and which has been designed by Botswana and are different from the ones used in India. It further said that it has neither sold EMVs to the African nations nor will be part of any challenge to tamper these machines.

The controversy over EVM tampering began after the recently concluded assembly elections in five states which benefited the BJP but however Election Commission of India has vehemently denied.

Meanwhile, the EC has announced that elections, including the upcoming assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, will be conducted using paper trail machines or VVPATs.

It will hold an open challenge next week, inviting representatives of political parties to choose the EVMs used in the recently concluded elections and show how they can be manipulated.

OneIndia News
CBI raids on Chidambaram, spill over of ED probe: Read what the entire case is about

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The father-son duo of Chidambaram and Karti have been accused of receiving bribes and abusing positions of power and this led to a CBI raid earlier today. 17 locations in Chennai, Noida, Karaikudi and Delhi were searched by the officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation. The raids are a spill over of the probe conducted by the Enforcement Directorate.

The ED had alleged that a firm linked to Karti Chidambaram received Rs 1.16 crore from companies whose FIPB clearances were done in an allegedly illegal manner by the then Union finance minister P Chidambaram. The ED had in its status report to the Supreme Court had in April said that it had included Chidambaram as an accused in its probe into the Aircel-Maxis case. The cases on hand which the CBI is probing also includes the deal between Aircel-Maxis and investments received by INX News which was formerly owned by media tycoon Peter Mukerjea and his wife Indrani who are currently in jail for the alleged murder of her daughter Sheena Bora.

The case on hand:

The allegation is that Aircel a Malaysian company was sold to Maxis in a deal which allegedly contravened protocol for foreign direct investments. Chidambaram was accused of clearing the deal as the ex-officio chairman of the FIPB when he did not have the authority to do since, since the amount involved was higher than Rs 600 crore.

It was also alleged that INX Media too had received FIBP clearance. It was found that it had paid consultation charges to Advantage Strategic, a firm linked allegedly to Karti.

Documents that were recovered from the office of Karti Chidambaram and Advantage point out that the latter received consultancy fees from companies that had applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board at a time it came under then finance minister P Chidambaram.

One bank account of Advantage Strategic with Development Credit Bank (A/c 06020100003711) reveals the scale of its operations: Rs 151.31 crore of transactions since 2005-06.

In the December 2015 raids by the Enforcement Directorate it was found that Advantage Strategic received "consultancy fee" of Rs 90 Lakh from INX before it got an FIPB clearance. The original promoter of INX news channel, Peter Mukherjee is a key suspect in Sheena Bora murder case. According to the ED the evidence suggested that the ultimate beneficiary of Advantage Strategic is the Chidambaram family. The ED had also alleged that during the raids on the Chennai office of Advantage Strategic, 60% of the controversial company will be owned by Karti's family. The remaining will be owned by Ausbridge Holdings, once 95% owned by Karti, which was later transferred at a discount to Mohanan Rajesh, alleged to be his close associate.

The ED's report to the CBI says that the, the contents in the will establish that Karti Chidambaram's family is the real owner of these shares and the assets held by the company

OneIndia News
CBI raids to prevent Rajni from backing Chidambaram as TN CM says this leader

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

One Congress leader from Tamil Nadu had a different take on the CBI raids that were conducted at the residence of P Chidambaram and his son Karti on Tuesday.

Karate R Thiagarajan while terming the raid as politically motivated also said that this was an attempt to stop Chidambaram from becoming the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

He further went on to add that this was a ploy to stop both Rajinikanth and Chidambaram from forming an alternate in Tamil Nadu. He explained that Rajini and Chidambaram were to come together. The Congress and Rajini's party were to ally with each other in Tamil Nadu and P Chidambaram was to be the CM candidate.

This is a politically motivated raid. Chidambaram is an emerging leader. He can be the chief minister of the state. They are trying to damage his reputation. He is the one who is raising voice against BJP in Delhi, Thiagarajan also said.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 18:08 [IST]
"Centre as cold as a block of ice on security issues," Shiv Sena slams BJP

India

oi-Anusha

In the editorial section on its mouthpiece Saamna, the Shiv Sena slammed Narendra Modi government for failure on concerns of security. In an article in Saamna, Shiv Sena said that the 'Centre's response to security in the country was "as cold as a block of ice" and this gave Islamabad the courage to carry out attacks along the border'.

Shiv Sena is proving to be an ally that is not kind to the BJP and pulled up the government's attitude towards 26 Pakistanis going missing from Mumbai. Shiv Sena slammed the government for not doing enough over the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan. The party accused the centre of being a failure not only on India's borders but also in matters of internal security.

"The missing Pakistani nationals were issued visas by our security agencies. They ought to have thorough data on the Pakistani nationals' stay and their movements in Mumbai. This clearly shows that India lacks proper intelligence on matters of internal security as well. Hizbul, al-Qaida and the ISIS agents are supposed to clear the decks (to foment terrorism) in India and the missing' Pakistani nationals are part of the entire game," the article said.

Invoking the Kulbhushan Jadhav row, Saamna said, "The Centre's response to the Kulbhushan Jadhav episode has been shockingly lukewarm. Islamabad is not willing to pay heed to the International Court on the Jadhav issue as we are not resolute enough while pursuing the case." The article called BJP's stance on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism lenient in comparison to the Congress' regime.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 12:48 [IST]
Delhi HC transfer missing JNU student, Najeeb Ahmed case to CBI

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Delhi High Court has transferred the case relating to the missing JNU student, Najeeb Ahmed to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The order was passed on a petition filed by a student who had challenged the notice directing him to appear for a lie-detector test. 27 year old Najeeb Ahmed a first year M.SC. student had gone missing from the JNU hostel in Delhi after an alleged row with members of the ABVP. The missing complaint was filed in October 2016.

Nine students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were asked to appear before a Delhi court in connection with the case. The Delhi Police had issued a notice to the students and asked them to appear before it for a lie-detector test. After receiving the summons, the students had opposed the police's move.

Earlier in February, the Delhi Police was pulled up by the Delhi High Court over the slow progress in the case and was asked to explore other prospects of probe like polygraph test of other persons connected with the disappearance of Ahmed as all other leads in this case had not yielded any good result.

While observing that the probe by the Delhi police had not yielded any results, the HC decided to transfer the case to the CBI.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 13:03 [IST]
Gap between rich and poor has widened, needs to be bridged: Gadkari

Demonetisation, GST historic decisions of NDA regime, says Gadkari

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, May 16: Terming demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax as two historic decisions of the Narendra Modi government, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said the revenue receipt will rise to Rs 30 lakh crore in the coming years.

The Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister said that "the Modi government's decision to demonetise the Rs 500 and 1,000 currency notes had contributed Rs 7 lakh crore growth in revenue."

"When we formed the government, the revenue receipt was Rs 13 lakh crore. Now the revenue receipt is Rs 20 lakh crore. Demonetisation majorly contributed in this growth of Rs 7 lakh crore. I am sure GST will also contribute in this," he said.

Gadkari also mentioned the government developing river traffic control system on the lines of air traffic control between Haldia and Patna. "The project of river traffic control will be launched soon," he said, adding that work on Rs 4,000 crore project between Haldia and Varanasi was already on.

He also promised to work on Delhi's traffic woes and rising air pollution, saying that by August this year, the city's traffic problems will be reduced by half. The minister said that he was considering a proposal to construct a flyway between Dhaula Kuan in Delhi and Manesar in Gurugram.

Gadkari also rubbished reports of Prime Minister Modi interfering in functioning of other ministries and said that he had, on many occasions, sought help of Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

IANS

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 10:22 [IST]
EC bribery case: Ex-Deputy chief of NRI forum of Karnataka summoned

India

oi-Anusha

The Delhi Crime Branch probing the election commission bribery case summoned V C Prakash, the deputy chairman of NRI Forum of Karnataka. Prakash has been asked to join the probe after his name popped up during investigations of Dinakaran, Sukesh Chandrasekhar and Mallikarjuna.

V C Prakash, an NRI is said to be close to TTV Dinakaran. Delhi Crime branch is said to have summoned Prakash in connection with the case earlier but he had not appeared for questioning. Following his absence, fresh summons has been issued to Prakash. The man is a known face in the NRI circles and enjoyed minister of state status in Karnataka after the Siddaramaiah government passed an order in 2014.

During the course of the investigation, the accused are said to have spoken about V C Prakash. Crime branch police are attempting to verify the statements of the accused. Sources suggested that Prakash may have played a role in arranging for the money to help TTV Dinakaran and in its transportation.

Meanwhile, TTV Dinakaran has asked the Delhi police for copies of his alleged conversation with middleman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. The police had told the court that they had a CD with a recording of conversations between Sukesh and Dinakaran and wanted voice samples to verify the same. Dinakaran has been arrested for allegedly attempting to bribe officials of the election commission to gain a favourable verdict in the AIADMK two leaves symbol.

OneIndia News
In pictures, grandeur of Terminal 2 of Kempegowda International Airport which PM Modi will inaugurate

Congress can never give stable govt to Himachal; it is guarantee of instability, corruption, scam: PM Modi

Get ready for Modifests to mark three years of NDA govt

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, May 16: The National Democratic Alliance is all set to celebrate three years in power at the Centre with big events on May 26. In 2014, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA alliance formed its government in the Centre. The PM Modi government came to power with a huge mandate.

In order to mark the occasion, reports say the NDA alliance is set to host 125 Modifests and focus on PM Modi's 'pro-poor image'. It is going to be a big day, say government sources. The anniversary celebrations will start on May 26 and will end on June 15.

According to a report by The Indian Express, among the seven programmes the BJP is planning for the anniversary celebrations, a major part of time and resources would be directed towards organising Modifests in at least 125 locations across the country.

The celebrations will also include meetings between ministers and beneficiaries of government schemes, meetings of intellectuals, exhibitions and awareness programmes in 300 districts in various parts of the country.

The Prime Minister Office will send out 26,000 letters signed by PM Modi to beneficiaries of various government schemes.

"These letters will address beneficiaries of Ujjwala scheme and Mudra scheme, among others," said a BJP leader.

Moreover, PM Modi's cabinet colleagues and BJP chief ministers along with other states' ministers will travel across villages and towns to create awareness about various government-run welfare and pro-poor schemes among the masses.

"Exhibitions organised by the Information and Broadcasting ministry will showcase the government's outreach programmes and create awareness about its flagship schemes. BJP MPs and MLAs are likely to spend 72 hours at a village in their constituencies ahead of the anniversary programme. Each minister has been asked to list major achievements and salient points of the schemes of the ministry concerned in a booklet. These booklets are likely to be distributed during the anniversary celebrations," added The Indian Express report.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 6:52 [IST]
Kashmir teen's 'KashBook'

Shafiq, a resident of Anantnag, developed and launched the social networking platform within a week after the government banned 22 social media services including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. The young software enthusiast completed his class 10 exams recently. Along with his friend, 19-year-old Uzair Jan, Zeyan Shafiq came up with 'KashBook'.

App has more than a thousand users

The app was first launched in 2013 but was relaunched by Shafiq after the ban imposed by the government. Shafiq has told media outlets that within days of its re-launch the app and site has more than 1,000 users who are satisfied with its features. "The government has blocked access to all the social networks and they are blocking VPNs too. If they block complete access to social media, how will people from valley stay connected? KashBook is the answer to social media gag," Shafiq said.

KashBook on App Store and Google Play store

Shafiq and Uzair Jan developed a mobile optimised website and mobile apps for Google Play store and App Store. The duo aims to pursue computer engineering in the future. People of Kashmir defied the ban and accessed these blocked websites by using a virtual private network. But these teens claim that their app does not require a VPN. The teens claimed that through the app, they will focus and promote goods and services made in Kashmir and hope that 'their effort inspires others to invent and develop new things which can serve as tools for the betterment of Kashmir and Kashmiris'.

The 16-year-old's software journey

According to reports in Kashmir media, Shafiq started learning HTML tags by himself at the age of 11. He also tried his hand on computer languages such as C++ and Java. "On the portal, you can add people and chat with them, post messages along with many features which one finds in other social media websites. There is also a market for buying and selling," Zeyan told the media.

Teens defy ban

The Kashmir government imposed a ban on social networking and mass messaging sites on April 26. The ban was imposed for a period of one month after the government concluded that social media was being misused by 'anti-government elements'. The developers claim that the site does not need a VPN and allows usage of Kashmiri language for communication.

OneIndia News
Government wants to silence my voice: Chidambaram on CBI raids

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Former Union Minister, P Chidambaram has cried foul over the raids by the Central Bureau of Investigation at his residence. The Government wants to silence my voice said Chidamabaram while reacting to the raids that also took place at his son Karti's residence.

Government by using the CBI and other agencies is targeting my son and his friends. The government wants to silence my voice, the former finance minister of India also said.

The CBI has been conducting raids at Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Gurgaon in connection with the grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board approval given to INX Media.

The former minister also said that the government wanted to stop him from writing as it has tried to do with leaders of the opposition, journalists, columnists and NGOs.

Meanwhile K Ramasamy of the Congress too came out in support of Chidambaram. He said that the former minister has done no wrong and the raids were politically motivated.

OneIndia News
Harish Salve charged just Re 1 to defend India in Jadhav case at ICJ

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Harish Salve is one of India's leading lawyers and to defend Kulbhushan Jadhav in the International Court of Justice, he has billed the government just Rs 1. The ICJ on Monday reserved its order on an application made by India seeking to set aside the execution of Jadhav who was accused by Pakistan of being an Indian spy.

Salve it may be recalled had in flat 20 minutes argued his case last week and obtained a stay on the sentence. On Monday he advanced detailed arguments before the ICJ seeking to set aside the sentence.

Salve who is known to charge a high fee for the cases he argues only charged Rs 1 for the case before the ICJ. "Not fair. Harish Salve has charged us Rs.1- as his fee for this case (sic)," External Affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj said in a tweet.

The external affairs minister was responding to a twitter user who claimed that any good Indian lawyer would have done the same and with much less expenses than Harish Salve.

The Jadhav incident is a very emotive one for India. Jadhav was falsely convicted by Pakistan. India has maintained that Jadhav a former naval officer had turned businessman and was in Iran before Pakistan wrongly arrested him.

Sources say that it was Salve who voluntarily offered to charge just Rs 1 to argue India's case on behalf of Jadhav. It was in true national spirit and keeping in mind the sentiments of the entire nation that Salve decided to charge that fee to the government of India. He is a true patriot, the source also added.

OneIndia News
Karti cries foul, dubs raid as political vendetta

Karti remained defiant and said he has done nothing wrong. He said the government will not be able to prove any allegations against him.

"This raid is being carried out only because of political vendetta... They want to suppress my voice. They cannot prove any allegations against me," he told media.

The charges against Karti and others include criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by corrupt or illegal means to influence public servant and criminal misconduct.

Chidambaram lashed out at Centre for using CBI to target his son

"The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write," Chidambaram said in a statement.

The ED had earlier alleged that a firm linked to Karti Chidambaram received Rs 1.16 crore from companies whose FIPB clearances were done in an allegedly illegal manner by the then Union finance minister P Chidambaram.

Swamy calls Congress most corrupt party in history

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy has said that now the country will know that the Congress is the most corrupt party in the history of the world.

Swamy accused Chidambaram of giving illegal clearance to Foreign Investigation Promotion Board and alleged that former's son Karti always had benefited by such approvals.

He pulled Congress by saying that its president and vice-president are facing trial in the National herald case and senior leaders are now being probed.

Lalu dared Centre and said he is not afraid of government puppets

Lalu took to twitter to vent his ire and dubbed raids as ploy by BJP and the RSS to pressurise him. He cahellnged the Centre to reveal the names of 22 places raided.

"I am not scared of the BJP. There is a lot more to be done by bringing together all the parties sharing the same ideology," he said.

Another RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said attacking Lalu showed nervousness on the part of the union government.
UP: Five dead after bus hits dozen vehicles

2 dead, dozen injured in a bus-tanker collision in UP

UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

UP: 4 dead, 4 severely injured in road accident on Yamuna Expressway

Heat wave kills two in UP, power cuts hit people hard

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Lucknow, May 16: Two persons have died owing to the scalding heat wave across Uttar Pradesh. There will be no respite in the coming days, the weatherman said on Tuesday.

The mercury is rising both during day and night. Warm winds 'loo' blowing across the state was adding to the woes.

According to officials, 65-year-old Malti Devi died in Mundera, while Omveer of village Gadhiya Sheelam in Etah also passed away due to a heat stroke.

Banda remained the hottest district in the past 24-hours, the maximum temperature recorded was 47 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature was 43.3 degrees Celsius, which is three degrees above normal, Allahabad logged 46.3 degrees Celsius, Jhansi 45.1 and Agra 44.6 degrees Celsius.

The heat wave continued unabated in Poorvanchal and Bundelkhand where temperatures have peaked over the past one week.

Sonebhadra recorded 44.6 degrees Celsius while Mirzapur was very hot at 44.9 degrees Celsius.

Monday's temperature recorded across the state has shattered past records set during the month of May, the Met official said.

The present weather conditions were likely to continue in most parts of the state, though Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Saharanpur would have cloudy conditions owing to a westerly disturbance over Pakistan, the Regional Met office said.

Some areas might get light drizzle as well.

Power cuts during heat waves hit people hard

Though the state government and the Power Minister Shrikant Sharma had claimed 24x7 power supply in the state's cities and 18 hours in smaller towns. But the power cuts in most places are extending for more than four-five hours.

Angry residents in Telibagh and Southcity areas barged into a substation late on Sunday night to protest long duration of unscheduled power cuts. In Hariharnagar too, the power cuts have increased and so is the case in Indiranagar, Aliganj.

Power cuts last close to six hours on an average and power supply officials blame it on overloading, local faults. Ashutosh Kumar, chief engineer of Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration informed that the power demand has peaked by 25 per cent in the last few days.

He, however, assured that the supply would be normalized soon.

OneIndia News ( With IANS inputs).

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 11:48 [IST]
If faith of Hindus on Ram can't be questioned, how can validity of triple talaq be challenged: Sibal

India

oi-Anusha

"If both marriage and divorce are contracts then why should others have a problem with triple talaq especially when it is a practise of 1,400 years?". Sibal was arguing on behalf of the All India Muslims Personal Law Board which had opposed the striking down of triple talaq. A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of triple talaq.

Sibal went on to state that the practice of triple talaq has been observed for the past 1,400 years. Who are we to question it as un-Islamic, he asked. Sibal then sought to know what would happen if the Parliament did not come up with a divorce law for Muslims. Sibal was referring to the AG's statement in the court on Monday where he assured that a new divorce law for Muslims would be in place, if triple talaq is struck down.

Sibal also went on to state that family and social norms could never be tested with the touchstone of constitutional morality, a ground Centre had argued vociferously. he even said that if Hindus believe Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya, then this faith cannot be questioned on the ground of constitutional validity. If tfaith of Hindus about Ram's birth cannot be questioned then triple talaq is a matter of faith for Muslims.

When the Supreme Court bench asked if e-divorce was in practice, Sibal responded that WhatsApp divorce too was in practice. "Instant divorce is a practice in many countries. Marriage is a contract and Nikahnama is the heart of it. If the Nikahnama is changed by some statute, I would say that you are changing my very faith, but if I agree to that change on an individual basis, it is okay. However I should not be compelled to do it," Sibal told the court.

OneIndia News
IRCTC update: 151 trains cancelled on Nov 09; here is the complete list

How many Nirbhayas? Twitteratis question rise in rape cases

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, May 16: In the wake of three gruesome rape cases in recent times that shocked the nation once again, users of micro-blogging site, Twitter, on Tuesday trended the hashtag-- #__ (How many Nirbhayas?).

The social media users lamented the fact that repeats of the gruesome 2012 gang-rape and murder of Nirbhaya case continue unabated in the country. Recently, the Supreme Court had upheld the death penalty of four accused in the Nirbhaya case.

However, in a chilling repeat of the 2012 case that brought the entire country on the streets demanding the government to provide better safety measures to women, a 23-year-old woman was recently gang-raped and murdered in Rohtak, Haryana.

Reports say the Rohtak victim was drugged, gang-raped and later her head was smashed with bricks. One more case of sexual violence from Rohtak has also emerged. A 10-year-old was repeatedly raped by her stepfather. Now, the minor is five months pregnant.

One more woman, a native of Sikkim, was gang-raped by three men inside a moving vehicle in the national capital region on Sunday. After the gang-rape, the victim was thrown out of the car by the accused.

Here we bring you few tweets:

Another case of brutal rape. This time in Haryana. When will this country become safe for women #__ will media raise voice??  RR (@RR4900) May 16, 2017

Its such a shame on d society that we are in d nation whr gauraksha is darma but naari raksha is not #__  Kratika Sharma (@kratika4feb) May 16, 2017

OneIndia news

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 10:32 [IST]
Patna HC rejects Tejashwi Yadav's plea, says he will have to vacate Govt bungalow

Caste census a must, let 50 per cent cap be broken if required: Lalu Prasad

Lalu under IT scanner: Raids on to unearth Rs 1,000 crore worth benami land deals

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Raids are being conducted at 21 different locations in connection with benami land deals worth Rs 1,000 crore allegedly involving Lalu Prasad's associates. The raids are being conducted by the Income Tax Department after documents relating to benami land deals concerning Lalu's associates came to light

Raids are being conducted in various places including Delhi and Gurugram. Companies and people associated with Lalu Prasad Yadav have come under the scanner of the Income Tax Department.

The raids come just a few days after Lalu, the former chief minister of Bihar had rubbished allegations regarding his family members being involved in land deals. He had in fact accused the BJP of a witch hunt.

On May 12, addressing a press conference at the party headquartes, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad demanded the Central Government to probe the alleged land deals. The minister had accused Lalu's daughter, Misa Bharti of failing to disclose assets in her election affidavit.

He said the land deals dated back to the time when Lalu Prasad was the Union Railway Minister in the UPA government. He also wondered whether Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would invoke the special law enacted by his goverment in which assets acquired through illicit means are confiscated.

OneIndia News
It's Rajinikanth's choice to join politics or not: Stalin

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Chennai, May 16: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party on Monday had said it is Tamil superstar Rajnikanth's choice if he wants to join the politics or not.

Working DMK president M K Stalin had said that it is Rajinikanth's fans desire that he should enter the politics but the decision making depends on him whether he wants to get into politics or not.

The leader of the opposition in Tamil Nadu, Stalin had said he does not have any personal views on Thalaiva joining politics.

Rajnikanth, who had supported the DMK-led alliance in 1996, recently termed it as an 'accident' referring to DMK.

Thalaiva meets his fans, reveals his plans

On Monday, during his meeting with his fans in Chennai Rajinikanth broke his silence regarding the much-discussed issue of whether the veteran actor would join politics or not.

In fact, the 66-year-old actor hinted his interest in joining politics. However, Rajinikanth is careful about not joining hands with 'wrong people'.

"If in case I decide to join politics, I won't allow wrong people to join me. I'll keep them away," Rajnikanth told his fans.

Rajinikanth said that it was his 'mistake' to support a political alliance in the past. "I committed a mistake by supporting a political alliance 21 years ago, it was a political accident," he added.

Hundreds of die-hard fans of Tamil superstar met their screen idol in person in Chennai. Long queues of men and women waiting to meet Rajini Sir were taken by photographers of various media outlets.

The Tamil superstar, popularly known as Thalaiva, was dressed in black and greeted his fans with a big Namaste at the public meeting. The fan-star meeting is spread over a period of four days and going to end on May 19.

The meeting between Rajinikanth and his film followers came after a gap of eight years. Thus the mania surrounding the event is huge across Tamil Nadu.

Reports revealed that more than one lakh fans of Rajinikanth are likely to meet the veteran actor during the four-day meeting period.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 9:31 [IST]
Karnataka Congress: Siddaramaiah's leadership versus collective leadership

India

oi-Anusha

As if the infighting within the party over the post of KPCC chief was not enough, the Congress in Karnataka is now divided over leadership. With Siddaramaiah and his supporters proudly claiming that the party would go to elections under his leadership, senior leaders like Dr G Parameshwara and Mallikarjun Kharge speak of collective leadership.

With assembly elections barely a year away, leadership crisis looms large in the Congress. While in the BJP or the JD(S) there is absolute clarity on who will be the Chief Minister candidate, the same is not the case with the Congress. While heavy lobbying is underway for the KPCC president post, who will lead the Congress into polls has become a bigger question. With the prospects of Mallikarjun Kharge being appointed as the KPCC chief becoming stronger, leaders like D K Shivakumar who do not enjoy as much favour from the Chief Minister have begun pushing for him to lead the Congress in the 2018 elections.

During an interview with OneIndia, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had claimed that he would lead the party in the elections. "To stop communal forces I have to contest elections. I will lead the party in the assembly elections but the high command will decide on the Chief Minister," Siddaramaiah had said. This is in stark contrast to what Mallikarjun Kharge had to say.

"Unlike the BJP, Congress believes in collective leadership. We do not depend on one person to bring us victory. We will go into polls under collective leadership as instructed by the high command," Kharge said. His message was loud and clear to all those claiming to singlehandedly lead the Congress, including Siddaramaiah. The current president of the KPCC and Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara is also of the opinion that collective leadership is the way forward. On multiple occasions, Parameshwar has said that 'the party and all its leaders will work towards victory'. Never once has he agreed to Siddaramaiah's statements of leading the party himself. He has reiterated on collective leadership.

Leadership crisis continues in Congress

Fully aware that the Congress high command would take the Chief Minister's word for the appointment of the KPCC chief, one of the front runners, D K Shivakumar too has come in support of Siddaramaiah leading the Congress. Speaking to the media, the Energy Minister of Karnataka said, "Siddaramaiah should lead the Congress in the upcoming elections. He should also be made the chief minister if the party wins." His statement is a representation of thoughts of one group of party workers rooting for Siddaramaiah.

While one section of the party criticises Siddaramaiah for his working style, his supporters believe that his leadership alone will ensure a victory in the 2018 elections. The biggest challenge for the Congress central leadership is to avoid creating a dual power centre which would let the war of collective leadership versus individual leadership continue.

OneIndia News
Kashmiri BSF official alleges militants threatening his family

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 16: Close on the heels of the murder of Lt. Ummer Fayaz in the Kashmir Valley, a BSF Assistant Commandant from Jammu, who had topped the recruitment exam, has written to the government alleging that militants are threatening him and his sister.

Nabeel Ahmed Wani, the topper of the All India Examination for BSF Assistant Commandant (Works) last year, said his sister, a civil engineering student in Chandigarh, had been staying in a hostel but the college authorities now want her to move elsewhere.

Wani wrote to Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Sunday asking her to arrange for hostel facility for Nida Rafiq.

"She was worried that she would not get a place to stay as a Kashmiri, especially with my background. I didn't want to involve the BSF in a personal matter, so I wrote to the minister," Wani told PTI over phone from BSF Training Academy in Tekanpur near Gwalior.

Wani said he has spoken to his seniors in the BSF asking them to allow personnel to carry their arms when they go on leave, especially in militant-affected areas, and also to secure their travel plans home. He said he will go home for his cousin's wedding in next two months.

"People like me and my family members are always under threat from militants. After the murder of Lt Ummer Fayaz, I am scared about my family's security. My mother lives alone in Jammu while my sister is in Chandigarh. I worry, especially now, as terrorists are targeting our families," said Wani.

He topped the exam last year around the time the Valley was on the boil following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani. He had written the mail to Gandhi on May 14 and he got a response the very next day.

"The minister immediately took it up with the college authorities, who have now allowed Mr. Nabeel's sister to stay in the hostel," a senior official of the WCD Ministry said.

Wani said, "I am now worried for all those Kashmiris who are serving in the Army or paramilitary forces. We (Kashmiris) join the forces despite a lot of opposition and now, with this trend of killing Kashmiris serving as soldiers, a sword hangs on all of us. This is very disturbing."

As for his sister, he is now comforted she will remain safe in the security of her hostel room.

"She is safe for now. Pray for her, she wants to become the first woman from Jammu and Kashmir to serve the Indian Army," he said.

PTI
BJP wants Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, says Shah; asks other parties must make stand clear on the issue

'There is partnership between TRS and BJP', says Rahul Gandhi in Telangana

Kerala govt is not concerned about killing of RSS and BJP workers: Shah

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Kochi, May 16: Reacting to the rampant political killings in Kerala especially those of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Tuesday criticised the state government over the recent killings of RSS and BJP workers.

"The Government of the left front is not concerned about the attacks over RSS and BJP. 13 murders in this short period cannot be a coincidence. The law and order situation in the state has deteriorated. The police are not taking any action in connection with the matter," Shah told ANI,

Shah said that these murders reflect that the Left front is trying to suppress the BJP supporters in Kerala by violence.

Shah also said that the Left front cannot curg BJP supporters in the state and government should work according to the laws and conditions but not according to their ideology.

It is to be recalled that RSS worker identified as Choorakad Biju was hacked to death allegedly by the Communist Party of India(Marxist) activist at Payyanur town that witnessed a series of clashes between the ruling CPI(M) and the RSS for past one year.

Biju was an accused in the murder of CPI(M) activist C V Dheeraj in 2016.

Police had filed a case against the seven identifiable persons in connection with the incident.

Meanwhile, a bandh was called by the BJP in Kannur and nearby Mahe to protest the killing of RSS worker. The bandh was peaceful so far until some sporadic incidents of stone pelting, police said, adding that the security was intensified and additional force deployed across the district to prevent any untoward incidents.

The murder of Biju was the first incident that took place after peace talks in January at Kannur, a notorious for political violence between the workers of CPI(M) and the RSS.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 13:07 [IST]
'If I have nominated even one person using authority, I'll resign': Kerala governor on VC row

Kerala: Opposition stages walkout in assembly over medical fees hike

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, May 16: Congress-led UDF opposition in Kerala on Tuesday staged a walkout in the Assembly alleging that the LDF government had surrendered before the private self-financing medical college managements by agreeing to hike fees for PG courses.

Replying to the notice for an adjournment motion over the issue, state Health minister K K Shylaja refuted opposition charges, saying fees for PG courses was fixed by the Fees Regulatory Committee, taking into consideration various guidelines.

She also said that medical colleges run by Christian managements had agreed to the fees structure of Rs 16 lakh for clinical course and Rs 8.50 lakh for non-clinical ones.

"Christian managements have agreed to the unified fee structure fixed by the Fees Regulatory Committee, even though they have demanded a higher fee. It is due to the effective intervention of the state government," she said. The government is of the opinion that the other private colleges should also follow suit, she added.

"The LDF government is one which has fought against exploitation by private medical college managements till the end. From the present academic year, admission to all medical seats will be from the NEET list and it will be centralised allotment," the minister said.

She also said that "there was no move from the part of the government to hike any fees. The government had done what it could do as per the law in the context of the recent Supreme Court verdict in this regard," the minister added.

However, attacking the government, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala alleged that the government had surrendered before the private managements. "Fees for PG courses has been increased three fold which has made medical study inaccessible for students from financially poor background," he said.

Chennithala also wanted the government to introduce scholarship for students pursuing PG medical courses to ease the financial burden due to the hike in fees. The opposition later staged a walkout after Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan refused leave for the motion.

PTI

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 16:49 [IST]
Mohan Bhagwat

For starters the chief of the RSS, Bhagwat has already said that he is not in the race to become President. Moreover Modi would like to keep the RSS away from controversy and would also want to ensure that there is a candidate at Rashtrapati Bhavan who would listen to him.

Najma Heptullah

She is in the race for Rasina Hill. The governor of Manipur, Najma Heptullah had in fact expressed that she would like to become President. She had said so to Amit Shah in 2016. However the one factor that may go against her is that she was originally from the Congress. She joined the BJP only ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. This would be a compulsion for Modi to select her.

Amitabh Bachchan

The star from Bollywood would have been a consensus candidate. There were very strong rumours that he would be picked for the post. He also shares a great rapport with Modi and also promotes the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. However with his name figuring in the Panama Papers tax evasion case he lost out on the race.

Pranab Mukherjee

Modi has had absolutely no problem in dealing with Mukherjee as President. In fact the relationship has been more than cordial considering Pranab is from the Congress. The question however is why would the BJP which has scored one emphatic victory after another give a Congressman the post, especially when it can install its candidate as the President.

L K Advani

Modi had said recently that making Advani the President would be his gurudakshina. While there is really no confirmation that Modi had said that, the bigger point is does he share a cordial relationship with Advani? What has made Advani's case weaker is Babri Masjid case in which he was asked by the Supreme Court to face trial. This is quite a hinderance for Advani.

Murli Manohar Joshi

Joshi's name was also in circulation. However it may be recalled that Joshi at the Goa meet ahead of the 2014 elections had opposed Modi's candidature for the post of Prime Minister. The RSS is not averse to Joshi as the next President of India. However Modi is not one to forget and the Goa incident would be fresh in his mind. Moreover the Babri case too has stung Joshi and this could have come in the way of rise to Rasina Hill.
Scholz rejects use of 'apartheid' to describe Israel

Leaders of Israel and Turkey hold first meeting since 2008

Solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict not in sight

India hopes for sovereign, independent Palestine: PM Modi to Mahmoud Abbas

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

India extended its support to an independent Palestine with a peaceful co-existence with Israel in the middle east on Tuesday.

In a joint statement with Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "We hope to see the realization of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel."

India and Palestine exchanged of MoUs in presence of Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj.

Earlier, the Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas was received by President Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. in New Delhi. Mahmoud Abbas was received with ceremonial honours at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shakes hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas shakes hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as President Pranab Mukherjee looks on during a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday.PTI Photo Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduces Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his cabinet ministers Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduces Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with his cabinet ministers during a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday.PTI Photo Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee during a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday.PTI Photo Reinforcing support to Palestine. EAM @SushmaSwaraj calls on President Mahmoud Abbas pic.twitter.com/H3qlTT9tuJ  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017 Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas meets Sushma Swaraj External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj calls on President Mahmoud Abbas Invaluable gift of a warm friend'p. President of Palestine presented a mosaic & an artwork having PM @narendramodi name written in Arabic pic.twitter.com/sAe2hKLWr3  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017 President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas' gift to PM Modi Invaluable gift of a warm friendship. President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas presented a mosaic and an artwork having PM Narendra Modi name written in Arabic.

President Mahmoud Abbas is on a four-day visit to strengthen bilateral ties with India. The talks will be focussed on key bilateral, regional and international issues, including the Middle East peace process.

A delegation-level discussion between President Abbas and Prime Minister Modi will be held on Tuesday. Minister of External Affairs, SushmaSwaraj called on President Mahmoud Abbas to reinforcing support to Palestine.

Gopal Baglay, Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, tweeted 'Deepening historically close and friendly ties'.

Deepening historically close & friendly ties. Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine receives ceremonial honours at @RashtrapatiBhvn pic.twitter.com/UU112V4gji  Gopal Baglay (@MEAIndia) May 16, 2017

The talks between India and Palestine hold importance as PM Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to travel to Israel in July.

(With agency inputs)
Presidential polls: Mamata Banerjee meets Sonia Gandhi

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

New Delhi, May 16: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday. The Presidential election was prime agenda in the meeting between the two leaders.

Speaking to the media after the meet, Mamata Banerjee said that the two discussed multiple political issues, "President election was also discussed along with political issues but no discussion was held on the name for the elections," she added.

According to the sources, Sonia Gandhi had invited her on the phone to discuss the presidential elections. Banerjee, who is in Delhi is also likely to hold meetings with leaders from other parties like Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and other parties.

But the political alignment is creating a kind of uneasiness in Kolkata, where Congress supports the arch- enemy of state's ruling Trinamool Congress. The two parties are trying to play down the impression by shaking hands.

It is said that ahead of the meeting, Bengal Congress chief Adhir Choudhury wrote to Sonia Gandhi advising her to deal carefully with Mamata, discussion of anything could injure the Congress in the state.

With President Pranab Mukherjee's term set to end in July, Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi has met leaders of several parties in the last few weeks to discuss the possibility of a joint candidate for the upcoming presidential polls.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)
Bihar's Gopalganj by-poll to see a tough fight between BJP and RJD

Alert Bihar chief secy foils bid to withdraw money from his bank account

RJD leader Pappu Gop shot dead in Patna

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Patna, May 16: A group of miscreants on Tuesday morning shot Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Pappu Gop in Patna district of Bihar.

According to the reports, the RJD leader was attacked by the bike-borne miscreants near Station Road while he was out for the morning walk. The locals rushed him to hospital where he succumbed to bullet injuries during the treatment.

Reports said that the incident took place under the limits of Fatuha police station.

The police reached the spot and began investigation in the case.

The reason behind the murder is not yet clear.

Meanwhile, police have begun investigation in this connection but the reason behind the murder is not yet clear.

Further details are awaited.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 14:54 [IST]
These radio intercepts picked up by IB show how nervous Pakistan is

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The radio intercepts coupled with intelligence inputs suggest that there is nervous chatter on the Pakistan side. There is a very high state of alert since May 1 on the Pakistan side. This is largely to do with the fact that Pakistan expects an aggressive response from India to avenge the beheading of two Indian soldiers.

Pakistan expects a trans-LoC operation by India, sources informed OneIndia. If one were to analyse the inputs picked up by the intelligence and also read through the statement by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), it is clear that there is a lot of nervousness on the Pakistan side which fears a retaliation. The ISPR statement released read, "any misadventure by Indian Army across Line of Control will be a miscalculation, shall be responded with full force and could lead to unintended consequences". The statement was followed by a visit by Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to the Line of Control at the Nikial sector.

Stronger stance by India:

India has not clearly spelt out the action it intends taking against Pakistan in the aftermath of the incident in which two Indian soldiers were beheaded. For now the Indian Army has taken a stronger stance along the Naushera-Poonch sector. Heavier weapons are being used to target Pakistan posts and bunkers.

Intelligence officials explained that there is no doubt that Pakistan along the border is on a very high state of alert. The statements and the visit by the Army chief clearly indicate that they expect heavy retaliation. However the Indian Army has said that it would hit Pakistan at a time and place of its choosing.

Even today Pakistan resorts to heavy firing and cease fire violations. There have already been two in the past two weeks at the Noushera sector. They have taken an aggressive stance and want to try and put the pressure back on. There is clearly nervousness and they expect a surprise attack by India, the source also explained. The statement by the ISPR in itself is an unusual one, the source also explained.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 7:52 [IST]
UP Assembly passes GST Bill

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Lucknow, May 16: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly unanimously passed goods and Services Tax Bill on Tuesday. After tabling the GST Bill in the Assembly the Chef minister Yogi Adityanath said the GST as a landmark decision towards the economic growth. He urged MLAs to clear the Bill unopposed as it will be a big relief for the common people.

On Monday, Yogi tabled the GST Bill in the opening session of 17th Uttar Pradesh Assembly but it was passed on Tuesday unopposed. With this, the state will become the 10th state to pass GST bill.

UP minister Suresh Kumar on Monday said that the state government is confident that the tax revenue would grow under the GST which was adopted in the country. He also said that the new tax regime is implemented, revenue of Uttar Pradesh will likely increase.

On Monday afternoon, Yogi inaugurated a workshop on GST Bill for the legislators where the both opposition Samajwadi Party leaders and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leaders attended the workshop in Lok Bhavan. The workshop was believed to be organised by the initiative of Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit.

Addressing the legislators in the workshop, Yogi said that UP will become the 9th state after it passes the GST Bill in the Assembly during the current session.

He said that he was overwhelmed to see a massive turnout by the MLAs and MLCs of all parties. He said that the gathering is encouraging that all legislators are cutting the party lines and are participating in the GST workshop.

He added that the hall is packed to the capacity and said that it led him to believe that the Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit has mobilised crowd from the Assembly segment in Unnao. He also added that he know each MLA personally and was glad they were present.

On May 2, the chief minister approved a proposal regarding the implementation of GST in the state during the Cabinet meeting.

States which passed GST Bill and when

Telangana had passed the Bill on April 9

Bihar had passed the Bill on April 24

Rajasthan had passed the Bill on April 26

Jharkhand had passed the Bill on April 27

Chhattisgarh had passed the Bill on April 28

Haryana had passed the Bill on May 4

Uttarakhand had passed the Bill on May 2

Goa Assembly had passed the Bill on May 9

Andhra Pradesh had passed the Bill on May 16

Uttar Pradesh had passed the Bill on May 16.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 16:37 [IST]
Mamata's party has replaced 'Rule of Law' by 'Rule by TMC law': Rijiju

WB CM Mamata inducts two faces in Cabinet

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

Kolkata, May 16: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday inducted tow new members in her cabinet, taking the total number of ministers to 44.

According to reports, Chandrima Bhattacharya, the bypoll winner from Kathi Dakshin Assembly had returned to the cabinet after nearly a year.

Chandrima was the minister for health, law and judicial affairs from 2011to 2016 but in the same year, she lost from Dum Dum North seat in 2016 assembly polls.

Now Chandrma will serve as the MoS for health and take independent charge of e-governance under Mamata.

According to reports, Chandrima has become the fifth woman to join the 44-member ministry.

Similarly, Ujjwal Biswas, the other candidate was also inducted in Mamata's cabinet.

Ujjwal, who had won in 2016 assembly elections from Krishnanagar Dakshin seat from Nadia district, was inducted as minister-in-charge of correctional administration.

Ujjwal had served as minister for technical education from 2011 to 2016 but he was not inducted as a minister when Mamata took charge of the state again in 2016.

In this regard, the state Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Monday administered the oath of office and secrecy to Chandrima and Ujjwal at Raj Bhavan. Mamata, state Legislative Speaker Biman Banerjee, other ministers and bureaucrats were present during the oath taking ceremony.

Speaking to the reporters after the ceremony, Mamata said that Chandrima will take charge of e-governance while Ujjwal will take charge of the jail department.

She added that Abani Mohan Joardar, who is already the in-charge of jail department will remain but without any portfolios due to his health conditions,

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 10:12 [IST]
Disregarding India's concerns, 6 of its neighbours sign deals with China

International

oi-Prabhpreet

By Prabhpreet

While India's concerns related to China's ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative seem to be on the rise, as it keeps raising serious issues about the project, the countries in its neighbourhood do not seem overly concerned by any of them.

The project through which China wants to build a new 21st-century silk route, both land and maritime, and other similar initiatives which would lead to increasing connectivity with Asian and European countries and solidify its place in the world as a major trading partner.

In India, along with concerns over its sovereignty regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), it is also seen as a continuation of Chinese strategy of 'strings of pearls' which China uses to flex its muscle in India's neighbourhood. These concerns were the reason that the country chose to skip the inaugural Belt and Road Forum (BRF) event in Beijing held this Sunday and Monday.

But while the country tried to send a message through its absence, six of its neighbours chose not only to attend the two-day event but also signed at least 20 agreements with China, which included taking aids in areas such as infrastructure, power, banking and finance.

China called CPEC a flagship OBOR project and signed 10 agreements connected to it with Pakistan. The corridor which is a part of the larger project, by which China is set to link the Xinjiang province with the Gwadar port in Pakistan and is to be built in Balochistan, passes through Gilgit-Baltistan region which India claims as its own.

But giving little care to India's concern, agreements related to the corridor that runs through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) were formalised, as the Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who addressed the opening ceremony of the BRF led a delegation that included four chief ministers and several federal ministers.

Adding to India's worries, Pakistan is not the only country from India's neighbourhood that is comfortable with the growing role of China, as five other countries- Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan- signed MoUs, cooperation agreements and planning documents related to the project.

India maintains that China has not built an environment of trust to carry out the belt and road projects. And the country has complained that while it has raised its concerns at various levels such as the Chinese President Xi Jinping visit to the country during the BRICS summit in Goa last year, they have not been treated seriously.

Early this year, Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar was reported to have said, "China is a country which is very sensitive on matters concerning its sovereignty... so we would expect that they would have some understanding of other people's sensitivity about their sovereignty. CPEC passes through a piece of land which we call Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is a territory that belongs to India and is illegally occupied by Pakistan."

Talking on the issue of India's neighbours wanting to join China's project, Chinese scholar, Wang Dehua, Director, Institute for South and Central Asia Studies in Shanghai, had reportedly said that it was natural for them to want to be a part of the Belt and Road initiative as it is a great opportunity for them as they would be benefitted from not only the financial help that China would provide but also the technological knowledge. He had added that India's neighbours may even help in convincing it to join the initiative.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 16:29 [IST]
India needs to look beyond rifts with China, says Chinese state media

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Beijing, May 16: The leading Chinese newspaper Global Times in its editorial said that India needs to look beyond rifts with China after New Delhi decided to boycott the Belt and Road Forum which concluded on Monday in Beijing.

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was hosted by China from May 14-15 in Beijing. A total of 29 foreign heads of state and government and representatives from more than 130 countries and 70 international organisations participated in the meet.

This is what the Global Times editorial wrote:

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation concluded successfully yesterday with fruitful results. As so many large delegations participated, including from the US, Japan and South Korea, the international community has shown a very positive response to the infrastructure-building initiative.

However, India sent no official representatives. The country's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said Saturday that India cannot accept a project that violates its sovereignty and territorial integrity. India appears to be the only country that has expressed disapproval of the initiative in recent days.

New Delhi is primarily against the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project along the Belt and Road (B&R) which goes through Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan claim sovereignty over Kashmir, which is under the control of both sides. China insists the Kashmir dispute is between India and Pakistan and it has no intention of intervening. The CPEC is a cooperation project in a purely economic sense with no aim to stir up political trouble.

Rising nationalism has made Indian public opinion extremely sensitive on China-related issues. Indians are keen to compare themselves with China on development and international status, but meanwhile strongly object to China developing friendly cooperation with Pakistan, for fear that Sino-Pakistani ties are targeting India.

Indian's objection to the B&R is partly a show for domestic politics, partly to pile pressure on China. However, the absence of New Delhi in the B&R has not affected the forum in Beijing, and it will exert even less effect on the progress the initiative will make in the world.

In recent years, old problems have remained in Sino-Indian relations while some new problems have surfaced. For instance, New Delhi hopes Beijing will support the UN Security Council blacklist on the leader of the Army of Mohammed, a Pakistan-based military group, and support India's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Overall, these new problems are caused by India's requirements for China. However, China does not do as it wants.

India hopes that it can shape bilateral relations more actively, and expects China to give special attention to the interests of India. But this is not how countries interact.

If India sees itself as a big power, it should get accustomed to the many divergences with China, and try to manage these divergences with China. Big country diplomacy is mostly all-round. It is almost impossible that two big countries can reach agreements on all things. This can be proved by the many differences between China and the US. But China and the US have maintained smooth bilateral relations, from which New Delhi can learn.

Sino-Indian relations have not seen a serious downturn. The border of the two countries has been peaceful in these years, the most important force for stable bilateral relations. Both countries have prioritized economic and social development in their national strategies. Maintaining friendly ties conforms to the two countries' fundamental interests. The specific frictions between Beijing and New Delhi should not be regarded as a signal for intense geopolitical competition.

It should be pointed out that some people in India, with the ability to influence public opinion, have a shallow analysis of state interests, and an outdated understanding of geopolitics. Their stereotyped view of China continues to spread to the whole of Indian society, which may have destructive power. India and China should be vigilant about this.

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 12:02 [IST]
Sikh community is strong link in India's relations with other countries: PM Modi

Who was Banda Singh Bahadur? Remembering the first Sikh ruler on his death anniversary

Kabul attack: India to grant e-visas to over 100 Sikhs, Hindus

Indian Sikh man separated from his family during Partition meets his Pakistani Muslim sister in Kartarpur

Italian Supreme Court upholds ban on Sikhs from carrying kirpan in public

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

The Italian Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the ban on Sikhs from carrying kirpan-ceremonial knife- in public.

According to BBC reports, the court said that migrants who choose to live in Italy must respect Italian laws prohibiting the carrying of weapons even though many Sikhs regard ceremonial knives as sacred.

The ruling gave utmost importance to public safety from weapons over an individual's rights.

Italian SC upholds ban on Sikhs from carrying kirpan in public: Italian media pic.twitter.com/Dfxqv8HGgB  ANI (@ANI_news) May 16, 2017

The Sikh man in the case was appealing against another court's decision ordering him to pay a 2,000 fine (1,700; $2,195) because he had been caught leaving his home in Goito, northern Italy, armed with a knife measuring nearly 20cm (7.8in).

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Story first published: Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 18:26 [IST]
Moonlighting: Stress is what is leading Gen Z to second jobs

Saudi Arabia to get rid of foreign workers in Public sector by 2020

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

A bad news for government job seekers in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Civil Service has asked all ministries and government departments to get rid of all expatriate workers within three years, reports Saudi Gazette.

According to reports, the ministry said that there were 70,000 expats in the public sector at the end of last year (2016).

"There will be no expatriate workers in the government after 2020," he told a meeting" the Saudi Gazette quoted Deputy Minister Abdullah Al-Melfi. "The complete nationalization of government jobs is an important objective of the National Transformation Program 2020 and the Kingdom's Vision 2030," Malfi said.

What is National Transformation Program 2020 ?

Saudi Arabia approved its National Transformation Program, a key part of a blueprint to prepare the kingdom for the post-oil era. The plan outlines a number of initiatives to be undertaken by different ministries.

The NTP is part of Vision 2030, being spearheaded by the Council of Economic and Development Affairs chaired by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The NTP aims to boost non-oil revenue to SR530 billion by 2020, creating some 450,000 non-government jobs.

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by  Graham Pierrepoint



There doesnt seem to be a day goes by without there being a new scoop or dramatic movement at the very top of US government  Donald Trump, arguably, has been one of the most interesting  and controversial  statesmen of our times, and with it he has brought a team of professionals who, variously, have been captured in the media at very inopportune moments. Sean Spicer, of course  the Press Secretary to Trump  was this week grabbing headlines and Twitter memes after having been reportedly hiding behind bushes to avoid reporters following the removal of FBI director James Comey. Spicer, in fact, may well be on the chopping block  if claims from Axios are to be believed, and if a telling interview from Trump via Fox News is anything to go by.

Trump, firstly, dodged questions in interview over the weekend over whether or not Spicer would remain Press Secretary  instead advising that he had been facing a variety of challenges. Axios, however, report something far more interesting  that Trump may be considering a complete overhaul of his top team, including that of Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus  in a move to try and revolutionize his Presidency. Its also rumored that Trump may be considering hiring a number of Fox News staff to join his communications team, however, such claims are yet to be verified.

Trumps preference for Fox News is no secret, as the President himself has advised that they are his preferred source of journalism  and the former Apprentice star has famously decried much external media for propagating what he has termed to be fake news. The same Presidency  at least thanks to KellyAnne Conway  also put about the phrase alternative facts when it came to disparity between crowds attending Trumps inauguration and Obamas inauguration some years before. This is a government like no US citizen has seen before  one which is vocally at war with much of the media, and one which has shown clear enough preference for one outlet to consider them to be close allies. Where will the drama end?

Its not clear  there doesnt seem to be a week that goes by without there being a new development in the Trump story  and rest assured, we will always be here to verify the true stories from the fake ones  and well be your source on all things Trump as soon as they arise!
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Matthias Knab, Opalesque: Dr. Ian Dogan, Founder of Insider Monkey, writes on Harvest Exchange: You've probably read a million stories about how Bill Ackman's been getting creamed lately, how hedge funds continue to underperform indexes, and how redemptions continue to rock major hedge funds. But have you read one story about Leonard A. Potter's Wildcat Capital Management, whose stock picks gained 52% in the first-quarter according to our calculations (based on the weighted average returns of its eight positions in stocks with a market cap of at least $1 billion)? No, no you haven't. The mainstream media is predictable if nothing else, and who can blame them? Misery and negativity generate clicks because, let's face it, many of us feel better about ourselves when we read about the failings of others, and that goes double or triple for the failings of billionaire money managers and their wealthy investors. Of course, just because the media excessively dwells on hedge funds underperforming the market doesn't mean they're not right, and by no means do we advocate that investors pay exorbitant fees to invest with them, nor should they blindly mimic their picks. However, where they can find success is in betting on only the top ideas of the top performing hedge funds, like Wildcat Capital,...................... To view our full article Click here
Opalesque Industry Update - Suni P. Harford will join UBS Asset Management (UBS AM) as Head of Investments in July 2017. She will be responsible for c.500 investment employees and oversee approximately US$600 billion in assets under management across both traditional and alternative asset classes. She will be based in New York and report to Ulrich Koerner, President of UBS AM. Suni joins UBS AM from Citigroup Inc. where she has worked for the past 24 years, most recently as Regional Head of Markets for North America, a role she held for nine years. In this role, she was responsible for sales, trading, origination and research across all fixed income, currencies, commodities, equities and municipal businesses. Suni was also a member of Citi's Pension Plan Investment Committee and a Director on the Board of Citibank Canada. As a prominent diversity champion, both in the financial services sector and the wider business community, Suni served as the co-head of Citi Women and on the Board of Directors of The Forte Foundation, a US non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women leaders in business. She is also passionate about awareness and support for the US veteran community, and is involved in many organizations in this regard. "Suni is a highly experienced and impactful senior leader, with a Wall Street career spanning nearly 30 years. She brings strong leadership capabilities combined with a broad knowledge of the investment markets across multiple asset classes and deep understanding of macro-economics." said Ulrich Koerner, President, UBS AM. "Over the past two and a half years, we have transformed Investments from a multi-boutique structure into the integrated platform we have today. In her new role as Head of Investments for Asset Management, Suni will build on this by executing on our strategy to deliver sustainable performance for our clients." Press release Bg Article source - Opalesque is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Opalesque Industry Update - According to the May 2017 Eurekahedge Report, the key highlights for April 2017 are: - Hedge funds were up 0.64% in April with 2017 year-to-date gains coming in at 3.00%. Investor appetite for hedge funds has picked up pace since the start of the year, with net inflows of US$34.8 billion. - AUM for the North American hedge fund industry has reached a record high of US$1.54 trillion as of April 2017. Investor subscriptions for 2017 year-to-date stood at US$29.5 billion, with US$18.4 billion of performance-based gains recorded over the same period of time. - The US$260.6 billion CTA/managed futures mandated hedge fund industry saw the highest net investor inflows US$11.3 billion among strategic mandates for 2017. The top 25 best performing CTA managers with a combined AUM of US$30 billion were up 4.04% for the year. - AUM for long/short equities hedge fund managers grew by US$19.8 billion over the year with strength led by performance-driven gains of US$17.1 billion. Long/short equities hedge fund managers are up 4.81% for the year. - Asian managers saw investor subscriptions of US$1.6 billion in 2017 year-to-date, with performance-based gains of US$4.1 billion. As of 2017 year-to-date, Asia ex-Japan managers were up 7.12% with underlying Greater China and Indian managers up 8.73% and 13.89% respectively. Japan focused funds were up 2.04% over the same period. - European managers gained 1.10% during the month, with year-to-date gains coming in at 3.41%. The US$512.4 billion European hedge fund industry grew by US$6.5 billion as of April 2017 year-to-date. - Sub-billion dollar hedge funds recorded strong investor interest as of 2017 year-to-date, with net inflows totaling US$16.5 billion. Within sub-billion dollar hedge funds, mid-size funds managing between US$100 million and US$500 million have seen inflows of US$12.2 billion. *** Hedge funds posted their fourth consecutive month of gains this year, up 0.64% during the month of April, comments data provider Eurekahedge. Meanwhile, underlying markets as represented by the MSCI AC World Index (Local) were up 1.17% over the same period. The Macron vs. Le Pen run-up to the French presidential election provided some relief for the markets especially for European equities as expectations for a Macron victory in the second round seemed likely. In the Eurozone and elsewhere in the world, economic data for Q1 2017 was largely encouraging with indicators pointing towards global economic expansion. However, strained geopolitical relationships among major powers and challenges faced by America's trade partners on the back of Trump's anti-trade rhetoric places the direction of economic recovery in a precarious position. With his proposed reforms in home ground still rather shaky, the course of Trump's America is still anyone's guess. Among regional mandates, Asia ex-Japan hedge fund managers topped the table for the month, gaining 1.28% followed by European and Latin American managers with gains of 1.10% and 0.99% respectively. The first round of the French presidential elections saw Macron and Le Pen heading towards the second round of the elections and this provided some relief for European equity markets. Optimism on a centrist Macron victory buoyed equity markets across the board and coupled with encouraging macro data from Europe, the potential for further disintegration of the EU bloc coming from Frexit became less alarming. Latin American equities were modest in April, with the Mexican IPC Index gaining 1.48% while the Brazilian Ibovespa Index was up 0.48% over the same period. The renegotiations of the NAFTA deal by the Trump administration proved to be a relief for the three countries in the agreement, which would otherwise have seen the NAFTA being abolished. However, much remains to be seen as the extent of renegotiations remains a big question mark. North American and Japan managers were also in positive territory this month, gaining 0.98% and 0.40% in April. On a year-to-date basis, Latin American managers outshone regional peers, and were up 7.41% followed by Asia ex-Japan peers who posted gains of 7.12% over the same period. European, North American and Japanese managers are also in positive territory as of April 2017 year-to-date, up 3.41%, 2.94% and 2.04% respectively. Press release Bg The full report can be found on Eurekahedge's website: Article source - Opalesque is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Opalesque Industry Update - The hedge fund industry saw net inflows totalling $19.7bn in Q1 2017, ending five successive quarters of net outflows for the industry, according to research house Preqin. The influx of investor capital, combined with a consistent run of positive performance for the industry, has seen total assets held by hedge funds grow by 3.2% in the first quarter of the year to hit a record $3.35tn. All leading hedge fund strategies experienced a percentage increase in total assets and, notably, macro strategies funds attracted $11.1bn of net inflows to expand beyond $1tn in AUM ($1,011bn) for the first time. Key Q1 2017 Hedge Fund Asset Flow Facts: - Macro strategies funds and event driven strategies funds attracted the largest amount of new capital during the quarter, recording net inflows of $11.1bn and $8.9bn respectively. - With inflows of $1.1bn, the total assets held by niche strategies grew 10% to $16bn, the largest percentage increase of any strategy. - Nearly half of all outflows (46%) in 2016 were from equity strategies, and that trend continued in Q1 2017 as the strategy experienced $10.0bn of investor redemptions. - CTAs continue to attract new investor capital with inflows of $7.2bn in Q1 2017 and, after inflows of $25.5bn in 2016, now hold $256bn in assets. - North America-based hedge fund managers attracted the greatest amount of capital over Q1 2017 with net inflows of $19.9bn; Europe was the only region to lose assets over Q1 with net outflows of $8.5bn. - Fifty-three percent of hedge funds that achieved a return of 5.00% or more during 2016 received investor inflows in Q1 2017, and 56% of funds that achieved an annualised three-year return of more than 5% saw inflows. In contrast, only a fifth of vehicles that generated three-year returns of -5.00% years attracted inflows. - All fund sizes were able to attract new capital in Q1 2017; 53% of funds between $500mn and $999mn saw inflows while smaller funds were also successful: 47% of funds with less than $100mn saw inflows with just 36% losing assets. "Five successive quarters of net outflows have been reversed in Q1 2017, as the industry recorded the largest quarterly influx of capital since Q2 2015," commented Amy Bensted, Head of Hedge Fund Products. "Along with the continued run of positive returns being made by most leading strategies, this has helped propel the industry to a record size. "2016 was undeniably a difficult year for the hedge fund industry, with net outflows reflecting a reduced appetite for the asset class from institutions following a sustained period of low returns to investors since 2014. However, following an extended run of improved performance since March 2016 - the 12-month return of hedge funds is 10.67% - investor sentiment seems to be improving in 2017, which is reflected by inflows over the start of the year." Press release Bg Article source - Opalesque is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
WATERBORNE COATINGS MARKET - GLOBAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS, TRENDS, OUTLOOK, AND OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS, 20162024

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https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/ongoing-insight/waterborne-coatings-market-269

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A coating is a layer applied on the surface of an application, usually referred to as the substrate. The coating may cover complete substrate, or any part of that substrate. Waterborne coatings are coatings that use water as a solvent to disperse a resin. These coatings are considered eco-friendly, and can be applied easily on the substrate. These coatings contain up to 80% water, with the remainder accounted for by other solvents such as glycol ether. These coatings are considered to be environment-friendly as U.S. and European regulations require waterborne coatings to have a VOC content of less than 3.5 pounds per gallon of water. The key properties of waterborne coatings include low VOC, very low odor, and non-flammability. Waterborne coatings dry at a very fast rate and can be re-coated as well.To know more about the key players in this market, get in Touch With us for a FREE sample of this report:Waterborne coatings are used in a myriad number of applications, as they are perfect primers due to their good resistance to heat and abrasion; provide excellent adhesion; have low toxicity and flammability due to low VOC levels and HAP emissions; and are used in relatively small quantities as they cover large surface areas as compared to equal quantity of solvent-borne coatings. In most cases, these coatings cost less than solvent-borne coatings and require no additives, thinners, or hardeners.Waterborne coatings such as acrylic coatings, polyester coatings, polyurethane coatings, alkyd coatings, and epoxies are used in a wide spectrum of applications such as architectural, marine, protective, and automotive.Waterborne Coatings Materials Market TaxonomyOn the basis of resin type, the global Waterborne Coatings market is segmented into:Acrylic CoatingsPolyester CoatingsPolyurethane CoatingsPolyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) CoatingsPolyvinylidene Chloride (PVDC) CoatingsAlkyd CoatingsEpoxy CoatingsPolytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) CoatingsOthersOn the basis of application, the global Waterborne Coatings market is segmented into:ArchitecturalMarineProtectivePackagingAutomotiveWoodGeneral IndustrialOthers (Coil, etc)Browse Global Strategic Business Report :Acrylic-based waterborne coatings is the fastest-growing resin type. This is due to increasing demand for these resins in architectural and automotive applications. There is a large demand for architectural coatings in Asia Pacific, South America, and Middle East & Africa regions due to the growing urbanization and increasing infrastructure developments in commercial, residential, and industrial sectors in these regions. The low interest housing loans in Asia Pacific region, is the key driving force for growth in demand for architectural coatings.Waterborne Coatings Market Outlook  Asia Pacific is the largest, and fastest-growing region in waterborne coatings marketAsia-Pacific is the largest, and fastest-growing region in the global waterborne coatings market. The growing construction and automotive end-use industries is the major driving factor for growth of the waterborne coatings market in the region, with India and China being the key growth engines. As per stats released by Indian Brand Equity Foundationpart of the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of Indiathe real estate market is expected to be valued at US$ 180 billion by 2020. The automotive sector in the India has attracted FDI worth US$ 15.79 billion during April 2000September 2016, as per statistics released by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). This, along with rapid economic growth in the region creates a highly conducive environment for market growth.. The growth in the sales of automobiles, and increasing use of waterborne coatings in automobiles due to their ability to protect the vehicles against UV radiation, and bad weather is also adding up to the growth of these coatings in the region.The fluctuating raw materials prices of different pigments, additives, resins is the main restraining factor for this market growth. The lack of awareness on the uses and benefits of waterborne coatings is the major challenge which is need to be focused in this market.Some of the major players operating in the global Waterborne Coatings materials market are BASF SE, AkzoNobel N.V., Axalata Coating System LLC, PPG Industries, The Valspar Corporation, Sherwin-Williams Company, Nippon Paints Co. Ltd., Kansai Paint Co. Ltd., Tikkurila OYJ, and Berger Paints India Ltd.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
UNSATURATED POLYESTER RESINS MARKET - GLOBAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS, TRENDS, OUTLOOK, AND OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS, 2016-2024

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An unsaturated polyester resin is an essential polymer required for production of composite materials, including mainly glass fibrereinforced plastics (FRP). FRP composites have a prominent application in various industries such as construction, land transport, and marine. Non-reinforced unsaturated polyester resins are used to manufacture solid-surfaced countertops, marbles, automotive repair putty and ?ller, gel coats, and few other items such as bowling balls and buttons.To know more about the key players in this market, get in Touch With us for a FREE sample of this report:The global unsaturated polyester resins market growth is primarily driven by factors such as increasing demand for composite demand owing to its light weight, superior durability, and low cost. Unsaturated polyester resins are extensively used in various industries to improve thermal, flexure composites mechanical, and morphological attributes. Unsaturated polyester resins are widely used in construction industry in water management systems such as tanks and pipes. Moreover, increasing flexibility and high corrosion resistance properties are expected to fuel growth of the global market during the forecast period (2016-2024). Unsaturated polyester resins also find application in building panels, concrete forming pans, concrete rebar, doors, shower stalls, electrical boxes, and floor grafting. Unsaturated polyester resins are also used in manufacturing recreational products such as sailboats, powerboats, personal watercraft, and kayaks. Increasing demand generated by the recreational industry in terms of enhancing consumer lifestyle is expected to elevate the demand for market over the forecast period. In addition, the unsaturated polyester resins are broadly used in automobile component manufacturing such as body panels due to its light weight property. However, stringent regulations laid down by DOE, EPA, and ANSI pertaining to product storage and product exposure is expected to be a major restraint for growth of the global unsaturated polyester resins market.Global Unsaturated Polyester Resins: Market TaxonomyBy Product TypeOn the basis of product type, the global market is classified into:Orthophthalic PolyestersIsophthalic PolyestersDicyclopentadiene (DCPD)Others (Terephthalic Acid, Gelcoat Resins, etc.)By End-User IndustryOn the basis of end-user industry, the global market is segregated as:MarineBuilding ConstructionTransportationElectrical & ElectronicsPower GenerationOil & GasOthers (Chemicals, Consumer Goods, etc.)Browse Global Strategic Business Report :Among all the end-user industries, building & construction was the leading segment, both in terms of value and volume, in 2015. The segment is also projected to showcase highest growth rate over the forecast period, owing to the rapid growth of the building & construction industries in emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India, UAE, and Brazil, wherein substantial investments are being made in the infrastructure sector.Among product types, the orthophthalic segment accounted for the highest share of the global unsaturated polyester resins market in 2015, owing to its extensive use in fibre reinforced plastics (FRP), which are extensively used in the automotive, aerospace, marine, and construction industries. However, the DCPD product type is expected to be the fastest growing segment in the foreseeable future.Global Unsaturated Polyester Resins Market Outlook: Asia Pacific to be the growth engine for the market in the foreseeable futureGeographically, the global unsaturated polyester resins market is classified into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the rest of the World. In 2015, Asia Pacific was the largest consumer of unsaturated polyester resins industry, followed by North America and Europe. China was the largest consumer of market of unsaturated polyester resins, with more than 40% share of the total global consumption.The key players identified in the global unsaturated polyester resins market are Ashland Inc., Tianhe, Changzhou New Solar Co. Ltd., AOC Resins LLC, BASF SE, The Dow Chemical Company, Royal DSM, CCP Composites, Reichhold Inc., and SABIC. Other major players existing in the global unsaturated polyester market space are Scott Bader, U-Pica Technology Group, Polynt Composites, Showa Denko, and Lanxess Aktiengesellschaft among others. These industry players are currently focussed on expanding their global footprint by enhancing their production capacity by means of expansion, setting up a new manufacturing facility and strategic mergers & acquisitions.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
NAPHTHALENE DERIVATIVES MARKET - GLOBAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS, TRENDS, OUTLOOK, AND OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS, 20162024

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Synthesis of naphthalene derivatives require naphthalene compound as a basic precursor. Naphthalene is one of the most important members of the class of organic compounds, wherein two or more benzene rings are fused together at ortho-position. Naphthalene derivatives are synthesized in two stages, namely, ring closure by cyclization reaction, followed by aromatization process. However, various other modifications can be carried out to synthesize different types of naphthalene derivatives. 1, 6-dihydroxynaphthalene, 1-methylnaphthalene, 1-naphthol and 2-naphthol are some of the examples of naphthalene derivatives commercially available in the market. These derivatives are available in powder and liquid form, of which, the powder form finds prominent use. CMI forecasts the global naphthalene derivatives market to grow at a healthy growth rate over the forecast period (2016-2024), owing to factors such as ever rising demand for naphthalene derivatives such as naphthalene formaldehyde in the construction industry across the world.To know more about the key players in this market, get in Touch With us for a FREE sample of this report:Rising construction industry and textile industry along with increasing application of naphthalene derivatives in production facilities across various industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, paints and coatings, and others are major driving factors for growth of the global naphthalene derivatives industry. Rising living standards supported by high discretionary income translates to spending on fabrics and textiles wherein, it is used in material dyeing and bleaching, which in turn catalyzes the growth of naphthalene market. Apart from textile and construction industries, a significant rise in demand from the agrochemical industry also contributes to the increasing demand for global naphthalene market.However, the toxic nature of naphthalene derivatives can be a major restraint for the growth of the naphthalene derivatives market.Naphthalene Derivatives Market TaxonomyBy FormOn the basis of form, the global market is classified into:LiquidPowderBy TypeBased on type, the global market is segmented as:Alkyl Naphthalene Sulfonate SaltsSodium PolynaphthaleneCalcium PolynaphthaleneNaphthalene Sulfonic AcidNaphthalene-Formaldehyde Condensates (SNF)Naphthols1-Naphthol2-NaphtholOthers (Amino Naphthalene, etc.)By End-Use IndustryOn the basis of end-use industry, the global market is classified into:AgrochemicalsConstructionTextilesDetergentPharmaceuticalsPaints & CoatingRubber SynthesisStyrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR)Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR)Others (Pulp & Paper and Leather Tanning, etc.)Browse Global Strategic Business Report :Owing to the growing textile and construction industry along with growing production facilities, the naphthalene derivatives market is expected to witness a robust growth during the forecast period. Increasing development plans in the market, continuous urbanization associated with rising living standards, in turn drives growth of supporting industries such as textile and construction., Significant utilization of naphthalene in the construction industry to increase the fluidity of concrete mixtures to strengthen the building infrastructure, is in turn expected to fuel growth of the naphthalene derivatives market over the forecast period.Market Outlook  Increasing construction and textile industry in Asia Pacific is expected to boost the growth for naphthalene derivatives marketAsia Pacific is expected to be the most lucrative market for naphthalene derivatives market, owing to rising economy, strong growth of construction and textile sectors to support the increasing population, along with increasing number of production facilities due to the foreign investments and increasing FDI, especially in China and India. North America and Europe are expected to witness a moderate growth in the market due to implementation of stringent regulations pertaining to the application of the same. For instance, use of naphthalene derivatives is prohibited in cosmetics since it is considered harmful for skin. For instance, in the EU, it is categorized as a carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic (CMR) substance, while the U.S. FDA has banned its use in cosmetics.Some of the companies operating in the global naphthalene derivatives market include BASF SE, RUTGERS Group, Huntsman International LLC, Evonik Industries AG, Koppers Inc., Arkema Group, Kao Corporation, Giovanni Bozzetto Spa, Cromogenia-Units S.A., and Clariant etc. Key players existing in the global naphthalene derivatives industries are currently focusing on geographical expansion, particularly in the emerging economies of China, India, South East Asia, and Brazil etc. With the increase in population and rapid urbanization, construction and textiles industries in particular are expected to witness a significant rise in demand, which in turn would fuel demand for naphthalene derivatives.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit Coherent Market Insights Blog @Connect with us on LinkedIn @
Heat Sinks Market Primed to Play a Big Role in Future Adoption of LED Technology

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The report Global Heat Sinks Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 available on Market Intel Report states that Heat Sinks Market Set to Play Greater Role in Maintenance of Overclocked GPUsBrowse our recent research on Global Heat Sinks Market spread through 118 Pages @The Heat Sinks Market deals with the development of an inactive heat exchanger that exchanges the warmth created by an electronic or a mechanical gadget to a liquid medium, frequently air or a fluid coolant, where it is dispersed far from the gadget, in this way permitting control of the gadget's temperature at ideal levels.In PCs, heat sinks are utilized to cool focal handling units or illustrationsprocessors. A heat sink is also utilized with high-control semiconductor gadgets, for example, control transistors and optoelectronics, for example, lasers and light transmitting diodes (LEDs), where the heat scattering capacity of the segment itself is deficient to direct its temperature.Request Sample PDF Brochure of the Report @Scope & Regional Forecast of the Heat Sinks MarketA heatsink fan is intended to augment its surface range in contact with the cooling medium encompassing it, for example, the air. Air speed, decision of material, bulge outline and surface treatment are variables that influence the execution of a CPU heatsink. Aluminum heat sink connection techniques and warm interface materials likewise influence the die temperature of the coordinated circuit. Warm cement or warm oil enhance the heat sink's execution by filling air holes between the heat sink and the warmth spreader on the gadget. Heat sink manufacturers are focused are improving performance further.A heat sink is generally made out of copper as well as aluminum. Copper is utilized in light of the fact that it has numerous alluring properties for thermally productive and solid heat exchangers. As a matter of first importance, copper is a fantastic channel of heat. This implies copper's high warm conductivity which enables heat to go through it rapidly. Aluminum is utilized as a part of uses where weight is a major concern.Any part that produces an extreme measure of heat uses a heat sink to help keep the segment and the PC cooler. The segments that create the most heat is the processor (CPU) and the GPU in your PC. Different segments that may have a heat sink incorporate the north scaffold, south extension, and the memory. It is likewise normal to likewise discover fans to help cool other development cards and hard drives in the PC. Thus the overall future outlook of the Heat Sinks Market looks positive.Make an Inquiry before Buying @Segmentations & Key Players Involved in the Heat Sinks MarketThe Heat Sinks Market can be broken down into various segmentations on the basis of  Type: Aluminum heat sink, Copper heat sink and Copper aluminum heat sink. Application: Automobile industry, Electronic industry and others. Geography: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa.Some of the key players involved in the Heat Sinks Market are as follows: Apex Microtechnology Comair Rotron CUI T-Global Technology Wakefied-VettePurchase 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 Statessales@marketintelreports.comTelephone: 1-302-261-5343
Global Connected Home Appliance Market 2017 - 2022 : Haier (GE), Whirlpool, Midea, Panasonic, SAMSUNG, SONY, LG

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Connected Home Appliance Market 2017 Industry research report provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, market size and competition. This market research report used in maintaining competitiveness over competitors.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Connected Home Appliance 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.Request for Sample Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversHaier (GE)WhirlpoolMideaPanasonicSAMSUNGSONYLGBSHHisenceElectroluxPhilipsGreeTCLMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaDetail Info & Enquiry for Buying Report at:Market Segment by Type, coversKitchen AppliancesRefrigeratorsWashing MachinesTelevision & AudioAir ConditionersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoOffline ChannelOnline ChannelConnected Home Appliance market report provides a detailed view based on applications and segment. Key applications included in the report.It also provides market volume and revenue for each application and product under every country level segment.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and methodology of the report are offered."SpireMarketResearch" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USA
Global Manufacturing Execution System Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020

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The growing application of cloud based services, increasing mobility, and upsurge in the parallel data processing capacity, and technological advantages, such as real time analysis capability of the MES system, are expected to drive the growth of the manufacturing execution systems (MES), during the forecast period. With sophisticated and modern features, the manufacturing execution system is witnessing a wide adoption, even within medium and small manufacturing facilities; however factors, such as wide scale implantation, high initial cost, long installation period, and complexity of technology involved in MES, are hindering the growth of the manufacturing execution system market.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The increasing globalization has forced manufacturing companies to adopt an efficient coordination model, and governance to improve their manufacturing process, across multiple plants around the world. In addition, the growing need of real-time visibility, prerequisite for effective management process, and the reformist revolution within the demand-driven economy, is expected to boost the demand of the manufacturing execution system (MES), during the forecast period.Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are integrated with, product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain management (SCM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications to facilitate visibility, control, and synchronization in the manufacturing processes. The prime objective of manufacturing execution systems (MES) is to strengthen the overall manufacturing process capability, irrespective of the manufacturing production capacity. The conventional manual based operation is now being replaced with connected network of numerous manufacturing execution systems (MES). MES also offers high productivity, at lower cost, in a short turnaround time.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:North America has been the largest manufacturing execution system (MES) market in 2014, followed by Europe. The market dominance of North America and Europe is attributed to higher industrial production in these regions. Oil and gas, automotive, and food and beverages are some of the most dominant application segments of manufacturing execution system in the developed regions. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for manufacturing execution system (MES), due to the growing automotive manufacturing facilities, and food and beverage processing industries in the region. China, India, U.S., Germany, Italy, U.K., Spain, Canada, and Japan are the leaders of the manufacturing execution system (MES) market. The oil and gas based economy of Middle-East countries, such as UAE, Qatar, and Iraq are laying significant market opportunities for the manufacturing execution market owing to their increasing adoption in the region. The new crude oil manufacturing facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, along with rapid industrialization in Brazil are the major drivers for the MES market in South America.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:
Membrane Air Dryers Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020

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The global membrane air dryers market is growing, due to increasing need for dry and clean air in manufacturing, food and beverage, and medical industries; and increasing several application areas of membrane air dryers. Additionally, the increased adoption by consumers, due to increasing need for improving operational efficiency of a system, in order to decrease the maintenance cost, is also driving the growth of the market. High level of air purification is required in special applications within sectors, such as healthcare, which could be provided by membrane air dryers. This is further supporting the growth of the market in healthcare sector, especially in dentistry.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The membrane air dryers operate without electricity, and so it saves energy. It also enhances the overall system reliability, reduces plant noise, and improves manufacturing processes. The significant problems due to the presence of moisture or water vapor in compressed steam or air engaged in food processing is also supporting the growth of the market. Moreover, the dairy and meat industry also needs to fulfill various hygiene requirements in their food preparation areas. Therefore, membrane air dryers are used to protect air compressors from rust or corrosion in the dairy and meat industry. It also provides enhanced operational efficiency, which is again supporting the growth of the market in these industries.Two of the major advantages offered by membrane air dryers are eliminating impurities, which may negatively influence the air compressor, thus lowering the dew point of air. The membranes support the air dryers to operate more effectively and extend the life span of the system by reducing the erosion produced by air with extreme moisture content.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:On the basis of application, the food and beverage segment is expected to grow with the highest rate during the forecast period. A fundamental assumption is considered, while operating the food processing facilities, as per which, the compressed air can be a source of chemical and microbiological contamination. . This leads to increase in adoption of membrane air dryers in food processing applications. Among all the regions, North America leads the market and is expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period. This is due to increasing demand from food and beverage, medical, and telecommunication sector in the region. Moreover, the regulations and standards governing the food processing sector are also expected to support the growth of the North American market in the coming years.The manufacturers in the membrane air dryers market are emphasizing on delivering customized end-use solutions for increasing their share in the market. Some of the competitors in the global membrane air dryers market are Gardner Denver Inc., Parker-Hannifin Corporation, SMC Corporation, Walmec S.p.A., Donaldson Company Inc., Industrial Air Power LLC, Puregas LLC, and Wilkerson Corporation.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:KundanExecutive  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Mobile Communication Antenna Market Size, Share, Development, Growth Till 2020

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The staggering growth in the wireless communication market, in addition to the growing base of connected mobile subscriber is driving the growth of the mobile communication antenna market. The astonishing growth in the number of subscribers per channel of the wireless communication spectrum requires improved antenna system. The limited bandwidth of the spectrum can lead to network congestion, and hence the antenna system needs to be accurately placed for better network efficiency. The mobile communication antenna has gone through several technical up gradations in terms of coding, encryption, soft handoff technologies, in addition to digital modulation, such as phase shift keying. The spur in the consumer base of the wireless mobile devices, in addition with increasing captive investment in communication technologies within the developing countries is expected to boost the growth of the communication antenna market during the forecast period.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The markets in developed countries are witnessing slow growth, owing to the mature nature of the wireless communication market. However, Africa and Middle-East are expected to witness above average growth, during the forecast period. The governments of developing countries have also started to take strict action against the mobile call drop during the communication. Recently, the government of India started penalising the telecom operators for the call drops. Similar developments are expected to increase the number of base transceiver station (BTS) system in a defined geographic region, which in turn is expected to propel the growth of the mobile communication antenna market.From supplier prospective, the innovation in the metal and rust resistance alloys technologies, along with meta-materials is expected to increase its market penetration in remote application, such as defence and surveillance during the forecast period. Moreover, the transition of wireless communication standards from 2G to 3G, 3G to 4G and 5G will increase the demand for many new mobile communication antennas in the coming years.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:The increasing competition between the telecom services providers, increasing demand of data services, smartphones proliferation, along with Long Term Evolution (LTE) are some of the other growth drivers of the mobile communication antenna market. However, the decreasing profitability of telecom service providers, along with stringent regulation on the maximum permissible wave length is hampering the growth of the market up to some extent.Asia-Pacific accounted for the largest and fastest growing market of mobile communication antenna in 2014. The increasing demand of LTE from India and China is fuelling the growth of the market. The North American market is largely dominated by the U.S. and Canada, owing to high penetration of mobile devices including smartphones.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:
Global Motion Controller Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020

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The global motion controller market witnessed growth in 2014, after a slight decline in 2012 and 2013, in terms of value. In 2015, the global market is expected to grow further, owing to the growth of manufacturing industries, post economic slowdown in the western countries. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the major growth driver for the global motion controller market during the forecast period. In technical perspective, greater overall equipment efficiency (OEE) model, higher throughput in addition with reduced cost of the motion controllers are the major growth drivers for the global motion controller market.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The ongoing industrialization in developing market demands greater safety measures to check fatal accidents. More than one million workers die, due to occupational accidents every year in Asia-Pacific, which has increased the adoption of industry automation in the recent years. This in turn, is fueling the demand of motion controllers in the developing markets.By technology, general motion control (GMC) accounted for the majority share of the global market, however computerized numerical control (CNC) is expected to witness the fastest growth during the forecast period.Among end users, the semiconductor sector accounted for the largest market share in 2014. The advancement in the processing speed, precision, and reliability of motion controllers are fueling the growth of the motion controller market in the semiconductor industry. The growing demand of consumer electronics in Asia-Pacific has increased the demand of semiconductor and electronics assembly equipment. This is fueling the growth of the motion controller market in the region. The motion controller market is also expected to witness an above average growth in South-East Asia, owing to the large presence of rubber processing industries in the region. Manufacturing was the second largest end-user segment of motion controllers in 2014.Browse For Related Research Visit Here:Asia-Pacific accounted for the largest market of motion controller in 2014. The market dominance of Asia-Pacific is due to high penetration of motion controller in China and Japan, which together accounted for more than 75% share of its market in the region. Europe was the second largest market of motion controllers in 2014, led by Germany, the U.K., Italy, and France. The Asia-Pacific market is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period, owing to rapid industrialization in developing countries, such as India, China, and Indonesia. The market for motion controllers remains fairly low in the Middle East and Africa; however the demand of motion controller is increasing in Latin America, which is mainly led by Brazil and Mexico.Some of the competitors in the global motion controller market are Parker Hannifin Corporation, Schneider Electric SE, Altra Industrial Motion Corporation, Dover Motion, Moog Inc., ABB Ltd., Rockwell Automation, Siemens AG, and Bosch Rexroth AG.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:KundanManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
U.S., Europe & Japan Thermal & Inkjet Disc Printers Market to Expand at a CAGR of 3.0%, through 2026

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According to a recent market report published by Future Market Insights titled Disc Printers Market: U.S., Europe & Japan Industry Analysis & Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026 the U.S., Europe & Japan disc printers market was valued at US$ 929.6 Mn in 2015, and is expected to register a declining CAGR of -3.0% from 2016 to 2026. Increasing demand for online media content, continuous adoption of cloud-based storage services and other media storage devices, high raw material cost and technological innovation with efficient alternatives for accessing data are the major factors affecting the growth of the disc printers market in U.S., Europe & Japan.Disc printing is the process of printing text, data or images on the surface of the optical disc. Two different approaches for printing CD-R on-demand are - Thermal disc printing and Inkjet disc printing. A thermal disc printer employs pressure and heat to apply text and graphics to the disc surface. The print surface of thermal printed discs is more durable. Thermal disc printing produces colour custom labels that are waterproof, scratchproof and do not require any additional coating. However their colour printing capability has limitations that preclude its use in cases when label has complex colour graphic content. Inkjet printers utilise a mechanism in which the print head has several tiny nozzles/jets that spray ink onto the disc, as the disc moves past the print head, forming the characters or images. Inkjet disc printers may employ a single cartridge for different colours or several cartridges, with one for each colour depending upon different models, and are priced accordingly.Request For Sample@Segmentation highlightsThe U.S., Europe & Japan disc printers market is categorised on the basis of printer type as thermal disc printers and inkjet disc printers. On the basis thermal disc printers, the market is further segregated on the basis of technology (direct thermal printing and thermal retransfer & dye-sublimation printing) and ribbon type (monochrome black, colour and photo). On the basis of inkjet disc printers, the market is further segregated on the basis of technology (continuous ink technology and drop on demand technology) and head design (fixed head and replaceable head).The inkjet disc printers segment is a major segment offering 55% market revenue in 2015The thermal disc printer sub-segment was valued at US$ 418.3 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of -2.5% during the forecast periodThe inkjet disc printer sub-segment was valued at US$ 511.3 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of -3.4% during the forecast period.Send An Enquiry@Regional market projectionsThis report also covers trends driving each segment and offers analysis and insights regarding the potential of thermal and inkjet disc printers in regions including U.S, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Japan. Among these regions, Western Europe accounted for the largest market share in 2015. This is majorly due to inclination of service providers towards offering packaged services such as disc printing, duplication and packaging services, in turn allowing key players to attract price-sensitive customers and gain the competitive advantage in the long term.Vendor insightsSome of the key market players identified across the U.S., Europe & Japan disc printers market value chain are Rimage and Formats Unlimited (MF Digital) that are operating in both the thermal printing and inkjet disc printing market. TEAC America Inc. and Microboards Technology are specifically operating in the thermal disc printers market while Seiko Epson Corporation and Primera Technologies Inc. are specifically operating in the inkjet disc printers market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Pipeline Monitoring System Market Forecast By End-use Industry 2017-2027

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Pipelines are flow lines that carry fluids which may be in a liquid or gaseous state. At times, they are laid in harsh and hazardous conditions and areas; hence, fostering a need for accurate pipeline monitoring systems to detect leakages, damages and other pipeline failures, which may lead to serious ecological and economic consequences. For example, a small water pipeline bursting or leaking is a small scale problem and will not affect the environment and ground water reservoir largely. However, if a crude oil or natural gas or chemical pipeline gets damaged and leaks, it may lead to severe ecological consequences.Sometimes, the working conditions of the pipeline itself can induce damage or additional wear. Such pipelines need to be closely monitored from the data collection center or control room for exact pressure and temperature conditions inside the pipeline, to ensure effective operation of the whole plant. Pipelines are susceptible to internal and external corrosion, cracking, manufacturing flaws and third party damages. Thus, it has become crucial to closely monitor and control hazardous fluid carrying pipelines with pipeline monitoring systems to effectively and safely operate a plant. In order to sustain safe operation of a pipeline, remote, real-time and continuous assessment and monitoring of the pipelines is necessary. There are various underground and underwater pipelines being laid around the globe; hence, pipeline monitoring systems have become essential in the rapidly industrializing world.In pipeline inspection and monitoring, the foremost objective is to locate and identify the exact damage area, followed by formulating an accurate solution; so maintenance personnel can take effective corrective action. Damaged pipelines, if not serviced on time, can create several operational problems, which will amount to a heavier cost eventually. An operation known as pigging is employed to remove blockages from long pipelines; herein a large sphere is introduced in the pipeline and eventually removed from pigging stations located at suitable checkpoints. Nowadays, industries are using intelligent pigs, which comprise sensors and electronic devices helpful in calculating the pipes thickness as well as in detecting damages and defects while travelling inside the pipeline. Electric readings are recorded for effective and accurate location of defective areas inside the pipelines. Such advancements and increasing automation in pipeline monitoring systems are expected to boost the overall pipeline monitoring system market in the coming future.Request For Sample@Pipeline Monitoring System market dynamics:Large scale research and development divisions are invested in the pipeline monitoring system technology in oil & gas industries; thus, making pipeline monitoring systems significant tools in the petrochemical sector. Another essential factor facilitating growth of the pipeline monitoring system technology is the rising use of electronics and sensors in pipelines which will monitor and control operating conditions and thus, reduce damage from internal factors such as nozzle stress, corrosion, etc. The pipeline monitoring system market has evolved over the years to feature a multitude of advantages such as cost effectiveness, good longevity, enhanced reliability, and ease in maintenance.Pipeline Monitoring System market segmentation:The pipeline monitoring system market can be segmented by pipe type, technology, application and end use.The pipeline monitoring system market can be segmented on the basis of pipe type as:MetallicCast steel pipeStainless steel pipeAluminum pipeOther metal pipes (cast iron pipe, corrugated steel pipe, copper pipe)Non-metallicPlastic pipeGlass pipeOther pipesConcrete pipesAsbestos cement pipesThe pipeline monitoring system market can be segmented on the basis of technologyas:Ultrasonic testingPIGsSmart ball (intelligent pigs)Magnetic flux leakage technologyOthers (beta foil technology, leo technology, fiber optic test)The pipeline monitoring system market can be segmented on the basis of end use as:Petrochemical industriesOilNatural gasBiofuelWater & wastewater treatment plantsChemicals industriesOthers (beverages & food, process , automobile)Request For TOC@Pipeline Monitoring System Market: Regional Outlook:The pipeline monitoring system market can be divided into seven different geographical regions/divisions such as North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America, Europe and MEA regions have vast oil fields and chemical industries, hence long pipelines are required for the transportation of fluids here. Owing to this, the pipeline monitoring systems market is forecasted to grow in all the above regions. In the Asia-Pacific region, countries like India and China have increased the use of pipeline monitoring system technology in the petrochemical industry for human safety and comfort. Based on the above factors, the pipeline monitoring system market is forecasted to grow with a high CAGR over the forecast period.Pipeline Monitoring System: Key PlayersSiemens AGHoneywell International Inc.BAE SystemsPerma PipesTransCanada PipeLines LimitedPSI AGPure TechnologyOrbcomm Inc.HuaweiPentair PLC.Atmos InternationalClampon ASABB GroupFuture Fibre TechnologiesSenstar Inc.SyrinixABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Aerospace Fluid Conveyance System Market Value Chain and Forecast 2017-2027

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A fluid conveyance system comprises of components that carry critical liquids and gases throughout an aircraft. These components are primarily responsible for managing & distributing the flow of fluids in low as well as high pressure & temperature areas of rotary winged and fixed winged aircraft for both civil and military aviation. Some of the major components are valves, high pressure joints, fuses, hose fittings, couplings, ducts and others. Each component is deployed to serve its critical purpose across different parts of the aircraft. For instance, duct systems are primarily classified into major application areas, namely, high pressure and low pressure application. Components in high pressure duct systems are deployed throughout the aircraft, from leading edges of the wings, through the fuselage, and engines, whereas low pressure ducts are used in low pressure and temperature areas, such as the transition duct, cabin sidewall riser duct, windscreen demisting, flight deck air distribution, flight deck instrumentation cooling, avionics ventilation, cabin recirculation, and air conditioning supply.Demographics such as growing population and urbanization are further boosting the demand for transportation. Especially, the developing region of Asia, which is expected to fuel the growth of the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market. Further, shifting business activity from traditional western markets and increasing goods flow around the globe is driving the growth of the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market.Consumption of alternative fuels, need for lightweight materials and demand for energy efficient engines & components are some of the major trends identified across the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market. In order to increase profitability, aircraft OEMs are engaging in several cost reduction initiatives, such as establishing new commercial terms, shifting to low cost processes, and working with supply chain integrators to close loop on materials.Request For Sample@Global Aerospace Fluid Conveyance System Market: SegmentationThe global aerospace fluid conveyance system market is segmented on the basis of end-use, aircraft type component, application, and region.On the basis of end-use, the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market can be segmented into general aviation, civil aviation, and military aircraft.By aircraft type, the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market can be segmented into passenger aircraft, cargo aircraft, defence aircraft, and helicopters.Based on component, the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market can be segmented into bellows, joints, tube fittings, couplings, flanges, and ducts.Based on application, the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market can be segmented into engine conveyance system and airframe conveyance system.Global Aerospace Fluid Conveyance System Market: Regional OutlookWestern Europe is expected to emerge as a rapidly growing region in the global aerospace fluid conveyance market, primarily due to the increasing number of aerospace production and assembly sites in the region. Overall, in the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market, Europe is estimated to hold a large market share in terms of revenue contribution, followed by North America. Major aircraft manufacturers are shifting their focus towards the Asia Pacific region for production to serve the larger market; this is identified as one of the key trends in the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market. Existing fleet maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) is also driving the growth of the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market. Around one-third of the global fleet is present in North America, with twenty percent in Western Europe. However, composition of fleet is changing significantly. With North America undergoing significant re-fleeting, it is expected to see its share decline due to its limited net growth. Emerging markets are expected to gain a great share of the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market, and therefore represent areas of MRO growth.Request For TOC@Global Aerospace Fluid Conveyance System Market: Competition LandscapeExamples of some of the industry participants identified in the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market are Parker Hannifin Corp, EATON CORPORATION, Senior plc, Flexfab Horizons International, Inc., and Unison, LLC. Major players in the global aerospace fluid conveyance system market are aggressively focusing towards investment in the research & development of new products, primarily to ensure that new products enter production profitably and are in line with customer milestones. Further, developing strategic customer relationships, execution of development programs, portfolio expansion and acquisition of new or adjacent technologies are key success factors of the market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Automatic Emergency Braking System Market To Increase at Steady Growth Rate

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An automotive must fulfill its basic functionality of transporting man and material from one place to another. But in todays era, besides adhering to basic functionality automotive have the responsibility of ensuring safety of the occupant at the time of an emergency, where human response is unable to avoid the crash. This has caused a significant revolution in the automotive safety system market through the introduction of advanced technologies, such as ADAS (advanced driver assist systems). The automatic emergency braking system utilizes electronic stability control (ESC) and ADAS to slow the vehicle and potentially reduce the severity of an impact when a crash is unavoidable. Thus, the automatic emergency braking system acts as a helpful feature in high speed situations. The automatic emergency braking system is usually coupled with a forward collision warning system. The former incorporates camera based or radar based sensors that detect the distance of the vehicle from the one ahead. Warning signals are provided in the possibility of a crash, so that the driver can take corrective action, if no action is received from the driver, brakes are applied automatically to decelerate the vehicle. The automatic emergency braking system doesnt claim to completely mitigate the collision, but reduces the intensity of collision. Presently, when mapped on the product life cycle stage, the automatic emergency braking system market is still between the introduction and growth phase; thus, noteworthy growth is expected in the market over the forecast period. Commercially, the automatic driver system is also known as the pre-crash braking system, intelligent braking system and forward collision mitigation system. Various national and international regulating organizations support the automatic emergency braking system as they find it a potential means of reducing severe rear-end collisions and thus helpful in saving lives.Global Automatic Emergency Braking System Market: DynamicsThe automatic emergency braking system market for automotive is foreseen to remain lucrative over the span of next ten years, as regulatory bodies and automotive OEMs across the globe are striving to equip vehicles with novel technologies to increase safety of occupants as well as others on road. As per key opinion leaders in the market, the automatic emergency braking system will soon be a standard feature in many upcoming cars. Furthermore, driverless cars, which are anticipated to be commercialized in the near future will also need to deploy such a feature to avoid rear end crashes. From a macro-economic perspective, robustly growing automotive production and sales, supplemented with changing consumer preference towards advanced safety features is expected to significantly boost growth of the automatic emergency braking system market. On the other hand, there has been a debate in the market regarding the extent of safety provided by automatic emergency braking systems. Is sudden braking without human intervention capable of avoiding collisions? Or, in turn, will it create a chaotic situation? Moreover, the lack of incentive for road management bodies and automakers hampers the deployment of automatic emergency braking systems.Request For Sample@Global Automatic Emergency Braking System Market: SegmentationBy product type, the automatic emergency braking system market for automotive can be segmented into:Low Speed AEB SystemHigh Speed AEB SystemPedestrians AEB SystemBy application type, the automatic emergency braking system market can be segmented into:Dynamic Brake Support (DBS)Crash Imminent Braking (CIB)By vehicle type, the automatic emergency braking system market can be segmented into:Passenger CarsLight Commercial VehicleHeavy Commercial VehicleGlobal Automatic Emergency Braking System Market: Region-wise OutlookNorth America is expected to be a major market for automatic emergency braking systems, with the U.S. holding dominant demand. Certain OEMs in the U.S. have announced their plans to deploy automotive emergency braking systems as a standard feature in their upcoming passenger vehicles. Thus, the market in these regions holds significant growth opportunity. With a number of giant automakers and technology providers based in the region, Europe is anticipated to be a momentous market. However, slow adoption rate may be witnessed in some European countries, except the EU. With high vehicle sales, Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as a significant market for the automatic emergency braking system over the forecast period. Japan is anticipated to witness high adoption rate for automatic emergency braking systems, particularly in commercial vehicles.Request For TOC@Global Automatic Emergency Braking System Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global automatic emergency braking system market are:ZF TRWContinental AGDENSO CorporationTesla MotorsRobert Bosch GmbHDelphi Automotive Plc.Autoliv Inc.Magna International Inc.Mobileye NVABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Automotive Handbrake And Clutch Cables Market Analysis, Trends, Forecast, 2017-2027

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Handbrake & clutch cables are crucial operational parts of an automotive. For effective operation of a vehicle, proper functioning of handbrake & clutch cables is highly important. It is generally advised to carefully apply clutch and handbrake, as harsh use of them can affect the life of handbrake & clutch cables. Durability, quality, safety & temperature resistance are some of the parameters over which performance of handbrake & clutch cables is judged. Generally, handbrake & clutch cables have a higher replacement rate when compared to other components in the brake and transmission system. However, owing to the relatively low price and being a crucial part of the system, it is often replaced on a timely basis. Aftermarket sales from retail stores, garages and dealers contribute significantly to the growth of the handbrake & clutch cables market. Aftermarket sales holds a significant value share of the total handbrake & clutch cables market. Moreover, sales through OEM channel is also expected to bring in new opportunities, owing to the new product development and advancing technologies as well as mechanisms. Increasing sales of automatic transmission vehicle, which uses torque converter and incorporates clutch packs instead of traditional cable clutch is expected to hamper the growth of clutch cable sales, as the advanced configuration will not require clutch cable anymore.Global Automotive Handbrake & Clutch Cables Market: Market DynamicsFavourable macro-economic environment across prominent automotive hubs based in developed and developing nations is expected to be responsible for the growth of overall automotive component industry. Moreover, swift growing passenger vehicle production owing to rising disposable incomes leads to increased demand for vehicles and hence steady upsurge in demand for handbrake & clutch cables is expected both from OEM and replacement market. On the other side, there are some factors that pose challenges to the market growth, primarily, the market for automotive handbrake & clutch cables is highly competitive and the market is fragmented. Thus, existing players in the market struggle for profit margins due to existing competitive pressure in the market. Furthermore, the low priced counterfeit products available in the market from China and India are of low quality and less durability, and hence affect the brand image of existing players, which could eventually affect their businesses.Request For Sample@Global Automotive Handbrake & Clutch Cables Market: SegmentationThe global automotive handbrake & clutch cables market can be segmented into product type, vehicle type and sales channelBy product type, automotive handbrake & clutch cables market can be segmented into:Clutch CablesHandbrake CablesBy vehicle type, automotive handbrake & clutch cables market can be segmented into:Two-WheelersPassenger CarsCommercial VehiclesLCVHCVBy sales channel, automotive handbrake & clutch cable market can be segmented into:OEMAftermarketGlobal Automotive Handbrake & Clutch Cables Market: Regional OutlookBy region, Asia Pacific is expected to remain as a significant market for automotive handbrake & clutch cables market both with respect to supply and demand for handbrake & clutch cables. The region is expected to emerge as a major exporter of handbrake & clutch cables to many countries. Countries in the region such as China, India and South Korea are expected to remain as the major contributors to the growth of the market. Japan is the base of key automotive component manufacturers and will hold a notable position in the global handbrake & clutch cable market. Following Asia Pacific, Europe is projected to be the next big market for automotive handbrake & clutch cables over the forecast period, the region has significant share in production and sales of passenger cars, light & heavy commercial vehicle. In terms of demand, North America market for handbrake & clutch cables is expected to hold comparatively low value share in the market.Request For TOC@Global Automotive Handbrake & Clutch Cables Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the key market participants in the global automotive handbrake & clutch cables market areTRW AutomotiveHella Pagid GmbHContinental Automotive GmbHCable-TecTMD Friction Group (TMD PAGID)DURA Automotive SystemsCatton Control CablesAnropa Cables (Pty) LtdABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Smart Water Metering Market to expand 290 million units by 2024

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The report Smart Water Metering Market Size, By Application (Residential, Commercial, Utility), By Technology (AMR, AMI), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, France, UK, Sweden, Portugal, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina) Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024 by Global Market Insights, Inc. says that global Smart Water Metering Market size will exceed USD 14 billion by 2024.Enhanced metering accuracy coupled with increasing demand for savings in billing is set to drive the global smart water metering market size. Operational cost optimisation will further augment the demand for these products and assist in conserving scarce resources at affordable prices. Rising demand for systems can be attributed to development of smart grid infrastructure coupled with expansion of water pipeline network.Request for a sample of this research report @Effective measures towards controlling and monitoring of Non-Revenue Water will stimulate growth. According to World Bank estimates, approximately 32 bcm of physical water is lost every year owing to faulty distribution networks, inaccurate systems and theft.Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) smart water metering market size is set to exceed 50 million units by 2024. Adoption of AMI systems are low subject to high installation costs associated. Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems demand will increase owing to widespread adoption of the technology for the past two decades. However, data security concerns related to consumption tracking coupled with customer unwillingness may hinder the business growth.Strict regulations toward water conservation and accurate billing coupled with rising consumer awareness will fuel the U.S. smart water metering market growth. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 2009 in association with the Department of Energy (DOE) funded the Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) to encourage adoption of intelligent systems. Glendale was the first U.S. city to implement these products as an effort to develop a smart grid network with aim to better manage its utilities and effectively respond to unexpected challenges including drought.Browse key industry insights spread across 195 pages with 304 market data tables & 9 figures & charts from the report, Smart Water Metering Market in detail along with the table of contents, please click on the link below:Commercial smart water metering market share is projected to witness growth over 15% during the forecast timeline. Rising concerns towards control of overhead expenses including water bills can impact the profitability of a commercial establishment, complementing the business outlook.China accounted for over 55% of the Asia Pacific smart water metering market share in 2016. In 2012, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China unveiled the 12th Five-Year Plan focusing towards the development of intelligent grids, household and cities, Under the proposed blueprint the investment of USD 294 billion were allocated for water resources projects. As per the plan, the pricing policies on ladder water price will be implemented in most of the municipal utilities, necessitating a paced deployment of these products in the region.Make an inquiry for buying this report @Increasing administrative emphasis with favourable government initiatives will positively drive the Germany smart water metering market growth. Growing foreign collaborations and investments toward the development of high performance advanced systems will further stimulate the product demand. Being an active member of the Open Metering System Group the country regulates the standardization activities of these products for water, gas and electricity.Notable players in the smart water metering market include Itron, Siemens, Landis+GYR, Schneider Electric, Circutor, Icsa, Iskraemeco, Holley Metering, Honeywell, Osaki, Elster, Sensus Sentec, Badger Meter and Neptune Technology.Browse Related Reports:Smart Metering Systems Market Size, By Application (Residential, Commercial, Utility), By Product (Water, Electricity, Gas), By Technology (AMR, AMI), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, France, UK, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina), Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Transdermal Scopolamine Market Research Report by Geographical Analysis and Forecast to 2024

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Scopolamine is an alkaloid, a secondary metabolite produced by plants of nightshade family such as henbane, Datura, Duboisia, etc. Scopolamine is used to treat motion sickness, and post-operative and anesthesia induced nausea and vomiting. It is often used to treat gastrointestinal spasm, irritable bowel syndrome and eye inflammation. Scopolamine is also used for nausea and vomiting prevention in chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Scopolamine can be administered orally as tablets or syrups, intravenously as injections and solutions, or as transdermal in form of patch or gel. Transdermal scopolamine is a scopolamine patch used to treat motion sickness and post-operative nausea and vomiting. Transdermal scopolamine available today are reservoir patches which can be used for up to 3 days. These patches are applied at back side of ear. These patches are applied 20 minutes to 4 hours before the intended use such as travel, surgery etc.The first transdermal scopolamine patch was approved in 1979, manufactured by Alza Corporation and marketed by Novartis AG by brand name Transderm Scop. There are very few generics approved by FDA for Transderm Scop, which makes the market less competitive. Though there are few small players operating on regional level, however they hold a meager share in global transdermal scopolamine market. The global market for transdermal scopolamine is expected to grow at CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. The launch of recently approved generics and projected expansion of international players is expected to drive the growth for this market. Moreover many of the industry players and researchers are investing on development of new transdermal scopolamine products.This 103 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Transdermal Scopolamine Market. Browse through 7 data tables and 15 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:Transdermal scopolamine is a preferred choice to treat motion sickness owing to its ease in administration, cost effectiveness and availability. Rise in number of travelers across globe is expected to drive the growth for transdermal scopolamine market over the forecast period. Moreover some of the industry players and researchers are investing on development of improved transdermal scopolamine patch on material, adhesion, drug bioavailability and other aspects. Expected introduction of such improved products coupled with launch of new entrants is expected to trigger the growth for transdermal scopolamine market. However there are few concern factors with transdermal scopolamine such as adverse effects, specifically the withdrawal symptoms which are anticipated to restrain growth.Geographically, the transdermal scopolamine market has been segmented into five regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. These regions have been further segmented to country and sub-regional level. North America is expected to contribute largest share in global transdermal scopolamine market owing to high number of travelers, well established healthcare industry. Europe is expected to hold second position in global transdermal scopolamine market with growing number of surgeries and rising number of travelers.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Transdermal Scopolamine Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:The competition matrix section included in the report is likely to assist the existing players to increase their market shares and new companies to establish their presence in the global transdermal scopolamine market.The report also profiles major players in the market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, SWOT analysis, key business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Key companies profiled in the report include Novartis AG, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Baxter International Inc., Perrigo Company plc, Caleb Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Myungmoon Pharma Co. Ltd.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Knee Cartilage Repair Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023

Knee Cartilage Repair Market

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Cartilage is a soft and rubbery material present in the bone joint and is involved in preventing friction between the bones by acting as a shock absorber in the joint. Damage to cartilage restricts the normal movement of knee causing pain and most often occurs after a traumatic and twisting injury to the knee. If left untreated, it may require knee replacement surgery. Knee cartilage repair has been beneficial for conditions such as mal-unions, delayed unions, and slow healing wounds. Advances in knee cartilage repair products have bolstered the growth of this industry.This report provides in-depth analysis of the global knee cartilage repair products market. The stakeholders for this report include companies involved in the research and development, manufacturing and commercialization of knee cartilage products, suppliers and new entrants planning to invest in this market. For providing a snapshot of this market to the stakeholders, executive summary section is included in this report, which summarizes the market size, trends and competition for different knee cartilage repair products in six major regions.This 75 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Knee Cartilage Repair Market. Unlock the hidden opportunities in this market:The market overview section of this report analyzes market dynamics such as drivers, restraints and opportunities that influence the knee cartilage repair market in the current and future scenario. Further, Porters five forces analysis and market attractiveness analysis have been included in market overview section in order to explain the intensity of competition in the market. Porters five forces analysis in the section depicts the attractiveness of the knee cartilage repair market in terms of five different attributes that have an effect on the sustenance of the players in the knee cartilage repair market. Competitive scenario among the market players is analyzed through a market share analysis of major market players in the competitive landscape section of the report. All these factors will help the market players to decide about the business strategies and plans to be incurred in future for strengthening their position in the global market.Based on the procedure types, the global knee cartilage repair market is segmented into arthroscopic chondroplasty, autologous chondrocyte implantation, osteochondral grafts transplantation, cell-based cartilage resurfacing, implants transplant, microfracture and others.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Knee Cartilage Repair Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market:Geographically, the knee cartilage repair market has been differentiated into six major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East & North Africa and Rest of the World (RoW). Moreover, analysis for the major country comprising U.S. Canada, Germany, U.K, Japan China, India, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia have also been provided in the report. The market value for all the countries has been provided from the year 2013 to 2023, considering 2014 as base years.For both the segments, the report provides market estimation of knee cartilage repair products in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) market and with CAGR % for period 2015 to 2023, considering 2014 as the base year.This report also includes recommendations section that will assist new companies in establishing their presence and market players in expanding their market share in the knee cartilage repair market. The report concludes with the company profile section which includes company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies and recent developments for market players. The major players that are profiled in the report include DePuy Synthes, Zimmer Biomet, Stryker Corporation, Smith & Nephew plc, and B. Braun Melsungen AG.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Forecast On Social Media Analytics Market Global Industry Analysis and Trends till 2027

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Social Media Analytics market is increasing progressively due to rising usage of text analysis for improving customer experience and development of image analysis solutions. Moreover, increased diverse features and functions available on analytics platform which makes customer demand for customized dashboards and other features within the licensed price.Social Media Analysis is a process wherein data from various websites, and blogs is gathered and analyzed to take business related decisions. This process includes all the software and analyzing tools that are used to analyze the unstructured data found from various social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.Social Media Analytics help user in creating unlimited real time reports measuring the performance of companys profile on social media websites. Moreover, it also helps in measuring team performance, allow user to share these customized reports with the team for improving their efficiency.Request Report Sample@Social Media Analytics Market: Drivers and ChallengesThe major factor driving the adoption of Social Media Analytics market is the increasing usage of social media among people. With the growth of digital technologies, people have started using social media for communication, online shopping and for other social connectivity activities. These have encouraged enterprises to adopt social media analytics solutions in order to understand the needs and demand of users and salability of their product. Other driving factors are high growth of social media and analytics tools and increasing demand from small and medium enterprises.The key challenge for Social Media Analytics market is huge amount of unstructured data available on websites which cant be managed by one solution. Other challenges are lack of supporting technologies due to which legacy architecture cannot implement social media analytics and lack of expert IT personnel for social media analytics.Social Media Analytics Market: SegmentationSegmentation on the basis of Social Media Analytics applications:Customer behavior analysisMulti-channel campaign managementDigital marketing managementPerformance measurementAnalyzed report generationOtherVisit For TOC@Key Contracts & Acquisitions:In August 2016, Sysomos has entered into the partnership with AEJMC to improve social analytics usage in academic research. This partnership will help AEJMC to improve their education related offerings and understand their market position with the help of social analytics.In June 30, Microsoft has acquired LinkedIn to improve their social media analytics offering. This acquisition will help Microsoft to collaborate its cloud based offering with LinkedIn that will help in providing insights related to the usage of these software.In February 2016, Yelp has entered into the partnership with Sprinklr, a social media analytics provider to offer its clients ability to monitor their Yelp reviews and analyses the sentiments. This will also help in making Sprinklr, only social insight company to have access to Yelp review analysis.In Social Media Analytics market there are many vendors some of them are Hootsuite, Google, Buffer, Brandwatch, Netbase, Cision, TrustRadius and othersAbout Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Pyridines Market to Register a Strong Growth By 2027

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Marketing Scenario:The global pyridines market has seen a potential growth over the past year and expecting huge growth during the forecast period. Pyridine is high flammable, colorless, water-soluble liquid which is usually made from crude coal tar and from different chemicals. The primary use of pyridine is to dissolve the other substance. This chemical properties can be measured as one of the driving factor. The application areas of pyridines mainly include medicines, vitamins, paint and dyes, food flavoring, adhesives, rubber product, herbicides and insecticides. The growing demand of such application has increased the demand of pyridines across the globe.Key Players of Pyridines Market: Evonik Industries RUTGERS Group Koei Chemical Lonza Group Jubliant Life Sciences Shandong Luba Chemical Resonance Specialities Limited Vertellus SpecialtiesRequest a Sample Copy @Segmentation:As per MRFR analysis, the global pyridines market has been segmented into applications and production methods. On the basis of applications the market is segmented into pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, agriculture, agrochemicals and others. While the production method is segmented into coal and chemical synthesis.Study Objectives of Pyridines Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Pyridines Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To Analyse the Global Pyridines Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW). To provide country-level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective. To provide country-level analysis of the market for segment by applications and production methods. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Pyridines Market.Browse full report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Hydrolyzed Oat Protein Market Expected to Expand at a Steady CAGR through 2027

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Proteins are the molecular compound made up of chains of amino acids. Hydrolyzed proteins are the breakdown of protein bind into free amino acid. Hydrolyzed oat protein is a naturally derived soluble form of protein. Hydrolyzed oat protein is a water soluble natural humectant primarily used in cosmetics products. It also act acts as a natural co-emulsifier and enables in reducing the greasiness of oil/water emulsions. In cosmetics products it acts as a conditioning, softening and moisturizing agent. Rising awareness and increasing demand for cosmetics products containing plant based natural ingredient is expected to support the market growth over the forecast period.Market SegmentationHydrolyzed oat protein market is segmented on the basis of application which includes cosmetics, toiletries and detergents. Among all these segments cosmetics segment is expected to account for relatively higher value share in terms of value. Wide application of hydrolyzed oat protein in cosmetics products such as skin care or hair care products is expected to support the segmented growth over the forecast period. Cosmetics segment is further sub-segmented as skin care products and hair care products. Among both of these sub-segment skin care sub-segment is expected to have a major market share during the forecast period. Increasing usage of hydrolyzed oat protein in skin care moisturizing cream and sun care products is expected to fuel the growth of skin care sub-segment growth during the forecast period. Moreover, rising demand for ant-wrinkle cream and anti-aging cream with natural food ingredient across the globe is further expected to support the skin care segment growth over the forecast period. In addition, hair care sub-segment is expected to show a favorable growth in the near future. Hydrolyzed oat protein is gaining importance in terms of usage in hair treatment products and conditioning shampoo which is expected to support hair care sub-segment growth in the near future. Toiletries segment is expected to account for favorable growth in hydrolyzed oat protein market during the forecast period.Request Report Sample@Regional Analysis -:Geographically in hydrolyzed oat protein market Europe is expected to account for the major market share followed by North America during the forecast period. However these region is expected to account for moderate growth due to mature market. Among North American region U.S. is expected to be the major contributor in terms of revenue followed by Canada. Moreover Asia pacific is expected to show the favorable growth during the forecast period followed by Latin America. In Asia pacific region China and India is expected to account for the substantial growth due to increased demand for cosmetics products containing natural ingredient. Moreover in Latin America Brazil is expected to be the major contributor in terms of revenue followed by Mexico.Consumers across the globe are perceiving food derived or plant based ingredients in personal care products as a healthy and value added products. They giving high preference to the products which contains a composition of natural ingredient which is expected to support the market growth over the forecast period. Traditionally oats have been viewed as healthy food, however their popularity has expanded in recent years they are also increasingly recognized as an ingredient with very low allergenic potential, but very high, proven, therapeutic value which is expected to fuel its market growth during the forecast period. Oats are increasingly used for maintaining skin such as it enables to soothe and heal the skin, reducing inflammation and redness. In addition, hydrolyzed oat protein is increasingly used for manufacturing ant-aging and anti-wrinkle cream which is further expected to fuel the market growth over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Key Players -:Some of the major key players operating in flavonoid market includes Croda International Plc, Lotioncrafter LLC, Provital Group, BioOrganic Concepts, Induchem companies, Lonza Group, and Sinerga S.p.A. among others.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Industrial Explosives Market to Expand at the Fastest CAGR of 5.6% by 2024 End

Industrial Explosives Market

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Rising urbanization has catapulted the use of coal-fired power generation. Quarrying activities from all corners of the world are also resuming at a steady pace. Technological advancements are facilitating the resurgence of global mining industry. Factors such as these and many more are instrumenting the growth in global demand for industrial explosives. A recent report published by Persistence Market Research estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 9 billion worth of industrial explosives were sold in the world. In the course of next eight years, the global market for industrial explosives is anticipated to grow steadily at 5.6% CAGR and reach US$ 14.58 billion value.Sample of this report is available upon request @In the report, titled Industrial Explosives Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016-2024, Persistence Market Research predicts that more than 23 million metric tons of industrial explosives will be used up globally by the end of 2024. Key findings on the global industrial explosives market indicate that environment protection agencies and bodies will strongly coerce the production of industrial explosives. Manufacturers of industrial explosives will be compelled to bring forth advancements in their offerings, particularly towards reducing volumes of explosives used in large-scale explosions and lowering the environmental impact that follows.Surging Preference to Blasting AgentsWith respect to the type of industrial explosives, the report clearly indicates an outright preference to blasting agents. Industrial verticals, where use of explosives is an integral part of production activities, are favoring the use of blasting agents. As opposed to high explosives, more than 22 million metric tons of blasting agents are forecasted to be sold by 2024. In due course of the projected period, global demand for high explosives will see a negligible dip. Nearly 95% of global industrial explosive revenues will be accounted by sales of blasting agents across various industrial sectors.Construction  Largest End-User of Industrial ExplosivesThe global building & construction industry needs blasting agents and explosives for creating subterranean pits, upon which edifices are erected. While mining remains to be one of the recognizable end-use of industrial explosives, revenues contributed by construction industries will be soaring at the highest CAGR of 6%. The report estimates that in 2016, more than US$ 1 billion of industrial explosives were consumed by construction activities. In terms of volume, metal mining and non-metal mining will collectively consume over 17 million metric tons of industrial explosive by the end of 2024. Stringent restriction for environmental laws, however, will inhibit the use of industrial explosives by quarrying industries.Higher Sales of Industrial Explosives in Asia-PacificIn 2017 and beyond, revenues emanating from sales of industrial explosives across Asia-Pacific countries will be accounting for more than 40% of global revenues. Australian companies  Orica Limited and Dyno Nobel Pty Limited (Incitec Pivot Limited)  are two of the largest producers of industrial explosives in the world. By accounting for nearly 40% share of global revenues, these two companies continue to funnel billions into Asia-Pacifics industrial explosives market. Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Company Limited, Ideal Industrial Explosives Ltd., and NOF Corporation are other key industrial explosive manufacturers based in this region.Request to view Table of Content @North Americas industrial explosives is likely to lose traction over the course of forecast period, and will be valued at US$ 3 billion by 2024-end. US-based Autsin Power Holdings Company continues to contribute to global market revenues by offering accessories for carrying out industrial explosions in quarrying and mining.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @Meanwhile, Latin Americas industrial explosives market will soar at the highest value CAGR of 6.5%. Chile-based Enaex SA is recognized as a prominent producer of industrial explosives, initiation systems, and blowing agents. Based in Peru, Exsa SA has gained global recognition for providing bulk emulsions, dynamites and cartridge emulsions to industries. Other key players in the global industrial explosives market include, Irish Industrial Explosives Limited, Eurenco, and MAXAMCORP HOLDINGS SL.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Laser Diode Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2025 |The Insight Partner

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According to a new market research study titled Laser Diode Market to 2025  Global Analysis and Forecasts by Doping Materials, Wavelength and Applications, the global laser diode market was valued at US$ 6.13 Bn in 2015 and is estimated to reach US$ 17.70 Bn by 2025. The report highlights the global market trend and the factors driving the market, as well as the deterrents to its growth, prevalent in the market.Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of the Laser Diode Market to 2025 @Laser diodes owing to a number of advantageous features offered by them, are rapidly becoming a vital part of modern technology and are being utilized in various applications. Laser marking tool is a reliable technology offering easy assistance and better efficiency. There are several laser marking options available in the market with different specifications and uses. Before the laser technology was introduced, there were several other printing methods in vogue such as acid etching chemicals and ink. However, these technologies do not suit the ever-increasing array of designs and materials nowadays. These traditional marking and engraving methods are now considered to be useless or are prohibited by the government due to their harmful after effects. Thus, new government policies and regulations to dispose traditional markings and replacing them with environment friendly and cleaner laser technology are expected to boost the global market.The global market is classified by doping materials into GaN, AlGaInP, InGaN, GaAlAs and other doping materials (GaAs and GaInAsSb). This report is further classified on the basis of wavelength into red laser diode, blue, IR, blue-violet and others (green and UV ). Lastly, the global market is segmented on the basis of applications into consumer electronics, automotive, military & defense, healthcare and other applications (industrial, instrumentation & sensors, etc.).Request Sample Copy @Some of the key factors driving the global market include growing awareness about laser diode and its uses, growing fiber laser market, and remarkable research in the VCSEL market. Significant rise in the use of laser diodes in various end-use markets due to a number of advantageous features provided by laser technology in-comparison to traditional methods is a major factor driving this market. Moreover, the rapid growth in automotive industries and electronic manufacturing across the world is bolstering the global market. However, the major hindrance to this market include lack of R&D funding for the military segment coupled-with high initial costs required to manufacture laser diodes. However, projection applications provided by green laser diode devices are analyzed to create several opportunities for growth in this market during the near future.Laser diodes are also used in surgeries due to their features which include a diverse range of operating wavelengths. Furthermore, it can also be modulated directly by using frequencies up to GHz range in high-speed communications. Thus, there is no delay in the input of operating surgeon and output of laser radiation. In addition,these are easily adjustable in terms of power output from 0% to 100%, thereby providing flexibility in the dosage of laser output. On the other hand, solid state lasers have restrictive adjustable power output ranging from 60% to 100%. This feature makes laser diodes the perfect tool for medical and healthcare applications. Thus, the expansion of electronics and healthcare industries complements the growth of the market owing to the substantial utilization of laser diodes across various applications in these industries.Geographically, the global laser diode market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa. Some of the key players operating in this global market include IPG Photonic Corp., Coherent, Inc., Newport Corp., ASML Holding NV, Axcel Photonics, Inc., Rofin-Sinar Technologies Inc., Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd. And Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG among others.Inquire about discount on this report @The report segments the global laser diode market as follows:Global Laser Diode Market  By Doping Materials AlGaInP GaN GaAlAs InGaN Others (GaInAsSb and GaAs)Global Laser Diode Market  By Wavelength Blue Laser Diode Blue-Violet Laser Diode Infrared Laser Diode Red Laser Diode Others (Ultraviolet (UV) Laser Diode and Green Laser Diode)Global Laser Diode Market  By Application Automotive Consumer Electronics Healthcare Military & Defense Others (Instrumentation & Sensors, Industrial, etc.)Global Laser Diode Market  By Geography North America Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA) South America (SAM)Purchase 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.comAbout 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.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Smart Parking Systems Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Parking Site, Method and End-user Industry

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Rising implementation of smart city programs coupled with rising vehicular pollution and limited availability of parking spaces are key factors bolstering the smart parking systems market worldwide. The proliferation of IoT and the need for scalable, flexible, space efficient, and easy parking systems are factors expected to boost the market, especially in the developing economies of the world.Browse Complete TOCWith novel technologies being introduced at an exceptional rate, there are numerous opportunities for key market players to invest in them. To be successful in such a dynamic environment, organizations need to grow through innovation. Innovation and rapid development in technology have made huge strides forward in the market, thereby giving rise to the rapidly growing trend of IoT and smart cities, in turn propelling the adoption of smart parking systems.Parking is a challenging issue, especially in urban areas where over one-third of all traffic congestion is majorly caused by people struggling to find a parking space. In addition, limited data availability to guide drivers decision-making further fuels the parking woes in urban landscape. In addition, finding a parking space leads to environmental damage owing to increase in CO2 emissions and sound pollution.Inquire to know more about Report -In addition, smart parking technology is emerging rapidly and is expected to be adopted by most of the major cities globally in order to increase the probability of sustainable development. Smart parking systems provide users with real-time information in order to allow them to find a parking space conveniently, thereby saving fuel, time and effort. IoT is a network of physical objects connected to each other through sensors, electronic devices and software that enables the collection and exchange of data. IoT has witnessed rapid growth across numerous end-user segments.Technological progressions such as use of mobile applications for parking coupled with enhanced payment and ticketing solutions are expected to propel the demand for off-street smart parking solutions. This type of parking proves beneficial to both short- and long-term parking users. During the last decade municipalities worldwide have been focusing on the parking management of urban areas so as to reduce traffic congestion and manage the ever-rising vehicle population efficiently. Initially municipalities had installed parking meters to ensure pay-and-park. However, this technology became obsolete owing to a number of glitches in the system. Thus, over time, the need for smart parking systems rose across municipalities owing to rapidly transforming cities and the introduction of more and more on-road vehicles, in turn leading to a shortage of parking spaces and highlighting the need for modern infrastructure and technology to cope up with the dynamically changing environment.Get sample Brochure @However, the lack of funding by the government to the municipalities restricts the implementation of smart parking systems solely to the municipalities. Thus, the municipalities have collaborated with private organizations for the efficient management of parking spaces. Hence, cities can have a private  public partnership where both government municipalities and private organizations will benefit, and restraints like a lack of funding for municipalities wont hinder the growth of the market in developing cities either. For instance, organizations such as Cisco Systems, Inc. have partnered with state municipalities to improve and enhance parking conditions.The implementation cost of the smart parking technology is expensive as compared to other non-technical parking methods, thereby it is currently being primarily adopted by the developed countries. In addition, off-street smart parking systems require a number of physical changes as compared to on-street smart parking system. This factor further hampers the market growth as a number of regions globally are lagging in the development of a robust telecom and overall infrastructure.Purchase complete report @Few Key Points from Table of Content7 Competitive Landscape7.1 Global Market Sales Revenue (US$ Mn), 2014  20257.2 Market Positioning of Key Players, 20158 Global Market Analysis  Parking Site8.1 Overview8.2 Off-Street Parking8.3 On-Street Parking9 Global Market Analysis  Components9.1 Overview9.2 Hardware9.3 Software9.4 Services10 Global Market Analysis  End-user Industry10.1 Overview10.2 Transport Facilities10.3 Government & Municipalities10.4 Commercial Institutions10.5 Corporate Institutions12 Smart Parking Systems Market, Key Company Profiles Included Key Facts, Business Description, Financial Overview, SWOT Analysis and Key Developments12.1 Amano McGann, Inc.12.2 Cisco Systems, Inc.12.3 Smart Parking Ltd.12.4 Urbiotica12.5 SKIDATA AG12.6 Nedap NV12.7 Kapsch12.8 Xerox Corp.12.9 Parkmobile, LLC12.10 SWARCO AGAvail Discounts on report purchase -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. Our syndicated research content is focused towards providing global and regional market forecasts and analysis. All our syndicated reports provide analysis of key trends, market size and shares, and competitive landscape analysis. We provide detailed segmentation of market by geography, technology, product or service which helps our clients get a deeper market analysis.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comAbout 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. Our syndicated research content is focused towards providing global and regional market forecasts and analysis. All our syndicated reports provide analysis of key trends, market size and shares, and competitive landscape analysis. We provide detailed segmentation of market by geography, technology, product or service which helps our clients get a deeper market analysis.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Asia Pacific Alopecia Treatment Market Worth US$ 2,655.9 Mn by 2024

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research, titled Asia Pacific Alopecia Treatment Market: Industry Analysis and Forecast (20162024), revenue from the Asia Pacific alopecia treatment market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.6% during the forecast period 2016 - 2024.In the report, the Asia-Pacific alopecia treatment market is analyzed on the basis of, type of alopecia, treatment type, and end user. On the basis of the type of alopecia, the overall market has been segmented into alopecia areata, alopecia totalis, and alopecia universalis. Topical drugs (creams, oils, lotions, gels, shampoos, and foam), oral drugs, injectable (platelet rich plasma therapy, steroid, and injectable fillers), hair transplant services and low-level laser therapy form the basis of treatment type. By end user segment, the market has been segmented into hospitals, dermatology and trichology clinics, home care settings, and aesthetic clinics. In the overall market, oral solid dosage formulations are expected to witness increased acceptance owing to ease of consumption by patients in Asia Pacific. Accordingly, oral drugs segment is anticipated to witness an increase in value from US$ 556.6 Mn in 2016 to US$ 1,005.1 Mn by the end of 2024.Rising global demand for effective hair loss treatment medications especially oral drugs is the prime driver of the market. Oral hair loss treatment drugs are gaining popularity as they help in maintaining patient-safety through reduced number of medicine dosages, but with increased drug efficacy. However, changing lifestyle along with the increase in stress level among working class population, cosmeceutical drug manufacturers focusing on expanding their hair treatment and scalp treatment product line, and cytokine therapy gaining momentum for alopecia treatment are other factors that expected to fuel the market growth for alopecia treatment market over the forecast period.Patent expiry of major blockbuster drugs resulting in market exclusivity for some brands and various side effects associated with the hair loss treatments is expected to hamper the overall market growth. Some of the side effects such as allergies, depression, and chances of permanent sexual dysfunctions. Other market deterrents include the limited efficacy of the hair loss treatment drugs and lack of reimbursement facilities for hair loss treatments services, such as laser treatments.Based on countries, the market has been divided into China, Japan, Australia & New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Vietnam, Philippines and Rest of Asia-Pacific. Developed pharmaceuticals markets such as the China and Japan are expected to emerge as the main sourcing markets.This report assesses trends by type of alopecia, treatment type, end user, and countries; to offer analytical insights about the potential demand emerging for particular alopecia treatments in specific regions. China is estimated to dominate the alopecia treatment market accounting for maximum revenue share of the overall market by end of 2016. By 2024 end, China and Japan markets are expected to account for over three-fifth share of the Asia Pacific alopecia treatment market revenue. In terms of market share by value, China is estimated to retain its dominant position, registering a CAGR of 7.1% over the forecast period.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Some key companies covered in this report include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Merck & Co., Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Inc., Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd., Cipla Ltd., Cellmid Ltd., The Himalaya Drug Company, Taisho Pharmaceutical Holdings Co., Ltd, Shiseido Co., Ltd., and Zhangguang 101 Science & Technology Co., Ltd. These companies are primarily focused on enhancing their product portfolio through research and development and the introduction of innovative and cost-effective advanced manufacturing procedures in order to gain higher market share and to strengthen their respective positions in the Asia Pacific market.Request to View Tables of Content @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Transcatheter Heart Valve Replacement Repair Market to Raise at a CAGR of 13.9% During the Forecast Period (20162026)

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Global Transcatheter Heart Valve Replacement & Repair Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2016 - 2026, the global transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 13.9% during the forecast period (20162026).Transcatheter heart valve replacement is a relatively non-invasive procedure to repair the damaged heart valves with bioprosthetic valves for treatment of valvular heart disease namely aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation among geriatric population. It is an alternative approach to conventional open heart surgery, especially for extremely high risk patients. Transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market was valued at US$ 1,605.5 Mn in 2015 and the revenue is expected to increase to US$ 6,701.5 Mn by 2026 at a CAGR of 13.9% over the forecast period.The report offers market forecast and analysis on global transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market, segmenting the market on the basis of product type, surgical approach, end user and region. The report segments the global transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market into seven key regions namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East and Africa (MEA). According to PMRs regional analysis, North America (U.S. and Canada) is the most lucrative market for transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair. This market in the region is expected to account for largest share throughout the forecast period, albeit exhibiting a slow growth rate. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair, owing to increasing prevalence rate of cardiovascular diseases such as valvular heart disease and rising population in the region. Asia Pacific is estimated to account for 6.2 % revenue share by end of 2016 in the transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market.On the basis of product type, PMR has segmented the transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market into TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve replacement) and TMVR (Transcatheter Mitral Valve Repair). TAVR segment is expected to dominate the market through the forecast period and is anticipated to be the most lucrative segment. Due to high adoption rate of TAVR devices across the globe, this segment is expected to witness high incremental opportunity between 2016 and 2026.On the basis of surgical approach, the transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market has been segmented into transfemoral approach, transapical approach and transaortic approach. Transfemoral approach segment is expected to dominate the market through the forecast period and is anticipated to be the most lucrative segment. Due to high adoption rate of transfemoral approach by cardiologists, this segment is expected to witness high incremental opportunity.On the basis of end user, the transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market has been segmented into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centres and cardiac catheterization laboratories. As per PMR analysis, among end users, the hospitals segment accounted for highest revenue share in 2015 and is expected to witness fastest growth over the forecast period. This is mainly attributed to increasing patient population seeking effective and efficient treatment with shorter recovery time. Cardiac catheterization laboratory segment is also expected to exhibit significant growth during the forecast period, as it provides better treatment facilities and ease of access.The report provides in depth insights about several factors such as increment in healthcare expenditure, key strategies of the participant companies, reimbursement policies and regulations affecting the transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Some key market participants included in the PMRs transcatheter heart valve replacement & repair market are Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, Medtronic, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, St. Jude Medical, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., JenaValve Technology, SYMETIS, Braile Biomedica.Request to View Tables of Content @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Medical Imaging Equipment Market Expected to Reach US$ 45.3 Bn Globally in 2023

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Global Market Study on Medical Imaging Equipment, the global medical imaging equipment market was valued at US$ 29.4 Bn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$ 45.3 Bn by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period from 2015 to 2023.Improvement in health care reforms in major countries such as Japan, the U.S., China, and U.K. has enhanced access to various diagnostic and treatment services thereby increasing life expectancy of the population. Rise in geriatric population is expected to intensify the need for healthcare products and services in these countries. Moreover, the rising incidence of diseases across the globe continue to increase the demand for diagnosis equipment, particularly non-invasive imaging solutions. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 17.5 Mn people died due to cardiovascular diseases in 2012, accounting for approximately 31% of global deaths. Moreover, 235 Mn people were diagnosed with asthma across the world in 2014.On account of all these factors, the global medical imaging equipment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period from 2015 to 2023. The market is driven by the major developed economies of the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. However, emerging markets, particularly, China, India and Brazil are expected to be the fastest growing market in terms of CAGR during the forecast period.With a share of more than 30% in 2015, North America was the largest market for medical imaging equipment primarily due to high awareness about medical imaging devices financial capability to purchase expensive machines, rising demand for technologically advanced and innovative products in hospitals, diagnostics laboratories and outpatient ambulatory surgery centers, and high investment in improving healthcare infrastructure. Obesity is one of the major causes of several diseases of cardiovascular system that has led to increase in demand for diagnostic imaging in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the percentage of obese children aged between 6 years and 11 years increased from 7% in 1980 to 18% in 2012 in the U.S. In addition, increasing healthcare expenditure in the U.S. in recent years has also assisted in dramatic rise in the usage of medical imaging.Emerging economies such as China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are providing much needed boost to the medical imaging equipment market. The Asia Pacific market is driven by demand for refurbished imaging systems as more equipment are needed with less funds dedicated to healthcare budgets. However, demand for new devices that offer superior imaging, speed, flexibility and portability are also being adopted in China and India, countries with the largest market potential. Europe was ranked third, in terms of market size, after North America and Asia Pacific. Demand in the region is similar to North America, wherein demand for advanced equipment for all modalities is higher. Western Europe, which includes major economies such as Germany, U.K., France, and Italy, holds a major share in the region.Others markets on the global map include Latin America and Middle East & Africa. As the markets in the developed world are becoming saturated, most the market players are focusing on emerging markets in Brazil and member states of Gulf Cooperation Council. Looking at the proximity of Brazil to the U.S., major market players find it convenient to have manufacturing facilities in Brazil. Therefore, the Latin America market is poised to grow rapidly. In addition, the government efforts in GCC member states to invest in improving the healthcare infrastructure and promote medical tourism are facilitating the demand for newer medical imaging equipment.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Key participants in global imaging equipment market include, GE Healthcare, Shimadzu Corporation, Philips Healthcare, Genesis Medical Imaging inc., Hologic Inc., Siemens Healthcare, Samsung Medison Co. Ltd, Carestream Health Inc., Hitachi Medical Corporation, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and Fonar Corporation. The medical imaging equipment market is highly capital.Request to View Tables of Content @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) Market is Expected to Exceed US$ 186 Bn Globally by 2020 End

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) Market the global active pharmaceutical ingredient market was valued at US$ 127 Bn in 2014 and is estimated to reach US$ 186 Bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 6.6% from 2015 to 2020.Active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) refers to a therapeutically active ingredient or substance combination used in manufacturing a drug product. Production of active pharmaceutical ingredients is a highly sophisticated and technically demanding process. The global active pharmaceutical ingredient market is surging due to the increased demand for pharmaceutical drugs, which in turn is driven by aging population, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, neurological and infectious diseases among others. Further, fragmented nature of the pharmaceutical supplies market, brings a smaller profit share to each player.The global active pharmaceutical ingredient market encompasses geographies such as North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and Rest of the World. North America accounted for the largest segment in the global active pharmaceutical ingredients market in 2014 due to fact that North America is the leading consumer of APIs and API exporters consider North America as the most lucrative market. India and China are the major suppliers of APIs to North America due to low production and labor costs. Moreover, biologics have become one of the top-selling drugs in North America. Thus, the expected market entry of biosimilars with flexible regulatory process would boost the API market in North America. The API market in the U.S. displays high level of competition, with mergers and collaborations between various key players such as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Sandoz (Novartis AG), Mylan, Inc., and Allergen plc.Additionally, demand for biological APIs is high in the region, as technological developments in the pharmaceutical industry are paving the way for newer biotechnology drugs. These expansion strategies intensify the competition between the global players, which is a result of expected high growth in the API market.Asia Pacific ranks second due to the factors such as availability of low cost production facilities and cheap labor in countries such as India and China. The cost difference ranges from 30% to 60% if the drugs are manufactured in China or India compared to other countries. Hence, China and India are expected to witness significant growth in the near future due to increase in production capacities and presence of large number of global and domestic players... Thus, Asia-Pacific is the most competitive market in API and the competition is expected to intensify between India and China, as these are the most attractive destinations for pharmaceutical manufacturing.In Europe pharmacists are offered incentives for substituting branded drugs with generic versions, which contributes to the growth of the API market in the region. Regulations also play a vital role in the API market, as the law disallows development of generic APIs in Europe until patent expiry. However, the governments of various countries in Europe have started supporting the manufacture of generic drugs post the financial crisis. Patent expirations of major blockbuster drugs in Europe during the forecast period would fuel the growth of the API market in the near future.A Sample of this Report is Available Upon Request @Demand for generic drugs is increasing not only in developed countries, but also in developing and underdeveloped countries in South America and Africa. Brazils health authority Agencia Nacional de Vigilancia Sanitaria (ANVISA) allows the procurement or manufacturing of APIs only for companies registered with ANVISA. Moreover, foreign companies find it difficult to enter the generics market in Brazil, as nearly 80% of the market is controlled by the four local companies namely, EMS, Medley, Eurofarma and Ache/Biosintetica. According to reports published by Mexicos National Association of Drug Manufacturers (ANAFAM), in 2013 86% of drugs used in Mexico were produced domestically to help curtail rising healthcare costs. Other factors boosting the API market growth in developing regions are cost-efficient manufacturing, large patient pool, rising demand for generic drugs, and improvement in the healthcare infrastructure. For the same reasons, the API market in South America is developing steadily and is likely to witness significant growth during the forecast period.Request to View Tables of Content @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global L-Arginine Market 2017 - Ajinomoto group, KYOWA, Evonik, CJ, Daesang, Jurui Biotechnology, Jingjing

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Report studies L-Arginine in Global market that focuses on the top Manufacturers, Market Segment by Countries, Split by Product Types (with sales, revenue, price, market share of each type), Split by applications this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of L-Arginine in each application.The recent report on L-Arginine market offers insightful information about the present scenario of the market across the globe. The report, titled L-Arginine points out the key factors affecting the growth of the market. Latest market trends as well as the future growth opportunities have been mentioned in the report. The report takes into account the various micro- and macro-economic factors governing the overall growth of the L-Arginine market and assesses the valuation and size of the market in the coming years.The report talks about the distinct traits of the L-Arginine market and provides in-depth study of the various segments of the market. The report especially focusses on the development of the L-Arginine market in China owing to the increased demand from the region which has attracted the attention of the key manufacturers. Various regulations directly or indirectly affecting the L-Arginine market in the region have been discussed in the report. The report takes note of the present state of the global economy, which after witnessing double-digit growth for three decades, is slowing down. Governments efforts to push the economy is expected to positively affect the various sectors and increase demand from the market.The report discusses the competitive vendor landscape of the L-Arginine market in the globe. Some of the key players in the market have been profiled in the report and crucial information about them such as their business overview, revenue segmentation, and product segmentation have been mentioned in the report. The report takes note of the market share held by the key players and estimates their future growth through SWOT analysis. It serves as a useful guide for the new entrants in the L-Arginine market.Request For Sample Report @Several analytical tools such as market attractiveness analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis are employed to study the global L-Arginine market, whereas SWOT analysis and Porters five forces analysis are utilized to evaluate the major players in the L-Arginine market in this report.This report not only provides a complete picture of the overall condition of the L-Arginine market, but also assists the players in this market to create profitable market strategies in order to gain a competitive edge.About Fior MarketsFior 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.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 - Cipla, Piramal Healthcare, Aurobindo

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022" to its huge collection of research reports.The report on the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market is prepared to help the stakeholders get a better perspective of the prevailing trends impacting its growth. The study provides in-depth knowledge of the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market, covering the impact of various regulations and policies adopted by the leading market players. The key drivers of the market, restrains, and trends influencing the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market are assessed through qualitative and quantitative investigation. The analysis also helps evaluating the degree of competition prevailing in the market. The report provides an assessment of the regulatory policies influencing the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @The regional segmentation of the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market is described in detail in the report. The historical development of each segment in the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings is charted in the report. The report provides details such as supply chain, and leading players competing in the market. The publication also offers readers a chapter-wise assessment of the market. The report on the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market discusses the overall competitive scenario, with an emphasis on the leading players that compete on a domestic as well as global level.The systematic analysis of the global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings market will assist prospective players figure out the strategies to implement for the sustainable expansion. The report focuses on the recent innovations in products and technologies in order to understand the overall impact of these innovations on the market. The product portfolio and strategies adopted by the leading companies are discussed and analyzed in detail. On the basis of various parameters the contribution of the leading companies have been studied in this report.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of ContentsGlobal Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings1.1 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Overview1.1.1 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings 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 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market by Type1.3.1 Small Molecule Drugs1.3.2 Large Molecule Drugs1.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Branded Drugs1.4.2 Branded Generics1.4.3 Other2 Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)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 Cipla3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Piramal Healthcare3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Aurobindo3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Jubilant Life Sciences3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Zydus Cadila3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Alkem3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Intas3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 Lupin3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Torrent3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 FDC3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.10.5 Recent Developments4 Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings5 United States Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Pharmerging Contract Manufacturings Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)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
Global Mica Paper Market 2017 - ISOVOLTA Group, Pamica, Jyoti, Spbsluda, Sichun Meifeng Mica, Asheville Mica

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Report studies Mica Paper in Global market that focuses on the top Manufacturers, Market Segment by Countries, Split by Product Types (with sales, revenue, price, market share of each type), Split by applications this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Mica Paper in each application.The recent report on Mica Paper market offers insightful information about the present scenario of the market across the globe. The report, titled Mica Paper points out the key factors affecting the growth of the market. Latest market trends as well as the future growth opportunities have been mentioned in the report. The report takes into account the various micro- and macro-economic factors governing the overall growth of the Mica Paper market and assesses the valuation and size of the market in the coming years.The report talks about the distinct traits of the Mica Paper market and provides in-depth study of the various segments of the market. The report especially focusses on the development of the Mica Paper market in China owing to the increased demand from the region which has attracted the attention of the key manufacturers. Various regulations directly or indirectly affecting the Mica Paper market in the region have been discussed in the report. The report takes note of the present state of the global economy, which after witnessing double-digit growth for three decades, is slowing down. Governments efforts to push the economy is expected to positively affect the various sectors and increase demand from the market.The report discusses the competitive vendor landscape of the Mica Paper market in the globe. Some of the key players in the market have been profiled in the report and crucial information about them such as their business overview, revenue segmentation, and product segmentation have been mentioned in the report. The report takes note of the market share held by the key players and estimates their future growth through SWOT analysis. It serves as a useful guide for the new entrants in the Mica Paper market.Request For Sample Report @Several analytical tools such as market attractiveness analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis are employed to study the global Mica Paper market, whereas SWOT analysis and Porters five forces analysis are utilized to evaluate the major players in the Mica Paper market in this report.This report not only provides a complete picture of the overall condition of the Mica Paper market, but also assists the players in this market to create profitable market strategies in order to gain a competitive edge.About Fior MarketsFior 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.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
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Global Microcrystalline Cellulose Market 2017 - FMC, JRS, Mingtai, Asahi Kasei, Tembec, Accent Microcell, Ashland

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Report studies Microcrystalline Cellulose in Global market that focuses on the top Manufacturers, Market Segment by Countries, Split by Product Types (with sales, revenue, price, market share of each type), Split by applications this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Microcrystalline Cellulose in each application.The report Global Microcrystalline Cellulose Industry provides a comprehensive analysis of the Microcrystalline Cellulose market. The report features industry insights from experts. A detailed segmentation of the Global Microcrystalline Cellulose market has been included in the report. Furthermore, the report also covers the sub-segments. The leading sector, the emerging sectors, along with their growth statistics have been mentioned in the report.After a brief overview of the Global Microcrystalline Cellulose market, the report analyzes the market dynamics. The top drivers supporting market growth and the key restraints hampering market growth are covered in this report. Additionally, the report also states the threats and opportunities that companies in the market need to look out for. The most influential trends that will shape the market during the forecasting horizon are also covered in this report. Current market development trends such as partnerships, M&As, collaborations, etc., have also been discussed in detail in the report. Moreover, the report elaborates on the regulatory scenario governing the Microcrystalline Cellulose market and its potential effects on the market in the foreseeable future.Request For Sample Report @Detailed business overview, revenue analysis, strategies, and SWOT analysis of the key players has been included in the report. Players in the Global Microcrystalline Cellulose market are aiming to expand their operations to emerging regions. Further, companies in the Microcrystalline Cellulose market are focusing on innovation and positioning their products at competitive prices. An in-depth supply chain analysis in the report will give readers a better understanding of the Microcrystalline Cellulose market.To evaluate the market better, each market segment and its sub-segments are evaluated in the report with their market drivers, restraints, shares, and growth rates. Valuable forecasts and other market statistics in this research study make it an indispensable intelligence tool for companies operating in this market.About Fior MarketsFior 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.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
U.S. Cheese Market Industry Recent Industry Trends & Opportunities 2017-2023

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Market HighlightsU.S. Cheese market is projected to reach 6,787 KT by 2023, at a CAGR of 3.41% from 2017, in terms of market volume. Wisconsin and California are the major producer of cheese in U.S. Fresh cheese, along with soft and hard cheese finds wide application in the food sector. Cheese is used in various ready-to-eat meals, convenience foods and fast-foods which is widely consumed in the U.S. The popularity of on-the-go food in U.S. is driving the market for cheese as a major ingredient in the food products. Extensive surveys on U.S. cheese consumption and according to the International Dairy Foods Association, the consumption of per capita cheese consumption in U.S. is evaluated to be 34 pounds and was calculated to be 33.7 pounds in 2013.Request for Sample Report@Market ForecastIn the U.S., Mozzarella is estimated to contribute more than 45% of total market share in 2017 and is projected to grow at the rate of 4.13% during the period 2017 to 2023 due to increasing consumption of Mozzarella cheese compare to Cheddar in U.S. Cheddar will capture around more than 20% market share by 2023 with CAGR of 3.43%. Other Italian cheese mainly includes Provolone, Parmesan and Romano cheese which is projected to grow at significant growth during the forecast period due to growing popularity of Italian cheese. Other American cheese include the types namely Bergenost, Bloomsdale, Dorset, and Cup Cheese and it will grow with CAGR of 2.73% during 2017 to 2023 as export of American cheese has increased from Japan, France and South Korea.By Application analysis-Fast food snacks application will continue to dominate the U.S. Cheese market with more than 20% of market share and it is projected to reach around 1600 kilo tons by 2023 as consumption of cheese in fast food is growing along with its popularity. Cheese application in cheese spreads and cheese dips together holds more than 30% of market share due to increasing application of cheese in cheese dips in various states especially in California and Wisconsin. In Bakery food application of cheese, Wisconsin holds majority of market share due to huge production of cow milk and its application in various types of cheese production which are becoming popular in bakery food application to enhance flavor. In other application of cheese Idaho and Minnesota will witness significant growth which will backed by introduction of new type of cheese especially in Idaho and Minnesota.Key Players Land O'Lakes,Inc Dairiconcepts L.P The Kraft Heinz Co., Leprino Foods Company Associated Milk Producers Inc Foremost Farms USA Cooperative Dairy Farmers of America Inc.Browse Full Cheese Market Report @Regional AnalysisWisconsin is the major producer and exporter of cheese in the U.S. followed by California in 2017. U.S. cheese market in Wisconsin is growing at CAGR of 3.5% backed by increasing production of cheese and presence of production plant of key players in Wisconsin. California and Idaho are one of the fastest growing cheese producing states in the United States. The top five emerging states in cheese production are California, Idaho, Wisconsin, New York and New Mexico. The cheese production in U.S. is growing rapidly especially in states where availability of resources such as cow milk and goat milk is high. Expansion of production plants by key players in Wisconsin and California will boost the cheese production in upcoming years.Market Segmentation- U.S. Cheese market is segmented by product type which includes Mozzarella, Cheddar, Other Italian Cheese, Other American Cheese, Feta, Hispanic, Muenster, Montery Jack, Colby Jack, Cream cheese, Cottage cheese, Pepper Jack and Others. U.S. Cheese market is segmented by source which includes whole cow milk, skimmed cow milk and others. U.S. Cheese market is segmented by type which includes fresh, aged fresh, soft white, semi soft, hard, blue, and flavored and others. U.S. Cheese market is segmented by application which includes cheese processing, cheese spreads, cheese dips, fast food snacks, alcohol accompaniments, bakery foods, processed foods, savory snacks and otherAbout Market Research FutureAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research Future Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune - 411028 Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312
Global Broth Market 2017 - Pacific Foods of Oregon, College Inn, Progresso, knorr, Manischewitz

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Report studies Broth in Global market that focuses on the top Manufacturers, Market Segment by Countries, Split by Product Types (with sales, revenue, price, market share of each type), Split by applications this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Broth in each application.The report Global Broth Industry provides a comprehensive analysis of the Broth market. The report features industry insights from experts. A detailed segmentation of the Global Broth market has been included in the report. Furthermore, the report also covers the sub-segments. The leading sector, the emerging sectors, along with their growth statistics have been mentioned in the report.After a brief overview of the Global Broth market, the report analyzes the market dynamics. The top drivers supporting market growth and the key restraints hampering market growth are covered in this report. Additionally, the report also states the threats and opportunities that companies in the market need to look out for. The most influential trends that will shape the market during the forecasting horizon are also covered in this report. Current market development trends such as partnerships, M&As, collaborations, etc., have also been discussed in detail in the report. Moreover, the report elaborates on the regulatory scenario governing the Broth market and its potential effects on the market in the foreseeable future.Request For Sample Report @Detailed business overview, revenue analysis, strategies, and SWOT analysis of the key players has been included in the report. Players in the Global Broth market are aiming to expand their operations to emerging regions. Further, companies in the Broth market are focusing on innovation and positioning their products at competitive prices. An in-depth supply chain analysis in the report will give readers a better understanding of the Broth market.To evaluate the market better, each market segment and its sub-segments are evaluated in the report with their market drivers, restraints, shares, and growth rates. Valuable forecasts and other market statistics in this research study make it an indispensable intelligence tool for companies operating in this market.About Fior MarketsFior 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.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Global Linear Encoders Market - Global Industry Analysis, Segments, Major Geographies and Current Market Forecasts 2022

Linear Encoders M

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The encoder can be either incremental or absolute. Motion can be determined by change in position over time. Linear encoder technologies include optical, magnetic, inductive, capacitive and eddy current. Optical technologies include shadow, self-imaging and interferometric. Linear Encoders are used in metrology instruments, motion systems and high precision machining tools ranging from digital calipers and coordinate measuring machines to stages, CNC Mills, manufacturing gantry tables and semiconductor steppers.Get Free Sample Copy of this Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Linear Encoders 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 covers:NEWALLRSF ElektronikLika ElectronicGURLEY Precision InstrumentsElectronica Mechatronic SystemsKublerFagor AutomationSIKOGIVI MISURELeader Precision InstrumentMarket 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 AfricaMarket Segment by Type, covers:Incremental Linear EncodersAbsolute Linear EncodersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Machine ToolsMeasuring InstrumentsMotion SystemsElevatorOthersBrowse full report with Table of Content @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Linear Encoders market.Chapter 1, to describe Linear Encoders Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Linear Encoders, with sales, revenue, and price of Linear Encoders, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Linear Encoders, 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, Linear Encoders market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Linear Encoders sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Linear Encoders Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Incremental Linear Encoders1.2.2 Absolute Linear Encoders1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Machine Tools1.3.2 Measuring Instruments1.3.3 Motion Systems1.3.4 Elevator1.3.5 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)Enquiry Before Buying@About Us:GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:John+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.com
Smart Textile Market Size, Share and Growth Analysis - 2022

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According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, Smart Textile Market by Function, and by End-User IndustryGlobal Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20142022 the global smart textile market was valued at $943 million in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 28.4% during the forecast period to reach $5,369 million by 2022. In 2015, the military & defense segment accounted for one-fourth of the total share, in terms of revenue.Access Full Summary:The significant factors driving smart textile market growth include integration of wearables and smart textiles, increasing use of nanotechnology, and its application in smartphones & other sophisticated gadgets. The electronic components can be miniaturized and integrated with smart textiles, which help to monitor and regulate body temperature, monitor heartbeat, and protects body from outside radiations. In addition, the application of nanotechnology is extended with the production of nanofibers. The use of nanofibers in the fabric is applied widely in the smart textile industry to enhance the performance and functionality of the textile. It provides textiles with anti-bacterial, UV-protection, self-cleaning, water repellence property, maintaining the breathability, and tactile properties of the textiles.High production cost, high toxic waste production, and lack of government policies encouraging smart textile are some factors that are expected to hinder the growth of the smart textile market while increasing research and development in the smart textile industry is acting as one of the major opportunities for the global smart textile market.Do Enquiry for Sample Report @Asia-Pacific and Europe collectively contributed more than half of the share to the global smart textile market by revenue in 2015. Asian countries such as China, Japan, and India have transformed been into manufacturing hubs for smart textiles owing to low cost of labor and will be the fastest growing regional market for smart textiles.Major players that operate in this market are DuPont de Nemours & Co., Koninklijke Ten Cate NV, Texas Instruments Inc., Google Inc., Gentherm Inc., Schoeller Textiles AG, Sensoria Inc., Textronics, Adidas, and Ohmatex.Do Enquiry before purchasing Report @Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1-800-792-5285UK: + 44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: + 852-301-84916India (Pune) : +91 20 66346060Fax: +1855550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.com
Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market 2015-2022 Outlook Research Report By DecisionDatabases

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DecisionDatabases.com offers Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market Research Report. This Report covers the complete Industry Outlook, Growth, Size, Share and Forecast Till 2022. Circulating fluid bed (CFD) is a process of providing boilers and power plants flexibility and reducing harmful gas emissions. Circulating fluid bed boilers operate at relatively lower temperatures as compared to conventional boilers and reduce the gas emission levels. The low emission of gases such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide make circulating fluid bed boilers environmentally friendly. In addition, the circulating fluid bed boilers help to reduce the operational cost of boilers in power plants.The circulating fluid bed boilers market is segmented by products as subcritical circulating fluid bed boilers, supercritical circulating fluid bed boilers and ultra-supercritical circulating fluid bed boilers. Supercritical and ultra-supercritical boilers are used in high to very high megawatt plants to improve fuel efficiency and reduce gas emission. Therefore, supercritical and ultra-supercritical boilers are expected to grow during the forecast period. The circulating fluid bed boilers market is classified by application as oil and gas industry, chemical industry, manufacturing and others. The oil and gas industry has the largest market share. The chemical industry is expected to grow during the forecast period.Get FREE Report Sample @The report covers following company profiles (can be customized as per requirement):> Alfa Laval AB> Alstom SA> AE&E Nanjing Boiler Co. Ltd.> Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc.> Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL)> DongFang Boiler Group Co. Ltd.> Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co. Ltd.> Formosa Heavy Industries Corp> Amec Foster Wheeler plc> Harbin Boiler Engineering Co., Ltd.> Metso Oyj> Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.> Shanghai Boiler Works Co., Ltd.> Thermax Ltd.See the complete TOC and segmentations @DecisionDatabases is involved in providing research reports and company profiles in the global circulating fluid bed boilers market in terms of revenue and output/volume. Market drivers, opportunities and restraints are thoroughly studied which influences the market. This study is further utilized for the overall analysis of the market. The circulating fluid bed boilers market is segmented based on the global applications, geographic presence, by products and ingredients. We offer an inclusive category-specific market outlook. We provide access to a comprehensive collection of companies in the industry. The companies can strategize and execute business operations through our competitor analysis. Find the global industry analysis, market size, share, growth, and trends information in our circulating fluid bed boilers profiles.Table Of Contents - Overview1. Introduction2. Executive Summary3. Market Analysis Of Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers4. Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market Analysis By Types5. Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market Analysis By Applications6. Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market Analysis By Geography7. Competitive Landscape Of Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Companies8. Company Profiles Of Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers IndustryPurchase Complete Global Circulating Fluid Bed Boilers Market Research Report @About Us:DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web:
Global PCs Industry Analysis and Market Insights Examined in Latest Study Forecasted till 2021

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Personal computers or PCs are now a standard tool in everyday life. The wider acceptance of Personal computers in the global market has given positive impact in its sales since many years. However, the global shipments of personal computers for the first time in a decade declined over 2% in the first quarter of the year 2017 and also from third quarter of 2016, on account of fall in consumer demand; finds a new study added to the vast portfolio of Market Research Hub (MRH). The study is titled as PCs Global Industry Guide 2017 and provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including market size (value and volume 2012-16, and forecast to 2021). The report also adds valuable data for the buyers to understand the future growth prospects of the global pcs market with five-year forecasts by both value and volume.Request Free Sample Report:In the starting section, the report presents the market outlook, by highlighting some of the major regions, including Asia-Pacific, Japan, Europe, United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The report has studied that in Q3 2016, worldwide PC shipments fell 5.7 percent to 68.9 million units, marking the eighth quarter of PC shipment declines. The decline in sales has been accredited to weak back-to-school demand and low demand in the consumer market in general. Globally, the PC market is also disadvantaged by the decision of Microsoft, to offer free upgrades to its latest operating system, largely suppressing any incentives to purchase new hardware to access.In previous years, major drivers of the global personal computer market are growing Internet usage, rising incomes, growing computer education, and increasing urbanization. The personal computers (PCs) market comprises of the sales of both desktop and portable PCs. Desktop PC is a personal computer in a form proposed for regular use at a single location. On the other hand, portable PCs include laptops, notebooks and netbooks, but does not include tablet PCs.Today, the majority of consumers own, and use, at least three different types of devices in mature markets. Among these devices, the PC is not a high primacy device for the majority of customers, so they do not feel the need to upgrade their PCs as often as they used to. Consumers in emerging market primarily use smartphones or phablets for their computing needs and also they dont find the need to use a PC as compared in mature markets. Due to this, market consumption volumes declined with a CARC of -3.4% during 2012-2016, to reach a total of 264.5 million units in 2016, finds the study.To determine the competitive intensity and market attractiveness, the five forces analysis has been used. The top six vendors highlighted in the report are Lenovo, Dell, Asus, HP, Apple, Acer, Fujitsu Limited and Toshiba Corporation.Browse 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 Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comFollow us on:Twitter: twitter.com/MktResearchHubLinkedIn:Facebook:
Power over Ethernet (POE) Market is estimated to grow at CAGR of 13% by 2022

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Market HighlightsPOE combines the data and power on the same Ethernet cables to provide power to devices like remote network switches, wireless access points, security cameras and more. POE eliminates the extra need of power socket which make it beneficial in the case when devices like Wi-Fi access points or security cameras need to be installed in ceilings where direct power is difficult to place.Power over Ethernet has various application in commercial, industrial and residential sectors. As per trend, increase demand of consumers for smart home automation and control for centrally managing the appliances and other electric systems has also contributed to the residential sector application growth, hence contributing in the market growth of the Power over Ethernet.The global Power over ethernet market is expected to grow at CAGR of 13% and estimated to reach at market size of US ~$1 billion by the end of forecast period.Major Key Players Axis Communications AB (Sweden), Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (U.S.), Texas Instruments, Inc. (U.S.), STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland), Linear Technology Corp. (U.S.), Broadcom Ltd. (U.S.), Microsemi Corp. (U.S.), ON Semiconductor (U.S.), Silicon Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.), Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (U.S.)Request a Copy of Sample Report @Some of the factors like increasing the control, monitoring capabilities with the reduced costs and flexible network architectures across the various application segments has also contributed to the enhanced growth. Rising demand for network security cameras and adoption of the VoIP technology are expected to drive the demand of the power over ethernet market in the forecasted period.For the purpose of this study, Market Research Future has segmented the market of Power over Ethernet on the basis of types, Power to Port, Applications and End Users. By Types the market has been segmented as power sourcing equipment controllers & ICs, powered device controllers & ICs. By Power to Port the market has been segmented as Up to 15.4W, Up to 30W, Up to 60W, and Up to 100W whereas the application areas has been identified as security & access control, connectivity, led lighting & control, infotainment among others. On the basis of end users the market has been segmented as residential, commercial, and industrial.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 35 market data tables and 20 figures spread over 110 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on The Global Power over ethernet market Report -Forecast to 2022.Access Report Details @Study Objectives of Power over Ethernet Market. To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the Power over Ethernet Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the Power over Ethernet Market based porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by type, power to port, application end user and sub-segments To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Power over Ethernet.Make an Enquiry @Market Research Future Analysis:Market Research Future analysis shows that the global market of Power over Ethernet will grow subsequently during the forecast period. Factors such as need of efficient Ethernet cables and high pressure on the traditional cables are leading to high deployment of POE around the world. Geographically, North America is dominating the market due to the various factors such as presence of U.S. and Canada who are leader the technology and presence of global players in this region. Europe stands as second biggest market for POE as the manufacturing sector and automotive sector in European countries are growing. Asia-Pacific stands as third biggest market due rapid growth of the industrialization and increasing demand for the smart home concept in China and Japan.Brief TOC1 Market Introduction1.3 Market Structure:1.3.1 Global Power Over Ethernet Market: By Types1.3.2 Global Power Over Ethernet Market: By Power To Port1.3.3 Global Power Over Ethernet Market: By Application1.3.4 Global Power Over Ethernet Market: By End User1.3.5 Global Power Over Ethernet Market: By Region2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Type2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research2.4 Forecast Model7 Competitive Analysis7.1 Market Share Analysis7.2 Company Profiles7.2.1 Axis Communications Ab (Sweden)7.2.2 Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (U.S.)7.2.3 Texas Instruments, Inc. (U.S.)7.2.4 STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland)7.2.5 Linear Technology Corp. (U.S.)7.2.6 Broadcom Ltd. (U.S.)7.2.7 Microsemi Corp. (U.S.)Continued.Browse Related ReportGlobal Web scale IT Market, by Solution (Healing Software, Automation, Analytics), By Service (Consulting & IT, Maintenance, Repair & Integration), By Providers (Marketplace builder, Internet Service Providers, Content Providers) - Forecast 2022About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Winners of the National architectural tender

Tender

Names of the first winners of National architectural competition on development of the concept of development of key public spaces which is held with assistance of Ministry of Construction of Russia became known following the results of vote of residents of Lipetsk. About 1000 citizens decided how the Nizhn park of Lipetsk will be arranged well.Residents of Lipetsk chose from two projects of improvement of the park which were selected earlier by an expert jury. Representatives of the city and regional administration, Ministry of Construction of Russia, the Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending and designing department "Strelka" were a part of the commission.89% registered on the "Open Lipetsk" portal gave the votes to the draft of the Lipetsk command of architects: Victoria Goncharova, Evgenia Samofalova and Vladimir Safronov. The city administration suggested architects to pay an attention maximum to its dendrology variety.By results of tender, as earlier the head of Ministry of Construction of Russia Mikhail Men declared, concepts of development of key public spaces will be created and realized in 15 cities of Russia: Astrakhan, Vladimir, Vladikavkaz, Volgograd, Izhevsk, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Lipetsk, Stavropol, Ryazan, Tomsk, Ulyanovsk, Khabarovsk, Cheboksary, Chelyabinsk. In each of them the expert jury selected the best projects on improvement of the key territories. After that inhabitants can choose winners.On May, 15 at the forum "Environment for life: apartment and city" in Saratov the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation Mikhail Men will award authors of the best projects.JSC Management Company "Investment Projects Fund" acts as the strategic tool for increasing of enterprise and investment activity in the Lipetsk region. Among our main goals are creation of new approach to development of territories and as a result improvement of investment climate of our region.We invite projects initiators and investors from all Russian regions and from abroad to mutually beneficial cooperation.JSC Managing company Investment Projects FundPhone: +7 (4742) 39-32-43E-mail: invest-lip@mail.ruAddress: 61 A, Dovatora Street, LipetskPresscontact: AnastasiaPhone: +7 980 262 32 46Web-site: en.invest-lip.ru
U.K. Mobile Phones Market Analysis & In-Depth Overview for the Period till 2017

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Currently, there is a sharp rise in the number of consumers across the U.K. who are actively using a mobile phone. Considering this hike, a new research report titled as Mobile Phones- UK - April 2017 has been added to the vast online repository of Market Research Hub (MRH). This market report is a holistic analysis of the key issues faced in the present situation linked to the U.K. mobile phones sector. Alongside, it prescribes the most suitable guidance and directions based on the major vendors for fresh entrepreneurs and companies interested in the market.Request Free Sample Report:This report begins to evaluate this market by examining various factors that affect significantly, such as the market size and issues that hamper and support the sector. The study then analyzes the most profitable products and brands in this industry. Moreover, the report also analyzes the potential developments of brand loyalty in a slow smartphone market. Correspondingly, the facts, implications and the threats of the second-hand market and guidance about overcoming it are also analyzed in this section of the report. Furthermore, the synopsis examines the industry considering the growth of this market by the evaluation of the market size and predicting the forecast in detail, alongside key market drivers which are clearly presented in the report. These real facts on the market enrich the overall knowledge on this sector, thereby helping to create productive business modules.Another useful aspect of this report is the regional evaluation of the market with a special emphasis on the United Kingdom. To help investors, even more, the report begins to evaluate the leading mobile companies and brands beginning with a careful introduction. The successful manufacturers included in this section are Samsung, Apple, Sony, Google and Windows. These vendors are thoroughly examined using key facts such as launch activity, innovation, advertising and marketing activity. In this section, the manufacturing brands and the operating systems are also precisely evaluated for the benefit of the buyer. Hence, the two famous operating systems, Windows and iOS are also examined in this instrumental report.Finally, the report presents additional guidance through the introspection of the smartphone purchasing process, buying intentions for the next two years and important features while upgrading. Similarly, the smartphones lifecycle and the second-hand market is also studied to highlight the uses of older phones. The research report later offers additional help through the approved analyzing tools such as consumer research methodology and market size as well as forecast analysis. New studies about the different ways in which consumers buy their smartphone and the domination of the smartphone distribution market by the mobile network providers, works as useful business tips for the reader.Browse 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 Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comFollow us on:Twitter: twitter.com/MktResearchHubLinkedIn:Facebook:
Paul Ryan and Donald Trump aren't scheduled to revisit NYC anytime soon, but there are still plenty of protests and demonstrations planned this week, many of them focused on local issues facing New Yorkers. As always, weve rounded up some of most notable events, including town halls, prison rallies, and socialist dance parties.

Letitia James Long Island City Town Hall

On Tuesday evening, Public Advocate Letitia James joins Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Senator Michael Gianaris, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer for a town hall-style discussion. The CUNY-hosted event will focus on the issues facing northwest Queens, and features a Q&A portion with the city representatives. RSVP here.

Tuesday May 16th, 7 p.m. | CUNY School of Law, 2 Court Square, Long Island City



By Taking Power: Jacobin Issue 25 Launch Party



What does it look like when a movement for left-wing politics actually achieves power in government? Thats the question posed by the newest issue of Jacobin, which gets a launch party at Verso on Tuesday night. Its the hottest praxis in town, and the best place to answer the question: Is He Into You, Just a Friend, or Trying to Get You to Join the Democratic Socialists?

Tuesday, May 16th, 7 p.m. | Verso Books, Suite 1010, 20 Jay Street, Brooklyn



Rally Against Cuomos Nuclear Bailout



Green energy advocates will gather outside Cuomos midtown office on Wednesday to protest the governors recently announced plan to bailout three upstate nuclear plants. Organized by Food & Water Watch, and co-sponsored by nearly a dozen environmental groups, the demonstration will demand that Cuomo stop subsidizing corporate polluters at our expense.

Wednesday, May 17th, 12 p.m. | Office of Governor Cuomo 633 Third Ave



Kill the Deal! Rally at the State of the District



The battle over the future of the Bedford-Union Armory in Crown Heights continues Thursday outside the office of City Councilmember Laurie Cumbo, a supporter of the controversial plan to redevelop the city-owned building. Protesters will convene during the councilmembers State of the District speech to demand that she Kill the Deal and start over with a plan for 100 percent affordable housing.

Thursday, May 18th, 6 p.m. | Ingersoll Community Center, 177 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn



SURJ NYC May Chapter Meeting



Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), a group of white people devoted to ending white supremacy, has seen a massive membership jump since Trump's victorytheir first post-election meeting had to change venues to fit the 700 people who showed up. On Thursday, the group hosts a world cafe style fair to showcase the various projects that members are working on. Those new to SURJ are encouraged to arrive for an orientation 30 minutes prior to the events start.

Thursday, May 18th, 6:30 p.m. | Thoughtworks, 99 Madison Avenue



March Against Monsanto



New York sustainability advocates will protest agri-giant Monsanto on Saturday in an effort to educate the public about their horrific policies, products and procedures. The NYC march, which kicks off at Bryant Park and ends at 64th and Central Park West, is one of several nationwide demonstrations. A picnic in Central Park follows the march, and attendees are encouraged to wear red.

Saturday, May 20th, 12 p.m. | Bryant Park, Manhattan



Noise Demo Against the Raids



On Saturday, police reform advocates will march against NYPD raids and anti-gang bills, which they say only serve to further criminalize people of color, regardless of their innocence. This protestintended to showcase the love and the ragetakes place outside the Brooklyns Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn where some arrestees of the largest gang raid in city history are currently being held. The rally comes one week after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a sweeping shift in DOJ sentencing policy that could have drastic effects on New Yorks incarcerated population.

Saturday, May 20th, 2:30 p.m. | Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn, 80 29th Street


Sentinel means business in 2017.

Sentinel team

www.sentinelactive.com

In Q1, Sentinel has been awarded partnership status with both Oracle and EpiServer.Steve Parkinson, CEO, and founder commented: Were absolutely delighted to announce what has already been a long partnership with our partners at Oracle and Episerver. We have a great relationship with their teams and the way is now paved for our product development roadmap. What we have in store for 2017 is exciting and would not be possible without them.Let the good times roll, since 2017 seems to only bring good news for Sentinel. Milton-Lloyd, the well-loved UK brand known for their amazing fragrances, has also joined forces with Sentinel in order to collaborate on their 2017 strategy. The changes are already evident. It caused something of a makeover for the Sentinel office, with the team surrounded by Milton-Lloyds World Class product range. If the Oracle Excellence awards create a category for Most Aromatic Partner, Sentinel will surely be a nominee.Meet SentinelA team of IT professionals that operates in the UK and the EU with its full-time developers based in and around Europe. By embracing the latest technologies, we are able to slash development costs you have with the smart use of location and communication.SENTINELGemini House136-140 Old Shoreham RoadBrighton, BN3 7BDUnited Kingdomemail:hello@sentinelactive.com
True Fleet Market Germany: Easter holidays are affecting April results

www.dataforce.de

Three working days less compared to April 2016 had undoubtedly a serious (negative) impact on April `17s performance. Minus 8.0% for the German passenger car market overall is the weakest output this year so far. While the Private Market was declining by -8.1% True Fleet registrations were even down by -14.6%. As a result, the year-to-date fleet performance turned slightly negative ( 1.0%).Within the Top 10 Mercedes (3rd) and BMW (4th) were the only brands changing their positions. Seat was the only brand to increase its volume over last years April and reported a +7.9%. Opel in 7th place succeeded in achieving exactly the same amount of new registrations as in last years April.Outside the Top 10 Peugeot and Fiat performed impressively, both gaining five positions. Peugeot ranked 11th with a growth of +26.7% which was mainly driven by the new 3008 and the all-new Peugeot Traveller, the passenger car version of the 3rd generation Expert. Within Fiat (12th, +18.1%) the Ducato and Tipo were especially successful and additionally supported by the Italians two new entries of the 124 Spider and Talento.Although both direct end customer channels  Private and True Fleets  were clearly below the comparison month, some brands reported growing volumes in both channels. Among the volume brands Fiat, Seat and Suzuki increased their registrations. The same is true for Alfa Romeo, Infiniti, Maserati, Subaru and Tesla.What a close battle between the different vehicle segments in April. The three segments in the lead (SUV, Middle-Class and Compact Cars) were only 75 registrations apart from each other and achieved market shares of 20.4%, 20.3% and 20.3% respectively. Behind the Top 3 the spread between Utilities, Higher Middle Class and Small Cars was very close as well with shares of 8.0%, 7.9% and 7.7%.DATAFORCE  Focus on FleetsDataforce is the leading provider of fleet market data and automotive intelligence solutions in Europe. In addition, the company also provides detailed information on sales opportunities for the automotive industry, together with a wide portfolio of information based on primary market research and consulting services. The company is based in Frankfurt, Germany.Michael GergenDataforce Verlagsgesellschaft fur Business Informationen mbHHamburger Allee 1460486 Frankfurt am MainGermanyPhone: +49 69 95930-231Fax: +49 69 95930-333Email: michael.gergen@dataforce.de
Nursing Pads Market 2017- Pigeon, NUK, Dacco, AVENT, LilyPadz Nursing Pads, Bamboobies, Ameda, Medela

Nursing Pads Market

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MarketReports.biz, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Nursing Pads Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Nursing Pads Market" from view of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries. The research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the global Nursing Pads industry, and estimates the future trend of Nursing Pads market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Nursing Pads Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportPigeonNUKDaccoAVENTLilyPadz Nursing PadsBamboobiesAmedaMedelaCHUCHUDry MamaMilkiesLanacareIvoryKailiRikangZhejiang HuilunPiyo PiyoGood BoyXi Kang YingThe market research report explores the Nursing Pads market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Nursing Pads Market". The research report studies the entire value chain from raw material to end user industries. The report also shares import/export statistics along with production and consumption for all major regions and countries. Moreover, the research study classifies the Nursing Pads market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Nursing Pads. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Nursing Pads market. The report further provides production, capacity, price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Nursing Pads is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Nursing Pads market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Nursing Pads market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The worldwide Nursing Pads market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Nursing Pads production volume, data pertaining to demand and Nursing Pads supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Nursing Pads along with detailed manufacturing sources. The report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, SWOT analysis and market attractiveness analysis has been implemented in the research study to present a comprehensive, detailed study of the industry for Nursing Pads across the world.About UsMarketReports.biz offers elevating market research worldwide. We have collection of various syndicated reports of different fields. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact UsFrank Valadez155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Toll Free: +1-855-918-5551 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +17739042683Web:Email: sales@marketreports.biz
Global Industrial Wireless Remote Control Market Analysis, Market Size, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies, and Forecasts, 2022

Industrial Wireless Remote Control

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Industrial Wireless Remote Control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a mining machinery, industrial driving and concrete pump truck used for operating the device wirelessly. Remote control has continually evolved and advanced over recent years to include bluetooth connectivity, motion sensor-enabled capabilities and voice control.Get Free Sample Copy of this Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Industrial Wireless Remote Control 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 covers:HBCHetronic GroupLaird(Cattron Group)OMNEX(Eaton)IkusiTele RadioNBBScanrecoAutecGreen ElectricAkerstromsYudingShizeRemote Control Technology3-ELITE PTEITOWAJAY ElectroniqueWicontekLodarMarket 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:Pushbutton TypeJoystick TypeMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Industry & LogisticsConstruction CraneMobile HydraulicsForestryMiningOthersBrowse full report with Table of Content @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Industrial Wireless Remote Control market.Chapter 1, to describe Industrial Wireless Remote Control Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Industrial Wireless Remote Control, with sales, revenue, and price of Industrial Wireless Remote Control, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Industrial Wireless Remote Control, 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, Industrial Wireless Remote Control market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Industrial Wireless Remote Control sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Industrial Wireless Remote Control Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Pushbutton Type1.2.2 Joystick Type1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Industry & Logistics1.3.2 Construction Crane1.3.3 Mobile Hydraulics1.3.4 Forestry1.3.5 Mining1.3.6 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market DynamicsEnquiry Before Buying@About Us:GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:John+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.com
Oxo Alcohol Market 2017- LG Chem, BAX Chemicals, Eastman Chemical, Dow Chemical, BASF Petronas

Oxo Alcohol Market

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https://goo.gl/UhIrjb

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MarketReports.biz, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Oxo Alcohol Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Oxo Alcohol Market" from view of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries. The research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the global Oxo Alcohol industry, and estimates the future trend of Oxo Alcohol market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Oxo Alcohol Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportLG ChemBAX ChemicalsEastman ChemicalDow ChemicalBASF PetronasExxonMobil ChemicalQatar PetroleumAndhra PetrochemicalsArkemaEvonik IndustriesThe market research report explores the Oxo Alcohol market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Oxo Alcohol Market". The research report studies the entire value chain from raw material to end user industries. The report also shares import/export statistics along with production and consumption for all major regions and countries. Moreover, the research study classifies the Oxo Alcohol market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Oxo Alcohol. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Oxo Alcohol market. The report further provides production, capacity, price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Oxo Alcohol is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Oxo Alcohol market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Oxo Alcohol market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The worldwide Oxo Alcohol market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Oxo Alcohol production volume, data pertaining to demand and Oxo Alcohol supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Oxo Alcohol along with detailed manufacturing sources. The report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, SWOT analysis and market attractiveness analysis has been implemented in the research study to present a comprehensive, detailed study of the industry for Oxo Alcohol across the world.About UsMarketReports.biz offers elevating market research worldwide. We have collection of various syndicated reports of different fields. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact UsFrank Valadez155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Toll Free: +1-855-918-5551 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +17739042683Web:Email: sales@marketreports.biz
Mobile Hydrulic Dock Ramp - Manufacturer & Supplier by Technovision Engineers Pvt. Ltd.

http://technovisionengrs.com/contact.php

http://www.technovisionengrs.com

Mobile Hydrulic Dock RampTechnovision Engineers PVT. LTD. is one of the well-established manufacturer and supplier of Mobile Hydrulic Dock Ramp.Application:Useful to bridge the height difference between the shop floor and the vehicle platform. This equipment can be carried from one place to another with the help of Forklift. Mostly used for container loading and unloading by forklift.Range:UDL Capacity varies from 6T/9T/10T/12T/15T.Overall size is 13.1M x 2.1MNote:Hydraulic control is available with AC power pack and Manually Operated hydraulic hand pump.Request For Free Catalogue:About UsTechnovision Engineers Pvt. Ltd. is one of the leading manufacturer of material handling equipments. The core focus of the company lies in superior quality and excellent customer service. With expertise in the industry and constant innovation in the industry, the company also undertakes turnkey projects with design, manufacturing, supply, erection and commissioning activities. The company is one of the front runners in Lean Manufacturing Solutions in India with an ISO 9001-2008 certification. The production house has the capability to conduct in-house R & D and the company possesses exceptional talent for designing in terms of manpower, knowledge and technology. The company owns two manufacturing set-ups and total area of 28000 sq. ft. with all manufacturing and design equipments. TEPL is known to deliver state of the art contemporary designs with their range of material handling equipments.Contact UsTechnovision Engineers Private LimitedGat No. 1559-1560,Dehu Alandi Road, Shelarvasti, ChikaliPune, Maharashtra- 412114, IndiaPhone 020- 66346500 / 513Email contactus@technovisionengrs.comWebsite
Mobile Conveyor - Manufacturer & Supplier by Technovision Engineers Pvt. Ltd.

http://technovisionengrs.com/contact.php

http://www.technovisionengrs.com

Mobile ConveyorTechnovision Engineers Pvt. Ltd. are a leading Manufacturer of Mobile Conveyor from Pune, India.General:We specialize in manufacturing qualitative range of Mobile Conveyor which find wide application in various fields to move diverse unit loads & bulk materials.The excellence of our organization lies in offering Portable Mobile Conveyor to our clients.We are one of the most popular type of material handling equipments .There is an excellent range of this conveyor available with us.These are versatile, reliable industrial conveyors light in weight for easy movability.These conveyors are endless belt made of PU, rubber,Plastic,moduller or PVC as per the requirement of material to be handled. This belt traverses between two or more pulleys and supported by idler rolls or slider bed. These conveyors find excellent use in flour mills,warehouses, sugar industries,fmcg,distilleries, chemical industries, food grains storages etc. where bulk quantities of bags, boxes are to conveyed for loading/unloading into trucks, containers or stacking/ de-stacking in warehouses. Mobile belt conveyors can move materials at variable speed or constant speed as per the client requirement. Mobile belt conveyors include flat belt, trough belt and metal/wooden slat stacker conveyors.Application:Mobile Conveyor widely used for loading and unloading of bags, carton boxes in various industries. Widely used in sugar industries, distilleries, pharmaceuticals , packaging industries, warehouses.Capacity:5 kg to 500 kgsFeatures:Very smooth conveyenceMan power reductionLess time consumptionEasy Towable TransportMany moreRequest For Free Catalogue:About UsTechnovision Engineers Pvt. Ltd. is one of the leading manufacturer of material handling equipments. The core focus of the company lies in superior quality and excellent customer service. With expertise in the industry and constant innovation in the industry, the company also undertakes turnkey projects with design, manufacturing, supply, erection and commissioning activities. The company is one of the front runners in Lean Manufacturing Solutions in India with an ISO 9001-2008 certification. The production house has the capability to conduct in-house R & D and the company possesses exceptional talent for designing in terms of manpower, knowledge and technology. The company owns two manufacturing set-ups and total area of 28000 sq. ft. with all manufacturing and design equipments. TEPL is known to deliver state of the art contemporary designs with their range of material handling equipments.Contact UsTechnovision Engineers Private LimitedGat No. 1559-1560,Dehu Alandi Road, Shelarvasti, ChikaliPune, Maharashtra- 412114, IndiaPhone 020- 66346500 / 513Email contactus@technovisionengrs.comWebsite
Worldwide Asparaginase Market Opportunities 2017-2022  ReportsWeb

ReportsWeb

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http://www.reportsweb.com/global-asparaginase-market-research-report-2017

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This report studies Asparaginase in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringJinan Welcome Biochemical Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd.Guangzhou Baiyuan Shanmingxing Pharmaceutical Co.,Ltd.GIHIRequest a sample of this report @Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Asparaginase in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast) , likeNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoFood GradeMedical GradeSplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Asparaginase in each application, can be divided intoFood IndustryPharmaOtherBrowse Complete Report @Some points from TOC:Global Asparaginase Market Research Report 20171 Asparaginase Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Asparaginase1.2 Asparaginase Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Asparaginase by Type in 20151.2.2 Food Grade1.2.3 Medical Grade1.3 Asparaginase Segment by Application1.3.1 Asparaginase Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 Food Industry1.3.3 Pharma1.3.4 Other1.4 Asparaginase Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Asparaginase (2011-2021)2 Global Asparaginase Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Asparaginase Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Asparaginase Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Asparaginase Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Asparaginase Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Asparaginase Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Asparaginase Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Asparaginase Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)3.1 Global Asparaginase Capacity and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.2 Global Asparaginase Production and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.3 Global Asparaginase Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.4 Global Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.5 North America Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.6 Europe Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.7 China Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.8 Japan Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.9 Southeast Asia Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.10 India Asparaginase Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)4 Global Asparaginase Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.1 Global Asparaginase Consumption by Regions (2011-2016)4.2 North America Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)4.3 Europe Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)4.4 China Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)4.5 Japan Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)4.6 Southeast Asia Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)4.7 India Asparaginase Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2011-2016)Purchase a copy of this report @Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comOrganization: ReportsWebPhone: +1-646-491-9876ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. The market research industry has changed in last decade. As corporate focus has shifted to niche markets and emerging countries, a number of publishers have stepped in to fulfil these information needs. We have experienced and trained staff that helps you navigate different options and lets you choose best research solution at most effective cost.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Photocatalyst Market Global and Chinese Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunities, and Forecast 2017-2022

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The 'Global and Chinese Photocatalyst Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Photocatalyst industry with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Photocatalyst manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.Request a sample of this report @Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2012-2017 market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of Photocatalyst industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export. The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2017-2022 market development trends of Photocatalyst industry. Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out. In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of Photocatalyst Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2012-2022 global and Chinese Photocatalyst industry covering all important parameters.Browse Complete Report @Some points from TOC:Chapter One Introduction of Photocatalyst Industry1.1 Brief Introduction of Photocatalyst1.2 Development of Photocatalyst Industry1.3 Status of Photocatalyst IndustryChapter Two Manufacturing Technology of Photocatalyst2.1 Development of Photocatalyst Manufacturing Technology2.2 Analysis of Photocatalyst Manufacturing Technology2.3 Trends of Photocatalyst Manufacturing TechnologyPurchase a copy of this report @Chapter Three Analysis of Global Key Manufacturers3.13.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Product Information3.1.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.1.4 Contact Information3.23.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Product Information3.2.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.2.4 Contact Information3.33.2.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Product Information3.3.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.3.4 Contact Information3.43.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Product Information3.4.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.4.4 Contact Information3.53.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Product Information3.5.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.5.4 Contact Information3.63.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Product Information3.5.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.6.4 Contact Information3.73.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Product Information3.7.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.7.4 Contact Information3.83.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Product Information3.8.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.8.4 Contact Information............ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. The market research industry has changed in last decade. As corporate focus has shifted to niche markets and emerging countries, a number of publishers have stepped in to fulfil these information needs. We have experienced and trained staff that helps you navigate different options and lets you choose best research solution at most effective cost.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Digital Innovators: From Artificial Intelligence to Personalisation 2.0

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Companies have been collecting petabytes of data, but to date struggle to make sense of it all. Artificial intelligence is enabling brands to better synthesise and incorporate those learnings into efforts to create a more personalised consumer experience. This report explores 10 innovative ways companies are leveraging artificial intelligence to move commerce into the next era of personalisation. Strategy Briefings offer unique insight into emerging trends world-wide. Aimed squarely at strategists and planners, they draw on.Download PDF Sample of Digital Innovators Market@Euromonitor Internationals vast information resources to give top line insight across markets and within consumer segments. Written by some of our most experienced analysts, they are designed as provocations for senior management to use in their own forum, allowing them to stand back and reflect on the behaviour and motivation driving global markets today and tomorrowBrowse Full Report with TOC:Product coverage: Digital Innovators, Other Hot Drinks, Tea.Data coverage: market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.Why buy this report? Identify factors driving change now and in the future Understand motivation Forward-looking outlook Briefings and presentation should provoke lively discussion at senior level Take a step back from micro trends Get up to date estimatesPlace Purchase Order for this Report@Table of Content:Executive SummaryDigital Innovators: From Artificial Intelligence to Personalisation 2.0Euromonitor International April 2017 Introduction From Artificial Intelligence to Personalisation 2.0Orbis Research is a single point aid for all your Market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customised reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialisation. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required Market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email ID: sales@orbisresearch.com
Worldwide Primary Care Doctor Market Key Trends & Industry Forecast 2015 - 2023

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A primary care doctor, also known as a primary care physician, is a medical practitioner who consults patients suffering from common medical problems, and refers them to a specialist if advanced treatment is required. Given this basic yet pivotal role of primary care doctors and the rising demand for primary healthcare, the global primary care doctor market will expand at a steady rate over the next few years, says a report by Transparency Market Research. The report, titled Primary Care Doctor Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015  2023, projects the future of the primary care doctor market based on drivers, restraints, opportunities, trends, and the competitive scenario.TMR analysts also state that regulatory changes in the United States will have a far-reaching impact on the global primary care doctor market; private healthcare is now affordable more U.S. citizens following a round of federal reforms in the insurance sector in the recent past.Obtain Report Details @The report meticulously studies the primary care doctor market based on criteria such as type of treatment and geography. Based on the former, the report segments the primary care doctor market into family medicine doctors, pediatricians, gynecologists or obstetricians, internal medicine doctors, and geriatricians.The key regional markets studied in the report include: North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America is identified as the leading region in the primary care doctor market, while Europe is the second-largest market. A number of favorable reforms recently introduced in the United States will augur well for the lead that North America currently has in the primary care doctor market. As more people in the United States strive to maintain a healthy lifestyle well into their 70s and 80s, the role of primary care physicians becomes even more crucial. In 2015, in the United States, about 176,893 primary care physicians were licensed to practice internal medicine.Multiple emerging economies in the Asia Pacific region will contribute heavily to the creation of a multimillion-dollar primary care doctor market in the region. However, the primary care doctors market in the Asia Pacific region will benefit from the relatively affordable level of care offered by physicians here and the setting up of new medical infrastructure that willHowever, restraints such as an erosion in the quality of care and misdistribution will create challenges for the growth of the primary care doctor market. The report on the primary care doctor market provides a detailed analysis of the current and projected landscape of the primary care doctor market globally and for leading national markets.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Global Pressure Therapy Units Market 2017 : METRUM CRYOFLEX, Globus Italia, Devon Medical, Drive Medical

Pressure Therapy Units

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Global Pressure Therapy Units Market 2016 - 2017A market study based on the " Pressure Therapy Units Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Pressure Therapy Units Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Pressure Therapy Units industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Pressure Therapy Units market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research Report1.Devon Medical2.Bejing Eternal Medical3.METRUM CRYOFLEX4.Globus Italia5.Salon6.Always Beauty Company7.Elmi GmbH.8.GIRALDIN G. & C.9.Bristol Maid Hospital Metalcraft10.Drive MedicalThe report studies the industry for Pressure Therapy Units across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Pressure Therapy Units market & dynamics of demand and supply of Pressure Therapy Units into consideration. The ' Pressure Therapy Units ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Pressure Therapy Units market globally, which starts from the definition of the Pressure Therapy Units industry and develops towards Pressure Therapy Units market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Pressure Therapy Units market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Pressure Therapy Units market. The geographical segmentation of the Pressure Therapy Units industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Pressure Therapy Units is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Pressure Therapy Units market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Pressure Therapy Units market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Pressure Therapy Units market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Pressure Therapy Units production volume, data regarding demand and Pressure Therapy Units supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Pressure Therapy Units across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
Global Emery Cloth Market Research Report 2017 Sandpaper, Paper, Textile, 3M, The Home Depot, Abrasive, Emery paper

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This study highlights current dynamics and developments in the Emery Cloth Market. The report incorporates in-depth analysis of the market growth drivers as well as the inhibiting factors in the Emery Cloth market. The scope of the report covers an extensive evaluation pertaining to the winning imperatives and stakeholder strategies through a presentation of the segmentation of Emery Cloth market in the report.Do Inquiry before Purchasing Report Here:The numerous factors stimulating this market have been evaluated in the sections of this report. Along with the regional analysis, the current trends in the Emery Cloth market, coupled with the reasons behind the development of some unique segments, have additionally been described in this Emery Cloth market report. The report highlights the competitive landscape by elaborating on the current mergers and acquisitions (M&A), product developments, and venture funding that took place in the Emery Cloth market in the recent past.The section pertaining to the company profiles explains the dominance of the key players in the Emery Cloth market and an evaluation on the major strategies employed by these key players in order to gain a bigger share in the Emery Cloth market. This will help enhance the understanding on the competitors as well as help in gaining strong insights for strengthening ones position in the Emery Cloth market.Related Topics of Emery Cloth MarketRISING TopicEmeryBearingScotch-BriteScotch TapeLatheDrillSandCrankshaftAbrasiveRequest For Sample Report Here:There are numerous factors that are considered in order to provide the analysis and forecast of the Emery Cloth market. Some of the factors are technological, political, social, and economic Emery Cloth market factors. Various analytical tools such as Porters Five Forces Analysis and Emery Cloth market SWOT analysis are utilized to analyze the data of the Emery Cloth market and help provide a better understanding of the market. The data has been presented via charts, tables, and graphics in Emery Cloth market research report. This visual presentation of the data is very useful in providing a clearer view of the leading applications, end users, and key segments of the Emery Cloth market.9D Research Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Contact UsJoel JohnTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales@9dresearchgroup.comWeb:
Global Wall Mounted Gas Boiler Market 2017: Focuses on top players Vaillant, Squirrel, BOSCH, Vanward, Baxi, Ariston, Immergas

Wall Mounted Gas Boiler

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The Wall Mounted Gas Boiler research report by QY Research represents an inclusive evaluation of the Global Wall Mounted Gas Boiler Market and comprises considerable insights, historical data, facts, and statistical and industry-validated data of the global market. Additionally, it consists of estimated data that is evaluated with the help of suitable set of methodologies and assumptions. The research report highlights informative data and in-depth analysis of Wall Mounted Gas Boiler market and its corresponding segments that are based on technology, geography, and applications.The examination on value chain of Wall Mounted Gas Boiler market is provided which covers the growth factors and restraints of the industry along with the key market competitors.To Request Sample Copy Of This Report:The report comprises precise information, comprehensive analysis in two waysqualitative and quantitativeindustry experts inputs, and information provided by industry analysts and industry participants involved in the entire value chain. The report highlights exhaustive study of major market and their present trends, along with corresponding market segments. The Wall Mounted Gas Boiler report also provides data regarding various market factors and their impact on the overall market and its segments.Global Research report analyzes the scope of Wall Mounted Gas Boiler industry including size, share, analysis, sales, supply, production, definition, specification, classification, demands, application, forecast trends, industry policy, and news. The report focuses on regional as well as global market, its key players, along with market segments including detailed study on various divisions and its applications. The report provides comprehensive information on each and every segment covered of the Wall Mounted Gas Boiler market.Furthermore, the report evaluated major market points such as production, revenue, capacity utilization rate, gross, price, capacity, gross margin, supply, cost, demand, export, consumption, import, growth rate, market share, and so on.Browse Complete Report At:The global Wall Mounted Gas Boiler market report is a helpful source which assists manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, customers, and individuals and investors who have interest in this market.Notes:Sales, means the sales volume of Wall Mounted Gas BoilerRevenue, means the sales value of Wall Mounted Gas BoilerThis report studies sales (consumption) of Wall Mounted Gas Boiler in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringVaillantSquirrelBOSCHVanwardBaxiAristonImmergasAbout Us:MRS Research Group is the worlds giant collection of the Market research Reports. Where we specialized in global publisher, tailor made reports and specialists consulting. Global Publisher provides in-depth analysis of global and Chinese market. Tailor-made reports represent methodologies deliverable to proper insight of the client. While, expertise research specialist helps to provide strategic solution in specialists consulting. It consists of head such as, latest report, category, niche market and news. Reports published on the million of category like chemical, machinery and equipment, consumer goods, manufacturing and construction etc. Latest national, international, business News published under news portal.3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,Tel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Specialty Gases Market for Healthcare Industry: Startup Strategy Resources, Grow Pricing Activity and Forecasts to 2022

Specialty Gases Market

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Research analysts forecast the global specialty gases market for healthcare industry to grow at a CAGR of 7.46% during the period 2017-2021.Specialty gases are a class of high-purity gases that require precise blending of component gases in a gas mixture. Specialized preparation methods and laboratory analysis are used to quantify the component gases in the mixture of gases. This is to obtain high-quality gases with minimal impurities. Advanced production processes, instrumentation, and analytical measurements require high-purity gases for minimal interference in the processes. Specialty gases are different from industrial gases in the sense that they can be a highly pure single gas or can be a mixture of 20-30 gases. The impurity tolerance for specialty gases is set by the end users that require an accuracy of 1%.Request sample copy of this report at:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global specialty gases market for healthcare industry for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEAResearch report, Global Specialty Gases market for Healthcare Industry 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.Read more details of the report at:Key vendors Air Liquide Air Products and Chemicals The Linde Group Messer Group Praxair TechnologyOther prominent vendors Advanced Gas Technologies Advanced Specialty Gases Maine Oxy Norco Showa Denko TAIYO NIPPON SANSO WelscoMarket driver Flourishing medical tourism industry in APAC. For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge High dependence on gas distribution systems and gas handling systems. For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend Increasing per capita expenditure on healthcare. For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.Company Mentioned:Air Liquide, Air Products and Chemicals, The Linde Group, Messer Group, Praxair Technology, Advanced Gas Technologies, Advanced Specialty Gases, Maine Oxy, Norco, Showa Denko, TAIYO NIPPON SANSO, and Welsco.Enquire more details of the report at: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.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019
Global Large Circular Knitting Machine Market 2022 - Industry Survey, Market Size, Competitive Trends, Outlook and Forecasts

Large Circular Knitting Machine

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Large Circular knitting machines is a machine by which tubular and seamless fabrics are produced using knitting with circular needles and shaping the fabric by varying the tension or length of the knitting stitches is called circular knitting machine. It is a technique of knitting in circular or tubular form with curved or straight needles for making knitting stitches. There are several types of circular knitting machines which produce long lengths of tubular fabric and quite often they are manufactured. This machine is used for single plain cloth, elastic cloth etc. being used for apparel textiles, home textiles, technical textiles, etc.Get Free Sample Copy of this Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Large Circular Knitting Machine 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 covers:PailungBaiyuan MachineMayer & CieTerrotSantoniFukuharaTayuWellmadeOrizioHang XingHengyiHongjiTaifanSandaUnitexNan Sing MachineryMarket 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:Single Circular Knitting MachinesDouble Circular Knitting MachinesMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Apparel TextilesHome TextilesTechnical TextilesOthersBrowse full report with Table of Content @There are 19 Chapters to deeply display the Asia-Pacific Grinding Media marketChapter 1, to describe Large Circular Knitting Machine Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Large Circular Knitting Machine, with sales, revenue, and price of Large Circular Knitting Machine, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Large Circular Knitting Machine, 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, Large Circular Knitting Machine market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Large Circular Knitting Machine sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Large Circular Knitting Machine Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Single Circular Knitting Machines1.2.2 Double Circular Knitting Machines1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Apparel Textiles1.3.2 Home Textiles1.3.3 Technical Textiles1.3.4 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)Enquiry Before Buying@About Us:GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:John+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.com
Worldwide Fingerprint Biometrics Market Review, Development Trends and Forecasts to 2022

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ReportsWeb.com has announced the addition of the Global Fingerprint Biometrics Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 The report focuses on global major leading players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification.This report studies the global Fingerprint Biometrics market, analyzes and researches the Fingerprint Biometrics development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, like Safran, 3M Cogent, Crossmatch, Suprema, HID Global, NEC, Dermalog Identification Systems, M2SYS Technology, Northrop Grumman, Green Bit, Bio-key, ZKTeco and Integrated Biometrics.Purchase This Report -And Get,Discount on Report Purchase -Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. Market segment by Type, Fingerprint Biometrics can be split into Single Finger and Multi Finger. Market segment by Application, Fingerprint Biometrics can be split into Criminal and Civil.Get free sample copy of report atTable of Content1 Industry Overview of Fingerprint Biometrics2 Global Fingerprint Biometrics Competition Analysis by Players3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Safran3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 3M Cogent3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Crossmatch3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Suprema3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 HID Global3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 NEC3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Dermalog Identification Systems3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Fingerprint Biometrics Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments4 Global Fingerprint Biometrics Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)5 United States Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook6 EU Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook8 China Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook9 India Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Fingerprint Biometrics Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)12 Fingerprint Biometrics Market Dynamics13 Market Effect Factors AnalysisGet more information about Fingerprint Biometrics Market atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Global Spirometer Market 2017 : COSMED, FUKUDA SANGYO, NIHON KOHDEN, GANSHORN

Spirometer

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Global Spirometer Market 2016 - 2017A market study based on the " Spirometer Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Spirometer Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Spirometer industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Spirometer market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research Report1.PMD Healthcare2.COSMED3.FUKUDA SANGYO4.NIHON KOHDEN5.GANSHORN6.MEDIKRO7.CareFusion8.Schiller9.CHEST. MI.10.KONICA MINOLTA11.WELCH ALLYN12.Vitalograph13.SICHUAN SIKEDAThe report studies the industry for Spirometer across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Spirometer market & dynamics of demand and supply of Spirometer into consideration. The ' Spirometer ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Spirometer market globally, which starts from the definition of the Spirometer industry and develops towards Spirometer market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Spirometer market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Spirometer market. The geographical segmentation of the Spirometer industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Spirometer is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Spirometer market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Spirometer market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Spirometer market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Spirometer production volume, data regarding demand and Spirometer supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Spirometer across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
The market continues to build momentum with increasing demand for high yielding crops

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Middle-East and Africa Greenhouse Irrigation Systems Market " research report, published by Market Data Forecast estimates that the market is growing with a CAGR of 10.75% to reach USD 105.65 million by 2021, from USD 63.4 million in 2016.View Report atThe market continues to build momentum with increasing demand for high yielding crops and growing awareness about the benefits for greenhouse irrigation systems among farmers.Greenhouse Irrigation Systems market can be attributed as the market comprising of various types of irrigation systems used in a greenhouse. Greenhouses are usually used to provide favourable climatic conditions to plants. The plants which are cultivated in greenhouse demand adequate quantity of water to maintain high yield and appropriate growth. In a greenhouse, common irrigation techniques used are boom irrigation, drip irrigation etc.Request for free sample report atKey factors which affects and thereby shift the market dynamics are studied intrinsically and are presented in an illustrious way in the report. Some of those factors areNew developments in technologyincrease in greenhouse covered areasfocus on water usage efficiencybetter quality & yield of cropsdemand for varied crops round the yearrising populationlack of technical knowledgehigh maintenance costHuge initial investments.Request Customization atFor granular level understanding the Greenhouse Irrigation Systems Market is segmented based on type and application, each being provided with Market Size Estimations and Y-o-Y Forecasts.By TypeDrip Irrigation SystemMicro Sprinkler Irrigation SystemBoom Irrigation SystemBy ApplicationVegetablesFlowers & OrnamentalsFruit PlantsNursery CropsThe Middle-East and Africa market is also analyzed individually in both the regions, thereby providing a more detailed geographical understanding of the market. Some of the major countries that hold significant place in this market include Egypt, KSA, UAE, Nigeria and Algeria.Enquire before Buying atSome of the key players that operate in the Middle-East and Africa Greenhouse Irrigation Systems Market include Netafim Ltd., Rivulis Irrigation Ltd., Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., Valmont Industries Inc., The Toro Company, Lindsay Corporation, EPC Industries Limited, Rain Bird Corporation, Irritec S.P.A, Nelson Irrigation Corporation.Buy this report atThe Middle-East and Africa Greenhouse Irrigation Systems Market report offers wide-range of scope:Regional level analysis that provides an individual perspective of Middle-East and Africa region individually and on a wholeKnow more about key areas of industry growth via detailed Segment-level analysis on basis of type, application along with market size forecasts and y-o-y estimationsDetailed explanation of major drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges (DROC) that affect the market and impact the ever-shifting market dynamicsStrategic Analyses containing PESTLE and Porters Five Forces Analyses which are obtained by studying the macro & micro environmental factors that affect the market demographicsComprehensive listing of key market players along with Company overview, product portfolios, financials (subjected to availability), SWOT analysis and analyst overviewCompetitive landscape analysis listing out the mergers, acquisitions, collaborations in the field along with new product launches, comparative financial studies and recent developments in the market by the major companiesMarket Outlook - Investment opportunities devised by stand in experts to provide both individuals and organizations a strong financial foothold in the marketFor more reports related to the Agricultural Machinery Market:Wheeled tractor machinery Market:Center pivot irrigation systems Market:Micro irrigation systems Market:Center pivot irrigation systems Market:Drip Irrigation system Market:About Market Data Forecast:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, they cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. From all-encompassing umbrella markets to extremely specific niche markets covering all the major regions across the globe as part of the research scope, their research services offer one of a kind specialities with competitive pricing options. For more info kindly visit,Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@marketdataforecast.comVisit MarketDataForecast Blog @View latest Press Releases of MDF @
North America Industrial Metal Detectors Market Analysis, Size, Application and Geography - Global forecast 2022

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Industrial metal detectors indicate the presence of metal in nonconductive materials such as textiles, rubber, oils or liquids, plastics, powders, wood products, ceramics and glasses, and concrete. They are used to determine cleanliness or verify the absence of tramp metal in continuous or bulk products, as well as recycled materials. Applications include the detection of metal chips in pharmaceutical powders or preparations, nails or staples in wood, metal caps in crushed glass, and needles in fabric sheets. Industrial metal detectors are also used to verify the presence and location of metal such as buried electrical lines, piping behind walls, or reinforcing metal rebar in concrete. Airport metal detectors are used to detect guns, knives, bombs, and other weapons. Industrial metal detectors for security applications can also be used to detect metallic items that an individual is trying to smuggle into or out of a secure facility.Get Free Sample Copy of this Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Industrial Metal Detectors in North America market, especially in United States, Canada and Mexico. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, countries, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Mettler-ToledoEriezCEIALomaAnritsuSesotecMetal DetectionThermo FisherLock InspectionNikka DensokCassel MesstechnikVinSystForemostCOSOKetanShanghai ShenyiMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:United StatesCanadaMexicoMarket Segment by Type, covers:Metal Detector with ConveyorRectangular Aperture Metal DetectorGravity Fall Metal DetectorPipeline Liquid, Paste and Slurry Metal DetectorOthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Food IndustryPharmaceutical IndustryTextiles IndustryMining and Plastic IndustryOthersBrowse full report with Table of Content @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the North America Industrial Metal Detectors market.Chapter 1, to describe Industrial Metal Detectors Introduction, product type and application, market overview, market analysis by countries, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the manufacturers of Industrial Metal Detectors, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with profile, main business, news, sales, price, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the North America market by countries, covering United States, Canada and Mexico, with sales, revenue and market share of Industrial Metal Detectors, for each country, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5 and 6, to show the market by type and application, with sales, price, revenue, market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the segment market in United States, Canada and Mexico, by manufacturers, type and application, with sales, price, revenue and market share by manufacturers, types and applications;Chapter 10, Industrial Metal Detectors market forecast, by countries, type and application, with sales, price and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 11, to analyze the manufacturing cost, key raw materials and manufacturing process etc.Chapter 12, to analyze the industrial chain, sourcing strategy and downstream end users (buyers);Chapter 13, to describe sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers etc.Chapter 14 and 15, to describe Industrial Metal Detectors Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data sourceCheck for discount @Some points from TOC:-Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Industrial Metal Detectors Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Metal Detector with Conveyor1.2.2 Rectangular Aperture Metal Detector1.2.3 Gravity Fall Metal Detector1.2.4 Pipeline Liquid, Paste and Slurry Metal Detector1.2.5 Others1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Food Industry1.3.2 Pharmaceutical Industry1.3.3 Textiles Industry1.3.4 Mining and Plastic Industry1.3.5 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Countries1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 Mexico Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Canada Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Mettler-Toledo2.1.1 Profile2.1.2 Industrial Metal Detectors Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 2Enquiry Before Buying@About Us:GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:John+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.com
The driver who struck and killed 22-year-old Jack Koval while he crossed the West Side Highway last July has been issued a 90-day license suspension in New York, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Steven Oquendo, a 27-year-old police officer in Manhattan, had just gotten off work when the crash occurred last July 31st. According to police, Oquendo had the right-of-way when he struck Koval, who was crossing 12th Avenue at 46th Street against the light. He was not charged in the crash. But a DMV judge found grounds for a suspension this month after questioning Oquendo during a mandatory administrative hearing.

At the May hearing, Judge Marc Berger heard new witness testimony alleging that Oquendo was driving erratically when he struck and killed Koval. According to the witness, an Uber passenger, Oquendo accelerated quickly after the light changed at 46th Street and "suddenly changed lanes" before impact.

Berger did not have the Collision Investigation Squad report for Koval's case, a file that details the entire NYPD investigation, including witness testimony. The Kovals' attorney did his own legwork to track down the witness.

"I think it's super important that the judge saw that it was very possible that this driver was not obeying the law," Bobbi Koval, Jack's mother, told Gothamist Monday. "There are definitely some question marks in my mind. It's the first time we've gotten the idea, being told for nine months that it was Jack's fault, that it really probably wasn't."

Jack, who graduated from Emory University last spring, moved to New York City shortly after July 4th, 2016 to start a job as an analyst at Centerview Partners, a financial advisory firm. He was killed later that month. A preliminary police report included a false account of the circumstances: he did not, as was originally reported, jump a divider and step into oncoming traffic before he was killed.

Koval posted on Facebook today, after confirming Oquendo's suspension, noting that the news landed on Mother's Day.

DMV hearings, which are mandatory following any fatal crash, are held to determine whether a driver demonstrated "gross negligence" and acted "in a manner showing a reckless disregard for life or property of others," possibly meriting a license suspension or revocation. Advocates fought for DMV hearings to be more effective in 2014, after an administrative judge dismissed two traffic tickets incurred by the driver who struck and killed 3-year-old Allison Liao in a hearing that lasted less than a minute. In the years since, advocates say the hearings have given some victims' families a degree of closure, particularly considering that criminal charges against drivers are rare.

Attorney Daniel Flanzig, who is representing the Kovals, said that even license suspensions are not common.

"Obviously we'd rather see something more severe, but sanctions seem to be so rare we're happy to see they did it," he told Gothamist. "I've probably attended fifteen to twenty of these hearings. This one, and [the estate of] Matt Brenner are the two where there has been a revocation or suspension of a license."

Last August, Flanzig represented the estate of Matthew Brenner, a cyclist who was struck and killed by driver Caitlin Venedam in July 2014. Venedam was not charged in the crash, but evidence presented in the DMV hearing compelled a judge to revoke her license. Flanzig presented evidence that Venedam had been distracted at the wheel, looking at a GPS map on her phone. "Cops didn't have any of that," Flanzig said.

The Kovals plan to bring civil charges against Oquendo, and Flanzig said that the administrative DMV decision could strengthen their civil case. The DMV did not immediately provide the full decision on Oquendo's case, which includes information about any violations of the vehicle traffic law. "Any of those would be binding in a civil action," Flanzig said.

Oquendo testified during his DMV hearing that he changed lanes just before the crash in order to avoid striking a black SUV in front of him. He also denied allegations that he was speeding when he struck Koval.

"My condolences to your family and I'm sorry for your loss," Oquendo told the Kovals earlier this month. "I can't imagine what you guys are going through. I wish it never happened. I think about it every day. And, um, it's just an accident. I'm sorry that it happened. I really am. I wish it didn't."
Global Employee Training And Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) Market Will Reach At CAGR Of 7.37% Between 2017-2021

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"The Report Global Employee Training and Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) Market 2017-2021 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Employee Training and Applicant Tracking Software MarketATS is an application that manages various needs of an organization. It is comparable with CRM systems that are designed for recruitment tracking purposes. ATS collects and stores resumes of applicants in a database. It scans and indexes the resumes and provides recruiters an online view of the job seekers. The data about the job seekers is either collected from internal applications via ATS or extracted from social networking platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+. ATS solutions provide easy access, transparency, and step-by-step processes to apply for a suitable job. These features enhance the experience of candidates.Technavios analysts forecast the global employee training and applicant tracking software market to grow at a CAGR of 7.37% during the period 2017-2021.Get Sample Copy of this report @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global employee training and applicant tracking software market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Employee Training and Applicant Tracking Software Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsEtQHalogen SoftwareMasterControlWCAS-QuickBaseOther prominent vendorsConvergePointCulture AmpIntelex TechnologiesLitmos by CallidusCloudSkyPrepMarket driverGrowing need for strategic and improved hiring decisions.For a full, detailed list, view our reportView Report @Market challengeThreat from open-source software.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendIncreasing use of social media.For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.Table of ContentsPART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Research MethodologyPART 04: IntroductionKey market highlightsPART 05: Market landscapeMarket overviewPART 06: Market size and forecastMarket size and forecastPART 07: Market segmentation by deployment modelMarket segmentation by deployment modelCloud-basedOn-premisesPART 08: Market segmentation by end-usersMarket segmentation by end-usersPART 09: Geographical segmentationGeographical segmentationAmericasEMEAAPACPART 10: Decision frameworkMarketResearchReports.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.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Home Furnishings Market Key Trends, Size, Growth, Shares And Forecast Research 2016-2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Home Furnishings Market 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The home furnishings market will show positive growth during the forecast period. The growing globalization of companies has played a major role in driving the market, allowing top players to expand their operations and meet customer needs across boundaries. An increasing preference for premium or luxury home furnishing products, a rise in household disposable incomes, and rapid globalization are also contributing to the growth of the market, particularly in developing countries in APAC, the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America during the forecast period.Technavios analysts forecast the global home furnishings market to grow at a CAGR of 5.36% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global home furnishings market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report takes into account revenue generated from retail sales of the following home furnishing products:Home furnitureHome textilesFloor coveringsThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEuropeMEATo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Technavio's report, Global Home Furnishings Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsBed Bath & BeyondIKEAMacy'sWalmartOther prominent vendors9to5 SeatingAmazonATG StoresBerco Furniture SolutionClarinCarrefourCostco WholesaleCreative WoodGodrej & BoyceHNIHerman MillerGodrej & BoyceJ.C. PenneyKIKnollSteinhoff InternationalTargetTescoWayfairMarket driverIncrease in demand for luxury home furnishingsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeHigh costs of logisticsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendIncreasing influence of interior designFor 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 @
Glucose Biosensors Market Worldwide Industry Volume By Region 2016 - 2024

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Global Glucose Biosensors Market: OverviewGlucose biosensors are extensively being used for measuring concentration of glucose in diabetic patients. Proteins including nucleic acids, enzymes, and others are some of the popularly used biosensors to understand the glucose levels in a patient. The global glucose biosensors market is experiencing a growth spurt due to increasing number of diabetic patients across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that about 347 million people are diagnosed with high blood sugar levels across the globe. In light of this statistic, the organization also states that diabetes is expected to be the leading cause of death by the end of 2030. Needless to say that the increasing prevalence of diabetes in the world is likely to be the primary growth driver for the global glucose biosensors market in the near future.The research report by Transparency Market Research presents a detailed explanation about the global glucose biosensors market. It explains the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats impacting the segments of the global market with the help of a SWOT analysis. Additionally, the report also includes unbiased opinions of market leaders to help readers gain a fresh perspective toward the changing market dynamics.Obtain Report Details @Global Glucose Biosensors Market: Key TrendsThe growing need and an urgency amongst diabetics for better disease management is expected augment the demand for glucose biosensors. The two types of glucose biosensors available in the global market are amprometric glucose biosensors and fluorescence glucose biosensors. Of these, the demand for the former is expected to show steady demand in the global market due to its wide availability. Amprometric glucose biosensors oxidize glucose which leads to production of hydrogen peroxide. This is then identified by electrode, which aids the understanding of glucose concentration in the bloodstream.However, tremendous innovation in the fluorescence technique is expected to bolster the growth of the fluorescent glucose biosensors segment as well. The demand for these biosensors is expected to show a gradual rise as they are known to measure the glucose concentration with utmost accuracy. Furthermore, the life of probe of fluorescence biosensors is higher than amprometric biosensor, which is expected to play an instrumental role in the helping this supporting this segment.Global Glucose Biosensors Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global glucose biosensors market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Of these, North America is estimated to lead the global glucose biosensors market. The better and quicker adoption of technology in the region along with advantage of innovation are expected to keep North America at forefront of the global market. Analysts expect that North America glucose biosensors market will also be supported to growing prevalence of diabetes in the region.Europe is also estimated to be a key contributor in the global market due to an ever-growing pool of geriatrics. The European Commission stated that 17.8% of the European population was over the age of 65 years in 2012. The uptake of glucose biosensors is expected to remain high across Europe as the region experience rise in the number of geriatrics. Asia Pacific too is estimated to present lucrative opportunities to the global market.Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:Some of the leading companies operating in the glucose biosensors market are Abbott Point Of Care, Inc., Lifesensors, Inc., Animas Corporation, Medtronic Diabetes, AgaMatrix, Inc., Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Inc., Nova Biomedical Corp., LifeScan, Inc., M-Biotech Limited, and F. Hoffman-La Roche among others.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Global Beach Coats Market Research Report 2017 Coat, Beach, hotel, Jacket, Winter, Dress, woman, Holiday

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This study highlights current dynamics and developments in the Beach Coats Market. The report incorporates in-depth analysis of the market growth drivers as well as the inhibiting factors in the Beach Coats market. The scope of the report covers an extensive evaluation pertaining to the winning imperatives and stakeholder strategies through a presentation of the segmentation of Beach Coats market in the report.Do Inquiry before Purchasing Report Here:The numerous factors stimulating this market have been evaluated in the sections of this report. Along with the regional analysis, the current trends in the Beach Coats market, coupled with the reasons behind the development of some unique segments, have additionally been described in this Beach Coats market report. The report highlights the competitive landscape by elaborating on the current mergers and acquisitions (M&A), product developments, and venture funding that took place in the Beach Coats market in the recent past.The section pertaining to the company profiles explains the dominance of the key players in the Beach Coats market and an evaluation on the major strategies employed by these key players in order to gain a bigger share in the Beach Coats market. This will help enhance the understanding on the competitors as well as help in gaining strong insights for strengthening ones position in the Beach Coats market.Related Topics of Beach Coats MarketRISING TopicPalm Beach County, FloridaWedding dressSalesTravelNew LookASOS.comRentingApartmentblackInsuranceCaliforniaHandbagRequest For Sample Report Here:There are numerous factors that are considered in order to provide the analysis and forecast of the Beach Coats market. Some of the factors are technological, political, social, and economic Beach Coats market factors. Various analytical tools such as Porters Five Forces Analysis and Beach Coats market SWOT analysis are utilized to analyze the data of the Beach Coats market and help provide a better understanding of the market. The data has been presented via charts, tables, and graphics in Beach Coats market research report. This visual presentation of the data is very useful in providing a clearer view of the leading applications, end users, and key segments of the Beach Coats market.9D Research Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics released by reputed private publishers and public organizations.Contact UsJoel JohnTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales@9dresearchgroup.comWeb:
New Survey Report on Evolving Market Access Strategies - Pricing and Reimbursement Landscape in Major Developed Pharmaceutical Markets

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Evolving Market Access Strategies - Pricing and Reimbursement Landscape in Major Developed Pharmaceutical Markets" to its huge collection of research reports.GBI Research's latest report, ""Evolving Market Access Strategies - Pricing and Reimbursement Landscape in Major Developed Pharmaceutical Markets"" assesses developments within the key elements of market access such as Health Economics and Outcome Research (HEOR), Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as well as pricing and reimbursements strategies for pharmaceutical products. This new report also discusses the need to integrate market access strategies earlier into the drug development process, in order to save time and costs related to conducting additional studies to prove the added benefits of a product. Additionally, our new study analyses the role of HTAs in market access and alternatives that could be used in cases where there is limited evidence. Detailed analysis of pricing and reimbursement policies in North America, five key European countries and Japan are also included in this report along with a myriad of relevant case studies. In order to gain optimum market access, companies have to analyze the economic benefit of the treatment, the level of competition and the required reimbursement support.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @ScopePayers continue to play an important role in market access. Products are increasingly being rejected for reimbursement, adversely affecting the market share of these products.- What strategies can pharmaceutical companies implement in order to overcome these challenges?HEOR plays a critical part in market access- How does HEOR help internal decision making?- How can a systemic value development plan (SVDP) optimize HEOR?- How do cost-effectiveness analyses play a role in the commercial success of a new product?HTA has gained importance in reimbursement decisions- What are the different concepts and general processes involved in HTA?- What are the key benefits of HTA?Pricing and reimbursement are the key elements of market access- What are the most important factors considered in pricing decisions?- What are the pricing and reimbursement policies in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan?Table of ContentExecutive SummaryIntroductionHealth Economic and Outcomes Research (HEOR)A Systemic Value Development Plan for HEORTypes of Economic EvaluationsOverview of Cost-Effectiveness AnalysisQuality-Adjusted Life Year in HEORPharmacoeconomic Modelling MethodsHealth Technology Assessment (HTA) in Market AccessKey Benefits of HTAProcess and Dimensions of HTAPrinciple HTA Regulatory AgenciesCase StudiesRisk Sharing Agreements When Limited Evidence is Available for HTAPricing and ReimbursementFactors Affecting Pricing DecisionPricing of a New DrugPharmaceutical Pricing Policies in the USImpact Of Affordable Care Act on Market AccessCase StudiesPharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies in CanadaPharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies in Europe (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain)Case StudiesParallel Trade in EuropePharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies in JapanEconomic Analysis Alongside Clinical TrialsHarmonization of Drug Approval and Marketing for Effective Market AccessKey Challenges for Achieving Optimum Market AccessKey TakeawaysMake 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 @
Equatorial Guinea: Expansion of 3G Services and Investments in Fiber to Fuel Growth

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Equatorial Guinea: Expansion of 3G Services and Investments in Fiber to Fuel Growth"DescriptionThe telecommunications market in Equatorial Guinea is estimated to have reached $84m in service revenue in 2016. The telecom services revenue in Equatorial Guinea is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% during 2016-2021, driven by growth in mobile data and fiber broadband. Mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment in the telecom market. Going forward, government focus on network upgrades, the rollout of fiber connections and investments in 3G technology will provide opportunities for investors.Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Equatorial Guinea is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% during 2016-2021, mainly driven by 3G services and fiber connectivity.- Operators are focusing on modernizing existing networks and launching new service offerings, such as value-added services, to increase revenue.- Mobile revenue will account for 74.0% of the total telecom revenue in 2021; mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment over 2016-2021.- The Equatorial Guinea telecom market will be dominated by Getesa-Orange. Operators will focus on improving mobile services and deployment of a countrywide fiber-optic network.Synopsis"Equatorial Guinea: Expansion of 3G Services and Investments in Fiber to Fuel Growth" a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Equatorial Guinea today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband and mobile sectors, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Equatorial Guinea compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Equatorial Guinea.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice and data from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Equatorial Guinea's telecommunication market.Request Sample Copy of This Report at:ReasonsToBuy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Equatorial Guinea's telecommunications market, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Equatorial Guinea's mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Equatorial Guinea's telecommunications market.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Equatorial Guinea.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at: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 researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. 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Global 3D Bioprinting Industry Key Trends, Size, Growth, Shares And Forecast Research Report 2017

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global 3D Bioprinting Industry 2017, Trends and Forecast Report" to its huge collection of research reports.3D Bioprinting Report by Material, Application, and Geography Global Forecast to 2021 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).The report firstly introduced the 3D Bioprinting basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.The report includes six parts, dealing with:1.) basic information;2.) the Asia 3D Bioprinting Market;3.) the North American 3D Bioprinting Market;4.) the European 3D Bioprinting Market;5.) market entry and investment feasibility;6.) the report conclusion.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Table of ContentsPart I 3D Bioprinting Industry OverviewChapter One 3D Bioprinting Industry Overview1.1 3D Bioprinting Definition1.2 3D Bioprinting Classification Analysis1.2.1 3D Bioprinting Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 3D Bioprinting Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 3D Bioprinting Application Analysis1.3.1 3D Bioprinting Main Application Analysis1.3.2 3D Bioprinting Main Application Share Analysis1.4 3D Bioprinting Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 3D Bioprinting Industry Development Overview1.5.1 3D Bioprinting Product History Development Overview1.5.1 3D Bioprinting Product Market Development Overview1.6 3D Bioprinting Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.1 3D Bioprinting Global Import Market Analysis1.6.2 3D Bioprinting Global Export Market Analysis1.6.3 3D Bioprinting Global Main Region Market Analysis1.6.4 3D Bioprinting Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.5 3D Bioprinting Global Market Development Trend AnalysisChapter Two 3D Bioprinting Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend AnalysisPart II Asia 3D Bioprinting Industry (The Report Company Including the Below Listed But Not All)Chapter Three Asia 3D Bioprinting Market Analysis3.1 Asia 3D Bioprinting Product Development History3.2 Asia 3D Bioprinting Competitive Landscape Analysis3.3 Asia 3D Bioprinting Market Development TrendChapter Four 2012-2017 Asia 3D Bioprinting Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast4.1 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Capacity Production Overview4.2 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Production Market Share Analysis4.3 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Demand Overview4.4 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Supply Demand and Shortage4.5 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Import Export Consumption4.6 2012-2017 3D Bioprinting Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginChapter Five Asia 3D Bioprinting Key Manufacturers Analysis5.1 Company A5.1.1 Company Profile5.1.2 Product Picture and Specification5.1.3 Product Application Analysis5.1.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.1.5 Contact Information5.2 Company B5.2.1 Company Profile5.2.2 Product Picture and Specification5.2.3 Product Application Analysis5.2.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.2.5 Contact Information5.3 Company C5.3.1 Company Profile5.3.2 Product Picture and Specification5.3.3 Product Application Analysis5.3.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.3.5 Contact Information5.4 Company D5.4.1 Company Profile5.4.2 Product Picture and Specification5.4.3 Product Application Analysis5.4.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.4.5 Contact Information......Chapter Six Asia 3D Bioprinting Industry Development Trend6.1 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Capacity Production Overview6.2 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Production Market Share Analysis6.3 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Demand Overview6.4 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Supply Demand and Shortage6.5 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Import Export Consumption6.6 2017-2021 3D Bioprinting Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginMake 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 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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This report studies the global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery market, analyzes and researches the Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeIntuitive SurgicalHansen MedicalStryker CorpIRobot CorporationMAZOR RoboticsMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaRequest For Report Sample @Market segment by Type, Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery can be split intoElectrical EngineeringMechanical EngineeringComputer ScienceMarket segment by Application, Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery can be split intoHospitalClinicOtherTable of ContentsGlobal Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery1.1 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Overview1.1.1 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery 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 AsiaDownload full Report with TOC @1.3 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market by Type1.3.1 Electrical Engineering1.3.2 Mechanical Engineering1.3.3 Computer Science1.4 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Hospital1.4.2 Clinic1.4.3 Other2 Global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)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 Intuitive Surgical3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments4 Global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery5 United States Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)6 EU Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)7 Japan Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (2012-2017)7.2 Japan Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)8 China Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Development Status and Outlook8.1 China Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (2012-2017)8.2 China Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)9 India Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Development Status and Outlook9.1 India Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size (2012-2017)9.2 India Robotics-Assisted Telesurgery Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)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.QYResearchreportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Touch Screen Controllers Market Size, Competitors Strategy, Regional Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2022

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Market Research Future published a Half Cooked Research Report (HCRR) on Touch Screen Controllers MarketMarket Overview:Global Touch Screen Controllers Market is poised to reach at market size of USD 10 billion by end of year 2022 at growing with 16% CAGR. The growth in the touch screen controllers market is driven by the growing integration of touchscreens in automobiles, increasing demand for smart consumer electronics; also capacitive controllers are highly responsive and provide a real-time feel while minimizing power consumption.The rapid growth of internet of things across the world and touch screen devices are used in the education sector could create opportunities for the manufacturers of touch screen controllers and hence it is expected to boost the Global Touch Screen Controllers Market over the forecast period, 2016-2022.The major issues hampering the growth of the global touch screen controllers market are high technical complications in collecting data, screen sizing and false triggering of switches especially in smaller touch screen devices.This study provides an overview of the global touch screen controllers market, tracking four market segments across four geographic regions. The report studies key players, providing a five-year annual trend analysis that highlights market size, volume and share for North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The report also provides a forecast focusing on the market opportunities for the next five years for each region.Request a Sample Copy of Report @Key Players:The key players of Global Touch Screen Controllers report include NXP Semiconductors N.V. (Netherlands), ELAN Microelectronic Corp (Taiwan), Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (U.S.), Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (South Korea) , Texas Instruments Incorporated (U.S.), Analog Devices, Inc (U.S.), STMicroelectronics (Switzerland), Broadcom Corporation (U.S.), MELFAS Co. Ltd (Korea), Synaptics Incorporated (U.S.) and others.Touch Screen Controllers MarketThe touch screen controllers market can be segmented into its technology, interface, application, end-users and regions. On the basis of technology it can be categorized into two types such as namely resistive and capacitive controller. Capacitive controller accounted for the largest market share majorly due to its features such as durability, reliability, and provides better operation through its multiple functionalities than resistive touch controllers.Also, the automotive, banking and retail segments accounted for the largest market share, majorly due to development of innovative & modernized touch-based devices and the growing informative systems vehicles.Access the market data and market information presented through more than 25 market data tables and 25 figures spread over 100 numbers of pages of the project report Touch Screen Controllers Market - Forecast to 2022Intended Audience Touch Screen Controllers Manufacturers Distributors Research firms Consultancy firms Developers Vendors Semiconductor Manufacturers Stakeholders End-user sectors Technology Investors.Access Report Details @Brief TOC of Global Touch Screen Controllers Market:1. Executive Summary2. Research Methodology2.1 Scope of the study2.1.1 Definition2.1.2 Research Objective2.1.3 Assumptions2.1.4 Limitations2.2 Research Process2.2.1 Primary Research2.2.2 Secondary Research2.3 Market size Estimation2.4 Forecast Model3. Market Dynamics3.1 Market Drivers3.2 Market Inhibitors3.3 Value Chain Analysis3.4 Porters Five Forces Analysis4. Global Touch screen controllers Market, by Technology4.1 Introduction4.2 Resistive4.3 Capacitive5. Global Touch screen controllers Market, By InterfaceContinued.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.ContactAkash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Automatic Solar Tracker Global Industry Trends and Forecast Report 2017 | Latest Release

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Automatic Solar Tracker Industry 2017, Trends and Forecast Report" to its huge collection of research reports.Automatic Solar Tracker Report by Material, Application, and Geography Global Forecast to 2021 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).The report firstly introduced the Automatic Solar Tracker basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.The report includes six parts, dealing with:1.) basic information;2.) the Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Market;3.) the North American Automatic Solar Tracker Market;4.) the European Automatic Solar Tracker Market;5.) market entry and investment feasibility;6.) the report conclusion.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Table of ContentsPart I Automatic Solar Tracker Industry OverviewChapter One Automatic Solar Tracker Industry Overview1.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Definition1.2 Automatic Solar Tracker Classification Analysis1.2.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 Automatic Solar Tracker Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 Automatic Solar Tracker Application Analysis1.3.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Main Application Analysis1.3.2 Automatic Solar Tracker Main Application Share Analysis1.4 Automatic Solar Tracker Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 Automatic Solar Tracker Industry Development Overview1.5.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Product History Development Overview1.5.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Product Market Development Overview1.6 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.1 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Import Market Analysis1.6.2 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Export Market Analysis1.6.3 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Main Region Market Analysis1.6.4 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.5 Automatic Solar Tracker Global Market Development Trend AnalysisChapter Two Automatic Solar Tracker Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend AnalysisPart II Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Industry (The Report Company Including the Below Listed But Not All)Chapter Three Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Market Analysis3.1 Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Product Development History3.2 Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Competitive Landscape Analysis3.3 Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Market Development TrendChapter Four 2012-2017 Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast4.1 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Capacity Production Overview4.2 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Production Market Share Analysis4.3 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Demand Overview4.4 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Supply Demand and Shortage4.5 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Import Export Consumption4.6 2012-2017 Automatic Solar Tracker Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginChapter Five Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Key Manufacturers Analysis5.1 Company A5.1.1 Company Profile5.1.2 Product Picture and Specification5.1.3 Product Application Analysis5.1.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.1.5 Contact Information5.2 Company B5.2.1 Company Profile5.2.2 Product Picture and Specification5.2.3 Product Application Analysis5.2.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.2.5 Contact Information5.3 Company C5.3.1 Company Profile5.3.2 Product Picture and Specification5.3.3 Product Application Analysis5.3.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.3.5 Contact Information5.4 Company D5.4.1 Company Profile5.4.2 Product Picture and Specification5.4.3 Product Application Analysis5.4.4 Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value5.4.5 Contact Information......Chapter Six Asia Automatic Solar Tracker Industry Development Trend6.1 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Capacity Production Overview6.2 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Production Market Share Analysis6.3 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Demand Overview6.4 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Supply Demand and Shortage6.5 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Import Export Consumption6.6 2017-2021 Automatic Solar Tracker Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginMake 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 @
A federal immigration agent's presence at a Queens school was discussed yesterday by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. De Blasio was visiting Washington D.C. on Monday, and met with Kelly for almost an hour. His office released this description of their conversation: "The Secretary said that the agents were not there for enforcement action and that DHS does not target schools in such efforts. The Mayor made clear that the agents presence was nevertheless non-conducive to the learning environment and inconsistent with fair and effective immigration and education policy."

Two federal immigration agents from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services apparently visited P.S. 58 in Queens on Thursday, but were turned away by a school safety agent and an administrator. The Department of Education's policy is that "non-local law enforcement officers, including ICE officers, may only obtain access to school facilities or students in school under one of the following circumstances: with consent; with proper warrants; or under exigent circumstances."

The federal agents did not have a warrant.

A USCIS spokeswoman Katie Tichacek said, "I must emphasize that the purpose of the visit was to verify certain facts about the student's enrollment in relation to a request for an immigration benefit. At no time did the officers ask to see or speak with the student, who was not the subject of the administrative inquiry." She also said, "Although school visits are not routine in these circumstances, they are not unprecedented."

The readout of the mayor's meeting with Kelly also says "they pledged to work together to ensure that the DHS investigative work in question was performed remotely and without the presence of federal immigration agents in New York City schools" and stressed the "importance of the relationship between police officers and the citys immigrant community in securing record-low crime rates." Finally, "in addition to discussing their shared allegiance to the Boston Red Sox, the Mayor and Secretary agreed to meet again in New York City in the coming months."
Unified Communication as a Service Market 2017 Trends, Growth and Forecast to 2021

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UCaaS is a cloud-based deployment model of unified communications (UC) technology such as enterprise audio and video conferencing, hosted VoIP, and cloud private branch exchange (PBX) . UCaaS is implemented in enterprises to communicate and collaborate globally in a cloud-based ICT ecosystem.Publisher's analysts forecast the global unified communication as a service market to grow at a CAGR of 25.32% during the period 2017-2021.For more information about this report:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global unified communication as a service market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Americas- APAC- EMEAPublisher's report, Global Unified Communication as a Service Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors- 8x8- AT&T- Google- Microsoft- Verizon Enterprise SolutionsRequest Sample Copy atOther prominent vendors- Avaya- BT- Cisco Systems- Fuze- West Unified Communications Services- Mitel- PanTerra Networks- Polycom- RingCentral- ShoreTel- Star2Star- Tata Communications- Telefonica- Telstra- VonageMarket driver- Increased requirement to comply with regulatory and compliance norms.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- System integration and interoperability issues.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend- Growing momentum of cloud brokerage services.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportInquire for Report atContact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comOrganization: ReportsWebPhone: +1-646-491-9876ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Skin Glossing Pencil Packaging Market is mainly driven by high consumption of cosmetics products

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Cosmetics have become an integral part of urban population and particularly among working women. Skin glossing pencil packaging market has emerged as a niche market segment in the global cosmetics packaging market. Skin glossing pencils are used by women to make their skin look more shiny and younger. The global skin glossing pencil packaging market can account for major portion of the cosmetic packaging market owing to growing cosmetics consumption across the world. The skin glossing pencil packaging not only helps in differentiating the product from its substitutes but also helps in creating a brand image of the product in the minds of consumers by communicating information about the brand.Obtain Report Details @The skin glossing pencil packaging improves the durability of the product by increasing its shelf life. Skin glossing pencil packaging is essential to attract the customers through the product appearance in order to improve the turnover ratio and profit margin. Skin glossing pencil packaging allows manufacturers to manufacture skin glossing pencils of various sizes while increasing its portability. Due to abundance in availability and low procurement cost, plastics such as acrylic and polypropylene (PP) are common material used in skin glossing pencil packaging.Skin Glossing Pencil Packaging Market: Market DynamicsThe skin glossing pencil packaging market is related with cosmetic packaging market. The cosmetic packaging market is estimated to be around US$ 30 billion, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4% over the forecast period. Skin glossing pencil, which is a luxury product, is expected to witness rise in demand with increase in disposable income of consumers, influencing the growth of skin glossing pencil packaging market. Nowadays people are getting more conscious about their image so with the use of skin glossing pencil they can reduce their skin complexion which is an important factor contributing to the increased consumption of the skin glossing pencil while boosting the growth for the skin glossing pencil packaging market. In the backdrop of rapid urbanization along with increasing influence of western culture especially in the Asian countries like India and China, the demand for the skin glossing pencil packaging is expected to move upward over the forecast period. However, the use of chemical composition of skin glossing pencil may hamper the growth of skin glossing packaging market. The globalization has made the world smaller as a skin glossing pencil of American brand can be easily found in the stores of Asian countries.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Skin Glossing Pencil Packaging Market: Market SegmentationThe skin glossing pencil packaging market can be segmented by the type of material used, type of product, by application, by formulation.Based on the type of material used, skin glossing pencil packaging market can be segmented into:PlasticMetalBased on the type of product, skin glossing pencil packaging market can be segmented into:Gel polymerWet glossBased on the application, skin glossing pencil packaging market can be segmented into:FaceLipsEye LidsBased on the formulation, skin glossing pencil packaging market can be segmented into:Bis behenylIsostearylPhytosteryl dimer dilinoleyl dimer dilinoleate,Isocetyl stearateSynthetic beeswaxSkin Glossing Pencil Packaging Market: Regional OutlookRegionally global skin glossing pencil packaging market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East and Africa (MEA)JapanNorth America and Eastern and Western Europe is expected lead the global skin glossing pencil packaging market owing to high consumption of cosmetics products. Skin glossing packaging market in Latin America and APEJ region is expected to register the highest growth over the forecast period attributing to the influence of the western culture over the growing urban population. While the growth for skin glossing pencil packaging market in MEA is expected to be sluggish over the forecast period.Skin Glossing Pencil Packaging Market: Key PlayersSome key players of skin glossing pencil packaging market are Amcor Limited, HCP Packaging, Cosmopak, International Cosmetic Suppliers Ltd, 3C Inc, Alpha Packaging, Color Carton Corporation, ChingFon Industrial Co., LTD, Anomatic, Arcade Beauty, APC Packaging, EPOPACK Co., Ltd, AptarGroup, Libo Cosmetics Co., Ltd and Quadpack Group, etc.About TMRTMR is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Italy: Competition Set to Intensify Following Wind Tre Launch and Iliads Market Entry on Horizon

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Italy: Competition Set to Intensify Following Wind Tre Launch and Iliads Market Entry on Horizon"DescriptionIn 2016, Italy was the fourth-largest telecom market in Western Europe, according to GlobalData, generating an estimated telecom service revenue of $30.3bn (27.2bn). Revenue grew by just 0.1% year-on-year, in euro terms. GlobalData expects growth to improve over the forecast period (2016-2021) at a CAGR of 0.8% in euro terms, with revenue reaching $33.2bn (28.3bn). Mobile data will remain the top revenue-generating category, making up approximately 38.9% of total service revenue in 2021, up from 33.4% in 2016.During the next five years, operators should focus on fixed-mobile convergence and multiplay to strengthen market positions. Deployment of fiber under the national ultra-broadband plan and rollout of next-generation mobile networks should provide investor opportunity.Italy: Competition Set to Intensify Following Wind Tre Launch and Iliads Market Entry on Horizon', a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Italy today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband and mobile sectors, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Italy compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Italy.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice and data from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Italy's telecommunication market.Request Sample Copy of This Report at:Scope- The overall telecom service revenue in Italy is expected to grow at a CAGR of 0.8% in Euro terms during 2016-2021.- Mobile revenue will account for 61.7% of the total telecom revenue by the end of 2021.- Iliads entry will disrupt the market but GlobalData does not foresee it to have the same impact as Iliads entry to the French mobile market.Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Italy's telecommunications market, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GLobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Italy's mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Italy's telecommunication market.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Italy.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at: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 researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Mali: Mobile Data and Value-Added Services to Support Telecom Growth

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Mali: Mobile Data and Value-Added Services to Support Telecom Growth"DescriptionTelecom services revenue in Mali is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% during 2016-2021, driven by growth in fixed broadband and mobile data revenue. Mobile voice will continue to remain the largest revenue-contributing segment through 2021. Mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment in the telecom market and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18.1% during 2016-2021, mainly driven by operators' attractive data packages to stimulate data adoption. Going forward, operators plan to invest in 3G network expansion, infrastructure development and fiber-optic deployments to increase Internet connectivity, which will create significant opportunities for vendors and investors.Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Mali will grow at a CAGR of 7.5% during 2016-2021, mainly driven by growth in the mobile segment.- Mobile revenue will account for 92.5% of the total telecom revenue in 2021; mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment over 2016-2021.- 2G will be the most adopted mobile technology through 2021. However, its share of the overall mobile subscriber base will decline over the 2016-2021 forecast period, owing to adoption of 3G and 4G services in the coming years.- The top two operators, Orange Mali and Malitel, will account for 100.0% share of overall service revenue in 2016. We expect the entry of a fourth mobile operator and MVNO will further intensify the competition in the telecom market.- Mobile money services will be a key revenue source for operators to strengthen their market position.Request Sample Copy of This Report at:Synopsis"Mali: Mobile Data and Value-Added Services to Support Telecom Growth," a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Mali today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Mali compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Mali.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Mali's telecommunications markets.ReasonsToBuy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Malis telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Malis mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Malis telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Mali.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at: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 researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Crate Handling Machines Market - Key Players, Growth, Analysis, 2017  2027

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Crate Handling Machines Market : OverviewCrate handling machines are used as a system to drop and pick up boxes and trays across several industry verticals including food and beverages, textile, agri-processing as well as logistics and supply chain. Crate handling machines is automatic controlled machine which need minimal manual intervention for moving crates.Browse Market Research Report @Plant operators across the globe realized the benefits of using crate handling machines, as these are suitable for large and heavy product movement, increase in productivity, and reduction in manual work and facilitates easy handling of crates. Industry stakeholders urge to leverage the expanding opportunity propelled them to move to automated machines, along with F&B sectors growth catalyzed the global crate handling machines market. Depending on the speed requirement, crate handling machines either comes as a pneumatic or servo driven mechanisms. Though, in markets which are largely characterized by high degree of automation, the servo driven model is largely preferred over the previous.Crate Handling Machines Market : Market DynamicsCrate handling machines market growth is largely attributed by growth in F&B, which is poised to grow at a CAGR of over 5% over next three years. The industry is likely to create an estimated 1.2X more opportunity than all other end use industries. Apart from food and beverages, crate handling machines are also preferred in fast moving consumer good manufacturing plants, where unit products within the plant are transported using crates. Pharmaceutical is one of such end use industry where the usage of crate handling machines has increase reasonably over the past few years. Furthermore, the need of pharmaceutical companies to operate on maximum efficiency pushed them to integrate crate handling machines with regular operations, thus creating for crate handling machine manufacturers to design products dedicated to pharmaceutical companies or redesign products strategy to meet pharma producers demand.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @A dynamic boost experience in global crate handling machines market is due to the stringent labor laws, that indirectly created demand from brownfield projects. Crate handling machines minimizes the role of labor in product management, which is a profitable investment for end use industries. Despite all the favorable market dynamics, the product still faced substantial challenge in penetrating the high potential market. The global crate handling machine market is characterized by fragmented competition, where rarely any multinational company have been able to mark significant market presence, which prevents large scale technology up gradation in the products.Crate Handling machines: Market SegmentationCrate handling machines market is segmented based on product type, technology as well as end use/application, along with regional focus for each of these segments. In terms of product type, crate handling machines market is segmented into crate stacking system, crate de-stacking systems and crate managing systems. All three equipment form an automated crate handling machines, that are predominantly used in end use industries such as food and beverage, FMCG, textile and pharmaceuticals and several others. Transportation and Logistics, auto-ancillary, fisheries, horticulture, produce processing are other end use industries which have generated significant interest in crate handling machines market over the past few years and positive growth sentiments in these industries, the growth in global crate handling machine market is evident.Market Segments by Product Type :Crate Stacking SystemsCrate De-stacking SystemsCrate Managing systems (managing empty crates)Market Segments by Mode of Operation :PneumaticServo MotorMarket Segments by End Use/application :Food and beverage industryTextile industryFisheriesHorticultureAutomobile industryPharmaceutical industryManufacturing industryForestryTransportation & LogisticsOther End use IndustriesCrate handling Machines: Market PlayersFew of the key players consists of NDA Group, Glenside Engineering Limited, Dyno NZ, Fibre King Pty Ltd, intralox, Crating Technologies, Packing Service, Inc. (PSI), REB Storage Systems International, R+L Carriers and Timber Creek Resource, Rentacrate, PHS Teacrate and Crate Hire UK.Crate handling Machines: Regional OutlookIn terms of geography, global crate handling machines market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. Since, the growth of crate handling machines market is largely dependent on food and beverage industry, it is more likely that the product will witness meteoric growth in the Asia Pacific market. High potential markets such as India and China continue to lead the growth momentum over 8% over the forecast period, and will also attract multinational players, which so far have been pretty dormant in these regional markets. In developed markets, the global crate handling machine market is slightly matured than Asian market. In these markets close to 30% share is accounted by established players, which in recent times witnessed competition from crate handling machine suppliers from India as well China. The market growth in these markets is anticipated to remain slightly sluggish.About TMRTMR is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Thepackersmovers.com Announces Many Additions in the List of Packers and Movers in Pune!

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New Delhi, India: Over the years, Packers and Movers industry is noticing a commendable boom and demand among the people. Indians are now becoming more in favor of hiring Packers and Movers to get their relocation done in a professional manner and with least chances of hassles or troubles during the process. Also, the aspect of safety of goods and valuables during the entire relocation process is giving another reason to the people of the country for approaching professional relocation service providers. The greater demand is hence adding more into the choices of Packers and Movers in India for everyone.Thepackersmovers.com is listing authentic and reputed Packers and Movers on its website to help people settle down with best Movers and Packers in Pune, Mumbai (), Chennai, Delhi, Noida and across the country. However, people planning relocation in Pune can find a larger number of choices in the list of Packers and Movers in Pune of the online directory. Further to finalize, the directory helps people to get quotes for Packers and Movers in Pune charges.While a discussion about the Pune Packers and Movers (), the official spokesperson of the online directory commented, Today like everything is paving ahead for advancement or betterment, Packers and Movers services are aiming to advance the ways of people are relocating. At Thepackersmovers.com, we aim to let people relocate in Pune or anywhere across the country with minimum hassles and troubles. Therefore, the addition of many reputed and dependable Packers and Movers in Pune on our list is giving greater number of choices to people for meeting the distinctive or specific need for relocation in Pune.Considering to distinctive aspects of relocating in Pune, the list of Packers and Movers in Pune is broadened. For Household shifting services, warehousing services, pets relocation services, office relocation services, packing and unpacking services, transportation services, loading and unloading services, plant relocation services, Corporate relocation services and other such needs, one can settle down with a reliable option from the list of Movers and Packers in Pune.Adding more into the discussion, the official spokesperson stated, Our online directory is been established to help people to attain a hassle free relocation. With this motto we have designed our website with categorized segregation of Relocation Services, Moving Tips, Value Added Services and Packers and Movers by Location.In order to help people planning a relocation on own, there is a categorical segregation of Moving tips on the website. This helps readers to get many useful tips and guide on Choosing a Mover, Tips on Moving with Kids, Packing Tips, Moving Checklist, Pre moving Tips, Office Relocation Tips, Moving Day Countdown, Car Moving Tips, Unloading Tips, Budget Moving Plan, Self Moving Tips, Plant Moving Tips, Pets Moving Tips and more.Contact-Thepackersmovers.com is well-acclaimed online directory that maintains the lists of reliable Packers and Movers that are based in different parts of India to meet relocation needs of people residing anywhere in the country. Now for the people planning for relocating from Pune or in the city, the list of service providers is updated with many new additions. Refer the website of the directory for any kind of detailed information.Media Contact :-The Packers MoversMayur Vihar Phase 1, Pandav NagarPostal Code :- 110091City - DelhiCountry - IndiaEmail - info@thepackersmovers.com
Increasing Trend for Buying Products in Economic Quantity is Expected to Create a Positive Impact on the Dispensing Spout Market

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Dispensing spouts are commonly used for resealing of packaging after removing the desired quantity of product from the packaging. Dispensing spout is extensively used in packaging of products in liquid or viscous form. Dispensing spout makes the product easy to carry and easy to use without letting the package get torn out even after frequent use of the product. The dispensing spout has created space for manufacturers to innovate different designs and form of packaging to attract more customers by increasing the appeal of the product through packaging. The dispensing spout is in the shape of a cap, pump, dropper or valve for handling small to large quantity of packed products. The dispensing spout is commonly mounted on the top or bottom of the package to utilize the product completely and efficiently.Browse Market Research Report @Dispensing Spout Market: Market DynamicsThe need for frequent use of the product in smaller quantity has led to the innovation of dispensing spouts, enabling the consumer to use the products conveniently according to their desired need. The wide range of application along with the convenience offered by the dispensing spout has influenced the consumer preference positively while propelling the demand for dispensing spout market. The use of dispensing spout in packaging creates an opportunity for the manufacturers to reduce the use of the raw material while creating a win-win situation for both manufacturer and the environment, by reducing cost and carbon footprint of packaging respectively.However, the use of water dispensing spout for common places such as offices, malls, schools, etc. is prone to have bacterial growth which may limit the market growth opportunities of the dispensing spout market. The increasing trend for buying products in economic quantity is expected to create a positive impact on the dispensing spout market. Dispensing spout has vast range of application in markets such as beverages, food, home care, toiletries, household chemicals, etc. The functionality of dispensing spout to allow repeated usage makes it a sustainable form of packaging.Dispensing Spout Market: Market SegmentationDispensing spout market is segmented by material type, sealing type, spout type, packaging type and end use industries.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Based on the material used, dispensing spout market is segmented into:MetalPlasticPETHDPEBased on the Sealing type, dispensing spout market is segmented into:LinerWithout LinerBased on the type of spout, dispensing spout market is segmented into:CapDropperPumpsValveBased on the packaging type, dispensing spout market is segmented into:PouchBottleLiquid cartonsJarsTubesBulk Grocery bagsBased on the end use industry, dispensing spout market is segmented into:Food and beveragePharmaceuticalHomecare and personnel careChemical and petrochemical industryOthersDispensing Spout Market - Regional Outlook:Regionally global dispensing spout market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanNorth America is expected to lead the dispensing spout market as the consumer goods market in the region is being aligned with the dispensing spout market. Factors such as consumer preference and manufacturing practices in the North American region are contributing to the growth of dispensing spout market. Dispensing spout market in APEJ region is expected to grow over the forecast period attributing the changing lifestyle and retail pattern in the South East Asia and China regions. The overall demand for dispensing spout market is expected to increase as the use of dispensing spout helps in reducing the carbon footprint of the packaging material and cost of the product for the end users.Dispensing Spout Market - Key Players:Some major players of the dispensing spout market are AptarGroup, Inc., Nilkanth Polyplast., O.Berk Company, LLC, Rieke Corporation, Weener Plastik GmbH, Elkay Manufacturing Company, Inc., Guangdong Danqing Plastic Packaging & Printing Co., Ltd., Uflex Ltd., Tacom SA, Liqui-Box Corporation, Stern Engineering Ltd., Poppelmann GmbH & Co. KG, Glenroy, Inc., and Precision Valve Corporation, Tomlinson Industries.About TMRTMR is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Myanmar: 4G Investment and New Market Entrants to Boost Burgeoning Telecoms Market

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Myanmar: 4G Investment and New Market Entrants to Boost Burgeoning Telecoms Market"DescriptionThe telecom services revenue is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.0% during 2016-2021, driven by growth in mobile and fixed data revenues. In the coming years, operators plan to invest in network infrastructure and expand 4G services. Vendors will have significant opportunities to support operators' 4G rollout initiatives.Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Myanmar is estimated to generate $3.1bn in 2016 and will expand at a CAGR of 4.0% during 2016-2021, supported by data segment growth.- Mobile revenue will account for 94.9% of the total telecom revenue in 2021, with the mobile data segment expected to experience significant growth.- 3G will be the most adopted mobile technology through 2021. Its share in overall mobile subscriber base will further increase during 2016-2021, as 2G customers will increasingly migrate to 3G networks for faster data rates.- The top two operators, MPT and Telenor Myanmar will account for nearly 84.2% share of overall service revenue in 2016.- Operators in Myanmar are increasingly investing in 3G and 4G network expansion, as demand for data increases.SynopsisMyanmar: 4G Investment and New Market Entrants to Boost Burgeoning Telecoms Market, a new Country Intelligence Report , provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Myanmar today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Myanmar compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Myanmar.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Myanmar's telecommunications markets.Request Sample Copy of This Report at:ReasonsToBuy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Myanmars telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Myanmars mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Myanmars telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Myanmar.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at: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 researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Singapore: Embracing Smart Nation, Telco/Media Convergence and Fixed/Mobile Competition

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MarketResearchReports.Biz presents this most up-to-date research on "Singapore: Embracing Smart Nation, Telco/Media Convergence and Fixed/Mobile Competition"DescriptionIn 2016, Singapore's telecom services market will decline 1.7% over 2015. This is partly due to the substitution of fixed telephony services by mobile voice and OTT apps. Mobile data will remain the largest revenue contributing segment and the growth will be driven by telcos investments to enhance speeds and coverage. In addition, telcos are investigating new areas including 5G technology, smart city/IoT/M2M, cyber security, managed services, OTT video and data analytics to diversify their revenue streams.Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Singapore is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 1.5% during 2016-2021.- Mobile revenue will account for 63.7% of the total telecom revenue in 2021.- The Singapore telecom market will be dominated by Singtel, Star Hub and M1. Operators will continue to invest on 4G coverage expansions and deployment of fiber-optic network to boost the data connectivity to support government's Smart Nation initiative.- The entry of new fixed and mobile operators will result in greater competition.- The country saw the merger of the telco and media regulators and operators are already offering converged telco/media services.Synopsis"Singapore: Embracing Smart Nation, Telco/Media Convergence and Fixed/Mobile Competition" a new Country Intelligence Report , provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Singapore today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband and mobile sectors, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Singapore compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Singapore.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice and data from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice and mobile data: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Singapore's telecommunication market.Request Sample Copy of This Report at:ReasonsToBuy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Singapore telecommunication market, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Singapore mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Singapore telecommunication market.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Singapore.Browse Latest Industry Press Release at: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 researchreports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and typesof companies spanning across various industries.ContactState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizFollow us on LinkedIn:
Anesthesia Devices Market: North America And Europe Have Historically Been Leading The Revenue Generation

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Anesthesia devices comprises of dosing unit, respiratory device to deliver the anesthetic drug and system for continuously monitoring of patient. These devices have evolved over the time to become more complex, but providing better patient compliance and safety, and reduced physician involvement. The global anesthesia devices market is mainly driven by the increasing number of complicated surgeries being conducted for varied number of disease conditions. New technology anesthesia devices have helped in significantly reducing complications arising post-operative surgery. Hospitals are also adopting latest devices with wireless connectivity to continuously keep a track of patient's vital parameters and level of sedation. Electronic devices have the potential to emit radio frequency signals that may degrade the images obtained through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Hence special MRI compatible anesthesia devices are also manufactured to maintain sedation in patients.Increasing chronic disease prevalence has led to increased number of surgeries globally. Over 422 million individuals were recorded having diabetes in 2014 globally. Australia, China, Russia and China were among the top countries with high hypertension prevalence. The data also stated that over 400 million hypertension patients were found in India and China alone. Hypertension is expected to cause over 7.5 million mortalities globally which accounts for 12.8% of the total mortalities. Cancer is also among the leading causes of deaths globally with approximately 14 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer related deaths recorded in 2012 by the World Health Organization (WHO). With millions of surgeries being conducted annually, the need for better anesthesia devices is high and is expected to increase with a steady pace as prevalence continues to rise.Request Free Report Sample@Currently western countries with established sophisticated healthcare infrastructure account for larger share of high end devices with integrated monitoring setup and connectivity to wireless technology. Low and middle income countries are currently engaged in minimal hospital expenditure due to economic crisis. Hence preference for refurbished devices is high. Players in the global anesthesia market are now getting involved in strategic agreement for rapid growth. Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced the acquisition of the anesthesia business of Life-Tech, Inc., in 2013. Later in 2016, MEDNAX, Inc. acquired Associated Anesthesiologists of Reno, P.C. private physician group practice. The acquisition would add to the services provided by the company in Nevada across multiple specialties. New products launched recently include Philips IntelliSave AX700 anesthesia machine and IntelliVue MX400 and MX450 patient monitors in 2013. Key players in the market include GE Healthcare, Teleflex, Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGAA, Philips Healthcare, Bell Medial, and Smith and Nephew among others.NOTE: This report is currently under research and will be made available to clients on request.Request For TOC@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: sales@sa-brc.comWebsite:
If you've been to McSorley's at any point in the past four decades, there's a good chance you were served by Geoffrey "Bart" Bartholomew. A longtime bartender of the venerable East Village watering holewhich counts Abe Lincoln, Boss Tweed, and Houdini among its former patronsBart began working the taps in 1972, just two years after the bar finally started serving women, following a high-profile lawsuit brought by the National Organization of Women and a law banning gender discrimination signed by Mayor John Lindsay. Bart's son Rafe would often tag along with his dad, and soon became McSorley's only pre-teen regular. Later, Rafe would follow in his father's footsteps, both as a writer and McSorley's bartender.

That experience is the subject of a new memoir by Rafe Bartholomew called Two and Two: McSorley's, My Dad, And Me. We caught up with Bartholomew recently to chat about the utility of sawdust, WWI-era wishbones, and the future of New York's oldest Irish tavern.

Considering that you grew up among city's most interesting regulars, and the fact that your dad has previously written about his time bartending, it almost feels like you were destined to write this memoir Was this a story that you always knew you were going to tell?

Looking back on in now, it seems like the answer is yes. But there was a time when I wasn't convinced that I should write this, or that I wanted to. Even though I knew this was a special place, and that these stories existed, I hadn't really thought about writing it seriously until I'd finished my last book, and my agent asked me what I wanted to write next, and I had nothing. So I just kind of blurted out, 'Well, I grew up at McSorley's.' And my agent looked at me like I was crazy, and was like, 'That should've been your first book.' But it still took me seven years, because I wasn't able to write it until I could really figure out what my dad's career, and what growing up and learning to work there really means to me.

There's been some notable writing about McSorley's in the paste.e. cummings memorialized the bar in poem and Joseph Mitchell's had a lifelong fascination with the place. How conscious of these past writers were you while writing the book? I was extremely conscious of Joseph Mitchellhis 1940 New Yorker story is really the definitive piece of writing about the bar, and it's also one of his best known stories. When I was young, hearing about Joe Mitchell coming to the bar and seeing the original book jackets up on the wall was a big deal. But this book was so personal, and I was able to look at a different side of McSorley's because I got to grow up in it and work there, so it was enough to keep me from feeling like I was going head to head with Mitchell. But practically speaking, it would've been hard to write the history portion of my book without the Joseph Mitchell's work.

Do you have a favorite artifact in the bar? There's a tiny framed four-line poem above the chair by the pot belly stove that no one ever sits on. That chair was where the cat, Sawdust, loved to sleep. There's no cats in McSorley's anymore, but when there were, that always ended up being the cat's chair because of the warmth. The poem is one that a guy who used to live above the bar wrote when the cat died in 1995. That was the cat that for me, when my father first started bringing me to the bar, one of my little chores would be to feed him in the morning and take him downstairs once business hours began. Those are some of my very first memories in the bar and just looking at the poem can bring me right back there.

One of the things I most enjoyed about the book was how McSorley's as an institution is in so many way just like any other neighborhood bar, with some really specificand poignantexceptions. Can you briefly share the story of the wishbones? So a group of local soldiers who were about to ship out for World War I came out to McSorley's and had a going away party, shortly after Thanksgiving in 1917. They each brought turkey wishbones from their home Thanksgiving celebrations and at the end of the night, they hung them up on the gas lamp for good luck before they went away. And after the war, the guys who survived returned to the bar and took down their wishbones. The wishbones that remained belonged to the guys who didn't make it.

The story at McSorley's was that we never touched themthey were collecting dust for what turned out to be 93 years. I remember when I started working at the bar, aside from all the service stuff I had to learn, the first thing everyone told me is that if you see someone reaching for the wishbones, you stop them. That was sort of sacred to us.

And the book talks about how in 2010 we eventually had to dust them because of the city health department. The one thing I never expected to happen was that the wishbones would be dusted. My father and I were working the last night before they were dusted, and then at 3 a.m. the owner Matthew Maher came in on his own and took them down one-by-one, dusted them, put them back on the gas lamp, then swept all the dust into a ziplock bag that he still has at home with him in Queens. So I remember coming in the next day and seeing them, you know I've seen these things my entire life. I was crestfallen. I couldn't believe it.

But when people would come in and ask about the wishbones and you'd tell them the story, you started to see that they were still just as powerful. The chapter about dusting them was just thatanother chapter in this story. And I came to really respect Matt's decision to dust them himselfnot every owner of a business would necessarily do that, especially when the only way to do it would be to come in at 3 in the morning when nobody else was paying attention. He did it himself because he knew better than anyone what these meant to all of us. He was working at the bar before my dad was living there. `



A WW II era Army bombing notice is seen in McSorley's Old Ale House. (Getty)

There's a passage in the the book where you note that "The cost of living in Manhattan had risen to such exorbitant heights that the McSorley's crowd seemed to lose its identity," which you later sort of take back. Are you concerned about the future of McSorley's? Yeah, there are moments when you're concerned. But it's also a reflection of your mood that dayyou're projecting a little bit because there are other days when you think, 'Ah it's fine.' Of course with what's happening in the city, and especially the East Village, the business has changed. And I don't have as wide a range of experience over the years as my father or some of the other guys there, but I've seen the business change from something that was primarily for local residentsa lot of city employees, like sanitation workers, police, firemenand the percentage of the business that they represent is a lot smaller these days. Tourism has taken its place, especially the weeknight crowd. Often tables of people who are visiting New York from out of state or out of the country, who heard about the bar in a guidebook and came in to check it out. You know, there's some nights where you get in a mood and it feels like the place is turning into a tourist trap, but I don't think that is ultimately the case. The people who are working there, the traditions, the continuity that we have within the bar allows it to maintain the identity that I feel is authentic.

And all things considered, business is still good. You walk by McSorley's any almost any given night and see a nice healthy crowd there. Someone with my dad's tenure might be able to say, 'Yeah it's crowded, but the guys we had back in '84 could outdrink these people by three times.' Well maybe, but the place is surviving.

And it helps that bar doesn't have a landlord I'm sure... Right, the simple reason that McSorley's can survive into the future is that every time the bar has changed hands, it's been sold with the entire building. So the family that owns it nowMatthew Maher's familyhe's going to pass it to his children who work there, and they'll own the entire building. They won't lose the place because the lease jumps. That gives them safety to remain in the same place and I think that's probably the case for almost any business that's managed to stay put in one place in Manhattan for even 50 years, let alone 163.

So I think any sort of negative feeling that comes with McSorley's right now has more to do with New Yorker nostalgia, how everyone's always like 'Man, this doesn't feel like the city I came to or the city I grew up in.' The cool thing is that McSorley's has been around long enough to stand in for generations of people's ideal version of New York. Whenever that exists in their mind, McSorley's was always there, and was more or less the same.
ATM Market Size 2022: by Key Manufacturers Diebold Nixdorf, NCR, GRG Banking

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This report studies the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) market. An automated or automatic teller machine (ATM), also known as an automated banking machine (ABM), cash machine, cashpoint, cashline or hole in the wall, is a computerized telecommunications device that enables the clients of a financial institution to perform financial transactions without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank teller. ATMs are known by various other names including ATM machine, automated banking machine, "cash machine" and various regional variants derived from trademarks on ATM systems held by particular banks.Request a sample copy of Global ATM Market Research Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the ATM 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 covers Diebold Nixdorf, NCR, GRG Banking, Hitachi, Synkey Group, FujitsuMarket 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-site ATM, Off-site ATM, OtherMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Banking, RetailRequest Discount for Global ATM Market Research Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global ATM market.Chapter 1, to describe ATM Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of ATM, with sales, revenue, and price of ATM, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of ATM, 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, ATM market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe ATM sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceBrowse full table of contents and data tables For Global ATM Market Report @Related Reports: -Global Digital Signage Market in Education Sector 2017-2021Digital signage is used in navigation, placemaking, exhibitions, public installations, marketing, and outdoor advertising. It uses technologies such as LCD, LED displays, and projection to display contents such as digital images, videos, and information.MarketSizeForecasters.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:News:
Global And Chinese PCB Design Software Industry, 2017 Market Research Report

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"The Report Global and Chinese PCB Design Software Industry, 2017 Market Research Report provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About PCB Design Software MarketThe 'Global and Chinese PCB Design Software Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global PCB Design Software industry with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the PCB Design Software manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2012-2017 market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of PCB Design Software industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export. The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2017-2022 market development trends of PCB Design Software industry. Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out. In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of PCB Design Software Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2012-2022 global and Chinese PCB Design Software industry covering all important parameters.Get Sample Copy of this report @Table Of ContentsChapter One Introduction of PCB Design Software Industry1.1 Brief Introduction of PCB Design Software1.2 Development of PCB Design Software Industry1.3 Status of PCB Design Software IndustryChapter Two Manufacturing Technology of PCB Design Software2.1 Development of PCB Design Software Manufacturing Technology2.2 Analysis of PCB Design Software Manufacturing Technology2.3 Trends of PCB Design Software Manufacturing TechnologyView Report @Chapter Three Analysis of Global Key Manufacturers3.13.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Product Information3.1.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.1.4 Contact Information3.23.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Product Information3.2.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.2.4 Contact Information3.33.2.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Product Information3.3.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.3.4 Contact Information3.43.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Product Information3.4.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.4.4 Contact Information3.53.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Product Information3.5.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.5.4 Contact Information3.63.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Product Information3.5.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.6.4 Contact Information3.73.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Product Information3.7.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.7.4 Contact Information3.83.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Product Information3.8.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.8.4 Contact Information............Chapter Four 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Market of PCB Design Software4.1 2012-2017 Global Capacity, Production and Production Value of PCB Design Software Industry4.2 2012-2017 Global Cost and Profit of PCB Design Software Industry4.3 Market Comparison of Global and Chinese PCB Design Software Industry4.4 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of PCB Design Software4.5 2012-2017 Chinese Import and Export of PCB Design SoftwareMarketResearchReports.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.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Oxygen Concentrators Market Forecast: 2017-2021

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Oxygen concentrators or generators are a medical grade device that pulls in air, modifies it and dispels concentrated oxygen. Normal air comprises 78% of nitrogen and 21% oxygen along with other gases. An oxygen concentrator uses filters and sieve beds to remove nitrogen and deliver oxygen. The device is used to treat people requiring medical oxygen due to low oxygen levels in their blood. Until recently, hospitals and clinics depended on direct delivery of oxygen through large tanks and cylinders. The advent of oxygen concentrators can liberate medical facilities from being dependent on the oxygen suppliers. Another advantage is the negligible risk of leaks and explosions since oxygen concentrators do not contain tanks and cylinders.There are several disease conditions that warrant the use of oxygen concentrators such as asthma, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), sleep apnea and other respiratory disorders. Along with disease conditions, oxygen concentrators are required by military personnel, paramedics, mountain climbers among others. This report covers analysis of stationary oxygen concentrators and portable oxygen concentrators. The oxygen concentrators market report also includes insight on the various technologies within these devices such as pulse flow or continuous flow, type of filters such as molecular sieve (MS) concentrator or membrane oxygen enricher.Request Free Report Sample@This SA-BRC report will provide analysis on the end-user segments such as hospitals, clinics, home-care and nursing & assisted living markets for oxygen concentrators. Post regulatory changes that introduced flat monthly rates in oxygen supplies to homes, the demand for personal portable oxygen concentrators has increased dramatically. The baby boomer population has been prominently responsible for the rise in demand. The aged population today is far more diverse in demands than that a decade ago. Geriatric population today wishes to continue with higher level of activity that takes them outdoors. Portable oxygen concentrators have become the popular choice for these situations. Highly compact and well-designed systems now enable people to continue with their daily routine without a hassle. The pediatric patient population is also anticipated to benefit from the miniaturization of technology in this medical device segment.The market for oxygen concentrators has been well defined due to the maturity of the technology. North America and Europe have historically been leading the revenue generation due to greater use whereas other regions continue to depend on oxygen cylinders and centralized systems event today. However, rising investment in healthcare and hospital infrastructure in Asia-Pacific and particularly in the Middle-East assures that new hospital equipment and technology is adopted on a much higher level in coming years. This report analyses the market for oxygen concentrators across technology segments and end-users for six regions of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle-East and Africa. Key players in this market include DeVilbiss, Inogen, Grasys, O2-Concepts, Caire Chart Industries (AirSep), Philips Healthcare (Respironics), InvaCare Corporation among several others.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: sales@sa-brc.comWebsite:
Calcium Hydroxide Global Market Industry Analysis Research Reports and Forecast - 2020

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) announces the addition of a new report titled Calcium Hydroxide Market - Global Industry Expert Opinions Analysis, Emerging Opportunities, Market Size, Share, Growth Drivers, Market Trends, Statistics And Forecast 2015 - 2020, Calcium hydroxide is an inorganic compound which is traditionally called slaked lime.Request For Sample Report: hIt is usually obtained by mixing or slaking calcium oxide (also called as quicklime or lime) with water. Other names of calcium hydroxide are builders lime, hydrated lime, pickling lime, or slack lime. Calcium hydroxide is used extensively in various applications such as water treatment, food and construction. Other niche uses of calcium hydroxide include construction, petroleum refining, automobile brake pads, pesticides, ebonite manufacturing and food industry.The use of calcium hydroxide is expected to grow across the globe in water treatment applications. Calcium hydroxide is used as a flocculant for treating both industrial and wastewater treatment plants. Calcium hydroxide is also used for the treatment of potable water in certain instances. With increasingly stringent norms relating to the sewage water and industrial waste water and growing importance of treating this water in order to curtail pollution, the demand for calcium hydroxide is expected to witness robust growth in the next few years. In Europe, calcium hydroxide is widely used as a coagulant for potable water treatment and sewage water treatment.Make an Enquiry:The demand for calcium hydroxide is anticipated to be high in Europe due to stricter European Union legislation pertaining to clean water standards in both the municipal and industrial sectors. Therefore, the demand for calcium hydroxide as a flocculant is anticipated to be high especially in those countries that are regulated by these legislations. Calcium hydroxide is consumed in many industries across China. The main application for calcium hydroxide in China is its use as a purifying agent for water treatment and as a flocculant in industrial and municipal sewage wastewater treatment. In terms of production China is the largest producer of calcium hydroxide followed by Europe and North America. The global trade for calcium hydroxide is relatively low mainly because lime is readily available across the globe. Also, the transportation costs involved in transporting lime would be significantly high.In terms of demand Asia Pacific was the largest consumer of calcium hydroxide followed by Europe North America and Rest of the World. In North America U.S was the largest market for calcium hydroxide followed by Mexico and Canada. This high demand for calcium hydroxide stems from the growing demand for industrial and sewage wastewater treatment applications in this region. The demand for calcium hydroxide is also projected to witness strong growth in European countries such as Germany, France, U.K, Italy etc. on account of strict regulations implied by the EU legislation on wastewater. The demand for calcium hydroxide is also anticipated to witness strong growth in the Asia Pacific countries such as China, India, Indonesia etc. With growing industrial activities in these regions the demand for calcium hydroxide is also expected to grow on similar lines. The economic conditions of Brazil, Russia and South Africa are on similar track and hence the demand for calcium hydroxide is also projected to be high in these countries.Browse Full Report With TOC:Some of the major companies operating in the global calcium hydroxide market are Jost Chemical Company, Airedale Chemical, GFS Chemicals Inc. CAO Industries, and Innovo Chemicals Ltd. among others.About UsMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Google+:Linked in:Twitter:
Ferrochromium Global Market Industry Analysis Research Reports and Forecast - 2020

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) announces the addition of a new report titled Ferrochromium Market - Global Industry Expert Opinions Analysis, Emerging Opportunities, Market Size, Share, Growth Drivers, Market Trends, Statistics And Forecast 2015 - 2020, Ferrochromium is more familiar as ferrochrome. It is a chromium alloy which contains about 30 to 50% of the iron.Request For Sample Report:There is a considerable variation in ferrochromium depending on its specific application in the various end-use industries. In some cases, the anthracite coal is also used in the manufacturing process of ferrochromium. The production of steel is the largest consumer of ferrochromium. The production of stainless steel is one of the major applications of the ferrochromium. Ferrochromium having a chromium content of about 10 to 20% is widely used in manufacturing the stainless steel. Ferrochromium is available in various forms such as charge chromium, ferrochromium-silica, silicochromium, chromium silicide and low carbon among others. The use of these terms to describe the form of ferrochromium varies from country to country.The growing stainless steel industry is expected to boost the overall growth of the ferrochromium market. The increasing demand for stainless steel for hostile industrial applications is expected to augment the overall growth of the ferrochromium market. The growing demand for the high end stainless steel grade especially in the various critical fields of the emerging infrastructure of the oil and gas, water treatment, nuclear plant, thermal power plant and desalination plant is expected to boost the global demand for ferrochromium. The type of ferrochromium differs with the type of the stainless steel manufactured.Make an Enquiry:China and India are expected to be the emerging market economies to drive the overall consumption of the ferrochromium market. China and India are expected to witness an increase in the production capacity in order to be self sufficient for supplying the raw material to the stainless steel manufacturers. The developing technology for producing stainless steel coupled with the increase in the scrap availability is expected to further enhance the ferrochromium market growth. South Africa is expected to be one of the major producers of ferrochromium in the world. Owing to the easy availability of the raw materials there is a huge production capacity for manufacturing ferrochromium in these countries. Russia and China are also emerging to be the major producers of ferrochromium. In the coming years, China is expected to surpass South Africa in the production of ferrochromium despite the absence of raw material resources in China. There is a decrease in the production of ferrochromium in South Africa owing to the various challenges related to the power supply are faced by the ferrochromium manufacturers. China is expected to grow as a major producer as well as consumer of the stainless steel market. In the previous years, China produced about 50% of the worlds stainless steel. Thus, China is expected to boost the overall growth o the ferrochromium market.Browse Full Report With TOC:Fesil Sales S.A., Vostok-Zaporozhe, Beicang Hou and FACOR Group among others are some of the key participants of the ferrochromium market. These companies mainly focus on increasing the production capacities. The increase in the production capacity will help in achieving economies of scale which in turn would give competitive advantage to the producers to sustain in the market as well as to achieve greater market share.About UsMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Google+:Linked in:Twitter:
Fuel Cells Market Overview, Share, Development, Trends, Growth, Research and Analysis 2025

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Global Fuel Cells Market: OverviewFuels cell is a fairly recent technology that is used as a source of heat and electricity in various spaces such as commercial, industrial, and residential sectors. They generate power without movement of any parts or combustion and thus are known to be noise-free technologies. The most popularly used form of fuel cell is PEMFC due to their ability to fit in a wide range of applications.Global Fuel Cells Market: Drivers and TrendsThe primary usage of fuel cells is to provide backup for a certain period of time or so long as the fuel is supplied to them. Thus, fuel cells are extensively being used in stationary applications such as backup power systems and CHP, portable applications such as consumer electronics, and the transportation sector. Though the usage of fuel cells for transportation sector is limited, the ongoing research and development will offer efficient fuel cell systems in vehicles, thereby boost the segments progress.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The soaring rise of the global fuel cells market is also attributable to the dire need of cleaner fuel sources, depleting conventional sources of energy, and rising pollution. Analysts expect that the market will also be driven by the growing demand for electricity and strict regulatory norms to reduce carbon emissions. The uncontrollable rise in population and the excessive dependency of the mankind on fossil fuels has fueled the demand for fuel cells in recent years. The report states that rising temperatures and greenhouse emissions will also be responsible for the uptake of fuels cells in the near future.Global Fuel Cells Market: Market PotentialThe changing outlooks of governments are also expected to have a positive impact on the growth of the global fuel cells market. For instance, the Government of Canada has committed to support technologies that will benefit the environment and offer jobs that will promote cleaner and greener output. In tandem with this sentiment, the government announced its plans to invest US$10 million non-repayable contribution to the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (AFCC). This organization is a joint venture run by German-based Daimler AG and Ford Company.Request TOC of the Report @Global Fuel Cells Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global fuel cells market is segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World. Asia Pacific is projected to lead the global market in the coming years. Analysts anticipate that Japan will dominate the region as the demand for power and combined heat systems rises in the country. The rise of hydrogen power plants in several emerging countries of Asia Pacific are also anticipated to augment the demand for fuel cells in the coming years.The rapid technological advancements and the supportive regulatory scenario in North America is expected favor the regions progress in the global fuel cells market in the near future. As of 2015, the region held a 50% share in the installed capacity and is projected to show its dominance during the forecast period as well.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:Some of the leading players operating in the global fuel cells market are AFC Energy PLC, Doosan Fuel Cell America, Inc., Ballard Power Systems Inc., FuelCell Energy, Inc., Nedstack Fuel Cell Technology B.V., Hydrogenics Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Plug Power, Inc., Toshiba Corporation, and SFC Energy AGAbout TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clientsContact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Stone Tile Global Market Industry Analysis Research Reports and Forecast - 2020

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) announces the addition of a new report titled Stone Tile Market - Global Industry Expert Opinions Analysis, Emerging Opportunities, Market Size, Share, Growth Drivers, Market Trends, Statistics And Forecast 2015 - 2020, A tile is a hard wearing material manufactured from stone, metal, ceramics or glass. It is generally used for covering rooftops, floors, walls, showers and other objects.Request For Sample ReportStone tiles are made from naturally available stone such as granite. There is a growing demand for stone tiles mainly due to easy access to the raw material, inexpensive and is available in high quality.Increasing purchasing power of the customers is expected to drive the global construction and furniture industry which in turn is expected to boost the overall growth of the stone tile market. The growing demand for stone tile in non-residential building and other constructions is expected to further fuel the overall growth of the stone tile market. Increasing use of stone tile owing to its low cost and low maintenance flooring and as an alternative to carpets and rugs is expected to augment the overall demand for the stone tile market. Homeowners are increasingly opting for the stone tile owing to its attractive and durable values that increase the overall home value. Naturally obtained stone tiles are being widely used in hotels, high-end resorts and shopping malls.Browse Full Report With TOC:Stone tiles are expected to be the fastest growing market in coming few years and are expected to overtake porcelain to be the one of the tile type to have high demand. Asia Pacific is expected to be the emerging market for stone tile mainly due to the presence of large number of manufacturers especially in China.Some of the companys manufacturing stone tiles includes Daltile, Nitco Ltd., CAPCO Tile & Stone, Eleganza Tile and GranitiFiandre S.p.A among others.About UsMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Google+:Linked in:Twitter:
Offshore Decommissioning Market : Recent Industry Trends and Projected Industry Growth, 2017 - 2025

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Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: OverviewOffshore decommissioning is the process of disassembling offshore oil platforms, which also includes burying the holes drilled into the ground for exploration and extraction purposes. Mature oil platforms can have an adverse impact on the surrounding environment, which necessitates their removal. The global offshore decommissioning market is likely to remain a key sector of the global oil and gas industry in the coming years, as the latter is likely to emphasize increasingly on offshore petroleum extraction. Well plugging and abandonment is likely to remain the key segment of the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years, with the extensive scale of the operation key in ensuring a steady dominant share for the segment in the global market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Key TrendsThe global offshore decommissioning market is likely to exhibit steady growth in the coming years due to the rising number of mature oilfields, which no longer remain commercially viable. The high number of aging platforms in shallow water is also likely to remain a key driver for the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years.On the other hand, the high cost of offshore decommissioning projects could hinder the growth of the global offshore decommissioning market. Due to the large scale of offshore oil and gas platforms, significant expenditure needs to be dedicated for effective offshore decommissioning projects. Since the expenses go toward removing a nonfunctional asset rather than expanding the existing capacity, many players in the global oil and gas industry have remained reluctant about offshore decommissioning. The technology required to carry out offshore decommissioning efficiently are also lacking in several regions, as is systemic support from the regulatory framework. This is also likely to restrain the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years.Request TOC of the Report @The rising use of techniques to maximize and prolong the viability of oilfields is also likely to restrain the growth of the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years. Refilling and other techniques can help extend the operational lifespan of oilfield by a few years, and result in further profits for the oil and gas operator. This remains a key challenge for the offshore decommissioning market in the coming years, as offshore decommissioning remains unprofitable both economically as well as logistically compared to these techniques.Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Market PotentialOil and gas operations in the North Sea are likely to be vital to the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years. The U.K. and Norway are among the leading oil producers operating in the North Sea and are likely to remain among the key consumers of offshore decommissioning technology in the coming years. As a result, Europe is likely to be the leading regional offshore decommissioning market over the coming years.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Geographical DynamicsFollowing Europe, North America is also likely to retain a significant share in the global offshore decommissioning market due primarily to the rising role of the U.S. in the global oil and gas sector. The U.S. has traditionally been a major player in the oil and gas industry and is a leading operator of offshore oilfields at present. The rising prominence of Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia in the global oil and gas sector is also likely to drive the Asia Pacific market for offshore decommissioning in the coming years.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Europe Data Center Construction Market Analysis and 2025 Forecasts By Design Type

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Rising digitization in the business world as well as demand for highly resilient data management services have resulted into increased demand for data center services across Europe. Mercury Engineering, LZ technologies, SISK Groups, Kedington and Jones Engineering Group are among the major players operating in this market. Europe, being a technologically advanced region along with high number of small and large enterprises, is anticipated to witness significantly high adoption of data centers by various organizations. Data center construction market is expected to grow from US$ 9,558 Million in 2016 to US$ 22,829.1 Million by 2025 at a CAGR of 10.3% between 2017 and 2025.Complete research report is available atThe report focuses on in-depth segmentation of this market segmented by design type, across the European region. The geographic segmentation of the report covers seven major countries including; Germany, France, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, England, and Belgium. By design type, Electrical desin accounted for the largest share of the data center construction market in 2016.The report aims to provide an overview of European data center construction market with detailed market segmentation. Also, it analyzes the current data center construction market scenario and forecasts the market till 2025. The report covers market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period. Furthermore, the report analyzes the competitive scenario, geographic trends, and opportunities in the markets with respect to all geographic regions. The report also includes the detailed company profiles of the key players in the market along with their market strategies. The report also provide PEST analysis for the European region, and SWOT analysis for all companies profiled within the scope of this report.UK is one of the prominent countries in European data center construction market which will contribute highest revenue, due to technological developments and considerable implementation of data centers by numerous organizations. Amongst all major European countries, Ireland is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Moreover, presence of big tech-giants in Ireland, is one of the major reason behind the availability of highly educated, and flexible workforce for data center construction market.Some of the key players of data center construction market in Europe include ISG plc, Arup Group, John Sisk & Son, Jones Engineering Group, Jacobs, Mace Group and others.Request for a sample of this research report atMajor Points from Table of Content5 Europe Data Center Construction Market  Key Industry Dynamics5.1 Key Market Drivers5.1.1 Rapidly increasing data traffic5.1.2 The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)5.1.3 High EBITDA margins in the infrastructure sector5.2 Key Market Restraints5.2.1 Complex infrastructure5.2.2 Emergence of containerized data centers5.3 Key Market Opporunities5.3.1 Growth in Green Data Centers5.3.2 Constant growth in number of data centers construction5.4 Future Trends5.5 Impact Analysis of Drivers and Restraints6 Data Center Construction Market Analysis  Europe6.1 Europe Data Center Construction Market Overview6.2 Europe Data Center Construction Market Forecast and AnalysisInquire for discount copy at7 Europe Data Center Construction Market By Design Type7.1 Overview7.2 Electrical Design7.2.1 Overview7.2.2 Europe Electrical Design Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.2.2.1 UPS7.2.2.1.1 Overview7.2.2.1.2 Europe UPS Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.2.2.2 Generators7.2.2.2.1 Overview7.2.2.2.2 Europe Generators Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.2.2.3 PDU7.2.2.3.1 Overview7.2.2.3.2 Europe PDU Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.2.2.4 Transfer Switchgear7.2.2.4.1 Overview7.2.2.4.2 Europe Transfer Switchgear Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.2.2.5 Others7.2.2.5.1 Overview7.2.2.5.2 Europe Others Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.3 Mechanical Design7.3.1 Overview7.3.2 Europe Mechanical Design Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.3.2.1 HVAC7.3.2.1.1 Overview7.3.2.1.2 Europe HVAC Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.3.2.2 Other Cooling Equipment7.3.2.2.1 Overview7.3.2.2.2 Europe Other Cooling Equipment Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)7.4 General Construction7.4.1 Overview7.4.2 Europe General Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)Purchase a copy of this research report at8 Europe Data Center Construction Market  Country Analysis8.1 Overview8.2 The Netherlands Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.2.1 Overview8.2.2 The Netherlands Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.3 Germany Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.3.1 Overview8.3.2 Germany Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.4 England Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.4.1 Overview8.4.2 England Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.5 Ireland Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.5.1 Overview8.5.2 Ireland Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.6 Denmark Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.6.1 Overview8.6.2 Denmark Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.7 Belgium Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.7.1 Overview8.7.2 Belgium Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Mn)8.8 France Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 20258.8.1 Overview8.8.2 France Data Center Construction Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 (US$ Bn)About Us:The Insight Partners is a one-stop industry research provider of actionable solutions. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are specialist in industries such as Technology, Media, and Telecommunication.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Report 2017 And Its Covering With H.J. Heinz, Hajdufreeze,McCain Foods

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In this report, the Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report split Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (MT), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Frozen Vegetables for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), includingChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanIndiaSoutheast AsiaAustraliaFor more info, get a Sample PDF with TOC:Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Frozen Vegetables sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingArdo GroupBirds Eye FoodsBonduelleConAgra FoodsLamb WestonFindus SwedenGeest LimitedGelagri BretagneGreen GiantH.J. HeinzHajdufreezeMcCain FoodsNG Fung HongTable of ContentsAsia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Report 20171 Frozen Vegetables Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Frozen Vegetables1.2 Classification of Frozen Vegetables by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Frozen Potatoes1.2.4 Frozen Broccoli1.2.5 Frozen Apricot1.2.6 Frozen Corn1.2.7 Frozen Spinach1.2.8 Other1.3 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hypermarkets and Supermarkets1.3.3 Independent Vegetable Market1.3.4 Other1.4 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Frozen Vegetables (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Browse Press Release of this Research Report:2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3 China Frozen Vegetables (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 China Frozen Vegetables Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 China Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 China Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 China Frozen Vegetables Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 China Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.3 China Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 Japan Frozen Vegetables (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 Japan Frozen Vegetables Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Japan Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Japan Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 Japan Frozen Vegetables Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 Japan Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.3 Japan Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 South Korea Frozen Vegetables (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.3 South Korea Frozen Vegetables Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. 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A private plane carrying a New York City woman, her two young children and a pilot, has vanished en route to Florida from Puerto Rico, according to reports. Officials say the plane disappeared from radar near the Bahamas on Monday morning.

U.S. Coast Guard officials say the twin-engine MU-2B was carrying Jennifer Blumin, 40, a local event space designer, and her two sons ages 10 and 4.

Pilot Nathan Ulrich, 42, who the Daily News describes as Blumin's "partner," was also onboard.

Coast Guard officials say the plane left Puerto Rico at around 11:30 a.m. on Monday and was headed to Titusville, Florida.

At around 2:10 p.m., officials at Miami Traffic Control say the plane disappeared from its radar; at the time, it was located about 37 miles east of Eleuthera, Bahamas.

"There's no indication of significant adverse weather at the time." Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Kelly told reporters.

The Coast Guard is currently engaged in an active rescue mission that thus far encompasses 810 squares miles. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force are also involved in the search.

Blumin is the CEO of the Skylight Group, a celebrated event venue development and management firm that's scored write-ups in The Observer and the NY Times.

Update 3:27 p.m.: The Post reports that Blumin's and Ulrich's relatives are "frantic with worry." Ulrich's father told the tabloid they're expecting to hear from the Coast Guard at 5 p.m. this evening. "Right now, were still dealing with the uncertainty. We have nothing other than theyre still searching and havent found any definitive evidence of any kind one way or the other," he said.

A man who answered the phone at Blumin's parents' house told the Post, "Were waiting for the Coast Guard to tell us whether our grandchildren and our children are alive."

Ulrich's brother told reporters Ulrich is an "experienced pilot," and ex-wife, actress Rae Dawn Chong, says he's a PhD and mechanical engineer. "I love him, she said. "Hes a really kind person, and [Blumin] is an adorable woman, and the kids are great."

Ulrich posted an Instagram photo from Puerto Rico two days ago:

Mother of a day @cartabuena #rincon A post shared by Nathan Ulrich (@nulrich34) on May 14, 2017 at 9:33am PDT

Update 5:15 p.m.: The Coast Guard says they found a "debris field" in the Atlantic Ocean, about 15 miles east of where the plane went missing near the Bahamas. They are still searching for survivors.


Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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This report studies Conveyors and Belt Loaders in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2012 to 2016, and forecast to 2022.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringSwisslog AgDematic GroupIntelligratedDaifukuFives GroupInterroll Holding AgSsi SchaeferVanderlande IndustriesTaikishaSiemen AgEmerson ElectricTgw Logistics Group GmbHFor more info, get a Sample PDF with TOC:By types, the market can be split intoBelt ConveyorsRoller ConveyorsPallet ConveyorsOverhead ConveyorsFloor ConveyorsCrescent ConveyorsTri-Planar ConveyorsOtherTable of ContentsGlobal Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.1 Definition and Specifications of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.1.1 Definition of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.1.2 Specifications of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.2 Classification of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.2.1 Belt Conveyors1.2.2 Roller Conveyors1.2.3 Pallet Conveyors1.2.4 Overhead Conveyors1.2.5 Floor Conveyors1.2.6 Crescent Conveyors1.2.7 Tri-Planar Conveyors1.2.8 Other1.3 Applications of Conveyors and Belt Loaders1.3.1 Airport1.3.2 Mining Industry1.3.3 Retail1.3.4 Food & Drinks1.3.5 Other1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 IndiaBrowse Press Release of this Research Report:2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Conveyors and Belt Loaders2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Conveyors and Belt Loaders2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Conveyors and Belt Loaders2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Conveyors and Belt Loaders3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Conveyors and Belt Loaders3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Conveyors and Belt Loaders Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Share Analysis5.2 China Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Analysis5.2.1 China Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Conveyors and Belt Loaders Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Conveyors and Belt Loaders Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Conveyors and Belt Loaders Market Share AnalysisQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States
Ablation Technology Market: Shares and Strategies For Key Industry Players By 2025

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Global Ablation Technology Market: OverviewThe term ablation refers to the surgical removal of harmful substances, abnormal growths such as tumors, and organs from the body. Ablation can be carried out via various methods such as cryoablation, laser or light, radiofrequency, microwave, ultrasound, hydrothermal, and electrical ablation technology. By application, the major segments of the global ablation technology market can be cardiovascular disease, urology, cancer, pain management, ophthalmology, cosmetic surgery, and gynecology.Global Ablation Technology Market: Key TrendsThe development of more innovative and effective ablation products is likely to influence the growth of the market for ablation technology. The growing number of ablation procedures, together with the greater espousal of minimally invasive procedures because of their being less painful, is ensuring that the market displays consistent growth over the next few years. Consequently, as the frequency of cardiac arrests and cancer increases worldwide, the demand for ablation technology will witness an upsurge. On the other hand, bruising at catheter insertion site and soreness in the chest after catheter ablation, and other side effects of various methods might slacken the growth of the market. However, as numerous companies are coming up with ablation devices featuring cutting-edge technologies, the negative impact of these restraints can be cancelled out.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Ablation Technology Market: Market PotentialA key trend in the global ablation technology market is the introduction of innovative products by several firms and their approval by regulatory bodies. In March 2017, AngioDynamics, a leading U.S.-based provider of medical devices, announced that it received the CE Mark certification for its new product, the Solero Microwave Tissue Ablation (MTA) System. Although this new product is not intended for cardiac use, it is likely to play a crucial role in the ablation of soft tissue at the time of laparoscopic, open, and percutaneous procedures. Another example of product approvals is the FDA approval of a new sensor-enabled ablation catheter, FlexAbility, developed by Abbott.Another significant development during the same month is the launch of CUSA Clarity ultrasonic tissue ablation platform by Integra Lifesciences Holdings Corporation. This new product offers high precision, power, and comfort to surgeons, patients, and staff, maximizing performance. Longer and tougher procedures such as fibrous tissue removal will be made easier by the use of this device, which features an intuitive touchscreen, ergonomic handpiece, and tough tissue tip.Request TOC of the Report @Global Ablation Technology Market: Regional OutlookWith the U.S at the fore, the ablation technology market in North America is slated for substantial growth. According to the findings of American Heart Association, nearly 350,000 people suffer from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year in the U.S. Of these, more than 90% patients die as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is not performed immediately. As a result, the demand for ablation technology will rise substantially.Asia Pacific is waiting in the wings to claim the foremost position in the global market for ablation technology, as the robust growth in healthcare industry, massive patient base, and extensive manufacturing and development of ablation technology products in countries such as India and China trigger growth.Global Ablation Technology Market: Competitive AnalysisA number of market players are investing in mergers and acquisitions, collaborations, and partnerships in order to expand their presence on a global scale. For instance, BioSig Technologies, Inc. a prominent medical device manufacturer, entered a strategic partnership with Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Ventures in March 2017. One of the major objectives of BioSig Technologies is to develop better ablation technologies for the treatment of deadly atrial fibrillation, arrhythmias, and ventricular tachycardia.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Some of the major companies operating in the global market for ablation technology are Biosense Webster, Inc., Olympus Corporation, VytronUS, CONMED Corporation, Smith & Nephew plc, Osypka AG, Medtronic plc, St. Jude Medical, Inc., AtriCure, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Endosense SA, and St. Jude Medical, IncAbout TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todayas supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clientsa conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Diagnostic Imaging Market - Detailed Analysis of Restrain and Growth Factors 2025

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Global Diagnostic Imaging Market: OverviewDiagnostic imaging refers to techniques that allow physicians to look inside our body for clues pertaining to a medical condition. Various techniques and machines enable the imaging of activities, structures, and abnormalities inside our bodies. Some of these are computed tomography (CT) scans, ultrasound, x-rays, MRI scans, and nuclear medicine scans. By application, spine, neurology, gynecology, breast health, general imaging, thoracic, cardiovascular, and orthopedics can be some of the key segments of the global market for diagnostic imaging. Whereas, hospitals, diagnostic imaging centers, research and academic centers, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and Contract Research Organizations (CROs) can be the chief end-use segments.Global Diagnostic Imaging Market: Key TrendsThe increasing incidence of diseases on a global scale, growing geriatric population, and technological advancement in the area of diagnostic imaging techniques are driving the market. Several government and private organizations are aiding the expansion of the global market for diagnostic imaging via vast investments directed at the development of new products. Among the diagnostic imaging methods, the x-ray based examinations are likely to exhibit maximum growth, contributing towards overall market growth.Request a Brochure of the Report @On the other hand, exposure to radiation involved in some techniques might increase the risk of cancer among patients, restricting the growth of the global market. Nevertheless, significant opportunities arising from the development of new products will help the market overcome the negative impact of this restraint.Global Diagnostic Imaging Market: Market PotentialA number of market players are developing innovative devices aimed at offering more precise and faster diagnosis. As a result, several hospitals and clinics have been offering diagnostic imaging services. For instance, in March 2017, Sequoia Hospital started offering 128-sliced CT scans for accurate diagnosis of medical conditions. This new 3D technology ensures that patients will be exposed to minimal radiation, offering high image quality and faster results at the same time.Request for TOC of the Report @Another example is the unveiling of a new center by Delhi-based Mahajan Imaging, an India-based diagnostic center, at Gurugram (previously Gurgaon), in the state of Haryana. The center aims at providing latest diagnostic imaging equipment and services to the residents, with an emphasis on spreading awareness about and offering treatments for womens health issues.Global Diagnostic Imaging Market: Regional OutlookBased on geography, the major segments of the global diagnostic imaging market are Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and the Rest of the World (RoW). North America is expected to emerge as the leading market for diagnostic imaging. The growth of this region can be attributed to the alarming increase in medical conditions such as cancer.Asia Pacific is expected to exhibit tremendous growth, with countries such as China, Japan, and India representing a major share of the regional market for diagnostic imaging. The rising awareness about the availability and benefits of these tests, increasing prevalence of chronic disorders, growing healthcare expenditures, and favorable policies of the government are propelling the market for diagnostic imaging in this region.Global Diagnostic Imaging Market: Competitive AnalysisMergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and collaborations are some of the major business strategies adopted by several leading market players. For example, MedyMatch Technology announced its collaboration with IBM Watson Health in March 2017. The key objective of this collaboration was to bring cognitive tools to imaging experts who work with hospital emergency rooms and other crucial settings for helping physicians diagnose intracranial bleeding resulting from stroke and head trauma. Similarly, during the same month, Minneapolis-based medical technology firm CorVascular Diagnostics, LLC announced its collaboration with Novarix, Inc. a manufacturer of medical devices used in intravenous therapy.Read Complete Report @Some of the major companies operating in the global market for diagnostic imaging are Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, Siemens Healthcare GmBH, GE Healthcare, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Shimadzu Corporation, and Hitachi Ltd.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todayas supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clientsa conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market : Report by Growth Opportunity and Forecast to 2025

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Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: OverviewThe global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market is estimated to witness a healthy growth in the coming years. Some of the key factors encouraging the growth of the market include cost containment in pharmaceuticals, rise in the funding for generics, and growing investments in biopharmaceutical research. The technological advancements in labeling and serialization solutions are anticipated to boost the growth of the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. Rising emphasis on labeling and serialization to counter the problem of counterfeiting of medicines will fuel the demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment. The market however faces one challenge. The threat from being substituted by refurbished packaging equipment is present in the market. Refurbished packaging equipment is a viable alternative to new packaging equipment, which costs high. This is likely to restrain the growth of the market.Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Key TrendsSome of thy key trends observed in the market are increasing investments in the manufacturing sector by players and consistent technological innovation taking place in the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. The flourishing pharmaceutical industry is directly responsible for the growth of the pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. Rising incidences of diseases and infections are pushing the pharmaceutical industry to grow, which in turn is pushing the demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment. The market for pharmaceutical packaging equipment is especially slated to witness a high growth in developing nations such as China and India as these countries do not have high import duties. The need for inexpensive manufacturing facilities is making developing nations in Asia Pacific, a potential market for pharmaceutical packaging equipment.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Market PotentialPackaging of pharmaceutical product is extremely vital for the pharmaceutical industry as packaging enables safety and quality of drugs. Thus, there will always be a demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment in the pharma industry. In contrast with conventional packaging systems, pharmaceutical packaging equipment are automated, modern, and flexible, including primary packaging and secondary equipment, and labeling and serialization equipment. This helps in reducing the time for packaging, boosting production.Companies such as Robert Bosch Gmbh participate in innovation and develop new products, which is creating a positive outlook for the market. The company recently launched a new Sigpack VPF vertical flat pouch machine and also a HML horizontal flow wrapping machine. The former is developed to pack powders by producing sachets that can pack pain killers in powder form. The machines enables the production of sealed packages and can fill up to 1500 sachets per minute.Request TOC of the Report @Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Regional OutlookThe report segments the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market on the basis of geography into Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. North America led in the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market on account of advancements in the pharmaceutical industry and economic growth of the region. The patent expirations of a number of drugs will also help the market in the region to grow.Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Competitive LandscapeThe global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market is highly fragmented. The market is characterized by the presence of several local, regional, and multinational players. Some of the players in the market are: IMA S.p.A. (Italy), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Korber AG (Germany), Multivac Group (Germany), Marchesini Group S.p.A. (Italy), Romaco Pharmatechnik GmbH (Germany), and OPTIMA Packaging Group GmbH (Germany). Key players in the market are striving for innovation so as to maintain their shares in the competitive market.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
High-resolution Melting Analysis Market : Professional Market Research Report and Forecasts, 2017 - 2025

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Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: OverviewHigh resolution melting analysis is a powerful and strong methodology in molecular biology for the purpose of detecting epigenetic differences, polymorphisms, and mutations in double-stranded DNA samples. It was first discovered and developed by the Idaho Technology and University of Utah. High resolution melting analysis has several advantages over genotyping technologies such as cost effectiveness, it is powerful and fast as compared to genotyping technologies, and it is comparatively simple. Based on products and services, the global high-resolution melting analysis market can be segmented into software and services, consumables and reagents, and instruments. In terms of application, it can be segmented into epigenetics, pathogen identification, species identification, mutation scanning, and SNP genotyping.The global market for high-resolution melting analysis is likely to have a fruitful future owing to ongoing research and developments in this field sponsored by several leading companies operating in this particular field. For instance, FDA in the U.S. approves many treatments which are made for addressing a specific genomic profile or genetic makeup of the tumor of the patient.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe prime factors that are boosting the growth of the market comprise the growing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, COPD, chronic diseases such as cancer, and other different infectious diseases. The prime benefits associated with high-resolution melting analysis are optimization of therapies, patient compliance, drug safety, cost savings on several treatments, and disease diagnosis. In return, these are also expected to propel the demand for DNA testing services. Moreover, rising awareness pertaining to the applications of high resolution melting analysis technologies for HLA typing, mutation discovery, and DNA mapping are additional aspects that are anticipated to propel the growth of the high-resolution melting analysis market during the forecast period. High resolution melting analysis is a technology employed for assessing melting curve plots of amplified gene. This particular technology is basically used for gene mutation scanning, microbial species identification, methylation profiling, and other different diagnostics based on PCR. Thus, mutation scanning and other applications are likely to gain prominence over time owing to rising prevalence of advancements in technology of molecular biology, genetic disorders, and growing awareness pertaining to SNP typing.Request TOC of the Report @Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Market PotentialGrowing government budget provision for research and development in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and applied life sciences is a crucial factor heightening the demand for numerous diagnostic techniques and tools. For instance, in 2015, the Obama led administration announced the introduction of the Precision Medicine Initiative with a huge investment of US$216 mn in the Presidents budget of 2016. This initiative is further expected to have positive impact on the growth of the high resolution melting analysis market.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Regional OverviewRegion-wise, the market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. North America is expected to perform extremely owing to factors such as robust adoption of advanced technology in healthcare, numerous genetic testing centers, strong biotech and pharmaceutical industry, prevalence many academic universities, and high prevalence of diseases. Asia Pacific has also been identified as one of the potential regions where the market can grow steadily owing to dynamics such as rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as HIV, COPD, and cancer, growing cases of genetic disorders, and rising private and public expenditure on genetic testing and molecular diagnostic.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todayas supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clientsa conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Baby Car Seat Market 2017 Global Industry  Profiled Goodbaby, Britax, Recaro, Graco, Takata, Combi, Maxi-cosi, Aprica, BeSafe

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Global Baby Car Seat Industry Report offers market overview, segmentation by types, application, countries, key manufactures, cost analysis, industrial chain, sourcing strategy, downstream buyers, marketing strategy analysis, distributors/traders, factors affecting market, forecast and other important information for key insight.Baby car seats, also known as baby car seats, are seats designed specifically to protect children from injury or death during collisions. Car manufacturers may integrate baby car seats directly into their vehicle's design. Most commonly, these seats are purchased and installed by consumers.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Baby Car Seat 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.Request a Sample Copy of Global Baby Car Seat Market Research Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Such as Goodbaby, Britax, Recaro, Graco, Takata, Combi, Maxi-cosi, Aprica, BeSafe, Chicco, Jane, Concord, Kiddy, Babyfirst, Stokke, Ailebebe, Best Baby, Welldon, Belovedbaby, ABYY, Ganen, Lutule, Leka.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers are Infant Car Seat, Convertible Car Seat, Booster Seat.Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into  Shopping Mall, Chain Specialty Store, Auto Parts Shop, Online.Enquire about this report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Baby Car Seat market.Chapter 1, to describe Baby Car Seat Market Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Baby Car Seat, with sales, revenue, and price of Baby Car Seat, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Baby Car Seat Market, 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 Global Baby Car Seat Market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Baby Car Seat market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Baby Car Seat sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceFor more information about Global Baby Car Seat Market Report @Related Reports: -Global Baby Car Seat Market 2017-2021Baby car seats are baby-convenient products that are mainly used during traveling in cars. They have foam padding, fabric covers, and a harness, and are used to protect a babys head from jerking forward during sudden braking or accidents. These products are available in different varieties depending on the weight and age of the babies. The products are not supposed to be used for more than six years and required to be periodically examined by manufacturers.MarketSizeForecasters.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:News:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Hospital Lighting Market : Quantitative Market Analysis, Current and Future Trends, 2017 - 2025

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Global Hospital Lighting Market: OverviewLighting in healthcare plays a critical role not only in enhancing the patient experience but also in improving the healthcare staffs ability of catering to the various levels of care required by the patients. As a result, the global market for hospital lighting is likely to reach new heights.By application, the global hospital lighting market can be segmented into dentistry, operating room, doctors offices, kitchen, maternity ward, patient rooms, laboratory, library, bathrooms, first aid ward, corridors and staircases, and waiting areas. Based on technology, the LED, CFL, florescent, and renewable energy. By product, the global market for hospital lighting systems can be segmented into surgical lights, surface-mounted lights, and troffers.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Hospital Lighting Market: Key TrendsSince good illumination ensures the safety of patients, allows smoother operation of activities, creates an amiable environment, and promotes a sense of well-being among the patients, the global healthcare lighting market holds vast potential for growth. The LED lighting is expected to emerge as the leading segment by technology, thanks to the growing deployment of LED based fixtures across various parts of hospitals.The florescent lighting systems are also gaining traction. They are being increasingly installed across hospitals by virtue of their relatively lower costs and power saving capabilities. By product, troffers are likely to claim the largest share in the global market for hospital lighting. By application, the patients wards segment might represent the largest share in the global market for hospital lighting.Request TOC of the Report @Global Hospital Lighting Market: Market PotentialEnhancement of user experience is increasingly being acknowledged by some leading hospitals. For instance, the new Beacon Childrens Hospital in South Bend (US), features a two-story atrium that has pleasant, soft-green lights. These firefly lights give a splendid appearance to the entire ambience of the hospital. The nature and healing theme of the hospital is designed to aid patients recover faster. With a forest mural, interactive games, and tree sculptures along with these lights, the hospital aims at boosting interaction between fellow patients, staff, family, and the physical space itself. The hospital welcomed its first patients in May 2017.The global market for hospital lighting has been witnessing collaborations, partnerships, and mergers. For instance, an emerging non-profit, Market Driven Community Corporation (MDCC) made an announcement in April 2017 pertaining to its signing a contract for installing LED lighting systems at Rochester General Hospital (New York, US).Global Hospital Lighting Market: Regional OutlookThe global market for hospital lighting can be segmented into Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and North America. North America currently holds the dominant position in the global market for hospital lighting. Beneficial government initiatives and technological advancements in the area of lighting solutions have been the key factors driving the growth of the market.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@The countries such as India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan are witnessing an increase in the number of hospitals. This can create significant opportunities for the growth of the market. The expanding healthcare infrastructure in Asia Pacific and growing preference for efficient lighting solutions in the region have also been accelerating the expansion of the hospital lighting market in the region. The Middle East and Africa and Latin America are also bursting forth with opportunities.Global Hospital Lighting Market: Competitive AnalysisKoninklijke Philips N.V., Acuity Brands Lighting Inc., KLS Martin Group, Eaton Corporation PLC, Hubbell Incorporated, General Electric Company, Cree Inc., Zumtobel Group AG, and Trilux Lighting Ltd are some of the leading companies operating in the global market for hospital lighting.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todayas supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clientsa conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market Key Players, Types and End User analysis Report Upto 2023

Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market

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The new research report on Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market offered by DecisionDatabases.com provides Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016-2023. The report on global automotive airbag fabric market evaluates the growth trends of the industry through historical study and estimates future prospects based on comprehensive research. The report extensively provides the market share, growth, trends and forecasts for the period 2016-2023. The market size in terms of revenue (USD MN) is calculated for the study period along with the details of the factors affecting the market growth (drivers and restraints).Get FREE Sample Report Copy @The major market drivers are technological developments in fabrics and raising disposable income. The market growth might be restricted due to fluctuating prices of raw material & strict government bodies of system under the study period.Furthermore, the report quantifies the market share held by the major players of the industry and provides an in-depth view of the competitive landscape. This market is classified into different segments with detailed analysis of each with respect to geography for the study period 2016-2023. The comprehensive value chain analysis of the market will assist in attaining better product differentiation, along with detailed understanding of the core competency of each activity involved. The market attractiveness analysis provided in the report aptly measures the potential value of the market providing business strategists with the latest growth opportunities.The report also covers the complete competitive landscape of the worldwide market with company profiles of key players such as Accenture Plc, Blockchain Tech Ltd., Chain Inc., Deloitte, Digital Asset Holdings, Earthport, Eris Industries, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation. Geographically, this market has been segmented into regions such as North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East & Africa. The study details country-level aspects based on each segment and gives estimates in terms of market size.Table Of Contents- Overview1.Introduction2.Executive Summary3.Market Analysis4.Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market Analysis By Type5.Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market Analysis By End User6.Blockchain Distributed Ledger Market Analysis By Geography7.Competitive Landscape Of The Blockchain Distributed Ledger Companies8.Company Profiles Of The Blockchain Distributed Ledger IndustryView More About this Report @About-Us:DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed.About the company:3rd Floor,Fountain chambers,Nanabhai Lane,Fort, Mumbai - 1E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.comPhone: +91 99 28 237112Web:
Food Grade Alcohol Market:Increasing demand for craft & draught beer globally and increased beer production to bolster demand

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The global market for food grade alcohol is segregated on the basis of type, source, function and application. Based on type, the market is divided into polyols and ethanol. Polyols are sugar alcohol that has a low calorie content as compared to sugar and is therefore, used as artificial sweeteners. They are also added to chewing gums as they do no break down by bacteria and therefore helps prevent tooth decay. Common types of polyols include erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, maltitol and various others. Ethanol also known as drinking alcohol is primarily used in alcoholic beverages. It is an addictive drug and can cause neurotoxicity if consumed in sufficient quantities. Most common uses of ethanol include fuel, solvent and feedstock among others.Browse Report:Ethanol held the major market share in 2016 and is anticipated to witness a similar trend during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, owing to its wide range of uses in alcoholic beverages and application in pharmaceutical and food industry. On the basis of source, the global market for food grade alcohol is segregated into fruits, grains, sugarcane & molasses and others. Sugarcane & molasses held the majority market share in 2016 due to abundant availability of sugarcane from which sucrose is derived and is fermented into alcohol. In addition, low cost of production is another major reason that is fuelling the demand for sugarcane & molasses. Based on function, the global market for food grade alcohol is segregated into coatings, preservative, coloring/flavoring and others.Coloring/flavoring held the majority market share in 2016 and is anticipated to witness similar trend during the forecast period. Based on application the global food grade application is segregated into pharmaceuticals, food and beverages. Beverages are further segregated into spirits, beer, wine and others. Beverage held the majority market share in 2016 and is anticipated to witness a similar trend during the forecast period. This is attributed huge demand for alcoholic beverages among consumers across all age groups and across all countries.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @Increasing demand for craft & draught beer globally and increased beer production is a major factor driving the global market for food grade alcohol. In addition, rising demand for food grade alcohol as preservatives is also stimulating the growth of the market. Rising awareness about the harmful effects of alcohol when consumed in larger quantities is one of the key factors barring the growth of the market at present. Stringent government regulations regarding the usage of alcohol in food and pharmaceutical products is another reason that is hindering the overall market growth. Usage of co-products of ethanol in the feed industry offers great opportunity tfor the growth of the global food grade alcohol market.Geographically, the global market for food grade alcohol market is segregated into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. In 2016, the majority market share was held by North America and is it is projected to maintain a stable growth rate during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is forecasted to have the most rapid growth rate during the forecast period due to increased demand for craft beer in the region.Major players of the global food grade alcohol include Cargill, Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Company, Roquette Freres, Sigma-Aldrich, Grain Processing Corporation, Cristalco S.A.S, MGP Ingredients, Wilmar International Limited, Manildra Group and Fonterra Co-Operative Group among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Advanced Visualization Systems Market By Key Trends and Analysis 2024

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The global advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market has been prognosticated to be influenced by high competitive rivalry as leading companies look to cement their position by introducing greater technologically advanced solutions. In 2016, Siemens Healthcare shook hands with Curagita Holding AG to develop an e-health app for 100 practices in Radiology Network Germany to diagnose prostate cancer. In the same year, TeraRecon, Inc. launched iNtuition Share which supports direct peer-to-peer image sharing and multiple workflow and user management scenarios.The world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market could witness a continual trend of independent advanced visualization vendors being acquired by equipment manufacturers, according to Transparency Market Research (TMR).The world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market has been anticipated by the authors of a TMR report to bank in a revenue of US$3.28 bn by 2024. In 2016, the world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market had earned an almost US$2.0 bn. The CAGR expected to be registered by the world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market during the forecast period is 6.4%. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been predicted to dominate the world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market with a 7.5% CAGR. North America could hold a larger share of over 32.0% in the world advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market.Obtain Report Details @Aggressive Rise of Medical Procedures and Need for Digital Patient Data Amplify DemandIn the next two decades, the WHO has foreseen the count of fresh cancer cases to increase to 22.0 mn. Moreover, the globe suffers from cardiovascular diseases as a leading cause of death. Thus, with the rising number of chronic diseases escalating the need for oncology, neurology, and cardiology medical procedures, the demand in the international advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market has been prophesied to augment.The elevating need for digitizing patient data on account of legal compliance requirements stated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the part of maintaining picture archiving and communication system (PACS) records could also aggravate the demand in the international advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market.Cost savings triggered by sophisticated advancements in 3D and 4D imaging technologies for more patient diagnosis support have been envisaged to offer lucrative growth opportunities in the international advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market.5D Imaging Technology Looks Down on 3D and 4D Imaging TechnologiesThe worldwide advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market could face a few hindrances in its growth path, viz. hesitation of end users to invest in new installations, high equipment cost, and the advent of 5D imaging technology.However, the untapped prevalence of a growing number of chronic disease patients and medical tourism have been envisioned to offer some bankable opportunities in the worldwide advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market. Vendors operating in the worldwide advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market could also profit from the evolution of novel services and software.Patients deprived of quality healthcare services and residing at remote locations can gain access to advanced visualization tools with the availability of better Internet connectivity. Physicians have already been using tablets and smartphones to communicate with their patients and assess scan results. Applications designed for oncology treatment, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and liver analysis can now be hosted using cloud-based solutions.The information presented in this review is based on a Transparency Market Research report, titled, Advanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market (Platform - Ultrasound, MRI, CT, and PET; Application - Cardiology, Oncology, and Neurology; End-user - Hospitals, Diagnostic Labs, and Academics and Research) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Ring Main Unit Market to Rear Excessive Growth During 2017 - 2025

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Global Ring Main Unit Market: OverviewFor a distribution network that constitutes a number of ring shaped grids, the ring main unit (RMU) acts a variant of switchgear and works at a nominal system voltage of 11KV. Since these are dangerous and essential switch devices in a distribution network that aids in supplying power from back-up system in case a hindrance in main supply source. RMU are used by delivery transformers to measure, meter, and provide uninterrupted power supply and are vital for ensuring consistency of a grid system. With rapid urbanization across the world, the demand for consistent power supply and conservation is mounting. Consequently, the demand in the global ring main unit market is expected to increment at a robust rate during the forecast period of 2017 to 2025.Global Ring Main Unit Market: Key TrendsAcross several countries, modernization of existing power infrastructure is underway, and increased emphasis is now being given to increasing the capacity as well as enhance the distribution network in order to meet the escalating demands. This are the primary factors driving the demand in the global market for ring main unit. Moreover, in order to ensure uninterrupted power supply, a number of end-use industries are installing ring main units as secondary distribution source. This factor is also expected to favor the demand for ring main unit in the near future. On the other hand, preference of conventional switchgears for lower cost than ring main units is hampering the market from achieving its true potential.Request Sample Copy of the Report @On the basis of type, the global ring main unit market can be segmented into gas insulated, oil insulated, solid dielectric insulated, and air insulated. In current scenario, has insulated ring main unit segment has the maximum demand, owing to its applications in railway systems, power grids, wind power plants, mining, and underground installations. Gas insulated ring main units are easily integrated with the existing system. Application-wise, the distribution utilities segment is most lucrative in comparison to industries or infrastructure and transportation.Global Ring Main Unit Market: Market PotentialAcross several developed and developing countries, owing to growing pollution concerns, the emphasis on renewable energy is escalating, and those governments are offering favorable mandates. RMUs are now frequently integrated with in solar power plant and help in minimizing power losses as well as enhance safety with reduced cable lengths. This development is expected to open new opportunities for the vendors operating in the global ring main unit market.Request TOC of the Report @Global Ring Main Unit Market: Regional OutlookAsia Pacific and Europe two most lucrative regions for the vendors operating in the ring main unit market. In Asia Pacific, India and China are the leading country-wide markets due to increasing demand to electrify rural areas, increasing power capacity of power plants, and implementation of smart grids. Japan leads among the Southeast Asian countries, strategically expanding their power facilities to establish an active distribution network. Countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia are also posed to expand the demand for ring main unit.The demand in European ring main unit market is driven by incremented focus on renewable energy. European Unions energy directive, which requires the members to achieve at least 20% of the demand from renewable sources, has gone a long way in advancing and producing energy in the region. As the directive requires the EU members to ensure at least 27% of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2030, Europe is expected to turn into one of the most profitable region for ring main unit market players towards the end of the forecast period.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Ring Main Unit Market: Competitive LandscapeHoneywell, Siemens, ABB, General Electric, Eaton, Schneider Electric, Larsen & Toubro, Entec, LSIS, Lucy Electric, Ormazabal, Toshiba, Yashmun, Tiepco, Yokogawa Electric, Azbil, NovaTech Process, and Rockwell Automation are some of the leading companies currently operating in the global ring main unit market.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Thrombectomy Devices Market to Witness Comprehensive Growth by 2025

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Global Thrombectomy Devices Market: OverviewThrombectomy devices are used in surgeries to remove blood clots formed in situ within blood vessels. These devices are available in various types, including mechanical devices, basket/brush retrievers, stent retrievers, aspiration devices, ultrasonic devices, coil retrievers, and hydrodynamic devices. They are used to remove thrombus, which can happen anywhere within the vascular system of a human body and therefore, find their application in the cardiovascular system, peripheral vascular system, and neurovascular system. The end users of these devices, include ambulatory surgical centers, hospitals and surgical centers, academic institutes, and research laboratories.Global Thrombectomy Devices Market: Key TrendsThe rapidly growing geriatric population is fuelling the global demand for thrombectomy devices since aged people are highly susceptible to venous thromboembolism (VTE). Moreover, the rising occurrence of peripheral artery disease, acute myocardial infarction, and deep vein thrombosis, owing to the unhealthy and sedentary lifestyles is escalating the development of the global market for thrombectomy devices. The increasing government and consumer expenditure on the healthcare sector coupled with the presence of favorable medical reimbursement scenario is also stoking the growth of the market. Besides this, the spiraling demand for minimally invasive thrombectomy procedures is augmenting the market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @On the flip side, stringent regulations pertaining to the approval and manufacturing of thrombectomy devices is hampering the growth of the global market. Moreover, patients, particularly in developing and less developed nations, are less aware about thrombectomy, which in turn negatively impacts the growth of the market. The lack of skilled and well-trained surgeons is also inhibiting the growth of the global thrombectomy devices market.Global Thrombectomy Devices Market: Market PotentialThe global medical devices industry and its affiliated markets are largely influenced by government actions. Thus, favorable government policies are playing an instrumental role in the development of the global thrombectomy devices market. To put this in perspective, the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) is taking efforts to make mechanical thrombectomy more widely available to patients. In April 2017, the NHS decided to invest hefty sums in the development of an advanced treatment for strokes. With this intervention, nearly 8,000 people per year are expected to benefit from this treatment. The development of such treatments is likely to translate into the greater uptake of thrombectomy devices.Request TOC of the Report @Global Thrombectomy Devices Market: Geographical SegmentationThe key regions analyzed in the report are Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. North America will command a substantial share in the global market throughout the forecast period. The growing popularity of technologically advanced thrombectomy products among surgeons and the availability of favorable reimbursement policies, especially in the U.S. are contributing to the growth of the region. Besides this, the presence of advanced healthcare infrastructure and the rising number of clinical trials are supplementing the market in North America.Asia Pacific will be an emerging market for thrombectomy devices. The widening base of target patient population, growing healthcare expenditure, and increasing awareness regarding novel devices among surgeons are stoking the growth of the region. In addition, the growth of the region can be attributed to the rising localized manufacturing and strengthening of distribution channels.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Thrombectomy Devices Market: Competitive LandscapeThe majority of key players in the global thrombectomy devices market are looking upon mergers and acquisitions as viable strategies to expand their product portfolio. They are paying high attention to technological advancements and product upgradation to stay relevant in this highly competitive arena. Some of the key global participants in the global market are Stryker Corporation, Medtronic Plc, Boston Scientific Corporation, Penumbra Inc., Teleflex Incorporated, AngioDynamics Inc., The Spectranetics Corporation, Johnson and Johnson Inc., Terumo Corporation, and Vascular Solutions Inc.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Market Research Report on Bug Tracking Software Market by key Players, growth rate and Market Share

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Global Bug Tracking Software Market: OverviewA software application program to uncover bugs in software development projects is known as a bug tracking software. It can also be labelled as a type of issue tracking segment. While excel sheets can serve the same function of recording or tracking and emails to report, massive and dauntingly complicated scale of the projects involving numerous test cycles and a large number of people makes it imperative to leverage a much sophisticated and effective mechanism. This has led to the emergence of different bug tracking software or defect management tools over the years in the market.Global Bug Tracking Software Market: Key TrendsThe global market for bug tracking software will likely clock steady growth in the foreseeable future on account of the many benefits of such a software. For example, proper bug tracking allows companies to keep a tab of the bugs that arise frequently and thus makes it easier to sort recurring issues. Further, the records also enable software developers to focus only on the most pressing issues well in time so that they do not escalate into a substantial threat.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Another factor that will stoke the markets growth is the fact that bug tracking software are open source that can be installed and upgraded without much hassle and in a cost effective manner. Free or open source solutions, however, mostly have a limited feature set and/or support. A noticeable trend in the market has been the shift toward cloud-based bug tracking software for seamless and agile applications. Several platforms like Google Drive and Microsoft Azure are encouraging uptake of cloud-based solutions from the on-premises software models.Global Bug Tracking Software Market: Market PotentialThe global market for bug tracking software is dynamic in nature with both tech juggernauts and savvy startups focused on innovating better products. Some of this years bestselling bug trackers are Zoho Projects by Zoho, CaseCamp.com, QuickBase, MantisBT, Axosoft, BugZilla, etc. MantisBT and Bugzilla, among them, are free or open source solutions that cost-conscious business entities are increasingly leveraging to slash expenses.Request TOC of the Report @At present, there are not many differentiated products in the market. Astute players are already tapping into the opportunity by funneling money into development of differentiated and effective products. This will likely intensify competition in the near future in the market.The cloud-based deployment model accounts for a substantial chunk of bug tracking software market since it can be seamlessly accessed using a web browser. It does not require investments in hardware and results in less human effort  factors that are contributing to its popularity.Global Bug Tracking Software Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the key segments of the global bug tracking software market are Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World. North America, is a key market due to the rise in investments in software testing activities in the U.S. and Canada. A large concentration of software testing companies is also spurring the market in the continent.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Bug Tracking Software Market: Competitive AnalysisIn order to assess the competition prevailing in the global market for bug tracking software, the report profiles prominent players such as IBM, Atlassian, JetBrains, and Zoho Corporation. On account of the presence of both large-sized and smaller players in the market, the competitive landscape is fragmented and might heat up in the upcoming years.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Influenza Diagnostics Market Research Report: Key Growth Factors and Forecast 2025

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Global Influenza Diagnostics Market: OverviewAs the frequency of outbreaks of influenza increases globally, the global market for influenza diagnostics is likely to soar. Commonly known as flu, influenza is an illness of the respiratory system caused by viruses. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), influenza is responsible for 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide, making it the second leading disease resulting in mortality, after acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).Types of influenza include pandemic, avian, seasonal, and swine (variant) flu. Numerous tests aid in the diagnosis and treatment of influenza. Some of these available diagnostic tests are serology, viral culture, rapid molecular assays, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and immunofluorescence assays.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Influenza Diagnostics Market: Key TrendsThe increasing incidence of various forms of influenza across the globe, growing investments in research and development, rising pediatric focus, and encouraging policies of the government are driving the global market for influenza diagnostics. As faster and more accurate diagnostic tests are increasingly sought after, a number of market players have undertaken the development of more efficient tests that give quicker results.Conversely, stringent regulatory frameworks, delays in the approval process of new tests, and limited infrastructure (in developing nations in particular), might emerge as the key deterrents of the global market for influenza diagnostics. Nevertheless, technological advancement in the domain of influenza diagnostics can offer extensive opportunities for growth.Request TOC of the Report @Global Influenza Diagnostics Market: Market PotentialAs the virulent spread of influenza across numerous regions of the world has created concern across countries. Considering the spread of influenza governments, pharmaceutical companies, and medical organizations are striving to introduce effective diagnostics and medications. As of March 2017, 16 from North Carolina, 3 in Delaware, 7 in San Diego died of influenza. Almost 4,000 residents of Arizona suffered from influenza during February 2017. Likewise, in Malaysian state Perak around 273 school children were found to suffer from influenza-like illness during the same month.Consequently, in March 2017, GlaxoSmithKline plc, a leading market player, announced its submission of an application to the FDA for obtaining approval to expand its label of an influenza vaccine, Fluarix Quadrivalent, for children aged six months and older. Presently, the vaccine is administered to patients aged three and above. It is an active immunization against type A and type B influenza viruses.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@The fifth wave of H7N9 in China resulted in 1,223 cases, with 380 fatalities, according to the WHO. Consequently, growing concerns pertaining to the avian influenza led to the announcement of the development of two novel pandemic vaccines by Protein Sciences Corporation. The announcement was made following a request for the same by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The company boasts owning the single FDA approved technology for fast production of influenza vaccines.Global Influenza Diagnostics Market: Regional OutlookBased on geography, the global market for influenza diagnostics can be segmented into Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. As countries such as Australia, the U.S., Greece, China, Spain, India, and Malaysia have been witnessing outbreaks of influenza, the demand from these regions will mount up to a great degree.The influenza diagnostics market in Asia Pacific is slated for significant growth over the forecast period, propelled by the increasing healthcare spending, favorable government initiatives, greater demand for cutting-edge diagnostics technologies, and expanding disposable incomes of the middle class populace in the region.Global Influenza Diagnostics Market: Competitive AnalysisSome of the major companies operating in the global market for influenza diagnostics are Becton, Dickinson and Company, Luminex Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Alere Inc., GlaxoSmithKline plc, DiaSorin, Roche Diagnostics, SA Scientific, and Quidel Corporation.Product development is a key business strategy of market players. For instance, Becton, Dickinson and Company recently announced FDA approval for its new digital immunoassay, BD Veritor System Flu A+B, which is able to rapidly detect influenza.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Vision Disorders Market: Emerging niche segments and regional markets

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Although there are significant progress in preventing and curing visual impairment in many countries since last twenty years, according to World Health Organization (WHO) around 285 million (In the year 2013) people are still visually impaired across the world. It is a matter of great concern. The reasons may be varied. However, we cannot deny the fact that there is still a lot to be done to save the people from going blind.Any disturbance in the normal sense of vision can be termed as vision disorders. Myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, presbyopia, conjunctivitis, cataract, corneal abrasion, entropion and glaucoma are some of the vision disorders, affecting majority of the population across the world. Improper nutrition, various infections, traumatic eye injury, insertion of foreign objects and growing age are major causes for majority of the vision disorders.Vision disorders: Control and preventionAccording WHO, 80 percent of visually impaired people can be cured by using simple eye examinations like abnormality in a frequency of blinking, size of pupil and color of the eye. The disorders can be confirmed by suitable clinical and retinal tests such as corneal topography, keratometry, pachymetry, fluorescein angiography, Indocyanine Green study (ICG) dye test and other related tests. However, ignorance and negligence are leading severe eye complications or permanent vision loss.Obtain Report Details:The report published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), revealed that approximately 14 million Americans above age of twelve are affected by various vision disorders in 2004. All these reports are alarming towards the need of immediate treatment for vision disorders across the world. This precisely a reason that the market for visual disorders may continue to grow in future.There are many companies which are involved in extensive research and development activities associated with these disorders such as United States based National Eye Institute working on clinical trials for nutritional supplements for age related cataract. Alcon Research is working on small incision cataract surgery. AqueSys, Inc. evaluating safety of AqueSys XEN 45 glaucoma implant in refractory glaucoma. Apart from this, University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with local NGOs is working on ancillary therapy of different eye infections.In case of region wise achievements in fighting against the visual disorders, Brazil has been providing eye care service through the national social security system since last decade. While, Morocco has launched a public effort to control glaucoma, China has invested over 100 million dollars in cataract surgeries since 2009. Oman has completely integrated eye care service provision in the primary health care framework over the last decade and India since 1995 has made available funds for eye care service provision for the poorest at district level.To reduce the burden of chronic eye diseases WHO is also coordinating a global research efforts to map services and policies for controlling diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age related macular degeneration and refractive errors. To support comprehensive eye care systems, WHO continues to provide epidemiologic and public health technical support to its member states.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:Vision Disorders Market SegmentationComing towards market point of view, the market for vision disorders can be segmented according to different perspectives such as regional geography and types of disorder. It can be segmented in four regions namely North American, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. Out of all these segments North America region have highest contribution in terms of value because of large number of population within the reach of treatment, high awareness and better reimbursement policies.Followed by this Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World respectively are major segments of the market. The market can also be segmented among disorders such as cataract, glaucoma, eye infections and refractive errors. Along with this, the market for visual disorders can be categorized into drugs and devices available for the treatment.Currently various established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are catering the needs of visual disorders by providing drugs and lenses. Pfizer, Alcon, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and GlaxoSmithKline are leading contributors in drug therapy, while Novartis and Bausch & Lomb are major players in lenses.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market - Industry News, Applications and Trends 2017 - 2025

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Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market: OverviewGynecology surgical instruments are designed to be used in surgical and medical specialties related to female reproductive organs, including fallopian tubes, ovaries, uterus, cervix, vagina, and vulva. In many medical areas, the specialties of gynecology and obstetrics significantly overlap so that many gynecologists are also obstetricians and the instruments used for carrying out surgical procedures are popularly known as obstetrics-gynecology surgical instruments.Major surgical procedures in gynecology include colposcopy, hysteroscopy, loop electrosurgical excision (LEEP) procedure, dilation and curettage (D & C), and pelvic laparoscopy, which may require the use of surgical instruments such as forceps, trocars, needle holders, vaginal speculums, and uterine curettes.Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market: TrendsThe rising incidence of gynecologic diseases, increasing awareness, and soaring government investments focused on womens health are the factors stimulating the demand for gynecology surgical instruments. The rising incidence of various types of cancer such as ovarian, cervical, and uterine cancers affecting women is also anticipated to boost the market along the forecast period.Request Sample Copy of the Report @The increasing prevalence of cervical cancer across various regions, especially in Eastern and Central Africa, where it is the most common form of cancer affecting women. According to an estimate by the WHO, cervical cancer forms the second most common cancer affecting women living in less developed regions. A large number of women with cervical cancer opt for various types of surgeries such as simple or total hysterectomy, radical hysterectomy, and radical trachelectomy. This in turn has stimulated the demand for various surgical instruments, thereby fuelling the growth of the market. The demand for minimally invasive surgeries is expected to unlock exciting opportunities for medical device manufacturers.Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market: Market PotentialThe demand for non-invasive surgeries has bolstered the demand for high-end surgical instruments for gynecologic surgeries. This has led to major device manufacturers offering innovative solutions that make healthcare more accessible and cost-effective for a large number of patients.Request TOC of the Report @Last year, Boston Scientific, a global manufacturer and marketer of medical devices, acquired the gynecology and urology portfolio of Distal Access, LLC, pioneering in developing minimally invasive medical devices. The acquisition of the portfolio is significant as it includes the Resectr Tissue Resection Device, a high-end solution useful in removing uterine polyps. Uterine polyps is associated with a range of symptoms affecting womens reproductive systems, such as abnormal uterine bleeding and infertility, and almost three-fourth of the women develop one or more polyps in their lifetime.The Resectr device can be used with a range of hysteroscopes. Further, the medical device does not require for surgeons to make any additional investment in traditional surgical tools used for hysteroscopy. Used along with a diagnostic hysteroscope, the Resectr device allows surgeons to treat polyps in a single visit, making it a convenient option for outpatient population. The inclusion of the portfolio has enabled Boston Scientific to offer minimally invasive solutions for gynecological surgeries.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market: Regional OutlookNorth America and Europe are the prominent markets for gynecology surgical instruments. The substantial demand in Europe is propelled by large-scale adoption of surgical procedures for treating gynecologic diseases and symptoms, spiraling governmental initiatives for espousing innovation in medical devices, and numerous awareness programs. Asia is poised to register an impressive CAGR owing to the soaring investment by government and private organizations to boost healthcare infrastructure, increasing incidence of gynecological diseases, and increased government initiatives focused on improving womens health. Countries such as India, China, and Japan are expected to witness significant demand for gynecology surgeries along the forecast period, attributed to constant improvement in healthcare services.Gynecology Surgical Instruments Market: Competitive AnalysisThe gynecology surgical instruments market is fairly fragmented with the presence of several global and regional companies. Leading players in various regions, particularly in developed markets, are focusing on consolidating their presence by leaning on mergers, acquisitions, and innovative product launches. Major players operating in this market include KARL STORZ, Richard WOLF GmbH, Olympus Corporation, CooperSurgical Inc., MedGyn Products, Sklar Surgical Instruments, and B. Braun Melsungen AG.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Medical Robots Market : Trend, Share, Opportunities and Forecast to 2025

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Global Medical Robots Market: OverviewMedical robots comprise the use of robotics in various disciplines of medical science to execute a variety of functions performed by clinicians and healthcare workers. Requiring limited human oversights, they can be configured to support, extend, and automate various healthcare services, especially those involving monotonous tasks. The rising application of robotic and autonomous systems in the healthcare industry has transformed the quality of medical treatment making their use increasingly popular worldwide.The spiraling demand for medical robots in areas of disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention is propelled by the marked dexterity with which they perform various tasks. The successful use of robotic technology for a range of complex tasks such as targeted drug deliveries, precision surgeries, decontamination of healthcare spaces, and detection of biological targets has paved the way for commercial applications of medical robots.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Medical Robots Market: TrendsThe enormous benefits of robot-assisted training in rehabilitation therapy, soaring governmental funding for robotics in developed regions, and constant technological advances in the medical industry are the factors propelling the growth of the medical robots market. The rising application of robots in hospitals worldwide to carry out various tasks that call for extreme precision and unmatched promptness has spurred the demand for medical robots.Over the past few decades, medical robots have gained traction among surgeons for performing complex and non-invasive surgeries in different medical specialties, particularly urology and neurosurgery. However, a host of emerging legal and ethical concerns related to robotic surgeries, coupled with the high cost of robotic systems, is likely to restrain the market. Nevertheless, concerned stakeholders, including leading regulatory agencies, are actively taking initiatives to address various patient safety concerns. The substantial benefits of boosting surgical outcomes have kept a large number of surgeons ebullient of the promising avenues emanating in the market.Request TOC of the Report @Global Medical Robots Market: Market PotentialCurexo Inc., a Korea-based manufacturer of medical devices and an importer of surgical robots, has recently acquired medical robots division of Hyundai Heavy Industries for a sum of 11.1 billion won (approximately $9.9 million). With this, Curexo intends to lead the regional medical robots market by expanding its product portfolio by including robots for the purpose of rehabilitation, patient care, and other healthcare operations. The leading shipbuilding company will become the second largest shareholder of Curexo with a significant stake of 6.7%. Previously, the shipbuilder has developed medical robots for a variety of tasks such as patient-handling, endovascular therapies robots, and orthopedic surgeries.In an another encouraging market development that will spur the investment to the development of medical robots, Myomo Inc., a orthotics and prosthetics service company based in Massachusetts, has recently announced a crowdfunding campaign through an online brokerage which will enable it to sell shares in an initial public offering (IPO). The start-up, founded in 2004, actively markets braces and other similar medical devices for people suffering from neurological disorders and upper-limb paralysis. The issuance of IPO will allow a large number of individual investorsordinary and institutional investorsparticipate in IPOs. As a result, the medical device manufacturer hopes to raise a whopping sum of $15 million before it begins trading on NYSE by the end of April, 2017.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Medical Robots Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is a prominent market for medical robots. Europe and Asia Pacific markets contribute significant shares in the global medical robots market. Asia Pacific is anticipated to register an impressive CAGR along the forecast period. The spiraling demand for medical robots is driven by staggering rise in the number of regulatory approvals of robots to be used in various medical areas in Japan. In addition, the increasing prevalence of various cancer types in China, and growing popularity of robotic-assisted procedures in hospitals in India are expected to fuel the market. Furthermore, the increasing collaborations between various stakeholders in emerging nations of Asia has propelled the regional market.Medical Robots Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global medical robots market is highly competitive and fragmented with the presence of several small and medium- scale companies competing against each other and with a handful of large players. Among the intense rivalry, major players eyeing a significant share in this market include Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Mazor Robotics Ltd., Stryker Corporation, Hocoma AG, Hansen Medical Inc., Omnicell, Inc., Accuray Incorporated, Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc., and Kirby Lester LLC.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Audiological Devices Market in Global Industry : Development and Forecast 2017

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Global Audiological Devices Market: OverviewOver the past few years, the market for audiological devices, the variety of advanced technological devices used to study audiology and cure hearing-related conditions, has witnessed a sharp rise in the adoption of digital technology across key aspects of product design and development. The result has been the development of devices with vast improvement in sound quality and reduction in product sizes.The market now features a vast variety of compact and even some virtually invisible hearing aid systems, increasing the likelihood of people purchasing them to treat their hearing loss; a significant portion of the total number of people with hearing loss across the globe do not have hearing aids because of the stigma associated with them. With invisible or highly compact hearing aids, the devices are less visible, thus mitigating this stigma.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Audiological Devices Market: Trends and OpportunitiesOf the key factors supporting the overall growth of the global audiological devices market, the report cites the rising incidence rate of diagnosed hearing loss cases, technological advancements enabling high sound quality, and the vast rise in worlds geriatric population - a demographic highly vulnerable to age-related hearing loss. Rising support from government and international bodies for the increased usage of hearing assistance devices is also boosting the uptake of audiological devices across the globe. Improvements in design and innovations, bringing compact and less visible devices packed with several new features to the market, are also driving the increased adoption of audiological devices across the globe.Global Audiological Devices Market: Market PotentialThe high costs of technologically advanced audiological devices and their exclusion from medical reimbursement plans across most key markets have limited their uptake to a huge extent. The Hearing Loss Association of America states that over 48 mn people in the U.S. suffer from hearing loss and only about 20% of the people who can benefit from hearing aids wear them. With low cost products, the remaining 80% population can be turned into potential consumer base. This is an excellent incremental opportunity as the worlds population is ageing at a rapid pace. A report by United Nations states that over the period between 2015 and 2030, the number of people aged 60 years or more across the globe will rise from nearly 901 mn to 1.4 bn, denoting a 56% rise.Request TOC of the Report @Global Audiological Devices Market: Regional OverviewFrom a geographical standpoint, the market for audiological devices in Europe contributes to the leading share of revenue to the global market. As a large number of key players in the audiological devices market are based in Western Europe, the region is often the first choice for new product launches. The Europe market also benefits owing to the rapid pace of technological advances, the increasing consumer demand for less visible audiological devices, and the rising prevalence of hearing impairment conditions.The report identifies excellent future growth opportunities in the Asia Pacific market. Factors backing this assumption include the rising population of geriatrics and the subsequent rise in hearing disabilities, positive developments across the healthcare infrastructures of developing countries, rising disposable incomes, and easy availability of technologically advanced products. The Asia-Pacific market for audiological devices is expected to exhibit growth at a promising pace over the reports forecast period.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Audiological Devices Market: Competitive DynamicsThe global market for audiological devices features a largely concentrated vendor landscape, with a small number of companies accounting for a significant share in the overall market. The need for continuous research and technological advancements in products have developed high entry barriers for new entrants in the global audiological devices market. Nonetheless, the market features intense competition, with leading companies constantly striving to maintain their stronghold. Some of the leading companies operating in the market are Widex A/S, GN ReSound Group, Siemens Healthcare, Cochlear Limited, William Demant Holding A/S, Starkey Hearing Technologies, and Sonova Holding AG.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Small Scale LNG Terminals Market : Applications & Industry Chain Overview 2025

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Global Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: OverviewThe clean burning nature of natural is driving initiatives encouraging its increased usage across a number of industrial applications and across the transportation industry. The transportation industry, which largely relies on petrochemicals-based fuels with high emission levels to power engines, making it one of the most significant contributor to the rising levels of air pollution across the globe.In a bid to lower down the levels of environment-degrading emissions and pollutants, government bodies are increasing their participation in initiatives aimed at the increased the usage of natural gas and are focusing on the development of LNG infrastructure at a rapid pace. These initiatives are expected to pace up the rate of deployment and development of LNG terminal infrastructures. Although large LNG terminals have been conventionally the more preferred type of LNG supply centers, the rising demand for LNG from remote-located consumers is rapidly making small-scale LNG terminals the norm for the supply of natural gas across small geographies.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: Trends and OpportunitiesOver the past few years, the global commoditization of LNG has led to a significant rise in the number of new applications and market of LNG. Technological solutions enabling small scale LNG terminals have become mature and modularization, standardization, and the rate of competitiveness have increased.Relatively lower entry-level challenges as compared to large LNG projects have opened up vast stores of opportunity for the rapid development of creative and new technologies and have increased the number of new entrants in the market over the years. The increased adoption of LNG as a fuel in the automotive industry, especially for powering heavy-duty vehicles, is also a key factor to have increased the adoption of small-scale LNG terminals across several regional markets.Global Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: Regional OverviewFrom a regional perspective, the small scale LNG terminals market is highly attractive across environment-conscious regions such as North America and Europe. Strict regulations in the marine sector have increased the scope of usage of LNG as a bunker fuel in Europe, stimulating the development of strategically located small scale terminals. In the next few years also, North America and Europe will continue to contribute significantly to the global small-scale LNG terminals market in terms of new installations and capacity expansions.Request TOC of the Report @Asia Pacific is also a highly promising market owing to its mammoth transportation industry. In China, several efforts in place to educate masses about the need to switch to clean fuels to lower down the levels of air pollution in cities, easy availability of natural gas, and substantial price difference between diesel and natural gas are driving the increased deployment of small scale LNG terminals.Global Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: Market PotentialThe field of LNG bunkering is increasingly becoming one of the key end-use segments of the global small scale LNG terminals market and companies operating in the field are registering large-scale expansion of operations and capacities at a rapid pace. In a recent development, the privately-owned company LNG Gorskaya has received funding worth $20.04 mn, which the company will use to develop its LNG bunkering plants in Estonia. With further funding, the company is planning to finance its LNG bunkering centers in Finland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden, establishing a series of small-scale terminals to be able to provide LNG to ships at around 320 km from its LNG bunkering stations.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: Competitive LandscapeThe highly competitive vendor landscape of the global small scale LNG terminals market is expected to witness the introduction of several new business models in the next few years. The market is expected to witness a rise in mergers and acquisitions as companies focus on leveraging their project management competence and technological expertise to stay ahead of competition.Some of the leading companies operating in the global small scale LNG terminals market are Nippon Gas Co., Ltd., EcoElectrica Inc., Plum Energy, LLC, Linde AG, Santos Ltd, PT Donggi Senoro LNG, Prometheus Energy Company, Emirates Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) LLC, Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), and Skangass AS.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
2017 Behavioral Health Software Market Research Report by Latest Application, Manufacturers Profiles & Industry Competition till 2022

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Global Behavioral Health Software Market Research Report provides information on Products, Services, Trends, Top Companies, Verticals, Countries, Material, Application, and Geography globally. This report will help the viewer in Better Decision Making ,offers by OrbisResearch.comBehavioral Health Software is that kind of software which could help clinicians create electronic mental health records quickly and easily to help both patients and doctors.Scope of the Global Behavioral Health Software Market ReportThis report focuses on the Behavioral Health Software Industry 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.Browse the full report @This report covers Analysis of Global Behavioral Health Software Market Segment by ManufacturersCerner CorporationEpic SystemsNetsmart TechnologiesNextGen HealthcareAllscriptsCureMDMediwareKareoEMIS HealthCredibleQualifactsCore SolutionsTHE ECHO GROUPCareworksAskesis DevelopmentMindLincWelligentValant MedicalpsHEALTHiCareHealthAccumedicBestNotesGlobal Behavioral Health Software Market Segment by regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)Latin America, Middle and AfricaRequest a Sample of this Report @Global Behavioral Health Software Market Segment by TypesOwnership ModelSubscription ModelGlobal Behavioral Health Software Market Segment by Applications, can be divided intoHospitalsClinicsResidentialOthersMake an enquiry before buying this report @Some of the Points cover in Global Behavioral Health Software Market Research Report is:Chapter 1: Describe Behavioral Health Software Industry Introduction, Product Scope, Market Overview, Market Opportunities, Market Risk, Market Driving ForceChapter 2: To analyze the top manufacturers of Behavioral Health Software Industry in 2015 and 2016 Sales Revenue and priceChapter 3: Competitive analysis among the top manufacturers in 2015 and 2016 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 4: Global Behavioral Health Software Market by regions from 2011 to 2016 Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 5, 6, 7 and 8: Global Behavioral Health Software Market by key countries in these regions Sales Revenue and market shareChapter 9 and 10: Global Behavioral Health Software Market by type and application from 2011 to 2016 Sales Revenue and market share Growth rateChapter 11: Behavioral Health Software Industry Market forecast from 2016 to 2021 Regions Type and application with sales and revenueChapter 12 and 13: Behavioral Health Software Industry Sales channel Distributors Traders and dealers Appendix Data sourceCheck discount of the report @About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:Follow us on Twitter:Follow us on G+ :
Biomarkers Market : Growth Catalysts, Market Trends And Key Players 2025

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Global Biomarkers Market: OverviewA biomarker is considered as a biological gene or molecule which is being used extensively across the globe in order to evaluate accurate pharmacologic responses, biological procedures, and pathogenic procedures. In addition, biomarkers are used to check bodys response to a specific treatment for a condition or disease. This helps the medical professionals in making effective clinical decisions, which will further assist in diagnosing the health of patients. According to the research study, the global biomarkers market is predicted to register a progressive growth rate throughout the forecast period.Global Biomarkers Market: Key TrendsIn the last few years, there has been a significant research on biomarkers, owing to which the application areas are likely to expand. This is estimated to benefit the global biomarkers market in the coming years. The use of biomarkers for effective therapeutics for cancer is likely to generate potential growth opportunities. In addition, the key players in the market are emphasizing on developing economies across the globe in order to create a niche and expand their presence in the next few years.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Biomarkers Market: Market PotentialThe approval for the use of biomarkers by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a surrogate end-points in the treatment development process is one of the major factors is projected to fuel the growth of the global biomarkers market in the next few years. In addition, the key players are focusing on new product development is anticipated generate potential opportunities for key players operating in the global biomarkers market in the next few years. On the other hand, the high cost of sample collection, tests, and storage is one of the key challenges being faced by the leading players in the global biomarkers market. This is expected to hamper the growth of the market in the next few years.Global Biomarkers Market: Regional OutlookAmong the key regional segments, in 2016, the North America market for biomarkers led the global market with a massive share. As per the research study, this segment is estimated to remain in the leading position throughout the forecast period. The robust growth of this region can be attributed to technological developments and the rising focus on research and development activities. The rising demand for biomarkers from diverse industrial sectors is estimated to accelerate the growth of the North America market in the next few years.Request TOC of the Report @On the other hand, Asia Pacific is projected to exhibit a progressive growth rate throughout the forecast period. The growing use of biomarkers for several diagnostic purposes, the rising incidence of chronic diseases, and the rising rate of outsourcing of pharmaceutical research and development activities are projected to supplement the growth of the Asia Pacific biomarkers market in the next few years.Global Biomarkers Market: Competitive AnalysisSome of the prominent players operating in the biomarkers market across the globe are Qiagen N.V., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC., EKF Diagnostics Holdings, Inc., Enzo Biochem, Inc., Merck Millipore, Biosims Technologies Sas, Cisbio Bioassays, Signosis, Inc., and Perkinelmer, Inc. A significant rise in the number of players projected to enter the market is estimated to strengthen the competitive landscape of the global biomarkers market in the next few years.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Furthermore, the growing focus of key players on innovations and technological developments is likely to encourage the growth of the global biomarkers market in the next few years. In addition, the expansion of the product portfolio is estimated to accelerate the growth of the market and benefit the prominent players operating in the global market.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Cloud Supply Chain Management Market expected to increase due to growth in network effect

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Global Cloud Supply Chain Management Market: OverviewComputing in the cloud for supply chain management (SCM) is a bold yet highly advantageous process which has gained a significant traction over traditional systems. While traditional supply chain management is much more transactional, the cloud-based approach offers a 360-degree management control and real-time accuracy. Scalability, efficiency, cost containment, integration-capable design, and immediacy are the five critical benefits of choosing cloud-based supply chain management solutions over localized supply chain management. There is no skepticism expected on the part of cloud computing as the future of modern business.Global Cloud Supply Chain Management Market: Key TrendsAcross the world, the growth of the global cloud SCM market is anticipated to beef up as companies feel the need to implement a process that can potently develop and manage supply chain and its activities. Some of the primary driving factors of the world market could be reduced cost of ownership and augmenting worldwide awareness about the product among various organizations. According to the research experts, inventory and warehouse management solutions are expected to corner the market with a higher share whereas training and consulting could be crowned with a larger share.Request Sample Copy of the Report @With greater advantages such as reduction in downtime and loss, improved control of pressing applications, and enhanced performance and productivity are predicted to set the tone for the global cloud SCM market. Other reasons for the increased adoption of cloud SCM could include speedy deployments, economical infrastructure cost, and enhanced scalability.Global Cloud Supply Chain Management Market: Market PotentialTechnology hunk IBM puts a foot forward for expediting tech innovations in Indias healthcare entrepreneurial ecosystem by helping startups such as Medibox and Oxyent Technologies to scale up. In this regard, the company has started with the IBM Smartcamp for Health Tech challenge that aims to accelerate growth in the B2C and B2B domains through innovations. Medibox believes in fast and efficient supply chain management by digitally connecting stockists and distributors with hospital and retail pharmacies. It offers a cloud-based solution that is compatible with any movable device and comes with a mobile application. It also offers a suite of solutions to convey schemes, offers, and launches across a supply chain when working with marketing and manufacturing firms.Request TOC of the Report @Global Cloud Supply Chain Management Market: Regional OutlookFor the forecast period, the international cloud SCM market is envisioned to mark Asia Pacific as one of the regions with the highest CAGRs. North America, on the other hand, could win the honor of holding a larger share in the market.While the adoption of cloud SCM is prognosticated to grow quickly, companies may encounter a few hindrances in the process, concerning current application migration complexities, data protection, and security reasons. Howbeit, the shifting of workload to the cloud and elevated requirement of sophisticated infrastructure management system could keep the global cloud SCM market in one piece during the times of turmoil. More opportunities are envisaged to find a cementing position in the market on account of decreasing overhead costs and rising awareness about the benefits of cloud SCM among consumers.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Cloud Supply Chain Management Market: Competitive LandscapeMajor companies operating in the world cloud SCM market are prophesied to cater to the needs of the industry through partnerships and collaborations, mergers and acquisitions, and product development strategies. Descartes Systems Group, Inc., JDA Software Group, Inc., Infor, Inc., Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, Logility, Inc., and Manhattan Associates, Inc. are some of the top players making a mark in the market.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting ser-vices to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Thrombin Market: Impact of Key Factors Influencing the Parent Industry

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Hemostasis is a medical condition, wherein blood vessel, platelets, and coagulation factors act together to arrest bleeding. It occurs by coagulation process, wherein blood is transformed from liquid to gel state through sequential enzymatic steps. During hemostasis process, thrombin plays a role of key enzyme. Thrombin is an enzyme called serine protease, which is synthesized from a precursor glycoprotein called prothrombin. During the clotting process, proteolytic cleavage of prothrombin produces thrombin. Insoluble fibrin is produced from soluble fibrinogen through a series of reactions catalyzed by thrombin. The production of thrombin in body is highly regulated, as the overproduction of thrombin may result in the blockage of normal blood flow a state called thrombosis. Under such condition, tissues may die due to unavailability of oxygen.Prothrombin is produced in liver and is passed into blood stream in an inactive form. Whenever a vascular injury occurs, collagen and tissue factor lead to activation of coagulation pathways. These pathways lead to activation of factor X, which, in conjugation with other factors, forms a complex. This complex cleaves the prothrombin protein into a thrombin molecule. Once thrombin is produced, it cleaves fibrinogen into fibrin. This result in platelet aggregation and thrombus formation, which help in the stoppage of bleeding.Obtain Report Details:Thrombin acts on different cell types. On smooth muscle cells, it causes vasoconstriction. It activates platelets to promote their aggregation at the site of injury. In activated state, thrombin plays a role of chemo-attractant and mitogen for neutrophils and fibroblasts. Thrombin also plays a role in regulating the endothelial cell functions. It also plays a role in the anticoagulant system, wherein it activates protein C upon interaction with thrombomodulin. This helps in improving circulation as an anticoagulant effect during the vascular injury. Thrombin are produced naturally in body and is also available in commercialized forms. In both the forms, it has two important functions. It helps in the process of coagulation wherein fibrinogen is converted into fibrin. This promotes platelet aggregation, which helps in clotting of blood at the site of injury. Secondly, it acts in the anticoagulation process by activating the protein C. Commercially produced thrombin is available in concentrated form, which, upon application, is capable of converting fibrinogen into fibrin. This helps in thrombus formation at the site of injury. The concentration of thrombin is directly promotional to the rate of clot formation. Types of commercially available thrombin differ in terms of dosage form and concentration. This factor is considered while selecting the product, as higher concentration speeds up the process of hemostasis.The global thrombin market can be segmented on the basis of product type, dosage form, end-user, and geographical region. Based on product type, the market has been segmented into bovine thrombin, human thrombin, and recombinant thrombin. The human thrombin segment is sub-segmented into alpha, beta, and gamma thrombin. The use of bovine thrombin generates antibodies, which cross-react with human coagulation proteins. This has been observed to result in severe complications and life-threatening bleeding. Hence, human thrombin was introduced, as an alternative to bovine thrombin. However, human thrombin is associated with the risk of transmission of viruses. The recombinant thrombin segment is anticipated to lead the market, as recombinant thrombin is free of risks associated with viral infection and it has potential efficacy.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:Based on dosage form, the global thrombin market has been segmented into powder form, solution form, pad form, spray kits, and others. Based on end-user, it can be segmented into hospitals, diagnostics & clinics, and academic and research institutes. The hospitals segment is anticipated to lead the market, due to increase in the number of surgeries.Based on geography, the global thrombin market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America is anticipated to lead the global market, due to increase in the number of surgeries and developed health care infrastructure.Key players operating in the global thrombin market are Baxter, Bayer, CSL, Grifols, GE Healthcare, Hualan Biological, Haematologic Technologies Inc., Pfizer, Octapharma, Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., and Shanghai RAAS.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automated Intelligence returns to the IRMS Conference, 2017

Automated Intelligence (AI) is once again proud to be one of the sponsors at leading records management symposium, the IRMS Conference 2017.After a fantastic visit to Brighton in 2016, this year the IRMS conference heads to Glasgow for another packed programme of inspirational speakers, lively discussions and unbeatable networking opportunities  centred around the latest thinking, industry innovations and best practice from world-class organisations.This years theme is Agents of Change will be investigating the following topics:- GDPR- Office 365- Automation- The Future of IRM- SharePoint- Change Management- Cyber Security- SustainabilityAt our stand, specialists from AI will be showcasing how organisations can gain Classified Information about AI.DATALIFT. This innovative software helps organisations gain insight, remediate and migrate their unstructured data at scale to reduce cost, reduce risk and increase information governance.This event is also an opportunity for organisations to discover AIs wide range of solutions, and learn how others have successfully taken control of both their records requirements and also brought their unstructured data under control.Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It:The Information Governance and Management world is changing and changing rapidly. Come and see Simon Cole, CTO at AI share his insights with delegates during a seminar entitled, The Times, They are a Changin.During the seminar you will find out:- Real world examples of the benefits cloud processing can bring- How cloud solutions will increase your information governance- About the power of machine learning and how it gives insight on your dataFor more information, visit the AI stand at the IRMS Conference at The Hilton Glasgow, Scotland or email info@automated-intelligence.comAutomated Intelligence (AI) provides market-leading SharePoint, information governance and cloud solutions and services. AIs technology enables organisations to manage their information end-to-end through its life-cycle, significantly reducing the cost of managing and storing unstructured data. AIs solutions enable customers to comply with legal, government and internal policy obligations, whilst improving user experience, user acceptance information discovery and data quality.Some of the customers benefiting from AI solutions include: The Department for Education, Department of Health, HM Treasury, Department of Energy and Climate Change, London Borough of Islington, City of Cardiff Council, British Red Cross and Amnesty International.Ryan KyleAutomated Intelligence LtdUnit 4,The Legacy Building,Queens Road,Queens Island,Belfast
Perle Launches Power over Ethernet Industrial Managed Switches

Perle Launches Power over Ethernet Industrial Managed Switches

84 PoE Industrial Switches complete phase three of an industrial portfolio launchNASHVILLE, TN - May 16th, 2017  Perle Systems, a global manufacturer of secure device networking hardware, today announced the launch of fully compliant IEEE802.3 af/at Power over Ethernet (PoE) Industrial Managed Switches. This third phase of an Industrial Managed Switch portfolio launch includes 84 models of the IDS-500 PoE Switches with variable 10/100/1000Base-T, SFP, Fiber and combo portsMore and more companies are using PoE technology to increase installation flexibility, lower costs and make their networks efficient, comments John Feeney, Chief Operating Officer at Perle Systems. Adding PoE technology to Managed Ethernet Switches to meet the unique needs of Industrial-grade environments just makes sense.PoE Managed Industrial Ethernet SwitchIndustrial-grade Managed Ethernet Switches with PoE are designed to withstand extreme temperatures, surges, vibrations, and shocks found in industrial automation, government, military, oil, gas, mining and outdoor applications. Classified as Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE), they use standard UTP cables that carry Ethernet data to also provide up to 30 watts of power to Powered Devices (PDs) such as wireless access points, Voice over IP phones and IP cameras.Perle IDS-500 PoE Industrial Managed Switches come with a PRO Feature Set to meet the needs enterprise-grade level environments where additional security and network integration functionality is required:- TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) security services- Secure management sessionsvia SSH, SNMPv3, Telnet and HTTPS- Management Access Lists (ACL) by IP address and IP Port number- Password Strength Checking- IEEE 802.1x Authentication and Port Security for protection of User Access Ports- Advanced protocols to optimize the performance and intelligence of the network: LLDP, GVRP, Voice LANs, MSTP, GMRP, IPv4 IGMP Snooping and - IPv6 MLD Snooping- IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Boundary clock capabilitiesThese rugged fan-less switches feature a corrosion resistant IP20 aluminum case, a voltage range of 44 to 57 volts DC and operate in temperatures from -40 to 75C. In addition, Perle DIN Rail Switches will have numerous certifications for harsh environments including UL 61010-1, ANSI Class1/Div2 and ATEX Class1/Zone2. With this product launch, Perle now offers over 720 Industrial Managed Ethernet Switches.Since entering the Industrial Switch Market, Perle has sold to numerous high profile customers such as the FAA, NBCUniveral, SolarCity, Dupont, Rolls Royce and Siemens.Leading the Way in Serial to Ethernet, Fiber to Ethernet and Reliable Device Networking HardwarePerle is a premier provider of reliable, full-featured and competitively priced serial, I/O, Ethernet and fiber connectivity solutions. Businesses around the globe have come to trust Perle to deliver superior connectivity technology for their mission critical applications.Perle's products include: Serial to Ethernet Adapters, Terminal Servers, Console Servers, Device Servers, Ethernet I/O Device Servers, Serial Cards, Ethernet Extenders , Media Converters and Industrial Ethernet Switches that are ideal for organizations that need to: establish network connectivity across multiple locations; securely transmit critical and sensitive information; remotely monitor and control networked devices and appliances, and more.Perle Systems Inc.830 Fesslers Parkway, Suite 108Nashville, TN 37210Toll Free North America:1 800-GO-PERLE (467-3753)Tel: +1 800-467-3753Miriam Webstermwebster@perle.com
High Vacuum Pump Market 2017 Companies Covered - TLV, Shanghai Pacific, Spirax Sarco, East Pump

High Vacuum Pump

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High Vacuum PumpA market study based on the " High Vacuum Pump Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global High Vacuum Pump Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide High Vacuum Pump industry, and makes predictions on the future status of High Vacuum Pump market on the basis of this analysis.Sample Copy of Report :Top Manufacturers Companies Covered In This Research Report -1. TLV2. Shanghai Pacific3. Spirax Sarco4. East Pump5. ShimgeOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into: Reciprocating Type Water Circulating Type Fluidic TypeHigh Vacuum Pump market users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of Photo High Vacuum Pump for each application, including - Mechanical Industry Chemical Industry Metallurgical Industry Petroleum IndustryThe report studies the industry for High Vacuum Pump across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in High Vacuum Pump market & dynamics of demand and supply of High Vacuum Pump into consideration. The ' High Vacuum Pump ' research study covers each and every aspect of the High Vacuum Pump market globally, which starts from the definition of the High Vacuum Pump industry and develops towards High Vacuum Pump market segmentations. Further, every segment of the High Vacuum Pump market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the High Vacuum Pump market. The geographical segmentation of the High Vacuum Pump industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for High Vacuum Pump is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, High Vacuum Pump market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the High Vacuum Pump market worldwide.Enquiry Here :The global High Vacuum Pump market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, High Vacuum Pump production volume, data regarding demand and High Vacuum Pump supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tool of High Vacuum Pump such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in High Vacuum Pump market research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for High Vacuum Pump across the globe.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USA
Corneal Surgery Devices Market Trend and Global Forecast to 2027

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/corneal-surgery-devices-market

Globally the market for Corneal Surgery Devices is increasing rapidly the main reason for this is the growth is the increase in population with eye disease and eye disorder. The factors that influence the growth of Corneal Surgery Devices market are the increasing development and high advancement in the Corneal Surgery Devices. The market for Corneal Surgery Devices is also growing due to its applications that are used in Diagnostic, Corneal Surgery and Vision Care.Make an Enquiry @Key Players: KeraMED(CA), Ophthalmology Web(CH), MORIA (FRANCE), Abbott Medical Optics Inc. (U.S.), Essilor International S.A. (France), Alcon Inc. (Switzerland), Johnson & Johnson (U.S.), Bausch & Lomb, Inc. (U.S.), Haag-Streit AG (Switzerland), Topcon Corporation (Japan), Ziemer Ophthalmic Systems AG (Switzerland), Carl Zeiss Meditec AG (Germany) and Nidek Co. Ltd. (Japan)Segments:The market for Corneal Surgery Devices is segmented in mainly two parts i.e. by Device Type, by Transplantation Type, and its various sub-segments; by Device Type include Diagnostic Devices, Corneal Surgery Devices and Vision Care. Whereas by Transplantation Type include penetrating keratoplasty (PK), deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) and endothelial keratoplasty (EK).Study Objectives of Corneal Surgery Devices: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Corneal Surgery Devices market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To Analyze the Corneal Surgery Devices market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW). To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective. To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by Device Type, Transplantation Type, and its sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global Corneal Surgery Devices market.Access Report Details @The report for Corneal Surgery Devices of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Global Corneal Surgery Devices Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.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.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Argentina, South Africa, France, UK RAF and more look to upgrade their Military Flight Training program

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SMi Reports: Military Flight Training returns to London on 11th -12th October 2017 to maximise flight training capabilities for the 21st centurys aircraft.Military flight training experts and world leading solution providers will meet at SMi Groups 8th annual Military Flight Training taking place in London on 11th-12th October 2017.Military Flight Training continues to be an essential aspect for Defence Forces and military air craft manufacturers worldwide. With military budgets being restricted globally, there is a need for new training doctrine and new simulation technology to assist with the training of new and current pilots. The 2017 conference will bring together expert training programme managers and industry solution providers, all attending to hear the very latest strategies relating to synthetic and live training and how the ongoing technology revolution is challenging conventional delivery of pilot training.This conference represents a unique opportunity for all military flight training decision makers and technologists to meet and exchange ideas, content and new best practices on how to create the next generation of military grade pilots.Notable presenters include: Aero Vodochody, Argentinian Air Force, British Army, Czech Air Force, European Defence Agency, European Personnel Recovery Centre, French Air Force, Italian Navy, RAF Valley, Royal Air Force, Royal Norwegian Air Force, South African Air Force, Spanish Air Force, Thinke Company Ltd, UK MOD and more.In addition, the conference also feature an exclusive pre-conference workshop on Military Helicopter Flight Training- A UK Perspective hosted by, Major (Retd.) Peter Dean, Senior Advisor/ Director, St Andrews Aviation taking place on the 10th October 2017.The 2-day conference will provide the latest pilot training strategies and developments from the likes of: Argentina, South Africa, France, UK RAF, Norway and Italy. There will also be a dedicated focus on synthetic and live pilot training for fast jet, fixed wings and rotary platforms.Attend Military Flight Training 2017 to network with decision makers responsible for developing the next generation of training systems and platforms as well as meet leading suppliers and companies that are solving tomorrows flight training challenges.For those who are looking to attend, there is a 400 early bird offer available online ending on the 31st May 2017.Further information is available at online at:Military Flight Training 201711th-12th October 2017Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, London, UKAbout SMi Group:Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atSMi Group1 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7XWMedia: contact Theresa Chung on tchung@smi-online.co.ukBooking: Contact Andrew Gibbons on agibbons@smi-online.co.uk
Noliac acquired by CTS Corporation

Noliac acquired by CTS Corporation

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As of May 15th 2017, Noliac A/S has been acquired by CTS Corporation. Below is CTS' press release in this regard.CTS Acquires European Piezoelectric Sensor & Component ManufacturerLisle, Ill.  CTS Corporation (NYSE: CTS) has announced the acquisition of Noliac A/S; a designer and manufacturer of tape cast and bulk piezoelectric components, sensors and transducers. Headquartered in Denmark with manufacturing facilities in Denmark and the Czech Republic, Noliac serves OEMs in the aerospace & defense, test & measurement, medical and industrial markets.Founded in 1997, Noliac leverages twenty years of experience in piezoelectric multi-layer tape cast manufacturing to produce stacked actuators and other components. Since its founding, Noliac has expanded operations to also include piezoelectric bulk manufacturing processes and in-house design and production capabilities for sensors and transducers.The acquisition of Noliac demonstrates CTS commitment to our strategy of investing in technologies that Sense, Connect and Move, stated Kieran OSullivan, CEO of CTS Corporation. In 2016 we acquired single crystal production capabilities to strengthen our piezoelectric product portfolio. By acquiring Noliac, we expand our tape cast manufacturing capabilities. This enables us to provide a more complete range of piezoelectric solutions to our customers, while growing our European presence and further diversifying our end market profile.On behalf of the team at Noliac, we are excited to join the CTS family, stated Bjrn Andersen, CEO and founder of Noliac A/S. CTS high volume production expertise for piezoelectric ceramics and single crystal products is a perfect fit for Noliac. This acquisition provides Noliac with the resources to continue to grow. We are looking forward to reaching the next level with CTS.About CTSCTS (NYSE: CTS) is a leading designer and manufacturer of sensors, actuators and electronic components to OEMs in the aerospace, communications, defense, industrial, information technology, medical and transportation markets. CTS manufactures products in North America, Europe and Asia.For more information, visitMedia ContactNick HajewskiMarketing Communications ManagerCTS Corporation2375 Cabot DriveLisle, IL 60532USAE-mail: nick.hajewski@ctscorp.comTelephone: +1 (630) 577-8865Noliac presents a unique proficiency in the field of piezoelectric technology. We design, develop and manufacture the total range of piezoelectric products - from powders to mono- and multilayer components and all the way to finished plug-and-play applications.Noliac A/SHejreskovvej 18DK-3490 KvistgaardDenmarkAtt.: Lotte Beck
SOTEC supporting the new Google Cloud IoT Core to simplify the adoption of IoT solutions in the enterprise

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Google Cloud leverages SOTECs expertise in Industrie 4.0 and IoT to help more customers realize the value of connected devicesStuttgart (Germany), May 16, 2017  SOTEC, a German Cloud and IoT pioneer, today announced support for Google Cloud IoT Core, a fully managed service that allows you to easily and securely connect, and manage devices at global scale.Cloud IoT Core, together with other Google Cloud services, such as Pub/Sub, Dataflow, Bigtable, BigQuery, and Data Studio, provide a complete solution for collecting, processing, analyzing, and visualizing IoT data in real time to support improved operational efficiency.The start of any Industrie 4.0 or IoT use case begins with access to ones own data. SOTEC CloudPlug provides an efficient solution to connecting existing sensors, machinery, and equipment of all sizes securely to the cloud. It is a unique, modular, industrial edge device that supports a wide variety of industry-standard protocols (CAN, OPC UA etc.) and fully integrates with Google Cloud IoT Core out of the box.Key features of the new Cloud IoT Core solution:- End-to-end security - Enable end-to-end security using certificate-based authentication and TLS; devices running Android Things or ones supporting the Cloud IoT Core security requirements can deliver full stack security.- Out-of-box data Insights - Use downstream analytic systems by integrating with Google Big Data Analytics and ML services.- Serverless infrastructure: Scale instantly without limits using horizontal scaling on Googles serverless platform.- Role-level data control - Apply IAM roles to devices to control access to devices and data.- Automatic device deployment - Use REST APIs to automatically manage the registration, deployment and operation of devices at scale.Google IoT Core together with our CloudPlug technology unlocks the vast capabilities of Google Cloud for our customers in a few easy steps. It enables us to build a scalable and robust IoT backend for a large number of connected devices. By leveraging Google IoT we create cutting-edge IoT, data analytics, and machine learning solutions for our clients, Florian Holz, CEO at SOTEC.Cloud IoT Core was designed to simplify digital transformation by helping customers to leverage Google Clouds data analytics and machine learning capabilities and act on insights, in real time, from operational data that was previously inaccessible, said Adam Massey, Director, Strategic Technology Partners at Google Cloud. By working with industry leaders like SOTEC, we are expanding the surface of innovation to help more customers realize the value of connected devices for their businesses.SOTEC CloudPlug for Google IoT is available from May 30, 2017. In order to discuss your specific use case and obtain a custom proposal for your proof of concept reach out to us under: cloudplug@sotec.eu.For more information on how we build your tailor-made IoT and Google Cloud Platform solution please contact us: googleiot@sotec.eu.SOTEC is an internationally successful boutique service provider for soft- and hardware engineering based in Germany. Since 2008 and with a focus on IoT, Cloud, Industrie 4.0 and Retail Technology, we create solutions and products on top of Google Cloud. Our unique end-to-end know-how, from the hardware level to cloud architectures, along with BigData and Machine Learning, lets us deliver cutting-edge solutions for our customers.SOTEC Software Entwicklungs GmbH + CoMikrocomputertechnik KGCalwer Strae 11D-75395 OstelsheimTel: +49 (0)7033 5458-0Fax: +49 (0)7033 5458-95E-Mail: info@sotec.euWeb:
Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Macedonia Armed Forces provides updates on UAV capabilities

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SMi reports: Central & Eastern European Armed Forces will gather at SMis UAV Technology conference to discuss the doctrine, procurement strategies, training and technologies to maximise operational deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles.As a key platform for the enhancement of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, UAV systems have great potential to meet requirements as an affordable and effective tool for the Armed Forces in Central and Eastern Europe.Due to common security concerns and a need to enhanced situational awareness, there is increasing interest in developing UAV capabilities within the Central and Eastern Europe region. Following this, senior military experts from Estonia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Macedonia will gather at SMis UAV Technology Central and Eastern Europe to proactively discuss the strategies and technologies that will maximise UAVs effectiveness during training and missionsMr Priit Parktal, Head of Procurement Department, Estonian Ministry of Defence will provide an overview of the current operational level of UAVs within the Armed Forces as well as discuss procurement plans to 2022.Mr Marko Gruden, Secretary, Logistics Directorate, Ministry of Defence, Slovenia will share recent developments and how UAV are used as a tool for data gathering and surveillance within the Slovenian Armed ForcesMr Tomas Pustina, Legal Officer, Department of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Transport Czech Republic will discuss the legal regulations governing the UAV flight in Czech Airspace. Topics include safety, liability, insurance and privacy. Safety and legal challenges will be explored as well a look into boundaries between state /civil aircraft and civil/military rules.Major General Muhamet Racaj, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Macedonian Armed Forces will explain the current needs of the Army and how new UAV techologies will be integrated within the operational and tactical units. International corporations will also be a focused.Notable presenters include: Bundeswehr, Canadian Army, Croatian Ministry of Defence, Czech Armed Forces, Czech University of Defence, Estonian MoD, Formion SA, Hellenic Army General Staff, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Latvian MoD, Lockheed Martin Canada CDL Systems, Macedonian Army, Ministry of Transport Czech Republic, NSPA, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, PA Consulting, Slovenian MoD, Swedish Defence University, US Army Europe and much more...In addition, the conference also feature an exclusive pre-conference workshop on Proposal of UAS Training Programs for Territorial Defence Forces hosted by Justyna Zdanowska, President, GEO-UAV taking place on the 26th September 2017.The 2-day conference will provide progress updates on procurement and development of UAV capability in Central and Eastern Europe as well as enable attendees to explore the current needs and challenges facing the region and gain an understanding of UAVs role in optimising command and control. Meet senior representatives from leading CEE nations that are actively acquiring and upgrading their UAV capability and hear the very latest technological developments from research and industry that are enhancing operational deployment of UAV.For those who are looking to attend, there is a 300 early bird offer available online ending on the 31st May 2017.Further information is available at online at:UAV Technology Central and Eastern Europe27th-28th September 2017Hotel International, Prague, Czech RepublicAbout SMi Group:Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atSMi Group1 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7XWMedia: contact Theresa Chung on tchung@smi-online.co.ukBooking: Contact Andrew Gibbons on agibbons@smi-online.co.uk
Strategic Insights on Natural Gas and LNG Market in India: Analytics & Opportunity Assesment

The natural gas market in India has seen a see change with midstream and downstream infrastructure taking a great leap as India builds 20000 Km transmission capacity and with the proposed development of City Gas Distribution in 300 cities.The demand for natural gas is slated to grow at a CAGR of 2.7% by 2025 with power sector taking a lions market share (average) with 56% in the period 2015-16 to 2024-25. Largest gainer will be City Gas Distribution with increase in its share between 2015-16 to 2024-25. In terms of natural gas supplies by 2025 the share of LNG as percentage of total supply is slated to increase with new LNG regasification capacity coming up by 2025.The report covers both Midstream and Downstream Regulations in detail with objective analysis of tariff determination and tariff rate recovery methodology and provides international perspective on the tariff determination methodologies and philosophies.The report also dwells in major changes in the upstream regulations with the analysis of draft model revenue sharing model.The key highlight of the report is financial model templates to calculate natural gas pipeline and City Gas Distribution Tariffs and Bidding models with detailed financial metric and cost analysis.Market SegmentationPower SectorFertilizer SectorIndustryPetrochemicalsTea PlantationCity Gas DistributionCaptive UseOthersGeographical ScopeNorth IndiaSouth IndiaWest IndiaEast IndiaMarket Competitive LandscapeThe report covers the following key players in the natural gas market in India:Integrated Oil and Gas PlayersOil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), CAIRN India, Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOEC), Oil India Limited (OIL), Essar Oil Limited (EOL), Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), British Petroleum, Niko Resources apart from others.MidstreamGAIL (India) Limited, Petronet LNG Limited (PLL), Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Limited (RGTIL), and Gujarat State Petronet Limited (GSPL)Downstream PlayersGAIL Gas, Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL), Mahanagar Gas Limited, Maharashtra Natural Gas Limited, Siti Energy Limited (SEL), Sanwariya Gas Limited (Foremerly DSM Infratech), Central UP Gas Limited (CUPL), Sabarmati Gas Limited (SGL), Gujarat Gas Limited (GGCL), Gujarat Adani Energy Limited (GAEL), Bhagyanagar Gas Limited (BGL), Aavantika Gas Limited (AGL), Green Gas Limited (GGL), and Tripura Natural Gas Limited (TNGCL) among others.Equipment Suppliers and Oil Field Services SuppliersJindal Drilling, Deep Industries, Aban Offshore, Duke Offshore, Dolphin Offshore Enterprises, Alphageo (India), Selan Exploration Technology, Interlink Petroleum Limited (IPL), Asian Oilfield Services, and SVOGL Oil Gas and Energy (Formerly Shiv-Vani Oil and Gas Exploration Services Limited) among others.Research MethodologyTo study the natural gas market in a country, within a particular region, primary and secondary research was conducted to access the developments in the country.Primary Survey: In order to assess potential for natural gas market growth over forecast period 2017-2025 a primary survey was conducted with the following participants:End user typesLocal industry stakeholders,Fuel providers, andTechnology manufacturersSecondary research included sources mainly: National Bureau of Statistics of India, Annual Reports, price data from PPAC, International Energy Agency, Energy Information Agency, DNV-GL reports, International Gas Union among others.Focus group interviews will be conducted with key industry participants and professionals and technical experts. The summary of participants included in the interviews will include:Producer Company: Key producersDesignation: C-Suite, and DirectorsEnd-user: Key buyersWhy Should You buy the report?Market Structure and Trends: In-depth assessment of the market volume, products, and manufacturing capabilities of leading players, recent developments, and investments, identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the market according to end-user, geographical locationMarket Diversification: Exhaustive information about and new planned and proposed projectsMarket Investment Potential: Where to invest or geographical region to invest in and product segment to invest in, how and when to invest in the market and gain insights in the untapped regional marketsMarket Strategies: To gain an in-depth understanding of the market strategies followed by the market leader, challenges, follower, and niches in the market, to help industry to align their market-centric strategies and gain competitive knowledge of leading market playersMarket Policies and Regulations: International market players, wanting to stay ahead of policies and developments that may impact their businessFree Customization: To avail 25% customization in the report without any extra charges and get research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needsAbout Strategy SignsStrategy Signs is the leading global Market Intelligence and Business Consulting company known for its premium market research reports. We serve 500 global fortune enterprises across six industrial verticals - Automobile, Chemicals, Energy, FMCG, Industrial products and Infrastructure. We cover the entire value chain in these verticals with a motto Bottom-up Approach for Top-Line Growth.We use our network of over 10,000 markets professionals to create valuable market insights that our clients use for their strategic analysis. Our team of global analysts track global high growth markets using proprietary models - SurveyEco Pro , ForecastEco Pro  and ComIntelSys Pro , which provide path breaking market research and consultancy services.Greater Kailash Part-1, New Delhi - 110 048, India
EMI Shielding Materials Global Market Analysis 2016 and Forecasts to 2024

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Global EMI Shielding Materials Market: OverviewEMI Shielding is done to prevent other nearby electronics devices from getting damaged due to the radiations such as EMI radiations that are emitted by electronic devices on a large scale. These emissions can alter the functioning of other devise as well as harm the user if the radiations are of higher intensity. There have been large number of developments in EMI Shielding Materials ever since they are been used.In the recent times, the use of better electronic devices has increased as compared to earlier times and hence there is an increase in the demand for materials that are being used for the purpose of EMI Shielding. The devices which are being used in the modern day technologies in fields such as defense, aerospace, telecommunications and automotive may result in high amount of EMI radiations which would in turn lead to the disturbance or destruction of the other devices. This provides a major opportunity for the market of EMI Shielding Materials to develop in the future as well. Asia Pacific and North America are the largest regions for the market of EMI Shielding Materials and are expected to hold a strong position in the coming days as wellThe market is expected to witness development at a constant rate and is expected to find applications in more fields as well due to the inclusion of better electronic devices which are prone to high emission of EMI radiations. The market players operating are expected to increase in the later days which would provide a boost to the market of EMI Shielding Materials.This 145 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the EMI Shielding Materials market Browse through 27 data tables and 56 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market.Global EMI Shielding Materials Market: Research MethodologiesThe report estimates and forecasts the EMI Shielding materials market on the global and regional levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (million tons / kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Bn / 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 EMI Shielding materials 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 EMI Shielding materials 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 EMI Shielding materials and global average price trend analysis.The report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the EMI Shielding materials 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 EMI Shielding materials between 2016 and 2024.Global EMI Shielding Materials Market: Scope of the StudyThe study provides a comprehensive view of the EMI Shielding materials market by dividing it into product, application and geography segments. The product have been segmented into material types such as conductive coatings, metals, conductive plastics, laminates and others. The applications are segmented defense, electronics, automotive, telecommunications, aerospace and medical. These segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends.Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast consumption of EMI Shielding materials in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Market segmentation includes demand for consumption in all the regions individually.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.Global EMI Shielding Materials Market: Competitive AnalysisIn-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 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 3M, Parker Hannifin Corp, HEICO Corporation, Laird, Kitagawa Industries Co., Ltd., SAS Industries, Inc. and Marktek Inc. 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).Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the EMI Shielding Materials market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The global EMI Shielding materials market has been segmented as follows:EMI Shielding Materials Market  Material Analysis Conductive Coatings Metals Conductive Plastics Laminates OthersEMI Shielding Materials Market  Application Analysis Defense Electronics Automotive Telecommunications Aerospace MedicalEMI Shielding Materials Market  Regional Analysis North Americao U.S.o Rest of North America Europeo U.K.o Franceo Spaino Italyo Germanyo Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Chinao Japano ASEANo Rest of Asia Pacific Latin Americao Brazilo Rest of Latin America Middle East & Africao GCCo South Africao Rest of Middle East & AfricaRequest for Discount of this report - @Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Basalt Fiber Market 2017 - Kamenny Vek, Zhejiang GBF, Basaltex, Mafic SA, Meltrock, GMVChina, Zaomineral7, Hebei Tonghui

Basalt Fiber Market

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Marketreports.biz, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Basalt Fiber Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Basalt Fiber Market" from view of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries. The research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the global Basalt Fiber industry, and estimates the future trend of Basalt Fiber market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Basalt Fiber Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportKamenny VekZhejiang GBFTechnobasalt-InvestSudaglass FiberBasaltexZaomineral7Sichuan AerospaceLiaoning JinshiMudanjiang ElectricMafic SAShanxi Basalt FiberMeltrockGMVChinaJiangsu TianlongHebei TonghuiThe market research report explores the Basalt Fiber market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Basalt Fiber Market". The research report studies the entire value chain from raw material to end user industries. The report also shares import/export statistics along with production and consumption for all major regions and countries. Moreover, the research study classifies the Basalt Fiber market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Basalt Fiber. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Basalt Fiber market. The report further provides production, capacity, price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Basalt Fiber is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Basalt Fiber market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Basalt Fiber market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The worldwide Basalt Fiber market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Basalt Fiber production volume, data pertaining to demand and Basalt Fiber supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Basalt Fiber along with detailed manufacturing sources. The report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, SWOT analysis and market attractiveness analysis has been implemented in the research study to present a comprehensive, detailed study of the industry for Basalt Fiber across the world.About UsMarketReports.biz offers elevating market research worldwide. We have collection of various syndicated reports of different fields. Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact UsFrank Valadez155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Toll Free: +1-855-918-5551 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +17739042683Web:Email: sales@marketreports.biz
Biometric Sensors Global Market Analysis 2017 and Forecasts to 2023

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Biometric sensors integrate physical traits of the human body with digital technology in order to provide biometric security. Semiconductor devices like biometric security systems contain algorithms and template database in order to match live biometric samples with the already stored samples in the database. Face metrics, fingerprints, and vein structures in hands among others are some of the physical traits used to prepare desired templates. Increasing concerns of privacy and security along with growing demand for smart gadgets with biometric security systems are some of the major driving factors for the market. A biometric sensor is a transducer that converts a biometric treat such as voice, face, and fingerprint etc. of a person into an electrical signal. Sensors generally measure temperature, pressure, light, electrical capacity, and speed. Biometric sensors are lightweight and compact in design. Furthermore, they can be installed in devices very conveniently. Some key attributes of biometric sensors include fast verification and identification. Biometric sensors are a breakthrough technology, which weed out various security-related issues from different domains.This 163 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Biometric Sensors market Browse through 34 data tables and 47 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market.Factors such as increasing emphasis on better security and safety, application of fingerprint scan, facial scan, hand scan, and voice scan are expected to see positive growth during the forecast period from 2015 to 2023. Increasing emergence of mobile and online financial transactions, biometric security solutions have found a huge opportunity in the financial sector. Biometric sensors technology can be used in a wide number of applications such as automotive, consumer electronics, commercial centers, and hospitality industries. In the sectors where safety, privacy, and security are of primary concern, biometric sensors are expected to find opportunities in applications such as making transactions and operations.Biometric and fingerprint sensors have become a standard feature in consumer electronic products. Sensing the consumer preference for security and privacy, the key manufacturers of smartphones and other gadgets have started offering fingerprint sensors as a part of certain products. The demand for biometric security technology is on the rise due to the fact that the users of smartphones and other smart gadgets have become more familiar and comfortable with using tools such as fingerprint identification for gaining access. Growing demand for tablets, smartwatches, wearable devices, and other consumer electronic products is acting as one of the major drivers for this market. Furthermore, some of the factors acting as restraining factors for the market include limitation of application in different geographical regions due to cultural barriers and lack of standardization in the process of implementation and development of technical standards. However, graphene enable sensors are the future of the biometric sensors market.Based on type, the market is segmented into capacitive sensors, optical sensors, thermal sensors, ultrasound sensors, and electric field sensors (eField). In terms of application, the market is segmented into voice scan, finger scan, hand scan, facial scan, iris scan, vein scan, and others. Furthermore, by end use, the market is segmented into consumer electronics, commercial centers and buildings, defense and security, medical and research labs, banking and financial services sector among others.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Biometric Sensors market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Geographically, the global biometric sensors market is categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). The scope of the report offers an insight into biometric sensors market in these regions based on revenue (USD million) and volume (million units).The report also includes competitive profiling of leading players in the industry and their market share to aid in strategic decision making. The market attractiveness analysis and company market share analysis included in the report provide insight into market dynamics, industry competition and strategies adopted by market leaders.The report also breaks down and reviews the various factors impacting the market growth, which can be appropriately described as market drivers, restraints, and opportunities. These factors help to determine the various existing trends and their impact on the market growth. Overall, taking into consideration the various factors affecting the biometric sensors market, the report includes a holistic analysis of the global biometric sensor market, and provides an estimate of growth for the period 2015 to 2023.Some of the leading players in the biometric sensors market are CrossMatch Technologies, Inc. (U.S.), Fulcrum Biometrics (U.S.), Infineon Technologies AG (Germany), 3M (U.S.), ZKTeco Inc (China), NEC Corporation (Japan), Safran (France), Precise Biometrics Ab (Sweden), Suprema Inc. (South Korea) and IDEX ASA (Norway) among others.Request for Discount of this report - @Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Biosimilars Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2023

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Market OverviewBiosimilars are complex biological products made from living organism that include microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast, humans, and animals. These biological products are similar biological product also known as biological reference product, that have been approved by the U.S. Food Drug and Administration (USFDA). Biosimilars are compared with the biological reference products and licensed by the USFDA. Patent expiration of biological reference product is the key factor leading to development of biosimilars. These are composed of complex molecules such as monoclonal antibodies and human insulin. Advanced technologies are involved in the development and manufacturing of biosimilars that include monoclonal antibody (MAb) technology, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)technology, recombinant DNA (r-DNA) technology, electrophoresis and bioassays. Monoclonal antibody technology and bioassay are most significant technologies for the development and validation of biosimilars. Most of the biologics, such as monoclonal antibodies, anticoagulants, and vaccines are large molecules which need to be administered parenterally to achieve the desired therapeutic effects. These complex biosimilars are used in prevention and treatment of diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, low white blood cell count, anemia, infectious diseases, chronic kidney failure and other health conditions and offers cost effective treatment than other synthetic and biological drugs.Explore Report at:Various regulatory authorities such as the USFDA and The European Medicine Agency (EMA) has established some regulatory guidelines for the safety, efficacy and quality standards of biosimilars and regulates the development and commercialization of biosimilars. The new developments in antibody drug conjugates, immunotherapies and gene and cell therapies, drives the growth of biosimilars market. The rapidly increasing burden of cancers, diabetes, anaphylaxis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases further compels government organizations and healthcare providers to provide improved facilities for effective disease treatment, leading to rising number of launches of technologically advanced products, globally.Market DynamicsGrowth Drivers and RestraintsGlobal Biosimilars market has been witnessing growth driven by increasing prevalence of chronic and autoimmune diseases, growing demand of cost-effective medicinal products and growing aging population. According to World Cancer Research Fund International, 14.1 million cancer cases were estimated in 2012 and is expected to increase to 24 million by 2035. Elderly people are more prone to chronic disease such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis chronic pain and other health conditions. As per United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) report on the global aging population, the population of people aged 60 years or above is growing at a high rate. The number of people aged 60 years or over is projected to grow by 56.0 % globally, i.e. from 901 million in 2015 to 1.4 billion by 2030, and it is projected to more than double its size from 2015, to reach 2.1 billion by 2050. In addition, increasing research and development investments, healthcare expenditures and technological advancement also drive the growth of biosimilars market. However, Stringent regulations and complex manufacturing process restricts the growth of biosimilars market. FDA and EMA along with World Health Organisation are actively regulating the development and validation of biosimilars. Countries such as Japan, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Korea have crafted their own regulatory guidelines for the development and validation of biosimilars.Request for Table of Content at:Insights by GeographyGeographically, Europe is the largest market for biosimilars The European market for biosimilars is driven by increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, and various initiatives taken by the EMA and government to increase the awareness regarding new approaches and use of biosimilars. North America is the second largest market for biosimilars market, with the U.S. accounting for the largest revenue contribution to the North American market. Some of the key factors driving the revenue growth of the biosimilars market in North America include rise in the number of chronic and lifestyle diseases, increasing research and development investments and increasing healthcare expenditures. Private health insurance plays an important role in U.S. healthcare system, provides primary healthcare coverage to large population group leading to affordability of better healthcare facilities. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for biosimilars due to a rise in the population, increased government initiatives, availability of skilled labour, low manufacturing cost and growing medical tourism in Singapore, Thailand, India and Malaysia.Competitive LandscapeSome of the key players in the global biosimilars market include Sandoz International GmbH, Pfizer Inc., Merck Serono (Merck Group) Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., Biocon Ltd, Biogen Idec, Inc. Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Amgen Inc., Celltrion, Inc, F.Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Samsung Bioepis and Synthon Pharmaceuticals, Inc.With respect to strategic developments, various new product launches and strategic alliances have been taking place in the patient positioning equipment market.In October 2016, Pfizer launched Biosimilar INFLECTRA in the U.S. for the treatment of Crohns disease. Rheumatoid arthritis, active psoriatic arthritis and chronic severe plaque psoriasis.In October 2016, Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. announced partnership with celltrion, Inc. and Celltrion Healthcare for the commercialization of proposed Monoclonal Antibody (MAb) biosimilars to Rituxan and Herceptin in the U.S. and Canada. Rituxan is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic lymphatic leukemia whereas Herceptin is used in the treatment of breast cancer.In February 2016, Sandoz, a Novartis company announced acquisition of rights for the development and commercialization of PF06438179(biosimilar infliximab) in the European Economic Area (EEA) from Pfizer. Infliximab is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritisBrowse Other Related Report at: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:KundanManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Equine Veterinary Services Market Research Report: Brand Analysis and Forecast up to 2024

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Equine Veterinary Services Market: OverviewGlobal equine veterinary market is observed to be a multi-billion dollar industry that consists of various equine activities such as horse racing, competitive riding and leisure. Thus, various veterinary services that supplement the growth of this market are vaccination, gynecological care, dental care, gastroscopy, lameness, respiratory care, colic assessment and treatment.The vaccination regime of horses is integral part of equine health against various clinical conditions like equine influenza, tetanus, strangles, ringworm, EHV (Equine Herpes Virus), EVA (Equine Viral Arteries) and West Nile Virus (WNV). Dental care services include the routine dental examinations and rasping service for horses, some of the complex problems are also diagnosed with an X-ray.The gynecological care comprises routine sampling of CEM (Contagious Equine Metritis) and EVA testing , fertility check accompanied with hysteroscopies, artificial insemination, pregnancy diagnosis, pregnancy follow-up, assistance during foal birth and umbilical scanning, bloodsampling for IgG estimation in newborn foal health management. Gastroscopy consists of use of 3 meter videoscope for diagnosis of gastric ulcers. Lameness is one of the most common cause that affects limbs of horses and is diagnosed with digital X-rays, ultrasound and thermal scans. Respiratory care includes services related with tracheal washing and broncho-alveolar-lavage.Equine Veterinary Services Market: Region-wise OutlookThe veterinary services provided in market by major breeding farms and equine veterinary hospitals. This is a very specialized sector and is limited to equine species healthcare management hence, overall its considered to be a premium sector because of the specific requirements. The major market shift is estimated to be observed in coming five years where due to economic downturn in Europe has forced the market to export the horses to slaughterhouses or to Asian countries as there is significant potential for horse racing and showcase in China. This is perceived to affect the North American and European global market share in equine veterinary market as the Asia-Pacific market is observed to be growing in case of horse population.As a constituent of Asia-Pacific, Australian equine market was observed to rank among the top three regional equestrian and equine veterinary services markets. After the European downturn and legal hindrances in North American market Australia turned out to be among the leading horse producing / breeding countries in the world. On the same basis, China was perceive to expand its investing and capacity in horse racing and betting by importing quality breeds from countries especially from European region.Thus, China intends to maintain particularly race-horse breeds; as race-horses require additional care and supervision thus equine veterinary services market is expected to grow significantly. According to a equine industry source, China is mounting the capacity and investing in horse racing and betting by importing quality breeds from North American and European countries. The equestrian racing infrastructure development comprises of horse race-tracks developed with an investment of approximately USD 2.0 billion with about 3,000 horses. Investment also comprises the cost of s developing trainers and riders in particular equine training schools.View Report-Equine Veterinary Services Market: Key Segments and PlayersThe major products observed in the industry are in-house diagnostics, reference laboratories, digital imaging and others. The in-house diagnostics segment is expected to account for the largest share in the global equine veterinary services market. Some of the key players having presence in the global equine veterinary services market are IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., Medical Management International, National Veterinary Associates and VCA Antech, Inc.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, North Africa)Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Equine Veterinary Services Market during 2016- 2024About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Voice Over Wireless LAN (VoWLAN) Market: Key Trends, Industry Opportunities And Projections for Upcoming Years 2025

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The global voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) market is forecast to grow at a robust pace between 2016 and 2024. The rising demand for technologies supporting enterprise mobility, responsiveness, and improved productivity within organizations will aid the markets expansion worldwide. The multi-billion dollar industry is therefore expected to continue exhibiting robust CAGR through the course of the reports forecast period.The report is compiled to provide a comprehensive overview of the global voice over wireless LAN market. It covers various segments such as application, end user, solution, geography and presents insights into the growth drivers, challenges, and opportunities pertaining to the overall market. The Porters five forces analysis is included in the report, coupled with the evaluation of its forces and their impact on the overall market.Information thus included in the market study is sourced via proven research methodologies and from trusted industrial sources. It is then presented in a coherent chapter-wise format, interspersed with relevant statistics, graphs, and infographs. The report is compiled to help stakeholders understand the prevailing market dynamics better and gain a better perspective about the future scope. The report also includes detailed profiles of some of the leading market players and conducts SWOT analysis on them.Obtain Report Details @Growth witnessed in the global voice over wireless LAN market is attributed to the rising demand affordable Wi-Fi solutions, which provide greater indoor coverage. The market is also expected to gain from the advent of 5G technology, due to voice integration of the technology.Among various end users, the demand witnessed across public and government offices will be major revenue contributor to the market. The segment is also expected to report comparatively higher growth in the market over the forecast period. The demand for automating operations across public offices such as municipality department, service call centers, and ordinance enforcement will fuel the deployment of wireless networks aimed at improving the reach and availability of networks.Besides this, the rising demand from sectors such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing and distribution, education, hospitality, IT and telecom, BFSI, and logistics and transportation will aid the markets expansion in the coming years.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Voice over Wireless LAN Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market@Among the various regional markets, opportunities witnessed in Asia Pacific will prove highly lucrative for VoWLAN vendors. Rising investment in expansion plans and infrastructural development across key Asian economies such as India and China will create an environment conducive to the growth of the global voice over wireless LAN market in the region. Besides this, encouraged by favorable government initiatives, installation of VoWLAN systems is poised to surge in Asia Pacific. For instance, a leading network systems integrator in Japan called NETMARKS has partnered with the U.S.-based Colubris Networks to distribute wireless LAN networks across the country. This will create lucrative prospects for the VoWLAN market in Japan as the country exhibits a considerably high demand for smartphones, which is used for Wi-Fi calling as well. Moreover, the market is also expected to gain from the persistently high demand from the Americas.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Povidone Iodine Market : Growth Catalysts, Market Trends And Key Players 2024

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Povidone Iodine Market: OverviewPovidone Iodine is a stable chemical complex of polyvinylpyrrolidone and elemental iodine. It is universally preferred iodine antiseptic. It is a widely used antiseptic for topical application in the prevention and treatment of infections in wounds. Povidone Iodine is used in first aid of blisters, minor cuts and burns among others. It is extensively used in the medical field. It is completely soluble in cold and mild-warm water; glycerol and isopropyl alcohol. Povidone Iodine has applications in the field of nanomaterials as well. Povidone Iodine is also known as Wokadine, Pyodine and Betadine.View Report @Iodine is a recognized as a widely used bactericide that has proven to be effective against viruses, protozoans, fungi, and molds. However, iodine causes irritation at the application site. Povidone Iodine overcomes the drawbacks of iodine primarily because the iodine in it is carried in a complex form and as a result the concentration of free iodine in it is very low. Povidone Iodine has applications such as a scrub for pre- and post-surgery skin cleansing; for treating and/or preventing wound or ulcer infections, as well as in cuts and burns. It is also used in deceits ulcers and stasis ulcers for treating infections.Povidone Iodine Market: DriversHigh awareness regarding general well-being is driving the healthcare market. Additionally, growth in aging population is likely to boost the healthcare market. Presence of strict government mandates in Europe and North America and a well-developed healthcare industry is expected to help boost the use of povidone iodine during the reports forecast period. Thus, the growing healthcare industry coupled with the increasing awareness regarding hygiene will likely drive the demand for povidone iodine market over the next few years. However, there are various substitute products available for povidone iodine in the market. Chlorhexidine-alcohol is one of the major substitutes for povidone iodine. Thus, the presence of substitute products may be a factor that may restrain the growth of the povidone iodine market within the forecast period.Povidone Iodine Market: Region-wise OutlookFrom the demand standpoint, North America was the top region in povidone iodine market. U.S. generated the highest demand for Povidone Iodine owing to sizeable demand from the healthcare industry coupled with appreciable demand from the nanomaterials sector. Stringent regulation in Europe regarding healthcare and hygiene are expected to drive the demand for povidone iodine in the near future. European countries such as Germany and the UK were the major consumers of tri-isopropanolamine in this region.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Povidone Iodine Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Rising global population and the expanding base of geriatric persons has been either directly or indirectly helping the growth of the market. This trend is expected to continue until the end of the reports forecast period. Several countries in Asia Pacific have demonstrated rapid economic growth over the past decade. This trend is projected to only grow stronger through the next few years. The Asia Pacific povidone iodine market was followed by markets in the Rest of the World.Key players in the povidone iodine Market are H&P Industries, Inc.,Glide Chem Private, Medline Indusries Inc and RN Laboratories among others. There are many large and small scale industries present across various geographies.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Process Liquid Analyzer Market : Review and Forecast 2024

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Global Process Liquid Analyzer Market: OverviewIn the manufacturing sector, the precise measurement of liquids and gases is crucial. This report focuses on how the demand for process analyzers for liquids has changed over the years and the factors that have brought this change into effect. Process liquid analyzers may be used for measuring a wide range of dissolved ingredients, the conductivity of liquid materials, their pH levels, turbidity, or other factors that are integral to manufacturing operations.View Report @Since these devices lend themselves to a myriad of operations, their use is not limited to a particular industry. They are a ubiquitous part of the following industries: Electronics and semiconductor, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, metal and alloys, pulp and paper, textiles, waste water and water management, power and refineries, and oil and gas. Because of these wide-ranging uses of process liquid analyzers, their demand is projected to remain consistently high worldwide. TMR projects a positive outlook for the global process liquid analyzer market till 2024.With manufacturing operations being increasingly governed by demanding standards and specifications, using devices that offer accurate readings are a priority for manufacturers. This need will augur well for the global process liquid analyzer market in the years ahead.The report on the global process liquid analyzers market makes use of meticulous primary and secondary research to highlight the changes that are occurring in this space. Untapped opportunities are also determined using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. A dedicated chapter on the top players in the market helps companies map the competitive landscape.Global Process Liquid Analyzer Market: Trends, Drivers, and RestraintsThe use of process liquid analyzers has seen an uptick in recent years in developing countries where industrialization is spreading fast. Moreover, larger companies acquiring niche market players to include specialized products in their portfolios is a defining trend in the global process liquid analyzer market. The launch of smart and integrated sensors is the biggest trend currently in developed countries. The adoption of intelligent sensors may take a few years in developing markets.As the number of vendors in the global process liquid analyzer market is high, competition across the world is intense. Thus, companies that have been able to ace product differentiation have emerged as leaders. Yet, the market will have to counter forces such as a shortage of specialized process technicians and the lack of adequate professional support for maintenance projects.Global Process Liquid Analyzer Market: SegmentationThe global market for process analyzers for liquids can be segmented based on geographical regions, on the type of analyzer, and by application or end use. The key geographical segments of the market are: North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. North America currently represents the largest regional market for process liquid analyzers. The region, which is home to large industrial bases, will likely continue to exhibit a high demand for process liquid analyzers. Moreover, the massive manufacturing sectors in countries such as India and China will also boost sales in the global process liquid analyzers market.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Process Liquid Analyzer Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Countries in Europe are expected to fare well as far as demand for process liquid analyzers is concerned. The strong performance of the pharmaceutical and allied industries can be credited for this. The report analyzes the market for process analyzers for liquids in a detailed manner to help readers uncover emergent trends and opportunities.The market is characterized by a remarkably high number of vendors operating both locally and internationally. Top companies that have been profiled in the report include: Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan), Cemtrex Inc. (U.S), Emerson Electric Co. (U.S), ABB Ltd. (Switzerland), AMETEK Process Instruments (U.S.), and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Genomics Market : Trend, Share, Opportunities and Forecast to 2024

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Global Genomics Market: OverviewGenomics, the science of studying genomes and their interaction with a variety of stimuli, has been the focus of extensive research and development activities in the few years. The field has witnessed a significant rise in technologies that promise a better understanding of genomes and their interaction with the environment and tools that use research results to understand the role played by genomes in the growth and survival of all organisms.View Report @This report on the global genomics market presents a thorough overview of the present state of the market and its segments, with projections estimating the future dynamics of markets growth trajectory. Predictions about the market are formed based on a detailed analysis of factors such as drivers, restraints, popular trends of past and present times, regulatory scenario, recent developments in terms of technology and products, level of competition in the market.The market has been examined on regional and global levels and vast qualitative and quantitative details pertaining to key aspects of the market have been included in the study. The report also presents a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape of the market, wherein details for aspects such as profiles of key vendors, recent developments, financial data (wherever available), growth strategies, and association with activities such as mergers and acquisitions are covered.Global Genomics Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe global genomics market is chiefly driven by the intensifying level of competition in the global pharmaceutical industry and the increased use of genomics in research and development of new drug classes. An increased demand for genetically modified animals and plants and the constantly reducing prices of genetic procedures are also leading to significant developments in the global genomics market through a rising scope for research and innovation.The use of genomics concepts in the field of synthetic biology, to study gene sequences of plants and living organisms, is expected to leverage the progress made in the field of synthetic cells and DNAs in the near future. Such rise in applications is also expected to lead to vast traction to the global genomics market in the future.Global Genomics Market: Geographical DynamicsThe report presents an overview of the market for genomics across regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. Developed regions such as North America and Europe presently lead the global genomics market owing to the availability of abundant funds and the presence of a large number of companies undertaking research in the field of molecular biology. In Europe, vast initiatives undertaken by the European Union to encourage research in the field of genomics has spurred the rate of growth of the market.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Personalized Genomics Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.In the next few years, the market is expected to witness the most significant development across Asia Pacific owing to strengthening economies of developing countries such as India and China and the increased focus of the respective governments on encouraging research in the field of genomics. Furthermore, the fact that China hosts the worlds largest genomic research institute, the Beijing Genomics Institute, is also helping the Asia Pacific genomics market to sustain its growth rate.Companies Mentioned in the ReportThe global genomics market features a vast number of companies from the healthcare industry and several educational institutions, which are enriching the field through their research activities and innovative technologies that could present a more efficient analysis of genomes. Some of the key companies operating in the market are Bayer AG, Affymetrix Inc., Agilent Technologies, Inc., Genomatix Software Inc., Navigenics, Inc., Roche Diagnostics, Myriad Genetics, Inc., QIAGEN, Inc., Illumina, Inc., and GE Healthcare.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Pelvic Floor Stimulation Therapy Market - Industry News, Applications and Trends 2024

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Pelvic floor stimulation therapy market: OverviewPelvic floor stimulation (PFS) therapy is a nonsurgical process that activates the nerves and muscle mechanism of the pelvic floor. PFS therapy is frequently prescribed to strengthen the neuromuscular mechanism of the pelvic floor for the treatment of urinary incontinence. With the help of pelvic floor stimulation therapy, patients suffering from urinary incontinence can regain control over their bladder muscle and the muscles around it.View Report @Pelvic floor stimulation therapy involves controlled electrical or magnetic stimulation with non-implantable stimulators to the nerves of the pelvic floor and bladder. The electrodes are placed around the gonads and the rectum or around the anus. The frequency and amplitude of the stimulating pulses, their duration, the number of treatments per day, and the overall duration of the treatment cycle depend on the type and severity of the incontinence. Pelvic floor stimulation therapy exercises the precise muscles involved in the excretion of urine, no surgery is required, and patient participation is also kept to a minimum.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market by providing in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions.Pelvic floor stimulation therapy market: Trends and DriversWeakening of the pelvis floor muscles, menopause, obesity, constipation, urinary tract infections, and alcoholism are the main causes of urinary incontinence. The increasing prevalence of these conditions, added to the expanding global geriatric population, is the major driver for the global pelvic floor stimulation therapy market. The increasing healthcare awareness among patients and healthcare professionals in developing countries is also driving the demand from the global pelvic floor stimulation therapy market. On the other hand, the high prices of pelvic floor stimulation devices may hinder the growth of the market in the coming years.According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, in 2012, approximately 13 million adult women and 6 million adult males above the age of 40 years were suffering from urinary incontinence in the U.S. alone. UK health data suggests that 4 in 100 adult males and 1 in 5 adult women are suffering from this disorder. As per the Canadian Incontinence Foundation, 3.3 million Canadians above the age of 40 years, equating about 10% of the total population, suffer from some kind of urinary incontinence. This has led to government agencies supporting pelvic floor stimulation therapy, which is likely to lead to better reimbursement options and thus increasing demand in the coming years.Pelvic floor stimulation therapy market: SegmentationThe global pelvic floor stimulation therapy market can be segmented according to geography and type of stimulator. Geographically, the market for pelvic floor stimulation therapy can be segmented into North American, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Of these, North America holds the highest share in the global market, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Pelvic Floor Stimulation Devices Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.On the other hand, the market for pelvic floor stimulation therapy can be segmented into two segments by stimulator type, namely electrical devices and magnetic devices. The electric devices segment accounts for a major share due to the established popularity of these devices among clinicians and patients, whereas magnetic devices were introduced relatively recently and are yet to become popular on a large scale.Pelvic floor stimulation therapy market: Competitive LandscapeThere are many companies operating in the global pelvic floor stimulation therapy market, out of which Liberty, Athena, Active Life Technologies, and Mediwatch are the major manufacturers of electrical pelvic floor stimulation devices, while EMD Medical Technologies, MCube Technology and Iskra Medical are the key players in the market for magnetic pelvic floor stimulation devices.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals Market Research Report by Key Players Analysis 2023

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Global Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals MarketSulfonamides are a group of drugs that are derived from sulfanilamide, a sulfur containing compound. Sulfonamides are the most commonly used antibiotics around the world and have been in clinical use since 1968. Sulfonamides, also known as anti-metabolites and sulfa drugs act by inhibiting the folic acid synthesis pathway in a bacterial cell. These antibiotics are considered as selective targeted option since human do not synthesize folic acid, but a bacterial cell requires it for the synthesis of adenine and thiamine derivatives of its nucleic acid.View Report @These drugs are bacteriostatic in nature and are often utilized in the systemic treatment of acute, uncomplicated urinary tract infections and respiratory upper tract infections. With a broad spectrum of activity, these drugs are also utilized to treat various other bacterial infections like enteritis, chronic bronchitis in adults, otitis media in children and travelers diarrhea. The leading drugs in this segment are sulfamethoxazole, sulfisomidine, sulfadiazine, sulfaisodimidine, sulfacetamide, sulfisoxazole, sulfasalazine, sulfadoxine and dichlorphenamide. One of the combination drugs available in this class is the sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim combination which becomes bactericidal in action in contrast with the other sulfa drugs. Some of the key brands available in this class are Dapsone (diamino-diphenylsulfone) and Sepmax (sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim) from GlaxoSmithKline plc; Blephamide(prednisolone and sulfacetamide) from Allergan, Inc. and Vasocidin (prednisolone and sulfacetamide) from Novartis AG.Global Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals Market: Drivers and RestraintsMajor growth drivers for the systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination market will include availability of large number of generics at affordable prices in emerging markets and increasing prevalence of various infectious diseases such as urinary tract and upper respiratory tract infections. These drivers are likely to push the volume sales of drugs of this class. Worldwide rise in elderly population is also expected to play a key role in driving the market growth as elderly populations is at high risk of developing various infections requiring systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination drugs for cure.Global Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals Market: Geographical DynamicsGeographically, the market for systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination pharmaceuticals has been segmented into four major regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW). In North America and Europe, the market is characterized by market maturity and increasing penetration by generic manufacturers. Stringent regulatory guidelines pose a significant challenge before the growth of this market to some extent in these regions. However, the market may experience a significant growth on the introduction of new products during coming years.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Asia-Pacific represents the most potential market for this segment and is expected to record the highest growth rate during the upcoming years. Some major factors expected to drive the systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination market growth in the region include, presence of large number of generic manufacturers in major Asian countries (especially in India and China), growing incidences of infectious diseases and emerging economies leading to increased purchasing power of the people belonging to this region. In addition, the region being a home for more than half of the world population is also likely to represent a large pool of patients with various infectious diseases that would consequently increase the uptake of sulfonamide class of drugs.Global Systemic Antibiotic-Sulfonamide Combination Pharmaceuticals Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the major players engaged in the development, manufacturing and marketing of systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination drugs are GlaxoSmithKline plc, Allergan, Inc., Pfizer Ltd., Sanofi, Novartis AG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Bayer AG, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck & Co., Inc. and AstraZeneca plc. These players compete with each other in order to get competitive advantages over each others. In developing nations like India, China, Mexico and Brazil, they face intense competition from local manufactures that offer systemic antibiotic-sulfonamide combination drugs at relatively low prices.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Human Biobanking Ownership Market Research Report: Key Growth Factors and Forecast 2024

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Biobanks are kind of repositories which store the biological samples for research and educational purpose. The samples are collected form general public based on various factors such as ethnicity, age, gender, lifestyle and geography. Biobanks collect the samples in various forms such as tissues, saliva, blood, etc. A purified genomic database is maintained in these biobanks, this data is significant in research and study purpose for understanding the environmental impacts and mutations, and diseases and disorders derived from them. The samples are stored in groups of specific traits to ease their application in research purposes. The samples are collected from donors after their consensus and most of the biobanks follow the practice of donors ownership and his consensus on use of his/her sample for any further research purpose by private entity or public organization. Biobanks play a vital role in research and development is healthcare industry.View Report @The genetic and other biological data repository maintained by biobanks help researchers to understand the human trait associated diseases and disorders, and also the impact of environment and genetic variations on cell lines and human health. These biobanks provide extensive data based on these factors and on the basis of other demographical traits, which is expected to grow the human biobanking ownership market. The biobanks offer database of cross border population which makes its users time saving and effective resource, which is expected to increase uptake for biobanking services across the globe. However, high cost associated with human biobanks, as the genome sequencing is costly and tedious process, the human biobanking ownership market is expected to restrain the growth across the globe. Also stringent laws and regulations in biobanking and concern over the security and privacy of human biobanks across globe is another factor expected to bolster the growth for human biobanking ownership market. In the near future, the global human biobanking ownership market is expected to be governed by laws to protect the privacy of gene donors and establish their rights. For example, in Estonia, the Human Genes Research Act passed in 1999 provides donors full authority over who can access their data and establishes anonymity in clinical research. Such laws will help in the growth of the global human biobanking ownership market.Based on the operator of the biobank, the human biobanks can be segmented in to academic & research Institutes, pharmaceutical and biotech industry, hospitals, and stand-alone biobanks. These biobanks serve various purposes such as diagnostics, forensic, organ transplantation, research, and others. By the ownership type the biobanks can be privately funded and operated, publically funded and operated, and public-private partnership funded and operated. Some of the Government agencies promote biobanks, so as to create database of population to support in strengthening the healthcare infrastructure.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Human Biobanking Ownership Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Geographically, global human biobanking ownership market is segmented in four major regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Asia Pacific has been driving the global market growth owing to the rapid growth of the private biobanks and clinical research organizations in the region. Demand witnessed in North America and Europe is also significantly aiding the growth of the market. In Europe, countries such as Estonia are focusing on collecting the DNA of every citizen in order to enrich their national biobank. In Estonia, the national biobank program started in 2000 by collecting DNA samples from a quarter of the countrys population. While these DNA samples are mostly used for clinical research, the government is planning to use this data to build a robust health care infrastructure by offering personalized care. The Government of Estonia has already started developing a system to make this genetic data available to citizens and doctors.The major players operating in the market include ProMedDx, Affymetrix Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Acorda Therapeutics, Alpha Cord Inc., Autogen Inc., Biobank Ireland Trust, BioCision, Biokryo GmbH, BioLife Solutions Inc., Biomatrica Inc., BioStorage Technologies Inc., Cells4Life Ltd., Cesca Therapeutics Inc., China Cord Blood Corporation, Core Dynamics Inc., Cryo Bio System, and Sanford Health among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cardiac Output Monitoring Devices Market Size 2016, Forecast 20254 Production, Supply, Sales And Demand

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Cardiac output is known as the volume of blood is pumped by from the right or left ventricle of heart per minute and which is dependent on heart rate, and stroke volume. The cardiac output increases during acute exercise and mental stress, while decreased cardiac output might include physical exercise of a intensity that the patient is not able to bear because of decrease in oxygen supply, obesity, ingestion of large meals that place an added workload on the heart, retention of fluid, emotional stress, hypervolemia, and smoking. It is essential to assess the state of patients blood circulation. Low cardiac output usually leads to a common problem of low blood pressure which might surface occur during surgery, or during postoperative care in the intensive care units.View Report @In high-risk surgical patients and critically ill patients the arterial blood pressure and cardiac output usually are monitored more comprehensively. Cardiac output monitoring devices are used to know the cardiac output of heart and arterial oxygen content which enable the circulation of continuous systemic oxygen supply to the body. Doubling the cardiac output leads to double amount of the oxygen supply to the tissues, while the low cardiac output leads to inadequate supply of oxygen to organs like brain and the low amount of cellular oxygenation can cause tissue and organ failure. The major observed causative factors for the decrease cardiac output are congenital heart defects, pathologic changes in the hearts muscle, blood dyscrasias, chronic pulmonary disease and electrolyte imbalances (as of potassium or calcium). According to North American Nursing Diagnosis Association, decreased cardiac output is defined as a state in which inadequate blood is pumped by the heart to meet the metabolic demands of the body. Cardiac output monitoring devices market is classified on the basis of product type, methods, end-user and geography.On the basis of product type the market is broadly classified into invasive, minimally-invasive and non-invasive cardiac output monitoring devices. The invasive cardiac output monitoring has been traditionally accomplished using the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC), but complications associated with PAC has markedly decreased the widespread use of the PAC. The market demand for the non- invasive devices is high followed by minimally invasive devices as compare to invasive devices, due to factors such as ease, accessibility and cost- effectiveness and fast response time. By methods the market is segmented as thermodilution method, pulse pressure analysis, Doppler method, bioimpedance and applied Fick principle. Each methods has its own merits and demerits. On the basis of end-user the market is segmented as hospitals, ambulatory care and critical care centers. By end-user hospitals covers the major market for cardiac output monitoring devices, because of reliability and conjunction of other therapeutic treatments. The factors such as raising incidences of cardiovascular diseases, increase in the number of people suffering from obesity, growing ageing population, and raising healthcare infrastructure facilities are the growth drivers of this market.By geography, the market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the world. Geographically, North America was observed to have the major share of cardiac output monitoring device market due to high healthcare awareness, prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and technological advancement in the region. Europe contributes to the second largest share in the cardiac output monitoring device market growth with raising ageing population. However, Asia Pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing due to the gradual adoption of improved technologies, emerging health care infrastructures, and raising population with cardiac problems and obesity. Followed by Rest of the world.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Cardiac Output Monitoring Devices Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The major key players operating in cardiac output monitoring device market include Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, Cheetah Medical, PULSION Medical Systems SE, Philips Healthcare, LiDCO Group plc, Boston Scientific Corporation, GE Healthcare, and others. Bioreactance-based NICOM Cheetah Medical remains the topmost non-invasive market leader.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Salt & Straw, the Portland-based chain of small-batch ice cream shops known for its handsome shops, friendly service and unconventional flavors, has accepted a substantial investment from noted New York restaurateur Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group and Affiliates, Salt & Straw CEO Kim Malek told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Some details of the investment, including the amount, were not immediately disclosed. Malek said the funds initially would be used to hire and train staff and shore up infrastructure, including building "state-of-the-art" commercial kitchens in Portland and San Francisco. Kim and cousin Tyler Malek, Salt & Straw's co-founder and head ice cream maker, will retain majority control of the company.

"We actually have long-term contracts and plans in place," Kim Malek says. "We're not going anywhere. If anything, this was an investment in us personally."

In the short term, Salt & Straw will complete plans to open its first Seattle location and a second in San Francisco, joining five in Los Angeles and three -- plus the Malek's lone soft-serve shop, Wiz Bang Bar -- in Portland. The Maleks are scouting for a commercial kitchen in San Francisco, a prospect that could cost "millions of dollars" alone, Malek says. And later this year, the company plans to move its Portland production to a new 15,000-square-foot kitchen in the Central Eastside Industrial District.

But future growth is in the cards. Despite his background in mid- and upscale dining, Meyer is probably best known outside New York for Shake Shack, the fast-casual burger chain that has gone from a food cart to a public offering and locations in 18 states and 12 countries across three continents. (Meyer also made national headlines two years ago by ditching tipping at many of Union Square Hospitality Group's restaurants.) The group's first external investment was in Joe Coffee, a New York-based specialty coffee roaster that went on to announce plans to open five new Eastern Seaboard cafes. Salt & Straw is the group's first investment outside New York.

Thursday, the Maleks will be on hand at Manhattan's Daily Provisions, the casual cafe and bakery next to Meyer's Union Square Cafe, scooping New York-themed Salt & Straw ice cream flavors including a Salted Caraway Rye and Strawberry Cheesecake made in Portland using Oregon strawberries and Daily Provisions bread. According to New York magazine's GrubStreet blog, plans are underway to roll out single-serve cups and scoops at the Meyer-run restaurant and cafe at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art.

Though signs seem to point to an upcoming Salt & Straw expansion to New York -- or, perhaps, Salt & Straw ice cream at Shake Shack restaurants worldwide -- Malek says that's not in the immediate future. During meetings with Meyer and his team this week, Malek plans to talk about "slowing down a little bit, investing in infrastructure to support future growth."

"I can sincerely tell you that that (a New York location) is really far away," Malek says. "I like to stay a little closer to home. I suppose we could be talked into whatever, but there are no site plans right now."

Kim Malek before the opening of Salt & Straw's Northeast Alberta Street shop.

Like Shake Shack, Salt & Straw debuted as a food cart, serving scoops on Northeast Alberta Street near the company's still-under-construction original shop and drawing instant buzz for their locally sourced ingredients and occasionally outlandish flavors. (Anyone for more Salted Caramel Thanksgiving Turkey?) From there, the Maleks expanded to Southeast and Northwest Portland, then to Los Angeles, drawing lines almost everywhere they landed. Last year, Kim Malek's former boss, Starbucks then-CEO Howard Schultz, toured Salt & Straw's Portland facilities, coming away impressed. Danny Meyer has visited Salt & Straw's Los Angeles locations, but has yet to come to Portland.

Malek says her relationship with Meyer goes back to the early days of Salt & Straw, when she and store manager Casey Milligan flew to New York to attend the group's hospitality training course.

"I looked at Casey and said, 'You know what this is like, it's like when you go to doggie obedience school and it dawns on you, it's not for the dog, it's for you,'" Malek says.

Tyler Malek took the course six months later, and soon Meyer's hospitality manifesto, "Setting the Table," became required reading for Salt & Straw staff. Milligan came up with the idea of a "Salt & Straw University," a quarterly management training session inspired by Union Square Hospitality Group's program. All the while, the Maleks peppered Meyer's team with questions: how to structure their HR department, how to set up a supply chain, how to negotiate their deal to open a kiosk in the Trail Blazers arena.

"Every time we would call them they would point out the right person in their company and spend a not insignificant amount of time helping us," Malek says. "They are sincerely generous at all different levels."

But they didn't know Meyer was interested in investing until he called.

The question before the Maleks now is how to grow Salt & Straw without sacrificing its culture. Over the past five years, Portlanders have watched beloved food businesses such as Kettleman's Bagel Co. and Stumptown Coffee Roasters get gobbled up by out-of-town giants. The equation gets further complicated by the way these businesses are linked to and draped in Portland identity. How does Salt & Straw get bigger without sacrificing its "farm-to-cone" philosophy?

According to Tyler Malek, that process starts by continuing to produce ice cream in small batches, folding in ingredients by hand and developing localized menu for each new city they open in. Despite plans to move into a Southeast Second Avenue showroom kitchen four times the size of their current digs, the Maleks say they'll continue using their three five- and 10-gallon ice cream machines.

"I was laughing," Kim Malek says,"thinking of all the money we're investing and then not buying a single new machine."

And Kim Malek says there's no better partner to help Salt & Straw navigate this rocky terrain.

"Now we have money, we can open stores, we can open kitchens, but people is the hard thing," Malek says. "They're sharing with us how they do goal setting and how they evolve people into manager roles, and it's such a gift to get to learn all of this. They really do know what they're doing."

-- Michael Russell
By Karin Brulliard | The Washington Post



At 7:20 a.m. last Thursday, Josh Henderson was summoned to a mass casualty event at a 23-story building in downtown Galveston, Texas He arrived to a scene unlike any he had ever witnessed.



Henderson, supervisor of the animal services unit in the Galveston Police Department, quickly began collecting the bodies -- dozens upon dozens of migratory birds that had evidently become disoriented and slammed into the high-rise while flying north from Central and South America during a storm the night before.



Three of the birds -- a Nashville warbler and two magnolia warblers -- were alive. But 395 were not so lucky.



Henderson knows the number because he counted the animals by hand, sorted them into a rainbow-hued array on an autopsy table, and then packaged them for delivery to researchers. The resulting list and images will deliver a gut-punch to any appreciator of birds, and probably to most anyone who likes living things.



Henderson's body count began like this:



* 90 Nashville warblers



* 60 Blackburnian warblers



* 42 chestnut-sided warblers



* 41 ovenbirds



* 29 yellow warblers



And on it went, all the way down to "1 cerulean warbler."



In a statement, Henderson sounded a bit stunned by the mass casualties. Birds fly into buildings fairly regularly, he conceded. But "the numbers are nothing I am familiar with throughout my career in animal services," he said. "This is the largest event like this I have ever been a part of in over 10 years."



Bird advocacy groups said the incident, which may have been exacerbated by strong storm winds that propelled some of the animals into the structure, served as a reminder of the dangers buildings pose to birds. As many as 1 billion birds die in collisions with glass in the United States each year, according to American Bird Conservancy. An Audubon Society representative said building crashes are a "tragic and avoidable fate for too many birds that comes second only to death by cat."



"Turning off indoor and outdoor lights, especially during spring and fall migration seasons, is a simple and effective way to protect birds and save people money," said Tania Homayoun, urban conservation program manager for Audubon Texas. Wildlife advocates also argue that new buildings should be constructed with "bird friendliness" in mind, which can involve using patterned, frosted or other nonreflective glass, as well as incorporating architectural features such as awnings.



The three birds that survived that blustery night in Galveston were taken by the area's new, volunteer-run Galveston Bay Injured Bird Response Team to the Wildlife Center of Texas, in Houston, in hopes that they might recover and be released. The 395 corpses were shipped off to Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University, where scientists plan to collect their DNA, take tissue samples and preserve them for future research purposes, Henderson said.



"This dark cloud does have a silver lining, as the birds collected are a great representation of the migratory birds in our area at this time," he said. "Hopefully this event will bring light to the subject and maybe inspire change."

-- Washington Post
Forest grove police car

Not every police agency provides a log of its responses, and few do it with the finesse of the Forest Grove Police Department. Every week, we post the goings on as provided by this community 25 miles west of Portland, not because it's earth-shatteringly important, but because it provides a glimpse into the world of modern small-town policing.

May 7

* Officers assisted a man suffering a mental health crisis and having delusional thoughts. The man was convinced he worked at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory. Officers engaged the man in a conversation about the practicality of faster than light travel in space, which established the rapport necessary to convince him to go to the hospital.

* Police responded to a residence where a woman was experiencing a mental health crisis and had barricaded herself in a house. Upon arrival, officers heard crashing sounds and screaming coming from inside. Officers forced entry into the home and detained the woman for her safety. The Washington County Crisis Team also responded. The woman was transported to the hospital.



May 8

* Officers completed the investigation of an unattended death.

* A resident called police about a neighbor's dog that had been barking non-stop for a week. The neighbor acknowledged the issue and was in the process of ordering a bark collar.



May 9

* A patron of a local business became trapped in the bathroom and called for police assistance when the patron could not get out. Employees had the remove the doorknob to release the frustrated customer.

* A man reported that his girlfriend was being held hostage. Officers investigated and determined the girlfriend was simply moving out of a residence and her roommate wanted her to stay and talk but had not committed any crimes.

* Officers checked for a deer reportedly running around a neighborhood but did not find it.



May 10

* A citizen called to complain about the neighbor's loose chickens.

* Police handled a dispute between roommates over money.

* A woman called after her intoxicated husband began throwing things around the house. Officers convinced him to go to bed and sleep it off.



May 11

* A woman allowed a caller remote access to her computer and entry into her bank accounts online to complete money transfers after being told her computer needed repair. She later realized it was a scam and phoned police.

* In another complaint regarding smelly chickens, an officer noted that a resident had more chickens than was allowed by city code. The resident promised to eat a couple to bring the total number of chickens into compliance.



May 12

* Police responded to a report of several juveniles drinking and smoking marijuana with one reportedly armed with a gun. Officers stopped a vehicle leaving the area reportedly associated with the subjects. After a search of the vehicle and occupants, an allegedly stolen handgun was located along with a loaded magazine. Two arrests were made.

* Another scam victim paid $1,000 in iTunes gift cards to a caller claiming to be online tech support.

* A woman called police for advice after a man contacted her on Facebook asking to accept a wire transfer in return for a money order. She was advised it was a scam and to cease all contact with the subject.



May 13

* Officers checked on a noise disturbance and found residents playing "Cards Against Humanity." They agreed to quiet down.

* Police looked for an alleged drunk driver after a vehicle was reportedly all over the road. Officers went to the registered address and found the car crashed into a garage. They contacted the man at the residence who allegedly admitted to driving drunk and was arrested. His blood alcohol level registered double the legal limit.

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.com
The Naked Sheep Knit Shop is closing on Saturday, May 20. Here's what you need to know: Books and patterns are 40 percent off. Everything else is 30 percent off. Some of Riley's dog sweaters are for sale for $30 apiece. From 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, May 26, through Sunday, May 28, the store will have its going out of business sale. That's when all remaining furniture, shelving, decorations, shop models, etc. will be for sale. The Naked Sheep Knit Shop is at 2142 N. Killingsworth in Portland. Even after it's gone, it won't be forgotten.

The Traveling Ewe has a new trip in the works - and it's on sale! The Rocky Mountain Hi! trip takes crafters to Colorado from Tuesday, Oct. 10, to Saturday, Oct. 14. Get the details here. And sign up in the next few days and get a discount!

Twisted has a sample sale and trunk show going on through Monday, May 29. "It's that time of year to do a little spring cleaning," the store writes. "Twisted has a lofty pile of beautiful samples that are ready to find new homes. They are pieces that have been long admired or are made in yarns we no longer carry. Marked down to tempting prices, come by and find a yourself a hand knit gem!" Twisted is at 2310 N.E. Broadway in Portland.

Starlight Knitting Society is launching a free lecture series with Mer Stevens. "Join us Saturday, May 20, from 1-2 p.m. for the first of four free lectures from local designer @knitmeriffic!" the store writes. "This session tackles how to achieve success when finishing your projects, a great opportunity for any level knitter! Find out more about this lecture series & other Starlight events on our website!" Starlight Knitting Society is at 7028 S.E. 52nd Ave. in Portland.

Knotty Lamb is having a Knit & Sip from 1-4 p.m. Sunday, May 21. "Spend the afternoon sampling lovely wines from Plum Hill Winery, shopping Grace's Cases trunk show and knitting (or Crocheting) with us!" the store writes. "Plum Hill Vineyards is a small, family-owned winery built on a historical dairy farm in a pastoral setting, nestled between the cities of Forest Grove and Gaston, Oregon. They feature quality hand crafted wines in limited quantities. Currently they grow and/or have available for tasting Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Rose', Riesling, Muller-Thurgau, and Schonburger. Plum Hill will have their bottles available for purchase. We'll also have Grace's Cases here for a trunk show! Grace's Cases is a local independent artisan who crafts high-quality needle and hook cases and project bags." Knotty Lamb is at 2003 19th Ave. in Forest Grove.

Totally random, but this is the cutest alpaca video I've seen today:

Tiny Alpaca Has A Mom Who's Always Believed In Her This little alpaca's favorite time of day is bedtime  she loves to chase her mom upstairs! Posted by The Dodo on Friday, May 12, 2017

-- Mary Mooney

mmooney@oregonian.com

503-412-7020; @MaryKnitsPDX
1ryan.JPG

President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan at a GOP gathering to celebrate the passage of a bill to replace much of the Affordable Care Act.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

By Greg Sargent

A few Republican senators heroically ventured on to the Sunday shows to profess deep concern about President Donald Trump's abrupt firing of the man overseeing the investigation into the small matter of whether his campaign colluded with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. Meanwhile, the New York Times assures us that GOP senators are "increasingly unnerved" by Trump's "volatility" and are "starting to show signs of breaking away from him."

That's nice. But until GOP lawmakers support a full and independent probe into the Russia affair -- not to mention real oversight of all the other ways in which Trump is shredding our democratic norms -- they are essentially complicit in his ongoing abuses of power. Can this go on forever?

Maybe not. Here's why: ABC News is now reporting that associates of the fired former FBI director, James Comey, say he wants to testify publicly before Congress, and the Senate Intelligence Committee -- which is probing the Russia story -- seems like the right venue. Among other things, Comey will almost certainly address explosive but disputed reports over whether Trump demanded loyalty from him during a private dinner in January, as Comey's associates have claimed.

Ron Wyden, a hard-charging member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, intends to use this moment to press Comey to detail what exactly happened in this exchange, a spokesman for the Oregon Democrat says.

"If and when Comey testifies, Senator Wyden will ask him if Donald Trump demanded a loyalty pledge," Wyden spokesman Keith Chu told me Monday.

If Comey asserts in public that Trump did demand loyalty from him -- which is plausible -- consider what could happen then. Trump responded to initial reports of that demand with a threatening tweet that implied Trump may have been taping private conversations. If Comey goes public, the pressure on the White House to release these tapes -- or admit they don't exist -- should intensify. Republican lawmakers -- who already expressed discomfort with the firing and with Trump's threat -- will now be expected to comment about Comey's on-the-record assertion that the president demanded a loyalty pledge from him.

Some legal experts have suggested such a loyalty demand could constitute obstruction of justice. It isn't just that FBI directors (who serve insulating 10-year terms) aren't supposed to be political loyalists. It's also that Trump would have demanded loyalty from the man overseeing the FBI probe into his own campaign, even as that man (Comey) knew full well that Trump has the power to fire him, which Trump has now exercised, explicitly because of Comey's handling of the investigation. This undermines basic norms dictating a clear separation between the White House and law enforcement and raises doubts as to whether the FBI's investigation can proceed free of political interference.

A serious probe of this whole affair by an independent commission or similar would look not just at possible Russia-Trump campaign collusion. It would also seek to establish whether Trump demanded Comey's loyalty. It would seek a full accounting of Trump's decision to fire Comey, and what sort of role Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, played in carrying that out. That latter question matters, since Sessions was supposed to recuse himself from the investigation, and any role Rosenstein played in the political hatcheting of Comey could compromise his role in overseeing the continuing FBI probe.

But some GOP leaders continue to resist this full accounting. The other day, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., responded to the Comey firing by claiming: "I'm focusing on what's in my control, and that is what is Congress doing to solve people's problems." As Brian Beutler aptly points out, by saying the Comey firing is not in "his control," Ryan is actually "denuding himself" of the congressional GOP's oversight power and responsibilities:

What Ryan has done is surrender his own fundamental powers to Trump, knowing that people he likes and respects are telling reporters that Trump's presence in the White House terrifies them.

Indeed, Trump may take this as a sign that Republicans will not exercise any meaningful oversight even if the revelations grow worse. The larger pattern here is crucial to appreciate. Trump is constantly trying to probe what abuses our institutions will let him get away with, whether it's the in-your-face use of important diplomatic business to promote Mar-a-Lago and steer cash into his own pockets; the refusal to release his tax returns while advancing a tax plan that could deliver him and his family an enormous windfall; the constant lies about millions voting illegally in our election, which undermine public confidence in our democracy, and which he will now try to legitimize with a "voter fraud" commission; and, now, the firing of Comey.

Republicans have tolerated (or even embraced) all of these things, and Trump would be reasonable in concluding that they have no intention of ever mounting a check on his power, no matter what he does. The question is whether a dramatic moment from Comey -- in which he asserts that the president did, in fact, demand his loyalty -- is enough to change this.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post
1supcourt.JPG

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C.

(The Associated Press)

By Paul Waldman

Special to The Washington Post

Democrats got a victory in a voting rights case at the Supreme Court Monday - but don't get used to that headline. There are dark days ahead for voting rights.

In Monday's decision, the Court didn't actually judge the case on its merits. It declined to hear a case involving North Carolina's vote suppression law, which had been struck down by a lower court. In the time since then, Democrats have taken over as governor and attorney general in the state, and attempted to withdraw the case over the objection of the legislature, which is still in Republican hands.

There's no question that this is a victory for Democrats and anyone who cares about the right of all Americans to vote. But it's important to understand that the North Carolina law differs from other voter restrictions Republicans have passed in that its discriminatory intent was so blatant. As the appeals court that struck it down found, the state's legislature had obtained data on the racial effects of various voting provisions, then used that information to "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision."

For instance, legislators cut back early voting to eliminate the days African-American were most likely to vote early, and when it came to the ID requirements, "With race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African-Americans."

If you're a Republican legislature, the message is clear: When you're looking to keep African-Americans from the polls, just don't be so obvious about it, and the Supreme Court will probably uphold your restrictions.

Let's take a step back to understand the context. In 2013, in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in a 5-4 decision, holding that since racial discrimination in voting isn't really a problem anymore, jurisdictions that used to have to get "preclearance" from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws to make sure they weren't discriminating were free to do as they like. The result was a mad rush on the part of the newly liberated GOP-run states to find new ways to restrict voting for people who might not vote Republican, particularly African-Americans. While voter ID restrictions are the best known, there are also other restrictions that have similar effects, like limiting early voting, eliminating same-day registration, and cutting back on the number of polling places.

By the time the 2016 election came around, 14 states had newly installed voting restrictions in place. And Republicans aren't done. It's all justified to stop a fictitious epidemic of voter fraud, which studies have found is virtually non-existent. For instance, in North Carolina, with its voter ID law in limbo, the 2016 election saw a grand total of one (1) case of voter impersonation, out of 4.8 million votes cast. As it happens, it was a woman who impersonated her recently deceased mother, in an attempt to honor her mother's wish to cast a vote for Donald Trump.

Yet Republicans claim that because it's theoretically possible for someone to impersonate someone else at the ballot box - even if it almost never happens - we have to employ restrictions that make it hard or impossible for millions of people to register and vote.

And there is absolutely no reason to think that the five conservatives on the Supreme Court are going to stop them. John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas have already voted to uphold many different kinds of voting restrictions, and Neil Gorsuch is all but guaranteed to join them.

The case to keep an eye on is the one coming from Texas, which in 2011 enacted one of the most absurdly discriminatory voting laws in the country. It required ID at the polls, but specified that certain kinds of ID more likely to be carried by Republicans (like hunting licenses) would be considered valid, while kinds of ID more likely to be carried by Democrats (like student IDs from state schools) wouldn't. An estimated 600,000 legitimate Texas voters lack the kind of ID the law mandates, and so would be prohibited from voting.

The Texas law has been struck down by a district court, whose ruling was then upheld by an appeals court (which sent it back down for more fact-finding). In January, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the state, saying that they wouldn't hear the case yet while the district court was still rehearing it. Then in April, the district court struck it down again. The Obama Justice Department had supported the plaintiffs, but the Trump Justice Department dropped that position.

That can all be a little confusing, but here's what matters: with the conservatives on the Supreme Court now at full strength, they will probably hear the Texas case, and none of them have given any indication that they have a problem with the kind of restrictions Texas has in mind. If they uphold that law, it won't just be Texans who are affected.

That's because any such ruling would be a handbook for Republican legislatures everywhere, saying in essence, "Here's how you can go about restricting the votes of racial minorities and young people. Do these things, avoid these other things, and your law will be upheld."

And I promise you that if the Supreme Court upholds the Texas law, we'll see just what we saw after the Court took a knife to the Voting Rights Act: a rush to enact new restrictions in time for the next election. And they'll be getting help from the Trump administration, which just impaneled its commission on voter fraud, led by crusading anti-immigrant activist Kris Kobach. The commission will provide the rationale, the Trump Justice Department will provide support, and the five conservatives on the Supreme Court will provide the legal stamp of approval.

The only thing Democrats can do to stop it is to win enough state elections to control the legislatures and governorships so they can reverse these restrictions. Which, when Republicans have their way, is going to be just a little harder.

Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect.
UPDATE: Authorities don't suspect foul play in death of missing man whose remains were found on riverbank

UPDATE: The Douglas County Medical Examiner's Office has notified the family of Brian David Clark that his remains were found Monday, the county sheriff's office said Friday. Clark, a Myrtle Creek resident, was 43 when he was reported missing to the sheriff's office in December.



The medical examiner's office continues to work with the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office to determine the cause and manner of death.

-------------------------

UPDATE: The Douglas County Medical Examiner's Office has tentatively identified human remains found Monday evening as an adult male who has been deceased less than six months, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office said in a news release Wednesday morning. The identity will be withheld pending next of kin notification.

The investigation into the death is ongoing, the sheriff's office said.

-------------------------

The Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office has been asked to identify what appears to be human remains found Monday on the bank of the South Umpqua River in Myrtle Creek.

A citizen called 911 on Monday to say he was walking in that area, near Interstate 5 milepost 108, when he saw what appeared to be human remains, according to a Douglas County Sheriff's Office news release.

Myrtle Creek Police Department officers and sheriff's deputies confirmed the remains were human, the release says.

The Douglas County Major Crimes Team is leading the investigation. The county medical examiner's office will work with the state medical examiner's office to determine the cause and manner of death as well as identification, officials said.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office has 25 open missing person cases dating between April 26 this year to 1974, sheriff's Sgt. Brad O'Dell told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday.

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump's disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.



The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.



The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump's decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump's meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.



"This is code-word information," said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies."



The revelation comes as Trump faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump's subsequent admission that his decision was driven by "this Russia thing" was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.



One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak - a key figure in earlier Russia controversies - into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.



For most anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.



"The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation," said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. "At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly."



The CIA declined to comment and the National Security Agency did not respond to requests for comment.



But officials expressed concern with Trump's handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States' and its allies' ability to detect future threats.



"It is all kind of shocking," said a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials. "Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn't grasp the gravity of the things he's dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it's all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia."



In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day," Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State's territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.



The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.



"Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling," said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.



The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said that the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia's presence in Syria. Moscow and would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.



Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.



"Russia could identify our sources or techniques," the senior U.S. official said. A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out."



At a more fundamental level, the information wasn't the United States' to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments - and even individual agencies - are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.



The officials declined to identify the ally, but said it is one that has previously voiced frustration with Washington's inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.



"If that partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first that is a blow to that relationship," the U.S. official said.



Trump also described measures that the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.



The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.



Trump cast the countermeasures in wistful terms. "Can you believe the world we live in today?" he said, according to one official. "Isn't it crazy."



Lavrov and Kislyak were also accompanied by aides.



A Russian photographer took photos of part of the session that were released by the Russian state-owned Tass news agency. No U.S. news organization was allowed to attend any part of the meeting.



Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout.



Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.



One of Bossert's subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump's discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.



Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.



U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those.



"He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it - and that has big downsides," the second former official said. "Does he understand what's classified and what's not? That's what worries me."



Lavrov's reaction to the Trump disclosures was muted, officials said, calling for the United States to work more closely with Moscow on fighting terrorism.



Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. Trump's initial national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and misleading statements about them. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBI's Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoke with Kislyak despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.



"I'm sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details" he gleaned from Trump, said the former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.



The White House readout of the meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak made no mention of the discussion of a terrorist threat.



"Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria," the summary said. Trump also "raised Ukraine" and "emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia."

-- Washington Post
Wednesday 17 May 2017 9:47am



Photo credit: Thomas Mattern

In a newly published study in the international journal PeerJ, scientists have modelled factors driving mainland Yellow-eyed penguin population decline and are calling for action to reduce regional threats.

According to the researchers' prediction models, breeding success of the penguins will continue to decline to extinction by 2060 largely due to rising ocean temperatures. But these predictions also point to where our conservation efforts could be most effective in building penguins' resilience against climate change.

The Yellow-eyed penguin, classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is a key attraction for New Zealand tourism. Yet, the chances of seeing the penguins in the wild are quietly slipping away, the new research suggests.

Lead study author Dr Thomas Mattern of the University of Otago says his team's predictions are conservative estimates and do not include additional adult die-off events such as the one seen in 2013 in which more than 60 penguins died.

"Any further losses of Yellow-eyed penguins will bring forward the date of their local extinction," Dr Mattern says.

If the recent poor breeding years - 2013 onwards - are included in the simulation of the future penguin population, things get progressively worse.

"When including adult survival rates from 2015 into the models the mean projection predicts Yellow-eyed penguins to be locally extinct in the next 25 years", adds Dr Stefan Meyer, another of the co-authors.

The researchers note that Yellow-eyed penguins are iconic within New Zealand. Dr Mattern says these birds greet visitors to the country on billboards in all major airports, are featured on the NZ $5 note, and are widely used for branding and advertising.

"Yet despite being celebrated in this way, the species has been slowly slipping towards local extinction," he says.

"It is sobering to see the previously busy penguin-breeding areas now overgrown and silent, with only the odd lonely pair hanging on," says Dr Ursula Ellenberg, who has researched Yellow-eyed penguins for the past 14 years.

Increasing sea surface temperatures in part explain the negative trend in penguin numbers.

"The problem is that we lack data to examine the extent of human impacts, ranging from fisheries interactions, introduced predators to human disturbance, all of which contribute to the penguins' demise," says Dr Mattern.

"However, considering that climate change explains only around a third of the variation in penguin numbers, clearly those other factors play a significant role. Unlike climate change, these factors could be managed on a regional scale," he says.

Professor Phil Seddon, Director of Wildlife Management at the University of Otago, says besides shining an alarming light on the state of the Yellow-eyed penguin on the New Zealand mainland, the study also underlines the importance of long-term data sets.

"In the current era of fast science, long-term projects have become a rarity. Without more than 35 years' worth of penguin monitoring data we would probably be still at a loss as to what is happening to a national icon, the Yellow-eyed penguin," Professor Seddon says.

Despite this urgency, Yellow-eyed penguins continue to drown as unintentional bycatch in nets set in penguin foraging areas, suffer from degradation of their marine habitat because of human activities, and die from unidentified toxins.

The authors conclude that "now we all know that Yellow-eyed penguins are quietly slipping away we need to make a choice. Without immediate, bold and effective conservation measures we will lose these penguins from our coasts within our lifetime."

Read the research paper in PeerJ.

For more information, contact:

Dr Thomas Mattern

Department of Zoology

University of Otago

Email t.mattern@eudyptes.net
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Sunday marked the beginning of National Police Week, and officials gathered Monday afternoon for a local ceremony to honor the service of law enforcement officers.

The ceremony, in remembrance of National Peace Officers Memorial Day, began at 4 p.m. outside the Midland Law Enforcement Center. Midland Police Chief Clifford Block and Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson spoke to rows of officers from departments in the county.

Were fortunate to serve in this community, Stephenson said, noting that support is excellent.

That said, the sacrifices of those who came before should not and will not be forgotten, Stephenson said, encouraging residents to take a moment to say thank you to those who protect the community.

Both Block and Stephenson said law enforcement officials know they will be in dangerous situations when they take the job.

Weve accepted one of the most noble professions, to serve and protect, Block said.

In keeping with tradition, Block listed the seven officers who died in the line of duty last year in Michigan: Berrien County Sheriffs Deputy Joseph Peter Zangaro, Berrien County Sheriffs Deputy Ronald E. Kienzle, Branch County Sheriffs Deputy Michael Arthur Winter, Detroit Police Officer Kenneth Melvin Steil, Detroit Police Officer Kevin Dwayne Miller, Detroit Police Officer Myron Anthony Jarrett, Wayne State University Police Officer Collin James Rose and Norton Shores Police Officer Jon Ginka. He also read the names of Midland Police officers who have died while employed.

Stephenson added the names of locals who died in the line of duty: Midland County Sheriffs Deputy Earl Martindale in 1935, Clare County Sheriffs Deputy Kevin Sherwood in 2003, and Rapid City Police Officer Ryan McCandless in 2011.

It is a sacred moment for us to both remember and express out gratitude, Memorial Presbyterian Pastor Wally Mayton said.

Midland County Sheriffs Office Chaplain Roger Stauffer also offered a prayer, beginning by listing some attributes law enforcement officials share, including courage, strength, dedication and compassion.

The short ceremony also included the placing of a wreath, and a bagpipe accompaniment. On display in the parking lot were various patrol vehicles used by the departments.

For more information about National Police Week, go to www.nleomf.org or the Officer Down Memorial Page at www.odmp.org
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Many donned their fedoras, feathers, flappers and brushed-up on their Fox Trot and Charleston skills for a fundraiser to help those with disabilities live more independently.

The Disability Network of Mid-Michigan raised an estimated $70,000 in funds from the Friday event at the Midland Country Club. The exact amount wont be known for another week. The organization plans to use the money to focus more attention on unserved or underserved rural counties under the agencies umbrella.

We serve a 12-county area, said DNMM Board President Norman Donker, noting that most services are in the Tri-County area. We need to be able to provide the same quality of services in the Gladwin, Ogemaw and Arenac counties.

He said the organization is important to him because it involves helping people with disabilities who might be struggling with various hurdles including transportation and social acceptance, and aiding them in living complete and integrated lives as possible.

What we can do to help them to get there is what we want to do, Donker said.

Donker also noted the fundraisers theme change, saying that one always is concerned when trying something new. However, he said the new digs turned out really well.

DNMM rebranded its 10-year Piano Palooza fundraiser and introduced Feathers and Fedoras. The organizations mission is to promote and encourage independence for those with disabilities.

We felt Piano Palooza had run its course, said Steven Locke, DNMM executive director. It was time for something fresh.

Supporters seemed to have embraced the change well.

Midland resident Kristin Emerson, wearing a red feathered boa, attended the organizations fundraiser and loved the theme change.

It was a great idea, Emerson said. It is for a good cause and we are all having a good time. I love dressing up.

For Midlander Sarah Hubble, it was her first time, and she enjoyed dressing up for a good cause and plans to return next year.

Donning a Roaring 20s dress, Jodi Friedman, of Midland, attended the fundraiser for the first time, noting that it was a lot of fun.

This was Kristin Olbertsons fifth time attending the fundraiser.

Its a good cause; I love the atmosphere, said Olbertson, of Midland, noting that she also loves to dress up and meet people.

Trudy Wells said she loved the costumes and the vibe of the evening. Wells said she loves the cause because it helps people in the community get help living independently.

Locke said the event was five months in the planning. In the end it included gaming tables, jazz music, delicious food and plenty of cocktails and champagne at the speakeasy.

People were also thrilled with the band and the many silent auction items. The Ohio-based jazz band Different Hats Dance Orchestra played many favorites including Mack the Knife, What a Beautiful World and Wont you Come Home Bill Bailey.

Honorary chairs were Birgit and Peter Holicki, who Locke said have been generous supporters of the organization.

Birgit and I are privileged to serve as the honorary chairs, Holicki said. Disability Networks services have a direct and profound impact on independence for people with disabilities in the Great Lakes Bay Region and beyond.

We encourage everyone to join us in supporting Disability Networks vision of inclusive and accessible communities where everyone can participate; where everyone can live independently, he added.

Holicki encouraged everyone to bid on the many silent auction items and said he would loan them a pen to sign their checks.

To learn more about the Disability Network, visit www.dnmm.org
Fielder Church employs an intentional, strategic process over multiple years to change the culture of the church.

The Church: Fielder Church in Arlington, Texas

The Challenge: Build a congregation that mirrors the growing diversity of the area.

One Big Idea: Employ an intentional, strategic process over multiple years to change the culture of the church.

A funeral for an elderly white woman took place in January at Fielder Church in Arlington, Texas. During the service, one African-American young person after another stood to give testimony to this womans love for each of them. She was their Sunday school teacher.

A scene like this isnt uncommon at Fielder todaybut it would not have happened a few decades ago.

Fielder has always been a large, popular church in a part of town that used to be mostly white. But about 15 years ago, then-Senior Pastor Gary Smith attended the dedication of a new junior high school and realized Arlington was changing. Of the 24 cheerleaders at the dedication, 23 werent Caucasian. Fielder no longer reflected its community, and a slight decline in membership was symptomatic.

The conviction to diversify started with a recognition that our strategy didnt fit our community, Smith says. What happened later, though, is that I discovered the rightness of it. This is what our church should be doing.

Fielder now has a membership thats more than 30 percent Hispanic and African-American, and a congregation of old and new members who support the vision of diversity.

Many churches fail at these kinds of transitions because they want a quick fix, Smith says. They want to hire an African-American worship leader and a Hispanic small-group guy and see a change overnight. Thats a good start, but you have to change culture. For us, this has been a four- or five-year journey of tears and strong words, of swallowing pride and asking forgiveness. But the other side of it has been delightful.

At the outset of Fielders journey, Smith encountered resistance. Eventually, he says, some of those who were upset came on board, and a small minority decided to leave.

Our church right now loves this, Smith says. Fielder has always had a heart to reach its community, so the core of our people embraced it. People have done a lot of confessing, too, and have grown. They just had to open their hearts, including me.

A large part of reaching their community was having a better understanding of it. To that end, Smith hired new church leaders who represented those communities, including Jason Paredes, who joined Fielder in 2005 to lead the Hispanic ministry. Today, he is the churchs lead pastor, succeeding Smith after a three-year leadership transition.

Fielder instituted a service-focused, adopt-a-block strategy to get the congregation into the neighborhoods it wanted to reach. It also opened a second campus in nearby Grand Prairie, Texas, where much diversity exists. Fielder began offering a Spanish service, making all communication bilingual, and putting Hispanic and African-American leaders in front of the congregation regularly. Fielders reputation began to change.

People now think of Fielder as the diverse church in the area. In fact, the Dallas Cowboys chose it to be their main partner in its annual backpack drive, and the NAACP asked Smith to speak at its Dallas-area Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awards Dinner, honoring Fielder for its community service.

This is the maturation of what our church has been going through for a decade, Paredes says. And he gives a lot of the credit to God. I wish we wouldve had something to follow, like a four-step plan to becoming diverse. But it was just God pouring out his Spirit upon us.

Read more stories of diversity in outreach 

FIELDER CHURCH

Arlington, Texas

Fielder.org
After patients at St. Peters Hospital said they were struggling to access physicians and ongoing medical care, the hospital is joining a pilot program to improve primary care and will hire 30 doctors over the next two years.

The two initiatives are separate, but will both work toward the hospitals goal to remedy a lack of patient access identified in a community survey last year.

St. Peters created a new position for John Cassani, who started four weeks ago as president of St. Peters Medical Group. He will play a large part in implementing the hospitals plan to fix barriers to access. He said the planning stages take longer than implementation, but the hospital has started moving forward.

We all want things accomplished yesterday, he said.

In January, the hospital joined a five-year pilot program to improve primary care by hiring additional staff and better coordinating services. The program requires a collaboration with other healthcare providers and insurance companies.

The hospital is one of 2,900 primary care practices in the country involved in the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program, which was created and funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS will pay primary care practices $15 per beneficiary per month to cover the cost of additional time and staff that will now be dedicated to a patient. A beneficiary is any patient who has traditional Medicare and whose care is attributed to St. Peters.

This monthly payment holds true for any patient that has been attributed to us whether they have been seen recently in the clinic or not, Amy Emmert, director of clinic quality and population health, said. The purpose of the payment when a patient has not been seen recently is to build resources available in the clinic to engage the patient in their care while they are not in the walls of our facility.

Dr. Andrew Gilbert, a primary care physician at St. Peters, said patients were experiencing long wait times for appointments. He said one way to address access issues is to hire more primary care doctors, but the hospital is looking to be efficient by hiring a holistic staff that includes nurse practitioners, physician's assistants, pharmacists, care managers and social workers.

Patients are used to having their care just when they walk in the doctors office but we want to look at care as more of a continuum, Gilbert said. Building out our team gives us more of a chance to have an ongoing review of what they need.

Under the pilot program, the way generally healthy patients see their doctor wont change. Instead, care in between visits will change. The hospital will have staff reviewing patient data to see who hasnt received preventative services like a colonoscopy or mammogram and contact patients to set up appointments.

People with a disease or a chronic condition will experience care from a team of specialists including physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants, medical assistants or licensed practical nurses, social workers, and pharmacists.

Gilbert said patients will see their doctor once for something like a cold, and will have a false sense that they are in good health because no other medical issues came up.

We didnt go through all their other needs, but they went to the doctor that year so they thought they got checked out, he said. Care is a lot more than that now and thats what we really want to educate people on.

Although patients are receiving more hospital resources with team-based care, their hospital costs should decrease with efficient preventative medicine and fewer ER or clinic visits.

The hospital also announced they will hire 30 additional physicians and providers over the next three years at St. Peters Medical Group and independent community providers, but Cassani said they are aggressively recruiting and could complete the hiring process in 18 to 24 months.

Cassani said St. Peters has most specialty services already, but patients have long wait times or travel elsewhere if theres only one physician such as a urologist or pain management specialist.

Weve provided excellent care to the community but the patient access is horrific, Cassani said.

St. Peters will be adding a board certified pulmonologist and a vascular surgeon, which they havent had recently.

After reviewing services they identified gaps in primary and specialty services, St. Peters has to come up with a facility plan to organize offices and patient rooms for the new physicians.

On April 28, St. Peters signed an $8.1 million purchase agreement for the property at 2500 Broadway. Its owned and occupied by the Student Assistance Foundation, who will remain in the space for a year along with the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Montana Guaranteed Student Loan Program. The office building is 56,000 square feet, and Cassani said it will likely best serve as administrative offices.

Cassani said the hospital will finalize a five year master facilities plan this fall which will include plans to renovate the new property.
Rodewisch Opens New Office in Brewer, Maine

May 16, 2017 - Rodewisch GmbH, a manufacturer of paper machine clothing, announced that they recently opened a sales and service office in Brewer, Maine to support the company's customer base in Canada and the U.S.

We have reached a point where we need to be closer to our customer base in the USA, explained Peter Klose, CEO of Rodewisch. We will be more effective in handling inquiries and providing service support with our own, permanent office.

Rodewisch, Inc. will be managed by its new head of sales, Peter Witt. Witt comes to Rodewisch from a career in consulting for European companies entering the North American market. Most recently he managed a German sales subsidiary in New England, tripling its turnover in 9 years.

Rodewisch focuses on specialized dryer fabrics, with a particular eye on smaller machines and single-fabric orders, delivered very quickly. Particular expertise is with difficult applications requiring unique fabric materials, the company noted in a press release.

Rodewisch GmbH, based in Lengenfeld, Germany, is a manufacturer of premium woven and spiral fabrics and felts for paper, pulp, nonwovens, filtration and wood products. To learn more, please visit: www.filztuch.de/en.

SOURCE: Rodewisch GmbH
To accompany her Rolling Stone cover story, the outlet released a short interview today with New Zealand pop princess Lorde to dissect her glorious return and discuss what it's like truly becoming a grown up.

Profiler Alex Morris asks the 20 year-old if she mourns her teen years, something she reminds Lorde was a big part of Pure Heroine, to which she responds, "I'm comfortably 20".

"Soon I'm going to be 21 which I feel is a weird milestone...do I have to drink the big drink?" She asks, referring the New Zealand 21st birthday tradition of finishing an yard glass (which holds eight cans of beer) as fast as possible. "Do they do that in America? It's a yard glass full of beer? We call it a yardie."

When questioned about growing up, Lorde responds that adulthood means "there are all these kind of land mines to jump over."

"The politics of the night-time are different...it's something to navigate and the navigation of it I found so melodramatic."

Lorde plays it relatively coy when questioned about the inspiration behind "Green Light", which she has said was based upon a party she attended after just having broken up with longtime boyfriend, Kiwi photographer James Lowe.

"In the second pre-chorus  I call that part the forrest  we brought in all these little sounds and that to me was the real sadness of the song...All of a sudden that to me is where you see the whole situation with that person in fast-forward."

Watch the whole interview below.
Press release

12 May 2017

THE PREMIERE VISION GRAND PRIZE GOES TO VANESSA SCHINDLER





On Sunday 30 April 2017, just a few hours before the close of the 32nd International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyeres, the Fashion jury, chaired by Bertrand Guyon, Design Director at Schiaparelli, rewarded the young Swiss designer Vanessa Schindler.





The 29-year old winner from Fribourg was awarded the 2017 Premiere Vision Grand Prize, which includes a 15,000 grant.





Premiere Vision has been associated with the famous international festival for young designers since 2011 and was awarding the Grand Prize for Fashion for the fifth year running.
















If you find yourself treating the Christian life like a war against worldly enemies of the Church, youre doing spiritual warfare wrong.

I think modern North American Christianity has too often confused spiritual warfare with cultural warfare, and it has left us easily distracted from the real battle in each human heart.

In spiritual warfare, the enemy is always and everywhere the Enemy. Every soul is a battleground. Your soul is your battleground.

Spiritual warfare is not warfare against other humans, but against spiritual powers and principalities.

This confusion is evident to me every time someone writes about how Christians can proclaim Gods love to the world or tend to the spiritually wounded and is reminded, forebodingly, that we are called to battle as the Church Militant.

It took me a while to realize why that response bothers me. When spiritual warfare or the Church Militant is invoked in the context of a discussion about how to interact with the world around us and non-Christians, it implies that the battle we are called to is an earthly one, where spiritual warfare is waged in the public square against non-believers. Essentially, it invokes the 1990s-era version of the Culture Wars that Pat Buchanan famously said was being fought over the soul of America, through public policy and public morality.

The image of the believer standing firm against an opposing tide, fighting over control of institutions and policies, looking for a win against an ideological opponent at all coststhese things do not come from scripture or Church Fathers. Military imagery is common in early Christian writings, but they dont refer to political battles or wars over public opinion. Ephesians 6 is very specific about who the Enemy is:

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh. Not political enemies, not ideological enemies, not atheists or secularists or sinners of any kind. The mission of the ecclesia militansthe Church in the worldis to be armed against sin so as to win victory over the temptations we each face on our journey towards greater unity with the mind of Christ.

I will give the final word to a better writer and thinker, one who lived through a culture war that used real weapons and inflicted physical damage, but yet never lost sight of the primacy of the battleground within:
Forums in Helena and Missoula this week will focus on the number of kids using electronic cigarettes and on preventing a generation of nicotine addicts.

Thursday's public forum at Capital High School in Helena, put on in partnership with the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, will include a panel of experts to discuss the dangers of e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco. Another forum is scheduled for Wednesday in Missoula.

Parents have a lot of questions and they are getting different answers depending on who they talk to, said Nicole Aune, manager for the program run by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

About 60 percent of Montanas 2015 high school seniors reported having tried e-cigarettes, with 36 percent reporting using the product within 30 days of taking 2015 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

An e-cigarette is made with liquid nicotine, which is derived from tobacco. When heated, the liquid produces a vapor that is then inhaled by the user. The vapor is said to contain nicotine, flavorings and either glycerol or propylene glycol, or both, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

The journal has also found evidence of formaldehyde  a carcinogen  in the vapor produced by e-cigarettes.

The long-term effects of these products on adult health are still unknown, said Stacy Campbell, section supervisor for the prevention program. But nicotine in any form is dangerous to kids because their brains are still developing, Campbell said.

It might be safer. We dont know because it is so new, but its not safe, Campbell said.

Montana joined a lawsuit against tobacco companies in 1997 that resulted in a master settlement agreement between states and tobacco companies. The settlement prohibited advertisements targeting kids in advertising. Montana law was updated in 2015 to prevent people under 18 from buying e-cigarettes. But there are no laws preventing companies from marketing e-cigarettes to kids.

Tobacco company ads tout e-cigarettes as an alternative to, or for people trying to quit, traditional cigarettes. But Campbell and her team are concerned the companies are targeting kids.

The electronic vapor cigarettes come in flavors like bubblegum, cotton candy and gummy bear. The organization Tobacco Free Kids calls this the flavor trap, a strategy used by tobacco companies to make their products appealing to kids. While the sale of flavored cigarettes is illegal under federal law, with the exception of menthol, e-cigarettes flavors are not banned.

Blu eCig, an e-cigarette manufacturer owned by Lorillard Tobacco Co., which owns cigarette brands like Newport and Old Gold, has created a character named Mr. Cool who acts as a cartoon pitchman for the e-cigarette company. Mr. Cool is comparable to Joe Camel, a cartoon character who effectively marketed cigarettes to kids in the 1990s," according to a presentation by Brian King, the deputy director for research translation in the Centers for Disease Controls Office on Smoking and Health.

King cites research that e-cigarettes may help to reduce the number of cigarette users, but marketers have found ways to advertise nicotine replacement therapies, like the nicotine patch, without making the products appeal to youth. Blu eCig advertisements include sponsorship of music festivals and commercials by actress Jenny McCarthy.

The industry has to replace their users, because the product will kill you, Campbell said. So they are always seeking out replacement customers.

E-cigarettes are "so scary because it feels like we are reliving the past," she said.

The Montana Attorney Generals office supported the age restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes, but the regulation of these products is up to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Eric Sell, office spokesman.

In May 2016, the FDA issued new regulations over vape pens, refillable vaporizers and e-juices. The new rules made it illegal to sell the products to minors, banned free samples and required warning labels.

Scott Gottlieb, confirmed last week as the new head of the FDA, will take charge of regulating the e-cigarette industry. Gottlieb served for more than a year as a board member for a company that sold vaping products.

The state prevention program focuses how tobacco companies target kids so parents can better educate their children, Campbell said.

The program wants kids to know how marketers try to manipulate them into buying the product. Local communities can also advocate for keeping these products behind shelves to limit kids' exposure, she said.

The Missoula forum is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Sentinel High School Auditorium, 901 South Ave. West.

The Helena forum is slated for 7 p.m. Thursday at Capital High School Auditorium, 100 Valley Drive.
Rohani Says Iran Faces 'Historic Decision' In Upcoming Presidential Poll

05/15/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iranian President Hassan Rohani has told a Tehran crowd of some 20,000 supporters that the country is "on the edge of a great historic decision" with its May 19 presidential election. Rohani, 68, told the crowd at Tehran's Azadi Stadium that "we should not let Iran become isolated again."



President Rohani campaign rally at Tehran's Azadi stadium

(source: Shargh daily)





Rohani is seeking a second four-year term. He is currently facing five rivals, but some could withdraw in favor of more prominent candidates.



The president is viewed as the "moderate" choice and many see the election as something of a referendum on the policies that led to a landmark deal with international powers that saw Tehran curb its nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief.



The crowd at Rohani's rally sometimes chanted the names of Mir Hossein Mosavi and Mehdi Karrubi, both popular reformist candidates from the 2009 presidential election who were placed under house arrest in 2011.



They also chanted the name of Mohammad Khatami, who was the country's president from 1997 to 2005, but who has since been banned from any appearances in the Iranian media.





Rohani campaign rally in Isfahan

(source: Ghanoon daily)





Rohani campaign rally in Tabriz

(source: Mehr News Agency)



Also on May 13, Rohani was endorsed by Molavi Abdol Hamid, a leading figure among Iranian Sunni Muslims, who comprise 5-10 percent of the population.



Rohani's main rivals are Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and cleric Ebrahim Raisi.



Based on reporting by AFP and AP
Here Are The Smears Marring Iran's Election(s)

05/16/17

By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL



Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi

Raisi has tried to taint incumbent President Hassan Rohani with allegations of corruption.

While elections in Iran look like slug-it-out campaigns, with many of the trappings of competition -- government critics, disagreement on high-profile issues, and televised public debates -- they are kept tightly in check by unelected officials under the country's clerically dominated system.

There is careful vetting by the Guardians Council, which routinely disqualifies all but a small fraction of reform-minded candidates. Entrenched hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its volunteer-based paramilitary, the Basij, and Friday Prayer leaders in pulpits throughout the country also combine to stake out no-go zones. Nevermind the supreme leader, who has the final say on political, military, and religious affairs, and his network of representatives at all levels of government.

But in addition to these hallmarks of political power struggles in postrevolutionary Iran, there is also a state-dominated media environment with a history of subtle attacks on candidates and sitting officials, including incumbent President Hassan Rohani.

Attacks and smears targeting elected officials -- in the past and so far in the run-up to this election-- have included crackdowns on supporters, intrigue around family members, and appeals to national security.

Rohani, who is allied with Iran's reformers and centrists, faces a potentially strong challenge in the May 19 election from hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi. But another conservative, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also waged harsh attacks on the incumbent before dropping out of the presidential race on May 15.

Here's a look at some of the issues that have emerged as hard-liners try to unseat a man they've criticized as being too friendly toward the West.

Targeting Close Aides, Associates, And Relatives

This tactic has been used by hard-line officials against politicians who oppose them, but also against perceived enemies from other walks of life.

Iranians whose close associates or family have been targeted in the past include Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi. She recounted in her 2016 autobiography from exile, Until We Are Free: My Fight For Human Rights In Iran, how Iranian security agents hauled her sister off to jail in the middle of the night or tricked her husband into cheating on and denouncing her in order to exert pressure on her.



Presidents whose allies have come under attack have been largely helpless to protect them.

This year, in the first of three televised presidential debates, Qalibaf accused Rohani of relying in part during his victorious 2013 campaign on an individual who has since been sentenced to death for economic corruption. Qalibaf did not name any names, but he appeared to be referring to Iranian billionaire and business magnate Babak Zanjani. His accusation echoed a statement in January by the head of the powerful judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, who said Zanjani had claimed that he had contributed to Rohani's election campaign.





Iranian presidential candidates participated in their last live debate on May 12



Rohani denied the accusation as a "sheer lie."

"A corrupt individual who is sentenced to death has made a claim. One doesn't quote a corrupt individual," Rohani said in the April 28 debate.

Hard-line news sites published a photo of Rohani giving what appears to be an award to Zanjani. Rohani has countered that the image is from an event held several years ago to highlight Iran's top exporters. He said he was asked to present the awards, saying that he didn't know the recipients.

During the second presidential debate, on May 7, Qalibaf accused the daughter of Rohani's education minister of the "smuggling of imported goods." The allegations were also leveled by a spokesman of the judiciary, who said in late April that a large shipment of clothing had been discovered in a minister's home.

Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, who is one of the five men running against Rohani but who is seen as in the race to run cover for the president, dismissed the charges, saying that the minister's daughter had paid all custom duties.

Months before the presidential campaign, Rohani came under pressure over his brother, Hossein Feridun, who is a member of the president's inner circle. Feridun has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. In January, 46 lawmakers called on Rohani to present his brother, a former ambassador to Malaysia, to the powerful judiciary to face "financial corruption charges." Reports had swirled that Rohani might be getting "pressured to part ways with his younger brother," who was said to be a key contributor to Rohani's 2013 campaign and has been dubbed the president's "eyes and ears."



"Feridun's fate -- whatever it is -- will also affect the political fate of Rohani," the daily Arman predicted in April. 

The opposition website Sahamnews.org in May quoted unnamed sources as saying that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned Rohani about Feridun and the president's chief of staff, Mohammad Nahavandian, and called for their dismissals.

During the third presidential debate, on May 12, Raisi and Qalibaf each tried to paint Rohani with the corruption brush.

"The head of the government is being told that the closest person to him is engaged in corruption," Raisi said, adding that Rohani has been resisting calls for action.



It's not just Rohani. Two of his presidential predecessors, hard-liner Mahmud Ahmadinejad and reformist Mohammad Khatami, experienced similar broadsides-by-association.

Ahmadinejad, a divisive hard-liner who served two terms as president from 2005 to 2013, was targeted over his inner circle. Close Ahmadinejad aide Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei was once accused of being part of a "deviant current" straying from the principles of the Islamic establishment. Several individuals close to Mashaei were even arrested and charged with sorcery in 2011, at a time when the president was reportedly coming under increasing criticism from Khamenei. Mashaei also came under pressure when a $2.6 billion embezzlement scandalrocked the country, accused of ties to the mastermind of the massive fraud case.

Khatami, who campaigned on reform and held the presidency from 1997-2005, also witnessed attacks on his supporters and allies, including civil-society activists and journalists who were harassed, summoned, detained, or imprisoned. Two of Khatami's key associates -- former Tehran Mayor Gholam Hossein Karbaschi and leading reform voice and onetime Interior Minister Abdollah Nuri -- were eventually tried and jailed for corruption and political and religious dissent, respectively. Khatami political strategist and consultant Said Hajarian became the victim of an assassination attempt in 2000 that left him partially paralyzed and in need of constant medical care.

'Threat To The Islamic Republic'

Hard-liners often accuse their rivals of undermining the Islamic establishment and the values of the 1979 revolution, seemingly highlighting their concern that their dominance over the country's political landscape could diminish. Scores of intellectuals, journalists, activists, and human rights defenders have been harassed and jailed on vague charges that include "acting against national security" or "harming Iran's national interests."



Presidents have been also accused of undermining the clerical establishment.





Iranian President Hassan Rohani

Rohani has repeatedly been targeted over his attempts at engagement with the West.

(source: cover of 40cheragh magazine)





Khatami -- who endorsed Rohani in a video released on May 14 -- was accused during his own presidency of being Westernized and of damaging the Islamic republic over his attempts at reform, although he served two terms.



Well to his right on the political spectrum, Ahmadinejad was made out by some to be a potential threat for repeatedly defying the aging supreme leader, Khamenei.

And Rohani has repeatedly been targeted over his attempts at engagement with the West, prompting warnings of alleged Western "infiltration" efforts aimed at undermining the Iranian establishment.

In the second presidential debate, Raisi accused Rohani's government of weakness during negotiations with world powers ahead of the landmark deal exchanging curbs on Tehran's nuclear program for relief from sanctions.

At a rally for Raisi in the capital, an organizer referred to Rohani's government as "the government of humiliation." "Mr. Rohani, how quickly you shook hands with the enemy," the organizer said, according to a report by the Financial Times.

Pictures posted by the Tasnim news agency showed some of Raisi's supporters holding handwritten signs that said: "We've come here to put an end to the green light to the enemy."

Rohani aides have also been accused of improper affiliations with Western countries, a claim the Iranian president has dismissed as a misuse of the term "infiltration" for their political goals.

The harassment and arrests of dual nationals -- including Iranian-Americans accused of espionage -- are seen as further evidence of efforts to bring Rohani's outreach efforts to heel.



The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari.

Jafari warned against pro-Western and liberal tendencies among state officials.



Speaking on March 15, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jafari, warned against pro-Western and liberal tendencies among state officials.



"Today, many of the officials running the country have liberal, Western, and counterrevolutionary views," he said.



Jafari did not single out by name Rohani, who has a doctorate in constitutional law from Glasgow Caledonian University, or any of the members of his cabinet, some of whom are graduates of American universities. But he complained that some officials appeared proud of having obtained their degrees or doctorates from Western universities.

The Economy And The Nuclear Deal

Rohani came to power in 2013 promising Iranians a better economy, among other things. Many Iranians were hoping that ending their dispute with the international community over Tehran's nuclear program -- in the end, the deal with the United States and other major powers in 2015 to trade curbs for an end to sanctions -- would bring them significant economic benefits. Yet among other sticking points, including a new U.S. president who has vowed to renegotiate the nuclear deal, many firms still appear reluctant to do business with Iran. Supreme Leader Khamenei and hard-liners have complained publicly that Iranians have not seen tangible improvements in their daily lives.

Rohani confronted increased pressure during the current campaign to demonstrate any windfall from the nuclear agreement, primarily from Raisi and Qalibaf.

"Today, 30 percent of our young people are out of jobs and unemployment is over 12 percent," Raisi said during a recent rally in Tehran. "Does this situation have to continue? Do we have to wait for foreigners to fix our problems?"



WATCH: Is Iran's Presidential Election Free And Fair?



Speaking on state television on May 1, Qalibaf played down Rohani's role in achieving the deal. He said that any other administration would have signed the nuclear accord because the green light for the nuclear talks came from "the entire establishment." But he also said Rohani's government has failed to translate the deal into benefits for Iranians.

"Have people benefited from the accord?" he asked, adding that "this is a serious weakness" of Rohani's government.

On a related note, Rohani has also come under pressure for allegedly doing too little to implement Khamenei's call for a "resistance economy" to make Iran more self-sufficient. His rivals have suggested that the president has been relying heavily on foreign investment while ignoring national resources and capabilities.

In fact, Khamenei personally called out Rohani on that subject in early March.

"Of course, the government has taken remarkable steps," Khamenei was quoted by state TV as saying, "but if the resistance economy had been implemented fully and widely, we could witness a tangible difference in people's lives."

The same week, Guardians Council head Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati called on Rohani to present evidence of the degree to which such a resistance economy has been put in place. "If some work has been done, let people know so that they can rejoice," Jannati said. "If not, apologize to the people and explain why nothing has been done."

Khamenei later criticized the government's economic policies in his Norouz message, when he repeated his call for more jobs and greater self-sufficiency.

Official Graft

Rohani has also come under pressure over leaked pay slips that suggested senior government employees received salaries that were as much as 200 times what more modestly paid government employees make. Several officials were reportedly dismissed over the scandal and the government said it is taking steps to regulate the salaries. Yet the president's rivals have used the issue repeatedly to pressure him.



Speaking on March 6, former Iranian nuclear negotiator and onetime presidential candidate Said Jalili blasted the government over what he described as "astronomical salaries." Jalili said that employees outside those privileged, highly paid few are being told to be patient in the face of economic problems.



Rohani's associates had said ahead of the presidential campaign that the leaks were aimed at diminishing his chances of reelection.

In another context, Ahmadinejad was criticized for reportedly taking large delegations, including family members, with him during his annual trips to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. His 2012 delegation reportedly included over 100 people.

In Iran, where officials and politicians frequently go to great lengths to demonstrate piety and modesty, signs of conspicuous consumption can do considerable damage.

In 2013, Guardians Council head Jannati said that the country's next president should lead a simple life and not drive around in a Mercedes. Jannati did not name names, but he appeared to be referring to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had arrived to register for the presidential vote in a Mercedes. Rafsanjani, who died earlier this year, was banned from running.

Preelection Crackdown

Ahead of voting, hard-liners frequently resort to crackdowns to tighten their grip on power and undermine a sitting president by demoralizing his supporters.



In recent months, at least three journalists, a well-known editor, and several administrators of pro-government and reformist Telegram channels have been arrested, prompting warnings over a crackdown.

On March 15, lawmaker Ali Motahari disclosed that 12 administrators of Telegram channels had been arrested by a "military intelligence body." He said the arrest created "doubts" about the upcoming vote.

Another outspoken lawmaker, Mahmud Sadeghi, also expressed concern in a letter to IRGC commander Jafari. He said that the arrests, which he said appeared to have been carried out by the IRGC's intelligence unit, had created worries in the Iranian society.

Iran's judiciary also blocked correspondence on the highly popular Telegram messaging app. Instagram Live was reportedly also blocked following an order from authorities within the judiciary.

Iranian authorities have stepped up their repressive measures in the run-up to past elections. In 2013, for instance, a number of activists were either arrested or summoned for questioning. Some journalists previously released on furlough were also recalled to prison in the month leading up to the voting.
Ken Ofori Attah, Minister for Finance, has exposed contractors for conspiring to steal from the state whenever there is a new government.



Mr Ofori Attah disclosed that some contractors take advantage of the change in government to submit dubious certificates of works, which could not be proved, for payment.



The dishonesty of some these Ghanaian contractors, he noted, has contributed to the leakages in the state coffers.



Suddenly you are all at my door with certificates for some jobs you have executed, for which you have not been paid, as if I do not want to pay he opened.



Minister Ofori-Atta expressed concern over the piles of certificates that have flooded his office from contractors, with some dating as far back as 2013. He further expressed disgust at the attitude of some the contractors, who think he (Minister) was under obligation to pay them.



According to him, the contractors sometimes behaved as though this government contracted them, and has, thus, failed to pay them.



The Minister, who said this at the maiden edition of a National Policy Summit, which opened in Accra yesterday, was responding to questions on the issues of the delay in paying contractors.



He observed that if contractors would blame the government for conspiring to pay them, then they are also part of the plot saying, "government cannot pay for some false contracts."



He wondered why, for instance, a contract certificate issued in 2013, would be signed in December 2016, "and how sanctimonious is such a contract?"



Continuing, Mr. Ofori-Atta said: "I think we all have to give ourselves space and find a decent way of addressing this conspiracy," he said demanding that both government and contractors reconsider the financial harm they are plunging the country into, through such dubious contract approaches.



Calling for an immediate change form that rot, the Minister said the government was bent on protecting the public purse. Ghana spends more than it generates, the Minister said, and that the challenge the country's economy is faced with would be halted under the Akufo-Addo-led administration.



"We are stopping a lot of the approaches that did not get Ghana to work. This government is on course," hes aid.



The National Policy Summit was to provide a platform for government ministries, departments and agencies to engage stakeholders in their operations.



The two-day summit, which ens today, May 16, is under the theme: 'Building Partnerships for Growth and Jobs,' and is expected to help the government elicit feed-back to enhance further policy development.







Source: The Chronicle









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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First Atlantic Bank has officially opened two new branches at Kasoa in the Central Region and Madina to bring convenience and ease to its growing clientele around Kasoa and within the Accra Metropolis.



This bring to 28 the total number of branches nationwide. And on Thursday of this week the number will reach 29, with the opening of a branch at Techiman.



"Indeed, five years ago, in 2012 we boasted of a modest 7-branch footprint, with the opening of our Kasoa branch this morning, and our Madina branch in Accra we bring the First Atlantic Bank footprint to a network of 28 brick and mortar channels," board Chairman, Mrs. Karen Akiwumi-Tanoh said at the launch.



She said the objective of the bank is to grow their network to 31 branches by the end of 2017.



" . . And this year has already seen us expand beyond our scope of operations in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions into the Western Region, the Central Region today and the Brong Ahafo region later this week.

It is our prayer to be operational in Tamale before the end of the third quarter this year," she added.



The three-time winner of Best Bank in Customer Care at the annual Banking Awards offer a bouquet of 6 different savings products aimed at providing options to meet the needs of all our customers.



First Atlantic Bank (FAB) electronic banking suite of services includes: Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, POS Channels, Cards  Local pre-paid, Visa Debit and Prepaid, Mastercard Debit as well as American Express Cards.



First Atlantic electronic services are covered by the internationally acclaimed PCIDSS security certification.



To provide the Ghanaian Diaspora with options to send money back home to family and friends and for the purpose of investment,



First Atlantic Bank has partnered with 7 International remittance service providers - these are: Money Gram, Western Union, Ria, Small World, Transfast, Money Exchange and Unity Link.



First Atlantic Bank offer the people and businesses in and around the Kasoa, Bawjiase and other sorrounding areas the Purple Experience which is their commitment ti service excellence and customer satisfaction.







Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The National Communications Authority (NCA) has been rocked with financial malfeasance as it comes into the spotlight with report of massive chop chop involving some members of the previous board under the John Mahama administration, running into several millions of dollars.



According to intelligence report picked up by DAILY GUIDE, money meant for buying spying and phone tapping equipment for the National Security totaling $4 million, landed in private pockets of some NCA board members.



The importation of the equipment from an Israeli company was even concealed from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration as the equipment were reportedly moved into a private property at the time the NPP took over  with no documentation at the National Security Secretariat. There was no inventory nor traces of it in the handing over notes left behind, making the whole transaction suspicious.



Sources say the NCA was approached by the National Security under the NDC administration to provide funding for the spying and phone tapping equipment purchased from Israel for counter terrorism operation.



However, the $4 million paid by the NCA, instead of going to the suppliers, only $1 million got to the Israeli company with the rest shared among some board members, including the immediate past board chairman, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie.



Like spoils of war, the chairman allegedly took $1.5 million and shared it among members, pocketing $200,000.



Mr Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie is a brother of Seinti Baffoe-Bonnie, a senior staffer to former President John Mahama.



The case is now before the National Security with the suspects hauled before the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) where their statements were said to have been taken.



DAILY GUIDE learnt that the total contract for the project was $8 million with $6 million of the money going to the Israeli company while the local agent keeps $2 million.



The NCA, with instruction from the National Security, made $4 million part-payment into the private account of the local agent at Ecobank and subsequently transferred $1 million to the company in Israel.



The $3 million left in the account was then split into two, with less than half going into the pockets of board members and the chairman allegedly taking the lions share of $200,000.



According to a report stumbled upon by DAILY GUIDE, William Mathew Tevie, who was the Director General, had $150,000; the local agent, George Oppong got $1,000,000; Alhaji Salifu Osman, a Deputy National Security Coordinator who represented the outfit on the NCA board, was allegedly given $70,000 and Dr. Nana Owusu-Ensaw, another board member, allegedly took home $500,000 to be shared with other unnamed persons.



The BNI has already had sessions with some of the people mentioned who have confessed receiving the money, while others are denying any knowledge of the deal.



They are being investigated for abuse of office and causing financial loss to the state.



According to National Security sources, the money was not approved by the NCA board as there was no minute to support the payment, except instruction to the finance officer of the NCA to do the payment.



Alhaji Salifu Osman, who was a chief director at the Ministry of the Interior  before John Mahama appointed him a Deputy National Security Coordinator  is said not to be cooperating with investigators.



DAILY GUIDE learnt that security operatives may go to arrest him if he continues to exhibit obstinacy and non-cooperation as his name features prominently in the dodgy transaction.



Report says the cover of the transaction was blown by the Israeli company which was persistent in demanding the payment of the service rendered, having shipped the phone tapping equipment to Ghana and cleared them from the port. This persistent demand drew the attention of the National Security hierarchy to the deal, upon which Alhaji Osman was invited. Upon pressure exerted on him, he conceded that they actually imported the equipment after which he allegedly refused to cooperate with the investigators.



Attempts to speak to Mr Baffoe-Bonnie were unsuccessful as calls made to his phone were unanswered.

More anon.

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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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.
Sacked Medical Director of the Ridge Regional Hospital Dr Thomas Anaba is demanding explanation for being relieved of his post.



Dr. Anabas appointment was supposed to last till 2020 and had the option to re-apply but that appointment has been revoked.



He was appointed on February 1, 2016 during the tenure of former President John Mahama.



Speaking to Sunrise morning show host Winston Amoah, Dr. Anaba indicated he was served his dismissal letter on Monday, May 15 and had to vacate his post within two hours.



I received notification notice yesterday around 10:15 am to hand over immediately to Dr. Emmanuel Srophenu, who has been appointed as Acting Director and within two hours the regional Director of Health, Dr. Linda Van Otoo was available to supervise the process immediately.



Asked if he had been able to do that, he questioned how can I hand over, its impossible for me to hand over that big hospital with all the processes that went on within a twinkle of an eye.



Expressing his shock at the dismissal he said I was taken aback because this is a medical fraternity, a civil service professional doing his work, not a political position. So I dont see how a Minister without any report from the regional director to the Director General to the Council can sit in his office and just write a letter that you are dismissed because we are re-structuring the Ridge Hospital. He contends that per his appointment, which went through the Public Service Commission and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Council, termination of same should also come from them ideally citing reasons.



The Directors appointment had to go through Public Services Commission for analysis to see if it was done genuinely. The letter authorizing my sack was signed by the Minister to the Director General who then added a cover letter and sent to me personally. In the Ministers letter, it was only written to me and copied to the Director without any reference.



I only want clarification for what Ive done to be sacked for it to be on record because I dont want posterity and people to be thinking and conjecturing why I left the place, so that I can also leave in peace, he ended.

Source: 3news









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 founder and leader of Faith Word Church International at Nii Boi Town in Accra has been arrested by the police for allegedly rubbing olive oil in the vagina and on the clitoris of his church member. Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei, according to the Tesano police, claimed he was casting out evil spirits that had possessed the victim by applying the oil in her private part.



After the act, the pastor allegedly attempted to rape the victim but she reportedly shouted for help and managed to escape. Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei has provisionally been charged for indecent assault and breach of trust.



The Tesano Divisional Crime Officer, DSP Aba-Afari, who confirmed the incident to Daily Guide, said the victim is an 18-year-old Senior High School graduate who fellowships with her parents in that church. The pastor confided in the victims mother (named withheld) after church service on Sunday, August 28, 2016 that God had revealed to him through a vision that her daughter was possessed with an evil spirit.



He requested the woman to allow the girl come for deliverance service on Tuesday, August 30.



On that Tuesday, the mother of the victim asked her daughter to go for service but when the victim got to the church, the pastor requested that they go to his house for the said deliverance to be carried out and the victim obliged.



At his residence, the pastor allegedly asked the victim if she had ever accepted any love proposal from a man but she answered in the negative.



Pastor Edmond Kakrae Agyei again asked the victim if she had experienced menstrual pains before and the victim answered in the affirmative, DSP Aba-Afari narrated. The police officer said the founder of the church then told the victim that the menstrual pains were the work of the devil and that he could deliver her by smearing anointing oil on her navel.



The pastor then ordered the victim to lie down and remove her dress while he rubbed the oil on her naval and parts of her abdomen. The suspect further asked the victim to remove her pants and he rubbed the oil on the victims vagina and clitoris.



When the victim asked him to explain his actions, the pastor allegedly said he was being directed by the Holy Spirit to do so.



The 18-year-old victim resisted and attempted to stand up.



Pastor Agyei at that point grabbed the victim and forcefully kissed her and it was at that point that the victim raised an alarm for help.



The victim overpowered the pastor, came out of his room and reported the matter to her parents in the house.



A complaint was later lodged with the police which led to his arrest.

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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James Kwabena Bomfeh has asked State authorities to "rethink mining" in the country.



According to him, if mining cannot be regularized to ensure the activities of the miners do not lead to environmental degradation and further threatening the lives of residents in the mining communities, then it is prudent for the minerals to remain in the land.



To him, though exploiting the minerals is good if it leads to development and not destruction of the environment and water bodies, it is however not advisable for the miners to continue to extract the minerals when their activities are having adverse effects on the society.



James Kwabena Bomfeh, popularly called Kabila, dreaded the effects of the mining activities and so urged the authorities to clamp down on the illegal miners as well as legal miners who abuse their work permits.



Even legal mining, people with appropriate concessions and permits and things; they abuse their permits including the big mining companies.



In his view, it is better for the minerals to remain in the land without any exploitation since the minerals don't rot until the country has gained knowledge enough to extract them without destroying the water bodies and the mining communities.



Also addressing the issue on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', PPP Communicator Nana Ofori Atta upheld the views of Kabila, stating that the "menace of galamsey (illegal mining) is life and death".



He also commended President Nana Akufo-Addo for assuring the nation that his government is putting comprehensive plans in place to address the menace.





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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Members of a pro-National Democratic Congress (NDC) pressure group, Action Movement have called on former President John Mahama to mention names of those who caused the partys defeat in the 2016 elections.



According to the group, the former President should dare not contest the 2020 flagbearership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) if he does not come clear on exactly what he has taken responsibility for, with regards to the partys defeat in the last presidential elections, a youth group of the party, Action Movement, has said.



Mr Mahama, after the NDCs 2016 electoral loss, asked supporters of the party to blame him for its defeat. The cause of our loss is multifaceted, he told his former appointees at a meeting on 28 March, adding that those going on air to blame fellow party members and specific members of his administration for the defeat must redirect those accusations at him since he led the party into the elections.



Of course, as the General who led us into battle, I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election, and so if it will satisfy those people, blame me for the loss.



But speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, 15th May, the spokesperson for the group, Kodzo Hamenya Keglo, accused Mr Mahama of hurting the party.



He said: JMs dead goat syndrome during 2012 to 2016 is still there and its obvious that JM loves his cronies than the grassroots and is still behaving like a dead goat. If JM is still defending his appointees who hurt our grassroots badly, then JM has no pity for the grassroots.



JM should do what is honourable. He is causing our party great harm by just saying that he has taken responsibility for our loss. JM should stop the silent torture on our electorate and say exactly what he has taken responsibility for.



Who has failed him? Who did not do his/her work well? Where should money go and did not go? Which of his appointees failed him? Why were the women organisers not resourced? Why did JM not call Valerie Sawyer to order when he heard that she was campaigning against the NDC candidate in Klottey Korle? Whose idea was it to rather resource friends and ladies for Mahama to the detriment of our executives? These are the question we are asking.



If JM does not come out immediately for what he has taken responsibility for, then it wont be morally right for him to organise himself as a candidate for the party. JM must not dare 2020 if he doesnt clear the air for what he has taken responsibility for.

NEGLECT OF WOMEN EXECUTIVES



According to the group, the NDC party is known to have women as its backbone.



The 31st December womens movement was sharp and did a wonderful work in organising our women from the grassroots. On our nation tour, we had complains from ten regional women organizers with their deputies that not a single day the former first lady lordina and JM have met with them throughout JMs term. This is a fact to be noted by Dr. Kwesi Botchwey team. How can you win power when the women front is broken?



Diversion tactics

Mr Hamenya further said The mischief Alhaji Bature and his AL-Hajj newspaper published about Jerry Rawlings and Martin Amidu setting up an agenda to kick JM out of the flagbearership position for 2020 is a total nonsense. Whose attention is he trying to divert?The Founder has no time for such useless fabrications. Alhaji Bature stop this kind of useless propaganda. The movement will not tolerate any lies label against the Founder anymore.



Our view is that the presidential candidacy of the NDC is not a preserve of any one person. The names mentioned are also NDC people. Though the NDC is being managed today like a private company, we pray that soon the NDC will be managed as a congress once again. And our core principles fully applied for the comfort of our people.



The Kwesi Botchwey committee must come out now, the kind of anger and vex that the Action Movement have witnessed going round the whole country is very serious. The insults and the gunshots that the Kwesi Botchwey committee experienced on the field during their work is a clear evidence that our people are not excited at all. They will cause more harm to the party if they dont come out immediately.



We support Ambassador Victor Smith for his decision. That the national party chairman and his entire executives should resign. Early congress now now now.



The Action Movement is saying that, no more deceit, no more appointee power and no more Executive power. No more, we no-go seat down make them cheat us every day  Gbedey, Dabida, Walahi.







Source: kasapafmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A Helena judge has denied a temporary restraining order that would have prevented Helena Public Schools from tearing down Central School while a lawsuit challenging the proposed demolition is pending.

On May 10, Alan and Nancy Nicholson requested the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction after a $63 million school bond was approved by voters. The Nicholsons wanted to keep the district from taking action before the lawsuit they filed in March could be heard in June. The request asked that the city be prohibited from issuing a demolition permit and that the district maintain the Central School building and grounds.

The lawsuit argues the city didnt adhere to the Helena Historic Preservation Ordinance or its growth policy. The Nicholsons, who own property near Central, said the loss of a historic building would decrease the value of nearby properties.

The school was closed in 2013 after it was determined the building was dangerous and would be severely damaged if an earthquake were to happen.

Lawyers for the school district have filed a motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit. After the injunction was filed, Superintendent Jack Copps told the Independent Record the request was disturbing and said it could interfere with 74 percent of people who approved the school bond to build a new school.

Nicholson could not immediately be reached for a comment on Tuesday.

Judge Mike McMahon will hear the motion to dismiss the lawsuit and reconsider the motion for an injunction on June 21 at 9 a.m.
A leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has downplayed media reports about the purported secret meeting by Former President John Dramani Mahama on his intention to contest again for the presidency.



Lawyer George Loh said former President Mahama can hold a meeting everywhere in the country even in space. Media reports suggested that former President Mahamas intention of contesting the presidency again on the ticket of the NDC in 2020 is gathering momentum, even though it is shrouded in secrecy.



Reports say the ex-president went to the Ashanti Region capital, Kumasi, in a private jet last Sunday to hold secret meetings with several top guns in the NDC about his intention of running for the presidency again.



The venue of the said meeting, reportedly held Sunday evening, remains a mystery as Mr. Mahamas camp doesnt want their potential opponents in the party to monitor their actions and strategies.



Lawyer Loh told TV3s New Day hosted by Bright Nana Amfo on Tuesday, May 16 that if the meeting was indeed held as being reported, it shows he [Mahama] is sensitive to the party and about the things that are happening in the party.



He added that the fact that we lost the election 2016 doesnt make him a bad person to contest again. He can make decision for himself. It is his right to contest or not to contest again.



The former North Dayi MP said a lot of people are holding meetings in the party and Im confidence that come 2020, NDC will make a formidable team.

Source: 3news









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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U.S. President Donald Trump revealed highly confidential and unimaginably sensitive intelligence information to Russian officials during a White House meeting, The Washington Post reports.

In particular, Trump boasted to Russian officials about having the details on a specific kind of terror attack being planned by Islamic State, and he even told them from which IS-held city that threat was detected.

There are grave fears that disclosure could directly jeopardise the source of the information, along with broader concerns that the intelligence partner could withhold further details for fear of them being unduly disclosed.

The results of that could be significant: if the United States loses access to that intelligence, its citizens and armed forces could be placed in serious danger.

The paper reports the details that Trump shared with the Russian officials are so confidential that theyve even been withheld from allies of the United States, and are tightly controlled within the U.S. government.

When pressed on the disclosure, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said at no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed. Even if that is true, the actual information that source obtained was still shared.

Trumps national security advisor on Trump revealing classified info to Russians last week: I was in the room. It didnt happen pic.twitter.com/qLo9NI64Pd  Jim Dalrymple II (@JimDalrympleII) May 15, 2017

After the discussion, a White House official tried to have official transcripts of the conversation stripped of the compromising information. One official went on to describe the info as code-word information, to give you an even clearer idea of how big of a deal this is.

FWIW, The Washington Post itself claims to have further details of the discussion, but has taken the stunning move not to publish them at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

This isnt even delving into the ongoing saga of Trumps questionable Russian ties. One of the officials he spoke to, Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, is at the centre of allegations of collusion between Trumps presidential campaign and Russian authorities.

Its also worth noting that Russian journalists were admitted entry to that meeting, while American media personnel were excluded.

Watch this space.

Source: The Washington Post.

Photo: Pool / Getty.
Refugees currently being held on Manus Island have been told housing infrastructure at the detention facility will be demolished in the coming months, and that they should consider [their] options regarding their living situations.

Leaked audio obtained by the ABC captures an official speaking to asylum seekers within the regional processing centre (RPC). The official told the men everyone will need to move out of RPC before it shuts down.

One segment of the Foxtrot accomodation compound will be demolished from May 28, with the entire segment closed on June 30. Detainees who live in that compound were told once it closes, power will be switched off and their possessions moved elsewhere.

Detainees were told closure of the regional processing centre is an opportunity to get on with your life, but options are limited: detainees can choose to return to their country of origin, seek temporary accomodation in the East Lorengau centre while they await entry to a third country, or integrate into the Papua New Guinea community.

Those options all present issues for current detainees. Asylum seekers, by definition, are unlikely to return to their country of origin due to the threat of violence or otherwise untenable conditions. The U.S. deal to accept a number of Manus Island detainees is proceeding very slowly, and refugees have also alleged continual mistreatment by members of the community at the East Lorengau centre.

The official told residents none of them would be resettled in Australia.

Outspoken refugee Behrouz Boochani says the situation after the announcement is volatile. The Iranian is sure the refugees will resist and they will have to use force, I think there will be a big riot.

The PNG government found the centre was illegally operated last year. In April, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the centre would be closed by the end of 2017.

Source: ABC / Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Handout / Getty.
Are you ready to scream WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE at your computer screen/phone/random stranger on the train? While you were microwaving your Cup-A-Soup lunch, Aussie model turned international superstar Jordan Barrett was, apparently, paid a cool $100K to walk the runway once at designer Justin Cassins menswear show at MBFWA yesterday.

We did some basic math, and thats around $1,600 bucks per second.

ICYMI, Jordan is a Byron Bay boy made good  real good. Hes taken the modelling world by storm, after being discovered by a scout working for major modelling agency IMG at the tender age of 14. Since then, the 20 year old has gone on to model for massive labels like Tom Ford, Versace and Moschino, and hes even graced the covers of Wonderland and CR Book.

A post shared by JUSTIN CASSIN (@justincassin) on May 15, 2017 at 7:22pm PDT

Hes also got an absolute monster of a celeb posse  think Hailey Baldwin, Anna Ewers, Bambi Northwood-Blyth, Sofia Richie, Sara Sampaio and Barbara Palvin, just to name a few.

A post shared by JORDAN KALE BARRETT (@iblamejordan) on May 7, 2017 at 2:10pm PDT

Designer Justin Cassin neither confirmed nor denied the $100K paycheck, but he did wax lyrical about Jordan in general.

If you are going to do it, I think you have to do it right so Jordan is the perfect person for my label, designer Justin Cassin told The Daily Telegraph. I really respect his career and what hes done. Hes a Byron Bay boy who is the face of huge campaigns overseas and he is a massive international name so I couldnt think of anyone better to bring back to Australia to launch my show.

Wish you were getting paid $100K for a few minutes of your time? Well, take 30 secs to enter our current comp c/o Set for Life, and you could win $20K  thats something, right? Enter here:

PEDESTRIAN.TV X SET FOR LIFE $20K GIVEAWAY

Source: The Daily Telegraph.

Image: Getty / Matt Jelonek.
If youre into beauty products to the level of, say, casually scrolling the r/MakeupAddiction Reddit feed every once in a while  youre most likely across Urban Decays Naked range. Just in case youre reading this and youre all wtf is that, Ill give you the Cliffs Notes. It all started with the absolutely iconic Naked palette #1  an eye palette that actually had entirely usable shades that blended like a dream.

A post shared by Urban Decay Cosmetics (@urbandecaycosmetics) on May 15, 2017 at 5:11pm PDT

Three more Naked palettes dropped over the next couple of years, each just as perfect as the last. They became a collectors item  and then Urban Decay just kept going with the beauty goodness, dropping blushes, the perfect no-makeup makeup foundation, lip glosses the range is now huge, an expansive love-fest for glowy, barely-there natural makeup. Aka the numero uno beauty trend doing the rounds atm.

A post shared by Urban Decay Cosmetics (@urbandecaycosmetics) on May 13, 2017 at 8:51am PDT

Until now, perfume was not something Urban Decay was about. A makeup brand through and through, theyve played in the fragrance space before  but never with much hype. Thats absolutely about to change though, because the next instalment in the Naked franchise? A perfume oil  one thats already getting rave reviews even though barely anyone has their hands on it.

A post shared by Gigi (@beatfacefridayy) on May 11, 2017 at 12:20pm PDT

Not much in known about the bound-to-sell-out scent as yet. The pics doing the rounds are via beauty blogger Instagram accounts, although Cosmopolitan US claim a release from the brand describes it as a citrus/floral scent with Italian bergamot, mandarin and lemon top notes, an orange blossom/neroli middle with a lavender and jasmine base.

A post shared by TRENDMOOD (@trendmood1) on May 10, 2017 at 7:06pm PDT

The fragrance is currently limited edition and theres no word yet on if/when itll drop into Mecca stores in Oz  but its slated for a June 3 release in the US, so hopefully soon? Please, makeup gods?

Has all this beauty talk got you wishing you could drop a huge wad of cash you totally dont have on product? You should totally enter our current comp with Set for Life  you could win $20k. Thats enough for several major beauty hauls. Enter here:

PEDESTRIAN.TV X SET FOR LIFE $20K GIVEAWAY

Source: Cosmopolitan.

Image: Instagram / @beatfacefridayy.
A 27-year-old woman in western Pennsylvania who allegedly told police she was inspired to stab her father to death by the movie "The Mummy Returns" has been ordered committed to a state mental hospital by a judge, the Associated Press is reporting.

Christina Nicassio of Allegheny County, Pa., was committed Monday and sent to Torrance State Hospital.

At the same time, the Allegheny County judge ruled her mentally incompetent to stand trial. Her competence will be revisited in 90 days.

Background from AP:

Nicassio is accused of stabbing her 69-year-old father, a doctor, in the chest as he and his wife were trying to take the suspect to a hospital on May 6.

Police say Nicassio's parents wanted her to seek mental health treatment because of problems she's had since recently breaking up with her fiance.

Police say she referred to the movie "The Mummy Returns" in tell police that, "In a movie, someone who can't love someone else, they stab their father."

According to initial reports of the crime, Christina Nicassio began speaking irrationally and nonsensically as her parents tried to get her into a vehicle to go the hospital, according to the complaint.

That is when she allegedly brandished a knife. As her mother went to call police, Dr. Nicassio tried to take the knife away from his daughter, only to be stabbed at least twice in the chest.

Christina Nicassio later told police she "felt the world was ending," according to the complaint. "They were trying to take me to find out what is wrong with me; I didn't want to go," she reportedly said.

Despite the stabbing, Nicassio's attorney, Patrick Thomassey, tells TribLive.com her family members are "very supportive of her."

"They have a father who passed away and they have a sister charged with killing him," Thomassey said. "Right now, they're just trying to figure out what they're going to do as a family."

Nicassio, 27, had been in isolated custody at the Allegheny County Jail prior to Monday's state hospital commitment.

"There are some serious mental health issues here," Thomassey told TribLive.com.
A suspect wanted in a string of alleged thefts at Wegmans supermarkets in Pennsylvania must really like blenders.

According to our sister website, LehighValleyLive.com, the suspect, whose image was captured by a store security camera, allegedly struck again, making off with a blender from a Wegmans in Northampton County, Pa., in the most recent incident.

The same suspect is wanted by police for allegedly stealing blenders for sale at Wegmans on various occasions.

Police say the suspect fled the Wegmans in Lower Nazareth Township in a full size, four-door white pickup truck.

He was wearing a black sweatshirt with a red hood and appeared to have facial hair.

The Colonial Regional Police Department in Northampton County is asking anyone with information to call them, promising full anonymity to any tipsters.
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump awaits the arrival of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the White House in Washington, Monday, May 15, 2017. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

(Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON - President Trump appeared to acknowledge Tuesday that he revealed highly classified information to Russia - a stunning confirmation of a Washington Post story and a move that contradicted his own White House team after it scrambled to deny the report.

Trump's tweets tried to explain away the news, which emerged late Monday, that he had shared sensitive, "code-word" information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a White House meeting last week, a disclosure that intelligence officials warned could jeopardize a crucial intelligence source on the Islamic State.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump wrote Tuesday morning. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Trump's tweets undercut his administration's frantic effort Monday night to contain the damaging report. The White House trotted out three senior administration officials - National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - to deny the very reports Trump openly confirmed less than 24 hours later.

The president's admission also follows a familiar pattern. Last week, after unexpectedly firing FBI director James B. Comey, the White House originally claimed that the president was acting in response to a memo provided by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.

But in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump later admitted that he had made the decision to fire Comey well before Rosenstein's memo, in part because he was frustrated by the director's investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and the Russian government.

At the time, Trump was surprised by the almost universal bipartisan backlash to his decision, and raged at his staff, threatening to shake-up his already tumultuous West Wing. His communications team - Communications Director Mike Dubke and press secretary Sean Spicer - bore the brunt of the president's ire.

On Monday night, following The Washington Post story, the president again was frustrated with Dubke and Spicer, according to someone with knowledge of the situation.

But his decision Tuesday to undermine his own West Wing staff in a series of tweets is unlikely to help him bring stability to his chaotic administration, just days before he departs on a 10-day trip abroad.

Because the president has broad authority to declassify information, it is unlikely his disclosures to the Russians were illegal - as they would have been had just about anyone else in government shared the same secrets. But the classified information he shared with a geopolitical foe was nonetheless explosive, having been provided by a critical U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so delicate that some details were withheld even from top allies and other government officials.
TETERBORO -- Officials at a press conference Monday night confirmed that the two occupants of a small jet aircraft were killed when it crashed as it was coming in for a landing at Teterboro Airport earlier that day.

The victims had yet to be identified, authorities also said.

"Our hearts and prayers go out to the families," Mayor Craig J. Lahullier said.

The Learjet 35, bound for Teterboro from Philadelphia, crashed into an industrial area of Carlstadt on Kero Road around 3:30 p.m. while making its final approach to the airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Carlstadt police previously told NJ Advance Media that two people, a pilot and a crew member, were killed in the crash, which set fire to multiple buildings nearby.

Monday's crash is the most serious since 2009, when a twin-engine plane carrying blood specimens crashed in a parking lot on approach to the airport, fatally injuring the pilot. Four years prior, 13 passengers were injured when a Chicago-bound jet skidded off a runway into a warehouse as it tried to take off.

Asked about safety at the airport, Bergen County Executive James Tedesco said "I will say this is one of the safest airports in the country and hundreds of flights go into and out of there."

"There's risks with everything," he later said.

Members of a local activist group, however, said Monday's crash underscores their own concerns about the planes constantly buzzing over the densely populated towns of south Bergen County.

"It confirms the fears we live with on a daily basis," said Kristen Frendak, a member of Concerned Residents Along Flight Path of Teterboro (CRAFT).

Frendak said the planes using Teterboro have increased in frequency, have grown larger and are flying lower.

"That's ultimately the biggest fear -- that something like this could have happened in our homes, in our towns, in our downtowns," said Maggie McGill, another CRAFT member.

Deputy Chief of Police Tom Berta said three buildings -- 109, 105 and 99 Kero Road -- were damaged by the crash, including the public works building, which did not sustain any fire damage. The other two buildings suffered exterior damage but the interiors were "unscathed." Thirteen vehicles were also damaged.

Authorities said investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will be arriving Tuesday to take over the investigation, and will control all further releases of information.
WCPO_East_Liverpool_Police_1494850915148_59619039_ver1.0_640_480.jpg

A white powder believed to be fentanyl is shown on the floor of a vehicle that was stopped by police in East Liverpool, Ohio, on Friday, May 12, 2017. The stop and subsequent search led one officer to suffer a near-fatal overdose due to his exposure to the powerful opioid. Photo via East Liverpool Police Department.

In a testament to the power of the deadly drug known as fentanyl, a police officer in Ohio suffered a near-fatal overdose after an unknown quantity of the synthetic opioid was left clinging to his shirt following a traffic stop on Friday.

According to KDKA-TV, Patrolman Chris Green assisted in searching a vehicle that was stopped in East Liverpool, Ohio, about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh, after the occupants were involved in a suspected drug transaction.

Officials say drugs were found scattered about the vehicle and that one of the suspects was found covered in a white powdery substance, now believed to have contained fentanyl, an opioid up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

When Green patted the suspect down, an unknown quantity of the drug, which can be absorbed through the skin, was inadvertently transferred onto the patrolman's clothing.

According to Cleveland's Fox8.com, an hour after the officers returned to the police station, another officer noticed Green had a white powder on his shirt.

Officials say Green brushed the powder off with his hand and passed out at the station roughly an hour later. An ambulance was called and a dose of Narcan, the so-called "overdose antidote," was administered to Green at least four times that evening. An ambulance was also called for the suspect who reportedly fell ill soon after being taken into custody.

As of Sunday, Green was said to be recovering and "doing fine."

The man searched by Green, 25-year-old Justin Buckel of East Liverpool, and another person in the vehicle with him at the time, 24-year-old Cortez Collins of Cleveland, were both charged with tampering with evidence. Buckel will also likely be charged with felonious assault in connection with Green's exposure to the drug.

Fentanyl, which can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled when airborne, is potentially fatal to those without a tolerance in even extremely small quantities, as demonstrated here.

The drug itself has been linked to a dramatic rise in fatal drug overdoses nationwide as addicts seek out its powerful high and many succumb to the added dangers that entails. Meanwhile, a growing number of accidental law enforcement overdoses have been reported on as well.

This includes similar stories to Green's documented in Atlantic City, Hartford, Conn., and elsewhere in recent years as law enforcement officers -- and their dogs -- continue to encounter a wave of fentanyl-laced drugs out in the field.

In response, departments are urging officers to assume that many of the drugs they encounter include the opioid, regardless of what a suspect may say.

The DEA last year also issued a memo instructing police to wear protective gloves before reaching into a suspect's pockets in order to avoid skin contact with loose fentanyl. The DEA went on to advise that masks be worn in case the drug becomes airborne, while federal authorities have called for confiscated materials to be sent straight to secure labs instead of being field tested.

In East Liverpool, officials said Patrolman Green followed protocol in his encounter with the drug and is lucky to be alive. Green said he realizes that too.

"[Drugs] are not only killing the people willing to shove it into their own veins, now they're killing people like me and my family," Green told the Morning Journal newspaper.

"God was surely looking over me," he added.
Donald Trump,Sergey Lavrov

This handout photo released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows President Donald Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Russian Foreign Ministry via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting last week, The Washington Post reported Monday. The White House rebutted the story, saying no intelligence sources or methods were discussed.

The newspaper cited current and former U.S. officials who said Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The threat was related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the May 10 meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late Monday.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster walks back to the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Monday, May 15, 2017, after speaking to the media. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," McMaster said. "At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way. "Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources" in the news report, he said.

But while White House officials denied that any intelligence sources or methods were discussed, they did not deny that Trump shared the information about the use of laptop computers on aircraft. The Post story does not claim that Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered.

The story will only heighten Trump's strained relations with intelligence workers and former officials, who have expressed worry about sharing classified information with a former New York business magnate who often shoots from the hip.

It's unlikely that Trump has broken any law

A president has wide berth to reveal classified information, but critics already have denounced Trump for having too cozy a relationship with Russia, which intelligence and military officials view as an adversary. If true, the breach was ill-timed, coming a day after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election.

The Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials. By doing so, Trump jeopardized cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group.

Afterward, White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment Monday evening.

Reaction from Capitol Hill Democrats was full-throated.

The story prompted Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to tweet: "Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., tweeted: "If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- who had just had a root canal -- read reporters a statement he scrawled out in the dentist's chair after learning about the story.

"These reports, if true, are of the gravest possible concern. It could harm our national security by cutting off important sources of intelligence that protect Americans against terrorist acts," Wyden said.

Republicans were only slightly more tempered in their remarks.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, "We certainly don't want any president to leak classified information, but the president does have the right to do that."

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order."

He said he would have more to say when he knows more about the news report.

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Corker said. "But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline -- it's creating an environment that I think makes -- it creates a worrisome environment."
Brunner Island is at the center of a legal battle between the Environmental Protection Agency and two downwind states over emissions from the coal- and gas-fired plant in York County.

On Tuesday, Connecticut's attorney general sued the EPA for failing to address its complaint that Brunner Island's pollution was impeding its ability to meet federal Clean Air Act standards. Last year, Delaware filed a similar complaint with the EPA.

At issue are the levels of nitrogen oxide emissions coming from the York Haven plant. Nitrogen oxide reacts with other pollutants in the presence of sunlight to form ozone, a colorless and odorless greenhouse gas known to cause respiratory and other ailments.

Although Brunner Island is 75 miles from the Delaware border and 175 miles from Connecticut, both states argued that its emissions contribute to air pollution within their borders.

"Modeling and analysis have shown that interstate transport of air pollution from Brunner Island, a stationary source which is upwind of Connecticut, contributes significantly to nonattainment of (federal ozone standards)," the Connecticut lawsuit reads.

Ozone levels in Connecticut exceeded 8-hour maximums 22 times in 2015 and 31 times in 2016, according to the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The state has not had any such exceedances so far this year, although the worst ozone days tend to happen in summer.

In addition to the larger pollution question, Connecticut argued that the EPA failed to address its earlier petition in a timely fashion. After more than 11 months, the EPA hasn't scheduled a public hearing nor issued any violation against Talen Energy, the operator of Brunner Island.

Talen spokesman Todd Martin said the company would not comment on pending litigation. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.

Thomas Schuster, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, said that Brunner Island--unlike other Pennsylvania coal plants--has no controls for nitrogen oxide emissions.

"[It's] one of the largest sources of this pollution on the eastern seaboard," he said, in a written statement.

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control also cited the factor as part of that state's EPA petition. Nitrogen oxide controls reduced emissions by more than 80 percent at the units operating with them at NRG's Indian River coal-fired plant, according to DNREC.

Talen, however, recently spent $100 million to add the capability to burn both natural gas and coal at Brunner Island. It remains unclear how much coal versus natural gas, which is a cleaner fuel source compared to coal, the plant is burning.

"For competitive reasons, Talen Energy does not discuss fuel sourcing or utilization," Martin said, in a written statement.

Wednesday's lawsuit is part of a larger battle that will likely play out between states and President Donald Trump's EPA, which has signaled a move toward less regulation. The agency was subject to major budget cuts under Trump's recent spending proposal.

"Whether [EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt believes it or not, the EPA has an obligation to protect the health of all Americans and step in when facilities cause these air quality violations," Schuster said. "But with the current administration it is no surprise that the EPA has failed to respond to Connecticut's petition."
The Associated Press

Best average SAT score

What does a laboratory and demonstration school in Philadelphia, a STEM academy in Downingtown and a rural school in Bucks County have in common?

They are among the top 25 high schools with the highest average SAT scores in Pennsylvania. The Pa. Department of Education recently released of the average SAT scores from more than 650 public high schools.

The top performing institutions vary from STEM academies, speciality schools, rural high schools and urban schools. The number of students taking the SATs at the schools could be between a couple dozen to several hundred.

PennLive broke down the data to demonstrate which schools students had the highest average SAT scores in the state.

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25. Central High School

In Philadelphia, Central High School students had an average SAT score of 1661.

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T23. State College Area High School

Located in State College, State College Area High School student had an average score of 1662. A total of 491 students were tested for the SATs.

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T23. Northwest PA Collegiate Academy

Northwest PA Collegiate Academy had an average SAT score of 1662.

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22. Central Bucks High School West

Central Bucks High School West had an average score of 1667.

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21. Great Valley High School

Students at Great Valley High School had an average SAT score of 1682. A total of 248 students were tested for the SATs.

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20. Methacton High School

Methacton High School, in Eagleville, had an average SAT score of 1686.

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19. Jenkintown High School

Students at Jenkintown High School had an average score of 1687. A total of 41 students were tested for the SATs.

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18. Wissahickon High School

Wissahickon High School students had an average SAT score of 1701.

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17. Strath Haven High School

Located in Wallingford, Strath Haven High School students had an average score of 1707.

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16. Fox Chapel Area High School

Fox Chapel Area High School students had an average SAT score of 1708.

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15. New Hope-Solebury High School

New Hope-Solebury High School students had an average SAT score of 1716.

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14. North Allegheny High School

Nearly 600 students at North Allegheny High School, in Wexford, were tested for the SATs. They had an average score of 1722.

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13. Lower Moreland High School

Located in Huntingdon Valley, the Lower Moreland High School students scored an average of 1723 on the SATs.

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12. Central Bucks High School East

Central Bucks High School students had an average SAT score of 1726. The Warrington school tested 397 students.

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11. Mt. Lebanon High School

Mt. Lebanon High School students had an average score of 1729. The Pittsburgh school tested 318 students.

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T9. Upper Dublin High School

Students at Upper Dublin High School, of Fort Washington, had an average SAT score of 1730.

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T9. Unionville High School

Located in Kennett Square, Unionville High School students had an average SAT score of 1730.

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8. Radnor High School

Radnor High School students had an average SAT score of 1746. There were 275 students tested in Radnor High School, in Villanova.

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7. Council Rock High School

Students at the Council Rock High School, in Newtown, had an average score of 1747.

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6. Harriton High School

Students in the Harriton High School had an average of 1754 score on their SATs.

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5. Lower Merion High School

Located in Ardmore, Lower Merion High School students had an average SAT score of 1766.

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4. Upper Saint Clair High School

Students of the Upper Saint Clair High School in Pittsburgh scored an average of 1770 on the SATs.

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3. Conestoga High School

Students at the Conestoga High School had an average score of 1795.

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2. Downingtown STEM Academy

Located in Downingtown, students in the Downingtown STEM Academy scored an average of 1839 on their SAT.

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1. Julia R. Masterman High School

Located in Philadelphia, Julia R. Masterman High School students had the highest average SAT score at 1978. About 100 students took the SAT in most recent school year at Julia R. Masterman High School.
Kimberly Kitchen

Kimberly Kitchen, 46, of James Creek, center, leaves the Huntingdon County Courthouse, in Huntingdon, Pa., with her husband, Edward, and her lawyer, Caroline Roberto, after being found guilty of posing as an attorney for nearly a decade.

(Shelly Dietz/The Daily News via AP)

Kimberly Kitchen doesn't have a law degree, but she managed to bluff her way into partnership in a law firm and the presidency of the Huntingdon County Bar Association.

On Tuesday, though, a state Superior court panel refused to allow Kitchen to lawyer her way out of a prison term.

Kitchen's "argument that she was 'a good fake lawyer' does not negate her (illegal) intent," Senior Judge Eugene B. Strassburger III wrote in the state court's opinion denying her appeal of her fraud convictions.

. Although her education ended with community college, she was convincing enough to eventually secure a partnership with the BMZ law firm.

In March 2015, Kitchen, now 47, was charged with unauthorized practice of law, forgery and tampering with public records. Investigators said she filed bogus records with the county to start her unauthorized legal career. She forged her law degree and bar exam results and used another lawyer's identification number.

Kitchen was sentenced to 2 to 5 years in prison after being convicted of the counts during a non-jury trial before Clearfield County President Judge Frederic J. Ammerman, who was brought in to preside in the case.

In denying her appeal, Strassburger rejected Kitchen's argument that prosecutors failed to present evidence that her records tampering charge was severe enough to be graded as a felony. He wasn't moved by Kitchen's argument that, while she lied about being an estate lawyer, "she was honest with her clients' money."

She contended, too, that BMZ's clients didn't suffer any loss due to her deception. Strassburger noted that BMZ spent a lot of money to fix the mess Kitchen's fraud created.

He also discounted her claim that Judge Ammerman was biased when he sentenced her. No such prejudice against her is evident, Strassburger concluded.

"Indeed," he wrote, "if as (Kitchen) suggests being a member of the legal profession disqualifies (Ammerman) from sentencing (her), there would, arguably, be no one available to do the job."
WILLIAMSPORT -- A Lycoming County woman whose daughter needed an emergency liver transplant after overdosing on Tylenol in 2013 has been placed on probation for not promptly seeking medical help for the girl.

Lisa M. O'Day, 48, of the Montoursville area, was found guilty Monday of endangering the welfare of children and recklessly endangering another person, both misdemeanors.

County Judge Dudley N. Anderson placed her on two years' probation and directed her to perform 50 hours of community service if something can be found for her to do, given she is on Social Security disability.

"You got a bit of a break on the sentence," he told her.

He said he decided against a jail sentence because she was remorseful, had complied with all Children and Youth Services directives and continues in counseling.

"I did not realize Tylenol could do this to someone," O'Day told him. She had told a state police investigator she was unaware her daughter was trying to commit suicide.

The charges stem from the then 14-year-old overdosing on Tylenol on Oct. 28, 2013, after she broke up with her boyfriend, who had told her she should be dead.

Instead of calling witnesses during the one-day non-jury trial, Assistant District Attorney Martin Wade and defense lawyer George E. Lepley Jr. outlined their respective cases. This is what Wade said:

O'Day saw a text message when she got up in the middle of the night that her daughter had overdosed.

When she checked on her she discovered the girl had thrown up what she thought were all he pills.

The next morning, the teen appeared fine, but O'Day called a doctor. She was advised later her daughter still might need treatment and she should go to a hospital.

O'Day waited until the next day before taking her daughter to the Muncy Valley Hospital emergency room and then to Williamsport Regional Medical Center.

Her daughter was transferred to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, arriving in a coma brought on by liver toxicity. She received a new liver several days later.

Wade said he was prepared to offer testimony from doctors that would include the girl would have died had she not had the transplant.

Lepley cited O'Day's interview with a state trooper in which she said, "I would never to do this to my daughter on purpose."

O'Day had been charged with a felony count of endangering the welfare of children that alleged a course of conduct because she did not seek medical help at the time of the overdose and failed to immediately go to a hospital as a doctor advised.

Anderson found there was no course of conduct, acquitted her of the felony count but found her guilty of a misdemeanor charge of endangering.

When questioned by the judge before being sentenced, O'Day said her daughter quit school several months ago against her wishes but is working on a GED. She got behind because of the time she missed due to the transplant, her mother said.

O'Day asked the judge not to sentence her to prison because she is the only one who knows the signs of a rejection of the new liver. Her daughter already has had one rejection, she said.

Although Wade was prevented from arguing for a specific sentence by the agreement he made with Lepley in return for a non-jury trial, he cited O'Day's record, which includes three drunken driving convictions.

One of them involved a traffic accident in which the same daughter was in the car, he said.
Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick said Tuesday that if overdoses continue at the present rate, the county will record 153 overdoses in 2017 -- far more than last year, when there were 90 overdoses.



Striving to vividly convey the human toll, Hetrick said it means that more than a dozen times a month he and his staff are informing a local parent or spouse their loved one is dead of an overdose. He said he couldn't definitively explain the rise, but noted that while he rarely found fentanyl in 2016, the drug, four times stronger than heroin, is increasingly found in heroin sold to local addicts, who might not know it.



Hetrick stood with Pennsylvania Physician Dr. Rachel Levine at yet another event focused on the overdose crisis that most often involves heroin or a prescription opioid drug.



Levine stressed the impact of benzodiazephines, the main ingredient in drugs including Zanax, Valium and Klonopin, which are commonly prescribed for anxiety and sometimes for sleeplessness.



Combining those with an opioid drug, she said, makes the chances of overdose four times higher. As a result, the state is advising doctors not to prescribe both drugs to a patient, and if it's necessary to do so, to also prescribe and give instructions on using naloxone, a drug which can reverse an overdose. She advised anyone prescribed both drugs to question their doctor about the need and to ask for alternative ways to manage their pain or stress.



Levine also emphasized there's bipartisan agreement among Pennsylvania lawmakers to address the crisis of overdose addiction. She pointed to an effort, known as "warm handoffs," where the state is working with hospitals to offer treatment to anyone treated for an overdose. The effort so far is available in the few counties, with a goal of making it statewide.





Levine further noted the state recently established 45 "Centers for Excellence" intended to connect people to treatment and give long-term support to their recoveries. In addition, it has received $26.5 million in federal funds for purposes including increasing availability of "medication assisted treatment," which uses drugs that can reduce craving or block the effects of opioids in order to help people break free of heroin and avoid relapse.

Levine said Gov. Tom Wolf in his current budget is requesting $10 million toward supplying police with naloxone, which has been used more than 3,100 times to save overdose victims, she said.
Tom Wolf.jpg

Gov. Tom Wolf said he will be talking with Sen. Pat Toomey Wednesday about the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. That could be a critical meeting, as Toomey is one of 13 GOP senators currently leading the Senate majority's rewrite effort.

Gov. Tom Wolf continued his bully pulpit campaign Tuesday against Congressional Republicans' effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, this time publicizing a letter to President Donald Trump's senior advisor, Jared Kushner, on the risk that he believes the House-passed American Health Care Act poses to those with substance abuse disorders.

Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law, is said to be the White House's policy point man on heroin and opioid abuse policy.

But truth be known, it's a meeting on Wolf's calendar for Wednesday where the Democrat governor may get more traction on what has emerged as one of Washington's top policy debates for 2017.

That, Wolf said, is when he scheduled to have a "long conversation" with U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, one of 13 senators named to the majority caucus's working group charged with developing another health care bill.

The Senate's action is being closely watched because given their narrow path to passage with a 52-48 GOP majority, the Republicans may have to craft a bill with broader support than the House version.

So in talking to Toomey, Wolf's words will be reaching important ears.

The governor said Tuesday his top concern is that rolling back the Medicaid expansion provided by the 2010 Affordable Care Act could affect substance abuse treatment for some 125,000 Pennsylvanians who have accessed it under that law.

Wolf said he is also concerned about language in the House-passed bill giving states the option to end mandated coverage for certain pre-existing conditions, including substance abuse disorders.

That could cut the availability of treatment to a different batch of Pennsylvania families.

"Thousands of our kids, siblings, neighbors and friends are dying in Pennsylvania," Wolf stated in his letter. "We need the federal government to be a partner - not an adversary - in battling this epidemic from all angles."

Toomey has said he hopes the working group will have a new health care bill formulated this summer.
Donald Trump, Sergey Lavrov

This handout photo released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows President Donald Trump meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Russian Foreign Ministry via AP)

Here's how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., handled the news that President Donald Trump had leaked classified information to one of America's biggest geopolitical rivals:

"I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda, which is deregulations, tax reform and repealing and replacing Obamacare."

And that, in a nutshell, is the Faustian bargain Republicans have made with a president whom the world now knows cannot be trusted with sensitive information; who coddles dictators; who has gone to war with the national security establishment, and whose legion of financial conflicts of interest ensure that the best interests of the nation finish a distant second to his own.

Senior Republicans have tied themselves into rhetorical knots trying to justify Trump's excesses, apparently having decided they should wring all the victories they can out of his topsy-turvy White House before it either implodes or returns to whatever parallel dimension first belched it forth.

The great irony here, of course, is that, even though they theoretically belong to the same political party, Trump has none of the fealty to the GOP that its leaders are showing him.

Yes, Trump threw his support to the disaster of a healthcare reform bill that anyone with a half-a-brain hopes the Senate will somehow save and/or bury. But he did so even as he indulged those who were hoping for the ouster of its author, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

Trump also threatened to run against restive members of the Freedom Caucus who helped scuttle the first version of the hopelessly flawed RyanCare bill.

And now it's emerged that Trump was apparently showing-off for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he decided to share that highly classified information about the Islamic State.

Dutifully, Trump's deputies marched out Tuesday to deny the blockbuster report by The Washington Post, only to pivot less than 24 hours later and find a new angle of attack after Trump essentially confirmed the story with a pair of Tweets.

Sean Spicer, the president's press secretary, now looks like a hunted man and who must wonder, by the hour, when he'll be shown the exit.

Yes, Trump, as president, does have the legal right to share classified information if he chooses to do so.

But if one were to ask whether it's wise to share that information with an oppressive nation backing the despotic regime of Syrian butcher Bashar Al-Assad, the answer is surely "No."

Trump lacks either the wisdom or the restraint to know the difference.

Some Republicans, such as U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have spoken out, calling Trump's actions "very troubling." But those are minority voices.

From the Michael Flynn debacle to the bungled firing of James Comey, Republicans have winced at this White House's absurdities, trying to keep their eyes on the broader policy prize.

But a time is fast approaching when Republicans will have to ask themselves what is more important: Power or the principles that undergird our democracy.

They cannot have both.
Local clerks report slightly down percentages in voter turnout

Nearly 75,000 people in five Northern Michigan counties had their ballots counted, according to clerks' unofficial election results.
Alcohol and drug use by young people is extremely dangerous, both to themselves and to society. It is directly associated with traffic fatalities, violence, suicide, educational failure, alcohol overdose, unsafe sex and other problem behaviors, even for those who may never develop a dependence or addiction.

Adolescence is a time of heightened risk-taking and as alcohol and drugs enter the picture, parents are faced with a unique set of challenges. They can simply sit back and hope their kids will "get through it," or they can take an active role in learning about alcohol and drugs and helping their kids do the same.

It can be daunting for parents to talk with children about drinking and drug use, but there is evidence that it does pay dividends. In fact, research has shown that kids who have conversations with their parents about the dangers of alcohol and drug use are 50 percent less likely to use these substances than those who dont have such conversations.

Parents can make a difference. The longer children delay drinking and drug use, the less likely they are to develop any problems associated with it. Thats why it is so important to help your child connect the dots and make smart decisions about alcohol and drugs.

Relaying the importance of preventing underage drinking can be difficult without understanding the dynamically developing adolescent brain. Not everyone who misuses alcohol or other drugs becomes addicted but, "priming of the brain for addiction" can occur when youth misuse tobacco, alcohol or marijuana -- all gateway drugs.

No other substance is more widely used and abused by Americas youth than alcohol; making alcoholism and alcohol-related problems the number one public health problem in the United States.

If you think your child is drinking just to "have a good time," think again: many kids drink alone because they are bored or depressed. This puts them at greater risk for developing alcohol-related problems later in life. So, talk to your kids -- most youth want to hear from their parents!

It is important to connect the dots that lead to awareness and recovery from underage alcohol and drug use. Fostering healthy and responsible attitudes, talking openly and honestly, encouraging supportive relationships, and showing children that their opinions and decisions matter, are all ways to help prevent the use of alcohol and drugs.

It can be challenging to develop the communication skills needed to talk with your children about drinking and drugs, but it will be well worth the effort you put into it, as you get to know your children a little better and help them build the coping skills they need to handle the anger, stress, peer pressure, loneliness and disappointment that are part of being an adolescent.

Young people may drink to "check out" from family problems, issues with school, loneliness or everyday pressures of social situations. Parents and caregivers can be a primary source of positive influence and, with simple, every day conversations can reduce chances of drinking underage.

Here are a few resources to prevent underage drinking.

Download a free app, "Talk. They Hear You" at https://www.samhsa.gov/underage-drinking/mobile-application and acquire new skills in a fun way, engaging youth and learning positive steps to recognize teachable moments to prevent underage drinking.

Visits www.parentpower.mt.gov and follow this site to remain updated on preventing underage drinking.

Visit http://www.letsfaceitmt.com/ to join other Montana parents uniting to prevent underage drinking.

National Prevention Week takes place May 15-20 and is a SAMHSA (Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration) supported annual health observance dedicated to increasing public awareness of, and action around, substance abuse and mental health issues.

Vicki Turner is the Prevention Resource Center Director for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.
Allison Tolman knows what some will be thinking about her decision to follow a breakout, Emmy-nominated role as police chief Molly Solverson in FX's Fargo with Downward Dog, an ABC comedy premiering Wednesday in which her costar is, as you may have heard, a talking dog.

"How the mighty tumble," she said, laughing, in an interview in January during an ABC media event.

"People are going to think, 'Oh, my God, after Fargo, she panicked and took the first thing that came along. And it was a talking-dog show.' So I was really worried about how to convey that I didn't panic, that I chose this show on purpose, that it was like what I wanted to do. And then I just eventually decided that I couldn't worry about it. I just had to make the show and see what happened."

One of the funniest things about the very funny Downward Dog, which in January became the first broadcast network comedy to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, is that, unlike the audience, Tolman's character, Nan, doesn't have a clue what her canine companion is thinking.

Martin  voiced by Samm Hodges, cocreator of the web series on which the show is based, and played by a dog named Ned  is lonely as Nan departs each day for a marketing job of which he knows nothing. But he also often sounds more angry than adoring when talking about her.

In fact, as a dog person, I thought he sometimes sounded more like a cat.

"I think that's what makes this show fun, though," Tolman said. "He says, often, how much he loves Nan and how he's sort of obsessed with her, but he says it in sort of an offhanded way [as in] oh, of course, 'however, I'm concerned about her behavior.' "

Like a neurotic boyfriend?

"Yes," she said. "It's like the predominant characteristic in any dog character is how much they love their human and how devoted they are to their human. But we kind of move past that and take that for granted, like, of course [he loves Nan]. Then we kind of get to go a bit deeper and play with, what is he thinking about beyond that? "

One thing he seems to be thinking, I suggested, is that Nan needs a better boyfriend than Jason (Lucas Neff, Raising Hope), with whom she's in a breakup that's not quite taken, or at least a boyfriend with better hair.

"I like Lucas' hair. I can't lie," Tolman said, laughing. "I feel like probably the dog identifies with all of the hair. He's like, 'Why is she so into him? I have that much hair. I'm just as furry. What's the point?' "

Neff, who's grown out both his beard and his hair, may in fact be furrier than Martin, which turned out to be a problem. "He's a short-haired dog," Tolman said of Ned, a mutt rescued from a Chicago shelter. "You know I'm allergic to short-haired dogs? I took allergy pills every day."

She's had a cat for 16 years, but "I grew up with long-haired dogs. I grew up with border collies and Australian blues  corgis," she said, and had no problems.

But "I kind of knew that I had friends who had dogs that, when they licked me, I'd get itchy. So I was kind of aware of it. And then I didn't meet Ned until we went to shoot. And I was like, 'That's a short-haired dog.' So I just went and bought a bunch of pills."

She said that no one knew.

"I really was OK. There's lots of instances where he has to lick me and then I would have to spray a little bit of Benadryl spray, because I would get a little itchy," Tolman said. "I would be like, 'We should shoot that at the end of the day. Trust me.' "

Downward Dog.

9:30 p.m. Wednesday, ABC. Moves to 8 p.m. Tuesdays next week.
West Philadelphia's Lee Daniels will own Fox's Wednesday nights this fall.

In a conference call with reporters Monday morning in advance of the network's 2017-18 schedule presentation to advertisers in New York, executives confirmed that Daniels' music-fueled hit Empire would be paired with Star, the girl-group drama he created with Drexel Hill's Tom Donaghy, with both shows this time ordered for 18-episode seasons, and Empire moving to 8 p.m., as it did for Star's premiere this season.

Read more: The two Philly-area guys behind Fox's Star

Expect the usual break between the two seasons, because, as Fox Television Group co-CEO Gary Newman said, both shows, which feature music-and-dance numbers in every episode, are "really challenging to produce."

Ardmore's Benj Pasek, along with songwriting partner Justin Paul, also will be bringing music to Fox in December with the previously announced three-hour, live adaptation of A Christmas Story: The Musical, which the pair scored for Broadway and for which they'll write several new songs.

In other news:

The X-Files will return at midseason with 10 more episodes.

24: Legacy is neither canceled nor renewed. Star Corey Hawkins is starring in the Broadway revival of Six Degrees of Separation and so wasn't available for fall.

Prison Break, originally announced as an event series, could return at some point, but "it's definitely not something we want to do every season," said Fox Television co-CEO Dana Walden.

Though Fox has added four new dramas and two new comedies for 2017-18, only three will premiere this fall. The Gifted, Fox's first Marvel series, features a family on the run after it's discovered the children have mutant powers. The Orville, a sci-fi comedy-drama from Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) and Jon Favreau (Iron Man), is set 400 years in the future on the Orville, a "mid-level exploratory spaceship." Ghosted, a live-action comedy scheduled to air between The Simpsons and Family Guy, stars Craig Robinson (The Office) and Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), one playing a skeptic, the other a believer in the paranormal, who are asked to investigate "unexplained phenomena in Los Angeles." (Were Mulder and Scully not available?)

Yes, Fox is a little sad that American Idol will be back, on ABC, not Fox. But Walden appears to feel strongly that Fox, after billing the 15th season as the final one, would have needed to wait a few years  she suggested 2020 as the earliest  before bringing it back. Producer FremantleMedia disagreed, she said. When it looked as though Idol would end up on NBC, it "kind of made sense to us, because that gave them access to Simon Cowell," who's on America's Got Talent. The ABC pickup apparently was more of a surprise.

Among the new shows waiting in the wings for midseason is LA to Las Vegas, a comedy about an airline crew on a weekly no-frills round-trip flight, whose producers include Malvern's Adam McKay as well as Will Ferrell, and Lon Zimmet.

Returning scripted shows include: Bob's Burgers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Empire, The Exorcist, Family Guy, Gotham, The Last Man on Earth, Lethal Weapon, Lucifer, The Mick, New Girl, Star, The Simpsons, and The X-Files.

Canceled shows include: APB, Bones, Making History, Pitch, Rosewood, Scream Queens, Sleepy Hollow, and Son of Zorn.

Updated to clarify that Star and Empire were paired this season for the premiere of Star, not its entire season.
William Goldsby, chairman and founder of Reconstruction Inc. hugs Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk after a community-based Welcome Meal for those participating in the Nicetown/Tioga Reconstructions art project. ( PHOTOS BY ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer ) Read more

When Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk came to Philadelphia about three years ago, she did not know the city and had no work she planned to exhibit.

Yet her charge from Carlos Basualdo, curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, who invited her to town, was to mount a project culminating in an exhibition in fall 2017.

No art. No contacts. No problem.

So van Heeswijk spent two years hanging out, asking questions, talking with one person who passed her on and on, down the line. What is Philadelphia? What is its spirit? Concerns developed. Stories became visible.

And "Philadelphia Assembled," her vast sprawling project involving dozens of organizations and more than 150 collaborators, began to emerge.

What is it?

That will be answered, in a small way, on Saturday on the buffeted streets of Nicetown/Tioga when members of the community will gather during the day for a cleanup. In the evening, the three underpasses affording access to the neighborhood will be lighted up and a ceremony will take place.

"It will be processional and metaphorical," van Heeswijk said recently. "But it's also talking about freedom," she said, in an era of mass incarceration. "How do people survive? How do people celebrate? How do people deal with their rage? How do they then come to the light? What does it mean to bridge? What does it mean to bridge the gap?"

The Lighting of the Bridges, which will be marked by the procession and lighting effort, also has a practical aspect  it draws attention to the dismal state of access to the community.

"The purpose is to temporarily light the underpasses as a way to advocate for permanent lighting," said Denise Valentine, a well-known Philadelphia storyteller who is a leader of this aspect of "Philadelphia Assembled."

"It's also a chance to shine a light on the harm that's been done to this community because of mass incarceration and the war on drugs. We wanted to allow people the space and the permission to voice their rage about the system of mass incarceration. But we also wanted to show the ways this community is resilient in the face of it."

Valentine, who was introduced to van Heeswijk perhaps two years ago by a historian, cited the very high percentage of community members who have spent time in jail, not to mention those who have family members entangled in the prison system, as a driving force for her group's efforts.

Other aspects of "Philadelphia Assembled" address issues of the future, power, movement, and sanctuary. All involve projects and narratives, large and small, that are mostly ignored or distorted or told only by outsiders. The hope, said van Heeswijk, is that the stories of hidden Philadelphia will emerge  as told or experienced by actual characters in the stories.

In "Philadelphia Assembled," the whole city becomes a figurative palette and storyboard.

Nicetown/Tioga, where the bridge lighting will take place, happens to be home base of Reconstruction Inc., a shoestring organization on the front lines of dealing with the criminal justice system and its disfiguring impact on individuals, families, and whole communities.

Valentine brought van Heeswijk together with William Goldsby, who established Reconstruction Inc. more than 20 years ago. Goldsby found van Heeswijk's questioning approach appealing.

He also liked her focus on seeking ways to embody community resistance and resilience "by illuminating the substrata," he said. In other words, finding ways of telling stories and showing sides of the city that have been kept out of "the dominant narrative."

"Very few look at the nuts and bolts of oppression," he said. There is a continuum at work that begins with "the colonization of Africa, continues through slavery, Reconstruction, convict-leasing, Jim Crow, and sentencing guidelines and mass incarceration."

Valentine's segment of "Philadelphia Assembled," which is called Reconstructions, also encompasses a project at Fourth and Master Streets focused on displacement and gentrification. Collaborators are constructing a house they'll use to gather and share neighbors' relevant stories.

So what makes this art? After all, many people are struggling with addressing the problems of mass incarceration. Many turn out for neighborhood cleanups. What makes this different?

For Goldsby, the "art" aspect is focused down the road on the fall exhibition at the art museum, which will run from Sept. 10 to Dec. 10 in the Perelman Building. He will contribute a "period room."

Portions of Goldsby's Nicetown house (including one of the two waterfalls he has built) will be installed in the Perelman building  a mordant commentary on the museum's other period rooms.

"This house has almost been like a wailing wall," he said. "People can come and transform themselves. The door is never locked."

Those involved with Reconstruction Inc. will be at the museum daily, in the room, talking about jail and the scars it inflicts across broad swaths of the population.

In one way, then, "Philadelphia Assembled" gathers up the city itself and all of its social structures and teases out the hidden stories that rarely make news, or at least the affirming news.

For Valentine, stories are her focus, but she finds that the process of van Heeswijk's project is an art form, as well.

"It's almost looking at it as if life itself is an art form," she said. "It took me a while to come to that understanding of art. I think in the beginning I had always thought of art as a painting or music, something you could hear or see or touch. But I came to a new understanding of what art is and I realized that I had been doing what Jeanne described as art. I just didn't know it was art."

Van Heeswijk is comfortable with that description.

"The way we think of art as pure contemplation in front of an object or the sound of something is only from the last few hundred years. Before that, art was combined with the way we related to each other, the way we can tell stories. The way we collectively imagine or envision. The place where we are and how we celebrate  that's always been part of art or culture."

The procession and bridge lighting in Nicetown/Tioga start at 7 p.m. Saturday, beginning at 1808 W. Tioga St.
As a child in Haiti, Madelange Laroche dressed her dolls in fashions she'd made herself. As a teenager, she made school uniforms for herself and seven relatives. She dreamed of a career in fashion, designing formal wear and wedding dresses.

Then life derailed her. Emigrating to the United States and learning a new language was challenging. To support herself and her brother, she took up nursing, working her way up from home health aide to certified nursing assistant to licensed practical nurse.

"I thought, 'Well, I can do fashion on the side and be a nurse full-time,' " Laroche said.

That didn't quite happen. Four years ago, she began studying for a bachelor's degree at Moore College of Art and Design. She dazzled in the classroom while working more than 40 hours a week at two nursing jobs. Her work won designer Frank Agostino's critic's choice award at a student showcase. Last week, a dozen friends and family members  many of whom had traveled from Haiti and Florida  came out to support her at her senior fashion show at the Barnes Foundation.

At 36, the new Moore graduate is finally finding her way into fashion. She's not deterred by her age or her responsibilities. Those who know her say they have a difficult time imagining anything can hold her back now.

"She's absolutely driven, and I think she can make a go of it," said award-winning fashion designer Danny Noble, who worked with Laroche at Moore. "I'm sure she makes a decent income as a nurse and it's incredibly admirable that she has such courage and drive."

Agostino, who has been judging Moore student contests for about 12 years, said Laroche was definitely in his top 10, maybe even the top five. "I have great respect for her. If anyone could make a living at it, she's the one."

Laroche's unique background and life experiences infuse her design aesthetic. She paints or weaves fabrics as she learned to do as a child. Classic silhouettes are embellished with details and embroidery, and extremely complex designs are superbly constructed, Noble said.

Her dream is to create formal wear, specifically wedding gowns. When her bridal wear first appeared on the runway last week, there was a collective gasp from the audience.

"It's just a matter of time," said Le Tran, who teaches technical design to Moore seniors. "She can do anything."

Laroche was largely raised by her grandmother while her mother worked as a dry cleaner and seamstress in the U.S. She remembers picking up scrap fabric and making her first doll dress at 7. She showed it to her sister.

"She said, 'That's very nice,' but I didn't know if she was telling the truth or not, but since that day, I started making doll dresses," Laroche said.

When Laroche was 12, her mother returned to Haiti after five years away. To reconnect with the family, Laroche's mother asked whether any of the children would like to learn how to sew.

"Nobody said anything," Laroche recalled, "and I felt so bad for her, so I raised my hand and said OK."

Laroche and one of her brothers sat down and learned how to take measurements and cut fabric and made a pencil skirt. It was Laroche's true start as a designer.

"I never stopped. I never stopped looking for fabric," Laroche said, describing how she'd hide in her grandmother's closet and hand-sew the older woman's garments into new shapes and styles that would fit her.

Then, she said, she'd wait until the rest of the family had gone to church to emerge wearing her grandmother's now-altered clothes.

When she was 16, Laroche persuaded her grandmother to let her make the school uniforms  a white blouse and an olive green skirt or pants  for the family. She changed the design, adding olive green accents to the shirts. School officials protested and demanded the uniforms be, well, uniform. But within weeks, about half of the school's students had altered their shirts accordingly. Administrators gave in.

"They said, 'Well, it's a lost game' and it became our school uniform and it made us stand out," Laroche said. "I don't know but I think they were proud that a 16-year-old could do that."

In 2001, with high school completed, Laroche moved to Florida to live with her mother. After two aborted attempts at attending a fashion school  cost and the language barrier held her back  Laroche took a friend's advice and tried nursing.

It was steady work, just what she needed after she settled in Philadelphia and took in her 33-year-old brother, who has mental handicaps that weren't fully understood in Haiti. She decided to get her bachelor's degree in nursing and began taking classes at Manor College. She still designed and made clothing  dressing the entire bridal party for a relative's wedding, designing both a ceremony and a reception dress for a teacher  but fashion design became a hobby, not a destiny.

And then, during a meeting with her college adviser, the truth burst out: She wanted to go to fashion school. She would love to open a made-to-order wedding dress business. The adviser was surprised. Another student who'd overheard the conversation told Laroche to look into Moore, where Project Runway Season 10 winner and Philly native Dom Streater had studied.

Four years later, her senior show was about to begin and Laroche was nervous and excited. She wore an off-white lace applique formfitting dress that she had started making at 11 p.m. the evening before.

It fit perfectly.
MISSOULA  A Broadwater County Sheriff's deputy with only three years on the job and a wife and three children at home was shot and killed early Tuesday while trying to make a traffic stop.

The shooting touched off a search that resulted in a pre-dawn chase covering more than 140 miles in southwestern Montana and ending in a shootout that sent one suspect to the hospital and his father to jail.

Mason Moore, 42, was slain near Three Forks, less than two miles from where a state Highway Patrol trooper was shot and killed in 2010.

"It's difficult to adequately describe how devastating it feels to lose one of our own in the line of duty," said Broadwater Sheriff Wynn Meehan. "Our deputy died protecting the citizens of our county and displayed remarkable courage until the very end."

Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said the incident began Tuesday morning when Moore was pursuing a white SUV near Three Forks shortly before 3 a.m.

Gootkin said dispatchers lost contact with Moore. When a Gallatin deputy arrived at the scene, he found Moore lying dead near the side of the road. The deputy reviewed the dash camera video in the slain officer's car and identified the SUV.

Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester said his department's officers spotted the 1998 Chevrolet Suburban at 3:27 a.m. heading west on Interstate 90 near the Continental Drive interchange. As they were chasing it, he said the passenger, Marshall Barrus, fired a semi-automatic .308-caliber rifle through the SUV's missing back window.

The sheriff said both suspects in the SUV were firing at deputies near the end of the chase.

"There's probably a special place in hell for those individuals and that's where they belong," Lester said of the suspects.

The pursuit reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Butte-Silver Bow officers continued to pursue the vehicle westbound on I-90 through Deer Lodge County and Powell County and into Granite County.

Although its tires were punctured by a spike strip in Powell County, the SUV kept going on its rims until it reached the Rock Creek area. There, Barrus got out of the SUV and began firing at officers. Three Butte-Silver Bow sheriff's vehicles were hit by gunfire, two of them seriously enough to be disabled.

Deputies returned fire, hitting Marshall Burrus in the head. He was taken to the hospital where his condition was not available.

His father and the SUV's driver, 61-year-old Lloyd Barrus, was arrested and booked into the Missoula County jail on suspicion of deliberate homicide.

A section of westbound I-90 was closed Tuesday morning while investigators collected evidence. Lester said the investigation of the slaying and chase is being conducted by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation and the Missoula County Sheriffs Office.

The men and women of the Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department extend our sincerest condolences to Sheriff Meehan, the Broadwater County Sheriffs Department, and the family of the fallen deputy,'' Lester said, echoing condolence messages that poured in Tuesday from law enforcement and elected officials across Montana.

Officers from numerous agencies joined a procession at midday Tuesday to transfer Moore's body from Three Forks to Billings for an autopsy. The body arrived in Billings in the afternoon, where firefighters raised a large American flag from a ladder truck.

Moore is the 129th Montana law enforcement officer to die in the line of duty since 1878, just before Montana became a state.

According to the state's Public Safety Officer Standards and Training office, Moore had previously worked for the Department of Transportation's Motor Carrier Services from 2012 to 2015 before joining the Broadwater sheriff's office.

Marshall Barrus has a criminal history in the Bozeman area, including being arrested in November by police in Belgrade. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, in that incident Barrus allegedly broke into a couples home, assaulted a woman and threatened to kill a man. He was awaiting trial for felony burglary.

This story contains information from the Associated Press.
CARLSTADT, N.J.  A jet struck a building and crashed while trying to land at a small airport near New York City on Monday, killing two crew members and sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air, authorities said.

The jet was registered to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address in Billings.

The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There's no answer at their residence.

Police said no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. a quarter-mile from the runway at Teterboro Airport in a densely populated residential and industrial area. No one on the ground was reported to have been injured.

Emergency responders worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, which left a smoldering wreckage of cars in a parking lot.

The airport was closed after the crash. Departing flights resumed in the evening, but no arriving flights were allowed.

Mayor Craig Lahullier said all town employees already had left for the day before the plane crashed next to its Department of Public Works building.

"I tell ya, it's a miracle," he said. "Thank God the guys were out of there, that's all I can say."

Town spokesman Joe Orlando said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage. Witnesses said they heard loud popping noises, apparently from car tires exploding in the heat and flames.

Orlando had left the public works building about 15 minutes before the plane hit. When he returned, he saw the plane's engines on the ground.

"If this had happened 20 minutes earlier, people would have been at their cars," he said. "That was the first thing I thought of: 'I was just right there.' You could see the fan blades, the landing gear. Car tires were blown off."

Mark Dykstra, who lives across the street from the crash site, told NJ.com he felt the impact of the crash.

"We were sitting in our building, and we felt the whole building shake," he said. "We went outside, and there was black smoke. Thick black smoke."

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL who was aboard another plane at the airport waiting to take off, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn.

A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing before it crashed.

The National Weather Service warned of strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph just before the plane went down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

The jet had flown from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, early Monday morning. It then flew to Philadelphia later Monday morning before leaving for Teterboro around 3 p.m.

Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area. Situated in a densely populated area just north of MetLife Stadium, where the NFL's New York Jets and New York Giants play, it is the scene of dozens of takeoffs and landings each day and is a favorite landing spot for corporate and other luxury jets.

The airport was the scene of a 2005 crash: A corporate jet failed to take off, crossed a busy highway and slammed into a warehouse. There were no fatalities, but more than 20 people suffered injuries.

In 2009, a plane taking off from Teterboro crashed into a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River, killing all nine people in the two aircrafts. A federal investigation later determined errors by an airport air traffic controller distracted by a personal phone call set the stage for the crash.
A Baltimore judge on Monday sentenced Gregg Thomas to life plus 35 years behind bars  the maximum sentence allowed  for the 2014 shooting of Sgt. Keith Mcneill, concluding a years-long court battle that included four trials.

Thomas, 37, had pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a jury of attempted first-degree murder and two gun charges in February after three mistrials in the case. Mcneill was shot eight times outside of an automotive shop in the Berea neighborhood of East Baltimore in March 2014.

Mcneill, who is still recovering from his injuries and wore a brace on one hand, declined to comment. His wife, Danielle Mcneill, said she was happy with the sentence, the Baltimore Sun reports.
In a proclamation he signed in the Oval Office, President Trump announced the White House would be lit up in blue lights Monday evening to honor the 394 officers who were killed in the line of duty last year, reports the Washington Post.

Trump said in a speech at an annual memorial service for officers slain in the line of duty that his administration would make it a priority to provide more federal resources for local law enforcement departments. We will protect you, and we will say, 'Enough is enough,'" Trump said.
The family of slain Phoenix police officer David Glasser met with President Trump in the Oval Office Monday. (Photo: Phoenix PD/Twitter)

The family of a Phoenix police officer who was feloniously killed on duty in 2015 met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday morning as part of the observance of National Police Week.

David Glassers widow, Kristen, their son and several Phoenix Police Department members visited with Trump while he signed a proclamation, KTAR TV reports.

I had the chance to spend time with Officer Glassers beautiful family. His wife, Kristen, and his 6-year-old son, Micah, who has my hat and is now with us, Trump said.

Kristen and Micah, I know your beloved husband and father is looking down on you right now from heaven and he is so proud of you both. Thank you very much.

Glasser was shot May 18, 2015, while he was investigating a burglary call in Laveen, a part of southwest Phoenix. He died of his injuries the next day.
Deputy Mason Moore was a three-year veteran of the Broadwater County Sheriff's Office. (Photo: Broadwater County Sheriff's Office)

A Broadwater County, MT, sheriffs deputy was shot and killed in a shootout during a traffic stop early Tuesday morning on MT 287, south of Interstate 90.

The Broadwater County Sheriffs Office has identified Mason Moore as the deputy who was killed. Deputy Moore was a three-year veteran of the Broadwater County Sheriff's Office. He was a husband and a father of three children, reports KECI.

According to law enforcement, the deputy had pulled a vehicle over in whats described as a routine stop at approximately 3 a.m. He had called the incident in to dispatchers, but then never called back.

A Gallatin County deputy then responded and found the deputy dead, KTVQ TV reports.

A BOLO alert was issued statewide and eventually a Montana Highway Patrol trooper spotted the vehicle near Anaconda. A pursuit ensued. It ended with the passenger being shot by law enforcement in a gunfight. The wounded suspect was taken to the hospital. The driver surrendered without incident.

Butte-Silver Bow Sheriff Ed Lester said in a press release the suspects were firing at officers with at least one semi-automatic rifle. Gunfire damaged patrol cars, making at least two inoperable, reports KECI.

Lester reports one of the suspects was wounded in the head as officers returned gunfire. The second suspect has a gunshot-related injury to his hand. Both suspects, 61-year-old Lloyd Barrus and 38-year-old Marshall Barrus, are in custody.
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Donald Trump leaked classified intelligence about ISIS to Russia; Republicans cant be allowed to mumble concerns about Trump. The American people must demand the impeachment of this president.

The Washington Post reported:

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic States territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

To sum this up, the day after firing the FBI Director who was investigating his campaigns potential collusion with Russia, Trump invited an enemy of the United States into the Oval Office and leaked highly sensitive and classified information to them.

If Clinton or Obama would have done this, the Republicans would already be drafting the articles of impeachment.

Instead, we get reactions like this one from Sen. John Thune:

.@SenJohnThune reacting topline of Post report: 'I would be concerned anytime we're discussing sensitive subjects with the Russians, yes.'  Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) May 15, 2017

Oh no. Republicans are concerned.

Concerned isnt good enough.

It is time for Republicans to step up and clean up the damage that they have caused to the United States of America by nominating, then electing Donald Trump.

Nothing less than impeachment will suffice.

Republicans arent going to be able to concern troll this away. There must be an immediate congressional investigation, and if The Washington Post report is true, Trump must be removed from office.

A Russian agent cant be allowed to destroy democracy from the Oval Office.

It is time for Republicans to get rid of Trump, or voters will get rid of the Republicans.
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The reeling Trump administration, hoping to stop the bleeding in the wake of Mondays bombshell story in The Washington Post that reported Trump leaked classified intel to the Russians, responded to the damning news using clever wordplay.

The White House chose to wheel out the one figure in the Trump universe who is seen as having some shred of credibility, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who issued what could only be described as a non-denial denial.

Video:

H. R. McMaster denies Washington Post report on #Trump disclosing classified intel to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov pic.twitter.com/i1dQdxazEx  Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) May 15, 2017

Theres nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people, McMaster said, with a straight face, before continuing, At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

McMaster called the story false and said he knows that because he was in the room.

The only problem with McMasters phony denial was that he was refuting something not even asserted by The Washington Post, as several reporters pointed out after his statement.

McMaster saying sources and methods is a red herring. Article doesnt say Trump revealed sources and methods to Russians.  Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) May 15, 2017

McMaster statement fundamentally insufficient. WaPo reported POTUS revealed Intel from secret source, not that POTUS revealed the source  Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) May 15, 2017

The fact that the administration rushed to respond to the Posts report indicates they know just how damaging it has the potential to be. But their attempt to use wordplay to provide cover isnt fooling anyone.

If they really wanted the public to know what went on in Trumps meeting with the Russians, they would have invited the American press into the room, not just the Russian media.
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The New York Times nailed it with their Liar or a fool article about working for President Trump.

Hours after Trumps Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, NSA H.R. McMaster, and Deputy NSA for Strategy put out statements claiming Trump didnt leak classified secrets about ISIS to the Russians as the Washington Post detailed, Trump admitted to it and bragged about it.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

For good measure, he added a whine about Comey and how they need to be looking for the leakers. Presumably, he doesnt mean himself, but ironically, Donald Trump is the person who leaked the most sensitive classified information  and not the U.S. press, but directly to an adversary  Russia.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

McMasters statement to the press Monday night was a carefully worded denial, in which he denied things that the article never said Trump did.

But the gist of it was that Trump didnt do this, the article was false, Theres nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

McMaster called the story false and said he knows that because he was in the room.

But then the New York Times corroborated the story, as did Reuters and CNN.

And now this morning, the President himself is admitting that yes, he told the Russians things. His excuse is the one used by cowardly Republicans last night, and also the mantra Nixon used to excuse his behavior. That is, the president can do what he wants, its legal when he does it.

Senator John McCain floated this decidedly unmavericky comment last night, We certainly dont want any president to leak classified information but the president does have the right to do that.

Now Trump is announcing to us all that he has the right to do this so there. And he had reasons. So there.

In doing so, Trump compromised our relationship with an ally, undermined the fight against ISIS, and put brave men and womens lives at risk.

Conclusion? Even if he has the right to do something, that doesnt mean he should do it. It doesnt mean its in the best interest of the U.S.A. And these are concepts that should not have to be explained to the person in charge of the free world.

Donald Trump promised to defeat ISIS during the campaign, but wouldnt tell us how. Now you know why he wouldnt tell us.
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Theres no courage. They (Republicans) just hope the storm will go away, Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post reported a House Democrat telling her of their Republican colleagues.

Asked a House D if he knows any Rs, even privately, ready to stand up to Trump: "There's no courage. They just hope the storm will go away."  Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) May 16, 2017

There is no courage to stand up to Trump. Were seeing that in action, as Republicans  including supposed maverick John McCain  issue statements that basically say sure we might be concerned but Trump is allowed to do leak classified information about ISIS plots. So, go away.

During the campaign, Republicans made the argument about Hillary Clintons emails that she should be in prison and or shot for maybe having mishandled classified information and thus made possible the leaking of classified information  by accident. Now Trump does it on purpose, and Republicans are looking the other way.

Those who mishandled classified info have had their sec clearances revoked, lost their jobs, faced fines, & even been sent to prison  Reince Priebus (@Reince) July 7, 2016

Trump surrogates said Clinton should be shot for not even revealing classified information but simply mishandling a few emails.

Republican New Hampshire state Rep. Al Baldasaro:

Baldasaro said his comments were in accordance with U.S. law establishing the death penalty for treason. He suggested that Clintons use of a private email server could be considered treasonous.

Republicans didnt condemn this statement, and Trump didnt distance himself from Baldasaro at the time due to the comments.

Use a private server, be shot for treason. Give classified secrets about an ISIS plot to an adversary, its okay. This is the pretzel of Republican logic.

Republicans are reported to be just hoping to jam through their tax cuts, Obamacare replacement, and whatever other destruction they can wield toward the social safety net in order imprint their ideology on law before Trump implodes.

While that might be doable if Trump were just attacking people in this country, he has now put people who were willing to spy on ISIS at risk, and that is an already fraught and dangerous job.

Trump is giving the classified secrets of an ally to an adversary that does not share the same goals.

Trump gave these secrets to the same entity that attacked the U.S. via cyber warfare in the 2016 election, on his behalf. Trump did this while denying there is any there there.

Trump did this in a meeting with Russian officials, to which the U.S. press was not allowed.

Republicans think they can keep turning a blind eye to Trumps attacks on his own country, their country, but as I wrote days ago, an argument can be made that they are all violating their oath of office in so doing. I wrote that about the Comey firing, another instance of Trump behaving as if he is above the law.

Days later, we face yet another crisis of Trumps own doing, and believe it or not, this one is even more serious than his firing of the man who is investigating him for possible collusion with Russia.

We are a nation being attacked from within, by a man sitting in the Oval Office of our White House. Whether he is doing this on purpose to aid the Russians or he is this incompetent is not relevant anymore. We are in imminent danger.

Republicans must act.
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Here is a portrait in cowardice the likes of which we hope not see again.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke with Bloombergs Kevin Cirilli on Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas to weigh in on the news that Republican President Trump leaked highly classified information about an ISIS plot to the Russians.

McConnells response was a call for less drama.

I think we can do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things, McConnell said Tuesday morning.

Watch here:

I think it would be helpful if the president spent more time on things were trying to accomplish and less time on other things, was McConnells change the subject who cares if the country is being attacked from within response.

McConnell put leaking highly classified information into a box labeled drama and could only muster the will to say we could do with a little less drama. Bold words these are not.

Heres a real kicker. McConnell also recommended Merrick Garland to replace FBI director James Comey. Trump fired Comey days after Comey asked for more resources for his investigation into whether or not Trump and/or his campaign colluded with Russia.

Is this the kind of drama McConnell is referring to?

Garland is the guy McConnell refused to even give a vote to when President Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court, for the seat McConnell stole from Obama (quite literally) to give to Trump so a Republican could pick a partisan judge.

Republicans are suggesting Garland to replace Comey because they want to open a seat on the bench on which Garland sits as a Chief Judge  U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As qualified as Garland is to be on the Supreme Court (he would have been the perfect SCOTUS justice, his ethics are impeccable and he is nonpartisan), he might not be the best person to run the FBI given the need to focus on an investigation into President Trumps possible collusion with Russia.

Republicans overlooked an important fact on the Garland front, though, since the Atlantic points out that Garland could actually accept the job and keep his seat, granting himself a leave of absence. Though Garland is unlikely to pull such a stunt; we leave such potentially unethical if legal moves to the President and his party.

McConnell cant even manage to address the fact that President Trump put not only our country in danger but also our allies and the brave men and women who are working to defeat ISIS in danger.

This tepid, cowardly response of calling for less drama belongs in a museum of what not to do when your partys president has just given highly classified information to the Russians.

Mitch McConnell is more committed to his own agenda and power than the national security of the U.S.

Republicans aligning themselves with Trump are revealing that the party has no actual principles anymore. Republicans used to the be the party of national security, but here they are, enabling the destruction of our country and justifying giving classified secrets about an ISIS plot to an adversary.

Image: Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas screengrab
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Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) demanded that the White House make transcripts of Trumps meeting with Russian officials available to Congress after reports indicated that President Trump leaked highly classified information to the Russians during a meeting in the Oval Office, to which members of the U.S. press were not invited.

Schumer added, And if the president has nothing to hide, he should direct that the transcript of the meeting be made available.

Schumer laid out the reasons why what Trump did when he leaked highly classified information about an ISIS plot matters.

If the reporting is accurate, in one fell swoop the president could have unsettled our allies, emboldened our adversaries, endangered our military and intelligence officers the world over, and exposed our nation to greater risk.

According to the report, the president revealed classified information about a terrorist threat with the officials of a foreign government, Schumer said in floor remarks sent to PoliticusUSA. And the president didnt share it with just any government, the report states he shared it with Russias government, a global adversary that has violated the sovereignty of peaceful nations, propped up dictators and human rights abusers, including Iran and Syria, and has been widely proven to have interfered in our elections and the elections of our allies in Europe.

Schumer warned that if the report were true, and Monday morning Donald Trump admitted it was on Twitter, (I)t would mean that the president may have badly damaged our national security, nothing less, and in several ways.

Sharing classified information that was given to us by our allies on the premise that it not be shared with anyone undermines key relationships and even more importantly, makes us less safe, Schumer said.

Then Schumer had to take Trump to school, explaining the basics of our relationship with Russia, We do not collaborate with Russia in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East for the simple fact that we have diverging interests. Russia, for example, has worked with Iran to prop up the brutal Assad regime. Sharing vital intelligence with Russian officials could allow the Russians to pursue or even possibly eliminate the source or figure out how the ally conducts operations, including any against Russia or Russias allies in the region.

Many of our intelligence professionals put their lives on the line every day to acquire information that is critical to our national security. That is critical to keeping Americans safe, Schumer continued.

Then Schumer demanded the transcripts, Given the gravity of the matter, we need to be able to quickly assess whether or not this report is true and what exactly was said.

So, I am calling on the White House to make the transcript of the meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador available to the congressional Intelligence Committees as soon as possible. The White House should make the transcript of the meeting available immediately to the Congressional intelligence committees.
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Senator Al Franken (D-MN) warned early Tuesday afternoon that President Trump is endangering U.S. national security.

Let me be clear: President Trump is endangering our national security, the Democratic Senator said in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA in response to Trumps actions disclosing highly classified information about an ISIS plot to the Russians.

After a report published in the Washington Post and then corroborated by multiple outlets and seemingly confirmed by President Trump that he shared information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office during a meeting to which the U.S. press was denied access, Franken drew the connection between the timing of this meeting the day after Trump fired the FBI Director who was investigating Trumps connections to Russia.

Im profoundly disturbed by the reports that President Trump shared highly classified information with Russian officials in the Oval Office a day after he fired FBI Director James Comey, the man in charge of investigating the Presidents ties to Russia, the Democrat said.

Let me be clear: President Trump is endangering our national security. By revealing highly classified material to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador about the fight against ISIS, he is eroding the intelligence-gathering and -sharing relationship between the U.S. and our allies, who may now be far more hesitant to share that intelligence with us in the future. All of this means that President Trump likely weakened our ability to effectively fight against ISIS.

The threat to national security is not just a Democratic talking point, but possibly an understatement of the threat Trump is posing. (Democrats dont seem capable of the hysteria Republicans can lather over the style of Obamas jeans and mustard choices.)

Republican and Independent 2016 presidential candidate Evan McMullin observed that President Trumps lack of competency as presidentis becoming a national security vulnerability in and of itself.

McMullin is also a former CIA operations officer.

NEW: @Evan_McMullin: Pres. Trump's "lack of competency as presidentis becoming a national security vulnerability in and of itself." pic.twitter.com/swHVDG6bOJ  This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 16, 2017

The Financial Times quoted Naveed Jamali explaining the risk Trumps disclosure poses to the spies and the mission, This is a betrayal of the case worker/agent relationship and unless theres an exfiltration plan anyone connected to this plot is dead, said Naveed Jamali, whose book Catch a Russian Spy profiles his secret life working as a double agent for the FBI. Human assets are the crown jewels of any intelligence service; it takes years to convince someone to spy on Isis and in one simple swoop the president has violated that trust.

Jason Leopold reported in Buzzfeed that people who brag about what they know might be an insider threat, according to FBI training material obtained by the publisher:

According to the training material, potential insider threats include federal employees who brag about what they know, work odd hours, travel overseas without a good reason, or ask their co-workers about classified information without a need to know. Workers who consume alcohol, use drugs or have psychological conditions may also be insider threats, as are those facing disciplinary action or job termination.

I believe President Trump needs to take several steps to begin fixing this, Franken concluded.

First, the White House needs to turn over any transcripts of last weeks meeting with the Russians to the Senate and House intelligence committees. Second, more than ever we need an independent, special prosecutor who can get to the bottom of the Trump teams ties to Russia. And finally, President Trump needs to explain to the American people in a clear and honest way why he revealed highly classified intelligence to the Russians.

Franken is right. But the problem is that Republicans are not on board with defending the U.S. in this way. Currently Republicans are pushing the boundaries for new ways to suggest they are super concerned without actually taking any action on said concern.
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President Trump described the meeting where he leaked classified intelligence to Russia as a great meeting. Trump considers a meeting where he jeopardized US national security a great meeting.

Video:

Trump said, We had a very very successful meeting with the foreign minister of Russia. Our fight is against ISIS. As Gen. McMaster said, I thought he said, and I know he feels that we actually had a great meeting with the foreign minister, so were uh, going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years, and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible.

Trump doesnt seem to realize that no one but his blindest supporters is buying his sales pitch of future greatness. The day that the president leaked classified information to an enemy of America was not a great day.

Donald Trump and the rest of America seem to have very different definitions of what greatness means.

Any meeting where a president sells out an ally and gives away highly classified intelligence to Russia is not a great meeting.

Trump is sinking fast, as his betrayal of America is growing more obvious by the second.
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Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Higher wind gusts possible.
DECATUR  The city of Decatur is set to charge the Illinois Department of Transportation interest on the more than a million dollars of grant money owed for public transit.

Gregg Zientara, the city's finance director, said the city would seek to collect interest close to the market rate on top of money it is owed by IDOT. The state is behind in paying about $1.13 million for the fiscal quarter that runs from April 1 to June 30, he said shortly before Monday's meeting of the Decatur City Council.

That plan comes after Zientara said the city has spent most of the past year and a half acting "as a bank" for its public transit operations, with the city treasury floating the operations along with pooled money to pay for public transits day-to-day operation. The cash is then replenished once the state pays the grant.

Zientara said he has been told by a person with knowledge of the Illinois Comptrollers office that the payment is working through the office's processes, meaning it could arrive anytime between next week to later this year.

It is a common story in Illinois, as the state has a bill backlog of over $12 billion, according to the comptrollers office.

With the delay, the city of Decatur could now set itself up to receive extra cash on top of money it is owed. With the market rates today about 3 percent, the delay could cost the state an extra $33,900 on top of the $1.13 million owed.

Zientara emphasized that regardless of the state's late payments, daily operations of public transit would not be affected and the city would continue to cover the cost.

The city is managing this situation. It has no fear or threat that it will negatively affect the day-to-day, he said. Buses will not stop running.

In other business, the city council voted unanimously to purchase four 2017 Ford F-250s and one 2017 Ford F-150 that will cost a total of $136,423, would replace five current vehicles in the Public Works fleet.

The replaced vehicles will be transitioned out of service and sold at auction.
When spice and smoke come together on the plate, you know it's going to be good. In this burger, both types of chile provide the heat while the chipotle brings a smoky note. A bright avocado-tomatillo salsa cools them down. With all that going on, the wine needs some careful thought, like these choices from Oyster Bah sommelier Nate Redner.

Double-chile burgers

Mix together 1 pound ground beef; 1 jalapeno, minced; 1 chipotle chile, minced; and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Form into 4 patties, each 1 inch thick. For the salsa, stir together 1 avocado, chopped; 2 tomatillos, chopped; 2 tablespoons lime juice; and 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro. Season with salt. Mash the mixture a bit with a fork so it holds together on the burger. Cook the burger patties in a hot skillet over medium-high heat, flipping once, until browned and the desired doneness inside, about 4 minutes per side. Serve, topped with the salsa, in toasted buns. Makes: 4 servings

Recipe by Joe Gray

Pair with ...

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Pairings by sommelier Nate Redner of Oyster Bah, as told to Michael Austin:

2013 Villa Creek High Road James Berry Vineyard, Paso Robles, California: Mainly mourvedre and syrah with rich grenache rounding out the blend, this red Rhone-style wine has savory herb notes plus dark berry fruit, cocoa powder, licorice and a fine tannin structure. Its ripe and stewed fruit character will match the heat and smoke of the chipotle peppers while its acidity will stand up to the fat in both the burger and the avocado mash.

2010 Pierre Gimonnet et Fils, Blanc de Blancs Gastronome, Champagne, France: Five years of aging before disgorgement makes this a weighty style of Champagne, perfect for burgers and spice. Citrus notes of ruby red grapefruit are followed by a smoke finish, mimicking the chipotle-in-adobo. Persistent effervescence will keep the burger from becoming overly rich. Open the bottle a little early, and keep it nicely chilled. Your patience will be rewarded with nuttiness and rich texture.

L. Mawby Grace Brut Rose Sparkling Wine, Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan: Don't underestimate Michigan bubbles! Larry Mawby has been making traditional method wines in northern Michigan since 1984, and he makes some top-notch bubbles. Grace is a nonvintage rose of pinot noir that has a lovely shade of pale pink, and notes of wild strawberries, tart raspberries, herbaceous aromas and bright acidity to cut through the fat of the beef and avocado.
An area man made his first appearance Monday in Olmsted County District Court, where he's been accused of possessing and sharing child pornography.

Eric Lowell Saterdalen, 56, of Stewartville, faces two counts of disseminating pornographic work and 10 counts of possession of pornographic work, all felonies.

Conditional bail was set at $100,000; he's due back in court May 24.

The investigation began in September, when Yahoo reported a user had uploaded suspected child pornography to his account. A subpoena revealed the account was associated with a phone number belonging to Saterdalen, the criminal complaint says.

More images were uploaded in October; the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's Internet Crimes Against Children unit obtained a subpoena that indicated the internet address was assigned to Saterdalen, the complaint continues, with a service address of 800 Grandview Court SE, Stewartville  Saterdalen's home.

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On May 5, deputies with the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant at the residence.

Saterdalen identified his laptop computer and cell phone; a preliminary exam of the computer allegedly revealed a number of images believed to be child pornography, including one with a victim under the age of 1 year, court documents say.

If convicted, the dissemination charges carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both.

The possession charges are punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine, or both.
A Minnesota Appeals Court ruling in favor of Rochester City Lines calls into question the validity of a four-year bus contract issued in 2016.

The Appeals Court ruled that Rochester's "best-value" competitive bid process is "unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious" and "creates an appearance of bias," which means any contract awarded using the process is "invalid."

The ruling also stated RCL's protest of the 2016 contract bid process was unfairly dismissed.

"We truly are gratified that the Minnesota Court of Appeals today sustained our protest of the unfair manner in how the City of Rochester handled the solicitation for a transit operations and maintenance contract last year," said RCL General Manager Dan Holter.

While the family-owned, Rochester business is feeling vindicated, the city is looking at its options now that the bus service contract from 2017 to 2022 is apparently invalidated.

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"The city officials are studying the court of appeals decision," said attorney Monte Mills of Minneapolis-based Greene Espel. "The city council is meeting today in closed session to consult with legal counsel."

After that session, the council unanimously agreed Monday night to ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to review the case.

The recent decision is the latest milestone in a more than five-year legal battle between RCL, which ran the local bus service from 1966 to 2012, and the City of Rochester over the "fairness" of how a bus service provider is chosen.

City Lines originally came into conflict with the city over the Request for Proposal process that resulted in Cincinnati, Ohio-based First Transit winning the service contract in 2012. The resulting lawsuit eventually reached the Minnesota Supreme Court, which ruled in 2015 that a trial should be held to resolve the company's complaint of arbitrary and unfair action by the city. That trial is scheduled to begin in Winona on May 22.

When the First Transit original contract came to an end in 2016, the city went through the RFP process again to chose a provider. Four bids were submitted, including ones from RCL and First Transit.

RCL was the lowest-rated bidder with the second-highest price among the four companies seeking the contract. First Transit's 2017 rate proposal was about $394,000 less than the nearest competitor. The 2016 contract report estimated that choosing First Transit would save the city an estimated $3.5 million over the life of the contract.

RCL filed a protest that the city's "best value" method was still unfair in the longtime Rochester firm's opinion. The bids were evaluated and scored on specific criteria by a panel of eight evaluators for service quality in addition to price.

The ruling pointed to the fact that five of the eight members of the 2016 evaluation board were also on the 2012 board, which spurred the original complaints from RCL and created an "appearance of bias."

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The appeals court found that Justin Templin, the Eden Prairie attorney hired to manage Rochester's contentious bus bid process, should have taken that into account.

"Those omissions are jarring in light of the nature and conduct of the 2012 RFP litigation, a years-long public dispute with which the moderator was obviously familiar and during which RCL repeatedly has accused the 2012 evaluation committee of variously describe wrongdoing," according to the ruling. "In fact, RCL's June 6, 2012 amended complaint singles out three of the five holdover members by name, alleging that they 'exhibited animosity and hostility toward (RCL).'"

While the appeals court did rule in favor of RCL, the ruling noted that the court did "expressly decline" to agree with RCL that the process was "infected by the city's bias against RCL and/favoritism toward First Transit."

No bias has yet been proven. That issue will be the focus of the upcoming trial focusing in the city's awarding of the 2012 contract.
ALTURA  The National Weather Service issued a temporary flood warning this morning for many areas in Southeast Minnesota after some regions reported up to 5 inches of rainfall overnight  along with an extended hazardous weather warning that could create additional concerns throughout the week.

The flood warning includes all of Winona County, along with northeastern Olmsted County, south central Wabasha County and northern Houston County. The warning was announced just before 7 a.m. and will be in place until just before noon. The Service also issued a hazardous weather outlook through Monday, which could include another 2 inches of rain on Friday.

The Weather Service highlighted particular flooding concerns with the Whitewater River, Root River and Pickwick Creek, which are all in Winona County. Some flooding was already being reported at sunrise.

Minnesota Department of Transportation reports that Highway 74 has been closed between Weaver and Beaver  in rural Winona County  has been temporarily closed due to rain. It's the only gravel highway in the state, according to MnDOT.

"Turn around  don`t drown when encountering flooded roads," warned the Weather Service. "Most flood deaths occur in vehicles.

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Brent Anderson, Whitewater's park manager, said he evacuated 20 seniors from Laporte High School on their senior class trip after three of the park's four flood gauges went off just after midnight. That group spent the rest of the night in Whitewater's visitors center before returning to their cabin's around 6 a.m.

"It was a better-safe-than-sorry situation," Anderson said. "I just didn't want them to be caught back there."

Anderson reported the park received 4.94 inches of rain, but says it hasn't experienced any significant flooding  yet. With the Laporte group planning to stay a few more nights, he plans to keep a close eye on the forecast and the rain gauges to make sure campers are safe.

The Service also warned about additional flooding in streams and rivers in or around the following cities: Winona, La Crescent, Goodview, Plainview, Lewiston, Elgin, Houston, Stockton, Rollingstone, Hokah, Altura, Brownsville, Dakota, New Hartford, Wilson, Mound Prairie, Money Creek, Viola, Dresbach and Hart.

Thunderstorms are possible tonight in portions of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, though the worst is expected to hit the La Crosse area. The Service reports that the "main threats" will be large hail, damaging winds, locally heavy rains, and lightning.

Additional thunderstorms may occur Wednesday, while "widespread rain" is expected in the region Friday and Saturday, with up to 2 inches of accumulation.
Fearing for his life after the militia burned down his home, Mohamed Abdi fled the Somali Civil War in 1994.

While living at a refugee camp in Kenya for 15 years, he met Hani. Together, they waited for an opportunity to rebuild their lives in a safe place they could call home.

Saturday was the day that the Rochester couple, and Habitat for Humanity, began constructing the couple's new home in Southeast Rochester. Mohamed helped lift some of the wooden pallets along with some volunteers, and Hani took a shovel to start leveling out the dirt from the site.

After resettling in Rochester, it wasn't always easy. With six kids to care for, the parents worked hard at their jobs  Mohamed, a medical transporter, and Hani, a daycare provider  so that soon, they could have a place of their own.

This Habitat for Humanity home would be a quiet, peaceful house to raise their children  two sons and four daughters  and to live in a place where they can be together that's affordable and safe. Already, their future neighbors introduced themselves to the family. "They are so welcoming," Mohamed said.

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A third-year volunteer, Alenna Bolin of Rochester, shoveled some of the dirt alongside Hani. After having worked with Habitat for Humanity on two different projects, she was excited to help build the Abdi family's new house.

"It's hard work, but it's so much fun," Bolin said. I plan to keep doing this every year. Everyone is so encouraging, and it's for a good cause."

Rochester Area Habitat for Humanity has built around 75 homes since it was organized in 1990. According to Ryan Kling-Punt, community outreach director, the Abdi family demonstrated their willingness to work for the opportunity of home ownership after submitting an application.

Typically, Rochester Habitat works to build at least two or three houses per year, depending on funding and donations.

Last week was National Women Build Week , sponsored by Lowe's, a week during which participating women devote at least one day to help build decent and affordable housing within their towns. More than 17,000 women across the country volunteered at construction sites to build homes.

Habitat's first Women Build event was held in 1998, and since then all-women construction crews helped build more than 2,500 homes in partnership with families.

"We are so happy that National Women Build Week has come around again," said Kevin Worden, executive director of Rochester Area Habitat. "Every year, our Women Build crews work so hard and accomplish so much in support of Habitat's mission to build decent healthy homes for families in need of better housing."

Lowe's donated almost $2 million to this year's National Women Build Week event, including a $5,000 gift card to the Rochester Area Habitat for Humanity. Since 2003, the company also committed more than $63 million to Habitat's mission and helped more than 6,500 families improve their living conditions.

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"One of the things we're trying to do is get into the community," said Aaron Horne, Rochester Lowe's service manager. "Building affordable homes is fantastic idea, and very much needed."

It'll be a while before the Abdi family can move into their new home, but it's well worth the work and the time.

"Everything is going smoothly and everyone's so happy," Mohamed said. "We always dreamed of owning our own house one day. It's a dream that finally came true. We are so thankful and appreciative."
Did I ever think that one day, I would have a more positive view of Donald Trump than does Ann Coulter? No. But that apparently has happened:

In an interview Sunday with The Daily Caller, Coulter let it be known she still has hope in the Trump presidency, but is ready to jump ship. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.

***

I hate to say it, but I agree with every line in my friend Frank Brunis op-ed in The New York Times today. Where is the great negotiation? Where is the bull in the china shop we wanted? That budget the Republicans pushed through was like a practical joke Did we win anything? And this is the great negotiator? Its not like Im out yet, but boy, things dont look good. Ive said to other people, its as if were in Chicago and Trump tells us hes going to get us to LA in six days. But for the first three days we are driving towards New York.  I could understand all that if he gets control of the steering wheel and turns around and starts going towards LA. If we just keep going to New York. Well again, Ill say we had no choice, but the Trump-haters were right..Its a nightmare.

I believe that Ann lives in D.C., which could help to explain her panic. The press brought down Nixon, and has been hungering to destroy another Republican administration ever since. There is no question that the baying hounds are after Trump, not just the press but Obama holdovers in the administration and, in general, the entire apparatus of the federal government. The forces aligned against President Trump have refused to accept the result of the election, and are determined to overturn it.

They might succeed. Trumps weaknesses might prove to be fatal. But I am not that pessimistic. Trump is, I think, a unique politician in this sense: ordinary politicians actions fail to live up to their words. They talk a good game, but dont deliver. Trumps words fail to live up to his actions. If you ignore what he says and simply look at what he does, you will probably conclude that he is a very good president.

This suggests that the presidents problems are fixable. In any event, he will be the president for the next three years and nine months, at a minimum. The Democrats will never stop howlingit is what they dobut it is far too early to give up on what can be achieved, if only Congressional Republicans will ignore the D.C. press and do their jobs.

PAUL ADDS: A problem with attributing Coulters criticism of Trump to where she lives is that it requires one to explain why she was so keen on Trump in the first place. The mainstream media and the smart set  whether in New York or Washington, D.C.  ripped Trump mercilessly throughout 2016 and the early part of 2017. If Coulter were susceptible to that sort of influence, she wouldnt have been a leading Trump supporter during this time.

In fact, to the extent that a resident of Washington or New York takes cues from media and/or social surroundings, it was easier to support Trump now than in most of 2016. Then, both liberal and conservative media members despised him. Now its mainly just liberals who do.

One thing I think we can safely say about Ann Coulter is that she doesnt take cues from the liberal media or the smart set in D.C. and New York City.
Regarding President Trumps disclosure of classified intelligence to Rusia, Jules Suzdaltsev of Vice tweets:

Just so were all on the same page: an allied informant is likely being tortured to death as we speak, thanks ONLY to Trumps big mouth.

Suzdaltsev has no idea whether an allied informant is being tortured. Indeed, since the location of the informant (if there is one) was not disclosed, except reportedly to Russia, theres little reason to believe that ISIS or any other terrorist group has identified the informant.

But thats not the main fallacy in Suzdaltsevs tweet. The main fallacy is that, unless Russia is torturing the informant or it shared Trumps intel with ISIS (both of which are extremely unlikely), its not Trumps big mouth thats primarily to blame for the supposed torture. Primary blame would reside, instead, with (1) the person[s] who leaked the story to the Washington Post and (2) the Post for running the story.

To be clear, I dont think the Posts story puts anyone in jeopardy. Theres not enough information in it.

But Suzdaltsev assumes the story contains enough information to enable ISIS to identify the informant (or that Russia gave ISIS such info, which almost surely didnt happen). If thats the case, then it isnt thanks ONLY to Trumps big mouth that the informant has been identified.

The hysterical anti-Trump left is going to have a field day speculating wildly about hypothetical damage to our foreign policy and national security caused by Trumps big mouth. Meanwhile, its not even clear yet that Trumps disclosure caused any appreciable damage.

Unfortunately, its not wildly speculative to suggest that Trumps big mouth is injuring, or at least demeaning, his presidency.
One thing you can say for Trump: he sure knows how to keep things at a full boil. James Comey? Who? That story is so last week. . .

Its only Tuesday, but it is fairly safe to predict that Trumps intelligence-sharing episode in the Oval Office will dominate media focus right through next Sundays officious TV news chat shows. Despite all of the breathless analysis of the last 18 hours, theres still a lot we dont know.

First, as Scott notes below, McMasters denial of the story really only extends to whether Trump shared the source of the purported intelligence about ISIS. That we know ISISand/or some other Islamic terrorist organizationis trying to develop a laptop computer bomb for use on a airplane is not a surprise revelation. (As Im planning a trip to eastern Europe next month, the prospect of flying to and from Europe without my laptop has me breaking out in hives already, so Im following this story closely.)

What might be new is Trumps supposed reference to a specific city. But even this is vague: does it mean the city where the intelligence came from, where ISIS is brewing up their explosive laptop, or the city (presumably European) where the ISIS cell is that might try to get the laptop aboard a commercial airplane? This is an important detail, which is necessary to know before reaching a more refined judgment. McMaster this morning, in response to a direct question from my old pal Debra Saunders of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, obfuscated, suggesting the city in question was any number of cities in ISIS-controlled territory. Hmmm.

It is a near certainty that we dont have a complete picture of what took place in the meeting. Did the Russians share any intelligence they have with Trump and his team? McMaster this morning talked about sharing intelligence, which everyone thinks means the ally we assume is the source of the intelligence Trump blabbed. Maybe Trump was exchanging some intelligence with Russia? (Obama did: see the dueling headlines below.) Maybe the Russians told us a few things they know? Thats the kind of thing people in the intelligence community hostile to Trump would leave out of their leak to the Post.

The refrain is being raised that allied intelligence services will be reluctant to share intelligence with the US because of Trumps loose lips. Anyone who thinks allied intelligence services havent been withholding intelligence from the U.S. for years is very naive. Foreign intelligence services share with us what they think is in their interest. (McMasters last comment this morning ended with the interesting comment that Trump doesnt actually know the source of the intelligence, which is quite plausible, if he got the information from his CIA daily briefing, which is always a summary.)

It is also interesting to speculate the effect this story could be having on our enemies, especially ISIS. (But what if the city where the laptop bomb making is taking place is Tehran?) If ISIS thinks we know the city where they are operating this effort, one can imagine that ISIS functionaries are looking at each other with a high degree of suspicion today. Sowing doubt and confusion among your enemies is one of the principal tasks of counter-intelligence.

Bottom line for this morning: It never surprises how the media is ready to jump to firm conclusions on woefully incomplete information.
DECATUR  The identities have been released of a child and two adults who died after three separate traffic crashes in a harrowing 12 hours on Macon County roads.

None of the crashes that took place between Sunday night and Monday morning were related. Police have said alcohol is suspected as a factor in one of the incidents.

Seventeen-month-old Ava M. Taliferro of Decatur suffered fatal injuries in a head-on vehicle collision on Lost Bridge Road near Western Drive. She was pronounced dead in the emergency room of St. Mary's Hospital at 1:05 a.m., according to Macon County Coroner Michael Day.

In the second unrelated accident, 60-year-old Franklin Mark Lynch Sr. was pronounced dead at 7:52 p.m. Sunday in the emergency room of Decatur Memorial Hospital. The Decatur man's vehicle struck a utility pole about 7 p.m. at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Grand Avenue, police said.

Autopsy results showed no sign of trauma or significant injury, Day said, meaning the Decatur man's death was not caused by the crash. Toxicology and other laboratory tests to determine the cause of death were pending.

In the third incident, Kenneth Ploesser, 28, of Gary, Ind., was pronounced dead at 3:35 a.m. Monday in the DMH emergency room. Day said Ploesser suffered massive injuries when he was struck by both a semitruck and a car as he walked in the roadway about 2:48 a.m on U.S. 51 just north of Hampshire Road near Maroa. Day said Ploesser had gotten out of his nearby parked vehicle for an unknown reason.

In the case of the crash that claimed Ava Taliferro's life, Decatur Police Sgt. Steve Hagemeyer said it appeared the 30-year-old driver of the car she was in was impaired by alcohol. Preliminary investigation showed that the man's eastbound vehicle crossed the center line and collided with a westbound pickup truck at 12:22 a.m. The car driver was hospitalized with injuries, and police said the pickup driver later took himself to hospital for treatment.

The crash remains under investigation by the Decatur Police Fatal Accident Investigation Team. Charges had not been filed Monday night as the investigation continued, police said.

The Macon County Sheriff's Office on Sunday evening also arrested a 25-year-old Downs man after two non-injury crashes and a police chase. The suspect, Cody Riddle, faces preliminary charges that include driving under the influence.

Police said he struck a vehicle near the intersection of MacArthur Road and Ash Avenue in Decatur, then left the scene and traveled north on U.S. 51, crashing into an SUV and minivan before continuing north. Riddle was arrested just south of the DeWitt County line.

Macon County Sheriff Thomas Schneider said the spate of accidents underscore the hazards of road travel. He said those dangers are made infinitely worse by impaired drivers, increasing numbers of which are incapacitated by drugs other than alcohol.

The sheriff said his office now has two officers who have received extra training to detect drivers who have been using drugs ranging from illegal narcotics to abused prescription pills. He said the Decatur Police Department has about four such officers and Mount Zion Police Department also has one officer.

Now if you had asked me how many drug recognition officers we have in the state of Illinois south of I-80 two or three years ago, it might have been two or three, he said. And while we've seen a bit of a decrease in the number of people drinking and driving, we've seen an increase in the amount of impaired driving by way of drugs, both prescription and opiate use.

Schneider said increased police patrols, roadside spot checks and other law enforcement efforts were working around the clock to get unsafe drivers off the road. You go out and drive impaired, we're going to put you in jail, he said.
The theme yesterday was that it is terrible that Trump might expose the foreign source of invaluable intelligence to the Russians. But the New York Times, annoyed that the Post scooped them, reports just a little while ago:

Israel Said to Be Source of Secret Intelligence Trump Gave to Russia WASHINGTON  The classified intelligence that President Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former American official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode. Israel is one of the United States most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr. Trump boasted about some of Israels most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russias close ally and Israels main threat in the Middle East.

Lets just stop right here. It should be emphasized again that yesterday the media was falling all over itself to declare how terrible it was that Trump had compromised a source. Todays media line: Oh, by the way, it was Israel.

Second, anonymous sources again? Seriously? Third, is anything in the second paragraph of this story actual news? Could damage the relationship with Israel? Well sure, but at least they could have provided an anonymous source to transform could into will. How hard can that be?

We owe it to Marc Thiessen at AEI to offer a compilation of previous media hypocrisy about outing classified intelligence from foreign sources:

Consider just a few illustrative examples: EXPOSURE OF US-ISRAELI ROLE IN STUXNET ATTACK ON IRAN. Where was the outrage when The New York Times exposed the US governments cyberattack on Irans nuclear program, including the fact that Obama personally ordered cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear program using a computer virus called Stuxnet? The Times cited as sources members of the Presidents national security team who were in the [Situation Room] and even quoted the president asking during a top secret meeting: Should we shut this thing down? Only Obamas most trusted national security advisers would have been present when he uttered those words. One of those advisors shared highly classified intelligence with the Times. The Stuxnet leak exposed intelligence sources and methods, including the top secret codename for the program (Olympic Games) and the involvement of a US ally, Israel. At one point in the Times story, a source says the Israelis were responsible for an error in the code which allowed it to replicate itself all around the world. The Times directly quotes one of the presidents briefers telling him, We think there was a modification done by the Israelis, adding that, Mr. Obama, according to officials in the room, asked a series of questions, fearful that the code could do damage outside the plant. The answers came back in hedged terms. Mr. Biden fumed. Its got to be the Israelis, he said. They went too far. Where was the concern for the exposure this intelligence or the involvement of our liaison partner? The damage this leak did  both to the operation and the trust between our two countries  is incalculable. EXPOSURE OF NSA ABILITY TO ACCESS TERRORIST COMPUTERS NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. What about The New York Times story in 2014 revealing that the National Security Agency had developed the capability to access computers that are not connected to the Internet? According to the Times, the NSA uses a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into . . . computers or in some cases a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target. The Times reported that, There is no evidence that the NSA has implanted its software or used its radio frequency technology inside the United States. And the NSA confirmed that the NSAs activities are focused and specifically deployed against  and only against  valid foreign intelligence targets. So the program posed precisely zero threat to American civil liberties. Publishing it was nothing more than engaging in espionage porn. But the Times ran it anyway. Where was the concern for national security then?

These are just Marcs first two example. He offers five more you can find at the link above.

And yet the media wonder why so many Americans hate them?

UPDATE: And of course lets not forgot this shining moment:
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said it had spent over N1.6 billion on the repairs of the vandalised pipeline between Kaduna and Kano in 2016.

The NNPC Group Managing Director, Maikanti Baru, disclosed this when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje on Tuesday in Kano.

Mr. Baru was in Kano to inaugurate loading operations at the NNPC depot following the repairs of the vandalised pipeline.

He said the company had also expended about N2 billion to provide security for the pipelines within the last one year.

He said it was unfortunate that the company had to spend the money to rectify the pipeline after the illegal activities of vandals.

These are funds that would have been invested for providing other essential services.

With the repairs of the vandalised pipeline, I am happy to tell the governor that the line is now 100 operational, he said.

He disclosed that following the repairs of the pipeline, the company had been able to transfer over 20 million litres of AGO into tanks of Kano and Kaduna refinery in addition to 40 million litres of diesel to Kano depot.

All these would not have been possible without President Muhammadu Buharis support to the NNPC.

He urged the state government to support the company by ensuring that arrested suspects were appropriately prosecuted to deter others.

We should ensure that apprehended vandals are appropriately prosecuted and kept away from larger community for good.

The governor, represented his deputy, Hafiz Abubakar, commended NNPC for repairing the facility and relaunching loading operations at the depot.

This is an important economic milestone and dividend of the change mantra because it is coming at the heels of our celebration of 50th anniversary as a state created on May 27, 1967, he said.

He assured that the state government would give NNPC the necessary support to ensure provision of adequate security to the pipeline.

(NAN)

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The Nigerian Communications Commission,NCC, on Tuesday alerted all telecommunication operators and their subscribers of the recent outbreak of a Ransomware Virus known as WannaCrypt.

NCC said the Ransomware was capable of infecting and encrypting all files on a system or any smart device until an amount is paid for a decryption key, or other means of retrieval.

According to the NCC, the situation demands that proactive measures be taken by all players in the telecommunication eco-system to forestall data loss, financial losses and network and business disruption.

The wannacry attack, which has affected more than 200,000 computers in over 200 countries, is said to be the biggest cyberattack the world has ever seen.

The virus locks people out of their computer files until they pay a ransom.

The attack is carried out using tools believed to have been stolen from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The NCC in its statement released a set of guidelines to ensure the security and integrity of the national telecommunications network.

According to the commission, the protective measures include obtaining software patch released by Microsoft in March 2017 to fix the Ransomware Virus; Planning scheduled penetration tests on the networks and systems to ensure protection and availability at all times; and not clicking pop-ups and applets on unknown websites.

Similarly, subscribers who use their smartphones as substitutes to computers for internet access are also advised to protect themselves and their devices by not opening e-mail attachments/links from unknown sources and installing effective antivirus software for their mobile devices.

The commission also advised Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to initiate regular assessment and audit of their cybersecurity readiness, adding that operators should continue to ensure that their backup/ disaster recovery strategies are in place and up to date.

The commission has further advised all operators to ensure continued deployment of effective firewalls, login passwords and antivirus management regime, it said.

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The leaders of a nationwide military mutiny in Ivory Coast have accepted a government proposal on bonus payments, two spokespersons told reporters in the city of Bouake on Tuesday.

They also said that they also agreed to return to barracks and end their revolt.

We accept the governments proposal  We are returning to barracks now, said Seydou Kone, one of the revolts leaders.

The renegade soldiers in Ivory Coast on Monday rejected a proposed deal to end their mutiny over unpaid bonuses just minutes after the defence minister announced on state-owned television that an agreement had been reached.

President Alassane Ouattaras government has been trying to restore order for four days after 8,400 mutineers took control of the second-biggest city, Bouake, and are present in cities and towns across the country.

Heavy gunfire on Monday also paralysed much of Abidjan, the commercial capital, and the western port city of San Pedro.

Defence Minister Alain-Richard Donwahi said on state television late on Monday: To end the stalemate and avoid any more bereavement of families, the army chief of staff held talks with the soldiers on Sunday and Monday. The talks have resulted in an arrangement to end the crisis.

But two spokespersons for the mutineers confirmed that the governments proposal had been rejected.

They proposed five million CFA francs (8,356.17 dollars) to be paid tomorrow (to each soldier).

We want seven million to be paid in one payment and immediately, Mr. Kone had told Reuters.

Ivory Coast, emerging from a decade of political crisis capped by a 2011 civil war as one of the worlds fastest growing economies, is the biggest producer of cocoa and London futures climbed to a five-week high on Monday.

And while Mr. Ouattara, 75, secured a second term in a landslide poll victory in 2015, he has struggled to heal deep divisions that have made the countrys own military, cobbled together from rival rebel and loyalist factions, its greatest security threat.

The government paid the mutineers, most of them former rebels who helped Mr. Ouattara to power, five million CFA francs ($8,400) each to end an earlier uprising in January.

But it has struggled to keep a promise of a further payment of seven million CFA francs after a collapse in the price of cocoa caused a revenue crunch.

(Reuters/NAN)

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The President of the Republic of Liberia, Ellen Sirleaf, has condemned the acts of violence being perpetrated by mutinous soldiers in Cote dIvoire.

Ms. Sirleaf, Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, called upon the mutineers to end the shootings and threats to civilian lives, roadblocks which obstruct the free movement of people and the conduct of normal commercial activities in cities and towns.

According to a statement dated May 15, Ms. Sirleaf, speaking on behalf of the ECOWAS, also admonished the soldiers to return to their barracks and resume negotiations for their compensation.

Similarly, the ECOWAS Chair renewed the firm commitment of all ECOWAS members to the maintenance of peace and stability in the community which are indispensable for achievement of the aspirations of the ECOWAS citizens for development.

President Sirleaf also urged the mutineers to fulfil their obligation to protect the citizens of Cote dIvoire and to refrain from any actions which could result in further deaths and injuries.

She further called upon them to maintain the peace and tranquility which Ivorians and citizens of other countries of the West Africa have enjoyed for many years and continue to work concertedly to preserve.

The country is one of the worlds fastest growing economies following a decade-long political crisis ended by a 2011 civil war. But deep divisions persist, particularly in a military assembled from former rebel and loyalist combatants.

The soldiers received 5 million CFA francs ($8,400) each in order to end an earlier revolt in January. But the government has struggled to pay remaining bonuses of 7 million CFA francs, after the collapse in world prices for cocoa, its main export, squeezed finances.

The recent uprising erupted after a delegation representing the 8,400 troops announced it had dropped the demand for further bonuses, angering others members of the group, who said they had not been consulted.

On Tuesday, Reuters news agency reported that some leaders of the nationwide military mutiny have accepted a government proposal on bonus payments and agreed to return to barracks, ending their revolt.

Neither Ivory Coasts defence minister nor government spokesperson was immediately available to confirm details of the agreement, Reuters reports, but a witness said the soldiers in Bouake, the epicentre of the uprising and Ivory Coasts second largest city, had withdrawn into their bases.

Seydou Kone, one of the revolts spokespersons, said some mutineers had received their bonuses under the agreement.

We accept the governments proposal  We are returning to barracks now, Mr. Kone said, speaking in Bouake.

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The Senate has resolved to invite the Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, for briefing, after a Senator said the eastern corridor rail line had been excluded from the federal governments proposal for loan to finance railway projects across the country.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in April sought the approval of the National Assembly for the federal government to secure loan from the China EXIM Bank for modernization of Lagos-Kano modernisation projects, Lagos-Ibadan segment $1.231 billion; Lagos-Kano railway modernisation project, Kano-Kaduna segment $1.146 billion; and coastal railway project, the Lagos-Calabar segment, N3.474 billion.

But while the request is still pending legislative approval, a senator of the Peoples Democratic Party Senator from Abia State, Eyinnaya Abaribe, raised the matter on Tuesday, praying the Senate to suspend the consideration of the loan bid in view of the exclusion of Eastern corridor line.

The Eastern section of the rail segment which has link between South-Eastern and North-Eastern segment if the rail line is completely left out, Mr. Abaribe said.

The loan being a federal government would be paid by all sections of the country; therefore, every section of the country should be taken into consideration.

For the railway project to have meaningful impact on the development of the country it should cover all parts of the country.

Exclusion of the Eastern section which links four zones of South-South, South-East, and North -Central and the North-East, and the key cities such as Port Harcourt, Enugu, Aba, Markurdi, Lafia, Gudi, Bauchi and Maiduguri is inexplicable, submitted Mr. Abaribe.

Although he included in his prayers that the consideration of the loan request be suspended pending correction, the Senate decided to delete that prayer.

It however uphold the prayer that Mr. Amaechi appear and explain reason for the exclusion of the Eastern rail corridor.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said already the leadership of the Senate had been making efforts to address the concern.

When Mr. Buhari sought the approval on April 26, he asked quick approval to enable Nigeria access the China-Africa fund package already included in 2016-2018 external borrowing plan which was forwarded to the National Assembly last August.

The Senate had rejected the borrowing plan entirely in November last year.

Mr. Buhari explained that the funds accessible under the package were limited and that applications from other African countries were treated on first-come first-serve basis.

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Tuesday, arraigned former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, in a Federal High Court, Abuja, on an eight-count charge of money laundering.

Mr. Aliyu was arraigned alongside his former Chief of Staff, Umar Nasko, while both were admitted to bail in the sum of N200 million each, with two sureties each in like sum.

The judge, Nnamdi Dimgba, ordered that the two sureties could be businessmen or public servants; and where in the public service, must not be below a director.

The sureties must also own landed property in Abuja excluding the satellite towns.

Messrs. Aliyu and Nasko are to also deposit their international passports with the court and must not travel without the permission of the court.

The judge, however, ruled that where the defendants could not perfect their bail conditions within 48 hours, they would be remanded in Kuje Prison until bail was perfected.

He adjourned the matter until July 6 and 7 to hear the preliminary objection and for trial.

The two defendants were accused of conspiring to launder ecological funds amounting to over N1 billion, released by the Federal Government to Niger government in 2014.

The offence according to the EFCC, contravened Section 18 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011 and is punishable under Section 15 of the same Act.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the offence.

Mamman Osuman, counsel to Mr. Aliyu filed a preliminary objection, challenging the hearing of the suit in Abuja, on the ground that there is a Federal High Court in Minna.

Mr. Osuman maintained that the defendants were already on trial on a six-count charge of breach of trust in Minna, and since the ingredients of both cases were the same, it was in the interest of justice to conduct both cases in Minna.

The counsel to the EFCC, Ben Ikani, however, said that the case in Minna was different from the one in Abuja.

(NAN)

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The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has created 193, 469 jobs, with 40,429 direct and 153,040 indirect jobs, within the two years of President Muhammadu Buharis administration, the minister, Babatunde Fashola, said Tuesday.

Speaking in Abuja at a town hall meeting to celebrate the mid-term of President Buharis implementation of the economy recovery and road plan, Mr. Fashola said the construction of roads, power project, housing project and macro impact on jobs was gradually increasing the purchasing power and money in the economy.

In his accounts, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, said that the ministry had been able to save N53 billion from the ship building fund and through the rebranding of NIMASA.

We believe that more fund can be gotten for the government, from the maritime sector and the president has approved a performance audit of the maritime sector.

Part of the problem of the maritime is the fact that we have had issues with insecurity on our waterways and the president has approved a new security infrastructure that will reduce piracy, robbery in that sector.

There were so many faculties of the maritime in universities when we came, we went about rebranding it and stop that contract award, that money was gotten from the ship `building fund, that fund are meant for Nigerians who built ship.

Maritime transportation are the one to access the fund to buy more vessels, we kept that money, we are saving it now, the last we had about it, we had saved N53 billion, he said.

Mr. Amaechi said the ministry would introduce the single window which is between Nigerian Customs and Nigeria Ports Authority to move goods within 48 hours.

He said the ministry has awarded three contracts which are Lagos  Ibadan rail, Kano  Kaduna rail and Port Harcourt  Calabar, which were based on the loan collected from the China EXIM bank.

The minister said that China EXIM bank has approved $1.2 billion dollars, while the Federal Government has released its own counterpart funding for Lagos  Ibadan rail, which be completed in December 2018.

Mr. Amaechi stated that work has started on Itakpe-Warri rail but the N60 billion allocated for the project was removed by the National Assembly, stating that if that was resolved, the work would be completed. (NAN)

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The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, said on Tuesday that policemen would soon be deployed to their communities of origin to enhance community policing.

The IGP told a meeting in Lokoja that the bulk of the 150,000 policemen to be recruited over the next five years would serve in their respective communities.

Mr. Idris, who was represented by Shaibu Gambo, Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Finance and Administration, said the move would take the police closer to the people.

He said that the police was faced with shortage of manpower, but promised more policemen and equipment for Kogi to secure the people against rampaging armed robbers and kidnappers.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Zone 8 Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Jibril Yakubu, and the state Commissioner of Police, Wilson Inalegwu, were at the meeting.

The state Chairman of the Police Community Relation Committee (PCRC), Mohammed Salihu, urged traditional rulers to show more interest in the security of their communities.

He said that police stations and security equipment in various communities should be safeguarded by residents to enhance community policing.

In its submission, Kogi branch of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, called on the police to curb incessant frictions between farmers and Fulani herdsmen in the state.

State secretary of the association, Suleiman Muhammed, said that three herdsmen were killed and 48 cows slaughtered in Omala Local Government Area in the past two months.

The meeting was attended by traditional rulers, Christian Association of Nigeria, Council of Ulamahu, transport unions and community leaders. (NAN)

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The Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs has concluded arrangements to terminate about six abandoned projects spread across the region with a view to enhance the development of the region.

The contractors handling the six projects have been paid about N6 billion of the N22 billion cost since the contracts were awarded, according to official data.

The projects were awarded between 2009 and 2015.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Niger Delta Minister, Uguru Usani, made this known while receiving the report on the audit and review of the East-west road and other projects of his ministry in Abuja.

Mr. Usani said that following the report from the Ministerial Technical Audit Committee on the contracts awarded from 2009  2015 in the Niger Delta, some projects have been proposed for termination.

He listed the projects to include construction of OkpuhutaMbano Junction  Orie market Lomara- Igwebulka (35km)  Abia State; Land reclamation and Erosion control project at OguduAbia Phase I, Abia State.

Others are Idoro-Eastern Itam Water Supply Scheme in Akwa Ibom; Construction of Mbak Atai-Ikot Ntu-MkpetiOkuiboku road project (13.86km) in Akwa Ibom State; Ukparam Water Supply Scheme; and Construction and Supervision of Omelema  Agada II Road, Rivers State with project length of 14.415km.

The minister said the above listed projects were proposed for termination as a result of lack of capacity to complete the work as witnessed on site.

He said, Gross lack of capacity problem, lack of seriousness on the project, lack of technical capacity to prosecute project and gross lack of competence by the contractors.

Mr. Usani said the committee juxtaposed its findings from project sites against facts retrieved from available documents domiciled in the departments that supervised the projects.

According to him, there were violation of contract award process, right from the cycle of procurement planning to contract award. He said the committee noticed inconsistencies with the provisions of vital aspects of the Procurement Act.

Prominent among other issues of violation were indiscriminate award of contract by initiating and benefiting departments without the leading and guiding role of the procurement department.

Awards never took cognizance of availability of funds and annual appropriation provisions, he said.

The minister said the structure and content of some contract agreements lack checks and balances, saying that they hardly protect the interest of the Ministry in case of disputes.

He explained that the imminent picture of abandoned and uncompleted projects was as disturbing as the retinue of projects that extremely exceeded the dates of completion.

This manifestly, emanated from inconsistency in government annual budgetary provision and lack of capacity to deliver especially where funds released do not correspond with performance.

Most contracts were awarded with specific dates of completion but were not captured in subsequent appropriations.

According to the minister, this further exacerbated contractors poor performance and inability to achieve project objectives.

Consequently, no capital project was completed within the stipulated time frame, he said.

The minister did not clarify if the benefitting contractors would be asked to refund any money.

NIGERIANS REACT

Chijoke Micheal, an Estate Manager from Abia State, said that the policy of terminating contracts not executed by contractors would speed up development in the Niger Delta region.

Those contractors who think they can eat their cake and have it should better sit up because the present administration is determined to develop the region and curb corruption.

We have been advocating for this change for a long time and I have been very vocal in calling on government to come down to our level and assist the region in development, he said.

He added that It is important for contractors to realise that it can no longer be business as usual.

It is important for everyone doing business with the ministry to realize that things must be done properly.

Emen Odok, an architect from Cross River, described the policy as a waste of money, saying that government wants to politicise it, by putting such policy in place.

What is wrong with the government calling the contractors to order? The excuse by the ministry doesnt hold water at all.

Rather than terminate a project that is 45per cent completed, why not terminate the contract and re-award the contract to another company that is most capable of completing it.

The ministry has practically abandoned the Calabar skills acquisition centre, these beautiful structures are wasting away and being destroyed by erosion.

What measures has the government put in place to address such wastage, she said.

Okon Udoh, a retired civil servant, said the ministry has so many abandoned projects spread across the region, saying that the Federal Government should address the issue, if truly government wants to develop the region.

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DECATUR  A local veterans assistance program is among the cuts that Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois announced Monday.

The organization is restructuring its services following several years of financial challenges and changing needs, it said in a news release.

Decaturs veterans assistance program is one of nine programs that will close. About 100 positions, a quarter of the organizations total workforce, will be eliminated, it said.

This has been an agonizing decision, particularly due to the impact on our clients and their families, as well as our employees whose jobs were eliminated, LCFS President and CEO Mike Bertrand said in a news release. We are refocusing our mission to what we as an agency are best at, which is serving traumatized children and their families as a child-welfare organization.

The Decatur veterans program launched in 2011. It worked together with D&O Properties One LLC toward a goal of providing housing for homeless veterans, as well as support services such as treatment of mental illness and substance abuse, and vocational training.

"The vouchers that support the rental assistance remain with the project and are not dependent on having case management services," said Jim Alpi, executive director of Decatur Housing Authority. "The housing component of the program remains unchanged."

Lucy Brownlee, special projects manager for D&O Properties, said it's sad to watch yet another important service shuttered due to lack of funds. D&O will do its best to carry on, but a critical factor will be missing.

The housing project to serve homeless veterans, which includes the North Street Commons complex that opened in 2013, is almost at capacity, with 15 of 16 units occupied. The Decatur Housing Authority provides rent assistance, and D&O holds monthly meetings with the veterans.

It's just they're losing the case management, the key piece, the third leg of the stool as we call it, to making it a successful project, Brownlee said. They support our people so they can be stabilized and improve their lives. It's a very sad thing, that's the way I see it. The state government is watching as the most vital of services are being shut down as a motivation to make us all cow under whatever budget they present. We're just at the mercy of the way the wind blows.

This isn't the end of veterans' services, she said. The Salvation Army and the Coalition for Veterans Concerns, as well as the Veterans Assistance Commission, are still operating.

All is not lost, but it sure is a dark day, Brownlee said.

The Macon County Veterans Assistance Commission can only do so much, said David Freyling.

There are a lot of homeless veterans in town, he said. Either we or somebody else will have to step up and help. We're kind of strapped as to what we can do.

Timing to wind down each LCFS program depends on several factors, but all are expected to wrap up by the end of June.

In addition to veterans assistance, programs offered at the Decatur office include foster care; individual, marital and family counseling; and family life education.
Several top African public officials, scores of businesses and influential business executives on Tuesday called for accelerated action to bridge the gap in the Africas infrastructure deficit as part of critical measures required to guarantee improved economic growth for the continent.

At the second day of Africas premier infrastructure summit in Abuja, Nigerias Acting President Yemi Osinbajo implored private sector players to help relieve Africa from its infrastructure crisis, which experts have long identified as one of the major stumbling blocks to the continents economic growth.

There is no question at all that all of what we required, all of what is needed will not be provided just by government, Mr. Osinbajo said at the two-day event held to mark the 10th anniversary of Africa Finance Corporation. As a matter of fact, without the private sector, it is completely impossible for government to even finance current infrastructure needs.

Investment analysts on the continent hold that its inhabitants could witness spontaneous economic success if anything can be done to address an estimated $90 billion in infrastructure deficit.

Mr. Osinbajo submitted that the role of private sector in helping Africa address its critical needs surpasses the capacity of government institutions.

There is no question at all that government cannot simply compare with the power of the private sector and with the resources that the private sector can pull together, Mr. Osinbajo said while delivering his keynote speech themed: Infrastructure Revolution.

The event drew many top public and private sector officials from different places across Africa, including former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who praised the exploits of AFC over the past 10 years while expressing optimism about its future.

The AFC is an international, for profit investment grade multilateral finance institution established to bridge Africas significant infrastructure gap.

The AFC, which was established in 2007 by Mr. Obasanjos administration, has raised $3.5 billion as at the end of last year, while declaring a profit of $150 million to shareholders, its President and CEO, Andrew Alli, said in a statement.

Its debut $750 million Eurobond issue was oversubscribed six times. And it currently maintains presence in 13 African countries including Nigeria (host country), Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Chad.

The others are: Cape Verde, Uganda, Rwanda, Gabon and Djibouti.

Mr. Obasanjo expressed confidence in the ability of AFC executives to position the investment firm at the forefront of African infrastructure rebirth.

If all things go well, I see an AFC that would have triple or quadruple its investment in infrastructure in Africa, Mr. Obasanjo said during a panel discussion. I see an AFC that would become a household name everywhere in Africa. I see an AFC that would be competing, or if you like complementing, the World Banks equivalent which is IFC if not overtaken it.

The former president urged the AFC to sustain its current exploits in order not to derail like many other African initiatives.

In Africa, we start things right but we dont continue to do them right, he said.

Mr. Obasanjo was joined in his call by Charles Soludo, a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who was also the first chairman of AFC, and Tony Elumelu, a former CEO of United Bank for Africa and chairman of Heirs Holdings.

The duo participated in a panel discussion with Mr. Obasanjo, during which they expressed optimism about growth in African infrastructure.

Several business executives at the event, tagged AFC Live 2017, included Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, President of Nigerian Stock Exchange; Samuel Dossou-Aworet, Founder and Chairman of Petrolin Group; Kunle Elebute, Country Managing Partner at KPMG and Jay Ireland, President and CEO, General Electric Africa.

Government officials present at the event included Raji Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing; Godwin Emefiele, Governor, CBN; and Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance.

All the participants identified infrastructure deficit as a major hindrance to Africas economic development and called for public-private partnership to bridge the gap.

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Although Nigeria is currently recovering some looted funds, it cannot rely on the loot to fund the budget, an official has said.

Speaking at an Abuja Town Hall meeting, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said the federal government was working to block wastage, increase GDP and embark on single window project execution.

On budget funding, the minister said that Nigeria would rather go on short term borrowing than rely on recovered loot to fund the annual budget.

We cannot afford to rely on recovered loots to fund our budget, we have to go on short term borrowing, she said. What borrowing does for us is that it gives us flexibility because if we recover a lot from looted funds, we can always pay back.

It takes a long time to recover this looted money. Take a look at the Abacha loot, it has been with the Swiss government for 20 years and yet we still dont have it back. Even on the funds recovered from government officials, we keep going to court to get them back.

The National Assembly recently passed the 2017 Appropriations Bill, raising the budget from N7.28 trillion earlier proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year, to N7.44 trillion.

On the fight against corruption, Mrs. Adeosun said apart from the Treasury Single Account, TSA, the whistle blowing policy is a vital tool, which has made every Nigerian a detective.

We have over 2,500 tips from various quarters in the country through the whistle blowing policy, not just the big ones but also the small money. Someone diverting the petty cash for the university, we are able to get in there and stop it. The fight against corruption is for everybody.

Mrs. Adeosun said some of the whistle blowers were not seeking any financial reward but only exposing corruption out of patriotism.

She also said that the new Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit was making tremendous efforts in tackling issues of ghost workers and dead pensioners.

The Initiative focuses mainly on our payroll, making sure that everybody who are getting paid are legitimate staff workers and is been paid the right amount. Through this initiative, every week we are finding people who should not be on the payroll and we are removing them.

We are going to continue with this process until we are sure that 99.9 per cent of our payroll is accurate. The era of one person collecting 20 salaries is over. When we remove all these ghost workers, it will now create more jobs, Mrs. Adeosun said.

The minister had in a recent Facebook live session disclosed that about 53,000 ghost workers had been removed from the Federal Government payroll through The Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit.

Mrs. Adeosun also said the Nigerian economy is gradually coming out of its worst recession in years.

Nigeria is coming out of recession; we are beginning to see the signs and we will come out to become stronger, the News Agency of Nigeria quotes her as saying.

Mrs. Adeosun was among nine ministers that participated in the town hall meeting held on Tuesday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja. The town hall meeting is a midterm review aimed at assessing the performance of various ministries in the country in the two years of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Those in attendance include Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh; Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola; Budget and National Planning Minister, Udoma Udoma; and Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed.

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The police command in Borno on Tuesday confirmed the killing of five persons in a suicide bomb attack in Konduga Local Government Area of the state.

The spokesman of the command, Victor Isuku, made the confirmation in a statement in Maiduguri.

Information received from Konduga has it that on Monday at about 2130 hrs, three Female suicide bombers detonated explosives strapped on their bodies at Shuwa settlement of Mandarari Ward Konduga , killing themselves and two others.

While six persons sustained injuries, normalcy has been restored in the area, Mr. Isuku said

The command had on Saturday confirmed a twin suicide attack that rocked the premises of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID).

According to Mr. Isuku, three suicide bombers hurriedly detonated IEDs strapped to their bodies, killing themselves and a university security personnel.

The latest suicide attack is the second within days, and is coming barely a week after a Boko Haram kingpin said in a new video that his group would step up attacks using suicide bombers.

The Boko Haram commander is said to be one of those recently released in a swap deal with the federal government, in exchange for 82 Chibok school girls.

The Nigerian military dismissed the video as propaganda.

(NAN)

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Combating illegal mining activities across Nigeria is a tough and complicated issue that requires painstaking and long-time measures to be successful, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, said Tuesday.

There are illegal activities involving mining without licence, but the reality is that its often more complicated, Mr. Fayemi said.

The minister spoke during a working lunch organised by the Africa Finance Corporation as part of its premier economic summit which opened in Abuja on Monday and closed Tuesday night.

Mr. Fayemi said Nigerian government was aware of illegal mining activities across the country, especially those involving Chinese.

Were prosecuting a case of suspected illegal mining involving the Chinese, Mr. Fayemi said in response to a PREMIUM TIMES question what the administration has been doing to combat the menace.

Illegal mining has become a potent threat to Nigerias mining sector in recent years. Apart from the untold financial loss it constitutes, experts also warned about its negative effect on the environment.

In 2012, Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, said Chinese and Indian miners were conniving with locals to plunder Nigerias natural resources.

But Mr. Fayemi said the government had launched a crackdown on the illegal miners.

Were prosecuting a case involving the Chinese and suspected illegal mining, the minister said.

He, however, noted that the Chinese participating in illegal activities in Nigerias mining sector do so for their personal gain and absolved their government of any culpability.

Many of them are not representing their government, theyre prospecting for whatever they can find for their personal gains, he said.

He also acknowledged that there are law-abiding Chinese in the mining industry.

But some Chinese are also working in with local investors and theyre working with government agencies to do legal mining activities, he said.

The minister said a task force established to combat illegal mining had commenced work across the country.

More importantly, we also know that some people dont know that we have mine surveillance task force, which comprised of the police, NSCDC and the State Security Service, after about forty years.

There havent been mining police in the country for about four decades and we just established the task force this year. And theyre working out of our offices.

Combating illegal mining is a tough one that we have to address, he said.

He urged Nigerians and foreign investors with interest in mining to tap into several financing schemes put in place by the Buhari administration to encourage participation and boost investors confidence

There are export enhancement schemes in the EXIM Bank.

Theres a $150 million we just got from the World Bank that potential investors could tap into.

The N30 billion mining intervention fund that government just put together can also be accessed, he said.

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The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, has given a stern warning to army officials to stay off politics and politically related activities.

Mr. Buratai gave the order on Tuesday via a statement issued by the Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, a brigadier general.

This is to inform the public that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Nigerian Army, has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. On the basis of that, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts.

Although Mr. Usman did not disclose the political reasons, military sources had told PREMIUM TIMES that the Army hierarchy was disturbed by rumours of a coup being planned by junior officers.

A top military official told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Buratai, a lieutenant general, had even raised the issue with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and promised to nip it in the bud.

The concern may have informed Mr. Buratais decision to reshuffle the postings of top military generals last week.

The rumours worsened following President Muhammadu Buharis recent sickness that saw him travelling to London for further treatment, weeks after he spent over 50 days in London for medical reasons. Like in his previous trip, the president wrote the National Assembly transferring powers to his deputy, Mr. Osinbajo.

On Tuesday, the army chief warned all officers and soldiers interested in politics to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith.

Any officer or soldier of Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conducts such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame, the army spokesperson said.

Nigeria has witnessed 18 years of uninterrupted democracy after the last military government relinquished power in 1999. The country in 2015 also witnessed its first ever opposition victory which saw the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party losing presidential and parliamentary elections to the incumbent All Progressives Congress.

Mr. Usman on Tuesday reiterated that the Nigerian Army will remain apolitical and respect the Nigerian constitution at all times.

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The State Security Services, SSS, has been asked to tender explanation over the recent lopsided appointments into the organisation.

According to The Nation newspaper, the Federal Character Commission, FCC, has given the SSS a three-month ultimatum to explain the alleged lopsidedness in the appointment or face appropriate sanctions.

PREMIUM TIMES had on April 28 exclusively reported the shocking lopsidedness in the composition of the new officers recently absorbed into the agency.

The agency, also called DSS, had commissioned 479 cadet officers after their passing-out parade in Lagos on March 5, after a nine-month training programme under the agencys Basic Course 29/2016/17, which encompassed academic activities, insurgency/counter insurgency, intelligence operations and gathering, firearms drills and physical training exercises.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: SSS in recruitment scandal  Katsina 51, Akwa Ibom 5; Kano 25, Lagos 7  SEE FULL LIST

But PREMIUM TIMES investigations revealed wide disparity in the numbers of slots allocated to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, indicating that the federal character principle may have been ignored in the recruitment of the officers.

Our findings revealed that the SSS recruited 51 persons from Katsina State alone whereas all the six states in the south-south got a combined 42 candidates. Also, all the five states in the south-east got less than 50 states.

The action is believed to have unduly favoured northern states, contrary to section 14 (3) of the 1999 constitution as amended.

The report sparked outrage across the land, with many calling for thorough investigations into the alleged lopsidedness.

But reacting to the report, FCC chairman, Shettima Abba, pleaded for time before the commission would be able to make a categorical statement, adding that the SSS Director General, Lawal Daura, is out of the country on assignment.

Mr. Abba pledged that investigation would be carried out to determine if the agency had breached any extant law relating to appointments in line with the rules of the FCC.

In the Federal Character Commission, we are looking at the total number of indigenes of each state in a particular organisation, the FCC boss said.

Also Read: Presidency speaks on recruitment scandal in SSS

With the DSS, until we look at the total number on the nominal roll and compare it with the recruitment recently made, we cannot categorically say anything yet.

The FCC has given the DSS three months to respond. If they dont respond, whatever sanction that is being applied shall be taken. No answer has been given by the DSS because the DG is not in the country.

According to the FCC chairman, similar lopsided recruitment has been made in the past, between 2014 and 2016 which people complained about.

He, however, added that the commission has decided to look at the total number from each state and this will determine its action.

Although I have not seen the nominal roll I believe this one might be a corrective measure, he said.

We have already written to the DSS to supply us with the details of the recruitment and the details of their nominal roll including those who applied and those shortlisted so that we can confirm if the recruitment is lopsided or not. If we discover that it is lopsided, we will advise them appropriately.

Also read: Recruitment scandal: Activists tackle SSS, demand probe

Commenting further, he said, Certain states are seriously over employed, if you look at the recent ones, if they were under represented in the previous recruitment before this one, then it is a corrective measure.

For now it is not yet time for us to conclude on anything. They have to provide us with details of their manpower across the states.

The advertisement the DSS did was internal on their website. That was the reason we wrote to them to tell us the processes they used, we had earlier sent them our own processes of recruitment before and after they recruited. They are aware of FCC procedures and guidelines of advertisements, bringing out a long list and a short list on how these things are being done.

Check our infograph on the lopsided appointment by the SSS

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Death toll in the attack at Epogi community in the Mokwa Local Government Area of Niger State, has risen to 27, the Niger State Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday.

The director-general of the agency, Ibrahim Inga, told reporters in Minna that 21 people were killed during the attack, while three bodies were recovered from a river.

Mr. Inga said three other victims died at the Federal Medical Centre, Bida, bringing the total number of deaths to 27.

The attack occurred on Sunday when gunmen suspected to be herdsmen invaded the community.

Mr. Inga said the gunmen stormed the community at about 6 a.m. when Muslims were observing their morning prayers in a mosque and killed 21 on the spot.

He said there was an argument between members of the community and a herdsman, Yakubu Yuguda, who came to settle on a portion of land in the community.

Mr. Inga said in the ensuing argument, a boy was killed and the matter was reported to the police, leading to the arrest of Mr. Yuguda, who was later released.

He said after the incident, the community enjoyed relative peace until May 14, when the village was attacked.

He said that assessment had been carried out by SEMA to provide relief materials to victims.

Mr. Inga called on members of the community to return to their homes as security operatives had been deployed to the area.

PREMIUM TIMES confirmed that residents of the community were yet to return to their homes three days after the attack.

Survivors took refuge at a nearby village, Kpata Katcha.

The attackers were reported to have swooped on the villagers while they were praying in a mosque, killing everyone, including the imam.

An official of the state government told PREMIUM TIMES that apart from those in the Mosque, the attackers also killed more persons, especially women, in their houses.

Some of the villagers told PREMIUM TIMES that the attackers took away their cellphones.

In fact, we have called some of the lines and the attackers picked the call and told us that they will still come back and finish us, that is why we have not gone back, one of them said.

The spokesperson of the police in the state, Bala Elkana, said the attack was unexpected as the issue surrounding the killing of a boy had earlier been resolved.

Mr. Elkana said the police had been mobilised to the area to keep peace.

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Health workers in Australia have warned of a public health emergency after footage emerged of young people in Northern Territory siphoning fuel from airplanes for sniffing.

The video showed children as young as 10 breaking into the remote Elcho Island Airport and climbing onto the wings of planes to siphon the fuel, known as avgas, which is toxic and extremely flammable.

According to the media report, one Australian health organisation estimates about 100 youngsters from nearby indigenous communities have been abusing the fuel.

No fewer than 10 people from the north-east Arnhem Land region have been hospitalised in Darwin, the Northern Territory capital.

Our kids are ending up in hospital by getting infected by chemicals, which is bad for them, John Gurrumgurrum Burarrwanga, a local Aboriginal elder, told newsmen.

Petrol sniffing has been a common occurrence in remote communities in Australia, but sniffing aviation fuel is a somewhat new phenomenon.

Report says it is considered even more dangerous than petrol sniffing because avgas contains lead, which can badly damage the brain and nervous system.

The Miwatj health chief, Lucas de Toca, said a number of kids have recorded high blood-lead levels, which can cause long-term cognitive and behavioural difficulties.

Sniffing can be fatal, its a public health emergency, he said.

The state government is providing money for a guard dog and security officer to patrol the airport overnight for the next three months.

The government is working with health providers and community leaders to address the complex underlying causes of sniffing.

We are supporting families with intervention and education services, de Toca said.

(dpa/NAN)

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The Nigerian government has again amended its charge against a suspended Supreme Court Justice, Sylvester Ngwuta, who was accused of fraud.

Mr. Ngwuta is facing trial at an Abuja Division of the Federal High Court for alleged fraud and abuse of office.

The charge against him had earlier been amended by the prosecution, before a further amendment was effected on Tuesday.

After the fresh charge now comprising 12-counts was read, two witnesses presented by the prosecution recounted the experiences shared by security operatives who conducted a search on Mr. Ngwutas house in October 2016.

Mr. Ngwuta is among seven judges whose homes were raided by the operatives of the State security Service, SSS, last October, over suspicions of fraud.

He was later arraigned after huge sums of local and foreign currencies were found in his residence.

One of the witnesses, Tanimola Alao, an operative of the SSS, said they had found parts of the recovered money in Mr. Ngwutas wardrobe, adding that both local and foreign currencies packed in bags were also brought before the court as evidense.

The case has been adjourned till May 17 for continuation of trial.

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A Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed June 19 for further adoption of oral evidences in a suit against the Nigerian Custom Service over assault on a journalist, Otunba Olomofe.



The trial judge, Abdulazeez Anka, fixed the date after a cross examination of the applicant by the respondent.



The Lagos branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, had filed the suit on behalf of the Badagry-based journalist, seeking enforcement of his fundamental rights to life, freedom of expression and the press.



Joined as respondents in the suit are the then Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Diko, the Seme Area Controller of Customs, Muhammed Ndalati, and a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, Emmanuel Nkemdirim.



Others include Ibrahim Turaki, an Assistant Comptroller of Customs at Seme; Sam Madubueke alias big Sam of Ibiye; Suleiman Momoh alias Basket, as well as two men simply called Elijah and Shehu.



At the last adjourned date on April 25, the applicant (Olomofe) had began oral evidence and had recounted before the court how he was allegedly assaulted by some men at the premises of the NCS at Seme.



He had informed the court that he was tortured and brutalised and eventually dumped in a pit.



When the case was called on Tuesday, Mr. Olomofe was led in cross examination by the respondents counsel O. Adaoibi and C.C Ifediora.



On the question whether he believed that the NCS Seme was harbouring smugglers, Mr. Olomofe replied Yes.



He said that the Seme NCS had done everything to shield the sixth to eight respondents and their gang from justice, adding that they were all paid hands of the Seme customs command who had curiously continued to enjoy their protection.



When asked further to identify the spot and in whose presence the assault took place, Mr. Olomofe said:

I was attacked initially on the threshold of the office of fourth respondent (Turaki) in the presence of the Ndalati, Nkemdirim, and Turaki, (second to fourth respondents).



He said he was then physically carried to a refuse pit near the Seme Customs warehouse by the sixth to eight respondents, adding that the gory incident was still fresh in his memory.



After cross examination, Justice Anka fixed June 19, for adoption of further oral evidences.



At the last adjourned date, Mr. Olomofe had recounted his ordeal at the NCS Seme.



On that fateful day, I received a call from Ibrahim Nuhu Turaki who is an Assistant Comptroller in charge of Import at the Seme area command of the NCS;



A colleague Mr Mc Dominic Nkempyie, who works with the Tide Newspaper, had earlier sent a questionnaire to the Command.



The questionnaire requested for comment on the smuggling of light arms and ammunitions, trafficking of persons, importation of prohibited poultry and dairy products, which are all under the prohibition list of the country.



I went in the company of Nkempyie and we arrived there at about 5pm and reported to the customs area Public relations officer, who took us to Turakis office.



On our way to his (Turaki) office, I observed the presence of Momoh, Madubueke, Elijah and Shehu; I was ushered into Turakis office by the PRO, and Turaki insisted that the PRO should stay and be a part of the meeting.



He also sent for the Deputy Comptroller (Nkemdirim), the PRO Ernest Olota and then asked Madubueke, to come into his office and be a part of the meeting.



In response to the questionnaire, Turaki and Nkemdirim explained to us that these questionnaires were not meant for a question and answer segment, adding that as journalists, we could get to the root of investigations and gather our reports.



They therefore said that they could not answer the questions.



After the meeting, we made to leave but then, Ndalati (Seme area controller) came to the threshold of Turakis office and said to Turaki and Nkemdirim both of you have saved this journalist from my firing squad today, otherwise, there would have been ambulances to convey casualties from here.



I immediately said I was sorry and that I meant no harm but only bent on promoting good relationship with the NCS, and then I respectfully opted to leave.



Before I could move out, I was pounced upon by some ferocious men led by Momoh, Shehu and Elijah who were notorious for their border activities; and I heard them say You will die here today, so that journalists will learn to leave border alone.



I was beaten to stupor with one of eyes almost blind with blood, and then dumped in a pit; and from the pit, I heard Ndalati telling the others that they had beaten me enough, adding that it will now serve as a warning to other journalists.



Following concerns and insistence of some passersby who identified me as a well-known journalist, as well as attentions drawn to me in the pit, I was then taken to the Customs Mess Clinic.



There at the clinic, Turaki came and apologised to me adding that I was not the target but that they had wanted to maim Mc Dominic Nkempyie.



I was then taken to another hospital in Badagry and on my way from the hospital, I stopped over at the police area K command to make a statement. Eventually, I was taken to Mecure diagnostic centre at Oshodi for several diagnostic tests.



According to Mr. Olomofe, he still suffers trauma in his left eyes as a result of the assault meted on him.



He, therefore, urged the court to allow justice prevail.



In his suit, the applicant is claiming the sum of N500 million as damages against the NCS, for the assault he allegedly suffered at Seme border post.



Mr. Olomofe is also asking the court to declare that the respondents infringed on his right to life as guaranteed by Section 33 (1) of the 1999 Constitution.



He also wants the court to declare that the assault done to him in the course of discharging his professional duties and obligations, constituted an infringement on his rights to freedom of expression and the press.

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DECATUR  High school seniors who went to Johns Hill Magnet School took a trip down memory lane on Tuesday.

I haven't been inside Johns Hill in years, said Aleeya Reed, a senior at Eisenhower High School and summa cum laude speaker for her class. Some things are different but some aren't.

The seniors, wearing their caps and gowns, walked through the hallways on all three floors to the cheers and applause of their younger counterparts. The event was the brainchild of MacArthur High School senior Seidy Molina, who rounded up her former classmates through a group chat.

She knew her MacArthur classmates, of course, and several of the Eisenhower students, but a couple of students attend Mount Zion High School. With everyone working together, the word got to all of them.

We're all really going our separate ways (after graduation), said Molina, who is headed to Maryville University in St. Louis to study business administration. A lot of us are going out of state for college and we all started here as a family and now we're on our way to success. It just felt really good to come back.

The seniors stopped often to hug their former teachers and posed for a group picture in the school library, doing their best to make 17 with their hands to stand for Class of 2017. After the photo, the students spent a while chatting and sharing future plans.

I kind of want them to realize that they can accomplish a lot and get to where we're at, Molina said. A lot of the kids I saw were like, 'I want to do that,' and it kind of motivates them. Then they start asking, 'What do you have around your neck?' and we explain the honors. And I also want them to know it's like a family. We all got kind of separated, but we came back together because Johns Hill is definitely a family.

Reed, who attended Johns Hill from kindergarten through eighth grade, is going to the University of Illinois-Urbana to double major in vocal performance and psychology.

It makes me feel really nostalgic, and it's kind of bittersweet, Reed said. We're all graduating.

Wow, I thought nursing was going to be hard until I heard that, said Matti Taylor, laughing, after she heard Reed's plans for a double major. Taylor is a senior at MacArthur High School and has been pre-admitted into the nursing program at Western Illinois University. I'm pretty excited.

Johns Hill Principal Rob Prange thanked the seniors for taking time to do the walk through the school and show the younger students their honors sashes and medals, giving them something to shoot for.

Reed said that was one of the reasons she wanted to visit.

I want them to see that they can accomplish something, too, she said.
A former Chief Accountant of Vanguard Newspaper, Bhadmus Abiodun, was on Tuesday sentenced to 14-years in prison by Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of an Ikeja High Court for forgery and stealing N3.1million.

The money belongs to the media house.

The defendant is hereby sentenced to seven years in prison on count one.

He is sentenced to seven years in prison each for counts two to eight.

The prison terms for counts two to eight are to run concurrently, the judge said.

Mr. Abiodun, a middle-age man and a resident of No. 5, Tijani Ashogbon St., Bariga, Lagos was convicted of an eight-count charge of conspiracy.

Two of the charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, are stealing and forgery.

Mr. Abiodun was initially arraigned alongside Samuel Ogbole, the Vanguard Media Representative for Onitsha.

Mr. Ogbole, however, absconded when bail was granted to the duo by the court after their arraignment and still remains at large.

According to the EFCC prosecutor, Abba Mohammed, Mr. Abiodun committed the offences alongside Mr. Ogbole between January 9, 2006 and January 4, 2008.

The convict and his accomplice on various dates illegally converted the sum of N400,000, N2.5million and N120,000 belonging to the complainant.

On January 16, 2007, the duo conspired to and forged a Wema Bank deposit slip with No. 7125699 purporting to be the value of N225, 165.

On May 30, 2007, the men conspired to and forge a Wema Bank deposit slip with No. 3270712 purporting to be the value of N256, 850.

The offences violated Sections 390 (7), 467 (2)(i) and 516 of the Criminal Code Law of Lagos State 2003, Mohammed said.

(NAN)

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The presidency on Tuesday provided details of the governments four social investments programmes.

Laolu Akande, the spokesperson to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said over N41 billion have so far been spent on the four programmes.

N-Power, which is the job programme for unemployed graduates has received N26.418 billion, being the single largest spending item out of the four social investment programmes under the 2016 Appropriation, Mr. Akande said.

Read Mr. Akandes full statement below.

No less than 25 million meals have been served under the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, SIP, of the Buhari administration, even as the Presidency is now implementing a huge ramp up of the Social Investment Programmes as directed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo

At the end of last month, the Buhari administration has spent a total N41,714,793,293 across all the 36 States and FCT implementing different aspects of the four Social Investment Programmes.

But a far more significant and urgent ramp-up of the Social Investment spending is now on the way as directed by Mr. Osinbajo.

A breakdown of the total number of meals served show that 1,051,619 million primary school pupils are now being fed across the seven states of Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, and Zamfara state. No less than 11,847 cooks have also been employed. Altogether 8,587 schools are involved in those states.

Indeed possibly, later in the week, more meals will be served as Delta and Abia states are now ready to be paid under the federal government school feeding scheme.

Specifically, Delta State is expected to receive soon, a sum of N63,366,100 to start the feeding of 90,523 primary school pupils. In the same vein, Abia State is also expected to receive N42, 921, 200.

Besides, Kaduna State has now been repaid N3.4 billion for its past expenses implementing the food programme ahead of FGs roll-out.

In a breakdown of the over N41 billion so far spent on the SIPs, N-Power, which is the job programme for unemployed graduates has received N26.418 billion, being the single largest spending item out of the four social investment programmes under the 2016 Appropriation.

Beside N-Power, actual released funding for the other 3 programmes, apart from other expenses, so far, are as follows:

* Home Grown School Feeding (HGSFP)  N7.092 billion

* Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT)  N800 million

* Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme (GEEP)  N7.301 billion

The Acting President who had received the SIP Update Report recently noted the progress made under each of the programmes, but gave express and urgent directives that the programmes be promptly expanded in coverage so that more Nigerians can start to benefit.

A comprehensive SIP implementation analysis shows that every local government area, every state and the FCT have beneficiaries in one of the four programmes, while some states are already benefiting in more than one.

For instance, under the N-Power job scheme for unemployed graduates now running in 36 States and FCT, 162,024 unemployed graduates have been effectively enrolled and validated-meaning have been cleared to be receiving the N30,000 monthly stipends, out of the 200,000 originally engaged late last year.

A vast majority of the validated beneficiaries have been receiving stipends as at 31st March, 2017. Indeed, an additional number has just been added to the list of those receiving their pay in the last several weeks.

However, effort is being made to validate others and ensure that the 200,000 places provided for in the first batch of the N-Power programme are all effectively validated as provided for under the first phase of the programme.

A date for the engagement of more N-power beneficiaries and the reopening of the portal to receive more applications would be announced soon.

Under the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) scheme, 26,942 beneficiaries are now being funded as at last month with the monthly N5,000 stipend in 9 States and 84 Local Government Areas. The States are Borno, Cross River, Niger, Kwara, Ekiti, Kogi, Oyo, Osun and Bauchi.

Based on the recent directive of the Acting President, the number is expected to add up to about 400,000 beneficiaries (and in more states) in a couple of months.

Also, the Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP) designed for the empowerment of market women, traders, artisans and co. has also recorded good progress with the disbursement of 57,234 interest free loans, except a one-time low administrative fee.

GEEP which is designed for well over one million Nigerians has now registered 3,162,451 people who have showed interest and are members of 26, 924 registered cooperatives for purposes of the loans. So far, women participation has been remarkable with 56 per cent of loans so far disbursed to women beneficiaries in 28 States and FCT.

Directives have also been given to scale up the loan disbursement to 150,000 by end of next month.

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday explained why most Nigerian ambassador-designates were yet to assume duties in their new posts.

The ministry said all necessary preliminary procedures for their deployment were yet to be completed.

The ministry however said the diplomats would be posted to the countrys various missions abroad by July.

Sola Enikanolaiye, the ministrys Permanent Secretary, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in New York that the ministry had started receiving agreemo.

Agreemo is a memorandum from one country to another agreeing to the appointment of an ambassador or envoy.

There are three groups of ambassadors. The first group, to which Professor (Tijjani) Bande belongs, has been announced and professor Bande has resumed here in New York.

Ambassador Audu Kadiri in Geneva has also resumed. We expect that Ambassador Bankole Adeoye going to Addis Ababa should resume in the next couple of days. Thats the very first group.

The second group of ambassadors, which was drawn largely from the career category, has also been deployed.

Weve started to receive agreemo, which is consent of the receiving states from some of them. And we expect that in the next couple of weeks, they should also assume duties.

What were waiting for is the deployment of the non-career; that has not been concluded; its ongoing. We expect that should be completed also in the next couple of weeks.

So that, minus or plus, in the next two months, most of our ambassadors should have assumed (duty) in their various posts abroad.

The permanent secretary said the financial situation of the missions had been resolved, adding that more funds from the government was being disbursed.

The state of the Nigerian missions abroad has been a major concern to government, particularly in the area of funding.

But I can announce that the situation is poised to improve because additional funding has been provided by government and are currently being disbursed.

We believe that upon receipt of those funds, they would be able to at least come out of the woods.

But we need to look into a more sustainable manner of funding Nigerian missions so that they would not go back into the era of huge indebtedness from which they are now trying to come out at this time.

The Federal Government had recalled all the ambassadors appointed by the previous administration in 2015 and now the countrys foreign missions are run by Charge dAffaires or Counsel-Generals.

(NAN)

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Officials of the State Security Service on Tuesday failed to produce former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, in court, forcing his trial to be adjourned till Wednesday.

Mr. Dasuki is facing trial on a 19-count charge of fraud brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. He is accused alongside a former director of finance at the office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu; and a former executive director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, Aminu Baba-Kusa, for alleged diversion of N13.6 billion.

Their trial at a Federal Capital Territory High Court was scheduled to continue on Wednesday but became stalled following the development.

After waiting a while for Mr. Dasuki to arrive, the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, prayed the court to stand down for an hour to allow him contact the office of the SSS and confirm why the first defendant is not in court.

The counsel representing the second defendant, Akin Olujimi, however prayed the court to adjourn till Wednesday to allow them, the lawyers, attend to other matters since the court had originally fixed the case for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mr. Dasukis lawyer did not oppose the application for adjournment.

The presiding judge, Hussein Baba-Yusuf, then adjourned the case till Wednesday.

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Residents of Etogi village in Gbara ward of Mokwa Local Government Area in Niger State are yet to return to their homes three days after gunmen attacked the village Mosque killing 20 persons.

The attackers, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, attacked the village in the early hours of Sunday.

Survivors of the attack have taken refuge at a nearby village, Kpata Katcha.

The attackers were reported to have swooped on the villagers while they were praying in a mosque, killing everyone, including the imam.

An official of the state government told PREMIUM TIMES that apart from those in the Mosque, the attackers also killed more persons, especially women, in their houses.

From all indications, the attackers knew the victims very well because after killing those inside the Mosque, they went to some Houses of well to do women, killed and robbed them, he said.

The official, who declined to be named because he was not permitted to speak to the press on the matter, also said the attackers vandalised a phone charging shop where most of the villagers left their phones to charge overnight.

Some of the villagers, who also asked not to be named for fear of further attacks, told PREMIUM TIMES that the attackers took away their cellphones.

In fact, we have called some of the lines and the attackers picked the calk and told us that they will still come back and finish us, that is why we have not gone back, one of them said.

The official who spoke to us said the attack may have been a reprisal attack because the villagers have a history of altercation with herdsmen.

We understand that the villagers imposed some kind of land use act on the herders some time ago, which led to some misunderstanding, he said.

Other accounts said a Fulani youth was killed after the earlier altercation and Sundays attack may be as a result of that killing.

The spokesperson of the Police in the state, Bala Elkana, a DSP, who confirmed the incident on Monday, said the attack was unexpected as the issue surrounding the killing of the herdsman had earlier been resolved.

Mr. Elkana said the police had been mobilised to the area to keep peace.

Efforts to reach Mr. Elkanah on Monday and Tuesday were unsuccessful. He did not answer repeated calls to his phone.

He also told Channels Television that three suspects had been arrested in connection with the attack.

Law will takes its course

Governor Abubakar Bello has said that the law will take its course over the attack.

Speaking through his spokesperson, Jibrin Ndace, on Tuesday, Mr. Bello said he had always asked citizens of the state to avoid taking the law into their hands.

Mr. Ndace said Mr. Bello, who is currently on a tour of local gvernments in the state always ask the people of the state to monitor activities around them and report any suspicious activity to relevant agencies early.

He also said the deputy governor, Ahmed Ketso, who is from the affected area, has led a delegation from the state government to the village.

Mr. Ndace also said the government had already made an undisclosed monetary support to the affected villages.

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The Taraba Police Command, on Tuesday confirmed the death of three persons in fresh herdsmen and farmers conflict in Bali Local Government Area.

The commands spokesman, David Misal, told journalists in Jalingo that police had deployed additional personnel to Gazabu, Kungana, Tukun Ruwa, Utsua Daa and Kpenkpen villages, where the crisis occurred.

Yes we received reports that since on Sunday, there has being series of attacks in the remote communities in Bali local government area of the state, but the command is on top of the situation.

Due to the remoteness of the affected areas, we can confirm three deaths for now, but we will get back to you as soon as we get more updates, he said.

Zaki David-Gbaa, the chairman, Council of Tiv Traditional Rulers Forum in Taraba, said 11 farmers had died since the crisis started.

According to him, scores of people injured in the five villages were receiving treatment at the Bali General Hospital.

The local chief said 1,765 people displaced by the crisis were taking refuge in three centres in Bali.

On his part, Lamido Bakundi, Misa Gidado, in whose domain the crisis broke out, told journalists that a series of meetings were on to quickly end the crisis.

Mr. Gidado appealed to the state government to deploy more security operatives to the area to restore peace.

(NAN)

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Two policemen were killed by gunmen on Tuesday morning on Magongo-Okene road in Kogi.

The gunmen also made away with the AK47 rifles of the policemen who were on duty during the attack.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Wilson Inalegwu, confirmed the killing.

Mr. Inalegwu, who described the killing as sad, said the fleeing gunmen would be tracked down and prosecuted.

The administrator of Ogori-Mangogo Local Government Council, in whose domain the incident took place, Moses Akande, condemned the killing and described it as unfortunate.

He hoped that the police would arrest the killers and bring them to justice. (NAN)

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The Federal University Gusau in Zamfara State has suspended 15 students and expelled two others over examination misconduct, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The Vice-Chancellor, Magaji Garbage, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, while inspecting ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination [UTME] in Gusau on Tuesday.

He said that University Governing Board took the measure to serve as deterrent to other students who might indulge in examination malpractice.

Out of the 17 students that were caught in examination misconduct, only two students did not appear at the Senate meeting for interrogation; and so, they were expelled.

The remaining 15 students were rusticated, which means they will miss one academic session, and will resume after serving their punishment.

This will serve as a lesson to other students to behave themselves, study well and be of good behaviour, he said.

The vice chancellor, who serves as JAMB Chief External Examiner for the 2017 UTME in the state, said the examination was going on peacefully and smoothly in all the centres.

(NAN)

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The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has declared that after two years in office, the All Progressives Congress-led federal government has not executed any meaningful project in the state.

Flagging off the construction of the Elele-Alimini internal roads in Emohua Local Government Area on Tuesday, Mr. Wike said that the APC made promises and abandoned the state.

The flag of the construction of the Elele-Alimini internal roads is part of the second-year anniversary of Mr. Wike as governor.

APC has deceived Nigerians. I challenge the APC to show one project that they have executed in Rivers State in the last two years.

They have made promises, but they have made no efforts to fulfil the promises.

Enough is enough for the lying and deception of the APC. You can see the difference between light and darkness, he said.

The governor explained that construction of the Elele-Alimini internal roads is in fulfilment of his promise to the people of the area.

Those people in APC stayed in government for eight years, but never fulfilled the promises they made to the people of Elele-Alimini. Today, we are here to fulfil our promises to the people of the area.

Because the people of Elele-Alimini did not disappoint me when I came to them for votes, I will not disappoint them.

He said that the people of Rivers State have no business being in the APC as the party has shown by its actions that it will not execute projects in the state.

He commended a leader of the APC in Elele-Alimini, Chibuike Dike, for leading his supporters back to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

In his remarks, a former President-General of Ogbakor Ikwerre, Augustine Ahiazu, said the Ikwerre Ethnic Nationality is proud of the achievements of Mr. Wike.

The Rivers State Works Commissioner, Iheanyichuwu Bathuel, said that 20 roads, spanning 30 kilometres will be reconstructed in Elele-Alimini to assist them move their farm produce to markets.

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The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace Limited, Allen Onyema, has described Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State as the best governor in the south-east zone.

Mr. Onyema also said that Mr. Ugwuanyi is a visionary and forward-thinking governor who has assembled technocrats to think about what to do for his people.

The Air Peace chief made the assertion at the Government House, Enugu when he paid a courtesy visit to the governor to deliberate on the economic development of the south-east region.

He said that it is the companys vision to use the Enugu International Airport as the economic hub of Nigeria in particular and Africa in general, to enable the nation play its leading role in Africa, saying that the decision to establish business in Enugu was based on its assessment of the governors leadership qualities and positive impacts in governance.

We have in Governor Ugwuanyi the best governor in the South East. He is very visionary, he has brought many technocrats together to think about what he will do for his people. So, we want to align ourselves with his dreams and that is why we decided to choose Enugu Airport among all the Airports in Nigeria for our business investment, Mr. Onyema said.

Responding, Mr. Ugwuanyi expressed delight at the decision of the Air Peace Limited to invest in Enugu State, saying that it is in line with his administrations investment drive.

The governor also appreciated the benefits derivable from the business initiatives of the company, which will create employment for about four thousand people in the state and beyond.

We are excited with the good news from Air Peace Limited. The government and people of Enugu State will certainly do the needful to support Air Peace, said Mr. Ugwuanyi.

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DECATUR  The temporary coffee shop run by Millikin University students last month could soon find a more permanent home downtown.

Representatives of Millikin and Hickory Point Bank are planning a press conference for 10 a.m. Tuesday for an announcement related to the future of the coffee shop, which operated from April 3 to April 7 in the bank building at 225 N. Water St.

The test run was spearheaded by four Millikin University business students. Millikins Center for Entrepreneurship covered the startup cost, director Julie Shields said last month, with the idea that the students would repay the money from the proceeds.

The shop offered brewed and pour-over coffee, which could include flavor shots; iced tea; muffins; and bottled water.
The Chief Medical Director of Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Wale Lasisi, on Monday told the coroner inquest on the death of Isiaka Adeleke, that one of the drugs administered on the late first civilian governor of Osun State, was Analgin, a drug banned by NAFDAC several years ago.

Giving testimony at the hearing in Osogbo, Professor Lasisi also said other drugs discovered to have been given to the late senator on the morning of his death included four ampules of Diazeparm of 10mg each, one Pentazozim and one ampule of Gentamicin and two ampules of Hydrocortisone.

According to him, his enquiries revealed that the person who administered the drugs was neither a doctor nor a nurse.

He said before the autopsy was conducted, the pathologists called a close aide of the late senator to give a history of his medical condition prior to his death.

I asked clearly the medical status of the person that administered the injections. I asked, Is the person a doctor? but he said no. Is he a nurse?, he said he didnt know but the person was a face they were used to, Mr. Lasisi said.



Analgin has been outlawed since the days of Dora Akunyili in NAFDAC. So, I dont know where they got it from. They were given in excess dosage.

The Osun Deputy Governor, Titi Laoye-Tomori, also testified before the coroner, stating how she observed Mr. Adeleke reluctantly ate rice at a burial ceremony he attended a day before his death.

Meanwhile, the coroner has summoned the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on the late senator and the police to appear before it on Wednesday.

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The Civil Society Network Against Corruption, CSNAC, a coalition of over 150 anti-corruption organization, has urged the Federal Character Commission, FCC, to urgently investigate the State Security Service over the recent officers recruitment scandal that rocked the Service.

In a petition to the Commission signed by Olanrewaju Suraju, CSNACs chairman, the group said from its analysis of the list of recruited officers, it is unclear what specific rationale or criteria informed the final selection of the new officers.

It has been revealed by media reports, particularly the report of Premium Times Online Newspaper dated the 28th day of April, 2017, that Nigerias internal secret service, State Security Service (SSS) was involved in a recruitment scandal following the discovery of a lopsidedness fraught with favouritism and nepotism in the composition of the new officers recently absorbed into the agency.

The list containing the names of the newly commissioned cadet officers revealed that the federal character principle was not adhered to in the recruitment of the said officers as some were unduly favoured over others based on extraneous considerations.

From our analysis of the said list of recruited officers, it is unclear what specific rationale or criteria informed the final selection of the new officers owing to the inequitable selection outside the provisions of the federal character principles.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how a recent recruitment by the SSS exposed a shocking lopsidedness in the composition of the new officers absorbed into the agency.

The Presidency had defended the agencys action, stating that fewer southerners were deliberately employed to correct previous inequity against the northern part of the country.

The revelation spurred outrage across the country, with civil society organisations demanding an immediate investigation by the government.

While highlighting the constitutional requirements of due compliance with the Federal Character principle in recruitment into the federal civil service and agencies as enshrined in the provisions of Section 4(3) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), CSNAC said there were clear violations of the principle.

Clearly, in violation of the afore-stated principle, the following are the figures relating to the composition of the new officers: North west  165; North east  100; North central  66 South west  57; South east  45; South South  42

It is on the basis of the above discovery that we hereby demand an urgent investigation of the SSS in respect of the above anomaly, CSNAC said.

The said investigation is necessary and expedient in view of the publics current aloofness to the credibility of the current administrations fight against corruption; this is also with a view to reiterate the governments commitment to ensure equity, equality, justice and good governance in the country.

We thus urge the Commission to facilitate the speedy redress of this matter and possibly bringing to account of anyone indicted in this requested investigation.

The FCC on Monday gave an indication it had started the investigation.

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The Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has promoted the immediate Jaaran of Ife, Adekola Adeyeye, as the Third- in-Command.

Moses Olafare, the Director, Media and Public Affairs, Oonis Palace, said Mr. Adeyeye is now the third on the order of the hierarchy of Ife traditional council, Ooni-in-Council.

Mr. Olafare in a statement issued on Tuesday in Ile-Ife, said that the new position was the reward for loyalty, commitment to service and dedication to Ife Kingdom.

According to Mr. Olafare, the monarch described Mr. Adeyeye as patriotic Ife indigene and great loyalist of the throne of Oonirisa, which he had served meritoriously for 30 years in various capacities.

He said that the new Lowa of Ife started his full service at the palace in 1987 when he was seconded to the palace as an Emese (Traditional emissary) of Ooni.

Mr. Olafare said that Mr. Adeyeye who succeeded the immediate past Lowa, Joseph Ijaodola, who died on January 27 rose through the ranks of Emese to become Sarun Oodua (most senior Emese) until 2013.

The then late Ooni Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, made him a kingmaker as the Aguro of Ife, the position from which he was promoted to Jaaran two years ago.

Mr. Olafare said that the new post was in line with the tradition of Ile-Ife as established by Oduduwa.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Ife Traditional Council is headed by the Ooni with 16 members of two groups namely: right side (Apa Otun) and left side (Apa Osi).

The right side known as Agba Ife is known as elders of Ife and comprises eight members, led by Obalufe of Iremo quartets.

NAN also reports that the left side is known as Modewa led by Lowa, next to Obalufe on the order of hierarchy of the Ooni-in- council.

(NAN)

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In relations with Russia, NATO should stand together to show the unity, unanimity and solidarity of all its member states, President Andrzej Duda told a press conference after a meeting with visiting Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis.

President Duda said that his conversation with Raimonds Vejonis had focused on both bilateral relations and Polish-Latvian ties within NATO and the EU. "I and Mr President have discussed the issue of fulfilling the decisions made at NATO's last summit in Warsaw. Now we are close to a Brussels summit where we will again meet with the leaders of other NATO member states", Andrzej Duda said. The talks also centred on a newly-established multinational battalion group in Latvia that comprises a company of Polish troops equipped with tanks, President Duda reported. This is a reference to the two countries' cooperation a 100 years ago, when both states were regaining their independence, Duda noted. The two presidents also discussed safety of citizens in Poland and Latvia, including military cooperation and relations with Russia. "Here our positions (...) are fully aligned as we believe that NATO should stand together in relations with Russia and should first of all ensure the security of the Alliance's eastern flank and show unity, unanimity and solidarity of all its member states and their determination in keeping NATO territory absolutely indivisible", said President Duda. "We also share the view that NATO should fight terrorism and should stand firm also in this area", Andrzej Duda added. The Latvian president and his wife Iveta Vejone came on an official visit to Poland on Monday. In a statement issued after a meeting in Warsaw, Presidents of Poland Andrzej Duda and Latvia Raimonds Vejonis stressed that the two countries shared a view on EU questions, including Brexit. "It is necessary to seek agreement with Great Britain in order to make it possible for Brexit to follow a possibly soft course for our societies, and (...) make this relation (in the future) profitable both for the European Union and Great Britain. This is a condition of good cooperation in the future as far as the rights of Polish and Lativan citizens living in Britain are concerned", reads the document. President Duda expressed gratitude to his Latvian partner for his declaration to take part in a Three Seas summit in Poland. "For me this is a European initiative, for me this is an initiative within the "EU which aims at cohesion in the Union as well as balancing development between various EU parts, so that these differences are erased", he said. The Three Seas project is a joint initiative by the Presidents of Poland and Croatia consisting in the enhancement of the Central and Eastern European countries' cooperation in the areas of energy, transport, digitisation and economy. The Polish president also expressed thanks to the Latvian head of state for his support of Poland's UN Security Council non-permanent member candidacy in 2018 and 2019. "I explained to President Vejonis that Poland wanted to join the Security Council not only to be its member but also to be a representative of our region of Europe", President Duda stressed, declaring that Poland would be carefully listening to all proposals and initiatives forwarded by its regional partners, including Latvia. (PAP)


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Udaipur. For promoting Rajasthani culture Rajasthan fashion weeks proceedings has bugan today. Titles were given to various women, the function started at Ashoka Palace. The week long fashion week jointly promoted by Archana Group and NICC,Dr. Sweety Chhabra, NICC's Director, said that on Tuesday initial selection initiated ,in which popular categories winners were finalized by judges as per decisions Ms. Bindu sharma to be crown as May queen, in final day ceremony, the other ladies to be crown in grand finale are as under Mrs Sunita Singhvi's as Summer Cool Outfit, Sushma Kumavat, as bold & beautiful Dr. Urmila Jain madam traditional, Shalini Bhatnagar, as bani thani Dr. Mamta Dhupia as Chokho Mukhda & Shraddha Gattani's as Ladoo. The judges of competitions were Dr. Arvinder Singh, Dr. Seema Singh, Neha Paliwal and Preeti RavalSweety said that in this fashion week every item related to the Rajasthani tradition will be presented by participants. King-Empress King's worn clothes will be the main attraction. Apart from this, women will be able to present all these items during festivities while organizing other types of jewelry, Rajasthani painting, artist pants, dresses worn in Rajwadsas Rajasthani make-up, Rajasthani musical instruments, Rajasthani dance etc.She told that this festive is a medium for reviving the Rajasthan's tradition, jewelry.In this event, an effort will be made to bring together all the prominent designers and Jewelry artisans from Rajasthan to display the modern and ethnic combination. The purpose of this initiative is to create employment, success and a better quality of life for the artisan of the state.Saurabh Paliwal of Archana Group told that in addition to Udaipur in this Week, participants from Jaipur, Banswara, Bhilwara, Chitto r and other places will be exhibiting items related to Rajasthan. 25 participants from this event will be rewarded for participating in the event.
While domestic-violence offenses in New Jersey decreased by 1 percent in 2015, domestic-violence-related homicides increased by 16 percent, according to the latest numbers from State Police.

The State Polices 2015 Domestic Violence Report released this week shows 49 domestic-violence homicides, the highest number documented since 2008, according to the New Jersey Coalition to End Domestic Violence.

An increase of 16 (percent) means we still have some work to do, said Donna DAndrea, a victim legal advocate for the Atlantic County Womens Center.

DAndrea said that although overall offenses seemed to go down slightly, it doesnt necessarily mean domestic violence has decreased.

It just means that the number of reported domestic (offenses) is going down, she said. We still have to be diligent in our work in educating individuals about domestic violence and the potential risk, homicide being what we dont want to see.

Of the 49 homicides in 2015, 36 resulted in arrests. Atlantic County accounted for two of the domestic-violence homicides in 2015. Cumberland County had three and Ocean County had one. Cape May County had no domestic-violence homicides that year.

Statewide, there were 61,659 domestic-violence offenses reported in 2015.

Atlantic County had 4,671 total domestic violence offenses, a five percent decrease from 2014. In Atlantic City, which has the countys highest occurrence of domestic violence, saw a drop in offenses from 1,012 to 834. Egg Harbor Township also saw a drop from 700 to 664.

Cape May County had an 11 percent increase in total domestic-violence offenses to 1,293. Middle Township saw a huge jump in offenses, from 297 to 390. North Wildwood also saw a significant increase, from 13 to 43.

Cumberland County had a 15 percent decrease to 2,589, and Ocean County had a 10 percent increase to 4,340.

Statewide, the most common offense related to domestic violence in 2015 was assault at 26,413 incidents, followed by harassment at 26,338 incidents.

Females are, at 74 percent, overwhelmingly the victims of domestic-violence cases.

The NJCEDV said there may be much more to the story, as the report does not include lives lost in murder-suicides, child fatalities and the death of bystanders or first responders.

Nor does the (Uniform Crime Report) take into account the suicides committed by victims or perpetrators as a result of domestic violence. When we consider all of these deaths, we know the number of individuals, families and communities impacted by domestic-violence fatalities in New Jersey is much greater, the NJCEDV wrote in reaction to the latest statistics.
OCEAN CITY  Herb Bubba Mac Birch, a staple of South Jerseys local music scene, died Tuesday morning surrounded by his family. He was 73.

Birch opened Bubba Macs Shack on Bay Avenue in Somers Point in 2000 and made it a mecca for live music not only with his Bubba Macs Blues Band, but with major blues performers such as Mavis Staples and Levon Helm, said Phyllis London, who worked with Birch for many years.

Originally from Maryland, Birch, along with his wife, Kerry Treasure  one of the founders of CharterTech High School for the Performing Arts  and another partner started a company in 1976 to deliver health care management services to customers across the country. They sold that business in 2000, made Ocean City their home base and proceeded to make a big mark on the region, London said.

Birch would frequently host open mics for friends at his Wesley Avenue home in Ocean City. London said that Treasure asked Lew London, a bandmate from Bubba Macs Blues Band, to put together an open mic for friends later this season as Bubba would have planned for the summer.

Michael Einwechter, a partner of Ventnor Coffee, said he has known Birch since he was a teenager because his mother and Birch were very good friends.

He supported us at Ventnor Coffee, said Einwechter, who added Birch played at all the Ventnor Coffee benefit concerts. He was a great man. This a great loss to the music community, Ocean City and all the surrounding towns.

Birch was a businessman, and he would offer tips on how the Ventnor Coffee business could be improved, Einwechter said.

Birch was scheduled to perform at Amazing Ventnors Sunset Celebration on June 16. Now, it will be a tribute to Bubba Mac, Einwechter said.

This would be his stop when he was in town, Einwechter said.

Jerry Klause was the lead vocalist and percussionist of a band called Out of the Cupboard, who played every Thursday night as part of the regular lineup at the Bubba Mac Shack.

He was a great guy. Its sad that he passed. He certainly got everything out of life, said Klause, who was the former owner of Scullville recording studios in Egg Harbor Township.

The Bubba Mac Blues Band played on Jan. 20 at the Lizzie Rose Music Room in Tuckerton and were scheduled to return on Aug. 19.

Lou Reichert, the Lizzie Rose Music Rooms music coordinator, remembers stopping by Bubba Mac Shack occasionally on a Friday or Saturday night when he lived in Northfield.

I remember it was a nice show, said Reichert about the Bubba Mac performance in January. He was trying to do something on a regular basis. Its sad news. We were both looking forward to it (the upcoming gig).

Somers Point City Council President Sean McGuigan is also the chairman of the organizing committee for the annual Somers Point Good Old Days Festival.

Birch performed at the festival at least three times.

One of the highlights and something that was really special was when Birch sat in with Grammy Award-winning zydeco musician Terrance Simien.

I knew him from around town. I often went to the restaurant. Anytime the Bubba Mac Band was playing, I tried to get there, McGuigan said. He really was a Somers Point icon and a music great in the area.

Facebook tributes to Birch are many, including one from Sarah Nicole Anderson who thanked Bubba for bringing wonderful music into our lives. Don Hurley called the news of his passing heartbreaking and called him one of a kind.

London said Birch had health issues for the past several years. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children Mac, Charlie, Melanie and Jake. Treasure said a celebration of his life would be announced in the next several weeks.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
MAYS LANDING  An Atlantic City man was arrested Monday and charged with murder in the Mothers Day fatal shooting of another resort man, reported to have ties to the 800 Blok gang, homicide investigators said.

Lorin Wright, 31, of Ohio Avenue, made his first appearance by video before Municipal Court Judge Howard E. Freed. He is accused of killing Keith Cundiff Jr., 32, of North Virginia Avenue, and his first-degree murder charge carries a possible sentence of 30 years to life. Wright also is charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Each charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in state prison, Freed said.

According to Press archives, Cundiff was taken into custody in 2013 as part of a major gang operation targeting 800 Blok members. In 2013, 14 alleged 800 Blok members were apprehended as part of Operation Blok Buster during raids throughout the city.

The raids were conducted seven weeks after a separate federal investigation charged 34 people with being connected to Dirty Bloks alleged heroin-trafficking ring.

An overnight investigation Sunday into Monday resulted in the arrest of Wright, who was found inside a home on the 1000 block of Brights Court by city police and the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office Major Crimes Squad after they executed a search warrant, according to a statement by Prosecutor Damon Tyner.

Police found Cundiff after they responded to a 911 report about a shooting at 2:49 p.m. Sunday on the 800 block of North Maryland Avenue, the Prosecutors Office said. AtlantiCare paramedics and Atlantic City EMS personnel also responded.

The judge Monday asked Wright if he was a citizen of this country and whether he was a veteran. Wright answered yes and no, respectively.

Wright was represented in his first court appearance by Raymond Lee from the state Office of the Public Defender. He is being held in the Atlantic County jail in Mays Landing. Lee argued the state should not have filed a motion to detain Wright without all the statements and reports for discovery ready for the defense at Wrights first court appearance.

Atlantic County Assistant Prosecutor Rick McKelvey said investigators had worked through the night and the charge was made at 7:30 a.m. Monday. He said the materials would be sent to the defense either on Monday or early Tuesday morning.

Wright did not have more than one-word answers to the judges questions, did not ask any questions and made no statements. He is tentatively scheduled for a detention hearing at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in front of Superior Court Judge John Rauh in Mays Landing.

Cundiffs killing was the third in a little more than a week in Atlantic Citys Marina District.

David Blackwell Jr., 31, of Hammonton, was found fatally shot at 10:15 p.m. May 5 in the 800 block of North Virginia Avenue, police said.

Anthony A. Jordan, 28, of Atlantic City, was found shot to death at 5:30 a.m. May 11 in a parked car in the 1000 block of Brigantine Boulevard, police said.

No arrests have been made in those slayings.

Marty Small, 2nd Ward city councilman and mayoral candidate, will hold a town hall meeting for Marina District residents at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Brigantine Homes Community Center, 1062 Brigantine Blvd., Atlantic City.

Tyner, police Chief Henry White and representatives of the FBI and State Police will be in attendance.
Dont provoke N. Korea

Trump has doubts about global warming, and it seems like he doesnt believe in nuclear war either. In his presidency, hes always saying, Who knew.

He should realize that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is a hot-head like he is and stop provoking him with his tweets.

Juanita Hooper

Atlantic City

Trump foes deplorable

Regarding the April 27 letter, Trump backers deplorable:

The writer should please try to educate herself, starting with reading the book, Clinton Cash.

Such snowflakes cant even let conservative speakers talk at Berkeley. Photos show protesters taping their hands for fist fights. I prefer the cinder block head the writer mentions. Much better than what she has for brains.

Martin Kozak

Cape May Court House

Ivanka let her father keep sodium in lunches

Ive been hoping that at least one member of the Trump family, Ivanka Trump, could be relied upon. She said she cared about families, children and women. She said she would be a voice for babies and kids when she decided to work in the new administration.

I wonder where she is now that President Trump is rolling back laws for school lunches, as school meals will again keep at least the present amount of sodium included instead of being rolled back as many people had hoped for. Her father is rolling back measures that might make youth just a bit less obese. Ivanka Trump is not here for women and children, and not so far for the roll she said shed play.

Linda S. Kulp

Margate City

Bomb the USS Pueblo

On Jan. 3, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a lightly armed spy ship, was captured off the coast of North Korea. The seizure, although in international waters, went unpunished, and to this day it is used as the Pueblo NK War Museum, an intended symbol of humiliation toward the U.S.

It is time to show North Korea that the United States has the capability and the will to destroy this symbol. A smart bomb or two dropped from 30,000 feet in the dead of night would open the eyes of North Koreans to the power they face.

It would be a symbolic show of U.S. resolve to end the belligerence of their dictator.

Robert J. Caroccio Sr.

Ocean City

Wall costly, shameful

To be effective, a wall across the U.S. 1,989-mile southern border with Mexico would require surveillance against inevitable scaling or tunneling. The infamous Berlin wall, a mere 91 miles, required 500 watch towers, countless troops and a death strip mined and protected by dogs.

Few Americans would accept the cost or the shame.

Michael Baldacchini

Cape May
Dear Mary: Thank you for the "should I pay the minister" advice. I am the wife of a minister, and I am amazed at what people think regarding this topic. I get pretty annoyed when people don't pay considering he spends his entire Saturday afternoon and evening (his day off) away from his family performing a wedding. His qualifications allow him to perform weddings, but it is not part of his job. He could say "no, sorry," which I encourage because people are so cheap and my time with him is so valuable. Honestly, I have to tell myself not to ask because otherwise I get so angry. You were his instrument today. Bless you and your advice through the years -- it has helped me tremendously!

-- Anonymous

Dear Mary: Thank you so much for telling your readers to ask for separate checks when or before they order. I've been a server nearly two decades, and I can say without a doubt that this makes the server's job so much easier, and it allows them to give all their tables the best service because they don't have to scramble and ignore others in a last-minute crisis when one table wants to get out the door but needs the bill split 10 ways with three different payment methods.

-- Nicole

Dear Mary: I have read about fluoride -- what it is and how it came to be used in municipal water supply -- and I avoid tap water whenever possible. I invested in a Berkey water filter with the added fluoride filters. It has paid for itself because non- fluoridated water is so much better for my health and I no longer pay for questionable bottled water.

-- Donna

Dear Mary: I, too, think the bottled water industry has taken advantage of folks. As a retired pediatric dentist, I am concerned about the widespread use of bottled water (which often contains negligible fluoride, depending on its source or processing) and folks avoiding tap water containing fluoride.

You recommended use of a reverse-osmosis filter. If the system uses reverse osmosis, fluoride will be removed from the water. Many of these products do not use reverse osmosis, and the child will receive fluoride. The parents should check the system they install to make sure it is not reverse osmosis. -- Daniel W. Shaw, DMD, formerly clinical associate professor of pediatric dentistry at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry
Boeing will assemble the new T-X Air Force training jet at its north St. Louis County campus  supporting 1,800 jobs locally  if it beats out rivals for the lucrative defense contract, company officials said Monday.

Industry analysts had mostly expected St. Louis to get T-X work if Boeing wins the contract, but Mondays announcement  complete with members of the areas Congressional delegation, local politicians and regional business leaders  made it official.

Its not if its awarded, its when its awarded, Rep Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, told a cheering crowd of about 200 Boeing employees and area officials gathered in a hangar displaying two of the companys T-X models.

A decision from the Defense Department is expected by the end of the year. Boeing has teamed up with Saab, the Swedish maker of the Gripen fighter, in its bid for the trainer work.

It faces competition from a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Korean Aerospace Industries and Italian aircraft maker Leonardo and its U.S. subsidiary, DRS Technologies. Lockheed would make its trainer in Greenville, S.C., while Leonardo would manufacture its version in Tuskegee, Ala., according to industry publication Defense News.

If Boeing and Saab are successful, the contract to replace the Air Forces decades-old T-38 trainer could be worth up to $16 billion to the company. The Defense Department is expected to buy up to 350 aircraft over the 15-year life of the contract, with the first planes delivered in 2024.

Leanne Caret, CEO of Boeings Defense Space and Security division, said the decision to assemble in St. Louis was purposeful. She commended the team that was able to take the new aircraft from design to first flight test in under three years, calling the speed unprecedented in this industry.

A Boeing T-X made its first test flight here in December, and a second went airborne last month. Boeing unveiled its T-X trainer in September during a similar ceremony.

If you see these beautiful aircraft flying around town, this is the team that got us to the flight ramp and into the air for testing, said Shelley Lavender, Boeings senior St. Louis executive and president of Boeing Military Aircraft.

While the contract would support 1,800 direct and indirect jobs, a Boeing spokeswoman said the company didnt have a breakdown of how many of those jobs would be actual company employees and how many would be from suppliers and secondary economic activity caused by employees buying houses and other goods. Neither would Boeing say how much T-X work would be done in St. Louis versus Saab facilities.

Boeing spokeswoman Deborah VanNierop said it was possible some of the 1,800 could be new Boeing jobs. Boeing employs about 14,000 people in the St. Louis area, the company said.

But many of those 1,800 jobs may well turn out to be new, said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank on security issues. He noted the St. Louis plants big product, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, has recently won several orders from and is expected to have enough orders to last until the middle of next decade. Plus, most of the work will be done by Boeing rather than its partners, he said.

The White House in September approved the $7 billion sale of F/A-18s to Kuwait and F-15 Strike Eagles to Qatar, and in November, Canada said it would buy 18 Super Hornets.

I think that a lot of these jobs could actually be new rather than workers shifting from the Super Hornet or the Eagle over to the trainer, Thompson said.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., nodded to the new momentum behind the F/A-18 production line in St. Louis, declaring she and her colleagues in Congress were pleased to ink the deal for next years budget that included money for 14 more U.S. Super Hornets.

Pointing to the Republican and Democratic politicians in attendance, McCaskill, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said partisan divisions dissolve when it comes to supporting the thousands of jobs at Boeings St. Louis operations.

We are united behind you, she told the workers gathered Monday.

There is no other plant and workforce that could build the new T-X trainer as well as Boeing in St. Louis, said Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis. The history of military aviation literally runs through this plant, he said.

Republican Gov. Eric Greitens said his team will work side by side, every step of the way, to do everything it can to ensure Boeing wins the T-X contract. But he indicated he believes Boeing already has an edge because of how quickly it has built and tested a prototype.

I think weve got a leg up because of the stage were at, Greitens said.

Thompson, at the Lexington Institute, thinks economic considerations may well play into this award.

What you see in the T-X program is the first big military award of the (President Donald) Trump era, where economic goals and military goals might coincide, Thompson said. This is an opportunity to boost manufacturing jobs in a part of the country that has lost for decades. I just think it is St. Louissturn.

Any new jobs Boeing adds could position it to tap state subsidies. Almost three years ago, Missouri dangled $229 million in subsidies over 18 years if Boeing grows its workforce here by at least 2,000 people. But Boeing would collect up to $146 million in state incentives over 10 years even if it just maintains employment at 14,500 jobs. It would have to return some money if employment drops below 11,000.

Boeing has announced several moves to add jobs here in recent years. Those include 700 new jobs expected by 2021 to build wing and tail parts for the new 777X airliner. Other Boeing jobs moving here include service work for the F-22 fighter, information technology and research jobs. In November, it said it would move 500 professional service jobs here from California, including engineering and finance positions.

However, those moves dont appear to have changed the total job count much. Actually, at the time of the 777X announcement, Boeing said it employed close to 15,000 people, a higher number than the 14,000 it referenced Monday.
Two years after the release of the lavish Tauri88 smartphone, Tonino Lamborghini has launched an astonishing new model dedicated to the most sophisticated and uncompromising connoisseurs of technology and luxury design. ALPHA-ONE targets successful individuals who seek a luxury product with an authentic character that can satisfy day-to-day business and personal requirements.

ALPHA-ONE represents a new species of mobile phones that combines technology with pure luxury. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and perfectly symbolizes the character of the targeted consumer: a real leader and trendsetter who has the right driving force to discover what is cool and fashionable in the world. This name perfectly matches with the product characteristic and with the brand values: legendary, timeless, innovative, daring and cutting edge.

The event was hosted by Korasia Inc., commercial partner of DASAN Networks which has worldwide exclusive business rights of Tonino Lamborghini IoT products. Special guests of the night: Ferruccio Lamborghini, Vice President of the Italian Tonino Lamborghini brand, Nam Min-Woo, CEO of Korean IT DASAN Networks, Kim Tae-Chul, CEO of Korasia Inc., and Victor Lukanin, Executive Vice President of Euroset.

"Technology is no longer the only key to success for the smartphone market. In our collaboration with Tonino Lamborghini, we offer high-demanding individuals a product that encompasses the advanced Korea ICT technology with Italian brand philosophy, design and flair," said Mr. Nam Min-Woo, CEO of DASAN Networks.

Korasia Inc. signed a strategic distribution agreement with EUROSET. Korasia will sell ALPHA-ONE in 300 EUROSET brick-and-mortar stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg and on EUROSET's official e-shop.

In the U.K., the ALPHA-ONE will be available exclusively at London Department Store Harrods.

After Russia, ALPHA-ONE will be released in South Korea, UAE, China and the U.K.; available in retail stores as well as on the official e-shop (www.lamborghinimobile.com).

ALPHA-ONE inherits the Lamborghini family's Italian mechanical design and expresses equilibrium of strength and luxury.

Similar to the usage of premium quality material in supercar, the key feature of ALPHA-ONE is its usage of liquid metal. More durable than titanium, liquid metal is a metal alloy which protects the device from shock and everyday wear. It ages well and looks more polished with time.

The Italian leather back cover is skillfully handmade by Italian craftsman and offers a stylish and comfortable grip. The famous "Raging Bull" metal logo on the back with golden stitching completes the striking design.

ALPHA-ONE delivers a premium smartphone experience with combination of luxurious design and cutting-edge technology.

ALPHA-ONE's dual speaker uses Dolby Audio System that creates an inside the action feeling with the high quality 3D surround sound. A front-facing 8MP camera and the main 20MP camera provide excellent photo quality with optical and digital image stabilization. The fingerprint sensor at the back improves both user experience and security.

ALPHA-ONE is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory for top quality performance. It is a Dual-SIM smartphone and lets the user use two different numbers in a single phone and comes with Android Nougat (7.0) operating system. The ALPHA-ONE's maximum battery capacity is 3250 mAh, providing up to 314 hours on standby and up to 13 hours of talk time. It supports Quick Charge with USB Type-C. ALPHA-ONE features a WQHD (1440x2560) AMOLED 5.5" Display.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/510739/ALPHA_ONE.jpg

SOURCE Dasan Networks
AUSTIN, Texas, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Volusion, a leading all-in-one website builder for retailers and brands, today unveiled Volusion 2, a new and significantly upgraded version of its software platform, underscoring the company's refocus on the needs of small to medium sized businesses by helping them start selling on their websites faster. As part of this launch, Volusion also unveiled a new website, complete with an updated logo, branding and an improved UI, designed to engage with more founders in the SMB target market. These upgrades were driven by Volusion founder and CEO, Kevin Sproles, who recently returned to the helm of the company and helped it reach a new milestone, more than $25 billion in total transactions.

"Small and medium businesses deserve the same robust website features and level of service as the established enterprise," said Kevin Sproles, Volusion CEO. "Since returning as CEO, my number one goal has been to get Volusion refocused to help these entrepreneurs succeed."

Volusion 2, unveiled today, and currently in use with select Volusion clients in beta, represents a significant upgrade to the company's core technology, which provides faster development cycles for Volusion clients (e.g.. adding new features and responding to demands at record speed), far surpassing what is currently available in the market. At launch, Volusion 2 integrates with Shippo, Paypal, Stripe and soon Zapier, Yopto, Square, Xero, and Amazon. Key features include:

Quick & intuitive store setup to start selling immediately : Storefront editing is displayed in real time and visible across multiple view-ports for easy changes to any font, text, or product  no code required. Accelerated onboarding with PayPal and Stripe enables merchants to take payment before buyers have completed their site registration processes.

: Storefront editing is displayed in real time and visible across multiple view-ports for easy changes to any font, text, or product  no code required. Accelerated onboarding with PayPal and Stripe enables merchants to take payment before buyers have completed their site registration processes. Secure checkout, free SSL, and full-site HTTPS : Merchants can now host checkout on their own secure domain/URL so shoppers never leave their site. Included free on all Volusion plans, while other market players provide this feature for an added fee per month. And with full-site HTTPS merchants get an SEO boost from Google, resulting in more traffic and sales.

: Merchants can now host checkout on their own secure domain/URL so shoppers never leave their site. Included free on all Volusion plans, while other market players provide this feature for an added fee per month. And with full-site HTTPS merchants get an SEO boost from Google, resulting in more traffic and sales. Mobile-optimized all around: With more shoppers on mobile than desktop, Volusion 2 is optimized for mobile conversion. Merchants can manage their entire store on-the-go, anytime.

Volusion's Vow: Making Success Accessible

With Volusion, merchants can access everything they need to create a business, and sell products online, in one solution:

Easy to use DIY: Store set-up in minutes and customize with drag and drop ease - no coding required.

Store set-up in minutes and customize with drag and drop ease - no coding required. Experts to do it for you: Volusion offers experts on-demand to help with custom design, marketing, SEO, and social media - either a la carte or in an ongoing plan.

Volusion offers experts on-demand to help with custom design, marketing, SEO, and social media - either a la carte or in an ongoing plan. Uptime upends industry standard : 99.9% uptime is guaranteed  and if it's not met, money is issued back to merchants.

: 99.9% uptime is guaranteed  and if it's not met, money is issued back to merchants. 24/7, 365100 percent of the time: That means Thanksgiving , Christmas, New Year's Day there is a live person at Volusion to answer questions and provide support for founders.

New Volusion Branding and Website

The new Volusion website is geared toward helping customers  new and existing  more easily find help and learn how to start and grow their businesses.

A bigger spotlight on customers : Volusion has put greater emphasis on the customer, with tips to help start or grow their business, and features more real life customer successes and results. Sproles regularly talks with and visits customers, and invites them to Volusion's headquarters, to stay connected on the features and support they find most valuable.

: Volusion has put greater emphasis on the customer, with tips to help start or grow their business, and features more real life customer successes and results. Sproles regularly talks with and visits customers, and invites them to Volusion's headquarters, to stay connected on the features and support they find most valuable. Revamped Resources section : The resources section includes a revamped Help Center with expert written support articles and tutorials, a blog with fresh e-commerce insights, and guides that share online business resources.

: The resources section includes a revamped Help Center with expert written support articles and tutorials, a blog with fresh e-commerce insights, and guides that share online business resources. Ask Us Anything: The right help is on the way with the "Ask Us Anything" feature enabled across the entire website. Questions are answered typically in under 10 minutes and from the right commerce consultant within the company based on the customer's request.

As part of its focused strategy, Volusion sold its cloud-based enterprise solution, Mozu, in October, 2016. Each Volusion employee and product are now 100% focused on SMB, which has resulted in increased revenues for the e-commerce company. Since Sproles' return, Volusion has increased the average store revenue by over 8%, and processed more than 23M orders in 2016, generating over $3.6B in sales for Volusion merchants. Because Volusion doesn't charge transaction fees, merchants keep more of that revenue. On average, a Volusion active merchant generates over $216k in revenue, more than 5x that of our leading competitor.

To learn more or to start creating your business on Volusion, visit www.volusion.com.

About Volusion

Volusion is a leading e-commerce software company based in Austin, TX. With more than 250 employees (we are hiring!) and more than 40,000 online stores, Volusion e-commerce sites have processed over $24 billion in merchant sales worldwide. Volusion proudly puts people before everything else and solves for the customer.

SOURCE Volusion

Related Links

https://new.volusion.com


CLARE, Mich., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Advanced Battery Concepts is pleased to announce the formation and commencement of its Technology Advisory Board (TAB) which will be chaired by Bob Galyen, a globally recognized battery expert and CTO of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL).

The TAB provides technical governance and insight in support of Advanced Battery Concepts' future growth strategies as the company continues to add to its licensee base and extend its technologies into new battery formats, chemistries, and markets. The board is comprised of eminent leaders in their respected field spanning electric vehicles to grid energy storage. The TAB will be joined by additional members in the coming months. The board's current members include:

Bob Galyen, Chairman - CTO CATL

Phil Mott, Member - Senior Technical Fellow Borg Warner

Scott Wilder, Member  Senior Director JABIL

Lori Hutton, Member - Battery Pack Engineer GM, retired

Ed Shaffer, Member  CEO & Founder ABC

Bob Galyen commented, "I became convinced that Advanced Battery Concepts GreenSeal technology would have a significant impact in the battery industry as soon as I discovered the simplicity and elegance of their battery design and manufacturing processes. I and my colleagues on the TAB firmly believe that Advanced Battery Concepts' technology will be widely adopted by today's existing markets.

"In addition to offering competitive solutions for markets such as automotive 12V & 48V, low speed EV, industrial, motive and UPS the TAB is really excited about the ability of this technology to make cost-effective, energy storage at grid scale possible which would deliver exponential incremental battery industry sales growth globally."

Dr. Ed Shaffer, CEO and Founder of Advanced Battery Concepts commented, "I am honoured that Advanced Battery Concepts has attracted such knowledgeable industry recognized leaders to be a part of our Technology Advisory Board. The TAB's input will help guide our company as we grow and extend our licensee base and technology portfolio."

About Advanced Battery Concepts, LLC

Advanced Battery Concepts LLC is a global battery technology development company based in Michigan, USA, and is the first company to successfully design and implement a commercially viable manufacturing process for advanced, bipolar lead batteries. Advanced Battery Concepts is working with existing lead battery producers through license to realize the commercial potential of this game-changing technology as well as broaden its technology portfolio with on-going product & process research at its Battery Research & Engineering Development Center in Michigan.

For more information, visit www.advancedbatteryconcepts.com

SOURCE Advanced Battery Concepts

Related Links

http://www.advancedbatteryconcepts.com


LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ambassador Hideo Sato, a Japanese diplomat, was honored by AJC, the global Jewish advocacy organization, with its prestigious Madeline and Bruce Ramer Award for Diplomatic Excellence.

"Some diplomats are particularly well-positioned to have major impact on a country's foreign policy. Hideo Sato, in a career spanning more than three decades, excelled in strengthening relations between Japan and Israel, and understanding between Japan and the Jewish people," said AJC CEO David Harris, who has known Sato for much of his career.

AJC Honorary President Bruce Ramer presented the award at the annual meeting of the AJC Los Angeles Regional Office. The award recognizes an outstanding official who has furthered the cause of positive relations between his or her country and Jewish communities in the U.S. and abroad.

"I did simply what was expected of me as a diplomat, to deepen and enhance understanding and friendship with other countries, in my case with Israel and the Jewish people," said Sato. He praised David Harris and AJC for their "long and valuable friendship and cooperation with Japan."

During a 33-year career in Japan's Foreign Ministry, Sato served four times in the Japanese Embassy in Israel, the last position as ambassador from 2011 to 2014. Earlier in his diplomatic career, Sato served as First Secretary of Japan's Embassy in Washington, D.C., from 1991 to 1995. He first joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1982 while studying at Tel Aviv University.

Sato also served as Japan's Ambassador to Afghanistan and Bahrain, among other distinguished posts.

Though Sato officially retired in 2015, he has continued to serve as an advisor to Prime Minister Abe on Middle East issues and a special assistant to Japan's foreign minister.

AJC has enjoyed a close and cooperative relationship with Sato throughout his career. He credited AJC for persuading Tokyo to end its participation in the Arab economic boycott of Israel. "According to Hideo Sato, senior official at the Japanese embassy in Washington, the new Japanese policy of opposing the Arab boycott of Israel was the result of five years of patient diplomacy by the American Jewish Committee," The Jerusalem Report said.

AJC has been actively engaged with Japan through its pioneering Asia Pacific Institute (API), which is chaired by Jeffrey Stone and directed by Shira Loewenberg.

Previous recipients of the AJC Ramer Award for Diplomatic Excellence include, among others: Alexander Downer (former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia), Joschka Fisher (former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany), Ana Palacio (former Foreign Minister of Spain), and Vaira Vike-Freiberga (former President of Latvia).

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


VANCOUVER, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Alexco Resource Corp. (TSX:AXR, NYSEMKT:AXU) ("Alexco" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, due to increased demand, it has entered into an amended agreement with an underwriter (the "Underwriter"), pursuant to which the Underwriter has agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis 3,255,820 flow-through common shares (the "Flow-Through Shares") at a price of C$2.15 per Flow-Through Share for aggregate gross proceeds of C$7,000,013 (the "Underwritten Offering"). In addition, the Company will grant the Underwriter an over-allotment option, exercisable prior to the closing of the Underwritten Offering, to purchase from the Company, Flow-Through Shares to raise additional proceeds of up to C$2,042,500 (the "Over-Allotment Option", and together with the Underwritten Offering, the "Offering").

The Underwriter will receive a cash commission on the sale of the securities, representing 6% of the aggregate gross proceeds raised, including that number of broker warrants ("Broker Warrants") as is equal to 3% of the number of Flow-Through Shares sold under the Offering. Each Broker Warrant shall be exercisable for one common share of the Company at a price of C$2.15 at any time up to 24 months after closing.

The net proceeds from the sale of the Flow-Through Shares will be used for expenditures on the Company's Keno Hill District exploration properties, which qualify as Canadian exploration expenses (within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada)). The Company will renounce such Canadian exploration expenses with an effective date of no later than December 31, 2017. With completion of this Offering, the Company is fully funded for all planned 2017 expenditures.

Closing of the Offering is anticipated to occur on or around May 30, 2017 and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all applicable regulatory approvals including approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE-MKT LLC.

About Alexco

Alexco Resource Corp. owns the Bellekeno silver mine, one of several mineral properties held by Alexco which encompass substantially all of the historical Keno Hill Silver District located in Canada's Yukon Territory. Employing a unique business model, Alexco also provides mine-related environmental services, remediation technologies and reclamation and mine closure services to both government and industry clients through the Alexco Environmental Group, its wholly-owned environmental services division.

Keno Hill Silver District History

Between 1921 and 1988, the Keno Hill Silver District was a world-class silver producer, with more than 217 million ounces of silver produced at average grades of 40.5 ounces per ton silver, 5.6% lead and 3.1% zinc (Yukon Government's Minfile database). These historical production grades would rank Keno Hill in the top 3% by grade of today's global silver producers.

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 of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any 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 benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.

Some statements ("forward-looking statements") in this news release contain forward-looking information concerning the Offering and the use of proceeds thereof, the Company's anticipated results and developments in the Company's operations in future periods, planned exploration and development of its properties, plans related to its business and other matters that may occur in the future, made as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the proposed Offering, anticipated closing of the Offering, potential exercise by the Underwriter of the Over-Allotment Option, anticipated use of proceeds, and future exploration and development activities. Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual events or results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to conditions precedent to closing of the Offering, including regulatory approval of the Offering, not being satisfied in a timely manner or at all; risks related to Alexco's ability to raise additional capital; actual results and timing of exploration and development activities; actual results and timing of mining activities; actual results and timing of environmental services activities; actual results and timing of remediation and reclamation activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; future prices of silver, gold, lead, zinc and other commodities; possible variations in mineable resources, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; First Nation rights and title; continued capitalization and commercial viability; global economic conditions; competition; and delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development activities. 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 included in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that regulatory approval of the Offering will be obtained in a timely fashion, that the conditions precedent to completion of the Offering will be fulfilled so as to permit the Offering to be completed on or about May 30, 2017, that the Company will be able to raise additional capital that the proposed exploration and development will proceed as planned, and that market fundamentals will result in sustained silver, gold, lead and zinc demand and prices. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company 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 otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.

SOURCE Alexco Resource Corp.

Related Links

www.alexcoresource.com


DUBLIN, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) today announced the results of a new online eye language survey of 1,019 adult Americans that found approximately half of respondents (53 percent) say the eyes are the first facial feature they notice about another person. Research shows the eyes provide a powerful form of nonverbal communication about who we are and what we feel.1 To help interpret our eye language, Allergan has partnered with Patti Wood, a body language expert with more than 25 years of experience.

The "A Look at Eye Language" online survey was conducted by Kelton Global on behalf of Allergan in support of the brand's Eyepowerment campaign to raise awareness for Chronic Dry Eye disease.

"Eye language is a powerful form of communication that can reveal a lot about us, but Chronic Dry Eye symptoms like red or itchy eyes may unintentionally interfere with the message you want to send," said Wood. "My passion for interpreting our eye language aligns perfectly with Allergan's Eyepowerment campaign, which aims to empower people who might be experiencing symptoms of Chronic Dry Eye to learn more about Chronic Dry Eye and talk to their doctor about treatment options."

Additional results of the survey revealed:

Approximately 97 percent of America surveyed say that they are comfortable making eye contact with those that they know

Those who see the value in maintaining eye contact say holding a direct gaze makes them feel respected (53 percent), understood (45 percent) or appreciated (44 percent)

Many feel eye behavior creates a shared connection (36 percent), leaves a positive impression (35 percent) and increases one's likeability (29 percent)

Women are more likely than men to feel eye behavior shows sincerity (53 percent vs. 41 percent) and creates a shared connection (42 percent vs. 30 percent)

Approximately half of Americans (57 percent) can tell if someone is listening by looking into their eyes

Approximately a quarter (28 percent) of respondents believe others know how truthful they are by looking into their eyes

Recognizing the importance of eye language and the messages our eyes can send, Allergan's Eyepowerment campaign urges the up to 33 million Americans suffering from symptoms of Chronic Dry Eye to take action to learn about Chronic Dry Eye and talk to their doctor. Join the conversation by following @Eyepowerment on Twitter and using the hashtag #Eyepowerment.

Talk to your doctor or visit Eyepowerment.com to learn more about the symptoms and treatment options for Chronic Dry Eye.

Survey Methodology :

"A Look at Eye Language" survey was conducted between April 20 and April 25, 2017 among 1,019 nationally representative Americans ages 18 and over, using an e-mail invitation and an online survey. Quotas are set to ensure a reliable representation of the U.S. population 18 and over. In this survey, Millennials were defined as those ages 18-36.

Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results.

In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percent, from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all personas in the universe represented by the sample. The margin of error for any subgroups will be slightly higher.

About Kelton

Kelton Global is a leading global insights firm serving as a partner to more than 100 of the Fortune 500 and thousands of smaller companies and organizations. For more information about Kelton Global please call 1.888.8.KELTON or visit http://keltonglobal.com.

About Dry Eye

One type of chronic dry eye is caused by reduced tear production due to inflammation. Dry eye is often a chronic disease that can be caused by advanced age, contact lens wear, certain medications, eye diseases, other medical conditions or environmental factors. Without enough tears, the film protecting the eye can break down, creating dry spots on the cornea.

About Allergan plc

Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical company and a leader in a new industry model  Growth Pharma. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world.

Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products for the central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics and dermatology, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic categories.

Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, a model of research and development, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. With this approach, Allergan has built one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry with 70+ mid-to-late stage pipeline programs currently in development.

Allergan's success is powered by our more than 18,000 global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right.

With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day.

For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com.

Forward-Looking Statement

Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and Allergan's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2017. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

References:

1 Lee DH, Anderson AK. "Reading what the mind thinks from how the eye sees ", Psychol. Sci. 2017; 28(4): 494-503.

CONTACTS:

Allergan:

Investors:

Daphne Karydas

(862) 261-8006

Media:

Mark Marmur

(862) 261-7558

Suzanne Jacobson

(201) 273-4724

SOURCE Allergan plc

Related Links

http://www.allergan.com


SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Altoros, a cloud-native development company, has announced Heartbeat, a full-stack monitoring tool created specifically for Cloud Foundry. The tool integrates data visualization, alerts, and the ability to log metrics, measuring real-time status of Cloud Foundry deploymentsfrom IaaS and components to apps and services.

Unified monitoring throughout the stack

One of the Heartbeat dashboards displaying overall system health The levels of monitoring provided by the Heartbeat monitoring tool

With numerous monitoring solutions available on the market, Heartbeat differs in that it is:

Designed specifically for Cloud Foundry as an on-premises tool

Monitors the full deployment stack (infrastructure, apps, and services)

Checks the status of Cloud Foundry internal components

Tracks standard and custom application and service metrics

Users can build upon predefined, easily configurable data visualization panels, by creating their own dashboards for general overviews or close-ups to get all key metrics in one place.

"With Heartbeat, we have delivered an important tool that enables enterprises to see what's going on with their Cloud Foundry deployments, easily and comprehensively," said Kirill Grigorchuk, Head of Cloud Foundry Department at Altoros, in making the announcement. "Heartbeat can become a critical component to achieve operational success in digital transformation that enterprises are going through," Mr. Grigorchuk noted.

Technical details and metrics

In addition to overall deployment overview, Heartbeat provides detailed dashboards, making it a comprehensive solution for both Devs and Ops by monitoring:

IaaS / BOSH (CPU, memory usage, IO, network, VMs, and more)

internal Cloud Foundry components (Gorouter, Cloud Controller, Diego, etc.)

external components (such as PostgreSQL, NGINX, etcd, and Consul)

third-party services (e.g., Cassandra, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, Jenkins, or Concourse)

applications / containers

A detailed overview of Heartbeatcomplemented with numerous screenshotscan be found at the Altoros blog:

www.altoros.com/blog/introducing-heartbeat-a-full-stack-monitoring-tool-for-cloud-foundry/

Here are some of the metrics the tool tracks:

https://www.altoros.com/blog/cloud-foundry-deployment-metrics-that-matter-most/

Heartbeat is now available for open-source Cloud Foundry, working with infrastructure provided by OpenStack, AWS, vSphere, and GCE. It is scheduled to support the Pivotal Cloud Foundry distribution by the end of June 2017.

Heartbeat is offered under a subscription model based on the number of app instances tracked.

Heartbeat in action

Heartbeat will be demonstrated on June 13, 2017, during the training sessions on Cloud Foundry logging and monitoring (in Santa Clara, CA):

http://paas.ly/2oCWpc1

The tool will also be showcased at the Altoros booth during the entirety of the Cloud Foundry Summit Silicon Valley (June 1315). For an individual Heartbeat demo at the Summit or any other time, sign up at:

www.altoros.com/heartbeat

About Altoros

Altoros is a 300+ people strong consultancy that helps Global 2000 organizations with a methodology, training, technology building blocks, and end-to-end solution development. The company turns cloud-native app development, customer analytics, blockchain, and AI into products with a sustainable competitive advantage. Altoros assists enterprises on their way to digital transformation, standing behind some of the world's largest Cloud Foundry deployments. For more, visit www.altoros.com.

Media Contact:

Alex Khizhnyak

[email protected]

+1-650-2652266 ext. 3001

SOURCE Altoros

Related Links

https://www.altoros.com


EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The IRS data retrieval tool has been down since March, but the IRS says it will be up soon for those needing to submit certification to stay on federal student loan income-based repayment plans. Ameritech Financial, a document preparation company, assures all new and existing clients that they will continue to do everything they can to make sure they are in repayment plans that align with their individual financial needs.

"It's troubling that such a useful tool is down," said Tom Knickerbocker, Executive Vice President of Ameritech Financial. "That doesn't change our ability to offer services though. We have always and will continue to make sure our clients on income-based repayment plans have the best chance of staying enrolled in those plans when they contact us during re-certification time."

The IRS data retrieval tool was first introduced in the 201011 academic year. To apply for federal student aid or to enroll in an income-based repayment (IBR) plan for federal student loans, borrowers need to provide income information, which is most easily provided via tax returns that are already on file with the government. The IRS data retrieval tool simply grabbed the appropriate tax forms and imported the information straight into the form (either FAFSA for students or IBR certification form for borrowers).

In March the IRS shut down the retrieval tool system after it detected suspicious activity. It's unquestionably necessary for this tool to be completely secure as it handles sensitive personal data. But without the tool it is much more difficult and time consuming to gather the information, and many students and borrowers risk missing important deadlines.

Considering more than half of borrowers on IBR plans miss their deadline to recertify (according to the Department of Education in 2015, 57 percent of people on IBR plans missed their deadline), it's especially troubling that the tool that made it a little easier is not currently available to borrowers. Fortunately, James Runcie, the Education Department's Office of Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer stated that they plan to have the tool restored for IBR recertification by May 31 of this year.

"It's comforting to know that the tool will be back up for borrowers to use for IBR recertification," says Knickerbocker, "but that doesn't address the larger issues. We hear stories of borrowers who didn't get notified of a recertification deadline at all. Some borrowers even submit everything on time, but it still doesn't get processed by the deadline."

When a borrower misses the recertification deadline, their repayment plan reverts to the standard plan, and the interest that accrued but was ignored while on the IBR plan gets capitalized. For borrowers whose IBR payments are lower than the monthly interest, the loan balance doesn't go down but interest continues to add up. If they miss the recertification deadline, all that extra interest gets added to the total loan amount. The resulting monthly payment amounts are then higher than when the borrower originally enrolled in the IBR plan.

"At Ameritech Financial, we make sure our clients never miss a recertification deadline once they have engaged us with this important task," assured Knickerbocker. "By default, our system keeps track of when each client needs to recertify. Once we are hired, we make sure to help each client submit the right information on time so none of them are surprised by an unaffordable payment amount from their payment plan reverting back to a standard plan."

About Ameritech Financial

Ameritech Financial is located in El Dorado Hills, California, right next to the California state capitol, Sacramento. Ameritech Financial has already helped thousands of people with financial analysis and student loan document preparation for federal student loan forgiveness programs offered through the Department of Education.

Each representative on the phone is certified through the International Association of Professional Debt Arbitrators (IAPDA) and has received the Certified Student Loan Professional certification through Americans for Student Loan Relief (AFSLR).

Ameritech Financial prides themselves on their exceptional 24/7 Customer Service.

Contact

To learn more about Ameritech Financial, please contact:

Ameritech Financial

1101 Investment Blvd Ste. 290

El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

1-800-792-8621

[email protected]

Related Links

Ameritech Financial Home Page

SOURCE Ameritech Financial
ONTARIO, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Asian cuisine is one of the top trends within American restaurants and Amoy, an Ajinomoto Windsor company, is excited to announce a free mobile application that lets restaurant operators quickly learn how to create noodle-centric dishes or easily build their own Asian hot bar.

"Our Amoy Noodle Expert app is designed for busy restaurant operators who are ready to take advantage of consumer demand for Asian cuisine," says Brad Kumin, Vice President of Foodservice Marketing for Ajinomoto Windsor. "It is easy to explore a variety of Asian noodles, their origin, and recipe applications. The app can literally recommend a noodle hot bar based on the items selected."

The app is a revolutionary tool for restaurant operators and its launch coincides with Amoy's existing line of noodles, including: Chow Mein, Lo Mein, Soba (buckwheat), Hakka, Yakisoba, Japanese Udon and Ramen noodles. Amoy also now offers new Ready-To-Eat (RTE) Yakisoba, Lo Mein, Chow Mein and Whole-Wheat noodles, which are pre-cooked and pre-portioned for consistent quality and convenience.

"Our new line is the perfect solution for operators who want to add one or two Asian dishes to their menu, or convert a hot bar they use in the mornings for breakfast to a noodle bar for lunch or dinner," says Doris Fung, Sr. Category Manager: Appetizers.

The Amoy Noodle Expert app is available for free on iOS or Android and includes seven key features: The ability to learn about noodles (noodle 101), noodle bar planning, chat functionality, recipes, promos, a broker locator, and the ability to calculate food costs (including yield calculation). It's going to empower restaurant operators that serve noodles and modernize the food industry as a whole.

For more information on the app or to download it today, search for "Amoy Noodle Expert" on iTunes or in Google Play. You can also visit the following links:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noodle-expert/id1206003460?mt=8

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stellarstudios.amoynoodleexpert&hl=en

About Ajinomoto Windsor, Inc.:

With a vision to create meaningful food experiences through high quality ingredients and innovative technologies, Ajinomoto Windsor Inc. is a leader in the frozen food industry. The company is committed to providing consumers nutritious and premium meals that honor Ajinomoto Windsor's rich history of diverse ethnic foods (Asian, Italian and Mexican) and appetizers  Ajinomoto Windsor satisfies consumers varied tastes with its broad palate of products. The company's mission is to create memorable experiences through its meals, and to ensure that food not only tastes great, but feels great.

SOURCE Ajinomoto Windsor, Inc.
ST. LOUIS and DALLAS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ansira, one of the largest agencies in North America specializing in CRM, loyalty, marketing solutions, and digital strategies, with a focus on driving results at the local and national level, today announced that Dan Springer and Jim Warner will be joining the company's Board of Directors. This announcement comes on the heels of the recent acquisition of Ansira by Advent International ("Advent"), one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors.

Jim Warner will join Ansira's Board of Directors as Chairman. He is currently a Principal of Third Floor Enterprises, an advisory firm specializing in digital marketing and media and a Board Member of Criteo, the global leader in digital performance advertising. Previously, Mr. Warner was Executive Vice President of Razorfish, a digital strategy firm, as well as the President, CBS Television Network and Vice President of HBO. He received a BA from Yale College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

"Ansira is the leading data driven marketing agency, continually innovating and going above and beyond for its clients. I have been very impressed by Ansira's industry-leading capabilities in digital marketing, particularly in the national to local arena," said Mr. Warner. "I'm excited to join the board as Chairman and help drive Ansira to further growth and success in the coming years."

Dan Springer, Advent independent Operating Partner, has also joined Ansira's Board of Directors. Dan serves as CEO of DocuSign where he leads more than 2,000 employees worldwide to empower organizations of every size and industry to achieve their digital transformations, helping them make every agreement 100% digital. Prior to assuming his current role, Dan was Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Responsys, a leading email marketing and cross-channel orchestration solution now owned by Oracle. Mr. Springer holds an MBA from Harvard University and an AB in Mathematics and Economics from Occidental College.

"I look forward to working closely with the management team at Ansira and Advent," said Mr. Springer. "Ansira's capabilities are top-notch. My experience in marketing automation and agency services is highly relevant to Ansira's technology-enabled and data-driven approach and I have no doubt that this partnership will help the company's continued success."

Ansira is the leader in modeling and activating 1st, 2nd & 3rd party data, delivering performance marketing programs at a national and local level with unprecedented results and long-term profitability. The company delivers results for world-class brands, including 25+ Fortune 500 brands, and has achieved a 96% client retention rate throughout its history.

ABOUT ANSIRA:

Ansira is a leading data-driven, technology-enabled marketing solutions provider, specializing in the integration of local and national marketing programs through marketing automation, data analytics, CRM, and performance media. Ansira leverages superior marketing intelligence to build deeper, more effective relationships with consumers and the retail channel partners that engage them on the local level. Marketing intelligence is infused across all disciplines and executed through digital, direct, social, mobile, media, traditional and creative campaigns, marketing automation, and trade promotion programs. Ansira is among the 3 largest independently owned CRM and direct marketing agencies and among the 10 largest independent digital agencies in the U.S. and enjoys long-term client relationships with Fortune 500 companies spanning a broad range of industries, including automotive, dining, retail, consumer packaged goods, technology and specialty services. For more information, visit: https://ansira.com/

ABOUT ADVENT INTERNATIONAL:

Founded in 1984, Advent International is one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors. The firm has invested in 325 private equity transactions in 40 countries and as of December 31, 2016, had $41 billion in assets under management. With offices on four continents, Advent has established a globally integrated team of over 180 investment professionals across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. The firm focuses on investments in five core sectors, including business and financial services; healthcare; industrial; retail, consumer and leisure; and technology, media and telecom. After more than 30 years dedicated to international investing, Advent remains committed to partnering with management teams to deliver sustained revenue and earnings growth for its portfolio companies. For more information, visit: www.adventinternational.com.

Media Contact: North 6th Agency, Inc. (For Ansira)

212.334.9753 ext. 131, [email protected].

SOURCE Ansira Partners LLC

Related Links

http://www.ansira.com


SALT LAKE CITY, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Appiphany Technologies (OTC: APHD), which provides private enterprise with total, integrated brand protection solutions to prevent revenue loss from counterfeiting, product diversion and gray market activities, is pleased to announce their attendance at both the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) and the International Trademark Association (INTA) conferences being held this week in Barcelona, Spain. The two events run from May 17th to May 24th, 2017. Appiphany's Advisory Board Member Deborah Greaves will be there as well as referral partners from Canada the U.S.

The INTA annual meeting continues to grow with over 9,500 attendees from more than 140 countries, and is an essential tool for the best practices for global trademark practitioners, especially for issues of legal education and networking among the world's finest lawyers. The IACC conference gathers the world's top brands, enforcement officials and service firms globally.

Appiphany CEO, Rob Sargent, stated, "For over a decade we have had representation at these two key industry events. Intellectual property counsel and security enforcement firms are the lifeblood of our business and we are pleased to be represented once again."

Advisory Board member, Deborah Greaves is an Intellectual Property attorney specializing in the representation of fashion and consumer brands at Ezra Britzkas Gunner LLP, Los Angeles. Deborah was a former Secretary and General Counsel of True Religion Brand Jeans, a publicly-traded premium apparel company. She has been a legal practitioner in the fashion and consumer products industry for more than 16 years.

Follow news directly at:

http://ipriskcontrol.com/blog/

https://twitter.com/IPRiskControl

About Appiphany Technology Holdings Corp.

Appiphany Technology (OTCPK: APHD) (IP Risk Control) (http://www.ipriskcontrol.com) has diversified offerings to deliver global 'best-of-breed' products and technologies that combat counterfeit and theft of global goods, data and cyber security protection. The Company continues to develop its own technologies and has an active acquisitions program in place.

Forward-Looking Statements

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and are subject to risks and uncertainties. See Appiphany's filings with the SEC, which may identify specific factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

Contact Info:

Media Relations

[email protected]

+1-385-212-3295



http://www.ipriskcontrol.com







SOURCE Appiphany Technology Holdings Corp.
As a producer and advocate of safety standards for solar trackers, Arctech Solar introduced the tracker safety standards in detail during the meeting, answering all queries from the present and online experts. It has been the only international tracker standard drafted by a Chinese tracker supplier in the history of IEC standardization. The standard has come to the consensus and has been pre-confirmed and improved after serious discussions. It is expected to enter the Committee Draft for Vote (CDV) stage in early 2018.

Mr. Bruce Wang, Chief Technology Officer of Arctech Solar proposed that it is necessary to establish an internationally uniform, reliable safety standard for solar trackers. The proposal of standardization is fully recognized and approved by all experts in the committee. Upon request by the IEC committee, Arctech Solar will submit the final revised standard shortly.

Arctech Solar will continuously advocate a more recognized industrial safety standard for solar trackers and promote the tracker industry as a whole.

About Arctech Solar

Arctech Solar is one of the world's leading manufacturers and solution providers of solar tracking and racking systems. Through 8 years of development, Arctech Solar has set up manufacturing bases in Kunshan and Changzhou in China and set up subsidiaries and service centers in many country's regional markets such as America, Japan, India, Europe and Shanghai. Arctech Solar has cumulatively installed 10GW and completed almost 600 projects in more than 10 countries. With a production capacity of 6GW and 3GW respectively in fixed mounting structure and tracker fields (a total annual capacity of 9GW), Arctech Solar has grown into a reliable partner in the global PV tracking and racking system field.

For more information please visit: www.arctechsolar.com

For product sales and other enquiries: [email protected]

SOURCE Arctech Solar

Related Links

http://www.arctechsolar.cn/


LAS VEGAS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Monday, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the nation's largest pro-Israel organization, held a Night to Honor Israel featuring the group's founder and Chairman Pastor John Hagee.

The event took place the evening before the Government Affairs Committee of the Nevada State Assembly was set to hold a hearing on legislation (SB 26) that prohibits the state from contracting with or investing in entities that boycott Israel. Speakers at the Night to Honor Israel rallied attendees to continue grassroots efforts to pass the legislation.

During his remarks, Hagee noted that by the end of the year, CUFI expects more than half the states in the Union to have advanced anti-BDS measures.

"I'm delighted to report that CUFI has crushed BDS in Texas, Arkansas and Minnesota We are going to financially punish those trying to financially punish Israel," Hagee said.

CUFI has been involved in the Nevada legislation since its inception. The bill was born of a conversation between CUFI representatives and Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison at last year's Las Vegas Night to Honor Israel, at which Hutchison was the keynote speaker.

Since the bill's introduction, CUFI has distributed an action alert supporting the measure to its Nevada-based membership, and CUFI founding executive director and active Board member David Brog delivered remarks in support of the bill at a Nevada State Senate committee hearing earlier this year.

"The BDS movement is fundamentally an anti-Semitic movement and one that endangers peace in the Middle East People who see no good in the state of Israel, and no evil beyond its borders, are bigots pure and simple," Brog said during his testimony.

With more than 3.3 million members, Christians United for Israel is the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States and one of the leading Christian grassroots movements in the world. CUFI spans all fifty states and reaches millions with its message. Each year CUFI holds hundreds of pro-Israel events in cities around the country. And each July, thousands of pro-Israel Christians gather in Washington, D.C. to participate in the CUFI Washington Summit and make their voices heard in support of Israel and the Jewish people.

SOURCE Christians United for Israel

Related Links

http://cufi.org


"These promotions reinforce our continued commitment to bring innovative medicines to patients," said Walt Johnston, senior vice president, Urology and Hospital Business Unit. "I am pleased that Mark and Paul will be leading our sales and marketing efforts to support programs that bring value to patients."

In his new role, Schwitzenberg will report directly to Johnston and will have responsibility for all Urology, Hospital and Transplant products. Kang will report directly to Mark Niemaszek, vice president, Commercial Operations, and will take on additional responsibilities of further advancing Astellas' analytic competencies to support the U.S. commercial organization.

Schwitzenberg began his career at Astellas in 2004 and later moved to Strategic New Product Planning in 2009. Most recently, Schwitzenberg was the executive director for Urology Marketing. During his time at Astellas, Schwitzenberg has been involved in the successful launch of two urology products.

Schwitzenberg received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his master's degree in international economics from the University of Colorado Boulder. Schwitzenberg went on to receive a Master of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business-Department of Accountancy.

Kang joined Astellas in 2013 to lead Marketing Sciences. Over the past several years, he has expanded the overall scope and impact of the Marketing Sciences organization, including introducing advanced analytical capabilities and big data platforms to the U.S. Commercial organization. Previously, Kang served as senior director, Marketing Sciences.

Kang has nearly 20 years of strategic business planning and analytics experience. He joined Astellas in 2013 from Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was vice president, Strategy and Analytics. Additionally, Kang held leadership positions in Oncology and Primary Care at Pfizer, Inc., and was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, working with clients in healthcare and other industries on strategy, business development and operations projects.

Kang received a Bachelor of Science degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to receive Master of Science in Technology and Policy and Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering at the same institution.

About Astellas

Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceutical products. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at http://www.astellas.us/. You can also follow us on Twitter at @AstellasUS, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AstellasUS or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/astellas-pharma.

SOURCE Astellas

Related Links

https://www.astellas.us


GREENFIELD, Mass., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The registered nurses of Baystate Franklin Medical Center, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, sent a letter Monday to BFMC President Cindy Russo detailing thousands of extra-long shifts that are leaving nurses exhausted and which are inconsistent with patient care best practices.

BFMC nurses worked shifts longer than 12 hours nearly 4,000 times in the past 12 months.

Read the letter sent Monday to BFMC President Cindy Russo by clicking here. Also read a letter sent May 8 from the MNA BFMC Bargaining Committee to Russo. For more information, please contact Joe Markman at 781-571-8175 or [email protected].

"We are working while exhausted" the MNA BFMC Committee writes in the letter. "Among our most important issues in negotiations for which a long-term solution is urgently needed is understaffing that forces RNs and others to work overtime and extra shifts without rest. In the past two years most RNs were convinced to move from 12 hour shifts to 8 hour shifts on the rationale presented by BFMC management that academic studies correlate long shifts to fatigue, medical errors and negative patient outcomes. We agreed.

"But when we used to work 12s, we would be off duty a number of days. Now we are supposedly on 8s or 10s, scheduled for more days a week than before, but we are often really working four or five 12s, with no rest, because there is not enough staff, and so we are forced to pick up additional shift after shift after shift and can't go home at the end of our shifts. This is antithetical to the safe patient care studies management was (accurately) citing to us two years ago."

During the past 12 months at BFMC:

Nurses worked 3,980 shifts longer than 12 hours.

2,768 times nurses working 12-hour shifts could not leave at the end of their shift.

1,193 times nurses who were scheduled to work 8 hours were not able to stop working for more than 12 hours.

There were 433 shifts of 13 hours or more; 70 shifts of 14 hours or more, 131 shifts of 15 hours or more, 22 shifts of 16 hours or more and 5 shifts of 17 hours or more.

It is illegal under Massachusetts law for an RN ever to work 16 or more hours, even in a declared federal or state emergency. But BFMC data shows that this happened 27 times. The longest shift was 17.5 hours.

law for an RN ever to work 16 or more hours, even in a declared federal or state emergency. But BFMC data shows that this happened 27 times. The longest shift was 17.5 hours. Despite RN Mandatory Overtime having been made illegal in Massachusetts in 2012 (M.G.L.c 111, section 226), management admitted to the DPH 24 incidents of MOT from July 2016 through mid-March 2017. A review of the incident reports management provided to the DPH show that none of those incidents appear to be lawful, as not one fell under the law's criteria for waiver for emergency situations.

Noting that BFMC's president was quoted in the press saying, "As an organization here, do I feel that our staff is overworked? That's not my opinion." The nurses ask in their letter, "By what method did you come to that opinion?"

In 2004, the Institute of Medicine  part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine  published a report outlining improvements to nurse working conditions. "Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses" called for a ban on nurses working more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period.

"In the event that nurses are required to work excessive hours because of an emergency, this information should be immediately disclosed to the public so that elective admissions can be postponed and other admissions diverted to different units or facilities. Similarly, in any instance where a nursing shortage prevents [a health care organization] from securing sufficient nurses to prevent work hours in excess of 12 hours in any 24-hour period and more than 60 hours in any seven day period, this information also should be disclosed to the public, so that elective admissions can be referred to other facilities or delayed until staffing is remedied. If an admission cannot be delayed or referred to another HCO, the patient and their family should be informed about the shortage of staffing and that nursing staff is working under conditions adverse to patient safety."

"Nurse Working Conditions and Patient Safety Outcomes," a review of outcomes data for more than 15,000 patients in 51 U.S. hospital ICUs published in the journal Medicare Care, showed that overtime for nurses was associated with an increase risk in catheter-related urinary tract infections and skin ulcers.

"The Working Hours of Hospital Staff Nurses and Patient Safety," published in Health Affairs, demonstrated that nurses working mandatory overtime are three times more likely to make a medical error.

Background on Bargaining

BFMC nurses have been bargaining with Baystate since November 2016. Nurses have voted 93 percent to authorize a one-day strike and filed seven unfair labor practice charges against Baystate Franklin with the National Labor Relations Board. The strike authorization vote gives the MNA BFMC Bargaining Committee the authority to call a one-day strike. Bargaining is over a new contract to replace the agreement that was scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2016. A federal mediator joined the bargaining process in February.

For more details, including the letters to the president, NLRB charges and hospital schedules, mandatory overtime reports and text messages showing a pattern of BFMC not having enough nurses for its patients, please contact Joe Markman at 781-571-8175 or [email protected].

MassNurses.org  Facebook.com/MassNurses  Twitter.com/MassNurses

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association

Related Links

http://www.massnurses.org


CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Berlin Packaging, the leading full-service supplier of plastic, glass, and metal containers and closures, today announced it received a record number of gold medals at the NACD (National Association of Container Distributors) 2017 Packaging Awards. Four of the company's eight medals at the NACD competition this year were gold; in addition, Berlin received one gold and one silver medal at the NRHA (North American Retail Hardware Association) 2017 Packaging & Merchandising Awards, considered the top packaging honor in the retail hardware industry.

2017 marks the eighth consecutive year Berlin Packaging has been awarded gold medals at the NACD show. Its winning entries included:

Eden Mill (Gold, Beverage) wanted distinctive packaging when it launched its "Art of the Blend" whisky in 2016. The resulting custom-designed bottle includes small, pyramid-shaped embossments and a diamond-shaped labeling panel, achieving a striking look while still accommodating the intricate neck design and the unique labeling space.

Moreno Cedroni Confezione (Gold, Food; Bronze, Best Use of Stock Components) is a beautiful line of fruit jams from one of Italy's great culinary innovators. The interlocking, stackable, and wave-shaped glass jars, reminiscent of inkpots used by Italian writers of centuries past, are each sealed with a different overwrap in a color appropriate to the delicious treat inside. This package is available as a standard item from Berlin Packaging's Bruni Glass division.

Mylanta (Gold, Drug & Pharmaceuticals) successfully solved packaging challenges surrounding the re-introduction of the well-known liquid antacid after a multi-year hiatus. Updating Mylanta's iconic bottle for a new era, the sleek, tapered redesign features ergonomic indents on the sides along with a new dosage cup with a debossed logo.

Stihl MotoMix (Gold, General Industrial) took a new angle on the typical cylindrical can for its ethanol-free gas product for chainsaws, leaf blowers, and edge trimmers. The first-ever line of square cans in the premixed fuel category required several design innovations including a special laser welding process and an ergonomic handle.

Bib & Tucker (Silver, Beverage) recently expanded its product line to include Bib & Tucker Small Batch White Whiskey and needed packaging to match its brand that represented old-fashioned, elite liquor. The design behind the embossed "peerless quality" and retro label reinforce the classic heritage that is integral to the brand. The heavy cork, secured with black twine to the neck of the bottle, encourages consumers to celebrate each glass poured.

Morton Safe-T-Pet Ice Melt (Silver, Household, Chemical & Automotive) is a unique salt- and chloride-free product, formulated to melt sidewalk ice yet prevent harm to pets as they walk. The package includes an ergonomic pouring handle with enough room to fit a gloved hand, and the patented bottle and closure features a custom "snap-on/twist-off" neck finish allowing consumers to refill the jug for repeated use.

Robert Rothschild (Silver, Food) wanted to resonate with a new, younger demographic and individuals that prioritize maintaining a healthy lifestyle, while not alienating the brand's existing consumers. To achieve this goal, the distinct hexagonal shape of the outgoing jar was applied to the new design. A small, repeating hexagon embossment houses a Rothschild "R" on each of the six sides to elevate the brand.

The 2017 NRHA Packaging & Merchandising Awards honor those products sold at hardware retailers that deliver an exceptional degree of shelf and sales appeal, innovation, and efficiency. Berlin Packaging's winners this year include:

Morton Safe-T-Pet Ice Melt (Gold), also a gold winner at the NACD awards, uses angled geometries to provide a contemporary look. The package's most innovative feature is the flip-top closure that opens with one hand for pouring, then seals tightly with a snap.

Roto-Rooter Preventive Pipe Shield Maintenance Treatment (Silver) is a custom improvement on the industry-standard "F-Style" pour bottle. Roto-Rooter's drain care product packaging offers a host of ergonomic advantages including a proprietary dosage cup that fits seamlessly on the neck. The angled design of the cup makes it easy to pour the measured product into a drain, and snaps in place on the bottle for reliable storage.

"As proud as we are of the consistent recognition our packaging designs receive in major competitions, we're most gratified by the partnerships we've formed with our clients," said Scott Jost, Berlin Packaging's Vice President of Innovation and Design. "Berlin Packaging's Studio One Eleven design division is unique in its business model that provides design services at no charge in exchange for packaging business. Our people are the best in the business at working alongside clients to create solutions that exceed standards of excellence where it counts moston retail shelves."

"Once again, Berlin Packaging's strong showing in these recent packaging awards is clear testament to our innovative spirit. We know how vital it is for products to stand out on shelves and also provide high utility to consumers," said Andrew Berlin, Chairman and CEO of Berlin Packaging. "Moreover, we seek to innovate beyond packaging. Our industry-leading customer thrill scores, our track-record of 99+% on-time delivery, every month now for almost 13 years, and our ISO 9001 certification are all examples of how we try to be the best supplier for our customers. Every day we demonstrate our commitment to driving results to our customers' bottom lines."

About Berlin Packaging

Berlin Packaging is the only Hybrid Packaging Supplier of plastic, glass, and metal containers and closures. See HybridPackagingSupplier.com and GreaterFaster.com for more on how the company exists to help people and companies excel. With 40,000+ available SKUs, 200+ packaging consultants, and 100+ sales and warehouse locations across North America and Europe, the company has the right products, expertise, and geographic proximity to help customers increase their net income through packaging products and services. Berlin Packaging supplies billions of containers and closures annually as well as warehousing and logistics services for customers of all sizes in all industries. It is the only company in its sector to be ISO 9001 certified, to have Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) certification, and to achieve 99% on-time delivery of its shipments every month for more than 12 years. Related services and specialty product divisions include Studio One Eleven custom packaging and graphic design, Berlin Global sourcing solutions, E3 profit-oriented consulting, Berlin Financial financing for equipment and capital improvements, Berlin Quality advocacy, Dangerous Goods transport, Freund Container & Supply convenience, and Qorpak laboratory supplies. The company can be reached at 1.800.2.BERLIN, BerlinPackaging.com, and on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contact

John Nelson  312.750.9081  [email protected]

SOURCE Berlin Packaging

Related Links

http://www.berlinpackaging.com


BLOOMINGTON, Ind., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Best College Values has published a ranking of "50 Best Value Online Master's of Business Administration 2017." (http://www.bestcollegevalues.com/rankings/online/best-value-online-mba/) Best College Values is a website that provides prospective undergraduate and graduate students with resources that highlight where to find value in education. According to Best College Values, degree programs that strike a balance between a good reputation, low tuition rates, and a high return on investment, are places where students can expect to find the best value. The website's ranking take these factors into account when creating their rankings so that students can make well-informed decisions about where to pursue their education.

The 50 schools in this ranking were selected from a pool of over 200 regionally accredited institutions that carry a reputation for high quality MBA programs according to one or more national publications such as US News & World Report.

Placing first in this ranking is The University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, takes the second spot, and James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, places third.

Other colleges and universities that made the ranking are listed below in alphabetical order.

Ball State University - Muncie, Indiana

California Baptist University - Riverside, California

Central Michigan University - Mount Pleasant, Michigan

Clarkson University - Potsdam, New York

Creighton University - Omaha, Nebraska

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Daytona Beach, Florida

Florida State University - Tallahassee, Florida

Georgia College & State University - Milledgeville, Georgia

Georgia Southern University - Statesboro, Georgia

Kansas State University - Manhattan, Kansas

Longwood University - FarmVille, Virginia

Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Marist College - Poughkeepsie, New York

Mississippi State University - Starkville, Mississippi

Missouri University of Science & Technology - Rolla, Missouri

North Carolina State University - Raleigh, North Carolina

Northeastern University - Boston, Massachusetts

Oklahoma State University - Stillwater, Oklahoma

Pennsylvania State University World Campus - University Park, Pennsylvania

Robert Morris University - Chicago, Illinois

Southern Utah University - Cedar City, Utah

Stevens Institute of Technology - Hoboken, New Jersey

SUNY College - Oswego, New York

Tennessee Technological University - Cookeville, Tennessee

University of Arizona - Tucson, Arizona

University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, Colorado

University of Delaware - Newark, Delaware

University of Florida - Gainesville, Florida

University of Kansas - Lawrence, Kansas

University of Maryland - College Park, Maryland

University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts - Lowell, Massachusetts

University of Mississippi - Oxford, Mississippi

University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Nebraska

University of Nevada - Reno, Nevada

University of New Hampshire - Durham, New Hampshire

University of North Dakota - Grand Forks, North Dakota

University of South Dakota - Vermillion, South Dakota

University of South Florida - St. Petersburg, Florida

University of Texas - Dallas, Texas

University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, Wisconsin

Washington State University - Pullman, Washington

West Chester University of Pennsylvania - West Chester, Pennsylvania

Brett Gershon, site editor, says, "Hiring rates for business school graduates are the highest they have been in five years. A master's of business administration degree is still considered an essential credential for highly competitive top level positions in business." He adds, "Employers worldwide are looking for management professionals with the proven ability to identify new opportunities for innovation, improve performance, and sustain growth. MBA degree programs from recognized business schools provide these credentials. This ranking highlights reputable programs whose tuition rates and return on investment make them a great value for students."

BestCollegeValues.com is an online resource for prospective college students seeking an education worth its cost. Best College Values strives to provide the most comprehensive and rigorously researched set of online resources on the intersections of college affordability, educational quality, and educational outcomes so that individuals pursuing higher education can find the best college at the best price.

Contact:

Brett Gershon, editor

Best College Values

www.bestcollegevalues.com

(763) 503-0162

[email protected]

SOURCE Best College Values

Related Links

http://www.bestcollegevalues.com


SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BioAtla, LLC, a global biotechnology company focused on the development of Conditionally Active Biologic (CAB) antibody therapeutics, today announced that BioAtla and Beijing Sinobioway Group Company, Limited (Sinobioway) expanded their CAB development and commercialization collaboration agreement with the addition of five new CAB antibody targets and entered into a new services agreement for Sinobioway to provide specified development and manufacturing services to BioAtla.

In March 2015, BioAtla and Sinobioway entered into a strategic collaboration for the development and commercialization of select CAB antibodies for specific indications in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan (the Territory). As a result of the selection of the initial four CAB candidates and the specific indications for development under this agreement for 2016, BioAtla received collaboration funding payments from Sinobioway in 2015 and 2016 totaling $40 million. Under the expanded agreement, Sinobioway is obligated to select five additional new CAB antibody indications and to pay BioAtla a total of $50 million, comprised of $30 million in cash and $20 million in the form of credits for future manufacturing and development services to be performed at discounted rates by Sinobioway pursuant to the services agreement.

Of the $30 million cash payment, BioAtla is entitled to receive $5 million in May 2017 and $25 million following the first approval of an Investigational New Drug application (IND) filed by BioAtla with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to commence a phase 1 clinical trial of a CAB antibody candidate. In addition, pursuant to the expanded agreement, upon the later of BioAtla's first IND approval and March 31, 2018, Sinobioway will be obligated to pay BioAtla, upfront payments totaling $40 million in cash for four more antibody candidate indications. BioAtla is currently completing pre-IND development of its CAB Axl-ADC and CAB Ror2-ADC antibody product candidates. CAB Axl-ADC for the treatment of pancreatic cancer and CAB Ror2-ADC for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer are two of the four initial CAB antibody indications previously selected by Sinobioway for the Territory. Under the collaboration agreement, Sinobioway or certain affiliated entities are obligated to fund the development, manufacturing, clinical trials and commercialization costs in the Territory for each of the Sinobioway selected CAB antibody candidate indications.

The new master services agreement allows for BioAtla to have Sinobioway perform development and manufacturing services pursuant to mutually-agreed upon work plans. These services are available for development and manufacturing of BioAtla's own CAB product candidates as well as for CAB product candidates BioAtla may license to partners other than Sinobioway for development and commercialization primarily in the rest of the world outside of Sinobioway's Territory. Such services may include manufacturing product for clinical trials and for commercialization. Because BioAtla expects that most of the CAB candidates it would seek to develop or manufacture through Sinobioway's services would also be licensed to Sinobioway under the collaboration agreement, Sinobioway would also benefit from performing the services for such CAB products.

Pursuant to the services agreement, Sinobioway is obligated to provide BioAtla pricing at a discount of at least 85% to prevailing market prices for services relating to CAB product candidates through phase 2 development until BioAtla has received an aggregate of $20 million worth of services at the discounted rate. Thereafter, BioAtla is entitled to a discount of 75% to prevailing market prices for services relating to CAB product candidates through phase 2 development. In addition, BioAtla is entitled to pricing at Sinobioway's "most preferred rate" for services relating to CAB product candidates in phase 3 development and for commercial supplies of any approved CAB product. Sinobioway is also required to prioritize work under the work plans for each CAB program over all other projects, including use of equipment for manufacturing projects and animals in animal testing.

About Conditionally Active Biologics (CABs)

Conditionally Active Biologic proteins are generated using BioAtla's proprietary protein discovery, evolution and expression technologies. These proteins can be mAbs, enzymes and other proteins designed with functions dependent on changes in microphysiological conditions (e.g., pH level, oxidation, temperature, pressure, presence of certain ions, hydrophobicity and combinations thereof) both outside and inside cells.

Studies have shown that cancerous tumors create highly specific conditions at their site that are not present in normal tissue. These cancerous microenvironments are primarily a result of the well understood unique glycolytic metabolism associated with cancer cells, referred to as the Warburg Effect. CAB proteins are designed to deliver their therapeutic payload and/or recruit the immune response in specific and selected locations and conditions within the body and to be active only in the presence of a particular cellular microenvironment. In addition, the activation is designed to be reversible to repeatedly switch 'on and off' should the CAB move from a diseased to a normal cellular microenvironment and vice versa. CABs can be developed in a variety of formats including antibodies, antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), bi-specifics, chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-Ts) and combination therapies.

About Beijing Sinobioway Group Company, Limited

Sinobioway was founded in 1992 and is one of the three main industrial groups affiliated with Peking University. Sinobioway is mainly engaged in bioeconomy system establishment and bio-industry development. It primarily invests in biomedicine, bioagriculture, bioenergy, bioenvironment, bioservices, biomanufacturing and biointelligence. Biologic therapeutics is a particular focus of Sinobioway in its plans to develop and commercialize new medicines. Sinobioway is constructing a large biologics production facility, with a long-term capability goal of 100 production lines, in the planned bio-economic zone under construction in Hefei.

About BioAtla, LLC

BioAtla is a global biotechnology company with operations in San Diego, California, and Beijing, China. BioAtla develops novel monoclonal antibody and other protein therapeutic product candidates designed to have more selective targeting, greater efficacy, and more cost-efficient and predictable manufacturing than traditional antibodies.

Learn more at www.bioatla.com.

Contact:

Richard Waldron

Chief Financial Officer

BioAtla, LLC

[email protected]

858.356.8945

SOURCE BioAtla, LLC

Related Links

www.bioatla.com


SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BioSurplus, a leading provider of lab equipment solutions, is excited to announce a strategic relationship with NTS Laboratory Equipment, Inc., a premier lab equipment service company. NTS offers nationwide support for a broad range of general lab instrumentation, including centrifuges, pumps, microscopes and more.

As a quality equipment service provider, NTS works with pharmaceutical companies, biotech labs and universities throughout the United States. With a combined technical experience spanning more than 100 years in the industry, the NTS team prides itself on quick response times, affordable pricing and customer satisfaction.

Through this relationship, BioSurplus customers will have access to service technicians to better support and maintain their labs. Similarly, NTS service customers will have access to affordable, quality, pre-owned lab equipment from BioSurplus' ever-changing inventory.

BioSurplus is also pleased to welcome Debra Inger as its new director of business development in the northeast region. Debra earned her MBA at the University of Central Florida and brings more than 15 years of experience in the lab equipment industry, including nine years at NTS.

"I am delighted to be joining BioSurplus, a leader in satisfying the equipment needs of the life sciences community," says Debra Inger. "Their focus on delivering excellent service and value to customers reflects what we have been doing at NTS over the past nine years. Our customers will benefit greatly from the capabilities both companies offer working together."

"Debra brings tremendous experience, expertise and a strong focus on customer service to the BioSurplus team. We are very happy that she has chosen to help us support scientists and companies across the country with their equipment needs," adds BioSurplus president and CEO, Bill VanDeWeghe.

About BioSurplus

Founded in 2002, BioSurplus is America's preeminent buyer and reseller of preowned lab equipment. Customers can shop from anywhere using the BioSurplus online store, online auctions or at our two California showrooms. BioSurplus purchases late-model working lab instruments from labs that no longer need them, and then passes on the savings of repurposed equipment to its customers. BioSurplus team members are carefully chosen for their scientific background and experience to ensure the proper marketing, selling and handling of a wide range of specialized laboratory instruments. BioSurplus is dedicated to maximizing the value and use of laboratory equipment for both its buying and selling customers.

BioSurplus is headquartered in San Diego and has lab equipment showrooms and warehouses in San Diego and San Francisco, as well as representatives on the East Coast. For more information, please visit us at www.BioSurplus.com.

Media Contact:

Reid Hjalmarson

Director of Marketing

BioSurplus, Inc.

(858) 550-0800

[email protected]

SOURCE BioSurplus

Related Links

http://www.biosurplus.com


WESTBOROUGH, Mass., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BJ's Wholesale Club today announced that the company is opening a new Club in Hanover Township, New Jersey in 2018, which could save local shoppers nearly $40 million. The Hanover Township Club will be located along Hanover Avenue and just off Horse Hill Road.

"Hanover Township is a thriving and vibrant community and we're excited to bring the BJ's Wholesale Club experience to the area's families and shoppers," said Chris Baldwin, president and CEO, BJ's Wholesale Club. "BJ's is the perfect one-stop shopping destination, offering unbeatable value and quality on a wide selection of items from fresh produce, deli and bakery to the latest in tech, health and beauty and apparel."

The BJ's Wholesale Club is scheduled to open in Summer 2018 and will provide affordable fresh food options to the community, saving families up to 25 percent compared to grocery store prices. It will mark the company's 216th club and will feature a BJ's Gas station, saving Members even more.

Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer surveys on household spending, the BJ's Wholesale Club could save area shoppers nearly $40 million a year.

The project is being developed by RD Management LLC, one of the nation's largest privately held real estate development and management organizations, and partner JMF Properties, a leading New Jersey development company specializing in transit-oriented projects, urban retail centers and commercial office parks.

The Hanover Township Club will bring a number of benefits to the community:

BJ's offers excellent value.

BJ's beats supermarket prices on national brands every day, saving families up to 25 percent or more.



The company is the only major wholesale club that accepts all manufacturers' coupons, offering families another great way to save.



Its exclusive brands, Berkley Jensen and Wellsley Farms, let families save without sacrificing quality or fun.

BJ's biggest advantage is fresh food  produce, dairy, meat and deli.

BJ's offers Members much more fresh food variety than other clubs.



BJ's is the only major wholesale club to offer a full-service deli with premium meats and cheeses.



Members can have fresh meats cut to their specifications. BJ's butchers will recut and repackage at no additional charge.

A BJ's Membership is filled with added convenience.

BJ's offers the most payment options of any major wholesale club.



Members can research, shop and install electronics with help from BJ's Tech Advisors.



BJ's Pick Up & Pay program allows shoppers to stock up by reserving items online and then picking up in-club.



Members can save time and money by filling up their tanks at BJ's Gas. The company's gas prices are among the lowest around.



Members approved for a My BJ's Perks Mastercard earn up to 5% cash back1 at BJ's and beyond, plus earn 10 off/gal. at BJ's Gas every day.

Additionally, through BJ's Feeding Communities Program, the Club will donate unsold produce, meat, poultry, seafood, dairy and bakery products on a daily basis to reduce food waste and provide wholesome, fresh food to neighbors in need.

Shoppers can learn more about BJ's Wholesale Club by going to www.bjs.com.

1Subject to credit approval. My BJ's Perks Program is provided by BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. and its terms may change from time to time. Some exclusions apply. Visit BJs.com/perksterms for Program Terms. Cash back is in the form of electronic awards issued in $20 increments that are used in-Club at the register and expire 6 months from the date issued. Cash back can be requested in the form of a check prior to awards expiring by contacting Member Care at 800-BJs-CLUB.

My BJ's Perks Mastercard is issued by Comenity Capital Bank pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Mastercard and the Mastercard Brand Mark are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated.

About BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.

Headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, BJ's is the leading operator of membership warehouse clubs in the Eastern United States. The company currently operates 214 clubs and 132 BJ's Gas locations in 16 states.

BJ's provides a one-stop shopping destination filled with top-quality, leading brands, including its exclusive Wellsley Farms and Berkley Jensen brands, along with USDA Choice meats, premium produce and delicious organics, many in supermarket sizes. BJ's is also the only major membership warehouse club to accept all manufacturers' coupons and, for greater convenience, offers the most payment options.

Visit www.BJs.com, and for exclusive content find us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

BJ's is wholly owned by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners, CVC Capital Partners and its management team.

SOURCE BJ's Wholesale Club

Related Links

http://www.bjs.com


DETROIT, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nyman Turkish PC, a Southfield-based disability and litigation law firm and the Wayne State University Law School Civil Rights Clinic filed suit today in Federal Court against the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) on behalf of Angelo Binno, a legally blind man from West Bloomfield who just wants his shot to attend law school.

Blind Michigan Student Files Suit in Federal Court to Give Sightless Equal Chance At Becoming Lawyers Related Documents View PDF

Mr. Binno, who is a graduate of Wayne State University, speaks three languages, and previously held a high-level security clearance with the Department of Homeland Security, has long dreamed of attending law, but those dreams have been obstructed by the Law School Admission Test, which is written and administered by the LSAC. The law suit alleges that the analytical reasoning, or "logic games" section of the LSAT is totally inaccessible to the blind because it requires test-takers to draw pictures and diagrams in order to be successful.

"I have tried everything possible to do well on the LSAT, but I continue to receive unsatisfactory scores because I can't draw pictures," Binno said. "I don't want any special treatment. I just want the opportunity to compete equally with everyone else. I really don't think my ability to draw pictures will have any impact on my performance in law school, or in the practice of law."

The LSAT became the de facto admission test considered by virtually every law school in the country in the 1990's, when it was designated by the American Bar Association as a "valid and reliable" predictor of success in law school. Despite being the preeminent law school admission test for more than 20 years, the LSAC has failed to develop an accommodation to make the "logic games" accessible to individuals with visual impairments.

The LSAC is no stranger to litigation for violations of Federal Disability Law. It has repeatedly been targeted by the Department of Justice for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities.

However, past litigation has not addressed the inaccessibility of the "logic games" for the blind and visually impaired.

"The inaccessibility of the 'logic games,' which make up approximately a quarter of the LSAT, has seriously undermined the diversity of the legal practice by keeping otherwise qualified individuals who are blind out of law school," said Jason Turkish, managing partner of Nyman Turkish PC who is representing Mr. Binno in partnership with the Wayne State University Civil Rights Clinic.

"Despite the fact that the LSAT has existed for decades, no one has ever taken the time to adequately address the impact of the logic games on the blind community," said David Moss, Director of the Wayne State University Civil Rights Clinic. "It is time for that issue to come to the forefront, so that we can ensure that individuals with disabilities have a fair shot to compete, not just for admission, but also for scholarships and other financial aid."

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires admissions tests  like the LSAT  to adequately reflect an individual with a disability's aptitude for the study of the particular field they hope to enter into, not their inability to take the test due to disability. The lawsuit asks the Federal Court to order the LSAC to exempt individuals who are blind, such as Binno, from the analytical reasoning portion of the LSAT.

"All I want is a fair opportunity, not just for me, but for every person with a disability who has been unable to get their foot in the front door," Binno said.

Contact: TJ Bucholz, 517.657.3944

SOURCE Nyman Turkish PC
Led by Kimberly Dennis , the new office focuses on providing full service financial solutions to a wide variety of diversified industries.

COLUMBUS, OH, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - BMO Harris Bank today announced that it has opened a new commercial banking office in Columbus. Located at 191 W. Nationwide Blvd.  in the heart of the Arena District  the new office, which will serve as the base for providing financial solutions to businesses throughout Ohio, is focused on providing a wide variety of commercial banking capabilities and expertise.

"The attractive demographics and positive economic outlook made Columbus a very appealing destination for our new commercial banking office," said Ray Whitacre, Head, Diversified Industries, BMO Harris Bank. "BMO offers tremendous cross-border capabilities, and with Canada being Columbus' top export market, we are very well positioned to provide clients with the solutions and expertise they need to grow their businesses  domestically and internationally."

The new office will be led by Kimberly Dennis, who has spent her entire professional career focused on commercial banking in Ohio.

"Kim brings the optimal balance of local market experience and expertise combined with a passion for providing an exceptional customer experience, which makes her a fantastic fit for BMO," added Whitacre.

"I'm an entrepreneur at heart, and the allure of helping to build the BMO brand here in Columbus was extremely appealing," said Dennis. "I was drawn to BMO's platform, its leadership team and its history  200 years of helping business owners grow their businesses and achieve their ambitions."

A total of nine commercial banking professionals are based in the office, focused on diversified industries, treasury and payment solutions, sponsor finance and capital markets. The office, which is focused primarily on companies with annual revenues of $20+ million, offers local market knowledge and access to a wide variety of industry expertise.

About BMO Harris Bank

BMO Harris Bank provides a broad range of personal banking products and solutions through nearly 600 branches and approximately 1,300 ATMs in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. BMO Harris Bank's commercial banking team provides a combination of sector expertise, local knowledge and mid-market focus throughout the U.S. For more information about BMO Harris Bank, go to the company fact sheet. Banking products and services are subject to bank and credit approval. BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC. BMO Harris Bank is part of BMO Financial Group, a North American financial organization with approximately 1,600 branches, and CDN $692 billion in assets (as of Jan. 31, 2017).

Media contacts:

Emily Penate, Chicago, [email protected], (312) 461-7956

SOURCE BMO Harris Bank
"We are thrilled to partner with Boeing to take the delivery of the world's first Boeing 737 MAX," said Chandran Rama Muthy, CEO of Malindo Air. "The Boeing 737NG fleet has served Malindo well in its growth and we believe that the 737 MAX will become the centerpiece of our fleet. These new aircraft will allow us to go to further destinations and will play a key role in providing lower air fares to our customers."

The 737 MAX family is designed to offer the greatest flexibility, reliability and efficiency in the single-aisle market. Every airplane will feature the new Boeing Sky Interior, highlighted by modern sculpted sidewalls and window reveals, LED lighting that enhances the sense of spaciousness and larger pivoting overhead stowage bins.

The 737 MAX is the fastest-selling airplane in Boeing's history. To date, it has received almost 3,700 orders from 87 customers across the world.

Contact:

Elizabeth Merida

737 MAX Communications

703-209-4022

[email protected]

SOURCE Boeing
NEW YORK, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Highlights

 Global BPO Services industry profile provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including: market size (value 2012-16, and forecast to 2021).

 The profile also contains descriptions of the leading players including key financial metrics and analysis of competitive pressures within the market.

 BPO services include the outsourcing of business-related processes to third-party organizations.

 The services include the outsourcing of functions such as customer relationship management, knowledge process outsourcing, finance & accounting, human resources, procurement, and vertical-specific processes.

BPO Services Global Industry Almanac 2017

Summary

Global BPO Services industry profile provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including: market size (value 2012-16, and forecast to 2021). The profile also contains descriptions of the leading players including key financial metrics and analysis of competitive pressures within the market.

Synopsis

Essential resource for top-line data and analysis covering the global bpo services market. Includes market size and segmentation data, textual and graphical analysis of market growth trends and leading companies.

Key Findings

- BPO services include the outsourcing of business-related processes to third-party organizations. The services include the outsourcing of functions such as customer relationship management, knowledge process outsourcing, finance & accounting, human resources, procurement, and vertical-specific processes.

- CRM BPO services typically include consumer direct services, contact center outsourcing (which includes customer care, sales and marketing, and technical product support), collection services, and claims & warranty services.

- Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services include research and analytics services such as competitive analysis, quantitative research & analytics, risk management & analytics, strategy & business development research, financial research, and legal process outsourcing (LPO).

- Finance & accounting BPO covers operations relating to financial support functions, such as accounts payable and receivable, general ledger, payment processing, invoice, purchase order management & processing, receipt & reconciliation, and management reporting.

- HR outsourcing services include benefits administration, payroll services, recruitment outsourcing, relocation and assignment services, workforce administration & development services / talent management, and performance management.

- Procurement BPO covers the outsourcing of key procurement processes including sourcing support and administration, contract management, demand management, supplier relationship management, and performance reporting.

- Vertical-specific BPO covers the outsourcing of services that require domain expertise. Vertical-specific BPO includes a range of processes such as insurance and annuities policy administration, claims and transaction processing, credit card analytics for banks and insurers, patient administration, medical coding, clinical research, and drug discovery & development for healthcare providers and pharmaceuticals.

- Any currency conversions used in the creation of this report have been calculated using constant 2016 annual average exchange rates.

- The global BPO Services market had total revenues of $140,316.1m in 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4% between 2012 and 2016.

- There are some very large and highly developed players in the Asia-Pacific market and many companies are located in Asia for the ability to offer offshoring services on a big scale. The North American BPO services market is the largest globally due to the US BPO market, accounting for over 90% of the regional market in value terms. Within Europe the UK is by far the biggest market in value terms almost, 4 times the size of France which is the second largest.

- The performance of the market is forecast to decelerate, with an anticipated CAGR of 3.1% for the five-year period 2016 - 2021, which is expected to drive the market to a value of $163,764.0m by the end of 2021.

Scope

- Save time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the size, growth, major segments, and leading players in the global bpo services market

- Use the Five Forces analysis to determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of the global bpo services market

- Leading company profiles reveal details of key bpo services market players global operations and financial performance

- Add weight to presentations and pitches by understanding the future growth prospects of the global bpo services market with five year forecasts

Reasons to buy

- What was the size of the global bpo services market by value in 2016?

- What will be the size of the global bpo services market in 2021?

- What factors are affecting the strength of competition in the global bpo services market?

- How has the market performed over the last five years?

- What are the main segments that make up the global bpo services market?

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

http://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

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Mayor Barron Casteel, left, grins alongside President and CEO of First Commercial Bank Mark Long as he turns ceremonial dirt on the new Miller Building with Doug MIller, center, who is flanked by his grandchildren McKinley and Korbyn. Also pictured are his daughter-in-law and son LeAnn and Douglas Miller, and his wife and daughter Anne and Amanda Miller.
NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Description

The Partnering Deals and Alliance since 2010 report provides an in-depth insight into the partnering activity of one of the world's leading life sciences companies.





Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04882517/Bristol-Myers-Squibb-Partnering-Deals-and-Alliances-to.html







On demand company reports are prepared upon purchase to ensure inclusion of the most up to date deal and company data.



The report will be delivered in PDF format within 1 working day of receipt of order. If the CD-Rom version purchased, the report will be sent by courier using express service.



One of the key aspects of partnering is finding those companies that are potential candidates for the development and commercialization of the next generation of therapies. A lot of resources are spent on finding partners, identifying their interests and making contact to initiate discussions.



Using this report, dealmakers will effectively and efficiently target their partnering activities to deliver the company's business development objectives.



The initial chapters of this report provide an orientation of deal making and business activities.



Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the report, whilst chapter 2 lists the top companies partnering with the company since 2010. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the leading partnering and M&A deals since 2010 to present date based on headline value.



Chapter 4 provides details on how to approach biopharma companies with partnering opportunities whilst chapter 5 lists forthcoming partnering events and conferences where biopharma companies will be present to discuss opportunities face to face.



The main body of the report is provided in chapter 6 providing a infographic visual summary of the company's partnering activity since 2010 according to deal type, industry sector, phase of development, and therapy area.



The deals are listed by deal type, stage of development and therapy focus, allowing easy access to deals and alliances of interest. Every deal record links to an online, live version of the deal record at the Current Agreements deals and alliances database. Where available, deal records also include the contract document as disclosed at the SEC.



One of the key aspects of partnering is conducting due diligence on a partner to determine under what terms a prospective partner agrees to a partnering relationship.



Understanding the flexibility of prospective partners' negotiated deals terms provides critical insight into the negotiation process in terms of what you can expect to achieve during the negotiation of terms. Whilst many smaller companies will be seeking details of the payments clauses, the devil is in the detail in terms of how payments are triggered  contract documents provide this insight where press releases and databases do not.



In addition, contract documents provide the answers to numerous questions about a prospective partner's flexibility on a wide range of important issues, many of which will have a significant impact on each party's ability to derive value from the deal.



Each contract document is accessible through a link to an online version of the actual contract document as filed with the Securities Exchange Commission.



Analyzing actual company agreements allows assessment of the following:

o What is actually granted by the agreement to the partner company?

o What exclusivity is granted?

o What is the payment structure for the deal?

o How are sales and payments audited?

o What is the deal term?

o How are the key terms of the agreement defined?

o How are IPRs handled and owned?

o Who is responsible for commercialization?

o Who is responsible for development, supply, and manufacture?

o How is confidentiality and publication managed?

o How are disputes to be resolved?

o Under what conditions can the deal be terminated?

o What happens when there is a change of ownership?

o What sublicensing and sub-contracting provisions have been agreed?

o Which boilerplate clauses does the company insist upon?

o Which boilerplate clauses appear to differ from partner to partner or deal type to deal type?

o Which jurisdiction does the company insist upon for agreement law?



Benefits

Partnering Deals and Alliances since 2010 report provides the user with the following key benefits:

- Partnering interests and therapy focus revealed

- Partnering activity since 2010  number of deals per year

- Partnering activity for 2010-present

- Activity by deal type

- Activity by phase of development

- Activity by therapeutic area

- List of recent partner companies

- Detailed listing of all partnering deals since 2010

- Comprehensive access to actual contracts entered into by the company and its partners*

- Insight into the terms included in a partnering agreement

- Understand the key deal terms the company has agreed in previous deals

- Undertake due diligence to assess suitability of your proposed deal terms for partner companies



*Subject to being published via regulatory requirements of the Securities Exchange Commission.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04882517/Bristol-Myers-Squibb-Partnering-Deals-and-Alliances-to.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

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LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cachet Hospitality Group today announced the signing of a management agreement for Cachet Resort Dewa Phuket, a conversion property owned by R&B Partners Co., Ltd. Located on Thailand's largest island, the hotel marks the company's second resort property and adds to Cachet's expanding portfolio in Southeast Asia, following on the heels of the recently announced SAVANT Vela Hotel  Bangkok. Operations as a CHG managed property will begin May 2017, with interior renovations to be completed November 2017, helmed by Cachet Interior Design (CID).

"We are honored to collaborate with R&B Partners Co., Ltd. and eager to introduce the Cachet resort brand to this region," said Kimy Chen, President of Southeast Asia, Cachet Hospitality Group. "With 59 flights from Bangkok per day, Phuket is an extremely accessible and appealing vacation destination. Travelers to the island are ready to experience our acclaimed designs, enticing F&B programs and innovative amenities."

Set beside the tranquil shores of Nai Yang Beach, considered one of the most idyllic beaches of Phuket, this 128-room lifestyle resort is surrounded by azure waters and the lush green forest of Sirinat National Park. It is just a 7-minute drive from Phuket International Airport and only a 30-minute drive from historic Phuket Town.

The sprawling property will feature CHG's signature offerings, including a premium sleep experience, rejuvenating bath amenities, a grandiose arrival area, and global culinary experiences. On-site facilities will include two distinctive dining venues, approximately 1,000 square meters of meeting and event spaces, a luxurious spa, a fully equipped fitness center, a yoga-focused wellness center, a Kids Club, and two picturesque swimming pools.

Reinterpreted by CID, Cachet Resort Dewa Phuket's standard rooms, villas and residential suites will feature sleek, contemporary interiors with polished concrete floors, deep mahogany, black marble, coconut shell finishes, and exposed ceilings. The modern effect is balanced by incorporating classic Thai blue silk on the pillows, chairs, and beds and adorning the guestrooms with authentic Thai sculptures and artwork.

The resort's restaurants and bars will appeal to the globally well travelled as well as local long term residents, offering both Thai and international cuisine with personalized service and talented local and international chefs. The Aleta Restaurant Bar and Grill promises to bring something new and fresh to the Phuket dining scene. It will deliver a wide array of well crafted dishes fusing its Mexican heritage with Thai flavours in simply-prepared offerings with unique flavor profiles. Local fishermen's fresh catch seafood will be on display and cooked guests' desired tastes on the wood fired grill.

Catering to wine enthusiasts, CHG will also bring Stonehaus, California's renowned wine bar brand, to the resort. Guests can sip a glass of wine while looking out over the sea, enjoying simple and well prepared fair the will be matched perfectly with our wide range of wines by the glass or pick up wines to go as part of the wine club. Stonehaus will also feature fresh baked products, sweet treats and an incredible coffee program.

In addition to its beautiful aesthetics and natural surroundings, Cachet Resort Dewa Phuket will be an epicenter of social events on the island, featuring the Cachet Pool Club. The pool club is the perfect place for intimate indulgence, large soirees or just simply chilling out. Cachet Beach Club will be an oasis within an oasis, with international DJ's and local artist setting the scene for some of Phuket's best Chill parties. The resort will be an indoor-outdoor destination for seaside weddings, private parties and corporate functions.

"We are delighted to partner with Cachet Hospitality Group. As the Phuket market grows increasingly sophisticated, our prime Nai Yang Beach location is more coveted than ever," said Lars Ydmark, Managing Director of R&B Partners Co., Ltd. "With our transformation into Cachet Resort Dewa Phuket and the introduction of Cachet's exciting F&B and social programs, we are poised to set a new standard for what is Nai Yang Beach, Phuket."

Cachet Resort Dewa Phuket will be distributed on CHG's revolutionary technology platform and participate in the platform's loyalty program Cachet World. The technology platform is a lifestyle community that features a search and booking engine for boutique and lifestyle hotels and high-end residences worldwide. Through the platform, guests of Cachet Resort will enjoy interactive mobility, exclusive member rates, and personalized food and beverage experiences.

Cachet Hospitality Group's global portfolio, including properties in the pipeline, extends across China, Thailand, Mexico and the United States. With unprecedented opportunity for international growth, CHG is establishing itself as an international hospitality leader.

About Cachet Hospitality Group:

Cachet Hospitality Group (CHG) is a lifestyle hospitality branding and management company with offices in Los Angeles, Shanghai and Bangkok. CHG's mission is to be the leading innovative and socially responsible hospitality company in Asia Pacific and North America, with recent expansions into Cabo San Lucas and New York City. With numerous projects under development, CHG is focused on establishing properties in Greater China, Southeast Asia and the Americas. For more information, please visit www.cachethotelgroup.com.

About R&B Partners Co., Ltd.:

R&B Partners Co., Ltd. is a professional Phuket based resort and property management company, managed by Swedish entrepreneur Lars Ydmark who has over 30 years hotelier background. The company developed and owns Dewa Phuket Resort and Residence, comprised of 34 pool villas and 62 one and two bedroom residences located beside the tranquil shores of Nai Yang Beach and surrounded by the protected Sirinat National Park.

SOURCE Cachet Hotel Group

Related Links

http://www.cachethotelgroup.com


LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Caesarstone, leading developer and manufacturer of premium quartz surfaces, will unveil the "Future Kitchen" designed by the students of the Industrial Design department at Pratt Institute under the creative direction of Visiting Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at Pratt and New York based architect and designer, Marc Thorpe. The future kitchen will be on display in the Caesarstone booth from May 19-23 at WantedDesign Manhattan at Terminal Stores, 269 11th Avenue, New York, NY 10011.

"At Caesarstone, we have always been a huge supporter of the design and architecture communities, and especially of the education of these groups. We see this generation of students as the future of design, and this collaboration is very telling of what is to come," said Nick Harris, Vice President of Marketing at Caesarstone US. "This future kitchen proves what an innovative group this is, and I have no doubt they will cross boundaries and make huge change in the design world."

In designing the kitchen under Thorpe's guidance, Pratt students underwent an extensive process that began with research to find solutions for water systems, composting, robotic farming, smart technology and food storage. Next, they toured Caesarstone's factory in Richmond Hill, Georgia to further understand the material. After the tour, the students went to work developing their own future kitchen.

The initial inspiration for the future kitchen was to showcase the hearth as the focal point, which ultimately drove the design. The students chose Caesarstone quartz surfaces to allow people to envision the future through a familiar and timeless material.

"Quartz is a fundamental element and will continue to be in the future. As technologies advance, quartz surfaces will evolve to become even more fundamentally integrated," Thorpe said.

The final design is a circular formation with high-functionality. The fire pit is at the center surrounded by layered surface styles and elements necessary for a kitchen, such as a dishwasher, food preparation area, sink, storage, and waste compartment. A dining table is also attached. Students chose Caesarstone in Raven, Fresh Concrete, and Statuario Nuvo mixed with stainless steel and glass.

"At the WantedDesign exhibit, you will see how the kitchen will act as a sculpture within the space and will allow the audience to truly imagine what the kitchen of the future will look like," said Feras Alhabib, industrial design student at Pratt. "To me, the Caesarstone quartz surface is the liaison between the present and the future of kitchen design."

"The future kitchen is a return to fundamentals of humanity," adds Thorpe. "It's about the reclaiming of the family unit through the pleasure of cooking."

Domino Magazine will host a breakfast and panel discussion Tuesday, May 23 with Designer & Architect Marc Thorpe, Chair of Industrial Design Department at Pratt, Constantin Boym, designer Danielle Trofe and Pratt students, to discuss design trends surrounding the kitchen of the future. Please RSVP to [email protected].

About Caesarstone

Caesarstone is a leading developer and manufacturer of premium quality quartz surfaces. Established in 1987, the company pioneered the quartz surfaces and continues to manufacture high-quality surfaces utilizing advanced technologies and proprietary knowhow. Caesarstone surfaces consist of up to 93% quartz, retain the cool tactile qualities of nature's strong stones while offering freedom of design with enormous application possibilities including kitchen countertops, bathroom vanities, wall paneling, furniture and more. Caesarstone offers a product that is highly functional, design forward and beautiful, all at the same time.

Media Contact:

Kendal Hurley

Ballantines PR

[email protected]

(310) 454-3080

SOURCE Caesarstone

Related Links

http://www.caesarstoneus.com


LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC praised California Governor Jerry Brown for signing the Governors United Against BDS statement, an AJC initiative that governors across the U.S. are joining to affirm their rejection of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against Israel.



"Governor Brown has once again asserted his unequivocal support for Israel and opposition to those who seek to stigmatize and delegitimize a valued partner of California and the only democracy in the Middle East," said Dan Schnur, incoming Director of AJC's Los Angeles Region.

In September 2016, Brown signed into law AB 2844, designed to combat the BDS movement against Israel.

"The California-Israel relationship has flourished under Governor Brown's leadership," said Schnur. "His efforts to confront BDS will help ensure that critical partnerships between California and Israel -- in water, energy, agriculture, and many other fields -- continue to expand."

In March 2014, Brown and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu signed a broad, innovative agreement to develop joint projects and conduct mutually beneficial research in California and Israel.

"We are grateful to Governor Brown for his leadership in further strengthening California-Israel ties," said Matt Kahn, Director of AJC's San Francisco Region. "Our state recognizes clearly that the BDS movement is malicious, targets Israel alone for punishment and does not advocate for peace."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), and Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy (D), are co-chairs of the national, bipartisan Governors United Against BDS initiative.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hundreds of convenience stores and thousands of employees throughout the Bay Area are being threatened by legislation that would ban the sale of certain tobacco products.

"As an immigrant and business owner, I am deeply concerned by this attack on convenience stores and retailers like me. I am just a local, small business owner trying to achieve the American Dream here in California," said Sanjiv Patel, a convenience store owner in Oakland.

The counties of Contra Costa and San Francisco as well as the cities of Oakland, San Leandro and Los Gatos have introduced overreaching ordinances that single out family- and minority-owned businesses in an effort to score political points.

"Convenience store owners operate on slim margins and rely on high-volume foot traffic. Tobacco ban ordinances would force the closure of hundreds of locations throughout the Bay Area and put thousands of people out of work," said Dee Dhaliwal, convenience store owner in the Bay Area.

Despite claims by organizations that advocate the local bans, new restrictions on convenience stores would not impact the sale of tobacco to minors.

California restricts the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21 and imposes heavy fines on retailers that violate the law. Furthermore, a 2016 study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirmed that the vast majority of youth under the age of 17 obtain tobacco products from "social sources," including older friends, adult siblings and parents.

"CIOMA members operate in accordance to the law and often stage their own internal sting operations to ensure that their employees are not selling tobacco products to anyone under the age of twenty-one," said Ryan Hanretty, Executive Director at CIOMA. "Local ordinances proposed in several Bay Area cities and counties aren't about protecting youth from tobacco products, they are about scoring headlines and political points at the expense of family- and minority-owned businesses that serve their local communities."

BACKGROUND:

Contra Costa Board of Supervisors vote May 23rd.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors vote as early as May 24th.

San Leandro City Council vote on June 5th (possibly as early as May 22nd).

Oakland City Council vote June 6th.

CIOMA represents about one quarter of the state's 14,000 service stations  of that total about 9,500 (over two-thirds) are single-store owners.

SOURCE California Independent Oil Marketers Association (CIOMA)
THE WOODLANDS, Texas, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CB&I (NYSE:CBI) today announced it has been awarded a contract by PT Petrokimia Butadiene Indonesia (PBI), a Chandra Asri Petrochemical Group company, for the license and engineering design of three proprietary technologies in West Java, Indonesia. The scope of work includes the license and engineering design of a CDMtbe unit, a Butene-1 recovery unit and a BASF SELOP selective hydrogenation unit as part of an expansion of PBI's petrochemicals facilities.

"This multi-technology contract underlines the confidence PBI has in our technology portfolio and further establishes our presence and leadership in the region," said Philip K. Asherman, CB&I's President and Chief Executive Officer.

About CB&I

CB&I (NYSE:CBI) is a leading provider of technology and infrastructure for the energy industry. With over 125 years of experience and the expertise of more than 40,000 employees, CB&I provides reliable solutions to our customers around the world while maintaining a relentless focus on safety and an uncompromising standard of quality. For more information, visit www.CBI.com.

Important Information For Investors And Shareholders

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding CB&I and represents our expectations and beliefs concerning future events. These forward-looking statements are intended to be covered by the safe harbor for forward-looking statements provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. When considering any statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or use or contain words, terms, phrases or expressions such as "achieve," "forecast," "plan," "propose," "strategy," "envision," "hope," "will," "continue," "potential," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "project," "estimate," "predict," "intend," "should," "could," "may," "might" or similar forward-looking statements, we refer you to the cautionary statements concerning risk factors and "Forward-Looking Statements" described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our Annual Report filed on Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2016, and any updates to those risk factors or "Forward-Looking Statements" included in our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, which cautionary statements are incorporated herein by reference.

Investors: Scott Lamb, +1 832 513 1068, [email protected]

Media: Gentry Brann, +1 832 513 1031, [email protected]

SOURCE CB&I

Related Links

http://www.cbi.com


Mr. Fox has broad experience as a leader in two of the country's largest US Attorney's Offices in Los Angeles and Chicago. As chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section in Los Angeles, he most recently led an historic investigation of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. This effort included the successful trials and prosecutions of elected Sheriff Leroy Baca and 20 other enforcement officers for obstruction of justice, corruption and civil rights violations.

He oversaw the successful bribery and money laundering prosecution of California State Senator Ron Calderon and supervised corruption, civil right, hate crime and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions. During his tenure with the Department of Justice, he participated in 25 federal trials and was the lead lawyer in 20 of those trials.

"With his base in Los Angeles, Brandon strengthens our West Coast presence in our Investigations, Compliance and Defense Practice. He is a leading figure on the West Coast with deep knowledge about the region's courts, enforcement agencies, and political and business landscapes," said Reid J. Schar, a firm partner and co-chair of the practice, which was recently renamed to reflect the broad scope of services offered to clients. "With our partners in the practice based in all of the firm's offices, we are well positioned to provide the most sophisticated counsel to clients facing high-stakes investigations and trials across the country and globe."

Rick Richmond, Jenner & Block's Los Angeles managing partner and one of the office's co-founders, added, "Brandon is the rare lawyer who has the combination of skills and proven results needed to foster the continued growth of our strong white collar and investigations practice in Los Angeles. Having grown from two lawyers in 2009 to now more than 50, our Los Angeles office continues to develop with the addition of high-level partners like Brandon who expand the services we offer our clients."

Before joining the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, Mr. Fox served as a deputy chief of the Public Corruption and Organization Crime Section and the Financial Crimes and Special Prosecution Section in Chicago. There, he supervised virtually every area of white collar law and corporate malfeasance. After law school, Mr. Fox spent two years in private practice before clerking for US District Court Judge Amy St. Eve.

In 2016, he was recognized with the "Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award" from the US Department of Justice and Loyola Law School's "Prosecutor of the Year" award.

"It is a privilege to bring my trial and investigation experience to such an elite firm," said Mr. Fox. "I look forward to building our white collar presence on the West Coast while supporting Jenner & Block's established practitioners across the country and in London."

Mr. Fox earned his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law, graduating first in his class. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois.

ABOUT JENNER & BLOCK'S INVESTIGATIONS, COMPLIANCE AND DEFENSE PRACTICE

Jenner & Block represents individuals and businesses in criminal prosecutions, grand jury investigations, extradition proceedings and civil enforcement actions brought by state and federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. The practice's high level of credibility with prosecutors enables minimization of the damage and disruption caused by these proceedings, often before charges are brought. If an indictment or charge cannot be avoided, Jenner & Block's white collar lawyers can advise on the risks and benefits of going to trial versus accepting a plea, and have the experience and expertise to take the matter to trial if necessary. The practice group's lawyers conduct internal investigations for companies that are faced with internal or external allegations of wrongdoing or that want to audit proactively for potential misconduct.

ABOUT JENNER & BLOCK

Jenner & Block (www.jenner.com) is a law firm with global reach, with more than 500 lawyers and offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC. The firm is known for its prominent and successful litigation practice and experience handling sophisticated and high-profile corporate transactions. Firm clients include Fortune 100 companies, large privately held corporations, financial services institutions, emerging companies and venture capital and private equity investors. In 2016, The American Lawyer named Jenner & Block to the A-List, which recognizes the top 20 US law firms. The American Lawyer also recognized the firm as the #1 pro bono firm in the United States six of the past nine years; the firm has been ranked among the top 10 in this category every year since 1990.

SOURCE Jenner & Block

Related Links

http://www.jenner.com


WILMINGTON, Del., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware filed a motion to unseal the TransPerfect custodian advisors' fees and expenses. Although the court advised parties to file public versions of confidential transactions, the custodian has not done so, and in fact has withheld details of fees and expenses paid to hired consultants.

Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware is seeking transparency in payments approved by Custodian Pincus which have caused a reduction in employee retirement benefits as well as an increase in healthcare premiums of over 13% for workers with families. "We are simply asking for Mr. Pincus to share where over $18 million of TransPerfect's funds have been spent in the last 15 months," said Chris Coffey, Campaign Manager of Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware.

Custodian Robert Pincus, Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, has reported charging the company $1,400 per hour for his services, one of the highest rates reported in the country and three times the average rate of $450 per hour for similar services in Delaware. In addition to the attorney's plump hourly rate, Pincus has hired a plethora of specialized consultants from industry giants like Credit Suisse, Alvarez and Marsal, Houlihan Lokey, Ernst and Young, Pennell Venture Partners, Proskauer Rose, Williams & Connolly, and the Connor Group.

After taking the reins away from TransPerfect managers, Pincus' band of consultants oversaw the largest data breach in the company's history, for which TransPerfect is currently being sued. While the Custodian continues to log hours and has added to the bottom line of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Shirley Shawe's Section 211 action, which has posed a viable solution, so far has not been accepted. Last month, Shawe filed a lawsuit to force a stockholder meeting where she would sacrifice her vote to TransPerfect majority co-owner, Elizabeth Elting, and remove the deadlock that initiated the court case.

Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware hopes to shine light on the exorbitant amounts spent to prepare for the company's sale, which already risks the livelihoods of over 4,000 employees. "Employees who are already fearful of losing their jobs are now spending more on benefits, while the custodian and his hidden consultants are raking in millions," said Chris Coffey.

CPBD continues to rally Delaware residents to support the company's workers and speak out against the forced sale of the successful company. The organization is currently fighting to pass a Senate bill that would mandate a three-year waiting period when forcing the sale of a privately-held company. CPBD has vowed to persist in the fight for TransPerfect's 4,000 employees whose jobs are threatened by the forced sale.

Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware is a group made up of more than 2,200 members including employees of the global translation services company TransPerfect as well as concerned Delaware residents, business executives and others. It formed in April of 2016 to focus on raising awareness with Delaware residents, elected officials, and other stakeholders about these issues.

For more information on Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware visit DelawareForBusiness.org.

Contact: Mary Urban, [email protected]

Julijana Englander, [email protected]

SOURCE Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware

Related Links

http://www.delawareforbusiness.org


DURHAM, N.C., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarkston Consulting, an SAP partner, announced today that it will participate at SAPPHIRE NOW + ASUG Annual Conference being held May 1618 in Orlando, Florida in booth #791. Clarkston Consulting is a business consulting firm that has been trusted for over 25 years, with customers in the life sciences and consumer products industries. Clarkston's own Nathan Keliher and Benjamin Moore's Rajkumar Maheshwari have been chosen to present Design Thinking at Benjamin Moore: Modeling Best Practices for SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) powered by SAP HANA on Wednesday, May 17th from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM (Session ID # 7788).

SAPPHIRE NOW has continuously provided unmatched opportunities to connect and learn from the SAP and ASUG communities. This year, the firm looks forward to sharing learnings and advice from its partnership with Benjamin Moore --- particularly for companies that are considering the move from a traditional BW model to SAP BW powered by SAP HANA.

Alexander Mendoza, Senior Manager, Enterprise Information Management at Benjamin Moore stated, "Our company's strategy to utilize SAP BW powered by SAP HANA was the foundational start of our transformation journey to becoming a more mature data and analytics driven company. By being able to harness the power of SAP BW powered by SAP HANA, we are able to start utilizing analytical techniques that we were not able to before  giving us a competitive edge to analyze better data, faster.

"SAPPHIRE NOW is a great opportunity for us to not only share what we've learned, but also to learn from others using SAP BW powered by SAP HANA in their own enterprise agenda. We have a great story to tell about our partnership with Clarkston Consulting and how they helped us develop and implement the technology that transformed our analytics. We are eager to see how other customers have been leveraging SAP's technology, and to see what SAP has in store for the roadmap ahead."

SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference are the world's premier business technology event and largest SAP customer-run conference, offering attendees the opportunity to learn and network with customers, SAP executives, partners and experts across the entire SAP ecosystem.

About Clarkston Consulting

Clarkston Consulting provides management, operations and implementation consulting services for life sciences and consumer products companies. Clarkston has achieved a 16-year average client satisfaction rate of 97% by continuously pushing for success for our clients, our consultants, and our company. For more information, please visit www.clarkstonconsulting.com.

SAP, SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP HANA and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Clarkston Consulting

Related Links

http://www.clarkstonconsulting.com


HELSINKI, Finland, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Partnership combines Goodmill's hybrid network hopping capabilities, with Cloudstreet's Dynamic Network Slicing to deliver SLA-assured coverage and bandwidth to solve the Critical Communications' industry's greatest challenge

Cloudstreet, the Nokia spin-off, and Dynamic Network Slicing innovator specialized in delivering SLA-assured mobile Internet connectivity on-demand, and Goodmill Systems, a leader in providing uninterrupted mobile broadband connectivity, are pleased to announce that they have entered into a strategic partnership to extend failsafe connectivity for public safety personnel and vehicles. The partnership brings together two strong Finnish innovators and EU Horizon 2020 grant winners whose combined offerings provide a true paradigm shift for the Critical Communications industry.

True to their slogan, "Always online", Goodmill Systems, have solved the critical issue of ensuring cross-carrier connectivity by allowing users and devices to seamlessly "hop" multiple LTE networks to provide uninterrupted service for the gamut of life- and mission- critical public safety applications. Cloudstreet's SLA-assured, Dynamic Network Slicing technology ensures public safety operatives dedicated mobile capacity and ultra-low latency within each cell of a network wherever and whenever they need it, even in the face of chronic congestion

Together, the two companies provide a true End-to-End (E2E) solution for the safety- and security-essential demands of coverage, capacity and latency-assured throughput across multiple, heterogeneous networks. Taken as a whole, the strategic business and technology partnership eliminates the final hurdle for Critical Communications as the industry moves from its previous, voice-centric generation of dedicated public safety networks (like TETRA), to leveraging the full power, reach and data-handling capacity of 4G LTE and ultimately 5G networks. These combined platforms will not only bring business-critical cost savings to budget-conscious public safety agencies world-wide, but finally deliver on the mandate of ensuring truly pervasive connectivity when and where it is needed most.

"This partnership removes the last obstacle for Critical Communications from a network connectivity perspective and well in advance of the arrival of 5G," said Petteri Suomalainen, CEO and Co-Founder of Goodmill Systems. "By combining Cloudstreet's next-generation Dynamic Network Slicing platform, for today's 4G LTE networks with Goodmill System's ability to deliver cross-carrier connectivity, ensuring public safety operatives as "Always Online", this partnership not only dramatically advances Critical Communications infrastructure, but directly supports the industry's mandate to ensure the safety and security of citizens and save lives. We are excited to be working with a fellow innovator like Cloudstreet to make this a reality."

"Bringing these essential innovations together effectively closes the loop on a core public safety requirement." said Mika Skarp, CTO and Founder of Cloudstreet. "While much of our industry focuses on expanding network capacity, in an era of ever finite mobile bandwidth, our Critical Communications infrastructure needs moreover to ensure reliability and interoperability across public networks. By combining Cloudstreet's Dynamic Network Slicing with Goodmill's hybrid mobile network connectivity we are delivering precisely on these mission- and life-critical demands."

Critical Communications authorities, mobile operators and media are invited to meet both companies for further discussions at Critical Communications World at Asia World Expo, Hong Kong (May 16th-18th) at the Critical Communications Finland booth.

About Goodmill Systems

Goodmill Systems Ltd. is a Global market leader in critical broadband connectivity for vehicles. Goodmill brings you revolutionary multi-channel router solutions that enable outstanding Broadband connectivity ensuring constant data flow in demanding conditions where connectivity is critical. Visit us online at http://goodmillsystems.com/.

About Cloudstreet

Founded in 2010, Cloudstreet is a Nokia-incubated telecom innovator from Finland dedicated to revolutionizing mobile connectivity, empowering user choice and driving new mobile operator revenues by leading the transition to Application-Aware Networks. Leveraging the power of Software Defined Networks and Network Function Virtualization (SDN/NFV) to enable Dynamic (app-, user-, location- and context-aware) Network Slicing in 4G and 5G networks, Cloudstreet has delivered the world's first Quality-of-Experience-guaranteed mobile bandwidth-on-demand solution. Winner of the European Union's coveted Horizon 2020 grant, and awarded Best Connectivity Solution for IoT by the World Communications Awards in 2016, Cloudstreet provides a cost-effective, revenue-generating platform for a world of applications spanning IPTV/OTT Mobile Video, AR/VR, IoT, M2M, Video Conferencing, Healthtech, Public Safety / Critical Communications and Smart Cities. For more information about Cloudstreet, visit us online at http://www.cloudstreet.co.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Brendan Tully Walsh

Marketing Head, Cloudstreet

[email protected]

(514)-802-6099

Juhani Lehtonen

VP Sales & Marketing

Goodmill Systems Ltd.

[email protected]

+358-50-572-5542

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/cloudstreet/r/cloudstreet-and-goodmill-systems-partner-to-deliver-flawless-mobile-connectivity-and-coverage-for-cr,c2266285

SOURCE Cloudstreet

Related Links

http://www.cloudstreet.co


SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With technologies available for tightening skin, reducing fat, treating cellulite, and even toning vaginal tissues, patients who want to improve their bodies can often achieve their reshaping goals without ever setting foot in an operating room, says board certified physician assistant Lauren Amico-Reed, PA-C, MMS, who is the Director of the Laser & Skincare Clinic at La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Center (LJCSC).

She and her colleagues at LJCSC say they have experienced a significant boost in demand for these treatmentsfrom 2014 to 2016, the number of non-surgical treatments the San Diego practice performed each year more than doubledand patients are increasingly choosing to undergo multiple treatments to achieve more comprehensive, lasting results. LJCSC has been offering non-surgical treatment options to patients for over two decades. The Laser & Skincare menu currently includes seven body contouring options, along with 20+ facial rejuvenation treatments.

Amico-Reed explains that for patients who are not ready for surgery, "non-surgical body contouring has an obvious appeal: a slimmer, more youthful body without anesthesia, scars or weeks of downtime." Many patients also appreciate that results for certain treatments such as CoolSculpting appear gradually over time, so acquaintances will not notice a sudden change and suspect a cosmetic procedure.

Despite these benefits, however, Amico-Reed says that even the most popular, proven non-surgical alternatives have limitations. "If there is any downside to non-surgical treatments, it's that they can be 'one trick ponies' that do a really good job of addressing one very specific concern." Thus the best results are typically seen with a multi-pronged treatment protocol that includes different technologies to address each of a patient's concerns effectively.

"For instance, CoolSculpting is great for reducing fat pockets on the outer thighs, but it won't help with cellulite. If a patient wants to treat both, we'll combine CoolSculpting with Cellfina cellulite reduction to help her achieve her goals non-surgically," explains Amico-Reed.

Other popular treatment combinations at the LJCSC Laser & Skincare Clinic include:

CoolSculpting  (cryolipolysis) fat reduction to reduce larger-area fat pockets + SculpSure  laser fat reduction to reduce smaller areas in detail. Amico-Reed says that this combination increases sculpting capability and offers her San Diego CoolSculpting patients more refined results without additional treatment time.

(cryolipolysis) fat reduction to reduce larger-area fat pockets + SculpSure laser fat reduction to reduce smaller areas in detail. Amico-Reed says that this combination increases sculpting capability and offers her San Diego CoolSculpting patients more refined results without additional treatment time. ThermiSmooth  radiofrequency treatments to tighten lax skin + Cellfina cellulite reduction to achieve smoother, firmer thighs and buttocks

radiofrequency treatments to tighten lax skin + Cellfina cellulite reduction to achieve smoother, firmer thighs and buttocks A non-surgical "mommy makeover" including CoolSculpting to reduce fat pockets + ThermiSmooth to tighten and smooth lax abdominal skin + ThermiVA feminine rejuvenation to tone stretched vaginal tissues following pregnancy and childbirth.

While Amico-Reed admits that the cost of undergoing multiple non-surgical treatments can approach that of cosmetic surgery in many cases, she stresses that "patients love that they can receive great results without having to commit to more invasive procedures or taking a week or more off work to recover."

She offers this advice to patients considering their options for non-surgical body contouring: "make sure you choose an appropriately qualified provider who has experience incorporating multiple technologies into their patients' treatment plans. Providers with extensive experience with these technologies will be more able to safely achieve optimal results for you."

Amico-Reed invites anyone interested in learning more about non-surgical cosmetic treatments to contact LJCSC at 858-452-1981 or visit www.ljcsc.com.

About La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Centre: LJCSC is located in the Scripps/XIMED Medical Building on the Scripps Memorial Hospital Campus, at 9850 Genesee Avenue, Suite 130, in La Jolla, CA. The LJCSC Laser & Skincare Clinic is also located in the Scripps/XIMED Medical Building in Suite 380. Reach them by phone at 858-452-1981.

Media Contact: Marie Olesen, La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Centre.http://www.ljcsc.com/ or 858-452-1981.

SOURCE La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Centre

Related Links

http://www.ljcsc.com


PLYMOUTH NOTCH, Vt., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation is pleased to announce the names of the three students selected as the 2017 recipients of the Coolidge Scholarship. The Coolidge Scholarship is among the most generous scholarships in America. This full-ride, non-partisan, merit award covers a student's tuition, fees, room and board for four years of undergraduate study at any accredited college or university in the United States.

The Coolidge Scholarship was established by the Coolidge Foundation to honor America's thirtieth president and to elevate the values for which President Coolidge stood. Amity Shlaes, Coolidge biographer and Coolidge Foundation chairman said, "The values of Calvin Coolidge -- humility, restrained government, civility and federalism -- couldn't be more timely today. We are glad the Coolidge Scholarship can raise the profile of this underrated president."

The main criterion that distinguishes Coolidge Scholars is academic merit. Students must also demonstrate a keen interest in public policy, an appreciation for the values Coolidge championed, humility, and a record of service.

Nearly 2,500 students, hailing from all 50 states, applied for the Coolidge Scholarship this year. Each applicant was required to read and write an essay about the Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. Matthew Denhart, Coolidge Foundation executive director, remarked, "Coolidge Scholar applicants represent the most promising and accomplished high school students in America today. The Coolidge Foundation is proud to support these remarkable young people as they embark on the next stage in their academic careers."

Coolidge Scholars are selected through a multi-stage process. Students must apply for the Coolidge Scholarship during their junior year of high school. All applicants are reviewed by the Coolidge Foundation. Semifinalist juries meet across the country to consider top applicants and select finalists. Ten finalists are flown in for a finalist weekend at the Coolidge Historic Site in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. During the finalist weekend, candidates are interviewed by the Coolidge Scholars Finalist Jury, chaired by Dr. Bruce Cole, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Speaking on behalf of the finalist jury, Dr. Cole said: "The Coolidge Scholarship is demonstrating proof of concept. Merit and the pursuit of excellence are the hallmarks of this Scholarship. This year's second annual class is an inspiring example of dedication, purpose and achievement."

The recipients of the 2017 Coolidge Scholarship are:



Mr. Joshua Kim of San Diego, California

Ms. Elissa Morgan of Loganville, Georgia

Ms. Neha Seshadri of Ann Arbor, Michigan



Mr. Kim attends The Cambridge School in San Diego. Ms. Morgan home schools. Ms. Seshadri attends Skyline High School in Ann Arbor.

Although only a small number of students win the Coolidge Scholarship each year, the Coolidge Foundation honors up to 50 of the top applicants with the designation of "Coolidge Senator." The Coolidge Senators are flown to Washington, D.C., for an all-expenses-paid weekend where they tour the three branches of government, study civics, and learn about President Coolidge's time in Washington as vice president and president. Most importantly, the Coolidge Senators have the opportunity to meet each other and develop friendships that will last throughout their academic and professional careers.



For more information about the Coolidge Scholars Program, including profiles of this year's winners, please visit Coolidgescholars.org.

SOURCE Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation
MISSISSAUGA, ON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Crescita Therapeutics Inc. (TSX:CTX) (Crescita or the Company), a commercial dermatology company with a portfolio of non-prescription skincare products and prescription drug products for the treatment and care of skin conditions and diseases and their symptoms, today announced its financial and operational results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017.

Product and Technology Updates

Pliaglis 

In April, the Company entered into a development and commercialization license agreement (the Agreement) with Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Taro), the Canadian subsidiary of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Under the terms of the Agreement, Crescita has granted Taro an exclusive license to the rights to sell and distribute Pliaglis in the U.S. market and for the Enhanced Formulation. In consideration of the rights granted under the Agreement, Taro will make the following payments to Crescita: an upfront payment of US$2.0 million, up to US$5.75 million in non-dilutive development and sales milestone payments and tiered royalties on net sales of products licensed under the Agreement. The Company is evaluating strategies to optimize product sales in Canada and Mexico.

MMPE

In March, the Company signed an exclusive license agreement with a U.S.-based, major dermatological contract research company (the Licensee) to develop prescription treatments of skin diseases utilizing Crescita's patented multiplexed molecular penetration enhancer (MMPE) technology. The Licensee will oversee and fund the cost of all development activities until commercialization partner(s) for the products are secured. Crescita is entitled to a share of royalties and other consideration received by the Licensee from such partners based on a formula that includes compensation to Crescita for granting the Licensee the exclusive license to the MMPE technology.

ISDIN 

In January, INTEGA Skin Sciences (INTEGA) launched the ISDIN Acnisdin and Nutratopic product lines at Brunet pharmacy chains throughout Quebec. The trademark is owned by ISDIN S.A. and is being used under license by INTEGA.

Corporate Developments

Management Appointment

In April, the board of directors of the Company appointed Serge Verreault to the position of President. Mr. Verreault had previously held the position of Executive Director of Business Development at Valeant Canada and was a member of the Operating Committee.

Strategic Initiative

The Company is continually assessing in-licensing, merger and acquisition activities, or some combination thereof, related to new product opportunities. The Company's goal is to leverage its current sales and manufacturing infrastructure to facilitate growth.

"Although the first quarter of 2017 was a difficult one for Crescita, it was not unexpected, as sales are typically the lowest in this quarter," said Dan Chicoine, Crescita's Executive Chairman and Interim CEO. In addition, Crescita continued to incur restructuring and integration costs which should decline during the course of the year. The anticipated higher sales going forward, additional revenue from the Taro Agreement, as well as reducing costs, should provide improvements in our financial results."

For further details on the results, please refer to the Management, Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) and Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements which are available on the Company's website (www.crescitatherapeutics.com).

Cash

At March 31, 2017, cash and short-term investments were $13.8 million compared to $18.4 million at December 31, 2016 of which $8.6 million is restricted cash.

Revenues

Total revenue, consisting of product sales, royalties and services revenue, for the three months ended March 31, 2017 was $2.1 million compared to $95,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2016. The increase in revenue related to product sales of non-prescription skincare products resulting from the INTEGA acquisition.

Operating Expenses

Total operating expenses for the three months ended March 31, 2017 were $5.2 million compared to $4.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016. The increase in operating expenses relates primarily to the inclusion of INTEGA's operations including product costs, as well as costs related to the restructuring of the business, offset by synergies from integration.

Net Loss

Net loss for the three months ended March 31, 2017 was $3.2 million compared to $6.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016. The improvement in net loss for the current quarter was a result of the increased revenues from INTEGA product sales netted against the corresponding costs to realize those sales and were offset by the additional one-time non-recurring costs incurred to integrate and restructure the operations. In the comparative quarter, net loss included a net loss from discontinued operations of $1.1 million which includes costs related to the 2015 WF10 Trial, as well as costs of maintaining the European operations. Net loss for the current quarter includes loss from discontinued operations of $63,000 attributable to legal and professional fees incurred to facilitate the wind-down.

Share Capital

The number of common shares outstanding as at March 31, 2017 was 13,935,638.

Restated Annual Financial Statements and MD&A

The Company has also filed restated annual Consolidated Financial Statements and MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2016 related to a non-cash adjustment to deferred income taxes in the amount of $1.8 million. The documents can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About Crescita Therapeutics Inc.

Crescita (TSX:CTX) is a publicly traded, Canadian commercial dermatology company with a portfolio of non-prescription skincare products and prescription drug products for the treatment and care of skin conditions and diseases and their symptoms. Crescita owns multiple proprietary drug delivery platforms that support the development of patented formulations that can facilitate the delivery of active drugs into or through the skin. Crescita's board of directors and management team have demonstrated success in building Crescita's predecessor company, Nuvo Research Inc., including developing multiple drugs that are now approved and commercialized and negotiating multiple licensing transactions. For additional information, please visit www.crescitatherapeutics.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This Press Release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "will" and similar references to future periods.

Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on the Company's current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of its business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of the Company's control. Crescita's actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, readers should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause Crescita's actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the risk factors included in Crescita's most recent Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2017 under the heading "Risks Factors", and as described from time to time in the reports and disclosure documents filed by Crescita with Canadian securities regulatory agencies and commissions. These and other factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on Crescita's forward-looking statements. As a result of the foregoing and other factors, no assurance can be given as to any such future results, levels of activity or achievements and none of Crescita or any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of these forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement made by the Company in this Press Release is based only on information currently available to it and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, Crescita undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

SOURCE Crescita Therapeutics Inc.

Related Links

http://www.crescitatherapeutics.com


BOSTON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cubewise, an IBM Platinum Partner and global software and solutions provider of budgeting, planning and financial reporting applications, announced today that Celine Le Maitre has joined Cubewise's North American operations to lead their Professional Services organization.

"We're thrilled to have a person of Celine's caliber and experience helping drive our next phase of growth and customer success in the U.S. and Canada," says Joseph Pusztai, General Manager of Cubewise North America. "The professional services team under Celine's leadership has already opened up new opportunities for us, by providing our rapidly growing North American customer base with a one-stop shop for all their budgeting, planning and reporting needs."

Ms. Le Maitre was most previously a managing consultant in Cubewise's Sydney headquarters, having successfully led many high-profile projects including the development of a new TM1-based sales incentive application for Allianz Australia.

"Celine quickly developed a deep understanding of our business and technical requirements," explains Peter Brady, Allianz Australia project sponsor and Financial Systems Manager. "Under Celine's expert guidance, Cubewise delivered an elegant, flexible solution for our sales incentive management process," adding, "We would enthusiastically recommend Celine and Cubewise to any TM1 customer facing similar complex business challenges."

In her new role, Celine will be based in Cubewise's North American headquarters in Boston, MA, one of ten regional Cubewise offices worldwide.

Among the professional services immediately available from Cubewise North America for U.S. and Canadian customers are application development, training, support and optimization for IBM's TM1, Planning Analytics and CDM products, as well as for the TM1-based business applications and development tools distributed under the Cubewise CODE and Apliqo brands, including:

Le Maitre says, "On project after project, I've experienced first-hand the power of IBM and Cubewise's solutions to help companies improve their productivity and profitability. I look forward to this exciting opportunity to bring our transformative technology and methodology to North American customers."

ABOUT CUBEWISE

Cubewise is an award-winning IBM Platinum Partner specializing in helping companies master their budgeting, planning, forecasting and financial reporting processes. In 2016, Cubewise was recognized as IBM's "Worldwide Financial and Operational Performance Management Business Partner of the Year".

CONTACT

Joseph Pusztai

General Manager

Cubewise North America

1.781.258.1868

[email protected]

www.cubewise.com

SOURCE Cubewise North America

Related Links

http://www.cubewise.com


PHOENIX, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 4th 2017, Dan Mullarkey was honored for the third consecutive year for SEVRAR's 40 Under 40 designation. Dan was among 39 other recipients honored for South East Valley Regional Association of REALTORS's (SEVRAR) 2017 40 Under 40 hosted by Young Professionals Network. The 40 Under 40 award recipients all contribute tirelessly to their community and provide exceptional leadership within their businesses.

Dan Mullarkey, Associate Broker at West USA Realty, Honored by SEVRARs 40 Under 40

"Being a member of the 40 under 40 for the third year is a huge honor for me. This is an incredible group of Realtors that work very hard for their clients each and every day, and it feels great to be a part of that. I have some incredible clients that have trusted me with their largest investments over the years, and I don't take that responsibility lightly. Many of them have also become friends after the transaction which is fantastic, and have also sent me many of their referrals which have been instrumental in business growth. I hope to help a lot more clients over the years, and I'm very excited for what the future holds," said Dan Mullarkey.

Dan is currently an Associate Broker with West USA Realty and works out of its Scottsdale, Arizona office. Dan holds a variety of real estate designations. Dan's real estate career began in 2005, but when the market "crashed" in 2008, Dan shifted gears and began listing foreclosure and short sale properties. Dan's listing clients included Fannie Mae, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, HSBC, and others.

"It's always great to see well-deserved recognition to those with dedication and service to the real estate industry and the clients they serve. We are proud to have Dan as a part of the West USA family," said Clint Fouts, President.

West USA Realty is a locally owned, top producing Arizona real estate firm that was established in 1986. West USA Realty's six convenient branch offices have helped thousands of Arizona residents achieve "The American Dream." National Relocation & Real Estate Magazine ranks West USA Realty at 13th in the Nation for overall transactions per company and number 1 in transactions per office! RisMedia recognized West USA Realty as #15 in the nation in 2017 for transaction sides.

About West USA Realty, Inc. - Arizona

West USA Realty is a full-service real estate brokerage offering residential, new homes, luxury homes, property management, and commercial sales services. In 2016, West USA Realty, Inc. celebrated its 30th year providing real estate services to the State of Arizona; having represented over 250,000 clients since the company was founded. West USA Realty, Inc. Ranks 15th Among the Top 500 Real Estate Firms in the Nation by RisMedia's 29th Annual Power Broker Report for 2016. West USA Realty reported 19,635 closed residential transactions and a total sales volume of $3.345 Billion in 2016. For more information about West USA Realty, please visit www.westusa.com or call (602) 942-4200.

Media Contact:

Bree Kruger

Communications Director

West USA Realty, Inc.

602-942-4200

[email protected]

SOURCE West USA Realty

Related Links

http://www.westusa.com


MAPLE GROVE, Minn., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NxThera, Inc., a medical device company pioneering the application of its convective radiofrequency thermotherapy to treat endourological conditions, announced the presentation of data demonstrating the effectiveness of its minimally invasive Rezum System to treat obese men suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) caused by benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) at the 2017 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting in Boston. The AUA also named this presentation as a Best Abstract out of nearly 3,000 abstracts presented during the conference.

The abstract, entitled, "Convective Radiofrequency Water Vapor Energy Ablation (Rezum) Effectively Treats Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Due to Benign Prostatic Enlargement Regardless of Obesity While Preserving Erectile and Ejaculatory Function," was presented by Dr. Nikhil Gupta, urologist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, and a fellow of Dr. Kevin McVary. The data presented by Dr. Gupta demonstrated that obese men, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, enrolled in the study experienced similar improvements in International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), including both urinary storage and voiding domains, after a BPH procedure with the Rezum System as compared to nonobese subjects. Obese subjects were more likely to have severe erectile dysfunction, but experienced a similar rate of minimal clinically important difference (MCID) and improvement in ejaculatory bother scores as those experienced by the non-obese subjects.

"Obesity is one of the strongest risk factors for the development of BPH and male LUTS. Additionally, in nearly all known treatments of male LUTS, whether traditional surgery or medical therapy, obesity is strongly associated with a reduced response to therapy and less improvement in urinary symptoms," Dr. Gupta said. "The results of this trial indicate that Rezum is a promising, minimally invasive therapy for LUTS due to BPH, with the potential for long-term benefit, and the treatment effect of Rezum is not dampened by obesity."

The Rezum System uses radiofrequency current to create thermal energy that is convectively delivered to obstructive prostate tissue through targeted, precise treatments. The thermal energy ablates the tissue that causes BPH, which is resorbed by the body's immune system to alleviate the symptoms of BPH and improve patients' quality of life and ability to urinate.

In the Rezum clinical study, 66 out of 196 (34 percent) patients were clinically obese. The controlled trial was conducted across 15 centers in the United States and the data demonstrated that obese patients who underwent treatment with the Rezum System had similar improvements in IPSS and retained sexual function as reported via International Index of Erectile Dysfunction (IIEF-15) and Male Sexual Health Questionnaire for Ejaculatory Function (MSHQ-EjF) as compared to non-obese patients.

"As obesity continues to be a prominent factor in the prevalence of BPH, we're thrilled to provide urologists and their patients with a first-line BPH treatment option that is minimally invasive and equally effective in treating both obese and non-obese men, while preserving sexual function in both patient populations," said Bob Paulson, president and CEO of NxThera. "The results of this study continue to underscore the versatility of the Rezum System, with capability to effectively treat the obstructive prostate tissue that causes BPH, including hyperplasia of the central zone."

For more information about the Rezum System, visit www.Rezum.com.

About NxThera

NxThera pioneered its convective radiofrequency thermotherapy platform technology to treat a variety of endourological conditions, beginning with BPH. The company is furthering the application of its technology platform through advanced research and development, and clinical studies, targeting the treatment of prostate cancer and kidney cancer. NxThera's FDA-cleared Rezum System to treat BPH is a next-generation transurethral needle ablation system that uses radiofrequency to create thermal energy that is convectively delivered to obstructive prostate tissue in targeted, precise treatments, with minimal discomfort. Treatments with the Rezum System improve the bothersome symptoms of BPH, including urine flow and quality of life. Founded in 2008, NxThera is located in Maple Grove, Minn. For more information, visit www.Rezum.com.

SOURCE NxThera, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nxthera.com


DOHA, Qatar, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading global business aviation company Deer Jet, presented the world's first 787 'Dream Jet', with its Middle East debut, making a stopover today at Doha International Airport. The Doha showcase is part of the series of exhibitions across the globe "Dreams Encounter the World" following visits to Shanghai, Hong Kong, London and Dublin.

The company is expanding in the Middle East having served royal families in the region since 2013 and is now set to target the GCC and the wider Middle East, with buyers from Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including key executives from major corporations and high level government delegations, expected to be key customers.

Deer Jet was the first business jet operator in China, established 22 years ago, dedicated to serving the global premium business travel market. In August 2016, the company took over the operation of the world's first BBJ 787 VVIP, and made its maiden flight to Hong Kong in September. Deer Jet has branded the aircraft as "787 Dream Jet", and launched a renewed brand philosophy of "Making Travel an Art", as it builds on its reputation as a world leading service provider for premium business travel.

Deer Jet's "Dream Team" stewards use 7-star hospitality standards, as true inflight butlers, evoking different feelings for the variety of customers they serve. Deer Jet curated spaces are decorated with hand-picked amenities and bespoke collections of precious crystals, cushions, silverware, and porcelain.

The B787-8 Dream Jet is capable of flying continuously for 18.5hrs, or 16,000km; given the geographical location of Doha, the Dream Jet can reach any major city in the world, non-stop. This is in part due to the aircraft's fuselage, which is made from carbon fibre material, making it lighter and more fuel efficient. The 787 Dream Jet charter prices start from $70,000/hour.

Deer Jet is also launching exclusive, bespoke travel packages aboard the 787 Dream Jet, starting with the "Hong Kong to Tahiti Dream Journey". It features a seven-night charter package including complimentary accommodation at the Presidential Suite of St. Regis Bora Bora Resort.

The aircraft is operated on the Guernsey aircraft registry (2-DEER), under the AOC of BAS Guernsey. The aircraft resides at Hong Kong International Airport and is operated by Deer Jet's subsidiary Hong Kong Jet. Dubai and Riyadh are slated as the next stops for the Dream Jet.

SOURCE Deer Jet
NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ziff Davis is pleased to announce the appointment of Mike Finnerty to the newly created role of General Manager, Ziff Davis Tech and Commerce (ZDTC). In this role, Finnerty will oversee technology sites such as PCMag.com, Geek.com and Extremetech.com, as well as commerce destinations, such as Offers.com and Techbargains.com. Finnerty will lead ZDTC's multifunctional and geographically-dispersed team of over 200 people and be based at Ziff Davis's global headquarters in New York City.

A digital media executive, Finnerty has led large scale online consumer destinations across desktop, mobile web and apps. He most recently served as Senior Vice President of Global Strategy and Development at The Weather Company, an IBM business, where he drove the global growth strategy, new business development and distribution partnerships. Prior to this role, Mike was the Vice President/GM of weather.com, leading a global product organization reaching over 100M monthly active users.

Before joining The Weather Company, Finnerty worked for Comcast Interactive Media, where he was a founding team member of the division and responsible for the management of Comcast's consumer portal, product development, ad sales and monetization strategies, partnership and business development negotiations, and M&A evaluations.

"I'm extremely excited to join Ziff Davis," said Finnerty. "This role is at the center of content, data and commerce, which combined create one of the hottest growth areas in digital media and performance marketing. I look forward to joining an accomplished and talented team to help maximize the incredible decision-based brands Ziff has today."

Ziff Davis Tech, with 43 million unique visitors each month according to comScore, directly connects advertisers with in-market tech buyers as they actively seek buying advice, product information and expert opinions. Ziff Davis Tech is at the crossroads of content, data and commerce, servicing hundreds of media clients and online merchants. The stable of brands provides consumers and business professionals with confidence to make a decision and advertisers and merchants with a tremendous opportunity to reach these users during this key phase of the purchase process. Over the past 12 months Ziff Davis Tech and Commerce has generated over 110 million clicks to our merchant partners.

"I am very pleased to have Mike join Ziff Davis and lead our expanding 'comtent' portfolio of brands and distribution," said Steve Horowitz, COO of Ziff Davis. "Mike's skillset and expertise in mobile and data-driven products and monetization will help accelerate growth across our current brands and into new high-value, decision-based verticals."

About Ziff Davis, Inc.

Ziff Davis, a subsidiary of j2 Global, Inc., is a leading global digital-media company operating in four core verticals: Technology, Gaming, Healthcare and Shopping. Its brands  PCMag, Speedtest, ExtremeTech, Geek, Toolbox, IGN, Everyday Health, AskMen, Offers.com, TechBargains, emedia and Salesify  produce and distribute premium content across multiple platforms and devices. Ziff Davis delivers advertising, performance marketing, data services and licensing solutions to thousands of clients worldwide. Ziff Davis publishes in 25 languages and successfully partners with local publishing operators across 114 countries.

SOURCE Ziff Davis

Related Links

https://www.ziffdavis.com


CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Fourteen organizations spanning 27 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina will receive more than $1.1 million in new grants from Duke Energy's Water Resources Fund to support environmental and wildlife programs.

The fund is a $10 million multiyear commitment from Duke Energy to help local organizations continue to protect and improve the environment, including waterways used year-round across the Carolinas and neighboring states.

"The projects we're investing in now through the Water Resources Fund ensure that future generations will enjoy the benefits of our waterways," said David Fountain, Duke Energy's North Carolina president. "This in one of the many ways we are working to build a better future for our communities."

"We are so excited to receive a grant from Duke Energy's Water Resources Fund for the RADTIP Riparian Restoration Plan," said Stephanie Monson Dahl, director of the strategic development office for the city of Asheville. "These funds will help create a community partnership to further our City Council's 2036 vision, which includes a focus on clean water and quality urban forests."

"These projects benefit our waterways and contribute to the economic vitality of our local communities," said Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe, Duke Energy's South Carolina president. "Maintaining the vitality of our communities is one of our most important responsibilities at Duke Energy."

"Duke Energy's Water Resources Fund is an incredible resource for organizations like ours," said Natalie Britt, executive director of Palmetto Conservation Foundation. "We are thrilled to receive funding to conserve an awesome watershed and give the public access via the Palmetto Trail," she said. PCF is building a new passage of the trail along the lower Eastatoe Creek through the internationally acclaimed Jocassee Gorges Wilderness Area in Pickens County, S.C. The mountains-to-sea Palmetto Trail is one of 16 cross-state hiking trails in the nation.

Duke Energy has awarded more than $6 million in grants to 73 projects in the Carolinas and Virginia since establishing the fund in 2015. Recipients are selected by an independent body that includes five environmental experts and two Duke Energy employees.

Organizations receiving the new grants are:

Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council (N.C.)

City of Asheville (N.C.)

(N.C.) City of Eden (N.C.)

(N.C.) City of Jacksonville (N.C.)

(N.C.) Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina (N.C.)

(N.C.) Pickens County (S.C.)

(S.C.) Mountain Valleys Resource Conservation and Development (N.C.)

Palmetto Conservation Foundation (S.C.)

Rockingham County Historical Society Museum and Archives (N.C.)

Spartanburg Area Conservancy (S.C.)

The Nature Conservancy of South Carolina (S.C.)

(S.C.) Trout Unlimited, Inc. (N.C.)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte (N.C.)

(N.C.) YMCA of Greenville (S.C.)

Additional details on the grants follow:

North Carolina

South Carolina

Pickens County (S.C.)  $100,000 to support improvements to the Twelve Mile Recreation Area, located in a formerly distressed area of Pickens County , which will allow citizens access to fishing, hiking, picnic areas, whitewater and flatwater paddling while stimulating the economy and potentially creating new jobs.

(S.C.)  to support improvements to the Twelve Mile Recreation Area, located in a formerly distressed area of , which will allow citizens access to fishing, hiking, picnic areas, whitewater and flatwater paddling while stimulating the economy and potentially creating new jobs. Palmetto Conservation Foundation (S.C.)  $100,000 to protect the natural environment by using best management practices and materials to construct the Dug Mountain Passage of the Palmetto Trail, which will provide public access to the lower Eastatoe Creek watershed in Jocassee Gorges.

(S.C.)  to protect the natural environment by using best management practices and materials to construct the Dug Mountain Passage of the Palmetto Trail, which will provide public access to the lower Eastatoe Creek watershed in Jocassee Gorges. Spartanburg Area Conservancy (S.C.)  $75,000 to extend the Cottonwood South Trail approximately 2.5 miles along Lawson's Fork Creek, one of the main watersheds in Spartanburg, S.C. The project will connect to the existing Glendale Shoals Preserve, established by SPACE in 1994.

(S.C.)  to extend the Cottonwood South Trail approximately 2.5 miles along Lawson's Fork Creek, one of the main watersheds in The project will connect to the existing Glendale Shoals Preserve, established by SPACE in 1994. The Nature Conservancy of South Carolina (S.C.) Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area Expansion  $100,000 toward the purchase of an iconic property in the South Carolina mountains. Once acquired, the Conservancy will transfer it to South Carolina State Parks.

(S.C.) Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area Expansion  toward the purchase of an iconic property in the mountains. Once acquired, the Conservancy will transfer it to South Carolina State Parks. YMCA of Greenville (S.C.) Caine Halter Family YMCA Outdoor Classroom and Riparian Corridor Restoration  $80,075 to make updates to the Reedy River riverside, including creating an outdoor classroom and installing science stations that will become an environmental education resource for the Y's programs as well as other community partners.

About Duke Energy Foundation

The Duke Energy Foundation provides philanthropic support to address the needs of the communities where its customers live and work. The foundation provides more than $30 million annually in charitable gifts. The foundation's education focus spans kindergarten to career, particularly science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), early childhood literacy and workforce development. It also supports the environment and community impact initiatives, including arts and culture.

Duke Energy employees and retirees actively contribute to their communities as volunteers and leaders at a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. Duke Energy is committed to building on its legacy of community service. For more information, visit http://www.duke-energy.com/foundation.

About Duke Energy

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is one of the largest energy holding companies in the United States. Its Electric Utilities and Infrastructure business unit serves approximately 7.5 million customers located in six states in the Southeast and Midwest. The company's Gas Utilities and Infrastructure business unit distributes natural gas to approximately 1.6 million customers in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Its Commercial Renewables business unit operates a growing renewable energy portfolio across the United States.

Duke Energy is a Fortune 125 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com.

The Duke Energy News Center serves as a multimedia resource for journalists and features news releases, helpful links, photos and videos. Hosted by Duke Energy, illumination is an online destination for stories about people, innovations, and community and environmental topics. It also offers glimpses into the past and insights into the future of energy.

Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media Contact: Candice Knezevic

24-Hour: 800.559.3853

SOURCE Duke Energy

Related Links

http://www.duke-energy.com


ARLINGTON, Va., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Virginia Chamber of Commerce again this year has named Eagle Hill Consulting one of the fastest growing companies in the state, earning the 21st spot on the 2017 Fantastic 50 ranking. Eagle Hill continues to experience record growth, posting an annual growth rate of 74 percent since 2010 and has more than tripled it revenue and number of employees during the past two years alone.

"Our laser focus on providing top employee training and satisfaction programs coupled with exceeding client expectations keeps Eagle Hill on this rapid growth trajectory," says Melissa Jezior, president and chief executive officer of Eagle Hill Consulting. "Our clients know we listen to their needs, collaborate and deliver results. Our employees know we care about them and invest in their careers. Staying true to this culture  one that simultaneously delivers an employee-centric environment and exceptional services for our clients  will enable us to continue creating more high quality jobs in Virginia."

This is the third consecutive year that Eagle Hill has earned recognition as a fast-growing Virginia company.

Under Jezior's leadership, Eagle Hill is on track to meet its long-term goal: 10x growth in 10 years while maintaining its best place to work culture. The company reports employee retention at 93 percent and employee satisfaction at 96 percent. Recently, the company earned accolades from Forbes and ALM Research, propelling Eagle Hill into a leadership position in the management consulting arena at an international level.

Corporate executives and government leaders select Eagle Hill for its unconventional approach to consulting. Eagle Hill is known for collaborating with clients by digging deep to understand their unique needs while providing personalized and creative solutions to achieve their business goals. Eagle Hill adds talent and power to the client's team rather than taking over, an approach that forms a true partnership.

The Fantastic 50 program is the only annual statewide award recognizing Virginia's fastest growing business. To be eligible, a company must be privately held with headquarters in Virginia, show revenues between $200,000 and $200 million, and demonstrate positive revenue growth and positive net income in its most recent fiscal year over the previous year. Companies are judged on four-year revenue history. The professional service firm Dixon Hughes Goodman verifies all award entries.

Eagle Hill Consulting LLC is a woman-owned business that provides management consulting services in the areas of business strategy, organizational transformation, human capital transformation, process improvement, program management and change management. Eagle Hill works with a range of public, private and non-profit organizations across the country with offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and in Seattle, WA. More information is available at www.eaglehillconsulting.com.

SOURCE Eagle Hill Consulting

Related Links

http://www.eaglehillconsulting.com


Like the ghost towns left behind after the California gold rush fizzled, many of the frac sand mines dotting western Wisconsin sat dormant a year ago.

Piles of golden sand sat untouched next to stationary rail cars, with skeleton crews stopping by only occasionally to check on the idle facilities.

It was a far cry from the boom times of a few years ago, when sand mines and processing facilities popped up constantly across the landscape.

But even faster than the industry rose from the ground up because of the regions high-quality sand, it ground to a near halt, with hundreds of workers getting laid off, as a result of plummeting oil prices. For western Wisconsin residents, it was a crash course on the volatility of the gas and oil industry.

Through the slump, company officials insisted the frac sand industry would bounce back.

The big question is when, industry consultant Kent Syverson, chairman of UW-Eau Claires geology department, said last May.

He now has the answer: 2017.

The industry was fairly dormant for a while, but now it has reawakened, Syverson said last week. These mines are going full out again.

Representatives of several companies with regional frac sand mining operations confirmed Syversons assessment.

We are running pretty much full time, back to 24 hours a day, said Sharon Masek, manager of mine planning and industrial relations for Superior Silica Sands in Wisconsin. Were pretty much back to our peak levels of employment.

That means employment at Superior Silicas five mines in Barron and Chippewa counties has reached close to 200, up from about 70 last year when two of the facilities operated part time and two were completely shut down, Masek said. The company, based in Fort Worth, Texas, is seeking to further boost its western Wisconsin workforce in the coming weeks.

The buzz of activity is refreshing after a tough 2016.

Its great, Masek said. I love coming to work in the morning when there are trucks all over the place and its tough to find a place to park.

Now hiring

For Hi-Crush, which operates frac sand mines in Augusta, Blair, Whitehall and Wyeville, the rebound also is well underway.

Chief financial officer Laura Fulton said the mines are ramping up and should all be operating at full capacity  producing a combined 10.4 million tons of sand per year  by late June or shortly thereafter. The Houston-based company temporarily shut down the Whitehall plant when the Blair operation started in March 2016. The Wyeville facility, near Tomah, is the only one of the four mines that operated throughout the downturn.

Hi-Crush has hired 91 workers so far this year, roughly doubling its 2016 employment level, and is seeking an additional 20 to 25, Fulton said.

We think its the beginning of a rally, she said. Everything seems to be really positive.

The story is similar for Fairmount Santrol, which operates industrial sand mines in Menomonie, Bay City and Maiden Rock and owns a processing facility in Hager City.

We are operating at full capacity and looking for additional staffing at some of our plants, said Aaron Scott, the Sugar Land, Texas-based companys mining director.

While depressed oil prices also led to cutbacks for Fairmount Santrol, Scott emphasized that diversification helps it weather the ups and downs of the oil and gas market. The company also supplies sand for the glass, foundry, roofing, construction and water filtration markets.

We think the long-term market outlook remains bright, Scott said.

Strong demand

Apparently, so do industry observers, as Masek cited a report showing the consensus of analysts is that demand for frac sand will exceed its 2014 peak of 53 million tons this year. After dipping to 37 million tons in 2016, projections call for demand to climb to 79 million tons in 2017 and 107 million tons in 2018.

Samir Nangia, who follows the frac sand industry as director of consulting for IHS Energy Insight, said all indications are that the sector is mounting a strong comeback after the doldrums of last year.

Really strong demand is driving the change, Nangia said, adding that IHS projects demand for frac sand will increase by more than 60 percent this year in the U.S.

Its a boom-bust cycle, and it looks like the boom has just started, he said.

Wisconsin is the nations leading producer of sand used in hydraulic fracturing  the drilling technique commonly known as fracking that involves injecting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals deep into underground wells to force oil and natural gas to the surface. Wisconsin sand, prized by frackers for its ideal size, shape and durability, is shipped to drilling sites in several states, including Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Canada.

Rising demand for sand is a result of more wells being fracked and more sand being used per well, Nangia said. The analyst indicated the number of wells being fracked in the U.S. now totals 10,600, up 28 percent from last year but still well below the 19,790 wells in 2014.

Rich Budinger, spokesman for the Wisconsin Industrial Sand Association and vice president of mining operations for Fairmount Santrol, said oil prices are probably the No. 1 indicator of the health of the oil and gas industry. He tied the industrys slump directly to oil prices plunging below $30 a barrel after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced late in 2015 that it was not planning to limit production. The price of West Texas Intermediate Crude finally surpassed $50 a barrel again late in 2016 and closed last week at $47.84.

When the price got up to around $50, it was kind of a green light for the oil companies that they could make money again, Syverson said.

Syverson believes the frac sand industry, which has attracted criticism from environmentalists for its destruction of the regions sandstone hills and potential impact on air and water quality, can play a key role in diversifying the regional economy.

This resurrection of the sand boom is important because its happening at a time when some communities are suffering because agricultural prices are low, Syverson said.

Texas competition

One factor still weighing heavily on the share prices of frac sand companies involves renewed interest in lower quality, but cheaper, sand from Texas, where the most fracking is occurring.

While the northern white sand found in the Midwest remains the highest quality and generates the highest yields for fracking , it costs $60 to $70 per ton to ship it to Texas, and more companies are exploring the possibility of using Texas sand instead to save on transportation costs, Nangia said.

In the past, most companies were unwilling to use this lower quality sand, but now it seems more of them are open to the possibility, he said.

It may not matter much in the short term if analysts are right about the impending surge in demand for frac sand.

If the projections hold true and theyre going to need so terribly much sand, then they will need the Texas sand and all of the other sand as well, or they wont be able to meet demand, Syverson said.

Another new development is that some frac sand companies are beginning to use finer grain sand they once rejected  and allowed to sit in settling ponds at mine sites  because frackers have learned they can inject those fine grains into smaller fractures and thus extract more oil and natural gas by stimulating a higher percentage of shale formations, he said.

Second chance?

Despite the fresh lesson on the volatility of the oil and gas market, many laid-off frac sand workers have returned to the industry.

Not as many are skittish as you might think, Superior Silica Sands Masek said. Many of them loved their jobs and were happy to come back, although some said they were worried about supporting their families and needed something more secure.

Fulton said Hi-Crush has had a similar experience, with most workers willing to give the industry another chance.

The pay is good, and the hours are steady, Fulton said.

While Fairmount Santrols Budinger acknowledged there is risk that goes along with being involved in a global market, he pointed out that a positive aspect of the latest slowdown is it pushed sand companies to become more efficient.

Theres nothing like an industry downturn to bring focus to cost control, Budinger said. Because of that, maybe our industry can withstand a little more volatility than it could two years ago.

After dipping to 37 million tons in 2016, projections call for demand for frac sand to climb to 79 million tons in 2017 and 107 million tons in 2018.
The home service software company is expanding operations to Toronto, Canada to support its rapidly growing global customer base, and has brought on an experienced senior marketing executive to lead expansion efforts.

EDMONTON and TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Jobber, the software platform that helps home service businesses be more successful, announced the opening of its Toronto, Canada office to support the rapid growth of its global customer base. Jobber will be located at the OneEleven Scale-Up Hub, home to some of the fastest growing tech startups and disruptive corporate partners in Canada's innovation ecosystem.

"We're really excited to announce the opening of a Jobber office in downtown Toronto," says Sam Pillar, Jobber's co-founder and CEO. "Edmonton has been a fantastic place to grow Jobber to date, and we've been fortunate to thrive as one of the city's fastest growing tech companies. As we gain momentum and push through the 100 employee mark, establishing a Toronto office to grow alongside Edmonton will help ensure we're able to continue providing the industry-leading product and experience the market has come to expect from us."



Jobber also announces the addition of David McIninch to the executive team as VP of Marketing, responsible for overseeing the growth and go-to-market strategy of the company, in addition to leading the new Toronto office. David brings over 15 years of experience as an executive and marketing leader for both large public companies and growth-stage startups. "I am thrilled to be joining Jobber at this point in its evolution. It's a phenomenal company in an innovative and growing space, with incredible people. It's very exciting to be responsible for continuing to drive the growth of the company, and scaling our organization outside of Edmonton."

Since receiving $8-million of series A financing in 2015 led by OMERS Ventures, Jobber now serves tens of thousands of users in over 30 countries who deliver more than USD $100-Million in services each month. Home service companies rely on Jobber to help them run every aspect of their business  from quoting jobs and managing team schedules to billing, invoicing and payments, Jobber makes running a service business easy.

"Mobile field service management is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide," says Jim Orlando, Managing Partner at OMERS Ventures. "We believe that Jobber is uniquely positioned to offer a differentiated technology solution to make these small businesses run better. Expanding to Toronto will allow Jobber to increase its global footprint, service its customers better, and sustain their tremendous growth."

About Jobber:

Jobber (@GetJobber) helps small businesses become more successful. Complete with mobile apps, powerful scheduling, online invoicing and payments, Jobber is the easiest way to run a field-based home service business. Since inception in 2011 nearly 7 million people have been serviced by businesses using Jobber, delivering over $3 billion in services to their customers. For more information, visit www.getjobber.com.

About OMERS Ventures:

OMERS Ventures (Twitter: @OMERSVentures) is the venture capital arm of OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension funds with more than $72 billion in net assets. OMERS has invested over $300 million in 30 companies in North America creating more than 5000 jobs in Canada. Notable portfolio companies include Spotify, Hootsuite, D2L and Hopper. OMERS is made up of people with diverse backgrounds and skill sets with a common goal of supporting and growing the knowledge economy. For more information, visit www.omersventures.com.

SOURCE Jobber
SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Elastifile, the enterprise hybrid cloud data management company, today announced that it will be showcasing its cross-cloud data fabric in Booth No. 127 of the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston May 23-25.

Elastifile enables data-centric scientific workflows to efficiently leverage the scalability and massive processing power of the cloud. The foundation for Elastifile's data fabric is the Elastifile Cloud File System (ECFS), a software-defined, flash-native, distributed file storage solution. ECFS delivers high-performance, POSIX-compliant file services for active data in both cloud-only and hybrid cloud deployments. As a result, Elastifile's environment-agnostic solution enables the painless "lift and shift" of Life Sciences workflows from on-premises to the cloud, with no need for application refactoring. With data accessible for on-demand processing in the cloud, Life Sciences workflows can now benefit from dynamically scalable cloud infrastructure and cloud-native software services.

In-cloud data processing can remove major bottlenecks to research efficiency and can dramatically improve the overall "time to result" for performance-sensitive Life Sciences applications. In addition, elastic, pay-as-you-grow cloud pricing eliminates the need for costly, error-prone infrastructure forecasting and allows Life Sciences IT departments to more closely align their costs with their real-time requirements.

"Traditional storage infrastructure is no longer adequate to meet the demands of mission-critical Life Sciences applications and workflows," said Shahar Frank, CTO and co-founder of Elastifile. "To support the performance and scalability needed in Life Sciences today, organizations must implement modern, hybrid cloud data management solutions, like Elastifile, which deliver fast, parallel data access to many users, across many files, spanning massive scientific data sets."

Bio-IT World Conference & Expo is the premier event showcasing the myriad of IT and informatics applications and enabling technologies that drive biomedical research, drug discovery & development, and clinical and healthcare initiatives. More than 260 industry and academic colleagues will discuss themes of big data, smart data, cloud computing, trends in IT infrastructure, omics technologies, high-performance computing, data analytics, open source and precision medicine, from the research realm to the clinical arena.

Interested parties looking to schedule an appointment with company executives or demonstration time of the Elastifile Cloud File System can email [email protected] for a time.

Follow Elastifile

https://twitter.com/elastifile

https://www.linkedin.com/company/elastifile

https://www.facebook.com/Elastifile/

About Elastifile

Elastifile is redefining the way data is stored and managed, enabling seamless deployment of private and hybrid cloud solutions. With enterprises and service providers increasingly looking to support both on-premises and cloud workflows, Elastifile uniquely delivers this data management to application, analytics, and infrastructure teams as the single global namespace of a distributed file/object system. This elastic, scale-out, software-defined BYOH (bring-your-own-hardware) solution brings all the advantages of public IaaS to the data center and all the enterprise data services to the hybrid cloud.

Elastifile was founded in 2013 and is backed by seven market leaders from across the data center and storage industries, Battery Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Elastifile's founders and leadership team includes a powerful mix of experience across enterprise storage, virtualization, applications, and flash to help transform its customers' hybrid cloud workflows.

SOURCE Elastifile

Related Links

http://www.elastifile.com


FORT WORTH, Texas, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With a commitment to honor the history of the Garvey-Viehl-Kelley Residence, San Antonio-based Embrey Partners has broken ground on the Kelley at Samuels Ave, a 10-acre, 353-unit, Class A multifamily community in Fort Worth, Texas. As part of the Kelley at Samuels Ave development, Embrey Partners is restoring the original 1884 Queen Anne home, a recorded Texas Historic Landmark, which will showcase its beauty as the property's on-site leasing office.

The Kelley at Samuels Ave will be a 10-acre, 353-unit, Class A multifamily community in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Garvey Residence on Samuels Avenue is arguably one of the finest Victorian era homes still standing in Fort Worth, located on property that has witnessed the birth and growth of the city from its earliest days. Rumor is that a young Ginger Rogers practiced dance routines in its parlor. "This beautiful home is too important in the history of Fort Worth to allow it to continue to deteriorate," said John Kirk, Embrey's executive vice president of development. "We are excited to bring back such a rare jewel from its current state of abandonment and to have it be an integral part of our overall project." In addition to restoring the Garvey Residence, Embrey will be donating and assisting with the relocation of the historic Talbott-Wall house located on the property to a lot nearby on Samuels Avenue. Embrey has worked extensively with Historic Fort Worth,Texas Historic Commission and the US Army Corps of Engineers to help preserve this part of Fort Worth history.

"Embrey has exemplified how developers and preservationists can work together," said Jerre Tracy, executive director, Historic Fort Worth, Inc.

The Kelley will be adjacent to the original house and will feature spectacularly stunning views of the Fort Worth skyline, adjacent Trinity River and the future Trinity River Vision project, according to Kirk. "The view will be hard to replicate anywhere else in the city," he said. Located in what was once one of Fort Worth's wealthiest areas, the property is in a re-emerging core neighborhood along the path of growth.

Embrey's plans feature both luxury apartments and townhomes with attached garages with an urban farmhouse architectural theme designed to complement the original structures from the area. The community will incorporate a dedicated amenity building featuring a business lounge, game room and upscale fitness center with a spin room, on demand workout zone and yoga courtyard. Extensive outdoor amenities will include an infinity-edge pool with expansive views of downtown, a community biergarten, multiple dog parks and a pet washing station. The one- and two-bedroom, upscale apartments will average 914-square-feet and include attached garages, private backyards and surface parking. Occupancy is slated for Spring 2018.

About Embrey Partners

San Antonio-based Embrey Partners, Ltd., is a developer, builder and manager of market rate multi-family and commercial assets in select markets across the United States. Since 1974, Embrey has developed more than 38,100 apartments with an additional 5,283 units under construction or development. Partnering with major financial institutions, pension funds, individual investors and Fortune 500 companies, Embrey as the general partner has completed these developments for individual investment purposes and through joint venture transactions. For more information, visit online at www.embreydc.com.

SOURCE Embrey Partners

Related Links

http://www.embreydc.com


DALLAS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The EnLink Midstream companies (EnLink), EnLink Midstream, LLC (NYSE: ENLC), the General Partner, and EnLink Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: ENLK), the Master Limited Partnership, announced today that representatives of EnLink will attend and meet with investors at the following conferences:

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Energy Credit Conference 2017 in New York City on Tuesday, June 6 , through Wednesday, June 7

on , through J.P. Morgan Energy Equity Conference in New York City on Monday, June 26 , through Wednesday, June 28

A copy of the Operations Report for the first quarter 2017 is available now on the Investors' page of www.EnLink.com.

About the EnLink Midstream Companies

EnLink provides integrated midstream services across natural gas, crude oil, condensate, and NGL commodities. EnLink operates in several top U.S. basins and is strategically focused on the core growth areas of the Permian's Midland and Delaware basins, Oklahoma's Midcontinent, and Louisiana's Gulf Coast. Headquartered in Dallas, EnLink is publicly traded through EnLink Midstream, LLC (NYSE: ENLC), the General Partner, and EnLink Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: ENLK), the Master Limited Partnership. Visit www.EnLink.com for more information on how EnLink connects energy to life.

Investor Relations: Kate Walsh, Vice President of Investor Relations, 214-721-9696, [email protected]

Media Relations: Jill McMillan, Vice President of Public & Industry Affairs, 214-721-9271, [email protected]

SOURCE EnLink Midstream

Related Links

http://www.enlink.com


MILWAUKEE, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EnSync, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ESNC), dba EnSync Energy Systems, a leading developer of innovative distributed energy resource (DER) systems and internet of energy (IOE) control platforms for the utility, commercial, industrial and multi-tenant building markets, today announced it will be participating in the Cowen and Company 45th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on May 31, 2017 at the Lotte New York Palace in New York City.

Dan Nordloh, EVP of Global Business Development for EnSync Energy, will be participating in a panel discussion at 10:15am ET titled "Renewables, Storage and Power Electronics  Exploring the Building Blocks of the Next Gen Utility." The panel will take place in the Kennedy II Room on the 4th Floor.

Management will be available for one-on-one meetings during the Conference. Investors interested in arranging a meeting with management should contact their Cowen and Company representative or Lytham Partners at (602) 889-9700 or at [email protected].

The presentation will be available on the company's website at ensync.investorroom.com.

About EnSync Energy Systems

EEnSync, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ESNC), dba EnSync Energy Systems, is creating the future of electricity with innovative distributed energy resource (DER) systems and internet of energy (IOE) control platforms. EnSync Energy ensures the most cost-effective and resilient electricity, delivered from an electrical infrastructure that prioritizes the use of all available resources, such as renewables, energy storage and the utility grid. As project developer, EnSync Energy's distinctive engagement methodology encompasses load analysis, system design consulting, and technical and financial modeling to ensure energy systems are sized and optimized to meet our customers' objectives for value and performance. Proprietary direct current (DC) power control hardware, energy management software, and extensive experience with numerous energy storage technologies uniquely positions EnSync Energy to deliver fully integrated systems that provide for efficient design, procurement, commissioning, and ongoing operation. EnSync Energy's IOE control platform adapts easily to ever-changing generation and load variables, as well as changes in utility prices and programs, ensuring the means to make or save money behind-the-meter, while concurrently providing utilities the opportunity to use DERs for an array of grid enhancing services. In addition to direct system sales, EnSync Energy includes power purchase agreements (PPAs) in its portfolio of offerings, which enables electricity savings for customers and provides a stable financial yield for investors. EnSync Energy is a global corporation, with joint venture Meineng Energy in AnHui, China, and energy project development subsidiary Holu Energy LLC in Hawaii, and DCfusion LLC, a power system engineering and design, consultancy and policy firm. For more information, visit www.ensync.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the "safe harbor" created by those sections. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as "believe," "expect," "may," "will," "should," "could," "seek," "intend," "plan," "estimate," "anticipate" or other comparable terms. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release regarding our strategies, prospects, financial condition, operations, costs, plans and objectives are forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements we make regarding our supply agreement with SPI Solar, Inc., expected future operating results, expectations concerning our PPA strategy, the anticipated results of our product development efforts and other expectations regarding our business strategy. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors and in Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations sections of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and our subsequently filed Quarterly Report(s) on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Investor Relations Contact:

Lytham Partners, LLC

Robert Blum, Joseph Diaz, or Joe Dorame

(602) 889-9700

EnSync Media Contact:

Michelle Montague

(262) 735-5676

SOURCE EnSync, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.ensync.com


The company's founder and CEO, Gary, recently traded in a six-figure salary as the corporate director of a healthcare firm to focus on the burgeoning business, which just became a certified 203K contractor. The twins opened their first permanent office location in Elmwood Park, earlier this year.

"We're always innovating the home building and renovation process to make it more efficient for our customers," Greg Laterovian said. "We stand behind our mission of infusing our renovations with innovation, and we're thrilled to be recognized for our commitment to modern, stellar work. The most exciting thing is when the neighbors of our new homes thank us for doing something so positive for their neighborhoodand ask us to bid on a renovation project."

The twins have been involved in the real estate industry since childhood, when they first started helping their father manage the family's investment properties. Today, their in-demand construction company is focused primarily on real estate rehabilitations or "fix and flips".

"Our passion and experience are what make us unique. We're young, agile, and aggressive, and if there were no passion driving us, we'd just be another group of individuals out for a profit," Gary Laterovian said. "Greg and I always say that our passion is beautifying homes and delivering smilesand we live for the moment when someone walks into one of our properties and just says, 'wow.'"

Due to their popularity and reputation within the community, some of their current projects are already under contract prior to completion.

About Capnovate Construction LLC and Capnovate LLC

Capnovate Construction LLC invests in distressed properties and builds beautiful homes with the goal of rehabilitating properties and adding value to local communities throughout Northern New Jersey. The Laterovian brothers are fully licensed and insured general contractors, and recently became certified 203K contractors.

Contact:

Gary Laterovian

[email protected]

201-380-1117

SOURCE Capnovate Construction LLC

Related Links

http://www.capnovateconstruction.com


Earwax MD is available on Amazon.com with free shipping for Prime customers.

Eosera decided that Amazon.com was the perfect place to sell their first product, Earwax MD. After decades of unsuccessful attempts by other manufacturers, Earwax MD is the healthcare industry's first earwax impaction solution to safely and effectively dissolve wax blockage in a single application.

"When I met with Amazon, we decided it would be wonderful to launch with them because they reach all consumers," said Elyse Dickerson, Founder & CEO of Eosera, Inc. "Our earwax solution will help people worldwide and Amazon is the first step. By bringing this novel innovation to market, our goal is to improve the lives of both doctors and patients by saving people time and money."

Patients can now proactively clean their ears at home, which means fewer visits to the doctor for earwax removal. Dickerson advises patients to visit www.earwaxmd.com for explanatory videos on how to use Earwax MD.

"Instead of having to dig out earwax, audiologists and hearing aid centers can now fit patients for hearing aids in one visit," she said.

Earwax MD is the only product on the market today that is supported by scientific efficacy, revealing that Earwax MD is a game changer for the treatment of earwax impaction.

Healthcare professionals can visit www.earwaxmd.com for more information, or send an email to [email protected].

About EOSERA/Earwax MD

EOSERA, Inc. is a majority woman-owned biotech company committed to developing products that address underserved medical needs.

Eosera's first product, Earwax MD, is a patent-pending topical drop that uses a dual-action technology to dissolve impacted earwax. It is the first topical earwax treatment innovation in over 50 years. Earwax MD is proven to perform in a single treatment, unlike alternatives that require multiple applications over time. Visit www.earwaxmd.com.

Media Inquiries, please contact: [email protected]

SOURCE EOSERA, Inc.

Related Links

http://eosera.com


UK subsidiary achieves positive operating EBITDA cash flow

WALTHAM, Mass., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EuroSite Power Inc. (OTCPK: EUSP, the "Company") an On-Site Utility solutions provider, offering clean electricity, heat, hot water and cooling solutions to healthcare, hospitality, housing and leisure centers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe, reported first quarter revenues increased to $830,849 compared to $687,032 in 2016, an improvement of 21%. Gross margin excluding depreciation improved to 40%, up from 37.2% reported in 2016. Together this enabled the Company's UK subsidiary to achieve a positive operating EBITDA cash flow for the first quarter, a first in the Company's history. In addition, the Company also achieved a positive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA cash flow of $6,722 for the first quarter 2017 compared to a loss of $245,635 in the comparable prior year period.

Commenting on the Company's results Dr. Elias Samaras, Chief Executive Officer said "As investors will know, the primary target for the year is to achieve a positive EBITDA cash flow position. The first step in reaching this goal was for our UK operating subsidiary to achieve a positive position which it did this quarter. At the same time reduced US corporate costs allowed us to significantly improve the adjusted EBITDA on consolidation to deliver a small positive cash flow of $6,722, a big improvement over last year's loss. While there is still a long way to go to achieve our ultimate aim we are greatly encouraged by the first quarter's result."

"Higher energy production and improved margins helped us achieve a positive cash position this quarter" said Paul Hamblyn, Managing Director when remarking on the UK company's performance. "The challenge now is to maximise cash generation through the spring and into the summer when it's been usual to see losses as thermal demand drops off. The team remains focused on managing our fleet to maximise income while also selling and installing more systems and continuing to control costs."

HEADLINES

Improved gross profit and positive cash flow

Gross profit for Q1 2017 increased to $199,623 compared to $142,640 for the same period on 2016, a 40% improvement

compared to for the same period on 2016, a 40% improvement Gross profit excluding depreciation for the first quarter 2017 increased to $332,242 compared to $255,635 in the comparable prior year period, a 30% improvement

compared to in the comparable prior year period, a 30% improvement Gross margin improved to 24% for the first quarter 2017, compared with 20.7% for the first quarter of 2016, an increase of 3.3 percentage points

Gross margin excluding depreciation improved for Q1 2017 to 40% as compared to 37.2% in the same period of 2016

The Company achieved an adjusted Non-GAAP EBITDA profit for the first quarter of 2017 of $6,722 compared to a loss of $245,635 for the same period in 2016

compared to a loss of for the same period in 2016 UK operating subsidiary achieved a positive EBITDA cash flow for the quarter totalling 47,813 ($59,780) compared to a negative cash flow of 45,268 ($65,050) in Q1 2016. This represents a swing of over 200% or 93,081 ($124,830)

Financial and operational performance

Revenue increased by 21% to $830,849 (671,013) for quarter ended March 31, 2017 as compared to $687,032 (479,651) for quarter ended March 31, 2016 . At functional GBP level revenues increased 40%

(671,013) for quarter ended as compared to (479,651) for quarter ended . At functional GBP level revenues increased 40% GAAP diluted loss per share (EPS) was $0.003 for the first quarter of 2017 as compared to a loss of $0.01 for the same period in 2016

for the first quarter of 2017 as compared to a loss of for the same period in 2016 Total energy production increased by 34% to 13,338 MWh for the period ended March 31, 2017 as compared to 2016, which equates to 35% of the total energy production achieved during the whole of 2016

as compared to 2016, which equates to 35% of the total energy production achieved during the whole of 2016 Electricity generation increased 39% reflecting the improved overall electrical efficiency due to TEDOM equipment now making up 60% or 2,434kW of the Company's installed fleet

Brought the 400kW system at Celtic Manor Resort into operation during January

Operational fleet capacity at March 31, 2017 was 4,034kW compared to 3,078kW at the end March 2016

was 4,034kW compared to 3,078kW at the end Current contracted backlog 5 systems, 534kW

Outlook

New Head of Business Development appointed and starts June 1, 2017

Sales pipeline now includes opportunities for a number of larger schemes including some capital sale projects. In addition, opportunities in continental Europe have also been added to the pipeline

have also been added to the pipeline Management continue to have confidence in increased energy production and revenue growth resulting from both the increased fleet size and improved availability

The Company's acquisition strategy continues

Future News Releases

In order to simplify and streamline news provided to investors all future financial results and news will, with effect from the date of this release, only be published on the Company's website (http://investors.eurositepower.co.uk/news-releases). Anyone wishing to receive notice of a news release should subscribe to the email alerts service provided within the investors pages (http://investors.eurositepower.co.uk/email-alerts).

Alternative Reporting Standard

The Company now files its financial statements under the Alternative Reporting Standard (ARS). Quarterly financial reports are prepared in accordance with US GAAP, are generally provided within 45 days of period end (90 days for fiscal year end results) and are reported to maintain the OTC Pink Limited Information tier.

Following corporate reorganisation and de-registration of the Company's common stock, with effect from January 1, 2017 foreign exchange gains/losses are reported in the cumulative translation adjustment (CTA) account on the Company's balance sheet.

Fiscal year end financial reports for the operating company, EuroSite Power Limited are audited by a PCAOB registered firm and the Company provides current information for the purposes of SEC Rules 144(c)(2) and 10b-5 using the OTC Disclosure & News Service.

On-Site Utility

EuroSite Power sells the energy produced from an onsite energy system to an individual property as an alternative to the outright sale of energy equipment. On-Site Utility solution customers only pay for the energy produced by the system and receive a guaranteed discount rate on the price of the energy. All system capital, installation, operating expenses and support are paid by EuroSite Power.

About EuroSite Power

The Company provides institutional, commercial and small industrial facilities with clean, reliable power, cooling, heat and hot water at lower costs than charged by conventional energy suppliers  without any capital or start-up costs to the energy user. More information can be found at www.eurositepower.co.uk.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, as disclosed on the Company's website and in financial statements held by OTC markets for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016. This press release does not constitute an offer to buy or sell securities by the Company, its subsidiaries or any associated party and is meant purely for informational purposes. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, even if subsequently made available by the Company on its website or otherwise. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements provided to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

Investor Contact: Media Contact: Dr Elias Samaras Paul Hamblyn EuroSite Power Inc. EuroSite Power Inc. +44 844 693 2848 +44 844 693 2848 [email protected] [email protected]

EUROSITE POWER INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(Unaudited)



March 31,

December 31,

2017

2016 ASSETS





Current assets:





Cash and cash equivalents $3,833,517

$3,734,526 Accounts receivable 446,062

270,199 Value added and other tax receivable



9,280 UK energy tax incentives receivable 230,965

227,536 Inventory 124,460

158,833 Other current assets 228,034

233,351 Total current assets 4,863,037

4,633,725 Property and equipment, net 8,239,972

8,233,773 Other assets, long-term 6,403

8,143 TOTAL ASSETS $13,109,411

$12,875,641







LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Current liabilities:





Accounts payable $256,191

$388,616 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 189,430

213,492 Due to related party -

38,811 Note payable - bank, short-term 143,100

69,933 Total current liabilities 588,721

710,852 Long-term liabilities:





Convertible debentures 302,008

305,017 Convertible debentures Due to related parties



- Note payable - bank 703,121

252,271 Note payable - related party -

- Total liabilities 1,593,850

1,268,140







Stockholders' equity:





Common Stock, $0.001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; 82,265,056 and 65,747,100 issued at March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 82,265

82,265 Additional paid-in capital 22,380,406

22,243,742 Accumulated deficit (10,997,343)

(10,718,506) Cumulative translation adjustment (CTA) 50,235

- Total stockholders' equity 11,515,563

11,607,501 TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY $13,109,411

$12,875,641

EUROSITE POWER INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(Unaudited)



Three Months Ended

March 31,

March 31,

2017

2016 Revenues





Energy revenues $828,893

$685,716 Turnkey and other revenues 1,956

1,316

830,849

687,032 Cost of sales





Fuel, maintenance and installation 498,607

431,397 Site impairments -

- Depreciation expense 132,619

112,995

631,227

544,392 Gross profit (loss) 199,623

142,640 Operating expenses





General and administrative 283,561

300,092 Selling 89,349

132,929 Engineering 100,586

88,490

473,496

521,511 Loss from operations (273,873)

(378,871) Other income (expense)





Interest income



126 Interest expense, net of debt premium amortization (5,173)

(12,716) Debt conversion expense -

-

(5,173)

(12,590) Loss before income taxes (279,046)

(391,461) Benefit for income taxes -

- Net loss $(279,046)

$(391,461)







Net loss per share - basic and diluted $(0.003)

$(0.01) Weighted-average shares outstanding - basic and diluted 82,265,056

65,747,100







Non-GAAP financial disclosure





Loss from operations $(273,873)

$(378,871) Depreciation expense 143,931

114,884 Site Impairments -

- Stock based compensation 136,664

18,352 Adjusted EBITDA $6,722

$(245,635)

EUROSITE POWER INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(Unaudited)



Three Months Ended

March 31,

March 31,

2017

2016 CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES:





Net loss $(279,046)

$(391,461) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities:





Non cash debt conversion expense -

- Depreciation 143,931

114,884 Non cash interest expense -

- Non-cash site impairments -

- Amortization of convertible debt premium



(24,072) Stock-based compensation 136,664

18,352 Changes in operating assets and liabilities





(Increase) decrease in:





Accounts receivable (175,863)

(68,134) Value added and other tax receivable 30,391

(32,053) Accrued UK energy tax incentives



369,485 Inventory 34,373

(65,801) Prepaid and other current assets 5,317

16,009 Other assets, long term (1,480)

1,440 Increase (decrease) in:





Accounts payable (132,425)

58,531 Due to related party (38,811)

81,645 Accrued expenses and other current liabilities (48,182)

(16,249) Note payable - bank -

- Net cash used in operating activities (325,131)

62,576







CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES:





Purchases of property and equipment (150,130)

(211,453) Net cash used in investing activities (150,130)

(211,453)







CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES:





Proceeds from sale of Common Stock net of costs -

- Payments on note payable - related party -

- Proceeds from loan payable - bank 524,017

- Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 524,017

-







Effect of Exchange Rate on Cash and Cash Equivalents 50,235

-







Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 98,991

(148,877) Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of the period 3,734,526

587,819 Cash and cash equivalents, end of the period $3,833,517

$438,942

SOURCE EuroSite Power Inc.

Related Links

http://www.eurositepower.co.uk


WASHINGTON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Evolent Health, Inc. (NYSE: EVH), a company providing an integrated value-based care platform to the nation's leading health systems and physician organizations ("Evolent Health"), today announced the pricing of an underwritten secondary public offering of 7,000,000 shares of its Class A common stock to be sold by UPMC, certain affiliates of TPG Global, LLC, The Advisory Board Company and Ptolemy Capital, LLC (together, the "Investor Stockholders") and certain management selling stockholders (the "Management Stockholders" and, together with the Investor Stockholders, the "Selling Stockholders"). The shares of Class A common stock are being sold to the public at a price of $24.65 per share. The offering was upsized from the previously announced offering size of 6,000,000 shares of Class A common stock.

The offering is expected to close on May 19, 2017, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC are acting as joint book-running managers and underwriters for the offering.

Evolent Health is not offering any shares of Class A common stock in the offering. Evolent Health will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the Selling Stockholders.

A registration statement (including a base prospectus) relating to these securities has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and has become effective. The offering will be made only by means of a preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying base prospectus, each of which you should read before you invest. Copies of the preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying base prospectus have been filed with the SEC. You may obtain these documents free of charge by visiting EDGAR on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies of the final prospectus supplement relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC and may be obtained free of charge, when available, from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717 or by telephone at (866) 803-9204; or Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, or by telephone at (866) 471-2526, facsimile at (212) 902-9316, or email at [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of, these shares of Class A common stock in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such state or jurisdiction.

About Evolent Health

Evolent Health partners with leading health systems to drive value-based care transformation. By providing clinical, analytical and financial capabilities, Evolent Health helps physicians and health systems achieve superior quality and cost results. Evolent Health's approach breaks down barriers, aligns incentives and powers a new model of care delivery resulting in meaningful alignment between providers, payers, physicians and patients.

Forward-Looking Statements  Cautionary Language

Certain statements made in this press release and in other written or oral statements made by us or on our behalf are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("PSLRA"). A forward-looking statement is a statement that is not a historical fact and, without limitation, includes any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future results, performance or achievements, and may contain words like: "believe," "anticipate," "expect," "estimate," "aim," "predict," "potential," "continue," "plan," "project," "will," "should," "shall," "may," "might" and other words or phrases with similar meaning in connection with a discussion of future operating or financial performance. In particular, these include statements relating to future actions, trends in our businesses, prospective services, future performance or financial results and the outcome of contingencies, such as legal proceedings. We claim the protection afforded by the safe harbor for forward-looking statements provided by the PSLRA. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results contained in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance or achievements. Our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 and other documents filed with the SEC include factors that could affect our businesses and financial performance. Moreover, we operate in a rapidly changing and competitive environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such risk factors.

Further, it is not possible to assess the effect of all risk factors on our businesses or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. In addition, we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release.

SOURCE Evolent Health

Related Links

http://www.evolenthealth.com


With so much change coming at the upper management and parent company of Spectra Energy Partners (NYSE: SEP), one could forgive the company if it suffered an earnings hiccup this past quarter. That wasn't the case, though, as Spectra generated yet another quarter of consistent results.

Here's a short rundown of Spectra Energy Partners' most recent quarterly results as well as a look at what's in store over the next few quarters and beyond as the company gets a new managing general partner above it.

By the numbers

Metric Q1 2017 Q4 2016 Q1 2016 Operating revenue $700 million $663 million $624 million EBITDA* $499 million $474 million $447 million Earnings per share $0.74 $0.70 $0.80 Distributable cash flow $356 million $271 million $371 million

One of the upsides of investing in Spectra Energy Partners is that the merger of its former parent Spectra Energy and its new parent Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) hasn't materially changed Spectra Energy Partners' business. This past quarter, there was a $46 million in charges related to the parent merger, but that is small potatoes compared to the several hundred million in transaction-related costs at Enbridge this past quarter.

On just about every other metric, Spectra Energy Partners held true to its reputation of steady growth. Operating revenue and EBITDA both increased modestly thanks to several major projects coming online in 2016. That modest decline in distributable cash flow and earnings per share is a result of those one-time, transaction-related charges.

The bulk of Spectra's earnings comes from its U.S. Transmission business. This past quarter, ongoing EBITDA -- that's without those transaction adjustments -- increased thanks to several projects coming on line. The largest of those projects was its $1.1 billion AIM pipeline to deliver natural gas to New England.

Looking forward

Since this time last year, Spectra Energy Partners has completed about $1.8 billion in projects. This coming year, management estimates that it will put another $3.9 billion in new assets into service. The bulk of that spending is on two projects. One is the NEXUS pipeline that will deliver natural gas from the Marcellus shale region to the Enbridge's Dawn Hub natural gas terminal that serves as a supply hub for its natural gas distribution in Ontario and Quebec. The other is the Sabal Trail gas transmission pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas to customers in Florida. Sabal Trail is mechanically complete and should be in service in the coming months while NEXUS should come into service in the second half of the year.

These projects and several others slated for service in 2017 translate to full year distributable cash flow guidance of $1.4 billion to $1.48 billion with a distribution coverage ratio of 1.05x to 1.15x. This should help ensure that Spectra Energy Partners can continue its streak of 38 consecutive quarters with a distribution increase.

What management had to say

Bill Yardley, Chairman and President of Spectra Energy Partners, commented on the partnership's most recent performance in his press release statement.

As seen in this quarter's results, Spectra Energy Partners' strong base business continues to perform well, and is being further enhanced by the expansion projects we placed into service in 2016 and those that we are advancing. We continue to generate solid and reliable cash flows that support our distribution growth, and earlier this month we announced our 38th consecutive quarterly distribution increase. The progress we are making on the high-quality growth projects we have in execution, the strength of our fee-based business model that has no direct commodity exposure and virtually no volume exposure, and our long-term contracts with high credit-quality customers are what continue to make Spectra Energy Partners a compelling investment.

10-second takeaway

With Enbridge in the middle of its restructuring process and Enbridge Energy Partners (NYSE: EEP) part way through a strategic review that led to a 40% distribution cut, Spectra Energy Partners looks like the most stable investment underneath the Enbridge umbrella for now. With that $3.9 billion in new assets to come online by the end of the year and another $500 million under construction, there is certainly enough growth in the works to keep Spectra going for a couple of years.

Beyond that, investors should watch to see how parent company Enbridge decides to allocate capital. It said in its most recent investor presentation that it has more than CA$48 billion in expansion projects under review. At the same time, it has four subsidiary partnerships below it to allocate those projects. That's a lot of mouths to feed for one parent organization. Investors will need to keep track of which projects get assigned to which subsidiary. If some projects initially programmed for Spectra Energy Partners are allocated to other entities, it could hamper Spectra's growth in the longer-term future.

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Export Portal & ExportPortal.com want Administrator McMahon to know that we feel the pain of this statistic. There is no script when it comes to being scammed by overseas buyers, but Export Portal has spent the past seven years putting together the best blockchain trade solution on the market to solve all the questions business people have about exporting goods.

Export Portal's E-Commerce platform is rapidly expanding in international markets and US companies are well known for producing quality products. The United States cannot just turn on the hiring spigot and increase manufacturing without buyers and the "96% of the world's consumers and over three-quarters of the world's purchasing power" that are outside of the country. We hear you Administrator McMahon. We want the value or stock price of all US companies to go up, not down.

What's best for all of America is best for business, and no one in America wants to ever hear the phrase, "You're fired." Export Portal invites small and medium sized businesses across America to increase this 1% exporting statistic by joining ExportPortal.com for free!

Tap in to our ExportPortal.com ecosystem and tap out the fear of international expansion when you tag team with global businesses.

Export Portal - The online trading website with buyer protection.

For more information, visit ExportPortal.com or call at (800) 289-0015.

SOURCE ExportPortal.com

Related Links

https://www.exportportal.com


LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lensabl, the online lens replacement startup, announced today that it has secured new funding. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the funding was led by Amplify.LA and Luma Launch, along with angel investor JJ List.

Lensabl

In late 2016, Lensabl launched its online prescription lens service to make it simple and affordable for consumers to get new lenses in frames they already own. Essentially, consumers bypass the markups and wait times often associated with high-priced opticians and retailers like Lenscrafters. The site offers clear, tinted, and transitional prescription lenses for eyeglasses and sunglasses.

Since launch, Lensabl is experiencing 40% month over month growth. In addition to its core offering, the site has recently started offering non-prescription sunglass lenses as well as blue-light blocking "computer" lenses, which help combat eye strain and headaches stemming from extended computer, television, and phone use. While the company does not sell frames, Lensabl does have near term plans to offer an online eye exam, giving consumers a one-stop online destination for all optical needs.

Lenses start as low as $77 (shipping included) and can be purchased at www.lensabl.com. Anti-reflective, scratch resistant, and UV coatings are included on all lenses, free of charge.

About Amplify.LA

Amplify is a hands-on startup accelerator and entrepreneurial campus in Venice, California. Located in the heart of the Los Angeles technology scene, Amplify is perfectly positionedphysically and programmaticallyto help their companies thrive. They have an unmatched team of investors, mentors, and executives who are committed to helping their founders build their startups into strong, scalable, successful companies.

About Luma Launch

Luma Launch is a multi-million dollar early stage fund with a Launch Program aimed at surfacing the most notable startups and entrepreneurial minds. Luma is focused on the convergence of evolving technology and content markets, capitalizing on internal and external resources to create amazing products. Launch is the venture arm of Luma, one of the largest, independently owned creative studios in the world.

Contact:

Candice Setareh

[email protected]

(424) 442-0060

SOURCE Lensabl

Related Links

http://www.lensabl.com


"The new S-Series printers have proven to be the fastest, and one of the most reliable printers we have ever recommended to our centers," said Brian Boehm, Director of Tech and Supply Chain at FASTSIGNS International, Inc. "With the addition of the Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 ink, customers now have the best graphics warranty in the business."

Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 inks enable FASTSIGNS locations to provide their customers with quality printed graphics that are guaranteed under the 3M MCS warranty program. Widely recognized as the industry's most comprehensive finished graphics warranty, the 3M MCS warranty covers fading, cracking, peeling, and other aspects of outdoor graphic performance for franchisees using the SC-S40600, SC-S60600 and SC-S80600 printers.

"The SureColor S-Series printers used in FASTSIGNS locations across the country already provide outstanding quality, productivity and reliability," said Matt McCausland, product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc. "The Epson-3M inks take these printers to the next level, providing FASTSIGNS local owners with the security of knowing finished graphics made with 3M Graphics products and components are protected for virtually any application."

3M offers the 3M Performance Guarantee with Epson inks featured in legacy wide-format Epson printers, coupled with complimentary rolls of 3M materials, including 54-inch x 10-yard rolls of 3M Controltac Graphic Film with Comply v3 Adhesive IJ180Cv3 and 3M Scotchcal Gloss Overlaminate 8518.

The Epson SureColor S-Series printers redefine image quality expectations in the signage market, featuring a PrecisionCore TFP print head (in dual array on the SC-S60600 and SC-S80600) and enhanced precision media feeding system to produce high-quality, sellable output at impressive production speeds. Combined with the 3M MCS Warranty-backed Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 solvent inks, the SureColor S-Series printers offer outstanding print quality, durability, and media compatibility, plus improved drying times, to help FASTSIGNS get the job done and drive productivity.

About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to connecting people, things and information with its original efficient, compact and precision technologies. With a lineup that ranges from inkjet printers and digital printing systems to 3LCD projectors, smart glasses, sensing systems and industrial robots, the company is focused on driving innovations and exceeding customer expectations in inkjet, visual communications, wearables and robotics.

Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 72,000 employees in 88 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts.

Epson America, Inc., based in Long Beach, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/EpsonAmerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica).

About FASTSIGNS

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. is the largest sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of more than 650 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in nine countries including the US, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Grand Cayman, Mexico and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE).

FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive sign and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, sell more products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points including decor, events, wearables and marketing materials. Learn more about sign and visual graphic solutions or find a location at fastsigns.com. Follow the brand on Twitter @FASTSIGNS, Facebook at facebook.com/FASTSIGNS or on LinkedIn. For information about the FASTSIGNS franchise opportunity, contact Mark Jameson ([email protected] or call 214.346.5679).

Note: EPSON, PrecisionCore, SureColor, TFP, and UltraChrome are registered trademarks of Seiko Epson Corporation. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks.

SOURCE Epson America, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.epson.com


BOSTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Genes in SpaceTM science contest announced five finalists in the annual U.S. competition. 375 teams from grades seven through 12 proposed DNA analysis experiments to address real-life space exploration challenges. The winning experiment will be performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The five finalist teams will be mentored by scientists at Harvard University and MIT. The teams will present their proposals to a panel of scientists and educators at the 2017 ISS Research and Development Conference in Washington, D.C., July 17-20. The winning team will be announced at the conclusion of the conference and will participate in a space biology workshop to prepare their investigation. The team will watch their experiment launch to space.

Genes in SpaceTM promotes youth scientific engagement and DNA research in space. All proposals use miniPCR technology aboard the ISS. PCR is a method for making copies of a particular DNA sequence. The competition is a partnership between miniPCR, Math for America, CASIS, New England Biolabs, and Boeing and is sponsored by FedEx.

The first Genes in SpaceTM experiment by high-school student Anna-Sophia Boguraev was performed aboard the ISS in April of 2016 and was the first PCR experiment ever conducted in space. The second winner, Julian Rubinfien, is currently awaiting the return of his samples from space for analysis.

The 2017 Finalists:

Sophia Chen (14) from Lakeside School, Washington, aims to measure cancer-inducing genomic instability in astronauts.

Elizabeth Reizis (14) from Stuyvesant High School, New York, wants to assess the effects of microgravity on the immune system.

Maxwell Allison (16) and Elena Li (16) from The Bronx High School of Science, New York, plan to investigate bone loss in microgravity.

Divya Aggarwal (15) and Priyanka Pulvender (15) from Troy High School, Michigan, aim to study heart remodeling in astronauts.

Tanmay Srinivasan (15) and Ayush Krishnamoorti (14) from The Kinkaid School, Texas, hope to uncover the genetic basis of hypoxia during long space missions.

For more information about the Genes in SpaceTM competition, Finalists, and other awardees, visit: www.genesinspace.org.

Media contacts:

miniPCR: Emily Gleason, [email protected], 781-990-8727

Math for America: Scott Woodson, [email protected], 646-437-0944

Boeing: Kelly Kaplan, [email protected], 281-226-4367

CASIS: Patrick O'Neill, [email protected], 321-480-1054

New England Biolabs: Deana Martin, [email protected], 978-380-7464

SOURCE Genes in Space

Related Links

http://www.genesinspace.org


AUSTIN, Texas, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- County officials and voters across Texas agree that Hart InterCivic's new Verity Voting system contributed to efficient voting on May 6. Verity, the only all-new election system certified at the state and federal levels, has been purchased in 11 Texas counties and debuted in nine of them this month.

"Voters were very impressed with the equipment, and I was impressed with the ease of closing the polls," said Heather Hawthorne, Chambers County Clerk.

Verity Voting from Hart InterCivic makes voting easy and streamlines election administration. Nine Texas counties debuted the system in the May 6 election.

Medina County Elections Administrator, Patricia Barton, reported positive feedback from voters as well, saying that voters reacted favorably to the direct record electronic (DRE) Verity Touch, which includes an easy-to-use touchscreen.

"They couldn't believe how wonderful the machines were," Barton said. "Of course, they all have iPhones. I kept telling them, if you can use the iPhone, you can use the new machine."

Barton also heard good feedback from two Castroville council members and a Medina County commissioner: "One said purchasing those machines was one of the best things that Medina County could have done."

In Young County, Election Administrator Lauren Sullivan praised Verity for efficient ballot layout and voting preparation.

"My favorite improvement was the setup time. Taking 5-10 minutes before I can load the equipment in my car and head to the vote center, down from half a day, is a big difference. Election night didn't change that much, but setup time was drastically different," Sullivan said.

Unlike other electronic voting systems, Verity uses a centralized approach to managing voting devices in the polling place. With this approach, proven for over 10 years with Hart's legacy system, a single console (Verity Controller) monitors and controls as many as 12 voting terminals and allows poll workers to assign ballot styles remotely. An available integration with an electronic poll book automates ballot assignment, thus reducing the chances for error. The controller model also greatly reduces warehouse tasks required for each election, since only one device per polling place requires configuration for each election.

"Programming was my favorite feature," said Medina County's Barton. "Creating the ballots was awesome. It doesn't take nearly as long as it did, and it was so easy to fix things. I like the preview ballot. You preview first, and it cuts out extra steps."

Election managers also praised Hart's top-rated customer service for supporting efficient installations, training and voting.

Roxzine Stinson, Chief Elections Deputy for Lubbock County, urges those shopping for new systems to consider Hart's record of customer confidence.

"They can't go wrong. We've been with Hart since '05, and customer service always delivers," she said. "They have grown and gotten even better over the years. They are a really good vendor. Not only for us, but I have seen what they have done for other counties."

Lauren Sullivan of Young County agreed that Hart's people contributed to her seamless Election Day.

"It all comes down to customer service. They helped me feel confident, and I could confidently train my folks," she said. "Hart has been so supportive during our transition. They've worked hard to find solutions that are the best for the county and the company. There has never been a time when I called with a question and didn't get a response."

"We congratulate our newest Verity partners on their first election," said Phillip Braithwaite, President and CEO of Hart InterCivic, an Austin-based company with more than 100 years of election experience. "Their successes show Verity's innovative efficiencies in action. Our customers' experiences, plus Hart's trusted name across Texas, make choosing Verity easy."

Learn more about Verity in Texas: http://www.hartintercivic.com/texas4verity.

About Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Austin-based Hart InterCivic is a full service election solutions innovator, partnering with state and local governments to deliver secure, accurate and reliable elections. Working side-by-side with election professionals for more than 100 years, Hart is committed to helping advance democracy one election at a time. Hart's mission fuels its passionate customer focus and a continuous drive for technological innovation. The company's new Verity Voting system makes voting more straightforward, equitable and accessibleand makes managing elections more transparent, more efficient and easier.

SOURCE Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.hartintercivic.com


AKRON, Ohio, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- During his address following today's Annual Meeting of Shareholders, President and Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Jones said FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) is making significant progress toward its goal of transitioning into a more fully regulated company that is better positioned to meet the energy needs of its customers, support its communities, and deliver greater value to shareholders.

"I've been in this business for nearly 40 years, and the most important thing I've learned over the past four decades is that if you take care of the customer, everything else will take care of itself. In other words, strong customer-focused businesses tend to be the most successful businesses," he said.

Jones said the company's ongoing investments in the electric system support that philosophy. He pointed to new rates now in place in eight of the company's ten electric utilities, which support continued investments in service reliability and recovery of the company's costs, as well as FirstEnergy's ongoing investment in its transmission network.

"We recently completed phase one of our Energizing the Future transmission investment program  and will spend an additional $4.2 to $5.8 billion through 2021 on projects that will help ensure our customers continue to benefit from a highly reliable, more resilient and more secure grid," he said.

Jones said FirstEnergy's focus on customers is also reflected in its new advertising campaign. Called "You First," the campaign promotes the company's range of smart products and services that place the customer first  from energy efficiency programs that can save customers energy and money, to warranty programs that protect the home's major appliances.

While FirstEnergy continues to focus on its transition to a more fully regulated business, Jones said the company strongly supports national and state-level efforts to preserve essential energy resources.

"We're encouraged by the recently announced U.S. Department of Energy study to examine the full value that baseload generation plants fueled by coal and nuclear provide to our nation's grid, economy and energy security," he said. "Among other issues, the study will focus on the reasons why these plants are prematurely closing, the risk to national and economic security if these closures continue, and what can be done to prevent further loss."

At the same time, Jones said the company also supports Ohio's Zero-Emissions Nuclear Resource, or ZEN, legislation, which would compensate nuclear plants on a per-megawatt basis for the unique benefits they bring to Ohio's environment, fuel diversity, energy security and resiliency.

"Our Davis-Besse, Perry and Beaver Valley nuclear plants have the ability to operate 24/7  generating enough electricity to power more than 4 million homes, around the clock. In fact, nuclear facilities produce more than 90 percent of the carbon-free power in Ohio and Pennsylvania," he said.

These nuclear plants directly employ approximately 2,300 people, support thousands of additional jobs, and contribute $29 million each year in state and local tax revenues, Jones said. Yet he noted that nuclear facilities across the nation are closing prematurely, including four nuclear facilities in Wisconsin, Vermont and Nebraska that have already shut down, and at least seven others across the region that are in danger of closing.

"We simply cannot allow this to happen in Ohio and Pennsylvania  so if you share our concerns and live in either state, I encourage you to reach out to your local senator or representative," Jones said.

In closing, Jones said he is proud of FirstEnergy employees, and their role in providing customers with the safe, reliable, clean and affordable service they expect and deserve.

"I'm confident that the dedicated efforts of our employees will make the difference as we complete our transition to a more fully regulated company  one that is better positioned to meet the energy needs of our customers, provide strong support to our communities and deliver greater value to our shareholders in the years ahead," he said.

A transcript of Jones' prepared remarks can be found here.

Preliminary Voting Results



FirstEnergy also announced preliminary voting results from its 2017 Annual Meeting. Shareholders reelected each of the 13 nominees to the company's Board of Directors and ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm. On an advisory basis, shareholders also approved named executive officer compensation and voted to hold such advisory votes every year.

Based on preliminary results, a management proposal to amend the company's governing documents to increase the number of shares of authorized common stock received the requisite vote, while management proposals to amend the company's governing documents to replace existing supermajority voting requirements with a majority voting power threshold, implement majority voting for uncontested director elections and implement proxy access, failed to receive the requisite vote.

Non-binding shareholder proposals related to lobbying, climate change and simple majority voting received the support of less than 50 percent of votes cast, based on preliminary results.

All preliminary voting results are subject to final certification.

The following directors were elected to one-year terms:

Paul T. Addison , retired managing director of Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup)

, retired managing director of (Citigroup) Michael J. Anderson , chairman and retired chief executive officer of The Andersons, Inc.

, chairman and retired chief executive officer of The Andersons, Inc. William T. Cottle , retired chairman, president and chief executive officer of STP Nuclear Operating Company

, retired chairman, president and chief executive officer of STP Nuclear Operating Company Steven J. Demetriou , chairman and chief executive officer of Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

, chairman and chief executive officer of Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. Julia L. Johnson , president of NetCommunications, LLC

, president of NetCommunications, LLC Charles E. Jones , president and chief executive officer of FirstEnergy Corp.

, president and chief executive officer of FirstEnergy Corp. Donald T. Misheff , retired managing partner of the Northeast Ohio offices of Ernst & Young LLP

, retired managing partner of the offices of Ernst & Young LLP Thomas N. Mitchell , retired president, chief executive officer and director of Ontario Power Generation Inc.

, retired president, chief executive officer and director of Ontario Power Generation Inc. James F. O'Neil III , Partner, Western Commerce Group

, Partner, Western Commerce Group Christopher D. Pappas , president, chief executive officer and director of Trinseo S.A.

, president, chief executive officer and director of Trinseo S.A. Luis A. Reyes , retired regional administrator of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

, retired regional administrator of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission George M. Smart , non-executive chairman of the FirstEnergy Corp. Board of Directors and retired president of Sonoco-Phoenix, Inc., and

, non-executive chairman of the FirstEnergy Corp. Board of Directors and retired president of Sonoco-Phoenix, Inc., and Dr. Jerry Sue Thornton , chief executive officer of Dream Catcher Educational Consulting, retired president and president emeritus of Cuyahoga Community College .

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com.

Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "forecast," "target," "will," "intend," "believe," "project," "estimate," "plan" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may include the following: the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments and the effectiveness of our strategy to transition to a fully regulated business profile; the accomplishment of our regulatory and operational goals in connection with our transmission investment plan, including, but not limited to, our planned transition to forward-looking formula rates; changes in assumptions regarding economic conditions within our territories, assessment of the reliability of our transmission system, or the availability of capital or other resources supporting identified transmission investment opportunities; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals, including, but not limited to, the ability to continue to reduce costs and to successfully execute our financial plans designed to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet through, among other actions, our cash flow improvement plan and other proposed capital raising initiatives; success of legislative and regulatory solutions for generation assets that recognize their environmental or energy security benefits; the risks and uncertainties associated with the lack of viable alternative strategies regarding the Competitive Energy Services (CES) segment, thereby causing FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES), and possibly FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), to restructure its debt and other financial obligations with its creditors or seek protection under United States bankruptcy laws and the losses, liabilities and claims arising from such bankruptcy proceeding, including any obligations at FirstEnergy Corp.; the risks and uncertainties at the CES segment, including FES and its subsidiaries and FENOC, related to continued depressed wholesale energy and capacity markets, and the viability and/or success of strategic business alternatives, such as pending and potential CES generating unit asset sales, the potential conversion of the remaining generation fleet from competitive operations to a regulated or regulated-like construct or the potential need to deactivate additional generating units; the substantial uncertainty as to FES' ability to continue as a going concern and substantial risk that it may be necessary for FES, and possibly FENOC, to seek protection under United States bankruptcy laws; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings, including, but not limited to, any such proceedings related to vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements; the uncertainties associated with the deactivation of older regulated and competitive units, including the impact on vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements, and as it relates to the reliability of the transmission grid, the timing thereof; the impact of other future changes to the operational status or availability of our generating units and any capacity performance charges associated with unit unavailability; changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including, but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil prices, and their availability and impact on margins; costs being higher than anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins; the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation, or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such initiatives or rulemakings could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units); changes in customers' demand for power, including, but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; economic or weather conditions affecting future sales and margins such as a polar vortex or other significant weather events, and all associated regulatory events or actions; changes in national and regional economic conditions affecting us, our subsidiaries and/or our major industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties with which we do business, including fuel suppliers; the impact of labor disruptions by our unionized workforce; the risks associated with cyber-attacks and other disruptions to our information technology system that may compromise our generation, transmission and/or distribution services and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property and proprietary or personally identifiable information regarding our business, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, business partners and other individuals in our data centers and on our networks; the impact of the regulatory process and resulting outcomes on the matters at the federal level and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates; the impact of the federal regulatory process on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-regulated entities and transactions, in particular FERC regulation of wholesale energy and capacity markets, including PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) markets and FERC-jurisdictional wholesale transactions; FERC regulation of cost-of-service rates; and FERC's compliance and enforcement activity, including compliance and enforcement activity related to North American Electric Reliability Corporation's mandatory reliability standards; the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated 's realignment into PJM; the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; other legislative and regulatory changes, including the new federal administration's required review and potential revision of environmental requirements, including, but not limited to, the effects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, Coal Combustion Residuals regulations, Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards programs, including our estimated costs of compliance, Clean Water Act (CWA) waste water effluent limitations for power plants, and CWA 316(b) water intake regulation; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to, the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant); issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield building at Davis-Besse; changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of assets held in our Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and/or our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated; the impact of changes to significant accounting policies; the impact of any changes in tax laws or regulations or adverse tax audit results or rulings; the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; further actions that may be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and/or our subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs thereof, increase requirements to post additional collateral to support, or accelerate payments under outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and other financial guarantees, and the impact of these events on the financial condition and liquidity of FirstEnergy Corp. and/or its subsidiaries, specifically FES and its subsidiaries; issues concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and other similar factors. Dividends declared from time to time on FirstEnergy Corp.'s common stock during any period may in the aggregate vary from prior periods due to circumstances considered by FirstEnergy Corp.'s Board of Directors at the time of the actual declarations. A security rating is not a recommendation to buy or hold securities and is subject to revision or withdrawal at any time by the assigning rating agency. Each rating should be evaluated independently of any other rating. These forward-looking statements are also qualified by, and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements and risks that are included in our filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The foregoing review of factors also should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any current intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com


"Adam is just the right blend of vast governmental and litigation expertise," noted Ford O'Brien co-founder Adam Ford. "Adam brings high-quality case strategy and a depth of litigation knowledge."

Mr. Pollock will continue to hone his litigation success at Ford O'Brien by focusing on the representation of domestic and international clients litigating civil lawsuits, disputes, and arbitrations; defending regulatory and criminal enforcement actions, investigations, and prosecutions; and facing the immigration consequences stemming therefrom. Complementing this practice, he will engage in the defense of False Claims Act suits, and file qui tam whistleblower actions, in a broad range of industries.

"From every angle, Adam is a great addition to the team and a valuable asset to current and future clients," said Kevin O'Brien, co-founder of Ford O'Brien. "We are truly excited to grow our firm through strategic, smart additions that strengthen our offerings."

"Ford O'Brien has quickly become the go-to firm for individual and corporate clients alike  the firm's unique blend of zealous advocacy, combined with its wealth of knowledge and expertise, delivers phenomenal results," said Adam Pollock. "I am thrilled to be able to join and support Ford O'Brien's work and growth."

While serving as an Assistant Attorney General in the New York Office of the Attorney General, Adam handled a wide range of civil and criminal matters, focusing especially on using the False Claims Act to recover in cases in which the State had been defrauded. Adam drove all aspects of enforcement and prosecution, including investigation, taking testimony, and representing the State in court. Before joining the Attorney General's Office, Adam was an attorney at the criminal and civil litigation boutique Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello P.C. He represented individuals throughout the United States and from various countries in state and federal criminal cases, including healthcare fraud, tax, and antitrust prosecutions.

Adam attended the University of Michigan, where he studied computer science, and spent a year at Tel Aviv University, taking courses in middle eastern politics. He attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was a Levy Scholar in Law and Public Governance. He graduated from Penn cum laude, clerked for Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein in the Southern District of New York, and then spent six months at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

In addition to Mr. Pollock, Ford O'Brien is pleased to announce the hiring of Amanda Lee Wetzel as litigation associate. Ms. Wetzel specializes in white collar criminal defense as well as commercial litigation and arbitration, and brings particular expertise to matters with transatlantic elements. She has worked as a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York and with Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in Paris and has handled commercial and criminal litigation matters in the U.S. and French courts. She also has experience litigating before the European Court of Human Rights and other international human rights forums. Amanda clerked on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, was the Dean Acheson Legal Stage at the European Court of Justice, and served as a legal fellow on the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she worked on treaties. Ms. Wetzel is professionally fluent in French, is a member of the New York bar and practiced French law as a member of the Paris bar from 2014 through 2016.

Ford O'Brien LLP represents clients in securities litigation, arbitration, regulatory investigations and white collar criminal defense. The firm is dedicated to vigorously advocating on behalf of clients, employing strategic, thoughtful counsel to achieve successful outcomes in and out of the courts by use of creative, sophisticated strategies and tactics.

For further information contact:

Ford O'Brien LLP

85 Broad Street, 28th floor

New York, NY 10004

(212) 858-0040

[email protected]

Website: www.fordobrien.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ford-o-brien-llp-995a5b110

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ford-OBrien-LLP-1084508568239782/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/fordobrienlaw

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Ford O'Brien LLP is a limited liability partnership formed in the State of New York.

MEDIA CONTACT: Katherine Jaskot, Esq.

Phone: (212) 858-0040

Email: [email protected]



SOURCE Ford OBrien LLP

Related Links

http://www.fordobrien.com


Brinson touched on Alabama's multiple recent political scandals, saying, "The people of Alabama deserve better" than "a shady appointment which put a permanent Alabama politician into a vacant Senate seat, or a current Congressman who keeps making incendiary comments. Both of these characters are career long politicians who currently swim in the swamp."

A practicing physician, Brinson called Obamacare "a huge overreach of federal power that puts government bureaucracy between you and your doctor," and supports repeal and replacement of the ACA.

Brinson has a history of involvement in Christian values-based political action, including founding Redeem The Vote in 2003. He emphasized his support for the 1st Amendment, saying "When government can restrict our faith, there is nothing that they cannot restrict."

An avid hunter, Brinson said, "I understand the need to protect our right to keep and bear arms," and vowed to fight any attempt to erode that right.

Brinson vowed to end Common Core "because it's an attempt to instill politically correct ideology, contrary to our values and beliefs." He proposed a shift in emphasis to trade internships and business partnerships in education to help more students prepare for jobs in the real world.

An Air Force veteran, Brinson supports a strong national defense strategy, as well as support for law enforcement, firefighters and first responders. "We must see to it that they have the equipment, the training and the resources to continue to protect us."

Brinson touted his experience creating Alabama jobs, saying, "We need more good jobs in this country, and trade is one of the best ways to create those good jobs. Fair trade benefits all of us, but it should be Fair, both ways, so I'll fight against any trade deals that are unfair."

Brinson closed by saying, "It takes character, core convictions, and competency to make a difference for the people of Alabama."

For more information visit http://www.votebrinson.com/

SOURCE votebrinson.com

Related Links

http://www.votebrinson.com


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The global cyberattack that brought millions of computer networks to a halt last week serves as an important reminder that securing the nation's electric grid must be a key national priority, according to Protect Our Power, an organization of renowned experts dedicated to protecting our electric transmission and distribution system. The electric grid is an interconnected network of power plants and power lines that supplies all of us all with a resource critical to the functioning of our society.

"The U.S. electric grid is complex," said Jim Cunningham, executive director of Protect Our Power. "It needs significant upgrades to withstand the growing threat of cyberattacks. Building a more resilient grid should become the nation's No. 1 priority."

The latest ransomware attack is not a new phenomenon. The Wall Street Journal had reported that a hacker successfully breached a Michigan utility in April 2016 and successfully extorted $25,000 to unlock the computer system. A March 2017 poll conducted by Protect Our Power indicated that nearly 61 percent of Americans believe the electric grid is vulnerable to a cyber or physical attack.

President Trump signed an executive order on May 10, 2017, ordering Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly to work with state and local governments to assess gaps in power grid cybersecurity and the potential impacts of a prolonged power outage as the result of an attack.

"The Executive Order is a good starting point but we must get to the action phase very soon," said Suedeen Kelly, Protect Our Power's regulatory counsel and former commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). "To improve the grid's resilience, we must help industry leaders, regulators and legislators work together to determine and implement the most practicable solutions with suitable funding mechanisms to pay for them."

About Protect Our Power: Protect Our Power is a not-for-profit organization designed to build consensus among key stakeholders, decision-makers and public policy influencers to launch a coordinated and adequately funded effort to make the nation's electric grid more resilient and more resistant to all external threats. The national program must also ensure establishment of an enhanced power restoration and recovery component for all grid operations that would include communications protocols to protect the American public.

For more information about Protect Our Power, visit www.protectourpower.org.

SOURCE Protect Our Power (POP)

Related Links

http://www.protectourpower.org


Further refreshes Board with two new highly qualified and experienced nominees for election to Granite's Board, Remco Daal and Kelly Marshall

and Issues letter to unitholders highlighting its successful track record, enhanced growth prospects and risks posed by dissident unitholders

TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Granite Real Estate Investment Trust and Granite REIT Inc. (TSX: GRT.UN; NYSE: GRP.U) ("Granite REIT" and "Granite GP", and, collectively "Granite") announced today that it has filed a proxy circular in respect of its annual general meeting of unitholders scheduled for Thursday, June 15, 2017. Unitholders are urged to carefully consider the contents of Granite's proxy circular and then only vote the WHITE proxy FOR Granite's nominees, well in advance of the proxy voting deadline of 10:00 a.m. (Toronto time) on Tuesday, June 13, 2017.

Granite also announced today that it has nominated two new independent nominees for election to Granite's Board, Remco Daal and Kelly Marshall:

Remco Daal: Mr. Daal has been President of Canadian Real Estate for QuadReal Property Group since its establishment in June 2016, responsible for QuadReal's domestic operations, including investment, development, and the management operation of the Canadian property portfolio. QuadReal is a global real estate company owned by the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC), one of Canada's largest institutional investors, and has managed assets valued at over $18 billion.

From 2000 to 2016, Mr. Daal worked at Bentall Kennedy Group, one of North America's largest real estate investment advisors and Canada's largest property manager, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer from 2009 to 2016. Prior to joining Bentall Kennedy, Mr. Daal held senior positions with CIBC Development Corporation and a private Toronto-based development company. Mr. Daal has over 25 years of experience in the real estate sector.

Mr. Daal currently serves on the board of Parkbridge Lifestyle Communities Inc. as well as the Faculty Advisory Board of UBC's Sauder School of Business.

Kelly Marshall: Mr. Marshall is Managing Partner, Corporate Finance at Brookfield Asset Management Inc., where he is responsible for Brookfield Asset Management's global corporate finance activities and overseeing all financings in each core region and business line. During his 16 years with Brookfield Asset Management, he has completed in excess of US$100 billion in debt and equity transactions. These transactions involved corporate and asset level issuances in North and South America, Europe, UK, Australia and India for all of Brookfield Asset Management's real estate, renewable power and infrastructure businesses.

Mr. Marshall has over 25 years of finance experience, which was initially developed working for Olympia and York Developments Ltd. at Canary Wharf. This was followed by periods of employment with Citibank, in its real estate asset management group, and then two prominent U.S.-based real estate finance investment companies, Fortress Investment Group and Lonestar Opportunity Fund.

Two current trustees of Granite who joined the Board in 2011, Michael Brody and Barry Gilbertson, are retiring from the Board and will not be standing for re-election at the annual general meeting. Granite would like to thank Mr. Brody and Mr. Gilbertson for their contributions as members of the Board.

Granite has issued a letter to unitholders that highlights that its successful execution of its strategy has driven significant gains for investors and enhanced its growth prospects. The letter also warns unitholders of the threat that dissident unitholders FrontFour Capital and Sandpiper Group pose to Granite's future. The full contents of the letter are included below:

Dear Granite Unitholders:

Since 2011, Granite's Board and management have executed a strategy that has driven significant gains for Granite investors and positioned Granite for continued success in 2017 and beyond. Granite is one of the best performing REITs in Canada. It generated a total cumulative return to unitholders of approximately 24.5% in 2016, compared to 17.4% for the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Total Return Index. Since converting to a REIT on January 3, 2013, Granite has generated a total cumulative return of 55.9%, compared to a total cumulative return of 19.8% for the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Total Return Index over the same time period.

Now, two dissident unitholders, FrontFour Capital and Sandpiper Group, have stated that they intend to nominate their respective principals  Zach George and Samir Manji  for election to the Granite Board.

The dissidents have a track record of value destruction in the real estate sector, a history of related party transactions and a short-term orientation. Moreover, the arguments they have made against Granite are weak, misleading or false.

But don't just take our word for it. Here is what an RBC Capital Markets research analyst wrote about the dissidents' views regarding Granite:

Extremely one-sided views

We do believe there is room for performance improvement and efficiency gains at the REIT. This unto itself does not make Granite unique. Nor does it render Granite a mis-managed entity. Therefore, we take issue with the far too one-sided, and in some instances, aggressive tone of the presentation. In this regard, the FrontFour-Sandpiper presentation seemingly fails to give Management and the board credit for the many positive things that have been achieved over the past five years. To list just a few:

Acquired, invested in, or otherwise developed capital towards $600 million of new assets (up to and including Q1/17);





of new assets (up to and including Q1/17); Sold $225 million of non-core assets (including the Mexican portfolio);





of non-core assets (including the Mexican portfolio); Issued $850 million of unsecured debt via three offerings and reduced the REIT's cost of debt capital;





of unsecured debt via three offerings and reduced the REIT's cost of debt capital; Increased FFO/unit by ~60%, from $2.10 in 2011 to $3.43 in 2016;





in 2011 to in 2016; Increased the distribution five times, from $2.00 /unit/year to $2.60 currently; and





/unit/year to currently; and Maintained strong liquidity and low leverage.

Neil Downey, RBC Capital Markets May 11, 2017

In addition to achieving these positive results and providing superior returns to unitholders, we have also been diligent in maintaining strong corporate governance, which includes a board renewal process that commenced last year and resulted in the addition in 2016 of two new highly accomplished Board members, Donald Clow and Brydon Cruise, and two other highly qualified and experienced individuals, Remco Daal and Kelly Marshall, being nominated for election at our upcoming meeting of unitholders. Together, they add fresh perspective and further deepen the Board's skill set and expertise in real estate investment and other areas that are important to Granite's business. This board renewal process will continue into 2018 and beyond.

Granite has an international platform that provides it with access to investment opportunities across Europe and North America. It is well positioned to create sustainable value because of the actions we have taken to strengthen and de-risk our asset base, create stable and highly visible long-term cash flows, and reduce our cost of capital to enable us to pursue our strategy of acquiring high quality real estate assets using our proven disciplined approach. The dissidents' agenda is aimed at pushing Granite to take short-sighted actions that would threaten our ability to continue to capitalize on the strong foundation for growth we have established.

Unitholders are urged to carefully consider the contents of Granite's proxy circular and then only vote the WHITE proxy FOR Granite's nominees, well in advance of the proxy voting deadline of 10:00 a.m. (Toronto time) on Tuesday, June 13, 2017.

Thank you for your continued trust in and support of Granite,

//signed//

G. Wesley Voorheis

Chairman

Granite Real Estate Investment Trust

and Granite REIT Inc.

//signed//

Michael Forsayeth

Chief Executive Officer

Granite Real Estate Investment Trust

and Granite REIT Inc.



Copies of Granite's proxy circular have been posted to Granite's website at www.granitereit.com.

ABOUT GRANITE

Granite is a Canadian-based REIT engaged in the ownership and management of predominantly industrial, warehouse and logistics properties in North America and Europe. Granite owns approximately 30 million square feet in over 90 rental income properties. Our tenant base includes Magna International Inc. and its operating subsidiaries as our largest tenants, in addition to tenants from other industries.

OTHER INFORMATION

Copies of financial data and other publicly filed documents are available through the internet on the Canadian Securities Administrators' Systems for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) which can be accessed at www.sedar.com and on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval System (EDGAR) which can be accessed at www.sec.gov.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release may contain statements that, to the extent they are not recitations of historical fact, constitute ''forward-looking statements'' or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information may include, among others, statements regarding Granite's future plans, goals, strategies, intentions, beliefs, estimates, costs, objectives, economic performance, expectations, or foresight or the assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "likely", "expect", "anticipate", "believe", "intend", "plan", "forecast", "project", "estimate", "seek" and similar expressions are used to identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information should not be read as guarantees of future events, performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or the times at or by which such future events or performance will be achieved. Undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are based on information available at the time and/or management's good faith assumptions and analyses made in light of its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances, and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unpredictable factors, many of which are beyond Granite's control, that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, economic, market and competitive conditions, the risk that the Advance Notice Policies will not be approved and ratified at Granite's upcoming annual meeting of stapled unitholders, and the risks set forth in the annual information form of Granite REIT and Granite REIT Inc. dated March 1, 2017 (the "Annual Information Form"). The "Risk Factors" section of the Annual Information Form also contains information about the material factors or assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information speak only as of the date the statements and information were made and unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Granite expressly disclaims any intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect subsequent information, events or circumstances or otherwise.

For more information:

Unitholders

D.F. King at 1-866-822-1237 (toll free in North America) or 1-201-806-7301 (outside North America) or email at [email protected]

Michael Forsayeth, Chief Executive Officer, at 647-925-7600 or

Ilias Konstantopoulos, Chief Financial Officer, at 647-925-7540

Media

Joel Shaffer, Longview Communications

416-649-8006

SOURCE Granite Real Estate Investment Trust

Related Links

www.granitereit.com


Earlier this year, Enbridge (NYSE: ENB) completed its $28 billion merger with Spectra Energy to create North America's largest energy infrastructure enterprise. This quarter, we got to see what the merger meant for Enbridge's income statement. As you might expect, the results were a tad messy thanks to transaction-related costs and certain timing issues.

Here's a look at the pipeline giant's most recent earnings report and what investors should be looking for in the coming quarters as Enbridge completes the rest of its transaction-related restructuring.

Enbridge earnings: The raw numbers

Metric Q1 2017 Q1 2016 Year-Over-Year Change Revenue $11,146 million $8,795 million 26.7% ACFFO* $1,215 million $1,114 million 9% Earnings attributable to common shareholders $638 million $1,213 million (47.4%) Earnings per share $0.54 $1.38 (60.8%)

With Spectra Energy's assets now under Enbridge's roof, the company's quarterly earnings release is a long read. The distilled version of the report is that revenue and available cash from operations increased thanks to the inclusion of Spectra's assets even though there were some headwinds. The biggest impacts were warmer-than-normal winter that reduced natural gas distribution demand and some foreign currency effects. Management also noted that the timing of the Spectra Energy acquisition was critical to results as the first two months of the year are when its gas distribution business generates the bulk of its earnings for the year.

The other notable difference between this quarter and the prior year's results is the near-50% decline in earnings. Much of that drop was attributed to changes in realized and unrealized derivative fair value gains and costs related to the Spectra Energy transaction and the subsequent restructuring. Most of these charges are supposed to be one-time occurrences, but management has said that it expects to fully realize the 540 million Canadian dollars in merger-related cost synergies by 2019. Therefore, we should probably expect transaction and restructuring costs to continue for some time.

What happened with Enbridge this past quarter?

This most recent quarter was a busy three-month period for the company as it completed its merger with Spectra Energy. In addition to this megamerger, here are sone of the other moves management made in the first quarter.

Enbridge announced it acquired a 50% stake in the Hohe See Offshore Wind project for CA$1.7 billion. The project is a 497-megawatt facility in the North Sea that will provide electricity to Germany with a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The company acquired a 27.6% non-operator stake in the Bakken Pipeline system for CA$1.5 billion from Energy Transfer Partners . The most important component of the pipeline is the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline that goes from Pakota, Illinois, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. This pipeline will improve Enbridge's capacity of delivering Canadian crude oil to the Gulf via its Mainline system that has a primary terminal in Pakota.

. The most important component of the pipeline is the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline that goes from Pakota, Illinois, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. This pipeline will improve Enbridge's capacity of delivering Canadian crude oil to the Gulf via its Mainline system that has a primary terminal in Pakota. It brought approximately CA$2.4 billion in projects on line including its Athabasca Twin crude oil pipeline, the Norlite diluent pipeline, and the Jackfish Lake natural gas pipeline expansion. This is the first wave of projects in Enbridge's plan to bring CA$13 billion in new assets into service during the year.

On April 28, management completed a strategic review of its investment in Enbridge Energy Partners (NYSE: EEP) . As part of the plan, Enbridge will buy out the remaining public stake in Midcoast Energy Partners and will retire some preferred shares in exchange for common units and cut its quarterly distribution 40% to $0.35 per unit. The reasoning behind these moves was to retain some cash to fund its growth projects and alleviate the need to go to the capital markets for additional capital.

What management had to say

CEO Al Monaco commented on Enbridge's most recent dividend increase and how it showed that the merger with Spectra Energy gives the company a more stable financial foundation.

Our confidence in providing a 15% dividend per share increase this year reflects the strength and stability of our base assets and a very positive longer term outlook for the combined business. Over the longer term, we expect that the strength and diversity of our existing asset base together with six strong growth platforms will enable Enbridge to deliver dividend growth in the range of 10% to 12% per annum through 2024.

10-second takeaway

While we got our first peek at Enbridge's results now that it has brought Spectra Energy into the fold, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison since there are so many one-time charges and restructuring costs related to the merger on the income statement. It will be much easier to take the pulse of this company after another quarter or two of comparable results.

It will be worth watching in the coming quarters how parent company Enbridge will be able to maintain its promise to grow distributions by 10%-12% annually for the next seven years after cutting the distribution at Enbridge Energy Partners. It appears management thinks it can offset the contribution from Enbridge Energy Partners through its wholly owned assets and distribution growth from its other three subsidiary partnerships. There are certainly enough new projects coming on line this year. Longer term, though, it still has another CA$15 billion in projects to fund by 2019, with an additional CA$48 billion under review.

Management has quite the balancing act ahead of it to maintain strong distribution growth while meeting all the funding needs for this massive growth portfolio.

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TSX: GPR

NYSE MKT: GPL



VANCOUVER, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - GREAT PANTHER SILVER LIMITED (TSX: GPR; NYSE MKT: GPL) ("Great Panther", the "Company") announces that it has mailed a notice of meeting to the shareholders of record as of April 21, 2017 in connection with its Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders to be held at Suite 1330, 200 Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, on Thursday, June 8, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time.

The Company encourages all shareholders to read the meeting materials, which are available on its website at www.greatpanther.com on the Annual General and Special Meeting page. The Board of Directors of Great Panther recommends that shareholders vote in favour of all proposed items. Shareholders are reminded that their votes are important, and are encouraged to vote as soon as possible.

HOW TO VOTE

Registered shareholders (those who hold the Company's shares in their name, represented by a physical certificate or through the Direct Registration System) may vote by mail, internet, telephone or in person at the Annual General and Special Meeting. In the interest of time, shareholders are encouraged to vote via the internet or by telephone as follows:

Internet: Vote online at www.investorvote.com, using the control number located

on your proxy form (which you receive in the mail or via internet)



Telephone: Call 1 866 732-VOTE (8683) Toll free or Fax: 1 866 249 7775

Beneficial shareholders (those who hold the Company's shares through a bank, broker or other intermediary) will have different voting instructions provided to them and should follow the instructions found on their voting instruction form. Shareholders who have questions or have not received their proxy or voting instruction form may contact Great Panther's Proxy Solicitation Agent:

Laurel Hill Advisory Group

Toll free: 1 877 452 7184

Tell +1 416 304 0211

Email: [email protected]



ABOUT GREAT PANTHER

Great Panther Silver Limited is a primary silver mining and exploration company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading under the symbol GPR, and on the NYSE MKT trading under the symbol GPL. Great Panther's current activities are focused on the mining of precious metals from its two wholly-owned operating mines in Mexico: the Guanajuato Mine Complex, which includes the San Ignacio Mine; and the Topia Mine in Durango. In addition, the Company has signed an agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the Coricancha Mine Complex in the central Andes of Peru and is pursuing additional mining opportunities in the Americas.

SOURCE Great Panther Silver Limited

Related Links

http://www.greatpanther.com


CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GTCR, a leading private equity firm, announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to make a strategic investment in Vivid Seats LLC ("Vivid Seats" or the "Company") alongside existing investor Vista Equity Partners ("Vista") and Vivid Seats management.

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Vivid Seats is the largest independent marketplace for tickets to live sports, concert and theater events, facilitating millions of transactions per year.

As part of the transaction, GTCR will partner with co-founders Jerry Bednyak and Eric Vassilatos and the entire Vivid Seats management team as they continue to grow and develop the Company's technology and service offerings. Following the transaction, the co-founders and Vista will maintain a significant ownership stake in the company.

"The Vivid Seats team has built a tremendous business that is well-positioned for long-term success," said GTCR Managing Director David Donnini. "The impressive growth over the last decade is a testament to their customer service, operating excellence and proprietary technology platform."

"We are excited to partner with GTCR in the next stage of Vivid Seats' evolution," said Messrs. Bednyak and Vassilatos. "GTCR brings significant resources and experience in building industry-leading companies, and we believe they will be a valuable resource in the long-term expansion of our business. We would also like to thank Vista for their support and look forward to their continued partnership."

Lawrence Fey, Managing Director at GTCR, added: "Through their leading technology and customer service platform, Vivid Seats delivers a differentiated marketplace experience for ticket buyers and sellers. We are excited to partner with the Vivid Seats team as they continue to expand the reach and scale of their network."

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.

RBC Capital Markets and Barclays served as financial advisors to GTCR. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and William Blair & Company, L.L.C. served as financial advisors to Vivid Seats.

About GTCR

Founded in 1980, GTCR is a leading private equity firm focused on investing in growth companies in the Financial Services & Technology, Healthcare, Technology, Media & Telecommunications and Growth Business Services industries. The Chicago-based firm pioneered The Leaders Strategy - finding and partnering with management leaders in core domains to identify, acquire and build market-leading companies through transformational acquisitions and organic growth. Since its inception, GTCR has invested more than $12 billion in over 200 companies. For more information, please visit www.gtcr.com.

About Vivid Seats

Vivid Seats is the largest independent marketplace for tickets to live sports, concert, and theater events. Founded in 2001, the Chicago-based company offers industry-leading affordability across one of the widest selections of premium tickets and event packages. Vivid Seats supports all orders with a comprehensive buyer guarantee and an in-house customer service team to ensure the safest and most convenient purchase experience. Fans that want to sit closer and see more of their favorite live events can order directly on www.vividseats.com or by phone at (866) 848-8499.

About Vista Equity Partners

Vista Equity Partners, a U.S.-based investment firm with offices in Austin, San Francisco, Chicago, and Oakland with more than $30 billion in cumulative capital commitments, currently invests in software, data and technology-enabled organizations led by world-class management teams with long-term perspective. Vista is a value-added investor, contributing professional expertise and multi-level support towards companies realizing their full potential. Vista's investment approach is anchored by a sizable long-term capital base, experience in structuring technology-oriented transactions, and proven management techniques that yield flexibility and opportunity in private equity investing. For more information, please visit www.vistaequitypartners.com.

Media Inquiries:

Eileen Rochford

(312) 953-3305

[email protected]

SOURCE GTCR

Related Links

http://www.gtcr.com


LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hollister Incorporated, a global healthcare products and services company, has been awarded a sourcing contract by HealthTrust to provide ostomy products to its member organizations. Beginning August 1, 2017, HealthTrust members can take advantage of pricing and terms negotiated through the group-purchasing organization.

"We are honored that HealthTrust has selected our ostomy product portfolio for this contract," said Carolin Archibald, vice president, North America for Hollister Incorporated. "HealthTrust conducted a review and recognized that Hollister ostomy products and services address the individual needs of clinicians and patients. We look forward to working with HealthTrust and bringing our innovative products and services to those who need them most."

Broad portfolio of ostomy care products and services

Hollister Ostomy Care provides products, resources and services that allow people to resume their lifestyles after ostomy surgery. From the CeraPlus skin barrier that helps to maintain healthy peristomal skin to the one- and two-piece pouching systems and related accessories, the Hollister ostomy portfolio meets the unique needs of the people who use them.

Complementing the company's product portfolio is Hollister Secure Start services  which provides support to people as they live their lives with an ostomy or neurogenic bladder. The Hollister Secure Start team provides clients a lifetime of personalized support from a dedicated consumer-service advisor that includes product guidance, education and access to an on-site nurse to address clinical product questions.

About Hollister Incorporated

Hollister Incorporated is an independent, employee-owned company that develops, manufactures, and markets healthcare products and services worldwide. The company develops and manufactures products for ostomy care, continence care and wound care, and also develops educational support materials for patients and healthcare professionals. Hollister Incorporated has been serving healthcare professionals and consumers for 95 years and is committed to making life more rewarding and dignified for people who use its products and services. Headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, Hollister has manufacturing and distribution centers on three continents and sells in more than 80 countries around the world. www.Hollister.com.

Media Contact:

Meredith Castro

Senior Manager, Corporate Communications

[email protected]

847-680-1000

SOURCE Hollister Incorporated

Related Links

http://www.shermancm.com


"Beer has long been used as a marinade for sausage. Our hand-crafted manufacturing techniques for Hofmann hot dogs and sausages fits well with Empire's concept, making them the perfect partner for such a project," said William Hulley, Chief Operating Officer of Hofmann Brands.

Hofmann Sausage Company has called Syracuse, New York home since 1879. Hofmann Brands includes hot dogs, sausages, and the Handwich line of meat centric stuffed bread "grab 'n go" items. Hofmann is most famous for its Snappy Grillers (Coneys) and German Franks. Hofmann products are minimally processed, contain no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, or by-products, and they are gluten-free.

"Collaborating with such a community staple as Hofmann Sausage Company has been something I have always been interested in. Bringing together their natural, tasty, well-made bratwurst, with our locally brewed Empire Amber Ale seemed like a natural pair," said David Katleski, owner of Empire Brewing Company. "We are excited to spread the pride of Syracuse across the state and country."

Media representatives are invited to a press conference with new product tasting on Monday, May 22nd at 11 a.m. at Empire Farm Brewery, 33 Rippleton Road, Cazenovia, New York. The 35,000 square foot facility sitting on twenty-two acres is the largest farm brewery on the Eastern seaboard.

For more company information, visit hofmannbrands.com and https://empirebrew.com.

Rebecca Baker

C: (214) 616-9033

[email protected]

SOURCE Hofmann Sausage Company

Related Links

http://www.hofmannbrands.com


MEXICO CITY, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hoteles City Express, S.A.B. de C.V. ("Hoteles City Express" or "the Company") (BMV: HCITY), announced today the opening of City Express Junior San Luis Potosi Zona Industrial, reaching 125 properties and more than 13,900 rooms in 63 cities and 29 states in Mexico, as well as in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile.

The City Express Junior San Luis Potosi Zona Industrial hotel is the fifth hotel of the chain in the state of San Luis Potosi and it will operate under a management contract. This new property, located in Carretera Federal 57, will serve travelers drawn by the industrial sector.

With this new property the Company strengthens its presence in the Bajio region, which shows solid economic fundamentals over the medium and long term.

About Hoteles City Express:

Hoteles City Express is considered the leading and fastest-growing limited-service hotel chain in Mexico in terms of number of hotels, number of rooms, geographic presence, market share and revenues. Founded in 2002, Hoteles City Express specializes in offering high-quality, comfortable and safe lodging at affordable prices via a limited-service hotel chain geared mainly towards domestic business travelers. With 124 hotels in operation located throughout Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Chile, Hoteles City Express operates five distinct brands: City Express, City Express Plus, City Express Suites, City Express Junior and City Centro to serve different segments of its target market. In June 2013, Hoteles City Express completed its IPO and began trading on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "HCITY"; furthermore, on October 8, 2014, Hoteles City Express completed a follow on with the aim of accelerating its growth in new hotels in coming years.

For further information, please visit our website: https://cityexpress.com/en/investors/

SOURCE Hoteles City Express, S.A.B. de C.V.
ARMONK, N.Y., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Adam Kocoloski, IBM Fellow and CTO of the IBM Watson Data Platform, will be delivering a keynote at ApacheCon North America in Miami, Florida. Taking place May 16th  18th, ApacheCon brings developers, data scientists and data engineers together each year to learn about and collaborate on projects driving the future of open source, web technologies and cloud.

In his keynote, Adam will specifically focus on the role the open community has had in the continued evolution and success of Apache CouchDB for nearly a decade. Built largely by the open community and with continued support from both Apache and IBM, CouchDB is an open source and NoSQL document-oriented database delivered over the cloud. Its framework makes it ideal for working with large and unstructured datasets, such as those generated by networks of intelligent IoT devices. For example, rather than building and managing databases in-house, an IoT app could use a CouchDB framework to store, analyze and connect incoming device data.

Adam co-founded Cloudant, the distributed database-as-a-service company built on top of CouchDB and acquired by IBM in 2014. Since forming Cloudant into a key pillar of its Watson Data Platform, IBM has continued to contribute back to the Apache CouchDB community, including the release of Couch 2.0.

Additionally, Adam will highlight how an open codebase and community are contributing to the success of several other open projects, including Apache Spark, Apache Edgent and Apache OpenWhisk.

The IBM Watson Data Platform allows developers, data scientists and product managers across an organization to connect and transform how they use data to accelerate innovation. Featuring embedded and cognitive-assisted machine learning, the platform fuels users with customized tools and data analytics services powered by IBM Cloud infrastructure, helping companies to more easily work and build with data to rapidly become cognitive businesses.

Adam's keynote, titled "Apache CouchDB: A Tale of Community, Cooperation and Code" will take place on Tuesday, May 16th at 9:50 a.m. EDT. For more information on ApacheCon 2017 in Miami, visit http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/apachecon-north-america.

For more information on Watson Data Platform, visit https://www.ibm.com/analytics/us/en/watson-data-platform/platform.html.

For more information on IBM Cloud, visit https://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/.

Contact:

Erin Lehr

[email protected]

SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://www.ibm.com


SPRINGFIELD, Ill., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In an overwhelming bipartisan show of support, the Illinois State Senate unanimously passed (53-0) HB 1805, the "Drive for Life Bill". Supported by the Secretary of State, a coalition of state legislators and Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network and Mid-America Transplant, this critical legislation amends Section 6-117 of the Illinois Vehicle Code to allow Illinois residents 16 and older to join the organ donor registry. The bill will now be presented to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to sign into law.

"We greatly appreciate Rep. Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park) and Sen. Mattie Hunter (D-Chicago) for their commitment to organ and tissue donation in Illinois," said Kevin Cmunt, President and CEO of Gift of Hope. "The passing of this bill has been a collaborative effort and we thank all those who support this legislation, which is critical for those families currently awaiting life-saving donations."

In Illinois alone, more than 4,700 people are on the waiting list and about 300 people die each year waiting for an organ transplant. It is imperative that individuals who wish to become organ donors are allowed every opportunity to do so.

Illinois is one of only three states in the union that does not allow 16- and 17-year-olds to register their wishes to become organ donors. The "Drive for Life Act" would ensure all residents 16 and older may choose to officially join the First-Person Authorization Registry. While the law gives 16- and 17-year-olds the right to express their wishes, parents and legal guardians will maintain the right to give or revoke consent until the registered donors turn 18-years-old.

Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network is a not-for-profit organ procurement organization entrusted by the nation's healthcare system with coordinating organ and tissue donation and providing donor family services and public education in Illinois and northwest Indiana. Gift of Hope works with 180 hospitals and serves 12 million residents in its donation service area. For more information about Gift of Hope and organ and tissue donation, visit GiftofHope.org.

SOURCE Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network

Related Links

http://giftofhope.org


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ascend Pinnacle Asian Corporate Directors Summit, the largest, first-of-its-kind gathering of Asian American Corporate Directors in the world, held at Four Seasons Hotel, Palo Alto on 21-23 April, 2017, successfully featured Asian Corporate Board members and corporations for their leadership and commitment, setting the stage for a month long celebration of achievements and contributions of Asians during the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May.

The Ascend Pinnacle Summit had over 80 experienced Asian corporate board directors attending and over 40 speakers and non-Asian corporate directors present. The attendees represented Boards with a combined market cap of over a trillion dollars. Deloitte was the Ascend Pinnacle Summit founding sponsoring organization, along with other sponsors.



The Summit featured sessions with diverse corporate board directors and senior executives from some of the largest companies in the world. Highlights included keynote speaker Meg Whitman's, President & CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Chairman of the Board HP Inc., fireside chat and panel discussions about what makes a high performance board, the effects of diversity in the boardrooms, board evaluations, the relationship between boards and investment funds and the role of activist investors. Ascend Pinnacle's first Aspiring Directors Workshop, held in partnership with Stanford Rock Center, was sold out with 18 senior executives attending.

Raj Gupta, Chairman, Delphi; Board Director, Arconic, The Vanguard Group, IRI; Executive Chairman, Avantor Inc. and U.S. Bank received the Ascend Pinnacle/Deloitte Excellence in Leadership Individual and Board Awards, the first national corporate board and individual recognition for diversity and leadership. The awards recognized an individual and a corporation that have shown long-term, sustained commitment to diversity and the Pan-Asian community, exceptional leadership and initiative in promoting Pan-Asian advancement and visibility, and continue to be an inspiration and role model to Pan-Asians and others in business.

Ascend launched Pinnacle three years ago with a primary focus on Asian American directors on US public company and large private company boards.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (APAHM), celebrates the impact, accomplishments, and significance of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The month of May honors the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States in 1843 and commemorates the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, primarily by Chinese immigrants, in 1869.

About Ascend

Ascend is the largest, non-profit Pan-Asian membership organization for business professionals in North America. Established in 2005, Ascend, a career lifecycle organization, reaches 60,000+ senior executives, professionals, and MBA/undergraduate students involved in its 50+ chapters in the United States and Canada. Visit http://www.ascendleadership.org for more information.

Contact: Sofia Poyhonen

Tel. 212-248-4888

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Ascend

Related Links

http://www.ascendleadership.org


The new department combines ADU's Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Nuclear Medicine, and Radiography programs and certificates. In total, the department oversees 72 clinical education sites between Orlando and Denver.

Professor Genese Gibson, formerly the Chair of Radiologic Sciences, has been appointed as the new department's Chair. This September will be Professor Gibson's 30th year with Florida Hospital and Adventist Health System, and she has been with ADU since its inception in 1992. She helped pioneer online learning on the campus, playing an important role in launching the University's first online course. When ADU opened its satellite campus in Denver, Dr. David Greenlaw, ADU's President, chose her program to lead out the expansion.

A few other faculty members have stepped into new roles as part of this new transition. Professor Charlotte Henningsen, formerly the Department Chair of Sonography, now holds dual roles as Associate Vice President for Faculty Development in Teaching & Learning and Director of the Center for Advanced Ultrasound Education. Professor Deziree Rada is the new Program Director of Sonography and Professor Kelly Mumbert has been appointed as Online Coordinator for the Sonography Department.

About Adventist University of Health Sciences (ADU)

Adventist University of Health Sciences (ADU) is a Seventh-day Adventist institution specializing in healthcare education in a faith-affirming environment. Service-oriented and guided by the values of nurture, excellence, spirituality, and stewardship, the University seeks to develop leaders who will practice healthcare as a ministry. ADU fulfills this mission by developing skilled professionals who live the healing values of Christ.

ADU offers undergraduate and graduate programs including: Biomedical Sciences, Diagnostic Medical Sonography, Health Sciences, Radiography, Nuclear Medicine Technology, Nursing (BSN), Nurse Anesthesia, Occupational Therapy, Healthcare Administration, Physician Assistant, and Physical Therapy. The University is associated with Florida Hospital and the Adventist Health System.

ADU embraces the benefit of whole person care as demonstrated in the life and ministry of Christ. The University is dedicated to developing skilled professionals who live the healing values of Christ. Graduates who live these values effectively extend the healing ministry of Christ.

SOURCE Adventist University of Health Sciences

Related Links

http://www.adu.edu/


MOSCOW, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The participants of the 8th Conference of Parties to the Rotterdam Convention did not reach consensus on inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in Annex III which is the list of dangerous substances. International Alliance of Trade Union Organizations "Chrysotile" is welcoming this decision and supporting the positions of Russian Federation, Zimbabwe, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Syria and Belarus that opposed listing of chrysotile asbestos and insists on providing convincing results of scientific studies.

International Alliance of Trade Union Organizations "Chrysotile" represents the interests of hundreds of thousands of workers and local communities around the world and insists that the safe use of the chrysotile is possible and justified by existing practice and scientific data.

During COP 8 meeting there were some claims by the anti-asbestos lobby that International Agency for Research on Cancer has recognized asbestos as a type 1 carcinogen and its use therefore must be banned. We would to like to stress that among type 1 carcinogens there are a lot of proven carcinogenic agents such as: cadmium, chromium, nickel compounds, silica, the Sun rays, vinyl chloride, alcoholic beverages, salted fish, tobacco smoke, saw dust, diesel fuel Etc. The IARC classification identifies a substance's hazard, not the risk. Consequently, a substance classified in group 1 does not mean its use must be prohibited, only that is should be properly controlled as chrysotile is used today.

The strongest proponents of inclusion of chrysotile in Annex III are advocates of a complete ban on chrysotile. Most substances included in Annex III are eventually completely banned.

Workers in many countries fought long and hard to achieve safe and controlled use of chrysotile. They know how to use it in a safe manner and they intend to keep doing so. In countries which use only chrysotile form of asbestos safely there is no elevated risk of diseases.

The latest scientific evidences, including numerous studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in the past decade alone, strongly supports the following views:

1. Chrysotile is significantly less hazardous than the amphibole forms of asbestos;

2. When properly controlled and used, chrysotile asbestos in its modern day high density applications does not present risks of any significance to general public or worker's health.

Today, countries that use chrysotile represent 2/3's of humanity. The chrysotile based products give an opportunity for millions of people all over the world to make their life safer and better.

"The people of many countries would pay the biggest price," said Andrey Kholzakov, chairman of International Alliance "Chrysotile." "Not only would they lose their jobs involved in the mining and manufacturing of chrysotile and chrysotile-containing products, but the low-income population would suffer because chrysotile products meet their essential needs such as sanitary infrastructure and affordable housing."

Extra information: [email protected]

Useful links:

Website of the International Trade Union Movement for Chrysotile: www.nochrysotileban.com

Twitter of the Chrysotile Association Non-Profit Organization

https://twitter.com/Nochrysotileban

SOURCE International Trade Unions Movement "For Chrysotile"
SALT LAKE CITY, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ivanti has released a free 90-day patch license in response to the global WannaCrypt ransomware attack. Until June 15, 2017, organizations can request the free license, available here, enabling IT teams to rapidly deploy patch management to all Windows workstations and servers in their environments, including legacy platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Server 2003.

The WannaCrypt attack, launched on May 12, 2017, is distributed via phishing emails that target end users. After users open and execute a malicious payload embedded in the email, the malware installs itself and starts encrypting files immediately. WannaCrypt then spreads within the network using the "Windows SMB Remote Code Execution Vulnerability," affecting all Windows versions from XP to Server 2016. Microsoft released an emergency security patch for unsupported Windows versions, including XP, Vista, Windows 8, and Server 2003 and 2008 editions on May 13, 2017.

Initially the attack appeared isolated to the United Kingdommore specifically to the NHS (National Health Service)but within a few hours it was reported as a global incident. It is believed that 200,000 organizations have been affected in 150 countries, including Russia, Spain, and the United States.

Although a "kill switch" was triggered on the day of the attack, the likelihood of further attacks is undisputed. Some security professionals are already claiming that a new variant without a kill switch, Uiwix, has been released. Ivanti's 90-day offer allows organizations to use the Ivanti patch management solution tailored to their Windows environment to remove the vulnerability WannaCrypt and the new variants it is exploiting.

Organizations seeking the free patch license should go to https://go.ivanti.com/Ransomware-Get-Well-Quick.html and answer a few simple questions to receive a patch management solution that is tailored to their needs. The free solution will:

Update Windows operating systems and third-party apps

Easily patch legacy operating systems and third-party apps from the SCCM console with no added infrastructure or training

Provide patches thoroughly tested by Ivanti's engineers to ensure proper patch compliance

"At Ivanti, we believe that the worldwide technology community must band together to defeat global malicious phenomena like WannaCrypt. That's why we're providing this free 90-day offer," said Simon Townsend, EMEA Chief Technologist of Ivanti. "Moving forward we need to take a more preventative approach to fighting cyber-crime. Antivirus alone simply won't work. Organizations must adopt defense-in-depth strategies to protect networks and infrastructure, including patching the OS and applications, application whitelisting, and minimizing admin privileges."

Ivanti also hosted a webinar on May 15, 2017, where 3,000 customers registered to listen to a panel of Ivanti experts discuss the current state of the WannaCrypt threat and what they could do to protect themselves against the malware and any variants that will follow. The webinar is now available for public use here.

About Ivanti

Ivanti is IT evolved. By integrating and automating critical IT tasks, Ivanti helps IT organizations secure the digital workplace. For more than three decades, Ivanti has helped IT professionals address security threats, manage devices, and optimize their user experience. From traditional PCs to mobile devices, virtual machines, and the data center, Ivanti helps discover and manage your IT assets wherever they are located, improving IT service delivery and reducing risk. Ivanti also ensures that supply chain and warehouse teams are effectively leveraging the most up-to-date technology to improve productivity throughout their operation. Ivanti is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has offices all over the world. For more information, visit www.ivanti.com.

Copyright  2017, Ivanti. All rights reserved.

Press Contacts

Helen Carroll

Ivanti

+44 1344 407005

[email protected]



Amberly Asay

Method Communications

+1 801-461-9776

[email protected]



SOURCE Ivanti

Related Links

http://www.ivanti.com


LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Friday, May 12, U.S. District Court judge Andre Birotte, Jr. granted a legal victory to the Chabad of Irvine, a small Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Irvine. The judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the synagogue by animal rights activists, who sought to end a 1200-year-old Orthodox Jewish ceremony practiced by the synagogue.

Read the full order here.

"We are overjoyed that the judge saw the wisdom of protecting our ability to practice a cherished tradition of our faith," Rabbi Alter Tenenbaum, the rabbi of the Chabad of Irvine, says. "We hope this victory will encourage everyone to live in peace and tolerance of everyone's religious beliefs."

The synagogue was represented in the legal case by international law firm WilmerHale and national religious freedom law firm First Liberty Institute.

"The court's ruling sends a clear message  the law protects the rights of all Americans to practice their religious traditions in peace," Matthew Martens, partner with WilmerHale and lead counsel for the synagogue, says.

"No one should attack a synagogue for peacefully practicing a tradition they've observed for over 1000 years," Hiram Sasser, Deputy Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute and co-counsel for the synagogue, says. "This is a great victory, not only for the synagogue, but for all Americans who value our constitutional freedoms."

Read more about the case at FirstLiberty.org/Chabad

About First Liberty Institute

First Liberty Institute is the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans.

SOURCE First Liberty Institute
CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- kCura, developers of the e-discovery software Relativity, invites tomorrow's legal professionals to apply for the 2017 Relativity Fest Student Scholarship, which provides students interested in legal technology the opportunity to attend Relativity Fest, one of the largest and most influential user conferences in the industry.

Both undergraduate and graduate students from law schools and paralegal programs approved by the ABA are eligible to apply for the scholarship by August 18, 2017. The award covers transportation, lodging, meals and event registration. To be considered for a scholarship, potential applicants must secure a recommendation from a litigation or e-discovery professor and complete an application that asks applicants their thoughts on the state of e-discovery and how big data impacts the future of law.

The Relativity Fest Student Scholarship was first offered in 2016 as part of the Relativity Academic Partner Program, an educational initiative that provides law schools and paralegal programs with free access to hands-on training in Relativity and helps prepare students for the future of litigation and investigations. As part of the program, universities and program instructors have access to Relativity and additional educational and information resources, including in-person training and the Relativity Community site.

"Relativity Fest provides e-discovery professionals with an outstanding chance to meet, network, and engage on the issues affecting our profession and industry," said David Horrigan, e-discovery counsel at kCura. "Relativity Fest Scholarship winners are invited into that conversation, giving them an important advantage as they begin their careers in e-discovery."

The scholarship is open to anyone who is 21 years of age by October 21, 2017. Students are encouraged to apply early.

Relativity Fest, will take place in Chicago on October 22-25, 2017. The conference is designed to educate and connect the e-discovery community through engaging panel discussions, hands-on labs, breakout sessions and more.

About kCura

kCura are the developers of Relativity, an e-discovery platform used by more than 12,000 organizations to manage large volumes of data and quickly identify key issues during litigation, internal investigations, and compliance projects. Relativity has over 150,000 active users in 40+ countries from organizations including the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 70 Fortune 100 companies, and more than 195 of the Am Law 200. Corporations, law firms, and government agencies use Relativity on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid platformwith hosted, on-demand solutions available through a global network of partners. As a platform, Relativity also allows developers to design, build, and integrate applications that extend its functionality. kCura has been named one of Chicago's Top Workplaces by the Chicago Tribune for six consecutive years and received the CityLIGHTS Lighthouse Award from the Illinois Technology Association in 2016. Please contact kCura at [email protected] or visit http://www.kcura.com for more information.

SOURCE kCura

Related Links

https://www.kcura.com


NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HomeAid America, a building industry charity and one of the nation's largest builders of housing for the homeless, announced today that Ken Balogh, President and CEO of Atlanta-based Ashton Woods Homes, has joined their Board of Directors.

Ken Balogh of Ashton Woods Joins HomeAids Fight on Homelessness HomeAid America announced today that Ken Balogh, President and CEO of Atlanta-based Ashton Woods Homes, has joined their Board of Directors.

"We are very fortunate to have a respected industry leader like Ken Balogh join our Board of Directors," said Peter Simons, CEO of HomeAid America. "Ken has led Ashton Woods into the upper echelon of national homebuilders and I am sure we will benefit from his leadership as well. The commitment of Ashton Woods to support the industry's major charity, HomeAid, shows that they are also a company that cares about giving back to the community."

"I am honored to join the team of talented leaders on the HomeAid board, and look forward to furthering the mission of building new lives for America's homeless families," said Balogh. "I am equally excited for the Ashton Woods teams across our markets to rally behind the cause with opportunities for community outreach."

HomeAid is in its 28th year of helping those who are homeless through the construction of housing for charities working to get those in need of shelter not only housed but permanently back on their feet. Homelessness remains a major problem in this country, and its causes are numerous and diverse, including job loss, medical crisis, domestic abuse, substance addiction, and post-traumatic stress syndrome in veterans. Indeed, 80% of these families and individuals are situationally homeless and can be moved back to self-sufficiency with the right help at the right time.

ABOUT HOMEAID AMERICA

HomeAid is a leading national non-profit provider of housing for homeless families and individuals, founded in Southern California in 1989. Through the generosity of builders, their trades and their suppliers, HomeAid has completed 475 multi-unit housing projects nationwide at a value of more than $215 million, of which nearly 50 percentover $100 millionhas been donated by the building industry. HomeAid currently has 70 additional projects in development across the country. HomeAid has added over 9,000 beds in facilities helping the homeless through HomeAid's network of 17 active chapters in 12 states across the country. These beds have been used by over 275,000 previously homeless people over HomeAid's history. For more information about HomeAid, call 1-888-3HOMEAID or visit www.homeaid.org.

ABOUT ASHTON WOODS HOMES

Ashton Woods is one of the nation's largest private homebuilding companies, blazing new trails in design and personalization to build homes as unique as the people who live in them. Collaborating with homeowners for more than 25 years, the company and its team of world-renowned designers look beyond the conventional to draw inspiration from unexpected sources, resulting in exceptional design in every Ashton Woods home. Consistently recognized as one of the most trusted builders in America according to Lifestory Research America's Most Trusted Builder Study, Ashton Woods' collaborative approach is a key driver of its best-in-class customer satisfaction scores. For more information, or to experience the excitement of become another satisfied Ashton Woods homeowner, visit www.ashtonwoods.com.

Press Contacts:

Peter Simons Carrie Schonberg

CEO--HomeAid America VP of MarketingAshton Woods

[email protected] [email protected]

720-490-1900 678-781-2071

SOURCE HomeAid America, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.homeaid.org


CINCINNATI, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today announced the retirement of Sukanya Madlinger, senior vice president of retail divisions, and the promotion of Calvin Kaufman to succeed her. Mr. Kaufman currently serves as president of Kroger's Louisville division.

Kroger today also announced the promotion of Ann Reed to serve as president of Kroger's Louisville division. Ms. Reed currently serves as vice president, Customer 1st Promise at the company's general office. She succeeds Calvin Kaufman.

Sukanya Madlinger to Retire after 31 years of Service

Sukanya Madlinger will retire from the company after 31 years of service, effective June 19.

"Throughout her accomplished career, Sukanya has exemplified true leadership," said Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO. "Sukanya's focus on developing future talent and fostering strong partnerships helped build a deep bench of leaders to sustain Kroger's future growth. The entire Kroger family wishes her and her family the best in retirement."

Ms. Madlinger joined Kroger in 1986 as a store management trainee in the Cincinnati/Dayton division and has held a variety of leadership positions in stores and merchandising throughout her tenure. In 2003, she was named vice president of drug/general merchandise/pharmacy merchandising and procurement for Kroger's corporate office in Cincinnati. Ms. Madlinger returned to the Cincinnati/Dayton division in 2008 as vice president of merchandising, and was promoted to lead the division as president in 2010. She was promoted to her current role as senior vice president of retail stores in 2015.

Calvin Kaufman Promoted to Senior Vice President

Kroger promoted Calvin Kaufman to serve as senior vice president of retail stores.

"Calvin is an unwavering advocate for improving the customer and associate experience in ways that will accelerate growth and create shareholder value," said Mr. McMullen. "His passion for strengthening our corporate culture and clarifying our company purpose makes him a natural fit for our leadership team."

Mr. Kaufman joined Kroger in 1994 in the Fred Meyer Logistics group in Portland, Ore. He served Fred Meyer in several different logistics roles, including group vice president of Fred Meyer Logistics. Mr. Kaufman went on to serve in several leadership roles with Kroger's logistics team before being named president of Kroger Manufacturing and Corporate Brands in 2008. He was named to his current role as president of the Louisville Division in 2013.

Mr. Kaufman has previously represented Kroger on the boards of the International Dairy Foods Association, American Baker's Association, and the Kentucky Retail Federation.

He and his family will be relocating to the Cincinnati area.

Ann Reed Promoted to President of the Louisville Division

Kroger promoted Ann Reed to serve as president of the company's Louisville division.

Kroger's Louisville division is based in Louisville, KY and operates stores across Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

"Ann has shown tremendous leadership in driving our Customer 1st Promise and company purpose into our business strategy," said Mr. McMullen. "Ann brings to our Louisville division team her dedication to and deep understanding of our customers, associates and communities."

Ms. Reed began her career with Kroger as a co-manager in the company's Central division in 1993. She has served in a number of leadership positions in divisions and at Kroger's general office, including store manager, category manager, deli/bakery merchandiser, director of deli/bakery and director of fresh ready meals. Ms. Reed was promoted to vice president of merchandising at Fry's in 2010, followed by vice president of merchandising at Fred Meyer in 2013. She was named to her current position in 2015.

Ms. Reed and her family will be relocating to the Louisville area.

Every day, the Kroger Family of Companies makes a difference in the lives of eight and a half million customers and 443,000 associates who shop or serve in 2,796 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Kroger and its subsidiaries operate an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized, order online, pick up at the store service  in addition to our 2,255 pharmacies, 784 convenience stores, 319 fine jewelry stores, 220 retail health clinics, 1,445 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Kroger is recognized as one of America's most generous companies for its support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. A leader in supplier diversity, Kroger is a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com


SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Veteran Silicon Valley attorney Tyler Paetkau has joined Procopio as a partner, working in the firm's Labor & Employment practice group. He will work primarily out of Procopio's Silicon Valley office.

"Tyler Paetkau is a great addition to our growing Labor & Employment team," said Tom Turner, Procopio's Managing Partner. "He's a seasoned litigation veteran as well as an accomplished employment counselor, and his extensive experience in Silicon Valley adds to our increasing presence in that very important economic region."

Photo of Tyler Paetkau, Partner with Procopio

Tyler has represented employers in labor and employment law matters for more than twenty-five years. He's represented employers in state and federal litigation, including defending claims of wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, sexual harassment, defamation, and unfair competition. He also counsels employers on personnel policies and procedures they need to comply with numerous laws and regulations. Tyler has significant experience representing employers regarding restrictive covenants and trade secrets, employee mobility issues, the defense of collective and class actions, traditional labor-management relations matters (including collective bargaining and the defense of unfair labor practice charges), ethics and corporate compliance issues, and international labor and employment law matters.

Procopio's Labor & Employment practice, led by Partner and Management Committee Member Marie Burke Kenny, provides customized counseling and strategic employment litigation to address the short-term and long-term needs of its clients in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Attorneys on the team bring expertise in class actions, cross-border issues, health care, trade secrets, education and charter schools, Native American law, litigation, and other areas of the law.

Procopio's Silicon Valley office is one of five firm locations, including Austin, Phoenix, Del Mar Heights, and its headquarters in downtown San Diego. Attorneys in the Silicon Valley office provide a broad range of legal services in coordination with attorneys in other Procopio offices, including mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property licensing and enforcement, patent prosecution, energy and environmental issues, real estate, and emerging technologies.

About Procopio

Procopio is a full-service business and litigation law firm committed to thoughtful problem solving and improving your bottom line. With more than 150 attorneys based in San Diego, Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Austin and Los Angeles, we're passionate about knowing your business and helping you grow and protect it for the long term. Procopio has the flexible infrastructure to support both small to mid-sized companies and large multinationals at every stage of the business life cycle. Our global reach across Asia and Latin America further expands our international partnerships and cross-border capabilities. At Procopio, we are focused on what is important to you: providing smart, innovative and practical solutions in a cost-effective manner to help your business thrive. Learn more at Procopio.com.

Media Contact:

Patrick Ross

Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications

Phone: 619.906.5740

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Procopio LLP

Related Links

http://www.procopio.com


"I am extremely proud to officially dedicate our new home here in Huntsville," said Dennis Weese, president of LINE-X. "Our growth over the past few years has been tremendous so it was imperative that we transition into a facility that not only better serves the current needs of the business and our franchise network, but also supports our plans for expansion. And with the company being recently named the 'Medium Automotive Manufacturer of the Year' by the Business Council of Alabama, it's been a very exciting past few weeks for us."

The new LINE-X building is located at 301 James Record Road in Huntsville, Ala. Media interested in touring the facility or to schedule a personal interview can contact 951-719-1040 or [email protected].

About LINE-X LLC

LINE-X LLC (www.LINE-X.com) is a global leader in high performance protective coatings offering scientifically formulated polymers that permanently bond to a wide range of surfaces for unmatched durability. With the launch of the brand's Truck Gear by LINE-X accessory line, LINE-X's near-'unbreakable' armor is complemented with premium, stylish truck offerings to make for a true one-stop truck customization solution at franchise locations across the United States and the globe. With prominent applications in the automotive, military, commercial, light industrial, heavy industrial, agricultural, marine and personal customization worlds, LINE-X brings legendary protection to the truck lifestyle and beyond. Headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., with more than 500 franchise locations, along with distributors in more than 70 countries, it is the mission of LINE-X to consistently produce the highest quality and most non-replicable materials available. Follow LINE-X on Twitter @LINEXProtects, become a fan on Facebook of LINE-X Protective Coatings, follow LINE-X on Instagram @LINEXNorthAmerica, and check out what LINE-X is doing on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/LINEXProtects. #Unbreakable #Style. #LINEXIT.

SOURCE LINE-X

Related Links

http://www.LINE-X.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Telehealth has long been a standalone endeavor for many healthcare organizations and something that has been kept completely separate from discussions about electronic health record (EHR) optimization. But according to Logicalis Healthcare Solutions, the healthcare-focused arm of Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), there is a significant  and often overlooked  interrelationship between telehealth, imaging, and EHR optimization that healthcare IT pros need to address when striving to attain a more mature, clinically-integrated, program-based telehealth solution.

"At Logicalis, we talk to a lot of healthcare CIOs and IT professionals. And while the clear majority are thinking about and planning ways to optimize the significant investments their organizations have made in electronic health record systems, they know they're missing some pieces of the puzzle," says Ed Simcox, Healthcare Practice Leader, Logicalis Healthcare Solutions. "Telehealth is one of those missing links. What few people are talking about today is the correlation between telehealth, smart image retention practices, and the optimization strategies that can maximize their returns on EHR investments. Making telehealth a more integral part of their clinicians' daily workflow, capturing and marrying telehealth images to each patient's electronic health record, and making those images more easily referenceable in the EHR so they can be accessed as needed and shared across a patient's entire care team will allow the organization to deliver a better and more affordable level of care."

Five Critical Telehealth Considerations

For a mature telehealth solution to be truly transformational, it must be user friendly, automated and capable of leveraging integrated electronic patient information. Whether an organization is just ramping up with telehealth or is reviewing an existing program, it's important to look for any missed opportunities to integrate telehealth into the overall healthcare experience. To help, the healthcare IT experts at Logicalis are offering a downloadable white paper, "How to Design and Implement a Successful Telehealth Program for Your Organization," and have identified five commonly missed considerations for effective telehealth strategies.

Collaboration: Telehealth solutions are healthcare solutions enabled by technology, not a standalone solution. To eliminate the barrier between telehealth and healthcare, making the two become one practice, telehealth must be fully integrated with the healthcare organization's EHR. That includes every aspect of the telehealth experience from scheduling to sharing clinical notes  and importantly  storing telehealth images and marrying them to the patient's electronic record. Image Integration: In any patient encounter, there is the possibility that a variety of clinicians may need to consult one another on the patient's care. This underscores the importance of integrating multidisciplinary images  including the clinical opinions offered based on those images  for each member of the care team to access and review. Finding Images: Unless telehealth-acquired images are properly catalogued and married to the patient's electronic health record, they won't be available when needed. No one will know they exist or where to find them, and they won't be available for current opinions or longitudinal analyses. This means additional images and scans will need to be performed, exposing the patient to potentially unnecessary radiation, inconveniencing the patient and, of course, needlessly increasing costs. Documentation: When telehealth images are not stored or married to the EHR, some disciplines may not be able to charge for their consults. As a result, today, across a wide spectrum of specialties, it is becoming commonplace for healthcare organizations to require the retention of images their physicians use to render any professional opinion  telehealth included. Additionally, if a lawsuit should occur, without properly stored images accompanying clinical notes, there will be no visual support for the clinician's opinion. Best Patient Outcomes: Having a patient's complete medical history on hand is vital in delivering favorable patient outcomes; since those records must include both clinical notes and images obtained via telehealth to be truly complete, the entire healthcare community must ask itself: If we don't have the right patient history  including all relevant data  can we make the right diagnoses?

A Clinical Example

Imagine an instance in which an ophthalmology practice is providing telehealth consultations to smaller community hospitals about diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic patients need to be assessed for retinopathy annually. Rather than visiting the ophthalmologist in person, the patient's primary care physician acquires ophthalmic images using a device connected to his cell phone, then transfers the images to an ophthalmologist for assessment. The ophthalmologist then receives the images and renders his opinion.

Who stores the images? Both doctors? And how are they stored  on a thumb drive? A server? If they aren't married to the patient's EHR, the images won't be available for year-to-year comparisons, something which provides caregivers with a much more robust picture of a patient's health and any changes taking place over time.

Perhaps the diabetic patient's endocrinologist would also like to see the images. To enable this kind of effective image sharing, each practice needs a logical way to retain and easily retrieve the images as well as each clinician's notes and opinions to provide a better continuum of care. This is only one example of many illustrating the "missing link" between effective telehealth strategies and EHR optimization.

Want to Learn More?

About Logicalis

Logicalis is an international multi-skilled solution provider providing digital enablement services to help customers harness digital technology and innovative services to deliver powerful business outcomes.

Our customers cross industries and geographical regions; our focus is to engage in the dynamics of our customers' vertical markets including financial services, TMT (telecommunications, media and technology), education, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and professional services, and to apply the skills of our 4,000 employees in modernizing key digital pillars, data center and cloud services, security and network infrastructure, workspace communications and collaboration, data and information strategies, and IT operation modernization.

We are the advocates for our customers for some of the world's leading technology companies including Cisco, HPE, IBM, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware and ServiceNow.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $1.5 billion from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa. It is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the AIM market of the LSE, with revenues of over $6.5 billion.

For more information, visit www.us.logicalis.com.

Business and technology working as one

To learn more about Logicalis activities through a variety of social media outlets, click here.

Media Contacts:

Karen Franse, Communication Strategy Group for Logicalis US

[email protected]

866-997-2424 x222

www.gocsg.com

Arthur Germain, Communication Strategy Group for Logicalis US

[email protected]

866-997-2424 x101

www.gocsg.com

SOURCE Logicalis US

Related Links

http://www.us.logicalis.com


SAN FRANCISCO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lookout, the global leader in securing mobility, today unveiled the Mobile Risk Matrix, a framework illustrating the array of mobile risks across app, device, network, and web & content vectors, to help enterprises accurately identify, assess and secure their mobile workforce. Within the framework, Lookout provides new insights on the prevalence of enterprise mobile risks pulled from the Lookout Security Cloud, a massive data set of mobile code from existing enterprise and personal customers. In conjunction with the new framework, Lookout announced a series of new features and business solutions to increase customer security coverage across these mobile risks.

"With the rapid adoption of mobile within the enterprise, CISOs must now bring desktop-level security to a new set of risks that are specific to this evolving endpoint. The spectrum of mobile risk is designed to help enterprise CISOs understand and prioritize the security concerns they must address on mobile devices," said Aaron Cockerill, Lookout chief strategy officer. "We understand that each CISO's risk profile is unique based on enterprise and industry requirements, but every CISO requires visibility across the entire mobile risk spectrum. Enterprises need to understand and prioritize these risks to make simple, actionable decisions, and implement solutions that enable them to embrace mobility, with the peace of mind that their enterprise data is secure."

The growing adoption of mobile in the enterprise has allowed for increased flexibility and productivity. However, due to this shift, mobile devices have rapidly become ground zero for a wide spectrum of risks that includes malicious targeted attacks to devices and network connections, a range of malware families, non-compliant apps that leak data, and vulnerabilities in device operating systems or apps. According to a recent Gartner report, "Security and risk management leaders face an ever-increasing assortment of security threats to multiplatform, mobile and personal devices amid increasingly chaotic work styles. (1)"

To enable CISOs to understand the spectrum of mobile risk they need to detect and protect against, Lookout has released the "The Spectrum of Mobile Risk: Understanding the full range of risks to enterprise data from mobility." This whitepaper provides enterprises with the definitive standard for measuring mobile risk with new visibility into the prevalence of threats, software vulnerabilities, and behaviors & configurations. Key insights from the new Lookout Spectrum of Mobile Risk whitepaper include:

Mobile malware continues to be a problem on Android : Malicious mobile apps can do many nefarious things, including steal information, physically damage devices, and monitor a user's or organization's activities. Over the course of six months, Lookout found that on average, 47 out of 1000 Android enterprise devices encountered an app-based threat.

: Malicious mobile apps can do many nefarious things, including steal information, physically damage devices, and monitor a user's or organization's activities. Over the course of six months, found that on average, 47 out of 1000 Android enterprise devices encountered an app-based threat. OS vulnerabilities are still a concern based on OS update rate : Mobile devices are plagued by a number of known vulnerabilities, which are patched on a regular basis with OS updates pushed by the device manufacturer. As of April 14th , looking at over 1M of Lookout consumer devices, just 43% of users had updated their iOS operating systems to or above version 10.3, leaving user devices open to security vulnerabilities patched by Apple in later updates. On Android, specifically on the Samsung Galaxy S6, 92% of Lookout personal users had yet to update their OS to the latest version (Android 7.0 - Nougat).

: Mobile devices are plagued by a number of known vulnerabilities, which are patched on a regular basis with OS updates pushed by the device manufacturer. As of , looking at over 1M of consumer devices, just 43% of users had updated their iOS operating systems to or above version 10.3, leaving user devices open to security vulnerabilities patched by Apple in later updates. On Android, specifically on the Samsung Galaxy S6, 92% of personal users had yet to update their OS to the latest version (Android 7.0 - Nougat). Employees continue to jailbreak/root their devices : Device risks can stem from employees using mobile devices they have jailbroken or rooted, or something as simple as not enabling a passcode on a device. Lookout found that one in 1000 of enterprise iOS devices are jailbroken while five in 1000 of enterprise Android devices are rooted.

: Device risks can stem from employees using mobile devices they have jailbroken or rooted, or something as simple as not enabling a passcode on a device. found that one in 1000 of enterprise iOS devices are jailbroken while five in 1000 of enterprise Android devices are rooted. App behaviors may lead to violations of corporate policy : Sensitive app behaviors can lead to problems such as leakage of enterprise data that the app can access. This can pose a significant compliance risk for enterprise security policies or industry regulations. Across the Lookout iOS enterprise device network, 30% of apps access contacts, 30% of apps access GPS, 31% access calendar, 39% access microphone, 75% access camera. From a social interaction perspective, 43% connect to Facebook, and 14% connect to Twitter.

: Sensitive app behaviors can lead to problems such as leakage of enterprise data that the app can access. This can pose a significant compliance risk for enterprise security policies or industry regulations. Across the iOS enterprise device network, 30% of apps access contacts, 30% of apps access GPS, 31% access calendar, 39% access microphone, 75% access camera. From a social interaction perspective, 43% connect to Facebook, and 14% connect to Twitter. Enterprise employees are sideloading applications, specifically on iOS: Due to the ability for most users to "sideload" apps onto their phone, Lookout sees a consistent incidence of malicious applications and sensitive app behaviors appear on our enterprise customers' devices. Over the course of 6 months, Lookout found that on average, 11 in 100 iOS devices sideloaded an application.

"After seeing an uptick of mobile attacks across industries, it became clear that we would have to integrate a mobile security solution with our existing systems to protect apps and sensitive data being accessed by the thirty-thousand mobile devices in our environment," said Constantinos Amiridis, IT strategist, City of Stockholm. "We chose Lookout because the solution offers comprehensive protection against the full spectrum of mobile risks."

As companies across the globe continue to adopt mobile to increase productivity, Lookout is constantly innovating to provide customers with the most comprehensive security solution available. As of today, Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security customers will now be able to:

Understand application interactions with social media : Many apps connect to social networks to share information or simplify authentication, creating additional risk to an organization by adding vectors where confidential company information could be leaked. Lookout continues to expand Mobile Endpoint Security for App Risks, now enabling customers to gain visibility into iOS apps that use social media networks including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Weibo, and Instagram. In addition to providing admins with visibility into potentially non-compliant app behaviors, Lookout allows admins to create policies that automatically alert to the presence of apps that violate corporate policy.

: Many apps connect to social networks to share information or simplify authentication, creating additional risk to an organization by adding vectors where confidential company information could be leaked. continues to expand Mobile Endpoint Security for App Risks, now enabling customers to gain visibility into iOS apps that use social media networks including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Weibo, and Instagram. In addition to providing admins with visibility into potentially non-compliant app behaviors, allows admins to create policies that automatically alert to the presence of apps that violate corporate policy. Gain insight into secure and insecure data handling : Lookout scans every mobile app across all devices in an organization and surfaces information to the admin if the device is not using best practices for securing data-in-transit or at-rest. Lookout offers this feature for iOS apps using App Transport Security (ATS) as a measure of whether the iOS app is securing data in motion appropriately. On Android, Lookout reveals app network connections that do not use encryption. Lookout uses a similar criterion to determine whether an app properly secures data at rest, such as checking if an app maintains unencrypted files after the device boots. For in-house developed apps, admins can upload their app to the Lookout console, and the app will be analyzed for these vulnerabilities, alongside other behaviors.

: Lookout scans every mobile app across all devices in an organization and surfaces information to the admin if the device is not using best practices for securing data-in-transit or at-rest. offers this feature for iOS apps using App Transport Security (ATS) as a measure of whether the iOS app is securing data in motion appropriately. On Android, reveals app network connections that do not use encryption. uses a similar criterion to determine whether an app properly secures data at rest, such as checking if an app maintains unencrypted files after the device boots. For in-house developed apps, admins can upload their app to the console, and the app will be analyzed for these vulnerabilities, alongside other behaviors. Increase visibility into out-of-date OS and configuration risks : Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security will now give admins visibility into devices running an out-of-date operating system on iOS, as well as if a new version is available. On Android, Lookout will inform the admin which Android security patch level version each device is running. Lookout also provides visibility for a new set of configuration risks, including when Developer Mode is enabled, USB debugging mode is enabled, encryption is disabled, downloading apps from unknown sources is allowed, apps that have admin privileges, or lock screen is disabled.

: Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security will now give admins visibility into devices running an out-of-date operating system on iOS, as well as if a new version is available. On Android, will inform the admin which Android security patch level version each device is running. also provides visibility for a new set of configuration risks, including when Developer Mode is enabled, USB debugging mode is enabled, encryption is disabled, downloading apps from unknown sources is allowed, apps that have admin privileges, or lock screen is disabled. Enhance risk remediation capabilities via integrations with enterprise solutions: In addition to taking advantage of the new features in Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security, admins can now integrate with existing enterprise management or security systems using the Lookout Mobile Risk API to manage threats centrally, obtain visibility quickly, and take a remediation action immediately. To correspond with the launch of this API, Lookout has developed out-of-the-box connectors to leading SIEM systems, enabling security professionals to view Lookout threat events and metadata in these SIEM systems in real time.

To provide mobile risk protection to users beyond enterprise customers, Lookout will also expand network protection to Personal Premium and Personal Premium Plus customers. The new feature, Safe Wi-Fi, will enable users to feel secure when connecting to Wi-Fi on their mobile devices, and be alerted with step-by-step instructions on what to do when a network in use is under attack. Safe Wi-Fi will be available this summer on both iOS and Android.

To learn more about Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security, visit Lookout.com.

(1) Gartner Predicts 2017: Endpoint and Mobile Security, John Girard, Dionisio Zumerle, Brian Reed, Peter Firstbrook, Bart Willemsen, 16 November 2016

About Lookout

Lookout is a cybersecurity company that makes it possible for tens of millions of individuals, enterprises and government agencies to be both mobile and secure. Powered by a dataset of virtually all the mobile code in the world -- 40 million apps and counting -- the Lookout Security Cloud can identify connections that would otherwise go unseen and predict and stop mobile attacks before they do harm. The world's leading mobile network operators, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, EE, KDDI, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile and Telstra, have selected Lookout as their preferred mobile security solution. Lookout is also partnered with such enterprise leaders as AirWatch, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, and MobileIron. Headquartered in San Francisco, Lookout has offices in Amsterdam, Boston, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C. To learn more, visit www.lookout.com, subscribe to the Lookout newsletter, and follow Lookout on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Data Methodology

The analyzed data came from a large global subset of Lookout personal and enterprise protected devices, and the time periods ranged between April 15, 2016 and April 16, 2017. The enterprise data includes both Android and iOS devices from financial institutions, healthcare organizations, government agencies and other industries. The personal data includes both Android and iOS devices from consumers around the globe, consisting of over 100M devices worldwide. All data was pulled anonymously, and no corporate data, networks, or systems were accessed to perform this analysis.

SOURCE Lookout

Related Links

http://www.lookout.com


(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/512439/Loreal_Paris_Cinema_Club.jpg )



Marking its second decade as the Official Cannes beauty partner, today L'Oreal Paris inaugurates its free Outdoor Cinema open to the public to celebrate women in film with six of its ambassador actresses. The brand opens its Pop-up Boutique to all festival-goers; and gives the world the first red carpet beauty looks under the new creative direction of global makeup director Val Garland. This edition also welcomes the new L'Oreal Paris Global spokesperson, the young andaccomplished actress Elle Fanning, who makes her debut on the red carpet on May 17th.

As Cannes enters its second week, the brand celebrates 20 years of collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, its Canniversary, with the L'Oreal Cinema Club soiree.

Cannes 2017, it's going to be a beauty!



DAY BY DAY: BEAUTY AT THE FESTIVAL: L'OREAL PARIS AT CANNES 2017

May 17th -22nd Celebrating Beauty and Cinema: L'Oreal Paris Lights up the Big Screen with the L'Oreal Paris Outdoor Cinema open to the general public, Martinez beach.

From the opening night with Julianne Moore on the evening of May 17th, every evening has a different L'Oreal Paris actress. This includes new global ambassador Elle Fanning who will introduce her iconic film choices to the public, until May 22nd. These special free screenings start at 9pm every night.

May 17th Julianne Moore introduces Maps to the Stars, 2014, Award for Best Actress: 1h,52 minutes.

May 18th Susan Sarandon introduces Thelma and Louise, 1991, Out of Competition: 2h,10 minutes.

May 19th In her first role for the brand, Elle Fanning, new L'Oreal Paris actress ambassador, introduces Ginger & Rosa: 1h,30 minutes.

May 20th Aishwarya Rai introduces Devdas, 2002, Out of Competition: 3h,5 minutes.

May 21st Andie MacDowell presents Sex, Lies, and Videotape, 1989, Palme d'Or: 1h,40 minutes.

May 22nd Eva Longoria presents Lowriders, 2017, screening at the L'Oreal Paris Cinema following its worldwide release May 12th: 1h,39 minutes.

Democratizing the Festival experience to the public, the L'Oreal Paris Big Screen will show films at the same time as the official gala screenings, just along from the Palais des Festivals on the Martinez beach. Follow our social media channels to stay tuned for the latest updates.

MAY 17TH - 28TH: L'OREAL PARIS 100% MAKEUP CANNES POP UP BOUTIQUE

The first immersive L'Oreal Paris Pop-up Boutique is now open! Open every day of the festival, 100% dedicated to makeup, festival-goers can discover the beauty influences and innovations in real-time. Including the new red carpet looks created by new global makeup director Val Garland, the maverick artist behind some of the most inventive looks in beauty today and at Cannes for the first time in her new role at L'Oreal Paris. Revolutionizing the shopping experience, shoppers can access free tutorials, expert advice and services with a chance to win the exclusive and elusive, Cannes red carpet tickets! The boutique will also give fans and consumers the opportunity to discover the latest collection of products, including the limited-edition Red Carpet Color Riche, featuring the Palme d'Or - a collector's edition created for the brand's Canniversary. There is also the opportunity to have red carpet looks recreated by our makeup artists and to meet our actress ambassadors' in-store.



MAY 24TH: THE CANNIVERSARY PARTY, L'OREAL PARIS CINEMA CLUB

Two decades calls for a celebration! On May 24th, L'Oreal Paris throws its biggest Cannes party yet, with the greatest names in filmmaking and beauty in attendance. A night where cinema comes to life, and different scenography, projections and installations celebrate the art of filmmaking. This all comes together with a live showcase and exclusive performance, watched by every L'Oreal Paris actress in town. Guests will include Eva Longoria, Bianca Balti, Barbara Palvin, Doutzen Kroes, Lara Stone, Maria Borges, Irina Shayk, Kristina Bazan, Alexina Graham, Neelam Gill and Lena Meyer Landrut along with Marlon Teixeira; and fashions designer, Olivier Rousteing.



MAY 25TH: AMFAR CINEMA AGAINST AIDS: GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD COLLECTION

L'Oreal Paris hair and makeup artists bring beauty into the Golden Age of Hollywood by showcasing these styles on 40 top models including L'Oreal Paris ambassadors who will take to the charity runway at the Hotel du Cap-Eden Roc. This year's list includes at the most sought-after faces on the Cannes schedule, including L'Oreal Paris ambassadors Doutzen Kroes, Bianca Balti, Barbara Palvin, Irina Shayk, Lara Stone, Maria Borges, Alexina Graham, Kristina Bazan, Neelam Gill and Marlon Teixeira among amfAR's co-chairs. The event will bring together stars in film and fashion in an effort to raise awareness and funds in the fight against AIDS. The evening will be hosted by Eva Longoria and supported by the iconic fashion editor, Carine Roitfeld.

MAY 17TH-24TH: MAKING RED CARPET FIRSTS

From the Opening to the Closing Ceremonies and every day in between, L'Oreal Paris reaffirms its commitment to diversity and to cinema by continuing to promote exceptional talent and women from all corners of the globe. On the red carpet for this historic edition of Cannes both Elle Fanning, the newly announced global face of L'Oreal Paris, Deepika Padukone, the Bollywood star, Guan Xiaotong, the 19-year-old Chinese acting sensation and Wotan Wilke Mohring, the German-born actor make their festival debut for L'Oreal Paris. Representing the brand to the international audience at Cannes and watching at home. The Angolan-born model, Maria Borges, will also represent the brand for the first time at this 70th edition.

Follow Cannes with us at:

TWITTER @lorealMakeup @lorealhair

SNAPCHAT @lorealMakeup @lorealhair

TWITTER @lorealparis

FACEBOOK LorealParisOfficial

YOUTUBE LorealParisOfficial

#lorealparis #lorealcannes #OfficialPartner #20years #Cannes2017

SOURCE LOreal Paris
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HOUSTON and NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- LyondellBasell (NYSE: LYB), one of the world's largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies, today announced that Thomas Aebischer, chief financial officer, will address investors at the Barclays Americas Select Franchise Conference on May 17, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. BST (5:30 a.m. EDT). The conference will take place at The Langham London. The presentation may include forward looking information.

Webcast and Presentation Slides Access

A live webcast can be accessed at the time of the presentation at https://www.lyondellbasell.com/en/investors/investor-events/, where copies of the slides related to the webcast will also be available for download. A replay of the presentation will be available on the company's website within 24 hours following the webcast.

About LyondellBasell

LyondellBasell (NYSE: LYB) is one of the world's largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies. LyondellBasell (www.lyb.com) products and technologies are used to make items that improve the quality of life for people around the world, including packaging, electronics, automotive parts, home furnishings, construction materials and biofuels.

SOURCE LyondellBasell

Related Links

http://www.lyondellbasell.com


MILWAUKEE, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Marcus Theatres, a division of The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS), announced today that it is adding comfortable DreamLounger recliner seating to all 10 auditoriums at Cedar Creek Cinema, located at 10101 Market Street in Rothschild, Wisconsin. Construction is scheduled to begin early this summer.

DreamLounger recliners have become one of the company's most talked-about amenities as these seats provide guests maximum comfort and double the legroom between rows. Following the renovation, Cedar Creek moviegoers will be able to go to any auditorium in the building and with the touch of a button go from a seated, upright position to a full recline. In addition to the recliner seating, new carpet, lighting and screens  in some cases larger screens  will be added to each auditorium. Once fully renovated, guests will be able to select and reserve their seats in advance for a convenient, stress-free experience.

"Marcus Theatres is committed to bringing the latest amenities in moviegoing to its Cedar Creek Cinema guests," said Rolando Rodriguez, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Marcus Theatres. "DreamLounger recliners are incredibly popular. In fact, approximately half of our company-owned, first-run screens feature the DreamLounger seating  and that number is growing. We look forward to hearing the reaction of the community as we make this investment to Cedar Creek Cinema."

For more information about showtimes, visit www.marcustheatres.com.

About Marcus Theatres

Marcus Theatres, a division of The Marcus Corporation, is the fourth largest theatre circuit in the United States and currently owns or operates 895 screens at 69 locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio. For more information, please visit www.marcustheatres.com and follow the company on Facebook and Twitter (@Marcus_Theatres).

SOURCE Marcus Theatres

Related Links

http://www.marcustheatres.com


HARRISBURG, Pa., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Families and friends visiting Pennsylvania's popular outdoor spots over the Memorial Day holiday weekend can enjoy a day of free fishing, thanks to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC).

The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend - May 28  marks the first of two free fishing days in the Commonwealth. The second is Independence Day  Tuesday, July 4.

Fish-for-Free Days allow anyone  residents and non-residents  to legally fish in Pennsylvania without a fishing license. From 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. on both days, no fishing license is needed to fish in Pennsylvania's waterways. All other fishing regulations apply.

"Fish-for-Free days offer an easy, convenient way to introduce friends and family to the sport of fishing, or to reconnect with the sport if you haven't fished in a while," said Steve Kralik, director of the Bureau of Outreach, Education and Marketing. "Many families already spend the day at lakes and parks throughout the state. Now they can try fishing at no cost."

"We know that once people, especially kids, try fishing, they will see how much fun it is and will want to do it more often," he added.

To make the fishing experience more convenient, people can borrow equipment from dozens of fishing tackle loaner sites across the state. Many of the sites are right at state parks, which are always a popular place for visitors on the Memorial Day weekend. Loaner sites are also available at county parks and some public libraries.

Click here for the list of loaner sites.

More information is available on the PFBC website, which includes interactive maps, regional fishing reports, and tips on fishing fundamentals. Fishing licenses can be purchased online at GoneFishingPa.com.

Regional Media Contacts  Please contact a regional outreach coordinator for more information and to set up on-the-water interviews with Waterways Conservation Officers.

Northwest Region (Counties  Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, Warren)



Chad Foster

(814) 336-2426

[email protected]

Southwest Region (Counties  Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Somerset, Washington, Westmoreland)

Mandy Smith

(814) 443-9841

[email protected]

Northcentral Region (NC Counties  Cameron, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Elk, Jefferson, Lycoming, McKean, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Tioga, Union)

Dee Fisher

(717) 705-7919

[email protected]

Southcentral Region (Counties  Adams, Bedford, Blair, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lebanon, Mifflin, Perry, York)

Adam Spangler

(717) 486-7352

[email protected]

Northeast Region (Counties  Bradford, Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming)

Walt Dietz

(570) 477-2206

[email protected]

Southeast Region (Counties  Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Schuylkill)

Andy Desko

(215) 968-3631

[email protected]

Harrisburg contact : Eric Levis, Press Secretary

(717) 705-7806 or [email protected]

SOURCE Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission

Related Links

http://www.fishandboat.com


WASHINGTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Committee of 100  the national leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia and the arts  will host its 2017 Annual C100 Town Hall in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, May 20, 2017, from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

WHO: Committee of 100 members and over 500 major influencers in government, business, academia and media attending this year's C100 Annual Conference 2017 in Washington, D.C.

WHAT: Town Hall meeting event with experts on important topics relating to the advancement of Chinese Americans living in the U.S. and related U.S.-China policy matters.

WHEN: 2 p.m. - 5 p.m., Saturday, May 20, 2017.

2 p.m.  3:15 p.m.

Topic: "Economic Espionage & Trade Secrets: Asian Americans in the Crosshairs," and C100 White Paper Release: "Prosecuting Chinese 'Spies:' An Empirical Analysis of the Economic Espionage Act"

Speakers: Nelson Dong, C100 member, Partner, Dorsey & Whitney; Brian Sun, C100 member, Partner-in-Charge, Jones Day Los Angeles; Andrew Kim, Of Counsel, Beck Redden; and others.

3:15 p.m. -5 p.m.

Topic: "On Public Service and Bridge-Building: A Dialogue with C100 Members"

Remarks by Michelle Lee, Director, U.S. Patent Trade Ofce

Panel I: Robert Gee, C100 member, President, Gee Strategies Group; Benjamin H. Wu, C100 member, Maryland Deputy Secretary of Commerce; Debra Wong Yang, C100 member, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Michelle Lee.

Panel II: Ambassador Linda Tsao Yang, Chair Emeritus, Asian Corporate Governance Association and C100 member; Michael Lin, C100 member, former President, Organization of Chinese Americans; Henry Tang, C100 member, Managing Partner, Carnegie Towers; and Sue Van, C100 member, President and CEO, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.

Additional details and full conference agenda HERE.

WHERE: National Press Club (Main Ballroom), 529 14th St NW, Washington, DC 20045.

MEDIA: Credentialed members of the media are invited to attend for coverage. Media may register online, or via email: [email protected].

WHY: The Town Hall meeting is a part of the C100 Annual Conference 2017, which will bring together key influencers in government, business, academia and media for C100's largest member gathering of the year. Additional events include the C100's Awards Dinner and Gala (Thursday, May 18) and the C100 Annual Summit (Friday, May 19), featuring remarks from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

Founded in 1990 by famed architect I. M. Pei and world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, members include: Maya Lin, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C; Steve Chen, founder of YouTube; and Dr. David Ho, renowned HIV/AIDS scientist and the first Time Magazine "Man of the Year" in a medical profession.

SOURCE Committee of 100
SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical Marijuana, Inc. (MJNA), the first publicly traded cannabis company in the United States, today announced that its subsidiary HempMeds will bring their knowledge of the benefits from its line of CBD hemp oil supplements into Panama to exhibit at the XXXIII Congress of the Pan American Alliance of Medical Women event. The event will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. from May 17-20 in El Cangrejo, Panama at Hotel El Panama.

Attendees of the women's medical conference, which is geared towards an integral approach to the health of a woman, who stop by the HempMeds booth can expect to learn more about the Company's unique line of CBD hemp oil supplements, including its groundbreaking Real Scientific Hemp Oil (RSHO) and zero-THC Real Scientific Hemp Oil-X (RSHO-X), the first-ever cannabis product to receive approval from the federal government of Mexico for importation.

"As the first company to bring legal cannabis products to Mexico, Brazil and Paraguay, we are proud that to showcase the benefits that our CBD products provide so many individuals in Latin America as we continue to expand access to medical cannabinoid products," said CEO of Medical Marijuana, Inc. Dr. Stuart Titus. "Being able to be a part of this health event for women is a positive step forward to our ultimate goal of legally exporting our products to the Country to help those of Panama who suffer from debilitating medical conditions."

In addition, renowned physician Dr. Carlos Aguirre-Velazquez will speak at the event on May 20th about a recent survey he conducted on children with refractory epilepsy, which found that out of 53 cases of children who were treated with CBD hemp oil, 60 percent showed a reduction in seizures. The product most commonly used in the survey was the only current legal option in Mexico, Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s RSHO-X.

About HempMeds

HempMeds is a corporate portfolio company of Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC PINK: MJNA) and the Company's exclusive master distributor and contracted marketing company, handling sales and distribution.

About Medical Marijuana, Inc.

Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally-friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value. For details on Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s portfolio and investment companies, visit www.medicalmarijuanainc.com.

To see Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s video statement, click here. Shareholders are also encouraged to visit the Medical Marijuana, Inc. Shop for discounted products.

FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURES.

This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties. The statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. The Company does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act. The Company does sell and distribute hemp-based products.

CONTACT:

Public Relations Contact:

Andrew Hard

Chief Executive Officer

CMW Media

P: 888-829- 0070

[email protected]

www.cmwmedia.com

SOURCE Medical Marijuana, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com


MILWAUKEE, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (NYSE: MTG), the nation's first private mortgage insurer, announced today the availability of mortgage insurance through Savana, Inc.'s Loan Origination System (LOS), nGage / Mortgage.

Through the MISMO-based integration, nGage / Mortgage customers can order MGIC rate quotes as well as order delegated and non-delegated mortgage insurance. This integration  unique to Savana and MGIC  also helps customers simplify the non-delegated process by allowing them to submit loan documents to MGIC without leaving the platform. This automation of data exchange helps improve the loan origination process by saving time and increasing accuracy.

"We are excited to partner with MGIC to offer our mutual customers an improved experience in ordering rate quotes and delegated/non-delegated mortgage insurance underwriting. The nGage platform provides the lender a seamless experience in ordering services from MGIC, improving data integrity and reducing time to loan approval," said Savana, Inc.'s Senior Vice President of Product Management, Laurel Quigley.

"Our integration with Savana, Inc. addresses the growing demand for automation in the loan origination process and demonstrates our continued commitment to offering these solutions to our customers," said Margaret Crowley, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience at MGIC.

About MGIC

MGIC, the principal subsidiary of MGIC Investment Corporation, this year celebrates 60 years of serving the mortgage finance industry. As the founder of modern private mortgage insurance, MGIC is committed to providing products and services that make originating affordable low-down-payment mortgages safer for the financial institutions served. Fulfilling this vital role helps families achieve homeownership sooner. At April 30, 2017, MGIC had $184.3 billion of primary insurance in force covering approximately 1 million mortgages.

About Savana, Inc.

Savana, Inc., headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, is a software company focused on delivering advanced automation solutions to the mortgage, retail banking and payments industries. Since its founding in 2009, Savana has delivered mission critical applications to some of the largest financial institutions and FinTech resellers in the United States.

SOURCE MGIC Investment Corporation

Related Links

http://www.mgic.com


TYSONS CORNER, Va., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MicroTech, a Certified and Verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and leading provider of Cloud Computing, Technology/Professional Services, Telecommunications and Cyber Security Solutions, today announced that the Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground has awarded MicroTech a $37 billion Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide professional services to the Department of the Army.

The Contract has a $37.4B ceiling with a 10-year ordering period (five-year base ordering period and five-year optional ordering period). MicroTech will be able to provide customized best value solutions and services including, but not limited, to Engineering; Research, Development; Test and Evaluation (RDT&E); Logistics; Acquisition and Strategic Planning; Education and Training Services to a diverse group of organizations that span the spectrum of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) mission requirements throughout the world.

"This very significant contract solidifies MicroTech's, constant commitment to hard work and innovation and demonstrates MicroTech's ability to anticipate technology challenges by delivering transformational solutions and services to our Nation's Warfighters," says Tony Jimenez, Founder, President and CEO of MicroTech. "I cannot stress enough how excited we are to be part of this contract and look forward to delivering professional services and solutions to the United States Army." With this win, MicroTech now holds 24 multiple-award type contracts with dozens of Federal Agencies through which MicroTech provides a broad range of innovative technologies and state of the art Professional Services and Solutions.

About MicroTech: MicroTech, a Certified and Verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certified by the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), has had noteworthy success since its inception in 2004. Under Tony Jimenez's leadership, the privately-owned company has experienced exponential growth over the years and is repeatedly recognized as a small business success story. Described as the "hottest Hispanic business in the nation," MicroTech was ranked as the #1 Fastest Growing Hispanic Company in the Nation for three consecutive years by Hispanic Business Magazine. MicroTech was also named one of the Top 10 Fastest Growing Hispanic-Owned Companies in the Nation for five consecutive years and has been repeatedly listed on Washington Technology's annual list of the Top 100 Government Contractors.

MicroTech provides Cloud Computing, Technology Services, Cyber Security Solutions, Products & Managed Service Solutions, Technology/Professional Services, Network Systems Integration, R&D, Telecom Solutions & Integration and Financial Services to the public sector, as well as commercial enterprises -- managing more than a quarter of a million technology users daily. A prime contractor of more than 100 Federal projects and more than 20 Contract Vehicles, MicroTech offers access to 2,500 vendors and a million technology products and services across the Federal Government.

Contact:

Jennifer Berman

703-531-9976

[email protected]

SOURCE MicroTech

Related Links

http://www.microtech.net


CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The world largest appliances manufacturer, Midea, will launch its new Commercial Food Service equipment line-up at this year's National Restaurant Association (NRA) trade show from May 20 to 23 at the McCormick Center in Chicago.

During the four-day event, the company, located at booth #8627, will exhibit a new line of commercial cooking products that feature its state-of-the-art technologies and design, which will be launched in the US under the Midea Brand for the first time.

"Why not a Midea-branded product?" said Gino Iacovella, Director of Business Development for Midea America's Division of Midea's Kitchen Appliances. "Our company has been making products as an OEM Manufacturer for many years for some of the top brands in the US Marketplace. Now it's time for us to stand on our own and grow our brand."

New products will include light-, medium- and heavy-duty commercial microwaves in the 1,000- to 2,100-watt range, with cavity sizes from 0.6cuft (17 liters) to 1.2cuft (34 liters). All with stainless steel construction, the line will include dial and USB programmable models and even some with dials and LED displays.

Mideas' advantages in developing innovative products, improving efficiency and expanding the scale of its global operations has helped the company to succeed in international markets.

"Midea plans to introduce many new categories to the marketplace over the next few years," said Iacovella. "Commercial microwaves are just the start of the new categories that Midea will launch in the US. Midea is a leader in not only cooking equipment, but also a worldwide leader in dishwashers, air conditioning, and refrigeration."

"The NRA Show is the world's leading trade show for restaurateurs, presenting product innovations, a trade platform and a meeting place for global manufacturers and restaurants. It is a great opportunity to present our latest technologies and products," said Danielle Boils, Branding & Marketing director, Overseas Sales & Marketing Department of Midea's Kitchen Appliances Division. "Midea's exhibitions at the NRA Show will be very fruitful; the platform will also provide us new perspectives on the industry."

About Midea Kitchen Appliance Division

Midea Kitchen Appliance Division is affiliated to Midea Group, one of the largest household appliance manufacturers in China. Founded in 1968, Midea is one of the world's largest kitchen appliance suppliers with annual sales revenue exceeding $23 billion, the world's No.1 major appliances manufacturer according reported by Eurmomitor[i] and is the world's No. 1 microwave oven and No. 3 dishwasher manufacturer. It operates three production bases and two R&D centers in China in addition to a production base in Belarus and R&D centers in Bologna, Italy, Silicon Valley, California, Louisville, Kentucky, Germany and Japan.

[i] Source: Euromonitor International Limited; Consumer Appliances 17ed, per Major Appliance category definition, producer volume in units, 2016 data.

SOURCE Midea Kitchen Appliance Division
Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai (Moorfields) has won a major international medical tourism award for its success in attracting international patients to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/511843/Moorfields_Eye_Hospital_Dubai.jpg )



Moorfields was named International Eye Clinic of the Year (for the second consecutive year) by medical travel publication the International Medical Travel Journal Medical Travel Awards 2017 (http://awards.imtj.com) at their annual awards ceremony, the IMTJ Medical Travel Awards 2017.

The awards were presented in April at a high profile reception in Opatija, Croatia during the IMTJ Medical Travel Summit, which brought together all the pre-eminent providers and experts in medical travel and medical tourism sectors. The Awards were generously supported by Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.

The award was given to Moorfields in recognition of the hospital's success in attracting and serving international patients (medical tourists), supported by the evidence of the numbers and type of medical tourists/patients treated and country of origin, quality and range of services provided and patient satisfaction. Moorfields beat similar hospitals/clinics from around the world to clinch the award.

Maha Aboughali, Business Development & Marketing Director at Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai, comments: "Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai is delighted to be presented with this prestigious international award for a second consecutive year, for our work and commitment to supporting international healthcare tourism in Dubai. This award comes 10 years after we established Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai as the first overseas branch of Moorfields and so it has special significance for the team."

Chairman of the judging panel and Managing Editor of IMTJ Keith Pollard says the awards celebrate the best providers in the industry and aim to encourage others to strive to match them:

"Medical travel is an exciting and growing global industry, with many providers delivering excellence in both medical care and customer service. The IMTJ Medical Travel Awards are the only independent awards to recognise those who are the best of the best - and hopefully will encourage others to emulate their success. The judges wanted to reward innovation and excellence, highlight best practice and celebrate those who are leading the way in the industry and delivering successful outcomes for patients.

"All our winners exemplify the way the medical tourism industry should be run - professional, offering exceptional patient care and providing the best possible medical outcomes. I'm already looking forward to next year's awards in the hope that other clinics and companies will have raised their game to match or even better this year's winners."

Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai is the first overseas branch of the Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London. The hospital provides the full spectrum of eye care related services from basic screening to complex eye surgeries, managed through a resident team of Consultant Ophthalmologists.

The hospital has replicated the excellent standards of the London hospital, relating to clinical care, training, teaching, as well as research. Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai meets these standards, while patient care revolves around exceeding patient expectations and providing a customised VIP service. Since 2007, Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai has treated more than 150,000 patients from 185 countries, many from the GCC and wider Middle East region.

www.moorfields.ae/dubai

About Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai

Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai (MEHD) is the first overseas branch of Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the oldest and one of the largest centres for ophthalmic treatment, teaching and research in the world. Located at the Al Razi Medical Complex in Dubai Health Care City, the facility provides day case surgery and outpatient diagnostic and treatment services, for a variety of surgical and non-surgical eye conditions. MEHD will also raise standards for research and teaching in the region. MEHD is owned and managed by the NHS Foundation Trust, and maintains close links with London, to ensure that patients in the GCC receive the best eye care treatment in the world.

About IMTJ

The International Medical Travel Journal ( www.imtj.com) provides insight into the medical travel and medical tourism sector. IMTJ was established in 2007 in response to the increasing interest in medical travel and medical tourism. It embraces many of the themes that challenge healthcare providers across the world - insurance, accreditation, marketing and promotion, quality, patient safety, levels of care and experience in treating international patients.

IMTJ is independent of the associations and special interest groups that have come aboard the medical tourism bandwagon. Our aim is to create a central focus for information, resources and opinion on medical travel for those involved in the industry, anywhere in the world.

The internationalisation of healthcare through health tourism is at the heart of IMTJ. Patients are becoming healthcare consumers and in many countries, patient choice is being extended to surgery and treatment provided by international hospitals and clinics. By sharing expertise, knowledge, and views about the health travel industry, IMTJ helps to ensure that patient expectations are met, and that the industry maintains a high reputation.

The International Medical Travel Journal (IMTJ) is owned and managed by Intuition Communication, a specialist publisher of consumer and business-to-business information on private healthcare and medical travel. The company also operates a consumer facing portal for medical tourism - Treatment Abroad.

SOURCE Moorfields Eye Hospital Dubai
PHOENIX, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mosaic451, a bespoke cybersecurity services provider and consultancy, announced today it has opened its company headquarters and operational facilities in the Tower building in the Phoenix City Square.

Local artists Caitlyn Saville and Riama DeLuca were contracted to paint a large 60-foot mural on the walls depicting a wire-framed, digital, cyberspace series of tunnels and cables The new offices feature a world-class, built to specification Security Operations Center (SOC) that triples the company's security analyst capacity

The new offices feature a world-class, built to specification Security Operations Center (SOC) that triples the company's security analyst capacity, including state-of-the-art video wall and cybersecurity technology which will enable centralized visibility, alerting, and investigation. The offices will also include added capacity and operational capability for the company's Network Operations Center (NOC) as well as dedicated facilities for Reverse Engineers, with room for growth and expansion.

Focused on the triad of "people, process and technology", the SOC serves as the heartbeat of Mosaic 451's security practice. Mosaic Hybrid is an industry-first solution that pairs its centralized SOC with remote security engineers that provide onsite support to clients, working alongside clients' own in-house technology and security staff to ensured tailored security solutions that maximizes the efficacy of security efforts. This combination of 24/7 remote support and local situational awareness is key to providing a robust and meaningful security solution.

"Mosaic451 is focused on growing to meet the ever-changing demands of the cybersecurity field," said Mosaic451 Managing Director Mike Baker. "Modernizing both our working space and our company culture, this new office will allow us to continue to thrive and stay ahead of the curve to exceed the needs and expectations of our clients. Enhancing and expanding our SOC facility will further enhance our capabilities, allowing Mosaic451 to remain proactive in all aspects of our security operations."

Mosaic451 maintains all its SOC operations within the United States, with two additional Security Operations Centers in Las Vegas, NV and Portland, OR.

The new office and facilities are located on the top floor of the 3838 Tower building located in City Square on Central Avenue in Phoenix, AZ.

Two local artists, Caitlyn Saville and Riama DeLuca, were contracted to paint a large 60-foot mural on the walls depicting a wire-framed, digital, cyberspace series of tunnels and cables.

Learn more about Mosaic451 at www.mosaic451.com.

About Mosaic451

Headquartered in Arizona, Mosaic451 is a bespoke cyber security service provider and consultancy with expertise in building, operating and defending some of the most highly-secure networks in North America. Its Mosaic Hybrid is an industry first solution, providing monitoring service through its operations centers as well as specialized staff onsite during business hours to work alongside clients' in house technology and security staff. This hybrid model gives Mosaic451 the unique ability to empower security analysts to provide advanced data analysis and determine threat vectors, threat actors, and intelligent root causes for every incident. Mosaic451 aggregates and empowers intelligent humans in the service of information security and IT operations excellence for our clients.

For more information, visit www.mosaic451.com.

Media Contact: Lisa Wang, [email protected], 1-888-317-4687 ext. 703

SOURCE Mosaic451, LLC

Related Links

http://www.mosaic451.com


MILPITAS, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nanosys, the Quantum Dot company, today received the 2017 Display Industry Awards (DIA) Display Component of the Year award for its Hyperion Quantum Dot technology from the Society for Information Display (SID).

Presented by the SID, the 2017 DIAs recognize innovative display products, components, and applications that hold the most promise for shaping the future of the global display industry. The DIAs are awarded each year in three categories: Display of the Year, Display Application of the Year, and Display Component of the Year.

"The SID Display Industry Awards recognize the best display products or applications introduced to the market during the previous calendar year," noted Wei Chen, SID's Display Industry Awards Committee Chairman. "We are proud to award Nanosys a 2017 Display Component of the Year honor for its Hyperion Quantum Dots. We commend the company's ongoing commitment to innovation and to helping shape the future of display performance and solutions."

Nanosys has selected global electronic materials manufacturer Hitachi Chemical as the lead manufacturing partner for Hyperion QDEF. Hitachi Chemical will begin sampling quantum dot film using Nanosys Hyperion Quantum Dot Technology. Mass production volumes will be available to display makers during the second half of 2017.

Hyperion Quantum Dots represent a significant development breakthrough in unlocking the market for displays meeting the ambitious BT.2020 color gamut standard that is already in use for UltraHD content distribution today.

Hyperion Quantum Dots match the color performance of the industry's best cadmium-based quantum dot materials with over 90% BT.2020 color gamut coverage. However, unlike cadmium-based materials, Hyperion Quantum Dot films do not require an exemption to the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. This is because Hyperion Quantum Dots are made using a novel manufacturing technique that combines a cadmium-free red emitter with an ultra-low cadmium green emitter. Hyperion Quantum Dots are fully compatible with Nanosys proprietary QDEF manufacturing process, giving the technology a clear path for rapid deployment at low cost.

The 2017 DIAs will be presented to the winners at the Symposium Luncheon on Wednesday, May 24, 2017, during Display Week 2017: The SID Annual International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition in Los Angeles, California. Visitors to the DisplayWeek show can also see a demonstration of Hyperion Quantum Dot technology at Nanosys booth #321. Visit the Nanosys event landing page for more information: www.nanosysinc.com/SID

About Nanosys, Inc.

Nanosys, Inc. is the leader in developing and delivering state-of-the-art Quantum Dot technology to the display industry. Nanosys proprietary QDEF technology, a key component of the Ultra High Definition (UHD) TV revolution, is enabling a new generation of displays using Quantum Dots to deliver vivid color, lifelike brightness and incredible power efficiency at a fraction of the cost of competing technologies. Industry leading consumer electronics brands have shipped award- winning devices from tablets to TVs based on Nanosys' proprietary Quantum Dot technology.

Founded in 2001, the company is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California where it operates the world's largest Quantum Dot nanomaterials fab with manufacturing capacity for over 25 tons of Quantum Dot materials per year. Nanosys currently owns or has exclusive license rights to more than 300 issued and pending patents worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.nanosysinc.com/

QDEF and Nanosys are trademarks of Nanosys, Inc., registered in the United States and in other countries.

About Hitachi Chemical

Hitachi Chemical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange4217), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers wide range of innovative products, such as electronic materials, automobile parts, energy storage devices and systems, in global markets. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2017) totaled 554 billion yen ($4.9 billion ). For more information on Hitachi Chemical, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi-chem.co.jp/english/

ABOUT THE DIA

The Display Industry Awards (DIA) are the most prestigious awards in the display industry. Each year since 1995, SID's international awards committeecomprising a distinguished panel of display luminarieshas honored the most innovative display products, components, and applications with the greatest promise of shaping the future of the display industry. This year's DIAs will be presented at the SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, also known as Display Week 2017the premier international gathering of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the field of electronic information displays. Display Week 2017 will be held in May in Los Angeles, California. For more information on the DIAs or Display Week 2017, please visit: http://www.displayweek.org/ or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter @DisplayWeek, hashtag #DisplayWeek17.

ABOUT SID

The Society of Information Display (SID) is the only professional organization focused on the display industry. In fact, by exclusively focusing on the advancement of electronic-display technology, SID provides a unique platform for industry collaboration, communication and training in all related technologies while showcasing the industry's best new products. With more than 6,000 members worldwide, the organization's members are professionals in the technical and business disciplines that relate to display research, design, manufacturing, applications, marketing and sales. To promote industry and academic technology development, while also educating consumers on the importance of displays, SID hosts more than 10 conferences a year, including Display Week, which brings industry and academia all under one roof to showcase technology that will shape the future. SID's global headquarters are located at 1475 S. Bascom Ave., Ste. 114, Campbell, CA 95008. For more information, visit www.sid.org.

SOURCE Nanosys

Related Links

http://www.nanosysinc.com


SHELTON, Conn., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE MKT: NNVC) (the "Company"), filed the quarterly report for its third quarter of financial year 2017 in a timely manner with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, May 15th. The submission can be downloaded from the SEC website at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1379006/000114420417027501/v466096_10q.htm .

NanoViricides reported that it had approximately $16.74 Million (M) of current assets (cash, cash equivalents, and prepaid expenses) as of March 31, 2017, the end of the reporting period. The net cash used in operating activities during this quarter was approximately $2.7M, consistent with previous quarter. Shareholder equity stood at approximately $22.4M for the quarter (unaudited figures). The increase in shareholder equity was the net effect of the conversion of Series B convertible debentures that matured on January 31, 2017, as previously reported. Briefly, holders of $5,000,000 principal value Series B Convertible Debentures, namely, an entity controlled by Dr. Milton Boniuk, a director of the Company, and The Boniuk Charitable Foundation, converted $5,000,000 of Series B debentures into equity, and the remaining $1,000,000 principal, with accrued interest as of the maturity date, was repaid to the holders thereof in cash. The Company believes that its offer to the debenture holders to convert at a rate based on the Company's recent stock price performance was in the best interests of its shareholders, as it bolsters the Company's available capital for executing on its current business plan.

The Company estimates that it has sufficient cash in hand to last more than one year of operations at the current rate of expenditure. The Company estimates that the cash in hand is sufficient to enable us to perform initial human clinical trials of at least one of our drug candidates. The Company's expenditures during the reported period were on track with this expectation.

The Company said its lead drug development program, namely topical skin cream for the treatment of shingles, is progressing satisfactorily, under its HerpeCide project. The drug candidates being advanced in the shingles program are variations of the drug candidates that were found to be highly effective against HSV-1 H129 in a lethal animal study with 80-100% of treated animals surviving fully as opposed to untreated animals showing 0% survival, as previously reported.

The Company is pursuing at least four different indications with these drug candidates in its HerpeCide program, namely, (1) skin cream for the treatment of shingles caused by reactivation of the chickenpox virus (VZV, aka HHV-3), (2) skin cream for the treatment of cold sores (herpes labials) caused by the herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1), (3) skin cream for the treatment of genital ulcers caused by HSV-2, and (4) topical eye drops for the treatment of herpes keratitis (mostly caused by HSV-1).

The Company recently reported that it has completed certain preliminary ex vivo human skin patch based efficacy studies for its initial drug candidates against shingles, and repeat studies to confirm the results are in progress. These studies were conducted in the laboratory of Professor Moffat at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY. The Company expects to report on these studies upon approval of the study investigators and their Institute. Further studies towards declaration of the final clinical drug candidate for shingles are continuing. We believe that these human skin patch studies should be highly predictive of human clinical trials success.

The Company said its work on the scale-up of manufacturing of the drug candidates in the HerpeCide project is advancing successfully. We are currently working on production at approximately 200g to 500g scales. The Company has recently estimated, with its service providers and industry expert consultants, that a quantity of approximately 1kg of drug candidate will be sufficient for its proposed Safety/toxicology studies for the shingles drug candidate. The Company is on course to have the ability to produce such quantities in its own manufacturing facility once a clinical drug candidate is declared.

The Company has continued to focus its work on studies needed for moving the shingles topical treatment towards human clinical trials stage as rapidly as it can. The Company is performing the Chemistry, Manufacture and Controls (CMC) studies needed for filing an Investigational Drug Application (IND) with the US FDA or equivalent application(s) in other countries including Australia, for the shingles drug candidate. In parallel, the Company is performing studies needed to finalize a clinical drug candidate out of several that have shown strong success in cell culture studies. There is no standard animal model for shingles.

The Company has eight different drugs in development, including the four indications in the HerpeCide program described above. This deep and wide pipeline demonstrates the robustness of the nanoviricide platform technology.

NanoViricides, Inc. is one of a few bio-pharma companies that has all the capabilities needed from research and development to marketable drug manufacture in the small quantities needed for human clinical trials. Our new campus at 1 Controls Drive, Shelton, CT, has state of the art nanomedicines characterization facilities that enable us to perform IND-enabling nanomedicine analysis and characterization studies of any of our various drug candidates in house.

All current topical drug candidates in our HerpeCide program are variants of the shingles drug further optimized for the specific herpesvirus and topical delivery constraints. These topical treatments are expected to provide a significantly faster path to human clinical stage than the other injectable and oral drugs in our pipeline.

Topical treatments for the herpesvirus indications are important. Although the herpesviruses stay latent in a nerve ganglion, the pathology of an outbreak in a patient begins with reinfection in the skin layer from the reactivated virus, followed by further expansion of the virus in the skin layer. The newly produced virus then causes additional spread of the virus to more nerve cells, and would become latent there. Topical nanoviricide treatment would stop further expansion of the virus at the site and therefore should also potentially decrease further recurrences. Also, topical treatment allows exposure of the virus to much higher concentrations of the drug locally, and thereby should produce greater effectiveness with less overall drug use, as compared to systemic treatments.

There is no effective treatment for shingles and the shingles related PHN (post-herpetic neuralgia). The shingles associated debilitating pain usually lasts during the infection outbreak in most patients, but in some patients, PHN can develop, which can last 90 days to even a year in some cases after the skin has healed. Approved treatments for shingles and PHN include acyclovir related nucleoside analogs that are given in very high doses systemically for a week but with limited effect. A new nucleoside analog called FV-100 is in Phase 3 clinical trials. FV-100 development was previously abandoned by Bristol-Myers-Squibb and is now undertaken by a small pharma.

There is also a vaccine for shingles that may reduce occurrence of shingles as a preventive, but not as a treatment after a breakout occurs. Another vaccine is in development. The chickenpox vaccine is now standard for children. However, the incidence of shingles in adolescents and young adults is rising, although shingles generally occurs in older people due age related decrease in immune function, and in patients with immune function compromising conditions from stress to organ transplant to other infections and HIV/AIDS.

Although in most patients shingles is debilitating during the outbreak but not life-threatening, in a small percentage of patients, it can cause eye infections that can lead to blindness.

There is no topical treatment for shingles. We believe this is an unmet medical need. The market size for a successful topical treatment for shingles could be in the billion dollar range.

All of the biological testing and characterization of our drug candidates continues to be performed by external academic or institutional collaborators and contract research organizations (CRO). However, we now have our own capabilities to perform initial cell culture based drug candidate screening for BSL2 viruses, which includes herpesviruses. We believe that this is speeding up our drug development programs against such viruses significantly by removing the latencies of external testing in the earlier drug screening and the later drug optimization stages.

The Company has established additional collaborations towards IND-enabling development of drug candidates against the four HerpeCide program indications listed above. We now have collaboration agreements with the CORL at the University of Wisconsin, and the Campbell Lab at the University of Pittsburgh, for the evaluation of its nanoviricides drug candidates in models of ocular herpesvirus and adenovirus infections. TransPharm Preclinical Solutions, a CRO, will continue to perform testing of our anti-herpes drug candidates in dermal infection models. In addition, we have a collaboration with Professor Moffat Lab at SUNY-UMC to study our drug candidates against shingles.

The nanoviricides mechanism of action is believed to mimic a natural host cell receptor using which the virus binds and infects cells; binding of a nanoviricide nanomicelle to the virus is expected to render it non-infectious. A nanoviricide would thus stop the spread of the viral infection to new uninfected cells. This mechanism is different from that of currently available anti-Herpesvirus drugs. The Company therefore believes that it is able to develop broad-spectrum anti-herpes nanoviricide drugs.

About NanoViricides:

NanoViricides, Inc. (www.nanoviricides.com) is a development stage company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for antiviral therapy. The Company's novel nanoviricide class of drug candidates are designed to specifically attack enveloped virus particles and to dismantle them. The Company is developing drugs against a number of viral diseases including H1N1 swine flu, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal Influenza, HIV, oral and genital Herpes, viral diseases of the eye including EKC and herpes keratitis, Hepatitis C, Rabies, Dengue fever, and Ebola virus, among others.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events. Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors. Certain statements in this release, and other written or oral statements made by NanoViricides, Inc. are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company's expectations include, but are not limited to, those factors that are disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in documents filed by the company from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.. Although it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors, they may include the following: demonstration and proof of principle in pre-clinical trials that a nanoviricide is safe and effective; successful development of our product candidates; our ability to seek and obtain regulatory approvals, including with respect to the indications we are seeking; the successful commercialization of our product candidates; and market acceptance of our products.

SOURCE NanoViricides, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nanoviricides.com


HOUSTON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will live-stream a Virtual Career Summit on Wednesday, May 24th at 1 p.m. EST for students interested in internships, fellowships and scholarships at the space agency.

The NASA Internships, Fellowships and Scholarship program (NIFS) will showcase its programs as well as highlight NASA centers and its missions. Students will learn about the currently available internship, fellowship and scholarship opportunities in the STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields, as well as the eligibility requirements, tips for the application process and hear from previous NIFS interns and awardees.

The virtual event will engage students and NASA professionals in a question and answer session. A recording of the event will be made available.

To attend the virtual summit, please register at this link: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1421719/7262E7FC31590E13B92C3452060C800F

For information about NIFS visit: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/main/

or https://nspires.nasaprs.com

@NASAInterns

facebook.com/NASAInterns

Contact: Delores Gee

757-864-9539

SOURCE NASA Internships, Fellowships and Scholarship
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA had a stellar night during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) annual Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala in Washington, D.C. May 3.

NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was honored with the 2017 AIAA Foundation Award for Excellence as recognition for its "100 years of excellence in aerospace achievements, scientific discoveries, and technological breakthroughs."

The selection committee recognized the center as the nation's first civilian aeronautical research facility specifically designed to study the problems of flight, calling attention to many of the center's many firsts.

For images, go to https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-langley-receives-top-honors-at-aiaa-awards-banquet

The facility played a critical role in the early years shaping the nation's aerospace industry. It pioneered and developed variable density, full-scale, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnels; low-drag, streamlined engine cowlings; airfoil characterization, as well as laminar-flow and supercritical wing designs still in use on aircraft today; the swept back wing; the "transonic area-rule;" winglets; and the "blunt-body" concept that is instrumental to our nation's space and missile programs.

David Bowles, Langley's director, accepted the award on behalf of the center's 3,600 civil service and contract employees at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The AIAA also honored William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and an AIAA Honorary Fellow, with the 2017 Goddard Astronautics Award for his leadership of America's human spaceflight program, commitment to international space cooperation, and his work inspiring a new generation of space explorers.

Gerstenmaier's nomination write-up called attention to his instrumental leadership in the success of the space shuttle and International Space Station programs, and his continuing work in supporting private sector development in human spaceflight.

The Goddard Astronautics Award is the highest honor that AIAA bestows for notable achievements in the field of astronautics. It was endowed by Mrs. Goddard to commemorate her husband, Robert H. Goddard  rocket visionary, pioneer, bold experimentalist, and superb engineer, whose early liquid rocket engine launches set the stage for the development of astronautics.



The AIAA also presented their International Cooperation Award to three individuals for their "vision, leadership, and implementation of the NASA Common Research Model (CRM) advancing United States and international aeronautical research collaboration on industry-relevant challenges in open forums."

Richard Wahls, strategic technical advisor, Advanced Air Vehicles Program under NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate; Melissa Rivers, research aerospace engineer, Research Directorate at NASA Langley; and John Vassberg, Boeing Technical Fellow, and technical lead, BCA Advanced Concepts/Design Center, The Boeing Company, developed NASA's Common Research Model to meet the international aerospace community's need for a modern, industry-relevant research model that could accommodate open and public geometries, process advanced experimental data, and serve as an international standard for wind tunnel testing model that supports comparisons between facilities.

The AIAA confers its International Cooperation Award to those who have made significant contributions to the initiation, organization, implementation and/or management of activities with significant United States involvement that includes extensive international cooperative activities in space, aeronautics or both.

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- National Nail has announces the CAMO Screw Off!, a fun head-to-head competition offering CAMO stocking dealers' customers (located in New Jersey and New England) the chance to win a 2017 Harley-Davidson Roadster motorcycle and other cash prizes. The competition is designed to help dealers build stronger relationships with their contractors while creating awareness for CAMO deck fastening products. The CAMO Screw-Off! qualifying events will take place throughout the spring and summer.

"We have done exciting events like this before and it draws widespread interest to our stocking dealers," said W. Scott Baker, CEO, National Nail. "We want to introduce our dealers and their contractors to our broad range of CAMO fastening products, including our innovative Edge Deck Fastening system. This is a very fun way of accomplishing this objective."

Hosted by a CAMO stocking dealer, contractors/users are exposed to the full array of CAMO deck fastening products. For those brave enough to compete in the CAMO Screw Off! qualifying event, contestants will race against the clock in a screw driving contest to get a chance to win a 2017 Harley-Davidson Roadster motorcycle and other cash prizes at the CAMO Screw Off! finals being held at the NRLA LBM Expo in Providence, Rhode Island in February 2018.

National Nail is working with each CAMO stocking dealer to promote their event dates, generate contractor interest, and coordinate the competitions. A CAMO Screw Off! Dealer Marketing Kit is sent to every participating dealer which includes a banner, in-store posters and fliers promoting the event. Additional marketing support includes logo wearables, PR and social media.

For more information on the CAMO Screw Off! or to hold your own CAMO Screw Off! qualifying event, please visit www.camofasteners.com/screw-off or call Greg Hartmann at 315-350-1832.

About CAMO Edge Fastening

CAMO Edge Fastening from National Nail delivers beautiful, fastener-free, Barefoot Approved results with virtually any wood, composite or PVC decking. CAMO offers a variety of guides, fasteners, and accessories, as well as a collated system to suit project requirements. For more information or to locate a dealer, visit CAMO Fasteners or call 1-800-968-6245. Be sure to "Like" @camofasteners on Facebook and @camodeckfasteners on Instagram.

SOURCE National Nail
ATLANTA, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Primrose Schools, a high-quality early education and care provider with nearly 350 preschools across the country, recently served as the lead sponsor of the 2017 World Forum on Early Care and Education, which took place May 9-12 in Auckland, New Zealand. This biennial conference brings together educators, leaders and early child care practitioners from more than 80 countries to discuss issues impacting children and families worldwide.

"Sponsoring the 2017 World Forum and representing the United States at this important advocacy event was an immense honor," said Jo Kirchner, CEO of Primrose Schools. "The first five years of life provide an unparalleled opportunity to set children up for lifelong success. To share knowledge and discuss challenges facing children and families today with educators and thought leaders from around the world has brought us one step closer to creating a brighter future for all children."

The four-day conference featured sessions in which participants shared best practices and insights on a variety of early education topics. Several breakout sessions also gave attendees the opportunity to dig deeper on important issues, including caring for children impacted by HIV/AIDS, connecting children with nature and advocating for children's rights.

In addition to serving as the lead sponsor of the 2017 World Forum, Primrose Schools also participated in the following ways:

Jo Kirchner gave the opening remarks.

gave the opening remarks. Gloria Julius , Ed.D., vice president of education and professional development for Primrose Schools, presented on "Theoretical and Practical Perspectives on Teacher Education."

, Ed.D., vice president of education and professional development for Primrose Schools, presented on "Theoretical and Practical Perspectives on Teacher Education." Kathy Trundle , Ph.D., a member of the Primrose Early Learning Council, presented on "Innovations in Supporting Teachers' Use of Curriculum: Soft Skills, STEAM, Culturally Relevant Curriculum and Mobile Technology in the Field."

, Ph.D., a member of the Primrose Early Learning Council, presented on "Innovations in Supporting Teachers' Use of Curriculum: Soft Skills, STEAM, Culturally Relevant Curriculum and Mobile Technology in the Field." Annette Heng , senior vice president of school excellence, moderated a panel discussion: "Stepping Up to Make a Difference: Reflections on Leadership in Early Care and Education."

, senior vice president of school excellence, moderated a panel discussion: "Stepping Up to Make a Difference: Reflections on Leadership in Early Care and Education." Megan Sheehan , executive director of Primrose School of Burlington in Massachusetts , participated in a panel about "Re-conceptualizing Leadership," which encouraged teachers to pursue professional development opportunities in order to better serve their students.

, executive director of Primrose School of in , participated in a panel about "Re-conceptualizing Leadership," which encouraged teachers to pursue professional development opportunities in order to better serve their students. Curt Van Emon , Franchise Owner of Primrose School of Burlington , moderated a panel discussion: "Connecting with Young Children through Curriculum."

, Franchise Owner of Primrose School of , moderated a panel discussion: "Connecting with Young Children through Curriculum." Jo Kirchner and Dr. Laura Jana , a pediatrician, nationally-acclaimed author and former Primrose Franchise Owner, hosted a book signing for Dr. Jana's new book "The Toddler Brain," which focuses on how 21st-century skills, like critical thinking and teamwork, are proving to be more critical to school and life success than traditional academic abilities.

"It was a privilege to participate in such an inspiring event and we look forward to sharing our new insights with our Franchise Owners and staff  and all of the communities we serve  to improve early education and care for all children," said Kirchner.

About Primrose Schools

Primrose Schools is the leader in providing premier early education and care to children and families in the United States. Founded in 1982, there are nearly 350 Primrose schools in 29 states today. Each school is independently-owned and -operated by Franchise Owners who partner with parents to help children build the right foundation for future learning and life. Primrose believes who children become is as important as what they know. The Primrose-exclusive Balanced Learning approach is created from the best early education wisdom and balances purposeful play with nurturing guidance from teachers to encourage curiosity, creativity, confidence and compassion. For more information, visit www.PrimroseSchools.com, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, explore our blog, sign up for our Pointers for Parents emails and find a Primrose school near you.

About World Forum Foundation

The mission of the World Forum Foundation is to promote an ongoing global exchange of ideas on the delivery of quality services for young children in diverse settings. As a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization, the World Forum Foundation organizes of a variety of international activities and working groups in the early childhood arena, including the World Forum on Early Care and Education. The World Forum on Early Care and Education was first held in 1999 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then moved to Singapore in 2000. The gathering was held in Athens, Greece, in 2001; followed by Auckland, New Zealand, in 2002; Acapulco, Mexico, in 2003; Montreal, Canada, in 2005; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2007; Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2009; Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2011; and San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2014. For more information, visit www.WorldForumFoundation.org, follow us on Facebook or Twitter and YouTube.

SOURCE Primrose Schools

Related Links

http://www.PrimroseSchools.com


BALA CYNWYD, Pa., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NCC Automated Systems, an integrator and manufacturer in the food packaging, and ophthalmic automation industries, announced today that the company has formed an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). In the transaction, ownership sold a significant interest to a newly created Employee Stock Ownership Trust, allowing current and future employees to gain a beneficial ownership interest in the Company without any personal cash investment.

Effectively, the ESOP is a qualified retirement plan which, based on company performance, could generate significant retirement benefits for NCC's approximately 65 Employee Owners.

Commenting on the announcement, Kevin Mauger, President and former 'sole owner' of NCC, said, "Our company is built on the positive culture and energy of our team creating an environment that supports a positive Customer Experience with the speed and agility required to compete in today's market. The ESOP will give our employees a financial interest in the continued growth and success of the business, creating even more of a team effort and vested interest in supporting our customers than we have today. It represents a very tangible way to reward those who have played a critical role in NCC's success. Delivering an unparalleled positive experience requires great employees who are focused and dedicated to the business at hand. That clearly describes our team, and we are thrilled to be able to provide this benefit to them. We want them to stay around forever and be rewarded accordingly for their efforts. We are not looking to be just another company, we have far greater goals and aspirations. We are reaching for the stars."

Mauger, who will continue in his current position for the foreseeable future, also noted: "In light of the challenges facing American workers, an ESOP is an excellent way in which to assure the continuation of our world-class team of valued employees, and enhance our company's productivity and profitability. We expect the ESOP to increase the retirement security of our Employee Owners, particularly if we continue on the growth path we have enjoyed the last several years."

Jim Steiker, Chairman and CEO of SES Advisors and with more than 30 years of experience accomplishing ESOP transactions, said: "ESOP's done well and for the right reasons, allow business owners both to do well and can be both an altruistic and humanitarian approach to a collective win-win business environment. Employee ownership can add an exclamation point to an already strong business and create an even more engaged culture. Employees potentially have strong financial rewards when they retire in exchange for their hard work and dedication throughout their careers. An ESOP appears to be a perfect fit for NCC and should result in extremely positive results for all involved. I was extremely impressed with Kevin from our first meeting--he is a poster child for the kind of servant leader that creates a great employee-owned company. He believes in his people and the team approach and using the ESOP to make a great company even better."



ABOUT NCC:

NCC Automated Systems is a 31-year-old integrator and manufacturer. Our main industries for integration are food packaging and ophthalmic lens production where NCC offers turnkey integration services from concept through training and aftermarket services. NCC has a 50,000 ft2 facility focused on conveyor manufacturing and assembly, control panel building, assembly, wiring and testing services. We have strategic partnerships with large pre-engineered manufacturers across North America, build our own customized conveyors, and also have our own brand of twin strand pallet based conveyors called Glide-Line, which we offer to integrators and OEM's in the Assembly Automation industries. If you would like more information about NCC, please contact Kevin Mauger at 215-721-1900 x138 or email at [email protected].

ABOUT Steiker, Greenapple & Fusco, P.C & SES Advisors, Inc.

Steiker, Greenapple & Fusco, P.C. is an experienced, nationally recognized law firm focusing on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and other employee-centered ownership transition and compensation strategies. Since 1987, our attorneys have represented companies, selling shareholders, plan fiduciaries and lenders in hundreds of transactions nationwide. Our approach for structuring and maintaining ESOPs focuses on balancing the needs of the owners, company and employees to create successful, sustainable employee ownership outcomes.

In addition to creating new ESOPs, we provide ongoing guidance to our clients on IRS and DOL compliance, the impact of repurchase liability, legislative and regulatory changes, follow-on stock purchase and sale transactions, ESOP company mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. Our experienced attorneys install and advise on the maintenance of worker cooperatives, executive compensation plans and qualified retirement plans.

SG&F, together with our sister consulting firm of SES Advisors, Inc., has one of the largest core groups of ESOP attorneys, consultants and administrators in the country. SG&F has offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Ohio.

SOURCE SES Advisors

Related Links

http://sesadvisors.com


SAN DIEGO, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, D'Angelo & Associates, APC encountered suspicious electronic activity in their tax program. They immediately contacted their local IT firm who disabled remote access. An investigation into the matter was commenced and that same day, D'Angelo & Associates, APC notified the IRS and Franchise Tax Board of the activity. D'Angelo & Associates, APC further notified the FBI, and hired a specialized forensic IT firm for additional investigation.

On April 24, 2017, the specialized forensic IT firm determined that there was unauthorized access to their system from a foreign IP address on or before March 25, 2017 through April 15, 2017. Unfortunately, the forensic IT firm cannot determine which files were accessed so D'Angelo & Associates, APC is notifying everyone whose information was accessible out of an abundance of caution.

If you are or were an individual D'Angelo & Associates, APC client , this information may have included your: name, date of birth, telephone number(s), address, Social Security number, all employment (W-2) information, 1099 information (including account number if provided to D'Angelo), and direct deposit bank account information (including account number and routing information if provided to D'Angelo).

If you are or were an entity D'Angelo & Associates, APC client , this information may have included your: company name, Federal Employer Identification Number, address, telephone number; and partner, shareholder/officer, or beneficiary names, addresses, and Social Security numbers.

If you were a partner, shareholder, or beneficiary of a partnership, company, or trust D'Angelo & Associates, APC performed work for , the information may have included your: first and last name, address, and Social Security number.

If you are not certain whether your information was on the D'Angelo & Associates' system, please call at 1-855-836-1353, or write them at 2330 Albatross Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

Given the nature of the information potentially exposed, D'Angelo & Associates, APC strongly recommends the following steps be taken:

Change all bank account numbers provided to D'Angelo & Associates, APC, or at a minimum remain vigilant by reviewing account statements. Establish and monitor free 90 day fraud alerts with the three credit reporting bureaus. Their telephone numbers and addresses are: Equifax (1-888-766-0008; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374), Experian (1-888-397-3742; P.O. Box 4500, Allen, TX 75013), and TransUnion (1-800-680-7289; P.O. Box 2000, Chester, PA 19022-2000). Consider placing a credit freeze on your accounts. For more information: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs If you become a victim of identity theft, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at https://identitytheft.gov. The FTC also provides detailed and specific information about identity theft at their website, which you should review.

Lastly, you are entitled to a free credit report every year from the three credit bureaus at www.annualcreditreport.com and one year of complimentary credit monitoring has been purchased for you should you be affected.

Protecting your information is incredibly important to D'Angelo & Associates, APC. In addition to the steps outlined above, D'Angelo & Associates, APC notified the FBI, the IRS, the FTB, all three consumer reporting bureaus, the applicable state agencies, and it is reviewing office policies and procedures. It also hired additional IT security experts, and will work with law enforcement in any investigation of the criminals. Again, if you are not certain whether your information was on the D'Angelo & Associates' system, please call at 1-855-836-1353, or write them at 2330 Albatross Street, San Diego, CA 92101.

SOURCE D'Angelo & Associates, APC
LAS VEGAS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Point of Care Network (POCN), the largest network of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in America, has launched America's Top NPs and PAs, the first-ever online nomination portal to recognize the best-of-the-best Advanced Clinicians in the United States.

All Clinicians will be able to start nominating their peers while attending the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) Annual Conference in Las Vegas, May 1618, 2017. NPs and PAs can now nominate top Advanced Clinicians at www.advancedclinicians.com. Nominees will be selected based on their clinical skills and the sensitivity as well as empathy they possess when treating patients.

According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants, there are currently over 335,000 NPs and PAs practicing and prescribing in the U.S., and data from IMS show they write close to half a million prescriptions annually. While physicians have been able to nominate their peers for various "Top Doctor" listings, this is the first time that Advanced Clinicians have been able to recognize the top members of their own professions. Physicians are also encouraged to nominate their NP and PA Colleagues.

Robert Blumm, MA, PA-C, DFAAPA, and Point of Care Network Advisory Board Member, said, "There has never been a better time to recognize Advanced Clinicians for their skills, caring, and positive impact on healthcare in the United States. America's Top NPs and PAs allows us do it in a straightforward and rewarding way."

To learn more about America's Top NPs and PAs, visit us at

Booth #747 at AAPA at the Mandalay Bay South Convention Center in Las Vegas , May 17 and 18, 2017

, and 18, 2017 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericasTopNPPA/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Americas_Top

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/11091407

www.advancedclinicians.com to view the Top NPs and PAs Leaderboard in real-time

Or search #TopNPPA and #AmericasTopNPPA

About Point of Care Network

POCN comprises the largest network of NPs and PAs in America. POCN, via its online community, strives to empower and support Advanced Clinicians, including expanding opportunities and access to job listings and career development, CE/CME, consulting and advisory boards, patient, disease state, and therapy education, and much more. Members can join for free at www.PointofCareNetwork.com.

Contact:

Richard Zwickel

(800) 762-6173

[email protected]

SOURCE Point of Care Network

Related Links

http://www.pointofcarenetwork.com


GII Tech leads new round to commercialize Nymi BandTM wearable authenticator for enterprise use.

TORONTO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Nymi, creator of the Nymi Band, today announces that it has closed a US $15 million Series B round of funding, led by new investor GII Tech from Dubai, with participation from Nymi's Series A investors, Relay Ventures and Ignition Partners.

"This is an important milestone for Nymi," said Nymi founder and CEO, Karl Martin. "We have made significant progress in the last two years, delivering on our vision of wearable, Always On AuthenticationTM. This new round of financing, with the support of our existing investors and the addition of GII Tech Ventures, provides us with the necessary resources to enter the next phase of scaled deployments."

Founded in 2011 and backed by 10 years of research at the University of Toronto, Nymi launched the Nymi Band wearable authenticator in 2014. The device uses a wearer's cardiac rhythm as a biometric identifier and enables continuous presence-based authentication via Nymi's patented secure Bluetooth and Near Field Communication (NFC) communication systems. The company has recently focused on Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications and aims to deploy at scale later this year.

"Nymi is yet another brilliant fit for the GII Tech portfolio as it matches our core focus of seeking disruptive category creators within the dynamic technology domain," said Vijar Parmar, Managing Partner at GII Tech Ventures. "We look forward to becoming a true partner in growth for the company's expansion into new verticals and geographic markets."

Since its Series A funding in September of 2014, Nymi's Always On Authentication technology has gained significant momentum in the industrial IoT space with customer deployments scaling throughout 2017.

About Nymi

Nymi delivers secure, Always On Authentication to the enterprise. Its first product  the Nymi Band  is a wearable, multi-factor authenticator that can be used with any application, device or service for persistent authentication. With the Nymi Band, the traditional model of authentication can be transformed into a secure and seamless experience for enterprises and end-users. Nymi is proudly based in Toronto, Canada and was founded in 2011. For more information, visit nymi.com.

About GII and GII Tech Ventures

GII is a UAE-based financial services company regulated by the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (ESCA). The company is committed to providing a diverse set of unique, duly researched, well-structured and risk-mitigated shari'ah compliant investment opportunities to its clients, with a view to achieve consistent and superior returns in the fields of venture capital, private equity, infrastructure and real estate. Under the leadership of a committed group of prominent shareholders and investors, the GII team enjoys a collective experience in investments, strategic management, finance and accounting. GII and its team have a track record of managing $2.5 billion in assets and securing $5.5 billion in debt and in excess of $1.0 billion in equity and M&A financing.

GII Tech Ventures, GII's venture fund, is a Luxembourg based, shari'ah compliant Fund focused on mid stage disruptive technology companies based in North America. These companies have proven products with strong customer validation, are in early stages of revenue, unique competitive positioning, a strong team and experienced existing investors. The platform further leverages GII's offshore business development experience to facilitate the international market penetration of its portfolio companies, as well as provides them with invaluable access to an exclusive network of UNHWIs and institutional investors.

To learn more, visit us at www.gii.ae and www.giitech.ae, or contact us at [email protected].

SOURCE Nymi
NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- OnlineSchoolsCenter.com has released their picks of the 20 best online schools for Master's in Cyber Security degree programs. In gathering data from numerous websites, emphasis was placed upon the diversity and quality of course work, reputation of institution, format of online course delivery, and the success of students in graduating. The list of best 20 online master's of cyber security programs are presented in no particular order.

The ranking can be viewed here:

http://www.onlineschoolscenter.com/best-online-schools-masters-cyber-security-degree-programs/

The need for qualified cyber security practitioners is rapidly growing in both the public and private sectors. Specialists in this field plan and carry out programs to protect their organizations' computer information and network systems. As web-based technology and reliance upon secure networked information systems have increased, so has the need to set up defenses against ever more sophisticated methods of hacking, cyber-crime, and cyber warfare. Personal, economic, and governmental information is now maintained and exchanged electronically within and across networked information systems. According to U.S. News & World Report, "Cyber-crime and cyber warfare are some of the most severe threats the US faces today. Hackers have the ability to attack millions of people, stealing personal information and committing virtual espionage from all over the world. Cyber-crime is also a chief concern for the US government."

A master's degree in cyber security equips graduates to prevent and detect such attacks in the interests of personal, economic and national privacy and security. The following is a list of 20 online cyber security master's degree programs that combine academic excellence with a proven track record of student retention and graduation.

According to researcher, Jared Goff, "Cyber-crime and cyber warfare are ever present and growing threats as every area of private, social, economic, governmental and military information is located, preserved and exchanged using electronic networks. Cyber security experts are, therefore, in increasing demand. This explains why the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts rapid growth in this field over the next decade. In order to meet this growth, colleges and universities are developing and offering excellent online degree programs to meet the growing and rapidly evolving cyber security needs."

The list of 20 examples includes:

Iowa State University; Ames, Iowa

University of Denver; Denver, Colorado

Depaul University; Chicago, Illinois

University of Alabama-Birmingham: Collat School of Business; Birmingham, Alabama

Regis University; Denver, Colorado

Robert Morris University; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Syracuse University; Syracuse, New York

George Washington University; Washington, District of Columbia

Lewis University; Romeoville, Illinois

Boston University; Boston, Massachusetts

Saint Leo University; Saint Leo, Florida

Florida Institute of Technology; Melbourne, Florida

Norwich University Online; Northfield, Vermont

Brandeis University; Waltham, Massachusetts

Northeastern University; Boston, Massachusetts

Northwestern University; Evanston, Illinois

Penn State World Campus; University Park, Pennsylvania

Liberty University Online; Lynchburg, Virginia

Nova Southeastern University; Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Maryville University; St. Louis, Missouri

OnlineSchoolsCenter.com reviews publicly available data and then produces independent ranking assessments of various educational programs and college facilities as well as student guides and resources. The mission of OnlineSchoolsCenter.com is to be a vital resource for potential students making one of the most important decisions of their lives. OnlineSchoolsCenter.com recognizes that no ranking system is perfect and recommends that their ratings be used only as a general guide for choosing a quality school.

Contact: Jared Goff

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 314-873-1866

SOURCE OnlineSchoolsCenter.com

Related Links

http://www.onlineschoolscenter.com


REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- OpenGov, the leader in government performance management technology, today announced a $30 million Series C financing round led by the Emerson Collective, the social impact organization established by Laurene Powell Jobs. OpenGov has raised more than $75 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Thrive Capital since its founding in 2012. The latest financing will be used to accelerate OpenGov's growth through investments across engineering, sales, and marketing, as the company continues to build its OpenGov Smart Government Cloud to power more effective and accountable governments.

"OpenGov is transforming the way the public sector operates, and in turn, how citizens engage with their communities," said OpenGov CEO and Co-Founder Zac Bookman. "This new investment will help us build more smart solutions for government, harnessing the power of technology to equip public officials with the tools they need to better serve and support their citizens."

OpenGov now works with more than 1,500 governments across the U.S, and has doubled its customer base since last year. The OpenGov Smart Government Cloud is powering governments of all sizes, including recent partnerships with the Cities of Boston, Phoenix, Birmingham Alabama and the State of West Virginia.

"OpenGov is on a mission to improve the performance of government," said Emerson Collective Founder and President Laurene Powell Jobs. "With this investment, we hope to help the company lead a movement for government effectiveness and accountability, empowering citizens to drive positive impact in communities across the country. We believe in OpenGov's ability to improve the way government and citizens engage with each other by putting modern tools at the service of our democracy."

Beginning with its initial groundbreaking software for financial transparency, OpenGov has built easy to use software to solve complex problems for the public sector. The fully integrated OpenGov Smart Government Cloud now includes an end-to-end budgeting solution, an operational intelligence and reporting solution, and open data solutions.

Governments across the country using these OpenGov solutions have experienced firsthand how the company's technology powers more effective and accountable government. Customers have seen 50% time savings in budgeting and reporting, have freed up 1% or more of their budgets for re-allocation, have cut information requests by 20%, and have seen dramatic improvements in transparency and trust in their communities. In December 2014, the State of Ohio started working with OpenGov to bring "checkbook-level" spending detail to all of Ohio's local governments. Since then, Ohio has gone from #47 out of 50 states in financial transparency to #1 for the past two years in a row, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group's Follow the Money Report.

About OpenGov

OpenGov is the leader in government performance management, with easy-to-use cloud software for better budgeting, improved operational intelligence, and comprehensive open data. OpenGov solutions give governments the right tools and relevant data for more informed decision-making and better outcomes for the public.

Over 1,500 public agencies in 48 states are part of the growing OpenGov network. Founded in 2012, OpenGov customers include the State Treasurer of Ohio, the city of Minneapolis, MN; Maricopa County, AZ; and Washington, DC. OpenGov is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Emerson Collective, 8VC, and Thrive Capital and has headquarters in Redwood City, CA.

SOURCE OpenGov

Related Links

https://opengov.com


According to a recent Morgan Stanley survey, 84 percent of millennials want the companies they invest in to align with their values. OpenInvest meets this opportunity with an innovative platform that allows consumers to invest with their hearts, without having to compromise financial returns. The company's investment screens include climate change, fossil fuels, weapons manufacturers, gender equality, LGBTQ workplace treatment, deforestation, tobacco, companies funding the Dakota Access Pipeline, and companies supporting President Trump, which can be freely mixed and matched to construct a personalized portfolio. Investors can further customize by including or excluding individual companies, while their portfolio auto-rebalances to maintain diversification and broad tracking of the market.

"We launched OpenInvest last September and experienced explosive growth in the wake of the presidential election and increased social activism," said Conor Murray, chief executive officer of OpenInvest. "We are building a new class of 'activist-passive' investors, who can use OpenInvest's proprietary tools to easily divest-invest based on their passions and values, while portfolios auto-rebalance to stay broadly tracking the performance of the market."

"OpenInvest is democratizing a movement that has already captured a significant percentage of institutional dollars, but in a much more powerful, granular, and approachable way," said Alex Rampell, general partner, Andreessen Horowitz. "We're thrilled to become part of OpenInvest, as we see a strong team that uniquely balances financial pedigree and social activism, with a laser-focused mission to fundamentally transform how consumers can drive social action through smart investing."

OpenInvest is the culmination of decades of experience in building financial products and in non-profits. Murray met CTO, Phillip Wei, while working together at Bridgewater Associates, as they spearheaded key technology systems that helped fuel its growth into the world's largest hedge fund over the past decade. Wei then went on to co-found Deliveroo, a consumer-tech unicorn based in the UK. Looking to make a difference for everyday investors and the world, they left their positions to team up with Josh Levin, an impact investing specialist who most recently managed the Sustainable Finance Program at the World Wildlife Fund.

OpenInvest plans to use the funding to fuel hiring, continue to develop the product, and accelerate customer growth.

To get started, visit openinvest.co and sign up for a new account. Follow OpenInvest on Facebook and Twitter.

About OpenInvest

OpenInvest is the future of investing  one that is honest, personalized, and empowering. The company was founded by a unique a combination of finance and nonprofit leaders who want to make the world a better place. They realized that when it comes to investing, most people are forced to finance corporate practices with which they may strongly disagree (e.g. climate change denial, weapons production, discrimination, and deforestation, to name a few), while actually overpaying in fees! OpenInvest changes all this. We're a Public Benefit Corporation, committed to total transparency, incubated in Y Combinator, and backed by some of the most powerful names in Silicon Valley. We use proprietary technology to empower your values, and let you take action, while your investments stay diversified and broadly tracking the performance of the market.

About Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz backs bold entrepreneurs who move fast, think big, and are committed to building the next major franchises in technology. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the firm provides entrepreneurs with access to expertise and insights in innovation, executive and technical talent, market intelligence, policy and regulatory affairs, business development, and marketing and brand-building.

Media Contacts:

Melissa Barto/ Jill Fox

JCUTLER media group

[email protected] / [email protected]

OpenInvest is an investment adviser registered with the SEC. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Please see our website at openinvest.co for more information about the merits and risks of investing with OpenInvest.

SOURCE OpenInvest

Related Links

https://www.openinvest.co


NASHVILLE, Tenn., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Two mechanics employed by Federal Express Corp. (FedEx) filed a nationwide class action lawsuit alleging that the international logistics and transportation company violated the pension rights of thousands of its employees who took military leave to serve in the National Guard and Reserves, according to Outten & Golden LLP and the Law Office of Joe Napiltonia.

The lawsuit comes just days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the formula FedEx applied to make pension contributions for employees who take military leave is "at odds" with federal law. The Sixth Circuit's opinion, Savage v. Federal Express Corp. et al, No. 16-5244 (6th Cir. 2017), is available here.

The class action complaint filed today alleges that since 2002 FedEx mechanics and other employees who regularly earn overtime pay have been deprived of pension contributions mandated by the federal Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

The lead plaintiffs are Clifton Cunningham, a FedEx mechanic who works in Tennessee, and Don Teed, a FedEx mechanic who works in Massachusetts.

The plaintiffs and proposed class are represented by Peter Romer-Friedman of Outten & Golden LLP, a law firm that represents workers in class action litigation, and Joseph Napiltonia of the Law Office of Joseph Napiltonia, a firm owned and operated by a former Navy SEAL.

Peter Romer-Friedman of Outten & Golden LLP's Washington, D.C. office said, "Service members deserve to receive the full pension benefits they have earned. Through this lawsuit, we hope to deliver justice for thousands of reservists who honorably served in the military."

Joseph Napiltonia of the Law Office of Joe Napiltonia, in Franklin, Tenn., said "I applaud Clif Cunningham and Don Teed for having the courage to stand up for their fellow veterans and co-workers."

The case is Cunningham v. Federal Express Corp. et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-00845 (M.D. Tenn.).

Contacts: Peter Romer-Friedman, 202-847-4402, 718-938-6132, [email protected] ; and Joseph Napiltonia, 615-336-6882, [email protected].

SOURCE Outten & Golden LLP

Related Links

http://www.outtengolden.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ReferWell, creator of the online ReferWell platform for automating patient referrals, today announced the addition Palmetto Proactive Healthcare to their expanding client network. By closing the loop between patients, payers, and primary- and specialist-care providers, the ReferWell platform facilitates patient access to services that fall outside Palmetto Proactive's primary care focus.

Palmetto Proactive, an innovative direct primary care practice operating several offices across South Carolina, joins a growing list of providers that have implemented the ReferWell platform. The system enables primary care doctors to immediately book appointments for their patients at convenient specialist-care providers who accept the patient's insurance and can perform the needed procedure, which has the effect of doubling patient compliance with the referral versus the traditional phone and fax method. The system also makes it easy for providers to share visit results, which has been shown to improve care coordination and patient outcomes.

"We believe that managing patient care proactively is the best way to deliver better health and a more satisfying patient experience," said Dr. Jerome Aya-Ay, CEO and founder of Palmetto Proactive Healthcare. "ReferWell fits perfectly into our philosophy and helps us execute on our mission more effectively."

"Across our health system nationwide, nearly half of referrals go unfulfilled  in some populations, well more than that. It adds up to more than 24 million missed appointments each year  with the associated detriment to patient outcomes  that we aim to eliminate," said Vytas Kisielius, CEO of ReferWell. "We salute Palmetto Proactive Healthcare for their commitment to improve their patients' care, and are honored to be their partner in that effort."

The ReferWell platform is HIPAA and HITECH compliant. All PHI (Protected Health Information) is encrypted in order to ensure patient privacy and made visible to only the specific providers who are engaged in that patient's care.

About Palmetto Proactive Healthcare

Palmetto Proactive Healthcare, with locations in Greenville, Spartanburg and Columbia, South Carolina, is a direct primary care family medicine practice. Their philosophy is to unite physician and patient in a proactive partnership that focuses on prevention and wellness.

About ReferWell

ReferWell offers a secure, cloud-based referral management platform created by doctors for doctors. Our revolutionary platform balances all aspects of the referral workflow to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payers across a variety of networks and EMR systems for major health care organizations, clinics and physician groups. For more information, please visit www.referwell.com.

SOURCE ReferWell

Related Links

http://www.referwell.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BCM One, a leading technology solutions provider, announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Paula Como Kauth, Senior Director of Marketing, to its prestigious 2017 Women of the Channel list. The executives who comprise this annual list span the IT channel, representing vendors, distributors, solution providers and other organizations that figure prominently in the channel ecosystem. Each is recognized for her outstanding leadership, vision and unique role in driving channel growth and innovation.

CRN editors select the Women of the Channel honorees based on their professional accomplishments, demonstrated expertise and ongoing dedication to the IT channel.

Como Kauth brings a blend of experience working in various work cultures, from successful growth companies to a Fortune 50 corporate enterprise, with an entrepreneurial drive to grow the bottom line. Como Kauth was recruited to BCM One close to a year ago, to build the corporate marketing communications team to enhance brand awareness and overall sales for the company, with a particular focus on driving channel sales which makes-up 60% of the sales revenue for the company. Since assuming her role as marketing chief at BCM One, Como Kauth has managed to increase quantifiable results by increasing lead generation by over 70%, which has resulted in the recruitment of quality new partners to the channel program. In addition, she has incorporated various strategic events and sales trainings for existing partners, which has strengthened sales opportunities month after month. After only six months into her position, Como Kauth was awarded with a spot on BCM One's Exclusive President's Circle Trip for having the most impact on the business in the shortest amount of time.

"These extraordinary executives support every aspect of the channel ecosystem, from technical innovation to marketing to business development, working tirelessly to keep the channel moving into the future," said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. "They are creating and elevating channel partner programs, developing fresh go-to-market strategies, strengthening the channel's network of partnerships and building creative new IT solutions, among many other contributions. We congratulate all the 2017 Women of the Channel on their stellar accomplishments and look forward to their future success."

"Paula is one of the most effective professionals I have had the pleasure to work with in my 25 years at BCM One. She is the rare executive who seamlessly weaves together traditional marketing and business strategies with modern techniques, resulting in a customized marketing approach to fit each individual program," stated, John Cunningham, Founder & Co-CEO of BCM One.

The 2017 Women of the Channel list will be featured in the June issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/wotc. To view Como Kauth's bio on the Woman of the Channel site, click here.

For more information about BCM One, visit www.bcmone.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

ABOUT BCM ONE

Founded and headquartered in New York City in 1991, BCM One provides a single source for truly integrated technology solutions that help advance a company's business objectives. With relationships with over 80 technology suppliers, BCM One offers unified communications, managed solutions, cloud solutions, telecom expense management solutions and connectivity solutions. Companies can engage with BCM for the planning, network design, deployment and/or management of their technology solutions.

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.

2017. The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

For Media Inquiries: BCM One Public Relations



The Channel Company Contact:



Melanie Turpin The Channel Company

(508) 416-1195 [email protected]



SOURCE BCM One Public Relations

Related Links

http://www.bcmone.com


HARRISBURG, Pa., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine met with Dauphin County Coroner Graham Hetrick to discuss the Wolf Administration's prescribing guidelines for opioids and benzodiazepines and the opioid epidemic's devastating effects on Pennsylvanians.

"The combination of opioid painkillers with a benzodiazepine medications, like Xanax or Valium, can be deadly," said Dr. Levine. "With Governor Wolf's leadership, we are working with medical professionals to protect Pennsylvanians from the risk of overdose to save lives and make our communities safer. I thank Coroner Hetrick and his team for helping us spread this message."

Benzodiazepines, sometimes called "benzos," can be prescribed for treating aliments such as panic disorder, insomnia, and seizures. When used in conjunction with opioids, studies find that the chances for an accidental drug overdose increase.

Working with the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, the Department of Health has created a set of evidence-based, specialty-specific opioid prescribing guidelines to encourage judicious prescribing of the medication and reduce the number of opioids in distribution. The departments have completed the following guidelines:

Opioids to Treat Chronic Noncancer Pain;

Emergency Department Pain Treatment Guidelines;

Opioids in Dental Practice;

Opioid Dispensing Guidelines;

Obstetrics and Gynecology Pain Treatment;

Geriatric Pain;

The Treatment of Pregnant Mothers with Opioid Use Disorder;

Safe Prescribing of Benzodiazepines for Acute Treatment of Anxiety and Insomnia; and

Orthopedics and Sports Medicine.

"As coroner, I see far too often the deadly and devastating effects of the opioid epidemic," said Coroner Hetrick. "The disease of addiction takes lives and destroys families. With compassion, team work, and practicality, we aim to break the malicious grip addiction has on so many of our neighborhoods."

The Wolf Administration holds the fight against heroin and prescription opioids as a top priority. To continue the battle against the opioid epidemic in Pennsylvania, Governor Wolf included the following proposals in his 2017-18 budget:

Expanding access to life-saving naloxone by providing $10 million through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to first responders, law enforcement, and other public entities across the commonwealth;

through the Commission on Crime and Delinquency to first responders, law enforcement, and other public entities across the commonwealth; Maximizing federal Cures Act funding, which includes $26.2 million in each of the next two years for Pennsylvania , to expand access to treatment services, particularly for individuals who are uninsured or underinsured; and

in each of the next two years for , to expand access to treatment services, particularly for individuals who are uninsured or underinsured; and Providing $3.4 million to expand specialty drug courts to expand treatment strategies that divert offenders into more meaningful treatment and recovery.

Some of the administration's other initiatives to fight the opioid epidemic include:

Working with the legislature to establish a new law limiting the number of opioids that can be prescribed to a minor and to individuals discharged from emergency rooms to seven days;

Strengthening the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) through the legislative process so that doctors are required and able to check the system each time they prescribe opioids and benzodiazepines;

Forming new prescribing guidelines to help doctors who provide opioid prescriptions to their patients, including guidelines specific to orthopedics and sports medicine;

Creating the warm handoff guideline to facilitate referrals from the emergency department to substance abuse treatment;

Teaming with the legislature to establish education curriculum on safe prescribing for medical schools;

Educating and encouraging patients to properly use, store and dispose of unused prescription medications through drug take-back initiatives, and expanding the number of drug take-back locations to more than 500; and

Increasing the availability of naloxone.

The main function of the Dauphin County Coroner's office is to determine the cause and manner of death in cases where the death is determined to fall under coroner jurisdiction. The coroner's office investigators and staff treat each death with respect, dignity, and kindness.

If you or someone you know is suffering from the disease of addiction, call 1-800-662-HELP or visit www.pa.gov/opioids for treatment options. For more information on the fight against opioid abuse in Pennsylvania, visit the Department of Health website at www.health.pa.gov or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

MEDIA CONTACT: April Hutcheson, 717-787-1783 or [email protected]



SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Health

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us


"During the crafting of the 2016-2020 State Plan on Aging , we repeatedly heard calls for the need to better serve and support diverse communities, including the need to bolster and increase cultural competency," Secretary Osborne said. "By further engaging and communicating with key LGBT community stakeholders, the department has begun to focus much needed attention on the needs of LGBT older adults, many of whom have struggled to simply survive amidst a lifetime of social isolation. Today's roundtable discussion demonstrates the Wolf Administration's commitment to serve and protect all of Pennsylvania's seniors who deserve to live healthy, happy lives with dignity and respect."

The roundtable discussion, which included State Senator Pat Browne and State Representatives, Peter Schweyer and Mike Schlossberg, provided insight into health challenges for LGBT older adults, challenges for older adults living with HIV, experiences of LGBT older adults in senior-serving organizations, and advocacy for LGBT older adults with LBGT community advocates, including Adrian Shanker (Executive Director of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center); Sean Straub (Mayor of Milford, PA and Executive Director of The SERO Project); Patricia Sullivan, Ed.D. (Retired Hospital Administrator); and Jim Palmquist (Advocate and Former AARP of PA President), sharing their insights and experiences.

Specific efforts of the Department of Aging include participating on the Governor's LGBT Workgroup, acquiring diversity training for department leadership staff and its stakeholders, and evaluating ways to collect appropriate data on LGBT seniors who are accessing services.

"The conversation and advocacy for LGBT older adults must continue to be strengthened and fostered at all levels of government and in communities throughout the country," said Secretary Osborne. "While the Older Americans Act calls us to be visible and effective advocates for our seniors, the actions steps that have been taken and those being planned underscores our desire to foster a greater understanding of LGBT aging by developing strategies to ensure that every aspect of our long-term services and supports system is accessible, inclusive, welcoming, and culturally sensitive to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center provides arts & culture, health promotion, and youth programs as well as supportive services and a Training Institute to strengthen and support the LGBT community across the Greater Lehigh Valley. For more information visit www.bradburysullivancenter.org.

For more information on the Department of Aging and services for older adults, visit aging.pa.gov.

MEDIA CONTACT: Drew Wilburne, 717-705-3702

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of Aging

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us


READING, Pa., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Research published by PharmaForce International (PFI) shows 31% of pharmaceutical and biotech companies are deploying multiple oncology sales forces that support individual products. This adjustment is part of an effort to capitalize on opportunities to increase sales for specific (and separate) indications. The report examined a cross-section of over 30 companies profiled in PFI's annual Oncology benchmarking study.

Lorrie Berg-Henne, Director of Marketing and Sales at PharmaForce International, says many cancer medications have recently been approved for multiple indications by the FDA, with a particularly sharp increase in the approval of immuno-oncology drugs.

"Companies realize that these new indications are patient-specific, and a specialized sales approach is necessary to drive product uptake across tumor types," Berg-Henne said.

"This is a growing trend we have been noticing in the oncology space," she continued. "We have been monitoring the oncology commercial landscape for over 15 years, and have witnessed a proliferation of such approaches. It keeps the conversation focused on one specific area, which may be helpful for clinicians and their patients."

Additional industry trends captured in the report include insight specific to:

Expanded roles for Key Account Managers

Newly deployed field-based Marketing Managers

Adoption of Diagnostic Genetic Testing by pharmaceutical companies

Emerging biosimilar competitors

Newly deployed Thought Leader Teams to engage Key Opinion Leaders

For more information on the report mentioned above, please contact Lorrie Berg-Henne at [email protected] or by phone at 610-370-2906.

PharmaForce International (PFI) is a competitive intelligence firm with over two decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. PFI has become the market leader in commercial operations benchmarking and competitive intelligence. The globally focused company employs market place experts uniquely qualified to perform research required by clients in most major pharmaceutical markets around the world, including Europe, India, Japan, Latin America, and the United States.

SOURCE PharmaForce International
STAR, Idaho, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Physical Rehabilitation Network (PRN) announces the opening of its newest clinics under the RehabAuthority brand. With additions in Star, Idaho, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, RehabAuthority now operates 18 outpatient physical therapy clinics.

The facility in Star, Idaho, is co-owned and managed by Eric Williams, PT, DPT. "RehabAuthority is known for talented clinicians and a strong commitment to their patients," said Williams. "It's an honor to be part of the rehab family that has helped so many patients improve their lives." The Star clinic features custom rehabilitation, injury prevention programs and performance enhancement services.

"This is a very exciting period for RehabAuthority," stated Regional Vice President Galen Danielson, PT, DPT, OCS, Cert MDT, CSMT, CSCS. "With our new clinics and inaugural expansion into the Wyoming market, we look forward to serving these communities and growing to meet their needs."

Leading the Cheyenne, WY clinic are Charlene Sheamansmith, PT, DPT, and Stacy Roth, PT, DPT. Both Charlie and Stacy have been active-duty military members and bring a wealth of experience to the new clinic as co-owners and managers. The Cheyenne facility showcases state-of-the-art equipment to augment the high quality of care provided by the team of clinical experts. Visit rehabauthority.com for a comprehensive list of locations and services.

About Physical Rehabilitation Network

Physical Rehabilitation Network, LLC (PRN) is a privately held physical therapy organization based in Carlsbad, California. PRN is prominently recognized as the leading therapist-friendly rehab organization in the western part of the United States through its partnership model with premier physical and occupational therapists. The company currently operates over 100 locations providing local autonomy and branding to its therapist partners while streamlining all traditional overhead activities of running a practice.

PRN is actively seeking high-quality, entrepreneurially driven physical and occupational therapists interested in partnering with PRN as the company expands its footprint providing opportunities for therapists to own their own clinic. For more information on PRN services and its model, please contact Michael Rice at 312.560.6020 / [email protected], or visit us at www.prnpt.com.

Contact:

Dawn Wild, Director of Marketing

Phone: 720-299-4808

Email: [email protected]

Related Images

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image2.jpg

Related Links

Physical Rehabilitation Network

RehabAuthority

SOURCE Physical Rehabilitation Network (PRN)

Related Links

http://www.prnpt.com


BOSTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Block & Leviton LLP, counsel to the proposed class representatives ("Plaintiffs") and lead counsel for the putative class in two related actions pending in Multnomah County, Oregon, In re Rentrak Corporation Shareholders Litigation, No. 15CV27429, and Hulme v. Livek, et al., No. 17CV04984, announced today that Plaintiffs filed a motion last week seeking preliminary approval of a $19 million settlement.

Block & Leviton believes this to be one of (and perhaps the) largest cash settlement(s) in the history of merger-and-acquisition litigation in Oregon. This is also one of the most significant merger litigation settlements in any jurisdiction in recent years. The well-respected economics firm, Cornerstone Research, has published data for all settlements of merger litigation, throughout the country, since 2010. Of the settlements identified by Cornerstone, this is the fourth-largest settlement of any merger litigation arising from a transaction valued at less than $1 billion. And it is the largest settlement of merger litigation arising from a transaction valued at less than $1 billion that did not involve a sale to a controlling stockholder or disproportionate consideration paid to a controlling stockholder.

The litigation arose from the all-stock acquisition of Rentrak Corporation ("Rentrak") by comScore, Inc. ("comScore," OTC: SCOR) (the "Transaction") that closed on January 2016. Several weeks after the Transaction closed, comScore announced an investigation into accounting issues that caused its stock price to drop significantly.

If the proposed settlement is approved and becomes effective, members of the putative classformer Rentrak shareholders who received common stock of comScore in exchange for their Rentrak stock in the Transactionwill be able to seek partial compensation for their losses from the settlement fund.

The proposed settlement will not release Rentrak shareholders' claims under the federal securities laws against comScore, its officers or directors, or its auditor, Ernst & Young. Plaintiffs are continuing to pursue federal securities claims against comScore's officers and directors and Ernst & Young in a related action pending in Multnomah County, Oregon.

If the Court grants preliminary approval of the settlement, members of the Class will receive a court-approved notice providing additional information about the settlement, including the date for a hearing to determine whether to grant final approval of the settlement. In the interim, if have questions about your legal rights, or if you have information relevant to this matter, please contact attorney Joel Fleming or Jason Leviton of Block & Leviton LLP at (617) 398-5600 or at [email protected] or [email protected]. A copy of the Stipulation of Settlement, the Motion for Preliminary Approval, and the operative complaints is available online at http://www.blockesq.com/rentrak

Block & Leviton represents investors for violations of securities laws throughout the country. The firm's lawyers have collectively been prosecuting securities cases for over 70 years, have recovered billions of dollars for investors and represent some of the nation's largest institutional investors.

This notice may constitute attorney advertising.

Contact:

BLOCK & LEVITON LLP

Jason Leviton, [email protected]

Joel Fleming, [email protected]

(617) 398-5600

SOURCE Block & Leviton LLP

Related Links

http://www.blockesq.com


Story + Data = The Future of Visual Communications "Prezi was inspired to unite with Infogram because of our shared mission to help people make better decisions by providing more effective tools for visual communication," said Peter Arvai, Prezi's CEO and co-founder. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the data that backs it up makes it credible. And without a story, data falls flat in effectiveness."

"Joining forces with Prezi means our mission to bring beautiful and informative infographics and other data visualization technologies to more users will happen even faster," said Mikko Jarvenpaa, Infogram's CEO. "With Prezi, we will continue our work as a world leader in data visualization to create more powerful, delightful and useful products than ever before."

Founded in 2012 and based in Latvia, Infogram has exploded in popularity and emerged as an innovator in the area of data visualization and has over 3 million users, who have created over 5 million charts and infographics that have been viewed over 1.5 billion times. Infogram conveniently offers multiple data import options. Users can create a variety of charts, maps, and infographics by simply uploading a file, connecting to various cloud services, or taking advantage of Infogram's API.

Infogram has been adopted by a wide variety of customers, including media companies, key businesses, and educational institutions. Infogram is also the most successful startup that has originated from Latvia--just as Prezi is the most successful startup that incubated in Hungary and bridged that success to create a global company with offices in San Francisco, Budapest and Mexico City.

What's Next?

Infogram will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Prezi and will remain in Latvia. Prezi will continue to invest in research and development of Infogram and will create a Data Visualization Center of Excellence in Latvia.

About Infogram

Infogram is a data visualization tool that helps you create interactive charts, infographics and maps. It is used by marketing teams, newsrooms and students all over the world. Founded in 2012 and with offices in Riga (Latvia) and San Francisco, Infogram rapidly became the web's favorite data visualization tool thanks to its simplicity, functionality and strong design aesthetic. Our users have created over 5 million infographics and charts that are viewed by over 50 million people every month. For more information, please visit www.infogr.am

About Prezi

Prezi is the presentation platform that helps you connect more powerfully with your audience and customers. Unlike slides, Prezi's single, interactive canvas encourages conversation and collaboration, making your overall presentation more engaging, persuasive, and memorable. Prezi's latest offering, Prezi Next, is a full-lifecycle presentation platform so everyone can easily create visually stunning presentations, deliver them in a more natural and conversational way, and analyze their effectiveness. Founded in 2009, and with offices in San Francisco, Budapest, and Mexico City, Prezi now fosters a community of over 85 million users and over 325 million Prezi presentations around the world. Its investors include Accel Partners, Spectrum Equity, and TED conferences. For more information, please visit www.prezi.com.

SOURCE Prezi

Related Links

http://www.prezi.com


HOUSTON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A Houston jury awarded Prime Natural Resources Inc. $41.6 million in an insurance breach of contract dispute with certain underwriters at Lloyd's, London, over offshore oil facilities damaged by Hurricane Rita 12 years ago.

After six weeks of testimony, the state district court jury in Harris County awarded a remarkable $27.3 million in punitive damages after finding the insurers not only breached the contract, but also violated the state insurance code. Actual damages were $1.8 million for the insurers' failure to cover repairs from the 2005 storm and $10.9 million for bad faith. The jury also awarded $1.6 million in legal fees.

The underwriters insured Prime's oil and gas drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico under a Wellsure policy, one often used by the energy industry. Following Hurricane Rita, Prime spent millions in repairing its damaged platform, but the underwriters refused to pay.

"The insurers were claiming that they insured the offshore oil well, but they would not pay for any of the individual parts of the oil well that were damaged. It would be like saying your car is insured, but your bumper isn't. The jury didn't buy that argument," said John Zavitsanos, founding partner of Houston-based Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA. Mr. Zavitsanos tried the case with associates Sammy Ford IV, Foster Johnson and Edward Goolsby.

Mr. Zavitsanos said a Lloyd's witness acknowledged this was the first jury trial in Texas testing the way insurance companies pay under these Wellsure policies and could thus create a precedent for how these policies are interpreted in the future regarding offshore oil wells.

The case is Prime Natural Resources, Inc., v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London et al., case number 2015-51137 in the 129th District Court in Harris County.

Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C., or AZA, is a Houston-based law firm that is home to true courtroom lawyers with a formidable track record in complex commercial litigation, including energy, intellectual property, and business dispute cases. AZA is recognized in Chambers USA 2016 among the best in Texas commercial law; U.S. News & World Report and The Best Lawyers in America as one of the country's best commercial litigation firms for 2017; and Law360 as one of only 13 Texas Powerhouse law firms. National corporate counsel named AZA one of the country's best in client service among law firms serving the Fortune 1000. Read more about the firm at www.azalaw.com.

For more information, please contact Mary Flood at 800-559-4534 or [email protected].

SOURCE Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing P.C. or AZA

Related Links

https://www.azalaw.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. announced today its participation at the 35th Annual American Payroll Association Congress, and several of its authors will be speaking at the conference. Wolters Kluwer authors who will be presenting at the Congress include:

Deborah Ellis Timberlake, Esq. , GPHR, CPP, author of Payroll Answer Book, who will speak about "Quality Enhancements for Payroll" and "Business Continuity Planning: It's Not Just Disaster Recovery Anymore";

, GPHR, CPP, author of who will speak about "Quality Enhancements for Payroll" and "Business Continuity Planning: It's Not Just Disaster Recovery Anymore"; Valerie Alexander , CPP, author of California Payroll Guide, who will present at the workshop "Is Payroll in California that Difficult?";

, CPP, author of who will present at the workshop "Is Payroll in that Difficult?"; Michele Honomichl , contributor to Payroll Answer Book, who will speak about "The Global Automation Cycle: It's Not Just Finance Anymore!", "Payroll in the Gulf Cooperation Council" and "Shadow Payrolls."

"We have been attending the APA Congress for over a decade and we always value this opportunity to engage with Payroll Professionals at this exciting and informative event," states Chris Carr, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.'s Payroll Portfolio Director. "We are once again pleased to have the opportunity to see some Wolters Kluwer's valued experts, such as Deborah Timberlake, Valerie Alexander, and Michele Honomichl, provide their valuable insight and guidance on issues that attendees are dealing with on a daily basis."

Held at Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida, the Annual American Payroll Association Congress is the world's largest payroll, accounts payable and finance expo, featuring more than 100 exhibitors, networking opportunities and educational workshops.

To learn more about Wolters Kluwer's resources, stop by Booth #1301 at the expo at the American Payroll Association Congress.

About The Cheetah Payroll Suite

The Cheetah Payroll Suite provides current, accurate, and authoritative references and professional resources covering key topics vital to payroll professionals. It provides immediate access to news products, treatises, and other references covering virtually every state and federal payroll issue. It also provides practice-based tools that make key calculations and comparisons easier than ever. Payroll professionals can effectively manage all your payroll responsibilities with expert analysis and authoritative content (APA Basic Guide to Payroll, Complete Guide to Federal and State Garnishment, etc.) practice tools (State Payroll Law Compare), and current awareness (Federal and State Payroll Tracker).

About Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. is a part of Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX: WKL), a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2016 annual revenues of 4.3 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide.

For more information about Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., visit www.WoltersKluwerLR.com, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

Related Links

http://lrus.wolterskluwer.com


LAGUNA BEACH, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "I got to see the new Infusionarium at Miami Cancer Institute, on their pediatric oncology floor. It's like an interactive IMAX theater," said Ron Magill, Emmy award winning communications director for Zoo Miami. He made the comment as he was about to connect in a Live Event to a community of pediatric cancer patients in treatment at Infusionariums located in Miami, Tampa, and as far away as California.

Ron Magill, sharing his Zoo Miami animals with pediatric cancer patients in the Infusionarium Through the Infusionarium, Miami Cancer Institute patients generously share their "healing place" with kids all over the country.

Miami Cancer Institute had brought in Reimagine Well, not only to build multiple Infusionariums for their new cancer center, but also to survey patients on the places they believe would best support their healing. One of those places was an African Safari, an experience they can now do virtually anytime they want, and even theme their infusion room like a safari. But today, Miami Cancer Institute patients are connecting in real time, generously sharing their "healing place" with kids all over the country. "I can't take you all the way to Africa, but I will introduce you to some amazing animals!" Magill begins an incredibly animated Live Event that features an owl, gator, giant lizard, a talking parrot and huge boa constrictor."

"This is something that helps the children have less nausea during treatment. The families tell me their children want to come in to get their chemotherapy!" said Doured Daghistani, M.D. Medical Director, Pediatric Oncology for Miami Cancer Institute.

Former Disney Imagineer and Reimagine Well co-founder Roger Holzberg adds, "We helped the kids at Miami Cancer Institute form a Patient Vision Team to define their 'immersive healing places', and a Safari was just one of them. It's inspiring to see them share those places with pediatric patients in other parts of the country."

Reimagine Well currently has an extensive library of patient requested virtual reality experiences, live events, and rich media survivorship guides that patients and families are able to share with one another and experience as a community.

Dr. Daghistani adds, "They are not thinking about their chemo. We have had kids who are anxious, feeling sick, and after a few minutes in the Infusionarium they become happy, and they connect with each other."

Reimagine Well provides a proprietary platform and programs designed for chemotherapy, dialysis, physical therapy, assisted living, and radiation therapy; and has compiled an extensive library of immersive healing experiences and disease specific 'Survival Guides' hosted by renowned medical experts.

About Reimagine Well

Roger Holzberg and Leonard Sender, MD, founded Reimagine Well. Sender, a clinician and researcher with the Hyundai Cancer Institute at CHOC Children's Hospital in Orange County, California, is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. Holzberg is the founder of My Bridge 4 Life, a former award-winning Disney Imagineer, the first consulting Creative Director of the National Cancer Institute and a 13-year cancer survivor.

Learn more at ReimagineWell.com

Contact: Pam Carstens

Email: [email protected]

Website: reimaginewell.com

Phone: 805-990-1965

SOURCE Reimagine Well

Related Links

http://reimaginewell.com


DUBLIN, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Urinary Slings Market 2017-2021" report to their offering.

The global urinary slings market to grow at a CAGR of 10.12% during the period 2017-2021.



The report, Global Urinary Slings 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.

One trend in market is improving reimbursement policies. Urinary incontinence care management products are generally costly, requiring patients to spend substantially on its treatment. This can be an economic burden, as many insurance policies do not cover such products. Globally, countries are framing reimbursement policies for urinary sling procedures. For example, developed countries, such as the US, provide insurance cover for these products that is likely to create more demand for urinary slings as more people will be able to afford urinary sling surgeries. Over the past few years, there has been a favorable upgrade in Medicare (the official website of the US Government for medical health-related information) reimbursement in the US. Medicare pays physicians for services based on the submission of a claim using one or more specific Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes. Each CPT code has a Relative Value Unit (RVU) assigned to it, which when multiplied by the conversion factor and a geographical adjustment creates the compensation rate for a particular service.

According to the report, one driver in market is rise in geriatric population. A rising concern worldwide is the aging population in major countries, such as Japan, South Korea, China, Germany, and the US. An aging population means an increase in the number of people suffering from a wide range of chronic diseases, some that cause urinary incontinence. With an increase in aging population, there is also an increase in the number of urinary incontinence cases that requires proper treatment, such as urinary sling surgeries, and this provides a massive opportunity for the vendors in the market. The global adult incontinence market has grown by over 40% in the last five years, which propels the demand for developing innovative urinary slings that can ease the handling of the medical condition faced by the elderly population.

Key vendors



C. R. Bard

Boston Scientific

American Medical Systems

Coloplast



Other prominent vendors



Caldera Medical

Cook Medical

Ethicon US

ProSurg

Sofradim

Cogentix Medical



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: Geographical segmentation



PART 08: Market drivers



PART 09: Impact of drivers



PART 10: Market challenges



PART 11: Impact of drivers and challenges



PART 12: Market trends



PART 13: Vendor landscape



PART 14: Appendix



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/xbb73p/global_urinary

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


Announcing Debs' appointment, Barrett Stephens , the firm's Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are excited to welcome Talal to our firm, where he will provide an important new capability to increase our ability to serve new and existing clients. His unique skill set will be pivotal in providing risk management expertise to companies worldwide. And Talal joins us at a time when we are seeing a dynamic rise in the need for talent to address this growingly-complex environment." The firm's Chairman Russell Reynolds added, "Talal will be a great help to our board director clients who are concerned about risk, as well."

"Today's marketplace, with its constant regulatory flux and the emergence of disruptive technologies, increasingly demands the ability to anticipate developments and capture value through forward-looking risk decision-making," Debs said. "As a result, there has rarely been a more interesting time for CEOs and boards of directors to pose the question: 'do we have the right risk talent in place for the coming business cycle?'"

Prior to joining RSR Partners, Mr. Debs worked at J.P. Morgan for 15 years, most recently as an Executive Director in risk management, focused on energy, project finance, and insurance. Mr. Debs also has extensive experience in academic research and teaching within the field of the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics and relativity theory. He has served as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University, and on the teaching faculties of the London School of Economics and the American University of Beirut.

Mr. Debs earned his AB in Physics and History & Science from Harvard College, his MPhil in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, and his PhD in the philosophical foundations of physics, also from Cambridge. He serves as a Trustee of Gordon College, a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics, and a Director of Indian Harbor Yacht Club.

To learn more about RSR Partners' Risk Practice, click here.

RSR Partners is a leader in corporate governance consulting, board director and senior-level recruiting, and strategic talent advisory. The company was founded in 1993 by Russell S. Reynolds, Jr.

SOURCE RSR Partners

Related Links

http://www.rsrpartners.com


WARRENDALE, Pa., May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- rue21, Inc. ("rue21" or the "Company"), a leading teen specialty apparel retailer, today announced it has filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and has entered into agreements with certain of its lenders to reduce the Company's debt and provide additional capital in support of its restructuring.

rue21 expects to continue normal business operations in the ordinary course throughout this process.

The restructuring is an important step forward in rue21's ongoing business transformation into a more focused and highly performing retailer. Last month, the Company began the process of closing approximately 400 underperforming stores in its 1,179 store fleet in order to streamline operations, better align the size of its footprint with market realities, and focus on its hundreds of highly performing locations. rue21 may evaluate additional store closings as it continues to manage its real estate lease portfolio.

In conjunction with the restructuring, rue21 has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) with certain of its stakeholders that confirms the support of the Debtors' key constituents for the Debtors' restructuring process and contemplates, among other things, an emergence from chapter 11 proceedings in the fall of 2017 with a significantly deleveraged balance sheet. In particular, lenders holding 96.8% of the Company's secured term loan, bondholders representing 60.2% of the Company's issued and outstanding unsecured notes, and the Company's majority shareholder each executed the Restructuring Support Agreement.

The Company has also reached agreements, subject to the approval of the Court, to obtain up to $125 million in ABL debtor-in-possession financing from its existing ABL lenders and up to $50 million in new money term loan debtor-in-possession financing from a subset of its existing term loan lenders. This financing is intended to provide the Company with the liquidity necessary to support its ongoing business operations during the financial restructuring process. The new financing will support day-to-day operations during the reorganization, including:

Continuing employee wages without interruption;

Paying vendors in the ordinary course for all authorized goods and services provided on or after the filing date; and

Honoring all existing customer programsincluding gift cards.

Melanie Cox, Chief Executive Officer of rue21, said, "These actions are being undertaken with the goal of strengthening the Company's balance sheet, achieving a more efficient cost structure, and concentrating resources on a tighter retail footprint in order to pave the best path forward for rue21. Even in a challenging environment, we are fortunate that rue21 has highly relevant brands, an enthusiastic and loyal customer base, and hundreds of highly performing stores. The agreement with our lenders represents their confidence in rue21's future success even at a time of significant retail industry change. Looking ahead, I am confident that the outcome of this process will be a stronger and more sustainable rue21 for our customers, vendors and business partners."

The Company has made customary filings, including first day motions, with the Court, which, if granted, will help ensure a smooth transition into chapter 11 without disruption. These motions include, among other things, granting authority to pay pre-filing wages, salaries, and benefits, honor customer programs, and pay vendors and suppliers in the ordinary course for all goods and services provided on or after the filing date.

Information about the Company's chapter 11 filing can be found on its website at www.rue21.com/restructuring or on the website of its claims agent at www.kccllc.net/rue21. A toll free restructuring information line is also available by calling (888) 647-1738 or, if calling from outside the U.S. or Canada, (310) 751-2625.

rue21 has retained Kirkland & Ellis LLP as its legal advisor, Rothschild Inc. as its investment banker and financial advisor, and Berkeley Research Group, LLC as its restructuring advisor.

About rue21

rue21, a leading teen specialty retailer, believes that fashion plays an important role in the journey to self-discovery. Choose a style, make it your own. You're an individual, and you need fresh, feel-good pieces that let you totally own it. That's why the retailer works to make the latest trends affordable and available to anyone. Its mission is to make fashion everyone's playground. Headquartered just north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, rue21 currently operates 1,179 stores in 48 states in shopping malls, outlets and strip centers, and on its website. For more information, visit www.rue21.com. The freedom to be you is rue!

Contacts:

Ben Gross

rue21

(724) 776-9780

[email protected]

Peter Hill

Kekst

(212) 521-4859

[email protected]

SOURCE rue21

Related Links

http://www.rue21.com


"Wolfgang brings extensive experience helping companies navigate digital transformation. We are excited he is joining us and expect his insight on this critical topic to be invaluable to our clients across numerous industries," said Constantine Alexandrakis, leader of Russell Reynolds Associates' U.S. Region.

Bauriedel joins Russell Reynolds Associates from The Boston Consulting Group, where he served as Partner and Managing Director of the Digital Transformation Practice. Prior to that, Bauriedel was Partner in the Strategic Technology and Operations Practice at Oliver Wyman in Boston and New York. Earlier in his career, he held various leadership roles at AlixPartners, Kabel Baden-Wurttemberg and Accenture.

Bauriedel has a B.S. degree in computer science from the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and a B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He also earned a master's degree in computer science from the Technical University of Munich.

About Russell Reynolds Associates

Russell Reynolds Associates is a global leader in assessment, executive search and succession planning for boards of directors, chief executive officers and key roles within the C-suite. With more than 400 consultants in 47 offices around the world, we work closely with public, private and nonprofit organizations across all industries and regions. We help our clients build teams of transformational leaders who can meet today's challenges and anticipate the digital, economic, environmental and political trends that are reshaping the global business environment.

Contact: Vijaya Singh

Russell Reynolds Associates

212-351-1987

[email protected]

SOURCE Russell Reynolds Associates

Related Links

http://www.russellreynolds.com


QUINCY, Mass., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP PRESS, an SAP publishing partner, today announced that it will participate at SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference being held May 16-18 in Orlando, Florida. SAP PRESS will be exhibiting its best-selling guides to SAP solutions, including its newest book, SAP Hybris: Commerce, Marketing, Sales, Service, and Revenue with SAP, in the South Concourse. The book marks SAP PRESS' first foray into the new customer engagement solutions, and is poised to be the go-to resource for those looking to get started with SAP Hybris solutions.

SAP Hybris: Commerce, Marketing, Sales, Service, and Revenue with SAP

Written by a team of three authors, including a senior member of the Solution Management and Strategy team for SAP Hybris, the book looks at both on-premise and cloud options for the solution. Readers will learn about the functionality of the five main components of SAP Hybris solutions: sales, service, commerce, marketing and revenue. Also covered are mobility options and how to integrate SAP Hybris with other SAP solutions.

Sanjjeev K. Singh, co-author and managing partner at ASAR America, said the book fills a hole in the market for those working with SAP Hybris solutions. "Based on my interactions with many SAP customers, partners and consultants and reading many social media posts on SAP Hybris solutions, I came to the conclusion that there is a lot of confusion out there about the SAP Hybris portfolio of products," he said.

Sven Feurer, co-author and senior member of the Solution Management and Strategy team for SAP Hybris, says that the book answers those questions by providing "insights into SAP's strategy for marketing, commerce, sales, service and revenue. It explains how the SAP Hybris portfolio of products fit into SAP's strategy to go beyond customer relationship management and provide integrated front-office and back-office processes using SAP Hybris cloud solutions. Business process owners from sales, service, marketing, commerce and revenue can use this book as a ready reference guide while implementing SAP Hybris cloud solutions."

In addition to the SAP Hybris book, SAP PRESS will have copies of dozens of other books on hand, including guides to solutions like SAP S/4HANA, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Business One and more. Florian Zimniak, managing director for SAP PRESS, said SAPPHIRE NOW is a unique opportunity to interact with readers in person rather than over the pages of a book. "At SAPPHIRE NOW, we are able to directly connect with hundreds of our readers, many of them decision-makers and early-adopting SAP customers," he said. "Understanding which initiatives our readers are researching and investing in is crucial for planning new book publications."

SAP Hybris: Commerce, Marketing, Sales, Service, and Revenue with SAP is available in print, electronic and bundled editions and can be purchased via the SAP PRESS website and Amazon.com.

About SAP PRESS

SAP PRESS was founded in Bonn, Germany in 1999 as part of a joint venture between Rheinwerk Publishing and SAP. Today, it is the world's leading publisher on SAP topics, providing comprehensive book and e-book products on SAP topics for beginners and experts; SAP users and consultants; developers, administrators and IT managers. For more information, please visit http://www.sap-press.com.

SAP, SAPPHIRE NOW, Hybris, SAP S/4HANA, SAP Business One and other SAP products and services mentioned herein, as well as their respective logos, are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

For press inquiries and more information, contact:

Aja Walkes, Marketing Manager

2 Heritage Dr. Suite 305

Quincy, MA 02171

Office: (781) 228-5070 Ext. 210

[email protected]

SOURCE SAP PRESS

Related Links

http://www.sap-press.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP, a class action law firm dedicated to representing shareholders nationwide, is investigating a potential breach of fiduciary duty claim involving the board of directors of Investment Technology Group, Inc. (NYSE: ITG).

If you are a shareholder of Investment Technology Group and are interested in obtaining additional information regarding this investigation, free of charge, please visit us at: http://pjlfirm.com/investment-technology-group-inc/

You may also contact Robert H. Lefkowitz, Esq. either via email at [email protected] or by telephone at 212-725-1000. One of our attorneys will personally speak with you about the case at no cost or obligation.

Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP is a law firm exclusively committed to representing shareholders nationwide who are victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty and other types of corporate misconduct. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://pjlfirm.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

SOURCE Purcell Julie & Lefkowitz LLP

Related Links

http://www.pjlfirm.com


LONDON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The following documents (the "Documents") are available for viewing:

Prospectus Supplement dated 9 May 2017

Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE: RDS.A)(NYSE: RDS.B) unaudited consolidated interim financial statements as at and for the three month period ended 31 March 2017

Shell International Finance B.V. Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2016

The Documents must be read in conjunction with the Information Memorandum dated 9 August 2016, as supplemented by the first supplement dated 24 August 2016, the second supplement dated 7 November 2016, the third supplement dated 13 February 2017 and the fourth supplement dated 11 April 2017, relating to the Programme. The Information Memorandum constitutes a base prospectus for the purposes of Article 5.4 of Directive 2003/71/EC as amended. Full information on Shell International Finance B.V. and Royal Dutch Shell plc is only available on the basis of the Information Memorandum.

The Documents are available for viewing at the 'Financial Publications' section of Shell's website. To view the Documents, please paste the following URLs into the address bar of your browser.

Prospectus Supplement dated 9 May 2017

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/euro-medium-term-note-programme.html

Royal Dutch Shell plc unaudited consolidated interim financial statements as at and for the three month period ended 31 March 2017

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/quarterly-results/q1-2017.html

Shell International Finance B.V. Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2016

http://www.shell.com/investors/financial-reporting/debt-information/shell-international-finance-bv-reports.html

Other content available on Shell's website and the content of any other website accessible from hyperlinks on Shell's website is not incorporated into, and does not forms part of, this announcement.

The Documents have also been submitted to the National Storage Mechanism and will shortly be available for inspection at http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm.

DISCLAIMER - INTENDED ADDRESSEES

Please note that the information contained in the Information Memorandum may be addressed to and/or targeted at persons who are residents of particular countries (specified in the Information Memorandum) only and is not intended for use and should not be relied upon by any person outside these countries and/or to whom the offer contained in the Information Memorandum is not addressed. Prior to relying on the information contained in the Information Memorandum, you must ascertain from the Information Memorandum whether or not you are part of the intended addressees of the information contained therein.

This publication does not constitute an offering of the securities described in the Information Memorandum for sale in the United States. This is not for distribution in the United States. The securities have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") or under any relevant securities laws of any state of the United States and are subject to U.S. tax law requirements. Subject to certain exceptions, the securities may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons, as such terms are defined in Regulation S under the Securities Act. There will be no public offering of the securities in the United States.

Your right to access this service is conditional upon complying with the above requirement.

Enquiries:

Shell Media Relations

International, UK, European Press: +44(0)207-934-5550



Shell Investor Relations

Europe: +31(0)70-377-3996



SOURCE Shell International Finance BV and Royal Dutch Shell plc
BERKELEY, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 14th Annual Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit and Business Plan Competition will take place on July 20th at the Claremont Club and Spa, Berkeley, California. The Summit draws a global influencer base to address the ongoing needs facing the Boomer consumer, and to pair investors with entrepreneurs who can bring innovative products and services for the longevity economy to market. This year, the focus will be on "Global Investment in the Longevity Market" and includes a day of spotlight sessions, speed dealing, boot camps, networking opportunities and more.

The 2017 Summit features the Business Plan Competition where emerging companies will pitch new ideas to a panel of esteemed judges in the hope of getting validation, funding and a $10,000 grand prize. Event judges include: Conor Green, Principal at TT Capital Partners (TTCP); Jody Holtzman, Senior VP Market Innovation at AARP; John Hopper, Chief Investment Officer, Ziegler Link Age Longevity Fund; Jeff Lee, Principal, DCM Ventures; Marti Nyman, VP Business and Commercialization, Innovation Center of Excellence, United Healthcare; Scott Smith, Viant Capital; Lisa Suennan, Senior Managing Director, GE Ventures and Managing Partner at Venture Valkyrie, LLC., and others yet to be confirmed.

Business plans will be accepted through 5pm ET on June 23rd. Notable winners and finalists of the competition have included: Bikanta Corporation; Vynca; Noctrix Health; PetPlan; and PurCath.

"I started the Silicon Valley Summit to bring together a combination of investors, angels, industry experts, entrepreneurs and start-up companies to learn about the wants and needs of the boomer and senior markets, "says Mary Furlong, CEO and President of Mary Furlong & Associates and Executive Producer of the Summit. "Fourteen years later, I am proud to say that this conference is the longest running event to focus on investing in the longevity economy and it keeps getting bigger and better each year."

2017 Summit sponsors include:

Platinum Sponsors: AARP, UnitedHealthcare, The Business of Aging

Gold Sponsors: CDW, Hasbro, GreatCall, SDI, and Ziegler Linkage Longevity Fund

Silver Sponsors: CareLinx, TripleTree

Bronze Sponsors: Posit Science

For the most updated lineup of events and to register visit www.boomerventuresummit.com, follow us on Facebook, @SiliconBoomer, #SVBoomer

Mary Furlong and Associates is Founder and Executive Producer of the event; Lori Bitter/The Business of Aging, Michael Skaff, Jewish Senior Living Group, and Susan Davis are Co-Producers.

About Mary Furlong & Associates/ Mary Furlong

Founded in 2003, Mary Furlong & Associates (MFA) is a strategy, business development, marketing, and public relations strategic communications firm headquartered in San Francisco. The firm's services are uniquely geared to drive new opportunities for clients in the baby boomer, senior, and caregiver markets. Previously, she founded SeniorNet in l986, ThirdAge Media in l996. She won the ASA Leadership Award, was profiled as one of Fortune Small Business Top 25, and Time Digital Top 50. In 2011, Mary received an award as one of the top 100 Women of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and is also the author of "Turning Silver into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace. For the past 13 years, Mary has produced the industry-leading What's Next Boomer Business Summit and the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit. She has appeared on NBC, CBS, and NPR and is an advisor to the Ziegler Linkage Longevity Fund, LP. MFA's private client practice is comprised of many of the leading startups and corporations in the longevity marketplace including Carelinx and Chefs for Seniors. She also serves as an adjunct professor, focusing on entrepreneurship and women in leadership at the Leavey School of Business in Santa Clara, CA.

About Lori Bitter/The Business of Aging

Lori K. Bitter provides strategic consulting, research and development for companies seeking to engage with mature consumers at her consultancy The Business of Aging. Her book, The Grandparent Economy, debuted in September. She was president of J. Walter Thompson's Boomer division, JWT BOOM, the nation's leading mature market advertising and marketing company and led that firm's annual Boomer marketing event for five years. www.thebusinessofaging.com

About Michael Skaff, Jewish Senior Living Group

Michael Skaff is the Chief Information Officer for the Jewish Senior Living Group in San Francisco. Previously, Skaff was the Chief Operating Officer for the Masons of California, where he led the Technology, Communications and Member Services teams for this venerable healthcare and membership org. He has been named one of the Top Social CIOs on Twitter for 4 years in a row by the Huffington Post, and one of the Top 20 Most Innovative Midmarket CIOs by CRN.

About SDI

SDI is a global strategic communications and public affairs firm based in Washington, D.C. For over 35 years the agency has provided advice and counsel to U.S. and foreign government agencies, multinationals, leading institutions, as well as business and government executives, and has created and delivered award-winning stakeholder campaigns. SDI's Special Events Team has been consistently recognized with the top awards in the industry and has co-produced four Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summits with Mary Furlong. www.susandavis.com

For Media Inquiries:

Lori Bitter, The Business of Aging

415-652-9884

[email protected]

SOURCE Mary Furlong and Associates

Related Links

http://www.maryfurlong.com


DENVER, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SM Energy Company (the "Company") (NYSE: SM) announced today that it has postponed indefinitely the planned sale of its Divide County, North Dakota assets as valuations in the sales process did not reach the Company's threshold to meaningfully reduce its leverage.

President and Chief Executive Officer Jay Ottoson comments: "We have successfully pre-funded the expected outspend for our capital program for 2017 and 2018 with the completed sale of our third party-operated Eagle Ford assets, and we do not need to sell our Divide County assets. We have concluded that current market uncertainty around forward oil prices is not conducive to realizing a sales price that meets our deleveraging objective. We remain committed to our long-term financial strategy, which is best served by retaining the cash flow generated by the Divide County assets and supported by a solid balance sheet, significant liquidity and continuing hedging strategy.

"As a result of retaining our Divide County assets, we have positively revised our production guidance for the year to add 1.3 MMBoe, which is applied to the second half of the year, thereby increasing projected cash flow and reducing projected outspend."

The Company is posting slides to its website in conjunction with this release, revising its 2017 guidance and three-year plan metrics to be consistent with this change.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws. The words "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "budget," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "guidance," "intend," "plan," "project," "will" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, which may cause SM Energy's actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this release include, among other things, projected changes in production volumes, cash flows, operating costs and commodity mix. General risk factors include the availability of and access to capital markets; the availability, proximity and capacity of gathering, processing and transportation facilities; the volatility and level of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids prices, including any impact on the Company's asset carrying values or reserves arising from price declines; uncertainties inherent in projecting future rates of production or other results from drilling and completion activities; the imprecise nature of estimating oil and gas reserves; uncertainties inherent in projecting future drilling and completion activities, costs or results, including from pilot tests; the uncertainty of negotiations to result in an agreement or a completed transaction; the uncertain nature of acquisition, divestiture, joint venture, farm down or similar efforts and the ability to complete any such transactions; the uncertain nature of expected benefits from the actual or expected acquisition, divestiture, joint venture, farm down or similar efforts; the availability of additional economically attractive exploration, development, and acquisition opportunities for future growth and any necessary financings; unexpected drilling conditions and results; unsuccessful exploration and development drilling results; the availability of drilling, completion, and operating equipment and services; the risks associated with the Company's commodity price risk management strategy; uncertainty regarding the ultimate impact of potentially dilutive securities; and other such matters discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of SM Energy's 2016 Annual Report on Form 10-K, as such risk factors may be updated from time to time in the Company's other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak as of the date of this announcement. Although SM Energy may from time to time voluntarily update its prior forward-looking statements, it disclaims any commitment to do so except as required by securities laws.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

SM Energy Company is an independent energy company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in onshore North America. SM Energy routinely posts important information about the Company on its website. For more information about SM Energy, please visit its website at www.SM-Energy.com.

INVESTOR CONTACT:

Jennifer Martin Samuels, [email protected], 303-864-2507

SOURCE SM Energy Company

Related Links

http://sm-energy.com


CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Flipped Learning Global Initiative (FLGI), a worldwide coalition of educators, researchers, technologists, professional development providers and education leaders, announced the Spanish Language Flipped Learning Level-I Certification program. The new training and certification program was developed to give Spanish-speaking educators around the world the basic knowledge required to successfully implement flipped learning.

The Spanish language version includes nine (9) units and covers these essential topics:

Understanding the pedagogy of flipped learning

Planning for flipped learning

Flipped learning best practices

Tech tools of the flipped classroom

Effective use of class time

Implementing flipped learning in different subjects and levels

Assessments and flipped learning

Selecting the right technologies

Taking the flipped class to the next level

The new Spanish language Flipped Learning Certification program combines the latest research on flipped learning with the proven best practices from educators worldwide.

"There is a sizeable community of flipped learning practitioners whose primary language is Spanish. There is also a growing interest in flipped learning in Spanish speaking countries around the globe from Spain to Central and South America," said Jon Bergmann Flipped Learning pioneer and Chief Academic Officer at the Flipped Learning Global Initiative. "We are very excited to meet the unique needs of this important part of the Flipped Learning community."

As with the English version of the program, one of the most vital pieces of the training is the technology selection unit. The unit was created to give Spanish-speaking educators the specific tools needed to determine which technologies are well suited for flipped learning and those that are not.

The Spanish language Flipped Learning Level - I Certification is designed for three groups of educators:

Educators who are new to flipped learning and need a roadmap to start flipping their classrooms

Educators who are experienced with flipped learning and want to validate their knowledge and have their skills certified.

Administrators who are considering implementing flipped learning and need to master the basics.

The beta version has been launched and is currently available to the public.

The Flipped Learning Global Initiative also announced the addition of Professor Raul Santiago to the FLGI Leadership team. Santiago will serve as the Global Liaison for Spanish Language Services.

"The Spanish language Flipped Learning Certification Level-I and the addition of a global liaison for Spanish language services are important steps toward supporting the adoption of flipped learning, worldwide," said Errol St.Clair Smith, Director of Global Development at the Flipped Learning Global Initiative. "We are excited to build on this program."

About the Flipped Learning Global Initiative

The Flipped Learning Global Initiative, (FLGI), was created to support the rapidly expanding adoption of flipped learning all over the world in countries such as China, Taiwan, Spain, UAE, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Italy, Korea, Argentina, Iceland, Sweden, India and the United States. FLGI aims to fill the growing global need for collaboration across borders in three domains: evolving best practices in flipped learning, research curation and distribution, and technology selection and implementation.

FLGI launched with 30 mission partners, including MT Groupo in Spain; TES Global in the United Kingdom; IWBNet in Australia and New Zealand; iSchool in China and Taiwan, Udemy, BAM Education Radio Network in the United States; and a cadre of flipped learning research experts.

FLGI will serve as a global hub for coordinating, orchestrating and scaling the key elements required to successfully expand flipped learning.

For more information contact: Errol St.Clair Smith, Director of Global Development at 949-677-7381 [email protected] or go to www.flglobal.org.

SOURCE Flipped Learning Global Initiative

Related Links

http://www.flglobal.org


NEW CASTLE, Del., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Speakman is proud to announce its exclusive design partnership with CLODAGH, the internationally known designer of luxury products and experiential environments for hotels and multifamily residences. The company has also partnered with Rejuvenation as the distributor of the subsequent product line.

"Speakman is proof that great design is an experience. They are the perfect partner for our studio." -- Clodagh, 2017 Top Interior Design Influencer (NY Observer)

"Clodagh and Speakman are a perfect design marriage of accessible luxury plumbing products for the home and hotel. We share a belief that the combination of beauty and function can transform people's daily lives," said Kristin Barclay, VP of Product & Marketing.

"Rejuvenation also shares this same value. Their desire to build a reputation for timeless, high-quality and accessible bath hardware made them a perfect choice as Speakman's sole consumer distributor for the Clodagh product line," added Bob Knoll, President and CEO.

Clodagh, known for her style of Life-Enhancing Minimalism, was among the earliest adopters of Feng Shui in her design practice. Her award-winning portfolio includes international hospitality, commercial and residential projects.

"Speakman is proof that great design is an experience," said Clodagh. "They are the perfect partner for our studio, as their attention to detail, performance, durability and sustainability walks hand in hand with their sense of design. The collection is classic with a twist; Speakman translated our vision perfectly to produce a consistently superior quality bathroom product."

The first design collaboration will be premiered in November, preceding Boutique Design New York, at an invitation-only event at Clodagh's New York studio. The collection will be available to consumers via Rejuvenation catalogs, stores and Rejuvenation.com, and to the trade via Speakman.com and Rejuvenation starting January 1.

A subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Rejuvenation is America's largest manufacturer of authentic reproduction lighting and house parts. The company recently added a bath hardware and products division to its wide range of furniture and home accent lines.

"The combination of Speakman's heritage and quality and Clodagh's design point of view is a great addition to our set of quality, curated home improvement solutions for our customers. We're excited to partner with these two leaders in their fields to bring this amazing collection to a national audience," said Rejuvenation President Alex Bellos.

ABOUT SPEAKMAN

Engineered in Delaware since 1869, Speakman invented the modern-day shower. The family-owned company produces superior quality and high-performing plumbing products and emergency equipment. Speakman showers and faucets are enjoyed daily in households and preferred by guests in luxury hotel and resort chains such as Wynn and Marriott. Speakman emergency showers and eyewashes, as well as commercial faucets and valves are specified in facilities ranging from hospitality and healthcare to manufacturing and education. Available to the residential public and to the trade, products are stocked by a variety of partners such as Amazon, Ferguson, Grainger, HD Supply, Home Depot, and Lowes. Fixtures designed with your life in mind. Visit www.speakman.com.

ABOUT CLODAGH DESIGN INTERNATIONAL

Internationally acclaimed designer and philanthropist Clodagh passionately believes that good design supports well-being and that it can transform people's lives. She feels that clutter can undermine serenity, but minimalism should not be self-denying. A believer in the tenets of integrative medicine that address the entire body and psyche, Clodagh embraces both ancient and cutting-edge methods to comfort not only the body, but also the mind. Among the earliest adopters of Feng Shui in her design practice, Clodagh is always ahead of the curve by incorporating such cutting-edge modalities as chromatherapy and biophilia, while including comfort, into all her projects and products.

One of the world's leading innovative multi-discipline design practices, Clodagh Design's award-winning portfolio spans over 30 countries and a wide range of eco-conscious projects and products that include million-square-foot hotels, residential buildings, international spas, private residences, restaurants, retail stores and showrooms, offices, women's apparel, cosmetic packaging, branding, furniture, home furnishings, healthcare and even private jets and luxury yachts.

ABOUT REJUVENATION

Founded in Portland, Ore., in 1977, Rejuvenation serves as a general store of functional and beautiful goods for home improvement projects that add real value to homes and buildings. From classic American-crafted lighting and timeless hardware to useful house parts and home goods, Rejuvenation's high-quality products are inspired by history, designed for modern consumers and made to last. A member of the Williams-Sonoma Inc. family of brands, Rejuvenation offers in-home design consultations and sells its products by catalog; at retail stores in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and via the company's website, www.rejuvenation.com.

ABOUT WILLIAMS-SONOMA, INC.

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is a specialty retailer of high-quality products for the home. These products, representing eight distinct merchandise strategies  Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, PBteen, Williams-Sonoma Home, Rejuvenation, and Mark and Graham  are marketed through e-commerce websites, direct mail catalogs and 626 stores. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. currently operates in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, offers international shipping to customers worldwide, and has unaffiliated franchisees that operate stores in the Middle East, the Philippines and stores and e-commerce websites in Mexico.

Media contact:

Kristin Barclay

[email protected]

302-765-0265

SOURCE Speakman

Related Links

http://www.speakman.com


AUSTIN, Texas, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Fast-growing regional Russian DIY provider Stroitelny Dvor is highly regarded for its superior service and deeply knowledgeable technical online specialists. As it embarks on a strategic growth initiative, first by opening new stores and then by driving increased online traffic while enriching its assortment, then by expanding its network of store outlets, the company sought to streamline and automate its pricing practices and deliver more focused Key Value Item pricing. Working with its technology partner Strategix, Stroitelny Dvor selected Revionics Price Suite along with Elasticity Workbench and Key Value Item (KVI) analytic services.

In Russia's highly competitive DIY market, Stroitelny Dvor is notable for focusing on hard goods (everything that is needed for building). Its extensive stocking enables it to rapidly fulfill customer orders with normal delivery timeframes of two hours and rapid delivery in as little as one hour. Its online customers value Stroitelny Dvor's knowledgeable technical specialists, whose personalized approach assists callers in making the optimum selections for their projects.

Building on this foundation, Stroitelny Dvor plans to enhance its online assortment and build more automated, mature pricing processes. Working with Strategix, the company selected Revionics over another major price optimization vendor because of its richer functionality and ease of use. "As we focus on driving increased online traffic and eventually expansion into new geographies, we want to free up our category managers from routine pricing activities to focus more strategically across all channels," said Elena Golubcova, Deputy CEO for Projects. "With our longtime partner Strategix, we plan to leverage Revionics' transparent machine-learning capabilities, offer attractive prices on items, and expand our KVIs while delivering measurable improvements in our top- and bottom-line results."

"We are excited to deepen our already robust partnership with Revionics and provide Stroitelny Dvor with our local-language implementation, training and support expertise," said Strategix Chief Executive Officer Jan Hannusek. "It's exciting to see growth retailers like Stroitelny Dvor leverage Revionics' leading technology to offer Russian consumers more sophisticated options across both online and in-store channels."

"We are pleased to welcome Stroitelny Dvor to the Revionics customer family as we continue our growth in EMEA and beyond, delivering rapid ROI to retailers worldwide," said Revionics Chairman and CEO Marc H. Hafner. "Our strong multi-year partnership with Strategix continues to provide compelling value for customers in Eastern and Central Europe and Russia."

Tweet this: Great to see growing @Revionics customer base in Russia as we welcome new DIY customer Stroitelny Dvor! https://goo.gl/XZI7Mq

To learn more about Revionics, visit www.revionics.com or email [email protected].

About Stroitelny Dvor

Stroitelny Dvor has been in the market since 1993. Stroitelny Dvor is a retail chain of DIY and home improvement stores and a wholesale supplier of construction materials in the Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Moscow regions, as well as in Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district and Perm region.

The company offers its clients a wide choice of construction and finishing materials at competitive prices, conveniently located distribution centers, the possibility to purchase both offline and online and high levels of service, such as two-hour delivery and payment on delivery. The loyalty program applies to all retail stores and wholesale prices are being determined individually.

Learn more at https://www.sdvor.com/.

About Revionics, Inc.

Revionics is a global leader in profit optimization services and solutions. Our unparalleled analytics and science serve as the backbone of omni-channel retailing to help performance-driven retailers execute profitable pricing, promotion, markdown, and space decisions with predictable business outcomes. The result: achieve speed to value and ROI, improve margins, drive top-line sales and respond faster with precision.

Revionics' SaaS-based model integrates analytics, technology and services to deliver an unmatched advantage for retailers  Competitive Insights, Price Suite, Promotion Suite, Markdown Suite, and Space and Assortment Suite  all from a predictive platform to drive long-term growth.

Trusted by some of the most profitable retail brands, Revionics optimizes across more than 18 million products and more than 2.6 billion item/store combinations are modeled weekly. Learn more at www.revionics.com.

About Strategix

Strategix CFT is a global organization that provides integrated and market proven solutions as well as consulting and services in the areas of Category Management and Supply Chain Management. Strategix CFT relies on a deep subject matter expertise of technical and business process themes, as well as the required IT infrastructure. The organization has already assisted leading retailers and manufacturers worldwide to implement comprehensive environments supporting CM and SCM.

Strategix CFT has emerged from the consolidation between the German boutique consulting firm Strategix Enterprise Technology and the Chicago based IT service company CFT Inc. and shows over 25 years of experience in CM and SCM. It employs over 250 people worldwide, with offices in Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the USA. Learn more at http://strategix.eu/en/.

Engage with Us:

Web: www.revionics.com

Blog: http://revionics.com/blog.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Revionics

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Revionics-Inc-67271083899/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revionics

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5EY-MuENLuHQ9iBpSo3_Q

Contact: Alison Raffalovich

Senior Director, Corporate Communications

Phone: +1 (512) 826-0538 (U.S.)

[email protected]

SOURCE Revionics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.revionics.com


"Watching 4 th of July fireworks from our helicopters or from our private picnic area is truly the awe-inspiring and unique way to celebrate Independence Day," said Jim Greiner, President, Sundance Helicopters, Inc., "These tours will feature the beauty of our city and the celebration of our country."

This Fireworks Aerial tour begins with a stretch limousine pickup from various hotels in Las Vegas. Once at Sundance Helicopters, guests will enjoy a champagne toast before being escorted onto state-of-the-art helicopters. In the air, revelers will fly 800 feet above the Las Vegas Strip to witness various fireworks displays from across the valley and from Strip hotel properties. There are only 60 seats available for this tour starting at $199 per person.

An exclusive 4th of July Twilight Picnic tour is also available where guests will be flown to the Hoover Dam and back to Las Vegas towards a private bluff overlooking the breathtaking views of the Valley during sunset. At the overlook, guests will enjoy a champagne picnic with patriotic music and witness the city fireworks shows. After the picnic, guests will then be escorted back to helicopters to fly over the Las Vegas Strip. There are limited seats available for this tour starting at $349 per person.

For more information on Sundance Helicopters, pricing or to book this tour, please visit: www.SundanceHelicopters.com/fourthofjuly/ or call (702) 736-1099.

SOURCE Sundance Helicopters, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.sundancehelicopters.com


ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Targeted Victory (www.targetedvictory.com), a full service public affairs, strategy and marketing agency, today announced a major new partnership with Stripe, the world's leading online payment platform.

By leveraging Stripe's successful record of handling billions of dollars a year for forward-thinking global businesses, the new partnership ensures Targeted Victory now offers its clients the easiest, most secure way to process political donations in the marketplace.

Targeted Victory hailed Stripe's innovative features, security and efficiency, including its unique ability to allow donors to split their political donations among different campaigns and political campaign committees.

"Two of our core values are investing in our people and partnering with best-in-class companies across the digital landscape," said Targeted Victory CEO Zac Moffatt. "The global success of Stripe inspires and motivates us to continue disrupting the traditional political fundraising process."

"Despite being a few decades old, the internet still hasn't reached its full potential for powering frictionless donations," said John Collison, President and Co-founder of Stripe. "We want to change that, making it even easier for organizations across the country using Targeted Victory to raise money online."

Targeted Victory leads the digital marketing and fundraising programs for House Speaker Paul Ryan and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Since its inception, the agency has served over 700 campaigns and organizations, managed more than $200 million in digital advertising, and raised over $350 million for its clients, including Mitt Romney for President, American Crossroads, Marco Rubio for Senate, and nine of the most competitive winning Republican Senate campaigns over the past two cycles.

ABOUT TARGETED VICTORY

Built by digital marketers, Targeted Victory is a full-service public affairs, strategy and marketing agency providing optimized outcomes in the digital age. The agency focuses on winning political elections and on solving global corporate challenges. The agency recently announced a partnership with Mark Penn's Stagwell Media LLC as the first member of The Stagwell Group's marketing incubator.

SOURCE Targeted Victory

Related Links

http://www.targetedvictory.com


MINNEAPOLIS, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tartan Marketing, a Twin Cities-based B2B marketing agency, has received two 2017 Business Marketing Association (BMA) B2 Awards, which recognize the best in B2B marketing innovation and performance.

The agency won Best of Category in the Digital Marketing Tool segment for its work on the Michael Foods interactive sales portal, and received an Award of Excellence in the Promotional Incentive category for the Cargill Victory Canola "Drone Zone" Grower Sweepstakes.

"It's an honor to, once again, receive these prestigious awards on behalf of our clients," said Jim MacLachlan, President of Tartan Marketing. "Our agency is thrilled to be recognized, but we're most proud of the fact that these programs helped Michael Foods and Cargill achieve the business results they were looking for, and added value to their brands and bottom line."

With these two 2017 awards, Tartan Marketing has now earned 16 B2 Awards in the last six years for its work with a variety of national and global companies, making it one of the most recognized B2B marketing agencies in the Twin Cities.

About Tartan Marketing

Tartan Marketing is a full-service, Minneapolis-based B2B marketing agency that combines smart, intuitive strategies with fresh, compelling creative to help clients energize their brands and stimulate growth.

For more information, contact Tartan Marketing at 877-321-7575, [email protected] or visit www.tartanmarketing.com.

SOURCE Tartan Marketing

Related Links

http://www.tartanmarketing.com


CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TCR2 Therapeutics Inc. announced today that its Chief Executive Officer, Garry E. Menzel, Ph.D., will present a corporate overview at the UBS Global Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 9:30 AM Eastern Time. The event will be held in New York at the Grand Hyatt New York.





About TCR2 Therapeutics

TCR2 Therapeutics is an immuno-oncology company that has pioneered a novel class of T cell therapies that utilize the full signaling power of complete T cell receptors (TCR). TCR2 has developed a unique proprietary TRuC platform which can reprogram the natural TCR complex to recognize specific antigens found on tumors where they elicit rapid killing of cancer cells. The company has demonstrated superior activity against both hematological and solid tumor targets in preclinical models compared to CAR-T and believes its TRuC-reprogrammed T cells will serve as a backbone for solid tumor therapies. TCR2 was founded in 2015 by Dr. Patrick Baeuerle and backed with a $44.5M Series A financing led by MPM Capital and F2 Ventures. It has since assembled a world-class team of immunotherapy experts and entrepreneurs located in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA. For more information, please visit www.tcr2.com.





SOURCE TCR2 Therapeutics

Related Links

http://www.tcr2.com


BEAVERTON, Ore., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tektronix, Inc., a leading worldwide provider of measurement solutions, today released enhancements to its DisplayPort and Type-C transmitter test solution offering full support for the latest DisplayPort 1.4 specification. The solution includes support for the HBR3 data rate (8.1 Gb/s) and delivers the fastest compliance test times in the industry  less than 7 hours for data rates up to HBR2 and less than 11 hours for HBR3. These times are significantly faster than other competitive offerings. Tektronix recently released automated USB 3.1 Type-C test solution for Gen1 and Gen 2 that integrates SigTest and DPOJET measurements and offers full compliance testing and deeper analysis.

Tektronix DisplayPort and Type-C transmitter test solution offers full support for the latest DisplayPort 1.4 specification enabling compliance, characterization and debug software  all in a single package.

It is very critical for an engineer working on overall Type-C designs to test USB and other supported Alt-modes to ensure the designs are compliant to these standards. Tektronix actively ensures its solutions meet the latest specification for all these technologies.

In addition to reducing DisplayPort test times, Tektronix is also addressing the challenges involved with setting up and managing the device under test (DUT). Along with support for the latest specification, Tektronix is also introducing a new stand-alone application to monitor DUT behavior before testing. With this solution, engineers can simply select the desired tests from a simple graphical user interface and work on other tasks while the tests are being executed.

"When it comes to DisplayPort transmitter testing, Tektronix offers significant improvements in debugging capabilities over competitive offerings," said Brian Reich, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. "We're offering the fastest test times, complete test coverage, seamless support for in-depth debug as well as support for both live and pre-recorded signal analysis. Competitive alternatives are significantly slower, offer limited debug support, and lack pre-recorded mode signal analysis. There is only one comprehensive solution for DisplayPort test and debug today and we have it."

Key features of the new DisplayPort Transmitter solution include:

Complete automated compliance testing in less than 7 hours for data rates up to HBR2 and less than 11 hours for data rates up to HBR3

A single application for both Standard and Type-C DisplayPort testing.

Integrated with switch matrix (Option SWX-DP) for hands free automation

Flexible fixture de-embed capabilities using either a default filter file or a custom filter file created using the Tektronix Serial Data Link Analysis (SDLA) application. DisplayPort 1.4 testing requires that a combination of DFE and CTLE filters be applied during HBR3 eye diagram analysis.

Seamless transition from compliance testing to debug and full integration with the Tektronix DPOJET DisplayPort 1.4 measurement library. Users can easily dive deeper into failures to perform root cause analysis.

Enhanced reporting options to help users generate reports in .html, .mht, .pdf and .csv formats. Reports can be viewed by pass/fail criteria, lanes or data-rates for additional customization options.

Support for saving waveforms for offline analysis (in addition to live analysis). Unlike competitive alternatives, the application acquires and saves waveforms during execution and makes them available for detailed offline analysis.

Tektronix also offers DisplayPort Receiver solution supported on their latest BSX BERTScope series that was launched at Design Con 2017. This latest BERTScope series is industry's first 32 Gb/s Protocol-Aware Bit Error Rate Tester and eases 4th Generation Standards Receiver Testing. It Features Built-in De-emphasis, Fast Protocol Handshaking for PCIe 4.0, USB 3.1 Receiver Validation and Troubleshooting

Availability and pricing

The Tektronix DisplayPort 1.4 Transmitter solution (Option DP14) application is compatible with Tektronix DPO/MSO70000 and DPO70000SX series oscilloscopes. The solution is available now worldwide and can be downloaded from the Tektronix website. Pricing is $5,000 US MSRP. Option SWX-DP Pricing is $7,000 US MSRP.

Wondering what else Tektronix is up to? Check out the Tektronix Bandwidth Banter blog and stay up to date on the latest news from Tektronix on Twitter and Facebook.

About Tektronix

Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix delivers innovative, precise and easy-to-operate test, measurement and monitoring solutions that solve problems, unlock insights and drive discovery. Tektronix has been at the forefront of the digital age for over 70 years. Join us on the journey of innovation at TEK.COM.

Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Tektronix, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.tektronix.com


"CENTURY 21 Heritage is a prime example of the success a company can achieve when they remain laser focused on providing their clients with the best service possible," said Greg Sexton, Chief Operating Officer, Century 21 Real Estate LLC. "We are thrilled to welcome back Mike Garber and his team to the CENTURY 21 System, and we look forward to helping them continue to grow their business."

Broker and owner Mike Garber brings eleven years of real estate experience to the table, along with a team of 23 highly-skilled professionals to service the greater Tri-Cities area. As a former CENTURY 21 System member, Garber shined brightly with the brand, receiving Gold, Platinum, Ruby, Emerald and Quality Service Awards throughout his sales career.

"I'm very excited to make my return to Century 21 Real Estate, the most recognized name in real estate*," said Garber. "Prospective homebuyers and sellers instantly know the quality of service you supply with a name like CENTURY 21 Heritage. Furthermore, the brand's suite of tools and technology have been greatly updated since my last time with the franchise and it's clear they will continue to help us provide the highest-quality service to our clients."

With a company philosophy "always do what you say, sometimes more, but never less," customer service is a priority for Garber and his team. Outside of client work, CENTURY 21 Heritage continues to assist their community by sponsoring local high schools.

About CENTURY 21 Heritage

CENTURY 21 Heritage is a full service real estate company, serving the buyers and sellers of the Tri-Cities area. The brokerage is currently located at 5049 Bobby Hicks Hwy Suite #101, Johnson City (Gray), TN 37615.

CENTURY 21 Heritage is an independently owned and operated franchise affiliate of Century 21 Real Estate LLC (century21.com), franchisor of the iconic CENTURY 21 brand, comprised of approximately 7,330 independently owned and operated franchised broker offices in 77 countries and territories worldwide with more than 110,000 independent sales professionals.

*Study Source: 2016 Ad Tracking Study. The survey results are based on 1,200 online interviews with a national random sample of adults (ages 18+) who are equal decision makers in real estate transactions and active in the real estate market (bought or sold a home within the past two years or, plan to purchase or sell a home within the next two years). Brand awareness question based on a sample of 1,200 respondents. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of +/-2.4%. Recognition question based on consumers aware of brand in question. Results are significant at a 90% confidence level, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4%. The study was conducted by Millward Brown, a leading global market research organization, from May 4  May 25, 2016.

Media Contact:

Colin Brown

MullenLowe for CENTURY 21 Heritage

617-226-9749

[email protected]

SOURCE CENTURY 21 Heritage
ROCKVILLE, Md., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- This month, a new FDA commissioner was confirmed, a promising cancer drug delivered surprising clinical trial results, and China moved ahead of Western nations in human gene-editing experiments. Meanwhile, LabCorp completed a major acquisition and test menus expanded for two infectious disease molecular diagnostics platforms, according to Kalorama Information. The healthcare market research publisher published its most recent report, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) Market in Healthcare (U.S. Markets for Surgery; Medical Education and Training; Pain Management, Rehabilitation and Therapy) this week.

Among the top news stories in May are the following:

China moves ahead with human gene-editing trials

Scientists in China are pressing ahead with human gene-editing clinical trials this month. A new human trial began April 28, the Wall Street Journal reported, when an advanced cancer patient was injected with cells that had been genetically modified using Crispr-Cas9 technology.

A different research group in China made history Oct. 28 when it injected the first human with edited cells, part of a small safety trial. The new trial aims to enroll 20 advanced cancer patients, the Wall Street Journal reported, and at least five other human trials are planned.

While China is the first country to use Crispr-Cas9 to treat human patients, the United States is not far behind. A team at the University of Pennsylvania last year got the first approval in the U.S. to test Crispr-Cas9 in humans. That trial is scheduled to start this summer.

Gene editing has been used in humans before, but these are the first trials involving Crispr-cas9, a technology that is simpler and more precise.

The Chinese scientists are using gene editing to encourage a patient's immune system to attack cancer. In the trials underway so far, they collected immune cells and used Crispr-cas9 to disable a gene for a protein called PD-1, which is a "checkpoint" that prevents them from attacking. These immune cells, with their checkpoint disabled, were multiplied and reinjected into the patient in high numbers, in hopes they would kill cancer cells.

The principle is similar that of immunotherapy cancer drugs, including TECENTRIQ and OPDIVO. The drugs are monoclonal antibodies that inactive checkpoint proteins by binding to them, while gene editing inactivates these proteins by removing the genes that code for them.

Promising cancer drug stumbles in trial

TECENTRIQ, an immunotherapy cancer drug on its way to blockbuster status, failed to meet its primary endpoint in a phase III trial, Roche announced May 10.

The drug, also known as atezolizumab, failed to improve survival compared to chemotherapy when used as a second-line treatment for advanced bladder cancer. One factor, Roche noted in a statement, may have been that patients in the comparison chemotherapy arm survived longer than expected.

Roche's stock fell about 2 percent on news of the trial results, Reuters reported.

The drug had received accelerated FDA approval based on promising phase II trial results and was heavily marketed, with sales of more than $112 million in the first quarter, Reuters reported.

Analysts said the drug is now at risk of losing its FDA approval as a second-line treatment for advanced bladder cancer, though it has been approved for other uses.

However Roche is not giving up on the drug.

"While these results are not what we had expected, we believe that TECENTRIQ will continue to play an important role in the treatment of people with advanced bladder cancer," said Sandra Horning, M.D., chief medical officer and Head of Global Product Development in a statement.

TECENTRIQ is involved in more than 30 trials across a variety of cancers, alone and in combination with other therapies, Roche said.

Bristol-Myers Squibb suffered a similar shock last August when the immunotherapy drug OPDIVO unexpectedly failed to improve survival in a phase III lung cancer trial.

LabCorp wraps up latest acquisition

LabCorp announced this month it has completed its acquisition of Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories, a reference laboratory and a healthcare solutions company based in Spokane, Washington.

The deal, which was announced in February, is the latest in the race for expansion between LabCorp and its rival Quest Diagnostics.

LabCorp has acquired mostly its competitors and specialty labs while Quest has focused on health system outreach laboratories, according to a report in Modern Healthcare, so LabCorp's acquisition of PAML, an outreach laboratory operation formerly owned by Providence Health & Services and Catholic Health Initiatives, is a departure.

"This acquisition strengthens LabCorp's relationships with anchor health systems and expands LabCorp's geographic presence in important existing markets, allowing LabCorp to support each health system and its existing customers with expanded offerings," David P. King, chairman and chief executive officer of LabCorp, said in a statement.

Two infectious disease MDx assays get FDA nod

The FDA has cleared a new assay for Luminex Corporation's ARIES molecular diagnostic system, the company announced this month.

The assay uses real-time PCR to detect Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis, bacteria that cause whooping cough, in nasal swabs of people who have respiratory symptoms. It is the fourth FDA-cleared assay for the ARIES system in less than two years, the company reports. Luminex plans to submit a Clostridium difficile assay for FDA approval this month, and is completing a clinical trial of its Group A Streptococcus assay for the ARIES system.

The FDA also cleared a C. difficile assay this month for Quidel's Solana molecular diagnostics platform. This is the sixth FDA-cleared assay for Solana.

Molecular diagnostics tests for infectious disease exceeded 3.8 billion dollars in 2016, according to Kalorama Information's new Infectious Disease Molecular Diagnostics Market report. Companies are in tight competition to expand the menus on their integrated analyzers because market share and client retention depend on the ability of one platform to perform all routine infectious disease tests.

Senate confirms new FDA commissioner

Scott Gottlieb, a 44-year-old investor and pharmaceutical company advisor, won Senate confirmation May 9 to be the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

The biopharmaceutical industry is generally pleased with his confirmation, FierceBiotech reported. Organizations such as the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and California Life Sciences Association quickly released statements applauding the confirmation.

Gottlieb, who served as deputy FDA commissioner under George W. Bush, has advocated for faster drug approvals, less regulation of off-label marketing, and free-market strategies to bring drug costs down, according to the Wall Street Journal.

He is a physician, trained at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in internal medicine, and also a former cancer patient, having survived Hodgkin lymphoma.

Some Democrats opposed Gottlieb's confirmation, citing his strong industry ties.

Kalorama Information is a market research publisher located in New York City. Kalorama Information reports only on life science, in vitro diagnostics, medical device and healthcare markets. It's website a blog routinely updated with healthcare market information is available at www.kaloramainformation.com

About Kalorama Information

Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. Reports can be purchased through Kalorama's website and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com.

We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog on our company website.

Please link any media or news references to our reports or data to http://www.kaloramainformation.com/.

Press Contact:

Bruce Carlson

212 807 2262

[email protected]

SOURCE Kalorama Information

Related Links

http://www.kaloramainformation.com


SAN DIEGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Torrey Pines Investment announced today the creation of a $60 million fund to finance innovative start-ups in the areas of point-of-care diagnostics and treatment, novel organizational and financial models of health services delivery, including in-home and virtual care, as well as artificial intelligence and deep learning healthcare support systems. The main goal of the fund is to promote the development of these cutting-edge medical and healthcare technologies while providing patients with fast and convenient healthcare services.

"Healthcare is moving towards digitized personalized care which gives patients the convenient and accessible medical services where and when they need it," commented Nikolay Savchuk, Managing Partner at Torrey Pines Investment. "The TealTech fund focuses on the three main directions of fundamental shifts in healthcare: the medical technologies innovations, digital care, and artificial intelligence tools. We believe that the future of healthcare lies in the accessibility and flexibility that digital care and point-of-care diagnostics and treatment provide, as well as in the precision and convenience that computer-assisted tools help deliver. Thus, we created the fund to help advance innovative start-ups that bring convenient, digitalized, modern solutions to patients."

Torrey Pines and its partners will invest up to $60 million over the next 5 years. The fund's first venture will be a platform for rapid clinical-level diagnostics enabling medical care to move from a physician's office to the patient's homethe TealNet Mobile Medical Office.

About TealNet MMO

TealNet MMO is a San Diego-based start-up company providing technologies for rapid on-site healthcare services based on point-of-care express diagnostics and telemedicine. TealNet Mobile Medical Office platform enables qualified physicians to perform express diagnostic analyses that would take 1-3 days in a regular hospital or clinic within 10-15 minutes at a patient's home. Learn more at http://tealtechmmo.com/

About Torrey Pines

Torrey Pines Investment, founded in 2002, is a specialty life-science investment company located in San Diego that invests in early development-stage assets from international pharma and biotech partners in the CNS, oncology, and virology areas to bring them to commercial success through pharma partnering and M&A. Learn more at http://torreypinesinv.com/

Media Contact:

Gelena Lifschitz

Business Development Director

Torrey Pines Investment

[email protected]

SOURCE Torrey Pines Investment

Related Links

http://torreypinesinv.com


FARMINGTON, Conn., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A webcast of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) Chairman & CEO Gregory Hayes speaking at the Electrical Products Group Conference is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, May 23, 2017. The presentation will be broadcast live on the Internet at www.utc.com and will be archived on the website afterward.

United Technologies Corp., based in Farmington, Connecticut, provides high-technology systems and services to the building and aerospace industries. By combining a passion for science with precision engineering, the company is creating smart, sustainable solutions the world needs. To learn more about UTC, visit the website or follow the company on Twitter: @UTC

UTC-IR

Contact: Maureen Fitzgerald, UTC

(860) 728-7907





Investor Relations, UTC

(860) 728-7608

SOURCE United Technologies Corp.

Related Links

http://www.utc.com


CHICAGO, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Uptake, a fast-growing predictive analytics software company, announced today it has been ranked number five on the 2017 CNBC Disruptor 50, an exclusive ranking of private companies transforming the economy and making a notable impact on various industries. A record 838 companies were nominated this year.

Some current and past honorees include Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, Cloudera, Slack, Lyft, SpaceX, WeWork, DropBox, Twilio and Pinterest.

"Uptake is leading a new category of enterprise software by delivering industry-specific predictive insights  resulting in increased uptime, improved productivity and enhanced safety  leveraging a common platform," said Uptake CEO and co-founder, Brad Keywell. "We sell outcomes, and we do it with a speed rarely seen in the world of software."

Companies nominated were required to submit a detailed analysis, including key quantitative and qualitative information. Nominees were scored across a range of quantitative metrics, such as amount of venture capital raised and off-the-record sales and user growth, along with a holistic qualitative assessment by CNBC editorial staff.

This year marks the fifth annual CNBC Disruptor 50. For more information, visit http://www.cnbc.com/cnbc-disruptors/ and www.uptake.com.

About Uptake

Uptake is a predictive analytics platform that delivers actionable insights to the industrial sector. Leveraging partnerships with major global businesses in construction, energy, rail, agriculture, aviation and more, our products and solutions apply cross-industry data science to produce high-value output and measureable results. For more information, visit uptake.com .

Media Contact

Megan Parker

[email protected]

312-242-2235

SOURCE Uptake

Related Links

http://www.uptake.com


NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), will today hold its fourth annual National Day of Service, a companywide effort during which thousands of its employees will give back to their local communities. Employees across Voya's nine major sites and virtual population will participate in more than 200 events supporting local nonprofits in regions where they live and work.

"Our National Day of Service brings the values and character of our company to life in our local communities by encouraging our people to support causes and nonprofit organizations that are important to them," said Voya Financial Chairman and CEO Rodney O. Martin Jr. "This year, we've expanded our activities helping young people become financially resilient and will also partner with organizations focused on people with special needs  two key focus areas of our organization. Deploying volunteers across the country helps our workforce come together in a meaningful way to contribute to positive change in our communities."

Voya's first National Day of Service was held in 2014. Each year, the number of hours volunteered for the day has increased, and now totals 34,500 for the three prior National Days of Service. In 2017, employees and their families will work with nonprofit partners to build homes, mentor children and young adults, revitalize green spaces in their community and package meals for those less fortunate.

Voya's commitment to employee volunteerism goes beyond a one-day event. Full-time employees are provided 40 hours of paid volunteer time each year. In 2016 alone, Voya employees volunteered more than 50,000 hours to support their communities.

As an industry leader and advocate for greater retirement readiness, Voya Financial is committed to delivering on its vision to be America's Retirement Company and its mission to make a secure financial future possible  one person, one family, one institution at a time.

About Voya Financial

Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings  to get ready to retire better. Serving the financial needs of approximately 13.6 million individual and institutional customers in the United States, Voya is a Fortune 500 company that had $11 billion in revenue in 2016. The company had $505 billion in total assets under management and administration as of March 31, 2017. With a clear mission to make a secure financial future possible  one person, one family, one institution at a time  Voya's vision is to be America's Retirement Company. Certified as a "Great Place to Work" by the Great Place to Work Institute, Voya is equally committed to conducting business in a way that is socially, environmentally, economically and ethically responsible and has been recognized as one of the 2017 World's Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute, as well as one of the Top Green Companies in the U.S., by Newsweek magazine. For more information, visit voya.com. Follow Voya Financial on Facebook and Twitter @Voya.

Investor Contact:

Darin Arita

212-309-8999

[email protected]

SOURCE Voya Financial, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.voya.com


LONDON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Forecasts by Application (Municipal, Power Generation, Chemical, Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining), by Type (Corrosion Inhibition, Scale Inhibitors, Coagulants & Flocculants, Biocides & Disinfectants) and by Region Plus Profiles of Top Companies

Visiongain's new 217 pages report assesses that the global Water Treatment chemicals market will reach $28.5 billion in 2017.

Are you involved in Water Treatment chemicals or need to understand its market dynamics? If so, then you must read this report

It's vital that you keep your knowledge up to date. You need this report.

Market scope: This brand new report from visiongain is a completely fresh market assessment of the Water Treatment chemicals market based upon the latest information. Our new market study contains forecasts, original analysis, company profiles and, most crucially, fresh conclusions. The report gives detailed forecasts and analysis of the Water Treatment chemicals markets by region and end-use sectors.

Water Treatment chemicals Market Forecast 2017-2027 report responds to your need for definitive market data:

 Where are the Water Treatment chemicals market opportunities?

 198 tables, charts, and graphs reveal market data allowing you to target your strategy more effectively

 When will the Water Treatment chemicals market grow?

 Global, national and the Water Treatment chemicals submarket forecasts and analysis from 2017-2027 illustrate the market progression

 Which Water Treatment chemicals submarkets will flourish from 2017-2027?

 Municipal Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Power Generation Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Chemical Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Oil & Gas Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Metals & Mining Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Corrosion Inhibition Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Scale Inhibitors Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Coagulants & Flocculants Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Biocides & Disinfectants Submarket Forecast 2017-2027

 Where are the regional Water Treatment chemicals market opportunities from 2017-2027?

Focused regional forecasts and analysis explore the future opportunities

 Asia Pacific forecast 2017-2027

 Middle East and Africa forecast 2017-2027

 Central & South America forecast 2017-2027

 Europe forecast 2017-2027

 North America forecast 2017-2027

 China forecast 2017-2027

 Japan forecast 2017-2027

 Australia & New Zealand forecast 2017-2027

 India forecast 2017-2027

 Germany forecast 2017-2027

 U.K. forecast 2017-2027

 France forecast 2017-2027

 Italy forecast 2017-2027

 U.S. forecast 2017-2027

 Canada forecast 2017-2027

 Mexico forecast 2017-2027

 Saudi Arabia forecast 2017-2027

 Others forecast 2017-2027

 What are the factors influencing Water Treatment chemicals market dynamics?

 SWOT analysis explores the factors.

 Research and development (R&D) strategy

 Supply and demand dynamics

 Advances in product quality

 Who are the leading Water Treatment chemicals companies?

 We reveal market share, positioning, capabilities, product portfolios, R&D activity, services, focus, strategies, M&A activity, and future outlook.

 AkzoNobel

 GE Water Technologies Inc.

 BASF

 Solenis

 DOW Chemical Company

 Ecolab Inc.

 Kemira

 Lonza

 Buckman Laboratories International

 BWA Water

 Who should read this report?

 Anyone within the Water Treatment chemicals value chain, including

 Raw material suppliers

 R&D specialists

 CEO's

 COO's

 CIO's

 Business development managers

 Marketing managers

 Technologists

 Investors

 Banks

 Government agencies

 Contractors

Get our report today Water Treatment Chemicals Market 2017-2027: Forecasts by Application (Municipal, Power Generation, Chemical, Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining), by Type (Corrosion Inhibition, Scale Inhibitors, Coagulants & Flocculants, Biocides & Disinfectants) and by Region Plus Profiles of Top Companies. Avoid missing out - order our report now.

To request a report overview of this report please email Sara Peerun at [email protected] or call Tel: +44-(0)-20-7336-6100

Or click on: https://www.visiongain.com/Report/1852/Water-Treatment-Chemicals-Market-2017-2027

The companies mentioned are:

Albemarle Corporation

ALTIVIA Chemicals LLC

Aqua innovative Solutions

Arcana Pool Systems GmbH

Arch Chemicals

Anco India Chemicals (P) Ltd.

Accepta Water Treatment

American Water Works Company

ANGUS Chemical Company

Aries Chemical, Inc. Water Treatment Specialists

Berwind Corporation

BioLab

Bonnafide Chemicals

B & V Water Treatment

Changzhou Kewei Fine Chemicals Company Limited

Chembond Chemicals

ChemTreat

Chemtura Corporation

Clinty Chemicals Ltd.

Danaher Corporation

Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company Limited

Drew Ameroid Sdn Berhad

DuPont (EI) de Nemours

Ebara Corporation

Eka Chemicals

European salt company

Ecosphere Technologies, Inc.

FuMA-Tech Gessellschaft fur Funktionelle Membranen und Anlagentechnologie

Feralco AB

General Electric Company

GLV Incorporated

Great Lakes Solutions

Israel Chemicals Limited

Jianghai Environmental Protection Company Limited

Jordan Bromine

K+S AG

KIK Custom Products Incorporated

Koch Industries Incorporated

Kurita Water Industries Limited

Kroff Chemical Company, Inc.

LANXESS AG

Martinswerk

Morton Salt

MWH Global, Inc.

Melzer Chemicals Pvt. Ltd.

MB Chemicals

Nalco Holding

NSF International

Occidental Petroleum Corporation

OxyChem,

Polydyne

PowerChem Technology

Pfaudler Inc.

Quimiproductos

Shanghai Duojia Water Treatment Science and Technology Company Limited

SNF SAS

Solvay SA

Swing

SUEZ Water UK

Syn Water

Sicagen India Limited

TCI Chemicals

Thermax Inc.

Univar Inc.

United Technical Services (UTS) Chemicals

Veolia Environnement SA

Vasu Chemicals

Wujin Fine Chemical Factory Company Limited

Water Bird L.L.C.

Wex Technologies

Government Agencies and Other Organisation Mentioned in This Report

Environment Protection Agency

European Union

Food and Drug Administration

Japan Industrial Safety & Health Association

Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act

Ministry of Water Resources

Occupational Safety & Health Administration

Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

World Bank

To see a report overview please email Sara Peerun on [email protected]

SOURCE Visiongain Ltd
"We've used Weather Trends' year-ahead guidance for over a decade on both the buy side and sell side here at J.P. Morgan; what I find most valuable is their accuracy, level of global detail and especially their Equity Report which lays out a strategic road map 3 quarters ahead," said Matt Boss, Managing Director, Equity Research, J.P. Morgan.

Weather Trends' 12-time award-winning statistical math-based, 24-climate cycle technology for global year-ahead weather and business forecasting allows weather-sensitive industries to be PROACTIVE not REACTIVE to the ever-volatile weather 11-months ahead. "For 15-years now we've built a solid reputation in the industry as experts in long range weather forecasting, retail, and how weather specifically influences thousands of seasonal categories and overall business performance. Our Equity Report helps to reduce the surprises with a simple report sent out every Monday before the bell," said Bill Kirk, CEO Weather Trends International.

The Equity Report maps store locations for 63 equities (Mall, Off-Mall, Discounters, Home Centers, Restaurants, Shoe, Auto, Pharmacy, Beverage, Coffee, Energy and e-commerce) to the weather (past and future) to provide valuable, simple insights as to the favorability (5 category index) of weather the last few months, month-to-date, and most importantly, a 9-month (3 quarters) ahead outlook. Forbes Magazine ranked Weather Trends the 5th Most Promising Company in America for a reason and our PROACTIVE solutions will forever change the way you look at the weather as it relates to business performance. Get started today with our limited 12-month trial offering that includes 8 of our most valued weekly financial services reports for $9,750. http://www.weathertrends360.com/Equity-Report

About Weather Trends International

Weather Trends International (www.weathertrends360.com) has 15 years of experience helping Fortune 1,000 companies reduce their weather risk to become PROACTIVE, not REACTIVE with our award-winning technology solutions. Our gridded technology covers every 1 mile on Earth with year-ahead temperature, rainfall and snowfall projections by week out 11-months along with specific sales forecasts by store.

Contact: Ron Hyde

SVP Marketing & Communications

610-807-0118

E-mail [email protected]

SOURCE Weather Trends International
Chris Ott: What can the gay marriage victory teach us about resistance to Trump?
HOUSTON, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nationally recognized law firm Williams Kherkher secured a $16.5 million-dollar verdict this week on behalf of two Houston workers who were seriously injured in a crane accident. The trial team, led by attorneys Jim Hart and Steve Kherkher were able to demonstrate negligence on the part of the crane operator and crane company in the complaint.

The accident occurred at the site of a new Apple store on Westheimer road in Houston during the removal of a large window at the construction site. The two ironworkers were on a scissor lift when the crane operator lost control of the crane, knocking over the lift. The workers both suffered crushed vertebrae in addition to other injuries in the accident.

Attorney Jim Hart says of the case: "We are very happy that the jury agreed with us that our clients were wrongly and severely injured in this accident. We appreciate the hard work of the jury and it is rewarding to see that justice was served."

Maxim Crane Works, LP was held accountable for the accident for failing to follow industry standards and regulations that could have prevented the accident from occurring if they had been followed by the company. At Williams Kherkher, we strongly believe that companies have a responsibility to properly train their employees and ensure that safety standards are followed at all times. No worker should be injured due to negligent behavior on the job site, and if they are, they deserve justice.

About Williams Kherkher

Williams Kherkher is a nationally recognized trial law firm representing clients across the country in mass torts, personal injury, and commercial litigation. Williams Kherkher has a depth of knowledge and a wealth of resources that few firms can match, which is why the firm has been a trusted name for injured parties for over 25 years, whether that party is an injured individual or a powerful multinational corporation. No case is too large or too small for our firm to handle, and we pride ourselves in equal commitment and dedication to each and every client we have.

In addition to fighting on the front lines of the legal battlefield, we at Williams Kherkher work to honor our moral commitment to our clients and our community. Though we never underestimate the importance of recovering financially for our clients, we believe that our unwavering professionalism and strict ethical standards form stronger cornerstones for our practice than any amount of money ever could. For this reason, Williams Kherkher is proud to give back to our community whenever possible.

Contact:

Sean Hall

1-800-267-1704

[email protected]

SOURCE Williams Kherkher

Related Links

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NEW YORK, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Workforce Opportunity Services (WOS) is announcing the development of WOS Digital, a new platform to help companies better attract diverse, early career talent. This one-of-a-kind online talent network is designed to help hiring teams transform their businesses with quality career candidates, making it easier and faster than ever to connect companies to potential employees.

Through WOS Digital, hiring managers will be able to browse Zenith, a custom database of thousands of ready-to-work professionals who reflect diverse communities and customers. Clients can also read through sample resumes including those of individuals suited for high-demand roles in information technology, business and finance. WOS will utilize Zenith to design and develop custom programs for companies' specific workforce goals.

As experts in building talent pipelines, WOS works with companies throughout the hiring process, from discovering potential talent to providing hands-on support services after new staff has been hired. Today, companies looking to hire quality, diverse employees can visit the WOS Digital portal and inform WOS staff of their hiring needs.

WOS Digital will advance Workforce Opportunity Services' unique process of screening, supporting, training and mentoring ready-to-work veterans and underserved jobseekers. After matching businesses with job candidates from these backgrounds, the organization assumes the upfront costs of recruitment, placement and benefits, and keeps employees on their payroll until (and if) companies choose to bring them on to their permanent workforce.

Over the years, WOS has helped companies like Johnson & Johnson, Prudential and General Electric transform their staff to reflect the diverse communities and customers they serve. They've changed the lives of thousands of early career professionals by helping them cultivate their talents.

"We are excited to expand our services to meet the growing needs for diverse and talented workforces. WOS Digital is positioned to provide alternative talent sourcing required by an evolving global digital economy," says Dr. Art Langer, Founder and Chairman of WOS.

About Workforce Opportunity Services

Workforce Opportunity Services (WOS) is a next-generation 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that transforms early career professionals by cultivating their talents. We connect leading companies all over the world with a network of thousands of ready-to-work professionals who reflect diverse communities and customers. Our partners rely on us to recruit, educate, and train employees with the highest potential who will remain committed to their work over the long term.

Every day, we promote upward mobility, professional success, financial independence, and lifelong learning. We are experts in helping companies identify and assimilate the skills of veterans and underserved jobseekers. We offer hands-on support services to ensure that promising employees stay on a steady career path.

Based at Columbia University in New York City, our scientifically-based program offers cutting-edge research and analytics in partnership with top-tier academic institutions. Since our founding in 2005, we have partnered with more than 50 corporations in 35+ locations around the world. For more information, visit wforce.org.

Contact:

Brandee Sanders

Workforce Opportunity Services

212-870-2247

[email protected]



SOURCE Workforce Opportunity Services

Related Links

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LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WOW air announced today that they will have service to Israel's Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) beginning September 12, 2017. One-way tickets on the ultra-affordable Icelandic airline from the United States to TLV will go on sale today with prices starting at $149 from Boston (BOS), New York (EWR), Baltimore (BWI), Pittsburgh (PIT) and Chicago (ORD) and $199 from Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO) and Miami (MIA).

Located on the country's Mediterranean coastline, Tel Aviv is a bustling city offering great beaches, exciting nightlife and important museums, as well as, being the technological and cultural hub for the region.

"Visitors from all over the world continue to be attracted to the unique city of Tel Aviv and we are honored to have the opportunity to offer travel from the United States in a more efficient way with the best possible prices," said Skuli Mogensen, founder and CEO of WOW air. "The Israeli government and tourism board have been great partners in getting the route approved and we are thankful for their support of WOW air."

WOW air will start out offering one of the cheapest options for travel from North America to Israel four times a week.

"We set a goal to bring new airlines to Israel, so I'm happy and congratulate WOW air, known for its long haul low cost flights, on its entry into Israel in cooperation with the Israeli tourism ministry, says Yariv Levin, Israel Minister of Tourism. "I'm confident the launching of this new historic route will significantly increase the number of tourists traveling to Israel from Iceland, Canada and the US, and will also contribute to the unprecedented trend of growth in the number of tourists visiting Israel over the last number of months."

Flights from the east and west coasts will include connections in Reykjavik that will be approximately 13 and 2 hours, respectively. Length of the layover will be subject to change for the winter season flights. WOW air encourages travelers to take in the sights, sounds and tastes of Iceland. Passengers can get more out of their travel with the WOW Stopover, which includes a visit to Iceland for an unlimited amount of time, before heading on to destinations in Europe and beyond.

The new Tel Aviv route will be serviced by WOW airs brand new Airbus fleet with the average age of 2.5 years. Seat pitch will vary from 30 inches as standard to 37 inches at an additional charge.

For more information on these new flights and more please visit https://wowair.us/.

About WOW air

WOW air offers the lowest fares, a modern fleet with the lowest emissions and the biggest smile; this is the WOW air promise to its valuable customers. As of spring 2017, the airline services 32 destinations across Europe and North America including Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen.

Established in November 2011 by Icelandic entrepreneur Skuli Mogensen, the purple airline flies with Airbus A320, Airbus A321 and Airbus A330 models. WOW air boasts one of the world's youngest fleet, with an average aircraft age of just 2.5 years.

WOW air was ranked as the 7th best low-cost airline in Europe at the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Skytrax World Airline Awards and was the youngest airline in the top ten.

For additional information and bookings please visit https://wowair.us/.

Note to editors: High-resolution photos available upon request

For further information, please contact:

United States

Anna Romano

Weber Shandwick

[email protected]

310 854 8296

WOW air corporate

Svana Fridriksdottir

Director of Communications

[email protected]

354 695 9359

Prices from Boston, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, New York and Chicago to Tel Aviv are now available for as low as $149* one way including taxes. Bookings can be made at www.wowair.com.

Prices from Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles to Tel Aviv are now available for as low as $199* one way including taxes. Bookings can be made at www.wowair.com.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Boston to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from BOS on Tuesdays from October 31 through November 14; November 28 through December 5, 2017 and January 16 through March 6, 2018. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Washington D.C. to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from BWI on Thursdays from November 2 through November 16; November 30 through December 7, 2017 and through January 18 through March 8, 2018. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from New York to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from EWR on Sundays from November 5 through November 12; November 26 through December 3, 2017 and January 14 through March 11, 2018. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from LAX on Tuesdays from September 12 through October 31, 2017. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Miami to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from MIA on Saturdays from September 16 through October 21, 2017. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Chicago to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from ORD on Mondays from October 9 through October 23, 2017. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from Pittsburgh to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from PIT on Thursdays from September 21 through October 5, 2017. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

*Based on lowest one-way fare from San Francisco to Tel Aviv including taxes and charges, booked on www.wowair.com. Available for travel from SFO on Thursdays from September 14 through October 26, 2017. Restrictions and baggage fees may apply.

SOURCE WOW air

Related Links

https://wowair.us


PLYMOUTH, Mich., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, the world's largest supplier of automotive interiors, was honored by FCA US LLC with a 2016 Supplier of the Year award for Value Optimization Supplier of the Year.

FCA US recognized Yanfeng Automotive Interiors and other top-performing North American supplier partners that have shown an extraordinary commitment to innovation, quality, warranty, cost, delivery and the FCA Foundational Principles at its recent Annual Supplier Conference at MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit.

"It's an honor to be recognized by FCA US for our efforts and top performance," said Nathan Bowen, vice president and general manager, Americas for Yanfeng Automotive Interiors. "This award further demonstrates our commitment to providing our customers with superior products and services that exceed expectations, and to serve as a partner to them."

The Value Optimization Supplier of the Year award is recognition of a supplier that has a robust continuous improvement process, exceeds its technical goals, and implements technical cost reduction ideas for the benefit of both the customer and suppler.

"We honor those who continue to fuel our momentum by providing us not only the best ideas and cutting-edge technologies, but also the suppliers who consistently exceed our expectations," said Scott Thiele, Chief Purchasing Officer, FCA  Global. "We know that you are the backbone of this industry and the partnerships we have formed over the years have brought forth some of the most exciting vehicles in the market, from the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, the industry's first electrified minivan, to the world's most powerful factory-production V-8 in the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon."

Award recipients were determined based on an evaluation of each company's supplier scorecard performance in 2016  a rating system that evaluates supplier performance in areas such as quality, delivery, cost, warranty and partnership  and input from FCA senior leadership.

About Yanfeng Automotive Interiors

Yanfeng Automotive Interiors (YFAI) is the global leader in automotive interiors. YFAI is redefining how people relax, work and play in their vehicle interiors today and decades from now. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company has approximately 100 manufacturing plants and technical centers in 18 countries and more than 30,000 employees globally. They design, develop and manufacture interior components for all automakers. Established in 2015, Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is a joint venture between Yanfeng Automotive Trim Systems Co., Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Huayu Automotive Systems Co., Ltd. (HASCO), the component group of SAIC Motor Corporation Limited (SAIC Motor), and Adient, the global leader in automotive seating. For more information, please visit www.YFAI.com.

SOURCE Yanfeng Automotive Interiors

Related Links

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Washington, May 11 : A photographer for a Russian state-owned news agency was allowed into the Oval Office during US President Donald Trumps meeting with Russian diplomats in a level of access that has been criticised as a potential security breach.

Former US intelligence officials pointed to the danger the extra-ordinary access posed in that a listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office hidden in cameras or other electronics, the Washington Post reported.

The ex-intelligence officials raised questions after photos of Trump's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were posted online by the Tass news agency.

When asked whether it was a sound decision to allow the Russian photographer into the Oval Office, former deputy CIA director David S. Cohen replied: "No, it was not."

The White House played down the danger, saying that the photographer and his equipment were subjected to a security screening before he and it entered the White House grounds.

Other former intelligence officials also described the access granted to the photographer as a potential security lapse, noting that standard screening for White House visitors would not necessarily detect a sophisticated espionage device.

An administration official also said that the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer. Russian officials had described the individual as Lavrov's official photographer without disclosing that he also worked for Tass.

"We were not informed by the Russians that their official photographer was dual-hatted and would be releasing the photographs on the state news agency," the administration official said.

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy after his talks with Trump and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov did not hide his irritation with questions about Moscow's alleged meddling in the US presidential election.

"I never thought I'd have to answer such questions, particularly in the US, given your highly-developed democratic system," he said.

Lavrov said that no evidence exists linking Russia to hacked Democratic Party emails and that the issue of Russian interference in the campaign did not arise in his meeting with Trump, according to the report.

In a statement after the meeting, the White House said Trump had "emphasised the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria", particularly urging Russia to "rein in" the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran.

Trump also urged Russia to implement the Minsk accord reached in 2014 in an attempt to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Lucknow, May 12 : A prominent trader was shot dead around midnight in Gorakhpur, the parliamentary constituency of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, police said on Friday.

Traders have threatened protests if the killers were not nabbed immediately.

All city shops will remain closed, convener of the Joint Traders Association Sitaram Jaiswal said.

Bike borne assailants of oil trader Chandra Prakash Tibdewal, also decamped with Rs 20 lakh cash that the victim was carrying.

Tibdewal, 45, owned an oil trading company at Sahebganj. He was on his way home after closing his shop when he was intercepted by the assailants.

The staff accompanying him had a bag with the cash -- the sale proceeds of the day. Before the trader could do anything, the killers shot him and fled with the bag.

He was rushed to a nearby medical facility where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Police are interrogating the employees of Tibdewal. Vigil has been stepped up in the city.

Other traders associations have also expressed apprehensions over the spate of crimes under the watch of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which stormed to power in March, making poor law and order under the Samajwadi Party (SP) government its main poll plank.
Canberra, May 12 : Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Friday said the country is open to sending more troops to Afghanistan in response to a request by the NATO.

"We have been asked to consider sending additional resources, and we are actively considering that. We're open to that," Turnbull told the media.

Turnbull had met senior officials of the NATO and the Defence Secretary of the US, James Mattis, in Kabul during a surprise visit to the region last month, Efe news reported.

"It is very important that we continue (...) to work together to build up the capacity of Afghanistan's own security forces so they can keep the country secure from the threat of terrorism," Turnbull said.

Australia currently has 270 troops stationed in Afghanistan for training and technical assistance to Afghan troops.

Between 2001 and 2014, it had deployed up to 1,500 soldiers for combat missions in the conflict-torn country.
New Delhi, May 13 : To prevent recurrence of vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya, the Delhi government will prepare a comprehensive plan to keep the city "mosquito-free", Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Saturday.

Briefing the media on the preparedness for dengue and chikungunya-like diseases, Sisodia said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had held a meeting with all stakeholders, including commissioners of civic bodies, and a comprehensive plan would be made to make Delhi mosquito-free.

"Chief Minister has directed that a comprehensive proposal be made, for which the officials concerned of the central government, Delhi government, civic bodies and NCR will pitch in. We have to find a way to make Delhi mosquito-free," he said.

Sisodia said that the government had taken preventive steps early this year, so that measures were put in place before the onset of monsoon.

The government has instructed hospitals to use 10 to 20 per cent of the beds for treatment of fever and to be ready for extra fever clinics, according to Sisodia.

"Facility to know the availability of beds online is being ensured and a control room is being set up to help patients," said Sisodia, adding that rates of medicines or tests would be fixed in private hospitals, so that the dengue and chikungunya patients were not charged extra.

According to official data, 4,431 cases of dengue were reported in 2016 and the number of chikungunya cases stood at 9,749. The figures are among the worst in India till now.
New Delhi/London/Washington, May 13 : A day after a massive ransomeware attack hit nearly 100 countries, including India, terrifying details were slowly emerging on Saturday as computers from hospitals in Britain to police stations in Andhra Pradesh were hacked into, keeping cyber security experts on tenterhooks.

In India, a section of computers at Andhra Pradesh's police departments were hacked. Computers in 18 police units in Chittoor, Krishna, Guntur, Visakhatpatnam and Srikakulam districts were affected.

According to Director General of Police N. Sambasiva Rao, systems using the Windows operating system were hit by the cyber attack. The police chief's computer with Apple's iOS operating system was safe.

R. Jaya Lakshmi, Superintendent of Police, Tirupati Urban, said the 'ransomware' encrypted data in some police stations, adding that they were not able to access data and hackers were demanding ransom in digital currency bitcoin to restore access.

"The impact is minimal as we also keep offline record of FIRs and other documents," Lakshmi added.

Among the government agencies and companies affected globally were Britain's National Health Service (NHS), the Russian Interior Ministry, Spain's communications giant Telefonica, power firm Iberdrola, utility provider Gas Natural and FedEx in the US.

According to media reports, teams were working round the clock in response to the attack, which resulted in operations being cancelled, ambulances being diverted and documents such as patient records made unavailable in England and Scotland.

After denying reports that its computers had been targeted, the Russian Interior Ministry later confirmed that "around 1,000 computers were infected". The ministry said the technicians had contained the attack.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab detected that variants of a malware called "WannaCry" were used that encrypted the files.

"Once inside the system, the attackers install a rootkit, which enables them to download the software to encrypt the data. The malware encrypts the files. A request for $600 in Bitcoin is displayed along with the wallet -- and the ransom demand increases over time," Altaf Halde, Managing Director Kaspersky Lab (South Asia), told IANS.

Kaspersky Lab confirmed that the company's protection subsystems detected at least 45,000 infection attempts in 74 countries, mostly in Russia.

"This is big and set to get bigger. We haven't seen anything like this since Conficker in 2008," Amit Nath, Head of Asia Pacific-Corporate Business at cyber security firm F-Secure Corporation, told IANS.

Another cybersecurity firm Avast said it had seen 75,000 cases of the ransomware around the world.

Europol also warned a "complex international investigation" was required "to identify the culprits".

Rail passengers in Germany were confronted with the ransom message when looking up train information at stations after Berlin-based railway company Deutsche Bahn was targeted.

Carmaker Renault was France's first company to be affected by the ransomware while Portugal Telecom and a local authority in Sweden also faced a similar fate.

The ransomware infects victims by exploiting a Microsoft Windows vulnerability described and fixed in "Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010".

Microsoft also said it would roll out the update to users of older operating systems "that no longer receive mainstream support", such as Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003.

The seeds of the massive cyber attack were sown by a mysterious hacking group "Shadow Brokers" in April when it leaked a hacking tool called "Eternal Blue" developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

Interestingly, the same tool is believed to have been used by another anonymous hacking group to gain remote access to computers, that brought parts of the NHS to a standstill.

"It's likely that regular online criminals simply used the information that the 'Shadow Brokers' put on the internet and thought 'how can we monetise this'," telegraph.co.uk quoted Graham Cluley, a computer security expert, as saying on Saturday.

The attack was the latest in the growing menace of ransomware in which hackers deliver files to computers that automatically encrypt their data, making it unusable until a ransom is paid.

"This is not targeted at the NHS," British Prime Minister Theresa May was quoted as saying in BBC. "It's an international attack, and a number of countries and organisations have been affected."

Hacking group or groups were yet to claim responsibility for the attack.

The Chinese online security company Qihoo 360 issued a warning about the virus, saying that many networks there had been hit and that some computers used to mine Bitcoin in China were among those infected.

The US Department of Homeland Security, in a statement, encouraged people to update their operating systems, CNN reported.

"We are actively sharing information related to this event and stand ready to lend technical support and assistance as needed to our partners, both in the United States and internationally," the department said.

Meanwhile, the Group of Seven (G7) nations, which were holding a two-day meeting (May 12-13) of Finance Ministers and central bankers in Italy, released a draft statement committing to join forces to fight the rising threat of cyber attacks.
Kathmandu, May 14 : Nearly five million Nepalis on Sunday are voting in the first phase of the much awaited local elections taking place for the first time after the Himalayan nation became a federal democratic republic.

A total of 4,956,925 registered voters are eligible to cast their votes at 6,642 polling stations across Nepal, The Kathmandu Post reported.

The local polls will elect a chairperson of the village council, vice chairperson, municipality's mayor, deputy mayor, ward chairperson, two ward members from open quota, a woman ward member and a woman ward member representing the Dalit community.

The election is being held in four metropolitan cities, one sub metropolis, 92 municipalities and 186 village councils.

A total of 49,337 candidates are contesting the polls and among them 160 women and 169 men candidates remain unopposed, according to the Election Commission (EC).

The second round of the local polls will be held on June 14, reports The Kathmandu Post.

The Home Ministry said that it deployed 64,000 police personnel including Nepal Police, Armed Police Force (APF), temporary police and intelligence officers.

Nepal Army has deployed 31,000 soldiers for the security of the first phase of the local polls with choppers on standby in Kathmandu, Hetauda, Pokhara and Surkhet.
New Delhi : As the impact of the worst northeast monsoon in 140 years unfolds across Tamil Nadu, farmers sowed a third less land than they did in 2015-16, water levels in six major reservoirs continued to plunge, and suicides in the farm sector increased over five years.

In the midst of this agrarian turmoil in a state that produced 5.6 per cent of India's rice in 2014-15, the agriculture ministry has predicted a record national harvest.

The agriculture ministry's third advance estimate forecast India's foodgrain production to be the highest ever, increasing by about 9 per cent to 273.4 million tonnes (mt) in the crop year 2016-17 ending June from 251.57 mt in 2015-16.

Tamil Nadu has reported a 29 per cent year-on-year drop in overall crop sowing till February 2, 2017, according to the latest situation report from the agriculture ministry.

The retreating northeast monsoon -- usually unnoticed in India owing to the singular importance of the larger southwest monsoon -- in 2016 was the worst ever over the last 140 years, according to Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) records, since 1876, as IndiaSpend reported in January 2017. Record-keeping began in 1871, but a worse northeast monsoon, which sweeps across Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra Pradesh, south interior Karnataka and Kerala, between October and December, was recorded in 1876, making 2016 the year of the second-worst monsoon in 145 years.

Water levels in three of six major Tamil Nadu reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission dropped 25-70 per cent between January 5 and May 11, 2017, according to the commission data, even as the average across the six reservoirs was 82 peer cent less than normal for the week ending May 11, 2017. There are no official data on what percentage of Tamil Nadu farms are irrigated using water from the state's 78 reservoirs.

As the drought -- officially declared as such on January 10, 2017 -- rolls on, the state government has told the Supreme Court it is not linked to suicides by farmers, a contention disputed by a representative of farmers in New Delhi, where a protest is drawing international attention, as protesters display what they say are the skulls of dead farmers.

Farm suicides not because of drought: State government

The Tamil Nadu government's claim that only 82 farmers have committed suicide since October 2016 is wrong, P. Ayyakannu -- one of the representatives of Tamil Nadu farmers in Delhi and Tamil Nadu president of Desiya-Thennindhiya Nathigal Inaippu Vivasayigal Sangam (National-South Indian Rivers Interlinking Farmers Association) -- told IndiaSpend.

He claimed that over 400 farmers had killed themselves because of reasons attributable to the drought and police reports about these suicides had been filed. IndiaSpend could not independently verify this claim.

As many as 106 farmers died in January 2017 alone, according to Tamil media reports, following which the National Human Rights Commission issued notice to the state government asking for a detailed report about the steps proposed to be taken by the state government.

Suicides in the farm sector in Tamil Nadu -- including landless farmers and agricultural labourers -- increased 12 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

The police wrongly register many suicides related to drought or crop loss as those due to family problems, old age and other reasons, Ayyakannu told IndiaSpend. Besides, NCRB's new classification of farm-related suicides under two categories-farmers and agricultural labourers-has also led to an apparent drop in farmer suicides over six years to 2014, as IndiaSpend reported in July 2015.

The Supreme Court, in a hearing on May 8, 2017, refused to intervene in the matter of compensation to the families of farmers who died in the wake of drought following the state's worst monsoon in 140 years, the farmers' counsel, N. Rajaraman, told IndiaSpend.

Ayyakannu has challenged the state government's submission to the Supreme Court that farmer suicides were not because of drought. The Supreme Court bench, comprising Justices Dipak Misra and A.M. Khanwilkar, on being informed that 20 cases of farmer suicides in the past year or so have been reported to district collectors, advised Rajaraman to bring those to the notice of the high court instead of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had said on May 3, 2017, that it was interested in the structural aspects of minimum support prices and mandis (local markets). The Supreme Court seemed reluctant to get involved in the more pressing issue of compensation, Rajaraman told IndiaSpend.

S. Panneerselvam, Professor and Head, Agro Climate Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore, told IndiaSpend that they would be issuing an advisory based on the first forecast in April 2017 by the India Meteorological Department of the southwest monsoon as normal. The forecast will be updated in June.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Vipul Vivek is an analyst. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
New Delhi, May 15 : It was coming. On March 14 this year, Microsoft released a security update which addressed the vulnerability in the 16-year-old Windows XP operating system that the hackers behind the massive ransomware attack exploited and created havoc in 150 countries.

The vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows software -- exploited by "WannaCrypt" -- crippled computers from hospitals in Britain to police stations in India, with hackers demanding hundreds of dollars from the users for them to regain control over their data.

Once Microsoft released the patch for the vulnerability -- exploited by hacker group "Shadow Brokers" after stealing a software from the US National Security Agency (NSA) -- some Window XP users installed the update called "Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010" on their desktops and laptops.

But several didn't.

There are nearly 150 million computers running Windows XP operation system globally. Those who didn't pay heed to the Windows XP patch are the ones who have fallen prey to the world's biggest ransomware attack.

Microsoft which had discontiued security updates to its out-of-date software, has also provided a security update for all customers using Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003, anticipating further attacks on these earlier platforms being used by millions.

According to the company, "customers who are running supported versions of the operating system (Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016) will have received the security update MS17-010 in March.

"If customers have automatic updates enabled or have installed the update, they are protected. For other customers, we encourage them to install the update as soon as possible," said Phillip Misner, Principal Security Group Manager, Microsoft Security Response Centre, in a statement.

Meanwhile, "WannaCrypt" locked up machines, encrypted files and demanded approximately $600 in Bitcoin for a recovery key.

According to global cyber security firms, paying heed to updates can only save your data from being put to ransom.

"Install the official patch from Microsoft that closes the vulnerability used in the attack. Ensure that security solutions are switched on all nodes of the network. If Kaspersky Lab's solution is used, ensure that it includes the 'System Watcher', a behavioural proactive detection component and that it is switched on," Altaf Halde, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab (South Asia), told IANS.

"Run the 'Critical Area Scan' task in Kaspersky Lab's solution to detect possible infection as soon as possible (otherwise it will be detected automatically, if not switched off, within 24 hours)," he added.

According to Subhendu Sahu, Acting Country Manager for India, FireEye, the ransomware poses high risks to organisations using potentially vulnerable Windows machines.

"We can certainly expect follow-on attacks. Organisations seeking to take risk management steps related to this campaign should install the latest Windows patches. They should also use the indicators of compromise which are associated with this activity. FireEye has also taken steps to help secure its customers," Sahu told IANS.

As investigators were working to track down those responsible for the ransomware attack, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said the governments should treat this attack as a "wake-up call".

The news led software security providers to ramp up anti-malware software.

"Upon learning of these incidents, McAfee quickly began working to analyse samples of the ransomware and develop mitigation guidance and detection updates for its customers. McAfee has subsequently provided DAT (that contain data in text or binary format) updates to all its customers and provided them and the public further analysis on the attacks," Ian Yip, Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific, McAfee, told IANS.

If you are a home Windows XP user, patch immediately follow up with an upgrade. If you are running a vulnerable system and cannot install the patch for some reason, try doing the following:

"Disable SMBv1 (a server component) with the steps documented at 'Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2696547' and as recommended previously. Consider adding a rule on your router or firewall to block incoming Server Message Block (SMB) traffic on port 445," said a report in the technology website Engadget.

"This is big and set to get bigger. We haven't seen anything like this since Conficker in 2008," Amit Nath, Head of Asia Pacific-Corporate Business at cyber security firm F-Secure Corporation, told IANS.

The Conficker worm infected millions of computers including government, business and home computers in over 190 countries.

Always make sure your files are backed up.

"That way, if they become compromised in a ransomware attack, you can wipe your disk drive clean and restore the data from the backup. Using Cloud storage with anti-virus scanning abilities to share files will help users to mitigate any possible threats," suggested Anand Ramamoorthy, Managing Director, South Asia, McAfee.

Remember this: "WannaCrypt" probably won't work across the internet for PCs behind a firewall or router.

"But if a server is connected directly to the internet or a PC is on the same network as an infected computer, it can spread quickly -- which is exactly what has happened," the Engadget report added.

(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
New Delhi, May 15 : As the world struggles to tame the massive "WannaCrypt" attack, ransomware has emerged as the most dangerous cyber threat for both organisations and individuals in recent months, with global losses now likely running into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ransomware is a malicious software that locks a connected device, such as a computer, tablet or smartphone and then demands a ransom to unlock it.

According to Norton by Symantec, one of the global leaders in cyber security software, there was a 36 per cent increase in the ransomware attacks in 2016 and the ransomware families have grown three times -- from 30 in 2014 to 101 in 2016.

"In 2016, we identified over 100 new malware families released into the wild, more than triple the amount seen previously, and a 36 per cent increase in ransomware attacks worldwide," Tarun Kaura, Director, Solutions Product Management, Asia Pacific & Japan, Symantec told IANS.

India alone faces 4 per cent of the total ransomware attacks while the US is most affected, with 34 per cent of the ransomware attacks globally.

India has been ranked fifth in terms of global threat rank by destination, with 3.8 per cent global threat detection.

"Over 180 Indian companies were victims of 'ransomware' -- or online extortion schemes -- in the first six months of 2016," said Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in security software and solutions.

While most major ransomware groups tend to be indiscriminate in their attacks, consumers are often less likely to have robust security in place, increasing the possibility of falling victim.

"The average ransom demanded globally by attackers also saw an upward spike this year. The average ransom demanded to date in 2016 more than doubled from Rs 19,670 in 2015 to Rs. 45,428," a recent Norton by Symantec study highlighted.

"WannaCrypt" -- the ransomware malware used in Friday's massive cyber attack -- has the ability to spread itself within corporate networks, without user interaction, by exploiting a known vulnerability in Microsoft Windows.

Computers which do not have the latest Windows security updates are at the risk of infection.
Chennai, May 16 : The CBI on Tuesday raided the residences of former Union Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram here in Tamil Nadu.

The Central Bureau of Investigation agency began the raids at the former Finance and Home Minister's house early on Tuesday morning, sources said.
Rome, May 15 : Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League party leader Matteo Salvini on Monday described the growing surge of migrants arriving in Italy from Africa as deliberate "ethnic cleansing".

"We are experiencing an attempt at ethnic cleansing, to prevent Italians from living in Italy, working in factories, farms or shops," Salvini told his party's Radio Padania.

Italians faced "a country occupied by slaves, people living precariously, desperate and unemployed people," he said.

Salvini's comments came after more than 500 migrants reached Italy on Monday after being rescued in the Mediterranean at the weekend.

More than 45,000 people have reached Italy by boat from Libya this year, a more than 40 percent increase on the same period of 2016, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.

Most of the migrants arriving in Italy are now from sub-Saharan Africa or from Bangladesh, according to IOM.
New Delhi, May 15 : Vowing to take action against Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the wake of increased attacks on Indian security forces, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said that Narendra Modi government would not let "countrymen hang their heads in shame" and "respond without announcing".

"Bol ke nahin karengey, karke dikhayengey (we will not announce it in advance, we will do it)," he told India TV in a programme on present situation in Kashmir.

The minister said that countrymen should not presume that nothing was being done by the government in this regard.

"I can say this much for now that we will not allow our countrymen to hang their heads in shame," he said, adding that the government also felt the pain of the people.

"There is pain in our hearts too, but we will not allow that pain to continue for a long time," he said.

Asked when an action against terrorists would be taken for killing army personnel Ummer Fayaz, the Home Minister said "prateeksha kijiye (just wait)".

"Whatever happened to Ummer Fayaz has caused pain in the hearts of Indians. He was a role model for youths," the minister added.

Talking about Maoist problem in the country, the minister said that there was 450 per cent spike in the number of Maoists surrendering in the last two years.

Their activities had also gone down by 40 to 45 per cent, he added.
Hyderabad, May 15 : Aravind Kumar Rengan, a professor at Indian Institute of Technology - Hyderabad has been awarded the prestigious Indian National Science Academy (INSA) award in the Young Scientist category for 2017.

Assistant Professor in Department of Biomedical Engineering, he is being recognized for having devised a novel way of nano delivery using liposomes and gold nanoparticles. This is useful for both imaging and therapeutics, IIT-Hyderabad said in a statement.

This research, through which he was able to engineer a biodegradable nano-system for photothermal therapy of cancer and proved its in-vivo biodegradability, has got immense translational potential and can be used to treat cancer in an affordable way with minimal side effects.

The award will be presented to him by the INSA President during the anniversary general meeting in December 2017.

"We are delighted that Dr Rengan has made a mark in scientific work related to curing cancer and has brought pride to IIT Hyderabad. It is work like this by our young faculty that will bring international recognition to IIT Hyderabad," said U.B Desai, Director, IIT Hyderabad.

"This Award is an encouragement for the good scientific work that we do in India, which is comparable to international standards. I would be very happy if many more young medicos take up research as their mainstream career, which will benefit our country in the long run," said Rengan.

Since 1974, INSA annually presents the Young Scientist Award to distinguish young scientists who have made notable research contributions in science and technology.
Milan (Italy), May 16 : German supermarket chain Lidl on Monday denied it is under investigation and ruled any wrongdoing after police arrested 15 people and put four of its management offices under state control amid a probe into links with a Sicilian mafia clan.

"Lidl Italia is not under investigation and is not being searched," and is "extraneous to today's anti-mafia operation," the company stated.

"It learned of these events from investigators during the course of the day."

Lidl said had offered Italian authorities its full cooperation in the anti-mafia probe "to shed light as soon as possible on what has happened".

Monday's arrests were made in the northern Lombardy and the southern Sicily region and came as part of an operating targeting the Sicilian mafia's Laudani clan.

The four Lidl management offices targeted by the anti-mafia probe have been put under staet control for six months, according to sources close to the investigation.
People attend a climate discussion at the U.S. pavilion during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015.
Washington, May 16 : US President Donald Trump lit the White House with blue lights honouring slain police officers, the media reported.

The lighting of blue lights on Monday night is part of a celebration of Peace Officers Memorial Day, a 55-year-old tradition started by former President John F. Kennedy, the Daily Mail reported.

This comes after he gave a full-throated support to the men and women in blue earlier on Monday at 36th annual National Peace Officers's Memorial Service where he defended police officers from "unfair defamation and vilification".

"You are the thin blue line between civilisation and chaos," he told law enforcement officers gathered outside the US Capitol for the memorial service.

Thanking them, Trump, who noted in his remarks that he was in New York when the September 11, 2001, attacks took place, said: "I will make it the personal priority of my administration to ensure that our police are finally treated fairly, with honour and the respect that they deserve."

"Every drop of blood spilled by our heroes in blue is a wound inflicted upon the whole country. And every hear ache known by your families in law enforcement is a sorrow shared by the entire family of the American nation," the Daily Mail quoted the President as saying.

"Please know that you do not grieve alone," he told the families of the fallen officers.

"Now, as President, my highest duty is to keep America safe...We will keep America safe," he promised.

Trump asked Americans around the country to tell a police officer "thank you" next time they come across one and promised to declare his support proudly for law enforcement throughout his administration.

He tossed a '45' hat midway through his remarks to a young boy he identified as Micah, whose father had died in the line of duty.

Trump directed the Department of Justice earlier this this year to develop a strategy to better prevent violence against law enforcement officers.
Bangkok, May 16 : Thai authorities threatened to block Facebook on Tuesday if the social network giant does not remove content that is deemed threatening to national security or offensive to the royal family.

The military junta, which has increased internet censorship since assuming power in the May 2014 coup, demanded, through the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, that Facebook remove 131 posts on its site by Tuesday morning, or face legal action, Efe news reported.

The Thai Internet Service Provider Association (TISPA) warned Facebook's subsidiary company in Thailand that it would disconnect the content delivery network (CDN) originating Facebook's server if the social media company failed to comply with the Thai government's request.

Last week, TISPA sent an email notifying Facebook executives in Thailand about the Thai government's demand.

The internet service providers, represented by TISPA, admitted they are under government pressure and that the military junta has demanded the closure of the distribution network to block illegal materials.

"This action may affect the entire delivery services of www.facebook.com to customers in Thailand," TISPA said in an email published in the Bangkok Post on Tuesday.

According to the authorities, about 6,900 websites and online posts have been blocked in the country since 2015.

In April, the government ordered a prohibition on any online contact with the three critics of the royal family, threatening criminal consequences to those interacting with them.

Thailand's lese-majeste laws are among the strictest in the world, with up to 15 years of imprisonment to those who disseminate messages the authorities consider offensive to the royal family.

About 105 people have been arrested under the lese-majeste charges after the 2014 coup, 49 of whom have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, and another 64 are in custody awaiting trial.
Dakhla (Morocco), May 16 : He rules over 65 tribes in South Africa and his mission is to unite all the tribes across Africa as a nation, reconnecting them with their identity as Africans. Meet King Bhungane III, of the Kingdom of Embo.

King Bhungane III, soft-spoken and gentle, has none of the airs one would associate with royalty.

"In modern South Africa, my role is to assist the poorest of the poor. My task now is to reunite my people and guide them spiritually, culturally, customarily and traditionally," Bhungane III told a visiting IANS correspondent recently.

Bhungane was crowned king only in 2015. Before that he was a member of the African National Congress.

The king was attending the Crans Montana Forum in Dakhla in March as a special invitee of Morocco's monarch, Mohammed VI.

Bhungane traces the ancestry of his Bantu-speaking people to a few thousand years, from the time of the Biblical King Solomon. According to him, his people migrated down from the Great Lakes region in Central Africa a few hundred years ago.

He recounted interesting traditions of the Bantu people of how they take their last child to the river, smear him or her with clay and "introduce the child to the river" -- symbolising a deep connect with nature.

"When the child is one month old, he or she is taken to the river and smeared with clay and covered with leopard skin. The child is presented to the water. We explain the name of the child (to the river), and after that wash the clay off the child into the river, so that the aroma of the child is in the river. We dry the child with leopard skin and walk away with it, and don't look back at the river. That's our tradition, and it still exists."

The tradition is over 3,000 years, he says.

When the child turns one, the ritual is repeated. Then a goat is slaughtered and presented to the ancestors. "We tell them, this child is your child."

Then "some fluid from the knee of the sacrificed goat" is taken and rubbed on the knees and ankles of the child. "So that when the child steps up, it must not be a weak child."

In another ritual, a piece of skin "from the back of the left leg" of the sacrificed goat is taken and is tied like an arm band on the right hand of the child.

"It signifies that this child belongs to God and is protected by ancestors," he says.

Recounting the process of choosing a king, Bhungane says: "When a king is chosen, it will come from the prophet, or a seer in the tribe. They will go to other tribes also to see if the seer gave them the exact story (about the chosen one) to verify. They may go to three-four different tribes."

After the verification is done, there is a ritual to be followed.

"The chosen successor must be taken to the mountain. At the peak of the mountain, the prophets call the gods and present the future king.

"They use certain herbs to enhance his powers. From there, the successor is then presented to the family to say he is now ready. Then a feast is held.

"The prophets tell us what name he should bear -- the title. Like myself, I was told that I was the reincarnation of Bhungane I and II."

According to Bhungane, almost every Bantu-speaking tribe follows the tradition. "We still hold on to the custom today.

Who are the Bantu people?

"We were the first people in (what is now) the Congo, and the first migration (southwards) was with us. We are the first custodians of the kingdom and the first custodians of the rulership of the Bantus."

The king says that British colonisation "destroyed our kingdom. It took us many years to resuscitate our kingdom".

What about the future of his people?

"My thrust is to unite them under one spirituality first. To find our identity, to rebuild our identity and encourage them to education. We need to reconnect, some of them no longer believe in our tradition, they believe in churches.

"We need to reintroduce them to what we are talking about. Some of them do not adhere to the tradition of their kingdoms, some of them think they are white. They are confused..."

Bhungane says he will appeal to his people at the spiritual level, irrespective of what religion they follow. "I don't belong to any religious denomination, I am at a spiritual level. I can connect to anybody. So my people can come back -- it's connecting with high spirituality."

Bhungane says the king becomes a spiritual guide to the nation.

"He sees things that ordinary humans do not see. He has a direct connection with God in terms of communication, and he is the guide to the nation, because he will get direct commands, direct orders from God."

And as part of the connect, in these modern times, the king has started a Facebook page to keep his people abreast of the news concerning the community.

(Ranjana Narayan was in Morocco at the invitation of the Crans Montana Forum. She can be contacted at ranjana.n@ians.in)
Pune, May 16 : Barely two days after Marathi film-maker Atul B. Tapkir's death, the Pune police on Tuesday arrested his widow and her adopted brothers on charges of abetment to suicide, an official said here.

"They have been arrested from their residences in Khed and Kondwa areas of the city today and charged with Indian Penal Code Sections 306, 34 pertaining to abetment to suicide, common intent, etc," investigating officer R.A. Patel of the Deccan Gymkhana police station said.

Those nabbed include his widow Priyanka Atul Tapkir (30), and her adopted brothers Kalyan Gavhane and Balu Gavhane.

The arrests follow a complaint lodged against them on Monday by Bajirao Tapkir, Atul's father. The arrested would be presented before a court later in the day, Patel said.

On May 14, Tapkir, 35, posted a 'suicide' note on Facebook before consuming a poisonous substance and ending his life in a locked room of Hotel President in the posh Deccan Gymkhana area of the city.

After the post went viral, the hotel authorities summoned the police, who broke open the room door to recover his body lying on the bed.

In his 'suicide' post, Tapkir had blamed his wife and the two Gavhane brothers for his extreme step, saying she constantly quarreled with him and threw him out of their home six months ago and kept him from meeting their children.

He also accused the Gavhane brothers and some others of threatening and thrashing him at his wife's instigation, which was also corroborated by his father Bajirao Tapkir in his police complaint.

The Pune police, in a related development, are also probing allegations against an official who reportedly took a bribe from Tapkir for not arresting him after his wife earlier lodged a complaint against him.

The co-producer of a 2015 film, "Dhol Taashe", which ran into losses, Tapkir had urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis that "the police must listen to a man's side of the story too when a woman lodges a complaint".

He said his last wish was that since his wife cannot look after their children, his father should raise them.
New Delhi, May 16 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and conveyed that her party was in favour of a consensus candidate for the presidential election.

"We want a consensus candidate. This is good for the country," Banerjee told reporters here.

She is also learnt to have backed another term for President Pranab Mukherjee if the government proposes his name, sources said.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was also present in the meeting.

Banerjee said Sonia Gandhi, who has been holding talks with opposition parties to decide a common candidate, will hold further consultations and she would again meet her in about a week after the process is completed.

Banerjee is expected to meet Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday.

The term of President Pranab Mukherjee ends in July. The ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, which has clear edge in the presidential election, has not given any inkling so far on its choice of candidate.

Sonia Gandhi has been contacting leaders opposed to the ruling BJP to evolve a consensus.

She has spoken to Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and met JD-U leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

The Congress chief is also expected to meet Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati.

Answering queries from media persons, Congress media incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Congress was proud that President Mukherjee came from the pedigree of thought process and an ideology that has been a centre-point of this country since its formation.

He said the names of the candidate would be announced once a consensus is reached.

Among the names doing the rounds as consensus candidates of opposition are of former Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.
Kolkata, May 16 : India and Bangladesh have initiated a process to improve navigability of inland water transit protocol route between the two countries so that the former can connect river Ganga with the northeastern states, an official said here on Tuesday.

The two countries had agreed on the extension of Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade (PIWTT), signed in 1972.

"The river Ganga through National Waterway one (NW -1) is going to be connected with the northeast through India-Bangladesh protocol route. We are in an advanced stage," Inland Waterways Authority of India's (IWAI) Member (Technical), Sanjay Kumar Gangwar told IANS.

He said dredging would be required in some part of the route.

"In the protocol route, there should not be any problem up to Dhaka...but at the upstreams of the river Brahmaputra, dredging will be required for improving its navigability," he said at an event "India's maritime Connectivity: Importance of the Bay of Bengal" organised by Observer Research Foundation here.

Gangwar said India and Bangladesh have already taken up the issue.

"We have sent the draft tender document to Bangladesh. Our neighbouring country is in process of finalising the tender document for the dredging in the protocol route. The tender will be floated by the Bangladesh government," he said.

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority's Director (Marine Safety and Traffic management) M. Shafiqul Haque said that tender for the dredging in the protocol route would be floated soon.

"In the protocol route, dredging would be required mainly in some stretches under Sirajganj to Doikhawa route on Brahmaputra-Jamuna river in Bangladesh and also under Ashuganj to Karimganj to improve the navigability," Haque told IANS.

Gangwar added that India will bear 80 per cent of the dredging cost and the rest by Bangladesh.

He said the authority is coming out with contract of least available depth for certain period to dredge the river particularly under National Waterway one (NWI), which is Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system from Allahabad to Haldia.

"The draft of such (least available draft) contract has been shared with Bangladesh authority," he said.

Gangwar said that the plan was to expand NW 1 from Haldia through protocol route to NW 2 connecting the northeast.

The Indian government is developing National Waterway 1 (NW-1) under the Jal Marg Vikas Project, with assistance from the World Bank. The estimated project cost has been revised upward to Rs 5,369 crore from the initial estimation of Rs 4,200 crore.
Itanagar, May 16 : Arunachal Pradesh's Anshu Jamsenpa on Tuesday scripted history of a sort by becoming the first Indian woman to scale the Mount Everest for the fourth time. She will attempt a double ascent to the world's highest peak to make it a total five successful climbs.

Jamsenpa, a mother of two, started at 1.45 a.m. on May 13 for her climb and reached the Everest top at 9 a.m. on Tuesday to unfurl the national flag.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama had on April 2 this year flagged off the mountaineer's double ascent expedition from Guwahati in Assam.

Jamsenpa scaled the Mount Everest twice in May 2011 and again scaled the peak on May 18 in 2013.

If she is successful with her double ascent this time, Jamsenpa will set a record five climbs of Mt Everest.

She started the summit expedition after 38 days of acclimatisation at the Everest Base Camp from April 4 to May 12.

"The good news is that she is absolutely well and fine and shall attempt a double expedition," her spokesperson said.

Jamsenpa spoke to officials at the Everest Base Camp and in Kathmandu over satellite phone from the world's tallest peak after unfurling the tricolour and clicking testimonial photos.

Her health is stated to be perfectly fine and she is descending now to the base camp.

She acknowledged the support extended by State Bank of India, North Eastern Council, Numaligarh Refinery Limited, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation, Arunachal Pradesh government and all her previous associates for her success.

Jamsenpa is motivated and energised to try the double ascent if conditions remain favourable.
New Delhi, May 16 : A survey participated in by more than 45,000 children in the 12- 18 age group, across 26 states in the country, revealed that one in every two children is a victim of child sexual abuse.

The survey conducted by humanitarian aid organisation World Vision India with a sample of 45,844 respondents also revealed that one in every five do not feel safe because of the fear of being sexually abused.

It also said that one in four families do not come forward to report child abuse.

"Despite one in every two children being a victim of child sexual abuse, there continues to be a huge silence. The magnitude of sexual violence against children is unknown," World Vision India National Director Cherian Thomas said here while launching a campaign to end child sexual abuse and exploitation by 2021.

The "It Takes the World to End Violence against Children" campaign targets 10 million children across 25 states and one union territory.

"The campaign works through our area programmes that deal with different issues of health care typically -- malnutrition and early illness, education, child rights and protection and the improvement of resilience in communities," Thomas told IANS.

"The area programmes are based in 186 districts that we operate in," he added.

Thomas said that the campaign will draw people from all walks of life to ensure a safe environment for children.

Children are given training in different aspects, where they are taught about the good touch and the bad touch and various other relevant aspects, he said.

"With 98 per cent of rapes being committed by people known to the children, I feel it is time that we all come under one banner and umbrella to focus our work around child protection," he said.

"We are going to work along with other civil society organisations, and child rights organisations. People are sensitized over the issue if economic resilience as most of these abuse cases are a result of inadequate economic resilience in communities," he explained.
Washington, May 16 : US President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday he had the right to share information with Russia related to terrorism and other issues, his first public response to the revelation that he disclosed classified information at an Oval Office meeting last week.

The President made his first statement on Twitter following a series of denials from White House officials.

"...I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled White House meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," he tweeted.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the President shared intelligence from a US ally in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The Post, citing unnamed officials, also reported that Trump went off script during the meeting, describing details about an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes, revealing the city where the information was gathered.

The Trump administration immediately rejected the claims as "false".

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Trump's National Security Adviser, said on Monday.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the President did not disclose any military operations that weren't already publicly known," McMaster said.

However, on Tuesday Trump took to Twitter to defend his actions, appearing to contradict the denials that he had shared intelligence with the Russian officials.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the issue was not worth confirming or denying, calling it "nonsense".

"For us it is not an issue, it's more nonsense," Peskov said when asked about the Washington Post report.

Dick Durbin, a leading Democratic Senator, said Trump's conduct was "dangerous" and "reckless".

Some Republicans expressed shock at the development, with Senator Bob Corker stating that the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order".

"Obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," Corker said.

The last week meeting between Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak had already raised alarm bells in Washington, primarily because it came one day after Trump decided to fire FBI Director James Comey while the bureau investigated the President campaign's alleged ties to Russia.

The meeting, a personal request from Russian President Vladimir Putin, was supposed to remain behind closed doors without any media coverage.

But a photographer from a Russian state-media attended the meeting and took photos of a laughing Trump with Lavrov and Kislyak.

No US media were allowed into the meeting.

Though an angry White House official told CNN they felt "tricked" by the Russians, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "proper protocol was followed" by not allowing media into the meeting.
Manali, May 16 : Hundreds of tourists who descended on this Himachal Pradesh resort to enjoy the snowy landscape in its nearby hills were inconvenienced on Tuesday as taxi drivers went on a daylong strike. They later decided to extend the strike by a day.

More than 2,000 taxis remained off the roads to protest against the administration's decision restricting the entry of tourist vehicles bound for the Rohtang Pass beyond Gulaba, Raj Kumar Dogra, President of the Him-aanchal Taxi Operators Union, told IANS.

He said there was no indication from the administration to end the deadlock so they had decided to extend their strike till Wednesday.

Gulaba is on the way to the Rohtang Pass and is some 26 km from here.

Dogra said the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) had cleared the snow leading to the Rohtang Pass from here in the last week of April and the civil administration assured that tourist vehicles bound for the pass would be allowed in the first week of May.

"Till date the tourists are not allowed to go beyond Gulaba. If the administration allows, we will immediately withdraw the strike," Dogra said.

It is only the snow that is attracting the tourists to Manali this season, he said.

"At Gulaba the entire snow has melted. We are requesting the administration to allow the tourist vehicles to reach up to Marhi, which is just eight km ahead of Gulaba, so that they can enjoy the snow."

Auto operators and private mini bus operators of Manali also joined the protest.

The picturesque Rohtang Pass, located in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas and 52 km from here, is a major attraction for both domestic and foreign tourists. Till mid June, it is covered in snow.

"We have specially come all the way from Kolkata to enjoy the snowy landscape. On reaching here we were told that tourists are not allowed to go there. This is unprofessional attitude of the local authorities," an agitated Abhijit Chatterji said.

Official sources said currently vehicles carrying locals and government officials, who are bound for Lahaul-Spiti district, are allowed to ply across the Rohtang Pass, located at an altitude of 13,050 feet in Kullu.
Bullet holes were found in three South Side townhouse buildings late Monday afternoon after a man fired multiple shots at another man who was chasing him through the complex, according to police and eyewitness reports.

A resident of Bram Hill Townhouses, at the southeast corner of Bram and Beld streets a block east of South Park Street, saw a man in his early 20s firing a handgun at an unarmed man who appeared to be trying to help the gunman around 4:30 p.m.

They might have been friends, said Estella Vargas, 44. The man was trying to calm him down, but the other guy kept shooting at him. Its crazy he didnt get hit.

No hospitals in the area had anybody show up with gunshot wounds as Madison officers, detectives and police dogs hunted for shell casings and other clues, Madison police Sgt. Michael Richardson said. He believed that the three buildings where bullet holes were found were all part of the Bram Hill Townhouses development, which are near the Catholic Multicultural Center.

Police also were investigating whether a car with bullet holes found just a few blocks away on Emerson Street was related to the Beld Street shooting, Richardson said.

Multiple residents of Bram Hill Townhouses reported hearing what sounded like loud firecrackers at the time of the shooting. Vargas said her 5-year-old son, Jordan, was so excited about the firecrackers that he opened the front door and was about to run outside.

But the gunman, whom Vargas described as in his early 20s and wearing a red shirt and baggy jeans, was less than 5 feet from the door as Jordan opened it and was firing his gun, according to Vargas.

It looked like a movie but it was for real. It was really scary, Vargas said. The guy with the gun was running while looking back and firing at the man chasing him. Ill bet he fired that gun 20 times. The man chasing him wasnt that far behind him and was trying to help him. He said, Dont go to your moms house. There are kids there. They might get hurt.

The townhouse playground is in a courtyard just outside Vargas front door and she said its usually teeming with children at the time of day that the gunman ran right through it.

But it was sprinkling today so nobody was outside, she said.

Other residents described how a man matching Vargas description of the gunman ran by their townhouses that face Fisher Street and then past the townhouse dumpsters. They said there was no sign of a gun as the man continued running south on Fisher toward the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County on Taft Street. They also said they did not see a man chasing him.

As Vargas yelled to her son, Run, Jordan, run! and they ducked for cover inside her townhouse, other residents rushed to the basement as word spread quickly that a gunman was nearby.

John Kimble said the gunman ran right past his townhouse.

I thought it was firecrackers, but when they kept going, I thought, Thats not firecrackers, he said. I was making dinner and I could have lost my life.

Minutes before the shooting, a man getting into his car on Beld Street in front of his apartment building about 50 yards away from the townhouses said he heard two men yelling at each other.

The last few days there has been more shouting than usual around here, said Daniel Lassman, a UW-Madison graduate student. I got back around 5, just as the cops were getting here. And then a guy in a white shirt walking by real fast told me at least eight shots were fired but nobody was hurt. Thankfully the guy who was shooting was a bad shot.
Srinagar, May 16 : Senior Kashmiri separatist leader Nayeem Khan on Tuesday lodged a protest with India Today news channel against its expose showing separatist leaders purportedly admitting they had stoked militancy with Pakistani funding.

Khan came to the channel's office here to lodge his protest against the news item showing three separatist leaders, including him.

While a news anchor said the staff at the Srinagar office was being threatened by Khan and his supporters, a reporter of the channel here, who did not want to be identified, said: "He came to lodge his protest and asked for the story to be withdrawn as it had shown him in bad light, but he did not manhandle or threaten anyone of us."

State police chief S.P. Vaid has told the TV anchor that police would ensure safety of the channel's staff in Srinagar.
London, May 16 : Britain's notorious child killer "Moors Murderer" Ian Brady, who tortured and murdered five children with his lover Myra Hindley in the 1960s, has died after spending more than five decades behind bars.

Brady and Hindley were jailed for life in 1966 for abducting, torturing, sexually abusing and then murdering the children before burying their young victims on the bleak Saddleworth Moor near the northern city of Manchester.

The couple used to tape record the crying pleas for mercy from their young victims, the Guardian reported.

Brady, who revealed he had a lung and chest condition in December, had been receiving palliative care from cancer nurses at Ashworth psychiatric hospital on Merseyside.

Mersey Care NHS foundation trust, which runs Ashworth hospital, confirmed that Brady died at 6.30 p.m. (local time) on Monday after becoming unwell.

A spokesman said the killer had been on oxygen for a while, the newspaper reported.

Brady and Hindley were convicted of three murders in 1966, and details of two further victims emerged in the 1980s.

Brady was found guilty of snatching and killing 12-year-old John Kilbride, Edward Evans (17), Lesley Ann Downey (10) while Hindley was convicted of murdering Downey and Evans and shielding her lover in the third case.

In the 1980s, the couple admitted abducting and murdering 16-year-old Pauline Reade on her way to a Manchester disco in 1963 and killing Keith Bennett (12) in 1964.

They were caught when Hindley's brother-in-law tipped off police, according to reports.

The body of Keith Bennett has never been found despite pleas from the boy's relatives for Brady to reveal his burial site.

The boy's mother Winnie Johnson, who died in 2012, had repeatedly pleaded for Brady to do so.

Hindley died in prison in 2002 after an unsuccessful legal fight against successive Home Secretaries' decisions that she should remain behind bars for the rest of her life.

She had suffered a suspected heart attack and died in West Suffolk hospital, in Bury St. Edmunds.

Brady was transferred to maximum security psychiatric hospital in 1985 after being diagnosed as a psychopath. He spoke of wanting to die and went on "hunger strike", but was force-fed.

In 2013, he unsuccessfully attempted to get himself transferred to a Scottish prison where he would not be force-fed and could "have control over the manner and timing of his death", although his claim to have been on hunger strike for 14 years was undermined by his barrister.

In February this year, he was refused permission for another court bid to be transferred to prison. His lawyers said he had emphysema and was terminally ill.

The sadistic nature of the Moors Murderers' killings made them among the most despised figures in Britain.
Rome, May 16 : The Italian government Tuesday unveiled a web page honouring victims of the mafia on the ninth anniversary of the Camorra's brutal murder of Naples businessman Domenico Noviello.

The web page, accessible from the Interior Ministry website, is aimed at publicising more effectively the Italian state's efforts to show solidarity towards "victims of all kinds of mafia crime" and "to boost the involvement of civil society in the fight against the mafia," the ministry said.

The launch of the web page entitled "Testimonies of courage" coincides with events taking place in the Naples mafia stronghold of Castel Volturno on Tuesday to honour Noviello, who owned a local driving school.

Noviello was shot dead in an ambush on May 16, 2008 after reporting members of the Camorra's Bignotti to police for extortion.

The square in Castel Volturno where Noviello was sprayed with at least 20 bullets has been re-named after him. And in 2009 Italy's then-president Giorgio Napolitano awarded him a posthumous medal of civic honour.
Pune, May 16 : Pune Deputy Mayor Navnath Kamble died after suffering a massive heart attack while on a morning walk here on Tuesday morning, officials said.

According to an aide, he suddenly complained of breathlessness and chest pain while on his regular morning walk and was immediately rushed to Ruby Hospital.

However, a short while later, he succumbed during treatment in the hospital's ICU.

The body was taken out in a procession and the last rites were performed at the Koregaon Park crematorium around sunset.

Thousands of mourners, including political activists and social workers, turned up to bid a tearful adieu.

A senior Dalit leader, he had first joined the Dalit Panthers Party while studying but later switched over to Republican Party of India-A, headed by Union Minister Ramdas Athawale, in 1990.

While Bharatiya Janata Party nominee Mukta Tilak was elected mayor, he was elected to the coveted post of Deputy Mayor in mid-March.

Born in 1969 in Dhargaon village of Osmanabad, he came to Pune with his family in 1972 and studied here, doing his graduation from Wadia College of Arts.

Appointed the RPI-A Pune city chief soon after joining it, he was first elected as a municipal corporator in the PMC in 1997 and was among the five party nominees, who won in the February 2017 polls.

Athawale expressed his deep grief over Kamble's demise and cancelled his silver wedding anniversary celebrations scheduled on Tuesday.
Washington, May 17 : US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday that it was "wholly appropriate" for President Donald Trump to share classified information with Russian officials during their meeting in the Oval Office last week.

Trump decided to mention the information in the "context of the conversation" with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, McMaster told reporters in the White House, calling it "wholly appropriate to that conversation" and "consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leader with whom he's engaged".

During those conversations, Trump disclosed the city from which the intelligence was derived, McMaster confirmed.

However, McMaster did not make clear if the information was highly classified as the Washington Post reported one day earlier.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump tweeted that he has "the absolute right" to share certain information with Russia.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against the IS & terrorism," he said in a pair of tweets on Tuesday.

But the president also did not specifically say whether he spilled highly classified information to Russian officials.

Trump reportedly relayed information from a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The related information-sharing arrangement was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, according to the Post report.

In response, McMaster, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell all issued statements later on Monday, claiming such reports are wrong.

Powell said in a statement: "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

"At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly," said McMaster, who participated in the meeting.

The Post report said Trump appeared to be boasting of the "great intel" he receives when he described a looming terror threat, citing an official with knowledge of the exchange.

The information was provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. The partner did not give the US permission to share the information with Russia, the Post said.

Following the meeting, the White House contacted the CIA and National Security Agency to contain the damage, according to the Post.

As US President Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that such disclosures broke the law. However, he is facing a deepening trust crisis as a new poll released Tuesday finds nearly half of US voters (48 per cent) said they would support Trump's impeachment, while only 41 per cent would oppose such charges.

The White House is in a "downward spiral" and needs to do something to get "under control", Republican Senator Bob Corker said following the Post report.

Trump's approval ratings have been hovering in the high 30s and 40s. According to Gallup, Trump has the lowest approval of any new president since the surveys began in 1953.
What Is Calibration? white paper describes balance or scale calibration as an essential part of achieving accurate results. Calibration uses a strict operational procedure to determine the difference between the instruments measured value and a test weights true value to determine if adjustment is necessary.

Have you ever asked yourself, What is calibration and why should I calibrate? A new METTLER TOLEDO white paper discusses what calibration is and answers why it is so important.

What Is Calibration? describes balance or scale calibration as an essential part of achieving accurate results. Ignoring this important activity turns weighing into guesswork. This can cause problems for the process in which the measurement is used, damaging a companys reputation for accuracy and quality.

No matter how high-quality a weighing instrument is, balances and scales become less reliable over time. This is because daily wear-and-tear and external factors such as mechanical shocks degrade balance performance and accuracy. Calibration uses a strict operational procedure to determine the difference between the instruments measured value and a test weights true value to determine if adjustment is necessary.

To learn more about this important act and what makes it so essential for ongoing accuracy, visit METTLER TOLEDOs free online resource Why Is Balance and Scale Calibration Important?, select question 1, and download What Is Calibration? today.

About METTLER TOLEDO

METTLER TOLEDO is a leading global manufacturer of precision instruments. The Company is the worlds largest manufacturer and marketer of weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial and food retailing applications. The Company also holds top-three market positions for several related analytical instruments and is a leading provider of automated chemistry systems used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development. In addition, the Company is the worlds largest manufacturer and marketer of metal detection systems used in production and packaging. Additional information about METTLER TOLEDO can be found at http://www.mt.com.
Dr. Constantina Bacopoulou of CB Dental Wellness in Bronxville, NY

Bronxville, N.Y. dentist Dr. Constantina Bacopoulou has launched a new website for her practice, CB Dental Wellness, located online at https://www.cnbdental.com/.

Dr. Bacopoulou operates a boutique practice that specializes in restorative and cosmetic dentistry, as well as general dentistry services. We help patients to approach their dental care holistically as they would other aspects of their healthcare," said Dr. Bacopoulou.

Dr. Bacopoulou received her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree in 2006 from New York University where she also received advanced training in implantology and aesthetic dentistry. She has been a member of the faculty at the NYU College of Dentistry International Esthetics Program. Dr. Bacopoulou is Invisalign certified.

Dr. Bacopoulou was born in Athens Greece and came to the U.S. to attend New York University where she graduated with honors. In addition to being an avid runner and health enthusiast, Dr. Bacopoulou is an accomplished potter. Restorative dentistry is equal parts science and art so I get to use my training and my creative skills to give patients the best possible care and outcome," said Dr. Bacopoulou.

About Dr. Constantina Bacopoulou and CB Dental Wellness

Dr. Bacopoulous dental office, CB Dental Wellness, is located at 44 Pondfield Rd, #10, in Bronxville, NY, 10708. CB Dental Wellness is open Monday through Saturday and can be reached at 914-337-3863. Those who would like to learn more or schedule an appointment are invited to call the office or visit the website today at https://www.cnbdental.com/.
Maia Moda Nursing Top "Initially I was shocked to learn of the lack of options for nursing mothers."

MAIA MODA was founded with a mission to support breastfeeding and highlight its beauty. The breastfeeding clothing line targets mothers seeking beautiful and practical nursing tops and dresses. The company was launched by longtime friends Veronica Horner, a management consultant, and Gerta Frasheri, a fashion designer in NYC. The vision was conceptualized by Horner after the birth of her son, when she realized breastfeeding clothing options are limited and targeted primarily for at-home comfort. Thus MAIA MODA was born, offering casually elegant nursing tops and dresses focused on exceptional quality and refined fabrics that are stain resistant and can be thrown in the wash for easy maintenance.

The female-founded company sought to support women across its entire value chain. MAIA MODA partnered with a female owned New Jersey based manufacturing company to produce their clothes. The production facility trains and provides jobs for many women who previously lost jobs due to outsourcing. We are proud to be working with other female-centric companies and also supporting manufacturing in the US Veronica Horner, CEO, said at the launch of the company.

Gerta Frasheri is the designer behind the brand and has been working in the fashion industry for over 10 years. Frasheri said Initially I was shocked to learn of the lack of options for nursing mothers. With so many friends becoming new moms I wanted to help change that. Her experience includes designing for esteemed fashion houses such as J. Mendel, Ralph Lauren, Isaac Mizrahi and J. Crew. She brings her high-end design aesthetic to nursing mothers who dont believe they should have to choose function over style.

The company outlook is strong as the demand for nursing clothes is expected to continue to grow. Breastfeeding rates are rising year after year with more awareness and support from campaigns like Normalized Breastfeeding as well as changing corporate and legal practices and regulations. The latest CDC Breastfeeding report card in 2016 found that 81.9% of women begin breastfeeding and 51.8% are still breastfeeding at six months. A 2.4% increase from just 2 years ago.

For more information and to order MAIA MODA clothes, visit http://www.maiamoda.com.

About

MAIA MODA is a modern breastfeeding clothing line of nursing tops and dresses. The name has a long motherly history. In Greek culture, MAIA represents nursing mother and MODA translates to style in Italian. The company was founded by Veronica Horner and Gerta Frasheri and launched in the Spring of 2017. For more information visit the website at http://www.maiamoda.com.
ArrMaz is proud to celebrate its golden anniversary as a global leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the mining, fertilizer, industrial ammonium nitrate, asphalt, and oil and gas industries. With humble beginnings in 1967 serving the Florida phosphate industry, over the last half century ArrMaz has successfully expanded its product offerings, services and facilities across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, now serving customers in more than 70 countries worldwide.

The story and growth of ArrMaz has been truly remarkable. The companys beginnings date back to April 27th, 1967, when a small startup called Custom Chemicals was established in Florida, with a focus on the production and supply of defoamers and flotation reagents to the Florida phosphate industry. In 1976, Arr-Maz Products was established, also with a focus on supplying defoamers to the local phosphate industry. Both companies rose to become leaders in serving the fertilizer market, and in 2003, merged to become the ArrMaz of today. ArrMazs expansion into new industries and geographies across the globe has been fueled by the dedication of its employees for whom customer success is their number one priority, and customized chemistry and service is in their DNA.

On the occasion of our 50th anniversary, Id particularly like to thank our loyal customers for their continued support. You are why were here and our desire to serve you better motivates everything we do at ArrMaz, said Dave Keselica, Chief Executive Officer. Well continue to build on this proud legacy, expanding our capacity to innovate at our technical centers throughout the world, developing new markets, and growing globally to better serve our customers, so that our next 50 years will be even more exciting than the last.

Today, ArrMaz employs more than 400 people in 7 offices and 9 plants worldwide. ArrMaz is owned by Golden Gate Capital, a leading US private equity firm based in San Francisco.

About ArrMaz

ArrMaz is a global leader in the production of specialty chemicals for the mining, fertilizer, asphalt, industrial ammonium nitrate, and oil and gas industries worldwide. Since 1967, ArrMaz has formulated chemical process aids and additives to optimize our customers process performance and product quality. With headquarters in Mulberry, Florida and multiple locations across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, ArrMaz serves customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. For more information about our company and products, visit us online at ArrMaz.com.
TrailerShelf Most book trailers simply regurgitate the back cover description of the book slapped across a handful of random images with bad music.

The book publicity firm Wildbound PR is launching TrailerShelf, a new website dedicated to showcasing premier book trailers and video advertising specific to book promotion. TrailerShelf aims to help readers discover their next must-read by offering them a visual and sensory glimpse into the world and story of any given book. Readers can explore videos by release date, genre, bestseller status, popularity, staff picks, and more.

Video is a driving force of online engagement in todays day and age of digital media consumption, says Julia Drake, president of Wildbound PR and co-founder of TrailerShelf. We want to help publishers and authors tap into this exploding audience by opening new avenues for book discovery.

Book trailers are nothing new on the literary scene and several existing websites feature book trailers for readers to peruse, but what sets TrailerShelf apart is commitment to quality.

"Book trailers have gotten a bad rap in the industry because most of them simply regurgitate the back cover description of the book slapped across a handful of random images with bad music," says Jared Drake, CEO of Wildbound PR and co-founder of TrailerShelf. "Thats not visual storytelling and it doesnt leverage the power of video.

Wildbound PR has made a name for itself for producing high-end book trailers for their clients, many of which have been featured in the New York Times, Huffington Post, New York Daily News, the BBC, and other top media. Graduates of UCLA film school, the Drakes have brought their love and sensibility for visual storytelling to the literary world and are excited to push the standards for professionalism and creativity in book trailer production.

At its heart, TrailerShelf celebrates great storytelling that teases readers imagination without taking away from their ability to create their own world in their heads, says Julia Drake.

While submission to TrailerShelf is currently free, every video goes through close inspection and is held to the highest standards before being approved for the site. In the future, TrailerShelf will offer sponsored placements as well as an annual book trailer award given out at the Wildbound Film Festival (dedicated to book adaptations), held in October in Lake Tahoe.
Shantrelle Johnson obtains Corporate Citizenship Practice Certification Giving back  to our employees and to our community  is a top priority for Advance Financial.

Being a responsible corporate citizen by giving back to the communities it serves is central to Advance Financials mission, which is why the Nashville-based financial services company created the Advance Financial Foundation in 2014. Advance Financial took the next step in community engagement with Vice President of Community Outreach Shantrelle Johnson being named one of 2,000 people globally to obtain the Corporate Citizenship Practice Certification.

Giving back  to our employees and to our community  is a top priority for Advance Financial, so when Shantrelle proposed the idea of the certification, we were all in, said Tina Hodges, Advance Financials chief executive and chief experience officer. We are thrilled about how this national recognition of Shantrelles expertise will contribute to the important work of the Advance Financial Foundation.

As a board member and the current treasurer for the Volunteer Tennessee Commission, Hodges believes corporations must take a leadership role in promoting volunteerism and community service initiatives and partnerships throughout the state. Johnsons elite certification helps Advance Financial to understand and meet the community needs on an even deeper level.

With Johnson at the helm, the Advance Financial Foundation supports philanthropic community efforts in three areas: education, health and employees in need of assistance. The Foundation has partnered with more than 35 organizations throughout the state, including the JDRF of East Tennessee and Second Harvest of East Tennessee.

Johnson earned her Corporate Citizenship Practice Certification from Boston College, completing classes and training sessions across the country over the past two years. Training included courses on designing a corporate citizenship strategy, measuring and evaluating corporate citizenship initiatives and the fundamentals of communication. Approximately 2,000 people throughout the world have completed Boston Colleges Corporate Citizenship Practice Program since it began in 1985.

The Corporate Citizenship Practice certification will serve Johnson in her role as vice president of community outreach, aiding her in audience identification, channel selection, message development and strategy for the Advance Financial Foundation. The certification was fully funded by Advance Financial.

Im honored to receive this certification, as Boston College boasts one of the top programs in the country for corporate citizenship. And Im grateful to have reached this milestone with the support of my Advance Financial family, says Johnson. It is a huge step toward making the Advance Financial Foundation the best it can be.

About Advance Financial

Advance Financial, founded in 1996, is a family owned and operated financial center based in Nashville, Tenn. The company currently operates more than 70 locations throughout Tennessee and employs more than 700 local representatives. By focusing on a wide variety of financial services  including wire transfer, bill payment, unlimited free money orders and FLEX loans  they are committed to building long-lasting, strong relationships with every customer. Advance Financial recently earned an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and was named to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country for the fifth year in a row.
Roberts Communications Network, LLC (Roberts), a Las Vegas-based provider of satellite and terrestrial communications services to numerous industries, has selected the ASC Signal Division of Communications & Power Industries LLC (CPI) to provide seven (7) satellite antenna systems for its new teleport in Las Vegas, Nevada. Roberts has provided communications services to the pari-mutuel industry for more than thirty (30) years, pioneering the creation of simulcasting for the horse racing industry and helping fuel its subsequent rapid growth. Roberts has been diversifying into other industries that rely on satellite and terrestrial communications, and the new teleport will support the companys continued growth.

Roberts has selected two divisions of CPI to support its newest teleport. CPI ASC Signal Division will provide Roberts with three (3) 9.3 meter C-band systems, as well as four (4) 7.6 meter Ku- and C-band systems, all with four-port feeds. In addition, CPI Satcom & Medical Products Division will provide the new teleport with high-quality satellite communications amplifiers.

We selected CPI and its ASC Signal Division because of their reputation, engineering quality and heritage, said Todd Roberts, president and chief executive officer of Roberts Communications Network. We designed our new teleport to serve our specific needs, yet to be future-proof for expansion. We know that utilizing products from CPIs ASC Signal Division and Satcom & Medical Products Division will help us accomplish this goal.

CPI ASC Signal Division president Tony Russell added, Roberts Communications Network has been a telecommunications innovator since 1984, and we are pleased to have been chosen to work with them on this teleport. We know that CPIs systems will be a key backbone feature of the teleport, and will help Roberts to continue to offer a diverse range of communications services going forward.

The new teleport is set to go live on November 1, 2017.

About CPI ASC Signal Division

ASC Signal is a multinational manufacturer of high-performance, highly-engineered satellite Earth station, radar and HF antenna systems. In September 2015, ASC Signal was acquired by Communications & Power Industries LLC, becoming CPI ASC Signal Division. Its customers include international broadcasters and Fortune 500 companies, as well as military and government organizations. ASC Signal leads through design innovation that capitalizes on a +40-year heritage of engineering creativity and excellence. ASC Signal is a member of the World Teleport Association and the Society of Satellite Professionals International and is a supporter of the satellite industrys Better Satellite World campaign. http://www.ascsignal.com

About Communications & Power Industries

Communications & Power Industries (CPI) is a global manufacturer of electronic components and subsystems focused primarily on communications and defense markets. With a heritage of technological excellence that spans decades, CPI develops, manufacturers and globally distributes innovative and reliable technology solutions used in the generation, amplification, transmission and reception of microwave signals for commercial and military applications. CPI serves customers in the communications, defense, medical, industrial and scientific markets. CPI consists of Communications & Power Industries LLC, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and Communications & Power Industries Canada Inc., located in Ontario, Canada. Learn more about CPI at http://www.cpii.com.
This life safety signage is the best Ive seen in my years of 30+ years of service as a firefighter.

Encompass Sign Systems, Inc. announced today the development of LUMA-press, a tactile thermoformed, photoluminescent ADA sign family to meet the requests of its sign partners and end users who must adhere to Fire Codes in many jurisdictions that now require photoluminescent ADA signage in egress locations and exit stairwells. While photoluminescent ADA signs have existed for some time, the designers at Encompass tested multiple combinations of the two technologies before discovering a blend that registers 5NIT, almost twice the required luminance levels by the NFPA 101.The LUMA-press photoluminescent ADA signs charge to full strength in 9 seconds, and after absorbing 9 minutes of light, will glow for 12 hours in absolute darkness.

A number of vital safety benefits were immediately recognized by Mike White, a retired Captain of the Falmouth Massachusetts Fire Department. Im so glad to see new technologies being combined for safety sake. The brightness is striking and the rugged durability most certainly would withstand a harsh emergency situation. Mike was also the Life Safety Code specialist for the city of Portland, Maine and he claims, This life safety signage is the best Ive seen in my years of 30+ years of service as a firefighter.

Designed for the new MGM Hotel & Casino in Maryland, 418 LUMA-press signs were thermoformed to achieve a vandal-resistant surface for use in stairwells and other unmonitored locations. Through this new compression molding process the raised graphics and braille cannot be separated from the surface because they are integral to the base material and are not applied like other ADA sign processes. In 2016 Kroger, the third largest retailer in North America replaced its electrical Exit signage with photoluminescent signage and estimates saving $6 million over 15 years, while reducing its carbon footprint by 50 million pounds.

The LUMA-press sign family is consistent with our goal of helping our sign partners across North America solve their clients stated needs through the unique application of our new-age, tactile thermoforming technology said Phil Quattrocchi, President of Encompass Sign Systems. Were absolutely delighted to see the durability of our compression molded ADA products being leveraged to increase the safety of public environments.

Encompass Sign is a member at ISA, SEGD, and ARTS. To learn more about our partnerships, processes and company visit us on Twitter and Facebook.

For more info on Encompass Sign Systems;

Contact:

Encompass Sign Systems

Isabelle Gomez

Ph: 855-672-2201

http://www.EncompassSign.com isabelleg(at)EncompassSign.com

About Encompass:

Encompass Sign Systems enables the integration of tactile thermoformed ADA compliant signage with European-based extruded Directional & Wayfinding Systems. This combination of rare components yields a cohesive wayfinding system for facility projects of scope while streamlining the architectural and design challenges around integrating such a holistic solution. The ease with which architects and designers can specify an integrated pre-engineered wayfinding solution has led to rapid adoption of Encompass products. Encompass is one of only 23 thermoform sign-makers worldwide and is a wholesale only provider to sign shops and designers throughout North America.
Team Irresistible Internationals participating in 2017 Westbon Road Trip Challenge. Through hosting the Road Trip Challenge, Westbon hopes to provide a platform to connect students from different parts of the world and build an international network tied by common interests in adventures and more.

Westbons Road Trip Challenge debuted during spring break has finally come to an end. After a month of competitive fun, Westbon is proud to announce the final Champion: Team Bearly Alive. Team Bearly Alive will receive $2,000 cash rewards. The runner-up, Dream Catcher 66, will receive a $1,000 worth of airline voucher. This years competition attracted hundreds of international students from more than 150 universities in the nation and collected over 1,500 votes. The selected eight groups of contestants came from six different countries - China, India, Korea, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Egypt - and their itineraries covered more than half of the nation, with a total of 25 states, including Alaska.

Started in 2016, this Road Trip Challenge was inspired by Westbon's customized financing services and especially its auto loans ability, with the intention to benefit the international student community as well as promote the American road trip culture. Westbon offers cash sponsorship of $1,250 to each team as travel funds and $4,500 worth of rewards for final winners, sponsored by Flywire, Student Universe, and SIE. The application usually releases in February and ends in mid-March. With an increasing number of applicants every year, Westbon runs through a selective screening process based on the listed requirements, qualifications to succeed the challenges, social media experiences, and road trip background, with the hopes to include a diverse and charismatic group of participants who best represent the cultural purpose of the competition.

Every year during spring break, each selected team goes on a week-long scavenger hunts and social exchanges on their self-designed routes to travel across the nation. The rules are simple: knock down challenges and rack up votes. Each team is assigned with ten tasks, from trying out a unique restaurant to making a carpool karaoke video. The total points are based on public votes and the actual completion of tasks, 70 and 30 percent respectively. While all the tasks are designed to spice up the road trip, the event is dedicated to introducing the road trip culture to the international student community and promoting the experience of taking the open road to explore the countrys exquisite landscapes, vibrant cities, and quaint small towns. Through hosting the Road Trip Challenge, Westbon hopes to provide a platform to connect students from different parts of the world and build an international network tied by common interests in adventures and more.

This years rendition of the bout featured eight teams of undergraduate students from ten different universities. Coming from six separate countries, they were the distinct blend of charismatic individuals with distinct backgrounds in race, courses, specialties, hobbies, and most importantly, a common goal in conquering the Road Trip Challenge. Westbon Road Trip Challenge gave our trip a distinctive dimension that we had never experienced before - from seeing amazing waterfalls we would never have made the time to visit, to practicing singing in the car to fill the time on long drives, to stepping out of our comfort zone to talk to people along the way, stated in Champion Team Bearly Alives testimonial. All participants have the opportunities to embark on an adventurous journey, get a taste of the long-standing American road trip experience, and create countless once-in-a-lifetime memories.

As the first online lending platform, Westbon Inc. prides itself on serving the international students with auto loans, personal loans, and other customized services at low rates. The simple and quick application widens international students access to financing options that are usually limited by the low credit scores and the lack of Social Security Number. The Road Trip Challenge not only brings awareness to the auto loans and other financing services, but it also promotes the core of the Westbons mission: constantly provide for the international student community and ease their transition in the American society.

About Westbon Inc.

Founded in 2015, Westbon is the first online financing platform that provides international students in the U.S. with affordable financing solutions without having a Social Security Number or credit history. Westbons auto loan service is now available in 28 states, and its personal loan service is offered in 8 states. It is dedicated to connecting the underserved international students of the U.S. credit system and helping them build credit history at an early stage by reporting on-time payments to major credit bureaus, such as Experian.
Criminal Background Records The use of criminal background records as part of pre-employment and housing applications has remained controversial and now the issue is beginning to boil on college and university campuses

At universities, such as Columbia and Syracuse, students are petitioning administrations to review the use of criminal record questions on entrance applications and in doing so are creating additional light on a universal challenge. Adam Almeida, President and CEO of CriminalBackgroundRecords.com opines; The use of criminal background records as part of applicant vetting remains controversial and the issue is beginning to boil on college and university campuses across the country, thereby reminding those utilizing applications to remain diligent over the fair, legal, and lawful use of criminal records.

A recent article in USA Today highlighted the Ban-the-box petitions at Columbia University, in New York city.

From USAToday.com (May 05, 17):

Leyla Martinez, a Columbia University student majoring in human rights, has launched a petition demanding Columbia ban the box on the admissions application that asks prospective students whether they have a criminal record.

Martinez, who was incarcerated from 2002-2004, told USA TODAY College that she wants the school to cease asking applicants about their past so formerly incarcerated people arent discouraged from applying.

When I applied for Columbia, I saw the question on the application and got discouraged, Martinez said. It was a struggle for me to finish the application. (1)

A bigger challenge may not exist at the individual school, such as Columbia, that utilizes an application specific to that university. Rather a challenge may exist with schools that use a Common Application.

From theDailyOrange.com (Apr. 17)

Institutions that use the Common Application  such as Syracuse University  still ask applicants about their criminal record histories. The question on the Common App requires students to mark a box if they have had any criminal history.

The Common App, which represents more than 700 different colleges and universities, introduced the question in 2006. Some universities across the country have demanded that the question be removed in efforts known as Ban the Box, arguing that it unfairly targets minority students and prevents those students from achieving higher education. (2)

In pre-employment background screening and tenant screening public records such as criminal history are used in order to fully vet an individual, as well as verify information provided on an application and/or resume.

Almeida states: A thorough criminal background check is a critical tool for companies and organizations if only as a means of mitigating risk.

But college campuses may be a little different in terms of risk.

From St Louis American (May 03, 17):

In the report, Reconsidered: The Use of Criminal History Records in College Admissions, the Center for Community Alternatives said the collection and use of criminal justice information is problematic for a number of reasons. No link has been established between having a criminal record and posing a risk to campus safety. Having a criminal record is not an unusual characteristic in America today. It is a civil rights issue due to racial bias in the criminal justice system; criminal records are often inaccurate / misleading. And accepting college applicants with criminal records promotes public safety by opening up opportunities, enhancing critical thinking, and leading to better and more stable employment. (3)

Almeida opines: Ultimately, the continued conversation regarding Ban-the-box should remind organizations and employers that now, today, is the time to work with a well-qualified third-party employment screening company in order to remain fully compliant with all laws governing the use of public records as part of a screening process.

CriminalBackgroundRecords.com is a third-party background screening company that can provide compliant solutions for all screening requirements. From pre-employment to post-hire screening, as well as volunteer, caregiver and nanny checks, CriminalBackgroundRecords.com provides background screening services across a broad array of industries. From the smallest organization to the largest corporation, CriminalBackgroundRecords.com can fulfill every background screening requirement.

Notes:

(1) college.usatoday.com/2017/05/05/students-petition-columbia-to-ban-the-box-asking-applicants-about-criminal-records/

(2) dailyorange.com/2017/04/why-some-colleges-and-universities-are-calling-to-ban-the-box-on-college-applications/

(3) stlamerican.com/news/local_news/ex-felon-turned-endocrinologist-wants-to-ban-the-box-on/article_98fd2206-3050-11e7-a00a-cf04bd543aa3.html
The Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is pleased to announce that its inaugural day of service, IBTS L.O.V.E. (Locally Organized Volunteer Event) will take place tomorrow, May 17, 2017.

As a nonprofit organization, IBTS continually strives to give back to the communities it serves. As part of this effort, IBTS has planned a day in which each of its offices will work in the surrounding communities to make a positive impact on each organization involved.

The headquarters office in Ashburn, VA, will be participating in IBTS L.O.V.E. by serving three different organizations: Friends of Homeless Animals (FOHA), Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy in partnership with the Waterford Foundation, and an on-site event supporting Operation Gratitude. Additionally, the Brooklyn and Staten Island, NY, offices will be working to help plant and maintain trees for the New York Parks Department. Due to a scheduling conflict, the Houston, TX, office will participating in IBTS L.O.V.E. on May 24th, where they will be working with Habitat for Humanity. Activities at each of these projects will include planting, wedding, building maintenance, writing letters to deployed troops, or constructing homes.

The Washington, D.C. office will be participating in the District of Columbia Building Industry Association (DCBIA) Community Improvement Day this fall, where they will work on phase two for the DCHA Benning Terrace Recreation Center. Additionally, the IBTS offices in Guymon, OK, and Central, LA, participate in community service events year-round.

We are excited to kick off the first-ever IBTS L.O.V.E. tomorrow, says Lindsay Weissbratten, Director of Human Capital at IBTS. There has been a great deal of support surrounding this event, which we know will only grow with the following years events.

Community services is an important aspect to the IBTS business model, says Ashok Goswami, Chief Executive Officer at IBTS. We strive to make a positive impact not only in our client municipalities, but in our hometowns as well. IBTS L.O.V.E. is a great opportunity for us to spread our mission of providing quality services to the communities that we are a part of.

About IBTS

IBTS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to helping communities through quality services that reduce risk, enhance public safety, and improve quality of life. IBTS is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia with branch offices across the country. IBTSs work is guided by a Board of Directors made up of government officials appointed by five of the most highly respected, grassroots, state and local governmental associations, including the Council of State Governments (CSG), International City/County Management Association (ICMA), National Association of Counties (NACo), National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center), and National League of Cities (NLC).
Screener User Group Meetings are valuable knowledge-sharing events

Genedata, a leading provider of advanced software solutions for R&D, today announced its global Genedata Screener User Group Meetings, which will be held in Boston, Cambridge/UK, Shanghai, and Tokyo. These forums give Genedata Screener users the opportunity to share best practices in screening data analysis and learn about the latest advances in screening technologies and applications. They also enable customers to network with scientists and informaticians from some of the worlds premier pharmaceutical companies, academic research institutions, and contract research organizations. Scientists and researchers from Agios Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Biogen, Broad Institute, Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Sankyo, EMD Serono, Evotec, MRC Technology, and UCB are among attendees at this years global User Group Meetings.

Screener User Group Meetings are valuable knowledge-sharing events, said Suvarna Khare-Pandit, a research scientist with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Agenda topics are comprehensive and balanced, giving you insights into how other researchers are using Screener. These meetings are a great opportunity to network with my peers and the Genedata Screener team. At the Boston User Group Meeting (UGM), Khare-Pandit will deliver a presentation on how Vertex uses Genedata Screener for assay validation and compound screening with high-content image data analysis.

Customer Collaboration Key to Innovation

Close collaborations and regular discussions with customers are part of the Genedata DNA, said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. This level of engagement enables us to acquire a deeper understanding of our customers requirements so that we can continuously develop better solutions that keep us at the frontier of science and technology.

Regional and accessible, Genedata Screener UGMs promote dialogue between screening sciences and data sciences. They also provide an opportunity to share insights on current and future functionality in Genedata Screener. For example, Relay Therapeutics will detail how it uses Genedata Screener in the cloud to enhance collaborative research and screening data analysis. Other presentations will address Genedata Screener applications in areas such as Automated Patch Clamp (APC), Compound Combination Screening, High Content Screening (HCS), and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR).

Editorial Note: The following are among the customer presentations that will be featured at global UGMs:



Relay Therapeutics: Implementing Genedata Screener in a Cloud-based Informatics Platform (Boston)

Vertex: Assay Validation and Compound Screening with High Content Image Data Analysis Using Genedata Screener (Boston)

AstraZeneca: AstraZeneca/ Genedata Co-development on the APC Parser and the AT50/80 Kinetic Analysis Using hERG, Screener Implementation for Routine Assay Development and Profiling (Cambridge/UK)

MRC Technology: Drug Combinations as Potential Oncology Therapeutics: Data Analysis with Genedata Screener(Cambridge/UK)

Philip Morris International: Overview of a Compound Profiling Workflow (Cambridge/UK)

Genedata Screener Global UGM Schedule

Boston, USA: May 22  Boston Museum of Science

Shanghai, China: June 7  Parkyard Hotel

Cambridge, UK: June 20  Granta Park

Tokyo, Japan: September 7  Tokyo Conference Centre Shinagawa

About Genedata

Genedata transforms data into intelligence with innovative software solutions and domain-specific consulting services that automate complex, large-scale experimental processes and enable organizations to maximize the ROI from their R&D. Founded in 1997, Genedata is headquartered in Switzerland and has offices in Germany, the UK, Japan, and the US. http://www.genedata.com. Follow Genedata on LinkedIn

Disclaimer

The statements in this press release that relate to future plans, events or performance are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with uncertainties related to contract cancellations, developing risks, competitive factors, uncertainties pertaining to customer orders, demand for products and services, development of markets for the Company's products and services. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

All product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.
PandaDoc PandaDoc is now available on Zoho Marketplace. Zoho CRM customers can close more deals with better quotes, proposals and contract management processes by purchasing and installing the PandaDoc extension through Zoho Marketplace.

PandaDoc, the leading digital transaction management solution, today announced that it is now available on Zoho Marketplace. Zoho CRM customers can close more deals with better quotes, proposals and contract management processes by purchasing and installing the PandaDoc extension through Zoho Marketplace.

Zoho has been an amazing ally over the last year, and we are very excited about this new partnership with them, stated PandaDoc CEO, Mikita Mikado. As we have integrated PandaDoc's complete platform with Zoho CRM and made it available on Zoho Marketplace, customers will now be able to use PandaDoc more easily and seamlessly.

PandaDoc helps accelerate the way organizations transact. It integrates with the worlds leading CRMs, as well as ERP, payment, cloud storage and other systems. PandaDoc has powerful features that enable businesses to easily generate, track and execute documents. Companies that run on PandaDoc are consistently reporting higher close rates, bigger deals, shorter sales cycles, full compliance and other improvements that relate to the final stages of the buying cycle.

"We want our customers to get the most out of Zoho. For this, we offer a wide range of powerful extensions on Zoho Marketplace that increase the capability of Zoho products, like Zoho CRM, and help businesses be more efficient and productive," said Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist of Zoho. "We are delighted that PandaDoc has joined Zoho Marketplace. Our customers will now have complete access to their robust document automation platform. PandaDoc, in turn, can sell their solution to Zoho's vast user base."

On Zoho Marketplace, users can explore a repository of third-party applications geared towards enhancing the capabilities of Zoho products by adding features, automating processes and much more. Users can purchase and install these applications, such as PandaDoc, without leaving the Zoho platform.

To learn more about PandaDoc, simply visit PandaDoc.com. For more information regarding Zoho, go to Zoho.com.

About PandaDoc

PandaDoc helps organizations close more deals with better quotes, proposals, and contract management processes. Features include eSignature, data merge, and data driven feedback to build, edit, execute, and track documents. Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, California, PandaDoc is backed by Altos Ventures. Learn more at PandaDoc.com.

About Zoho

Zoho is THE operating system for business - a single cloud platform with all the necessary applications to run a business entirely from the cloud. Businesses can acquire and manage customers using Zoho's marketing, sales and customer support applications - Campaigns, CRM and Desk -and can then empower employees to create, store and distribute content on the cloud with Zoho's productivity and collaboration applications - Office, Mail and Docs. Additionally, businesses can run their own operations on Zoho's finance and human resources applications - Books, People and Recruit.

More than 20 million users around the world across hundreds of thousands of companies rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses - including Zoho itself. A business can choose to use the entire Zoho suite or just a single application. Zoho applications are available directly through zoho.com, or through a worldwide ecosystem of Zoho partners.

Zoho is a division of Zoho Corp., a privately-held and consistently profitable company, with more than 4,000 employees. Zoho is headquartered in Pleasanton, CA with international headquarters in Chennai, India and offices in Austin, London, Tokyo, and Beijing. For more information, please visit zoho.com.

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A Simple Easy Interface For Mom Caregiving isn't easy," said Robert M. Herzog, founder and CEO of FamilyConnect, "as anyone knows who's experienced it, or expects to. No one is prepared for it, emotionally, logistically, even financially.

FamilyConnect announced today that is has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help support its new app to promote healthy independence for seniors. Their technology is backed by a proven award winning healthcare technology that has successfully prevented countless hospital readmissions - saving clients hundreds of thousands of dollars and is revolutionizing the way people care for the aging population. See their campaign here: https://goo.gl/5XzOlg

FamilyConnect is an easy to use app that will ensure that an aging mom or dad is getting all the care they need, when they need it. The app will give their families the assurance and peace of mind that they will know immediately if there's a problem, so they can respond to it while it's still manageable.

"Caregiving isn't easy," said Robert M. Herzog, founder and CEO of FamilyConnect, "as anyone knows who's experienced it, or expects to. No one is prepared for it, emotionally, logistically, even financially. Yet as an AARP study notes, over 80% of seniors and their loved ones want to be able to age in their homes, to avoid the hospital or nursing home."

An adult child can't be with his parents all the time, but his or her concerns are every day. FamilyConnect will enable a parent to communicate to their adult child critical, important health factors and conditions  are they eating, taking their meds, sleeping ok, how are they feeling, and a simple note feature to communicate any other concerns.

That information will enable families to respond quickly to problems as they arise, before they deteriorate and require greater levels of more urgent, expensive, uncomfortable institutional care. Being able to learn about and respond to problems quickly can mean the difference between staying in the home or being forced to get care elsewhere. FamilyConnect will provide peace of mind for pennies a day.

"Because," as Mr. Herzog said, "the last thing you ever want to hear yourself say is, 'If only I'd known sooner, I could have done something.'"

About FamilyConnect

FamilyConnect was developed by the team that helped create eCaring's award winning software that enables home care workers to communicate a patient's health data in real time, and has been proven to enable healthcare organizations to reduce their patient's hospital and ER use. The app showcases the software's signature practicality and ease of use. The team wanted to bring the benefits of real time impactful health care information and communications directly to consumers and for employee assistance and insurance company wellness and prevention programs, with an intuitive easy to use system to support the tens of millions of American seniors and their families who want to age in place in their homes. Mr. Herzog was named to Axials Growth 100, a list of the best and brightest middle market CEOs across the industry. eCaring partners with Samsung and Verizon to provide its services, and received the prestigious Corporate Leadership Award from the New York Academy of Medicine for Creation and Use of Technology in Service of Elder Health."

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Ill also be focused on building awareness so more people take advantage of the benefits of our programs, and increasing our engagement with farmers and consumers

Farm Credit of the Virginias (FCV), a customer-owned financial cooperative, today announced that Kyley Clevenger has been named Director of the FCV Knowledge Center, which provides resources and education about agriculture to local farmers and the community.

Clevenger, a Virginia native raised on a family farm, joined FCV as Knowledge Center Relations Specialist when the initiative was launched in 2013; she succeeds Matt Lohr, who has successfully led the Knowledge Center for the past four years. Prior to joining FCV, she worked to promote local farm-to-table businesses, and before that helped launch a small Virginia dairy operation.

Kyley has an incredible ability to relate to and work with people, building strong relationships with customers, potential customers and the industry organizations we work with, says Bette Brand, FCVs Chief External Affairs Officer who was recently named Chair of the Virginia Agribusiness Council. She also has insight into the information consumers are looking for, and is adept at connecting with them and helping them understand more about agriculture.

In her new role, Clevenger will lead the Knowledge Center as it continues to develop relevant online and in-person resources and educational programming to support farmers and the public across FCVs footprint. The most recent resource launched was a video series explaining the construction loan process for people planning to build their own homes.

Im excited to strengthen the relationships weve already established with our customers, the public and other industry leaders, and working with them to identify new opportunities to develop resources to support their needs, Clevenger said. Ill also be focused on building awareness so more people take advantage of the benefits of our programs, and increasing our engagement with farmers and consumers.

Clevenger holds a bachelors degree in Agriculture and Applied Economics from Virginia Tech.

About Farm Credit of the Virginias

Farm Credit of the Virginias provides over $1.8 billion dollars in financing to more than 11,000 farmers, agribusinesses and rural homeowners throughout Virginia, West Virginia and western Maryland. Farm Credit is a cooperative capitalized largely through investments made by farmers, ranchers and the rural homeowners and businesses that borrow from them. In fact, as part of a nationwide network they are the largest single provider of agricultural credit in the United States and have been for 100 years. Farm Credit helps maintain and improve the quality of life in rural America and on the farm through its constant commitment to competitive lending, expert financial services and for facilitating and sharing knowledge and resources through the Farm Credit Knowledge Center. For more information, visit http://www.FarmCreditKnowledgeCenter.com or http://www.FarmCreditofVirginias.com.
Our latest addition to AWS cloud monitoring reinforces our commitment to providing customers with a single solution to monitor their entire infrastructure, cloud services and applications.

Opsview, a leading provider of enterprise class IT monitoring software, today announced new monitoring capabilities for Amazon Web Services (AWS), including new support for AWS services, coverage of all the latest AWS regions, and tighter integration with AWS CloudWatch. Tested with AWS and delivered as part of Opsviews Opspacks for AWS, new capabilities include:



Monitoring of many popular AWS services, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Route 53, as well as Data Transfer and VPN services

Support for all AWS regions including the latest Europe (London) and Canada (central) Regions

Ability to pull required statistics from Amazon CloudWatch, allowing Opsview customers to monitor all AWS services that report to Amazon CloudWatch

Easy setup  customers simply add AWS access credentials into the Opsview Host settings and start pulling data in

With the latest release of Opspacks for AWS, Opsview customers can more efficiently monitor their AWS services, along with their on-premise infrastructure and applications. Data collected from AWS services feeds Opsview Monitors enterprise feature set, including powerful dashboards, reporting, alerting, notifications and Business Service Monitoring (BSM), providing IT teams with one comprehensive view.

Opsview CEO Michael Walton emphasized Opsviews focus on supporting the full range of technologies and services its customers are using. Our latest addition to AWS cloud monitoring reinforces our commitment to providing customers with a single solution to monitor their entire infrastructure, cloud services and applications, said Walton. Not only does this help increase efficiency, but it helps IT teams make quantifiable service uptime improvements.

Opspacks for AWS are available now for all users of Opsview Monitor Enterprise, MSP, Pro and Atom Editions. Full documentation of the new capabilities is detailed on the Opsview website. Customers can contact the Customer Success team if they need any assistance.

About Opsview

Opsview provides software that organizations need to successfully monitor complex IT infrastructure and applications. With Opsviews automated monitoring, advanced notification capabilities and in-depth reporting, IT teams can ensure service uptime and improve operational efficiency. With native support for more than 3,500 technology plugins and integrations with popular IT operations tools, Opsview Monitor easily deploys into existing IT environments. Opsview is trusted by hundreds of businesses, government organizations and service providers globally. Customers include MIT, Sky, Cisco, IBM, Telefonica, PayPal, British Telecom, Norfolk Southern, CIT, and AAA. For more information or to request a free trial, visit http://www.opsview.com.
Dr. Jyothi Bhatt As a complementary diagnostic tool, ancient Ayurvedic principles can reveal important physical, physiological, psychic and behavioral characteristics that lead to stress-induced burnout. Jyoti Bhatt BAMS

Dr. Jyothi Bhatt will lecture on the practical benefits of Ayurveda as a complementary diagnostic tool at the ninth annual mind/body medicine CME conference October 24-28, 2017 at the Cranwell Resort and Spa in Lenox, Massachusetts. Entitled American Meditation: The Heart and Science of Yoga, this 30 credit hour training is accredited through the Albany Medical College Office of Continuing Medical Education. Dr. Bhatt explains that, the human digestive fire, known in Sanskrit as agni, represents the energy needed to maintain a homeostatic balance of both the mind and body. Burnout or stress occurs when agni is diminished--eventually resulting in fatigue. By regulating the fire element throughout the mind-body-sense complex through Ayurvedic principles of food and lifestyle choices, many burnout symptoms can be relieved and prevented.

Dr. Jyothi Bhatt holds a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine & Surgery (BAMS) from the Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwar College of Ayurveda in Kuthpady, Karnataka, India. She is currently a Physicians Assistant at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and a faculty member of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda.

Through her two CME conference lectures on The Science of Life, Dr. Bhatt will explain how a basic understanding and practical application of Ayurveda can be used along side allopathic medicine in a complementary manner. According to Dr. Bhatt, As a diagnostic tool, ancient Ayurvedic principles can reveal important physical, physiological, psychic and behavioral characteristics that lead to stress-induced burnout.

The Heart and Science of Yoga conference offers comprehensive training in the worlds most effective holistic mind/body medicine and its scientific foundation. Now in its ninth year, the program is designed to encourage active participant interaction by combining engaging lectures, practicums, panel discussions and Q&A. This years AMI five-day CME conference will provide easy-to-learn practices that work synergistically (within the intricate medium of the stress system) to reduce inflammation, allostatic load and burnout while working toward establishing homeostasis.

The devotion, enthusiasm, and teaching methodology of the entire AMI faculty will combine to create a dynamic and interactive course for healthcare professionals. Each AMI faculty member is committed to the advancement and training of Yoga Science as holistic mind/body medicine. In addition to Dr. Bhatts lectures on Ayurveda, presenters include program director Leonard Perlmutter, AMI founder, meditational therapist and award-winning author; Mark Pettus MD, Director of Medical Education and Population Health at Berkshire Health Systems; Anthony Santilli MD, board-certified in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine; Prashant Kaushik MD, board-certified Rheumatologist; Sara Lazar PhD, instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital; Susan Lord MD, a private practice holistic physician focusing on prevention and treatment, and former course director for the The Center for Mind-Body Medicines Food As Medicine program in Washington, DC; Jesse Ritvo MD, Assistant Medical Director, Inpatient Psychiatry, University of Vermont Health Center; Beth Netter MD MT, holistic physician and acupuncturist, Albany, NY; Gustavo Grodnitzky PhD, noted author and psychologist and Chair of The American Meditation Institute's Psychological Education Department; and Jenness Cortez Perlmutter, faculty member of The American Meditation Institute.

According to conference faculty director Leonard Perlmutter, Most of the obstacles to health and well-being begin in the mind. Meditators learn how to develop the tools that can change the software of the mind and therefore, the reality they experience. By incorporating the practices taught at this conference, physicians can sharpen the focus of their attention, enhance their creativity, and experience a sense of purpose and comfort to better serve themselves, their families, their patients and their medical practiceswithout the pain of burnout.

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About the American Meditation Institute

The American Meditation Institute (AMI) is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization devoted to the teaching and practice of Yoga Science, meditation and its allied disciplines as mind/body medicine. In its holistic approach to wellness, AMI combines the healing arts of the East with the practicality of modern Western science. The American Meditation Institute offers a wide variety of classes, retreats, and teacher training programs. AMI also publishes Transformation, a quarterly journal of meditation as holistic mind/body medicine. Call 518.674.8714 for a postal or email subscription.

Media Contact:

Robert Washington

American Meditation Institute

60 Garner Road

Averill Park, NY 12018

Tel: 518-674-8714

Fax: 518-674-8714
TooManyGames, the longest running and largest gaming convention in Pennsylvania, will take place June 23  25, 2017 at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pa. With an expected attendance of more than 12,000 guests, the 2017 event marks the 13th expo over 10 years and is expected to be the largest to date.

TooManyGames is the premier event for anyone interested in video games, board games, CCG's, and tabletop gaming. TooManyGames is known for its video game music concerts, arcades, tournaments, chiptunes, industry panels, panels by famous YouTubers and gamers such as Angry Video Game Nerd, SomeCallMeJohnny, Vinesauce, and DAGames, and Indie Game Showcase where developers show off their new games. The 2017 market will feature more than 60 vendors selling retro games, new games, board games, crafts, art and more.

TooManyGames will also host Make-A-Wish guest, Dennis M., a 16-year-old boy from Twentynine Palms, California. Dennis has a life-threatening medical condition called Ewings Sarcoma. His heartfelt wish is to go to the Too Many Games convention in Philadelphia. He loves everything about gaming, watches videos reviewing new games and is excited to attend the panels at TooManyGames, talk with fellow fans, and meet his favorite YouTuber and gamer, SomeCallMeJohnny.

Special events at this years TooManyGames include a major Smash Brothers Tournament, Smashadelphia. Participants can play Smash 64, Melee, Brawl, Project M, and Smash 4 games to be in the running to win $1,000 and other assorted prizes. The cost to enter the tournament is $10 and tournament events will take place on each day of the convention. Other special events during the convention include Cosplay Pro Wrestling, Pokemon Battle Frontier, 2017 Pennsylvania State Yo-Yo Contest, and more. Visit the website to learn more.

This years TooManyGames will host concerts by Crush 40, MC Frontalot, Powerglove, Psychostick, The World is Square, Spose, Steel Samurai, Super Thrash Bros., DJ Mighty Mike Saga, Armcannon, Nerd Surge, and Mega Ran & K-Murdock. A variety of ticket options from a single day to three-day pass and group tickets are available on the website at http://bit.ly/PressRelease17.

About TooManyGames: Owned and operated by Level 4 Event Management, TooManyGames celebrates its 10 Anniversary in 2017 with the longest running and largest gaming convention in Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley region. TooManyGames is the premier event for anyone interested in video games, board games, CCG's, and tabletop gaming. The expo features vendors selling retro games, new games, board games, crafts, art and more, along with music concerts, arcades, tournaments, chiptunes, industry panels, and panels by famous YouTubers. For information, go to http://bit.ly/PressRelease17.

About Make-A-Wish: Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. According to a 2011 U.S. study of wish impact, most health professionals surveyed believe a wish-come-true has positive impacts on the health of children. Kids say wishes give them renewed strength to fight their illness, and their parents say these experiences help strengthen the entire family. Headquartered in Phoenix, Make-A-Wish is one of the world's leading children's charities, serving children in every community in the United States and its territories. Make-A-Wish Philadelphia, Northern Delaware and Susquehanna Valley has granted over 6000 Wishes since our Chapters inception in 1986. The Chapter serves Philadelphia and the surrounding counties, the Susquehanna Valley and New Castle County in Delaware. Visit Make-A-Wish Philadelphia, Northern Delaware and Susquehanna Valley at: http://www.philasv.wish.org to learn more.
Grow G3 Machine Changing the way people eat, one machine at a time.

Grow Healthy Vending, the nations leader in taking the vending industry in a healthy direction, will soon be available to residents of Grand Prairie, Texas and the surrounding areas thanks to newest operators, Leon Waddell, James Googe Jr. and Edward Ruvalcaba. The group comes from varying backgrounds. Leon Waddell is a military veteran who is currently working as a firefighter alongside Edward; and James, an independent marketing contractor who has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies, however, they all share a desire to help their community.

After noticing a stark lack of healthier food options at locations in their area, the group decided to start looking into what they could do to help rectify the situation. During their search, they came across the healthy vending industry and realized they had found the solution they were looking for in Grow Healthy Vending. After researching, they saw that it was not only a way to provide their community with healthier food options but it was also a potentially lucrative business venture as well.

The group wanted to make sure that they did things right the first time so they did their homework and spoke to numerous healthy food vending organizations to get a feel for what types of programs were available. After speaking with Grow, they said the choice became clear. The group liked Grows business model and really appreciated the sense of professionalism and strong support offered by their staff. We wanted to make sure that we went with the best company, theres no point in reinventing the wheel. Their staff is very informative and they have a great business plan. Also, their level of customer service gives them an old school feel, harkening back to the golden days of business, says James.

What initially caught the groups attention was the Grow G3 machine itself. When asked how other healthy vending machines stacked up against the G3, James states, There is no comparison. Its like comparing a rotary phone to a Galaxy 8. Other than the sleek design, another feature that really stood out to the group is the various payment options the G3 offers to consumers. James acknowledged that with less and less people carrying cash these days, the ability to accept alternative forms of payment (Apple Wallet, Google Pay) really is a game changer.

James, Leon and Edward plan on taking their time to grow their business organically from the ground up, however they also have a goal of breaking the 100-machine mark eventually. Grow Healthy Vending CEO Chris Wyland added, James, Leon and Edward have a great game plan in place. Their 100 machine goal is highly attainable based on our past operator success. We look forward to a great relationship. The partners enthusiasm and commitment to a healthy community are the epitome of the Grow Healthy Vending Mission.

About Grow Healthy Vending

Grow Healthy Vending is revolutionizing the healthy vending industry by combining the highest quality equipment on the market with industry leading In House Location Procurement services. The Grow In House Locations Staff have successfully secured over 4000 machine locations across the United States and Canada in high foot traffic locations such as schools, universities, corporate offices, hospitals, YMCAs and other pre-qualified sites. To learn more about our company and what sets us apart, please visit: http://www.growhealthyvending.com.
March Against Monsanto We must rise up and stop this toxic nightmare or we will see generations of overwhelming sickness and premature death like never before ~ Tami Canal

Hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens will hit the streets May 20th, 2017 for the 6th international March Against Monsanto grassroots campaign. The global events will take place in hundreds of cities on six continents with the objective to further educate and raise awareness about Monsantos genetically modified seeds and the increasingly toxic food supply. A focal point of this years events will be on Monsantos Roundup herbicide, which has been detected in air and rain samples, the breast milk of nursing mothers, childhood vaccines, prenatal vitamins, and baby formula.

Recently, Congressman Ted Lieu of California issued a statement urging people to immediately stop using Roundup and it has been revealed that the EPA and Monsanto colluded for decades to conceal the extreme toxicity of the glyphosate-based herbicide. In 2015, the World Health Organization determined that glyphosate probably causes cancer, an incredibly alarming fact considering the U.S. Geological Survey data shows that the use of glyphosate has increased 16-fold since the mid-1990s when GMO crops were first introduced. This also calls into question Monsantos claims that genetically modified crops will decrease the need for harmful herbicides.

Fueling this years campaign is the discovery that glyphosate has been confirmed as a contaminant in childhood vaccines, which in some states, are mandated for children. There are zero studies in existence to prove the safety of injecting glyphosate into humans, let alone a baby on its first day of life.

Monsantos glyphosate has contaminated every facet of our lives. The cancer-causing herbicide has been detected in the air we breathe and many of the organic foods we eat. Our children are directly targeted as is evidenced by the discovery of glyphosate in vaccines, breast milk, and baby formulas. We must rise up and stop this toxic nightmare or we will see generations of overwhelming sickness and premature death like never before, said Tami Canal, the founder of March Against Monsanto.

March Against Monsanto rallies will occur May 20th with the first protests happening in New Zealand and Australia to kick off the global events. Extensive protesting will happen across the world and related online coverage can be found on social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtags #marchMay20 and #MarchAgainstMonsanto (#MAM).

Theres no question that March Against Monsanto is the most powerful grassroots initiative we have in the fight to reclaim our food supply from the GMO seed juggernaut known as the Monsanto Company, said Anthony Gucciardi, March Against Monsanto speaker and founder of multiple health and wellness websites.

The March Against Monsanto event in Washington D.C. will partner with Operation Stand Together, an initiative demanding justice for disabled, chemically-exposed military personnel. Erin Brockovich and speakers from March Against Monsanto will expose Monsantos production of war chemicals including Agent Orange and modern day white phosphorous.

Sources:

Headline attribution- CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/health/roundup-herbicide-cancer-allegations/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-14/monsanto-accused-of-ghost-writing-papers-on-roundup-cancer-risk

Rep. Ted Lieu statement: https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-lieu-statement-new-glyphosate-safety-concerns

Monsanto/EPA cancer links: http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-epa-2290270946.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/monsanto-cancer-suits-turn-to-alleged-whitewash-by-epa-official

Marion Copley's EPA letter: https://www.organicconsumers.org/sites/default/files/marioncopleyletter.pdf

WHO Roundup cancer decision: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/roundup-ingredient-probably-carcinogenic-humans/

U.S. Geographical Survey Data: http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2015/04/glyphosate-spreading-cancer-across-us

Monsanto herbicide report: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops-mean-more-herbicide-not-less/#6be91fdd3cd5

Glyphosate in vaccines report: d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/yesmaam/pages/1707/attachments/original/1473130173/FullGlyphosateinVaccinesReport_(6).pdf?1473130173

Vaccine mandate info: http://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20150706califvaccines.html

Monsanto and Agent Orange: https://vva.org/programs/agent-orange/monsanto-the-producer-of-agent-orange-brings-gmo-agriculture-to-vietnam/

Monsanto and white phosphorous: http://www.mintpressnews.com/white-phosphorous-war-crimes-connect-israel-to-monsanto/206594/

Redacted Army documents verifying Monsanto's production of white phosphorous: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=482c14749443323e08b2a03822c0ff90
2016 Code Talker book Im hopeful this award and the many powerful stories it spotlights will continue to highlight the exciting, challenging, and meaningful career of genetic counseling.

After receiving an overwhelming response to last years call for entries, Genome magazines Code Talker Award honoring genetic counselors is back for 2017. This unique award spotlights the impact of genetic counselors on the health and lives of their patients. Nominations are made via essay, with finalists and winner to be presented at the 2017 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Conference on September 15, 2017, in Columbus, Ohio, at a gala ceremony hosted by emcee Julia Sweeney. The Code Talker Award is the first of its kind for the field of genetic counseling and is sponsored by Invitae, one of the fastest growing genetic information companies.

The magazine is now seeking nomination essays from patients, caregivers, and peers detailing the compassion, expertise, and support a genetic counselor has demonstrated and the resulting impact that their care and guidance had on a patient or his or her family. Essays will be accepted through June 1, 2017. Nomination essays can be submitted at http://genomemag.com/codetalker/.

After struggling for a diagnosis [for] so many years, and Allison putting up with me and my case for so long, it felt amazing to publicly 'yell from the rooftops' about how thankful I was for her, says Melissa Bruebach, who wrote a moving essay nominating her genetic counselor for the 2016 Code Talker. The whole moment was magic, says Bruebach. She got the recognition she deserved, I got to tell her how grateful I was for her and the genetics team at Lurie Childrens Hospital, and I got the chance to hopefully inspire hundreds of current and prospective genetic counselors.

After reviewing the submitted essays, the Genome team will assemble a collection of the most impactful stories into the Code Talkers book as well as announce three finalists for the award itself. Finalists, their essayists, and their guests will receive round-trip airfare and a two-night stay in Columbus, where they will be honored at an awards ceremony at the conference. The essays will be read aloud, and one genetic counselor will be named Genomes Code Talker of the Year.

Im hopeful this award and the many powerful stories it spotlights will continue to highlight the exciting, challenging, and meaningful career of genetic counseling, says Allison Goetsch, MS, CGC, the winner of the 2016 Code Talker Award. It is an honor to be in the same profession, working towards the same goals, with so many like-minded, passionate, and dedicated individuals.

At the end of the ceremony each attendee will receive a copy of the Code Talkers book. The book serves as an enduring testament to the important role genetic counselors play in peoples lives and helps patients, genetic counselors, and families all understand the importance of genetic counseling in healthcare today.

I was really struck by the emotions conveyed in each story. Each patient was so genuinely thankful for his or her genetic counselor and the genetic counseling journey, says Anna Victorine, MS, CGC, a 2016 Code Talker Award finalist. It was clear from reading the stories that genetic counselors, as a whole, really and truly care about their patients. The Code Talkers book is such an amazing tribute to the profession and our value to our patients.

For more information about Genomes Code Talker Award, visit genomemag.com/codetalker

About Genome magazine

Genome is a national consumer magazine (300,000+ circulation) that explores the complexity of genomics and personalized medicine along with the associated ethical, social, and legal issues  in a relevant and easy-to-understand manner for a lay audience. Its quarterly publication is for the public at large: patients, family, caregivers, and healthcare professionals on the education frontlines. Genomes mission is to empower readers to make informed health decisions that will help them live better and longer. For more information visit genomemag.com.

About Invitae

Invitae Corporation's mission is to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medical practice to improve the quality of healthcare for billions of people. Invitae's goal is to aggregate most of the world's genetic tests into a single service with higher quality, faster turnaround time, and lower price than many single-gene and panel tests today. The company currently provides a diagnostic service comprising approximately 1,500 genes for a variety of genetic disorders associated with oncology, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, and other rare disease areas, as well as a clinical whole exome analysis service. Additionally, the company has created a Genome Network to connect patients, clinicians, advocacy organizations, researchers, and therapeutic developers to accelerate the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of hereditary disease. For more information, visit our website at invitae.com.

About the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC)

NSGC is the leading voice, authority and advocate for the genetic counseling profession, representing more than 3,500 health care professionals. The organization is committed to ensuring that the public has access to genetic services. For more information visit NSGC.org.
Festival Foods is continuing its expansion into southern Wisconsin while a longtime grocer is about to be left with just a single location.

Onalaska-based Festival announced Tuesday that it has purchased Pierces Markets in West Baraboo and Portage, with plans to convert the 55,000-square-foot stores to the Festival brand on June 20. Festival has 26 other locations, most of them in western and eastern Wisconsin, but has been pushing into southern Wisconsin.

The move leaves Pierces with only a store in Muscoda. The company was founded in 1924 by William and Anna Pierce on Walnut Street in Baraboo. A Madison store in the Northside TownCenter opened in 2006 but closed last spring when the Pierce family chose not to renew the 10-year lease. The 20,000-square-foot site is now home to a Willy Street Co-op.

This will be a good transition from one family to another, Angie Pierce, president of Pierces, said in a press release issued by Festival. We are confident that Festival Foods will carry on the tradition of providing quality products and excellent service that began with my great-grandparents.

Pierce could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Her company is based in West Baraboo and its unclear if Pierces would retain its 12,000-square-foot store in Muscoda, located just a block off of Main Street near Village Hall. The closest grocery stores, besides Pierces, to the village of 1,254 people are located 15 miles north in Richland Center. A Family Dollar store is under construction on Muscodas north side.

I love Pierces. I dont ever want to see them leave town, said Cinda Johnson, a lifelong resident and the village administrator. We really need a grocery store here. We would be lost if we didnt have a grocery store.

Brian Stenzel, a spokesman for Festival, said the Muscoda store was not considered because of its relatively small size compared to other stores in the Festival portfolio.

The store in Muscoda wasnt the right opportunity for us at this time and our growth plan, Stenzel said in an e-mail Tuesday. The Portage and Baraboo opportunities were the right fit for us and we look forward to continuing the family-owned tradition there.

Festival was founded in 1946 by Paul and Jane Skogen and in recent years has been expanding across Wisconsin under the direction of the Skogens grandson, Mark Skogen.

In 2014, the company purchased Vos Sentry in Fort Atkinson and converted the store to a Festival. In October 2015, Festival opened a 78,000-square-foot store at 2233 Humes Road in Janesville and followed that up with a 55,000-square-foot store on the ground floor of Gebhardt Developments $65 million Galaxie building in the 800 block of East Washington Avenue.At that time, Skogen said the Madison market could likely support three Festival stores.

On Tuesday, Skogen said the purchase of the West Baraboo and Portage stores from Pierces allows it to better serve the companys growing customer base throughout the state.

We are pleased that we were able to reach an agreement with the Pierce family that will result in a continuation of family-owned grocery stores in the area now and far into the future, Skogen said. We are honored to join these historic and still thriving Wisconsin communities.
BodyTite by Inmode With BodyTite and FaceTite, doctors are able to ensure patients receive minimally invasive, effective procedures and offer powerful aesthetic results, often under local anesthesia.

Personique is now offering BodyTite and FaceTite applications created by InMode Aesthetic Solutions, a leader in aesthetic medicine and technology. BodyTite/FaceTite is a non-excisional device that utilizes radio-frequency assisted lipolysis (RFAL) to address the shortcomings often associated with traditional liposuction or surgical body and face lifts, including sagging or wrinkly skin and scarring, by inserting a wand under the skin to coagulate inside while tightening the skin on top.

Personiques board certified plastic surgeons, Dr. Robert Ersek, Dr. Randy Buckspan, Dr. Lauren Crawford, and Dr. James Sheridan can ensure their patients receive surgical-like procedures with limited downtime by using the new BodyTite. The FDA cleared technology, for use on the stomach, arms, chest, knees, inner/outer thighs and face, is minimally invasive and leaves virtually no scarring. Results can be seen immediately after one treatment and are more evident over three to six months post-treatment.

Previously, patients looking for fat reduction procedures had limited options including multiple non-invasive treatments with limited skin contraction results, a surgical tummy tuck or facelift with downtime or a brachioplasty, leaving large excision scars. These options left patients who wanted less invasive procedures without a solution, or unhappy with the results of their treatment. With BodyTite and FaceTite, doctors are able to ensure patients receive minimally invasive, effective procedures and offer powerful aesthetic results, often under local anesthesia.

I have experienced extraordinary early results using the FaceTite and BodyTite on our patients here at Personique. Even a patient one week out from the neck and jawline treatment have incredible results with minimal bruising! says Dr. Lauren Crawford of Personique Plastic Surgery. I am so excited to offer the best in technology to our patients.

"In the short time that we've had the RFAL devices; BodyTite, and FaceTite, available for our patients at Personique I have seen impressive results. I believe this technology will offer my patients a new dimension for their body and facial contouring needs. I'm looking forward to the advances it will provide our patients," says, Dr. Sheridan with Personique Plastic Surgery.

About Personique:

The Personique surgeons have perfected the unique blend of art and science that is the cornerstone of creating subtle yet beautiful results. Exclusively dedicated to the practice of plastic surgery, Personique is staffed by highly trained and experienced plastic surgeons.

As recognized leaders and innovators in the art of physical transformation, tens of thousands of individuals travel from all over the world seeking aesthetic treatment at our Austin plastic surgery center. Personique was recently named one of the Best Plastic Surgeons in Austin by Certified Plastic Surgeons. Personique Surgery Centers is located at 630 W 34th St, Suite 201. For more information, call 512-459-6800 or visit http://www.personique.com.

Dr. Robert A Ersek is an internationally acclaimed surgeon. Recognized by his profession, he has published more than 100 articles and delivered lectures around the world. Dr. Ersek's publications range from reconstructive surgical methods to skin grafting and technical reports on the suction-assisted lipectomy process. Dr. Ersek has developed and invented unique procedures for many surgical techniques. He is dedicated to the highest standards in the medical profession. He is a highly sought after speaker and educator on plastic surgery.

Dr. Randy Buckspan was selected by RealSelf as Top Doc and by Austin Monthly Magazine in 2013 as one of the top doctors in Austin. Dr. Buckspan graduated from the University of Texas and received his Medical Degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1980. He trained at Vanderbilt University in General Surgery and finished his Plastic Surgery training at the University of Kentucky. He is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and is a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Dr. Lauren Crawford is a native-born Texan and board certified plastic surgeon who has practiced in Austin since 2010. She finished in the top 5% of her class and graduated with top honors in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. She was then accepted into a competitive integrated plastic surgery residency at University of Missouri where she had exceptional training in all aspects of reconstructive and cosmetic plastic surgery. Her research focused in areas of breast surgery, fat grafting, and nerve regeneration.

Dr. James M. Sheridan attended the University of Illinois for his undergraduate and Medical School studies. He completed his Plastic Surgery Residency at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York City. Dr. Sheridan has been in practice since 1990.

About InMode:

InModes technological advancements have become the new standard for aesthetic medicine, specifically in the radio-frequency aesthetic market. For more than three decades our R&D team was critical in developing state-of-the-art light, laser and radio-frequency devices, thereby launching and shaping the industry. InMode technology continues that legacy in providing superior satisfaction for both the patient and the practice. InMode is proud to announce the launch of BodyTite Radio-Frequency Assisted Lipolysis, a new innovative treatment that bridges the gap between non-invasive and surgery, without the associated surgical downtime and scars. Learn more about InMode technologies and BodyTite by visiting http://www.inmodemd.com/devices/bodytite.
Check out the hidden Discoveries Renaissance Asheville has in store as it takes part in this global event!

Join Renaissance Asheville Hotel, http://www.renaissanceasheville.com and French Broad Chocolates, http://www.frenchbroadchocolates.com for the Renaissance Global Day of Discovery.

As part of the fun, enjoy:



Chocolate Inspired Menu items at the Writers Bistro

Enjoy a selection of chocolate-kissed entrees where a portion of the proceeds with be donated to MountainTrues

French Broad Riverkeeper  protector of the French Broad River.

Chocolate Beer & Cocktails

Wind the day down or start your night off with a 5pm chocolate beer tasting in the Lobby Lounge. Join the Renaissance team for a nightcap and try one of the specialty chocolate cocktails.

Take a tour of the French Broad Chocolate Factory

See, smell, taste, and learn how cacao is roasted, cracked, winnowed, ground, conched, tempered and transformed into the marvelous food we call chocolate, at French

Broad Chocolates South Slope Factory.

Tours are at 1pm and 2:30pm.

About MountainTrue:

Western North Carolinas premier advocate for environmental stewardship, MountainTrue is committed to protecting the places we share, keeping our mountain region a beautiful place to live, work and play. http://www.mountaintrue.org

About French Broad Chocolates:

Established in Asheville, NC in 2007, French Broad Chocolates is borne of an endless love of chocolate and a perpetual lust for culinary creativity. Their chocolates are made in small batches with ingredients thoughtfully selected for their integrity. Read more at http://www.frenchbroadchocolates.com

About Renaissance Asheville:

Renaissance Asheville is a full service hotel located at 31 Woodfin Ave in downtown Asheville, NC. For more information, contact the Director of Operations, Drew Walls, at 828-252-2711, or go online to http://www.renaissanceasheville.com/discover-asheville/local-events.
ANNE FONTAINE, international women's luxury fashion brand based in France, released an exclusive commemorative 5th anniversary tote bag in association with the Huni Kuin tribe to benefit the Anne Fontaine Foundation. The Huni Kuin tribe is an indigenous tribe living in the Amazon Rainforest. Renowned for their traditional way of life in harmony with nature and their ancient sacred chants, the Huni Kuin are the true protectors and caretakers of the forest. The tote drawings reflect their life in the forest, the sacred plants, trees and animals, their beliefs and their spirituality deeply linked to their surrounding, life-sustaining ecosystem. Always involved in environmental causes and in parallel of its commercial activities, Anne Fontaine is committed to ecological causes in particular through the protection of the Brazilian forest Mata Atlantica with the creation of the Anne Fontaine Foundation in October 2011 based in New York, this non-governmental organization aims to protect endangered forests and support reforestation programs in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, better known as Mata Atlantica.

Through art and fashion, the Foundation raises awareness by organizing artistic initiatives and events with participating sculptors, painters and photographers. The Foundation selects concrete projects implemented by local NGOs and develops partnerships with these organizations to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of its programs.

Since 2012, the Foundation has supported three Brazilian NGOs and allowed the planting of more than 40,000 trees in the states of Bahia, Pernambuco and Minas Gerais. The Foundation organizes an annual Forest Day at Anne Fontaine boutiques worldwide where 50% of the profits go to the Foundation and its struggle for reforestation.

For more information on the Anne Fontaine Foundation, please visit http://www.annefontainefoundation.org/

ABOUT ANNE FONTAINE

The Maison Anne Fontaine was created in 1994 from the meeting of Anne and her husband, Ari. It is a true story of love and family. The Maison is deeply linked to the passion of its creations through the quality, details, and the defense of French craftsmanship and artisanship. The Maison Anne Fontaine is known for its expert craftsmanship and the quality of its creations. The Anne Fontaine style is rich in embroidery, lace, ruffles, jabots, and plays of transparency. All of its models are developed in her workshop in Honfleur, using the technique of molding that is commonly used in haute couture. After the opening of the first point-of-sale in 1994 in the district of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in Paris, the House quickly developed.

The Maison now owns more than 50 boutiques around the world including 60 multi-brand outlets and a global website, annefontaine.com.
The industry continues to change -- its hard to see what technologies will win. But weve made a lot of great decisions.

Digital Scientists is pleased to announce the celebration of their ten-year anniversary scheduled for Thursday, May 18th. The event, which coincides with the weekly Alpharetta Food Truck Alley events, starts at 5:00pm and is a tribute to a decade of business as well as a way to thank friends, family and clients who have helped along the way.

The year Digital Scientists launched was a big year in technology--the iPhone was released, Facebook and Twitter went global, Kindle and Android were released, Google bought YouTube, and Airbnb was founded.

Since then, the team has been building digital products that help their clients provide better user experiences and solve complex problems. It started with their first lab in Atlanta, then two years later in the new, current location in downtown Alpharetta.

Digital Scientists CEO Bob Klein explained why he enjoys the work: I like the personal part. When people place their trust in us, it's gratifying. I also like the idea of people using products that we make. There's a utility to things we deliver, and good or bad, we get to hear directly from users.

Digital Scientists first big project was with Thomson-Reuters. The team built a social network for innovation and supported it with a series of events that hosted leading minds on the topic. Each of the Thomson Innovation Summits had a specific focus and objective, with the goal of considering the potential of professional social networks and how they might provide a new platform for leveraging the companys deep vertical knowledge of its customers. Other big projects that followed were InferfaceFLOR, Gables Residential, Rately, RoadNinja, and Huddles GoFan.

What makes Digital Scientists anniversary particularly noteworthy is a core team that brings together a trio of skill sets that traditionally have been known to face struggles when working together: Bob Klein, Digital Scientists CEO, who brings expertise in business and strategy; Vishi Gondi, the CTO, who brings strategy and development expertise; and J.R. Gunderson, the UX Director, who excels in user experience design.

The team launched their first app in the Apple App store in 2009, just six months after its official opening. Through the last ten years, Digital Scientists has worked with all kinds of businesses, from startups to global corporations.

As they enter their tenth year, some of the companys high points include:

Opening new offices in Atlanta (at WeWork Tower Place, in Buckhead) and Greenville, SC at NEXT Innovation Center.

Partnering with Innovation Leader, an organization that provides professional resources and sponsors innovation events around the country.

Authoring a seven-part product launch guide, of which the introductory article is featured in the Winter 2017 issue of Innovation Leader Magazine. The full product launch guide will be available for download later this month.

The industry continues to change -- its hard to see what technologies will win. But weve made a lot of great decisions. We create a lot of value by moving fast and building something thats delightful to use, says Vishi, on what he looks forward to working on in Digital Scientists future.

Digital Scientists Anniversary event will take place on Thursday, May 18th from 5:00pm-8:00pm at their Alpharetta office. To RSVP for the event, email hello(at)digitalscientists.com or visit the event page: https://www.paperlesspost.com/events/24209844-0e83a45d/event_page

To find out more about Digital Scientists capabilities or their three locations throughout the southeast, visit http://www.digitalscientists.com or call 404.800.9751.
Research suggests that for childbirth, women pick their doctor first, not their hospital. Our goal is to get women thinking about the hospital too, since the hospital you choose can play a big role in determining your risk of a C-section.

A new Consumer Reports analysis of more than 1,300 hospitals finds that 56 percent of U.S. hospitals have C-section rates above the national target for low-risk births. The report also reveals startling variations in C-section rates from hospital to hospital, even those within the same zip code. The message to mothers? Your biggest risk for an unnecessary C-section may be the hospital you choose.

Roughly one in three babies born in this country, or about 1.3 million children each year, are now delivered by cesarean section, the most common surgery performed in U.S. hospitals.

Research suggests that for childbirth, women pick their doctor first, not their hospital. Our goal is to get women thinking about the hospital too, since the hospital you choose can play a big role in determining your risk of a C-section, says Doris Peter, Ph.D., director, Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.

The C-section hospital ratings  all free  are available online at CR.org/hospitalratings.

In many cases, cesarean sections are absolutely necessary. But often they are not: Almost half are done in situations where babies could be delivered vaginally instead, according to research. Most hospitals are doing far too many unnecessary C-sections and women, armed with this data, can help Consumer Reports send a message to hospitals that we want them to improve, said Peter.

Consumer Reports goal is two-fold: first, to make C-section rates public to help new moms make smart choices, and second, to use the ratings as a mechanism to bring high rates down and thus drive positive marketplace change.

The risk of having a C-section is higher in the Northeast and South, and lower in the West and Midwest. Four states had C-section rates of 30 percent or higher: West Virginia (31 percent), Florida (31 percent), Louisiana (32 percent), and Nebraska (34 percent, where there is only one hospital reporting data). And four states had rates below 18.5 percent: South Dakota (17 percent), Idaho (17 percent), New Mexico (17 percent), and Minnesota (18 percent). The national benchmark set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is 23.9 percent or less.

The variation among individual hospitals is even more dramatic. For large hospitals, C- section rates range from 7 percent at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, New York, to 51 percent at South Miami Hospital in Miami, Florida. And just outside of Miami, Hialeah Hospital had the highest C-section rate (65 percent) of all hospitals rated by Consumer Reports.

Even when hospitals are located within close proximity, variations in C-Section rates can be substantial. Consumer Reports found this pattern in multiple locations including the following cities: St. Louis, Missouri; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Fort Worth, Texas. This variation is a critical point in our analysis because there is a big, important take away for moms. You cannot afford not to know the track record of the hospital where youre delivering, says Peter. Furthermore, in a recent study in the journal Birth, more than half of women said they would travel 20 miles farther to have their baby at a hospital with a C-section rate that was 20 percentage points lower.

Some hospitals arent making it easy for women to know their C-section rates, Peter said. Consumer Reports does not have data for more than half of the estimated 3,000 hospitals that deliver babies because hospitals arent required to report that information to the public. We applaud those hospitals who do share their C-section data, particularly the ones who do poorly. We see this as a critical step in the direction toward greater transparency and openness, says Peter.

Most worrisome are the hospitals that perform more than 5,000 births every year and do not publicly report their data, of which there are 28. Consumer Reports contacted the three hospitals with the most births and to date, only one, Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, responded. New York- Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and Northside Hospital in Atlanta did not respond to requests for comment.

The following states had more than two of these large non-reporting hospitals: Florida, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. New York has a total of eight non-reporting hospitals, most of which are located in New York City: Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park; Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn; Mount Sinai Hospital, NYC; Mount Sinai St. Lukes  Roosevelt, NYC; New York Methodist, Brooklyn; New York- Presbyterian Hospital, NYC; North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset; NYU Langone Medical Center, NYC.

Overall, there were 216 hospitals with C-section rates above 33.3 percent for low-risk deliveries, earning CRs worst rating. Of these hospitals, the 22 listed below were the ones that delivered the most babies within a year. Conversely, there were 203 hospitals with rates of 18.4 percent or lower, earning CRs best rating. Twenty- two of them were hospitals that delivered a high volume of babies.

Large Hospitals w/ High C-section Rates

Hospital Name C- Section Rate

South Miami Hospital, Miami, Fla 51

Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY 44

Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, NJ 43

Womans Hospital of Texas, Houston, TX 41

Midland Memorial Hospital, Midland, TX 40

Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church, VA 39

Las Palmas Medical Center, El Paso, TX 39

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Plano, TX 39

Memorial Regional Hospital, Hollywood, FL 38

Henrico Doctors Hospital, Richmond, VA 37

Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, Edinburg, TX 37

Baptist Hospital of Miami, Miami, FL 37

Riverside Community Hospital, Riverside, CA 36

Bayshore Medical Center, Pasadena, TX 35

Jackson Health System, Miami, FL 35

Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Boca Raton, FL 34

St. Josephs Healthcare System, Paterson, NJ 34

Medical Center at Bowling Green, Bowling Green, KY 34

Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX 34

Wesley Medical Center, Wichita, KS 34

Inova Alexandria Hospital, Alexandria, VA 34

Baptist Medical Center, San Antonio, TX 34

Large Hospitals w/ Low C-section Rates

Hospital Name C-section Rate

Crouse Hospital, Syracuse, NY 7

SSM St. Marys Health Center, St. Louis, MO 12

Memorial Medical Center, Springfield, IL 12

Lovelace Womens Hospital, Albuquerque, NM 13

Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, Bakersfield, CA 13

Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, Provo, UT 14

WakeMed Raleigh Campus, Raleigh, NC 15

Intermountain Medical Center, Murray, UT 16

Desert Regional Medical Center, Palm Springs, CA 16

NorthShore University Health System, Evanston, IL 17

Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center, Panorama City, CA 17

Kaleida Health, Buffalo, NY 17

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL 17

TMC HealthCare, Tucson, AZ 17

University Medical Center, Lubbock, TX 17

Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, Everett, WA 17

San Joaquin Community Hospital, Bakersfield, CA 18

Christiana Care Health System, Newark, DE 18

Bethesda North Hospital, Cincinnati, OH 18

Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center, Roseville, CA 18

JPS Health Network, Fort Worth, TX 18

Southwest Healthcare System, Murrieta, CA 18

About Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. For 80 years, CR has provided evidence-based product testing and ratings, rigorous research, hard-hitting investigative journalism, public education, and steadfast policy action on behalf of consumers interests. Unconstrained by advertising or other commercial influences, CR has exposed landmark public health and safety issues and strives to be a catalyst for pro-consumer changes in the marketplace. From championing responsible auto safety standards, to winning food and water protections, to enhancing healthcare quality, to fighting back against predatory lenders in the financial markets, Consumer Reports has always been on the front lines, raising the voices of consumers.

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MAY 2017

 2017 Consumer Reports. The material above is intended for legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for advertising or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports is an expert, independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to work side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports magazine, ConsumerReports.org and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our prior written permission. Consumer Reports will take all steps open to it to prevent unauthorized commercial use of its content and trademarks.
Author Solutions is pleased to announce that three books published through its supported self-publishing imprints, Balboa Press, iUniverse and Author House were winners in the Independent Press Awards competition.

Dont Settle: How to Marry the Man You Were Meant For, which was published through Balboa Press was named a winner in the Marriage category. The book authored by Scott Carroll tells readers how to marry science with spirituality and use neuroscience, genetics, behavioral science and psychology to attract the perfect man for you and get him to the altar in as little as a year.

Face of the Bell Witch: Book One of the Medium Series, which was published through iUniverse was named a winner in the Paranormal Thriller category. In this book, authored by Jerry Gundersheimer, a gifted medium and his young daughter unwittingly become embroiled in a perilous clash with both criminal and supernatural worlds  awakening a vengeful spirit in the process.

American Stew: Hope in a Toxic Culture which was published through Author House was named a winner in the Cultural Criticism category. The book authored by culture critic Stephen James offers a fresh perspective on the problems that plague America, as well as much-needed solutions. By applying modern social science and interdisciplinary thought to contemporary American issues, James offers a sweeping and relevant analysis of a culture that has become toxic for its members.

The Independent Press Award recognizes hundreds of books and publishers with its 2017 IPA winners and Distinguished Favorites in categories that range from Adventure to Young Adult Fiction. 2017 independent publisher winners include the American Psychological Association, Blackstone, Galaxy Press and Select Books.

Selected award winners and Distinguished Favorites are based on overall presentation and excellence. The 2017 Independent Press Award competition included international submissions from countries such as Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Awards are another way to increase a books marketability and credibility. We expect winners and Distinguished Favorites in our annual Independent Press Award to receive a heightened level of attention with hopes of translating into book sales, licenses and additional content distribution, said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak.

About Author Solutions, LLC:

Author Solutions, LLC, is the world leader in indie book publishing. Author Solutions leading self-publishing imprints  AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Palibrio, Trafford Publishing and Xlibris  have helped more than 200,000 authors self-publish, promote and bring to market more than 275,000 new titles. Through strategic alliances with leading trade publishers, Author Solutions is making it possible to develop new literary talent efficiently and provide authors with a platform for bringing their books to market. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, Author Solutions global reach includes imprints developed specifically for authors in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore and India. For more information, please visit authorsolutions.com. For the latest news, follow @authorsolutions on Twitter and Like us at facebook.com/AuthorSolutions.
Dr. Brenda Allen, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Winston-Salem State University, has been selected as the next president of Lincoln University of Pennsylvania.

Lincoln Universitys Board of Trustees announced at a special meeting held May 11 the selection of Dr. Brenda Allen, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Winston-Salem State University, as president of Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. Allen, who is an alumna of Lincoln University, will serve as its 14th president. She will assume the duties from Dr. Richard Green, who has served as Lincolns interim president since July 2015.

The Board is confident in its selection of Dr. Allen to lead the institution at this most pivotal time in its history, stated Kimberly Lloyd, board chairwoman. Dr. Allens demonstrated leadership experiences coupled with her breadth and depth of achievements were the fundamental attributes we desired in Lincoln's next president. We're pleased to have unanimously approved her appointment."

Allen departs WSSU with a legacy of achievement. Her many accomplishments include leading the revision of the curriculum, overseeing the establishment of WSSUs first two doctoral programs, expanding undergraduate research funding, restructuring academic support to strengthen advising, creating an Office of Faculty Affairs, strengthening standards for tenure and promotion, and helping raise more than $10 million for capital projects, scholarships, and other student support. Under her leadership, the Universitys retention and graduation rates rose, the number of students engaged in research and study abroad increased, and faculty became re-energized.

Dr. Allens commitment to ensuring that our students receive the education they deserve has resulted in a lasting legacy here at WSSU, said Chancellor Elwood L. Robinson. Her vision for a university that offers a high-quality, high-impact liberal education has transformed our institution. I am not in the least surprised that she was selected to lead Lincoln University.

Allen assumed her position as provost at Winston-Salem State University in 2009 after serving six years as associate provost and director of institutional diversity at Brown University. Prior to joining Brown University, Allen held a number of academic and administrative positions at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Promoted through the ranks at Smith to full professor, Allen served as the chair of the African American Studies Department, the assistant to the president and director of institutional diversity, and special assistant to the Provost.

Prior to her tenure at Smith College, Allen spent three years at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where she held several positions, including postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral associate in the Department of Psychology, and lecturer in the departments of psychology and African American studies.

Allen holds a bachelors degree in psychology from Lincoln University, a masters degree in experimental psychology and a doctorate in developmental psychology, both from Howard University in Washington, DC.

###

About Lincoln University

Founded in 1854, Lincoln University is the nations first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Located in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, the university is comprised of a student body of approximately 2,100 men and women. It combines the elements of a liberal arts and sciences-based undergraduate curriculum with select graduate programs aimed at giving students the skills they need to succeed in a highly technological and global society. Notable alumni of the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall; the first African American woman promoted to Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, Lillian Fishburne; noted African American poet, Langston Hughes; the First president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; and the first president of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe as well as a myriad of others.
One of the best features of T.A.P. Tags is that the content the tags display can be changed remotely with our user interface.

T.A.P. Tag Technologies, LLC announced today upgrades to the user interface that controls T.A.P. Tags, their line of NFC enhanced promotional items. The software enhancements include the ability to make bulk edits, and new features designed to help track usage and history.

Based in Ocean View, New Jersey, T.A.P. Tag Technologies specializes in NFC chip technology and offers a line of NFC enhanced promotional items called T.A.P. Tags. Designed to help companies put their message on their clients phones, T.A.P. Tags can display virtually any URL with just a simple tap of an NFC enabled smartphone. The promotional items are customized with logos and can be programmed with the user interface to open up the company website, digital business cards, special deals and offers, and more.

One of the best features of T.A.P. Tags is that the content the tags display can be changed remotely with our user interface. The addition of the bulk edit feature makes it simple for our clients to use T.A.P. Tags throughout multiple marketing campaigns, said David Berroa, T.A.P. Tag Technologies.

The new bulk edit feature allows users to edit a range of tags at once rather than individually. The edit feature also retains the ability to change one tag at a time if desired.

The bulk edit feature has been very well received by T.A.P. Tag Tech clients so far. This update streamlines the process of changing the URL the tags point to, and has been especially helpful for our clients who are using hundreds of tags, said Berroa.

The upgrades to the user interface also include a Tag History and new features designed to help track tag usage. The Tag History feature tracks every URL that each T.A.P. Tag has been set to in the past. People can use the user interface to pull up a tag history for a particular tag or range of tags.

The tag usage data can be very helpful to determine information about their customers. For example many people place a T.A.P. Tag on the door of their business to provide information during off hours. If the tag usage data shows a large number of scans at a certain time, the business might want to adjust their hours to include the high traffic time, said Berroa.

The new features allow the user to pull up graphs that display information about Tag usage. Data such as what time certain tags were used as well as information about the operating system and browser used to view the tags.

For more information about T.A.P. Tag Technologies please visit http://www.TapTagTech.com.
Kieffer's logo Were looking forward to celebrating our 100 year anniversary with our trade partners, but we strive to show appreciation daily

Kieffers Appliances, a 4th generation family owned company, celebrates its 100th year in business. Starting with humble roots, the business has now grown to be one of the largest appliance dealers in the tri-state area with a 16,000-square foot appliance showroom.

Founded by entrepreneur, John E. Kieffer, he originally sold tires and delivered blocks of ice. As a keen observer, he noticed the ice business declining and naturally progressed into the refrigerated ice craze of 1922. The Grono & Crosley refrigerator and the Royal electric vacuum cleaner were some of the first products to appear on the showroom floor. These appliances, considered revolutionary at the time, were the predecessor of what was to become the Kieffers concept: a focus on the customers needs and product expertise. This approach, continued by 4th generation owner Jace Kieffer, holds true today.

Today the company has 67 global brands with diverse cultural origins: US, Italian, French, Korean; brands such as Bosch (http://www.bosch-home.com/us ), Miele (http://www.miele.com ), Gaggenau (http://www.gaggenau.com) , and Subzero-Wolf (http://www.subzero-wolf.com ) are recognized world leaders. Kieffers is unique from many dealerships as its focus is partnering with the trade; home builders, designers, and architects (as well as the discerning customer who appreciates good, old-fashioned service).

Commenting on this important milestone for the company, John Kieffer, President, said: Our 100th is an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to our trade partners; thanking our trade partners with appreciation events and even a gala at the end of the year for some of our key partners.

Son and Vice President, Jace Kieffer, continued: Were looking forward to celebrating our 100 year anniversary with our trade partners, but we strive to show appreciation daily to both our customers and employees. We trust and empower our teamwhich our customers like because it eliminates big store bureaucratic tape. The Kieffers attribute their success and 100 years in the business to being nimble, honest and valuing relationshipssomething 1st generation owner John E. Kieffer would be proud of today.

About Kieffers: Kieffers is an Appliance Dealer in Lansdale, PA. Founded in 1917 and still family owned, it is our mission to bring professional service, support, and a broad product selection to an industry dominated by large, impersonal retail chains to the trade and to customers. Kieffers Appliances has become the largest independent appliance dealer in the tristate area featuring over 60 brands of appliances in our super Showroom. http://www.kieffers.com
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLPs Emerging Technology Practice will host the Angel Capital Association (ACA) New England Regional Meeting, May 16 from 3:00  8:00 p.m. in the firms Boston office. The event brings together 80  100 angel investors and startup companies to share best practices and investment opportunities, and will feature company showcases and quick pitches, an angel insights panel, and a networking cocktail reception. As part of the program, the following Greenberg Traurig Boston attorneys will discuss common legal issues to consider by a startup:



Barbara A. Jones, a shareholder in the firms Corporate & Securities Practice and coordinates the firms Global Securities Practice.

Emily Ladd-Kravitz, an associate in Greenberg Traurigs Corporate & Securities Practice and Emerging Technology Group in Boston.

Chinh H. Pham, co-leader of the firms Emerging Technology Group, and co-chair of the firms Intellectual Property (IP) Group in Boston.

GTs Emerging Technology Group is an annual sponsor of the ACA. In April, the group presented on four separate sessions at the ACA Summit in San Francisco.

About Greenberg Traurigs Emerging Technology Practice

Greenberg Traurigs Emerging Technology Group is a multidisciplinary legal team focused on guiding investors and emerging technology companies through all the stages of development, from initial business formation through angel or venture capital financing to initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions. Drawing on the firms broad platform, the group offers clients a streamlined approach to meeting their diverse legal needs  a single team that can scale up its services as clients businesses grow. The attorneys regularly advise clients on a host of pressing legal issues, from IP protection and software/IT matters through labor and employment, compensation, and tax issues.

About Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Greenberg Traurig, LLP has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. One firm worldwide, GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the second largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2016, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
Chris Drosner Chris Drosner writes the Beer Baron column for the Wisconsin State Journal. Follow Chris Drosner Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Its taken a lot of practice, but Ive learned to take big beer companies acquisitions of legitimate craft breweries in stride.

A Breckenridge here, a Revolver there, a mega-merger over here ... they were interesting stories, both individually and in aggregate, but honestly theres only so much I can say about them. None of them have involved Wisconsin breweries, and hardly any have even sold their beer here.

Generally, I think its a natural evolution of a sector of business that has been largely immune to normal business forces for going on a decade now. I think there are ill effects on small brewers when the largest brewers try to win back the business theyve lost to small brewers. And yeah, the playing field is uneven, in the same sense that Wal-Mart has advantages over mom-and-pop stores.

So, I think these brewery sales are generally bad news, though I dont fault either party that makes them happen.

But this latest one hit harder than all the others. Anheuser-Busch InBev  the maker of Budweiser, Rolling Rock, Stella Artois, Shock Top, Bass, Labatt, Goose Island and many, many other beers  on May 3 announced it had purchased Wicked Weed Brewing of Asheville, North Carolina.

Wicked Weed had been a rapidly rising star in the craft beer world, taking just five years to build a national name around deftly made hoppy beers and, in particular, sour and wild-fermented beers made with traditional barrel-aging techniques. It was a key member of a robust brewing scene that made Asheville, a city of less than 90,000, consistently mentioned among the top beer cities in America.

Wicked Weeds reputation led a road-tripping Wisconsinite to schedule a lunchtime pit stop there with his family last summer, en route from the Great Smoky Mountains to the South Carolina shore.

What I found surpassed my expectations and, to be honest, stole a little bit of my heart.

Wicked Weeds pub in downtown Asheville had everything that has endeared the craft beer scene to me and its legion other devotees. There was great beer, of course, but also a sense of craft, passion and authenticity. I felt that I was surrounded by people  staff and patrons  who appreciated the same things I did. There was a very good salad.

All of it was tied together with an unmistakable sense of place, with a mural of King Henry VIII  alluded to in the brewerys name for his quote labeling hops a wicked and pernicious weed  presiding over it all.

In short, it was cool.

And this, all of it, is what ABI bought.

And that made me a little sad, being reminded of the (likely significant) commercial value on that afternoons experience. Its possible that Wicked Weeds new owner will maintain or even enhance that experience, but I wont be returning when Im in that neck of the woods again. It makes a difference to me if something is bought or made.

Weve been through this before  ABI alone purchased 10 craft breweries since Goose Island in 2011. The strategy from ABI seems clear. Its targeting regional breweries in the 50,000-barrel-a-year ballpark that have either been long established in their home markets but may have owners edging toward retirement or young breweries that have grown quickly into that profile. Goose Islands 312, IPA and Belgian and barrel-aged beers were scaled up for national distribution, but ABI seems content to have most of its other acquisitions fill out roles in a network of regional breweries.

But the craft beer world seemed to gnash its teeth more over Wicked Weed than any ABI acquisition since Goose. And that makes sense, because from a beer and culture perspective, Wicked Weed is a different kind of brewery. The emphasis on modern American sours  a somewhat exclusive class of beer with limited appeal  puts it in rarefied air nationally.

Most of these breweries took issue not with their friends business being sold, but being sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev.

We have deep and serious issues with many of ABInBevs business strategies, mission, and overall ethics as they relate to craft beer in America, Black Project said in its statement about the Wicked Weed sale, citing highly aggressive, predatory and what we consider to be unethical practices. We truly believe that ABInBev intends to systematically destroy American craft beer as we know it.

ABI wholly or partially owns several of the companies that distribute its beer in various markets, and its high-volume brands like Bud Light are the franchise for nearly every distributorship that carries ABI products. That means ABI exerts what independent breweries decry as undue influence in a sector of the beer business that most breweries of significant size are legally required to work with.

The fear is that ABI uses its distributor networks to push its own products onto crowded beer shelves at the expense of smaller breweries who draw less water with distributors. None other than the U.S. Department of Justice has taken notice of ABIs distributor dealings, placing related restrictions on the merger of ABI and SABMiller, and promising extra scrutiny of further acquisitions of American craft breweries.

Weve seen evidence of ABIs craft buying spree and distribution right here in Wisconsin. Beginning last fall a handful of beers from Golden Road, 10 Barrel and Elysian began hitting bottle shop and grocery store shelves. Im not sure how much the Wisconsin market was demanding more good but not particularly distinctive West Coast IPAs, but there they were.

Wicked Weed, though, holds a different niche in ABIs now fully fleshed-out beer portfolio. While I could see its hoppy offerings such as Pernicious IPA and Freak of Nature imperial IPA competing on a national level, the smart money is on ABIs Wicked Weed play being about its sour-beer program. Last year Wicked Weed opened its fourth production facility and its second dedicated exclusively to producing sours.

This had been a gap in ABIs portfolio, and you can almost hear the pitch to a bar or bottle shop owner. Need a great bourbon barrel stout? Heres Goose Islands Bourbon County Brand Stout. Why are you still carrying Samuel Adams Boston Lager? Your customers will love Devils Backbone Vienna Lager. Lagunitas IPA? No, take this 10 Barrel Joe. You dont need Pliny the Elder, we have Elysian Space Dust. And on and on.
Philadelphia business law firm Jacobs Law Group is pleased to announce that attorneys Neal A. Jacobs and Mary Ann Mullaney have been named 2017 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers.

This marks the 11th year that Jacobs has been recognized as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer, in the practice areas of business litigation, business / corporate law, and estate and trust litigation. Mullaney has been honored as a PA Super Lawyer for three straight years in business litigation, appellate.

A program of Thomson Reuters, Pennsylvania Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers who, through a peer review and independent research process, have been identified as attaining a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only the top 5 percent of Pennsylvanias 50,000 lawyers are named to the Super Lawyers list.

Candidates are evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement, including verdicts and settlements; honors and awards; special licenses and certifications; pro bono and community service efforts; and scholarly lectures and writings. The ultimate objective of Super Lawyers is to create a credible, comprehensive and diverse list of outstanding attorneys that can be used as a resource for other practitioners and consumers searching for legal counsel.

Jacobs has been the managing attorney of Jacobs Law Group since he founded it in 1999. His practice focuses on complex corporate, business, and litigation matters. He devotes particular attention to privately held companies and their shareholder and member relations, and frequently is called upon to solve deadlocks and disputes between ownership groups in business divorce cases. He is a graduate of Rutgers University, and also earned his law degree, with honors, from Rutgers University School of Law.

In practice as a litigator for 25 years, Mullaney defends businesses, government entities and individuals in complex litigation in federal and state courts. She has achieved defense verdicts in both jury and non-jury trials and also has considerable experience as a successful appellate advocate. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and earned her law degree from Villanova University School of Law.

About Jacobs Law Group PC  Jacobs Law Group, PC (http://www.jacobslawpc.com) is a boutique litigation-focused law firm based in Philadelphia, with offices in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Voorhees, New Jersey. With the mission to provide a fresh alternative to the traditional large, national law firms, the firm was designed to meet the critical corporate law and litigation needs of middle-market companies and entrepreneurs. After expanding in 2016, the firm now offers specialized litigation support to its insurance, manufacturing and aviation clients. The firms legal services are offered in a holistic approach, which includes practical advice and counsel built on an understanding of the specific needs of each client.

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...a technology that will become a must have for everyone and anyone working with adult tissue stem cells.

On Tuesday, May 23 at 10:30 AM, James Sherley, Director of Asymmetrex, will have an ideal audience for introducing the advance in stem cell medicine that his company has recently achieved in collaboration with its partner, AlphaSTAR Corporation. Tuesday will be the second day of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicines first partnering conference, Cell & Gene Exchange 2017. In addition to his formal talk, Sherley will meet with interested companies in one-on-one partnering sessions to introduce them to the many advantages that Asymmetrexs AlphaSTEM Test service offers.

Asymmetrex and AlphaSTAR partnered to develop the first method for specific counting of adult tissue stem cells. The AlphaSTEM Test is the result of the integration of Asymmetrexs expertise in the unique cell production behavior of tissue stem cells and AlphaSTARs cutting-edge methods in computational simulation. By a proprietary analysis of simple cell growth data from cultures containing adult tissue stem cells, the AlphaSTEM Test technology can determine, with a high degree of precision, the number and behavior of tissue stem cells in complex cell preparations from many different types of human tissues.

For stem cell therapy companies, the AlphaSTEM Test offers the ability to determine stem cell dose for the first time. Currently, the only clinical test available for estimating whether treated patients have received sufficient stem cells is the CD34 marker for blood stem cells. However, because it does not give a specific blood stem cell dose, CD34 has poor sensitivity and specificity. The weak efficacy that CD34 does provide is limited primarily to blood stem cells. The AlphaSTEM Test offers the ability to determine specific dosing for stem cells from many different tissues.

Gene therapy and gene editing companies that genetically engineer blood stem cells  called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs)  could also benefit from the AlphaSTEM Test service. HSCs are the targets for gene treatments, because they are the only blood cells that are naturally maintained in the body for the long periods required for stable genetic cures. Because human HSCs are rare cells even in the most enriched clinical preparations, their starting number and their remaining number, respectively before and after genetic engineering procedures, are important data for optimization of the engineering and ensuring that sufficient modified HSCs are available for effective treatment.

Though minor participants in the conference, Asymmetrex will also address pharmaceutical companies. Asymmetrex has established that the AlphaSTEM Test can be employed to identify stem cell-active agents. The test has been validated with known stem cell-toxic drugs and stem cell-activating compounds. The current main service focus for Pharma is stem cell-toxic drug candidates. Stem cell toxicity causes chronic organ failure, a property that generally means a failed drug. Twenty to 30% of all drugs fail in Phase II and Phase III clinical trials due to intolerable toxicity. About half of these failures are due to chronic organ failure, which costs the average large pharmaceutical company $100-300 million each year. Asymmetrexs AlphaSTEM Test could identify many of these future failures much earlier, even before animal studies, giving a substantial savings to pharmaceutical companies in real dollars and patient safety. The impact would be even greater for drugs that did not manifest chronic organ failure until after they were in the marketplace.

Asymmetrex launched the AlphaSTEM Test contract service in September 2016. Thus far, adoption of the new technology has been measured. Asymmetrexs presentation at Cell & Gene Exchange 2017 is part of the companys mounting marketing campaign to increase awareness of the new technology in relevant fields. In addition to marketing to prospective clients, the company is discussing potential distribution partnerships with established contract research and contract medical organizations. Director Sherley is optimistic that this is a technology that will become a must have for everyone and anyone working with adult tissue stem cells. If you are investigating them, treating with them, testing drugs with them, or supplying them, how could you pass up now knowing how many they are?

About Asymmetrex

Asymmetrex, LLC is a Massachusetts life sciences company with a focus on developing technologies to advance stem cell medicine. Asymmetrexs founder and director, James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the unique properties of adult tissue stem cells. The companys patent portfolio contains biotechnologies that solve the two main technical problems  production and quantification  that have stood in the way of successful commercialization of human adult tissue stem cells for regenerative medicine and drug development. In addition, the portfolio includes novel technologies for isolating cancer stem cells and producing induced pluripotent stem cells for disease research purposes. Currently, Asymmetrexs focus is employing its technological advantages to develop and market facile methods for monitoring adult stem cell number and function in stem cell transplantation treatments and in pre-clinical assays for drug safety.
Adding WFM to omnichannel contact center software truly amplifies agent productivity and their ability to improve the customer experience.

Bright Pattern, omnichannel contact center vendor partners with Pipkins, leading supplier of workforce management software and services to the contact center industry, providing sophisticated scheduling and forecasting technology. The solution brings a multitude of benefits to contact center managers and agents alike.

The Pipkins workforce management algorithm provides advanced features and capabilities giving the most accurate schedule optimization to contact centers. Their software allows contact center managers to make minor or major customizations to the workforce process quickly and easily.

The integration also improves agent performance and customer support KPIs. Pipkins customers report an impact of 25% less overtime hours, 10% greater forecasting accuracy, 36% lower average queue time and an increase of 24% total calls answered.

Our Workforce Network provides unprecedented accuracy, and forecasting and scheduling accuracy are the cornerstones of any modern Workforce Management suite, said Dr. James Pipkins, President and CEO of Pipkins, Inc. If your forecasting tool is sub-par, there will be consequences  from overstaffing or understaffing your contact centers  unnecessary labor expense, lost sales, reduced productivity, difficulties with customer retention, higher employee turnover, etc.

Workforce Management software is crucial for contact centers wanting to maximize the performance levels of representatives while reducing unnecessary overtime expenditures, said Konstantin Kishinsky, CEO of Bright Pattern. Adding WFM to omnichannel contact center software truly amplifies agent productivity and their ability to improve the customer experience.

About Bright Pattern

Bright Patterns cloud contact center solutions help simplify multichannel customer service for customers, agents and contact center managers. Bright Patterns Cloud Contact Center solutions are used globally in over 26 countries and 12 languages by companies of all sizes.

About Pipkins

A privately-held, American-owned company, Pipkins was founded in 1983, and is based in St. Louis, Missouri. The firm is a leading provider of Workforce Management solutions for the contact center industry. Today, Pipkins systems forecast, plan and schedule more than 300,000 agents in over 500 locations across all industries worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.pipkins.com.
Complex organic mixtures such as pancake mix can by analyzed by by XRD

Rigaku Corporation has published an application report on its global website demonstrating the utility of X-ray diffraction (XRD) in the analysis of complex organic mixtures. The analysis described was performed using the Rigaku MiniFlex general purpose X-ray diffractometer and highlights the capacities of the instruments analysis software.

The ingredients of food components can be difficult to identify. The example presented in the article describes the analysis of pancake mix. In this case, primary ingredients such as brown sugar, baking powder, and flour are the important factors to control in the production process, rather than the molecular compounds that make up the ingredients.

Phase identification using X-ray diffraction involves the collection of XRD patterns on unknown samples and comparing them to patterns obtained from known materials. Although the primary database for these XRD patterns is compiled and maintained by the International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD), the preferred XRD patterns for the primary ingredients may not all be present in the database. In such cases, the MiniFlex analysis software allows users to make their own databases based on user- collected patterns from common or significant materials in the process. Phase identification and quality control of the pancake mix can therefore be done by collecting XRD patterns of the individual ingredients and adding them to the user database of the software.

The results displayed in the report are derived from the individual raw ingredients being scanned and overlaid. Each of the individual raw materials was scanned and the patterns were saved to a database. The results show the overlay of newly added patterns to the database with the original XRD pancake mix pattern, confirming the identity of the individual compounds.

The pancake article, along with other food science-related XRD analyses, can be seen at https://www.rigaku.com/en/products/xrd/miniflex/apps/2.

About Rigaku

Since its inception in Japan in 1951, Rigaku has been at the forefront of analytical and industrial instrumentation technology. Rigaku and its subsidiaries form a global group focused on general-purpose analytical instrumentation and the life sciences. With hundreds of major innovations to their credit, Rigaku companies are world leaders in X-ray spectrometry, diffraction, and optics, as well as small molecule and protein crystallography and semiconductor metrology. Today, Rigaku employs over 1,400 people in the manufacturing and support of its analytical equipment, which is used in more than 90 countries around the world supporting research, development, and quality assurance activities. Throughout the world, Rigaku continuously promotes partnerships, dialog, and innovation within the global scientific and industrial communities.

For further information, contact:

Michael Nelson

Global Marketing Coordinator

Rigaku Corporation

michael.nelson(at)rigaku.com
LASC Case Number BC587438 featured a $300,000.00 settlement with a co-defendant and a $1.5 million dollar verdict against the remaining defendant. Additionally, the Court added CCP 998 prejudgment interest of $223,123.00 and costs of $67,757.53 to the judgment. A link to the Jury Verdict Alert write-up can be found here, coupled with additional trial team and case details:

http://www.juryverdictalert.com/jury-verdicts/item/highlighted-verdicts/gilda-de-paz-v-vpmg-1772-preuss-llc

Plaintiff was injured on the premises owned by defendant VPMG 1772 Preuss, LLC in February 2015. Plaintiff stepped into what she believed to be a closet, but it was actually a steep stairway. Plaintiff fell down the stairs into the basement, suffering multiple and severe orthopedic injuries requiring open reduction and internal fixation surgery.

According to court documents, the plaintiff contended that the stairway was dangerously steep and lacked appropriate handrails, and the defendants knew of the dangerous condition, but failed to take steps to correct the issue or otherwise warn plaintiff of the danger. The defendant claimed the stairs were adequately protected by a deadbolt lock and door, however, defendant admitted liability before the start of the trial.

After her accident, the plaintiff required an extended hospital stay and assistance with daily activities for several months. The verdict included an award of $1,250,000 for past non-economic damages, and $250,000 for future non-economic damages.

The product liability lawyers at SHOOP | A PROFESSIONAL LAW CORPORATION represent clients nationally with regard to defective products and medical devices. David Shoop and Don Liddy are preeminent lawyers and have secured numerous multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements at trial. To learn more about the cases the firm handles, please visit the website at http://www.losangelesproductliabilityfirm.com/

SHOOP | A PROFESSIONAL LAW CORPORATION

Defective Product Lawyers with a National Presence.

We Get Results. Period.

Call us today for a free consultation at 866.884.1717
Expansion into China is a natural progression for CSI globalVCard as our Chinese and multinational clients see strong demand from the $1.8 trillion Chinese internet finance market.

CSI globalVCard, a leading B2B payments company specializing in safe, secure and rewarding payments, today announced that it has expanded services to China, its second salvo in as many months as part of the companys worldwide expansion. CSI globalVCard also announced a partnership with Beijing-based E-Life Financial Holdings, a subsidiary of HNA Group. Together, CSI globalVCard and E-Life will offer Chinese companies electronic supplier payments at an affordable cost.

CSI globalVCard will use the payment issuance capacity of E-Life for in-country payments and direct settlements through all major banks in China, allowing the company to manage batch payments in one portal. Clients choose CSI globalVCard for its automated, paperless payments platform, which allows multinational corporations to have the control and visibility in a single platform.

Expansion into China is a natural progression for CSI globalVCard as our Chinese and multinational clients see strong demand from the $1.8 trillion Chinese internet finance market, said Jia Liu, VP of International Payments, CSI globalVCard. Chinas FinTech industry is rapidly outpacing any other market in the world, and our clients need seamless, central visibility, and customer service within Chinas five time zones.

James Chen, CEO of E-Life Financial addressed that, As Chinas well-known financial holdings company, E-Life Financial emphasizes cooperation with entities and platforms overseas.

At the same time, E-Life Financial wishes to provide high-class service for domestic and foreign customers with the advantages of its full license qualifications, distribution channels, and strong clearing capabilities. As internationalization leads to ascending trends on cross-border payments, cooperation both domestically and internationally has become more and more important for E-Life Financial in offering customers a seamless experience and providing solutions for cross-border payments.

The CSI globalVCard/E-Life partnership will offer Chinese and multinational clients key benefits:



No sign-up fee to implement CSI globalVCards China in-country payments

Supports payments to nearly all Chinese banks

Same-day transactions for major banks, next business day transaction for all other banks

No additional fees for different bank/different province bank payments

Batch transactions in a single portal increases efficiency and reduces manual mistakes

Global payment visibility for international HQs

Globally consolidated payment reports

24/7 customer service in China

Detailed reconciliation data

In addition to the companys 2016 European rollout, CSI plans to roll out its services across additional continents by the end of 2017. For more information about CSI globalVCard, please visit http://www.csiglobalvcard.com.

About CSI globalVCard

CSI Enterprises has provided innovative payment solutions to world leading brands, while providing the highest level of customer service, for nearly 30 years. CSI's highly secure corporate payment solutions include the globalVCard electronic accounts payable solution. With one payment file upload, customers can automate 100% of their B2B payables and disburse payments through virtual credit card, ACH, check, or FX with cross-border payments settled in local currency. Learn more at http://www.csiglobalvcard.com.

About E-Life Financial Holdings

E-Life Financial Services Holdings Group Co. Ltd. is owned by the HNA Tourism Group, one of the core businesses in HNA Group. Rooted in tourism and relying on financial innovation, E-Life Financial will devote its three core assets including tourism payment (prepaid card management, bank card acceptance, internet payment, e-travellers' cheques and mobile payment O2O), tourism finance (tourism installments, credit, financial management and supply chain finance) and tourism services (foreign currency exchange, tax return, merchant discounts, VIP services, bonus point services, shopping mall services) for tourism and retail enterprises to achieve the leading tourism finance open integrated service platform in China.

Media Contact:

Caroline Perry

cperry(at)csiglobalvcard(dot)com
The agreement is a tremendous plus for the two companies and will help us meet the increased demand for our products and services throughout the DACH region, said Michael Wallrath, Managing Director, Axino Solutions.

Axino Solutions, a fast-growing developer and provider of leading-edge Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems and solutions, announced today that it has signed a partner agreement with BlueCielo, a leading global provider of software solutions to monitor and control technical information throughout the asset lifecycle.

The agreement is a tremendous plus for the two companies and will help us meet the increased demand for our products and services throughout the DACH region, said Michael Wallrath, Managing Director, Axino Solutions. We look forward to working with BlueCielo as we continue to build upon and expand our solution portfolio throughout Europe and beyond.

The alliance is an exciting opportunity for both organizations, said Willem-Jan Scholten, CEO of BlueCielo. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Axino as we continue to broaden our markets in DACH region. Their rich expertise better positions us to provide our customers with truly comprehensive engineering and document control solutions. In the end, through this partnership, our customers become the winners by achieving greater efficiencies and profits in their businesses.

The agreement between Axino Solutions and BlueCielo provides a framework for both companies to integrate their solutions to manage their customers Asset Lifecycle Information and leverage reliable, accurate technical data in their day-to-day operations. Mr. Wallrath said that BlueCielos Meridian product will strongly supplement Axinos asset management systems and solutions services in the automotive, chemical, manufacturing, telecommunications, transportation, and retail markets.

In Europe, Axinos best-in-class asset and service management solutions and consulting services are used by Top-Five companies to enhance productivity and optimize business efficiencies. The companys innovative solutions include platforms and modular software solutions that integrate easily and cost effectively with Axinos technology partners products, such as those from BMC, IBM and SAP.

Axino is also one of the largest providers of IBM Maximo Asset Management in Europe. IBM Maximo is a comprehensive solution for managing physical assets on a common platform in asset-intensive industries. As an IBM Maximo partner, Axino provides systems engineering, implementation, integration, and technology support services using Maximo and other software solutions to ensure seamless systems interoperability and optimization.

About Axino

Axino Solutions is based in Aachen, Germany with offices in Solothurn, Switzerland. Axino is a leading-edge communications solutions- and services provider worldwide. The company develops innovative software and systems for planning and implementation of comprehensive customer-specific software solutions for various customer segments, such as telecommunications, automotive, energy, retail and public municipalities. In addition to its own custom-build solutions and development services, Axino deploys solutions based on standard software products from BMC (Remedy Action Request System, Remedy ITSM Suite, etc.), IBM (Maximo Asset Management and IBM Control Desk/ICD), SAP (SAP Mobile and Business Objects BI) and Oracle (Enterprise Service Business). For more information, visit http://www.axino-group.com

About BlueCielo

BlueCielo provides solutions to manage engineering information throughout the asset lifecycle. BlueCielo Meridian software connects maintenance and engineering, supports concurrent plant modifications, and improves data handover.

BlueCielo solutions transform engineering data into actionable plant information, keeping our users informed, compliant, and in control. Serving the worlds largest enterprises in the Chemical, Metals & Mining, Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical, and Utility industries, the Meridian product line increases data integrity, audit-ability, and efficiencyenabling users to improve productivity and efficiency, ensure regulatory compliance, reduce risk, and manage change. With BlueCielo, owner operators run their plants more effectively, safely, sustainability, and profitably.

The company is headquartered in The Netherlands and has offices across the United States, Europe, Brazil, and in Singapore, as well as an international network of partners that ensures local service and support. BlueCielo is an official partner of Autodesk, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and SolidWorks.

To learn more about BlueCielo see http://www.bluecieloecm.com and follow @BlueCieloECM on Twitter.

BlueCielo, the Bird BlueCielo logo, and Meridian are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of BlueCielo ECM Solutions BV or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
For over two decades our relationship with O&G as both a trusted project partner and experienced contractor has allowed our engineers and designers to better understand both process and materials.... Past News Releases RSS

The latest and largest edition of O&G's Stylish Spaces with Masonry magazine is available the news was announced today by Anita Goerig, Director of Marketing. The 2017 publication features top articles from contributing editors from across the globe. A luxury lifestyle magazine, Stylish Spaces is dedicated to professionals and homeowners who are looking to create unique spaces in commercial and residential structures that feature stonework and dramatic appeal in design.

Stylish Spaces with Masonry magazine provides sophisticated content for consumers who appreciate the long-lasting beauty of stonework. Focusing on masonry success stories, the publication depicts projects, products, services and solutions for stone, tile, brick and other natural products. Reoccurring columns include articles on green materials, leisure styles, masonry trends, style & technology, new products, and sustainable design that are designed to inform, as well as inspire.

The feature article, Great Estates by contributing editor Cameron Henry, architect with Charles Hilton Architects repeatedly references the team that made the magnificent and historic Greenwich estate possible, remarked Kara Oneglia, Vice President, O&G. A reference to the importance of collaboration achieved amongst all stakeholders, contributing editor Dan Granniss, Principal, S/L/A/M Collaborative offers his Elements of a Successful Collaborative Design Approach featuring several design projects. Ongelia notes how His words struck me as such an important goal; when everyone is ready and willing to collaborate, each task can be performed by the most qualified people.

An exquisite, full-color publication Stylish Spaces is your guide to elegant living. Each article conveys the passion and practicality of masonry and exceptional design while exploring its juxtaposition of timeless artistry and modern creativity. Explore in this latest issue how masonry projects come to life.

"As a designer, it is imperative to understand the construction process, techniques, and construction materials that are both current and available to us. As projects become more technically complex and challenging, this knowledge brings significant value to our clients. For over two decades our relationship with O&G as both a trusted project partner and experienced contractor has allowed our engineers and designers to better understand both process and materials to deliver more efficient, sustainable, and functional designs, resulting in better overall projects, commented Mark Arigoni, LA, Principal, Milone and MacBoorm.

According to Lisa Davenport, Principal, Lisa Davenport Designs, "O&G's Masonry Division offers a large selection of materials and services. Their showrooms carry beautiful displays ranging from unique glass and natural stone tiles to countertop materials and stone veneers, all of which assists in articulating to my clients how my vision for the product may be applied. Additionally, working with the knowledgeable staff is a delight."

Join us to embrace masonry and our partners as we strive to inspire through Stylish Spaces, and the work we collaborate on that arouses the senses.

ABOUT O&G INDUSTRIES MASONRY DIVISION

Since its inception in 1923, O&G Industries, Inc. has grown to become one of the most diversified construction companies in the Northeast and one of the largest suppliers of masonry products and services in New England. Headquartered in Connecticut, the masonry divisions facilities include:



Seven mason stores and stone yards,

Six Earth Products Showcase retail showrooms, and a

Fabrication and Distribution Center for custom stonework.

Meeting design specifications and budgets O&G sales representatives work with design professionals and homeowners alike to guide them through the widest selection of earth-based materials available. O&G's Earth Products Showcases feature elegantly appointed vignettes from classic to contemporary design styles in a comfortable, natural setting.
Isagenix Corporate Launch Team

Isagenix, a global leader in health and wellness, kicked off sales in the United Kingdom (U.K.) on May 15 marking the 13th market where the company offers its products and solutions. The company, led by owners Jim, Kathy, and Erik Coover, celebrated its 15-year anniversary in March of 2017 and surpassed $5 billion in cumulative global sales since opening in 2012.

Our entire Isagenix team has been involved in ensuring that our opening in the U.K. is a smashing success, said Travis Ogden, Isagenix president and chief operating officer. We were expecting a great response but have been humbled by the overwhelming outpouring of interest and support of over 17,000 people who have pre-enrolled to begin their Isagenix health and wellness transformation. The U.K. launch is our most successful market entry to date and a sign of what the future of Isagenix looks like around the world.

With the main office located in central London, Isagenix is open for business in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The U.K. staff is led by Peter Kropp, regional general manager of Europe, and includes a team of over 35 staff members dedicated to helping make Isagenix the largest health and wellness company in the world.

Were thrilled to announce that Isagenix is officially open for business in the U.K., said Sharron Walsh, Isagenix senior vice president of international. Since the markets announcement at New Year Kick Off 2017 in January, people have been eager to begin experiencing and sharing our no-compromise products. This foothold in Europe offers many exciting opportunities for growth.

Product offerings in the U.K. will focus on weight management, and energy and performance. Featured products include the companys popular 30-Day System, as well as e+ (known as e-Shot in the U.K. market) and IsaDelight for Cleanse Day support. As the market grows, more products and solutions will be added.

Isagenix will be hosting its official grand opening event June 24-25 in London at the ExCel Exhibition Centre. This two-day celebration will feature exclusive training from top leaders around the globe, product launches, new promotions and incentives, and the opportunity to be a part of Isagenix history. For full event details, visit http://www.ticketlist.co.uk/isagenix.

To learn more about Isagenix, visit our website at Isagenix.com, subscribe to our blog at IsaFYI.com, like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Isagenix, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Isagenix.

About Isagenix International

Established in 2002, Isagenix provides systems for weight loss, energy, performance, healthy aging, and wealth creation. With more than 550,000 customers worldwide and more than 100 life-changing products, packs, and systems globally, the company is committed to producing Solutions to Transform Lives. In 2017, Isagenix surpassed $5 billion in cumulative global sales through an independent network of associates in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, Colombia, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. Isagenix is a privately owned company with headquarters in Gilbert, Arizona. For more information, visit Isagenix.com.
"Having these two companies join forces is an asset to me as an irrigation consultant." - Lance Sweeney, president of Sweeney & Associates, Inc.

HydroPoint Data Systems, an established leader in smart water management solutions and maker of WeatherTRAK smart irrigation technology, today announced a partnership with Gentile & Associates, Inc., a premier manufacturers representative firm specializing in bringing professional quality irrigation products to the design, municipal and contractor markets. Effective immediately, Gentile & Associates will represent the HydroPoint line of smart water management solutions in Southern California and Hawaii.

I have worked with Gentile & Associates for the last 30 years and they have always set the standards for product representation. Having these two companies join forces is an asset to me as an irrigation consultant, said Lance Sweeney, president of Sweeney & Associates, Inc. Both companies have a well-deserved reputation of delivering innovative products and backing them up with world class operations support.

Gentile & Associates will represent HydroPoints award-winning WeatherTRAK irrigation controllers, cloud-based management, and flow products.

"Gentile & Associates shares our commitment to service and has proven themselves to be leaders in our industry, said Chris Manchuck, HydroPoint senior vice president of sales. "We have aggressive growth plans for 2017 and beyond. With Gentiles help in the fertile territories of Southern California and Hawaii, we firmly believe our goals will be realized.

We have been selling irrigation controls for over 40 years, said Steven Kim, president of Gentile & Associates, Inc. Not only do WeatherTRAK smart irrigation controllers nicely round out our product offerings, HydroPoints cloud-based management and flow optimization capabilities also give us a competitive advantage. We are very excited about our new partnership.

About HydroPoint

HydroPoint is the proven leader in smart water management solutions, making water  both indoors and out  simpler to manage through visibility and automation. As the 2014 EPA WaterSense Manufacturer Partner of the Year, the Company offers WeatherTRAK and Baseline, the most complete and effective smart irrigation management systems available today; WaterCompass, an innovative leak detection and flow monitoring solution; and Sustainability Services to accelerate savings. From Walmart to Los Angeles County, HydroPoint has been helping commercial, government, education and home communities maximize water savings, reduce operating costs and minimize risk since 2002. For more information, visit http://www.hydropoint.com.

About Gentile & Associates

Gentile and Associates, Inc. has been developing and investing in manufacturer relationships since 1986. Tom Gentile started the agency believing that building relationships is fundamental to mutual success and foundational in supporting all aspects of the Landscape, Plumbing, Pool & Spa and Agriculture Markets. Gentile and Associates serves California, Hawaii, Southern Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.
Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal Urban affairs, investigations, consumer help ("SOS") Follow Chris Rickert | Wisconsin State Journal Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Politicians get a lot of grief for being dishonest, but sometimes its speaking a little too frankly that really reveals their darker sides.

Like last week when Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald displayed his loyalty to party over policy.

Funding for roads has been the biggest policy burr under the saddle for a GOP that has controlled the Legislature and the governors office for the last six years.

Gov. Scott Walker refuses to go along with any tax increase to raise money for road construction, while others of his party are less doctrinaire.

In the meantime, Wisconsins already ailing roads just keep getting worse.

Fitzgerald was asked about a suggestion from a couple of his fellow Republicans that the transportation-funding portion of the 2017-19 state budget be split off and considered as a separate bill, perhaps with help from minority Democrats to pass it. The party of roaming aimlessly in the political wilderness would be needed, after all, to override a Walker veto of any bill that increases taxes to pay for road construction.

Fitzgerald was less than enthusiastic about the idea.

If the Republicans are taking up a separate transportation package outside the rest of the state budget and relying on Democrat votes to get it passed, it clearly means were in trouble, he said.

Perhaps sensing more, well, trouble from another member of the liberal Madison media, Fitzgeralds office declined to clarify for me what exactly he meant by trouble and which we would be in it.

But it seems fair to assume he means it would not be good for his party to look as if it needs help from Democrats to get things done.

Two things are notable about this perspective. One is apparently Fitzgerald isnt interested in the possibility a bipartisan transportation-funding package could be a good transportation-funding package that would please most Wisconsinites. Hes just worried it would make the GOP look like they cant legislate on their own.

The other thing is: Since when did bipartisanship become bad?

OK, I know actual bipartisanship has been out of fashion for a long time now, but last time I checked the ideal of bipartisanship was still one of those happy lies politicians told an electorate cynical about politicians.

The veneer of bipartisanship is why, shortly after assuming power in 2011, Republicans authorized a bipartisan commission  including bona fide Madison liberal former mayor Dave Cieslewicz  to come up with road-funding solutions.

The death of bipartisanship is why the groups recommendations have since been ignored.

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling said its embarrassing that after six years of Republican control, were left with crumbling roads, a billion-dollar transportation deficit and no fix in sight.

Shilling spokesman Tony Palese referred me to a May 3 proposal from her and Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barcas offices to create a bipartisan panel of lawmakers to come up with transportation-funding solutions.

In other words, the powerless claim to be ready to help, even if the powerful arent interested in stooping to their level.
Those who wish to straighten their teeth with convenient and discreet clear braces are encouraged to meet with Drs. Ashlyn Price and Autumn Mayers, who recently attended a continuing education course on Invisalign in Midlothian, VA. During the training, the respected doctors learned the latest in Invisalign techniques to develop comprehensive treatment plans and achieve the predictable, long-lasting results patients desire.

Invisalign is an effective orthodontics system that is increasingly growing in popularity. Patients appreciate the discreet nature of clear braces and enjoy having the freedom to remove their corrective aligners. Drs. Price and Mayers recommend Invisalign in Midlothian, VA, to patients who want a more attractive and comfortable alternative to traditional braces. The doctors and the staff at Allgood Dentistry are highly-trained in utilizing the Invisalign system to help patients achieve healthy, appealing smiles. They are also dedicated to learning the most cutting-edge techniques by attending CE courses whenever possible.

Invisalign aligners have revolutionized the way teeth are straightened. While traditional orthodontic methods require brackets and wires to be permanently affixed to the surface of the teeth throughout the treatment period, invisible aligners offer the unique benefit of removability. Patients can take their invisible aligners out to eat, clean their teeth or attend important events. It is important to note that although it is possible to remove clear aligners at any time, patients who wish to receive the best treatment results are urged to wear their aligners as often as possible. Due to the discreet nature of invisible aligners, they can be worn as directed and still remain virtually unnoticeable.

Clear braces provide many benefits that make them an attractive treatment option for adults with crooked teeth. Those who want to learn if they are candidates for Invisalign in Midlothian, VA, are encouraged to schedule a consultation with Dr. Price or Dr. Mayers by calling Allgood Family Dentistry by calling 803-739-0000.

About the Practice

Allgood Family Dentistry is a general dental practice offering personalized dental care to patients in Midlothian, VA. Drs. Ashlyn Price, Autumn Mayers and Ron Adelman offer experienced and highly-trained dental care for a variety of dental services including dental implants, Invisalign, cosmetic dentistry, periodontal care and TMJ disorder treatment. The entire team at Allgood Family Dentistry make each patients needs their first priority and take the time to build a relationship with their community. To learn more about Drs. Price, Mayers and Adelman, visit their website at http://www.allgoodfamilydental.com or call 803-739-0000 to schedule a personalized consultation.
Evan Blumenthal accepts the Craft Business Award on behalf of Lion Brand Yarn

Lion Brand Yarn Company (http://www.LionBrand.com) is proud to announce they have won the Highly Commended award in Craft Business Magazines Best European/International Brand category. The award is based on online voting, allowing consumers to vote for their favorite companies in various categories in the craft industry.

Craft Business Magazine, based out of the UK, is the largest circulated magazine for the craft industry. Every year, the magazines Craft Business Awards are given to companies for their excellent service and innovation in the crafting industry. These awards are highly valued since they are entirely voted on by those who count most: the consumer. It is an honor to be recognized within the industry and Lion Brand is delighted to have been chosen a customer favorite. The company vows to keep providing superior products and support to all of their customers, both international and domestic.

Evan Blumenthal, who accepted the award on behalf of Lion Brand Yarn stated, We are very grateful and appreciative of receiving the award in the Best European/International Brand category. It helps us continue our mission to Create a more colorful, connected and giving world.

About Lion Brand Yarn Company

Founded in New York City, Lion Brand Yarn Company is a 139 year-old brand. It has been owned and operated by the Blumenthal family for 5 generations. Throughout its history, Lion Brand has been at the forefront of yarn trends while consistently providing its customers with the finest quality products at popular prices.
Immigration expert John L. Pinnix In this world, the employer is certainly not looking for cheap labor. Past News Releases RSS

Immigration policy expert John L. Pinnix, a founding member of the Raleigh, NC, law firm Allen & Pinnix, P.A, has challenged recent attacks on H-1B professional visas by 60 Minutes, and expressed concern regarding the future course of business immigration policy by the Trump Administration. Pinnix, a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), took issue with a recent 60 Minutes story that profiled six U.S. workers who claim their former employers, including the Walt Disney Company, required them to train their own H-1B replacements.

Writing in N.C. Lawyers Weekly, Pinnix noted that the replacement workers came from so-called bucket shops, consulting companies that attempt to sponsor thousands of entry-level H-1B workers and contract them out to U.S. companies. The show pointedly noted that 70% of all H-1B visas go to India. In 2016 a Florida court dismissed the U.S. workers civil suit (U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division, Leo Perrero v. HCL America, Inc. and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S., Inc., Case No: 1:16-cv-112-Orl-31TBS).

The show profiled actual and potential abuses which are anecdotally dramatic and truly tragic to the individual victims, said Pinnix. However, it failed to put the story in the perspective of the overall economy. For instance, the American Immigration Council cites research indicating that an increase in H-1B visas could create an estimated 1.3 million new jobs and add around $158 billion to the GDP by 2045.

Pinnix maintains that there is a tremendous disconnect between bucket shops filed for literally a handful of large employers and the cases filed on behalf of tens of thousands of other American employers. The latter are for teachers, architects, veterinarians, academicians, scientists, medical professionals, engineers, and other professional occupations sponsored by small, and not so small, U.S. businesses and institutions.

In this world, the employer is certainly not looking for cheap labor, stressed Pinnix. Federal regulations require that the employer pay the legitimately determined prevailing wage set by the U.S. Department of Labor, and the employer must pay all preparation and filing expenses. If not for the very real shortage of U.S. professional workers, U.S. employers would rarely go to the substantial added expense of sponsoring foreign national professional workers.

Pinnix further warns that given the background of Trumps appointees, there is little hope that the administration will support positive enhancements of the H-1B program, as his inner circle is populated by immigration restrictionists and lacks voices representing the business immigration community. Emphasizing he is speaking for himself and not AILA, Pinnix believes there is a growing awareness that if the H-1B program is to survive, it is time to consider creating another type of visa with enhanced oversight for the comparatively few businesses currently using H-1B professionals for outsourcing work.

If the Administration truly puts America First it should support laws that bring the best and the brightest to our shores, help U.S. businesses in their quest for professionals who are in short supply and facilitate the transformation of local economies across the nation, concluded Pinnix, who emphasised that he was speaking for himself and not AILA.

About Allen & Pinnix, P.A.

The Raleigh, NC-based immigration attorneys of Allen & Pinnix, P.A. have practiced immigration law for almost 40 years and have represented thousands of individuals in immigration matters, including employment-based immigration, U.S.citizenship/naturalization and deportation and removal proceedings. For more information about Allen & Pinnix, please call (919) 755-0505, or visit http://www.immigration-naturalization-law.com. The law office is located at 1101 Oberlin Road, Suite 102, Raleigh, NC 27605.

For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361
Criminal defense attorney Christopher T. Braddock It is nice to once again be recognized by my peers for the work that Im doing. I witnessed firsthand how the power and resources of the government were being used against its citizens. Past News Releases RSS

Criminal defense attorney Christopher T. Braddock was recently recognized as a 2017 AV Preeminent Attorney by Martindale-Hubbell, an award he also received the previous year. It is nice to once again be recognized by my peers for the work that Im doing, said Braddock, founder of the Law Office of Christopher T. Braddock.

Braddock, who is also commemorating his twenty-fourth year as an attorney, received his Juris Doctor from the University of Denver in 1993. His passion for defending the criminally accused began while still in law school as an intern with the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender. I witnessed firsthand how the power and resources of the government were being used against its citizens, added Braddock.

To this day, Braddock keeps current on the latest strategies and law, and has attended a plethora of advanced seminars and trainings including the National Criminal Defense College. Throughout his illustrious career, Braddock has tried numerous jury trials, winning acquittals in a vast majority of his cases.

Mr. Braddock is amazing in the courtroom. He possesses the essential qualities that are required of any great criminal defense attorney, said a former client. Mr. Braddock went to battle with the DA prosecuting my case, and won the case by utilizing his broad depth and scope of criminal case law and statutes, his inherent ability to see the prosecutions moves three steps ahead, and his eloquent oration skills in front of the judge.

About Christopher T. Braddock, Law Office of Christopher T. Braddock

Christopher T. Braddock is a member in good standing with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, Colorado Bar Association and the Denver Bar Association. Braddock protects clients facing a variety of criminal charges in Denver and the surrounding areas, including DUI, drug possession, sexual assault, violent crimes, white collar crimes and juvenile crimes. For more information, please call (303) 675-0100, or visit http://www.braddocklaw.net. The law office is located at 1900 N. Grant Street, Suite 750, Denver, CO 80203.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
CRS Software CRS PRO is scheduled to be available for download by June 1st.

1099 Pro, Inc., an industry leader in user-friendly and affordable 1042-S, 1095, 1099, W-2, FATCA, and CRS software reporting solutions, is nearing its June 1st software release date for entry into the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) market. 1099 Pros CRS Reporting Software, CRS PRO, answers the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Developments (OECD) call for jurisdictions to obtain and share account holder information from their financial institutions.

The OECD Common Reporting Standard was instituted as a key component of the Automatic Exchange of Information for Tax Matters (AEOI) program to exchange financial information between tax jurisdictions with a goal towards achieving international tax transparency. Supported by over 100 jurisdictions, this multilateral reporting consists of specific financial account information including the types of accounts, covered taxpayers, due diligence procedures and other data.

To quote Michael Stewart, 1099 Pro, Inc.s Director of Compliance, To comply with CRS requirements Financial Institutions, or FIs, must perform their own due diligence to ascertain those entities classified as a Reporting FI. Further, Financial Institutions must designate accounts as reportable or not. Reportable accounts are generally considered to be any depository accounts, custodial accounts, equity & debt instruments, cash value contracts, and annuity contracts  all of which can have a reporting deadline as early as May 31st for some jurisdictions. 1099 Pros CRS Reporting Software, or alternately AEOI Reporting Software, will prove to be an invaluable resource to these Financial Institutions, particularly as the OECD increases future efforts towards global implementation of the program.

Reporting deadlines for CRS compliance are fast approaching. Early adopter countries with a May 31st reporting deadline, such as the United Kingdom, total at twenty-nine jurisdictions. Another eleven jurisdictions face a June 31st reporting deadline. Additional challenges may be faced by those countries such as Ireland, who are adopting the Wider Approach to CRS due diligence, and the Cayman Islands, a major reporting nexus. Financial Institutions would be prudent to have a reputable software product in place, with an affordable price and quick implementation, to meet these looming deadlines.

1099 Pros CRS PRO software provides a streamlined solution to CRS compliance with an intuitive five step reporting model consisting of 1) Importing Account Data, 2) Generating Summary Balancing Reports, 3) Individual Account Lookup and Editing, 4) Generating XML Files, and 5) Creating Specialized XML Envelopes per Tax Jurisdiction. CRS PRO allows users to segment their data by Financial Institution, Tax Year, jurisdiction, or other customized criteria. For ease of use, CRS PRO is a standalone application, designed to import data from outside financial systems, thus sidestepping potential integration issues. To safeguard sensitive data, CRS PRO is hosted internally by Financial Institutions so that no outside parties have access to sensitive account holder information.

CRS PRO is scheduled for release Thursday, June 1st. Priced thousands of dollars less than its competitors, CRS PRO allows users to download a DEMO version which can be quickly converted into the full version upon purchase. Discounted, pre-sale, pricing starts at $1,099 and is paired with complimentary Technical Support via phone, email, and chat. Please see 1099 Pros AEOI Reporting Software page, or complete the CRS Reporting Survey for more details.

ABOUT 1099 Pro, Inc.

1099 Pro, Inc. is a SSAE 16 SOC I Type II audited, US based, information return reporting company that has been in business for over 25 years. Responsible for filing over 10% of the information returns filed in the United States each year, and reporting for over half the Fortune 500 companies, 1099 Pro offers a wide range of software and services for ever changing industry needs. 1099 Pro software is available for 1042-S, ACA 1095, 1099, W-2, FATCA 8966, and CRS reporting and is capable of processing customized reports, printing, electronic file creation, and corrections.
Cuvee 103 Theres a world of difference between hand-selecting our own produce and buying from a food distributor. Its a difference you can taste. Past News Releases RSS

Casual fine dining restaurant, Cuvee 103 Bistro, looks to take their produce offerings to new heights, thanks to a partnership with Cee Bees Farms. Cee Bee's Farms is our go-to farm for beautiful and tasty produce including tuscano kale, hydroponic lettuce, heirloom and artisan tomatoes, heirloom and artisan oranges and lemons, blueberries and wildflower honey with more and varied veggies in the future, said Cuvee 103 owner John Zias.

Zias expects that the partnerships will result in more selective, and overall higher quality produce for Cuvee 103 diners. We pick out the produce we want directly from the farm, onsite, added Zias. Theres a world of difference between hand-selecting our own produce and buying from a food distributor. Its a difference you can taste.

Cuvee 103 is no stranger to supporting local business, agriculture and community. For the last four years, John and Dana have supported their local Tampa Bay chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Its an affiliation rooted in music. For two years John taught a music student who suffered from cystic fibrosis and whose parents served as chairpersons for the Foundation. Ever since 2013, Cuvee 103 has contributed restaurant gift certificates to help support the Foundations endeavors. On a lighter note, the restaurant is also an avid patron of local jazz artists, as it routinely hosts various Tampa-area performers to the delight of Cuvee 103 diners.

About Cuvee 103

Cuvee pronounced coo-vay, is a French wine term that connotes a blend of wine varietals. Cuvee 103 Bistro has a diverse 100-plus wine list available to select from as well as an equally impressive blend of fresh and seasonal cuisine in an ever-evolving menu. Its a three-dimensional experience of fresh food, fine wine & craft beer and jazz music all under one roof! You can connect with Cuvee 103 on Facebook, or visit their website at https://www.cuvee103.com. Cuvee 103 is located at 2454 N. McMullen Booth Rd., #103 Northwood Commons, Clearwater, FL 33759.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Depo International, an industry leader in providing court reporting and legal videography services, is proud to announce that it is now celebrating a new distinction as a certified women-owned business. Depo International has held the prestigious status for more than a decade of being the only certified member of WBENC, Womens Business Enterprise National Council, in the industry in the State of Minnesota, and now also is certified with WOSB, Women Owned Small Business . The company was founded more than forty years ago with a commitment to accurate and prompt court reporting and legal videography services. Since then, Depo International has continued to grow nationally and internationally by championing relentlessly state-of-the-art technology and global realtime court reporting.

The firm also proudly has been awarded membership with the National Association for Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF).

Depo Internationals Chairman and CEO Patricia Carl shared, As a company, we have a lot to be proud of -- being recognized as the Trial Lawyers Choice and more than four decades of providing court reporting and legal videography services for our prestigious law firm clients, who have entrusted us with their multi-million dollar cases, nationally and internationally. As a company dedicated to representing and contributing to the growth of professional women, however, we are honored and proud of our recognitions and certifications as a women-owned business. The company currently has offices in Minneapolis, Las Vegas, and Chicago.

Carl believes that its a combination of experience and outstanding customer service that has helped Depo International stand out and grow quickly. The staff at Depo International are experienced with large case management, complex cases, and comprehensive court reporting services.

Weve known from day one that at the end of the day, its about our clients. We have worked hard to ensure our offerings keep our clients in mind and that we strive for the prompt and accurate service they count on. We were the first in the industry to offer 5-day delivery as a standard delivery time, as we know how important it is to our clients that they receive their deposition transcripts promptly, so they can move on with the next stage of discovery. As our services have evolved and expanded nationally and internationally, we have still kept the primary focus on quality and understanding the needs of our busy clients. Doing that as a certified women-owned business is one of our great accomplishments, Carl says.

The company provides certified court reporters, realtime court reporter, CLVS-certified legal videographers, streaming audio/text/video, mobile web conferencing, and paperless and hyperlinked exhibits.

Depo International is very active in the legal community, contributing and sponsoring many legal organizations, and presenting to law firms on the topic of creating a culture of gratitude in the workplace, which is a message delivered to offices all over the country. Depo International believes that an outstanding customer experience has contributed significantly to their success, including events like CLE-certified educational seminars, remembering clients on special occasions, client celebrations, and monthly thank-you events.

To learn more about the services offered by this certified women-owned company, please visit http://depointernational.com/
Northeast Los Angeles Real Estate Agent Tracy King - Eagle Rock Specialist - Launches New Website Our new web presence will help us continue to expand our footprint as experts and leaders in the Northeast LA real estate market.

Preeminent Northeast Los Angeles realtor Tracy King has launched an ambitious new website. Kings boutique real estate team, in association with Tells Properties, specializes in Eagle Rock real estate as well as representing buyers and sellers of homes in Highland Park, Glassell Park and Mt. Washington. The state-of-the-art website reflects the technological expertise of the group while highly customized content reflects the boutique nature of the service provided by the elite real estate team.

According to Keely Myres, Senior Partner of the team, the launch of the website was carefully timed to coincide with the teams expansion into additional areas of Northeast Los Angeles.

Our new web presence will help us continue to expand our footprint as experts and leaders in the Northeast LA real estate market, said Myres. The site fosters greater awareness of the approaches that make our operation successful. Were a cutting edge real estate team that has mastered technology to market our listings to the widest possible audience of potential buyers. At the same time, it captures the warmth and level of personal service our clients have come to expect when working closely with our team.

King, embarking on her 28th year as a top producing Realtor, was an early advocate of technology to make the tasks of marketing, buying and selling real estate simple, fast and accessible to her clients.

Team Tracy has earned a reputation for excellence for assisting homebuyers and home sellers in the active market of Northeast Los Angeles including the communities of Pasadena, Altadena, Hermon, Garvanza and South Pasadena. King has become a bona fide expert in the sale of character homes, including Craftsman, Victorian, Tudors, Mission Revival, and mid-century homes, many designed and built by renowned builders and architects.

Significantly, the website reflects the creative nature of the region that gave birth to the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United States at the turn of the century. According to Myres, it was vital that the website didnt only represent the face of their online business, but to also look like this creative, colorful area.

People who buy in communities like Eagle Rock, Highland Park and Pasadena are attracted to the lifestyle. The beautiful tree-lined streets, the hillside neighborhoods with views, the overall artistic and creative layout of this region, stated Myres. All of our newly-published, original resources have been written specifically for Northeast Los Angeles buyers and sellers. The accompanying imagery is also original and artistic. Our website reflects our passion, appreciation, and expertise - for these areas in which we live and work.

The website, which launched in mid-April, offers technologically-advanced featured listings, open house information, MLS access, videos, a local restaurant guide as well as informative resources for both buyers and sellers.

According to Tracy King, the website was developed as a vital tool to differentiate our operation in a region and industry that is saturated with realtors.

We want visitors to be wowed and for our new website to instill confidence in our brand, said King. "It highlights our strengths of strategy, organization, fresh vision, outside the box thinking and certainty of execution.

The new website may be viewed at http://www.TracyKing.com.
Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council, addresses the Global STEM Talent Summit Bavisi addressed the crowd regarding the tremendous threats crucial organizations like hospitals face. Just 10 days later, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faced the worst attack it has ever seen.

At the Global STEM Talent Summit in Washington, D.C. on April 28, EC-Council President and Founder Jay Bavisi presented a keynote talk that resonated deeply with STEMconnectors core mission. Introduced by Edie Fraser, CEO of STEMconnector, Bavisi addressed the crowd regarding the tremendous threats crucial organizations like hospitals face. Just 10 days later, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) faced the worst attack it has ever seen. The attack affected up to 70,000 devices vital to the operations of many hospitals all over Britain such as computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and other equipment.

His presentation covered the beginnings of the ethical hacking industry, from resistance from governments and businesses to the word hacking to today where cyber risk is now an existential threat to organizations around the world. In his keynote, Bavisi touched on the hacking of medical devices, the threat of ransomware, and the fact that large organizations are not doing enough to protect their essential functions. These points all factored into what happened last week.

However, even though hacker is no longer a bad word, there is still resistance from organizations to spend money to secure their information. Despite an increase in technology solutions to help organizations secure their most important assets, there are more serious breaches every year. The root of the problem, according to Bavisi, is there is a severe shortage of talent. This is due at least partly to the fact that there arent foundational information security training programs integrated into traditional education. When testing programming students, for example, EC-Council found that out of 11,000 computer science students, 99.7% did not understand the basics of cybersecurity. This means that when these programmers enter the workforce and start creating and managing code for corporations and other organizations, their code will likely function but will be insecure, creating huge vulnerabilities for malicious hackers to exploit.

The solution, according to Bavisi, is increasing the awareness of cybersecurity all over the world via gamification. One example of this solution, is EC-Council Foundations Global CyberLympics, their worldwide hacking competition. For organizations, Bavisi recommends re-training existing IT workers as information security experts to fill gaps in security programs. The best solution highlighted by Bavisi is for organizations to partner with education and training providers to develop custom training programs designed to ensure that incoming employees meet the needs of the organization.

The Global STEM Talent Summit Initiative was designed as an employer led three-year Strategic Roadmap to deliver short, mid and long-term STEM Talent development strategies from implementation, execution and impact. In addition, the Summit offers deep dive discussions and perspectives on future STEM 2.0 capabilities required for STEM talent to be highly successful in careers pathways.

About EC-Council

EC-Council has been the worlds leading information security certification body since the launch of their flagship program, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), which created the ethical hacking industry in 2002. Since the launch of CEH, EC-Council has added industry-leading programs to their portfolio to cover all aspects of information security including EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI), Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), among others. EC-Council Foundation, the non-profit branch of EC-Council, created Global CyberLympics, the worlds first global hacking competition. EC-Council Foundation also hosts a suite of conferences across the US and around the world including Hacker Halted, Global CISO Forum, TakeDownCon, and CISO Summit.

For more information about EC-Council, please see http://www.eccouncil.org.

About STEMconnector

STEMconnector is a consortium of 165 member companies, associations, societies, policy organizations, government entities, universities, and academic institutions concerned with STEM education and the future of human capital. With several products and services, STEMconnector is both a resource and a service, designed to link all things STEM. STEMconnectors network includes organizations at the global, national, state, and local levels. STEMconnector focuses on the STEM workforce and jobs, with a particular emphasis on diversity and women. Our work spans the entire pipeline (Kindergarten to Jobs) and how STEM education experiences translate into careers.
Brexit and Life Sciences Companies

**An FDAnews Webinar**

May 31, 2017  1:30 p.m.  3:00 p.m. ET

http://www.fdanews.com/brexitlscompanies

When Britain exits the EU, what happens?

Will the EMA stay in London? What happens with the Unified Patient Court?

The Brexit is about to happen. Manufacturers need answers before that happens.

Get a look into the Brexit future. Mark the calendar for a standout webinar presentation on Wednesday, May 31 with a lawyer who specializes in the global drug and device business.

Michael Burke Esq., Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP is his firms in-house expert on drugs and devices as well as a specialist in cross-border international trade. His particular focus, Ireland, is the one remaining English-speaking nation in a post-Brexit EU.

Mr. Burke counsels transnational drug and device clients on trade issues including anti-boycott regulations, export controls, economic sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, to mention just a few. In 90 intense minutes, hell answer the following questions and more:



How might Brexit affect my operation, both short- and long-term?

Should manufacturers consider moving operations into or out of the U.K?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of operating in Ireland?

How will marketing authorization in both the EU and U.K. be affected?

Meet the Presenter:

Michael Burke Esq., Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP

Washington lawyer Michael Burke has dual qualifications as a guide to the post-Brexit world: He is his firms in-house expert on drugs and devices; and a specialist in cross-border international trade. His particular focus, Ireland, is the one remaining English-speaking nation in a post-Brexit EU. Mr. Burke counsels transnational clients on anti-boycott regulations, export controls, economic sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and represents them before the Justice Dept., Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, State Dept. Office of Defense Trade Controls and Commerce Dept. Bureau of Industry and Security. He is author of the Irish Export Insights blog, https://irishexportinsights.com/, and co-editor and co-author of The Corporate Counsels Guide to Doing Business in China (Thomson Reuters).

Who Will Benefit:

This top-level Web presentation is aimed at senior officials: President, Vice President, CEO/COO/CFO as well as executives with responsibilities in:



Operations

Supply Management

Regulatory Affairs

Quality Assurance

Webinar Details:

Brexit and Life Sciences Companies

**An FDAnews Webinar**

May 31, 2017  1:30 p.m.  3:00 p.m. ET

http://www.fdanews.com/brexitlscompanies

Tuition:

$287 per site

Easy Ways to Register:

Online: http://www.fdanews.com/brexitlscompanies

By phone: 888-838-5578 or 703-538-7600

About FDAnews:

FDAnews is the premier provider of domestic and international regulatory, legislative, and business news and information for executives in industries regulated by the US FDA and the European Medicines Agency. Pharmaceutical and medical device professionals rely on FDAnews' print and electronic newsletters, books and conferences to stay in compliance with international standards and the FDA's complex and ever-changing regulations.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval is taking issue with the language of short-term police policy recommendations as the City Council is poised to vote on the 13 recommendations Tuesday.

The Presidents Work Group on Police and Community Relations is bringing its recommendations to Madison Police Department policies, procedures and practices and how the city regulates policing to the council Tuesday. The recommendations are meant to be short-term guidance while a comprehensive study of the Madison Police Department is underway.

But Koval questioned their necessity as California-based consultant OIR Group conducts a $400,000 study of the department, and the chief challenged language that would direct him to change certain policies.

The purpose of having these parallel processes examining the same issues is not clear to me, and I feel that the forthcoming OIR report would be the best basis for discussions about MPD moving forward, Koval said in a May 11 letter to council members.

He said he would be willing to work on the substantive components of the six recommendations related to the police department, including adjustments to the departments standard operating procedures, but is asking the council to make the language noncompulsory.

Whether worded as directing MPD or issuing a lawful order, the Common Council is seeking to direct MPD operations. This sets a dangerous precedent, Koval said.

City Council President Marsha Rummel said Monday she appreciates Kovals willingness to put into motion the requests, but she challenged that the recommendations direct how the departments operations are run.

The council has constitutional powers to oversee, along with the mayor, the chief of police, Rummel said. One of the things we can do is issue lawful orders about policies and procedures in general.

Koval said if the council directed him to take specific action, it could cause troubling implications of politicizing MPD operations.

Some of the recommendations would direct the city to develop a policy to control the purchase of surveillance equipment, call for language changes in the standard operating procedures and have external oversight options of internal MPD investigations further explored.
The energetic and knowledgeable MindUp  instructor delivered the workshop to Glenholme staff in mid-April At Glenholme, our goal is to help young people thrive in all facets of life and we believe MindUp  will assist students with their academic success and their emotional well-being. Past News Releases RSS The Glenholme School Celebrates...

Students of The Glenholme School...

Enrollment is Open to The Glenholme...

Since 1968, students from around the world have benefitted from the positive, comprehensive educational atmosphere of The Glenholme School. The program is specifically designed to help young people with high function autism, ADHD, compulsive behaviors and learning differences. The school recently added MindUp  practices to daily routines to assist students with their social and emotional growth and academic success.

The strain and consequences of modern life complexities are troubling. A fact highly reflected in the lives of children, particularly those who endure the social and emotional challenges of ADS, as well as learning and attention issues like ADHD. Identifying the need to transform the lives of children, Goldie Hawn launched The Hawn Foundation in 2003. Central to their effort is their signature program, MindUp   an evidenced-based mindfulness program designed at engendering more focused, positive and resilient young minds. After more than 10 years, they are continuing to flourish and their results are extraordinary. Even after only one year of implementing the program, schools report significant reductions in absenteeism and problematic behaviors and a correlation to increased positive manners and abilities.

MindUp  is constructed on four sturdy pillars incorporating neuroscience, mindful awareness, positive psychology, and social-emotional learning. The MindUp  training, delivered to Glenholme staff in mid-April by a knowledgeable and energetic instructor, provided teachers with enhanced skills and strategies for mindfulness work to help develop the whole child and create a more focused classroom. The MindUp  curriculum makes a magnificent match to the Glenholme program and dovetails well with the schools efforts to form more motivated and focused learners within a positive school climate.

At The Glenholme School, every aspect of the program is directed at developing the whole child. A childs brain is a muscle that requires exercise. Meditation or Mindfulness, well known for its efficacy for thousands of years, is the ideal brain training to guide young people away from the distractions of modern life.

About The Glenholme School:

Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health The Glenholme School is an independent, coeducational, special needs boarding school for young people with high functioning autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, OCD, Tourette, depression, anxiety, and various learning differences. The program provides a treatment milieu designed to build competence socially and academically. Our learning environment supports and enhances the ability for young people with special needs to succeed. Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health is a leading nonprofit behavioral health organization that supports many of the most underserved and vulnerable members of our communities. For more information about The Glenholme School and its program, visit http://www.theglenholmeschool.org/.
Meeting the Clients goals & making the process seamless to QMA's patients made this access control installation a success story. Working with similar businesses for years, we understand the unique challenges faced by Healthcare centers.

Following an extensive interview and pre-planning process, Total Security Integrated Systems, the leading installer of access control systems throughout New York City, Long Island, and the New York/New Jersey area, recently completed a major security upgrade at the Queens Medical Associates facility in March 2017.

To improve the facilitys overall security, Total Security successfully installed a complete access control system with VMS to secure 21 various entry and exit points throughout the center. A multi-keypad alarm system with central station monitoring was also installed throughout the building. This type of system will control and limit entry to specific areas of their facilities, such as their pharmacy and drug storage areas. Only authorized personnel will have access to these areas, says Matt DiMicco, CEO and owner of Total Security. The access control and burglar alarms installed can also be activated/deactivated for various areas and were set according to their defined control schedules.

When asked why Total Security was selected among its peers, company executives reported that they tapped into what was most important to the Client: the care of their patients, developing practical solutions, and a following a process that guaranteed that all of their special considerations could be executed cost-effectively. Our security experts stayed engaged during the entire process, educating QMAs IT personnel about the different access control options available. I think Clients see that we really are about building relationships, added Mr. DiMicco.

According to Total Security, Working with similar businesses for over a decade, we understand the challenges faced by Healthcare facilities, and we truly take the time to understand the unique needs of each Client. It was our level of interest, communication and reputation that helped earn us the project. However, it was meeting the Clients goals and making the process seamless to their patients that makes it a success story, added Mr. DiMicco. Total Security also guarantees your satisfaction when a project is complete. Having two operations centersone on Long Island, NY and the other in New Jerseyhelped Total Security complete the work in record time.

More specifically, the installation of access control systems started on March 15, 2017, and was completed in just two weeks time. The largest challenge was installing an access control system at this scale and scope without disrupting daily operations. The center is primarily a cancer treatment center where dozens of patients come on a daily basis, so the comfort and convenience of patients was of paramount importance. We always do our best to not interfere in any way with our clients ability to provide patient care says Giancarlo DiMicco of Total Security. To this end, Total Security focused on logistics as their Service strategy. They made arrangements to perform the more labor-intensive work during early morning hours prior to the facilitys opening. They also made sure that they coordinated their work so as not to be obtrusive to the daily patient schedule.

Total Security offers solutions that are custom-tailored to the clients needs. The company is an industry leader in both commercial and residential security systems on Long Island, including NYC and New Jersey. The company offers free on-site estimates for medical facilities and can be reached at (516) 775-2304 (New York location) and (201) 594-7233 (New Jersey location).

To learn more, visit http://www.totalsecurityny.com/hospital-medical-facilities-security-camera-systems-long-island-ny/
Synchronized Manufacturing Planning, Scheduling and Execution Synchrono synchronizes planning, scheduling along with execution - aligning all activities, materials and resources required to fulfill an order to achieve end-to-end production flow. Past News Releases RSS Synchrono Helps Manufacturers...

Synchrono Presents Get Lean...

Synchrono Sponsors...

Synchrono, a leader in modern demand-driven manufacturing software, today announced their inclusion in the Gartner report, Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Planning. The report will be presented at the annual Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, May 23-25, 2017.

As a sponsor and exhibitor at the Conference, Synchrono will be demonstrating solutions included in the Hype Cycle report. The Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Planning provides supply chain and IT professionals insight into various supply chain planning capabilities and technologies; serving as a valuable guide for those looking to upgrade or transform their supply chains to support todays increasingly complex and digital enterprises.

Through its Demand-Driven Manufacturing Platform, Synchrono provides solutions supporting various capabilities along the Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Planning spectrum. More specifically, the company was singled out in two key categories:

Demand-Pull Respond Planning and Scheduling  The ability to signal short-term replenishments and orders based on actual consumption, rather than a forecast.

Manufacturing (Production) Scheduling  Technology that translates an operations plan into a set of granular activities required to fulfill a production order.

Synchrono demand-based systems support both these Hype Cycle categories  and then some. Synchrono synchronizes planning, scheduling along with execution  aligning all activities, materials and resources required to fulfill an order to achieve end-to-end production flow. Gartner reports on supply chain execution technologies in a separate Hype Cycle.

Synchrono will be demonstrating SyncManufacturing, a planning, scheduling and execution system; SyncKanban, pull-based replenishment and supply chain collaboration software; SyncView manufacturing visualization and communication software; and more, in booth 516 at the Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference in Phoenix, Arizona May 23-25.

About Synchrono

Synchrono LLC enables the demand-driven visual factory of the future; synchronizing people, processes, machines, materials and data to drive production flow from order inception to delivery. The award winning Synchrono Demand-Driven Manufacturing Platform includes a production planning, scheduling and execution system; ekanban inventory replenishment and supply chain collaboration software; a data collection, historian and automated workflow engine; alert management and monitoring software; and a real-time visual factory information system. The Platform components may be implemented independently or collectively to enable the Internet of Things and an unprecedented foundation for communication, collaboration and continuous improvement. Synchrono helps clients manage constraints, improve flow and drive on-time delivery to maintain a competitive edge. Sync with us at http://www.synchrono.com and follow the Demand-Driven Matters blog at http://www.synchrono.com/blog.

About Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2017

Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2017 is the worlds most important gathering of supply chain leaders. Disruptions large and small confront todays supply chains on a daily basis. At this years conference, chief supply chain officers and their leadership teams focus how to recognize the impacts of disruptions and create transformational strategies that empower the organization to exceed performance expectations.
WallyPark Declares April Earth Month to Plant Trees Weve made a serious commitment to moving toward omitting our carbon footprint via a combination of initiatives, said Kevin Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer at WallyPark headquarters in Los Angeles.

To celebrate Earth Day and an ongoing commitment to sustainability, WallyPark Airport Parking ran a month-long campaign to help reduce their carbon footprint and green-up the earth. Turning Earth Day into Earth Month, the company offered to plant a tree for every parking reservation made in the month of April. The More Trees, Yes Please! campaign offered WallyParks premier airport parking to all 18 locations serving travelers at 11 U.S. airports, including Orlando airport parking. The campaign produced 20,746 reservations, which will fund reforestation efforts in Central America and Native American Reservations in the U.S. The reforestation will be conducted by Fort Collins, CO-based Trees, Water and People.

Weve made a serious commitment to moving toward omitting our carbon footprint via a combination of initiatives, said Kevin Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer at WallyPark headquarters in Los Angeles. He added, Our sustainability efforts include low/zero emission vehicles, completely waterless car and bus washing, and LED lighting retro fits in our facilities. In March 2017, WallyPark Premier LAX location deployed 16 Zero Emissions Utility Shuttles (ZEUS) manufactured by Phoenix Motorcars LLC. The 14-passenger fully electric buses are being used to service off-airport parking at Los Angeles International Airport. This deployment makes WallyPark Premier the first all-electric airport parking operation in the nation. By June, more than 40 all-electric buses will be in use at WallyPark-owned LAX parking brands.

Each of the buses is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60 tons of carbon dioxide per year, compared to a conventional diesel shuttle. All buses have fast-charging capability, which allows full charging to take place in less than three hours.

Over the next five years, WallyPark will continue to roll out a fully sustainable bus fleet.



About WallyPark

WallyPark is a premier off-airport parking provider, with 18 locations serving travelers at 11 U.S. airports: Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Newark, Atlanta, Orlando and Jacksonville. WallyPark operates in the travel space, providing convenient, hassle-free parking with complimentary shuttle service to and from airport terminals. http://www.wallypark.com
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Red Mills Market Red Alert A quiet Sunday afternoon in the sleepy hamlet of Mahopac Falls turned into mayhem a week ago Sunday in a matter of seconds when a...

Orange County An Orange County man was sentenced last week in Putnam County Court for selling quantities of fentanyl on three occasions to an undercover member of...
CHICAGO (AP)  New Illinois tourism figures show about 110 million tourists from around the country visited the state last year, a more than 1 million increase compared to 2015.

Eighty-three percent of visitors came for leisure and 17 percent came for business, The Chicago Tribune reported. Gov. Bruce Rauner released the numbers Monday, saying that every $1 invested in tourism in Illinois generates $9 in economic impact.

"This is another example that in areas where we can improve the economy, our administration is moving forward," Rauner said in a statement. "Illinois is the greatest state in the nation. We have so much to be proud of and so many reasons to invite our out-of-state friends to visit the Land of Lincoln."

According to the Illinois Office of Tourism, the average stay lasted about 3 percent longer than the previous year. That figure outpaced national growth, which saw stays increase 2.4 percent. Officials say the number of U.S. travelers coming to the state has increased by 19 million during the last decade.

In 2015 and 2016, 20,000 tourism-related jobs were created in Illinois, according to the report. Domestic travel supported 302,000 jobs within Illinois, an increase of 9,600 jobs from 2015 on top of the 10,000 jobs created the previous year.
CAMBRIDGE -- A man arrested in Colona on May 7 on charges of possessing a stolen firearm was ultimately believed by police to have two stolen weapons.

Derek R. Ford, 19, was charged in Henry County Circuit Court May 8 with the Class 2 felony.

During Monday's preliminary hearing, Colona Police Officer Tom Wiley testified about arriving to assist Officer Eric Dusenberry at a 3 a.m. traffic stop. He said Mr. Ford and two others were back-seat passengers -- with a total of five in the car -- and Officer Dusenberry noticed the butt of a shotgun between Mr. Ford and another person. As one of the back-seat passengers was retrieving documents for the police, Officer Dusenberry identified a shotgun barrel leaning against Mr. Ford's leg, Officer Wiley testified.

Officers searched the vehicle, and State Trooper Ryan Billingsley retrieved a handgun from under the driver's seat, which was within reach of Mr. Ford. Neither weapon was in a case or broken down. A check on the firearms showed the .22-caliber Ruger handgun had been reported stolen in Galesburg. Officer Wiley said a further check showed the 12-gauge shotgun was also reported stolen by Galesburg police.

The shotgun allegedly found leaning against Mr. Ford's leg was loaded, according to Officer Wiley, who said the Ruger's magazine was full, but it did not have a round in the chamber.

Mr. Ford also faces misdemeanor charges of not having a valid FOID card and unlawful use of weapons. The driver received traffic citations, and a front-seat passenger was cited for having an open alcohol container. A juvenile in the vehicle was wanted on an active warrant and was returned to custody of the Mary Davis Home in Galesburg. Mr. Ford was also cited for having cannabis.

Judge Jeffrey O'Connor found probable cause to move the case forward. Mr. Ford remains in custody on $30,000 bond. A June 22 pre-trial hearing was set.
With any luck, an expectant mother is roaming her enclosure at Madisons Vilas Zoo.

Last month, officials from Vilas Zoo and another zoo artificially inseminated Berit, an 18-year-old female polar bear. The procedure has never successfully led to a pregnancy, said deputy zoo director Jeff Halter. But the hope is the quick action and coordinated effort of zookeepers across the country raised the possibility that cubs could be settling in to their den by the start of winter.

Weve been trying to do it for years, but I think we have the best chance of success this time, Halter said.

On April 26, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium euthanized 29-year-old Nanuq, a once-orphaned male polar bear who lived at Vilas for nearly two decades. He had been suffering from age-related illnesses, including liver cancer.

When staff knew that euthanasia was imminent, the Ohio zoo contacted other zoos involved in the species survival plan for polar bears, said Randy Junge, the vice president for animal health at Columbus Zoo.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums sets up species survival programs for endangered and threatened species so zookeepers can coordinate conservation, reproductive and genetic diversity efforts.

Whenever theres a significant animal illness or euthanasia, we make sure that all of these people involved are aware, Junge said.

Halter said a researcher from a third zoo  Halter declined to identify the researcher  traveled to Columbus to get a sperm sample and brought it to Madison. The insemination happened the day after Nanuq died.

Instead of having a frozen sperm sample, they used a live sperm sample, so the chances of success are a lot higher, he said.

Junge said sperm taken from a dead polar bear would normally be frozen as females need to be in the appropriate part of their reproductive cycle. Berit  whos one of two female polar bears at Vilas, along with Suka  just so happened to be, which Junge called a very fortunate coincidence.

The art and science of artificial insemination is quite variable. In animals such as cattle and horses, where theyve been doing it for years, they have very good techniques for freezing and thawing sperm, Junge said.

For other animals, such as polar bears, the freezing and thawing is the most difficult part of artificial insemination attempts, he said.

It likely wont be known if Berit is bearing a cub until she gives birth, which would be in December.

No urine or blood tests exist to determine polar bear pregnancy. Ultrasound imaging can also be difficult as cubs are really small while in the uterus, and the bears thick layer of fat complicates the technique, Halter said.

He also said the species can display signs of false pregnancy.

They gain a lot of weight in winter, and they kind of fill out. They do all the similar behaviors of being pregnant, but then arent pregnant, Halter said. We wouldnt actually know until she had cubs.

Breeding polar bears in zoos could prove crucial if conditions continue to worsen for their wild counterparts. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the animal as threatened in 2008 under the Endangered Species Act.

There are only about 60 polar bears in American zoos, and passing on their genetic diversity through breeding or artificial insemination is really important because these are assurance populations, Halter said. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates there are about 26,000 polar bears worldwide.

Zoos are playing an important part in the conservation of these animals both in human care and in the wild, Halter said. This is just one of the many things that zoos do in order to ensure these species for future generations.
Celebrating Our Service Members

Friday, November 11 is Veterans Day, when we honor and show gratitude to all members of our Armed Forces  those currently serving, those who...

Transit Equity Starts With QueensLink

For decades Queens has seen a disinvestment in the necessary transit infrastructure the borough needs to promote equity and sustainability. Most of the time, transformative...
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British Prime Minister Theresa May sprung an Easter surprise on much of the British electorate by calling for a June 8 snap election. This proposal was confirmed the following day by a wide majority in the House of Commons, and the U.K. will now undertake its fourth significant vote in as many years  following the 2014 Scottish referendum, the 2015 U.K. general election and 2016 EU referendum.

This is a calculated risk for the newly minted prime minister, one that could give her a political boost and strengthen her hand heading into difficult Brexit negotiations with the EU, or it could mean the end of her term in office. It's up to the electorate to decide.

In the U.K. it has been regular practice to call elections early to provide the sitting government with the best chance in succeeding.

To many around the world, the ability to call elections outside of a fixed cycle may seem unusual. Most Western governments only hold national leadership elections on a fixed-term basis or when the current government falls (for example a regular 4-year cycle in the U.S. and Germany, and a 5-year cycle in France), but in the U.K. it has been regular practice to call elections early to provide the sitting government with the best chance in succeeding at the polls; indeed, this has happened four other times in the U.K. in the past 35 years (in the 1983, 1987, 2001 and 2005 general elections). Since 2010, the U.K. Fixed Parliaments Act limited the ability of the prime minister to call early elections without a 2/3 majority vote in the House of Commons, which is why May required a parliamentary vote for this election to move forward.

Since taking over as British prime minister following David Cameron's resignation after the EU referendum, May had repeatedly rejected calls for an early election. So what has changed her mind, and what might the prime minister hope to gain from a plebiscite only two years on from the last general election? There are at least three potential benefits which might have driven her decision:

She can consolidate power. An early general election gives the prime minister the opportunity to take advantage of her party's dominant position in the polls and legitimize and consolidate her grip over her own party. Although May's Conservative Party has regularly out-polled the Labour opposition during May's term as prime minister, this has grown even greater in the past weeks, with two recent polls placing a Tory (conservative) lead over Labour at 48 percent to 24 percent, and 46 percent to 25 percent. This suggests that the snap election will result in a considerable increase in the Conservatives' 17-seat majority in Parliament. And although UK polls are notoriously volatile, the prime minister has judged that this represents an outstanding opportunity to strengthen the Conservative majority at a time when she needs it most. A strong election result would also strengthen May's political legitimacy within both the Remain and Euroskeptic wings of her party as she navigates difficult Brexit discussions with the EU.

A positive election result would significantly strengthen May's negotiating position with respect to the British exit from the EU.

She can strengthen her negotiating position on Brexit. A positive election result would significantly strengthen the prime minister's negotiating position with respect to the British exit from the EU  both from inside the U.K. and with her European partners and adversaries. The early election has already been welcomed by European leaders; for example, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, on a visit to London, said that the U.K. election would mean continuity in the U.K. government throughout the exit discussions without the distraction of a U.K. election just after negotiations conclude. For May, an election victory would also allow her to claim a popular mandate for her Brexit negotiating position and increase her freedom of action within her own party. Because the Conservative party was split during the Brexit campaign, the prime minister currently has to avoid alienating both the left and right of her party due to her small majority. An election win with an increased majority would give her much more latitude to conduct negotiations on her terms  and many have speculated that this may give her the ability to push for a softer Brexit with a generous transition exit agreement, which will be welcomed by business and those who seek economic stability post-Brexit.

She can give herself a two-year buffer to rebuild her popularity post-Brexit. A successful election campaign would not only make Brexit negotiations easier for the prime minister now, but it could also make her life post-Brexit more palatable as well. Without an early election, the prime minister would face conducting a general election in 2020, only a year after Brexit negotiations are expected to conclude and in an environment where much of the electorate may be dissatisfied with the U.K. exit terms and conditions. By pushing an election two years into the future, May gives herself a buffer to recover her popular standing in the aftermath of difficult and unpopular Brexit talks. This also allows the post-Brexit environment an opportunity to stabilize, which is likely to play to the government's benefit. An additional benefit of this two year delay means that the prime minister can primarily focus on Brexit negotiations in the short term before needing to shift her attentions to a future general election campaign.

Of course, such a strategy is not without its risks. There have been a number of electoral shocks over the past year  the EU referendum, the U.S. election of President Donald Trump and a turbulent French presidential race  and there is a small possibility that May could join Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Francois Hollande as world leaders who have fallen victim to a volatile electorate in the past 12 months.

Still, if the calculated risk of a successful early election pays off, May could enter a period of turbulent Brexit negotiations with a stronger electoral mandate, increased freedom of action to conclude Brexit discussions with her European counterparts and a post-Brexit future which provides her with a much better starting point from which to fight a 2022 general election. For her, it presumably feels like a gamble worth taking.

Hans Pung is president of RAND Europe.

This commentary originally appeared on U.S. News & World Report on May 11, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Someone, somewhere is likely collecting data about you right now. In the decade since the introduction of the iPhone, it has become common for smartphones and their built-in sensors to gather and store extensive data about their users. Smart watches place similar sensors on our wrists, making it possible to record our location and details about our health status in real time. With the rapid growth of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), sensors are increasingly embedded in devices in our homes and cars. These devices are not always transparent about the data they collect and how they protect it. Phone applications can surreptitiously turn on microphones or cameras and IoT devices send streams of data out of our homes over the Internet with varying degrees of security.

Even our bodies are being invaded by technologies that collect personal data. Implantable medical devices, including advanced pacemakers that treat heart problems and insulin pumps to manage diabetes, also collect a stream of data. Many such devices transmit it to health care providers, helping to improve care and reduce costs. In the future, implanted technology will not just be for treating disease but for augmenting human senses and capabilitiesto enhance memory, expand human perception and provide connectivity and communications. We are moving from a world where people often think of their phone as an extension of themselves to one where it is quite literally part of who they are.

The someone collecting all this data is often you.

The someone collecting all this data is therefore often you, since knowing where and how far you walked, having a record of your communications with your friends, or monitoring the status of your home from afar was the reason you bought the devices. But even if you willingly signed on to this, the reality is that the data is also useful to othersand you may not always like the idea of companies using analysis of your email to target advertising or the government having ready access to your location or health data for a criminal investigation.

Using data from personal devices to solve crimes and help protect the public is both an area of great debate and rapid advances. Major debate has been going on regarding whether citizens should be allowed to protect their smartphones with encryption and passwords that make it difficult if not impossible for police to access the data contained. Police in Georgia have sought records of data that might have been recorded by an IoT devicean Amazon Echoinvestigating a suspected murder, seeking a source of data that would never exist but for the integration of sensors into home devices. In Ohio, police executed a warrant that practically reached inside a suspect's body for evidence, using information from an implanted pacemaker in an investigation of arson and insurance fraud.

Even if such data can help solve crimes, should it be made available for that purpose? Though public safety is an important goal, how much of a modern citizen's digital footprint should be available for criminal or other investigations? Should it matter whether citizens are aware their phone or car is monitoring them? What if they don't have the freedom to opt out and stop the data collection, which would certainly be difficult if the technology was embedded in their bodies? When does access to that data begin to look less like police searching through someone's belongings and more like forcing them to testify against themselves, something the Constitution provides specific protection against?

The answers to these futuristic-sounding questions could have long-reaching effectspotentially creating disincentives for some capabilities to be built into new technologies or pushing criminals to use tools with built-in legal protection from police access. The answers won't just affect the balance between individual rights and public safety. They will echo in the decisions people make about what technologies to use and influence inventive companies' decisions about what new devices and features to create.

When public safety and criminal justice are the concern, the questions are often taken up in the courts; precedent set in individual cases shapes the legal landscape for the nation overall. Is the court system prepared for such complex technological questions? A recent panel of legal and technical experts convened as part of RAND research for the National Institute of Justice raised concerns that the court system is unprepared, identifying more than 30 actions the panel thought were needed. The recommendations include doing fundamental research to assess what analogies to existing technologies are and aren't appropriate, defining policies on collecting real-time physiological data during legal proceedings, and developing better training for judges and lawyers to prepare them to take on these 21st-century conundrums.

The decision to allow data from implanted medical devices to be used in criminal proceedings may affect whether patients are willing to even use such devices.

Making sure the court system is prepared to handle these questions is important. But given everything at stake, society shouldn't rely only on lawyers, prosecutors and judges to untangle the issues. For example, the decision to allow data from implanted medical devices to be used in criminal proceedings may affect whether patients are willing to even use such devices, which is a question that goes well beyond the value of data to a specific criminal case. Going one direction might sacrifice a capability that could help solve many crimes, while another might limit the use of a technology that could save many lives. Deciding which trade-offs should be made will require thinking beyond the walls of the police station, courthouse or prison.

Doing that requires involvement of society as a whole, including legislators, technology companies that have a financial interest in getting it right, and the citizens whose rights are at stake. The controversy regarding government surveillance in recent years demonstrated that, on issues of technologies and individual rights, citizens-as-customers can influence companies. And those companies can respond technologicallyas many did by adding end-to-end encryption to their communications appsand can drive policy debate as well.

Citizens and civil society should therefore look for opportunities to query the government about how data from new technologies, applications and the Internet of Things is being used. And based on the answers, everyone should look for opportunities to question companies innovating in these areas. Doing so could push them to consider how these issues may affect future customers and their bottom line. It also will keep influential companies in the policy debate and help the nation's legal structures and ideas keep up with technology.

If the trade-offs were easy, it might be all right to allow them to be sorted out on a case-by-case basis, whether in the courts or by legal or policy experts. But they aren't. The answers will shape not just individuals' rights in court processes and criminal investigations, but the pace of technology and innovation in the economy as well.

Brian A. Jackson is a senior physical scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

This commentary originally appeared on Forensic Magazine on May 11, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Russian court upholds sentence for Sakhalin investment ex-minister

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  The Sakhalin Regional Court has upheld a 3.5-year prison sentence given to Sakhalins former minister of investment and foreign ties Yekaterina Kotova for embezzlement of 3.2 million rubles (about $57,100), press-service of the regional prosecutors office announced on Tuesday.

The sentence came into force.

According to investigators, from December 2011 till June 2013 the convict embezzled funds allocated by the Investment Ministry for needs of Sakhalin agency development projects. Embezzled funds were used for various needs of the convict.

Kotova was appointed by Sakhalins ex-governor Alexander Khoroshavin. Currently, Khoroshavin is detained and prosecuted for alleged corruption.
Russian billionaire Deripaska files defamation lawsuit against Associated Press

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI)  Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska has lodged a defamation lawsuit against the Associated Press news agency over an article about business relations between the businessman and Paul Manafort, a campaign manager for Donald Trump, the case documents read on Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed with the United District Court for the District of Columbia.

Deripaska claims that the Associated Press acted with actual malice by publishing an article called AP Exclusive: Before Trump job, Manafort worked to aid Putin. The article was published on March 22 and, according to Deripaska, contains false and defamatory statements implying that his commercial dealings during the period from 2005 to 2009 were related to the election campaign of Donald Trump.

In particular, the lawsuit reads that later, in separate video, the Associated Press has admitted that relationship between Deripaska and Manafort was over before the election campaign began, yet the news agency did not distribute it along with the article. The Associated Press did not provide a public correction and retraction and other influential media organizations republished the article leaving readers under impression that Deripaskas dealings were related to controversy surrounding the election campaign, the claim reads.

According to the lawsuit, the Associated Press has also spread false information regarding Deripaska by alleging that he was involved in theft of Ukrainian assets in 2014 and suggesting that his contacts with Manafort were intended to basically undermine democratic movements.
Ukrainian President Poroshenko extends sanctions against Russia

Context Ukraine imposes sanctions against five Russian banks

MOSCOW, May 16 (RAPSI) - Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has affirmed a decision of the National Security and Defense Council to extend and expand sanctions against certain Russian citizens and companies.

The order was published on the official website of the Ukrainian President on Tuesday.

According to the document, 1,228 people and 468 companies have been added to the sanctions list.

Individual restrictive measures include among others ban on entry into Ukraine for up to 3 years; blocking of assets for up to 3 years; prohibition on participation in privatization, lease of government-owned property; cancellation of official visits, meetings and negotiations; deprivation of state awards; ban on establishment of a business connection and carrying on business in Ukraine.

Blocking of assets would be applied to companies as well. Moreover, legal entities would be restricted from trading. Sanctions against companies also include suspension of executing economical and financial obligations and measures on prevention of disinvestment.

A ban would be imposed on government procurement from companies put under the sanctions. Such legal entities would not be able to carry currency values inwards and outwards.

The order also stipulates prohibition on technological transfer and transmission of intellectual property rights.

Sanctions would apply to a range of Russias State Duma lawmakers, media outlets including Rossiya Segodnya information agency, RBC, TV channels Zvezda, TVC, NTV Plus, Ren TV, Nashe Radio, companies Kaspersky Lab, Dr.Web and others. Such social networks as Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki.ru as well as Internet resources Yandex and Mail.ru have been also put on the sanctions list.
The bilateral trade agreement between the United States and China announced last week is good news on both sides of the Pacific, and one of the biggest winners is the U.S. natural gas industry. But what is good news for natural gas may be another nail in the coffin for coal.

The recent trade agreement will facilitate Chinas goal of replacing coal, which it has tapped to meet two-thirds of its energy needs for the past 30 high-growth years, with cleaner-burning natural gas. The deal would expand U.S. natural gas exports to China, including joint investment in the infrastructure that country needs to process the gas.

President Trump has promised to promote natural gas  and turn around the fate of coal. But the two forms of energy are in competition with each other. Helping one hurts the other. The biggest problem the coal industry faces right now is the declining price of natural gas, driven by the glut on the market. One law that no one can repeal is the law of supply and demand. The more gas available, the lower the price. The lower the price of natural gas, the harder it is for coal to compete. Nonetheless, President Trump has twinned the fate of coal and gas, in his mind or at least in his promises, vowing to bolster both simultaneously. During last years presidential election he promised: The shale revolution will unleash massive wealth for America. And we will end the war on coal and the war on miners. Thats like saying that Henry Fords creation of the moving assembly line would help stimulate sales of the Model T and the horseless carriage. In fact, the steps that the Trump administration is taking to bolster natural gassuch as promising to take advantage of an estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil and natural gas reserves in the United States, much of it on federal lands  may help the economy, but they would also create more headaches for the coal industry.

And even more for people who work for the industry, which was eliminating jobs even when it was on a competitive footing. Until about the year 2000, coal processing was relatively cheap, and coal was maintaining its position as the preferred supplier for utilities and maintaining a 50 percent share of the U.S. power supply. But even as coal continued to compete, the industry provided fewer and fewer jobs. From more than 140,000 employees in 1989, it dropped to only 85,000 in 1999, after 10 years of competitive growth, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What drove the workforce reductions? Technology and improved production techniques, not increasing regulations or declining demand. For example, surface mining techniques, especially in the west, required far fewer employees per ton of coal produced.

Today, the biggest challenge the coal industry faces is clearly natural gas, with production growing by a third and prices dropping 70 percent, largely because of the shale gas revolution. In 2015, for the first time ever, natural gas topped coal as the primary source of electric power generation  a dramatic change from five years earlier, when coal accounted for twice as much of the mix as natural gas. Declining natural gas prices have led to 55 percent growth in natural gas-fired electric generation since 2006, the Bloomberg Intelligence report found last year. By 2020, electric utilities plan to retire plants with 12 gigawatts worth of coal-fired capacity.

The trade deal with China is yet another blow to the coal mining industry. Like any trade deal, the agreement with China will benefit both sides, including U.S. beef ranchers and financial service firms, and of course consumers in both countries. And it will indeed bolster the U.S. natural gas industry. But at whose expense? Rather than sharing a common fate, coal and gas are in a fight to the finish  and natural gas has all of the weapons.
Bethenny Frankel and Alex Rodriguez are headed to "Shark Tank."

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The 46-year-old reality star and 41-year-old retired MLB player will serve as guest judges in Season 9 of the ABC reality competition, the network announced in a press release Monday.

Frankel, who stars on the Bravo series "The Real Housewives of New York City," is the founder and CEO of the lifestyle brand Skinnygirl.

Rodriguez, a former shortstop for the New York Yankees, is the CEO of the business conglomeration AROD Corp.

"I guess I am a shark after all. Watch out @ABCSharkTank - comin' for u this fall," Frankel tweeted to her 1.5 million followers. "Are you as excited as I am? #sharktank."

Spanx founder Sara Blakely , Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and CAVU Ventures Partners co-founder Rohan Oza will also serve as guest judges in Season 9.

Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary will return as the main "sharks."

"Shark Tank" shows aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their business or product to the sharks, who choose whether or not to invest.

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The series completed an eighth season Friday, and will return for a ninth in the fall.
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Posted by Jeremy on at 05:33 PM CST

Star Wars 40th ANNIVERSARY 1oz Silver Coin

LIMITED EDITION  ORDER YOURS TODAY!

New Zealand Mint has produced a unique, limited edition commemorative coin to celebrate the 40th Anniversary ofwhich thundered onto the big screen on May 25, 1977.Licensed by Disney, this 1oz fine silver collectible features a replica image of the original 1977poster. The striking design incorporates both colour and engraving.AgAu News recently reviewed the coin and had this to say: Instead of concentrating on the movies or the characters, these new rectangular silver coins look at the classic artwork used on the movie posters. Struck in an ounce of silver, coloured on the reverse face and being issued for Niue Island are all hallmarks of this Auckland-based company. The mints excellent acrylic display frames are also present and were huge fans of these. Movie memorabilia collectors like to display their items far more than coin collectors do, so this is a sensible nod to the intended market, although theres much here for the numismatist to like.movie posters are almost as iconic as the movies themselves and fit into a huge back tapestry of art and design that has built up around these hugely popular movies. Between the characters, settings, vessels and everything else that has made this universe a part of popular culture, theres a huge wellspring of material to choose from. The choice of movie posters for the subject matter is an excellent one, given that their purpose is to encapsulate everything about a movie in a single piece of art.The Certificate of Authenticity sits within the packaging for coin, and both are branded and stylized to commemorate the 40th Anniversary. This only adds to the appeal for anyfan or coin collector. With only 10,000 available of this once in a lifetime coin, make sure you get yours today If you are keen to be one of the first to hear aboutcoin releases from New Zealand Mint, you can find them on Facebook, Twitter or sign up here to getcoin news emailed directly to your inbox!
'If the Indian economy formalises, industrialises, urbanises and develops human capital, 10 lakh youngsters will join the labour force every month in the next 10 years.'

'It's not a bulb that will go off; it is a sunrise.'

IMAGE: Rather than view it as lopsided development, Manish Sabharwal views internal migration for jobs as strengthening Mahatma Gandhi's idea of the hyphenated Indian identity.

Photograph: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

Every month around 90,000 people come to Teamlease Service Ltd for a job and the company hires 5,000 of them.

Teamlease, described as India's leading staffing company, provided temporary and permanent manpower solutions to over 1,000 clients.

It has hired 1.6 million people in the last 10 years.

It is among the largest payers of provident fund and ESI in the country.

And it raked in Rs 3,000 crores (Rs 30 billion) in revenue last year.

Manish Sabharwal, chairman and co-founder, Teamlease Service Ltd, speaks to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier about the employment scene in India.

When we spoke more than 5 years ago, you predicted that the south would soon be the employment providers and the north, employment seekers. It has become a reality now...

Every country struggles with the idea of 'You take jobs to people or people to jobs.'

In most situations, you want to take jobs to people, but today you end up taking people to jobs.

For example, on Chinese new year's day, around 300 million people bought tickets to go home for the four-day weekend. That's because they had migrated to places away from their homes.

Though that hasn't yet happened in India, Kerala has 9.5 per cent Biharis living there while less than 10 per cent of Keralites live in the Middle East.

The migration has only just begun in India and it will probably escalate in the next 5 to 10 years.

The northern and eastern parts of India will have really tough times attracting investments and creating jobs.

The south has been attracting more investment and thus creating more jobs.

While people are trying to do things in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, I think the embedded advantages of the south and the west will get amplified in the next 5 to 10 years.

What kind of impact will this lopsided development have socially?

If you look at India as a whole, it is good as India has always been a melting pot.

When you look at the initial migration of the educated middle class, the spread of English allowed the migration to happen in a much more orderly way.

India has a lot of other social and cultural infrastructure, which made internal migration much less disruptive than it would have otherwise been.

It is strengthening Mahatma Gandhi's idea of the hyphenated Indian identity.

What about the unskilled labourers who migrate to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, etc?

The first phase or the first wave was the skilled engineers migrating to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, etc.

The pioneers were the English speaking educated middle class.

Now, it has reached the lower strata of society too with the enabling infrastructure and social acceptance.

Also, acceptance is driven by necessity.

How long can a country sustain this kind of migration and one-sided development?

Till you run out of farm labour.

Sir William Arthur Lewis, who won the Nobel Prize in economics, talks about this: it is called the Lewisian Turning Point, that is, people will continue to migrate from farm to non-farm till you run out of farm labour willing to migrate.

25 crore (250 million) Indians produce less food than 25 lakh (2.5 million) Americans. And they produce only 10 per cent of our GDP.

They have very low productivity. We have too many people in the farms in the north and east of India.

So, the migration will continue till we run out of farm labour.

Out of the 300 million Chinese who went to their villages on the Chinese new year's weekend, only 180 million came back.

That is because they have jobs in their home town. It means China has crossed the Lewisian Turning Point, but can continue for another 150 million people.

Narendra Modi came to power promising 250 million jobs, but he has not been able to create jobs in a big way. It is said the problem India has is jobless growth. Do you feel that way?

Not at all. In fact, I would say India does not have a job problem; it has a wages problem.

India's official unemployment rate is 4.9 per cent.

In my view, everybody who wants to have a job has a job, but they don't have the wages they want or they need.

When we started Teamlease 15 years ago, people used to come and ask us, give us any job, any salary.

Today, most of the people who come to us already have a job, but they want a better paid job.

According to me, wages and jobs are two completely different problems.

If you think the problem is getting jobs, you will do MNERGA and if you think the problem India faces is wages, you will do formalisation, industrialisation, urbanisation of the economy and better human capital.

These are the four levers of higher wages.

I think the prime minister has understood this and has put together a plan of formalisation, which includes GST, demonetisation and ease of doing business, urbanisation by creating smart cities, infrastructure and the Make in India programme.

The fundamental agenda of formalisation, urbanisation, industrialisation and human capital will take some time to achieve.

How long do you think it will take for the government to create more jobs?

Modi may need a second term to achieve this. Yes, he has to figure out how to get re-elected.

All the surveys say the biggest problem India faces is creating jobs for the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who pass out of colleges...

That's what I am trying to say. Our official unemployment rate is only 4.9 per cent.

We may say our engineers are unemployable, but they are not unemployed.

Out of the 15 lah to 20 lakh (1.5 million to 2.5 million) engineers who graduate every year, only 2 lakh (200,000) go to IT-related jobs.

But the fact is not every engineer is meant to do IT-related jobs.

Instead of working as a software coder, he is working as a Samsung phone sales person. So, he is not unemployed; he is getting wages lower than he should have.

There are lots of jobs in India right now and India's economy is more like the United States' and not like China's.

55 per cent of China's economy is trade; import and export, but in America, only 25 per cent of the GDP is trade.

India will be a domestic consumption driven economy.

So, you feel the unemployment situation is not alarming?

I don't think there is any need for panic.

If we stay the course, if the Indian economy formalises, industrialises, urbanises and develops human capital, 10 lakh youngsters will join the labour force every month in the next 10 years.

I think we are on track.

We are trying to transform an agrarian Indian economy to a modern economy.

It's not a bulb that will go off; it is a sunrise.

Yes, there is a lot of regulatory cholesterol in India, there is lack of infrastructure in India, there is low human capital in India, but we are in the process of transformation.

I am more optimistic about jobs in the next 10 years than I was in the last 10 years.

I reiterate that you have to look at wages rather than jobs.

India has shifted its dream from reducing poverty for 100 million people to creating 800 million middle class.

Politically, economically and socially, India has shifted her dreams.

The current situation indicates that there is not wild social unrest in the south and the west of India and a lot of north and east of India feel they can migrate for better opportunity.

It will take some time for us to fix UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, and they are going to contribute 40 per cent of the country's population.

If they could not migrate, it could be a problem.

The Make in India programme was started to create jobs. Do you think it has been successful?

There has been a 60 per cent increase in FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) during the last year.

It is not for Make in India as in manufacturing for overseas countries; it was mainly Make for India.

It is clustered in areas where domestic consumption is raising critical mass.

I would say Make in India is turning out to be Make for India.

It's okay at this stage as the world economy is also not doing very well.

Domestic consumption and domestic consumption service jobs will be our saviours.

China's farm to non-farm transition happened in the factories while India's farm to non-farm transition will happen in sales.

There are five fundamental transitions happening: Farm to non-farm, rural to urban, self-employment to decent wage employment, informal enterprises to formal enterprises, and school to work.

One of the most important transformations that is happening is from informal enterprises to formal enterprises.

India has 63 million enterprises; 12 million of those enterprises don't have an office.

12 million work from home.

Only 8.5 million have any form of registration.

Only 1.3 million pay the mandatory provident fund.

1 million are actually companies.

And only 18,000 companies have a paid-up capital of more than Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million).

So, 63 million enterprises doesn't mean anything. What we need is 40 million productive enterprises.

Look at the US economy: that is 8 times our size and it has only 25 million enterprises.

The last time when we spoke, you spoke about the irrelevance of trade unions. Do you think with the changes in the labour laws, the atmosphere in India is more conducive to growth?

The trade unions are clearly declining.

It was not murder; it was suicide.

Job preservation became more important for them than job creation. That was why they made themselves irrelevant.

Of course, we can do a lot more in labour reforms. We have not yet done labour reforms to the level or degree that we need.

Rajasthan, Maharashtra did some labour reforms and it shows 29 chief ministers matter more than one prime minister for job creation.

That is because land and labour markets are local. Co-operative federalism is an important component in India for job creation.

In which area do you see more jobs being created in the next 5 to 10 years?

It will be in all kinds of sales, customer service and logistics.

These three areas will be the fastest growing segments for a long, long time.

India will be a market rather than a production nation.

The world economy is not doing well and India will become more and more a consumption driven economy.

India is very economically complex as we make and do everything, but we don't always do it well and on scale.

With America talking about 'Buy American, Hire American,' is protectionism coming back? Is it the end of globalisation?

I think that train (globalisation) has already left the station.

Take IT. India has 3.5 million people working in IT and 350,000 in the US on H-1B.

If they put restrictions on H-1B, domestic employment will increase.

Work will be done in India rather than in the US through H-1B.

I am ready to bet that India's IT employment will go up to 6 million over the next 5 years.

How much will automation affect job creation in India?

India has such low level of productivity that it is not a worry at all; 50 per cent of our labour force produces only 12 per cent of the GDP.

What western countries worry about automation is already there in India.

India's trajectory for job creation is quite stable, certain and on track to transform.

If we concentrate on formalisation, industrialisation, urbanisation and human capital, nothing can stop India's economy moving from $1,500 to $8,000 per capita.

At least 100 million to 200 million non-farm jobs will be created in the next 5 years.

It is just an internal constraint, but if we screw this up, we have nobody else to blame, but us.

Where do you see India in the next 5 to 10 years? Do you see India growing at 7+ per cent?

Absolutely.

As a child, I had memorised Pandit Nehru's Tryst with Destiny speech. I think we have made another appointment now and by the 75th year of Independence, that is by 2022, we will be in a much stronger position economically and in terms of economic transformation.

I think our unemployment rate will stay where it is, but wages will keep going up.

Reforms are about wages going up fundamentally.

What we are doing is we are redefining what poverty means.

ALSO READ: India's big layoff dilemma

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Expert staff in the line of fire in the tech sector.

Analysts attribute these job losses to a slowdown in growth, automation of lower-end work.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com



Chakravarthy Narayan was in for a shock when he went for a meeting with the human resources manager at an IT services company last month.

A day ago, a conversation at his office had veered around how resources could be rationalised. As a programme manager, Narayan managed around six teams. Little did he realise that he was being let go.



I was the most expensive resource, he said, having spent around two decades in at least three large companies.



As the IT industry faces its worst challenge in nearly a decade, employees on the block are the mid-level and senior managers who draw a substantial compensation. Those with 10 to 15 years of experience is a ripe fruit, said Narayan.



Analysts attribute these job losses to a slowdown in growth, automation of lower-end work, such as programming, and a shift in demand towards more outcome-based projects.

Saurabh Govil, head of human resources in Wipro, the countrys third-largest IT firm, said the growth slowdown was one of the reasons for a stricter scrutiny of performances.

Software engineers or managers who fall in the 5 to 15 years experience category typically have roles such as team leader, project manager, programme manager, software or technical architect, functional manager or supervisor, solutions or pre-sales lead, or engineering manager. Some employees may have retained the same roles while adding years of experience.



Times, however, have changed for the industry, which has long played the cost arbitrage card and could afford to keep thousands of programmers or coders off projects for a few months. Today, a major IT firm said, it would be impossible to keep employees on the bench without work.



Most IT majors have now shifted to monthly appraisal and they do not want to let go of thousands of people at once. They are trying to put these people on posts internally in some other jobs, said Kris Lakshmikanth, chairman and managing director of The Head Hunters India, a specialised recruiting agency for the IT industry.



Lakshmikanth said nearly 100,000 jobs would disappear from the 3.9 million the sector offers today. This data is based on the interactions with various people from the industry across the US, India and Europe, he added. There has been a structural change in the IT industry and it may be difficult to retrain a large portion of mid-level employees.



According to a Bengaluru-based analyst, during the past five years (since 2012) the number of mid-level employees (5-15 years) in the sector had risen to 70 per cent, from a little over 50 per cent.



This means job losses will have real consequences for society, as many of them have loans and EMIs.



Nandita Gurjar, former human resource expert at Infosys, said, If the reasons are not linked to non-performance, job losses can become a social issue. The reasons are important. If it is part of performance management process where an employee is consistently non-performing, then letting the person go seems to be right. However, if in the name of performance management, people are being let go to reduce headcount, it is unfair as also a serious issue.



Unlike Lakshmikanth, Gurjar said, It is too early to speculate how many jobs would be lost. Re-skilling is an important agenda, with the emergence of digital technologies such as cloud and artificial intelligence. As engineering colleges are far from equipped to retrain these people, the organisations will have to take on a bigger role to build facilities internally to upgrade the skills of their employees.



The large companies are very mature and profitable. Not many people skilled in new technologies will come from outside but they will have to be re-skilled internally, added the former Infosys HR head.



Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research, said the industrys problems are not a crisis.But, we do anticipate that 20 to 30 per cent of the workforce will be reduced by 2020. We do see an increased hiring in skills around data science, artificial intelligence, design, and design thinking. What we are seeing here is structural (change). Robotic process automation and AI are replacing a certain skill set of jobs at a rate that has not been seen before, Wang observed.



While none of the companies have officially declared the number of jobs that will be redundant, experts are not sure if laying off is the only option before companies.
The new IIP numbers should spread cheer among those who were part of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance, earlier accused of having presided over a steady deterioration in industrial performance, particularly in the last two years of its tenure, says A K Bhattacharya.

It is not just the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that should pat itself on the back after a revision in industrial growth numbers due to a change in the base year for the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

The new numbers should spread cheer also among those who were part of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), earlier accused of having presided over a steady deterioration in industrial performance, particularly in the last two years of its tenure.

This is because India's industrial output growth in the past five years has begun looking a little better after Fridays base-year revision  a far cry from the anaemic look it used to sport earlier. Against the earlier estimate of 1.4 per cent average annual industrial growth in the last five years, the new estimates place the average annual growth at 3.8 per cent.

More significantly, the average annual industrial growth in the last three financial years of NDA is now estimated at 4.1 per cent, a sharp jump over the none-too-impressive number of just 1.96 per cent computed earlier, and that for a government which promised to revive manufacturing.

But the Manmohan Singh-led UPA seems to have done even better by clocking average annual IIP growth of 3.35 per cent in the last two years of its tenure (2012-13 and 2013-14) compared to the earlier estimate of just 0.5 per cent.

Remember that these were the two years when a so-called paralysis in decision-making and corruption-ridden governance had arguably taken a heavy toll of industrial output.

That narrative now may well be challenged.

Indeed, the revised numbers make the industrial output recovery claimed by NDA in the first three years of its tenure look far less impressive. And UPA's performance on the industrial output front looks a little better.

According to the earlier base-year estimates, the NDA years saw more than trebling of average annual industrial growth over what UPA achieved in its last two years. But the new base-year numbers show the NDA years' growth going up by just 22 per cent over what the UPA years had achieved.

Such is the power of India's Central Statistics Office (CSO) that on Friday changed the base year of the all-India IIP from 2004-05 to 2011-12 to reflect the changes in the industrial sector and align it with the base years of other macroeconomic indicators like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Wholesale Price Index (WPI).

While putting out the rosier industrial growth numbers as per the new base year estimates, the CSO, however, has issued some caveats and explanations of the turnaround.

One, it has pointed out that the growth rates of the two series are not strictly comparable as the indices for 2011-12 have been normalised to 100 at a monthly level. However, this does not detract from the overall impression that industrial growth figures for the last five years do look better after the base-year change.

Data from more factories

Two, there is an increase in the number of factories whose data are now being reported and captured in the industrial growth data under the 2011-12 base-year series. In addition, the data coming from factories that are closed have been removed, making the new data set more representative and reflective of the current state of affairs.

This could be one of the reasons for the upward revision in the numbers under the new base year.

42 item groups dropped

Three, the new base-year series expands the basket with the inclusion of new item groups and exclusion of old ones. As many as 42 item groups that were part of the 2004-05 base-year series are deleted from the 2011-12 base-year index.

This is much more than the 22 item groups (including offshore platforms, typewriters, sewing machines, tape recorders, pencils and organic pigments) that were dropped while framing the 2004-05 base-year index.

Presumably, the performance of items that have been dropped was poor and their exclusion has reduced the adverse impact on the overall industrial output performance.

The item groups dropped from the 2011-12 base-year index include gutka, pan masala, fabrics, synthetic yarn, sacking, leather gloves and shoes, lubricating oil, glycerine, synthetic resins and benzene.

50 new item groups added

Similarly, 50 new item groups were added to the revised IIP with the latest base year of 2011-12. Specific details of the new item groups are not provided by the CSO, but it can be presumed that these inclusions have helped boost the revised numbers.

124 manufacturing items axed

Within the manufacturing sector, the extent of deletion and inclusion of items (not item groups) has been larger. As many as 124 items have been excluded from the manufacturing sector and these include calculators, biaxially oriented polypropylene films and colour television picture tubes.

The number of items in the revised manufacturing sector now is 809. This would suggest that the CSO has added as many as 313 new items in the manufacturing sector list for the 2011-12 base year index. No wonder, the base in the manufacturing sector has expanded giving a fillip to the growth numbers.

However, the CSOs official explanation suggests that only about 149 items like steroids and hormonal preparations, cement clinkers, medical accessories, prefabricated concrete blocks and refined palm oil have been added.

But clearly there would be more items without which the new number of 809 items in the manufacturing sector does not look feasible.

Increase in weights for manufacturing to 1980-81 level

The weight of the manufacturing sector in the IIP is now raised to 77.63 per cent, compared to 75.5 per cent in the 2004-05 series. This too has helped improve the new base-year series numbers.

The manufacturing sector has seen perhaps the most significant changes in Fridays base-year revision, the ninth such exercise that began with the first IIP choosing a base year of 1937.

Since then, the base years for IIP have been revised periodically and the subsequent base years are: 1946, 1951, 1956, 1960, 1970, 1980-81, 1993-94, 2004-05 and now 2011-12.

What is also clear from the past 67 years exercise of releasing a monthly IIP number is that Indias statisticians have been sharply focused on the manufacturing sector right from IIPs inception.

The IIP with the base year of 1937 had allotted a weight of 92 per cent to the manufacturing sector. But by the time the base year went in for its sixth revision and the base year was pegged at 1980-81, the weight for the manufacturing sector declined to 77 per cent, which is broadly identical to the weight given to the manufacturing in the 2011-12 base year.

The manufacturing sectors weight, meanwhile, had gone up to 79 per cent for the 1993-94 base year, before declining to 75.5 per cent for the 2004-05 base year.

Renewable energy resources included

Four, the electricity sector in the 2011-12 base-year IIP includes data from renewable energy sources, indicating the growing share of such power generation companies in the Indian economy.

Yet, however, the weight for the electricity has declined in the latest base-year calculations, placing it at 7.99 per cent, down from 10.3 per cent in the 2004-05 base year.

This is the only sector whose weight in the revised index has gone down even though a new category of renewable energy sources has been included in the electricity sector.

Five, the coverage of the mining sector has been significantly expanded, though its weight has remained almost the same at 14.37 per cent in the 2011-12 base-year index. Inclusion of newer varieties of mining items - both metallic and non-metallic has made the contribution of the mining sector to IIP even more significant.

Demonetisation captured

How have the new series numbers captured the impact of the demonetisation of 86 per cent of Indias currency on November 8, 2016? At the IIP level, the monthly growth figures from November 2016 onwards show a marginal increase in the new index compared to the growth figures under the old index.

In comparison, the improvements under the new base-year series in months prior to demonetisation were much more pronounced.

This seems to suggest that demonetisation did have some impact on the months of industrial production from November 2016 onwards, captured under the new series. For instance, the 2004-05 series shows industrial output in the April-October 2016 period to have declined by 0.3 per cent. In the post-demonetisation period of November-March 2016-17, it picked up marginally to record growth of a little over two per cent.

But industrial output in the April-October 2016 period under the 2011-12 series shows growth of 6.3 per cent and decelerates to only 3.3 per cent in the five months between November 2016 and March 2017.

Buffalo meat retained

The new series continues to include both fresh and frozen buffalo meat in the index, reflecting the statisticians belief that this sector would continue to be relevant for data collection and for computing the countrys industrial output.

Frozen buffalo meat was included in the manufacturing sector, for the first time in April 2011 when the base year for the IIP was revised to be 2004-05.

Impact on GDP numbers?

What could the revised IIP numbers mean for GDP? It is widely acknowledged that the IIP numbers are an important input while estimating the GDP.

Given the fact that now the IIP numbers have been revised, it is possible that the GDP numbers too could be revised upwards.

Whether that happens or not is a question mark. But if any revision of GDP data for past years takes place, on the basis of the new IIP series, remember that the benefit of higher growth would be reaped not just by the NDA, but most likely by the UPA as well.

Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
'His assessment is wide off the mark from what is expected to be history's final verdict -- which is that Indira was the most unacceptable of all prime ministers because she was the only one who tried to throttle Indian democracy,' says Amulya Ganguli.

As a lifelong admirer of Indira Gandhi, it is not surprising that Pranab Mukherjee should have praised her as the most acceptable prime minister of all times.

Having risen to be the country's President, he should have chosen his words with greater care, if only because he is no longer expected to be the standard-bearer of any party.

Like a Lok Sabha Speaker, Mukherjee should have said goodbye to his earlier political affiliations.

Arguably, he may have been only expressing his personal views, unconnected with his former party.

In that case, it is odd that his assessment should be so wide off the mark from what is expected to be history's final verdict -- which is that Indira was the most unacceptable of all prime ministers because she was the only one who tried to throttle Indian democracy.

It is another matter that she did not succeed because of the politically fatal -- for her though fortuitous for the country -- misjudgement of calling for the elections in 1977.

Her mistake was due to the adulation she was receiving from her servile followers, one of whom -- then Congress party president Dev Kanta Borooah -- famously said, 'India is Indira, Indira is India.'

The fulsome praise and equally favourable reports about her rule in the censored media made her believe that the hoi polloi loved the Emergency.

Her hope apparently was that an electoral victory would put the stamp of popular approval on her draconian rule, enabling her to make it the 'new normal' of Indian politics.

Thankfully, the unwashed masses saw through her game and sent her packing at the first opportunity which they got.

For them, she was not 'acceptable' at all, as Mukherjee now believes.

The President's latest observation suggests that his understanding of that most fateful period of Indian history, when the future of democracy was at stake, is grievously flawed.

This skewed evaluation was also evident when he said some months ago that Sanjay Gandhi had some 'positive virtues.'

If so, these were invisible to all but the Congress loyalists, for even one of the enfant terrible's elders in the Nehru-Gandhi family, B K Nehru, called Indira's younger son 'wayward, uneducated, inexperienced.'

B K Nehru saw the reality as it was, not through the lens of party loyalty or to keep on the right side of the powers-that-be.

What is more, the waywardness and lack of education of the crown prince of that time was evident not only to a family member, but to almost everyone in the country.

Yet, Mukherjee ascribed the 'animosity and venom' against Sanjay to the 'euphoria surrounding the Janata Party's creation, a wave of anti-Indira Gandhi sentiment and the division in the Congress.'

As is known, the animosity was the result of the arbitrary manner in which Sanjay functioned, which was noted by the Shah Commission when it said that 'some of the demolitions (in Delhi) were carried out at the instance of and to pander to the whims of Shri Sanjay Gandhi who was not answerable to anybody and who held no position whatever in the administrative scheme.'

If his whims were the law, it was because he was the prime minister's son -- a state of affairs characteristic of a banana republic, which denotes another unacceptable feature of Indira's reign.

Mukherjee is right about the former prime minister's decisiveness, which included an elephant ride to Belchhi, a village in Bihar, in 1977, to a scene of a massacre of Dalits (because her car could not reach the place along the muddy road), which is believed to have led to the Congress return to power in the 1980 general election.

Even more memorable was her role during the liberation of Bangladesh.

But the Emergency was her Achilles' heel, tarnishing her name forever.

If only she had resisted the temptation of holding onto power by hook or by crook to negate an adverse judicial verdict, she might have been one of the acceptable PMs after Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundation of Indian democracy and multicultural polity.

But as of now, she remains tainted.

What is more, her legacy is not only the burden of authoritarianism, which the Congress continues to carry, but also her fake 'socialism', which has been inherited by Sonia Gandhi and her son, the crown prince of today, thereby handing over the popular card of economic development to Narendra Modi.

CAPTION: Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India, with Pranab Mukherjee, then one of her Cabinet ministers.

Amulya Ganguli writes on current affairs.
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday sought to put up a brave front amid Income Tax departments raids at 22 locations in Delhi and adjoining areas on charges of alleged benami deals worth Rs 1,000 crore linked to him and others, saying he was not scared at all and will continue to fight against the fascist forces.

BJP mein himmat nahi hai ki Lalu ki awaz ko daba sake...Lalu ki awaz dabayenge to desh bhar me karoron Lalu khare ho jayenge...Main gidarbhabhki se nahi darne wala hoon (BJP does not have the courage to stifle my voice... If it tries to silence one Lalu, crores of Lalu will come forward. I am not scared of empty threats), he said in a series of tweets.

Prasad rapped the Bharatiya Janata Party in yet another tweet for sensing an opportunity to destabilise the Grand Alliance government in Bihar and asserted that the coalition was intact.

Do not be tempted, the alliance is intact. Many more parties with a common ideology are going to join hands with us. I am not scared of the BJP letting loose the government machinery on me, he wrote on the microblogging website.

In another tweet, he said, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-BJP ko Lalu ke naam se kampkapi chhuti hai...Inko pata hai ki Lalu inke jhoot, loot aur jumlon ke kaarobar ko dhwast kar raha hai, to dabab banao (The RSS-BJP shivers at the very name of Lalu... They know that Lalu is destroying their trade based on lies, loot and gimmicks and that is why they are putting pressure on me).

The RJD chief took a dig at the BJP by congratulating the saffron party on forging a new alliance and asserted that he will keep fighting against the fascist forces till the last breath.

He also slammed media persons by branding them as learned illiterates and asked them to disclose the 22 locations raided by IT sleuths.

Are padhe-likhe anpadhon, ye to batao kaun se 22 thikano par chhapemari hui... BJP-samarthit media aur uske sahyogi ghatakon (sarkari toton) se Lalu nahi darta (You learned illiterates, please disclose the 22 locations which are being raided... Lalu is not scared of the BJP-backed media and central agencies (state-owned parrots), he said.

RJD national spokesperson Manoj Jha clarified Prasads new alliance jibe at the BJP by claiming that the National Democratic Alliance government was using the IT department, Central Bureau of Investigation and other central agencies as its alliance partners against its adversaries, including the RJD chief.

He added that Prasads state-owned parrots remark too was aimed at the central agencies.

Jha alleged that the BJP was muzzling the voice of the Opposition and said, We will fight in the court and on the ground. The battle against the BJP will be fought from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Jha also played down the speculation of strains in the Grand Alliance government in Bihar with the allies speaking in different voices on the expose against Prasad and his family and asserted that the coalition was rock solid.

Our alliance is a natural one... it will not break so easily, he said.

Earlier in the day, even as the IT raids were on in Delhi and adjoining areas, Prasads colleagues Jha, Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Prabhunath Singh, Bihar RJD chief Ramchandra Purve, Prasads trusted lawyer Chittaranjan Sinha and others visited his wife Rabri Devis 10, Circular Road residence.
Buoyed by the recent victories in Gundlupet and Nanjangud bypolls, Rahul was keen to revamp the state unit and was personally monitoring the developments. Amit Agnihotri reports.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is using various management techniques for toning up the organisation and has asked party managers to bring in a new work culture in Karnataka in this regard.

This comes when the state is scheduled to go to polls in April next year.

Rahul discussed the issue with the newly appointed All India Congress Committee team, including general-secretary (in-charge) K C Venugopal and the four new secretaries.

Venugopal and his deputies, Manickam Tagore, P C Vishnunadh, Madhu Yashki Goud and Sake Sailajanath, had spent three days in Bengaluru last week, holding one-on-one meetings with over 400 leaders to frame a strategy for the poll campaign.

The local leaders were also consulted regarding AICCs plan to appoint a new state unit chief as incumbent G Parameshwara will hold the home portfolio.

State power minister D K Shivakumar is a front runner in this case, sources said.

Though other leaders are also lobbying for the post, the fact that Shivakumar is a Vokkaliga leader might go in his favour as his ascension would help the Congress counter the recent migration of veteran S M Krishna, who belongs to the same community.

According to sources, the four AICC secretaries would travel across Karnatakas 224 assembly constituencies to get a first-hand feedback of the situation. The secretaries, who will be allotted 55 seats each, will focus on strengthening the booth-level committees as well as incorporate the workers views in the decision-making process.

Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah has convened a four-day session starting May 22 in the state capital to hear out the district-level leaders. Sources said the congregation would be used to thrash out differences between local leaders and the partys lawmakers.

They added that buoyed by the recent victories in Gundlupet and Nanjangud bypolls, Rahul was keen to revamp the state unit and was personally monitoring the developments, the only big state in the Congress kitty.

Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has been made chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

Former Mandya lawmaker Ramya will head the national social media department.

Last year, the AICC had appointed lawmaker Dinesh Gundu Rao as the working president of the Karnataka unit to pacify dissenters.

The Congress had won 122 seats in the 2013 assembly polls with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal-Secular at 40 each.
Equating the issue of triple talaq with the belief that Lord Rama was born in Ayodhya, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that these were matters of faith and cannot be tested on grounds of constitutional morality.

If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then its a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality and it cannot be interfered with by a court of law, former law minister and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, representing the Board, said while drawing an analogy between triple talaq and the belief about Lord Rama.

Triple talaq has been there since 637 AD. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practising it for last 1,400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there is no question of constitutional morality and equity, he told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar said.

Sibal was countering the arguments put forth by the opponents of triple talaq who have been arguing for the past two days, with the government also saying a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community would be brought, if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

The AIMPLB counsel said the age-old practice was part of my faith and you cannot determine what should be my faith. This is the question and this is the issue. He asked whether the court should decide the faith of over 16 crore people.

During the day-long hearing before a bench, which also comprised Justices Kurian Joseph, R F Nariman, U U Lalit and Abdul Nazeer, Sibal said the issue of triple talaq was a matter of personal law, protected under the Constitution.

He referred to holy Quran, hadith and interpretations attributed to companions of Prophet Muhammad and scholars on divorce to drive home the point that the issue of triple talaq was a matter of faith and hence beyond judicial scrutiny.

The Muslim body said despite the existence of laws on dowry prohibition and guardianship, Hindu customs were being allowed to remain like dowry is prohibited but gifts are allowed.

When it comes to Hindu law, you protect all customs but when it comes to Muslim, you start raising questions over customs. Like when it comes to Dowry prohibition Act or Guardianship Act you follow customs and protect them, he said.

The bench asked Sibal as to what extent of Muslim Personal Law was part of the religion.

Some part of Personal Law may be part of religion but some part may not be. There are different schools of thought for Shias and Sunnis. The foremost thing is the essence of Quran which is the principal thing, he said.

Sibal said that ceremonies related to birth, marriage, divorce, properties and death are decided by family influenced by social norms, which cannot be tested on the ground of constitutional morality.

The senior advocate also said the practice of triple talaq started in 637 AD after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD by his companions.

He said no legislation can take the place of a custom, being practised over 1400 years, and it cannot be termed un-Islamic.

The essence of Islam is that divorce happens after the marriage. If Nikahnama is the heart of it, why cant divorce be part of it. You cannot change my nikahnama by some kind of statute. Its totally unacceptable, he said.

He said personal laws cannot be tested on the touchstones of fundamental rights under Article 13, 14 (right to equality), 15 (prohibition of discrimination) and 21 (right to life) and no one can come to the court saying that this practice is discriminatory and so strike it down.

Personal laws cannot be tested on the ground of being discriminatory. The argument that the triple talaq is discriminatory does not hold good, he said.

Sibal termed as unacceptable the submissions of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that if triple talaq is struck down then Centre will bring a law to regulate marriage and divorce among Muslims.

To this, the bench, in a lighter vein, said, We have been asking him (AG) to pass the law, so that we do not have to go into this. Now you should go and tell him.

If triple talaq is struck down and Parliament refuses to pass a law, then what will happen. Will there be now law for marriage and divorce of Muslim men and women, Sibal asked. Sibal said if Parliament wishes to bring a law it can enact with regard to an activity which is secular and reformatory.

Unlike the Hindu law, the marriage in Muslim law is purely a civil matter. It is a contract between two consenting adults and so is divorce. It is an essential tenet of Islam. There is no question of religion being in danger, he said.

He said the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, was brought with an intention to ensure that unlike Hindu women, their Muslim counterparts get property rights and it did not codify the Shariat law.

Sibal said Section 2 of the Act talked about custom and usage but did not deal with Shariat and hence, triple talaq is protected under Article 25 (right to religion) of Constitution.

The bench countered Sibal on this and said what was sought to be excluded in the Act was custom and usage and what was crystallised was the personal law.

The apex court said then it was meant that Shariat should be treated as personal law and the community will look into it whether it needed to be reformed.

Why will the court decide what is my faith? We are protected under the Constitution. It is my personal law. In a Hindu majority state, Muslim minority needs to be protected.

In a Muslim majority state, Hindu minority needs to be protected. We need to protect the culture, faith and religion, Sibal said.

He said in the Indian context, personal laws needed constitutional protection to prevent social and economic repercussions.

During the day when the bench asked whether triple talaq was part of holy Quran, Sibal said, Quran does not talk of it. Immediately after a few years of the death of Prophet Muhammad, the companions of Prophet Muhammad talked about triple talaq. It is my belief and I practice it. Today, the Supreme Court says that it will examine it.

Then the bench asked Sibal whether he wanted to say that practice or belief with regard to triple talaq was a subject matter of Article 25 (right to practice religion), he replied in affirmative.

We cannot go into rights and wrongs because my faith does not allow this, Sibal said.

Drawing analogy with the customary ritual of saptapadi among the Hindus in marriages, Sibal said nobody can say that it was wrong or right and hence the matter of faith be left as it was.

Sibal said billions of words have been written on the debate over validity of triple talaq and it would be hazardous to interpret them within six days by the apex court.

Referring to the different practices of Islam followed at various places, he said in Saudi Arabia, even the house of the Prophet was demolished and here dargahs are protected.

He said the problem was the patriarchal system where women do not get fair treatment and it was true for every religion.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising, opposing triple talaq, responded by saying patriarchy is coming from religion only.

The bench said two other forms of divorce have some safeguards but whether triple talaq had such safeguards?

Our understanding is that nikahnama (marriage contract) can exclude the provision of triple talaq, it said and asked can the other two forms of divorce (talaq hasan and talaq ahsan) be also excluded in nikahnama. Sibal replied that this cannot be done.

Another counsel appearing in the case said triple talaq was the most undesirable form of granting divorce and we are trying to educate people not to resort to it.

Sibal supplemented by saying We do not want somebody else to change it and added that a majority of Muslim scholars believe that triple talaq is bad.

At the fag-end of fourth days hearing, former Union Minister and Islamic scholar Arif Mohammad Khan, representing All India Women Muslim Personal Law Board, objected to the grant of an entire day to the AIMPLB to advance its arguments in support of triple talaq while the womens group was given just half-an-hour.

Khan, who had quit Rajiv Gandhis cabinet over differences in handling the Shah Bano case, said he wanted the opportunity to rebut arguments as more confusion has been created.

On Monday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

The apex court is hearing a clutch of pleas challenging triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.

IMAGE: Muslim women pray at a Hanuman Temple for the end of triple talaq system in Varanasi. Photograph: PTI Photo


China on Tuesday took strong exception to Indias stand on its Belt and Road initiative and asked New Delhi to explain what kind of meaningful dialogue it wants with Beijing on the multibillion-dollar venture.

Over the past four years since the project was initiated we have been holding the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits for the Belt and Road initiative, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, reacting to Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Gopal Bagleys remarks that China should hold a meaningful dialogue on the concerns over the One Belt One Road project.

I do not know what the spokesperson (of MEA was) trying to say. What kind of dialogue is a meaningful dialogue? What kind of a positive attitude the spokesman wants China to have? Hua said when asked for her reaction to Bagleys remarks a day before the two-day Belt and Road Forum.

India boycotted the Belt and Road Forum held from May 14-15. The meeting was attended by 29 world leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the $50 billion (Rs 3.25 lakh crore) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A day before the Summit, Baglay had said in New Delhi that, Guided by our principled position in the matter, we have been urging China to engage in a meaningful dialogue on its connectivity initiative, One Belt, One Road, which was later renamed as Belt and Road Initiative. We are awaiting a positive response from the Chinese side.

Hua, while responding to Baglay's remarks, said, I think our ideas and actions are there for all to see. You can see the response of the international community towards this forum.

Our attitude is always clear. We always want India to participate in the Belt and Road initiative. If they have the answer, they can give the answer to me, either in a public or private? she said.

Hua said China always followed the principle of extensive consultation with other countries on the project over which India has sovereignty concerns.

We always say the Belt and Road initiative is an open and inclusive one. We always follow the principle of extensive consultation, contribution and shared benefit, she said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinpings remarks at the Summit that benefits from the venture should be shared by all.

Skirting any references to Indias absence at the meeting, Xi had said, All countries should respect each others sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each others development paths and social systems, and each others cores interests and major concerns.

I think these initiatives by China have already made a clear response to the Indian side, Hua said.

Hua asserted that China has already made its position clear on the Kashmir issue over which the Indian side is concerned.

The Belt and Road initiative is for regional peace and prosperity. CPEC is not about the conflict with various sides and will not affect Chinas position on the Kashmir issue. It is an open initiative and welcomes various parties, Hua said.

So, China always holds the open and inclusive attitude and we want to see the participation of more parties and to bring more impetus to the region and to the world and prosperity to development to more and more countries, she said.

So, China welcomes the participation of India into the belt Belt and Road initiative, she said.

Facts about the initiative have shown that the Belt and Road project responded to the trend of times and is in line with the common interests of the people, Hua said, reiterating Chinas stand.

It (Belt and Road) has bright future for development, she said, adding that the venture received a very warm response from the international community.

About the BRF which concluded yesterday, Hua said it built consensus, pointed direction for international cooperation, chartered course and identified action plans

It was a successful, productive and fruitful event, she said.

IMAGE: Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a toast during the welcoming banquet for the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Freedom in the World 2017 - Thailand

Publisher Freedom House Publication Date 16 May 2017 Cite as Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2017 - Thailand, 16 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591ab817f.html [accessed 10 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.

Freedom Status: Not Free

Aggregate Score: 32/100 (0 = Least Free, 100 = Most Free)

Freedom Rating: 5.5/7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Political Rights: 6/7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Civil Liberties: 5/7 (1 = Most Free, 7 = Least Free)

Quick Facts

Population: 65,300,000

Capital: Bangkok

GDP/capita: $5,815

Press Freedom Status: Not Free

Net Freedom Status: Not Free

OVERVIEW

Thailand is ruled by a military junta that launched a coup in 2014, claiming that it would put an end to a political crisis that had gripped the country for almost a decade. As the military government goes about remaking the political system, it has exercised unchecked powers granted through an article of the interim constitution to impose extensive restrictions on civil and political rights, and to suppress dissent.

Key Developments

In August, voters approved a referendum on a draft constitution that would weaken political parties, strengthen unelected bodies, and entrench the military's presence in politics.

Authorities placed severe restrictions on free expression ahead of the vote, including through the 2016 Referendum Act, which criminalized the expression of opinions "inconsistent with the truth." Over 100 people were arrested for offenses related to the referendum.

In September, the government issued an order that halted the practice of trying civilians accused of national security, lese-majeste, and certain other crimes in military courts. However, the order is not retroactive and does not cover cases that had already entered the military court system.

Following the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October, the military government intensified restrictions on speech deemed offensive to the monarchy as it worked to manage the period of transition.

Executive Summary

The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the military junta that seized power in a 2014 coup, continued to impose extensive restrictions on political rights and civil liberties in 2016, including through the use of an article of the interim constitution that gives the head of the NCPO unchecked powers. Activists who express opposition to the government are monitored, summoned, arrested, and detained on accusations of breaking a raft of laws that limit freedom of expression and assembly.

While the NCPO's road map for a return to civilian rule has shifted several times since 2014, a draft constitution was released in March 2016, and 61 percent of voters approved the draft in a national referendum held in August. The new charter aims to weaken political parties and elected representatives, strengthen unelected councils and bureaucrats, and entrench the military's presence in politics. The draft was developed without meaningful citizen input, and public discussions and debates to promote awareness and understanding of its content were not permitted. The 2016 Referendum Act banned campaigning on the charter or expressing opinions that were "inconsistent with the truth;" violations carried penalties of up to 10 years in jail. When students and other civil society activists tried to distribute flyers about the charter or advocate for voting against it, they were arrested; when academics tried to hold seminars to analyze its contents, security officials forced them to cancel the events.

The death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October ended a 70-year reign. His son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, in December accepted the invitation of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to succeed his late father. The junta intensified restrictions on speech deemed offensive to the monarchy as it worked to manage the period of transition.

In September, the government issued an order that halted the practice of trying civilians accused of national security and lese-majeste crimes, and of violating NCPO orders, in military courts. However, the order is not retroactive and does not cover cases that already entered the military court system.

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

Political Rights: 7 / 40

A. Electoral Process: 1 / 12

A1. Is the head of government or other chief national authority elected through free and fair elections?

A2. Are the national legislative representatives elected through free and fair elections?

A3. Are the electoral laws and framework fair?

Under the 2007 constitution that was drafted after the 2006 military coup, Thailand was governed through a bicameral parliamentary system. In late 2013, amid mass antigovernment protests, elections were called in an attempt to end a persistent deadlock between Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheua Thai Party (PTP) and the opposition Democrat Party (DP) and People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC). Elections were held in early 2014, but protests disrupted the voting process in some constituencies, eventually prompting the Constitutional Court to call new national elections. Before the polls could take place, the Constitutional Court found Yingluck and nine cabinet members guilty of abuse of power for 2011 personnel changes that granted the post of national police chief to a relative of Yingluck's; she subsequently complied with the court's order to step down as caretaker prime minister. A military coup in May 2014 forestalled further electoral plans.

General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army chief at the time of the coup, became both head of the NCPO and prime minister. An interim constitution promulgated by the NCPO in July 2014 created a 220-seat National Legislative Assembly (NLA)  which formally installed the prime minister and cabinet  and the 250-member National Reform Council (NRC). The NRC was designed to provide the leadership with recommendations for reform of all aspects of governance and the political process. Both the NRC and the NLA were comprised of members appointed by the NCPO, and were dominated by current and former military officers and individuals who had opposed the Yingluck government. However, the NRC was dissolved following its rejection of a draft constitution in September 2015. A National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) was then convened to replace it. The new body consisted of 200 members appointed by the head of the NCPO, and included academics, representatives of political parties, former members of the NRC, and a significant number of military and police members.

The effort to draft a new permanent constitution was a major component of the military's road map back to electoral democracy. Following the NRC's rejection of the first draft constitution, the military government in late 2015 appointed a new Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC) tasked with producing another draft. The draft was developed without public comment and unveiled in March 2016, and then voted on in an August referendum.

While voting day proceeded peacefully, the period leading up to the referendum was marked by the suppression of dissent. The NLA passed the Referendum Act, which prohibited the expression of opinions and distribution of information about the charter that was "inconsistent with the truth," and which carried a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Authorities banned public seminars and debates on the contents of the draft constitution, and arrested those who campaigned against the charter or disseminated leaflets and booklets on the draft. Using a combination of the Referendum Act, limits on political gatherings, a 2015 law on public assemblies, and restrictions on media, authorities made over 100 arrests related to the referendum. While one regional Asian monitoring network was allowed to perform random polling station checks on election day, local civil society organizations were prohibited from conducting monitoring of the referendum process.

The turnout for the referendum was low, at roughly 55 percent of eligible voters; about 61 percent of them voted to approve the charter, paving the way, according to the junta's timeline, for elections to be held in late 2017 after the development of various organic laws.

The charter contained features that critics across the spectrum of Thailand's political factions claimed would weaken political parties and elected officials while strengthening unelected institutions. In the mixed-member apportionment system introduced in the charter, there will be 350 constituency seats and 150 party-list seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, with lawmakers serving four-year terms. Citizens will cast only one vote, rather than two distinct votes, which counts for a candidate as well as for that candidate's party for the party list seats. Experts anticipate that without separate votes for each type of seat, parties will have difficulty gaining a majority, which could lead to unstable coalition governments.

All 250 seats in the Senate, or upper house, will be appointed for the first five-year term by the junta and include six seats reserved for senior military officials. Subsequent Senates will be appointed by a selection committee whose members will be drawn from various professional groups. Unelected bodies, such as the Constitutional Court, will be strengthened to check elected governments.

The government also inserted a second question into the referendum ballot related to whether the Senate could join the lower house in appointing a prime minister; the question was approved by 58 percent of voters.

B. Political Pluralism and Participation: 3 / 16

B1. Do the people have the right to organize in different political parties or other competitive political groupings of their choice, and is the system open to the rise and fall of these competing parties or groupings?

B2. Is there a significant opposition vote and a realistic opportunity for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections?

B3. Are the people's political choices free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?

B4. Do cultural, ethnic, religious, or other minority groups have full political rights and electoral opportunities?

Since Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother, and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party came to power in 2001, there have been two main political factions in Thailand's system: the DP, which is today associated with traditional elites, and the TRT and its successors (the People's Power Party and the PTP). The latter have won every election since 2001. While the actions of the NCPO have favored the interests of the DP's core supporters, leaders of both the DP and the PTP have been kept on the sidelines of the political process since the 2014 coup.

Following the coup, political parties continued to be regulated under a 2007 law. However, the NCPO enacted measures banning the formation of new political parties and prohibiting existing parties from meeting or conducting political activities, including any party-wide deliberations on the constitutional drafting process. State funding for political parties was also suspended. Following the completion of the final draft of the constitution, the CDC and Election Commission have been tasked with drafting organic laws, including one governing political parties, which are scheduled to be completed in 2017.

The sweeping scope of the military government's powers, facilitated by Article 44 of the interim constitution, continued to undermine citizens' ability to participate in the political process. Orders issued under Article 44 not only imposed restrictions on expression and assembly, but also granted the head of the NCPO absolute power beyond legislative or judicial oversight. In 2016, the NCPO used this article to remove government officials from office and fast-track various policies without public input.

The constitution approved in 2016 will institutionalize the military's influence in political processes, both through its presence in the upper house of parliament as well as through its connections with allies placed in ostensibly independent agencies tasked with checking the powers of elected government.

Members of Thailand's ethnic and religious minority groups are poorly represented in national politics.

C. Functioning of Government: 3 / 12

C1. Do the freely elected head of government and national legislative representatives determine the policies of the government?

C2. Is the government free from pervasive corruption?

C3. Is the government accountable to the electorate between elections, and does it operate with openness and transparency?

The NLA, which serves in place of an elected parliament, continued in 2016 to consider draft legislation and pass laws that were criticized for infringing on citizens' rights and for lacking public input. Additional military officials were appointed to the NLA in October, reportedly amid public concern about the new members' lack of legislative qualifications.

Corruption is widespread at all levels of Thai society. The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) receives a high number of complaints each year. The NLA passed bills to establish a special court, which opened in October, to handle corruption cases in response to the backlog confronted by the NACC and the Public Anti-Corruption Commission.

A criminal negligence case that was lodged in 2015 against former prime minister Yingluck in connection with a rice-subsidy scheme was still ongoing at year's end. However, the government issued an administrative order in October imposing on her a $1 billion fine for her role in the scheme, even before the case has been concluded.

In 2016, the NCPO had to address allegations of nepotism and cronyism against one of its members, General Preecha Chan-ocha, who is the brother of the head of the NCPO and had served as permanent secretary of the ministry of defense. Media reports in September revealed that a company owned by general's son was awarded military construction contracts by the army division where his father once held a post. General Preecha and other military officials denied that any improprieties had taken place, and the issue faded from public attention.

Civil Liberties 25 / 60

D. Freedom of Expression and Belief: 6 / 16

D1. Are there free and independent media and other forms of cultural expression?

D2. Are religious institutions and communities free to practice their faith and express themselves in public and private?

D3. Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free of extensive political indoctrination?

D4. Is there open and free private discussion?

Since taking power in 2014, the NCPO has systematically used censorship, intimidation, and legal action to suppress freedom of speech. Journalists and media outlets risk penalties for violating an NCPO ban on material that "maliciously" criticizes the government or is deemed divisive. Outlets face suspension and revocation of their operating licenses. In July 2016, the government invoked Article 44 to give legal immunity to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) when it imposes regulatory actions on television and radio outlets deemed to have violated national security. A proposed media regulation bill also provoked concern among Thai media associations, and six such groups in December 2016 submitted an open letter to the media reform committee saying the bill would permit interference by politicians in media outlets' operations.

Defamation is a criminal offense, and charges are often used by politicians and companies to silence opponents, critics, and activists. Frequently paired with accusations of defamation and other offenses are charges under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act (CCA), which assigns significant prison terms for the online publication of false information deemed to endanger the public or national security, and allows the government to review the data of individual web users for a select number of preceding days. The CCA has been invoked against whistle-blowers and government critics. In a high-profile case, a British human rights activist was found guilty in September 2016 of defamation and of violating the CCA in connection with 2013 allegations that a Thai fruit wholesale company had committed labor rights violations. Additionally, three human rights advocates were accused by the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) in June of defamation and CCA violations for their report chronicling allegations that ISOC counterinsurgency agents had tortured people during operations in the southern part of the country in 2014 and 2015.

In December, the NLA passed amendments to the CCA that will intensify existing constraints on internet freedom. Ambiguous language related to the type of information that could be deemed "false" or "distorted" grants authorities considerable discretion in judging whether an individual violates the law, making it vulnerable to abuse. Another component that provoked concern is the establishment of a computer data screening committee empowered to request court orders to delete content that is not illegal, but which it determines is contrary to public morals. Internet service providers will also continue to face punishment for objectionable content if they do not take action to follow government requests to remove offending information. The authorities continue to block sites that are critical of the government or deemed insulting to the monarchy.

The number of lese-majeste cases, covered under Article 112 of the criminal code, has sharply increased under the NCPO. Cases have been used to target activists, scholars, students, journalists, and politicians, and accusations have also been lodged by citizens against one another. In addition to authorities' monitoring of social media sites for such violations, this type of social surveillance has also been undertaken by citizens who, either with the backing of the government or on their own initiative, scan online postings and report them to authorities. In a 2016 case demonstrating the scope of what can be considered a lese-majeste case, a student activist's mother was accused in May of committing such an offence by acknowledging a private Facebook message that contained an alleged lese-majeste violation. Authorities maintained that by replying with a single word, which Human Rights Watch characterized as a "non-committal, colloquial 'yes' in the Thai language," she had failed to reject the comment.

During the sensitive period after King Bhumibol's death in October 2016, the NCPO signaled that it would intensify restrictions on speech it deemed offensive to the monarchy. Within the first week after his death was announced, 12 cases of violations of Article 112 had already been reported to authorities. The NBTC asked internet service providers to monitor social media activity and block "inappropriate" content related to the monarchy. The companies' failure to do so would be considered a crime. The internet service providers were also requested to issue instructions to their users on how to report violations found on messaging applications and platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. During the mourning period, there were a number of reports of citizens verbally and physically attacking individuals accused of insulting the monarchy before police extracted the targets from the assaults and charged them with lese-majeste violations. While the NCPO said it does not condone such attacks and encouraged the public to use legal reporting processes, the minister of justice was quoted as saying that this type of "social sanction" was useful in addressing lese-majeste offenses. In December, a student activist became the first person to be charged under the reign of the new king for posting on Facebook a link to a controversial profile of the new monarch and an excerpt of the article.

While the 2007 constitution explicitly prohibited discrimination based on religious belief, the current interim constitution only states in general terms that rights and freedoms will be protected in line with "existing international obligations." While there is no official state religion, speech considered insulting to Buddhism is prohibited by law. A long-running civil conflict in the south, which pits ethnic Malay Muslims against ethnic Thai Buddhists, continues to undermine citizens' ability to practice their religions. Nevertheless, religious freedom in the majority of the country is generally respected, religious organizations operate freely, and there is no systemic or institutional discrimination based on religion. When concerns emerged over potential bias towards Buddhism in an article in the newly approved constitution, which stated that the government would promote and protect Theravada Buddhism, the head of the NCPO attempted to allay concerns by using his powers under Article 44 to issue an order clarifying that the state would protect all religions.

Academic freedom is constrained under the NCPO. University discussions and seminars on topics regarded as politically sensitive are subject to monitoring or outright cancelation by government authorities, who also require organizers to request permission to hold such events. Academics working on sensitive topics are subjected to oppressive tactics including summonses for questioning, home visits by security officials, and surveillance of their activities.

E. Associational and Organizational Rights: 4 / 12

E1. Is there freedom of assembly, demonstration, and open public discussion?

E2. Is there freedom for nongovernmental organizations?

E3. Are there free trade unions and peasant organizations or equivalents, and is there effective collective bargaining? Are there free professional and other private organizations?

Prohibitions on political gatherings of five or more people continued to be enforced in 2016, and those who engaged in symbolic actions advocating for democracy and human rights and protests against military rule faced a spectrum of consequences, including being warned, fined, arrested, or charged with violating NCPO orders.

A public assembly law approved in 2015 requires protest organizers to notify the police 24 hours in advance of the event, and sets limits on where demonstrations can take place. Authorities cited the law throughout 2016 to disperse labor union rallies and various gatherings by activists.

Thailand has a vibrant civil society, but groups focused on defending human rights or freedom of expression faced restrictions. The NCPO often insisted that such activities break laws concerning political gatherings, or create "public disturbances." When activities were allowed to move forward, authorities cautioned organizers against opposing NCPO policies ahead of time and heavily monitored the events. In 2016, restrictions contained within the Referendum Act and NCPO orders on political gatherings were invoked as reasons for canceling a number of seminars and public discussions on the draft constitution organized by universities and other civil society groups. In one notable case, authorities not only arrested the organizers of a public discussion on the charter, but also three people who identified themselves as only observers of the activity; two of them were human rights documentation officers from the legal assistance group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

Thai trade unions are independent and have the right to collectively bargain. However, civil servants and Thailand's numerous temporary workers do not have the right to form unions, and less than 2 percent of the total workforce is unionized. Antiunion discrimination in the private sector is common, and legal protections for union members are weak and poorly enforced.

F. Rule of Law: 5 / 16

F1. Is there an independent judiciary?

F2. Does the rule of law prevail in civil and criminal matters? Are police under direct civilian control?

F3. Is there protection from political terror, unjustified imprisonment, exile, or torture, whether by groups that support or oppose the system? Is there freedom from war and insurgencies?

F4. Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population?

Although the interim constitution grants independence to the judiciary, the military courts' jurisdiction over certain types of civilian cases, including those related to lese-majeste and national security offenses, effectively compromises judicial independence. Military court cases initiated during the martial-law period starting in May 2014 feature no right to appeal, but convictions in cases tried after the revocation of martial law in April 2015 can be appealed. NCPO orders issued in 2015 under Article 44 of the interim constitution allow the detention of individuals without charge for up to seven days. The orders also expanded the authority of military officers in the area of law enforcement, permitting them to arrest, detain, and investigate crimes related to the monarchy and national security.

In September 2016, the government issued an order that halted the practice of trying civilians accused of national security and lese-majeste crimes and of violating NCPO orders in military courts. However, the NCPO order is not retroactive and does not cover over 1,000 cases that have already entered the military court system. Furthermore, human rights activists contend that this move should not obscure the fact that laws criminalizing dissent, allowing arbitrary arrests, and broadening policing powers of the military remain in place.

A combination of martial law and emergency rule has been in effect for over a decade in the four southernmost provinces, where Malay Muslims form a majority and a separatist insurgency has been ongoing since the 1940s. Civilians are regularly targeted in shootings, bombings, and arson attacks, and insurgents have focused on schools and teachers as symbols of the Thai state. Counterinsurgency operations have involved the indiscriminate detention of thousands of suspected militants and sympathizers, and there are long-standing and credible reports of torture and other human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, by both government forces and insurgents. The police and military often operate with impunity. Peace negotiations between the government and the dominant southern militant group, the National Revolutionary Front (BRN), were suspended in 2013. Although the NCPO had engaged in several rounds of informal talks in 2015 with the Mara Patani Consultative Council, a coalition of six armed groups, the official dialogue process stalled in 2016.

Other regions of the country have generally been free from terrorism or insurgencies. However, in August 2016, a series of bombings occurred across multiple provinces in the southern part of the country. The coordinated attacks differed from other attacks in that they took place in tourist cities considered to be outside the theater of conflict. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but security analysts noted that they shared characteristics with those conducted by southern insurgent groups. Authorities have been reluctant to confirm a connection to the insurgency.

In Thailand's north, so-called hill tribes are not fully integrated into society. Many lack formal citizenship, which renders them ineligible to vote, own land, attend state schools, or receive protection under labor laws.

Thailand is known for its tolerance of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community, though societal acceptance is higher for tourists and expatriates than for nationals, and unequal treatment and stigmatization remain challenges.

Thailand has not ratified the UN convention on refugees, who risk detention as unauthorized migrants and often lack access to asylum procedures.

G. Personal Autonomy and Individual Rights: 10 / 16

G1. Do individuals enjoy freedom of travel or choice of residence, employment, or institution of higher education?

G2. Do individuals have the right to own property and establish private businesses? Is private business activity unduly influenced by government officials, the security forces, political parties/organizations, or organized crime?

G3. Are there personal social freedoms, including gender equality, choice of marriage partners, and size of family?

G4. Is there equality of opportunity and the absence of economic exploitation?

Except in areas affected by civil conflict, citizens have freedom of travel and choice of residence. Citizens also have freedom of employment and higher education. The rights to property and to establish businesses are protected by law, though in practice business activity is affected by some bureaucratic delays, and at times by the influence of security forces and organized crime.

While women have the same legal rights as men, they remain subject to economic discrimination in practice, and are vulnerable to domestic abuse, rape, and sex trafficking. Sex tourism has been a key part of the economy in some urban and resort areas.

Exploitation and trafficking of migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are serious and ongoing problems, as are child and sweatshop labor. Porous borders and government indifference, if not outright collusion, have helped to fuel migrant smuggling networks.

Scoring Key: X / Y (Z)

X = Score Received

Y = Best Possible Score

Z = Change from Previous Year

Copyright notice:  Freedom House, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
As South Sudan crisis deepens, more funds needed for refugees

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Author Alex Court Publication Date 15 May 2017 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), As South Sudan crisis deepens, more funds needed for refugees, 15 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591ae5e14.html [accessed 10 November 2022]

As fighting and hunger drive ever-greater numbers of desperate refugees to flee South Sudan, UNHCR and its partners are today calling on donors to step up funding to provide life-saving aid.

The UN Refugee Agency, the World Food Programme and 57 other humanitarian agencies are seeking more than US$1.4 billion to provide food, shelter and other vital support to more than 1.8 million South Sudanese refugees through the end of 2017.

Each day 2,800 men, women and children are fleeing worsening violence and looming famine, with many arriving in surrounding countries pinched by hunger with nothing but the clothes of their back, haunted by horrific experiences.

"Besides being the largest refugee crisis in Africa ... South Sudan is one of the greatest tragedies of our time."

"Besides being the largest refugee crisis in Africa  South Sudan is one of the greatest tragedies of our time," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told a donor conference in Geneva at which the appeal was launched on Monday (May 15).

South Sudan is the world's fastest growing refugee crisis. Among those seeking safety in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) are around one million children.

Grandi said refugees were reaching neighbouring countries with numerous "bad stories" cataloguing "a very long list of evils" including extortion, forced recruitment, rape and killings.

UNHCR and WFP urge donors to step up support for refugees fleeing South Sudan

A previous joint humanitarian appeal for South Sudanese refugees sought US$ 1.2 billion, but was only 14 per cent funded. Since it was made, the situation in South Sudan has continued to deteriorate.

"We cannot do a lot of the things we need to do in terms of basic relief and addressing some of the worst consequences of the incredible violence that prevails in South Sudan," Grandi said in a subsequent interview.

In addition, refugees' "trauma also needs to be addressed, but to do all this resources are needed."

The current rate at which people are fleeing South Sudan exceeds the humanitarian community's already pessimistic estimates. For example, the number of people who sought refuge in Sudan in March surpassed the expected figure for the entire year.

Uganda, meanwhile, is also seeing higher-than-expected numbers of arrivals and, at the current rate of displacement, is soon tipped to host over one million South Sudanese refugees. Many of those arriving say they have taken dangerous journeys on foot, often without food or water.

"If we get the funding we need we can stave off the danger of famine spreading."

"If we get the funding we need we can stave off the danger of famine spreading," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. "We urgently require additional resources to save lives and pull the country back from the brink."

UNHCR coordinates the overall response with governments, humanitarian agencies as well as with refugees and host communities. Currently Uganda hosts some 898,000 refugees, with 375,000 in Sudan, 375,000 in Ethiopia, 97,000 in Kenya, 76,000 in DRC and 2,200 in CAR.

WFP provides food and cash assistance to more than 1.8 million refugees in the neighbouring countries.

The updated response plan does not cover humanitarian needs of around two million people displaced internally in South Sudan.
Brazil: Gruesome history of police rape and killings exposed by Inter-American Court conviction

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 May 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Brazil: Gruesome history of police rape and killings exposed by Inter-American Court conviction, 15 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591aed224.html [accessed 10 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 damning ruling issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights exposes a gruesome history of rapes and killings by police in Rio de Janeiro; particularly of young, black and poor individuals, Amnesty International said today.

The two organizations that filed the case at the court, The Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) and The Institute for Religion Studies will hold a press conference this afternoon in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

"This judgement shines a long overdue light on the appalling human rights violations perpetrated by Rio's police force against young, poor, black individuals who were unarmed," says Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil.

"Crucially, it also reaffirms the responsibility of the Brazilian authorities to investigate these crimes and ensure justice for the victims - who are among the most marginalized people in the country.

"It's been 20 years since the Nova Brasilia massacres and so far no one has been held responsible for the homicides or the sexual violence perpetrated. This impunity fuels the rampant police violence that we are still witnessing on Rio's streets today."

On 12 May the Inter-American Court of Human Rights indicted Brazil for failing to ensure justice for victims of the "Nova Brasilia" massacres more than 20 years ago.

A total of 26 people were killed and three women - two of whom were children at the time - were raped by police officers during two incidents in October 1994 and May 1995 at the Complexo do Alemao favela, in Rio de Janeiro.

The Court ruled that the investigations into both massacres should be re-opened and the victims and their families adequately compensated and protected.

Police violence continues unabated

The Inter-American Court also ruled that Brazil must publish an annual report with data on deaths resulting from police intervention across the country and establish goals and policies for reducing violence and police killings in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2015 the security forces were responsible for at least nine deaths per day, according to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security - although official, these figures are known to be underreported. In Rio de Janeiro alone, deaths from police intervention increased from 416 in 2013 to 920 in 2016. In 2017, the numbers continue to rise. Amnesty International documented a series of extrajudicial executions by the police in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the report "You killed my son".

"While the "Nova Brasilia" massacres occurred more than 20 years ago, police violence is still a reality in favelas and marginalized areas of Brazil. We hope this judgement will go some way towards stemming the horrific violence that seems to have become embedded in Brazil's police operations" said Jurema Werneck.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
Slave labour? Death rate doubles for migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Publisher IRIN Author Alice Su Publication Date 15 May 2017 Cite as IRIN, Slave labour? Death rate doubles for migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, 15 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591af0358.html [accessed 10 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 woman with a pink cloth wrapped around her head climbs out of a window on the fourth floor of a residential building. She peers at the ground far below, clutching onto the window ledge as voices in the background yell at her to come inside. Instead, she jumps, her scream lingering for four seconds before she hits the ground.

The video was broadcast on Lebanon's Al-Jadeed TV in March, with a voiceover explaining that the woman was an Ethiopian domestic worker in Khalde, an area south of Beirut.

According to statistics obtained by IRIN from General Security, Lebanon's intelligence agency, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are dying at a rate of two per week. Many of the deaths are suicides or botched escape attempts in which migrant women choose to jump off buildings rather than continue working in abusive and exploitative situations.

Human Rights Watch reported on the situation of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon in a 2008 report that put the death rate at one per week. Since then, heightened activism and advocacy on the issue seems to have had little impact. The bodies of 138 migrant domestic workers were repatriated between January 2016 and April this year.

Rights groups have been advocating for better protections of migrant workers in Lebanon for years and in 2014 domestic workers managed to found their own union  the first of its kind in the region. Yet little has changed. Women coming from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Kenya, and other developing countries are still bound by the kefala (sponsorship) system, which gives employers total control over their lives.

Beaten and sexually abused

Rahwa*, a 37-year-old from Eritrea, escaped after five years as a domestic worker for a wealthy family in Tripoli. She received no salary, no days off, and slept on the kitchen floor. She suffered beatings from her "madam" and sexual harassment from the woman's husband. "It was hell," said Rahwa, who was not allowed to contact her family in Eritrea. Now she's a registered refugee and is informally leading a migrant workers' church in Beirut. She told IRIN that many of the women who come to her church feel trapped by the conditions of live-in domestic work. "Many are going crazy. Even when they run away, they live in rooms with six or seven people stuck together. That makes you crazy too," Rahwa said.

The increase in migrant workers' deaths coincides with a decrease in public reporting and enquiry. The only NGO actively tallying migrant domestic workers' deaths is KAFA, a Lebanese women's rights group, which relies on local news reports to map cases. They have found only 10 to 12 cases a year on average since 2010, and hadn't detected the recent increase.

At a migrant community centre in Beirut, 37-year-old Ethiopian Rahel Zegeye, a volunteer with the pro-migrant rights Anti-Racism Movement, said that suicides are difficult to document because many women who die never left their employers' homes. Zegeye has tried to follow up on several suicide cases but said: "I don't have power to ask the government anything here." She swiped through photos of injured Ethiopian domestic workers on her phone: some unconscious and bruised, others pregnant, sick, or bleeding on the floor  all of them women, many of whom Zegeye said had since died.

A hidden crisis

Ethiopia has banned labour migration to the Middle East, but migrant women continue to arrive illegally from there every day. Unseen and unrecorded, they are locked into work situations that often end in abuse, imprisonment, deportation or even death.

"So many Ethiopians come here Why doesn't the Lebanese government stop them?" said Zegeye. "Our young generation is dying here."

KAFA communications coordinator Maya Ammar said her organisation had tried to gather more information about migrant deaths reported in the media from General Security, "but the file is closed after 24 hours, with no further investigation. We don't know the girl, her name, her family or how to reach them. We ask the Ethiopian embassy, and they don't cooperate much. No one is following up."

General Security declined to comment on the causes of death and the Ministry of Labour could not be reached for comment.

Halima Mohamed, Ethiopia's Consul General in Lebanon, refused to discuss details of deaths, saying there were only a few each year and that the embassy cannot pressure Lebanese authorities to investigate or prosecute. "If the girl dies, we are always looking for a report. But in a country where there is no rule of law or accountability, how do you trust [it]? You cannot verify anything," Mohamed told IRIN. "These girls are locked into homes for years. They are young ladies with no knowledge who cannot protect themselves."

Ineffective travel bans

Ethiopia's approach of banning citizens from going to work in Lebanon has been tried by Nepal, the Philippines, and Madagascar at different times, and yet the number of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon rose from just under 130,000 in 2014 to nearly 170,000 in 2016, according to the Ministry of Labour  and that is excluding those who arrive without formal work permits. "We banned sending working girls to all of the Middle East years ago, but unofficially, there is trafficking," Mohamed said. She explained that Ethiopians can easily come as tourists, or via third countries, and then obtain a work visa after arriving in Lebanon.

Zeina Mezher of the International Labor Organization said travel bans actually increase migrant workers' vulnerability. "We're not at all supportive of bans in countries of origin. They put migrants at more risk of exploitation and trafficking," she told IRIN.

Instead, ILO advocates for comprehensive bilateral agreements between origin and destination countries to regulate recruitment, migration, and working conditions. Such agreements "should have the migrants' rights at their heart", said Mezher.

No legal standing

Farah Salka, executive director of the Anti-Racism Movement, said the Lebanese government has little interest or capacity to change its migrant labour system. "There is nothing called law for migrant domestic workers here. It's not that there is bad law; there is no law," Salka explained.

A migrant worker from the Philippines participating in a march in Beirut organised by the Anti-Racism Movement

Domestic workers are excluded from Lebanon's labour law, which means they have no guarantees to a minimum wage, days off, or recourse in cases of withheld salaries, sexual, verbal or physical abuse. Instead, they have the kefala system, which stipulates that migrant workers must live with their employers, and cannot change workplaces without their employers' consent.

Workers often try seeking help from their agencies, only to be ignored or further exploited. After being beaten and locked inside by her employer, 22-year-old Kenyan Tenesia* asked her agency to help her. Instead, they confiscated her passport and sent her to work for other families without pay. "The agent told me to wait and work, and he will get money for my ticket to go home," Tenesia said. She worked another year and four months before getting in touch with the Kenyan embassy, which helped her escape to a women's shelter run by Caritas. She still doesn't have her passport or money for a flight home.

NGOs provide some assistance to migrant workers, but real changes to their conditions would require top-down policy change, which is not a priority for the Lebanese government according to Ammar of KAFA. "There's no intention at all to reconsider any of the kefala system. The government and public security are convinced that it protects the worker by controlling them," she commented. "There are lots of racist assumptions  that these women are weak and need to be kept with a family, for example."

Speaking up

The domestic workers' union was set up in late 2014 under the wings of the National Federation of Worker and Employee Trade Unions in Lebanon (FENASOL) with the aim of empowering domestic workers to protect and advocate for themselves, said Farah Abdallah, a FENASOL representative. But as migrants are not allowed to unionise under Lebanese law, the union's president is Lebanese and it has primarily provided migrant domestic workers only with access to Lebanese people who can speak up on their behalf.

"We report problems to FENASOL, and they talk to the employers," said 44-year-old Filipina Idan Tejano, president of the union's general assembly. She came to Lebanon in 2012 as a migrant worker, but left her employer after six months because she wasn't receiving her salary or any days off. Under the kefala system, she is now considered an illegal runaway. "We don't have papers, so we cannot go to report our problems. If we tell the police that the employers did not give us salaries, they will arrest us," Tejano said.

Last December, Lebanese authorities deported Nepalese migrant domestic worker and activist Sujana Raja on International Human Rights Day, expelling another Nepalese migrant domestic worker, Roja Limbu, a few days later. Both had legal status and work visas, but were also known union members and community organisers, which Human Rights Watch suggested was the reason for their deportation.

Fear of arbitrary detention and deportation has limited migrant workers' ability to advocate for legal reforms and better working conditions. "No one wants to take risks in any kind of organising," Salka said. Most migrant domestic workers who are still with their employers can't leave the house, so those who can attend events like marches are mostly illegal "runaways", and thus at risk. "What if we have a candlelight vigil with 20 workers, then police show up and take them? What can we do for them?" Salka asked. "Nothing."

[TOP PHOTO: An Ethiopian migrant domestic worker holds a child during the annual Migrant Workers' March, held in Beirut every year on Workers' Day to advocate for better working conditions and accountability for migrant abuse and deaths. Credit: Anti-Racism Movement]

*Full names withheld for the source's own safety
Sixth journalist murdered this year: why doesn't Mexico protect its media?

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 16 May 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Sixth journalist murdered this year: why doesn't Mexico protect its media?, 16 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591af4cb4.html [accessed 10 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.

After yesterday's murder of a journalist in Sinaloa state and an armed attack on a group of seven reporters three days ago in Guerrero state, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sounds the alarm yet again and urges the Mexican authorities to reinforce protection for journalists and end impunity for crimes of violence against the media.

Javier Valdez Cardenas, 50, a well-known veteran journalist who specialized in covering drug trafficking, was gunned down in broad daylight yesterday in Culiacan, the capital of the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

He was the sixth journalist to be killed in Mexico this year (four of them in direct connection with their work). This makes Mexico the world's deadliest country for the media.

Valdez reported for the national daily La Jornada and the local weekly Rio Doce and had worked with Agence France-Presse for more than 10 years. He had also written several books, the latest of which, published last year, was entitled "Narcoperiodismo" (Narco-Journalism).

"We are appalled by this shocking murder and we urge the local and national authorities to identify and arrest those responsible without delay," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America desk.

"This spate of violent attacks has yet again highlighted the urgency of the plight of Mexico's journalists, especially those covering stories linked to drug trafficking and organized crime, who are systematically targeted. The Mexican government needs to realize the gravity of the situation and react appropriately by quickly reinforcing protection for journalists."

Seven reporters who were travelling together in two vehicles were attacked by around 100 masked gunmen near Acapetlahuaya, a small town in the southwestern state of Guerrero on 13 May.

The reporters, who work for La Jornada, Vice News, Hispano Post, Quadratin, Imagen TV and Bajo Palabra, were on their way back from covering a local police operation in San Miguel Totolapan against a criminal gang active in the area.

After forcing their vehicles to stop, the gunmen threatened to kill the reporters and then took all of their equipment before letting them continue on their way a few minutes later.

Mexico is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. In a report published in February, entitled "Veracruz: journalists and the state of fear," RSF proposed a series of recommendations to the federal and local authorities for ending the spiral of violence.
UN health agency deploying technical experts to site of Ebola outbreak in DR Congo

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 15 May 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN health agency deploying technical experts to site of Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, 15 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591afdd24.html [accessed 10 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 health agency is deploying technical experts to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) amid an outbreak of Ebola virus near its northern border with the Central Africa Republic, the agency's regional director for Africa confirmed.

Matshidiso Moeti visited the capital Kinshasa on Saturday to discuss with national authorities and partners ways to mount a rapid, effective and coherent response in order to stop the ongoing outbreak.

"I encourage to public to work with the health authorities and take the necessary preventive measures to protect their health," Dr. Moeti said.

He noted that the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has already mobilized teams, and is also ready to provide the technical expertise and leadership required to mount a coordinated and effective response.

The visit follows notification by the Government of an outbreak in the Likati health zone, in the north. At least three people have died, as of Saturday, and eight additional people are reported to have Ebola.

A Ministry of Health team, supported by the WHO, is scheduled to arrive in the epicenter of the outbreak today.

"The health zone is situated in the remote, isolated and hard-to-reach northern part of the country, with limited transport and communication networks - factors that all impeded transmission of information about the suspected outbreak," WHO said in a press release.

In the meantime, WHO is recommending that travel and trade are not restricted with the DRC, based on information currently available.

"The full extent of the 2017 outbreak is still not yet clear. Extensive investigation and risk assessments are being conducted and the findings will be communicated accordingly," the UN agency said.

The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) has been activated to provide additional support, if required. In addition, reinforcement of epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing, case management, and community engagement are under way.

This is the eighth outbreak of Ebola virus since it was discovered in the DRC in 1976.
South Sudan: UN, partners seek $1.4 billion for 'world's fastest growing refugee crisis'

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 15 May 2017 Cite as UN News Service, South Sudan: UN, partners seek $1.4 billion for 'world's fastest growing refugee crisis', 15 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591afe354.html [accessed 10 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 refugees and food relief agencies today urged donors to step up support for people fleeing crisis-hit South Sudan as the $1.4 billion response plan remains 86 per cent unfunded.

Bitter conflict and deteriorating humanitarian conditions in South Sudan are driving people from their homes in record numbers, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, in a news release jointly issued by his office (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The situation in South Sudan continues to worsen, with a combination of conflict, drought and famine leading to further displacement and a rapid exodus of people fleeing one of the world's most severe crises.

South Sudan has now become the world's fastest growing refugee crisis with more than 1.8 million refugees, including one million children, having sought safety in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, the news release said.

The suffering of the South Sudanese people is just unimaginable, said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. Aid workers often cannot reach the most vulnerable hungry people. Many are dying from hunger and disease, many more have fled their homeland for safety abroad.

Humanitarian agencies are seeking $1.4 billion to provide life-saving aid to South Sudanese refugees in the six neighbouring countries until the end of 2017, according to an updated response plan presented in Geneva today. But the plan so far remains only 14 per cent funded.

The current rate of people fleeing South Sudan exceeds the humanitarian community's already pessimistic estimates. For example, the number of people fleeing to Sudan in March surpassed the expected figure for the entire year. Uganda is also seeing higher than expected arrivals and at this rate is likely to soon host over one million South Sudanese refugees.

Our funding situation forced us to cut food rations for many refugees in Uganda," Mr. Beasley said.

With acute underfunding, humanitarian agencies are struggling to provide food, water, nutrition support, shelter and health services to refugees.

Communities hosting refugees are among the world's poorest and are under immense pressure.

Helping refugees is not just about providing emergency aid, said UNHCR's Grandi. It also means supporting governments and communities in neighbouring countries to shore up services and economies in the areas receiving them.
Spreading violence in Central African Republic sets off 'loud alarm bells'  UN human rights chief

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 16 May 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Spreading violence in Central African Republic sets off 'loud alarm bells'  UN human rights chief, 16 May 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b01a64.html [accessed 10 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 human rights chief today expressed grave alarm over the spread of violence by armed groups against the civilian population in several parts of the Central African Republic in recent months, as well as attacks against UN peacekeepers in the country's southeast.

Violence and rising tensions are spreading to areas of the Central African Republic that had previously been spared the kinds of terrifying violence seen in some other parts of the country  this is highly worrying and should set off loud alarm bells, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in a news release from his Office (OHCHR).

The hard-earned relative calm in Bangui and some of the bigger towns in CAR risks being eclipsed by the descent of some rural areas into increasing sectarian violence, with defenceless civilians  as usual  paying the highest price, he added.

The latest in a series of attacks was an incident this weekend in Bangassou, in which armed men used heavy weapons to attack the base of the UN mission in CAR, known by its French acronym MINUSCA. The armed men also attacked the Muslim neighbourhood of Tokoyo where numerous civilians were killed and others wounded.

Investigations by MINUSCA's Human Rights Division suggest that between March and May 2017 more than 121 civilians and six peacekeepers were killed, excluding figures in the two latest incidents.

Mr. Zeid also noted the fact that the Special Criminal Court is preparing to start its work is a strong signal by the authorities and the international community that the continued climate of impunity is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, the Security Council issued a statement to the press overnight, strongly condemning the violence by anti-Balaka elements in Bangassou on 13 and 14 May 2017 that targeted MINUSCA's field office, civilian populations from particular communities, as well as humanitarian personnel.

The 15-member body reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes and reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law.

The Council called on the Government to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Liberals and Extreme Nationalists Unite Once More in Russia

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Richard Arnold Publication Date 12 May 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 64 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Liberals and Extreme Nationalists Unite Once More in Russia, 12 May 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 64, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b029e4.html [accessed 10 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

May 6 saw a protest on Moscow's Sakharov Prospekt under the banner "against political repression." The march was unremarkable except for the fact that it indicated the apparent decisive reuniting of the liberal and extreme nationalist components of the opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The nationalists, long since depressed by the harassment of the authorities and their failure to develop a competent movement, were represented by the leaders Yuriy Gorski, Roman Kovalev, Dmitrii Stepanov, Valentin Alekseev and Dennis Romanov-Russkii (not his real name). These individuals were all followers of the far-right Dmitry Demushkin and carried a banner reading "freedom to Dmitry Demushkin," a reference to his house arrest on the grounds of posting xenophobic pictures on social media. In addition, they shouted "freedom to [Aleksander] Belov," another xenophobic far-right leader, who was imprisoned by the authorities on charges of embezzlement. Even more unusual: among the marchers were the blogger Vyacheslav Maltsev (number two on the PARNAS party list) and even the liberal Jewish civil activist Mark Galperin (Sova-center.ru, May 10). That a Jew was marching in support of those who have been accused in the past of anti-Semitism underscores the strange bedfellows that politics creates.

Cooperation between liberals and nationalist groups in Russia began with the 20112012 protests against fraudulent elections and Putin's return to the presidency. Yet, cooperation quickly broke down. The nationalist alliance "Russkii" itself split over the issue of whether to support the "Novorossiya" ("New Russia") project (whose aim was to wrest southeastern Ukrainian territory from Kyiv's control) or to welcome the Maidan revolution in Ukraine as a model to be carried to Moscow. The remaining Demushkin-Belov supporters saw potential backers in the liberal opposition. However, relations between far-right nationalists and the liberals were strained until May 29, 2016, when Maltseva blogger from Saratov who presents the show "Plokhie Novosti" ("Bad News") on the YouTube channel Artpodgotovka (Art Preparation)won the online primaries for PARNAS. Once the September 2016 Duma elections were over, which Maltsev ended up losing, some members of his electoral team (including the liberal Galperin) and Demushkin's followers Gurtsy and Beletsky began jointly organizing "Walks of the Opposition" ("Progulkii Oppositzi") demonstrations and called on other angry citizens to join them. The walks are carried out in a passive-aggressive manner, where people simply gather and walk without banners, slogans or chants, on account of the fact that the government has banned many protestseven when its participants applied for permits (Sova-center.ru, March 22). Thus, cooperation and civil disobedience continue in Russia, even under conditions of legal repression.

This goes some way toward explaining the coordination of street protests that occurred on March 26, 2017, which were supposedly organized solely online. The protests took nearly all observers by surprise and emerged seemingly in response to the publication of an online video outlining the extent of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's corruption (see EDM, March 27). The action on May 6 serves to underline the deeper organizational structure of the protest movement, as well as its potential for further activities. Indeed, as if to underscore this point, opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny has called for new protests in Russia on June 12, Russia Day. Navalny wrote, "Let us go into the streets, on June 12, with our old slogans and state flags. We have two months to prepare. We will attract even more cities, we will gather even more people." The head of the Moscow Department of Regional Security and Anti-Corruption declined to say whether permission for the rally had been granted, claiming that she did not yet have this information (RBC, April 12).

The identities of some of the above-cited opposition activists are interesting, particularly within the context of Russia's contentious politics. Some of these personalities may represent people to watch for, going forward. First, the Jewish liberal activist Mark Galperin was born on April 20 (ironically, Adolf Hitler's birthday), 1968, in an outlying city of Moscow Oblast. After serving in the army between 1986 and 1988, he went on to a career in marketing and telecommunications. Galperin joined the anti-Putin opposition in 2011, formally with the Russian organization "Solidarity" and the political party PARNAS. Over the past three years, Galperin has organized or participated in dozens of sanctioned and unsanctioned political protests and is currently involved in attempts to foment a democratic revolution. At the time of the protests in 2011, he was holding weekly pickets on central Moscow's Manezhnaya Square, in an attempt to regularize this practice, as well as conducting agitprop on the internet (77-journal.ru, April 2011). Second, the blogger Vyacheslav Maltsev was born in 1964, in the city of Saratov. He served in the Komsomol, the Soviet army, and went into employment with the Communist Party. Elected in 1994 to the Saratov regional Duma, he worked there until 2007, after being voted out of office. He tried running again for the same seat in 2012, under the banner of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but was unsuccessful. Since 2013, he has turned to online blogging and video production, including the show "Bad News" which counts down the days until the new regime (apparently due to start on November 5, 2017). A fan of conspiracy theories, Maltsev has railed against the "Jewish mafia in medicine" and the "Masonic plot" (Meduza.io, August 26, 2016). Russian opposition politics makes for strange bedfellows indeed.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Making Sense of the Turkish Air Strikes on Sinjar and Karachok

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Goktug Sonmez Publication Date 12 May 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 64 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Making Sense of the Turkish Air Strikes on Sinjar and Karachok, 12 May 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 64, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b03a64.html [accessed 10 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 April 25, the Turkish Air Force carried out strikes on the town of Sinjar (Iraqi Kurdistan) and on targets in the Karachok Mountains (northeastern Syria, between the towns of al-Hasakah and Qamishli) (Hurriyet, April 25). The airstrikes on Kurdish forces highlight Turkey's determined stance regarding the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its affiliates in and outside Turkish borders. Nevertheless, the move also illustrates the deep fractures within the United Statesled antiIslamic State (IS) coalition itself.

The choice of allies and partners on the ground and, in particular, the reliance on the Syrian-Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) has put the US-led anti-IS coalition in a direct clash with a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allyTurkey. Moreover, it has raised questions about the sustainability of the coalition and the bilateral ties between key coalition partners. Notably, the YPG's presence and role in the coming offensives against the IS explicitly contradicts Turkey's stance that any growing presence or further advancement of the PKK or its affiliates will not be tolerated. The Turkish government is specifically concerned that the weapons and military equipment provided to the YPG might be used in terrorist attacks inside Turkey because Ankara believes the "human resources" of the YPG, PKK, People's Defense Forces (HPG) as well as the Iranian-based Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) are quite interchangeable and mostly identical (Nato.int, 2016). Thus, the growing presence of these groups along the Turkish border and throughout northern Iraq and Syria is regarded as unacceptable.

Within this picture, Sinjar presents a major strategic hot spot. Turkish commentators have argued the town could become a second Qandil Mountain (NTV, January 5), referring to the famous mountain intensively used by the PKK as a training ground, headquarters, and a safe haven in northern Iraq. Of concern is not only the PKK's growing presence in Sinjar, but also in and around Kirkukan area of high Turkish interest for both strategic reasons and due to kinship ties. For Ankara, the PKK's Syrian offshoot YPG, which has advanced in northern Syria, poses a direct threat to Turkey's national security.

Forty PKK and YPG- affiliated terrorists died in Turkey's late-April bombing attacks on Sinjar, and 30 of them were killed in the attack on the Karachok Mountains (Sabah, April 25). In addition, five Peshmerga (armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan) fighters lost their lives as unintended losses (Rudaw, April 25). Following the attacks, Russia and the US took steps to avoid further such Turkish actions by showing their presence in Tel Abyad and Afrin, respectively. Photos and video footage came out of a US commander visiting the Syrian town of Derik, close to the Turkish border, and walking shoulder-to-shoulder with the PKK's Sahin Cilo (on Turkey's terrorist watch list) (The Guardian, May 1). Additionally, a video of US military vehicles seen during a funeral ceremony organized for the people killed in the Turkish airstrikes brought irritation in Ankara (YouTube, April 30). Moreover, the YPG threatened that unless the US takes a clear stance and stops further Turkish airstrikes (EKurd, April 29), its fighters would withdraw from the Raqqa offensive. Salih Muslim, who heads the YPG-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD), called for a no-fly zone over Rojava (Iraq Now, April 30).

In terms of Turkey's domestic dynamics, the timing of the aforementioned attacks seems cautiously calculated. Notably, they came just after the controversial referendum, in late April, in which the people voted to increase the president's constitutional powers. At that point, the ruling party seemed more confident in its position (reminiscent of the start of Operation Euphrates Shield, launched after the July 15 coup attempt) and rightly believed that such a move would generate public support even beyond its own voter base. The absence of any serious criticism within Turkey so far, including from the opposition parties, shows the degree of support the move gathered. Both the Euphrates Shield Operation and the recent airstrikes illustrate that, contrary to assertions that the coup attemptlinked arrests have undermined Turkey's counter-terrorism capabilities, in fact the government and the military are currently pursuing counter-terrorism goals much more effectively and in a more harmonized manner. As another domestic factor, both Euphrates Shield and the recent airstrikes closely followed intense and effective urban warfare campaigns against the PKK in Turkeyin Sur, Nusaybin and Cizre. Thus, in order to limit the PKK's ability to move some of its fighters, military equipment and financial resources across the border to neighboring countries, Turkey has strategically extended its fight beyond its borders.

Considering the strategic significance of Sinjarnot only as a possible future "second Qandil" but also as a highly important passage point between Iraq and Syria, enabling the free movement of PKK-YPG-affiliated fightersTurkey's aerial bombardments sent several messages. First, they underlined Ankara's uncompromising stance regarding the PKK and YPG's presence in Iraq and Syria. Second, it showed that Turkey did not evaluate the Euphrates Shield Operation as a finished project, since its YPG- and PKK-related goals are not fully achieved yet (see Terrorism Monitor, April 7). Third, it sent a signal to its anti-IS coalition partners that despite their strong support for the YPG, Turkey may still target this group if Ankara sees its national interests at stake. Following Turkey's move, the US and Russian deployments to the YPG-controlled northern Syrian cantons show that both the Washington-led coalition and Moscow acknowledge this possibility and the fact that only their physical presence might act as a deterrent.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Strategic Assessment: China's Northern Theater Command

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Peter Wood Publication Date 15 May 2017 Citation / Document Symbol China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 7 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Strategic Assessment: China's Northern Theater Command, 15 May 2017, China Brief Volume: 17 Issue: 7, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b04314.html [accessed 10 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.

At the end of April, China's Defense Ministry announced it would be conducting "live fire drills" near the border with North Korea (MOD, April 27). This followed weeks of rumors that the PLA was deploying in large numbers close to the Korean peninsula, which the MOD spokesperson subsequently denied (MOD, April 27). North Korean revelations of new missile types, several missile tests and histrionic response to U.S. deployment of THAAD missiles have all contributed to escalated tensions between China, the U.S. and both North and South Korea. Further emphasizing the gravity of the situation, U.S. President Donald Trump said that "we could end up in a major, major conflict" (Reuters, April 28). An examination of China's Northern Theater Command, its military organization responsible for Northeast Asia, provides insight into China's interests in this region, and particularly toward the Korean peninsula.

Guarding the Northern Gate

Each of China's Theater Commands (TC) is defined by its geography and the international borders it defends. China's Eastern Theater Command is largely focused on Taiwan. The Western TC protects China's borders with India and guards internal stability and counter-terrorism stemming from Central Asia. The Southern TC deals with the South China Sea, and the

Central TC protects Beijing and reinforces other theaters (for detailed analysis of each theater command see the following profiles in China Brief: Eastern TC, Southern TC, Western TC). The Northern Theater Command's (NTC) role is similarly driven by geography and China's relations with its neighbors.

The NTC covers five provinces: Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Shandong. Inner Mongolia is crescent shaped, and forms most of China's northern border with Mongolia. Heilongjiang forms the northeastern-most border with Russia, and is named after the Chinese name for the Amur River (lit. Black Dragon River; ) which separates the two countries. Jilin province forms a part of central Dongbei and the eastern half of the border with North Korea. Liaoning province curves around the Bohai gulf and touches both Hebei province (which surrounds Beijing and Tianjin) and the western half of the border with North Korea. Liaoning also includes strategic geography that connects Beijing with the rest of the northeast. This strategic geography has shaped historical events and even today dictates the deployment of some of China's military units.

In Liaoning Province, Jinzhou controls the entrance to the northeastern end of the Shanhai Pass, part of the Liaoxi Corridor (), which connects land transportation between North China and Northeast China. The other end is protected by Shanhaiguan (), a gate in the Great Wall wedged between the Khingan Mountains () to the north and the Bohai Gulf to the South.

The Ming Dynasty's defeat at Shanhaiguan in 1644 opened the path to Beijing and then into greater China, paving the way for a Qing victory. Nationalist and Communist forces fought over the same terrain during the Chinese Civil Warin particular during the Ping-Jin Campaign (), which ended with Communist control of Beijing and the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. Even today, PLA units are deployed to protect this strategic bottleneck.

To the southeast is the Yalu River, which forms the vital western half of the border between China and North Korea. It served as a tripwire for Chinese involvement in the Korean War (or "War to Resist America and Aid [North] Korea"; ). China's intervention in October 1950, as UN forces neared the Yalu River, changed the strategic landscape of Northeast Asia. Chinese forces, along with Soviet air cover, pushed the UN back, and after a long series of assaults and counter-assaults, concluded an armistice with both sides occupying a line roughly contiguous with the 38th parallel. As a result of the Armistice (not an end to the war), and North Korea's military threat, the U.S. keeps 28,500 troops (or personnel) stationed in South Korea. For China, North Korea's 1,300 km border is a major source of instability. The small, isolated country is a trafficker of methamphetamines, a source of political refugees, and origin of violence as members of the Korean army regularly cross into China to commit robberies or even murders (China Brief, January 9, 2015).

Further to the north, the Ussuri River () became the subject of tensions in the 1960s. Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated in the mi-1950s, eventually culminating in a brief conflict over Zhenbao Island (Damansky Island; ), which had the potential to spill into a broader conflict. Declassified threat assessments indicate that U.S. policymakers closely monitored the ramp-up of forces in the area before and in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. Chinese force disposition during this period was focused on counter-attacking after a Soviet incursion along multiple axesfrom the west from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a strike through Mongolia toward Beijing and a multi-pronged assault through northeast China. Reflecting a realistic view of its forces capabilities and China's "Lure the Enemy Deep" () and "Active Defense" () strategies, China's forces were arrayed well back from the border to take advantage of China's strategic depth. [1] According to a declassified National Intelligence Estimate from 1973:

Peking elected not to confront the Soviet forces directly along the border; instead the Chinese have been building fortified areas in good defensive terrain well back from the border, thus compensating in part for the greater mobility and firepower of the Soviet forces. [2]

China did not change its Strategic Guidelines () to reflect an improvement in relations with the Soviet Union until 1985. Interestingly, the concentration of forces further south, away from the border with Russia does not appear to have changed significantly since 1973. When China changed its military regions into Theater Commands at the end of 2015 it also changed the protocol order, moving the NTC from its predecessors' position as most important, to number 4, behind the Eastern, Southern, and Western TCs, indicating that the threat from Russia has receded, just as the importance of Taiwan, the South China Sea, and China's borders with Central Asia have increased. However, the economic importance of the area remains unchanged.

Economics

An additional element of Northeastern China's strategic importance is its rich economic resources. The region possesses great mineral wealth. The coal industry has a major presence here, and Daqing (), to the northwest of Harbin, is the site of China's largest oil field. Its discovery in the late 1950s helped jumpstart China's industrial economy (CNPC, [accessed May 4]). The region is also an important breadbasket (China Brief, June 1, 2016). Chinese farms run right up to the border with Russia, and Chinese investors have even purchased tracts of land within Russia, prompting Russian fears of a Chinese takeover (Moscow Times, April 14). Nevertheless, Chinese trade with Russia is rising, and in 2016 bilateral trade reached $65 billion, emphasizing the importance of border rail hubs like Suifenhe () (MOFCOM, January 16). The area is also vital to Chinese maritime trade, and the NTC includes or protects four of China's top ten largest ports, including Tianjin, Tangshan, Qingdao and Dalian (Global Times, August 20, 2015). As can be seen in the map below, the 140 million Chinese people living in Northeast China are densely situated in Central Dongbei and along the shore of the Bohai Gulf. Notably, the densest areas, concentrated around Changchun, Shenyang and Dalian, are all near North Korea, and would be affected by an outbreak of violence on the Korean Peninsula. The Korean Peninsula's west coast and the river crossing at Dandong, in particular, is the primary route for trade and would be the primary axis of advance in a crisis. The NTC is tasked with protecting this vital region and its composition and deployments reflect that task.

The NTC's Structure

While NTC units in Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin were all part of the former Shenyang Military Region (MR), units in Shandong province previously fell under the Jinan MR. Geographically split from other units in the NTC by the Bohai Gulf, Shandong's inclusion in the NTC makes strategic sense. Particularly in a scenario involving the Korean Peninsula, or a defensive scenario involving protection of the capital region, careful interservice coordination would be necessary. In several crisis scenarios on the Korean Peninsula, moving troops from Shandong via ships and air might be necessary. Air Defenses and aviation units creating a buffer zone between Beijing and the Yellow Sea would need to coordinate units on both peninsulas.

Reflecting the need for joint coordination, the NTC's top command structure includes members of two services. NTC Commander Song Puxuan () is a Ground Force officer, while Commissar Fan Xiaojun () is from the Air Force (Pengpai, April 17). Before taking his current post, GEN Song served in a number of important positions, including as head of China's National Defense University and Commander of the Beijing Military Region. LTG Fan Xiaojun's career includes a number of notable posts, including serving as Commissar for the 15th Airborne Corps and as Director of the PLA Air Force Political and Political Work Departments (Baidu Baike, [accessed May 4]).

The PLA recently announced a further reorganization that reduced the number of Group Armies (GAs) from 18 to 13 and implemented a new numbering system (MOD, April 27). This demobilization includes the 40th GA in Jinzhou. This leaves the NTC with the 26th (now 79th) at Weifang, 16th GA (78th) in Changchun and 39th (80th) GAs in Liaoyang. While the restructuring may further change the collection of units in the NTC, this article and accompanying map will use their former designations as little additional information about the new system is available. This move, as with other aspects of the reorganization into Theater Commands, is meant to streamline command and control, demobilize ground formations equipped with older systems and eliminate unnecessary echelons (China Brief, February 4, 2016).

Ground Forces

The 39th Group Army, headquartered in Liaoyang, Liaoning, hosts a number of upgraded and advanced units. The 9th Army Aviation brigade, for example, features new Z-19 and Z-10 attack helicopters. An armored brigade is backed by at least three mechanized infantry brigades, as well as artillery and air defense brigades. A Special Operations unit is also present, one of two in the NTC. As the core of the restructured GA system in Northeast China, this large and powerful group may be greatly expanded, and have simplified command ability over the breadth of the borders with North Korea and Russia.

As a part of the former Jinan Military Region, the 26th GA in Weifang, in central Shandong province, has a lower number of well-equipped units compared to other GAs. Nonetheless, it has extensively conducted joint exercises, including amphibious landings on the Liaoning Peninsula. Three motorized brigades are present, though there is some reason to believe these are being reduced or, in one case, transferred to the Navy to form the core of a new Marine brigade (China Defense, February 15). There has been speculation that each of China's three fleets will eventually include a Marine brigade. At least three brigade-level air defense units belonging to the army, air force, and navy are present to protect the important airspace above Qingdao and the Bohai strait. More vital areas have received larger numbers of advanced strategic Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) but some, notably, an Air Force installation on an island in the center of the Bohai strait, still operate ancient HQ-2 (S-75/SA-2) SAMs.

The centrally located 16th GA, headquartered in Changchun, sits astride the important rail line that connects the southwestern and northeastern halves of Dongbei. Mechanized brigades, situated well back from the border with Russia occupy similar positions in Qiqihar and Harbin to the north. The rail and highway network nodes branching out from them allow for quick responses to incursions while maximizing China's natural strategic depth in this area. East from Harbin the same rail lines Japan and Russia fought over more than a century ago form the primary trade link to Russia, crossing the border at Suifenhe and curving south inside Russia to the largest Russian city in the Far East, Vladivostok. An armored brigade well situated to respond to contingencies near the Russian or North Korean Border is equipped with China's advanced Type 99 Main Battle Tank as well as the standard Type 96B.

Prior to the reorganization/reduction, the 40th GA featured mostly lightly equipped units, with motorized brigades at Chifeng, in Inner Mongolia, and Dandong, in Liaoning, but mostly concentrated at the strategic city of Jinzhou, one end of the strategic pass leading to Beijing. Importantly, it contained neither an Army Aviation nor Special Operations unit, denoting it as a low priority formation. Under the new organization, these units will likely be demobilized, or absorbed into the successor to the 39th GA. Motorized units have for some time been a focus of reductions, transfers to the People's Armed Police, or upgrades into mechanized units. Given the strategic location, some units, such as the 5th armored brigade, are likely to remain.

While the geography and strategic tasks of the NTC require large numbers of ground forces, the Naval and Air units focused in the region are likely to take an even more prominent role in coming years.

Navy

The PLA Navy's North Fleet, headquartered in Qingdao, is home to many of China's most advanced systems and testbed projects. From a naval perspective, ports along the two peninsulas guard access to the Bohai Gulf. On the north side of the gulf, Dalian is a strategic, ice-free port. Port Arthur (), just up the coast, was a key objective during the 1904 Russo-Japanese war. Nuclear-energy propelled (long-distance) Han-class submarines are part of the 12th Submarine squadron (zhidui; ) in Dalian. China's first indigenously produced carrier was recently launched for the first time in Dalian (navy.81.cn, April 28). To the southwest, on the southern edge of the Shandong Peninsula is Qingdao, another key trade and naval port. The Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, is homeported in Qingdao. A hardened submarine pen outside Qingdao offers concealment and protection for ballistic missile submarines. Destroyer squadrons at Dalian and Qingdao round out the force and give the North Fleet powerful surface combatant capability.

Naval Aviation

Most PLA Naval Aviation units are equipped with older strike and air superiority fighters with two notable exceptions: specialized aircraft and China's nascent carrier aviation force. NTC naval aviation includes a number of highly specialized aerial early warning, electronic warfare, signals collection and maritime surveillance aircraft based at Laiyang and Tuchengzi airbases. These aircraft regularly transit through the Miyako Strait in the East China Sea along with H-6 bombers and long-range fighters (China Brief, October 26, 2016).

Perhaps the most important naval aviation unit in the NTC is the naval aviation training base outside Xingcheng, where China trains its carrier pilots. The base features three runways, complete with ski-jumps to simulate China's carriers, and what appear to be both steam-powered and electromagnetic catapults for future carrier variants (East Pendulum, February 17). Although China's sole operational carrier and its embarked aviation unit are currently directly subordinate to the CMC, this unit will create the core of China's carrier wings and pave the way for more advanced naval aviation. Though Chinese carrier aviation lags behind its American counterpart by multiple decades of experience, significant progress has been made, and more joint and live-fire training exercises are being carried out (China Brief, December 21, 2016).

Air Force

Since it plays a key role in air defense of the capital region and important bases, a number of units in the NTC are equipped with advanced fighters. The 1st Fighter Division, located near Anshan, for example, includes regiments of J-10 and J-11s. Closer to the borders with North Korea and Russia, the 21st Air Division in Qiqihar and 88th Air Brigade at Dandong, respectively, use a mix of older J-7 and J-8 aircraft. As more J-10s and other fourth-generation aircraft become available, these will likely be upgraded after air units near the border with India and the East China Sea have been completed.

Rocket Forces

Since the 1960s China's "2nd Artillery"now PLA Rocket Forcehas played an important deterrent role in Northeast China. Although the PLA's Rocket Forces report directly to the Central Military Commission, they would need to coordinate with the NTC units for sensor information. Conventional Rocket Forces would likely receive tasking from the NTC commander. Rocket Force Officers are deployed to each Theater command to aid with this coordination and planning. The Rocket Forces' Base 51 is located in Shenyang. At least three launch brigades are present, though more are likely. The 810th Launch Brigade outside Dalian has DF-21 medium-range ballistic missiles, as does the 816th near Tonghua. [3] These units would be easily capable of covering the entire East China Sea and hitting targets in western Japan. U.S. forces at Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo would be within range of the 816th brigade's DF-21s.

Internal Security

An additional concern is internal conflict in North Korea or overthrow of the Kim regime. An editorial penned in the People's Daily under the pseudonym Zhong Sheng () (a homophone for "Voice of China") argued that the "situation on the Korean Peninsulais nearing collapse". While careful not to place blame on the North, South, or U.S., the editorial made clear that action needed to be taken by North Korea to avoid deepening the problem arising from its nuclear program and that the Chinese people "..never fear any form of provocation or test" (People's Daily, April 30).

China presumably has some analog of the U.S. OPLAN 5029, the contingency plan for a collapse of North Korea (GlobalSecurity [accessed May 1]). While DPRK internal dynamics are beyond the scope of this article, the Younger Kim's repeated use of violence against close political allies and reshuffling of top positions in the military at least suggests that some power struggles are occurring. A mass movement of North Korean civilians across the border into China is a major concern, particularly given the dense population centers not far from the border, and the economic importance of Northeast China. While details are hard to come by, China has a number of border security regiments and People's Armed Police units that could be used to help control the situation. The following map attempts to give a sense of their numbers, locations and major border crossings.

Conclusion

Although the economy of China's northeast has faded somewhat, it remains a core strategic area for China. History has consistently tied the northeast's fate to that of China. Particularly with the tensions in North Korea at their highest point in the past decade, the Northern Theater Command will likely receive more attention and investment, even as China extends its military reach to the South and East.

Peter Wood is the Editor of China Brief. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterWood_PDW

Special thanks to Dennis Blasko, Kevin McCauley and Scott LaFoy who pointed out errors in earlier drafts of this piece. Any remaining omissions and errors are mine alone.

Notes

The Science of Military Strategy [], 3rd ed., Beijing: Military Science Press [], 2013, pp. 45-46. National Intelligence Estimate  The Sino-Soviet Relationship: The Military Aspects September 20, 1973. Declassified March 2, 2011. CREST reference code LOC-HAK-541-7-5-8 p. 30. Ref: Sean O'Connor, Ausairpower, "PLA Second Artillery Corps," December 2009. Verified via Google Earth image April 4, 2016. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-Second-Artillery-Corps.html#mozTocId836202 ; Jeffrey Lewis, "Chillin with the Second Artillery," 38North, January 21, 2015. http://38north.org/2015/01/jlewis012115/

Additional References: Andreas Rupprecht, Flashpoint China: Chinese Air Power and Regional Security, Harpia, 2016.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Embrace of Iranian Overtures Undermines Georgia's Counter-Terrorism and NATO Integration Efforts

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Devi Dumbadze Publication Date 15 May 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 65 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Embrace of Iranian Overtures Undermines Georgia's Counter-Terrorism and NATO Integration Efforts, 15 May 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 65, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b04864.html [accessed 10 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.

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili recently visited the United States. And the main tangible result of his delegation's meetings with US President Donald J. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was the signing of the General Security of Information Agreement (GSOIA), on May 9 (Civil Georgia, May 9). The GSOIA creates a legal basis for mutual sharing of intelligence between Georgia and the US. Specifically, it is supposed to "strengthen counterterrorism cooperation" between the two countries, as the Department of State elaborated (State.gov, May 9).

The initiation of the GSOIA was prompted by an understood need to boost bilateral cooperation on counter-terrorism intelligence gathering in the country and the region. And in some ways it has confirmed the weak counter-terrorism efforts in Georgia to date, despite the threats the country faces (see EDM, March 29). Moreover, this weighty agreementalong with other measures envisioned by the two sides to further "transform [Georgia's] military and pave the way for future security agreements between the United States and Georgia" (State.gov, May 9)appears to stand in blunt contrast with Georgia's attempts to simultaneously buttress its ties with the most prolific state exporter of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In recent months, Georgia and Iran have exchanged numerous official delegations at a rapid pace (see EDM, March 29). On April 18, the largest to date state delegation, headed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, arrived in Georgia for a two-day visit, during which about 100 participants attended the Georgian-Iranian Business Forum in Tbilisi (Radiotavisupleba.ge, April 18). Zarif and his Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Janelidze, as well as Prime Minister Kvirikashvili discussed tourism, trade and economic cooperation, placing emphasis on the railroad "corridor between the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf." Azerbaijan and Iran recently concluded a necessary railway link connecting the two countries as part of this broader transit corridor project (see EDM, April 24).

Janelidze was quick to insinuate that Iran is primarily interested in obtaining access to the European Union market, which has become more accessible to Georgia in light of visa liberalization achieved with the EU this year. Given the unabashed interest of leading European countries such as Germany and France to swiftly expand their capital markets in Iran (Parstoday.com, March 1), this intent by Tehran does not come unexpected. However, it is at least as obvious that, as Zarif pointed out, "the low price of transportation gives us a good opportunity to include Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia" in new multilevel interregional cooperation initiatives (Imedinews.ge, April 20). The ultimate goal of this endeavorto link Iran with Russia by way of increasing its soft power in Georgiawas made explicit once again during President Hassan Rouhani's recent meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow (TASS, March 28).

The Islamic Republic certainly does not pass up on chances to carve out a deeper area of influence in Georgia. The Tehran Times reported that, during his talks with Kvirikashvili, Zarif "[urged] Georgia to recommit [its] respect for Iranian tourists" (Tehran Times, April 19). The newspaper alleged that "an Iranian Muslim woman has been forced to take away [sic] her hijab by Tbilisi airport security for frisking." Zarif reportedly raised this issue with Kvirikashvili, who, according to Tehran, "expressed surprise" about the offense and promised an "immediate investigation into the incident." "I cannot imagine that Muslim women are offended in Georgia," Kvirikashvili is quoted as saying, seemingly implying a readiness to randomly exempt Iranian Muslim women from standard security procedures at the Georgian border. The government of Georgia did not dispute the reporting on the incident. It merely issued a brief statement that Georgian officers checking travelers "act in full accord with the demands of the aviation security provision program," thus not explicitly clarifying whether the officials abstain from searching Iranian women wearing hijabs (1tv.ge, April 20).

This episode highlights the multipronged efforts by Iran to gain a heavier soft power footing in Georgia. Yet, Irana country that militarily supports the beleaguered Syrian government of Bashar al-Assadis a hard power adversary of some of the Georgia's most important allies, including the United States. Tornike Sharashenidze at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs claims that "Georgia does not have the luxury to choose its [regional] partners" (Author's interview, March 23). This goes against common sense, since potential economic gains from regional neighbors may sometimes be trumped by their anti-democratic stance. And instead of asking about the ways in which Georgia could perhaps become more positively involved with its allies in resolving the Syrian conflict, the commentator Giorgi Khatiashvili simply stated that Georgia's "support of the [April 7 Shayrat] airfield [cruise missile] bombing by Trump [] should not be an apple of contention, because we do not play any role in Syria." Georgia is a "small country," and thus it has to "implement a moderated policy," Khatiashvili added (Radiotavisupleba.ge, April 18), evoking the post-Communist narrative of national victimhood.

Against the background of such conciliatory rhetoric, Giorgi Kvirikashvili's subsequent visit to Tehranwith yet another large Georgian delegation in tow, including the ministers of energy, economy, environment, agriculture, sport and foreign affairscould not have transpired much smoother. After meeting with President Rouhani, Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, and Majlis Chairman Ali Larijani, the Georgian prime minister signed memoranda of understanding and agreements focused on "the issue of [the] NorthSouth corridor and connection of the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea through Iran-Armenia-Georgia or Iran-Azerbaijan-Georgia" (Civil Georgia, April 24). Georgia also plans to initially import 40 million cubic meters of natural gas from the Islamic Republic (Bm.ge, April 24), about 2 percent of its annual gas consumption of approximately 2.18 billion cubic meters (Cia.gov, accessed May 15).

Mere weeks before signing the GSOIA with the US to improve counter-terrorism cooperation, Georgia, quietly but vigorously pushed to facilitate Iran's multifocal efforts to boost its position in the South Caucasusdespite the Islamic Republic's wide recognition as a state sponsor of terrorism. Since signing the GSOIA, there have been no signs that Tbilisi intends to revoke or scale back its ties to Tehran. Such a friendly posture toward Iran may end up undermining Georgia's efforts to integrate with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or to become recognized by the US as a "non-NATO ally," a status the government in Tbilisi is purportedly pursuing.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Belarus: Sitting on Two Chairs Is What the Doctor Ordered

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Grigory Ioffe Publication Date 15 May 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 65 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Belarus: Sitting on Two Chairs Is What the Doctor Ordered, 15 May 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 65, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/591b05984.html [accessed 10 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

Belarusian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Kravchenko visited Washington and held meetings at the US State Department and the Senate. He also participated in the May 9 roundtable discussion "Between East and West: Belarus at a Crossroads," organized by the Atlantic Council and The Jamestown Foundation. The event was vigorously discussed in Belarus (Svaboda.org, May 11). Kravchenko underscored that "the improvement of Belarus's relations with the West does not contradict its strategic partnership with Russia" (Belta, May 10). In fact, he made this point twice: in his introductory remarks and while responding to a question from the audience (Atlanticcouncil.org, May 9).

This lasting tenet of Belarus's foreign policy does not lend itself easily to public perception. On Belarus' eastern flank, Russia has long exhibited a wife-abandonment syndrome (see EDM, December 5, 2016), meticulously and vigilantly monitoring any attempt to raise Belarus's relations with the European Union and the United States to the level of its own relations with those same centers of power. One of the most recent open-source indications of that monitoring has been the analysis by RT of the Community Connections program, which is to engage 300 (by one other source 500) activists and state officials from Belarus (Sputnik.by, May 12). Between 2017 and 2022, these individuals will periodically visit the US to take courses "devoted to democracy promotion." The RT commentary quotes Robert Legvold of Columbia University, according to whom it is the politics of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka that created the basis for such cooperation" (RT, May 12).

Perhaps somewhat less vigorously than in Russia, the same zero-sum-game (you are either with us or with them) approach is practiced in the West. The very title of the aforementioned meeting"Belarus at a Crossroads"is indicative of that. Indeed, many analyses end up with a suggestion that "Belarus will sooner or later be faced with a decisive choice between East and West" (Chathamhouse.org, March 29). Moreover, there is an inherently geopolitical consensus that it is a "desire to pull Belarus out of Vladimir Putin's orbit" that is "leading the U.S. to turn a blind eye to the same human rights abuses it accuses Russia of committing" (Politico, May 5).

In this regard, one of the most remarkable moments during the aforementioned "Crossroads" roundtable was when Yauheni Preiherman, a panel participant from Belarus, asserted that from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, sanctions never work. To which Ambassador John Herbst, who chaired the roundtable event, replied, "A very clear position; but it is hard to imagine human rights groups in the West [would] accept it" (Atlanticcouncil.org, May 9).

The uneasy relationship between the values-above-interests postulate (that Herbst alluded to) and geopolitics was at one point ably encapsulated by The Economist: "Small and lacking in natural resources Belarus was always an easy place for the West to conduct a values-based foreign policy" (Economist, April 11, 2015). In other words, values matter as long as there are no sizable resources. To be sure, Belarus has not suddenly become resource-rich, but "Mr. Putin's adventurism in Ukraine [still] raised the stakes."

The above implies that knowledge about Belarus itself, including the setting conducive to its foreign policy principles, preoccupies analysts incomparably less than geopolitics. But often lost is the understanding that Belarus appeared on the map for the first time ever owing to the breakup of the Soviet Union; it is a country with a still fragile identity. Many Belarusians believe that what made them a nation was their self-sacrificing common effort during World War II, while fighting on the side of Russia and the Allied coalition against Adolf Hitler's Germany. Whereas a small minority maintains that the Belarusians who fought on the Nazi side were not collaborators because Belarus had no state of its own at the time, so both Russia and Germany were equally hostile powers (Svaboda.org, May 11). This reality helps explain President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's constant calls for consolidation and his frequent rebukes of the "fifth column" (Belta, May 9). It also explains the celebration of the national emblem and flag (Tut.by, May 13), on which there is no unity in Belarus. No less important is the fact that the Belarusian people, with their perilously fragile identity, are sandwiched between countries whose identities are well establishedRussia and Poland; both once possessed Belarusian territory and have a long history of mutual hostility. Russia continues to own much of Belarus's internal information space and even part of its historical memory, not to mention its stranglehold over the Belarusian economy. And yet, although less of an influence today, Poland welcomes Belarusians to apply for and receive Karta Polaka, a document asserting ties with Poland that gives its holders advantages like work authorization and speedy naturalization in Poland. Eighty percent of Belarusians finishing the Polish-language school in Grodno continue their education in Poland, according to a local educational administrator (Author's interview, November 4, 2016); and one-quarter of Roman Catholic priests in Belarus are still citizens of Poland.

Belarus also borders Ukraineseen as a culturally divided country ravaged by the tug of war between the external centers of power. Ukraine's leadership decided to abruptly switch the "chair" it used to sit on and to commit its historical memory to advanced surgery, long-term effects of which are not yet known, but which seem unpalatable to many Ukrainians and outsiders alike. Both Belarus and Ukraine are engaging in full-scale strategic hedging. On the one hand, they exchange smiles as Lukashenka and his Ukrainian counterpart did in conjunction with Chernobyl's anniversary. And on the other, they are in awe of the putative designs of their sponsors. Many Belarusians are afraid of the spectrum of their own color revolution, and many Ukrainians are leery of Belarus becoming a transit route and a supply line for Russian aggression (Tut.by, April 26).

It is in this environment that Belarus tries its best to pursue its sitting-on-two-chairs foreign policy. Herein there is no mischief, just a genuine desire to sustain itself as an independent state in a problematic neighborhood known as the historical "bloodlands." "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," as Sigmund Freud once said.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
From 2-7 to sectional champs, Monrovia has one question: 'Why not us?'
Chinas efforts to project its image-building soft power began nearly a decade ago when then President Hu Jintao gave that goal priority at a Communist Party Congress.

Once he took power in late 2012, President Xi Jinping devoted even more attention to soft power, making it part of his vision of a rising China.

Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor, coined the phrase soft power in the late 1980s, and Chinese scholars advising Chinas leaders have studied the concept carefully ever since.

In his book titled Soft Power, published in 2004, Nye described soft power as the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from a countrys culture, political ideals, and policies.

For Beijing, this has meant using Chinese media to stress Chinas attractiveness as a culture while avoiding the use of outright propaganda. State media have also been stressing Chinas desire to negotiate peaceful, win-win solutions in international relations.

But Chinas efforts to project a more positive image have hit a few snags since 2012.

As an article published on March 23 by The Economist magazine notes, Chinas soft-power strategy focuses mainly on promoting its culture and trying to give the impression that its foreign policy is, for such a big country, unusually benign.

But The Economist cites polls showing that China still falls short in terms of gaining positive ratings in many places around the world.

In 2016 Portland Communications, a London-based public relations firm, conducted a survey of public attitudes toward 30 countries in which China ranked 28th, three places from the bottom.

In contrast, the United States and Britain came in with favorable ratings at the top of the list.

China goes global

Toward the end of last year Beijing rebranded its main overseas television outlet, until recently known as China Central Television, or CCTV. But the rebranding, or makeover, has several shortcomings, according to media experts.

In an apparent effort to show that it has modernized and gone global, Beijing stopped using the acronym CCTV, which is also used to refer to surveillance cameras. So the network came up with a new name: China Global News, or CGN.

One problem arose from the outset. CGN is difficult to remember. And it sounds vaguely like CNN.

More important perhaps, the makeover itself has had serious problems, according to foreign experts.

David Bandurski, the widely respected editor of the China Media Project at Hong Kong University, describes CGNs new website as both unattractive and ill conceived.

It now appears that the rebranding was imposed top-down without the benefit of expert advice or a usability study.

CCTV Chinese gains but English falls short

Based on August 2016 data, CCTV News in Chinese is now available in 90.7 million cable-viewing households in the United States.

Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for Freedom House in Washington, D.C., says this means that Chinese-speaking households pretty much anywhere in the United States are able to watch CCTV, now known at CGN TV.

However, this doesnt tell us how many among an estimated four to five million Chinese Americans are actually watching.

But a large proportion of Chinese-American households watch Chinese language television, and in many locations where no alternative station is available they are very likely to be watching CCTV.

Cook says, however, that in the English-language sphere, it would appear that for the most part, many Americans are not attracted to or convinced by Chinese government propaganda, particularly when its state-run origins are evident.

After studying CGN TVs presence on social media, Cook concludes that the networks presence on websites such as YouTube and Facebook is relatively small and pales in comparison with that of major U.S. television networks or the English-language programming of

New Tang Dynasty, a network run by Falun Gong, a spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Hard power versus soft power

In the meantime, Chinas hard power has at times undermined the countrys soft-power.

In Southeast Asia, for example, Chinas building of militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea has undercut its efforts to present itself as benign in that part of the world.

And something as simple as the bad behavior of Chinese tourists in Southeast Asia can affect attitudes as well.

But China appears to be outspending the West on global soft power, which includes television and radio broadcasts, online news, and social media, as well as scholarships and all-expenses-paid trips to China offered to foreign students and scholars.

China expert David Shambaugh of George Washington University has estimated that China now spends $10 billion a year on soft power. But some experts feel that in many places China is still not getting its moneys worth.

In an article written for the magazine Foreign Affairs nearly two years ago, in July 2015, Shambaugh concluded that in contrast with its economic and military might, China suffers from a severe shortage of soft power.

While Chinas economic prowess impresses much of the world, its repressive political system and mercantilist business practices tarnish its reputation, said Shambaugh.

That judgment appears to stand up fairly well today, although in some places such as Africa, China can safely boast of some significant gains.

Chinas overseas impact

Chinas soft power ratings appear to vary widely from continent to continent.

In Africa, CGN and the official Chinese news agency Xinhua have established good relations with governments and forged media partnerships across the continent.

This seems partly due to Chinese efforts to present African developments in a favorable light while countering what some African governments regard as negative reports on Africa carried by Western media  reports on corruption, disease, and looming famines, for example.

But few quantitative studies are available to precisely measure Chinas impact in Africa. And that impact varies from country to country. In a continent with more than 50 nations, research in one of them might not apply to the others.

And although Chinese media have secured a wide-ranging presence in Africa, tension and local conflicts inevitably erupt from time to time.

Illegal Chinese miners in Ghana, local Chinese traders who compete with African retailers in Uganda, and Chinese boats poaching fish off the Western coast of Africa have all been sources of tension.

In a lengthy report on the Chinese working in Namibia appearing in the May 7 edition of The New York Times Magazine, Shanghai-based journalist Brook Larmer reported on the diverse sources of tension involving the many Chinese working in that West African country.

Those tensions have included a recent series of scandals involving Chinese nationals over tax evasion, money-laundering, and the poaching of endangered wildlife. But Larmer goes on to report that some of these issues have been effectively dealt with by Namibian officials, the Chinese embassy, and the countrys court system.

On yet another continent, Australia, Chinas image-building appears to have been less successful.

At first glance, Beijing would appear to have a good chance of winning hearts and minds in Australia, partly through its strong trade and academic ties with the country.

But a debate unfavorable to China is under way in Australia at the moment over what is seen as Chinese government attempts to promote pro-Beijing views through the countrys Chinese-language media and through a local Chinese patriotic association.

In his 2007 book Charm Offensive; How Chinas Soft Power is Transforming the World, Joshua Kurlantzick wrote that China might someday drive a wedge between America and its closest allies. He singled out Australia as an example.

Ten years later, China doesnt appear to have succeeded in driving that wedge, but sometimes aggressive statements from Chinese media as well as from local Chinese-language media make it seem to be trying to do so. And such statements arent taken well by many Australians.

China seems to be particularly interested in getting Australia to drop its support of U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea and to adopt a neutral stance toward Chinas island-building there.

Dan Southerland is RFAs founding executive editor.
UPDATED at 10:30 A.M. EST on 2017-05-22



Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha returned to Cambodia on Tuesday after a 17-day trip to the United States, saying he had drummed up U.S. interest in key local elections next month and reached out to Cambodian-Americans across the country.



Kem Sokha and his Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) face a contest with the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) for 1,646 commune council seats on the June 4 ballot that many see as a bellwether for general elections in 2018.



The international community, especially the new government of President Donald Trump, the U.S. Congress and NGO people listened to my presentation on the political situation in Cambodia and the election process," he told reporters upon arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport.



"They paid attention to the upcoming elections. They wanted to know more about this. In particular, they wanted to know about the CNRPs point of view should it win the election to lead the country in the future, added Kem Sokha.



He declined to give substantive comments on the trip, his first trip to the United States since taking over the reins of the CNRP in February after what effectively was the forced resignation of former leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France since late 2015 and has had numerous defamation lawsuits filed against him, with many still pending trial.



Kem Sokha said he had given presentations on the upcoming elections to Cambodian communities in 13 U.S. states, as well as to U.S. lawmakers and officials of the Trump administration.



Prime Minister Hun Sen's CPP won more than 70 percent of the vote and secured 1,592 of 1,633 communes in Cambodias 2012 communal elections, held before the CNRP was formed.



Domestic monitors, however, detected scores of cases of irregularities during the election campaign, including intimidation, vote-buying, and the destruction of parties leaflets and logos.



The opposition party went on to win nearly half the vote in a general election in 2013.



This time around the CNRP is one of 12 political parties competing for the commune posts. Some analysts believe that the CNRP could pose a challenge to the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 30 years.



Hun Sen and other top government officials, however, have issue a stream of threats and warnings that voting against the ruling party will lead to violence and war.



Official campaigning begins on May 20 and runs for 14 days.

The CNRP will hold a convention on Wednesday to elect a party vice president, a title Kem Sokha held until February, to comply with a ruling by the country's interior ministry that rejected the party's previous method of selecting a deputy leader.

Reported by Samnang Rann and Zakariya Tin for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Paul Eckert.



Correction: A previous version of the article erroneously stated that political parties are permitted to campaign for 12 days ahead of the June 4 ballot.
In the latest in a series of government threats against opposition political forces in Cambodia, Cambodian defense minister Tea Banh warned on Sunday that the army will smash the teeth of anyone protesting a win by the ruling party in elections next month.



Speaking at the opening of a public building in Siem Reap in northwestern Cambodia, Tea Banh said that the countrys military will quickly suppress any protests by Cambodia National Rescue Party members like those that followed the CNRPs loss in national elections in 2013.



If you lose the elections and contest the results by taking to the streets to protest, we will smash your teeth, the defense minister said.



Im warning you in strong terms that we wont allow such protests again.



Tea Banhs remarks came less than a week after Cambodias prime minister Hun Sen warned of civil war if the public does not support his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party in local elections across the country on June 4.



Hun Sen, who has already ruled Cambodia for three decades, has made similar threats in recent months, with CPP-controlled media regularly alluding to violence if the party loses.



Observers say the CNRP could give the CPP a run for its money in the June polls, foreshadowing a possible CNRP win in national elections scheduled for 2018.



'Serving the party, not the people'



Phnom Penh-based political commentator Meas Ny told RFAs Khmer Service on Monday that Tea Banh had exceeded the limits of his authority by threatening Cambodian voters.



As minister of defense, he has now crossed the line. It seems that he serves Cambodias ruling party rather than its people, Meas Ny said.



It is also a violation of the constitution that a senior official of the countrys armed force should interfere with the responsibilities of the Ministry of Interior, he said.



The armed forces should deal only with armed conflicts. It is against the law for the armed forces to suppress or kill civilians who exercise their freedom of speech by protesting peacefully.



Also speaking to RFA, CNRP spokesperson Yim Sovann questioned the motive behind Tea Banhs weekend remarks.



I dont understand why he has chosen to threaten the public with statements like this, he said.



The CNRP listens to the people. We respect their will.



Cambodias National Election Commission will convene a meeting in the next two weeks to address the issue of threats and warnings that members of both parties have made in the run-up to the June vote, with the NEC looking to see what measures must be taken to avoid future incitement, the commission has said.



Reported and translated by Nareth Muong for RFAs Khmer Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.




Lawmakers lined up on at Hong Kong's graft-busting agency to file complaints against the city's outgoing chief executive after he admitted trying to influence the outcome of an investigation into his financial background.



Leung Chun-ying is under investigation after an report in the Australian media alleged that he failed to disclose a U.S.$6.5 million payout from Australian engineering firm UGL.



"I am being investigated," Leung told reporters on . "I totally have the right to suggest the scope of the probe to the Legislative Council, and to provide relevant information during the course of the investigation."



Leung said he had a right to contact pro-Beijing lawmaker Holden Chow, who is a member of the Legislative Council (LegCo) panel investigating the UGL allegations.



But he made no mention of media reports that he or his staff directly edited a draft document later submitted to LegCo by Chow.



"The document ... incorporated several changes made by CEO-CE, suggesting that either Leungs office or the CE himself had made the edits," the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported on .



The draft document showed that lines relating to the scope of the probe had been removed and added, and wording edited relating to the background of the UGL case, disclosure requirements by the chief executive and conflict of interests.



"The Legco secretariat has notified lawmakers that a document submitted by Chow in relation to the panel probe has undergone several edits, purportedly at the hands of 'CEO-CE'," the paper said.



"Still, there is this question: Did he not cross a line by urging a pro-Beijing lawmaker to send him the document, revising it and then sending it back to the lawmaker?" it said.



Blurring the line

Leungs action blurred the line between the executive and the legislature, the paper said, calling for Chow's removal from the committee.



"Chow and Leung directly exchanged documents without any hesitation ... This goes against the very idea of having the legislature function as a body that will be a monitor on the executive," it said.



Chow denied that Leung's input was clandestine, however.



"This document was an open one; Leung Chun-ying contacted me and discussed with me some of its contents," Chow said. "He had a few opinions about the contents of this open document, which he communicated to me."



"I considered them, and thought they were appropriate, and so I put them to the committee for discussion," he said. "I never sought to hide anything, and everything I did was in keeping with the regulations and the law."



The revelations prompted pan-democratic lawmakers to warn that both Leung and Chow could have broken the law, however, and a number of political groups reported the matter to the ICAC on .



"It should be the committee chairman who asks the committee if they would like to invite him, pro-actively," Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui told reporters. "Or he should write an open letter to express his opinion."



"But instead, he chose to secretly amend this document through a committee member, covertly expressing his opinions," Hui said.



Leung misconduct alleged

Democratic lawmaker and former graft-buster Lam Cheuk-ting said nobody should be allowed to interfere with the work of a LegCo committee.



"Nobody should try to intervene in the work of the committee, directly or indirectly, and none of its members should allow such intervention ... nor fail to report any misconduct on the part of our public officials," Lam said.



"It is unthinkable that the subject of the investigation was able to discuss the investigation with those carrying it out ... and even to influence its scope," he said.



Political groups filed complaints at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), alleging misconduct in public office on the part of Leung and Chow, were accused of conspiring to secretly shape the direction of the LegCo committee's investigation.



Lawmaker Claudia Mo from Hong Kong First said it was unacceptable for Chow to allow CY Leung to interfere with the investigation.



The Beijing-backed Leung allegedly "pocketed millions in secret fees from a listed Australian company in return for supporting its Asian business ambitions," Fairfax Media, which owns the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, reported following its own investigation.



The paper cited a "secret contract" between Leung and Australian engineering company UGL, signed and dated Dec. 2, 2011, three months before Leung was chosen by a 1,200-strong pro-Beijing election committee in , by a margin of just 89 votes.



While there was nothing apparently illegal about the contract itself, Leung didn't disclose it during his election campaign, the paper said.



Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Hundreds of unregistered taxi drivers staged a second day of sit-ins outside government offices in the central Chinese province of Henan on Tuesday over new rules requiring them to register with a taxi company.



The drivers gathered to present a petition to municipal authorities in Nanyang city after new regulations were introduced forcing them to change their car's ownership papers to the name of a company if they wished to continue operating.



"The vehicle licenses were in our personal names, but now the government says we have to remove our individual names and put a company name instead," a protester surnamed Sun told RFA as the sit-in entered its second day on Tuesday.



"We bought these cars with our own money, and we paid the taxes on them," Sun said. "If we remove our names then ... we will have no way of proving that this is our property."



"So we have come to petition for our property rights and for the right to operate," he said.



A driver surnamed Guo said he has already spent hundreds of thousands of yuan (100,000 yuan = U.S. $14,520) on his taxi.



"I paid out several hundred thousand yuan to buy the right to operate, and yet they won't be compensating me for that money," Guo said. "These drivers are the main breadwinners for their families."



"They have paid out between 300,000 and 600,000 yuan (U.S. $43,560 and $87,115), and still they aren't qualified to operate," he said.



Some 1,100 drivers, many of whom started offering private taxi services after being laid off from their jobs or losing their farmland, are believed to be affected by the new rules.



They say that 2,000 more family members will also be cut off from their main source of income.



Calls to the Nanyang municipal department of transportation rang unanswered during office hours on Tuesday.



"We are still here today," a driver surnamed Yang told RFA. "The government wants to take away our property rights, and we are calling on the government to give our operating licenses back."



He said government officials were meeting with driver delegates on Tuesday.



"Our entire right to operate stems from those licenses," Guo said. "We are saying that our right to operate should be ours as individuals; that's how it works everywhere else in the country."



"I don't know what the government is thinking."



Ride-hailing rules



China legalized taxi-hailing apps like Uber and Didi Chuxing on Nov. 1, after they attracted tens of millions of Chinese customers annually.



However, in an apparent concession to the traditional taxi industry, the government placed additional restrictions on drivers and the vehicles used.



The new rules required online ride-hailing platforms to sign labor contracts with drivers, following violent clashes in the eastern city of Nanjing last June between traditional cab drivers and those signing up to drive for the ride-hailing apps.



The tighter employment rules struck at the heart of the ride-hailing business model, which allowed an army of Chinese car-owners to moonlight as Uber and Didi drivers in their spare time.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Soldiers from Cambodia and Laos have been locked in a standoff across their shared border since February, in a spat that has seen troops on the ground accuse each other of incursions while the leaders of the two countries dismiss reports of friction.



Cambodian soldiers who are stationed along the border area in Stung Treng province told RFA's Khmer Service that Lao soldiers have dug in in Cambodian territory at Koh Reusey, a town on the Sekong River in Siem Pang District in the northeastern corner of Cambodia. The Lao troops have been deployed in that area to prevent Cambodian engineering teams from building a road and bridge near the border, they said.



Svay Nhan, a Cambodian military commander in Stung Treng, told RFA last week that Laotian soldiers had dug trenches on Cambodian land for several days. However the Cambodian engineering team continued to build the road along the border, and negotiations with the Lao side went on while the construction project continued.



Military of all levels have been involved in addressing this issue. Negotiations are under way while the road construction work continues. The border posts have not been planted in that area yet," Svay Nhan said on May 3.



A Cambodian soldier at the border told RFA on May 11 that Lao troops had trespassed several miles into Cambodian territory and dug trenches deployed weapons.



The soldier, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said he thought it was not likely that the showdown would trigger an armed conflict.



The Lao soldiers appear to be trying to stop Cambodian soldiers from completing the road and bridge project, which was 30 percent complete, the soldier said. The Lao troops assert that the area is contested border territory that both governments are still discussing how to delineate.



'We don't have any dispute'

Back in Phnom Penh, however, Cambodian Defense Ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat dismissed the accounts given by his troops.



I have checked the border area with Laos. No Laotian solider has dug any trenches on Cambodian soil. Our road construction project has continued without any interruption," he told RFA.



"We are waiting for the border committees of both countries to meet and address the border demarcation issue. We dont have any dispute with our Lao counterpart." he added.



A statement by the ministry further rejected reports of the incursion as "groundless and pure exaggeration intended to incite and mislead the public before the upcoming commune elections."



Cambodia holds important nationwide local elections on June 4.



"Such information hurts the good relations between the two countries. Our Royal Armed Forces shall never allow Lao soldiers or any foreign soldiers to be stationed on our soil," said the statement.



Meanwhile Men Kong, a spokesman for Stung Treng province, told RFA on May 11 that provincial authorities had sent a letter to the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the border issue, he was told that the foreign ministries of the two countries were working on the issue.



Its an internal and diplomatic exchange between both counties regarding the issue. We have already notified the joint border committee and the border authorities. Our position is clear. We shall continue to protect our sovereignty.



Just a 'rumor'

On May 10, Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith told Hun Sen during their meeting at the World Economic Forum in Phnom Penh that the information about the confrontation of both soldiers at the border in Stung Treng area was just a "rumor."



On the Lao side, a senior military and public security official of Champasak Province on Tuesday denied there was any Lao military deployment across the border, describing the movements as "regular duty" for the troops.



The Champasak official, who requested anonymity, rejected a report in the Phnom Penh Post on Monday that quoted Svay Nhan as saying that 70 to 100 armed Lao soldiers had been deployed along the border.



We did not deploy any armed force but we are just carrying out our duty along the border. When our soldiers are on their duty, such as working to prevent illegal logging, they are always fully dressed and equipped with military equipment, but they do not mean to start any armed conflict with our counterparts," he told RFA's Lao Service.



He said the Lao side warned the Cambodians to stop construction of the road very close to the border, in a "white zone" between demarcated border points.



Any construction must be made at least 100 meters from demarcated posts, but we have observed that the Cambodian side is building the road very close to the demarcated posts. Therefore, we decided to carefully check and issue a warning to our counterparts. However, the Cambodian side does not seem to be happy with our warning and they accused us of illegally trespassing in their sovereign territory," said the official from Champasak province.



A meeting between the Champasak and Stung Treng provincial governors and the joint-border committee was planned for early May, but has now been postponed without a clear date, Lao sources said.



Laos' official Vientiane Times, reporting on the Hun Sen-Thongloun meeting on May 12, said "the two leaders noted the progress made on border demarcation, which is largely complete. They encouraged the officials in charge to exert every effort to complete demarcation along the remaining borderline."



Reported by RFA's Lao Service and by Chanthy Men for the Cambodia Service. Translated by Max Avary and Nareth Muong. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
Three Lao workers arrested last year for criticizing their government on Facebook while working in Thailand have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms, one of the workers relatives said Tuesday, drawing condemnation from rights groups and calls for their immediate release.



Somphone Phimmasone, 29, his girlfriend Lod Thammavong, 30, and Soukane Chaithad, 32, disappeared in March 2016 after returning to Laos to renew their passports, their family and friends told RFAs Lao Service in earlier reports.



While working in Thailand, the three had strongly criticized the Lao government online, accusing it of human rights abuses, and they were later shown on Lao television making what appeared to be public confessions for what they called the mistake of protesting the countrys policies.



A relative of one of the workers, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that he had recently contacted a detention center official requesting permission to visit his family member and was told the three were sentenced last month.



The official told the relative that Lod Thammavong, Soukane Chaithad, and Somphone Phimmasone had been sentenced to 12 years, 18 years, and 20 years in prison, respectively.



He added that the three had been transferred to Xam Khe prison in the capital Vientianethe countrys largest detention facility.



An official at the prison, who did not provide his name, denied that the three had been sentenced when contacted by RFA.



Staff members at the Lao Peoples Court and the countrys Prison Department refused to answer questions about the detainees, while attempts by RFA to reach the Vientiane Peoples Court went unanswered late on Tuesday.



However, the Paris-based Federation of International Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement Tuesday it had confirmed through local rights activists that the three were convicted sometime in early April.



FIDH called the sentences a shocking reminder of Vientianes intolerance for any form of peaceful dissent and called on authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the three.



By locking up dissidents for up to two decades, the Lao government has abandoned any pretense of compliance with the countrys international human rights obligations, FIDH president Dimitris Christopoulos said.



Its time for the international community to drop the diplomatic niceties and condemn the Lao governments latest attack on civil society in the strongest possible terms.



Violation of rights



Khamtanh Phouthonephakdy, a member of the Germany-based Alliance for Democracy in Laos, called the sentences harsh and unjust.



To administer sentences normally associated with committing a political crime or an anti-government activity is a violation of their rights, he said.



They were sentenced behind closed doors, but the Lao peopleand particularly their familieshave the right to know what happened to them.



In March, Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, had said that the arrest of the three was a signal that Laos intends to treat them quite harshly, and teach a lesson to other Lao migrant workers overseas to do nothing to oppose the government.



The only hope that these three imprisoned activists have now is if the U.N. or bilateral foreign aid donors take up their cases and demand the authorities immediately release them, Robertson said at the time.



In 2014, the Lao government issued a decree prohibiting online criticism of the government and the ruling Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party (LPRP), setting out stiff penalties for netizens and internet service providers who violate government controls.



The decree also requires netizens to use their real names when setting up social media and other accounts online.



Reported and translated by RFAs Lao Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Two Myanmar men, Tin Lin Htike (C) and Tin Htay Aung (center R), who are among the seven nationalists and Buddhist monks charged with incitement to commit violence in Mingala Taungnyunt township in Yangon, leave the township courthouse, May 15, 2017.

Myanmar police on Monday detained two more suspects for their involvement in a confrontation between Buddhists and Muslims last week in a Yangon neighborhood where monks had claimed that ethnic Rohingya Muslims were hiding illegally.

Meanwhile, police continue to search for three others believed to be involved in the melee that left two people injured.

Police apprehended Tin Lin Htike and Tin Htay Aung who were involved in the incident in Mingala Taungnyunt township in the east-central part of the city, when the two men went to the Eastern Yangon Police Station, Tin Lin Htike wrote on his Facebook page.

On Monday, they received a period of remand at Mingala Taungnyunt Township Court along with notice that their trials would be held on May 22.

The pair will be tried along with others arrested last week, including Tin Htut Zaw and Ma Aung, both of whom were apprehended on May 11.

On that day, Myanmar police apprehended and charged two monks and five Buddhist nationalists for their involvement in the confrontation, during which police secured the neighborhood and fired warning shots in the air to disperse a crowd that had gathered after an altercation between monks and Muslim residents.

They face charges of incitement to commit violence under section 505(c) of the countrys Penal Code, which carries a penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine.

Monks from the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union, also known at Ma Ba Tha, had received information that some Rohingya were hiding in a building in the township, and they alerted police and immigration officials who searched the premises on May 9.

Myanmars Buddhist majority views the Rohingya, a stateless group of 1.1 million who live mainly in the countrys western Rakhine state, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and government policy has denied them citizenship and access to other basic rights for decades.

After a search, police determined that the occupants were there legally and took no further action against them.

Different witness accounts identified either Muslims who live in the area or a group of nationalist outsiders with weapons for starting the melee as the monks left the building.

Two men were injured in the scuffle during which local police fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd.

Police are still looking for two other monksThuseitta from the Patriotic Young Monks Union who had given an eyewitness account to RFAs Myanmar Service, and Pyanyar Wunthaand a third alleged participant named Myat Phone Mo.

Threat to destroy neighborhood

In the meantime, authorities have increased security in Mingala Taungnyunt amid a threat circulating on social media that said the area would be attacked and destroyed on Monday.

Local authorities, lawmakers, police officers, members of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group (now known as the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society Group), and residents are now working together to prevent further unrest in the area.

Nilar Thein, a democracy activist and political prisoner who was imprisoned for participating in the pro-democracy protests of 1988, told RFA that the post about the razing of the township on May 15 was made on Facebook under the name Wirathu with a photo of an unidentified monk.

Wirathu is a prominent monk in the Ma Ba Tha movement, who is known for his fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric.

We came here as a democratic force to solve together any problems we have in this area, she said.

Former member of parliament Phyu Phyu Thin, who lives in Mingala Taungnyunt township, told RFA that those who tried to foment unrest on May 9 posted the threat on social media because local residents tried to protect their neighborhood.

We heard that they [those who initiated the confrontation] got angry after their unsuccessful effort, she said. Afterwards a Facebook post said that they would destroy Mingala Taungnyunt township on May 15.

We dont know whether this account is real or not, she said of Wirathus Facebook page. All forces [lawmakers, police, and local residents] are now working together to prevent unrest in the neighborhood.

Tin Aye, the administrator of Southern Kandawlay ward in Mingala Taungnyunt township, said officials have warned residents not to possess any weapons such as wooden sticks or knives to protect themselves from any attacks because authorities can take action against them under the countrys weapons act.

We told them we are here to protect them, and they just need to check that there are no strangers in the township, he said.



Reported by Thiha Tun, Htet Arkar and Aung Theinkha for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Myanmar monks from the hardline Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha and their supporters denounce a U.S. statement about Rohingya Muslims who died in a boat accident at a rally outside the American embassy in Yangon, April 28, 2016.

An ultranationalist monk organization in Myanmar on Tuesday denied that it was involved in a violent confrontation between Buddhists and Muslims last week in a Yangon neighborhood where monks had claimed that ethnic Rohingya Muslims were hiding illegally.

Monks from the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union, also known at Ma Ba Tha, told a press conference in Yangon that the group had been falsely accused of provoking a May 9 conflict with Muslims in Mingala Taungnyunt township in the east-central part of the city.

Two people were injured during the melee during which police had to fire warning shots into the air to disperse a crowd that had gathered.

We are holding this press conference because Ma Ba Tha didnt know or do anything regarding the incident in Mingala Taungnyunt, though some well-known people have accused us of doing it, said Pyinnya Wara, a Ma Ba Tha leader. [The] monks who participated in the incident said they were not from Ma Ba Tha.

We see that some people are trying to destroy Ma Ba Thas image, he said.

A monk named Thuseitta from the Patriotic Young Monks Union told RFAs Myanmar Service on May 10 that Ma Ba Tha monks had received information that some Rohingya were hiding in apartments on two floors of a building in Mingala Taungnyunt township. They then alerted police and immigration officials who searched the premises.

After police determined that no one in the apartments was there illegally, a scuffle between the monks and Muslim residents broke out as the monks left the building.

Two people were injured, and police fired warning shots to break up the crowd.

Myanmars Buddhist majority views the Rohingya, a stateless group of 1.1 million who live mainly in the countrys western Rakhine state, as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and government policy has denied them citizenship and access to other basic rights for decades.

Ma Ba Thas 'bad image'

Ma Ba Tha monks also used the press conference as an opportunity to stress that they were not involved in a decision to close two Muslim schools in Yangons Thaketa township.

In late April, a group of Buddhist ultranationalists pressured local officials to close the two schools, arguing that Muslims were using them to hold prayers in violation of an agreement signed by school leaders in October 2015.

Ma Ba Thas image has been destroyed because of the media which do not comment correctly on Ma Ba Thas actions, said Ashin Thawparka, a Ma Ba Tha leader. Some media have written that Ma Ba Tha did something bad, but we didnt actually do it. Thats why Ma Ba Tha has a bad image.

Ma Ba Tha leaders also said they have formed a new group called Dhamma Wunthanu Retkhita (Religious and Nationalistic Spirits Association) to work on religious and national affairs.

Ma Ba Tha monks said the group will not take action against people or organizations that have falsely accused the organization of stirring up trouble in the past, but will do so in the future in accordance with the law.

When reporters asked Ma Ba Tha leaders if they intend to take action against Wirathu a prominent monk in the Ma Ba Tha movement, who is known for his fiery anti-Muslim rhetoricfor his online posts inciting hatred against those of other faiths, Ashin Thawparka indicated that they would not do so.

When U [honorific] Wirathu posted something online or said, he usually mentions that it is his personal opinion, he said. Because he says it is his personal opinion, it is not Ma Ba Thas policy or objective.

Antiterrorist Association formed

In a related development, anti-Wirathu campaigner Myat Kyaw told RFA on Tuesday that he and others have formed an Antiterrorist Association on April 5 because they heard that the firebrand monk would deliver a sermon despite a ban by the State Sangha Maha Nayaka (Ma Ha Na), the government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhist monks that oversees and regulates the Buddhist clergy in Myanmar.

The body enacted the ban on March 10 to prevent Wirathu from giving sermons across the country for one year because of his use of hate speech against religions other than Buddhism to cause communal strife and hinder efforts to uphold the rule of law.

We will recognize an act as terrorism if someone destroys peace, discriminates or bullies others, or foments violence Myat Kyaw said, adding that the group will reject the acts and work to stop the perpetrators, whether they are monks or laymen.

We thought that [Wirathu] ignored the order of the State Sangha Maha Nayaka, he said. We formed this group with about 10 people to reject U Wirathus action against the State Sangha Maha Nayaka.

Myat Kyaw also said that Wirathu made a comment during a sermon that he would send dogs for women to marry instead of marrying Muslims.

These are not appropriate words coming from a monk, he said, adding that his group collected 500 signatures in South Dagon Township in the southeastern part of Yangon and submitted them to Ma Ha Na to determine whether Wirathus comment was inappropriate.

Myat Kyaw said the anti-Wirathu movement is growing as members continue to collect signatures in South Okkalapa township in eastern Yangon to submit to leading monks from the State Sangha Maha Nayaka and the head of Myanmars Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture.

It is Ma Ba Thas business if it controls U Wirathu or not, but we think it should because what Wirathu does can affect to Ma Ba Tha because he is a Ma Ba Tha member, he said. U Wirathu should adhere to monastic discipline as well.

As the essence of Buddhism is peace, Buddhas sons [monks] mustnt do anything like [what Wirathu is doing], he said.

In the past, Wirathu has spoken out against the countrys Rohingya Muslims and their defenders, participated in rallies celebrating the 2015 passage of a set of four controversial Race and Religion Protection Laws said to discriminate against Muslims, and praised the brutal January 2017 assassination of Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer and critic of Myanmars powerful military.

A recent unverified Facebook post that appeared to be posted by Wirathu threatened that Mingala Taungnyunt township would be destroyed on Monday in retaliation for the confrontation between monks and Muslims.

The threat prompted authorities to increase security in the area, though no incidents were reported.

Reported by Thiha Tun, Htet Arkar, Kyaw Thu and Aung Theinkha for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Authorities in central Vietnams Nghe An province on Tuesday defended the arrest of an activist who had campaigned against Hanois handling of a devastating toxic waste spill, saying he was responsible for a demonstration that took over a government office and created social disorder.



Nghe An provincial police on Monday detained Hoang Duc Binh, 34, for opposing officers on duty and abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state under Articles 257 and 258 of Vietnams penal code. The activist will be held for 90 days, police said.



On Tuesday, the Nghe An provincial government said Binhs arrest was in accordance with the law, according to reports carried in state media, and claimed he had provoked a demonstration in early April that occupied the headquarters of the Loc Ha Peoples Committee in neighboring Ha Tinh province.



Additionally, the news website of Vietnams Supreme Peoples Court issued a report detailing Binhs activities in recent years, which it labeled reactionary and politically colored, including appeals to establish unofficial union groups.



Most recently, Binh had been active in organizing protests over the governments response to the April 2016 waste spill by Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Groups steel plant, which killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen jobless in four coastal provinces.



Formosa has voluntarily paid U.S. $500 million to clean up and compensate coastal residents affected by the spill, but slow and uneven payout of the funds by the Vietnamese government has prompted protests that continue to be held more than a year later.



Following Binhs arrest on Monday, hundreds of people blocked off traffic in Nghe Ans Dien Chau district, near where plainclothes officers pulled over the car the activist was riding in, before proceeding to the front of the district government office to demand his release.



Nghe An-based reporter Nguyen Huu Vinh told RFAs Vietnamese Service that three members of the Dien Chau Youth League who had been dispatched by local authorities were detained by members of the public after they were discovered attempting to undermine the protest.



Security personnel were later deployed in large numbers to shut down the gathering and many protesters were beaten, he added.



Official media reported that after Binhs arrest, several people complied with the incitement of activist priest Nguyen Dinh Thuc from the Catholic Church to demand his release, and that four state propaganda officers were held until the protest ended.



In early May, Thuc and another priest, Dang Huu Nam, were denounced by the Vietnamese government for organizing protests against Formosa.



While Thuc has not been arrested, the government has suggested that he should be seriously dealt with in accordance with the law.



Response to arrest



Binhs arrest drew condemnation Tuesday from local activists, as well as from international rights groups.



Hoang Thanh, a Hanoi-based member of local environmental watchdog Green Trees, said Binh had helped the country by speaking out against Formosa and about how the company had affected peoples lives.



This is something we should be doingits a very good idea in the present context, he said.



The state media previously had slammed the legitimate actions of Hoang Binh, but he is working to protect the environment.



Ho Chi Minh City-based activist Nguyen Phuong said the arrest and warrant showed that activists have nothing to fear from the governments illegal crackdown.



It is impossible to catch all the people who are like Hoang Binh, he said.



I could just as easily be a Hoang Binh and I will speak out against Formosa and the misconduct of the authorities.



Phil Roberston, New York-based Human Rights Watchs deputy Asia director, told RFA that the government should be investigating Formosa instead of investigating the people who are demanding it take action against the company.



What we have seen is a greater level of oppression coming against those activists who are demanding that Formosa take responsibility, he said.



That is unfortunate because what it shows is that the government is more concerned about trying to control its people and to repress their freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful public assembly than it is about making a foreign company that was completely irresponsible and caused massive destruction to the environment  accountable.



Formosa's steel mill in Ky Anh district, Dec. 3, 2015. Credit: AFP Test run concerns



Reactions to Binhs arrest came as scientists and area residents expressed concerns Tuesday over the governments decision to allow Formosa to temporarily operate its steel mill in the Vung Ang Economic Zone, in Ha Tinhs Ky Anh district, that was responsible for last years spill.



In April, the environment ministry announced that Formosa had met conditions to start testing the steel mill after conducting a three-day inspection of the U.S. $11 billion-dollar plant and concluding that Formosa had addressed 52 out of 53 operating violations that had led to the spill.



On May 10, the government granted approval to Formosa to begin a six-month test-run on its No. 1 blast furnace and auxiliary facilities, saying the company had effectively rectified the incident that polluted more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Vietnams coastline and was in full control of its operations.



Le Huy Ba, former director of the Institute for Environment, Science, Technology and Management at the Institute of Industry in Ho Chi Minh City, told RFA Tuesday that he found the decision worrying because details of the inspection process had not been open to the public.



They said its good to operate now, but how good? he asked.



[Government inspectors] said there were 53 violations and [Formosa has] fixed 52, but we havent had a chance to verify that. I am very worried about the waste and emission [from the test run] which will include a lot of toxins.



The Institute of Oceanography of Nha Trangs Nguyen Ngoc Lam said the government cannot afford to undercut safety levels and allow Formosa to operate, even if only for six months.



For scientists, the reaction is very strong against this decision, but the problem is whether our reaction matters to the state or not, he said.



In general, Vietnam must now be on full alert. At this point, all the waste [from last years spill] has dissolved in the sea  so nothing is left, but we still need to be wary.



Residents frustrated



Residents of Ky Anh suggested that the government was not acting in the interest of the people by approving the test run and expressed frustration that their concerns are not being taken into consideration.



I almost have no reaction to their decision because I am just a normal person and everything is decided by the higher ups, said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.



There is nothing people like us can do to change this. But if they decided to operate it again, they must take full responsibility.



A second resident of Ky Anh, who also asked not to be named, told RFA that no one believes Formosa had addressed the problems that led to last years spill.



Formosa is a disaster for the Vietnamese people and I think the only solution is to shut the companys operations downnothing else will work, the resident said.



The authorities lied and said it was safe to bathe in the sea and eat the fish [after the spill]they treat us like little kids who know nothing, he said.



This is just an excuse to avoid shutting down Formosa. The company not only directly affects our present, but also our future and that is what I'm really worried about.



Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Emily Peyman. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
The wife of detained Chinese rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong has said she has received an account of his torture during his detention in an unknown location. Jiang, who went missing on Nov. 21 in the central city of Changsha, is now confirmed by police as detained under "residential surveillance in a designated location" on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power." He was identified as vulnerable to torture by Amnesty International in January. Speaking from her home in the U.S., Jin Bianling said authorities in neighboring Henan province have also detained Jiang's father and sister after they arrived in Beijing:



is the 172nd day of Jiang Tianyong's secret detention. To this day, nobody in our family knows exactly where he is being held. His lawyers aren't permitted to meet with him.



We have recently learned from a sympathetic official source in Changsha that Jiang Tianyong has been tortured. There is a problem with his feet. They are so swollen that he can't stand up. He may be crippled for life.



I was extremely concerned and worried when I heard about this. I fear for Jiang Tianyong's life and his well-being, because I have seen that other lawyers, Xie Yang, Li Chunfu, and Li Heping released recently had been detained and tortured too.



I worry that Jiang Tianyong won't be able to bear it.



[], Jiang Tianyong's sister went with his father to Beijing to pick up a few items from his brother's place. But they were stopped by interceptors from Henan shortly after they arrived and taken to a hotel.



They were told it was because the One Belt, One Road forum is about to open in Beijing, so they weren't being allowed into the city.



They then took Jiang Tianyong's sister and father back home in their own car, driving through the night. They arrived in Luoshan in Xinyang city, Henan at around 6.00 a.m. [] morning.



But Jiang Tianyong's sister and father weren't allowed home after they arrived in Luoshan. They have been taken to the Nangan police station for interrogation. They haven't yet been released.



I condemn these actions in the strongest terms.



In particular, I condemn the Hunan authorities' ... cruel and inhumane torture of Jiang Tianyong.



I call on China's judicial system to carry out an investigation into Jiang Tianyong's treatment and make his whereabouts and situation publicly known.



At the same time, I call on the Henan police to give me a full and public account of which laws Jiang Tianyong's father and sister are alleged to have broken.



They were detained when they only went to Beijing to pick up a few things, and we still don't know where they are or what happened to them."



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Anheuser-Busch plans to invest $500 million in its U.S. facilities and operations in 2017, including $18 million at its brewery near Williamsburg.

The beer company operates 21 breweries in the U.S. and, while still a major force among beer producers, it faces tough competition from small, locally run, more nimble craft breweries.

This particular announcement really celebrates our companys commitment to continuing to invest in a big way in our breweries and facilities, said Bryan Derr, general manager of the brewery in James City County.

One of the capital projects at that brewery near Williamsburg will be a new packer, a piece of equipment that puts bottles into a secondary package, Derr said. The new equipment will allow the brewery to be more innovative in packaging, he said.

Our goal is to always meet the ever-changing demands of our consumer. And we want to wow our consumer with our innovation on packaging, even on brands that customers know as well as Budweiser and Bud Light, Derr said.

Another project being funded by the $18 million investment is new labeling equipment.

When we refreshed the Bud Light label ... the capability of the equipment we had would allow us to make about 1,000 bottles per minute on those labelers. With these new labelers, we will be able to put labels on bottles at about 1,600 bottles per minute, Derr said.

Anheuser-Buschs brewery near Williamsburg, which opened in 1972, is a 1.2 million-square-foot facility that sits on a 144-acre site at 7801 Pocahontas Trail. It underwent a major modernization upgrade in 2006. The plant employs about 600 full-time, part-time and seasonal workers, Derr said.

In addition to Budweiser and Bud Light, brands produced there include AmberBock, Michelob Ultra, King Cobra, Busch and Hurricane High Gravity.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is also looking beyond beer. The $500 million investment includes $10 million at its Baldwinsville, N.Y., brewery to increase production of non-alcoholic products, mainly Teavana tea, and to install a new multipacker.

Other projects include:
The Cameron Foundation said Monday it will invest $1 million with Virginia Community Capital, a community development financial institution with offices in Christiansburg, Richmond and Norfolk.

The commitment includes directing $750,000 into a Local Impact Opportunity Note loan with VCC and making a $250,000 deposit with its banking subsidiary, Community Capital Bank.

The Cameron Foundation is making grants to help transform the Tri-Cities and surrounding counties into an economically vital region. Since it began making grants in 2004, it has awarded more than $80 million to organizations serving residents in this area.
Regal Cinemas plans to put a movie theater complex at Regency Square.

The movie chain has signed a letter of intent with the malls owners, said Rob Hargett, a principal with Chesterfield County-based The Rebkee Co., which bought the mall with Thalhimer Realty Partners in February 2015.

Regal wants to be open at Regency Square by March 2019, he told those attending a meeting Tuesday of the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate and the Urban Land Institute. About 130 people attended the meeting at the Henrico County malls food court.

The theater complex will likely have 10 to 12 screens. It will take over the second floor of the former Macys South building.

The height of that store building will be raised from 45 feet to 70 feet to accommodate Regal. The height change has been approved by the county.

A lease still needs to be signed, Hargett said, but he said he and his partners who are redeveloping the mall and adjacent roads to improve access and visibility are optimistic that will take place.

Regal wants to be open March 29, 2019. So we start the front, we do the road, we do the outparcels, then we move to the back. This time next year, well be talking about starting up Regal construction, Hargett said.

Having Regal open at Regency Square returns a movie theater complex to the area.

The Ridge Cinemas, which stood as a landmark on nearby Eastridge Road for 32 years, closed in 2002. The seven-screen multiplex was eventually torn down and a Kroger supermarket was built in its place.

That theater had gone through a number of owners over its three decades, but Regal Entertainment Group owned it at the end.

Regal said it was excited to be a part of Regency Squares redevelopment.

Our new Regal Cinemas will offer a whole new moviegoing experience featuring luxury amenities including king-size recliners that will certainly impress our guests and attract moviegoers from a wide region, said Richard M. Grover, vice president of marketing and communications for Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal Entertainment Group.

***

Lidl is leasing the first floor of the Macys South building as a training center for the Germany-based grocer, Hargett said.

Lidl plans to open its first U.S. stores this summer  including some in the Richmond area  but the company has not given specific opening dates.

The chain has a 12-month lease on the space, which began April 1.

The two Macys stores at Regency closed in March 2016 as part of a national downsizing by the retailer.

***

Starbucks plans to locate in the former Bank of America branch along Quioccasin Road, Hargett said. That should open in March 2018.

Tenants have also been signed for new space to be built west of the Starbucks near where the current flyover entrance off Quioccasin Road is now.

Coming next spring will be Chipotle Mexican Grill, Sprint and MOD Pizza, a Seattle-based fast-casual pizza company.

The malls owners have plans to redesign the road entrance that would eliminate the flyover and add a traffic signal as a new entrance to the mall as well as to the Walmart-anchored shopping center across the street.

Work on the new entrance could begin this summer once the county gives final approval, Hargett said.

The developers are also talking to a fast-casual dining chain to locate on an outparcel at the corner of North Parham and Holly Hill roads.

All along the way, we believe the soft goods retailers will show up as they see something actually happening, Hargett said.

Concept drawings for the mall redevelopment suggest that a well-known discount clothing retailer and a chain shoe store could be mall tenants, though no commitments have been made.

The height of the former Macys North building will be raised from 57 feet to 65 feet to accommodate a trampoline park tenant that would take the third floor of that building. A lease for that space has not been signed.

The parking deck in front of that Macys North building would be demolished  replaced by a two-story, 12,320-square-foot building that would house shops.

Rebkee and Thalhimer Realty Partners, the investment and development subsidiary of Cushman & Wakefield | Thalhimer, a commercial real estate firm based in Henrico, bought the enclosed part of the mall, the two former Macys buildings and related parking lots.

J.C. Penney and Sears remain as anchor tenants, and those two buildings are owned by their retail companies.

The 820,000-square-foot enclosed mall at North Parham and Quioccasin roads opened in October 1975.

The malls estimated $35 million redevelopment is a challenge far beyond what I imagined, which makes it worth doing, Hargett said.

The folks who bought this mall are local, and we believe in the neighborhood. ... And its a community effort. The county has been behind us. The brokerage community is trying to help us find (tenants), Hargett said.
In November 1971, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Peterson of Dinwiddie County welcomed quadruplets at Petersburg General Hospital. The babies, two girls and two boys, were reportedly the first quadruplets born in the state since 1966. Solidifying the rarity of the occurrence, the couples doctor said they had about a one in 700,000 chance of having quadruplets.

Before the couple decided on names, they called the non-identical twins A, B, C, and D. The babies, eventually named Karen, Shari, Kevin and Stevie, became local celebrities for some time. The parents were unprepared for the amount of public attention that the births generated and after their babies were born, the Petersons received gifts from people all over the nation.
A Chester woman who worked as an income tax return preparer from 2011 through 2015 pleaded guilty Tuesday to filing false tax returns.

Crystal Charmae Jackson, 44, admitted that she conspired with David Wayne Schneider to prepare and file returns that contained false entries on behalf of clients, resulting in inflated refunds to the clients.

The fraudulently obtained refunds were deposited into the bank accounts of Zimmerman Bail Bonding, a company owned by Schneider, on many occasions.

Schneider was sentenced to two years in prison last year and ordered to pay $515,104.74 in restitution to the IRS.

Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to submit false claims and making false claims and faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison when sentenced on Sept. 12 by U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr.
The state of Virginia is about to embark on a building spree in Richmond, with over $400 million worth of construction and renovation projects planned from downtown to the Carillon, including an expansion at the biotech park, renovations around Capitol Square and an addition to the Virginia War Memorial.

Work on the most well-publicized project  the construction of a new General Assembly Building  is scheduled to begin with demolition of the existing building in January 2018, state Department of General Services Director Chris Beschler told a Richmond City Council panel Tuesday.

He said the House of Delegates has begun moving its offices from the building to the Pocahontas Building, a state office building across Capitol Square between Bank and Main streets. He said other government functions housed in the building will soon follow suit, with abatement beginning in August.

Construction is expected to stretch from 2018 to mid-2021, he said.

Concurrently, the state expects to begin work on a new parking garage across Ninth Street and fronting Broad Street, with construction expected to wrap up in spring 2020. The design of both buildings is being developed.

Beschler said the General Assembly Building will preserve a historic facade facing the Capitol, as previously reported. He also said the state is pursuing a design concept for the building that will include entrances facing both Broad Street and the Capitol. Currently the public can enter the building only from the square. And the state wants to put the buildings cafe and dining area on the first floor, which Beschler said would encourage walk-in traffic .

We hope that will revitalize that area of Broad Street a little, he told the council members.

Beschler said plans for the parking garage will also aim to encourage foot traffic by locating office space on the first floor to house state functions that involve the public. The state is planning for the garage to contain about 500 parking spaces on seven levels.

He said the state has not yet determined whether there will be a tunnel below Ninth Street connecting the garage to the new General Assembly Building, but a skybridge has been ruled out.

A complete interior and exterior renovation of Old City Hall is scheduled to begin in fall 2018, with a scheduled completion date in fall 2020. The building, located on Broad Street next to the General Assembly Building, was completed in 1894 and housed the citys government through 1970, when the new high-rise City Hall was built across the street.

Beschler said the building is scheduled to be vacated in March 2018 after its used for transition office space for whoever wins the coming gubernatorial election.

He said the state plans to ask the city to close a lane of traffic on Ninth and Broad streets fronting the building. He acknowledged that means the citys new bus rapid transit system will be without an eastbound lane not long after it opens, but said the state hopes to work with the city to develop a workaround.

To the east of the Capitol, an expansion and renovation of the Department of Forensic Science on Fifth Street, at the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park, will begin in late 2018 and is expected to continue through mid-2021. The project renovates 134,000 square feet of existing laboratory and constructs a 160,000-square-foot addition.

Two war memorials in the city will also receive some attention.

The Virginia War Memorial overlooking the James River on South Belvidere Street is slated for a $21 million expansion, construction of which will begin this fall and end in mid-2019.

A renovation of the Carillon, a World War I memorial in Byrd Park, will also begin in the fall and wrap up before commemorative services scheduled for November 2018, the 100th anniversary of the wars end. The work will rehab the structures bells, elevator and roof, and replace its doors and windows.

Finally, the most far-ranging project  a renewal and renovation of the Virginia Supreme Courts building at the block bounded by Eighth, Ninth and East Franklin streets  is scheduled to begin in 2022, with work wrapping up in 2025.

Beschler put the states total investment in recent or upcoming projects in the city at about $500 million. That includes the recently completed $70 million renovation of the Barbara Johns Building and a $900,000 rehabilitation of President James Monroes tomb in Hollywood Cemetery.

The three projects on Capitol Square  the new General Assembly Building, parking garage and Old City Hall renovation  are budgeted to cost $300 million, and the addition to the Virginia War Memorial is expected to cost $21 million, Beschler said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of General Services, Dena Potter, said the state doesnt have definitive cost estimates for the remainder of the projects and that the final cost for all the projects has yet to be determined.

City Council members left Tuesdays meeting, a gathering of the councils Land Use, Housing and Development Committee, impressed by the scope of the planned work.
A West Coast company is in the early stages of proposing a solar farm in Hanover County.

OneEnergy Renewables of Seattle is forming plans for a small renewable energy solar project north of Old Church Road along U.S. 360. Plans call for a 20-megawatt project that would cover 165 acres over multiple parcels, according to a public notice from the Department of Environmental Quality.

Gia Clark, OneEnergys director, met with Hanover staff on Wednesday to float the idea for the project and to get feedback about things the company would need to keep in mind if it moved forward with filing plans.

Its all still pretty conceptual, Clark said.

The DEQ notice says OneEnergy Renewables has given notice of plans to submit the needed documentation for a permit by rule for the solar project, which has been dubbed Sweetspire Project. OneEnergy has given notice to the DEQ for a similar proposal in Isle of Wight County.

Clark said OneEnergy is a small fish in the solar industry that has experience working with agricultural communities in Maryland. Clark said one of the upsides of working with Hanover is that the locality is familiar with solar developments.

In February, Hanover approved plans for a 222-acre solar facility to be built along U.S. 360 in Mechanicsville, near the King William County line. The 20-megawatt facility is backed by Henry Broaddus who is partnering with the company SunEnergy1 of North Carolina on the project. As of last week, site plans had not yet been submitted for Broaddus and SunEnergy1s plans.

Supervisor Faye O. Prichard could not comment on specific solar proposals but did say in general that she supports solar farms.

It gives farmers options, Prichard said. Most people who live in Hanover love the fact that they live in a rural county, but when farmers dont have options to use land in responsible way, thats when farmers sell land for development.

Part of the reason OneEnergy was attracted to do business in Virginia is because Dominion Energy has signaled its interest in renewable energy and the region has ties to the PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission entity that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity across the regional grid.

In the case of the site OneEnergy is eyeing in Hanover, the company identified the location and reached out to the landowner about the project.

Clark would not say where specifically the project is proposed. A Google map on the DEQs website locates the project just east of River Road along Mechanicsville Turnpike. That places the project in the vicinity of the other solar project in the works for Hanover.

OneEnergy Renewables was formed in 2009 and develops solar projects across the country, including in Maryland, Oregon and New York. The company specializes in pre-construction development of ground mounted solar projects.

Clark said the company hopes to do some kind of community outreach to get feedback from Hanover residents.

Kate Larkin, a OneEnergy associate, said the company is interested in having a low impact on the land it leases for its solar projects. She said solar farms are typically temporary and are removed after their 25- to 30-year lifespans.

OneEnergy emphasized that it is still trying to determine whether moving forward with plans in Hanover would be worth it. Should it move forward with its plans in the county, at best it would be a three-year process.
U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-1st, met with about 30 tea party activists Monday evening in the rural Beaverdam area of Hanover County to take questions about health care, the budget, flag burning and Republican leadership in Washington.

Wittmans district includes Hanover and King William counties in the Richmond area. He spoke to the Patrick Henry Tea Party, which has dotted the area with signs promoting its membership. Hanover was represented by Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th, prior to a court-ordered redistricting last year.

Wittman, who has represented the 1st District since December 2007, said he had also met with several progressive groups formed to oppose President Donald Trump. On Monday, he touted the American Health Care Act, the bill that passed the U.S. House on a second attempt and is designed to repeal provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Wittman voted against the first version of the bill but said the second version contained a lot of good pieces.

We know the Affordable Care Act by any measure is not working, he said. The law continues to fail. Therefore, something must be done.

Wittman said the House bill, which is expected to be revised in the Senate, moves toward a philosophy of allowing individuals, not the federal government, to make decisions.

Wittman said he voted against the big omnibus spending bill in early May. As Congress looks forward to tax code changes, he said he liked Trumps pitch for a reduction in the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent.

Questions ranged from high-speed rail to a discussion on broadband internet.

Bob Keeler, who helped form this tea party group early in the Obama administration, said members in the area loved Brat. But Wittman is following in his steps.

Hes not in the Freedom Caucus yet, but were a work in progress on him, Keeler said.

Wittman later said he asks pointed questions of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and others in the GOP leadership.

John Boehner and I had some very cross words, he said, referring to the former House speaker whose moderate tendencies enraged conservatives. In fact, I wont even go into some of the things that happened on the House floor.

Im going to listen to what folks are saying back home.

The meeting was held at American Legion Post 90.

Post commander Eugene Truitt, an Air Force veteran from Mechanicsville, asked Wittman when Congress would pass a bill to provide penalties for flag desecration.

Wittman said he believed such a bill, which he supports, would get a hearing this year. I continue to push the leadership to have it come to the House floor, he said.

I do think its worthy of debate about what are the limits of freedom of expression under the First Amendment.

Ill have a conversation with Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader (Kevin) McCarthy, Wittman said. I want a yes or no answer from them about whether they will bring that bill to the floor.

One topic that did not come up during the meeting was one thats consuming Washington  Russia.

Wittman said afterward that he wants to allow the House and Senate intelligence committees and the FBI to investigate various aspects of Russias influence on the American election. That should be a nonpartisan issue, he said.

And while he didnt oppose Trumps firing last week of FBI Director James Comey, he added: I understand the criticism about the timing.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday directed the state Department of Environmental Quality to begin assembling regulations to reduce carbon emissions from Virginia power plants.

The initiative was celebrated by environmentalists and renewable energy businesses that see the state as a laggard when it comes to solar and wind capacity and energy-efficiency programs.

The move by the Democratic governor, however, drew complaints of regulatory overreach from Virginia Republicans.

McAuliffe said in a statement: The threat of climate change is real, and we have a shared responsibility to confront it. Once approved, this regulation will reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the commonwealths power plants and give rise to the next generation of energy jobs. As the federal government abdicates its role on this important issue, it is critical for states to fill the void.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the Earths atmosphere and is a driver of global warming, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Over the past several decades, the administration says, about 80 percent of human-induced CO2 emissions came from the burning of fossil fuels.

Though it does not lay out the 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 that environmental groups wanted, McAuliffes executive directive instructs the DEQ to develop a proposed regulation for the State Air Pollution Control Board to abate, control or limit carbon dioxide from power plants that will allow for the use of market-based mechanisms and the trading of carbon dioxide allowances through a multistate trading program.

The proposed regulation is due to be presented to the board by Dec. 31, just before McAuliffe leaves office.

Last summer, McAuliffe issued an executive order convening a working group consisting of Cabinet officials and leaders of the DEQ and the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to develop recommendations on cutting carbon from power plants. The market-based carbon-trading aspect was a key component of the groups report.

Dominion Energy, the states largest utility, has recently pointed to its own emission reductions, a push toward developing solar installations and acceptance of carbon regulation as settled public policy.

Dominion has been preparing for carbon regulation for some time now and appreciates being a part of the stakeholder engagement process, spokesman David Botkins said.

Appalachian Power Co. was prepared for the executive order, but representatives will review the details to determine how the regulations could affect the company and its customers in Southwest Virginia, spokesman John Shepelwich said.

While the company operates coal plants in West Virginia, Appalachian doesnt have any in the commonwealth that could be subject to increased regulation under McAuliffes executive order. In Virginia, Appalachian operates two natural gas facilities in Russell County and six hydroelectric power plants, and the company has power purchase agreements to harness wind power.

Because Appalachians long-term planning already emphasizes growth in renewable energies, largely from wind and solar power, Shepelwich predicts the added regulations wont have much impact on the company.

Weve got a good working relationship with his [McAuliffes] team and the DEQ so I expect us to certainly work with them, Shepelwich said.

***

Environmental groups, which were some of the largest contributors to his 2013 campaign, hailed McAuliffes move as strong climate leadership in the face of President Donald Trumps order in March directing the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obamas signature regulation aimed at cutting emissions from power plants.

Trumps order was seen as a death blow for the plan, which has been stalled in federal courts.

The Virginia Conservation Network, a consortium of more than 100 environmental groups, called McAuliffes directive the largest step taken in the United States to tackle climate change since President Trump took office.

Republican Party of Virginia spokesman David DOnofrio called the carbon directive the worst kind of virtue signaling.

DOnofrio criticized Obamas Clean Power Plan as an expensive and ineffectual measure that he said would have reduced global temperatures by .015 of a degree while increasing electricity costs by billions.

If reducing emissions for the entire country gets .015 degrees, how much less would a Virginia-only plan do? DOnofrio said. Terry McAuliffes decision to resist common-sense environmental policy will drive up prices for consumers, cost Virginians jobs and make it even more difficult to grow our economy.

Environmentalists argued that the final Clean Power Plan was too soft on Virginia and that opponents greatly overstated the cost of compliance. Dominion filed a legal brief in support of the plan, saying that effects on power plants and customers can be successfully managed provided that the rule allowed market-based compliance measures, such as emissions trading, and allowed states to create flexible timelines.

***

The working groups report, dated May 12, says climate change and an associated rise in sea level, which could increase by 5 feet in Virginia by the end of the century, pose potentially devastating risk to the state.

Virginia has seen a 33 percent increase in heavy rainstorms and snowstorms in the past 60 years and an 11 percent increase in precipitation from the largest storms, the report says. Climate change also poses threats to water supplies, agriculture, property and human health in the form of asthma and cardiovascular disease and increasing numbers of disease-spreading insects such as ticks and mosquitoes, it says.

Though carbon dioxide emissions from Virginias electric-generating units fell by 21 percent between 2005 and 2014, they still account for about 30 percent of the states overall CO2 emissions, according to the report, which also cited the economic potential of the clean energy sector.

In the past year, the number of solar jobs in Virginia has increased 65 percent, making Virginias solar job market the ninth-fastest growing in the nation, the working group says. The state is home to more than 75,000 energy-efficiency workers, and clean-energy business revenue in Virginia increased to $1.5 billion in 2016 from $300 million in 2014.

McAuliffes working group also recommended updating state building codes and convening an Environmental Justice Advisory Council to ensure fair treatment and meaningful involvement by all people with respect to policy decisions that impact the environment and health of local communities, among other findings.

Staff writer Carmen Forman contributed to this report.
Business News Israeli Diplomat Touts Business Relationships With Tennessee | RobinsPost News & Noticias

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee ... business leaders these days, they said, is infrastructure. McWherter and Bishop said while certain ... Read More Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Now is a great time to launch a limited liability company ... Read More --(BUSINESS WIRE)--More than 20 million Xfinity households across the country, including Tennessee will soon ... and streaming with 57 million customer relationships across the United States ... Read More McWhorter met with the Business Journal this week for a wide ... NBJ: These were decisions made before you were in this role, but Tennessee has made aggressive moves to win electric vehicle ... Read More The BlueAdvantage Medicare plan offered by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee earned the highest possible rating this year as the only Medicare plan in the state to get a top 5-star rating from the ... Read More Proponents, including business interests and Republican ... a Teamster from East Tennessee, said in a news release from the No on 1 Committee. They also see reasons for hope in Tennessee. Read More According to the new Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report issued by the Secretary of States office, Tennessee experienced the second largest number of new entity filings for a ... Read More (AP)  Private nonprofit organizations in 13 Tennessee counties have a few more ... the U.S. Small Business Administration said. Nov. 3 is the filing deadline. Organizations such as food ... Read More My advice to Tennessee fans: Its too early to take the Top 25 college football polls too seriously. I realize the temptation. The Vols are suddenly a major player in college football. Read More It wasnt quite the day Executive Director Richard Johnston imagined when he opened the east campus of Tennessee Children ... the feel for the Knoxville business community. Read More
Health News Another Voice Health Care Reforms Need To Be Driven By Foundational Principles | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Oregon voters are being asked to decide whether the state should be the first in the nation to amend its constitution to explicitly declare that affordable health care is a ... Read More
Leaders and activists of various Opposition parties on Monday gathered at the Dharna Chowk in Indira Park, Hyderabad to protest against it's relocation.The agitation which has been brewing since a month has once again surfaced. Speaking on the issue, Commissioner of Police (CP) Mahender Reddy said that due to traffic constraints, space has been provided at four other locations in the city for staging protests.Meanwhile, members of Walker's Association and locals protested against the issue saying that the Dharna Chowk in the park would lead to noise pollution and disturbance in the surroundings.

Despite Police giving permission to TJAC protests over the retention of Dharna Chowk at Indira Park, clashes erupted with several members of Walkers' Association getting gravely injured. Chaos prevailed with party leaders trying to control their activists and Police trying to bring the situation under control.Telangana TDP MLA Revanth Reddy reacted strongly against Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for provoking people against each other. Citing the visuals in the TV Channels, Revanth Reddy said that few police constables were made to come in civil dress and protest against all parties, for relocation of Dharna Chowk.Stating that majority wins in a Democracy, the TDP MLA said that more people want Dharna Chowk in it's original place at Indira Park.
Elections News Former Bahamas Pm Perry Christie Resigns As Plp Party Leader After Stunning Elections Defeat | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Elections News Backgrounder Iran S Presidential Elections In A Glance | RobinsPost News & Noticias

A significant majority of the Iranian Parliament recommended the execution of protesters in custody on Tuesday, claiming that doing so represented a hard lesson for Iranians who had broken the law ... Read More Iran dismissed President Biden as a "tired" politician and condemned U.S. "interference ... Election season is here! Get the latest race updates, exclusive interviews, and more Fox News politics ... Read More In a statement through the countrys official news agency, Raisi, who was elected Irans president last year, gave a stern warning to Biden about the ongoing crisis in his country.  ... Read More In his message congratulating Abdul Latif Rashid's election ... deepen even more. "Iran has always supported the Iraqi political process based on the people's vote and has been working on expanding ... Read More Candidates for key posts in battleground states who support former President Donald Trumps unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020 werent faring well as the first East Coast races were called. Read More The FBI has warned that an Iranian government-tied hacker group ... in connection with the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In its memo Thursday, the FBI warned, these techniques may be ... Read More Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Monday that ... pdm/kam/pjm The Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. Read More TEHRAN (Tasnim) - In a message sent to the Iraqi people and government on Thursday, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran congratulated Abdul Latif Rashid on his election as the country's ... Read More Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned President Biden of the growing challenge the U.S. and Israel face in containing an increasingly belligerent Iran as the two leaders met at the White House on ... Read More DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Irans president on Thursday accused the U.S. of conducting a failed policy of destabilization targeting his nation, as Iranian protesters continued to ... Read More (Both China and Iran have in the past denied accusations of cyberattacks on U.S. entities.) Of election security ... Heather Adkins, Google's vice president of security engineering, told reporters ... Read More Israel's President Isaac Herzog met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday to discuss tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine shortly before elections ... denouncing Iran for providing weapons ... Read More
Elections News Can New Elections Save Venezuela | RobinsPost News & Noticias

The Biden administration has extended an olive branch to Venezuela. It might sway Caracas to resume talks with the opposition for elections, and eventually let Venezuelan oil back on the world market. Read More Opposition leader Juan Guaido, center, sits with fellow lawmakers after their vehicles were attacked by government supporters, Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 15, 2020 (AP photo by Matias Delacroix). Click ... Read More Lopez, who spent more than four years of his life in solitary confinement after being arrested by the NICOLAS MADURO regime for leading protests against it in 2014, is starting a new initiative along ... Read More EU foreign ministers said the only way out of the crisis in Venezuela is to resume political ... broad political talks in Venezuela to set up new elections and warned that it stands ready to ... Read More Venezuela's National ... Maduro has welcomed the news of the election date and told official television station VTV: We will prepare for the birth of a new National Assembly. Read More According to DHS, the new policy seeks to establish a safer and more orderly process for people fleeing Venezuela and ease ... but with the midterm elections looming and Hochul in the middle ... Read More The 2024 elections have been viewed as an ... holds his daughter after a news conference at Caracas, Venezuela. AP/Ariana Cubillos Ms. Preve-Durrieu is a staff reporter at the New York Sun. She is a ... Read More In a sharp reversal of strategy, Venezuelas main opposition parties plan to compete in 2024 presidential elections no matter what conditions the government agrees to beforehand. Emboldened by ... Read More (Bloomberg) -- In a sharp reversal of strategy, Venezuelas main ... strategy of boycotting elections, holding on-again, off-again negotiations with the government and attempting to orchestrate a ... Read More The Biden administration released bad news for Democrats just two weeks out from the midterm elections ... for New Americans Executive Director Nicole Melaku calling Biden's Venezuela program ... Read More
Potus News Why Trump Probably Won T Get In Trouble For Telling Russia Highly Classified Information | RobinsPost News & Noticias

This quick analysis took shape despite the very real possibility that Republicans would wind up wresting control of one or both houses of Congress from the Democrats. From the coverage's perspective, ... Read More President Joe Biden questioned Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim Russia won't deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine Thursday and criticized his "dangerous" threats. Read More Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied having any intentions of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine but described the conflict there as part of alleged efforts by the West to secure its global ... Read More
Potus News California Politics Updates Brown Says Trump Doesn T Have The Answer Uc Audit Finds More Questionable Expenses | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Potus News Egypt Says Trump Called El Sissi Ahead Of Saudi Summit | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Zyad el-Elaimy spent three years in prison ... the releases as a cynical attempt to shore up Egypt's reputation ahead of the international summit. Last week, environmental activist Greta Thunberg ... Read More Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that Egyptian authorities have arrested dozens of people for calling for protests and restricted the right to protest in the days leading up to the COP27 climate ... Read More "Topics the government considers sensitive are now environmental red zones or no-go areas in Egyptand in other repressive regimes," he added. Last month, HRW published a report detailing how the ... Read More Tarik el-Awady, a member of Egypts presidential ... scrutiny ahead of the country's hosting of the U.N. climate change summit, set to begin Nov. 6. For almost a decade, the government of President ... Read More He also hailed the distinguished and historical relations binding Egypt and Saudi Arabia under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the Saudi king. The minister referred to the Nusuk ... Read More Tarik el-Awady, a member of Egypt ... ahead of the country's hosting of the U.N. climate change summit, set to begin Nov. 6. For almost a decade, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi ... Read More President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said on Tuesday that Egypt is keen on developing cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to enhance the healthcare system and medical services in Egypt ... Read More talking up future participation at the upcoming UN environmental summit COP27, to be held at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. 'One item that you and I will be participating in, Mr. President ... Read More 11, 2001, terrorist attacks released a new ad blasting the Saudi-backed ... the new ad says. The latest campaign ad follows a letter the advocacy group sent to former President Trump earlier ... Read More Sign up for our Middle East newsletter and follow us @middleeast for news on the region. Inflation in urban parts of Egypt accelerated at the fastest pace in almost ... Read More And the president says, I think it's-- it could have been ... Service message from that day shows how angry President Trump was about the outcome. Quote, "Just FYI, POTUS is pissed. Breaking news, ... Read More
Potus News Intelligence Trump Shared With Russians Came From Israel | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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The expansion was carried out by Himmetna Charitable Association in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and King Hussein Cancer Foundation and Centre, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. In ... Read More The Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today signed an agreement for IBM to provide the technology and services needed to establish a new Centre of Excellence ... Read More During the opening ceremony, Minister of Public Works and Housing Yahya Kisbi said that the housing and infrastructure sector is a key to achieving sustainable civil development, lauding Habitat's ... Read More Jordan informed club members that there are multiple open seats in the Senate across the United States during the upcoming election. All the Republicans up for re-election or open seats are all ... Read More Following news of Jordan's death, many, including former co-stars and fellow comedians, took to social media to mourn the loss. Sean Hayes, who starred in "Will & Grace" alongside Jordan ... Read More Wed start giggling the moment Jordan would open a new video with his Southern ... searching frantically for a trusted news source and hoping Id seen a fake death clickbait story. Read More Rest in Heaven." "LOVE YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!" actress Angie Harmon added. Jordan's death was confirmed to Fox News Digital by his agent on Monday afternoon. "The world is definitely a much darker ... Read More He was 67. "The world is definitely a much darker place today without the love and light of Leslie Jordan," his agent, David Shaul, shared in a statement with Fox News Digital. "Not only was he a ... Read More The world is definitely a much darker place today without the love and light of Leslie Jordan. Not only was he a mega talent and joy to work with, but he provided an emotional sanctuary to the ... Read More Jordan's partner and a representative confirmed his death to CBS News. Jordan appeared to be involved in a car crash in Los Angeles on Monday involving a BMW; photographs showed a vehicle having ... Read More Jordan won't play in Wednesday's preseason game against the Clippers for rest purposes, Mike Singer of The Denver Post reports. Jordan will get a rest day Wednesday with the regular season set to ... Read More Jordan Kleppers latest half-hour The Daily ... and how concerned we truly should be  while the mainstream network news departments continue to shirk their duties and focus aimlessly ... Read More
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Travel News Travel Hacks To Spend Less Than 50 A Day In Iceland | RobinsPost News & Noticias

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Us News Us Airstrike Kills At Least 30 Syrian Civilians Near Iraq Border | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Iran blames a deadly unidentified attack on a fuel convoy shortly after it entered Syria on the US, despite official denials. Read More Late night airstrikes in eastern Syria along the border with Iraq targeted Iran-backed militiamen, inflicting casualties, Syrian opposition activists said Wednesday. According to two paramilitary ... Read More Figures based on reported number of US airstrikes ... year was 2017 when at least 4,931 civilians were likely killed, the vast majority in coalition bombing of Iraq and Syria. Read More The US military told reporters in Iraq it was not involved in a raid on a pro-Iran militia convoy in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq that killed an estimated 15 members of a pro-Iranian ... Read More The attack late Tuesday destroyed several vehicles and killed at least 10 people, say people familiar with the attack. Read More Air Strike During Myanmar ... of the incident in its nightly news bulletin on Monday. It took place in the A Nang Pa region of Hpakant township and killed at least 50 people, BBC Burmese said ... Read More The strike hit two of the eight tankers that entered from Al Qaim border crossing in western Iraq to Albu Kamal in Syria, a senior Iraqi official told The National. The vehicles were part of a ... Read More Editors' Blog / Analysis & Opinion News ... Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 people were killed including nine civilians and others were wounded in Wednesdays blast. It added that at ... Read More The US military conducted an airstrike over the weekend against the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia, which was attacking Somali National Army forces near ... Read More BAGHDAD/BEIRUT (Reuters) -At least two fuel trucks were destroyed in an air strike by an unidentified drone on the Syrian side of the border with ... Read More An airstrike killed at ... of the incident in its nightly news bulletin on Monday. It took place in the A Nang Pa region of Hpakant township and killed at least 50 people, BBC Burmese said ... Read More
Us News California Officials Criticize Stupid Us Drug Crackdown | RobinsPost News & Noticias

More than 250 pounds of methamphetamine were seized by authorities in California following a traffic stop, San Bernardino police announced Monday. Officers with the department's Narcotics Unit ... Read More California's marijuana legalization has gone so poorly that the state is actually expanding the drug war. The enforcement program Bonta refers to is the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting ... Read More Nearly one million marijuana plants were seized in California during a statewide blitz to combat the illegal cannabis market. The crackdown was ... and involving drug trafficking organizations." ... Read More (CNN)  The United States on Wednesday imposed a slew of new sanctions against Iranian officials involved in the ongoing crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran  the latest US response to ... Read More The United States placed over a dozen Iranian officials on its sanctions ... "Kazemi has overseen a heightened crackdown on civil society across the country," the US Treasury said in a statement. Read More The US Treasury Department in a separate statement said it imposed sanctions on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials ... at least 15 people, state news agency IRNA said, as security ... Read More The United States on Wednesday imposed a slew of new sanctions against Iranian officials involved in the ongoing crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran  the latest US response to Tehrans ... Read More
Us News Us Firms Bidding In Saudi Arabia To Benefit From Trumponomics | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Joe Biden has threatened consequences after Opec+ decided to reduce output in a decision that will benefit Russia Saudi Arabia ... news has been particularly poorly received in the US ... Read More Saudi Arabia is Americas largest foreign military equipment customer, amounting to about $100 billion in sales between 2009 and 2020, a relationship that benefits the U.S. for the influx of ... Read More By Edward Wong WASHINGTON  The American secretary of state said on Wednesday that the United States would re-evaluate its relationship with Saudi Arabia ... the Bloomberg News bureau in Washington. Read More If Saudi Arabia, one of the worst violators of human rights in the world, wants to partner with Russia to jack up US gas prices, it can get Putin to defend its monarchy, he wrote. Read More Turkey accused the United States of bullying its ally Saudi Arabia after ... said at a news conference in southern Turkey on Friday. We dont think its right for the US to use it as ... Read More
Us News New South Korean President Will Visit Us Next Month | RobinsPost News & Noticias

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol addressed the crowd crush that left at least 153 dead during Halloween festivities in in Seoul. Read More When US President Joe Biden signed his signature green-energy legislation into law in August, it was already drawing fire for the protectionist cover it gave domestic manufacturers of electric ... Read More Yoel declared a national mourning period after over 150 people died in a Halloween stampede Saturday. Roughly 350 people were reported missing. Read More Washingtons No 2 diplomat will travel to Tokyo next week to meet with her counterparts from Japan and South Korea amid rising tensions with China and North Korea. The visit by US Deputy ... Read More South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol reiterated his vow to strengthen South Koreas defense in partnership with the United States and Japan ... since the North last month adopted a law ... Read More A multinational, multilateral naval exercise held in Japan showcased the combined defenses of 13 nations while rekindling cooperation between Japan and South Korea. Read More US President Joe Biden signed legislation to incentivise domestic production and reduce supply chain threats, but South Korea, Japan and EU say the rules violate international trade laws and seek ... Read More SEOUL--South Korean President ... United States is not aimed at China, which is South Koreas largest trading partner. Xi secured an unprecedented third term as leader on Sunday and introduced a ... Read More According to a Korean Central News Agency ... skull unearthed in South Dakota to be auctioned in New York A Tyrannosaurus rex skull unearthed in South Dakota is expected to sell for US$15 million or ... Read More The United States ... Korea this year has launched a record-high number of missiles, including a ballistic missile that flew over Japan earlier this month. On Tuesday, South Korean President ... Read More North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Friday in its first ballistic weapons launches in two weeks, as the U.S. military warned the North that the use of nuclear ... Read More SEOUL, Oct. 19 (UPI) --North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells near the border with South Korea ... to the United States plummeted for a third straight month. World News // 2 hours ago ... Read More
Us News North Korea Us End Times Bible Prophecy Nuclear Destruction Fears Should Christians Despair | RobinsPost News & Noticias

North Korea's use of a nuclear weapon "will" result in the end of Kim Jong Un's regime, the United States and South Korea warned in a joint statement from the defense leaders of the allied nations. Read More North Korea ... to tell the US and South Korea that any demonstrations of alliance solidarity and readiness will be in vain, Rand Corporation analyst Soo Kim told the AFP news agency. Read More (Bloomberg) -- As North Korea ... nuclear weapons can still cause massive destruction and non-proliferation advocates argue their use could quickly spin out of control. Such concerns were evident ... Read More You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Worries about North Koreas nuclear program deepened in recent months as the country adopted a new law authorizing ... Read More Pyongyang has completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test, South Korea said The U.S., S. Korea, Japan have been closely monitoring the Punggye-ri nuclear test site North Korea passed a ... Read More The U.S. and South Korea issued a joint warning to North Korea on Thursday, warning that any use of nuclear weapons would result in the end of Kim Jong Un's ... Read More North Korea was ... be necessary if North Korea pushes ahead with a seventh nuclear test," South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong reportedly told a news conference in Tokyo Wednesday. Read More Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse  Getty Images Three days after that test, North Korea fired two short-range missiles to practice launching tactical nuclear warheads that ... Read More At the beginning of October, North Korea fired a nuclear capable missile over Japan in its biggest ever test - with the devastating weapon capable of reaching US military bases on the island of Guam. Read More "We agreed that an unparalleled scale of response would be necessary if North Korea pushes ahead with a seventh nuclear test," South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong told a news ... Read More
Us News Arizona Man In The Us Illegally Shot Limo Driver Prosecutors Say | RobinsPost News & Noticias

The family of an Arizona man fatally shot by Phoenix police after he threw ... This was murder," he said at a news conference this month. "He should be in jail, not in a graveyard." ... Read More Law enforcement officers in Arizona discovered 72,000 suspected fentanyl ... Officials said that the driver and the passenger were asked to step out of the vehicle. Once they had stepped out ... Read More SALT RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY, AZ  A man ... Arizona, located on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, near Loop 101 and McKellips Road for a shooting. Hilario Mendoza, a taxi driver ... Read More A man was arrested for driving the wrong way down US 60 in Mesa on Tuesday night, according to the Arizona Dept. of Public Safety. Troopers say they received ... Oct. 25. The driver was eventually ... Read More DETROIT (AP)  A Michigan man has been arrested ... along Interstates 10 and 40, prosecutors said. Police have learned of six fires in California, three in Arizona, nine in New Mexico, three ... Read More An accomplice in the killing of a DoorDash driver in Paterson was sentenced Thursday to ten years in prison, prosecutors ... you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Read More A man is facing multiple charges after an alleged hit-and-run accident while his two-year-old son was in the car. On Nov. 7, Memphis Police in the area of Barron Avenue and Pendleton Street saw a blue ... Read More The lawsuit filed in federal court in Arizona on Friday asks that the state be allowed to take the unilateral action it believes necessary to defend its residents from migrants illegally crossing ... Read More The driver attempted to smuggle 60+ illegal immigrants concealed inside ... Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your ... Read More He was also present at the US Capitol during ... is running against Fontes in the Arizona secretary of state contest. Photograph: Rachel Mummey/Reuters Financially, the news is more cheerful ... Read More Kari Lake, who has echoed Trumps claims the 2020 election was stolen, refuses three times to answer when pressed on CNN The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to ... Read More Two Arizona institutions ranked in the highest 10% of schools on the latest U.S. News & World Report list of the top global universities for 2022-2023. Tucson-based University of Arizona was the ... Read More
World News World Bank Issues Tender For Prepaid Meters | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Claiming that the standard bidding guidelines issued by the Union power ministry for the purchase of 25 crore smart prepaid meters ... was that part-2 of a meter tender was opened only after ... Read More This report documents how, in a time of increasingly complex global challenges and historic development support by the World Bank Group, the offices of the sanctions system worked in FY22 to help ... Read More When David Malpass, president of the World Bank, was asked point-blank in September if he accepts the scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is dangerously warming the planet ... Read More World Bank and World Health Organization spoke World Bank Group President David Malpass held a news conference during the World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund International Monetary ... Read More said he expects Qatar to tolerate instances of activism during the World Cup, especially if they do not relate to political or geopolitical issues. Qatari police have been training ... Read More Both the IMF and the World ... tender, before the men in grey suits with machine guns [the IMF] forced them alter course. Expect nothing good to come from the IMF or the World Bank As ... Read More WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank said on Monday it had disbursed an additional $500 million to help Ukraine meet urgent spending needs created by Russia's Feb. 24 invasion and the ongoing war. Read More Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited (SJPNL) has clarified that the World Bank has not restrained it from awarding the work of 24x7 high-pressure water supply project to the company whose tender ... Read More Its a good thing this conversation with the World Bank has started, Thanu Yakupitiyage, the head of U.S. Communications for environmental group 350.org, told ABC News. But it cant ... Read More WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank President David Malpass defended the institution's commitment to tackling climate change on Tuesday, telling civil society groups that have criticized his ... Read More David Malpass job as president of the World Bank appears safe despite calls for his ouster by climate advocates, but the recent controversy over his climate views may have helped ram through ... Read More A spokesperson for the World Bank said: The World Bank Group has long recognised man-made climate change as one of the defining issues of our age, and weve been rapidly scaling up our ... Read More
World News A Men Only Island In Japan Set To Become World Heritage Site | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Their additions to the list will become official ... nominated the islands again in 2019. These islands will likely be Japans last natural World Heritage site. (This article was compiled ... Read More After Iriomotejima was included on UNESCO's World Natural Heritage list as part of southwestern islands on July 26, the problems of crowds will only ... Japan's last natural World Heritage site. Read More These photos taken while Japan was on the cusp of social and political upheaval showcase just how revered the samauri were. Read More Travelers like Lackmann are expected to deliver a sorely needed 5 trillion yen ($35 billion) boost to the world ... islands in the south, experts say these months are the best for enjoying what ... Read More At a Buddhist temple on a wooded hillside in Japan, grapes and wine bottles are given as offerings, and the head monk is also the honorary president of a vineyard cooperative. Officially, it is ... Read More Locations of the field training include Japan's southwestern islands including Tokunoshima ... for accelerating China's plans to build a world-class military and said his country would never ... Read More Who has the Japan boss picked for the World Cup 2022 in Qatar? Head coach Hajime Moriyasu has somewhat surprisingly left out Celtic duo Kyogo Furuhashi and Reo Hatate in what looks like an ... Read More Kaua'i, USA One of the most beautiful islands in the Hawaiian archipelago. It has immense green mountains and abundant water everywhere. Maldives The Maldives are home to some of the world's most ... Read More Sorry, but your browser needs Javascript to use this site. If you're not sure how to activate it, please refer to this site: https://www.enable-javascript.com ... Read More Oct. 20 (UPI) --The Japanese yen on Thursday weakened to its lowest point since August 1990 against the U.S. dollar to 150, sparking lawmakers to call for fiscal action. The Bank of Japan said it ... Read More United World Wrestling has announced the 10-man All-World Team for the 2022 Mens Freestyle World Cup set for Dec. 10-11 ... who went on to become the first American to win seven World and ... Read More droves of tourists from abroad began arriving in Japan on Tuesday, with the end of pandemic-fighting border restrictions that had been in place for more than two years. "We got the news that we ... Read More
World News Nigeria Ranked 13th Least Stable Country In The World | RobinsPost News & Noticias

In the latest annual ranking of the safest and least safe countries ... states of Nigeria , the Federal Capital Territory and around the world. It is Nigerias most authoritative news media ... Read More and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Nigeria was ranked among the hunger hot spots in the world. Other countries in that league are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Southern Sudan, and Yemen. Read More Nigeria has been ranked ... one country can have a direct impact on the purchasing power and food consumption of families in another, she said. Nigerias position on the GHI is not news ... Read More The British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Ben Llewellyn-Jones, has disclosed that Nigeria is among the top 10 of the worlds ... urging developed countries to at least double ... Read More Nigeria has been ranked 86th in ... fastest internet in the world this year, the report of the study said. Global overview This year, 7 out of the 10 highest-scoring countries are in Europe ... Read More the war-torn country has been ranked as the "least secure" country in the world, local media reported citing a report by Gallup's Law and Order Index. The survey evaluated around 120 countries ... Read More 17 (UPI) --More than 600 people have died and 1.3 million displaced in recent flooding in Nigeria, where officials ... pause travel to the continent. World News // 13 hours ago President Biden ... Read More ABUJA, Nigeria (AP)  The death toll from floods in Nigeria this year has increased to 603 as local authorities race to get relief items to hundreds of thousands being evacuated from their ... Read More All three countries sit above Nigeria in the world rankings, with Canada seventh, Australia 13th and the Republic of Ireland in 24th - some 21 places above the West Africans. The nine-time African ... Read More Two local universities are apparently the best in the world, according U.S. News & World ... schools from 95 countries. The two institutions also topped last years rankings. Read More Developed by Sucker Punch Games, the same studio that created the open-world superhero series Infamous, Ghost of Tsushima takes you back to 13th-century ... Abilities, Ranked This is thanks ... Read More Though many English-speaking countries spend October awaiting the thrills and chills of Halloween, the month is also marked by a host of other traditions across the world  from daylong holidays ... Read More
Sarah Champion

LABOURS parliamentary candidate for Rotherham Sarah Champion has given a speech at the launch of the partys General Election manifesto.

Ms Champion spoke to the supporters and journalists in Bradford this morning (Tuesday).

She introduced the manifesto and said she was proud to be a member of the shadow cabinet before adding that soon the crowds would hear from Britains next prime minister.

Plans in the manifesto include an excessive pay levy on salaries above 330,000, more free childcare and the nationalisation of Englands ten water companies.

Click here to see mini-manifestos from General Election candidates across the borough.
Variations on Frankensteins Monster, from the Monster Charity Project.

THERE was gore galore at a star-studded national horror convention last weekend.

Fright fans from around the country visited Magna for HorrorCon UK 2017  a festival of all things fearsome.

Celebrity guests included Sid Haig, better known as killer clown Captain Spaulding in The Devils Rejects.

He was joined by Cassandra Peterson  most famous for portraying horror hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

She took to Twitter during the event, praising attendees for their Elvira costumes and tattoos.

And John Jarratt  star of outback murderfest Wolf Creek  travelled from Australia to meet and greet the crowds.

The stars took part in Q&A sessions before chatting with fans and posing for pictures.

There were short movie screenings, featuring judges top picks from Sheffield film festival Celluloid Screams.

And a macabre market in the main hall sold cosplay props, comics and even creepy cupcakes.

There was also a peculiar petting zoo featuring hairless rats, tarantulas and snakes.

More than 3,000 people attended the two-day convention, many in impressive, movie-inspired costumes.

Organiser Gill Bell said: The celebrity guests were really popular  Sid kept going all day to make sure he signed autographs for all his fans, only finishing at 6pm on Saturday. Then he did it all again on Sunday.

Fans of Elvira were delighted to meet Cassandra, as she hasnt been to the UK recently. We noticed many a teary eye leaving her table.

And John was delighted to be in Sheffield, as he is a big fan of Joe Cocker.

She added: Many people said Magna being ideal for a horror convention, as it is a lot like a horror film set.

See below for a selection of pictures courtesy of Lee Evans.
The president of ALROSA Sergey Ivanov paid a working visit to the Republic of Angola.

Sergey Ivanov inspected the production facilities of the company and held a number of working meetings with Angolan partners to discuss the prospects for the development of ALROSA investment projects in the country.

During the meeting with Carlos Sumbula, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Diamond Mining Company of the Republic of Angola Endiama, Sergey Ivanov noted the positive financial results of the Katoka Mining Company. "Last year, the project reached revenues of almost $600 million and became completely self-sufficient. We are ready to take an active part in its further development and expect to increase financial efficiency," - Ivanov said.

The parties also agreed to continue working on the Kimang exploration enterprise. The firm plans to conduct geological studies to discover new kimberlite deposits

"In accordance with the plan, we will be launching projects to develop these deposits in early 2019," Ivanov added.

The president of ALROSA held a working meeting with Manuel Vicente, the Vice-President of the Republic of Angola. "ALROSA will continue to implement its projects in Angola. At present, we are conducting research on Luaxe, the largest diamond deposit in the country, and will determine the main stages of the further development of this project,"  Ivanov concluded.




President of the Shanghai Gems & Jade Exchange Ms. Wang Wan Fong and President of the Thai Gem and Jewelry Traders Association (TGJTA) Suttipong Damrongsakul have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on May 9, 2017, to launch a dynamic jewelry confederation and establish a modern-day silk road project.

The newly established China-Thailand Gemstone Traders Association, or CTGA, aims to boost jewelry trade and exchanges between China and Thailand.

Through close collaboration, both organizations have reached an agreement on rebuilding the silk road of China-Thailand jewelry trade in the context of Chinas One Belt and One Road construction project. Complementing each others advantages, this confederation will build a bridge of exchange, communication and trade cooperation in the gems and jade market of both countries.

Suttipong said: The China-Thailand Gemstone Traders Association will be holding activities for members such as buyer missions and booth exchanges while facilitating trade between the two countries. Moreover, the CTGA will be collaborating with other associations in countries like Russia and Cambodia to increase trade in the region.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Stornoway Diamond Corporation has announced that Birks Group, a Canada-based luxury jewelry retailer, launched an inaugural sale of Quebec-mined diamonds at its Montreal flagship store.

In the presence of Birks Group President and CEO, Mr. Jean-Christophe Bedos, and Matt Manson, President and CEO of Stornoway, guests of the inaugural event had the opportunity to view a collection of polished diamonds up to 10 carats in size, mined during the initial ramp-up period of Stornoways Renard Mine in Northern Quebec and set in Birks signature designs.

Manson commented: We are honoured to be able to partner with Birks in the presentation of Quebecs first diamonds to the retail market. It is fitting that these first beautiful, Quebec diamonds derived from Quebecs first diamond mine should premier for sale at Maison Birks, Quebecs most storied diamond jeweler. Yesterday evenings event marked another step in the long journey to bring the Renard Mine and Renard diamonds to the global market.



Theodor Lisovoy, Rough&Polished, Moscow




Sen. Feinstein to withhold support of USDOT nominees until funding is released for Caltrain modernization project Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor









Caltrain

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she would not support any U.S. Department of Transportation nominee until funding for Caltrain's electrification project is released.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Jeffrey Rosens nomination as deputy secretary of transportation on May 16.

Sen. Feinstein said, I intend to oppose confirmation for every Transportation Department nominee until the Trump administration releases funding for the Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP).

Congress approved an omnibus spending deal on April 30, which included $100 million for Caltrain PCEP. Caltrain says approval of the 2017 budget and future execution of a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) by the Federal Transit Administration would make more than 25 percent of Caltrains total $647 million federal funding request immediately available to start construction of the project.

An FFGA was recommended in January following a full assessment of the projects merits. However, the decision was delayed by the Trump Administration while the 2018 budget recommendations were being developed.

Despite approval from Congress, the administration continues to withhold funding without any rational justificationwasting almost $1 million a week and jeopardizing 10,000 jobs nationwide. It is long past time for the administration to release the Caltrain corridor funding, added Sen. Feinstein.

Caltrain took to one of the presidents favorite public platforms, Twitter, on May 16 to address the lack of an FFGA by tweeting, Weve got this great train project out here, @realDonalTrump. Creates 9600 #USJobs across #America. Sign the FFGA & Lets get to work.

The tweet was accompanied by the graphic above, which shows how many and where in the U.S. the Caltrain project will directly and indirectly create jobs.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) approved a contract with Barletta Heavy Division, Inc., for the construction of improvements to the Wellington Maintenance Facility.

The cost of the Wellington Maintenance Facility project through FY18 is $98.28 million.

The project will rehabilitate the Wellington Carhouse in Medford to prepare the location for the arrival of 152 new Orange Line vehicles. Six pilot Orange Line cars will be delivered in December 2017 with delivery of the new Orange Line production fleet beginning in December 2018. Improvements to Wellington Maintenance Facility include an expansion of the carhouse by one service bay to allow for the maintenance of an enlarged Orange Line fleet, rehabilitation and modernization of the existing lifts, cranes, wheel truing machinery, roof, MEP and other updates, the addition of elevators and other accessibility accommodations and a new electronics room for new vehicles.

Construction advertisements for the project began on March 23, 2017. An independent cost estimate was set at $82.35 million with the bid opening on May 11, 2017. Four bids were received with MBTA staff recommending Barletta Heavy Division, Inc., as Barletta provided the lowest bid of $72.58 million.

The Wellington Maintenance Facility construction project is one element of the Red Line/Orange Line Infrastructure Improvements Program. The Programs total costs are $470.36 million for FY18 and FY19 and that total includes the Orange Line Test Track and Wellington Yard project, the Wellington Yard Expansion from Tracks 33 to 38 project, the Wellington Yard Zones A and B project, the Red Line Test Track project, the Cabot Maintenance Facility project, the Cabot Yard Rebuild for Zones A through C project and Red Line and Orange Line signal system enhancements.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) agreed to pay about 125 million euros for an office building under construction in Dublin, Bl;Bloomberg reported citing a person with knowledge of the matter.

The bank's Irish unit is buying the 200 Capital Dock building from real estate firm Kennedy Wilson, Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. and Ireland's National Asset Management Agency, Kennedy Wilson reportedly said.

The building, which measures about 130,000 square feet and will be able to accommodate more than 1,000 workers, is due to be finished in the third quarter of 2018.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Canadian stocks look to consolidate recent gains Tuesday morning, but are jittery amid lingering concerns about the U.S. political situation.

Numerous gaffes and ongoing worries about the Trump Administration's ties to Russia have prevented a more significant rally in the past few weeks.

Yesterday, the TSX Composite Index was up 91 points, or 0.59 percent, to 15,629.47.

Crude oil futures are struggling to get above $50 due to the global supply glut.

"While compliance with the agreed production cuts by OPEC and the 11 non-OPEC countries has generally been strong, we need to keep a close eye on Libya and Nigeria where there are signs that production might be rising sustainably," the IEA said in its May report.

Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said Home Capital Group Inc.'s troubles are contained to the embattled mortgage lender. Speaking to the Global and Mail, Mr. Poloz downplayed concerns that Home Capital's subprime troubles will spread to major banks.

Quebec's Resolute Forest Products Inc (RFP.N) will temporarily lay off 1,282 employees.

Bell Canada says 1.9 million email addresses were illegally accessed by hackers unrelated to the WannaCry hack.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
President Donald Trump's son is moving to Washington with his mother to continue his studies in a new school this summer.

Barron William Trump, born to Trump in his third wife Melania Trump, will attend the private St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac as a sixth grader, the first lady said in a statement Monday.

The former model, born in Slovenia, said the presidential couple is very excited for their son to attend St. Andrew's Episcopal School, which is known for its diverse community and commitment to academic excellence. "The mission of St. Andrew's is 'to know and inspire each child in an inclusive community dedicated to exceptional teaching, learning, and service,' all of which appealed to our family"

While Trump moved to the White House following his inauguration in January, Melania stayed back in New York for Barron to finish out the current school year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Melania, 47, is currently living in Trump Tower with her 11-year-old son.

A letter sent by the authorities of St. Andrew's Episcopal School assured the parents of its students that despite the unusual circumstances -- the first presidential child to attend St. Andrew's -- there would be minimal disruption.

St. Andrew's Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory school for students in preschool through grade 12, located in Potomac, MD.

There are 580 students enrolled, with a 7:1 student-teacher ratio. An average class size is 15. Annual tuition fee at St. Andrew's is $38,590.



Melania, who migrated to the United States in 1996, married Trump in 2005, and gave birth to their child Barron Trump the next year.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
The United States ranks as the thirteenth-most worsened state of the year, according to the 2017 Fragile States Index, which aims to assess states' vulnerability to conflict or collapse.

The thirteenth annual Fragile States Index was released on Monday by the Fund for Peace or FFP, an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to prevent violent conflict and promote sustainable security.

The Index is an annual ranking of 178 countries across 12 social, economic and political indicators to identify potential risk of social and political turmoil as well as conflict.

According to the Index, Ethiopia, Mexico and Turkey are the three most worsened countries since the 2016 assessment. The index showed that pressure continued to mount in Brazil and South Africa, while Belgium, Italy, Japan and South Korea also experienced upticks in fragility.

The African nation of South Sudan returned to the top position as the most fragile country in the world as factionalization and group grievance fueled rise in instability, followed by Somalia and Central African Republic as the second and third-most fragile countries.

Meanwhile, the Nordic nation of Finland continued to maintain its position as the world's least fragile country, followed by Norway and Sweden.

The FFP noted that the U.S. has worsened in 2017 despite the majority of its indicators actually improving.

While the U.S. recorded long-term economic improvements, it was severely undermined by sharp upticks in three core indicators - Group Grievance, Factionalized Elites, and Security Apparatus. This was partly due to the highly divisive presidential campaign in 2016.

According to the FFP, these indicators tracked very closely with those of the United Kingdom, which experienced its own crucial campaign on exiting the European Union last year.

J.J. Messner, executive director of the Fund for Peace said, "Even the most stable countries must pay attention to early warning signs of social and political conflict, as this fragility has a direct causal effect on prosperity and security. Our analysis of 2017 data shows that America's ranking would have worsened significantly more this year had it not been counter-balanced by its having scored in the top 20 economic performance."

At the other end of the trend analysis, Pakistan recorded the most significant improvement of any country in 2017, followed by Thailand, Panama and Georgia.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Transportation Minister Marc Garneau has committed to introduce a new airline passenger bill of rights that would address the rights of airline passengers.

The new bill will provide greater transparency, clarity and fairness for Canada's air traveler, including clear standards for treating and compensating passengers under specific circumstances.

The Ministry also plans to change international ownership restrictions from 25 to 49 per cent of voting interests for Canadian air carriers.

The bill will also ensure that travelers at Canadian airports go through security faster, while maintaining the same high security standards.

"I am convinced the air carriers will take note of these new measures protecting passengers rights, and will know if they don't change some of their practices there will be repercussions," Garneau said.

He said air lines will not be able to involuntarily remove from over-booked flights people who bought a ticket.

"That is a critical factor. If somebody has bought a ticket for a particular flight that person cannot be removed from that flight. This is non negotiable," he said.

The Minister said a minimum levels of compensation for people who voluntarily agree to be removed from a flight would be kept. However, if airlines cannot get a volunteer, they will have to decide if they want to up the ante to persuade someone to get off.

The bill will also require railways to install voice and video recorders in locomotives and improves transparency and efficiency in the freight rail industry.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
By SA Commercial Prop News

An artists impression of Botswana regional shopping center, Airport Junction



In November 2010 construction commenced on the 50 000 m regional shopping centre, Airport Junction, northern Gaborone as a joint venture between Eris Property Group and local partner Bifm at an estimated cost of R 428 million.

The newly opened Airport Junction mall is a fully enclosed development covering 50 000m2 and featuring a wide range of retail options, which include fashion, hardware, grocery and furniture stores. The new mall adds to the already vibrant retail market, which will see competition come from Game City, Riverwalk, Sebele and the recently opened Rail Park malls.

According to Bifm CEO, Tiny Kgatlwane said that part of Bifms mandate is to utilise strategies that give value and deliver returns to its clients. Property development is a strategy Bifm uses to broaden its investments and helps the business deliver on this mandate. In this regard, Khumo Property Asset Management (Khumo PAM) is the business arm tasked with developing and managing properties in the Bifm portfolio. Khumo PAM is a 50/50 joint venture between Bifm and Eris Property Group of South Africa.

Assistant Minister of Finance and Development Planning Dr Gloria Somolekae, who officially opened Airport Junction, praised the developments contribution to the economy.

Approximately 1000 people were directly or indirectly employed during the construction phase and that there will be 700 permanent jobs created when the centre opens, she said. The Minister of Transport and Communications, Nonofo Molefhi, Gaborone West-North MP Robert Masitara and the Director of Property Development also attended the official opening for Eris, Barend de Loor amongst other distinguished guests. Bifm has been involved in Public Private Partnerships that have seen delivery of the SADC Headquarters and Plot 21  the Office of the Ombudsman and Land Tribunal. Another property where Bifm is an equity partner is Railpark Mall, which was officially opened by the vice-president, Lt Gen Mompati Merafe on Monday 23rd April.
By SA Commercial Prop News

The Rosebank Rooftop Market row is headed back to the courts, with the landlord, Hyprop, and the management of the market, B&B Markets, launching proceedings against each other.



The Rosebank Rooftop Market row is headed back to the courts, with the landlord, Hyprop Investments, and the management of the market, B&B Markets, launching proceedings against each other.

Hyprop is seeking a review of an Arbitration Appeals Tribunal ruling last week which found Hyprop had no right to close the market and cancel B&B Markets lease, which runs up to 2016.



B&B Markets, in turn, plans to launch a semi-urgent application for a court order to stop all construction on the markets site, until the review has been heard.



Rosebank Mall is undergoing renovations to the value of R920 million.



Brad Fisher, founder of the market, claimed Hyprop had no grounds to apply for a review.



It is delaying tactics, he said.



Fisher said he had started negotiations with the owners of two other venues to where the market could be moved, but said this option was not ideal.



Hyprop Investor Relations Executive Nikki Catrakilis-Wagner said there was never any intention to close the market, only to move it due to the construction process.
By SA Commercial Prop News

Free State premier Ace Magashule



Bloemfontein - The Free State government has renewed its commitment to job creation and improving education and healthcare in the province.

Delivering the State of the Province Address on Thursday, Premier Ace Magashule said the provincial government was set to invest more in education as part of the broader strategy to fight poverty. To this end, 1 500 bursaries would be awarded to worthy beneficiaries by the provincial government this year.

In the past two years, schools achieving an 80 percent and higher pass rate in the province had increased from 116 in 2010 to 155 in 2011. To sustain and improve on this, Magashule said more attention and support would be given to underperforming schools.

To ensure good healthcare, Magashule said they were going to continue to screen the qualifications of all medical practitioners in the province and expand access to primary healthcare in all the province's municipalities, with the main focus being on combating HIV and Aids and decreasing maternal and child mortality.

Six hundred fully trained community health workers in 47 wards will be employed to help achieve this.

"The maintenance of health facilities in the province will continue to receive priority attention," he said. The province plans to build new hospitals in Bloemfontein, Amelia in Sasolburg and in the rural areas of Qwaqwa and Botshabelo.

On job creation, Magashule said the provincial government was going to work with organised labour in creating jobs for the people in the province.

"The reality is that the state of the provincial economy will not improve and job creation will not be achieved if we do not take concrete and decisive action."

In a bid to ensure that more jobs were created, Magashule said he was going to initiate an intensive campaign with employers and organised labour.

Most people who attended the Premier's address applauded his speech, saying it showed determination by the provincial government to improve their lives.

Sixty-seven year-old Alfred Modipane from Mangaung praised the Premier for paying attention to education and health.

"We want our children to be educated," he said, adding that he fully concurred with the premier on job creation.

"If government creates jobs for us, there will be less poverty."

Magashule will on Monday answer questions from members of the provincial legislature emanating from his address. - BuaNews
Turnout for general election less than expected for Saline County

Ballots are still being counted as of Wednesday, but it seems the turnout for the 2022 general election was lower than expected by the county clerk.
With all the impressive talk about the Tui Samoa Cable being promoted by the government of Samoa, the American Samoa government is not convinced.

In fact they are keeping their distance.

This was revealed by the Governor of American Samoa, Lolo Matalasi Moliga, during an interview with the Samoa Observer in Apia.

He said they are not satisfied with the proposal from Samoa. The Governor is concerned about conflicting money obligations as well as the lack of clarity in terms of cost and benefits analysis.

The presentation (by Samoa) was conducted in a manner where we left with many unanswered questions, Governor Lolo said.

But thats not the only reason. This is just one issue among other reasons, such as approval from the Federal Government.

Funding was also another major factor.

We will be asking the Federal Government for money to fund it and they have already expressed their concerns given the Cable will laid through foreign countries.

Going back to the presentation, Lolo said he was not present.

However Lt. Governor Lemanu Peleti Mauga, American Samoas Attorney General Talauega Eleasalo Ale and former Bluesky Chief Executive Officer, Aoee Adolfo Montenegro, were there and they were not convinced.

There were many unanswered questions and luckily for us Aoee was present as he is well versed with these types of projects.

We really wanted to know the details, like any business venture.

Lolo pointed out that while there is no questioning the economic benefits of the Cable, the bottom line is, if American Samoa was to get in bed with a foreign country they have to get Federal approval.

Its too early to make a decision. We have to understand the full scope, thats just the decision right now.

Another concern is that the team from Samoa noted that American Samoa was to pay US$4Million to join, however at the end of the presentation and upon questions from Aoee Adolfo Montenegro it was discovered that in the end American Samoa will have to pay US$12million.

Governor Lolo reminded that the ties between Samoa and American Samoa are based on cultural and familial ties.

But when it comes to issues dealing with foreign countries, we don't deal directly with the Samoa government.

The Governor reiterated the need to seek approval from the Federal government, given American Samoa is a territory of the United States.

Lolo said one of their concerns involves security issues.

This is a gateway to get through to America. He did not go into details.

According to Lolo, the American Samoa government has learned so much from the purchasing of the American Samoa Hawaii Cable LLC (or ASH-Cable) which they are the minority shareholder.

I felt the [American Samoa] government did not fully understand yet we went ahead and purchased it.

With the Tui cable, it is true its Samoa, but its still a foreign country and we have to abide by foreign policies in place as we are under America.

The only relation we are developing between the Samoas is mostly cultural development and families, but when it comes to the foreign policies we don't deal directly with Samoa.

We have to take the seat behind America when it comes to dealings with foreign countries.

In March 2017, the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Afamasaga Rico Tupai, Samoa Submarine Cable Company (S.S.C.C) Chairman Pepe Fia'ailetoa Christian Fruean and C.E.O Emmanual Delanoue were in American Samoa to present the proposal for A.S.Gs consideration.

Asked for a comment regarding the concerns raised by the Governor of American Samoa, Minister Afamasaga said: I can confirm that the Government of Samoa and its implementation agency, the Samoa Submarine Cable company have formally approached the American Samoa Government with a commercial proposal in order to jointly-build a new inter-island submarine cable called the 2 Samoa submarine cable.

The key benefit of the proposed partnership is the ability to aggregate internet traffic for both countries in order to increase the economies of scale and provide cost saving for both islands.

Afamasaga said S.S.C.C is continuing to engage their counterparts in the American Samoa government and provide them with information to help them assess the merits of the 2 Samoa commercial proposal.

He also pointed to the confidentiality agreement signed between the two Samoa.

As this is a commercial negotiation which is bound by strict confidentiality agreements signed by both parties, the government and S.S.C.C are not able to respond or provide any further comment on the matters or any representations made by our partners in American Samoa.
Two men accused of assaulting 44-year-old Misa Vailigi Rarotoga of Vaimea resulting in his death last July have been found guilty of manslaughter.

The assessors verdict against PJ Tupuola Puni and Max Alefosio follows a lengthy murder trial in the Supreme Court before Justice Leiataualesa Daryl Clarke.

Puni was represented by lawyer Diana Roma while Alefosio was represented by Leiataua Jerry Brunt. The prosecution team was made up of Leone Sua-Mailo and Lucy Sio.

The defendant were charged with murder and following the two week trial, assessors found the defendants not guilty of murder but guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter.

One of the main witnesses in the case was a nephew of the one of the defendants.

Peato Joseph Kitiona, who claimed to have seen what happened, testified that on the night of 22 July 2016 at around 8:30, Puni and Alefosio came to his house and they had a drink.

They left the house and walked towards the road not far from JPs bar.

Its alleged that while the men were drinking the deceased joined them and then he left.

As we were standing not far from where we were drinking I saw Misa (deceased) walking back to Max and thats when I saw Misa punch Max and he fell on to the fence and screamed for help, Mr. Kitiona said.

At the time when Max screamed for help, I saw PJ came running out of JPs Bar on to the other side of the road where Max and Misa were fighting and joined in.

The fight continued for a while and I saw Misa fall to the ground.

It was during cross-examination when it was revealed the witness was the nephew of PJ.

Leiataua asked the witness as to what is his relation to PJ was.

He is my uncle, said Mr. Kitiona.

Leiataua then put it to the witness if he did not think of helping his uncle when he saw that he was in trouble.

When you see someone from your family getting beaten, isnt it normal for a family member to help another family member who is in trouble? the lawyer asked.

Didnt you feel that you had to help out your family because he was getting beaten by others?"

No, because Im not a violent person and I try to stay away from trouble, the witness told the Court.

Senior Pathologist from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Dr. Philip Golpak told the court that during the post mortem, there were 14 injuries noted on the body of the deceased.

The cause of death is due to Subdural and Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (intracranial bleeding) and it is my opinion that the injuries were the result of blunt force trauma. In other words he was bleeding inside the brain and these two injuries were caused by blunt force trauma.

The injuries that the deceased sustained from his lips and mouth including his loose tooth.

Sentencing for the pair have been scheduled in two weeks time.
The search for missing New Zealand Navy sailor, Joseph Tua, is continuing.

The Samoan man, last seen at the popular To Sua Ocean Trench on 29 April, had visited his family when he decided to go sightseeing.

Some of his possession was found at the lava pool, not far from the popular trench.

Speaking during their weekly media conference, Police Spokesperson, Su'a LeMamea Tiumalu, told the Samoa Observer the search is continuing.

He said that while hope is fading about him being found alive, they are not giving up.

The search has been bolstered by the arrival of twenty-six members of the Royal New Zealand Navy who are on island to find their colleague.

On Saturday, a private ceremony was held at the familys residence at Leauvaa to pray for the safety of the men as they begin their search.

Family representative, Sola Ati, said they are not giving up hope.

The father of Joseph wanted a private ceremony for prayer over the Navy men that are here.

We want to pray for the leader of the team so that the love of God will guide them as they search for his son.

According to Sua, the Police believe that Mr. Tua might have been swept out to the sea.

"We suspect that he either fell into the ocean or he was struck by a wave," he said. "On the day of the incident, the sea was very rough."

A local from To Sua who did not want to be named said Tua's belongings were found at a lava pool not far from the trench, and police believe he may have been enjoying the view when he got into trouble.

His older sister, Isabel, said the last video he posted to Snapchat showed "dangerous rocks" and wild surf.
The government has received $40,000 worth of tuna cans from the American Samoa and TriMarine American Samoa.

The donation of 1370 cases on tuna cans was presented to Cabinet last week.

American Samoa Government Chief of Staff, Fiu Johnny Saelua, told the Samoa Observer the donation was a gesture of love for Samoa.

We are brothers and there is nothing wrong with donating overseas, especially to Samoa, he said.

The gift was presented directly to Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi during a Cabinet meeting.

Fiu said the donation was made with one specific request from the American Samoa Governor, Lolo Matalasi Moliga, which was for the government to make sure some cases are distributed to the Samoa Victim Support Group.

Last week, S.V.S.G issued a press release, commended Lolo and American Samoas First Lady Cynthia Malala Moliga for keeping their word to continue providing assistance for the children at the Campus of Hope.

The American Samoa Governor is a Patron of the S.V.S.G. American Samoa.

Last year during the Independence celebration, the Governor and his good lady accompanied the Leone village to the celebration and took time out to visit the Campus for the first time.

The Governor and his good lady were deeply touched by the childrens sincerity and acknowledged the support from the community and from the families in ensuring their safety and wellbeing.

During his weekly conference with the Media, the Prime Minister Tuilaepa thanked A.S.G for the gifts and noted that these are benefits of having canneries in the country.

He said Samoa is also trying to attract such businesses to Samoa.

Thats why they can present gifts because they can and they have the resources, Tuilaepa said.

Tuilaepa quoted Acts 25:30 which says that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

According to the Prime Minister the cases of Tuna were being distributed right away as gifts from off island can grow their own two legs and walk.

DISTRIBUTION

Christian Colleges such as Malua, Piula, Moamoa each received 140 cases; Assembly of God 100; Worship Centre, Nasareta and Seven Days Adventist, Carmelites, Nuanua ole Alofa, SISDAC and Later Day Saints each received 50 cases. Tupua Tamasese Meaole hospital, Tuasivi Hospital in Savaii, Samoa Victim Support Group, Mapufagalele and Tafaigata Prison each received 100 cases.
To celebrate Mothers Day this year, the Navu First Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Vaivase-Tai focused on the importance of a mothers role as a prayer warrior.

Its a great reminder to let God carry our burdens by praying, young mother, Fuatino Tuiletufuga said.

We all know our roles in families, churches and the whole country but being a prayer warrior is something mothers are not taught about enough.

Personally, prayer is so important. It is a way to connect to the unwavering love of the Lord and how his mercy never ends.

Mrs. Tuiletufuga said prayer is also a reminder that God is our source of strength

The message today is very refreshing, because we all know that Jesus had the most important mission to fulfill, yet He was never too busy to pray.

We need to be reminded of who God is every single day.

For us mothers - we are told to pray without ceasing.

At the Congregational Christian Church at Vaitele-Uta, closed to eighty mothers attended the service. The theme for this year is to  Set your eyes upon Jesus.

Mothers were divided into four groups to perform skits and dances of famous mothers in the Bible; Esther, Bleeding woman, Mary and Hannah.

Rev. Muao Sua led the service.

Here are some photos from, Navu First Ward of Latter Day Saints at Vaivase-Tai, and C.C.C.S. Vaitele-Uta.
He who rallies in my hour of need is my bone, my flesh.

The quote was used by the Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi, when he spoke during a major celebration at the Apia Concrete Products (A.C.P) Compound on Saturday evening.

The event was the launch of A.C.Ps Concrete High Tech Turbo Mixer (C.H.T.T), understood to be the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. The launch coincided with the birthday of the companys Founder, the late Tupua Fred Wetzell.

We want to thank the family for their support and loyalty throughout the years, His Highness Tui Atua said.

A.C.P. has had its trials in years and youve been firm and consistent in your support. There is a Samoan saying, He who rallies in my hour of need, is my bone, my flesh.

I want to thank all the customers for their love and support. Today is Tupua Fred and Bobs birthday. They have been the guide and the inspiration and the mentors.

We pray God that their values and vision remain a beacon for those who follow in their footsteps.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi was also present along with a host of whos who of Samoa.

The celebrations then moved to Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys Hotel where it lasted well into the night.
SEATTLE (AP)  Federal judges on Monday peppered a lawyer for President Donald Trump with questions about whether the administration's travel ban discriminates against Muslims and zeroed in on the president's campaign statements, the second time in a week the rhetoric has faced judicial scrutiny.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, defending the travel ban, told the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the executive order should be reinstated because it falls well within the president's authority.

"No one has ever attempted to set aside a law that is neutral on its face and neutral in its operation on the basis of largely campaign trail comments made by a private citizen running for office," he said.

Further, Wall said the president had backed off the comments he made during the campaign, clarifying that "what he was talking about was Islamic terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor or shelter them."

Neal Katyal, who represented Hawaii, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed disbelief at that argument and said Trump had repeatedly spoken of a Muslim ban during the presidential campaign and after.

"This is a repeated pattern of the president," Katyal said.

The 9th Circuit panel was hearing arguments over Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The judges will decide whether to uphold a Hawaii judge's decision in March that blocked the ban.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge's decision putting the ban on ice. They also questioned whether they could consider Trump's campaign statements, with one judge asking if there was anything other than "willful blindness" that would prevent them from doing so.

Dozens of advocates for refugees and immigrants rallied outside the federal courthouse in Seattle, some carrying "No Ban, No Wall" signs.

Wall's insistence that the travel ban should be upheld because it is "neutral," without reference to Islam, drew pointed questions from Judge Richard Paez. An executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt that led to the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II similarly was couched as a necessity for national security and made no reference to residents of Japanese heritage, Paez noted.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that executive order in a challenge brought by California resident Fred Korematsu. The ruling is now widely considered regrettable.

"Would the Korematsu executive order pass muster under your test today?" Paez grilled Wall.

"No, Judge Paez," he answered

"Why not? 'Facially legitimate'  that's all you say!" Paez said. "You emphasize 'facially legitimate.'"

"I want to be very clear about this," Wall said solemnly. "This case is not Korematsu, and if it were I wouldn't be standing here and the United States would not be defending it."

Wall went on to argue that unlike the Korematsu case, Trump's executive order probably wouldn't be questioned but for the statements he made as a candidate.

Paez also questioned Katyal about Trump's statements, calling them "profound." But the judge wondered whether Trump is forever forbidden from adopting an executive order along the lines of his travel ban.

Katyal said no, and suggested the president could begin by repudiating his earlier statements or by working with Congress.

"If you rule for him, you defer to the president in a way that history teaches us is very dangerous," Katyal said.

Monday's arguments marked the second time Trump's efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide  a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel.

The president then rewrote his executive order, rather than appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in March, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu blocked the new version from taking effect, citing what he called "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" in Trump's campaign statements.

"Again, in this court, the President claims a nearly limitless power to make immigration policy that is all but immune from judicial review," Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin wrote to the 9th Circuit. "Again, he must be checked."

At his daily briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer expressed confidence that the executive order will be upheld by the appeals court.

"The executive order is fully lawful and will be upheld. We fully believe that," Spicer said.

The travel ban cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court, but that would likely be cemented if the 4th and 9th Circuits reach differing conclusions about its legality. Because of how the courts chose to proceed, a full slate of 13 judges heard the 4th Circuit arguments last week, while just three, all appointees of President Bill Clinton, will consider the case in Seattle.

With the possibility for myriad concurring or dissenting opinions, it could take the 4th Circuit longer to rule, noted Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond law school in Virginia.
The deteriorating statistics in relation to the increase of incidents of domestic violence in Samoa worries the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development.

So much so Fuimapoao Beth Onesemo-Tuilaepa said the government is looking to work with Village Councils to ensure men who beat their wives are held accountable and punished as a village offense.

The concern by the C.E.O follows the result of the Family Safety Strategy Survey, which shows that incidents of domestic violence where women are physically, emotionally and sexually abused have increased by 20 per cent in Samoa since the last survey in 2000.

Fuimapoao said the survey shows 60 per cent of women surveyed were abused is scary and very critical. The figure in domestic violence should come as a wake up call to all of us.

The first such survey was released in 2000 and it showed that 40 per cent of women were violated emotionally, physically and sexually.

This recent survey has the numbers increased (from 40) to 60per cent and the problem continues to happen so long as the mentality remains that men are pule (owners) of the family.

The C.E.O explained the survey they conducted back in 2000 was also a scary one.

She recalled that during the 11th Commonwealth Womens Affairs Ministerial Meeting held in Samoa last year, it was revealed that 60% of young women, that were surveyed, said that it was ok for a man to beat his wife."

They held that belief and they will grow up with that understanding.

Even the country wide survey that came through, that a lot of men and women, have the belief that a man is justified to discipline his wife including beating her in some way or manner for at least one reason.

According to the C.E.O, there have been awareness campaigns but if the mentality is there that this is the way, the problem will continue.

She gave an example of how difficult it is to get it across to the Country that domestic violence is wrong.

All of us know that you actually need to eat less and exercise more to live healthy, so how many of us actually do that? Thats how hard it is to get this across.

Its not a matter of government coming along and preaching to people... that is easy but to change the mindset as a father, young man, chief, and a woman. That is the hard part.

And it starts within families... this is where you are nurtured how to behave, how to live life.

This is where we teach our children the importance of respecting one another. As our sons get ready to have their families, they should be directed on how they carry out their relationship with their wives.

You being the head of the household does not mean that you have the right to beat someone elses daughter or sister. We are supposed to be a Christian nation, and were supposed to live by what the Bible teaches.

She also pointed out the wrong interpretation regarding what the Bible says.

The Bible says that fathers is the head of the family and it was interpreted as owner-pule and therefore, this pule can discipline.

Is that really what the Bible says, and then also because its been repeated over the years that this is how Samoan families have been operated for the longest time.

We need to accept the fact that is not what the Bible says and that is not the Samoan culture. Its the total opposite. So thats the conversations we need to have.

She told Samoa Observer one of the steps taken was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Council of Churches where they will make it a priority for the church Ministers to remind their members that domestic violence is wrong.

She said another avenue is using the village councils.

If the villages can penalize a anyone for theft, rape, they should also penalize those who abuse their wives, she said.

This matter is not only a government problem in terms of enforcement, but it should also be addressed in churches and in the villages.

We know that our chiefs are highly regarded and this message coming directly from them, Im sure there will be changes, as these numbers are very scary.
Prompted by an upsurge in international travel, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority has sped up a $229.4 million expansion of Terminal 2 for immigration and customs controls.

The start of construction, which was originally 10 years off, will be formally kicked off Wednesday.

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The western end of Terminal 2 has been blocked off to allow expansion for a new customs inspection station. (Roger Showley/U-T)

When completed by 2019, Gates 47-51 at the western end of Terminal 2 will be able to handle wide-body and narrow-body jets flying in from overseas and will replace Gates 20-22. Arriving passengers will use new flights of stairs, escalators and elevators to get to the third floor automated passport control area. Then theyll collect their luggage at a specially designated ground-floor baggage claim area, meet with customs agents and exit the terminal or proceed to connecting flights. Travelers who cant use the automated passport system will meet immigration officers at the baggage area.

Financing is coming from $149 million in revenue bonds, $40 million generated from a $4.50 per person passenger facility charge and $40 million in cash.

Lindbergh Field is among the first U.S. airports to streamline immigration and customs checks, but the 600-acre airport is too small to locate all services on one level as is possible in much larger facilities.

You gotta work an angle to make it efficient, said Bob Bolton, the airports director of design and construction.

The international in San Diego International Airport has historically been more aspirational than real. Total international arrival traffic totaled only about 37,000 in 1990 but in the past 10 years has jumped to nearly 300,000. Current processing of 350 passengers per hour is projected to hit 652 next year, 842 in 2020 and 1,043 in 2035.

With the announcement of new international service, San Diego this summer will offer nonstop flights to and from six countries  Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Hampton Brown, the airports senior director of air service, said the increased interest stems from the inauguration of more efficient airplanes and willingness of airlines to schedule flights only two or three days a week  enough to justify expansion to San Diego.

Even with expanded service, nearly 1 million San Diegans still drive to Los Angeles International Airport every year to hop a flight abroad.

Youre wasting time, Brown said, since driving adds three hours to the journey. If more San Diegans can fly direct from here, they would also take more cars off the road, he added.

One of two baggage carousels has been walled off in the new customs inspection area of the terminal to handle luggage from international arrivals. A second will be included as well. (Roger Showley/U-T)

The project, designed by Gensler and built by a partnership of Turner Construction and PCL, will add 35,000 square feet, mostly in the new federal inspection station where a loading dock now stands. An additional 100,000 square feet will be remodeled and reconfigured to accommodate new escalators, stairs and elevators, add concessions and airline club spaces, and open up space for new airline administrative offices on the third floor.

The first phase aims to open four reconfigured gates next year, about the same time the airports new parking garage will be completed. The last two gates are expected to open in 2019. After that the airport will turn to replacing Terminal 1, which is in the planning stages.

This panoramic shot shows a third-floor space in Terminal 2 where the automated passport control area will be built. (Roger Showley/U-T)

Terrence Young, a Gensler architect working on the project, said the interior design of the arrival hall will celebrate San Diegos indoor-outdoor lifestyle with plenty of natural light flooding into what he described as a glassy jewel.

This whole thing of arriving in San Diego knowing youre in San Diego is really important to us, he said, saying the experience is meant to evoke a kelp bed forest, underwater canyons and tide pools.

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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
The developer of the Castlerock housing development under construction in Santee has gotten city approval to begin the process of forming a special tax district for the homebuyers.

Pardee Homes had asked the city a year ago to OK its request for a Community Facility District, also known as Mello-Roos, to help fund $8.5 million of improvements for Castlerock.

The City Council last week directed staff to work with Pardee to create a tax district, noting that district, not the city of Santee, will help fund some of the public services in the development.

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Pardee has already deposited $43,500 in facilities money and $27,000 in services money toward Santees costs in processing the Community Facility District.

The housing development is being built on a 204-acre site off state Route 52 and Mast Boulevard, across from West Hills High School. It will have more than 400 single-family homes, ranging from 1,700 to 3,800 square feet.

There is no date set for when homes will be for sale, but the Castlerock website said pricing should be available in early 2018.

Community Facility Districts are used by local governments in California as a way to collect public funding through bond sales to pay for some public facilities or infrastructure for new developments. That typically include streets, water, sewage and drainage and electricity.

Some communities requiring public infrastructure impose these taxes instead of, or in addition to, fees paid by real estate developers.

For facilities costs, future residents would be required to pay between $1,600 and $2,500 per unit annually.

According to a report from Pardee shared with the city, facilities costs include improvements to Mast Boulevard, Castlerock Road, a bridge and traffic signal as well as a public park, public trail and fencing.

For services costs, each residential unit for future homeowners would be taxed $407 annually. The report notes that services costs include all public services provided, including residents share of street and park maintenance cost, landscaping and public safety.

Santee Director of Finance Tim McDermott said the next step would be city staff working on supporting legal documents. The item will be brought back in August or September for formal city council action.
Its taken more than two decades of intermittent highway construction, but motorists now can drive from Interstate 5 in Oceanside all the way to Interstate 15 in Fallbrook along a four-lane split highway with a lifesaving barrier in the middle.

The roughly $400 million state Route 76 improvement project has transformed the highway from a once curvy two-lane road  clogged by rush-hour traffic and occasionally scarred by head-on collisions  to a wider, straighter thoroughfare.

On Tuesday morning, state, federal and regional transportation officials will celebrate the completion of the last leg of the project with a dedication ceremony just north of the highway at Pala Road.

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San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts, chairman of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), said Monday the improvement project eases the movement of people and goods throughout our North County communities and demonstrates SANDAGs commitment to enhancing the countys transportation network.

Crews recently wrapped up the final five-mile stretch  from South Mission Road in Fallbrook to Interstate 15  months ahead of schedule at a cost of $201 million. That phase began in 2013 with the complete reconfiguration of the I-15 interchange. All work that remains is extensive landscaping of the highway using drought-tolerant plants.

The entire state Route 76 corridor project was divided into three segments: west, middle and east. The western segment through Oceanside was completed in 1999. The second phase, stretching from Melrose Drive to South Mission Road, was finished in 2012 at a cost of $171 million.

Now that it is a bigger roadway, theres more visibility and less curves that people have to deal with, California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettencourt said. Hopefully traffic will flow through there much better than on a two-lane road.

Bettencourt said the concrete barrier between east and west traffic will prevent head-on collisions and the wider roads and shoulders will improve traffic safety and ease congestion by giving motorists experiencing car trouble room to pull off the road.

The highway was first built in the 1930s and over the decades has been the site of several fatal crashes. Bettencourt said it wasnt necessarily because the road was unsafe, but because people would drive too fast, or while they were intoxicated, or would try to unsafely pass slower vehicles by crossing over double-yellow lines.

State Route 76 is a vital artery linking coastal North County to inland communities, including Southwest Riverside County. As the population has grown  and Indian casinos have proliferated east of Interstate 15  traffic on the two-lane road has skyrocketed.

Traffic along the most recently completed five-mile stretch today averages more than 20,000 daily vehicle trips, a number that is expected to more than double by 2030, state transportation officials have said.

The ambitious improvement project was a joint effort by the California Department of Transportation and SANDAG, the regions transportation coordinating agency. Funding for the work came from a variety of sources, including the regional TransNet half-cent sales tax, federal funds, developer fees, county transportation fees and contributions from local Native American tribes.

The project also included the expansion of the Park & Ride at the intersection of the highway and I-15. The parking lot has doubled in size and now features charging stations for electric vehicles.

Designed into the project were a number of environmental features including bioswales, which are landscape elements that remove pollution from surface runoff via a drainage course with gently sloped sides that are filled with vegetation, compost or riprap.

Wildlife under crossings and directional fencing have been built into the highway at various key points along the highway to allow wildlife safe passage between areas of natural habitat.

Throughout the project, Caltrans has been working closely with the county, which has been buying land and slowly developing a park along the banks of nearby San Luis Rey River.

The regional park one day will be 1,700 acres and 9 miles long, beginning in Oceanside and ending near I-15, The dream is to offer active and passive recreational opportunities along 20 miles of trails, while preserving the river corridor.

The reconfiguration of the highway required the acquisition of adjoining parcels of land along the route, nearly 1,600 acres in all, before construction began. Some of the land will either become part of the regional park or will buffer it.

Highway 76 actually continues as a four-lane highway for another mile and a half east of the interchange. A separate construction project, paid for by the owners of a rock quarry several years ago, paid for that work.

jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones
When military personnel and their families come to USO San Diegos Neil Ash Airport Center or its downtown center on A Street, there are plenty of things they can count on. They know there will be beverages, snacks and free Wi-Fi. There will be places to rest, recharge and take a shower. There will be playrooms for the kids and an affordable shuttle service to local bases.

They might not know that no matter where theyre from or what they need, Fern Murphy and Pat Whalen will knock themselves out to make sure they get it. And the two longtime USO volunteers are happy to keep it that way.

We really like to fly under the radar, the 85-year-old Whalen said during a joint interview at the Neil Ash Center. But this organization is so special, its hard not to do everything you possibly can to make it wonderful.

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Murphy hails from Minnesota and Whalen is a native New Yorker, but when each of the women settled in San Diego, they made supporting their adopted hometown a priority. Both of them were married to men with military connections, so the local USO was a natural fit. It also turned out to be a challenge and a calling.

Pat Whalens husband, Bob, is in the defense industry, which kept the couple in the military loop. Murphys late husband, also named Bob, was a Navy officer who went to work in the aerospace industry. The Murphy family settled here in 1966, and after moving more than 25 times, Pat and Bob Whalen landed in San Diego in 1982 and decided to stay put.

When we moved here, a friend of Bobs took him to the old USO on Broadway, and I remember he came home and said, I have just been to one of the worst facilities I have seen in my life. So he met with a bunch of people and said, We have to get the USO some place else, Murphy, 81, said.

If you are around the troops, you cant help but want to do something. I have seen these young people come home wounded, and all they need is someone to talk to. Some of them will say, What I did over there was good, and I would go back if I could. That astounds me.

During and after the Vietnam War, the men and women of the military often found the USO was one of the few places they felt welcome. But many USO centers struggled for the donations and support they needed to keep their facilities up and running, and people like Whalen and Murphy had their work cut out for them.

But after Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the tide began to turn for the military and for the USO. That year, Murphy organized USO San Diegos first fundraising gala. She and her late husband were both USO board chairs, and Murphy is still doing everything from rounding up donations to finding items for the silent auction. Whalen joined the gala team in 2010, bringing with her many years of volunteer experience and a knack for persuading people to give what they can, and to keep giving.

Im a beggar, Whalen said with a big laugh. Ive done it for so long, when people see me on the street, some of them will walk the other way because they know Im going to ask for something. But its for a great cause, so I dont mind.

Murphy and Whalen are currently devoting their collective energy to USO San Diegos Stars and Stripes Gala, which is Saturday at the Marriott Marquis. The theme is Land of the Free  Because of the Brave, which sums up the mission of the organization and the passions of the volunteers who keep it alive and thriving.

Love of country is the reason Pat and Fern do what they do, said gala co-chair Reena Horowitz. The gala is responsible for raising unrestricted funds for USO San Diego. When I went to ask (local philanthropist) Malin Burnham if he would be this years honoree, he said the thing that motivated him the most was when he found out the USO does not get one penny from the government. It is all done through philanthropic contributions and grants. This gala is crucial for helping our military.

For Murphy and Whalen, the giving back doesnt stop with USO San Diego. In addition to being grandmothers and great-grandmothers, the two friends are both on the board of the Salvation Army and are members of the San Diego Zoos Rendezvous at the Zoo gala committee. They also support the San Diego Education Fund, which provides scholarships and support for first-generation and ethnically diverse college students to become involved in STEM professions.

Murphy, who lives in Fletcher Hills, is active in the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge youth education group and the University of San Diego auxiliary.

I love it, Murphy said. I love the people I work with and I love the people I meet. I cant imagine not doing this. I hope I can stay on my feet and continue to do what I love.

From her nearby chair in the USO conference room, Whalen seconds that emotion. Whalen was raised by her grandparents, and she credits sympathetic teachers and people from the Childrens Aid Society with giving her the encouragement and support to make something of herself. She never gets tired of returning the favor.

Im a throwaway kid and my husband was a throwaway kid, said Whalen, who lives in La Jolla and has volunteered with the UC San Diego undergraduate scholarship committee, the nonprofit Voices for Children and the University of San Diegos grandparents program, which she founded. Throughout our childhoods, there were people who saw something in us and helped us. We would like to do the same for other people.

Twitter: @karla_peterson

karla.peterson@sduniontribune.com
The flagship of the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group returned to San Diego on Monday after seven months at sea, capping a deployment that included landing Marine artillery in war-torn Syria.

Led by the Navys amphibious assault warship Makin Island, the group includes the transport dock ship Somerset and the dock landing ship Comstock, plus the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Amphibious Squadron Five, the Blackjacks of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 21 and detachments from Assault Craft Unit 5, Fleet Surgical Team 5, Tactical Air Control Squadron 11 and Beachmaster Unit 1.

That adds up to almost 1,900 sailors and 2,600 Marines who came home or are on their way to Naval Base San Diego, Camp Pendleton and the Marine air stations in Miramar and Yuma, Arizona.

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The 11th Marine Expeditionary Units task force has departed Syria but isnt slated to return to Camp Pendleton until later this week, said Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Craig Thomas.

The Somerset arrived on Thursday. The Tomcats of Marine Attack Squadron 311 landed in Yuma on the same day, while the Ridge Runners of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 163 returned to Miramar on Friday.

Just as Marines have historically been the first to fight, the MEU carries on this tradition as the nations premier rapid-response forces, Col. Clay Tipton, commanding officer of the 11th MEU, said in a statement. The American people would be proud of how their Marines represented our great nation while operating in more than 24 countries.

When combined, an amphibious readiness group and a Marine expeditionary unit form a self-contained force capable of putting troops ashore and providing them with the needed supplies  flexibility that lets leaders in Washington, D.C. use them to provide humanitarian relief or wage war.

With all three ships and the Marines embarked  across the Western Pacific and Middle East  its important to reassure our regional partners that were there to support the free flow of commerce and ensure maritime security, said Amphibious Squadron 5 commander Capt. Mike A. Crary.

Although the landing of the M-777 Howitzers, their crews and supporting infantry highlighted the deployment by providing fire support to the forces besieging the Syrian city of Raqqa  capital of the jihadist group called Islamic State  the warships and Marines also trained with military members from Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Djibouti and Oman.

Probably one of my best memories was Christmas Eve, said Capt. Mark Melson, commanding officer of the Makin Island. We did an underway replenishment. We took on 1.4 million gallons of gas. We unloaded 460 pallets and then two hours later we hosted the commandant of the Marine Corps.

At San Diegos Pier 13 on Monday, Kentoria Pickett squinted at the sailors manning the rails aboard the Makin Island to locate her husband, Kenneth Pickett II, a Hull Technician 1st Class from Fort Worth, Texas. She was flanked by their 12-year-old son, Kamari, and cradling Kenneth Allen Pickett III, born prematurely on Jan. 24.

We missed him working on the yard, said Kentoria Pickett, 32, an Navy operations specialist 1st class who has deployed to Afghanistan and Honduras. Oh, and the car. But what we missed the most was him.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
As the sun went down one night last week, Tijuanas red light district came to life  with flashing neon signs, scantily clad women lining the sidewalk, bars filling with customers, and police pickups slowly cruising the main drag, Calle Coahuila.

The business of sex has for decades been conducted openly along these few blocks near the U.S. border at the edge of Tijuanas downtown, an area of La Zona Norte known to locals as La Coahuila. But in recent days, the mere mention of its name has become a touchy political subject.

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The hot-button issue is a program called Tijuana Coqueta, roughly translated as Tijuana Flirty, described in a recent Tijuana television news report as a campaign to bring sex tourism to the city. Tijuanas tourism chief, Miguel Angel Badiola, subsequently denied the campaigns existence. Mayor Jorge Astiazaran said he would never stand for it. And after days of controversy, both men say theyre done talking about Tijuana Coqueta, which local bar owners say is the name they gave to their own plan to improve sidewalks and add lighting to the area.

Near the U.S. border fence, at the northern end of downtown Tijuana, this is an area of town that goes unacknowledged in tourism campaigns. Promoters would far rather keep the the focus on Tijuanas growing gastronomic offerings, its expanding music scene, and its vibrant and evolving community of artists  not these streets that speak to the citys raunchier side.

But for decades, clients from both sides of the border have brought a booming business to the bars, hotels and cantinas in one of the citys older and grittier neighborhoods.

On any given night, scores of U.S. visitors mingle with a Mexican clientele crowded inside bars named Adelita, Hong Kong, Chicago Club and other establishments that line Calle Coahuila and a series of smaller side streets. For decades, this has been Tijuanas zona de tolerancia  a tolerance zone for the sex trade.

If one wants to understand the social, cultural and economic dynamics of the border, understanding la zona de tolerancia from an academic and anthropological perspective is fundamental, said Victor Clark, a Tijuana human rights activist and adjunct professor at San Diego State University who regularly takes his students on tours here.

Theres nothing like it in San Diego, said a 63-year-old East County resident, stopping for a taco on Wednesday evening. This is freedom; you can do whatever you want, he said, then quickly adding: Youve got to be very careful.

The man declined to give his name but said he is divorced, has no children, and works as a government clerk and has been coming down for 17 years. Its called living, he said. Ive had many problems, Ive had 1,000 problems, but the good far outweighs the bad.

He avoids the tonier clubs, more closely monitored by the owners, where prostitutes ask for $70 for a half-hour in a hotel room. He said he prefers selecting from las paraditas, the women standing on the streets, who ask for $20 for their services.

Prostitution is prohibited in most of the United States, permitted only in a handful of counties in Nevada. But, as in other parts of the world, it is a tolerated activity in Mexico  neither formally endorsed nor expressly forbidden. In Tijuana, the activity is regulated under the citys health laws.

Juan Manuel Salazar Pimentel, a former Baja California attorney general, said the states first governor imposed regulations in the early 1950s requiring prostitutes to pay a daily fee of $3. Josue Beltran, an anthropological historian who researched the roots of the citys sex trade, said during the same period, the citys first mayor ordered prostitutes confined to a hotel on the outskirts of town.

The sex trade is a topic that has always scandalized Tijuana society, Beltran said. They know of its existence, but they have not wanted to acknowledge it.

Still, the city adopted new rules in 2005 requiring sex workers to register, carry an electronic card and submit to regular checkups, including testing for HIV. The rules stipulate that establishments must maintain rooms that are perfectly clean and hygienic, and that mattresses be protected with a plastic cover to make cleaning easier.

City officials did not reply to requests for the number of registered card-carriers, but Clark, the human rights activist, said there are approximately 1,700 signed up with municipal health authorities  a fraction of the 5,000 to 6,000 sex workers that business owners have told him operate in La Cohuila and other parts of the city. As the city has grown, he said, a few smaller tolerance zones have sprung up.

Tolerance zones have existed on Mexicos northern border since at least the U.S. prohibition era, from 1918 to 1933, and peaking in the years following World War II, said Daniel Arreola, a geographer from Arizona State University. In some cities, like Tijuana, they grew on the margins of traditional tourist areas. The years after 1945 saw the emergence of enclosed compounds such as Boystown in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border, he said.

La Coahuila didnt become a center for the citys sex trade until the late 1950s, longtime residents say. Jack Doron remembers the days when topless bars proliferated on the citys tourist strip, Avenida Revolucion  until a mayor ordered them removed in 1966.

Doron now owns one of the oldest shops on the street, Hand Art, which sells embroidered dresses and blouses. He heads a merchants group called Ceturmex.

We want family tourism, people who want to know Mexican culture, gastronomy, thats what were promoting, Doron said. Asked about the bars and cantinas just blocks away, he shrugged: Were not going to be able to say it will disappear because we close our eyes, he said. They have their area, we have our area, we dont mix.

While apart from the mainstream of the citys economic activities, La Cohuila has been the subject of much academic investigation. One field study involved interviews at public health clinics with 220 women who worked in the citys sex industry  from escort services to strip bars to brothels to street walkers. Sheldon Zhang, a San Diego State University professor and the lead investigator, said about 12 percent of the women reported being deceived or forced into sex work, but the vast majority were in that business on their own terms, he said.

Another researcher, who studied Tijuanas sex trade as a graduate student, said that in spite of the regulations, she saw many continue to work illegally, risking fines and jail.

You have minors, people that do not have a birth certificate to register. There are a lot of barriers to working legally, said Yasmina Katsulis, now a professor in the Women and Gender Studies Department of Arizona State University.

Those in Tijuanas sex trade vary widely, Katsulis said. There is an assumption that there is no violence, that everyone is healthy, she said. Thats a misperception, its an illusion. No matter what the laws, we arent doing enough to address poverty, and the reason that drives people into commercial sex.
Just over two months after Los Angeles residents went to the polls, its election day once again.

Voters will choose two new school board members, two new L.A. City Council members and weigh in on a police discipline ballot measure.

Winners of the school board and council races will serve a 5-year term, rather than the usual four-year term, because of a onetime change in election cycles.

About 13% of the vote-by-mail ballots sent out by the city have been returned, said Cecilia Reyes, a spokeswoman for the City Clerk.

Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters can find their polling place at LAvote.net/locator.

Charter Amendment C

Charter Amendment C would change the rules for police officers who face disciplinary hearings.

The amendment would give officers the option of having their cases heard by three-person boards composed entirely of civilians. Currently, those panels are made up of two high-ranking officers and one civilian.

Backers, who include the police union and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, argue the option of all-civilian disciplinary panels will help assure officers that theyll get a fair hearing.

Opponents, who include the ACLU of Southern California and Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, cite a report that concluded civilians favor less-severe punishments than their sworn counterparts when weighing LAPD disciplinary cases.

Opponents also portray the ballot measure as the product of a backroom deal between Garcetti and the union.

Nick Melvoin (Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

Steve Zimmer (Stuart Palley/Los Angeles Times)

Board of Education District 4

Two-term incumbent and school board President Steve Zimmer, 47, is running against Nick Melvoin, 31, an attorney who has worked for pro-charter school groups in the race for this Westside-to-west San Fernando Valley district.

If Melvoin and Kelly Gonez, another charter-backed candidate prevail, L.A. Unified will have, for the first time, a board majority backed by pro-charter forces.

Pro-charter school groups have spent at least $5.59 million on behalf of Melvoin. Donors include Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan and heirs of the family that started Walmart.

Labor groups  primarily local, state and national teachers unions  have spent at least $2.35 million on behalf of Zimmer.

Imelda Padilla (Tyrone D. Washington/Wave Tech Media)

LAUSD candidate Kelly Gonez (Tyrone D. Washington/Wave Tech Media)

Board of Education District 6

Incumbent Monica Ratliff did not seek reelection this year, leaving the runoff race to Gonez, 28, a charter school teacher, and Imelda Padilla, 29, a community activist and labor organizer.

Charter advocates are backing Gonez and have spent about $3.24 million on her behalf. Unions have spent about $2.39 million to support Padilla.

Both candidates have campaigned on similar messages about bringing together the factions warring over education reform.

Joe Bray-Ali (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Gil Cedillo (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

City Council District 1

Bike advocate Joe Bray-Ali, 38, is challenging incumbent Gil Cedillo, 63, for this Pico-Union-to-Highland Park seat in an election that has taken several dramatic turns.

First, Cedillo was forced into a runoff. Then, Bray-Alis online comments on the provocative website Voat cost him endorsements from The Times, City Councilman Mitch OFarrell and others.

Election issues include responsiveness to constituent concerns, gentrification, affordable housing and illegal dumping.

Outside groups have spent more than $500,000 in the runoff, with the vast majority of that money supporting Cedillos campaign. Unions, business groups and billboard companies are all helping the incumbents reelection bid.

Monica Rodriguez (Katie Falkenberg/Los Angeles Times)

Karo Torossian (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

City Council District 7

The bullet train route and economic development are major concerns for voters in this San Fernando Valley district, which was vacated last year by then-Councilman Felipe Fuentes .

Candidates Monica Rodriguez, 43, a former Board of Public Works commissioner, and Karo Torossian, 33, a planning and environmental deputy to Councilman Paul Krekorian, both have City Hall experience.

The candidates agree on many issues: Both want more police officers, faster fire response times and to cut red tape for incoming businesses.

Rodriguez is supported by Garcetti, while California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has endorsed Torossian.

dakota.smith@latimes.com

Twitter: @dakotacdsmith

howard.blume@latimes.com

Twitter: @howardblume

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The California Commission on Judicial Performance will hear oral arguments next month in the discipline case facing San Diego Superior Court Judge Gary Kreep.

The June 28 hearing before the 11-member commission will be in San Francisco, where the commission is located, at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building.

Kreeps judicial career is on the line. Lawyers for the commission say he should be removed from the bench for violating judicial ethics rules. The commission will have 90 days after the hearing to determine what discipline, if any Kreep, will receive.

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The judge earned a seat on the bench in an upset win in 2012. The discipline charges against him said he made a string of inappropriate comments from the bench to lawyers and litigants, commenting on their physical appearance, ethnic heritage and other matters in 2013.

In September 2013, the San Diego City Attorneys Office, which had complained to judicial administrators about his conduct, boycotted his courtroom and refused to allow lawyers to appear there.

The issue was over how Kreep was disposing of some misdemeanor cases. After learning of the boycott and that he would go to Traffic Court, Kreep made comments to other lawyers about the boycott.

At the hearing, the commission will listen to oral arguments about the conclusions reached in a 90-page report by a three-member panel of judges called special masters. They presided over a two-week hearing in February into the charges against Kreep.

The judges concluded that Kreep had committed 29 ethical violations. They also said that his explanations for some of the conduct  such as the comments about the boycott  were not credible.

Kreeps lawyer contends the ethical violations largely occurred in his first months on the bench in a high-volume courtroom, where he was given little guidance by the courts judicial leaders. He said that Kreep has learned and has had no problems since those early years, and does not deserve to be removed from the bench.

Kreep is up for re-election next year.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
An Escondido teen accused in his friends murder posted cryptic messages on Snapchat about the killing, as well as images of bloodied clothes and an audio recording of the victim crying during the attack, police testified Tuesday.

Salvador Sanchez, 19, has pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder in the April death of 20-year-old Maithem Alfuraiji. At the end of a preliminary hearing Tuesday, Vista Superior Court Judge Richard Whitney found prosecutors had presented enough evidence to order Sanchez to trial.

According to testimony from Escondido police Detective Greg Gay, friends of the two men were alarmed by messages posted April 27 on Sanchezs Snapchat  including an audio clip on which Alfuraiji was crying and Sanchez could be heard saying something like tell them why you are crying and tell them what you did.

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Other images included Sanchezs bloodied knuckles and blood-stained white clothes, as well as original rap lyrics about killing the victim. One reads, in part: dont you cry at least in the arms of a friend is where u die.

The alarmed friends  Alexander Gendron and Kevin Rosado  confronted Sanchez on April 29, then reported their concerns to police. Sanchez was arrested the following day.

Detectives said Sanchez  who had been a champion wrestler at Escondido High School  told them he had intentionally put on white clothes and lured Alfuraiji to Mountain View Park under the guise of hanging out. Then, after they drank brandy and smoked pot, Sanchez challenged him to a fight to the death.

Sanchez told police he targeted Alfuraiji because Alfuraiji was making making decisions and meeting people that put everyone they knew in danger, Escondido homicide Detective John ODonnell said.

And because of that, he needed to kill Maithem, ODonnell said. Sanchez did not elaborate as to why he felt Alfuraiji had put people in danger.

The detective said Sanchez told him he wore white clothes when he challenged Alfuraiji because it was symbolic and pure. And he posted images on Snapchat because he wanted people to know he did the killing.

ODonnell said Sanchez told him he hears his conscience speak to him, but he doesnt hear voices and he didnt want to go to a mental prison, that he knew exactly what he was doing.

After talking with police, Sanchez led them to Alfuraijis body, covered by tall grass in the vicinity of a dry creek bed on the Rincon Reservation, ODonnell said.

The autopsy revealed that Alfuraiji died from a combination of trauma to his face and head and a compression of his neck that had cut the flow of blood to his brain.

On cross examination by defense attorney Ricky Crawford, ODonnell said Sanchez told him he would have let Alfuraiji walk away unharmed if he had not agreed to the fight.

Sanchez does not have a car, and the investigation eventually led police to the door of another of Sanchezs friends, whose Jeep Patriot was spotted  by a camera that reads license plates  leaving the east side of Escondido right around the time of the fatal fight, then returning later.

According to Gay, the friend told police that Sanchez had texted that night to ask for help, so he drove to the park and waited. A few minutes later, his rear passenger door opened and Sanchez dumped a body into the Jeep Patriot. The shocked friend followed Sanchezs instructions to the remote spot, where Sanchez then dumped the body.

That friend  who had stayed quiet until police linked him to the incident  has not been charged. The investigation is continuing.

None of the Snapchat messages were displayed in court Tuesday. Generally, messages sent on the social media app self-destruct after they have been seen by all recipients, but authorities are hoping the company might have retained the originals  particularly any audio or video recordings.

Recipients can also preserve Snapchat posts and Gendron, one of the friends who reported his concerns to police, took screen shots of original rap lyrics that Sanchez posted and provided those shots to authorities. He also gave a copy to the Union-Tribune.

Among the lyrics:  throat on my bicep go to sleep now hush lil (racial epithet) dont you cry at least in the arms of a friend is where u die.

Gendron, 19, told the Union-Tribune that, aside from the audio clip, Sanchez also posted a video of himself talking about having a fight.

I noticed that he is wearing all white, but he is covered in blood, Gendron said. His white T-shirt is soaked with blood.

He said he and Rosado met Sanchez at his home two days later and Sanchez showed him blood-covered clothes  which were folded up and put in his closet.

That, Gendron said, is when he was sure something bad had happened.

It was the feeling .. I got from him, Gendron said. .. It was pure evil.

Sanchez had previously been well mannered, quiet, under the radar, but had changed in the months leading up to the killing, Gendron said.

I felt like the Salvador I grew up with wasnt there anymore, he said.

A gofundme account has been set up to help Alfuraijis family with burial and other expenses.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT

UPDATES:

4:50 p.m.: This story has been updated to include more information. It was initially posted at 2:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he has nominated San Diego hotelier Doug Manchester to become the next United States ambassador to the Bahamas.

The selection comes after months of rumors that Manchester, a major Trump fundraiser, would be picked for the top diplomatic post to the island-nation.

A statement from the administration described Manchester, the former publisher of The San Diego Union-Tribune, as a leading industrialist with accomplishments on a national and international scale in several industries.

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The diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Bahamas is warm but not well-watched. The countries are partners in counter-narcotics and anti-human trafficking operations in the Caribbean. The embassys consular services can be of vital help to American tourists, like the ones who recently found trouble after the disastrous Fyre Festival.

Manchester did not return a voicemail message requesting comment on the nomination Monday.

In D.C. for ambassador training, Manchester texted to a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter working on a separate article.

Manchester was one of Trumps early political backers and supported the now-president with his time, money, and network. Manchester and his wife, Geniya Manchester, each gave $454,800 to Trumps political committee and Trump-supporting Super PACS, more than anyone else in the San Diego area.

Manchester also helped organize a large campaign rally last May at the Convention Center (where Trump quipped that Manchester could build the wall at the border with Mexico) and planned multi-million dollar fundraisers. Manchester, who has no foreign policy experience, will require Senate confirmation to become ambassador.

Whispers of the nomination began earlier this year after a Bahamas news website reported that Manchester was being considered for the assignment. The article, which is no longer readily available, said that Manchester has a home in the upscale Lyford Cay community, one of the worlds most exclusive enclaves.

The embassy is currently run by Charge dAffaires Lisa A. Johnson.

Manchester made his name in real estate development, particularly in the hospitality industry. Manchester is currently working on Pacific Gateway, a $1.3 billion project that will be built on the Navy Broadway Complex site. The downtown development on San Diego Bay has been in the making for over a decade.

He also opened luxury resort Grand Del Mar, which was recently taken over by the Fairmont hotel chain. He also developed the Manchester Grand Hyatt, a hotel with 150,000-square-feet of event space. Manchester no longer owns that property, but it still bears his name.

Manchester was also a pivotal player behind the San Diego Convention Center, a massive venue that, 26 years after it opened, hosted the Trump campaign rally.

Manchester, a graduate of San Diego State University, will join a brief list of ambassadors with local ties

Geoffrey Pyatt, a career diplomat, became ambassador to Greece in September after serving as ambassador to Ukraine for three years. He grew up in La Jolla.

M. Larry Lawrence, an activist in the Democratic Party who helped restore the Hotel del Coronado, was ambassador to Switzerland under President Bill Clinton. Lawrence died in Bern.

Charles Holster was appointed by President George H.W. Bush as the ambassador to Bahrain during the Persian Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. He came to San Diego from Bahrain.

President Ronald Reagan appointed two men from the area. Joseph Ghougassian, a University of San Diego graduate and Escondido resident, was ambassador to Qatar from 1985 to 1989. Thomas Nassif, who has a home in La Jolla, was ambassador to Morocco from 1985 to 1988.

Jeffrey Davidow, from La Jolla, was an ambassador under both Reagan and Clinton, serving as the top diplomat in Zambia, Venezuela and Mexico. Hes also the former president of the Institute of the Americas.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
A man was arrested Monday in a hit-and-run crash that seriously injured a woman sleeping in the middle of a parking lot in East Village Friday.

The woman remains hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, San Diego police said.

She was lying in the Ace Parking lot on National Avenue near Imperial Avenue when a man in a gray Jeep Patriot pulled into the lot and ran her over about 2:30 p.m.

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The driver got out and yelled for help, police said. But as soon as witnesses pulled the woman from under the Jeep, the driver took off.

Police Sgt. Timothy Underwood said video evidence and statements from witnesses led investigators to the suspect and vehicle. Both were found at a motel on Main Street in Barrio Logan.

The suspect, a 34-year-old man, was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of driving with a suspended license and felony hit and run.

An unidentified female passenger in the Jeep walked away after the crash. Investigators consider her a witness, not a suspect, Underwood said.

Breaking News

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Longtime public relations executive Bob Nelson is stepping down as a Port of San Diego commissioner, citing conflicts with his new business partnership and an interest in promoting an upcoming convention center expansion ballot measure.

Nelson has served since 2011 on the commission that administers waterfront land in San Diego, Chula Vista, Coronado, Imperial Beach and National City. He confirmed his departure to The San Diego Union-Tribune hours ahead of todays board meeting, to be effective immediately following adjournment.

Originally nominated by San Diego City Council members including now-Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Nelson vacates his Port of San Diego commission seat with 19 months remaining in his term.

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Nelson cited commitments to his business and personal affairs as interfering with his Port Commission public service, which follows five years on the San Diego Convention Center Corp. board of directors and a host of other community groups and service organizations.

In an interview, Nelson said he regrets leaving but it was the best decision for his new business, Manolatos Nelson Murphy. The firm was launched last fall with former Faulconer aide Tony Manolatos and Kelly Murphy Lamkin, daughter of former Mayor Dick Murphy.

The way the state laws work on conflicts of interest, it isnt just a question of what I get paid for, said Nelson, 65. Its what the company gets paid for, even if its in the service of others. There are a lot of issues of significant impact to the community that they would like to be involved with but cant because of my service to the community.

Everybody is better served if I find another way to use my volunteer time, he said.

Nelson said he is a strong supporter of plans to expand the San Diego Convention Center, an issue he expects will go before voters in November. He said he wants to donate his time and communications skills to passing the voter initiative.

I want to be an asset to the campaign, he said. The problem with that is I cant sort out how I would be an advocate by night and sit in board meetings by day and try to make unbiased decisions affecting the property. So Ive had to make a choice.

Nelson said he had not spoken to Faulconer about his decision to resign but did leave a message for the mayor earlier Tuesday.

The decision to step away also comes months after U-T Watchdog reports about Nelsons new PR firm accepting tens of thousands of dollars in work from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association political action committee, with funding from port tenants. The money was to oppose a hotel-tax increase.

The Watchdog also reported last year that Nelson previously worked for the primary developer of Seaport San Diego, a $1.2 billion remake of the Seaport Village shopping destination approved along San Diego Bay.

Nelson said in response to both reports that he had done nothing improper, and worked diligently to avoid even the appearance of any conflicts of interest.

I dont have a problem voting against the interests of someone who is a friend or someone with whom Ive had some past business relationship, he said in November. If I did, the only people that could serve in public office would be introvert eunuchs.

In February, the California Fair Political Practices Commission issued an advice letter after examining the situation and concluded that Nelson did have financial interests in the San Diego County Taxpayers Association and its political action committee because of his company.

However, there are no decisions presented that would have a reasonably foreseeable material financial effect on SDCTA or SDCTA PAC, a commission lawyer wrote, therefore the Commissioner would not have a conflict of interest.

Critics remain skeptical of Nelsons port service despite the vote of confidence from the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Everything big and bad that the port has done or tried to pull off since his appointment  of which theres plenty  has his fingerprints on it, said attorney Cory Briggs, who has sued the port numerous times in recent years. Itd be tough to find a phonier steward of the public trust.

Nelson said he was proud of his port service and singled out his work reducing air pollutants around Barrio Logan and National City and hiring current CEO Randa Coniglio after former chief Wayne Darbeau stepped down. Darbeau left office on a 6-1 vote by port commissioners, after U-T Watchdog revealed that he was soliciting jobs for his son from port tenants, while negotiating a major contract with them.

Nelson has also served on the San Diego LGBT Community Center board, volunteered to help pass the citys Climate Action Plan and served on the CleanTech San Diego board of directors.

According to his state-required 2016 disclosure of financial interests, Nelson received at least $10,000 each from Community Housing Works, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors and the San Diego County Taxpayer PAC.

He reported accepting just one gift during the calendar year, a pair of VIP tickets to Gator by the Bay music festival from the Bon Temps Social Club, valued at $250.

Previously

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

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Gulp. Experts are calling the latest missile test in North Korea successful at a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile.

That quote comes from John Schilling, an expert at the website 38 North, which is affiliated with John Hopkins University and offers analysis of North Korea. Schilling also predicts the missile could have flown nearly 2,800 miles (or about 4,500 kilometers) if launched on a maximum trajectory  which would put Guam within striking distance of North Korean missles but wont greatly change the strategic balance because aside from Guam, there arent really any interesting targets in that range.

After years of missile tests by North Korea that have come as part of the nations effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile that could launch a nuclear warhead, this latest test is garnering much attention by those watching North Korea for major signs of advancement.

Heres why.

What happened?

On Sunday, North Korea test-launched a ballistic missile that flew, at a high trajectory, about 435 miles, according to South Koreas military. A Japanese military official says the missile flew for about 30 minutes and landed in the Sea of Japan.

If North Koreas state-run media agencys claim that the missile reached an altitude of 1,312 miles is true, thats a higher altitude and longer flight time than any other missiles tested to date, according to several South Korean analysts.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said more analysis was needed to verify the claim.

The White House reacted by calling for stronger sanctions from other countries around the world.

North Korea has been a flagrant menace for far too long, a statement released over the weekend said. Let this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea.

What are experts saying about it?

The 38 North analysis points out that the distance flown by the missile means it could strike a U.S. military base at Guam.

It appears to have not only demonstrated an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that might enable them to reliably strike the U.S. base at Guam, but more importantly, may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Schilling wrote.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, South Korea, told Reuters that the launch is an advancement that exceeds most expectations on what North Koreas missile program could previously do.

Melissa Hanham, senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, told CNN the test could easily be seen as a stepping stone to a longer-range weapon, despite one Pentagon official saying the missile was not consistent with an ICBM.

What has North Korea been saying?

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency called the launch a new type of medium long-range ballistic rocket that can carry a heavy nuclear war head. The countrys dictator Kim Jong Un is warning (hes done it before) that the country is well on its way to striking the U.S. mainland and military bases throughout the Pacific Ocean.

The state-run news organization also said that, after the launch, Jong Un hugged officials in the field of rocket research, saying that they worked hard to achieve a great thing. It released several photos of both the launch and Jong Uns reaction, none of which, could be independently confirmed or verified.

This picture taken on May 14, 2017 and released from North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (3rd R) inspecting a ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location. (AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS)

This picture taken on May 14, 2017 and released from North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15 shows a test launch of the ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location. (AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS)

This picture taken on May 14, 2017 and released from North Koreas official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15 shows a test launch of the ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location. (AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS)

So whats next?

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday that the U.S. and its international partners will tighten the screws on the North Korean regime.

Well, I think you first have to get into Kim Jong Un's head, you know, which is he's in a state of paranoia. He's incredibly concerned about anything and everything around him, Haley told ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos. What we're going to do is continue to tighten the screws. He feels it. He absolutely feels it. And we're going to continue, whether it's sanctions, whether it's press statements, anything that we have to do.

38 North says U.S. cities arent at risk today because the full missile system needed to reach them has yet to be tested (this includes re-entry technology needed to return a warhead back into the atmosphere from space). Yet 38 North also says new assessments of what North Koreas missile program can do are now necessary.

A U.N. Security Council is expected to hold a closed-door meeting in response to the missile launch on Tuesday.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church rejected calls from Ukraines president to create a local Orthodox church that would be independent from Moscow, saying he firmly supports the status quo.

Patriarch Kirill arrived in Ukraine for a prolonged visit, which observers say is aimed at reasserting Moscows religious and political influence over this predominantly Orthodox nation of 46 million, which is trying to integrate with the West.

President Viktor Yushchenko has led a campaign to win recognition of a separatist church that broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate in the 1990s.

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The main aspiration of the Ukrainian people is to live in a united, self-governing Apostolic Orthodox church, Yushchenko said in a speech, standing alongside Kirill.

Kirill was quick to stress that the dominant Orthodox church in Ukraine, which answers to Moscow, is the only legitimate church here.

This church, Mr. President, already exists, Kirill said. If it didnt exist today, Ukraine wouldnt exist either.

But wounds have formed in this church and these wounds must be healed, he said.

The two leaders made the statements after laying flowers at a memorial commemorating the victims of a 1932-33 famine that killed millions which was engineered by Soviet authorities to abolish private land ownership.

Yushchenko is also leading a campaign to win recognition of the famine as an act of genocide; Moscow counters that the campaign was not aimed specifically at Ukrainians.

Kirill said that he mourns the tragedy and prays for all those who perished, but stressed that other ethnic groups, including Russians, also suffered.

The Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the Kremlin, worry about losing dominance in Ukraine.

The mainstream, Moscow-aligned church claims about 28 million believers, while the separatist Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate claims about 14 million followers. Opinion polls show the splinter churchs popularity is growing.

Earlier Monday, Kirill led a service on St. Volodymyr Hill in central Kiev near the statue of Prince Volodymyr, who launched the Slavic worlds conversion to Christianity in 988. Kirill called for friendship, brotherhood and unity.

Yushchenko, who has sought to break free from Russias centuries-old political dominance and integrate with the European Union and NATO, has appealed to the spiritual leader of the worlds 250 million Orthodox believers, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, to recognize the separatist church.

Bartholomew, who visited Kiev last summer, has not given a clear response.

Kirill is to visit a number of Ukrainian cities during a prolonged visit that his office says is devoted strictly to pilgrimage. But observers note that his trips to such strongholds of pro-Russian support as the eastern coal-mining city of Donetsk and the port of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula have clear political undertones.

Before Kirill led the prayers, a group of nationalist activists shouting Moscow priest get out! briefly scuffled with his supporters near the St. Volodymyr Hill. The scuffle was broken up by police.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major shift Monday in federal sentencing policies, targeting long mandatory terms that he said have flooded the nations prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted crime-fighting dollars that could be far better spent.

If Holders policies are implemented aggressively, they could mark one of the most significant changes in the way the federal criminal justice system handles drug cases since the government declared a war on drugs in the 1980s

As a first step, Holder has instructed federal prosecutors to stop charging many nonviolent drug defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences. His next step will be working with a bipartisan group in Congress to give judges greater discretion in sentencing.

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We will start by fundamentally rethinking the notion of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes, Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco.

There are currently more than 219,000 federal inmates, and the prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity. Holder said the prison population has grown at an astonishing rate - by almost 800 percent since 1980. Almost half the inmates are serving time for drug-related crimes.

Holder said he also wants to divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community service programs and expand a prison program to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders.

The speech drew widespread praise, including from some of the people Holder will need most - Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he is encouraged by the Obama administrations view that mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders promote injustice and do not serve public safety. Paul and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have introduced legislation to grant federal judges greater flexibility in sentencing. Leahy commended Holder for his efforts on the issue and said his committee will hold a hearing on the bill next month.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said he looked forward to working on the issue with Holder and senators of both parties.

But support was not universal. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Holder cannot unilaterally ignore the laws or the limits on his executive powers. While the attorney general has the ability to use prosecutorial discretion in individual cases, that authority does not extend to entire categories of people.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said whether the law needs to be changed should be decided by the Congress, along with the president.

Instead were seeing the president attempt to run roughshod over the direct representatives of the people elected to write the laws, Grassley said. The overreach by the administration to unilaterally decide which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore is a disturbing trend.

Still, the impact of Holders initiative could be significant, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a private group involved in research and policy reform of the criminal justice system.

African-Americans and Hispanics probably would benefit the most from a change. African-Americans account for about 30 percent of federal drug convictions each year and Hispanics account for 40 percent, according to Mauer.

If state policymakers were to adopt similar policies, the impact of changes at the state level could be even broader. Currently, about 225,000 state prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. One national survey from 15 years ago by the Sentencing Project found that 58 percent of state drug offenders had no history of violence or high-level drug dealing.

These proportions on state prisoners may have shifted somewhat since that time, but its still likely that a substantial proportion of state drug offenders fall into that category today, said Mauer.

In a three-page memo to all 94 U.S. Attorneys offices around the country, Holder said rising prison costs have resulted in reduced spending on law enforcement agents, prosecutors and prevention and intervention programs.

These reductions in public safety spending require us to make our public safety expenditures smarter and more productive, the memo stated.

In some cases where a defendant is not an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of others, prosecutors should decline to pursue charges triggering a mandatory minimum sentence, Holders memo stated.

In his speech to the ABA, the attorney general said we need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate - not merely to convict, warehouse and forget.

Holder said new approaches - which he is calling the Smart On Crime initiative - are the result of a Justice Department review he launched early this year.

The attorney general said that some issues are best handled at the state or local level and that he has directed federal prosecutors across the country to develop locally tailored guidelines for determining when federal charges should be filed and when they should not.

He said 17 states have directed money away from prison construction and toward programs and services such as treatment and supervision that are designed to reduce the problem of repeat offenders.

In Kentucky, legislation has reserved prison space for the most serious offenders and refocused resources on community supervision. The state, Holder said, is projected to reduce its prison population by more than 3,000 over the next 10 years, saving more than $400 million.

He also cited investments in drug treatment in Texas for non-violent offenders and changes to parole policies which he said have brought about a reduction in the prison population of more than 5,000 last year. He said similar efforts helped Arkansas reduce its prison population by more than 1,400. He also pointed to Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Hawaii as states that have improved public safety while preserving limited resources.

San Francisco County District Attorney George Gascon applauded Holders speech.

Its obviously a big shift in policy, Gascon said. Now lets see how the follow through works.

In a state experiencing severe prison overcrowding, Gascon has been advocating alternative sentencing of low-level drug offenders since taking office as district attorney in January 2011. He previously served as the citys police chief. Last week, the Supreme Court refused to delay the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates by years end to ease overcrowding at 33 adult prisons.

Praising Holders efforts, Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Washington Legislative Office, said the attorney general is taking crucial steps to tackle our bloated federal mass incarceration crisis.

Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said, For the past 40 years, the Department of Justice, under both political parties, has promoted mandatory minimum sentencing like a one-way ratchet.

Former federal appeals court judge Timothy Lewis recalled that he once had to sentence a 19-year-old to 10 years in prison for conspiracy for being in a car where drugs were found. Lewis, a former prosecutor, said the teen, who was African-American, was on course to be the first person in his family to go to college. Instead, Lewis had to send him to prison as the teen turned and screamed for his mother.

I am just glad that someone finally has the guts to stand up and do something about what is a pervasively racist policy, said Lewis, who is African-American.

---

Associated Press writer Paul Elias reported from San Francisco. AP writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
White Plains, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/16/2017 -- In the rush of contemporary life, people often need an occasion to free from worries. People with more sophisticated taste often choose sailing as an opportunity to both do something different in their free time and combine it with a cultural enrichment by visiting some renowned sailing destination.



Inspired by the beauty and numerous advantages of sailing, our company  SAS MARINE SERVCES LTD created a platform called Book2Sail, a product that exists to meet the requirements of experienced and newbie sailors and transform their needs into an unforgettable experience.



Based in Malta, an oasis for sailing adventures  our company is relatively new and enthusiastic; but constantly striving for a perfect professionalism and 100% dedication to the customer's needs.



Our team of professionals created a 100% secure payment system that is fully convenient both for charterers and for boat and yacht owners that want to rent their water vehicle using our system.



With such a convenient and time-savvy platform, our list of boats reached over 500; and the numerous yachts available for chartering are easily satisfying each taste and budget.



The fact that what we do  we do it great is proven by the number of boats and yachts that grows on a daily basis, another reason which gives us the motivation and affection to maintain our main goal: to make our customers happy and relaxed while using our services.



Malta: Our home that transforms work into a pure pleasure



The geographical benefit of our basis gives us the freedom of reaching of a whole array of countries as sailing destinations - such as our top destinations  Croatia, Turkey, Spain, Greece, and to be more specific - the whole Mediterranean and European anchorages that appear to be a true sailing sensations.



It's both easy and tempting to do a chartering business nowadays. Still, the Msida Yacht Marina  exactly where our offices are set at, transforms the challenge into a total pleasure, especially with the fact that Malta has over 300 sunny days a year  a perfect working conditions for a sailing company.



Book2Sail's main goal: The satisfied customer



Meeting the needs of our clients has been a pleasant challenge for us. The more the needs of our clients go far and wide  from boat and yacht parties, private sailing cruises, family and friend gathering on water to official off-shore meetings, the more we are eager to meet this needs.



Our team full of young and enthusiastic people is the crucial thing that makes Book2Sail both successful and competing company in the sea of companies of a similar type.



By providing a fun, safe and financially rewarding working environment, our team unbeatably offers the customers exactly what they need: great destinations, precise and fast search that soon transforms into an unforgettable sailing vacation.



What makes Book2Sail unique and secure is the perfectly designed platform that is created to be user-friendly; by which the search of the perfect yacht charter or renting a boat is accessible in only few clicks: from any spot around the globe.



To make things even more appealing, the system we created is free of charge for all users: both for boat and yacht owners, and the customers that are in search for the perfect way to spend their summer vacation. Not to forget the customer service that works 24/7 to help the customers with any issues and meet their needs as fast and reliable as it can be.



To be sincere, the work of nourishing such a business can be pretty tempting and the road we, at Book2Sail, walk on a daily basis can be pretty rocky. But at the end, the thousands of happy customers and their positive remarks on our work gives us the strength and enthusiasm to continue doing our best, and of course  strive to be better each day.



There is no better way to motivate a company than a feedback of the customer, and even better: the photo of a happy group of people enjoying their vacation on board.



This is the exact purpose why Book2Sail exists and the sweet motive that makes the work our greatest pleasure.



Company Name: Book2Sail

Email: info@book2sail.com

Website: http://book2sail.com

Phone Number: +356 2763 0000
Tokyo, Japan -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/15/2017 -- ezTalks Technology Co., Ltd., the global leading video conferencing solution provider, announced today that they are ready for Expo Comm Wireless Japan in Tokyo from 24th to 26th May which offers great platform for professionals and game players to exchange insights of wireless technologies, unifies communications, cloud platform and other products.



Improving business collaboration and making conferences more productive with video is always at the core of what the company has done, so that pushing boundaries of technology with dedication, persistence and innovation. ezTalks Cloud is one of the solutions the company launched, which will refresh the industry with its powerful features to enable 100 participants online at the same time freely. Perfectly suitable for large enterprise video conference, the Cloud solution can greatly accelerate efficiency of communication in multiple areas including government, military, transportation, finance, education and business. Apart from ezTalks Cloud, the ezTalks VCS (On-Premise Video Conference System), along with other endpoints like ezTalks Onion, a high quality all-in-one video conferencing equipment, designed for huddle rooms; VPE3000, the best solution for middle meeting room; and VPE4000 for large meeting room will also be revealed at Tokyo.



"It is unique platform to present how unified communication could transform the way enterprise communicates, connects employees and get work done." said Jack Zhang, director of ezTalks Technology Co., Ltd "ezTalks is honored to participate in this event and get industry insights to further develop and improve video conferencing technology to drive the collaboration business forward."



About Wireless Japan Expocomm

Wireless Japan Expocomm is most specialized event for wireless industry which showcases products like wireless technologies, unifies communications, cloud platform and other products and services etc. in the Business Services, Telecom Products & Equipment industries.



About ezTalks Technology Co., Ltd.

ezTalks is a leading online video conferencing provider in the world which enables you to host unlimited HD video conferencing with anyone, anytime. ezTalks provides cloud-based solutions, on-premise solutions and a series of video conference room equipment across desktop, mobile and meeting rooms to transform the way the enterprise communicates, connects employees, and gets work done with video meetings effectively.



Contact ezTalks or visit https://www.eztalks.com/?=prJp_sbwire for more information.
Salt Lake City, UT -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/16/2017 -- 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



Salt Lake City, UTAH General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Declares New Geneology Support Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.mychocolatepod.com/



The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap.



The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away.



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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
A German non-profit social enterprise, in partnership with Tanzania's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, is planning to launch a project that aims to educate women who can't read about health. In this project, they are going to use powered MP3 players as their tools to achieve their goal.

In an article published in The Next Web, German non-profit social enterprise URIDU will launch a program called MP3forLife Player. This is a solar-powered MP3 Player device developed by the group in order to teach women in the rural parts of Tanzania who can't read.

The MP3 Player device is said to have more than 400 answers to various questions concerning health, nutrition, family planning, child care, work safety, and other topics that should be the concern of women in Tanzania. "We conceived the MP3forLife Player for small group listening - it fosters discussion, exchange and group building," Felicitas Heyne, psychologist and URIDU founder, has said in an article published in ScoopNest.

She added that it is quite a process of getting all of this information converted into audio, considering the number of topics covered and the wealth of information available on that that is deem relevant and necessary for the MP3forLife users in Tanzania. "All texts are translated with the help of more than 10.000 volunteers from over 100 countries who participate in a unique crowdsourcing effort. Once the information has been translated it is recorded by a native speaker of the target language," the description of URIDU reads.

Heyne said that they want to provide basic knowledge to illiterate rural women in Tanzania, but they also want to create a team of spirit among them. "They are key to positive change in their countries [as] wherever women are empowered, a favorable spiral is set in motion. Health and education improve, populations stabilize, economies grow," she said.
South Africa is ironing out its nuclear power agreements following the high court's decision to block the multinational deal due to lack of oversight. South Africa is vying for a nuclear power plant fleet, costing $30 to $70 billion. There is an earlier deal with Russia to develop the facility but the judiciary branch reacts to its financial viability.

South Africa taps five other countries, namely, the United States, Russia, China, France, and South Korea for an inter-governmental deal. However, the opposition bloc thwarts the nuclear power agreement. They accused President Jacob Zuma of not being transparent. Further, the opposition said that there are too many gray areas where the administration can use the deal as a conduit for corruption.

For his defense, Zuma denied the allegations of corruption. The state energy firm Eskom backed Zuma's defense and said that the nuclear power deal is going to help reduce the damage to the environment instead. Currently, South Africa is reliant on coal-powered plants, the Eyewitness News reported.

The South African high court ruling stressed that the nuclear power deal is counter-beneficial to the government. The ruling questioned the favorable tax incentives to Russia while South Africa shoulders most of the financial obligations. Further, there are reports that the government fails to conduct a public consultation.

The energy ministry reacts and said that the court ruling is questionable itself. However, they are not going to appeal, but will implement an improved nuclear deal instead. There will be sterner guidelines and the Parliament is to be consulted more frequently, Reuters said.

According to South African energy minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, all sectors should shy from suspicion of corruption. Instead, the focus should be given to mixed energy like the nuclear power source. He added that every sector should also come up with a viable solution since the timetable for the nuclear power program will start in June.
Green Chile Food Company-branded burritos were recalled voluntarily due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Green Chile burritos are widely sold in convenience stores, vending machines, and retail locations. The company is particularly pointing those burritos manufactured between March 8 and May 10.

The Green Chile burritos found positive of listeria contamination carry the item codes between 17067 and 17130. These codes correspond to 14 product brands that were distributed nationwide. However, the recall does not cover all of the "variants" of Green Chile burritos nor those who were sold through bulk products, Outbreak News Today clarified.

Green Chile Company stressed that they haven't received any complaints nor monitored anyone who got hospitalized due to listeria contamination yet. However, it is safer to recall the products after the Department of Food Safety and Inspection Service, together with the Food and Drug Administration tested them positive instead of risking the Listeria monocytogenes. Green Chile Company has ceased distribution of the affected product for the meantime as well.

Green Chile Company appealed to those who purchased their products take precautionary measures and not consume them. It is advisable to simply dispose of those listeria-contaminated products. Should the consumers require a refund, they can contact the Green Chile Company at (800) 695-0843 or http://burritorecall.com/.

Listeria monocytogenes-contaminated food can result to a condition called listeriosis. It affects the elderly, pregnant women, newborns, and those with weakened immune system. In most cases, people outside of these age groups are less likely to get an infection.

The symptoms of listeriosis vary, the worst being an invasive type of infection that targets beyond the gastrointestinal tracts. Listeriosis patients may suffer from fever, headache, muscle ache, loss of balance, confusion, and convulsions. The flu-like symptoms are particularly risky for pregnant women who might suffer an increased risks of miscarriage, premature delivery, and stillbirths.

Listeriosis can be treated with antibiotics. The infection period is also unusually long, resulting in symptoms within two months after consumption of contaminated food. It is also vital that the patients should tell the doctors if they suspect that they have eaten contaminated food.
A new research suggests that Campi Flegrei in southern Italy is showing signs of possible eruption. The researchers said that the possible eruption may be closer than previously thought.

The findings of the research were published in Nature Communications on May 15, 2017. The study was led by researchers from UCL and the Vesuvius Observatory in Naples. The team utilized a new model of volcano fracturing to examine whether the supervolcano Campi Flegrei may again erupt, according to EurekAlert.

Dr. Christopher Kilburn, the Director of the UCL Hazard Center, said that by examining how the ground is moving and cracking at Campi Flegrei, they think it could approach a critical stage where further unrest will heighten the possibility of an eruption. It is important that the authorities are prepared for this, he added.

Dr. Kilburn further said that they do not know when or if this long-term unrest could lead to an eruption. On the other hand, Campi Flegrei is following a trend they have seen when testing their model on other volcanoes such as Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, El Hiero in the Canary Islands and Soufriere on Montserrat in the Caribbean. The researchers have been predicting eruptions at volcanoes that have been quiet for generations, as noted by Phys.org.

Campi Flegrei volcano is also known as the Phlegraean Fields, which is a massive caldera that is located to the west of Naples in Italy. Its caldera comprises of 24 craters and volcanic edifices. It is reported that the volcano has been restless for 67 years. It also has two-year periods of unrest in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s. These triggered small earthquakes and ground uplift. This unrest was likened over 500 years ago.

The unrest of Campi Flegrei has also caused intense social upheaval in the volcanic area. In 1979 and 1983 unrests, about tens of thousands of people evacuated from Pozzuoli itself. The unrest today signifies possible eruption, yet it is difficult to predict when would the eruption be. A possible eruption now could affect 360,000 people living across the caldera and the Naples' population of almost 1 million. Experts advise to be ready and to prepare for adaptations of emergency that will lead to the eruption.
After the launch of Samsung's flagship smartphones Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, all eyes are now on the highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Note 8. It is expected that after the Galaxy Note 7 debacle that happened last year, the smartphone giant will leave no stone unturned to get back the lost customer confidence.

Speculations are that Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will get top-notch specs and features to attract more and more customers. While Samsung has not yet officially announced anything about the device, a lot of rumors about Samsung Galaxy Note 8's possible specs, price and release date have flooded the internet.

According to BGR, new leaked details suggest that the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 phablet will feature a 6.3-inch display panel. The information was posted on Chinese social media site Weibo by an industry insider. The leakster also reiterated that the new Note handset will flaunt a dual-lens camera on the back panel.

According to ValueWalk, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is expected to stick with the 18.5:9 aspect ratio that was introduced with the Galaxy S8 smartphone. If the reports turn out to be true, then the Galaxy Note 8 will seemingly be an extremely tall smartphone with a 6.3-inch (over 16 cm) screen, even taller than Galaxy S8 Plus that features a 6.2-inch display panel.

Among other specs, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is expected to feature a Super AMOLED QHD+ panel with Corning's Gorilla Glass 5 protection, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC or Samsung Exynos 8895 10nm system-on-chip (SoC) depending on the market, 6GB of RAM memory and 64 GB or 128GB of internal storage. The flagship device is rumored to be powered by a 4,000 mAh non-removable battery.

Notably, Samsung has already confirmed that it is going to launch a new flagship smartphone in the second half of 2017. Although the tech giant did not reveal the name of the handset, it is highly likely that the device in question is the Note 8. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is rumored to get an August release date.

Readers should take the information with caution as nothing has been confirmed about Samsung Galaxy Note 8's specs, price or release date.
NASA will not be sending astronauts on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion space capsule during its first launch, despite President Donald Trump's request that the American space agency does so "during my first term or, at worst, during my second term." The deep space exploration rocket is scheduled to make its maiden spaceflight in 2019. A manned mission has been delayed to at least 2022.

M Live reported that the space agency started to study whether it was possible to add astronauts for the first flight of the SLS, at the request of the Trump administration. However, last week NASA announced that it had decided not to launch a crewed mission aboard the SLS. The acting NASA administrator Robert M. Lightfoot added that though sending a manned mission was feasible technically, the additional time, cost and risks outweighed the benefits.

"Taking folks farther than we ever have before just is not necessarily the most easy proposition in the world," Lightfoot added, according to a UPI report. "We are looking for a sustainable program here, more than just one mission."

A crewed mission would have meant an additional cost of $600 million to $900 million to the $24 billion price tag and set back the launch to the first half of 2020. Moreover, significant work would have been required that would have meant including a fully operational life-support system to the Orion crew capsule.

Incidentally, the launch date for SLS was previously targeted for November 2018. However, it has been delayed to 2019 due to several technical challenges. Furthermore, a tornado struck Louisiana's Michoud Assembly Facility, where parts of the rocket that are being built were damaged. In addition, while being moved, a large dome that was part of a liquid oxygen fuel tank for the SLS was damaged beyond repair, according to NASA.
NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted a rare galaxy duo known as IRAS 06076-2139. The two individual galaxies are seen in the Hare constellation.

The two objects were traveling too fast and speeding past each other at over 4 million miles per hour. They are just 20,000 light-years apart. The galaxy duo was seen using the Wide Field Camera 10 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments, according to Nation.

Galaxy IRAS 06076-2139 is actually 2 separate galaxies rushing past each other at about 1,243,000 mph or 2mil km/hr!https://t.co/cMsPCMwD2U pic.twitter.com/MMkNZp1vJm  Hubble (@NASAHubble) May 12, 2017

NASA stated that galactic interactions could be in many forms. The collisions and the mergers of galaxies are not uncommon, too. It is theorized that the Milky Way could collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in 10.5 billion years, as pointed out by Gephardt Daily. NASA also explained that the fate of the Milky Way galaxy should not be alarming. The galaxies are populated by billions of stars, and the distances between the stellar are so massive that hardly any stellar collisions will happen.

Likewise, the researchers also released an image of the Crab Nebula, which was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes as well. They gathered the images of these objects from the various telescopes and came up with the new image of Crab Nebula in detail. This nebula is the remnant of a stellar explosion dated 1,000 years ago. It could be seen on the planet Earth from 6,500 light-years away.

The researchers are from the National Council of Scientific Research (CONICET), Institute of Astronomy and Physics, and the University of Buenos Aires. They used five telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope (visible), Very Large Array (radio), the XMM- Newton (ultraviolet), the Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory (X-ray).
A 16-year-old South Carolina high school student was reported to have died of heart problems after consuming too much caffeine. Circumstances did not agree with Davis Cripe, who has no pre-existing heart condition that could have caused him to collapse and die in a classroom in April.

According to the Associated Press via The Washington Post, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said that Cripe drank a large Mountain Dew, a McDonald's latte and an energy drink in the two hours before his heart failed at Spring Hill High School on April 26. At a news conference, CBS Tampa quoted Watts to have said, "We lost Davis from a totally legal substance." He added, "It was so much caffeine at the time of his death, that it caused his arrhythmia."

Arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm, usually causes the heart to have difficulty pumping enough blood to the body. The lack of blood flow eventually affects the brain, heart and other organs. Often, like in Cripe's case, it can even cause death.

Watts also noted that the teen's death should serve as a warning for parents. They should take note that while a can of soda or a cup of coffee is okay for teens to consume, large amounts of caffeine can be deadly.

Sean Cripe, the teen's father, told CNN that he hopes, if nothing else comes out of his son's death, at least parents and children will realize the dangers that can be brought about by caffeinated beverages. "Parents, please talk to your kids about the dangers of these energy drinks," he stated.

Adolescents are not supposed to drink too much caffeine. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends adolescents aged 12 to 18 to consume less than 100 milligrams of caffeine per day. Intake greater than this can be associated with elevated blood pressure in adolescents.
FLORENCE,S.C.  The School Foundation awarded more than $150,000 in grants to Florence School District One for the 2017-2018 school year, funding projects to improve technology, communication, literacy and other endeavors.

Eight projects were funded, Trisha Caulder, chair of The School Foundations grants committee, announced on Monday at a reception for grant recipients. The reception was held at the Floyd Conference Center at Carolinas Hospital System.

We are celebrating along with the schools, because we cant wait to see what they will do with these grants, Caulder said. I know they work really hard, and weve got a lot of kids who are going to benefit from this. Weve touched a lot of different people and a lot of different schools this year.

Projects were divided into two categories: major grants and mini grants. Major grants included project awards of $10,000 or more, and mini grants included project awards of $500 or less. All grant recipients had an opportunity to share their goals for their project with attendees.

The School Foundation awarded $73,370 to Carver Elementary for its grant, Engineering a Smart Start, designed to empower students to build 21st century skills to compete in a global economy.

Carver Principal Chris Rogers said the district will contribute additional funds to the grant total, and that will help fund the creation of a SmartLab at Carver, the first SmartLab in the Southeast. SmartLabs use technology and experiential learning methods to teach students about STEM-related topics.

We saw there was a need for increased technology, and we wanted to enhance what we do with our STEM curriculum, Rogers said. We hope to see that the SmartLab will increase student engagement and increase math assessment scores.

In addition to these goals, Carver also has a goal to see increased interest of female students in math and STEM-related fields.

Briggs, Carver, Timrod, Delmae, Moore, Sneed, Southside and Wilson received a $50,250 grant for their E-ssential e-Books grant, providing increased permanent access to digital nonfiction e-Books in each schools library collection. This was the first combined school grant given by The School Foundation.

McLaurin Elementary received $21,073 for its Field Trips Without Wheels grant. This grant will allow students to use virtual technology to explore the universe without leaving the classroom. Many students might never travel to see the Seven Wonders of the World, but inside the classroom, they can learn about new locations.

Savannah Grove Elementary received $3,631 for its grant Gators Grasping Literacy Through Google, funding the implementation of Google resources and other online programs, utilizing Chromebooks for third- through sixth-grade students.

Also, Royall Elementary, Briggs Elementary, Lucy T. Davis Elementary and FSD1 received mini grants. The FSD1 grant will fund the usage of translation apps for the district that will aid communication between native and non-native English speakers.

Some of those who were awarded grants the previous school year attended the reception to share with attendees how grants had specifically improved education for their students.

Caulder said it is important for schools to learn from the successes of others as they implement new programs and improve tactics.

Keep on being creative and innovative, Caulder said. We appreciate every single one of you for all the love and care you show to the children of Florence School District One.

Grant funding will go into effect during the schools fiscal year, which begins in July.
CHARLOTTE, N.C.  Fourteen organizations spanning 27 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina will receive more than $1.1 million in new grants from Duke Energys Water Resources Fund to support environmental and wildlife programs.

The fund is a $10 million multiyear commitment from Duke Energy to help local organizations continue to protect and improve the environment, including waterways used year-round across the Carolinas and neighboring states.

The projects were investing in now through the Water Resources Fund ensure that future generations will enjoy the benefits of our waterways, said David Fountain, Duke Energys North Carolina president. This in one of the many ways we are working to build a better future for our communities.

We are so excited to receive a grant from Duke Energys Water Resources Fund for the RADTIP Riparian Restoration Plan, said Stephanie Monson Dahl, director of the strategic development office for the city of Asheville. These funds will help create a community partnership to further our City Councils 2036 vision, which includes a focus on clean water and quality urban forests.

These projects benefit our waterways and contribute to the economic vitality of our local communities, said Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe, Duke Energys South Carolina president. Maintaining the vitality of our communities is one of our most important responsibilities at Duke Energy.

Duke Energys Water Resources Fund is an incredible resource for organizations like ours, said Natalie Britt, executive director of Palmetto Conservation Foundation. We are thrilled to receive funding to conserve an awesome watershed and give the public access via the Palmetto Trail, she said. PCF is building a new passage of the trail along the lower Eastatoe Creek through the internationally acclaimed Jocassee Gorges Wilderness Area in Pickens County, S.C. The mountains-to-sea Palmetto Trail is one of 16 cross-state hiking trails in the nation.

Duke Energy has awarded more than $6 million in grants to 73 projects in the Carolinas and Virginia since establishing the fund in 2015. Recipients are selected by an independent body that includes five environmental experts and two Duke Energy employees.

Organizations receiving the new grants are:

Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council (N.C.)

City of Asheville (N.C.)

City of Eden (N.C.)

City of Jacksonville (N.C.)

Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina (N.C.)

Pickens County (S.C.)

Mountain Valleys Resource Conservation and Development (N.C.)

Palmetto Conservation Foundation (S.C.)

Rockingham County Historical Society Museum and Archives (N.C.)

Spartanburg Area Conservancy (S.C.)

The Nature Conservancy of South Carolina (S.C.)

Trout Unlimited, Inc. (N.C.)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte (N.C.)

YMCA of Greenville (S.C.)
NICHOLS, S.C.  The Marion County Habitat for Humanity along with disaster relief agencies gathered recently at Nichols Baptist Church to celebrate the restoration of several homes and churches damaged in during Hurricane Matthew.

Disaster response coordinator George Olive was among 200 volunteers with the South Carolina Conference of United Methodist Church that helped clean out damaged homes in December. He returned on May 6 to inform the public about the work thats taken place.

We have a lot of groups involved with this activity, he said. There were groups coming in October. This has truly been an effort from Gods people and that is what makes this so wonderful.

Olive said everyone is in it together.

Marion County Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Ricky Hardee said despite the sense of despair from homeowners, it was important to organize the event.

Thats a big part of what we want to do in this town and thats restore the hope that has been lost, Hardee said. This is the beginning, and that is what were here to celebrate today.

Marion County Habitat for Humanity recently repaired two flooded homes in Nichols. Damage forced one family out their home of two years and delayed Juanita Fleming from moving into the organizations 35th home for several months.

I lived in Nichols a while back, and I chose to move to Nichols with my three kids, she said. We just thank God for being back and being in our house.

Fleming was treated to a warm welcome with a home dedication following the program, as she now has the keys.

Families such as Juan, Reina and Anier Flores and Cameron, Becky Seth and Tyler Buffkin were all applauded for the great news of their home repairs.

Anier Flores managed to maintain her grades through school, getting accepted to the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities.

I just want to say that the experience that we started with was emotional, and we were hurt, but at the same time I kept a smile on my face because I was hopeful, Flores said. I knew we were going to get back.

Flores said thanks to the help of others, the family was blessed with paths to walk through.

Thank you to everyone who was there, she said.

Becky Buffkin said she never experienced anything like the flooding back in October, losing 18 years of belongings.

You just dont understand it until you lived it, Buffkin said. I havent even cried twice through the whole thing. Every step after that, we have never had a period of time when our home wasnt being worked on. God gave us the strength. Were stronger as a family. Were closer to our neighbors, and we chose when we started this journey that were not going to be bitter. We were going to be better.

Marion County Habitat for Humanity site manager Maxie Hardee said its a blessing to contribute helping others find a home.

I love the people and spending time with them, he said. Its just such a great team effort.

Nichols Mayor Lawson Battle said hes thankful for the immediate support of volunteers.

Theyve been wonderful, he said. The community has been strong, but theyve been awesome. Five homes have families back into them, and theyve put in the labor to help show us to stay strong.

Battle said he was happy for the progress being made.

Those interested in helping Marion County Habitat can call 843-464-3747 or send contributions to P.O. Box 873 Marion, S.C. 2971.
Damen has joined a cooperative consortium with RAMLAB, Promarin, Autodesk and Bureau Veritas (BV) to develop the worlds first class approved 3D printed ships propeller, dubbed the WAAMpeller.

The propeller will be based on a Promarin design that is typically found on a Damen Stan Tug 1606. The 1,300mm diameter propeller weighs roughly 180kg.

Damen's involvement in the project resulted from one of its inhouse student research programmes.

Three students from Delft Technical University were investigating the potential of 3D printing for us. They brought us into contact with the other members of the consortium, explained Kees Custers, project engineer in Damens Research & Development department.

Port of Rotterdams RAMLAB will fabricate the WAAMpeller from a bronze alloy using the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) process and BV will be involved in classing the propellor.

The first propellor is expected to be 3D printed this summer and followed by full-scale trials.

We will be performing a comprehensive programme that will include bollard pull and crash test scenarios. Our ambition is to demonstrate that the research phase for 3D printing in the maritime sector is over, and that it can now be effectively applied in operations, Custers said.
New Delhi, May 16 (IBNS): Bandaru Duttatreya, the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Labour & Employment will be leading the Indian delegation to the G20 Labour & Employment Ministersa Meet, scheduled on 18-19, May, 2017 at Bad Neuenahr, Germany.

Germany is the chair for the G20 Labour & Employment Ministers for the year 2017.

The G20 Labour & Employment Track has been discussing topics like Shaping the Future of Work, Reducing Gender Gaps in Labour Force Participation, Labour Market Integration of Regular Migrants and Recognized Refugees, Decent Work in Global Supply Chains, and Boosting Youth Employment.

A G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Declaration is likely to be adopted at the end of this meeting, which will be presented to the Leaders/ Head of the State summit scheduled on 7-8th July, 2017 Hamburg, Germany.

Bandaru Duttatreya is expected to advocate policy interventions aimed at promoting labour mobility for skilled youth, incentivizing MSMEs as well as responsibility of developed states in the Global Supply Chains for capacity building, skill development and technology transfer to promote more inclusive and fair globalization, at the forum of G20.

He will also outline Indias recent initiatives for the welfare of its workers including those related to employment promotion, social security, Maternity benefit and child labour.
If you are a master mariner, it is difficult not to put yourself in the position of Captain Francesco Schettino, as his ships systems died in front of his eyes following the contact with the rock off the Isle of Giglio on that fateful evening in January 2012. How, you might ask, would I have coped in the terrifying knowledge that my ship was holed, flooding, out of control and that my decisions could lead several thousand people to a watery grave?

Throughout your career, aboard every ship you have sailed in, you have undertaken drill after drill, dutifully practising mustering passengers, regularly lowering lifeboats, even undertaking desktop damage control exercises. In more recent years, you will have spent time on simulators. But in the back of your mind, you may well have thought, as you watched the passengers being instructed in the use of their lifejackets, or the boats sent away on a smooth harbour exercise, that such drills barely scratched the surface of what could, just possibly, happen. And even if you had a fertile imagination, you would have probably put to the back of your mind any scenario which would have matched the the frightful reality of the situation on Costa Concordia, onthat awful night.

Could you remain rational and a fully functional individual as the ship drifted, listed, lost all electrical power? Could you take all the right decisions, at the time they were needed, as the terrible messages of a worsening situation flooded in, as the sea filled her compartments?

It might be argued that those in charge of the gigantic cruise ships, some of which now have more than 7,000 souls aboard, have responsibilities unlike those faced by anyone else on land, sea or air. They are trained along, with their crews, to minimise risks, to prevent awful things happening. But before January 2012, was the training sufficient?

In the armed forces, training is prolonged, intensive and is designed to ensure that only the most capable reach high command. Those in charge of major warships will have faced the most searching examinations of their professionalism, with drills that really are horribly realistic, involving simulated battle damage and mass casualties, to ensure that they can cope with the worst case scenarios.

By contrast, those in commercial shipping know that they cannot require hundreds of passengers, including the old and infirm, to board boats and rafts in the middle of a cruise they have paid to enjoy. They cannot fill the accommodation with mock smoke or extinguish all the electrics, just to provide a realistic emergency drill. You do the best you can, and hope for the best.

Is all this an effort to promote sympathy for Francesco Schettino, as, all appeals against the masters 16 year gaol sentence have failed and he is now a prisoner? There were 32 people who lost their lives in this significant marine casualty and their relatives want to see justice done. But there are questions about this case which will not go away, despite the assurances from operators that lessons have been learned and precautions to prevent any repetition put in place.

And it is difficult to consider it fair that whatever the masters failings, he alone should suffer so disproportionately for mistakes made that evening. After all, there was a bridge team operating the ship, and an organisation which did not function as it ought to have done. And in any reasonable system of justice, there is a difference between errors of judgement and wilful, criminal negligence. And with his ship in its death throes, it is worth recalling that her master was a human being and not a robot.
Guwahati, May 16 (IBNS): Assam Health and Family Welfare department on Tuesday ordered a probe against the persons who spread rumours about a vaccine that could lead to infertility on social media which triggered panic among the people in many districts in lower Assam in past two days.

In past 48 hours, students of several government run schools in remote areas of Kamrup, Barpeta, Nalbari districts of lower Assam left school and taken away by their parents after the rumours.

Apart from the these districts, the rumours also triggered in Guwahati.

On Tuesday, students of a government run school at Notboma in the capital city of Assam left school following the rumours.

Following the incident, Assam Health department had ordered a high level probe into the issue.

Commissioner and Secretary of Assam Health department Samir Sinha said that, the state government has taken the matter very seriously and initiated a probe.

"The state government will take stern action against the persons who spreading the rumours among the people," Samir Sinha said.

"The state health department has already sent a letter to the DGP regarding this matter," Sinha said.

The state health department is carrying out a vaccination drive against Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in Morigaon, Nalbari, Bongaigaon and Cachar districts from April 30 to May 20.

There is no specific vaccination drives being carried out in schools, but the rumours triggered panic among the people specially in minority-dominated areas in the lower Assam districts.

Assam witnessed 779 deaths in JE between 2010 and 2016 and recorded 3391 positive JE cases during the period.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Press Release

May 16, 2017 Sen. Bam: Gov't, private sector no more excuses for poor Internet quality With the imminent passage of the Free Internet in Public Places Act, the implementation of the Philippine Competition Act and the proposed National Broadband Plan (NBP), the government and the private sector will have the necessary platform to improve the country's internet quality and access. "We're breaking down barriers to improving the Internet through our policies. Now, the ball is in the executive and private sector's court," said Sen. Bam Aquino, chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology. He also pushed the measure in the Senate as principal sponsor and co-author. "Our hearings have exposed the lack of infrastructure that we have. So we're reducing red tape for the private sector and we're also allotting the necessary budget para ang gobyerno mismo ang mamuhunan sa internet infrastructure sa ibang lugar," said Sen. Bam. The senator said the challenge of implementation now falls on the shoulders of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the private sector. "The DICT needs two-and-a-half years for the NBP while the sector needs to be opened up to new players to strengthen competition in the market," said Sen. Bam. The final version of the Free Internet in Public Places Act has been approved by the bicameral conference committee. After the final version is ratified by both houses of Congress, it will be transmitted to Malacanang for President Duterte' signature. Sen. Bam also believes that the Republic Act 10667 or the Philippine Competition Act will encourage the entry of more players in the telecommunications industry, leading to improved Internet service at affordable prices. "The Philippine Competition Act will usher in such competition for the benefit of Filipino consumers for the long term," said Sen. Bam, principal sponsor and co-author of Republic Act 10667 or the Philippine Competition Act If finished quickly, the NBP can hasten the rollout of the implementation of the Free Internet Access in Public Places Act. It will be put up starting 2018 and expected to be fully operational by 2020.
Press Release

May 16, 2017 De Lima: Probe gov't officials involved in gambling operations Senator Leila M. de Lima has asked the Senate to look into the accusations that some members of the Duterte administration and high-ranking military officials are purportedly involved in the operations of small town lotteries (STL). De Lima filed proposed Proposed Senate Resolution (PSR) 359 urging the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation to probe the alleged links of administration officials in the STL operations. "Allegations of corruption involving Cabinet and other high-ranking government officials should be investigated with utmost urgency and scrutiny in order to protect the integrity of public office and ensure public trust in government," she said. Gambling tycoon Charlie "Atong" Ang has earlier claimed that Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon want to eliminate him so they can control STL operations in certain provinces in the country. Ang alleged that Aguirre is working with his brother, Engineer Ogie Aguirre, in taking over STL operations in Southern Luzon provinces, including Laguna, Batangas and certain Bicol provinces. Aguirre is also the concurrent head of the government's Task Force on Illegal Gambling. He also reportedly accused Esperon for working with other high military officials in controlling STL operations in northern part of Luzon, including Pangasinan. The former justice secretary noted that STL, a grassroots-based lottery and charity which is managed by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) was designed to stamp out the illegal numbers game, also known as jueteng. She cited PCSO General Manager Alexander Balutan's avowal to stop illegal gambling which he said has been "the scourge of this country for the longest time, spawning corruption in different agencies and levels of government." The Senator from Bicol said she believes that existing laws covering small town lottery and government conduct are now insufficient to curb these anomalies, and must be amended through this probe. "Existing laws, particularly Republic Act (RA) 1169, or the PCSO Charter, and RA 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, need to be amended in order to incorporate a wider and more inclusive scope of jurisdiction as a response to the ever-changing political landscape in government service," she said. "With the culture of patronage continually evolving, Section 7 (a) of RA No. 6713, which only states that 'public officials and employees shall not, directly or indirectly, have any financial or material interest in any transaction requiring the approval of their office' no longer suffices in admonishing public officials against committing certain irregularities whether penalized by law or not," she added. De Lima noted that this is not the first time the President's men have been hounded by such controversies. She added that such irregularities must be looked into by an independent body like the Senate.
Press Release

May 16, 2017 De Lima pushes for regulation of private couriers after Quiapo bombings Senator Leila M. de Lima has called for an immediate Senate investigation into the recent spate of bombings in Quiapo, Manila to ensure that law enforcement agencies are ready to prevent a repeat of a similar situation from happening in the future. In filing Proposed Senate Resolution (PSR) 370, De Lima said she would like to see the capabilities of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in terms of "the efficiency and effectiveness of intelligence gathering, crime detection and incident response." "Recent bombings in Metro Manila, being the National Capital Region of the Philippines where most businesses and educational institutions are located, have caused alarm to the nation," she said. Citing Article II, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution, De Lima said the State is responsible for "the maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty and property and the promotion of general welfare" of its citizens. Quiapo, a busy district in Manila, was recently hit by two separate bombing incidents: the first one was last April 28 where 14 people were injured; and the most recent one was last May 6 which claimed two lives and injured six others. International terror group ISIS has claimed responsibility for both bombings, although local police authorities immediately debunked the group's claim as they maintained that the motive behind the bombings was a feud among gang members. "At present, the motive and the perpetrators behind these bombings have not been fully determined, and mere speculations are given by investigating officers as to the reason of these bombings," De Lima said. "There is continuous fear among the residents that another attack may again occur at any time," she added. The former justice secretary said that "precautionary measures [must] be proposed to ensure that similar incidents will not happen again," including a possible need to regulate private couriers" to ensure that they are not being used by sinister groups. "There may be a need to regulate the security and screening measures being employed by private and common couriers in rendering services similar to that of 'GrabExpress', i.e., measures relating to the acceptance and delivery of packages, as a means to commit, not only bombing schemes and other crimes that compromise public order, safety and security, but possibly other acts that endanger public health," she said. Police Chief Oscar Albayde earlier claimed that an eyewitness identified "a man riding a motorcycle bearing the logo of Grab" as the person who delivered the explosives. Grab later acknowledged that the delivery person was one of their "partners". It may be recalled that last July, De Lima filed Senate Bill No. 369, also known as the Criminal Investigation Act of 2016, in a bid to enhance the cooperation and coordination of law enforcement and prosecution agencies. SB 369, if enacted into law, will streamline the process of determining which criminal complaints should proceed to trial while eliminating bureaucratic layers that causes delays in the criminal justice process.
Press Release

May 16, 2017 STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEILA M. DE LIMA ON THE FINDING OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE THAT THE IMPEACHMENT COMPLAINT FILED BY CONG. ALEJANO AGAINST PRESIDENT DUTERTE IS INSUFFICIENT IN SUBSTANCE The day we merely pay lip service to the checks and balance in our political system, instead of living up to the spirit of this republican principle, is the day we lose our democracy. It is yet another sad day for our country and our democracy when the Justice Committee of the House of Representatives railroaded the consideration of the impeachment complaint against President Rodrigo R. Duterte, by hastily dismissing it on the fictitious ground that its proponent, MAGDALO Representative Gary C. Alejano, who was not even afforded the opportunity to present his witnesses and evidence, lacked personal knowledge of the facts constituting the complaint. The initiation of an impeachment complaint against the President is governed by Article 11, Section 3(2) of the 1987 Constitution. Nowhere, but nowhere, in this constitutional provision or the Rules of the House of Representatives is it required that the Member of Congress who files the impeachment complaint must have personal knowledge of the articles of impeachment. Had it been otherwise, past impeachment complaints, such as those against then President Joseph Estrada and former Chief Justice Renato Corona, would have likewise failed because no member of the House who ever filed or endorsed an impeachment complaint had any personal knowledge of the grounds constituting the complaints against the concerned impeachable officials. Most importantly, to impose such a requirement is to transform this critical and constitutional process of exacting the accountability of the highest official in the land into an exercise, not just in futility, but in mere window dressing: there to perform no other function than to fool the Filipino people, and to make a lie out of the principle that "Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them." And yet - in another display of disregard for the rule of law and mindless kowtowing to Malacanang - members of a co-equal branch of government, in this case the members of the House Justice Committee led by the House Majority Floor Leader, required that Cong. Alejano only present matters on which he has personal knowledge, even when no law or rules require the same. What is required at this stage is merely a determination that the complaint is sufficient in form and in substance. Rule 3, Section 4, of the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Proceedings in the House of Representatives provides that "[t]he requirement of substance is met if there is a recital of facts constituting the offense charged and determinative of the jurisdiction of the committee." A cursory review of the impeachment complaint would show that Cong. Alejano properly complied with this requirement in the House Rules. At this stage, the members of the committee should not yet determine the weight and sufficiency of evidence. What is clear to us now is that the President's allies in the House of Representatives are willing to ignore the rule of law, the bounds of fair play, and any semblance of professional decency in order to protect, however irrationally, their principal. The dismissal of the impeachment complaint by the Committee on Justice in the House of Representatives is a testament to the failure of the House to perform its duty to keep the executive powers in check, when congressmen prevented a legitimate effort to hold the President accountable for his actions. Cong. Alejano's complaint is based on sound evidence and he should be given the opportunity to present his case. In line with his military career characterized by honor, integrity, bravery, and heroism, he should also be commended for his courage to stand up to the President despite the odds and overwhelming pressure. At a time of looming tyranny, we need more statesmen like him who are not afraid to fight for what is right no matter how unpopular it may be. I pray, for the sake of our country, that the plenary will overturn the Committee's dismissal of the complaint.
Press Release

May 16, 2017 Koko unveils Federalism proposal in 116th Founding Anniversary of One Surigao Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel is the guest of honor for the celebration of the 116th Founding Anniversary of One Surigao on Monday. Pimentel represented President Rodrigo Duterte to join Surigaonons in celebrating the foundation of the Mother Province of Surigao, which used to include the current provinces of Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and Dinagat Islands. "We are now in the midst of Change, Change that the Filipino people demanded, and Change that President Duterte, together with his allies in the PDP Laban, will deliver. Through this Change, we will fix and put an end to the age-old problems of Philippine society", declared Pimentel before the Surigaonons who gathered for the celebration. Pimentel, in his speech, outlined the ruling party PDP Laban's proposal for the country's shift to Federalism. This shift is aimed at ending the neglect that Mindanao has experienced under the current unitary system of government, neglect that Pimentel, as a fellow Mindanaonon, has felt. Aside from explaining Federalism, Pimentel also stated key reform initiatives that will accompany the rewriting of the Constitution. These reforms include: supporting the development of modern political parties by penalizing political butterflies and providing budgetary support to political parties, transforming the party-list system to a system of proportional representation, raising qualifications for the Presidency, and delegating to the Federal Legislature the matter of fixing the percentage of allowable foreign ownership in nationalized economic activities. Pimentel also outlined the current efforts to solve problems of the country under the current constitution, such as providing free tuition to students in SUCs, providing free irrigation for farmers, providing free health insurance for indigent patients, and putting an end to "endo", among others. Pimentel also highlighted his "Bigger Pie, Bigger Slice" Bill, which would give local governments a greater share in national revenues and increasing the pool of resources that is the source of this share to give local government units more resources to deal with the increased responsibilities they bear under the Local Government Code, which was authored by his father, former Senate President Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel, Jr. Towards the end of his speech, Pimentel emphasized that the country will remain one country under one constitution, represented by one flag, and protected by one armed forces under Federalism.
Press Release

May 16, 2017 Villanueva calls for passage of Occupational Safety and Health Bill following factory fire in Clark Senator Joel Villanueva has called for the passage of a bill seeking to provide administrative and criminal penalties for non-compliance with occupational safety and health standards (OSHS) following a huge fire that hit Yokohama Tire Complex in Clark Freeport Zone on Sunday afternoon. Villanueva's Senate Bill No. 1317 or "An Act Strengthening Compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Standards and Providing Penalties for Violations Thereof" was filed as a result of numerous violations of OSH standards in the country that eventually led to injuries or death of workers. "Sadly, the incident in the Yokohama Tire Complex in Clark is not the first time that a fire has broken inside an industrial complex," Villanueva said. Last February 1, House Technology Industries (HTI), the biggest employer in Cavite Export Processing Zone with 15,000 workers, burned for 46 hours leaving behind one death and a total of 125 injured workers not to mention the cost of damage estimated to reach P15 billion. On May 13, 2015, Kentex fire claimed the lives of 72 workers. It can also be recalled that 9 workers were buried when the open pit coal mine of Semirara Mining Corporation collapsed in July 2015, and also 10 workers plunged to their deaths after the scaffolding bearing them collapsed during the construction of Eton Properties in Makati in January 2011. "These incidents highlight the necessity of strengthening our current occupational safety and health standards. Owners of establishments must be proactive in ensuring the safety of their workers and in minimizing hazards in the workplace," Villanueva stressed. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) survey, which was released in October 2015, showed that occupational diseases is increasing. The survey shows cases of occupational diseases in establishments employing 20 or more workers doubling in 2013 at 171,787, from only 85,483 in 2011. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has recently urged local employers to take work-related hazards seriously. Cases of occupational diseases increased in eleven industry groups, with high increases occurring in mining and quarrying, at 983.7% (up from 854 to 9,255); construction at 377.1% (up from 875 to 4,175); administrative and support service activities at 329.1% (up from 13,078 to 56,115); and information and communications at 177.3% (up from 2,257 to 6,258). The ILO said that among the sectors considered vulnerable are: agriculture, construction, mining, and manufacturing. "These tell us the state of compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHS). Despite the fact that workplace accidents would almost always prompt tighter regulations, compliance by all industries continue to be an issue," Villanueva said. As such, the bill seeks to amend the 41-year old Labor Code of the Philippines which does not declare unlawful violations of OSHS. At present, the DOLE Regional Director can only issue work stoppage order in cases of imminent danger pursuant to Article 128 of the Code. Under the proposed measure, an amount of P100,000.00 will serve as an administrative penalty for the erring employer for every day of non-correction of violation while an amount ranging from P250,000.00 to P500,000.00 or imprisonment of six years and one day to 12 years will be meted out if a worker dies. Additionally, the bill outlines the duties and responsibilities of all stakeholders and includes a coordinative mechanism for inter-agency harmonization of functions and mandates on occupational safety and health of the nine concerned government agencies. "This bill reiterates that violations of OSH standards are not only patent disregard of standards but deliberate disrespect of the well-being of our workers and derogation of their right to safe and healthy workplaces. We will make sure that violations of OSH standards will not be tolerated with just a slap on the wrist," Villanueva said. Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resources Development is set to tackle the proposed measure tomorrow, May 17.
Guwahati, May 16 (IBNS) : Two Assam police personnel had committed suicide in the state in past 24 hours.

According to the reports, a lady Assam police constable was found hanging on Tuesday morning at the premises of 10th Assam police battalion headquarter stationed at Kahilipara area in Guwahati.

The deceased was identified as Manju Kalita hailing from Suwalkuchi area, outskirts of Guwahati.

In the second incident, a sub-inspector of Tinsukia Sadar police station had committed suicide.

Karna Longpotia, the police official committed suicide at the police station premises by shooting himself with his service pistol.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Press Release

May 16, 2017 Villar sponsors bills creating marine hatcheries in the provinces Sen. Cynthia Villar moved for the passage yesterday of 14 bills seeking the creation of multi-species marine hatcheries in the provinces. Villar, chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Food, said these measures will contribute to the growth and development of the fisheries sector and allied industries in the respective cities and municipalities. "As you know, the goal of the committee, as well as this representation, is the sustainable growth and development of the agriculture sector and improving the plight of Filipino farmers and fisherfolks. I believe that the establishment of multi-species marine hatcheries in areas where they can provide the needed benefits to fisherfolks and fishing communities is a positive step in that direction," Villar said in her omnibus sponsorship speech on the local bills. Ten of the bills, House Bill Nos. 4850, 4851, 4852, 4854, 4855, 4857, 4858, 4859, 4860 and 4861 mandate the establishment of multi-species marine hatcheries in Lopez, Atimonan, Gumaca, Tagkawayan, Quezon, Perez, Calauag, Plaridel, Guinayangan and Alabat in Quezon Province, respectively. Three other bills, House Bill Nos. 4848, 4853 and 4856 mandate the establishment of multi-species marine hatchery in Bislig, Barobo and Hinatuan in Surigao del Sur. While HB 4862 mandates the establishment of multi-species marine hatchery in Ligao, Albay. Villar noted that the Department of Agriculture supports the establishment of marine hatchery facilities as such are considered critical interventions and are specified in the 2016-2020 Comprehensive National Fisheries Industry Development Plan. "Aquaculture or fish farming is crucial for our food security. There is an uptrend in aquaculture globally. The number of fish now harvested from farms has doubled - nearly tripled - in recent years, and aquaculture is fulfilling nearly half the world's demand for fish," Villar added. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, aquaculture now provides about 63.6 million tonnes of fish per year, while 67.2 million tonnes come from wild catch. As early as 2015, farming is expected to surpass fisheries as the main producer of fish. By 2050, UNFAO is predicting that aquaculture will provide 100 percent of fish supply. Last Congress, 10 laws principally sponsored by Villar were enacted creating breeding farms and hatcheries in different parts of the country, namely; Republic Act 10787 (Lingig, Surigao del Sur), RA 10813 (Jabonga, Agusan del Norte), RA 10825 (Surigao City and Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte), RA 10826 (Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat), RA 10856 (Bantayan, Cebu), RA 10857 (Virac, Bato, Baras, Gigmoto, Viga, Panganiban, Bagamanoc, San Andres, Caramoan and Pandan in Catanduanes), RA 10858 (Nasipit, Agusan del Norte), RA 10859 (Jose Dalman, Zamboanga del Norte), RA 10860 (Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Lanao del Norte), and RA 10861 (Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, and Eastern and Northern Samar).
A year and a half ago, few health insurers would cover a noninvasive prenatal test  which draws blood from a pregnant woman to analyze fetal DNA  unless the pregnancy was considered high-risk, which usually meant the woman was over 35.

The test, which screens for chromosomal abnormalities linked to genetic disorders like Down syndrome, seemed less essential for women with average- or low-risk pregnancies.

Today, at least 30 major U.S. insurers  including Anthem, Cigna and more than a dozen Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates nationwide  cover the test for average-risk single-gestation pregnancies, expanding access to millions more people.

The turnaround is part of a broader move by insurers to pay for genetic tests and screenings. The technology is advancing quickly, and the cost of many types of tests is plummeting. Not all tests are covered. But increasingly, insurers are willing to cover screenings for genetic mutations linked to breast, colon and prostate cancer.

The trend has sparked concerns about the access insurers could have to the sensitive information such tests reveal.

We are seeing more insurance companies cover genetic testing for two reasons: The prices are going down and the value is going up, said Dan Mendelson, president of the Washington consulting firm Avalere Health. The growing coverage of such tests raises some important and extremely socially relevant questions about how the information is used, he added.

The trend is poised to bring a windfall to Bay Area genetic testing firms like Natera Inc., a San Carlos company that makes the noninvasive prenatal test and sells it to obstetrics-gynecology practices and fertility centers. The Natera test, called Panorama, has about 25 percent of the noninvasive prenatal test market share in the U.S. and is the fastest-growing genetic test in the country, according to data compiled by Wells Fargo Securities.

The noninvasive prenatal test is relatively new, coming onto the market in 2011. It is termed noninvasive because the more commonly known procedure to diagnose fetal chromosomal abnormalities, amniocentesis, involves sticking a needle into a pregnant womans abdomen to draw amniotic fluid, which creates a small risk to the fetus. The noninvasive test is not diagnostic, meaning that if it shows a positive result, an expectant mother must still get the result confirmed by amniocentesis. Negative results, though, could reduce the need for invasive procedures.

In December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services established pricing for aneuploidy and microdeletion testing  two chromosomal abnormalities that the prenatal test is designed to detect. Medicaid and many private insurers use the agencys pricing  about $800 for one test  as a benchmark to set their own prices.

Between 2013 and 2016, Natera sales  largely driven by sales of Panorama and Horizon, a genetic-carrier screening  more than quintupled from 88,000 to 447,000, according to the company, which went public in 2015 and earned $217 million in revenue last year. Natera expects to sell half a million tests this year, said CEO Matt Rabinowitz.

Coverage is growing beyond the prenatal sphere. More genetic testing for breast, ovarian and colon cancer is being paid for because the information gleaned from the tests is highly predictive, said Lawrence Brody, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute, a unit of the National Institutes of Health.

Insurance companies dont want to pay for things that make no health improvements, he said.

Twenty years ago, it cost more than $100 million to sequence the human genome; today, it costs only thousands, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute. Similarly, testing for specific genes is also more accessible.

It used to cost $3,000 to $4,000 to look at just two breast-cancer genes, Brody said. Now it can cost a couple hundred to look at a panel that has 20 genes on it.

Insurance plans are now more likely to cover tests for the gene BRCA1, mutations of which increase the risk of breast cancer, said Mendelson, the health consultant.

That is spilling over to other companies in the genetic-testing space. Over the last nine months, three of the nations largest private insurers  Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare  have contracted with the San Francisco genetic testing firm Invitae Corp., making the company an in-network provider of diagnostic tests, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. That is catapulting the number of people potentially covered for these tests from 5 million to 180 million, according to Invitae.

Many genetic tests still are not covered. For example, patients must pay out of pocket for results from the Mountain View firm 23andMe, which sells tests that indicate peoples risk of developing 10 diseases, including Parkinsons, Alzheimers and some blood-clotting disorders.

Where they do cover tests, insurers do not necessarily get access to the results, but a doctor treating a patient may use billing codes that would result in insurers knowing about some diagnoses, according to a spokeswoman for the California Department of Insurance, which regulates insurance companies.

Federal and state laws limit what insurers can do with the information. The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against patients  by denying coverage or charging higher premiums  based on genetic information. California law goes a step further: It prevents insurers from discriminating against people who carry a gene that may cause a disability in their children.

Cigna does not have access to the test results, said Cigna spokesman Mark Slitt: Thats between patients and their doctors.

A spokesman for Kaiser Permanente said test results are reviewed only by providers and patients and not by the health plan.

A spokeswoman for Blue Shield of California did not directly address whether it saw the test results: As our coverage of genetic tests continues to grow, we go through a deliberate process of making sure the tests are scientifically sound and reliable for our providers and members, she said in an email.

Several of the regions largest insurers, including Kaiser and Blue Shield, said genetic testing can be applied to identify potential medical conditions and improve patients overall health, but they did not provide figures for how many such tests were conducted for their members.

Agreements between insurers and providers are confidential  making it difficult to determine how many genetic tests are being done or covered by insurers, said Michael S. Watson, executive director of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, an influential medical association.

Anthem, the first major insurer to expand its coverage of noninvasive prenatal testing to average-risk pregnancies, declined to comment.

Not all genetic testing is useful, medically relevant or accurate, and some experts have cautioned against acting on the results without proper guidance from genetic counselors. Genetics determine just 30 percent of a persons health; the other 70 percent is a combination of behavior, environment and other factors, according to a 2015 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is unrelated to Kaiser Permanente.

You have to be sophisticated to interpret the results, Brody said. We do have a tendency in the U.S. to pile more on sometimes because we can. ... Some genes included three years ago on a breast-cancer test panel have been shown not to influence breast-cancer risk, so we got those taken off. Were learning as we go.

Menlo Park residents Shantanu Rane and Pratibha Gupta took a noninvasive prenatal test last year when Gupta was pregnant with their now-7-month-old daughter. They received a false positive for Turner syndrome, a chromosomal condition in females that can lead to shorter life spans and kidney and heart problems. The couple chose not to do an invasive diagnostic procedure and prepared for the worst. They found out seven months later, when Gupta delivered, that their daughter did not have Turner syndrome, after doctors did a cord blood test analyzing the genetic composition of blood from the umbilical cord.

Rane, who wrote a Medium post about the experience, said he wishes he had known more about how to interpret the results of the test, which showed that a chromosomal abnormality was detected, and that the lab would have been more transparent explaining the result.

There needs to be better education of the patients so they know what theyre going into, said Rane, a researcher in electrical engineering. You have a lot of headache and worry, and at the end you find out things are fine.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: Cat__Ho
Delivery robots, a sci-fi idea that recently entered real-world testing, would be banned from San Francisco sidewalks under legislation Supervisor Norman Yee introduced on Tuesday.

I want to keep our sidewalks safe for people, Yee said. Seniors, children, people with disabilities cant maneuver quickly to avoid robots. He has other concerns as well: potential job loss for delivery people; privacy issues, because the robots are equipped with cameras; and even terrorism, if someone loads up a robot with explosives.

Yee said he initially considered regulating the robots, but soon concluded that any rules would be almost unenforceable.

Robots that range in size from dorm fridge to shopping cart and go about 3 or 4 mph, the same speed as a pedestrian, are currently trundling along sidewalks in several cities for pilot delivery programs.

San Francisco startup Marble has a handful of robots delivering hot meals ordered on the Yelp Eat24 app in the Mission District and Potrero Hill. Estonias Starship Technologies is testing its automated couriers with DoorDash meals in Redwood City, and with Postmates deliveries in Washington. Last year it did a one-day test of its six-wheel robots in San Francisco. South San Franciscos Dispatch is also developing and testing robots.

Safety is Marbles top priority, according to CEO and co-founder Matt Delaney. We look forward to working with the supervisors, neighborhood groups and others to craft smart regulation that balances the needs of pedestrian safety, local businesses, manufacturing and innovation, he said in a statement.

A San Francisco ban is a bad idea, said Paul Mackie, a spokesman for Virginias Mobility Lab, which researches advanced transportation.

The space-saving R2D2s could fix a lot of our traffic headaches caused by the ever-growing number of delivery vans and trucks that have to park illegally and dangerously to make their dropoffs, he said in an email. It doesnt make any sense for San Francisco leaders to be going backwards like this.

So far, three cities  San Carlos, Redwood City and Washington  have approved robot deliveries, Mackie said. Virginia and Idaho also allow them, and Wisconsin has passed legislation now awaiting the governors signature to allow delivery robots to use sidewalks and crosswalks.

Yee said hes trying to get ahead of problems. People dont think about the negative impacts of these creative new ideas until its too late, he said. He believes for example that the Uber and Lyft cars that flood city streets cause traffic jams. Im trying to prevent some of the things that we did not prevent with other innovations like ride hailing, he said.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The issue is reminiscent of city attitudes toward Segway scooters. While most cities allow them on sidewalks, San Francisco confines them to streets or bike lanes.

Grant Loveless, operations manager for City Segway Tours of San Francisco, said the ban initially hurt business, but that customers adapted. His vehicles go 10.5 mph, 2 mph slower than the factory speed, but faster than pedestrians.

I dont think any sane person would be more comfortable riding on the sidewalk with all the foot traffic, he said.

Might robots likewise get shunted to the bike lane? Im not focused on that, but its something to discuss, Yee said. Maybe in the future there will be robot lanes.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
A man arrested by BART police in San Leandro on suspicion of possessing marijuana and methamphetamine was discovered to be a convicted killer wanted in Seattle for allegedly punching, choking and threatening to kill his pregnant girlfriend, officials said Tuesday.

Joshua Robinson, 39, was initially booked into the Hayward Jail about 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday following his arrest at Bay Fair Station. Upon his arrest, he gave police a phony name, officials said.

After running his fingerprints, police discovered that Robinson had outstanding warrants in Washington on charges that included second-degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and domestic violence, according to records filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

During the assault in early March, Robinson allegedly threatened his girlfriend with a knife and attempted to strangle her, court records show.

Robinson barricaded his 17-week pregnant girlfriend in a bedroom for hours because he thought she had cheated on him, according to the court documents. The victims 4-year-old daughter was present during the outburst but was asleep in the living room, according to documents.

In addition to repeatedly punching the victim, Robinson taunted her with a knife and threatened to kill her unborn child, according to court records.

The woman eventually escaped by climbing out of a window with her daughter and calling 911 as Robinson fled, court records show.

In 2014, Robinson was convicted of another domestic violence case for assaulting the mother of his then 2-year-old daughter. The victim is a different woman than the March 2017 case, court records show.

The victim said that Robinson was intoxicated and became angry when she would not allow him to leave the house with their child, according to records.

In 1998, Robinson pleaded guilty to murder and spent nearly 15 years in prison for shooting an 18-year-old woman in the head, according to records.

Robinson had gone to confront a man in a drug deal dispute. Upon arrival, Robinson shot the man in the leg. As the victim fell, Myisha Williams ran over, saying, No, thats my dad, thats my dad, according to court records.

She was unarmed and had her hands raised when Robinson shot her in the head, according to the court records.

Shortly after he was released from prison, Robinson was convicted of robbery and served another 29 months in prison.

Following his arrest Monday night, Robinson was transferred to Santa Rita Jail and booked on suspicion of possessing narcotics, possession of marijuana for sale and providing false information to a police officer, as well as his outstanding warrants.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Senior Editor Levi Pulkkinen contributed to this report.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
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Families of the victims killed in Oaklands Ghost Ship fire sued Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Tuesday, saying the utility supplied power to the doomed artist space with blatant disregard for the safety of the people in the building.

The lawsuit  a master complaint consolidating several civil cases against the buildings owner, manager and others connected to the property  is the latest legal action stemming from the Dec. 2 fire that killed 36, the states deadliest fire in more than a century.

PG&E was named as a defendant in the case for the first time Tuesday.

PG&E exhibited a willful and blatant disregard for the safety of this building and the people that lived and visited there, attorney Mary Alexander, who represents the families, said Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges utility workers had installed several smart meters in the buildings adjoining the Ghost Ship warehouse at 1305 31st Ave. in Oaklands Fruitvale District, and they should have known that the buildings electrical system was dangerous, defective, out-of-code compliance, and an imminent threat to the health, safety and lives of the owners, occupants, customers and invitees of those structures.

Alexander said attorneys walked through the burned-out remnants of the warehouse and observed the serpentine system of electrical cords that brought power through various holes and channels into the ramshackle space.

That power allegedly came from a transformer box inside a neighboring auto body shop. Four properties, including the auto body shop and Ghost Ship, shared one electrical meter.

The blaze erupted during an unpermitted electronic music event and quickly overwhelmed the building, which had been illegally converted into an artist collective. Scores of people inside escaped, but the 36 victims trapped inside all died from smoke inhalation, officials said.

Investigators narrowed the origin of the fire to a shared kitchen area in the rear of the warehouses first floor. Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they were looking into the buildings electrical system as part of their investigation into the cause of the fire.

The Alameda County district attorneys office is conducting a separate criminal probe into the fire.

PG&E officials released a statement on Tuesday, but they said they had not seen the lawsuit.

We can say that our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims of this tragic event, said Tamar Sarkissian, a PG&E spokeswoman. Weve reviewed our records and over the last 10-plus years, we have no reports of electric theft or any other anomalies from this location or the adjacent premises. Were fully cooperating with authorities as they investigate this tragic event.

Co-plaintiff Leisa Askew, whose 22-year-old daughter, Cash Askew, died in the fire, spoke to reporters on Tuesday outside the Alameda County Superior Courthouse near Lake Merritt.

I dont have any faith that this will bring my child back, but 36 people died, she said, while holding a framed picture of her daughter. I just cant stand by and let that happen.

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.

Tuesdays master complaint seeks to streamline civil action filed in the months after the fire by several plaintiffs represented by various law firms.

Also accused of negligence are building owner Chor Ng, master tenant Derick Almena, event promoter Jon Hrabko, music performer Joel Shanahan (known as Golden Donna) and others.

Attorneys for the victims families have separately filed legal claims against the city of Oakland, Alameda County and the state of California related to the tragedy. They have until June 2  six months after the fire  to file additional claims.

A legal claim is a necessary legal procedure when bringing actions against a government entity and often precedes a lawsuit.

City officials have faced criticism for not stepping in before the fire. Police officers and building inspectors had been to the site before, but apparently didnt inform fire inspectors of the dangers inside. Despite a fire station being just a block away, the building wasnt in the Fire Departments database and no one had ever stepped foot on the premises for a formal inspection.

The city is absolutely culpable in what happened here, said Christopher Dolan, another attorney for the families. They had affirmative action to shut it down, but they chose to turn a blind eye.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
Guwahati, May 16 (IBNS): Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Tuesday expressed happiness over the opening of prestigious National Film and Television Institute and Animation (NFTIA), Arunachal that has started teaching courses on film making since yesterday.

The institute, which is a sister branch of Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata has begun its classes from its temporary campus in Itanagar that has 25 students enrolled who are pursuing an initial ten-week course named as Journey to Cinema.

This was informed by the SFRTI Director, Dr. Debamitra Mitra when she called on Chief Minister at his office to discuss on the newly functional institute in Arunachal accompanied by IPR Director, Obang Tayeng.

The Arunachal Pradesh CM had informed that the basic course involves cinematography, editing, sound designing and direction.

Khandu said the ambience in Arunachal provides best shooting spot and suggested the Director of SFRTI who is on her first visit to Arunachal to take more such visits to know Arunachal more.

He suggested the institute official to enroll as many students from Arunachal who are naturally gifted with creativity and felt that such institute would act as a catalyst to promote talent in different aspects of film making.

To help such youths who wants to explore in the field of creativity such as film making, Khandu informed that state government has come up with Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Swalamban Yojana to support funding for such projects.

Discussing on institutes permanent campus proposed at Jote, the Arunachal Pradesh CM informed that the construction work would start before September and meanwhile assured full support of the state government for efficient functioning of the temporary campus.

He also assured support for the institute in obtaining affiliation from a UGC recognized university for its degree courses and post graduate diploma course, which will be a value addition for the students.

Khandu emphatically said the film institute in Arunachal Pradesh is a very prestigious project for the state as it was announced in the budget 2017 and assured to extend all possible help from the state.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Nearly half of the salmon and trout species that live in California will be extinct in 50 years if nothing is done to improve water quality, protect wetlands and stream habitat, and fight climate change, scientists warned Tuesday in a wide-ranging study of native fish.

The loss of so many species would be catastrophic for the ecosystem and have a profound effect on the states culture and economy, impacting everything from recreational fishing to peoples eating habits, according to the 106-page report by the nonprofit conservation group California Trout and the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

The report concluded that 52 percent of the salmon species and 30 percent of the inland salmonid species (mainly trout) in the state will be gone by 2067 if serious measures arent taken to help the fish, which spawn in rivers, streams and lakes and in many cases make long, perilous journeys from the ocean up increasingly degraded waterways.

This report should rightly be considered an alarm bell, but it should also be seen as a road map for how we can correct course to better support native aquatic species, said lead author Peter Moyle, the associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences.

Biologists spent 18 months analyzing 32 types of fish native to California, including coho, chinook, chum and pink salmon and rainbow, cutthroat and redband trout. Mountain whitefish, a salmonid that favors deep, cold mountain water in places like Lake Tahoe, was also studied, as was the extinct bull trout.

The report, titled State of the Salmonids II: Fish in Hot Water, found that 14 more fish species are likely to disappear within 50 years without major efforts to protect their habitats. After 100 years, 23 of todays 31 species would be extinct, researchers said.

Although some salmon and trout in California can also be found in other places, the various migratory fish runs and lineages are categorized in the report and under the Endangered Species Act as distinct species.

The coastal rainbow trout  a catchall name for lake fish, including planted fish and steelhead trout that got marooned behind dams  are the only species that are not in any danger, according to the report.

The dire situation  half the fish are already listed under the Endangered Species Act  is made more troubling by the Trump administrations support for commercial industries over environmental protection and regulation, said Rob Lusardi, who co-authored the study.

The clock is ticking here with a slow downward spiral for many of these species, said Lusardi, a cold-water fish researcher for the Center for Watershed Sciences and Cal Trout. I dont see a lot of good stuff coming down the pike, but I am optimistic that in California there are a lot of agencies and groups that care about the fish and are looking for solutions.

The scientists recommend a collaborative effort by the state, environmental groups and farmers to increase fish habitat and access above dams. That would require the removal of obsolete dams and other blockages, creation of flood plain habitat on rice fields during the winter and the re-establishment of coastal lagoons, where salmon can rest and fatten up during their long migrations.

The report also calls for better protection of the cold-water strongholds where the fish now thrive, like Butte Creek, which has the largest population of wild spring-run chinook in the Sacramento River system.

The idea is to inspire improvements in fish resilience and adaptability as less snow falls, rivers dry up and the ocean ecosystem changes over the next century.

The overwhelming and overarching threat is climate change, said Curtis Knight, the executive director of Cal Trout. Certainly this is a call to action. Its telling us to do more and do it quicker.

Representatives of water districts in farming areas said they were willing to work with other agencies on salmon recovery as long as it doesnt result in more water siphoned from orchards and crops.

We need to refocus on the other stressors besides taking water away from human uses and giving it to the environment in the name of helping the fish, said Jason Peltier, the executive director of the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which represents 29 state water contractors, most of them in the Central Valley. Lets get out of the world where we just assume that more water means more fish and focus on other threats, like predation, invasive species, loss of habitat and toxins.

The new study is a follow-up to the 2008 State of the Salmonids report, also done by the two organizations. Since the first report, the number of fish species predicted as likely to go extinct in 50 years has nearly tripled, from five to 14. Overall, the scientists said, 81 percent of Californias native fish species are worse off today than they were in 2008.

If nothing changes, the biggest losers will be several species of salmon, according to the report. Thats because they are anadromous, Knight said, meaning they migrate up rivers from the sea and must deal with a myriad of obstacles, including warming water, loss of flood plain habitat and dams that block spawning grounds.

Among those said to be in critical danger are coho salmon. The fish once thrived in cold streams from Humboldt County to Santa Cruz County, but dams, gravel mining and logging destroyed much of their habitat. The Lagunitas Creek watershed in Marin County now has the largest remaining wild population of coho, but most populations are small, isolated and diminishing.

Meanwhile, chinook, otherwise known as king salmon, are in peril in the Central Valley, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The three distinct runs of chinook  winter, spring and fall  are historically most abundant in the Sacramento River and its tributaries. They pass through San Francisco Bay and roam the Pacific Ocean as far as Alaska before returning to spawn an average of three to four years later.

But the construction over the past century of Shasta Dam on the Sacramento River, Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River, Folsom Dam on the American River and Oroville Dam on the Feather River cut off huge sections of those waterways, nearly wiping out the winter and spring salmon runs.

The problems necessitated the construction of hatcheries, which create homogenized populations of fish lacking genetic diversity, Lusardi said. It is important to improve genetic diversity and prevent hatchery fish from breeding with wild fish in the future, he said.

Salmon have been here for 50 million years based on the fossil record, and thats a really remarkable time period, Lusardi said. The reason theyve been able to do that is because they have this immense diversity as a species, allowing them to weather difficult times, such as drought, volcanic eruptions, flooding, river disconnects. Today, we dont have that diversity.

Californias 11 species of native trout are also facing a dicey future  as exemplified by the plight of the bull trout, which lived in the McCloud River for tens of thousands of years until Shasta Dam, built in 1945, cut off its food source. McCloud Dam, finished in 1965, ruined the species spawning habitat, Knight said. The last bull trout was seen in 1975.

The outlook is not great for salmon and trout in California, which should not be a surprise, but the fact that we still have 31 of 32 native species is pretty phenomenal, Lusardi said. I think it really speaks to the ability of these fish to hang on and persevere.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite

Fish in danger

The report, State of the Salmonids II: Fish in Hot Water, warns that drastic action must be taken to prevent extinction of many of Californias 31 current salmon and trout species. Key findings include:

45% of the states salmon and trout species will likely be extinct within 50 years if present trends continue, and 74 percent will likely be extinct in the next 100 years.

52% of Californias native migratory salmon species and 30 percent of its inland salmonid species will be lost in the next 50 years if present trends continue.

81% of Californias remaining salmon, steelhead and trout are worse off today than in 2008.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

The nations all-too-gradual and recent retreat from ever-growing prison populations and drug criminalization represents a vanishing American rarity: a bipartisan consensus for the right solution to a serious problem. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is standing athwart this progress, yelling, Stop!

Sessions issued a memorandum last week ordering federal prosecutors to charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense carrying the most substantial ... sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences  in most cases, reversing predecessor Eric Holders directive to avoid charges that trigger long sentences for nonviolent offenses. Translating the paranoid American carnage clause of President Trumps inauguration speech into Justice Department fiat, the memo targets policies that have helped reduce the bloated, disproportionately minority federal prison population by 14 percent since 2013, the first decline in 33 years.
The White House had not yet given a satisfactory answer to revelations of President Trumps release of classified information to top Russian diplomats when the next bombshell hit: a report that, in February, President Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to shut down an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

I hope you can let this go, Trump reportedly told Comey in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office. The New York Times reported that the source of the disclosure was a memo written by Comey shortly after the meeting.

Such a presidential request, which the White House denied having made, would have been inappropriate in the extreme  and potentially a case for obstruction of justice. The optics are aggravated by the report that Trump asked others in the room to leave  including the vice president and attorney general  and, of course, the fact that Trump later fired Comey.

This episode must be added to the to-do list of a special prosecutor desperately needed to bring credibility to the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

According to the Times report, Trump also told Comey in the meeting that he should consider imprisoning journalists who publish classified information.

The revelations about the Comey meeting came while the White House was still trying mightily  and ineffectively  to spin its way out of the story broken by the Washington Post that he shared highly sensitive intelligence with the Russians last week.

That ill-considered action drew a range of critics, new and old. It has the potential to harm cooperation from allies who may realize their secrets arent safe with this White House.

The presidents top security aide rushed out an explanation that nothing was amiss in the meeting with Russias foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. The intelligence details were  wholly appropriate, said H.R. McMaster, Trumps national security adviser. But that doesnt persuasively refute the allegation that Trump divulged intelligence on Mideast terrorism that had been given to the U.S. with the proviso that it be kept quiet.

If any other U.S. official tipped off a foreign official, it would be a serious crime. The president is free to share top-secret intelligence without penalty  but that does not diminish its recklessness.

The presidents stumbling behavior is generating a furor, as it should. Along with expected Democratic critics, Republicans are adding their voices. The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order, Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who heads his chambers Foreign Relations Committee, said about the alleged intelligence sharing with Russia.

Its encouraging that his own party is pulling back from quietly accepting Trumps impulsive outbursts, actions and statements that show such little regard for the separation of powers, the role of a free press and the rule of law. This is a White House that is veering out of control.
For now, the U.S. Supreme Court has defeated North Carolinas strict voter ID law.

But the nations movement toward new voting restrictions  a movement that picked up speed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down portions of the Voting Rights Act in 2013  continues.

On Monday, the court said it would stay out of the fray on a highly contested North Carolina voting law.

The courts decision left in place a lower courts decision that the law, enacted by North Carolinas Republican-controlled Legislature in 2013, was discriminatory toward African Americans.

A lower court described the laws provisions as targeting African American voters with almost surgical precision.

While the courts decision gives voting-rights organizations a chance to breathe, the fight in North Carolina and many other states is far from over.

Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the courts choice imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case, and noted that North Carolinas political leadership had engaged in an extensive legal dispute over who was authorized to petition the court.

Legal observers have suggested these remarks amount to the court walking away from the case on a technicality. Certainly Roberts seems to be suggesting that the court is open to hearing similar cases in the future.

In Texas, that states strict voter ID law has had a long life in the courts, also over its discriminatory effects. It may appear before the Supreme Court at some point.

While lower courts have blocked or weakened voter ID laws in North Dakota and Wisconsin, many state legislatures havent yet lost their appetite for these laws. That means more court cases over voter rights.
Mumbai, May 16 (IBNS): Superstar Salman Khan on Tuesday unveiled the first song from his forthcoming movie Tubelight.

Called Radio, the song has been written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and composed by Pritam.

Says Salman Khan, Dada (Pritam) has a knack for coming up with instantly hummable numbers. From the time I first heard 'Radio', I can't stop humming it. Aap sunenge toh aap bhi gayenge.

Adds on Director Kabir Khan, Its a happy song. The dancing, Salmans enthusiasm, the entire song will make you happy and definitely get you to dance along. Its a song for everyone.

Says Shridhar Subramaniam, President India and Middle East, Radio as a song has the ability to create an instant liking. Salman is delightful and the cheer around is infectious. Pritam and Amitabh are magical and we are confident that the song along with the spectacular visuals will stay with fans long after the film.

Watch the song here:http://bit.ly/Radio_Song

Sony Music, global music giant, acquired the music rights of Tubelight, their first acquisition with Salman Khan Films.

Music for the film has been composed by Pritam.

Tubelight is an entertaining family drama set in 1962 and tells the story of one mans unshakeable belief in himself and the love for his family.

Tubelight releases worldwide on June 23.


Californias economy ranks among the largest in the world. Yet, millions here struggle while living in or near poverty. In order to help those in need we created our own earned income tax credit, or CalEITC, that can augment the incomes of working families by as much as several thousand dollars each year.

CalEITC is modeled after the federal earned income tax credit, which is among the most efficient and effective poverty-fighting tools available. With Washington pushing to undermine basic services to the poor, we need to help more families rise from poverty by expanding who can claim CalEITC.

Working Californians should be able to put food on the table and provide stable housing for their families. Increasingly, this is not the case. In the Bay Area, despite the flourishing innovation economy  leading the nation in job growth and income for highly skilled workers  many are barely getting by. In fact, the percentage of children in San Francisco living in poverty  21.9 percent  is higher than that in Kings, San Joaquin and San Bernardino counties.

When families live paycheck to paycheck they struggle to build and focus on a future. More than 800,000 people in our region live in poverty. Most cannot afford a $500 financial shock, making the cushion of a modest boost in income life-changing.

In 2015, CalEITC debuted to help California fight poverty. More than 385,000 Californians received the new credit, resulting in more than $200 million in refunds  extra money to pay for necessities like housing, transportation and clothing, and to get out from the cycle of mounting bills. This achievement is laudable, but we can do more.

Eligibility for CalEITC is far too restrictive. Parents with two children cannot qualify if they earn more than $14,000 per year. In other words, we are ignoring a lot of unmet need among working families who need a boost. Nearly half of Californias children live in or near poverty, and over 80 percent of these children are in families with at least one working parent.

We have a chance to take a more aggressive stance in fighting poverty by expanding CalEITC through Assembly Bill 1010, which enables full-time minimum-wage workers to claim the credit. The bill also modifies the program so that the self-employed may apply. Excluding this growing workforce hurts Californias independent contractors, including the gig-economy workforce, and entrepreneurs struggling to make ends meet.

Altogether, this legislation would benefit over 3 million Californians, giving low-income working families a better chance to escape the grip of poverty. In the programs first year, more than 9 in 10 CalEITC dollars went to families with children, and families with multiple children received an average credit of more than $1,000.

The stakes are high, especially for African American and Latino families that disproportionately live in poverty. Greater participation in CalEITC translates into more families also benefiting from the federal EITC, of which $1.8 billion is left unclaimed by eligible Californians each year. That translates into an average benefit of over $2,200 on top of CalEITC. Access to these resources helps children perform better in school, have improved health and become less likely to remain in poverty as adults.

The Bay Area prides itself on being an inclusive region. Without greater support for the growing number of working families struggling on the margins, our communities will pay the price. We will lose diversity among our residents forced to relocate to more affordable areas and our economic prospects will dim. Though we will continue to need all kinds of workers  not just those on the top rungs of the income scale  we risk not having enough of all.

Phil Ting is a state Assemblyman from San Francisco. Joseph N. Sanberg is founder of CalEITC4Me.
For many in California, May marks the beginning of commencement season. Graduates and their families mark their accomplishments and step forward to new opportunities. Unfortunately, increasingly in California, the month highlights a more somber reality. Thousands of college applicants are being denied admission, either because our state universities did not have capacity to admit them or because they could not pay the cost of attendance.

In recent months, the public conversation about the free college proposal signaled a welcome return to recognizing the importance of investing in higher education in California. Eliminating tuition in public colleges and universities would encourage those who did not think they could afford college to pursue their education, and it would offer students welcome financial relief.

The unanswered question remains: How long could the state afford to pick up this hefty tab? What happens the next time there is an economic downturn and the state budget needs to be cut back?

The state will face the same difficult choices that led to substantial tuition increases during the past few years. To balance the state budget, higher education will experience budget reductions, and institutions will once again turn to increasing tuition revenues to soften the impact of these cuts.

We must break free of this pattern. Making college more accessible and affordable to all qualified Californians over the long run will require a more fundamental rethinking of how California finances the increasing demand for higher education and plans for our collective future.

During the past decade, thanks to great improvements in our K-12 system, high school graduation rates have steadily increased, and the proportion of students graduating academically ready for college jumped by almost 50 percent. Applications for freshman admission increased 57 percent at the University of California and 77 percent at the California State University during that time. And, during that same period, nearly 1 million students were turned away.

Admission to college and tuition costs have depended far too much on good luck and good timing. If students applied to college when the economy was sound, there was enough money to make room for them on college campuses, and tuitions were relatively stable and predictable. In a bad year, which has been about half of the time in the past decade, large and increasing numbers of students were turned away. Many experienced dramatic tuition increases.

In short, tuition costs are only part of the problem. We also need to increase the capacity of higher education institutions to educate the growing number of California students who are being shut out because of financial constraints. Instead of just moving ahead with the free college plan as it now stands, we should step back and take a comprehensive look at the way we finance our public institutions of higher education for this and future generations.

What does that mean? It means determining future demand for higher education and planning for the long term. It means stabilizing funding and making it predictable so families and institutions can plan for costs associated with pursuing or offering college degrees. It means a serious examination of our higher education systems cost structures, and wiser use of existing resources. (While the public might be ready to support more money for higher education, they will do so only with concrete assurances that the money will be spent responsibly.) Finally, it means that students, institutions, policymakers and the public must have a shared understanding of how resources are allocated to ensure student access and success.

Addressing the challenge of how we finance our systems of higher education will be difficult  but it is necessary, and it is possible.

If our goal is to ensure that all California students now and in the future have access to an affordable, quality college education, then our public policy makers and higher education leaders must build a shared vision of this issue and find practical ways to solve it. We know that this is a long-term problem that will require a multiyear solution, but we also must realize that we have no time to waste.

Julia I. Lopez is president and CEO of the College Futures Foundation, a private foundation working to help low-income and underrepresented students in California to earn a four-year college degree. Mike Roos, a former state legislator, serves as council member of California Competes, an organization devoted to improving policies and practices in higher education.
WASHINGTON  The classified intelligence that President Donald Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former U.S. official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode.

Israel is one of the United States' most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Trump boasted about some of Israel's most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia's close ally and Israel's main threat in the Middle East.

Israeli officials would not confirm that they were the source of the information that Trump shared. In a statement emailed to The New York Times, Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.

"Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Dermer said.

In the meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, Trump disclosed intelligence about an Islamic State group terrorist plot. At least some of the details that the United States has about the plot came from the Israelis, the officials said.

The officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Israel previously had urged the United States to be careful about the handling of the intelligence that Trump discussed.

Trump said Tuesday on Twitter that he had an "absolute right" to share information in the interest of fighting terrorism and called it a "very, very successful meeting" in a brief appearance later Tuesday at the White House alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster,Trump's national security adviser, told reporters that he was not concerned that information sharing among intelligence partners would stop.

"What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he's engaged," McMaster said at a White House briefing, seeking to play down the sensitivity of the information Trump disclosed.

McMaster added that the president, who he said was unaware of the source of the information, made a spur-of-the-moment decision to tell the Russians what he knew.

But McMaster also appeared to acknowledge that Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, had called the CIA and the National Security Agency after the meeting with the Russian officials. Other officials have said that the spy agencies were contacted to help contain the damage from the leak to the Russians.

McMaster would not confirm that Bossert made the calls but suggested that if he did, he was acting "maybe from an overabundance of caution."

"I have not talked to Mr. Bossert about that, about why he reached out," McMaster said.

Former officials said it was not uncommon for presidents to unintentionally say too much in meetings and said that in administrations from both parties, staff members typically established bright lines for their bosses to avoid crossing before such meetings.

Israel's concerns about the Trump White House's handling of classified information were foreshadowed in the Israeli news media earlier this year. Newspapers there reported in January that U.S. officials warned their Israeli counterparts to be careful about what they told the Trump administration because it could be leaked to the Russians, given Trump's openness toward President Vladimir Putin.

"The Russians have the widest intelligence collection mechanism in the world outside of our own. They can put together a good picture with just a few details," said John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA who served in Moscow in the 1990s and later ran the CIA's Russia program for three years. "They can marry President Trump's comments with their own intelligence, and intelligence from their allies. They can also deploy additional resources to find out details."

The episode could have far-reaching consequences, Democrats warned. Any country that shares intelligence with U.S. officials "could decide it can't trust the United States with information, or worse, that it can't trust the president of the United States with information," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

"I have to hope that someone will counsel the president about just what it means to protect closely held information and why this is so dangerous, ultimately, to our national security," Schiff said at a policy conference in Washington sponsored by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group.
Dont put away those umbrellas just yet.

The Bay Area is expected to get a spring shower Tuesday before skies clear and temperatures steadily heat up for the remainder of the week, forecasters said Monday.

Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle

A revolving series of storms that have kept temperatures in San Francisco and throughout the region below normal this time of year look to be on their way out by Tuesday evening, said Ryan Walbrun, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Monterey.

For some people, it was kind of a long winter, and theyre looking for some warmth, Walbrun said.

Scattered showers are possible throughout the afternoon and into the evening Tuesday, bringing with them less than an inch of expected precipitation.

Those tired of the cold ought to see some warming relief as temperatures climb through the 60s as the week progresses, peaking with an expected high of 78 degrees in San Francisco on Friday and remaining warm through the weekend, Walbrun said.

Tuesday will also bring a chance of snow to the Sierra.

Moving in from the Gulf of Alaska, the low-pressure system was forecast to drop fairly weak snow totals of 1 to 3 inches across the Sierra at elevations above 6,000 feet, said Cory Mueller, a National Weather Service forecaster in Sacramento.

Certain areas in the Sierra at higher elevations, such as Lassen Volcanic National Park, could see snowfall of up to 4 inches, Mueller said.

The snowfall, which is expected to be more like sleet at lower elevations, should be over by Tuesday night, giving way to warming temperatures that are forecast to reach highs in the low 60s by Sunday, Mueller said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley

Sunny forecast

The expected highs in San Francisco, according to the National Weather Service:

TUE

59

Chance of rain

WED

64

Mostly sunny

THUR

71

Mostly sunny

FRI

78

Sunny and warm

SAT

78

Sunny and warm

SUN

73

Mostly sunny
A roundup of upcoming events:

Wednesday

LGBT rally: Part of a worldwide event for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia to demand justice for victims of LGBTQ persecution. The rally is from 6 to 7 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza, Market and Castro streets. For information: https://www.facebook.com/events/805625502938873/.

Social media: A discussion on how social media play into political mobilization and change the nature of protests. The event is from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the World Affairs Auditorium, 312 Sutter St., Suite 200, in San Francisco. For information: http://bit.ly/2q5SZCF.

Thursday

Abortion rights: NARAL Pro-Choice America holds a happy hour to raise money to support its fight for reproductive freedom. The event is from 6 to 8 p.m. at Tank18, 1345 Howard St. in San Francisco. For tickets: http://naral.org/MenforChoiceSF.

Farming film: A screening of Sunu, a documentary about the struggle of Mexican farmers to grow traditional, non-genetically modified corn. The screening is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St. in Santa Rosa. For information, contact Occupy Sonoma County at (707) 877-6650 or www.occupysonomacounty.org.

Saturday

GMO marches: March to protest Monsantos use of genetically modified seeds, 10 a.m. at San Jose City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St. For information: https://www.facebook.com/events/185914998570163. A march will also be held in Santa Cruz at noon at San Lorenzo Park, 137 Dakota Ave. For information: https://www.facebook.com/events/999957133482531/.

Sunday

Free speech: Ben Stein, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor and Berkeley resident, will discuss his documentary, Near Normal Man, and free speech versus hate speech. The discussion will be followed by a screening of his film. The free event is at 9:30 a.m. at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St. in San Francisco. For information: https://www.gracecathedral.org/events/ben-charlene-stern/.

North Korea: A conversation with Conn Hallinan, a foreign policy analyst, on North Korea, China and the U.S. Free, 7 to 9 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo, 300 E. Santa Inez Avenue. For information: http://www.sanmateopeaceaction.org.

May 24

Fake news: A conversation with Joaquin Alvarado, CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, on the obligation of the government and media to filter fake news. The event is from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the World Affairs Auditorium, 312 Sutter St., Suite 200, in San Francisco. For information: http://bit.ly/2qw0OCF.

May 27

Immigration: The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity will host a discussion on immigration, followed by postcard writing to support social justice. The event is from 10 a.m. to noon at the Northern Police Station Community Room, 1125 Fillmore St. in San Francisco. For information: info@owlsf.org.

June 1

Elizabeth Warren event: A conversation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon St. in San Francisco. The discussion is part of an all-day event organized around opposition to President Trump. Tickets are $100 and can be purchased at www.joyouspersistence.com.
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San Francisco extracted a legal settlement Tuesday from online gun suppliers who may have tried to sidestep state and local bans on high-capacity gun magazines by advertising repair kits that could be used to assemble the forbidden weapons cartridge holders.

But the settlement, announced by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, is just a preliminary to the main events that may soon determine the extent of the right to own and carry a gun in California and across the nation.

Herrera sued five out-of-state companies in February, accusing them of violating state laws prohibiting the sale of gun magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. He said Tuesday the companies have agreed to a 10-year settlement that forbids them from selling or advertising the repair kits in California and requires them to notify customers on their websites that the kits and the large-capacity magazines are illegal in the state.

Californians have spoken clearly. We dont want these weapons in our communities, Herrera said in a statement. I have zero tolerance for gun sellers who try to skirt the law.

The companies are Badger Mountain Supply of Washington state, 7.62 Precision of Alaska, Shooters Plus of Mississippi, LAK Supply of Wyoming and BuyMilsurp.com of Florida.

Herreras lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, said the companies falsely told customers that the kits were legal in California.

For example, the suit said, Badger Mountain Supply advertised that it would sell rebuild kits in two separate shipments so that California customers could obtain them legally. LAK Supplys website said, All hi cap magazine orders from ban states will automatically be converted into orders for repair kits.

Sean Brady, a lawyer for 7.62 Precision, Shooters Plus and BuyMilsurp.com, accused Herrera of a politically motivated shakedown of tiny businesses that cant afford to defend themselves. Brady said the websites singled out in the lawsuit havent been used by his clients for years to advertise or sell products in California.

But Brady, whose law firm also represents the National Rifle Association and its state affiliate, the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said those organizations believe in the constitutionality of these products and will be challenging the restrictions on these magazines as soon as possible.

Another group, the California Firearms Policy Coalition, has already filed suit contending the states ban on high-capacity magazines violates both the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and the prohibition on government confiscation of private property.

California law has banned the sale of high-capacity magazines since 2000. A 2013 law specified that the magazines could not be sold in disassembled pieces. A San Francisco city ordinance prohibited possession of high-capacity magazines in 2014, and California voters took the same step in November by passing Proposition 63, whose ban on possession takes effect in July.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court, with the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trumps appointee, is weighing whether to take up a challenge to Californias concealed-weapons law. That law requires a law enforcement permit  virtually unavailable in the Bay Area and most of the states larger cities  to carry a concealed handgun outside the home.

A federal appeals court upheld the law last year and ruled that the constitutional right to keep a gun at home for self-defense, established by the Supreme Court in 2008, does not apply to carrying concealed weapons outside the home. That issue, crucial to the validity of many state and local gun laws, has never been decided by the high court.

The mystery is whats going to happen with Gorsuch, who could cast the deciding vote, said David Levine, a law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco. He said last years appeals court ruling, which relied on laws and treatises from 15th and 16th century England to find no traditional Anglo-American right to carry concealed weapons, was clearly drafted to appeal to jurists like Gorsuch who claim to interpret the law according to its original meaning.

UCLA l aw Professor Adam Winkler said cases like Herreras settlement Tuesday reflect broader trends in a gun-control movement that has been reinvigorated in recent years, with California at the forefront.

Gun control has become a higher priority for Democrats in recent years, including prosecutors who may now be more aggressive in going after people or companies that seek to evade Californias strict gun regulations, Winkler said.

Brandon Combs, president of the California Firearms Policy Coalition, said those prosecutors could overstep their limits, even in California. For example, he said, the state and city might exceed constitutional boundaries on interfering with interstate commerce if they try to enforce the gun-kit ban against dealers who receive the products in this state for sale and shipment to states where theyre legal.

The broader these gun-control laws get, (and) the ... more expensive, itll be interesting to see how theyre enforced outside state lines, Combs said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko<DP>@<DP>sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
LONDON  The cyberattack that spread malicious software around the world, shutting down networks at hospitals, banks and government agencies, was thwarted by a young British researcher and an inexpensive domain registration, with help from another 20-something security engineer in the U.S.

Britains National Cyber Security Center and others were hailing the cybersecurity researcher, a 22-year-old identified online only as MalwareTech, who  unintentionally at first  discovered a so-called kill switch that halted the unprecedented outbreak.

By then the attack had crippled Britains hospital network and computer systems in several countries in an effort to extort money from computer users. But the researchers actions may have saved companies and governments millions of dollars and slowed the outbreak before computers in the U.S. were more widely affected.

MalwareTech, who works for cybersecurity firm Kryptos Logic, is part of a large global cybersecurity community who are constantly watching for attacks and working together to stop or prevent them, often sharing information via Twitter. Its not uncommon for them to use aliases, either to protect themselves from retaliatory attacks or for privacy.

In a blog post Saturday, MalwareTech explained he learned on Friday that networks across Britains health system had been hit by ransomware, tipping him off that this was something big.

He began analyzing a sample of the malicious software and noticed its code included a hidden Web address that wasnt registered. He said he promptly registered the domain, something he regularly does to try to discover ways to track or stop malicious software.

Across an ocean, Darien Huss, a 28-year-old research engineer for the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, was doing his own analysis. The western Michigan resident said he noticed the authors of the malware had left in a feature known as a kill switch. Huss took a screen shot of his discovery and shared it on Twitter.

Soon he and MalwareTech were communicating about what theyd found: that registering the domain name and redirecting the attacks to the server of Kryptos Logic had activated the kill switch, halting the ransomwares infections.

Huss and others were calling MalwareTech a hero on Saturday, with Huss adding that the global cybersecurity community was working as a team to stop the infections from spreading.

I think the security industry as a whole should be considered heroes, he said.

But he also said hes concerned the authors of the malware could re-release it without a kill switch or with a better one, or that copycats could mimic the attack.

I think it is concerning that we could definitely see a similar attack occur, maybe in the next 24 to 48 hours or maybe in the next week or two, Huss said. It could be very possible.

Twenty-two-year-old Marcus Hutchins, who was revealed as MalwareTech on Monday, said although he was the person who registered a domain name that took down the virus, hundreds of computer experts worked throughout the weekend to fight the virus, which paralyzed computers in some 150 countries. Hutchins told the Associated Press he doesnt consider himself a hero but fights malware because its the right thing to do.

Who perpetrated this wave of attacks remains unknown. This is already believed to be the biggest online extortion attack ever recorded, disrupting services in nations as diverse as the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Spain and India.

Europol, Europes policing agency, called the attack unprecedented and said computers in more than 150 countries have been affected. Two security firms  Kaspersky Lab and Avast Software  said Russia was hit hardest.

These hackers have caused enormous amounts of disruption  probably the biggest ransomware cyberattack in history, said Graham Cluley, a veteran of the antivirus industry in Oxford, England.

The ransomware exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that was purportedly identified by the U.S. National Security Agency for its own intelligence-gathering purposes. Hackers said they stole the tools from the NSA and dumped them on the Internet.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sara Burnett and Sylvia Hui are Associated Press writers.
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Delivery robots, a sci-fi idea that recently entered real-world testing, would be banned from San Francisco sidewalks under legislation Supervisor Norman Yee introduced on Tuesday.

I want to keep our sidewalks safe for people, Yee said. Seniors, children, people with disabilities cant maneuver quickly to avoid robots. He has other concerns as well: potential job loss for delivery people; privacy issues, because the robots are equipped with cameras; and even terrorism, if someone loads up a robot with explosives.

Yee said he initially considered regulating the robots, but soon concluded that any rules would be almost unenforceable.

Robots that range in size from dorm fridge to shopping cart and go about 3 or 4 mph, the same speed as a pedestrian, are currently trundling along sidewalks in several cities for pilot delivery programs.

San Francisco startup Marble has a handful of robots delivering hot meals ordered on the Yelp Eat24 app in the Mission District and Potrero Hill. Estonias Starship Technologies is testing its automated couriers with DoorDash meals in Redwood City, and with Postmates deliveries in Washington. Last year it did a one-day test of its six-wheel robots in San Francisco. South San Franciscos Dispatch is also developing and testing robots.

Safety is Marbles top priority, according to CEO and co-founder Matt Delaney. We look forward to working with the supervisors, neighborhood groups and others to craft smart regulation that balances the needs of pedestrian safety, local businesses, manufacturing and innovation, he said in a statement.

A San Francisco ban is a bad idea, said Paul Mackie, a spokesman for Virginias Mobility Lab, which researches advanced transportation.

The space-saving R2D2s could fix a lot of our traffic headaches caused by the ever-growing number of delivery vans and trucks that have to park illegally and dangerously to make their dropoffs, he said in an email. It doesnt make any sense for San Francisco leaders to be going backwards like this.

So far, three cities  San Carlos, Redwood City and Washington  have approved robot deliveries, Mackie said. Virginia and Idaho also allow them, and Wisconsin has passed legislation now awaiting the governors signature to allow delivery robots to use sidewalks and crosswalks.

Yee said hes trying to get ahead of problems. People dont think about the negative impacts of these creative new ideas until its too late, he said. He believes for example that the Uber and Lyft cars that flood city streets cause traffic jams. Im trying to prevent some of the things that we did not prevent with other innovations like ride hailing, he said.

The issue is reminiscent of city attitudes toward Segway scooters. While most cities allow them on sidewalks, San Francisco confines them to streets or bike lanes.

Grant Loveless, operations manager for City Segway Tours of San Francisco, said the ban initially hurt business, but that customers adapted. His vehicles go 10.5 mph, 2 mph slower than the factory speed, but faster than pedestrians.

I dont think any sane person would be more comfortable riding on the sidewalk with all the foot traffic, he said.

Might robots likewise get shunted to the bike lane? Im not focused on that, but its something to discuss, Yee said. Maybe in the future there will be robot lanes.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
New York, May 16 (Just Earth News): United Nations Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres on Monday urged Pyongyang to return to the path of denuclearization saying the latest ballistic missile launch by the Democratic Peopleas Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a threat to peace and security in the region.

The Secretary-General condemns the launch of another ballistic missile by the DPRK, the Spokesman said in a statement.

He added that that launch violates Security Council resolution, and said that Guterres calls on the DPRK to ensure full compliance with its international obligations.

DPRK fired the missile while the UN chief was in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum. Addressing President Xi Jinping, Guterres highlighted the shared aims of Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as deepening connectivity in infrastructure, trade and finance.

The missile was reportedly fired from a base in the north-west DPRK, near the border with China.

UN Photo/Manuel Elias (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
An Apple a day

A New Hampshire man who was injured in a house explosion is thanking Apples Siri for saving his life. Christopher Beaucher says he was checking on his mothers vacant cottage in Wilmot on May 1 when he saw something suspicious and went inside. When he switched on a light, the house exploded. His face and hands badly burned, Beacher grabbed his cell phone but was unable to dial because of his injuries. He says he somehow asked his iPhones voice-controlled virtual assistant Siri to call 911. Beaucher is undergoing treatment for his injuries and says he hopes to return to his job as a cook and tend to his farm. Apple said statistics on Siri being used in emergencies werent available.

Watch out

A Rolex that was owned by the last emperor of Vietnam became the brands most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction, fetching $5 million. The Bao Dai, a Rolex that the late emperor bought during Geneva peace negotiations in 1954, was sold to an unidentified phone bidder after eight minutes on Saturday, according to the auction house. The watch is one of the rarest Rolexes, one of three black-dial models known to exist with diamond hour markers.

The all-too-friendly skies

United Airlines is changing the keypad codes used to open cockpit doors after the previous codes were accidentally posted on a public website. The airline sent a memo to pilots over the weekend telling them to use alternative security measures, a spokeswoman said Monday. The spokeswoman said the breach was not the result of hacking and did not cause any flights to be delayed or canceled. The airline, based in Chicago, said it uses a number of measures in addition to the access codes to keep cockpits secure, and it was working to fix the situation as soon as possible.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
Prodigal son 2.0

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is rejoining the company six years after he left, becoming the second creator to return to help revive the struggling social media service. Stone will be focused on company culture, and hes not replacing another executive or filling a vacancy, he said Tuesday in a post on Medium. He was invited back by CEO Jack Dorsey, another co-founder, who returned in 2015. Twitter shares jumped on the news. The world needs Twitter, and its here to stay, Stone wrote. Dorsey, Stone and Ev Williams started the company in 2006. Two months ago, Stone sold his image-search startup, Jelly, to Pinterest, where he will remain an adviser.

Sorry, paparazzi

Celebrities who are sick of being stalked by photographers at Los Angeles International Airport can now find some privacy at a new terminal, the Associated Press reported. The $22 million Private Suite has an exclusive entrance, one-on-one security screening and plush lounges. And travelers get a private car ride to the aircraft. The tab? $3,500 for a domestic flight, $4,000 for an international flight. Annual memberships are also available.

It has a capital G

No matter how often you utter a certain search engines name, Alphabet still owns the brand. Thats what a federal appeals court ruled, rejecting the argument that Google is commonly used as a verb and it should lose its trademark, as have aspirin, escalator and yo-yo. Two men took the case to court in 2012. An Arizona trial judge didnt buy their argument, and on Tuesday, neither did the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Bloomberg reported.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. More at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
UploadVR, a promoter of virtual reality companies, has been sued by a former employee who claims the San Francisco startup incubator and its co-founders cultivated a hostile, boys club work environment that subjected her to repeated incidents of sexual and gender discrimination and ultimately resulted in her wrongful termination.

The lawsuit was filed by Elizabeth Scott, who worked as Uploads social media director from April 2016 until March, when she says she was fired for bringing her concerns to her supervisor.

Though only one side of the story has emerged, Scotts allegations represent the latest manifestation of Silicon Valleys well-documented sexism.

Scotts complaint claims that Uploads workplace was marked by rampant sexual behavior that created an unbearable environment for female employees. She alleges that many of Uploads male workers  including co-founders Will Mason and Taylor Freeman  would speak openly about their sexual feelings toward women who worked in their office, often in their colleagues presence.

Upload did not respond to a request for comment, but the company provided a statement to the news website TechCrunch saying that it is confident that the true nature of how we treat our employees and how we operate as leaders will shine through this unfortunate situation and confirm that these allegations are entirely without merit.

Male employees, the suit says, would also discuss their sexual exploits in graphic detail.

Scott alleges that Freeman, in particular, commented that she was not the ideal size he likes in a woman that he is going to have sexual relations with, according to the lawsuit, and that Scott was physically too big to be used for marketing purposes.

She also claims that the company set up a space, referred to as the kink room, that contained a bed meant to encourage sexual intercourse in the workplace.

Scotts suit also claims that Uploads hostile work environment actively excluded women from workplace and professional opportunities. Scott claims that she was routinely shut out of important discussions and decision-making, causing her to miss out on opportunities. Upload also, she alleged, required female employees to perform menial administrative tasks not required of men, like cleaning the office kitchen and tidying up work spaces.

We have done an investigation that satisfies us that the allegations in the complaint are true, said Todd Schneider, one of Scotts attorneys at the law firm Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky Wotkyns in San Francisco. He declined to provide specifics, saying that they would be revealed as the case proceeds.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
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A man arrested by BART police in San Leandro on suspicion of possessing marijuana and methamphetamine was discovered to be a convicted killer wanted in Seattle for allegedly punching, choking and threatening to kill his pregnant girlfriend, officials said Tuesday.

Joshua Robinson, 39, was initially booked into the Hayward Jail about 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday following his arrest at Bay Fair Station. Upon his arrest, he gave police a phony name, officials said.

After running his fingerprints, police discovered that Robinson had outstanding warrants in Washington on charges that included second-degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and domestic violence, according to records filed in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

During the assault in early March, Robinson allegedly threatened his girlfriend with a knife and attempted to strangle her, court records show.

Robinson barricaded his 17-week pregnant girlfriend in a bedroom for hours because he thought she had cheated on him, according to the court documents. The victims 4-year-old daughter was present during the outburst but was asleep in the living room, according to documents.

In addition to repeatedly punching the victim, Robinson taunted her with a knife and threatened to kill her unborn child, according to court records.

The woman eventually escaped by climbing out of a window with her daughter and calling 911 as Robinson fled, court records show.

In 2014, Robinson was convicted of another domestic violence case for assaulting the mother of his then 2-year-old daughter. The victim is a different woman than the March 2017 case, court records show.

The victim said that Robinson was intoxicated and became angry when she would not allow him to leave the house with their child, according to records.

In 1998, Robinson pleaded guilty to murder and spent nearly 15 years in prison for shooting an 18-year-old woman in the head, according to records.

Robinson had gone to confront a man in a drug deal dispute. Upon arrival, Robinson shot the man in the leg. As the victim fell, Myisha Williams ran over, saying, No, thats my dad, thats my dad, according to court records.

She was unarmed and had her hands raised when Robinson shot her in the head, according to the court records.

Shortly after he was released from prison, Robinson was convicted of robbery and served another 29 months in prison.

Following his arrest Monday night, Robinson was transferred to Santa Rita Jail and booked on suspicion of possessing narcotics, possession of marijuana for sale and providing false information to a police officer, as well as his outstanding warrants.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Senior Editor Levi Pulkkinen contributed to this report.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
New York, May 16(Just Earth News): The United Nations health agency is deploying technical experts to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) amid an outbreak of Ebola virus near its northern border with the Central Africa Republic, the agencyas regional director for Africa confirmed.

Matshidiso Moeti visited the capital Kinshasa on Saturday to discuss with national authorities and partners ways to mount a rapid, effective and coherent response in order to stop the ongoing outbreak.

I encourage to public to work with the health authorities and take the necessary preventive measures to protect their health, Dr. Moeti said.

He noted that the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has already mobilized teams, and is also ready to provide the technical expertise and leadership required to mount a coordinated and effective response.

The visit follows notification by the Government of an outbreak in the Likati health zone, in the north. At least three people have died, as of Saturday, and eight additional people are reported to have Ebola.

A Ministry of Health team, supported by the WHO, is scheduled to arrive in the epicenter of the outbreak on Monday.

The health zone is situated in the remote, isolated and hard-to-reach northern part of the country, with limited transport and communication networks - factors that all impeded transmission of information about the suspected outbreak, WHO said in a press release.

In the meantime, WHO is recommending that travel and trade are not restricted with the DRC, based on information currently available.

The full extent of the 2017 outbreak is still not yet clear. Extensive investigation and risk assessments are being conducted and the findings will be communicated accordingly, the UN agency said.

The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) has been activated to provide additional support, if required. In addition, reinforcement of epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing, case management, and community engagement are under way.

This is the eighth outbreak of Ebola virus since it was discovered in the DRC in 1976.

Photo: WHO

Source: www.justearthnews.com
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Outside Lands draws as much attention for its local food and drink offerings as for its music. Ten years in, the event has changed the way that music festivals across the country approach culinary offerings, setting a new standard for festivalgoers beyond soggy hot dogs and Bud Light.

The music festival will descend on Golden Gate Park on Aug. 11-13. (VIP tickets are sold out, but there are still three-day general-admission spots up for grabs.) Alongside headliners the Who, Gorillaz, Metallica and A Tribe Called Quest will be 78 restaurants, more than 40 wineries and 28 breweries.

This year, Big Night Restaurant Group owner Anna Weinberg takes on a curator role for Taste of the Bay Area. Her SoMa restaurant Marlowe will be serving its Marlowe burger. Other S.F. newcomers to the festival: Tartine Manufactory (morning buns; croissants), Filipino pop-up FOB Kitchen (Shanghai lumpia; sticky wings), Smitten Ice Cream (cookie dough pretzel ice cream), Alba Ray's (jambalaya; gumbo), Izakaya Sozai (takoyaki; ramen broth), Little Star Pizza (Brass Monkey deep dish; Italian thin crust) and the Boba Guys (tea; furikake Chex mix).

They join veteran Outside Lands participants like Pacific Catch (Hawaiian ahi poke; fish and chips) and Pica Pica (sweet corn arepas; yuba fries; sweet plantains), both of which have been at the festival since its beginning.

Magnolia's Dave McLean returns to head up Beer Lands, which will host first-timers Altamont Beer Works, Alvarado Street, Black Sands Brewery and Laughing Monk. Beyond the Beer Lands tent, you'll find Heineken and Sierra Nevada throughout the park.

Wine Lands, perennially under the direction of sommelier Peter Eastlake, will feature over 40 California wineries pouring over 120 wines. Ravenswood, Failla, wine spritzer producer Hoxie and SLO Down (with its signature red blend, "Sexual Chocolate") will participate for the first time, along with Japanese sake on tap. If you're over the plastic GoVino glasses, you can purchase a stainless steel wine cup, made by S.F.'s Steelys Drinkware, too.

And yes, the Back Wine, a wine-infused putt-putt experience, will be back.

Also returning, of course, are Cheese Lands (with Swiss raclette nachos), Outside Clams (with Dungeness crab rolls) and Choco Lands (with Guittard's beloved liquid chocolate bars). Cocktail Magic will again feature five local cocktail bars, at the moment still TBA. And the lineup for Gastro Magic, the culinary-themed performance stage, will be announced a few weeks from now.

Stay tuned for Outside Lands food and drink updates. Closer to the festival, we'll be sharing our top picks for what to eat and drink.

See below for a full list of participants in Taste of the Bay Area, Choco Lands, Cheese Lands and Outside Clams. (Newcomers in bold.)

Taste of the Bay Area:

4505 Meats - Best Damn Cheeseburgers and Chicharrones

Alba Ray's - Creole Jambalaya and Chicken & Andouille Gumbo

Alicia's Tamales Los Mayas - Tamales and Pozole

Azalina's - Malaysian Chicken Curry Nachos and Lamb Sloppy Joes

Big Chef Tom's Belly Burgers - Pork Belly Burgers and Crispy Fries

Bini's Kitchen - Nepalese Dumplings and Nepalese Burritos

Boba Guys - Boba Milk Teas and Furikake Chex Mix

Charles Chocolates - Gourmet S'mores and Brownie Ice Cream Sundaes

Cheese Steak Shop - Cheese Steak Sandwiches and Steak Fries

Dabba -Ethnic Confusion Tacos and Hummus Wraps

Earthly Delights - Philly Cheese Steaks and Chicken Wraps

El Huarache Loco - Huaraches and Chilaquiles

Endless Summer Sweets - Funnel Cakes and Hand-Dipped Corn Dogs

Escape From New York Pizza - Pesto Potato Roasted Garlic Pizza Slices and Gluten-Free Personal Pies

Fearless Coffee - Olive Oil Fried-Egg Sandwiches and Griddled French Toast

Fine & Rare - Crab Rolls and Cioppino

FK Frozen Custard Bars - Customized Frozen Custard Bars

FOB Kitchen - Shanghai Lumpia and Sticky Wings

Four Barrel Coffee - Cold Brew Iced Coffee, Espresso Drinks, and Vanilla Bean Donuts

Freshroll - Banh Mi Sandwiches and Taro Chips

Glaze Teriyaki - Teriyaki Bowls and Shishito Peppers

Global Gourmet - Elote Corn Dogs and Korean Fried Chicken Sandwiches

Homestead Cookies - Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cold Brew Coffee

Hook't on Sugar & Spun - Cotton Candy Bouquets and Mini Doughnut Sundaes

Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream - 420 Ice Cream Sundaes and Bourbon Coke Floats

Itani Ramen - Pork or Veggie Ramen and Fried Chicken Gyoza

Izakaya Sozai - Takoyaki and Steaming Ramen Broth

Koja Kitchen - Kamikaze Fries and Macaroon Ice Cream Sandwiches

Little Skillet - Fried Chicken & Waffles and Fresh Watermelon

Little Star Pizza - Brass Monkey Deep Dish Pizzas and Italian Combo Thin Crust Pizzas

Loving Cup - Equator Organic Coffee and Vanilla Bean Rice Pudding

Lucca Foods - BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Homemade Brownies

Marlowe - Marlowe Bacon Burgers

Nombe - Ramenburgers and Sushi Burritos

Pacific Catch - Hawaiian Ahi Poke and Fish & Chips

Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen - Sweet Corn Arepas, Yuca Fries, and Sweet Plantains

Precita Park Cafe - Equator Coffee and Zoe's Bacon Breakfast Sandwiches

Proposition Chicken - Fried Chicken Sandwiches and Curly Fries

Rich Table - Porcini Doughnuts with Raclette Cheese

Rosamunde Sausage Grill - Grilled Sausages and Sausage Poutine

Rove Kitchen - Fried Chicken Sandwiches and Pork Belly Tacos

Sabores Del Sur - Empanadas and Award-Winning Alfajores

Sataysfied - Mie Tek Tek Noodles, Chicken Satays, and Eggrolls

Smitten Ice Cream - Cookie Dough Pretzel Ice Cream and Vegan Fudge Popsicles

Southpaw BBQ - Smoked Brisket Sandwiches and Pulled Jackfruit Sandwiches

Split Pea Seduction - Country Style Split Pea Soup and Spice-Rubbed Chicken Pitas

Stones Throw - Monkey Bread Chicken Parm Melts

Straw - Donut Cheeseburgers and Sweet Potato Tots

Suite Foods Waffles - Liege Waffles Stuffed with Fried Chicken and Hand-Cut Belgian Fries

Tacolicious - Achiote Chicken Tacos and Baja-Style Fish Tacos

Tartine Manufactory - Morning Buns, Croissants, and Iced Coffee

The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen - Gourmet Grilled Cheeses Sandwiches and Tomato Soup

The Farmer's Wife - Stone Fruit & Wildflower Honey Melts and Albacore Tuna Melts

The Japanese Pantry - Spicy Tater Tots

The Little Chihuahua - Breakfast Burritos and Carne Asada Fajita Burritos

The Monk's Kettle - Double Pretzel Knots with Cheese Sauce and Sausage Sandwiches

The Up & Under Pub and Grill - Waffle Fries with Crazy Toppings

Three Babes - Mixed Berry Crumble and Truffle Mac & Cheese with Brisket

Three Twins Ice Cream - Ice Cream Sandwiches and Sundae Cones

Wise Sons Jewish Deli - Pastrami Reubens and Pastrami Cheese Fries

Food trucks and carts:

Chairman Truck - Pork Belly Baos, Spicy Chicken Baos, Miso Tofu Baos

Curry Up Now - Chicken Tikka Masala Burritos and Sexy Fries

Del Popolo - Wood-Fired Margherita Pizzas with Pork Salami

Event Specialists - Soft Pretzels and Cinnamon Churros

Jackrabbit - Lamb Burger Sliders and Crispy Sushi Rice Cakes

Lady Falcon Coffee Club - Mochas with Homemade Ganache and Cascara Teas with Mexican Whip

Living Greens - Freshly Cracked Thai Coconuts and Freshly Pressed Juices

Mozzeria - Margherita Pizzas and Salumi Pizzas

Rocko's Ice Cream Tacos - Ice Cream Tacos and Frozen Bananas

Senor Sisig - Senor Sisig Burritos and Sisig Tacos

Those Fabulous Frickle Brothers - Fried Pickles and Fried Green Tomatoes

Choco Lands:

Candybar Dessert Lounge - Hot Chocolate and Chocolate French Macarons

Epic Cookies - Chocolate Krackle and Snickerdoodle Cookies with Milk

Guittard Chocolate Company - Liquid Chocolate Bars

Kara's Cupcakes - Artisan Cupcakes and Karamel Corn

Sharona's Chocolate Shop - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups and Chocolate Covered Brownies

Cheese Lands:

Culture Magazine & Long Meadow Ranch - Cheese & Charcuterie Plates, Swiss Raclette 'Nachos,' and French Bread with Butter

Outside Clams:

Woodhouse Fish Co. - Lobster Rolls, Clam Chowder Bread Bowls, Raw & BBQ Oysters

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle's wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
Since starting in Ithaca, N.Y., a decade ago, Porchfest has become a national phenomenon, with musicians across the country staging concerts on stoops and sidewalks and in storefronts. The free music festival returns to San Francisco for its third year on Saturday, May 20, where musicians from a wide range of genres and backgrounds perform in different Mission District venues throughout the day.

Run entirely by volunteers with a little help from a GoFundMe donation drive, the event is expected to feature more than 70 bands and musicians. Among this years registered participants are Miscegenation with Susana Pineda, the Creak, Amity Rose, Franz Jermany and Monica Maria & Soul y Agua.
How does a leading neo-Nazi website that has railed against Latino immigrants expand its audience beyond a loyal base of U.S. white supremacists? By publishing a Spanish-language edition, of course.

The Daily Stormer  infamous for orchestrating Internet harassment campaigns by its Troll Army of readers  recently started El Daily Stormer as a news portal tailoring its racist, anti-Semitic content for readers in Spain and Latin America.
1 Grisly slaying: An Oregon man killed his mother on Mothers Day at their rural home, then showed up at a grocery store in the nearby town of Estacada carrying what appeared to be a human head and began stabbing a checkout clerk before being subdued, authorities said Monday. Sheriffs deputies would not say if the mothers body was decapitated. Joshua Lee Webb, 36, was booked on charges of murder and attempted murder. The Clackamas County Sheriffs Office says Webb killed his mother, Tina Marie Webb, 59, but did not provide more details. The grocery clerk was hospitalized.

2 Alabama politics: Rep. Mo Brooks joined the U.S. Senate race in Alabama on Monday, casting himself as the only proven conservative leader in an increasingly crowded race for the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Senate seat vacated by Sessions is held by Republican Luther Strange, who was appointed by former Gov. Robert Bentley and is seeking election. Brooks, 63, a Republican from Huntsville, was first elected to Congress in 2010. The Senate Leadership Fund, which has ties to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and plans to support Strange with $2.6 million in television commercials, issued a statement saying Brooks has never sponsored a bill that became law.
WASHINGTON  President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trumps disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trumps decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trumps meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.

This is code-word information, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.

The White House denounced the report.

This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced, said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, who attended the meeting.

The revelation comes as Trump faces rising legal and political pressure on multiple Russia-related fronts. Last week, he fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of a bureau investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trumps subsequent admission that his decision was driven by this Russia thing was seen by critics as attempted obstruction of justice.

One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak  a key figure in earlier Russia controversies  into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

For most anyone in government discussing such matters with an adversary would be illegal. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets, making it unlikely that his disclosures broke the law.

The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation, said H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who participated in the meeting. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.

But officials expressed concern with Trumps handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States and its allies ability to detect future threats.

It is all kind of shocking, said a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials. Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesnt grasp the gravity of the things hes dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And its all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic States territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved.

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The officials declined to identify the ally, but said it is one that has previously voiced frustration with Washingtons inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

Trump also described measures that the United States has taken or is contemplating to counter the threat, including military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as other steps to tighten security, officials said.

The officials would not discuss details of those measures, but the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed that it is considering banning laptops and other large electronic devices from carry-on bags on flights between Europe and the United States. The United States and Britain imposed a similar ban in March affecting travelers passing through airports in 10 Muslim-majority countries.

Trump has repeatedly gone off script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multipage briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those.

Kislyak has figured prominently in damaging stories about the Trump administrations ties to Russia. Trumps initial national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign just 24 days into the job over his contacts with Kislyak and misleading statements about them. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from matters related to the FBIs Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had met and spoken with Kislyak despite denying any contact with Russian officials during his confirmation hearing.

Im sure Kislyak was able to fire off a good cable back to the Kremlin with all the details he gleaned from Trump, said a former U.S. official who handled intelligence on Russia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

By Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe and Washington Post writers.
A Virginia mayor is trolling the trolls after he lashed out at torch-toting white nationalists who protested in his city.

Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer has become the target of hate-filled, anti-Semitic messages from anonymous Twitter trolls after condemning a weekend protest over the planned removal of a Confederate monument.

Many public figures are advised to ignore the trolls. Signer is hitting back.

Whew! Lot of trolls out tonight. Must be doing something right, Signer tweeted Sunday.

Online trolls seek to provoke angry responses, pulling people into unwinnable and ill-advised flame wars. Signer, however, has shown a sense of humor: When an anonymous tweeter called him a disgrace, he wrote: You seem nice. Whats your real name?

He responded to another Twitter user who called him a Bolshevik on the side of evil by tweeting: Apparently this troll doesnt know about our unemployment rate (2.9%-lowest in Va) and AAA-bond rating. Oh well!

And when still another troll called him a slimy spineless white coward, Signer wrote: Another profile in courage here-anonymous trolls lecturing elected officials about cowardice. Yawn.

The Democratic mayor said Monday that he doesnt intend to make a habit out of responding to online trolls. But after white nationalists showed up burning torches in his city, he wants to show that neither he nor his community will be silenced.

Its always a difficult balancing act for public officials about how much oxygen to give the alt-right, which depends on publicity to survive, Signer said, referring to the fringe movement that blends racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant ideas.

I think for me, its the right choice to say: Enough is enough, he said.

Among those at the protest over the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue Saturday was Richard Spencer, who popularized the term alt-right. After President Donald Trumps election, Spencer hosted a conference in Washington where he shouted Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! and the audience responded with Nazi salutes.

Spencer said Monday that The mayor is just clearly a total dork.

Spencer scoffed at Signers suggestion that the torches, a mainstay of Ku Klux Klan rallies decades ago, were brought to instill fear. Spencer said theres something magical about fire at night.

The torch-carrying crowd also included Nathan Damigo, who leads a white nationalist group and can be seen in a video that went viral last month punching a woman at a rally in Berkeley.

Alanna Durkin Richer and Michael Kunzelman are Associated Press writers.
New York, May 16 (Just Earth News): The United Nations human rights chief on Tuesday expressed grave alarm over the spread of violence by armed groups against the civilian population in several parts of the Central African Republic in recent months, as well as attacks against UN peacekeepers in the country's southeast.

Violence and rising tensions are spreading to areas of the Central African Republic that had previously been spared the kinds of terrifying violence seen in some other parts of the country  this is highly worrying and should set off loud alarm bells, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in a news release from his Office (OHCHR).

The hard-earned relative calm in Bangui and some of the bigger towns in CAR risks being eclipsed by the descent of some rural areas into increasing sectarian violence, with defence less civilians  as usual  paying the highest price, he added.

The latest in a series of attacks was an incident this weekend in Bangassou, in which armed men used heavy weapons to attack the base of the UN mission in CAR, known by its French acronym MINUSCA. The armed men also attacked the Muslim neighbourhood of Tokoyo where numerous civilians were killed and others wounded.

Investigations by MINUSCA's Human Rights Division suggest that between March and May 2017 more than 121 civilians and six peacekeepers were killed, excluding figures in the two latest incidents.

Zeid also noted the fact that the Special Criminal Court is preparing to start its work is a strong signal by the authorities and the international community that the continued climate of impunity is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, the Security Council issued a statement to the press overnight, strongly condemning the violence by anti-Balaka elements in Bangassou on 13 and 14 May 2017 that targeted MINUSCA's field office, civilian populations from particular communities, as well as humanitarian personnel.

The 15-member body reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes and reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law.

The Council called on the Government to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Photo: UNICEF/Jan Grarup (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
AB Science SA shares plunged the most on record after Frances drug agency ordered the biotechnology firm to suspend clinical trials in the country because of flaws in previous studies, making it unlikely the company will win regulatory backing this week for mastinib, a drug designed to treat a rare immune disorder.

The decision by the National Agency for Drug Safety resulted from a series of inspections from 2006 to 2016 that showed repeated and serious violations of laws and regulations, some of which could have put patients safety at risk, the regulator said last week. AB Science, based in Paris, failed to continuously evaluate the safety of masitinib and to properly manage its database of side effects, the agency said.

AB Science stock is entering a period of distrust and it could durably suffer from market skepticism, Sebastien Malafosse, an analyst at Oddo & Cie, wrote in a report. It will not be enough, in our view, for AB Science to secure another green light from the health-care regulator in France; the group will also have to motivate patients and investigators in order to pursue its trials.

AB Science sank 35 percent to $11 in Paris, giving the company a market value of $443.6 million, as trading resumed for the first time since Thursday. The decline was the biggest ever for the company, which went public in 2010. AB Science announced the regulatory order before trading opened Friday and asked for a trading halt. Malafosse sees the stock going to $5.50, down from a previous target of $53 euros.

The decision adds to a string of setbacks for Chief Executive Officer Alain Moussy in his 16-year effort to bring masitinib to market using an unorthodox approach. The European Medicines Agencys Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use is scheduled to decide as soon as this week whether to recommend the drug for approval as a treatment for mastocytosis, a rare disorder of the immune system. The vote will be negative, Arsene Guekam, an analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux, said in a report Friday.

AB Science has corrected the deficiencies, and its confident it will be allowed to restart studies in France in a few months after independent audits are conducted, it said Monday. The company plans to submit the results of an analysis it has run since March, showing no safety issues, he said. The data cited by the regulatory agency was compiled before AB Science implemented a new quality system in mid-2015, he said.

We misappreciated the situation in the mastocytosis trial, Moussy said Friday. We closed the study before the quality process was put in place. Its bad news because it triggers the wrong signal, but its temporary.

While Moussy refused to say whether he expects the European Medicines Agency to recommend the treatment this week, he said the company is in touch with the agency. AB Science would appeal the decision in case of rejection, with a new deadline in six months, he said.

The trial suspensions affect less than 5 percent of the patients recruited in the continuing studies, Moussy said.

All data on safety and efficacy have been re-monitored, and now were in the process to audit this to provide the evidence that its been corrected, Moussy said. We are in touch with all agencies permanently, and all are aware of this decision. There is a way out, and we have agreed on the way out.

If, after the audit, the regulator maintains the clinical trial suspension, the masitinib project is dead, Keplers Guekam wrote.

Because of the trials shortcomings, the company cant properly establish the drugs safety profile, the drug safety agency said. The company failed to follow the criteria for which patients should be included or excluded from studies, possibly putting patients safety in jeopardy, according to the letter.

Moussy says the agencys decision doesnt affect a separate study of masitinib in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, because all trials for that illness are taking place outside France.

Everything will be clean in the ALS study, Moussy said. We will be in a better position because re-monitoring is already done. In mastocytosis we arent in an ideal situation, because we did it too late, but in ALS were still OK. Its painful, but not too painful.

While most early-stage pharmaceutical companies test a compound in only a handful of illnesses, AB Science has studied masitinib in more than 20 diseases ranging from asthma to cancer. To keep costs down, the company monitored trials itself rather than hiring contractors, and it started studies with small groups of patients. The European Medicines Agency rejected two previous applications, to sell masitinib for forms of cancer, saying the trials were insufficient.

In 2012, the French regulators prohibited the biotechnology firm from conducting nine clinical trials of its experimental drug in non-life-threatening illnesses because of the treatments side effects.

AB Science doesnt need to raise money in the short term, the company said Monday. It had $64.844 million in cash as of March 31, which it said is sufficient to continue the development of masitinib. The company didnt repeat a statement it made in March, when it last raised funds, that it had enough cash to finance operations until the end of 2019.

Roxana Zega is a Bloomberg writer. Email: rzega@bloomberg.net
New York, May 16(Just Earth News): The United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday confirmed that for only the third time this year, its field teams were able to distribute humanitarian aid in the embattled district of Mokha, in Yemen's Red Sea governorate of Taizz.

The latest UNHCR aid distribution in Mokha will cover more than 6,200 people with emergency assistance, adding to the 69,857 already reached since the start of this year, William Spindler, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told journalists in Geneva.

Hostilities in Taizz escalated in January, with nearly 50,000 people displaced, about 27 per cent of the internally displaced people in Yemen. The governorate also hosts about 304,000 additional displaced people.

The spokesperson said that UNHCR teams observed worsening conditions, Many people are living out in the open in harsh conditions and without adequate shelter, protection and material assistance.

In parallel, north of Taizz, in Al Hudaydah, UNHCR team provided aid for about 17,745 people. Spindler said that aid workers noted a huge spike in needs, with displaced people living on streets, and turning to begging and child labour to survive.

With Hudaydah host to more than 109,000 displaced individuals, many are reporting anxiety about reports of possible intensifications in hostilities in the governorate, unsure of how and where they would flee, said Spindler.

More than three million who have been uprooted since the start of the conflict two years ago, and more are expected as hostilities are likely to intensify.

'Public health crisis in the making'

Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday announced that inferior health systems and water supply provisions are raising concerns for health, particularly for the youngest Yemenis.

More than 11,000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported across the country, with more than 250 confirmed cases of cholera.

UNICEF spokesperson Christophe Boulierac calls the situation a public health crisis in the making.

The UN agency and partners are providing diarrhea disease kits, oral rehydration salts and water treatment tables, but the outbreak is more aggressive than the last wave in October 2016. At least 130 people have died so far this year.

About 7.6 million people in Yemen are living in areas considered high risk for cholera transmission, said UN World Health Organization's (WHO) Christian Lindmeier.

That number, he said, is very high.

Photo: UNHCR/Adem Shaqiri

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Afghanistan,May 16 (IBNS) : At least 15 anti-government armed militants were killed during the ongoing Silab-5 operations in eastern Laghman province of Afghanistan, the state-run Khaama Press said.

It quoted a statement issued by the provincial government as saying that the operations were launched on Monday morning covering the areas in Alingar district.

The statement further added that the militants were targeted in Basram, Katal, Maidanio, Hakimabad, Qasaba, Salimgar, and other areas.

At least 15 insurgents were also critically wounded during the operations, the statement added.

The Afghan forces still conduct clearance operations in the mentioned areas, the provincial government said, adding that the operations will continue until the militants are fully eliminated from the area.
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Contra Costa County officials hope that by this summer a project will be underway to help law enforcement deter or capture people responsible for a series of shootings on two area roads, an official said today.

The project would put video cameras, shot spotter technology and license plate readers on Interstate Highway 80 and state Highway 4 from Cutting Boulevard in Richmond to Antioch, Senior Deputy District Attorney Mary Knox said.

A disproportionate number of shootings on Bay Area freeways have occurred in central and western Contra Costa County, with 36 since 2015.

Eight people have died in the shootings.

Officials with the California Highway Patrol said in March that there had been 111 highway shootings in the Bay Area since the start of 2015.

Two more people were shot Sunday night on a southbound Interstate Highway 880 off-ramp in Hayward.

Just after 9 p.m., California Highway Patrol officers were told of some shots being fired on the Winton Avenue off-ramp from Highway 880, according to the CHP.

Officers found that a Toyota Tacoma was exiting Highway 880 on the eastbound Winton Avenue off-ramp when a vehicle pulled up next to the Toyota and fired a gun at the people inside.

Bullets hit the legs of two of the three people in the truck. Following the shooting, the Toyota veered off the off-ramp and into an area south of it.

"This does not appear to be a random freeway shooting," CHP Officer Jonathan Fransen said. "The victims in this shooting appear to have been targeted in a gang-related attack."

Fransen, however, said that it's too early in the investigation to tell whether the shooting is related to other recent East Bay freeway shootings.

The freeway project, which county and state leaders have said the money is available for, could cost as much as $1.5 million. The funds have been approved and will come from Caltrans, Melissa Figueroa, spokeswoman for the California State Transportation Agency, said.

The agency consists of other agencies such as Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The cameras to be installed will be able to move in the direction of the sound of a gun or guns and zoom in on the shooter's vehicle.

"We will have eyes on the freeway within seconds of the shooting," Knox said.

A task force commander will be able to see live video of the freeway. Also, the system will be able to send video or photos to nearby officers in their cars.

Knox said she has not heard of any privacy concerns related to the project.

No one at either the American Civil Liberties Union or the Electronic Frontier Foundation was immediately available to comment.

The data will be stored by law enforcement and only accessible by law enforcement.

A working group has been working on a proposal for the project for the last year or so. The last details of the proposal are expected to be finalized in the next two to three weeks, Figueroa said.

(916) 445-3545

CHP Officer Jonathan Fransen (707) 649-3650
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A Mexican woman from Santa Rosa who has been in immigration detention for more than a year was released on a $25,000 bond today, an advocate said.

Yazmin Elias Obregon, 34, is reunited with her family for the first time in nearly 15 months, said Blanca Vazquez, a leader of a campaign to free Elias.

Elias was released from the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility today, Vazquez said. Elias was taken from Contra Costa County's West County Detention Center in Richmond on Friday and was transferred to Sonoma County, where she remained until now.

"She is finally at liberty and able to be with her family," Vazquez said.

The bond that got her out of immigration detention was granted by Immigration Judge Scott Simpson on Thursday in San Francisco and an anonymous donor offered to put up the $25,000, Vazquez said.

"It's kind of a miracle," Vazquez said of the offer.

Before she was released, Elias was taken to the Sonoma County facility because there was a bench warrant for her arrest there.

The bench warrant was issued because Elias had missed a hearing regarding a 2015 citation for driving under the influence because she was in immigration detention. The warrant has been lifted, Vazquez said.

Elias came to Santa Rosa from Mexico at the age of 4 and is the mother of three teenagers who are U.S. citizens.

She is currently facing deportation proceedings and the bond will be in effect until the proceedings are completed. The date of her deportation hearing has not been set, her attorney Luis Reyes Savalza said last week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took Elias into custody on Feb. 26, 2016, after a state court probation hearing related to a citation she received for driving under the influence in 2015.

Although state court judges in the DUI criminal case had said she could remain free on probation while continuing rehabilitation for addictions related to abuse by two former boyfriends, Simpson denied release on bond at immigration hearings last year.

He said the reason was that her three DUI convictions and four citations for driving without a license showed that she was a danger to the community.

Elias' lawyers say she has recovered from alcoholism and methamphetamine addictions that were responses to severe domestic abuse.

Her 2015 DUI citation came after she tried to park a double-parked car that had been driven by her current boyfriend, who had stepped out of the car to buy tacos, the attorneys said.

This year, Elias filed a habeas corpus lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco to challenge her continued detention.

In an April 20 ruling, U.S. District Judge William Orrick declined to grant a temporary restraining order requiring her release, but ordered a new bond hearing in immigration court.

Orrick said in that ruling that Elias should be given a chance to argue that she was successfully rehabilitated, was no longer at risk for addiction because she was not in an abusive relationship and was not a danger to the public.

"Deprivation of liberty should be a rare circumstance for non-citizens in immigration detention, reserved only for those who are a threat to national security or poor bail risks," Orrick wrote.

Savalza said last week he believes that decision gave "important guidance" to the immigration judge.

The attorney said he thinks Elias has a good chance of winning her fight against deportation.

He said she is seeking asylum on the ground that the father of her children, who has returned to Mexico, has threatened her.

Elias also has a possible path to citizenship through a program for victims of domestic abuse, Savalza said.
Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has become the first woman governor of New York. She has defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin. Heres a look at the political journey of the 57th governor of New York.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Electronic voting machines (EVMs) are not just creating a stir in India, but kicking up a controversy in faraway Botswana, too.

After news portals reported Indian EVMs would be tested at a hackathon in the southern African country, Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) -- makers of the EVMs -- said there were no such plans.

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It denied reports that its EVMs would figure in a hackathon organised on Friday by the Independent Election Commission of Botswana, a government body.

The portals reported that BEL had been invited to the hackathon to demonstrate how the EVMs worked.

The reports prompted BEL to issue a statement saying it had not sold any EVMs or paper trail machines to Botswanas Election Commission. "The Botswana Election Commission has invited a team of BEL to show only the functionality of EVMs and VVPATS designed to meet the specific requirements of the Botswana government. These EVMs and VVPATS are different from the ones which are used by the Election Commission of India," it said.

Bel said there were no plans for holding a hackathon event with BELs EVMs.

The reference to EVMs in the press note issued by the Botswana Election Commission were "completely false and incorrect," it said.

According to a report published in www.itwebafrica.com, Botswanas President Ian Khama had last year signed the Electoral Amendment Bill, 2016, a revision of the existing Electoral Act, paving the way for the introduction of EVMs.

The portal said the Botswana government believed this technology would improve several election-related processes such as registration of voters, preparation of rolls and deleting provisions for supplementary rolls.

Opposition parties, however, were concerned about the development and claimed EVMs were open to security breaches, it said. BEL, which is a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Defence, and the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU under the Department of Atomic Energy, are the two producers of EVMs and VVPATs for the Election Commission of India.

The Election Commission of India has challenged political parties to prove EVMs used in the recent assembly polls were tampered with, after several Opposition parties questioned their reliability and demanded a return to the paper ballot system.

The planned challenge could take place later this month. PTI NAB BDS

--- ENDS ---

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The India Today investigation shows how Pakistan is funding Hurriyat to burn Kashmir. Operation Villains of Valley videos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

By Sushant Pathak, Jamshed Adil Khan : India Today has come up with clinching evidence of Pakistan's state and non-state actors, including Hafiz Saeed, choreographing anarchy through their agents in the Kashmir Valley.

Several top Kashmiri separatists are caught on camera confessing to receiving funds from across the border.

Some of them also admitted they raised money domestically, pledging to repeat the deadly events of 2016 if financed again. The stunning probe that rips apart the devious designs of anti-India forces in Kashmir includes Hurriyat's Provincial President (Geelani Faction) Naeem Khan, Tehreek-E-Hurriyat's leader Gazi Javed Baba, and JKLF chairman Farooq Ahmed Dar (Bitta Karate).

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The investigation traces the terror funding trail. Hurriyat leader Naeem Khan stealthily travels down to Delhi to meet India Today reporters, who posed as potential funders.

Operation Villains of Valley videos: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

He made startling disclosures on how Pakistan is funneling hundreds of crores to the Hurriyat to plunge Jammu and Kashmir into its worst unrest in decades.

HERE IS WHAT HE ADMITTED ON CAMERA:

Reporter: How does Pakistan deliver help?

Naeem Khan: That's made available in Delhi not in Kashmir directly. It can come via Dubai or Saudi. If there's any problem bringing it here, Naeem Khan is there (to sort it out).

Reporter: Where you take the funding from Pakistan? In Delhi or in Kashmir?

Naeem Khan: It's routed through here.

Reporter: From Delhi?

Naeem Khan: Well-wishers deliver it after taking their commission.

Reporter: Nothing directly in Kashmir?

Naeem Khan: Kashmir has no international ports. Everything is here.

Reporter: Currency is not routed through the borders, Sir.

Naeem Khan: Currency isn't routed through the borders. Earlier, it was in small quantities. But major business is carried out in Delhi. It's taken there and delivered to me here.

Reporter: Through hawala?

Naeem Khan: Through all of Ballimaran and Chandni Chowk. That's how hawala works in India. Ours is part of it.

The investigation reveals that Pakistan's agents who are trying to destabilise Kashmir through street violence are hidden in Delhi.

The expose has been hailed not only by the government and the BJP but also by the Congress.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS) at the Prime Minister Office, said chicanery won't last long and action will be taken soon.

SCHOOLS ON HURRIYAT'S RADAR

The operation also reveals Hurriyat's role in torching schools.

"You need chaos for disorder. It doesn't matter if that means burning down railway stations, police stations, schools, panchayat buildings. May Allah save us, hospitals should be left out. We have to do certain things to create chaos," Khan said.

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He admits in the video that they were involved in stone peltings on MLAs, attacking government properties.

"So far, 35 (schools) have been burnt. They were burnt because we were present there. Nothing is possible without (our) support," Khan said.

Naeem Khan's wife Hamida Naeem was invited to participate in a discussion on the subject but once she saw the tapes she moved out.

After the video went on air, Naeem Khan came to India Today office in Srinagar and threatened India Today reporters. He also asked them to take down the story.

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid said he is rushing troops to India Today office in Srinagar and also promised safety of staff.

The separatist leader also made another startling admission on camera when he said if Rs 300-400 crore is pumped in, then the Kashmir unrest could be carried on for another three months.

"It can move forward only as an inter-city (agitation). Fatigue also sets in. We burnt less flags before. Now, we have to burn more of them," Khan said.

JKLF chairman Farooq Ahmed Dar (Bitta Karate) also admits that they all get Pakistani funds.

The India Today investigation shows that the separatists, backed by their masters across the border, are geared up to unleash a fresh wave of unrest anytime. Choking separatist finances, therefore, is the key to peace in the Kashmir Valley.

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Also read:

Stone pelters on hire in Kashmir: India Today nails Valley's insidious villains

Who is Zakir Musa? Why Hizbul Mujahideen distanced itself from his 'Islamic Kashmir' remark

Is Jammu and Kashmir India's most troubled state? It may also be the most pampered one

Watch video:

Operation Villains of Valley: India Today reveals how Pakistan funds Hurriyat to burn Kashmir

--- ENDS ---
The early morning raids at the former finance and home minister's residence were conducted in connection with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearances given to INX Media (now called 9X Media) when it was run by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea, and Chidambaram was the finance minister.

The CBI raids were linked to an FIR which claimed that Karti Chidambaram received kickbacks from INX Media to facilitate foreign investment clearance for the media company in 2008. INX Media was then owned by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, who are currently in jail in connection with the murder of Sheena Bora in 2012.

A team of 11 CBI officials entered the Haddows Road residence of Chidambaram on Tuesday morning and carried out searches. According to sources, other locations in Chennai, Karaikudi, Delhi and Noida were also searched by CBI sleuths in this connection.

The CBI raids come close on the heels of an Enforcement Directorate probe into the affairs of Karti Chidambaram who they allege was involved in FEMA violations and money laundering. According to the investigating agency allegations, Karti was linked to a firm, Advantage Strategic Ltd, whose name cropped up in various cases.

Chidambaram called it vendetta politics and declared the raids will not stop him from being critical of the government. Chidambaram said there are no allegations against him or his son.

"The government, using CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write."

In a statement issued on Tuesday, a little after the raids began, Chidambaram said "FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me."

The former finance minister said that "every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India."

Karti Chidambaram has maintained that he will come out clean as there was nothing to hide. He said he had cooperated with probe agencies and has paid all his taxes. "The case against me has been foisted purely out of political reasons and vendetta. Nothing can be proven against me and I have not done any crime. It has been done mainly to muzzle my father's voice against the government," he said.

Congress legislative leader in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Karaikudi Ramasamy visited Chidambaram's residence and later told media persons that there was nothing in the case that was being made out. "It is just a ploy to discredit and destroy the reputation and image of the Congress party," he said.

The agency's move comes a day after it filed an FIR against Karti Chidambaram and Indrani Mukherjea in the case. The case -- registered under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in 2010--involves foreign investment by three Mauritius-based companies in INX Media.

The Enforcement Directorate had earlier issued a show-cause notice to Karti Chidambaram and INX Media for alleged FEMA violations of over Rs 40 crore. The Enforcement Directorate also issued a similar notice to a Chennai-based firm, Vasan Health Care Private Limited, for alleged forex violations of over Rs 2,000 crore.

"The total amount of contravention identified on different counts and found to have been committed by Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited in the sale transaction of shares of Vasan Health Care to overseas investors is around Rs 45 crore," the Enforcement Directorate notice said.
By Press Trust of India: (EDs: Adding a line after para 4)

New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today accused the Centre of "stalling" the Delhi governments activities by allegedly holding back files relating to the appointment of two new ministers in his cabinet.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also amounted it to the violation of the Constitution and accused the Centre of "paralysing" the Delhi government.

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Kejriwal said the people of Delhi should not suffer due to the BJP-led Centres "enmity" with the Aam Aadmi Party government.

"The Centre is sitting on the files for the last 10 days. Many Delhi government activities are stalled due to this. Your enmity is against us, dont take revenge from the people of Delhi," the Delhi chief minister tweeted.

"The process is on and the file will be cleared shortly," home ministry sources said.

Addressing a press conference on the issue, Sisodia said that it is the chief ministers prerogative to induct elected persons in his Cabinet, adding that it is a very "surprising" that central government is not approving the files.

He said the Delhi government had on May 6 sent the files relating to the induction of two AAP MLAs - Rajender Pal Gautam and Kailash Gehlot - in the Delhi Cabinet, but the Centre is yet to clear the same.

"I want to know why the Centre is trying to paralyse the Delhi government by violating the Constitution. Why are they doing this? What is the Constitutional point the Centre has been considering for the last 10 days?," Sisodia asked.

He said that in the last 25 years, the Centre has not held back such files pertaining to the appointment of ministers.

The Deputy CM also said that there is presently water crisis in Delhi and in this situation, the appointment of water minister should be made at the earliest.

Kapil Mishra was sacked on May 6 and Gautam and Gehlot were inducted in the cabinet. Mishra held the portfolios of water, tourism, art and culture.

Before him, AAP MLA Sandeep Kumar was sacked from the cabinet after an objectionable video allegedly involving him emerged last August.

No new face had replaced Kumar and Sisodia has been taking care of his portfolios -- social welfare, and women and child welfare among others.

Hitting out at the Delhi government, BJP MLA and Opposition leader in the Delhi Assembly, Vijender Gupta said there had been no new minister after Kumars expulsion for the last 10 months and sought to know if work was then not being affected. PTI BUN/SBR ACB IKA

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The CBI raided P Chidambaram, his son Kartik's house in Chennai today in connection with clearance given to INX Media in 2008. Allegations are that Karti received kickbacks from the media company which was then owned by Peter Mukerjea.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Former finance minister P Chidambaram has accused the Narendra Modi government of targeting him and his son by using agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which raided his house in Chennai and 14 other locations across the country today.

Chidambaram issued a statement saying there were no charges against him and that the government was using central agencies to target opposition parties.

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"All charges against me are baseless. I'm being targeted politically and personally," added Karti Chidambaram.

The CBI raids were linked to an FIR which claimed that Karti received kickbacks from INX Media to facilitate foreign investment clearance for the media company in 2008. INX Media was then owned by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea, who are currently in jail in connection with the murder of her daughter Sheena Bora in 2012.

CHIDAMBARAM'S STATEMENT:

FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five Secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are the public officials. There is no allegation against any of them. There is no allegation against me.

Every case was processed according to law and approval was granted or refused in accordance with the recommendations of the FIBP consisting of five Secretaries to the Government of India.

The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of Opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organizations. All I will say is, I shall continue to speak and write.

WATCH: CBI conducts raids at Chidambaram's Chennai residence, son Karti's house ALSO READ:

CBI raids former finance minister P Chidambaram, son Karti's house in Chennai

Aircel-Maxis case: Report on P Chidambaram's role submitted by ED to Supreme Court

Aircel-Maxis Deal: Subramanian Swamy alleges involvement of Chidambaram, son; BJP stays away

Airtel-Maxis case: CBI has 1 month to decide if it will file chargesheet against Chidambaram, Karthi

--- ENDS ---
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As the media and lawmakers debated what classified information Donald Trump reportedly shared with the Russians, America's allies were preparing for their first meeting with the president  by putting on their kid gloves.

The 28 member nations of NATO have plenty of reason to be apprehensive over the May 25 session. After all, during the campaign Trump repeatedly criticized the alliance for not paying its fair share, although he has reversed that position recently.

So NATO reportedly has come up with a plan to handle Trump as parents might try to control an easily distracted child.

Here are the special precautions being taken, according to Foreign Policy:

NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump's notoriously short attention span. The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion, several sources inside NATO and former senior U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. And the alliance scrapped plans to publish the traditional full post-meeting statement meant to crystallize NATO's latest strategic stance.

On May 25, NATO will host the heads of state of all 28 member countries in what will be Trump's first face-to-face summit with an alliance he bashed repeatedly while running for president. NATO traditionally organizes a meeting within the first few months of a new U.S. president's term, but Trump has the alliance more on edge than any previous newcomer, forcing organizers to look for ways to make the staid affair more engaging.

A NATO summit meeting can be a dry affair marked by long-winded speeches, but this appears to be the first time the alliance has attempted to insulate an American president from detail-heavy policy discussions.

"Even a brief NATO summit is way too stiff, too formal, and too policy heavy for Trump. Trump is not going to like that," Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, told Foreign Policy.

So the message to other heads of state is, keep it short and upbeat  do not bore Trump.

He might get cranky.
Italy is giving away more than 100 historic buildings across the country including castles, farmhouses and monasteries.

There's a catch: Recipients of the free buildings must agree to transform them into tourist attractions, like hotels, restaurants or shops. Italy is specifically looking for entrepreneurs younger than 40 to transform the locations.

"The project will promote and support the development of the slow tourism sector," Roberto Reggi from the State Property Agency told The Local Italy. "The goal is for private and public buildings which are no longer used to be transformed into facilities for pilgrims, hikers, tourists, and cyclists."

The properties are located along eight historic pilgrimage or walking routes  like the Appian Way, which connects Rome to the south, or Via Francigena, which goes from Rome to the northern border.

Included on the list of 103 buildings are old school houses, inns and palaces. On the more lavish end of the list is the Castello di Blera, an 11th-century castle in Lazio which is located on a cliff and still retains many of its original medieval features. There's also the Torre della Bastiglia, not far from Bologna, which was built in the 12th century to protect and look out over a nearby castle. Or, for those looking for something in town, there's a former post office in the center of the medieval village of Casertavecchia.

Applicants must present a proposal for the building, detailing how they will transform it into a tourist attraction. The government will then award successful applicants rights to the property for nine years, with the option to extend for an additional nine years. The new owners of the buildings should be ready to start operations by next summer.

The deadline for applications is June 26.

For those who miss this deadline, Italy will introduce another 200 properties to the list within the next two years.
SEOUL  South Korea and the United States have agreed to use all means, including sanctions and dialogue, to try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, the Souths presidential office said Tuesday after a meeting with an aide to President Trump.

The aide, Matthew Pottinger, Asia director on the National Security Council, met with Chung Eui-yong, an adviser to the new South Korean president, and other foreign policy aides in Seoul, the capital.

In their meeting at the Blue House, the presidential palace, the two sides followed up on a recent telephone conversation between President Moon Jae-in and Trump. The meeting was followed by an announcement that Moon and Trump will hold a summit at the White House next month.

On Tuesday, Pottinger and Chung agreed to work toward a summit meeting in late June, said Moons spokesman, Yoon Young-chan.

The two countries also confirmed that Moon and Trump shared four broad principles in dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis, Yoon said.

First, the ultimate goal is to completely dismantle the North Korean nuclear weapons, he said. Second, to that end, both sides will employ all means, including sanctions and dialogue. Third, dialogue with North Korea is possible when the circumstances are right. Fourth, to achieve these goals, South Korea and the United States will pursue drastic and practical joint approaches.

Moon briefly stopped by the meeting to greet Pottinger, Yoon said.

Pottingers visit came two days after North Korea launched a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, considered more powerful than any other missile North Korea has deployed. The successful test Sunday highlighted the Norths growing missile and nuclear threats.

Unlike his two conservative predecessors, Moon, a liberal, has emphasized the importance of dialogue in dealing with North Korea, saying that his predecessors hard line, which focused on sanctions, had failed to prevent the North from expanding its nuclear weapons and missiles arsenal.

Moon has said that he would meet with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, if the circumstances were right.

Also Tuesday, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the top American military officer in the Pacific, met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo to discuss the North Korean missile launch. They said the Norths unacceptable action underscored the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

We now need to apply pressure on North Korea, and Japan and the United States need to coordinate closely so as to apply pressure, Abe told reporters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Choe Sang-hun is a New York Times writer.
BEIRUT  The Syrian government forcefully rejected on Tuesday accusations by the United States that the bodies of thousands of political prisoners had been disposed of in a crematory at a prison near Damascus, describing the allegations as lies to justify U.S. aggression.

The government of President Bashar Assad has long been accused of killing thousands of prisoners and burying them in mass graves. But on Monday the Trump administration made a new charge, accusing Damascus of burning corpses at the Sednaya prison to destroy evidence of war crimes.

U.S. administrations continue fabricating lies and allegations to justify their aggressive and interventionist policies in other sovereign countries, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to the state news agency SANA. These allegations are totally untrue and are only fabrications by the imagination of this administration and its agents.

The response from the Foreign Ministry, which likened the accusations to the script of a Hollywood movie, came on the first day of a new round of negotiations in Geneva on the Syria crisis.

The timing, intensity and public announcement of the accusations suggested that the Trump administration was signaling a tougher political line on Syria, as well as seeking to embarrass Russia and Iran, all in an effort to put pressure on Damascus at the Geneva talks.

Five previous rounds of negotiation in Geneva have yielded little progress. The war is now in its seventh year, in large part because government delegations have refused to discuss the possibility of a political transition from the rule of Assad.

The declassified pictures do not appear to definitively prove the existence of a crematory, and rights groups that have investigated the conflict said they had not reached such a conclusion. But it is well established that there are many bodies to dispose of, and there is precedent for the burning of bodies by the security forces.

Anne Barnard is a New York Times writer.
WASHINGTON  The presidents of the United States and Turkey vowed Tuesday to repair a relationship battered by years of disputes over Syrias civil war and its various fighting groups, even as they broached a new disagreement over U.S. plans to arm Kurdish fighters.

Delivering a statement alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Trump said the U.S. would re-establish its military and economic partnership with Turkey. He committed to backing Turkeys fight against the Islamic State group and a Kurdish insurgency known as the PKK, which the U.S., the European Union and Turkey all consider a terrorist organization.

Such groups will have no safe quarter, Trump said in the White Houses historic Roosevelt Room, where he also commended Turkeys leadership in seeking an end to the horrific killing in Syria.

Erdogan issued a statement afterward and congratulated Trump for his presidential election victory. While Erdogan called for the extradition of a Pennsylvania-based cleric he blames for a failed coup in Turkey last summer, there was little tension.

The biggest dispute between the two NATO allies in recent days has been the U.S. plans to arm Kurdish Syrian militants to help them fight the Islamic State group. Turkey has been pressuring the U.S. to drop support for the militants and doesnt want them spearheading an operation to retake the Islamic States self-declared capital of Raqqa.

Turkey believes the Kurds in Syria are linked to the PKK. The U.S. sees the Syrian Kurds as their best battlefield partner on the ground in northern Syria.

Last month, the Turkish military bombed Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, in one case with American forces only about 6 miles away. Erdogans government also has insisted it may attack Syrian Kurdish fighters again. The U.S., whose forces are sometimes embedded with the Kurds, has much to fear.

In his statement to reporters, Trump did not directly address his decision to arm the Kurds. But he asserted the U.S. and Turkeys mutual commitment to ending Syrias conflict.

The U.S. is relying on regional allies including Turkey for intelligence-sharing and military assistance as it crafts a Syria policy, particularly as Iran and Russia work to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assads government.

Vivian Salama is an Associated Press writer.
The bureau has slapped charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by illegal means and to influence government officials against the Chidambarams'.

By Anand Patel, Shivendra Srivastava: The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has booked senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's son Kartik Chidambaram, his firm Chess Management Services Private Limited for helping Peter and Indrani Mukerjea firms get Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearances (FIPB). The bureau has slapped charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, taking gratification in order by illegal means and to influence government officials against them.

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Another firm Advantage Strategic Consultants Pvt Limited (ASCPL) allegedly connected with Karti has also been named in the FIR in which unknown officials of finance ministry have also been booked.

CBI Joint Director Vineet Vinayak told the media that the Mukerjeas' invested in 26 per cent of INX media without FIPB approval and also got indirect investments from foreign investors to the tune of Rs 305 crore against approved sum of Rs 4.62 crores.

INX media, in order to wriggle out of the situation without any punitive action, entered into a criminal conspiracy with Karti Chidambaram, son of the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, to get the issues solved amicably by influencing the public servants of FIPB in the finance ministry.

Sources say, the irregularities committed by the two firms of the Mukerjeas' were overlooked by the FIPB once they hired Karti's firm. "In their endeavour to show undue favours to INX media, the officials of FIPB now also ignored request from Department of Revenue to investigate the matter," the CBI said in the FIR. It further said, "For the services rendered by Karti's firm, consideration in the form of payments were received by ASCPL, a firm indirectly controlled by Karti Chidambaram."

CBI official said that invoices to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore were also raised in favour of INEX group in the name of other companies in which Karti Chidambaram had direct or indirect interests. "The investigation was in its initial stage and that a decision to summon or question Kartik will be taken at an appropriate time," he added.

The agency raided at 14 places in Chennai, Mumbai and Gurgaon in connection with this case today including homes of the former finance minister and his son. This drew sharp reaction from the Congress party.

Also read:

CBI now raids jailed Peter Mukerjea's Mumbai house; Chidambaram, son Karti's residences raided earlier

CBI raids Chidambaram, son Karti's residences; Modi government trying to silence my voice, says former minister

Stung by Income Tax raids, Lalu Prasad hits back, says will continue fight against Fascist BJP

Also watch:

CBI raids ex-INX Media chief Peter Mukherjea's Mumbai house hours after raiding Chidambaram, Karti

--- ENDS ---
By Ananth Krishnan: China on Tuesday said "the door will always remain open" to India for joining its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative but did not offer any new ideas to resolve the issue of the "flagship" project, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), passing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

China also questioned India's statement on Saturday that called for "meaningful dialogue" with Beijing on the issue, saying that it was "always waiting" for talks. "I do not know what the Indian spokesperson was trying to say," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. "What kind of dialogue is meaningful dialogue? What kind of positive attitude does the spokesman want China to hold? I think our position has also been clear and we are always waiting. If they have the answer, they can give me an answer in a public or private way."

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At the same time, Hua said that China "welcomes the participation of India to the Belt and Road initiative, the answer is clear" when asked about India being the only major country absent at Sunday's first Belt and Road Forum (BRF) in Beijing.

"Now it depends on what attitude the Indian side holds," Hua added. "We know more than 130 countries attended the forum. Our door will always remain open and we will always welcome the participation of the Indian side. Over past four years since we proposed the BRI, we have always held the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits. Our ideas and actions are clear to all, and you can see that from the response from the international community."

CHINA DISMISSES INDIA'S CONCERNS

In a statement to India Today on Monday, China similarly said that "the international community's support speaks volumes" as it dismissed the concerns voiced by India's Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on the eve of the summit, which in addition to India's concerns on the CPEC also questioned the wider principles underpinning OBOR, stating that "connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognised international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality" and "avoid projects that would create unsustainable debt burden for communities". The MEA also said "We have been urging China to engage in a meaningful dialogue. We are awaiting a positive response from the Chinese side."

The Chinese statement also rejected India's concerns on the CPEC, which has been formalised by China as "flagship" even as it passes through PoK. "Regarding the issue of Kashmir which the Indian side is concerned about, we have been stressing that the issue was left over from history between India and Pakistan, and should be properly addressed by the two sides through consultation and negotiation. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an initiative on economic cooperation. It is not directed at any third parties, not relevant to disputes over territorial sovereignty and does not affect China's position on the Kashmir issue," the statement said.

Also read: China rejects India's OBOR statement, says international support speaks volumes

Also read: China backs Pakistan on PoK dam ahead of Belt and Road Forum

WATCH VIDEO: Why is India opposing One Belt One Road Forum?

--- ENDS ---
Congress Chief Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "Congress will launch a nationwide agitation wherein not just political parties but also like minded non-political groups and individuals will be approached."

By Supriya Bhardwaj: The Congress today announced the launch of a 'Janandolan' or a nation-wide public campaign along with other like-minded forces against the ruling regime. The principle opposition party has prepared a blue print for its pro-people vision campaign.

Reportedly, the party does not want to limit this campaign to just Congress leaders and workers and will thus, reach out to non political groups, activists and common people as well.

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Congress Chief Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "Congress will launch a nationwide agitation wherein not just political parties but also like minded non-political groups and individuals will be approached, the ones who are affected by the atrocities of this government."

"The janandolan will not have a platitude driven agenda but people driven agenda," Surjewala added.

The party has also zeroed in on various issues that it plans to raise during this agitation. These include farmers' rights, job creation and the atrocities against Dalits.

The party also plans to raise state specific issues. The janandolan agitation will be launched in the once the organisational revamp within the party is completed. "Many more organisational changes are expected in the next fortnight," said a senior Congress leader.

Also Read:

Gujarat Congress veteran Shankersinh Vaghela unfollows Rahul Gandhi on Twitter. Is he joining BJP?

National Herald case: Why Subramanian Swamy raised 'corruption' in Congress, took Sonia, Rahul Gandhi to court

--- ENDS ---
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The line might have been busy or the phone could have been disabled (as pay phones so often were) when dancer Mimi Quillin was auditioning for legendary choreographer Bob Fosse's 1986 revival of his Broadway hit "Sweet Charity."

But, the stars were favorably aligned: The phone worked for her callback. She got the part, and it led to a short, intense association with Fosse, his wife, dancer Gwen Verdon, and his work.

Quillin, a longtime St. George resident, has turned the moment into "Call Fosse at the Minskoff," a one-woman show. Following an award-winning run last fall on Theatre Row, it makes its borough debut May 19 at the new Artspace @ Staten Island Arts in Stapleton's Urby complex.

It's a big step. Having communicated with movement for much of her work life, Quillin is now using words.

She's established locally, having choreographed shows for Harbor Lights, the Island-based professional theater. She also played the wise and brassy strip-woman Tessie Tura in the company's "Gypsy." Off-Island she has danced all over the country and in the U.K., she teaches at STEPS and is a recognized authority on Fosse choreography.

She interrupted a recent rehearsal to talk about Fosse and Verdon, their work and the importance of using words the way Fosse used movement, economically.

SILIVE: Set the scene vis-a-vis "Call Fosse at the Minskoff." It takes place when and where and, it's about you and your relationship with Bob Fosse, Gwen Verdon and with his work, yes?

MIMI: "Call Fosse" takes place over about a three-year period 1984-87. I auditioned for Fosse for the revival in 1984 and that evening I met Gwen Verdon.

She was hosting an American Dance Machine benefit along with Chita Rivera up in New Haven at the Shubert Theatre that I was performing in.

After another audition, engineered by Gwen, I was offered a job not only as a performer but also as dance captain and assisting them with the revival.

SILIVE: The title refers to what?

MIMI: It's a reference to a torn-off piece of an envelope Verdon handed me telling me to call Bob ... and he MIGHT want to see me again for another audition.

SILIVE: Does "Call Fosse" have music and dancing -- and singing?

MIMI: It's not a musical. It's a play about the making of a musical. I have to demonstrate some steps and sing a bit, but it's only in the service of the story.

SILIVE: Musical theater choreography is part of the genre's story-telling tool set. As a Fosse insider, what was his particular gift?

MIMI: Fosse's gift for storytelling is best described by some words of Gwen's in my play. She tells me to "treat the steps of a dance like the words in a script. Dance the meaning of the steps. Fosse never wasted time on movement for the sake of movement. Every step has a story and a meaning. Like words.

SILIVE: Do you have a favorite Fosse show?

MIMI: "I love "Sweet Charity" the most because it's such a magnificent blend of the two of them. I believe they were both at their best when they collaborated.

SILIVE: Dancers and choreographers communicate with movement. Playwrights use words. Which is clearer? Which is harder to do?

MIMI: Words and movements are intertwined. Having learned from Fosse not to waste my movements I hope I have learned not to waste my words. I can't say which is harder or more articulate.

I think I write because it just comes out that way. I was in a solo performance writing workshop and the teacher asked me about the experience of working with Fosse and I replied that I was saving that story for after I had written a few other things.

I was advised not to save my stories. Tell them. So I did!

I am still developing the play; getting to try new things in front of an audience is a great privilege.

SILIVE: Videotape and film help preserve a choreographer's ideas, but dancers who knew the work first-hand are considered irreplaceable. Why?

MIMI: Video and film are wonderful but they are two dimensional. So even the sharpest eyes cannot possibly pick up all the nuance of a movement. I also think that people who were there when the dances are created understand the spirit of the times that fueled a particular way of moving.

I am extremely lucky that when I teach a movement from "Sweet Charity" I have either Fosse or Verdon in my mind's eye recalling how they taught me. In preproduction for the revival it was often the three of us looking at the film "Sweet Charity" or Gwen recalling entire dances.

They taught me. I would perform it and they would refine it on me before the cast arrived to start rehearsals. It was very exciting and gratifying to have such amazing teachers. There are few people left that have that vision in their minds.

SILIVE: So, 2017 is the 30th anniversary of Bob Fosse's death. He was just 60 when he died and he might have had another 20 years to work. What might have happened had he had more time?

MIMI: I believe that when Bob died he was hoping to do "Chicago," the film, and also he had a project about Walter Winchell he was working on. He had a rough time with the production "Big Deal," but I still think he carried enough weight to get projects done. I also was aware that although he loved dance he was really in love with the camera and acting.

SILIVE: What's in the near future for you workwise?

MIMI: In the near future, I am continuing to work on Call Fosse at the Minskoff for touring and also a New York run. This July marks the world premiere of my three-person play "Degage (Disengage)" at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York.

WHAT: "Call Fosse at the Minskoff," presented by Harbor Lights Theater Company

WHERE: Staten Island Artspace at Urby, 23 Navy Pier Court, Stapleton

WHEN: May 19 and 20, 8 p.m.; May 21 at 2 and 5 p.m.

HOW MUCH: $30 general admission; visit HLTC.org or call Ovationtix sy 866-811-4111

ABOUT BOB FOSSE (1927-1987) ...too many awards to list, but -- Tony Awards for choreography: "Redhead," "Damn Yankees," "Pajama Game," "Little Me," "Cabaret," "Pippin," "Dancin" and "Sweet Charity." Academy Awards/Oscar: Best director, "Cabaret"
CITY HALL -- Mayor Bill de Blasio's re-election campaign is raising more money from Staten Islanders than his two Republican challengers, though Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis only jumped in the race last month.

Unlike de Blasio and Republican and real estate executive Paul Massey, more than a third of Malliotakis' haul so far came from Staten Islanders.

Borough residents donated $36,825 to the Malliotakis campaign through May 11, the last day of the most recent financial disclosure period with the city's Campaign Finance Board, or CFB.

That's nearly 39 percent of the total $94,624 Malliotakis raised in just a few weeks.

Only three percent of the $4.37 million de Blasio's raised so far is from borough residents. They donated $132,056.50 to the mayor's campaign.

But that's still far more than Massey, who's raised some $4.64 million in all. Less than a quarter of a percent of Massey's haul was from Staten Islanders.

De Blasio also got more Staten Island cash in the few weeks after Malliotakis entered the race than Massey raised in the borough over the course of nine months.

Since April 26, the day after Malliotakis filed her candidacy, the mayor's campaign's raised $13,182 in the borough.

Massey has be running since Aug. 4 and has only raised $11,465 from contributors with a Staten Island address. Just $150 was raised in the borough since Malliotakis entered the Republican primary with Massey.

MONEY RAISED OUTSIDE NYC

De Blasio has also raised more money outside the city than both Malliotakis and Massey.

The mayor's campaign has gotten $1.66 million from contributors outside the five boroughs, about 38 percent of what he's raised so far. About 32 percent of Massey's money is from outside the city, a little more than $1.47 million.

Malliotakis has raised just $18,965 from outside the five boroughs, though that's still about a fifth of what she's gotten in all.

FEW STATEN ISLAND FUNDRAISERS

The assemblywoman hasn't had a fundraiser on Staten Island yet. According to her campaign, most of the money came from internet donations and phone calls personally made by Malliotakis.

"I am happy to say, that in less than 2 weeks, we raised more from Staten Island residents than the campaigns of Bill de Blasio and Paul Massey raised in the past 3 months and is indicative of the support I have in my home borough," Malliotakis said in a statement. "Staten Island voters know that I'm a proven tax cutter who will fight for good schools and safe streets and support the NYPD."

Massey hasn't held a fundraiser on Staten Island yet either.

Campaign spokeswoman Mollie Fullington said Massey's recent focus has been on getting to know the issues that matter to Staten Islanders, like the opioid epidemic and transportation.

"Paul looks forward to continuing to spend a lot of time on SI as the campaign goes on, and it won't take a fundraiser to get him there," Fullington said. "I expect we will continue to raise significant amounts of money from Staten Island."

De Blasio's had five fundraisers on Staten Island so far, most recently with the South Shore Democratic Club at the Old Bermuda Inn in Charleston on April 19.

"We are extremely proud of the support we've received here on Staten Island," de Blasio campaign spokesman Dan Levitan said. "Whether it's introducing 24-hour ferry service, repaving miles of roads, or working with the community to combat the opioid epidemic, Bill de Blasio has delivered for Staten Island and all New Yorkers."

MONEY SPENT

Massey's campaign has spent the most money of the three -- more than $4 million -- and has $1.6 million in outstanding loans.

Malliotakis has only spent $12,570 in the last few weeks while de Blasio's campaign has shelled out $1.8 million in all.

De Blasio is participating in the CFB's matching funds program, which provides taxpayer dollars to qualifying candidates in an effort to empower regular New Yorkers in city elections.

The voluntary matching funds program gives campaigns $6 for every $1 raised from city residents, up to $1,050 from every contributor. Matching funds only apply for donations of up to $175 from city residents.

The matching funds program is meant to encourage New Yorkers to run for office or help candidates rely on donations from city residents as opposed to special interests with large pockets.

Unlike Massey, Malliotakis is trying to qualify for the program, though she once called it "an inappropriate use of tax dollars."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Initially fundraising less than her top challenger, Councilwoman Debi Rose has far outraised both her challengers in the most recent filings, as the race for the North Shore seat in the City Council heats up.

Rose, challenged by fellow Democrats Kamillah Hanks and Phil Marius, has raised a total of $71,771 so far this cycle from 447 contributions.

Hanks, surpassing Rose's fundraising with $27,875 to Rose's $20,306 in the first filing this year, brought in a total of $48,980 so far from 243 contributions.

Marius raised $3,277 in the cycle from 31 contributions.

Both Hanks and Rose saw about 82 percent of their contributions in the $1-$175 range.

Another 11 percent or 12 percent of Hanks' donations were in the $176-$999 range, with another 7 percent or 8 percent from donations of $1,000 or more.

Rose got contributions in the $176-$999 range making up 13 percent or 14 percent of her funds, and another 5 percent or 6 percent were from donations of $1,000 or more.

More than 90 percent of funds that Marius raised were between $1 and $175. Less than 5 percent were between $176 and $999 and less than five percent was $1,000 or more.

Less than 10 percent of the contributions to Marius and Rose came from outside New York City, whereas Hanks collected about 12 percent from donors outside the city.

A spokeswoman for Rose's campaign said, "Deputy Majority Leader Rose is grateful for the support that her re-election campaign has received from all across the district. It is recognition of what she has achieved so far and faith in her ability to accomplish even more in another term. The campaign expects to be eligible for the maximum in matching funds."

Last week, Rose located her campaign office next door to Hanks' place of business.

A Hanks spokeswoman said, "During this period, Ms. Hanks had launched her aggressive door-knocking campaign in her efforts to bring her candidacy to each and every voter. She is on pace to spend the maximum allowable under the law, but without being prisoner to monied interests that plague her opponent. Her campaign will be won on the grass-roots support for her candidacy, which grows every day."

Marius said he is spending most of his time going door-to-door, meeting people at their homes and on mass transit.

He is holding his first fundraiser this Sunday.

"For the most part, we're not too focused on raising money as we are building a policy agenda reflecting the voice of the people," he said.
By Vidya : Activist Anjali Damania has written a letter to Arthur Road Jail prison authorities against perks being given to Chhagan Bhujbal, who is in judicial custody for money laundering, along with his son and nephew.

Bhujbal, a former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader, was brought to a special PMLA court from Arthur Road for his remand when he was allegedly allowed to be in court for hours, meeting people. "Is this a meeting ground for the NCP leader? Why is he being allowed to meet people?" Damania asked in her letter, apart from raising many other questions.

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Bhujbal's judicial custody was, meanwhile, extended to May 30.

The activist then lodged a complaint with Additional Director General Prisons, Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay, who replied that Damanias complaint had been noted. "I will hand over this formal complaint to DIG swati Sathe to inquire as far as prison part is concerned," he said.

Here's the full text of Damania's complaint:

Respected Sir,

I, along with two others, have been fighting a PIL 23/2014 against Shri Chhagan Bhujbal, who was Ex - Dy Chief Minister of Maharashtra. It is in this petition that a SIT of ED & ACB was constituted. In March 2016, he was formally arrested.

Sir, the people of Maharashtra (including people working at the jail) have faith in our work, they have been reporting such incidences to us. I have made several telephonic complaints and SMSs to you regarding preferential treatment given to Shri Chhagan Bhujbal and Shri Sameer Bhujbal in Arthur Road Jail, which included a 5 feet Television where he was watching Hindi movies, favorite food being provided (Chicken Masala), fruits every 2 hours and also that Shri Sameer Bhujbal was provided Vodka, which was sneaked into Arthur Road Jail through Coconut Water. I was also told that Sameer was allowed to talk for 3 hours in the morning and in the evening with a special place allocated to him. The mobile jammer of Arthur road was also snapped. After my complaints, Shri Joshi of Vigilance was deputed by you who also happened to do favours to Shri Bhujbal, asking him if he wanted some books to read? You informed that there was a TV which you explained (though I don't agree) that it was used for conferencing and was moved out by you. It was then that I requested that at least such important prisoners should be monitored (the CCTV camera) by you in your cabin. Sir I respect you a lot and I am fully aware that you are one of the few responsible officers. I had expected strict monitoring and action from you and hence I had not documented all these incidences. But now I certainly feel that it is important that I do so.

I had also filed a contempt petition against Dr T.P Lahane, dean of J.J Hospital for allowing extended hospital stay. Dr Lahane was found guilty of contempt and the contempt petition was allowed by PMLA Court with the matter been referred to Mumbai High Court for Contempt proceedings. I had also handed over a video of Shri Bhujbal to the media, where he was seen walking the corridors of Bombay hospital without any police. This was sent to me by some people working at Bombay Hospital. Some media channels also showed how there were several visitors and family members meeting Shri Bhujbal at the hospital though there has to be restricted and monitored entry for prisoners.

Even the last time, there were reports that Shri Bhujbal met a lot of people, including those of the political class, when he visits the court. This was widely covered by the media. But today this was repeated. But unfortunately there has been NO ACTION or no lesson learnt? Today too, he was at the PMLA court in the ED matter. Justice Bhavke was not likely to come today, yet, prisoner Shri Bhujbal was in the court room for over 3 hours (till 2 pm) meeting a lot of people, including contractors.

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Pankaj Bhujbal had the audacity of threatening the approvers, who were standing there in the ED matter. I wanted the footage of this and told the media to go to the spot. The media called back saying that they were not allowed to even go there? Sir what is happening? Neither the Court Clerk nor the police objected to it? Sir, in such a high profile and sensitive case, it is expected that the police and the prison authorities takes utmost care to ensure that the prisoner is not allowed to talk or interact with anyone and is whisked away as soon as his appearance at the court is done. I fail to understand if this has been done locally by the police department who escorted him or a prior consent was taken from the Prison Authorities. Please treat this as my formal complaint and kindly keep me informed of the investigation / action taken.

With Regards,

Mrs Anjali Damania

--- ENDS ---
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Stapleton man fought the law five months ago, and, on Tuesday, the law won.

Diron Miller pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to second-degree assault for attacking a Criminal Court officer.

Miller, then 23, had gone to court to answer a warrant issued on Dec. 1 for his failure to appear for arraignment on a desk appearance ticket accusing him of possessing marijuana on Oct. 4, according to a criminal complaint and online state court records.

Miller apparently attempted to leave before his case was processed, and court officers tried to stop him, the complaint said.

The defendant, who stands 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds, flung one court officer to the ground and tried to run out of the courthouse, but was nabbed, said the complaint

The court officer suffered lacerations and contusions to his arm, hand, knee and leg and was taken to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, for treatment, said the complaint.

After his capture, Miller threatened a female court officer while being processed on the new arrest, the complaint said.

Miller was charged with a felony count of second-degree assault and misdemeanor counts of obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest and marijuana possession.

In exchange for his plea, Miller will be sentenced June 5 to a year in jail.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A New Jersey man, who authorities said swiped an SUV with a baby in the back seat from a New Springville parking lot six months ago, will spend up to four years behind bars for failing to complete a court-ordered drug-treatment program.

Kenneth Byrnes, who was sentenced Tuesday, could have avoided prison and ultimately received probation by finishing the long-term, residential-treatment program under the terms of his plea agreement in March.

He was warned he'd be sent upstate if he failed.

Police said Byrnes, then 46, hopped off a bicycle and stole a black 2008 Ford Edge SUV, whose engine was running, at about 10 a.m. on Nov. 19.

The SUV was in the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts on Richmond Hill Road near Richmond Avenue, and a 3-month-old baby was inside the vehicle, police said.

The child's mother was inside the Dunkin' Donuts when the car was reported stolen, a source with knowledge of the investigation told the Advance.

The Edge was spotted crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at about 10:30 a.m., then abandoned near the corner of 54th Street and Third Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, police said.

Police found the car and the crying, unharmed baby a short time later, the source said.

The infant was examined at NYU Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, according to hospital staff.

Byrnes was arrested on Nov. 21.

At Byrnes' Criminal Court arraignment the next day, his lawyer, Gregory C. Clarke, said the defendant, after realizing a baby was in the back seat, parked the car and called 911 from a block away.

"He made sure police came to get the child ... then voluntarily surrendered," the Advance quoted Clarke as saying.

That day, Byrnes was granted drug treatment for an alleged heroin addiction, at the request of his attorney.

Prosecutors said then that Byrnes has a criminal history dating back 30 years, which includes four felony convictions and nine misdemeanor convictions.

Two months ago, he pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to a felony count of fourth-degree grand larceny and to petit larceny, a misdemeanor, to satisfy the charges against him.

He was told the felony plea would be withdrawn if he completed drug treatment, and he'd be sentenced to probation on the misdemeanor.

He was sentenced Tuesday to two to four years in prison.

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Stating that as many as 91 lakh persons have come under the tax net, Arun Jaitley said he expects further increase in tax returns going ahead.

By India Today Web Desk: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said that the number of persons under the income tax net has increased by 91 lakh post note ban as unaccounted cash lost anonymity.

Jaitley today launched a new website on 'Operation Clean Money,' a programme to bring illegal wealth on books.

During the launch, the finance minister said that the the fallout of the decision to demonetise higher currency notes has increased the movement towards digitisation, number of assessees going up and tax revenue jumping as also fear of dealing in cash being installed.

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Stating that as many as 91 lakh persons have come under the tax net, Jaitley said he expects further increase in tax returns going ahead. Post demonetisation, there has been a hike in collection of personal income tax, the finance minister said, adding that the new portal will help honest tax payer.

CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra said there was 22 per cent growth in e-filed returns post demonetisation.

As many as 17.92 lakh people were identified for unexplained deposits post demonetisation, he said, adding the tax department has identified one lakh suspected tax avoidance cases. He also said that an undisclosed income of Rs 16,398 crore was identified post demonetisation.

"We identified around 17.92 lakh persons in whose case the cash transactions did not appear in line with the taxpayers' profiles. And online verifications of these transactions are underway," Chandra said. Of the 17.92 lakh, so far 9.72 lakh individuals responded to SMSes and e-mails sent by the income tax department.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also Read:

CBI raids Chidambaram, son Karti's residences; Modi government trying to silence my voice, says former minister

Stung by Income Tax raids, Lalu Prasad hits back, says will continue fight against Fascist BJP

Also Watch:

Demonetisation will build a cashless economy: Arun Jaitley

--- ENDS ---
Several patients are stuck inside the Sarvodaya Hospital in Faridabad's sector 19 after a massive blaze broke out in the building.

By India Today Web Desk: A massive fire has broken out at the Sarvodaya Hospital in Faridabad's sector 19.

Four fire tenders are currently present on the spot and efforts are being made to evacuate the patients stuck inside.

Those rescued have been taken to another hospital in Fardibad's sector 8.

(More details awaited)

--- ENDS ---
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A look at the payments coming in to three bitcoin wallets associated with the Wanna Cry cyber attack shows that those behind the ransomware have only made $60,500 so far.

By India Today Web Desk: Since Friday, more than three lakh computers in over 150 countries, including India, have been in the grips of WannaCry, a ransomware that encrypts all data on a system and demands payment in return for freeing up access.

However, for a cyber attack that is being termed as the largest of its kind in history, WannaCry has failed to raise the amount of money that one would imagine. A full three days after the malware first struck, the hackers behind the ransomware have made just $60,512.82, or a little less than Rs 39 lakh.

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WannaCry, which uses a Microsoft Windows exploit first developed by the United States National Security Agency, works by encrypting and blocking access to all data on an infected computer system. The malware then displays a message telling users not to worry and that their data can safely be restored.

WannaCry demands that users pay between $300 (around Rs 19,000) and $600 (around Rs 39,000) in bitcoin in lieu of getting their data decrypted.

THE THING ABOUT BITCOIN

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that uses blockchain protocol, which supposedly allows users to remain completely anonymous while making or receiving payments. However, the thing about bitcoin is that all transactions are publicly accessible - the only aspect hidden is the identity of the person making a payment or the person receiving bitcoin.

European cyber security firm Redsocks, in its WannaCry analysis, found that the hackers behind the ransomware were using three bitcoin wallets.

A look at the wallets' transaction history (which is publicly accessible) shows that those behind the WannaCry ransomware have received only 232 payments so far. In total, WannaCry has made $60,513 or Rs 38,75,543.

At the time of writing this report on Tuesday morning, one wallet had seen 86 transactions worth $22,725.81, another had 78 transactions worth $22006.60 while the third saw 68 payments worth $15,780.41.

WANNACRY A FAILURE?

The reasons for the low payments can only be speculated. Interestingly, in the message that WannaCry shows users after infecting their computers, the malware warns that the ransom amount, if left unpaid, would be doubled after three days and that the data on the systems would be completely lost after a week.

This means that several computer systems that were targeted in the first wave of attack on Friday have already seen their first deadline lapse. It is possible that more people might pay up as the deadline for losing their files nears or that there are more bitcoin wallets associated with WannaCry that are yet to be found.

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Meanwhile, according to a Reuters report, some cyber security experts believe that the motive behind the WannaCry ransomware attack was not to make money, but simply to cause disruption, a la 'some people just want to watch the world burn'.

"I believe that this was spread for the purpose of causing as much damage as possible," said Matthew Hickey, a co-founder of British cyber consulting firm Hacker House, told Reuters.

INDIA IMPACT

Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine and India were among the countries worst affected in the WannaCry cyber attack, multiple cyber security firms and researchers have said.

There were reports that several ATMs across the country have been instructed to remain shut until they can be updated with the relevant Microsoft Windows security patches. The Reserve Bank of India, however, denied those reports.

"Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have been affected partly," Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, adding that overall, India hasn't been affected much.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team said it received formal reports of just five "incidents" across locations like Delhi and Tamil Nadu, according to news agency PTI.

"It is nothing major, but we are still watching. The next couple of days, we will be on alert on this," CERT-In, director general, Sanjay Bahl told PTI.

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Auto maker Nissan, whose systems came under attack globally, said the Renault-Nissan alliance plant in Chennai was initially affected, but said there was no major impact on business.

There are, however, fears that WannaCry's true impact in the country could go under reported due to companies' reliance of unsupported or pirated versions of Microsoft Windows.

GLOBAL WHODUNIT

Meanwhile, in a development early Tuesday morning, anti-virus provider Kaspersky said it had found what appeared to be proof of possible links between WannaCry and Lazarus, a hacker collective widely believed to be run by the North Korean establishment.

Kaspersky said the code of an early version of WannaCry shared similarities to code previously used by Lazarus. While the cyber security firm said that more investigation was required, the discovery, first made by a Google researcher named Neel Mehta, is the "most significant clue to date regarding the origins of WannaCry."

(With agency inputs)

ALSO READ | Microsoft on WannaCry ransomware: Governments should treat cyber attack as 'wake-up call', NSA partly to blame

ALSO READ | WannaCry: Techie finds kill switch to ransomware. Here's how to save your data from cyberattacks

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ALSO WATCH | WannaCry scare: Cyber attack hits over 150 countries, cripples multi-national companies

--- ENDS ---
The medical board of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences have decided to abort the foetus as normal delivery is also equally perilous.

The accused, Suresh, 21 was arrested on May 11.

By Manjeet Sehgal: The medical board of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGI) comprising seven doctors including three gynaecologists today decided to abort the five month old foetus of a 10-year-old rape victim.

"The victim's mother had requested the court to allow the abortion of the foetus. The court today directed the medical board to take appropriate decision keeping in mind the health of the victim. The board has now decided to abort the foetus," SHO, Rohtak Women Police Station said.

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Just days after Haryana's Rohtak district made news for a harrowing rape and murder case of a 23-year-old girl, news of a 10-year-old impregnated by her step-father shocked one and all .

The minor is five months pregnant after being allegedly raped by her step-father, who is also her paternal uncle.

WHEN THE INCIDENT CAME TO LIGHT

The incident came to light on Friday, after her mother taking notice of her deteriorating condition took her to a hospital, where doctors confirmed her pregnancy and the sexual assault.

Doctors at the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) confirmed the pregnancy and said that the victim is in a serious condition.

The accused, Suresh, 21 was arrested on May 11 after the minor's mother filed a police complaint. He is currently lodged in Rohtak Jail and is under judicial custody.

Suresh hails from Pota village of Sitamarhi district, Uttar Pradesh while the victim's mother, who works as a domestic help, hails from Bihar and was widowed five years ago.

She married the accused who repeatedly raped the victim when mother was away.

The 10-year-old narrated the series of incidents and said her step-father threatened her with dire consequences, if she told anyone.

The court which took up the case hearing today had left it on the medical board to decide whether to abort her foetus, as termination of pregnancy is not allowed after 20 weeks since it is not considered safe.

However, in this particular case the doctors have decided to abort the foetus as normal delivery is also equally perilous.

ROHTAK HORROR REDUX

A young girl was abducted in Rohtak, taken to a secluded place and allegedly gangraped by seven persons. Her mutilated body was found on May 11.

Police were stunned to see the state of the body. The victim had been brutally raped and body bore several injury marks.

Sharp-edged objects had been inserted into the private parts of the victim. Her head had been smashed. A vehicle had been run over her.

The perpetrators of the crime tried to disfigure her to hide the identity of the victim. The forensic team that conducted the investigation said that the victim was gang raped .

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Also Read:

Rohtak shocker: 10-year-old pregnant after being raped by step-father, doctors undecided on abortion

Rohtak gangrape and murder: Post-mortem finds victim's food pipe missing, Rs 10.5 lakh assistance to kin

Also Watch:

Haryana horror: Woman abducted, gangraped and killed in Rohtak

--- ENDS ---
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Losses on commercial real estate loans pose a more immediate risk to Australia's banks than developments in the housing market, where regulators are putting the brakes on riskier lending, Fitch Ratings says.

However, foreign banks are more likely than the local lenders to feel the pain if there is a sharp increase in buyers who cannot settle their off-the-plan purchases.

Building approvals for apartments have surged in the big east coast cities in recent years. Credit:Jessica Shapiro

After a recent surge in apartment building, the credit ratings agency on Tuesday highlighted losses on loans to property developers as a more pressing concern than residential mortgages, which dominate banks' loan books.

Tim Roche, head of Australia and New Zealand financial institutions at Fitch, told the ratings agency's conference in Sydney that foreign bank exposure to Australian commercial property had roughly doubled since 2013.
Shayne Elliott, chief executive at ANZ,. Credit:Pat Scala In submissions to Treasury on Monday, banks argued the budget's levy would work against lenders' efforts to build up more liquid, or easy-to-sell, assets, designed to help banks cope through a period of turmoil. In response to the banks, Treasury Secretary John Fraser on Tuesday said the tax was developed in line with "normal budget processes." NAB chairman and former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has heavily criticised the tax. Credit:Quentin Jones "Through those processes, careful consideration was given to the design of the levy, the costings and to its effect on the economy as well as the financial sector," Mr Fraser said in a letter to Australian Bankers' Association chief Anna Bligh.

"This consideration drew on Australia's experience with and development of financial sector levies over a number of years and international experience." Malcolm Turnbull: "If we don't sell [coal] to [India], someone else will.'' Credit:Daniel Munoz The Australian banks will do everything within their power to get this back out of their customers, not out of their shareholders. Mr Costello said the banks were big enough and profitable enough to handle the tax without it affecting financial stability measures. "The Australian banks are very strong. I don't think we have to worry about them in the immediate future," he said.

Tim Roche, senior director, financial institutions at Fitch Ratings said the concern was that the tax rate could be raised. Credit:Jessica Hromas The Future Fund, Australia's sovereign wealth fund, invests in Australian shares, including bank shares, on behalf of Australian public servants. Some of Australia's largest super funds have also moved to play down claims that the levy would have an impact on investor returns. Industry super fund Cbus, which manages $38 billion on behalf of 742,000 members, said the levy would not impact its decision to invest in the big banks. "Any cost or levy on a bank does make the business harder to manage, but it hasn't materially affected the way we think about the banks and our portfolio," chief investment officer Kristian Fok said.



"It's not really in the governments,' or anyone's, interest for [the banks] to be weak."

AustralianSuper, which has 2.2 million members and manages more than $110 billion in funds, said the banks ultimately remained the "big beneficiaries" of the regulatory regime. "They are in a privileged position and the public is dissatisfied. If you are in a privileged position, you have got to respect that," chief investment officer Mark Delaney said. "The banks need to win back public support. There are a many things going on that affect returns." CBA, ANZ Bank, National Australia Bank, Westpac and Macquarie Group were notified about the government's plan for a levy on their clients' deposits only an hour before the federal budget was handed down on May 9. The legislation to establish the new banks tax is due to be released on Wednesday. A spokesman for Scott Morrison said the Treasury was consulting with the banks over the laws and "it is anticipated the legislation will be introduced within the next sitting fortnight" which begins May 22.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday hit back at former Treasury boss turned NAB chairman Ken Henry, after he criticised the levy's design. "He knows as well as I do that the banks can well afford to pay this," Mr Turnbull said. Mr Morrison said it was "hardly a surprising headline" that the boss of a major bank wanted to pay less tax. The government has indicated it was likely the Senate would hold an inquiry into the proposed laws. Labor leader Bill Shorten has indicated his party would back an inquiry, but the opposition will vote for the proposed tax.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings' head of Australia and New Zealand financial institutions, Tim Roche, said the levy had triggered concerns the government would ratchet up the rate of the tax in the future. If that occurred, it could prompt the banks to take on more risk to sustain their returns, or it could pressure some customers by leading to interest rate hikes. Mr Roche estimated the bank tax would account for about 5 per cent of after-tax profits, but it would not shift the banks' credit ratings in its own right. "We think that is a credit negative, but it's a mild credit negative," Mr Roche said at a conference in Sydney. "Our bigger concern is that this becomes something that gets continually tweaked down the line. So you get a year down the road, and the government decides for whatever reason they want to make it 10 basis points, then another year down the road, it becomes 15 [basis points]. There is a risk that this continues through."

"The more that that comes through, the greater pressure it puts on the banks potentially needing to do things like going down the risk curve to maintain profitability, potentially passing through higher interest rate costs to borrowers, which would lead to, at the margin, greater levels of stress for those borrowers." Mr Morrison has said the government has "no plans" to raise the levy's rate from 0.06 percentage points of non government-guaranteed liabilities. The government has argued the tax is a small share of the big bank's $30 billion in annual profits, that the measure will enhance competition, and that many other countries such as the United Kingdom have bank taxes. In the UK, the levy's rate has been changed nine times since it was introduced in 2011. Tax Institute's senior tax counsel Bob Deutsch said the start date of the levy should be postponed to allow the banks time to get their systems in order.
Explosives producer Orica expects domestic gas prices to stabilise at the world price by the early 2020s following the steep rises of recent years.

The launch of exports of gas from a series of new projects in Queensland has pushed east coast gas prices sharply higher, with some manufacturers claiming they are finding it difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of gas to meet their contractual needs over the next year or so.

Orica, which operates a large plant at Kooragang Island, Newcastle, has secured its gas needs through until 2020, paying close to the present market price.

"From 2021, we expect the gas price to be around the [liquefied natural gas] price, net back to $10-11," Alberto Calderon, the group's chief executive, said. "Therefore we expect no impact for the next decade."
Actress Sanaya Irani and Barun Sobti are one of the most popular on-screen pairs of TV. Picture courtesy: hotstar

By Indo-Asian News Service: Actor Barun Sobti will be back on small screen after a five-year break with Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon 3. His friend and actress Sanaya Irani says she is excited to see him in action on TV.

The actress played Khushi Kumari Gupta in the first season of the show opposite Barun.

Also read: Barun Sobti is set to romance this actress in Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon 3

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"I am really looking forward to season three and what the storyline shapes up to be. Barun has been one of my most favourite co-stars, and continues to be an amazing friend even today," Sanaya said in a statement.

She added, "Now that he's back on TV, I'm really excited for him. Barun is a crazy person and I wish him all the craziness and good luck for the third season."

In the third season of the show, Barun will be seen opposite Shivani Tomar. The serial will beam on Star Plus channel soon.

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Advertising executive Russel Howcroft has been appointed the new head of the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) by the federal government.

Mr Howcroft replaces academic Julianne Schultz, who was appointed chairwoman in 2012.

Russel Howcroft (right) is well known for his role on ABC show The Gruen Transfer.

The school is a national training academy for film, television and radio and boasts graduates such as film maker Jane Campion and Rolf de Heer. It recently launched a five-year plan to become more focused on practical training.

"Mr Howcroft has extensive experience in the screen industry," a release from Communications Minister Mitch Fifield stated.
A dishevelled-looking Clive Palmer has compared the probe into the collapse of Queensland Nickel to Nazi Germany before suffering memory lapses on the Federal Court stand.

For the second week in a row, Mr Palmer turned up to the court in Brisbane on Tuesday clutching a sick bag and complaining of pain.

The mining magnate was last week grilled over the whereabouts of his jet-setting nephew Clive Mensink, despite claiming he was too sick and suffering from memory loss after taking the morphine-based drug, Targin.

Mr Palmer's barrister, Andrew Boe, on Tuesday told the court his client was still ill and had continued to ingest the painkiller.
Perth-based syndicator Property Bank has sold Building 8 at 658 Church Street in Melbourne to a wealthy local investor for $44 million.

The sale follows Property Bank offloading another suburban office in South Melbourne's Market Street for $19.4 million on a 5.4 per cent yield last month.

Building 8 is believed to have sold on a yield close to 5 per cent. Credit:Urban Angles

The syndication group specialising in "counter cyclical" trades  run by Sandy and Gus MacKellar  generally flies under the radar, and did not return calls for comment.

Suburban office assets are proving popular with institutional investors looking for yield outside their traditional focus on core CBD office markets, although both Property Bank assets were sold to private investors.
Hundreds of workers at Australia's largest equipment-hire business face a pay cut of up to 40 per cent unless they agree to let the company slash new employees' wages and conditions.

Fairfax Media has obtained a copy of a presentation being shown to 900 staff at Coates Hire this week, in which management warns it will consider tearing up the existing pay deal altogether if employees turn down its "best and final offer".

Coates Hire is the latest major Australian employer to flag the option of applying for the Fair Work Commission to terminate an agreement. Credit:Gillianne Tedder

Coates Hire is the latest major Australian employer to flag the option of applying for the Fair Work Commission to terminate an agreement  a tactic that, if successful, reverts workers back to the minimum wages contained in awards.

It comes as hundreds of workers at Victoria's Loy Yang power plant face a similar risk of a dramatic pay cut, after their employer AGL won an application to abolish the agreement during a stalemate in industrial negotiations in January.
It wasn't long after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announced the home of the government's new regional investment agency before accusations of pork barrelling went flying.

After Orange emerged as the base for the Regional Investment Corporation, designed to oversee delivery of funds to farmers, eyebrows were raised given recent NSW political history.

The city is at the heart of an electorate the Nationals lost in a state by-election last November after a 69-year hold on power, drawing legitimate questions about the reasons behind the government's decision to host the agency there.

After the controversial decision to uproot the national pesticides authority from Canberra to Armidale, in Mr Joyce's New England electorate, the public would be justified in being cynical about the underlying motives of the Nationals' decentralisation agenda.
The respected former head of Treasury Ken Henry has slammed the levy saying it threatens to disrupt financial system governance and takes tax policy back to the 1980s. Mr Henry is talking his book as you would expect him to in his current role as chairman of the National Australia Bank. In the short time they've had to make submissions to government on the levy, the banks have mounted complex technical arguments against it, chiefly that it contradicts the regulators' requirement that they strengthen their balance sheets, because it creates a disincentive to hold more than the minimum required amount of high-quality liquid assets.

Slowing the timetable so the tax comes into effect in September instead of July would allow more time to ensure it is implemented smoothly without unintended consequences. On the other hand, it would give the banks more time to muster their formidable resources in opposition. They complain they won't be able to get their systems ready in time, yet they are better resourced to do that than almost any other sector you could name.

Before they protest too much the banks should consider how much worse things could be. The levy has taken some of the heat off the idea of a banking royal commission, an idea that the Herald supports, as does Labor and three in four voters. Other measures to rein them in are coming. The Prime Minister promised a banking complaints tribunal that would give "low-cost" and "speedy" resolution to customer problems, though the ongoing review led by Melbourne academic Ian Ramsay favours beefing up the existing ombudsmen functions.

Then there's the competitive threat posed by start-ups in the finance industry, which prompted Commonwealth Bank chief Ian Narev to warn last June the bank would be "toast" within a decade if it didn't innovate successfully. The longer and louder they complain, the more the banks sound like old men shouting at kids to keep off their lawns.
While George Street may not realise it, the Labor Party government needs to cull crocodiles before the LNP's crocodile policy culls Labor.

For voters in north Queensland, crocodiles represent everything wrong about a government that makes decisions for the benefit of Greens voters in south-east Queensland, without any regard or understanding for voters who live 1000 kilometres or more from George Street.

Bill O'Chee thinks the Labor state government will be in strife if it doesn't go after Queensland's crocs. Credit:iStock

The LNP's shoot-to-kill policy for crocodiles that pose a risk to people, especially those lurking around boat ramps, on coastal beaches, and populated waterways, will be a vote changer in key Labor-held seats like Barron River, Mundingburra, Bundaberg, Mirani, Keppel, Thuringowa, and even Maryborough, where crocodiles are an increasing problem. It will also shore up the LNP vote in seats like Whitsunday and Burdekin.

Labor's policy of doing more surveys will only lose them votes in the seats that count, and win not one single vote in south east Queensland.
We have a big problem in Australia that has been happening for so long we hardly notice it. It's that far too many of our young people leave school with an inadequate education.

According to Victoria University's Mitchell Institute, 26 per cent of students fail to finish school or a vocational equivalent.

Illustration: Simon Letch

I'm sure some of these people catch up in later life, while others lead rewarding lives without benefit of further education. But I fear most of the 26 per cent lead lives of economic insecurity and limited personal fulfilment. They are the shockingly high proportion of students our school system has failed.

The hardest questions I'm asked as an economics writer is why when, until the mid-1970s, economists defined full employment as an unemployment rate of less than 2 per cent, today they say it's about 5 per cent. My explanation is that the economy has changed, but our schools haven't kept up. The great majority of unemployed people are unskilled.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating)

From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad/London, May 16 (PTI) Heroin "concealed in packets" was seized on board a flight of the ailing Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) at Heathrow airport, British authorities said today.

The narcotics was seized from PK 785 passenger plane that arrived at the London airport from Islamabad. The plane was searched and its 14-member crew detained for questioning after it landed at the UKs busiest airport yesterday at 2:50pm.

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UKs National Crime Agency (NCA) confirmed that drugs were found on board the flight.

"National Crime Agency officers are investigating following the seizure of a quantity of heroin found by Border Force officers on board a flight from Pakistan at Heathrow on Monday. No arrests have been made, enquiries are ongoing," an NCA spokesman told Pakistans Geo News.

Earlier today, Dawn reported that as passengers disembarked, the flight crew and aircraft were searched by the authorities. More than a dozen crew members were released after being detained for nearly two hours by the British authorities, PIA spokesman Mashood Tajwar said.

"We have not been informed as to why was the crew detained?" said Tajwar.

The search was carried out by UK Border Security Agency on suspicion that drugs were hidden on board the aircraft.

PIA has been suffering huge losses and administration is trying to improve the situation but it frequently faces embarrassment.

In January, as many as seven passengers were forced to stand throughout the over three-hour flight from Karachi to Madina after the airline boarded excess passengers in a serious breach of air safety regulations.

A month later, a Heathrow-bound PIA aircraft was intercepted and escorted by fighter jets to Stansted Airport in northeast London because of a "vague security threat".

Later, a suspect was arrested and charged with fraud and misrepresentation by the police. PTI SH AMS ABH

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The Coalition is set to use its numbers on a powerful parliamentary committee to approve the Immigration Department's controversial plan to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on an office upgrade.

Despite concerns about the value of the $256 million office fit-out - believed to be the most expensive in federal government history - the Public Works Committee is poised to approve it next week.

While the committee is yet to finalise its report on the "Headquarters Project", it is understood the five government members will recommend the proposal - backed by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton - goes ahead. However the four Labor members of the committee will take what is a rare step for a public works project and submit a dissenting report spelling out their concerns, Fairfax Media understands.

Under the proposal, the number of buildings the department inhabits in the national capital would shrink from 12 to five, with the main office located in a new state-of-the-art building next to Canberra Airport.
The Medicare rebate thaw will not apply to 93 per cent of scans, including the X-rays, MRIs and ultrasounds used to diagnose some of the most common forms of cancer.

Health Minister Greg Hunt's staged four-year thaw has been widely welcomed by doctors' groups such as the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of GPs. Under the plan, indexation will gradually be reapplied to bulk-billing incentives, visits to the doctor and allied health services.



On budget night, the Turnbull government said the final stage of the thaw, due in July 2020, would lift the freeze on "targeted" radiology and diagnostic imaging services - the first indexation since 2004.

But new Department of Health figures reveal precisely how "targeted" the changes will be: the freeze will be lifted on 59 of the 891 radiology items listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule - just 7 per cent.

While mammograms and a number of CT scans will be indexed under the plan, X-rays, MRIs, PETs and ultrasounds for such common conditions as brain, lung, breast and ovarian cancer will not. The rebate on common scans for arthritis and nuclear medicine will also remain frozen.
Drug users who return a positive test as part of a welfare crackdown will not be referred to police, the government says, but will instead be offered a more "compassionate" path.

Expanding on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's insistence the controversial drug-test welfare trial was a policy "based on love", Assistant Minister for Social Services Zed Seselja said on Tuesday people who tested positive would not be reported to authorities and potential criminal action.

Senator Seselja said the government was looking to help people, not punish them.

"The first thing that would obviously jump out at me is that simply because someone has some drugs in their system, which proves they've used drugs, the idea that that could potentially lead to a criminal prosecution, I think is highly unlikely on the back of simply a positive drug test," he told Sky News.
Fairfax Media unreservedly apologises to Mr Chris Jermyn for the series of articles written by one of our journalists during the 2016 federal election campaign.

Fairfax Media acknowledges that the articles contained errors. It also acknowledges that the articles have caused Mr Jermyn substantial hurt and concern about his reputation.
A Bondi model who moonlighted as an eastern suburbs cocaine runner made home deliveries in his black Lexus and complained that one driver in the syndicate was scaring off the girls because he looked like "a junkie".

George Gerges, 33, was arrested in his Lexus in 2015 with 40 bags of cocaine hidden in his underwear, 110 bags in his gym bag and 32 bags stashed in a first aid kit in his car.

George Gerges leaves court this month after pleading guilty to supplying cocaine to 1015 people. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Despite previously flaunting his wealth on social media with photos from overseas holidays and eastern suburbs parties, he is now represented by Legal Aid.

On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to delivering cocaine to 1015 customers in the inner city and eastern suburbs between May and September in 2015.
Government MPs are set to be granted a conscience vote on a draft bill that would allow terminally ill NSW residents aged at least 25 to end their own lives with medical assistance, once the issue goes before cabinet and the joint party room.

But unlike her predecessor Mike Baird, who in January said he would vote against a bill that is put before Parliament, Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Tuesday declined to reveal her position.

Opposition Leader Luke Foley says he would vote against legislation to allow voluntary assisted dying should it make it to the lower house, but that Labor MPs would be granted a free vote.

On Tuesday, a cross-party working group comprising Liberal MP Lee Evans, Nationals MLC Trevor Khan, Labor MLC Lynda Voltz, Greens MLC Mehreen Faruqi and independent MP Alex Greenwich unveiled details of the draft bill that is due to come before the upper house in August.
A man who allegedly murdered his mother in a south Sydney townhouse has asked the court for a mental health assessment.

Nathan Connors, 28, appeared in Newtown Local Court on Tuesday after he was charged following his arrest at St Peters, in the inner west, on Monday.

Police at a townhouse complex in Florida Street, Sylvania, where the body of a woman was found. Credit:John Veage

His 55-year-old mother Lynda Connors' bloodied body was found sprawled in bed inside the Sylvania townhouse she shared with her two children earlier on Monday.

Mr Connors' older brother, Simon, 31, discovered their mother's body at 7am and called emergency services.
Three girls have been stopped by police after driving a stolen vehicle more than 500 kilometres from Queensland to the NSW Mid North Coast, police say.

When officers approached the four-wheel-drive in Taree South on Monday afternoon, they allegedly found a 15-year-old girl in the driver's seat, with her two friends, aged 13 and 12, in the passenger seats.

Police said the Nissan Murano, which belonged to one of the girls' relatives, had been reported stolen from outside a house on the Gold Coast on Monday morning.

The same vehicle was spotted at a service centre on Bucketts Way in Taree South about 4pm on Monday.

Police allege the 15-year-old girl had driven the vehicle nearly 500 kilometres from the Gold Coast to Taree with her two friends before police caught up with them.
A former prisoner who says he gained the trust of Vincent O'Dempsey has told a jury the accused McCulkins' triple-murderer was trying "to get at" a witness before his trial.

The witness, who can not be identified, was at one time housed with Mr O'Dempsey, and claims during one of their regular conversations he denied killing children but said their mother "had to be dealt with".

Barbara McCulkin (right) and her daughters Vicky (left) and Leanne (centre) disappeared from their home on January 16, 1974.

For the last eight days, Mr O'Dempsey has been on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to the murders of Barbara McCulkin and her daughters Vicki, 13, and Leanne, 11.

Friends, family, neighbours and police have given evidence about the disappearance of the McCulkins, who have not been seen since January 1974.
Hinting at an imminent action against Pakistan in response to the Krishna Ghati beheading, Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked countrymen to not presume that "nothing is happening".

By India Today Web Desk: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday assured people of a strong retaliation to the attacks on the Indian security forces.

The Home Minister while speaking at a session on India TV news channel said that Narendra Modi government would not let "countrymen hang their heads in shame" and "respond without announcing".

"Bol ke nahin karengey, karke dikhayengey (we will not announce it in advance, we will do it)," Rajnath Singh said.

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Hinting at an imminent action against Pakistan in response to the beheading of Indian soldiers, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that it should not be presumed that "nothing is happening".

"Even the surgical strike took 10-15 days of preparations. Please do not presume that nothing is happening (from our side) on behalf of the government," Rajnath Singh said.

INDIANS WON'T HANG THEIR HEAD IN SHAME: SINGH

"I can say this much for now that we will not allow our countrymen to hang their heads in shame," the Home Minister said.

Talking about the mutilation of Army jawans by Pakistani troops earlier this month, Rajnath Singh said that people in the government also feel the pain of the countrymen.

"There is pain in our hearts, but we will not allow that pain to continue for a long time," he said.

When asked whether the army should again cross the border and retaliate against terrorists, the Home Minister said, "I should not react (to this question). The one who brags too much, never does... we will not announce in advance, we will do it".

On being asked when action would be taken against terrorists for Ummer Fayaz killing, Rajnath Singh said "prateeksha kijiye (just wait)".

Speaking on the brutal killing of Ummer Fayaz, the Home Minister said that whatever happened to him has caused pain to all Indians.

Fayaz was a role model for youth in the Valley, Rajnath Singh said.

The Home Minister also talked about the Maoist problem in the country. He claimed that there has been a whopping 450 per cent increase in the number of Maoists who have surrendered in the last two years, and added that there has been a 40-45 per cent decline in Maoist activities.

(With inputs from PTI and IANS)

WATCH:

ALSO READ:

Ummer Fayaz killing: Army officer was betrayed by people he grew up with

Krishna Ghati beheadings: Indian Army prepared to give befitting reply to Pakistan

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Warning: Distressing content.

Neighbours heard Marcus Volke and Mayang Prasetyo arguing for hours before their inner-city Brisbane unit fell silent. Then they noticed the smell.

Marcus Volke and Mayang Prasetyo were heard arguing prior to Ms Prasetyo's death.

The inquest into the couple's notorious murder-suicide was told on Tuesday witnesses heard the pair arguing loudly on the night of October 2, 2014, with Ms Prasetyo calling Volke stupid and screaming at him.

The arguing stopped sometime in the early hours of the morning, and a "putrid smell" was emanating from the unit by the next day.
The Crime and Corruption Commission could become overwhelmed with vexatious complaints if new laws pass, Liberal National Party politicians have argued.

A new bill, being considered by a Queensland parliamentary committee, would amend the definition of corrupt conduct to remove the requirement that it be conducted to provide a benefit or cause a detriment, and widen the definition to include conduct that impaired, or could impair, confidence in public administration.

CCC chairman Alan MacSporran, pictured with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Credit:Dan Peled

It could include collusive tendering, evading a tax or fraudulently obtaining or retaining an appointment.

But the CCC could become "overwhelmed" with vexatious complaints outside their purview, LNP members of the Legal Affairs and Community Safety committee argued.
A slow approach from the big four banks in meeting their obligations under unfair contracts legislation has earned them a rebuke from the small business ombudsman.

Legislation to protect small businesses from unfair terms in loan contracts was passed in November but the banks had failed to rule out unfair contractual terms until a round-table meeting this week with the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Kate Carnell says banks have done enough stalling. Credit:Louise Kennerley

"This is legislation it has been in place since November, it has been the law for six months now and was on the books for 12 months before that," ombudsman Kate Carnell says. "It's incredibly disappointing that we are still having these discussions. I hope that what the budget showed these major banks is that patience has run out. To some extent this just shows why."

Five unfair loan clauses
The Latrobe Valley has been left devastated by news that a Morwell sawmill which employs 160 people is "very likely" to close because of a timber shortage.

Sawmill owner Carter Holt Harvey announced on Tuesday that it was consulting with staff about the possible closure of its mill.

Carter Holt Harvey workers face a bleak future. CREDIT: Credit:Hayley Mills/Latrobe Valley Express

It blames the loss of significant areas of plantation timber to bushfires in 2014 and in the Black Saturday fires of 2009.

Geoff Harris, chief executive of Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts Australia, said the mill faced a significantly reduced supply and quality of sawlogs.
Owners in a luxury Southbank apartment tower that will be overshadowed by Melbourne's highest skyscraper have launched a campaign against the government's special planning deal with Crown.

The group has taken out ads in The Age on Wednesday and, as part of its petition against Planning Minister Richard Wynne's approval of the casino group's 90-storey hotel and apartment tower, is trying to convince the Opposition to join the fight.

Some residents of Freshwater Place, a 63-level apartment tower next to Crown Casino, will lose all of their views and are angry that the planning minister employed a special planning provision to ram through the tower plan.

Many apartments in Freshwater Place have sold for well in excess of $2 million.
It was meant to be a fun weekend out of town  a chance to meet other student members of the Monash University club.

But as the alcohol flowed freely, the night allegedly took a bad turn.

A spokesman said the university was "shocked" to learn of the incident.

Now police have charged a 22-year-old Monash University student over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a fellow student.

The club in question has been criticised over its handling of the alleged incident, which it did not report to the university, despite interviewing the alleged perpetrator.
A Wodonga dog owner has vowed to take his legal battle over a $22.50 council fee all the way to the High Court.

Jeffrey Sill, 70, believes the council does not have the power to charge him for owning Eckles the Corgi.

Jeffrey Sill, 70, believes the $22.50 fee for owning Eckles the Corgi is unconstitutional. Credit:Getty Images

His argument is that Wodonga Council's laws, and all others recognised under the constitution, are unlawful because the document was never signed by the Queen.

It was rejected in the Magistrates' Court in December 2015 but Sill appealed the verdict and $289 fine for not paying the dog fee when appearing in Wodonga County Court on Tuesday.
A woman has suffered serious injuries in a shocking daylight home invasion in Melbourne's north-west.

The 55-year-old woman was inside her home on Speargrass Drive in Hillside when two men broke in, sometime after 11am on Tuesday, police said.

It is believed they bashed the woman and may have tied her up, before stealing her mobile phone.

The violent intruders then drove off in the woman's car  a champagne-coloured VW Passat with registration VAK 158.
WA's Gold Stealing Detection Unit has charged a 52-year-old man from Kalgoorlie with stealing gold valued at $200,000 from a Goldfields mine site.

The Unit will allege that the man stole the gold between February 8 and 9 while working at a gold mine near Laverton, north of Kalgoorlie.

Some of the gold recovered by police. Credit:WA police

Police said he sold a portion of gold and kept the rest - and when police raided his home in the Kalgoorlie suburb of Lamington on May 11, it's alleged a large sum of money and the remaining gold was discovered.

The man has been charged with stealing as a servant and gains benefit by fraud and will appear before the Kalgoorlie Magistrates Court on May 29.
By Press Trust of India: From Prasoon Srivastava

Taipei, May 16 (PTI) Premium smartphone maker HTC is readying plans to launch its water- and dust-proof flagship 4G handset U11 by mid-June in India, which was unveiled here today at around 750 euros for the European market.

"HTC U11 will be launched in India by mid-June. Global launch is in the first week of June. We are still negotiating the price at which we can sell HTC U11 in India. There will be differences between India and the European market. It will be competitive on global pricing," Faisal Siddiqui, HTC President for South Asia, told reporters here.

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HTC has introduced a device operation technology in U11 with HTC edge sense that will allow users to control its function by applying different pressures of their grip on the edge of the phone. The sense-based control can be customised by the users.

U11 will start selling in some regions from the next week and the rest of the market, starting June. In Europe, it will sell for around 750 euros, that is about Rs 53,000 a unit, from the first week of June, a company official said.

The pricing of the phone will vary across countries due to tax structures and operational cost, Siddiqui said.

"HTC will focus on only high-end segment because it is difficult to sell innovations at low price. In India, we are looking at the best ways to ease buying of HTC phones. For HTC U11, we plan to provide sales through easy monthly instalments in partnership with companies like Bajaj Finance, Home Credit and banks," Siddiqui added.

The company has launched variants of U11 with different storage capacity and colours that have reflection feature similar to that of liquid surface.

It plans to sell a high-end variant in India that will have 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage expandable up to 2 TB or above 2000 gigabyte with the help of an external memory card.

The phone comes with 12 megapixel main camera with HDR boost technology.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset, HTC U11 has 3000 mAh battery that the company claims can be completely charged in 90 minutes and support up to 24.5 hours for voice calls.

HTC, Siddiqui said, will focus on the mid- and premium- range segment.

"In India, we are planning to launch various models of 4G VoLTE-enabled Desire series smartphones that will be priced between Rs 10,000-30,000 a unit. We dont plan to sell smartphones below Rs 10,000," Siddiqui clarified.

HTC has a retail reach across 400 cities in India. But the company plans to focus on top 200 cities and branding in top 100.

The company makes Desire series phones in India, but is still to start manufacturing of its high-end segment. PTI PRS ARD

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WA Premier Mark McGowan has urged oil and gas industry leaders to learn from the failed state Nationals' plan to tax iron ore miners and focus on gas supply, providing local jobs and using local suppliers.

Mr McGowan told the APPEA conference in Perth on Monday that while he was very optimistic about the state's long-term future, it was a difficult time now, with unemployment at 6.5 per cent or 93,000 people, as well as a massive debt and deficit.

WA Premier Mark McGowan at the APPEA conference. Credit:Trevor Collens

To combat the budget woes, Mr McGowan has introduced a pay freeze for senior people in government, a new wages policy for public sector workers and a cut in government departments from 41 to 25, which he said was good for the oil and gas industry.

"Removing red tape is one of the things that we are determined to follow through on to ensure that we see more opportunities, jobs and investment in Western Australia," he said.
A Perth man who allegedly threw a pie in Qantas CEO Alan Joyce's face in protest of gay marriage has been banned from flying with the airline and its associates for life.

Tony Overheu, 67, is alleged to have emerged from behind a curtain at a business breakfast at Perth's Hyatt Regency hotel last Tuesday, hitting Mr Joyce with a lemon meringue pie and then casually walking off stage into the arms of security officers who held him until police arrived.

Alan Joyce hit with a pie during an event in Perth. Credit:Channel 7 News

The Willetton man said he carried out the stunt to stand up to "corporate bullying" which promoted marriage equality.
Protesters outside the White House last week. Credit:Bloomberg The problem here, as seen by counter-intelligence experts, is that Moscow, informed of the city in which the intelligence had been gathered, could identify the US ally or intelligence operatives involved - whose government had not authorised a sharing of the information. A former intelligence official and expert on Russia surmised that on the basis of the clues provided by Trump: "I don't think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out." Laughs all round: US President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak is fourth from left. Credit:Russian Foreign Ministry via AP A current official told the Post: "If that [intelligence sharing] partner learned we'd given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship."

If Trump was not aware of his gross indiscretion, others around him were  aides reportedly made damage-control calls to the CIA and ordered that the offending exchange be stricken from records of the meeting, lest it leak to the media. After the fumbled Comey sacking, it came as no surprise that the White House conspicuously tried to have all voices singing from the same hymnsheet as it attempted to drown out the Post's report. The only trouble was they set up an irrelevant strawman to knock down. Despite the Post's careful reporting that Trump had not disclosed intelligence-gathering methods, that turned out to be the cornerstone of statements by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. This from McMaster: "There's nothing that the President takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false. The President and the foreign minister [Lavrov] reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. "At no time - at no time - were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the President did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the Secretary of State, remember it being the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. And I was in the room. It didn't happen."

Yet if there was any uncertainty about weekend reports of Republican senators backing away from Trump, Bob Corker of Tennessee made the mood in the party plain: "Obviously, they are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening. And the shame of it is, there's a really good national security team in place. "The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating ... a worrisome environment." The trouble for Republicans is that such is the topsy-turvy nature of this administration's damage control that they no longer know what to believe  too many have been caught out defending Trump on the basis of Script A, only to wake up the next morning to find that the administration has shifted to the opposite argument in Script B. It all makes the GOP and Trump-stoked drama about Hillary Clinton's dodgy email server seem a bit, well, dodgy. Their mantra through last year's election campaign was that because of the threat of hacking, any classified information that passed through the Clinton server could end up in the hands of others  but here we have Trump serving up secrets on a silver platter.

Remember Trump surrogate Michael Flynn, who served briefly as national security adviser before Trump sacked him for lying about his communications with Moscow, only after the lying was exposed in the media? Here's Flynn before he joined the "lock her up!" chorus at a Trump rally: "I have called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race because she, she put our nation's security at extremely high risk with her careless use of a private email server." And here's a great Trump tweet from July last year, in which he relies on Comey's criticism of Clinton: "Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information'. Not fit!" Loading
Sofia: John Zakhariev, the 21-year-old former Sydney schoolboy facing terrorism charges in Bulgaria, has accused a judge of ignoring evidence that could prove his innocence.

Mr Zakhariev, who says he has was sold to Bulgarian authorities by ASIO, said he expects to be found guilty next month. He has appealed to the Australian government to help him serve his sentence back home rather than in a "miserable" Bulgarian prison.

Mr Zakhariev attended Sofia's Special Criminal Court on Tuesday in handcuffs, dressed in a hoodie, cargo pants and sneakers, and flanked by two armed guards.

In a last-ditch effort to introduce new evidence, Mr Zakhariev's lawyer asked the court to order Facebook to unlock his client's account, to retrieve messages he said would prove Mr Zakhariev was converting to Christianity at the time he was allegedly training to join Islamic State.
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a stalwart ally in the battle against Islamist extremism, overlooking Erdogan's authoritarian crackdown on his own people and brushing aside recent tensions between Washington and Ankara over US support for Kurdish militias fighting Islamic State.

On Tuesday afternoon the divisions in Turkish life came to Washington's embassy row, as nine people were injured during a demonstration outside the Turkish embassy.

All nine were taken to hospitals, and at least one was reported to be in serious condition.

The fighting broke out between pro-Erdogan demonstrators and supporters of Kurdish groups and jailed Turkish opposition leader Selahattin Demirtas. Turkish officials also appeared to become involved in the fracas. Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said two people were arrested.
Washington: The classified intelligence that President Donald Trump disclosed in a meeting last week with Russian officials at the White House was provided by Israel, according to a current and a former US official familiar with how the United States obtained the information. The revelation adds a potential diplomatic complication to the episode.

Israel is one of the United States' most important allies and a major intelligence collector in the Middle East. The revelation that Mr Trump boasted about some of Israel's most sensitive information to the Russians could damage the relationship between the two countries. It also raises the possibility that the information could be passed to Iran, Russia's close ally and Israel's main threat in the Middle East.

Israeli officials would not confirm that they were the source of the information that Mr Trump shared. In a statement, Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.

"Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Mr Dermer said.
Washington: Cyber security researchers have found technical clues they said could link North Korea with the global WannaCry ransomware cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 machines in 150 countries since Friday.

Symantec and Kaspersky Lab say some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, which researchers from many companies have identified as a North Korea-run hacking operation that hit South Korean banks and TV stations, the Bangladesh Central Bank and Sony previously.

"This is the best clue we have seen to date as to the origins of WannaCry," Kaspersky Lab researcher Kurt Baumgartner said.

Both firms said it was too early to tell whether North Korea was involved in the attacks, which slowed to a crawl on Monday but have already become one of the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The cyber-attack that affected over 150 countries since last week should be a wake-up call for governments. Microsoft blamed governments for storing data on software with known vulnerabilities which could then be accessed by hackers. The latest virus exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows identified by and stolen from US intelligence.

While there is a fear that more ransomware attacks may take place this week, few have been reported. Hackers are calling on the countries and businesses affected to pay a ransom before their files can be restored. Governments and companies in the 150 countries that have been affected have IT experts working overtime to contain and prevent more attacks.

Basic information shows that over 200,000 computers have been affected. Reports showed that many firms and governments have responded by paying over $38,000.00 to the hackers. It is predicted that the cost will double within the coming days.

SMN News webmaster and IT professional Ramzan Juman was asked to break down the ransomware cyber attack and how St. Maarten and other Caribbean nations can protect themselves.

When asked what is ransomware and whether or not it is common in the IT community, the IT specialist said that ransomware is a form of malware that blocks access to the users computer system/data usually through encryption until the user pays a sum of money for a key to decrypt the data and regain access to the computer/data. It is a well-known threat in the IT industry. As a matter of fact, a few years ago the CryptoLocker virus was prevalent and questions about it were common during job interviews.

When asked about the recent attack that affected several countries and if this could have been prevented. Juman said that the recent widespread attack was caused by a collection of spy tools allegedly used by the National Security Agency (NSA) that were stolen or leaked online. In particular, ransomware known as WannaCry infected tens of thousands of computers in more than 100 countries. WannaCry takes advantage of a Windows vulnerability that was patched about a month ago by Microsoft. WannaCry can be prevented by ensuring your computer has the latest Windows updates installed.

The young IT professional who hails from Saint Martin and is continuing his studies abroad was asked if its fair to blame governments and businesses for the lack of sufficient protections against this attack. Juman said when it comes to cyber security there is always room for improvement. A business or governments security posture has to be continuously assessed, improved and reviewed for new threats in a growing technological world. IT Departments need to remain vigilant by paying attention to new vulnerabilities and trends in the industry. One of the most common ways to identify whether or not there is an issue is to establish a baseline (what normal network activity looks like) so that when there are anomalies you can refer to the baseline as a reference before you start investigating the cause.

When asked if he believes that all of the attacks were based on carelessness on the part of the countries affected over the weekend, or whether Microsoft is to blame. Juman said based on his experience, governments/companies are always skeptical when installing patches, sometimes delaying for months. Patches are usually installed at the discretion of the IT Department. The main reason for this is that Windows patches sometimes interfere with legacy software used by governments/companies. However, this practice trades off security which is probably why hackers were able to take advantage of this vulnerability.

When asked if Microsoft is in anyway responsible for the calamity facing those affected Juman was clear by stating that Microsoft patched this issue about a month ago. However, more could have been done to spread awareness and highlight the urgency of installing the updates. His advice to governments and computer users are they should always install the latest patches/updates for their operating system (Windows/macOS). Install antivirus software and periodically check to ensure it is active and up to date. There are many good free antivirus software available such as Avira, Bitdefender, AVG and Avast. Dont click suspicious links or attachments in emails, mouse over the link and see where it goes, if you dont know the sender dont open the attachment. Dont conduct business on public Wi-Fi without a secure VPN connection.

It should be noted that the government of St. Maarten suffered attacks in recent months and up to now, the issue cannot be properly resolved. Due to the lack of proper internet access by government departments, it has placed a huge setback on the civil servants that have to properly advise government and the community at large.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Police arrested the former station manager of Insel Air Alonso Hassel at his Mount William home around 7 am Tuesday morning. Hassel is wanted in connection with the embezzlement of funds from Insel Air. At the time the story broke on the embezzlement of the company's funds. Hassel had slipped the island for the Dominican Republic. However, the wanted senior employee returned to St. Maarten where he was arrested. Police Spokesman Ricardo Henson confirmed the arrest. Alonso Hassel was the manager of the Ticketing Office that is located in the Yogesh Building. It is alleged that Hassel stole approximately $170,000.00 dollars from the company which was discovered in August 2016.

SMN News learned that Hassel returned to the island about a month ago. 1 arrest in connection with

1 arrest in connection with an ongoing Fraud investigation

As result of a complaint of embezzlement, forgery, and theft filed by Insel Air in 2016 against S.B.B (sales agent) and A.A. H. (sales manager), in which together these employees are suspected of to have embezzled approximately US $100.000,-, a criminal investigation into this case was started.

In connection with this ongoing investigation, the arrest of A.A.H. was made this morning May 16th at his home in Fort Willem. A.A.H. was questioned after contacting to his lawyer and he remains in custody for further investigation.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The community of St. Maarten including representatives from the French side and neighboring Anguilla along with elected officials from Dutch St. Maarten paid their last respects to St. Maarten Cultural Icon Neville Chester York (50) who passed away suddenly a week ago and was laid to rest on Tuesday. At the viewing and funeral services, Deputy Prime Minister Rafael Boasman sat beside his colleague Minister Silveria Jacobs, while Ministers Gibson, Emmanuel, and Lee all paid their respects shortly after the body arrived at the Methodist Church. Among them were some Members of Parliament.

Several Caribbean nations hailing as far as Guyana and Suriname sent their tributes to the family of the late Neville York, all of which was read out at the Philipsburg Methodist Church while the viewing took place. All of the representatives from the region described the late Neville York as being someone that was always ready to assist them, offered advice and did everything humanly possible to highlight the Caribbean Culture. They said the late Neville York was full of patience and had a huge passion for culture that he would go out of his way to assist and give advice to anyone who needed it and while St. Maarten has lost a man that had wealth of knowledge on the countrys history and culture, the region would also miss him dearly.

The late Neville York who headed the Culture Department also taught music and wrote several songs and poems. At the home going ceremony, several of his students paid tribute in song.

The home going ceremony started Monday night at the Emerald Funeral Home where family and friends gathered for the last wake and they got the unexpected when the undertakers at Emerald prepared the body of the late Neville York and had him on display playing his favorite steelpan.

The staff of the department of Education, Youth and Culture dressed in their Cultural wear to honor York while the large York family who loses three family members within a week wore blue sweaters to identify themselves as members of the family. Among them is the Minister of Plenipotentiary Henrietta Doran York.

Minister Jacobs' Tribute to Cultural Icon Neville York

Tribute To Neville York  Cultural Icon, Accomplished Musician, Scholar, Policy developer, Heritage Specialist, Businessman, Teacher, St. Maarten Legend

Sweet Salt is about Neville York sharing the creative memory of the pan basin with us, thereby uniting us through the pan with the musical experiences surfacing from the depths of the Caribbean Pan Basin Camille Baly - Local Historian and former head of the Dept of Culture and Youth.

Neville started in 1995 as a Cultural worker in the Dept of Culture and Youth under the leadership of Mr. Camille Baly, who served as his mentor for many years; sharing his humility, grace and soft-spoken authority with Neville.

An avid student and a great example of a life-long learner, his enthusiasm for learning and sharing his knowledge and expertise were renowned within the ministry, government, the many local and international organizations he contributed to.

Having grown up in a musical family, known for its pioneer role in the introduction of pan to St. Maarten, Neville was destined to be an accomplished musician. He followed his dream after high school, where hed already received regional recognition with diplomas earned in Guadeloupe, to pursue his music degrees among others. Last I checked he held Bachelors and Masters in Music, Bachelor in Spanish and Business Administration, and was working on a second Masters in Business; he never stopped learning.

Much can be learned from his voracious appetite to know more and continue to grow personally as well as influence the growth and development of culture here at home, in the Caribbean, and around the world.

In 1999 after the reorganization of the department, Neville became the head of the Social and Cultural Development Department and from 2010  present due to Constitutional change, he became the head of the Culture Department under the MinECYS.

His research into areas pertaining to heritage preservation knew no bounds. His heritage family around the world highlighted a few areas in which Neville excelled: in character, personality and passion for Culture, Heritage preservation locally and regionally and the promotion of the Arts.

A true visionary of the Caribbean who sought to build capacity by bringing the region together through tangible and intangible heritage, Neville became the unifying force around the proposed serial nomination for Eastern Caribbean fortifications. He was a member of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Scientific Committee on Fortifications and Military Heritage (ICOFORT). Neville was a champion who brought awareness to Caribbean heritage internationally and in the context of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). An acclaimed musician locally and globally, Mr. York was the St Maarten Head of the Department of Culture in the St. Maarten Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs.

We give God thanks for his life and legacy and wish his wife, family, loved ones, and co-workers much comfort and our condolences.

Patricia Green -head of CARIBBEAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE - University of Technology, Jamaica

Calm demeanor and gentle smile, always willing to assist professionally and personally.... - Ian Constantine - Engineering & Architectural Preservation, Saint Lucia

We met only once in 2013 in Antigua and Barbuda for the World Heritage workshop. Since then, we have communicated over e-mails, and spoken on the phone so many times. The last call from him was 2 months ago, informing me about the latest news on the proposed serial nomination for the Eastern Caribbean fortifications and his intention to re-activate the network. It was always a pleasure to speak with him, he was dedicated, energetic and passionate with full of ideas. My deepest condolences to his family and friends. May his soul rest in peace - Sachiko Haraguchi (Ms)Coordinator, World Heritage Programme for SIDS

UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris (France)

I met him twice and besides his professional skills and knowledge of the region, I remember his enthusiasm and everlasting smile... 

Alessandro Balsamo - Nominations and Tentative Lists Manager

World Heritage Centre, UNESCO, Paris, France

The accolades about this legend from around the world continue with words such as:

Easygoing, Talented, humble, gentle spirited, passionate about heritage, his music and the development of the region, kind, generous, direct, driven, fired up, concerned, knowledgeable, tireless and humble, absolutely focused on improving cultural recognition and heritage conservation in his island and dreaming on how to expand that spirit all over the Caribbean  a splendid human being!!!

All these international voices echo the sentiments of his small staff, colleagues in management, the entire Ministry of ECYS and by now the general population of Sweet Smaartin.

From our initial meeting in 2012 when I first held this post, I sat in awe at the extent of knowledge, research, passion and dedication Neville displayed for Cultural Heritage and the arts, including his vision for its future development. Neville would become as excited as a kid in a candy store if he found someone who shared his vision and passion and was quick to pull out a document related to whichever goal I mentioned as wanting to move culture forward. It was as if he had a treasure trove of research just waiting for the support and funds to push it to the forefront.

Patient, kind and strategic are also words I use to describe this incredible man, whose reach it appears has been boundless.

Neville always sought to give credit to all who supported him and his ideas, and worked hard to bring them to fruition by all means possible, whether with local funding or international funding via his affiliates in the UNESCO Heritage sphere.

Some of his achievements within the Ministry over the past few years:

 Cultural policy framework

 Dept Cultural Policy Plan 2015-2019 also called the Vision 2020  Opening windows and building bridges on the Principles of Human Dignity under which the following achievements were being realized

 Decade of revitalization of our Natural and Cultural heritage 2013

 Lead the creation of the Cultural Calendar 2013  research on Heroes and heroines of St. Maarten  to be republished as a book

 Guided the process toward the preservation of the islands forts, Salt Factory, restoration of the Methodist Church, Brick Building, Passagrahan Hotel

 Organized the Caribbean Capacity Building workshops in 2014-2016

 The Caribbean Small island development states meeting held in 2014 which began the process of the world heritage nomination

 Neville also spearheaded the Coastal fortification which enabled St. Maarten along with other Caribbean islands to begin the process of getting coastal forts on the World Heritage list.

 Neville was also in the process of establishing a talent development scholarship that enabled the Youth of St. Maarten to further develop their skills in their chosen art form.

 St. Maarten becoming cco-signedto the Unesco Intangible heritage convention

 Was currently busy with the protection Underwater Cultural Heritage

 Established the Caribbean Pitch it Foundation to assist government with the execution of its many cultural events

 Spearheaded the Steel Pan in schools program which began at the Learning Unlimited and MAC with Caribbean Pitch it and funds received from the Fonds voor Cultuurpartitiepatie in the Netherlands

 Participated in the planning of various events and activities over the part fifteen years for events such as the St. Maarten Day celebrations

 Spearheaded the Establishing of Emancipation day and Constitution Day as National holidays

 He was a pioneer when it came to the protection of the islands heritage. Working on various laws and policies including laws and policies on archeology, the arts, and cultural expressions

 He was currently working with Daniella Jeffry on a book concerning Cultural Identity, a spin-off of the symposium with the same topic.

 Labeling of monuments should be finalized in 2017

Nevilles legacy will live on through his attitude, his research, his writings, his music, his teaching of children and adults, the lives he's touched.

His spirit will live on with every ping of the pan, every monument restored, labeled and recorded, every spoken and written word archived, every documentary filmed, every song composed, written, recorded and performed, every dance choreographed danced and videographed, every piece of art conceived, created, displayed and sold, every art facility restored, expanded and built.

The sweet salt we reaped, burned our fingers and blinded our eyes, but the yield produced survival!! As we reminisce on the sweet memories and 'suck salt' at your early demise, we pray your spirit guides us to realize your goals and dreams for SMaatin and the Caribbean. Together we can!

Our prayers for strength and endurance of the Neville spirit in his family, friends near and abroad and to Sxm and her neighbors as we allow him to move on. We pray he knows how dearly we hold him, how high he is esteemed, and how long his name will ring on this earth!!!

Sometimes I wonder, did we stifle the artist by forcing him to write policy, make a dollar out of fifty cents, or was he just that complete; able to bounce between the art world and work of cultural and heritage preservation? Or did his musical forays with his students and in his performances keep him charged up to be able to make the global difference in his day job?

We will never be certain, but what we do know is there was a man, a great man, who lived with a passion for music, culture, heritage and the arts in general who has made a great impact on our lives. Lets take the lesson of his life along with us on a daily basis, and smile, work hard, play hard, encourage others along the way and make a difference!!! He had passed the baton, may we all have the courage to take it and Run!

Silveria Jacobs

Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport 2017

Click here to view photos of the Home Going Ceremony of the late Neville York
CAY Hill:--- The Sint Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) and Zorgverzekeringskantoor BES (ZVK) of the Caribbean Netherlands, also known as the BES-islands, have further developed the arrangement of their cooperation in a recently signed agreement. It had previously been agreed upon that SMMC would serve as the preferred provider of care for ZVK-insured persons on Saba and St. Eustatius (Statia). However, with the new agreement, this relationship is further supplemented, with added benefit that the people of Sint Maarten will reap as well.

This agreement stipulates several conditions that ZVK and SMMC intend to uphold. Firstly, the parties have negotiated an agreed upon the restructuring of the tariffs. Additionally, a visitation cycle for the specialty Cardiology has been worked out wherein Cardiologists from SMMC will make monthly visitations to Saba and St. Eustatia to provide consultation on the islands. Further, the ZVK will support SMMC in the establishment of four (4) new specialties for the hospital. These specialties will include Neurology, Orthopedics, Ophthalmology, and Urology.

The intention of both organizations is to introduce these specialties as soon as possible, with several agreed upon standards that will establish the quality of care for these specialties. SMMC will continue to attract qualified doctors and nurses to cater to their patients as well as the BES-patients. The broadened partnership will remain ongoing, wherein the progress of the agreement will be evaluated jointly and regularly. So both parties hope to continue servicing the community and bring care closer to home.

SMMC Press Release.
Kuehl doesn't want her hard earned power diminished by elected officials in Sacramento

They have been called "the most powerful elected officials in the United States." Due to a County Charter left over from 1870, and the lack of political will among voters to expand the Board of Supervisors, just five County Supervisors control an LA County Budget exceeding $26.35 Billion, and represent, as best as possible, 10,000,000 residents of Los Angeles County.

Democratic Sen. Tony Mendoza, who lives in the small Los Angeles County city of Artesia, proposed the plan as an amendment to the California Constitution.

The amendment would require all counties with a population above 5 million in the 2020 Census to have supervisors representing no more than twice the population size of two congressional districts. In effect, this would increase the number of supervisors to 9 from five.

"It's hard for me to believe that elected representatives in counties outside LA, would welcome the specter of Angelenos removing their right to local self-determination," Kuehl said."Nor do I imagine that voters in Northern California should have the right to vote on a constitutional amendment to change the governance structure of a county hundreds of miles to the south."

In other words, Kuehl doesn't want her hard earned power diminished by mere elected officials in Sacramento. One of those is State Sen. Ben Allen, who is sponsoring the legislation. He said:

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury did a comprehensive study of the county's governance structure and concluded the public would be well served by an expanded board of supervisors and an elected chief executive. I support the reforms proposed by the Grand Jury which are now reflected in SCA 12.

There have been at least two attempts in the last 20 years to increase the Board of Supervisors' size by amending the County Charter. Voters turned down both measures, responding to a campaign that this would slightly increase the cost of the Board of Supervisors. A constitutional amendment such as this one, would require approval by two-thirds of the State legislature, and by a majority of California voters.

Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, is the most populous county in the United States. Its population is larger than that of 42 individual U.S. states. It has 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas and at 4,083 square miles, it is larger than the combined areas of the U.S. states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The county is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the U.S. Its county seat, the City of Los Angeles, is also its most populous city at about four million.

The Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration where the Board of Supervisors meets.

The Government of Los Angeles County is defined and authorized under the California Constitution, California law, and the Charter of the County of Los Angeles. Much of the Government of California is in practice the responsibility of county governments, such as the Government of Los Angeles County. The County government provides countywide services such as elections and voter registration, law enforcement, jails, vital records, property records, tax collection, public health, health care, and social services. In addition the County serves as the local government for all unincorporated areas.

It is composed of the elected five-member Board of Supervisors, several other elected offices including the Sheriff, District Attorney, and Assessor, and numerous county departments and entities under the supervision of the Chief Executive Officer.

Some chartered cities such as Los Angeles and Inglewood provide municipal services such as police, libraries, parks and recreation, and zoning. Other cities arrange to have the County provide some or all of these services under contract. In addition, several entities of the government of California have jurisdiction coterminous with Los Angeles County, such as the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer enters her second term with Democrats likely to control all levels of power in the state Capitol for the first time since the 1980s and backed by a dramatic show of voters' support for keystone Democratic issues including abortion and voting rights.
Warm up to winter with ski film, adaptive skiing, Mushing 101 and more

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Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid sent troops to India Today office in Srinagar and also promised safety of staff.

By Sushant Pathak, Jamshed Adil Khan : After India Today aired a special investigative report where Hurriyat's Provincial President (Geelani Faction) Naeem Khan was caught on camera admitting Pakistan is funding the violence in Kashmir Valley, India Today reporters were threatened.

After the video went on air, Naeem Khan came to India Today office in Srinagar and threatened India Today reporters. He also asked them to take down the story and drop the expose.

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Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid sent troops to India Today office in Srinagar and also promised safety of staff.

India Today has come up with clinching evidence of Pakistan's state and non-state actors, including Hafiz Saeed, choreographing anarchy through their agents in the Kashmir Valley.

Several top Kashmiri separatists are caught on camera confessing to receiving funds from across the border.

Some of them also admitted they raised money domestically, pledging to repeat the deadly events of 2016 if financed again. The stunning probe that rips apart the devious designs of anti-India forces in Kashmir includes Hurriyat's Provincial President (Geelani Faction) Naeem Khan, Tehreek-E-Hurriyat's leader Gazi Javed Baba, and JKLF chairman Farooq Ahmed Dar (Bitta Karate).

The investigation traces the terror funding trail. Hurriyat leader Naeem Khan stealthily travels down to Delhi to meet India Today reporters, who posed as potential funders.

The investigation reveals that Pakistan's agents who are trying to destabilise Kashmir through street violence are hidden in Delhi.

The expose has been hailed not only by the government and the BJP but also by the Congress.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS) at the Prime Minister Office, said chicanery won't last long and action will be taken soon.

Also read:

Caught on Camera: How Pakistan funds Kashmiri separatists to burn the Valley - India Today Exclusive

Also watch:

Operation Villains of Valley: India Today reveals how Pakistan funds Hurriyat to burn Kashmir - Part 1

--- ENDS ---
Railways is trying its best to provide better passenger amenities.

By Siddharatha Tiwari: Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Railways today inaugurated passenger amenities at various Mumbai suburban railway stations. Speaking on the occasion, the minister of railways said that the inauguration of passenger amenities is an important event.

Mumbai is the commercial capital of India. Around 80 lakh passengers travel by the Mumbai railways and thus, railways is trying its best to provide better passenger amenities. Lift, escalators, foot over bridges are to be provided at small stations now.

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Railways need cooperation of the travellers in maintaining its property. Railways is working with the state government to form a joint venture so that other rail development projects are initiated soon.

Salient Features of the passenger amenities

Indian Railways is always on the forefront to guarantee cent percent satisfaction to its esteemed customers. Under the leadership of Suresh Prabhu, the Indian Railways is leaving no stone unturned to achieve this promise.

Provision of passenger amenities is one of the important objectives of Indian Railways both in terms of business ethics as well as social obligations. Fulfilling the long standing demand of the commuters, Prabhu will be inaugurating various passenger amenities through video conferencing from Rail Bhavan, New Delhi on May 16, 2017.

Elevated deck at Borivali station

Borivali is one of the important stations of the Indian Railways. On the suburban front, there are local trains originating, as well as terminating at the Borivali station. All suburban trains going beyond Borivali, too have a halt at Borivali station. Mail, Express, as well as passenger trains, halt at the Borivali station.

Looking at the voluminous traffic and for easier passenger movement, it was proposed to construct an elevated deck at Borivali. The work of this elevated deck situated on platform No.1 has been completed.

The elevated deck is 10.5 metres wide and 300 metres long connecting all 5 FOBs as well as the skywalk. A booking office too has been constructed on the south end of the deck. An elevator has been installed on Platform No.1 which connects to the deck. This will hugely help senior Citizens and divyang passengers.

Escalators at Dadar, Bhayandar, Vasai Road & Nallasopara stations

As part of trespass control measures at suburban stations of Mumbai, new FOBs have been built at Dadar, Matunga Road and Bhayandar stations and escalators have been installed at Dadar, Bhayandar, Vasai Road and Nalasopara stations.

The FOB at Dadar station is 6 metres wide and 200 metres long. It is situated near the Tilak Road Bridge at the north end of Dadar station. This FOB connects Tilak Bridge, platform numbers 1, 2 and 3 of the Indian Railways and platform number 3 to 8 (Dadar Terminus) of Central Railway.

Two escalators have been installed at platform number 1 of Dadar station. The new FOB at Matunga Road station is 17 metres long and 6 metres wide. It connects platform no. 1/2 to west side exit and north FOB. It also connects to south FOB through skywalk passage.

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The cost of construction of this FOB is Rs 2.99 crore. A new 6 metres wide FOB has been constructed at the north end of Bhayandar station. This FOB connects all the platforms.

Two escalators have also been installed at the Bhayandar station on platform no. 5 & 6. The overall cost of works at Bhayandar station is Rs. 11 crore.

New escalators have been installed at the south end of platform no. 2A of Vasai Road station and on the north end of platform no. 2/3 at Nallasopara station. The escalators are expected to greatly benefit the senior citizens.

Booking offices at Kandivali & Vasai Road station

A new booking office has been opened at the north end of platform no. 1 at Kandivali station. At Vasai Road station, a booking office has been opened on the elevated deck for the benefit of commuters, so as to reduce the waiting time of purchasing tickets.

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Toilet blocks at Goregaon and Kandivali stations

The nationwide 'Swachh Bharat Mission' has proved to be a success story, with the Railways playing a major role. As a part of this mission, new toilet blocks have been provided at Goregaon and Kandivali stations. The public toilet at Goregaon station has been constructed at a cost of Rs.30 lakh, on the elevated deck of Goregaon harbour station.

Passenger Reservation Centre at Nallasopara station

Nallasopara has witnessed a huge growth in its population. Keeping in mind the convenience of the people to book tickets for long distance trains, a Passenger Reservation Centre has been opened at the Nallasopara station. The PRS will benefit passengers, as tickets will now be available at a more convenient location.

Andheri Skywalk connecting North FOB of railway station to metro station

To facilitate the interchange as well as direct and short connectivity to metro and railway suburban passengers, the metro station at Andheri station has been connected to North FOB at Andheri railway station. The total length of the skywalk is 80 metres having a width of 6.6 metres. Total plan area of the skywalk is 528 square metres. Cost of constructing the skywalk is Rs.7 crore.

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Also Read:

Pat came the reply. 3 minutes is all it took Suresh Prabhu to okay this rail project

Indian Railways misses earnings targets for third straight year

--- ENDS ---
Countdown to Faith 7

NASA

On May 15, 1963 NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper launched into space on the Faith 7 mission in his Mercury space capsule. See photos from Cooper's historic flight here.

This Photo:

Tests and Checks

NASA

During a 1962 test in the Cape Canaveral White Room at Hanger S, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., rests on a weight and balance scale.

In and Out

NASA

The Mercury Atlas 9 mission craft offered two exit routes. The prime pilot for the mission, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., can egress through the neck of the spacecraft, as seen in this training, or thought an explosive actuated side hatch.

Sharing Information

NASA

Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., prime pilot for the Mercury Atlas 9 mission, and Alan Shepard, Mercury Atlas 9 backup pilot, discuss a 16mm handheld spacecraft camera that was designed to photograph MIT and Weather Bureau experiments in space for this mission by J.R. Hereford of McDonnell Aircraft Corp.

Safety Equipment, Check

NASA

Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., examines his life vest with the help of Al Rochford of Crew Systems from the Manned Space Center. The vest is stored in a pocket on the lower left leg of the spacesuit.

Fill'er Up

NASA

A 1963 pressurization text checks astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.'s suit for safety.

The Official Word

NASA

During a preflight conference in 1963, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., answers questions from newsmen.

Heartfelt Words

NASA

As astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., orbited the Earth inside the Faith 7 for the 17th time during the Mercury Atlas 9 mission, this prayer, displayed here in an artistic document in calligraphy, was read.

Intense Preparation

NASA

Days before the scheduled launch of the 22 orbit Mercury Atlas 9 mission, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., prime pilot for the mission, participates in preflight simulations passing through the gantry to the Faith 7 capsule.

A Moment Before Launch

NASA

On May 15, 1963, after taking a few personal moments inside the transfer van, astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. made his way to the Faith 7 capsule atop the Atlas vehicle for the launch of the Mercury Atlas 9 mission.

Helping Hands

NASA

In preparation for the Mercury Atlas 9 Earth-orbital space mission launch, NASA technicians help astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. into the Faith 7 spacecraft. The flight, launched on May 15, 1963, lasted 34 hours and 20 minutes.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Forty-five years have passed since humans last set foot on an extraterrestrial body. Now, the moon is back at the center of efforts not only to explore space, but to create a permanent, independent space-faring society.

Planning expeditions to Earth's nearest celestial neighbor is no longer just a NASA effort, though the U.S. space agency has plans for a moon-orbiting space station that would serve as a staging ground for Mars missions in the early 2030s. The United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, is planning a lunar fueling station for spacecraft, capable of supporting 1,000 people living in space within 30 years.

Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Robert Bigelow all have companies aiming to deliver people or goods to the moon. Several teams competing for a share of Google's US$30 million cash prize are planning to launch rovers to the moon.

We and 27 other students from around the world recently participated in the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge, proposing designs of what a lunar launch and supply station for deep space missions might look like, and how it would work.

The raw materials for rocket fuel

Right now all space missions are based on, and launched from, Earth. But Earth's gravitational pull is strong. To escape Earth's gravity, a rocket has to be traveling 11 kilometers a second  25,000 miles per hour!

Any rocket leaving Earth has to carry all the fuel it will ever use to get to its destination and, if needed, back again. That fuel is heavy  and getting it moving at such high speeds takes a lot of energy. If we could refuel in orbit, that launch energy could lift more people or cargo or scientific equipment into orbit. Then the spacecraft could refuel in space, where Earth's gravity is less powerful.

The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, which makes it an attractive alternative base. The moon also has ice, which we already know how to process into a hydrogen-oxygen propellant that we use in many modern rockets.

Roving Luna

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite missions have already found substantial amounts of ice in permanently shadowed craters on the moon.

Those locations would be tricky to mine because they are colder and offer no sunlight to power roving vehicles. However, we could install big mirrors on the craters' rims to illuminate solar panels in the permanently shadowed regions.

Rovers from Google's Lunar X Prize competition and NASA's Lunar Resource Prospector, set to launch in 2020, would also contribute to finding good locations to mine ice.

Imagining a moon base

Depending on where the best ice reserves are, we might need to build several small robotic moon bases. Each one would mine ice, manufacture liquid propellant and transfer it to passing spacecraft. Our team developed plans to accomplish those tasks with three different types of rovers. Our plans also require a few small robotic shuttles to meet up with nearby deep-space mission vehicles in lunar orbit.

One rover, which we call the Prospector, would explore the moon and find ice-bearing locations. A second rover, the Constructor, would follow along behind, building a launch pad and packing down roadways to ease movements for the third rover type, the Miners, which actually collect the ice and deliver it to nearby storage tanks and an electrolysis processing plant that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The Constructor would also build a landing pad where the small near-moon transport spacecraft we call Lunar Resupply Shuttles would arrive to collect fuel for delivery as newly launched spacecraft pass by the moon. The shuttles would burn moon-made fuel and would have advanced guidance and navigation systems to travel between lunar bases and their target spacecraft.

A gas station in space

When enough fuel is being produced, and the shuttle delivery system is tested and reliable, our plan calls for building a gas station in space. The shuttles would deliver ice directly to the orbiting fuel depot, where it would be processed into fuel and where rockets heading to Mars or elsewhere could dock to top up.

The depot would have large solar arrays powering an electrolysis module for melting the ice and then turning the water into fuel, and large fuel tanks to store what's made. NASA is already working on most of the technology needed for a depot like this, including docking and fuel transfer. We anticipate a working depot could be ready in the early 2030s, just in time for the first human missions to Mars.

To be most useful and efficient, the depot should be located in a stable orbit relatively near both the Earth and the moon. The Earth-moon Lagrangian Point 1 (L1) is a point in space about 85 percent of the way from Earth to the moon, where the force of Earth's gravity would exactly equal the force of the moon's gravity pulling in the other direction. It's the perfect pit stop for a spacecraft on its way to Mars or the outer planets.

Leaving Earth

Our team also found a fuel-efficient way to get spacecraft from Earth orbit to the depot at L1, requiring even less launch fuel and freeing up more lift energy for cargo items. First, the spacecraft would launch from Earth into Low Earth Orbit with an empty propellant tank.

Then, the spacecraft and its cargo could be towed from Low Earth Orbit to the depot at L1 using a solar electric propulsion tug, a spacecraft largely propelled by solar-powered electric thrusters.

This would let us triple the payload delivery to Mars. At present, a human Mars mission is estimated to cost as much as US$100 billion, and will need hundreds of tons of cargo. Delivering more cargo from Earth to Mars with fewer rocket launches would save billions of dollars and years of time.

A base for space exploration

Building a gas station between Earth and the moon would also reduce costs for missions beyond Mars. NASA is looking for extraterrestrial life on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Future spacecraft could carry much more cargo if they could refuel in space  who knows what scientific discoveries sending large exploration vehicles to these moons could enable?

By helping us escape both Earth's gravity and dependence on its resources, a lunar gas station could be the first small step toward the giant leap into making humanity an interplanetary civilization.

Gary Li, Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles; Danielle DeLatte, Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics & Astronautics, University of Tokyo; Jerome Gilleron, Ph.D. Candidate in Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; Samuel Wald, Ph.D. Student in Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Therese Jones, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Editor's Note: This story was updated to clarify the distinction between escape velocity and the velocity needed to achieve orbit.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
An illustration of a human Mars colony. To make human missions to Mars a reality, NASA will need to give lawmakers a compelling reason to support a crewed Red Planet mission.

Getting humans to Mars presents enormous challenges in science and engineering, but NASA also needs to think about political challenges, according to a panel of experts who spoke at the Humans to Mars Summit this week. If a mission to the Red Planet motived young people to pursue careers in science and related fields, which would in turn help stimulate the economy, lawmakers might get behind Mars exploration, the panelists said.

"Consistency and constancy"

The biggest challenge to achieving NASA's plans for human exploration of Mars is continuity in relevant government policies throughout different presidential administrations, said Michael Raftery, who served as a project lead at Boeing on systems integration for the International Space Station. [NASA's Mars Base Vision in Images]

To maintain that kind of continuity, NASA needs to show Congress and the current administration "consistency and constancy of purpose" for the project, he argued during a panel discussion titled "The Path to Afford and Sustain Human Exploration of Mars." His fellow panelists agreed.

"Sustainability for a Mars exploration effort  requires a considerable degree of consensus," said Jeff Bingham, former senior advisor on space and aeronautics on the U.S. Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation committee. "For a government-funded and -managed exploration program, probably the most important element is policy continuity."

In the 1960s, the Apollo program's sole purpose was to beat the Soviet Union in the Cold War space race, so a huge amount of government funding was allocated to the space program over a short period of time, the panelists said. But the political motivations for sending humans to explore Mars, and to ultimately create a sustained presence, are much more hazy, the panelists said.

Good reasons for going to Mars include science returns, fulfilling humanity's desire to explore, the creation of tangential jobs related to the program, the prestige the U.S. could gain from accomplishing such a momentous task and even that it's "human destiny" to become a multiplanetary species, said Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute. He's also director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, which maintains an "analogue" Mars research station in the Canadian Arctic. But none of these reasons will necessarily create the political impetus to spend a large part of NASA's budget  made up of taxpayer dollars  on such an effort, he said.

"The Apollo program was definitely a Cold War response to a perceived threat, and it served the national interest to go to the moon at the time," he said. "But once you're committed to going to the moon, what are you going to do [once you get there]?  You're going to collect rocks. You're going to do science. Science is what is going to dominate your activity, but it's not the [lawmakers'] motivation for going."

And therein lies a problem, the panelists said: If scientists and advocates can't convey a clear purpose for the exploration of Mars, public opinion will waver and Congress will be less inclined to support NASA funding for the project. At worst, space programs begin under one presidential administration, only for the next administration to strip funding from the project, the panelists said.

For example, in 2010, the Obama administration canceled the Constellation program after a committee found the effort to be unsustainable under NASA's budget (although the Orion spaceship from the program continues to undergo development). More recently, the Trump administration's proposed 2018 NASA budget would cancel the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that is currently in development and that would send a robotic spacecraft to an asteroid and redirect it into lunar orbit.

But since the Apollo era, some long-term NASA projects have survived under multiple administrations and, according to the panelists, lessons should be learned from these successes if NASA is going to achieve a crewed Mars mission. For example, the panelists pointed out that the 135 space shuttle missions were carried out over 30 years under six different administrations under an approximately "flat" budget (i.e., the NASA budget, apart from a few fluctuations, remained approximately the same year on year). In that time, with the help of Russia and other international partners, the International Space Station (ISS) was constructed, and it continues to be crewed years after the shuttle fleet was retired.

Could a mission to Mars operate on a flat budget while maintaining the political and public interest to maintain funding over many years?

Using the "Antarctica model," Lee argued, it might be possible to launch a science mission to Mars even if science isn't the driving motivation for sending astronauts there in the first place.

"We spend about $2 billion a year to maintain a presence in Antarctica," he said. "The justification for that, on the surface, is that [the U.S. is] doing fantastic science in a very collaborative environment. But the truth is that $2 billion a year could not be justified if it wasn't for the politics of needing to be in Antarctica because other countries are there."

So, "we have to find a compelling reason to go to Mars that would justify the expenditure of tax dollars," he added. [Red Planet or Bust: 5 Crewed Mars Mission Ideas]

"STEM Force"

One of the main benefits to come from the Apollo program was the uptick in the number of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates, Lee said. In the U.S. during the 1960s, the number of STEM graduates approximately doubled, he said. The moon missions inspired a generation of youngsters to take on STEM topics; this gave the U.S. a competitive advantage in these fields and had tangible effects on the U.S. economy, Lee said.

A mission to Mars would have a similar effect, and if NASA's Mars exploration plans span many years, the effort could drive more than one generation of people to step into the STEM fields and supercharge the economy, Lee said.

And in peacetime, this may be one of the most potent reasons for policy makers to support human missions to Mars, he said.

Whereas the Army and Air Force protect the freedoms of the nation during wartime, Lee said, a "STEM Force" could be mobilized to safeguard the U.S. economy during peacetime.

This reality isn't lost on other nations of the world, Lee said. China, for example, is pursuing an ambitious space program that includes sending probes to the moon and returning samples. While it may seem silly to aspire to a goal that Apollo accomplished nearly half a century ago, China is benefiting from the huge surge in STEM graduates inspired by the country's space program.

"There's an entire generation of young people and kids in China who are enthralled with their space program [and] by going to the moon," Lee said. Those young people are "going to become the competition, if not the de facto leaders, in STEM fields in this century and later."

What's more, China is taking incremental steps to develop the technologies to eventually land astronauts on the moon, thus avoiding the unsustainable budget spike that the Apollo program demanded because of its incredibly short timeline (less than a decade), Lee said.

A Mars mission could help the U.S. avoid being left behind in space exploration and enjoy the economic benefits of generations of youngsters becoming inspired by space, Lee said. But the only way to get there on a flat NASA budget is with a continuity of government policy and a "consistency and constancy of purpose," he said.

Follow Ian O'Neill @astroengine. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Inmarsat-5 F4 communications satellite into space from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 15, 2017.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from launch pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center here today (May 15) with a communications satellite that will complete Inmarsat's fifth-generation broadband network.

The 23-story-tall booster soared off its seaside launch pad, which once hosted NASA's space shuttles and Apollo moon rockets, at 7:21 p.m. EDT (2321 GMT). It was the sixth of more than 20 missions SpaceX plans to fly this year.

Perched on top of the two-stage rocket was the 13,400-lb. (6,100 kilograms) Inmarsat-5 F4 communications satellite, the heaviest spacecraft yet to be delivered by a Falcon booster into a geostationary transfer orbit some 22,300 miles (35,800 km) above Earth. [Photos: SpaceX Launches Inmarsat-5 F4 Satellite]

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Inmarsat-5 F4 communications satellite into space from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 15, 2017. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The satellite separated from the Falcon 9's second stage right on time, about 32 minutes after liftoff.

"It's been a great afternoon and evening," said SpaceX mission commentator John Insprucker. "All you can ask for today."

Getting F4 into its intended orbit emptied the Falcon's fuel tanks, leaving no propellant for the booster's first stage to attempt a landing on either a drone barge or the ground.

The Falcon 9 rocket and Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite continue to climb into the Florida skies on May 15, 2017. (Image credit: SpaceX)

So far, 10 Falcon 9 first stages have returned intact after launching, including one rocket that has now flown twice. SpaceX plans to launch a second used rocket next month for satellite operator Bulgaria Sat.

Inmarsat, which is flying for the first time with SpaceX, had hoped to have its $250 million F4 satellite in orbit last year, but the flight was delayed after a Falcon 9 exploded on the launch pad as it was being fueled for a preflight engine test on Sept. 1.

The delay cost SpaceX a second launch contract with London-based Inmarsat, which instead hired European competitor Arianespace for a mission now slated to fly in late June aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

SpaceX, which has now flown the Falcon 9 six times successfully since the launch pad accident, has a backlog of more than 70 missions, worth more than $10 billion. Inmarsat has an option for another future flight with SpaceX.

Inmarsat-5 F4 completes the company's four-member, $1.6 billion broadband satellite constellation called Global Xpress, which provides global, mobile communications for airlines, ships, government agencies and other customers.

The fifth-generation satellites, which were built by Boeing, provide downlink communication speeds of up to 50 megabits per second and uplink speeds of up to 5 megabits per second for customers on land, at sea or in the air, Inmarsat said in a press release. That speed is about 100 times faster than Inmarsat's previous-generation system provided.

Customers for the Global Xpress' inflight Wi-Fi services include Lufthansa Group and Austrian Airlines.

The previous three satellites in the network were launched aboard Russian Proton rockets in 2013 and 2015.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
An artist's concept of Made In Spaces Archinaut spacecraft 3D-printing and assembling satellite reflectors in space.

The nascent off-Earth manufacturing industry is getting set to take its next big steps.

Made In Space, the California-based company that owns and operates the commercial 3D printer aboard the International Space Station (ISS), is developing new technology, called Archinaut, that's designed to enable the assembly of large structures in the final frontier.

"The real difference maker for this technology is in the area of being able to put stuff up that you can't origami fold up [for launch], or that would be really, really difficult to do with a traditional deployable" system, Made In Space CEO Andrew Rush told Space.com last month. [3D Printing in Space: A Photo Gallery]

Building structures off Earth would also allow them "to be space-optimized," Rush said, "rather than engineered to survive launch."

The Archinaut concept integrates a 3D-printer and flexible robotic arms into a single spacecraft capable of manufacturing parts and putting them together in space. In addition to building structures anew, Archinaut could help repair or upgrade existing satellites, Rush said.

An artist's concept of Made In Spaces Archinaut spacecraft 3D-printing and assembling satellite reflectors in space. (Image credit: Archinauts 3D-Printing Satellite Reflectors)

Made In Space has been working on the project for about six months. NASA selected the idea for funding in November 2015 via a "tipping point technologies" solicitation, and the company (along with partners Northrop Grumman and Oceaneering Space Systems) got on the $20 million contract roughly a year later, Rush said.

Made In Space's work on Archinaut currently focuses on figuring out how best to manufacture "extended structures" in the space environment, Rush said. This research involves testing at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California  Made In Space's next-door neighbor  and analyzing samples created by the ISS commercial 3D printer, which is called the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF).

The next step will involve adding the robotic-arms component into the mix, Rush said. All of this is part of the project's first phase, which will last a total of 18 months.

After such work is complete, Made In Space and its partners aim to launch an Archinaut demonstration mission to Earth orbit. That flight had been pegged for 2018, but the timeline might end up being pushed back a bit, Rush said.

"For the Archinaut development program through NASA, that's kind of dependent on Phase 2, which is to be announced," he said.

The demonstration mission will likely build a space structure a few meters across, Rush added. There should be bigger things to come, however.

"Where this gets really interesting is, tens [of meters] to 100 meters plus," he said. "And that's what we're angling toward."

For example, Archinaut could potentially enable the construction of gigantic space telescopes, Rush said: The technology could manufacture some parts in orbit and integrate them with others, such as mirror segments, that were launched from the ground. (At the moment, entire space telescopes must be folded up to fit inside a rocket's nose cone, limiting their maximum size.)

"That's what we think is the attainable future that Archinaut enables," Rush said.

NASA isn't the only organization interested in Archinaut. Rush said that Made In Space is also working with a commercial customer on an application for the technology and will turn over some hardware to this customer (which he declined to name) at the end of this summer.

Made In Space is also negotiating with a half-dozen other potential customers  some of them government entities, others in the private sector  on the possible use of Archinaut tech, Rush said.

Made In Space partnered with NASA to build the first-ever 3D printer aboard the ISS, which reached the orbiting lab in September 2014. NASA owns that printer. But Made In Space owns and operates the AMF, a second-generation machine that arrived at the ISS in March 2016 and prints out parts for a variety of customers.

The company plans to develop Archinaut tech on a similar path, from demonstration mission to a series of increasingly capable, commercially operating machines, Rush said.

"Visions of what this could do have been with us for a long time," he said. "We want to do good work, and we want to learn from it."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
The new series "Year Million" on National Geographic Channel explores what humanity may look like in the year 1 million.

In the year 1 million, Earth's continents will look roughly the same as they do now and the sun will still shine as it does today. But humans could be so radically different that people today wouldn't even recognize them, according to a new series from National Geographic.

Premiering today (May 15), the new National Geographic Channel series "Year Million" investigates what humans might look like far into the future. In six episodes, the show explores the possibility of merging technology with the human body, the potential to drastically extend lifespans, the effects of virtual reality, the use of computers to merge human minds, the availability of new sources of energy and the possibilities of spreading humanity into outer space. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]

Brian Greene, a professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University in New York City, is one of the famed scientists featured in the series. Greene has written several books on string theory, a theoretical physics model that suggests the universe is made up of miniscule, one-dimensional strings. He has also explored the mathematics that could help explain how the universe has more than three dimensions. Greene said he doesn't think humans 1 million years from now will look much like people do now, and he said their lives will be so different that humans today wouldn't recognize them.

"We'd require an intense education to even understand the parameters of life a million years in the future," Greene told Live Science.

A look at what life was like 1 million years in the past provides an idea: At that time, modern humans didn't exist yet, and the most technologically advanced things on the planet were fire and the hand axe. (Picture trying to explain an office job to Homo Erectus, whose day was spent hunting and gathering wild foods.)

In the future, Greene said, there's a good possibility that humans will find a way to merge with their machines.

"We're already finding, on much shorter timescales, [that the] distinction between biological beings and artificial beings is starting to blur," he said. "I could see a new kind of hybrid species out of the biological and the synthetic."

In physics, humans may solve certain big problems, but that will likely only lead to new questions, he said.

"I guess my feeling is there are certain chapters in the story of physics we will complete," Greene said. "We'll truly understand fundamental forces [and] the basic ingredients of matter, and unite all the equations that describe [quantum mechanics and gravity] into some kind of unified theory."

That will be far from the end of the story, though. "With every chapter we complete, we ask questions we couldn't even formulate because we didn't have the concepts," he added.

One example is Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. "Einstein comes and gives us general relativity in 1915, and with it, a new description of gravity. Now we can address questions of the origin of [the] universe," which wasn't possible with earlier physics, Greene said. In some cases, scientists may find that the very questions they were asking were the wrong ones. For instance, German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who was born in 1571 and died in 1630, spent decades trying to figure out why the Earth is located 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun.

"Now we know it's just happenstance," Greene said.

Beyond scientists, others involved with the show include science fiction writers, whose job it is to dream up future worlds. One of these is Charles Soule, who has written several comics for Marvel and his own science fiction in the comic book series "Letter 44" (Oni Press, 2014), about a near-future mission to investigate an alien anomaly in the asteroid belt.

"The year 1 million concept  it's like an abstract," Soule said. "Take humanity, and it's accelerated far beyond where we are today, where most of the technological problems today are kind of solved."

This would mean humans would still be solving problems, but these would likely be different problems, such as figuring out the role of artificial intelligence or what it means to be human in a world that is dominated by technology, he said.

Those kinds of questions can come up even in superhero-themed books, though science fiction is where Soule said people can think through "far-out, crazy stuff" and its implications  which, he said, is part of the job of the science fiction genre.

Soule added that even though science fiction isn't often right in the details, its influence is felt in many areas. The TV series "Star Trek," for example, influenced the design of gadgets such as flip phones and the concept of touch screens, he said.

But speculation via science fiction also reflects contemporary events, Soule said. In Jules Verne's time, science fiction reflected submarine technology; when comic book heroes the X-Men and the Hulk first appeared, their stories mirrored anxieties over nuclear radiation. Fellow comic book author Warren Ellis, Soule said, has examined the issue of post-humanism  the future evolution of humanity  in his work.

"The ideas we put into stories reflect the world we live in," Soule said.

The world of year one million will certainly be interesting, Greene said. "The only pity is that we won't be here to see it," he added

Year Million premieres tonight on National Geographic Channel (opens in new tab) at 9/8c (check local listings).

Original article on Live Science.
An artists impression of a supermassive black hole growing in a normal galaxy with a doughnut-shaped structure of gas and dust around it (left), compared with a black hole in a merging galaxy, which is completely obscured by a sphere of debris (right).

When galaxies collide, massive amounts of gas and dust create a cocoon of debris around the ravenous black hole at the center of the merger, a new study shows.

Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), astronomers studied several merging galaxies to show that such large-scale interactions can greatly disrupt material orbiting in the vicinity, ultimately accelerating the rate at which the material falls in toward the center of the black hole and creating what is known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN).

This process forms a thick sphere of dust and gas around the black hole of a galaxy merger, rather than the doughnut-shaped cloud that surrounds a supermassive black hole in a normal galaxy, according to a statement from NASA. [When Galaxies Collide: Photos of Great Galactic Crashes]

"A supermassive black hole grows rapidly during these mergers," Claudio Ricci, lead author of the study, said in the statement. "The results further our understanding of the mysterious origins of the relationship between a black hole and its host galaxy."

For the study, the researchers examined 52 supermassive black holes in nearby merging galaxies. As material is funneled in toward a central black hole, it releases high-energy X-ray emissions. However, the thick cloud of gas and dust surrounding the black hole of a galaxy merger can completely obscure such emissions, the researchers said.

NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope, however, is sensitive to high-energy X-rays and therefore able to detect emissions that escape the thick cloud of debris. The researchers compared NuSTAR data with observations from NASA's Swift and Chandra and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatories, which look at lower energy components of the X-ray spectrum, according to the NASA statement.

The measurements suggest that when high-energy X-rays are detected and low-energy X-rays are not, the AGN is surrounded by a shell of thick material fueled by the collision of galaxies. Furthermore, during the later stages of this process, the black hole in a merging galaxy is almost completely obscured by a cloud of debris, the researchers said.

"The further along the merger is, the more enshrouded the AGN will be," Ricci said in the statement. "Galaxies that are far along in the merging process are completely covered in a cocoon of gas and dust."

Their findings, published Jan. 23 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, support the idea that an AGN's black hole does most of its eating while enshrouded during the late stages of a merger, the researchers said.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom,Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha

Indianopolis, May 16 (PTI) Encouraged by Infosys decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high- powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies.

?Im looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter,? Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol.

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Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so.

Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indiana?s presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India.

The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, ?Indianas become the best place in the country to create and innovate.?

And ?thats why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and its exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil,? Holcomb told PTI.

He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event.

The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago. ?But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project,? he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had.

The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting.

?We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way."

Looking at strengthening Indiana?s partnership with Infosys in the coming years, Holcomb said he wants to attracts other Indian IT companies.

?Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University? folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now,? he said.

?... were always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys.?

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Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, with low tax rates and a "reasonable predictable regulatory environment so theres real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people".

"And we do as well in the companies that come here and thats why were still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average,? he said.

Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. ?Indiana is on a roll and has momentum."

Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcombs India visit later this year.

Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations.

India ranks number 18 for Indiana?s exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totaled USD 266.6 million.

Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals.

India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totaled USD 348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines ransmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel. PTI LKJ MIN

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By Press Trust of India: Pentagon

From Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 16 (PTI) The Afghan unit of ISIS known as ISIS-K or ISIS Khorasan Province is not growing in the war torn country and instead is struggling to maintain the little hold it has, the Pentagon has said.

"It is continuing to be a challenge, but at this point I dont see it growing. I see it, if anything, struggling to maintain what little hold it has," the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters here.

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"ISIS-K, is very small area in the mountains of Nangarhar region, not something that presents the level of threat at this point that it would probably like to. But we will continue to work with our partners there to defeat it. We dont want it to establish a foothold," he said in response to a question.

The very presence of ISIS in Afghanistan, he said is both a problem and a symptom or a reflection of progress.

"When ISIS is on its back in Iraq and Syria, it is no surprise that its popping up in other places that are more hospitable compared to Iraq and Syria. Iraq and Syria, because of the success of the mission there, have become less hospitable," Davis said.

"So we have seen this affiliate grow in Afghanistan, called ISIS-K or ISIS Khorasan Province. But we have focused a lot of effort on it, and youve certainly seen that covered widely in the press, both with air strikes and operations on the ground in conjunction with the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces," the Pentagon spokesman told foreign journalists.

Davis said the main objective of the United States is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack the United States and its allies.

"We remain focused on the defeat of al-Qaida and its associates as well as the defeat of ISIS Khorasan province, or ISIS-K as we call it," he said.

"The Taliban, tried eight separate times last year to overtake a provincial capital in Afghanistan. They failed every single one of those times, and they have yet to do it successfully this year as well. And youve heard General Nicholson talk about it in his open testimony and elsewhere that Afghanistan remains a formidable challenge," he said. PTI LKJ ARK

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A Yonkers, N.Y. woman was sentenced to two year in prison after being convicted of stealing nearly $800,000 from the Stamford office of Abbey National Treasury Services where she worked.

Rosemarie Collazo, 52, created a scheme under which she created duplicate invoices for managers to approve, then deposited them in her personal bank account, as described by the office of U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly. Collazo generated 150 payments between 2010 and 2016, also on three occasions cashing in checks that had been paid to the company.
Meet the 16-year-old Zeyan Shafiq who created KashBook, Kashmir's own version of Facebook, and launched mobile app for it too.

By India Today Web Desk: Three weeks since the Jammu and Kashmir government banned 22 social media services, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, the valley has come up with its own version of Facebook.

A 16-year-old boy from Anantnag district of Kashmir division developed Kashmir's own social networking website and launched it within a week of the social media ban.

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Zeyan Shafiq, who finished his 10th standard exams few months ago, along with his now 19-year-old friend Uzair Jan had created KashBook back in 2013 but decided to relaunch the site after the social media ban. The website, since its relaunch, has more than 1,000 users and are satisfied with its features, according to a report in twocircles.net .

The 16-year-old software enthusiast started learning HTML tags by himself at the age of 11 and tried his hand on computer languages such as C++ and Java.

Zeyan and his friend Uzair Jan developed a mobile optimised website and mobile apps for Google Play store and App Store. Both the developers aim to pursue computer engineering in the future.

"On the portal, you can add people and chat with them, post messages along with many features which one finds in other social media websites. There is also a market for buying and selling," Zeyan told Catch News .

On April 26, 22 social media websites were banned because these sites were allegedly misused by "anti-government elements". The Kashmiri youth defied the ban and accessed these blocked websites by using virtual private network (VPN) .

"The government has blocked access to all the social networks and they are blocking VPNs too. So, when they'll block the whole access to social media then how will people from valley stay connected with each other? KashBook is the answer to social media gag", told twocircles.net while talking about the need of creating Kashmir's own Facebook.

Here's what makes KashBook unique: The users can use Kashmiri language to communicate. The 16-year-old creator has said that he will use this website to focus and promote goods and services made in Kashmir. The site works without a VPN so people in Kashmir can easily use it. Kashbook has a forum where people can sell their goods and boost their business.

Since the site has gone live, Zeyan and Uzair have offered their full support to resolve any issue faced by the users. The duo is comprising on the sleep to ensure Kashmiris stay connected through Kashbook.

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Also read: Kashmir: Government likely to ban social media in Valley

Also read: Kashmiri girl, whose photo of pelting stones went viral, wants to play football for India

Also watch:

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STAMFORD  Stamford High School is launching a new program that will allow students to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an associate degree.

The Early College Studies program will begin this fall with 50 incoming freshmen, making Stamford one of only three districts in the county and about five in the state to allow students to work on a college degree while still in high school.

This is an opportunity for Stamford students to be part of history, Principal Ray Manka said. We hope that any student who has a keen interest in technology and ready to do some great work consider the application process.

Students who are accepted into the program will work toward an associates degree in computer science and technology, with a concentration in either mobile programming or software engineering. They will also be assigned an industry-partner mentor and will be encouraged to do an internship before their senior year.

The application deadline is May 23. The program is open to all city ninth-graders, regardless of their neighborhood.

Matt Laskowski, an assistant principal at Stamford High, said the cost to families will be minimal, but its still being determined.

He said the schedule and logistics of the program will be individualized to each students needs. He said he hopes many of the schools own teachers will become certified to teach as adjunct Norwalk Community College professors. Other professors may be invited to teach at the school and students may be transported to NCC if necessary.

We will offer as many courses as possible at Stamford High School, Laskowski said.

In Fairfield County, only Norwalk and Danbury have duo-enrollment programs in their districts.

The program is modeled after a nationwide initiative created to prepare high school students with the skills necessary to immediately join the technology industry workforce. But Laskowski said the benefits go beyond employment.

It not only provides them with the skills needed to go directly to the work force after high school, but it prepares them to be successful at the college level as well, Laskowski said. (They) will emerge into college classes much sooner... Depending on the college, they potentially could save themselves two years worth of tuition.

Interested students and parents are asked to attend one of two remaining information sessions at Stamford High  from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday and between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday.

To apply, visit stamfordhigh.org.

noliveira@stamfordadvocate.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson
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STAMFORD  Keyara Zamor was spending time with her family on Long Island earlier this month when she experienced one of the scariest  and most heroic  moments in her life.

The Stamford teen found her 5-year-old cousin drowning in a pond outside her uncles house in Bay Shore, N.Y.

The first thing I saw was his head under the water and his face was turning purple, the 16-year-old said.

But while the family called 911, Zamor made a life-saving decision, taking the boy out of the pond and applying CPR for about 10 minutes until first responders arrived.

Zamor, a junior at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering, was recognized this week for saving the life of her cousin, Jonathan George. Mayor David Martin, joined by several city and school district officials and Stamford Hospital representatives, presented Zamor with a proclamation during a ceremony Tuesday afternoon in the government center.

It was a terrific thing you did, Martin told her before reading the proclamation.

It was the first time Zamor used her CPR skills since participating in a large-scale training by Hands for Life two years ago. The local nonprofit visited the citys public schools in 2015 to teach thousands of students hands-only CPR.

Dr. Thomas Nero, a Stamford Hospital interventional cardiologist who founded Hands for Life, joined Tuesdays event to thank Zamor. Nero said when he started the program, it was unknown whether students could use those skills as teenagers or would only use them later in their lives.

The reality is that they can do it now, he said, pointing to Zamor.

The boys mother, Ketsia Gabriel, said her son loves water and was likely trying to grab fish from the pond. Gabriel said she was in shock when she saw Zamor trying to revive her son.

I thought he was already dead, she said.

Board of Education President Geoff Alswanger, who also joined the ceremony, said Zamors story proves we can achieve great things by educating our children.

Hands for Life has trained more than 20,000 people in Stamford and other Fairfield County communities to perform CPR and use automatic external defibrillators. The groups mission is to make the region the safest for cardiac arrest in Connecticut.

In August 2012, Hands for Life set the world record for the number of people trained in CPR on a single day  5,100.

Hands for Life says more than 325,000 Americans die from sudden cardiac arrest every year. Its the equivalent of four Boeing 747 airplanes crashing and killing everyone on board each day of the year, according to the group.

Meanwhile, fewer than one in four cardiac arrest victims receive CPR from a bystander, and only about 7 percent of victims survive, the organization said. According to the nonprofit, the survival rate falls 10 percent each minute without CPR.

Zamor has now been telling her friends and family to take a CPR course.

Public Safety Director Ted Jankowski said the teen showed initiative and determination in saving her cousins life.

If it was not for her actions, Joey would not be here today, Jankowski said. Joey is on a path to recovery because of Keyaras quick and deliberate actions. Keyara is a real-life hero because she used her training seriously and used it to save a life.

noliveira@stamfordadvocate.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students today welcomed the Delhi High Court order transferring the Najeeb Ahmad case from the Delhi police to the CBI, but wondered if the governments investigation agency would be given a free hand to probe the disappearance of the JNU student.

"It is a good move, but we were demanding an independent enquiry monitored by the court. Even the CBI functions under the ambit of the central government and can be influenced as we have seen in several cases," JNU students union (JNUSU) president Mohit Kumar Pandey said.

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Former JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid

said the order was a "vindication" of the contention that the Delhi Police had failed to do its job in finding Najeeb, who has not been seen for the last seven months.

"The High Courts order is a welcome move. But the question is, will the central government allow the CBI to function independently," she asked.

Rashid said a court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) -- "something that is free of Modi governments influence" -- would have been a better move.

A bench of Justices G S Sistani and Rekha Palli today transferred the case to the CBI on a plea from the students mother after the Delhi Police said it had no problems with the case being moved.

The court said the probe by the CBI would be supervised by an officer, holding a rank not lower than that of a DIG.

The student disappeared on October 14, 2016, a day after he allegedly had an altercation with students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a students group affiliated to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The ABVP has denied any involvement in Najeebs disappearance.

"It is a very good step. We have to trust the system. We hope Najeeb is found," the general secretary of the Alumni Association of JNU, Devendra Choubey, said.

JNU student Rahul Rajkhowa, who mentioned Najeeb in a rap song that went viral on the social media last week, said it was "essential" that the CBI took over the case.

"They might not be the best ones to handle it, but will be better than the Delhi police," he said.

He hoped that there would be no "political pressure" on the CBI.

"We hope the investigation is taken up in a fair manner," he added.

JNU Teachers Association president Ayesha Kidwai hoped that the CBI would take up the search for Najeeb with an "earnestness" that "nobody, neither the police nor the JNU administration", had exhibited so far.

"The JNU community is looking for Najeeb as well as for accountability for the torture that his family has been put through," she said. PTI CPB BDS

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A sos has warned that a fire at its German distribution centre could have cost it up to 6.25 million in damaged stock.

The fashion retailer said a full evacuation was triggered after the fire broke out in part of its Eurohub 2 centre, located outside Berlin, at around 3am on Tuesday.

No injuries were sustained, but around 2 million items were housed in the affected area, and Asos estimated that around 25% of them, worth around 6.25 million, could be compromised by fire and water damage.

The buildings technology, automation and structure remain intact and contingency plans have been activated, meaning customer orders have been diverted to its Barnsley warehouse.

The rest of the depot is expected to be up and running again today and Asos said it was fully insured for loss of stock and any interruption to business.

The incident will bring back bad memories for the London company. In 2014, a blaze tore through its Barnsley facility, costing it up to 30 million in lost sales. That contributed to a profit warning during what became known as the firms annus horribilis.

UBS analyst Adam Cochrane said that with 2 million units of stock unable to be sold amid the clean-up, Tuesdays fire may have some impact on full-year sales growth. The repairs may also delay development of the Eurohub site and increase costs. However, he did not foresee a repeat of 2014.

Whilst this is unfortunate (especially given the track record with the 2014 Barnsley fire) it does highlight one of the benefits of multi-site operations as well as the speed of ASOS response. The financial impact should be limited and have no impact on the ASOS strategy.
S hares in CYBG took a hit on Tuesday as the challenger bank disappointed the City because of a fall in deposit balances.

The company behind the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks saw profits up 15% to 123 million for the half-year.

RBC Capital Markets thought CYBG missed forecasts on several measures and thinks the shares are overvalued anyway. It prices them at 200p. Today the stock fell 4% to 278p.

Finance director Ian Smith said it was an improved performance with steady growth and more to come. Customers will soon get faster decisions on loans, he said, as the only true full-service challenger bank ups its game.

CYBG has yet to pay a dividend but it says there will be one come the full year. The bank is shutting 79 branches.

Chief executive David Duffy added: As the only true full-service challenger bank of scale across both retail and SME in the UK market, we have been able to deliver ahead of market growth in mortgages and growth in core SME banking, as well as making a strong start to our commitment to provide up to 6 billion of lending to SMEs over the next three years.
T he boss of Ei Group has called on the next government to review the concerning business rates system, as he revealed a fall in profits at the pubs chain which is grappling with a 2.2 billion debt pile.

In response to new rates bills which came into effect in April, Simon Townsend said: I remain very concerned. They are a tax on business and a disincentive to invest.

He urged the government to find a business-friendly solution.

The plea came as Ei, formerly known as Enterprise Inns, said pre-tax profit in the six months to March 31 slumped to 13 million from 40 million. That was owing to a one-off refinancing cost.

The company is under way with a restructure to boost profits by shifting its 5000-strong estate away from the beer-tie model, which involves a publican renting a site and buying beer at inflated prices from a landlord in return for lower rent.

Second-half trading at the group has been strong, but the next two months are not expected to match last summer, which was boosted by Euro 2016, won by Portugal.
A couple of years ago, when you just couldnt put up with your rubbish Vodafone signal any more, youd phone customer service, wait for ages, then have a foreign chappy fail to solve your problem.

So bad was Vodas customer service that it was fined the thick end of 1 million in October for failing to meet minimum levels. Not only that, but it was hit with a further 4.6 million for failing to credit pay-as-you-go customers after theyd paid to top up.

Little wonder that in the past two years, it was Britains most-complained-about mobile operator, with 18 complaints per 100,000 users compared with an industry average of six.

(If youre shopping around, by the way, Tesco Mobile is popular in our house, and scored highest in the survey by a mile.)

Today, Voda said it was taking great strides to improve this dire record. After an apparent Damascene conversion, its hiring customer service staff back in the UK, so you will at least be able to conduct your complaint in English. Its even encouraging them to pick up the phone, rather than keep you on hold for ages.

All steps in the right direction which, with a bit of luck, may see customers who quit the network return. Vodas UK division certainly needs something to go right: underlying profit last year fell 16%, stripping out sterlings impact.

Despite its own goals, Vodafone isnt alone in finding the UK mobiles market tough. All operators have struggled here in the face of cutthroat competition, and the weak pound makes their kit more expensive. Voda today reported last years UK earnings crashed 15.8%. Profit margins fell 3.3 percentage points to 17.5%.

When set against countries like Germany, where underlying profits were up 4.5% and margins up 1.5% to 34%; or Italy (profits up 10.6% and margins by 3% to 36.5%), you have to wonder how long it will be before Vittorio Colao gives up on his companys birthplace.

My guess is hell wait until his new-found love of the customer bears fruit before selling up. John Malone and his Liberty Media group wait patiently in the wings.

All thats interesting to us Brits, but, with the UK only making up around 6% of Vodas profit, for shareholders, were a sideshow.

More important in todays numbers were the projections on global cashflow, which has been wobbly to say the least. Given most people own Voda shares for the dividend, that has been a worry.

This years divis costing 3.9 billion arent quite covered due to the 300 million it spent on buying new spectrum. But Colao says next year will throw off 5 billion in cashflow, covering the divi for the first time in years. Shareholders can breathe a little easier.
F ears that retail investors will think twice before trading through Hargreaves Lansdown have hit the fund supermarkets shares.

The FTSE 100 company has been the go-to place for armchair investors to buy and sell shares for years. However, the City wondered whether that would remain the case as US giant Vanguard unveiled plans to sell directly to consumers in Europe for the first time.

Vanguard, the worlds second-largest fund manager with 3.3 trillion of assets under management, is to undercut Hargreaves with fees starting from just 0.23% a year, compared with the British firms 0.53% starting rate for investing in the FTSE All Share tracker fund.

Shares in Hargreaves tumbled 63p, or 4.4%, to 1384p on the news.

Another day of gains lifted the price of Brent crude by 40 cents, or 0.8%, to $52.22 a barrel, which sent the FTSE 100 to new highs. The blue-chip index rose 19.49 points to 7473.86 as it closed in on 7500 for the first time.

Downgrades from Deutsche Bank rather than Labours plans for nationalisation hit water companies shares. The investment bank cut its ratings on Severn Trent, off 26p to 2403p, and United Utilities, down 15p to 1011p, from Buy to Hold. Pennon, a water supplier which dodged Deutsches downgrades, was just 2.18p down at 871.32p.

General Election polls and projections: May 16

Housebuilder Countryside, 8.5p better off at 286.4p, sat at the top of the mid-cap table. Berenberg predicted big things, notably a 75% jump in operating profits this year on sales that are 20% higher. Management is currently reviewing its five-year targets, and we expect a significant increase in ambition, the broker said.

Investors dialled into Zegona Communications after it sold Telecable to Spanish telecoms firm Euskaltel for 701 million (595 million) including 245 million in debt. Zegona, which will search for other assets, will receive 186.5 million in cash and a 15% stake in Euskaltel.

Video games developer Frontier Developments charged up 12p to 396p after confirming its Elite Dangerous space adventure game will be available on PlayStation 4 next month.

A second profit warning this year caused K3 Business Technology Group to dive 95.5p, or 38%, to 154p.
Sacked AAP minister Kapil Mishra will approach the CBI today to lodge complaints against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal whom he had accused of corruption.

By India Today Web Desk: A day after sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra broke his fast and got discharged from the hospital, the former AAP minister is ready to approach the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) today to take forward his corruption charges against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party.

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Mishra in his tweet earlier today had alleged that Arvind Kejriwal, who entered politics with the promise of fighting corruption, has been caught into the circle of corruption himself.

He also said, "Kejriwal wants me to give him the details of the allegations. The person who can hack EVM, can easily hack or amend a CD. Kejriwal is silent on the allegations and the evidence that I am providing against him."

The former water resources and tourism minister in the Delhi government has levelled allegations of corruption against several party leaders, including Kejriwal and PWD Minister Satyendra Jain.

On Sunday, Mishra accused the party of lying to the Election Commission (EC) about donations and money laundering through shell companies, before he fainted midway through the presser and was hospitalised. He called Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal corrupt and dared him to quit failing which he "would drag him by collar to Delhi's Tihar jail".

Mishra today said that Kejriwal must prepare to go to Tihar now.

THE ALLEGATIONS

Mishra has alleged that the AAP had over Rs 45 crore in its bank account during the financial year of 2013-2014 whereas the party in its declaration to the EC had showed an income of around Rs 9 crore. He said the party concealed around Rs 36 crore from the party workers and the government.

Mishra told the media at his residence that AAP had received "crores of rupees" from "shell companies" run by people close to Kejriwal, mentioning in particular AAP legislators Shiv Charan Goel and Naresh Yadav. These shell companies, Mishra alleged, also had "ghost" directors who donated money to the party and converted "black money into white".

The AAP refuted Mishra's charges and said he was "parroting" the Bharatiya Janata Party. On this allegation, Mishra tweeted about Kejriwal with a bunch of his photos with Andul Basit, Lalu Yadav, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, and PM Modi that, "Kejriwal is claiming that I am BJP'S agent which is not true. If getting pictures clicked withsome makes them their agent then whose agent is Arvind Kejriwal: a. Pakistan b. Lalu yadav c. Congress d. Modi/BJP."

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AAP MLAs Goel and Yadav denied links with the entities named by Mishra and said they would file a defamation suit against him.

KAPIL MISHRA VS SUNITA KEJRIWAL

On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's wife, Sunita Kejriwal also slammed Kapil Mishra saying that he would face the consequences of the false allegations that he has made.

The former minister was on a hunger strike since May 10 till May 15, demanding that Kejriwal must reveal the source of funding of the foreign trips of five AAP leaders -- Sanjay Singh, Ashish Khetan, Raghav Chadhha, Satyendar Jain and Durgesh Pathak -- in the last two years.

Mishra was sacked on May 6 in a sudden move and later was also suspended from the party.

Also Read:

Kapil Mishra ends hunger strike, says Arvind Kejriwal is hiding behind wife Sunita

It's Kapil Mishra vs Arvind Kejriwal's wife too: He says Sunita worried about husband's downfall; law of nature never errs, she hits back

Will approach CBI, CBDT against AAP as soon as I am discharged, says ex-Delhi minister Kapil Mishra

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Kapil Mishra faints after calling Arvind Kejriwal corrupt; AAP blames BJP, Congress demands probe

Kapil Mishra 'exposes' Arvind Kejriwal: All you need to know about the charges against Aam Aadmi Party

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D o you pay for your bank account? Many people do and in return get handed extras, such as travel insurance or breakdown cover. But theres growing evidence to suggest that some of these extras are pretty useless, such as insurance you dont actually need.

In fact theres a growing tide of people who are claiming compensation from banks for being mis-sold expensive paid-for accounts by pushy salespeople.

There are millions of other folk who pay nothing for their current account. Theyve come to accept free banking as the norm.

So it may come as a surprise to learn that one UK High Street bank is launching its first current account and plans to charge customers 3 a month and give them no extras in return.

Does that sound crackers? Not to Huw Davies, head of retail banking at Dutch lender Triodos Bank, and the man behind the new account.

There is no such thing as free banking because someone else always pays, he reckons.

He believes that free accounts are subsidised by the high penalty charges and hidden fees which hit vulnerable customers, or those who slip into the red by mistake.

He has a point. Anyone who goes overdrawn can pay a huge penalty, especially if they do so without telling their bank first, or maybe without realising it.

The debt charity StepChange has reported that financially vulnerable people are being hit by bank fees of up to 225 per year and its reckoned the high street giants pocket around 1.2 billion a year from overdraft charges.

In other words, the less financially well-off are paying for the free banking that many others enjoy.

Finance analyst Andrew Hagger of Moneycomms.co.uk says Triodos should be praised for being upfront about the real cost of banking.

Its a shame that some of the commercially driven banking giants dont have a similar outlook instead of fleecing those customers who can least afford exorbitant overdraft fees, he says.

By charging 3 for the account, Triodos says it wont have to cover its costs through hidden fees. But the boss of the ethical bank also hopes the fee will make people stop and think.

We want people to think about what their bank is doing with their money, says Bevis Watts, UK managing director of Triodos. Money doesnt have to be invested in the arms trade, fossil fuels and tobacco. It can be used to do good things.

The bank puts that into practice by only lending money to organisations and projects that it reckons are making a positive difference to society.

A pipe dream, or the future of finance? Whatever you think, a challenge to the existing banking model has to be welcome.
C ompetition is good. Like broccoli and exercise, its benefits cannot be overstated. So we are told. Regulators and governments tend to see competition as the solution to any ill.

There must be occasions when this is questionable.

How about in telecoms, where today Vodafone reports a loss of 5 billion? Thats real money even to a giant like Voda, and comes on the back of a price war in India thanks to a local billionaire, Mukesh Ambani, who wants to give phones away.

On the one hand, this is a result for poor folk wanting a phone. On the other, without profits there is no money to spend on that countrys infrastructure. In any field, if you have too much competition and not enough profit, investment is hit. In real life, no consumer craves actual competition in practical things such as heating, lighting and mobile phone coverage. They just want the kit to do what it said it would.

At the moment, the market is set up to offer you a mobile phone that is priced at far less than it cost to make, in return for slow connection and service that we would never accept were it from a pub or restaurant.

Which brings us to Avanti Communications, a business aimed at making the future arrive. Its job is to operate internet satellites in space, offer us internet speeds faster than lasers (and get wi-fi into schools in Africa, you know, wishy-washy stuff).

The internet of things, that world where we control everything from a clever phone, telling robots what we require for tea, is just around the corner, maybe.

For this future to happen, companies such as Avanti need to survive. Avantis share price has gone from 8 to 8p on the back of various problems, not least that the market thinks long-term is the period from breakfast to lunch. The market cant see the profit coming and doesnt lobby for good sense.

Chief executive David Williams takes this relatively well, but thinks, with some reason, that even if his shares werent worth 8 they are worth a lot more than 8p.

He watches with some amusement others trying to launch satellites into space as if they suddenly got into kite flying. The only way to do it really is to put a bomb under a rocket, set fire to it and stand well back. Attempts to do it any other way tend to have anti-commercial, anti-marketing outcomes. Such as, either it doesnt take off, or everyone dies.

What else does Avanti face? Well, billionaire players queuing up to launch cheaper rockets and satellites.

Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg might reasonably think that they have conquered Earth, but internet satellites are a new venture for them, not a lifetime passion.

Maybe the worlds of retail and music and cars needed a radical shake-up from a can-do risk-taker who broke rules he didnt even know existed. Its far less obvious that the same treatment is needed for internet satellites in space with clear military uses.

Cheaper doesnt necessarily mean safer or better.

What if the cut-price satellites which Bezos and co launch crash into something? (I asked around a bit on this one: answer, erm, they probably wont. Probably not.)

As for Facebook, Zuckerbergs promise to bring his apps to poor or remote African communities comes at a price. He wants the satellite operators to do it for nothing. (Just as Google wanted Vodafone to carry its service for no charge  this worked a treat for Google.)

No one is saying, stop the revolution. But perhaps we wont be able to harness the benefits if billionaires from Silicon Valley want to play games with pricing or governments are misled into constraining innovation by trying to force down prices artificially.

Williams doesnt like to sound sour, but tells me: In the past, the motivation of regulators to drive price down may have worked against the interests of consumers where it made it uneconomic to deploy infrastructure.

Maybe just now, the money being thrown into internet satellites is not that helpful to consumers, even if the billionaires can afford to lose it all. Either this needs to be entirely a government loss-making effort, or companies need to make some money at it before we can all get decent phone reception.
W hen Brendan Cowell moved over to the UK last year, he told his mum that he wanted to work at the Young Vic because its probably the best theatre in the world.

Twelve months on, and hes sent his mum a picture of two posters next to each other - both of which he is starring in at the Young Vic. He takes centre stage in Joe Wrights much-anticipated production of Brechts Life of Galileo which opens this week; he then dives straight into reprising his role as Billie Pipers husband in Yerma, returning to the show after its phenomenal success last year.

But when he arrived in the UK last year, Cowell checked into the Bloomsbury hotel with a suitcase, an iPhone speaker and no agent. He had already found success in his native Australia as an actor, writer and director, but he told me thought hed see what happened in London. Yerma, by all accounts, was a happening.

Life of Galileo is a prescient play for our times. Brechts masterwork explores what happens when Galileo makes some discoveries through his telescope that the Catholic church would much rather he didnt. Cowell, who plays the pioneering astronomer, tells me that the play feels so relevant that the audience are kind of reeling in their seats at some of the lines.

Brendan Cowell in Life of Galileo / Johan Persson

Its so potent that its almost quite hard to watch in parts because you think, hang on, thats 1633, its 2017, and thats not even just vaguely relevant, thats just made the whole audience shudder with acknowledgement, he says. Yerma director Simon Stone even texted him to ask Hows it going inside Bertolts Brexit?

The production is an exciting concoction of creativity, with Joe Wright, director of Atonement and Anna Karenina, at the helm, and The Chemical Brothers Tom Rowlands creating original music for it. 59 Productions have made the auditorium look like a planetarium with dazzling visuals and set designer Lizzie Clachan has created a space where the audience can sit on the stage and marvel at the whole thing.

Cowell describes Wright as a visionary, bringing many different components to one classic text and making it all work. Its this mad, mad world and in the middle is this bearded Australian guy speaking the truth. You will feel like youre actually in space, like youre actually facing the sun, he says. He describes performing on stage amongst the audience as like UFC - I get in the middle of this ring. Its a bare fisted fight against the authorities, and then theres this beautiful, lyrical kind of travel to the heavens.

He says hes completely changed his lifestyle whilst preparing for Life of Galileo and has devoted all of his mental energy to it - so going back to Yerma will be a nice return. He cant wait - and with only nine days between finishing Life of Galileo and starting on Yerma, it wont be long.

I think itll be exciting - all the actors will be a little bit different. Well have a years life under our belt. So Im pretty much at the Young Vic until September and then I might get a job at in marketing or administration, he jokes.

Simon Stones restaging of Lorcas classic play saw Billie Piper and Cowell play a couple struggling with their inability to conceive a child. Piper won Best Actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the Oliviers for her performance - Cowell calls her a classic top human and a brave bloody actor, who became a great friend. On the first preview of Life of Galileo, he says she drove to the Young Vic to drop off a card.

Neither of us got into drama school, weve both lived a life, and we both attack acting in exactly the same way, which is get out there and dont leave anything behind, he says. I loved going out on stage with her every night. I never knew what was gona happen and if I tried to lie to her shed headbutt me. Thats what I want.

Stone and Cowell are also close friends, and theyve also collaborated together several times (an acclaimed restaging of The Wild Duck was performed at the Barbican in 2014). So I knew something would arrive. And when the scenes started coming in I thought: this is HBO. This is really good drama to watch, he says. The scenes were just so potent I thought, thisll do well. In the end, the Young Vic had queues round the block trying to get a ticket for the sold out run.

Cowells move to the UK came from a restlessness at what was happening in Australia, creatively and culturally. I thought, Im gonna go to that place where everyones welcome. That truly diverse joint that is England. Where everyones accepted. And then Brexit dropped - it was quite a shock.

Brendan Cowell and Billie Piper in Yerma (Johan Persson)

But Cowell believes that when something happens in one place, it will happen elsewhere too - its about collective consciousness. He thinks London is still the most dynamic, accepting and invigorating city in the world and the Young Vic is like the creative UN.

Having written a number of successful plays in Australia, Cowell is keen to write for the London stage - in fact, hes just written one. Its a two-hander set on London Bridge. Its the first play Ive written as a person who lived in London, for London, he says. Simon Stephens and Lucy Prebble have been reading it, and hes just sent it out to the masses - so watch this space.

Add to that the rumours that hes joined Game of Thrones for season 7, and Cowell has a lot going on. But for now hes firmly settled in the Young Vics planetarium. By the end of Life of Galileo, the play becomes a call to arms, he says. The worlds getting small and dark - the play shines a light on how beautiful this world is.

Life of Galileo is at the Young Vic until July 1; youngvic.org
Y ou can spot an office Hippo a mile off, from that overpowering, err, smell of success, not to mention the sharp suit and the company car.

Yet the Hippo, an acronym for the Highest-Paid Persons Opinion, is in fact modern management kryptonite, choking off innovation with a yes men bottleneck. They tell you what they think, you nod approvingly, while your own, lower-value opinion is rendered irrelevant. Its not an elephant, its an hippopotamus, but its the biggest thing in the room.

Life is full of Hippos. Theresa May, by reputation, doesnt like delegating, and has ditched David Camerons sofa politics for a more micro-managerial approach. Donald Trumps leadership is all about the me. But while its tempting to fall behind the Hippo in the boardroom, its a counter-productive instinct.

Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, noted the Hippo problem in his book, Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking in 2015. Theres no question that most business continue to operate on the Hippo principle, he says. The fallacy is that the best way of deciding what to do within a business or a government is to take the Hippos opinion, rather than testing with hard data.

Hilda Burke, an integrative psychotherapist, agrees. There is a belief that if you agree with the leader of the pack, in this case a Hippo, that you wont be exposed, and that you are automatically protected by the weight his or her opinion carries, she says. Using the jungle analogy, if youre riding on a hippos back, the chances are that youre pretty safe.

Its unhelpful, though. Work is a habitat threatened and encroached upon by job and economic uncertainty. I imagine it can be mapped on to our evolutionary survival instincts, she says. But I wonder how far you can really go by just echoing a Hippos opinions and passing them off as your own, and indeed, what the price is within ourselves for being so adapted that we no longer can discern what our own thoughts, ideas and feelings are.

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The best decisions are based on solid evidence that has been tried and tested, says Nisbett. But it can be difficult to dislodge the Hippo. In fact, there are many practices that scientific psychologists and management consultants know to be much more effective than other practices, but which even highly intelligent people struggle to accept. Job interviews, he says, are next to useless. Theres almost zero correlation between a successful interview and successful job performance, and yet companies always overweight the interview when choosing an employee.

Instead of relying on Hippos to do the heavy lifting, Nisbett argues we should simply Google it. Google are constantly doing A/B testing, says Nisbett, which involves taking alternative options that seem worth comparing, and testing to see which performs better. Hippos are nearly extinct in the tech world, where bright ideas are always A/B tested. For instance, personalised impulse buy ads on Amazon when you reach checkout were almost killed off by an over-enthusiastic Hippo who wasnt feeling them, before the developer A/B tested it, and won his superiors over. Now Hippos are extinct in Amazons jungle.

So what to do if youre a lower-paid junior with a bright idea in the meeting room? If you have the power to do an experiment you say, Great opinion, boss, but you know we did this little study... Forget your Hippos and your fatcats. Its the geeks that shall inherit the jungle.

Follow Samuel Fishwick on Twitter: @fish_o_wick
A n angry mother confronted a campaigning politician at a peace rally to demand more police to enforce the two strikes knife-crime law he pushed through Parliament.

Angela Bailey, 40, led more than a hundred protesters on a silent march to the Hindu temple in Enfield where 18-year-old Joao Gomes was stabbed to death on Saturday evening.

Among the crowd was Nick de Bois, who hopes to recapture the Enfield North seat for the Tories from Labours Joan Ryan, who was also in attendance.

Mr de Bois was instrumental in steering legislation through Parliament in 2015 under which adults face a mandatory six-month sentence for being caught twice with a blade, with 16 and 17-year-olds facing four months behind bars

Anger: Angela Bailey confronted Nick de Bois over knife crime / Barney Davis

But Ms Bailey, who witnessed Saturdays violence which saw dozens of youths clash after a party advertised on Snapchat spiralled out of control, said there were not enough police to enforce the so-called Enfield Law.

In a fiery exchange, she told him: Im not having my nine-year-old laying on the ground murdered because theres not enough police.

Mr de Bois looked visibly shocked after being rounded on by the crowd in the constituency that also saw Damien McLaughlin, 42, stabbed to death by youths clad in ski-masks last month.

Joao Gomes, 18, was knifed to death on the steps in Enfield

Ms Bailey, a local funeral director, said: There are no police officers on the ground to stop and search when fireworks are being thrown in our houses and our children are being robbed or killed on the streets.

We need the police to support us. There is no point in these jail sentences if there is no police to put them into prison in the first place.

I saw a child the other day, 15-years-old, in Tesco who fell of his bike and a knife fell out the bottom of his trousers.

March: A rally was held in Enfield / Barney Davis

Mr de Bois blamed judges for not imposing the mandatory sentences but ended up agreeing with Ms Bailey.

He told her: First of all the judges are not putting them in jail at the moment. The law that I introduced was a mandatory law and they are only fulfilling them by... six out of ten.

Speaking to the Standard afterwards, Ms Bailey said: He didnt like what I was saying and tried to stop me talking by saying this event was not the time and place for public discussion. I think it was and so did the crowd.

Stabbing: Police at the scene in Enfield / Angela Bailey

The government has cut the number of local police so much.. its no good having tough prison sentences if there is no police to catch them in the first place.

I have one son, Jack, who is my world and the reason for all my efforts. I really dont want him to ever get involved in anything like Saturday night. I took him to the scene after everyone had left to show him the tragic results of knife crime.

We need stop and search to be implemented again.

Official figures show that 66 criminals convicted of a second knife crime have escaped a custodial sentence since the legislation for repeat offenders was introduced.

That compares with a total of 298 people who have been jailed under the law, meaning one in six serial knife criminals have managed to avoid prison despite the new law.

Mr De Bois added: You have to repeat the message that its not okay to carry a knife. It has to come from the streets and the community.

Its easy for suits to preach that message but if parents, schools and the family are giving the same message its going to be more powerful. This isnt the time to give up.

I introduced the Enfield law but our judges see fit to ignore the will of Parliament and the will of campaigners and enforce that law.
T he killers of PC Yvonne Fletcher may never be brought to justice because crucial evidence has been blocked by British security services, police have said.

Officers investigating the 1984 shooting of PC Fletcher said they know who is responsible but cannot prosecute because they have been blocked from using evidence in court over "national security" concerns.

The family of the former Met police officer said they are "deeply disappointed" at the announcement but praised police for "leaving no stone unturned" during the investigation.

A spokesman for the Met said in it had enough material to identify those responsible for the murder of PC Fletcher outside the Libyan People's Bureau.

TODO: define component type brightcove

But he added that key material was not able to be used in court for reasons of national security and, as a result, there is not enough evidence to charge anyone.

A Libyan national aged in his 50s, who was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, has been released from police bail and been told the investigation against him will not proceed at this time.

PC Fletcher's family released an emotional statement shortly after the announcement.

It read: We were today informed by the Crown Prosecution Service that it was unable to pursue a prosecution in respect of the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher on the 17th April 1984.

"We are deeply disappointed that a prosecution cannot proceed at this time.

We had hoped that the latest turn of events would finally lead to some closure for the family."

Shot dead: Pc Yvonne Fletcher

We understand that some available evidence could not be used in court but are satisfied that the Metropolitan Police has left no stone unturned in its pursuit of justice in Yvonnes case," they added.

The family would like to thank the Met for its continued hard work and diligence and also for always keeping us informed at every turn.

PC Fletcher was killed as she policed a demonstration against Colonel Gaddafi outside the Libyan People's Bureau in St James's Square on April 17 1984.

Ten Libyan men, who were protesting against Gaddafi that morning, were also shot and injured during the incident.

Shooting: Screengrab of Met Police video of shooting of Pc Yvonne Fletcher outside Libyan embassy in 1984 / Metropolitan Police

The shooting sparked a 10-day siege of the building before 30 of the occupants were deported back to Libya.

No-one has ever been prosecuted over the killing.

The Met spokesman said the police investigation had "identified enough material to identify those responsible for WPC Fletcher's murder if it could be presented to a court".

But he added: However the key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security.

Aftermath: the video of the shooting was released by the Met in 2015 / Metropolitan Police

Although our investigation has always remained open, cases like this do become harder to solve over time.

Our judgement is that this concludes what was by far the best opportunity to solve this tragic case and provide a degree of closure for the victims and their families.

He said the investigation will never be closed but added that the chances of finding further evidence is low.

Paying tribute to PC Fletcher, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said: "PC Fletcher was just 25 years old when she was killed.

Gunned down: Pc Yvonne Fletcher / Metropolitan Police

She had joined the Met Police age 18 and I know that throughout her seven years of dedicated service she earned great respect from her colleagues and the community she served.

"The murder of a British police officer in broad daylight, outside an embassy, provoked a powerful reaction from the public and from officers at the time, and the tragedy of WPC Fletcher's death continues to resonate with officers today.

"I regret that we have not been able to deliver the justice that the victims and their families deserve."
A cyclist has been left fighting for his life in hospital after being hit by a cement truck in a rush-hour crash.

Emergency services rushed to the Westway, near White City, just after 5.30pm after reports of a lorry and cyclist in collision.

Photos of the scene show London Fire Brigade assisting ambulances and police as traffic was held at a standstill.

An air ambulance was scrambled and the male cyclist was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Crash: The lorry and cyclist collided during rush-hour / TFL

A police spokeswoman said she does not have further information about the cyclist at this time.

The road was blocked for almost two hours as police investigated the crash.

A Met statement said: Police were called at just after 5.30pm 16 May to reports of a lorry and cyclist in collision on the Westway, W12 near the junction with Wood Lane.

Officers and ambulance service attended and the cyclist - a man (no further details at this time) - was taken to hospital. His injuries are being treated as life threatening.

The lorry driver stopped at the scene.
B estselling author Frederick Forsyth today called for tougher laws on dangerous dogs after his ex-wifes pet was mauled to death in a London park.

Carrie Forsyth was devastated after her beloved bichon frise Oggy was torn to pieces by a dog on Paddington Recreation Ground.

Mr Forsyth, 78, whose novels include thrillers The Day Of The Jackal and The Dogs Of War, warned that next time the victim could be a child. He claimed that the police lacked interest in chasing the owners of the offending animals.

A picture of the alleged killer dog and its owner, taken by a friend of Mrs Forsyth, has been given to the police.

Carrie Forsyth with a picture of her eight-year-old bichon frise Oggy, who was killed

The animal is believed to be a Staffordshire bull terrier or an American bulldog, neither of which is on the list of banned breeds in the UK.

Banned: the breeds of dog you can't own in the UK

Oggy, an eight-year-old pedigree, was lying at Mrs Forsyths feet when she says he was savaged by the dog.

Mr Forsyth, many of whose books have been made into successful films, such as The Odessa File, and who more recently wrote The Kill List, called on the police to take the incident seriously.

He said his own pet had been attacked by a dog on his property in Buckinghamshire but claimed that police failed to investigate thoroughly.

What the law says It is against the law to let a dog be dangerously out of control anywhere, such as: In a public place

In a private place such as a neighbours house or garden

In the owners home. The law applies to all dogs. Your dog is considered dangerously out of control if it: Injures someone

Makes someone worried that it might injure them. A court could also decide that your dog is dangerously out of control if: It attacks someones animal

The owner of an animal thinks they could be injured if they tried to stop your dog attacking their animal. The penalty for allowing your dog to be dangerously out of control is an unlimited fine or up to six months in jail (or both). You may be banned from owning a dog and your dog may be destroyed. The list of banned dogs includes pitbull terriers and the Japanese tosa. Source: gov.uk

He told the Standard: About three years ago a dog attacked my Jack Russell and badly injured her.

Bichon frise Oggy, who was savaged by another dog

She survived but I reported it to the police but they didnt do anything. Police seem to take the attitude its just a dog but the next time these dogs could kill or maim a child.

He said the law needs urgently looking at, adding: The police need to do more and certain breeds or offending dogs should be muzzled in public by law.

"Carrie is very upset, its a big shock and the police need to do more and investigate thoroughly this incident in a London park where people and dogs can expect to walk safely.

Mrs Forsyth, a former model who has two children with the author, said she had been traumatised by the incident.

At her home in Maida Vale, she said: Oggy was passive at my feet when a man entered the park with the dog. He shouted pick up your dog moments before his tore into Oggy. I had no time to react.

Mrs Forsyth, 73, drove Oggy to get medical attention but he was bleeding profusely with massive injuries and died en route.

She said: I am heartbroken. Oggy was my life. I havent been to a restaurant for years because I didnt want to leave him in alone. He was more than just a pet.

The alleged attack happened last month at about 11am. Immediately afterwards a friend took a photo of the alleged owner, which police are examining.

Mrs Forsyth said: The police need to act, that dog is still at large and I have provided a picture. What if it attacks a child? That is my concern.

The Met said: Police are investigating an incident on Paddington Recreation Ground in which a dog was attacked by another dog.

The dog that was attacked died from the injuries sustained. Enquiries continue, including an investigation to identify the owner and the dog and establish if it was a banned breed.
F oreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood fought back tears while paying tribute to Britain's police service as he was honoured for his heroic efforts to save PC Keith Palmer after the Westminster terror attack.

The Conservative recalled his bid to save the wounded constable's life in an emotional address to officers gathered at the Police Federation's annual conference today.

Mr Ellwood ran towards gunfire to help PC Palmer after he was stabbed by Khalid Masood on March 22.

The candidate for Bournemouth East was pictured with his face bloodied giving first aid to the officer on the cobbled courtyard in front of Parliament moments after the attack.

PC Palmer died along with four victims killed by Masood, 52, who was then shot dead by police.

Tobias Ellwood rushed to PC Palmer in a bid to save his life / PA

Mr Ellwood was visibly moved after he was presented with a coat of arms and Police Federation shield in Birmingham.

The 50-year-old said he "reacted in the way that I thought was appropriate and I was one of many that stepped forward to do what we thought was right"

He told officers: "What came home to me after the Westminster incident was just how close-knit your fraternity is and just how you don't know what's round the corner.

"And yet every day you put your uniform on and you stand in harm's way so we can continue our work.

"That really came home with all the messages of thanks I got.

"I'm just sorry I couldn't, and those others with me, couldn't do more to save Keith Palmer's life."

PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death by Khalid / Metropolitan Police

The former Army officer told the conference that much of the work in his ministerial role related to the Middle East and Africa.

He added: "There one of the challenges we have is dealing with extremism, dealing with poisonous ideology, of the religion of Islam being hijacked and extremists providing a promise to youngsters who don't really understand the religion and offering them a fast track to paradise if they conduct themselves in the extreme way that we see."

"I work very hard with our international allies on trying to understand this new threat.

"And that's all usually a long way away so when this thing happened in Westminster it was just a reminder of how much work we have to do across the piece in challenging this, what I believe is probably the most serious threat in the 21st century.

"We all need to work harder for that, but sometimes we fail.

"Sometimes these people are committed to doing something absolutely appalling and we saw that on March 22."

Mr Ellwood said in the aftermath of the Westminster attack he was "heartbroken" he had been unable to save PC Palmer's life.

He was appointed to the Privy Council by the Queen in recognition of his efforts.
By India Today Web Desk: Katrina Kaif is on Instagram, and Bollywood's Chikni Chameli is making the perfect use of the photo-blogging site. The 33-year-old actor, who will be next seen in Tiger Zinda Hai with Salman Khan, recently teased her fans with a picture of the two.

The black-and-white photo shows a shirtless Salman posing for the camera with Katrina. And we are finding it hard to keep calm.

A post shared by Katrina Kaif (@katrinakaif) on May 16, 2017 at 12:13am PDT

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It's been five years since Salman and Katrina shared screen space, and fans cannot wait to watch the ex-lovers romance each other on screen once again.

More than anything, it is their sizzling on-screen chemistry that the fans cannot wait to watch. Rumours had it that the two were reportedly dating back in 2012, when Kabir Khan's Ek Tha Tiger released, and the two were able to replicate their real-life love on reel too. And if the gossip mills are to be believed, Salman and Katrina are planning to give their relationship another shot.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, Tiger Zinda Hai is set to release this December.

ALSO READ: Ex-lovers Salman-Katrina should DEFINITELY sign another film post Tiger Zinda Hai. Here's why

ALSO READ: Katrina Kaif photobombs Salman Khan on Tiger Zinda Hai's sets

ALSO WATCH: Katrina is a friend, says Salman Khan

--- ENDS ---
A n investigation has been launched after heroin was seized on a flight from Pakistan after it landed at Heathrow Airport.

No arrests were made after the drugs were found on board the London-bound flight by Border Force officers.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) is probing the incident after officers found a quantity of the Class A substance on Monday.

An NCA spokeswoman said: National Crime Agency officers are investigating following the seizure of a quantity of heroin, found by Border Force officers on board a flight from Pakistan at Heathrow on Monday May 15.

No arrests have been made, enquiries are ongoing.

The NCA said it could not confirm the airline involved, however Pakistan International Airlines told the Evening Standard that 14 of its crew members were detained after its flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London arrived on Monday afternoon.

A spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines told the Evening Standard: "Fourteen crew were detained for two to three hours.

"They had to wait for clearance and were shifted to a hotel."

The spokesman said the firm did not have any information about why the crew was detained.
F irefighters descended on Waterloo after a blaze broke out within metres of the Imax cinema.

Flames ravaged bushes in the middle of the busy roundabout as thick grey smoke could be seen billowing into the air.

The fire brigade took 54 calls about the incident and sent two fire engines to the scene just before 10am on Tuesday.

It was quickly brought under control and did not spread to the Imax or nearby buildings.

A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said: Firefighters were called to bushes alight outside the Imax cinema at the Waterloo roundabout this morning.

The Brigade's 999 control officers took a total of 54 calls to the visible blaze.

"Two fire engines from Lambeth fire station attended the scene.
H is party may be being eaten alive by the force of Theresa Mays strong and stable Conservatives, but Nigel Farage is still making a splash on the continent. Ukips thrice former leader took some time out of his strenuous life as an MEP  where he has the lowest vote attendance record of any active member  to sit down in the European Parliament with Die Zeit, a German newspaper.

Revelling in 2016s victory, he called himself the father of Euroscepticism, and said that after all the years of lonely fighting, it was a huge moment.

Safe to say such talk did not go down well with Steffen Seibert, the papers eagle-eyed interviewer, who pestered him on whether Russian money was involved in funding the Leave side, and what journalistic reasons Farage had for visiting Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in March this year.

One question above all stands out as a barometer of European feeling for Farage. Have you changed from being a politician to being an entertainer? he asked. Ouch. Maybe, came the sheepish response. Da liegt der Hund begraben.

For all of today's Diary click here.

Follow The Londoner on Twitter and Facebook here.
U ber customers will be urged to register to vote as part of a drive to reverse a trend of young people falling the electoral roll.

As of Friday, users of the taxi-hailing app are to be shown an official page for voter registration during the wait for their cab.

The message on their screens will tell them "not to be a passenger in this election" and is part of an initiative by Bite the Ballot, an organisation aimed at getting young people interested in politics.

It comes after warnings from the Electoral Reform Society that there is a "ticking time-bomb" of voter registration among young people.

Analysis it carried out showed that the number of 16 and 17-year-olds on the electoral roll has plunged by 27 per cent in three years.

General Election 2017 Campaign - In pictures 1 /57 General Election 2017 Campaign - In pictures Jeremy Corbyn joins leaders for the BBC's Election Debate Stefan Rousseau/PA Prime Minister Theresa May samples cheese at the Royal Bath and West Show in Shepton Mallet Leon Neal/Pool/Reuters First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during the launch of the SNP General Election manifesto at Perth Concert Hall Jane Barlow/PA Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the launch in central London of a Liberal Democrats campaign poster attacking the Conservatives' school meals policy Victoria Jones/PA Jeremy Corbyn appears on The One Show BBC Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron and the party's local candidate Sir Simon Hughes are given a baking lesson at Comptoir Gourmand, an artisan bakery in Bermondsey, London Gareth Fuller/PA Prime Minister Theresa May answers questions from the studio audience during a joint Channel 4 and Sky News general election programme recorded at Sky studios Stefan Rousseau/PA Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is interviewed by Jeremy Paxman during a joint Channel 4 and Sky News general election programme 'May v Corbyn Live: The Battle for Number 10' at Sky studios Stefan Rousseau/WPA Pool/Getty Images Home Secretary Amber Rudd (left) and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott appearing on the BBC One current affairs programme, The Andrew Marr Show. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday May 28, 2017. Abbott has said she no longer opposed the security services as she insisted her time as a graduate civil servant would prepare her for becoming home secretary Jeff Overs/BBC/PA A new poster by the Green Party featuring pictures of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary either side US Preseident Donald J Trump Green Party/PA Conservative party leader Theresa May during the Welsh Conservative manifesto launch at Gresford Memorial Hall, Gresford, Wrexham Stefan Rousseau/PA Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott during General Election campaigning in Hull Chris Radburn/PA A man is arrested after protesting against fox hunting as Theresa May arrives at the Welsh Conservative manifesto launch at Gresford Memorial Hall, Gresford, Wrexham Stefan Rousseau/PA Green Party co-leaders Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley launch the Green Party's 'Green Guarantee' of key priorities for the party at a general election campaign event in London AFP/Getty Images Julie Etchingham presents the ITV Leaders' Debate, a live two-hour debate with Caroline Lucas, Tim Farron, Leanne Wood, Paul Nuttall, Nicola Sturgeon ITV/PA Conservative party leader Theresa May during her party's general election manifesto launch in Halifax Danny Lawson/PA Demonstrations take place before the arrival of Prime Minister Theresa May as she launches the Conservative Party Election Manifesto in Halifax Getty Images Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond listens as Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during an election campaign event in east London Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn launches the party's manifesto at the University of Bradford, in Bradford Nigel Roddis/EPA Prime Minister Theresa May meets Cathy Mohan at Abingdon market in Oxfordshire during an General Election campaign visit Stefan Rousseau/PA Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron leaves the Royal College of Nursing conference at Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre following a General Election campaign visit Gareth Fuller/PA Screengrab taken from Facebook Live broadcast, hosted by ITV News of Prime Minister Theresa May answering questions sent in by users of the social media website, with presenter Robert Peston ITV News Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking about national security and foreign policy at Chatham House in Londo David Mirzeoff/PA Jeremy Corbyn the leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party holds one year old Angelo during a campaign event in Harlow, Essex Neil Hall/Reuters Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reads with children as he visits Brentry Children Centre in Bristol on 21 April 2017 during Labour's election campaign. Steve Parsons/PA Jeremy Corbyn looks around as he arrives at Savoy Place. His vehicle hit BBC Cameraman Giles Wooltorton on the way into the garage entrance Neil P. Mockford/Getty Images British Trade Union leader Len McCluskey falls on the steps outside the Clause 5 Labour meeting to finalise the Labour manifesto in Londo Andy Rain/EPA Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller breaks down after receiving an ovation from the crowd during her speech at the Convention on Brexit in central London Andy Rain/EPA The Liberal Democrat party campaign bus is unveiled at an event at the Harts Boatyard on 01 May 2017 in Surbiton Leon Neal/Getty Images Co-Leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, speaks during the launch of the Green Party Brexit policy at the Space Studio in London Stefan Rousseau/PA The Liberal Democrat party leader Tim Farron listens to a speech during an event at the Harts Boatyard on May 1, 2017 in Surbiton Leon Neal/Getty Images Anti-racism protesters speak to the media after being removed ahead of UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall's speech Jack Taylor/Getty Images UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall gestures as he makes a speech as the party launch their general election campaign at the Marriott County Hall Hotel on 28 April 2017 in London Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's opposition Labour party Leader Jeremy Corbyn walks past a bus shelter with Alan Whitehead, Labour MP for Southampton, and local councillor Satvir Kaur (right), before meeting local residents Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott Diane leaving Four Millbank in Westminster, London, following her stumbling explanation of how the party would fund its plans for 10,000 extra police in an interview that left her struggling to do the sums live on air. Victoria Jones/PA Philip Hammond and David Davis at a General Election campaign event in Central London Jeremy Selwyn Pensioner Malcolm Baker confronts Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron while he was the election campaign trail in Kidlington, near Oxford Sam Lister/PA Prime Minister Theresa May eats chips as she meets with residents in Mevagissey, south-west England Dylan Martinez/AFP/Getty Images Conservative party handout of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on a new poster, warning that families face a tax and debt bombshell under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership Conservative Party/PA Nick Clegg delivers a campaign speech on the European Union at the National Liberal Club in London Stefan Rousseau/PA Ukip leader Paul Nuttall (left) eats grapes during a walkabout in Dudley town centre in the West Midlands, with Ukip West Midlands MEP Bill Etheridge (right) and Phil Durnell, West Midlands Metro Mayor candidate Richard Vernalls/PA Former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband retweeted a photo of him mowing a lawn whilst canvassing in his Doncaster North constituency Jane Nightingale Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement on 18 April calling for a general election Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Oxford University political sociology professor Stephen Fisher told The Times: "This data suggests primarily that many of last years 17-year-olds, now this years 18-year-olds, are in danger of not being registered. This does sound quite worrying from a political participation perspective."

General Election polls and projections: May 15

The fall has been blamed on a change to voter registration in 2014, which meant young people approaching voting age could no longer be registered by their parents or guardians and also that universities no longer automatically register their students. It was designed by the Coalition government to increase the accuracy of electoral data.
S ir Vince Cable today warned that pursuing a hard Brexit will mean a lot of damage will be done to the City.

The former business secretary said the Square Mile will suffer chronic uncertainty and lose energy as it is forced to write a whole new set of rules after EU regulations are torn up.

However he suggested the City would show itself to be more resilient than other parts of the economy because of the people working there.

In an exclusive interview with the Standard, the veteran Liberal Democrat also:

Accused Theresa May of making a pact with the devil by pursuing a hard Brexit;

Claimed Jeremy Corbyns hard-Left politics had made a progressive alliance impossible;

Warned childrens futures were being sacrificed due to school funding shortages;

Insisted a third runway at Heathrow is by no means a done deal.

Sir Vince is seeking to win back his Twickenham seat after losing to Conservative Tania Mathias in 2015.

He said senior City figures were very, very worried about the impact of leaving the EU: By pursuing hard Brexit were creating trade barriers against ourselves as a country. That cannot possibly have a positive outcome. A lot of damage will be done to the City.

"Over the past 10 years theyve adapted to single-market-based regulation and the whole thing is going to be torn up. Theyll have to start again, redoing the rulebook in an environment of chronic uncertainty. All the energy of the City is going to be absorbed ... which is very debilitating. I suspect that the City is more resilient than some other parts of the economy because of the people there. But it is going to take quite a serious hit and we can already see the evidence for that.

Addressing claims that his party could back Labour candidates in marginal seats to stop a Tory landslide, he insisted: I and the Lib Dems have made absolutely clear we wont work with the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn any more than with the Conservatives.

Twickenham MP after 2015 election: Dr Tania Mathias (Conservative) Majority: 2017

The first priority is to make sure we dont have a one-party state. The problem with this so-called progressive alliance idea is the leadership of the Labour Party which has made it impossible for people on the centre-Left, which is where I am roughly, to work with them.

There is going to be a regressive alliance of the Tories and Ukip, where a lot of [Ukip candidates] will withdraw to tacitly support the Conservatives.

Sir Vince, 74, who served alongside the Prime Minister in the Coalition, accused her of backing a hardline Brexit agenda.

General Election polls and projections: May 16

"In order to hold her party together shes made effectively a pact with the devil," he said. "Shes basically embraced the agenda of hardliners and Ukip supporters. Thats why theres a very high risk of either a very bad deal in two years time, or not getting a deal at all and this horrible prospect of crashing out with no rules to operate under.

He warned of a cash crisis in schools facing proposed funding changes: At one [in Twickenham] the head called parents and asked if theyd cough up 300 each to keep the school going.

Theres another talking about putting children into part-time education on Fridays and letting the kids go home at lunchtime. The younger generation is being sacrificed.

On Heathrow expansion, which he opposed while an MP, Sir Vince added: There are going to be a lot of legal challenges, particularly over air quality. So its by no means a done deal.
L abour pratfalls such as leaked manifestos have dominated the early stages of this campaign but despite their near wipe-out in 2015, the Liberal Democrats have yet to capitalise.

Leader Tim Farron, whose party has just nine MPs, has set out his anti-Brexit stall, but hes been forced to spend more time than he would have liked talking about his views on gay sex.

Hell surely have been privately disappointed with losing seats in the local elections despite increasing the Lib Dems vote share.

Policies such as legalising cannabis look like an attempt to shore up the base and his approval ratings show him barely more popular than Jeremy Corbyn.

Big beasts like Sir Vince Cable and Sir Simon Hughes returning to the fray in Twickenham and Bermondsey might offer a fillip, while the party is also looking to undo the damage done in Scotland where they have just a single MP.

But this election doesnt feel like the bounce-back that Farron is after, and I wouldnt hold your breath for any deals with Labour in individual seats that might boost their numbers.

Although Hughes is 4/6 to claim Bermondsey and Cable 1/2 to win Twickenham, the Punters cash is on the evens offered by Ladbrokes on the Lib Dems returning between 10 and 19 MPs come June 8.
T housands of Londoners and people across the UK faced a mobile phone internet blackout on Tuesday morning after part of the EE network went down.

Mobile phone users complained of being unable to send messages, emails or use the internet after the data outage hit on Tuesday morning.

London, Birmingham and Glasgow were some of the worst areas affected by the network failure, website Down Detector reported.

Thousands of people complained of a data outage lasting for hours.

EE offers mobile phone, mobile and broadband internet, along with home phone services.

The company said it was aware of a data issue affecting 4G internet connectivity for a few customers this morning.

It added that work was being carried out to fix the issue and 3G was unaffected.

But other mobile phone users claimed they had no internet at all - including 3G.

In London, one EE user Susan Yan Mach complained: Havent been able to connect to 3G all morning. Error message Could not connect to mobile network data. PDP authentication failure.

The areas of the UK where data was reported to be down. / www.downdetector.co.uk

Lynda Athey Watson said she also experienced a similar message on her iPhone 6S.

Reports of a network outage in London began flooding in from 6am on Monday, with hundreds of complaints being made by 9am.

One of the worst affected areas in the capital was Streatham but people across the city complained of apps and internet failing to load on their mobiles.

At 11.10am, an EE spokesman said a full data service was restored for customers.

He added: "Phone calls and text messages were unaffected, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."
A retired Methodist minister has been convicted of sexually abusing four boys in the 1970s and 1980s, luring them with promises that his hypnosis techniques could help solve their physical and emotional problems.

John Price, 82, of North Yorkshire, contrived ways of being alone with the boys and claimed he could help them with stress, physical or emotional pain by putting them in a trance, a jury at Teesside Crown Court was told during the former ministers trial.

The attacks took place at Mr Prices manse, in the vestry, or at the boys' homes when he was a minister in York and Pocklington.

None of the victims, aged between 11 and 17, said they were actually hypnotised  but they froze in surprise and horror at what the respected church leader was doing, the jury heard.

Mr Price, a widower who walks with a white stick who is cared for by his daughter, kept his head bowed as the jury foreman returned verdicts of guilty for 13 counts of indecent assault.

Judge Howard Crowson remanded Mr Price in custody and adjourned sentencing for four weeks, but said jail time was inevitable for the former minister.

Medical evidence from the defendants GP will only affect the length of the prison term, if it does at all, said the judge.

Paul Newcombe, prosecuting, said Price had tried to use hypnosis in the belief that the boys would not remember what happened to them.

When one of the victims complained to a senior church figure, who has since died, he was told not to be "silly" and the matter was brushed aside.

The minister was prevented from using the title "Reverend" after he was convicted of a similar offence in 1999.

Mr Price told the jury he could only vaguely remember the complainants and said he did not molest any of them.

He will be sentenced on June 13.

Additional reporting by Press Association
P rince Charles today urged us to learn from each other's cultures and faiths to unite mankind.

In a keynote speech given at the opening of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Charles said we must all "explore what unites rather than divides us."

The prince, who will swear to be Defender of the Faith at his coronation when he becomes King, stressed people from all faiths should continue to learn from each other.

The heir to the throne said: "There has perhaps never been a greater need for cultural connectivity.

"In the world in which we now live, with fears about "The Other"  whether that be Sunni, Shia, Jew, Christian, Yazidi, Hindu or Buddhist  stoked and spread through social media, and amplified by those who would seek to suppress understanding, rather than promote it, there is an urgent need for calm reflection and a genuinely sustained, empathetic and open dialogue across boundaries of faith, ethnicity and culture.

"The discontents and anxieties of our age are not all imaginary. They often have their basis in material inequities, a lack of social justice and a retreat into what that great and visionary Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun, some six hundred years ago identified as 'asabiyya  a communal solidarity that can be a force for good or bad."

He went on, "They reflect an adaptation from common origins and shared ideas of harmony, views of the relationship between humans and the physical world and purposeful differentiation of space.

"All of the great religions have thought deeply about these matters because they reflect such fundamental choices about the way in which we live our lives and relate to others.

"We need to rediscover and explore what unites rather than what divides us," he said.

Charles added, "And that involves a recognition that we have all learned from each other and should continue to do so.

"No one culture contains the complete truth. We are all seekers. And our search is  or should be  a collective human enterprise."
T he global cyber attack which targeted NHS computer systems in London and across the country is being investigated for possible links with North Korea.

Security experts are comparing the computer code behind Fridays hack with past cyber attacks thought to be carried out by the country.

More than 300,000 computers in 150 countries were hit with the WannaCry ransomware virus as it swept across the world, including 47 NHS trusts in England and 13 Scottish health boards with outdated security.

Marcus Hutchins, a young British computer expert, was hailed a hero after he hit a so-called "kill switch" that slowed the effects of the WannaCry.

IT exerts are probing similarities between the WannaCry computer code and malware from Lazarus, a hacking group behind cyber attacks on Sony Pictures in 2014 which was blamed on North Korea.

It comes after UK security agencies launched an international manhunt to find those responsible for the crippling attack.

The potential link was highlighted on Monday by a researcher from Google who posted a message on Twitter showing a sample of the WannaCry malware that appeared online in February.

Marcus Hutchins thwarted the virus that took computer files hostage around the world / AP

Researchers from global cyber security company Kaspersky Lab, whose European headquarters is in London, identified clear code similarities between the WannaCry virus and attacks by Lazarus in 2015.

Kaspersky Lab said: "The similarity of course could be a false flag operation.

"However, the analysis of the February sample and comparison to WannaCry samples used in recent attacks shows that the code which points at the Lazarus group was removed from the WannaCry malware used in the attacks started last Friday.

"This can be an attempt to cover traces conducted by orchestrators of the WannaCry campaign.

"Although this similarity alone doesn't allow proof of a strong connection between the WannaCry ransomware and the Lazarus Group, it can potentially lead to new ones which would shed light on the WannaCry origin which to the moment remains a mystery."

Additional reporting by Press Association.
Kodiyeri BalaKrishnan said that the CPI(M) doesn't support political killings and would initiate action against the party workers who killed Churakat Biju, a local RSS leader.

By Jeemon Jacob: Kerala Communist Party of India (Marxist) Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan denounced the party workers, involved in the revenge killing of an RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) worker in Payyannur in Kannur district.

Kodiyeri BalaKrishnan said that the party doesn't support political killings and would initiate action against the party workers who killed Churakat Biju, a local RSS leader.

"We will not protect the killers and would take action against them after the probe," said Balakrishnan.

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However, the CPI(M) State Secretary accused BJP State Chief Kummanam Rajasekharan of spreading misinformation by saying that CPI(M) workers celebrated the death of the RSS worker.

"BJP -RSS leadership is trying to spread rumours and encourage political vengeance through misinformation campaign," alleged Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

CONTROVERSY OVER VIDEO CLIPS

Earlier, Kummanam had shared video clips showing CPI(M) workers celebrating the death of RSS worker. However, later Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan clarified that the video clips were not authentic.

CPI(M) leaders even lodged a police case against sharing of the unauthenticated video clips. Although, Kummanam refused to budge from his stand and insisted that the video clips were original and that he was ready to face police probe.

So far, Kerala police has arrested three CPI(M) workers while looking out for four others in connection with the murder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker.

RSS worker Biju was hacked to death on May 12 near Kannur. He was the 12th accused in the murder of CPI(M) worker Dhanaraj, that took place in July last year.

According to crime statistics, since 2005 July, 47 people have been brutally killed in Kannur. Biju was the latest victim of political murder in the district.

Political violence is not new to Kannur, the red citadel of CPI(M). Killings and counter killings have been a part of Kannur's political history since three and a half decades now.

ALSO READ:

Kerala: RSS leader, accused of murdering CPM activist, hacked to death in Kannur

Kerala: CPI(M) and RSS workers hacked to death

WATCH:

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S ilvio Berlusconi appeared to make a jibe about Emmanuel Macrons older wife as he described the new French President as "lad with a good-looking mum.

The ex-Italian prime minister seemingly joked about the age gap between newly-elected Mr Macron and his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, on Monday.

Mr Berlusconi said the president  who is Frances youngest ever  is 39-year-old lad, with good work experience under him and most of all with a good looking mum who has carried him under her arm when he was still a child".

The French President, 39, met wife Brigitte  who is 24 years his senior - when he was just 17.

Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. / Getty Images

She was his literature teacher at school and the pair went on to marry in 2007.

Politician Mr Berlusconi has a reputation for gaffes after suggesting right-wing female politicians were more beautiful, describing dictator Benito Mussolini as having done good and saying Italy earthquake victims should see the upheaval as a camping weekend.

He also called US president Barack Obama handsome, young and also suntanned.

But Mr Berlusconi is no stranger to age gaps. The 80-year-old ex-PM has been dating Francesca Pasquale, who is 49 years his junior, since 2012.
D onald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting last week, it was reported today.

Three White House officials who were in the meeting on May 10 have strongly refuted claims made by the Washington Post.

The officials said no intelligence sources and methods were discussed - but they did not deny that classified information was disclosed.

The Washington Post said Mr Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

Reviewing Donald Trump's first 100 days in office

Unnamed current and former US officials told the Washington Post that the information Mr Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement.

They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the US government.

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," HR McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House last night.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," Mr McMaster said.

"At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

He said secretary of state Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way. "Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources" in the news report, he said.

Mr Tillerson said Mr Trump discussed a range of subjects, including "common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism". He said that during that exchange the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

Ms Powell said: "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

The Washington Post story does not claim that Mr Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered.

The breach came one day after Mr Trump fired former FBI director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election.

Mr Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after he misled vice president Mike Pence about conversations he had with Kisylak.

As president, Mr Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets.

The Washington Post said the intelligence partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russian officials.

By doing so, Mr Trump would have jeopardised cooperation from an ally familiar with the inner workings of the Islamic State group, and make other allies - or even US intelligence officials - wary about sharing future top secret details with the president.

White House officials took steps to contain the damage, with calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency, the newspaper said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment last night.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats expressed concern about the report.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters the Trump White House "has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and order".

"The shame of it is there's a really good national security team in place and there are good, productive things that are under way through them and through others," Mr Corker said.

"But the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline - it's creating an environment that I think makes - it creates a worrisome environment."

Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that if the story is true it would be "deeply disturbing".

Reaction from Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees was full-throated.

Representative Adam Schiff of California called the story "deeply disturbing" and said if it's true, the disclosure could jeopardise sources of very sensitive intelligence and relationships with key allies.

"That the Russians would be the potential recipients of this intelligence and may be able to determine its source is all the more problematic, since the Russian interest in Syria and elsewhere is, in many respects, deeply antithetical to our own," Mr Schiff said.

He added that he wants the House intelligence committee fully briefed on what, if anything, was shared with the Russian officials.

Senator Mark Warner tweeted: "If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians."

The story prompted Senator Martin Heinrich to tweet: "Protip: Don't give the Russians classified information. #Classified101."

Reporting by AP
A lec Baldwin has revealed that a member of Donald Trumps cabinet has praised him for his impersonation of the President.

According to the actor, the politician approached him in a New York restaurant to tell him that his Saturday Night Live impression was uncanny.

Im not going to name names, but a cabinet member walked up to me at a restaurant in Manhattan  Manhattan, thats a hint  and he goes, I gotta tell you something. This thing youre doing is good, its really good, he told the Hollywood Reporter.

He goes, Ill get fired if anybody quoted me saying this, but thats exactly what hes like when you do it.

Alec Baldwin may retire impersonation of 'satire-resistant' Donald Trump

Baldwin has made regular appearances as Donald Trump on the US comedy sketch show throughout its 42nd season.

He claims that he has cornered the market on the miserable version of Trump, while other impressionists have gone down different routes.

There are many people who do Trump now, and they have different Trumps, he said.

They have kind of a "balls-of-his-feet-light Trump" or what I like to call "Gene Kelly Trump." But my Trump is "Miserable Trump." No matter what. He wins, he loses, he's miserable.

During last weekends show, Baldwin was joined by Melissa McCarthy, who played White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer.
H e topped the charts with his debut solo single, and now Harry Styles is King of Twitter.

The 23-year-old, has become the first UK celebrity ever to gain 30 million followers on the micro-blogging site.

The big feat has earned him a following bigger than the population of Nepal, which currently stands at 28.8 million.

The record breaking achievement comes days after he knocked Ed Sheeran off of number one with his single, Sign Of The Times.

King of Twitter: Harry Styles has 30 million followers / Jonathan Brady/PA

But Styles' former One Direction bandmates look set to challenge his 30 million followers with Niall Horan's current tally standing at 29 million.

Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik also made the top 10 most followed UK celebrities on Twitter with individual followings rivalling Australia, Taiwan and Sri Lanka.

Harry Styles performs surprise London gig

Other stars making up the top 10 include Adele, Emma Watson, Sheeran, Wayne Rooney and Simon Cowell.

Styles - who is rumoured to be dating food author Tess Ward - has been busy promoting his self-titled debut solo album.

On Monday he kicked off his week long residency on The Late Late Show with a performance of Sign Of The Times and the news that he will be starring on Carpool Karaoke.

Styles will join host James Corden for a spin around Los Angeles for the popular skit which will no doubt see him sing a handful of his new singles.
D espite sciences best efforts, the human race is yet to find concrete evidence that were not alone in the universe.

Horizons latest documentary examines whether unexplained radio and light signals from space could help us uncover intelligent life on other planets. Heres everything you need to know:

Whats it about?

The latest in the BBC Two science and philosophy series takes a look at mysterious signals from outer space including one discovered by husband and wife team Maura McLaughlin and Duncan Lorimer in 2006 and its subsequent explanations.

It also follows astronomers searching for radio signals from Tabbys Star; a celestial body that some scientists believe is surrounded by a Dyson Sphere - a vast energy collector built by advanced aliens.

What is Tabbys Star?

KIC 8462852, or Tabbys Star as its more memorably nicknamed, is a star that has been observed to emit unusual light fluctuations and has been unexpectedly and rapidly dimming in recent years.

Around the World in TV Shows 1 /6 Around the World in TV Shows p22 edition 15.03.17 p22 edition 15.03.17 Walter Presents p22 edition 15.03.17 p22 edition 15.03.17 p22 edition 15.03.17

Scientists have yet to agree on a theory as to why these strange changes have been occurring.

One explanation is that the flickering could be caused by a planet that Tabbys Star consumed at some point in the past - this would have resulted in a large burst of brightness from which the star could now be recovering.

Another is that KIC 8462852 is surrounded by a giant energy-collecting structure built by an intelligent civilisation. The show gets to grips with these theories with help from researchers at the Green Bank Telescope.

Where is it filmed?

The Horizon team travel to West Virginia to film scientists at the Green Bank Telescope who are searching for signals from Tabbys Star.

Whens it on?

The documentary airs on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.
By Press Trust of India: From Gurdip Singh

Singapore, May 16 (PTI) Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said today that growing vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific region present unique challenges, as he called on the regional navies to join hands for the safety and security of the seas.

Lanba, who is here for an introductory visit from May 14 to 18, called on Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen at the International Maritime Defence and Exhibition (IMDEX 2017) at Changi Exhibition Centre (CEC).

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In the meeting, both the sides reaffirmed their strong ties between the Singapore and Indian armed forces, the ministry said in a statement.

Lanba, during a conference, said there is a "necessity to base our responses on three guiding principles: Adherence to globally accepted norms regarding global commons and respecting the established arbitration mechanisms.

"Strengthening multilateral cooperative mechanisms and greater interaction between various regional groupings on issues of common interest. Resource sharing among maritime nations for optimising our efforts to keep the maritime domain safe," he said.

Expanding challenges and growing vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific region present unique challenges for the regions maritime forces, Lanba told delegates at the 5th International Maritime Security Conference.

"It is therefore incumbent upon the navies of the region to join hands to ensure safe and secure seas which remain our common maritime objective," he said in his speech on Pursuing Common Maritime Security Objectives.

Lanba also called on Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant- General Perry Lim and Chief of Navy Rear-Admiral (RADM) Lai Chung Han.

Speaking to PTI, he said, "we discussed our bilateral relationship, what we have been doing along with the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN)".

Lanba said the discussions also took place on cooperation in areas of interest and bilateral exercises.

The Indian navy was represented by INS Sahyadri and INS Karmorta at the International Maritime Review held yesterday in conjunction with the Singapore navy to celebrate its 50 years of establishment.

"Our presence this fortnight in Singapore also reflects Indias commitment to contribute to advancing maritime security in the region and to working with partners to build a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia," Indias High Commissioner in Singapore Jawed Ashraf said.

Lanba will visit the Singapore navys Changi Command and Control Centre at Changi Naval Base, where he will receive a brief on the Information Fusion Centre, Maritime Security and Submarine Operational Safety. He will also visit the Multinational Operations and Exercise Centre to observe the Maritime Information-Sharing Exercise.

He is also scheduled to address students from the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College at the SAFTI Military Institute tomorrow.

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On May 18, Lanba will visit the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF)s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Training School, where he will receive a brief on the RSAFs UAV training.

His introductory visit underscores the warm and long- standing bilateral defence ties, strengthened by the revised Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in 2015 as well as the Air Force and Army Bilateral Agreements concluded in 2007 and 2008 respectively, the ministrys statement added. PTI GS CPS

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By Shweta Keshri: Sanjeeda Shaikh and Keith Sequeira starrer Love Ka Hai Intezaar premiered on Star Plus on Monday. The show is a love story of a Bollywood star Kamini Mathur (Sanjeeda Shaikh) and a Rajasthani Prince Madhav Singh Ranawat (Keith Sequeira).

Sanjeeda Shaikh as Kamini and Keith Sequeria as Prince Madhav in a scene while shooting for Love Ka Hai Intezaar.

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The show starts with Kamini's father buying flowers, when some of her fans spot her and surround her car. This petrifies her sister, but Kamini is cool about being mobbed by the fans. Someone from the crowd pushes Kamini's father, forcing her to come out of the car to rescue him. She asks her sister to get her father in the car and obliges everyone by posing for pictures. We wonder, if a real Bollywood celebrity would be so cool in such a situation.

Also read: Keith Sequeira says girlfriend Rochelle doesn't have issues with his co-star Sanjeeda Shaikh

Kamini is a Bollywood star but an ordinary girl at heart, who still loves getting her hair combed by her mother, and relishes samosas. Kamini is a happy-go-lucky girl, however, she tends to overdo the whole bubbly-I'm-so-pleased-with-everything act at times. So much so that after a point of time, you'll be forced to think, Is she high?

Snajeeda and Keith re-create the magic of Suraj Hua Maddham.

Kamini is a homely girl in spite of being a superstar, but at the same time she is also shown to be a strong woman. A media baron tries to get his way with Kamini but she doesn't take it quietly and rewards him with a tight slap. She will have to bear the consequences of slapping the guy in the upcoming episodes, but this incident shows us the ugly side of the showbiz industry.

The show will introduce Keith Sequeira in its second episode, and Sanjeeda and Keith's on-screen romance is something to look forward to.

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Mamata Banerjee said she would again meet Sonia Gandhi next week to arrive at a consensus on the presidential candidate.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: With the Presidential election around the corner, the Opposition is trying to reach at a consensus on a common candidate for the post.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at the latter's residence to discuss a presidential candidate.

Mamata Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief, said that she would again meet Sonia Gandhi next week to arrive at a consensus on the presidential candidate.

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SEARCH FOR A CONSENSUS CANDIDATE

"We did not discuss any name... A consensus candidate is what we discussed," said Mamata Banerjee after meeting Sonia Gandhi.

The meeting, which lasted for nearly 40 minutes, was also attended by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

Sharing the details of the meeting, Mamata Banerjee said, "We discussed (the need) to build consensus for presidential candidate. We have to keep the diversity of our country (in mind) while selecting the presidential candidate".

Mamata Banerjee said that Sonia Gandhi will also meet other Opposition leaders to arrive at a consensus candidate.

MAMATA CRIES POLITICAL VENDETTA

Mamata Banerjee also hit out at the Narendra Modi government for "political vendetta".

"Maya, Akhilesh (Yadav), Chidambaram, Lalu (Prasad) and other leaders from the Opposition were harassed and targeted by the present dispensation," Mamata said.

The CBI today raided residences of former finance minister P Chidambaram and his son, and the Income Tax department raided 22 locations in connection with alleged benami deals linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family.

"Just because the government does not approve of our ideological standing, we are being targeted, media too is muzzled," Mamata Banerjee alleged.

ALSO READ:

Stung by Income Tax raids, Lalu Prasad hits back, says will continue fight against Fascist BJP

CBI raids Chidambaram, son Karti's residences; Modi government trying to silence my voice, says former minister

How PM Narendra Modi can now have a president of his choice

ALSO WATCH: Babri verdict is Modi's conspiracy to eliminate Advani from presidential race: Lalu Yadav

--- ENDS ---
With grant approval from the Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR), Scotts Bluff County is moving forward with establishing a new deviated fixed route public transportation for the community.

The backbone of the deviated fixed route is the Scottsbluff-to-Gering corridor of Broadway to 10th Street. Deviations off the main route include Western Nebraska Community College, Regional West Medical Center and Walmart, with other bus stops still to be identified.

At their May 15 meeting, the county board approved the chairmans signature on a NDOR grant for the service starting in the next fiscal year. Federal funding amounts to around $274,500, with state funding of just under $67,000 and a local contribution of about $67,000.

Carol Prince, Scotts Bluff County Director of Operations, said the funding is for operations and personnel, which is an ongoing program.

Prince added a separate agreement would be coming up for things like marketing and bus stop infrastructure and shelters along the new routes.

Weve put a technical committee together to help guide the fixed route process, Prince told the board. Theyll make the decisions on where the bus stops would be located and will also schedule a contest for the public to name the new service and come up with a logo.

The contest, which will start on May 22, will run for about three weeks for nominations to be accepted. The county will also have a special website where the public may post suggestions

Route vehicles will have a wrap on the exterior to identify them, once a name is chosen.

Prince told commissioners that although she officially retires in June, she would be willing to stay on a part-time basis to help get the fixed route transit system up and running.

Commissioner Ken Meyer promptly said Youre hired.

Assisting with the project is Olsson and Associates out of Lincoln, hired by NDOR. Prince said she and one of their representatives drove the local route last week to figure out where bus stops might go.

Prince told commissioners the transit service will require a lot of time, so she suggested the county separate the duties for the operations director. One position would be in charge of the countys buildings and grounds. The other transit manager position would strictly handle the bus system and deal with the public and other partners to assure the service is working its best.

Operating the transit system will become easier over the years, she said. But the manager will still have to make sure drivers are trained and drug tested, along with all the other ongoing functions that have to be done.

County Board Chairman Mark Masterton said there are some good points to having two people to direct operations. We need some clarification on whos responsible for what. Were thinking about a building and grounds director because we have a fair amount of property, in addition to all the maintenance that requires. Thats probably a big enough job on its own.

Masterton said they would consider Princes request to hire a facilities manager and have another person handle the transit system.
LINCOLN  Nebraska lawmakers voted Monday to continue helping newly disabled people pay medical bills until they qualify for federal assistance.

Lawmakers advanced Legislative Bill 333 to second-round consideration without changes in the state-funded disability program.

But they adopted an amendment that could mean fewer young people with developmental disabilities getting services after graduating from high school.

The amendment would suspend a 22-year-old law entitling those young people to day services when they reach age 21 and leave public school. The entitlement was passed originally to ensure that young people with developmental disabilities did not lose vocational and life skills they had developed in school.

Gov. Pete Ricketts administration officials had proposed repealing the law, saying it conflicts with federal rules about who gets priority for services.

The Health and Human Services Committee amendment would put the entitlement on hold for two years.

State Sen. Sara Howard of Omaha said the suspension would give the state time to consider alternatives for those young people.

Failing to make the change could put federal dollars for developmental disability services at risk, she said.

Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, who chairs the HHS Committee, said the amendment would give graduates higher priority than other people on the state waiting list for services. But people in emergency situations would get top priority.

He argued that protecting the most vulnerable people is the best way to maximize the limited funding available.

State Department of Health and Human Services officials have reserved 200 slots for graduates and the Legislature approved a state budget increase large enough to fund services for those graduates.

But under LB 333, the funding could be needed to provide services for higher priority people, meaning that some graduates would not get services.

A second provision of LB 333 would have eliminated the state disability program. Ricketts had proposed that move as part of his budget-cutting plan.

But opponents raised concerns that the change would shift costs to counties, which are required to pay for medical care for indigent residents.

Counties now pay for care in the first six months after a low-income person becomes disabled. The state program covers the next six months, after which people may quality for federal benefits.

A third provision of LB 333 would require HHS to come up with a new method of monitoring the quality of developmental disability services.

Advocates have raised concerns that the provision does not require the involvement of people with disabilities and their families in the monitoring process.
The onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala signals the arrival of monsoon over the Indian subcontinent. It marks the beginning of the rainy season.

By Siddharatha Tiwari: The monsoon is likely to hit Kerala on May 30, a day or two earlier than the previous forecast by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), suggests their latest report.

The onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala signals the arrival of monsoon over the Indian subcontinent. It marks the beginning of the rainy season.

The southwest monsoon advances over the Andaman sea usually around May 20 with a standard deviation of about a week, but recent formations of cyclonic circulation over the sea have sped the monsoon.

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It also resulted in an early onset of monsoon in parts of southeast Bay of Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar islands.

"For this an indigenously developed statistical model with a model error of 4 days is used. The model uses the following six predictors which includes minimum temperatures over northwest India, pre-monsoon rainfall peak over south peninsula, outgoing long wave radiation over south China Sea, lower tropospheric zonal wind over southeast Indian Ocean, upper tropospheric zonal wind over the east equatorial Indian Ocean, and outgoing long wave radiation over the south-west Pacific region," read an IMD report.

The forecasts of the monsoon onset issued during the past 12 years (2005-2016) were proved to be correct for all years except 2015.

With inputs from IANS

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In the prevailing political circumstances, PM Narendra Modi and BJP have been left with hardly any competitors for 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: With Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate, BJP-led NDA had registered an emphatic win over Congress-led UPA in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on May 16. As the rightwing government completes three years in power at the Centre, it does face challenges, particularly on the job creation and Pakistan policy fronts. However, on the political front, the Modi government is going strong.

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In fact, no other prime minister after Pt Jawaharlal Nehru would have enjoyed such political atmosphere than Narendra Modi after completing three years of rule - a situation where there is neither any resistance in the ruling dispensation nor any potent leader or party to throw a challenge to it.

Even Indira Gandhi - who is touted as one of the most successful prime ministers - or Rajiv Gandhi - who had won the 1984 Lok Sabha elections with three-fourths majority - was perhaps not as formidable after three years on chair as Narendra Modi is.

In the prevailing political circumstances, PM Narendra Modi and BJP have been left with hardly any competitors for 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

CONGRESS AND RAHUL GANDHI

Electorally, Congress finds itself in nadir ever since its most humiliating defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Since then, the grand old party of India has lost about a dozen states, including Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.

Its only decisive victory has been in Punjab. It won the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections by being the junior most partner of the three-party grand alliance. Among the states - for instance Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh - where it is in power, Congress is not in a comfortable position.

As far as Congress leadership is concerned, it is also in doldrums. Party president Sonia Gandhi is not keeping well. Her son and vice president Rahul Gandhi has yet to provide a decisive leadership or inspire confidence among the party workers. Perhaps this is why despite Sonia's ill health, he is not being promoted to the president's post.

With the current rate of nose dive, Congress and Rahul may not be in a position to give any fight to BJP and Narendra Modi respectively.

AAP AND ARVIND KEJRIWAL

The harder Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) strives to expand its base beyond Delhi, weaker its grip becomes on its seat of power in the national capital. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sought to spread the wings of the party at the national level in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, both he and AAP failed to impress the voters. Kejriwal was forced to forfeit his deposit while contesting against PM Modi in Varanasi. Despite fielding a large number of candidates, the party could win just four Lok Sabha seats, coincidentally all in Punjab.

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After making a comeback in the 2015 Delhi Assembly election, Arvind Kejriwal had made a promise to the people of the capital - that he would not be over ambitious and that he would stay put in Delhi. However, the Delhi chief minister broke his promise. AAP contested Assembly elections in Punjab and Goa. While losing Goa decisively, AAP failed to open its account in Goa.

To make matters worse for Arvind Kejriwal, AAP is beset with internal feud. One of party founders Kumar Vishwas and former Delhi minister Kapil Mishra raised banners of revolt. While Kumar Vishwas has been placated for the time being, Kapil Mishra is on a war path, pledging to ensure that Arvind Kejriwal went to jail in cases of financial irregularity and impropriety. Revolt and defections stare the party in the face.

Arvind Kejriwal finds himself discredited and AAP is crestfallen. There are no signs of improvement in their predicament in the near future. On the contrary, the situation is likely to deteriorate in the coming days to come. The Election Commission is likely to pronounce its verdict in the office of profit case of 21 AAP MLAs. Moreover, senior party leaders including Arvind Kejriwal and Minister Satyendar Jain are under the scanner of the investigating agencies for irregularities.

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NITISH KUMAR

Just after winning the 2015 Assembly elections, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had emerged as the strongest rival of PM Modi. BJP's juggernaut had been stopped following its second crucial defeat in Assembly elections that year, the first being in Delhi. Narendra Modi's wave had been declared as "over".

Nitish Kumar was emerging as the fulcrum of the Opposition unity. However, fate turned for both Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar. The PM's popularity soared again following surgical strikes and demonetisation initiative. BJP's winning streak came back to it - be they municipal, panchayat, or Assembly elections.

On the other hand, Nitish Kumar was pushed to the defensive following deterioration of law and order situation in the state. The murders of teenager Aditya Sachdev in Gaya in a road rage and journalist Rajdeo Ranjan in Siwan dented Nitish Kumar's image of an able administrator (sushasan babu).

The situation has deteriorated following revelations of financial bungling by RJD supremo Lalu Prasad and members of his family. Moreover, the Supreme Court has restored conspiracy charges against Lalu Prasad in the Rs 1,000-crore fodder scam. It has ruled that Lalu would face trial in all the cases linked to the scam. RJD is a senior partner in the grand alliance.

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The relations between RJD and Nitish Kumar led JD (U) is also far from cordial. Doubts are being expressed over the longevity of the alliance.

The once powerful Nitish Kumar is now in the dock and fighting for survival of his government. A weakened Nitish may not pose any threat to the dominance of Narendra Modi.

AKHILESH YADAV AND MAYAWATI

Apart from Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was another young leader who could have given PM Modi a run for his money. He was the chief minister of the most populous state of the country which sends the maximum number of MPs in both houses of Parliament.

Like Nitish Kumar, Akhilesh's secular credentials were beyond doubt. His name did not get embroiled in any controversy or scam either. However, Samajwadi Party's crushing defeat in the UP Assembly polls changed his position.

BSP supremo Mayawati could have been a potent threat to PM Modi's supremacy had her party won the state polls. However, her position is the weakest amongst all opposition leaders. BSP failed to open its account in the last Lok Sabha elections and won just 19 of the 403 Assembly seats.

MAMATA BANERJEE

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee too is fighting from a weakened position. Senior TMC leaders are either in the jail or are under the scanner of the investigative agencies in scams. Mamata finds herself pushed to the corner.

On the other hand, BJP is witnessing resurgence in the state. It has emerged as the strongest rival of TMC. BJP is likely to put up a tough challenge to TMC in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections. It may even turn the table on the regional party. The forthcoming civic elections may be a pointer towards the forthcoming scenario in the state. However, Mamata has failed to strengthen her position as a leader who can match PM Modi in nationwide popularity.

NAVEEN PATNAIK

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik never showed any inclination to come on the national stage. He seems to be content heading his state. However, of late, he is fighting immense anti-incumbency. BJP has emerged as a serious threat to Biju Janata Dal's hegemony in the state. It improved its tally in the last local elections to come second, pushing Congress to the third position.

BJD's return to power in the 2019 Assembly elections does not appear imminent. The state and Lok Sabha elections are held together. He would struggle to win the state elections and would hardly find time to focus on leading a national front.

UNITED OPPOSITION

The Opposition leaders now perhaps realise that individually none of them has the capability to take on Narendra Modi. Hence, the idea of unity has dawned on them. Calls are being given to form a Bihar-type grand alliance at the national level to give a tough challenge to BJP-led NDA. Hence, it is being expected that traditional rivals such as SP and BSP or DMK and AIADMK would come on the same platform.

However, while coming together of arch opponents may be a tough call, finding a leader would be a tougher challenge. While the Congress may not accept anyone else outside the Nehru-Gandhi family as the front's leader, others may not accept Rahul Gandhi as their torch-bearer.

The united opposition front may even choose to go to the Lok Sabha polls without declaring any prime ministerial face. But that may be advantageous to PM Modi and NDA.

The Opposition still has about a couple of years to put its act together or get defeated at the hands of Modi. Or the Opposition would face a situation as described by National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah just after the UP Assembly election results were declared on March 11. He said, "In a nutshell there is no leader today with a pan India acceptability who can take on Modi & the BJP in 2019. At this rate we might as well forget 2019 & start planning/hoping for 2024."

Also read: After nearly 3 years of Narendra Modi government, 61 per cent people happy but dissatisfaction rises over last year

Also read: Amarkantak curse: Leaders who visited MP shrine lost their chairs, PM Narendra Modi was there too

WATCH VIDEO HERE: Mood of the Nation poll: NDA would win 360 seats if polls were conducted today

--- ENDS ---
In a survey conducted by citizen engagement platform LocalCircles, maximum number of participants recognised the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme as the most effective mission of the Narendra Modi government.

By Prabhash K Dutta: The Swachh Bharat Mission got Rs 9,000 crore in the Budget for 2016-17. This year, the allocation was increased to Rs 20,000 crore. Make In India initiative does not have a specific allocation, but the government has been aggressively pushing for faster growth in manufacturing sector.

But, it seems people are more concerned with what benefits them directly. In a survey conducted by citizen engagement platform LocalCircles, maximum number of participants recognised the Direct Benefits Transfer scheme as the most effective mission of the Narendra Modi government. Incidentally, this scheme was originally conceived and launched by the Manmohan Singh government.

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WHICH IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE SCHEME?

Around 47 per cent people believed that Direct Benefits Transfer was the most effective mission of the government in the last three years.

The Jan Dhan Yojana, which again benefitted a large number of people in rural areas and smaller towns, came second in people's perception. Approximately 29 per cent of the participants marked it as an effective government scheme.

The Swachh Bharat Mission got approval of only 16 per cent, who thought that this initiative of the government was effective. Only 8 per cent people thought Make In India initiative was being implemented efficiently and effectively.

MPs ENGAGING WITH THEIR CONSTITUENCIES?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has held, at least, three meetings with his party MPs asking them to spend more time in their respective constituencies and engage with people. PM Modi asked the MPs to make people aware about the various schemes run by the government so that the benefits could reach to the target population sooner. But, his advice, in people's perception, seems to have gone unheeded.

In the LocalCirlces survey, conducted on the eve of three years of the Narendra Modi government, 69 per cent of the participants said that their elected members of Parliament did not engage with them in addressing the local issues.

Only 14 per cent felt that the MPs were involved in the affairs of their constituencies.

CITIZEN'S RATING GOES DOWN

Though 65 per cent people believed that the Modi government has handled political affairs suitably including the passage of key Bills in Parliament, the overall rating has gone down on performance.

A total of 61 per cent people participating in the survey that involved more than 200 cities and rural area said that the Narendra Modi government met their expectations. Of them, 17 per cent - 1 per cent less than the last year's survey - felt that the government's performance exceeded their expectations.

Around 39 per cent - 3 per cent more than the last year - expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of the Modi government on various fronts. This increase in dissatisfaction with government's performance may be a cause of worry for the BJP, which has already launched its campaign for 2019 General Elections.

However, around 59 per cent people believe that the government is on the right track to implement the BJP manifesto for 2014 elections. On overall rating, people's support for the government has declined from 64 per cent last year to 61 per cent this year.

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Also Read:

Rahul Gandhi on 3 years of Narendra Modi government: Broken promises, betrayal of mandate

After 3 years of Modi govt, 61 per cent people happy but dissatisfaction rises

3 years of Modi sarkar: BJP going strong, may face weak Opposition in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

After nearly 3 years of Narendra Modi government, 61 per cent people happy but dissatisfaction rises over last year

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ST. CHARLES COUNTY  A St. Charles County judge on Tuesday postponed the first-degree murder trial of Pam Hupp until April 2018.

The trial had been set for Oct. 3, but Hupps lawyer, Kim Freter, requested a delay Monday, writing in a court motion that prosecutors have not turned over all the evidence in the case. When they do, Freter wrote, the defense will likely need to do additional investigation and prepare evidence in mitigation to argue against the death penalty if Hupp is convicted.

St. Charles Circuit Judge Jon Cunninghams order sets aside three weeks for the trial beginning April 9. Last month, Cunningham ordered that jurors would be picked in Clay County, Mo., and brought to St. Charles for the trial after Hupps lawyers raised concerns about the publicity surrounding the case.

Authorities have accused Hupp of fatally shooting Louis Gumpenberger, 33, in her OFallon, Mo., home on Aug. 16. She told police that Gumpenberger was trying to kidnap her, but officials said it was actually Hupps attempt to divert suspicion from herself in the 2011 murder of her friend Elizabeth Betsy Faria in Lincoln County in 2011.

Investigators believe Hupp pretended to be a producer for NBCs Dateline to lure Gumpenberger to her house, and told him she would pay him to help her re-enact a 911 call. Gumpenberger had mental and physical injuries from a car crash. Two others have said that Hupp had approached them with a story about a Dateline re-enactment as well.

St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar announced in March that he would seek the death penalty for Hupp.

Also on Tuesday, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, upheld a lower courts ruling in a lawsuit filed by Betsy Farias daughters. They sought to recover $150,000 in insurance proceeds that went to Hupp after Farias death.

St. Charles County Circuit Judge Ted House rejected claims of fraud and Hupps inconsistent statements about her friends intent and said Faria allowed her close friend Pamela Hupp to use the money at Pamelas discretion.
ST. LOUIS  With contentious debates raging around the country over the purging of statues that venerate the old Confederacy, St. Louis faces a more pedestrian problem with its goal to remove a century-old Confederate Memorial from Forest Park: the price tag.

The monument  a 32-foot-tall granite column on the north side of the park, adorned with a bronze scene of a Confederate youth being sent off to war  was erected in 1914 with $23,000 raised by the Ladies Confederate Monument Association.

Today, it would cost many times that amount to relocate the 40-ton structure, city officials say. And thats assuming there is a place to put it.

The mayor wants it down, said Koran Addo, spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson. She understands its an emotionally charged issue. Its hurtful to so many people.

There are several options, he added, and each option costs a lot of money.

He said Krewson is in the process of reviewing those options and putting together a proposal. Possibilities include removing the monument to a museum, or even burying it. That option doesnt appeal to Krewson, Addo said.

Krewsons predecessor, former Mayor Francis Slay, also was in favor of removing the monument from the park, though the city made no progress beyond that declaration in the last two years of his administration.

Critics of Confederate statues in New Orleans and other Southern cities have argued that such monuments shouldnt be displayed in public places of honor because of their connection to slavery and white supremacy. Opponents of their removal, including white supremacists, alt-right activists and some Republican politicians, argue the movement amounts to a purge of a major aspect of American history.

While the issue in St. Louis hasnt generated the kind of fury it has in some former Confederate cities, it has been the subject of controversy in the past few years. In 2015, vandals spray-painted the Forest Park monument with the words Black Lives Matter. There have been rumblings more recently from people opposed to its removal on political and preservationist grounds.

The tragic acts of removing statues of confederate (leaders) in the South is inadvertently contributing to the rise of a politically correct America where all things must revolve around a history viewpoint that fits those who dont want to hear it, wrote area resident Jeff Kaine recently on the architectural preservation website Building St. Louis News. Ms. Krewson is one of those politicians who is trying to shape the past to fit the politically correct needs of the future.

Other critics cited pure aesthetics. I live across the street from the Confederate monument and feel it is one of the most beautiful things in Forest Park, Bill Hannegan, a St. Louis activist on various issues, said in an email to the Post-Dispatch. He questioned whether Krewson has the legal authority to remove the statue without an ordinance. Her office maintains it does.

The issue of what physically could be done with the massive stone-and-bronze piece looms as large as the politics. In other cities, the compromise sometimes settled upon has been to put such pieces in history museums, treating them as historical artifacts rather than venerated monuments.

The most logical choice in St. Louis would be the Missouri Civil War Museum at Jefferson Barracks. But a previous attempted agreement between that facility and Slays administration fell apart after the museum took the position that the city would have to provide all the moving expenses and then give up any future control over the monument once it was part of the museums collection.

The bottom line, Museum Director Mark Trout said Tuesday, is that you dont want it there, we are the appropriate place for it, Im willing to end your dilemma, and you can walk away from it. He confirmed that offer still is on the table. Krewsons office confirmed the city still isnt interested.

The Missouri History Museum in Forest Park hasnt publicly expressed interest in taking over the monument. A message seeking comment from the museum wasnt returned Tuesday.

Others, presumably those offended by the monument, have suggested simply destroying it. A St. Louis businessman offered recently to do that free of charge, according to media reports. And former Missouri state Rep. Chris Kelly, D-Columbia, suggested on Twitter Tuesday that we could raise the $$ privately to tear it down. I would contribute, Kelly tweeted.

Krewsons office  which would undoubtedly find itself engulfed in a national ideological firestorm with such a move  hasnt expressed interest in pursuing that approach, either.

St. Louis Confederate Memorial was controversial even before it was erected. In 1912, the City Council (precursor to todays Board of Aldermen) initially refused to provide space for the monument, but officials changed their minds after a withering campaign in the Confederacys defense  by none other than the Post-Dispatch editorial page.

If the Council has regard for the business welfare of St. Louis and the advantages of Southern trade to St. Louis it will promptly forestall the damage its action has invited in refusing a site in Forest Park to the Confederate Monument, read an editorial that year that opponents later blamed for coercing the council into accepting the monument.

The editorial warned against mean spirit ... towards the vanquished, adding: The South is better able to get along without St. Louis than St. Louis is able to get along without the South.

Roland Klose of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
JEFFERSON CITY  It wont happen this year, but state Auditor Nicole Galloway says Missouri taxpayers could be due for special tax refund checks because a fee increase approved by the Legislature may exceed a revenue threshold set in 1996.

In a review of legislation enacted in 2016, Galloway found that revenue from new taxes and fees will not trigger refunds this year. One of the bills approved last year, however, could trigger the checks in the future because it doesnt go into effect until 2018.

The Legislature could take steps to address the potential violation in the next year, which could eliminate the possibility that refund checks will be needed.

I do not want to give the impression that refunds are going to be issued to citizens, Galloway told the Post-Dispatch Tuesday.

The potential for refunds stems from a 1980 referendum known as the Hancock Amendment. The law sets a cap based on a percentage of the growth in the personal income of state residents.

If revenue flowing into state coffers exceeds the limit, tax refunds are paid out. No such checks have been mailed since 1999, when the median refund for taxpayers was $21.

The constitutional amendment also prohibited the state from imposing unfunded mandates on local governments and required voter approval for local tax hikes.

The projections reviewed by Galloway show much of the total that could trigger the refunds stems from one bill, which creates a process for sealing criminal records.

The measure increases the fee for petitions for expungement of records from $100 to $250; increases the types of offenses for which records can be expunged; and decreases the waiting time before individuals can file a petition for expungement, from 20 years to 7 years for felonies and from 10 years to 3 years for misdemeanors.

The law was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, and handled in the House by Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City.

The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2018 and was estimated to generate up to $154 million in fees the first full fiscal year it is in place. The actual impact of the new law wont be known until July 2019.

Barnes dismissed the estimate, saying it is too high.

"The Auditors report is based on a fatally flawed fiscal note that, among other flaws, overestimates the number of Missourians eligible for expungement, assumes irrational behavior by those who would be eligible to expunge speeding tickets but would gain no tangible benefit from doing so, and assumes a high take-up rate with no basis in fact," Barnes noted Tuesday.

In addition, he said the payment is not mandatory.

"It is a fee of choice," Barnes said.

Galloway said she is auditing the process in which legislation is assessed on its fiscal impact. On each bill that goes through the House and Senate, estimates are placed on how much it will cost or save. But, in many cases, those figures have either been wrong or unknown at the time a vote is taken.

We need to get a handle on the fiscal note process, Galloway said. We have seen in the past where fiscal notes have been wildly inaccurate.

Galloway said the audit could be completed this year.

The Hancock Amendment was named after former U.S. Rep. Mel Hancock, who led the charge to put a proposed amendment on the 1980 ballot that would attempt to keep state spending in check.

"Missourians amended the Constitution to protect themselves from the legislature raising their taxes and increasing fees," Galloway said. "These constitutional protections are a key reason I am reviewing the cost lawmakers' policy choices ultimately have on taxpayers."

Added Barnes, "I would welcome another tax cut for all Missourians, but this expungement legislation will not be the vehicle for it."
To mount pressure on the Centre, the Bose family is going to organise a protest rally in Kolkata on August 18 and at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, later this year.

By Indrajit Kundu: A year after the declassification of secret files related to Netaji, family members of Subhas Chandra Bose have once again decided to hit the streets demanding a 'logical conclusion' of the mystery surrounding his disappearance in 1945.

The Bose family, which has been campaigning for years demanding the release of secret files pertaining to Netaji, claim that there has been no closure.

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In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bose family has expressed their disappointment and said that the issue is being used only to play politics. The family has demanded for a Special Investigative Team to conduct a time bound probe into the matter.

"The people of India were hopeful that the disappearance of the 'Liberator of India', on August 18, 1945, would be unravelled. However, certain effective measures need to be taken by the central government to disclose the truth about the disappearance. On behalf of the majority of the Bose Family, we request some immediate action to be taken by the central government to end the Netaji mystery," the letter states.

The family says, despite three inquiry commissions and multiple promises by successive governments, people still don't know what exactly happened to Netaji.

BOSE FAMILY TO ORGANISE PROTEST RALLY

To mount pressure on the Centre, the Bose family is going to organise a protest rally in Kolkata on August 18 and at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, later this year.

Speaking to India Today, Netaji's grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose said, "We expected something more positive to surface. People were expecting the mystery to be solved. But the nation is still awaiting further action from the NDA government which would finally tell the people what exactly happened to Netaji."

"Over the last one year, the pace with which the work should have been conducted, has not been followed. Modi Ji told us his government is committed to get to the truth. So a lot more has to be done," he added.

CHANDRA BOSE

Chandra Bose, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party last year before the West Bengal assembly elections and fought against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

He said that merely writing letters to foreign countries would not yield any results.

"The SIT must visit these countries to seek their papers. The team must examine and scrutinise the already declassified documents and file a summary report to be sent to the Parliament. People have the right to know more than the fake air crash theory," he said.

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Bose family members have also demanded a DNA test of the ashes at Renkoji Temple in Japan, to identify the authenticity of the claims that they belonged to Netaji.

Also Read:

On Netaji's birth anniversary, Narendra Modi says fulfilled demand for declassifying files

Bengal remembers Netaji on his Birth anniversary

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Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carters family confirmed the singers death Saturday. They did not provide any immediate further comment. A sheriff's official says deputies responding to reports of a medical emergency found a person deceased at the home in Lancaster. Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brothers boy band, and appeared on the familys reality series, House of Carters.
Despite what they say, Republican actions in the Legislature prove that they are not the party of law and order. And Republicans most certainly do not Back the Blue.
By Press Trust of India: law and order (EDS: Rpting after some changes in the intro)

Lucknow, May 16 (PTI) Criminals will not enjoy political patronage and strict action will be taken against them, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told the UP Assembly today where opposition parties attacked the government claiming that the law and order situation had worsened.

Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary (SP) alleged the state was "burning" as the opposition parties cited the gunning down of two jewellers in Mathura yesterday and other incidents to attack the BJP-led government.

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Terming the incident in Mathura as a "serious issue", Adityanath said that he had instructed the police to take stern action. The DGP will will visit Mathura tomorrow, the chief minister said during the Zero Hour. "There will be no discrimination on the basis of caste, creed and religion on the law and order front....A time frame has been set for solving the cases," he said.

Taking offence at Chaudharys remarks, Adityanath said it was unbecoming of him to claim that the state was burning. "There is no such thing as what you are saying," he said, remining Chaudhary the Jawaharbagh case in Mathura during SP rule in which several people had died. Referring to the recent caste clashes in Saharanpur, the Chief Minister said that some groups involved in it had been identified. "The name of a former MLA of a political party has also cropped up....The government has decided that there will be no relaxation of rules while dealing with criminals," he said.

This led to another skirmish as BSP Legislature Party leader Lalji Verma protested claiming a former MLA had been framed. Earlier, when House met for the day, opposition members wanted to know the fate of their adjournment notices on the law and order issue. Speaker Hridaya Narain Dixit said he had rejected the notices, as they were not in order.

Claiming that murder, dacoity and loot had become the order of the day, SP leader Chaudhary demanded admission of the notices for a discussion on law and order issue. Congress and BSP MLAs joined him. Dixit pleaded that the Question Hour proceedings be allowed.

Referring to the chaos in the House yesterday, when Governor Ram Naik was bombarded with paper balls during his address, the Speaker said people were unhappy over the conduct of the MLAs.

Opposition members however continued with their demand even as Dixit rebuked them saying they should not hold the House to ransom. After a while, the members relented and questions were taken up even as the Congress members staged a walkout. Adityanath also appealed to the members to allow the Question Hour to be taken up first and said that no criminal will enjoy any political patronage in UP.

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However, a query on law and order again figured during the Question Hour.

"Everyone in the state knows that there is improvement in law and order," Adityanath said replying to the question by SP member Nitin Agarwal. "No one will be allowed to commit crime under political patronage and those committing crime will be treated as criminals. There will be no discrimination," he said. When asked by BSP leader Verma about number of incidents of murder, rape, dacoity and loot in the past two months, Adityanath said, "Give us one year. You might not accept here due to political reasons but you and your family must be feeling the change". However, dissatisfied, the BSP members staged a walkout. SP Legislature Party leader Chaudhary alleged that there was a spurt in crime after the BJP came to power. "When a child has polio after birth its difficult to cure," Chaudhary said apparently referring to fact that the BJP government was elected recently. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna countered saying that in the earlier regime, it was not a part but the entire body that was aflicted and said the present regime would now cure it. Chaudhary and other SP members too staged a walk-out claiming that the ministers were not giving correct replies. The law and order issue was again raised by opposition members during the Zero Hour. PTI SAB ABN SMI ADS

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) All citizens above 30 years of age will be screened in 100 districts of the country under the first phase of the programme for universal screening and control of five common non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Gradually, it will cover the entire country and around 50 crore people will be screened under the programme to reduce the disease burden in the country, Health Minister J P Nadda said today.

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He was speaking here at the inauguration of national training for universal screening and control of five common non-communicable diseases--hypertension, diabetes and three common cancers of cervix, breast and oral cavity.

"NCDs are acquired lifestyle ailments which place a very high burden through the healthcare cost," Nadda said, adding that the health ministry was working through a two-pronged strategy to address the issue.

It includes the vaccination of every child to provide cover from 11 vaccine preventable diseases. This is complemented by the goals set under the National Health Policy 2017 which focuses towards promotive and preventive health care and wellness.

Nadda said that much progress has been made in past two years and now NCD clinics are operational in more than 400 districts.

Speaking at the event, Union minister Anupriya Patel said the challenge and threat from NCDs has increased manifold and around 90 lakh people die every year due to these diseases. Patel said seven crore people are suffering from diabetes and around 7-8 crore from cardio-vascular diseases.

She said 13 lakh patients of cancer are added every year.

"All these figures explain the magnitude of the issue at hand. They are lifestyle generated and can easily be prevented," she said while stressing on the need for generating awareness about these issues and collaborating with various stakeholders like communities, NGOs, etc.

Nadda also released a set of four training modules for primary healthcare team comprising frontline workers such as ASHAs and ANMs and facility-based service providers, staff nurses and medical officers. PTI PLB AAR

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Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud on Monday expressed hope a historic summit to be held Sunday between Arab and Muslim nations and US President Donald Trump will enhance ties and promote tolerance.

The summit will be one of three forums held during a visit by Trump, who is making Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop since assuming office in January.

Trump has frequently been accused of fuelling Islamophobia but aides described his decision to visit Saudi Arabia as an effort to reset relations with the Muslim world.

Along with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), at least 18 other Muslim nations have been invited to the summit, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Niger and Indonesia, which has the worlds largest Muslim population.

Salman told a cabinet meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that the meeting comes in light of the challenges and sensitive situations that the world is going through.

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, he expressed his hope that this historic summit will establish a new partnership in the face of extremism and terrorism and spreading the values of tolerance and coexistence while enhancing security.

Trump is to also hold a bilateral summit with Saudi Arabia and talks with the GCC on Saturday.

Washington and Riyadh have a decades-old relationship based on the exchange of American security for Saudi Arabia oil.

But US ties with Riyadh and its Gulf neighbours became increasingly frayed during the administration of president Barack Obama.

Saudi leaders felt Obama was reluctant to get involved in the civil war in Syria and was tilting toward rival Iran.

The Saudi Arabians have found a more favourable ear in Washington under Trump, who has denounced Irans harmful influence in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia has announced to terminate 70,000 foreigners from their jobs in the country under their new policy.

In accordance with Saudization plan 2020, the government has directed all ministries and government departments to get rid of all expatriate workers within three years.

There will be no expatriate workers in the government after 2020, deputy minister Abdullah Al-Melfi told a meeting as quoted by Saudi Gazette.

The government has also directed to hire Saudi nationals on the posts left vacant after the eviction of foreign expats.
Tehran mayor and a candidate in Iran's 12th presidential election, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has issued a statement announcing that he is to withdraw from the presidential race while backing principlist candidate, Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi.

"The day I decided to enter the election despite my personal interests, I was aware that I would face difficult and dangerous conditions," Qalibaf said in the statement on Monday.

He added that it was clear to him that bringing about any fundamental change to the status quo would not be possible unless through a fight against the "four-percent" affluent minority, which has been in control of the country's economic and political resources for long years.

"The fight against pseudo-revolutionary opportunists has become highly costly, because this [opportunistic] current is gnawing at the roots of the [Islamic] Revolution like a termite," the statement said.

The opportunists, Qalibaf said in his statement, "are not only at odds with the intellectual fundaments of original revolutionaries, but also represent a [political] current whose material interests are at risk."

"Right now, the main goal of the country and the people is to change the status quo, and to that end, there is no other way than beginning a genuine fight free of slogans against aristocracy and opportunism in order to find a precise and comprehensive solution to the countrys problems," Qalibaf said.

Tehran's mayor also stressed the importance of preserving the interests of the country, its people and the Islamic Revolution.

In another part of his statement, Qalibaf said a fundamental decision must be made for forging unity within the revolutionary front, adding, "In order to realize this great ideal, I ask all my popular supporters across the country to use all their potential and support for the success of our respectable brother, Hojjatoleslam Ebrahim Raeisi."

"I thank and praise all my popular and unpretentious supporters, who have striven toward realization of the revolution's ideals with all they have," he concluded.

Iran will simultaneously hold its 12th Presidential Election and 5th City and Village Councils Elections on May 19.

The Iranian Interior Ministry on April 20 announced the final list of six candidates vetted by the Guardian Council to run for president.

The list included incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, the Tehran Mayor, member of Irans Expediency Council Mostafa Aqa-Mirsalim, Raeisi, who is a former deputy judiciary chief, and former vice president, Mostafa Hashemi-Taba.

A day after the Interior Ministrys announcement, the six contenders started official campaigning. They also attended three live televised debates, which involved a verbal back and forth among them. The candidates accused each other of mismanaging the country's affairs.
Here are the answers to all the questions you've been wanting to ask about Pippa Middleton's wedding.

By India Today Web Desk: She came under the world's radar when she turned bridesmaid for her sister, Kate Middleton and now, as she herself gears up to take a plunge into matrimony, the world is yet again, focussed on Pippa Middleton.

Here's literally everything you need to know about Pippa Middleton's highly anticipated wedding.

To whom is Pippa getting married to?

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Pippa Middleton is getting married to James Matthews who is believed to be a 41-year-old hedge fund manager and who is also the chief executive of Eden Rock Capital Management Group.

When are they getting married?

The couple will exchange vows on May 20, 2017.

Also Read: Was Kate Middleton's Easter outfit a silent tribute to Princess Diana?

Where are they getting married?

Pippa and James will get married at the St Mark's Church, Berkshire, England.

Will Prince George and Princess Charlotte play any role?

Absolutely. While Prince George will double up as a page boy, Princess Charlotte will be a flower girl.

Will Kate Middleton be the Maid of Honour?

No. As per reports, a married woman is not qualified to be the Maid of Honour. However, reports suggest that The Duchess of Cambridge stepped down from the responsibility because she did not want to "upstage" her sister.

Who is invited and who isn't?

Prince Harry's girlfriend, Meghan Markle will reportedly be in attendance alongside the Royal Family. Whereas, James' best man Spencer Matthews' model-girlfriend, Vogue Williams has not been invited.

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By Devarsi Ghosh: If one saw Priyanka Chopra way back in her debut film The Hero in 2003, one would call her a 'lambi race ka ghoda'. Fact of the matter is that over a career of fourteen years, Priyanka Chopra has already won multiple races and will go on to win many more.

The 34-year-old actor is making her Hollywood debut in the soon-to-be-released Baywatch. She is playing the lead antagonist in the film and the trailers, promotional videos and TV spots feature her prominently. Baywatch with its star-studded line-up is expected to have a wide release and as such, a huge part of the theatre-going audience from all over the world will be introduced to the phenomenon that is Priyanka Chopra. No, not a film family. Not a daughter of anyone famous. Not coming from big money. How did Priyanka Chopra manage to come this far?

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Early years

Priyanka Chopra is, as they say, an Army brat. As a kid, she moved from place to place, like Army kids do. While in the US, where she had gone to study, she began participating in theatre. She learnt Kathak, choral singing as well as western classical music. It was Priyanka's mother who entered her name in the 2000 Femina Miss India contest. She went on to win the Miss World pageant and obviously, Bollywood noticed her.

Bollywood Beginnings

Priyanka Chopra made her Bollywood Debut in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy. The film predominantly revolved around its star Sunny Deol and his romance with Preity Zinta. However, Priyanka's presence was, well, interesting. She then starred in Andaaz in a negative role alongside Akshay Kumar and Lara Dutta and its success proved that she could hold her own in a film with big names. Over the next few years, Priyanka Chopra acted in some forgettable and some mildly successful films till she wowed on and all with her vamp-ish act in Aitraaz. This was a turning point.

The Middle Years

Priyanka Chopra still had not become a solo player. In an industry that is as patriarchal as the country it is a part of, the movies it made seldom had good roles for women. Nevertheless, Priyanka Chopra got roles where she had the opportunity to show some semblance of a performance. In films like Karam, Yakeen and Farhan Akhtar's remake of Don, Piggy Chops showed why she is one of the most sought-after names in the industry. And all this while, she was acting with the top stars; Hrithik Roshan (Krrish), Shah Rukh Khan (Don) and Salaam-e-Ishq (Nikhil Advani).

One-Woman Army

It was with Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion that Priyanka Chopra began to be reckoned as a force of nature. In that film, she played the central protagonist Meghna who comes from a small town to Mumbai to become a supermodel. In the process, she becomes hugely successful but her self-destructive ways brings her down from grace. The role got her a National Film Award. Thereafter, she began starring in big-ticket star vehicles like Dostana and Anjaana Anjaani on the one hand while she made a habit out of giving solid, career-defining performances such as those in Kaminey and 7 Khoon Maaf.

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Multiple Commercial and Critical Successes; The Arrival of The 'Priyanka Chopra'

The blockbuster Agneepath. The surprise super-hit Barfi! where Priyanka Chopra amazed everyone with how well she could portray a mentally deficient young girl. The biopic Mary Kom, the Woody Allen-esque drama Dil Dhadakne Do and the historical epic Bajirao Mastani. All critically acclaimed and all super-duper hits. Within a span of five years, Priyanka Chopra had taken over Bollywood; such was the writing on the wall and she had managed to do it without coming from a film family, marrying a film actor or any other backing.

Branching Out and Global Success

Priyanka Chopra made an attempt at becoming a global singing sensation. That did not work out well. But she got to collaborate with artists like Jay Sean, RedOne and will.i.am. Her singles, In My City and Exotic, were heavily aired around the world making her a known 'face'. All of this culminated into Priyanka Chopra grabbing the lead role in Quantico, the TV series, and that became a hit. Priyanka Chopra has single-handedly, just with her talent, achieved the sky, the moon, and a little more. And now, Priyanka Chopra is branching out as a producer of multiple regional-language films, one of which, the Marathi film Ventilator was a box-office success and won three National Awards this year.

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Baywatch is just a mere milestone for Priyanka Chopra whose career can be traced with the numerous milestones she has laid over the years. Baywatch is not the limit. It is just the beginning.

(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)

ALSO SEE: Priyanka Chopra charms the world at the Baywatch premiere in Miami

WATCH: Priyanka Chopra exudes elegance at the Golden Globes 2017

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: (With additional inputs)

New Delhi, May 16 (PTI) Home Minister Rajnath Singh today described religious radicalisation as a serious security threat and said if not checked in time, it could lead to terrorism.

Singh, who reviewed the security situation in the Northeast with chief secretaries and DGPs of the states of the region here, also expressed concern over proliferation of illegal arms asked the top officers to launch a sustained campaign against arms smugglers.

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"If we talk about future security threats, radicalisation has come as a huge security challenge. Radicalisation is a transnational phenomenon. If we cant check it, it will turn into terrorism," he said at the meeting which was also attended by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and other top security officials.

The home minister said because the Northeast was especially vulnerable to attempts of radicalisation, it was essential to identify those behind it.

Later, briefing about the meeting, adviser in the home ministry Ashok Prasad said there have been attempts by Bangladesh-based terror outfits like Jamiat-ul-Muajhideen to radicalise youths in the bordering districts in India.

"There are spillover effects of radicalisation in Bangladesh (in India)," he said.

Asked about the possibility of Middle East terror group ISIS having links with youth in Indias Northeast, Prasad said so far no such information has come to the notice of government agencies.

"There is no information of ISIS having direct links in the Northeast. But once upon a time the al Qaida had said that Assam was on their agenda," he said.

The home minister said some of those trying to radicalise youth had masked themselves as religious preachers, while some others has set up NGOs and still others had mingled with them by carrying out development programmes for individuals, socio-cultural uplift and education.

Singh said it was necessary to monitor their activities and take preemptive action.

"Some of these agents even get foreign funding. So it is necessary to closely monitor their foreign funding and utilisation," he said.

The home minister said though most of the Northeast was free from militancy, proliferation of illegal arms was a problem that needed to be tackled.

"The proliferation of illegal arms in such large numbers leads to more crimes. I urge the DGPs to launch an organised campaign against illegal arm traders," he said.

Singh said illegal firearms, narcotics and fake Indian currency notes were being smuggled into the country from across the international border abutting the Northeast.

"These borders are practically unpoliced. There is need to set up more police stations in the border areas as these will check cross-border crimes and bring a sense of security to the people who live in these remote areas," he said.

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The home minister, however, noted there has been significant improvement in the security situation in the Northeast in the last few years.

"Most of the areas are now free from insurgency and militants have been losing support even in the few pockets where they had influence," he said.

Singh said this had been made possible because of effective counter-insurgency operations, and responsive, development oriented governance, besides improved relations with neighbouring countries.

"(But) In some areas, armed gangs are indulging in extortion, kidnapping and abduction in the name of militancy," he said. PTI ACB SK

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Megastar Chiranjeevi, superstar Rajinikanth to veteran actor Kamal Haasan, here's what celebrities said about SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.

By India Today Web Desk: When was the last time a 'regional' film had so much penetration in the North? If not for its poetic visuals and fascinating characters, SS Rajamouli will go down in the history for breaking the language barriers and other norms with his Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. Ever since the release of the film, Baahubali 2 has been smashing box-office records and rightly so. They have worked for it. Made on a budget of Rs 250 crore, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion has fetched enough moolah for the producers and is touted as the highest grossing Indian film.

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The film, which released on April 28, saw 90 per cent occupancy in theatres and collected Rs 121 crore on its opening day. Ever since its release, several Telugu and Tamil cinema celebrities have appreciated SS Rajamouli and team for making something unimaginable like Baahubali possible. Here's what celebrities said about the film.

Megastar Chiranjeevi, who made a comeback with Khaidi No 150, said, "Baahubali: The Conclusion is an outstanding film. Rajamouli deserves all the accolades for creating a wonder like Baahubali. Hats off to the creator for letting Telugu cinema grow by leaps and bounds." He also congratulated the lead actors, KV Vijayendra Prasad and music director MM Keeravani.

Powerstar Pawan Kalyan took to Twitter to congratulate the makers. He wrote, "My Heartfelt congratulations to Shri Rajmouli,Shri Prabhas &team for their stupendous success of. Bahubali and achieving the 1000 crore mark."

My Heartfelt congratulations to Shri Rajmouli,Shri Prabhas &team for their stupendous success of. Bahubali and achieving the 1000 crore mark- Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) May 7, 2017

Thalaivar Rajinikanth's tweet praising Rajamouli went viral on the internet. He said, "Baahubali 2 ... indian cinema's pride. My salutes to God's own child @ssrajamouli and his team!!!"

Baahubali 2 ... indian cinema's pride. My salutes to God's own child @ssrajamouli and his team!!! #masterpiece- Rajinikanth (@superstarrajini) April 30, 2017

Ulaganayagan Kamal Haasan, who's known for praising talents in the industry, congratulated Rajamouli for Baahubali. He said, "Baahubali is the best thing that could have happened to the film industry, financially speaking. They've worked hard for it."

Superstar Mahesh Babu was one of the first celebrities to tweet about Baahubali 2. He wrote, "Mind boggling stuff, a game changer! Hats off to @ssrajamouli and the entire team!"

Mind boggling stuff, a game changer! Hats off to @ssrajamouli and the entire team!- Mahesh Babu (@urstrulyMahesh) April 29, 2017

Young Tiger Jr NTR said, "#Baahubali2 is Indian Cinema's finest canvas. @ssrajamouli has taken not just Telugu Cinema, but Indian Cinema to a whole new level. Hats off."

#Baahubali2 is Indian Cinema's finest canvas. @ssrajamouli has taken not just Telugu Cinema, but Indian Cinema to a whole new level.Hats off- Jr NTR (@tarak9999) April 28, 2017

Suriya, who was part of Baahubali: The Beginning's Tamil trailer launch, said he was blown away by the film. "#TeamBaahubali BREATHTAKING experience! No praise will do justice! Take a bow @rajamouli #Prabhas @RanaDaggubati #Sathyaraj @meRamyakrishnan," he tweeted.

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Dhanush, who became a global sensation after his Kolaveri Di song, heaped praise on Baahubali 2. "@ssrajamouli sir :) nothing more to say. #masterpiece #writingatitsbest .. break the rules. Redefined everything. I mean EVERYTHING," he tweeted.

@ssrajamouli sir :) ????????? nothing more to say. #masterpiece #writingatitsbest .. break the rules. Redefined everything. I mean EVERYTHING

ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 box-office collection Day 19

ALSO READ: It's official! Baahubali 2 beats Enthiran in Tamil Nadu

ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 gets A certificate in Singapore

WATCH: Baahubali 2 gets a thumbs up from fans

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The currently favoured site for the proposed iconic tourism centre in Coronation Park Mount Maunganui will destroy the grove of trees the park is named after, says tour operator John Mathieson.

The unique grove of New Zealand native trees planted near the corner of Nikau Crescent and Maunganui Road, to celebrate the founding of the park back in 1937.

The land of Coronation Park reverted from railway workshop use to Crown Land at a time coinciding with King George VIs Coronation In 1937, says John. Which is why the park was named Coronation Park.

The planting of the unique native tree grove and the Pohutukawa trees on the northern side of the Park was made to commemorate the occasion, says John in his annual Plan submission to Tauranga City Council.

Some of them are out the front. What do you proposed to do with those, chop them down? Goodness knows.

He suggested moving the proposed new I-site further along Maunganui Road to the middle of the park.

A basic Centre costing $4m or an "iconic" Centre costing $5m can only be justified if it Is located In a prominent, visible location, says John. Such a site exists on the Mount Maunganui Road frontage in the open area about halfway between the historic planting and the plantings to the north of the Park. This site would still be on the Bus route and provide parking along the full length of the Park frontage.

But that has been ruled out he says.

That means of course that in terms of my submission that really if you have to rule out an alternative which we have suggested, then it only leaves site B. that means theres no choice.

Site B is on the western side of Coronation Park in Salisbury Avenue, where the former I-site building still stands.

Johns submission is supported by Forest and Bird and perhaps the Tauranga Historical Society, but hes unsure if the full membership was notified before his Tauranga city Council Annual Plan submission was made.

There is no comparable planting of a grove of major notable native trees within the Town Centre or the wider Mount Maunganui area, says John.

Proceeding with the new Visitor Information Centre in the confined corner of the park is inappropriate, says John. The area can be quite shaded, has restricted light and is subject to considerable ongoing leaf fall. There could be public opposition to this proposed siting

Notable New Zealand native trees forming the historic grove include: Kauri, rewarewa, totara, puriri, rimu, tarata, photukawa, akiraho.

The densely planted northern area is a dirty and unattractive place and perhaps the pond should be replaced with a waterfall or fountain, something more attractive.
DAMENs brand-new support vessel - built from the popular Sea Axe range - has had its fair share of interest since passing Tower Bridge this week. With events on board and brokers coming to see exactly whats available to owners, we were given an insight into the potential of owning a vessel to support your superyacht.

Toys

Game Changer, and the whole Sea Axe range for that matter, is built for the superyacht adventure that requires an arsenal of toys, teams and tenacity. With submarines, large tenders, 20-ton crane, helicopter hangar and large landing pad alongside all forms of jet skis to water toys, this is the boat for an owner looking to explore the world while making the most of the mother yacht.

Our clients want to go to exciting new destinations with less established superyacht infrastructure and they want to have more fun with larger tenders, larger helicopters and submersibles, comments DAMEN Product Director Mark Vermeulen. They also want to take more staff, guides, pilots and security personnel with them. Game Changer is the massive leap forward in capability that they need, but at a much lower cost than a larger yacht.

Game Changer is built to speed ahead (thanks to its 22 knot capabilities) in complete ease and sets up the ideal escape for those on board the mother yacht in search of the best destinations, anywhere in the world.

This is a very fast vessel, we can even go faster with bigger engines, explains Victor Caminada, Marketing Director for AMELS when contemplating the toys on board, as well as the biggest toy in question, Game Changer. This would fit typically a 70-110-metre superyacht, there are a lot of toys but its a serious boat.

Space

Game Changer has 250 square metres of open deck space for tenders and toys. The large deck crane makes logistics and handling simple, fast and safe. Below deck there is a further 110 square-metre storage space/dive centre. The YS 6911 has offices, facilities and accommodation for 22 crew and staff. It can carry a huge amount of extra provisions, fuel (marine, aviation and petrol), luggage and spare parts.

With no accommodation for owners, an additional attraction is the possibility of having anyone from helicopter pilots, submarine experts, rotational crew and myriad experts on board to fill any vacation with limitless possibilities.

The crew has a good life. Its important," adds Victor Caminada. "If you want the best crew you have to offer them the best working conditions and living space, and in a competitive crew market this is ideal for larger boats with crew that rotate. Youre always under tension as crew, and here you can relax and go to the gym and do things you cant do on the mother yacht.

For owners searching for the accommodation included in the exploration vessels, AMELS & DAMEN worked together to bring the answer forward, the SeaXplorer. Read more about the first vessel, which is begins first phases of construction tomorrow, here.

Technology

Having just finished the sea trial programme, Game Changer crossed the 100 mile stretch from The Netherlands to London, testing the 22 knot speed as well as the comfort, quiet and capabilities of the Sea Axe range. Named for its innovative bow, there is extremely reduced feedback from the water at high-speeds meaning lower fuel costs and added economic benefits.

In fact, the Total Cost of Ownership on board Game Changer is significantly lower per square metre thanks to functional nature of the boat itself. Proving its popularity, Game Changer is the fourth Yacht Support vessel in the 70-metre segment following the delivery of Intrepid, 6711 and Garcon.

The launch of Game Changer also follows last years delivery and sale of the 55-metre showcase vessel Fast & Furious (181 ft).

With its Yacht Support range, DAMEN is now the established leader in this rapidly developing niche. In total, 11 DAMEN Yacht Support vessels have been delivered or are in build.
The author of a new young adult fantasy romance series was at BookWorld in Puerto Banus last week to sign copies of her first novel.

Social media : To contact the author or discuss her books -Twitter @NJSimmondsTPK / Facebook @NjsimmondsAuthor / njsimmonds.com

Locals were invited to join N. J. Simmonds at the bookstore as she gave a short talk and answered questions as well as signing copies of The Path Keeper.

Born in London, Simmonds was raised in Barcelona - where her father is from - until she was seven years old and then the family moved back to the British capital. In 2010 she swapped England for the Spanish coast and emigrated to Estepona with her husband.

Teenage years are a turning point, when you step into adulthood and decide what your place in life is going to be

If social media is used correctly it can actually inspire and bring writers and readers together

Released earlier this year, her debut novel makes reference to her Spanish roots and is partly set in Tarifa and the Andalusian mountains.

What affects our reality? Do soul mates exist? And if so, can love ever be stronger than fate? These are some of the questions that the author asks in her first book. Exploring the concept of fate and the intensity of love, she hopes that her writing can break the mould of stereotypical young adult books which can be, according to teens she met on her UK book tour, patronising, formulaic and predictable.

This is the first of at least three books in the series and N. J. Simmonds has just finished putting the final touches to the second book, Son of Secrets, which is due for release in February 2018.

Being brought up in a creative household (her grandfather was an artist, her father is a graphic designer and her mother an English teacher) influenced Simmonds from a very young age. She describes her young self as a reading and writing kind of child that never left her bedroom, with a passion for writing and drawing since she was able to hold a pencil.

Costa links

Although she is now based in The Netherlands, the author still visits her house in Estepona regularly and it was there that The Path Keeper was brought to life. Simmonds loves the idea of her two daughters being brought up bilingual - as she was - and says she will never let go of [their] little slice of Spanish paradise.

Speaking to SUR in English, Simmonds explained that she never set out to write specifically for young adults but rather to write the type of books she enjoyed reading herself - romance with a touch of magic and a thriller edge. However, as her first novel evolved, she realised not just how fun it was to write for that age group, but also how important it was to do it well.

Teenage years are the turning point in your life; its that transitional moment when you step into adulthood and decide what your place in life is going to be. She said it was essential for her to create a strong female protagonist who wouldnt take any nonsense off anyone but was also vulnerable and flawed.

In a day and age where social media continues to divide opinion, N. J. Simmonds is able to see the pros and cons linked to the world of literature. Asked how important she thinks it is that children and teenagers continue to be brought up reading proper books rather than becoming internet-dependent, the author stressed its not important - its vital.

Books are not about reading, books are about escaping, she said. Reading allows you to escape to places youve never been and experience things youll never get to do in real life, without leaving your bed or sofa. Isnt that one of lifes greatest thrills?!

Having said that though, she admits she is a lover of social media and wishes she had had access to it as a teenager. Fans of the novel are able to contact her on Twitter with questions about the book and get a response from her immediately, something that Simmonds would have loved to have had the opportunity to do when growing up.

She said: I would have loved to have finished a good book and tell the author right away that I enjoyed it. If social media is used correctly it can actually inspire and bring writers and readers together... Or you can watch kitten videos and not pick up a book for years. Your choice.

The writer has been blown away by the response she has received towards The Path Keeper so far - the book received over 60 five-star reviews on Amazon within eight weeks of its release - and she admits she still finds it a surreal experience to hear people discuss the characters she has created. Seeing and holding my book for the first time was one of the most moving experiences Ive ever known, said Simmonds.

Following her visit to southern Spain, N. J. Simmonds will be in The Hague for another signing on 1 June and at the YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention) in London from 28 to 30 July.
Thousands of residents and visitors flooded onto the streets of Estepona on Monday to celebrate the patron saint of farmers, San Isidro Labrador.

Streets throughout the town were decorated with flowers, ferns and palm leaves, while farming tools were also on display as a reminder of the municipality's rich farming history.

A walk through the oldest part of Estepona to visit the various altars took place in the morning, before the procession of the patron saint began.

The procession made several stops at the altars, where poems were read out and doves were released into the air, before it returned to the Iglesia San Jose.

Huts covered with palm leaves were also set up to serve food and drinks that are typical of the festival.

The procession was the highlight of the San Isidro fair which began on Wednesday last week. New features this year included a farm school which allowed children to see and touch animals from pheasants to Peruvian llamas and Hungarian goats.
When superstar Rajinikanth appeared in front of the fans and blessed them with his rare 'darshan' by taking pictures with the fans in Chennai, it was an unforgettable moment.

It is a known fact that fans are crazy about superstar Rajinikanth. It is not just grand poojas or putting up larger than life posters that these fans do. Some can go to any extent for their superstar.

On Monday, the demi-God himself appeared in front of his fans and blessed them with his rare 'darshan' by taking pictures with them. Let's meet these fans who took that extra step and made sure they were there to see Rajinikanth.

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FAN FLIES FROM CHENNAI TO HONG KONG

For 40-year-old Sreenivasan Jayaseelan, meeting Rajinikanth was next to impossible in Chennai what with the tight security in place for the superstar. So when he got a whiff of Rajinikanth flying to Hong Kong to shoot his movie Lingaa back in 2014, Jayaseelan took that big decision. He immediately booked a ticket for himself, his wife and two children on the same flight as Rajinikanth and paid a whopping sum of Rs 1.50 lakh for the tickets.

Sreenivasan Jayaseelan and his family with Rajinikath.

"Money is nothing in front of my God. We got to breathe the same oxygen as our Thalaivar for a few hours on the flight. What else do we need," Jayaseelan said. He, along with his family, went to the hotel where Rajinikanth was staying.

"He was so humble. He got up from the chair and asked my nine-year-old child to sit. Which star will do this. He spoke to us for twenty minutes. My wife requested him to do his signature style with her sunglasses and he obliged. It's locked in our memories now," says an emotional Jayaseelan.

Jayaseelan has preserved the sunglasses and does not allow anyone to even touch them. The family returned to Chennai the same night since their trip was only for Rajinikanth. "But he kept saying don't waste money on me. Spend it on your family," reminiscences Jayaseelan. He didn't forget to collect the eye mask Rajinikanth had used on the flight to preserve it for life.

MARRIAGE BLESSINGS

From the time Deepak Vikram started watching movies, his only idol has been superstar Rajinikanth. Vikram, 27, knows every dialogue and style of Rajinikanth by heart. His only dream was to invite the superstar to his wedding. But somehow he couldn't manage to get in touch with his Thalaivar. Three months ago, with his wedding just four days away, an anxious Vikram landed at a book release which Rajinikanth was a part of.

Deepak Vikram's wedding card.

"There were so many people. Everyone was pushing each other. The tip of my wedding invitation touched the shoulders of our superstar. That's all I wanted. That's it," says Deepak with tears in his eyes. He managed to get into the same lift as Rajinikanth. "I showed my invitation from a distance and he gave a thumbs up. This was the blessing from my God," says Deepak Vikram.

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Also Read:

Superstar Rajinikanth meets fans after 8 years, takes pictures, says will join politics if God wills

Baahubali 2 box-office collection day 18- Prabhas-Rana's epic to make Rs 1500 crore this week

Thalaivar 161- Rajinikanth's next not based on Haji Mastan

ALSO WATCH: Rajinikanth receives notice from Haji Mastan's adopted son over Thalaivar 161

--- ENDS ---
The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad is getting rid of halogens and switching to LED lights. The officials plan to go 100 per cent LED-lit, and 75 per cent work of this has already been completed.

By India Today Web Desk: According to a report, between 2011 and 2012, sales of LED replacement globally increased by 22 per cent and the cost of a 60W equivalent LED bulb fell by nearly 40 per cent.

It is believed that by 2030, LEDs will account for 75 per cent of all lighting sales around the world.

RAJIV GANDHI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

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The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Hyderabad will soon become 100 per cent LED-lit airport. The authorities are already done with 75 per cent work on the project.

The GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which operates the airport, announced on Tuesday that it has converted the entire taxiway edge lights from halogen lamps to LEDs which are highly efficient as compared to halogen lights.

LEDs also have a much smaller environmental impact than incandescent bulbs.

Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) thus became south India's first and India's second airport to achieve going all LED.

HYDERABAD'S CARBON NEUTRAL AIRPORT

Complementing the recently achieved recognition of being carbon neutral airport, GHIAL is marching to transform the RGIA into a 100 per cent LED airport, and 75 per cent work on this has already been completed, GHIAL said in a statement.

LEDs can also last more than 25 times longer than the traditional light bulbs cutting down costs further.

RGIA'S ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTENANCE

The RGIA, which currently serves more than 15 million passengers per annum (MPPA) with close to 400 daily air traffic movements, has a mission to move from conventional energy to renewable energy sources for environmental sustenance. It recently commissioned a captive 5MW Solar Power Plant for its use supporting sustainable energy.

UNDERGOING LED TRANSFORMATION

The busiest and the most critical area of the airport -- the airside -- has undergone LED transformation. As many as 500 halogen lamps of taxiway edge lights were converted to LEDs.

All LEDs at taxiway edge lights cover around 26 km of the area in the airside.

Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport has more than 26,000 conventional lamps. More than 19,500 have been converted into LED.

The switch to LED lights has amounted to a saving of 2.2 million unites of electricity per annum.

"Very soon we will become 100 per cent LED-lit airport. At the same time, initiatives such as the 5MW solar power plant help us to meet a significant amount of the airport's energy requirement, using renewable means," said SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL.

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It does not stop here as GHIAL is also exploring the conversion of runway lights to LEDs. LED lights are close to seven times more energy efficient than the conventional incandescent lights and can even cut energy use by more than 80 per cent.

However, as the technology of using LEDs on the runway is still in its early stages of development, it would take some time before the authorities can finally be done with their LED plans for the airport.

--- ENDS ---
HASTINGS, N.Y. -- Four people were taken to a Syracuse hospital Sunday after a two-vehicle crash involving a drunk driver in Hastings, Oswego County County sheriff's deputies said.

Deputies arrested Shannon C. Pangburn, 45, of 371 Pangborn Road in Hastings, and charged him with DWI, drinking alcohol in a motor vehicle on a highway and failure to yield the right of way after the crash at 6:34 p.m. Sunday, according to a police report.

Pangburn was driving a 2011 Dodge west on Ball Road and entered the intersection of U.S. Route 11 in the town of Hastings. That's when deputies say Pangburn's vehicle collided with a southbound 2016 Ford, driven by Bryce K. Pooley, 61, of Woodlawn Drive in Brewerton.

Ambulances took Pangburn and his passenger, Christine M. Halsey, 49, as well as Pooley and his passenger, Nancy H. Pooley, 63, to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, deputies said. The extent of their injuries and their conditions were unknown Monday.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- U.S. Rep. John Katko addressed a pre-selected crowd of about 130 people Monday night at Onondaga Community College.

Katko's forum was short on the fiery exchanges that have dogged similar meetings for other GOP Congress members across the nation. The event was moderated by television anchors from CNY Central.

The Congressman faced a somewhat hostile crowd -- one that frequently shouted follow-up questions and challenged his answers. Still, at times, the group laughed and applauded, like when Katko reminded everyone he voted against the American Health Care Act.

More than 600 people submitted their names for admission and 150 were given tickets. Attendees were selected at random by CNY Central, according to the station.

Katko took numerous questions on President Donald Trump, some of which earned him boos. He said the president has done plenty to be applauded, but Katko still has concerns.

He received more jeers when he answered a question about the Trump family's business interests. He answered by mentioning Hillary Clinton and saying pay-for-play situations are a "persistent problem."

Katko took questions on health care, refugees, flood insurance and the environment. The event lasted an hour.

"I wasn't sure I was going to get many claps tonight," he said near the beginning.

At points, people shouted from the crowd. CNY Central Anchor Matt Mulcahy interjected at one point, reminding people to respect some process.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- U.S. Rep. John Katko seemed visibly relieved about seven minutes into the first public question-and-answer meeting he's held since being re-elected.

It came when the applause washed over him.

"I wasn't sure I was going to get any claps tonight, so this is perfect," he told the crowd of 130 audience members. They had applauded his response to a question about climate change and renewable energy.

The audience's response quickly turned less rosy, however. Katko's meeting, broadcast live by WSTM and WTVH from Onondaga Community College Monday night, came as clips go viral from town hall meetings elsewhere showing members of Congress being shouted down by unruly audiences.

The format here was similar, but the television reporters moderated and sometimes stepped in to keep the questions rolling in. Audience members were selected by lottery after signing up and verifying they lived in the district.

The auditorium was about half full as at least 100 protesters congregated outside.

Katko was asked at least a dozen questions including about health care, the congressional investigation into President Trump's ties to Russia, the emoluments clause and Alzheimer's disease.

Here are highlights from the meeting:

1. Approve or disapprove?

A woman, identified as "Tricia from Camillus," cited Trump's high disapproval ratings in recent polling, and asked Katko what he would say if he were polled about his approval or disapproval of Trump's performance. Katko immediately rejected the premise.

Katko said he applauds the president for addressing health care, tax reform and infrastructure, but would not say if he approves or disapproves.

"I can't give you a straight answer because there's too much there," Katko said. "But the bottom line is there's a lot to be happy with this guy and there's some things to be concerned about."

Katko later on to say he approved Trump's handling of North Korea's continued posturing and said he "runs at issues" in a way that is admirable. He did criticize the president's rollout of a ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries and attempted budget cuts to programs such as Meals on Wheels.

"I applaud this guy for running to issues instead of running apart way from them," he said. "But did he stub his toe?"

Yes, Katko said. He did.

2. President Trump's possible leak

Just minutes before the meeting, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump disclosed classified information to Russian diplomats during a meeting in the Oval Office.

Katko was asked, via a question submitted on social media, about the new development.

"It may be the president's prerogative to declassify whatever he wants to," he said, drawing jeers.

He then discussed the investigation into Russian collusion in Trump's presidential campaign, warning against rushing to judgment. He praised the bipartisan committees in both the House and Senate that are investigating the matter.

"We've got to let them develop the facts. They're working together," he said. "You've gotta have faith in this, folks."

3. A "very well formed" question on emoluments

Jim Howe from Manlius asked Katko what he would do to address the president's global business ties, listing many potential conflicts.

"I could go on and on because the president has business interests basically all over the world," Howe said.

Katko drew angry boos from the crowd when he immediately pivoted to his concerns about Hillary Clinton and her husband's philanthropic work, without addressing Howe's question.

"We had the same concerns with Hillary Clinton," he said before being interrupted by shouts.

He then acknowledged that he had "concerns" about the president's business conflicts and praised Howe's detailed question.

"The bottom line is it is a persistent problem that we need to look into... It does concern me," he said.

4. Independent in Congress

Katko got much applause for his vote against the recent House bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his embrace of renewable energy as an answer to climate change, and he said "man is contributing to it."

The swings between applause and jeers reflect Katko's identity as one of the most independent members in Congress, according to Congressional Quarterly.

He described being pressured to vote for the Affordable Care Act repeal, starting a call-and-response with the audience.

"What is the biggest vote we've had so far?" he asked.

"Health care!" audience members shouted.

"And what did I do on that?"

Audience members applauded in response.

"If that's not an indication of my ability, my desire, my guts to stand up to people..." he said. "You want to talk about the pressure that was brought to people on that vote, it was incredible. And I didn't buckle."

5. Congress making Alzheimer's disease a priority

A social media question posed to Katko questioned whether Congress would make curing Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia a priority.

"It's the highest priority for me," Katko quickly responded. "My dad is in a nursing home right now. He's in the latest stages of Alzheimer's. There's times where he doesn't know us. It's really hard."

He went on to praise the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides billions in funding to the National Institutes of Health to fight the disease.

"These are things that people don't really notice, buy you should be damn proud of being an American when you hear" about them, he said. "...It's money very well spent."

6. "The name is John, not Mr. Katko"

Katko, with his top button undone and sleeves rolled up, several times tried to relax the audience with folksy offerings.

One man asked him about funds for environmental cleanup projects like at Onondaga Lake. Katko reassured the man he valued such projects, and told him to take the load off.

"You can sit back, man," he said. "Relax. It's my time to work."

He again told a man with a question to relax and sit down and related his experience of fishing with his father at Otisco Lake.

An audience member also asked him about North Korea, calling him "Mr. Katko."

"By the way, the name is John, not Mr. Katko, OK?" he said.

Here's all of Syracuse.com's coverage of Katko's forum:
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Cybersecurity experts are pointing to circumstantial evidence that North Korea may be behind the global "ransomware" attack: the way the hackers took hostage computers and servers across the world was similar to previous cyberattacks attributed to North Korea.

Simon Choi, a director at South Korean anti-virus software company Hauri Inc. who has analyzed North Korean malware since 2008 and advises the government, said Tuesday that the North is no newcomer to the world of bitcoins. It has been mining the digital currency using malicious computer programs since as early as 2013, he said.

In the attack, hackers demand payment from victims in bitcoins to regain access to their encrypted computers. The malware has scrambled data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses since Friday, but an expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize after the weekend, in part because security researchers had already defanged it .

Choi is one of a number of researchers around the world who have suggested a possible link between the "ransomware" known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Researchers at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have found similarities between WannaCry and previous attacks blamed on North Korea.

While Choi's speculation may deepen suspicions that the nuclear-armed state is responsible, the evidence is still far from conclusive. Authorities are working to catch the extortionists behind the global cyberattack, searching for digital clues and following the money.

"We are talking about a possibility, not that this was done by North Korea," Choi said.

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users' computer files and displayed a message demanding $300 to $600 worth of the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data scrambled and likely beyond repair .

The hackers appeared to have taken control of computers and servers around the world by sending a type of malicious code known as a worm to file-sharing protocols. The worms quickly scanned computers with vulnerability, in this case the older versions of Microsoft Windows, and used those computers as hackers' command and control centers.

This method, which allows quick and massive infections of computers with security weaknesses, has been found in previously known North Korean cyberattacks, including the Sony hack in 2014 blamed on North Korea.

"Since a July 2009 cyberattack by North Korea, they used the same method," Choi said. "It's not unique in North Korea but it's also not a very common method."

Choi also cited an accidental communication he had last year with a hacker traced to a North Korean internet address who admitted development of ransomware.

South Korea was mostly spared from the latest ransomware attack, partly because constant threats from the North have made the government and companies careful about always updating their software.

South Korea has been a frequent target of cyberattacks that it traced to its northern neighbor. Some high-profile attacks between 2009 and 2013 shut down government websites, banking systems and paralyzed broadcasters.

On Monday, the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab said portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack.

But it's possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection. Kaspersky said "further research can be crucial to connecting the dots."

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, and said it's "continuing to investigate for stronger connections."

If North Korea, believed to be training cyber warriors at schools, is indeed responsible for the latest attack, Choi said the world should stop underestimating its capabilities and work together to think of a new way to respond to cyber threats, such as having China pull the plug on North Korea's internet.

"We have underestimated North Korea so far that since North Korea is poor, it wouldn't have any technologies. But North Korea has been preparing cyber skills for more than 10 years and its skill is significant. We should never underestimate it," Choi said.



FOLLOW THE MONEY

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments. There have been three accounts identified so far, and there's no indication yet that the criminals have touched the funds.

Although bitcoin is anonymized, researchers can watch it flow from user to user. So investigators can follow the transactions until an anonymous account matches with a real person, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with the California security company McAfee.

But that technique is no sure bet. There are ways to convert bitcoins into cash on the sly through third parties. And even finding a real person might be no help if they're in a jurisdiction that won't cooperate.



TELL-TALE SIGNS

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said U.S. investigators are collecting forensic information -- such as internet addresses, samples of malware or information the culprits might have inadvertently left on computers -- that could be matched with the handiwork of known hackers.

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCry's "kill switch." That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message "hey, I'm infected" to the hidden address, Weaver said.

That means the very first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to "patient zero" -- the first computer infected with WannaCry. That, in turn, might further narrow the focus on possible suspects.



THE PLAYERS

Forensics, though, will only get investigators so far. One challenge will be sharing intelligence in real time to move as quickly as the criminals -- a tricky feat when some of the major nations involved, such as the U.S. and Russia, distrust each other.

Even if the perpetrators can be identified, bringing them to justice could be another matter. They might be hiding out in countries that wouldn't be willing to extradite suspects for prosecution, said Robert Cattanach, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney and an expert on cybersecurity.

On the other hand, the WannaCry attack hit -- and annoyed -- many countries. Russia was among the hardest hit, and Britain among the most high-profile, and both have "some pretty good investigative capabilities," Cattanach said.
Cross Lake

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office urges boaters to use extreme caution while on the waterways in Onondaga County due to elevated and hazardous levels.

(Provided by Onondaga County Sheriff's Office)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Temperatures are expected to climb into the high 80s this week in Central New York.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office urges boaters to use extreme caution while on waterways in Onondaga County, like Cross Lake (pictured), due to elevated and hazardous levels.

For some, the summer-like weather may seem perfect for going out for a boat ride.

But the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office is urging boaters to use "extreme caution" on waterways throughout the county.

Waterways are at "elevated and hazardous levels" due to heavy rainfall over the last month, sheriff's Sgt. Jon Seeber said in a news release.

"You can kayak wherever the water levels are viable, but locks/bridges won't be open until (May) 19th, and watch out for maintenance vessels!," the state Canal Corp. Tweeted.

The recent record rainfall across the Northeast and Upstate New York has caused elevated water levels in the state canal system, also known as the Erie Canal.

Until the water levels lower, a "no wake restriction" is in place, according to the sheriff's office. That means "all boaters are to operate at a reduced speed as to not create a wake, which causes significant erosion and damage to the expanded water's edge," Seeber said in the release.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Office urges boaters to use extreme caution while on waterways in Onondaga County, like Cross Lake (pictured), due to elevated and hazardous levels.

Rising water levels also delayed giant beer fermentation tanks from traveling from Albany, along the state canal system, to the Genesee Brewery in Rochester.

"The state canal system is running much higher than seasonal levels and continues to remain closed," the sheriff's office said in the release.

"These levels, along with the exceptionally fast current, creates a situation where large amounts of dangerous debris such as trees and branches are washed off the shore and into the waterway, often floating unseen below the surface making navigation extremely hazardous," according to the sheriff's office. "Shorelines are submerged making docks and other structures impossible to observe, especially on Cross Lake and the Seneca River."

The sheriff's office Navigation Unit is continuing to monitor the water levels.
By India Today Web Desk: Ranbir Kapoor is back in news, but not for his upcoming film Jagga Jasoos. The 34-year-old actor was recently spotted getting intimate with a mystery woman and the photos of the two have gone viral. Well, before you start overthinking, these photos are from a commercial shoot.

These pictures of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil actor getting up, close and personal with a model have caught the fancy of many. Ranbir, who has beefed up for his role in Dutt biopic, looks every bit hot in these photos.

Behind the scenes of Ranbir Kapoor's Macroman TVC ?? #RanbirKapoor #Ranbir #Macroman #Bollywood A post shared by Ranbir Kapoor Universe (@ranbirkapooruniverse) on May 15, 2017 at 9:14am PDT

#Macroman TVC ?? . A post shared by Ranbir Kapoor & Katrina Kaif (@ranbirkatrinakapoor) on May 15, 2017 at 11:14am PDT

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Ranbir has been recently in the news for his personal life. Buzz has it that he went to London with his mom Neetu Kapoor to hunt for a prospective bride. But soon enough his uncle Randhir Kapoor rubbished the rumours saying, "Why does he have to get married and spoil it all so soon?"

On the work front, Ranbir will be seen with ex-girlfriend Katrina Kaif in Jagga Jasoos.

ALSO READ: Ranbir Kapoor to get married soon? Uncle Randhir Kapoor has this to say

ALSO READ: When Ranbir Kapoor met a young fan and totally made her day

WATCH: Katrina Kaif says she doesn't want to compare Ranbir Kapoor with Salman Khan

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83 girls from a Rewari government college are on a fast unto death for higher classes at their current school, after being consistently molested during their commute to different village.

By Preeti Choudhry: 83 girls from a government high school in Rewari, Haryana are on a fast unto death to demand an upgrade of their current school to a senior secondary school. As many as 23 girls have been rushed to the hospital with acute dehydration.

The girls from Rewari's Gothara village allege that they are regularly molested while travelling to a senior secondary school located in a different village.

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The closest senior secondary school for the girls is 4 km away in Kavali village, and a liquor shop falls enroute. Many instances of sexual harassment have been reported, with 16 FIRs being filed by these girls who have to commute twice, daily, either on foot or a cycle. As per the girls, the situation has reached a point where they are not just scared, but their parents are forcing them to quit school altogether.

District education authorities have now sought the Education Minister's intervention.

While Haryana Education Minister Rambilas Sharma has verbally agreed, no written order has given on its execution yet. Similar promises of an upgrade have been made many times before but not implemented, forcing the girls to take the extreme step. They have refused to give up on the fast till the written order is passed.

The entire village of Gothara has now come together in support of the girls with even the sarpanch joining the protest. The school, that has over 350 students has been shut, meanwhile, as even its younger students, including boys, have stopped attending class in solidarity of the protest.

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Xiaomi Redmi Pro did well in many key markets during its run -- thanks to its attractive design, good imaging capabilities, long uptime, and fairly affordable price tag.

According to reliable sources, Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 will have mostly similar main selling points as its predecessor -- but of course, this new model will be bringing the said key features to a higher level.

Considering all of Redmi Pro 2's main selling points, I think it can certainly give competing Android smartphone in the sub-Php 10,000 price echelon a good run for the money.

is the 2017 follow-up to the best-selling midrange phablet of the company, which had a Dual Camera module as well as a large battery pack.Donning a price tag starting at 1199 or aroundwith current conversion and before taxes, Redmi Pro 2 is expected to sport a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display, 16 MegaPixel Dual Rear Cameras (a level-up from the two 13MP sensors of the first generation release), 64-Bit Qualcomm Kryo 260 and Adreno 512 GPU based Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage storage, and sizable 4,100 mAh battery pack.As for the Pro 2's design and build, insiders are saying that it will have a real metal shell just like the previous model, which will definitely make it look and feel more elegant and durable compared to most handsets with polycarbonate exterior.Dual SIM Dual Standby 4G-LTE-enabled Xiaomi Redmi Pro 2 is expected to be released in the company's priority markets within Q2 2017. Again, as I've noted above, I hope they'd launch this model here in the Philippines.
Hackers have reportedly gotten their mitts on Disney's upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and are threatening to release it on the Internet unless the studio pays a hefty ransom.

Multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed the situation during a town hall meeting with ABC employees on Monday in New York City. While Iger didn't specify which film the hackers were referring to, Deadline claims it is indeed the upcoming Johnny Depp film which is slated for theatrical release on May 26.

Iger said the hackers threatened to release a five-minute clip initially and then publish 20-minute-long increments until their demands are met (or the full movie is released, whichever comes first). The executive reportedly told town hall attendees that Disney would not pay the Bitcoin ransom and is working with federal law enforcement on the matter.

Netflix recently found itself in a similar situation.

A hacking collective called TheDarkOverlord recently managed to get its hands on several unreleased shows including the fifth season of Orange Is the New Black. The group demanded 50 Bitcoins in exchange for not leaking the Netflix original but when the streaming media giant didn't respond to demands, the hackers made good on their promise and put the entire season online.
Microsoft may have provided a security update to protect against the world-wide WannaCry ransomware crisis, but we still don't know who was behind the attacks. According to cybersecurity experts, one of the prime suspects starting to emerge is none other than North Korea-run hackers the Lazarus Group.

Researchers from Symantec, Google, Kaspersky, and South Korea's Hauri Labs have all found similarities in the WannaCry code and tools created by the Lazarus Group, which was behind the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the heist on a Bangladeshi bank last year.

Google security researcher Neel Mehta was the first to discover the possible connection. He found links between the ransomware, which has infected hundreds of thousands of computers across 150 countries, and a strain of malware called Contopee that was used during the $81 million hit on the Bangladeshi Bank's US Federal Reserve account in 2016.

Security firm Kaspersky has cautiously acknowledged the link. "Neel Mehta's discovery is the most significant clue to date regarding the origins of WannaCry," the Russian firm wrote in a blog post. "We believe it's important that other researchers around the world investigate these similarities and attempt to discover more facts about the origin of WannaCry."

Kaspersky did add, however, that more research is required before a solid connection can be made. "Looking back to the Bangladesh attack, in the early days, there were very few facts linking them to the Lazarus Group. In time, more evidence appeared and allowed us, and others, to link them together with high confidence. Further research can be crucial to connecting the dots," the company added.

Simon Choi, a senior researcher with Hauri who has studied North Korea's hacking program extensively, also believes that WannaCry is linked to the hermit nation. "It is similar to North Korea's backdoor malicious codes," he said, adding that the country has been developing and testing ransomware since last August.

Others are more skeptical about the Lazarus Group connection. "The similarities we see between malware linked to that group and WannaCry are not unique enough to be strongly suggestive of a common operator," FireEye researcher John Miller told Reuters.

There's always the chance that someone could have just copied the code used by Lazarus in its earlier attacks, or purposely made it look as if the group was responsible, but Kaspersky says the "false flag" theory is improbable.

Echoing the opinion of researchers, U.S. and European security officials told Reuters it was too early to say for definite who is behind WannaCry, but North Korea wasn't being ruled out.

The creators of the malware have reportedly received just $50,000 worth of bitcoin ransom as a result of the hack. It seems the bigger winners are the cybersecurity firms; the five biggest companies in the industry saw their market capitalization rise almost $6 billion over the weekend, with shares in Symantec alone adding $750 million to its market cap.
ZeniMax, the parent company of game developers such as Bethesda, Arkane, and id Software, may have recently won $500 million in a legal battle against Facebook-owned Oculus, but it's not leaving the courtroom just yet. The firm launched a new lawsuit last week, this time against Samsung over the use of Oculus technology in its Gear VR headset.

Samsung's mobile-powered virtual reality device was developed alongside Oculus and even states so on the side of the unit. The new suit alleges that the Gear VR infringes on ZeniMax technology because it relies on Oculus software.

Earlier this year, a Dallas jury determined that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey had violated a non-disclosure agreement he signed with ZeniMax. While it was determined Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets, as was claimed, part of the VR firm's payout was for copyright infringement.

The new lawsuit claims Samsung was aware of the legal case between Oculus and ZeniMax, yet continued to develop the Gear VR "without obtaining any right or permission from ZeniMax to use any of its copyrights or other confidential information."

It's also claimed that Oculus CTO John Carmack, whose id Software company was bought by ZeniMax in 2009, secretly brought Oculus employee Matt Hooper - a former ZeniMax employee - into id's offices late one night to formulate an "attack plan" for mobile VR that would lead to the Gear's development.

ZeniMax's lawsuit is seeking damages from Samsung, which is accused of copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. It also asks for profits from the sales of "infringing works" and "use of trade secrets," royalties, injunctive relief, and punitive damages. As well as all court and attorney fees.

Back in March, Carmack filed a $22.5 million lawsuit against ZeniMax, claiming it was money still owed to him from the sale of his studio eight years ago.

Zenimax v Samsung by Brian Crecente on Scribd
Big data and machine learning are used in a number of ways: Better AI, improved malware detection, smarter messenger apps, and much, much more. Now, they're being utilized by the military to aid in its fight against Islamic State.

On Monday, the Pentagon announced the establishment of the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT), codenamed Project Maven. Its main objective is to use big data and machine learning to shift through the thousands of hours' worth of IS surveillance tapes, which are currently overwhelming military and civilian intelligence analysts.

"We have to tackle the problem a different way," Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. Shanahan, director of defense intelligence for warfighter support, told Defense One. "We're not going to solve it by throwing more people at the problem. That's the last thing that we actually want to do. We want to be smarter about what we're doing."

It's hoped that Maven will enable analysts to make better use of their time, 80 percent of which is currently spent doing mundane, administrative tasks like entering data into spreadsheets.

60 percent of drone video consists of the craft flying to and from the points of interest. There's also the problem of clips that show little more than hours of impenetrable bad weather. Automation could allow analysts to examine only the important content without having to trawl through all the footage.

AWCFT has 90 days to develop or acquire the data labeling algorithms. The next two phases, both of which are also 90 days long, entail procuring the required hardware and software before implementing the system into existing intelligence projects.

"Once we show success, people are going to say what else can we apply this to," added Shanahan. "To me that breaks things wide open and we're going to figure out how we really, at scale, bring in some of these capabilities into the department."
Microsoft has called out government agencies, and the National Security Agency in particular, for stockpiling cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which led to the creation and launch of the massively damaging WannaCry ransomware.

According to Microsoft, the havoc caused by WannaCry should serve as a "wake-up call" for governments around the world.

Hackers Unleash WannaCry

Last month, a group known as the Shadow Brokers leaked hacking tools allegedly used by the National Security Agency to hack into computers powered by Microsoft's Windows.

While Microsoft said that it had already released patches for the vulnerabilities exploited by the leaked tools, another hacking group apparently used one of the leaked tools to create the WannaCry ransomware.

The ransomware, which utilized a Windows exploit named EternalBlue, hit computers around the world starting the early morning of May 12. The systems that were affected had not yet installed the patch that Microsoft released as protection against EternalBlue.

WannaCry affected institutions such as hospitals and telecommunications companies and from as many as 74 countries. Once the ransomware infects a system, all its files are encrypted, and the attackers then demand a $300 payment in bitcoin so that the files will be unlocked.

Microsoft Takes Shot At NSA, Governments

In the wake of the massive cybersecurity attack, Microsoft issued a statement regarding the WannaCry ransomware and how everyone needs to come together to be able to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Microsoft noted that its standing as a technology company meant that it holds first responsibility to address cybersecurity issues. The company has over 3,500 security engineers working nonstop to eliminate threats, but it admitted that it still has lessons to learn, especially with the propagation of WannaCry.

Microsoft also highlighted the importance of awareness among customers, whether businesses or personal users, to regularly update their systems. The patches released by technology companies such as Microsoft will not protect users unless they do their part of installing these patches as soon as they come out.

"Finally, this attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem," Microsoft then said, calling out the CIA secrets that surfaced on WikiLeaks and the hacking tools stolen from the NSA that led to the WannaCry attack. If exploits are kept secret, then technology companies will not be able to patch them up and protect users from criminals.

Microsoft noted the massive damage caused by the leaked cybersecurity vulnerabilities that governments held. The company compared such incidents to Tomahawk missiles being stolen from the United States military and stressed the troubling link between actions made by governments and criminal attacks launched by hackers.

"The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call," Microsoft continued, claiming that they should apply cybersecurity rules similar to the laws governing physical weapons. Governments should start considering the damage dealt to civilians from hoarding cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Microsoft then called for the technology industry, customers, and governments to team up against cybersecurity attacks, as fighting against the growing strength and capabilities of hackers will need a collective effort.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The recent norovirus outbreak in Yolo County schools has totaled more than 950 confirmed cases so far, health officials reported on Friday, May 12.

The outbreak affected students as well as school teachers and staff alike, says the report, which states all of them exhibited norovirus signs and symptoms, such as stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea.

Specimen testing carried out in six school districts revealed the California county is indeed facing a norovirus problem, which is deemed as highly contagious.

"The number of sick people is increasing every day at a very alarming rate," said county health officials in a statement.

Norovirus Found In 32 Yolo County Schools

According to the Yolo County Health & Human Services Agency, the norovirus outbreak has affected 32 schools in Yolo County.

The number of norovirus cases has reached 434 in the Woodland Joint Unified School District, while 181 other people have been infected with the gastrointestinal virus in the Davis Joint Unified School District.

The gastrointestinal illness also occurred in smaller county school districts, with Esparto Unified reporting 49 cases, whereas Winters Joint Unified and UC Davis both tackled under 40 norovirus cases. The two school districts reported 39 and 32 infections, respectively.

An additional 217 cases were found in Washington Unified School District, although the district spokesman notes this number may be reflecting all school absences, and not just those related to the norovirus illness.

Yolo County spokeswoman Beth Gabor believes the virus has spread to such great lengths because parents failed to comply with the two-day home rest period and sent their children to school too soon after the infection ensued.

"The message is good hygiene and staying home 48 hours after the symptoms have resolved are crucial," Gabor points out.

Strategies To Curb The Norovirus Outbreak

Reports of norovirus case in California started in the beginning of May, when 33 students and five teachers in Sacramento County first came down with the virus. At the time, three schools in Elverta were closed after the norovirus outbreak was identified.

Since then, the number of cases continued to grow, and now health officials are urging Yolo County residents to take measures in preventing the spread of the virus.

Norovirus is the leading cause of illness and outbreaks from contaminated food in the United States. Each year, the virus accounts for 19 to 20 million cases of acute gastroenteritis  the inflammation of the stomach and the intestines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn norovirus leads to nearly 71,000 hospitalizations and 800 deaths every year, mostly among young children and the elderly.

The best way to thwart the infection is through proper hand hygiene, by frequently washing hands with soap throughout the day.

Norovirus particles are both foodborne and airborne, which is why health experts caution people not to cook or handle food if they are sick, and to stay at home 48 hours after the symptoms are gone, as they can be contagious for at least three days after being sick.

Ron Chapman, the county's Public Health Officer, advises parents to notify the school if their children have contracted the virus and to keep them at home until symptoms subside.

Because norovirus also spreads by touching contaminated surfaces, regularly cleaning them with appropriate disinfectant, such as bleach, is highly advisable.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The moon landing was one of the 20th century's defining moments and marked the United States' greatest victory in the space race. Now, nearly 50 years later, NASA and other groups are planning to use the moon as a base of operations to explore Mars and other worlds.

Running On Empty

For a rocket to be launched into space, it must travel fast enough to escape the Earth's gravitational pull, which is no easy feat considering rockets need to reach speeds of 25,000 mph. This problem is complicated by the fact that rockets will need to be stocked with all of the fuel necessary to make their journey as there is currently no way for them to refuel in space.

To this end, some have speculated that the moon would make an ideal refueling station for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the moon's gravity is a mere 1/6th of what it is on Earth, meaning that rockets would require much less energy in order to launch.

The second appealing aspect of a moon base is the fact that there is already ice on the moon that can be used to create rocket fuel. NASA has discussed similar mining plans for asteroids, but the moon's stability makes a safer option.

In fact, Lockheed Martin and Boeing have partnered together to form the United Launch Alliance, which aims to build a lunar refueling station capable of supporting 1,000 people. The United Launch Alliance has not set an exact date, but it hopes to have the station ready to go within the next three decades.

The Deep Space Gateway To Mars

In recent years, few things have captured the public's imagination quite like sending people to Mars. Interest isn't confined to astronauts either. Many ordinary people have shown an interest in being the first colonists to set foot on the red planet.

As fascinating as exploring Mars might be, the planet's distance does present some problems in terms of transporting people and goods. That's where NASA's lunar space station comes in.

Initially, NASA plans on using its lunar station as a base to conduct research and work to "develop new techniques and apply innovative approaches to solving problems in preparation for longer-duration missions far from Earth."

In terms of the expedition to Mars, NASA eventually hopes to be able to use the Deep Space Gateway as a waystation and resupply point for rockets heading to Mars.

A Home On The Moon

Obviously, some people have discussed the possibility of colonizing the moon before making the leap to Mars. Building a permanent settlement on the moon carries some key advantages over Mars. For starters, it is less risky to send someone to the moon than it is to Mars since we've done it several times.

In terms of logistics, the moon will be much easier to resupply than Mars. Several tech companies including Amazon, have already begun work on ways to deliver goods to the moon. Just don't expect your stuff to be Prime-eligible.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Researchers caution that one of the most dangerous super volcanoes on Earth  Campi Flegrei in southern Italy  may erupt sooner than expected. According to scientists, the volcano has been slowly reawakening and a massive eruption is possible any day.

The University College London in collaboration with the Vesuvius Observatory in Naples undertook a new research, which indicates that the energy inside the volcano was building up in the past few decades and this has increased the risk of an eruption.

Campi Flegrei volcano is located nine miles west of Naples in a huge volcanic field. With 24 craters and edifices, the volcano's eruption will risk life and damage property of over a million people who reside in Naples.

Campi Flegrei Volcano To Erupt Sooner Than Expected: Why This Sudden Development?

The super volcano Campi Flegrei last erupted in 1538 after it took nearly a century to build up the necessary energy. However, it has been showing signs of unrest since the last 67 years with two-year periods of instability in the 1950s, 1970s, and the 1980s. These small turbulences resulted in ground uplifts and minor earthquakes in the region.

To study if Campi Flegrei may erupt again, researchers developed a new volcano fracturing model at the UCL campus. During the course of the study, they discovered that the period of unrest during the 1950s resulted in the accumulation of energy in the crust. This energy accumulation led to the volcano becoming more prone to erupt.

Earlier it was deduced that after each period of restlessness the energy required to stretch the crust eventually dissipated with time. On the basis of how the ground was cracking and movement patterns at the volcano, researchers suspect that Campi Flegrei could erupt in the near future.

"By studying how the ground is cracking and moving at Campi Flegrei, we think it may be approaching a critical stage where further unrest will increase the possibility of an eruption, and it's imperative that the authorities are prepared for this," Christopher Kilburn, director at the UCL Hazard Centre explained.

The researchers asserted that there is no assurance that this eruption will take place. They also noted that they cannot predict the exact timeline of the eruption, if it occurs. However, the team observed the trend Campi Flegrei has following  which matches other volcano models including El Hierro in the Canary Islands, Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, and the Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in the Caribbean  to arrive at their analysis.

Kilburn shared that the team studied in-depth physical models of these volcanoes to acquire detailed information and understanding about volcanic unrest and eruptions. This data may help them forecast upcoming volcanic outbursts.

Effects Of Volcanic Unrest

The three previous periods of unrest the Campi Flegrei volcano displayed resulted in the port of Pozzuoli, which is located close to the unrest center, being pushed over three meters out to the sea. Moreover, the unrest periods in 1970 and 1983 resulted in the evacuation of several thousand Pozzuoli resident to safer areas.

In an interview with Newsweek, the study's co-author Giuseppe De Natale stated that in the previous years of unrest at the Campi Flegrei volcano, human life was less impacted vis-a-vis damage to property. However, he warned that if the volcano erupted with full force, administrative authorities must be ready to tackle huge amounts of seismic activity. He asserted that this may lead to a state of emergency.

The key findings of the study have been published in journal Nature Communications on Monday May 15.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
By Press Trust of India: Amid the unrest in Kashmir, the RSS will hold its annual review meeting for the first time in Jammu in July, looking to send out a message to separatiststhat the valley is an integral part of the country.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP president Amit Shah and leaders from VHP will attend the three-day meeting which is scheduled from July 18-20, sources in the Sangh said.

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"The time and place of meeting was decided to send out a clear message to separatists in the Kashmir valley that the region is integral part of India and the Sangh is committed to its unity," they added.

The sources also indicated that incidents of stone-pelting and the attack on CRPF jawans could come up for discussion during the meeting.

When contacted, RSS's Akhil Bhartiya Prachar Pramukh of RSS, Manmohan Vaidya confirmed the meeting.

"This is an annual review meeting of the prant parcharks(state publicity officers) to take stock of events and activities of the year gone by, and at the same time, draft out a plan of action for the coming days," Vaidya told.

He said the meeting will review the summer training camps which RSS organises every year. Vaidya said it was decided to hold the meeting in Jammu after the regional office there came forward to organise the event.

"Earlier we had a small office in Jammu but in the last few years it has been expanded. Now they have volunteered to organise this meeting. This will be the first major meeting of the Sangh in Jammu and Kashmir," he added.

Vaidya said there would be no major decisions in the meeting but various issues facing the country may be taken up for discussion.

ALSO READ:

Pakistan's ceasefire violations: Mass evacuation begins on border

Jammu and Kashmir: 2 LeT terrorists, involved in attack on Army camp in Kupwara on April 26, killed in Handwara

ALSO WATCH:

Jammu and Kashmir: 2 Lashkar militants behind Kupwara attack gunned down in Handwara

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Nokia 3310 Launched In India For Rs 3,310 | TechTree.com

It looks like the wait is finally over. Nokia fans in India can now have a sigh of relief as the redesigned Nokia 3310 has been launched in the country for a price of Rs 3,310. Well, it is definitely an interesting move by the company to keep the price amount (numerically) same as the phones model number. It is available for purchase from May 18.

With this release, another interesting fact is that, Nokia 3310 becomes the first Nokia phone manufacturer by HMD Global to actually enter India. Later, the company plans to launch its slew of Android smartphones as well including Nokia 6. Well, with this release, it is also worth noting that, India becomes one of the first countries where the device is actually going on for a sale.

Having said this, let us recall a little bit about the phone and its connection with the legendary 3310. The new Nokia 3310s design is definitely based on the legendary 3310s looks. However, the new Nokia 3310 comes with a modern look, and also better hardware.

Now, the display screen is a little large than the old, and also comes in bright color options including red and yellow, and dark blue and grey. Along with this, the new Nokia 3310 features a 2 MP camera and supports up to 32 GB microSD card. However, keep in mind that this phone is not an Android powered device. It runs on Nokia Series 30+ software.

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TAGS: Nokia 3310
Brazil's president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, met this Wednesday in the country's capital with the leaders of the National Congress: the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur... | Read More
By India Today Web Desk: When Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor tied the knot in 2012, the couple decided to stay away from kissing on screen. In fact, the royal couple made it a point to keep a no-kissing clause in their film contracts.

But their recent releases, Ki and Ka as well as Rangoon saw the two locking lips with their co-actors. So what made the couple change their decision?

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According to a report in Filmfare, it was Saif and ex-wife Amrita Singh's daughter Sara Ali Khan who made the two drop no-kissing clause from their contracts.

The report suggests that Sara advised the couple that they should keep the no-kissing anyone else deal off screen and with the kind of film's and characters Bollywood is venturing into, kissing is just like any other scene.

Sara, who is all set to make her Bollywood debut soon, seems to have learnt the nuances of the trade even before venturing into the film industry.

ALSO READ: Kareena Kapoor Khan opens up on Taimur, motherhood

ALSO READ: Saif's daughter Sara Ali Khan clicked with Harshvardhan Kapoor on dinner date

ALSO WATCH: Saif and Kareena welcome baby boy Taimur

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The actor took to the social media site to thank his fans for their love and support.

By India Today Web Desk: Sasural Simar Ka actor Shoaib Ibrahim is as happy as can be. And no, this has nothing to do with his incredible performances on Nach Baliye.

The good-looking actor recently reached 100k followers on social media site Instagram.

Also read: After Simar, Prem is out of Sasural Simar Ka: 5 shocking exits that deeply saddened TV buffs

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Yep, we said WOW too.

The actor, who is currently flooring one and all with his amazing moves on the aforementioned dance reality show, took to the site and posted the sweetest message for his fans.

He wrote, "#100K Followers! Can't believe I crossed this milestone. Thank you so much guys for all this love. Couldn't have done it without you! #LoveYouGuys #SoHappy."

Here's the post:

#100K Followers! Can't believe I crossed this milestone. Thank you so much guys for all this love. Couldn't have done without you!?????????#LoveYouGuys #SoHappy A post shared by shoaib Ibrahim (@shoaib2087) on May 12, 2017 at 8:17am PDT

Keep slaying, Shoaib.

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While the veterans were expecting the chief minister to speak about the renovated War memorial and address their issues, Siddaramaiah rather began to speak on the Tender SURE works.

By Nolan Pinto: Just when one thought that Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has learnt to stay out of trouble, he goes all out to invite one for himself again. This morning, for a function that was to begin at 11 sharp, the chief minister arrived at around at 11:45.

Eagerly waiting for him to arrive were ex-serviceman who had arrived at the war memorial at as early as ten in the morning. The chief minister was to inaugurate Tender SURE works as well as the renovated area where the World War I War Memorial is located.

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On reaching the location, Siddaramaiah immediately paid his respects at the War Memorial and then left to join his colleagues on the makeshift dias. That is exactly when the trouble began.

The chief minister was to inaugurate the renovated area where the World War I War Memorial is located.

While the veterans were expecting the chief minister to speak about the renovated War Memorial and address their issues, Siddaramaiah rather began to speak on the Tender SURE works completed by his government in the Central Business District (CBD).

Some people started to openly criticize the chief minister saying they did not come to listen to politics. "We were asked to come at 10:30 but you know how Indian rules work and everything," said one of the veterans adding that he still follows the discipline instilled him in the army.

Gangadharaiaah, another ex- serviceman who served in the Maratha regiment was fuming. He told India Today that the chief minister should have met the veterans before talking politics. He added 'We have not come here for any party be it Congress, BJP or JD(S)'. Gangadharaiaah added that the ex-servicemen were promised that the chief minister would listen to their problems and have a word with the association.

On the other hand, Wing Commander GB Athri said that the War Memorial function was combined with the Tender SURE function and this was done in order to avoid inconvenience to people. In fact, he tells us that the chief minister was to meet all the veterans after the function and listen to their problems.

'Some of our friends escalated this issue which lead to a bit of a commotion but it was later sorted out,' he added.

When questioned about these allegations, CM Siddaramaiah said, 'Did I not pay any respects before the function began?'

Also Read:

Bellandur Lake clean-up: CM Siddaramaiah orders officials to expedite work as NGT deadline nears

Karnataka: Complaint against CM Siddaramaiah filed with Lokayukta

Also Watch:

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah shows VVIP arrogance, slams top cop in public

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By Shivani Chhabra: Sidharth Malhotra is a treat to the eyes, be it his well-sculpted body or super-stylish clothes, he knows how to keep all the eyeballs glued on him.

Known for his dapper choice of clothes, and ever growing charm, Sidharth has constantly experimented with style, and rightly so.

The Student Of The Year fame model-turned-actor, who is often spotted in quirky t-shirts and sneakers, got everyone talking again, for an entirely different reason though.

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The actor was sporting a cedar-brown hoodie, which we think was torn from places. No kidding.

Photo: Yogen Shah

Sidharth donned a pair of black jeans, and sneakers with his hoodie, and left us baffled over his choice of clothes.

Also Read: Finally, we really like the dress Shraddha Kapoor's wearing

The hoodie was so distressed that one could safely assume that Sidharth had been attacked by the Wolverine, in another parallel world.

While Sidharth seemed extremely comfortable in his attire, we couldn't help but wonder if it was the outcome of some DIY (do it yourself) practices he might've indulged in.

His hoodie made us recall veteran actor Rishi Kapoor's dig at Zara's collection of torn clothes. Kapoor had stirred a controversy last year when he started a debate on how disrespectful these clothes are for the underprivileged, for whom distressed clothing isn't a fashion statement, but a means of helplessness and poverty.

Photo: Yogen Shah

While Sidharth's torn hoodie reminded us of actor Rishi Kapoor's remarks, it also made us reflect on our insensitive fashion ideas.

Also Read: Here's what's absolutely wrong with Shilpa Shetty's fusion attire

We have no idea why you wore a torn hoodie when you can afford everything in the world, Sidharth.

--- ENDS ---
More than 60,000 doses of an opioid overdose antidote will be available to first responders in Louisiana as part of a settlement in a state lawsuit against drug maker Pfizer, the state Attorney General's Office announced Monday.

Pfizer will provide $1 million worth of the drug naloxone at wholesale cost, and law enforcement agencies and fire departments can apply for vouchers that can be redeemed at local pharmacies.

"We believe that these vials are priceless," said state Attorney General Jeff Landry, who made the announcement Monday morning at a news conference in Lafayette.

The announcement comes as Louisiana, like states across the nation, is struggling to address the rising number of deaths linked to painkillers, heroin or other opioid-based drugs.

"It continues to be a problem, and I think we are only at the tip of the proverbial iceberg," said Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber, whose office hosted Monday's press conference.

Louisiana to receive $8.1M to help combat opioid addiction Louisiana is in line to receive $8.1 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Se

Pfizer is providing the naloxone, which is already carried by some first responders, as part of a recent settlement in a lawsuit the state filed against the company over alleged efforts to keep generic drugs off the market.

Landry said the medication should be available within the next two months, and first responders will receive training on how to administer the treatment.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Louisiana had the 19th highest age-adjusted opioid overdose rate in 2015.

In a startling revelation earlier this year, the Orleans Parish Coroner reported that deaths from accidental drug overdoses surpassed murders in the city in 2016, a number driven up by the opioid abuse.

"When you're losing more people to opioids than homicides in New Orleans, you know you have a problem," Landry said.

Monday's announcement comes after Landry's office launched the "End the Epidemic LA" campaign, with a website, community outreach efforts and public service announcements aimed at reining in a drug problem that Landry said touches every section of society.

"This is an epidemic that knows no boundaries," he said.
LSU Assoc. Dean for Research Roland Mitchell introduces himself and answers questions posed by the audience during a public education panel luncheon Tuesday organized by Volunteers in Public Schools at Jubans restaurant. LSU communications professor Bob Mann , left and local public relations businessman and podcaster Clay Young, right, completed the panel which answered questions posed by the audience.
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, May 16 (PTI) Sri Lanka, which attended the just concluded Belt and Road Forum here, has backed Indias concern over the Kashmir issue, saying it is difficult for New Delhi to accept the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it goes through the "heart of Indian interests".

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India, which skipped the high-profile meeting, would have joined "very happily" in the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative of China, said Sarath Amanugama, Sri Lanka?s Minister on Special Assignment.

"Unfortunately, the issue is going through the heart of Indian interests. If it is some uncontested region, India would have negotiated its way out. Here especially the Kashmir issue getting dragged into it, makes it difficult for India to be flexible,? Amanugama, who accompanied Lankan Prime Minister Wickramasinghe to the two-day forum here, told PTI here.

He said India, China and Sri Lanka were very much part of the ancient Silk Road route as the Chinese Buddhist scholars like Faxian visited both India and Sri Lanka leading to big discoveries of Buddhist relics in the island nation.

"(Chinese) President Xi Jinping has emphasised connectivity. These countries were connected many centuries ago. This will link up these countries on certain rational basis. Once the regional problems are resolved, then India has to play big role in the initiative," he said, adding that . India anyway has to play big role "because you cannot think of a belt and road without going over and close to India."

India skipped the meeting due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion CPEC, which goes through Pakistan- occupied Kashmir. The two-day conference in Beijing brought together leaders from 29 countries.

Besides Wickramasinghe, the summit was attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and several other leaders, heads of UN, World Bank and IMF.

Wickaramasinghe, who arrived here a day after he hosted Prime Minister Narandra Modi in Sri Lanka, had a low-key presence at the high-profile summit.

While Sharif and many other leaders spoke at the inaugural ceremony, the Sri Lankan leader reportedly took part in the discussions in the roundtable meeting yesterday.

Amunagama said that Sri Lanka will not permit any foreign military operations in its port by any country including China, in an effort to reassure Indias security concerns over Chinese military activity.

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Confirming reports that recent Chinese requests for docking of its submarines was declined, he said, "we denied the permission."

"Lankas position is that our harbours and ports are for commercial operations. All other countries have no strategic interests. We are equidistant from everyone," he said.

Earlier, the problem came because a Chinese submarine was allowed to be docked in Colombo harbour by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2014 which sparked protests from India.

"China, India, US and all other countries, they cannot come into our territorial waters without the consent of the Sri Lankan government," Amanugama said.

Even the Hambantota harbour which Sri Lanka plans to hand over to China under debt equity scheme will function under Sri Lankan Port Authority (SLPA).

He said in the agreement currently being finalised to give 80 per cent stake for Chinese shipping company, it will be allowed to operate inside the harbour but all the outside operations will be carried out SLPA.

The harbour master who permits the ship movement in the harbour will be an SAPA employee, he said.

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Allaying Indias concerns, he said Sri Lanka is taking assistance from the Indian Navy to maintain maritime security including tracking submarines.

India is also providing patrol boats, he said.

About Hambantota port, he said, it is entirely a commercial operation. "It was constructed with Chinese assistance costing about USD 1.4 billion. It was established during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa," he said.

"But we had an extended debt. Sri Lanka is facing a problem of debt repayment," he said, defending Sri Lanka opting for debt swap for harbour.

Sri Lanka has an estimated debt of USD eight billion to China. The loans were taken for different mega projects.

"So last year we raised it with Premier Li Keqiang. At first we asked for a debt relief, either to write it off or to reschedule payment. But the Premier said it is not possible because they have lent money to several other countries. We cannot write it off to create precedent," he said.

"But suggested why don?t you convert into equity by forming a joint venture company. It will be registered in Sri Lanka and will be Sri Lankan company. Chinse side will convert that into equity. Sri Lanka doesn?t have to repay," he said, adding that it was a "win win situation?. PTI KJV ZH

--- ENDS ---

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Debate over a bill that protects Confederate monuments has scratched open a raw nerve for many Louisiana lawmakers.

House Bill 71, which would make it more difficult to remove Confederate statues, has exposed a deep-rooted belief in white supremacy among many members, said state Rep. Joseph Bouie, the New Orleans Democrat who heads the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said the debate has created unnecessary divisions and animosity in the Legislature that he'd never seen before.

"I understand passion runs high, and while it is certainly a part of our history, can we say it's the best part?" he said, when asked his personal opinion about the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans.

Even as he criticized the legislation as impractical, the governor wouldnt say he would veto the measure.

On a largely party-line vote, the House late Monday approved legislation that would forbid the removal, renaming or alteration of any military monument on public property of any war, including what is referred to in the legislation as the War Between the States, unless a majority of the voters in the municipality or parish approve. All major wars are included in the measure, but the move comes amid New Orleans' high-profile removal of several Confederate memorials.

"This bill is nothing but a Trojan horse designed to supersede the decision-making authority of local municipalities regarding the use of public space," Bouie said at press conference Tuesday morning attended by all the House members of the Black Caucus.

"We were and are wounded because the bill attempts to rewrite history by honoring those who not only rebelled against the United States, but who fought to maintain man's greatest inhumanity to man," Bouie said. "The system of slavery, where our ancestors were considered property, less than human, women raped and abused, men slaughtered at will, and systems implemented to facilitate cultural genocide."

Bouie and other members of the Black Caucus walked out of the House chamber after the vote Monday to show their displeasure.

The legislation was expected to be delivered to the Senate leadership Tuesday and will be assigned to a committee that will vet the bill before deciding whether it should proceed to the Senate floor for a vote.

A bill seeking a similar goal already is assigned in the Senate & Governmental Affairs Committee, which last year killed a measure that dealt with preserving Confederate monuments.

The panel is chaired by New Orleans Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who also chairs the Louisiana Democratic Party and stood alongside her colleagues Tuesday morning. She said she and other senators would try to educate members of the upper chamber before HB71 is taken up there.

Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, said he has been inundated with calls about where the bill will be assigned and plans to decide Wednesday.

"I would like to see a fair and open debate," Alario said. "But I would hate to see anything that would divide the state and make us appear racist."

House Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, a Baton Rouge Democrat who opposed the legislation, said she hopes it will be killed in committee, "so they dont have to have a blood war on the floor like we did.

+15 Another N.O. monument removed: Jefferson Davis statue taken down overnight The monument to Confederate President Jefferson Davis was taken off its pedestal early Thurs

It's unclear what the emerging discord could mean for the Legislature, which has less than a month left until the regular session ends.

Rep. Rodney Lyons, a black Democrat from Harvey, said the disagreement should not spill over into other House debates on legislation championed by HB71 supporters.

Were here to do the peoples business," he said. "All this was an unnecessary and divisive distraction.

Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Port Allen, and several other Black Caucus members, insisted there would be no retribution for those voting in favor of the legislation.

Democrat Rep. Malinda White, of Bogalusa, isnt so sure.

She voted twice for the Confederate monuments bill  once in committee, once on the House floor. She said she received more than 300 emails and letters plus so many phone calls that her assistant couldnt take a break. All asked her to back House Bill 71.

On Tuesday, her House-passed legislation to transfer surplus money from one fund to another in order to help the criminal court in Washington Parish was squashed in Senate Judiciary B committee. Usually such bills that deal with specific local issues are approved without much talk.

Members of the committee who voted down Whites measure had no comment beyond saying they opposed the bill.

White said she very definitely believes that the action was to punish her votes.

Seven Democrats voted for protecting Confederate monuments, six others werent in the House Chamber when the vote was called. Like White, most are from rural districts who said their constituents aggressively lobbied them to support the legislation.

Three Republicans also voted against the measure.

Its a bad bill, House Majority Leader Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, said in explaining why he voted against the legislation. Wed be setting policy for many years over this one thing.

Republican state Rep. Jim Morris, R-Oil City, said he voted no because he opposes the state mandating actions on behalf of local government.

On Monday, state Rep. Thomas Carmody Jr., the Shreveport Republican who sponsored HB71, said the issue was purely political in his view. He said he wants to give people a say in whether statues should be removed, but he also noted his concern for protecting Southern history and heritage.

Several members of the Black Caucus, however, argued that they are deeply offended by memorials to luminaries of a group that fought a war to keep their ancestors enslaved. The statues were erected more than a quarter century after the Civil War ended and at a time when Louisiana government passed laws to segregate the races and restrict African American access to voting, employment and housing.

Baton Rouge Rep. Ted James, a Democrat, said he was hurt by the lighthearted nature of supporters of the bill during the emotional debate.

"To see the humor and hear some of the comments as I was walking across the House floor and see the comments online, it's extremely personal to me," he said. "Sometimes I don't even think my colleagues realize how their words affect us."

Rep. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, said he still has a difficult time understanding why people don't understand that the monuments are offensive.

"I raise my children to believe they can be anything they want to be," he said. "I don't want them to grow up in a place where there's a monument talking about white supremacy. We're glorifying those who fought for enslavement of our ancestors. That is personal to me."

Tyler Bridges of The Advocate Capitol news bureau contributed to this report.
Update, 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 16, 2017: Legislative black caucus says Confederate monument vote exposes "deep-rooted belief in white supremacy"

The Louisiana House approved legislation Monday aimed at blocking the removal of Confederate monuments, causing the 24-member Legislative Black Caucus to walk out.

A largely party-line 65-31 vote followed an emotionally charged two hours of debate and comes as the majority-black New Orleans is taking down statues of figures from the Civil War's Confederacy.

"It was disgusting. We just couldn't stay," said Black Caucus member Rep. Terry Landry, D-Lafayette, while waiting in the hall for an aide to get his glasses and cellphone from his desk in the chamber. "You have to stand for something."

The measure now goes to the state Senate for consideration. Two other proposals with similar objectives  House Bill 292 and Senate Bill 198  are awaiting a hearing in committees.

House Bill 71 would forbid the removal, renaming or alteration of any military monument of any war, including what is referred to in the bill as the War Between the States, that is situated on public property unless a majority of the voters in the municipality or parish approve.

All wars were mentioned in the measure, but the debate focused only on Confederate monuments.

The monuments you seek to protect are deeply offensive to African-Americans and to Christians, said state Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe. Do they have any monuments to (Adolf) Hitler in Germany?"

This bill is very much about white supremacy and divisiveness, said Rep. Patricia Smith, a Democrat who represents a Baton Rouge district that includes the State Capitol and which is 62 percent African-American.

Monument supporters seize on letter from New Orleans city attorney about ownership of City Park land New Orleans officials insisted Monday that they will move ahead with the planned removal of the city's monument to P.G.T. Beauregard, despite 

State Rep. Thomas Carmody Jr., a Shreveport Republican who sponsored HB71, said his legislation "is only about allowing the public to decide." He said he was trying to protect Southern history and heritage. He also said he believes in secession and that the Civil War was not fought by the Confederacy to protect slavery.

An advisory committee in Shreveport, a black-majority city, has been holding hearings on the future of a Confederate memorial in front of the Caddo Parish courthouse. Carmodys predominantly south Shreveport district is 88 percent white.

Even if the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, Carmody said that because of the timing, his legislation probably would not halt the two-year effort to remove four monuments that many in New Orleans find objectionable.

Its offensive to bring to the middle of my city," said Democratic Rep. Gary Carter, of New Orleans, "monuments to those who fought for my enslavement.

Carmody replied that voters could approve, in a scheduled election, the choice made by their City Council.

"This is the worst thing I've ever seen done in this building," said Rep. Ted James, D-Baton Rouge.

Louisiana Spotlight: A look back at what led to effort to remove Confederate monuments Civil rights leaders and others in New Orleans had been pushing for the removal of the Liber

Democratic and African-American representatives pursued the strategy of attempting to flood the legislation with amendments, all of which House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, shot down as not being germane to a bill that required a vote on removing Confederate military statues. The speakers rulings were sustained on near party-line votes.

I dont know why in a session where we cant balance a budget, said Democratic Rep. Sam Jones, a former Franklin mayor, we are here today to refight the Civil War."

Jones attempted to amend the legislation to include a minimum wage. State Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge, then tried to amend the bill to allow local elections on equal pay.

Ten legislators spoke against the legislation. Carmody was the only representative who spoke in favor of it.

HB71, Carmody said over and over again, was about holding an election for any effort to remove a war-related monument. No other military memorial is being considered for removal. It was New Orleans and four Confederate statues at the center of the debate.

A marker commemorating the Battle of Liberty Place, a civilian uprising against local government, which formerly had white supremacist wording, was taken down in the middle of the night April 24. A memorial to Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, was removed Thursday.

The remaining two statutes memorialize Robert E. Lee, general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and P.G.T. Beauregard, the New Orleans-native general who bombed Fort Sumter in April 1861 to start the Civil War. Both statues pose technical difficulties but will be removed soon.

The Lee statue is high on a pedestal, surrounded by streetcar lines, on a St. Charles Avenue traffic circle. The extremely heavy Beauregard monument is at the Esplanade Avenue intersection where North Carrollton Avenue becomes Wisner Boulevard, at the main entrance of City Park.

New Orleans contends it followed a set procedure  including independent public hearings  to determine how to handle city-owned statues on city-owned property. The City Council voted 6-1 in December 2015 to remove the monuments. The decision and the process were upheld in state and federal courts.

The Confederate monuments largely were erected in the early part of the 20th century, more than a quarter of a century after the Civil War ended and during an era when Louisiana governments systematically excluded black people from voting, holding certain jobs, attending equally funded schools and living where they wanted.

The record is clear: New Orleans Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were erected with the goal of rewriting history to glorify the Confederacy and perpetuate the idea of white supremacy, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu wrote in a letter published Sunday in The Washington Post. These monuments stand not as mournful markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in reverence of it.

The effort to remove the monuments has been simmering in New Orleans since the 1980s. But the issue came to the forefront after the 2015 killings of nine parishioners at a Charleston, South Carolina, church by Dylann Roof, who clad his desire for a race war in Confederate memorabilia. Jurisdictions across the South have been debating and removing Confederate statues, flags and other monuments from prominent public display.

Biloxi Mayor Andrew "FoFo" Gilich ordered the Mississippi state flag, which includes a Confederate battle emblem in its left corner, removed from display at city buildings in late April. He said he wants tourists to feel welcome.

Only three Republicans voted against the legislation: House Majority Leader Lance Harris, of Alexandria; Jim Morris, of Oil City and Joseph Stagni, of Kenner.

Voting for HB71 (65): Speaker Barras, Reps. Abraham, Amedee, Anders, Armes, Bacala, Bagley, Berthelot, Billiot, Bishop, C. Brown, T. Brown, Carmody, S. Carter, Chaney, Coussan, Crews, Cromer, Davis, DeVillier, Dwight, Edmonds, Emerson, Falconer, Foil, Garofalo, Gisclair, Guinn, Havard, Hazel, Henry, Hensgens, Hilferty, Hill, Hodges, Hoffmann, Hollis, Horton, Howard, Huval, Ivey, N. Landry, Leopold, Mack, Marino, McFarland, Miguez, G. Miller, Jay Morris, Pearson, Pope, Pugh, Pylant, Richard, Schexnayder, Schroder, Seabaugh, Shadoin, Simon, Stefanski, Talbot, Thibaut, Thomas, White and Zeringue.

Voting against HB71 (31): Reps. Bagneris, Bouie, Carpenter, G. Carter, Cox, Danahay, Franklin, Gaines, Glover, Hall, J. Harris, L. Harris, Hunter, Jackson, James, Jefferson, Jenkins, Jones, Jordan, T. Landry, Leger, Lyons, Magee, Marcelle, D. Miller, Moreno, Jim Morris, Pierre, Price, Smith, and Stagni.

Not Voting (9): Reps Abramson, Broadwater, R. Carter, Connick, Johnson, LeBas, Norton, Reynolds and Stokes.
Even as the Kolkata police continues its investigation into Sonika Chauhan's death in road accident, the model-actor's family has raised a number of questions over how the police has handled the probe.

By Manogya Loiwal : The Sonika Chauhan death case continues to remain intriguing with several unanswered questions being raised by her family. Kolkata Police are investigating the matter, but there is more to it than what meets the eye.

The viscera report is awaited along with a medical report of Vikram Chatterjee, who was with Chauhan on the night of the incident.

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Rajdip Majumdar, counsel of Vikram said, "Sonika and Vikram were in a relationship for more than six months. Vikram admitted that he had consumed a few drinks at the party (on the night that took Sonika's life), but was not intoxicated."

Vikram is being questioned by Tollygunge Police and statements of more than 20 people have been recorded as well.

The victim's family however has been claiming that there are glaring lapses in the case.

A statement released by Sonika's uncle Patrick Quinn, who had also lodged the police complaint, questions a number of issues.

The five-hour delay in informing Sonika's parents has been questioned.

Sonika's belongings were not first handed over to Vikram's friend and not Sonika's family, nor did the police seize the same. Vikram's friend was even asked to try and unlock Sonika's phone.

It has also been questioned if breath analyser test, blood test or urine test were done in the stipulated time. Evidence like cell phones, blood stained clothes and IDs of Sonika - all unsealed - were handed over to the family at the hospital.

Police came to Sonika's place to seize those only after 11 days. Another crucial evidence - the car - was left in the open.

The footage from Lake mall were not collected. Also the first Forensic test of the car was done 30 hours after the incident.

Footage showing Vikram's father playing carom in the police station, while his son was being interrogated, flashed an unsual level of comfort.

There was also an eight-day delay in recording the statement of the witness. Interestingly, the charges framed in this case till now are bailable, though possibility of addition or modification of the sections depends only on evidences and the medical report yet to be received from the forensic team. The awaited medical report is expected to provide a clearer picture, however.

ALSO READ | Vikram and Sonika had been dating since November, says Vikram's friend

ALSO READ | Sonika Chauhan-Vikram Chatterjee accident: Is there more to the case than meets the eye?

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ALSO WATCH | Sonika Chauhan car accident: What killed the actor?

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Woden and Belconnen residents will be able to try new rapid bus services from their regions for free in a public transport package to be unveiled in the upcoming ACT Budget.

About $150,000 will be set aside in next month's budget to fund the trial of the new black rapid bus from Belconnen to Gungahlin and the green rapid bus from Woden to the city, via Manuka and Barton.

Meegan Fitzharris said funding for new ticket machines and a new ticketing system for bus and light rail would also be included in the budget. Credit:Karleen Minney

The services will run 15 minutes between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday.

ACT Labor promised an extra seven rapid bus routes during the 2016 election campaign.
The barrister contracted to independently review the Canberra-Goulburn Catholic Archdiocese's decision to place a disgraced priest next to two Canberra primary schools has quit.

Sydney barrister Jane Seymour had been brought on to scrutinise the breakdown in communication that led Father Brian Hassett, a priest with substantiated complaints of improper conduct towards children, to be housed next to Sts Peter and Paul Primary School and Malkara School without either principals being told of his background.

Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Christopher Prowse announced an independent review into the decision to allow a priest, who had a history of complaints regarding improper conduct towards children, to live next to schools. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

But Ms Seymour handed back the brief several weeks ago to take up a role with the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, The Canberra Times has learnt.

A spokeswoman from the archdiocese confirmed Ms Seymour was no longer conducting the review and had been replaced by another Sydney barrister, Juliet Lucy.
A man who shot someone in the thigh with a homemade gun did not intend to become involved in the neighbourhood dispute, his lawyers said.

Michael Gordon Pallier, 27, pleaded guilty this year to recklessly causing grievous bodily harm after the bullet broke the victim's femur.

In mitigation at Tuesday's sentencing hearing defence barrister Ray Livingston said the shooting was not pre-meditated.

He told the court Pallier had been couch surfing and was in the process of taking his possessions, including the gun, to a new place when he intervened in a fight between the victim and a neighbour fighting outside a Holt unit on January 10, 2016.

"He has acknowledged that he was drug affected and that he made a very poor decision to get out of the vehicle with his homemade gun," Mr Livingston said.
President of the Marshall Islands Hilda Heine dismissed the possibility her nation may soon be one of climate change refugees, saying her people were not considering a timeframe to leave.

Dr Heine, the first female leader of any independent pacific nation, was in Canberra on Tuesday delivering the ST Lee Lecture at ANU and detailing the perils her country faces due to climate change.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Sea levels, predicted rise between 30 to 120 cm by the end of the century, pose a huge threat to the nation comprised of 1,156 islands and low-lying coral atolls, most of which stand less than 180cm above sea level.

President Heine said with the help of The World Bank, work was under way to safeguard access to drinking water, protect shoreline homes and infrastructure, and develop crops to withstand increasing salinity.
Overall satisfaction ratings fell slightly in the most recent Access Canberra customer service survey. However, results reveal rather than jumping online or calling, customers rated their experience was best at Access Canberra service centres. Access Canberra service centres deal with 45 per cent of drivers' licence transactions and 38 per cent of car registrations. The 2017 survey asked 603 people to rate customer satisfaction, ease of use and whether their issues were resolved for all three channels: the service centre, website and telephone contact centre. In 2016 overall customers satisfaction was at 88 per cent with service centres receiving a 94 per cent satisfaction rating.

Minister for Regulatory Services Gordon Ramsay Credit:Jamila Toderas This year overall satisfaction was at 85 per cent, but the satisfaction rating with service centres has risen three points to 97 per cent. While directorate figures show the highest volume of transactions occur through the website, it remains the lowest of the individual satisfaction and ease of use scores with a 83 per cent rating in both areas. The service centres dealt with 43 per cent of drivers' licences and 38 per cent car registrations, the website handled 28 per cent of car registrations and 9 per cent of drivers licences, whereas the telephone contact centre dealt with 24 per cent of complaints and 18 per cent of car registrations. The report states "despite all the changes that have occurred in service provision over the past two years (ie. shifting from multiple services to one), satisfaction has remained largely unchanged."
The man behind the latest push for assisted dying laws in NSW says Canberrans could move across to the border to end their lives if new laws pass the state's Parliament.

Nationals MP Trevor Khan and a group of cross-party group of MPs released draft legislation to allow people over 25 and expected to die within 12 months access to medically assisted euthanasia on Tuesday.

NSW Nationals MP Trevor Khan Credit:Dallas Kilponen

The NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill has been drafted through the cooperation of Coalition, Labor, Greens and independent MPs, but would only allow people "ordinarily resident" in NSW to take part.

Under its provisions, an individual would be required to be experiencing severe pain or physical incapacity and have been assessed by their primary doctor, a specialist and a psychologist or psychiatrist.
Kapil Sibal compared triple talaq with belief in Lord Ram. But by doing so, the former Union minister seems to have helped the Narendra Modi government.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal scored a self goal today when, while defending triple talaq in the Supreme Court today, said the instant oral divorce practice among Muslims was a "matter of Islamic faith". He also compared triple talaq with belief in Lord Ram. But by doing so, the former Union minister seems to have helped the Narendra Modi government.

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While arguing in the apex court on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Sibal said, "If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality. And why should court interfere? Similar is the case with triple talaq."

He said Muslims are practising triple talaq for the last 1400 years and it is a matter of faith. He was arguing before the five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and including Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman, UU Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practising it for last 1400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," he added.

EVIL PRACTICES IN HINDUISM

What Sibal said turns logic on its head. For instance, Hinduism suffered from several social evil practices, with some still continuing. These include sati, child marriage, foeticide, infanticide, dehumanising widowhood, caste system, dowry, gender inequality and purdah system.

Some of these evil practices are older than triple talaq among Muslims. Does it mean that such evil practices should continue?

Reform movements in Hinduism, particularly during the British period, were launched to banish these abnormal social traditions. The sati system and isolation of widows have been banished from the society due to two factors - the reform movements from inside the community and government legislation.

Other evil practices such as child marriage, foeticide, infanticide and dowry have been rendered illegal by Acts of Parliament. The government is also striving hard, through affirmative actions and penal provisions, to abolish caste system, promote widow remarriage and gender equality and discourage purdah system.

Till perhaps 200 years ago, voices were raised to treat the evil practices in Hinduism as matters of faith. However, taking recourse to such logic in the 21st century is not only ridiculous but also passe.

Kapil Sibal, by claiming that triple talaq is a matter of faith, does more harm to bringing about reform among Muslims than helping anyone. In the process, he is only helping the Narendra Modi government and BJP.

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INVOKING LORD RAM

Despite being a reputed lawyer and a former Union law minister, Kapil Sibal has apparently committed a blunder by comparing Lord Ram with triple talaq. Believing in Lord Ram is certainly a matter of faith. It does not harm others. Worshipping Lord Ram is a personal matter.

However, triple talaq can never be a matter of faith or a personal matter. Pronouncement of triple talaq adversely affects the lives of several people. In fact, it has a devastating effect on the divorced wife, her children and members of family on the paternal side. It impacts the society.

Lord Ram is the protagonist of epic Ramayana. He is being worshipped among Hindus for several centuries and not just 1,400 years. However, triple talaq does not find mention in the Quran. Even Kapil Sibal admitted this when he said the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad.

CRIME AND FAITH

During the course of his arguments, Kapil Sibal told the Supreme Court that said Muslims have been practising triple talaq for the last 1400 years. He can be interpreted as saying that any practice - even though it may be evil - should be allowed to continue, is a matter of faith and is lawful.

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The senior lawyer could be asked whether social crimes, which may be in existence ever since humanity came into being, should be allowed to continue?

For instance, prostitution is the oldest profession. Should it be legalised? Murders, thefts, rapes and several other criminal activities have been taking place even before civilisations took shape. Their primitiveness does not give licence to any civilised society to defend them.

It is for the Supreme Court to decide the validity of Kapil Sibal's arguments. However, his arguments would only help BJP to draw political mileage. Not only Kapil Sibal but even Congress would be under BJP's attack over these arguments.

ALSO READ: Triple talaq matter of faith for 1400 years similar to Hindu belief that Ram was born in Ayodhya, says AIMPLB

Also read: If triple talaq declared illegal, will bring in law to regulate Muslim marriage, divorce: AG Mukul Rohatgi to Supreme Court

Also read: Triple talaq undesirable, worst form of dissolution of marriage among Muslims: Supreme Court

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WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
International businesses are starting to looking at expanding their Australian office footprint into Melbourne rather than Sydney, lured by the cheaper office rents.

Cushman & Wakefield tenant advisory group director Josh Langdon said businesses were re-evaluating where "they put their staff and where growth might be so they are assessing the balance between Melbourne and Sydney".

While Melbourne is already home to homegrown corporates BHP Billiton, Computershare, ANZ, CSL and Telstra, Sydney, with its harbour, Opera House and bridge are more recognisable to offshore businesses. Credit:Wayne Taylor

While Melbourne is already home to homegrown corporates BHP Billiton, Computershare, ANZ, CSL and Telstra, Sydney, with its harbour, Opera House and bridge are more recognisable to offshore businesses compared with the more subtle charms of Melbourne, he said.

"But we are seeing companies who already have a large office in Sydney look at expanding their footprint in Melbourne," he said.
The job title "Wall Street trader" once evoked sleek suits, martini-soaked lunches and chaotic offices - a gateway to prosperity at a relatively young age.

But earlier this year, Marty Chavez, the chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, revealed that some of the investment bank's well-paid humans were being replaced by unpaid robots.

Over the past 17 years, the number of stock traders at the firm has shrunk from 600 to two, he told a Harvard computer science symposium in January.

"We are rapidly transforming the business model," he told the crowd, according to a video of the event.
I read with scepticism the response of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney to the draft Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill. How can an institution with its record on sexual abuse think it retains any authority to pronounce for the rest of us on "the right to die with dignity"? One might listen to them on such life and death questions if they had demonstrated a level of compassion for their hundreds of young victims that had enabled them their right to live with dignity. Sue Lubbers Killara Please publish the names of NSW politicians who vote for and against euthanasia. Thanks to regular polling, we know that a voluntary euthanasia bill with suitable checks and balances has the consistent support of a large majority of voters. So it would be interesting to know how our so-called "representatives" vote. Joe Wolfe Coogee The vote on assisted dying had better be a true conscience vote, unlike the recent bill to decriminalise abortion. The Coalition voted as a bloc to defeat it. They are literally playing politics with people's lives. Will they condemn Anne Gabrielides to a terrible death?

Penny Hackett Willoughby Could the spokeswoman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney who said that euthanasia activists should be advocating for more resources into palliative care please outline just what resources, apart from the inevitable process of feeding via a tube into the stomach, are available for a motor neurone disease sufferer that could possibly alleviate the difficulty of breathing and swallowing? Better still, could the spokeswoman and her organisation just butt out of the lives of people coming to terms with such a cruel, debilitating and incurable disease? Max Fischer Scarborough If "dying is not a crime" terminally ill people should have the legal, personal and dignified option of euthanasia if they believe it is best for them and not have to face legal, religious or medical stigma. Arguably doctors do harm by prolonging patients' suffering.

Steve Ngeow Chatswood We support palliative care, but no amount of palliative care will alter the fact that Anne Gabrielides has already lost her ability to speak and is facing a cruel death. Assisted death for Anne is not "killing". Anne cannot choose between living or dying  but with legally assisted dying she could decide to die peacefully and quickly at a time of her choice. People such as the spokesperson for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney would be equally free to not ask for assistance and endure whatever suffering they feel necessary. Ian Wood spokesperson and national co-ordinator, Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia, Mittagong

We owe a debt of gratitude to Eddie Azzopardi In the early 1970s, when I first heard of Eddie Azzopardi, I was too immature and poorly read to make a cultural link between the Rum Corps and the then NSW Police Force. His obituary makes that connection and briefly sums up his struggle to out the truth and see justice done ("U-turn led to citizen crusade against police misconduct", May 16). To allege police officers caused a motor vehicle collision, then falsely charged him, lied, covered up, threatened and harassed him, committed arson and likely perverted the course of justice numerous times was stunning, almost shocking for the time. To the then establishment and many white Anglo-background Australians, as a Maltese migrant, he was a Mediterranean at best and a wog at worst. Who would believe his word over a police constable's? He courageously stood his ground. Meanwhile, Roger Rogerson and Co were trashing the police force. It ultimately took a lot of brave politicians, serving members of the force with integrity, and citizens to clean up and modernise the police service, as we now know it. By the 1980s and throughout the 1990s I'd lost trust in and respect for the police, but I now have restored faith to a fair degree, due to many changes in its training and culture. We (including all honest police officers) owe a debt of gratitude to Eddie Azzopardi. Someone I never met but who improved my life and safety in NSW.

Howard Charles Glebe Who does Andrew Constance think he is kidding ("Bus drivers 'betrayed' by plan to privatise", May 16)? His is the responsibility for fixing problems with Sydney buses if "customers have suffered". Government is supposed to run public services for public benefit, not sell them off for profit. I am absolutely disgusted at this government's abrogation of its responsibilities. Jude Rosonakis Rosebery Don't stop at the 500 buses; why not just outsource the entire government, Gladys Berejiklian, and rehire yourself as a "consultant premier", at three times the pay? What even is "government" once notions such as "the public good" and "community" have been excised from our lexicon? David Watson Rozelle

The Transport Minister's announcement that the privatisation of inner west bus services will usher in a new era of efficiency and reliability has at least provided a laugh for many existing private bus users as they struggle with their daily commute. Doug Walker Baulkham Hills Why is the NSW state government so allergic to providing a necessary bus service for the community? At first, it was the absurd "dial-a-bus" proposal. Then, why not eliminate important bus stops so the drivers could arrive much faster? Now they find there are too many "customer" complaints. This whole mode of transport has become too messy and uncontrollable. Better to let someone else take the rap. Too bad about whether the public will suffer when profits come before the needs of the travelling public. Carolyn Gerrish Dulwich HIll There is no reason whatsoever for the NSW government to privatise the Inner West Bus Services. Information obtained under the Government Information Public Access Act indicates that King Street, Newtown, is the most complained about bus route in Sydney. The majority of complaints relate to the late running of services.

Privatising these bus services is not a magic wand that will make the traffic congestion in King Street and Enmore Road disappear. We need to ease the traffic congestion. Let's start by increasing the frequency of train services servicing the Inner West Line, in particular Newtown, to a train every five minutes from 6am to 10pm every day of the year. Trains could run Ashfield to Ashfied via the City Circle and be supplemented by the existing trains commencing from Homebush. We could also reduce the maximum fare payable by either train or bus to $5 per calendar day. Paul Nolan secretary, NSW Wide Public Transport Advocacy Willoughby Cruel to mentally ill

Ian Hickie's article is timely ("Patient seclusion in psychiatric hospitals must end today", May 16). Miriam Merten was my niece. She was a lovely young woman who suffered with mental illness. I, and the family, did not know the appalling nature of her death before the release of the Coroner's report. We had been told a pack of lies. The revelation of her suffering in "seclusion" has been devastating. The family is in a state of shock. That such "treatment" can be meted out to unfortunate mental health sufferers is scandalous. Something from Dickens' time or Bedlam and it has no place in treatment today. It is a cruel and unusual practice and should be banned. Gabrielle Merten Hurstville Give this Gonski a go

We Greens must not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good ("Greens split threatens Gonski 2.0", May 16). We simply lack the numbers to demand perfection. But we have a rare chance to prod education policy away from the disastrous direction in which we have been heading over the past 50 years. We need first and foremost to entrench the Gonski principle of funding according to need, and to end the compromising of it by Labor's guarantee that no school will be worse off. And when Gonski 2.0 is in place a subsequent Labor government will be able to raise the funding levels. Colin Smith St Kilda Bank levy ludicrous

The bank levy is forecast to raise some $6.2 billion. At the end of the day the money will come from either shareholders, many retirees dependent on dividend income, or customers. At the same time Australia continues to export natural gas. Australia and Qatar export similar amounts, with Australia getting approximately $800 million a year from the exports while Qatar gets $23 billion, approximately four times the amount raised by the bank levy. Similarly, the Australian resources of coal, iron ore and bauxite have been squandered. I am no fan of banks, but to impose the bank levy which will impact bank customers and or retirees while we give away our finite natural resources is ludicrous. Rob Siebert Skennars Head Arbitrary definition

Could someone please explain the difference between a baby and a foetus? At what point does a "foetus" become a "baby" (Letters, May 16)? Science cannot provide a definition that is not arbitrary; and science is incapable of forming or providing moral values. The notion that there is a point when a fetus becomes a baby  i.e. a human with rights  is an invention, not a reality, as is the belief that this is merely a matter of a woman's right to choose. David Ashton Katoomba Vindication figures The education department has "discovered" that students choosing the non-calculus General Course had an unfair advantage in ATAR calculation and thus there has been a significant decline in students studying advanced mathematics ("Advanced maths doesn't add up", May 16).

The Herald reported on this two years ago when studies by Professor David Pitt and others were published. It is an indictment of both the Education Department and Universities Admissions Centre that this problem was not recognised sooner and corrective action taken. The problem began in 2001 with the introduction of mathematics courses with no common elements examined. This will alter for the 2021 university entrance cohort. It will have taken 20 years for advanced mathematics students to be given the correct university entrance score and be encouraged to take the more appropriate mathematics course. Those teachers and researchers who have fought for this change are finally vindicated. Brad Elliott North Rocks Lack of consultation on bank fee painful

I can understand the NAB chairman being unhappy about the government's lack of consultation over the new bank tax ("Government rejects 'fallible' Ken Henry's attack on big banks levy", May 16). I recently received an email from my bank notifying me that the annual fee on my home loan was increasing from $199 to $299. I'm currently seeking an explanation for the failure to consult with me before making this decision. Ross Duncan Potts Point I note the NAB chairman, Ken Henry, has vociferously called for an inquiry into the "bank tax" introduced in the federal budget. I agree, sir. In fact, it's such a good idea, I believe this inquiry should be expanded into a full royal commission into the banks. No holds barred. What's that, Mr Chairman? Have we suddenly gone cold on the idea? Les Tomlinson Berowra Heights

Yonking his chain Can George help? With global WannaCrypt "ransomware "now threatening our computers can George Brandis tell me if my meta data is safe ("Cyber attack rolls into Asia", smh.com.au, May 16)? Rod Tuck Katoomba Lessons in American
Peter Dutton is the latest in a series of immigration ministers, Coalition and Labor, who have presided over one of the most wasteful and misjudged policies in modern Australian history  mandatory offshore detention of asylum seekers and refugees.

In recent times, he has been obfuscating about whether shots were fired by drunken Papua New Guinean soldiers into the detention centre on Manus Island in which the cruel and costly policy of Mr Dutton and his predecessors has harmed some of the world's most needy and vulnerable people. As The Age reported on Tuesday, Mr Dutton was not speaking the truth when he asserted the shots had been fired into the air.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is presiding over a ridiculously expensive splurge of taxpayers' money.

A dour and plodding former policeman, he is also presiding over one of the most ridiculously expensive, poorly planned and indulgent bureaucratic splurges of taxpayers' money in modern Australian history.

His department is spending a quarter of a billion dollars on a new headquarters, a move believed to be not utterly unrelated to his desire to run a mega homeland-security empire. Imagine how many more important things could have been done with that money  like building schools and hospitals.
Bill Ryan, a veteran of the Kokoda campaign against the Japanese, says Australia's future depends on winning the battle against the giant coal mines proposed by Adani and other miners in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

"We went away to save Australia," Mr Ryan, now 95, said outside the Sydney offices of mining contractor Downer on Tuesday. "If we don't put a stop to these megamineswe'll end up with a great catastrophe for Australia."

Mr Ryan was one of about 15 protesters from the Galilee Blockade group who tried to meet Downer chief executive Grant Fenn and other executives to encourage the firm to drop its "preferred contractor" status with Adani.

The Indian-owned miner wants to open up the Galilee with its proposed $16 billion-plus 60 million-tonne-a-year Carmichael mine.
Federal funding for some of Sydney and Melbourne's most prestigious private schools  which charge fees up to $34,000 a year  will soar over the next decade under the Turnbull government's "Gonski 2.0" changes, while others will have their funding slashed.

The Catholic school sector argues the funding increases for high-fee schools show the federal government's school funding formula is faulty and disadvantages their schools, which tend to charge relatively low fees.

While much attention has focused on the 350 private schools that will have their funding slowed over the next decade, some high-fee independent schools will receive significant funding increases because they are currently underfunded according to the Gonski formula.

For example the King's School in North Parramatta, which charges $34,323 a year for senior students, will receive a total funding increase of $19.3 million funding increase over the next decade.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australia is considering a United States-style ban on airline passengers bringing laptop and tablet computers into the cabins of some international flights.

In March, the US  quickly followed by Britain  introduced the prohibition on electronic devices on flights from a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

US authorities are now considering extending the ban to flights from Europe, triggering concerns of chaos on transatlantic routes.

Experts have warned the new security protocol could mean longer security lines, heightened delays, boarding gate confusion, and yet more hassles for passengers.
More than 250 public servants at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection face the sack as the department moves to outsource its key call centres to a private operator.

The move presents a "serious security" risk, with no guarantee that the call centres would continue to be staffed by Australian workers, according to the main public service union.

Immigration secretary Michael Pezzullo says "the rest of the world needs to step up" on refugee resettlement. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The majority of the job losses will be at Immigration's Sydney Service Centre where more than 220 departmental employees take calls about visas, citizenship and respond to other compliance queries.

The work of two overseas centres, provided by Immigration to cover different time zones, are also to go to the private sector.
One parent gave the inquiry a harrowing account of the bullying experienced by her 11-year-old daughter, who has a moderate intellectual disability and autism. "She was bitten with blood drawn, hair ripped out of her head, arms twisted and bruises every day of the week," the parent, whose name was suppressed, said. Complaints to the school were given short shrift, the parent said. "Their response was that her being hit was good opportunity to teach the hitter that they shouldn't hit." The parent said the situation was even worse at another school, where the girl and other girls in her class were indecently assaulted by the boys. "They were also assaulted by having their nipples pinched until they cried, had their skirts lifted and indecently touched under their pants, punched, kicked, pinched and pushed."

The inquiry, which will conduct its next hearing in Shellharbour on Friday, was told boys in the class would "regularly masturbate" in the classroom, with teachers refusing to take action to stop the behaviour. "The principal said she could do nothing about the goings-on in the class," the parent said. The parent said she turned to home education after the Department of Education refused her application for distance education: "I have to rely on a carer payment from Centerlink (sic). My ability to earn an income and provide for my daughter has been devastated." The HEA's submission included the experience of a parent resorting to home education after her son, who had learning disabilities, suffered escalating violence and bullying at school. "Things got so bad that he began to self-harm, smashing his head against walls because he felt so completely distressed," the parent said. "It was in desperation that I decided to try home education."

Nicole Rogerson, the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, said successive state governments had paid "lip service" to inclusion. "Teachers are untrained and hideously under-resourced," she said. "The Education Department makes big claims as to how children with disability have a home in their local schools but rarely does it play out in practice. "Schools are routinely discouraging parents from enrolling their children and suggesting they would be better off in a school which can cater better to that child." Ms Rogerson said: "Other schools merely suspend children with challenging behaviour, which means the child who finds school difficult gets rewarded by not coming to school with a suspension." 'These students appear not to count'

Karleen Gribble, the disability spokeswoman for the HEA, said a "high proportion" of home-educated children have a disability or special needs, ranging from autism or anxiety to hearing and visual impairment. Ms Gribble said children may be traumatised by negative experiences with schooling. In contrast, the HEA's submission said children's medical conditions often improve after home education is started: "It is extremely common for children who had been prescribed medications for psychological or behavioural issues to be able to eliminate or reduce their medication." She said exact numbers were not known because data is not collected: "Since they are not counted, these students appear not to count to government or education authorities." A federal parliamentary inquiry recommended in 2016 the collection of data about home-schooled students with a disability as well as measures to improve educational outcomes and address bullying.

There has been a "steady increase" in the number of home-schooled children in NSW over the past 10 years, with more than 4000 students registered at the end of 2016, according to the NSW Education Standards Authority. Of the 80 per cent of parents who provided a reason for choosing to home educate, around one in five nominated special learning needs, compared to 10 per cent in 2012, a NESA spokesman said. Ms Landa said her son's needs were complex. Louie has been tested as gifted, but is on the autism spectrum and has anxiety. He also has dysgraphia, a learning disability that affects his ability to write. Ms Landa said Louie's abilities in areas such as mathematics and history is at a high school level. "Home education allows us to go beyond what they teach in school and focus on what he's interested in," she said.

A lack of support Yet removal from the school system in NSW means that children with disabilities or special needs do not receive the support services provided to other students. Apart from a carer allowance of around $55 a week, Ms Landa said she did not receive any funding or support for Louie's educational needs. In contrast, other states like Western Australia provide support for home educated children. "Families who have a child with a disability are those who often struggle the hardest to gain access to resources that their child needs because such resources can be very expensive," the HEA's submission said. "This is compounded by the fact that families are often foregoing an income in order to home educate."

The HEA is pressing for data to be collected on home educated students with disabilities and special needs as well as access to the same resources provided to other students and the option of attending school part-time. Ms Gribble said the National Disability Insurance Scheme was a "potential" source of support but it was complicated: "For children in institutional schooling, NDIS does not provide for support for anything that it is considered the school should be providing." A NSW Department of Education spokesman said the state government spent more than $1 billion to support 100,000 students with disability in the state's public schools. "Students with disability are educated either in a regular or specialist support class, depending on their assessed needs and preferences of their parents, with specialist support classes planned and established annually to meet local student need," he said. "The department also provides a wide range of professional learning and support for teachers to extend their knowledge and skills in teaching students with disability."
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya.

By Anusha Soni: Arguing in defence of the practice of triple talaq, senior lawyer and former Law Minister Kapil Sibal today invoked Lord Ram and the Ayodhya controversy to defend the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) position that instant oral divorce is a matter of Islamic faith.

The Muslim body equated triple talaq with the Hindu belief that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya. Sibal said, " If I have faith that Lord Rama was born at Ayodhya, then it's a matter of faith and there is no question of constitutional morality. And why should court interfere? Similar is the case if triple talaq."

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"Muslims are practicing triple talaq for the last 1400 years and it is a matter of faith," Sibal, appearing for AIMPLB, argued before the five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and includes Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman, UU Lalit and Abdul Nazeer.

"Triple talaq is there since 637. Who are we to say that this is un-Islamic. Muslims are practicing it for last 1400 years. It is a matter of faith. Hence, there was no question of constitutional morality and equity," he added.

Sibal also referred to the fact that the source of triple talaq can be found in Hadith and that it came into being after the time of Prophet Muhammad. "Islam gave property rights to women much before any other religion. Family and personal laws are protected by the constitution. It's a matter of personal faiths," he added.

On Monday, the Centre had told the apex court that it will bring a new law to regulate marriage and divorce among the Muslim community if all forms of divorce including triple talaq are struck down.

Today is the fourth day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging triple talaq, polygamy and 'nikah halala' which is going on before a bench comprising members of different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Hindu and Muslim.

Also read: If triple talaq declared illegal, will bring in law to regulate Muslim marriage, divorce: AG Mukul Rohatgi to Supreme Court

Also read: Triple talaq undesirable, worst form of dissolution of marriage among Muslims: Supreme Court

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
A woman accused of telling doctors her two-year-old son accidentally ate paint thinner when in fact he had consumed drugs has pleaded not guilty to child neglect.

The 36-year-old's child was hospitalised on December 8 last year with suspected poisoning after an incident at his South Penrith home.

The woman allegedly claimed her two-year-old son had consumed paint thinner but doctors found traces of drugs in his system. Credit:Nick Moir

Police allege the woman, who can't be identified, told doctors the toddler had consumed paint thinner.

The child's condition deteriorated and he had to be airlifted to The Sydney Children's Hospital for treatment.
A day after committing to privatise bus services in Sydney's inner west, the NSW government says a much-touted new route to the lower north shore and northern beaches will remain in the hands of the state-run operator.

Preliminary plans for the B-Line double-deck bus service to Sydney's northern beaches, due to open this year, assumed the service would be run by an operator other than the state-owned State Transit.

But a spokeswoman for Transport Minister Andrew Constance said State Transit would run B-Line services because they fell within a "contract area" it still manages.

"There are no plans to have B-Line run separately out of contract area eight," she said.
Brisbane buses could soon look drastically different with half of the fleet to have new emergency exits built and the entire fleet to receive new signage as part of a safety overhaul.

On Tuesday, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk released the council's independent review, completed by Aussafe Consulting, into the death of council bus driver Manmeet Sharma in October 2016.

Brisbane City Council has released an independent review into the incident in October last year that resulted in the death of Councils bus driver Manmeet Sharma. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Cr Quirk said the report cost about $100,000 to prepare and was received by the council on April 24.

"Driver safety is something that will always be of paramount importance to this administration, as is passenger safety," he said.
After saying justice in Australia "is a game", Clive Palmer claimed privilege at least 84 times in court as he evaded questions about the collapse of Queensland Nickel.

For the second week in a row, the former Fairfax MP turned up to the Federal Court in Brisbane clinging to a sick bag and complaining of pain.

This time he was comparing his forced appearance to something that "would only happen in Nazi Germany".

He was examined by lawyers for special purpose liquidators about decisions made around company shares, his recollection of ongoing Supreme Court proceedings involving one of his firms, Mineralogy, and the appointment of associate Domenic Martino as controller to another of his companies, China First, to get back a $135 million debt.
Sensis small business customers are not happy after their contracts automatically renewed, prompting an unprecedented response by the competition watchdog.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued a court-enforceable undertaking in its first action under the small business unfair contracts legislation which was passed in November last year.

Automatic contract renewals

Sensis attracted the regulator's ire for representing on its website between 1 January 2015 and August 2016 that its Yellow Pages and White Pages bundled print directory and online packages had a monthly fee with a 12-month minimum contract period, but failing to adequately disclose that these bundled packages automatically renewed for a further 12 months.
Two key players in Silicon Valley's battle to define the future of transportation are teaming up, taking aim at a common enemy.

Waymo, the self-driving division of Google's parent Alphabet, and ride-hailing company Lyft are partnering to test driverless car technology, the companies have confirmed.

Waymo's self-driving cars could find more test-riders thanks to the Lyft partnership.

Both companies face a bitter foe in Uber, and are seizing the moment as their rival stumbles. Uber, which is valued privately by investors at close to $US70 billion ($94 billion), dwarfs Lyft (which is currently only available in the US) in the ride-sharing arena, while Google is neck-and-neck with Uber in a race to develop autonomous vehicles.

"We can confirm that we are partnering with Waymo to safely and responsibly launch self-driving vehicle pilots," a Lyft spokeswoman said in an email. "Waymo holds today's best self-driving technology, and collaborating with them will accelerate our shared vision of improving lives with the world's best transportation."
Another Andrews government's level crossing removal project is under attack, this time in Essendon where locals and Moonee Valley Council are fighting to overturn a plan to put busy Buckley Street underneath the rail line.

Residents, traders and the council want the government to dump its preferred plan to lower the road beneath the rail line, and instead sink the railway tracks in a trench.

Plans to put Buckley Street in Essendon under the railway line has angered locals, says Roz Shaw. Credit:Eddie Jim

So strong is opposition to the government's plan that Moonee Valley Council has voted to seek legal advice on challenging the government's plans.

A protest meeting is planned for Sunday, and follows a meeting last month that attracted almost 500 people.
Millions of dollars in state funding will be spent on outer suburban train stations and schools  but it could be too little too late.

Planning Minister Richard Wynne and Suburban Development Minister Lily D'Ambrosio on Monday released details of fresh funding from the government's Growth Areas Infrastructure Charge.

Car parking at Merinda Park railway station near Cranbourne is to be upgraded using money from the government's growth fund. Credit:Rob Carew

More than $60 million will be devoted to new projects.

But property groups and opposition parties say it is nowhere near enough because the tax on developers will raise almost $1 billion in the five years to 2021.
Good morning, back in the day when this weather correspondent was fresh out of school there was work to be had digging trenches for a plumbing crew.

If ever there was a bit of rain about - as there is today - the smokers would break out the tobacco and rolling papers to take the Tally Ho test. This involved holding a rolling paper up to the cloudy skies and hoping. If more than two drops fell on that little square of paper, it was shovels down and smoko time.

It's touch and go on the instant smoko front today, with your human ciggy paper here spattered with only a few drops of cold rain on the bike ride in this morning. If you're putting down your shovel, you may not have put up the brolly - but keep it handy just in case.

It should stay cloudy today. There's some patchy fog over the eastern suburbs, but it's not the icy cold pea-souper dished up to us yesterday morning.

There's a chance of showers into the afternoon and evening but safe to say they're not smatters of utmost importance. Stick to the stuff that smatters most to you, and roll on into a wonderful Wednesday.
Sending the kids to the local school has become a thing of the past for most Victorian families.

Newly-released figures reveal that, for the first time, more than half of Victorian parents are now avoiding their neighbourhood school.

For most Victorian families, local is no longer the school of choice. Credit:Michele Mossop

As well as bypassing their local state school in favour of independent and Catholic schools, students are also looking further afield to state schools with strong academic results and better resources.

The figures come from an Auditor-General's report into school infrastructure, which also revealed that 52.3 per cent of state primary school enrolments and 53.3 per cent of state secondary school enrolments come from outside the local school catchment.
The US said that it believes India and Pakistan will benefit from the practical cooperation.

By Press Trust of India: The US urged India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue to reduce tension as they faced-off at the International Court of Justice over the the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav.

"We believe India and Pakistan stand to benefit from practical cooperation," a State Department spokesperson told PTI.

When asked about the US stand on the case of Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer who is facing the death penalty in Pakistan, the official said, "We encourage India and Pakistan to engage in direct dialogue aimed at reducing tension."

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Jadhav, arrested in March last year, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and subversive activities. His sentencing has become the latest flashpoint in the India-Pakistan ties.

Pakistan has denied India consular access to Jadhav 16 times, claiming he was an agent of India's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

JADHAV CASE AT ICJ

His execution was stayed last week by the ICJ, which heard arguments on May 15 presented by both the sides.

India has petitioned the ICJ, urging it immediately suspend Jadhav's death sentence, expressing fears that Pakistan could execute him even before the hearing at the ICJ.

On May 8, India moved the ICJ against the death penalty, alleging Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by repeatedly denying it consular access to Jadhav.

India, in its appeal, has asserted that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran, where he was doing business after he retired from the Indian Navy.

India has denied that he has any connection with the government.

Also read: How India argued against Pakistan for Kulbhushan Jadhav at International Court of Justice

Also read: ICJ denies Pakistan permission to play Kulbhushan Jadhav 'video confession'

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
Victoria Police has received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions about its investigation into Cardinal George Pell, days after fresh details of historic sex abuse allegations were aired.

Detectives from the Sano taskforce, the squad set up to investigate historic child abuse allegations, will now consider the DPP's advice, police spokeswoman Creina O'Grady said on Tuesday night.

Cardinal George Pell Credit:AP

"Victoria Police can confirm that it has received advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to a current investigation into historical sexual assault allegations," she said.

"As with any investigation it will be a decision for Victoria Police as to whether charges are laid. As this remains an ongoing investigation, we will not be commenting further at this time."
The man convicted over the 2010 murder of multi-millionaire Craig Puddy is reportedly considering a fresh appeal in the wake of a DNA scandal at the state's forensic laboratory.

Cameron Mansell was jailed for life in 2011 for murdering Mr Puddy, whose body has never never found.

Cameron Mansell was jailed for the 2010 murder of multi-millionaire Craig Puddy.

Prosecutors alleged Mr Puddy, 45, was killed at his Mt Pleasant home in May after he was confronted by Mansell, who he employed at a bar, about stolen money.

However, Mansell's lawyers argued during the trial that he was at Mr Puddy's home when three thugs entered and killed Mr Puddy over a drug debt and then framed their client for the murder.
Former WA premier Colin Barnett is likely to be asked to give evidence at an inquiry into spending blowouts on major projects and record debt and deficit under his Liberal National government.

Labor Premier Mark McGowan said further action could be taken if anyone, whether public servants or contractors, had behaved improperly and contributed to what he said was gross financial mismanagement and a dire financial position.

The McGowan government will probe spending blowouts by Colin Barnett and the Liberals.

WA's net debt increased nearly 10-fold during the eight-and-a-half years of the Barnett government to more than $30 billion and is projected to peak at $41 billion-plus, which will take many years to pay, and the record deficit is more than $3 billion.

The government's "commission of inquiry" will probe contracts, decisions and spending around 26 projects, including cost blowouts at the Fiona Stanley Hospital, new children's hospital, and refurbishment of the Muja coal-fired power station that is going to be shut.
Beirut: Troops loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, appeared to be on a collision course with Western special forces on Monday.

Pro-government soldiers are within 24 km of al-Tanf, a heavily fortified base for American and British special forces training Syrian rebel groups fighting Islamic State near the Iraq border.

Assad's forces, backed by Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have in recent days moved dozens of tanks and surface-to-air missiles closer to the eastern front line with the moderate Free Syrian Army units in an apparent warning to the US-led coalition, which flies sorties against IS in the area.

Tensions on the ground were matched by conflict off the battlefield, after the US on Monday said it had intelligence the regime was killing detainees at its most notorious prison on an industrial scale and burning "the evidence" in a crematorium.
It had been a quiet Mother's Day afternoon at the Harvest Market Thriftway in Estacada, Oregon, until Joshua Lee Webb barged into the suburban grocery store, covered in blood, according to police.

In one hand, the 36-year-old man held a kitchen knife, police said.

In the other, they said, he held a severed human head.

As terrified customers ran out of the store and called emergency services, Webb charged a storeclerk, stabbing him multiple times, police said. Store employees quickly wrestled the knife away from him and pinned him down until police arrived.
Washington, DC: The White House is in lockdown, the US Secret Service says, after a person tried to jump the fence.

The White House was placed on lockdown late on Tuesday after a person attempted to jump over a bike rack used as a barrier along the north fence of the mansion where President Donald Trump lives and works, according to the US Secret Service's official Twitter account.

The White House Credit:AP

The account added that the suspect was in custody.
Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi...
By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, May 16 (PTI) The US today welcomed the first local-level polls in Nepal in two decades, saying that the election appears to have been "largely peaceful and broadly supported".

The US has urged all the stakeholders to create a conducive environment for conducting second phase of local polls in Provinces 1, 2, 5 and 7, according to a US Embassy statement here.

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The US government has called for continued efforts to forge a political agreement that enables broadest participation of voters in the phase two elections.

The US government has also urged the Nepal Government to allow unrestricted international election observation during the second round of polls on June 14.

"This will increase the credibility of the electoral process and strengthen democratic transition across the country," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the vote counting of the local polls, has continued, though in a slower pace, in which ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre, and main opposition CPN-UML have been leading in most of the places.

The first phase of the local elections on May 14 took place peacefully at 281 local units out of 283 in province 3, 4 and 6. The second round of polls in provinces 1, 2, 5 and 7 will be held on June 14.

Local-level elections could not be held after 1997 largely as a result of the decade-long Maoist insurgency that claimed more than 16,000 lives in Nepal.

Nepal has been witnessing political instability.

Some Madhes-centric parties have opposed the elections until the new Constitution is amended to accommodate their views: more representation in the Parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries.

The Nepal government has tabled a new Constitution amendment bill in the Parliament to address the demands of the agitating Madhesis.

Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a prolonged agitation between September 2015 and February last year against the implementation of the new Constitution which they felt marginalised the Terai community. PTI SBP AMS

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Terming the incident in Mathura as a "serious issue", Adityanath told the Assembly that he had instructed the police to take stern action.

By Siraj Qureshi: After armed robbers looted Rs 4 crore of jewellery and killed two jewellers in Mathura yesterday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today said criminals will not enjoy political patronage and will not be allowed to go scot-free.

Terming the incident in Mathura as a "serious issue", Adityanath told the Assembly that he had instructed the police to take stern action.

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"There will be no discrimination on the basis of caste, creed and religion on the law and order front....A time frame has been set for solving the cases," he said.

In the incident in Mathura's Holi Gate yesterday, apart from the two jewellers who died in the loot, three others have been seriously injured in firing by the robbers.

Locals told India Today that Mayan Agrawal, the owner of Mayank Chains, was sitting in his jewellery shop with his elder brother Vikas Agrawal and another employee when four bikes stopped at the gate and all eight robbers riding those bikes started firing at the people present there.

Megh Agrawal (34) who was sitting at the gate, got shot in the face, another bullet hit Mayank while the next one hit Vikas. The employees Ali Mohamed and Ashok were also injured. Megh Agrawal died on the spot while Vikas Agrawal died in the hospital. The three injured have been admitted in a private hospital.

The robbers wiped out the entire jewellery shop, taking away jewellery worth Rs 4 crore. An FIR has been filed in the PS Kotwali against unknown robbers.

Meanwhile, in Agra's Runakta area, a jeweller Dinesh Agrawal alias Babbal (35) was shot by unknown robbers who took away jewellery worth Rs 20 lakh from him while he was returning home after closing the shop. He has been admitted in a private hospital.

Sarrafa Association President Murarilal Fatehpuriya told India Today that the police had made a security plan for jewellers but it was never implemented.

Social activist Syed Irfan Salim said that the jewellers are in a state of panic these days as the police is unable to protect them in the entire Braj region where jewellers are being shot and looted almost every week. 80 percent of these incidents are being committed by biker gangs but the police has not been able to track down even one of these gangs.

Also read:

How can Yogi Adityanath be both CM and MP? Lucknow High Court summons Attorney General over PIL

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath's veiled attack on gau rakshaks: Violators of law will not be spared

Also watch:Yogi Adityanath at Panchayat Aaj Tak: Opposition leaders react to Uttar Pradesh CM's remark on minority groups

--- ENDS ---

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What a year last week was. It was one that saw President Donald Trump fire FBI Director James Comey, the very man spearheading a counterintelligence investigation into alleged Trump-Russia ties during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Then both he and his mouthpieces proceeded to lie and obfuscate for several days about how and why they did it, even going so far as to invoke Hillary Clinton, only to see Trump admit that was all malarkey to NBC News Lester Holt. Then the president decided to, at the request of Vladimir Putin, welcome the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to Washingtonthe man at the center of the Trump-Russia controversy, mind youinto the Oval Office for a photo op. And then the White House was forced admit that it was conned by the Russians when the photos of Trump and the Russians mugging for the camera leaked courtesy of Russia state news.

On Monday night it got worse: The Washington Post, quoting current and former intelligence officials, reported that Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during that White House meeting. The Posts sources said the intel jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State and was more than we have shared with our own allies.

I knew it! exclaimed The Daily Shows Trevor Noah, who had aired a lengthy segment calling out Trump for being trolled by Russia.

No, I knew something was up when we saw President Trump up with the Russiansand they were smiling. There are only two times a Russian man smiles: the day he dies, and this, he added.

According to The Washington Post, Trump is alleged to have boasted to the Russian foreign minister about his inside knowledge of the ISIS intel, stating, I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, before going on to reveal aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner.

I mean, once again, this sounds like a story that we would invent, right? offered Noah. Trump invites the Russians into the Oval Office and then during his meeting starts bragging, I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, and then proceeds to give them the intel. He probably doesnt even know what intel is short for. My intellivision is the best. It gets the highest ratings! The best ratings of all.

Whats really sad about this is that Donald Trump is trying to impress the Russians with the fact that hes president? he continued. They know! The guys there like, Yeah, do you guys know that Im president? and theyre like, Yes, that is how we planned it. Of course.
LONDON  If the left-wing leader of the Labour Party is genuinely trying to convince mainstream British voters that they can trust himhe has a bafflingly obtuse way to show it.

Jeremy Corbyn has just appointed a communist to help lead his election campaign, telling stunned reporters on Monday that the Stalin apologist and defender of North Korea is a member of the Labour Party like me.

Andrew Murray hasnt been a member of Labour for very long, however.

For more than 40 years, he was a member of either the Communist Party of Britain or the Communist Party of Great Britain (naturally they split over doctrinal differences in the late 1980s).

Even when Jeremy Corbyn won a shock vote to become Labours new leader in 2015, Murray wasnt won over by the most radically leftist leader in the partys 100-year history.

In an interview at the time, he said he would resist joining the hard-lefts rush into the party, because even Corbyns Labour would stop short of full-blown communism.

No: Im a member of the Communist Party. Thats where I am, he said. Communism still represents, in my view, a society worth working towardsalbeit not by the methods of the 20th century, which failed.

He changed his mind about Labour in December, handed in his Communist Party credentials and joined what used to be the center-left party of Tony Blair.

Five months later, he has been invited right into Corbyns inner circle.

A Labour spokesman denied a report that Murray would be heading up the campaign but it has been confirmed that he will be seconded from his job at a union to work full time on the leaders campaign.

Corbyn certainly made no effort to disassociate himself from his old Stop the War comrade on the campaign trail. A reporter from the Guardian asked why he had hired a Stalinist. Corbyn replied: I dont believe that Andrew is anything other than a democratic socialist and a member of the Labour party like me.

He also lavished praise on his old friends organizational chops. He is a person of enormous abilities and professionalism and is the head of staff of Unite the union. To manage a very large union and a large number of staff takes special skills and Andrew has them, Corbyn said Monday.

As well as decades of promoting communism, Murray has been chairman of Stop the War, a forthright anti-violence organization which has been criticized for its links to Trotskyist factions and virulent anti-Israeli campaigns that some believe invoke anti-Semitism.

In a 2012 speech, given soon after Murray had been replaced as chairman of Stop the War by Corbyn, Murray said: "We have a message for the Israeli embassy, the Israeli government  every time you kill a Palestinian child, you are digging your own graves."

Murray would return to the job at Stop the War when Corbyn was elected Labour leader. The Stop the War vice-chair has since admitted that the organization exists to oppose the West rather than protest against warthey have refused to stage protests against the attacks of the Assad regime and Russian forces against women and children in Syria.

In 2015, he made controversial remarks in the days after two terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris killing 17 people. The barbarism we condemn in Paris is minute compared to the barbarism wrought by imperialism across the planet in the last 13 years and we must condemn that, he said. It is a sad lesson we have to re-learn from the attacks in Paris, it needs bringing home again and again.

Labour party moderates, who have vowed not to attack Corbyn for the duration of the general election campaign, are aghast at the appointment. Corbyns Labour has gone full Trump. Andrew Murray is the hard-lefts Steve Bannon, one insider told the Huffington Post.

The appointment was made in the full knowledge that Murrays highly unusual views are on the record.

In 2003, he told the executive committee of the Communist Party that it was necessary to side with the North Korean regime against American interference. The clear desire of the USA to effect regime change in its second axis of evil target could well provoke an armed clash there, too. Our Party has already made its basic position of solidarity with Peoples Korea clear.

In 1999, he wrote an appreciation of Stalin for the left-wing British newspaper, the Morning Star.

None of this will come as a surprise to Jeremy Corbyn.

Murray told the Guardian himself in 2015, that he couldnt follow his comrade into the Labour Party because the media would have a field-day. You can be sure of one thing. If I joined the Labour party, what do you think would appear in the Mail or the Telegraph or the Times  or even the Guardian?

After two years of claims that Corbyns supporters are Trotskyist trying to re-shape the Labour Party in their own radical image, the leader has apparently made infiltration official party policy.
President Donald Trump cant stop sticking his head in the noose. The last 10 days in Washington have been a singularity of Trumps reckless, dangerous, lead-paint-and-cheap-vodka brain-damage style of governance. As he flailed from crisis to crisis, nothing said Youll be tired of all the winning like a series of self-inflicted wounds to his political, legal, and presidential fate.

The firing of FBI Director James Comey was just the start of this latest chapter in the White House drama. Trumps dissipated preppy consigliere Stephen Bannon, Wisconsin Cheese Board Deputy Director Reince Priebus, and Shifty Spice were all cut out of the loop. This isnt a White House turning the corner or getting its bearings in Washingtonits a White House engaged in daily Downfall cosplay.

Their myriad stories, revisionist history, weapons-grade stupid talking points, midnight shrub-based press avails, and rolling Sarah Huckabee Sanders corn-pone Aw-yall-hes-muh-second-cousin claims to have talked to countless FBI agents in defense of President Indefensible didnt signal determinationit signaled that the iceberg has holed the Trumptanic and the crew is running for the lifeboats.

Entertaining yet insane interviews with Lester Holt and others told us that Trump is ignoring reason, logic, politics, and most importantly, his legal team. His unveiled threats to Comey about secret White House tapes were a self-inflicted can of political whup-ass. Trump had long ago declared a pointless, doomed war with the intelligence community. Short of a land war in Asia, its the jewel in his crown of stupid. Our outward-facing intelligence agencies like the CIA already view Trump as a dangerous, compromised child. By firing Comey, Trump has crossed another red line. The FBI rank and file took it as an insult and an affront to their integrity and their reputations.

As if we hadnt had enough lunacy in the last 10 days, Trump looked at America and said, Hey hold my beer. Watch this. In his very cozy Oval Office meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Both men are so steeped in Russian intelligence circles they might as well have spy tattooed on their foreheads. As one of the smartest political observers I know said, Its ONLY MONDAY.

No matter what Trumps army of online clickservative fluffers says, this leak of product from a sensitive intelligence source wasnt a plan. It wasnt Trump being a genius negotiator. It wasnt a considered policy decision. It wasnt some 89-dimensional string-theory international-diplomacy chess game. It was a 70-year-old man with apparent mental infirmities bleating out something he thought was a cool-kid secret.

Is the president the ultimate declassification authority in the government? Yes. Was it legal? Almost certainly. Was it smart? Was it politic? Was it disciplined? According to The Washington Post, the information comes from a sensitive source run by a nation who apparently had no idea President Verbal Dysentery would blow up the intelligence flow from one of the few overseas partners with an inside line into the operations and behavior of the Islamic State terror group. This is a man who has no ability to process consequences. He has no ability to imagine outcomes other than those that stroke his gigantic, needy ego. If he werent president, hed never be allowed within a thousand miles of a security clearance.

Presidents dealing with intelligence matters of international consequence need to have a level of mental and personal discipline when it comes to classified material. These are not notable qualities in Donald Trump, and the fire-drill going on Monday night in the intelligence community and in diplomatic circles to repair the damage Trump did in his shoot-from-the-lip bragging belies their denials. The damage to intelligence relationships at the agency level, to means of technical collection, and to sources and methods on the ground that can come from not being mindful is potentially profound.

The respected and smart H.R. McMaster was dispatched to do a terse, carefully parsed denial on the story at around 7 p.m., with the usual White House dodging of any wrongdoing. McMaster may be one of the better choices in this administration, but hes standing on the political quicksand that Trump has created. Given that the left hand in this White House rarely knows what the right is doing, its an open question how long this set of facts will remain operative. McMaster isnt the kind of powerhouse in the national-security apparatus who got where he is by suffering fools, gladly or not.

The Democrats will get over their skis on this story and call for impeachment. Republicans will mumble into their beers that they wish Trump would show more discipline. The Trump White House will go into the monkey cage with a front-end loader to scrape up new distractions for tomorrows news cycle.

If Trump had leaked this classified nugget to an ally, that would be one thing. But of course he leaked it to the Russians. As our allies in NATO and around the world feel the long Western alliance being strained to breaking by a man who puts Putin first, time and time again. Coming in the heat of multiple investigations into Trumps Russia ties, it was tone deaf, politically inept, and cruising for legal trouble like sailors on shore leave, Trump keeps demonstrating hes not even close to being suited to doing the job for which he was elected, and hes throwing bloody, red-meat chum into the media sharks feeding frenzy.

Those of us who warned you of the danger of Trump wont say were happy to see the damage hes doing to our global standing, our national security, our justice system, and our national morale. Well just say we told you so.

Again.
TALLINN, Estonia  The strains of American jazz great Horace Silver filled the cavernous industrial Kultuurikatel or Culture Cauldron, a plant-turned-hip-banquet hall lit by modern chandeliers. With bitter sage wine flowing, a Finnish saxophonist joined an Estonian playing the opening number, a subconscious nod to the American troops helping guard this tiny NATO member on Russias doorstep, kicking off an annual Baltic defense conference.

The Trump administration didnt send any its top officials to the Lennart Meri meeting, northern Europes premier annual defense conference. Still, its fiercest defender just might be conference host Estonia

In the new administration's steps, I see not a single U-turn, said Estonias President Kersti Kaljulaid, referring to Washingtons historical defense of Baltic states.

She crisply and dryly upbraiding a couple of American panelists including writer Sarah Kendzior, who warned Baltic nations to be wary of a president with obvious autocratic leaningswho is not rational, who is destructive.

When we're done with synchronizing all our gossip about the new administration, then we need to look at the facts, she said. If I now look at relations between the new administration and Estonia, a small country, any relations towards Estonia have to be values-based or it is ignored, she said bluntly. I haven't left Europe since my election in October. I've met close to 20 senators and congressmen. On this continent, I've met Vice President (Mike) Pence , and her ministers have met the top Pentagon and State chiefs, she said.

Am I overlooking something? The panelists took a beat to respond.

The Estonian presidents rhetorical fightback is thanks to what Estonian and other Baltic diplomats called unprecedented outreach by President Donald Trumps administration  both from top Trump officials, and a steady stream of mostly Republican lawmakers who've made their way here since Trump took office.

Of course, Trump himself hasnt always been so solicitous . On the campaign trail, he dinged NATO as obsolete and threatened to leave alliance members high and dry if attacked, unless theyd met their NATO investment targets.

That was a challenge to NATOs Article 5, which says if one member is attacked, all will respond. Its an article that has only been invoked once by the United States after 9/11  and more than a dozen Estonian troops have lost their lives answering that call.

Trump campaign surrogate Newt Gingrich even ventured last year that the U.S. might not come to Estonias aid. "I'm not sure I would risk a nuclear war over some place which is the suburbs of St. Petersburg, he said.

Since then, Trump reversed himself on NATO , even claiming credit for the fact that more countries are meeting their pledged NATO investment targets, and also investing in counterterrorism, although those targets and those programs were all started under the Obama administration.

His newfound warmth toward NATO has spread to the Baltics.

Weve had more meetings with top Trump officials than we had with Obama officials in eight years, one Baltic diplomat said, to the ready agreement of others in attendance.

There was no immediate response to emailed requests for comment to former Obama administration officials.

"Continued American assistance and NATO security cooperation in Estonia is critically import to deter Russian aggression," said Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul, who visited the Baltics as part of a congressional delegation last week.

At Least Hell Have Adult Supervision

Baltic officials take comfort in the national security team of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster , Defense Secretary Jim Mattis , CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

"They're good guys - better than the Obama team, actually, one of the officials said, warming to the new team because of their accessibility. The only problem is they have limitations," in that they enact policy, but don't make it. "That depends on Donald Trump and whoever he last met with," one of the officials said with a laugh, repeating a phrase oft used in Washington.

The officials said Trump officials are trying to reassure us of the strength of the alliance, whatever is coming out of the White House, one of the diplomats said. The administration officials tell us, don't worry, and the lawmakers say, we know you're worried, and we're worried too, but we're on your side, the official said.

Theres a wariness about what Trump might say when he attends the upcoming NATO summit , or what he might tweet, and a near-universal derision among diplomats here toward Trumps perceived lack of consistency, loyalty to a given viewpoint or self-control. That was best summed up in one senior diplomats description of Trumps upcoming visit, saying at least hell have adult supervision.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak frankly about the still-evolving White House policy toward NATO, Russia and the Baltic nations.

Others are ready to ignore the Trumpian drama, and give his policymakers a chance.

We don't ignore the tweets, but we can't act on tweets. We act on real life and there is real commitment from the U.S., a senior Baltic defense official told The Daily Beast. Relations with the U.S. are brilliant!

Lithuanian defense minister Raimundas Karoblis told The Daily Beast in an interview that there was fear among his public that a Trump administration might betray Lithuania and the other Baltic nations to Russia, which has tried to push the idea that they are indefensible.

But after meetings with Mattis and others, we dont have a moment of doubt, Karoblis said.

From the Baltic point of view, Trump was preaching to the converted when he complained NATO nations needed to pay up, i.e. Invest two percent of their GDP in defense. Estonia has met that mark since 2014 , and Lithuania and Latvia are on target to meet the spending goal by 2018. Russias covert invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 helped concentrate minds, and open the publics wallets and government coffers.

Now the society is starting to understand what the position is, because the troops are so close to the Russian border, one of the senior defense officials said. We have to use this momentum to make further steps.

Otherwise Putin Takes Everything He Needs

So far, the Trump administration has followed through with everything the U.S. Army planned under the Obama administration as part of Atlantic Resolve to protect eastern Europe is going forward this year.

The mission has remained the same, said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the head of U.S. Army Europe, in an interview. This is about deterrence and protecting U.S. interests, he said.

That includes bringing a 4,000-soldier U.S. Army armored brigade to Europe with roughly 1,000 vehicles including tanks, and a combat aviation brigade with attack helicopters, to be sprinkled across NATO nations including those bordering Russia. The U.S. is also prepositioning enough military equipment that it could send over another full army brigade if needed.

The general cautioned against seeing this as the U.S. versus Russia. This is not the U.S. sending a message to anybody, Hodges said, explaining that the deployments were announced as part of NATOs collective decision last year to switch to deterrence - i.e. to signal Russia that they are ready to fight if necessary to defend NATO members.

Britain and France have deployed troops to the Baltics as well as part of NATOs deterrence mission, in addition to the 600 or so American troops rotating through the northern region. By political decision, theseare supposed to be warfighting capable formations that can actually fight tonight.

Another thing that hasnt changed: the U.S. keeps asking NATO members to contribute more. Were encouraging allies to look for ways to increase their investment, Hodges said, ticking off a wishlist of greater spending on military transportation, air and missile defense, munitions, military-specific fuel and even repairing crumbling infrastructure like bridges.

One of the Baltic defense officials said having U.S., British, and French troops stationed in their countries, even in small numbers, is like arming the Baltics with a kind of nuclear tripwirein that Russia knows better than to attack troops from those three nuclear-armed powers. The danger of escalation is too great, he explained.

The challenge for the Baltic nations is striking a balance making them too thorny for Russia to swallow whole, but not so well armed they invite a Russian invasion.

Deterrence is a tricky game, warned a European defense official. We must avoid escalationtoo many systems of the wrong kind could look like we are depriving them of military action.

The Russians know were not going to invade them, snorted a Baltic defense official, at the thought of Moscow quaking over the thought of the Baltic nations tiny numbers of troops marching its way. Estonias army is six-thousand strong, half of them conscripts.

When both sides think safety means having their troops at the other ones border, that's a problem another diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the tension with Russia.

The tiny Baltic nation of only 1.3 million could teach Trump a thing or two about Russia. It lost scores of politicians and troops who tried resist before and during Soviet rule. Since breaking away from the crumbling U.S.S.R. in 1991, the country has made strides in economy and modernization, becoming one of the most Internet-savvy nations in Europe, but also suffering a fairly substantial denial-of-service attack in 2007a strike widely blamed on Russia.

The Baltic defense leaders message to Trump on Moscow: talk to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but dont trust him.

We need to have a dialogue with Russia...with the condition that its from the point of view of strength, said one of the senior Baltic defense officials. Otherwise Putin takes everything he needs.

Trump critic Sarah Kendzior had advice for the Estonian president and others at the conference: Watch your back and hope for the best.

This story was updated to correct that a Finnish, not Lithuanian, saxophonist joined the Estonian saxophonist at the banquet.
The war of words between Stephen Colbert and President Donald Trump wont be ending any time soon.

On Tuesday night, hours after The Washington Post broke the news that Trump had, during a bout of Oval Office bragging, disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassadorthe latter a noted spymaster and key figure in the Trump-Russia counterintelligence probe, whose clandestine meetings with numerous Trump officials during the election led to the firing of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessionsthe Late Show host called on Trump to resign.

I have something to say here. Donald Trump, if youre watching, first of all: Youre a bad president. Please resign, said Colbert to heavy applause from the crowd.

Second, please, please, please dont take Sean Spicer from us! Where am I going to get my daily dose of veiled anger and condescension?

Yes, Colbert was also upset by reports that Trump is considering replacing press secretary Sean Spicer with Fox News Kimberly Guilfoyle, which would sadly mean the end of comedy dynamo Melissa McCarthys award-worthy tenure as Spicey on Saturday Night Live.

Colberts call on Trump to resign comes on the heels of a very public back-and-forth between the late-night comedian and the commander in chief, with the former getting in a bit of hot water for making an off-color joke about the president (the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putins cock holster) and the president calling the comic filthy and a no-talent guy in an interview with Time magazine. The filthy remark was especially rich given Trumps history of offensive language, including his grab them by the pussy tape, and Colberts standing as a Sunday-school teacher.

Following Trumps comments, Colbert, as is his wont, first refused to apologize, saying of the president, I believe he can take care of himself, and then took a victory lap after Trump fired back, having successfully needled the pussy grabber-in-chief.
Its the question of the hour, every hour now: What has to happen to make Republicans, even a few of them, put country before party and do what needs to be done about Donald Trump?

That something serious needs to be done is clear. Trump has arguably been impeachable since the day he took office, over his clear flouting of the emoluments clause and anti-nepotism laws. But I get that those werent big enough deals to light up public opinion. And maybe the Comey firing isnt either, even after it came out Monday evening that Trump had shared our friends best, biggest and most secret secrets with the Russians right afterward. The recent rash of polls, before this latest news, on the matter tend to show pluralities disapproving of the firing, but the usual Trump die-hard group of about 30 percent supporting, with a frustratingly high dont know enough to have an opinion.

But it has enraged informed opinion, and its no mystery why. If you are a Republican or conservative who has concocted in your brain some justification for what Trump did, consider this hypothetical. Imagine Hillary Clinton had won. She became the president. James Comey was investigating her campaign. And she fired him. After asking him to dinner and trying to exact a pledge of loyalty from him.

You wouldnt be able to see straight. The House Judiciary Committee would without any doubt have already started drawing up articles of impeachment. Fox News would have started running a Hillary Clinton days remaining in office chyron.

And your outrage would be justified. It would have been intolerable for a President Clinton to have done that (and I would not have defended it, but Im also certain she never would have done such a thing). And its intolerable for President Trump to do it.

Republicans know this. They know that a special prosecutor is not only justified but necessary, even though only two of them that Im aware of (House members Walter Jones and Justin Amash) have joined the call for one. Those two, at least, seefinallyhow dangerous Trump is. They understand that they cant control him the way they once thought.

Yet the overwhelmingly majority of them, led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, persist in obsequiousness. As I wrote Friday, If they can pass their tax cuts for the rich, end Obamacare, and put conservative judges on the Supreme Court and the federal circuit courts, theyll let Trump do what he wants.

So, back to the question: What has to happen? One of two things.

First, there does exist a chance, however slim, that something substantive that Trump says or doesvolunteering our allies secrets to the Russians, for instance!or some substantive revelation, will be too much even for Republicans. Hard to know what this would be. It would have to be something with dead-obvious constitutional ramifications. In other words, this eliminates a lot of things. They impeached Bill Clinton over lying about blow jobs. But a woman or ten could come forward with explosive sexual allegations and the tapes to prove it, and if it didnt involved Trumps comportment as president I dont think the GOP would budge.

But lets say, for example, that Trump did reinstitute taping in the Oval Office, and did have tapes of his chats with Comeybut destroyed them. Those tapes would be, would have been, the property not of the president but of the government of the United States. The Presidential Records Act requires that any tapes be preserved.

If that were to happen, that just might do it. Were probably about to watch some version of this play out before us. It seems pretty clear, from the way Trump and Sean Spicer have talked, that he was indeed taping. Will Republicans demand the tapes? Lindsey Graham has, although he also gave Trump the out of saying that he (Graham) doubts they really exist. But if they do exist, and if they would prove (as everyone assumes) that Trump is lying, then who could put it past him destroying them?

But were still only at might, which brings us to the second thing that may flip Republicans. And its really the only thing. Self-preservation. Lets say my destroyed tapes scenario turns out to be true. Then there will be multiple calls for impeachment and/or resignation, from nearly every Democrat, from most important newspapers, and even from a few Republicans.

Then Trumps polling numbers go down below 30. And 30 percent is a crucial benchmark because thats about the percentage of Americans who are loyal partisan Republicans. If hes down to 25, that will mean hes losing even Republicans in fairly large numbers. That, in turn, will mean hell start to be a liability to Republican House members in swing districts. And if gets down into the low 20s, that will mean Republicans are really jumping ship.

The Cook Report currently rates six Republican-held House seats as toss-ups, 18 as leaning Republican, and 19 as likely Republican. If Trumps ratings tumble, Cook will start shifting some likelys to leaning, and it will come clear to Ryan that his majority is seriously at risk.

In other wordsand this is the hard political pointit doesnt have to be that the GOP House members in the deepest-reddest districts feel that Trump threatens their hold on their seats. That wont happen until Trump gets down to the single digits. But if the 43 Republicans Cook rates as representing potentially vulnerable districts sense that Trump is going to bring them down, then essentially the whole party will abandon Trump if the leaders decide its what they have to do to keep the House majority. The House majority is more important to them than Trump for a host of reasons. Trumps just useful to them, for now.

Now that I think about it, the scenario above wont really count as putting country ahead of party, will it? It will merely constitute putting the congressional Republican Party ahead of the presidential Republican Party. So the real answer to the question that opened this column, about when Republicans will put country ahead of party, is never.

But you knew that already.
White House and administration officials are reeling at news that President Donald Trump shared classified information with Russias top diplomats during an Oval Office meeting last week.

Its the latest crisis jolting Trumps senior staff in the week following the chaotic fallout from the firing of FBI director James Comeyand especially ironic considering the presidents repeated condemnations of Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server, which contained a handful of messages deemed to be classified.

The White House initially denied the reports, but Trump confirmed that he had shared information on terrorism and airline security with the Russians in two Twitter posts on Tuesday morning.

Communications staff and senior staffers at the White House were literally hiding in offices, according to a senior Trump aide, as a gaggle of White House press stormed White House hallways just after the Washington Post story broke on Monday evening.

Do not ask me about how this looks, we all know how this looks, the senior aide told The Daily Beast on Monday evening. Trump administration officials spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity so as to speak freely. The aide described a scene at the White House as tense and a morgue, where senior officials such as Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Stephen Bannon convened to sketch an immediate path forward in handling the aftermath.

According to multiple reporters present, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster was walking by at the time when he saw the crowd of journalists gathered outside Spicers office. This is the last place in the world I want to be, McMaster said, before ducking away for an hour til he headed to brief the press.

Three senior administration staffers expressed bewilderment and frustration at news that Trump apparently shared highly classified information about ISIS threats against the U.S. homeland with Russias foreign minister and ambassador to Washington last week.

The meeting at which the president reportedly divulged the information came a day after Trump fired the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The White House quickly and adamantly pushed back on the Posts reporting.

This story is false, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell said in a statement shortly after the story broke. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced. McMaster also called the story, as reported, false. I was in the room. It didnt happen, he said.

McMaster denied that any information shared with the Russians at last weeks meeting divulged sources and methods of intelligence gathering by the U.S. or its allies. But he did not deny that the president had shared classified information during the meeting.

But then, on Tuesday morning, Trump contradicted his aidesand confirmed on Twitter that he had indeed shared sensitive information: As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.

Administration officials see the optics of the situation as catastrophic to an administration struggling to deal with a torrent of news about the FBIs investigation, Comeys firing, and increasingly loud calls for an independent probe into the Trump campaigns contacts with Russian officials.

At this point Im wondering if well ever be able to stop talking about Russia, a White House staffer said shortly after the Post story was published. Its totally self-inflicted. Every time I feel like were getting a handle on the last Russia fiasco, a new one pops.

Asked about the reported details of Trumps meeting, the staffer declined to weigh in on specifics but described publicly reported information as a body blow to the White Houses image. I dont know what was said in the meeting, what the classified information is, or really any of the details, the staffer said. I just know how it looks, and obviously it looks really bad.

Coming Crackdown

When another senior White House official was asked by The Daily Beast on Monday night if this would accelerate President Trumps demands for a crackdown on national security leaks, the aide simply replied, Oh, definitely.

The official, who is familiar with Trumps thinking on these matters, said it will exacerbate his animus and suspicion towards Deep State and Obama-holdover actors, who Trump and some of his closest advisors have suspected of trying to damage his presidency through anonymous leaks to the press.

According to the Posts reportwhich has been confirmed by The Daily Beastthe president shared details of ISIS plots involving explosives concealed in electronic devices and potentially smuggled aboard U.S.-bound airlines. The administration has banned laptop computers from the cabins of flights from ten airports in the Middle East and North Africa. It is mulling a similar policy affecting all U.S.-bound flights from Europe.

McMaster stressed to the Post that the information Trump shared with the Russians contained no details that identified the sources of the classified intelligence at issue, which was reportedly obtained by a U.S. ally. But according to the Post, the president did divulge the city in ISIS territory where the source of the intelligence was located.

The Post report portrayed Trump as boastful of his intelligence sources. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, he reportedly told the Russians.

Intelligence experts worried during last years presidential campaign that Trumps particular brand of brash straight-talk might put key secrets at risk. My concern with Trump will be that he inadvertently leaks, because as he speaks extemporaneously, hell pull something out of his hat that he heard in a briefing and say it, a former senior intelligence official told The Daily Beast last year.

On Monday night, a current intelligence officer called the Posts report disheartening, adding that its another indicator that Trump doesnt take intelligence communitys work seriously and doesnt have their back.

Thinks He's Playing Chess; Actually Playing Checkers

But a former senior intelligence official said its too early to know what the ramifications of Trumps disclosure will be.

People in the intelligence community are uncomfortable with what he said because his comments may have put the Russians on the trail of this particular intelligence partner, said this official, confirming to The Daily Beast that Trump shared information about an ISIS plot that the U.S. received from a foreign intelligence ally. He did share information about an ISIS plot.

But they also believe the temperature is too high in the media, the official said, speaking anonymously to describe conversations with current intelligence officials. Its too early for us to know what the reaction is going to be. The intelligence community has to reach out to this partner. They might say it was an egregious violation...and go dark, but they might not.

The media isnt the only place where temperatures are running high, however. Some administration officials who supported Trump during the campaign said they were appalled at his apparent divulging of U.S. secrets, and considered it a break from his America First campaign mantra.

With news like this Im beginning to wonder why Trump ran in the first place and if he really cares about the country, said a senior Trump appointee involved in counter-ISIS policymaking. I miss candidate Trump. Now hes just a pathetic mess.

I doubt he did it to collude [with the Russians]. I think hes dumb and doesnt know the difference, a former FBI official told The Daily Beast. He thinks hes arranging some business deal except that hes not.

I dont think he shared the classified intelligence to collude. I think he shared because he thinks hes playing chess when hes actually playing checkers. International affairs is not like buying a golf course, added a second former FBI official.

When asked if the Russians could use the information Trump provided in way that harms the U.S., this official said, of course.

The Russians, the source added, like [Trumps] mental instability and stupidity. They dont like his unpredictability.

Candidate Trump was vehement in his condemnations of the mishandling of classified information, chiefly by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Her use of a private email server to handle such information was a frequent Trump talking pointand the subject of her own FBI investigation. That probe was led by James Comey, the man Trump fired last Tuesday, administration officials claimed before Trump publicly contradicted them, to his handling of the Clinton investigation.

Where are all those folks who chanted lock her up? quipped Rep. Gerry Connolly, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in reference to a frequent Clinton-aimed chant at Trump campaign rallies.

Whos the Real Crook?

At this point, Trump does not appear to have done anything illegal; it is entirely within the presidents authority to share classified information with whomever he sees fit. The president is the declassifying authority so no crime was committed, an FBI agent working on counterterrorism matters told The Daily Beast.

For all the geopoliticians that hand-wring over this kind of thing, this is notemphasize: notan unusual occurrence, to share classified information with foreign governments when it is in the interest of the U.S. government to do so, a former senior intelligence official told The Daily Beast.

As an additional nugget in this: The fact that the president shared classified information with a foreign government official, in and of itself, is classified, the former official added. So whoever was trying to burn him for thinking hes doing something wrong actually is the only one that committed a crime here.

Thats missing the point, Mark Zaid, a well-known national security lawyer, told The Daily Beast.

Time after time we are seeing that our president has little to no understanding of how the intelligence system and national security apparatus works, and our biggest security vulnerability may be the one person who no one, other than Congress, can take action against, he said.

Congressional Democrats, for their part, were quick to express concern over the reported leaks.

We need to be clear, we do not know if these allegations are true or false, but ifIFthese allegations are true, President Trump may have just disclosed top secret information to the Russians and possibly jeopardized an intelligence source in the process, wrote Reps. Elijah Cummings and John Conyers, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, respectively. This is the same meeting in which Russian officials laughed with the President in front of Russian photographers inside the Oval Office while members of the American press were excluded.

The inclusion of a photographer from state-run Russian media outlet TASS drew condemnation even from administration officials who said it let the Kremlin, notoriously skilled at weaponizing information, set the public tone of the meeting. Photos released by the Russian government revealed the presence of Amb. Sergey Kislyak, who was not mentioned in the White Houses official summary of the event.

If [The Washington Posts story is] true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community, said Sen. Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians.

with additional reporting by Betsy Woodruff and Kim Dozier.
On Sunday morning, North Korea launched what it called a new ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket. Pyongyang might have been uncharacteristically modest. The new solid-fuel Hwasong-12 could be an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Whether or not the missile is an ICBMthere is considerable disagreement about its rangethe Kim regime is making fast progress.

The missile did not travel faronly 489 miles downrange, according to the Norths official Korean Central News Agency. What caught everyones attention, however, is the arc. The missile, the North said, reached an altitude of 2,112 kilometers. These official range and altitude numbers are fairly close to the estimates of independent observers.

In any event, Sundays test, writes John Schilling on the widely followed 38 North site, represents a level of performance never before seen from a North Korean missile. Not only was the launch successful, it may have also crossed a closely watched threshold.

The Hwasong-12, newly designed in a Korean style, may be the Norths first successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missile. An ICBM is a missile that can travel at least 5,500 kilometers (some draw the line at 6,000 kilometers).

U.S. Pacific Command says the missiles range is not consistent with that of an ICBM.

If fired on a flattermore normaltrajectory, the Hwasong-12 would hit targets at least 4,000 kilometers away.

Other analysts, however, think its range is substantially longer. According to Kim Dong-yub of Seouls Kyungnam University, the missile might have a reach of 6,000 kilometers. Some say 7,000 kilometers.

The range of the Hwasong-12 matters because, among other things, two willful figures staked credibility on it. Kim Jong Un, in his New Years message this year, said the regime was in last stage preparation for conducting an intercontinental ballistic rocket launch.

Trump, then president-elect, replied the following day, tweeting It wont happen!

It may just have happened. And if the Hwasong-12 is not in fact an ICBM, the North will almost certainly test one soon. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has launched more ballistic missiles in the last three years than in the previous three decades. Each test, successful or not, advances Pyongyangs program.

North Korea also looks like it is making quick advances in another area: the ability to mate a nuclear warhead to its missiles. KCNA said the Hwasong-12 is capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead. Moreover, the North claimed it had verified the homing feature of the warhead under the worst re-entry situation and accurate performance of detonation system.

At the moment, Pyongyang has at least three missiles that can reach the lower 48 states: the Taepodong-2, the KN-08, and the KN-14. If these three workthey are based on proven technologies but havent been testedthey can hit Seattles Space Needle or graze the Hollywood sign, but only with molten metal shards. North Korea, in other words, has not yet developed heat shielding for the warheads that will sit atop its longest-range missiles.

Yet heat shielding is not far from the reach of North Korean technicians. They have, from all accounts, been able to mate a nuke to their intermediate-range Nodong missile.

In short, the Norks can only be a few years from mastering the complex task of fitting a nuclear weapon on their longest-range missiles. So while the Norths claims regarding the warhead of the Hwasong-12 look exaggerated, Kim Jong Un will soon be able to airmail Armageddon to American addresses.

What is the next step for Kims rocket scientists? They may take the Hwasong-12 and use it as one of the stages of their next missile. As Melissa Hanham of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies told CNN, This may become half or a third of an ICBM.

A Hwasong-12 by itself may not have ICBM range, but two or three of them, stacked one on top of the other, certainly do.

This is a very uncomfortable development for the United States, said Lee Illwoo, a military analyst in Seoul, to the Washington Post. The Hwasong-12, even if able to travel only as far as its lowest estimate, can hit Guam, American territory and the site of Andersen Air Force Base. Yet the missile, at the upper end of estimates, can also reach Hawaii. The Kimster, should he put his pudgy finger on the button, will also be able to scorch snow in Alaska.

And heres a message for Trump: strapped together, three Hwasong-12s can brown the turf of the South Lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Experts say that the rampant use of pirated software in India may leave Indian companies unable to report if they have been affected by the Wanna Cry cyber attack.

By Shashank Shekhar: Even as the Centre expressed confidence on Monday that WannaCry ransomware, a malware affecting computer systems across the globe, will have little impact on India, cyber security experts said it is too early to assess the real extent of the virtual attack.

For, the experts believe, the use of pirated or outdated software is rampant among Indian companies, who will not be able to report their losses due to licencing issues.

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"MNCs, banks, telecom and big IT firms are prepared to deal with such attacks as they have got their cyber policy in place by installing latest updates, anti-virus software and firewall. But a large number of mid and small-size companies remain exposed to the threat," Mukul Shrivastava, partner of Fraud Investigation & Dispute Service, EY India, told Mail Today.

Shrivastava said the threat of such an outbreak at global level should serve as a wakeup call for those establishments using unlicenced software to cut costs.

Cyber experts working with leading audit firms told Mail Today that Indian businesses did get affected by the malware but instead of reporting it to the government, they chose to initiate internal inquiries. There is no legal provision that makes reporting of a cyber-breach mandatory for a corporate firm, experts pointed out.

WHAT IS WANNA CRY?

WannaCry is a program targeting Microsoft's Windows operating systems where hackers take control of a computer and lock the data until the victim make a payment in return. This large-scale cyber-attack was launched on Friday where researchers observed 57,000 infections. The hackers demanded payments of $300 to $600 (roughly Rs. 19,000 and Rs. 38,000) using Bitcoins.

While Microsoft has released "patches" to fix a vulnerability that allowed the worm to spread across networks, experts say these patches were valid only on licenced and updated software.

"Outspread of attack will be more in India as most of the computers are working on pirated versions. The patch by the Microsoft will not work on such a system, making India possibly among the worst affected," said Dinesh O Bareja, a cyber security expert.

INDIAN IMPACT

Meanwhile, ransomware incidents were reported from Kerala, Kolkata and Andhra Pradesh. However, no corporate office or institution came forward fearing that their brand image will take a hit if the news of their computers being infected goes public. The real impact of cyber attack in India can be only assessed later this week.

The government too tried to dispel rumours about banking telecom or aviation being hit by the outbreak. "There is no major impact in India unlike other countries. We are keeping a close watch. There have been isolated incidents in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh," Union information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

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Prasad said a cyber coordination centre will start operating from next month to take precautions against such attacks in future. Besides, the cyber security arm of the Centre has asked banks, stock exchanges, and other vital institutions to safeguard their systems against the malware.

The biggest impact so far has been on computers used by the Andhra Pradesh police where 18 units across five districts, including Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam, have been under attack.

There were reports that the virus has infected around 10 standalone computers in the offices of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company in three blocks , Belda, Datan and Narayangarh in West Midnapore district, state power minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay confirmed.

CENTRE TAKES NOTE

The IT ministry has also reached out to agencies such as the RBI, NPCI and UIDAI, to warn them about the risks associated with WannaCry, and help to secure their systems, in order to make sure that digital payments in India are not affected.

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The Reserve Bank of India has notified all banks to operate their ATMs only after updating software systems to avoid being infected by ransomware. Automated teller machines are vulnerable to such malware attacks as they currently run on an older version of Microsoft's Windows Operating system, making the update highly necessary.

There are a total of 2.2 lakh ATMs in India, of which many old ones run on Windows XP, for which Microsoft has officially ended support in 2014.

The attack has crippled more than 2,00,000 computers across the world and struck banks, hospitals, and government agencies in several countries. The attack took place over the weekend and the number of affected users is expected to grow now that the work week has begun, when workers start logging into their devices.

ALSO READ | Wanna Cry cyber attack: Security firms looking at possible North Korea link to ransomware

ALSO READ | Wanna Cry: Hundreds of ATMs shut down across India to escape ransomware attack, RBI denies

ALSO WATCH | British Academic Explains WannaCry Ransomware Cyber Attacks

--- ENDS ---
Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce is sorry for calling a 10-year-old autistic boy a snowflake who needed a safe space.

During last Friday evenings Tucker Carlson Tonight, Bill Hemmertaking a break from his straight-news man daytime gig to sub-in for Carlsons right-wing primetime showshowed viral video of a young boy demanding an apology from Vice President Mike Pence for bumping him in the face with his sleeve during a speech.

Dutifully channeling Foxs obsession with turning minor viral incidents into hand-wringing segments about the decline of American culture at the hands of P.C. liberals, Hemmer remarked of the video: Kids these days, theyre telling the parents what to do, theyre telling the teachers what to do, and I guess now theyre telling the vice president what to do.

And long-time Fox contributor Bruce dutifully replied: I guess we're giving birth to snowflakes now, because that looked like that kid needed a safe space in that room.

She continued to rail against Michael, the young boy, claiming he pretty much stalked the vice president, comparing him to Melissa Click, the Mizzou professor who infamously threatened journalists during a rally, and suggesting he was the product of bad parenting.

He's seen it either on television, maybe he's seen it at home, perhaps, but he felt aggrieved because, I don't know, the vice president maybe slightly touched his nose, Bruce mocked. It's pretty amazing.

The segment seemed only natural given Foxs obsession with mocking those who stray from the network-approved ideological line a snowflakea derisive anti-liberal term as ubiquitous among Foxs commentariat as cuck is among the alt-right fringe.

Of course, the segment conveniently overlooked the fact that Michael is a preadolescent boy. Oh, and hes autistic.

His mother, Dr. Ingrid Herrera-Yee, appeared Monday on CNNs The Lead, telling host Jake Tapper, Michael is 10 years-old. He is on the autism spectrum. He's a military child. And he loves the White House.

Beyond the devastation such public mockery has caused for her and the Herrera-Yee family, the mother implored Fox News to apologize and for them to learn a seemingly basic lesson: Please don't use kids. It doesn't matter that he's autistic or a military kidforget all that. He's a kid. And you don't use children as examples on national television like that.

And the message was received. On Tuesday morning, during Hemmers straight-news Americas Newsroom broadcast, Bruce briefly appeared to deliver an unequivocal apology:

First of all, I am so sorry to the family. My intention was never to hurt a kid and his mom. We had absolutely no idea that Michael was on the autism spectrum and, as a gay woman and feminist, Ive spent my adult life working to improve the lives of women and children and those who are disenfranchised. I get it and I apologize. I also appreciated the boy's mothers public comments and clarity on this. A main lesson here, no matter intent, is to leave kids out of our political discussions. We certainly agree on this.
BOSTON  Khizr Khan said President Donald Trump is not protecting national security but endangering it with bigoted rhetoric and his so-called Muslim ban.

Khan spoke exclusively to The Daily Beast before accepting an award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts at its annual Bill of Rights Dinner on Monday.

When asked about the Ninth Circuits review of arguments from the federal government and attorneys on Trumps executive order limiting travel from Muslim-majority countries, Khan said, We need to have faith that presidents come and go, but these values enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights will remain not just for us but for rest of world who sees this as a beacon of hope.

Khan commented on the strategy Trump has used in saying that the Muslim ban will strengthen the nations national security.

This is not only my opinion, but the leaders of this countrys national-security agencies, who have said that these policies and these pronouncements only worsen the situation. It alienates the community, which creates room for those who don't wish us wellroom for terrorist organizations to come and exploit innocent people.

He continued that Trumps Muslim ban is not about safety, but rather because of political expediency and political bigoted statements to fulfill promises made by Trump on the campaign trail. Khan said he believes that the EO is endangering American soldiers abroad, and those who have worked in support of our armed forces.

Khizr and Ghazala Khan are the Pakistani-American parents of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in combat in 2004 during a tour in Iraq. Khan was inspecting a suspicious vehicle when a bomb went off that killed him. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery and posthumously was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart for valor.

The story of Khan was brought to Americans attention during the 2016 presidential campaign, when his parents spoke on the final day of the Democratic National Convention.

At the ACLU dinner, the Gold Star father and attorney said he and his wife were hesitant to speak publicly, but received a note from neighborhood children in their mailbox. He identified them as four fifth-graders. It said, Mr. and Mrs. Khan, we love Sofia very much. Can you make sure she is not thrown out of this country? Thats when they decided to speak at the DNC.

There, Khizr criticized Trumps then-proposed ban on Muslim immigration, which has since partially come to fruition with his January executive order. He said, Let me ask you: Have you ever read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words liberty, and equal protection of the law.

In the days that followed, Trump implied that Ghazala Khan was silenced, saying, maybe she wasnt allowed to have anything to say. The comments drew the ire of Democrats and Republicans alike.

She later published an op-ed in The Washington Post to respond. The Khans campaigned with Hillary Clinton during the last month of the campaign.

Khan has seen friends affected by the temporary travel ban in January, prior to the stays of removal enacted by several courts.

I know a couple that refused to come back, Khan said. They were teaching at American universities and would not subject themselves to this. Our students and institutions are deprived of them.

He said the same thing is happening to technology workers who are employed through visas from other countries, and cited that 30 percent of U.S. Nobel laureates have been foreign-born. He said they say, I will go to Canada. I will go elsewhere, adding I remain concerned that my nation is losing a tremendous amount of contribution and entrepreneurship from immigrants.

Khan concluded in his speech with a call to action for people to go to town halls. Never underestimate the power of your voice. I am so grateful. Thank you for this honor.
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has long been considered one of the best generals of his generationa scholar-soldier with a reputation for speaking truth to power.

All of which made the National Security Advisers appearance Tuesday in the White House briefing room extra bizarre. Over the course of 17 muddled minutes, he all-but-admitted that President Donald Trump shared classified information with representatives of the Russian government. Then he claimed that the media was jeopardizing national security by reporting on the disclosure of such sensitive information. Then McMaster said some of the information actually wasnt so sensitivein fact, you could read about it in the press. It all climaxed with McMaster insisting that Trump didnt know where this classified information came from (according to The New York Times, it was Israeli intelligence), but was totally justified in giving it to the Russians, anyway. In the process, the generalwho literally wrote the book about standing up to presidential authoritywas forced to play press flack for an administration reluctant to share key details. Sean Spicer , with less hair.

It was part of a dizzying performance by a White House where confused, head-spinning explanations have become a daily occurrence.

"Gen. McMaster is a respected individual. He's clearly trying to protect the president, and I respect that. But I don't see how you can defend the president of the United States sharing sensitive, classified information with Russia," said Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I understand that his staff would like to think this is overblown, but then the president came back and said he did it! It looks like he is acknowledging it."

Between McMasters appearance and an off-camera briefing from Spicer later in the day, the White Houses public line was clear, even if its narrative of events surrounding the presidents meeting with Russian diplomats was not. The real problem, they say, isnt that the president divulged information that the White House still has not denied was classifiedits that someone in the meeting told The Washington Post about it.

Our national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality and those releasing information to the press that could be connected to other information thats publicly available to make Americans more vulnerable, McMaster said. He called leaks to the media the real issue.

That talking point reflects the White Houses crisis communications strategy in the wake of the Posts report, which claimed that Trump had shared sensitive intelligence details with the Russians that included the city in ISIS territory in which an allied intelligence serviceIsraels, the New York Times reported on Tuesdayobtained information about potential attacks on the U.S. homeland.

Israeli officials in Washington declined to comment on The New York Times report. "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Israel's Ambassador Ron Dermer said in a statement emailed to The Daily Beast.

But the White House had plenty to say. Asked by The Daily Beast on Monday night if this controversy would accelerate President Trumps demands for a major crackdown on national-security leaks, a senior White House official replied,  definitely .

"You should expect to hear a lot about [IC leaks and] fake news , the official added.

By Tuesday morning, the president was angrily tweeted about find[ing] the LEAKERS in the intelligence community, and his National Security Adviser was busy touting the new company line.

But even as the White House tried to spin reporters on the leak, it was all but silent on Capitol Hill, where even leading Republicans said they were almost entirely in the dark about what was said at last weeks meetingand what was not.

"My major concern right now is that I dont know what the president said, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, told reporters on Tuesday. I want to talk to people who were in the room. I'd like to think somebody from the White House who was in the room is going to get on the phone and tell me what they said. I've been trying to get [a phone call] all morning. Maybe they're busy."

The West Wing has been engulfed this month in a seemingly perpetual state of chaos and confusion, including the shambolic handling of FBI Director James Comeys ouster . In recent days, according to multiple White House sources, Trump has grown absolutely  furious  with his senior staff and advisers, who keep trying, and often failing, to keep up with a boss who repeatedly undercuts and blames, and throws them under the bus.

Its a situation that White House staff and senior aides will often concede is a disaster of the presidents own fumbling creation.

At this point Im wondering if well ever be able to stop talking about Russia, a White House staffer vented to The Daily Beast on Monday. Its totally self-inflicted.

McMaster has been widely touted as one of the  adults in the room who could help curb some of the worst impulses of a uniquely dysfunctional and new administration. His combat tours in Iraq are near-legendary; his book, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam, is considered a modern classic in the genre. McMaster was supposed to be a major departure from the disastrous and brief tenure of Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn , and was supposed to serve as a colder-headed check on the 45th presidents impulses. But by Tuesday morning, the general was playing clean-upa full-time job for Trumps White House team that has left aides exhausted and literally face-palming .

All the while, McMaster appeared to confirm some key aspects of information from the Post report. He defended the presidents reported decision to share the name of the city in ISIS territory where the intelligence was gathered, but said that that detail could have been gleaned in any case from existing open source reporting. The president couldnt have revealed the sources and methods behind the intelligence in question, McMaster said, because he had not been briefed on that information prior to the meeting.

That admission reflects Trumps explicit preference for brevity in his intelligence briefings, which a former senior intelligence official described as a break from the practices of past administrations, including President Obamas.

The CIA has tailored its daily presidential briefing, at the presidents request, to a one-page bullet-point summary, and a few extra pages of text, said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of those briefings.

Trump sometimes asks the source of a particular intelligence report, and if he asks, the briefers answer, CIA chief Mike Pompeo said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last month. But it is not unusual or unheard of that he might not know the source of everything he's being briefed onbecause of the brevity of the report and also because unlike Obama, he doesn't enjoy getting into the minutiae as much.

Though Trump had not been thoroughly briefed on the intelligence at issue, what he did share with the Russians was consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president any leaders with whom hes engaged, McMaster said on Tuesday.

Asked whether that information had been cleared for disclosure to the Russians by relevant federal authorities, McMaster suggested that the presidents comments were extemporaneous. He made the decision [to share that information] in the context of the conversation.

McMasters focus on leaks to the press as the more troubling national security threat reflects an emerging White House strategy to crack down on leaks from what the president considers a hostile cadre of Obama administration holdovers and career intelligence officials who oppose his presidency.

McMasters performance at Tuesdays briefing reflected that tension between the administration and the press, a White House staffer said. I thought he did well with what he had. Youre constrained in terms of what you can talk about, and when youre on the record you cant share things that a leaker violating those rules can share. So were already at a disadvantage in terms of the press.

Another White House aide, sounding resigned, simply stated that he did the best he could with what he was handed.

On Capitol Hill Republicans are showing exasperation with the constant drama that seems to dominate this White House.

"There's some alignments that need to take place over there, and I think they're fully aware of that. Just the decision-making processes, and everybody being on the same page, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told The Daily Beast, something that he has conveyed this "very directly to principals there."

"Whenever there's drama going on over there, it's tougher for the agenda here. But I suppose it's going to continue, so I'll have to get used to it, added GOP Sen. Jeff Flake.

The House Intelligence Committee is set to be briefed by CIA Director Mike Pompeo Tuesday evening, a committee aide told The Daily Beast. The meeting was previously scheduled. But it is sure to bring questions about the latest fiasco to hit the White House.
Since The Daily Beasts original Lost Girls investigation last summer, additional evidence and archives have come to light, forcing a re-think of our conclusions. We now know that more than two dozen other victims also were reported in the same region of Panama, including a young woman from the United States found murdered earlier this year. A return trip to the scene of these eventsas well as renewed sleuthing by best-selling author Dr. Kathy Reichs and other forensic specialistsprovides a fresh take on these cold cases.

In the first chapter of this series, we traveled to the last place Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two young Dutch women killed three years ago, were known to have been alive and apparently signalling for help. In the second chapter, we looked at the usual and unusual suspects and witnesses in the Lost Girls case. In the third chapter, we visited the Serpent River, where key evidence was foundand where we discovered it had been universally misinterpreted. In this article we visit a Panama morgue, and in the next and last segment we will look at whether the case of American Catherine Johannet, strangled to death in February, may fit into a larger pattern of murder cover-ups.

BOQUETE, PanamaTheres an old saw among forensic anthropologists and archaeologists that the truth is in the bones.
It is now clear that Western security experts view the ability of terrorists to weaponize laptops as the most serious threat to aviation since 9/11. As The Daily Beast first reported last week, the Department of Homeland Security is considering banning ban laptops in all cabins on U.S.-bound flights from Europe due to the threat.

Commercial aviation has always been the No. 1 target of terrorists. The successful downing of an airliner creates an economic effect that lasts far beyond the horror of the eventit took the airline industry years to recover from the 2001 attacks and cost billions of dollars to completely change airport security.

Various attempts to repeat that success have so far faileda shoe converted to a bomb, underpants concealing explosives, and, on a cargo flight, a printer cartridge that only at the last minute was found to contain an explosive device. The defenses against such attempts have now apparently forced the bomb makers to miniaturize the explosive charge to a point where it can be concealed inside the battery compartments used in larger personal electronic devices, such as tablets and laptops.

And now the revelation that the Oval Office conversation between President Trump and top Russian officials included details of intelligence warnings about laptop bombs would explain what has been driving DHSs urgent efforts to persuade European officials the devices should be banned from the cabins of all European flights to North America.

It is also very likely that the intelligence behind this move was so sensitive that U.S. officials did not wish to disclose it during the conference call they held with European Commission officials Friday. Ironically, the two sides are now due to meet in Brussels amid a firestorm of alarm about the exposure by the president of information that could help the Russians and others to trace the source of the intelligence and thereby jeopardize international collaboration in the fight against terrorism.

As Chris Abbott, head of an international team of former intelligence and military officials told the Daily Beast: The U.K intelligence community was already extremely angry over Trumps assertion that GCHQ [Britains equivalent of the National Security Agency] helped Obama wiretap the Trump campaign. This is not conducive to healthy intelligence-sharing relationships. The U.S. intelligence and diplomatic communities are going to be cleaning up after this blunder for a long time.

From the beginning with Richard Reid, the attempted shoe bomber in 2001, the new generation of bomb makers understood that they did not need a large suitcase device like the one that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988, which would never get through todays baggage screening technology. Instead, they targeted the airplanes most vulnerable part: the skin of the fuselage.

In effect, they were planning a two-stage bomb in which they had to provide only the first stage, an explosion just large enough to rip a hole in the fuselage. The airplane itself then became the devastating second stage. A bomb that ripped open the pressurized cabin at cruise altitude of 35,000 feet would trigger an explosive decompression. That would lead to an almost instantaneous structural breakupand, in some circumstances even to a third explosion when the fuel tanks ignited.

So the bomb makers were always looking to combine as small a charge as would be effective: with a suicide bomber placed in a window seat, where the blast would be most likely to blow a hole in the airplanes skinideally from a seat over the wings, which happens also to be above the main fuel tank.

That is why the new urgency about the threat posed by laptop bombs can be traced back to February 2016, when an Airbus A320 had a hole blown in its fuselage in exactly that fashion 15 minutes after it took off from Mogadishu, Somalia. Luckily, the airplane was only at 14,000 feet, and although the cabin rapidly depressurized the pilot was able to return safely.

The only casualty was the bomber himself. Passengers reported that he was blown out of the airplane with bomb.

A former senior British army security expert who reviewed this bombing told The Daily Beast, The bomb was probably placed against the airframe before being detonated. The amount of explosive that can be hidden inside a laptop battery may not be effective if it was detonated elsewhere in the aircraft. (The flight was only half full, so there would have been many window seats available.)

This expert also pointed out that if a laptop bomb is placed in baggage that goes into the cargo hold, it would also be less effective: It would be among other luggage, which would absorb some of the explosive energy, and would not be sufficient to rupture the bulkhead and cause a destructive depressurization.

Nonetheless any explosion anywhere on an airplane is a huge risk, and if the nearby luggage contains other laptops with lithium-ion batteries, it might well be the beginning of a fire that would lead to the destruction of the airplane.

Chris Abbott, executive director of Open Briefing, a British think tank specializing in open source intelligence, told The Daily Beast that in the case of bombs like the one used in the cabin of the Mogadishu flight, the bomber himself would have to add at the last minute a non-metallic detonator like a powder to trigger the blast, which would be impossible in bomb placed in the cargo hold.

Creating a timed or remote non-metallic detonator that is small enough to fit in a laptop and innocent enough to evade detection seems to be the challenge.
Chelsea Manning will come back to a world that has changed even more than she has.

When the Army soldier was convicted by court martial in July 2013 for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks, coming out as a transgender woman shortly thereafter, public awareness of transgender issues was nowhere near what it is today.

Transgender soldiers could not serve openly in the military. The word transgender had never been uttered in a State of the Union address. There were no landmark transgender rights cases headed to the Supreme Court. Laverne Cox had just started her high-profile role in Orange is the New Black. North Carolina had sparked national backlash with discriminatory legislation that specifically targeted transgender bathroom use, nor had Target publicly defended its restroom policy. Caitlyn Jenner went by another name.

So when Manning is finally released on May 17much earlier than she would have been had President Obama not commuted the remainder her decades-long prison sentence this Januarywhat place will she find, if any, in the transgender movement of 2017?

I dont imagine her living a private life, said Chase Strangio, Mannings lawyer and a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, in an interview with The Daily Beast. I imagine her being incredibly engaged on issues that she cares aboutparticularly on issues of trans justice.

Manning herself is not scheduling new interviews at this time, according to a representative who told The Daily Beast: We are focused on Chelseas security and resettlement now and [in] the months immediately following her release.

In a lengthy statement released earlier this month, Manning said, For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea. I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world.

At the end of the statement, Manning hinted at possible post-release activism: I hope to take the lessons that I have learned, the love that I have been given, and the hope that I have to work toward making life better for others.

What shape that work will take, however, remains to be seen. In the immediate aftermath of her release, Manning will remain on active duty as an Army private and be eligible for health care benefits pending the ongoing appeal of her court-martial conviction, as USA Todays Tom Vanden Brook reported, noting that she could be dishonorably discharged if the appeal is not successful.

In the meantime, Manning will not be paid and Strangio has so far raised $135,000 through a GoFundMe to cover her immediate living expenses.

The focus for everyone [right now] is just getting her out of custody safely, with tools and resources set up to support her in the coming days, and weeks, and months, said Strangio.

Manning will be primarily focused on the transition out of prison the immediate aftermath of her release, said Strangio.

Held in a mens facility at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth and forced to conform to male grooming standards, the Army private successfully advocated for access to medically necessary transition-related health care, receiving approval for hormone therapy in 2015 and receiving approval for sex reassignment surgery the following year after a hunger strike.

She has reportedly attempted suicide twice, receiving a solitary confinement sentence after one attempt.

Something as seemingly simple as being able to grow out her hair will be incredibly meaningful to Manning, who made reference to her routinely forced haircuts in her statement.

Despite the fact that Manning has been allowed female hormones for years, she has been required to keep her hair no longer than two inches long. This requirement explains whyas the GoFundMe notedManning still prefers prison photos showing her with short hair rather than other images showing her wearing a wig: They capture the reality of her prison life.

That reality is about to changeand so, too, will Mannings ability to express her gender. For those who have advocated for her rights from outside of prison, Strangio included, merely watching her transition will be gratifying.

When the commutation came down [in January], I was so emotional for so many reasons, he said. But perhaps the most visceral feeling that I had in that moment was this overwhelming reliefto the point that I was feeling physical reliefjust thinking about her ability to control her body and her expression of her gender for the first time in so many years.

But it wont be too long, Strangio anticipates, before Manning reenters public life. In many ways, she never left it.

While in prison, Manning maintained an active Twitter account through her surrogates. She kept up with and commented on current events through a regular Guardian column.

Her treatment in prison drew media attention to the plight of transgender prisoners, the vast majority of whom are held in facilities that do no match their genders. As The New York Times reported in a front-page January story, Manning has been reading a diverse array of books and magazines, ranging from the Princeton Companion to Mathematics to Vanity Fair.

I look forward to her process around deciding what makes sense for her and what feels best, said Strangio. But I do feel like shes someone who thrives on engagement: intellectual engagement, emotional engagement, and just advocacy itselfand the whole driving purpose of her life in so many ways has been about service to others and service to the public.

Strangio is aware that public opinion is divided on Mannings disclosures to WikiLeaks and her subsequent conviction under the Espionage Act.

Some consider her a hero; others a traitor. YouGov / Huffington Post polling conducted in January revealed a complex public reaction to Obamas decision to commute Mannings sentence: Overall, only 33 percent of Americans approved it and 47 percent opposed.

While Democrats were far more likely to support the commutation than Republicans, a substantial 28 percent of Democrats still opposed it.

LGBT rights groups, on the other hand, have generally stood by Manning. Lambda Legal, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center all signed an ACLU letter supporting her application for clemency. The National Center for Transgender Equality sent its own letter.

The Human Rights Campaign praised the commutation decision as a reflection of Presidents Obamas strong record regarding the humane treatment of prisoners and a long commitment to LGBTQ equality. The media advocacy group GLAAD has been vocal about bad reporting on Manning that misgenders her or uses outdated terminology.

But Strangio hopes that no matter what people make of Mannings actions, they will be able to recognize her core humanity and support her transition.

Whats important is honoring the person that she is and recognizing, whether people agree with what she did or not, that shes a person of deep conviction, of deep patriotism, and of deep commitment to community and to her vision of justice, he said, noting that she has suffered an unbelievable amount at the hands of our government and is living prison with so much grace and without much bitterness.
The Reserve Bank of India has said says no ATMs in the country have been affected by WannaCry ransomware.

RBI says no ATMs in the country have been affected by WannaCry ransomware. (Representational Image via @internetofshit)

By Vishakha Saxena: Amid a widespread shutdown of ATMs across the country over fears of a WannaCry infection, the central bank today said none of the money-vending machines in the country had been hit by the ransomware.

"(There is) no impact due to ransomware anywhere in the country. Even if any ATM is not operational, it could be because of no cash or some technical upgradation which happens on regular basis. But (there has been) no small or big impact due to ransomware," a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) spokesperson told India Today.

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Hundreds of ATMs across India remained shut down today to escape the ransomware attack. On Monday, there were reports of the RBI issuing guidelines to banks to shut down ATMs, but a spokesperson categorically denied all such reports saying, "RBI has not given any directions or issued any advisory to banks to shut down their ATMs. Wrong info is floating around."

"RBI has just issued an advisory which is given most of the time in a year to all banks: to remain secured against any malware or virus, which is in the news, (and) to remain upgraded all the time," he said.

India largely unaffected: IT secretary

Along with RBI, the government also outright rejected claims of India being one of the countries worst affected by WannaCry.

CERT-IN, the government's cyber security arm, maintained that apart from five or six isolated instances, there were reports of a substantial scale of impact. India's IT backbone did not face any substantial disruption, said the government agency.

"One such incident pertains to 18 computers of Andhra Pradesh Police, and apart from that, there are five other cases. One of them (is) in Kerala where some of the panchayat computers were affected," said IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan. A multi-agency monitoring team is continuously assessing the situation round the clock, she said on the margins of a Broadband India Forum event.

In two village panchayats of Kerala, computers were hit with messages demanding $300 in virtual currency to unlock hacked files.

"Since March, the government has been on high alert. We have already installed the necessary security patches as far as the key networks are concerned. We have not got any reports of widespread infection of the ransomware," she said. Sundararajan said all cases reported so far were fragmented, and involved isolated systems or standalone machines

The government has been vehemently denying claims of WannaCry's impact on India.

On Monday, IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had maintained India was not affected by the ransomware. "Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have been affected partly. We are keeping a close eye on the situation and strengthening our cyber system," Prasad had said.

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Earlier on Saturday, National Cyber Security Advisor Gulshan Rai, who works out of the Prime Minister's Office, had told The Times of India, "There are about a 100 systems attacked in India and as of now there are no more threats."

WannaCry ransomware's impact in India may go under-reported

There is no doubt that India's cyber security problems go largely unreported. Various IT experts claim there is a high chance, "we may never get a full report of how WannaCry affected computers in India."

India's lanky response to such attacks and a generally careless attitude towards cyber security could also mean that any effect on government departments and private companies, including banks, might go under-reported.

For example, in an analysis on the government's reponse to WannaCry, indiatoday.in's technology editor Javed Anwer explains how CERT-IN itself tends to "send security advisories months after something has hit the web. It is also an agency that is mostly full of people who have no clue about what is going on the world wide web."

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Read | WannaCry cyber-attack: Bad that India is crying, but more scary is govt response

Then there's another catch. According to some security experts, Indian companies widely use pirated, outdated software. This leads to licencing issues which make it impossible for them to report their losses.

Cyber experts working with leading audit firms have told Mail Today that Indian businesses did get affected by the malware but instead of reporting it to the government, they chose to initiate internal inquiries. Experts also pointed out how there is no legal provision that makes reporting of a cyber-breach mandatory for a corporate firm.

how long until this is on my lightbulbs pic.twitter.com/pehG2KVyMj- Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) May 15, 2017

Government claims contradicted

Despite denials from Indian authorities, a preliminary report by cyber security firm Quick Heal Technologies claimed it had detected over 48,000 ransomware attack attempts in the country, with West Bengal witnessing the most incidents, along with Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi NCR, and Odisha.

The Pune-based company said 60 per cent attempts by WannaCry ransomware were targeted at enterprises, and 40 per cent on individual customers. It also claimed to have received more than 700 distress calls by customers in the last few days. The company claimed it "successfully detected" the ransomware activity and "cleaned the malicious file responsible for file encryption from all the attacked systems."

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Quick Heal Technologies' managing director Sanjay Katkar told PTI that computers running on the desktop and server editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system were most impacted. "Systems which did not apply a patch update for this vulnerability were affected by the WannaCry ransomware," he said.

Reports from international agencies have also consistently claimed that WannaCry has immensely impacted India.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at a Helsinki-based cyber security company called F-Secure, told news agency AFP that Russia and India were hit particularly hard, largely because Microsoft's Windows XP - one of the operating systems most at risk - was still widely used in the countries.

There have also been multiple reports of banks and ATMs seeing some or the other effect of WannaCry.

@Memeghnad My local SBI's passbook printing machine got infected! this looks bad.- Hemant Gautam (@ideasfoundry) May 15, 2017

Home Secretary of a India Rajeev Mehrishi cld not withdraw money in #Rajasthan due #ransomware.ATMs shut in #digital #India #WannaCry- Neeta Sharma (@NEETAS11) May 15, 2017

On Monday, Ernst & Young consultant Kartik Shinde had told Livemint a public sector bank had been affected by WannaCry. "We are currently working with a public sector bank which has been affected by the ransomware. If one system is infected, it has the ability to infect other systems which are vulnerable. The mode of infection could be anything and we are currently investigating the reason." he said.

Despite the contradicting opinions on WannaCry's effect on India, it is very clear that holes in our cybersecurity leave exposed to all kinds of hacks. Just last year, at least 3.2 million debit cards were compromised after a malware infected the systems of Hitachi Payment Services Pvt. Ltd. This latest WannaCry attack is only a reminder that India has long way to go in the realm of cyber-security.

it's like shareware ransomware pic.twitter.com/zhCQbO2vRN- Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) May 15, 2017

(With PTI inputs)

Also read: Wanna Cry malware used stolen NSA tools

--- ENDS ---
Sima Mahato, wife of Nepal Mahato along with mother-in-law Purnima Mahato and son Subrata Mahato were handed over to the Hili Migration Police of India.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: After 13 months of imprisonment in the Dinajpur District jail, two women and with a 6-year-old child returned to India today.

Sima Mahato, wife of Nepal Mahato along with mother-in-law Purnima Mahato and son Subrata Mahato were handed over to the Hili Migration Police of India through Hilly check post at 11 this morning by the Hili Migration Police of Bangladesh.

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The three belong to the Madipukur village of Bamongola thana under Maldah district.

Immigration police's Hili check post officer, in-charge (OC) Mohammad Aftab Hossain said the three were detained for illegally entering Bangladesh.

Later, a case was filed against the trio at the Hakimpur Police Station by the BGB of Hili CP camp.

After which, on June 12, 2016, the Dinajpur Court ordered them imprisonment while allowing the child to stay with the mother.

Later, after all the legal procedures, the three were handed over to Muhammad Nazir Hussein, in-charge of the Indian immigration police at Hili check post.

Also Read:

Prison van carrying Bangladesh's top militant Mufti Hannan, aides attacked

Ransomware cyber attack hits Bangladesh too, 30 cases reported so far

--- ENDS ---
The remains of a 1952 Texas A&M graduate who was shot down during the Vietnam War have been positively identified through DNA testing, according to the Association of Former Students.

Col. William "Bill" Campbell, who was reported missing 48 years ago, will be interred Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery where his wife, Claretta "Boo" Campbell, is buried.

A story on the Association of Former Students' website says that Campbell's remains were found in 2014; it took another two years before DNA testing revealed they were that of the missing pilot. The Campbell's four children and eight grandchildren were told just before Christmas.

The story of Campbell's Aggie ring has been highlighted by the Association of Former Students and the university for the last 15 years: The Department of Defense POW/MIA team in Bangkok were given the ring in 1991 by an anonymous Thai citizens. Campbell's wife, who wore it until she died four years later, had told her family she wanted the ring donated to A&M. It was done so in a special ceremony in 2002 at the Clayton W. Williams Jr. Alumni Center where it is on display with scores of others.

A classmate of Campbell's - Col. Ralph Dresser, who went to both high school and college him - will join the family in D.C. at the cemetery, according to the Association of Former Students, which said Campbell's casket will be escorted from Honolulu to Dallas and then to D.C. by his daughter's son-in-law who is an Air Force pilot.
Following years of Hearne schools spending more money than the district brings in, officials expect to again end this fiscal year with less money than they started with.

Jay Davis, the school district's business manager, said the district -- faced with incomplete records -- carried over mistakes from last year's budget into the current fiscal year. The mistakes, he said, were uncovered in a December audit by a third-party accountant.

Last week, the Hearne school board approved a budget amendment to reflect the current spending forecast, which amounts to a $2 million shortfall. The amendment brings the district's total annual expenditures to $10.2 million.

The budget adjustment comes after three years of the district overspending. According to the district, audits show the district spent $190,000 more than it earned in the 2013-2014 school year and $560,000 more in 2014-2015.

Last school year, however, the number jumped to $2.6 million. Davis said the district employees and Region 6 Education Service Center consultants who worked on this year's budget in July were unaware of the overspending and an error in last year's budget in which employee benefits were not recorded as expenses.

"We had no bank reconciliations," Davis said. "The only thing we had to go on was to look at was the budget numbers approved last year. ... We did not know when we built that budget that they had overspent that much."

In addition to the overspending, an audit released in December revealed the district had failed to budget $1 million in employee benefit costs, Davis said.

Karl Kacir, the independent accountant who audited the district, said improperly recording employee benefit expenses is not common, but he's seen it before, particularly with districts that are struggling to recover from a financial hole.

In general, Kacir said the district did not have systems in place that prevented overspending, but the district now requires all purchase orders to go through the business office, which he said is a good step.

To aid in filtering purchase requests, Davis said the district now has manuals that outline business office procedures and budget details.

In March 2016, the district's former business administrator, Mashell Pierce, came under fire when the Texas Association of School Business Officials conducted a management review at the request of the school district. A 55-page report stated Pierce failed to monitor the 2014-15 budget, resulting in the overspending of $50,000 for the period ending Aug. 31, 2015.

Davis took over as the district's business manager in July. He said with the help of outside auditors and consultants, the district is now caught up on its past four years of financial records, but he said those who put together the budget went into the project without knowing whether the expenditures matched the budget.

"The budget process generally takes about four months," he said. "We had 30 days. So we were shooting in the dark."

The district's general fund balance is estimated to be $1.9 million at the end of the school's current fiscal period in August, down from $5.6 million at the end of the 2012-2013 period.

In describing the situation to Hearne trustees, Davis created a list of bullet points outlining the details of the amendments.

On the last line, he wrote, "overspending will no longer be an option."
Texas A&M University anthropology professor Darryl de Ruiter is in the midst of his annual trip to South Africa, where he is continuing his work analyzing the discoveries coming out of the Rising Star cave system -- a site so expansive and rich with potential he said it could take decades to fully understand.

De Ruiter's visit to the site this month coincides with the announcement of his team's latest findings, which provide insights into the place of the newly discovered species of human -- dubbed Homo naledi -- alongside our human ancestors in Africa.

Largely making his contributions from his office in College Station, more than 9,000 miles away from the cave system, de Ruiter said he has worked almost continuously researching the uncovered remains over the past two years.

While his teaching duties keep him in Aggieland for the majority of the year, de Ruiter said he makes a trip to the South African site "at least once a year to gather data and examine any new fossil material."

De Ruiter and his colleagues first made international headlines in September 2015 with the announcement they had discovered Homo naledi remains in the cave system roughly 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg.

The latest revelation came during the exploration of a second chamber -- referred to as the Dinaledi Chamber -- in the cave system. De Ruiter said the chamber is just under 150 meters from the Lesedi Chamber where the initial remains were discovered.

"The new dates for the Dinaledi material demonstrate that another species of hominin coexisted with modern humans in Africa," de Ruiter said. "This will cause us to reconsider our understanding of the archaeological record of early humans."

The discovery is particularly significant, as it would be the first known species of hominin to live alongside early Homo sapiens -- though there is not yet evidence of interaction between the two. Estimates place the lifetimes of Homo naledi found in the Dinaledi Chamber at between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago.

The new information supports previous theories that members of the Homo naledi species were "systematically exploring the Rising Star cave system and using it to systematically dispose of their dead," de Ruiter said.

In a statement released by the Johannesburg-based University of Witwatersand, team leader Lee Berger said the possibility of another species of hominin existing at the same time as Homo sapiens calls into question a number of other previously held beliefs.

"We can no longer assume that we know which species made which tools, or even assume that it was modern humans that were the innovators of some of these critical technological and behavioral breakthroughs in the archaeological record of Africa," Berger said. "If there is one other species out there that shared the world with 'modern humans' in Africa, it is very likely there are others. We just need to find them."

After the initial discovery of the Homo naledi remains, de Ruiter said, numerous individual bones have been uncovered. Altogether, more than 131 specimens have been discovered.

De Ruiter said he expects "several more years of exploration, mapping and fossil recovery" in the cave system. More than 2 kilometers of underground passages have been mapped in the system thus far.

"For the next step, we are continuing excavations in the Dinaledi and Lesedi chambers, we are exploring further in the Rising Star cave system and we are seeking out new cave systems to explore," he said.
August 21, 1950 - May 13, 2017

Nancy Dianne Wiese, 66, of College Station passed away May 13 at the Hospice Brazos Valley Inpatient Facility in Bryan.

Family will receive friends from 6  8 p.m. Tuesday, May 16 at Memorial Funeral Chapel in College Station. The funeral service will be held at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 17 at Christ United Methodist Church. Interment will follow at Wellborn Cemetery.

Nancy was born August 21, 1950 in Bryan the daughter of Rudy and Evelyn (Dowling) Wiese. She retired from Texas A&M after many years of service. Nancy loved all animals, she was an avid bird watcher and enjoyed keeping her feeders full to watch the various birds that made her yard their home. She was a member of Christ United Methodist Church.

Nancy is preceded in death by her parents; grandparents, Robert Cecil and Tennie Dowling, Ernst and Anna Wiese; and a nephew, Jacob Wiese.

She is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, Mark and Alice Wiese; sisters and brothers-in-law, Bridget and Greg Jones, Polly and John Wilson, Carla and Edmundo Lujan; nieces and nephews, Christen Wiese, Amanda Jones, Sam Jones and wife Perla Jones, Ben Jones, Hannah Wilson and Analisa Lujan; great-nieces, Ruby, Penelope and Juniper Jones; aunts, Lillie Jackson and Pat Wiese; uncle, James Dowling and wife Sue; and special cousin and best friend, Joann Oliver.

In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to Hospice Brazos Valley, 502 West 26th Street, Bryan, Texas 77803 or Aggieland Humane Society, 5359 Leonard Road, Bryan, Texas 77807.
Post-Brexit trade priorities - dirty energy



Since Brexit, UKEF's budget for exports to Qatar and Angola - both huge hydrocarbon exporters - have been substantially increased.

Trade secretary Liam Fox has also pledged 1 billion in export finance for trade with Colombia as part of a 5 year strategic partnership with the Colombian government to develop its offshore oil reserves. Fox told Colombian officials that he wants the UK to be the partner of choice for the country's nascent offshore oil sector.

These developments have led to concern that the use of the export finance budget to support fossil fuel exports will accelerate further post-Brexit - undermining efforts to tackle climate change.

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas told Energydesk: "With 2016 now confirmed as the hottest year on record, it is simply astounding that the Government is still funding fossil fuel projects through export finance - never mind that such support may increase over the coming years."

"It seems clear that this Government is set on negotiating a series of reckless trading relationships that will undermine many decades worth of environmental policies, whilst simultaneously failing to grasp the economic opportunities that come from the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

"It is a sign of the depths to which this Government has sunk that fossil fuels, the dirty energy of the past, may be the go-to for our trade deals of the future."

Oligarchs with links to Putin

The latest UKEF announcements could add to a series of controversial deals made by the UK's export credit agency.

In October 2013 UKEF guaranteed a 45m loan to a Russian company part owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov. The loan was made to help Russian firm Sibur Holding purchase the design of a petrochemical plant from Ineos, one of the world's largest petrochemicals companies.

At the time, Sibur was majority owned by two billionaire oligarchs - Leonid Mikhelson and Gennady Timchenko. Timchenko was placed under US sanctions in March 2014 - months after UKEF agreed the loan guarantee with Sibur - for being part of the Putin administration's 'inner circle'.

The US Treasury department stated that "Gennady Timchenko is one of the founders of Gunvor, one of the world's largest independent commodity trading companies involved in the oil and energy markets. Timchenko's activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin. Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds."

Shamalov, who was Sibur's deputy chairman and a minority shareholder at the time of the deal, has since increased his stake in the company to become a major shareholder.

Brazil corruption scandal

UKEF has provided loan guarantees worth 1.3bn to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras since 2011. This includes 555m after the Petrobras corruption scandal broke in March 2014.

The company is accused of colluding with a cartel of construction companies to inflate the cost of contracts and pay billions in kickbacks to politicians.

Last year Energydesk revealed that UKEF had issued a new 245m loan at the height of the political crisis sparked by the Petrobras revelations.

In March 2016 - as people took to the streets across the Brazil to protest the scandal - UKEF was agreeing yet another line of credit with the oil company at the heart of the controversy.

The confidential database reveals that the total level of support for Petrobras in 2016 alone was 361m. This enabled the company to purchase equipment for developing offshore oil fields from UK-based companies.

Russian coal mines

Between 2011 and 2016 UKEF provided 109m to underwrite exports of mining equipment to coal mines in Russia - despite the agency's commitment not to support "investment in dirty fossil-fuel energy production".

The majority of the credit - 98m - has supported deals between US-owned mining equipment firm Joy Global (UK) Ltd and Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK).

The latter is one of the world's largest coal exporters - including to the UK - and is majority owned by billionaire oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, through offshore firms in Cyprus and Bermuda. When contacted by Energydesk regarding these deals, a UKEF spokesperson said:

"UKEF is committed to high standards of environmental, social and human rights risk management. UKEF follows the OECD Common Approaches for Officially Supported Export Credits and Environmental and Social Due Diligence (OECD Common Approaches) and the Equator Principles - which inform how Export Credit Agencies and International Financial Institutions, such as UKEF, should address potential environmental, social and human rights issues."

Confidential database

The document obtained by Private Eye provides the most comprehensive list to date of the deals entered into by UKEF since 2000.

Much of the information has not been made public before due to concerns over commercial confidentiality and the potential to embarrass companies deemed too risky to export to without insurance.

It also compiles 16 years worth of deals previously spread across UKEF annual reports - making it possible to analyse trends and levels of support for different sectors and companies.

This has enabled Energydesk and Private Eye to present the most complete picture yet of the scale of UKEF support for the fossil fuel industry, as well as the sometimes controversial nature of these deals.

Lawrence Carter is Senior Investigative Reporter at Greenpeace Energydesk. He tweets @lawrencecarter1

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

View all energy deals from the database here.
Making a return to our two favourite summer locations, Mount Maunganui and Nelson in early January 2023, we've got whiff of the first release lineup and me oh my, yes boy
Brynn Casady makes most of her volleyball season at Spoon River College

Casady played defensive specialist, libero and outside hitter at various times during the season
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NORWALK  Seven students sat with their teacher around a large circular table in the cafeteria at Tracey Elementary School on Tuesday afternoon.

It was lunchtime and, in between bites of waffles and potatoes, the fifth-graders would chat with their teacher, Kenneth Wood, about everything from weekend plans to questions they had from class.

The scene somewhat resembled that of a family dinner, with students and teachers joking, talking about their lives and generally enjoying a meal together.

To Tracey Elementary School Principal Theresa Rangel that was precisely the point.

The more we know our students, Rangel said, the better connected we are and the better we are able to teach students.

Its a window into getting to know each other and making an agreement to build something wonderful, she added, which is bright futures for our students.

When Rangel first came to the school last school year, she sought out a way to build on what was already in place to give the school some sort of specialty.

After talks with Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski, Rangel decided to build on what the former principal had put in place and develop the school around a specialization in character education.

I thought character education would be something that would resonate with the staff as well as felt real to me, Rangel said. Its something we could sink our teeth into and have a positive impact on our students.

Adamowski suggested a few schools for Rangel to visit that specialized in character education. After visiting Breakthrough Magnet School in Hartford, Rangel was inspired.

So, she brought aspects of that school back to Tracey. Case in point: the family style lunches.

At the beginning of this school year, Rangel implemented the family-style lunches in what is now officially called the Cubs Cafe.

Though it isnt the teachers formal lunch time, teachers now join students at round tables in the lunchroom to promote conversation. Kindergarten classes do the same in their classrooms.

The result? A lunchtime where students talk with teachers about weekend plans, summer vacation plans, sports, hobbies and more, giving staff a unique opportunity to build relationships and better understand the students they work with every day

Our goal was to try to minimize the incidents of things happening at lunch. Every time the teacher was away, some sort of drama would unfold. It was problematic my first year here, Rangel said. Its been a game changer for our school. There has been so few referrals to the office from lunch, its almost nonexistent.

The initiative has been praised by many in the Norwalk community, including the Board of Education which spotlighted it at its latest meeting.

Board of Education Chairman Mike Lyons at the meeting congratulated Tracey staff members for their work.

Its great to see local initiatives like this, he said. You guys came up with a great idea on your own and made it happen.

The initiative seemed to garner the approval of those inside the school as well.

Wood, while sitting next to a group of his fifth-graders, said the experience has allowed him to further build relationships with his students, which in turns helps in almost every aspect of the the classroom.

Rangel also noted that it can help teachers understand what a student may be going through at home, which can speak volumes about their behavior and productivity in the classroom.

Though they arent in it for those reasons, the students seemed to like the change too.

If there is a situation that happens, there is always a teacher there to resolve it, said student Myles Lynch.

Classmate Alvin Juarez said he likes eating lunch with his teacher because it allows him to develop a relationship past listening to each other talk in class.

Litzy Espinoza said she simply likes the fact that the students can sit and talk to Wood.

Sophia OMalley enjoys the ability to ask questions she may have from class.

Daly Avila likes the ability to have fun and joke around with the teachers.

Adrian Tacure said it leaves another option for students seeking a lunch friend.

After all, Sometimes, people sit by themselves and teachers, Tacure said, can make good company.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-354-1049; @kevinedschultz
NORWALK  Two juveniles were taken into custody following an early morning burglary at a Crooked Trail home.

Police say that a homeowner woke up at around 1:54 a.m. Tuesday to find the two entering the garage and rifling through vehicles in the driveway. The homeowner yelled out the window and the two males fled on foot, police said.
The performance lineup has been announced for the 2017 Hear Grand Island concert series.

The concerts will happen every Friday evening from June 2 through Aug. 4 at Railside Plaza downtown. The events will start at 6 p.m. with vendors and beer. Music will start at 7 p.m.

Launched in 2016 and created in the model of Hear Lincoln and Hear Omaha, the 10-week downtown Grand Island series features free, all-ages concerts showcasing Nebraska talent in a range of genres. Last years concerts each attracted an average of more than 500 music fans.

More than 30 musical acts from Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island and surrounding areas will perform at this years Hear Grand Island. Headliners will include the likes of Freakabout, Mitch Gettman, Laughing Falcon and Clarence Tilton. Additionally, nine acts will feature at least one Grand Island-native musician.

The following acts will perform:

June 2  Whiskey Bent*, Natural States, Whiskey Drinkers Union

June 9  Unforesaken Allies*, Minor Movements*, Baker Explosion

June 16  The Bishops, Jump the Tiger, the Shineys

June 23  Clarence Tilton, Domestic Blend, Dazzle Ships

June 30  Belles & Whistles*, Bed Rest, Bell Mine

July 7  Laughing Falcon, CJ Clydesdale Band, Upset

July 14  Mitch Gettman, Hall County Incident, Cosmic Smiths

July 21  The Hangin Cowboys, Briner*, Ojai

July 28  Freakabout*, Hottman Sisters, Regulation

Aug 4  James Lee Band, Cruz Control*, Skyloft*

*Act features Grand Island native

Hear Grand Island is made possible by the following sponsors: Bosselman, Chesterman Co. Coca-Cola, the Chocolate Bar, CMBA Architects, Eagle Distributing, Fonner Park, the Glass Bar, city of Grand Island, Grand Theatre, Grand Island Independent, J. Alfred Prufrocks, Jerrys Sheet Metal, Laura Elizabeth Photography, Mary Lanning Healthcare, Middleton Electric, Principal Financial Group, Railside, Ryder Rosacker McCue & Huston Insurance, T-Shirt Engineers, Sin City, Wave Pizza Co. Grand Island, Wave Pizza Co. Hastings.

Hear Grand Island 2017 Spotify Playlist:
Three of the women who announced the YWCAs new high-level fundraiser on Monday will tackle the challenge themselves, leaving no doubt that the YWCA is led by brave women.

To raise money for the YWCA, members of the public will have the chance on Aug. 5 to rappel down Tower 217, a 105-foot-tall building in downtown Grand Island.

YWCA representatives Mandy Burkett, Shari Kearney and Ellen Hornady will be among the people dropping seven stories.

Burkett, who is the YWCAs executive director, said the idea sounds exciting and fun.

I dont know why you wouldnt want to, she said, laughing.

How does Kearney feel about it? Terrified, she said.

One of the women said she doesnt have a fear of heights. She has a fear of falling.

Up to 92 people will be able to scale down the building  two at a time. To qualify, those people must raise $1,000 or more for the Grand Island YWCA.

Tower 217, which is at 217 N. Locust St., is the former Masonic Temple. The building is owned by Charles and John Anson.

One person who will probably take part is developer Amos Anson.

Theyre trying to rope me into it, he said.

In signing up themselves, the women noted that the YWCA is dedicated to empowering women.

But both males and females are invited to take part.

There is also no age restriction. Rappelers, also known as edgers, simply have to weigh between 100 and 300 pounds. The fundraiser will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Organizers hope to attract at least 60 participants. Safety gear will be provided. Twenty volunteers are needed.

At a news conference on Monday, Burkett, Kearney, Hornady and Tami Towne told the story of dropping seven stories.

Towne, who is the event chairwoman, will raise $1,000 herself and give someone else the chance to make the descent.

In planning the event, the YWCA says Over the Edge With YWCA will be distinctive and thrilling. The organization also says its taking its fundraising to new heights.

Over the Edge With YWCA replaces the organizations previous Wine, Women and Purses event.

The YWCA is the first organization in Grand Island to stage such an event and the third in Nebraska, Burkett said. It will be the first YWCA in Nebraska to go over the edge.

The YWCAs partner in the fundraiser is a special events organization called Over the Edge Global.

For its help, Over the Edge Global will receive 10 percent of the funds raised.

The Over the Edge organization has a lot of resources that they provide to us, said Kearney, who will be the contact for the edgers.

Once people sign up, Kearney will call them to offer tips, motivation and assistance in reaching their fundraising goal.

People who register will get their own fundraising page, which they can share with friends and family via email and social media.

In order to register or learn more, visit www.overtheedgecwe.com/grandisland.

The phone number of the YWCA is (308) 384-9922.
* 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.
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Linkedin Tenggara Strategics (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 14:16 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a107b2d 3 Opinion #2017JakartaElection,2017JakartaElection,democracy,politics,election,West-Java Free

The Jakarta Elections Commissions (KPU Jakarta) official vote count shows that Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno won the 2017 gubernatorial election with a 15 percent margin. The pair secured 57.96 percent of the vote against 42.04 percent garnered by the incumbent ticket of Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama and Djarot Syaiful Hidayat.

The official vote count also shows that Anies-Sandi prevailed in all municipalities and the one regency in the capital. Many voters in West Jakarta and North Jakarta who had picked Ahok-Djarot in the first round seem to have switched their support in the runoff. On the other hand, Ahok was still facing difficulties in penetrating Anies first-round strongholds, especially South Jakarta. This was evident in the significant surge of votes for Anies in South Jakarta in the runoff.

Electorally, the result of the Jakarta election will especially influence coalition patterns in three upcoming major regional elections in Java. In next years West Java election, coalition patterns are expected to follow what we saw in Jakarta. There is a good chance that the Gerindra Party and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) will collaborate again, as the Jakarta election proved their good chemistry. On the other hand, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the Nasdem Party and Hanura will establish a coalition, especially if Gerindra and the PKS send strong signals they will indeed carry on their partnership. Once again, the Democratic Party will act as an alternative political choice and may very well emerge as a dark horse.

Changing voters

The victory of Anies and Sandi was influenced by the behavior of the middle class, which Ahok-Djarots campaign team and political consultants could not well predict. Amid the see-saw race between the two tickets, it was the middle class that determined Anies solid win. Overconfidence on the part of Ahok-Djarot supporters and their poor grassroots campaign also played a crucial role in Ahoks defeat. The political machine in the parties that supported the incumbent pair are believed to have lacked solidity in campaigning for Ahok. Furthermore, Ahok took too long to establish communications with moderate religious organizations, including Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama.

Silent voters

A recent survey by Jakarta-based think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that around 17 percent of voters refused to state their choice in the runoff. This 17 percent could be either distributed evenly among both candidates or mainly belong to one of the tickets. CSIS then conducted several investigations to project the votes of these silent voters in order to find out where this 17 percent went.

The analysis showed that the silent voters, those who kept their choice a secret, tended to vote for Anies and Sandi. These silent voters were commonly middle-class people who usually concealed their preference, unlike lower-income people. These middle-class voters had at least mid-level educations and incomes.

The survey shows that voters with at least an undergraduate degree were more likely to conceal their choices than voters with lower levels of education. This is similar to income, in which there was a tendency that the richer a person was, the more likely that they would keep their choices to themselves.

There were fewer voters in Ahok-Djarot strongholds who kept their choices secret compared to those in Anies-Sandi strongholds, such as in East Jakarta and Central Jakarta. These two municipalities in fact had the highest percentage of survey respondents keeping their choices secret. Meanwhile, in South Jakarta, almost half of the survey respondents said that they were sure to vote for Anies.

When it comes to political choices, respondents who said they voted for Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa in the 2014 presidential election and were dissatisfied with the governments performance thus far preferred to keep their choices a secret, more than respondents who said they voted for President Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla and were satisfied with the governments performance.

High political tensions during the election prompted the middle class to remain silent about their choices. Influencing factors included a middle class reluctance to be associated with certain candidates and an effort to avoid being labeled as intolerant, ignorant or other negative associations.

One of the failures of the incumbent tickets campaign team members was their inability to understand the psychology of middle class silent voters. Excessive trust levels among Ahoks supporters, which hindered the ability to read their opponents movements, also resulted in defeat.

Parties loyalty

On a side note, in the runoff election, political parties that supported Agus Yudhoyono in the first round seemed to have split. The United Development Party (PPP), both the Romahurmuziy and Djan Faridz camps, decided to support Ahok. The National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Democrats chose to remain neutral. The National Mandate Party (PAN), on the other hand, supported Anies-Sandi. The CSIS survey found that Anies-Sandi voters were more loyal than Ahok-Djarot voters. This was also apparent in Kompas dailys exit poll.

In the run-off, the PPPs support for Ahok and Djarot did not help much. Kompas exit poll showed that Anies voters (including PKS and Gerindra voters) were more solid than Ahok voters. The exit poll found that 99 percent of PKS voters and 93 percent of Gerindra voters chose Anies. Among the parties that supported Ahok, only the PDI-P had solid support, with 93 percent of its supporters voting for Ahok. Meanwhile, despite the PPP and Hanura officially supporting Ahok-Djarot, many of their supporters ended up voting for Anies-Sandi.

Party loyalty in Indonesia is generally poor. A political partys official backing does not necessarily translate into its supporters political choices. A constellation of party loyalty at the elite level does not reflect loyalty at the grassroots level. Furthermore, mobilizations by parties supporting Ahok-Djarot were often too little, too late (including last-minute support from the PKB and PPP).

Future projections

Challenges for the new Jakarta governor will be to negotiate compromises with the city council, considering that Gerindra and the PKS, which backed Anies in the election, only control 24.53 percent of council seats. The parties that backed Ahok (Nasdem, the PDI-P, Golkar and Hanura) have 49.06 percent of the seats while Agus supporters, namely the Democratic Party, the PKB, PAN and the PPP, have 26.42 percent of the seats.

As such, Anies efforts to realize his campaign promises will not be a walk in the park. He may even have to soften up on a few of his campaign pledges. Good relations with the city council must be maintained to ensure that the council approves the city draft budget (RAPBD) he proposes.

Another challenge for the Jakarta governor-elect will concern continuation of a transparent budgeting process through the e-budgeting mechanism. Anies and Sandis daunting challenge is to prove their seriousness in eliminating the opportunities for corruption within the budgeting process.

***

Backgrounder is an independent research-based analysis by Tenggara Strategics, a business and investment research and advisory institution established by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), The Jakarta Post and Prasetiya Mulya University. Tenggara Strategics provides the business community with reliable business intelligence to enable them to tap into the valuable opportunities available when doing business in Indonesia.

---------------

We are looking for information, opinions, and in-depth analysis from experts or scholars in a variety of fields. We choose articles based on facts or opinions about general news, as well as quality analysis and commentary about Indonesia or international events. Send your piece to academia@jakpost.com. For more information click here.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
In this statement, (issued on Monday, 15 May 2017) Ghalibaf attacked Rouhanis faction: I knew I will face such a complicated and dangerous situation. It was clear that in order to bring a fundamental change to the current situation, there was no solution but to fight the four percentage of our population, who, for many years, have been controlling the political and economical arteries of our country, and not only have never resolved the most important social and economical problems, but on the contrary have stirred crisis especially recession and unemployment by preferring their own interests and engaging in vast unlawful action. 

By calling Rouhani an opportunist, Ghalibaf adds: It is very costly to fight against those so-called revolutionary opportunists, since this trend, has been biting slowly at the roots of the revolution. They are not only a group in basic ideological conflict with original revolutionaries, but a movement seeing its interests in danger.

A state-run website affiliated to Rouhanis faction affirms: In spite of lashing Jahangiri and calling him a cover and defender of Rouhani and whose presence only increased the elections costs, Ghalibaf was the first to withdraw from the election.

The website adds: although some sources said that propably Raissi will withdraw in favor of Ghalibaf, but Ghalibafs vote loss over the recent weeks prompted him to withdraw.
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Linkedin M. Taufiqurrahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017

Despite United States President Donald Trumps quirks and idiosyncrasies, it is easy to see why the Israeli public and government welcome his ascent to power. After Barack Obamas eight-year strained relationship, which included his frosty relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his constant badgering over the settlement issue, Israelis can now draw a sigh of relief. After all, Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem  probably unaware of the complexity of the situation on the ground.

But just like any other US president in the past who has attempted to bring a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump soon discovered there would be no quick fix to the problem. Soon after being sworn in Trump talked about the possibility of supporting a one-state solution.

He changed his mind after a meeting with president of the Palestinian authority Mahmoud Abbas earlier this month, where the billionaire president expressed his support for Palestinian selfdetermination. Now Trump has woken up to the reality that theres no solution other than the two-state solution. Trumps visit next week to Jerusalem will be the opening shot to pursue his plan for the peace process, which his aides describe as the ultimate deal.
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 08:35 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f46ab 4 Editorial #Editorial,cyberattacks,cyber-security,ransomware,WannaCry Free

It is not exaggerating to consider a global cyberattack like the one in which ransomware Wannacry infected hundreds of thousands of computers across the world running Microsoft Windows, including in Indonesia, an act of terrorism, due to its escalating impacts.



In Indonesia, the malware affected critical resources, blocking access to data belonging to two Jakarta hospitals treating people with heart problems and cancer, two life-threatening diseases. The cyberattack could have claimed many lives had the malware prevented doctors and medical workers from performing emergency treatment or wreaked havoc on our national health system.



In this interconnected world such damage is perhaps beyond our imagination, but the brouhaha the hacker group Shadow Broker has created should serve as yet another reminder of the danger. Next time they could paralyze our warfare capabilities.



The government certainly deserves credit for quickly responding to the escalating cybersecurity threat. While disseminating manuals to prevent infections, Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara has called for calm so as to prevent panic that would only exacerbate the crisis and trigger unnecessary actions.



However, since hackers will never stop their attempts to break into and seize control of our computer systems, be it for personal pride or for profit  as in the current ransomware case  or even for political reasons, and since both state and non-state actors can launch such attacks, strengthening the countrys cyber defense is non-negotiable.



Before the ransomware outbreak, we heard that foreign hackers had interfered in the United States election that saw Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton last year, and the campaign team of Frances recently elected president Emanuel Macron once blasted a massive hacking attack by a foreign party. There have been reports of attacks and counterattacks involving world powers known for their advanced cyber armies, which clearly shows that the battleground among nations extends to the binary world.



No blood will be shed in the new form of war, at least directly, but its impacts could be just as devastating as those of the two world wars. With the war occurring covertly and silently, the frequently asked question is whether Indonesia has protected itself well.



The Wannacry case is further evidence of Indonesias vulnerability to cyberattacks. State Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Budi Gunawan has asked all parties, in particular strategic public institutions, including the banking sector, to increase their cybersecurity to prevent themselves falling prey to ransomware or other forms of attack. He also suggested the need for an integrated information security system that could detect any attack as early as possible.



Under former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the government raised a discourse on the establishment of a special agency that would be responsible for protecting the nation against cyberattacks. President Joko Jokowi Widodo, after months of deliberation involving several ministries, finally shelved the plan.



In the wake of the ransomware threat and in the face of intensifying cyber warfare, we may need to put the initiative back on the table.
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Linkedin Lim Jeong-yeo (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network) South Korea  Tue, May 16, 2017 08:22 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f3043 2 Lifestyle Moon-Jae-In,South-Korea,first-cat,#SouthKorea,animals Free

President Moon Jae-in brought with him his cat, named Jjing-jjing, to Cheong Wa Dae on Sunday, introducing the countrys first-ever first cat.

Jjing-jjing, originally a stray, was first adopted by Moons daughter Da-hye, who passed it on to her father in 2007 when she got married.

The cat had since lived with Moon and his wife Kim Jung-sook at their home in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.

Read also: Moon starts term as South Korea leader after landslide win

Jjing-jjing.(The Minjoo Party of Korea via The Korea Herald/File)

Jjing-jjing became famous in 2012 when Moon first ran for the presidency against the eventual ousted President Park Geun-hye. Yoo Hong-joon, former head of the Cultural Heritage Administration, mentioned the pet in his speech to illustrate Moons caring personality.

On Sunday, Moon tweeted about a flycatcher whose recently built nest was found in the Cheong Wa Dae compound. Its baby birds apparently hatched the day Moon won the presidential election.

Jjing-jjing has arrived, but I have a concern, Moon tweeted, There are five baby flycatchers living in the nest between a glass window and a sliding paper window.

Jjing-jjing used to occasionally surprise us at our (South) Gyeongsang (Province) home with dead birds, Moon wrote, expressing worry his cat might attack the baby birds.

In addition to Jjing-jjing, Moon is also bringing Maroo, his dog from his Yangsan home, and is proceeding to adopt Tory, a homeless dog whose name -- referring to chestnut -- reflects its dark coat. Tory will join Maroo as the two will serve as co-first dogs.

Tory.(Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth via The Korea Herald/File)

Topics :

This article appeared on The Korea Herald newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
"Come inside and feel free to rest," said Sarwoko, a Catholic-Javanese man, welcoming visitors to his beautiful Limasan (traditional Javanese) house, which is located at the entrance of the Borobudur Temple in Magelang, Central Java.

In the living room, there were bottled waters and snacks for visitors. At a glance, the atmosphere looked similar to that of an Idul Fitri open house.

"We always have [the open house] every Waisak Day. [We] offer a place for visitors to rest before joining the ceremony in the Borobudur Temple," Sarwoko said.

Read also: Borobudur attracts 40,000 visitors during Vesak celebration

The house, which also serves as a private gallery, felt like an oasis in the middle of a desert. The ambiance was a beautiful harmony of religions in Indonesia, which has been slowly disappearing due to materialism and intolerance. Fortunately, tolerance can still be found in the Borobudur Temple.

Celebrated on May 11, Waisak Day brought with it some much-needed harmony. During the Pindhapata (practice of alms-gathering by monks) ritual on Jl. Pemuda in Magelang, people coming from different backgrounds, including women in hijabs, were seen giving donations to monks.

A similar sight dominated a lantern ceremony at the Borobudur Temple, which was not only attended by Buddhist worshippers, but people from all walks of life. (jes/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse)  Tue, May 16, 2017 16:33 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a10f7ca 2 Lifestyle solo-dining,food,#food,gadget,#gadget Free

People are eating alone more than ever, with 30% of European restaurant visits in 2016 made by solo diners.

Thanks in part to their constant companions  mobile phones, tablets and other assorted digital devices  consumers have fewer hang-ups about dining on their own and are content to use their phones as their dinner companion, say analysts from The NPD Group.

Last year saw a 4% rise in solo restaurant visits compared to the year previous, representing E11mil in sales, or nearly one-quarter of all market sales.

The report also notes that while overall restaurant visits across Europe dropped 3% over the last six years, the solo dining trend gained momentum, adding the equivalent of 138 million more visits between 2010 and 2016 and marking a rise of 9%.

The meal time where consumers are most likely to eat on their own Breakfast, which sees 50% of the solo dining demographic.

Read also: Table for one, please

That drops to 30% at lunch, when many workers nosh at their desks or head to their nearest fast food joint, and 15% for dinner, traditionally the most leisurely meal time when asking for a table for one may be more intimidating.

The report also found that 40% of solo diners come from the 18-49 demographic.

Analysts attribute the growing trend to several factors, ranging from our increasingly harried, nomadic, and mobile lifestyles, and the subsequent blurring of dedicated meal times.

Regionally, the report found that the UK and France have both seen a 10% rise in solo dining over the last six years.

Germany, Italy, France and England are also in line with global trends, with 30% of restaurant visits made by solo diners.

The European country to buck the trend is Spain, where the habit has yet to take substantial hold.
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Linkedin Rob Lever (Agence France-Presse) Washington  Tue, May 16, 2017 11:23 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0fc9ef 2 Science & Tech ransomware,cyberattacks,hacker,technology,#ransomware,#hacker,#technology Free

Questions are swirling over who is responsible for the security flaws exploited by hackers in the world's biggest ransomware attack to date, which crippled thousands of businesses and public organizations around the world. Here are some answers:

Read also: Worldwide ransomware attacks: What we know

- Who bears the blame? -

Because hackers exploited a security hole in some Windows versions discovered by the National Security Agency, Microsoft says the intelligence agency bears some responsibility.

"This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem," Microsoft president and general counsel Brad Smith said in a weekend blog post.

Steven Weber, faculty director at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, said "the fault is pretty distributed -- there are plenty of people to blame."

Weber said the NSA's primary mission is intelligence: "If I were sitting at the NSA I would push that argument right back to Microsoft," he argued. "They would say, 'It's our job to stockpile those weapons and use them against our adversaries.'"

Other factors were the large number of old, outdated software programs in use and often ineffective security systems.

Cornell University computer scientist Stephen Wicker blamed "profound ethical lapses" both on the part of the US government and the computing public.

The flaws "were known to the NSA and CIA, but were kept secret by those organizations to be exploited for their own data collection purposes," Wicker said.

But he added that a large number of businesses and other users failed to install a patch issued by Microsoft in March, and also share the blame for spreading the malware.

President Donald Trump's homeland security advisor Tom Bossert dismissed the idea that the US is to blame.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," Bossert told reporters.

"This was a vulnerability exploit as one part of a much larger tool that was put together by the culpable parties and not by the US government."

Read also: World braces for more cyberattacks as work week begins

- How did hackers get this tool? -

Microsoft effectively confirmed analysts' diagnosis that the ransomware known as "WannaCry" was designed to exploit NSA software that was leaked earlier this year by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia -- which has been accused of cyber meddling in several countries -- had nothing to do with the massive cyberattack, and criticized the US intelligence community for creating the original software.

But Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer for IBM Resilient Systems, has suggested that a state-sponsored actor, most likely Russia, was probably responsible for the initial hack of the NSA.

"Whoever got this information years before and is leaking it now has to be capable of hacking the NSA and/or the CIA, and willing to publish it all," Schneier said in a recent blog post.

"The list of countries who fit both criteria is small: Russia, China, and... and... and I'm out of ideas."

James Lewis, a cybersecurity specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he believes the exposure of the flaw likely "leads back to Moscow" -- but that the hackers who designed the malware are probably not Russian.

"One of the rules in Russia is that Russian criminals are not allowed to hack Russian targets," Lewis said. "This does not fit the pattern of Russian-sponsored activity."

"The cybercrime market is really innovative," he added, "and they are quick to take advantage of vulnerabilities."

Read also: Six steps to prevent ransomware

- What about computer security at large? -

The attacks came a day after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for improved cybersecurity in the federal government and better cooperation with the private sector.

But few see this or any single initiative as a silver bullet.

Weber said the attacks show the risks of an overreliance on computerized systems that are not fully secure.

"We have built an increasingly digital society on a very insecure foundation and we are starting to see the consequences of that," he said.

Weber warned there is no single entity capable of fixing this problem in the near future, since security depends on so many factors.

"If you want to look for an upside, it would be this would be a wakeup call," to improve computer security, he said.

At the same time, Weber noted that the attack could prompt more people to shun digital technology and turn back to analog systems that can't be hacked.

Weber said there are already some signs that the public is losing confidence in the digital world as a result of security problems.

"For Silicon Valley and technology companies, their future depends on these underlying systems working," he said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:20 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a112cdb 1 Business Gaikindo,car-production,car-sales,car-manufacturers,Toyota-Motor-Manufacturing-Indonesia,Mitsubishi-Motors-Krama-Yudha-Sales-Indonesia,Suzuki-Indomobil-Sales,automotive Free

Carmakers are eyeing higher exports this year as they set their sights on Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern markets.

Major car manufacturer PT Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia, for instance, targets a 10 percent increase in exports to 169,000 units this year, after having exported 49,300 units in the first quarter.

In addition to completely built units (CBU), the company also exported 12,300 completely knocked-down (CKD) units and 24 million components.

PT Mitsubishi Motors Krama Yudha Sales Indonesia, the distributor of Mitsubishi cars, is looking to export 20,000 of its 80,000 XM Concept cars to be produced this year. Exports will still be in the ASEAN market, Imam Choeru Cahya, the head of MMC sales and marketing group of Mitsubishi Motors Krama Yudha Sales Indonesia, told Kontan recently.

Meanwhile, PT Suzuki Indomobil Sales claimed that it had exported almost 19,000 Suzuki cars to Southeast Asia and Pakistan as of April.

Last year, more than half of its exports went to Southeast Asia, followed by Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries.

The Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers (Gaikindo) acknowledges the potential offered by the Middle Eastern markets and encourages more carmakers to venture into the region.

Gaikindo chairman Johannes Nangoi said without deeper penetration in the Middle East, this years export volume would hover at around the same level as last year. In 2016, the number of exported CBUs stood at 194,397, while that of CKD units reached 202,626. (tas)
Indonesias role in global development was recognized when then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2012 co-chaired the United Nations High-level Panel on the post-2015 agenda. The panel defined the global development framework that succeeded the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and was incorporated into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders at a UN summit in 2015.

However, During the 4th Indonesian Conference on Tobacco or Health 2017 that kicked off on Monday in Jakarta, government officials and academics raised concerns about cigarette smoking, which they feared could hamper the governments efforts to achieve the SDGs targets.

Several of the 17 goals, especially those regarding the economic and health sectors, were highlighted during the conference, which was organized as a pre-event ahead of the World No Tobacco Day on May 31.

We are facing great challenges regarding the age level of smokers. Data from 2014 show that 36 percent of male smokers and 20 percent of female smokers started smoking between the ages of 13 and 15, Health Minister Nila Moeloek said when opening the two-day conference.

Fifty-seven percent of adult men in Indonesia are smokers, according to the 2014 World Cancer Report. The Health Ministry stated in 2016 that smokers accounted for 36 percent of the total population.

Nina also stated that problems from smoking could thwart hopes to benefit from the expected demographic bonus in 2035. If productive age citizens suffer diseases from smoking in the future, they will not be productive, she said.

Nila added that the government had been trying to decrease the number of smokers under the age of 18 from 8.8 percent in 2015 to 5.4 percent in 2019, which is in line with the third SDG of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being.

But Indonesia has always found itself in major dilemmas when dealing with tobacco and its related industries. The Manpower and Transmigration Ministry said recently that 5.6 million Indonesians, or about 5 percent of the total workforce, work in the tobacco sector.

House of Representatives Commission IX overseeing health and labor member Ermalena said the government should focus on health issues in its efforts to control the use of tobacco.

There are about 7,000 citizens, registered in the national health insurance program, who suffer from heart problems and need heart surgery. Smoking is the main factor triggering this, said Ermalena, a politician from the Prosperous Justice Party (PPP).

Bimo Wijayanto, a member of the Presidential Staff Office, said that smoking also hampered efforts to reduce poverty.

Expenditure for cigarettes ranks second only to food in poor households. This will affect the quality of human resources in the future, he said.

The Head of Indonesian Public Health Experts Association (IAKMI), Ridwan Thaha, highlighted another dilemma. We often see cigarette companies create scholarships as part of their corporate social responsibility programs, he said, adding that several universities had begun refusing educational aid from cigarette companies.

Bimo said that it was important for the public to realize that scholarships and other social welfare programs from the cigarette companies could never outweigh the negative effects of smoking. (rdi)
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Linkedin Lydia Lam (The Straits Times/ANN) Singapore  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:34 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a117489 2 World Singapore,Changi-airport,fire Free

A fire broke out at Changi Airport Terminal 2 on Tuesday evening.

The police said in a Facebook post that they were alerted to a fire at the departure hall of Changi Airport Terminal 2 at 5.43 p.m.

Police and Singapore Civil Defense Force officers are managing the incident, said the police.

A spokesman for the Changi Airport Group (CAG) told The Straits Times that the fire alarm was activated at Changi Airport Terminal 2 at about 5.40 p.m. due to smoke coming through the air vents.

Changi Airport said in an update on its Facebook page at 6.38 p.m. that it had identified the cause of the fire, but flight operations at T2 are affected.

"The situation is under control. Flight operations at T2 are affected. We seek the understanding of the public," it said.

The Straits Times understands that people were evacuated from the entire departure hall for safety concerns.

ST reader Stella Koh sent pictures of people being evacuated from planes to the tarmac.

Ms Koh, a 27-year-old sales manager, said her husband Marcus Lim had been at the airport going for a flight to Kuala Lumpur.

He said it was very smoky, and he was initially barred from entering when he tried to get through customs.

The 31-year-old business development manager saw people being evacuated onto the tarmac when he was at the departure gate.

He later managed to get on his Singapore Airlines flight, as the part of the terminal he was at was not affected. However, Ms Koh said other flights were delayed.

Photos and videos posted on social media show many people being evacuated and smoke in the hall.

SBS Transit said in a tweet at 6.57 p.m. that a few bus services were skipping a stop at Changi Airport due to the fire.

ST has contacted the police and SCDF for more information.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 10:30 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f8ec0 1 Business Garuda-Indonesia,new-directors,inauguration Free

Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia president director Muhammad Arif Wibowo on Monday inaugurated two new directors, appointing Triyanto Moeharsono as the airline's operations director and I Wayan Susena as the technique and maintenance director.

The two directors were officially inaugurated to strengthen the airlines management structure after they passed an assessment screening by the Transportation Ministry, Garuda corporate communications vice president Benny S. Butarbutar said in a statement.

The appointment of the two directors has been approved by the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry, Benny said.

Before being inaugurated as Garuda directors, Triyanto served as the companys vice president for operational planning and control, while Susena was a director for base operations at the airlines subsidiary Garuda Maintenance Facilities (GMF) Aero Asia.

Benny said the appointment of the new directors was expected to improve the companys operational and technical performances.

The two directors add to the company's executive board, which consists of a president director, finance and risk management director, service director, production director, marketing and information technology director, human resources director and cargo director. (yon/bbn)
Khamenei is alarmed at accusations by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has accused Iran of being the worlds main sponsor of terror. He now wants Rouhani to be removed from office and replaced by the ultra hard-line executioner Raisi, a senior cleric who wears the black turban, signifying his direct descendancy from the Prophet Mohammad. Raisi was a key member of the Death Commission who in 1988 ordered the execution of over 30,000 political prisoners. Clearly Raisis blood-encrusted legacy is more appealing to Khamenei than the record of the so-called moderate Rouhani, under whose repressive leadership more than 3,000 people have been executed since he took office in 2013, making Iran the worlds number one death penalty nation per-capita.

Clearly Khamenei has ordered Qalibaf to withdraw from the race, to avoid splitting the hard-line ultra conservative vote in the first round of elections on Friday 19th May. Khameneis manipulation of the Iranian elections exposes the fact that they are a sham and a scandal. Over one thousand people initially registered as potential candidates, only to be disqualified by the Supreme Leader Khamenei. Those disqualified from standing even included former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who although considered a fanatical tyrant by the West, was also clearly thought to be too soft to face the new robust approach from the US administration.

There are increasing signs of widespread protests across Iran, with the emergence of courageous posters and banners proclaiming support for regime change and for the outlawed key democratic opposition movement the Peoples Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI). Most of the 30,000 political prisoners hanged in 1988 by Ebrahim Raisi were supporters of the PMOI. Their ghosts may yet return to haunt him.

Struan Stevenson, President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), was a Member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014). He was President of the Parliaments Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009- 2014) and Chair of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (Caucus) from 2004-2014.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 19:04 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a118f1a 4 Business land-certification,sofyan-djalil,achievement Free

Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil said his ministry could only certify around 1 million plots of land as of May from the total target of 5 million certificates by the end of this year.

The other 4 million certificates are still in the process, said Sofyan in Jakarta on Tuesday as reported by kontan.co.

Previously, the minister said only Rp 1.4 trillion (US$104.94 million) for the certifications had been allotted in the 2017 state budget, only enough for 2 million certificates. He said his ministry required an additional Rp 2.8 trillion to achieve the government's target of 5 million certificates.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has directed the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry to issue 5 million land certificates this year, 7.5 million in 2018 and 9 million in 2019, to accelerate the governments efforts to reduce disparities between the rich and the poor.

Sofyan said his ministry was now waiting for the fund disbursement promised by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati to certify more certificates. Hopefully. The fund for certifying 2 million plots of land will be disbursed this month, Sofyan added. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 07:15 2004 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f0bc5 1 Business Indonesia,octopus,exports,Japan Free

Indonesia has started exports of frozen octopus to Japan through state-owned fishery firm Perinus, which has sent 30 tons of frozen octopus to Ibaraki Prefecture port from Makassar, South Sulawesi, since last week.

The move is a follow-up of a cooperation agreement between Indonesia and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries director general Nilanto Perbowo said as reported by kompas.com on Sunday.

Perinus targets to export 1,000 tons of frozen octopus to Japan this year through Ajirushi Company, a private company appointed by JICA for the agreement.

We hope that Perinus can use the octopus processing device from JICA to maintain quality and to increase prices of octopus-based products from South Sulawesi and other Indonesian regions, Nilanto said, adding that the ministry would continue to assist Perinus and fishermen to catch more octopuses in a sustainable way.

Assistance from the government will include ways to increase catch and methods in processing octopuses that meet international export quality.

We hope the octopus will be one of Indonesias main export products in the future, she said. (ecn/bbn)

Topics : Indonesia octopus exports Japan
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 21:18 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11f0af 1 National ransomware,#ransomware,WannaCry,cyberattacks,cyber-attacks,cyber-security,#WannaCry Free

Indonesia Cyber Security Forum (ICSF) chairman and cofounder Ardi Sutedja has warned that Indonesia is vulnerable to cyberattacks, since the country still faces a lack of cybersecurity experts.

The government has prioritized banking, transportation and energy as the three most vital objects that need to be protected against cyberattacks. However, there are many other areas that need to be protected, and we dont have enough resources to do that, Ardi told The Jakarta Post.

He was speaking in response to the WannaCry ransomware attack that spread to 150 countries over the weekend.

Ardi said in the era of digital transformation, people, companies, state and private institutions were connected to serve the public through the internet; hence, cybersecurity experts were urgently needed.

As we get more sophisticated in our digital transformation, the risk of attack is high; therefore, demand for cybersecurity experts will continue to increase, Ardi said.

He said Indonesia needed at least 10,000 new engineers who understood about cyber and information security every year. (hol/ebf)
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Linkedin Bambang Nurbianto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 11:39 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0fd7ef 4 Business Indonesia,exports,decline,BPS Free

The value of Indonesian exports dropped by 10.30 percent to US$13.17 billion in April, from $14.67 billion in the previous month, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

"Since April 2012, export value in April was always lower than the figure in March," said BPS chief Suhariyanto at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday as reported by Antara.

The export of oil products plunged by 51.89 percent to $87.1 million; the export of crude oil tumbled by 50.65 percent to $302.6 million, while the value of gas export went down by 18.31 percent to $587.2 million.

The decline in export value is in line with a drop in the volume of oil and gas export. The volume of oil and gas export plummeted by 43.69 percent, crude oil export fell 49.23 percent and gas export also dropped by 24.33 percent.

Meanwhile, non-oil and gas exports were recorded at $12.19 billion, down by 7.43 percent from a previous month.

China is the biggest market for Indonesian exports, with the value reaching $1.57 billion, followed by the US, with $1.36 billion and India with $1.19 billion (bbn)

Topics : Indonesia exports decline BPS
For a man who has spent the last five years carrying out gubernatorial tasks in the capital, a damp and quiet prison cell could be a blessing in disguise.

Non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has spent the last six days in a high security detention center. While his defense team fights his legal battle outside, Ahok has found consolation in his 6 square-meter cell through English and Mandarin versions of the Bible and a notebook.

Fifi Lety Indra said on Monday that her brother had been an avid reader of the Bible since he was in college, however his tight schedule as Jakarta governor had often stood in the way. Now, after being sentenced to two years in a blasphemy case, Ahok is getting back into the habit of reading the Bible while sharpening his Mandarin skills.

My brother also asked for a notebook, I think he needs a medium to share his feelings because prison can be lonely, Fifi told The Jakarta Post.

Fifi emphasized that Ahok was not receiving any special treatment in the detention center.

Who knows, maybe he can produce quality writing while in detention, just like Sukarno, she continued, referring to the countrys first president and founding father.

Ahok wrote a book in 2008 titled Merubah Indonesia (Reforming Indonesia), in which he shared his life experiences, including in his political career and how many of his political rivals had quoted Quranic verses in their campaigns.

A panel of five judges handed down a two-year prison sentence to Ahok on May 9 for blasphemy, while prosecutors had only demanded two years probation.

The sentence has triggered a wave of support from Ahoks supporters around the world. Ahok was moved from the Cipinang Detention Center in East Jakarta to the National Polices Mobile Brigade (Brimob) Detention Center in Depok, West Java, for various reasons.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly confirmed that security was among the reasons for transferring Ahok, saying there had been threats made to Ahoks life and that Cipinang might be unsafe from him. Yasonna added that a mass show of support for Ahok in front of Cipinang might disrupt traffic.

For those two reasons, it is better for him to be transferred, Yasonna said.

Fifi confirmed that Ahoks family was concerned for his safety and agreed that the Brimob Detention Center, which houses terrorism and treason suspects, was the safest place for him in the meantime.

She said many threats had been made to Ahoks life since the blasphemy trial kicked off at the North Jakarta District Court. Ahoks legal team has declared that it will appeal the verdict. In an unusual move, state prosecutors have also moved to appeal the verdict, citing that Ahoks sentence was harsher than that demanded. (**)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Tue, May 16, 2017 21:16 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11e33e 1 National poso,terrorists,Jokowi,central-sulawesi Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has ordered the Tinombala task force to capture the remaining seven members of the notorious East Indonesia Mujahidin terrorist group hiding in the mountainous forest of Poso, Central Sulawesi.

The President gave the instruction during a visit to Palu on Tuesday, Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi said.

Jokowi appreciates all of the task force personnel and asked us to focus on the rest of the terrorists, he said.

Two out of nine alleged members of the MIT were shot dead in a gunfight with security personnel in Poso on Monday. The shoot-out erupted at 12:05 p.m. local time.

The shoot-out was between several members of the group, led by terror suspect Ali Kalora, and personnel of the Tinombala task force in Simpang Angin, Mount Biru, Poso Pesisir district.

The two dead men have been identified as Barok and Askar, both from Bima, West Nusa Tenggara.

The seven remaining MIT members are Ali Muhammad, aka Ali Kalora; Muhammad Faisal, aka Namnung; Qatar, aka Farel; Nae, aka Galuh; Basir, aka Romzi; Abu Alim; and Kholid.

Mondays shoot-out began when the task force was patrolling the area and saw four armed men in shelter. Suspecting they were MIT members, the security personnel tried to arrest them. However, the men opened fire, which led to the shoot-out. (foy/rin)
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Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 21:46 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a120097 1 World Jokowi,summit,Riyadh Free

Leader of the world's biggest Muslim-majority country President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is set to attend the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, a top official has confirmed.

Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Indonesia Osama bin Mohammed Abdullah Al Shuaibi said on Tuesday that Jokowi would participate in the first ever summit to be held between leaders of Muslim-majority countries and US President Donald Trump, which aims to decouple Islam's image from terrorism.

For Trump, the visit to Saudi Arabia will be his first state visit.

Al Shuaibi said leaders at the summit aimed to present to the US a united stance of the Muslim world against the Islamic State (IS) group and terrorism at large.

"This summit will show President Trump that all Islamic countries have nothing to do with IS. They do not represent Islam. We are fighting these people and they deceive our people, our youth, into fighting with them," Al Shuaibi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

The ambassador stressed that the IS group was not Muslim, saying the terrorist group was against Islam and delivered the wrong image of Islam to the people. Islam means peace, Al Shuaibi added, while urging united cooperation against the radical group.

Jokowi's participation at the summit will see him attend back-to-back high level meetings as the President will immediately return to Jakarta to welcome King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden on Monday, with the monarchs set to visit Indonesia until Wednesday.

Topics : Jokowi summit Riyadh
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 20:15 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11bcd5 1 National Komnas,Komnas-HAM,#KomnasHAM,commissioner,commissioners-selection,JimlyAsshiddiqie,human-rights,human-rights-abuse Free

Eight people have been chosen to moderate a two-day public debate held as part of the selection process of National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner candidates.

Held from May 17 to 18, the debate will give both the public and the selection team a chance to comprehensively examine the quality of the candidates.

Constitutional law expert Jimly Asshiddiqie, who heads the selection team, said a team comprising senior journalists, including The Jakarta Posts Ati Nurbaiti, and human rights activists, such as Usman Hamid of Amnesty International Indonesia, would participate in ensuring the selection process ran transparently.

Members of the public can ask the candidates questions and openly scrutinize their records in the debate, said Jimly.

The public debate will also provide an opportunity for the candidates to present their vision and mission if they are elected to lead Komnas HAM, he asserted.

Sixty individuals are scheduled to participate in the public debate, which will take place at the Law and Human Rights Ministry.

The candidates will compete for seven commissioner seats of the national rights body and will determine the settlement of unresolved past rights abuse cases as well as the course of rights promotion and protection until 2022. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:31 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a115d1b 4 Business public-private-partnership,LRT,regional-administrations Free

Seven regional governments have proposed public private partnership (PPP) schemes to implement their respective light rail transit (LRT) projects after the central government failed to allocate funds in the state budget.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati agreed with the proposal, saying her ministry would facilitate the implementation of the PPP schemes for the LRT projects in Surabaya, Bandung, Tangerang, Makassar, Riau, Semarang and Sidoarjo.

We have tried to convince (regional governments) that the Finance Ministry wants to help from the early stages of the process, Said Sri Mulyani, as reported by tempo.co, on Monday.

She said the PPP schemes for the seven LRT projects were expected to become a model for infrastructure projects in other regions. If we have standards for the process, regulation and contracts, then future projects in other regions will be easier, the minister said.

Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini proposed the PPP scheme for the LRT projects, which will cost Rp 3.8 trillion (US$285.67 million), after a lack of follow up by the central government after plans were developed two years ago.

A similar reason was mentioned by Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil regarding the project in Bandung.

The construction of Corridor II of the LRT in Bandung is urgent because it will connect the network with the Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway. Without the LRT, the Jakarta-Bandung railway will terminate in the middle of a rice field, he added.

Previously, National Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the government was forced to cut Rp 300 trillion from its funding allocation for infrastructure by 2019 due to financial shortages. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 15:26 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a10d157 1 City Bekasi,waste-management Free

More than a thousand private companies in Bekasi, West Java, have yet to submit reports on waste disposal management to the municipal administration, despite such a procedure being stipulated in the citys environmental bylaw.



The Bekasi Environmental Agency's head of hazardous and toxic waste, Dadang Mulyana, said that only 120 out of 1,200 private companies operating in the city had submitted their waste management reports to the administration.

Reporting on waste disposal [activities] is obligatory because its effects on the environment can be severe, he said.

The companies conduct operations across 12 districts. However, most of them are located in Bantargebang, Medan Satria and North Bekasi, Dadang said, adding that his office had formed a team to inspect a number of companies and determine whether they operated in line with environmental regulations.

Agency head Jumhana Luthfi said there were still companies that did not comply with the regulation, only abiding by the law following impromptu inspections.

Learning from such an experience, the establishment of the team is part of our continued attempt to monitor them, he said on Monday as quoted by tribunnews.com. (fac)
Mentioning Rouhanis wish to remain President of the Islamic Republic, the newspaper said that he wants to keep his position at any price, accusing him of questioning national and governmental authority. The newspaper said that Rouhani was also putting national security, and that of the regime, into danger.

It claimed: Some of your statements in the debates and campaign speeches at political rallies are virtually opportunistic and provide material and tools for the enemy and destroy opportunities for the country.

Rouhani was accused of cowardice and being afraid of the enemy: Tarnishing the countrys military authority and saying, Showing underground missile sanctuaries was a disruption of the JCPOA. They are signs of no understanding of the countrys sovereignty and national security. Being afraid of an enemy and not even allowing satellites to be launched, which are products of young scientists activities, and hoping that the enemy might feel pity for us and will act upon its JCPOA obligation is only a wishful thinking.

The newspaper asserted that Rouhanis potential re-election would not be good for the country or the future of the Iranian regime: Intrigue arises from the way you go, not an election that will bring security for the Iranian regime.

Another regime-affiliated newspaper, Javan, also warned about the potential re-election of Rouhani earlier in the week. It said that Rouhani was competing with the system instead of competing with a rival. It also accused Rouhani of trying to get the votes of the MEK and those who lost a family member by execution.

Regarding Rouhanis condemnation of executions, the newspaper said: Everyone knows that charging your rival with execution is irrelevant. The foundation of the system is targeted. Because, executions and the religious form of it, revenge is Gods order. It is absolutely necessary and must be performed, such as managerial duties, it cannot become obsolete and subject to personal opinions.

It continued: Gathering all designers of the 2009 intrigue [a reference to the uprising] under his flag is another reason for their competition with the regime () Along with the above measures, the legal team of the executive branch complain every day about a few media to quiet them and to be able to shut down the outlets critical of his actions and then, things will be easier to go on with.
Sundari Maret, 28, has been patiently waiting to get her e-ID card since May 2016. The last time she went to the Cipayung subdistrict office in East Jakarta she was told to come back on Monday to collect the card.

On Monday, Sundari found her name was on the list of individuals whose e-ID cards were ready to be collected. But her excitement turned to disappointment after she was told that all administrative services had to be suspended due to concerns over a possible WannaCry ransomware attack.

I have to wait longer because the [Home Ministry] asked them not to turn on the computer systems to prevent the [ransomware] attack. This is a waste of time, Sundari said, adding that she hoped the government could soon fix the problem.

Officials at the Cipayung subdistrict office and others in private and public institutions were following instructions from the Communications and Information Ministry, which advised people not to turn on their computers on Monday before shutting down the Wi-Fi connection or disconnecting their local area network. The ministry also advised people to back up all their data on an external hard drives.

The WannaCry malicious software has infected a large number of computers in at least 150 countries so far, and the numbers are expected to grow. Among the institutions hit by the attack are Britains National Health Service, the Russian Interior Ministry, FedEx, Nissan and some of Spains largest companies, including Telefonica. Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks access to a computer or its data and demands money to release it.

In Britain, the ransomware caused hospitals to divert emergency patients.

In Indonesia, the malware has infected the computer system of the Dharmais Cancer Hospital in West Jakarta.

In anticipation of the attack, Bank Mandiri, Indonesias largest lender by assets, has set up a command and security center aimed at protecting its system from being targeted by the ransomware.

We have also set up a post to coordinate efforts to anticipate and respond if attacks are detected [at our branches], Bank Mandiri corporate secretary Rohan Hafas told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Responding to concerns that ransomeware could compromise Bank Mandiris computer network, Rohan affirmed that all transactions at every branch proceeded normally on Monday and that no part of its system had been impacted by the virus.

The Indonesia Security Incident Response Team on Internet Infrastructure (ID-SIRTII) reported on Monday that a number of institutions had been targeted by the ransomware.

At the moment, we have 11 institutions that have confirmed to us that they have been affected by the ransomware. These are central and regional government offices as well as private companies, said Muhammad Salahuddien, deputy chairman of the IDSIRTII, on Monday.

On Monday, Wahidin Sudirohusodo General Hospital in Makassar, South Sulawesi, followed the Dharmais Cancer Hospital as the second hospital to succumb to the ransomware attack. The Makassar hospital is reported to have lost data on patients treated under the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) program.

Thankfully, we have a backup of the data stored at the local BPJS office, said Khalid Saleh, the director of the hospital.

Separately, Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said if they continued unabated, the ransomware attacks could slow down the countrys health care services, as health workers would have to resort to manual paperwork.

Rudiantara was quick to add, however, that there had been no reports of significant damage caused by the attack, other than the virus that reportedly struck the Dharmais Cancer Hospital.

The one targeting the Dharmais Cancer Hospital was the only significant attack we have encountered. There are other instances of minor attacks outside Java, but they were only found in a few computers, Rudiantara said.

Rudiantara said he was optimistic that the ransomware attack could be contained, as it was being addressed by the international community, including by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Meanwhile, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto said the ransomware attack raised the pressing issue of developing an integrated cyber agency to protect the country from cyber threats.

Wiranto said the formation of the National Cyber Agency was more relevant than ever after the malware attack. (mrc/yon/hol)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 22:39 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a1208d7 1 City Rizieq-Shihab,FPI,#FPI,Firza-Husein,police,National-Police,Inafis Free

The National Police have said that a face recognition analysis confirmed that the naked woman who appeared in sex chats allegedly involving Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab is Firza Husein.

Hery Cahyono, a face recognition expert from the polices Indonesia Automatic Fingerprints Identification System (Inafis) division, said authorities used several methods, including biometrics, to check whether the woman who appeared in the sex chats was really Firza.

He said police compared pictures of the female activist when she was arrested over an alleged plot against the government on Feb. 4 with her suspected pictures in the WhatsApp conversation.

(Read also: Rizieq is in Jeddah: Police)

Hery said the team also used a bio-finder method, during which they checked Firzas naked pictures in the WhatsApp conversations and her pictures on her ID card and in the Home Ministrys e-ID database.

The automatic algorithm system shows that all those pictures match. The system would refuse to [report a match] if the pictures were from two different people, Hery said as quoted by kompas.com on Tuesday.

Earlier this year police summoned Firza for questioning after screenshots of what appears to be steamy WhatsApp chats between Rizieq and Firza were uploaded to the internet.

Firza, who was a coordinator of the Solidaritas Sahabat Cendana foundation, which is connected to the family of former president Soeharto, was reportedly having a relationship with the married man, Rizieq Shihab.

"This case is fabricated and libelous, Firzas lawyer Azis Yanuar said. (hol/ebf)
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Linkedin Rob Lever and Alice Tidey (AFP) Washington/London  Tue, May 16, 2017 07:45 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f1b44 2 World North-Korea,cyberattacks,cyber-attacks,ransomware,WannaCry,Google,#CyberSecurity,cybersecurity,#ransomware,#WannaCry Free

Security researchers on Monday reported signs of a potential North Korea link to the massive cyberattack campaign that sparked havoc in computer systems worldwide and opened fresh political rifts between Russia and the United States.

After days of disruptions affecting networks worldwide, a top US official said the number of computers affected had reached 300,000, but that infection rates had slowed.

In the first clues of the origin of the massive ransomware attacks, Google researcher Neel Mehta posted computer code that showed similarities between the "WannaCry" malware and a vast hacking effort widely attributed to Pyongyang.

Other experts quickly jumped on this as a sign -- although an inconclusive one -- that North Korea may have been behind the outbreak.

"We believe this might hold the key to solve some of the mysteries around this attack," said researchers at the Russian-based security firm Kaspersky, adding that further research was needed.

Israeli-based security firm Intezer Labs said it agreed with the North Korea attribution.

The group's chief executive Itai Tevet said in a tweet: "@IntezerLabs confirms attribution to North Korea for #WannaCry, not only because of the function from Lazarus. More info to come."

- US, Russia trade jabs -

Tom Bossert, President Donald Trump's top cyber and homeland security adviser, brushed aside suggestions that the United States was to blame for the attack, which stemmed from a flaw discovered by the US National Security Agency and later leaked.

"This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data," he said, noting that no US government systems had been hit.

"This is a global attack," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier had pointed the finger at the United States.

"A genie let out of a bottle of this kind, especially created by secret services, can then cause damage to its authors and creators," the Russian leader said on the sidelines of a summit in Beijing.

Russia has recently been accused of cyber meddling in several countries, but Putin said they had nothing to do with the attack.

Over the weekend, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith said attacks highlighted the dangers from the NSA's "stockpiling" of secret hacking tools.

There had been concern that Monday's start of the working week would see an upsurge in attacks.

But the cross-border police agency Europol said the situation was "stable" after attacks that struck computers in British hospital wards, European car factories and Russian banks.

"The number of victims appears not to have gone up," a senior spokesman for Europol, Jan Op Gen Oorth, told AFP.

But according to Michel Van Den Berghe, director of telecom group Orange's cyber security arm, a "second wave" is to be expected.

- Telecoms and carmaking hit -

US package delivery giant FedEx, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica and Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail network were among those hit. The attackers demanded money to unblock their computers.

In China, "hundreds of thousands" of computers were affected, including gas stations, cash machines and universities, according to Qihoo 360, one of the country's largest providers of antivirus software.

Russia said its banking and railway systems were targeted.

A fifth of regional hospital associations in Britain's National Health Service were affected and several still had to cancel appointments on Monday.

French carmaker Renault shut its Douai plant -- one of its biggest sites, employing 5,500 people -- as systems were upgraded.

The attack blocks computers and puts up images on victims' screens demanding payment of $300 (275 euros) in the virtual currency Bitcoin, saying: "Ooops, your files have been encrypted!"

Bossert said that paying the ransom provided no guarantee files would be unlocked.

He told a news conference that "it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery."

Bitcoin, the world's most-used virtual currency, allows anonymous transactions via heavily encrypted codes.

Experts and governments alike warn against ceding to the demands and few victims so far had been paying up.

A hacking group called Shadow Brokers released the malware in April, claiming to have discovered the flaw from the NSA.

The attack is unique, according to Europol, because it combines ransomware with a worm function, meaning once one machine is infected, the entire internal network is scanned and other vulnerable machines are infected.

Although the economic fallout is still unknown, the political fallout "will be significant" according to the Eurasia consultancy.

In addition to Russia, China and India have blamed the US government for developing the original code. (**)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:14 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a111b0f 4 Business PLN,electricity,remote-areas Free

State-owned electricity company PLN has announced it will construct small power stations for 1,364 villages not yet served by electricity networks.

PLN planning director Nicke Widyawati said the project was different from the Bright Indonesian Program in 2,510 villages that use solar energy, which was implemented by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry program is temporary, while PLN offers a permanent solution, Nicke said as reported by tribunnews.com on Tuesday, adding that PLN would cooperate with the ministry in implementing the project.

With the project, she said, PLN would construct small-scale power plants to meet local demand. Our focus is to install grid extensions by using isolated power stations. Our target is [to finish the project in] three years. We will coordinate with the ministry, she said.

Previously, the ministry issued Ministerial Regulation No. 38/2016 on electrification acceleration in less developed and remote villages as well as in border areas and on small islands. The government also permitted the involvement of private companies to help develop electricity in the regions.

PLN would use renewable energy for electricity in the remote areas, Nicke said, adding that in 2017, the company allocated Rp 1.81 trillion (US$136 million) for electricity in Papua and Rp 721 million for electricity in North Maluku and Muluku provinces. (bbn)
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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba, Ganug Nugroho Adi and Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura/Surakarta/Bandung  Tue, May 16 2017

The ramifications of the court ruling against non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama have continued to spread across the archipelago.

Thousands continue to join rallies from Sumatra to Papua calling on the nation to uphold the national principles of Pancasila and the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). They fear that the ruling, which saw Ahok sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy, could increase sectarian tension and embolden intolerant groups to try and suppress the countrys pluralism and diversity.

In Jayapura, Papua, thousands of protesters under the coordination of the Papuan Church Leaders (PGGP) staged a rally in front of the provincial legislative council and then marched to the governors office.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 19:48 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11a0ad 1 City Rizieq-Shihab,umrah,FPI,#FPI,Islam-Defenders-Front,pornography,National-Police,Jakarta-police Free

The Jakarta Police confirmed on Tuesday that Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab, who has ignored several police summons for questioning over an alleged pornographic text conversation, was in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said the police had not decided whether they would send a team to Jeddah to bring Rizieq back to Indonesia.

We are waiting for the investigators decision because his status is still as a witness, Argo said. The police will coordinate with Interpol and the immigration office in handling the case, he added.

National Police spokesperson Martinus Sitompul separately said Rizieq should respect the legal process and immediately come back to Indonesia because a warrant had been issued following his failure to show up for police questioning twice as a witness in the pornography case.

Rizieqs lawyer, Kapitra Ampera, said Rizieq departed for Saudi Arabia on umrah (minor haj) with his family on April 27 and had not returned to Indonesia.

We have communicated with his lawyer several times. We want him to fulfill his obligation as an Indonesian citizen and comply with the law, Martinus said at the National Police headquarters on Tuesday. (dis/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:17 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11298c 1 Business Russia,Indonesia,barter-trading,Sukhoi-jet-fighters Free

The Russian government has expressed interest to exchanging its Sukhoi jet fighters for natural rubber from Indonesia, Trade Ministry foreign trade director general Oke Nurwan said.

They are interested in our crumb rubber, said Oke in Jakarta as reported by kompas.com on Tuesday, adding that the Indonesian government had not made a decision on the offer, but that if it was finally agreed to a relevant minister would draft a ministerial regulation as the legal basis for such an agreement.

Both Indonesian and Russian governments have expressed their interest in carrying out the barter trade. Oke said the Indonesian government had expressed interest in obtaining Sukhoi jet fighters while Russia wanted rubber from Indonesia.

The proposed barter trade is valued at US$600 million.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Rubber Company Association (Gapkindo) has responded positively to the proposed trade in the hopes that it will expand the Indonesian rubber market and increase the price of Indonesian rubber.

Gapkindos advisory council member Asri Sutan Amir said rubber prices declined to Rp 6,000 (45 US cents) per kilogram in the first quarter of 2017, from Rp 10,000 earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Lukman Zakaria, of the Indonesian Rubber Farmers Association (Apkarindo), said the decline in price had occurred since March due to declining demand in the global market as a result of new contracts being signed in previous months.

Because of the rampant number of contracts signed during the early months of this year, warehouses have now been filled with rubber stocks, he added. (bbn)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Tue, May 16, 2017 18:34 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a1167fb 1 Business KEK-Palu,investors,central-sulawesi,governor Free

Seven new investors  three foreign companies and four domestic ones  signed memorandums of understanding (MoU) to invest in the Palu Special Economic Zone (KEK Palu), PT Bangun Palu Sulawesi Tengah (BPST) director Mulhanan Tombolotutu has said.

Mulhanan, whose company is an operator of KEK Palu, and representatives of the seven companies signed MoUs at the BPST office in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu during a ceremony attended by Central Sulawesi Governor Longki Djanggola on Tuesday.

The companies plan to invest around US$5 million each on average, Mulhanan said at the ceremony.

Meanwhile, Longki said that initially President Joko Jokowi Widodo was going to attend the ceremony after opening the Indonesian Islamic Students Movements (PMII) congress in the city, but the President canceled, because he had to immediately return to Jakarta.

Two of the investors are from China -- PT. STM Tunggal Jaya and Tidfore Group  and the third from South Korea -- Korea Western Power. Meanwhile, the four Indonesian investors are PT Pelabuhan Indonesia IV, PT Wika Jabar Power, PT PP Energi and PT Pertagas Niaga.

The sectors of investment include infrastructure (electricity, water, transportation and distribution), industrial estates, port services and logistics.

Longki welcomed the arrival of the new investors and expressed hope that they could immediately start building their business. The governor said the acceleration of KEK Palus development was the result of a recent meeting chaired by President Jokowi at the State Palace and attended by relevant ministers and the governor. (bbn)
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 20:00 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11b1ba 1 Politics KPK,#KPK,Golkar,GolkarParty,corruption-eradication,setya-novanto,e-ID,#e-ID Free

Differences of opinion concerning a House of Representatives plan to investigate the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has worsened an internal rift within the Golkar Party.

The newly appointed chief of the Golkar faction at the House, Robert Kardinal, announced on Tuesday the party had withdrawn a previous decision to reject a House initiative to investigate the anti-graft body.

The decision was made without first consulting us and all party members, Robert said on the sidelines of a closed-door meeting at Golkars headquarters on Monday evening.

(Read also: Golkar is fine, executive chief says)

To demonstrate its rejection of the KPK inquiry, Golkar earlier refused to appoint representatives to a House inquiry committee, which would be established soon, in an official letter signed by Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, secretary of the Golkar faction at the House.

Robert said Golkars rejection of the inquiry, which he considered to be a rush decision, was driven by worries that the public would view such support as a move to weaken the KPK.

Examining the KPK doesnt necessarily mean that we are anti-KPK, he told The Jakarta Post. He added that Golkar would announce its final stance on the KPK inquiry plan later.

Robert was recently appointed to replace Kahar Muzakir, who refused to support a House plan to demand the government revoke a travel ban imposed on Golkar Party chairman Setya Novanto over his alleged role in a mega corruption case involving e-ID card procurement. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 17:15 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a11030f 1 City crime,syndicate,North-Jakarta Free

North Jakarta Police have intensified their investigation of a recent string of armed motorcycle robberies in the Koja subdistrict.

We have formed a special task force to chase the remaining suspects in the case. The suspect we shot dead recently was a member of a criminal syndicate from Lampung, North Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Dwiyono said on Monday.

Last Wednesday, officers from the precinct exchanged fire with the suspect, who was an ex-convict and allegedly used the same modus operandi as criminals in the Sumatran province of Lampung. The firefight ended when the officers shot the suspect dead.

The police shot the suspect, because he had hurt a civilian and a public order officer with his criminal action, Dwiyono said, as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com.

Police are also conducting an investigation into the identity of the suspect, as he was found to be in possession of a fake ID card. (kuk)
President Hassan Rouhani is quite understandably defending the deal as it was a major part of his foreign policy. Although his rivals Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and cleric Ebrahim Raisi believe the principle of the deal is good, they have brought up the issues of its ineffectiveness on many occasions.

As much as Rouhani played a part in the construction of the deal, it was actually dictated by the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei. He was able to let the Obama administration know, via Oman, that he was ready to start negotiations.

He was then kept up-to-date at all stages of the negotiations and he defined all the red lines, as confirmed by the Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif. Abbas Araghchi, the countrys Deputy Foreign Minister also confirmed that Khamenei had the final say on every detail in the nuclear deal, just as he does on all state matters.

However, the Iranian regime is feeling a lot less confident about the nuclear deal now. During what has been described as the golden times of the Obama administration, the Iranian regime was able to be confident knowing that it could get away with all sorts of malign behaviour. But now that the Trump administration is voicing its concerns over the deal, the Iranian regime is becoming increasingly worried.

International apprehension about the deal is also increasing and the Iranian regime is desperate. Without the financial benefits of the nuclear agreement, Iran will have even more serious economic issues.

With the deal in place, Iran can sell oil and some overseas banks are dealing with the country. However, there are many foreign investors that want to steer clear of the Islamic Republic, especially now that there is international pressure to deal with the malign activities and export of terrorism Iran is involved with.

There are financial restrictions are in place and many banks are refusing to deal with Iran in case they are subject to punitive action from the United States. The major banks in France, for example, categorically refused to get involved with Iranian business.

In any case, whatever the result of the upcoming election is in Iran, international pressure towards Iran will still be there and the deal will continue to be reviewed by the Trump administration. It is clear that any future President of Iran needs the nuclear deal to remain in place.
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Linkedin Jerome Cartillier (AFP) Washington, United States  Tue, May 16, 2017 08:30 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0f3bf1 2 World White-House,US-president,DonaldTrump,Donald-Trump,FBI,James-Comey,Russia,#DonaldTrump,#Donald-Trump Free

The White House threw cold water Monday on a report that US President Donald Trump revealed classified information to Russian officials last week, saying no specific intelligence "sources or methods" were discussed.

The Washington Post said Trump had given Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Moscow's envoy to the US Sergey Kislyak details about a specific terror threat posed by the Islamic State group during Oval Office talks last week.

The bombshell report comes as Moscow's alleged interference in last year's US presidential election is back in the spotlight following Trump's shock firing of FBI chief James Comey, whose agency was investigating Russia's possible collusion with aides to the Republican billionaire.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation," National Security Advisor HR McMaster, who participated in the meeting, told reporters.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the president did not discuss any military operations that were not already publicly known," he added.

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false."

The information disclosed by the US leader had been provided by a partner of the United States that had not given Washington authorization to share it with Moscow, the Post said.

Trump "revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies," the Post quoted a US official as saying on condition of anonymity.

According to the official, the information Trump shared with the Russian officials carried one of the highest levels of classification used by US intelligence agencies.

The Post reported, citing unnamed officials, that "Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft."

The paper said it was withholding details of the plot at the urging of US officials who are concerned it could jeopardize key intelligence capabilities.

The US Department of Homeland Security has said it is mulling the expansion of a ban on laptop computers in passenger cabins on jets originating in Europe.

A US ban is already in place for several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

- Ryan wants 'full explanation' -

Trump's closed-door meeting with the Russian officials came a day after his surprise firing of Comey.

The information at issue was not even widely shared within the US government, and Trump's decision to share it with Moscow could endanger Washington's partnership with the source.

Trump reportedly even revealed the city in which the intelligence was gathered -- something seen as problematic, as it could allow Moscow to identify the partner nation.

Officials cited by the Post said the partner country had "access to the inner workings of the Islamic State."

Reaction on Capitol Hill was swift.

"We have no way to know what was said, but protecting our nation's secrets is paramount," said Doug Andres, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. "The speaker hopes for a full explanation of the facts from the administration."

Senior Republican Senator John McCain told CNN that "if it's true, it's obviously disturbing." But he cautioned: "Let's wait and see what this was all about first."

Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Twitter: "If true, this is a slap in the face to the intel community. Risking sources & methods is inexcusable, particularly with the Russians." (**)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Tue, May 16, 2017 15:06 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a10b614 1 National poso,terrorists,terrorist-group,Tinombala-Operation,#OperationTinombala,terrorism Free

Two alleged members of the notorious East Indonesia Mujahidin (MIT) terrorist group were reportedly shot dead in an ambush in Poso, Central Sulawesi, on Monday.

They were killed in a shootout between several members of the group, led by terror suspect Ali Kalora, and personnel of the Operation Tinombala task force from the Army Strategic Reserves Commands (Kostrad) 154 Raider Infantry Battalion (Yonif) and Army Special Forces (Kopassus) personnel in Simpang Angin, Gunung Biru, Poso Pesisir.

Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi said the shootout erupted at 12:05 p.m. local time on Monday.

Two out of the eight MIT members were shot dead, while an Operation Tinombala Task Force member, First Pvt. Zulfikar, was injured.

We are identifying suspected terrorists killed in the incident, but it is likely that one of them is Barok, Rudy said, referring to one of top MIT members who remains at large.

The task force confiscated several pieces of evidence, including an SS-1 ambush rifle and an air rifle, during the raid.

Central Sulawesi Governor Longki Djanggola praised the Operation Tinombala Task Force, which was led by the provinces police command chief, and 132/Tadulako Military Region Command (Danrem) commander Col. M Saleh Mustafa.

I hope MIT leader Ali Kalora can soon be arrested, he said. With the latest deaths, only seven MIT members remain at large. (ebf)
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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Tue, May 16, 2017 14:10 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a106df6 1 National Jokowi,jokowidodo,PMII,rally,protests Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has called on all citizens to stop accusing, insulting, slandering and protesting against each other.

Don't forget to maintain unity because we are all brothers. We will run out of energy if we have to continuously deal with demonstrations, the President said in his remarks during the opening of the 19th Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII) Congress at Darussalam Grand Mosque in Palu, Central Sulawesi, on Tuesday.

Jokowi later asked all political elites to set a good example and convey their words appropriately.

Give good and polite statements because this is the character of our nation. Dont let us lose our identity and character because our nation is widely known as a nation that is friendly, polite and well-mannered, said the President.

Jokowi said he was sad to see people constantly staging rallies across the country. It seems we have forgotten that we are all brothers both as Muslims and as people living in one country and as a nation. This is really counterproductive.

Just ask National Police chief [Gen. Tito Karnavian] about the billions [of rupiahs] that have been wasted to deploy police personnel to secure the rallies, Jokowi said.

The President said he hoped PMII members would long to become not only politicians but also entrepreneurs because, currently, entrepreneurs comprise only 1.6 percent of Indonesia's population. Ideally, more than five percent of the countrys population should become entrepreneurs, he said.

Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani, Research and Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir, Regional Representative Council (DPD) Speaker Oesman Sapta Odang and Central Sulawesi Governor Longki Djanggola accompanied President Jokowi in the visit. (foy/ebf)

Topics : Jokowi jokowidodo PMII rally protests
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 11:43 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a0fdb26 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,village,tourist-village,award,tourism,#tourism,Tourist-Village-Award Free

Seven tourist villages were recognized with the 2017 Tourist Village Award on May 13 to 14.

Presented by Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Eko Putro Sandjojo, the award was part of Expo BUMDes Nusantara 2017 held in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra.

The seven winning villages were divided into two categories: the business network category (Tamansari in Banyuwangi, Pujon Kidul in Malang and Seigentung in Gunung Kidul) and the culture category (Ubud in Bali, Teluk Meranti Lalawan in Riau, an ecotourist village in East Nusa Tenggara's Ende regency, and Bontagula Bontang in East Kalimantan).

Read also: Lombok's Setanggor village, a must-visit for cultural enthusiasts

The judging criteria was based on how the villages managed their funding and improved their local economy.

Eko said that up to 11,000 villages had been lifted from disadvantaged to developing status and that 7,000 villages reached developed status. The numbers surpassed the 2019 Long-Medium Term National Development (RPJM) target of having 5,000 and 2,000 villages reach the developing and developed status, respectively. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 16, 2017 15:20 2003 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a10c4ae 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism-promotion,India,foreign-tourists,yogyakarta-tourism,bali Free

After having recently led familiarization trips (famtrip) with France and Bulgaria, the Tourism Ministry will now do the same for tour operators and travel agents from India on a famtrip that takes participants to Yogyakarta and Bali from May 15 to 19.

The famtrip is being held together with Yogyakarta Travel Mart that runs from May 15 to 16, when famtrip participants are treated as buyers at the event, said the ministry's deputy assistant for Asia-Pacific tourism promotion, Vinsensius Jemadu.

Read also: Yogyakarta home to 70% of bird species

Themed Jogja The Unforgettable Journey, the eighth Yogyakarta Travel Mart was attended by 88 sellers consisting of 36 travel agencies, 15 hotels and 1 restaurant as well as 144 buyers consisting of 35 locals and 109 international buyers from 14 countries, including India.

During their time in Yogyakarta, the Indian tour operators and travel agents visited Borobudur temple and Prambanan temple. They are also scheduled to visit Leke Leke tourist village in the Bedugul area in Bali, where they will partake in recreational tubing. (asw)
We have just heard back from the Landmarks Preservation Commission after asking some questions this morning about the fate of Beth Hamedrash Hagadol.

Following last nights devastating fire at 60 Norfolk St., officials from several agencies were on site today to conduct investigations. LPC spokesperson Sonia Edghill tells us that representatives of the commission met on the Lower East Side today with the property owner and officials with the Department of Buildings (DOB).

DOB and the Fire Department are conducting separate investigations. The owners engineer was also expected to inspect whats left of the building today. A decision on its status as a city landmark has not yet been made, although the outcome seems fairly obvious judging from the gaping hole in the center of the building.

Last night, Rabbi Mendel Greenbaum told us he was previously scheduled to meet with LPC officials this week about a restoration and redevelopment plan for the site. It was to be a collaboration between the synagogue and the Chinese American Planning Council, which owns a parcel behind the synagogue.

Edghill confirmed this, saying, The meeting on Wednesday was to discuss the restoration and redevelopment of the property in connection with a development with the adjacent building owner, the Chinese American Planning Council and the developer Gotham. She added, LPC staff has been meeting with the Synagogue for a number of years to help in addressing maintenance issues and to identify and explore ways to achieve restoration and redevelopment of the property.

The Gotham Organization is probably best known for the large residential and commercial project, Gotham West, on 11th Avenue. It was one of many developers responding to an RFP for the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area a few years ago (the firm did not win the contract). You can read more about the company here.
We just returned from Norfolk Street, where city inspectors are trying to determine the next steps in the aftermath of Sunday nights horrible fire at Beth Hamedrash Hagadol.

Staff from the Department of Buildings are on the scene, along with the fire marshal and Mendel Greenbaum, rabbi of the historic Lower East Side synagogue. A search of the basement has taken place (it was not burned), but going inside whats left of the main level has been impossible. No way we can search the first floor, with what collapsed on top of it, Manhattan Borough Commander Roger Sakowich told Channel 2 yesterday.

Last night, Yehuda Oshry (son of Beth Hamedrash Hagadols legendary former rabbi) told us fire officials are evaluating whether the remaining walls need to be taken down immediately for safety reasons. This morning, Greenbaum said no decisions have been made because the fire department and buildings department are still figuring out how to access the building interior. Yesterday the Department of Buildings took the routine step of issuing a full vacate order until a structural stability inspection is conducted.

Meanwhile, investigators are still looking over videotape showing three people running in the vicinity of the synagogue Sunday night. It isnt known whether they were inside the building, where the fire was almost certainly set. Local resident Rich Caplan said his wife saw someone jumping over the fence They didnt look around to case the joint, they just jumped over the fence, went up through the windows thats on the side of the synagogue and that was it, Caplan told Channel 2.

One issue to be determined: the fate of Beth Hamedrash Hagadols status as a city landmark (a designation it has held since 1967). Today, Landmarks Preservation Commission spokesperson Sonia Edghill tells us, The Department of Buildings is investigating the condition and LPC will be coordinating closely with DOB to determine the stability of the remaining fabric. LPC will not take any steps on the status of the designation until the investigation is completed. Any potential changes to the designation status of the property would require review by the full Commission at a public hearing.

More photos from the scene today:
Current President, Hassan Rouhani, recently said that the time for extremism is over and that the young people are the key to the future. He said at a recent event: We are here to tell pro-violence extremists that your era has come to an end. () You [referring to hardliners] cannot stand against our youths choice of freedom and progress () This month, the nation will once again reject those whose main decisions have only been executions and imprisonments over the past 38 years.

Rouhani has been described as a moderate president, especially by the Obama administration who tried to convince the world that great change would come as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal. The recent comments from Rouhani certainly suggest that he has moderate views. However, his actions could not be more contrary. During his presidency, there have been thousands of executions and Iran is now known as the main exporter of terrorism. Does this signal moderateness?

His comments were made to make him stand out against his hardliner opponents. But can he really say he is any better than the candidates who actually share the same opinions on capital punishment being the will of God? Is he any different to those who also follow the policies of the Supreme Leader?

Rouhani was in fact the one who recommended that executions are carried out, in public, during Friday prayers to increase the repression the Iranian regime has been practising for years. This recommendation was made in 1980 when he said that the executions would have more of an impact on the people.

He also recently boasted about how the defence budget increased 145% since the beginning of his time in office.

Ebrahim Raisi, one of the main candidates for presidency, is most known these days for his involvement in the 1988 massacre in which more than 30,000 political prisoners were executed. The Supreme Leader recently banned any mention of the 1988 massacre. This is just one stark example of how much of a sham the elections really are.

The Iranian regime is hugely insecure about its future and greatly fears an uprising like the one in 2009 where the people took to the streets in an uproar about their lack of rights.

And another uprising is possible, if not likely. The Iranian opposition has urged the Iranian people, especially the youth, to speak up against the regime. And they are doing so despite the very real risk of execution, arrest and torture. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has hailed their bravery.

A hashtag on Twitter is being used by people inside and outside the country  #MyVoteRegimeChange. This is the chance for the international community to show its solidarity with the Iranian people who are desperate for freedom, democracy, human rights, and all the things we take for granted in the West.
The relations between the US and the UAE are becoming stronger and are not just based on security and defence issues, but also on common values as well as commerce and trade.

The trade relationship between the two countries is very fruitful and the US had a $19-billion trade surplus with the UAE last year.

The Emirates are a significant importer of industrial goods from the US and thus is a source of high-level American jobs. For example, the Emirati airlines have provided jobs for hundreds of thousands of American workers. There is also over 175 million in local revenue generated as a result of flights from the UAE to the US.

In the Emirates there are more than 1,500 American businesses and around 75,000 American citizens who pay tax on their earnings there in the US.

In a region that is known for its conflict and troubles, the UAE is a beacon of hope.

The American President has spoken openly on numerous occasions about his ideas for peace in the Middle East, and the most important way to move towards this is to tackle the aggression perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Many officials in the Trump administration have recognised and identified Iran as the main exporter of terrorism in the world and have expressed their contempt for its bloody involvement in the Syrian civil war and other conflicts in the region.

The UAE is the only nation in the Arab world that has joined forced with the United States to be part of coalition actions in the past few decades. They have worked together in wars in Bosnia-Kosovo, the Gulf War, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan and of course the present fight against ISIS.

The Iran nuclear deal is currently undergoing a comprehensive review after many members of the Trump administration have voiced their concerns about Irans malign behaviour. Early on in the Trump administration, Iran was put on notice and sanctions were issued against numerous Iranian individuals and entities following the launch of a ballistic missile. Since then, the Trump administration has continued to take the threat of Iran seriously and does not appear to be relenting.
To fully understand the socioeconomic situation in post-war Japan, it is first important to grasp around 300 years of the nation's history.

In the early 1600s, European traders visited the Japanese islands for the first time. They brought with them Christian missionaries. Christianity was seen as a threat to a medieval shogunate and Christians were persecuted.

After a farmers daughter was raped by a local daimyo (feudal lord), several peasants in the south revolted alongside many Japanese Christian converts.

This was used as an excuse to ban all western ideas and close off Japan to foreigners. Dutch and Chinese ships were still allowed to use the ports at Nagasaki, but the rest of Japan was closed off.

This allowed for over two centuries of Japanese culture to develop with virtually no foreign influence.

Ships sent by the King of Portugal were burnt to a crisp. In 1851, under the orders of President Fillmore, Commodore Matthew Perry led a US naval expedition demanding Japan open up to free trade or else American ships would return and invade.

Reluctantly, Japan agreed. Much of the facets of Japanese culture were already beginning to disappear. Samurai, once proud warriors, were now little more than bureaucrats.

This caused massive anti-American sentiment in the traditional Army and led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan was devastated by Allied firebombing and nuclear bombs at the end of the Second World War.

The re-building bought new aspects of architecture, explored in the Barbican exhibition: The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945.

The exhibition begins with repeats of Life Dramas on a loop. 1950s Japan saw an influx of American and western investment and with it new cultural ideals. Popular television explored the changing face of Japan and the battle between traditionalism and modernity.

This is shown in the houses on display in the exhibit; they contain traditional tatami mats and some also feature Japanese style furniture arrangements but are also quite Western in their design.

Kazuo Shinohara once described houses as works of art. Indeed, many of the types of house on display are visually stunning, offering its inhabitants escape from the outside and offering a sheltered inside existence.

The economic boom and subsequent downturn in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s saw demand for more housing. Several homes were built as single dwellings for businessmen in the inner cities. Theres an interesting film on display in which a television imagine of a womans eye watches her very movement. It highlights how this was detrimental for Japanese culture, as people lost individuality and were left sheltered on their own.

Many of Japans homes have short lifespans, designed to last 25 years as society constantly evolves whilst the threat of natural disaster is high, but some homes have survived the war and some were built to last, using intricate designing through the clever use of steel and concrete.

This is a very good exhibit for those interested in Japan or architecture. The homes and rooms on display are visually stunning, combining Japans proud past with a more modern outward looking style of thought.

The exhibit costs 10 for students but is free for Barbican members. It runs till the 25th June and more information can be found here.
In Laramie  a small town in Wyoming  21-year-old student Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered in 1998.

In the aftermath, members of Tectonic Theatre spent over a year conducting interviews with the detectives, surgeons, priests, and even the perpetrators who were all profoundly affected by this tragic hate crime.

The result is The Laramie Project, a documentary-style play, which splices together snippets from the interviews in order to comment on not only homosexuality, but education, class, and ethics.

This production is part of 49 theatre companies hosting The Laramie Project in dedication to the victims of the Pulse shootings, the attack on LGBTQ+ people which took place in Orlando almost a year ago.

Sure, this is a play that resonates particularly with American audiences; LGBTQ+ people live in fear of persecution under the presidency of Trump, who has vowed to sign the First Amendment Defence Act, which will legalise LGBTQ+ discrimination on religious grounds.

Yet the plays themes are never mentioned in light of the discrimination of LGBTQ+ people in the UK. In the past year, there has been a 95% increase in students who live in fear of hate crime and there was a 147% increase in homophobic and transphobic attacks in the first months following Brexit. But this production makes no effort to dwell on these pertinent issues, which feels like a major misstep.

Yes, this production does bring to light important questions about the nature of discrimination, but it is confined to the past. It fails to adapt to the current political climate  both in the UK and abroad  and in doing so feels decentred and distant.

Perhaps this could be forgiven if the production itself projected its message more forcefully. Sadly, this is not the case. In part, this is due to the performances. Ten actors play a multitude of roles, with only a few minimal costume changes signalling the transitions between characters, which becomes confusing.

Also, the performers dont manage to transcend the source material with any profundity or gusto. Its all shouting and wobbly accents, bar a few moments which do manage to strike a chord. In particular, the scene in which the boy who finds Shepherd recounts his ordeal is touching and well handled.

The set is made up of a few chairs, a table, and a splattering of blood on the floor. This shouldnt be an issue  and Im sure a more successful production could make this work  but with the constant rearranging of props, attempting to locate where the drama is taking place becomes disorientating. Fake news snippets on TV screens break up the scenes quite nicely, although they leave no lasting impact.

Overall, this is a play that has admirable intentions and praise must also be given to the actors for performing a difficult number of roles. But for the audience, it feels lethargic and flat. What couldve been a profound play that instils faith in the role of community becomes a disorientating mess. In the end, it mimics a very dull game of musical chairs.

The Laramie Project runs until May 20th at The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham. Buy tickets here.
After last week's veritable haunted house tragedy, Jamie Mathieson's Oxygen was tasked with the much easier said than done task of keeping up the series' pace, with another fright-fuelled heart-stopper.

In recent years, certain episodes of the show have been guilty of not presenting a sufficiently perilous threat, as far as The Doctor and his companion were concerned. However, that's most definitely not the case here, as the eerie pre-credits sequence swiftly establishes. This is a danger with the potential to challenge both The Doctor's unrelenting resolve, as well as Bill's ever-growing faith and trust in him.

As a matter of fact, there's not a scene that goes by in the absence of even the remotest sense of impending doom, once the TARDIS materialises aboard Chasm Forge - a mining station in the distant future, where there's seemingly far more at play than meets the eye.

Looking back through its history, Doctor Who is by no means a stranger to the pertinent art of thinly veiled socio-political commentary. With classic era stories such as The Happiness Patrol and The Sun Makers, as well as the far more recent Zygon two-parter - that aired only 18 months ago - the world's longest running sci-fi has always worn its inherent willingness to tackle many of the most pertinent issues befalling our society proudly on its sleeve, like a badge of honour.

To that end, it shouldn't really come as a surprise, that an episode involving a space station on which oxygen is treated as a profitable commodity - rather than as the complimentary necessity that it should be - is having an incredibly blatant dig at capitalism. Albeit, in a downright harrowing yet consummately eccentric manner.

Now, how might it do that, you ask? Via a whole host of space suits delivered straight from the Silence in the Library catalogue of creepy futuristic tech. But instead of the suits possessing the ability to temporarily preserve their inhabitor's aural likeness after a Vashta Nerada attack, the ones that Mathieson has envisioned here are far more life-threatening themselves.

Thankfully, all of the doom and gloom that such a narrative entails is almost invariably laced with bouts of canny wit and comic relief, chiefly perpetuated by the centric trio's constantly evolving banter. Mathieson's dialogue is so light on its feet, that all of its quips and jibes fly to and fro around the TARDIS control room as if it were a pinball machine.

Furthermore, it's safe to say that any lingering doubts regarding Nardole's prolonged presence should've been suitably expunged after this outing. As far as I can see, the overall dynamic in the TARDIS has been completely rejuvenated, from the increasingly stagnant depths that the regrettably lacking chemistry between The Doctor and his previous companion had resulted in. The way in which the characters so effortlessly play off each other, whatever the circumstance, is very much reminiscent of what the Eleventh Doctor had with Amy and Rory.

So, was Oxygen the best of the series so far? I certainly think so. It succinctly delivers everything we've come to expect from a storyline of its nature, all the while, imparting an authentically thoughtful portrayal of a near-constant point of societal contention.

Doctor Who airs on Saturdays at 7:20pm on BBC One.


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[May 15, 2017] Bovie Medical Corporation Reports First Quarter 2017 Financial Results and Introduces Fiscal Year 2017 Financial Outlook

Bovie Medical Corporation (NYSEMKT:BVX) (the "Company"), a maker of medical devices and supplies and the developer of J-Plasma, a patented new surgical product, today reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2017. First Quarter 2017 Financial Summary: Total Q1 revenue of $8.4 million, up 7.9% year-over-year.

Domestic Q1 revenue of $7.0 million, up 5.7% year-over-year.

International Q1 revenue of $1.4 million, up 20.4% year-over-year.

Net loss of $1.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017, compared to a net loss of $1.9 million in the comparable period last year.

Adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2017, compared to Adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.6 million in the comparable period last year. First Quarter Highlights: On January 19, 2017, the Company announced that it had entered into a global sales channel partnership agreement for its PlazXact Ablator with CONMED, which will be marketed as the UltrAblator Bipolar  series commencing March 2017. This partnership builds on one element of Bovie's growth strategy, namely to use economically viable sales channel partnerships to scale its advanced energy products.

series commencing March 2017. This partnership builds on one element of Bovie's growth strategy, namely to use economically viable sales channel partnerships to scale its advanced energy products. On January 24, 2017, the Company announced the appointment of Dr. Dennis S. Chi, a renowned gynecologic oncology surgeon, to its Medical Advisory Board. Dr. Chi is the Deputy Chief and Head of Ovarian Cancer Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Chi has been the principal investigator of several institutional and multi-center trials, and has published more than 100 papers on ovarian cancer surgery. The addition of Dr. Chi brings Bovie Medical's MAB board to five members, representing specialties which include urology, obstetrics/gynecology, cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery, and gynecologic oncology.

On March 27, 2017, the Company announced that it had received 510K clearances from the FDA for both a new J-Plasma generator and a new open handpiece that incorporates Cool-Coag technology. Cool-Coag is a new technology that combines the unique benefits of J-Plasma, namely increased precision with minimal thermal spread, with standard monopolar coagulation and helium spray coagulation capabilities, all in one handpiece. Highlights Subsequent to Quarter-End: On May 8, 2017, the Company announced it had received 510K clearance from the FDA for a new J-Plasma Precise Flex handpiece. The J-Plasma Precise Flex handpiece is designed to be used in robotic-assisted procedures including those with Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System. The J-Plasma Precise Flex includes Bovie Medical's Cool-Coag technology that combines the unique benefits of J-Plasma, namely increased precision with minimal thermal spread, with standard monopolar coagulation and helium spray coagulation capabilities, all in one handpiece. Management Comments: "Our first quarter results reflect solid performance in many areas of our business, as well as areas where we look forward to improving results over the balance of 2017," said Robert L. Gershon, Chief Executive Officer. "We posted growth in each of our three business segments in Q1, with the strongest contributors to total Company revenue growth coming from 5% growth in our Core business and 71% growth in our Advanced Energy business compared to last year." "We continue to make progress towards our goal of expanding the utilization of our J-Plasma generator and handpiece technologies in the U.S. and abroad. The feedback on our J-Plasma technologies from surgeons in the GYN and plastic surgery markets remains positive, although the pace of commercialization in the first quarter was slower than expected. Importantly, we continue to expand our J-Plasma product offering based on the valuable feedback and strong demand we are receiving from surgeons and we have announced three important 510k clearances thus far in 2017. The foundation of growth in our Advanced Energy business was also enhanced with the announcement of a global sales channel partnership with CONMED for Bovie's PlazXact Ablator." Mr. Gershon continued: "We believe 2017 is an important year for Bovie Medical and we expect to drive strong performance in both our Core and our Advanced Energy businesses this year. Growth in our OEM business will be challenged this year given the notable revenue growth we reported in our OEM business in 2016 which benefitted from unique generator demand from a customer that we do not expect in 2017. Notably, absent this large order demand last year, our OEM business is expected to post solid growth in 2017 and, similarly, our total Company revenue growth profile is considerably stronger."







First Quarter 2017 Results: Three Months Ended

March 31, Increase/Decrease (In thousands) 2017 2016 $ Change % Change Sales by Domestic and International Domestic $ 6,992 $ 6,615 $ 377 5.7 % International 1,397 1,160 237 20.4 % Total $ 8,389 $ 7,775 $ 614 7.9 %

Total revenue for first quarter 2017 increased $0.6 million, or 7.9%, to $8.4 million, compared to $7.8 million in the first quarter of 2016. Revenue in the United States increased $0.4 million, or 5.7% year-over-year, to $7.0 million, and international revenue increased $0.2 million, or 20.4% year-over-year, to $1.4 million. The following tables represent revenue by reportable segment and by product line: Three Months Ended

March 31, Increase/Decrease (In thousands) 2017 2016 $ Change % Change Sales by Reportable Segment Core $ 6,775 $ 6,478 $ 297 4.6 % OEM 1,007 941 66 7.0 % Advanced Energy 607 356 251 70.5 % Total $ 8,389 $ 7,775 $ 614 7.9 % Three Months Ended

March 31, Increase/Decrease (In thousands) 2017 2016 $ Change % Change Sales by Product Line Electrosurgical $ 5,330 $ 4,252 $ 1,078 25.4 % Cauteries 1,655 1,834 (179 ) (9.8 )% Lighting 445 506 (61 ) (12.1 )% Other 959 1,183 (224 ) (18.9 )% Total $ 8,389 $ 7,775 $ 614 7.9 % Total revenue growth was driven by a 4.6% increase in Core sales, a 70.5% increase in Advance Energy sales and, to a lesser extent, a 7.0% increase in OEM sales. The largest product line contributor to total revenue growth in the first quarter of 2017 was a 25.4% increase in sales of electrosurgical products, driven primarily by a $0.9 million increase in sales of generators in the period. Advanced Energy sales, primarily J-Plasma products, in first quarter 2017 were $607,000, compared to approximately $356,000 last year. By product line, sales of electrosurgical, cauteries, lighting and other products represented 64%, 20%, 5% and 11% of total revenue, respectively, for the three months ended March 31, 2017. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2017 increased $0.9 million, or 27.2% year-over-year, to $4.2 million, compared to $3.3 million for first quarter 2016. Gross margin increased 770 basis points year-over-year to 50.4% for the first quarter of 2017, compared to 42.7% last year. Gross margins in first quarter 2016 were negatively impacted by a write down of approximately $484,000 for obsolete inventory. Excluding this impact, gross margins increased 140 basis points year-over-year in the first quarter of 2017, driven by product and pricing mix benefits in the Company's Core segment. Operating expenses for first quarter 2017 increased $0.7 million, or 12.2%, to $6.0 million, compared to $5.3 million for first quarter 2016. The increase in operating expenses was driven primarily by a $0.4 million increase in salaries and related costs and by a $0.2 million increase in selling, general and administrative expenses compared to the comparable period last year. Loss from operations for the first quarter of 2017 was $1.7 million, compared to a loss from operations of $2.0 million for the comparable period last year. Net loss for the first quarter of 2017 was $1.7 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $1.9 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2016. As of March 31, 2017, the Company had cash of $12.3 million as compared to $15.2 million as of December 31, 2016. The Company had working capital of $19.7 million as of March 31, 2017 as compared to $21.3 million as of December 31, 2016. 2017 Outlook: The Company is introducing fiscal year 2017 guidance expectations. The Company expects: Total revenue in the range of $38.3 million to $40.3 million, representing growth of 5% to 10% year-over-year, compared to total revenue of $36.6 million in fiscal year 2016. The Company expects total revenue growth to be driven by: Core sales growth in the range of approximately 4% to 8% year-over-year, Advanced Energy sales growth in the range of approximately 60% to 80% year-over-year, OEM sales decline in the range of approximately 25% to 35% year-over-year. Excluding sales of $2.3 million in fiscal year 2016 related to unique generator demand from a large OEM customer, the Company's OEM segment sales in fiscal year 2017 are expected to increase in the range of 16% to 32% year-over-year. Similarly, excluding sales of $2.3 million in fiscal year 2016 related to unique generator demand from a large OEM customer, total Company sales in fiscal year 2017 are expected to increase in the range of 12% to 17% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA loss in a range of $1.2 million to $1.4 million, compared to Adjusted EBITDA loss of $2.2 million in fiscal year 2016.

Conference Call Details: Management will host a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on May 15, 2017 to discuss the results of the quarter and host a question and answer session. To listen to the call by phone, interested parties within the U.S. may dial 866-682-6100. International callers may dial 862-255-5401. Participants should ask for the Bovie Medical Corporation Call. A live webcast of the call will be accessible via the Investor Relations section of the Company's website and at: http://www.investorcalendar.com/IC/CEPage.asp?ID=175894. A telephonic replay will be available approximately two hours after the end of the call through June 15, 2017. The replay can be accessed by dialing 877-481-4010 for U.S. callers or 919-882-2331 for International callers and using the replay access code: 10357. The webcast will be archived on the Investor Relations section of the Company's website. About Bovie Medical Corporation: Bovie Medical Corporation is a leading maker of medical devices and supplies as well as the developer of J-Plasma, a patented plasma-based surgical product for cutting and coagulation. J-Plasma utilizes a helium ionization process to produce a stable, focused beam of ionized gas that provides surgeons with greater precision, minimal invasiveness and an absence of conductive currents through the patient during surgery. Bovie Medical Corporation is also a leader in the manufacture of a range of electrosurgical products and technologies, marketed through both private labels and the Company's own well-respected brands (Bovie, IDS, ICON and DERMTM) to distributors worldwide. The Company also leverages its expertise through original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreements with other medical device manufacturers. For further information about the Company's current and new products, please refer to the Investor Relations section of Bovie Medical Corporation at www.boviemed.com. Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Statements: Certain matters discussed in this release and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of the Company may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Federal securities laws. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Many of these factors are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ materially and that could impact the Company and the statements contained in this release can be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including the Company's Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and subsequent Form 10-Q filings. For forward-looking statements in this release, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. BOVIE MEDICAL CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) (In thousands, except per share data) Three Months Ended

March 31, 2017 2016 Sales $ 8,389 $ 7,775 Cost of sales 4,163 4,452 Gross profit 4,226 3,323 Other costs and expenses: Research and development 709 668 Professional services 390 357 Salaries and related costs 2,460 2,100 Selling, general and administrative 2,404 2,191 Total other costs and expenses 5,963 5,316 Loss from operations (1,737 ) (1,993 ) Interest expense, net (31 ) (38 ) Change in fair value of derivative liabilities, net 88 87 Total other income, net 57 49 Loss before income taxes (1,680 ) (1,944 ) Income tax expense 5 - Net loss $ (1,685 ) $ (1,944 ) Loss per share Basic $ (0.05 ) $ (0.07 ) Diluted $ (0.06 ) $ (0.07 ) Weighted average number of shares outstanding - basic 30,860 27,051 Weighted average number of shares outstanding - dilutive 30,887 27,051 BOVIE MEDICAL CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited) (In thousands, except share and per share data) March 31,

2017 December 31,

2016 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 11,508 $ 14,456 Restricted cash 779 779 Trade accounts receivable, net 4,279 4,733 Inventories, net 7,422 6,158 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 639 413 Total current assets 24,627 26,539 Property and equipment, net 6,368 6,449 Brand name and trademark 1,510 1,510 Purchased technology and license rights, net 188 215 Goodwill 185 185 Deposits 71 109 Other assets 143 103 Total assets $ 33,092 $ 35,110 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 2,176 $ 1,606 Accrued payroll 229 419 Accrued vacation 431 404 Current portion of mortgage note payable 239 239 Accrued and other liabilities 1,853 2,604 Total current liabilities 4,928 5,272 Mortgage note payable, net of current portion 2,635 2,694 Note payable 140 140 Deferred rents 13 14 Deferred tax liability 564 564 Derivative liabilities 115 203 Total liabilities 8,395 8,887 STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Series B convertible preferred stock, $0.001 par value; 3,588,139 authorized and 975,639 issued and outstanding as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 1 1 Common stock, $0.001 par value; 40,000,000 shares authorized; 31,002,832 issued and 30,859,753 outstanding as of March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016 31 31 Additional paid-in capital 49,784 49,625 Accumulated deficit (25,119 ) (23,434 ) Total stockholders' equity 24,697 26,223 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 33,092 $ 35,110 BOVIE MEDICAL CORPORATION RECONCILIATION OF GAAP NET (News - Alert) INCOME/(LOSS) RESULTS TO NON-GAAP ADJUSTED EBITDA/(LOSS) (Unaudited) (In thousands) Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures We present these non-GAAP measures because we believe these measures are useful indicators of our operating performance. Our management uses these non-GAAP measures principally as a measure of our operating performance and believes that these measures are useful to investors because they are frequently used by analysts, investors and other interested parties to evaluate companies in our industry. We also believe that these measures are useful to our management and investors as a measure of comparative operating performance from period to period. The Company has presented the following non-GAAP financial measures in this press release: adjusted EBITDA. The Company defines adjusted EBITDA as its reported net income/(loss) (GAAP) plus income tax expense, interest expense, net, depreciation and amortization, stock-compensation expense, and changes in value of derivative liabilities. Three Months Ended

March 31, 2017 2016 Net loss GAAP Basis $ (1,685 ) $ (1,944 ) Interest expense, net 31 38 Income tax expense 5 - Depreciation and amortization 178 182 Stock based compensation 159 176 Change in fair value of derivative liabilities, net (88 ) (87 ) Adjusted EBITDA (1,400 ) (1,635 ) The following unaudited table presents a reconciliation of net loss to Adjusted EBITDA for our 2017 guidance: Year Ended 2017 Net loss GAAP Basis $ (2,900 ) Interest expense, net 145 Income tax expense - Depreciation and amortization 720 Stock based compensation 720 Change in fair value of derivative liabilities, net - Adjusted EBITDA (1,315 ) The reconciliation assumes the mid-point of the Adjusted EBITDA loss range and the midpoint of each component of the reconciliation, corresponding to guidance of $1.2 million to $1.4 million for 2017. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170515006370/en/

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Actor Ranveer Singh has been swept over by India's biggest motion picture Baahubali 2: The Conclusion.

The Lootera star is in total awe of S.S Rajamouli's creation which has emerged as the country's biggest blockbuster.

Baahubali. OMFG," Ranveer tweeted on Tuesday.

The second part in the Baahubali franchise has amassed over Rs. 1400 crore so far and counting.

The film has crushed box-office records across languages. It collected over Rs. 400 crore from its dubbed Hindi version alone.

Starring Prabhas and Rana Daggubati as the male protagonists, the film is about the warring battle between them for the ownership of an ancient kingdom.

Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Ramya Krishnan and Sathyaraj played pivotal roles in the film.
The pristine Kovalam beach will host leading writers and thinkers from across the country and beyond for the inaugural edition of "Books on the Beach", a literature festival that celebrates and contemplates both the written word and its expression, said politician and author Shashi Tharoor.

The lit-fest, which is organised by non-profit India Book Foundation under the guidance and active patronage of Tharoor, the Thiruvananthapuram MP and supported by Kerala Tourism, will be held over three days starting November 10.

The event would see writers of prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction, essayists and environmentalists, artists and academics, reporters and editors conduct readings and recitals besides participating in meaningful debates and dialogues on a multitude of topics.

"Literature has real value. It appeals to a more discerning audience. The Hay Festival here a few years ago was a huge success and led to increased awareness of Kerala thanks to word of mouth.

"It is time we established a durable institution that showcases Thiruvananthapuram and Kerala as a place of ideas and culture. But a lit-fest is not for visitors alone, it will also further energise the already vibrant reading culture in the state," said Tharoor.

Besides serving as an annual platform for the best in Indian and world literature, "Books on the Beach" will, over successive editions, tap into the city's youthful energy and distinctive charm to promote it as a leading destination for culture and tourism, said officials.

"Cultural festivals play an important role in branding and promoting destinations. Kerala Tourism is presently positioning the state as an arts and culture hub. It will provide a fillip to tourism in the state, and in particular renew interest in Kovalam. The litfest will enjoy Kerala Tourism's full support," said Kerala Tourism chief V. Venu.
In todays complex and interconnected world, the framework for studying security and understanding insecurities continues to evolve and remain challenging. With the end of the Cold War and the space therein available to explore alternative security constructs significantly widened our understanding of security, particularly for the state or its people.

As it has become imperative to deconstruct the widely held notions of non-traditional security, the National Security Studies Department at the Central University of Jammu and the Department of International Studies, Christ University, Bangalore in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and J&K Police organised a three day national conference on Trends in Non Traditional Security at the Central University of Jammu recently.

Hasseb Drabu, J&K minister of finance said that the finance sector has also been affected by non-traditional threats and opined that the issue of radicalisation is mainly because of distorted social order.

Eminent speakers tabled their arguments in front of peers, practitioners and students drawn from both universities. Various sessions on multiple themes including classic narrative, counter narrative and comparative narrative (of the nontraditional security) were significantly carried out. Experts from different backgrounds presented papers on narco-trafficking, terrorism, economic policy, terrorism, refugees, and Internally Displaced Persons respectively.

The discussion on contemporary narrative witnessed issues pertaining to demography, water, radicalisation, new media, disaster management and responses.

All along we have been studying non traditional security as a monolithic whole unable to differentiate and justify how we were studying a subject such as terrorism then, and now not as much in the same perspective and how we were studying global climate change and demography now, and how to link securitised issues with a host of other emerging security challenges that affect the state and its people, said Mallika Joseph, organiser of the seminar.

Joseph is hopeful that they would be able to capitalise on the momentum that has been created and continue working together on the various security issues that is of mutual interest. She attributed the success to the multi stakeholder approach, involving partners from different backgrounds drawn from academia and practitioner worlds.

The writer is director and head, department of lifelong learning, university of jammu, jammu & kashmir
Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on 15 May said the government had decided to restore subsidy to states on sale of sugar to poor families covered under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) through the PDS.

"The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has taken a decision to give one kg sugar to poor families under the Antyodaya scheme," Paswan told the media while listing achievements of his ministry in three years.

The development will benefit about 2.5 crore families under the AAY as subsidy of Rs.18.50 per kg will be given to the state governments.

The sugar subsidy under the AAY was discontinued in March in line with the recommendation of the Expenditure Management Commission.

Paswan said 99.33 per cent of cane dues of farmers for 2014-15 sugar session and 98.21 per cent for 2015-16 season had been cleared.
Ahead of the planned GST rollout from July 1, the government is strengthening the body responsible for detecting tax evasion and will set up two new agencies, including one for business intelligence and analytics.

With the goods and service tax (GST) subsuming central levies like excise duty, service tax and state VAT, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has reorganised its existing central excise and service tax field formations to suit the requirements of the new regime.

The CBEC will itself be rechristened as the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and will supervise GST and Customs activities and provide the government policy inputs.

The CBIC will be headed by a chairman and will have six members- for GST; IT, legal and compliance verification; investigation; tax policy; Customs and administration and vigilance.

In a letter to the zonal heads, the human resource arm of the CBEC said the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGSTI) will be the new name of the existing Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), but with more powers.

The DGSTI will have its task cut out, keeping in view the steep increase in the GST taxpayer base, the letter said.

The organisation will be headed by a principal director general in Delhi who will be assisted by four sub-national directors general.

Also, two new directorates are being created. The Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) will have two verticals for business intelligence and analytics and risk management centre to provide perspectives for policy formulation.

The Directorate of International Customs will be created to deal with WTO related matters, including tariff, as well as the Kyoto Convention, multilateral and bi-lateral agreements with other countries.

It will also assist the board in functions related to the National Trade Facilitation Committee for implementation of the trade facilitation agreement (TEA) and Customs procedures for international Trade. All matters of cross- border trade through Land Customs Stations shall also be handled by this directorate, the letter said.

Further, the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics (NACIN), will be the new form of the existing National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN). In the GST regime, it will be the only academy of its kind in India that will provide regular training to officers.

It is also envisaged that the NACIN will provide training to representatives of trade bodies and tax professionals. Thus, it will be catering to the training needs of around 70,000 persons every year.

The role of the Directorate General of Taxpayer Services under the GST set-up will be to provide assistance to the taxpayers at their doorsteps, in addition to handling publicity and public relations, holding seminars and workshops, attending to queries of taxpayers and coordinating the resolution of taxpayers' grievances.
Encouraged by Infosys' decision to set up a tech centre in his state and generate 2,000 jobs, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb will lead a high- powered trade delegation to India later this year with the sole objective of attracting more Indian business, particularly IT companies.

I'm looking forward to travelling to India, probably in the fall, before the winter, Holcomb told PTI in an exclusive interview in his office at the State Capitol.

Holcomb, who succeeded Vice President Mike Pence as Indiana governor, said he wanted to travel to India soon after his inauguration early this year but pressing engagements and now the summer prevented him from doing so.

Holcomb, who would be the first Indiana governor to visit India, said he would be looking to grow Indianas presence and strengthen its friendship and partnership with companies headquartered in India.

The governor, credited with initiating a series of steps to make Indiana a business friendly destination, said, Indiana's become the best place in the country to create and innovate.

And that's why this partnership, with not just Infosys but the other companies that we discussed, are so important. Because it is the future. This knowledge economy is the future and it's exciting to launch new efforts here on Hoosier soil, Holcomb told PTI.

He said he started working towards attracting Indian companies to his state on his inauguration itself when he met Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, who attended the event.

The Infosys story, he said, started a few months ago.

But it has come together very fast. We try to operate on the speed of business, not the speed of government. That was

recognized by Infosys and everyone that was working together on this project, he said, adding that he had tried to address every concern that Infosys might have had.

The state of Indiana, the governor said, has over 800 foreign owned businesses and counting.

"We welcome Infosys into our family in a big way.

Looking at strengthening Indianas partnership with Infosys in the coming years, Holcomb said he wants to attracts other Indian IT companies.

Indiana is such fertile ground (for IT companies). We have world class universities where Infosys can in fact recruit that talent right out of Purdue, Indiana University folks who are strong in the STEM subjects, science and technology, engineering and math, right here in their backyard now, he said.

 we're always gonna be proud that they planted their flag here in Indiana first. We will continue to look for ways as this technology evolves and grows itself to grow with Infosys.

Indiana is now an attractive destination, the governor declared, with low tax rates and a reasonable predictable regulatory environment so there's real certainty when you invest in the state of Indiana and our people.

And we do as well in the companies that come here and that's why we're still blooming and continuing to outpace the national average, he said.

Indiana, he said, is doubling the national average in terms of high tech job attraction and growth. Indiana is on a roll and has momentum.

Eminent Indian American businessman Gurinder Singh Khalsa welcomed the announcement of Holcomb's India visit later this year.

Indiana is home to at least six India-based corporations.

India ranks number 18 for Indianas exports. Last year, Indiana exports to India totaled $266.6 million.

Top categories include engines, transmissions, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and chemicals.

India ranks 19 in terms of imports. Indiana imports from India totaled $348.8 million. Top categories are pharmaceuticals, engines ransmissions, motor vehicle parts and apparel.
Union Health Minister JP Nadda on 15 May urged public-funded institutions in the country to play a role in increasing manufacture of indigenous medical devices and equipment.

Inaugurating the second 'Technology Conclave & Industry Meet' at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology here, he said many states were setting up Medtech Parks to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to start manufacturing medical devices and equipment.

However, the growth of medical device industry is hampered by lack of adequate testing support for regulatory compliance, limited availability of manpower, lack of adequate industrial R&D, high cost and inaccessibility of imported technology, he said.

"Public-funded institutions need to take up the role of catalyst and facilitator for increasing the share of indigenous manufacturing (of medical devices and equipment) from the current 25 per cent," he said.

Quoting the figures, the Minister said the Indian medical devices market stood at Rs.24,000 crore and showed an impressive growth rate, at 12-15 per cent of the compound annual growth rate.

"Unfortunately, 75 per cent of the demand is met through imports while the nascent domestic industry predominantly manufactures low-risk products," he said.

With all the technological developments, advent of multinational corporations and upcoming regulatory policy, the medical devices industry is poised for tremendous growth, he said.

The Minister pointed out that some of the technologies that call for immediate attention were low-cost diagnostic machines such as MRI, CT, cardiac catheterisation laboratories and Digital Subtraction Angiography machines.

"The Central government is already funding a major project on indigenous MRI development," he said adding that there was a great need for research and clinical trials in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, stem cell engineering, and gene therapy.

Bio-chips and bio-sensors have to be developed for early diagnosis and monitoring of diseases, Nadda said.

"Indigenous technology for production of low-cost, rapid diagnostic kits is a requirement that cannot wait," he added.

The need of the hour is for a good, open, transparent and mutually beneficial partnership between research/academic institutions and universities with the government science agencies, he said.

"This is the only way that drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and medical devices that are necessary can be made in India," the Minister added.

He also hailed SCTIMST as a unique centre that amalgamates medical sciences and technology within a single institutional framework.
A 26-year-old fashion designer was attacked with a knife allegedly by her former driver in south Delhi's Malviya Nagar.

The victim is currently in hospital and her condition is critical.

According to police, they were informed on Monday that a woman was attacked with a knife in a parking lot in Shivalik apartments.

A police team rushed to the spot but by then the woman had been taken to Max Hospital in Saket.

The victim Kaveri Lal lives with her mother Rekha.

Her mother told police that their former driver, Anil, rang their doorbell around 1.30 PM. She opened the door and enquired about the reason for his arrival.

Anil told her that he had started working as a driver in their neighbourhood.

He asked Kaveri's mother to park their car properly as it was obstructing the movement of his new employer's car.

She was about to hand over the car keys to him but Kaveri said that she would park the vehicle herself.

While Kaveri was in the driver's seat, Anil allegedly attacked her with a knife.

He had almost slit her throat when two students who were on their way to tuitions raised an alarm.

The attacker fled from the spot. Kaveri had tried to resist the attack.

Locals immediately took her to the hospital.

A senior police official said that the accused was employed as a driver with the victim's family around a year back.

He was sacked because of his unruly behaviour.

Police have launched a manhunt for the accused and are questioning other drivers in the area about him.

The victim is still unfit for statement. Police have procured CCTV footage from the area.
Over 27 children fell sick at a school in Bihar on Monday after they consumed mid-day meal in which a dead lizard was found.

The incident took place in Bihars Jamui area and children of the school were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Four days ago, a snakelet was found in the food served to children at Rajkeeya Girls Senior Secondary School in Haryana.

On finding the snakelet, the children were asked to stop consuming the meal, but unfortunately some students had already eaten portions of it.

Insects and rodents in mid-day meals are not new in Bihar.

In 2014, as many as 50 students complained of uneasiness after having the meal in which a dead lizard was found at a primary school in Raghopur near Naugachia.

In 2013, a total of 27 children at a government middle school in Rampur Bakhra village were hospitalsed after eating mid-day meal in which a dead lizard was found.

According to a latest survey by Public Affairs Centre, the state is in 18th position at the bottom of the table in 2017 Governance Index ranking.

(With inputs from agencies)
Five persons were killed and five others critically injured when a van collided with a tractor-trollery here in Haryana on Tuesday, the police said.

The Cruiser Force van they were travelling in first collided with a tractor-trolley carrying fodder and then with a TATA 407 vehicle on Rewari-Mahendragarh road here, police official Satbir Singh said.

The victims were employed at a private firm and belonged to nearby villages.

According to Singh, four persons died on the spot while one succumbed to his injury on the way to a trauma centre. The injured have been admitted to the trauma centre.


A court here has directed the Election Commission to preserve an EVM as well as video-footage of a municipal ward in South Delhi, officials said on Tuesday.

Additional District Judge Sandeep Yadav's order came on Monday while hearing a plea filed by Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Shakun who has alleged tampering of the EVM and the lock of the gate where the machine were kept was found broken.

Shakun's counsel Vishnu Langawat also told the court that the counting in the Pul Prahladpur ward also began late.

The court issued notice to Delhi state Election Commission, its officials and candidates asking them to file reply till May 25.
A Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET) would each be established in Haryana, Plastic Park would be established over 75 acres in Panipat at a cost of Rs.1,500 Crore and Pharma Park would be established over 100 acres in Karnal.

This was announced by Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar, in acceptance of demands raised by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, after he inaugurated hostels for boys and girls constructed at a cost of Rs.31.64 Crore in CIPET, Murthal, district Sonepat, on Monday evening.

He said that CIPET, Murthal would also be expanded and classes for BTech and MTech would also be started, along with vocational and diploma courses. CM also announced to give 10 acres for this purpose.

Ananth Kumar said that these institutions would help meet industry requirements for plastic engineers and technicians. As per a survey, 10 lakh plastic engineers and technicians are required in the country, whereas, less than two lakh such experts are available. As the technology is required in all sectors from agriculture to space exploration, these centres would help make the country self-sufficient in this field.

He also directed officers of Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministry to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding to be signed by Central and Haryana Governments for associating Saksham Yuva Yojana with CIPET.

He said that the Plastic Park to be established in Panipat would generate employment opportunities for 30,000 plastic engineers and technicians.

Pharma Park would be established in Karnal to make the country self-sufficient in terms of production of medicines, and would help reduce the cost of production by 30 per cent. The Central Government would provide all general facilities in the Pharma Park.

He said that 1,320 jan aushadhi centres had been established throughout the country as the initiative of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to provide free medicines to persons belonging to economically weaker sections. Haryana presently has 25 such centres, which would be increased to 100, he added.

He also lauded Haryana Government for the various schemes and policies being implemented for the welfare of the people.

The CM said as a result of the investor-friendly policies of the state government, Haryana ranks sixth in the country and first in north India in terms of ease of doing business.

In the last two years, 13,000 new industries have been established in Haryana, providing employment to 1.70 lakh youth.

As youth aged under 35 years comprise 65 per cent of the population of the State, efforts are being made for their skill development.

Haryana Kaushal Vikas Mission has been launched in the State, under which 69,000 youth were provided training in different fields in 2016-17, and target has been set to train 1.33 lakh youth in 2017-18.

A skill development university is also being established in district Palwal, he added.
Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday reiterated that Haryana was not releasing water for the national capital and added he has requested Lt Governor Anil Baijal to seek the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) intervention.

"Delhi water crisis. Haryana not releasing Delhi's share. I just spoke to LG and requested him to seek PMO's intervention," Sisodia said in a tweet on Tuesday.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader on Monday night also complained of reduced water supply from Haryana and said that he had asked Delhi's Chief Secretary to immediately speak to Haryana's Chief Secretary and ensure proper water supply.

The national capital faces shortage of water every summer and engages in a tussle with Haryana.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention for early construction of the proposed National Institute of New Energy and Innovation (NINEI) in the state.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Patnaik said the Odisha government has allocated 73.86 acres of land free of cost near IIT, Bhubaneswar for the construction of the proposed NINEI.

However, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is yet to take possession of the land and start construction work on the building, said the Chief Minister.

He said Odisha has taken several steps in accordance with the National Development Goals in the renewable energy sector.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had decided to set up the institute in Odisha to promote research and innovation in the renewable energy (RE) sector.
A police complaint has been lodged against Tipu Sultan Mosque Shahi Imam Maulana Noor-ur Rehman Barkati  the cleric who recently threatened 'jihad' and refused to take off the beacon from his vehicle  by the mosque's trustee board on Monday, an official said.

"We have lodged a police complaint against the serving Imam, Maulana Noor-ur Rehman Barkati in Bowbazar police station for forcefully snatching away the keys of the mosque's official room," head of the Board, Anwar Ali Shah said.

According to Shah, the office room was opened in the mosque under direct order of the High Court and is being used to store the official documents.

"The documents of complaints against Imam Barkati is stored in the room. It seems he has taken away the keys to destroy those documents so that it does not reach the trustee board for validation," he alleged.

On reports that Barkati has been sacked as the Imam, Shah said nothing has been officially announced by the mosque authority.

However, he revealed that a process has been started to terminate him from the post after evaluating the charges against him.

"It is not official yet. However, Barkati is aware that steps would be taken against him for constantly making wrong statements and politicising a religious institution. That's why he is hellbent on destroying the papers," Shah claimed.

The sources at the mosque said that a deputation would be given to the mosque and the respective police station to remove Barkati from the position of Imam, followed by a public meeting on Tuesday.

"The decision on Barkati would be officialy announced by the trustee board on Wednesday afternoon," the source added.

Barkati, considered close to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is known for his repeated controversial and provocative comments.

Only last week he had warned of a 'jihad' if India was declared a Hindu Rashtra, and also refused to take off the red beacon from his car saying the privilege was granted to the Shahi Imam by the British government.

He had also drawn flak for commenting that Muslims would "fight for Pakistan if India became a Hindu state".

His comments led to a hue and cry, with the BJP and other Sangh Privar outfits dubbing him "anti-national" and senior West Bengal minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury, regarded as a prominent face of the ruling Trinamool Congress, calling Barkati an RSS agent.

Finally, under pressure from the state government, Barkati was forced to take off the beacon from his vehicle.


The Uttar Pradesh Assembly witnessed uproar for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with the opposition raising the matter of the killing of two bullion traders in Mathura, and alleging that law and order had collapsed in the state under the Yogi Adityanath government.

Responding to the charges, the chief minister said there would be rule of law in the state and that ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power crime in the state had decreased.

Congress lawmakers protested against the Saharanpur incident in which a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian had allegedly led a mob to ransack the residence of the then SSP. The Congress staged a walk out of the House.

The first day of the session on Monday was marred by pandemonium as opposition benches joined ranks against the BJP government and disrupted the address of Governor Ram Naik to the joint session of the House.

This session is special for reasons other than being the maiden session of the 17th Assembly as it is for the first time that proceedings of the House are being telecast live on Doordarshan.

While the treasury benches have time and again said that the people were witnessing the unruly and unparliamentary behaviour of the opposition lawmakers, the latter say they will continue to raise pertinent issues facing the people.
Actress Kate Beckinsale has paid a tribute to her 18-year-old daughter Lily by describing her as her "favourite person in the world".

Beckinsale, 43, gushed over her daughter over social media when she attended her high school prom on Sunday, reports dailymail.co.uk.

The actress highlighted her daughter's likeness to her as she shared a message alongside a photograph of Lily wearing a cherry red gown.

"You take my breath away Lily Beckinsale. Prom. You're funny and clever and gorgeous and just enough crazy to be my favourite person in the world. My Fallopian tube is like bite me I killed this."


[May 16, 2017] FASTSIGNS Leveraging Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 Ink in Epson SureColor S-Series Solvent Printers

CARROLLTON, Texas and LONG BEACH, Calif., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FASTSIGNS International, Inc., the leading sign, graphic and visual communications franchisor of more than 650 locations worldwide, and Epson America, a global leader in printing technology, today announced FASTSIGNS is adopting Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 Inks. Designed for use in Epson's advanced SureColor S-Series roll-to-roll solvent printers  including the SC-S60600 which many FASTSIGNS franchised locations use  the premium inks provide a 3M MCS Warranty for finished graphics created using supported 3M films, clears, overlaminates, and application tapes. "The new S-Series printers have proven to be the fastest, and one of the most reliable printers we have ever recommended to our centers," said Brian Boehm, Director of Tech and Supply Chain at FASTSIGNS International, Inc. "With the addition of the Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 ink, customers now have the best graphics warranty in the business." Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 inks enable FASTSIGNS locations to provide their customers with quality printed graphics that are guaranteed under the 3M MCS warranty program. Widely recognized as the industry's most comprehensive finished graphics warranty, the 3M MCS warranty covers fading, cracking, peeling, and other aspects of outdoor graphic performance for franchisees using the SC-S40600, SC-S60600 and SC-S80600 printers. "The SureColor S-Series printers used in FASTSIGNS locations across the country already provide outstanding qualiy, productivity and reliability," said Matt McCausland, product manager, Professional Imaging, Epson America, Inc. "The Epson-3M inks take these printers to the next level, providing FASTSIGNS local owners with the security of knowing finished graphics made with 3M Graphics products and components are protected for virtually any application."



3M offers the 3M Performance Guarantee with Epson inks featured in legacy wide-format Epson printers, coupled with complimentary rolls of 3M materials, including 54-inch x 10-yard rolls of 3M Controltac Graphic Film with Comply v3 Adhesive IJ180Cv3 and 3M Scotchcal Gloss Overlaminate 8518. The Epson SureColor S-Series printers redefine image quality expectations in the signage market, featuring a PrecisionCore TFP print head (in dual array on the SC-S60600 and SC-S80600) and enhanced precision media feeding system to produce high-quality, sellable output at impressive production speeds. Combined with the 3M MCS Warranty-backed Epson-3M UltraChrome GS3 solvent inks, the SureColor S-Series printers offer outstanding print quality, durability, and media compatibility, plus improved drying times, to help FASTSIGNS get the job done and drive productivity.

About Epson

Epson is a global technology leader dedicated to connecting people, things and information with its original efficient, compact and precision technologies. With a lineup that ranges from inkjet printers and digital printing systems to 3LCD projectors, smart glasses, sensing systems and industrial robots, the company is focused on driving innovations and exceeding customer expectations in inkjet, visual communications, wearables and robotics. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corporation, the Epson Group comprises more than 72,000 employees in 88 companies around the world, and is proud of its contributions to the communities in which it operates and its ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts. Epson America, Inc., based in Long Beach, Calif., is Epson's regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. To learn more about Epson, please visit: epson.com. You may also connect with Epson America on Facebook (facebook.com/Epson), Twitter (twitter.com/EpsonAmerica), YouTube (youtube.com/EpsonAmerica), and Instagram (instagram.com/EpsonAmerica). About FASTSIGNS

FASTSIGNS International, Inc. is the largest sign and visual communications franchisor in North America, and is the worldwide franchisor of more than 650 independently owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers in nine countries including the US, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Grand Cayman, Mexico and Australia (where centers operate as SIGNWAVE). FASTSIGNS locations provide comprehensive sign and visual graphic solutions to help companies of all sizes and across all industries attract more attention, communicate their message, sell more products, help visitors find their way and extend their branding across all of their customer touch points including decor, events, wearables and marketing materials. Learn more about sign and visual graphic solutions or find a location at fastsigns.com. Follow the brand on Twitter @FASTSIGNS, Facebook at facebook.com/FASTSIGNS or on LinkedIn. For information about the FASTSIGNS franchise opportunity, contact Mark Jameson ([email protected] or call 214.346.5679). Note: EPSON, PrecisionCore, SureColor, TFP, and UltraChrome are registered trademarks of Seiko Epson Corporation. All other product and brand names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Epson disclaims any and all rights in these marks. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fastsigns-leveraging-epson-3m-ultrachrome-gs3-ink-in-epson-surecolor-s-series-solvent-printers-300457804.html SOURCE Epson America, Inc.

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Reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian is determined to move on from her former partner Scott Disick, and says they will "never get back together".

In the May 14 episode of "Keeping Up With The Kardashians", Kourtney branded Disick as "disrespectful" as he confessed to Kourtney and her family that he is a "sex addict", reports people.com.

It all started when Kris Jenner and her daughters  Kim, Kourtney and Khloe  confronted Disick for going behind their backs and bringing a woman on their family trip to Costa Rica.

Disick said he was just "trying to move on" from Kourtney.

However, she said: "On a family vacation, don't you think it's inappropriate and disrespectful? To me, to your kids and to all my family? There's a level of respect and appropriateness that should just be known, but apparently it's not."

"I'm a sex addict. I'm a f****d up, horrible sex addict," Disick later said.

Later, Khloe dumped a glass of water over Disick and walked off.

"Scott's so lucky, because I am the coolest baby mama on the planet," said Kourtney, who has three children with Disick.

"The stuff that he's done and I still allow him to come on our family trips?  I just feel like I need to have a conversation with him just to finally say we will never be back together. It's probably better for both of us," she concluded.
A woman, who has given birth barely two days ago, steps out in the scorching heat to finish one of her afternoon tasks as a domestic help. The house she works for has also seen a birth  both mother and child rest comfortably, enjoying the attention, care and fuss. Stark contrast? Actual reality?

A construction worker, the only bread-earner of a family of five, breaks concrete  and his body  in the stifling heat and dust. Clean drinking water and lavatory facilities are a distant dream. Human rights? Common scenario?

Indias total population stands at 1.3 billion (UNESCAP 2016). Nearly 5 million people from South Asia migrated to India in 2015, including 3.2 million from Bangladesh, 1.1 million from Pakistan, 543,000 from Nepal and 155,000 from Sri Lanka (UNDESA 2015). Indias internal migration accounts for a large population  454 million people comprising 37% of the population (Census 2011)  in stark contrast to an international migration figure of 15.6 million (UNDESA 2015). About 43% of Delhis population are migrants, with over half coming from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (NSSO 2007-2008; MHUPA 2017). About 28.3% of the workforce in India comprises of migrants (NSSO 2007-2008; MHUPA 2017). Nearly 69% of internal migrants in India are women (Census 2011). Besides this, about 15 million children in India are estimated to be internal migrants (Daniel, 2011; Smita 2011). The Indian domestic remittance market was estimated at INR 50,000 crore (INR 50 billion) in 2007-2008 (Tumbe, 2011). Mind-boggling figures? And yet, the common reaction is we versus them? Indifference?



On 25 April, International Labour Day, UNESCO launched an awareness campaign to highlight the importance of creating inclusive urban spaces for migrants. Khanabadhoshon ki Duniya or A World of Migrants is a series of 10 radio programmes, of duration 3-4 minutes each, produced by UNESCO featuring several real-life situations involving migrants and the challenges they face in accessing their rights and entitlements. What is unique about these programmes is that they adopt alternative narratives to highlight unique characteristics of migrants in the city: migrants as agents of development, migrants as upholders of cultural diversity, the migrant working woman, migrants as contributors to skill diversity and migrants as symbols of new aspirations. The objective? Quite simple actually: To disrupt the singular image of the underprivileged migrant as a suffering, needy and dependent person to a resilient and strong survivor and entrepreneur, besides enhancing urban understanding and awareness around the right of migrants and the challenges they face, thereby changing the public perceptions of the images of migrants.

Marina Faetanini, Sections Chief and Programme Specialist, Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO New Delhi, aptly sums it, We wish to draw attention to the brave choices migrants make and encourage city dwellers to ensure that migrants feel part of the city which is welcoming, inclusive and recognizes migrants entitlement to a dignified life.



Venu Arora, Executive Director, Ideosync, the company behind the production of the 10 radio programmes, adds It is important that voices at the grass root level are heard. And, it is not merely hearing but also listening, based on which appropriate action is taken.

Ideosync has been working on projects which help provide not only a platform to people in order to make their voices heard, but also provide them the required skills to present their concerns and experiences effectively, irrespective of the media.

The objective of this particular project was to generate awareness about the value migrants bring to the lives in metropolitan cities, Arora says. What, according to her, are the challenges she faces The main challenges lie in determining a systematic mapping of long-term impact and subsequent change, and in the procurement of new partners.

So, who should make an effort to make a difference? To an obvious answer of Each one of us! the next question posed is How?

Perhaps, the journey of Arti Jaiman, Station Director, radio channel Gurgaon Ki Awaz, will help understand the fact better that each individual can make a difference, no matter on what scale. Jaiman, a journalist by profession, embarked on the challenging, yet fulfilling journey of leading Gurgaon Ki Awaz, by chance. The channel which focusses on the lives of migrant workers, their aspirations, causes and challenges has today almost 5,00,000 listeners.

Assembling her team in May 2009, the channel began broadcasting in November 2009. Despite many challenges, from the setting-up and sustenance of the radio channel to raising funds, the going has been tough, but satisfying in every sense of the word. Besides creating a space of its own, broadcasting in approximately 7-8 dialects and addressing a whole gamut of pragmatic issues like health and gender violence, among other issues, the channel most importantly creates a space where people can speak and be heard with respect. Indeed, listening, which is such an important part of communication, is an art, which very few possess in todays times.

Jaiman says, My motto has always been to try, no matter what. There is no harm in failing, but not trying is not acceptable. Living now in Gurgaon for almost 23 years, I have realised that it is not only important to know the urban spaces that surround you, but also the rural spaces  understanding their culture, background and lives is not only interesting and enriching, and also important as they are a part of the same community of which we are a part of. What is heart-warming is the support of people, who have not only contributed in kind but also, most importantly, with their time.

Harsh Mander, IAS, and author of Insensitivity, invisibility, a day without migrants, among many other publications, has been emphasizing on the need for awareness generation, sensitivity, understanding and empathy towards fellow beings, irrespective of caste, colour, religion and many other man-made discrimination. It has a lot to do with the upbringing of the children of today or the decision makers of tomorrow. What values are they taught? How are they brought-up? What kind of behaviors do they experience in their immediate surroundings? It is important that attributes like respect and empathy are inculcated. This is how a change can be brought about.



Manders words bring to mind the words of Ban Ki-moon Migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and a better future. It is part of the social fabric, part of our very make-up as a human family and the very fact that we as a part of society owe it back to society to make it a better place for each one of us, in whatever best way we can.
He is one of the most celebrated character actors in Hollywood and after spending more than four decades in films and theatre, Geoffrey Rush says it is now that he has started looking for roles that are closer to his age.

In the last few years, the 65-year-old Australian actor has played dowager Lady Bracknell, King Lear and Albert Einstein.

The Oscar-winning actor says he is choosing such roles as he can identify with their stage in life.

I have realised in the last five years that I am older. So, I look at the roles like that. I never thought about the age of the characters before.

In the last five years, I have played Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest', King Lear in theatre, Ra in 'Gods of Egypt' and now Albert Einstein. These are the roles that I think I am in the right age group to do. I look at their landscape and what I can bring to them, Rush told in an interview here.

The actor made his film debut with the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981. Since then, he has starred in Shine, for which he won the Academy Award for best actor, Les Miserables, Elizabeth, Shakespeare in Love and Quills.

He had nine releases between 2001 to 2003 during which he starred in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as Captain Hector Barbossa and appeared in all the sequels, including Salazar's Revenge, the latest film in the franchise.

Rush is returning to the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced sea adventure franchise for the fifth time along with Johnny Depp and several other members of the cast and crew.

The King's Speech star says he loves coming back to the Pirates fold as he enjoys working in the big family set-up.

I think that is something to do with me having spent a lot of time in the theatre where I was in companies for a very long period. With this franchise, which began from 2002 till 2017, we are still on the same thing. It has expanded.

The Australian star says the family does not only include cast members like Johnny Depp, Kevin McNally, Joshamee Gibbs and Martin Klebba but also camera operators, make-up, costumes people.

It is a big group and it has been great. A producer like Jerry does not bring out the film every two years to smash the summer season. He waits to go. He does not make it unless there is something fresh and more developed.

In this film, Barbossa's story has a new twist and there is a big revelation in the end. Rush says he is impressed with the graph and the development of his character who began as a villain but is now much older and has a vulnerable side to him.

In all the five chapters of the films, I have been fortunate enough to play a character that has transformed a lot. He was first a harsh psychopathic, self-serving villain , then a politician, later he worked for the King.

Now, in this story he is older. What I love in this film is that all the elements of mythology, the piracy, is coming together. You get the back story and a deep secret in Barbossa's life and a domestic vulnerable side to him.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge has been directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg.

Also starring Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario and Orlando Bloom, the film releases on May 26.
The gruesome abduction and killing of 23-year-old Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz by Kashmiri militant groups recently coupled with divisions between local Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists and separatist Hurriyat leaders has given a fresh twist to the situation in trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir.

In the Centres assessment, while the killing of Fayaz has generated anger in a section of Kashmiris, serious differences between Hizbul commander Zakir Moosa and the separatists may erode unity in the agitationists ranks.

Even as Pakistani handlers, including top Hizbul leader Syed Salahuddin, are reportedly trying to mediate a patch-up between the local militant group and the trusted Hurriyat leaders, it may not be easy. Moosa has issued open threats to separatists that they will be hanged in Lal Chowk of Srinagar for playing politics on the current struggle for Islamisation and imposition of Shariat in the Valley.

The Centre is observing the developments and, meanwhile, seeking to influence the youth by encouraging them to join the security forces, including the police and paramilitary organisations. More than one lakh young boys and girls have applied for just 5362 posts of constables in the J-K police in the ongoing recruitment drive.

The Centre despatched Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to take stock of the situation in the Valley last fortnight. He met a cross-section of people, including the Governor and senior bureaucrats to give a detailed report to the government. Soon after his return, the police recruitment drive intensified.

On the Army front, the Government has fielded Army Chief General Bipin Rawat himself to convince youth in the Valley to join the armed forces for better career prospects. Gen Rawat mourned the killing of Lt Fayaz who hailed from Kashmir. Though the killing was obviously meant to deter local youth from joining the armed forces, the Centre feels it may only be a temporary phenomenon. The current enthusiasm of the youth for joining the police force is being cited as a case in point.

The Centre has also taken note of senior state officials telling the Union home secretary that the media was exaggerating the situation in the Valley. The Home Secretary, for example, was told that the incidents of stone-throwing were confined to four or five colleges and the vast majority of students were not involved.

Despite these mixed signals, however, the Centre is politically disinclined to hold talks with the separatists. Neither does it favour resumption of cross-LoC trade at this stage as sought by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

While the Government is cautious on Kashmir, the ruling party is more upfront. A senior BJP leader of Jammu and Kashmir and official spokesman of the party, Virender Gupta, last week vehemently opposed any talks with separatists. Stressing the futility of talks at this stage, Mr Gupta said even Atal Behari Vajpayee had not succeeded in his efforts to involve the separatists in dialogue.
The Union Central government on Tuesday defended CBI raids on former Congress minister P Chidambaram, his son and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad's residences and businesses asserting that it had nothing to do with them.

On a day of rising political temperatures in the wake of the raids, BJP ministers and top guns in the Congress party hit out at each other.

Amid Congress allegation of political vendetta, top BJP ministers, including Piyush Goyal, Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Anant Kumar and Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government had no role behind the CBI raids.

They said the time had come for the Congress and the RJD to come clean in the wake of the CBI action.

We never interfere in the law. The investigation must have been going on after all raids don't happen overnight and there must have been reasons for investigative agencies to take the actions that they have taken. Instead of introspecting where they are going wrong and why they lost the faith of people, the Congress is busy in raising non-important issues which the nation is not willing to accept, Power Minister Goyal said at a press conference.

On Income Tax raids on businesses and persons linked to Lalu Prasad, Goyal said, We did not ask for the fodder scam case to be reopened. The Supreme Court did that. Clearly, investigation must have been going on.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Law Minister in the Narendra Modi Cabinet, was more forthcoming in targeting Chidambaram: Cannot expect anything else from Chidambaram. He is accountable for the property his son holds and will have to answer to the CBI and cooperate with their procedures.

Accusing Lalu Prasad of looting Bihar during his rule in the state, Prasad said: There have been reports of the massive property owned by his son and daughter in both Bihar and Delhi. Why has there been no clarification? A profit worth Rs.1,000 crore is questionable, and hence he is under the scanner.

Naidu denied that the ruling party was indulging in any witch hunt. Law is doing its work and we have nothing to do with it. There is no role of the BJP in this. We dont believe in political witch-hunting and misusing any of these organisations, the union information and broadcasting minister said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley likened the CBI raids to a day of reckoning. He said CBI does not carry out raids without any valid reasons.

Unless there is a valid reason, the CBI and other bodies do not carry out such raids. Every step taken is done so expecting some result in return. The people in high positions acquiring assets through shell companies is not a small thing. Those responsible will be accountable, the minister said.
Online messaging service WhatsApp on Tuesday sought to assure the Supreme Court that it has never shared the contents of the messages between its users with third parties even as the top court said that it could not leave 160 million users "trapped in a corridor of charity".

The five judge constitution bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra indicated that it would examine the 2016 privacy policy of the online messaging app on the reopening of the court after its summer vacations.

Besides Justice Misra, the bench includes Justice A.K. Sikri, Justice Amitava Roy, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar.

The court said that it would examine the new privacy policy, which WhatsApp had brought in 2016, after it was acquired by the social networking site Facebook, on the grounds whether it was contrary to public policy and whether it was required to be put to constitutional controls.

However, this would happen only if the court comes to conclusion it required judicial interference, said the bench in course of the hearing of a plea by petitioners Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi who have challenged the Delhi High Court's September 23, 2016 order allowing WhatsApp to roll out its new privacy policy but stopping it from sharing the data of its users collected up to September 25, 2016, with Facebook or any other related company.

Tuesday was the second day of the hearing and further hearing would take place after top court reopens after summer vacations. On Monday, the court had asked WhatsApp why it changed its policy of non-sharing of data of users after its acquisition by Facebook ito permit sharing of the attributes of its users.

Resuming his arguments on the maintainability of the petitions challenging the Delhi High court verdict, senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for Facebook, said: "We can file an affidavit stating that not a single piece of information has been shared with anybody. Even I cannot access the information if I want to. There is no element of human intervention in the process. Machines take care of this."

He said that any fundamental right  be it of communication or choice of communication  could only be invoked against the state and not against a private entity like WhatsApp, which was not discharging public functions. He argued that petitioners challenging its 2016 new privacy policy will have to first approach the regulatory authorities  TRAI.

He said that regulations framed under the Information Technology Act in 2009 and 2011 covered WhatsApp  a position contested by the petitioners who are contending that these regulations have been outpaced by the technological advancements.

Reiterating that it was in no position to go into the contends of the messages exchanged between its users as they were in encrypted form, senior counsel Siddharth Luthra, appearing for WhatsApp, told the bench that it was not generating meta data and all that was being shared was contact details, profile photo and status of the users of the App.

Lawyer Madhvi Divan, appearing for the petitioners, said that WhatsApp was using public resource like spectrum and was performing public functions.

Comparing it with telephone services, Divan said while one was paying for availing telephone services, WhatsApp was free but describing its operation as "economic espionage in the name of free service", urged the bench to look at their business model.
Hours after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided P Chidambaram's residence in Chennai on Tuesday, senior Congress leader Randeep Surjewala termed the raids a government conspiracy and said the opposition will not be silent over the issue.

"The CBI raid is a political witch-hunt and conspiracy by the government and the opposition members will not be silent over the issue," Surjewala said.

"The Congress party will not bow down. Neither P Chidambaram nor the INC will be suppressed by such conspiracies of the autocratic government," he added.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Twitter too condemned the CBI raid and said that it is a political vendetta of the worst kind.

Strongly condemn raids against Chidambaram and Karti Chidambaram. Political vendetta of the worst kind," Digvijaya Singh said in a tweet.

Reacting to the CBI raid, P Chidambaram had earlier in the day said that the government wanted to silence his voice.

"By using CBI and other agencies, government is targeting my son and his friends and it wants to silence my voice," Chidambaram said.

According to reports, the CBI on Tuesday morning launched searches at multiple premises linked to Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram in connection with alleged favours granted in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to a firm.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and said India hopes to see a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel.

"We hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel," Modi said.

After holding delegation level talks with Abbas in Delhi on Tuesday, Modi said, India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution.

Abbas, on the other hand, condemned terrorism and said he has agreed with US to end conflict with Israel.

We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, Abbas said, adding, Two weeks back, I met Donald Trump, where we agreed for constructive support on historic peace treaty to end conflict with Israel.

India and Palestine signed five agreements after talks between Modi and Abbas were over.

Abbas is accompanied by a delegation comprising Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Adviser Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestines Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.

Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India.

This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.
The government has installed necessary security in batches to protect its key networks from the cyber attack by ransomware virus 'WannaCrypt', Information Technology Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said here on Tuesday.

"On ransomware, since March, the government of India has been on high alert. We have already installed the necessary security in batches as far as the government key networks are concerned," said said, during the inaugural session of Broadband India Forum.

"We have not got any reports of widespread infection. There have been very few isolated instances and we continue to be on watch," she added.

Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday had said the cyber attack by ransomware virus 'WannaCrypt' had nearly zero impact in India.

"We are strengthening our cyber security. After talking to Microsoft, we had asked people to install patch system in March. This ongoing attack not only had minimum, but nearly zero per cent impact, in India. We are strengthening our areas," the Minister had said.


West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and conveyed that her party was in favour of a consensus candidate for the presidential election.

"We want a consensus candidate. This is good for the country," Banerjee told reporters here.

She is also learnt to have backed another term for President Pranab Mukherjee if the government proposes his name, sources said.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was also present in the meeting.

Banerjee said Sonia Gandhi, who has been holding talks with opposition parties to decide a common candidate, will hold further consultations and she would again meet her in about a week after the process is completed.

Banerjee is expected to meet Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday.

The term of President Pranab Mukherjee ends in July. The ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, which has clear edge in the presidential election, has not given any inkling so far on its choice of candidate.

Sonia Gandhi has been contacting leaders opposed to the ruling BJP to evolve a consensus.

She has spoken to Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and met JD-U leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

The Congress chief is also expected to meet Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati.

Answering queries from media persons, Congress media incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Congress was proud that President Mukherjee came from the pedigree of thought process and an ideology that has been a centre-point of this country since its formation.

He said the names of the candidate would be announced once a consensus is reached.

Among the names doing the rounds as consensus candidates of opposition are of former Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.
[May 16, 2017] Tektronix Offers Industry's Fastest Compliance Testing Across All Data Rates for DisplayPort 1.4, Type-C and New HBR3

BEAVERTON, Ore., May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tektronix, Inc., a leading worldwide provider of measurement solutions, today released enhancements to its DisplayPort and Type-C transmitter test solution offering full support for the latest DisplayPort 1.4 specification. The solution includes support for the HBR3 data rate (8.1 Gb/s) and delivers the fastest compliance test times in the industry  less than 7 hours for data rates up to HBR2 and less than 11 hours for HBR3. These times are significantly faster than other competitive offerings. Tektronix recently released automated USB 3.1 Type-C test solution for Gen1 and Gen 2 that integrates SigTest and DPOJET measurements and offers full compliance testing and deeper analysis. It is very critical for an engineer working on overall Type-C designs to test USB and other supported Alt-modes to ensure the designs are compliant to these standards. Tektronix actively ensures its solutions meet the latest specification for all these technologies. In addition to reducing DisplayPort test times, Tektronix is also addressing the challenges involved with setting up and managing the device under test (DUT). Along with support for the latest specification, Tektronix is also introducing a new stand-alone application to monitor DUT behavior before testing. With this solution, engineers can simply select the desired tests from a simple graphical user interface and work on other tasks while the tests are being executed. "When it comes to DisplayPort transmitter testing, Tektronix offers significant improvements in debugging capabilities over competitive offerings," said Brian Reich, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. "We're offering the fastest test times, complete test coverage, seamless support for in-depth debug a well as support for both live and pre-recorded signal analysis. Competitive alternatives are significantly slower, offer limited debug support, and lack pre-recorded mode signal analysis. There is only one comprehensive solution for DisplayPort test and debug today and we have it."



Key features of the new DisplayPort Transmitter solution include: Complete automated compliance testing in less than 7 hours for data rates up to HBR2 and less than 11 hours for data rates up to HBR3

A single application for both Standard and Type-C DisplayPort testing.

Integrated with switch matrix (Option SWX-DP) for hands free automation

Flexible fixture de-embed capabilities using either a default filter file or a custom filter file created using the Tektronix Serial Data Link Analysis (SDLA) application. DisplayPort 1.4 testing requires that a combination of DFE and CTLE filters be applied during HBR3 eye diagram analysis.

Seamless transition from compliance testing to debug and full integration with the Tektronix DPOJET DisplayPort 1.4 measurement library. Users can easily dive deeper into failures to perform root cause analysis.

Enhanced reporting options to help users generate reports in .html, .mht, .pdf and .csv formats. Reports can be viewed by pass/fail criteria, lanes or data-rates for additional customization options.

Support for saving waveforms for offline analysis (in addition to live analysis). Unlike competitive alternatives, the application acquires and saves waveforms during execution and makes them available for detailed offline analysis. Tektronix also offers DisplayPort Receiver solution supported on their latest BSX BERTScope series that was launched at Design Con 2017. This latest BERTScope series is industry's first 32 Gb/s Protocol-Aware Bit Error Rate Tester and eases 4th Generation Standards Receiver Testing. It Features Built-in De-emphasis, Fast Protocol Handshaking for PCIe 4.0, USB 3.1 Receiver Validation and Troubleshooting

Availability and pricing The Tektronix DisplayPort 1.4 Transmitter solution (Option DP14) application is compatible with Tektronix DPO/MSO70000 and DPO70000SX series oscilloscopes. The solution is available now worldwide and can be downloaded from the Tektronix website. Pricing is $5,000 US MSRP. Option SWX-DP Pricing is $7,000 US MSRP. Wondering what else Tektronix is up to? Check out the Tektronix Bandwidth Banter blog and stay up to date on the latest news from Tektronix on Twitter and Facebook. About Tektronix Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix delivers innovative, precise and easy-to-operate test, measurement and monitoring solutions that solve problems, unlock insights and drive discovery. Tektronix has been at the forefront of the digital age for over 70 years. Join us on the journey of innovation at TEK.COM. Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tektronix-offers-industrys-fastest-compliance-testing-across-all-data-rates-for-displayport-14-type-c-and-new-hbr3-300456884.html SOURCE Tektronix, Inc.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday met Congress President Sonia Gandhi and conveyed that her party was in favour of an opposition consensus candidate for the presidential election.

"We want a consensus candidate. This is good for the country," Banerjee told reporters here.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi was also present in the meeting.

Banerjee said Sonia Gandhi will hold further consultations with opposition parties on the choice of presidential candidate and she would again meet her in about a week after the process is completed.

The term of President Pranab Mukherjee ends in July. The ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has not given any inkling so far on its choice of candidate for the post of President.

Sonia Gandhi has taken the initiative to try and evolve consensus on a common candidate by speaking to leaders opposed to the ruling BJP.

She has spoken to Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and met JD-U leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

The Congress chief is also expected to meet Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati.
Concerned over the quality of the teacher training institutions, the Centre has decided that no new BEd college will be allowed in the country this year.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar observed on Tuesday that BEd colleges were opening like "fly by night operators" until now. "You pay today and get the degree tomorrow."

"With the enhanced focus on the teacher training, all this need to be stopped. So it was decided no new BEd colleges will open in the country," he told reporters here.

He said as far as opening of new colleges is concerned it will be a 'zero-year' and also existing colleges will have to undergo a quality audit.

"We have asked for quality affidavits and so far only 7,000 of them have submitted. We have also issued show-cause notices to nearly 4,000 BEd colleges," he added.

The government has also decided to increase the practical component in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Diploma in Education (DEd) courses.

"The practical component will be increased in the teacher training modules and practical sessions will be conducted in government schools which will be under observation of the teachers there and student feedback will also be given importance," Javadekar said.
If nobody, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy should feel victorious with the CBI raids at the houses and properties owned by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Tamil Nadu. It is Swamy who, for long, has been collecting proofs and sharing them with the media with regard to the hidden bank accounts and properties allegedly owned by the Chidambarams in India and abroad.

The early morning raids on Tuesday were conducted in connection with Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearances given to INX Media (now 9X Media) when it was run by Peter Mukherjee and his wife Indrani, and Chidambaram was then the Finance Minister. This happened a day after the CBI filed an FIR against Karti and others.

As per the income tax report, two media firms  INX Media and Network 18  had in 2008 allegedly bribed Karti for getting FIPB approvals. At that time, INX Media was c-owned by Peter Mukherjee, and Network 18 that runs TV channels like CNN-IBN and news portals was controlled by Raghav Bahl, who now runs the Quint website.

According to the report of Income Taxs Chennai Investigation Unit, released by Swamy, the said media organisations had money trail and shares allotments to Kartis company Advantage Strategic Consulting and other firms linked to him.

Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had issued a show-cause notice to Karti and his firm Advance Strategic Consulting Private Limited for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) laws to the tune of Rs. 45 crore.

On February 20 this year, Swamy had alleged that Karti and his companies had 21 secret foreign bank accounts. Releasing the details to the media, Swamy had also accused the Finance Ministry and Income Tax officials of inaction on the illegality.

It is shocking that the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate having been provided details of 21 undeclared foreign bank accounts of Karti Chidambaram and of the companies that he controls, have failed to proceed against Karti to its logical end. Karti has also refused to obey three summons orders of the Enforcement Directorare, he had said.

Swamy had said that this list was given to him by a whistleblower officer from Income Tax office in Chennai.

On March 15 this year, Swamy brought out the details of Chidambarams hidden property in Cambridge in UK reportedly found by Income Taxs Investigation Wing. Revealing the details of a 200-page Income Tax analysis on the seized hard disks of Kartis companies, Swamy detailed more than 20 instances of blatant corruption and illegal money flow and of properties purchased abroad.

Addressing a press conference in Delhi, Swamy had shared his seven page letter to the Prime Minister with the media, providing the major findings of Income Taxs Chennai Unit.

Now, when the Chidambarams are alleging political vendetta, it is a matter of investigation to find out the truth. What next is up Swamys sleeve on the issue is what everybodys is waiting for!
As India and Pakistan fought eye-to-eye in International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Kulbhushan Jadhav case on Monday, the Twitterati found amusement in Pakistan lawyer Khawar Qureshi's 'funny' wig.

Leading the troll against the courtroom dress, prominent columnist Suhel Seth tweeted, The problem with the Pakistan lawyer is the wig isn't allowing his brain to breathe hence the shallowness of his arguments.

Am deeply upset with the Pakistani lawyer at ICJ! How dare he try and copy my hairstyle look? Want to sue him! Seth added.

ICJ refused to see Pakistans 6-minute video as they were busy looking at the lawyer's wig, which presented a much more compelling story, one Vinayak tweeted.

Pakistani lawyer with his fumbles in fake British accent & wig in ICJ excellently made Pakistan embarrass internationally #KulbhushanJadhav, another user Bhagyesh Kalburgi posted.

Another user, Shashanka Shivathaya, was quick enough to compare the lawyers fancy wig with Chinese noodles, saying: Pakistan's lawyer carrying his lunch on his head  Chinese Noodles?

Pakistan lawyer is wearing a funny wig in (The) Hag(ue) court, Abhishek Tiwari tweeted.

The courtroom wigs and robes were first introduced by the British lawyers and barristers in the 18th Century. However, over the time, many countries like US and Canada, which once mirrored the British court dress, moved on from the old school tradition. British lawyers are, however, still seen flaunting the hairpieces.

Another user, Radhika, posted: Hahaha Pakistan thinks by sending a lawyer with British wig and accent they'll gain advantage.

The ICJ in Netherlands Hague heard a bilateral case of India and Pakistan against the death sentence given to former Indian navy officer Jadhav by a Pakistani military court.

Pakistan is of the opinion that the alleged Indian spy should be hanged as he seems to be a threat to their country. However, India has denied all claims saying he is an innocent man.

India accused the neighbouring country of not providing consular access to the prisoner.
Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas, who was welcomed by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, received ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhawan on Tuesday morning.

Abbas is a four-day state visit to India from 14 May at the invitation of President Pranab Mukherjee.

This is the fifth visit and third state visit to India by President Abbas.

A number of MoUs on cooperation in various areas are expected to be signed during the visit.

President Abbas on Monday visited the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Noida to forge cooperation between Palestine  India Techno Park being built by India in Palestine and Indian IT industry.

President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of his Palestinian counterpart.

Vice-President Hamid Ansari, and Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will call on President Abbas during his stay in Delhi.

(With inputs from agencies)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas here ahead of India-Palestine delegation-level talks.

"A relationship marked by solidarity & friendship. PM @narendramodi meets President Mahmoud Abbas at Hyderabad House in New Delhi," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

On Monday, addressing a gathering at the India Islamic Cultural Centre here, Abbas said that he would seek the help of Modi's good offices to reach the two-state solution that envisaged an independent, sovereign Palestine with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Abbas arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.
Women have to play a greater role in conflict prevention and resolution and towards this goal India has been training women peacekeepers from around the world, Deputy Permanent Representative Tanmaya Lal told the Security Council on Monday.

"There is a need to increase and institutionalise the involvement of women in conflict prevention and resolution," he said at the debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict as a Tactic of War and Terrorism.

"This requires not only normative advice but capacity building and institution building at the ground level."

As its contribution to capacity building, "India has also taken the lead in hosting specialised training courses for peacekeepers on sexual violence in armed conflict situations," he said.

"These have focused, among other issues, on the role of women in the context of post-conflict situations," he added.

He said that over 40 women officers from around 30 countries attended the third such specialised course organised by the Centre for UN Peacekeeping in New Delhi in partnership with UN Women, the agency for empowering women and promoting gender equality.

"Such courses provide the participants not only an opportunity to train to be ready for deployment but also to network and share experiences and best practices," he added.

Lal spoke of India's contribution to increasing the role of women in peacekeeping operations and how it had a multiplier effect in the country they were deployed in.

India made history in 2007 by deploying in Liberia the first all-women police unit in a UN peacekeeping operation and since then the percentage of Liberian women in the security sector had trebled, he said.

Lal added that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had acknowledged the contribution of Indian women police in "inspiring Liberian women, imparting in them the spirit of professionalism and encouraging them to join operations that protect the nation".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was committed to raising the representation of women in peacekeeping missions, Lal said.

"India is committed to fulfilling the pledge to have 15 per cent of military observers as women by the end of this year (2017)," he said.

"India has also committed to provide another all-female formed police unit."

Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said that sexual violence was a legitimate threat to peace and women and girls had to be protected and empowered as a part of the counter-terrorism efforts.

Extremists in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali and elsewhere were using sexual violence to advance their military, economic and ideological goals, she added.


The Congress party on Tuesday said its top leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will hold discussions with opposition parties on a candidate for the Presidential elections in July.

"(About) the candidature of individuals, the Congress President and Vice President will confer with various people, that is other political parties, and try to build consensus around it," Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told the media here.

He said the names of the candidate would be announced once a consensus is reached.

"It is the role of the President of India and Vice-President to counsel the government when it loses its way. So bereft of political partisanship, you need on these posts individuals who will be able to uphold the highest principles as enshrined in the Constitution," he said.

Surjewala said the Congress was proud that current President Pranab Mukherjee came from the pedigree of thought process and an ideology that has been a centre-point of this country since its formation up till today and would be in future.
To buttress Chinas grand strategy, leaders from almost 30 countries gathered in Beijing this week to endorse President Xi Jinpings One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, now called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The project is designed to help achieve Xis Chinese Dream ~ rejuvenation of the nation and building a prosperous society. India has wisely decided to stay away from the summit and OBOR.

First articulated in 2013, OBOR is designed to boost Chinas strategic outreach and, consequently, extend its sphere of influence well beyond its borders. It is also expected to give a fillip to the stagnating Chinese economy by utilising available cash reserves as capital and idle construction capacity. By creating new infrastructure and jobs in the countries through which it runs, OBOR will ostensibly aid socio-economic development and, in the bargain, also create new markets for Chinese manufacturers.

OBOR is a carefully calculated initiative to increase Chinese influence. China will give soft loans to the participating countries to help them pay for the infrastructure that will be created. The source of funding will probably be the China-sponsored and dominated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). As many of the participating countries will find it difficult to repay the loans on time, they will be dependent on China for staggering repayments or postponing them. In either case, they will be indebted to China.

In military terms too, OBOR will result in a win-win situation for China as it will lead to an increase in the number of PLA troops in the countries on Chinas periphery, much like what has already happened in Gilgit-Baltistan. The leadership of the CPC hopes OBOR will make a significant contribution towards the achievement of Chinas goal of becoming the unchallenged numero uno economic and military power in the Indo-Pacific region by 2049, a century after it won its independence.

The $ 4.4 trillion initiative will create communications arteries linking manufacturing hubs in mainland China with markets in Asia and Europe. It will also link China with areas rich in natural resources like mineral deposits. The project will involve building new roads or upgrading existing ones on land. It will also involve building ports all over the Indo-Pacific region as part of Chinas Maritime Silk Route initiative. Naturally, these ports will act as logistics hubs for the PLA Navy and enable it to extend its area of operations. In due course of time, some of these ports could be upgraded to naval bases.

So far, the AIIB has approved OBOR-linked projects in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The most notable of these is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that will link Kashgar in Xinjiang with Gwadar port, which China is already developing, on the Makran coast of Pakistan. Dubbed a framework of regional connectivity, China and Pakistan claim it will benefit them but also have a positive impact on Iran, Afghanistan, India, the Central Asian Republic, and the region.

Besides infrastructure (expressways and link roads, airports, railways and mass transit systems, development of ports, water treatment plants and optical fibre cable), the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will include several 330MW to 660MW coal-fired power plants, hydel projects, solar parks, wind farms, transmission lines, coal and iron ore mines, industrial parks and special economic zones, and colleges, hospitals and vocational training centres. A major thrust area of CPEC is agriculture. From provision of seeds and other inputs, like fertiliser, credit and pesticides, Chinese enterprises will also operate their own farms, processing facilities for fruits and vegetables and grain. (Dawn, Karachi, May 15, 2017) The CPEC plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistans economy as well as society by Chinese enterprises and culture. The CPEC projects are in various stages of implementation. (For details, see: http://cpec.gov.pk/progressupdate)

A product of Chinas allweather friendship with Pakistan, the CPEC project is being seen as the Chinese equivalent of the Marshall Plan. Originally valued at $46 billion, the CPEC project is now estimated to cost $54 billion. The project is expected to generate up to 2.3 million jobs by 2030 and add 2.0 to 2.5 per cent value to Pakistans GDP. The project has been included by China as part of its 13th five-year development plan.

Apart from access to Gwadar port for Chinese merchant shipping and the PLA Navy, China will be able to link Xinjiang and Tibet to a warm water port closer to the two provinces than Chinas eastern coast, even though the cost of transportation of goods over the Karakoram Range in the Himalayas will be prohibitive. However, despite the obvious advantages of CPEC to both the countries, the project is getting a bad press in both China and Pakistan.

Commentators in both countries have been questioning the long-term viability of the project on the ground of sub-optimal utilisation. While the Pakistanis are apprehensive of their countrys ability to pay back the huge loans that will pile up, the Chinese worry about Pakistans ability to ensure the safety of their engineers and staff. Both sets of arguments have merit. The Baloch leadership has declared openly that they will not allow the portion of the corridor running through Balochistan to remain open even for a day as the government of Pakistan will not pay any royalty to them.

India does not approve of the CPEC project as part of the corridor will pass through GilgitBaltistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), both of which are under illegal Pakistani occupation and, hence, disputed areas.

Handing over territory in these areas permanently to the Chinese would amount to a violation of Indias sovereignty. As it is, Pakistan has become Chinas de facto 24th province. Any further Chinese inroads into Pakistan, particularly the presence of PLA troops in large numbers, would be harmful for Indias national security interests.

India can sit by and watch the CPEC unravel, as it well might. Or, India can provide political, diplomatic and moral support to the Baloch people who may be engaged in disrupting the corridor. Yet another alternative would be to set in motion actions to create an Indian-led parallel to the OBOR-CPEC. Initiatives like BIMSTECH could be pursued with greater vigour than has been the case till now.

Whichever option India chooses, it should be clear to the government that the China-Pakistan nexus is gaining ground and poses a clear and present danger to national security. It would be prudent to invest more in defence preparedness and the protection of critical infrastructure. The present defence budget pegged at less than 1.60 per cent of Indias GDP is too little for comfort.

The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi.
Confirmation that the Prime Ministers drive against red beacons on VIP vehicles was a token show addressing the VIP culture he claimed he was dismantling has just been provided by one of his new-found favourites ~ the chief minister of UP. If a border action team of the Pakistan military caused horrific injury to a BSF trooper by mutilating his body, immense insult was heaped upon his family when Yogi Adityanath visited them to offer condolences. The district administration in Deoria had literally rolled out a red carpet in the BSF mans family home, fitted an air-conditioner and laid out saffron-coloured table-cloths ahead of Yogi Adityanaths visit to the bereaved family. Alas, none of that was for their benefit: less than half-an-hour after his departure the goodies were removed, actually making a mockery of the various announcements the chief minister had made to honour the memory of Prem Sagar who had made the supreme sacrifice.

While it is highly likely that the chief minister had little to do with what an official sought to project as standard arrangements for such visits, surely as a man of simple living (as he is projected) Adityanath ought to have sensed something amiss in those trappings of luxury: particularly under the trying circumstances into which that family had been plunged? Or has a short spell in high office rendered him immune to the harsh realities of life of common folk? Even three days after the incident there was no word from the chief ministers office, not even an attempt to pass the buck on to officials who see sycophancy as a shortcut to success.

Whether Mr Narendra Modis staff will draw his attention to the insulting incident is doubtful, babus are well aware that fools rush in where angels fear to tread and would be hesitant to bell the cat. Yet if the Prime Minister is indeed genuine about ending the pernicious culture in which politicians, bureaucrats etc revel, he will have to do much more than tackle the visible signs of a status obsessed society. And that would include desisting from making fashion-statements and donning a suit which had his name emblazoned on its pinstripes. That, of course, is not to recommend recourse to George Fernandes carefully-crumpled kurta, but only to stress that his entire team not only falls in line but makes consistently conscious efforts to shun the VIP culture. Doing so will not be easy, politicians may pretend to be social workers but they desire their slice of the cake. Witness the heart-burn over the size and location of the bungalows they are allotted in Lutyens luxury enclave in New Delhi ~ or equivalent locales in state capitals. It is not that air-conditioners or limousines hurt: what devastates is unabashed political hypocrisy
[May 16, 2017] Samsung Accelerates the Next Generation of IoT with New and Advanced SAMSUNG ARTIK Platform Products for Interoperability, Enhanced Security, and Connected Services

Internet of Things World 2017 - Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics Co. Ltd. today announced new and advanced SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IoT platform products that will help companies get to market faster with more secure offerings and services, improve return on investment, and bring IoT another step closer to Samsung's vision of intelligent things. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005689/en/ Samsung Accelerates the Next Generation of IoT with New and Advanced SAMSUNG ARTIK Platform Products for Interoperability, Enhanced Security, and Connected Services (Photo: Business Wire) The advanced SAMSUNG ARTIK platform includes new end-to-end enterprise-grade security enhancements, and now enables easy-to-use, secure services for device onboarding, device and user management, edge node management, and secure OTA updates. Samsung is also introducing the new SAMSUNG ARTIK 053 module that will equip a new class of connected products with cutting-edge capabilities, and SAMSUNG ARTIK QuickStart, a design and development support program that will help customers and partners jumpstart their IoT businesses by making it easier and faster for companies to deliver secure IoT solutions that impact the lives of people across the globe. The SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IoT platform makes it easier for businesses to securely activate, monitor, track, and add new functionality to products after deployment. Together, with advanced SAMSUNG ARTIK Cloud connectors and device orchestration and management tools, these new services will greatly increase the capabilities of connected products, promote secure interoperability, and elevate the value of customer solutions that depend on the interoperability of things. "We believe security and interoperability are critical to enabling next-gen IoT products that can connect to, and work with, many different devices and services," said James Stansberry, senior vice president and U.S. Head of ARTIK, Samsung Electronics. "A smart, powerful IoT platform is key to fostering an interoperable, and most importantly, secure ecosystem. That is why we developed the SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IoT platform from the ground up with end-to-end security, and why we continue to integrate new security enhancements across hardware, software, cloud and communications." "Leveraging SAMSUNG ARTIK i a value add for our customers," said Youngsoo Do, senior vice president of Digital Control Group, Samsung Electronics. "SAMSUNG ARTIK is instrumental to Samsung in building secure IoT products, and getting to market faster. The ability to connect to other smart devices also enables new use cases, and is helping us realize our vision of making all Samsung products IoT-enabled."



New capabilities and partners added to the SAMSUNG ARTIK platform include: ARTIK 053 Module

The production-ready SAMSUNG ARTIK 053 module is an affordable IoT solution with high-performance and hardened security for next-generation edge products like connected home appliances, building products, health care devices, and industrial automation. The new SAMSUNG ARTIK 053 module can dramatically reduce development time with integrated real-time processing via a 320MHz ARM Cortex R4 core, 1.4MB RAM (News - Alert) and 8MB Flash, software and a pre-certified Wi-Fi radio. The currently available SAMSUNG ARTIK family of IoT modules include pre-loaded access to the SAMSUNG ARTIK Cloud platform secure services, and include software for faster and simpler development of new connected enterprise, industrial and consumer applications. New Services and Platform Enhancements The SAMSUNG ARTIK platform provides new, fully integrated end-to-end security enhancements across hardware, software and communications to make it easier for companies to deliver more secure connected IoT products and solutions. New offerings in the SAMSUNG ARTIK Cloud platform include fast device onboarding, edge node management, secure over the air (OTA) updates, integration with Amazon AWS Kinesis Stream, new cloud connectors including Google (News - Alert) Assistant on Google Home and Amazon Alexa Smart Home Skill. SAMSUNG ARTIK QuickStart Program The new SAMSUNG ARTIK QuickStart program offers a wide-range of services that can cover the entire product design and development spectrum, including UX, UI, software, firmware, cloud, mobile app, end-to-end integration, and development, and elevate the user experience to support commercialization and IoT opportunities. It is accomplished through custom integration of the SAMSUNG ARTIK platform, on-site workshops, and training to suit the needs of customers and partners. It allows customers to start building solutions quickly and cost-effectively by significantly reducing the engineering time, effort and expertise needed to build IoT products. Samsung Expands IoT Partnerships Samsung and VMware today announced that VMware has joined the Samsung ARTIK Partner Program. The companies will work together to accelerate the development, deployment, and management of IoT solutions for enterprises. Integration between the Little IoT Agent (Liota), a vendor-neutral open source software development kit (SDK) developed by VMware, and the Samsung ARTIK 530 module is being demonstrated in the Samsung booth at IoT World 2017. Also being demonstrated is the newly announced VMware Pulse (News - Alert) IoT Center, a unified control panel that provides accurate and real-time visibility into the health of devices and can act on anomalies. Samsung's growing list of global technology and distribution partners will enable accelerated development and help deliver compelling new IoT solutions to their customers. Additionally, to reach a wider audience and help speed up IoT development and time to market, Samsung reached a global distribution agreement with Mouser Electronics to distribute the SAMSUNG ARTIK family of modules, development kits and accessories. The new SAMSUNG ARTIK 053 module is available for order today through worldwide distribution partners, including Arrow Electronics (News - Alert), Inc., Digi-Key, Mouser Electronics, Inc., and Mujin. You can find more information about the SAMSUNG ARTIK platform and development tools at http://artik.io and http://artik.cloud Both Samsung and its partners' solutions will be on exhibit at booth #210 at Internet of Things World 2017 at the Santa Clara Convention Center from May 16 - 18. About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at http://news.samsung.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516005689/en/

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There was a hollow ring to an Army officers trumpet-blowing about the massive operation to neutralise militants operating from orchards and ravines in Shopian last week. Had the drive involving some 4,000 personnel, drones and helicopters proved effective it would not have been a one-off exercise. More likely the showing of the flag was called off when no militants were apprehended, and the counter-productive outcome was a series of still-continuing clashes with the stonepelting local populace. The bid to nail the militants who were attacking/looting banks had such limited effect that many branches have suspended cash transactions. There was something negative to the officers boasting that it was after about 15 years that such action was mounted: it confirmed the deterioration in the overall situation for which, it must be emphasised, the Army/paramilitary alone cannot be deemed responsible. Still, having to resort to tactics tried and discarded previously, points to a paucity of fresh ideas to counter the insurgency.

The thrust of the operation ~ the Army is prone to use a range of jargon ~ was what was called cordon and search in the early days of militancy. The troops would surround a village, make residents line up outside their homes or a common area, while the soldiers searched their houses and belongings for militants hiding there, or for the latters stocks of weapons and munitions. Little else generated more animosity towards the security forces than such tactics, which were projected as the Armys high-handed, oppressive way of doing things.

By turning the clock back last week the Army risks squandering any goodwill it earned during flood-relief missions etc. The local politicians have been quick to flay the Armys going back to the bad old days, and see that as evidence of New Delhis continued belief in a military solution to a political conundrum. They also refer to the stand articulated in court by the Attorney-General, and comments from BJP leaders Amit Shah and Ram Madhav to say that the option for a negotiated settlement has been rejected by the Centre ~ despite Mehbooba Muftis expression of faith in the Prime Minister.

A disturbing aside to the sweep in Shopian is the contention of the local folk that the civilian driver killed in a militant attack had been forced by the troops to ferry some of them in his vehicle. It is highly likely that the Armys advocates will justify that action in the same way they did when a Rashtriya Rifles unit lashed a bystander to a jeep and used him as a human shield. The political establishment in Delhi might also endorse that stance, but the top brass must enlighten juniors that the Armys hoary traditions and sense of honour militate against the theory that the ends justify the means.
Edu-tech company ConveGenius on Tuesday launched its e-learning solution 'CG Slate Plus' for Grades K-2 in Samsung Galaxy 3V tablet for Rs. 15,999.

"CG Slate Plus" functions on a unique reward-based approach called 'Learn-Play-Shop' which motivates kids to engage in a self-learning mechanism.

The innovative mobile tablet teaches concepts to children in an engaging format through videos, interactive books, stories and worksheets, the company said in a statement.

"To offer a more evolved and enhanced version of the device, we are going to roll out the new and improved CG Slate on Samsung Tablets," said Jairaj Bhattacharya, MD, ConveGenius Group, in a statement.

The device also introduces kids to "Titu"  a genius mascot who adaptively recommends educational content to the children based on their learning requirement.

"We are pleased to offer Samsung Galaxy 3V Tab to ConveGenius to host its e-learning solution. We are confident that children will enjoy the most comfortable hand grip, complemented by its extreme light weight," added Sukesh Jain, Vice President, Enterprise Business, Samsung India.

The device will be available on Flipkart.
Exposure to psychological abuse between parents has more damaging effect on children's well-being in the long term than physical domestic violence, a study has showed.

The study showed evidence of exposure to high levels of psychological abuse, which includes name-calling, intimidation, isolation, manipulation and control, was associated with a decrease in young people's satisfaction with their social support.

On the other hand, we also found that exposure to high levels of physical domestic violence has a protective effect in terms of satisfaction with social support for those also exposed to high levels of intra-parental psychological abuse.

"When children are exposed to both physical violence as well as psychological domestic abuse in the home, they were more likely to be happier with the social support they were able to access," said Catherine Naughton from University of Limerick (UL), Ireland.

However, "psychological domestic abuse when it occurred alone seems to be the most damaging, perhaps because people are unable to recognise and speak out about it", Naughton added.

For the study, published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, the team examined 465 young adults aged 17 to 25 years.

They reported experiencing two distinct yet interrelated types of domestic abuse in their families of origin: physical which includes hitting, punching, kicking and use of a weapon; and, psychological abuse including arguing, name-calling or behaviour that is intimidating, isolating, manipulating or controlling.

"Our findings show that it was young people's exposure to the psychological dimension of domestic abuse, which had a detrimental impact on their psychological well-being. Exposure to the physical dimension did not have any additional negative effect on well-being," Naughton stated.
In a boost to immunotherapy for cancer treatments, researchers have found a way to use light to guide the immune system to attack tumour cells.

In mice with melanoma on the ears, the optical control was sufficient to allow the immune system to nearly wipe out the melanoma with no toxic side effects, the study published online in the journal Nature Communications said.

The method is similar to "sending light on a spy mission to track down cancer cells", said lead author Minsoo Kim, Professor at University of Rochester Medical Centre in New York.

Immunotherapy is different from radiation or chemotherapy. Instead of directly killing cancer cells, immunotherapy tells the immune system to act in certain ways by stimulating T cells to attack the disease.

Several different types of immunotherapy exist or are in development, including pills called "checkpoint inhibitors" and CAR T-cell therapy that involves removing a patient's own immune cells and altering them genetically to seek and destroy cancer cells.

The problem, however, is that immunotherapy can cause the immune system to overreact or under-react, Kim said.

In addition, cancer cells are evasive and can hide from killer T-cells.

Aggressive tumors also suppress the immune system in the areas surrounding the malignancy (called the microenvironment), keeping T cells out.

If the immune system under-reacts, currently the only way to modify it is to pump more T cells into the body.

But that often unleashes a storm of toxicities that can shut down a patient's organs.

Kim's laboratory focused on how to overcome the immune-suppressive environment that cancer creates.

The researchers discovered that a molecule called channelrhodopsin (CatCh), which is active in algae and is light sensitive, could be introduced to the immune system via a virus and activated to control the T- cell response to cancer.

The researchers tested in mice an LED chip which could eventually be implanted in humans.

The team evaluated their methods in mice with melanoma on the ears.

The animals wore a tiny battery pack that sent a wireless signal to the LED chip  allowing researchers to remotely shine light on the tumour and surrounding areas, giving T cells a boost for their cancer-killing function.

The optical control allowed the immune system to nearly wipe out the melanoma with no toxic side effects, the study reported.

Future studies, Kim said, would determine whether the wireless LED signal can deliver light to a tumour deep within the body instead of on the surface area, and still have the ability to stimulate T cells to attack.
Turkey's prime minister said on Tuesday that Germany must decide between its friendship with Ankara and alleged coup plotters, after Berlin granted political asylum to military officials with suspected links to last year's failed putsch.

Germany must decide on one thing: if it wants to further improve its relations with Turkey, then it must turn its face to the Turkish republic, not to (putschists), Binali Yildirim told his ruling party's lawmakers in the Turkish parliament.

He was referring to supporters of US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the failed coup in July last year.

Tensions between the two NATO allies have been strained over the past year due to a number of issues, including Germany's greenlight for asylum petitions of Turkish nationals blamed by Ankara for playing a role in the coup attempt.

Yildirim on Tuesday confirmed Berlin's positive response to asylum requests opened the way for relations to be strained again.

In retaliation, Turkey has refused to allow German lawmakers to visit a NATO base near Syria, a refusal the German foreign ministry described as absolutely unacceptable.

The Turkish premier did not say anything about a Turkish ban during his address.

Germany has about 250 military personnel stationed at Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, flying Tornado surveillance missions over Syria and refuelling flights for partner nations battling Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Turkey's position was unfortunate and that Berlin would look for alternatives to Incirlik, including in Jordan.

Merkel also defended the lawmakers' visit, saying that since Germany's military missions always require parliamentary mandates, it is absolutely essential that our lawmakers are able to visit our soldiers.

Bilateral ties plunged during the referendum campaign to boost Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers and took a further hit with the case of a German-Turkish journalist for Die Welt daily, Deniz Yucel, jailed in February on terror charges and is awaiting trial.

Erdogan has repeatedly accused Yucel of being a German agent.

Merkel has said Ankara's arrest and treatment of Yucel was incompatible with a constitutional state.
US President Trump welcomed Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan at the White House, for their first face-to-face meeting.

Crown Prince Al-Nahyan is a "very special person, highly respected", Trump said during a brief photo opportunity in the Oval Office on Monday.

"And loves his country, I can tell you that, loves his country. And I think loves the United States, which to us is very important," USA Today quoted the President as saying.

The two leaders spoke about "regional security matters," trade and bilateral investments, as well as about the defence cooperation agreement between the two countries, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily press briefing.

The Pentagon announced a week ago that the sale of 160 Patriot missiles to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been approved at an estimated cost of $2 billion, the aim of which is to fortify the Arab nation's defence ability.

The meeting came four days before Trump begins his first international trip, which first will take him to Saudi Arabia where the President wants to encourage Washington's Arab and Muslim partners to take new and bold steps to promote peace in the region, according to National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

Despite Trump's anti-Muslim discourse during his election campaign and his signing of two executive orders blocking US entry to refugees and citizens from several Muslim majority nations  although those orders were blocked by US courts  the White House has insisted that the measures are not designed to persecute those who profess the Muslim faith.

Trump is also slated meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is watching the tense situation between India and Pakistan and there is no reluctance to talk about it, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reiterated Tuesday.

He dismissed a reporter's assertion that Guterres was reluctant to wade into the "festering dispute" in South Asia.

"I don't think it is a matter of reluctance," Dujarric said.

Repeating the official stand, as he has done several times this month and last, he said: "As I said, he is watching the situation very closely and reiterates his need for the parties to find a peaceful engagement  a peaceful solution through engagement and dialogue."

"The Secretary-General is a student of history, he knows what has happened," Dujarric said about the reporter's reference to previous volatile situations.
A Mexican journalist known for his coverage of the country's drug war was killed in the city of Culiacan, security officials said.

Javier Valdez, 50, was killed on Monday while walking near the offices of Riodoce, a newsweekly he co-founded, the officials told Efe news.

The shots were fired from a passing vehicle.

Recognised as an expert on the impact of the drug trade on Mexican society, Valdez was honoured in 2011 by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists with the International Press Freedom Award.

Investigators will look into the possibility that Valdez's killing was connected to his work as a reporter, state Attorney General Juan Jose Rios Estavillo told the media.

The office of the federal Special Prosecutor for Offenses against Press Freedom will send a team to take part in the investigation, he said.

Authorities are also concerned to "safeguard" Valdez's family and other members of the Riodoce staff, the attorney general said, appealing to members of the journalists guild to come forward with any information that could aid the probe.

Valdez was the Sinaloa correspondent for national daily La Jornada and the author of several books.

Last weekend, seven journalists were briefly detained and threatened by a large group of armed men in the state of Guerrero.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to work in.

A total of 126 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000.

Eleven journalists were murdered and 426 attacks on the media were registered in Mexico in 2016, the press rights group Article 19 said.
North Korea on Tuesday rejected a United Nations Security Council press statement issued on Monday condemning its test-firing of a medium long-range ballistic missile.

A spokesman of North Korea Foreign Ministry said that Pyongyang "categorically and totally rejects the UNSC's statement which called into question its bolstering of nuclear deterrence for self-defense," according to the Korean Central News Agency.

"The right of self-defense is the first criterion of sovereignty. Therefore, the accusation against it is an undisguised encroachment upon sovereignty and an act of rude interference in internal affairs," said the spokesman.

North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Sunday which hit a target some 780 km away into the East Sea, according to its official media.

The UNSC and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday both slammed the missile launches conducted by North Korea.

The Security Council "strongly condemned the most recent ballistic missile launches" conducted by Pyongyang on April 28 and May 13, the 15-nation UN body said in a press statement.
[May 16, 2017] Tizen Developer Conference 2017 Highlights Tizen Ecosystem for IoT Era

Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics Co., Ltd., together with 30 partners, kicked off this year's Tizen Developer Conference (TDC) 2017 at the Hilton Union Square Hotel in San Francisco, running from May 16-17. In addition to software developers, more than 1,000 service/content partners, device manufacturers and others engaged in the Tizen ecosystem will be participating at the conference. Centered on the theme "Ready To Connect, Get Involved!," TDC 2017 will present a vision for the IoT era via expanded opportunities for the attendees to experience the key features of the Tizen 4.0 platform, various technologies and products, and the evolving development environment required for UX and product/application development. TDC, as an annual technical conference for global developers, is a showcase of Tizen's new technologies and products. It was held in San Francisco in 2012 for the first time when Tizen 1.0 was launched as an open source project. Since then, and over the past five years, the Tizen OS has evolved into Tizen 4.0 supporting a wide variety of Tizen devices. "Since launching, Tizen has become the OS for nearly all of Samsung's products, and with its record of sales growth, proven itself as the most successful Linux-based embedded OS in the world. Among open collaborations, and as we enter the IoT era, we expect Tizen will open new opportunities for the future of IoT," said Hyogun Lee, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics and Chair of the Tizen Technical Steering Group. Extending Tizen Device Ecosystem with Tizen 4.0 The key changes in Tizen 4.0 are optimizations made on the platform for IoT developers to enable rapid creation and commercialization of various applications. While the existing Tizen platform was limited in distribution to devices such as TVs and smartphones, Tizen 4.0 will provide a development environment that can be refined according to the characteristics of various devices by subdividing functional modules. In addition, the Tizen 4.0 platform has been extended to Tizen RT (Real-Time) to involve high-end products such as TVs and mobile devices as well as low-end products such as thermostats, scales, bulbs, and more. With Tizen Project's collaboration with Microsoft, developers are now able to more easily develop Tizen applications with popular programming languages. Specifically, the Microsoft .NET (News - Alert) and Xamarin UI framework have been ntroduced to Tizen so that C# language-based applications can be developed in the Visual Studio environment for increased productivity.



In order to expand the ecosystem of Tizen-based IoT devices, Samsung is planning to strengthen cooperation with chip makers such as Samsung ARTIK and Broadlink in China; smart home device manufacturer Commax in Korea; and the location based service provider Glympse in the U.S. New Tizen Services and Products: ARTIK053 Module and Samsung Z4

At TDC 2017, Samsung will unveil the new ARTIK053 module, a lightweight IoT chipset with integrated real-time processing utilizing the Tizen RT for the first time. The ARTIK 053 module is an affordable IoT solution with high-performance and hardened security for next-generation products like connected home appliances, building products, health care devices, and industrial automation. It also dramatically reduces development time via a 320MHz ARM Cortex R4 core with 1.4MB RAM (News - Alert) and 8MB Flash, and a pre-certified Wi-Fi radio. Around the introduction of the ARTIK053 module, an IoT Hands-On Lab session will also be held to develop software for the IoT on the new module utilizing Tizen Studio for RT, which is a lightweight real-time operating system (RTOS) based application development environment. The Samsung Z4 smartphone will also be showcased at the conference. The Z4 is equipped with a front and rear camera optimized for social media and a wide range of features focused on convenience and productivity, including quick and easy access to the most frequently used functions. In addition, for Tizen ecosystem enhancement, the Tizen Mobile Incentive Program has been introduced for global application developers to offer a one million dollar prize every month when the app is sold and placed in the Top 100 on the Tizen Store from February to October 2017. Smart TV Ecosystem and Smart Home Appliances for IoT Samsung will also showcase a variety of its recent products at the TDC 2017 Exhibiti on Zone. In particular, attendees will be able to experience display products including QLED TV, and the Frame introduced at CES (News - Alert) 2017, as well as Samsung's diverse and expanding smart TV ecosystem. Additionally, attendees will be able to see various smart home scenarios where products such as Family Hub 2.0 are integrated with IoT standard technology. Also, a Game Zone within the Exhibition Zone will offer even more fun, allowing attendees to take part in a Gear Maze escape game using a Gear S3. In addition, a 1:1 Tutorial Zone that enables developers to instantly develop smart TV applications and run them on the TV with the help of experts is also available for developers to experience the benefits of using the Tizen .NET development environment. For more information, please visit the official conference website: www.tizenconference.com. About Samsung Electronics Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI and LED solutions. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at http://news.samsung.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170516006393/en/

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US President Donald Trump lit the White House with blue lights honouring slain police officers, the media reported.

The lighting of blue lights on Monday night is part of a celebration of Peace Officers Memorial Day, a 55-year-old tradition started by former President John F. Kennedy, the Daily Mail reported.

This comes after he gave a full-throated support to the men and women in blue earlier on Monday at 36th annual National Peace Officers's Memorial Service where he defended police officers from "unfair defamation and vilification".

"You are the thin blue line between civilisation and chaos," he told law enforcement officers gathered outside the US Capitol for the memorial service.

Thanking them, Trump, who noted in his remarks that he was in New York when the September 11, 2001, attacks took place, said: "I will make it the personal priority of my administration to ensure that our police are finally treated fairly, with honour and the respect that they deserve."

"Every drop of blood spilled by our heroes in blue is a wound inflicted upon the whole country. And every hear ache known by your families in law enforcement is a sorrow shared by the entire family of the American nation," the Daily Mail quoted the President as saying.

"Please know that you do not grieve alone," he told the families of the fallen officers.

"Now, as President, my highest duty is to keep America safeWe will keep America safe," he promised.

Trump asked Americans around the country to tell a police officer "thank you" next time they come across one and promised to declare his support proudly for law enforcement throughout his administration.

He tossed a '45' hat midway through his remarks to a young boy he identified as Micah, whose father had died in the line of duty.

Trump directed the Department of Justice earlier this this year to develop a strategy to better prevent violence against law enforcement officers.
Olympic gold medalist Kaetlyn Osmond can't wait to skate in front of Newfoundland crowd for her first performance since COVID

When Kaetlyn Osmond steps on the ice at the Mary Browns Centre in St. Johns next month, it will be the first time the Marystown native has performed on ice in front of an audience since before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. It's also the ...
Job Title: Conflict Management Officer

Organisation: Danish Refugee

Council (DRC)

Duty Station: Uganda

Reports to: EU TF Project

Manager

About DRC:

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a private, independent,

humanitarian organization working on all aspects of the refugee cause in more

than 36 countries throughout the world. The aim of DRC is to protect refugees

and internally displaced persons (IDPs) against persecution and to promote

durable solutions to the problems of forced migration, on the basis of

humanitarian principles and human rights. DRC works in accordance with the UN

Conventions on Refugees and the Code of Conduct for the ICRC and NGOs in

Disaster Relief.

Job Summary: The Conflict

Management Officer assists the EU Trust Fund Project Manager in the field

implementation of all Conflict Management (CM) components of the EU Trust Fund

Project in the assigned district Settlement area, Uganda. The incumbent will

closely monitor the quality of the activities and ensure a close coordination

with the authorities, Security providers and the community for the

implementation of the activities.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:

Coordination/ Representation:

Under the supervision of the EU Trust Fund

Project Manager and with technical supervision and support from the

Protection & Community Services Coordinator (PCSC) attend and

represent the interests of DRC in all conflict management/protection

related meetings.

Actively coordinate within the

jurisdiction of his/her responsibility with other consortium partners and

relevant local stakeholders.

Represent and articulate both the DRCs

mission and the Programs objectives to Local Authorities and other

stakeholders in the districts of jurisdiction.

Actively participate in internal

coordination meetings to ensure internal coordination within the EUTF team

and with the protection and other sectors within the DRC.

Actively contribute and actively

participate in a regular district sector meetings as applicable.

Serve as the primary link between the

assigned target communities and DRC.

Project development, implementation and reporting:

Significantly contribute to concept and

proposal development in the Conflict Management/Protection thematic areas

Contribute to the gap analysis in the

Conflict Management/Protection areas and contribute in the development of

new thematic areas according to analysis



Responsible for day to day efficient and

effective project activity implementation

Contribute to the design of capacity

building programmes and materials and effectively implement the delivery

of such programmes at all level

Manage the day-to-day Conflict

Management/Protection activities, including cash projections, budget

follow ups while bearing in mind DRCs/Donor financial regulations.

Prepare weekly work plans for the team,

submit it to the EU Trust Fund Projects Manager and copy the PCSC and

circulate to respective DRC Teams including District Office Team Leader.

Ensure the work plans are implemented as

per the approved overall project work plan.

Monitor and document DRCs Conflict

Management/Protection activities.

Prepare/contribute to weekly, monthly,

quarterly, annual, donor and other reports in the areas of Conflict

Management/Protection.

Staff Management:

Supervise Conflict Management Assistants

working for the EU Trust Fund project in the districts of jurisdiction.

Uphold DRCs code of conduct and

principles of accountability

Provide technical and programmatic

leadership for the Conflict Management staff and community based

structures in the district area as needed.



Develop staff performance measurement and

targets and appraise them based on the set targets.

Conduct regular field visits to support

the paralegals and other community based workers if any by offering

mentorship through technical back stopping and training.

Logistics /Finance:

Assist the EU Trust Fund Project Manager

to monitor financial commitments and expenditures against EU Trust Fund

budget.

Actively participate in Budget follow up

meetings and provide timely feedback as necessary

Plan and coordinate proactively logistics

and movements of staff to and from different clusters.

Ensure annual and monthly procurement

plans for activities for the next month are submitted to logistics

department by the end of current month.

Ensure order requests are duly filled well

in advance for the activities to be carried out to provide logistics

department adequate time for planning.

Ensure correct financial procedures are

followed by the Conflict Management (CM) team

Ensure all accountability documents are

duly signed and returned by the CM Team to the relevant departments.



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate for the Danish Refugee

Council (DRC) Conflict Management Officer job placement must hold a

Bachelors Degree in law, Social Sciences or Equivalent

A minimum of three years experience in a

similar position.

Broad knowledge and understanding in

preparing major international donor reports.

Knowledge and experience of working with

Echo, EU, DFID donors.

Possess strong analytical and conceptual

skills.

Computer literate skills with proficiency

in Microsoft Word and Excel database.

Knowledge of local district languages is

an added advantage.

Proven commitment to accountable

practices.

Knowledge of working in challenging

environments.

Demonstrated ability to manage large

varied workloads and deal constructively with stress and periods with long

hours.

Proven ability to prioritize tasks, meet

deadlines and work with limited supervision

Proactive, stable and robust character and

a good team player.

Excellent communication skills, calm and a

good sense of humour.

Excellent interpersonal skills and

demonstrated ability to establish effective working relations at all

levels.

Must be in possession of a valid Motor

cycle riding permit with at; least one year rough road riding experience.

Fluent in written and spoken English.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates who wish to join the

Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in the aforementioned capacity should send the

following documents online at the link below.

A cover letter (1 page) in which you

explain why you are interested in the position and how you meet the

qualities and qualifications criteria

Concise and accurate CV (maximum 3 pages).

The CV should include information about your qualification, relevant

training courses, Work experience, name and contact details of 3 relevant

references.

rd May

2017 Deadline: 23May2017
But the tribe has a long way to go
Kishore Biyani's Future Group, one of the largest organised retailers in India, has now set his sights on the international market. On Tuesday, Future Group inked a 50-50 joint venture agreement with Oman-based Khimji Ramdas Group to expand the fashion and apparel retail chain FBB to the Gulf region.

Future Group's retail business stretches across food and grocery supermarkets, consumer durable stores and department stores selling fashion and apparel. The plan is to open around four-five FBB stores initially in Oman through the JV with Khimji Ramdas and then scale it up to around 17-18 over the next few years.

Apart from opening FBB stores in Oman and subsequently in the other neighbouring Gulf countries, Future Group will also sell food and grocery products manufactured by arm Future Consumer Enterprise in Oman, in stores that Khimji Ramdas operates there, as well in other retail outlets.

We see a huge scope in the apparel space. Next year we will be selling 30 crore garments. Our ambition is to sell 100 crore garments over the next 4-5 years and that can only happen if we spread our wings, said Kishore Biyani, the CEO of Future Group.

Khimji Ramdas is a diversified conglomerate in Oman, with interests in logistics, distribution and retail. The company operates 75 outlets, comprising Spar hypermarkets and its own Khimji Marts and its lifestyle business also distributes luxury goods in Oman.

We want to add to our strengths, which is distribution and logistics in Oman and get expertise of Future Group of clothing retail. Oman would be the test market and later we would look at expanding into the other Gulf countries, said Nailesh Khimji, director, Khimji Ramdas LLC.

The two companies are investing Rs 75 crore each in the joint venture and the first of the FBB stores in Oman should be open by the January-March quarter of 2018.

While Oman in itself is not a very big market, for Future Group its a platform to test international waters, which will provide a stepping stone to expand into other neighbouring markets.

Getting into the middle east is a huge opportunity. From that opportunity, we will be able to get into Africa. There are retailers who have come into India from that part of the world and I think its time for some one from here to go into that part of the region, said Biyani.

For now though, the plan is to focus on growing in Oman and the neighbouring countries like UAE.

Future Group has a strong presence in the apparel segment through FBB, Central and Brand Factory outlets and has several private labels including Cover Story, aLL, Bare, John Miller among others.

Future Group hopes to clock sales of around Rs 11,000-12,000 crore across fashion and apparel business in the current financial year, Biyani added.

The Khimji Ramdas Group, on the other hand, is also expanding in India. It currently distributes Procter & Gamble's products in Gujarat and it may look to expand into other geographies.
The CBI raids at former union finance minister P. Chidambarams residence in Chennai and 14 other places across the country have come down as a shocker for the opposition Congress and for the political observers in Tamil Nadu. Though not a surprise to those who have been closely observing the continuous developments in Tamil Nadu politics and the beginning of the crackdown by the Modi government on every other opposition party, the raids have shaken the Congress.

Chidambaram's residence at Nungambakkam in Chennai, where his son Karti P. Chidambaram and his family live, and thirteen other places in Delhi, Mumbai and Gurugram, were raided by the CBI this morning, as part of an investigation into the criminal misconduct in grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval.

All these charges are baseless. I am being targeted politically and personally, Karti Chidambaram told the media waiting outside his residence.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram, who is in Delhi, rubbished the charges and said the government was trying to silence him by cracking down on his family. "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends. The government's aim is to silence my voice and stop me from writing, as it has tried to do in the cases of leaders of opposition parties, journalists, columnists, NGOs and civil society organisations, he said in a statement.

The former minister said he will continue to write. Stating that every case was processed according to the law and approval was granted in accordance with the recommendations of the FIPB, consisting of five secretaries to the government of India, he said, FIPB approval is granted in hundreds of cases. The five secretaries who constitute the FIPB, the officials of the FIPB Secretariat and the competent authority in each case are public officials. There is no allegations against any of them. There is no allegation against me, Chidambaram stated.

Meanwhile, the 12-page FIR registered by the CBI has listed INX Media through its directors Indrani Mukherjea and Peter Mukherjea, Karti P. Chidambaram, his company Chess Management Services and Advantage Strategic Consulting through its director Padma Viswanathan. It has to be noted that both Indrani and Peter Mukherjea are serving imprisonment in Mumbai in the Sheena Bhora murder case.

The FIR alleges financial misappropriation over FIPB clearance to Peter and Indrani's media company INX Media in 2008. It says that ASCPL was being controlled by Karti indirectly, and that invoices for an estimated amount of Rs 3.5 crore were also raised in favour of INX group in the name of other companies in which Karti was having sustainable interests directly or indirectly. However, INX group, in its record, had clearly mentioned the purpose of payment of Rs 10 lakh to ASPCL as towards management consultancy charges towards FIPB notification and clarification, says the FIR.

The FIR states that, prima facie, these appears to be acts of omission and commission.

After more than three hours of questioning and searches at his residence, Karti was taken by the CBI officers to his Chess Management Services office in Nungambakkam for further searches. Karti was seen accompanied by the officers.

In April, a show cause notice was issued to Karti and a firm linked to him for alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) violations of Rs 45 crore. Karti is also being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for his alleged links in money laundering in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.

"A show cause notice has been issued to Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited, its directors and also to Karti P. Chidambaram who appears to be the controller and ultimate beneficiary in these transactions, the ED had stated in April. ASCPL is already under the ED scanner over money laundering charges in the Aircel-Maxis deal.

Chidambaram had then accused the ED of making wild allegations against his son Karti. He said the two companies had earlier explained their transactions repeatedly and Karti was never a shareholder or a director in any of these companies.

According to Congressmen from Tamil Nadu, the CBI raids and the earlier notice by ED had clear political vendetta. CBI is being misused by the centre and Chidambaram is being targeted through his son, said Peter Alphonse, a senior Congress leader.

In fact, according to them, the raids were to destroy the Congress, the only opposition to the BJP in the country before the 2019 elections. Moreover, Chidambaram is in the inner circles of the Congress party and is close to Sonia Gandhi. He also opposes the economic policies of the government.

This raid is to damage his reputation. More than anyone in Congress, Chidambaram is the only person who spoke more about Modis Gujarat days. This is to scuttle him, alleged Congressmen who were waiting outside Kartis residence in Chennai to get a glimpse of what was happening.

The murmur inside the Congress party office also resonated similar views that this was to undermine Chidambarams power to the maximum extent by targeting his son and to neutralise the former finance minister, through whom one of the strong wings of Sonia Gandhi could be clipped.

More than this, the major question by the Congressmen close to Chidambaram and a few economical experts is that how much of evidence can the CBI unearth in an FIPB approval that happened in 2008. Also, if Kartis firm is linked to it, many government departments involved in the foreign exchange deals will also come under the scanner.

And, if the approvals were given by taking kickbacks as claimed by the CBI and ED, the illegality will have to be proved as Chidambaram says the concerned approvals were given by multi-member panels empowered by law.

Though there is a clear conflict of interest since Chidambaram was the then Union finance minister, the Congressmen say that the evidences will not stand in the court of law. The investigating agencies, however, will have to establish the quid pro quo involving the payments with regard to these questionable approvals in the court of law.

Interestingly, BJP senior leader Subramanian Swamy had always been vocal against the Chidambarams and had been citing discretionary approvals given by Chidambaram during his tenure as finance minister. Swamy had been continuously vociferous against Chidambaram and Karti, accusing them of illegal and improper conduct in these cases.
A survey participated in by more than 45,000 children in the 12-18 age group, across 26 states in the country, revealed that one in every two children is a victim of child sexual abuse.

The survey conducted by humanitarian aid organisation World Vision India with a sample of 45,844 respondents also revealed that one in every five do not feel safe because of the fear of being sexually abused.

It also said one in four families do not come forward to report child abuse.

"Despite one in every two children being a victim of child sexual abuse, there continues to be a huge silence. The magnitude of sexual violence against children is unknown," World Vision India national director Cherian Thomas said in New Delhi while launching a campaign to end child sexual abuse and exploitation by 2021.

The 'It Takes the World to End Violence against Children' campaign targets 10 million children across 25 states and one union territory.

"The campaign works through our area programmes that deal with different issues of health care, typically malnutrition and early illness, education, child rights and protection and the improvement of resilience in communities," Thomas told IANS.

"The area programmes are based in 186 districts that we operate in," he added.

Thomas said the campaign will draw people from all walks of life to ensure a safe environment for children.

Children are given training in different aspects, where they are taught about the good touch and the bad touch and various other relevant aspects, he said.

"With 98 per cent of rapes being committed by people known to the children, I feel it is time that we all come under one banner and umbrella to focus our work around child protection," he said.

"We are going to work along with other civil society organisations, and child rights organisations. People are sensitised over the issue if economic resilience as most of these abuse cases are a result of inadequate economic resilience in communities," he explained.
India on Tuesday reaffirmed its support for a political solution to the Palestine issue following bilateral talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We had extensive exchange of views on the situation in West Asia and the Middle East peace process," Modi said while jointly addressing the media with Abbas following the delegation-level talks in New Delhi.

"We agreed that the challenges in West Asia must be addressed through sustained political dialogue and peaceful means," he said.

"India hopes for early resumption of talks between Palestinian and Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive resolution."

Modi said India has been "unwavering in its support of the Palestinian cause".

"And, we hope to see the realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel," he said, ahead of his visit to Israel scheduled for July this year.

He also said India would continue to extend cooperation in building infrastructure in Palestine and contribute to improving the lives of its people.

"We will continue to support the development and capacity-building efforts of Palestine," he said.

The prime minister said the five agreements signed following Tuesday's talks "are reaffirmation of our intent to strengthen cooperation in this direction".

The agreements signed include cooperation in the areas of agriculture, IT and electronics, health and youth affairs and sports.

Modi also referred to a flagship Techno-park project India was undertaking in Ramallah and said particular emphasis was being laid on the areas of information technology, youth and skills development.

He also called for enhancing cultural exchanges between the two sides and sought the participation of the Palestinian people in the International Yoga Day to be observed next month.

On his part, Abbas expressed his appreciation for India's continued support and solidarity for the Palestinian cause on international forums.

He said he updated Modi on his meeting with US President Donald Trump regarding the Middle East peace process and his talks with his German and Russian counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vladimir Putin, respectively, on the issue.

Abbas also condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and voiced support for all regional and international efforts to fight this menace.

Earlier in the day, Abbas was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan following which he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting dignitary and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Abbas arrived in New Delhi on Sunday on a four-day visit to India. This is his fifth visit to India and the third state visit after his visits in 2008 and 2012.

He is being accompanied by a delegation comprising Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Abu Amr, Foreign Minister Riad Malki, Diplomatic Advisor Majdi Khaldi, Presidency Spokesperson Nabil Aburdeineh and Palestine's Chief Judge Mahmoud Habbash.
As far as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is concerned, his former colleague Kapil Mishra is fighting a wall that speaks not. Even as Mishra has been adding one new allegation every other day, and keeping up the tirade against Kejriwal via twitter, the chief minister has not responded so far. His supporters in the Aam Aadmi Party have, however, been maintaining that Mishra's ambitions find a strong backing in the BJP that would like to dislodge the Kejriwal government. Post their victory in the MCD elections, the saffron party's desire to form a government in Delhi by hook or crook has only got strengthened.

Kejriwal, while ignoring Mishra, chose to take on the BJP on Tuesday. He announced that with Haryana government reducing water supply to the capital, the Delhi government had decided to distribute the available water equally all over the capital territory. Effectively this means that the water supply to VIP and VVIP localities including Lutyens' Delhi, where ministers live in sprawling bungalows in the lap of lush lawns, too will be hit.

Haryana, incidentally, has a BJP government under Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Mishra's latest charge has been on the way the party raised funds through donations ahead of the Delhi elections and thereafter. Strangely, he did not answer questions on why he kept quiet on this all these months.

Kejriwal also launched what appears to be a dinner diplomacy to keep his flock in the party together, and away from the BJP's temptations. He invited party MLAs, leaders and their families over dinner on Sunday, and the discussion was less about Mishra's allegations and more about their unity.

Alka Lamba, the MLA representing the heritage area of Chandni Chowk with its old havelis and buzzling street food stalls and wholesale dealers, said it was more a show of strength. "We AAP MLAs are firmly behind Kejriwal after allegations by Kapil Mishra. So much lust for power is not good" she tweeted. Her second sentence was aimed at Mishra, whom the AAP supporters are now seeing as an over ambitious and power hungry person who had tried to craft his growth over the last two years. He has incidentally not been visited or supported by any of his colleagues in the Delhi Assembly or the party.

But that has not stopped Mishra from telling the media on Tuesday that he will not relent until the Delhi chief minister is sent to Tihar Jail.
After suffering a serious setback in the assembly elections in Bihar in 2015, the BJP and its strategists, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, have ensured they remain several steps ahead of the opposition at the hustings.

A case in point is its spectacular performance in the recent assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh where it crossed the 300 mark in the 403-member House. The regional heavyweights, the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samajwadi party, were sent packing not knowing what hit them.

Adopting a different and carefully calibrated approach that has stumped the opposition, the Lotus party is actively considering elevating a tribal woman Draupadi Murmufrom backward Odishato the highest constitutional office of the President when incumbent Pranab Mukherjee completes his term on July 25.

With a clear image as a politician, Murmu is currently the Governor of Jharkhand, which is the best thing that could have happened to her, according to sources in the BJP.

The BJP has a majority of its own in the Lok Sabha, but is marginally short in the electoral college, which it hopes to make up with support from regional parties, particularly from the south, including Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Tamil Nadu.

There are clear indications of the BJP-led NDA sailing through far in excess of the majority mark. It got a shot in the arm last week when the YSR Congress chief Jaganmohan Reddy announced its support for the alliance nominee for the office of the head of state. The Telengana Rashtra Samiti has also decided to vote with the BJP in the presidential elections.

With chances of the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu also voting with the BJP, the saffron brigade's nominee being firmly ensconced in the Rashtrapati Bhawan for the first time is certain.

This is also to rub home the point that despite being in power for more than six decades, the Congress has done precious little for the oppressed and depressed classes who have just been left to their fate.

Modi wants to end the facade of the Congress being the messiah of the poor. With a clean image as a politician, it is believed the best thing that could have happened to Murmu was to pick her for a gubernatorial assignment.

This could send shock waves in the political firmament. Such a choice will make people sit up and take note. There is also no doubt that it is bound to be supported by the tribal elected representatives in Parliament and the legislatures, irrespective of their party affiliations, leaving the opposition leaden footed.

It may be recalled that the BJP's gambit of concentrating on the non-Dalit backward classes in the just concluded assembly elections in UP ensured a huge dividend to the BJP far beyond its own expectations.

Even as efforts are underway to forge a United Front, the Congress and other non-BJP parties have approached former Governor, administrator and diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi to be the joint opposition candidate for the office of the President. These discussions have been of a preliminary nature.

The non-BJP opposition is facing the usual hiccups in getting its act together. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has taken the lead contacting various leaders, including RJD's Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP.

TMC supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is meeting Sonia Gandhi this week. Odisha's ruling BJD and some others are also being consulted.

Lalu is staring at problems with the Supreme Court ordering him to face trial in all the four fodder scam cases that can cast its shadow in knitting the UF.

Interestingly, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury has already clarified that the Left's antipathy towards the TMC would not be a hurdle in the quest for a larger unity.

At the same time, the body language of these leaders is the least convincing in the prevailing circumstances of a Modi phenomenon.

Mukherjee has been a "copy book" President who has remained steadfast in preserving and protecting the Constitution.

In today's polarised society with extreme positions acquiring prominence and politics mirroring the same, the new President has to play the role of the next conscience keeper. With growing incidents of intolerance from different parts of the country, the new head of state will have to prove the government's commitment to pluralism, inclusiveness and independence of institutions.
In Nandrauli, a nondescript village in Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh, Muslim families are living in fear. There was an attack on the community on May 11, forcing over 30 Muslim families to flee the village.

The clashes began when a 20-year-old Hindu girl, belonging to Yadav community, eloped with a Muslim boy, identified as Babloo Saifi, on May 9. After the incident, a panchyat was held in the Hindu dominated village and the family of the boy was forced to find the couple. When they failed to do so, the family members of the girl, along with other villagers, attacked members of Muslim community and vandalised their homes.

People belonging to both the communities sustained injuries in the large-scale violence that broke out. The police have arrested 11 people from both the communities in connection with the incident.

Villagers, who refused to be named, said the couple were in love, but the parents of the girl forced her to marry another person from a nearby village in November 2016. However, when the girl came to visit her parents in May, she met her lover and they decided to elope.

The father of the girl, Ramdeen Yadav, refused to comment.

Over 30 Muslim families fled the village after the violence. Some of them have returned to the village after five days.

Nandrauli has a population of around 3,000 of which 70 per cent are Hindus. To prevent any untoward incidents, the district administration has beefed up security in the village.

Mohammed Shakeel, whose family was attacked, confirmed that Muslims fled the village after the violence.

Meanwhile, SDM Akhilesh Yadav said the local administration is providing full security to the villagers and is finding out that how many families have left the village. Efforts are on to bring them back, he added.

Village headman Pramod Kumar confirmed that nine Muslim families left the village fearing further violence. Senior police officials held meetings with villagers to bring the situation under control.

Sambhal SP Ravi Shankar Chhabi said according to available information, five families fled the village.
Cybersecurity researchers have found evidence they say could link North Korea with the WannaCry cyber attack that has infected more than 300,000 computers worldwide as global authorities scrambled to prevent hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.

A researcher from South Korea's Hauri Labs said on Tuesday their own findings matched those of Symantec and Kaspersky Lab, who said on Monday that some code in an earlier version of the WannaCry software had also appeared in programs used by the Lazarus Group, identified by some researchers as a North Korea-run hacking operation.

"It is similar to North Korea's backdoor malicious codes," Simon Choi, a senior researcher with Hauri who has done extensive research into North Korea's hacking capabilities and advises South Korean police and National Intelligence Service.

Both Symantec and Kaspersky said it was too early to tell whether North Korea was involved in the attacks, based on the evidence that was published on Twitter by Google security researcher Neel Mehta. The attacks, which slowed on Monday, are among the fastest-spreading extortion campaigns on record.

Damage in Asia, however, has been limited.

Vietnam's state media said on Tuesday more than 200 computers had been affected. Taiwan Power Co. TAIWP.UL said that nearly 800 of its computers were affected, although these were used for administration, not for systems involved in electricity generation.

FireEye Inc, another large cyber security firm, said it was also investigating but cautious about drawing a link to North Korea.

"The similarities we see between malware linked to that group and WannaCry are not unique enough to be strongly suggestive of a common operator," FireEye researcher John Miller said.

U.S. and European security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it was too early to say who might be behind the attacks, but they did not rule out North Korea as a suspect.

The Lazarus hackers, acting for impoverished North Korea, have been more brazen in their pursuit of financial gain than others, and have been blamed for the theft of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank, according to some cyber security firms. The United States accused it of being behind a cyber attack on Sony Pictures in 2014.

An official at South Korea's Korea Internet & Security Agency said on Tuesday the agency was sharing information with intelligence officials on recent cases reported for damages but was not in position to investigate the source of the attack. The official declined to comment on intelligence-related matters.
US President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation during their meeting last week, two US officials with knowledge of the situation said on Monday.

The intelligence shared at the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a US ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials said.

The White House said the allegations were not true.

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters at the White House, adding that the two men reviewed a range of common threats including to civil aviation.

"At no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. The president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. ... I was in the room. It didn't happen," he said.

The White House also released a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the meeting focussed on counterterrorism, and from deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, who said the Post story was false.

Reacting to the news, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, called Trump's conduct "dangerous" and reckless." The Republican head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, called the allegations "very, very troubling" if true.

One of the officials said the intelligence was classified Top Secret and also held in a secure compartment to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.

After Trump disclosed the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services, and informed them what had happened.

While the president has the authority to disclose even the most highly classified information at will, in this case he did so without consulting the ally that provided it, which threatens to jeopardise what they called a longstanding intelligence-sharing agreement, the US officials said.

In his conversations with the Russian officials, Trump appeared to be boasting about his knowledge of the looming threats, telling them he was briefed on "great intel every day," an official with knowledge of the exchange said, according to media reports.

US officials said they have long been concerned about disclosing highly classified intelligence to Trump.

One official, who requested anonymity to discuss dealing with the president, said last month: He has no filter; its in one ear and out the mouth.

One of the officials with knowledge of Trump's meeting with the Russian called the timing of the disclosure particularly unfortunate, as the president prepares for a White House meeting on Tuesday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Trump's first foreign trip also begins later this week and includes a stop in Saudi Arabia, another Islamic State foe, and a May 25 NATO meeting in Brussels attended by other important US allies.
The parents of 18-month-old Rakib are still reeling under the shock of losing their son to swine flu on April 28. What started as fever and vomiting got worse with time, and his family soon had to admit him to a private hospital in Mumbai. But when there was no improvement in his condition, they shifted him to another hospital where he was directly admitted to the ICU. However, we were unhappy with the treatment being provided and then got him admitted to the civic-run Kasturba hospital, says Tanveer Ansari, Rakibs father.

Three days after being admitted to the hospital, where he tested positive for swine flu and had to be put on ventilator support, Rakib succumbed to the influenza virus that causes H1N1 or swine flu. The doctors at Kasturba hospital tried their best to save my son and we were satisfied with the treatment he received. But unfortunately, he could not be saved, says Nuzad, the mother.

According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities, this was the first swine flu death in Mumbai in the last two years. But the numbers are higher in other parts of Maharashtra. Since this January, 844 patients have tested positive for H1N1 and 165 deaths have been reported so far, says Dr Pradeep Awate, state survey epidemics officer. Most of these patients are from Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad and Ahmednagar. Mumbai, on the other hand, had 18 cases in the last two months, according to BMCs epidemiologist Dr Mini Khetrapal.

The large number of swine flu cases in western Maharashtra may be due to the uneven temperatures between daytime and nighttime. The fluctuations in temperature help in viral growth, says Awate. There are far fewer cases of swine flu in other parts of the state like Vidarbha and the Marathwada belt, he says. Also, most patients who succumbed to swine flu suffered from co-morbidities like diabetes and hypertension. We are now mainly focusing on giving vaccines to patients with co-morbidities, including health care workers and pregnant women, who are more vulnerable to the virus, says Awate.

After Maharashtra, Telangana has the highest number of swine flu deaths22. According to the Telangana government, 1,446 patients have tested positive for swine flu this year. Across the country, more than 5,000 people have the airborne disease.

Apart from co-morbidities, patients who test positive for swine flu seem to have spent time in overcrowded places at weddings and social gatherings, says Dr Sudhir Prasad, senior consultant pulmonologist at Aware Gleneagles Global Hospitals, Hyderabad. These events are where the influenza A virus spreads. It is important for patients to be treated within 48 hours after displaying symptoms of swine flu, he says. There has been an increase in number of patients with suspected viral pneumonia, too, in the last few weeks, says Prasad. In our outpatient department, patients mainly with a history of travel have suspected viral pneumonia and around 15 per cent of them test positive for swine flu, he says.

What has baffled doctors is the outbreak of swine flu in the midst of a sweltering summer instead of the usual winter. According to Awate, it is mainly attributed to a new strain of the influenza A virus. Scientists at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) declared that they had isolated a new strain, known as the Michigan strain during an ongoing H1N1 surveillance across the country. The World Health Organization also found that the virus strain has changed from the California strain to Michigan due to which the vaccines had to be changed in the southern hemisphere. The fact is that the characteristics of the virus keep changing every two years or so. However, the good news is the new strain is sensitive to the drugs being used to treat swine flu, explains Awate. Whenever there is a new virus strain, the body has no immunity against it and that is why it spreads like forest fire. Dr Devendra Mourya, director of NIV, and Dr Sanjay Mehendale, additional director general, ICMR were unavailable for comment.

Prasad says there is, without a doubt, a shift and drift in the swine flu virus. And, some patients are also resistant to antiviral medicines. This year, doctors are now going to use tetravalent vaccines instead of trivalent vaccines [traditional flu vaccines that dont contain influenza virus] which were being used earlier. The new vaccine will give better results, he says.

However, not all doctors are convinced that the Michigan strain is the reason behind the rapid increase in the number of swine flu cases. It is true viral infections go through an antigenic shift from time to time, says Dr Om Shrivastav, who specialises in infectious diseases and immunology. This means the virus changes through some kind of movement or shift every two years and this is relevant for viruses other than influenza A. However, at best, the Michigan strain is a scientific speculation and nothing else. It can be proven only when the researchers are able to show an antigenic shift and where the samples were collected from.

Dr K. Manohar, nodal officer for swine flu in Telangana and director of Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences, says, The observations of a Michigan strain made by other countries have not been established so far. To determine whether there is a new strain of the H1N1 virus, a gene sequencing test needs to be done, which takes a period of at least 28 days.
There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. - Don Herold

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Phillip K. Dick

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.- Frank Zappa
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is decidedly premature in claiming everyone's convinced his presidential campaign and Russia did not collude before the election. Investigations into contacts between Russians and people with the Trump campaign are still going on, so there's no exoneration to be found.

Over the past week, Trump stretched a variety of facts on trade, taxes and economic theory. But his firing of FBI Director James Comey was far and away the source of the most tumult. Contradictions cascaded from the White House.

Here are some statements by the president and his spokespeople on the FBI, Russia, economics and more:

JUMPING TO CONCLUSION

TRUMP, on whether people in his campaign and Russian officials were in any way in cahoots: "Clapper is convinced, other people are convinced ... Everybody's convinced. ... They're all saying, there's no collusion. There is no collusion."  Fox interview broadcast Friday

THE FACTS: That's untrue both generally and with respect to James Clapper, the director of national intelligence until Trump took office Jan. 20. Clapper has not said he's satisfied there was no wrongdoing. In a report published at the end of the Obama administration, Clapper said no coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia had been established from a review of evidence available to him by that point. But his report focused on what was known by then about Russia's cyber actions and propaganda against Hillary Clinton, not about contacts between Trump associates and Russia.

Clapper expanded on that point Sunday, saying he did not know at the time that the FBI was digging deeply into "potential political collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians," and he was unaware of what the bureau might have found.

"There was no evidence of any collusion included in that report," he told ABC's "This Week," meaning his report. "That's not to say there wasn't evidence."

More broadly, it's obvious on its face that not everyone is convinced that Trump and his people are vindicated in the matter. Senate and House investigations continue, as does the FBI's, which Comey wanted to intensify before his dismissal last week. Acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe said the probe remains a high priority for the agency.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not convinced of anything in his panel's inquiry, except that "boy, oh, boy, there's an awful lot of smoke. I'm not saying there's fire at this point, but we're going to follow the facts wherever they lead."

WHY FIRE COMEY?

KELLYANNE CONWAY, White House counselor, on the reason for firing Comey: "This has nothing to do with Russia."  Tuesday on CNN

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, White House spokeswoman, on the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government: "We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity ... and we think that we've actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen."  Thursday White House briefing

THE FACTS: The initial White House explanation for the firing, that Comey had bungled the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's email practices, persuaded no one. Trump was delighted with Comey's disclosures about the Clinton investigation during the campaign and praised him.

Sanders, though, acknowledged in general terms what was obvious  that by firing Comey, the White House hoped to hasten the conclusion of an aggressive FBI investigation.

WHO INITIATED THE DISMISSAL?

TRUMP, in letter firing the FBI chief Tuesday: "I ... concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau."

WHITE HOUSE statement Tuesday: "President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions."

SEAN SPICER, White House spokesman, laying the impetus for the firing on Rosenstein and his memo building the case against Comey: "It was all him. No one from the White House. That was a DOJ decision."  Tuesday

SANDERS, Wednesday: "People in the Justice Department made a very strong recommendation, the president followed it and he made a quick and decisive action to fire James Comey."  MSNBC interview

TRUMP, Thursday: "Oh, I was going fire regardless of recommendation."  NBC interview

THE FACTS: The early attempts to deflect responsibility on to others were a diversion; Rosenstein had been asked by the White House to put the memo together. Trump's unvarnished assertion that he wanted Comey gone has the ring of truth, even without the whole story known.

He appeared to consider himself his own best spokesman in a tweet Friday that raised the prospect of discontinuing the long White House tradition of daily press briefings.

"As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!" Trump tweeted. "Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???"

...Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

TRUMP UNDER FBI INVESTIGATION?

TRUMP: "First of all, when you're under investigation you're giving all sorts of documents and everything. I knew I wasn't under and I heard it was stated at the committee, at some committee level, that I wasn't."  NBC interview

THE FACTS: An absence of document requests can't be read as an indication that he isn't under investigation, as Trump suggests. Investigations begin with interviews and document searches that are steps removed from the subject of the probe. Direct contact with the subject wouldn't become known to that person until late in the process.

TRUMP's letter to Comey: "I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation." In an NBC interview Thursday the president elaborated, saying Comey had told him this at a dinner and in two separate phone calls. "I said, if it's possible would you let me know, 'Am I under investigation?' He said, 'You are not under investigation'."

THE FACTS: Comey hasn't responded publicly to Trump's claims. But even if he did make such assurances, those answers months or weeks ago would be ephemeral because the investigation into Russia's meddling in U.S. presidential election continues and hasn't reached conclusions.

That's why investigators make it a practice not to circumscribe a probe in that fashion. It would also breach protocol for an FBI chief and president to discuss an investigation bearing on the president. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told senators Thursday it's not standard practice for the FBI to tell people they're excluded from an investigation.

In congressional testimony March 20, Comey refused to say whether Trump himself was under investigation when asked directly. "I'm not gonna answer that," he told the House Intelligence Committee. "I'm not gonna answer about anybody, in this forum." He added that he had privately briefed the top Republican and Democrat on the committee "in great detail on the subjects of the investigation and what we're doing."

Publicly, he said, he would not identify those being investigated "so we don't end up smearing people" who may end up not being prosecuted. But he described casting a wide net, "investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that 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."

COLLEGE DAZE

TRUMP: "The Electoral College is almost impossible for a Republican to win. Very hard."  NBC interview

THE FACTS: History disagrees. Over the past century, the party victory split is dead even: 13 for Democrats, 13 for Republicans. If you add the total electoral votes amassed by the candidates of each party over that time, Republicans actually come out ahead  7,159 to 6,607.

TAX TALK

TRUMP: "We're the highest-taxed nation in the world."  interview with The Economist magazine

THE FACTS: Trump has repeatedly made variations on this false claim. The overall U.S. tax burden is actually one of the lowest among the 32 developed and large emerging-market economies tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Taxes made up 26.4 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2015, according to the OECD. That's far below Denmark's tax burden of 46.6 percent, Britain's 32.5 percent or Germany's 36.9 percent. Just four OECD countries had a lower tax bite than the U.S.: South Korea, Ireland, Chile and Mexico.

Trump qualified his claim later in the interview by saying the top marginal corporate tax rate, specifically, is higher than in similar industrialized countries. That's more or less true, although the higher rate is moderated by tax breaks not available in some of those other countries.

TRADING PLACES

TRUMP: "Right now the United States has ... about a $15 billion trade deficit with Canada."  Economist interiew

THE FACTS: His numbers are upside down. The United States actually ran an $8.1 billion trade surplus with Canada last year, according to the latest numbers available from the Census Bureau. A $24.6 billion U.S. surplus with Canada in the trade of services, including tourism and software, outweighed a $16.5 billion deficit in the trade of goods, including autos and oil.

Trump, who regularly decries the loss of American manufacturing jobs, tends to emphasize trade in goods and ignore trade in services. His comment about Canada came as his administration seeks a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

The U.S. last year ran a deficit of $750 billion in goods with the rest of the world but recorded a $249 billion surplus in services.

ECON LINGO

TRUMP: "You understand the expression 'prime the pump'? ... I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It's what you have to do. We have to prime the pump."  Economist interview

The phrase 'priming the pump' dates to the early 19th century.  Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 11, 2017

THE FACTS: He didn't coin that phrase. It's a well-worn metaphor for generating faster growth, first made popular as an economic analogy more than 80 years ago during the Great Depression.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary people quickly tweeted that the phrase "priming the pump" has been around since the early 1800s. Literally, it's about pouring water into a pump to allow it to create suction. The phrase was commonly used by mining publications during the 1920s, but it took on new significance after the economy cratered during the Depression.

By 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had promoted the idea of flushing money into the economy to stimulate stronger growth with his New Deal policies. Such policies rankled Roosevelt's predecessor, Herbert Hoover. "One of the ideas in these spendings is to prime the economic pump," Hoover said in a 1935 post-presidential speech. "We might abandon this idea also, for it dries up the well of enterprise."

WEEKENDS AWAY

TRUMP tweets, concerning his May 5-7 weekend: "Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend. Also saves country money!" ''The reason I am staying in Bedminster, N.J., a beautiful community, is that staying in NYC is much more expensive and disruptive. Meetings!"

THE FACTS: True, less disruption in the New Jersey countryside than in the metropolis and almost certainly less cost to taxpayers.

But his weekends away, whether at his Florida resort or in New Jersey, are much more expensive than weekends at the White House, where security is already in place.

The White House doesn't make it easy for taxpayers to know anything about these costs. The administration is mum when asked for an accounting, and past attempts by government auditors to gauge the costs of presidential travel are sketchy, fragmentary or outdated.

A law Trump signed provides nearly $120 million to reimburse law enforcement agencies for their costs of protecting his homes outside Washington and to house Secret Service agents in New York and Florida through September.

Bedminster town officials estimate local costs of $12,000 a day for heightened security when Trump stays there. Palm Beach County, Florida, spends more than $60,000 a day when the president visits, mostly for law enforcement overtime. The New York City Police Department has said it spends up to $146,000 a day to protect first lady Melania Trump and son, Barron, living at Trump Tower until the school year ends. That cost at least doubles when the president is there.

Those comparisons are inexact but they suggest a Manhattan weekend would be pricier to taxpayers.

Local enforcement is only one segment of costs, though. It costs roughly $200,000 an hour to fly Air Force One, the president's armored limousine is flown separately to his destinations, and the Secret Service faces multiple other expenses associated with his travel. Trump has spent about half his weekends away since becoming president.

___

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Paul Wiseman, Josh Boak, Jill Colvin and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Cybersecurity experts are pointing to circumstantial evidence that North Korea may be behind the global ransomware attack: the way the hackers took hostage computers and servers across the world was similar to previous cyberattacks attributed to North Korea.

Simon Choi, a director at South Korean anti-virus software company Hauri Inc. who has analyzed North Korean malware since 2008 and advises the government, said Tuesday that the North is no newcomer to the world of bitcoins. It has been mining the digital currency using malicious computer programs since as early as 2013, he said.

In the attack, hackers demand payment from victims in bitcoins to regain access to their encrypted computers. The malware has scrambled data at hospitals, factories, government agencies, banks and other businesses since Friday, but an expected second-wave outbreak largely failed to materialize after the weekend, in part because security researchers had already defanged it.

Choi is one of a number of researchers around the world who have suggested a possible link between the ransomware known as WannaCry and hackers linked to North Korea. Researchers at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab have found similarities between WannaCry and previous attacks blamed on North Korea.

While Chois speculation may deepen suspicions that the nuclear-armed state is responsible, the evidence is still far from conclusive. Authorities are working to catch the extortionists behind the global cyberattack, searching for digital clues and following the money.

We are talking about a possibility, not that this was done by North Korea, Choi said.

___

ABOUT THAT NORTH KOREA LINK

WannaCry paralyzed computers running mostly older versions of Microsoft Windows in some 150 countries. It encrypted users computer files and displayed a message demanding $300 to $600 worth of the digital currency bitcoin to release them; failure to pay would leave the data scrambled and likely beyond repair .

The hackers appeared to have taken control of computers and servers around the world by sending a type of malicious code known as a worm to file-sharing protocols. The worms quickly scanned computers with vulnerability, in this case the older versions of Microsoft Windows, and used those computers as hackers command and control centers.

This method, which allows quick and massive infections of computers with security weaknesses, has been found in previously known North Korean cyberattacks, including the Sony hack in 2014 blamed on North Korea.

Since a July 2009 cyberattack by North Korea, they used the same method, Choi said. Its not unique in North Korea but its also not a very common method.

Choi also cited an accidental communication he had last year with a hacker traced to a North Korean internet address who admitted development of ransomware.

South Korea was mostly spared from the latest ransomware attack, partly because constant threats from the North have made the government and companies careful about always updating their software.

South Korea has been a frequent target of cyberattacks that it traced to its northern neighbor. Some high-profile attacks between 2009 and 2013 shut down government websites, banking systems and paralyzed broadcasters.

On Monday, the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab said portions of the WannaCry program use the same code as malware previously distributed by the Lazarus Group, a hacker collective behind the 2014 Sony hack.

But its possible the code was simply copied from the Lazarus malware without any other direct connection. Kaspersky said further research can be crucial to connecting the dots.

Another security company, Symantec, has also found similarities between WannaCry and Lazarus tools, and said its continuing to investigate for stronger connections.

If North Korea, believed to be training cyber warriors at schools, is indeed responsible for the latest attack, Choi said the world should stop underestimating its capabilities and work together to think of a new way to respond to cyber threats, such as having China pull the plug on North Koreas internet.

We have underestimated North Korea so far that since North Korea is poor, it wouldnt have any technologies. But North Korea has been preparing cyber skills for more than 10 years and its skill is significant. We should never underestimate it, Choi said.

___

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Researchers might find some additional clues in the bitcoin accounts accepting the ransom payments. There have been three accounts identified so far, and theres no indication yet that the criminals have touched the funds.

Although bitcoin is anonymized, researchers can watch it flow from user to user. So investigators can follow the transactions until an anonymous account matches with a real person, said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer with the California security company McAfee.

But that technique is no sure bet. There are ways to convert bitcoins into cash on the sly through third parties. And even finding a real person might be no help if theyre in a jurisdiction that wont cooperate.

___

TELL-TALE SIGNS

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said U.S. investigators are collecting forensic information  such as internet addresses, samples of malware or information the culprits might have inadvertently left on computers  that could be matched with the handiwork of known hackers.

Investigators might also be able to extract some information about the attacker from a previously hidden internet address connected to WannaCrys kill switch. That switch was essentially a beacon sending the message hey, Im infected to the hidden address, Weaver said.

That means the very first attempts to reach that address, which might have been recorded by spy agencies such as the NSA or Russian intelligence, could lead to patient zero  the first computer infected with WannaCry. That, in turn, might further narrow the focus on possible suspects.

___

THE PLAYERS

Forensics, though, will only get investigators so far. One challenge will be sharing intelligence in real time to move as quickly as the criminals  a tricky feat when some of the major nations involved, such as the U.S. and Russia, distrust each other.

Even if the perpetrators can be identified, bringing them to justice could be another matter. They might be hiding out in countries that wouldnt be willing to extradite suspects for prosecution, said Robert Cattanach, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney and an expert on cybersecurity.

On the other hand, the WannaCry attack hit  and annoyed  many countries. Russia was among the hardest hit, and Britain among the most high-profile, and both have some pretty good investigative capabilities, Cattanach said.

(AP)
A recent college grad was killed boating with family in town to celebrate her graduation.

Just a day after graduating, University of Miami student Elizabeth Goldenberg, 22, was fatally ejected in an airboat crash Saturday morning in the Florida Everglades.

Goldenberg, who was known to friends and family as Ellie, died from her injuries at Kendall Regional Medical Center, according to the Miami Herald.

Her sister, Dana Goldenberg, 20, was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Parents David and Renee Goldenberg, both 54, escaped the crash uninjured. The family members were visiting from Hummelstown, Pennsylvania.

Officials have not identified the person behind the wheel, but said the crash was under investigation.

Goldenberg spent a year abroad in Israel after high school.

She was involved in Emet Israel and UChabad, two Jewish student organizations at UM. My heritage is very important to me and I love connecting with other students who feel the same way, she said in her profile.

The 22-year-old, who planned to pursue an acting career, graduated magna cum laude with a degree in fine arts on Friday.

(Sources: Fox News / Miami Herald)
Pushing back against allegations of damaging intelligence disclosures, President Donald Trumps national security adviser insisted Tuesday that Trumps revelations to Russian officials about activities by the Islamic State group were wholly appropriate and amounted to a routine sharing of information.

H.R. McMaster added that none of the U.S. officials present for the presidents Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister last week felt in any way that that conversation was inappropriate. He used the words wholly appropriate nine separate times.

Trump himself claimed the authority to share facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety with Russia, saying in a pair of tweets he has an absolute right as president to do so. Trumps tweets did not say whether he revealed classified information about ISIS, as published reports have said and as a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

McMaster, in a White House briefing, said: In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged.

The White House has not expressly denied that classified information was disclosed in the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Russian diplomats last week. The Kremlin dismissed the reports as complete nonsense.

The news reverberated around the world as countries started second-guessing their own intelligence-sharing agreements with the U.S.

A senior European intelligence official told the AP his country might stop sharing information with the United States if it confirms that Trump shared classified details with Russian officials. Such sharing could be a risk for our sources, the official said. The official spoke only on condition that neither he nor his country be identified, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans alike expressed concern about the presidents disclosures. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the reports deeply disturbing and said they could affect the willingness of U.S. allies and partners to share intelligence with the U.S.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the intelligence uproar a distraction from GOP priorities such as tax reform and replacing the health care law.

I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda, he told Bloomberg Business.

Doug Andres, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said the speaker was looking for a full explanation of the facts from the administration.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Congress to have immediate access to a transcript of Trumps meeting with the Russians, saying that if Trump refuses, Americans will doubt that their president is capable of safeguarding critical secrets.

At the White House, Trump said in his tweets, I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining  to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, a senior U.S official told AP. The classified information had been shared with the president by an ally, violating the confidentiality of an intelligence-sharing agreement with that country, the official said.

Trump later was informed that he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA looking to minimize any damage.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly, would not say which countrys intelligence was divulged.

The disclosure put a source of intelligence on the Islamic State at risk, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the disclosure on Monday.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have declined to comment.

The U.S. official said that Trump boasted about his access to classified intelligence in last weeks meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak. An excerpt from an official transcript of the meeting reveals that Trump told them, I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, he said.

On Monday, McMaster told reporters: The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

The revelations could further damage Trumps already fraught relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies. Hes openly questioned the competency of intelligence officials and challenged their high-confidence assessment that Russia meddled in last years presidential election to help him win. His criticism has been followed by a steady stream of leaks to the media that have been damaging to Trump and exposed an FBI investigation into his associates possible ties to Russia.

The disclosure also risks harming his credibility with U.S. partners around the world ahead of his first overseas trip. The White House was already reeling from its botched handling of Trumps decision last week to fire James Comey, the FBI director who was overseeing the Russia investigation.

The Royal Court in Jordan said that King Abdullah II was to speak by telephone with Trump later Tuesday, a conversation that was scheduled last week.

The revelation also prompted cries of hypocrisy. Trump spent the campaign arguing that his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should be locked up for careless handling of classified information.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson disputed the report. He said Trump discussed a range of subjects with the Russians, including common efforts and threats regarding counter-terrorism. The nature of specific threats was discussed, he said, but not sources, methods or military operations.

(AP)
How many Israeli policemen does it take to protect a visiting US president? No doubt this question would have a different response a year ago when it pertained to Barak Obama, but today, as Jerusalem prepares for the first visit of President Donald Trump, the response is quite different.

According to information shared with the public, Israel Police, the Shin Bet and other agencies are working with US Secret Service agents to prepare for the visit of the outspoken US leader, dubbed Operation Blue Shield.

According to a Walla News report, the two-day visit later this month will involve no less than 10,000 policemen with the command center based in the capital.

As reported earlier, the president will be meeting with the leaders of neighboring Arab nations, then landing in Israel from Saudi Arabia. During that flight, Israels air space will be closed to aircraft other than Air Force 1. Mr. Trump and his delegation have booked the entire King David Hotel, as his predecessors have done, and as many visiting state leaders routinely do for security purposes. His trip from the airport to the King David will be by helicopter.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet with state leaders in addition to visiting the Kosel, Yad Vashem, the Har Herzl Military Cemetery, the Knesset and Masada. He will also be traveling to Ramallah to meet with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
100 years ago, May 16, 1917

MATTOON -- Full and complete motor-driven equipment for the Mattoon Fire Department is the plan provided by the City Council, provided the cost of installing such equipment is not too great. The council's fire and water committee will investigate the cost of such a change and report back to the council. The fire and water committee presented a resolution that the fire department is badly in need of motor-driven equipment, thus doing away with the out-of-date horse-drawn equipment now in use... MATTOON -- The office of the H.W. Clark Company of Mattoon was apprised this morning of the letting of a contract by the water department of Washington, D.C., to the Clark firm for the supply of Clark water meter boxes and lids. The contract is a large one, requiring from 10,000 to 15,000 meter box covers and lids, and will require a substantial addition to the working force of the plant... CHARLESTON -- Sheriff Sensabaugh and the county committee on grounds and buildings are taking active steps in beautifying the Coles County Courthouse grounds by removing worn out sod and replacing it with a new fresh grass-bearing covering. Shrubbery also is being planted around the sides of the courthouse.

50 years ago, 1967

CHARLESTON -- Six construction workers were injured this morning when a scaffold on which they were working at the Moore Business Forms plant in Charleston collapsed, throwing them 22 feet to the ground. Admitted to Charleston Community Hospital were Harry Bail, Bill Katz and Dean Addis, all of Mattoon; Walt Gabel of Greenup; and two Effingham men. The men were working on the north wall of an addition to the Moore plant when overhead steel beams somehow worked loose and fell onto the scaffold from which the men were laying concrete blocks... MATTOON -- No estimate yet is available for damage done to the records building of Mattoon Memorial Hospital which was struck by a car late Monday. Hospital Administrator William Hurlburt said today that engineers are examining a hole knocked in the side of the building. Hurlburt also indicated that the foundation and frame of the addition to the hospital were knocked ajar by the impact. James J. Reynolds of Mattoon was treated and released for minor injuries sustained when he drove his car into the side of the building. He faces traffic charges... CASEY -- Two area men have been reported killed in action in South Vietnam. They are Paul Richard Edington, 22, son of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Edington of rural Casey, and John Carmack, son of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Carmack, formerly of Casey and now of Monroe, La. Edington was a lance corporal with the Marines and was killed in combat Friday. Carmack was killed by small arms fire. He was with an Army armored tank division.

25 years ago, 1992

CHARLESTON -- Clark Brown, 104 years old, bought a new Ford truck recently from Mooney Motors. Brown said he bought his first Model-T Ford truck in 1917 for $376. Juanita Burge, Browns daughter, said she will use the truck to drive her father around his farm south of Mattoon MATTOON -- Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center celebrated National Hospital Week with special activities for employees and the community. Sarah Bush administrators and employees also celebrated the 15th anniversary of the hospital opening in May 1977 by presenting savings bonds to three children who were born during the health centers opening week. Amanda Leverton of Charleston, Jennifer Roll of Greenup and Summar Chism of Mattoon were honored PANA -- Julie Walk assured herself of a busy weekend at the IHSA Girls State track Meet next week. The Neoga freshman qualified for state in four events yesterday at the Pana Sectional Track Meet. Walk won the 100-meter dash and finished second in the 200 dash, the long jump and the high jump.

100 years ago, May 17, 1917

MATTOON -- This city's fine new Big Four Railroad passenger station was thrown open to the public this morning at 8 o'clock. The window of the ticket office was raised shortly after 10 o'clock to offer tickets for sale for passengers for the Buffalo and St. Louis Express, which leaves for St. Louis at 10:47 a.m., and for the New York and Boston Express, which leaves at 11:35 a.m. Frank Kern bought the first ticket, being a passenger for Pana. The Big Four station has been erected at a cost of $50,000. The platforms and other improvements connected with it will increase the cost to about $70,000. The building is two stories high, its architecture being purely American. The length of the building, east and west, is 147 feet, 4 inches. The central waiting room is 45 feet, 6 inches long and 42 feet wide... MATTOON -- Plans are well under way for organization of a Red Cross chapter in Mattoon. The organization work was taken charge of by L.L. Lehman. W.D. Thurber, field secretary of Illinois, indicated he has mailed organizing petitions to Mr. Lehman. Charleston had been issued authority to organize a chapter for all of Coles County, but Mattoon was given authority to organize a chapter covering Mattoon Township... CHARLESTON -- The 16 girls of the Charleston Telephone Exchange are to be given a one day a week holiday and picnic until fall, and the pleasure jaunts start today. It is planned to visit different points on the Embarras River and Urban Park during the summer days. The 16 girls will be divided into two squads of eight, alternating the weekly holidays. The parties will be in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Hill Moss, and the outing will be greatly appreciated by the "hello girls."

50 years ago, 1967

SHELBYVILLE -- Area residents last night heard the prediction that the Shelbyville dam, reservoir and adjacent recreation areas will probably be the finest all-around recreational area in the state. The forecast came from William Lodge, Illinois director of conservation, at a public meeting here attended by about 450 people. Lodge said the state will be responsible for six recreation areas, including two state parks, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will build 10 such areas.The Department of Conservation, Lodge said, has budgeted $5.5 million for development of recreation and game areas for the reservoir, which is expected to be completed in 1969... SULLIVAN -- Tab Hunter and supporting company began rehearsals Saturday for the comedy, "Barefoot in the Park," opening the 11th season at The Little Theatre on the Square. Hunter came to Sullivan directly from New York, where he completed a successful engagement in "West Side Story." Following the June 4 closing of "Barefoot," Bob Denver of TV's "Gilligan's Island" stars in the comedy farce, "Enter Laughing," June 6-18.

25 years ago, 1992

Sunday. No paper.
While the right-wing parliamentarians are calling on the United States of move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Coalition Chairman (Likud) David Bitan asks to evaluate if the move is worth the price, which he feels will be concessions by Israel, concessions that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been unwilling to make to date. He told Israel Radio on Monday morning 19 Iyar that while he is counted among those who want to see the embassy relocated, we must weigh what price this move would carry for Israel and if the move is in Israels interest. Bitan explains nothing is given without a price and in this case, the price that will be extracted is far too high.

Bitan explains The American are delaying and the prime minister does not willing to commit [political] suicide at present.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Members of the Association of Cities for the Environment of Shomron visited Modiin Illit and they became painfully aware of the growing swarm of mosquitoes near the stream and collections of water, which is in no small part from PA (Palestinian Authority) Ramallah, which is about 30km (18 miles) away.

In fact, the waste water from Ramallah travels to Modiin Illit and eventually, lands up in the Ayalon River.

Association head Yitzchak Meir explains there is a population explosion in Ramallah which means a great deal of construction. He explains the construction has negatively impacted the lands ability to absorb sewage, and that is why the runoff is making its way to Modiin Illit and the Ayalon. Meir points out many concerns, including the bodies of water attracting mosquitoes and disease and illness.

Mayor Yaakov Gutterman explains he has already been in touch with the Ministry of Environmental Affairs, aware of the large concentration of mosquitoes in areas of the city. Civil Administration inspectors have visited to assess the situation too.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

President Reuven Rivlin this week paid tribute to the best of Israels national and civil volunteers, including some from Magen David Adom.

Among those cited for their service was MDA volunteer Avigdor Drexsler, who was in the first group of national service volunteers in MDA. Today, as an EMT and certified ambulance driver, he continues to volunteer in addition to responding to calls in his free time on one of MDAs medicycles.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is not a fan of the bill backed by Knesset Interior Committee Chairman Chaim Amsellem, a bill that would require 1,600 officers serving in the Israel Police to take a polygraph exam every three years. Amsellem and supporters of the bill feel this is a wise move towards building trust and support in the department.

The idea of a polygraph was initially backed by Police Chief Roni Alsheich, but only for senior officers, those of the rank of Nitzav (Deputy Chief). Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan backed this version as well, as did Mandelblit, however the attorney general does not appear on board with the bill, which would compel all officers to be subjected to the polygraph.

Representatives of the officers have also spoken out strongly against the bill. Amsellem however insists if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
North Koreas launch of a longer-range missile shows advances in its technological capabilities and offers the sternest test yet of President Donald Trumps strategy to work with China to combat the threat.

Will China fully enforce global sanctions on North Korea and back tough new penalties? If not, will Trump accept the growing calls from Congress to start targeting Chinese companies that help Pyongyang access international markets, even if that puts U.S.-China ties under new strain?

The U.N. Security Council is set to discuss North Koreas latest provocation Tuesday. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley raised the possibility of a new set of global economic restrictions for the North, including on oil imports. France and Britain on Monday both publicly supported tougher sanctions.

China is feeling increasingly alienated from its wayward North Korean ally and Sundays headline-grabbing missile launch wont have helped matters. It came as Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted 30 world leaders for talks on trade and infrastructure. The test also immediately closed the space for maneuvering for U.S.-allied South Koreas new president, who favors engaging North Korea.

But Trump and Xi may have the most at stake. Beijing is wary of piling on economic pressure that could cause North Koreas collapse, and it wasnt clear Monday if it would support new sanctions. Opposing the Norths test, Chinas Foreign Ministry called on all sides to exercise restraint.

China is the linchpin of Trumps strategy for halting North Koreas pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike the U.S. mainland. Trump has feted Xi in hope of securing more pressure on the North, which counts on China for up to 90 percent of its trade.

We are calling on all those folks in the region, particularly China and Russia, to do everything they can in terms of sanctions to help resolve this situation and bring stability to the peninsula, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Monday.

Trump also has flexed U.S. military muscle, though with little apparent effect in deterring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from his rapid tempo of weapons tests. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, which was ordered to the region last month, is still in the Sea of Japan, where the missile landed Sunday.

U.S. defense officials said it landed about 60 miles from the Russian coast. Russias Defense Ministry put it several hundred kilometers away from the east coast city of Vladivostok.

More significant, however, was that it flew higher and for longer than previous missiles.

U.S. experts said Sundays launch was likely a mobile, two-stage, liquid-fueled missile that North Korea displayed in a huge April 15 military parade. It could have a range of 4,500 kilometers (about 2,800 miles), putting the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam easily within range. But the system might be adapted to provide it, in time, with an intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the United States.

At the U.N., Francois Delattre, Frances ambassador, said Security Council members are preparing to impose new sanctions and strengthen enforcement of existing ones. British ambassador Matthew Rycroft backed the effort.

North Korea is already subject to six resolutions aimed at restricting revenue and technology applicable to its nuclear and missile programs. Theyve failed to stop the Norths progress, which includes five nuclear test explosions since 2006.

If a new resolution is pursued, haggling between Washington and Moscow could take weeks, with Russia following Chinas lead. Alternatively, the council could choose instead to issue a condemnatory statement. The last set of sanctions, imposed in March, capped Chinas imports of North Korean coal, a key cash earner for North Korea. A possible next step would be to restrict Chinese exports of oil to the North.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is studying possible sanctions against international companies that help the North evade restrictions  a step strongly supported in Congress. Primary targets would be banks and companies inside China, posing a dilemma for the Trump administration. Going forward with the secondary sanctions would anger Beijing, which views dialogue as the answer to the nuclear issue.

Such sanctions are blunt and unpredictable, Adam Szubin, a former top Treasury official for terrorism and financial crimes, told a Senate hearing last week. China wont be strong-armed into acting against its own interests, he said.

(AP)
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, one of several candidates President Donald Trump is considering to replace fired FBI Director James Comey, sees no need for a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Last year, though, Cornyn said an independent prosecutor was necessary to investigate Democrat Hillary Clinton and her email practices.

His position echoes that of most of the Senate GOP caucus. Cornyn is the Senate majority whip and the No. 2 Republican, a job that often puts him in the position of speaking for the party and defending Trump. That role is outsized for Cornyn because of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells reluctance to publicly weigh in on most issues.

Cornyn is a member of both the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, putting him in the center of Senate investigations into Russian interference.

His comments provide insights on how he might respond if tapped for the FBI post.

A look at Cornyn and his comments on the Russian investigation:



RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN THE ELECTION

Like most Republicans, Cornyn has supported an investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. elections conducted by the existing GOP-run committees, not a special bicameral panel. At a hearing last week, Cornyn said Russian interference isnt anything new, but perhaps the level and intensity and the sophistication of both Russian overt and covert operations is really unprecedented.

On CBSs Face the Nation last month, Cornyn said investigating ties to the Trump campaign is a legitimate area of inquiry and there is no question that Putin is trying to undermine our democracy and undermine public confidence in our institutions.

After Trump fired Comey last week amid the FBIs investigation, Cornyn said it was within his authority to do so. Asked if it was an appropriate move, Cornyn would only say the investigation will continue  and perhaps intensify because of the increased attention.



NO SPECIAL PROSECUTOR

Like most of his GOP colleagues, Cornyn has said a special prosecutor isnt needed and has expressed confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is heading the investigation.

Asked about a special prosecutor last week, Cornyn mentioned Rosenstein and said certainly thats a possibility, but as long as theres no question about his ability to oversee the investigation, theres no need for it in my view.

He took the opposite position during the 2016 election, joining fellow Republicans in asking for a special prosecutor to investigate Clintons use of a private email server for government business.

I have called repeatedly on the attorney general to appoint a special counsel to fully and fairly conduct the investigation, Cornyn said on the Senate floor in March 2016. It is not just important that a thorough and independent investigation be conducted, it is important that the American people have confidence and believe that a fair and independent investigation is being conducted.

A little more than a year later, Cornyn criticized Democrats who said they would oppose the FBI nominee, once he or she is named, if the administration doesnt appoint a special counsel to oversee the case.

Thats a ridiculous position, Cornyn said May 10, the day after Comey was fired. The FBIs about more than just one investigation.



LOYAL PARTY MAN

Cornyn, 65, is a popular senator who is liked on both sides of the aisle, but rarely veers from  and often dictates  the party line in the Senate. Hes active on Twitter, where he often personally posts articles critical of Democrats. Hes a former Texas attorney general and judge on the Texas Supreme Court.

While Cornyn would likely enjoy support from a majority of his fellow Republicans if Trump were to nominate him to be FBI director, at least one of his colleagues has expressed reservations.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, also a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that selecting an FBI agent to lead the agency would allow the nation to reset, and dismissed Cornyn and another candidate, former Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, as less desirable.



BREAKING WITH SESSIONS

Cornyn has had some disagreements with the man who would be his boss at the FBI  Jeff Sessions. The former Republican senator from Alabama sharply criticized Cornyns bipartisan effort last year to overhaul the nations criminal justice system and revise some 1980s and 90s-era federal tough on crime laws. The bill died in the Senate over conservative opposition, and Sessions has ordered the Department of Justice to be tougher, not more lenient on criminals.

Cornyn has also occasionally criticized Trump  albeit gently. During the campaign, Cornyn and McConnell, along with many other Republicans, questioned Trumps tone and suggested that his angry tweets may not always be productive.

When asked on Face the Nation last month if it was appropriate for Trump to comment on the ongoing Russia investigation, Cornyn said sometimes I think this is a distraction from what we should be doing.

(AP)
A federal judge demanded more answers on Monday about Rudolph Giulianis efforts to get U.S. charges dropped against a wealthy Turkish businessman, zeroing in on the former New York City mayors ties to President Donald Trump as a potential conflict that could disqualify him from the case.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Bermans order asked Giuliani to disclose any work done for the Trump administration, including anything related to the presidents attempts to impose a travel ban against several predominantly Muslim countries. It was the first time the judge has directly delved into the Giuliani-Trump connection and how it relates to Turkey since Giuliani began working behind the scenes to try to free Reza Zarrab.

The order comes a day before Trump is scheduled to meet with Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has lobbied for Zarrabs release from jail.

Zarrab, who has pleaded not guilty to violating sanctions against Iran, money laundering and other charges, hired Giuliani and ex-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to see if the case can be resolved through diplomatic channels.

Giuliani and Mukasey met with Erdogan and have said they intend to speak with U.S. officials on his behalf. The judge has been critical of a sworn statement provided to the court by Giuliani and Mukasey, saying they were dismissive of the seriousness of criminal charges against Zarrab.

Asked about the judges order, Zarrab attorney Benjamin Brafman said the defense team will endeavor to provide the information requested as quickly as possible.

At a bail hearing last year, prosecutors said criminal charges brought against Zarrab in Turkey in 2013 were dropped after Erdogan, then Turkeys prime minister, reportedly applied political pressure that resulted in the firing of prosecutors in Turkey who brought the charges. Prosecutors said those charges pertained to a massive bribery scheme executed by Zarrab and others involving the payment of tens of millions of dollars to Cabinet-level government officials and high-level bank officers to facilitate Zarrabs transactions benefiting Iran.

Giulianis law firm is registered as a foreign agent for Turkey.

(AP)
President Donald Trumps homeland security adviser has a message to those blaming U.S. intelligence agencies for the cyberattack encircling the globe: Dont point a finger at the National Security Agency. Blame the hackers.

Since Friday, malware has infected an estimated 300,000 computers in 150 countries. Users files at hospitals, companies and government agencies have been held for ransom.

Cybersecurity experts say the unknown hackers used a hole in Microsoft software that was discovered by the National Security Agency. The hole was exposed when NSA documents were leaked online.

Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of Microsoft, laid some of the blame with the U.S. government, criticizing U.S. intelligence agencies for stockpiling software code that can be used by hackers.

We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability, stolen from the NSA, has affected customers around the world, he said.

Tom Bossert, Trumps assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, defended the NSA, the lead U.S. signals intelligence agency.

This was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data, Bossert told reporters Monday. This was a tool developed by culpable parties  potentially criminals or foreign nation-states.

Perpetrators put the malware together in a way to deliver it with phishing e-mails, put it into embedded documents and caused infection, encryption and locking, he said.

Cyber experts are telling government officials that the malware was built with parts and codes cobbled together from different places, a U.S. official said. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Cyber experts say the tools were stolen from the Equation Group, a powerful squad of hackers which some have ties to the NSA. The tools materialized as part of an internet electronic auction set up by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers, which promised to leak more data into the public.

I havent found an analyst who doesnt say it doesnt come from the NSA cache, said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Think of it like a master key, Lewis said. NSA identified a vulnerability in a Microsoft software that the Shadow Brokers, then released so anybody could use it.

The Shadow Brokers shared that vulnerability with the world and then these criminals took advantage of it, he said.

V. Miller Newton, president of PKWARE, a data protection and encryption company based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said leaks of purported NSA hacking tools have been coming out in dribs and drabs since August.

Criminals or terrorists are going to try to leverage these exploits, he said. How damaging could it be? Extremely.

The tools are useful and they are in the hands of criminals today, Newton said. Holy cow! The government cant protect itself from insiders?

Salim Neino, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, whose researcher foiled the latest global cyberextortion attack, says the leak of the NSA hacking tools have disrupted the status quo in which nations with high cyber capabilities dont engage with others in a way that causes harm or disruption. He says the leaks have significantly narrowed the gap between nations and individuals or cyber gangs.

The concern has always been, when are the real bad guys, the ones that dont care about rules of engagement, the ones who are really out to hurt us, will they become cyber-capable? he said in an interview Monday night with The Associated Press. I think today we found out that those who really want to hurt us have begun to, because they became cyber-capable the moment that the NSA cybertools were released.

The Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation in the United States. American officials are working closely with their British counterparts.

Analysts at the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center worked throughout the weekend to keep American officials informed about classified aspects of the investigation.

Attribution can be difficult here, Bossert said. But he added: I dont want to say we have no clues.

While it would be satisfying to hold accountable those responsible for this hack  something that we are working on quite seriously  the worm is in the wild, so to speak at this point, and patching is the most important message as a result, he said.

Despite appearing to be criminal activity intended to raise money, it appears that less than $70,000 has been paid in ransoms and we are not aware of payments that have led to any data recovery.

Neither the FBI nor NSA would comment Monday.

If Americans follow the patching information issued by the FBI, Microsoft and the Homeland Security Department, they will be protected from the malware and the variants, Bossert said.

Some U.S. companies, including FedEx, were affected. No federal systems have been victimized thus far, Bossert said.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Senate intelligence committees top Democrat, wrote Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney on Monday asking what steps the federal government has taken to ensure federal agencies and government contractors have installed critical security updates to defend against the attack.

A Government Accountability Office report in May 2016 said federal agencies consistently failed to apply security patches in a timely matter and sometimes didnt make them for years after a patch had been available, Warner said. The office, he said, also identified cases where agencies were using software no longer supported by its vendors.

(AP)
100 Holocaust survivors have turned to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo with a desperate appeal to intercede before a New York State funded school can honor terrorism advocate Linda Sarsour. Despite a public outcry, CUNY has remained defiant following its invitation to Sarsour, a radical Sharia Law proponent who glorifies terrorists, to deliver a commencement speech at its Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, which is scheduled for June 1.

What Linda Sarsour advocates forboycotts against Jewish businesses in Israel and random acts of violence against the innocentare no different than the things that we personally experienced, the survivors wrote to the Governor. This is a frightening reality that we hoped we would never see again. But what makes matters worse is to again see good people and respected institutions responding with indifference Nothing good can come of Ms. Sarsour telling young people, with CUNYs imprimatur, that violence against the innocent for any reason at all is acceptable or courageous.

Its a sad day for New York, said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn). Our most vulnerable citizenselderly Holocaust survivors who understand the price of ignoring evilhave to cry out to their elected officials regarding something as obvious as not offering an official platform to a hate peddler like Linda Sarsour. This wolf in sheeps clothing has fooled some of the people, but her Tweets and the things shes said on stage betray her fondness for violence against Jews. This is something New York State funded schools should distance themselves from, not tacitly approve.

Hikind has remained in the forefront of those opposing Sarsour, explaining that the objections to Sarsours invitation to deliver a commencement speech at CUNY is not a freedom of speech issue; that there would be no issue with her being invited by students to speak to a club. Rather, CUNYs offering a prestigious platform to Sarsour gives credibility to her violent and racist beliefs.

The United States and the rest of the free world are locked in conflict with terrorists that employ the cruelest tactics against innocent victims, he said. Sarsour openly applauds terrorists and terrorism. She has done so recently and unapologetically and with great fanfare. She is not someone CUNY should be inviting to speak to its graduates.

The 100 individuals who signed the letter to Governor Cuomo are survivors of Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, the Riga Ghetto, Theresienstadt and numerous other ghettos in Europe where Jews were confined. All had genuine experiences with violent racism, having lost parents, spouses, siblings and children to the disease of anti-Semitism.

Linda Sarsour in her own words:

April 2, 2017  Praised convicted PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) terrorist Rasmea Odeh when the two addressed a conference in Chicago on April 2, 2017. Sarsour told the audience she was honored and privileged to be here in this space, and honored to be on this stage with Rasmea.

March, 2017  Told The Nation that you cannot be a Zionist and a Feminist. Is there room for people who support the state of Israel and do not criticize it in the movement? There cant be in feminism.

October 2016  Praised the Intifada, a movement that encourages random stabbings and rock throwing at Israeli civilians. She tweeted Intifada has brought us some of the most important coverage and Palestine related news. They are invaluable on many fronts.

October 11, 2015  Glorified and encouraged Arab stone throwers who target Israelis by calling them The definition of courage and tweeting a photo of a three-year-old with rocks.

August 18, 2015  Tweeted Free #Muhammadallan in support of the jailed Islamic Jihad terrorist who was involved in the recruitment of suicide bombers.

March 8, 2011  Attacked a Somali-born activist and critic of radical Islam, writing on Twitter that Hirsi Ali deserved to be physically assaulted for her views. Brigitte Gabriel = Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Shes asking 4 an a$$ whippin. I wish I could take their vaginas away  they dont deserve to be women.

2003  Expressed regret after U.S. forces captured Iraqi dictator and mass murderer Saddam Hussein, telling Newsday, my Arab pride was hurt I felt humiliated by the way Hussein was caught and shown, disheveled and pathetic-looking, on international television.

(YWN Headquarters  NYC)
Neil Woodford, one of Britain's most celebrated fund managers, has scoured the UK market for some Brexit bargains to add to his record-breaking flagship fund.

The CF Woodford Equity Income Fund has seen an influx of new holdings, most notably Lloyds Banking Group - but not without the complete disposal of Woodford's old favourite holding: GlaxoSmithKline.

Woodford is known in the investment sphere for his penchant for the healthcare sector, so the sale of the UK's biggest drugs company, a position he has held in various funds for more than 15 years, is particularly surprising.

Celebrity fund manager Neil Woodford has raised eyebrows in the investment sphere by disposing his old favourite holding GlaxoSmithKline and buying a stake in Lloyds Bank

The stock was the fourth largest holding in his equity income fund as recently as 31 March, according to FE Analytics, an investment analytical tool.

In a strongly worded blog post on the investment house's website simple entitled 'Glaxit', Woodford said that neither growth or shareholder value had met his expectations.

He added that with the exception of the company's HIV franchise, ViiV, it's remaining three business units - its core pharmaceuticals division as well as consumer healthcare and the vaccines divisions- had been 'perennial underperformers'.

However, despite lauding the performance of Viiv, Woodford flagged the emergence of US biotech company Gilead, which is developing a treatment that, he said, threatens to undermine Glaxo's 'hitherto robust' market position in the sector.

He also bemoaned the fact that his past calls to split the GSK into separate, more specialised business units were ignored.

'In the event of a breakup being pursued, I would have viewed a dividend cut as a tolerable consequence of such a positive outcome for shareholder value more broadly,' Woodford said.

'My base assumption now, however, is that Glaxo remains a healthcare conglomerate with a sub-optimal business strategy, and shareholders face a cut to the dividend. These characteristics do not appeal to me as an investor.'

Woodford ended a three-year hiatus from the UK banking sector with the Lloyds share buy

He has used the proceeds of the sale to help bankroll its the purchase of 200m of shares in Lloyds which is known for its simple business model compared to traditional banks in terms of offering savings and mortgage products as its core products.

It is now the 11th biggest position in the manager's 10billion UK equity income fund, which smashed the record for the biggest fund raised for an open-ended investment company or unit trust by raising 1.6bn during the initial offer period before launch in June 2014.

Woodford discussed the banks at a briefing before the launch of his most recent fund, Woodford Income Focus.

He said that he had not invested in the financial sector since the crisis as he did not believe that it was back in health.

The fund manager said that he still felt some banks did not fit the healthy bill but that he was considering at least one as an investment. The key to spotting a healthy bank he said, was not the institution or the Government claiming it was back on track, but whether it was behaving as a bank should and growing lending, particularly to businesses.

He could not reveal at the time which bank he was considering, but many guessed that the most likely candidate was Lloyds.

In a separate but linked blog post, Mitchell Fraser-Jones, head of investor communications at Woodford Investment Management, said the UK banking sector has been slow to rehabilitate from its savaging doing the financial crisis, but things are beginning to look up.

He added: 'Importantly, that process now appears to be largely complete in the UK, as evidenced by the recent pick-up in bank lending activity and, although the banks will likely continue to rebuild capital, the domestic banking sector looks more attractive as an investment proposition than it has in many years.'

Investment in the British bank marks, a significant strategic shift for Woodford who hasn't held banks in his portfolio since 2003 - aside from a brief flirtation with HSBC in 2014, according to Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown.

'Selling out of banks was one of the big calls Neil Woodford made which protected investors from the worst ravages of the financial crisis, and reaffirmed his reputation as an outstanding fund manager.'

What are Woodford's new holdings? 1. Lloyds Banking Group 2. Barratt Developments 3. Taylor Wimpey 4. Watkin Jones 5. Eurocell 6. Topps Tiles 7. British Land 8. Hansteen 9. Londonmetric 10. Sirius Real Estate 11. Softcat 12. Micro Focus 13. Card Factory 14. Eddie Stobart Logistics

'Of the UK listed big banks, Lloyds has made the most progress, and now looks like a safe stable bank with the potential to pay investors a handsome level of dividends.

'The bank is heavily plugged into the UK economy though, so any domestic shocks will take their toll.'

'We believe Lloyds is the most attractive banking stock in the Footsie. It has a lower risk profile than its peers, and a better grip on costs, while the huge costs of PPI compensation finally seem to be disappearing in the rear view mirror.

'The fact the Government is close to cashing in the last bit of its stake in the bank is also a positive, as this eliminates a big seller in the market putting downward pressure on the share price.'

Woodford has also bought into housebuilding, property and construction stocks, which reflects his bullish - investment jargon for optimistic- approach to the domestic economy.

In a video in the same blog, Woodford said the pessimistic outlook for the UK economy shared by some investors and uncertainty of Brexit negotiations has resulted in 'very big' share price falls in some domestic cyclical sectors - and thus creating investment opportunities.

He added that the portfolio adjustments do not represent a complete shift in his investment philosophy.

Patrick Norwood, an insight analyst for funds at Defaqto said the CBOE Volatility Index, which measures market expectations of near-term volatility, has been low in recent times adding: 'It would appear that Woodford is looking to take advantage of low volatility to take on more risky assets.'
Scamchat? It's feared WhatsApp may be used to facilitate insider trading easier

Banking giants are scrambling to keep track of messages on WhatsApp as concerns grow it could make insider trading easier.

It's feared the mobile phone app and others like it will help rogue staff keep their conversations secret  undermining efforts to clean up the City.

There has been a massive crackdown on illicit behaviour since the Libor scandal, when employees conspired to rig the markets using internet chat groups with names such as 'the Cartel'.

Most large banks record every text, email and phone call made by traders on their work phones and computers.

Many even use 'supercomputers' to scan all this information for swearwords or tell-tale phrases which suggest illegal activity. And from next year, international rules will toughen monitoring requirements even more.

But the rise of encrypted apps makes the process far harder.

Messages are delivered immediately, allowing criminals to cash in on secret knowledge almost straight away, and they are protected from prying eyes by unbreakable codes.

'Everybody wants that trade today  they don't want to wait for it  it has to be instant,' said Oliver Blower of banking surveillance firm VoxSmart.

Messaging apps offer a secure way to share confidential information, whether it is news of a big deal which has yet to be revealed to the market or secret attempts to fix prices.

Although bankers are forbidden from using their personal phones for business, it is still common as this allows conversations to be hidden from prying eyes.

Many staff are given work mobiles which they never use for fear of falling foul of the rules, a process known by compliance staff as 'top drawer-ing'  because the device sits switched off in their top desk drawer.

Instead, they use messaging apps on their own phones to chat about what they're buying and boast of profitable trades.

Bond dealers at one big Wall Street bank used WhatsApp to organise a party after big bets on the Brexit vote paid off, according to Bloomberg.

There are other rumours of a WhatsApp group set up by staff at a large hedge fund to swap market details.

For even more furtive exchanges, traders prefer Signal  which deletes messages within five seconds  and Telegram, which has been used by Islamic State terrorists because of its ultra-high security settings.

A spate of investigations recently has thrust the problem into the limelight.

In December, New York investment manager Navnoor Kang was charged with allegedly accepting 139,000 in bribes from a pair of bond traders in exchange for sending business their way.

His spoils are said to have included a 13,500 watch, sex with prostitutes and cocaine  and it is claimed that the gang used WhatsApp in a bid to avoid detection.

And in the UK, Jeffries trader Christopher Niehaus, 49, was fined 37,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority earlier this year for boasting about deals on the messaging service.

Some lenders are also seeking to regulate WhatsApp itself.

Blower's business has developed a system which will record the app's messages on phones owned by banks.

This was developed last year and he now has half a dozen major clients using it.

Blower said: 'You're starting to see a recognition that this is a problem.'
Some of the residents who attended the crime prevention drive at Buhleni.

BUHLENI  Police officers under Buhleni have a challenge of the high number of pupils abducting underage girls.



Though kujumisa, which refers to a man letting his girlfriend to sleep over at his house is common, the same is now being practised by pupils with the underage girls.

This has become so rife that the police now say it is one of the highest crimes that they have to deal with in the area.



Police Constable Thando Dlamini, who works under the Domestic Violence and Childrens Welfare Department, revealed this yesterday.

Speaking during a back to school crime prevention drive held at Buhleni Complex, Dlamini said this was a serious concern.



He said not only is it now being done by boys but that even the girls now allow boys to spend nights inside their houses at their parental homes.

Dlamini said some pupils had even put bricks near their bedroom windows which are used as makeshift ladders for their girlfriends to easily get through.

Then the question is what are you the parents doing about it? Dlamini asked rhetorically.



He said this was serious offence because it was illegal for pupils to spend nights with each other.

Dlamini said the challenge the police were facing was that the parents appeared to be unaware of such activities taking place within their homesteads.



He said in some cases, parents became defensive to a point that they treated the matter as tibi tendlu, meaning that crimes are not reported but dealt with at family level. Dlamini said it was shocking that some parents only showed up as a family when they had to go to the police.

He said there were cases where parents had to ask for cases to be handled at family level instead and warned that this was not right.



Throngs of residents, including the youth, attended the crime prevention drive in preparation for schools opening today.

About two weeks ago, a pupil was arrested for allegedly abducting a female pupil, whom he spent the night with.

During his appearance before court, he admitted that the fellow pupil was his girlfriend.
LOBAMBA  Misfortune seems to be drawn to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) as evidence indicating how E10.9 million food and building material distributed was lost in a flood.



This was said by the Principal Secretary, Khangeziwe Mabuza, when asked by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) where the list of the beneficiaries who allegedly received so much property was. The PS said they had the entire list of the beneficiaries and only the head office had a copy.

Unfortunately when the office was renovated, it then became flooded and we lost all our records, said Mabuza.



The goods included E5 million worth of beans and E4 million mealie meal.

Although the MPs first bought the version of the damaged documents, they became more sceptical as when other goods were being looked for it became apparent that many documents had gone missing from the DPMs Office.

This was during the period of the National Disaster Management Authority, which was then a department of the DPMs Office.



It should be noted that the recently established National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) is not where the goods went missing or unaccounted for.

Mabuza, however, assured the committee that all deserving beneficiaries received the goods.



I must admit that the Disaster Authority had many problems in the past, but we have made certain measures now and we are grateful for the establishment of the parastatal, she said.

Still on the bad record keeping, the PAC was told that officers from the then Disaster Authority were given clothes or protective clothing yet they were not entitled to it. A messenger at the authority, Mathokoza Dlamini, who was brought in as a witness, admitted to receiving two pairs of shoes, four blue shirts, four black suits and two neck ties.



I admit that the only problem was that I did not sign for the items, but I was given them by the accountant, and to date I still wear them to work as I deliver mail, said Dlamini.

The PAC wanted to find out from the accountant who was identified as Gcebile Dlamini, where the uniform documents were but for unexplained reasons, she was reported to have suddenly disappeared from the House of Assembly.

Officers were instructed to find her, but at the time of compiling this report she had still not returned.
MBABANE  True to their resolution, nurses at the Mbabane Government hospital operated wit- h skeleton staff as over 100 nurses were locked in a day-long meeting instead of attending to patients.

This is almost half of the nurses employed by the hospital, which has over 288 employees.



Following a court order that nurses should go to work, they reported to work as per the order at 7:30am and at 9am, they convened at the conference room where they deliberated on the issues affecting their work.

Surprisingly, the turnout of patients yesterday dwindled drastically apparently from the threat by the nurses to engage on a go-slow.The Mbabane Government Hospital is known to have very long queues but yesterday, chairs were empty, especially at the Out-Patient Department (OPD).



Operations continued as normal and patients, who visited the hospital, received the required attention.

In an interview with most of the patients, they were happy with the service, adding that it was faster compared to the days where the hospital is filled to capacity and they end up returning home without receiving attention.

A patient, who declined to be mentioned, said; I am very happy with the service today because it is quick. Actually, I am now from the X-ray and almost done; something that does not usually happen at this hospital, the seemingly surprised patient said.



Despite that other nurses committed themselves to work, others fought for the cause as they are seeking government intervention, among other issues of serious drug shortages and their welfare issues.

Temalangeni Dlamini, the Chairperson for the Unit Committee in Mbabane, chaired the meeting.

The burning issues that were discussed included the shortage of drugs.



The nurses said they had made an oath that they would provide quality health care to the patients; something which is compromised by the lack of drugs.

Patients who are affected by the drug shortage include diabetics and those with high blood pressure as there is no Metformin 250, 500 and 850mg, Ibucare 400mg and Glemepiride 4mg and those who suffer from epileptic seizures. Other medication that is not available includes Amlodopine 10mg, Specperindopril 4, Vit B Complex, Furosemide 40mg and Insulin.



Dlamini said they will be deliberating on the issues until Friday to give them the much deserved attention.

If we go back to work, government would not attend to the issues, hence we should stick to our plan to report to work and schedule meetings.
MANZINI  A woman who was brought in for questioning in connection with the murder of a taxi man jumped off a moving police van allegedly in a bid to escape from police custody.



This was reportedly the womans second attempt to escape as she suddenly disappeared from the Manzini Regional Police Headquarters last week Thursday, where she had been called in to assist police with information.

Information gathered is that the woman from Matsapha was Anthony Skhulu Dlaminis secret lover, who was one of the last people to be seen with him shortly before his death.



According to well-placed sources, after escaping from the regional headquarters, the woman went to her homestead in Matsapha where she took her children and left for Siteki.

The source said police went to look for her where she stayed in Ludzeludze but soon got wind that she had escaped to Siteki, where she was later found.



The source further said while at the back of the moving police van travelling to Manzini, the woman jumped off, and injured herself in the process.

Last week, several people known to Dlamini were called in to assist the police with information regarding his death. This included the woman who was believed to be his secret lover.

Dlamini was shot four times last week Sunday night and his body was dumped near Kae Kae Holiday Park.



The murderers went away with his car, a silver grey Honda Fit, and it was recovered abandoned at a car wash at Matsamo last Monday afternoon.`

The woman is said to have been invited by Dlamini to a date in one of the restaurants in town, but she asked him to pick her from Ludzeludze as she was busy at that moment. Dlamini is said to have gone to fetch her and they dined at the restaurant before he hired another car to take her back home.



In the morning, the woman is said to have wondered why Dlamini had not called her and she decided to call him but his mobile phone was switched off.

The source said she then called one of his friends who then notified her that Dlamini was shot dead.



Confirming the two attempted escapes was Police Chief Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba. Mamba said the woman was currently recuperating at Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki.

Further, Mamba said an inquiry on the womans escape has been opened. He stated that no arrests had yet been made.
MBABANE  Can laughter be a possible cause of death? This is a question family members of a 36-year-old businessman are asking themselves after his death.

In an interview with businessman Nduku Dlaminis aunt, Elizabeth Maseko, she said the family was still shocked about the sudden death of their son.



Maseko said according to Dlaminis pregnant wife who was also present during the interview, she last saw her husband at Mbabane Clinic, her workplace, where he had come to leave her a motor vehicle so she could drive home after work.

She said her husband had decided to leave the motor vehicle because he had an appointment with his client who was supposed to pay him at the Happy Valley Hotel. She said while on his way to the hotel Dlamini of Somjalose, in Ezulwini, saw some people who had attended a wedding ceremony at the Greyhound Hall.



He made some comments about the people who enter into marriage and divorce after a short period of time. As he was sharing his jokes and laughing with the driver, he lost strength and started coughing. When the driver paid attention to him, he took deep breaths twice before he stopped breathing, said Maseko.



She said the driver called paramedics who swiftly came to the scene. She said it was too late to save his life as they confirmed him dead upon arrival.

This happened in five minutes, added Maseko. Asked if Dlamini had any sickness, Maseko responded to the negative, stating that her son was never diagnosed with any sickness.

She said more than anything doctors never told them anything regarding Dlaminis death.



Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed the death of Dlamini. Mamba said the police were investigating the matter despite the fact that there was nothing strange at the scene. He said the police who attended to the scene came with a report that Dlamini died shortly after commenting about the wedding that was taking place while passing the Greyhound Hall in Ezulwini.

Meanwhile, information sourced from the internet confirms a person can die from laughter.



Yes, its possible to literally die from laughter, however, not from the joke itself but from the bodys reaction to it. Among the many possible medical ways that laughing too hard can kill you  rupture brain aneurysm, cardiac arrest, collapsed lung, strangulated hernia, galactic seizures, stroke and asphyxiation.
The Legislature's Appropriations Committee is proposing an override of $32.7 million of Gov. Pete Ricketts' $56.5 million in line-item vetoes.

On Tuesday, the committee said it will ask the full Legislature to override four line-item vetoes, including restoring money Ricketts vetoed from provider rates for behavioral health aid, medical assistance and developmental disability aid, which totaled $32.4 million. It also proposed restoring $300,000 vetoed from the Supreme Court's probation services.

All four of the proposals for overrides were put forward on split votes of 5-4 or 5-3 or 6-3, with three members -- Sens. John Kuehn, Robert Clements, Dan Watermeier -- consistently voting no on the motions.

Kuehn said senators have difficult decisions to make, but they have to make them based on their actual impact, not emotions.

"Do additional dollars help? Certainly. But is there a point there where those additional dollars, if reduced on a short-term basis, are not going to hamstring the operation of the agency? That's the discussion we're not having," Kuehn said.

The committee will not recommend overriding a veto of $5.8 million from the University of Nebraska, which represents a 0.5 percent decrease on top of about a $13 million cut already taken. Appropriations Chairman John Stinner had invited NU President Hank Bounds to talk to the committee about the veto, but he did not show up Tuesday morning.

Watermeier said even though higher education took a little more of a hit, in general $5 million to the university, $500,000 to state colleges and $1 million to the community colleges was reasonable.

Senators will take up overrides on Wednesday, and any senator could file a override motion on any other of Ricketts' line-item vetoes. In addition to the override motions filed by Stinner on behalf of the committee, four other override motions were filed Tuesday.

* Omaha Sen. John McCollister would override a veto of $26,828 for specialized court operations

* Omaha Sen. Bob Krist would override a veto of $716,682 for juvenile justice

* Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld would override a veto of $5.8 million for the University of Nebraska

* Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue would override a veto of $1.3 million for child welfare funding for providers.

Ricketts announced line-item vetoes on Friday and Monday. He vetoed enough to restore a minimum reserve of 3 percent to the state's $8.9 billion budget. His vetoes included reducing various state agency appropriations by a half of a percent, including the University of Nebraska system.

If the overrides would be successful, the state budget minimum reserve would be at 2.7 percent of the budget, halfway between the 3 percent the governor wants and the 2.5 percent OK'd by the Legislature for the next two years.

"It's up to the body now," Stinner said. "We're going to present this as a motion and see what the Legislature wants to do with it."

Ricketts urged the full Legislature to sustain his vetoes to protect Nebraska taxpayers.

"A vote to sustain the vetoes is a vote to put the state on firm financial footing," he said. "A vote to override the vetoes places the state on shaky ground.

It would take 30 votes to override a veto.
State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha says he'll introduce a resolution seeking President Donald Trump's expulsion from office.

"If these people don't do something about removing him from office, then this could be  I'm not an alarmist  the beginning of the end for the United States," Chambers said Tuesday.

A draft of the resolution calls on "appropriate officials" to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to determine whether Trump's actions and conduct make him unfit for office, in which case the vice president should serve in his place.

Trump, the resolution states, has behaved "in a dangerously problematic and erratic manner such that the safety and welfare of the United States and its residents are being placed at ongoing grave risk."

The resolution carries no official weight, and it is unlikely lawmakers will be forced to vote on it before this year's legislative session ends.

Chambers, a registered nonpartisan who once jokingly supported Trump's run for the Republican presidential nomination, has been a constant critic of the president's policies and actions in office.

Chambers said his resolution wasn't inspired by the whirlwind of recent news surrounding Trump's controversial disclosure of classified information to Russian officials and his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Instead, Chambers said Trump's foreign policy decisions, particularly those regarding North Korea and the Middle East, have the potential to do great harm to Americans.

The president has behaved like a "deranged, demented, drunken idiot" and underestimated Kim Jong-un, insulting the North Korean leader and stirring him to test more missiles, Chambers said.

"Kim Jong-un is not crazy, he is not a fool, and he is a much faster learner than Donald Trump."
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By Bill Parry

The 7th annual LIC Arts Open gets underway Wednesday and runs through Sunday at numerous locations around Long Island City. The free festival, billed as the largest event in Queens, invites visual artists, performers, musicians, designers and the public to celebrate creative expression together in one of the most vital arts districts in New York City.

More than 200 artists will open their studios giving visitors the opportunity to experience and view a large amount of diversity in medium, background and age. Multiple installations can be found at 23 venues, including the Falchi Building and Factory LIC, while smaller, more intimate displays will be at the Local Project Art Space, the Flux Factory, Alobar and Matted LIC among other locations.

For the second year, Long Island City-based artists will collaborate with the manufacturer Plaxall to create works of art out of plastics using thermoforming, a process that was invented by the companys founder, Louis Pfohl, at its 46th Avenue Factory more than 70 years ago. The works of art will be part of a show called Plastique Deux, curated by William Garrett, which opens Thursday, and runs for the duration of the festival.

The artists are tasked with stepping outside of their usual medium  whether its paint, plaster, or even neon  to make new artwork from sheets of plastic, which are heated until they are pliable to be bent, twisted and molded.

Plaxall is proud to open our factory to artists in Long Island City, and to encourage collaboration between longtime businesses and the neighborhoods burgeoning art scene, Plaxall Managing Director Paula Kirby said. Thermoforming was invented by our grandfather more than 70 years ago and its always a thrill to see the artists adapt and use this technology to create artwork that captures peoples attention today.

Returning to Plastique Deux this year are artists Lisa Diclerico, Kenny Greenburg, Donna Levinstone, Jean-Marie Guyaux and John Long, who will take what they learned working with thermoforming last year and mentor other artists, including BanG Studio, Sharon Florin, Annalisa Iadicicco, Liona R. Nyariri and Ellen Schneiderman.

Its an amazing opportunity for us artists to again partner with Plaxall to create new work outside of our usual mediums, William Garret said. Its exciting to watch such creative people stretch their talents on both the art and manufacturing ends of the process.

The art will be shown in the former Jeffrey Deitch Gallery at the Anable Basin Bar & Grill, on the East River at 4-40 44th Drive in Long Island City.
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By Merle Exit

Get your tickets quickly, because this weekend is your last chance to see some astounding performances in the Queens Theatres revival of William Gibsons classic play The Miracle Worker.

Ayla Schwartz, the 10-year-old actor who portrays Helen Keller, is so flawless at staying in character as blind and deaf while conveying the tumult of emotions of an isolated young girl struggling to relate to the world that you would never know that this is her professional debut.

If Tonys were given for Off-Broadway theater, Schwartz would win it by a landslide.

That is not to say that Betsy Hoggs portrayal of Helens teacher, Anne Sullivan, is any less remarkable. Hogg herself has been acting since the age of 9, and it shows.

Director Brant Russell chose a perfect pair to work off of each others difficult character roles.

The Miracle Worker is the true story of Helen Keller, a girl rendered blind and deaf by an illness at 19 months old, and the success of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, in breaching her isolation more than five years later and helping her to learn to communicate.

The play begins at the point when 7-year-old Hellens parents, Kate (Holly Ann Butler) and Arthur (Mike Boland) must decide whether or not to institutionalize her. They speak with Doctor Anagos, the headmaster of the Perkins Institute for the Blind where 20-year-old Anne was trained, and he recommends the new graduate for the difficult assignment which will forever bond her with Helen.

While Schwartz and Hogg are a dynamic pairing and a thrill to watch, the striking performances of the supporting players make it clear that director Brant Russell wanted to expand the show beyond the two main characters to emphasize how dealing with disabilities can affect an entire family.

Helens much-older half-brother James (Connor Lawrence) clearly resents the lack of attention from his father, who is now in his second marriage.

Helens mother Kate, who has recently given birth, struggles to care for the new infant while trying to manage an impulsive 7-year-old who demands as much attention as the newborn.

Capt. Arthur Keller, a retired Civil War officer turned newspaper editor who demands immediate obedience, is nonetheless a loving father whose daughters affliction clearly pains his heart. But he still tries to dominate her new teacher, complicating her progress.

Arthurs sister, Aunt Ev (Sarah Folkins), is kind and concerned, but her compassion for Helen leads her to short-sighted indulgence, giving the rambunctious girl treats to quiet her down.

Three trials of Anne and Helen take place in the plot, one of which centers around the dining room table. There are efforts to teach her to eat properly by wearing a napkin and using utensils rather than her hands and break her of the habit of simply helping herself to the food on anyones plate.

A second trial centers on Anne teaching her sign language by having Helen hold or touch something as she presses the sign-language spelling of it into her hand. These attempts were mostly done just outside the home, including the iconic scene by the water pump when Helen finally grasps that the signs have meaning.

The third struggle and breakthrough comes after Anne begs to use a shack near the home where she can teach Helen away from any family members, so their judgments of how she does this and Helens reactions dont interfere.

Anne and Helen went on to become lifelong collaborators and companions, and Helen actually moved to Forest Hills with Anne and her husband in 1917 and lived there until 1938. But you only have one more weekend to see Schwartz and Hogg portray them in Corona at the Queens Theatre.

American Sign Language Interpretation and Audio Description will be available for the performances on Saturday, May 20, at both 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. A discussion with the actors will follow the 2 p.m. performance.

The Miracle Worker

Where: Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave S in Corona

When: Thursday, May 18, 2 p.m.; Saturday, May 20, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, May 21, 3 p.m.
Times' Game of the Week Preview: No. 4 Mapletown vs. No. 5 South Side

No. 5 South Side gears up to stop the top-scoring No. 4 Mapletown Maples and star running back Landan Stevenson in the quarterfinal Class 1A matchup.
Students were evacuated from Central Park Middle School in Schenectady on Monday afternoon in response to a possible bomb threat, the district reported on its website.

Police were called to the scene at 1:53 p.m. after a student found a note in school that said there may be a bomb in the building. Detectives from the police department's Youth Aid bureau are currently investigating.
A Kansas pilot was not injured after crash-landing his crop duster in a cornfield in northern Seward County on Monday.

Bruce Baird brought down his plane, which ran out of fuel, at 6:45 p.m. three miles northwest of Bee. He said the plane's fuel-warning light wasn't working and he was hoping to fuel up in Seward but didn't make it that far.

Baird was coming from Mitchell, South Dakota, after purchasing the plane in Jamestown, North Dakota. He believes the stronger winds he faced when crossing into Nebraska led to increased fuel usage.

The crash tore off the wheels of the plane, but Baird believed the rest of the plane is salvageable.

"It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be," Baird said of the landing.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.
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New York state paid General Electric Co. $3.3 million for consulting work on a new, $35 million silicon carbide chip manufacturing facility built by the Cuomo administration at SUNY Polytechnic Institute's Fuller Road campus in Albany last year.

GE and SUNY Poly are founding members of the New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium, a $500 million research and development program announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo back in 2014. The state committed $135 million in funding to the partnership.

The consortium is working to make power control chips out of silicon carbide instead of the traditional silicon material using technology and other intellectual property developed by GE at its global research campus in Niskayuna.

A team of 35 engineers and scientists, including 20 from GE, worked to set up the silicon carbide fabrication line, which processes 150 millimeter wafers that are later cut up into individual chips. The first wafer was processed earlier this year.

The payments to GE - which totaled $3.28 million - were listed in the federal tax return of Fuller Road Management Corp., the quasi-governmental entity that manages SUNY Poly's property.

The tax return covers a 12-month period that ended June 30 of last year. Fuller Road received $51 million in state funding during that time.

GE spokesman Todd Alhart said GE was paid in connection with the silicon carbide partnership, although he stressed GE wouldn't comment on the specific figures listed by Fuller Road on the Internal Revenue Service Form 990.

"We can't speak to the return," Alhart said. "GE was reimbursed by the state for work we did to help transition this world-leading silicon carbide technology into the new fab line at SUNY Poly in Albany."

GE is contributing $100 million in corporate-owned intellectual property under the deal with the state, although it was not previously revealed that it would seek consulting fees for its work.

Back in July, work on the PEMC fab at SUNY Poly temporarily stalled over a dispute between the contractor and the state over the timeliness of payments for the work, although the work ultimately was completed after payments resumed.

State records indicate that $18 million was spent setting up the fab between January 2016 and November 2016, which presumably included the consulting payments to GE.

Silicon carbide is much more durable and can handle more heat and power than just silicon on its own.

However, until now, no U.S. manufacturers have mastered how to mass produce silicon carbide power electronics chips.

The PEMC aims to do that with wafer processing at SUNY Poly's Albany campus and the packaging of the chips at its Utica campus.
\ALBANY  Stephen Eimers has told the story of his 17-year-old daughter's death over and over.

Hannah Eimers was killed last November when her Volvo crossed into the median on a Tennessee highway and struck the end of the guardrail, killing her instantly.

No matter how often her father tells the story, the emotions that well up are fresh.

But in speaking at the state Capitol on Tuesday, Eimers had additional tragic deaths to discuss. Seven fatalities in three states  Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia  after collisions with the same type of guardrail that killed his daughter.

As Eimers tours the country lobbying state and federal regulators, lawmakers in New York are taking up his cause: They want to discontinue the use of the Lindsay X-Lite guardrail, which has been found in some cases to be defective.

"What we have discovered is that there are death traps on the side of our highways," said state Sen. Cathy Young, R-Cattaraugus County, who carries two bills that target the use of X-Lite guardrails in New York.

One bill would require that the state Department of Transportation remove X-Lite guardrails from state roads (lawmakers said there are 45 statewide that use the questionable model) and prohibit their future use on state and local roads. The other would require DOT to study and produce a report on the use of those guardrails on local roads.

The Senate passed both bills on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, New York DOT officials already have temporarily removed the X-Lite guardrail from its list of approved products.

Other states are taking action.

Following Hannah Eimers' death, Tennessee is ready to spend millions of dollars removing and replacing a majority of 1,700 X-Lite guardrails, the USA Today Network-Tennessee has reported.

Tennessee transportation officials say Hannah Eimers died because of the crash angle, not because the X-Lite guardrail end did not "telescope" properly. Even so, they have found that the X-Lite guardrail doesn't always work properly when a vehicle hits the guardrail end at speeds higher than 62.2 mph, according to USA Today.

The guardrails did not perform properly in two other Tennessee deaths.

In neighboring Virginia, transportation officials announced earlier this year they had removed the X-Lite guardrail from the list of approved products.

The Federal Highway Safety Administration also has begun looking into the guardrails.

But a FHWA memo issued earlier this month that stated that an outside expert's review of the guardrails has not found any notable concerns, Tennessee television station WBIR reported last week. Stephen Eimers has taken issue with that finding because the testing was performed by a company owned by Lindsay, according to WBIR.

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In a statement , Lindsay said safety is its "number one priority."

"The transportation safety community has long recognized that a variety of factors ... can affect the severity of an impact," the company said, adding that it is "continuing a thorough evaluation of field incidents and coordinating efforts with a number of state DOTs and others."

Eimers is calling on the U.S. DOT inspector general to investigate the X-Lite guardrail's performance and approval, and the operation of FHWA's office of safety. More broadly, he is hoping for a blue-ribbon panel to study highway deaths.

"Last year, 40,200 people died on our nation's roadways," Eimers said. "I'd like to ask all of you two questions: First, what would be an acceptable number to see? Second, how many of your family members are you prepared to contribute to that number?"

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10




ALBANY  Journalist, author, advocate and longtime Capital Region resident Scott Christianson, whose diverse subjects ranged from the history of incarceration to runaway slaves, died suddenly on Sunday at his home in Great Barrington, Mass.

Christianson, 69, died from massive head trauma after falling down the back stairs of his home. His wife, Tamar Gordon, said the banister had given way.

Gordon described her husband as a man who combined a voracious curiosity with a deep sense of social justice  and a keen nose for a great story.

Christianson had recently begun working for the investigative unit of the McClatchy news service. Just two weeks ago, he and his McClatchy colleague Greg Gordon published a comprehensive investigation on the ties between President Donald Trump and the hedge-fund mogul Robert Mercer.

Gordon laughed as she recalled hearing him lustily discuss his next story over the speakerphone only last week.

"He loved to write, and he loved investigations," Gordon said.

A 1965 graduate of Bethlehem Central High School who last year was inducted into its hall of fame, Christianson began his career at the Bethlehem Star and the Knickerbocker News, which merged with the Times Union in 1988. Despite his relative youth, Christianson's work at the Knick News from 1969 to 1972 saw him nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and profiled as "one of the nation's top 20 investigative reporters," according to his BCHS bio.

He would go on to contribute articles to dozens of publications, from The New Yorker and The New York Times to the Washington Post and The Nation. He also worked on documentary films and curated exhibits on crime and punishment.

Christianson made the leap into public service in the 1980s, serving as an adviser on criminal justice and correctional issues to Gov. Mario Cuomo. He later held leadership roles at the state Coalition for Criminal Justice, the Safer Society Foundation and the Center on Minorities and Criminal Justice.

Gordon met Christianson in 1989, when they were set up on a date in Troy by a mutual friend. She had just completed a teaching post at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County. Hearing this, Christianson noted that the prison had once contained a soap factory where convicts, stripped to the waist, would sing work songs.

"This man is a storyteller," she recalled thinking.

"Scott and I knew immediately that we were going to be together," Gordon said.

Christianson wrote more than 10 works of nonfiction, including "With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America,'' which in 1999 received Distinguished Honors in the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award competition.

In 1999, Christianson told the Times Union the study was his attempt ''to explore, from the very beginning, the origins and development of prisons in America to show how much of a part of our heritage it is, and how much of a role it's played in our history, to help explain why to this day we imprison more people than any other country on the face of the Earth.

''We're really a nation of prisoners and keepers,'' he said.

America's tragic racial legacy was also the subject of Christianson's 2010 book "Freeing Charles: The Struggle to Free a Slave on the Eve of the Civil War."

His interest in the life of Charles Nalle, Troy's most famous fugitive slave, began in 1991 when he moved into a house in Sand Lake that was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Nalle was arrested in 1860 in Troy under the Fugitive Slave Act. Lawyer Horace F. Averill (for whom Averill Park is named) alerted authorities that Nalle had escaped from a Virginia plantation two years earlier.

Christianson's other books include "Condemned: Inside the Sing-Sing Death House," "Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases," "The Last Gasp: The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber" and "Bodies of Evidence: Forensic Science and Crime."

His most recent book was 2015's "100 Documents That Changed the World: From the Magna Carta to Wikileaks."

A longtime Sand Lake resident, Christianson taught regionally at the University at Albany, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union College.

Gordon said her husband's most recent book project looked at the opioid crisis and the contributing role played by drug companies.

"He was going to blow the lid off of all of them," she said.

In addition to his wife, Christianson is survived by his three children and a grandson.

Funeral services will be held at Finnerty and Stevens in Great Barrington at 1 p.m. Wednesday. Read the full obituary here.
GLOVERSVILLE  A knife fight that injured three allegedly took place after the men involved fought after breaking into a city home, Gloversville police said.

At 2:10 a.m. Tuesday, Rodney Johnson, 17, of 27 Maple St. and Justin Neu, 24, of 72 Homestead Dr., both of Gloversville and Vincent Vautrin, 17, of 44 North Center St., Fonda, were arrested and charged with burglary and being armed with a dangerous instrument after the three allegedly broke into 16 Bloomingdale Ave.
Washington

President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about Islamic State militants to Russian officials during a meeting last week, The Washington Post reported Monday, prompting condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans.

Three White House officials who were in the May 10 meeting strongly denounced the story, saying no intelligence sources and methods were discussed  but they didn't deny that classified information was disclosed.

Citing current and former U.S. officials, the Post said Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement. They said it was considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

"I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late Monday.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation," McMaster said. "At no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, remember the meeting the same way. "Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources" in the news report, he said.

Tillerson said Trump discussed a range of subjects, including "common efforts and threats regarding counterterrorism."

He said that during that exchange the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.

Powell said: "This story is false. The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

The Post story  which was later confirmed by The New York Times and BuzzFeed News  does not claim that Trump revealed any specific information about how the intelligence was gathered. Still, it will only heighten Trump's strained relations with intelligence workers and former officials, who view Russia as an adversary.

Even before he was inaugurated, intelligence professionals worried about sharing classified information with Trump, who often shoots from the hip.

If true, the breach was ill-timed, coming a day after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had with Kisylak.

It's unlikely that Trump has broken any law. As president, Trump has broad authority to declassify government secrets.
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Capital Region voters overwhelmingly approved public school budgets at the polls Tuesday, paving the way for an average spending increase of 0.9 percent in districts across the region this fall.

Local tax levies are also poised to increase an average of 1.7 percent with the passage of 2017-18 budgets.

Most of the 41 school districts in the four-county region had reported results as of 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Out of 40 districts reporting, all 40 saw their budgets pass.

Even propositions for major capital projects, bus purchases and the establishment of capital reserve funds sailed to approval.

North Colonie residents overwhelmingly approved a $106 million capital project designed to address growing enrollment and crowded classrooms by a vote of 2,992 to 1,158  a margin of 72 percent.

Voters rejected an earlier, larger version of the project at the polls in December over concerns the tax hike would be too large and the district hadn't adequately explained why the project was necessary. But five months and various trims later, public sentiment appeared to shift.

More for you Results of school votes, district by district

"I think they did a better job of educating voters this time around," said Wally Perea, a Latham resident who voted no the first time around and yes the second. "Communication was the biggest thing for me. If they had communicated a little bit better before as to why they needed it, I probably would have voted yes."

Residents also approved capital projects in Schenectady ($64.5 million), East Greenbush ($39.7 million), Rensselaer ($210,000) and Berlin ($100,000).

The face of many local school boards was also decided at the polls Tuesday, as residents picked their preferred candidates to serve on local boards of education, which control district purse strings and policy.

There were 19 contested races around the Capital Region.

An eight-way race in Bethlehem and a five-way race in Guilderland were too close to call Tuesday night. Write-in candidates and absentee votes will be tallied Wednesday.

In Shenendehowa, the area's largest school district, incumbent Bill Casey and newcomer Naomi Hoffman beat out candidates Alexandra Blais and Jennyfer Gleason for two open spots on the board with 2,301 votes and 1,466 votes, respectively.

In Schenectady, incumbent Tanya Hull lost her seat after newcomers Bernice Rivera and Katherine Stephens and incumbent Dharam Hitlall snagged the top three votes for three open seats. Rivera won 866 votes, Stephens won 695 and Hitlall won 622.

The Times Union has compiled a budget explainer for each district in the Capital Region.

Visit http://www.timesunion.com/allwcm/article/School-budget-votes-are-Tuesday-What-s-in-your-11141736.php
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Rensselaer

President Trump recently noted that "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more."

To a lesser extent, the same is true of one of Douglass' contemporaries, the sculptor Edmonia Lewis.

Just to be clear: Despite Trump's use of the present tense, Douglass and Lewis are long dead. But both are civil-rights pioneers deserving as much recognition as we can muster. Both did, yes, an amazing job.

More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse

Lewis, in particular, is deserving of far more local recognition, since she was born in what's now Rensselaer and spent part of her childhood in an Albany boarding school.

You've never heard of Lewis?

I hadn't either until I received an email mentioning her from Bobbie Reno, the East Greenbush town historian. And Reno hadn't heard of Lewis until a woman walked into her office wondering if she had information on the artist's early life. Reno promised to do some research  and was hooked once she did.

Reno learned that Lewis was born in 1844 to a black father and a Native American mother. Both died while Lewis was still very young. From there ...

Well, details of Lewis's early life in upstate New York are hard to come by. In fact, a fuller picture of Lewis's life doesn't emerge until she somehow began attending Ohio's Oberlin College in 1859.

A column can't do the drama of Lewis' college years justice, and I won't pretend to try. Here are a few of the more salient moments.

A.) She decided to become an artist.

B.) She was accused of poisoning white classmates and was beaten nearly to death as a result. She was later exonerated at trial.

C.) She met the above-mentioned Douglass  who escaped slavery to become an abolitionist leader  and he apparently suggested she should leave Ohio and move east.

Lewis headed to Boston, where she studied sculpture with the support of the city's abolitionist community. Devoutly Catholic, she later relocated to Rome, away from the unflinching racism of her country.

"I was practically driven to Rome ... to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color," Lewis told The New York Times. "The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor."

In Italy, Lewis began producing art that was critically acclaimed and internationally recognized. Her pieces today sit in the nation's most prestigious museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

"She had a lot of obstructions, but she stuck with it," Reno said. "That part of the story really interests me. She didn't give up."

Reno, using "The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis  A Narrative Biography" as a primary source material, has been giving library talks as she tries to publicize the artist's local ties. She has also launched a GoFundMe campaign aimed at restoring Lewis' neglected grave in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in London.

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Though Lewis was celebrated at the height of her career, she was largely forgotten by the time she died in 1907. It isn't entirely clear where or how she spent her final years.

"What happened to Edmonia at the end of her life was very hazy," Reno said. "She just faded away."

Reno's work to boost local knowledge of Lewis is apparently paying off: The Rensselaer County Legislature is preparing to honor the sculptor in July. But the town historian wants to do more and is trying to think of other ways to mark Lewis' legacy.

The Capital Region isn't always good at celebrating its prominent sons and daughters, especially those who do their most important work elsewhere. But we should celebrate Lewis' story because A.) her resilience is inspirational and B.) it might help counteract the idiocy and racism that continues to fester in her native county and elsewhere.

As I'm writing this, we're learning more about a sickening incident Sunday night, when a black family in Schodack  not far from Lewis' hometown  woke to find their garage in flames and marked with racist graffiti.

The family has five children under the age of 10. Nearby, in the year 2017, there is a house where the Confederate flag flies. The ignorance Lewis knew and struggled against lives on.

I'll leave the final words to Douglass  the guy getting recognized more and more. The Schodack fire makes this quote seem relevant:

"Men have their choice in this world," he said. "They can be angels, or they may be demons."

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill